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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Floyd Dell

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Apologia

Floyd Dell

I THINK I have no soul,

Having instead two hands, sensitive and curious,

And ten subtle and inquisitive fingers

Which reach out continually into the world,

Touching and handling all things.

The fascination of objects!—

The marvellous shapes!

Contours of faces and of dispositions,

Hearts that are tender or rough to the touch,

The smooth soft fabrics in which lives go clothed—

Hope and pity and passion:

All these as I touch them delight and enchant me,

And I think I could go on touching them forever.

But the impulse comes into the nerves of my fingers,

Into the muscles of my hands,

To give back this beauty in some shape

Confessional of joy.

And so I make these toys.