Of the New Verse

 The verse of the mind, as it learns
 That which will do. It has not in the past had
 To learn this: the scene was set, it would play once more what
 Was in the script.
                    Then the stage changed
 To a new place.  It past was now for sale.
 It has to live, to learn the speech of the place.
 It has to face the men of the time and to meet
 The maids and wives of the time.  It has to think of war
 And it has to find that which will do.  It has
 To make a new stage.  It has to be on that stage,
 And like a none too pleased stage man, slow, and
 With deep thought, speak words that in the ear,
 In that most fine ear of the mind, say, and still say,
 Just so, that which it wants to hear, at the sound
 Of which, a crowd not to be seen heeds
 Not the play, but that crowd's own self, said
 In such a mood as if two selves, of if two
 Such moods made one.  The man on stage is
 One who thinks deep in the dark, who twangs
 A lute or strings, twangs the thin string that gives
 To the new sounds a new sense of truth, which
 Holds whole the mind, and 'neath which the mind can't fall,
 Past which it has no will to rise.
                                    It must
 Be of the end of a search for some good, and may
 Be of a man on skates, a maid at dance, a maid
 With a comb.  Verse of the act of the mind.

                                -- Wall Steves
                                   (by Rich Hort)

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