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American- muse, whose strong and diverse heart
So many men have tried to understand
But only made
it
smaller with
theii~ art
. .
And I have seen and heard you in .the dry
Close-huddled furnace of the
citY
street
Where the parched moon was planted in the sky
And the limp air hung dead against the heat.
Eliot echoes in the last four lines as Homer does in the section
on Pickett's charge:
So they came on in strength, light-footed, stepping like deer,
.So they died or were taken. So the iron entered their flesh.
Even Kipling's ballad manner:
Thirteen sisters beside the sea
Builded a house called Liberty
Builded a house called Liberty
And locked the doors with a stately key.
None should enter
it
but the free.
(Have a care, my son.)
Also
Whitman:
She has seen so many faces and bodies, young and
then old, so much life, so many patterns of
death and birth.
Nor are humbler poetic models spurned:
She was the white heart of the birch . .
. Het: sharp clear breasts
Were two young victories in the hollow darkness
And when she stretched her hands above her head
.And let ·the spun fleece
rippl~
to her ioins, .
. Her body glowed like deep- springs under the sun.
Mr. Benet isa ·masterof the built-in reaction; Cit
is
impossible
