Glenway Wescott. The Poet at Night-fall. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

The Poet at Night-fall

By Glenway Wescott


From “Still-hunt” I SEE no equivalents
For that which I see,
Among words.

And sounds are nowhere repeated,
Vowel for vocal wind	5
Or shaking leaf.

Ah me, beauty does not enclose life,
But blows through it—
Like that idea, the wind,

Which is unseen and useless,	10
Even superseded upon
The scarred sea;

Which goes and comes
Altering every aspect—
The poplar, the splashing crest—	15

Altering all, in that moment
When it is not
Because we see it not.

But who would hang
Like a wind-bell	20
On a porch where no wind ever blows?