Sandy Star And Willie Gee Poem by William Stanley Braithwaite

Sandy Star and Willie Gee,
Count 'em two, you make 'em three:
Pluck the man and boy apart
And you'll see into my heart.

SANDY STAR

I

_Sculptured Worship_

The zones of warmth around his heart,
No alien airs had crossed;
But he awoke one morn to feel
The magic numbness of autumnal frost.

His thoughts were a loose skein of threads,
And tangled emotions, vague and dim;
And sacrificing what he loved
He lost the dearest part of him.

In sculptured worship now he lives,
His one desire a prisoned ache;
If he can never melt again
His very heart will break.

II

_Laughing It Out_

He had a whim and laughed it out
Upon the exit of a chance;
He floundered in a sea of doubt--
If life was real--or just romance.

Sometimes upon his brow would come
A little pucker of defiance;
He totalled in a word the sum
Of all man made of facts and science.

And then a hearty laugh would break,
A reassuring shrug of shoulder;
And we would from his fancy take
A faith in death which made life bolder.

III

_Exit_

No, his exit by the gate
Will not leave the wind ajar;
He will go when it is late
With a misty star.

One will call, he cannot see;
One will call, he will not hear;
He will take no company
Nor a hope or fear.

We shall smile who loved him so--
They who gave him hate will weep;
But for us the winds will blow
Pulsing through his sleep.

IV

_The Way_

He could not tell the way he came,
Because his chart was lost:
Yet all his way was paved with flame
From the bourne he crossed.

He did not know the way to go,
Because he had no map:
He followed where the winds blow,--
And the April sap.

He never knew upon his brow
The secret that he bore,--
And laughs away the mystery now
The dark's at his door.

V

_Onus Probandi_

No more from out the sunset,
No more across the foam,
No more across the windy hills
Will Sandy Star come home.

He went away to search it
With a curse upon his tongue:
And in his hand the staff of life,
Made music as it swung.

I wonder if he found it,
And knows the mystery now--
Our Sandy Star who went away,
With the secret on his brow.