The grip of the ice is gone now.
The silvers chase purple.
The purples tag silver.
They let out their runners
Here where summer says to the lilies :
" Wish and be wistful,
Circle this wind-hunted, wind-sung water."
Come along always, come along now.
You for me, kiss me, pull me by the ear.
Push me along with the wind push.
Sing like the whinnying wind.
Sing like the hustling obstreperous wind.
Have you ever seen deeper purple . . .
this in my wild wind fingers?
Could you have more fun with a pony or a goat ?
Have you seen such flicking heels before,
What was the name you called me? —
And why did you go so soon?
The crows lift their caw on the wind,
And the wind changed and was lonely.
The warblers cry their sleepy-songs
Across the valley gloaming,
Across the cattle-horns of early stars.
Feathers and people in the crotch of a treetop
Throw an evening waterfall of sleepy-songs.
What was the name you called me? —
And why did you go so soon?
Do you know how the dream looms? how if summer
misses one of us the two of us miss summer —
Summer when the lungs of the earth take a long
breath for the change to low contralto singing
mornings when the green corn leaves first break
through the black loam —
And another long breath for the silver soprano melody
of the moon songs in the light nights when the
earth is lighter than a feather, the iron mountains
lighter than a goose down —
So I shall look for you in the light nights then, in the
laughter of slats of silver under a hill hickory.
In the listening tops of the hickories, in the wind
motions of the hickory shingle leaves, in the imitations
of slow sea water on the shingle silver
in the wind —
How much do you love me, a million bushels ?
Oh, a lot more than that, Oh, a lot more.
And to-morrow maybe only half a bushel ?
To-morrow maybe not even a half a bushel.
And is this your heart arithmetic?
This is the way the wind measures the weather.
Bury this old Illinois farmer with respect.
He slept the Illinois nights of his life after days of work
in Illinois cornfields.
Now he goes on a long sleep.
The wind he listened to in the cornsilk and the tassels,
the wind that combed his red beard zero mornings
when the snow lay white on the yellow ears in the
bushel basket at the corncrib,
The same wind will now blow over the place here where
his hands must dream of Illinois corn.
I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing
lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of
the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the
year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full
of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit
of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things
go, not one lasts.
There was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.
And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.
The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.
The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is on its shoulder
And I never heard its name in my life.
Some of the ears are bursting.
A white juice works inside.
Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind.
Always — I never knew it any other way —
The wind and the corn talk things over together.
When they flagged our train because of a broken rail,
I stepped down out of the crowded car,
With its clamour and dust and heat and babel of broken talk.
I stepped out into the cool, the velvet cool, of the night,
And felt the balm of the prairie-wind on my face,
And somewhere I heard the running of water,
I felt the breathing of grass,
And I knew, as I saw the great white stars,
That the world was made for good!
The pines shake and the winds wake,
And the dark waves crowd the sky-line!
The birds wheel out on a troubled sky;
The widening road runs white and long,
And the page is turned,
And the world is tired!
So I want no more of twilight sloth,
And I want no more of resting,
And of all the earth I ask no more
Than the green sea, the great sea,
The long road, the white road,
And a change of life to-day!
Sweet timber land
Where soft winds blow
The high green tree
And fan away the fog!
Ah fragrant stream
Where thirsty creatures go
And strong black men
Hew the heavy log!
Oh broken house
Crumbling there alone,
Wanting me!
Oh silent tree
Must I always be
A wild bird
Riding the wind
And screaming bitterly?
(To be sung)
I WILL pluck from my tree a cherry-blossom wand,
And carry it in my merciless hand,
So I will drive you, so bewitch your eyes,
With a beautiful thing that can never grow wise.
Light are the petals that fall from the bough,
And lighter the love that I offer you now;
In a spring day shall the tale be told
Of the beautiful things that will never grow old.
The blossoms shall fall in the night wind.
And I will leave you so, to be kind:
Eternal in beauty are short-lived flowers.
Eternal in beauty, these exquisite hours.
I will pluck from my tree a cherry-blossom wand,
And carry it in my merciless hand,
So I will drive you, so bewitch your eyes.
Guarded within the old red wall's embrace,
Marshalled like soldiers in gay company,
The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry
Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace
Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace!
Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry,
With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye
Of purple batteries, every gun in place.
Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread,
With torches burning, stepping out in time
To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead,
We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime
Parades that army. With our utmost powers
We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers.