The Balcony

Summary

Naples

Up there, bunched up as if some painter'd posed them,

they fill the narrow balcony, confined

and bound together, a bouquet arranged

from older — and more oval and unlined —

faces ideal at dusk and looking kind

and radiant — just as if they'd never changed.

Those sisters propped on one another lean

in longing, each for each; what they exude

is hopeless distance that has come between

them — yearning solitude on solitude.

And then, with solemn, grave reserve: the brother —

a man locked in and full of Destiny.

But in a calm, unguarded moment, he

goes unremarked, looking just like his mother.

And in their midst — gaunt, weary, and forlorn;

for many years unlike them all,

and unapproachable — the mask she's worn:

Old Woman, Cold (caught as if mid-fall

by one hand, while — as though it meant to slide

on further down — the other pallid, dried,

and withered hand hangs on her dress beside

a child-face, last of all this set.

The sketch attempted has been left to fade,

crossed out by marks the rails made, then re-made;

left undetermined, as if nothing yet).

Auswanderer-Schiff

Neapel

Denk daß einer heiß und glühend flüchte,

und die Sieger wären hinterher,

und auf einmal machte der

Flüchtende kurz, unerwartet, kehr

gegen Hunderte —: so sehr

warf sich das Erglühende der Früchte

immer wieder an das blaue Meer,

als das langsame Orangenboot

sie vorübertrug bis an das große

graue Schiff, zu dem, von Stoß zu Stoße,

andre Boote Fische hoben, Brot, —

während es, voll Hohn, in seinem Schoße

Kohlen aufnahm, offen wie der Tod.