<p>472. THE MONKEY
<a l:href="#c_505"><sup>{*}</sup></a></p>The heat was fierce. Great forests were on fire.Time dragged its feet in dust. A cock was crowingin an adjacent lot. As I pushed openmy garden-gate I saw beside the roada wandering Serb asleep upon a benchhis back against the palings. He was leanand very black, and down his half-bared breastthere hung a heavy silver cross, divertingthe trickling sweat. Upon the fence above him,clad in a crimson petticoat, his monkeysat munching greedily the dusty leavesof a syringa bush; a leathern collardrawn backwards by its heavy chain bit deepinto her throat. Hearing me pass, the manstirred, wiped his face and asked me for some water.He took one sip to see whether the drinkwas not too cold, then placed a saucerfulupon the bench, and, instantly, the monkeyslipped down and clasped the saucer with both handsdipping her thumbs; then, on all fours, she drank,her elbows pressed against the bench, her chintouching the boards, her backbone arching higherthan her bald head. Thus, surely, did Dariusbend to a puddle on the road when fleeingfrom Alexander's thundering phalanges.When the last drop was sucked the monkey sweptthe saucer off the bench, and raised her head,and offered me her black wet little hand.Oh, I have pressed the fingers of great poets,leaders of men, fair women, but no handhad ever been so exquisitely shapednor had touched mine with such a thrill of kinship,and no man's eyes had peered into my soulwith such deep wisdom… Legends of lost agesawoke in me thanks to that dingy beastand suddenly I saw life in its fullnessand with a rush of wind and wave and worldsthe organ music of the universeboomed in my ears, as it had done beforein immemorial woodlands. And the Serbthen went his way thumping his tambourine:on his left shoulder, like an Indian princeupon an elephant, his monkey swayed.A huge incarnadine but sunless sunhung in a milky haze. The sultry summerflowed endlessly upon the wilting wheat.That day the war broke out, that very day.<p>473. POEM
<a l:href="#c_506"><sup>{*}</sup></a></p>What is the use time and rhyme?We live in peril, paupers all.The tailors sit, the builders climb,but coats will tear and houses fall.And only seldom with a sobof tenderness I hear… oh, quitea different existence throbthrough this mortality and blight.Thus does a wife, when days are dull,place breathlessly, with loving care,her hand upon her body, fullof the live burden swelling there.<1941>
