Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/88
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II
My needle says: Don't be young,
Holding visions in your eyes,
Tasting laughter on your tongue!—
Be very old and very wise,
And sew a good seam up and down
In white cloth, red cloth, blue and brown.
Holding visions in your eyes,
Tasting laughter on your tongue!—
Be very old and very wise,
And sew a good seam up and down
In white cloth, red cloth, blue and brown.
My needle says: What is youth
But eyes drunken with the sun,
Seeing farther than the truth;
Lips that call, hands that shun
The many seams they have to do
In white cloth, red cloth, brown and blue!
But eyes drunken with the sun,
Seeing farther than the truth;
Lips that call, hands that shun
The many seams they have to do
In white cloth, red cloth, brown and blue!
III
One by one, one by one,
Stitches of the hours run
Through the fine seams of the day;
Till like a garment it is done
And laid away.
Stitches of the hours run
Through the fine seams of the day;
Till like a garment it is done
And laid away.
One by one the days go by,
And suns climb up and down the sky;
One by one their seams are run—
As Time's untiring fingers ply
And life is done.
And suns climb up and down the sky;
One by one their seams are run—
As Time's untiring fingers ply
And life is done.
COWARDICE
Discomfort sweeps my quiet, as a wind
Leaps at trees and leaves them cold and thinned.
Not that I fear again the mastery
Of winds, for holding my indifference dear
I do not feel illusions stripped from me.
And yet this is a fear—
Leaps at trees and leaves them cold and thinned.
Not that I fear again the mastery
Of winds, for holding my indifference dear
I do not feel illusions stripped from me.
And yet this is a fear—
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