Samuel Roth

DUST of the noon-day world

Scattering over the land—

Dust from the rags of the world

Falls on the dusk of my hand;

Out of the east and west,

Out of the north and south,

Over my brow and eyes,

Over my hands and mouth.

What will you have from me

You have not taken yet?

Take—or it may be late;

Take—or I may forget.

This is the time of times,

Dear, for your gathering.

Quick! for the cross-eyed crow

Flaps with her fatal wing.

III

Where Westminster Abbey shades

Lean on narrow green-leaf glades,

I, a brother to the grass,

Stand and watch the sunlight pass.

One and one more century

Here passed by so quietly.

One more, two more centuries,

Come—for all the use there is.