Tramp

When a brass sun staggers above the sky,

When feet cleave to boots, and the tongue's dry,

And sharp dust goads the rolling eye,

Come thoughts of wine, and dancing thoughts of girls:

They shiver their white arms, and the head whirls,

And noon light is hid in their dark curls:

Noon feet stumble and head swims.

Out shines the sun, and the thought dims,

And death, for blood, runs in the weak limbs.

To fall on flints in the shade of tall nettles

Gives easy sleep as a bed of rose petals,

And dust drifting from the highway

As light a coverlet as down may.

The myriad feet of many-sized flies

May not open those tired eyes.

The first wind of night

Twitches the coverlet away quite:

The first wind and large first rain

Flickers the dry pulse to life again.

Flickers the lids burning on the eyes:

Come sudden flashes of the slipping skies:

Hunger, oldest visionary,

Hides a devil in a tree,

Hints a glory in the clouds,

Fills the crooked air with crowds

Of ivory sightless demons singing —

Eyes start: straightens back:

Limbs stagger and crack:

But brain flies, brain soars

Up, where the Sky roars

Upon the back of cherubim:

Brain rockets up to Him.

Body gives another twist

To the slack waist-band;

In agony clenches fist

Till the nails bite the hand.

Body floats light as air,

With rain in its sparse hair.

Brain returns, and would tell

The things he has seen well:

Body will not stir his lips:

Mind and Body come to grips.

Deadly each hates the other

As treacherous blood brother.

No sight, no sound shows

How the struggle goes.

I sink at last faint in the wet gutter;

So many words to sing that the tongue cannot utter.