gale full of warmth and moisture Which blew the gulls about like confetti, And flapped like a flag the linen duster Of a fisherman who paced the pier—      (Charley called him Rip Van Winkle). The only thing that could be better Than this day on the pier Would be its counterpart in heaven, As Swedenborg would say—      Charley is fishing somewhere now, I think. There is a grove of oaks on a bluff by the river At Berrien Springs. There is a cottage that eyes the lake Between pines and silver birches At South Haven. There is the inviolable wonder of wooded shore Curving for miles at Saugatuck. And at Holland a beach like Scheveningen's. And at Charlevoix the sudden quaintness Of an old-world place by the sea. There are the hills around Elk Lake Where the blue of the sky is so still and clear It seems it was rubbed above them By the swipe of a giant thumb. And beyond these the little Traverse Bay Where the roar of the breeze goes round Like a roulette ball in the groove of the wheel, Circling the bay, And beyond these Mackinac and the Cheneaux Islands—      And beyond these a great mystery!—       Neither ice floes, nor winter's palsy Stays the tide in the river. 

  

  

       LAKE BOATS     

      And under the shadows of cliffs of brick The lake boats Huddled like swans Turn and sigh like sleepers——      They are longing for the Spring! 

  

  

       CITIES OF THE PLAIN     

      Where are the cabalists, the insidious committees, The panders who betray the idiot cities For miles and miles toward the prairie sprawled, Ignorant, soul-less, rich, Smothered in fumes of pitch?  

  

  

      Rooms of mahogany in tall sky scrapers See the unfolding and the folding up Of ring-clipped papers, And letters which keep drugged the public cup. The walls hear whispers and the semi-tones Of voices in the corner, 

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