“The mass is nothing. The number of men in a mass

Of men is nothing. The mass is no greater than

The singular man of the mass. Masses produce

Each one its paradigm.” There are not leaves

Enough to hide away the face of the man

Of this dead mass and that. The wind might fill

With faces as with leaves, be gusty with mouths,

And with mouths crying and crying day by day.

Could all these be ourselves, sounding ourselves,

Our faces circling round a central face

And then nowhere again, away and away?

Yet one face keeps returning (never the one),

The face of the man of the mass, never the face

That hermit on reef sable would have seen,

Never the naked politician taught

By the wise. There are not leaves enough to crown,

To cover, to crown, to cover—let it go—

The actor that will at last declaim our end.

The Dwarf

Now it is September and the web is woven.

The web is woven and you have to wear it.

The winter is made and you have to bear it,

The winter web, the winter woven, wind and wind,

For all the thoughts of summer that go with it

In the mind, pupa of straw, moppet of rags.

It is the mind that is woven, the mind that was jerked

And tufted in straggling thunder and shattered sun.

It is all that you are, the final dwarf of you,

That is woven and woven and waiting to be worn,

Neither as mask nor as garment but as a being,

Torn from insipid summer, for the mirror of cold,

Sitting beside your lamp, there citron to nibble

And coffee dribble … Frost is in the stubble.

Loneliness in Jersey City

The deer and the dachshund are one.

Well, the gods grow out of the weather.

The people grow out of the weather;

The gods grow out of the people.

Encore, encore, encore les dieux …

The distance between the dark steeple

And cobble ten thousand and three

Is more than a seven-foot inchworm

Could measure by moonlight in June.

Kiss, cats: for the deer and the dachshund

Are one. My window is twenty-nine three

And plenty of window for me.

The steeples are empty and so are the people,

There’s nothing whatever to see

Except Polacks that pass in their motors

And play concertinas all night.

They think that things are all right,

Since the deer and the dachshund are one.

Anything Is Beautiful if You Say It Is

Under the eglantine

The fretful concubine

Said, “Phooey! Phoo!”

She whispered, “Pfui!”

The demi-monde

On the mezzanine

Said, “Phooey!” too,

And a “Hey-de-i-do!”

The bee may have all sweet

For his honey-hive-o,

From the eglantine-o.

And the chandeliers are neat …

But their mignon, marblish glare!

We are cold, the parrots cried,

In a place so debonair.

The Johannisberger, Hans.

I love the metal grapes,

The rusty, battered shapes

Of the pears and of the cheese

And the window’s lemon light,