FIRES - BOOK II

CONTENTS

The Crane
The Lighthouse
The Money
The Snow
Red Fox
The Ovens

Thanks are due to the editors of THE ENGLISH REVIEW, RHYTHM and THE NATION for leave to reprint some of these tales.

FIRES

THE CRANE

The biggest crane on earth, it lifts

Two hundred ton more easily

Than I can lift my heavy head:

And when it swings, the whole world shifts,

Or so, at least, it seems to me,

As, day and night, adream I lie

Upon my crippled back in bed,

And watch it up against the sky.

My mother, hunching in her chair,

Day-long, and stitching trousers there--

At three-and-three the dozen pair...

She'd sit all night, and stitch for me,

Her son, if I could only wear...

She never lifts her eyes to see

The big crane swinging through the air.

But, though she has no time to talk,

She always cleans the window-pane,

That I may see it, clear and plain:

And, as I watch it move, I walk

Who never walked in all my days...

And, often, as I dream agaze,

I'm up and out: and it is I

Who swing the crane across the sky.

Right up above the wharf I stand,

And touch a lever with my hand,

To lift a bunch of girders high,

A truck of coal, a field of grain

In sacks, a bundle of big trees,

Or beasts, too frightened in my grip

To wonder at their skiey trip:

And then I let the long arm dip

Without a hitch, without a slip,

To set them safely in the ship

That waits to take them overseas.

My mother little dreams it's I,

Up there, as tiny as a fly,

Who stand above the biggest crane,

And swing the ship-loads through the sky;

While she sits, hunching in her chair,

Day-long, and stitching trousers there--

At three-and-three the dozen pair.

And sometimes when it turns me dizzy,

I lie and watch her, ever busy;

And wonder at a lot of things

I never speak to her about:

I wonder why she never sings

Like other people on the stair...

And why, whenever she goes out

Upon a windy day, the air

Makes her sad eyes so strangely bright...

And if the colour of her hair

Was brown like mine, or always white...

And why, when through the noise of feet

Of people passing in the street,

She hears a dog yelp or sheep bleat,

She always starts up in her chair,

And looks before her with strange stare,

Yet, seeing nothing anywhere:

Though, right before her, through the sky,

The biggest crane goes swinging by.

But, it's a lucky day and rare

When she's the time to talk with me...

Though, only yesterday, when night

Shut out, at last, the crane from sight...

She, in her bed, and thinking I

Was sleeping--though I watch the sky,

At times, till it is morning-light,

And ships are waiting to unload--

I heard her murmur drowsily:

"The pit-pat-pattering of feet,

All night, along the moonlit road...

A yelp, a whistle, and a bleat...

The bracken's deep and soft and