Man Against the Sky: A Book of Poems

<h2> Eros Turannos </h2> <p>She fears him, and will always ask<br/> What fated her to choose him;<br/> She meets in his engaging mask<br/> All reasons to refuse him;<br/> But what she meets and what she fears<br/> Are less than are the downward years,<br/> Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs<br/> Of age, were she to lose him.<br/> <br/> Between a blurred sagacity<br/> That once had power to sound him,<br/> And Love, that will not let him be<br/> The Judas that she found him,<br/> Her pride assuages her almost,<br/> As if it were alone the cost.&mdash;<br/> He sees that he will not be lost,<br/> And waits and looks around him.<br/> <br/> A sense of ocean and old trees<br/> Envelops and allures him;<br/> Tradition, touching all he sees,<br/> Beguiles and reassures him;<br/> And all her doubts of what he says<br/> Are dimmed of what she knows of days&mdash;<br/> Till even prejudice delays<br/> And fades, and she secures him.<br/> <br/> The falling leaf inaugurates<br/> The reign of her confusion;<br/> The pounding wave reverberates<br/> The dirge of her illusion;<br/> And home, where passion lived and died,<br/> Becomes a place where she can hide,<br/> While all the town and harbor side<br/> Vibrate with her seclusion.<br/> <br/> We tell you, tapping on our brows,<br/> The story as it should be,&mdash;<br/> As if the story of a house<br/> Were told, or ever could be;<br/> We'll have no kindly veil between<br/> Her visions and those we have seen,&mdash;<br/> As if we guessed what hers have been,<br/> Or what they are or would be.<br/> <br/> Meanwhile we do no harm; for they<br/> That with a god have striven,<br/> Not hearing much of what we say,<br/> Take what the god has given;<br/> Though like waves breaking it may be,<br/> Or like a changed familiar tree,<br/> Or like a stairway to the sea<br/> Where down the blind are driven.<br/></p> <p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"></SPAN></p> <br/> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />