IV

Calicoes and furs,

Pocket-books and scarfs,

Razor strops and knives

( Patterns in check...)

Olive hands and russet head,

Pickles red and coppery,

Green pickles, brown pickles,

( Patterns in tapestry...)

Coral beads, blue beads,

Beads of pearl and amber,

Gewgaws, beauty pins —

Bijoutry for chits —

Darting rays of violet,

Amethyst and jade...

All the colors out to play,

Jumbled iridescently...

( Patterns in stained glass

Shivered into bits! )

Nooses of gay ribbon

Tugging at one's sleeve,

Dainty little garters

Hanging out their sign...

Here a pout of frilly things —

There a sonsy feather...

( White beards, black beards

Like knots in the weave...)

And ah, the little babies —

Shiny black-eyed babies —

( Half a million pink toes

Wriggling altogether. )

Baskets full of babies

Like grapes on a vine.

Mothers waddling in and out,

Making all things right —

Picking up the slipped threads

In Grand street at night —

Grand street like a great bazaar,

Crowded like a float,

Bulging like a crazy quilt

Stretched on a line.

But nearer seen

This litter of the East

Takes on a garbled majesty.

The herded stalls

In dissolute array...

The glitter and the jumbled finery

And strangely juxtaposed

Cans, paper, rags

And colors decomposing,

Faded like old hair,

With flashes of barbaric hues

And eyes of mystery...

Flung

Like an ancient tapestry of motley weave

Upon the open wall of this new land.

Here, a tawny-headed girl...

Lemons in a greenish broth

And a huge earthen bowl

By a bronzed merchant

With a tall black lamb's wool cap upon his head...

He has no glance for her.

His thrifty eyes

Bend — glittering, intent

Their hoarded looks

Upon his merchandise,

As though it were some splendid cloth

Or sumptuous raiment

Stitched in gold and red...

He seldom talks

Save of the goods he spreads —

The meager cotton with its dismal flower —

But with his skinny hands

That hover like two hawks

Above some luscious meat,

He fingers lovingly each calico,

As though it were a gorgeous shawl,

Or costly vesture

Wrought in silken thread,

Or strange bright carpet

Made for sandaled feet...

Here an old grey scholar stands.

His brooding eyes —

That hold long vistas without end

Of caravans and trees and roads,

And cities dwindling in remembrance —

Bend mostly on his tapes and thread.

What if they tweak his beard —

These raw young seed of Israel

Who have no backward vision in their eyes —

And mock him as he sways

Above the sunken arches of his feet —

They find no peg to hang their taunts upon.

His soul is like a rock

That bears a front worn smooth

By the coarse friction of the sea,

And, unperturbed, he keeps his bitter peace.

What if a rigid arm and stuffed blue shape,

Backed by a nickel star

Does prod him on,

Taking his proud patience for humility...

All gutters are as one

To that old race that has been thrust

From off the curbstones of the world...

And he smiles with the pale irony

Of one who holds

The wisdom of the Talmud stored away

In his mind's lavender.

But this young trader,

Born to trade as to a caul,

Peddles the notions of the hour.

The gestures of the craft are his

And all the lore

As when to hold, withdraw, persuade, advance...

And be it gum or flags,

Or clean-all or the newest thing in tags,

Demand goes to him as the bee to flower.

And he — appraising

All who come and go

With his amazing

Slight-of-mind and glance

And nimble thought

And nature balanced like the scales at nought —

Looks Westward where the trade-lights glow,

And sees his vision rise —

A tape-ruled vision,

Circumscribed in stone —

Some fifty stories to the skies.