To Sallie, Walking - Sterling A. Brown

Your vividness grants color where
  Great need is, in this dingy town,
  As you in pride of rose and brown
     Thread the dull thoroughfare.

Across the Southern sleepiness
   Flashes a something swiftly real:
   The unavoidable appeal
      Of your sharp loveliness.

And not as Cavalier scions, do
   These listless Southrons, furtive-eyed,
   Greet gracefully your proper pride, -
       But wonderstruck at you,

Regret awhile, that aliens
   They will remain, darkly allured
   By an inviolable, assured,
       Laughing indifference.

You pass, provocative, discreet,
   Serenely waving to his place,
   Each lover of your bronzen face,
       Your merry, flashing feet.

The impudence filling your eyes
   Will call down on your swarthy head
   The wildest prayers that men have prayed;
       Malignant prophecies.

But lovers' wrathful violence
   You will put by as lunacy,
   In Age's longdrawn mutterings see
       Cantankerous impotence.

Oh, as you walk, lithe, delicate,
   Parading in your rose-red dress,
   There is this much that I can guess:
       The labyrinthine Fate, -

The plotting of dire circumstance,
   Which intricate before you lies,
   Will be as nothing to your wise
       Inherent nonchalance.



[From:
Sterling, B. A. (1996) The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown. Evanston, III: TriQuarterly Books, p]


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