Shut away from the wind and the rain.

His eyelids are not merely lowered,
They are actually closed;

And he is sleeping lightly as a cat.

The old woman near the other end
Slipped away from her cheerless hall-room,
And came here because she likes the lights
And the changing human faces.

She has her supper hidden in her pocket;
She slips a bite into her mouth

When none is looking,

And pretends that she is reading the Outlook.

The tall thin boy with the exciting mauve shirt
Is reading the chapters of a lurid serial,

Just to fill in the hour

Until the burlesquers begin

In the theatre on the next block.

And in the shelves behind them all,

The masters of the world,

In reserve and silence,

Await the coming of a sympathetic friend.

Robert Gilbert Welsh

QUILTS

They gave me the quilt that Great-aunt Elizabeth made— A quilt of pink roses, and tiny careful stitches.

It goes in my chest, for in October I marry.

Pink roses, with stems of green on a background of white,
And Great-aunt Elizabeth pieced it for her own chest.
She pieced it with trembling hands, for her lover had gone
To fight with the South.

Elizabeth filled in the long days with squares of pink,
Fitting the pattern together with quick, nervous fingers;
Roses of pink, for love and a bride.

But here is a spot of red among the pink roses.

I wonder what is stitched into the quilting.
She finished it long afterwards, when war
Had taken all she had but memories.
She pieced her life into a pink-rose quilt
When war was making patch-work of her soul.

They gave me the quilt that Great-aunt Elizabeth made A quilt of pink roses with stems of green, for a bride. But I see all the time the splotch of blood in the roses.

October is so far when war is near.

Mary Willis Shuey

CLAY

CLAY HILLS

It is easy to mould the yielding clay,

And many shapes grow into beauty
Under the facile hand.

But forms of clay are lightly broken;

They will lie shattered and forgotten in a dingy corner.

But underneath the slipping clay

Is rock. . . .

I would rather work in stubborn rock

All the years of my life,

And make one strong thing;

And set it in a high, clean place

To recall the granite strength of my desire.

DISCOVER ME AGAIN

Discover me again—

Look at me with new eyes, O

my beloved!

See, my aspect changes to the need of love,

Even as the stable earth answers the call of the seasons.

Do not regard me only as a winter-wife,

A peddler of homely comforts.

Indeed I am also your girl of spring-
Dreams possess and inhabit me.

But these lie sick and languid;
They quicken to the call of life,
Only at the recognition of your glance,
At the hail of your love.

Discover me again!

Jean Starr Untermeyer

THOUGH ONE SHOULD STRIVE

Love is the heart's last light to die!

Though one should strive in stubborn pain

To quench its beauty utterly,

Yet were his labor vain.

Yes, often, when the night is deep-
For all the far forgetful years
A face looks star-like on my sleep,
And I awake with tears!

Nancy Byrd Turner

DRIFTWOOD BURNING

You who behold me,

You-the strangers,

The dwellers in the low lands

Here by the river

Can you indeed

Behold me, burning,

Without wonder, without dreaming?

The great flames

Are taking me;

They are consuming me;

Even as you—

Dwellers in the low lands

Are to return unto dust

In the end,

I, the driftwood burning,

Am going my way

To the nothingness

Of ashes in the wind.

Yet I go

Not slowly-not a slow fog
Creeping from one valley

To another

But flamingly,
Flamingly-

A light, a warmth, a signal,
Leaping out of the darkness!