Poems

I. CONSOLATION

I KNOW that somewhere under the sun
There are quiet women
Between white walls, going about their peaceful tasks
In a blue twilight;
Folding things,
And putting things away,
With quaint restful minds dreaming back into the past,
Content.
And men coming home tired after their labor.
Into cool rooms plunging out of the glare and heat of the day,
Looking in the eyes of the women they love
And knowing that life at least cannot rob them
Of so much as they have had,
And happy so.
And lovers creeping closer in the dusk,
Pleading their pitiful vows under the moon.
And little children falling asleep like flowers.
And men and women gathering in wide open spaces
With exultation in their hearts
At some great news.

Somewhere under the sun
I know these things must be —
Then why, in heaven’s name, do I sit brooding here
In the pit of mine own thoughts,

Dark and unhappy,
When if for a moment I reach out to them, even in vision
, I know a consolation
Deeper than thought?
O foolish me! O blessed humankind!

II. CONTRASTS

A flute-player by a Public Bar
Droning through the melancholy haze
An impossible glad tune; a smell of beer;
A boy drab-aproned spitting by a cart,
Swearing and shouting —

And in my heart,
White and still, peaceful and crystal-clear,
The image, like a star, of one who fell in France —
Most dear to me, most lovely in his ways.
O God, the texture of these latter days!