Emmy Veronica Sanders. Laughter. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

Laughter

By Emmy Veronica Sanders


From “Antagonisms” SEE!
I thrust at you laughter—
Clusters of pomegranate in the sun.

See!
I dangle clusters of red sun-ripened laughter	5
Before your eyes, that are colorless
Like the eyes of the fishes.

What are you peering at,
Sallow-face?
Your hand—	10
It is limp and clammy;
It has never clutched at a thing
Strongly.
Those pale pinched lips of yours
Have never blossomed under kisses,	15
Have never whispered little words
Luminous with tenderness.

Rigid one!
My laughter,
Let it shake you like a wind—	20
Red wind
Tearing to shreds
Your pale hypocrisy.
My laughter,
Let it thaw	25
Those boulders of black ice—
Your hard moralities,
Your bleak utilities—
And sow violets in their place.

There is laughter ringing softly	30
From the golden shell of the sky.
There is laughter ringing in the rills
That come tripping down the bronze and purple hillside
Insolently.
Trees are swaying to and fro,	35
Laughter in the rustle and the flitter of their leaves.
And the air is warm and tremulous with laughter
Rising from the lips that lie
Mute beneath tombstones.

Deaf one,	40
Listen
To the scarlet wind!

There are sobs in the wind.