296
PARTISAN REVIEW
The huts, the trembling wire
That ·wreathes us, are to us familiar
As
death. All night, the fires
Float their sparks up to the yellow stars;
From the steel, stilted tower
The light sweeps over us. We whisper: Ours.
Ours; and the stones slide home.
There is no hope; "in all this world
There is no other wisdom
Than ours: we have understood the world,"
We think; but hope, in dread
Search for one doubt, and whisper: "Truly, we are not dead."
RANDALL JARRELL
THE APPARITION
My greetings to you, sir, whose memory,
the striped coat and colors-What is one man?
a man remembered still in the jacket
of his success? of the winning club?
in himself-successful? one man, alone?
This
is
that he who slights his fellows–
or else, as he is, plunges
to the wind-whipped swirl, hat, coat, shoes
and-as you did-drags in the body
to the grapples defying death and the sea.
Not once but-again!
Is this the war- that spawned you? Or
did you make the war? Whichever,
th~re
you are.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
