Robert Fitzgerald


First Movement

The women bow and flutter in the field.
The grain lies white with wind in the wide shadow.
Summer is dark, as in the ancient time.

This fair cloud that blooms in the northwest
Has darkened now, as in the ancient time,
And clouds are still at dawn on the soft mountains.

Husks after harvest we shall leave for rain
And our heels’ trace in the loam:
The stir of boughs has warned us,
Fruit in the grass reminds us...

Sympathy of Peoples

No but come closer. Come a little
Closer. Let the wall-eyed hornyhanded
Panhandler hit you for a dime
Sir and shiver. Snow like this
Drives its pelting shadows over Bremen,
Over sad Louvain and the eastern
Marshes, the black wold. It sighs
Into the cold sea of the north,
That vast contemptuous revery between
Antiquity and you. Turn up your collar,