Verses by a Ten-Year-Old Poet

In Which Some of the Major Experiences of Life Find an Anticipatory Expression

NATHALIA CRANE

THE FLATHOUSE ROOF

ILINGER on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine.

But my heart is all a-flutter like the washing on the line.

I long to be a heroine, I long to be serene, But my feet, they dance in answer to a distant tambourine.

And, oh! the dreams of ecstasy. Oh! Babylon and Troy.

I've a hero in the basement, he's the janitor's red-haired boy.

There's the music of his mallet and the jigging of his saw;

I wonder what he's making on that lovely cellar floor?

He loves me, for he said it when we met upon the stair,

And that is why I'm on the roof to get a breath of air.

He said it! Oh! He said it! And the only thing I said

Was, "Roger Jones, I like you, for your hair is very red."

We parted when intruders came a-tramping through the hall;

He's got my pocket handkerchief and I have got his ball.

And so it is I'm on the roof. Oh! Babylon and Troy!

I'm very sure that I'm in love with someone else's boy.

Alone, upon the starry heights, I'm dancing on a green,

To the jingling and the jangling of a distant tambourine.

To the stamping of a hammer and the jigging of a saw,

And the secret sort of feeling I'm in love forever more.

Do you think it's any wonder, with the moonlight so divine,

That my heart is all a-flutter like the washing on the line?

THE BLIND GIRL

IN the darkness, who would answer for the colour of a rose,

Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes?

In the darkness who would answer, in the darkness who would care,

If the odour of the roses and the winged things were there?

In the darkness who would cavil o'er the question of a line,

Since the darkness holds all loveliness, beyond the mere design?

(Several lines omitted)

LOVE

OW Marjory is seven years,

And I am nine and more.

We went a-strolling after cream Into a Flatbush store.

The handsome clerk said "Ladies, yes, I'll serve you with a rush."

He looked so very scrumptious that We both began to blush.

He smiled at us, we smiled at him, And then we went away:

We were so captivated, yes,

That we forgot to pay.

Of course we could have sauntered back, And settled, don't you see,

But oh, we could not stain romance With monetary fee.

THE THREE-CORNERED LOT

SAID the farmer to his daughter: "When I die, as like as not,

I'll leave to you the title to the old threecornered lot.

"'Tis the vale beyond the pastures, never any good to me,

With the huckleberry bushes and the silver maple-tree.

"Fair scenery for song birds, but too small to cultivate;

Yet there's a wall around it, like a foolish man's estate."

Fell a blight upon the corn fields; stood an empty barn and cot;

The farmer's holdings dwindled to the old three-cornered lot.

He saw his home dismantled; learned that permanence, alas,

Is the portrait of a swallow painted on the shadow grass.

Came his daughter as a seeress, and she said: "As like as not,

I'm giving back the title to the old three-cornered lot.

"'Tis just a bit of scenery too sweet to cultivate,

Yet there's a wall around it, like a nobleman's estate;

"There arc huckleberry bushes and a length of garden loam,

And the stone walls of the foolish man wherewith to build a home."

MY HUSBANDS

I HEAR my husbands marching The aeons all adown: The shepherd boys and princes— From cavern unto crown.

I hear, in soft recession, The praise they give to me; I hear them chant my titles From all antiquity.

But never do 1 answer, I might be overheard; Lose Love's revised illusions By one unhappy word.

I sit, a silent siren, And count my cavaliers; The men I wed in wisdom, The boys who taught me tears.

To some I gave devotion, To some I kinked the knee; But there was one old wizard Who laid his spell on me.

He showed me like a master That one rose makes a gown; That looking up to Heaven Is merely looking down.

He marked me for the circle, Made magic in my eyes; He won me by revealing The truth in all his lies.

So, when I see that wizard Among the marchers dim, I make the full court curtsy In fealty to him.