Lola Ridge

The Song

  That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks
       on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron,
  And the smoke bluish near earth and bronze in the sunshine
       floating like cotton-down,
  And the harsh and terrible screaming,
  And that strange vibration at the roots of us...
  Desire, fierce, like a song...
  And we heard
  (Do you remember?)
  All the Red Cross bands on Fifth avenue
  And bugles in little home towns
  And children's harmonicas bleating

       America!

  And after...
  (Do you remember?)
  The drollery of the wind on our faces,
  And horizons reeling,
  And the terror of the plain
  Heaving like a gaunt pelvis to the sun...
  Under us--threshing and twanging
  Torn-up roots of the Song...