The clotted earth piled roughly up about The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing, Short words in swordlike Latin -- and a rout Of dreams most impotent, unwearying. Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse, The terrible bareness of the soul's last house. Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room Soup should be heralded with a mellow horn, Blowing clear notes of gold against the stars; Strange entrees with a jangle of glass bars Fantastically alive with subtle scorn; Fish, by a plopping, gurgling rush of waters, Clear, vibrant waters, beautifully austere; Roast, with a thunder of drums to stun the ear, A screaming fife, a voice from ancient slaughters! Over the salad let the woodwinds moan; Then the green silence of many watercresses; Dessert, a balalaika, strummed alone; Coffee, a slow, low singing no passion stresses; Such are my thoughts as -- clang! crash! bang! -- I brood And gorge the sticky mess these fools call food! The Hemp (A Virginia Legend.) The Planting of the Hemp. Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas (Black is the gap below the plank) From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees (Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank). His fear was on the seaport towns, The weight of his hand held hard the downs. And the merchants cursed him, bitter and black, For a red flame in the sea-fog's wrack Was all of their ships that might come back. For all he had one word alone, One clod of dirt in their faces thrown, "The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!" His name bestrode the seas like Death. The waters trembled at his breath. This is the tale of how he fell, Of the long sweep and the heavy swell, And the rope that dragged him down to hell. The fight was done, and the gutted ship, Stripped like a shark the sea-gulls strip, Lurched blindly, eaten out with flame, Back to the land from where she came, A skimming horror, an eyeless shame. And Hawk stood upon his quarter-deck, And saw the sky and saw the wreck. Below, a butt for sailors' jeers, White as the sky when a white squall nears, Huddled the crowd of the prisoners. Over the bridge of the tottering plank, Where the sea shook and the gulf yawned blank, They shrieked and struggled and dropped and sank, Pinioned arms and hands bound fast. One girl alone was left at last. Sir Henry Gaunt was a mighty lord. He sat in state at the Council board; The governors were as nought to him. From one rim to the other rim Of his great plantations, flung out wide Like a purple cloak, was a full month's ride. Life and death in his white hands lay, And his only daughter stood at bay, Trapped like a hare in the toils that day.