TO ORRICK JOHNS
The tread-mill roar that ever tramps between
The smirched geometries of this stern place,
Sweeps vainly on your drowsily reckless face
Lost in a swirl of raped loves barely seen.
Sometimes your keenly pagan lips are raised
By thoughts too tense to shape themselves in speech:
Still, wounded thoughts that silently beseech
Your life to make them impotent and dazed.
O tangled and half-strangled child, you shrink
For ever from yourself, and wear a pose
Of nimble and impenetrable pride.
Yet sometimes, wavering on the sudden brink
Of jaded bitterness, you drop your clothes
And weave a prayer into your naked stride.