  IN the fruit-ripe heat of afternoon Each muslined school-child seems a moon; And in the tents, those lazy waves From out the echoing coral caves Of light, like Venus from the sea The clown seems, blond hair floating free. The switchback, with its noisy run, Is turning like the wooden sun As he rides on his rocking-horse All Struwwelpeter-haired; we course On sands as moist as sugar-cane, And the Fat Woman’s face and mane Are sometimes dappled by the shade Into the likeness of some maid Long dead ... those golden shadows fell On Cressid or Alaciel. The beggar-tunes on horseback ride, With cheeks as pink as Angels’,—glide Through Babylon, Chicago, Troy, And Black Man’s Land. Each golden boy Blows silver trumpets over these, As clear as apples on the trees. I will go home and pack my pride, Then with these beggar-tunes I’ll ride— For all the hymns I try to sing Are but Love’s beggars shivering In thorny thickets where one sees Stars grow for wild wet raspberries. |
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