Fragments

Fragments,
Refuse of the soul,
Coagulations of blood of the twentieth century:

Scars — interrupted cycle of early creation,
The historic religions of five centuries pulverized,
Science: cracks in the Parthenon,
Planck with his quantum theory merging
In the new confusion with Kepler and Kierkegaard —

Yet there were evenings that went in the colors
Of the Father of all, dissolute, far-gathering,
Inviolate in their silence
Of coursing blue,
Color of the introvert;
Then one relaxed
With the hands caught up round the knee
Peasant-wise, simple,
And resigned to the quiet drink
And the sound of the servants’ concertina —

And others
Provoked by inner scrolls of paper,
Vaulted pressures,
Constrictions in the building of style
Or pursuits of love.

Crises of expression and bouts of eroticism,
That is the man of today,
His inwardness a vacuum;
The survival of personality
Is preserved by the clothing
Which, where material is good, may last ten years.

The rest fragments,
Half tones,
Snatches of melody from neighbors’ houses,
Negro spirituals
Or Ave Marias.