There flows the river, and it seems asleep
So far away,
Yet I remember whip of wave and roar
Of wind that rose and smote against the oar,
Smote and retreated,
Proud but defeated,
While I rejoiced and rowed into the brine,
Drawing on wet and heavy -straining line
The great cod quivering from the deep
As counterplay.
What is the solace of these hills and vales
That rise and fall?
What is there glorious in the greenwood glen,
Or twittering thrush or wing of darting wren?
Give me the gusty,
Raucous and rusty
Call of the sea gull in the echoing sky,
The wild shriek of the winds that cannot die,
Give me the life that follows the bending sails,
Or none at all!
ERNEST BENSHIMOL
A BANQUET
ONE MEMORY FROM SOCRATES
AFTER the song the love, and after the love the play,
Flute girl and pretty boy blowing
Bubbles of sparkling
Wine into darkling
Beards of a former austerity, stern even now, but
Fast growing
Foolish, with less of a stately
Reserve that held them sedately.
Oh Zeus, what a sight! With the wine dripping off it,
The grin of an ass on a bald-pated prophet.
After the feast the night, and after the night the day,
Fool and philosopher stirring
With the day dawning,
Stretching and yawning,
While in each wine-throbbing, desolated brain is the
Wheeling and whirring
Of thousands of bats, that the slaking
Of throats will not hinder from aching,
No wine for the brow that is beating to bursting,
But water at morning is quench for the thirsting!
ERNEST BENSHIMOL
SONG
OUT of one heart the birds and I together,
Earth hushed in twilight,
Low through the live-oaks hung heavy with silver,
Gemmed with the sky-light,
Under the great wet star
Shaking with light, we jar
Lute-voiced the silence with intervaled music.
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