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Allen Tate - RecordsAllen Tate - Records
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I.  A DREAM At nine years a sickly boy lay down At bedtime on a cot by mother`s bed And as the two darks merged the room became So strange it left the boy half dead: The boy-man on the Ox Road walked along The man he was to be and yet another, It seemed the grandfather of his mother, In knee-breeches silver-buckled like a song, His hair long and a cocked hat on his head, A straight back and slow dignity for stride; The road, red clay sun-cracked and baked, Led fearlessly through scrub pines on each side Hour after hour-the old road cracked and burned, The trees countless, and his thirst unslaked. Yet steadily with discipline like fate Without memory, too ancient to be learned, The man walked on and as if it were yesterday Came easily to a two-barred gate And stopped, and peering over a little way He saw a dog-run country store fallen-in, Deserted, but he said, "Who`s there?" And then a tall fat man with stringy hair And a manner that was innocent of sin, His galluses greasy, his eyes coldly gray, Appeared, and with a gravely learned air Spoke from the deep coherence of hell- The pines thundered, the sky blacked away, The man in breeches, all knowledge in his stare, A moment shuddered as the world fell. II.  A VISION At twenty years the strong boy walked alone Most fashionably dressed in the deserted park At midnight, where the far lights burned low And summer insects whined with little tone. There was a final and comfortable dark So that he walked deliberately slow; It was not far from home, he`d been to see His girl, who had sat silent and alone. Picking his way upon the patched brick walk, It being less dark near the street, he hastened And knew a sense of fine immediacy And then he heard some old forgotten talk At a short distance like a hundred miles Filling the air with its secrecy, And was afraid of all the living air: Now between steps with one heel lifted A stern command froze him to the spot And then a tall thin man with stringy hair, Fear in his eyes, his breath quick and hot, His arms lank and his neck a little twisted, Spoke, and the trees sifted the air: "I’m growing old," he said, "you have no choice," And said no more, but his bright eyes insisted Incalculably with his relentless voice.
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