393

Did Our Best Moment last—
'Twould supersede the Heaven—
A few—and they by Risk—procure—
So this Sort—are not given—

Except as stimulants—in
Cases of Despair—
Or Stupor—The Reserve—
These Heavenly Moments are—

A Grant of the Divine—
That Certain as it Comes—
Withdraws—and leaves the dazzled Soul
In her unfurnished Rooms

The priest never used blueprints, but worked all
the many designs out of his head.


Father Wilerus,
transplanted Alsatian,
built around
this plain Wisconsin

redbrick church
a coral-reef en-
crustation--meant,
the brochure says,

to glorify America
and heaven simul-
taneously. Thus:
Mary and Columbus

and the Sacred Heart
equally enthroned
in a fantasia of quartz
and seashells, broken

dishes, stalactites
and stick-shift knobs--
no separation
of nature and art

FOLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!
   Though thou be black as night,
   And she made all of light,
Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!

Follow her, whose light thy light depriveth!
   Though here thou liv'st disgraced,
   And she in heaven is placed,
Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!

Follow those pure beams, whose beauty burneth!
   That so have scorched thee
   As thou still black must be,

SINCE Thou dost clothe Thyself to-day in cloud,
Lord God in heaven, and no voice low or loud
Proclaims Thee,--see, I turn me to the Earth,
Its wisdom and its sorrow and its mirth,
Thy Earth perchance, but sure my very own,
And precious to me grows the clod, the stone,
A voiceless moor's brooding monotony,
A keen star quivering through the sunset dye,
Young wrinkled beech leaves, saturate with light,
The arching wave's suspended malachite;
I turn to men, Thy sons perchance, but sure
My brethren, and no face shall be too poor

Said Seeker of the skies to me:
"Behold yon starry host ashine!
When Heaven's harmony you see
How can you doubt control divine,
Law, order and design?"
II
"Nay, Sire," said I, "I do not doubt
The spheres in cosmic pattern spin;
But what I try to puzzle out
Is that--if Law and Order win
Where does mere man come in?
III
"If to the millionth of a hair
Cause and Effect are welded true,
Then there's no leeway anywhere,
And all we do we have to do,

I love too much; I am a river
Surging with spring that seeks the sea,
I am too generous a giver,
Love will not stoop to drink of me.

His feet will turn to desert places
Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,
Where stars stare down with sharpened faces
From heavens pitilessly blue.

And there at midnight sick with faring,
He will stoop down in his desire
To slake the thirst grown past all bearing
In stagnant water keen as fire.

Behold an Indian isle, reposed
Upon the deep’s enamoured breast,
Even like a royal bride, be-rosed
With passion in her happy rest.
Or, when the morn is there disclosed,
Or eve is robing in the west,
The deep, as by that isle embossed
With central gauds of sumless cost,
And else outspread in circuit—wide
And round as heaven from side to side—
Might figure to a fancy bold
A wide vast shield of fretted gold,
Dropped by some conquer’d elder god,
When on his track, where’er he trod,
Jove’s chasing thunders rolled.

With many a thousand kiss not yet content,
At length with One kiss I was forced to go;
After that bitter parting's depth of woe,
I deem'd the shore from which my steps I bent,
Its hills, streams, dwellings, mountains, as I went,
A pledge of joy, till daylight ceased to glow;
Then on my sight did blissful visions grow
In the dim-lighted, distant firmament,
And when at length the sea confined my gaze,
My ardent longing fill'd my heart once more;
What I had lost, unwillingly I sought.
Then Heaven appear'd to shed its kindly rays:

965

Denial—is the only fact
Perceived by the Denied—
Whose Will—a numb significance—
The Day the Heaven died—

And all the Earth strove common round—
Without Delight, or Beam—
What Comfort was it Wisdom—was—
The spoiler of Our Home?

death wants more death, and its webs are full:
I remember my father's garage, how child-like
I would brush the corpses of flies
from the windows they thought were escape-
their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies
shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass
only to spin and flit
in that second larger than hell or heaven
onto the edge of the ledge,
and then the spider from his dank hole
nervous and exposed
the puff of body swelling
hanging there
not really quite knowing,
and then knowing-
something sending it down its string,