A crystallization of color spreads from the upper regions of the dark sky towards the trembling nipples of the waves. The feathering fringes of clouds fade behind pillars of green light. Transparent curtains tremble every-where. In the arctic temple, the hidden Samson of light shakes the moon-green pillars of the night.
    Color these crystals with sudden blood; it is dawn, or else the last consumptive saliva of the dying day. Heartless hard light!

The woes of men beyond my ken
Mean nothing more to me.
Behold my world, and Eden hurled
From Heaven to the Sea;
A jeweled home, in fending foam
Tempestuously tossed;
A virgin isle none dare defile,
Far-flung, forgotten, lost.
II
And here I dwell, where none may tell
Me tales of mortal strife;
Let millions die, immune am I,
And radiant with life.
No echo comes of evil drums,
To vex my dawns divine;
Aloof, alone I hold my throne,
And Majesty is mine.
III
Ghost ships pass by, and glad am I
They make no sign to me.

O beauteous daughter of a mighty race!
In thy fair features and thy radiant eyes
Like bright clouds floating over brighter skies
The shadows of a glorious past we trace.
Framed in the oval of thy perfect face
Flit the pale belles of bygone centuries;
A hint of lawgivers and jurists lies
In that pure brow where strength is wed with grace.
And looking on thy profile's symmetry
A world-famed face across my memory comes,
'Neath the slouched hat a watching eagle's eye,
Where down the dusty line goes riding by,

The palace with revolving doors was mine
And three of us went up its steps
To the tall room whose walls were made
Of the furred eyes of moths.

One only went within -
Atameros the Greek;
With steps that slid along the floor
He slipped inside and closed the door.

Whilst Williamson took off his boots,
Produced three large synthetic mandrake roots
And softly musicked Home Sweet Home
Upon his dirty pocket-comb.

Within the room a metal thread
Uncoiled to greet Atameros;
He placed his bowler-hat upon its head

Through thick Arcadian woods a hunter went,
Following the beasts upon a fresh spring day;
But since his horn-tipped bow but seldom bent,
Now at the noontide nought had happed to slay,
Within a vale he called his hounds away,
Hearkening the echoes of his lone voice cling
About the cliffs and through the beech-trees ring.

But when they ended, still awhile he stood,
And but the sweet familiar thrush could hear,
And all the day-long noises of the wood,
And o'er the dry leaves of the vanished year

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
II
My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.

‘Tis time to dress. Dost hear the music surging
Like sobbing waves that roll up from the sea?
Yes, yes, I hear – I yield – no need of urging;
I know your wishes, - send Lisette to me.

I hate the ballroom; hate its gilded pleasure;
I hate the crowd within it, well you know;
But what of that? I am your lawful treasure –
And when you would display me I must go.

You bought me with a mother’s pain and trouble.
I’ve been a great expense to you always.
And now, if you can sell me, and get double

Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,

Why should we do this? What good is it to us? Above all,
how can we do such a thing? How can it possibly be done?

--Freud

1.

My name is James A. Wright, and I was born
Twenty-five miles from this infected grave,
In Martins Ferry, Ohio, where one slave
To Hazel-Atlas Glass became my father.
He tried to teach me kindness. I return
Only in memory now, aloof, unhurried,
To dead Ohio, where I might lie buried,
Had I not run away before my time.
Ohio caught George Doty. Clean as lime,

When the investing darkness growls,
And deep reverberates to deep;
When keyhole whines and chimney howls,
And all the roofs and windows weep;
Then, through the doorless walls of sleep,
The still-sealed ear and shuttered sight,
Phantoms of memory steal and creep,
The very ghosts of sound and light--
Dream-visions and dream-voices of a bygone night.


I see again, I hear again,
Where lightnings flash and house-eaves drip,
A flying swirl of waves and rain--