Then have You blotted me from Your book
That I vanish on this page apart.
Hear me! though I can but speak
With cloven tongue and quartered heart.
Not so. Not so. You overbear
Even my fear. Here lies asleep
In the palm of my heart as in my ear
Your word; if I mutter and creep,
Feet and tongue are mine, and this eye
That wept. You speak and hear and keep
My hand, and though myself I deny,
You are no God of sticks: now in gold
You burst from the mist and are my destiny.
Face on face shine in Your face.
Path on path run in Your face.
This path is the promised land. I die.
AN OLD LAWYER HALLUCINATES
I'm happy that this spring
I see my birds fly vertically up
And, circling round the battle monument,
Vanish into interstices of air
Before they drop as sheer .as they ascended.
Through season after season have I watched
How they would perch on chimney or red roof,
Prompt at the slightest bidding of the breeze
To wheel and scatter westward, out of mind–
But not today, not in this happy spring.
I'm happy that this spring
All cars have brand-new signals, all men cars
Irving Feldman
Who crowd the grounds where I have sat so long–
Too long perhaps and still not long enough
