Silent we walked the path,
And then the wild farewell;
I saw your form like a wraith
Fade in the forest’s dell.
If joy would never depart,
If we could but still the pain—
Dear, I awoke with a pang in my heart
And heard the sound of the rain.
Act Four
Michigan Avenue streams with people—
Ten years alter the avenue.
It’s April again, and there are dolphin
Clouds at rest in a waste of blue.
A girl goes by with a spray of lilacs
Pinned at her breast, and quick as thought
Country fences, dogwood blossoms
Over the granite scene are wrought.
You come in my mind! It’s spoiled by the glimpse
Of a monster diamond that glints and glows;
A black-eyed Gadarene goes past
Insolent, heavy, and hooked of nose.
I scan his face that runs with fat,
And the fleshly sag of his under lip;
Then back to the diamond again, the hand
Holds your arm with a master grip!
THEODORE DREISER
Jack o’ Lantern tall shouldered,
One eye set higher than the other,
Mouth cut like a scallop in a pie,
Aslant showing powerful teeth.
Swaying above the heads of others.
Jubilant with fixed eyes, scarcely sparkling.
Moving about rhythmically, exploding in laughter.
Touching fingers together back and forth,
Or toying with a handkerchief.
And the eyes burn like a flame at the end of a funnel.
And the ruddy face glows like a pumpkin
On Halloween!
Or else a gargoyle of bronze
Turning suddenly to life
And slipping suddenly down corners of stone
To eat you:
Full of questions, objections,
Distinctions, instances.
Contemptuous, ironical, remote,
Cloudy, irreverent, ferocious,
Fearless, grim, compassionate, yet hateful,
Old, yet young, wise but virginal.
To whom everything is new and strange:
Whence he stares and wonders,
Laughs, mocks, curses.
Disordered, yet with a passion for order
And classification—hence the habitual
Folding into squares of a handkerchief.