My father and mother came from Germany
Many years ago.
But I was born in America.
To look at my name
One would think I was French,
But I am not.
Father keeps a delicatessen shop
On Seventh Avenue.
Before the war my father's name was Sauer.
Then came August, 1914.
My father soon realized
That Sauer spelled starvation,
So he slightly altered his name
To keep the wolf away
From scratching the front door
Of our little shop.
Father says that Shakespeare
Would never have written the line:
“What's in a name?”

A drowsy butterfly
With frail blue-spotted wings,
And the circling gesture
Of a scented fan
Swung by a delicate wrist—
Hovers over the weeds
At the edge
Of the garbage dump.

Up through the clouds, and higher, higher still,
Flew Icarus the free, on untried wings,
Mad with the song-filled spaces of the blue,
Encircling dome—outsoaring wantonly
The cloud-sailed galleons and the wind-built walls
Of dim, mist citadels that plunged and swayed,
Or, crumbling, died in rainbow agonies.

Below, an opal, rimmed in liquid gold,
The earth, his prison lay, a thing for scorn,
Chained by the flashing tides.

White Icarus
Breasting the swirling waves of jeweled snow,
Flew on—the mighty winds against his face,

Or in the East or in the West,
Where shall I build my bird a nest?
Northward or southward, whither roam
To build my little love a home?

Up yonder, in the clean, sweet air,
I think that I could keep her, there,
Too much an angel for the ground,
For heaven somewhat too warm and round.

He that engenders had called forth the world;
The mist, ingathered from the vast of space,
Together drawn, had fashioned a great face
Of vale and mountain, tree, and river curled.
Of all the leaves and flowers was none unfurled,
No bird had song, no voice the giant race
Of beasts; for darkness held her ancient place,
The day-god's bolt glowed in his hand, unhurled.
But eastward, now, dream-colors, faint and far,
Foretold to those first lives the end of night,
And from black silence all leapt up as one;

O! I am very weary
Though tears no longer flow;
My eyes are tired of weeping,
My heart is sick of woe.

My life is very lonely,
My days pass heavily;
I'm weary of repining,
Wilt thou not come to me?

Oh didst thou know my longings
For thee from day to day,
My hopes so often blighted,
Thou wouldst not thus delay.

You have words
But nothing hangs on them.
They gleam
On the moulding of your mouth
Like empty picture-hooks.

Even when you say you love me,
There's but a frame—
With neither me in it

What is this singing I hear
Of the sun behind clouds?

It is not long before you shall come to me,
Beloved.

And that is the singing I lean to hear
In my side,
Where your bird is.

On and on, in sun and shade,
Footing over flat and grade,
King and beggar, foe and friend,
Come, at last, to the journey's end;
Stop man and maid
At the Sign of the Spade.

Sage or zany, slave or blade,
Drab or lady, the rôle is played;
Over grass and under sun
Past one hostel trudges none:
Stop man and maid
At the Sign of the Spade.

Bonaparte went up to Heaven
To make request of the Lord
That He give him the kingdoms of Europe
To rule with fire and sword.
And this did Jehovah accord;
He had asked for no kingdom in vain;
God had granted one after another,
Till Bonaparte asked for Spain.
Then the Son spoke, firm and plain:
“No. Spain belongs to my Mother.”