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J. Wolker (1900–1924)
His fellow workers laugh,
And with them Antonin.
So, in the depths of night,
Amid electric stars,
They think a little while,
Remembering their wives
Whose childish fancies dream
That for themselves alone
Their menfolk came to life,
To have them for their own.
And Antonin, as five
And twenty years before,
With shovel heavier still
Swings wide the oven door.
A woman’s point of view
Is hard to understand.
She thinks in other terms
And yet her words are true.
Among the coal he casts
The flower of his eyes,
Unknowing what he does
Or else, perhaps, impelled.
For always man desires
To soar above the earth
With eyes that glance afar
And hold the world between;
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