For Eager Lovers (Taggard collection)/Ice age
ICE AGE
ICE AGE
Noiselessly the planets will blow by,Like smoke, like breath, like driven snow;Frost-bitten suns on on, on on will blowOver earth's curve, the moons, like birds, will fly.Making no noise and only vague shadow.
And spider snow will spin and spinA tangle of frost to snare earth in.
Little earth, then,Will house few men:Little earth, shrunken—No longer drunkenPurple, splendid, roistering earth;Little earth hungWith pearls of seas,Little earth shivering,About to freeze.
And through her veins, caught in this web,Life and color and sound will ebb.
There will be faint tints, noneFrom the center of the sun.
There will be light noises, noSound harsher than snow.
Never a sound of thunder or river,Torrent or stone—Only vague breath from the old life-giver,Making her ownFinal, lingering filigreeOf frost, blownOn the glass of the sky, in planet and tree,An icicle moon, a torrent and threeGlittering stars half-grown;A slight toneRippling sound into the stilling river,The crisp sea.
And spider snow will spin and spinA tangle of cold to catch earth in.
Morning's red yawn,Evening's pain,Never will startle the earth, then;Pure from her stain,Her garments discarded or cleansed by the cold clean hands of the rain.
A leaf's lines, a stem's tints,Make in icy places, prints;Trace of a foot, of a hooked claw,Settled to stone since the last thaw; Minnows bent with waveringAlong a pool's ice-edges cling.
All the beautiful, braveColors that curled in the wave—Flooding ground purple and crimsoning air—Are battered and rigid and bare.
Earth, bled of her sap,Too stiff to unfoldThe sprouted moldIn the cleft of her lap;
While circles woven nearer nowHang cold broodings on her brow.
Still, then crackling—once more still—Icy feet come up the hill.
Pushing back the granite frightMen sing morning and sing night!
Only singing matters now,With stark birds on every bough.
Carolling for morning, carolling for noon:Stiff tasks done with a tiny tune,And never a noteIn timbre any bigger than the tone of a flute—Little sounds only, coming in your throat,And the big sounds mute.
Thinner, rarer and more shrill,As silence whitens on the hill;Whistling in daylight to keep up nerve,While blue whiteness comes up the curve.
Bravado of sparse breathBlown straight at death;Voices in silences, swooping like birds,Voices and carolling,Warm words.Flung at the sky's stiff stare—Into the brittle air—A laugh like a torch's flare. . .
Desperate gaiety and games,And pleasantries for comfort like wan flames,Will be their only way,For, in the midst of play—Pause—a long sway,Something faltering underneath,The briefGasp of the breath, eye's blur,Blunder of mortal fingers, words too thick to say,Slight motions underneath the grayFaces of cloud,And carolling, carolling, carolling loud,To keep the cold away.
Some will slouch,Lazy, brave;Others crouchIn a hidden cave, Hearing near and hearing farHeavy steps from feet of stoneTread the warping fields alone—Hearing far and hearing nearThe wind's hiss in earth's ear—FeelGround fall, and ground reel,Brittle footsteps stealUp the hill and down the cliff,Touching, snapping, making stiff;While granite footsteps, grinding numb,Up the little hollow come.
Not to give in,Men will go onMaking vague love, kissing wanFaces. Trying to makeChildren with women,Trying to wakeHints of old hunger—bitterly breakFlesh that turns marble-hard—trying to takeLite in their arms for their brief comfort's sake.
Women will not move as moveThose confident of love:Hurt, like a torpid snake,Agony drags and stirs but cannot wake.
So they will pass their days,Fostering a child or two—giving namesOf half-remembered music, clamor, sound;Over hunched shoulders peering round For cold that creeping comes;Over and over saying tropic words,And calling babies after jungle-birds.
They will be cheered with each new child;And the weirdPall of the sky, and the wildTangle of hooped moons piledLike rubbish in the pallid west,Won't trouble them so muchWith what they feared:They'll touchCautiously their children and their lovers—clutch Anything alive.
Not to give in,Men will go on,Cold to the chin—Light-stepping for fear,Feeling the thinIce of the air crack under the weightOf feather-poised earth, and the nearNuzzle of snow, and the wind's spear.
Smoke from fireAnd ice's smokeLunge together,Fight and choke,Plunge and throttle and fight, and allBlue smoke vanishes. Ashes fall.
Some will call the skimming planets, cranesGoing south for winter—nothing more;And some will sow the icy fields with grains,Search barren pools,Harvest sea-weed, plant a pebble, orPlow snow with patient tools.
And they will never cease to look for spring:Climb endless hills,And turn from east to west and west to east;Imagining the leastShreds of far color,Supposing that they feelWarmth on their faces, following the wheelCircling on its axis, they will search the skyFor sign of thaw or rain, or any change—Looking for birds, where only dead stars flyAnd calling snows, and deepening snow falls, strange.
In tightening silence, they will search for sound;Beneath the smother of the skyFind tangled iron, as the first men foundIron and more than mortal sinew in the ground.
And they will worship symbols of sure things—Sure things, and tangible, cut clear.Forgetting rust, they will keep iron near,And try to pour into an iron moldThe past's white fire, perishing with cold. And out of iron's touch upon their palmsWill come a song.And they will seize stone hammers, make a clang,Sing as they never sang—Wild, assaulting, strong;(Clang, cold clang),Stone on stone, with iron bits,Clamped together, (Clang, clang),Iron twisted till it fits—Notched and jammed and bolted fast—Rearing heavily and slowOne monument against snow;A monument to last, a tomb to holdYellow pollen of all pastAgainst the cold.
Until, in the end, comes twilight glimmer:Voices, faces, motions dimmer,Breath as lowAs the all-covering snow;Even the evening and the morning laidCheek to cheek, will fade—Radiance and sound made oneAnd quieted and blended into none.