Tower of Ivory/Certain Poets
CERTAIN POETS
Oh, words and words and words,—a twittering blur
Of sparrow wings that puff up from the rye
When something hidden stirs there; up they fly
A wheeling, huddled, undecided whir,
And what it was aroused them, Pan or cur,
Appears not,—save that 'twas a prodigy,
A portent sure, and, with its passing by,
A new world dawned, and grubs and rye-fields were.
And so their verses go,—a clamorous puff
Of words unformed, unbeautiful, distraught,
That eddy in the mood like feathered stuff,
And underneath the sound of them a thought,
Of something hidden stirring,—like enough
Apocalypse or naughtiness—or naught.
A portent then! a dumb and groping urge
Of something blind like voices in a mist;
'Lord, but it 'wilders one! To feel it twist
Old earth with iron, mutter in the forge,
Threaten in smoke;—why, look you, we're a-verge
Of worlds undreamt, and every silly fist
That curses God's a sign! There's wondrous grist
A-grinding, wondrous new-sown corn a-surge.'
New worlds! These things were seedling in dead Cain.
But you, for you old magics yet remain
Of restless whispering winds that press along
Dim casements of the sense-enshuttered brain.
Beauty has called you, and the worlds that wane
From crescent into crescent of thin song.