the rain;
But--there's the cold and the dark.

God, You don't know what it is--
You, in Your well-lighted sky,
Watching the meteors whizz;
Warm, with the sun always by.

God, if You had but the moon
Stuck in Your cap for a lamp,
Even You'd tire of it soon,
Down in the dark and the damp.

Nothing but blackness above,
And nothing that moves but the cars--
God, if You wish for our love,
Fling us a handful of stars!

ANY CITY

Into the staring street
She goes on her nightly round,
With weary and tireless feet
Over the wretched ground.

A thing that man never spurns,
A thing that all men despise;
Into her soul there burns
The street with its pitiless eyes.

She needs no charm or wile,
She carries no beauty or power,
But a tawdry and casual smile
For a tawdry and casual hour.

The street with its pitiless eyes
Follows wherever she lurks,
But she is hardened and wise--
She rattles her bracelets and smirks...

She goes with her sordid array,
Luring, without a lure;
She is man's hunger and prey--
His lust and its hideous cure.

All that she knows are the lies,
The evil, the squalor, the scars;
The street with its pitiless eyes,
The night with its pitiless stars.

LANDSCAPES

(_For Clement R. Wood_)

The rain was over, and the brilliant air
Made every little blade of grass appear
Vivid and startling--everything was there
With sharpened outlines, eloquently clear,
As though one saw it in a crystal sphere.
The rusty sumac with its struggling spires;
The golden-rod with all its million fires;
(A million torches swinging in the wind)
A single poplar, marvellously thinned,
Half like a naked boy, half like a sword;
Clouds, like the haughty banners of the Lord;
A group of pansies with their shrewish faces,
Little old ladies cackling over laces;
The quaint, unhurried road that curved so well;
The prim petunias with their rich, rank smell;
The lettuce-birds, the creepers in the field--
How bountifully were they all revealed!
How arrogantly each one seemed to thrive--
So frank and strong, so radiantly alive!

And over all the morning-minded earth
There seemed to spread a sharp and kindling mirth,
Piercing the stubborn stones until I saw
The toad face heaven without shame or awe,
The ant confront the stars, and every weed
Grow proud as though it