Glenway Wescott

From “Still-hunt”

SIBERIA is a land

Drops from a cloud.

The shackles click,

Yet never loud,

Upon a pavement

Of the frost—

A road we know,

Yet still are lost

Within the semblance

Of its cold

Mile after mile

Till we are old.

You and I, man and maid,

Together form

Procession or cavalcade

Minute as a worm.

Prisoners to each other,

And to these even less kind—

The bottomless beauty of body,

The bottomless pomp of mind.

And perpetually discontent,

We eye the crows,

Or watch the weasel where it went,

Or hail the wind that blows.