Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
EcclesiastesMorris Bishop
I
She sang some comic thing:
I heeded not at all
Till “Sing!” she cried, “Sing!”
So I sang in tune with her
The only song I know:
“The doors shall be shut in the streets,
And the daughters of music brought low.”
Gleamed through the cruddled air—
I tried to sing with her
Her song of devil-may-care.
But in the shouted chorus
My lips would not be stilled:
“The rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not filled.”
Who said, with a laughing glance,
“If that is the way you sing,
Why don’t you learn to dance?”
But I said: “With this one song
My heart and lips are cumbered—
‘The crooked cannot be made straight,
Nor that which is wanting, numbered.’
Whatever else I covet—
Hear the end of my song,
Hear the beginning of it:
‘More bitter than death the woman
(Beside me still she stands)
Whose heart is snares and nets,
And whose hands are bands.’”