City Dusk

Come out... out

To this inevitable night of mine

Oh you dinker of new wine,
Here's pageantry... Here's carnival,
Rich dusk, dim streets and all
The whisperings of city night...

I have closed my book of fading harmonies,
( The shadows fell across me in the park)
And my soul was sad with violins and trees,
And I was sick for dark,
When suddenly it hastened by me, bringing
Thousands of lights,a haunting breeze,
And a night of streets and singing...

I shall know you by your eager feet
and by your pale, pale hair;
I'll whisper happy incoherent things
While I'm waiting for you there...

All the faces unforgettable in dusk
Will blend to yours,
And the footsteps like a thousand overtures
Will blend to yours,
And there will be more drunkenness than wine
In the softness of your eyes on mine...

Faint violins where lovely ladies dine,
The brushing of skirts, the voices of the night
And all the lure of friendly eyes... Ah there
We"ll drift like summer sounds upon the summer air...

Francis Scott Fitzgerald  (Thousand-and-First Ship)

Crows

Lord, when the open field is cold,

When in the battered villages

The endless angelus dies-

Above the dark and drooping world

Let the empty skies disclose

Your dear, delightful crows.

Armada dark with harsh cries,

Your nests are tossed by icy winds!

Along the banks of yellowed ponds,

On roads where crumbling crosses rise,

In cold and gray and mournful weather

Scatter, hover, dive together!

In flocks above the fields of France

Where yesterday's dead men lie,

Wheel across the winter sky;

Recall our black inheritance!

Let dutyin your cry be heard,

Mournful, black, uneasy bird.

Yet in that oak, you saints of god,

Swaying in the dying day,

Leave the whstling birds of May

For those who found, within that wood

From which they will not come again,

That every victory is vain.

Arthur Rimbaud (translated by PAUL SCHIMDT)