This I do, being mad:
Gather baubles about me,
Sit in a circle of toys, and all the time
Death beating the door in.
White jade and an orange pitcher,
Hindu idol, Chinese god,--
Maybe next year, when I'm richer--
Carved beads and a lotus pod....
And all this time
Death beating the door in.
THE CAIRN
When I think of the little children learning
In all the schools of the world,
Learning in Danish, learning in Japanese
That two and two are four, and where the rivers of
the world
Rise, and the names of the mountains and the principal
cities,
My heart breaks.
Come up, children! Toss your little stones gaily
On the great cairn of Knowledge!
(Where lies what Euclid knew, a little gray stone,
What Plato, what Pascal, what Galileo:
Little gray stones, little gray stones on a cairn.)
Tell me, what is the name of the highest mountain?
Name me a crater of fire! a peak of snow!
Name me the mountains on the moon!
But the name of the mountain that you climb
all day,
Ask not your teacher that.
SPRING SONG
I know why the yellow forsythia
Holds its breath and will not bloom,
And the robin thrusts his beak in his wing.
Want me to tell you? Think you can bear it?
Cover your eyes with your hand and hear it.
You know how cold the days are still?
And everybody saying how late the Spring is?
Well--cover your eyes with your hand--the thing is,
There isn't going to be any Spring.
No parking here! No parking here!
They said to Spring: No parking here!
Spring came on as she always does,
Laid her hand on the yellow forsythia,--
Little boys turned in their sleep and smiled,
Dreaming of marbles, dreaming of agates;
Little girls leapt from their beds to see
Spring come by with her painted wagons,
Colored wagons creaking with wonder--
Laid her hand on the robin's throat;
When up comes you-know-who, my dear,
You-know-who in a fine blue coat,
And says to Spring: No parking here!
No parking here! No parking here!
Move on! Move on! No parking here!
Come walk with me in the city gardens.
(Better keep an eye out for you-know-who)
Did ever you see such a sickly showing?--
Middle of June, and nothing growing;
The gardeners peer and scratch their heads
And drop their sweat on the tulip-beds,
But not a blade thrusts through.
Come, move on! Don't you know how to walk?
No parking here! And no back-talk!
Oh, well--hell, it's all for the best.
She certainly made a lot of clutter,
Dropping petals under the trees,
Taking your mind off your bread and butter.
Anyhow, it's nothing to me.
I can remember, and so can you.
(Though we'd better watch out for you-know-who,
When we sit around remembering Spring).
We shall hardly notice in a year or two.
You can get accustomed to anything.
MEMORY OF CAPE COD
The wind in the ash-tree sounds like surf on the
shore at Truro.
I will shut my eyes . . . hush, be still with your
silly bleating, sheep on Shillingstone Hill . . .
They said: Come along! They said: Leave your
pebbles on the sand and come along, it's long after
sunset!
The mosquitoes will be thick in the pine-woods along
by Long Nook, the wind's died down!
They said: Leave your pebbles on the sand, and your
shells, too, and come along, we'll find you another
beach like the beach at Truro.
Let me listen to wind in the ash ... it sounds like
surf on the shore.