#AmericanWriters
Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone
You are clear O rose, cut in rock, hard as the descent of hail. I could scrape the colour from the petals
Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us,
Each of us like you has died once, has passed through drift of wood—l… cracked and bent and tortured and unbent
The white violet is scented on its stalk, the sea—violet fragile as agate, lies fronting all the wind
Will you glimmer on the sea? Will you fling your spear—head On the shore? What note shall we pitch? We have a song,
So you have swept me back, I who could have walked with the l… above the earth, I who could have slept among the l… at last;
Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus. I choose spray of dittany, cyperum, frail of flower,
Amber husk fluted with gold, fruit on the sand marked with a rich grain, treasure
All Greece hates the still eyes in the white face, the lustre as of olives where she stands, and the white hands.
Stars wheel in purple, yours is no… as Hesperus, nor yet so great a st… as bright Aldeboran or Sirius, nor yet the stained and brilliant… stars turn in purple, glorious to…
O be swift— we have always known you wanted us… We fled inland with our flocks. we pastured them in hollows, cut off from the wind
Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted. O silver,
Can we believe—by an effort comfort our hearts: it is not waste all this, not placed here in disgust, street after street,
Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down