You cannot hold spirit round the arms but it takes lies for wings, turns poplar leaf and flutters off—leaving the old stalk desolate. There’s much pious pointing at the sky but on the other side few know how youth’s won again, the pesty spirit shed each ten years for more skin room. And who’ll say what’s pious or not pious or how I’ll sing praise to God? Many a morning, were’t not for a cup of coffee, a man would be lonesome enough no matter how his child gambols. And for the boy? There’s no craft in him; it’s this or that, the thing’s done and tomorrow’s another day. But   if you push him too close, try for the butterflies, you’ll have a devil at the table. 3 One need not be hopelessly cast down because he cannot cut onyx into a ring to fit a lady’s finger. You hang your head. There is neither onyx nor porphyry on these roads—only brown dirt. For all that, one may see his face in a flower along it—even in this light. Eyes only and for a flash only. Oh, keep the neck bent, plod with the back to the split dark! Walk in the curled mudcrusts to one side, hands hanging. Ah well.… Thoughts are trees! Ha, ha, ha, ha! Leaves load the branches and upon them white night sits kicking her heels against the stars. * * * * * _A poem can be made of anything. This is a portrait of a disreputable farm hand made out of the stuff of his environment._ XXI. 1 There’s the bathtub. Look at it, caustically rejecting its smug proposal. Ponder removedly the herculean task of a bath. There’s much cameraderie in filth but it’s no’ that. And change is lightsome but it’s not that either. Fresh linen with a dab here, there of the wet paw serves me better. Take a stripling stroking chin-fuzz, match his heart against that of grandpa watching his silver wane. When these two are compatible I’ll plunge in. But where’s the edge lifted between sunlight and moonlight. Where does lamplight cease to nick it? Here’s hot water. * * * * * _It is the mark of our civilization that all houses today include a room for the relief and washing of the body, a room ingeniously appointed with water-vessels of many and curious sorts. There is nothing in antiquity to equal this._ 2