#AmericanWriters
O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters. Fruit cannot drop through this thick air—
Can we believe—by an effort comfort our hearts: it is not waste all this, not placed here in disgust, street after street,
Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus. I choose spray of dittany, cyperum, frail of flower,
I first tasted under Apollo’s lip… love and love sweetness, I, Evadne; my hair is made of crisp violets or hyacinth which the wind combs b…
Wash of cold river in a glacial land, Ionian water, chill, snow—ribbed sand, drift of rare flowers,
NOR skin nor hide nor fleece Shall cover you, Nor curtain of crimson nor fine Shelter of cedar—wood be over you, Nor the fir—tree
From citron—bower be her bed, cut from branch of tree a—flower, fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, cut the width of board and lathe,
White, O white face— from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands,
Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us,
Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye—balls and my eyes w…
The light passes from ridge to ridge, from flower to flower— the hepaticas, wide—spread under the light
Stars wheel in purple, yours is no… as Hesperus, nor yet so great a st… as bright Aldeboran or Sirius, nor yet the stained and brilliant… stars turn in purple, glorious to…
Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone
Crash on crash of the sea, straining to wreck men; sea—boards… raging against the world, furious, stay at last, for against your fur… and your mad fight,
Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down
