WORLD BEYOND WORLD

Two mirrors, face to face, is all I need
To build a mazy universe for my mind

Where world grows out of world. I dizzily find
Solace in endless planes that there recede.

The fifth plane-world, soft-shimmering through the glass-
Surely it has a light more bland than ours.
And in the far ninth hides a whirl of powers
Unknown to our dull senses. I would pass
Down the long vista, pausing now and then
To taste the flavor of each separate sphere,
And with each vast perspective cool my eye.
Whom should I meet there? Never living men!
What should I love there? Nothing I hold dear!
What would the end be? Endless as am I!

LEAF-MOVEMENT

From its thin branch high in the autumn wind
The yellow leaf now sails in upward flight;
Hovers at top-slope; then, a whirling bright
Eddy of motion, sinks. The storm behind
With gusts and veering tyrannies would uphold
Even as it downward beats this gorgeous thing
Which like an angel's lost and shattered wing
Against the grey sky sweeps its broken gold.
Another eddy, desperate or in mirth,
Brings it to rest here on the crackled earth
Where men can see it better than on the bough.
What quite preposterous irony of wind's-will
Touches it where it lies, golden and still,

And once more lifts it vainly heavenward now!

Hildegarde Flanner

THIS MORNING

After the emotion of rain

The mist parts across the morning
Like the smile of one

Who has laughed in sleep

And cannot remember why.

The damp road companions my feet
And is a friend to every step.
Above me winter goldfinches
Cling like fruit

To the delighted birch-trees;
And the studious earth,

Thinking what flowers to speak in next,

Moves restlessly with small wise birds,

Who read the tucks in the moss,

The symbols on the beetle-wings,

And the comedies on pink and yellow pebbles Which I am too tall to see.

DISCOVERY

Until my lamp and I

Stood close together by the glass,

I had not ever noticed

I was a comely lass.

My aunts have always nodded,

"Sweet child,

She has a gentle soul

And mild."

And so, one night,

I took my lamp and said

"I'll look upon my gentle soul Before I go to bed."

I could not find it; no,

But gazing hard I spied

Something much more near to me,
White-armed and amber-eyed.

And as I looked I seemed to feel
Warm hands upon my breast,
Where never any hands but mine
Were known to rest.

And as I looked my startled thoughts

Winged up in happy flight,

And circled like mad butterflies
About the light.

I went to bed without my soul,

And I had no mind to care,
For a joyful little sin

Slept pillowed on my hair.

I went to bed without my soul-
What difference to me?—

I had a joyful little sin

For company.

And that is what came of listening

To aunts who always lied.

They never told me that I was

White-armed and amber-eyed.

BIRDS

Beloved, the black swans of my eyes Are loosed to your behest,

And must I still keep caged from you The white swans of my breast?

My hands, like slender pigeons,
Flutter the whole day through.

Did you not know the little things
Home unto you?

My lips, like slim canaries,

Sing when I hear you speak.

Beloved, bend and stroke once more

The finches of my cheek.

COMMUNION

I have spoken with the dead;
From the silence of my bed

I have heard them in the night.

Their voices are as white

As altar candles. Their voices are as gold as wheat,

And clustered in the dark their words are sweet

As ripened fruit. Their voices are the color of dim rain

Over grass where spring has lain.

Their speaking is an orchard of delight.

I have heard them in the night;

Their lips bloomed into heavy song

That hung like bells above me.

You are wrong

Who say the dead lie still:

I heard them sing until

The cup of silence fell in two and lay
Broken by beauty of what dead men say.

John Gould Fletcher

IRRADIATIONS

I

Over the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds:

Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street.

Whirlpools of purple and gold,

Winds from the mountains of cinnabar,

Lacquered mandarin moments, palanquins swaying and balancing Amid the vermilion pavilions, against the jade balustrades;

Glint of the glittering winds of dragon-flies in the light;

Silver filaments, golden flakes settling downwards;

Rippling, quivering flutters; repulse and surrender,
The sun broidered upon the rain,

The rain rustling with the sun.

Over the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds:

Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street.

II

O seeded grass, you army of little men

Crawling up the long slope with quivering quick blades of steel: You who storm millions of graves, tiny green tentacles of Earth, Interlace yourselves tightly over my heart

And do not let me go:

For I would lie here for ever and watch with one eye

The pilgrimaging ants in your dull savage jungles,

While with the other I see the stiff lines of the slope

Break in mid-air, a wave surprisingly arrested;

And above them, wavering, dancing, bodiless, colorless, unreal,
The long thin lazy fingers of the heat.

III

Not noisily, but solemnly and pale,

In a meditative ectasy, you entered life,

As performing some strange rite, to which you alone held the clue.