In the frosty evening Toll the old bell for me Perhaps my soul will hear. Afterglow: Before the stars peep I shall creep out into darkness. DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI EMBARKATION Dull masses of dense green, The forests range their sombre platforms. Loosely the river sways out, backward, forward, Always fretting the outer side; Shunning the invisible focus of each crescent, Like an enormous serpent, dilating, uncoiling, Displaying a broad scaly back of earth-smeared gold; Swaying out sinuously between the dull motionless forests, As molten metal might glide down the lip of a vase of dark bronze. HEAT As if the sun had trodden down the sky, Until no more it holds air for us, but only humid vapor, The heat, pressing upon earth with irresistible languor, Turns all the solid forest into half-liquid smudge. The heavy clouds, like cargo-boats, strain slowly up 'gainst its current; And the flickering of the heat haze is like the churning of ten thousand paddles Against the heavy horizon, pale blue and utterly windless, FULL MOON Flinging its arc of silver bubbles, quickly shifts the moon I sit on the deck at midnight, and watch it slipping and sliding, It is weaving a river of light to take the place of this river— shallows. And then I shall wake from my drowsiness and look down from some dim tree-top Over white lakes of cotton, like moon-fields on every side. THE MOON'S ORCHESTRA When the moon lights up Its dull red camp-fire through the trees; And floats out, like a white balloon, Into the blue cup of the night, borne by a casual breeze; The moon-orchestra then begins to stir: Jiggle of fiddles commence their crazy dance in the darkness; Against the stark reiteration of the rusty flutes which frogs Puff at from rotted logs In the swamp. And the moon begins her dance of frozen pomp Over the lightly quivering floor of the flat and mournful river. Her white feet slightly twist and swirl She is a mad girl In an old unlit ball-room, Whose walls, half-guessed-at through the gloom, Are hung with the rusty crape of stark black cypresses, Which show, through gaps and tatters, red stains half hidden away. THE STEVEDORES Frieze of warm bronze that glides with cat-like movements Oh, roll the cotton down Roll, roll, the cotton down! From the further side of Jordan, Oh, roll the cotton down! And the river waits, The river listens, Chuckling with little banjo-notes that break with a plop on the stillness. And by the low dark shed that holds the heavy freights, Two lonely cypress trees stand up and point with stiffened fingers Far southward where a single chimney stands aloof in the sky. NIGHT LANDING After the whistle's roar has bellowed and shuddered, They pause like heart-beats that abruptly stop: And then supreme revelation of the river The tackle is loosed, the long gang-plank swings outwards; And poised at the end of it, half naked beneath the search-light, A blue-black negro with gleaming teeth waits for his chance to leap. THE SILENCE There is a silence which I carry about with me always A silence perpetual, for it is self-created; A silence of heat, of water, of unchecked fruitfulness, Through which each year the heavy harvests bloom, and burst, and fall. Deep, matted green silence of my South, Often, within the push and the scorn of great cities, I have seen that mile-wide waste of water swaying out to you, There is a silence I have achieved-I have walked beyond its threshold. I know it is without horizons, boundless, fathomless, perfect. And some day maybe, far away, I shall curl up in it at last and sleep an endless sleep. F. S. Flint LONDON London, my beautiful, Nor the darkness Stealing over all things That moves me. But as the moon creeps slowly Over the tree-tops Among the stars, I think of her And the glow her passing Sheds on men. London, my beautiful, I will climb Into the branches Into the dark of the arch the swan floats And the black depth of my sorrow Bears a white rose of flame. IN THE GARDEN The grass is beneath my head; And I gaze At the thronging stars In the aisles of night. They fall... they fall. . . . I am overwhelmed, And afraid. Each little leaf of the aspen Is caressed by the wind, |