Chapter V

The stars bend down
through the dingy platitude of arc-lights
as if they were groping for something among the houses,
as if they would touch the gritty pavement
covered with dust and scraps of paper and piles of horse-dung
of the wide deserted square.

They are all about me;
they sear my body.
How very cold the stars are touching my body.
What do they seek
the fierce ice-flames of the stars
in the platitude of arc-lights?

_Plaza Mayor, Madrid_