The man leads Dan up a black alley. The alley-air is thick and moist with smells of garbage and wet trash. In the morning, singing niggers will drive by and ring their gongs... Heavy with the scent of rancid flowers and with the scent of fight. The crowd, pressing forward, is a hollow roar. Eyes of houses, soft girl-eyes, glow reticently upon the hubbub and blink out. The man stops. Takes off his hat and coat. Dan, having forgotten him, keeps going on. PRAYER My body is opaque to the soul. Driven of the spirit, long have I sought to temper it unto the spirit’s longing, But my mind, too, is opaque to the soul. A closed lid is my soul’s flesh-eye. O Spirits of whom my soul is but a little finger, Direct it to the lid of its flesh-eye. I am weak with much giving. I am weak with the desire to give more. (How strong a thing is the little finger!) So weak that I have confused the body with the soul, And the body with its little finger. (How frail is the little finger.) My voice could not carry to you did you dwell in stars, O Spirits of whom my soul is but a little finger.. HARVEST SONG I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown. All my oats are cradled. But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them. And I hunger. I crack a grain between my teeth. I do not taste it. I have been in the fields all day. My throat is dry. I hunger. My eyes are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time. I am a blind man who stares across the hills, seeking stack’d fields of other harvesters. It would be good to see them .. crook’d, split, and iron-ring’d handles of the scythes. It would be good to see them, dust-caked and blind. I hunger. (Dusk is a strange fear’d sheath their blades are dull’d in.) My throat is dry. And should I call, a cracked grain like the oats ... eoho— I fear to call. What should they hear me, and offer me their grain, oats, or wheat, or corn? I have been in the fields all day. I fear I could not taste it. I fear knowledge of my hunger. My ears are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time. I am a deaf man who strains to hear the calls of other harvesters whose throats are also dry. It would be good to hear their songs .. reapers of the sweet-stalk’d cane, cutters of the corn .. even though their throats cracked and the strangeness of their voices deafened me. I hunger. My throat is dry. Now that the sun has set and I am chilled, I fear to call. (Eoho, my brothers!) I am a reaper. (Eoho!) All my oats are cradled. But I am too fatigued to bind them. And I hunger. I crack a grain. It has no taste to it. My throat is dry...