The Steeple-Jack

Selected Poems (1935)

Dürer would have seen a reason for livingin towns like this, with eight stranded whalesto look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your houseon a fine day, from water etchedwith waves as formal as the scaleson a fish.

One by one in two´s and three´s, the seagulls keepflying back and forth over the town clock,or sailing around the lighthouse without moving their wingsÐrising steadily with a slightquiver of the bodyÐor flockmewing where

a sea the purple of the peacock´s neck ispaled to greenish azure as Dürer changedthe pine green of the Tyrol to peacock blue and guineagray. You can see a twenty-five-pound lobster; and fish nets arrangedto dry. The

whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the saltmarsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and thestar on the steeple; it is a privilege to see somuch confusion. Disguised by whatmight seem the opposite, the sea-side flowers and

trees are favored by the fog so that you havethe tropics at first hand: the trumpet-vine,fox-glove, giant snap-dragon, a salpiglossis that hasspots and stripes; morning-glories, gourds,or moon-vines trained on fishing-twineat the back door;

cat-tails, flags, blueberries and spiderwort,striped grass, lichens, sunflowers, asters, daisiesÐyellow and crab-claw ragged sailors with green bractsÐtoad plant,petunias, ferns; pink lilies, blueones, tigers; poppies; black sweet-peas.The climate

is not right for the banyan, frangipani, orjack-fruit trees; or for exotic serpentlife. Ring lizard and snake-skin for the foot, if you see fit;but here they´ve cats, not cobras, tokeep down the rats. The differentlittle newt

with white pin-dots on black horizontal spaced-out bands lives here; yet there is nothing thatambition can buy or take away. The college studentnamed Ambrose sits on the hillsidewith his not-native books and hatand sees boats

at sea progress white and rigid as if ina groove. Liking an elegance of whichthe source is not bravado, he knows by heart the antiquesugar-bowl shaped summer-house ofinterlacing slats, and the pitchof the church

spire, not true, from which a man in scarlet letsdown a rope as a spider spins a thread;he might be part of a novel, but on the sidewalk asign says C. J. Poole, Steeple-Jack,in black and white; and one in redand white says

Danger. The church portico has four flutedcolumns, each a single piece of stone, mademodester by white-wash. This would be a fit haven forwaifs, children, animals, prisoners,and presidents who have repaidsin-driven

senators by not thinking about them. Theplace has a school-house, a post-office in astore, fish-houses, hen-houses, a three-mastedschooner onthe stocks. The hero, the student,the steeple-jack, each in his way,is at home.

It could not be dangerous to be livingin a town like this, of simple people,who have a steeple-jack placing signs by the churchwhile he is gilding the solid-pointed star, which on a steeplestands for hope.

“The Steeple-Jack” From Selected Poems (1935)