War and Love/Sorcery of Words
SORCERY OF WORDS
"The poetry of winter"—these words, remembered from some æsthetic essay, return and return to my memory with an ironic persistence. It happened yesterday when the ground was sheeted in frost. The sky rose upon the pale green coverlet of dawn, bare trees silhouetted, frozen pools of water.
"The poetry of winter"—yes, that was poetry, the breath of gods—light glowing and changing, the motionless trees, clear air.
Yes, one can be hungry, sore, unshaven, dirty, eyes and head aching, limbs shivering, and yet love beauty.
From the depths I cry it, from the depths which echo with the true ironic phrase "the poetry of winter," from the depths I cry it!
You, who are clean and warm in the delicate leisure of a flower-scented library, strain your hearing, listen across the clamour of the age, for a whisper that comes to you so faintly, so ironically—"the poetry of winter!"
"The poetry of winter"—yes, that was poetry, the breath of gods—light glowing and changing, the motionless trees, clear air.
Yes, one can be hungry, sore, unshaven, dirty, eyes and head aching, limbs shivering, and yet love beauty.
From the depths I cry it, from the depths which echo with the true ironic phrase "the poetry of winter," from the depths I cry it!
You, who are clean and warm in the delicate leisure of a flower-scented library, strain your hearing, listen across the clamour of the age, for a whisper that comes to you so faintly, so ironically—"the poetry of winter!"