In the year following that he lost his illusions with reference to a musical career and returned to an original intention to eat bread by the sweat of teaching school. It is to be remembered that he went to college first with the purpose of taking a medical course but it took him only a day or two to decide better. He lives in New York City and is now twenty-four and married. THE RETURN I Once more, listening to the wind and rain, Once more, you and I, and above the hurting sound Of these comes back the throbbing of remembered rain, Treasured rain falling on dark ground. Once more, huddling birds upon the leaves And summer trembling on a withered vine. And once more, returning out of pain, The friendly ghost that was your love and mine. II Darkness brings the jungle to our room: The throb of rain is the throb of muffled drums. Darkness hangs our room with pendulums Of vine and in the gathering gloom Our walls recede into a denseness of Surrounding trees. This is a night of love Retained from those lost nights our fathers slept In huts; this is a night that must not die. Let us keep the dance of rain our fathers kept And tread our dreams beneath the jungle sky. III And now the downpour ceases. Let us go back once more upon the glimmering leaves And as the throbbing of the drums increases Shake the grass and dripping boughs of trees. A dry wind stirs the palm; the old tree grieves. _Time has charged the years: the old days have returned._ Let us dance by metal waters burned With gold of moon, let us dance With naked feet beneath the young spice trees. What was that light, that radiance On your face?--something I saw when first You passed beneath the jungle tapestries? A moment we pause to quench our thirst Kneeling at the water’s edge, the gleam Upon your face is plain: you have wanted this. Let us go back and search the tangled dream And as the muffled drum-beats throb and miss Remember again how early darkness comes To dreams and silence to the drums. IV Let us go back into the dusk again, Slow and sad-like following the track Of blowing leaves and cool white rain Into the old gray dream, let us go back. Our walls close about us we lie and listen To the noise of the street, the storm and the driven birds. A question shapes your lips, your eyes glisten Retaining tears, but there are no more words. A BLACK MAN TALKS OF REAPING I have sown beside all waters in my day. I planted deep, within my heart the fear That wind or fowl would take the grain away. I planted safe against this stark, lean year. I scattered seed enough to plant the land In rows from Canada to Mexico But for my reaping only what the hand Can hold at once is all that I can show. Yet what I sowed and what the orchard yields My brother’s sons are gathering stalk and root, Small wonder then my children glean in fields They have not sown, and feed on bitter fruit. TO A YOUNG GIRL LEAVING THE HILL COUNTRY