POEMS
135
Pharaoh's soldiery is playing checkers in the glass-gold
Greenhouses, and Pharaoh's daughter is wearing drugged bees
In her hair, and honey flows like a river beside the taxes,
The whole world will wait until you die ere it buries you.
Get up and out, my man, the day is bursting with moments,
The attendants have kitchens stored up
in
the distance,
The river weaves in among the bulrushes its minnows of music
To charm the fount of halfsouls gathering within you.
Ah, Pharaoh's soft daughter walks like a pair of seraphs
Topped by the bounty of her face, a nosegay of dazzles,
She shall lead you by the hand to the waterfall's wall,
Into her chamber of twilight papered with real birds-
Into her secret chamber where her emotions like birds
Shall fly around her probable heart in a ring of parables,
You shall pick from her halo a favored one with your finger,
And two birds will fly straight into your eyes to find you.
Rise from the basket in the bulrushes for time is shining
Like a kingdom with lights, and in time you shall be king,
Your love wear the northern lights' ceremony like a crown;
Rise my good man, from your bed of straws in the wind.
Oscar Williams
THE MIRAGE
I lived a life without love, and saw the being
I loved on every branch; then that bare tree
Stood up with all its branches up, a great harp
Growing straight out of the ground, and there I saw
A squadron of bright birds clothing the bare limbs;
The music notes sat on the harp; it was all love.
This was the heart inside the starved body,
Love grew images like cactus, and planted roses
On the walls of the mirage, and the garden grew
Shining with perfume and the senses dwindled to dew,
