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From “In Russia”
MAN of the flame-eyes | |
| And mouth with the bitter twist of in-grown laughter, | |
| And little bald man … whose seeming stillness | |
| Is akin to the velocity of a spinning star | |
| Holding its perfect poise— | 5 |
| You two yea-sayers | |
| Beetling over the little deniers, | |
| Two great levelers, building from the earth up, among puttiers and pluggers of rotten piles— | |
| You of the rich life, running in ample measure, amidst life deleted of its old raw fire as earth is deleted of its coal and iron— | |
| You be mighty hunters and keepers, | 10 |
| Trotsky and Lenine— | |
| Yet can you hold … the unconstrainable One | |
| Of the slow and flaming deaths | |
| And multiple resurrections? | |
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| Hands, reaching in hundreds of millions, | 15 |
| Backs, straightening under the keeling floor of the world, | |
| Can you hold the great white bird?— | |
| She that sweeps low over the chain-gangs | |
| When they glance up from their stone-breaking | |
| Into morning’s burning gold; | 20 |
| She that goes down into underground cells, | |
| Sending the cool wind of her wings | |
| Through unsevering stone … | |
| And departs, unbeknown, from those who announce her, | |
| Saying: “Lo, she is ours!” | 25 |
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| Ah, what a mighty destiny shall be yours, | |
| Should you persuade her— | |
| The Unconstrainable One | |
| Who has slid out of the arms of so many lovers, | |
| Leaving not a feather in their hands! | 30 |
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