The Crowd At The Ball Game by William Carlos Williams
The crowd at the ball game is moved uniformly by a spirit of uselessness which delights them—
all the exciting detail of the chase
and the escape, the error the flash of genius—
all to no end save beauty the eternal—
So in detail they, the crowd, are beautiful
for this to be warned against
saluted and defied— It is alive, venomous
it smiles grimly its words cut—
The flashy female with her mother, gets it—
The Jew gets it straight— it is deadly, terrifying—
It is the Inquisition, the Revolution
It is beauty itself that lives
day by day in them idly—
This is the power of their faces
It is summer, it is the solstice the crowd is
cheering, the crowd is laughing in detail
permanently, seriously without thought
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