The Solitary Author:James Oppenheim Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE SHIP OF SKIES The ship of skies Foundered in the west And its blazing prow Sank off some thundering shore beyond the silence And dark green of... more » the world. Or like ten rivers The thin-spread clouds ran Converging with vermilion and purple waters On the western ledge And pouring in flame over the world's edge . . . In those bright regions Sails were blown beyond our trouble And some great action Moved like song . . . But here on tired Earth The heavy mist filled the green runnels of valleys; The weary air Grew dark around the thrush's aching throat; The house Gloomed itself silent and black . . . The day Drowsed off to sleep. MIST I In mist Monday Looms, A world groping its way on a soundless, Sightless sea: Breaking the mist like a ship Stopped by bells . . . No ripples: No rain-patter: No hum of engines: A dead ship On the dead sea ... But on deck voices Clear, querulous, human. In the becalmed air of these hills A strayed flicker pipes, A frog grunts, Footsteps sound on gravel: But the mountain-garden Lies at the bottom of a motionless ocean, And Earth is an underworld. The forest has given itself to the arms of whiteness, And the hills wander like sheep. In mist Monday Looms, A giant ship stopped on a soundless, Sightless sea. In mist the soul Plaintively whispers . . . " There are tears too many," it whispers, " And fears too many ; I am weary of the ever-striving, I am tired of tears . . . I am weary of the groping and the stumbling On the gray graves of the years . . . " There is memory of girls like moths in the twilight On the old city ways, Memory of the gray twilight of the old days: Memory of the han...« less