And then I contradicted him, in a manner firm and flat.
“Boston people do not read their Emerson like that.”
“So much the worse for Boston,” said the self-reliant cat.
Then I saw the cat there towering, like a cat cut from a hill:—
A prophet-beast of Nature’s law, staring with stony will,
Pacing on the icy top, then stretched in drowsy thought,
Then, listening, on tiptoe, to the voice the snowwind brought,
Tearing at the fire-killed pine trees, kittenish again,
Then speaking like a lion, long made president of men:—
“There are such holy plains and streams, there are such sky-arched spaces,
There are life-long trails for private lives, and endless whispering places.
Range is so wide there is not room for lust and poison breath
And flesh may walk in Eden, forgetting shame and death.”
And then I contradicted him, in a manner firm and flat.
“I have never heard, in Boston, of anything like that.”
“Boston is peculiar.
Boston is mysterious.
You do not know your Boston,” said the wise, fastidious cat,
And turned again to lick the skull of his prey, the mountain-rat!
And at that, he broke off his wild dream of a perfect human race.
And I walked down to the aspen grove where is neither time nor place,
Nor measurement, nor space, except that grass has room
And aspen leaves whisper on forever in their grace.
All day they watch along the banks. All night the perfume goes
From the Mariposa’s chalice to the marble mountain-rose,
In the Boston of their beauty-sleep, when storm-flowers
Are in bloom,
In the mystery of their beauty-sleep, when storm-flowers
Are in bloom.
THE ROCKETS THAT REACHED SATURN
On the Fourth of July sky rockets went up
Over the church and the trees and the town,
Stripes and stars, riding red cars.
Each rocket wore a red-white-and-blue gown,
And I did not see one rocket come down.
Next day on the hill I found dead sticks,
Scorched like blown-out candle-wicks.
But where are the rockets? Up in the sky.
As for the sticks, let them lie.
Dead sticks are not the Fourth of July.
In Saturn they grow like wonderful weeds,
In some ways like weeds of ours,
Twisted and beautiful, straight and awry,
But nodding all day to the heavenly powers.
The stalks are smoke,
And the blossoms green light,
And crystalline fireworks flowers.
