"When Sadie wants she takes…
  Better than Bennie with his Christian woman…
  A man is not so like,
  If they should fight,
  To call her Jew…"

  Yet when she lies in bed
  And the soft babble of their talk comes to her
  And the silences…
  I know she never sleeps
  Till the keen draught blowing up the empty hall
  Edges through her transom
  And she hears his foot on the first stairs.

  Sarah and Anna live on the floor above.
  Sarah is swarthy and ill-dressed.
  Life for her has no ritual.
  She would break an ideal like an egg for the winged thing at the core.
  Her mind is hard and brilliant and cutting like an acetylene torch.
  If any impurities drift there, they must be burnt up as in a clear flame.
  It is droll that she should work in a pants factory.
  —Yet where else… tousled and collar awry at her olive throat.
  Besides her hands are unkempt.
  With English… and everything… there is so little time.
  She reads without bias—
  Doubting clamorously—
  Psychology, plays, science, philosophies—
  Those giant flowers that have bloomed and withered, scattering their seed…
  —And out of this young forcing soil what growth may come—
       what amazing blossomings.

  Anna is different.
  One is always aware of Anna, and the young men turn their heads
       to look at her.
  She has the appeal of a folk-song
  And her cheap clothes are always in rhythm.
  When the strike was on she gave half her pay.
  She would give anything—save the praise that is hers
  And the love of her lyric body.

  But Sarah's desire covets nothing apart.
  She would share all things…
  Even her lover.

III

  The sturdy Ghetto children
  March by the parade,
  Waving their toy flags,
  Prancing to the bugles—
  Lusty, unafraid…
  Shaking little fire sticks
  At the night—
  The old blinking night—
  Swerving out of the way,
  Wrapped in her darkness like a shawl.

  But a small girl
  Cowers apart.
  Her braided head,
  Shiny as a black-bird's
  In the gleam of the torch-light,
  Is poised as for flight.
  Her eyes have the glow
  Of darkened lights.

  She stammers in Yiddish,
  But I do not understand,
  And there flits across her face
  A shadow
  As of a drawn blind.
  I give her an orange,
  Large and golden,
  And she looks at it blankly.
  I take her little cold hand and try to draw her to me,
  But she is stiff…
  Like a doll…

  Suddenly she darts through the crowd
  Like a little white panic
  Blown along the night—
  Away from the terror of oncoming feet…
  And drums rattling like curses in red roaring mouths…
  And torches spluttering silver fire
  And lights that nose out hiding-places…
  To the night—
  Squatting like a hunchback
  Under the curved stoop—
  The old mammy-night
  That has outlived beauty and knows the ways of fear—
  The night—wide-opening crooked and comforting arms,
  Hiding her as in a voluminous skirt.

  The sturdy Ghetto children
  March by the parade,
  Waving their toy flags,
  Prancing to the bugles,
  Lusty, unafraid.
  But I see a white frock
  And eyes like hooded lights
  Out of the shadow of pogroms
  Watching… watching…

IV

  Calicoes and furs,
  Pocket-books and scarfs,
  Razor strops and knives
  (Patterns in check…)

  Olive hands and russet head,
  Pickles red and coppery,
  Green pickles, brown pickles,
  (Patterns in tapestry…)

  Coral beads, blue beads,
  Beads of pearl and amber,
  Gewgaws, beauty pins—
  Bijoutry for chits—
  Darting rays of violet,
  Amethyst and jade…
  All the colors out to play,
  Jumbled iridescently…
  (Patterns in stained glass
  Shivered into bits!)

  Nooses of gay ribbon
  Tugging at one's sleeve,
  Dainty little garters
  Hanging out their sign…
  Here a pout of frilly things—
  There a sonsy feather…
  (White beards, black beards
  Like knots in the weave…)

  And ah, the little babies—
  Shiny black-eyed babies—
  (Half a million pink toes
  Wriggling altogether.)
  Baskets full of babies
  Like grapes on a vine.

  Mothers waddling in and out,
  Making all things right—
  Picking up the slipped threads
  In Grand street at night—
  Grand street like a great bazaar,
  Crowded like a float,
  Bulging like a crazy quilt
  Stretched on a line.

  But nearer seen
  This litter of the East
  Takes on a garbled majesty.

  The herded stalls
  In dissolute array…
  The glitter and the jumbled finery
  And strangely juxtaposed
  Cans, paper, rags
  And colors decomposing,
  Faded like old hair,
  With flashes of barbaric hues
  And eyes of mystery…
  Flung
  Like an ancient tapestry of motley weave
  Upon the open wall of this new land.

  Here, a tawny-headed girl…
  Lemons in a greenish broth
  And a huge earthen bowl
  By a bronzed merchant
  With a tall black lamb's wool cap upon his head…
  He has no glance for her.
  His thrifty eyes
  Bend—glittering, intent
  Their hoarded looks
  Upon his merchandise,
  As though it were some splendid cloth
  Or sumptuous raiment
  Stitched in gold and red…

  He seldom talks
  Save of the goods he spreads—
  The meager cotton with its dismal flower—
  But with his skinny hands
  That hover like two hawks
  Above some luscious meat,
  He fingers lovingly each calico,
  As though it were a gorgeous shawl,
  Or costly vesture
  Wrought in silken thread,
  Or strange bright carpet
  Made for sandaled feet…

  Here an old grey scholar stands.
  His brooding eyes—
  That hold long vistas without end
  Of caravans and trees and roads,
  And cities dwindling in remembrance—
  Bend mostly on his tapes and thread.

  What if they tweak his beard—
  These raw young seed of Israel
  Who have no backward vision in their eyes—
  And mock him as he sways
  Above the sunken arches of his feet—
  They find no peg to hang their taunts upon.
  His soul is like a rock
  That bears a front worn smooth
  By the coarse friction of the sea,
  And, unperturbed, he keeps his bitter peace.

  What if a rigid arm and stuffed blue shape,
  Backed by a nickel star
  Does prod him on,
  Taking his proud patience for humility…
  All gutters are as