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diff --git a/1567-0.txt b/1567-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..449921f --- /dev/null +++ b/1567-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1698 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems, by T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Poems + +Author: T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot + +Release Date: December, 1998 [eBook #1567] +[Most recently updated: November 22, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Bill Brewer and David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS *** + + + + +POEMS + +by T. S. ELIOT + + +New York Alfred A. Knopf 1920 + + + To Jean Verdenal 1889-1915 + + +Certain of these poems first appeared in Poetry, Blast, Others, The +Little Review, and Art and Letters. + + + +CONTENTS + + Gerontion + Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar + Sweeney Erect + A Cooking Egg + Le Directeur + Mélange adultère de tout + Lune de Miel + The Hippopotamus + Dans le Restaurant + Whispers of Immortality + Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service + Sweeney Among the Nightingales + The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock + Portrait of a Lady + Preludes + Rhapsody on a Windy Night + Morning at the Window + The Boston Evening Transcript + Aunt Helen + Cousin Nancy + Mr. Apollinax + Hysteria + Conversation Galante + La Figlia Che Pianga + + + + +POEMS + + + +Gerontion + + Thou hast nor youth nor age + But as it were an after dinner sleep + Dreaming of both. + + + Here I am, an old man in a dry month, + Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. + I was neither at the hot gates + Nor fought in the warm rain + Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, + Bitten by flies, fought. + My house is a decayed house, + And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner, + Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp, + Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London. + The goat coughs at night in the field overhead; + Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds. + The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea, + Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter. + + I an old man, + A dull head among windy spaces. + + Signs are taken for wonders. "We would see a sign": + The word within a word, unable to speak a word, + Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year + Came Christ the tiger + + In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering Judas, + To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk + Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero + With caressing hands, at Limoges + Who walked all night in the next room; + By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians; + By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room + Shifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp + Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles + Weave the wind. I have no ghosts, + An old man in a draughty house + Under a windy knob. + + After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now + History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors + And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, + Guides us by vanities. Think now + She gives when our attention is distracted + And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions + That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late + What's not believed in, or if still believed, + In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon + Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with + Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think + Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices + Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues + Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. + These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree. + + The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last + We have not reached conclusion, when I + Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last + I have not made this show purposelessly + And it is not by any concitation + Of the backward devils. + I would meet you upon this honestly. + I that was near your heart was removed therefrom + To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. + I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it + Since what is kept must be adulterated? + I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: + How should I use it for your closer contact? + + These with a thousand small deliberations + Protract the profit of their chilled delirium, + Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled, + With pungent sauces, multiply variety + In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do, + Suspend its operations, will the weevil + Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled + Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear + In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits + Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn, + White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims, + And an old man driven by the Trades + To a sleepy corner. + + Tenants of the house, + Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season. + + + + +Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar + + Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire--nil nisi divinum stabile + est; caetera fumus--the gondola stopped, the old + palace was there, how charming its grey and pink-- + goats and monkeys, with such hair too!--so the + countess passed on until she came through the + little park, where Niobe presented her with a + cabinet, and so departed. + + + Burbank crossed a little bridge + Descending at a small hotel; + Princess Volupine arrived, + They were together, and he fell. + + Defunctive music under sea + Passed seaward with the passing bell + Slowly: the God Hercules + Had left him, that had loved him well. + + The horses, under the axletree + Beat up the dawn from Istria + With even feet. Her shuttered barge + Burned on the water all the day. + + But this or such was Bleistein's way: + A saggy bending of the knees + And elbows, with the palms turned out, + Chicago Semite Viennese. + + A lustreless protrusive eye + Stares from the protozoic slime + At a perspective of Canaletto. + The smoky candle end of time + + Declines. On the Rialto once. + The rats are underneath the piles. + The jew is underneath the lot. + Money in furs. The boatman smiles, + + Princess Volupine extends + A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand + To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights, + She entertains Sir Ferdinand + + Klein. Who clipped the lion's wings + And flea'd his rump and pared his claws? + Thought Burbank, meditating on + Time's ruins, and the seven laws. + + + + +Sweeney Erect + + And the trees about me, + Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks + Groan with continual surges; and behind me + Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches! + + + Paint me a cavernous waste shore + Cast in the unstilted Cyclades, + Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks + Faced by the snarled and yelping seas. + + Display me Aeolus above + Reviewing the insurgent gales + Which tangle Ariadne's hair + And swell with haste the perjured sails. + + Morning stirs the feet and hands + (Nausicaa and Polypheme), + Gesture of orang-outang + Rises from the sheets in steam. + + This withered root of knots of hair + Slitted below and gashed with eyes, + This oval O cropped out with teeth: + The sickle motion from the thighs + + Jackknifes upward at the knees + Then straightens out from heel to hip + Pushing the framework of the bed + And clawing at the pillow slip. + + Sweeney addressed full length to shave + Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base, + Knows the female temperament + And wipes the suds around his face. + + (The lengthened shadow of a man + Is history, said Emerson + Who had not seen the silhouette + Of Sweeney straddled in the sun). + + Tests the razor on his leg + Waiting until the shriek subsides. + The epileptic on the bed + Curves backward, clutching at her sides. + + The ladies of the corridor + Find themselves involved, disgraced, + Call witness to their principles + And deprecate the lack of taste + + Observing that hysteria + Might easily be misunderstood; + Mrs. Turner intimates + It does the house no sort of good. + + But Doris, towelled from the bath, + Enters padding on broad feet, + Bringing sal volatile + And a glass of brandy neat. + + + + +A Cooking Egg + + En l'an trentiesme de mon aage + Que toutes mes hontes j'ay beues... + + + Pipit sate upright in her chair + Some distance from where I was sitting; + Views of the Oxford Colleges + Lay on the table, with the knitting. + + Daguerreotypes and silhouettes, + Her grandfather and great great aunts, + Supported on the mantelpiece + An Invitation to the Dance. + . . . . . . + I shall not want Honour in Heaven + For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney + And have talk with Coriolanus + And other heroes of that kidney. + + I shall not want Capital in Heaven + For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond: + We two shall lie together, lapt + In a five per cent Exchequer Bond. + + I shall not want Society in Heaven, + Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride; + Her anecdotes will be more amusing + Than Pipit's experience could provide. + + I shall not want Pipit in Heaven: + Madame Blavatsky will instruct me + In the Seven Sacred Trances; + Piccarda de Donati will conduct me. + + . . . . . . + + But where is the penny world I bought + To eat with Pipit behind the screen? + The red-eyed scavengers are creeping + From Kentish Town and Golder's Green; + + Where are the eagles and the trumpets? + + Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps. + Over buttered scones and crumpets + Weeping, weeping multitudes + Droop in a hundred A.B.C.'s + + ["ABC's" signifes endemic teashops, found in all parts of + London. The initials signify "Aerated Bread Company, + Limited."--Project Gutenberg Editor's replacement of + original footnote] + + + + +Le Directeur + + Malheur à la malheureuse Tamise! + Tamisel Qui coule si pres du Spectateur. + Le directeur + Conservateur + Du Spectateur + Empeste la brise. + Les actionnaires + Réactionnaires + Du Spectateur + Conservateur + Bras dessus bras dessous + Font des tours + A pas de loup. + Dans un égout + Une petite fille + En guenilles + Camarde + Regarde + Le directeur + Du Spectateur + Conservateur + Et crève d'amour. + + + + +Mélange adultère de tout + + En Amerique, professeur; + En Angleterre, journaliste; + C'est à grands pas et en sueur + Que vous suivrez à peine ma piste. + En Yorkshire, conferencier; + A Londres, un peu banquier, + Vous me paierez bien la tête. + C'est à Paris que je me coiffe + Casque noir de jemenfoutiste. + En Allemagne, philosophe + Surexcité par Emporheben + Au grand air de Bergsteigleben; + J'erre toujours de-ci de-là + A divers coups de tra la la + De Damas jusqu'à Omaha. + Je celebrai mon jour de fête + Dans une oasis d'Afrique + Vêtu d'une peau de girafe. + + On montrera mon cénotaphe + Aux côtes brûlantes de Mozambique. + + + + +Lune de Miel + + Ils ont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent à Terre Haute; + Mais une nuit d'été, les voici à Ravenne, + A l'sur le dos écartant les genoux + De quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures. + On relève le drap pour mieux égratigner. + Moins d'une lieue d'ici est Saint Apollinaire + In Classe, basilique connue des amateurs + De chapitaux d'acanthe que touraoie le vent. + + Ils vont prendre le train de huit heures + Prolonger leurs misères de Padoue à Milan + Ou se trouvent le Cène, et un restaurant pas cher. + Lui pense aux pourboires, et redige son bilan. + Ils auront vu la Suisse et traversé la France. + Et Saint Apollinaire, raide et ascétique, + Vieille usine désaffectée de Dieu, tient encore + Dans ses pierres ècroulantes la forme precise de Byzance. + + + + +The Hippopotamus + + Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, ut + mandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum, ut Jesum + Christum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros + autem, ut concilium Dei et conjunctionem + Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de + quibus suadeo vos sic habeo. + + S. IGNATII AD TRALLIANOS. + + And when this epistle is read among you, cause + that it be read also in the church of the + Laodiceans. + + + The broad-backed hippopotamus + Rests on his belly in the mud; + Although he seems so firm to us + He is merely flesh and blood. + + Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail, + Susceptible to nervous shock; + While the True Church can never fail + For it is based upon a rock. + + The hippo's feeble steps may err + In compassing material ends, + While the True Church need never stir + To gather in its dividends. + + The 'potamus can never reach + The mango on the mango-tree; + But fruits of pomegranate and peach + Refresh the Church from over sea. + + At mating time the hippo's voice + Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd, + But every week we hear rejoice + The Church, at being one with God. + + The hippopotamus's day + Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts; + God works in a mysterious way- + The Church can sleep and feed at once. + + I saw the 'potamus take wing + Ascending from the damp savannas, + And quiring angels round him sing + The praise of God, in loud hosannas. + + Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean + And him shall heavenly arms enfold, + Among the saints he shall be seen + Performing on a harp of gold. + + He shall be washed as white as snow, + By all the martyr'd virgins kiss, + While the True Church remains below + Wrapt in the old miasmal mist. + + + + +Dans le Restaurant + + Le garcon délabré qui n'a rien à faire + Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule: + "Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux, + Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie; + C'est ce qu'on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux." + (Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie, + Je te prie, au moins, ne bave pas dans la soupe). + "Les saules trempés, et des bourgeons sur les ronces-- + C'est là, dans une averse, qu'on s'abrite. + J'avais septtans, elle était plus petite. + Elle etait toute mouillée, je lui ai donné des primavères." + Les tâches de son gilet montent au chiffre de trente-huit. + "Je la chatouillais, pour la faire rire. + J'éprouvais un instant de puissance et de délire." + + Mais alors, vieux lubrique, a cet âge... + "Monsieur, le fait est dur. + Il est venu, nous peloter, un gros chien; + Moi j'avais peur, je l'ai quittee a mi-chemin. + C'est dommage." + + Mais alors, tu as ton vautour! + Va t'en te décrotter les rides du visage; + Tiens, ma fourchette, décrasse-toi le crâne. + De quel droit payes-tu des expériences comme moi? + Tiens, voilà dix sous, pour la salle-de-bains. + + Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé, + Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille, + Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d'etain: + Un courant de sous-mer l'emporta tres loin, + Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure. + Figurez-vous donc, c'etait un sort penible; + Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille. + + + + +Whispers of Immortality + + Webster was much possessed by death + And saw the skull beneath the skin; + And breastless creatures under ground + Leaned backward with a lipless grin. + + Daffodil bulbs instead of balls + Stared from the sockets of the eyes! + He knew that thought clings round dead limbs + Tightening its lusts and luxuries. + + Donne, I suppose, was such another + Who found no substitute for sense; + To seize and clutch and penetrate, + Expert beyond experience, + + He knew the anguish of the marrow + The ague of the skeleton; + No contact possible to flesh + Allayed the fever of the bone. + + . . . . . + + Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye + Is underlined for emphasis; + Uncorseted, her friendly bust + Gives promise of pneumatic bliss. + + The couched Brazilian jaguar + Compels the scampering marmoset + With subtle effluence of cat; + Grishkin has a maisonette; + + The sleek Brazilian jaguar + Does not in its arboreal gloom + Distil so rank a feline smell + As Grishkin in a drawing-room. + + And even the Abstract Entities + Circumambulate her charm; + But our lot crawls between dry ribs + To keep our metaphysics warm. + + + + +Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service + + Look, look, master, here comes two religious + caterpillars. + The Jew of Malta. + + + Polyphiloprogenitive + The sapient sutlers of the Lord + Drift across the window-panes. + In the beginning was the Word. + + In the beginning was the Word. + Superfetation of [Greek text inserted here], + And at the mensual turn of time + Produced enervate Origen. + + A painter of the Umbrian school + Designed upon a gesso ground + The nimbus of the Baptized God. + The wilderness is cracked and browned + + But through the water pale and thin + Still shine the unoffending feet + And there above the painter set + The Father and the Paraclete. + . . . . . + The sable presbyters approach + The avenue of penitence; + The young are red and pustular + Clutching piaculative pence. + + Under the penitential gates + Sustained by staring Seraphim + Where the souls of the devout + Burn invisible and dim. + + Along the garden-wall the bees + With hairy bellies pass between + The staminate and pistilate, + Blest office of the epicene. + + Sweeney shifts from ham to ham + Stirring the water in his bath. + The masters of the subtle schools + Are controversial, polymath. + + + + +Sweeney Among the Nightingales + + [Greek text inserted here] + + + Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees + Letting his arms hang down to laugh, + The zebra stripes along his jaw + Swelling to maculate giraffe. + + The circles of the stormy moon + Slide westward toward the River Plate, + Death and the Raven drift above + And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate. + + Gloomy Orion and the Dog + Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas; + The person in the Spanish cape + Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees + + Slips and pulls the table cloth + Overturns a coffee-cup, + Reorganized upon the floor + She yawns and draws a stocking up; + + The silent man in mocha brown + Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes; + The waiter brings in oranges + Bananas figs and hothouse grapes; + + The silent vertebrate in brown + Contracts and concentrates, withdraws; + Rachel née Rabinovitch + Tears at the grapes with murderous paws; + + She and the lady in the cape + Are suspect, thought to be in league; + Therefore the man with heavy eyes + Declines the gambit, shows fatigue, + + Leaves the room and reappears + Outside the window, leaning in, + Branches of wisteria + Circumscribe a golden grin; + + The host with someone indistinct + Converses at the door apart, + The nightingales are singing near + The Convent of the Sacred Heart, + + And sang within the bloody wood + When Agamemnon cried aloud, + And let their liquid droppings fall + To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud. + + + + +The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock + + S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse + A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, + Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. + Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo + Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero, + Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. + + + Let us go then, you and I, + When the evening is spread out against the sky + Like a patient etherized upon a table; + Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, + The muttering retreats + Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels + And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: + Streets that follow like a tedious argument + Of insidious intent + To lead you to an overwhelming question.... + Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" + Let us go and make our visit. + + In the room the women come and go + Talking of Michelangelo. + + The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, + The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes + Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, + Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, + Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, + Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, + And seeing that it was a soft October night, + Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. + + And indeed there will be time + For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, + Rubbing its back upon the window panes; + There will be time, there will be time + To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet + There will be time to murder and create, + And time for all the works and days of hands + That lift and drop a question on your plate; + Time for you and time for me, + And time yet for a hundred indecisions, + And for a hundred visions and revisions, + Before the taking of a toast and tea. + + In the room the women come and go + Talking of Michelangelo. + + And indeed there will be time + To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" + Time to turn back and descend the stair, + With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-- + (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") + My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, + My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-- + (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") + Do I dare + Disturb the universe? + In a minute there is time + For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. + + For I have known them all already, known them all: + Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, + I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; + I know the voices dying with a dying fall + Beneath the music from a farther room. + So how should I presume? + + And I have known the eyes already, known them all-- + The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, + And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, + When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, + Then how should I begin + To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? + And how should I presume? + + And I have known the arms already, known them all-- + Arms that are braceleted and white and bare + (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) + Is it perfume from a dress + That makes me so digress? + Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. + And should I then presume? + And how should I begin? + . . . . . . . . . + Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets + And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes + Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? + + I should have been a pair of ragged claws + Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. + . . . . . . . . . + + And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! + Smoothed by long fingers, + Asleep... tired... or it malingers. + Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. + Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, + Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? + But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, + Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, + I am no prophet--and here's no great matter; + I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, + And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, + And in short, I was afraid. + + And would it have been worth it, after all, + After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, + Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, + Would it have been worth while, + To have bitten off the matter with a smile, + To have squeezed the universe into a ball + To roll it toward some overwhelming question, + To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, + Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"-- + If one, settling a pillow by her head, + Should say: "That is not what I meant at all; + That is not it, at all." + + And would it have been worth it, after all, + Would it have been worth while, + After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, + After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the + floor-- + And this, and so much more?-- + It is impossible to say just what I mean! + But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: + Would it have been worth while + If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, + And turning toward the window, should say: + "That is not it at all, + That is not what I meant, at all." + . . . . . . . . . + No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; + Am an attendant lord, one that will do + To swell a progress, start a scene or two, + Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, + Deferential, glad to be of use, + Politic, cautious, and meticulous; + Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; + At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-- + Almost, at times, the Fool. + + I grow old... I grow old... + I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. + + Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? + I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. + I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. + + I do not think that they will sing to me. + + I have seen them riding seaward on the waves + Combing the white hair of the waves blown back + When the wind blows the water white and black. + + We have lingered in the chambers of the sea + By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown + Till human voices wake us, and we drown. + + + + +Portrait of a Lady + + Thou hast committed-- + Fornication: but that was in another country + And besides, the wench is dead. + The Jew of Malta. + + + I + + Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon + You have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do-- + With "I have saved this afternoon for you"; + And four wax candles in the darkened room, + Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead, + An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb + Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid. + We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole + Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-tips. + "So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul + Should be resurrected only among friends + Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom + That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room." + --And so the conversation slips + Among velleities and carefully caught regrets + Through attenuated tones of violins + Mingled with remote cornets + And begins. + + "You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, + And how, how rare and strange it is, to find + In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends, + (For indeed I do not love it... you knew? you are not blind! + How keen you are!) + To find a friend who has these qualities, + Who has, and gives + Those qualities upon which friendship lives. + How much it means that I say this to you-- + Without these friendships--life, what cauchemar!" + Among the windings of the violins + And the ariettes + Of cracked cornets + Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins + Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own, + Capricious monotone + That is at least one definite "false note." + --Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance, + Admire the monuments + Discuss the late events, + Correct our watches by the public clocks. + Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks. + + II + + Now that lilacs are in bloom + She has a bowl of lilacs in her room + And twists one in her fingers while she talks. + "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know + What life is, you should hold it in your hands"; + (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks) + "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, + And youth is cruel, and has no remorse + And smiles at situations which it cannot see." + I smile, of course, + And go on drinking tea. + "Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall + My buried life, and Paris in the Spring, + I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world + To be wonderful and youthful, after all." + + The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune + Of a broken violin on an August afternoon: + "I am always sure that you understand + My feelings, always sure that you feel, + Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand. + + You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel. + You will go on, and when you have prevailed + You can say: at this point many a one has failed. + + But what have I, but what have I, my friend, + To give you, what can you receive from me? + Only the friendship and the sympathy + Of one about to reach her journey's end. + + I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...." + + I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends + For what she has said to me? + You will see me any morning in the park + Reading the comics and the sporting page. + Particularly I remark An English countess goes upon the stage. + A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance, + Another bank defaulter has confessed. + I keep my countenance, I remain self-possessed + Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired + Reiterates some worn-out common song + With the smell of hyacinths across the garden + Recalling things that other people have desired. + Are these ideas right or wrong? + + III + + The October night comes down; returning as before + Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease + I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door + And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees. + + "And so you are going abroad; and when do you return? + But that's a useless question. + You hardly know when you are coming back, + You will find so much to learn." + My smile falls heavily among the bric-à-brac. + + "Perhaps you can write to me." + My self-possession flares up for a second; + This is as I had reckoned. + + "I have been wondering frequently of late + (But our beginnings never know our ends!) + Why we have not developed into friends." + I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark + Suddenly, his expression in a glass. + My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark. + + "For everybody said so, all our friends, + They all were sure our feelings would relate + So closely! I myself can hardly understand. + We must leave it now to fate. + You will write, at any rate. + Perhaps it is not too late. + I shall sit here, serving tea to friends." + + And I must borrow every changing shape + To find expression... dance, dance + Like a dancing bear, + Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape. + Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance-- + Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, + Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; + Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand + With the smoke coming down above the housetops; + Doubtful, for quite a while + Not knowing what to feel or if I understand + Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon... + Would she not have the advantage, after all? + This music is successful with a "dying fall" + Now that we talk of dying-- + And should I have the right to smile? + + + + +Preludes + + I + + The winter evening settles down + With smell of steaks in passageways. + Six o'clock. + The burnt-out ends of smoky days. + And now a gusty shower wraps + The grimy scraps + Of withered leaves about your feet + And newspapers from vacant lots; + The showers beat + On broken blinds and chimney-pots, + And at the corner of the street + A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. + And then the lighting of the lamps. + + II + + The morning comes to consciousness + Of faint stale smells of beer + From the sawdust-trampled street + With all its muddy feet that press + To early coffee-stands. + + With the other masquerades + That time resumes, + One thinks of all the hands + That are raising dingy shades + In a thousand furnished rooms. + + III + + You tossed a blanket from the bed, + You lay upon your back, and waited; + You dozed, and watched the night revealing + The thousand sordid images + Of which your soul was constituted; + They flickered against the ceiling. + And when all the world came back + And the light crept up between the shutters, + And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, + You had such a vision of the street + As the street hardly understands; + Sitting along the bed's edge, where + You curled the papers from your hair, + Or clasped the yellow soles of feet + In the palms of both soiled hands. + + IV + + His soul stretched tight across the skies + That fade behind a city block, + Or trampled by insistent feet + At four and five and six o'clock; + And short square fingers stuffing pipes, + And evening newspapers, and eyes + Assured of certain certainties, + The conscience of a blackened street + Impatient to assume the world. + + I am moved by fancies that are curled + Around these images, and cling: + The notion of some infinitely gentle + Infinitely suffering thing. + + Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; + The worlds revolve like ancient women + Gathering fuel in vacant lots. + + + + +Rhapsody on a Windy Night + + Twelve o'clock. + Along the reaches of the street + Held in a lunar synthesis, + Whispering lunar incantations + Disolve the floors of memory + And all its clear relations, + Its divisions and precisions, + Every street lamp that I pass + Beats like a fatalistic drum, + And through the spaces of the dark + Midnight shakes the memory + As a madman shakes a dead geranium. + + Half-past one, + The street lamp sputtered, + The street lamp muttered, + The street lamp said, + "Regard that woman + Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door + Which opens on her like a grin. + You see the border of her dress + Is torn and stained with sand, + And you see the corner of her eye + Twists like a crooked pin." + + The memory throws up high and dry + A crowd of twisted things; + A twisted branch upon the beach + Eaten smooth, and polished + As if the world gave up + The secret of its skeleton, + Stiff and white. + A broken spring in a factory yard, + Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left + Hard and curled and ready to snap. + + Half-past two, + The street-lamp said, + "Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, + Slips out its tongue + And devours a morsel of rancid butter." + So the hand of the child, automatic, + Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along + the quay. + I could see nothing behind that child's eye. + I have seen eyes in the street + Trying to peer through lighted shutters, + And a crab one afternoon in a pool, + An old crab with barnacles on his back, + Gripped the end of a stick which I held him. + + Half-past three, + The lamp sputtered, + The lamp muttered in the dark. + + The lamp hummed: + "Regard the moon, + La lune ne garde aucune rancune, + She winks a feeble eye, + She smiles into corners. + She smooths the hair of the grass. + The moon has lost her memory. + A washed-out smallpox cracks her face, + Her hand twists a paper rose, + That smells of dust and old Cologne, + She is alone With all the old nocturnal smells + That cross and cross across her brain. + The reminiscence comes + Of sunless dry geraniums + And dust in crevices, + Smells of chestnuts in the streets + And female smells in shuttered rooms + And cigarettes in corridors + And cocktail smells in bars." + + The lamp said, + "Four o'clock, + Here is the number on the door. + Memory! + You have the key, + The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair, + Mount. + The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall, + Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life." + + The last twist of the knife. + + + + +Morning at the Window + + They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, + And along the trampled edges of the street + I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids + Sprouting despondently at area gates. + The brown waves of fog toss up to me + Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, + And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts + An aimless smile that hovers in the air + And vanishes along the level of the roofs. + + + + +The Boston Evening Transcript + + The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript + Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn. + When evening quickens faintly in the street, + Wakening the appetites of life in some + And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript, + I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning + Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld, + If the street were time and he at the end of the street, + And I say, "Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript." + + + + +Aunt Helen + + Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt, + And lived in a small house near a fashionable square + Cared for by servants to the number of four. + Now when she died there was silence in heaven + And silence at her end of the street. + The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet-- + He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before. + The dogs were handsomely provided for, + But shortly afterwards the parrot died too. + The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece, + And the footman sat upon the dining-table + Holding the second housemaid on his knees-- + Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived. + + + + +Cousin Nancy + + Miss Nancy Ellicott Strode across the hills and broke them, + Rode across the hills and broke them-- + The barren New England hills-- + Riding to hounds + Over the cow-pasture. + + Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked + And danced all the modern dances; + And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it, + But they knew that it was modern. + + Upon the glazen shelves kept watch + Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith, + The army of unalterable law. + + + + +Mr. Apollinax + + When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States + His laughter tinkled among the teacups. + I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees, + And of Priapus in the shrubbery + Gaping at the lady in the swing. + In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah's + He laughed like an irresponsible foetus. + HWith your aid indiffeis laughter was submarine and profound + Like the old man of the sea's + Hidden under coral islands + Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence, + Dropping from fingers of surf. + I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair + Or grinning over a screen + With seaweed in its hair. + I heard the beat of centaur's hoofs over the hard turf + As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon. + "He is a charming man"--"But after all what did he mean?"-- + "His pointed ears... He must be unbalanced,"-- + "There was something he said that I might have challenged." + Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. Cheetah + I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon. + + + + +Hysteria + + As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her + laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were + only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I + was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary + recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her + throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An + elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly + spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty + green iron table, saying: "If the lady and gentleman + wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and + gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden..." I + decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be + stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might + be collected, and I concentrated my attention with + careful subtlety to this end. + + + + +Conversation Galante + + I observe: "Our sentimental friend the moon! + Or possibly (fantastic, I confess) + It may be Prester John's balloon + Or an old battered lantern hung aloft + To light poor travellers to their distress." + She then: "How you digress!" + + And I then: "Some one frames upon the keys + That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain + The night and moonshine; music which we seize + To body forth our vacuity." + She then: "Does this refer to me?" + "Oh no, it is I who am inane." + + "You, madam, are the eternal humorist, + The eternal enemy of the absolute, + Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist! + With your air indifferent and imperious + At a stroke our mad poetics to confute--" + And--"Are we then so serious?" + + + + +La Figlia Che Piange + + O quam te memorem Virgo... + + + Stand on the highest pavement of the stair-- + Lean on a garden urn-- + Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair-- + Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise-- + Fling them to the ground and turn + With a fugitive resentment in your eyes: + But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair. + + So I would have had him leave, + So I would have had her stand and grieve, + So he would have left + As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised, + As the mind deserts the body it has used. + I should find + Some way incomparably light and deft, + Some way we both should understand, + Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand. + + She turned away, but with the autumn weather + Compelled my imagination many days, + Many days and many hours: + Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers. + And I wonder how they should have been together! + I should have lost a gesture and a pose. + Sometimes these cogitations still amaze + The troubled midnight and the noon's repose. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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