Precipitations   By: Evelyn Scott (1893-1963)

PRECIPITATIONS

1920

The author acknowledges the courtesy of the editors of THE POETRY JOURNAL; OTHERS; THE EGOIST (London); POETRY: A MAGAZINE OF VERSE; PLAYBOY; THE DIAL; THE LIBERATOR; OTHERS: An ANTHOLOGY OF THE NEW VERSE; THE NATION (New York); and THE LYRIC, from all of which poems in this volume have been reprinted.

Contents

Manhattan

The Unpeopled City

Midnight Worship: Brooklyn Bridge Ascension: Autumn Dusk in Central Park Startled Forest: Hudson River Winter Streets February Springtime The Assumption of Columbine From Brooklyn Snow Dance Potter's Field Lights at Night Midnight

Crowds

Summer Night New York Sunset: Battery Park Crowds Riots The City at Night

Vanities

Bread Poems

Lullaby Embarkation of Cythera Christian Luxuries Narrow Flowers Eyes After Youth The Shadow that Walks Alone Bible Truth The Maternal Breast Air for G String Destiny

The Red Cross

Hectic I II Isolation Ward The Red Cross Hospital Night

Domestic Canticle

Spring Song Home Again To a Sick Child Love Song Quarrel My Child The Tunnel I V

Bruised Sunlight

Water Moods

Rain on the Seashore Ship Masts Monochrome Antique Echo Looks at Herself Spell

Hungry Seasons

Rainy Twilight The Storm Nymphs Winter Dawn

The Wall of Night

Springtime Too Soon Stars Night Music Nocturne of Water The Long Moment Designs I IV Argo Japanese Moon The Naiad Floodtide Mountain Pass in August

Contemporaries

Harmonics

Young Men Young Girls House Spirits At the Meeting House Christians Devil's Cradle Women Penelope Poor People's Dreams For Wives and Mistresses

Portraits

Portrait of Rich Old Lady Nigger The Maiden Mother A Pious Woman A Very Old Rose Jar The Nixie Old Ladies' Valhalla Portraits of Poets I III Theodore Dreiser Pieta

Brazil Through A Mist

The Ranch

Tropical Life Twenty four Hours Rainy Season Mail on the Ranch The Vampire Bat Conservatism Little Pigs The Silly Ewe The Snake The Years Burning Mountains I III Tropical Winter Talk on the Ranch

Les Malades des Pays Chauds

Pride of Race Don Quixote Sojourns in Rio de Janeiro Convent Musings Guitarra November

The Coming of Christ

The Death of Columbine

Duet From a Man Dying on a Cross Lagniappe Hail Mary! The Death of Columbine Pierrot Laughs The Transmigration of Caliban Gundry Viennese Waltz

Resurrection

Immortality Autumn Night Venus' Fly Trap Suicide Leaves I IV Allegro

MANHATTAN

THE UNPEOPLED CITY

MIDNIGHT WORSHIP: BROOKLYN BRIDGE

In the rain Rows of street lamps are saints in bright garments That flow long with the bend of knees. They lift pale heads nimbussed with golden spikes.

Up the lanes of liquid onyx Toward the high fire laden altars Move the saints of Manhattan In endless pilgrimage to death, Amidst the asphodel and anemones of dawn.

ASCENSION: AUTUMN DUSK IN CENTRAL PARK

Featureless people glide with dim motion through a quivering blue silver; Boats merge with the bronze gold welters about their keels. The trees float upward in gray and green flames. Clouds, swans, boats, trees, all gliding up a hillside After some gray old women who lift their gaunt forms From falling shrouds of leaves.

Thin fingered twigs clutch darkly at nothing. Crackling skeletons shine. Along the smutted horizon of Fifth Avenue The hooded houses watch heavily With oily gold eyes.

STARTLED FORESTS: HUDSON RIVER

The thin hill pushes against the mist. Its fading defiance sounds in the umber and red of autumn leaves. Like a dead arm around a warm throat Is the sagging embrace of the river Laid grayly about the shore.