A Dirge ("Put out the lights...")

SR VoL. XXXIX

am DE NO. IV

A Magazine of Verse

JANUARY 1932

WINTER FRUITS

AT THE EDGE

[E all the tents are falling

Arise, my soul !-

Under these you were crawling,

Blind as a mole.

Seek out a new appalling

Unmerciful goal.

The winds of the world are blowing,

But space is clear.

Though never a star is glowing

In that airless, sheer,

Impossible dark, keep going-

The far is near.

Time, caught where the dawn is breaking,

Will stop to your wand.

Where worlds their orbits are staking

Your feet will stand.

At the edge of the dark you'll be taking

The sun in your hand.

THE SONG

The song I heard was not of earth,

And yet no spirit gave it birth-

Angel from heaven nor fiend from hell.

It rode the wind as an airman rides,

Eager and ruthless, high above

The reach of rage, of woe or love;

And like a stricken plane it fell.

All that I heard, as tempest tides

Swept over the world was, Dare-dare!

Trailing the storm, out of the air,

Over and over, Dare!

But when I rose unarmed to go,

And met defeat and overthrow,

Out of bright skies came, Ware-beware!

Straight from the sun, through gold-washed air,

Beware!

Structure

41 lines · 7 stanzas