GOLD by HERBERT KAUFMAN

IN a place where the glare of the madded sun tore
'Til the air fairly sobbed with the travail it bore—
Where the red, blistered earth cried aloud in its pain,
And with hot, cracking lips called to heaven in vain—
Where the womb of creation was sterile and dread
As a she-mummy lying a thousand years dead—
Where the wind never rustled the branches of trees,
Nor blossoms blush red at the kiss of the breeze—
Where no grass is, no shrub is, not even a weed—
Where birds never carol and beasts never breed—
Where the blind spawn of reptiles are gat but to die,
And no winged thing on carrion bent fouls the sky—
A jabbering husk twenty million years old,
Battered
And tattered
And shattered and torn;
His eyes blind of sight and his reason spark gone;
As naked and filthy as when he was born;
Tumbled
And stumbled
And fumbled and fell
On a rock, where the sun with the humor of hell
Smote the raw, bleeding edge
Of a fabulous ledge
Of gold!
Gold!
Gold!
Gold!
Gold!

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