The Midland VOL. VII A MAGAZINE OF THE MIDDLE WEST DECEMBER, 1921 NO. 12 Marcia! . . Marcia By ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE Across the glassy twilit pool I heard your following playmates call your name. Dust By LEW SARETT This much I know: Under the bludgeonings of snow The seemingly immortal tree Shall, soon or late, Go down to dust; Lo! when a wild wet gust Of hurricane Has lain The vast debris Under the calm and lone plateau, The dust shall go Down with the rain; Rivers are slow, Rivers are fast, But rivers and rains run down to the sea, All rains go down to the sea at last. Ho! Shake the red bough And cover me now, Cover me now with dreams, With a blast Of fallen leaves, with the sifted gleams Of the moon. Shake the dead bough And cover me now, For soon, Rivers and rains shall go with me The Gate By BENNETT WEAVER I shall not press the heavy gate I shall not wake the porter there The Girl in the Valley I The long grasses are beaten by the wind; The cottonwood shudders; The magpies plunge and bicker. Over the mountains clouds writhe. This land never lies in patterns of peace. Forever I watch in the clouds My soul in torment And hear its fretful voice In the cry of the whirling magpie. II Sarah Judson was working in her kitchen. When she spoke to me Her eyes were hard and dull Like dead earth in winter; Then she turned to her task. And along the coulee The cottonwoods shook their lace tops Into the still air. When I went home that night I prayed, "Dear God, Let me die The day I can no longer see The Shining Mountains Through the shifting mist. Dear God, Let me die The day the net of cottonwoods Against a grey sky Thrills me no more like the lips of a lover." Gold shiver of leaves Dripping beauty Against blue Like the soul of God. So shall I one day dance Glittering, Trembling III Against the blue curtain of my desire. IV Winnie and her father, the old sheepherder, stopped by today. Winnie's eyes were like the sky When the Chinook chases the thick white clouds be fore it And the air is full of its voice; But the eyes of the old sheepherder Were silent and blue Like the sky on the day after the blizzard When the wind has died And the clouds are gone And the cattle move slowly through the drifts. |