Part 7 (1/2)

Of caterpillars Fabre tells how day after day Around the rim of a vast earth pot they crawled, Tricked thither as they filed shuffling out one morn Head to tail when the common hunger called.

Head to tail in a heaving ring day after day, Night after slow night, the starving mommets crept, Each following each, head to tail, day after day, An unbroken ring of hunger--then it was snapt.

I thought of you, long-heaving, horned green caterpillars, As I lay awake. My thoughts crawled each after each, Crawling at night each after each on the same nerve, An unbroken ring of thoughts too sore for speech.

Over and over and over and over again The same hungry thoughts and the hopeless same regrets, Over and over the same truths, again and again In a heaving ring returning the same regrets.

CHANGE

I am that creature and creator who Loosens and reins the waters of the sea, Forming the rocky marge anon anew.

I stir the cold b.r.e.a.s.t.s of antiquity, And in the soft stone of the pyramid Move wormlike; and I flutter all those sands Whereunder lost and soundless time is hid.

I shape the hills and valleys with these hands, And darken forests on their naked sides, And call the rivers from the vexing springs, And lead the blind winds into deserts strange.

And in firm human bones the ill that hides Is mine, the fear that cries, the hope that sings.

I am that creature and creator, Change.

WILFRID GIBSON

FIRE

In each black tile a mimic fire's aglow, And in the hearthlight old mahogany, Ripe with stored suns.h.i.+ne that in Mexico Poured like gold wine into the living tree Summer on summer through a century, Burns like a crater in the heart of night: And all familiar things in the ingle-light Glow with a secret strange intensity.

And I remember hidden fires that burst Suddenly from the midnight while men slept, Long-smouldering rages in the darkness nursed That to an instant ravening fury leapt, And the old terror menacing evermore A crumbling world with fiery molten core.

BARBARA FELL

Stephen, wake up! There's some one at the gate.

Quick, to the window ... Oh, you'll be too late!

I hear the front door opening quietly.

Did you forget, last night, to turn the key?

A foot is on the stairs--nay, just outside The very room--the door is opening wide...

Stephen, wake up, wake up! Who's there? Who's there?