From "The Various Tree"

For Helen

I

And yet these mists

slide windward like a sigh.

Lord:

and spring

then-is it this

wide desolation and this man

minutely standing whom this bristled and

this twisted forest cannot hide from Thine Eye,

nor these white drifting mists

permit to go in peace ambiguously, these

wastes, these streets, these twisted avenues he runs

to worms' minutely whittled caves?

And spring then-is it this dull-eyed

dull-lidded sleep that breeds this singularly

secret dream Time walks in like a field (my

heart), and I-a scarecrow only, fit for night-

night, night with rattling wings to settle on, like crows?

Where's madness then? is it in this: to know

worm cousining the bone, and stony silence

for a monument-the day gone windward

in a gust, as cities and the years go, the

farewells, the roses go and Egypt went,

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the bright of dust? Or: Winds shall blow

thy dust to darker ways than night knows

or the days-for as thine eyes

try hills and mountains and the sea

for silence as a season, thy bundled dust

shall try the winds for residence.

Is madness: Thy heart shall mutter as a tree

blown windily. Thy mouth shall utter seasonably

seed, leaf and flower, and the wind

devour them. Is madness: What, what hast thou of

the earth but sepulchres?

Ai! Ai! the wind brings

death! Who speaks, is his voice windiness, only din?

his cry's, the wind's reply?

Look!-dust,

all windily. And is it wind's reply: "Look!

dust"?

See: it is dust rises columnwise

on wind. This taste on tongues-

it is the taste of seasons, taste of dust.

Lord:

I who am dust, who pile no monument,

who leave no sign-

only-who sighs,

and is now spent of crying, and spent of crying,

is he who lies, now, down. Who once was brightness

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Raymond Larsson

lies, now, down-a bundle of dust

among the lesser, brighter cities'

dust.

Lord:

and one first leaf unfurl

. and then the weaved green leafage all be laid

where waste was and this man

is minutely standing-how shall this man

stand among Thy leaves' bewildering praise

and stand so, and stand taller than

worm's small and whittled cave-

who stands

only with dust of cities in his hand

bright, but

of dust-only enough

to round a grave?

Lord:

If Thy name

rout not the worm that clamors in his cave,

rout not the dreams like worms

carousing in this heart, this brain,

whose name

shall rouse like trumpets this dead earth?

this weary heart? this acrid brain?

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whose leaf shall chide the worm?

whose breath shall quicken now

minutely

this man's death?

u

Day's end and the land's end and a

silence:

rock coast treed with sea spray,

sea sound rising in tree-shapes through silence.

Sea hush closed over bright hulks:

green light

speaking sea birds, the birds reeling and crying:

sea's sounds and the waves' sounds, a forest:

strewn shattered black rock.

And yet the seasons drift like mists about the tree,

and yet the mists slide windward like a sigh,

and yet, yet, yet are voices raised

("Weep and

prepare")-

and cries ("Weep! weep! Prepare!")

Lord:

here in the midst of our life

we are weary of death, of dying, crying "Breath!"-

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Raymond Larsson

the smile wreathed by spiders

and the eye giving the scene, the season, as

a winding-sheet-

who labor in darkness at the edge of light,

whose light is in the darkness at the rim of sight.

Wherefore

we ask Thy mercy. Wherefore, we ask Thy peace,

asking a brief deliverance,

as light in these dim forests of our days,

as rain on the desert like a grain,

as hosts who shall answer most our sighs,

as praise which shall come among our cries. ;

: Raymond Larsson

"Verdant Lawn," 1933

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