314
PARTISAN REVIEW
the best of the unflying
pegasi, since the Greeks "caught a few wild
asses but no ostrich;"
quadrupedlike bird which
flies on feet not wings,-his moth-silk
plumage wilted by his speed;
mobile wings and tail
behaving as a sail.
Six hundred ostrich-brains served
at one banquet, the ostrich-plume-tipped tent
and desert spear, jewel-
gorgeous ugly egg-shell
goblets, eight pairs of ostriches
in harness, dramatize a
meaning always missed
by the externalist.
The power of the visible
is the invisible; as even where
no tree of freedom grows,
so-called brute courage knows.
Heroism is exhausting, yet
it contradicts a greed that
did not wisely spare
the harmless solitaire
or great auk in its grandeur;
unsolicitude having swallowed up
all giant birds but an
alert gargantuan
little-winged, magnificently
speedy running-bird. This one
remaining rebel
is the sparrow-camel.
