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As you follow where you find them, up along the high Plateau,
In the hollows left behind them Spanish chapels fade below—
Shaded court and low corrals. In the vale the goat-herd browses.
Hollyhocks are seneschals by the little buff-walled houses.
Over grassy swale and alley have you ever seen it so—
Up the Santa Clara Valley, riding on the Great Plateau?

Past the ladder-walled Pueblos, past the orchards, pear and quince,
Where the trenched waters' ebb flows, miles and miles the valley glints,
Shining backwards, singing downwards towards horizons blue and
bay.

All the haunts the bluffs ensconce so breathe of visions far away,
As you ride near Ildefonso back again to Santa Fé.

Pecos, mellow with the years, tall-walled Taos—who can know
Half the storied faiths and fears haunting green New Mexico?
Only from her open places down arroyos blue and bay,

One wild grace of many graces dallies towards another day.

Where her yellow tufa crumbles, something stars and grasses know, Something true, that crowns and humbles, shimmers from the Great

Plateau:

Blows where cool-paced waters dally from the stillness of Puyé, Down the Santa Clara Valley through the world from far away— Far and far away—far away.

Edith Wyatt

THE MORNING SONG OF SENLIN

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,

And do the things my fathers learned to do.

Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops

Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror

And tie my tie once more.

While waves far off in a pale rose twilight

Crash on a white sand shore.

I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!-

The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.

There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea . . .

And a sun far off in a shell of silence

Dapples my walls for me

...

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
Should I not pause in the light to remember god?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.

I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine leaves tap my window,

The snail-track shines on the stones,
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I keep.
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.

In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, and tie my tie.

There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,

And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,

Their shoulders black with rains . . .

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It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness And depart on the winds of space for I know not where, My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,

And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.

There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know..

Vine-leaves tap at the window,

Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,

The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree

Repeating three clear tones.

Conrad Aiken

CANTICLE

Devoutly worshiping the oak
Wherein the barred owl stares,
The little feathered forest folk
Are praying sleepy prayers:

Praying the summer to be long
And drowsy to the end,

And daily full of sun and song,
That broken hopes may mend.

Praying the golden age to stay
Until the whippoorwill
Appoints a windy moving-day,
And hurries from the hill.

William Griffith

All vision fades, but splendor does not fail
Though joy perish and all her company
And there be nothing left of it to see.
Splendor is in the grain. This lovely vale
Of rock and tree and pool and sky may pale
And fade some Autumn with its greenery,
And its form totter, crumble utterly
And scatter with some universal gale.
Yet be they spread ever so wide and free
The gale will cause the dream to come again
The world formations out of mists will rise,
And there will be thoughts of eternity

And hopes the heart of man will know are vain
And tears will come as now into the eyes.

Samuel Roth

PERSONALITY IN POETRY

Poetry enables us to share many experiences, the epic desires and agonies of great cities, the homely triumphs and tragedies of field and farmhouse, the lyric pleasure of cool woods, subtle picturing, grave symbolism, and the zest of fluent ideas and emotions. In addition to all this, poetry enables us to share one other thing, a sense of that mysterious human inflorescence which we call personality.

By virtue of his sympathetic imagination, a good poet enters many spiritual mansions and entertains many ghostly visitors. Often he knows more about us than we know about ourselves and about each other. For his proper study is mankind. Practical persons must always be concerned with facts, deeds, and events. But the poet is chiefly interested in that impulsive energy which is the causation of facts, deeds and events-the human spirit.

A detective, for example, may be clever enough in using his constructive imagination, to learn that a certain old woman has stolen a diamond and hidden it in her stocking. But his achievement is small as compared with that of the poet who tells her story. For the poet will reconstruct her world and show it to us. Through his eyes we shall see her eager old face, her nervous, twitching fingers. Through his penetrative power we shall learn why she wanted the diamond. And he will cause us to share a definite feeling with regard to the theft-pain, disgust, compassion-as the case may be. This feeling will be strong and moving in proportion as the poet possesses the gift of characterization.

Modern civilization, on the whole, has been favorable to the development of this skill. Many contemporary poets take up their task of presenting personality in poetry with an equip

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