To Orrick Johns

The tread-mill roar that ever tramps between The smirched geometries of this stern place, Sweeps vainly on your drowsily reckless face Lost in a swirl of raped loves barely seen. Sometimes your keenly pagan lips are raised By thoughts too tense to shape themselves in speech: Still, wounded thoughts that silently beseech Your life to make them impotent and dazed. O tangled and half-strangled child, you shrink For ever from yourself, and wear a pose Of nimble and impenetrable pride. Yet sometimes, wavering on the sudden brink Of jaded bitterness, you drop your clothes And weave a prayer into your naked stride.