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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30276-0.txt b/30276-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a99343c --- /dev/null +++ b/30276-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1899 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30276 *** + +SOME IMAGIST POETS + + + + SOME IMAGIST + POETS + + AN ANTHOLOGY + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1915 + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published April 1915_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +In March, 1914, a volume appeared entitled "Des Imagistes." It was a +collection of the work of various young poets, presented together as a +school. This school has been widely discussed by those interested in new +movements in the arts, and has already become a household word. +Differences of taste and judgment, however, have arisen among the +contributors to that book; growing tendencies are forcing them along +different paths. Those of us whose work appears in this volume have +therefore decided to publish our collection under a new title, and we have +been joined by two or three poets who did not contribute to the first +volume, our wider scope making this possible. + +In this new book we have followed a slightly different arrangement to that +of the former Anthology. Instead of an arbitrary selection by an editor, +each poet has been permitted to represent himself by the work he considers +his best, the only stipulation being that it should not yet have appeared +in book form. A sort of informal committee--consisting of more than half +the authors here represented--have arranged the book and decided what +should be printed and what omitted, but, as a general rule, the poets +have been allowed absolute freedom in this direction, limitations of space +only being imposed upon them. Also, to avoid any appearance of precedence, +they have been put in alphabetical order. + +As it has been suggested that much of the misunderstanding of the former +volume was due to the fact that we did not explain ourselves in a preface, +we have thought it wise to tell the public what our aims are, and why we +are banded together between one set of covers. + +The poets in this volume do not represent a clique. Several of them are +personally unknown to the others, but they are united by certain common +principles, arrived at independently. These principles are not new; they +have fallen into desuetude. They are the essentials of all great poetry, +indeed of all great literature, and they are simply these:-- + +1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the _exact_ +word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word. + +2. To create new rhythms--as the expression of new moods--and not to copy +old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist upon +"free-verse" as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as for +a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a poet may +often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional forms. In +poetry, a new cadence means a new idea. + +3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not good art +to write badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad +art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic +value of modern life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing so +uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an aeroplane of the year 1911. + +4. To present an image (hence the name: "Imagist"). We are not a school of +painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and +not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is +for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk +the real difficulties of his art. + +5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite. + +6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence +of poetry. + +The subject of free-verse is too complicated to be discussed here. We may +say briefly, that we attach the term to all that increasing amount of +writing whose cadence is more marked, more definite, and closer knit than +that of prose, but which is not so violently nor so obviously accented as +the so-called "regular verse." We refer those interested in the question +to the Greek Melic poets, and to the many excellent French studies on the +subject by such distinguished and well-equipped authors as Remy de +Gourmont, Gustave Kahn, Georges Duhamel, Charles Vildrac, Henri Ghéon, +Robert de Souza, André Spire, etc. + +We wish it to be clearly understood that we do not represent an exclusive +artistic sect; we publish our work together because of mutual artistic +sympathy, and we propose to bring out our coöperative volume each year for +a short term of years, until we have made a place for ourselves and our +principles such as we desire. + + + + +CONTENTS + + RICHARD ALDINGTON + Childhood 3 + The Poplar 10 + Round-Pond 12 + Daisy 13 + Epigrams 15 + The Faun sees Snow for the First Time 16 + Lemures 17 + + H. D. + The Pool 21 + The Garden 22 + Sea Lily 24 + Sea Iris 25 + Sea Rose 27 + Oread 28 + Orion Dead 29 + + JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + The Blue Symphony 33 + London Excursion 39 + + F. S. FLINT + Trees 53 + Lunch 55 + Malady 56 + Accident 58 + Fragment 60 + Houses 62 + Eau-Forte 63 + + D. H. LAWRENCE + Ballad of Another Ophelia 67 + Illicit 69 + Fireflies in the Corn 70 + A Woman and Her Dead Husband 72 + The Mowers 75 + Scent of Irises 76 + Green 78 + + AMY LOWELL + Venus Transiens 81 + The Travelling Bear 83 + The Letter 85 + Grotesque 86 + Bullion 87 + Solitaire 88 + The Bombardment 89 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 93 + + + Thanks are due to the editors of _Poetry_, _The Smart Set_, + _Poetry and Drama_, and _The Egoist_ for their courteous + permission to reprint certain of these poems which have been + copyrighted to them. + + + + +RICHARD ALDINGTON + + + +RICHARD ALDINGTON + + +CHILDHOOD + + I + + The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood + Put me out of love with God. + I can't believe in God's goodness; + I can believe + In many avenging gods. + Most of all I believe + In gods of bitter dullness, + Cruel local gods + Who seared my childhood. + + II + + I've seen people put + A chrysalis in a match-box, + "To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." + But when it broke its shell + It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison + And tried to climb to the light + For space to dry its wings. + + That's how I was. + Somebody found my chrysalis + And shut it in a match-box. + My shrivelled wings were beaten, + Shed their colours in dusty scales + Before the box was opened + For the moth to fly. + + And then it was too late, + Because the beauty a child has, + And the beautiful things it learns before its birth, + Were shed, like moth-scales, from me. + + III + + I hate that town; + I hate the town I lived in when I was little; + I hate to think of it. + There were always clouds, smoke, rain + In that dingy little valley. + It rained; it always rained. + I think I never saw the sun until I was nine-- + And then it was too late; + Everything's too late after the first seven years. + + That long street we lived in + Was duller than a drain + And nearly as dingy. + There were the big College + And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. + There were the sordid provincial shops-- + The grocer's, and the shops for women, + The shop where I bought transfers, + And the piano and gramaphone shop + Where I used to stand + Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures + Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone. + + How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! + On wet days--it was always wet-- + I used to kneel on a chair + And look at it from the window. + + The dirty yellow trams + Dragged noisily along + With a clatter of wheels and bells + And a humming of wires overhead. + They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines + And then the water ran back + Full of brownish foam bubbles. + + There was nothing else to see-- + It was all so dull-- + Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas + Running along the grey shiny pavements; + Sometimes there was a waggon + Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound + With their hoofs + Through the silent rain. + + And there was a grey museum + Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals + And a few relics of the Romans--dead also. + There was the sea-front, + A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it, + Three piers, a row of houses, + And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour. + + I was like a moth--- + Like one of those grey Emperor moths + Which flutter through the vines at Capri. + And that damned little town was my match-box, + Against whose sides I beat and beat + Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy + As that damned little town. + + IV + + At school it was just dull as that dull High Street. + They taught me pothooks-- + I wanted to be alone, although I was so little, + Alone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness, + Away somewhere else-- + + The town was dull; + The front was dull; + The High Street and the other street were dull-- + And there was a public park, I remember, + And that was damned dull too, + With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, + And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, + And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, + And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, + And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," + And its gravel paths. + + And on Sundays they rang the bells, + From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. + They had the Salvation Army. + I was taken to a High Church; + The parson's name was Mowbray, + "Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it--" + That's what I heard people say. + + I took a little black book + To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, + And I had to sit on a hard bench, + Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms, + And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed-- + And then there was nothing to do + Except to play trains with the hymn-books. + + There was nothing to see, + Nothing to do, + Nothing to play with, + Except that in an empty room upstairs + There was a large tin box + Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, + Of the Declaration of Independence + And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. + There were also several packets of stamps, + Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, + Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, + Indians and Men-of-war + From the United States, + And the green and red portraits + Of King Francobollo + Of Italy. + + V + + I don't believe in God. + I do believe in avenging gods + Who plague us for sins we never sinned + But who avenge us. + + That's why I'll never have a child, + Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box + For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours, + Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall. + + +THE POPLAR + + Why do you always stand there shivering + Between the white stream and the road? + + The people pass through the dust + On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; + The waggoners go by at dawn; + The lovers walk on the grass path at night. + + Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! + You are more beautiful than they are. + + I know that the white wind loves you, + Is always kissing you and turning up + The white lining of your green petticoat. + The sky darts through you like blue rain, + And the grey rain drips on your flanks + And loves you. + And I have seen the moon + Slip his silver penny into your pocket + As you straightened your hair; + And the white mist curling and hesitating + Like a bashful lover about your knees. + + I know you, poplar; + I have watched you since I was ten. + But if you had a little real love, + A little strength, + You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers + And go walking down the white road + Behind the waggoners. + + There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill. + Will you always stand there shivering? + + +ROUND-POND + + Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind + Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers + Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. + The shining of the sun upon the water + Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals + In a long wavering irregular flight. + + The water is cold to the eye + As the wind to the cheek. + + In the budding chestnuts + Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open + The starlings make their clitter-clatter; + And the blackbirds in the grass + Are getting as fat as the pigeons. + + Too-hoo, this is brave; + Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress. + + +DAISY + + "_Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes, + Nunc_..." + + CATULLUS. + + You were my playmate by the sea. + We swam together. + Your girl's body had no breasts. + + We found prawns among the rocks; + We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing; + In the evening we played games with the others. + + It made me glad to be by you. + + Sometimes I kissed you, + And you were always glad to kiss me; + But I was afraid--I was only fourteen. + + And I had quite forgotten you, + You and your name. + + To-day I pass through the streets. + She who touches my arm and talks with me + Is--who knows?--Helen of Sparta, + Dryope, Laodamia.... + + And there are you + A whore in Oxford Street. + + +EPIGRAMS + + A GIRL + + You were that clear Sicilian fluting + That pains our thought even now. + You were the notes + Of cold fantastic grief + Some few found beautiful. + + NEW LOVE + + She has new leaves + After her dead flowers, + Like the little almond-tree + Which the frost hurt. + + OCTOBER + + The beech-leaves are silver + For lack of the tree's blood. + + At your kiss my lips + Become like the autumn beech-leaves. + + +THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME + + Zeus, + Brazen-thunder-hurler, + Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos, + Send vengeance on these Oreads + Who strew + White frozen flecks of mist and cloud + Over the brown trees and the tufted grass + Of the meadows, where the stream + Runs black through shining banks + Of bluish white. + + Zeus, + Are the halls of heaven broken up + That you flake down upon me + Feather-strips of marble? + + Dis and Styx! + When I stamp my hoof + The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft + So that I reel upon two slippery points.... + + Fool, to stand here cursing + When I might be running! + + +LEMURES + + In Nineveh + And beyond Nineveh + In the dusk + They were afraid. + + In Thebes of Egypt + In the dusk + They chanted of them to the dead. + + In my Lesbos and Achaia + Where the God dwelt + We knew them. + + Now men say "They are not": + But in the dusk + Ere the white sun comes-- + A gay child that bears a white candle-- + I am afraid of their rustling, + Of their terrible silence, + The menace of their secrecy. + + + + +H. D. + + + +H. D. + + +THE POOL + + Are you alive? + I touch you. + You quiver like a sea-fish. + I cover you with my net. + What are you--banded one? + + +THE GARDEN + + I + + You are clear, + O rose, cut in rock, + hard as the descent of hail. + + I could scrape the colour + from the petal, + like spilt dye from a rock. + + If I could break you + I could break a tree. + + If I could stir + I could break a tree, + I could break you. + + II + + O wind, + rend open the heat, + cut apart the heat, + rend it sideways. + + Fruit can not drop + through this thick air: + fruit can not fall into heat + that presses up and blunts + the points of pears + and rounds the grapes. + + Cut the heat, + plough through it, + turning it on either side + of your path. + + +SEA LILY + + Reed, + slashed and torn, + but doubly rich-- + such great heads as yours + drift upon temple-steps, + but you are shattered + in the wind. + + Myrtle-bark + is flecked from you, + scales are dashed + from your stem, + sand cuts your petal, + furrows it with hard edge, + like flint + on a bright stone. + + Yet though the whole wind + slash at your bark, + you are lifted up, + aye--though it hiss + to cover you with froth. + + +SEA IRIS + + I + + Weed, moss-weed, + root tangled in sand, + sea-iris, brittle flower, + one petal like a shell + is broken, + and you print a shadow + like a thin twig. + + Fortunate one, + scented and stinging, + rigid myrrh-bud, + camphor-flower, + sweet and salt--you are wind + in our nostrils. + + II + + Do the murex-fishers + drench you as they pass? + Do your roots drag up colour + from the sand? + Have they slipped gold under you; + rivets of gold? + + Band of iris-flowers + above the waves, + You are painted blue, + painted like a fresh prow + stained among the salt weeds. + + +SEA ROSE + + Rose, harsh rose, + marred and with stint of petals, + meagre flower, thin, + sparse of leaf. + + more precious + than a wet rose, + single on a stem-- + you are caught in the drift. + + Stunted, with small leaf, + you are flung on the sands, + you are lifted + in the crisp sand + that drives in the wind. + + Can the spice-rose + drip such acrid fragrance + hardened in a leaf? + + +OREAD + + Whirl up, sea-- + Whirl your pointed pines, + Splash your great pines + On our rocks, + Hurl your green over us, + Cover us with your pools of fir. + + +ORION DEAD + + [_Artemis speaks_] + The cornel-trees + uplift from the furrows, + the roots at their bases + strike lower through the barley-sprays. + + So arise and face me. + I am poisoned with the rage of song. + + _I once pierced the flesh + of the wild-deer, + now am I afraid to touch + the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?_ + + _I will tear the full flowers + and the little heads + of the grape-hyacinths. + I will strip the life from the bulb + until the ivory layers + lie like narcissus petals + on the black earth._ + + _Arise, + lest I bend an ash-tree + into a taut bow, + and slay--and tear + all the roots from the earth._ + + The cornel-wood blazes + and strikes through the barley-sprays, + but I have lost heart for this. + + I break a staff. + I break the tough branch. + I know no light in the woods. + I have lost pace with the winds. + + + + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + +THE BLUE SYMPHONY + + I + + The darkness rolls upward. + The thick darkness carries with it + Rain and a ravel of cloud. + The sun comes forth upon earth. + + Palely the dawn + Leaves me facing timidly + Old gardens sunken: + And in the gardens is water. + + Sombre wreck--autumnal leaves; + Shadowy roofs + In the blue mist, + And a willow-branch that is broken. + + O old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees! + + Blue and cool: + Blue, tremulously, + Blow faint puffs of smoke + Across sombre pools. + The damp green smell of rotted wood; + And a heron that cries from out the water. + + II + + Through the upland meadows + I go alone. + For I dreamed of someone last night + Who is waiting for me. + + Flower and blossom, tell me do you know of her? + + Have the rocks hidden her voice? + They are very blue and still. + + Long upward road that is leading me, + Light hearted I quit you, + For the long loose ripples of the meadow-grass + Invite me to dance upon them. + + Quivering grass + Daintily poised + For her foot's tripping. + + O blown clouds, could I only race up like you, + Oh, the last slopes that are sun-drenched and steep! + + Look, the sky! + Across black valleys + Rise blue-white aloft + Jagged, unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death. + + Solitude. Silence. + + III + + One chuckles by the brook for me: + One rages under the stone. + One makes a spout of his mouth, + One whispers--one is gone. + + One over there on the water + Spreads cold ripples + For me + Enticingly. + + The vast dark trees + Flow like blue veils + Of tears + Into the water. + + Sour sprites, + Moaning and chuckling, + What have you hidden from me? + + "In the palace of the blue stone she lies forever + Bound hand and foot." + + Was it the wind + That rattled the reeds together? + + Dry reeds, + A faint shiver in the grasses. + + IV + + On the left hand there is a temple: + And a palace on the right-hand side. + Foot-passengers in scarlet + Pass over the glittering tide. + + Under the bridge + The old river flows + Low and monotonous + Day after day. + + I have heard and have seen + All the news that has been: + Autumn's gold and Spring's green! + + Now in my palace + I see foot-passengers + Crossing the river: + Pilgrims of Autumn + In the afternoons. + + Lotus pools: + Petals in the water. + Such are my dreams. + + For me silks are outspread. + I take my ease, unthinking. + + V + + And now the lowest pine-branch + Is drawn across the disk of the sun. + Old friends who will forget me soon + I must go on, + Towards those blue death-mountains + I have forgot so long. + + In the marsh grasses + There lies forever + My last treasure, + With the hope of my heart. + + The ice is glazing over, + Torn lanterns flutter, + On the leaves is snow. + + In the frosty evening + Toll the old bell for me + Once, in the sleepy temple. + + Perhaps my soul will hear. + + Afterglow: + Before the stars peep + I shall creep out into darkness. + + +LONDON EXCURSION + + 'BUS + + Great walls of green, + City that is afar. + + We gallop along + Alert and penetrating, + Roads open about us, + Housetops keep at a distance. + + Soft-curling tendrils, + Swim backwards from our image: + We are a red bulk, + Projecting the angular city, in shadows, at our feet. + + Black coarse-squared shapes, + Hump and growl and assemble. + It is the city that takes us to itself, + Vast thunder riding down strange skies. + + An arch under which we slide + Divides our lives for us: + After we have passed it + We know we have left something behind + We shall not see again. + + Passivity, + Gravity, + Are changed into hesitating, clanking pistons and wheels. + The trams come whooping up one by one, + Yellow pulse-beats spreading through darkness. + + Music-hall posters squall out: + The passengers shrink together, + I enter indelicately into all their souls. + + It is a glossy skating rink, + On which winged spirals clasp and bend each other: + And suddenly slide backwards towards the centre, + After a too-brief release. + + A second arch is a wall + To separate our souls from rotted cables + Of stale greenness. + + A shadow cutting off the country from us, + Out of it rise red walls. + + Yet I revolt: I bend, I twist myself + I curl into a million convolutions: + Pink shapes without angle, + Anything to be soft and woolly, + Anything to escape. + + Sudden lurch of clamours, + Two more viaducts + Stretch out red yokes of steel, + Crushing my rebellion. + + My soul + Shrieking + Is jolted forwards by a long hot bar-- + Into direct distances. + It pierces the small of my back. + + APPROACH + + Only this morning I sang of roses; + Now I see with a swift stare, + The city forcing up through the air + Black cubes close piled and some half-crumbling over. + + My roses are battered into pulp: + And there swells up in me + Sudden desire for something changeless, + Thrusts of sunless rock + Unmelted by hissing wheels. + + ARRIVAL + + Here is too swift a movement, + The rest is too still. + + It is a red sea + Licking + The housefronts. + + They quiver gently + From base to summit. + Ripples of impulse run through them, + Flattering resistance. + + Soon they will fall; + Already smoke yearns upward. + Clouds of dust, + Crash of collapsing cubes. + + I prefer deeper patience, + Monotony of stalled beasts. + O angle-builders, + Vainly have you prolonged your effort, + For I descend amid you, + Past rungs and slopes of curving slippery steel. + + WALK + + Sudden struggle for foothold on the pavement, + Familiar ascension. + + I do not heed the city any more, + It has given me a duty to perform. + I pass along nonchalantly, + Insinuating myself into self-baffling movements. + Impalpable charm of back streets + In which I find myself: + Cool spaces filled with shadow. + Passers-by, white hammocks in the sunlight. + + Bulging outcrush into old tumult; + Attainment, as of a narrow harbour, + Of some shop forgotten by traffic + With cool-corridored walls. + + 'BUS-TOP + + Black shapes bending, + Taxicabs crush in the crowd. + The tops are each a shining square + Shuttles that steadily press through woolly fabric. + + Drooping blossom, + Gas-standards over + Spray out jingling tumult + Of white-hot rays. + + Monotonous domes of bowler-hats + Vibrate in the heat. + + Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic, + Down the crowded street. + The tumult crouches over us, + Or suddenly drifts to one side. + + TRANSPOSITION + + I am blown like a leaf + Hither and thither. + The city about me + Resolves itself into sound of many voices, + Rustling and fluttering, + Leaves shaken by the breeze. + + A million forces ignore me, I know not why, + I am drunken with it all. + Suddenly I feel an immense will + Stored up hitherto and unconscious till this instant. + Projecting my body + Across a street, in the face of all its traffic. + + I dart and dash: + I do not know why I go. + These people watch me, + I yield them my adventure. + + Lazily I lounge through labyrinthine corridors, + And with eyes suddenly altered, + I peer into an office I do not know, + And wonder at a startled face that penetrates my own. + + Roses--pavement-- + I will take all this city away with me-- + People--uproar--the pavement jostling and flickering-- + Women with incredible eyelids: + Dandies in spats: + Hard-faced throng discussing me--I know them all. + I will take them away with me, + I insistently rob them of their essence, + I must have it all before night, + To sing amid my green. + + I glide out unobservant + In the midst of the traffic + Blown like a leaf + Hither and thither, + Till the city resolves itself into a clamour of voices, + Crying hollowly, like the wind rustling through the forest, + Against the frozen housefronts: + Lost in the glitter of a million movements. + + PERIPETEIA + + I can no longer find a place for myself: + I go. + + There are too many things to detain me, + But the force behind is reckless. + + Noise, uproar, movement + Slide me outwards, + Black sleet shivering + Down red walls. + + In thick jungles of green, this gyration, + My centrifugal folly, + Through roaring dust and futility spattered, + Will find its own repose. + + Golden lights will gleam out sullenly into silence, + Before I return. + + MID-FLIGHT + + We rush, a black throng, + Straight upon darkness: + Motes scattered + By the arc's rays. + + Over the bridge fluttering, + It is theatre-time, + No one heeds. + + Lost amid greenness + We will sleep all night; + And in the morning + Coming forth, we will shake wet wings + Over the settled dust of to-day. + + The city hurls its cobbled streets after us, + To drive us faster. + + We must attain the night + Before endless processions + Of lamps + Push us back. + A clock with quivering hands + Leaps to the trajectory-angle of our departure. + + We leave behind pale traces of achievement: + Fires that we kindled but were too tired to put out, + Broad gold fans brushing softly over dark walls, + Stifled uproar of night. + + We are already cast forth: + The signal of our departure + Jerks down before we have learned we are to go. + + STATION + + We descend + Into a wall of green. + Straggling shapes: + Afterwards none are seen. + + I find myself + Alone. + I look back: + The city has grown. + + One grey wall + Windowed, unlit. + Heavily, night + Crushes the face of it. + + I go on. + My memories freeze + Like birds' cry + In hollow trees. + + I go on. + Up and outright + To the hostility + Of night. + + + + +F. S. FLINT + + + +F. S. FLINT + + +TREES + + Elm trees + and the leaf the boy in me hated + long ago-- + rough and sandy. + + Poplars + and their leaves, + tender, smooth to the fingers, + and a secret in their smell + I have forgotten. + + Oaks + and forest glades, + heart aching with wonder, fear: + their bitter mast. + + Willows + and the scented beetle + we put in our handkerchiefs; + and the roots of one + that spread into a river: + nakedness, water and joy. + + Hawthorn, + white and odorous with blossom, + framing the quiet fields, + and swaying flowers and grasses, + and the hum of bees. + + Oh, these are the things that are with me now, + in the town; + and I am grateful + for this minute of my manhood. + + +LUNCH + + Frail beauty, + green, gold and incandescent whiteness, + narcissi, daffodils, + you have brought me Spring and longing, + wistfulness, + in your irradiance. + + Therefore, I sit here + among the people, + dreaming, + and my heart aches + with all the hawthorn blossom, + the bees humming, + the light wind upon the poplars, + and your warmth and your love + and your eyes ... + they smile and know me. + + +MALADY + + I move; + perhaps I have wakened; + this is a bed; + this is a room; + and there is light.... + + Darkness! + + Have I performed + the dozen acts or so + that make me the man + men see? + + The door opens, + and on the landing-- + quiet! + I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness! + + Stairs, banisters, a handrail: + all indistinguishable. + One step farther down or up, + and why? + But up is harder. Down! + Down to this white blur; + it gives before me. + + Me? + + I extend all ways: + I fit into the walls and they pull me. + + Light? + + Light! I know it is light. + + Stillness, and then, + something moves: + green, oh green, dazzling lightning! + And joy! this is my room; + there are my books, there the piano, + there the last bar I wrote, + there the last line, + and oh the sunlight! + + A parrot screeches. + + +ACCIDENT + + Dear one! + you sit there + in the corner of the carriage; + and you do not know me; + and your eyes forbid. + + Is it the dirt, the squalor, + the wear of human bodies, + and the dead faces of our neighbours? + These are but symbols. + + You are proud; I praise you; + your mouth is set; you see beyond us; + and you see nothing. + + I have the vision of your calm, cold face, + and of the black hair that waves above it; + I watch you; I love you; + I desire you. + + There is a quiet here + within the thud-thud of the wheels + upon the railway. + + There is a quiet here + within my heart, + but tense and tender.... + + This is my station.... + + +FRAGMENT + + ... That night I loved you + in the candlelight. + Your golden hair + strewed the sweet whiteness of the pillows + and the counterpane. + O the darkness of the corners, + the warm air, and the stars + framed in the casement of the ships' lights! + The waves lapped into the harbour; + the boats creaked; + a man's voice sang out on the quay; + and you loved me. + In your love were the tall tree fuchsias, + the blue of the hortensias, the scarlet nasturtiums, + the trees on the hills, + the roads we had covered, + and the sea that had borne your body + before the rocks of Hartland. + You loved me with these + and with the kindness of people, + country folk, sailors and fishermen, + and the old lady who had lodged us and supped us. + You loved me with yourself + that was these and more, + changed as the earth is changed + into the bloom of flowers. + + +HOUSES + + Evening and quiet: + a bird trills in the poplar trees + behind the house with the dark green door + across the road. + + Into the sky, + the red earthenware and the galvanised iron chimneys + thrust their cowls. + The hoot of the steamers on the Thames is plain. + + No wind; + the trees merge, green with green; + a car whirs by; + footsteps and voices take their pitch + in the key of dusk, + far-off and near, subdued. + + Solid and square to the world + the houses stand, + their windows blocked with venetian blinds. + + Nothing will move them. + + +EAU-FORTE + + On black bare trees a stale cream moon + hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds. + + Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low, + tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram. + + Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square; + and round the bend six bullocks come. + + A hobbling, dirt-grimed drover guides + their clattering feet to death and shame. + + + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + +BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA + + Oh, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, + Lamps in a wash of rain, + Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard, + Oh, tears on the window pane! + + Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, + Full of disappointment and of rain, + Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples + Of Autumn tell the withered tale again. + + All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen, + Cluck, and the rain-wet wings, + Cluck, my marigold bird, and again + Cluck for your yellow darlings. + + For the grey rat found the gold thirteen + Huddled away in the dark, + Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen, + Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark. + + * * * * * * + + Once I had a lover bright like running water, + Once his face was laughing like the sky; + Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter + On the buttercups--and buttercups was I. + + What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom, + What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen? + 'T is the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom-- + What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men? + + Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom, + And her shift is lying white upon the floor, + That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm + Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store. + + Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples, + Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct--! + And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples, + Did you see the wicked sun that winked? + + +ILLICIT + + In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow, + And between us and it, the thunder; + And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers + Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat. + + You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals, + And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber + I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber + Lightning falls from heaven. + + Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats + A dark boat through the gloom--and whither? + The thunder roars. But still we have each other. + The naked lightnings in the heaven dither + And disappear. What have we but each other? + The boat has gone. + + +FIREFLIES IN THE CORN + + _A Woman taunts her Lover_ + Look at the little darlings in the corn! + The rye is taller than you, who think yourself + So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne + Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights + Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn. + + And always likely!--Oh, if I could ride + With my head held high-serene against the sky + Do you think I'd have a creature like you at my side + With your gloom and your doubt that you love me? O darling rye, + How I adore you for your simple pride! + + And those bright fireflies wafting in between + And over the swaying cornstalks, just above + All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green + Stars come low and wandering here for love + Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene--! + + How I adore you, you happy things, you dears + Riding the air and carrying all the time + Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers + My heart to see you settling and trying to climb + The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears. + + All over the corn's dim motion, against the blue + Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm + Of questing brilliant things:--you joy, you true + Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm + My poor and perished soul at the joy of you! + + _The Man answers and she mocks_ + You're a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do! + --Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine. + And I give you everything that you want me to. + --Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever _can_ shine? + + +A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND + + Ah, stern cold man, + How can you lie so relentless hard + While I wash you with weeping water! + Ah, face, carved hard and cold, + You have been like this, on your guard + Against me, since death began. + + You masquerader! + How can you shame to act this part + Of unswerving indifference to me? + It is not you; why disguise yourself + Against me, to break my heart, + You evader? + + You've a warm mouth, + A good warm mouth always sooner to soften + Even than your sudden eyes. + Ah cruel, to keep your mouth + Relentless, however often + I kiss it in drouth. + + You are not he. + Who are you, lying in his place on the bed + And rigid and indifferent to me? + His mouth, though he laughed or sulked + Was always warm and red + And good to me. + + And his eyes could see + The white moon hang like a breast revealed + By the slipping shawl of stars, + Could see the small stars tremble + As the heart beneath did wield + Systole, diastole. + + And he showed it me + So, when he made his love to me; + And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out, + And his eyes were deep like the sea + With shadow, and he looked at me, + Till I sank in him like the sea, + Awfully. + + Oh, he was multiform-- + Which then was he among the manifold? + The gay, the sorrowful, the seer? + I have loved a rich race of men in one-- + --But not this, this never-warm + Metal-cold--! + + Ah, masquerader! + With your steel face white-enamelled + Were you he, after all, and I never + Saw you or felt you in kissing? + --Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled + With fear, evader! + + You will not stir, + Nor hear me, not a sound. + --Then it was you-- + And all this time you were + Like this when I lived with you. + It is not true, + I am frightened, I am frightened of you + And of everything. + O God!--God too + Has deceived me in everything, + In everything. + + +THE MOWERS + + There's four men mowing down by the river; + I can hear the sound of the scythe strokes, four + Sharp breaths swishing:--yea, but I + Am sorry for what's i' store. + + The first man out o' the four that's mowin' + Is mine: I mun claim him once for all: + --But I'm sorry for him, on his young feet, knowin' + None o' the trouble he's led to stall. + + As he sees me bringin' the dinner, he lifts + His head as proud as a deer that looks + Shoulder-deep out o' th' corn: and wipes + His scythe blade bright, unhooks + + His scythe stone, an' over the grass to me! + --Lad, tha 's gotten a chilt in me, + An' a man an' a father tha 'lt ha'e to be, + My young slim lad, an' I'm sorry for thee. + + +SCENT OF IRISES + + A faint, sickening scent of irises + Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table + A fine proud spike of purple irises + Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable + To see the class's lifted and bended faces + Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable. + + I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless + Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast + You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped + Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast + Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks + Dissolved in the golden sorcery you should not outlast. + + You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation, + You sitting in the cowslips of the meadows above, + --Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs, + Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love-- + You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent, + You, with your face all rich, like the sheen on a dove--! + + You are always asking, do I remember, remember + The buttercup bog-end where the flowers rose up + And kindled you over deep with a coat of gold? + You ask again, do the healing days close up + The open darkness which then drew us in, + The dark that swallows all, and nought throws up. + + You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night + Burnt like a sacrifice;--you invisible-- + Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you! + --And yes, thank God, it still is possible + The healing days shall close the darkness up + Wherein I breathed you like a smoke or dew. + + Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God, + The golden fire has gone, and your face is ash + Indistinguishable in the grey, chill day, + The night has burnt you out, at last the good + Dark fire burns on untroubled without clash + Of you upon the dead leaves saying me yea. + + +GREEN + + The sky was apple-green, + The sky was green wine held up in the sun, + The moon was a golden petal between. + + She opened her eyes, and green + They shone, clear like flowers undone, + For the first time, now for the first time seen. + + + + +AMY LOWELL + + + +AMY LOWELL + + +VENUS TRANSIENS + + Tell me, + Was Venus more beautiful + Than you are, + When she topped + The crinkled waves, + Drifting shoreward + On her plaited shell? + Was Botticelli's vision + Fairer than mine; + And were the painted rosebuds + He tossed his lady, + Of better worth + Than the words I blow about you + To cover your too great loveliness + As with a gauze + Of misted silver? + + For me, + You stand poised + In the blue and buoyant air, + Cinctured by bright winds, + Treading the sunlight. + And the waves which precede you + Ripple and stir + The sands at my feet. + + +THE TRAVELLING BEAR + + Grass-blades push up between the cobblestones + And catch the sun on their flat sides + Shooting it back, + Gold and emerald, + Into the eyes of passers-by. + + And over the cobblestones, + Square-footed and heavy, + Dances the trained bear. + Tho cobbles cut his feet, + And he has a ring in his nose + Which hurts him; + But still he dances, + For the keeper pricks him with a sharp stick, + Under his fur. + + Now the crowd gapes and chuckles, + And boys and young women shuffle their feet in time to the dancing bear. + They see him wobbling + Against a dust of emerald and gold, + And they are greatly delighted. + + The legs of the bear shake with fatigue + And his back aches, + And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him. + But still he dances, + Because of the little, pointed stick. + + +THE LETTER + + Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper + Like draggled fly's legs, + What can you tell of the flaring moon + Through the oak leaves? + Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor + Spattered with moonlight? + Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them + Of blossoming hawthorns, + And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness + Beneath my hand. + + I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against + The want of you; + Of squeezing it into little inkdrops, + And posting it. + And I scald alone, here, under the fire + Of the great moon. + + +GROTESQUE + + Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me + When I pluck them; + And writhe, and twist, + And strangle themselves against my fingers, + So that I can hardly weave the garland + For your hair? + Why do they shriek your name + And spit at me + When I would cluster them? + Must I kill them + To make them lie still, + And send you a wreath of lolling corpses + To turn putrid and soft + On your forehead + While you dance? + + +BULLION + + My thoughts + Chink against my ribs + And roll about like silver hail-stones. + I should like to spill them out, + And pour them, all shining, + Over you. + But my heart is shut upon them + And holds them straitly. + + Come, You! and open my heart; + That my thoughts torment me no longer, + But glitter in your hair. + + +SOLITAIRE + + When night drifts along the streets of the city, + And sifts down between the uneven roofs, + My mind begins to peek and peer. + It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens, + And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples, + Amid the broken flutings of white pillars. + It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair, + And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses. + How light and laughing my mind is, + When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles, + And the city is still! + + +THE BOMBARDMENT + +Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on +the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and +trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a +gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral +square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about +in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After +it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of +the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom! + +The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the firelight. +The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies leap in +the bohemian glasses on the _étagère_. Her hands are restless, but the +white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to +torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the +_étagère_. It lies there formless and glowing, with all its crimson gleams +shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. A thin bell-note +pricks through the silence. A door creaks. The old lady speaks: "Victor, +clear away that broken glass." "Alas! Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, +Victor, one hundred years ago my father brought it--" Boom! The room +shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom! + +It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is shut +within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his ink, his +pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams +of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses itself up at +the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin he can see +copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp in a +cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, +iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom! The +flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long +broken spears of disheveled water and flattens into the earth. Boom! And +there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding rain. +Again, Boom!--Boom!--Boom! He stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees +corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling +the city! Boom! Boom! + +A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made the +bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake." "Hush, my Darling, I am +here." "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the room shook." Boom! +"Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom! "Where is Father? I am so +afraid." Boom! The child sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and creaks. +Boom! + +Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing +across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded +by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his +story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases +like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from +people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking +steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears +apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone, +zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts +like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, +and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses against the +rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet night. + +Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to scorch. +Boom! The bohemian glass on the _étagère_ is no longer there. Boom! A +stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old lady cannot +walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts. Boom!--Boom!--Boom! + +The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of +silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The +city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the +flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its gold on +the sky the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and +chuckles along the floors. + +The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower flickering +at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the ceiling beams. + +The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning +Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter and +crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly and +without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple crashes +down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes along the +gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom! + + +THE END + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + _Fire and Wine._ Grant Richards, Ltd., London, 1913. + _Fool's Gold._ Max Goschen, London, 1913. + _The Dominant City._ Max Goschen, London, 1913. + _The Book of Nature._ Constable & Co., London, 1913. + _Visions of the Evening._ Erskine McDonald, London, 1913. + _Irradiations: Sand and Spray._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914. + + + F. S. FLINT + _The Net of Stars._ Elkin Mathews, London, 1909. + + + D. H. LAWRENCE + _Love Poems and Others._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1913. + Prose: _The White Peacock._ William Heinemann, London, 1911. + _The Trespasser._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1912. + _Sons and Lovers._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1913. + Drama: _The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd._ Mitchell Kennerley, New York, + 1914. + + + AMY LOWELL + _A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, + 1912. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1914. + _Sword Blades and Poppy Seed._ The Macmillan Company, New York; and + Macmillan & Co., London, 1914. + + + +The Riverside Press + +CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS + +U . S . A + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Imagist Poets, by +Richard Aldington and H.D. and John Gould Fletcher and F.S. Flint and D.H. Lawrence and Amy Lowell + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30276 *** diff --git a/30276-h/30276-h.htm b/30276-h/30276-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..30a22d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/30276-h/30276-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1932 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Some Imagist Poets, by Richard Aldington, H.D., John Gould Fletcher, F. S. Flint, D. H. Lawrence, and Amy Lowell. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr { width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + poem{margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + .spacer {padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2em;} + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30276 ***</div> + +<h1>SOME IMAGIST POETS</h1> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>SOME IMAGIST<br /> +POETS</h2> + +<h3>AN ANTHOLOGY</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br /> +The Riverside Press Cambridge<br /> +1915</h4> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h5> +<h5>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h5> +<h5><i>Published April 1915</i></h5> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>In March, 1914, a volume appeared entitled "Des Imagistes." It was a +collection of the work of various young poets, presented together as a +school. This school has been widely discussed by those interested in new +movements in the arts, and has already become a household word. +Differences of taste and judgment, however, have arisen among the +contributors to that book; growing tendencies are forcing them along +different paths. Those of us whose work appears in this volume have +therefore decided to publish our collection under a new title, and we have +been joined by two or three poets who did not contribute to the first +volume, our wider scope making this possible.</p> + +<p>In this new book we have followed a slightly different arrangement to that +of the former Anthology. Instead of an arbitrary selection by an editor, +each poet has been permitted to represent himself by the work he considers +his best, the only stipulation being that it should not yet have appeared +in book form. A sort of informal committee—consisting of more than half +the authors here represented—have arranged the book and decided what +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>should be printed and what omitted, but, as a general rule, the poets +have been allowed absolute freedom in this direction, limitations of space +only being imposed upon them. Also, to avoid any appearance of precedence, +they have been put in alphabetical order.</p> + +<p>As it has been suggested that much of the misunderstanding of the former +volume was due to the fact that we did not explain ourselves in a preface, +we have thought it wise to tell the public what our aims are, and why we +are banded together between one set of covers.</p> + +<p>The poets in this volume do not represent a clique. Several of them are +personally unknown to the others, but they are united by certain common +principles, arrived at independently. These principles are not new; they +have fallen into desuetude. They are the essentials of all great poetry, +indeed of all great literature, and they are simply these:—</p> + +<p>1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the <i>exact</i> +word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.</p> + +<p>2. To create new rhythms—as the expression of new moods—and not to copy +old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist upon +"free-verse" as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a poet may +often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional forms. In +poetry, a new cadence means a new idea.</p> + +<p>3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not good art +to write badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad +art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic +value of modern life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing so +uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an aeroplane of the year 1911.</p> + +<p>4. To present an image (hence the name: "Imagist"). We are not a school of +painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and +not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is +for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk +the real difficulties of his art.</p> + +<p>5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.</p> + +<p>6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence +of poetry.</p> + +<p>The subject of free-verse is too complicated to be discussed here. We may +say briefly, that we attach the term to all that increasing amount of +writing whose cadence is more marked, more definite, and closer knit than +that of prose, but which is not so violently nor so obviously accented as +the so-called "regular verse." We refer those interested in the question +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> the Greek Melic poets, and to the many excellent French studies on the +subject by such distinguished and well-equipped authors as Remy de +Gourmont, Gustave Kahn, Georges Duhamel, Charles Vildrac, Henri Ghéon, +Robert de Souza, André Spire, etc.</p> + +<p>We wish it to be clearly understood that we do not represent an exclusive +artistic sect; we publish our work together because of mutual artistic +sympathy, and we propose to bring out our coöperative volume each year for +a short term of years, until we have made a place for ourselves and our +principles such as we desire.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Richard Aldington</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Childhood</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Poplar</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Round-Pond</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Daisy</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Epigrams</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Faun sees Snow for the First Time</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lemures</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>H. D.</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Pool</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Garden</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sea Lily</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sea Iris</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sea Rose</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Oread</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Orion Dead</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">John Gould Fletcher</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Blue Symphony</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">London Excursion</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>F. S. <span class="smcap">Flint</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trees</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lunch</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Malady</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Accident</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fragment</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Houses</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Eau-Forte</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>D. H. <span class="smcap">Lawrence</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ballad of Another Ophelia</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Illicit</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fireflies in the Corn</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Woman and Her Dead Husband</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Mowers</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Scent of Irises</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Green</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Amy Lowell</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Venus Transiens</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Travelling Bear</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Letter</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Grotesque</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bullion</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Solitaire</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Bombardment</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Bibliography</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr></table> + +<div class="poem">Thanks are due to the editors of <i>Poetry</i>, <i>The Smart Set</i>, <i>Poetry +and Drama</i>, and <i>The Egoist</i> for their courteous permission to reprint certain of these poems which have been copyrighted to them.</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>RICHARD ALDINGTON</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>RICHARD ALDINGTON</h2> +<p> </p> +<h4>CHILDHOOD</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Childhood"> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood<br /> +Put me out of love with God.<br /> +I can't believe in God's goodness;<br /> +I can believe<br /> +In many avenging gods.<br /> +Most of all I believe<br /> +In gods of bitter dullness,<br /> +Cruel local gods<br /> +Who seared my childhood.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>II</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>I've seen people put<br /> +A chrysalis in a match-box,<br /> +"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come."<br /> +But when it broke its shell<br /> +It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison<br /> +And tried to climb to the light<br /> +For space to dry its wings.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span><br /> +That's how I was.<br /> +Somebody found my chrysalis<br /> +And shut it in a match-box.<br /> +My shrivelled wings were beaten,<br /> +Shed their colours in dusty scales<br /> +Before the box was opened<br /> +For the moth to fly.<br /> +<br /> +And then it was too late,<br /> +Because the beauty a child has,<br /> +And the beautiful things it learns before its birth,<br /> +Were shed, like moth-scales, from me.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>III</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>I hate that town;<br /> +I hate the town I lived in when I was little;<br /> +I hate to think of it.<br /> +There were always clouds, smoke, rain<br /> +In that dingy little valley.<br /> +It rained; it always rained.<br /> +I think I never saw the sun until I was nine—<br /> +And then it was too late;<br /> +Everything's too late after the first seven years.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span><br /> +That long street we lived in<br /> +Was duller than a drain<br /> +And nearly as dingy.<br /> +There were the big College<br /> +And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall.<br /> +There were the sordid provincial shops—<br /> +The grocer's, and the shops for women,<br /> +The shop where I bought transfers,<br /> +And the piano and gramaphone shop<br /> +Where I used to stand<br /> +Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures<br /> +Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone.<br /> +<br /> +How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was!<br /> +On wet days—it was always wet—<br /> +I used to kneel on a chair<br /> +And look at it from the window.<br /> +<br /> +The dirty yellow trams<br /> +Dragged noisily along<br /> +With a clatter of wheels and bells<br /> +And a humming of wires overhead.<br /> +They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines<br /> +And then the water ran back<br /> +Full of brownish foam bubbles.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span><br /> +There was nothing else to see—<br /> +It was all so dull—<br /> +Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas<br /> +Running along the grey shiny pavements;<br /> +Sometimes there was a waggon<br /> +Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound<br /> +With their hoofs<br /> +Through the silent rain.<br /> +<br /> +And there was a grey museum<br /> +Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals<br /> +And a few relics of the Romans—dead also.<br /> +There was the sea-front,<br /> +A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it,<br /> +Three piers, a row of houses,<br /> +And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour.<br /> +<br /> +I was like a moth—-<br /> +Like one of those grey Emperor moths<br /> +Which flutter through the vines at Capri.<br /> +And that damned little town was my match-box,<br /> +Against whose sides I beat and beat<br /> +Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy<br /> +As that damned little town.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span><b>IV</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>At school it was just dull as that dull High Street.<br /> +They taught me pothooks—<br /> +I wanted to be alone, although I was so little,<br /> +Alone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness,<br /> +Away somewhere else—<br /> +<br /> +The town was dull;<br /> +The front was dull;<br /> +The High Street and the other street were dull—<br /> +And there was a public park, I remember,<br /> +And that was damned dull too,<br /> +With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick,<br /> +And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on,<br /> +And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in,<br /> +And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones,<br /> +And the swings, which were for "Board-School children,"<br /> +And its gravel paths.<br /> +<br /> +And on Sundays they rang the bells,<br /> +From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches.<br /> +They had the Salvation Army.<br /> +I was taken to a High Church;<br /> +The parson's name was Mowbray,<br /> +"Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it—"<br /> +That's what I heard people say.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span><br /> +I took a little black book<br /> +To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church,<br /> +And I had to sit on a hard bench,<br /> +Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms,<br /> +And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed—<br /> +And then there was nothing to do<br /> +Except to play trains with the hymn-books.<br /> +<br /> +There was nothing to see,<br /> +Nothing to do,<br /> +Nothing to play with,<br /> +Except that in an empty room upstairs<br /> +There was a large tin box<br /> +Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta,<br /> +Of the Declaration of Independence<br /> +And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada.<br /> +There were also several packets of stamps,<br /> +Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots,<br /> +Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak,<br /> +Indians and Men-of-war<br /> +From the United States,<br /> +And the green and red portraits<br /> +Of King Francobollo<br /> +Of Italy.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span><b>V</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>I don't believe in God.<br /> +I do believe in avenging gods<br /> +Who plague us for sins we never sinned<br /> +But who avenge us.<br /> +<br /> +That's why I'll never have a child,<br /> +Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box<br /> +For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours,<br /> +Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE POPLAR</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Poplar"> +<tr><td>Why do you always stand there shivering<br /> +Between the white stream and the road?<br /> +<br /> +The people pass through the dust<br /> +On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars;<br /> +The waggoners go by at dawn;<br /> +The lovers walk on the grass path at night.<br /> +<br /> +Stir from your roots, walk, poplar!<br /> +You are more beautiful than they are.<br /> +<br /> +I know that the white wind loves you,<br /> +Is always kissing you and turning up<br /> +The white lining of your green petticoat.<br /> +The sky darts through you like blue rain,<br /> +And the grey rain drips on your flanks<br /> +And loves you.<br /> +And I have seen the moon<br /> +Slip his silver penny into your pocket<br /> +As you straightened your hair;<br /> +And the white mist curling and hesitating<br /> +Like a bashful lover about your knees.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span><br /> +I know you, poplar;<br /> +I have watched you since I was ten.<br /> +But if you had a little real love,<br /> +A little strength,<br /> +You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers<br /> +And go walking down the white road<br /> +Behind the waggoners.<br /> +<br /> +There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill.<br /> +Will you always stand there shivering?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> +<h4>ROUND-POND</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Round"> +<tr><td>Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind<br /> +Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers<br /> +Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight.<br /> +The shining of the sun upon the water<br /> +Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals<br /> +In a long wavering irregular flight.<br /> +<br /> +The water is cold to the eye<br /> +As the wind to the cheek.<br /> +<br /> +In the budding chestnuts<br /> +Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open<br /> +The starlings make their clitter-clatter;<br /> +And the blackbirds in the grass<br /> +Are getting as fat as the pigeons.<br /> +<br /> +Too-hoo, this is brave;<br /> +Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<h4>DAISY</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Daisy"> +<tr><td align="center">"<i>Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,</i><br /><i>Nunc</i>..."<br /><span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Catullus.</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>You were my playmate by the sea.<br /> +We swam together.<br /> +Your girl's body had no breasts.<br /> +<br /> +We found prawns among the rocks;<br /> +We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing;<br /> +In the evening we played games with the others.<br /> +<br /> +It made me glad to be by you.<br /> +<br /> +Sometimes I kissed you,<br /> +And you were always glad to kiss me;<br /> +But I was afraid—I was only fourteen.<br /> +<br /> +And I had quite forgotten you,<br /> +You and your name.<br /> +<br /> +To-day I pass through the streets.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>She who touches my arm and talks with me<br /> +Is—who knows?—Helen of Sparta,<br /> +Dryope, Laodamia....<br /> +<br /> +And there are you<br /> +A whore in Oxford Street.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> +<h4>EPIGRAMS</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="epigrams"> +<tr><td align="center"><b><span class="smcap">a girl</span></b></td></tr> +<tr><td>You were that clear Sicilian fluting<br /> +That pains our thought even now.<br /> +You were the notes<br /> +Of cold fantastic grief<br /> +Some few found beautiful.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b><span class="smcap">new love</span></b></td></tr> +<tr><td>She has new leaves<br /> +After her dead flowers,<br /> +Like the little almond-tree<br /> +Which the frost hurt.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b><span class="smcap">october</span></b></td></tr> +<tr><td>The beech-leaves are silver<br /> +For lack of the tree's blood.<br /> +<br /> +At your kiss my lips<br /> +Become like the autumn beech-leaves.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="faun"> +<tr><td>Zeus,<br /> +Brazen-thunder-hurler,<br /> +Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos,<br /> +Send vengeance on these Oreads<br /> +Who strew<br /> +White frozen flecks of mist and cloud<br /> +Over the brown trees and the tufted grass<br /> +Of the meadows, where the stream<br /> +Runs black through shining banks<br /> +Of bluish white.<br /> +<br /> +Zeus,<br /> +Are the halls of heaven broken up<br /> +That you flake down upon me<br /> +Feather-strips of marble?<br /> +<br /> +Dis and Styx!<br /> +When I stamp my hoof<br /> +The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft<br /> +So that I reel upon two slippery points....<br /> +<br /> +Fool, to stand here cursing<br /> +When I might be running!</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> +<h4>LEMURES</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="lemures"> +<tr><td>In Nineveh<br /> +And beyond Nineveh<br /> +In the dusk<br /> +They were afraid.<br /> +<br /> +In Thebes of Egypt<br /> +In the dusk<br /> +They chanted of them to the dead.<br /> +<br /> +In my Lesbos and Achaia<br /> +Where the God dwelt<br /> +We knew them.<br /> +<br /> +Now men say "They are not":<br /> +But in the dusk<br /> +Ere the white sun comes—<br /> +A gay child that bears a white candle—<br /> +I am afraid of their rustling,<br /> +Of their terrible silence,<br /> +The menace of their secrecy.</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> +<h2>H. D.</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2>H. D.</h2> + +<h4>THE POOL</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Pool"> +<tr><td>Are you alive?<br /> +I touch you.<br /> +You quiver like a sea-fish.<br /> +I cover you with my net.<br /> +What are you—banded one?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE GARDEN</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="garden"> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>You are clear,<br /> +O rose, cut in rock,<br /> +hard as the descent of hail.<br /> +<br /> +I could scrape the colour<br /> +from the petal,<br /> +like spilt dye from a rock.<br /> +<br /> +If I could break you<br /> +I could break a tree.<br /> +<br /> +If I could stir<br /> +I could break a tree,<br /> +I could break you.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>II</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>O wind,<br /> +rend open the heat,<br /> +cut apart the heat,<br /> +rend it sideways.<br /> +<br /> +Fruit can not drop<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>through this thick air:<br /> +fruit can not fall into heat<br /> +that presses up and blunts<br /> +the points of pears<br /> +and rounds the grapes.<br /> +<br /> +Cut the heat,<br /> +plough through it,<br /> +turning it on either side<br /> +of your path.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> +<h4>SEA LILY</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="sealily"> +<tr><td>Reed,<br /> +slashed and torn,<br /> +but doubly rich—<br /> +such great heads as yours<br /> +drift upon temple-steps,<br /> +but you are shattered<br /> +in the wind.<br /> +<br /> +Myrtle-bark<br /> +is flecked from you,<br /> +scales are dashed<br /> +from your stem,<br /> +sand cuts your petal,<br /> +furrows it with hard edge,<br /> +like flint<br /> +on a bright stone.<br /> +<br /> +Yet though the whole wind<br /> +slash at your bark,<br /> +you are lifted up,<br /> +aye—though it hiss<br /> +to cover you with froth.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> +<h4>SEA IRIS</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="seairis"> +<tr><td class="center"><b>I</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>Weed, moss-weed,<br /> +root tangled in sand,<br /> +sea-iris, brittle flower,<br /> +one petal like a shell<br /> +is broken,<br /> +and you print a shadow<br /> +like a thin twig.<br /> +<br /> +Fortunate one,<br /> +scented and stinging,<br /> +rigid myrrh-bud,<br /> +camphor-flower,<br /> +sweet and salt—you are wind<br /> +in our nostrils.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>II</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>Do the murex-fishers<br /> +drench you as they pass?<br /> +Do your roots drag up colour<br /> +from the sand?<br /> +Have they slipped gold under you;<br /> +rivets of gold?<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span><br /> +Band of iris-flowers<br /> +above the waves,<br /> +You are painted blue,<br /> +painted like a fresh prow<br /> +stained among the salt weeds.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> +<h4>SEA ROSE</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="searose"> +<tr><td>Rose, harsh rose,<br /> +marred and with stint of petals,<br /> +meagre flower, thin,<br /> +sparse of leaf.<br /> +<br /> +more precious<br /> +than a wet rose,<br /> +single on a stem—<br /> +you are caught in the drift.<br /> +<br /> +Stunted, with small leaf,<br /> +you are flung on the sands,<br /> +you are lifted<br /> +in the crisp sand<br /> +that drives in the wind.<br /> +<br /> +Can the spice-rose<br /> +drip such acrid fragrance<br /> +hardened in a leaf?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> +<h4>OREAD</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="oread"> +<tr><td>Whirl up, sea—<br /> +Whirl your pointed pines,<br /> +Splash your great pines<br /> +On our rocks,<br /> +Hurl your green over us,<br /> +Cover us with your pools of fir.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> +<h4>ORION DEAD</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="oriondead"> +<tr><td>[<i>Artemis speaks</i>]</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The cornel-trees</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">uplift from the furrows,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the roots at their bases</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strike lower through the barley-sprays.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So arise and face me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I am poisoned with the rage of song.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>I once pierced the flesh</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>of the wild-deer,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>now am I afraid to touch</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>I will tear the full flowers</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>and the little heads</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>of the grape-hyacinths.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>I will strip the life from the bulb</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>until the ivory layers</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>lie like narcissus petals</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>on the black earth.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Arise,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>lest I bend an ash-tree</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>into a taut bow,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>and slay—and tear</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>all the roots from the earth.</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The cornel-wood blazes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and strikes through the barley-sprays,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">but I have lost heart for this.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I break a staff.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I break the tough branch.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I know no light in the woods.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have lost pace with the winds.</span></td></tr></table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> +<h2>JOHN GOULD FLETCHER</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> +<h2>JOHN GOULD FLETCHER</h2> + +<h4>THE BLUE SYMPHONY</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="symphony"> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>The darkness rolls upward.<br /> +The thick darkness carries with it<br /> +Rain and a ravel of cloud.<br /> +The sun comes forth upon earth.<br /> +<br /> +Palely the dawn<br /> +Leaves me facing timidly<br /> +Old gardens sunken:<br /> +And in the gardens is water.<br /> +<br /> +Sombre wreck—autumnal leaves;<br /> +Shadowy roofs<br /> +In the blue mist,<br /> +And a willow-branch that is broken.<br /> +<br /> +O old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees!<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span><br /> +Blue and cool:<br /> +Blue, tremulously,<br /> +Blow faint puffs of smoke<br /> +Across sombre pools.<br /> +The damp green smell of rotted wood;<br /> +And a heron that cries from out the water.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>II</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>Through the upland meadows<br /> +I go alone.<br /> +For I dreamed of someone last night<br /> +Who is waiting for me.<br /> +<br /> +Flower and blossom, tell me do you know of her?<br /> +<br /> +Have the rocks hidden her voice?<br /> +They are very blue and still.<br /> +<br /> +Long upward road that is leading me,<br /> +Light hearted I quit you,<br /> +For the long loose ripples of the meadow-grass<br /> +Invite me to dance upon them.<br /> +<br /> +Quivering grass<br /> +Daintily poised<br /> +For her foot's tripping.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span><br /> +O blown clouds, could I only race up like you,<br /> +Oh, the last slopes that are sun-drenched and steep!<br /> +<br /> +Look, the sky!<br /> +Across black valleys<br /> +Rise blue-white aloft<br /> +Jagged, unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death.<br /> +<br /> +Solitude. Silence.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>III</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>One chuckles by the brook for me:<br /> +One rages under the stone.<br /> +One makes a spout of his mouth,<br /> +One whispers—one is gone.<br /> +<br /> +One over there on the water<br /> +Spreads cold ripples<br /> +For me<br /> +Enticingly.<br /> +<br /> +The vast dark trees<br /> +Flow like blue veils<br /> +Of tears<br /> +Into the water.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span><br /> +Sour sprites,<br /> +Moaning and chuckling,<br /> +What have you hidden from me?<br /> +<br /> +"In the palace of the blue stone she lies forever<br /> +Bound hand and foot."<br /> +<br /> +Was it the wind<br /> +That rattled the reeds together?<br /> +<br /> +Dry reeds,<br /> +A faint shiver in the grasses.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>IV</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>On the left hand there is a temple:<br /> +And a palace on the right-hand side.<br /> +Foot-passengers in scarlet<br /> +Pass over the glittering tide.<br /> +<br /> +Under the bridge<br /> +The old river flows<br /> +Low and monotonous<br /> +Day after day.<br /> +<br /> +I have heard and have seen<br /> +All the news that has been:<br /> +Autumn's gold and Spring's green!<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span><br /> +Now in my palace<br /> +I see foot-passengers<br /> +Crossing the river:<br /> +Pilgrims of Autumn<br /> +In the afternoons.<br /> +<br /> +Lotus pools:<br /> +Petals in the water.<br /> +Such are my dreams.<br /> +<br /> +For me silks are outspread.<br /> +I take my ease, unthinking.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>V</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>And now the lowest pine-branch<br /> +Is drawn across the disk of the sun.<br /> +Old friends who will forget me soon<br /> +I must go on,<br /> +Towards those blue death-mountains<br /> +I have forgot so long.<br /> +<br /> +In the marsh grasses<br /> +There lies forever<br /> +My last treasure,<br /> +With the hope of my heart.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span><br /> +The ice is glazing over,<br /> +Torn lanterns flutter,<br /> +On the leaves is snow.<br /> +<br /> +In the frosty evening<br /> +Toll the old bell for me<br /> +Once, in the sleepy temple.<br /> +<br /> +Perhaps my soul will hear.<br /> +<br /> +Afterglow:<br /> +Before the stars peep<br /> +I shall creep out into darkness.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> +<h4>LONDON EXCURSION</h4> + +<h5>'BUS</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="bus"> +<tr><td>Great walls of green,<br /> +City that is afar.<br /> +<br /> +We gallop along<br /> +Alert and penetrating,<br /> +Roads open about us,<br /> +Housetops keep at a distance.<br /> +<br /> +Soft-curling tendrils,<br /> +Swim backwards from our image:<br /> +We are a red bulk,<br /> +Projecting the angular city, in shadows, at our feet.<br /> +<br /> +Black coarse-squared shapes,<br /> +Hump and growl and assemble.<br /> +It is the city that takes us to itself,<br /> +Vast thunder riding down strange skies.<br /> +<br /> +An arch under which we slide<br /> +Divides our lives for us:<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>After we have passed it<br /> +We know we have left something behind<br /> +We shall not see again.<br /> +<br /> +Passivity,<br /> +Gravity,<br /> +Are changed into hesitating, clanking pistons and wheels.<br /> +The trams come whooping up one by one,<br /> +Yellow pulse-beats spreading through darkness.<br /> +<br /> +Music-hall posters squall out:<br /> +The passengers shrink together,<br /> +I enter indelicately into all their souls.<br /> +<br /> +It is a glossy skating rink,<br /> +On which winged spirals clasp and bend each other:<br /> +And suddenly slide backwards towards the centre,<br /> +After a too-brief release.<br /> +<br /> +A second arch is a wall<br /> +To separate our souls from rotted cables<br /> +Of stale greenness.<br /> +<br /> +A shadow cutting off the country from us,<br /> +Out of it rise red walls.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span><br /> +Yet I revolt: I bend, I twist myself<br /> +I curl into a million convolutions:<br /> +Pink shapes without angle,<br /> +Anything to be soft and woolly,<br /> +Anything to escape.<br /> +<br /> +Sudden lurch of clamours,<br /> +Two more viaducts<br /> +Stretch out red yokes of steel,<br /> +Crushing my rebellion.<br /> +<br /> +My soul<br /> +Shrieking<br /> +Is jolted forwards by a long hot bar—<br /> +Into direct distances.<br /> +It pierces the small of my back.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>APPROACH</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="approach"> +<tr><td>Only this morning I sang of roses;<br /> +Now I see with a swift stare,<br /> +The city forcing up through the air<br /> +Black cubes close piled and some half-crumbling over.<br /> +<br /> +My roses are battered into pulp:<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>And there swells up in me<br /> +Sudden desire for something changeless,<br /> +Thrusts of sunless rock<br /> +Unmelted by hissing wheels.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>ARRIVAL</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="arrival"> +<tr><td>Here is too swift a movement,<br /> +The rest is too still.<br /> +<br /> +It is a red sea<br /> +Licking<br /> +The housefronts.<br /> +<br /> +They quiver gently<br /> +From base to summit.<br /> +Ripples of impulse run through them,<br /> +Flattering resistance.<br /> +<br /> +Soon they will fall;<br /> +Already smoke yearns upward.<br /> +Clouds of dust,<br /> +Crash of collapsing cubes.<br /> +<br /> +I prefer deeper patience,<br /> +Monotony of stalled beasts.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>O angle-builders,<br /> +Vainly have you prolonged your effort,<br /> +For I descend amid you,<br /> +Past rungs and slopes of curving slippery steel.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>WALK</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="walk"> +<tr><td>Sudden struggle for foothold on the pavement,<br /> +Familiar ascension.<br /> +<br /> +I do not heed the city any more,<br /> +It has given me a duty to perform.<br /> +I pass along nonchalantly,<br /> +Insinuating myself into self-baffling movements.<br /> +Impalpable charm of back streets<br /> +In which I find myself:<br /> +Cool spaces filled with shadow.<br /> +Passers-by, white hammocks in the sunlight.<br /> +<br /> +Bulging outcrush into old tumult;<br /> +Attainment, as of a narrow harbour,<br /> +Of some shop forgotten by traffic<br /> +With cool-corridored walls.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>'BUS-TOP</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="bustop"> +<tr><td>Black shapes bending,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>Taxicabs crush in the crowd.<br /> +The tops are each a shining square<br /> +Shuttles that steadily press through woolly fabric.<br /> +<br /> +Drooping blossom,<br /> +Gas-standards over<br /> +Spray out jingling tumult<br /> +Of white-hot rays.<br /> +<br /> +Monotonous domes of bowler-hats<br /> +Vibrate in the heat.<br /> +<br /> +Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic,<br /> +Down the crowded street.<br /> +The tumult crouches over us,<br /> +Or suddenly drifts to one side.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>TRANSPOSITION</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="transposition"> +<tr><td>I am blown like a leaf<br /> +Hither and thither.<br /> +The city about me<br /> +Resolves itself into sound of many voices,<br /> +Rustling and fluttering,<br /> +Leaves shaken by the breeze.<br /> +<br /> +A million forces ignore me, I know not why,<br /> +I am drunken with it all.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>Suddenly I feel an immense will<br /> +Stored up hitherto and unconscious till this instant.<br /> +Projecting my body<br /> +Across a street, in the face of all its traffic.<br /> +<br /> +I dart and dash:<br /> +I do not know why I go.<br /> +These people watch me,<br /> +I yield them my adventure.<br /> +<br /> +Lazily I lounge through labyrinthine corridors,<br /> +And with eyes suddenly altered,<br /> +I peer into an office I do not know,<br /> +And wonder at a startled face that penetrates my own.<br /> +<br /> +Roses—pavement—<br /> +I will take all this city away with me—<br /> +People—uproar—the pavement jostling and flickering—<br /> +Women with incredible eyelids:<br /> +Dandies in spats:<br /> +Hard-faced throng discussing me—I know them all.<br /> +I will take them away with me,<br /> +I insistently rob them of their essence,<br /> +I must have it all before night,<br /> +To sing amid my green.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span><br /> +I glide out unobservant<br /> +In the midst of the traffic<br /> +Blown like a leaf<br /> +Hither and thither,<br /> +Till the city resolves itself into a clamour of voices,<br /> +Crying hollowly, like the wind rustling through the forest,<br /> +Against the frozen housefronts:<br /> +Lost in the glitter of a million movements.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>PERIPETEIA</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="peripeteia"> +<tr><td>I can no longer find a place for myself:<br /> +I go.<br /> +<br /> +There are too many things to detain me,<br /> +But the force behind is reckless.<br /> +<br /> +Noise, uproar, movement<br /> +Slide me outwards,<br /> +Black sleet shivering<br /> +Down red walls.<br /> +<br /> +In thick jungles of green, this gyration,<br /> +My centrifugal folly,<br /> +Through roaring dust and futility spattered,<br /> +Will find its own repose.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span><br /> +Golden lights will gleam out sullenly into silence,<br /> +Before I return.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>MID-FLIGHT</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="midflight"> +<tr><td>We rush, a black throng,<br /> +Straight upon darkness:<br /> +Motes scattered<br /> +By the arc's rays.<br /> +<br /> +Over the bridge fluttering,<br /> +It is theatre-time,<br /> +No one heeds.<br /> +<br /> +Lost amid greenness<br /> +We will sleep all night;<br /> +And in the morning<br /> +Coming forth, we will shake wet wings<br /> +Over the settled dust of to-day.<br /> +<br /> +The city hurls its cobbled streets after us,<br /> +To drive us faster.<br /> +<br /> +We must attain the night<br /> +Before endless processions<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>Of lamps<br /> +Push us back.<br /> +A clock with quivering hands<br /> +Leaps to the trajectory-angle of our departure.<br /> +<br /> +We leave behind pale traces of achievement:<br /> +Fires that we kindled but were too tired to put out,<br /> +Broad gold fans brushing softly over dark walls,<br /> +Stifled uproar of night.<br /> +<br /> +We are already cast forth:<br /> +The signal of our departure<br /> +Jerks down before we have learned we are to go.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>STATION</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="station"> +<tr><td>We descend<br /> +Into a wall of green.<br /> +Straggling shapes:<br /> +Afterwards none are seen.<br /> +<br /> +I find myself<br /> +Alone.<br /> +I look back:<br /> +The city has grown.<br /> +<br /> +One grey wall<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>Windowed, unlit.<br /> +Heavily, night<br /> +Crushes the face of it.<br /> +<br /> +I go on.<br /> +My memories freeze<br /> +Like birds' cry<br /> +In hollow trees.<br /> +<br /> +I go on.<br /> +Up and outright<br /> +To the hostility<br /> +Of night.</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> +<h2>F. S. FLINT</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> +<h2>F. S. FLINT</h2> + +<h4>TREES</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="trees"> +<tr><td> +Elm trees<br /> +and the leaf the boy in me hated<br /> +long ago—<br /> +rough and sandy.<br /> +<br /> +Poplars<br /> +and their leaves,<br /> +tender, smooth to the fingers,<br /> +and a secret in their smell<br /> +I have forgotten.<br /> +<br /> +Oaks<br /> +and forest glades,<br /> +heart aching with wonder, fear:<br /> +their bitter mast.<br /> +<br /> +Willows<br /> +and the scented beetle<br /> +we put in our handkerchiefs;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>and the roots of one<br /> +that spread into a river:<br /> +nakedness, water and joy.<br /> +<br /> +Hawthorn,<br /> +white and odorous with blossom,<br /> +framing the quiet fields,<br /> +and swaying flowers and grasses,<br /> +and the hum of bees.<br /> +<br /> +Oh, these are the things that are with me now,<br /> +in the town;<br /> +and I am grateful<br /> +for this minute of my manhood.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> +<h4>LUNCH</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="lunch"> +<tr><td>Frail beauty,<br /> +green, gold and incandescent whiteness,<br /> +narcissi, daffodils,<br /> +you have brought me Spring and longing,<br /> +wistfulness,<br /> +in your irradiance.<br /> +<br /> +Therefore, I sit here<br /> +among the people,<br /> +dreaming,<br /> +and my heart aches<br /> +with all the hawthorn blossom,<br /> +the bees humming,<br /> +the light wind upon the poplars,<br /> +and your warmth and your love<br /> +and your eyes ...<br /> +they smile and know me.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<h4>MALADY</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="malady"> +<tr><td>I move;<br /> +perhaps I have wakened;<br /> +this is a bed;<br /> +this is a room;<br /> +and there is light....<br /> +<br /> +Darkness!<br /> +<br /> +Have I performed<br /> +the dozen acts or so<br /> +that make me the man<br /> +men see?<br /> +<br /> +The door opens,<br /> +and on the landing—<br /> +quiet!<br /> +I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness!<br /> +<br /> +Stairs, banisters, a handrail:<br /> +all indistinguishable.<br /> +One step farther down or up,<br /> +and why?<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>But up is harder. Down!<br /> +Down to this white blur;<br /> +it gives before me.<br /> +<br /> +Me?<br /> +<br /> +I extend all ways:<br /> +I fit into the walls and they pull me.<br /> +<br /> +Light?<br /> +<br /> +Light! I know it is light.<br /> +<br /> +Stillness, and then,<br /> +something moves:<br /> +green, oh green, dazzling lightning!<br /> +And joy! this is my room;<br /> +there are my books, there the piano,<br /> +there the last bar I wrote,<br /> +there the last line,<br /> +and oh the sunlight!<br /> +<br /> +A parrot screeches.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> +<h4>ACCIDENT</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="accident"> +<tr><td>Dear one!<br /> +you sit there<br /> +in the corner of the carriage;<br /> +and you do not know me;<br /> +and your eyes forbid.<br /> +<br /> +Is it the dirt, the squalor,<br /> +the wear of human bodies,<br /> +and the dead faces of our neighbours?<br /> +These are but symbols.<br /> +<br /> +You are proud; I praise you;<br /> +your mouth is set; you see beyond us;<br /> +and you see nothing.<br /> +<br /> +I have the vision of your calm, cold face,<br /> +and of the black hair that waves above it;<br /> +I watch you; I love you;<br /> +I desire you.<br /> +<br /> +There is a quiet here<br /> +within the thud-thud of the wheels<br /> +upon the railway.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span><br /> +There is a quiet here<br /> +within my heart,<br /> +but tense and tender....<br /> +<br /> +This is my station....</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> +<h4>FRAGMENT</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="fragment"> +<tr><td>... That night I loved you<br /> +in the candlelight.<br /> +Your golden hair<br /> +strewed the sweet whiteness of the pillows<br /> +and the counterpane.<br /> +O the darkness of the corners,<br /> +the warm air, and the stars<br /> +framed in the casement of the ships' lights!<br /> +The waves lapped into the harbour;<br /> +the boats creaked;<br /> +a man's voice sang out on the quay;<br /> +and you loved me.<br /> +In your love were the tall tree fuchsias,<br /> +the blue of the hortensias, the scarlet nasturtiums,<br /> +the trees on the hills,<br /> +the roads we had covered,<br /> +and the sea that had borne your body<br /> +before the rocks of Hartland.<br /> +You loved me with these<br /> +and with the kindness of people,<br /> +country folk, sailors and fishermen,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>and the old lady who had lodged us and supped us.<br /> +You loved me with yourself<br /> +that was these and more,<br /> +changed as the earth is changed<br /> +into the bloom of flowers.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> +<h4>HOUSES</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="houses"> +<tr><td>Evening and quiet:<br /> +a bird trills in the poplar trees<br /> +behind the house with the dark green door<br /> +across the road.<br /> +<br /> +Into the sky,<br /> +the red earthenware and the galvanised iron chimneys<br /> +thrust their cowls.<br /> +The hoot of the steamers on the Thames is plain.<br /> +<br /> +No wind;<br /> +the trees merge, green with green;<br /> +a car whirs by;<br /> +footsteps and voices take their pitch<br /> +in the key of dusk,<br /> +far-off and near, subdued.<br /> +<br /> +Solid and square to the world<br /> +the houses stand,<br /> +their windows blocked with venetian blinds.<br /> +<br /> +Nothing will move them.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> +<h4>EAU-FORTE</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="forte"> +<tr><td>On black bare trees a stale cream moon<br /> +hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds.<br /> +<br /> +Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low,<br /> +tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram.<br /> +<br /> +Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square;<br /> +and round the bend six bullocks come.<br /> +<br /> +A hobbling, dirt-grimed drover guides<br /> +their clattering feet to death and shame.</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> +<h2>D. H. LAWRENCE</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> +<h2>D. H. LAWRENCE</h2> + +<h4>BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="ballad"> +<tr><td>Oh, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,<br /> +Lamps in a wash of rain,<br /> +Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard,<br /> +Oh, tears on the window pane!<br /> +<br /> +Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,<br /> +Full of disappointment and of rain,<br /> +Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples<br /> +Of Autumn tell the withered tale again.<br /> +<br /> +All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,<br /> +Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,<br /> +Cluck, my marigold bird, and again<br /> +Cluck for your yellow darlings.<br /> +<br /> +For the grey rat found the gold thirteen<br /> +Huddled away in the dark,<br /> +Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,<br /> +Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><br /> +<br /> +Once I had a lover bright like running water,<br /> +Once his face was laughing like the sky;<br /> +Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter<br /> +On the buttercups—and buttercups was I.<br /> +<br /> +What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom,<br /> +What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?<br /> +'T is the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom—<br /> +What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men?<br /> +<br /> +Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,<br /> +And her shift is lying white upon the floor,<br /> +That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm<br /> +Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.<br /> +<br /> +Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,<br /> +Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct—!<br /> +And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,<br /> +Did you see the wicked sun that winked?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> +<h4>ILLICIT</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="illicit"> +<tr><td>In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow,<br /> +And between us and it, the thunder;<br /> +And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers<br /> +Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.<br /> +<br /> +You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals,<br /> +And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber<br /> +I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber<br /> +Lightning falls from heaven.<br /> +<br /> +Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats<br /> +A dark boat through the gloom—and whither?<br /> +The thunder roars. But still we have each other.<br /> +The naked lightnings in the heaven dither<br /> +And disappear. What have we but each other?<br /> +The boat has gone.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> +<h4>FIREFLIES IN THE CORN</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="fireflies"> +<tr><td><i>A Woman taunts her Lover</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Look at the little darlings in the corn!<br /> +The rye is taller than you, who think yourself<br /> +So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne<br /> +Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights<br /> +Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn.<br /> +<br /> +And always likely!—Oh, if I could ride<br /> +With my head held high-serene against the sky<br /> +Do you think I'd have a creature like you at my side<br /> +With your gloom and your doubt that you love me? O darling rye,<br /> +How I adore you for your simple pride!<br /> +<br /> +And those bright fireflies wafting in between<br /> +And over the swaying cornstalks, just above<br /> +All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green<br /> +Stars come low and wandering here for love<br /> +Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene—!<br /> +<br /> +How I adore you, you happy things, you dears<br /> +Riding the air and carrying all the time<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers<br /> +My heart to see you settling and trying to climb<br /> +The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears.<br /> +<br /> +All over the corn's dim motion, against the blue<br /> +Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm<br /> +Of questing brilliant things:—you joy, you true<br /> +Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm<br /> +My poor and perished soul at the joy of you!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><i>The Man answers and she mocks</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>You're a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine.</span><br /> +And I give you everything that you want me to.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever <i>can</i> shine?</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> +<h4>A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="deadhusband"> +<tr><td>Ah, stern cold man,<br /> +How can you lie so relentless hard<br /> +While I wash you with weeping water!<br /> +Ah, face, carved hard and cold,<br /> +You have been like this, on your guard<br /> +Against me, since death began.<br /> +<br /> +You masquerader!<br /> +How can you shame to act this part<br /> +Of unswerving indifference to me?<br /> +It is not you; why disguise yourself<br /> +Against me, to break my heart,<br /> +You evader?<br /> +<br /> +You've a warm mouth,<br /> +A good warm mouth always sooner to soften<br /> +Even than your sudden eyes.<br /> +Ah cruel, to keep your mouth<br /> +Relentless, however often<br /> +I kiss it in drouth.<br /> +<br /> +You are not he.<br /> +Who are you, lying in his place on the bed<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>And rigid and indifferent to me?<br /> +His mouth, though he laughed or sulked<br /> +Was always warm and red<br /> +And good to me.<br /> +<br /> +And his eyes could see<br /> +The white moon hang like a breast revealed<br /> +By the slipping shawl of stars,<br /> +Could see the small stars tremble<br /> +As the heart beneath did wield<br /> +Systole, diastole.<br /> +<br /> +And he showed it me<br /> +So, when he made his love to me;<br /> +And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out,<br /> +And his eyes were deep like the sea<br /> +With shadow, and he looked at me,<br /> +Till I sank in him like the sea,<br /> +Awfully.<br /> +<br /> +Oh, he was multiform—<br /> +Which then was he among the manifold?<br /> +The gay, the sorrowful, the seer?<br /> +I have loved a rich race of men in one—<br /> +—But not this, this never-warm<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>Metal-cold—!<br /> +<br /> +Ah, masquerader!<br /> +With your steel face white-enamelled<br /> +Were you he, after all, and I never<br /> +Saw you or felt you in kissing?<br /> +—Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled<br /> +With fear, evader!<br /> +<br /> +You will not stir,<br /> +Nor hear me, not a sound.<br /> +—Then it was you—<br /> +And all this time you were<br /> +Like this when I lived with you.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">It is not true,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am frightened, I am frightened of you</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And of everything.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O God!—God too</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Has deceived me in everything,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In everything.</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE MOWERS</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="mowers"> +<tr><td>There's four men mowing down by the river;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I can hear the sound of the scythe strokes, four</span><br /> +Sharp breaths swishing:—yea, but I<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Am sorry for what's i' store.</span><br /> +<br /> +The first man out o' the four that's mowin'<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is mine: I mun claim him once for all:</span><br /> +—But I'm sorry for him, on his young feet, knowin'<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">None o' the trouble he's led to stall.</span><br /> +<br /> +As he sees me bringin' the dinner, he lifts<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His head as proud as a deer that looks</span><br /> +Shoulder-deep out o' th' corn: and wipes<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His scythe blade bright, unhooks</span><br /> +<br /> +His scythe stone, an' over the grass to me!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—Lad, tha 's gotten a chilt in me,</span><br /> +An' a man an' a father tha 'lt ha'e to be,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My young slim lad, an' I'm sorry for thee.</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> +<h4>SCENT OF IRISES</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="scent"> +<tr><td>A faint, sickening scent of irises<br /> +Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table<br /> +A fine proud spike of purple irises<br /> +Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable<br /> +To see the class's lifted and bended faces<br /> +Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable.<br /> +<br /> +I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless<br /> +Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast<br /> +You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped<br /> +Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast<br /> +Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks<br /> +Dissolved in the golden sorcery you should not outlast.<br /> +<br /> +You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation,<br /> +You sitting in the cowslips of the meadows above,<br /> +—Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs,<br /> +Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love—<br /> +You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,<br /> +You, with your face all rich, like the sheen on a dove—!<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span><br /> +You are always asking, do I remember, remember<br /> +The buttercup bog-end where the flowers rose up<br /> +And kindled you over deep with a coat of gold?<br /> +You ask again, do the healing days close up<br /> +The open darkness which then drew us in,<br /> +The dark that swallows all, and nought throws up.<br /> +<br /> +You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night<br /> +Burnt like a sacrifice;—you invisible—<br /> +Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!<br /> +—And yes, thank God, it still is possible<br /> +The healing days shall close the darkness up<br /> +Wherein I breathed you like a smoke or dew.<br /> +<br /> +Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,<br /> +The golden fire has gone, and your face is ash<br /> +Indistinguishable in the grey, chill day,<br /> +The night has burnt you out, at last the good<br /> +Dark fire burns on untroubled without clash<br /> +Of you upon the dead leaves saying me yea.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> +<h4>GREEN</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="green"> +<tr><td>The sky was apple-green,<br /> +The sky was green wine held up in the sun,<br /> +The moon was a golden petal between.<br /> +<br /> +She opened her eyes, and green<br /> +They shone, clear like flowers undone,<br /> +For the first time, now for the first time seen.</td></tr></table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> +<h2>AMY LOWELL</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> +<h2>AMY LOWELL</h2> + +<h4>VENUS TRANSIENS</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="venus"> +<tr><td>Tell me,<br /> +Was Venus more beautiful<br /> +Than you are,<br /> +When she topped<br /> +The crinkled waves,<br /> +Drifting shoreward<br /> +On her plaited shell?<br /> +Was Botticelli's vision<br /> +Fairer than mine;<br /> +And were the painted rosebuds<br /> +He tossed his lady,<br /> +Of better worth<br /> +Than the words I blow about you<br /> +To cover your too great loveliness<br /> +As with a gauze<br /> +Of misted silver?<br /> +<br /> +For me,<br /> +You stand poised<br /> +In the blue and buoyant air,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>Cinctured by bright winds,<br /> +Treading the sunlight.<br /> +And the waves which precede you<br /> +Ripple and stir<br /> +The sands at my feet.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE TRAVELLING BEAR</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="bear"> +<tr><td>Grass-blades push up between the cobblestones<br /> +And catch the sun on their flat sides<br /> +Shooting it back,<br /> +Gold and emerald,<br /> +Into the eyes of passers-by.<br /> +<br /> +And over the cobblestones,<br /> +Square-footed and heavy,<br /> +Dances the trained bear.<br /> +Tho cobbles cut his feet,<br /> +And he has a ring in his nose<br /> +Which hurts him;<br /> +But still he dances,<br /> +For the keeper pricks him with a sharp stick,<br /> +Under his fur.<br /> +<br /> +Now the crowd gapes and chuckles,<br /> +And boys and young women shuffle their feet in time to the dancing bear.<br /> +They see him wobbling<br /> +Against a dust of emerald and gold,<br /> +And they are greatly delighted.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span><br /> +The legs of the bear shake with fatigue<br /> +And his back aches,<br /> +And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him.<br /> +But still he dances,<br /> +Because of the little, pointed stick.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE LETTER</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="letter"> +<tr><td>Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper<br /> +Like draggled fly's legs,<br /> +What can you tell of the flaring moon<br /> +Through the oak leaves?<br /> +Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor<br /> +Spattered with moonlight?<br /> +Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them<br /> +Of blossoming hawthorns,<br /> +And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness<br /> +Beneath my hand.<br /> +<br /> +I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against<br /> +The want of you;<br /> +Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,<br /> +And posting it.<br /> +And I scald alone, here, under the fire<br /> +Of the great moon.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> +<h4>GROTESQUE</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="grotesque"> +<tr><td>Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me<br /> +When I pluck them;<br /> +And writhe, and twist,<br /> +And strangle themselves against my fingers,<br /> +So that I can hardly weave the garland<br /> +For your hair?<br /> +Why do they shriek your name<br /> +And spit at me<br /> +When I would cluster them?<br /> +Must I kill them<br /> +To make them lie still,<br /> +And send you a wreath of lolling corpses<br /> +To turn putrid and soft<br /> +On your forehead<br /> +While you dance?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> +<h4>BULLION</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="bullion"> +<tr><td>My thoughts<br /> +Chink against my ribs<br /> +And roll about like silver hail-stones.<br /> +I should like to spill them out,<br /> +And pour them, all shining,<br /> +Over you.<br /> +But my heart is shut upon them<br /> +And holds them straitly.<br /> +<br /> +Come, You! and open my heart;<br /> +That my thoughts torment me no longer,<br /> +But glitter in your hair.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> +<h4>SOLITAIRE</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="solitaire"> +<tr><td>When night drifts along the streets of the city,<br /> +And sifts down between the uneven roofs,<br /> +My mind begins to peek and peer.<br /> +It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,<br /> +And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,<br /> +Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.<br /> +It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,<br /> +And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.<br /> +How light and laughing my mind is,<br /> +When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,<br /> +And the city is still!</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE BOMBARDMENT</h4> + +<p>Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on +the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and +trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a +gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral +square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about +in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After +it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of +the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!</p> + +<p>The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the firelight. +The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies leap in +the bohemian glasses on the <i>étagère</i>. Her hands are restless, but the +white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to +torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the +<i>étagère</i>. It lies there formless and glowing, with all its crimson gleams +shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. A thin bell-note +pricks through the silence. A door creaks. The old lady speaks: "Victor, +clear away that broken glass." "Alas! Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, +Victor, one hundred years ago my father brought it—" Boom! The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> room +shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!</p> + +<p>It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is shut +within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his ink, his +pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams +of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses itself up at +the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin he can see +copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp in a +cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, +iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom! The +flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long +broken spears of disheveled water and flattens into the earth. Boom! And +there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding rain. +Again, Boom!—Boom!—Boom! He stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees +corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling +the city! Boom! Boom!</p> + +<p>A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made the +bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake." "Hush, my Darling, I am +here." "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the room shook." Boom! +"Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> "Where is Father? I am so +afraid." Boom! The child sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and creaks. +Boom!</p> + +<p>Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing +across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded +by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his +story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases +like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from +people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking +steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears +apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone, +zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts +like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, +and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses against the +rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet night.</p> + +<p>Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to scorch. +Boom! The bohemian glass on the <i>étagère</i> is no longer there. Boom! A +stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old lady cannot +walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts. Boom!—Boom!—Boom!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of +silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The +city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the +flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its gold on +the sky the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and +chuckles along the floors.</p> + +<p>The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower flickering +at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the ceiling beams.</p> + +<p>The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning +Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter and +crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly and +without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple crashes +down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes along the +gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom!</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4>THE END</h4> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> +<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">John Gould Fletcher</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Fire and Wine.</i> Grant Richards, Ltd., London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Fool's Gold.</i> Max Goschen, London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>The Dominant City.</i> Max Goschen, London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>The Book of Nature.</i> Constable & Co., London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Visions of the Evening.</i> Erskine McDonald, London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Irradiations: Sand and Spray.</i> Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">F. S. Flint</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>The Net of Stars.</i> Elkin Mathews, London, 1909.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">D. H. Lawrence</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Love Poems and Others.</i> Duckworth & Co., London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prose: <i>The White Peacock.</i> William Heinemann, London, 1911.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>The Trespasser.</i> Duckworth & Co., London, 1912.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Sons and Lovers.</i> Duckworth & Co., London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Drama: <i>The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd.</i> Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1914.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Amy Lowell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass.</i> Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1914.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Sword Blades and Poppy Seed.</i> The Macmillan Company, New York; and Macmillan & Co., London, 1914.</span></p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>The Riverside Press</h3> +<h4>CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS</h4> +<h4>U . S . A</h4> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30276 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/30276-h/images/title.jpg b/30276-h/images/title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d91d4b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/30276-h/images/title.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c7ffcb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #30276 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30276) diff --git a/old/30276-8.txt b/old/30276-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..63a52cc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30276-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2303 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Imagist Poets, by +Richard Aldington and H.D. and John Gould Fletcher and F.S. Flint and D.H. Lawrence and Amy Lowell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Some Imagist Poets + An Anthology + +Author: Richard Aldington + H.D. + John Gould Fletcher + F.S. Flint + D.H. Lawrence + Amy Lowell + +Release Date: October 17, 2009 [EBook #30276] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME IMAGIST POETS *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + +SOME IMAGIST POETS + + + + SOME IMAGIST + POETS + + AN ANTHOLOGY + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1915 + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published April 1915_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +In March, 1914, a volume appeared entitled "Des Imagistes." It was a +collection of the work of various young poets, presented together as a +school. This school has been widely discussed by those interested in new +movements in the arts, and has already become a household word. +Differences of taste and judgment, however, have arisen among the +contributors to that book; growing tendencies are forcing them along +different paths. Those of us whose work appears in this volume have +therefore decided to publish our collection under a new title, and we have +been joined by two or three poets who did not contribute to the first +volume, our wider scope making this possible. + +In this new book we have followed a slightly different arrangement to that +of the former Anthology. Instead of an arbitrary selection by an editor, +each poet has been permitted to represent himself by the work he considers +his best, the only stipulation being that it should not yet have appeared +in book form. A sort of informal committee--consisting of more than half +the authors here represented--have arranged the book and decided what +should be printed and what omitted, but, as a general rule, the poets +have been allowed absolute freedom in this direction, limitations of space +only being imposed upon them. Also, to avoid any appearance of precedence, +they have been put in alphabetical order. + +As it has been suggested that much of the misunderstanding of the former +volume was due to the fact that we did not explain ourselves in a preface, +we have thought it wise to tell the public what our aims are, and why we +are banded together between one set of covers. + +The poets in this volume do not represent a clique. Several of them are +personally unknown to the others, but they are united by certain common +principles, arrived at independently. These principles are not new; they +have fallen into desuetude. They are the essentials of all great poetry, +indeed of all great literature, and they are simply these:-- + +1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the _exact_ +word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word. + +2. To create new rhythms--as the expression of new moods--and not to copy +old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist upon +"free-verse" as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as for +a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a poet may +often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional forms. In +poetry, a new cadence means a new idea. + +3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not good art +to write badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad +art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic +value of modern life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing so +uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an aeroplane of the year 1911. + +4. To present an image (hence the name: "Imagist"). We are not a school of +painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and +not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is +for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk +the real difficulties of his art. + +5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite. + +6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence +of poetry. + +The subject of free-verse is too complicated to be discussed here. We may +say briefly, that we attach the term to all that increasing amount of +writing whose cadence is more marked, more definite, and closer knit than +that of prose, but which is not so violently nor so obviously accented as +the so-called "regular verse." We refer those interested in the question +to the Greek Melic poets, and to the many excellent French studies on the +subject by such distinguished and well-equipped authors as Remy de +Gourmont, Gustave Kahn, Georges Duhamel, Charles Vildrac, Henri Ghéon, +Robert de Souza, André Spire, etc. + +We wish it to be clearly understood that we do not represent an exclusive +artistic sect; we publish our work together because of mutual artistic +sympathy, and we propose to bring out our coöperative volume each year for +a short term of years, until we have made a place for ourselves and our +principles such as we desire. + + + + +CONTENTS + + RICHARD ALDINGTON + Childhood 3 + The Poplar 10 + Round-Pond 12 + Daisy 13 + Epigrams 15 + The Faun sees Snow for the First Time 16 + Lemures 17 + + H. D. + The Pool 21 + The Garden 22 + Sea Lily 24 + Sea Iris 25 + Sea Rose 27 + Oread 28 + Orion Dead 29 + + JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + The Blue Symphony 33 + London Excursion 39 + + F. S. FLINT + Trees 53 + Lunch 55 + Malady 56 + Accident 58 + Fragment 60 + Houses 62 + Eau-Forte 63 + + D. H. LAWRENCE + Ballad of Another Ophelia 67 + Illicit 69 + Fireflies in the Corn 70 + A Woman and Her Dead Husband 72 + The Mowers 75 + Scent of Irises 76 + Green 78 + + AMY LOWELL + Venus Transiens 81 + The Travelling Bear 83 + The Letter 85 + Grotesque 86 + Bullion 87 + Solitaire 88 + The Bombardment 89 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 93 + + + Thanks are due to the editors of _Poetry_, _The Smart Set_, + _Poetry and Drama_, and _The Egoist_ for their courteous + permission to reprint certain of these poems which have been + copyrighted to them. + + + + +RICHARD ALDINGTON + + + +RICHARD ALDINGTON + + +CHILDHOOD + + I + + The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood + Put me out of love with God. + I can't believe in God's goodness; + I can believe + In many avenging gods. + Most of all I believe + In gods of bitter dullness, + Cruel local gods + Who seared my childhood. + + II + + I've seen people put + A chrysalis in a match-box, + "To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." + But when it broke its shell + It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison + And tried to climb to the light + For space to dry its wings. + + That's how I was. + Somebody found my chrysalis + And shut it in a match-box. + My shrivelled wings were beaten, + Shed their colours in dusty scales + Before the box was opened + For the moth to fly. + + And then it was too late, + Because the beauty a child has, + And the beautiful things it learns before its birth, + Were shed, like moth-scales, from me. + + III + + I hate that town; + I hate the town I lived in when I was little; + I hate to think of it. + There were always clouds, smoke, rain + In that dingy little valley. + It rained; it always rained. + I think I never saw the sun until I was nine-- + And then it was too late; + Everything's too late after the first seven years. + + That long street we lived in + Was duller than a drain + And nearly as dingy. + There were the big College + And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. + There were the sordid provincial shops-- + The grocer's, and the shops for women, + The shop where I bought transfers, + And the piano and gramaphone shop + Where I used to stand + Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures + Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone. + + How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! + On wet days--it was always wet-- + I used to kneel on a chair + And look at it from the window. + + The dirty yellow trams + Dragged noisily along + With a clatter of wheels and bells + And a humming of wires overhead. + They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines + And then the water ran back + Full of brownish foam bubbles. + + There was nothing else to see-- + It was all so dull-- + Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas + Running along the grey shiny pavements; + Sometimes there was a waggon + Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound + With their hoofs + Through the silent rain. + + And there was a grey museum + Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals + And a few relics of the Romans--dead also. + There was the sea-front, + A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it, + Three piers, a row of houses, + And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour. + + I was like a moth--- + Like one of those grey Emperor moths + Which flutter through the vines at Capri. + And that damned little town was my match-box, + Against whose sides I beat and beat + Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy + As that damned little town. + + IV + + At school it was just dull as that dull High Street. + They taught me pothooks-- + I wanted to be alone, although I was so little, + Alone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness, + Away somewhere else-- + + The town was dull; + The front was dull; + The High Street and the other street were dull-- + And there was a public park, I remember, + And that was damned dull too, + With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, + And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, + And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, + And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, + And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," + And its gravel paths. + + And on Sundays they rang the bells, + From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. + They had the Salvation Army. + I was taken to a High Church; + The parson's name was Mowbray, + "Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it--" + That's what I heard people say. + + I took a little black book + To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, + And I had to sit on a hard bench, + Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms, + And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed-- + And then there was nothing to do + Except to play trains with the hymn-books. + + There was nothing to see, + Nothing to do, + Nothing to play with, + Except that in an empty room upstairs + There was a large tin box + Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, + Of the Declaration of Independence + And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. + There were also several packets of stamps, + Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, + Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, + Indians and Men-of-war + From the United States, + And the green and red portraits + Of King Francobollo + Of Italy. + + V + + I don't believe in God. + I do believe in avenging gods + Who plague us for sins we never sinned + But who avenge us. + + That's why I'll never have a child, + Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box + For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours, + Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall. + + +THE POPLAR + + Why do you always stand there shivering + Between the white stream and the road? + + The people pass through the dust + On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; + The waggoners go by at dawn; + The lovers walk on the grass path at night. + + Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! + You are more beautiful than they are. + + I know that the white wind loves you, + Is always kissing you and turning up + The white lining of your green petticoat. + The sky darts through you like blue rain, + And the grey rain drips on your flanks + And loves you. + And I have seen the moon + Slip his silver penny into your pocket + As you straightened your hair; + And the white mist curling and hesitating + Like a bashful lover about your knees. + + I know you, poplar; + I have watched you since I was ten. + But if you had a little real love, + A little strength, + You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers + And go walking down the white road + Behind the waggoners. + + There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill. + Will you always stand there shivering? + + +ROUND-POND + + Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind + Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers + Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. + The shining of the sun upon the water + Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals + In a long wavering irregular flight. + + The water is cold to the eye + As the wind to the cheek. + + In the budding chestnuts + Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open + The starlings make their clitter-clatter; + And the blackbirds in the grass + Are getting as fat as the pigeons. + + Too-hoo, this is brave; + Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress. + + +DAISY + + "_Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes, + Nunc_..." + + CATULLUS. + + You were my playmate by the sea. + We swam together. + Your girl's body had no breasts. + + We found prawns among the rocks; + We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing; + In the evening we played games with the others. + + It made me glad to be by you. + + Sometimes I kissed you, + And you were always glad to kiss me; + But I was afraid--I was only fourteen. + + And I had quite forgotten you, + You and your name. + + To-day I pass through the streets. + She who touches my arm and talks with me + Is--who knows?--Helen of Sparta, + Dryope, Laodamia.... + + And there are you + A whore in Oxford Street. + + +EPIGRAMS + + A GIRL + + You were that clear Sicilian fluting + That pains our thought even now. + You were the notes + Of cold fantastic grief + Some few found beautiful. + + NEW LOVE + + She has new leaves + After her dead flowers, + Like the little almond-tree + Which the frost hurt. + + OCTOBER + + The beech-leaves are silver + For lack of the tree's blood. + + At your kiss my lips + Become like the autumn beech-leaves. + + +THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME + + Zeus, + Brazen-thunder-hurler, + Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos, + Send vengeance on these Oreads + Who strew + White frozen flecks of mist and cloud + Over the brown trees and the tufted grass + Of the meadows, where the stream + Runs black through shining banks + Of bluish white. + + Zeus, + Are the halls of heaven broken up + That you flake down upon me + Feather-strips of marble? + + Dis and Styx! + When I stamp my hoof + The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft + So that I reel upon two slippery points.... + + Fool, to stand here cursing + When I might be running! + + +LEMURES + + In Nineveh + And beyond Nineveh + In the dusk + They were afraid. + + In Thebes of Egypt + In the dusk + They chanted of them to the dead. + + In my Lesbos and Achaia + Where the God dwelt + We knew them. + + Now men say "They are not": + But in the dusk + Ere the white sun comes-- + A gay child that bears a white candle-- + I am afraid of their rustling, + Of their terrible silence, + The menace of their secrecy. + + + + +H. D. + + + +H. D. + + +THE POOL + + Are you alive? + I touch you. + You quiver like a sea-fish. + I cover you with my net. + What are you--banded one? + + +THE GARDEN + + I + + You are clear, + O rose, cut in rock, + hard as the descent of hail. + + I could scrape the colour + from the petal, + like spilt dye from a rock. + + If I could break you + I could break a tree. + + If I could stir + I could break a tree, + I could break you. + + II + + O wind, + rend open the heat, + cut apart the heat, + rend it sideways. + + Fruit can not drop + through this thick air: + fruit can not fall into heat + that presses up and blunts + the points of pears + and rounds the grapes. + + Cut the heat, + plough through it, + turning it on either side + of your path. + + +SEA LILY + + Reed, + slashed and torn, + but doubly rich-- + such great heads as yours + drift upon temple-steps, + but you are shattered + in the wind. + + Myrtle-bark + is flecked from you, + scales are dashed + from your stem, + sand cuts your petal, + furrows it with hard edge, + like flint + on a bright stone. + + Yet though the whole wind + slash at your bark, + you are lifted up, + aye--though it hiss + to cover you with froth. + + +SEA IRIS + + I + + Weed, moss-weed, + root tangled in sand, + sea-iris, brittle flower, + one petal like a shell + is broken, + and you print a shadow + like a thin twig. + + Fortunate one, + scented and stinging, + rigid myrrh-bud, + camphor-flower, + sweet and salt--you are wind + in our nostrils. + + II + + Do the murex-fishers + drench you as they pass? + Do your roots drag up colour + from the sand? + Have they slipped gold under you; + rivets of gold? + + Band of iris-flowers + above the waves, + You are painted blue, + painted like a fresh prow + stained among the salt weeds. + + +SEA ROSE + + Rose, harsh rose, + marred and with stint of petals, + meagre flower, thin, + sparse of leaf. + + more precious + than a wet rose, + single on a stem-- + you are caught in the drift. + + Stunted, with small leaf, + you are flung on the sands, + you are lifted + in the crisp sand + that drives in the wind. + + Can the spice-rose + drip such acrid fragrance + hardened in a leaf? + + +OREAD + + Whirl up, sea-- + Whirl your pointed pines, + Splash your great pines + On our rocks, + Hurl your green over us, + Cover us with your pools of fir. + + +ORION DEAD + + [_Artemis speaks_] + The cornel-trees + uplift from the furrows, + the roots at their bases + strike lower through the barley-sprays. + + So arise and face me. + I am poisoned with the rage of song. + + _I once pierced the flesh + of the wild-deer, + now am I afraid to touch + the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?_ + + _I will tear the full flowers + and the little heads + of the grape-hyacinths. + I will strip the life from the bulb + until the ivory layers + lie like narcissus petals + on the black earth._ + + _Arise, + lest I bend an ash-tree + into a taut bow, + and slay--and tear + all the roots from the earth._ + + The cornel-wood blazes + and strikes through the barley-sprays, + but I have lost heart for this. + + I break a staff. + I break the tough branch. + I know no light in the woods. + I have lost pace with the winds. + + + + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + +THE BLUE SYMPHONY + + I + + The darkness rolls upward. + The thick darkness carries with it + Rain and a ravel of cloud. + The sun comes forth upon earth. + + Palely the dawn + Leaves me facing timidly + Old gardens sunken: + And in the gardens is water. + + Sombre wreck--autumnal leaves; + Shadowy roofs + In the blue mist, + And a willow-branch that is broken. + + O old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees! + + Blue and cool: + Blue, tremulously, + Blow faint puffs of smoke + Across sombre pools. + The damp green smell of rotted wood; + And a heron that cries from out the water. + + II + + Through the upland meadows + I go alone. + For I dreamed of someone last night + Who is waiting for me. + + Flower and blossom, tell me do you know of her? + + Have the rocks hidden her voice? + They are very blue and still. + + Long upward road that is leading me, + Light hearted I quit you, + For the long loose ripples of the meadow-grass + Invite me to dance upon them. + + Quivering grass + Daintily poised + For her foot's tripping. + + O blown clouds, could I only race up like you, + Oh, the last slopes that are sun-drenched and steep! + + Look, the sky! + Across black valleys + Rise blue-white aloft + Jagged, unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death. + + Solitude. Silence. + + III + + One chuckles by the brook for me: + One rages under the stone. + One makes a spout of his mouth, + One whispers--one is gone. + + One over there on the water + Spreads cold ripples + For me + Enticingly. + + The vast dark trees + Flow like blue veils + Of tears + Into the water. + + Sour sprites, + Moaning and chuckling, + What have you hidden from me? + + "In the palace of the blue stone she lies forever + Bound hand and foot." + + Was it the wind + That rattled the reeds together? + + Dry reeds, + A faint shiver in the grasses. + + IV + + On the left hand there is a temple: + And a palace on the right-hand side. + Foot-passengers in scarlet + Pass over the glittering tide. + + Under the bridge + The old river flows + Low and monotonous + Day after day. + + I have heard and have seen + All the news that has been: + Autumn's gold and Spring's green! + + Now in my palace + I see foot-passengers + Crossing the river: + Pilgrims of Autumn + In the afternoons. + + Lotus pools: + Petals in the water. + Such are my dreams. + + For me silks are outspread. + I take my ease, unthinking. + + V + + And now the lowest pine-branch + Is drawn across the disk of the sun. + Old friends who will forget me soon + I must go on, + Towards those blue death-mountains + I have forgot so long. + + In the marsh grasses + There lies forever + My last treasure, + With the hope of my heart. + + The ice is glazing over, + Torn lanterns flutter, + On the leaves is snow. + + In the frosty evening + Toll the old bell for me + Once, in the sleepy temple. + + Perhaps my soul will hear. + + Afterglow: + Before the stars peep + I shall creep out into darkness. + + +LONDON EXCURSION + + 'BUS + + Great walls of green, + City that is afar. + + We gallop along + Alert and penetrating, + Roads open about us, + Housetops keep at a distance. + + Soft-curling tendrils, + Swim backwards from our image: + We are a red bulk, + Projecting the angular city, in shadows, at our feet. + + Black coarse-squared shapes, + Hump and growl and assemble. + It is the city that takes us to itself, + Vast thunder riding down strange skies. + + An arch under which we slide + Divides our lives for us: + After we have passed it + We know we have left something behind + We shall not see again. + + Passivity, + Gravity, + Are changed into hesitating, clanking pistons and wheels. + The trams come whooping up one by one, + Yellow pulse-beats spreading through darkness. + + Music-hall posters squall out: + The passengers shrink together, + I enter indelicately into all their souls. + + It is a glossy skating rink, + On which winged spirals clasp and bend each other: + And suddenly slide backwards towards the centre, + After a too-brief release. + + A second arch is a wall + To separate our souls from rotted cables + Of stale greenness. + + A shadow cutting off the country from us, + Out of it rise red walls. + + Yet I revolt: I bend, I twist myself + I curl into a million convolutions: + Pink shapes without angle, + Anything to be soft and woolly, + Anything to escape. + + Sudden lurch of clamours, + Two more viaducts + Stretch out red yokes of steel, + Crushing my rebellion. + + My soul + Shrieking + Is jolted forwards by a long hot bar-- + Into direct distances. + It pierces the small of my back. + + APPROACH + + Only this morning I sang of roses; + Now I see with a swift stare, + The city forcing up through the air + Black cubes close piled and some half-crumbling over. + + My roses are battered into pulp: + And there swells up in me + Sudden desire for something changeless, + Thrusts of sunless rock + Unmelted by hissing wheels. + + ARRIVAL + + Here is too swift a movement, + The rest is too still. + + It is a red sea + Licking + The housefronts. + + They quiver gently + From base to summit. + Ripples of impulse run through them, + Flattering resistance. + + Soon they will fall; + Already smoke yearns upward. + Clouds of dust, + Crash of collapsing cubes. + + I prefer deeper patience, + Monotony of stalled beasts. + O angle-builders, + Vainly have you prolonged your effort, + For I descend amid you, + Past rungs and slopes of curving slippery steel. + + WALK + + Sudden struggle for foothold on the pavement, + Familiar ascension. + + I do not heed the city any more, + It has given me a duty to perform. + I pass along nonchalantly, + Insinuating myself into self-baffling movements. + Impalpable charm of back streets + In which I find myself: + Cool spaces filled with shadow. + Passers-by, white hammocks in the sunlight. + + Bulging outcrush into old tumult; + Attainment, as of a narrow harbour, + Of some shop forgotten by traffic + With cool-corridored walls. + + 'BUS-TOP + + Black shapes bending, + Taxicabs crush in the crowd. + The tops are each a shining square + Shuttles that steadily press through woolly fabric. + + Drooping blossom, + Gas-standards over + Spray out jingling tumult + Of white-hot rays. + + Monotonous domes of bowler-hats + Vibrate in the heat. + + Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic, + Down the crowded street. + The tumult crouches over us, + Or suddenly drifts to one side. + + TRANSPOSITION + + I am blown like a leaf + Hither and thither. + The city about me + Resolves itself into sound of many voices, + Rustling and fluttering, + Leaves shaken by the breeze. + + A million forces ignore me, I know not why, + I am drunken with it all. + Suddenly I feel an immense will + Stored up hitherto and unconscious till this instant. + Projecting my body + Across a street, in the face of all its traffic. + + I dart and dash: + I do not know why I go. + These people watch me, + I yield them my adventure. + + Lazily I lounge through labyrinthine corridors, + And with eyes suddenly altered, + I peer into an office I do not know, + And wonder at a startled face that penetrates my own. + + Roses--pavement-- + I will take all this city away with me-- + People--uproar--the pavement jostling and flickering-- + Women with incredible eyelids: + Dandies in spats: + Hard-faced throng discussing me--I know them all. + I will take them away with me, + I insistently rob them of their essence, + I must have it all before night, + To sing amid my green. + + I glide out unobservant + In the midst of the traffic + Blown like a leaf + Hither and thither, + Till the city resolves itself into a clamour of voices, + Crying hollowly, like the wind rustling through the forest, + Against the frozen housefronts: + Lost in the glitter of a million movements. + + PERIPETEIA + + I can no longer find a place for myself: + I go. + + There are too many things to detain me, + But the force behind is reckless. + + Noise, uproar, movement + Slide me outwards, + Black sleet shivering + Down red walls. + + In thick jungles of green, this gyration, + My centrifugal folly, + Through roaring dust and futility spattered, + Will find its own repose. + + Golden lights will gleam out sullenly into silence, + Before I return. + + MID-FLIGHT + + We rush, a black throng, + Straight upon darkness: + Motes scattered + By the arc's rays. + + Over the bridge fluttering, + It is theatre-time, + No one heeds. + + Lost amid greenness + We will sleep all night; + And in the morning + Coming forth, we will shake wet wings + Over the settled dust of to-day. + + The city hurls its cobbled streets after us, + To drive us faster. + + We must attain the night + Before endless processions + Of lamps + Push us back. + A clock with quivering hands + Leaps to the trajectory-angle of our departure. + + We leave behind pale traces of achievement: + Fires that we kindled but were too tired to put out, + Broad gold fans brushing softly over dark walls, + Stifled uproar of night. + + We are already cast forth: + The signal of our departure + Jerks down before we have learned we are to go. + + STATION + + We descend + Into a wall of green. + Straggling shapes: + Afterwards none are seen. + + I find myself + Alone. + I look back: + The city has grown. + + One grey wall + Windowed, unlit. + Heavily, night + Crushes the face of it. + + I go on. + My memories freeze + Like birds' cry + In hollow trees. + + I go on. + Up and outright + To the hostility + Of night. + + + + +F. S. FLINT + + + +F. S. FLINT + + +TREES + + Elm trees + and the leaf the boy in me hated + long ago-- + rough and sandy. + + Poplars + and their leaves, + tender, smooth to the fingers, + and a secret in their smell + I have forgotten. + + Oaks + and forest glades, + heart aching with wonder, fear: + their bitter mast. + + Willows + and the scented beetle + we put in our handkerchiefs; + and the roots of one + that spread into a river: + nakedness, water and joy. + + Hawthorn, + white and odorous with blossom, + framing the quiet fields, + and swaying flowers and grasses, + and the hum of bees. + + Oh, these are the things that are with me now, + in the town; + and I am grateful + for this minute of my manhood. + + +LUNCH + + Frail beauty, + green, gold and incandescent whiteness, + narcissi, daffodils, + you have brought me Spring and longing, + wistfulness, + in your irradiance. + + Therefore, I sit here + among the people, + dreaming, + and my heart aches + with all the hawthorn blossom, + the bees humming, + the light wind upon the poplars, + and your warmth and your love + and your eyes ... + they smile and know me. + + +MALADY + + I move; + perhaps I have wakened; + this is a bed; + this is a room; + and there is light.... + + Darkness! + + Have I performed + the dozen acts or so + that make me the man + men see? + + The door opens, + and on the landing-- + quiet! + I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness! + + Stairs, banisters, a handrail: + all indistinguishable. + One step farther down or up, + and why? + But up is harder. Down! + Down to this white blur; + it gives before me. + + Me? + + I extend all ways: + I fit into the walls and they pull me. + + Light? + + Light! I know it is light. + + Stillness, and then, + something moves: + green, oh green, dazzling lightning! + And joy! this is my room; + there are my books, there the piano, + there the last bar I wrote, + there the last line, + and oh the sunlight! + + A parrot screeches. + + +ACCIDENT + + Dear one! + you sit there + in the corner of the carriage; + and you do not know me; + and your eyes forbid. + + Is it the dirt, the squalor, + the wear of human bodies, + and the dead faces of our neighbours? + These are but symbols. + + You are proud; I praise you; + your mouth is set; you see beyond us; + and you see nothing. + + I have the vision of your calm, cold face, + and of the black hair that waves above it; + I watch you; I love you; + I desire you. + + There is a quiet here + within the thud-thud of the wheels + upon the railway. + + There is a quiet here + within my heart, + but tense and tender.... + + This is my station.... + + +FRAGMENT + + ... That night I loved you + in the candlelight. + Your golden hair + strewed the sweet whiteness of the pillows + and the counterpane. + O the darkness of the corners, + the warm air, and the stars + framed in the casement of the ships' lights! + The waves lapped into the harbour; + the boats creaked; + a man's voice sang out on the quay; + and you loved me. + In your love were the tall tree fuchsias, + the blue of the hortensias, the scarlet nasturtiums, + the trees on the hills, + the roads we had covered, + and the sea that had borne your body + before the rocks of Hartland. + You loved me with these + and with the kindness of people, + country folk, sailors and fishermen, + and the old lady who had lodged us and supped us. + You loved me with yourself + that was these and more, + changed as the earth is changed + into the bloom of flowers. + + +HOUSES + + Evening and quiet: + a bird trills in the poplar trees + behind the house with the dark green door + across the road. + + Into the sky, + the red earthenware and the galvanised iron chimneys + thrust their cowls. + The hoot of the steamers on the Thames is plain. + + No wind; + the trees merge, green with green; + a car whirs by; + footsteps and voices take their pitch + in the key of dusk, + far-off and near, subdued. + + Solid and square to the world + the houses stand, + their windows blocked with venetian blinds. + + Nothing will move them. + + +EAU-FORTE + + On black bare trees a stale cream moon + hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds. + + Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low, + tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram. + + Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square; + and round the bend six bullocks come. + + A hobbling, dirt-grimed drover guides + their clattering feet to death and shame. + + + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + +BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA + + Oh, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, + Lamps in a wash of rain, + Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard, + Oh, tears on the window pane! + + Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, + Full of disappointment and of rain, + Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples + Of Autumn tell the withered tale again. + + All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen, + Cluck, and the rain-wet wings, + Cluck, my marigold bird, and again + Cluck for your yellow darlings. + + For the grey rat found the gold thirteen + Huddled away in the dark, + Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen, + Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark. + + * * * * * * + + Once I had a lover bright like running water, + Once his face was laughing like the sky; + Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter + On the buttercups--and buttercups was I. + + What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom, + What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen? + 'T is the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom-- + What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men? + + Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom, + And her shift is lying white upon the floor, + That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm + Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store. + + Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples, + Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct--! + And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples, + Did you see the wicked sun that winked? + + +ILLICIT + + In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow, + And between us and it, the thunder; + And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers + Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat. + + You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals, + And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber + I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber + Lightning falls from heaven. + + Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats + A dark boat through the gloom--and whither? + The thunder roars. But still we have each other. + The naked lightnings in the heaven dither + And disappear. What have we but each other? + The boat has gone. + + +FIREFLIES IN THE CORN + + _A Woman taunts her Lover_ + Look at the little darlings in the corn! + The rye is taller than you, who think yourself + So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne + Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights + Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn. + + And always likely!--Oh, if I could ride + With my head held high-serene against the sky + Do you think I'd have a creature like you at my side + With your gloom and your doubt that you love me? O darling rye, + How I adore you for your simple pride! + + And those bright fireflies wafting in between + And over the swaying cornstalks, just above + All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green + Stars come low and wandering here for love + Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene--! + + How I adore you, you happy things, you dears + Riding the air and carrying all the time + Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers + My heart to see you settling and trying to climb + The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears. + + All over the corn's dim motion, against the blue + Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm + Of questing brilliant things:--you joy, you true + Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm + My poor and perished soul at the joy of you! + + _The Man answers and she mocks_ + You're a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do! + --Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine. + And I give you everything that you want me to. + --Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever _can_ shine? + + +A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND + + Ah, stern cold man, + How can you lie so relentless hard + While I wash you with weeping water! + Ah, face, carved hard and cold, + You have been like this, on your guard + Against me, since death began. + + You masquerader! + How can you shame to act this part + Of unswerving indifference to me? + It is not you; why disguise yourself + Against me, to break my heart, + You evader? + + You've a warm mouth, + A good warm mouth always sooner to soften + Even than your sudden eyes. + Ah cruel, to keep your mouth + Relentless, however often + I kiss it in drouth. + + You are not he. + Who are you, lying in his place on the bed + And rigid and indifferent to me? + His mouth, though he laughed or sulked + Was always warm and red + And good to me. + + And his eyes could see + The white moon hang like a breast revealed + By the slipping shawl of stars, + Could see the small stars tremble + As the heart beneath did wield + Systole, diastole. + + And he showed it me + So, when he made his love to me; + And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out, + And his eyes were deep like the sea + With shadow, and he looked at me, + Till I sank in him like the sea, + Awfully. + + Oh, he was multiform-- + Which then was he among the manifold? + The gay, the sorrowful, the seer? + I have loved a rich race of men in one-- + --But not this, this never-warm + Metal-cold--! + + Ah, masquerader! + With your steel face white-enamelled + Were you he, after all, and I never + Saw you or felt you in kissing? + --Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled + With fear, evader! + + You will not stir, + Nor hear me, not a sound. + --Then it was you-- + And all this time you were + Like this when I lived with you. + It is not true, + I am frightened, I am frightened of you + And of everything. + O God!--God too + Has deceived me in everything, + In everything. + + +THE MOWERS + + There's four men mowing down by the river; + I can hear the sound of the scythe strokes, four + Sharp breaths swishing:--yea, but I + Am sorry for what's i' store. + + The first man out o' the four that's mowin' + Is mine: I mun claim him once for all: + --But I'm sorry for him, on his young feet, knowin' + None o' the trouble he's led to stall. + + As he sees me bringin' the dinner, he lifts + His head as proud as a deer that looks + Shoulder-deep out o' th' corn: and wipes + His scythe blade bright, unhooks + + His scythe stone, an' over the grass to me! + --Lad, tha 's gotten a chilt in me, + An' a man an' a father tha 'lt ha'e to be, + My young slim lad, an' I'm sorry for thee. + + +SCENT OF IRISES + + A faint, sickening scent of irises + Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table + A fine proud spike of purple irises + Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable + To see the class's lifted and bended faces + Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable. + + I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless + Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast + You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped + Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast + Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks + Dissolved in the golden sorcery you should not outlast. + + You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation, + You sitting in the cowslips of the meadows above, + --Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs, + Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love-- + You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent, + You, with your face all rich, like the sheen on a dove--! + + You are always asking, do I remember, remember + The buttercup bog-end where the flowers rose up + And kindled you over deep with a coat of gold? + You ask again, do the healing days close up + The open darkness which then drew us in, + The dark that swallows all, and nought throws up. + + You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night + Burnt like a sacrifice;--you invisible-- + Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you! + --And yes, thank God, it still is possible + The healing days shall close the darkness up + Wherein I breathed you like a smoke or dew. + + Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God, + The golden fire has gone, and your face is ash + Indistinguishable in the grey, chill day, + The night has burnt you out, at last the good + Dark fire burns on untroubled without clash + Of you upon the dead leaves saying me yea. + + +GREEN + + The sky was apple-green, + The sky was green wine held up in the sun, + The moon was a golden petal between. + + She opened her eyes, and green + They shone, clear like flowers undone, + For the first time, now for the first time seen. + + + + +AMY LOWELL + + + +AMY LOWELL + + +VENUS TRANSIENS + + Tell me, + Was Venus more beautiful + Than you are, + When she topped + The crinkled waves, + Drifting shoreward + On her plaited shell? + Was Botticelli's vision + Fairer than mine; + And were the painted rosebuds + He tossed his lady, + Of better worth + Than the words I blow about you + To cover your too great loveliness + As with a gauze + Of misted silver? + + For me, + You stand poised + In the blue and buoyant air, + Cinctured by bright winds, + Treading the sunlight. + And the waves which precede you + Ripple and stir + The sands at my feet. + + +THE TRAVELLING BEAR + + Grass-blades push up between the cobblestones + And catch the sun on their flat sides + Shooting it back, + Gold and emerald, + Into the eyes of passers-by. + + And over the cobblestones, + Square-footed and heavy, + Dances the trained bear. + Tho cobbles cut his feet, + And he has a ring in his nose + Which hurts him; + But still he dances, + For the keeper pricks him with a sharp stick, + Under his fur. + + Now the crowd gapes and chuckles, + And boys and young women shuffle their feet in time to the dancing bear. + They see him wobbling + Against a dust of emerald and gold, + And they are greatly delighted. + + The legs of the bear shake with fatigue + And his back aches, + And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him. + But still he dances, + Because of the little, pointed stick. + + +THE LETTER + + Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper + Like draggled fly's legs, + What can you tell of the flaring moon + Through the oak leaves? + Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor + Spattered with moonlight? + Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them + Of blossoming hawthorns, + And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness + Beneath my hand. + + I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against + The want of you; + Of squeezing it into little inkdrops, + And posting it. + And I scald alone, here, under the fire + Of the great moon. + + +GROTESQUE + + Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me + When I pluck them; + And writhe, and twist, + And strangle themselves against my fingers, + So that I can hardly weave the garland + For your hair? + Why do they shriek your name + And spit at me + When I would cluster them? + Must I kill them + To make them lie still, + And send you a wreath of lolling corpses + To turn putrid and soft + On your forehead + While you dance? + + +BULLION + + My thoughts + Chink against my ribs + And roll about like silver hail-stones. + I should like to spill them out, + And pour them, all shining, + Over you. + But my heart is shut upon them + And holds them straitly. + + Come, You! and open my heart; + That my thoughts torment me no longer, + But glitter in your hair. + + +SOLITAIRE + + When night drifts along the streets of the city, + And sifts down between the uneven roofs, + My mind begins to peek and peer. + It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens, + And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples, + Amid the broken flutings of white pillars. + It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair, + And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses. + How light and laughing my mind is, + When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles, + And the city is still! + + +THE BOMBARDMENT + +Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on +the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and +trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a +gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral +square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about +in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After +it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of +the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom! + +The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the firelight. +The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies leap in +the bohemian glasses on the _étagère_. Her hands are restless, but the +white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to +torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the +_étagère_. It lies there formless and glowing, with all its crimson gleams +shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. A thin bell-note +pricks through the silence. A door creaks. The old lady speaks: "Victor, +clear away that broken glass." "Alas! Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, +Victor, one hundred years ago my father brought it--" Boom! The room +shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom! + +It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is shut +within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his ink, his +pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams +of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses itself up at +the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin he can see +copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp in a +cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, +iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom! The +flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long +broken spears of disheveled water and flattens into the earth. Boom! And +there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding rain. +Again, Boom!--Boom!--Boom! He stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees +corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling +the city! Boom! Boom! + +A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made the +bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake." "Hush, my Darling, I am +here." "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the room shook." Boom! +"Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom! "Where is Father? I am so +afraid." Boom! The child sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and creaks. +Boom! + +Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing +across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded +by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his +story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases +like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from +people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking +steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears +apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone, +zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts +like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, +and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses against the +rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet night. + +Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to scorch. +Boom! The bohemian glass on the _étagère_ is no longer there. Boom! A +stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old lady cannot +walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts. Boom!--Boom!--Boom! + +The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of +silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The +city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the +flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its gold on +the sky the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and +chuckles along the floors. + +The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower flickering +at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the ceiling beams. + +The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning +Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter and +crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly and +without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple crashes +down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes along the +gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom! + + +THE END + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + _Fire and Wine._ Grant Richards, Ltd., London, 1913. + _Fool's Gold._ Max Goschen, London, 1913. + _The Dominant City._ Max Goschen, London, 1913. + _The Book of Nature._ Constable & Co., London, 1913. + _Visions of the Evening._ Erskine McDonald, London, 1913. + _Irradiations: Sand and Spray._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914. + + + F. S. FLINT + _The Net of Stars._ Elkin Mathews, London, 1909. + + + D. H. LAWRENCE + _Love Poems and Others._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1913. + Prose: _The White Peacock._ William Heinemann, London, 1911. + _The Trespasser._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1912. + _Sons and Lovers._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1913. + Drama: _The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd._ Mitchell Kennerley, New York, + 1914. + + + AMY LOWELL + _A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, + 1912. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1914. + _Sword Blades and Poppy Seed._ The Macmillan Company, New York; and + Macmillan & Co., London, 1914. + + + +The Riverside Press + +CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS + +U . S . A + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Imagist Poets, by +Richard Aldington and H.D. and John Gould Fletcher and F.S. Flint and D.H. 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S. Flint, D. H. Lawrence, and Amy Lowell. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr { width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + poem{margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + .spacer {padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2em;} + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Imagist Poets, by +Richard Aldington and H.D. and John Gould Fletcher and F.S. Flint and D.H. Lawrence and Amy Lowell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Some Imagist Poets + An Anthology + +Author: Richard Aldington + H.D. + John Gould Fletcher + F.S. Flint + D.H. Lawrence + Amy Lowell + +Release Date: October 17, 2009 [EBook #30276] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME IMAGIST POETS *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>SOME IMAGIST POETS</h1> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>SOME IMAGIST<br /> +POETS</h2> + +<h3>AN ANTHOLOGY</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br /> +The Riverside Press Cambridge<br /> +1915</h4> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h5> +<h5>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h5> +<h5><i>Published April 1915</i></h5> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>In March, 1914, a volume appeared entitled "Des Imagistes." It was a +collection of the work of various young poets, presented together as a +school. This school has been widely discussed by those interested in new +movements in the arts, and has already become a household word. +Differences of taste and judgment, however, have arisen among the +contributors to that book; growing tendencies are forcing them along +different paths. Those of us whose work appears in this volume have +therefore decided to publish our collection under a new title, and we have +been joined by two or three poets who did not contribute to the first +volume, our wider scope making this possible.</p> + +<p>In this new book we have followed a slightly different arrangement to that +of the former Anthology. Instead of an arbitrary selection by an editor, +each poet has been permitted to represent himself by the work he considers +his best, the only stipulation being that it should not yet have appeared +in book form. A sort of informal committee—consisting of more than half +the authors here represented—have arranged the book and decided what +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>should be printed and what omitted, but, as a general rule, the poets +have been allowed absolute freedom in this direction, limitations of space +only being imposed upon them. Also, to avoid any appearance of precedence, +they have been put in alphabetical order.</p> + +<p>As it has been suggested that much of the misunderstanding of the former +volume was due to the fact that we did not explain ourselves in a preface, +we have thought it wise to tell the public what our aims are, and why we +are banded together between one set of covers.</p> + +<p>The poets in this volume do not represent a clique. Several of them are +personally unknown to the others, but they are united by certain common +principles, arrived at independently. These principles are not new; they +have fallen into desuetude. They are the essentials of all great poetry, +indeed of all great literature, and they are simply these:—</p> + +<p>1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the <i>exact</i> +word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.</p> + +<p>2. To create new rhythms—as the expression of new moods—and not to copy +old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist upon +"free-verse" as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a poet may +often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional forms. In +poetry, a new cadence means a new idea.</p> + +<p>3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not good art +to write badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad +art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic +value of modern life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing so +uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an aeroplane of the year 1911.</p> + +<p>4. To present an image (hence the name: "Imagist"). We are not a school of +painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and +not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is +for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk +the real difficulties of his art.</p> + +<p>5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.</p> + +<p>6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence +of poetry.</p> + +<p>The subject of free-verse is too complicated to be discussed here. We may +say briefly, that we attach the term to all that increasing amount of +writing whose cadence is more marked, more definite, and closer knit than +that of prose, but which is not so violently nor so obviously accented as +the so-called "regular verse." We refer those interested in the question +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> the Greek Melic poets, and to the many excellent French studies on the +subject by such distinguished and well-equipped authors as Remy de +Gourmont, Gustave Kahn, Georges Duhamel, Charles Vildrac, Henri Ghéon, +Robert de Souza, André Spire, etc.</p> + +<p>We wish it to be clearly understood that we do not represent an exclusive +artistic sect; we publish our work together because of mutual artistic +sympathy, and we propose to bring out our coöperative volume each year for +a short term of years, until we have made a place for ourselves and our +principles such as we desire.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Richard Aldington</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Childhood</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Poplar</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Round-Pond</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Daisy</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Epigrams</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Faun sees Snow for the First Time</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lemures</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>H. D.</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Pool</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Garden</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sea Lily</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sea Iris</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sea Rose</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Oread</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Orion Dead</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">John Gould Fletcher</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Blue Symphony</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">London Excursion</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>F. S. <span class="smcap">Flint</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trees</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lunch</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Malady</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Accident</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fragment</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Houses</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Eau-Forte</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>D. H. <span class="smcap">Lawrence</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ballad of Another Ophelia</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Illicit</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fireflies in the Corn</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Woman and Her Dead Husband</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Mowers</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Scent of Irises</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Green</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Amy Lowell</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Venus Transiens</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Travelling Bear</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Letter</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Grotesque</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bullion</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Solitaire</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Bombardment</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Bibliography</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr></table> + +<div class="poem">Thanks are due to the editors of <i>Poetry</i>, <i>The Smart Set</i>, <i>Poetry +and Drama</i>, and <i>The Egoist</i> for their courteous permission to reprint certain of these poems which have been copyrighted to them.</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>RICHARD ALDINGTON</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>RICHARD ALDINGTON</h2> +<p> </p> +<h4>CHILDHOOD</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Childhood"> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood<br /> +Put me out of love with God.<br /> +I can't believe in God's goodness;<br /> +I can believe<br /> +In many avenging gods.<br /> +Most of all I believe<br /> +In gods of bitter dullness,<br /> +Cruel local gods<br /> +Who seared my childhood.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>II</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>I've seen people put<br /> +A chrysalis in a match-box,<br /> +"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come."<br /> +But when it broke its shell<br /> +It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison<br /> +And tried to climb to the light<br /> +For space to dry its wings.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span><br /> +That's how I was.<br /> +Somebody found my chrysalis<br /> +And shut it in a match-box.<br /> +My shrivelled wings were beaten,<br /> +Shed their colours in dusty scales<br /> +Before the box was opened<br /> +For the moth to fly.<br /> +<br /> +And then it was too late,<br /> +Because the beauty a child has,<br /> +And the beautiful things it learns before its birth,<br /> +Were shed, like moth-scales, from me.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>III</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>I hate that town;<br /> +I hate the town I lived in when I was little;<br /> +I hate to think of it.<br /> +There were always clouds, smoke, rain<br /> +In that dingy little valley.<br /> +It rained; it always rained.<br /> +I think I never saw the sun until I was nine—<br /> +And then it was too late;<br /> +Everything's too late after the first seven years.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span><br /> +That long street we lived in<br /> +Was duller than a drain<br /> +And nearly as dingy.<br /> +There were the big College<br /> +And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall.<br /> +There were the sordid provincial shops—<br /> +The grocer's, and the shops for women,<br /> +The shop where I bought transfers,<br /> +And the piano and gramaphone shop<br /> +Where I used to stand<br /> +Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures<br /> +Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone.<br /> +<br /> +How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was!<br /> +On wet days—it was always wet—<br /> +I used to kneel on a chair<br /> +And look at it from the window.<br /> +<br /> +The dirty yellow trams<br /> +Dragged noisily along<br /> +With a clatter of wheels and bells<br /> +And a humming of wires overhead.<br /> +They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines<br /> +And then the water ran back<br /> +Full of brownish foam bubbles.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span><br /> +There was nothing else to see—<br /> +It was all so dull—<br /> +Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas<br /> +Running along the grey shiny pavements;<br /> +Sometimes there was a waggon<br /> +Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound<br /> +With their hoofs<br /> +Through the silent rain.<br /> +<br /> +And there was a grey museum<br /> +Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals<br /> +And a few relics of the Romans—dead also.<br /> +There was the sea-front,<br /> +A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it,<br /> +Three piers, a row of houses,<br /> +And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour.<br /> +<br /> +I was like a moth—-<br /> +Like one of those grey Emperor moths<br /> +Which flutter through the vines at Capri.<br /> +And that damned little town was my match-box,<br /> +Against whose sides I beat and beat<br /> +Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy<br /> +As that damned little town.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span><b>IV</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>At school it was just dull as that dull High Street.<br /> +They taught me pothooks—<br /> +I wanted to be alone, although I was so little,<br /> +Alone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness,<br /> +Away somewhere else—<br /> +<br /> +The town was dull;<br /> +The front was dull;<br /> +The High Street and the other street were dull—<br /> +And there was a public park, I remember,<br /> +And that was damned dull too,<br /> +With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick,<br /> +And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on,<br /> +And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in,<br /> +And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones,<br /> +And the swings, which were for "Board-School children,"<br /> +And its gravel paths.<br /> +<br /> +And on Sundays they rang the bells,<br /> +From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches.<br /> +They had the Salvation Army.<br /> +I was taken to a High Church;<br /> +The parson's name was Mowbray,<br /> +"Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it—"<br /> +That's what I heard people say.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span><br /> +I took a little black book<br /> +To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church,<br /> +And I had to sit on a hard bench,<br /> +Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms,<br /> +And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed—<br /> +And then there was nothing to do<br /> +Except to play trains with the hymn-books.<br /> +<br /> +There was nothing to see,<br /> +Nothing to do,<br /> +Nothing to play with,<br /> +Except that in an empty room upstairs<br /> +There was a large tin box<br /> +Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta,<br /> +Of the Declaration of Independence<br /> +And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada.<br /> +There were also several packets of stamps,<br /> +Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots,<br /> +Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak,<br /> +Indians and Men-of-war<br /> +From the United States,<br /> +And the green and red portraits<br /> +Of King Francobollo<br /> +Of Italy.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span><b>V</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>I don't believe in God.<br /> +I do believe in avenging gods<br /> +Who plague us for sins we never sinned<br /> +But who avenge us.<br /> +<br /> +That's why I'll never have a child,<br /> +Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box<br /> +For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours,<br /> +Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE POPLAR</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Poplar"> +<tr><td>Why do you always stand there shivering<br /> +Between the white stream and the road?<br /> +<br /> +The people pass through the dust<br /> +On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars;<br /> +The waggoners go by at dawn;<br /> +The lovers walk on the grass path at night.<br /> +<br /> +Stir from your roots, walk, poplar!<br /> +You are more beautiful than they are.<br /> +<br /> +I know that the white wind loves you,<br /> +Is always kissing you and turning up<br /> +The white lining of your green petticoat.<br /> +The sky darts through you like blue rain,<br /> +And the grey rain drips on your flanks<br /> +And loves you.<br /> +And I have seen the moon<br /> +Slip his silver penny into your pocket<br /> +As you straightened your hair;<br /> +And the white mist curling and hesitating<br /> +Like a bashful lover about your knees.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span><br /> +I know you, poplar;<br /> +I have watched you since I was ten.<br /> +But if you had a little real love,<br /> +A little strength,<br /> +You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers<br /> +And go walking down the white road<br /> +Behind the waggoners.<br /> +<br /> +There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill.<br /> +Will you always stand there shivering?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> +<h4>ROUND-POND</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Round"> +<tr><td>Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind<br /> +Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers<br /> +Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight.<br /> +The shining of the sun upon the water<br /> +Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals<br /> +In a long wavering irregular flight.<br /> +<br /> +The water is cold to the eye<br /> +As the wind to the cheek.<br /> +<br /> +In the budding chestnuts<br /> +Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open<br /> +The starlings make their clitter-clatter;<br /> +And the blackbirds in the grass<br /> +Are getting as fat as the pigeons.<br /> +<br /> +Too-hoo, this is brave;<br /> +Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<h4>DAISY</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Daisy"> +<tr><td align="center">"<i>Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,</i><br /><i>Nunc</i>..."<br /><span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Catullus.</span></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>You were my playmate by the sea.<br /> +We swam together.<br /> +Your girl's body had no breasts.<br /> +<br /> +We found prawns among the rocks;<br /> +We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing;<br /> +In the evening we played games with the others.<br /> +<br /> +It made me glad to be by you.<br /> +<br /> +Sometimes I kissed you,<br /> +And you were always glad to kiss me;<br /> +But I was afraid—I was only fourteen.<br /> +<br /> +And I had quite forgotten you,<br /> +You and your name.<br /> +<br /> +To-day I pass through the streets.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>She who touches my arm and talks with me<br /> +Is—who knows?—Helen of Sparta,<br /> +Dryope, Laodamia....<br /> +<br /> +And there are you<br /> +A whore in Oxford Street.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> +<h4>EPIGRAMS</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="epigrams"> +<tr><td align="center"><b><span class="smcap">a girl</span></b></td></tr> +<tr><td>You were that clear Sicilian fluting<br /> +That pains our thought even now.<br /> +You were the notes<br /> +Of cold fantastic grief<br /> +Some few found beautiful.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b><span class="smcap">new love</span></b></td></tr> +<tr><td>She has new leaves<br /> +After her dead flowers,<br /> +Like the little almond-tree<br /> +Which the frost hurt.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b><span class="smcap">october</span></b></td></tr> +<tr><td>The beech-leaves are silver<br /> +For lack of the tree's blood.<br /> +<br /> +At your kiss my lips<br /> +Become like the autumn beech-leaves.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="faun"> +<tr><td>Zeus,<br /> +Brazen-thunder-hurler,<br /> +Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos,<br /> +Send vengeance on these Oreads<br /> +Who strew<br /> +White frozen flecks of mist and cloud<br /> +Over the brown trees and the tufted grass<br /> +Of the meadows, where the stream<br /> +Runs black through shining banks<br /> +Of bluish white.<br /> +<br /> +Zeus,<br /> +Are the halls of heaven broken up<br /> +That you flake down upon me<br /> +Feather-strips of marble?<br /> +<br /> +Dis and Styx!<br /> +When I stamp my hoof<br /> +The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft<br /> +So that I reel upon two slippery points....<br /> +<br /> +Fool, to stand here cursing<br /> +When I might be running!</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> +<h4>LEMURES</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="lemures"> +<tr><td>In Nineveh<br /> +And beyond Nineveh<br /> +In the dusk<br /> +They were afraid.<br /> +<br /> +In Thebes of Egypt<br /> +In the dusk<br /> +They chanted of them to the dead.<br /> +<br /> +In my Lesbos and Achaia<br /> +Where the God dwelt<br /> +We knew them.<br /> +<br /> +Now men say "They are not":<br /> +But in the dusk<br /> +Ere the white sun comes—<br /> +A gay child that bears a white candle—<br /> +I am afraid of their rustling,<br /> +Of their terrible silence,<br /> +The menace of their secrecy.</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> +<h2>H. D.</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2>H. D.</h2> + +<h4>THE POOL</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="Pool"> +<tr><td>Are you alive?<br /> +I touch you.<br /> +You quiver like a sea-fish.<br /> +I cover you with my net.<br /> +What are you—banded one?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE GARDEN</h4> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="garden"> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>You are clear,<br /> +O rose, cut in rock,<br /> +hard as the descent of hail.<br /> +<br /> +I could scrape the colour<br /> +from the petal,<br /> +like spilt dye from a rock.<br /> +<br /> +If I could break you<br /> +I could break a tree.<br /> +<br /> +If I could stir<br /> +I could break a tree,<br /> +I could break you.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>II</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>O wind,<br /> +rend open the heat,<br /> +cut apart the heat,<br /> +rend it sideways.<br /> +<br /> +Fruit can not drop<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>through this thick air:<br /> +fruit can not fall into heat<br /> +that presses up and blunts<br /> +the points of pears<br /> +and rounds the grapes.<br /> +<br /> +Cut the heat,<br /> +plough through it,<br /> +turning it on either side<br /> +of your path.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> +<h4>SEA LILY</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="sealily"> +<tr><td>Reed,<br /> +slashed and torn,<br /> +but doubly rich—<br /> +such great heads as yours<br /> +drift upon temple-steps,<br /> +but you are shattered<br /> +in the wind.<br /> +<br /> +Myrtle-bark<br /> +is flecked from you,<br /> +scales are dashed<br /> +from your stem,<br /> +sand cuts your petal,<br /> +furrows it with hard edge,<br /> +like flint<br /> +on a bright stone.<br /> +<br /> +Yet though the whole wind<br /> +slash at your bark,<br /> +you are lifted up,<br /> +aye—though it hiss<br /> +to cover you with froth.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> +<h4>SEA IRIS</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="seairis"> +<tr><td class="center"><b>I</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>Weed, moss-weed,<br /> +root tangled in sand,<br /> +sea-iris, brittle flower,<br /> +one petal like a shell<br /> +is broken,<br /> +and you print a shadow<br /> +like a thin twig.<br /> +<br /> +Fortunate one,<br /> +scented and stinging,<br /> +rigid myrrh-bud,<br /> +camphor-flower,<br /> +sweet and salt—you are wind<br /> +in our nostrils.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>II</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>Do the murex-fishers<br /> +drench you as they pass?<br /> +Do your roots drag up colour<br /> +from the sand?<br /> +Have they slipped gold under you;<br /> +rivets of gold?<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span><br /> +Band of iris-flowers<br /> +above the waves,<br /> +You are painted blue,<br /> +painted like a fresh prow<br /> +stained among the salt weeds.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> +<h4>SEA ROSE</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="searose"> +<tr><td>Rose, harsh rose,<br /> +marred and with stint of petals,<br /> +meagre flower, thin,<br /> +sparse of leaf.<br /> +<br /> +more precious<br /> +than a wet rose,<br /> +single on a stem—<br /> +you are caught in the drift.<br /> +<br /> +Stunted, with small leaf,<br /> +you are flung on the sands,<br /> +you are lifted<br /> +in the crisp sand<br /> +that drives in the wind.<br /> +<br /> +Can the spice-rose<br /> +drip such acrid fragrance<br /> +hardened in a leaf?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> +<h4>OREAD</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="oread"> +<tr><td>Whirl up, sea—<br /> +Whirl your pointed pines,<br /> +Splash your great pines<br /> +On our rocks,<br /> +Hurl your green over us,<br /> +Cover us with your pools of fir.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> +<h4>ORION DEAD</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="oriondead"> +<tr><td>[<i>Artemis speaks</i>]</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The cornel-trees</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">uplift from the furrows,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the roots at their bases</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strike lower through the barley-sprays.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So arise and face me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I am poisoned with the rage of song.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>I once pierced the flesh</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>of the wild-deer,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>now am I afraid to touch</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>I will tear the full flowers</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>and the little heads</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>of the grape-hyacinths.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>I will strip the life from the bulb</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>until the ivory layers</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>lie like narcissus petals</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>on the black earth.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Arise,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>lest I bend an ash-tree</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>into a taut bow,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>and slay—and tear</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>all the roots from the earth.</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The cornel-wood blazes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and strikes through the barley-sprays,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">but I have lost heart for this.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I break a staff.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I break the tough branch.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I know no light in the woods.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have lost pace with the winds.</span></td></tr></table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> +<h2>JOHN GOULD FLETCHER</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> +<h2>JOHN GOULD FLETCHER</h2> + +<h4>THE BLUE SYMPHONY</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="symphony"> +<tr><td align="center"><b>I</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>The darkness rolls upward.<br /> +The thick darkness carries with it<br /> +Rain and a ravel of cloud.<br /> +The sun comes forth upon earth.<br /> +<br /> +Palely the dawn<br /> +Leaves me facing timidly<br /> +Old gardens sunken:<br /> +And in the gardens is water.<br /> +<br /> +Sombre wreck—autumnal leaves;<br /> +Shadowy roofs<br /> +In the blue mist,<br /> +And a willow-branch that is broken.<br /> +<br /> +O old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees!<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span><br /> +Blue and cool:<br /> +Blue, tremulously,<br /> +Blow faint puffs of smoke<br /> +Across sombre pools.<br /> +The damp green smell of rotted wood;<br /> +And a heron that cries from out the water.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>II</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>Through the upland meadows<br /> +I go alone.<br /> +For I dreamed of someone last night<br /> +Who is waiting for me.<br /> +<br /> +Flower and blossom, tell me do you know of her?<br /> +<br /> +Have the rocks hidden her voice?<br /> +They are very blue and still.<br /> +<br /> +Long upward road that is leading me,<br /> +Light hearted I quit you,<br /> +For the long loose ripples of the meadow-grass<br /> +Invite me to dance upon them.<br /> +<br /> +Quivering grass<br /> +Daintily poised<br /> +For her foot's tripping.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span><br /> +O blown clouds, could I only race up like you,<br /> +Oh, the last slopes that are sun-drenched and steep!<br /> +<br /> +Look, the sky!<br /> +Across black valleys<br /> +Rise blue-white aloft<br /> +Jagged, unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death.<br /> +<br /> +Solitude. Silence.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>III</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>One chuckles by the brook for me:<br /> +One rages under the stone.<br /> +One makes a spout of his mouth,<br /> +One whispers—one is gone.<br /> +<br /> +One over there on the water<br /> +Spreads cold ripples<br /> +For me<br /> +Enticingly.<br /> +<br /> +The vast dark trees<br /> +Flow like blue veils<br /> +Of tears<br /> +Into the water.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span><br /> +Sour sprites,<br /> +Moaning and chuckling,<br /> +What have you hidden from me?<br /> +<br /> +"In the palace of the blue stone she lies forever<br /> +Bound hand and foot."<br /> +<br /> +Was it the wind<br /> +That rattled the reeds together?<br /> +<br /> +Dry reeds,<br /> +A faint shiver in the grasses.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>IV</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>On the left hand there is a temple:<br /> +And a palace on the right-hand side.<br /> +Foot-passengers in scarlet<br /> +Pass over the glittering tide.<br /> +<br /> +Under the bridge<br /> +The old river flows<br /> +Low and monotonous<br /> +Day after day.<br /> +<br /> +I have heard and have seen<br /> +All the news that has been:<br /> +Autumn's gold and Spring's green!<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span><br /> +Now in my palace<br /> +I see foot-passengers<br /> +Crossing the river:<br /> +Pilgrims of Autumn<br /> +In the afternoons.<br /> +<br /> +Lotus pools:<br /> +Petals in the water.<br /> +Such are my dreams.<br /> +<br /> +For me silks are outspread.<br /> +I take my ease, unthinking.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>V</b></td></tr> +<tr><td>And now the lowest pine-branch<br /> +Is drawn across the disk of the sun.<br /> +Old friends who will forget me soon<br /> +I must go on,<br /> +Towards those blue death-mountains<br /> +I have forgot so long.<br /> +<br /> +In the marsh grasses<br /> +There lies forever<br /> +My last treasure,<br /> +With the hope of my heart.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span><br /> +The ice is glazing over,<br /> +Torn lanterns flutter,<br /> +On the leaves is snow.<br /> +<br /> +In the frosty evening<br /> +Toll the old bell for me<br /> +Once, in the sleepy temple.<br /> +<br /> +Perhaps my soul will hear.<br /> +<br /> +Afterglow:<br /> +Before the stars peep<br /> +I shall creep out into darkness.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> +<h4>LONDON EXCURSION</h4> + +<h5>'BUS</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="bus"> +<tr><td>Great walls of green,<br /> +City that is afar.<br /> +<br /> +We gallop along<br /> +Alert and penetrating,<br /> +Roads open about us,<br /> +Housetops keep at a distance.<br /> +<br /> +Soft-curling tendrils,<br /> +Swim backwards from our image:<br /> +We are a red bulk,<br /> +Projecting the angular city, in shadows, at our feet.<br /> +<br /> +Black coarse-squared shapes,<br /> +Hump and growl and assemble.<br /> +It is the city that takes us to itself,<br /> +Vast thunder riding down strange skies.<br /> +<br /> +An arch under which we slide<br /> +Divides our lives for us:<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>After we have passed it<br /> +We know we have left something behind<br /> +We shall not see again.<br /> +<br /> +Passivity,<br /> +Gravity,<br /> +Are changed into hesitating, clanking pistons and wheels.<br /> +The trams come whooping up one by one,<br /> +Yellow pulse-beats spreading through darkness.<br /> +<br /> +Music-hall posters squall out:<br /> +The passengers shrink together,<br /> +I enter indelicately into all their souls.<br /> +<br /> +It is a glossy skating rink,<br /> +On which winged spirals clasp and bend each other:<br /> +And suddenly slide backwards towards the centre,<br /> +After a too-brief release.<br /> +<br /> +A second arch is a wall<br /> +To separate our souls from rotted cables<br /> +Of stale greenness.<br /> +<br /> +A shadow cutting off the country from us,<br /> +Out of it rise red walls.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span><br /> +Yet I revolt: I bend, I twist myself<br /> +I curl into a million convolutions:<br /> +Pink shapes without angle,<br /> +Anything to be soft and woolly,<br /> +Anything to escape.<br /> +<br /> +Sudden lurch of clamours,<br /> +Two more viaducts<br /> +Stretch out red yokes of steel,<br /> +Crushing my rebellion.<br /> +<br /> +My soul<br /> +Shrieking<br /> +Is jolted forwards by a long hot bar—<br /> +Into direct distances.<br /> +It pierces the small of my back.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>APPROACH</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="approach"> +<tr><td>Only this morning I sang of roses;<br /> +Now I see with a swift stare,<br /> +The city forcing up through the air<br /> +Black cubes close piled and some half-crumbling over.<br /> +<br /> +My roses are battered into pulp:<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>And there swells up in me<br /> +Sudden desire for something changeless,<br /> +Thrusts of sunless rock<br /> +Unmelted by hissing wheels.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>ARRIVAL</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="arrival"> +<tr><td>Here is too swift a movement,<br /> +The rest is too still.<br /> +<br /> +It is a red sea<br /> +Licking<br /> +The housefronts.<br /> +<br /> +They quiver gently<br /> +From base to summit.<br /> +Ripples of impulse run through them,<br /> +Flattering resistance.<br /> +<br /> +Soon they will fall;<br /> +Already smoke yearns upward.<br /> +Clouds of dust,<br /> +Crash of collapsing cubes.<br /> +<br /> +I prefer deeper patience,<br /> +Monotony of stalled beasts.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>O angle-builders,<br /> +Vainly have you prolonged your effort,<br /> +For I descend amid you,<br /> +Past rungs and slopes of curving slippery steel.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>WALK</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="walk"> +<tr><td>Sudden struggle for foothold on the pavement,<br /> +Familiar ascension.<br /> +<br /> +I do not heed the city any more,<br /> +It has given me a duty to perform.<br /> +I pass along nonchalantly,<br /> +Insinuating myself into self-baffling movements.<br /> +Impalpable charm of back streets<br /> +In which I find myself:<br /> +Cool spaces filled with shadow.<br /> +Passers-by, white hammocks in the sunlight.<br /> +<br /> +Bulging outcrush into old tumult;<br /> +Attainment, as of a narrow harbour,<br /> +Of some shop forgotten by traffic<br /> +With cool-corridored walls.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>'BUS-TOP</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="bustop"> +<tr><td>Black shapes bending,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>Taxicabs crush in the crowd.<br /> +The tops are each a shining square<br /> +Shuttles that steadily press through woolly fabric.<br /> +<br /> +Drooping blossom,<br /> +Gas-standards over<br /> +Spray out jingling tumult<br /> +Of white-hot rays.<br /> +<br /> +Monotonous domes of bowler-hats<br /> +Vibrate in the heat.<br /> +<br /> +Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic,<br /> +Down the crowded street.<br /> +The tumult crouches over us,<br /> +Or suddenly drifts to one side.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>TRANSPOSITION</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="transposition"> +<tr><td>I am blown like a leaf<br /> +Hither and thither.<br /> +The city about me<br /> +Resolves itself into sound of many voices,<br /> +Rustling and fluttering,<br /> +Leaves shaken by the breeze.<br /> +<br /> +A million forces ignore me, I know not why,<br /> +I am drunken with it all.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>Suddenly I feel an immense will<br /> +Stored up hitherto and unconscious till this instant.<br /> +Projecting my body<br /> +Across a street, in the face of all its traffic.<br /> +<br /> +I dart and dash:<br /> +I do not know why I go.<br /> +These people watch me,<br /> +I yield them my adventure.<br /> +<br /> +Lazily I lounge through labyrinthine corridors,<br /> +And with eyes suddenly altered,<br /> +I peer into an office I do not know,<br /> +And wonder at a startled face that penetrates my own.<br /> +<br /> +Roses—pavement—<br /> +I will take all this city away with me—<br /> +People—uproar—the pavement jostling and flickering—<br /> +Women with incredible eyelids:<br /> +Dandies in spats:<br /> +Hard-faced throng discussing me—I know them all.<br /> +I will take them away with me,<br /> +I insistently rob them of their essence,<br /> +I must have it all before night,<br /> +To sing amid my green.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span><br /> +I glide out unobservant<br /> +In the midst of the traffic<br /> +Blown like a leaf<br /> +Hither and thither,<br /> +Till the city resolves itself into a clamour of voices,<br /> +Crying hollowly, like the wind rustling through the forest,<br /> +Against the frozen housefronts:<br /> +Lost in the glitter of a million movements.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>PERIPETEIA</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="peripeteia"> +<tr><td>I can no longer find a place for myself:<br /> +I go.<br /> +<br /> +There are too many things to detain me,<br /> +But the force behind is reckless.<br /> +<br /> +Noise, uproar, movement<br /> +Slide me outwards,<br /> +Black sleet shivering<br /> +Down red walls.<br /> +<br /> +In thick jungles of green, this gyration,<br /> +My centrifugal folly,<br /> +Through roaring dust and futility spattered,<br /> +Will find its own repose.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span><br /> +Golden lights will gleam out sullenly into silence,<br /> +Before I return.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>MID-FLIGHT</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="midflight"> +<tr><td>We rush, a black throng,<br /> +Straight upon darkness:<br /> +Motes scattered<br /> +By the arc's rays.<br /> +<br /> +Over the bridge fluttering,<br /> +It is theatre-time,<br /> +No one heeds.<br /> +<br /> +Lost amid greenness<br /> +We will sleep all night;<br /> +And in the morning<br /> +Coming forth, we will shake wet wings<br /> +Over the settled dust of to-day.<br /> +<br /> +The city hurls its cobbled streets after us,<br /> +To drive us faster.<br /> +<br /> +We must attain the night<br /> +Before endless processions<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>Of lamps<br /> +Push us back.<br /> +A clock with quivering hands<br /> +Leaps to the trajectory-angle of our departure.<br /> +<br /> +We leave behind pale traces of achievement:<br /> +Fires that we kindled but were too tired to put out,<br /> +Broad gold fans brushing softly over dark walls,<br /> +Stifled uproar of night.<br /> +<br /> +We are already cast forth:<br /> +The signal of our departure<br /> +Jerks down before we have learned we are to go.</td></tr></table> + +<h5>STATION</h5> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="station"> +<tr><td>We descend<br /> +Into a wall of green.<br /> +Straggling shapes:<br /> +Afterwards none are seen.<br /> +<br /> +I find myself<br /> +Alone.<br /> +I look back:<br /> +The city has grown.<br /> +<br /> +One grey wall<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>Windowed, unlit.<br /> +Heavily, night<br /> +Crushes the face of it.<br /> +<br /> +I go on.<br /> +My memories freeze<br /> +Like birds' cry<br /> +In hollow trees.<br /> +<br /> +I go on.<br /> +Up and outright<br /> +To the hostility<br /> +Of night.</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> +<h2>F. S. FLINT</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> +<h2>F. S. FLINT</h2> + +<h4>TREES</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="trees"> +<tr><td> +Elm trees<br /> +and the leaf the boy in me hated<br /> +long ago—<br /> +rough and sandy.<br /> +<br /> +Poplars<br /> +and their leaves,<br /> +tender, smooth to the fingers,<br /> +and a secret in their smell<br /> +I have forgotten.<br /> +<br /> +Oaks<br /> +and forest glades,<br /> +heart aching with wonder, fear:<br /> +their bitter mast.<br /> +<br /> +Willows<br /> +and the scented beetle<br /> +we put in our handkerchiefs;<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>and the roots of one<br /> +that spread into a river:<br /> +nakedness, water and joy.<br /> +<br /> +Hawthorn,<br /> +white and odorous with blossom,<br /> +framing the quiet fields,<br /> +and swaying flowers and grasses,<br /> +and the hum of bees.<br /> +<br /> +Oh, these are the things that are with me now,<br /> +in the town;<br /> +and I am grateful<br /> +for this minute of my manhood.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> +<h4>LUNCH</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="lunch"> +<tr><td>Frail beauty,<br /> +green, gold and incandescent whiteness,<br /> +narcissi, daffodils,<br /> +you have brought me Spring and longing,<br /> +wistfulness,<br /> +in your irradiance.<br /> +<br /> +Therefore, I sit here<br /> +among the people,<br /> +dreaming,<br /> +and my heart aches<br /> +with all the hawthorn blossom,<br /> +the bees humming,<br /> +the light wind upon the poplars,<br /> +and your warmth and your love<br /> +and your eyes ...<br /> +they smile and know me.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<h4>MALADY</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="malady"> +<tr><td>I move;<br /> +perhaps I have wakened;<br /> +this is a bed;<br /> +this is a room;<br /> +and there is light....<br /> +<br /> +Darkness!<br /> +<br /> +Have I performed<br /> +the dozen acts or so<br /> +that make me the man<br /> +men see?<br /> +<br /> +The door opens,<br /> +and on the landing—<br /> +quiet!<br /> +I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness!<br /> +<br /> +Stairs, banisters, a handrail:<br /> +all indistinguishable.<br /> +One step farther down or up,<br /> +and why?<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>But up is harder. Down!<br /> +Down to this white blur;<br /> +it gives before me.<br /> +<br /> +Me?<br /> +<br /> +I extend all ways:<br /> +I fit into the walls and they pull me.<br /> +<br /> +Light?<br /> +<br /> +Light! I know it is light.<br /> +<br /> +Stillness, and then,<br /> +something moves:<br /> +green, oh green, dazzling lightning!<br /> +And joy! this is my room;<br /> +there are my books, there the piano,<br /> +there the last bar I wrote,<br /> +there the last line,<br /> +and oh the sunlight!<br /> +<br /> +A parrot screeches.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> +<h4>ACCIDENT</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="accident"> +<tr><td>Dear one!<br /> +you sit there<br /> +in the corner of the carriage;<br /> +and you do not know me;<br /> +and your eyes forbid.<br /> +<br /> +Is it the dirt, the squalor,<br /> +the wear of human bodies,<br /> +and the dead faces of our neighbours?<br /> +These are but symbols.<br /> +<br /> +You are proud; I praise you;<br /> +your mouth is set; you see beyond us;<br /> +and you see nothing.<br /> +<br /> +I have the vision of your calm, cold face,<br /> +and of the black hair that waves above it;<br /> +I watch you; I love you;<br /> +I desire you.<br /> +<br /> +There is a quiet here<br /> +within the thud-thud of the wheels<br /> +upon the railway.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span><br /> +There is a quiet here<br /> +within my heart,<br /> +but tense and tender....<br /> +<br /> +This is my station....</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> +<h4>FRAGMENT</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="fragment"> +<tr><td>... That night I loved you<br /> +in the candlelight.<br /> +Your golden hair<br /> +strewed the sweet whiteness of the pillows<br /> +and the counterpane.<br /> +O the darkness of the corners,<br /> +the warm air, and the stars<br /> +framed in the casement of the ships' lights!<br /> +The waves lapped into the harbour;<br /> +the boats creaked;<br /> +a man's voice sang out on the quay;<br /> +and you loved me.<br /> +In your love were the tall tree fuchsias,<br /> +the blue of the hortensias, the scarlet nasturtiums,<br /> +the trees on the hills,<br /> +the roads we had covered,<br /> +and the sea that had borne your body<br /> +before the rocks of Hartland.<br /> +You loved me with these<br /> +and with the kindness of people,<br /> +country folk, sailors and fishermen,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>and the old lady who had lodged us and supped us.<br /> +You loved me with yourself<br /> +that was these and more,<br /> +changed as the earth is changed<br /> +into the bloom of flowers.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> +<h4>HOUSES</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="houses"> +<tr><td>Evening and quiet:<br /> +a bird trills in the poplar trees<br /> +behind the house with the dark green door<br /> +across the road.<br /> +<br /> +Into the sky,<br /> +the red earthenware and the galvanised iron chimneys<br /> +thrust their cowls.<br /> +The hoot of the steamers on the Thames is plain.<br /> +<br /> +No wind;<br /> +the trees merge, green with green;<br /> +a car whirs by;<br /> +footsteps and voices take their pitch<br /> +in the key of dusk,<br /> +far-off and near, subdued.<br /> +<br /> +Solid and square to the world<br /> +the houses stand,<br /> +their windows blocked with venetian blinds.<br /> +<br /> +Nothing will move them.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> +<h4>EAU-FORTE</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="forte"> +<tr><td>On black bare trees a stale cream moon<br /> +hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds.<br /> +<br /> +Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low,<br /> +tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram.<br /> +<br /> +Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square;<br /> +and round the bend six bullocks come.<br /> +<br /> +A hobbling, dirt-grimed drover guides<br /> +their clattering feet to death and shame.</td></tr></table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> +<h2>D. H. LAWRENCE</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> +<h2>D. H. LAWRENCE</h2> + +<h4>BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="ballad"> +<tr><td>Oh, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,<br /> +Lamps in a wash of rain,<br /> +Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard,<br /> +Oh, tears on the window pane!<br /> +<br /> +Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,<br /> +Full of disappointment and of rain,<br /> +Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples<br /> +Of Autumn tell the withered tale again.<br /> +<br /> +All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,<br /> +Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,<br /> +Cluck, my marigold bird, and again<br /> +Cluck for your yellow darlings.<br /> +<br /> +For the grey rat found the gold thirteen<br /> +Huddled away in the dark,<br /> +Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,<br /> +Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><br /> +<br /> +Once I had a lover bright like running water,<br /> +Once his face was laughing like the sky;<br /> +Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter<br /> +On the buttercups—and buttercups was I.<br /> +<br /> +What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom,<br /> +What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?<br /> +'T is the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom—<br /> +What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men?<br /> +<br /> +Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,<br /> +And her shift is lying white upon the floor,<br /> +That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm<br /> +Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.<br /> +<br /> +Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,<br /> +Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct—!<br /> +And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,<br /> +Did you see the wicked sun that winked?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> +<h4>ILLICIT</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="illicit"> +<tr><td>In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow,<br /> +And between us and it, the thunder;<br /> +And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers<br /> +Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.<br /> +<br /> +You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals,<br /> +And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber<br /> +I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber<br /> +Lightning falls from heaven.<br /> +<br /> +Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats<br /> +A dark boat through the gloom—and whither?<br /> +The thunder roars. But still we have each other.<br /> +The naked lightnings in the heaven dither<br /> +And disappear. What have we but each other?<br /> +The boat has gone.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> +<h4>FIREFLIES IN THE CORN</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="fireflies"> +<tr><td><i>A Woman taunts her Lover</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>Look at the little darlings in the corn!<br /> +The rye is taller than you, who think yourself<br /> +So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne<br /> +Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights<br /> +Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn.<br /> +<br /> +And always likely!—Oh, if I could ride<br /> +With my head held high-serene against the sky<br /> +Do you think I'd have a creature like you at my side<br /> +With your gloom and your doubt that you love me? O darling rye,<br /> +How I adore you for your simple pride!<br /> +<br /> +And those bright fireflies wafting in between<br /> +And over the swaying cornstalks, just above<br /> +All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green<br /> +Stars come low and wandering here for love<br /> +Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene—!<br /> +<br /> +How I adore you, you happy things, you dears<br /> +Riding the air and carrying all the time<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers<br /> +My heart to see you settling and trying to climb<br /> +The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears.<br /> +<br /> +All over the corn's dim motion, against the blue<br /> +Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm<br /> +Of questing brilliant things:—you joy, you true<br /> +Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm<br /> +My poor and perished soul at the joy of you!</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td><i>The Man answers and she mocks</i></td></tr> +<tr><td>You're a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine.</span><br /> +And I give you everything that you want me to.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever <i>can</i> shine?</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> +<h4>A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="deadhusband"> +<tr><td>Ah, stern cold man,<br /> +How can you lie so relentless hard<br /> +While I wash you with weeping water!<br /> +Ah, face, carved hard and cold,<br /> +You have been like this, on your guard<br /> +Against me, since death began.<br /> +<br /> +You masquerader!<br /> +How can you shame to act this part<br /> +Of unswerving indifference to me?<br /> +It is not you; why disguise yourself<br /> +Against me, to break my heart,<br /> +You evader?<br /> +<br /> +You've a warm mouth,<br /> +A good warm mouth always sooner to soften<br /> +Even than your sudden eyes.<br /> +Ah cruel, to keep your mouth<br /> +Relentless, however often<br /> +I kiss it in drouth.<br /> +<br /> +You are not he.<br /> +Who are you, lying in his place on the bed<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>And rigid and indifferent to me?<br /> +His mouth, though he laughed or sulked<br /> +Was always warm and red<br /> +And good to me.<br /> +<br /> +And his eyes could see<br /> +The white moon hang like a breast revealed<br /> +By the slipping shawl of stars,<br /> +Could see the small stars tremble<br /> +As the heart beneath did wield<br /> +Systole, diastole.<br /> +<br /> +And he showed it me<br /> +So, when he made his love to me;<br /> +And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out,<br /> +And his eyes were deep like the sea<br /> +With shadow, and he looked at me,<br /> +Till I sank in him like the sea,<br /> +Awfully.<br /> +<br /> +Oh, he was multiform—<br /> +Which then was he among the manifold?<br /> +The gay, the sorrowful, the seer?<br /> +I have loved a rich race of men in one—<br /> +—But not this, this never-warm<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>Metal-cold—!<br /> +<br /> +Ah, masquerader!<br /> +With your steel face white-enamelled<br /> +Were you he, after all, and I never<br /> +Saw you or felt you in kissing?<br /> +—Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled<br /> +With fear, evader!<br /> +<br /> +You will not stir,<br /> +Nor hear me, not a sound.<br /> +—Then it was you—<br /> +And all this time you were<br /> +Like this when I lived with you.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">It is not true,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am frightened, I am frightened of you</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And of everything.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O God!—God too</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Has deceived me in everything,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In everything.</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE MOWERS</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="mowers"> +<tr><td>There's four men mowing down by the river;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I can hear the sound of the scythe strokes, four</span><br /> +Sharp breaths swishing:—yea, but I<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Am sorry for what's i' store.</span><br /> +<br /> +The first man out o' the four that's mowin'<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is mine: I mun claim him once for all:</span><br /> +—But I'm sorry for him, on his young feet, knowin'<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">None o' the trouble he's led to stall.</span><br /> +<br /> +As he sees me bringin' the dinner, he lifts<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His head as proud as a deer that looks</span><br /> +Shoulder-deep out o' th' corn: and wipes<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His scythe blade bright, unhooks</span><br /> +<br /> +His scythe stone, an' over the grass to me!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">—Lad, tha 's gotten a chilt in me,</span><br /> +An' a man an' a father tha 'lt ha'e to be,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My young slim lad, an' I'm sorry for thee.</span></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> +<h4>SCENT OF IRISES</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="scent"> +<tr><td>A faint, sickening scent of irises<br /> +Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table<br /> +A fine proud spike of purple irises<br /> +Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable<br /> +To see the class's lifted and bended faces<br /> +Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable.<br /> +<br /> +I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless<br /> +Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast<br /> +You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped<br /> +Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast<br /> +Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks<br /> +Dissolved in the golden sorcery you should not outlast.<br /> +<br /> +You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation,<br /> +You sitting in the cowslips of the meadows above,<br /> +—Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs,<br /> +Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love—<br /> +You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,<br /> +You, with your face all rich, like the sheen on a dove—!<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span><br /> +You are always asking, do I remember, remember<br /> +The buttercup bog-end where the flowers rose up<br /> +And kindled you over deep with a coat of gold?<br /> +You ask again, do the healing days close up<br /> +The open darkness which then drew us in,<br /> +The dark that swallows all, and nought throws up.<br /> +<br /> +You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night<br /> +Burnt like a sacrifice;—you invisible—<br /> +Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!<br /> +—And yes, thank God, it still is possible<br /> +The healing days shall close the darkness up<br /> +Wherein I breathed you like a smoke or dew.<br /> +<br /> +Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,<br /> +The golden fire has gone, and your face is ash<br /> +Indistinguishable in the grey, chill day,<br /> +The night has burnt you out, at last the good<br /> +Dark fire burns on untroubled without clash<br /> +Of you upon the dead leaves saying me yea.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> +<h4>GREEN</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="green"> +<tr><td>The sky was apple-green,<br /> +The sky was green wine held up in the sun,<br /> +The moon was a golden petal between.<br /> +<br /> +She opened her eyes, and green<br /> +They shone, clear like flowers undone,<br /> +For the first time, now for the first time seen.</td></tr></table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> +<h2>AMY LOWELL</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> +<h2>AMY LOWELL</h2> + +<h4>VENUS TRANSIENS</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="venus"> +<tr><td>Tell me,<br /> +Was Venus more beautiful<br /> +Than you are,<br /> +When she topped<br /> +The crinkled waves,<br /> +Drifting shoreward<br /> +On her plaited shell?<br /> +Was Botticelli's vision<br /> +Fairer than mine;<br /> +And were the painted rosebuds<br /> +He tossed his lady,<br /> +Of better worth<br /> +Than the words I blow about you<br /> +To cover your too great loveliness<br /> +As with a gauze<br /> +Of misted silver?<br /> +<br /> +For me,<br /> +You stand poised<br /> +In the blue and buoyant air,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>Cinctured by bright winds,<br /> +Treading the sunlight.<br /> +And the waves which precede you<br /> +Ripple and stir<br /> +The sands at my feet.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE TRAVELLING BEAR</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="bear"> +<tr><td>Grass-blades push up between the cobblestones<br /> +And catch the sun on their flat sides<br /> +Shooting it back,<br /> +Gold and emerald,<br /> +Into the eyes of passers-by.<br /> +<br /> +And over the cobblestones,<br /> +Square-footed and heavy,<br /> +Dances the trained bear.<br /> +Tho cobbles cut his feet,<br /> +And he has a ring in his nose<br /> +Which hurts him;<br /> +But still he dances,<br /> +For the keeper pricks him with a sharp stick,<br /> +Under his fur.<br /> +<br /> +Now the crowd gapes and chuckles,<br /> +And boys and young women shuffle their feet in time to the dancing bear.<br /> +They see him wobbling<br /> +Against a dust of emerald and gold,<br /> +And they are greatly delighted.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span><br /> +The legs of the bear shake with fatigue<br /> +And his back aches,<br /> +And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him.<br /> +But still he dances,<br /> +Because of the little, pointed stick.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE LETTER</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="letter"> +<tr><td>Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper<br /> +Like draggled fly's legs,<br /> +What can you tell of the flaring moon<br /> +Through the oak leaves?<br /> +Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor<br /> +Spattered with moonlight?<br /> +Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them<br /> +Of blossoming hawthorns,<br /> +And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness<br /> +Beneath my hand.<br /> +<br /> +I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against<br /> +The want of you;<br /> +Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,<br /> +And posting it.<br /> +And I scald alone, here, under the fire<br /> +Of the great moon.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> +<h4>GROTESQUE</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="grotesque"> +<tr><td>Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me<br /> +When I pluck them;<br /> +And writhe, and twist,<br /> +And strangle themselves against my fingers,<br /> +So that I can hardly weave the garland<br /> +For your hair?<br /> +Why do they shriek your name<br /> +And spit at me<br /> +When I would cluster them?<br /> +Must I kill them<br /> +To make them lie still,<br /> +And send you a wreath of lolling corpses<br /> +To turn putrid and soft<br /> +On your forehead<br /> +While you dance?</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> +<h4>BULLION</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="bullion"> +<tr><td>My thoughts<br /> +Chink against my ribs<br /> +And roll about like silver hail-stones.<br /> +I should like to spill them out,<br /> +And pour them, all shining,<br /> +Over you.<br /> +But my heart is shut upon them<br /> +And holds them straitly.<br /> +<br /> +Come, You! and open my heart;<br /> +That my thoughts torment me no longer,<br /> +But glitter in your hair.</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> +<h4>SOLITAIRE</h4> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="solitaire"> +<tr><td>When night drifts along the streets of the city,<br /> +And sifts down between the uneven roofs,<br /> +My mind begins to peek and peer.<br /> +It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,<br /> +And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,<br /> +Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.<br /> +It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,<br /> +And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.<br /> +How light and laughing my mind is,<br /> +When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,<br /> +And the city is still!</td></tr></table> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> +<h4>THE BOMBARDMENT</h4> + +<p>Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on +the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and +trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a +gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral +square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about +in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After +it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of +the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!</p> + +<p>The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the firelight. +The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies leap in +the bohemian glasses on the <i>étagère</i>. Her hands are restless, but the +white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to +torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the +<i>étagère</i>. It lies there formless and glowing, with all its crimson gleams +shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. A thin bell-note +pricks through the silence. A door creaks. The old lady speaks: "Victor, +clear away that broken glass." "Alas! Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, +Victor, one hundred years ago my father brought it—" Boom! The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> room +shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!</p> + +<p>It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is shut +within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his ink, his +pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams +of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses itself up at +the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin he can see +copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp in a +cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, +iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom! The +flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long +broken spears of disheveled water and flattens into the earth. Boom! And +there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding rain. +Again, Boom!—Boom!—Boom! He stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees +corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling +the city! Boom! Boom!</p> + +<p>A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made the +bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake." "Hush, my Darling, I am +here." "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the room shook." Boom! +"Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> "Where is Father? I am so +afraid." Boom! The child sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and creaks. +Boom!</p> + +<p>Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing +across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded +by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his +story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases +like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from +people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking +steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears +apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone, +zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts +like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, +and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses against the +rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet night.</p> + +<p>Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to scorch. +Boom! The bohemian glass on the <i>étagère</i> is no longer there. Boom! A +stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old lady cannot +walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts. Boom!—Boom!—Boom!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of +silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The +city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the +flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its gold on +the sky the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and +chuckles along the floors.</p> + +<p>The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower flickering +at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the ceiling beams.</p> + +<p>The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning +Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter and +crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly and +without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple crashes +down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes along the +gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom!</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4>THE END</h4> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> +<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">John Gould Fletcher</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Fire and Wine.</i> Grant Richards, Ltd., London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Fool's Gold.</i> Max Goschen, London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>The Dominant City.</i> Max Goschen, London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>The Book of Nature.</i> Constable & Co., London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Visions of the Evening.</i> Erskine McDonald, London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Irradiations: Sand and Spray.</i> Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">F. S. Flint</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>The Net of Stars.</i> Elkin Mathews, London, 1909.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">D. H. Lawrence</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Love Poems and Others.</i> Duckworth & Co., London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prose: <i>The White Peacock.</i> William Heinemann, London, 1911.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>The Trespasser.</i> Duckworth & Co., London, 1912.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Sons and Lovers.</i> Duckworth & Co., London, 1913.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Drama: <i>The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd.</i> Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1914.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Amy Lowell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass.</i> Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1914.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Sword Blades and Poppy Seed.</i> The Macmillan Company, New York; and Macmillan & Co., London, 1914.</span></p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h3>The Riverside Press</h3> +<h4>CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS</h4> +<h4>U . S . A</h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Imagist Poets, by +Richard Aldington and H.D. and John Gould Fletcher and F.S. Flint and D.H. Lawrence and Amy Lowell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME IMAGIST POETS *** + +***** This file should be named 30276-h.htm or 30276-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/2/7/30276/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/30276-h/images/title.jpg b/old/30276-h/images/title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d91d4b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30276-h/images/title.jpg diff --git a/old/30276.txt b/old/30276.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a019d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30276.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2303 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Imagist Poets, by +Richard Aldington and H.D. and John Gould Fletcher and F.S. Flint and D.H. Lawrence and Amy Lowell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Some Imagist Poets + An Anthology + +Author: Richard Aldington + H.D. + John Gould Fletcher + F.S. Flint + D.H. Lawrence + Amy Lowell + +Release Date: October 17, 2009 [EBook #30276] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME IMAGIST POETS *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + +SOME IMAGIST POETS + + + + SOME IMAGIST + POETS + + AN ANTHOLOGY + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1915 + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published April 1915_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +In March, 1914, a volume appeared entitled "Des Imagistes." It was a +collection of the work of various young poets, presented together as a +school. This school has been widely discussed by those interested in new +movements in the arts, and has already become a household word. +Differences of taste and judgment, however, have arisen among the +contributors to that book; growing tendencies are forcing them along +different paths. Those of us whose work appears in this volume have +therefore decided to publish our collection under a new title, and we have +been joined by two or three poets who did not contribute to the first +volume, our wider scope making this possible. + +In this new book we have followed a slightly different arrangement to that +of the former Anthology. Instead of an arbitrary selection by an editor, +each poet has been permitted to represent himself by the work he considers +his best, the only stipulation being that it should not yet have appeared +in book form. A sort of informal committee--consisting of more than half +the authors here represented--have arranged the book and decided what +should be printed and what omitted, but, as a general rule, the poets +have been allowed absolute freedom in this direction, limitations of space +only being imposed upon them. Also, to avoid any appearance of precedence, +they have been put in alphabetical order. + +As it has been suggested that much of the misunderstanding of the former +volume was due to the fact that we did not explain ourselves in a preface, +we have thought it wise to tell the public what our aims are, and why we +are banded together between one set of covers. + +The poets in this volume do not represent a clique. Several of them are +personally unknown to the others, but they are united by certain common +principles, arrived at independently. These principles are not new; they +have fallen into desuetude. They are the essentials of all great poetry, +indeed of all great literature, and they are simply these:-- + +1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the _exact_ +word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word. + +2. To create new rhythms--as the expression of new moods--and not to copy +old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist upon +"free-verse" as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as for +a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a poet may +often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional forms. In +poetry, a new cadence means a new idea. + +3. To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not good art +to write badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad +art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic +value of modern life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing so +uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an aeroplane of the year 1911. + +4. To present an image (hence the name: "Imagist"). We are not a school of +painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and +not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is +for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk +the real difficulties of his art. + +5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite. + +6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence +of poetry. + +The subject of free-verse is too complicated to be discussed here. We may +say briefly, that we attach the term to all that increasing amount of +writing whose cadence is more marked, more definite, and closer knit than +that of prose, but which is not so violently nor so obviously accented as +the so-called "regular verse." We refer those interested in the question +to the Greek Melic poets, and to the many excellent French studies on the +subject by such distinguished and well-equipped authors as Remy de +Gourmont, Gustave Kahn, Georges Duhamel, Charles Vildrac, Henri Gheon, +Robert de Souza, Andre Spire, etc. + +We wish it to be clearly understood that we do not represent an exclusive +artistic sect; we publish our work together because of mutual artistic +sympathy, and we propose to bring out our cooeperative volume each year for +a short term of years, until we have made a place for ourselves and our +principles such as we desire. + + + + +CONTENTS + + RICHARD ALDINGTON + Childhood 3 + The Poplar 10 + Round-Pond 12 + Daisy 13 + Epigrams 15 + The Faun sees Snow for the First Time 16 + Lemures 17 + + H. D. + The Pool 21 + The Garden 22 + Sea Lily 24 + Sea Iris 25 + Sea Rose 27 + Oread 28 + Orion Dead 29 + + JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + The Blue Symphony 33 + London Excursion 39 + + F. S. FLINT + Trees 53 + Lunch 55 + Malady 56 + Accident 58 + Fragment 60 + Houses 62 + Eau-Forte 63 + + D. H. LAWRENCE + Ballad of Another Ophelia 67 + Illicit 69 + Fireflies in the Corn 70 + A Woman and Her Dead Husband 72 + The Mowers 75 + Scent of Irises 76 + Green 78 + + AMY LOWELL + Venus Transiens 81 + The Travelling Bear 83 + The Letter 85 + Grotesque 86 + Bullion 87 + Solitaire 88 + The Bombardment 89 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 93 + + + Thanks are due to the editors of _Poetry_, _The Smart Set_, + _Poetry and Drama_, and _The Egoist_ for their courteous + permission to reprint certain of these poems which have been + copyrighted to them. + + + + +RICHARD ALDINGTON + + + +RICHARD ALDINGTON + + +CHILDHOOD + + I + + The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood + Put me out of love with God. + I can't believe in God's goodness; + I can believe + In many avenging gods. + Most of all I believe + In gods of bitter dullness, + Cruel local gods + Who seared my childhood. + + II + + I've seen people put + A chrysalis in a match-box, + "To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." + But when it broke its shell + It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison + And tried to climb to the light + For space to dry its wings. + + That's how I was. + Somebody found my chrysalis + And shut it in a match-box. + My shrivelled wings were beaten, + Shed their colours in dusty scales + Before the box was opened + For the moth to fly. + + And then it was too late, + Because the beauty a child has, + And the beautiful things it learns before its birth, + Were shed, like moth-scales, from me. + + III + + I hate that town; + I hate the town I lived in when I was little; + I hate to think of it. + There were always clouds, smoke, rain + In that dingy little valley. + It rained; it always rained. + I think I never saw the sun until I was nine-- + And then it was too late; + Everything's too late after the first seven years. + + That long street we lived in + Was duller than a drain + And nearly as dingy. + There were the big College + And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. + There were the sordid provincial shops-- + The grocer's, and the shops for women, + The shop where I bought transfers, + And the piano and gramaphone shop + Where I used to stand + Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures + Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone. + + How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! + On wet days--it was always wet-- + I used to kneel on a chair + And look at it from the window. + + The dirty yellow trams + Dragged noisily along + With a clatter of wheels and bells + And a humming of wires overhead. + They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines + And then the water ran back + Full of brownish foam bubbles. + + There was nothing else to see-- + It was all so dull-- + Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas + Running along the grey shiny pavements; + Sometimes there was a waggon + Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound + With their hoofs + Through the silent rain. + + And there was a grey museum + Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals + And a few relics of the Romans--dead also. + There was the sea-front, + A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it, + Three piers, a row of houses, + And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour. + + I was like a moth--- + Like one of those grey Emperor moths + Which flutter through the vines at Capri. + And that damned little town was my match-box, + Against whose sides I beat and beat + Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy + As that damned little town. + + IV + + At school it was just dull as that dull High Street. + They taught me pothooks-- + I wanted to be alone, although I was so little, + Alone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness, + Away somewhere else-- + + The town was dull; + The front was dull; + The High Street and the other street were dull-- + And there was a public park, I remember, + And that was damned dull too, + With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, + And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, + And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, + And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, + And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," + And its gravel paths. + + And on Sundays they rang the bells, + From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. + They had the Salvation Army. + I was taken to a High Church; + The parson's name was Mowbray, + "Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it--" + That's what I heard people say. + + I took a little black book + To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, + And I had to sit on a hard bench, + Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms, + And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed-- + And then there was nothing to do + Except to play trains with the hymn-books. + + There was nothing to see, + Nothing to do, + Nothing to play with, + Except that in an empty room upstairs + There was a large tin box + Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, + Of the Declaration of Independence + And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. + There were also several packets of stamps, + Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, + Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, + Indians and Men-of-war + From the United States, + And the green and red portraits + Of King Francobollo + Of Italy. + + V + + I don't believe in God. + I do believe in avenging gods + Who plague us for sins we never sinned + But who avenge us. + + That's why I'll never have a child, + Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box + For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours, + Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall. + + +THE POPLAR + + Why do you always stand there shivering + Between the white stream and the road? + + The people pass through the dust + On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; + The waggoners go by at dawn; + The lovers walk on the grass path at night. + + Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! + You are more beautiful than they are. + + I know that the white wind loves you, + Is always kissing you and turning up + The white lining of your green petticoat. + The sky darts through you like blue rain, + And the grey rain drips on your flanks + And loves you. + And I have seen the moon + Slip his silver penny into your pocket + As you straightened your hair; + And the white mist curling and hesitating + Like a bashful lover about your knees. + + I know you, poplar; + I have watched you since I was ten. + But if you had a little real love, + A little strength, + You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers + And go walking down the white road + Behind the waggoners. + + There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill. + Will you always stand there shivering? + + +ROUND-POND + + Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind + Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers + Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. + The shining of the sun upon the water + Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals + In a long wavering irregular flight. + + The water is cold to the eye + As the wind to the cheek. + + In the budding chestnuts + Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open + The starlings make their clitter-clatter; + And the blackbirds in the grass + Are getting as fat as the pigeons. + + Too-hoo, this is brave; + Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress. + + +DAISY + + "_Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes, + Nunc_..." + + CATULLUS. + + You were my playmate by the sea. + We swam together. + Your girl's body had no breasts. + + We found prawns among the rocks; + We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing; + In the evening we played games with the others. + + It made me glad to be by you. + + Sometimes I kissed you, + And you were always glad to kiss me; + But I was afraid--I was only fourteen. + + And I had quite forgotten you, + You and your name. + + To-day I pass through the streets. + She who touches my arm and talks with me + Is--who knows?--Helen of Sparta, + Dryope, Laodamia.... + + And there are you + A whore in Oxford Street. + + +EPIGRAMS + + A GIRL + + You were that clear Sicilian fluting + That pains our thought even now. + You were the notes + Of cold fantastic grief + Some few found beautiful. + + NEW LOVE + + She has new leaves + After her dead flowers, + Like the little almond-tree + Which the frost hurt. + + OCTOBER + + The beech-leaves are silver + For lack of the tree's blood. + + At your kiss my lips + Become like the autumn beech-leaves. + + +THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME + + Zeus, + Brazen-thunder-hurler, + Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos, + Send vengeance on these Oreads + Who strew + White frozen flecks of mist and cloud + Over the brown trees and the tufted grass + Of the meadows, where the stream + Runs black through shining banks + Of bluish white. + + Zeus, + Are the halls of heaven broken up + That you flake down upon me + Feather-strips of marble? + + Dis and Styx! + When I stamp my hoof + The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft + So that I reel upon two slippery points.... + + Fool, to stand here cursing + When I might be running! + + +LEMURES + + In Nineveh + And beyond Nineveh + In the dusk + They were afraid. + + In Thebes of Egypt + In the dusk + They chanted of them to the dead. + + In my Lesbos and Achaia + Where the God dwelt + We knew them. + + Now men say "They are not": + But in the dusk + Ere the white sun comes-- + A gay child that bears a white candle-- + I am afraid of their rustling, + Of their terrible silence, + The menace of their secrecy. + + + + +H. D. + + + +H. D. + + +THE POOL + + Are you alive? + I touch you. + You quiver like a sea-fish. + I cover you with my net. + What are you--banded one? + + +THE GARDEN + + I + + You are clear, + O rose, cut in rock, + hard as the descent of hail. + + I could scrape the colour + from the petal, + like spilt dye from a rock. + + If I could break you + I could break a tree. + + If I could stir + I could break a tree, + I could break you. + + II + + O wind, + rend open the heat, + cut apart the heat, + rend it sideways. + + Fruit can not drop + through this thick air: + fruit can not fall into heat + that presses up and blunts + the points of pears + and rounds the grapes. + + Cut the heat, + plough through it, + turning it on either side + of your path. + + +SEA LILY + + Reed, + slashed and torn, + but doubly rich-- + such great heads as yours + drift upon temple-steps, + but you are shattered + in the wind. + + Myrtle-bark + is flecked from you, + scales are dashed + from your stem, + sand cuts your petal, + furrows it with hard edge, + like flint + on a bright stone. + + Yet though the whole wind + slash at your bark, + you are lifted up, + aye--though it hiss + to cover you with froth. + + +SEA IRIS + + I + + Weed, moss-weed, + root tangled in sand, + sea-iris, brittle flower, + one petal like a shell + is broken, + and you print a shadow + like a thin twig. + + Fortunate one, + scented and stinging, + rigid myrrh-bud, + camphor-flower, + sweet and salt--you are wind + in our nostrils. + + II + + Do the murex-fishers + drench you as they pass? + Do your roots drag up colour + from the sand? + Have they slipped gold under you; + rivets of gold? + + Band of iris-flowers + above the waves, + You are painted blue, + painted like a fresh prow + stained among the salt weeds. + + +SEA ROSE + + Rose, harsh rose, + marred and with stint of petals, + meagre flower, thin, + sparse of leaf. + + more precious + than a wet rose, + single on a stem-- + you are caught in the drift. + + Stunted, with small leaf, + you are flung on the sands, + you are lifted + in the crisp sand + that drives in the wind. + + Can the spice-rose + drip such acrid fragrance + hardened in a leaf? + + +OREAD + + Whirl up, sea-- + Whirl your pointed pines, + Splash your great pines + On our rocks, + Hurl your green over us, + Cover us with your pools of fir. + + +ORION DEAD + + [_Artemis speaks_] + The cornel-trees + uplift from the furrows, + the roots at their bases + strike lower through the barley-sprays. + + So arise and face me. + I am poisoned with the rage of song. + + _I once pierced the flesh + of the wild-deer, + now am I afraid to touch + the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?_ + + _I will tear the full flowers + and the little heads + of the grape-hyacinths. + I will strip the life from the bulb + until the ivory layers + lie like narcissus petals + on the black earth._ + + _Arise, + lest I bend an ash-tree + into a taut bow, + and slay--and tear + all the roots from the earth._ + + The cornel-wood blazes + and strikes through the barley-sprays, + but I have lost heart for this. + + I break a staff. + I break the tough branch. + I know no light in the woods. + I have lost pace with the winds. + + + + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + +THE BLUE SYMPHONY + + I + + The darkness rolls upward. + The thick darkness carries with it + Rain and a ravel of cloud. + The sun comes forth upon earth. + + Palely the dawn + Leaves me facing timidly + Old gardens sunken: + And in the gardens is water. + + Sombre wreck--autumnal leaves; + Shadowy roofs + In the blue mist, + And a willow-branch that is broken. + + O old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees! + + Blue and cool: + Blue, tremulously, + Blow faint puffs of smoke + Across sombre pools. + The damp green smell of rotted wood; + And a heron that cries from out the water. + + II + + Through the upland meadows + I go alone. + For I dreamed of someone last night + Who is waiting for me. + + Flower and blossom, tell me do you know of her? + + Have the rocks hidden her voice? + They are very blue and still. + + Long upward road that is leading me, + Light hearted I quit you, + For the long loose ripples of the meadow-grass + Invite me to dance upon them. + + Quivering grass + Daintily poised + For her foot's tripping. + + O blown clouds, could I only race up like you, + Oh, the last slopes that are sun-drenched and steep! + + Look, the sky! + Across black valleys + Rise blue-white aloft + Jagged, unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death. + + Solitude. Silence. + + III + + One chuckles by the brook for me: + One rages under the stone. + One makes a spout of his mouth, + One whispers--one is gone. + + One over there on the water + Spreads cold ripples + For me + Enticingly. + + The vast dark trees + Flow like blue veils + Of tears + Into the water. + + Sour sprites, + Moaning and chuckling, + What have you hidden from me? + + "In the palace of the blue stone she lies forever + Bound hand and foot." + + Was it the wind + That rattled the reeds together? + + Dry reeds, + A faint shiver in the grasses. + + IV + + On the left hand there is a temple: + And a palace on the right-hand side. + Foot-passengers in scarlet + Pass over the glittering tide. + + Under the bridge + The old river flows + Low and monotonous + Day after day. + + I have heard and have seen + All the news that has been: + Autumn's gold and Spring's green! + + Now in my palace + I see foot-passengers + Crossing the river: + Pilgrims of Autumn + In the afternoons. + + Lotus pools: + Petals in the water. + Such are my dreams. + + For me silks are outspread. + I take my ease, unthinking. + + V + + And now the lowest pine-branch + Is drawn across the disk of the sun. + Old friends who will forget me soon + I must go on, + Towards those blue death-mountains + I have forgot so long. + + In the marsh grasses + There lies forever + My last treasure, + With the hope of my heart. + + The ice is glazing over, + Torn lanterns flutter, + On the leaves is snow. + + In the frosty evening + Toll the old bell for me + Once, in the sleepy temple. + + Perhaps my soul will hear. + + Afterglow: + Before the stars peep + I shall creep out into darkness. + + +LONDON EXCURSION + + 'BUS + + Great walls of green, + City that is afar. + + We gallop along + Alert and penetrating, + Roads open about us, + Housetops keep at a distance. + + Soft-curling tendrils, + Swim backwards from our image: + We are a red bulk, + Projecting the angular city, in shadows, at our feet. + + Black coarse-squared shapes, + Hump and growl and assemble. + It is the city that takes us to itself, + Vast thunder riding down strange skies. + + An arch under which we slide + Divides our lives for us: + After we have passed it + We know we have left something behind + We shall not see again. + + Passivity, + Gravity, + Are changed into hesitating, clanking pistons and wheels. + The trams come whooping up one by one, + Yellow pulse-beats spreading through darkness. + + Music-hall posters squall out: + The passengers shrink together, + I enter indelicately into all their souls. + + It is a glossy skating rink, + On which winged spirals clasp and bend each other: + And suddenly slide backwards towards the centre, + After a too-brief release. + + A second arch is a wall + To separate our souls from rotted cables + Of stale greenness. + + A shadow cutting off the country from us, + Out of it rise red walls. + + Yet I revolt: I bend, I twist myself + I curl into a million convolutions: + Pink shapes without angle, + Anything to be soft and woolly, + Anything to escape. + + Sudden lurch of clamours, + Two more viaducts + Stretch out red yokes of steel, + Crushing my rebellion. + + My soul + Shrieking + Is jolted forwards by a long hot bar-- + Into direct distances. + It pierces the small of my back. + + APPROACH + + Only this morning I sang of roses; + Now I see with a swift stare, + The city forcing up through the air + Black cubes close piled and some half-crumbling over. + + My roses are battered into pulp: + And there swells up in me + Sudden desire for something changeless, + Thrusts of sunless rock + Unmelted by hissing wheels. + + ARRIVAL + + Here is too swift a movement, + The rest is too still. + + It is a red sea + Licking + The housefronts. + + They quiver gently + From base to summit. + Ripples of impulse run through them, + Flattering resistance. + + Soon they will fall; + Already smoke yearns upward. + Clouds of dust, + Crash of collapsing cubes. + + I prefer deeper patience, + Monotony of stalled beasts. + O angle-builders, + Vainly have you prolonged your effort, + For I descend amid you, + Past rungs and slopes of curving slippery steel. + + WALK + + Sudden struggle for foothold on the pavement, + Familiar ascension. + + I do not heed the city any more, + It has given me a duty to perform. + I pass along nonchalantly, + Insinuating myself into self-baffling movements. + Impalpable charm of back streets + In which I find myself: + Cool spaces filled with shadow. + Passers-by, white hammocks in the sunlight. + + Bulging outcrush into old tumult; + Attainment, as of a narrow harbour, + Of some shop forgotten by traffic + With cool-corridored walls. + + 'BUS-TOP + + Black shapes bending, + Taxicabs crush in the crowd. + The tops are each a shining square + Shuttles that steadily press through woolly fabric. + + Drooping blossom, + Gas-standards over + Spray out jingling tumult + Of white-hot rays. + + Monotonous domes of bowler-hats + Vibrate in the heat. + + Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic, + Down the crowded street. + The tumult crouches over us, + Or suddenly drifts to one side. + + TRANSPOSITION + + I am blown like a leaf + Hither and thither. + The city about me + Resolves itself into sound of many voices, + Rustling and fluttering, + Leaves shaken by the breeze. + + A million forces ignore me, I know not why, + I am drunken with it all. + Suddenly I feel an immense will + Stored up hitherto and unconscious till this instant. + Projecting my body + Across a street, in the face of all its traffic. + + I dart and dash: + I do not know why I go. + These people watch me, + I yield them my adventure. + + Lazily I lounge through labyrinthine corridors, + And with eyes suddenly altered, + I peer into an office I do not know, + And wonder at a startled face that penetrates my own. + + Roses--pavement-- + I will take all this city away with me-- + People--uproar--the pavement jostling and flickering-- + Women with incredible eyelids: + Dandies in spats: + Hard-faced throng discussing me--I know them all. + I will take them away with me, + I insistently rob them of their essence, + I must have it all before night, + To sing amid my green. + + I glide out unobservant + In the midst of the traffic + Blown like a leaf + Hither and thither, + Till the city resolves itself into a clamour of voices, + Crying hollowly, like the wind rustling through the forest, + Against the frozen housefronts: + Lost in the glitter of a million movements. + + PERIPETEIA + + I can no longer find a place for myself: + I go. + + There are too many things to detain me, + But the force behind is reckless. + + Noise, uproar, movement + Slide me outwards, + Black sleet shivering + Down red walls. + + In thick jungles of green, this gyration, + My centrifugal folly, + Through roaring dust and futility spattered, + Will find its own repose. + + Golden lights will gleam out sullenly into silence, + Before I return. + + MID-FLIGHT + + We rush, a black throng, + Straight upon darkness: + Motes scattered + By the arc's rays. + + Over the bridge fluttering, + It is theatre-time, + No one heeds. + + Lost amid greenness + We will sleep all night; + And in the morning + Coming forth, we will shake wet wings + Over the settled dust of to-day. + + The city hurls its cobbled streets after us, + To drive us faster. + + We must attain the night + Before endless processions + Of lamps + Push us back. + A clock with quivering hands + Leaps to the trajectory-angle of our departure. + + We leave behind pale traces of achievement: + Fires that we kindled but were too tired to put out, + Broad gold fans brushing softly over dark walls, + Stifled uproar of night. + + We are already cast forth: + The signal of our departure + Jerks down before we have learned we are to go. + + STATION + + We descend + Into a wall of green. + Straggling shapes: + Afterwards none are seen. + + I find myself + Alone. + I look back: + The city has grown. + + One grey wall + Windowed, unlit. + Heavily, night + Crushes the face of it. + + I go on. + My memories freeze + Like birds' cry + In hollow trees. + + I go on. + Up and outright + To the hostility + Of night. + + + + +F. S. FLINT + + + +F. S. FLINT + + +TREES + + Elm trees + and the leaf the boy in me hated + long ago-- + rough and sandy. + + Poplars + and their leaves, + tender, smooth to the fingers, + and a secret in their smell + I have forgotten. + + Oaks + and forest glades, + heart aching with wonder, fear: + their bitter mast. + + Willows + and the scented beetle + we put in our handkerchiefs; + and the roots of one + that spread into a river: + nakedness, water and joy. + + Hawthorn, + white and odorous with blossom, + framing the quiet fields, + and swaying flowers and grasses, + and the hum of bees. + + Oh, these are the things that are with me now, + in the town; + and I am grateful + for this minute of my manhood. + + +LUNCH + + Frail beauty, + green, gold and incandescent whiteness, + narcissi, daffodils, + you have brought me Spring and longing, + wistfulness, + in your irradiance. + + Therefore, I sit here + among the people, + dreaming, + and my heart aches + with all the hawthorn blossom, + the bees humming, + the light wind upon the poplars, + and your warmth and your love + and your eyes ... + they smile and know me. + + +MALADY + + I move; + perhaps I have wakened; + this is a bed; + this is a room; + and there is light.... + + Darkness! + + Have I performed + the dozen acts or so + that make me the man + men see? + + The door opens, + and on the landing-- + quiet! + I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness! + + Stairs, banisters, a handrail: + all indistinguishable. + One step farther down or up, + and why? + But up is harder. Down! + Down to this white blur; + it gives before me. + + Me? + + I extend all ways: + I fit into the walls and they pull me. + + Light? + + Light! I know it is light. + + Stillness, and then, + something moves: + green, oh green, dazzling lightning! + And joy! this is my room; + there are my books, there the piano, + there the last bar I wrote, + there the last line, + and oh the sunlight! + + A parrot screeches. + + +ACCIDENT + + Dear one! + you sit there + in the corner of the carriage; + and you do not know me; + and your eyes forbid. + + Is it the dirt, the squalor, + the wear of human bodies, + and the dead faces of our neighbours? + These are but symbols. + + You are proud; I praise you; + your mouth is set; you see beyond us; + and you see nothing. + + I have the vision of your calm, cold face, + and of the black hair that waves above it; + I watch you; I love you; + I desire you. + + There is a quiet here + within the thud-thud of the wheels + upon the railway. + + There is a quiet here + within my heart, + but tense and tender.... + + This is my station.... + + +FRAGMENT + + ... That night I loved you + in the candlelight. + Your golden hair + strewed the sweet whiteness of the pillows + and the counterpane. + O the darkness of the corners, + the warm air, and the stars + framed in the casement of the ships' lights! + The waves lapped into the harbour; + the boats creaked; + a man's voice sang out on the quay; + and you loved me. + In your love were the tall tree fuchsias, + the blue of the hortensias, the scarlet nasturtiums, + the trees on the hills, + the roads we had covered, + and the sea that had borne your body + before the rocks of Hartland. + You loved me with these + and with the kindness of people, + country folk, sailors and fishermen, + and the old lady who had lodged us and supped us. + You loved me with yourself + that was these and more, + changed as the earth is changed + into the bloom of flowers. + + +HOUSES + + Evening and quiet: + a bird trills in the poplar trees + behind the house with the dark green door + across the road. + + Into the sky, + the red earthenware and the galvanised iron chimneys + thrust their cowls. + The hoot of the steamers on the Thames is plain. + + No wind; + the trees merge, green with green; + a car whirs by; + footsteps and voices take their pitch + in the key of dusk, + far-off and near, subdued. + + Solid and square to the world + the houses stand, + their windows blocked with venetian blinds. + + Nothing will move them. + + +EAU-FORTE + + On black bare trees a stale cream moon + hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds. + + Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low, + tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram. + + Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square; + and round the bend six bullocks come. + + A hobbling, dirt-grimed drover guides + their clattering feet to death and shame. + + + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + +BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA + + Oh, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, + Lamps in a wash of rain, + Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard, + Oh, tears on the window pane! + + Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, + Full of disappointment and of rain, + Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples + Of Autumn tell the withered tale again. + + All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen, + Cluck, and the rain-wet wings, + Cluck, my marigold bird, and again + Cluck for your yellow darlings. + + For the grey rat found the gold thirteen + Huddled away in the dark, + Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen, + Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark. + + * * * * * * + + Once I had a lover bright like running water, + Once his face was laughing like the sky; + Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter + On the buttercups--and buttercups was I. + + What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom, + What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen? + 'T is the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom-- + What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men? + + Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom, + And her shift is lying white upon the floor, + That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm + Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store. + + Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples, + Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct--! + And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples, + Did you see the wicked sun that winked? + + +ILLICIT + + In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow, + And between us and it, the thunder; + And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers + Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat. + + You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals, + And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber + I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber + Lightning falls from heaven. + + Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats + A dark boat through the gloom--and whither? + The thunder roars. But still we have each other. + The naked lightnings in the heaven dither + And disappear. What have we but each other? + The boat has gone. + + +FIREFLIES IN THE CORN + + _A Woman taunts her Lover_ + Look at the little darlings in the corn! + The rye is taller than you, who think yourself + So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne + Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights + Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn. + + And always likely!--Oh, if I could ride + With my head held high-serene against the sky + Do you think I'd have a creature like you at my side + With your gloom and your doubt that you love me? O darling rye, + How I adore you for your simple pride! + + And those bright fireflies wafting in between + And over the swaying cornstalks, just above + All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green + Stars come low and wandering here for love + Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene--! + + How I adore you, you happy things, you dears + Riding the air and carrying all the time + Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers + My heart to see you settling and trying to climb + The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears. + + All over the corn's dim motion, against the blue + Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm + Of questing brilliant things:--you joy, you true + Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm + My poor and perished soul at the joy of you! + + _The Man answers and she mocks_ + You're a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do! + --Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine. + And I give you everything that you want me to. + --Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever _can_ shine? + + +A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND + + Ah, stern cold man, + How can you lie so relentless hard + While I wash you with weeping water! + Ah, face, carved hard and cold, + You have been like this, on your guard + Against me, since death began. + + You masquerader! + How can you shame to act this part + Of unswerving indifference to me? + It is not you; why disguise yourself + Against me, to break my heart, + You evader? + + You've a warm mouth, + A good warm mouth always sooner to soften + Even than your sudden eyes. + Ah cruel, to keep your mouth + Relentless, however often + I kiss it in drouth. + + You are not he. + Who are you, lying in his place on the bed + And rigid and indifferent to me? + His mouth, though he laughed or sulked + Was always warm and red + And good to me. + + And his eyes could see + The white moon hang like a breast revealed + By the slipping shawl of stars, + Could see the small stars tremble + As the heart beneath did wield + Systole, diastole. + + And he showed it me + So, when he made his love to me; + And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out, + And his eyes were deep like the sea + With shadow, and he looked at me, + Till I sank in him like the sea, + Awfully. + + Oh, he was multiform-- + Which then was he among the manifold? + The gay, the sorrowful, the seer? + I have loved a rich race of men in one-- + --But not this, this never-warm + Metal-cold--! + + Ah, masquerader! + With your steel face white-enamelled + Were you he, after all, and I never + Saw you or felt you in kissing? + --Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled + With fear, evader! + + You will not stir, + Nor hear me, not a sound. + --Then it was you-- + And all this time you were + Like this when I lived with you. + It is not true, + I am frightened, I am frightened of you + And of everything. + O God!--God too + Has deceived me in everything, + In everything. + + +THE MOWERS + + There's four men mowing down by the river; + I can hear the sound of the scythe strokes, four + Sharp breaths swishing:--yea, but I + Am sorry for what's i' store. + + The first man out o' the four that's mowin' + Is mine: I mun claim him once for all: + --But I'm sorry for him, on his young feet, knowin' + None o' the trouble he's led to stall. + + As he sees me bringin' the dinner, he lifts + His head as proud as a deer that looks + Shoulder-deep out o' th' corn: and wipes + His scythe blade bright, unhooks + + His scythe stone, an' over the grass to me! + --Lad, tha 's gotten a chilt in me, + An' a man an' a father tha 'lt ha'e to be, + My young slim lad, an' I'm sorry for thee. + + +SCENT OF IRISES + + A faint, sickening scent of irises + Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table + A fine proud spike of purple irises + Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable + To see the class's lifted and bended faces + Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable. + + I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless + Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast + You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped + Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast + Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks + Dissolved in the golden sorcery you should not outlast. + + You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation, + You sitting in the cowslips of the meadows above, + --Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs, + Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love-- + You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent, + You, with your face all rich, like the sheen on a dove--! + + You are always asking, do I remember, remember + The buttercup bog-end where the flowers rose up + And kindled you over deep with a coat of gold? + You ask again, do the healing days close up + The open darkness which then drew us in, + The dark that swallows all, and nought throws up. + + You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night + Burnt like a sacrifice;--you invisible-- + Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you! + --And yes, thank God, it still is possible + The healing days shall close the darkness up + Wherein I breathed you like a smoke or dew. + + Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God, + The golden fire has gone, and your face is ash + Indistinguishable in the grey, chill day, + The night has burnt you out, at last the good + Dark fire burns on untroubled without clash + Of you upon the dead leaves saying me yea. + + +GREEN + + The sky was apple-green, + The sky was green wine held up in the sun, + The moon was a golden petal between. + + She opened her eyes, and green + They shone, clear like flowers undone, + For the first time, now for the first time seen. + + + + +AMY LOWELL + + + +AMY LOWELL + + +VENUS TRANSIENS + + Tell me, + Was Venus more beautiful + Than you are, + When she topped + The crinkled waves, + Drifting shoreward + On her plaited shell? + Was Botticelli's vision + Fairer than mine; + And were the painted rosebuds + He tossed his lady, + Of better worth + Than the words I blow about you + To cover your too great loveliness + As with a gauze + Of misted silver? + + For me, + You stand poised + In the blue and buoyant air, + Cinctured by bright winds, + Treading the sunlight. + And the waves which precede you + Ripple and stir + The sands at my feet. + + +THE TRAVELLING BEAR + + Grass-blades push up between the cobblestones + And catch the sun on their flat sides + Shooting it back, + Gold and emerald, + Into the eyes of passers-by. + + And over the cobblestones, + Square-footed and heavy, + Dances the trained bear. + Tho cobbles cut his feet, + And he has a ring in his nose + Which hurts him; + But still he dances, + For the keeper pricks him with a sharp stick, + Under his fur. + + Now the crowd gapes and chuckles, + And boys and young women shuffle their feet in time to the dancing bear. + They see him wobbling + Against a dust of emerald and gold, + And they are greatly delighted. + + The legs of the bear shake with fatigue + And his back aches, + And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him. + But still he dances, + Because of the little, pointed stick. + + +THE LETTER + + Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper + Like draggled fly's legs, + What can you tell of the flaring moon + Through the oak leaves? + Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor + Spattered with moonlight? + Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them + Of blossoming hawthorns, + And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness + Beneath my hand. + + I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against + The want of you; + Of squeezing it into little inkdrops, + And posting it. + And I scald alone, here, under the fire + Of the great moon. + + +GROTESQUE + + Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me + When I pluck them; + And writhe, and twist, + And strangle themselves against my fingers, + So that I can hardly weave the garland + For your hair? + Why do they shriek your name + And spit at me + When I would cluster them? + Must I kill them + To make them lie still, + And send you a wreath of lolling corpses + To turn putrid and soft + On your forehead + While you dance? + + +BULLION + + My thoughts + Chink against my ribs + And roll about like silver hail-stones. + I should like to spill them out, + And pour them, all shining, + Over you. + But my heart is shut upon them + And holds them straitly. + + Come, You! and open my heart; + That my thoughts torment me no longer, + But glitter in your hair. + + +SOLITAIRE + + When night drifts along the streets of the city, + And sifts down between the uneven roofs, + My mind begins to peek and peer. + It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens, + And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples, + Amid the broken flutings of white pillars. + It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair, + And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses. + How light and laughing my mind is, + When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles, + And the city is still! + + +THE BOMBARDMENT + +Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on +the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and +trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a +gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral +square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about +in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After +it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of +the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom! + +The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the firelight. +The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies leap in +the bohemian glasses on the _etagere_. Her hands are restless, but the +white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to +torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the +_etagere_. It lies there formless and glowing, with all its crimson gleams +shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. A thin bell-note +pricks through the silence. A door creaks. The old lady speaks: "Victor, +clear away that broken glass." "Alas! Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, +Victor, one hundred years ago my father brought it--" Boom! The room +shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom! + +It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is shut +within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his ink, his +pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams +of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses itself up at +the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin he can see +copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp in a +cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, +iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom! The +flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long +broken spears of disheveled water and flattens into the earth. Boom! And +there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding rain. +Again, Boom!--Boom!--Boom! He stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees +corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling +the city! Boom! Boom! + +A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made the +bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake." "Hush, my Darling, I am +here." "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the room shook." Boom! +"Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom! "Where is Father? I am so +afraid." Boom! The child sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and creaks. +Boom! + +Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing +across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded +by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his +story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases +like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from +people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking +steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears +apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone, +zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts +like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, +and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses against the +rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet night. + +Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to scorch. +Boom! The bohemian glass on the _etagere_ is no longer there. Boom! A +stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old lady cannot +walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts. Boom!--Boom!--Boom! + +The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of +silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The +city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the +flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its gold on +the sky the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and +chuckles along the floors. + +The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower flickering +at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the ceiling beams. + +The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning +Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter and +crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly and +without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple crashes +down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes along the +gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom! + + +THE END + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + _Fire and Wine._ Grant Richards, Ltd., London, 1913. + _Fool's Gold._ Max Goschen, London, 1913. + _The Dominant City._ Max Goschen, London, 1913. + _The Book of Nature._ Constable & Co., London, 1913. + _Visions of the Evening._ Erskine McDonald, London, 1913. + _Irradiations: Sand and Spray._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914. + + + F. S. FLINT + _The Net of Stars._ Elkin Mathews, London, 1909. + + + D. H. LAWRENCE + _Love Poems and Others._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1913. + Prose: _The White Peacock._ William Heinemann, London, 1911. + _The Trespasser._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1912. + _Sons and Lovers._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1913. + Drama: _The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd._ Mitchell Kennerley, New York, + 1914. + + + AMY LOWELL + _A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, + 1912. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1914. + _Sword Blades and Poppy Seed._ The Macmillan Company, New York; and + Macmillan & Co., London, 1914. + + + +The Riverside Press + +CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS + +U . S . A + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Imagist Poets, by +Richard Aldington and H.D. and John Gould Fletcher and F.S. Flint and D.H. Lawrence and Amy Lowell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME IMAGIST POETS *** + +***** This file should be named 30276.txt or 30276.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/2/7/30276/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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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