“My beauty!” she exulted, “my beauty has returned! Arabella, you may get the comb and continue in the making of my royal pigtails. Neither my nose nor my chin shines. I am truly beautiful.” And she rejoiced until the tears flowed down her face, making furrows in their whiteness. And thereafter each morning the princess and her handmaidens could be seen prostrate upon the cliff, solemnly rubbing their noses in its smooth dust. SENSATIONS OF SWINBURNING I fly through the air ... Ah where, tell me where Shall I land, when I drop? Shall I splash? Shall I flop? When I plunge in the sea ... Will the waves cover me? Pause I here on the brink ... Will I float? Will I sink Through the green, glassy waves ... Through the myriad of deep...? When I die, shall I sleep ... In the murm’ring sea caves? Pray, is life fair enough...? Shall I plunge from the bluff Take the ultimate jump? And land there ... ... with a thump? DAY DREAMS “We had a table cloth, as white as the paint on the wall beside my kitchen stove, when it was new, five years ago. Ice tinkled in the glasses, but I saw every glass cloud up to hide the ice, because it costs an awful lot these days: They brought the turkey in,--it must have weighed twelve pounds. Its brown breast was so fat it seemed about to burst. It sizzled. Um. Then came the cranberry, all red and clear and quivery from its mold. A pianola played all the time, and we danced on the swell white tiles up to the cashier’s desk. “I had on a picture hat, black velvet, trimmed with fur and cloth of gold, just like a movie star--that’s how I felt. Say, ain’t it queer, the things you dream about?” A half a loaf of bread lay awry on a crumby and rumpled and mended table cloth where the breakfast dishes were stacked in crooked piles. The room was dark ... an oil stove in the corner made the hot air heavier. On the tubs, wrapped in towels, a tiny baby lay. The mother was speaking: and trying to wipe the wisps of hair out of her heavy eyes. She said: “Say, ain’t it queer the things you dream about?” RAIN IN THE CITY AT NIGHT The streets are black. They shine. And every light, From lamp-post and from store, Makes a golden path Across the street. Drops of rain Spatter, And trickle down The glowing window panes. Red and yellow, With silver frosting. That’s all that I can see In the windows. CHRISTMAS