d in the beginning with a
snapping explosiveness, ending in a languorous chant. #
The mufflers open on a score of cars
With wonderful thunder,
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK,
CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK,
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK,...
Listen to the gold-horn...
Old-horn...
Cold-horn...
And all of the tunes, till the night comes down
On hay-stack, and ant-hill, and wind-bitten town.
# To be sung to exactly the same whispered tune
as the first five lines. #
Then far in the west, as in the beginning,
Dim in the distance, sweet in retreating,
Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn,
Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn....

# This section beginning sonorously,
ending in a languorous whisper. #
They are hunting the goals that they understand:--
San Francisco and the brown sea-sand.
My goal is the mystery the beggars win.
I am caught in the web the night-winds spin.
The edge of the wheat-ridge speaks to me.
I talk with the leaves of the mulberry tree.
And now I hear, as I sit all alone
In the dusk, by another big Santa Fe stone,
The souls of the tall corn gathering round
And the gay little souls of the grass in the ground.
Listen to the tale the cotton-wood tells.
Listen to the wind-mills, singing o'er the wells.
Listen to the whistling flutes without price
Of myriad prophets out of paradise.
Harken to the wonder
That the night-air carries....
Listen... to... the... whisper...
Of... the... prairie... fairies
Singing o'er the fairy plain:--
# To the same whispered tune as the Rachel-Jane song--
but very slowly. #
"Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.
Love and glory,
Stars and rain,
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet...."

The Firemen's Ball

Section One

"Give the engines room,
Give the engines room."
Louder, faster
The little band-master
Whips up the fluting,
Hurries up the tooting.
He thinks that he stands,
# To be read, or chanted, with the heavy buzzing bass
of fire-engines pumping. #
The reins in his hands,
In the fire-chief's place
In the night alarm chase.
The cymbals whang,
The kettledrums bang:--
# In t