WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
"About a little girl"

Knowledge defeats its own end
approaching the state of heaven
when it envisions
through the glass
delicately adjusted in the
sliding tubes
        —to prove death inevitable—
the red and blue dots
of anilene stained blood which
shout derisively at our despair

But the child
walks laughing from
room to room of her gentle home

She is eleven and
her parents love her very much

Over her
the trees hold their leaves
dripping with the rain
shining green

This afternoon she will ride in the bus
to the railroad station

There will be a locomotive
and cars and people running around—
bags to carry—The lake
beckons in the distance—
                        But
she is an angel, already in
heaven, the earth

is a toy balloon under her feet—

with her girlish shoes she
pushes it back—
it falls away into banality—
her wrinkling brown eyes have robbed it
of its meaning—
                It is she

The Promenader—
whom men see and do not discover—

Princess Marion
eaten by curious wrongs