ISSUE: Winter 1936
I
I in my stillness cried aloud, keep that man blind, leave him his slavery, who from brooding on his kind memory out of mind presides a sightless effigy upon the night-dark streaming crowd;
have mercy on that mole whose darkness is his soul.
II
What of the active hand,
I cried, driven by dreamless will to add unconscious pride with each access of skill; that gains great learning whether by sun’s caress or remote burning under cool flesh.
Grant that it last not out its use
nor hang a broken tool
upon a winter nail,
but come suddenly to its end
without memory as false friend
or hope’s abuse.
III
He whom this stillness breeds
rejoices with a roving eye
on thistle blown to seed,
on hills against the sky,
until, in the late light and wild sea-cold,
hill and thistle grow equally old.
May those eyes, still bright,
come at the last,
day being past,
to see their own night.
