POEMS
And the wide beak shrieks planetary calls
That split her drums and crack the sentinal walls;
He flutters in air, repels with merciless tine
The clutch of this rapt concubine;
Ribboned with blood she falters, and the bird
Screaming in pitch too piercing to be heard,
Assaults the low ceiling, topples stone on stone
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And mounts upward through sunlight to his natural throne.
0 Thou! Mother of being, rise to thy new-found feet,
Blinded by light, yet drink this sunlight sweet,
Bright airs of heaven animate thy breath,
Disclose new heavens in the midst of death!
Tight in one hand that trembles still
She grasps a long bronzy quill,
Red witness torn from that aspirant wing,
Cloud-scrivener, the pen of gods, seraphic thing
Sharpened for new inscribings on her heart.
0 lancet hostage, 0 celestial dart!
Rise, foam-born wonder, charioted on shells,
Landward thy winds are set, and air-borne bells
Supplant the old music of the ocean waves.
Deserting old reefs and myriad salty graves'
She moves triumphant-0 be swift
Towards those who wait upon thy sovereign gift;
Dear Psyche, newly-waked, set forth to hill and plain
On thy long, incomparable odyssey of pain.
Jackson Mathews
TO WHITMAN
Good old miracle man walking with a wand
Like a walking-stick, breathing a warm wind
To panic the buds with new life, the birds
With heavenly wonder, last of the bards,
You waved your stick, chanted your oracle
Till even the cheapest sparrow felt the logic
