484
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Like snowflakes to the dreaming town,
The skier plunged like a gannet to my hug,
And the trolls' hoard sparkled at my icy feet.
All this I dreamed in my great ragged bed,
The drifts rolled from my rooftop to the stars,
"And I tossed, sweating, in my wife's thin arms ....
Or so I dreamed. The dawn's outranging smile
Curled through my lashes, felled the marchen's wood,
The sun stripped my last cumulus of stars,
And the sea graved all the marshes of the swan.
"So, so. The years ticked past like crabs
Or an hour inched out to heaven, like the sea.
One day, by my black hand, my beard
Shone silver; I looked in astonishment
And pinched my lean calves, drawn with many scars,
"With my stiff fmgers, till the parrot called
In my grum, quavering voice:
Poor Robinson!
My herd came bleating, licked my salty cheeks;
I sobbed, and petted with a kind of love
These joys of mine-the old, half-human loves
"That had comforted my absent life ....
I have dreamed of men, and I am old.
There is no Europe."
The man, the goats, the parrot
Wait in their grove for death; and there floods to them
In its last thundering spray, the sea, the sea!
