Crowd and Performer

Smoke mermaids on the lips of lovers fallen

Still, we can concede-so well he climbs-

Who hush the child laughing as hugely right

As the sky-spangled cape let fall, a storm

Of loosened fingerholds, from the first ledge.

And as for us, whom early trembling spoiled

For being a respectable starting-point

Although our feet already were turned to stone,

Not until mere knuckles dredge him slowly

Over volutes and swags to the pediment

Where we shuck all belief do we feel better:

Lank dread alone raised upward like a hand.

Immediately, though, a whispering begins

And, when we dare no longer look at bows

Flourished in salute from merciless rims,

A giggling that such politeness seems unaware

Of the drunk lying since noon in the barberry

On the other side of the courthouse like so much

Stale sliced lamplight. Wind. An oak-leaf floats.

Overwhelming silence. And now when we look up

Or upside-down-for our spent fists hold tight

The tilting bus-straps of our pockets during

This journey nowhere-the soberest of us get off

Angrily, somewhere athwart the Cross, impatient,

Their Word like the covered clamor of dimestores.

Only the merrily fraught remain hushed:

Unearthed, unretrieved, in vision mewed,

Hardly knowing they smile as he moves higher,

They follow, empty-eyed, his stumbling weight

Tremendous over the vista of holiday

And, with the disjointed ease of dream, already

Freehand their watching's pale vernacular

Into a sigh and wave for that look of death-

Whose devilish longing is only to be agreeable.