| Harriet Monroe, ed. (18601936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 191222. | | | | Symbols | | By David Morton |
| | | BEAUTIFUL words, like butterflies, blow by, | |
| With what swift colors on their fragile wings! | |
| Some that are less articulate than a sigh, | |
| Some that were names of ancient, lovely things. | |
| What delicate careerings of escape, | 5 |
| When they would pass beyond the baffled reach, | |
| To leave a haunting shadow and a shape, | |
| Eluding still the careful traps of speech. | |
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| And I who watch and listen, lie in wait, | |
| Seeing the cloudy cavalcades blow past, | 10 |
| Happy if some bright vagrant, soon or late, | |
| May venture near the snares of sound, at last | |
| Most fortunate captor if, from time to time, | |
| One may be taken, trembling, in a rhyme. | | | | |
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