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THE RED BRIDGE
The arches of the red bridge
Are stronger than ever:
The arches of the scarlet bridge
Are of rough, bleak stone.
(Why should such massive arches be the span
From cloud to tenuous cloud?)
Let us not seek omens in the guts
Of newly slain fowls;
Leaving such play to the children,
Let us pluck wild swans
From under the moon;
Or, challenging strong, terrible men,
Let us slay them and seek truth
In their smoking entrails.
Let us fling runners
Across the red bridge,
Deep-lunged runners who will return to us
With tidings of the far countries
And the strange seas!
There be many terrible men
Going out upon the bridge,
Through the little door
That is by the steps from the river.
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THE KING
Seven full-paunched eunuchs came to me,
Bearing before them upon a silver shield
The secrets of my enemy.
As they crossed my threshold to stand,
With stately and hypocritical gesture
In a row before me,
One stumbled.
The dull, incurious eyes of the others
Blazed into no laughter,
Only a haggard malice
At the discomfiture
Of their companion.
Why should such Things have power
Not spoken for in the rules of men?
I would not receive them.
With my head covered I motioned them
To go forth from my presence.
Where shall I find an enemy
Worthy of me as him they defaced?
As they left me,
Bearing with them
Lewd shield and scarlet crown,
One paused upon the threshold,
Insolent,
To sniff a flower.
42Even him I permitted to go forth
Safely.
· · · · ·
Therefore
I have renounced my kingdom;
In a little bronze boat I have set sail
Out
Upon the sea.
There is no land, and the sea
Is black like the cypresses waiting
At midnight in the place of tombs;
Is black like the pool of ink
In the palm of a soothsayer.
My boat
Fears the white-lipped waves
That snatch at her,
Hungrily,
Furtively,
As they steal past like cats
Into the night:
And beneath me, in their hidden places,
The great fishes talk of me
In a tongue I have forgotten.
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