[He blows out another candle.] It is like three peregrins, departing.

[He blows out another candle.]

It is like heaven and earth in the eye of the disbeliever.

[He blows out another candle. He dances around the room. He returns to the single candle that remains burning.]

The extinguishing of light is like that old Hesper, clapped upon by clouds.

[He stands in front of the candle, so as to obscure it.]

The spikes of his light bristle around the edge of the bulk. The spikes bristle among the clouds and behind them. There is a spot where he was bright in the sky. It remains fixed a little in the mind.

[He opens the door at the right. Outside, the night is as blue as water. He crosses the stage and opens the door at the left. Once more he flings aside the curtains. He extinguishes his taper. He looks out. He speaks with elation.] Oh, ho! Here is matter beyond invention.

[He springs through the window. Curtain.]

Wallace Stevens

PINE RIVER BAY

Autumn, 1916.

The mimics dance in the cities,

Paylowa in New York;

Death dances in Europe

Like a bottle without cork,

Life loses its contents

While the mimics dance in New York,

Offering the glories

Fabled in old stories.

But the leaves dance in the forest,

Gold and scarlet in the north;

And the gray waves dance,

And the wind stalks forth-
Like torn paper lanterns,
Like confetti in the north,
Leaves are whirling about,
A purple pallid rout.

Trees burn among the pines,
Rose and yellow torches;
The summer guests are gone,
Nobody sweeps their porches
Two or three lumbermen
Among the golden torches
Swing huge sledge hammers,
While the gray lake clambers.

Two of them love whiskey,
One has loved the sea;

All of them have faces

The wind has carved in glee.

The mimics dance in the cities, "

Death across the sea

Leaves dance in the north,

And the deer run forth.

Dorothy Dudley

O DEAR BROWN LANDS

O dear brown lands, out of you I blossomed;
I feed on your rooted and wandering fruits.
And when my puzzled restlessness is done,
You clasp me again,

Scattering me over your brown bosom-
My mother, my sustainer, my children,
And my dusty immortality.

COIN OF THE YEAR

November, you old alchemist,

Who would have thought

You could turn the high arrogance of golden-rod

To still plumes of silver?

Clement Wood

MINIATURES

I-THE WOOLWORTH

They will fashion their cities after you

When there is peace,

Pale glory in the mist,

White waterfall of granite

From heaven.

II

Have you ever seen the wind
Ruffle the rivers of people,
Down in the bottoms

Of streets?

III THE RIVER

There were white petals, millions of them,

Fluttering over the water, to the very edge of our ship, From the moon.

IV

Have you no pity for me,

Who have found

A little beauty?

۱۰

How many stars, how many
Cities,

Will you blow out with your breath

When you come to me?

VI

I squandered

All I had; I wanted to live. Now nothing Is left me.

VII

With my own hands
I blotted out the sun.
God is a satirist.

VIII

All my beautiful moments

I give away,

But the shadows in me

Are dumb.

Louis Grudin