No More Learning

Remember, thou, O ship of love,
Thou leavest a far waste of waters,
And the soft lashing of black waves
For long and in loneliness.




"I have heard the sunset song of the
birches,
"A white melody in the silence,
"I have seen a quarrel of the pines.
"At nightfall
"The little grasses have rushed by me
"With the wind men.
"These things have I lived," quoth the
maniac,
"Possessing only eyes and ears.
"But you--
"You don green spectacles before you look at roses. "




Fast rode the knight
With spurs, hot and reeking,
Ever waving an eager sword,
"To save my lady! "
Fast rode the knight,
And leaped from saddle to war.
Men of steel flickered and gleamed
Like riot of silver lights,
And the gold of the knight's good banner
Still waved on a castle wall.
. . . . . . .
A horse,
Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,
Forgotten at foot of castle wall.
A horse
Dead at foot of castle wall.




Forth went the candid man
And spoke freely to the wind--
When he looked about him he was in a far
strange country.

Forth went the candid man
And spoke freely to the stars--
Yellow light tore sight from his eye.

"My good fool," said a learned bystander,
"Your operations are mad. "

"You are too candid," cried the candid man.
And when his stick left the head of the
learned bystander
It was two sticks.




You tell me this is God?
I tell you this is a printed list,
A burning candle and an ass.




On the desert
A silence from the moon's deepest
valley.
Fire rays fall athwart the robes
Of hooded men, squat and dumb.
Before them, a woman
Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles
And distant thunder of drums,
While mystic things, sinuous, dull with
terrible color,
Sleepily fondle her body
Or move at her will, swishing stealthily over
the sand.
The snakes whisper softly;
The whispering, whispering snakes,
Dreaming and swaying and staring,
But always whispering, softly whispering.
The wind streams from the lone reaches
Of Arabia, solemn with night,
And the wild fire makes shimmer of blood
Over the robes of the hooded men
Squat and dumb.

Bands of moving bronze, emerald, yellow,
Circle the throat and arms of her,
And over the sands serpents move warily
Slow, menacing and submissive,
Swinging to the whistles and drums,
The whispering, whispering snakes,
Dreaming and swaying and staring,
But always whispering, softly whispering.
The dignity of the accursed;
The glory of slavery, despair, death,
Is in the dance of the whispering snakes.