Try to guess what error fell
Among those decadent, dry leaves.
III
A wind, thin and intricate as veins,
Moved the cloud and cast a subtle change:
The shadow from the tree grew long
And dark across the ground until
It
touched, at last, the shadow
Of the man. Among the rocks
Another shadow formed, a shape
Both tree and rock and man.
The light grew square, then oblong,
Almost round. The day, for all
Its journey, was thus undone.
The blackbird sat until the scene
Decayed, man and shadow gone,
Reflecting, in his closing eye
The falseness of the sun,
The doubt eternal
in
the seed.
Allen Mandelbaum
UPON THE THEME OF PATRIA
Upon the theme of
patria,
three dedicated trumpeters
cheered the ragged athlete,
weary in the mountain-passes,
fizzled torches in his head,
the drear night coming, sore
fetlocks, the heart that crowds
the hollow of the body beating
sweat and fear on drums of ear.
o
trumpeters to marathon
who sleep below the dream,
o lyrists in the word asleep
