Breakers and granite / by John Gould Fletcher [electronic text]

MANHATTAN

I

White lily hammered out of steel, Upspraying, strangely beautiful, Chaste with thrice-tempered passion: — About your roots should be the peace Of still dean gardens and straight walks; The sad blue hills and the high skies Should shrink back from the calm of you.

But at your feet shrill furnaces roar, Iron rails are clanking; hammers pound Their stubborn strength to nothingness; Shovels have scraped the russet flanks Of the smooth hillside; through the gash Dribbles red slag and rusty ore, While grey smoke flecks unspotted skies.

White lily, swaying, tremulous, Chance-fashioned by some muddled, vague,Unthinking fool half-blind with light;

In petal on petal you yet hold Aloft, the sprinkled dew of stars While dull and muddied are your leaves.

The noise of hatred that dies not Is snarling and yelping at your feet; Red trickles of oily waste, the scum Scarce nourishes your spade-hacked sides; You are breaking, my own lonely flower, You are falling withered, without strength, You that feared not the-solitude Of all the skies, must snap at last.

And if you should fail: — If you should not maintain That still austere delight, The fools who made you, bought with lives and pain: If you must crash down to the red soft night, —You twisted flame of strength men tore from earth and froze— If you should break —my heart would break with you.

II

Half-frightened by the tangled mass Of endless forests that from the west Thrust their green tentacles up the rock; Half-tempted by the mourning sea, That up the inlet stealthily crooks One long green finger beckoning them: A little knot of giants wait, And on their foreheads is the dawn. Some are like shapeless athletes; some Haggard spare hunters dressed in grey; Some glower in black hate aloof: And one incredibly golden-pale, White-breasted, cool-flanked, in her joy Claps her pink palms to greet the day, Not knowing why.

And here they wait: While up against them raves the sea. And all day's gates of fretted gold Are open to them, the wide blue floor Of sky is open: they blink at it; They do not know what to make of it; Half-furtively they question it; But there is no reply.

They only know, that along ago Across the seas to land there came, One with embittered lips and eyes of flame, The rebel Angel; He found them dull, warm, shapeless clay, And half in mockery, made strange Gods: Then with the spark hid in his breast, He quickened them, and went his way.

And still they wait; And at the eastern gate Gurgles and seethes the sea reproachfully, Crying to them, "How long will you wait? For the afternoon is gone'by, the cool of the day. The thunder of God will soon seek you unbidden; Do you not hear grim laughter from afar? Step boldly out to us; follow the dawn's new star."

Yet, still aloof, they hesitate, Smiling and deaf, huge childlike gods, And never think that soon to. come Out of the seas in mail of light, His face a mystery of flame,

Will rise the Angel with the Sword; To give them love, but not the power To make their love more strong than death; To shut them out from that strange garden In which by chance they came to be.

III

Crash of plates, dribble of plates, Bang of plates, clatter of plates, Tick — tick—tick of plates, Screaming — screaming — screaming.

Plates sliding on slippery floors, Plates bouncing off shiny walls, Shrieking and clanking past my ears: "Time—Time — Time — "

Stupid faces, vulgar faces, Flurried faces, worried faces, Food is cheap: time is dear: Snatch five minutes ere the dynamo dicks: "Time—Time — "

Tinkle of plates, mutter of plates, Scramble of plates, shamble of plates,

China coffins, each one enclosing an instant—Without the hungry skyscrapers wait for men.

IV

Draped in soft-shaded robes of light, In sullen darkness helmeted, Glittering with coppery foil; In row on row they stand like women Slender or squat, lovely or vile, Offering themselves casually To the cold lips of debauchee Night.

Erect and pale; strange, beautiful, Their looks fixed on the distant skies, They dream of what thing do they dream? In the dull forest some red hunter Perhaps sleeps yet —he who will tame them: And when his sinews press upon them, All unashamed, their garments then will fall.

Hawked, peddled, cheapened, made more vile each instant, Soiled and yet chaste, aloof from any passion, They watch incuriously the nights' betrayal:

Stale scented hands and liquorish lips have brushed theirs, They do not heed them, nor harsh voices gabbling, For with virginal joy they tremble for the dawn.

November 24—December 4, 1914.