48
PARTISAN REVIEW'
They have given arms to the people.
They have made the people an army.
They have plotted the gun pits and the aerodrome.>.
Though they suckle
thin
breasts in the South
Or dangle sleigh ropes in the Christmas snow,
All is ordained for this earth's delicate children.
Or is it thus ordained?
Let them not serve abstraction with lies.
The power fails among the unperceptive,
The bitter captains brawl, the pilots rage,
And the great cities sift toward the streams.
Let their care be constantly at home,
Their marksmanship rare as justice.
Slowly may they learn the earth
In the mastered and peaceful seasons,
The new tongues, the literatures like spring;
Oh, let their rooms be caskets of the sun,
Unshaded by hauteur of towers;
\
Their russet hearths at evening
Be theatres to old men's eyes.
