Puge Sx
9 E R S P E C T 1 V E S
Page Six 'PERS PECTI VES
COMFORT
The saddest hour
is that we passed,
Our sweetest flower
can never last.
The tumbleweed
tells the truest tale,
For wind's its creed
on the dustbowl trail.
The clock in the tower
slow tolls too fast;
Time's total power
makes a lost moment vast.
The bending reed
minds not the gale
3ut its small heed
is of small avail
And now headlines pound
as our tyrants ride-
Our ear's to the ground
and the past never lied.
-L. Rich
Cxcer,4
From "Das Standebatch" by Hans Sachs, with woodcnis by Jost Amman:
short rhymed descriptions of sixteenth century types, ranging from King and
Bishop to Shoemaker and Jester, each accompanied by a woodcut. The two
poems translated are from a series of five describing musicians.
THREE FIDDLERS
We're accomplished fiddlers, we play
To make heavy hearts our prey;
When we apply the bow a man's
Certain impulse is to dance.
*With directed grace, measured foot,
Lover encircles lover in suit
That hearts and dispositions must
Dance till they stir up the dust.
-rving J. Weiss
REBUTTAL
'See the lights blink everywhere:
Watch the lamps wink here and there.
Lights can mean so many things:
Ballroom banter, female flings;
Wedding marches, lingerings;
Poker parties; languishings.
Strangely certain, rare the doubt
That lights like these must soon go out.
Well-after all is said and done,
'Tis good night, farewell, adieu fun-
Each line must have its end of run.
Ashes, scrap and waste, gay one!
You know that sunlight seen by day?
Why, it must also go away.'
Your broom is busy with despair,
But dust swept up stays in the air.
-L. Rich
LALAGE PORTER
Her door is deaf to the wooing sea,
To the mew and scratch of wind on its face;
No lover, trembling, will press his key
To the lip in the door of this virgin place;
Yet sometimes wind forces the door: a grim hearth glows,
Logs kneel and shriek and cast up red eyes in the night,
The woman stands in the doorway, a mystery in clothes,
Her body burns darkly, but not for a lover's delight,
And she listens awhile to something that tapped on the door,
To something that spirited in on slippered feet of desire,
Only to creep in terror under the rugs on her floor,
.. Or hiss defiance behind the back of her fire.
-Lawrence P. Spingaris
THE SINGERS
Here is a fine song written down
That we've divided four voices on:
Tenor, decant, alto, and bass,
Fit for a text of courtly grace,
The sweetest concord kept in hand
By each trim voice that we command
And bearing to the heart release;
Amphion composed the piece.
-Irving J Weiss
THE STAIR
Perilous stair that did arrange
For each brief parting on your slant
And suit us for the subtle change
From friend to lover,
We whom your first step could not daunt
Have leaped the last step and over.
And sweet leave-taking that conveyed
News of a sorrow through each bond
You saw your term of duty fade
As Love stood master
And matched the first delights he found
With the last step, above disaster.
-E. Bresslen