Stake nearer each from the extreme:
Locked-up truths release from ancients,
Give youthful plans a skin of patience.
These do make a sweet proportion:
Pigeons, fly in tougher arc!
Hawks, conclave in civic caution!
Edwin Watkins
THE ROC KET CAP TAIN
"Let space be bent," the Rocket Captain said,
"We'll warp all our five senses to her lead,
As a man bends to women. To take wing
The soul must, like the seasons' changeling,
The gaudy earth, get other clothes to wear.
We shall be strange, to breathe the upper air,
As
a fish in new water. Let my gills grow."
A wet Venusian bird, ascending slow
Through foliage indistinct from rain, assumes
That element. In water is no room
For such leaps as we make upon the air,
But she sinks on slow tides, or mounts to where
Her wing finds no more water to its flight
And rests on the thinnest billows. There the light
Is like salt-water in a diver's eyes.
"On the damp star of Love, our proper prize,"
The Rocket Captain said, "is amorous.
We'll try what pleasure tempts our unused lust
In thickets grown of mist, where air is rain,
And maybe girls with tails like fishes swim.
I hear water moving; cloud on cloud
Of waves of air sustain yon billowed bird.
