60
PARTISAN REVIEW
Before, riding, who rode away from
goodbye, goodbye,
And toward
hello,
toward Time's unwinking eye;
And like the cicada had left, at cross-roads or square,
The old shell of self, thin, ghostly, translucent, light as air:
At dawn riding into the curtain of unwhispering green,
Away from the vigils and voices into the green
World, land of tho innocent bough, land of the leaf.
Think of your face green in the submarine light of the leaf.
Or think of yourself crouched at the swamp-edge,
Dawn-silence past last owl-hoot and not yet at day-verge
First bird-stir, titmouse or drowsy warbler not yet.
You touch the grass
in
the dark and your hand
is
wet.
Then light: and you wait for the stranger's hoofs on the soft trace,
And under the green leaf's translucence the light bathes your face
Think of yourself at dawn: Which are you? What?)
Little Billie heard hoofs on the soft grass,
But he squatted and let the rider pass,
For he didn't want to waste good lead and powder
Just to make the slough-fish and swamp-buzzards prouder
In the land between the rivers.
But he saw the feller's face and thanked
his
luck
It
was the one Pap said was fit to pluck.
So he got on his horse and cantered up the trace .
Called, "Hi thar!" and the stranger watched him coming,
And sat his mare with a smile on his face,
Just watching Little Billie and smiling and humming.
Little Billie rode up and the stranger said,
"Why bless my heart,
if
it ain't Little Billie!"
"Good mornen," said Billie, and said, "My Pap
Found somethin you left and knowed you'd be missen,
And he ain't wanten nuthin nor proper his'n."
But the stranger did nothing but smile and listen
Polite as could be to what Billie said.
But he must have had eyes in the side of his head
As
they rode along beside the slough
