| I See how these masses mill and swarm And troop and muster and assail: God! — We could keep this planet warm By friction, if the sun should fail. Mercury, Saturn, Venus, Mars: If no prow cuts your arid seas, Then in your weightless air no wars Explode with such catastrophes As rock our planet all but loose From its frayed mooring to the sun. Law will not sanction such abuse Forever; when the mischief's done, Planets, rejoice, on which at night Rains but the twelve-ton meteorite. II His stalk the dark delphinium Unthorned into the tending hand Releases . . . yet that hour will come . . . And must, in such a spiny land. The silky powdery mignonette Before these gathering dews are gone May pierce me — does the rose regret The day she did her armor on? In that the foul supplants the fair, The coarse defeats the twice-refined, Is food for thought, but not despair: All will be easier when the mind To meet the brutal age has grown An iron cortex of its own. III No further from me than my hand Is China that I loved so well; Love does not help to understand The logic of the bursting shell. Perfect in dream above me yet Shines the white cone of Fuji-San; I wake in fear, and weep and sweat . . . Weep for Yoshida, for Japan. Logic alone, all love laid by, Must calm this crazed and plunging star: Sorrowful news for such as I, Who hoped — with men just as they are, Sinful and loving — to secure A human peace that might endure. |
vfssmail (at) gmaill (dot) com