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PARTISAN REVIEW
2
As
once by June dusk he played trover,
at full moon found fourth leaf in cut clover
among grass, dew-honey, and live toil,
so I flush new scent from hush-cover,
from the fit air we breathed, a sweet spoil.
3
Again as, through noon-dazzle, flash plover
beyond number, and are lost in fog-hover,
from his dying- the swept air and sea-slake–
!
pluck, I lose, I discover
one flower, all flight, and joy-foil.
III.
A Garment of Praise for the Spirit in Heaviness
How may I see the triune man at once?–
Mowing witchgrass in the quarry road
while grasshoppers clacked before the scythe
one August noon, his easy straddling stride;
or later, swimming far out and on his back,
the half-smoked cabana making long ash
beside me on black granite. Such memories
are of the country of the blue, too far
for capture and too near to see at once.
There is no choice, severalty
is
all
in life that has been stopped but never finished.
I see him then:
In the north shadow-pool of the opened door
greeting imperceptive friends with gravity and drinks,
and surer friends with candor only less grave-
as sunlight
is
grave upon a windless bay,
the warm upon the cool, like rum in milk.
He saw people more in relation than as kin;
as next, and touching, than as continuing,
like grasses prostrate in the marshy stream.
Keen on the possible, the first to hand,
