As we read ["The Steeple-Jack," in Collected Poems,] we begin to understand that we are not being offered a piece of mere realism: we are participating in the play of imagination over a time and a place. Miss Moore gives us, you will notice, not only the look of things but their sound, smell, and movement; she is rendering her material, as all artists must, through the senses. At the same time her with is in operation; the tone of the poem is light, almost gay, but with an underlying seriousness. This seriousness becomes more and more apparent as the poem proceeds; and soon we are aware that the poet is beginning to draw general inferences from specific facts observed. (pp. 257-58)

Miss Moore, we discover, is playing on the theme of safety versus danger. The town, which looks so neat and stable, depends for its living on...