Glenway Wescott

From “Still-hunt”

AS if I were Jeanne d’Arc,

But wearier, I prepare

Answer and return

To the prophetic air;

My voice answering

Voices of the unearthly nation

With autumnal melody

Of my own creation:

Melody of alarm lest my

So long-imagined love retreat

Into despair as sharp and fine

As the print of sea-gull’s feet.

They sing, stilling my response

With silvery indifference;

And what they mean or know

Is, like the falling of first snow,

An indecipherable cadence.