death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t.
Death is stronger than all proud men and so death
snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of
dice and says: Read ’em and weep.
Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want
you I’ll drop in–and then one day he comes with a
master-key and lets himself in and says: We’ll
go now.
Death is a nurse mother with big arms: ‘Twon’t hurt
you at all; it’s your time now; just need a
long sleep, child; what have you had anyhow
better than sleep?
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,and the old things go, not one lasts.
The boy laughs and goes whistling “ee-ee-ee ee-ee-ee.” The stone face stands silent, seeming to clutch a secret.
And murmured to a watchguard:‘Who goes there?’‘Twenty-one million men,Soldiers, armies, guns,Twenty-one millionAfoot, horseback,In the air,Under the sea.’And Napoleon turned to his sleep:‘It is not my world answering;It is some dreamer who knows notThe world I marched inFrom Calais to Moscow.’And he slept onIn the old sarcophagusWhile the aeroplanesDroned their motorsBetween Napoleon’s mausoleumAnd the cool night…
Clings to the Burlington railway main line.Terrible midnight limiteds roar throughHauling sleepers to the Rockies and Sierras.The earth is slightly shakenAnd Neponset trembles slightly in its sleep.
With your home talk, slept in your houseAnd was one of you.But a fire burns in my heart.Under the ribs where pulses thudAnd flitting between bones of skullIs the push, the endless mysterious command,Saying:‘I leave you behind–You for the little hills and the years all alike,You with your patient cows and old housesProtected from the…
Let the love of this hour go on; let all the oaths and children and people of this love be clean as a washed stone under a waterfall in the sun.Time is a young man with ballplayer legs, time runs a winning race against life and the clocks, time tickles with rust and spots.Let love…
