The 40s: The Story of a Decade (102 page)

In May, approaching the city, I

saw men fishing in the backwash

between the slips, where at the time

no ship lay. But though I stood

watching long enough, I didn’t see

one of them catch anything

more than quietness, to the formal

rhythms of casting—that slow dance.

—William Carlos Williams
May 18, 1940

Now as the train bears west,

Its rhythm rocks the earth,

And from my Pullman berth

I stare into the night

While others take their rest.

Bridges of iron lace,

A suddenness of trees,

A lap of mountain mist

All cross my line of sight,

Then a bleak wasted place,

And a lake below my knees.

Full on my neck I feel

The straining at a curve;

My muscles move with steel,

I wake in every nerve.

I watch a beacon swing

From dark to blazing bright;

We thunder through ravines

And gullies washed with light.

Beyond the mountain pass

Mist deepens on the pane;

We rush into a rain

That rattles double glass.

Wheels shake the roadbed stone,

The pistons jerk and shove,

I stay up half the night

To see the land I love.

—Theodore Roethke
June 8, 1940

Popcorn, peanuts, clams, and
gum—

We whose Kingdom has not come

Have mouths like men but still are dumb,

Who only deal with Here and Now

As circumstances may allow;

The sponsored program tells us how.

And yet the preachers tell the pews

What man misuses God can use:

Give us this day our daily news

That we may hear behind the brain

And through the sullen heat’s migraine

The atavistic voice of Cain:

“Who entitled you to spy

From your easy heaven? Am I

My brother’s keeper? Let him die.”

And God, in words we soon forget,

Answers through the radio set,

“The curse is on his forehead yet.”

Mass destruction, mass
disease—

We thank thee, Lord, upon our knees

That we were born in times like these,

When, with doom tumbling from the sky,

Each of us has an alibi

For doing nothing. Let him die.

Let him die, his death will be

A drop of water in the sea,

A journalist’s commodity.

Pretzels, crackers, chips, and
beer—

Death is something that we fear,

But it titillates the ear.

Anchovy, almond, ice, and
gin—

All shall die though none can win;

Let the
Untergang
begin.

Die the soldiers, die the Jews,

And all the breadless, homeless queues.

Give us this day our daily news.

—Louis MacNeice
January 4, 1941

Not the harsh voice in the microphone,

Not broken covenants or hate in armor,

    But the smile like a cocktail gone flat,

    The stifled yawn.

Not havoc from the skies, death underfoot,

The farmhouse gutted, or the massacred city,

    But the very nice couple retired on their savings,

    The weeded garden, the loveless bed.

House warm in winter, city free of vice,

Tree that outstood the equinoctial gales:

    Dry at the heart, they crashed

    On a windless day.

—Malcolm Cowley
November 22, 1941

The Sheep is blind; a passing Owl,

A surgeon of some local skill,

Has undertaken, for a fee,

The cure. A stump, his surgery,

Is licked clean by a Cat; his
tools—

A tooth, a thorn, some battered
nails—

He ranges by a shred of sponge,

And he is ready to begin.

Pushed forward through the gaping crowd,

“Wait,” bleats the Sheep. “Is all prepared?”

The Owl lists forceps, scalpel,
lancet—

The old Sheep interrupts his answer:

“These lesser things may all be well,

But tell me, friend, how goes the world?”

The Owl says blankly, “You will find it

Goes as it went ere you were blinded.”

“What?” cries the Sheep. “Then take your fee,

But cure some other fool, not me.

To witness that enormity

I would not give a blade of grass.

I am a Sheep, and not an Ass.”

—Randall Jarrell
December 13, 1941