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I OVER the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds: | |
| Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street. | |
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| Whirlpools of purple and gold, | |
| Winds from the mountains of cinnabar, | |
| Lacquered mandarin moments, palanquins swaying and balancing | 5 |
| Amid the vermilion pavilions, against the jade balustrades; | |
| Glint of the glittering wings of dragon-flies in the light; | |
| Silver filaments, golden flakes settling downwards; | |
| Rippling, quivering flutters; repulse and surrender, | |
| The sun broidered upon the rain, | 10 |
| The rain rustling with the sun. | |
| |
| Over the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds: | |
| Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street. | |
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II O seeded grass, you army of little men | |
| Crawling up the low slopes with quivering quick blades of steel: | 15 |
| You who storm millions of graves, tiny green tentacles of earth, | |
| Interlace your tangled webs tightly over my heart | |
| And do not let me go: | |
| For I would lie here for ever and watch with one eye | |
| The pilgrimaging ants in your dull savage jungles, | 20 |
| While with the other I see the long lines of the slope | |
| Break in mid air, a wave surprisingly arrested; | |
| And above it, wavering, bodiless, colorless, unreal, | |
| The long thin lazy fingers of the heat. | |
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III Not noisily, but solemnly and pale, | 25 |
| In a meditative ecstasy, you entered life, | |
| As for some strange rite, to which you alone held the clue. | |
| Child, life did not give rude strength to you; | |
| From the beginning you would seem to have thrown away, | |
| As something cold and cumbersome, that armor men use against death. | 30 |
| You would perchance look on death face to face and from him wrest the secret | |
| Whether his face wears oftenest a smile or no? | |
| Strange, old and silent being, there is something | |
| Infinitely vast in your intense tininess: | |
| I think you could point out with a smile some curious star | 35 |
| Far off in the heavens which no man has seen before. | |
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IV The morning is clean and blue, and the wind blows up the clouds: | |
| Now my thoughts, gathered from afar, | |
| Once again in their patched armor, with rusty plumes and blunted swords, | |
| Move out to war. | 40 |
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| Smoking our morning pipes we shall ride two and two | |
| Through the woods. | |
| For our old cause keeps us together, | |
| And our hatred is so precious not death or defeat can break it. | |
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| God willing, we shall this day meet that old enemy | 45 |
| Who has given us so many a good beating. | |
| Thank God, we have a cause worth fighting for, | |
| And a cause worth losing, and a good song to sing! | |
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