moon

ARGUMENT.

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

The sun was black with judgment, and the moon
      &nbsp ;     Blood: but between
I saw a man stand, saying: 'To me at least
      &nbs p;     The grass is green.

'There was no star that I forgot to fear
      &nbsp ;     With love and wonder.
The birds have loved me'; but no answer came --
       & nbsp;    Only the thunder.

Once more the man stood, saying: 'A cottage door,
      &nbs p;     Wherethrough I gazed
That instant as I turned -- yea, I am vile;

At first you will know not what they mean,
And you may never know,
And we may never tell you: --
These sudden flashes in your soul,
Like lambent lightning on snowy clouds
At midnight when the moon is full.
They come in solitude, or perhaps
You sit with your friend, and all at once
A silence falls on speech, and his eyes
Without a flicker glow at you: --
You two have seen the secret together,
He sees it in you, and you in him.
And there you sit thrilling lest the Mystery
Stand before you and strike you dead

1

Many animals that our fathers killed in America
Had quick eyes.
They stared about wildly,
When the moon went dark.
The new moon falls into the freight yards
Of cities in the south,
But the loss of the moon to the dark hands of Chicago
Does not matter to the deer
In this northern field.


2

What is that tall woman doing
There, in the trees?
I can hear rabbits and mourning dovees whispering together
In the dark grass, there
Under the trees.


3

On a day like this the rain comes
down in fat and random drops among
the ailanthus leaves---"the tree
of Heaven"---the leaves that on moon-
lit nights shimmer black and blade-
shaped at this third-floor window.
And there are bunches of small green
knobs, buds, crowded together. The
rapid music fills in the spaces of
the leaves. And the piano comes in,
like an extra heartbeat, dangerous
and lovely. Slower now, less like
the leaves, more like the rain which
almost isn't rain, more like thawed-

for Hank and Nancy

Seven thousand acres of grass have faded yellow
from his cough. These limp days, his anger,
legend forty years from moon to Stevensville,
lives on, just barely, in a Great Falls whore.
Cruel times, he cries, cruel winds. His geese roam
unattended in the meadow. The gold last leaves
of cottonwoods ride Burnt Fork creek away.
His geese grow fat without him. Same old insult.
Same indifferent rise of mountains south,
hunters drunk around the fire ten feet from his fence.

I LEAVE the world to-morrow,—
What news for Fairyland?
I’m tired of dust and sorrow
And folk on every hand.

A moon more calm and splendid
Moves there through deeper skies,
By maiden stars attended
She peaces goddes-wise.

And there no wrath oppresses,
And there no teardrops start,
There cool winds breathe caresses,
That soothe the weary heart.

The wealth the mad world follows
Turns ashes in the hand

As we travel Life's weary journey,
And plod through the gathering years,
With our burdens of care and sorrow,
O'er a pathway bedewed with tears.
If, perchance, for a fleeting moment
Our hearts should with rapture swell,
We have added but one more sorrow,
When we bid the glad time "Farewell".

I have watched the bright dawn awaking,
And noted each changing light,
As the sun, in its morning splendour,
Dispelled the dark gloom of night.
I have welcomed its bright rays stealing

Poet --

Enchanting spirit! -- at thy votive shrine
I lowly bend a simple wreath to twine;
O Come from the ideal world and fling
Thy airy fingers o'er my rugged string;
Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth
The thrilling song that tells thy heavenly birth --


Fancy --

Happiness when from earth she fled
I passed on her heavenward flight --
"Take this crown," the spirit said
"Of heaven's own golden light --
To the sons of sorrow the token give,