358
PARTISAN REVIEW
Courage from what is dreadful.
It was the glimpses in the lightning
Made me a sage, but made me say
No word to make another fight,
My own fighting heart full of dismay.
Spirit, soul, and fire are reached!
And springs of the mind, like springs of the feet
Tell all, all know, nothing wavers there!
All the flowers of my heart turned to ice-flowers,
Heaviness of the world prevailing,
"The higher we go the more terrible it is,"
Duplicity of man, heart-hate,
The hypocrite, the vain, the whipper, the cheat,
The eternal ape on the leash,
Drawing us down to faith,
Which the Greeks call divine folly,
The tug of laughter and of irony.
David Ross
NEWSREEL
The eye drags all of winter
Through the bone; and we
Are theatre to this death.
Also in dream
The lens remembers,
Taking death into focus.
Reel on reel
The eye records the season
To final footage of agony.
