HIGH TALK
 
 PROCESSIONS that lack high stilts have nothing that
 catches the eye.
 What if my great-granddad had a pair that were
 twenty foot high,
 And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks
 upon higher,
 Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence
 or a fire.
 Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, ake
 but poor shows,
 Because children demand Daddy-long-legs upon This
 timber toes,
 Because women in the upper storeys demand a face at
 the pane,
 That patching old heels they may shriek, I take to
 chisel and plane.
 
 Malachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild,
 From collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child.
 All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all.  A barnacle goose
 Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the
 dawn breaks loose;
 I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on;
 Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.