My beast, my era, who would bear

Within your corneas to glimpse,

And with their blood to glue together

The backbones of two centuries?

Blood is a builder, and she gushes

From every earthly thing, in sprays.

The spineless laggard merely flushes

Upon the doorstep of new days.

A creature must, while life keeps grasping,

A spine-crest carry all the way.

With its transparent backbone cresting

A rolling ocean wave would play.

As if a newborn's tender gristle,

An era of an infant earth’s

Again — all lamb-like, sacrificial,

A crown of life — was given forth.

To pull an era from its prisons,

And to commence a world renewed,

The knees of knotted days together

We have to tether with a flute.

And it's the era that keeps bending

The wave with lonely human angst;

And it's the era's golden standard

The viper breathes out in the grass.

The buds will keep on swelling, soaking,

Then spraying greenery in brines;

And yet your backbone has been broken,

My era — pitiful, sublime!

Now, you peer backwards, cruel and feeble,

And smiles of meaninglessness toss;

Just like a beast, that once was nimble,

Transfixed by trails of its own paws.

Blood is a builder, and she gushes

From every earthly thing, in jets,

And onto shores, with scorching fishes,

Warm gristle of the seas projects;

While from azúre and soggy mountains,

And from a high-up net for birds

Upon your deadliest of bruises

Indifference pours down in spurts.

1923/1936