Miscellany. I

All night we argued, argued. And all night
A chimney swallow beat around the room
Dark-winged and frantic. At the crack of light
One of us, yawning, rose and sealed his doom.

The night was charmed; if any single star
Had swerved, we would have stormed the darkness, all,
And found the dusky stable door ajar,
And crowded trembling to the ox’s stall.

Beneath these stones are lost the age-old tracks
Of wolves that hunted here in pairs and packs,
Rending each other and the weak at will:
Sometimes we almost hear them snarling, still.

’These foreigners with strange and avid faces
Crowding our shores, marring our pleasant places . . .
They must be curbed. . . .’ So mused King Powhatan —
Hundred-per-cent, red-blood American.

One of the children at the looms is quick
Of step: she learned that, chasing butterflies
When she was young and foolish. It’s a trick
That serves her well, now she is old and wise.

Sometimes at dawn in dreams, a boy again,
Along a level where the fog has thinned,
Bareback he rides with never spur nor rein
His kicking colt, Republic, down the wind.