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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:11:18 -0700 |
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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/38856-0.txt b/38856-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9640c26 --- /dev/null +++ b/38856-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3044 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38856 *** + +GOBLINS AND PAGODAS + +BY + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + +1916 + + + + + +TO + +DAISY + + + +Thanks are due to the editor of The Egoist, London, for permission to +reprint The Ghosts of an Old House and the Orange Symphony; to the +editor of Poetry, Chicago, for permission to reprint the Blue Symphony; +and to the editor of The Little Review for permission to reprint the +Green Symphony. + + + + +PREFACE + + +I + +The second half of the nineteenth and the first fifteen years of the +twentieth century have been a period of research, of experiment, of +unrest and questioning. In science and philosophy we have witnessed an +attempt to destroy the mechanistic theory of the universe as developed +by Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. The unknowable has been questioned: +hypotheses have been shaken: vitalism and idealism have been proclaimed. +In the arts, the tendency has been to strip each art of its inessentials +and to disclose the underlying basis of pure form. In life, the +principles of nationality, of racial culture, of individualism, of +social development, of Christian ethics, have been discussed, debated, +and examined from top to bottom, until at last, in the early years of +the twentieth century we find all Europe, from the leaders of thought +down to the lowest peasantry, engaged in a mutually destructive war of +which few can trace the beginnings and none can foresee the end. The +fundamental tenets of thought, art, life itself, have been shaken: and +either civilization is destined to some new birth, or mankind will +revert to the conditions of life, thought, and social intercourse that +prevailed in the Stone Age. + +Like all men of my generation, I have not been able to resist this +irresistible upheaval of ideas and of forces: and, to the best of my +ability, I have tried to arrive at a clear understanding of the +fundamentals of æsthetic form as they affect the art to which I have +felt myself instinctively akin, the art of poetry. That I have +completely attained such an understanding, it would be idle for me to +pretend: but I believe, and have induced some others to believe, that I +have made a few steps towards it. Some explanation of my own peculiar +theories and beliefs is necessary, however, to those who have not +specifically concerned themselves with poetry, or who suffer in the +presence of any new work of art from the normal human reaction that all +art principles are so essentially fixed that any departure from accepted +ideas is madness. + + +II + +The fundamental basis of all the arts is the same. In every case art +aims at the evocation of some human emotion in the spectator or +listener. Where science proceeds from effects to causes, and seeks to +analyze the underlying causes of emotion and sensation, art reverses the +process, and constructs something that will awaken emotions, according +to the amount of receptiveness with which other people approach it. Thus +architecture gives us feelings of density, proportion, harmony: +sculpture, of masses in movement; painting, of colour-harmony and the +ordered composition of lines and volumes from which arise sensations of +space: music, of the development of sounds into melodic line, harmonic +progression, tonal opposition, and symphonic structure. + +The object of literature is not dissimilar from these. Literature aims +at releasing the emotions that arise from the formed words of a certain +language. But literature is probably a less pure--and hence more +universal--art than any I have yet examined. For it must be apparent to +all minds that not only is a word a definite symbol of some fact, but +also it is a thing capable of being spoken or sounded. The art of +literature, then, in so far as it deals with definite statements, is +akin to painting or photography: in so far as it deals with sounded +words, it is akin to music. + + +III + +Literature, therefore, does not depend on the peculiar twists and quirks +which represent, to those who can read, the words, but rather on the +essential words themselves. In fact, literature existed before writing; +and writing in itself is of no value from the purely literary sense, +except in so far as it preserves and transmits from generation to +generation the literary emotion. Style, whether in prose or poetry, is +an attempt to develop this essentially musical quality of literature, to +evoke the magic that exists in the sound-quality of words, as well as +to combine these sound-qualities in definite statements or sentences. +The difference between prose and poetry is, therefore, not a difference +of means, but of psychological effect and reaction. The means employed, +the formed language, is the same: but the resultant impression is quite +different. + +In prose, the emotions expressed are those that are capable of +development in a straight line. In so far as prose is pure, it confines +itself to the direct orderly progression of a thought or conception or +situation from point to point of a flat surface. The sentences, as they +develop this conception from its beginning to conclusion, move on, and +do not return upon themselves. The grouping of these sentences into +paragraphs gives the breadth of the thought. The paragraphs, sections, +and chapters are each a square, in that they represent a division of the +main thought into parallel units, or blocks of subsidiary ideas. The +sensation of depth is finally obtained by arranging these blocks in a +rising climacteric progression, or in parallel lines, or in a sort of +zigzag figure. + +The psychological reaction that arises from the intelligent appreciation +of poetry is quite different. In poetry, we have a succession of curves. +The direction of the thought is not in straight lines, but wavy and +spiral. It rises and falls on gusts of strong emotion. Most often it +creates strongly marked loops and circles. The structure of the stanza +or strophe always tends to the spherical. Depth is obtained by making +one sphere contain a number of concentric, or overlapping spheres. + +Hence, when we speak of poetry we usually mean regular rhyme and metre, +which have for so long been considered essential to all poetry, not as a +device for heightening musical effect, as so many people suppose, but +merely to make these loops and circles more accentuated, and to make the +line of the poem turn upon itself more recognizably. But it must be +recognized that just as Giotto's circle was none the less a circle, +although not drawn with compasses, so poetic circles can be constructed +out of subtler and more musical curves than that which painstakingly +follows the selfsame progression of beats, and catches itself up on the +same point of rhyme for line after line. The key pattern on the lip of a +Greek vase may be beautiful, but it is less beautiful, less satisfying, +and less conclusive a test of artistic ability than the composition of +satyrs and of mænads struggling about the centre. Therefore I maintain, +and will continue to do so, that the mere craftsman-ability to write in +regular lines and metres no more makes a man a poet than the ability to +stencil wall-papers makes him a painter. + +Rather is it more important to observe that almost any prose work of +imaginative literature, if examined closely, will be found to contain a +plentiful sprinkling of excellent verses; while many poems which the +world hails as master-pieces, contain whole pages of prose. The fact is, +that prose and poetry are to literature as composition and colour are +to painting, or as light and shadow to the day, or male and female to +mankind. There are no absolutely perfect poets and no absolutely perfect +prose-writers. Each partakes of some of the characteristics of the +other. The difference between poetry and prose is, therefore, a +difference between a general roundness and a general squareness of +outline. A great French critic, recently dead, who devoted perhaps the +major part of his life to the study of the æsthetics of the French +tongue, declared that Flaubert and Chateaubriand wrote only poetry. If +there are those who cannot see that in the only true and lasting sense +of the word poetry, this remark was perfectly just, then all I have +written above will be in vain. + + +IV + +Along with the prevailing preoccupation with technique which so marks +the early twentieth century, there has gone also a great change in the +subject-matter of art. Having tried to explain the aesthetic form-basis +of poetry, I shall now attempt to explain my personal way of viewing its +content. + +It is a significant fact that every change in technical procedure in the +arts is accompanied by, and grows out of, a change in subject-matter. To +take only one out of innumerable examples, the new subject-matter of +Wagner's music-dramas, of an immeasurably higher order than the usual +libretto, created a new form of music, based on motifs, not melodies. +Other examples can easily be discovered. The reason for this is not +difficult to find. + +No sincere artist cares to handle subject-matter that has already been +handled and exhausted. It is not a question of a desire to avoid +plagiarism, or of self-conscious searching for novelty, but of a +perfectly spontaneous and normal appeal which any new subject-matter +always makes. Hence, when a new subject appears to any artist, he always +realizes it more vividly than an old one, and if he is a good artist, he +realizes it so vividly that he recreates it in what is practically a +novel form. + +This novel form never is altogether novel, nor is the subject altogether +a new subject. For, as I pointed out at the beginning of this preface, +that all arts sprang practically out of the same primary sensations, so +the subject-matter of all art must forever be the same: namely, nature +and human life. Hence, any new type of art will always be found, in +subject-matter as well as in technique, to have its roots in the old. +Art is like a kaleidoscope, capable of many changes, while the material +which builds up those changes remains the same. + +Nevertheless, although the subject-matter in this book is not altogether +new, yet I have realized it in a way which has not often been tried, and +out of that fresh and quite personal realization have sprung my +innovations in subject as well as technique. Let me illustrate by a +concrete example. + + +V + +A book lies on my desk. It has a red binding and is badly printed on +cheap paper. I have had this book with me for several years. Now, +suppose I were to write a poem on this book, how would I treat the +subject? + +If I were a poet following in the main the Victorian tradition, I should +write my poem altogether about the contents of this book and its author. +My poem would be essentially a criticism of the subject-matter of the +book. I should state at length how that subject-matter had affected me. +In short, what the reader would obtain from this sort of poem would be +my sentimental reaction towards certain ideas and tendencies in the work +of another. + +If I were a realist poet, I should write about the book's external +appearance. I should expatiate on the red binding, the bad type, the +ink-stain on page sixteen. I should complain, perhaps, of my poverty at +not being able to buy a better edition, and conclude with a gibe at the +author for not having realized the sufferings of the poor. + +Neither of these ways, however, of writing about this book possesses any +novelty, and neither is essentially my own way. My own way of writing +about it would be as follows:-- + +I should select out of my life the important events connected with my +ownership of this book, and strive to write of them in terms of the +volume itself, both as regards subject-matter and appearance. In other +words, I should link up my personality and the personality of the book, +and make each a part of the other. In this way I should strive to evoke +a soul out of this piece of inanimate matter, a something characteristic +and structural inherent in this in-organic form which is friendly to me +and responds to my mood. + +This method is not new, although it has not often been used in +Occidental countries. Professor Fenollosa, in his book on Chinese and +Japanese art, states that it was universally employed by the Chinese +artists and poets of the Sung period in the eleventh century A.D. He +calls this doctrine of the interdependence of man and inanimate nature, +the cardinal doctrine of Zen Buddhism. The Zen Buddhists evolved it from +the still earlier Taoist philosophy, which undoubtedly inspired Li Po +and the other great Chinese poets of the seventh and eighth centuries +A.D. + + +VI + +In the first poems of this volume, the "Ghosts of an Old House," I have +followed the method already described. I have tried to evoke, out of the +furniture and surroundings of a certain old house, definite emotions +which I have had concerning them. I have tried to relate my childish +terror concerning this house--a terror not uncommon among children, as I +can testify--to the aspects that called it forth. + +In the "Symphonies," which form the second part of this volume, I have +gone a step further. My aim in writing these was, from the beginning, to +narrate certain important phases of the emotional and intellectual +development--in short, the life--of an artist, not necessarily myself, +but of that sort of artist with which I might find myself most in +sympathy. And here, not being restrained by any definite material +phenomena, as in the Old House, I have tried to state each phase in the +terms of a certain colour, or combination of colours, which is +emotionally akin to that phase. This colour, and the imaginative +phantasmagoria of landscape which it evokes, thereby creates, in a +definite and tangible form, the dominant mood of each poem. + +The emotional relations that exist between form, colour, and sound have +been little investigated. It is perfectly true that certain colours +affect certain temperaments differently. But it is also true that there +is a science of colour, and that certain of its laws are already +universally known, if not explained. Naturally enough, it is to the +painters we must first turn if we want to find out what is known about +colour. We discover that painters continually are speaking of hot and +cold colour: red, yellow, orange being generally hot, and green, blue, +and violet cold--mixed colours being classed hot and cold according to +the proportions they contain of the hot and cold colours. We also +discover that certain colours will not fit certain forms, but rebel at +the combination. This is so far true that scarcely any landscape painter +finishes his pictures from nature, but in the studio: and almost any art +student, painting a landscape, will disregard the colour before him and +employ the colour-scheme of his master or of some painter he admires. As +Delacroix noted in his journal: "A conception having become a +composition must move in the milieu of a colour peculiar to it. There +seems to be a particular tone belonging to some part of every picture +which is a key that governs all the other tones." + +Therefore, we must admit that there is an intimate relation between +colour and form. It is the same with colour and sounds. Many musicians +have observed the phenomenon, that when certain notes, or combinations +of them, are sounded, certain colours are also suggested to the eye. A +Russian composer, Scriabine, went so far as to construct colour-scales, +and an English scientist, Professor Wallace Rimington, has built an +organ which plays in colours, instead of notes. Unfortunately, the +musicians have given this subject less attention than the painters, and +therefore our knowledge concerning the relations of colour and sound is +more fragmentary and incomplete. Nevertheless, these relations exist, +and it is for the future to develop them more fully. + +Literature, and especially poetry, as I have already pointed out, +partakes of the character of both painting and music. The impressionist +method is quite as applicable to writing as it is to landscape. Poems +can be written in major or minor keys, can be as full of dominant motif +as a Wagner music-drama, and even susceptible of fugal treatment. +Literature is the common ground of many arts, and in its highest +development, such as the drama as practised in fifth-century Athens, is +found allied to music, dancing, and colour. Hence, I have called my +works "Symphonies," when they are really dramas of the soul, and hence, +in them I have used colour for verity, for ornament, for drama, for its +inherent beauty, and for intensifying the form of the emotion that each +of these poems is intended to evoke. + + +VII + +Let us take an artist, a young man at the outset of his career. His +years of searching, of fumbling, of other men's influence, are coming to +an end. Sure of himself, he yet sees that he will spend all his life +pursuing a vision of beauty which will elude him at the very last. This +is the first symphony, which I have called the "Blue," because blue +suggests to me depth, mystery, and distance. + +He finds himself alone in a great city, surrounded by noise and +clamour. It is as if millions of lives were tugging at him, drawing him +away from his art, tempting him to go out and whelm his personality in +this black whirlpool of struggle and failure, on which float golden +specks--the illusory bliss of life. But he sees that all this is only +another illusion, like his own. Here we have the "Symphony in Black and +Gold." + +He emerges from the city, and in the country is re-intoxicated with +desire for life by spring. He vows himself to a self-sufficing pagan +worship of nature. This is the "Green Symphony." + +Quickened by spring, he dreams of a marvellous golden city of art, fall +of fellow-workers. This city appears to him at times like some Italian +town of the Renaissance, at others like some strange Oriental +golden-roofed monastery-temple. He sees himself dead in the desert far +away from it. Yet its blossoming is ever about him. Something divine has +been born of him after death. + +So he passes to the "White Symphony," the central poem of this series, +in which I have sought to describe the artist's struggle to attain +unutterable and superhuman perfection. This struggle goes on from the +midsummer of his life to midwinter. The end of it is stated in the poem. + +There follows a brief interlude, which I have called a "Symphony in +White and Blue." These colours were chosen perhaps more +idiosyncratically in this case than in the others. I have tried to +depict the sort of temptation that besets most artists at this stage of +their career: the temptation to abandon the struggle for the sake of a +purely sensual existence. In this case, however, the appeal of +sensuality is conveyed under the guise of a dream. It is resisted, and +the struggle begins anew. + +War breaks out, not alone in the external world, but in the artist's +soul. He finds he must follow his personality wherever it leads him, +despite all obstacles. This is the "Orange Symphony." + +Now follow long years of struggle and neglect. He is shipwrecked, and +still afar he sees his city of art, but this time it is red, a phantom +mocking his impotent rage. + +Old age follows. All is violet, the colour of regret and remembrance. He +is living only in the past, his life a succession of dreams. + +Lastly, all things fade out into absolute grey, and it is now midwinter. +Looking forth on the world again he still sees war, like a monstrous red +flower, dominating mankind. He hears the souls of the dead declaring +that they, too, have died for an adventure, even as he is about to die. + +Such, in the briefest possible analysis, is the meaning of the poems +contained in this book. + +_January_, 1916. + + + + + CONTENTS + + SECTION I. THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE + + PROLOGUE + + PART I. THE HOUSE + + Bedroom + Library + Indian Skull + Old Nursery + The Back Stairs + The Wall Cabinet + The Cellar + The Front Door + + PART II. THE ATTIC + + In the Attic + The Calendar in the Attic + The Hoopskirt + The Little Chair + In the Dark Corner + The Toy Cabinet + The Yardstick + + PART III. THE LAWN + + The Three Oaks + An Oak + Another Oak + The Old Barn + The Well + The Trees + Vision + Epilogue + + SECTION II. SYMPHONIES + + BLUE SYMPHONY + + SOLITUDE IN THE CITY (SYMPHONY IN BLACK AND GOLD) + + I. Words at Midnight + II. The Evening Rain + III. Street of Sorrows + IV. Song in the Darkness + + GREEN SYMPHONY + + GOLDEN SYMPHONY + + WHITE SYMPHONY + + MIDSUMMER DREAMS (SYMPHONY IN WHITE AND BLUE) + + ORANGE SYMPHONY + + RED SYMPHONY + + VIOLET SYMPHONY + + GREY SYMPHONY + + POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR (A SYMPHONY IN SCARLET) + + + + + SECTION I + + THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE + + + + PROLOGUE + + + The house that I write of, faces the north: + No sun ever seeks + Its six white columns, + The nine great windows of its face. + + It fronts foursquare the winds. + + Under the penthouse of the veranda roof, + The upper northern rooms + Gloom outwards mournfully. + + Staring Ionic capitals + Peer in them: + Owl-like faces. + + On winter nights + The wind, sidling round the corner, + Shoots upwards + With laughter. + + The windows rattle as if some one were in them wishing to get out + And ride upon the wind. + + Doors lead to nowhere: + Squirrels burrow between the walls. + Closets in every room hang open, + Windows are stared into by uncivil ancient trees. + + In the middle of the upper hallway + There is a great circular hole + Going up to the attic. + A wooden lid covers it. + + All over the house there is a sense of futility; + Of minutes dragging slowly + And repeating + Some worn-out story of broken effort and desire. + + + + + PART I. THE HOUSE + + + + BEDROOM + + + The clump of jessamine + Softly beneath the rain + Rocks its golden flowers. + + In this room my father died: + His bed is in the corner. + No one has slept in it + Since the morning when he wakened + To meet death's hands at his heart. + I cannot go to this room, + Without feeling something big and angry + Waiting for me + To throw me on the bed, + And press its thumbs in my throat. + + The clump of jessamine + Without, beneath the rain, + Rocks its golden flowers. + + + + LIBRARY + + + Stuffy smell of mouldering leather, + Tattered arm-chairs, creaking doors, + Books that slovenly elbow each other, + Sown with children's scrawls and long + Worn out by contact with generations: + Tattered tramps displaying yourselves-- + "We, though you broke our backs, did not complain." + If I had my way, + I would take you out and bury you quickly, + Or give you to the clean fire. + + + + INDIAN SKULL + + + Some one dug this up and brought it + To our house. + In the dark upper hall, I see it dimly, + Looking at me through the glass. + + Where dancers have danced, and weary people + Have crept to their bedrooms in the morning, + Where sick people have tossed all night, + Where children have been born, + Where feet have gone up and down, + Where anger has blazed forth, and strange looks have passed, + It has rested, watching meanwhile + The opening and shutting of doors, + The coming and going of people, + The carrying out of coffins. + + Earth still clings to its eye-sockets, + It will wait, till its vengeance is accomplished. + + + + OLD NURSERY + + + In the tired face of the mirror + There is a blue curtain reflected. + If I could lift the reflection, + Peer a little beyond, I would see + A boy crying + Because his sister is ill in another room + And he has no one to play with: + A boy listlessly scattering building blocks, + And crying, + Because no one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana. + I cannot lift the curtain: + It is stiff and frozen. + + + + THE BACK STAIRS + + + In the afternoon + When no one is in the house, + I suddenly hear dull dragging feet + Go fumbling down those dark back stairs, + That climb up twisting, + As if they wanted no one to see them. + Beating a dirge upon the bare planks + I hear those feet and the creak of a long-locked door. + + My mother often went + Up and down those selfsame stairs, + From the room where by the window + She would sit all day and listlessly + Look on the world that had destroyed her, + She would go down in the evening + To the room where she would sleep, + Or rather, not sleep, but all night + Lie staring fiercely at the ceiling. + + In the afternoon + When no one is in the house: + I suddenly hear dull dragging feet + Beating out their futile tune, + Up and down those dark back stairs, + But there is no one in the shadows. + + + + THE WALL CABINET + + + Above the steep back stairs + So high that only a ladder can come to it, + There is a wall cabinet hidden away. + + No one ever unlocks it; + The key is lost, the door is barred, + It is shut and still. + + Some say, a previous tenant + Filled its shelves with rows of bottles, + Bottles of spirit, filled with spiders. + + I do not know. + Above the sleepy still back stairs, + It watches, shut and still. + + + + THE CELLAR + + + Faintly lit by a high-barred grating, + The low-hung cellar, + Flattens itself under the house. + + In one corner + There is a little door, + So low, it can scarcely be seen. + + Beyond, + There is a narrow room, + One must feel for the walls in the dark. + + One shrinks to go + To the end of it, + Feeling the smooth cold wall. + + Why did the builders who made this house, + Stow one room away like this? + + + + THE FRONT DOOR + + + It was always the place where our farewells were taken, + When we travelled to the north. + + I remember there was one who made some journey, + But did not come back. + Many years they waited for him, + At last the one who wished the most to see him, + Was carried out of this selfsame door in death. + + Since then all our family partings + Have been at another door. + + + + + PART II. THE ATTIC + + + + IN THE ATTIC + + + Dust hangs clogged so thick + The air has a dusty taste: + Spider threads cling to my face, + From the broad pine-beams. + There is nothing living here, + The house below might be quite empty, + No sound comes from it. + The old broken trunks and boxes, + Cracked and dusty pictures, + Legless chairs and shattered tables, + Seem to be crying + Softly in the stillness + Because no one has brushed them. + No one has any use for them, now, + Yet I often wonder + If these things are really dead: + If the old trunks never open + Letting out grey flapping things at twilight? + If it is all as safe and dull + As it seems? + + Why then is the stair so steep, + Why is the doorway always locked, + Why does nobody ever come? + + + + THE CALENDAR IN THE ATTIC + + + I wonder how long it has been + Since this old calendar hung here, + With my birthday date upon it, + Nothing else--not a word of writing-- + Not a mark of any hand. + + Perhaps it was my father + Who left it thus + For me to see. + + Perhaps my mother + Smiled as she saw it; + But in later years did not smile. + If I could tear it down, + From the wall + Somehow + I would be content. + But I am afraid, as a little child, to touch it. + + + + THE HOOPSKIRT + + + In the night when all are sleeping, + Up here a tiny old dame comes tripping, + Looking for her lost hoopskirt. + + My great-grandaunt--I never saw her-- + Her ghost doesn't know me from another, + She stalks up the attic stairs angrily. + + The dust sets her sneezing and coughing, + By the trunk she is limping and hopping, + But alas--the trunk is locked. + + What's an old dame to do, anyway! + Must stay in a mouldy grave day on day, + Or go to heaven out of style. + + In the night when all are snoring, + The old lady makes a dreadful clatter, + Going down the attic stairs. + + What was that? A ghost or a burglar? + Oh, it was only the wind in the chimney, + Yes, and the attic door that slammed. + + + + THE LITTLE CHAIR + + + I know not why, when I saw the little chair, + I suddenly desired to sit in it. + + I know not why, when I sat in the little chair, + Everything changed, and life came back to me. + + I am convinced no one at all has grown up in the house, + The break that I dreamed, itself was a dream and is broken. + + I will sit in the little chair and wait, + Till the others come looking after me. + + And if it is after nightfall they will come, + So much the better. + + For the little chair holds me as tightly as death; + And rocking in it, I can hear it whisper strange things. + + + + IN THE DARK CORNER + + + I brush the dust from this old portrait: + Yes, it is the same face, exactly, + Why does it look at me still with such a look of hate? + + I brush the dust from a heap of magazines: + Here there is all what you have written, + All that you struggled long years and went down to darkness for. + + O God, to think what I am writing + Will be ever as this! + + O God, to think that my own face + May some day glare from this dust! + + + + THE TOY CABINET + + + By the old toy cabinet, + I stand and turn over dusty things: + Chessmen--card games--hoops and balls-- + Toy rifles, helmets, swords, + In the far corner + A doll's tea-set in a box. + + Where are you, golden child, + Who gave tea to your dolls and me? + The golden child is growing old, + Further than Rome or Babylon + From you have passed those foolish years. + She lives--she suffers--she forgets. + + By the old toy cabinet, + I idly stand and awkwardly + Finger the lock of the tea-set box. + What matter--why should I look inside, + Perhaps it is empty after all! + Leave old things to the ghosts of old; + + My stupid brain refuses thought, + I am maddened with a desire to weep. + + + + THE YARDSTICK + + + Yardstick that measured out so many miles of cloth, + Yardstick that covered me, + I wonder do you hop of nights + Out to the still hill-cemetery, + And up and down go measuring + A clayey grave for me? + + + + + PART III. THE LAWN + + + + THE THREE OAKS + + + There are three ancient oaks, + That grow near to each other. + + They lift their branches + High as beckoning + With outstretched arms, + For some one to come and stand + Under the canopy of their leaves. + + Once long ago I remember + As I lay in the very centre, + Between them: + A rotten branch suddenly fell + Near to me. + + I will not go back to those oaks: + Their branches are too black for my liking. + + + + AN OAK + + + Hoar mistletoe + Hangs in clumps + To the twisted boughs + Of this lonely tree. + + Beneath its roots I often thought treasure was buried: + For the roots had enclosed a circle. + + But when I dug beneath them, + I could only find great black ants + That attacked my hands. + + When at night I have the nightmare, + I always see the eyes of ants + Swarming from a mouldering box of gold. + + + + ANOTHER OAK + + + Poison ivy crawls at its root, + I dare not approach it, + It has an air of hate. + + One would say a man had been hanged to its branches, + It holds them in such a way. + + The moon gets tangled in it, + A distant steeple seems to bark + From its belfry to the sky. + + Something that no one ever loved, + Is buried here: + Some grey shape of deadly hate, + Crawls on the back fence just beyond. + + Now I remember--once I went + Out by night too near this oak, + And a red cat suddenly leapt + From the dark and clawed my face. + + + THE OLD BARN + + + Owls flap in this ancient barn + With rotted doors. + + Rats squeak in this ancient barn + Over the floors. + + Owls flap warily every night, + Rats' eyes gleam in the cold moonlight. + + There is something hidden in this barn, + With barred doors. + + Something the owls have torn, + And the rats scurry with over the floors. + + + + THE WELL + + + The well is not used now, + Its waters are tainted. + + I remember there was once a man went down + To clean it. + He found it very cold and deep, + With a queer niche in one of its sides, + From which he hauled forth buckets of bricks and dirt. + + + + THE TREES + + + When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops, + The trees are not the same. + + I know they are not the same, + Because there is one tree that is missing, + And it stood so long by another, + That the other, feeling lonely, + Now is slowly dying too. + + When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops + That dead tree comes back; + Like a great blue sphere of smoke + Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass, + Rustling through frayed Branches, + Something eerily cheeping through it, + Something creeping through its shade. + + + + VISION + + + You who flutter and quiver + An instant + Just beyond my apprehension; + Lady, + I will find the white orchid for you, + If you will but give me + One smile between those wayward drifts of hair. + + I will break the wild berries that loop themselves over the marsh-pool, + For your sake, + And the long green canes that swish against each other, + I will break, to set in your hands. + For there is no wonder like to you, + You who flutter and quiver + An instant + Just beyond my apprehension. + + + + EPILOGUE + + + Why it was I do not know, + But last night I vividly dreamed + Though a thousand miles away, + That I had come back to you. + + The windows were the same: + The bed, the furniture the same, + Only there was a door where empty wall had always been, + And someone was trying to enter it. + + I heard the grate of a key, + An unknown voice apologetically + Excused its intrusion just as I awoke. + + But I wonder after all + If there was some secret entranceway, + Some ghost I overlooked, when I was there. + + + + + + SECTION II + + SYMPHONIES + + + + + 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. + + Oh, 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. + + Oh, 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. + These 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 hopes of my heart. + + The ice is glazing over, + Tom 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. + + + + + SOLITUDE IN THE CITY + + (_Symphony in Black and Gold_) + + + + I + + WORDS AT MIDNIGHT + + + Because the night is so still, + Because there is no one about, + Not the tiny squeak of a mouse over the carpet, + Nor the slow beat of a clock at the top of the stairway, + I am afraid of the night that is coming to me. + + I know out there + Some one is thinking of me, some one is wondering about me, + Some one is needing me, some one is dying for my sake, + Yet I remain alone. + + I know that life is calling: I cannot resist it: + Too much of myself I have given ever to turn away, + I know that shame, sickness, death itself shall befall me, + And I am afraid. + + O night, hide me in your long cold arms: + Let me sleep, but let me not live this life! + There are too many people with haggard eyes standing + before me + Saying, "To live you must suffer even as we." + + Yet life bitterly bids me: "Go on to the last, + No matter the mud and the cold rain and the darkness: + No matter the drear pilgrims in whose eyes you shall look for long, + And see all suffering, madness, death and despair." + + Because my heart is cramped in, + Because I have suffered much, + Because my hope is like a candle-flame quenched at midnight, + Because I dare dream yet of joy, + I can take my night and the life that is coming to me. + + + + II + + THE EVENING RAIN + + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing, + As it slowly slips on the motionless pavement; + Greasy and grey is the rain of the evening, + As it dribbles into the dirty gutters + And slides down the drains with a roar! + + Ragged men cower + Under the doorways: + Umbrellas nod like drowsy birds. + Bat-umbrellas, + Teetering, balancing, + Where will you spread your wings to-night? + + Tangled between the factory-chimneys, + I have seen the golden lamps wake this evening: + Spinning and whirling, darting and dancing, + Tangled with the glittering rain. + + Omnibuses lurch + Heavily homeward + Elephants tinselled in tawdry gold: + Taxicabs fight + Like wild birds squalling, + Wild birds with roaring, clattering wings. + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing, + As it shivers to jewel-heaps spilt on the pavement. + The façades frown gloomily at its beauty, + The façades are dreaming of the day. + + With rippling, curling, + Serpentine convolutions + The pavements drip with drunken light. + Crimson and gold, + Shot with opal, + They glare against the sullen night. + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing + As it slowly dries on the dirty pavement. + Red low-browed clouds jut over the sky: + And in the cool sky there are stars. + + + + III + + STREET OF SORROWS + + + You street of sorrows bending + Over your golden lamps in the evening; + Dark street that is very silent, + And everywhere the same: + Elsewhere there is song and riot, + Like golden fireflies flickering, + Elsewhere the crane's gaunt muscles + Tug the city up to the stars. + + But who in the dawn should come near you? + There are dry leaves rattling behind him. + And who should come in the noonday? + There are shadows that squat on the pave. + And who should come in the evening? + There is one: a ship in dark waters. + And who should come at nightfall, + To feel cold hands at his heart? + + You street of solitude waiting + Patient and still in the evening: + Old street that is very weary, + And everywhere the same; + You that have seen joy passing. + Into pain, into tears, into darkness, + Street of the dead and musty, + I have drunk your cold poison to-night. + + + + IV + + SONG IN THE DARKNESS + + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + Henceforth the keys and wards of me are held in other hands. + + Dark clouds trail over the sky: + Troops of song retreating: + But in the sunset + Once more have I seen aloft + Incredible summits of gold, far on the south horizon. + + One purple veil of rain + Floats downward over the city; + And as it settles slowly + The light goes out of it. + + Chimneys with massive summits + Stand gaunt and black and evil: + Like a river of lead, to seaward + The river steadily rolls. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + Life takes me in black coils. + + One green light glitters: + Then a swift taxi + Scatters another + As it speeds on. + + The chimneys rank + Their motionless forces + Against the swift movement + Of tugs in the stream; + Against the flame-chariots + Of the Embankment; + Against the bowing trees, + Against the blowing smoke, + Against the busy rain. + + With dying might + The light invades + The city's hall: + Curtained by dripping fringes + Of buoyant tattered cloud, + Tossed by the wind. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary; + And all my city of dreams is burning up to-night. + + But yet there waits for me something lost back in the darkness: + Something I have never seized: a shape, a voice, a gesture, + Something behind my shoulder: grey robes that stir and rustle. + Something that moves away from me when I would touch it with my hand. + + Cities of the beyond, what great black-walled horizons + Dare you climb up, and down what steep incredible valleys? + I suddenly perceive that I have been mocked in you, + And therefore will I sow the earth with rain of stars to-night. + It is the last night that I can be solitary; + The rain invites to drunkenness: the wind blows + through my brain. + + Shiplike the sliding golden trams + Procession by and intercross: + With tulips, daffodils, crocuses + The whole street blossoms at my feet: + Now kindle, flames, and let blow out + The crimson rose against the grey, + Let night itself be blotted out + In life's monotonous drone of day. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + It is the last time that no feet + But mine can beat upon the floor; + It is the last time that no hands + But mine can pound upon my heart; + It is the last time that no voice + But mine can cry and yet be lost; + It is the last time I shall see + The pavements like a mirror stare at me. + + + + + GREEN SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + The glittering leaves of the rhododendrons + Balance and vibrate in the cool air; + While in the sky above them + White clouds chase each other. + + Like scampering rabbits, + Flashes of sunlight sweep the lawn; + They fling in passing + Patterns of shadow, + Golden and green. + + With long cascades of laughter, + The mating birds dart and swoop to the turf: + 'Mid their mad trillings + Glints the gay sun behind the trees. + + Down there are deep blue lakes: + Orange blossom droops in the water. + + In the tower of the winds, + All the bells are set adrift: + Jingling + For the dawn. + + Thin fluttering streamers + Of breeze lash through the swaying boughs, + Palely expectant + The earth receives the slanting rain. + + I am a glittering raindrop + Hugged close by the cool rhododendron. + I am a daisy starring + The exquisite curves of the close-cropped turf. + + The glittering leaves of the rhododendron + Are shaken like blue-green blades of grass, + Flickering, cracking, falling: + Splintering in a million fragments. + + The wind runs laughing up the slope + Stripping off handfuls of wet green leaves, + To fling in peoples' faces. + Wallowing on the daisy-powdered turf, + Clutching at the sunlight, + Cavorting in the shadow. + + Like baroque pearls, + Like cloudy emeralds, + The clouds and the trees clash together; + Whirling and swirling, + In the tumult + Of the spring, + And the wind. + + + + II. + + + The trees splash the sky with their fingers, + A restless green rout of stars. + + With whirling movement + They swing their boughs + About their stems: + Planes on planes of light and shadow + Pass among them, + Opening fanlike to fall. + + The trees are like a sea; + Tossing; + Trembling, + Roaring, + Wallowing, + Darting their long green flickering fronds up at the sky, + Spotted with white blossom-spray. + + The trees are roofs: + Hollow caverns of cool blue shadow, + Solemn arches + In the afternoons. + The whole vast horizon + In terrace beyond terrace, + Pinnacle above pinnacle, + Lifts to the sky + Serrated ranks of green on green. + + They caress the roofs with their fingers, + They sprawl about the river to look into it; + Up the hill they come + Gesticulating challenge: + They cower together + In dark valleys; + They yearn out over the fields. + + Enamelled domes + Tumble upon the grass, + Crashing in ruin + Quiet at last. + + The trees lash the sky with their leaves, + Uneasily shaking their dark green manes. + + + + III + + + Far let the voices of the mad wild birds be calling me, + I will abide in this forest of pines. + + When the wind blows + Battling through the forest, + I hear it distantly, + The crash of a perpetual sea. + + When the rain falls, + I watch silver spears slanting downwards + From pale river-pools of sky, + Enclosed in dark fronds. + + When the sun shines, + I weave together distant branches till they enclose mighty circles, + I sway to the movement of hooded summits, + I swim leisurely in deep blue seas of air. + + I hug the smooth bark of stately red pillars + And with cones carefully scattered + I mark the progression of dark dial-shadows + Flung diagonally downwards through the afternoon. + + This turf is not like turf: + It is a smooth dry carpet of velvet, + Embroidered with brown patterns of needles and cones. + These trees are not like trees: + They are innumerable feathery pagoda-umbrellas, + Stiffly ungracious to the wind, + Teetering on red-lacquered stems. + + In the evening I listen to the winds' lisping, + While the conflagrations of the sunset flicker and clash behind me, + Flamboyant crenellations of glory amid the charred ebony boles. + + In the night the fiery nightingales + Shall clash and trill through the silence: + Like the voices of mermaids crying + From the sea. + + Long ago has the moon whelmed this uncompleted temple. + Stars swim like gold fish far above the black arches. + + Far let the timid feet of dawn fly to catch me: + I will abide in this forest of pines: + For I have unveiled naked beauty, + And the things that she whispered to me in the darkness, + Are buried deep in my heart. + + Now let the black tops of the pine-trees break like a spent wave, + Against the grey sky: + These are tombs and memorials and temples and altars sun-kindled for me. + + + + + GOLDEN SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Seen from afar, the city + To-day is like a golden cloud: + Strayed from the sky and moulded + Into dim motionless towers. + + Music is passing far off: + Music serenely + Is climbing up and vanishing + On the long grey stairways of the sky, + In fanlike rays of light. + + Now it falls slowly, + Careering, toppling, + Shivering and quivering like burnished glass or laburnum-blossom, + Golden cascades. + + Peace: now let the music + Sound from further away, + Red bells out of memory's + Blue dream of regret. + + Seen from afar, the city + To-day is like a fleet of sails: + Breaking the foam of dark forests, + In which I have strayed so long. + + They march together slowly, + The golden temple terraces, + Against the dark remembrance + Of my pools of despair. + + O golden angelus that sounded prolonging uncertain memories, + I have seen the swallows hovering to you and followed their dark trails + of passage. + + The gates of the city lie open, + And the whole world goes homeward, + Full-pulsing bells in the foreground, + Catching my soul with them + On where the sun soars broadly through the incense-dome of the sky. + + + + II + + + High chimes from the belfry; + The noonday approaches + With its golden apparel + Rustling about its feet. + + High dreams of my city, + Where we, a band of brothers, + Build our proud dream of beauty + Before we fall into dust. + + The golden days have come for us: + With mandolins, sword-thrusts, laughter. + Even the very dust of the street + Grows gold beneath our feet. + + Bronze bell-notes poured from deep blue wells: + Molten gold out of the sky. + Pillars of yellow marble + On the summits of which the gods sleep. + + Now we are swimming; + About us a great golden halo + Vibrates from us downwards, + Ebbing its life away. + + Golden clouds are circling + Like angels and archangels + About the eye of the sun. + + Flaming sunset: + Mad conflagrations + Licking at the earth, + The blue-black walls of space, + Iron mountains vast on the horizon. + + O golden spear that dartled through the darkness! + The evening star sparkled and threw us its message. + + + + III + + In the bosom of the desert + I will lie at the last. + + Not the grey desert of sand + But the golden desert of great wild grasses, + This shall receive my soul. + + In the high plateaus, + The wind will be like a flute-note calling me + Day after day. + + Short bursts of surf, + The wind climbs up and stops in the grass; + And the golden petals + Brush drowsily over my face. + + White butterfly that flutters across my sea of golden blossom; + Tell me, what are you looking for, lone white butterfly? + + I am seeking for a strange lonely white flower; + Its petals are honeyless; and in the wind it is still. + + White butterfly, come, fold your wings over my heart: + I am the white blossom, the white dead blossom for you. + + In the golden bosom of the prairie, + I am lying at the last + Like a pool that is stilled. + + But they who shared with me my life's adventure, + Who tossed their ducats like dandelions into the sunlight, + I know that somewhere they with songs are building, + Golden towers more beautiful than my own. + + + + IV + + + I only know in the midnight, + Something will be born of me. + + The village drowses in the darkness, + But aloft in the temple + There is a thud of gongs and a shuffle of hollow voices + In the dark corridors. + + The golden temple + That kindled like a rose against the sunset, + Now is dark and silent, + One light glimmers from its façade. + + In the inner shrine + One stiff golden curtain + Hangs from floor to roof. + + Black, impassive, helmeted + In felt like stiff black warriors, + The lamas slowly gather, + Kneeling in a row. + + The hollow brazen trumpets + Blare and snore. + The drums, festooned with skulls, + Roar. + + Suddenly with a clash of gongs, + And a squeal from ear-splitting bugles, + The golden veil is rent. + + Cavernous blue darkness! + And within it + Smiling, + Naked, + Rose-empurpled, + Rippling with crimson-violet light, behold the god. + + Hail, great jewel in the lotus blossom! + Rosy flame that kindling + Flashes on the emptiness + Or Nirvana's sea! + + Before the shrine, as before, + Once more the golden curtain, + And the black shapes vanish. + + Aloft in the hollow temple + There is a shuffle of feet and a sound of hollow voices, + Soon lost. + + The village drowses in the darkness: + Like a vast black cube + The temple looms above it, + There is no light on its façade. + + Suddenly, all the golden temple + Kindles like a rose against the dawn. + + I only know in the midnight + Something has been born of me. + + + + + WHITE SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Forlorn and white, + Whorls of purity about a golden chalice, + Immense the peonies + Flare and shatter their petals over my face. + + They slowly turn paler, + They seem to be melting like blue-grey flakes of ice, + Thin greyish shivers + Fluctuating mid the dark green lance-thrust of the leaves. + + Like snowballs tossed, + Like soft white butterflies, + The peonies poise in the twilight. + And their narcotic insinuating perfume + Draws me into them + Shivering with the coolness, + Aching with the void. + They kiss the blue chalice of my dreams + Like a gesture seen for an instant and then lost forever. + + * * * * * + + Outwards the petals + Thrust to embrace me, + Pale daggers of coldness + Run through my aching breast. + + Outwards, still outwards, + Till on the brink of twilight + They swirl downwards silently, + Flurry of snow in the void. + + Outwards, still outwards, + Till the blue walls are hidden, + And in the blinding white radiance + Of a whirlpool of clouds, I awake. + + * * * * * + + Like spraying rockets + My peonies shower + Their glories on the night. + + Wavering perfumes, + Drift about the garden; + Shadows of the moonlight, + Drift and ripple over the dew-gemmed leaves. + + Soar, crash, and sparkle, + Shoal of stars drifting + Like silver fishes, + Through the black sluggish boughs. + + Towards the impossible, + Towards the inaccessible, + Towards the ultimate, + Towards the silence, + Towards the eternal, + These blossoms go. + + The peonies spring like rockets in the twilight, + And out of them all I rise. + + + + II + + + Downwards through the blue abyss it slides, + The white snow-water of my dreams, + Downwards crashing from slippery rock + Into the boiling chasm: + In which no eye dare look, for it is the chasm of death. + + Upwards from the blue abyss it rises, + The chill water-mist of my dreams; + Upwards to greyish weeping pines, + And to skies of autumn ever about my heart, + It is blue at the beginning, + And blue-white against the grey-greenness; + It wavers in the upper air, + Catching unconscious sparkles, a rainbow-glint of sunlight, + And fading in the sad depths of the sky. + + Outwards rush the strong pale clouds, + Outwards and ever outwards; + The blue-grey clouds indistinguishable one from another: + Nervous, sinewy, tossing their arms and brandishing, + Till on the blue serrations of the horizon + They drench with their black rain a great peak of changeless snow. + + * * * * * + + As evening came on, I climbed the tower, + To gaze upon the city far beneath: + I was not weary of day; but in the evening + A white mist assembled and gathered over the earth + And blotted it from sight. + + But to escape: + To chase with the golden clouds galloping over the horizon: + Arrows of the northwest wind + Singing amid them, + Ruffling up my hair! + + As evening came on the distance altered, + Pale wavering reflections rose from out the city, + Like sighs or the beckoning of half-invisible hands. + Monotonously and sluggishly they crept upwards + A river that had spent itself in some chasm, + And dwindled and foamed at last at my weary feet. + + Autumn! Golden fountains, + And the winds neighing + Amid the monotonous hills: + Desolation of the old gods, + Rain that lifts and rain that moves away; + In the greenback torrent + Scarlet leaves. + + It was now perfectly evening: + And the tower loomed like a gaunt peak in mid-air + Above the city: its base was utterly lost. + It was slowly coming on to rain, + And the immense columns of white mist + Wavered and broke before the faint-hurled spears. + + I will descend the mountains like a shepherd, + And in the folds of tumultuous misty cities, + I will put all my thoughts, all my old thoughts, safely to sleep. + + For it is already autumn, + O whiteness of the pale southwestern sky! + O wavering dream that was not mine to keep! + + * * * * * + + In midnight, in mournful moonlight, + By paths I could not trace, + I walked in the white garden, + Each flower had a white face. + + Their perfume intoxicated me: thus I began my dream. + + I was alone; I had no one to guide me, + But the moon was like the sun: + It stooped and kissed each waxen petal, + One after one. + + Green and white was that garden: diamond rain hung in the branches, + You will not believe it! + + In the morning, at the dayspring, + I wakened, shivering; lo, + The white garden that blossomed at my feet + Was a garden hidden in snow. + It was my sorrow to see that all this was a dream. + + + + III + + + Blue, clogged with purple, + Mists uncoil themselves: + Sparkling to the horizon, + I see the snow alone. + + In the deep blue chasm, + Boats sleep under gold thatch; + Icicle-like trees fret + Faintly rose-touched sky. + + Under their heaped snow-eaves, + Leaden houses shiver. + Through thin blue crevasses, + Trickles an icy stream. + + The pines groan white-laden, + The waves shiver, struck by the wind; + Beyond from treeless horizons, + Broken snow-peaks crawl to the sea. + + * * * * * + + Wearily the snow glares, + Through the grey silence, day after day, + Mocking the colourless cloudless sky + With the reflection of death. + + There is no smoke through the pine tops, + No strong red boatmen in pale green reeds, + No herons to flicker an instant, + No lanterns to glow with gay ray. + + No sails beat up to the harbour, + With creaking cordage and sailors' song. + Somnolent, bare-poled, indifferent, + They sleep, and the city sleeps. + + Mid-winter about them casts, + Its dreary fortifications: + Each day is a gaunt grey rock, + And death is the last of them all. + + * * * * * + + Over the sluggish snow, + Drifts now a pallid weak shower of bloom; + Boredom of fresh creation, + Death-weariness of old returns. + + White, white blossom, + Fall of the shattered cups day on day: + Is there anything here that is not ancient, + That has not bloomed a thousand years ago? + + Under the glare of the white-hot day, + Under the restless wind-rakes of the winter, + White blossom or white snow scattered, + And beneath them, dark, the graves. + + Dark graves never changing, + White dream drifting, never changing above them: + O that the white scroll of heaven might be rolled up, + And the naked red lightning thrust at the smouldering + earth! + + + + + MIDSUMMER DREAMS + + _(Symphony in White and Blue)_ + + + + I + + + There is a tall white weed growing at the top of this sand hill: + In the grass + It is very still. + + It lifts its heavy bracts of flattened bloom + Against the sky + Hazily grey with brume. + + Out over yonder boats pass + And the swallows + Flatten themselves on the grass. + + The lake is silvering beneath the heat. + The wind's feet + Touch lazily each crest, + Like white gulls slow flapping + To windward. + + One rose white cloud slowly disengages, loosening itself, + And stands + Above the larkspur-coloured water: + Like Dione's daughter + Braiding up her wet hair with her pale, hands. + + + + II + + + The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees, + Which do not lift one drooping leaf, this night of June. + There is no lazy breeze to set them clashing adrift. + + Thin gleams of silver rise and break in the air, + Fireflies--here and there. + + Forest of blue masses suddenly quivering with rapid points of white, + Are the forests beneath the sea where no breeze passes + As still as you to-night? + + The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees; + Through my window, the bed cut evenly with diagonal shafts of light, + Is a boat rocking out adrift. + + Under it bend the silver tips of the dark blue coral trees, + And fireflies like glass fish + Drift and ripple upwards in the breeze. + + + + III + + + We are drifting slowly, you and I, + To where the clouds are lifting + High-fretted towers in the sky: + Palaces of ivory, + Which we look at dreamily. + Over our sail + Frail white clouds, + Drift as slowly + Over the undulant pale blue silk of the water, + As we. + + We are racing swiftly, you and I, + The sun darts one firm track + Through the blue-black + Of the crinkled water. + Gold spirals spattering, flashing, + The water heaves and curls away at our bow, + A mad fish splashing. + + We are rocked together, you and I, + To this undulant movement. + White cloud with blue water blent, + Cloud dipping down to wave its lazy head, + Wave curling under cloud its cloudy blue. + I and you, + All alone, alone, at last. + I hold you fast. + + + + IV + + + The midsummer clouds were piling up upon the south horizon, + Mountains of drifting translucence in the larkspur-fields of the sky: + Ascending and toppling in crumbled ravines, dribbling down chasms + of silence, + Reassembling in crowded multitudes, massive forms one above another. + And I saw in their ridges and hollows, the appearance of a woman + Immeasurable, carven in stainless marble, motionless, naked, fair: + Her head thrown back, her pointed breasts up-gleaming in chill sunlight, + Her heavy flanks dark in the shadow, resting forever inert. + And up to her there suddenly clomb and hurried another cloud, + Huge, hairy, bulging, and knobby, with dark and knotted brows: + And he thrust out long bungling arms to her and drew himself up to her, + And I watched them melting together, blue mouth to sad white mouth. + + + + + ORANGE SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Now that all the world is filled + With armies clamouring; + Now that men no longer live and die, one by one, + But in vague indeterminate multitudes: + + Now that the trees are coppery towers, + Now that the clouds loom southward, + Now that the glossy creeper + Spatters the walls like spilt wine: + + I will go out alone, + To catch strong joy of solitude + Where the treelines, in gold and scarlet, + Swing strong grape-cables up the smouldering face of the hill. + + + + II + + + Guns crashing, + Thudding, + Ululating, + Tumultuous. + + Guns yelping over the cracked earth, + Where dry bugles blare. + + Here in this hollow + It is very quiet, + Only the wind's hissing laughter + In the place of tombs. + + One by one these gaunt scarred faces + Lift up blurred wrinkled inscriptions + Silently beseeching me to stop and ponder. + What does it matter if I do not stop to read them? + No one at all has gone this way that I have chosen before. + + A leaf drops slowly in silence; + It is a long time twisting and hovering on its way to + the earth. + + Guns booming, + Bellowing, + Crashing, + Desperate. + Insistent outcry of savage guns, + Rocking the gloomy hollow. + + I will run out like the wind, + Snarling, with savage laughter; + Like the wind that tosses the grey-black clouds, + Against the shot-racked barrier of flaming trees. + + I will race between the grey guns, + And the clouds, like shrapnel exploding, + Flinging their hail through the tumult, + Bursting, will melt in cold spray. + + I am the wanderer of the world; + No one can hold me. + Not the cannon assembled for battle, + Nor the gloomy graves of the hollow, + Nor the house where I long time slumbered, + Nor the hilltop where roads are straggling. + + My feet must march to the wind. + Like a leaf dropping slowly, + An orange butterfly turning and twisting, + I touch with moist passionate palms the leaden inscriptions + Of my past. Then I turn to depart. + + + + III + + + The trees dance about the inn; + The wind thrusts them into flamelets. + Now my thoughts gipsying, + Go forth to strange walls and new fires. + + Mouths stained with brown-red berries, + Bronzed cheeks sunken, unshaven, + Ragged attire; + We swing our guitars at the hip + As we tramp heedless, uncaring. + + In the inn the fire crackles: + On the hearth the wine is simmering. + Lift up the brown beaker one instant, + Drink deeply--fling out the last coin--let us go. + On the plains there is drooping harvest, + But no harvest can for long time hold us, + We have seen the winds, baffled, + Racing up the orange-flecked trench of the hills. + + + + IV + + + On the hill summit + Where the gusty wind all night long has assailed me, + Now I see stars vanishing + Before the long cold clutching fingers of dawn. + + Stars scintillant, fire-hued, metallic, + Topaz fruit of the deep-blue garden: + Southward you go, my constellations, + And leave me with the white day, alone. + + Over the hilltop + Swish with a scurry of wings + Millions of pale brown birds, + Songless, pulsing southward. + + Birds who have filled the trees, + And who fled long ago at my passing, + Now you clatter in heedless tumult, + Fanning with your hot wings my face. + + Carry this word to the southward; + Say that I have forgotten them that wait for me, + All the loves and the hates need expect me no longer, + In the autumn at last I am alone. + + Suddenly + The wind crashes through the tree-tops, + Stripping away their orange-tiled domes; + Stark blue skeletons, forbidding + Gesticulate in my face. + You whom I planted and lavished + With all the wealth and beauty I had to bestow + Hurry away, vain harvest, + The winds' scythes can reap you, + Where you lie on the earth, and to death's barns you can go. + + Beyond the hilltop + I have seen only the sky. + The wind, naked, prodding up black-furred clouds, + Cossacks of winter. + + Cry, wind, + Shriek to the shivering southland, + That I am going into winter, + That I do not hope to return. + + Farewell, crowded stars, + Farewell, birds, winds, clouds and tree-tops, + I, weary of you all, seek my destined joy in the north-land, + Amid blue ice and the rose-purple night of the pole. + + + + V + + + Beyond the land there lies the sea; + And on the sea with wings unfurled, + Bloodily huge the sunset rests, + Feathers flickering and claws curled, + Watching to seize the ruined world. + + Rolling in a torrent, + Brown leaves, my achievements, + Rise up from dark-wooded valleys + And scatter themselves on the sea; + Brown birds, my wild dreams, + Mingle their bodies together, + Shrieking and clamouring as they pass, + Black charred silhouettes + Against the west, curtained in orange flame. + Now the wind starts up + And strikes the seething water: + Hissing in uncoiled fury + Each foam-curled wave darts forward + To clash and batter + The smouldering iron-rust cliff, + Where the end of my road is lost. + + Rise up, black clouds; + Pounce upon the sunset: + Tear it with your jagged teeth. + Fling yourselves, seething winds, in circles + Upon the blue-black water, + Swirl, leaves, and dance + Amid the chaos of breakers, + Flicker, birds, an instant + Against the tawny tiger throat of the sun + Which is snarling in the west. + Beat down, O great winds, westward, + Loose reins and gallop to seaward, + Rush me, too, to that ocean, + In which I have found my goal. + + Lash me, lap me, rugged waves of blue-black water, + Dash me, clutch me and do not let me rest one instant; + All through the purple-blue night rock and soothe me, + Till I awaken dreamingly at the faint rose breast of the dawn. + + + + + RED SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Over the ink-black cauldron of the sea, + Heavily, on wings of leaden cloud, + Howling the sunset + Races out to assail me. + + Long have I voyaged, + Night after night the grey rains swept the sea: + The heaving breakers + Hissed and quivered but held no light. + + Now my voyage is ending, + White storm winds have swept bare my soul; + With their harsh laughter, + Their maddening mockery, + Their bayonet-thrusts of despair. + + Over the keen, clean-swept zenith + Roll crushingly, huge masses of cloud: + Dull, ponderous, sagging with the burden + Of creaking snow. + + They drop flat on the sea, + They hang menacing over me, + They festoon the sun + With swags of crimson light. + + They stripe the horizon, + They bar every way with their iron tongues; + They loom weltering over my effort, + They steadfastly close me in. + + Meanwhile the sun + With dying force + Wrenches one little crack + In the midst of the sagging masses, + And I steer on to it. + + Like a crimson lake + The light overflows and touches the bulging surfaces + With carmine, with scarlet, + With orange, with vermillion, + With brick red, with bluish purple, + With maroon, with rose, with russet, + With savage green, with snowy blue, + With grey, with ebony, with gold. + + It is the storm of the evening + That races out shrieking + To assail me, + And I hail it. + + + + II + + + The sky's vast emptiness + Is crowded with fragments colliding, + Ragged, splintered masses + Swirling away to the night. + + The volcano of the sun + Has burst and split its crater: + Black slag is hurled to the zenith + Above the red lava-sea. + + Black shrivelled, charred fragments + Fall into the scarlet torrent: + Huge tresses of darkness sweep over my face, + Leaving me choking. + + The sea is one crimson steaming fire; + Each fanged wavelet + Flickers and dances about the one behind it, + Hungrily licking at the ship. + + Fierce whirling swords, + Tossed spear-heads lancelike + Spit and stab, then suddenly fall + Leaving me there + On a rolling summit of flame, facing a gulf of despair. + + The ship + Lurches + With ice-crusted prow into the wave-trough; + And rises, rapidly dripping liquid lire, + Long twisted necklaces, that burn out to green frozen chrysolite. + + + + III + + + Over my head a bell beats: it is midnight. + Perhaps I will live to the dawn. + + About me are the mouths of yawning furnaces + And from these scarlet mouths the heat outpours, + And darts and licks its dry tongues at my brain + Till it, too, seems a black shell almost bursting + With the force of flame in it. + + Still, wearily, I swing my shovel, + Spattering the black coal over the palates + Of the snoring mouths which rapidly swallow. + There is nothing else to do. + + My legs seem melting away in sweat beneath me: + In my body my lungs and heart are fighting for air, + My eyes are seared by the appalling scarlet, + Of the furnaces about me--I scarcely-see them--My + shovelfuls fall short with every swing. + + Without I hear the battering of the tempest, + The ship is pounded sideways by black immeasurable wave-thrusts, + And rising dizzily again, like a half-senseless fighter, + Is again sent downwards, by those unseen fists. + + My shovel rises to the ship's slow recovery, + My shovel shoots out at the smash of toppling masses, + Sometimes I pause and pant for an endless instant, + While the ship crouches, quivering. + + Over my head a bell beats: it is morning. + Wearily I drop the shovel, + And drag myself to the deck. + + + + IV + + + Afar + There is something that seems a shore; + The sky has been blown clean of clouds except to westward, + And these stare hard at me, like huge sardonyx towers. + + I cling to a half-shattered rail that reels and dances, + Soused by the choking water, + My face a streaming mass of blood and salt and grime, + I wait and dizzily I try to remember. + + What is this city that out there awaits me? + Am I its conqueror? + + Will scarlet flags hang fluttering in the streets + To greet my coming? + Will crimson lanterns + Jingle and toss in festival to-night? + + Has the fire burned the ship and is the water + But stinging icy fire, + That whips and sears my face? + + Down there the furnaces go out, for the water + Sloshes about the floor; + And steaming acrid fumes arise, + No living soul could stay in such a place. + + Out here the decks are shattered, + The boats are shorn away, + And far on the horizon, + The city glares with its sardonyx towers. + + Now the red bells, + The black-red bells, + The storm bells, + Break loose from the horizon, + Leaping upon the eastern sea, + And breaking it in their teeth. + + The towers + Infuriate, enkindle + From base to summit, + In layers, and orange terraces, + Against the blue snow haze that drifts down on them from the east. + + The ship of my soul + Is rolling to port at last, + With one clang from its heaving boilers, + One sigh from its shaking funnels, + One rattle from its loosened chains. + I will lash myself to the masthead + And wait + Empty-eyed and open-mouthed, + Till the city that is all one scarlet flame of death + Takes me to itself at last. + + + + + VIOLET SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + But yesterday + Moonsails were raking high the harbour of my dreams. + + Dull night of trees, + Dark sorrows drooping, + Glittering raindrops gleam on you + In recollection + Of my despair. + + But yesterday + Stardust was scattered deep on the dark gulf of my dreams. + + Wind of the night, + Questing, swaying, calling, + Rustle of dull grasses, + Why do you trouble me? + + Yesterday + Purple mist was powdered on the windless sea of dreams. + + Faces of the night that pass me, + Haggard, monotonous faces, + Windblown hair and lustful lips, + I am not what you desire. + + Yesterday + One--two--sails above the mist--. + Windswallows that hover + Towards the rainclouds of the horizon, + Out of the reedy harbours + Rocking, swaying, falling, + Blown to sea and parted + Yesterday, + Yesterday. + + + + II + + + Purple-blue bloom of night, + Globed grapes clustered morosely + Down the dark vineyards of untrodden streets: + + The noise of the moments is like the clash of the hoofs of a horse + rattling, + Thin tattoo in the stillness: + The noise of the moments takes me, uncaring, + Towards the day. + + With brassy crash, dawn's corybants + Invade and trample the vineyard: + Like a faun I hide and watch them, + A dark cup in my hand. + + Spoilers of my vineyard, + Spilling the lees of my sweet red wine, + You will yet ask in vain for a cup that is not yours, + A purple, dewy cup of lonely night. + + Tramplers in the morning, + Sunburnt faces and weary lips, + There is yet a cup here you cannot have, + I hold it in my hands. + + Would you drink of it? + Lay down your thyrse and timbrel. + Break the harsh dance that flickers through the morning, + Forget the scarlet perfumes of the day. + + Remember only starless night, cool swish of many seas. + + Faint pearl-glow of evening, + Cool marble in the silence: + Purple-blue grapes of night crushed freshly, + Deep sleep and the drowsy stars. + + + + III + + + I love the night that in long violet shroud + Slowly and lovingly wraps up the day, + Hiding its blurred imperfections + In endless tenderness. + + I love the day's + High violet cone of light, + With thin haze on the horizon + Like a wavering summer sea. + + But most of all I love midsummer dawn, + When far-off planes of light ascend and tremble together + Like distant purple waves, the sound of whose dim breaking + Is lost in the wild babel of awaking birds. + + + + IV + + + Twisted fragments of violet paper, + The dawn drops you + Into the green bowl filled with the day's grey waves. + + I love the night's + Deep purple grapes + That yesterday + Were crushed and spilled, + In long and sluggish rivers + That joined and made a sea, + Where, half-guessed through the mist, + Two golden sails + Drifted on silently. + + The blue fume of my dreams + Is laced with violet flame. + + One golden sail alone came back to rest + In its nest + Among the reeds. + The other sail is lost; + Behind the mist, + Beyond the craggy rock, + About which race in jagged white + The waves, + Horizon on horizon far away + She waits. + But through the day, + Comes no faint song, nor creaking of the ropes. + + Twisted fragments of violet paper, + Charred and fallen: + Out of the green bowl lazily coils grey smoke. + + + + + GREY SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Up on the hillside a long row of larches + Shake from their grizzled Beards the vestiges of rain, + From grey-blue melting ice-slabs 'neath their arches + The spring goes up again. + + Writhing, exuding, + Up-steaming, streaming, + The earth is breathing to the sky + Wet clouds of spring. + + Dim rosy fans, the trees + As they flick to and fro, + Seem driving greyish vapour + Over the snow. + + The sky remodulates itself + From violet-grey to blue, + Under the upturned eaves of the blue larches + The sun looks through. + + Now with the heat of the sun + The grey-blue ice-slabs quiver, + They slide in muddy trickles + Towards the river. + + Up on the hillside between the long row of larches + Fume up from south pale clouds that bear the rain; + In pearl and violet arches + They break and shape again. + + + + II + + + I have seen in the evening + The greyish-violet clouds + Roll wearily back from northward + To the place whence first they came. + + One or two orange lamps burnt low + Against deep purple hills-- + + The wind was hurrying, bundling them together, + The pines awoke to sing + The song of the snow buzzing and screaming + On its one string. + + I have seen within my heart + Crocuses, purple and gold, + Drop cold and dull and colourless + Beneath the snow. + + One or two orange lamps burnt low, + Vain memories. + + The wind has driven me too many winters, + My songs are snowflakes whirling about my breast. + I will wrap my frozen and bitter songs about me, + In one grey drift, and rest. + + + + III + + + Fluttering and soft the snow + Flings outward, swirls and settles, + But when I try to seize it, + The wind tears it away. + + Through poised green platforms of enormous pines, + I see far hilltops pushing up blue roofs. + Snow comes, + And hums + Through the woof + Of the lower branches. + It skips and dances: + It drops in sluggish folds + Of grey, + To where the frozen rhododendron bushes + With lower air-gusts play, + And the earth hushes + Its movement. + + Fluttering and soft the snow is blent + In long loose spirals with my dream. + + It is all I have, the snow, + And I know + That when I chase it, it will fly from me; + Beyond the lifeless green, + Beyond the low blue hills, + Beyond the pale straw-coloured glare, + Down in the west + It goes; + Straight southward where the purple-orange flare + Of sunset flows, + And into the blackened heart of my last rose + Pours its despair. + + Fluttering, soft, and dim + Regrets that skip and skim + Grey in the grey twilight; + Slim and weary whirls the snow, + And where it goes I too shall go. + + + + IV + + + Of my long nights afar in alien cities + I have remembered only this: + They were black scarves all dusted over with silver, + In which I wrapped my dreams; + They were black screens on which I made those pictures + That faded out next day. + + Youth without glory, manhood one mad struggle, + Maturity a battle without trumpet calls: + Long gleams from pallid suns seen only in my dreaming + Struck those dissolving walls. + + And of my days, + I only know + They slipped and fell, + Like too-brief sunsets, + Into the hill-ravines that held the snow. + Three lofty pines + At the corners of my heart + Waited, apart. + + They only see + In the mystery + Of the grey sky, + The jaggled clouds that fly, + Endlessly. + + + + + POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR + + _(A Symphony in Scarlet)_ + + + + I + + + The words that I have written + To me become as poppies: + Deep angry disks of scarlet flame full-glowing in the stillness + Of a shut room. + + Silken their edges undulate out to me, + Drooping on their hairy stems; + Flaring like folded shawls, down-curved like rockets starting + To break and shatter their light. + + Wide-flaunting and heavy, crinkle-lipped blossom, + Darting faint shivers through me; + Globed Chinese lanterns on green silk cords a-swaying + Over motionless pools. + + These are lamps of a festival of sleep held each night to welcome me, + Crimson-bursting through dark doors. + Out to the dull, blue, heavy fumes of opium rolling + From their rent red hearts, I go to seek my dream. + + + + II + + + A riven wall like a face half torn away + Stares blankly at the evening: + And from a window like a crooked mouth + It barks at the sunset sky. + + And over there, beyond, + On plains where night has settled, + Ten-like encampments of vaporous blue smoke or mist, + Three men are riding. + + One of them looks and sees the sky: + One of them looks and sees the earth: + The last one looks and sees nothing at all. + They ride on. + + One of them pauses and says, "It is death." + Another pauses and says, "It is life." + The last one pauses and says, "'Tis a dream." + His bridle shakes. + + The sky + Is filled with oval violet-tinted clouds + Through which the sun long settled strikes at random, + Enkindling here and there blotched circles of rosy light. + + These are poppies, + Unclosing immense corollas, + Waving the horsemen on. + + Over the earth, upheaving, folding, + They ride: their bridles shake: + One of them sees the sky is red: + One of them sees the earth is dark: + The last man sees he rides to his death, + Yet he says nothing at all. + + + + III + + + There will be no harvest at all this year; + For the gaunt black slopes arising + Lift the wrinkled aching furrows of their fields, falling away, + To the rainy sky in vain. + + But in the furrows + There is grass and many flowers. + Scarlet tossing poppies + Flutter their wind-slashed edges, + On which gorged black flies poise and sway in drunken sleep. + + The black flies hang + Above the tangled trampled grasses, + Grey, crumpled bundles lie in them: + They sprawl, + Heave faintly; + And between their stiffened fingers, + Run out clogged crimson trickles, + Spattering the poppies and standing in beads on the grass. + + + + IV + + + I saw last night + Sudden puffs of flame in the northern sky. + + The sky was an even expanse of rolling grey smoke, + Lit faintly by the moon that hung + Its white face in a dead tree to the east. + + Within the depths of greenish greyish smoke + Were roars, + Crackles and spheres of vapour, + And then + Huge disks of crimson shooting up, falling away. + + And I said these are flower petals, + Sleep petals, dream petals, + Blown by the winds of a dream. + + But still the crimson rockets rose. + They seemed to be + One great field of immense poppies burning evenly, + Casting their viscid perfume to the earth. + + The earth is sown with dead, + And out of these the red + Blooms are pushing up, advancing higher, + And each night brings them nigher, + Closer, closer to my heart. + + + + V + + + By the sluggish canal + That winds between thin ugly dunes, + There are no passing boats with creaking ropes to-day. + + But when the evening + Crouches down, like a hurt rabbit, + Under the everlasting raincloud whirling up the north horizon, + Downwards on the stream will float + Glowing points of fire. + + Orange, coppery, scarlet, + Crimson, rosy, flickering, + They pass, the lanterns + Of the unknown dead. + + Out where the sea, sailless, + Is mouthing and fretting + Its chaos of pebbles and dried sticks by the dunes. + + By the wall of that house + That looks like a face half torn away, + And from its flat mouth barks at the sky, + The sky which is shot with broad red disks of light, + Petals drowsily falling. + + + + VI + + + "It was not for a sacred cause, + Nor for faith, nor for new generations, + That unburied we roll and float + Beneath this flaming tumult of drunken sleep-flowers. + But it was for a mad adventure, + Something we longed for, poisonous, seductive, + That we dared go out in the night together, + Towards the glow that called us, + On the unsown fields of death. + + "Now we lie here reaped, ungarnered, + Red swaths of a new harvest: + But you who follow after, + Must struggle with our dream: + And out of its restless and oppressive night, + Filled with blue fumes, dull, choking, + You will draw hints of that vision + Which we hold aloof in silence." + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Goblins and Pagodas, by John Gould Fletcher + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38856 *** diff --git a/38856-h/38856-h.htm b/38856-h/38856-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c84b8a --- /dev/null +++ b/38856-h/38856-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3142 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Goblins and Pagodas, by John Gould Fletcher. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +a:link {color: #800000; text-decoration: none; } +v:link {color: #800000; text-decoration: none; } + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +.hra {width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; +} + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38856 ***</div> + + + + +<h1>GOBLINS AND PAGODAS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JOHN GOULD FLETCHER</h2> + + + +<h5>BOSTON AND NEW YORK</h5> + +<h5>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h5> + +<h5>The Riverside Press Cambridge</h5> + +<h5>1916</h5> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4>TO</h4> + +<h4>DAISY</h4> +<p><a href="#CONTENTS">Contents</a></p> +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<p>Thanks are due to the editor of The Egoist, London, for permission to +reprint The Ghosts of an Old House and the Orange Symphony; to the +editor of Poetry, Chicago, for permission to reprint the Blue Symphony; +and to the editor of The Little Review for permission to reprint the +Green Symphony.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>PREFACE</h3> + + +<h4>I</h4> + +<p>The second half of the nineteenth and the first fifteen years of the +twentieth century have been a period of research, of experiment, of +unrest and questioning. In science and philosophy we have witnessed an +attempt to destroy the mechanistic theory of the universe as developed +by Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. The unknowable has been questioned: +hypotheses have been shaken: vitalism and idealism have been proclaimed. +In the arts, the tendency has been to strip each art of its inessentials +and to disclose the underlying basis of pure form. In life, the +principles of nationality, of racial culture, of individualism, of +social development, of Christian ethics, have been discussed, debated, +and examined from top to bottom, until at last, in the early years of +the twentieth century we find all Europe, from the leaders of thought +down to the lowest peasantry, engaged in a mutually destructive war of +which few can trace the beginnings and none can foresee the end. The +fundamental tenets of thought, art, life itself, have been shaken: and +either civilization is destined to some new birth, or mankind will +revert to the conditions of life, thought, and social intercourse that +prevailed in the Stone Age.</p> + +<p>Like all men of my generation, I have not been able to resist this +irresistible upheaval of ideas and of forces: and, to the best of my +ability, I have tried to arrive at a clear understanding of the +fundamentals of æsthetic form as they affect the art to which I have +felt myself instinctively akin, the art of poetry. That I have +completely attained such an understanding, it would be idle for me to +pretend: but I believe, and have induced some others to believe, that I +have made a few steps towards it. Some explanation of my own peculiar +theories and beliefs is necessary, however, to those who have not +specifically concerned themselves with poetry, or who suffer in the +presence of any new work of art from the normal human reaction that all +art principles are so essentially fixed that any departure from accepted +ideas is madness.</p> + + +<h4>II</h4> + +<p>The fundamental basis of all the arts is the same. In every case art +aims at the evocation of some human emotion in the spectator or +listener. Where science proceeds from effects to causes, and seeks to +analyze the underlying causes of emotion and sensation, art reverses the +process, and constructs something that will awaken emotions, according +to the amount of receptiveness with which other people approach it. Thus +architecture gives us feelings of density, proportion, harmony: +sculpture, of masses in movement; painting, of colour-harmony and the +ordered composition of lines and volumes from which arise sensations of +space: music, of the development of sounds into melodic line, harmonic +progression, tonal opposition, and symphonic structure.</p> + +<p>The object of literature is not dissimilar from these. Literature aims +at releasing the emotions that arise from the formed words of a certain +language. But literature is probably a less pure—and hence more +universal—art than any I have yet examined. For it must be apparent to +all minds that not only is a word a definite symbol of some fact, but +also it is a thing capable of being spoken or sounded. The art of +literature, then, in so far as it deals with definite statements, is +akin to painting or photography: in so far as it deals with sounded +words, it is akin to music.</p> + + +<h4>III</h4> + +<p>Literature, therefore, does not depend on the peculiar twists and quirks +which represent, to those who can read, the words, but rather on the +essential words themselves. In fact, literature existed before writing; +and writing in itself is of no value from the purely literary sense, +except in so far as it preserves and transmits from generation to +generation the literary emotion. Style, whether in prose or poetry, is +an attempt to develop this essentially musical quality of literature, to +evoke the magic that exists in the sound-quality of words, as well as +to combine these sound-qualities in definite statements or sentences. +The difference between prose and poetry is, therefore, not a difference +of means, but of psychological effect and reaction. The means employed, +the formed language, is the same: but the resultant impression is quite +different.</p> + +<p>In prose, the emotions expressed are those that are capable of +development in a straight line. In so far as prose is pure, it confines +itself to the direct orderly progression of a thought or conception or +situation from point to point of a flat surface. The sentences, as they +develop this conception from its beginning to conclusion, move on, and +do not return upon themselves. The grouping of these sentences into +paragraphs gives the breadth of the thought. The paragraphs, sections, +and chapters are each a square, in that they represent a division of the +main thought into parallel units, or blocks of subsidiary ideas. The +sensation of depth is finally obtained by arranging these blocks in a +rising climacteric progression, or in parallel lines, or in a sort of +zigzag figure.</p> + +<p>The psychological reaction that arises from the intelligent appreciation +of poetry is quite different. In poetry, we have a succession of curves. +The direction of the thought is not in straight lines, but wavy and +spiral. It rises and falls on gusts of strong emotion. Most often it +creates strongly marked loops and circles. The structure of the stanza +or strophe always tends to the spherical. Depth is obtained by making +one sphere contain a number of concentric, or overlapping spheres.</p> + +<p>Hence, when we speak of poetry we usually mean regular rhyme and metre, +which have for so long been considered essential to all poetry, not as a +device for heightening musical effect, as so many people suppose, but +merely to make these loops and circles more accentuated, and to make the +line of the poem turn upon itself more recognizably. But it must be +recognized that just as Giotto's circle was none the less a circle, +although not drawn with compasses, so poetic circles can be constructed +out of subtler and more musical curves than that which painstakingly +follows the selfsame progression of beats, and catches itself up on the +same point of rhyme for line after line. The key pattern on the lip of a +Greek vase may be beautiful, but it is less beautiful, less satisfying, +and less conclusive a test of artistic ability than the composition of +satyrs and of mænads struggling about the centre. Therefore I maintain, +and will continue to do so, that the mere craftsman-ability to write in +regular lines and metres no more makes a man a poet than the ability to +stencil wall-papers makes him a painter.</p> + +<p>Rather is it more important to observe that almost any prose work of +imaginative literature, if examined closely, will be found to contain a +plentiful sprinkling of excellent verses; while many poems which the +world hails as master-pieces, contain whole pages of prose. The fact is, +that prose and poetry are to literature as composition and colour are +to painting, or as light and shadow to the day, or male and female to +mankind. There are no absolutely perfect poets and no absolutely perfect +prose-writers. Each partakes of some of the characteristics of the +other. The difference between poetry and prose is, therefore, a +difference between a general roundness and a general squareness of +outline. A great French critic, recently dead, who devoted perhaps the +major part of his life to the study of the æsthetics of the French +tongue, declared that Flaubert and Chateaubriand wrote only poetry. If +there are those who cannot see that in the only true and lasting sense +of the word poetry, this remark was perfectly just, then all I have +written above will be in vain.</p> + + +<h4>IV</h4> + +<p>Along with the prevailing preoccupation with technique which so marks +the early twentieth century, there has gone also a great change in the +subject-matter of art. Having tried to explain the aesthetic form-basis +of poetry, I shall now attempt to explain my personal way of viewing its +content.</p> + +<p>It is a significant fact that every change in technical procedure in the +arts is accompanied by, and grows out of, a change in subject-matter. To +take only one out of innumerable examples, the new subject-matter of +Wagner's music-dramas, of an immeasurably higher order than the usual +libretto, created a new form of music, based on motifs, not melodies. +Other examples can easily be discovered. The reason for this is not +difficult to find.</p> + +<p>No sincere artist cares to handle subject-matter that has already been +handled and exhausted. It is not a question of a desire to avoid +plagiarism, or of self-conscious searching for novelty, but of a +perfectly spontaneous and normal appeal which any new subject-matter +always makes. Hence, when a new subject appears to any artist, he always +realizes it more vividly than an old one, and if he is a good artist, he +realizes it so vividly that he recreates it in what is practically a +novel form.</p> + +<p>This novel form never is altogether novel, nor is the subject altogether +a new subject. For, as I pointed out at the beginning of this preface, +that all arts sprang practically out of the same primary sensations, so +the subject-matter of all art must forever be the same: namely, nature +and human life. Hence, any new type of art will always be found, in +subject-matter as well as in technique, to have its roots in the old. +Art is like a kaleidoscope, capable of many changes, while the material +which builds up those changes remains the same.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, although the subject-matter in this book is not altogether +new, yet I have realized it in a way which has not often been tried, and +out of that fresh and quite personal realization have sprung my +innovations in subject as well as technique. Let me illustrate by a +concrete example.</p> + + +<h4>V</h4> + +<p>A book lies on my desk. It has a red binding and is badly printed on +cheap paper. I have had this book with me for several years. Now, +suppose I were to write a poem on this book, how would I treat the +subject?</p> + +<p>If I were a poet following in the main the Victorian tradition, I should +write my poem altogether about the contents of this book and its author. +My poem would be essentially a criticism of the subject-matter of the +book. I should state at length how that subject-matter had affected me. +In short, what the reader would obtain from this sort of poem would be +my sentimental reaction towards certain ideas and tendencies in the work +of another.</p> + +<p>If I were a realist poet, I should write about the book's external +appearance. I should expatiate on the red binding, the bad type, the +ink-stain on page sixteen. I should complain, perhaps, of my poverty at +not being able to buy a better edition, and conclude with a gibe at the +author for not having realized the sufferings of the poor.</p> + +<p>Neither of these ways, however, of writing about this book possesses any +novelty, and neither is essentially my own way. My own way of writing +about it would be as follows:—</p> + +<p>I should select out of my life the important events connected with my +ownership of this book, and strive to write of them in terms of the +volume itself, both as regards subject-matter and appearance. In other +words, I should link up my personality and the personality of the book, +and make each a part of the other. In this way I should strive to evoke +a soul out of this piece of inanimate matter, a something characteristic +and structural inherent in this in-organic form which is friendly to me +and responds to my mood.</p> + +<p>This method is not new, although it has not often been used in +Occidental countries. Professor Fenollosa, in his book on Chinese and +Japanese art, states that it was universally employed by the Chinese +artists and poets of the Sung period in the eleventh century A.D. He +calls this doctrine of the interdependence of man and inanimate nature, +the cardinal doctrine of Zen Buddhism. The Zen Buddhists evolved it from +the still earlier Taoist philosophy, which undoubtedly inspired Li Po +and the other great Chinese poets of the seventh and eighth centuries +A.D.</p> + + +<h4>VI</h4> + +<p>In the first poems of this volume, the "Ghosts of an Old House," I have +followed the method already described. I have tried to evoke, out of the +furniture and surroundings of a certain old house, definite emotions +which I have had concerning them. I have tried to relate my childish +terror concerning this house—a terror not uncommon among children, as I +can testify—to the aspects that called it forth.</p> + +<p>In the "Symphonies," which form the second part of this volume, I have +gone a step further. My aim in writing these was, from the beginning, to +narrate certain important phases of the emotional and intellectual +development—in short, the life—of an artist, not necessarily myself, +but of that sort of artist with which I might find myself most in +sympathy. And here, not being restrained by any definite material +phenomena, as in the Old House, I have tried to state each phase in the +terms of a certain colour, or combination of colours, which is +emotionally akin to that phase. This colour, and the imaginative +phantasmagoria of landscape which it evokes, thereby creates, in a +definite and tangible form, the dominant mood of each poem.</p> + +<p>The emotional relations that exist between form, colour, and sound have +been little investigated. It is perfectly true that certain colours +affect certain temperaments differently. But it is also true that there +is a science of colour, and that certain of its laws are already +universally known, if not explained. Naturally enough, it is to the +painters we must first turn if we want to find out what is known about +colour. We discover that painters continually are speaking of hot and +cold colour: red, yellow, orange being generally hot, and green, blue, +and violet cold—mixed colours being classed hot and cold according to +the proportions they contain of the hot and cold colours. We also +discover that certain colours will not fit certain forms, but rebel at +the combination. This is so far true that scarcely any landscape painter +finishes his pictures from nature, but in the studio: and almost any art +student, painting a landscape, will disregard the colour before him and +employ the colour-scheme of his master or of some painter he admires. As +Delacroix noted in his journal: "A conception having become a +composition must move in the milieu of a colour peculiar to it. There +seems to be a particular tone belonging to some part of every picture +which is a key that governs all the other tones."</p> + +<p>Therefore, we must admit that there is an intimate relation between +colour and form. It is the same with colour and sounds. Many musicians +have observed the phenomenon, that when certain notes, or combinations +of them, are sounded, certain colours are also suggested to the eye. A +Russian composer, Scriabine, went so far as to construct colour-scales, +and an English scientist, Professor Wallace Rimington, has built an +organ which plays in colours, instead of notes. Unfortunately, the +musicians have given this subject less attention than the painters, and +therefore our knowledge concerning the relations of colour and sound is +more fragmentary and incomplete. Nevertheless, these relations exist, +and it is for the future to develop them more fully.</p> + +<p>Literature, and especially poetry, as I have already pointed out, +partakes of the character of both painting and music. The impressionist +method is quite as applicable to writing as it is to landscape. Poems +can be written in major or minor keys, can be as full of dominant motif +as a Wagner music-drama, and even susceptible of fugal treatment. +Literature is the common ground of many arts, and in its highest +development, such as the drama as practised in fifth-century Athens, is +found allied to music, dancing, and colour. Hence, I have called my +works "Symphonies," when they are really dramas of the soul, and hence, +in them I have used colour for verity, for ornament, for drama, for its +inherent beauty, and for intensifying the form of the emotion that each +of these poems is intended to evoke.</p> + + +<h4>VII</h4> + +<p>Let us take an artist, a young man at the outset of his career. His +years of searching, of fumbling, of other men's influence, are coming to +an end. Sure of himself, he yet sees that he will spend all his life +pursuing a vision of beauty which will elude him at the very last. This +is the first symphony, which I have called the "Blue," because blue +suggests to me depth, mystery, and distance.</p> + +<p>He finds himself alone in a great city, surrounded by noise and +clamour. It is as if millions of lives were tugging at him, drawing him +away from his art, tempting him to go out and whelm his personality in +this black whirlpool of struggle and failure, on which float golden +specks—the illusory bliss of life. But he sees that all this is only +another illusion, like his own. Here we have the "Symphony in Black and +Gold."</p> + +<p>He emerges from the city, and in the country is re-intoxicated with +desire for life by spring. He vows himself to a self-sufficing pagan +worship of nature. This is the "Green Symphony."</p> + +<p>Quickened by spring, he dreams of a marvellous golden city of art, fall +of fellow-workers. This city appears to him at times like some Italian +town of the Renaissance, at others like some strange Oriental +golden-roofed monastery-temple. He sees himself dead in the desert far +away from it. Yet its blossoming is ever about him. Something divine has +been born of him after death.</p> + +<p>So he passes to the "White Symphony," the central poem of this series, +in which I have sought to describe the artist's struggle to attain +unutterable and superhuman perfection. This struggle goes on from the +midsummer of his life to midwinter. The end of it is stated in the poem.</p> + +<p>There follows a brief interlude, which I have called a "Symphony in +White and Blue." These colours were chosen perhaps more +idiosyncratically in this case than in the others. I have tried to +depict the sort of temptation that besets most artists at this stage of +their career: the temptation to abandon the struggle for the sake of a +purely sensual existence. In this case, however, the appeal of +sensuality is conveyed under the guise of a dream. It is resisted, and +the struggle begins anew.</p> + +<p>War breaks out, not alone in the external world, but in the artist's +soul. He finds he must follow his personality wherever it leads him, +despite all obstacles. This is the "Orange Symphony."</p> + +<p>Now follow long years of struggle and neglect. He is shipwrecked, and +still afar he sees his city of art, but this time it is red, a phantom +mocking his impotent rage.</p> + +<p>Old age follows. All is violet, the colour of regret and remembrance. He +is living only in the past, his life a succession of dreams.</p> + +<p>Lastly, all things fade out into absolute grey, and it is now midwinter. +Looking forth on the world again he still sees war, like a monstrous red +flower, dominating mankind. He hears the souls of the dead declaring +that they, too, have died for an adventure, even as he is about to die.</p> + +<p>Such, in the briefest possible analysis, is the meaning of the poems +contained in this book.</p> + +<p><i>January</i>, 1916.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a><b>CONTENTS</b></p> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a href="#SECTION_I">SECTION I. THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#PROLOGUE">PROLOGUE</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#PART_I_THE_HOUSE">PART I. THE HOUSE</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#BEDROOM">Bedroom</a><br /> +<a href="#LIBRARY">Library</a><br /> +<a href="#INDIAN_SKULL">Indian Skull</a><br /> +<a href="#OLD_NURSERY">Old Nursery</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_BACK_STAIRS">The Back Stairs</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_WALL_CABINET">The Wall Cabinet</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_CELLAR">The Cellar</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_FRONT_DOOR">The Front Door</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#PART_II_THE_ATTIC">PART II. THE ATTIC</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#IN_THE_ATTIC">In the Attic</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_CALENDAR_IN_THE_ATTIC">The Calendar in the Attic</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_HOOPSKIRT">The Hoopskirt</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_LITTLE_CHAIR">The Little Chair</a><br /> +<a href="#IN_THE_DARK_CORNER">In the Dark Corner</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_TOY_CABINET">The Toy Cabinet</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_YARDSTICK">The Yardstick</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#PART_III_THE_LAWN">PART III. THE LAWN</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#THE_THREE_OAKS">The Three Oaks</a><br /> +<a href="#AN_OAK">An Oak</a><br /> +<a href="#ANOTHER_OAK">Another Oak</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_OLD_BARN">The Old Barn</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_WELL">The Well</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_TREES">The Trees</a><br /> +<a href="#VISION">Vision</a><br /> +<a href="#EPILOGUE">Epilogue</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#SECTION_II">SECTION II. SYMPHONIES</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#BLUE_SYMPHONY">BLUE SYMPHONY</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#SOLITUDE_IN_THE_CITY">SOLITUDE IN THE CITY (SYMPHONY IN BLACK AND GOLD)</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#WORDS_AT_MIDNIGHT">I. Words at Midnight</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_EVENING_RAIN">II. The Evening Rain</a><br /> +<a href="#STREET_OF_SORROWS">III. Street of Sorrows</a><br /> +<a href="#SONG_IN_THE_DARKNESS">IV. Song in the Darkness</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#GREEN_SYMPHONY">GREEN SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#GOLDEN_SYMPHONY">GOLDEN SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#WHITE_SYMPHONY">WHITE SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#MIDSUMMER_DREAMS">MIDSUMMER DREAMS (SYMPHONY IN WHITE AND BLUE)</a> +<br /> +<a href="#ORANGE_SYMPHONY">ORANGE SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#RED_SYMPHONY">RED SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#VIOLET_SYMPHONY">VIOLET SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#GREY_SYMPHONY">GREY SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#POPPIES_OF_THE_RED_YEAR">POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR (A SYMPHONY IN SCARLET)</a> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="SECTION_I" id="SECTION_I"></a>SECTION I</h3> + +<h4>THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE</h4> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="PROLOGUE" id="PROLOGUE"></a>PROLOGUE<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The house that I write of, faces the north:<br /> +No sun ever seeks<br /> +Its six white columns,<br /> +The nine great windows of its face.<br /> +<br /> +It fronts foursquare the winds.<br /> +<br /> +Under the penthouse of the veranda roof,<br /> +The upper northern rooms<br /> +Gloom outwards mournfully.<br /> +<br /> +Staring Ionic capitals<br /> +Peer in them:<br /> +Owl-like faces.<br /> +<br /> +On winter nights<br /> +The wind, sidling round the corner,<br /> +Shoots upwards<br /> +With laughter.<br /> +<br /> +The windows rattle as if some one were in them wishing to get out<br /> +And ride upon the wind.<br /> +<br /> +Doors lead to nowhere:<br /> +Squirrels burrow between the walls.<br /> +Closets in every room hang open,<br /> +Windows are stared into by uncivil ancient trees.<br /> +<br /> +In the middle of the upper hallway<br /> +There is a great circular hole<br /> +Going up to the attic.<br /> +A wooden lid covers it.<br /> +<br /> +All over the house there is a sense of futility;<br /> +Of minutes dragging slowly<br /> +And repeating<br /> +Some worn-out story of broken effort and desire.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="PART_I_THE_HOUSE" id="PART_I_THE_HOUSE"></a>PART I. THE HOUSE<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="BEDROOM" id="BEDROOM"></a>BEDROOM<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The clump of jessamine<br /> +Softly beneath the rain<br /> +Rocks its golden flowers.<br /> +<br /> +In this room my father died:<br /> +His bed is in the corner.<br /> +No one has slept in it<br /> +Since the morning when he wakened<br /> +To meet death's hands at his heart.<br /> +I cannot go to this room,<br /> +Without feeling something big and angry<br /> +Waiting for me<br /> +To throw me on the bed,<br /> +And press its thumbs in my throat.<br /> +<br /> +The clump of jessamine<br /> +Without, beneath the rain,<br /> +Rocks its golden flowers.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LIBRARY" id="LIBRARY"></a>LIBRARY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Stuffy smell of mouldering leather,<br /> +Tattered arm-chairs, creaking doors,<br /> +Books that slovenly elbow each other,<br /> +Sown with children's scrawls and long<br /> +Worn out by contact with generations:<br /> +Tattered tramps displaying yourselves—<br /> +"We, though you broke our backs, did not complain."<br /> +If I had my way,<br /> +I would take you out and bury you quickly,<br /> +Or give you to the clean fire.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="INDIAN_SKULL" id="INDIAN_SKULL"></a>INDIAN SKULL<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Some one dug this up and brought it<br /> +To our house.<br /> +In the dark upper hall, I see it dimly,<br /> +Looking at me through the glass.<br /> +<br /> +Where dancers have danced, and weary people<br /> +Have crept to their bedrooms in the morning,<br /> +Where sick people have tossed all night,<br /> +Where children have been born,<br /> +Where feet have gone up and down,<br /> +Where anger has blazed forth, and strange looks have passed,<br /> +It has rested, watching meanwhile<br /> +The opening and shutting of doors,<br /> +The coming and going of people,<br /> +The carrying out of coffins.<br /> +<br /> +Earth still clings to its eye-sockets,<br /> +It will wait, till its vengeance is accomplished.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="OLD_NURSERY" id="OLD_NURSERY"></a>OLD NURSERY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In the tired face of the mirror<br /> +There is a blue curtain reflected.<br /> +If I could lift the reflection,<br /> +Peer a little beyond, I would see<br /> +A boy crying<br /> +Because his sister is ill in another room<br /> +And he has no one to play with:<br /> +A boy listlessly scattering building blocks,<br /> +And crying,<br /> +Because no one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana.<br /> +I cannot lift the curtain:<br /> +It is stiff and frozen.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_BACK_STAIRS" id="THE_BACK_STAIRS"></a>THE BACK STAIRS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In the afternoon<br /> +When no one is in the house,<br /> +I suddenly hear dull dragging feet<br /> +Go fumbling down those dark back stairs,<br /> +That climb up twisting,<br /> +As if they wanted no one to see them.<br /> +Beating a dirge upon the bare planks<br /> +I hear those feet and the creak of a long-locked door.<br /> +<br /> +My mother often went<br /> +Up and down those selfsame stairs,<br /> +From the room where by the window<br /> +She would sit all day and listlessly<br /> +Look on the world that had destroyed her,<br /> +She would go down in the evening<br /> +To the room where she would sleep,<br /> +Or rather, not sleep, but all night<br /> +Lie staring fiercely at the ceiling.<br /> +<br /> +In the afternoon<br /> +When no one is in the house:<br /> +I suddenly hear dull dragging feet<br /> +Beating out their futile tune,<br /> +Up and down those dark back stairs,<br /> +But there is no one in the shadows.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_WALL_CABINET" id="THE_WALL_CABINET"></a>THE WALL CABINET<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Above the steep back stairs<br /> +So high that only a ladder can come to it,<br /> +There is a wall cabinet hidden away.<br /> +<br /> +No one ever unlocks it;<br /> +The key is lost, the door is barred,<br /> +It is shut and still.<br /> +<br /> +Some say, a previous tenant<br /> +Filled its shelves with rows of bottles,<br /> +Bottles of spirit, filled with spiders.<br /> +<br /> +I do not know.<br /> +Above the sleepy still back stairs,<br /> +It watches, shut and still.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_CELLAR" id="THE_CELLAR"></a>THE CELLAR<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Faintly lit by a high-barred grating,<br /> +The low/hung cellar,<br /> +Flattens itself under the house.<br /> +<br /> +In one corner<br /> +There is a little door,<br /> +So low, it can scarcely be seen.<br /> +<br /> +Beyond,<br /> +There is a narrow room,<br /> +One must feel for the walls in the dark.<br /> +<br /> +One shrinks to go<br /> +To the end of it,<br /> +Feeling the smooth cold wall.<br /> +<br /> +Why did the builders who made this house,<br /> +Stow one room away like this?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_FRONT_DOOR" id="THE_FRONT_DOOR"></a>THE FRONT DOOR<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +It was always the place where our farewells were taken,<br /> +When we travelled to the north.<br /> +<br /> +I remember there was one who made some journey,<br /> +But did not come back.<br /> +Many years they waited for him,<br /> +At last the one who wished the most to see him,<br /> +Was carried out of this selfsame door in death.<br /> +<br /> +Since then all our family partings<br /> +Have been at another door.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="PART_II_THE_ATTIC" id="PART_II_THE_ATTIC"></a>PART II. THE ATTIC<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="IN_THE_ATTIC" id="IN_THE_ATTIC"></a>IN THE ATTIC<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Dust hangs clogged so thick<br /> +The air has a dusty taste:<br /> +Spider threads cling to my face,<br /> +From the broad pine-beams.<br /> +There is nothing living here,<br /> +The house below might be quite empty,<br /> +No sound comes from it.<br /> +The old broken trunks and boxes,<br /> +Cracked and dusty pictures,<br /> +Legless chairs and shattered tables,<br /> +Seem to be crying<br /> +Softly in the stillness<br /> +Because no one has brushed them.<br /> +No one has any use for them, now,<br /> +Yet I often wonder<br /> +If these things are really dead:<br /> +If the old trunks never open<br /> +Letting out grey flapping things at twilight?<br /> +If it is all as safe and dull<br /> +As it seems?<br /> +<br /> +Why then is the stair so steep,<br /> +Why is the doorway always locked,<br /> +Why does nobody ever come?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_CALENDAR_IN_THE_ATTIC" id="THE_CALENDAR_IN_THE_ATTIC"></a>THE CALENDAR IN THE ATTIC<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I wonder how long it has been<br /> +Since this old calendar hung here,<br /> +With my birthday date upon it,<br /> +Nothing else—not a word of writing—<br /> +Not a mark of any hand.<br /> +<br /> +Perhaps it was my father<br /> +Who left it thus<br /> +For me to see.<br /> +<br /> +Perhaps my mother<br /> +Smiled as she saw it;<br /> +But in later years did not smile.<br /> +If I could tear it down,<br /> +From the wall<br /> +Somehow<br /> +I would be content.<br /> +But I am afraid, as a little child, to touch it.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_HOOPSKIRT" id="THE_HOOPSKIRT"></a>THE HOOPSKIRT<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In the night when all are sleeping,<br /> +Up here a tiny old dame comes tripping,<br /> +Looking for her lost hoopskirt.<br /> +<br /> +My great-grandaunt—I never saw her—<br /> +Her ghost doesn't know me from another,<br /> +She stalks up the attic stairs angrily.<br /> +<br /> +The dust sets her sneezing and coughing,<br /> +By the trunk she is limping and hopping,<br /> +But alas—the trunk is locked.<br /> +<br /> +What's an old dame to do, anyway!<br /> +Must stay in a mouldy grave day on day,<br /> +Or go to heaven out of style.<br /> +<br /> +In the night when all are snoring,<br /> +The old lady makes a dreadful clatter,<br /> +Going down the attic stairs.<br /> +<br /> +What was that? A ghost or a burglar?<br /> +Oh, it was only the wind in the chimney,<br /> +Yes, and the attic door that slammed.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_LITTLE_CHAIR" id="THE_LITTLE_CHAIR"></a>THE LITTLE CHAIR<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I know not why, when I saw the little chair,<br /> +I suddenly desired to sit in it.<br /> +<br /> +I know not why, when I sat in the little chair,<br /> +Everything changed, and life came back to me.<br /> +<br /> +I am convinced no one at all has grown up in the house,<br /> +The break that I dreamed, itself was a dream and is broken.<br /> +<br /> +I will sit in the little chair and wait,<br /> +Till the others come looking after me.<br /> +<br /> +And if it is after nightfall they will come,<br /> +So much the better.<br /> +<br /> +For the little chair holds me as tightly as death;<br /> +And rocking in it, I can hear it whisper strange things.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="IN_THE_DARK_CORNER" id="IN_THE_DARK_CORNER"></a>IN THE DARK CORNER<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I brush the dust from this old portrait:<br /> +Yes, it is the same face, exactly,<br /> +Why does it look at me still with such a look of hate?<br /> +<br /> +I brush the dust from a heap of magazines:<br /> +Here there is all what you have written,<br /> +All that you struggled long years and went down to darkness for.<br /> +<br /> +O God, to think what I am writing<br /> +Will be ever as this!<br /> +<br /> +O God, to think that my own face<br /> +May some day glare from this dust!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_TOY_CABINET" id="THE_TOY_CABINET"></a>THE TOY CABINET<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +By the old toy cabinet,<br /> +I stand and turn over dusty things:<br /> +Chessmen—card games—hoops and balls—<br /> +Toy rifles, helmets, swords,<br /> +In the far corner<br /> +A doll's tea-set in a box.<br /> +<br /> +Where are you, golden child,<br /> +Who gave tea to your dolls and me?<br /> +The golden child is growing old,<br /> +Further than Rome or Babylon<br /> +From you have passed those foolish years.<br /> +She lives—she suffers—she forgets.<br /> +<br /> +By the old toy cabinet,<br /> +I idly stand and awkwardly<br /> +Finger the lock of the tea-set box.<br /> +What matter—why should I look inside,<br /> +Perhaps it is empty after all!<br /> +Leave old things to the ghosts of old;<br /> +<br /> +My stupid brain refuses thought,<br /> +I am maddened with a desire to weep.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_YARDSTICK" id="THE_YARDSTICK"></a>THE YARDSTICK<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yardstick that measured out so many miles of cloth,<br /> +Yardstick that covered me,<br /> +I wonder do you hop of nights<br /> +Out to the still hill-cemetery,<br /> +And up and down go measuring<br /> +A clayey grave for me?<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="PART_III_THE_LAWN" id="PART_III_THE_LAWN"></a>PART III. THE LAWN<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_THREE_OAKS" id="THE_THREE_OAKS"></a>THE THREE OAKS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +There are three ancient oaks,<br /> +That grow near to each other.<br /> +<br /> +They lift their branches<br /> +High as beckoning<br /> +With outstretched arms,<br /> +For some one to come and stand<br /> +Under the canopy of their leaves.<br /> +<br /> +Once long ago I remember<br /> +As I lay in the very centre,<br /> +Between them:<br /> +A rotten branch suddenly fell<br /> +Near to me.<br /> +<br /> +I will not go back to those oaks:<br /> +Their branches are too black for my liking.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="AN_OAK" id="AN_OAK"></a>AN OAK<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hoar mistletoe<br /> +Hangs in clumps<br /> +To the twisted boughs<br /> +Of this lonely tree.<br /> +<br /> +Beneath its roots I often thought treasure was buried:<br /> +For the roots had enclosed a circle.<br /> +<br /> +But when I dug beneath them,<br /> +I could only find great black ants<br /> +That attacked my hands.<br /> +<br /> +When at night I have the nightmare,<br /> +I always see the eyes of ants<br /> +Swarming from a mouldering box of gold.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="ANOTHER_OAK" id="ANOTHER_OAK"></a>ANOTHER OAK<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Poison ivy crawls at its root,<br /> +I dare not approach it,<br /> +It has an air of hate.<br /> +<br /> +One would say a man had been hanged to its branches,<br /> +It holds them in such a way.<br /> +<br /> +The moon gets tangled in it,<br /> +A distant steeple seems to bark<br /> +From its belfry to the sky.<br /> +<br /> +Something that no one ever loved,<br /> +Is buried here:<br /> +Some grey shape of deadly hate,<br /> +Crawls on the back fence just beyond.<br /> +<br /> +Now I remember—once I went<br /> +Out by night too near this oak,<br /> +And a red cat suddenly leapt<br /> +From the dark and clawed my face.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_OLD_BARN" id="THE_OLD_BARN"></a>THE OLD BARN<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Owls flap in this ancient barn<br /> +With rotted doors.<br /> +<br /> +Rats squeak in this ancient barn<br /> +Over the floors.<br /> +<br /> +Owls flap warily every night,<br /> +Rats' eyes gleam in the cold moonlight.<br /> +<br /> +There is something hidden in this barn,<br /> +With barred doors.<br /> +<br /> +Something the owls have torn,<br /> +And the rats scurry with over the floors.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_WELL" id="THE_WELL"></a>THE WELL<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The well is not used now,<br /> +Its waters are tainted.<br /> +<br /> +I remember there was once a man went down<br /> +To clean it.<br /> +He found it very cold and deep,<br /> +With a queer niche in one of its sides,<br /> +From which he hauled forth buckets of bricks and dirt.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_TREES" id="THE_TREES"></a>THE TREES<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops,<br /> +The trees are not the same.<br /> +<br /> +I know they are not the same,<br /> +Because there is one tree that is missing,<br /> +And it stood so long by another,<br /> +That the other, feeling lonely,<br /> +Now is slowly dying too.<br /> +<br /> +When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops<br /> +That dead tree comes back;<br /> +Like a great blue sphere of smoke<br /> +Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass,<br /> +Rustling through frayed Branches,<br /> +Something eerily cheeping through it,<br /> +Something creeping through its shade.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="VISION" id="VISION"></a>VISION<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +You who flutter and quiver<br /> +An instant<br /> +Just beyond my apprehension;<br /> +Lady,<br /> +I will find the white orchid for you,<br /> +If you will but give me<br /> +One smile between those wayward drifts of hair.<br /> +<br /> +I will break the wild berries that loop themselves over the marsh-pool,<br /> +For your sake,<br /> +And the long green canes that swish against each other,<br /> +I will break, to set in your hands.<br /> +For there is no wonder like to you,<br /> +You who flutter and quiver<br /> +An instant<br /> +Just beyond my apprehension.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="EPILOGUE" id="EPILOGUE"></a>EPILOGUE<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Why it was I do not know,<br /> +But last night I vividly dreamed<br /> +Though a thousand miles away,<br /> +That I had come back to you.<br /> +<br /> +The windows were the same:<br /> +The bed, the furniture the same,<br /> +Only there was a door where empty wall had always been,<br /> +And someone was trying to enter it.<br /> +<br /> +I heard the grate of a key,<br /> +An unknown voice apologetically<br /> +Excused its intrusion just as I awoke.<br /> +<br /> +But I wonder after all<br /> +If there was some secret entranceway,<br /> +Some ghost I overlooked, when I was there.<br /> +</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="SECTION_II" id="SECTION_II"></a>SECTION II</h3> + +<h4>SYMPHONIES</h4> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="BLUE_SYMPHONY" id="BLUE_SYMPHONY"></a>BLUE SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 /> +Oh, old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees!<br /> +<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.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 /> +<br /> +Oh, 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.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 /> +<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.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 /> +<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 /> +These are my dreams.<br /> +<br /> +For me silks are outspread.<br /> +I take my ease, unthinking.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +V<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 hopes of my heart.<br /> +<br /> +The ice is glazing over,<br /> +Tom 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.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="SOLITUDE_IN_THE_CITY" id="SOLITUDE_IN_THE_CITY"></a>SOLITUDE IN THE CITY<br /> +<br /> +(<i>Symphony in Black and Gold</i>)<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<a name="WORDS_AT_MIDNIGHT" id="WORDS_AT_MIDNIGHT"></a>WORDS AT MIDNIGHT<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Because the night is so still,<br /> +Because there is no one about,<br /> +Not the tiny squeak of a mouse over the carpet,<br /> +Nor the slow beat of a clock at the top of the stairway,<br /> +I am afraid of the night that is coming to me.<br /> +<br /> +I know out there<br /> +Some one is thinking of me, some one is wondering about me,<br /> +Some one is needing me, some one is dying for my sake,<br /> +Yet I remain alone.<br /> +<br /> +I know that life is calling: I cannot resist it:<br /> +Too much of myself I have given ever to turn away,<br /> +I know that shame, sickness, death itself shall befall me,<br /> +And I am afraid.<br /> +<br /> +O night, hide me in your long cold arms:<br /> +Let me sleep, but let me not live this life!<br /> +There are too many people with haggard eyes standing<br /> +before me<br /> +Saying, "To live you must suffer even as we."<br /> +<br /> +Yet life bitterly bids me: "Go on to the last,<br /> +No matter the mud and the cold rain and the darkness:<br /> +No matter the drear pilgrims in whose eyes you shall look for long,<br /> +And see all suffering, madness, death and despair."<br /> +<br /> +Because my heart is cramped in,<br /> +Because I have suffered much,<br /> +Because my hope is like a candle-flame quenched at midnight,<br /> +Because I dare dream yet of joy,<br /> +I can take my night and the life that is coming to me.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_EVENING_RAIN" id="THE_EVENING_RAIN"></a>THE EVENING RAIN<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing,<br /> +As it slowly slips on the motionless pavement;<br /> +Greasy and grey is the rain of the evening,<br /> +As it dribbles into the dirty gutters<br /> +And slides down the drains with a roar!<br /> +<br /> +Ragged men cower<br /> +Under the doorways:<br /> +Umbrellas nod like drowsy birds.<br /> +Bat-umbrellas,<br /> +Teetering, balancing,<br /> +Where will you spread your wings to-night?<br /> +<br /> +Tangled between the factory-chimneys,<br /> +I have seen the golden lamps wake this evening:<br /> +Spinning and whirling, darting and dancing,<br /> +Tangled with the glittering rain.<br /> +<br /> +Omnibuses lurch<br /> +Heavily homeward<br /> +Elephants tinselled in tawdry gold:<br /> +Taxicabs fight<br /> +Like wild birds squalling,<br /> +Wild birds with roaring, clattering wings.<br /> +<br /> +O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing,<br /> +As it shivers to jewel-heaps spilt on the pavement.<br /> +The façades frown gloomily at its beauty,<br /> +The façades are dreaming of the day.<br /> +<br /> +With rippling, curling,<br /> +Serpentine convolutions<br /> +The pavements drip with drunken light.<br /> +Crimson and gold,<br /> +Shot with opal,<br /> +They glare against the sullen night.<br /> +<br /> +O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing<br /> +As it slowly dries on the dirty pavement.<br /> +Red low-browed clouds jut over the sky:<br /> +And in the cool sky there are stars.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<a name="STREET_OF_SORROWS" id="STREET_OF_SORROWS"></a>STREET OF SORROWS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +You street of sorrows bending<br /> +Over your golden lamps in the evening;<br /> +Dark street that is very silent,<br /> +And everywhere the same:<br /> +Elsewhere there is song and riot,<br /> +Like golden fireflies flickering,<br /> +Elsewhere the crane's gaunt muscles<br /> +Tug the city up to the stars.<br /> +<br /> +But who in the dawn should come near you?<br /> +There are dry leaves rattling behind him.<br /> +And who should come in the noonday?<br /> +There are shadows that squat on the pave.<br /> +And who should come in the evening?<br /> +There is one: a ship in dark waters.<br /> +And who should come at nightfall,<br /> +To feel cold hands at his heart?<br /> +<br /> +You street of solitude waiting<br /> +Patient and still in the evening:<br /> +Old street that is very weary,<br /> +And everywhere the same;<br /> +You that have seen joy passing.<br /> +Into pain, into tears, into darkness,<br /> +Street of the dead and musty,<br /> +I have drunk your cold poison to-night.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<a name="SONG_IN_THE_DARKNESS" id="SONG_IN_THE_DARKNESS"></a>SONG IN THE DARKNESS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary:<br /> +Henceforth the keys and wards of me are held in other hands.<br /> +<br /> +Dark clouds trail over the sky:<br /> +Troops of song retreating:<br /> +But in the sunset<br /> +Once more have I seen aloft<br /> +Incredible summits of gold, far on the south horizon.<br /> +<br /> +One purple veil of rain<br /> +Floats downward over the city;<br /> +And as it settles slowly<br /> +The light goes out of it.<br /> +<br /> +Chimneys with massive summits<br /> +Stand gaunt and black and evil:<br /> +Like a river of lead, to seaward<br /> +The river steadily rolls.<br /> +<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary:<br /> +Life takes me in black coils.<br /> +<br /> +One green light glitters:<br /> +Then a swift taxi<br /> +Scatters another<br /> +As it speeds on.<br /> +<br /> +The chimneys rank<br /> +Their motionless forces<br /> +Against the swift movement<br /> +Of tugs in the stream;<br /> +Against the flame-chariots<br /> +Of the Embankment;<br /> +Against the bowing trees,<br /> +Against the blowing smoke,<br /> +Against the busy rain.<br /> +<br /> +With dying might<br /> +The light invades<br /> +The city's hall:<br /> +Curtained by dripping fringes<br /> +Of buoyant tattered cloud,<br /> +Tossed by the wind.<br /> +<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary;<br /> +And all my city of dreams is burning up to-night.<br /> +<br /> +But yet there waits for me something lost back in the darkness:<br /> +Something I have never seized: a shape, a voice, a gesture,<br /> +Something behind my shoulder: grey robes that stir and rustle.<br /> +Something that moves away from me when I would touch it with my hand.<br /> +<br /> +Cities of the beyond, what great black-walled horizons<br /> +Dare you climb up, and down what steep incredible valleys?<br /> +I suddenly perceive that I have been mocked in you,<br /> +And therefore will I sow the earth with rain of stars to-night.<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary;<br /> +The rain invites to drunkenness: the wind blows<br /> +through my brain.<br /> +<br /> +Shiplike the sliding golden trams<br /> +Procession by and intercross:<br /> +With tulips, daffodils, crocuses<br /> +The whole street blossoms at my feet:<br /> +Now kindle, flames, and let blow out<br /> +The crimson rose against the grey,<br /> +Let night itself be blotted out<br /> +In life's monotonous drone of day.<br /> +<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary:<br /> +It is the last time that no feet<br /> +But mine can beat upon the floor;<br /> +It is the last time that no hands<br /> +But mine can pound upon my heart;<br /> +It is the last time that no voice<br /> +But mine can cry and yet be lost;<br /> +It is the last time I shall see<br /> +The pavements like a mirror stare at me.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="GREEN_SYMPHONY" id="GREEN_SYMPHONY"></a>GREEN SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The glittering leaves of the rhododendrons<br /> +Balance and vibrate in the cool air;<br /> +While in the sky above them<br /> +White clouds chase each other.<br /> +<br /> +Like scampering rabbits,<br /> +Flashes of sunlight sweep the lawn;<br /> +They fling in passing<br /> +Patterns of shadow,<br /> +Golden and green.<br /> +<br /> +With long cascades of laughter,<br /> +The mating birds dart and swoop to the turf:<br /> +'Mid their mad trillings<br /> +Glints the gay sun behind the trees.<br /> +<br /> +Down there are deep blue lakes:<br /> +Orange blossom droops in the water.<br /> +<br /> +In the tower of the winds,<br /> +All the bells are set adrift:<br /> +Jingling<br /> +For the dawn.<br /> +<br /> +Thin fluttering streamers<br /> +Of breeze lash through the swaying boughs,<br /> +Palely expectant<br /> +The earth receives the slanting rain.<br /> +<br /> +I am a glittering raindrop<br /> +Hugged close by the cool rhododendron.<br /> +I am a daisy starring<br /> +The exquisite curves of the close-cropped turf.<br /> +<br /> +The glittering leaves of the rhododendron<br /> +Are shaken like blue-green blades of grass,<br /> +Flickering, cracking, falling:<br /> +Splintering in a million fragments.<br /> +<br /> +The wind runs laughing up the slope<br /> +Stripping off handfuls of wet green leaves,<br /> +To fling in peoples' faces.<br /> +Wallowing on the daisy-powdered turf,<br /> +Clutching at the sunlight,<br /> +Cavorting in the shadow.<br /> +<br /> +Like baroque pearls,<br /> +Like cloudy emeralds,<br /> +The clouds and the trees clash together;<br /> +Whirling and swirling,<br /> +In the tumult<br /> +Of the spring,<br /> +And the wind.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The trees splash the sky with their fingers,<br /> +A restless green rout of stars.<br /> +<br /> +With whirling movement<br /> +They swing their boughs<br /> +About their stems:<br /> +Planes on planes of light and shadow<br /> +Pass among them,<br /> +Opening fanlike to fall.<br /> +<br /> +The trees are like a sea;<br /> +Tossing;<br /> +Trembling,<br /> +Roaring,<br /> +Wallowing,<br /> +Darting their long green flickering fronds up at the sky,<br /> +Spotted with white blossom-spray.<br /> +<br /> +The trees are roofs:<br /> +Hollow caverns of cool blue shadow,<br /> +Solemn arches<br /> +In the afternoons.<br /> +The whole vast horizon<br /> +In terrace beyond terrace,<br /> +Pinnacle above pinnacle,<br /> +Lifts to the sky<br /> +Serrated ranks of green on green.<br /> +<br /> +They caress the roofs with their fingers,<br /> +They sprawl about the river to look into it;<br /> +Up the hill they come<br /> +Gesticulating challenge:<br /> +They cower together<br /> +In dark valleys;<br /> +They yearn out over the fields.<br /> +<br /> +Enamelled domes<br /> +Tumble upon the grass,<br /> +Crashing in ruin<br /> +Quiet at last.<br /> +<br /> +The trees lash the sky with their leaves,<br /> +Uneasily shaking their dark green manes.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Far let the voices of the mad wild birds be calling me,<br /> +I will abide in this forest of pines.<br /> +<br /> +When the wind blows<br /> +Battling through the forest,<br /> +I hear it distantly,<br /> +The crash of a perpetual sea.<br /> +<br /> +When the rain falls,<br /> +I watch silver spears slanting downwards<br /> +From pale river-pools of sky,<br /> +Enclosed in dark fronds.<br /> +<br /> +When the sun shines,<br /> +I weave together distant branches till they enclose mighty circles,<br /> +I sway to the movement of hooded summits,<br /> +I swim leisurely in deep blue seas of air.<br /> +<br /> +I hug the smooth bark of stately red pillars<br /> +And with cones carefully scattered<br /> +I mark the progression of dark dial-shadows<br /> +Flung diagonally downwards through the afternoon.<br /> +<br /> +This turf is not like turf:<br /> +It is a smooth dry carpet of velvet,<br /> +Embroidered with brown patterns of needles and cones.<br /> +These trees are not like trees:<br /> +They are innumerable feathery pagoda-umbrellas,<br /> +Stiffly ungracious to the wind,<br /> +Teetering on red-lacquered stems.<br /> +<br /> +In the evening I listen to the winds' lisping,<br /> +While the conflagrations of the sunset flicker and clash behind me,<br /> +Flamboyant crenellations of glory amid the charred ebony boles.<br /> +<br /> +In the night the fiery nightingales<br /> +Shall clash and trill through the silence:<br /> +Like the voices of mermaids crying<br /> +From the sea.<br /> +<br /> +Long ago has the moon whelmed this uncompleted temple.<br /> +Stars swim like gold fish far above the black arches.<br /> +<br /> +Far let the timid feet of dawn fly to catch me:<br /> +I will abide in this forest of pines:<br /> +For I have unveiled naked beauty,<br /> +And the things that she whispered to me in the darkness,<br /> +Are buried deep in my heart.<br /> +<br /> +Now let the black tops of the pine-trees break like a spent wave,<br /> +Against the grey sky:<br /> +These are tombs and memorials and temples and altars sun-kindled for me.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="GOLDEN_SYMPHONY" id="GOLDEN_SYMPHONY"></a>GOLDEN SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Seen from afar, the city<br /> +To-day is like a golden cloud:<br /> +Strayed from the sky and moulded<br /> +Into dim motionless towers.<br /> +<br /> +Music is passing far off:<br /> +Music serenely<br /> +Is climbing up and vanishing<br /> +On the long grey stairways of the sky,<br /> +In fanlike rays of light.<br /> +<br /> +Now it falls slowly,<br /> +Careering, toppling,<br /> +Shivering and quivering like burnished glass or laburnum-blossom,<br /> +Golden cascades.<br /> +<br /> +Peace: now let the music<br /> +Sound from further away,<br /> +Red bells out of memory's<br /> +Blue dream of regret.<br /> +<br /> +Seen from afar, the city<br /> +To-day is like a fleet of sails:<br /> +Breaking the foam of dark forests,<br /> +In which I have strayed so long.<br /> +<br /> +They march together slowly,<br /> +The golden temple terraces,<br /> +Against the dark remembrance<br /> +Of my pools of despair.<br /> +<br /> +O golden angelus that sounded prolonging uncertain memories,<br /> +I have seen the swallows hovering to you and followed their dark trails<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of passage.</span><br /> +<br /> +The gates of the city lie open,<br /> +And the whole world goes homeward,<br /> +Full-pulsing bells in the foreground,<br /> +Catching my soul with them<br /> +On where the sun soars broadly through the incense-dome of the sky.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +High chimes from the belfry;<br /> +The noonday approaches<br /> +With its golden apparel<br /> +Rustling about its feet.<br /> +<br /> +High dreams of my city,<br /> +Where we, a band of brothers,<br /> +Build our proud dream of beauty<br /> +Before we fall into dust.<br /> +<br /> +The golden days have come for us:<br /> +With mandolins, sword-thrusts, laughter.<br /> +Even the very dust of the street<br /> +Grows gold beneath our feet.<br /> +<br /> +Bronze bell-notes poured from deep blue wells:<br /> +Molten gold out of the sky.<br /> +Pillars of yellow marble<br /> +On the summits of which the gods sleep.<br /> +<br /> +Now we are swimming;<br /> +About us a great golden halo<br /> +Vibrates from us downwards,<br /> +Ebbing its life away.<br /> +<br /> +Golden clouds are circling<br /> +Like angels and archangels<br /> +About the eye of the sun.<br /> +<br /> +Flaming sunset:<br /> +Mad conflagrations<br /> +Licking at the earth,<br /> +The blue-black walls of space,<br /> +Iron mountains vast on the horizon.<br /> +<br /> +O golden spear that dartled through the darkness!<br /> +The evening star sparkled and threw us its message.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +In the bosom of the desert<br /> +I will lie at the last.<br /> +<br /> +Not the grey desert of sand<br /> +But the golden desert of great wild grasses,<br /> +This shall receive my soul.<br /> +<br /> +In the high plateaus,<br /> +The wind will be like a flute-note calling me<br /> +Day after day.<br /> +<br /> +Short bursts of surf,<br /> +The wind climbs up and stops in the grass;<br /> +And the golden petals<br /> +Brush drowsily over my face.<br /> +<br /> +White butterfly that flutters across my sea of golden blossom;<br /> +Tell me, what are you looking for, lone white butterfly?<br /> +<br /> +I am seeking for a strange lonely white flower;<br /> +Its petals are honeyless; and in the wind it is still.<br /> +<br /> +White butterfly, come, fold your wings over my heart:<br /> +I am the white blossom, the white dead blossom for you.<br /> +<br /> +In the golden bosom of the prairie,<br /> +I am lying at the last<br /> +Like a pool that is stilled.<br /> +<br /> +But they who shared with me my life's adventure,<br /> +Who tossed their ducats like dandelions into the sunlight,<br /> +I know that somewhere they with songs are building,<br /> +Golden towers more beautiful than my own.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +I only know in the midnight,<br /> +Something will be born of me.<br /> +<br /> +The village drowses in the darkness,<br /> +But aloft in the temple<br /> +There is a thud of gongs and a shuffle of hollow voices<br /> +In the dark corridors.<br /> +<br /> +The golden temple<br /> +That kindled like a rose against the sunset,<br /> +Now is dark and silent,<br /> +One light glimmers from its façade.<br /> +<br /> +In the inner shrine<br /> +One stiff golden curtain<br /> +Hangs from floor to roof.<br /> +<br /> +Black, impassive, helmeted<br /> +In felt like stiff black warriors,<br /> +The lamas slowly gather,<br /> +Kneeling in a row.<br /> +<br /> +The hollow brazen trumpets<br /> +Blare and snore.<br /> +The drums, festooned with skulls,<br /> +Roar.<br /> +<br /> +Suddenly with a clash of gongs,<br /> +And a squeal from ear-splitting bugles,<br /> +The golden veil is rent.<br /> +<br /> +Cavernous blue darkness!<br /> +And within it<br /> +Smiling,<br /> +Naked,<br /> +Rose-empurpled,<br /> +Rippling with crimson-violet light, behold the god.<br /> +<br /> +Hail, great jewel in the lotus blossom!<br /> +Rosy flame that kindling<br /> +Flashes on the emptiness<br /> +Or Nirvana's sea!<br /> +<br /> +Before the shrine, as before,<br /> +Once more the golden curtain,<br /> +And the black shapes vanish.<br /> +<br /> +Aloft in the hollow temple<br /> +There is a shuffle of feet and a sound of hollow voices,<br /> +Soon lost.<br /> +<br /> +The village drowses in the darkness:<br /> +Like a vast black cube<br /> +The temple looms above it,<br /> +There is no light on its façade.<br /> +<br /> +Suddenly, all the golden temple<br /> +Kindles like a rose against the dawn.<br /> +<br /> +I only know in the midnight<br /> +Something has been born of me.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="WHITE_SYMPHONY" id="WHITE_SYMPHONY"></a>WHITE SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Forlorn and white,<br /> +Whorls of purity about a golden chalice,<br /> +Immense the peonies<br /> +Flare and shatter their petals over my face.<br /> +<br /> +They slowly turn paler,<br /> +They seem to be melting like blue-grey flakes of ice,<br /> +Thin greyish shivers<br /> +Fluctuating mid the dark green lance-thrust of the leaves.<br /> +<br /> +Like snowballs tossed,<br /> +Like soft white butterflies,<br /> +The peonies poise in the twilight.<br /> +And their narcotic insinuating perfume<br /> +Draws me into them<br /> +Shivering with the coolness,<br /> +Aching with the void.<br /> +They kiss the blue chalice of my dreams<br /> +Like a gesture seen for an instant and then lost forever. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +Outwards the petals<br /> +Thrust to embrace me,<br /> +Pale daggers of coldness<br /> +Run through my aching breast.<br /> +<br /> +Outwards, still outwards,<br /> +Till on the brink of twilight<br /> +They swirl downwards silently,<br /> +Flurry of snow in the void.<br /> +<br /> +Outwards, still outwards,<br /> +Till the blue walls are hidden,<br /> +And in the blinding white radiance<br /> +Of a whirlpool of clouds, I awake. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +Like spraying rockets<br /> +My peonies shower<br /> +Their glories on the night.<br /> +<br /> +Wavering perfumes,<br /> +Drift about the garden;<br /> +Shadows of the moonlight,<br /> +Drift and ripple over the dew-gemmed leaves.<br /> +<br /> +Soar, crash, and sparkle,<br /> +Shoal of stars drifting<br /> +Like silver fishes,<br /> +Through the black sluggish boughs.<br /> +<br /> +Towards the impossible,<br /> +Towards the inaccessible,<br /> +Towards the ultimate,<br /> +Towards the silence,<br /> +Towards the eternal,<br /> +These blossoms go.<br /> +<br /> +The peonies spring like rockets in the twilight,<br /> +And out of them all I rise.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Downwards through the blue abyss it slides,<br /> +The white snow-water of my dreams,<br /> +Downwards crashing from slippery rock<br /> +Into the boiling chasm:<br /> +In which no eye dare look, for it is the chasm of death.<br /> +<br /> +Upwards from the blue abyss it rises,<br /> +The chill water-mist of my dreams;<br /> +Upwards to greyish weeping pines,<br /> +And to skies of autumn ever about my heart,<br /> +It is blue at the beginning,<br /> +And blue-white against the grey-greenness;<br /> +It wavers in the upper air,<br /> +Catching unconscious sparkles, a rainbow-glint of sunlight,<br /> +And fading in the sad depths of the sky.<br /> +<br /> +Outwards rush the strong pale clouds,<br /> +Outwards and ever outwards;<br /> +The blue-grey clouds indistinguishable one from another:<br /> +Nervous, sinewy, tossing their arms and brandishing,<br /> +Till on the blue serrations of the horizon<br /> +They drench with their black rain a great peak of changeless snow. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +As evening came on, I climbed the tower,<br /> +To gaze upon the city far beneath:<br /> +I was not weary of day; but in the evening<br /> +A white mist assembled and gathered over the earth<br /> +And blotted it from sight.<br /> +<br /> +But to escape:<br /> +To chase with the golden clouds galloping over the horizon:<br /> +Arrows of the northwest wind<br /> +Singing amid them,<br /> +Ruffling up my hair!<br /> +<br /> +As evening came on the distance altered,<br /> +Pale wavering reflections rose from out the city,<br /> +Like sighs or the beckoning of half-invisible hands.<br /> +Monotonously and sluggishly they crept upwards<br /> +A river that had spent itself in some chasm,<br /> +And dwindled and foamed at last at my weary feet.<br /> +<br /> +Autumn! Golden fountains,<br /> +And the winds neighing<br /> +Amid the monotonous hills:<br /> +Desolation of the old gods,<br /> +Rain that lifts and rain that moves away;<br /> +In the greenback torrent<br /> +Scarlet leaves.<br /> +<br /> +It was now perfectly evening:<br /> +And the tower loomed like a gaunt peak in mid-air<br /> +Above the city: its base was utterly lost.<br /> +It was slowly coming on to rain,<br /> +And the immense columns of white mist<br /> +Wavered and broke before the faint-hurled spears.<br /> +<br /> +I will descend the mountains like a shepherd,<br /> +And in the folds of tumultuous misty cities,<br /> +I will put all my thoughts, all my old thoughts, safely to sleep.<br /> +<br /> +For it is already autumn,<br /> +O whiteness of the pale southwestern sky!<br /> +O wavering dream that was not mine to keep! +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +In midnight, in mournful moonlight,<br /> +By paths I could not trace,<br /> +I walked in the white garden,<br /> +Each flower had a white face.<br /> +<br /> +Their perfume intoxicated me: thus I began my dream.<br /> +<br /> +I was alone; I had no one to guide me,<br /> +But the moon was like the sun:<br /> +It stooped and kissed each waxen petal,<br /> +One after one.<br /> +<br /> +Green and white was that garden: diamond rain hung in the branches,<br /> +You will not believe it!<br /> +<br /> +In the morning, at the dayspring,<br /> +I wakened, shivering; lo,<br /> +The white garden that blossomed at my feet<br /> +Was a garden hidden in snow.<br /> +It was my sorrow to see that all this was a dream.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Blue, clogged with purple,<br /> +Mists uncoil themselves:<br /> +Sparkling to the horizon,<br /> +I see the snow alone.<br /> +<br /> +In the deep blue chasm,<br /> +Boats sleep under gold thatch;<br /> +Icicle-like trees fret<br /> +Faintly rose-touched sky.<br /> +<br /> +Under their heaped snow-eaves,<br /> +Leaden houses shiver.<br /> +Through thin blue crevasses,<br /> +Trickles an icy stream.<br /> +<br /> +The pines groan white-laden,<br /> +The waves shiver, struck by the wind;<br /> +Beyond from treeless horizons,<br /> +Broken snow-peaks crawl to the sea. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +Wearily the snow glares,<br /> +Through the grey silence, day after day,<br /> +Mocking the colourless cloudless sky<br /> +With the reflection of death.<br /> +<br /> +There is no smoke through the pine tops,<br /> +No strong red boatmen in pale green reeds,<br /> +No herons to flicker an instant,<br /> +No lanterns to glow with gay ray.<br /> +<br /> +No sails beat up to the harbour,<br /> +With creaking cordage and sailors' song.<br /> +Somnolent, bare-poled, indifferent,<br /> +They sleep, and the city sleeps.<br /> +<br /> +Mid-winter about them casts,<br /> +Its dreary fortifications:<br /> +Each day is a gaunt grey rock,<br /> +And death is the last of them all. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +Over the sluggish snow,<br /> +Drifts now a pallid weak shower of bloom;<br /> +Boredom of fresh creation,<br /> +Death-weariness of old returns.<br /> +<br /> +White, white blossom,<br /> +Fall of the shattered cups day on day:<br /> +Is there anything here that is not ancient,<br /> +That has not bloomed a thousand years ago?<br /> +<br /> +Under the glare of the white-hot day,<br /> +Under the restless wind-rakes of the winter,<br /> +White blossom or white snow scattered,<br /> +And beneath them, dark, the graves.<br /> +<br /> +Dark graves never changing,<br /> +White dream drifting, never changing above them:<br /> +O that the white scroll of heaven might be rolled up,<br /> +And the naked red lightning thrust at the smouldering<br /> +earth!<br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="MIDSUMMER_DREAMS" id="MIDSUMMER_DREAMS"></a>MIDSUMMER DREAMS<br /> +<br /> +<i>(Symphony in White and Blue)</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +There is a tall white weed growing at the top of this sand hill:<br /> +In the grass<br /> +It is very still.<br /> +<br /> +It lifts its heavy bracts of flattened bloom<br /> +Against the sky<br /> +Hazily grey with brume.<br /> +<br /> +Out over yonder boats pass<br /> +And the swallows<br /> +Flatten themselves on the grass.<br /> +<br /> +The lake is silvering beneath the heat.<br /> +The wind's feet<br /> +Touch lazily each crest,<br /> +Like white gulls slow flapping<br /> +To windward.<br /> +<br /> +One rose white cloud slowly disengages, loosening itself,<br /> +And stands<br /> +Above the larkspur-coloured water:<br /> +Like Dione's daughter<br /> +Braiding up her wet hair with her pale, hands.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees,<br /> +Which do not lift one drooping leaf, this night of June.<br /> +There is no lazy breeze to set them clashing adrift.<br /> +<br /> +Thin gleams of silver rise and break in the air,<br /> +Fireflies—here and there.<br /> +<br /> +Forest of blue masses suddenly quivering with rapid points of white,<br /> +Are the forests beneath the sea where no breeze passes<br /> +As still as you to-night?<br /> +<br /> +The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees;<br /> +Through my window, the bed cut evenly with diagonal shafts of light,<br /> +Is a boat rocking out adrift.<br /> +<br /> +Under it bend the silver tips of the dark blue coral trees,<br /> +And fireflies like glass fish<br /> +Drift and ripple upwards in the breeze.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +We are drifting slowly, you and I,<br /> +To where the clouds are lifting<br /> +High-fretted towers in the sky:<br /> +Palaces of ivory,<br /> +Which we look at dreamily.<br /> +Over our sail<br /> +Frail white clouds,<br /> +Drift as slowly<br /> +Over the undulant pale blue silk of the water,<br /> +As we.<br /> +<br /> +We are racing swiftly, you and I,<br /> +The sun darts one firm track<br /> +Through the blue-black<br /> +Of the crinkled water.<br /> +Gold spirals spattering, flashing,<br /> +The water heaves and curls away at our bow,<br /> +A mad fish splashing.<br /> +<br /> +We are rocked together, you and I,<br /> +To this undulant movement.<br /> +White cloud with blue water blent,<br /> +Cloud dipping down to wave its lazy head,<br /> +Wave curling under cloud its cloudy blue.<br /> +I and you,<br /> +All alone, alone, at last.<br /> +I hold you fast.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The midsummer clouds were piling up upon the south horizon,<br /> +Mountains of drifting translucence in the larkspur-fields of the sky:<br /> +Ascending and toppling in crumbled ravines, dribbling down chasms<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of silence,</span><br /> +Reassembling in crowded multitudes, massive forms one above another.<br /> +And I saw in their ridges and hollows, the appearance of a woman<br /> +Immeasurable, carven in stainless marble, motionless, naked, fair:<br /> +Her head thrown back, her pointed breasts up-gleaming in chill sunlight,<br /> +Her heavy flanks dark in the shadow, resting forever inert.<br /> +And up to her there suddenly clomb and hurried another cloud,<br /> +Huge, hairy, bulging, and knobby, with dark and knotted brows:<br /> +And he thrust out long bungling arms to her and drew himself up to her,<br /> +And I watched them melting together, blue mouth to sad white mouth.<br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="ORANGE_SYMPHONY" id="ORANGE_SYMPHONY"></a>ORANGE SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Now that all the world is filled<br /> +With armies clamouring;<br /> +Now that men no longer live and die, one by one,<br /> +But in vague indeterminate multitudes:<br /> +<br /> +Now that the trees are coppery towers,<br /> +Now that the clouds loom southward,<br /> +Now that the glossy creeper<br /> +Spatters the walls like spilt wine:<br /> +<br /> +I will go out alone,<br /> +To catch strong joy of solitude<br /> +Where the treelines, in gold and scarlet,<br /> +Swing strong grape-cables up the smouldering face of the hill.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Guns crashing,<br /> +Thudding,<br /> +Ululating,<br /> +Tumultuous.<br /> +<br /> +Guns yelping over the cracked earth,<br /> +Where dry bugles blare.<br /> +<br /> +Here in this hollow<br /> +It is very quiet,<br /> +Only the wind's hissing laughter<br /> +In the place of tombs.<br /> +<br /> +One by one these gaunt scarred faces<br /> +Lift up blurred wrinkled inscriptions<br /> +Silently beseeching me to stop and ponder.<br /> +What does it matter if I do not stop to read them?<br /> +No one at all has gone this way that I have chosen before.<br /> +<br /> +A leaf drops slowly in silence;<br /> +It is a long time twisting and hovering on its way to<br /> +the earth.<br /> +<br /> +Guns booming,<br /> +Bellowing,<br /> +Crashing,<br /> +Desperate.<br /> +Insistent outcry of savage guns,<br /> +Rocking the gloomy hollow.<br /> +<br /> +I will run out like the wind,<br /> +Snarling, with savage laughter;<br /> +Like the wind that tosses the grey-black clouds,<br /> +Against the shot-racked barrier of flaming trees.<br /> +<br /> +I will race between the grey guns,<br /> +And the clouds, like shrapnel exploding,<br /> +Flinging their hail through the tumult,<br /> +Bursting, will melt in cold spray.<br /> +<br /> +I am the wanderer of the world;<br /> +No one can hold me.<br /> +Not the cannon assembled for battle,<br /> +Nor the gloomy graves of the hollow,<br /> +Nor the house where I long time slumbered,<br /> +Nor the hilltop where roads are straggling.<br /> +<br /> +My feet must march to the wind.<br /> +Like a leaf dropping slowly,<br /> +An orange butterfly turning and twisting,<br /> +I touch with moist passionate palms the leaden inscriptions<br /> +Of my past. Then I turn to depart.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The trees dance about the inn;<br /> +The wind thrusts them into flamelets.<br /> +Now my thoughts gipsying,<br /> +Go forth to strange walls and new fires.<br /> +<br /> +Mouths stained with brown-red berries,<br /> +Bronzed cheeks sunken, unshaven,<br /> +Ragged attire;<br /> +We swing our guitars at the hip<br /> +As we tramp heedless, uncaring.<br /> +<br /> +In the inn the fire crackles:<br /> +On the hearth the wine is simmering.<br /> +Lift up the brown beaker one instant,<br /> +Drink deeply—fling out the last coin—let us go.<br /> +On the plains there is drooping harvest,<br /> +But no harvest can for long time hold us,<br /> +We have seen the winds, baffled,<br /> +Racing up the orange-flecked trench of the hills.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +On the hill summit<br /> +Where the gusty wind all night long has assailed me,<br /> +Now I see stars vanishing<br /> +Before the long cold clutching fingers of dawn.<br /> +<br /> +Stars scintillant, fire-hued, metallic,<br /> +Topaz fruit of the deep-blue garden:<br /> +Southward you go, my constellations,<br /> +And leave me with the white day, alone.<br /> +<br /> +Over the hilltop<br /> +Swish with a scurry of wings<br /> +Millions of pale brown birds,<br /> +Songless, pulsing southward.<br /> +<br /> +Birds who have filled the trees,<br /> +And who fled long ago at my passing,<br /> +Now you clatter in heedless tumult,<br /> +Fanning with your hot wings my face.<br /> +<br /> +Carry this word to the southward;<br /> +Say that I have forgotten them that wait for me,<br /> +All the loves and the hates need expect me no longer,<br /> +In the autumn at last I am alone.<br /> +<br /> +Suddenly<br /> +The wind crashes through the tree-tops,<br /> +Stripping away their orange-tiled domes;<br /> +Stark blue skeletons, forbidding<br /> +Gesticulate in my face.<br /> +You whom I planted and lavished<br /> +With all the wealth and beauty I had to bestow<br /> +Hurry away, vain harvest,<br /> +The winds' scythes can reap you,<br /> +Where you lie on the earth, and to death's barns you can go.<br /> +<br /> +Beyond the hilltop<br /> +I have seen only the sky.<br /> +The wind, naked, prodding up black-furred clouds,<br /> +Cossacks of winter.<br /> +<br /> +Cry, wind,<br /> +Shriek to the shivering southland,<br /> +That I am going into winter,<br /> +That I do not hope to return.<br /> +<br /> +Farewell, crowded stars,<br /> +Farewell, birds, winds, clouds and tree-tops,<br /> +I, weary of you all, seek my destined joy in the north-land,<br /> +Amid blue ice and the rose-purple night of the pole.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +V<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Beyond the land there lies the sea;<br /> +And on the sea with wings unfurled,<br /> +Bloodily huge the sunset rests,<br /> +Feathers flickering and claws curled,<br /> +Watching to seize the ruined world.<br /> +<br /> +Rolling in a torrent,<br /> +Brown leaves, my achievements,<br /> +Rise up from dark-wooded valleys<br /> +And scatter themselves on the sea;<br /> +Brown birds, my wild dreams,<br /> +Mingle their bodies together,<br /> +Shrieking and clamouring as they pass,<br /> +Black charred silhouettes<br /> +Against the west, curtained in orange flame.<br /> +Now the wind starts up<br /> +And strikes the seething water:<br /> +Hissing in uncoiled fury<br /> +Each foam-curled wave darts forward<br /> +To clash and batter<br /> +The smouldering iron-rust cliff,<br /> +Where the end of my road is lost.<br /> +<br /> +Rise up, black clouds;<br /> +Pounce upon the sunset:<br /> +Tear it with your jagged teeth.<br /> +Fling yourselves, seething winds, in circles<br /> +Upon the blue-black water,<br /> +Swirl, leaves, and dance<br /> +Amid the chaos of breakers,<br /> +Flicker, birds, an instant<br /> +Against the tawny tiger throat of the sun<br /> +Which is snarling in the west.<br /> +Beat down, O great winds, westward,<br /> +Loose reins and gallop to seaward,<br /> +Rush me, too, to that ocean,<br /> +In which I have found my goal.<br /> +<br /> +Lash me, lap me, rugged waves of blue-black water,<br /> +Dash me, clutch me and do not let me rest one instant;<br /> +All through the purple-blue night rock and soothe me,<br /> +Till I awaken dreamingly at the faint rose breast of the dawn.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="RED_SYMPHONY" id="RED_SYMPHONY"></a>RED SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Over the ink-black cauldron of the sea,<br /> +Heavily, on wings of leaden cloud,<br /> +Howling the sunset<br /> +Races out to assail me.<br /> +<br /> +Long have I voyaged,<br /> +Night after night the grey rains swept the sea:<br /> +The heaving breakers<br /> +Hissed and quivered but held no light.<br /> +<br /> +Now my voyage is ending,<br /> +White storm winds have swept bare my soul;<br /> +With their harsh laughter,<br /> +Their maddening mockery,<br /> +Their bayonet-thrusts of despair.<br /> +<br /> +Over the keen, clean-swept zenith<br /> +Roll crushingly, huge masses of cloud:<br /> +Dull, ponderous, sagging with the burden<br /> +Of creaking snow.<br /> +<br /> +They drop flat on the sea,<br /> +They hang menacing over me,<br /> +They festoon the sun<br /> +With swags of crimson light.<br /> +<br /> +They stripe the horizon,<br /> +They bar every way with their iron tongues;<br /> +They loom weltering over my effort,<br /> +They steadfastly close me in.<br /> +<br /> +Meanwhile the sun<br /> +With dying force<br /> +Wrenches one little crack<br /> +In the midst of the sagging masses,<br /> +And I steer on to it.<br /> +<br /> +Like a crimson lake<br /> +The light overflows and touches the bulging surfaces<br /> +With carmine, with scarlet,<br /> +With orange, with vermillion,<br /> +With brick red, with bluish purple,<br /> +With maroon, with rose, with russet,<br /> +With savage green, with snowy blue,<br /> +With grey, with ebony, with gold.<br /> +<br /> +It is the storm of the evening<br /> +That races out shrieking<br /> +To assail me,<br /> +And I hail it.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The sky's vast emptiness<br /> +Is crowded with fragments colliding,<br /> +Ragged, splintered masses<br /> +Swirling away to the night.<br /> +<br /> +The volcano of the sun<br /> +Has burst and split its crater:<br /> +Black slag is hurled to the zenith<br /> +Above the red lava-sea.<br /> +<br /> +Black shrivelled, charred fragments<br /> +Fall into the scarlet torrent:<br /> +Huge tresses of darkness sweep over my face,<br /> +Leaving me choking.<br /> +<br /> +The sea is one crimson steaming fire;<br /> +Each fanged wavelet<br /> +Flickers and dances about the one behind it,<br /> +Hungrily licking at the ship.<br /> +<br /> +Fierce whirling swords,<br /> +Tossed spear-heads lancelike<br /> +Spit and stab, then suddenly fall<br /> +Leaving me there<br /> +On a rolling summit of flame, facing a gulf of despair.<br /> +<br /> +The ship<br /> +Lurches<br /> +With ice-crusted prow into the wave-trough;<br /> +And rises, rapidly dripping liquid lire,<br /> +Long twisted necklaces, that burn out to green frozen chrysolite.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Over my head a bell beats: it is midnight.<br /> +Perhaps I will live to the dawn.<br /> +<br /> +About me are the mouths of yawning furnaces<br /> +And from these scarlet mouths the heat outpours,<br /> +And darts and licks its dry tongues at my brain<br /> +Till it, too, seems a black shell almost bursting<br /> +With the force of flame in it.<br /> +<br /> +Still, wearily, I swing my shovel,<br /> +Spattering the black coal over the palates<br /> +Of the snoring mouths which rapidly swallow.<br /> +There is nothing else to do.<br /> +<br /> +My legs seem melting away in sweat beneath me:<br /> +In my body my lungs and heart are fighting for air,<br /> +My eyes are seared by the appalling scarlet,<br /> +Of the furnaces about me—I scarcely-see them—My<br /> +shovelfuls fall short with every swing.<br /> +<br /> +Without I hear the battering of the tempest,<br /> +The ship is pounded sideways by black immeasurable wave-thrusts,<br /> +And rising dizzily again, like a half-senseless fighter,<br /> +Is again sent downwards, by those unseen fists.<br /> +<br /> +My shovel rises to the ship's slow recovery,<br /> +My shovel shoots out at the smash of toppling masses,<br /> +Sometimes I pause and pant for an endless instant,<br /> +While the ship crouches, quivering.<br /> +<br /> +Over my head a bell beats: it is morning.<br /> +Wearily I drop the shovel,<br /> +And drag myself to the deck.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Afar<br /> +There is something that seems a shore;<br /> +The sky has been blown clean of clouds except to westward,<br /> +And these stare hard at me, like huge sardonyx towers.<br /> +<br /> +I cling to a half-shattered rail that reels and dances,<br /> +Soused by the choking water,<br /> +My face a streaming mass of blood and salt and grime,<br /> +I wait and dizzily I try to remember.<br /> +<br /> +What is this city that out there awaits me?<br /> +Am I its conqueror?<br /> +<br /> +Will scarlet flags hang fluttering in the streets<br /> +To greet my coming?<br /> +Will crimson lanterns<br /> +Jingle and toss in festival to-night?<br /> +<br /> +Has the fire burned the ship and is the water<br /> +But stinging icy fire,<br /> +That whips and sears my face?<br /> +<br /> +Down there the furnaces go out, for the water<br /> +Sloshes about the floor;<br /> +And steaming acrid fumes arise,<br /> +No living soul could stay in such a place.<br /> +<br /> +Out here the decks are shattered,<br /> +The boats are shorn away,<br /> +And far on the horizon,<br /> +The city glares with its sardonyx towers.<br /> +<br /> +Now the red bells,<br /> +The black-red bells,<br /> +The storm bells,<br /> +Break loose from the horizon,<br /> +Leaping upon the eastern sea,<br /> +And breaking it in their teeth.<br /> +<br /> +The towers<br /> +Infuriate, enkindle<br /> +From base to summit,<br /> +In layers, and orange terraces,<br /> +Against the blue snow haze that drifts down on them from the east.<br /> +<br /> +The ship of my soul<br /> +Is rolling to port at last,<br /> +With one clang from its heaving boilers,<br /> +One sigh from its shaking funnels,<br /> +One rattle from its loosened chains.<br /> +I will lash myself to the masthead<br /> +And wait<br /> +Empty-eyed and open-mouthed,<br /> +Till the city that is all one scarlet flame of death<br /> +Takes me to itself at last.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="VIOLET_SYMPHONY" id="VIOLET_SYMPHONY"></a>VIOLET SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +But yesterday<br /> +Moonsails were raking high the harbour of my dreams.<br /> +<br /> +Dull night of trees,<br /> +Dark sorrows drooping,<br /> +Glittering raindrops gleam on you<br /> +In recollection<br /> +Of my despair.<br /> +<br /> +But yesterday<br /> +Stardust was scattered deep on the dark gulf of my dreams.<br /> +<br /> +Wind of the night,<br /> +Questing, swaying, calling,<br /> +Rustle of dull grasses,<br /> +Why do you trouble me?<br /> +<br /> +Yesterday<br /> +Purple mist was powdered on the windless sea of dreams.<br /> +<br /> +Faces of the night that pass me,<br /> +Haggard, monotonous faces,<br /> +Windblown hair and lustful lips,<br /> +I am not what you desire.<br /> +<br /> +Yesterday<br /> +One—two—sails above the mist—.<br /> +Windswallows that hover<br /> +Towards the rainclouds of the horizon,<br /> +Out of the reedy harbours<br /> +Rocking, swaying, falling,<br /> +Blown to sea and parted<br /> +Yesterday,<br /> +Yesterday.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Purple-blue bloom of night,<br /> +Globed grapes clustered morosely<br /> +Down the dark vineyards of untrodden streets:<br /> +<br /> +The noise of the moments is like the clash of the hoofs of a horse<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">rattling,</span><br /> +Thin tattoo in the stillness:<br /> +The noise of the moments takes me, uncaring,<br /> +Towards the day.<br /> +<br /> +With brassy crash, dawn's corybants<br /> +Invade and trample the vineyard:<br /> +Like a faun I hide and watch them,<br /> +A dark cup in my hand.<br /> +<br /> +Spoilers of my vineyard,<br /> +Spilling the lees of my sweet red wine,<br /> +You will yet ask in vain for a cup that is not yours,<br /> +A purple, dewy cup of lonely night.<br /> +<br /> +Tramplers in the morning,<br /> +Sunburnt faces and weary lips,<br /> +There is yet a cup here you cannot have,<br /> +I hold it in my hands.<br /> +<br /> +Would you drink of it?<br /> +Lay down your thyrse and timbrel.<br /> +Break the harsh dance that flickers through the morning,<br /> +Forget the scarlet perfumes of the day.<br /> +<br /> +Remember only starless night, cool swish of many seas.<br /> +<br /> +Faint pearl-glow of evening,<br /> +Cool marble in the silence:<br /> +Purple-blue grapes of night crushed freshly,<br /> +Deep sleep and the drowsy stars.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I love the night that in long violet shroud<br /> +Slowly and lovingly wraps up the day,<br /> +Hiding its blurred imperfections<br /> +In endless tenderness.<br /> +<br /> +I love the day's<br /> +High violet cone of light,<br /> +With thin haze on the horizon<br /> +Like a wavering summer sea.<br /> +<br /> +But most of all I love midsummer dawn,<br /> +When far-off planes of light ascend and tremble together<br /> +Like distant purple waves, the sound of whose dim breaking<br /> +Is lost in the wild babel of awaking birds.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Twisted fragments of violet paper,<br /> +The dawn drops you<br /> +Into the green bowl filled with the day's grey waves.<br /> +<br /> +I love the night's<br /> +Deep purple grapes<br /> +That yesterday<br /> +Were crushed and spilled,<br /> +In long and sluggish rivers<br /> +That joined and made a sea,<br /> +Where, half-guessed through the mist,<br /> +Two golden sails<br /> +Drifted on silently.<br /> +<br /> +The blue fume of my dreams<br /> +Is laced with violet flame.<br /> +<br /> +One golden sail alone came back to rest<br /> +In its nest<br /> +Among the reeds.<br /> +The other sail is lost;<br /> +Behind the mist,<br /> +Beyond the craggy rock,<br /> +About which race in jagged white<br /> +The waves,<br /> +Horizon on horizon far away<br /> +She waits.<br /> +But through the day,<br /> +Comes no faint song, nor creaking of the ropes.<br /> +<br /> +Twisted fragments of violet paper,<br /> +Charred and fallen:<br /> +Out of the green bowl lazily coils grey smoke.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="GREY_SYMPHONY" id="GREY_SYMPHONY"></a>GREY SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Up on the hillside a long row of larches<br /> +Shake from their grizzled Beards the vestiges of rain,<br /> +From grey-blue melting ice-slabs 'neath their arches<br /> +The spring goes up again.<br /> +<br /> +Writhing, exuding,<br /> +Up-steaming, streaming,<br /> +The earth is breathing to the sky<br /> +Wet clouds of spring.<br /> +<br /> +Dim rosy fans, the trees<br /> +As they flick to and fro,<br /> +Seem driving greyish vapour<br /> +Over the snow.<br /> +<br /> +The sky remodulates itself<br /> +From violet-grey to blue,<br /> +Under the upturned eaves of the blue larches<br /> +The sun looks through.<br /> +<br /> +Now with the heat of the sun<br /> +The grey-blue ice-slabs quiver,<br /> +They slide in muddy trickles<br /> +Towards the river.<br /> +<br /> +Up on the hillside between the long row of larches<br /> +Fume up from south pale clouds that bear the rain;<br /> +In pearl and violet arches<br /> +They break and shape again.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I have seen in the evening<br /> +The greyish-violet clouds<br /> +Roll wearily back from northward<br /> +To the place whence first they came.<br /> +<br /> +One or two orange lamps burnt low<br /> +Against deep purple hills—<br /> +<br /> +The wind was hurrying, bundling them together,<br /> +The pines awoke to sing<br /> +The song of the snow buzzing and screaming<br /> +On its one string.<br /> +<br /> +I have seen within my heart<br /> +Crocuses, purple and gold,<br /> +Drop cold and dull and colourless<br /> +Beneath the snow.<br /> +<br /> +One or two orange lamps burnt low,<br /> +Vain memories.<br /> +<br /> +The wind has driven me too many winters,<br /> +My songs are snowflakes whirling about my breast.<br /> +I will wrap my frozen and bitter songs about me,<br /> +In one grey drift, and rest.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Fluttering and soft the snow<br /> +Flings outward, swirls and settles,<br /> +But when I try to seize it,<br /> +The wind tears it away.<br /> +<br /> +Through poised green platforms of enormous pines,<br /> +I see far hilltops pushing up blue roofs.<br /> +Snow comes,<br /> +And hums<br /> +Through the woof<br /> +Of the lower branches.<br /> +It skips and dances:<br /> +It drops in sluggish folds<br /> +Of grey,<br /> +To where the frozen rhododendron bushes<br /> +With lower air-gusts play,<br /> +And the earth hushes<br /> +Its movement.<br /> +<br /> +Fluttering and soft the snow is blent<br /> +In long loose spirals with my dream.<br /> +<br /> +It is all I have, the snow,<br /> +And I know<br /> +That when I chase it, it will fly from me;<br /> +Beyond the lifeless green,<br /> +Beyond the low blue hills,<br /> +Beyond the pale straw-coloured glare,<br /> +Down in the west<br /> +It goes;<br /> +Straight southward where the purple-orange flare<br /> +Of sunset flows,<br /> +And into the blackened heart of my last rose<br /> +Pours its despair.<br /> +<br /> +Fluttering, soft, and dim<br /> +Regrets that skip and skim<br /> +Grey in the grey twilight;<br /> +Slim and weary whirls the snow,<br /> +And where it goes I too shall go.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Of my long nights afar in alien cities<br /> +I have remembered only this:<br /> +They were black scarves all dusted over with silver,<br /> +In which I wrapped my dreams;<br /> +They were black screens on which I made those pictures<br /> +That faded out next day.<br /> +<br /> +Youth without glory, manhood one mad struggle,<br /> +Maturity a battle without trumpet calls:<br /> +Long gleams from pallid suns seen only in my dreaming<br /> +Struck those dissolving walls.<br /> +<br /> +And of my days,<br /> +I only know<br /> +They slipped and fell,<br /> +Like too-brief sunsets,<br /> +Into the hill-ravines that held the snow.<br /> +Three lofty pines<br /> +At the corners of my heart<br /> +Waited, apart.<br /> +<br /> +They only see<br /> +In the mystery<br /> +Of the grey sky,<br /> +The jaggled clouds that fly,<br /> +Endlessly.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="POPPIES_OF_THE_RED_YEAR" id="POPPIES_OF_THE_RED_YEAR"></a>POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR<br /> +<br /> +<i>(A Symphony in Scarlet)</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The words that I have written<br /> +To me become as poppies:<br /> +Deep angry disks of scarlet flame full-glowing in the stillness<br /> +Of a shut room.<br /> +<br /> +Silken their edges undulate out to me,<br /> +Drooping on their hairy stems;<br /> +Flaring like folded shawls, down-curved like rockets starting<br /> +To break and shatter their light.<br /> +<br /> +Wide-flaunting and heavy, crinkle-lipped blossom,<br /> +Darting faint shivers through me;<br /> +Globed Chinese lanterns on green silk cords a-swaying<br /> +Over motionless pools.<br /> +<br /> +These are lamps of a festival of sleep held each night to welcome me,<br /> +Crimson-bursting through dark doors.<br /> +Out to the dull, blue, heavy fumes of opium rolling<br /> +From their rent red hearts, I go to seek my dream.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +A riven wall like a face half torn away<br /> +Stares blankly at the evening:<br /> +And from a window like a crooked mouth<br /> +It barks at the sunset sky.<br /> +<br /> +And over there, beyond,<br /> +On plains where night has settled,<br /> +Ten-like encampments of vaporous blue smoke or mist,<br /> +Three men are riding.<br /> +<br /> +One of them looks and sees the sky:<br /> +One of them looks and sees the earth:<br /> +The last one looks and sees nothing at all.<br /> +They ride on.<br /> +<br /> +One of them pauses and says, "It is death."<br /> +Another pauses and says, "It is life."<br /> +The last one pauses and says, "'Tis a dream."<br /> +His bridle shakes.<br /> +<br /> +The sky<br /> +Is filled with oval violet-tinted clouds<br /> +Through which the sun long settled strikes at random,<br /> +Enkindling here and there blotched circles of rosy light.<br /> +<br /> +These are poppies,<br /> +Unclosing immense corollas,<br /> +Waving the horsemen on.<br /> +<br /> +Over the earth, upheaving, folding,<br /> +They ride: their bridles shake:<br /> +One of them sees the sky is red:<br /> +One of them sees the earth is dark:<br /> +The last man sees he rides to his death,<br /> +Yet he says nothing at all.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +There will be no harvest at all this year;<br /> +For the gaunt black slopes arising<br /> +Lift the wrinkled aching furrows of their fields, falling away,<br /> +To the rainy sky in vain.<br /> +<br /> +But in the furrows<br /> +There is grass and many flowers.<br /> +Scarlet tossing poppies<br /> +Flutter their wind-slashed edges,<br /> +On which gorged black flies poise and sway in drunken sleep.<br /> +<br /> +The black flies hang<br /> +Above the tangled trampled grasses,<br /> +Grey, crumpled bundles lie in them:<br /> +They sprawl,<br /> +Heave faintly;<br /> +And between their stiffened fingers,<br /> +Run out clogged crimson trickles,<br /> +Spattering the poppies and standing in beads on the grass.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I saw last night<br /> +Sudden puffs of flame in the northern sky.<br /> +<br /> +The sky was an even expanse of rolling grey smoke,<br /> +Lit faintly by the moon that hung<br /> +Its white face in a dead tree to the east.<br /> +<br /> +Within the depths of greenish greyish smoke<br /> +Were roars,<br /> +Crackles and spheres of vapour,<br /> +And then<br /> +Huge disks of crimson shooting up, falling away.<br /> +<br /> +And I said these are flower petals,<br /> +Sleep petals, dream petals,<br /> +Blown by the winds of a dream.<br /> +<br /> +But still the crimson rockets rose.<br /> +They seemed to be<br /> +One great field of immense poppies burning evenly,<br /> +Casting their viscid perfume to the earth.<br /> +<br /> +The earth is sown with dead,<br /> +And out of these the red<br /> +Blooms are pushing up, advancing higher,<br /> +And each night brings them nigher,<br /> +Closer, closer to my heart.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +V<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +By the sluggish canal<br /> +That winds between thin ugly dunes,<br /> +There are no passing boats with creaking ropes to-day.<br /> +<br /> +But when the evening<br /> +Crouches down, like a hurt rabbit,<br /> +Under the everlasting raincloud whirling up the north horizon,<br /> +Downwards on the stream will float<br /> +Glowing points of fire.<br /> +<br /> +Orange, coppery, scarlet,<br /> +Crimson, rosy, flickering,<br /> +They pass, the lanterns<br /> +Of the unknown dead.<br /> +<br /> +Out where the sea, sailless,<br /> +Is mouthing and fretting<br /> +Its chaos of pebbles and dried sticks by the dunes.<br /> +<br /> +By the wall of that house<br /> +That looks like a face half torn away,<br /> +And from its flat mouth barks at the sky,<br /> +The sky which is shot with broad red disks of light,<br /> +Petals drowsily falling.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +VI<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +"It was not for a sacred cause,<br /> +Nor for faith, nor for new generations,<br /> +That unburied we roll and float<br /> +Beneath this flaming tumult of drunken sleep-flowers.<br /> +But it was for a mad adventure,<br /> +Something we longed for, poisonous, seductive,<br /> +That we dared go out in the night together,<br /> +Towards the glow that called us,<br /> +On the unsown fields of death.<br /> +<br /> +"Now we lie here reaped, ungarnered,<br /> +Red swaths of a new harvest:<br /> +But you who follow after,<br /> +Must struggle with our dream:<br /> +And out of its restless and oppressive night,<br /> +Filled with blue fumes, dull, choking,<br /> +You will draw hints of that vision<br /> +Which we hold aloof in silence."<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<b>THE END</b></p> + + + + + + + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38856 ***</div> + +</body> +</html> 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..8d6a321 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #38856 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38856) diff --git a/old/38856-8.txt b/old/38856-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c14ae5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/38856-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3433 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Goblins and Pagodas, by John Gould Fletcher + +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: Goblins and Pagodas + +Author: John Gould Fletcher + +Release Date: February 13, 2012 [EBook #38856] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOBLINS AND PAGODAS *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org +(From images generously made available by the Internet +Archive.) + + + + + +GOBLINS AND PAGODAS + +BY + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + +1916 + + + + + +TO + +DAISY + + + +Thanks are due to the editor of The Egoist, London, for permission to +reprint The Ghosts of an Old House and the Orange Symphony; to the +editor of Poetry, Chicago, for permission to reprint the Blue Symphony; +and to the editor of The Little Review for permission to reprint the +Green Symphony. + + + + +PREFACE + + +I + +The second half of the nineteenth and the first fifteen years of the +twentieth century have been a period of research, of experiment, of +unrest and questioning. In science and philosophy we have witnessed an +attempt to destroy the mechanistic theory of the universe as developed +by Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. The unknowable has been questioned: +hypotheses have been shaken: vitalism and idealism have been proclaimed. +In the arts, the tendency has been to strip each art of its inessentials +and to disclose the underlying basis of pure form. In life, the +principles of nationality, of racial culture, of individualism, of +social development, of Christian ethics, have been discussed, debated, +and examined from top to bottom, until at last, in the early years of +the twentieth century we find all Europe, from the leaders of thought +down to the lowest peasantry, engaged in a mutually destructive war of +which few can trace the beginnings and none can foresee the end. The +fundamental tenets of thought, art, life itself, have been shaken: and +either civilization is destined to some new birth, or mankind will +revert to the conditions of life, thought, and social intercourse that +prevailed in the Stone Age. + +Like all men of my generation, I have not been able to resist this +irresistible upheaval of ideas and of forces: and, to the best of my +ability, I have tried to arrive at a clear understanding of the +fundamentals of æsthetic form as they affect the art to which I have +felt myself instinctively akin, the art of poetry. That I have +completely attained such an understanding, it would be idle for me to +pretend: but I believe, and have induced some others to believe, that I +have made a few steps towards it. Some explanation of my own peculiar +theories and beliefs is necessary, however, to those who have not +specifically concerned themselves with poetry, or who suffer in the +presence of any new work of art from the normal human reaction that all +art principles are so essentially fixed that any departure from accepted +ideas is madness. + + +II + +The fundamental basis of all the arts is the same. In every case art +aims at the evocation of some human emotion in the spectator or +listener. Where science proceeds from effects to causes, and seeks to +analyze the underlying causes of emotion and sensation, art reverses the +process, and constructs something that will awaken emotions, according +to the amount of receptiveness with which other people approach it. Thus +architecture gives us feelings of density, proportion, harmony: +sculpture, of masses in movement; painting, of colour-harmony and the +ordered composition of lines and volumes from which arise sensations of +space: music, of the development of sounds into melodic line, harmonic +progression, tonal opposition, and symphonic structure. + +The object of literature is not dissimilar from these. Literature aims +at releasing the emotions that arise from the formed words of a certain +language. But literature is probably a less pure--and hence more +universal--art than any I have yet examined. For it must be apparent to +all minds that not only is a word a definite symbol of some fact, but +also it is a thing capable of being spoken or sounded. The art of +literature, then, in so far as it deals with definite statements, is +akin to painting or photography: in so far as it deals with sounded +words, it is akin to music. + + +III + +Literature, therefore, does not depend on the peculiar twists and quirks +which represent, to those who can read, the words, but rather on the +essential words themselves. In fact, literature existed before writing; +and writing in itself is of no value from the purely literary sense, +except in so far as it preserves and transmits from generation to +generation the literary emotion. Style, whether in prose or poetry, is +an attempt to develop this essentially musical quality of literature, to +evoke the magic that exists in the sound-quality of words, as well as +to combine these sound-qualities in definite statements or sentences. +The difference between prose and poetry is, therefore, not a difference +of means, but of psychological effect and reaction. The means employed, +the formed language, is the same: but the resultant impression is quite +different. + +In prose, the emotions expressed are those that are capable of +development in a straight line. In so far as prose is pure, it confines +itself to the direct orderly progression of a thought or conception or +situation from point to point of a flat surface. The sentences, as they +develop this conception from its beginning to conclusion, move on, and +do not return upon themselves. The grouping of these sentences into +paragraphs gives the breadth of the thought. The paragraphs, sections, +and chapters are each a square, in that they represent a division of the +main thought into parallel units, or blocks of subsidiary ideas. The +sensation of depth is finally obtained by arranging these blocks in a +rising climacteric progression, or in parallel lines, or in a sort of +zigzag figure. + +The psychological reaction that arises from the intelligent appreciation +of poetry is quite different. In poetry, we have a succession of curves. +The direction of the thought is not in straight lines, but wavy and +spiral. It rises and falls on gusts of strong emotion. Most often it +creates strongly marked loops and circles. The structure of the stanza +or strophe always tends to the spherical. Depth is obtained by making +one sphere contain a number of concentric, or overlapping spheres. + +Hence, when we speak of poetry we usually mean regular rhyme and metre, +which have for so long been considered essential to all poetry, not as a +device for heightening musical effect, as so many people suppose, but +merely to make these loops and circles more accentuated, and to make the +line of the poem turn upon itself more recognizably. But it must be +recognized that just as Giotto's circle was none the less a circle, +although not drawn with compasses, so poetic circles can be constructed +out of subtler and more musical curves than that which painstakingly +follows the selfsame progression of beats, and catches itself up on the +same point of rhyme for line after line. The key pattern on the lip of a +Greek vase may be beautiful, but it is less beautiful, less satisfying, +and less conclusive a test of artistic ability than the composition of +satyrs and of mænads struggling about the centre. Therefore I maintain, +and will continue to do so, that the mere craftsman-ability to write in +regular lines and metres no more makes a man a poet than the ability to +stencil wall-papers makes him a painter. + +Rather is it more important to observe that almost any prose work of +imaginative literature, if examined closely, will be found to contain a +plentiful sprinkling of excellent verses; while many poems which the +world hails as master-pieces, contain whole pages of prose. The fact is, +that prose and poetry are to literature as composition and colour are +to painting, or as light and shadow to the day, or male and female to +mankind. There are no absolutely perfect poets and no absolutely perfect +prose-writers. Each partakes of some of the characteristics of the +other. The difference between poetry and prose is, therefore, a +difference between a general roundness and a general squareness of +outline. A great French critic, recently dead, who devoted perhaps the +major part of his life to the study of the æsthetics of the French +tongue, declared that Flaubert and Chateaubriand wrote only poetry. If +there are those who cannot see that in the only true and lasting sense +of the word poetry, this remark was perfectly just, then all I have +written above will be in vain. + + +IV + +Along with the prevailing preoccupation with technique which so marks +the early twentieth century, there has gone also a great change in the +subject-matter of art. Having tried to explain the aesthetic form-basis +of poetry, I shall now attempt to explain my personal way of viewing its +content. + +It is a significant fact that every change in technical procedure in the +arts is accompanied by, and grows out of, a change in subject-matter. To +take only one out of innumerable examples, the new subject-matter of +Wagner's music-dramas, of an immeasurably higher order than the usual +libretto, created a new form of music, based on motifs, not melodies. +Other examples can easily be discovered. The reason for this is not +difficult to find. + +No sincere artist cares to handle subject-matter that has already been +handled and exhausted. It is not a question of a desire to avoid +plagiarism, or of self-conscious searching for novelty, but of a +perfectly spontaneous and normal appeal which any new subject-matter +always makes. Hence, when a new subject appears to any artist, he always +realizes it more vividly than an old one, and if he is a good artist, he +realizes it so vividly that he recreates it in what is practically a +novel form. + +This novel form never is altogether novel, nor is the subject altogether +a new subject. For, as I pointed out at the beginning of this preface, +that all arts sprang practically out of the same primary sensations, so +the subject-matter of all art must forever be the same: namely, nature +and human life. Hence, any new type of art will always be found, in +subject-matter as well as in technique, to have its roots in the old. +Art is like a kaleidoscope, capable of many changes, while the material +which builds up those changes remains the same. + +Nevertheless, although the subject-matter in this book is not altogether +new, yet I have realized it in a way which has not often been tried, and +out of that fresh and quite personal realization have sprung my +innovations in subject as well as technique. Let me illustrate by a +concrete example. + + +V + +A book lies on my desk. It has a red binding and is badly printed on +cheap paper. I have had this book with me for several years. Now, +suppose I were to write a poem on this book, how would I treat the +subject? + +If I were a poet following in the main the Victorian tradition, I should +write my poem altogether about the contents of this book and its author. +My poem would be essentially a criticism of the subject-matter of the +book. I should state at length how that subject-matter had affected me. +In short, what the reader would obtain from this sort of poem would be +my sentimental reaction towards certain ideas and tendencies in the work +of another. + +If I were a realist poet, I should write about the book's external +appearance. I should expatiate on the red binding, the bad type, the +ink-stain on page sixteen. I should complain, perhaps, of my poverty at +not being able to buy a better edition, and conclude with a gibe at the +author for not having realized the sufferings of the poor. + +Neither of these ways, however, of writing about this book possesses any +novelty, and neither is essentially my own way. My own way of writing +about it would be as follows:-- + +I should select out of my life the important events connected with my +ownership of this book, and strive to write of them in terms of the +volume itself, both as regards subject-matter and appearance. In other +words, I should link up my personality and the personality of the book, +and make each a part of the other. In this way I should strive to evoke +a soul out of this piece of inanimate matter, a something characteristic +and structural inherent in this in-organic form which is friendly to me +and responds to my mood. + +This method is not new, although it has not often been used in +Occidental countries. Professor Fenollosa, in his book on Chinese and +Japanese art, states that it was universally employed by the Chinese +artists and poets of the Sung period in the eleventh century A.D. He +calls this doctrine of the interdependence of man and inanimate nature, +the cardinal doctrine of Zen Buddhism. The Zen Buddhists evolved it from +the still earlier Taoist philosophy, which undoubtedly inspired Li Po +and the other great Chinese poets of the seventh and eighth centuries +A.D. + + +VI + +In the first poems of this volume, the "Ghosts of an Old House," I have +followed the method already described. I have tried to evoke, out of the +furniture and surroundings of a certain old house, definite emotions +which I have had concerning them. I have tried to relate my childish +terror concerning this house--a terror not uncommon among children, as I +can testify--to the aspects that called it forth. + +In the "Symphonies," which form the second part of this volume, I have +gone a step further. My aim in writing these was, from the beginning, to +narrate certain important phases of the emotional and intellectual +development--in short, the life--of an artist, not necessarily myself, +but of that sort of artist with which I might find myself most in +sympathy. And here, not being restrained by any definite material +phenomena, as in the Old House, I have tried to state each phase in the +terms of a certain colour, or combination of colours, which is +emotionally akin to that phase. This colour, and the imaginative +phantasmagoria of landscape which it evokes, thereby creates, in a +definite and tangible form, the dominant mood of each poem. + +The emotional relations that exist between form, colour, and sound have +been little investigated. It is perfectly true that certain colours +affect certain temperaments differently. But it is also true that there +is a science of colour, and that certain of its laws are already +universally known, if not explained. Naturally enough, it is to the +painters we must first turn if we want to find out what is known about +colour. We discover that painters continually are speaking of hot and +cold colour: red, yellow, orange being generally hot, and green, blue, +and violet cold--mixed colours being classed hot and cold according to +the proportions they contain of the hot and cold colours. We also +discover that certain colours will not fit certain forms, but rebel at +the combination. This is so far true that scarcely any landscape painter +finishes his pictures from nature, but in the studio: and almost any art +student, painting a landscape, will disregard the colour before him and +employ the colour-scheme of his master or of some painter he admires. As +Delacroix noted in his journal: "A conception having become a +composition must move in the milieu of a colour peculiar to it. There +seems to be a particular tone belonging to some part of every picture +which is a key that governs all the other tones." + +Therefore, we must admit that there is an intimate relation between +colour and form. It is the same with colour and sounds. Many musicians +have observed the phenomenon, that when certain notes, or combinations +of them, are sounded, certain colours are also suggested to the eye. A +Russian composer, Scriabine, went so far as to construct colour-scales, +and an English scientist, Professor Wallace Rimington, has built an +organ which plays in colours, instead of notes. Unfortunately, the +musicians have given this subject less attention than the painters, and +therefore our knowledge concerning the relations of colour and sound is +more fragmentary and incomplete. Nevertheless, these relations exist, +and it is for the future to develop them more fully. + +Literature, and especially poetry, as I have already pointed out, +partakes of the character of both painting and music. The impressionist +method is quite as applicable to writing as it is to landscape. Poems +can be written in major or minor keys, can be as full of dominant motif +as a Wagner music-drama, and even susceptible of fugal treatment. +Literature is the common ground of many arts, and in its highest +development, such as the drama as practised in fifth-century Athens, is +found allied to music, dancing, and colour. Hence, I have called my +works "Symphonies," when they are really dramas of the soul, and hence, +in them I have used colour for verity, for ornament, for drama, for its +inherent beauty, and for intensifying the form of the emotion that each +of these poems is intended to evoke. + + +VII + +Let us take an artist, a young man at the outset of his career. His +years of searching, of fumbling, of other men's influence, are coming to +an end. Sure of himself, he yet sees that he will spend all his life +pursuing a vision of beauty which will elude him at the very last. This +is the first symphony, which I have called the "Blue," because blue +suggests to me depth, mystery, and distance. + +He finds himself alone in a great city, surrounded by noise and +clamour. It is as if millions of lives were tugging at him, drawing him +away from his art, tempting him to go out and whelm his personality in +this black whirlpool of struggle and failure, on which float golden +specks--the illusory bliss of life. But he sees that all this is only +another illusion, like his own. Here we have the "Symphony in Black and +Gold." + +He emerges from the city, and in the country is re-intoxicated with +desire for life by spring. He vows himself to a self-sufficing pagan +worship of nature. This is the "Green Symphony." + +Quickened by spring, he dreams of a marvellous golden city of art, fall +of fellow-workers. This city appears to him at times like some Italian +town of the Renaissance, at others like some strange Oriental +golden-roofed monastery-temple. He sees himself dead in the desert far +away from it. Yet its blossoming is ever about him. Something divine has +been born of him after death. + +So he passes to the "White Symphony," the central poem of this series, +in which I have sought to describe the artist's struggle to attain +unutterable and superhuman perfection. This struggle goes on from the +midsummer of his life to midwinter. The end of it is stated in the poem. + +There follows a brief interlude, which I have called a "Symphony in +White and Blue." These colours were chosen perhaps more +idiosyncratically in this case than in the others. I have tried to +depict the sort of temptation that besets most artists at this stage of +their career: the temptation to abandon the struggle for the sake of a +purely sensual existence. In this case, however, the appeal of +sensuality is conveyed under the guise of a dream. It is resisted, and +the struggle begins anew. + +War breaks out, not alone in the external world, but in the artist's +soul. He finds he must follow his personality wherever it leads him, +despite all obstacles. This is the "Orange Symphony." + +Now follow long years of struggle and neglect. He is shipwrecked, and +still afar he sees his city of art, but this time it is red, a phantom +mocking his impotent rage. + +Old age follows. All is violet, the colour of regret and remembrance. He +is living only in the past, his life a succession of dreams. + +Lastly, all things fade out into absolute grey, and it is now midwinter. +Looking forth on the world again he still sees war, like a monstrous red +flower, dominating mankind. He hears the souls of the dead declaring +that they, too, have died for an adventure, even as he is about to die. + +Such, in the briefest possible analysis, is the meaning of the poems +contained in this book. + +_January_, 1916. + + + + + CONTENTS + + SECTION I. THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE + + PROLOGUE + + PART I. THE HOUSE + + Bedroom + Library + Indian Skull + Old Nursery + The Back Stairs + The Wall Cabinet + The Cellar + The Front Door + + PART II. THE ATTIC + + In the Attic + The Calendar in the Attic + The Hoopskirt + The Little Chair + In the Dark Corner + The Toy Cabinet + The Yardstick + + PART III. THE LAWN + + The Three Oaks + An Oak + Another Oak + The Old Barn + The Well + The Trees + Vision + Epilogue + + SECTION II. SYMPHONIES + + BLUE SYMPHONY + + SOLITUDE IN THE CITY (SYMPHONY IN BLACK AND GOLD) + + I. Words at Midnight + II. The Evening Rain + III. Street of Sorrows + IV. Song in the Darkness + + GREEN SYMPHONY + + GOLDEN SYMPHONY + + WHITE SYMPHONY + + MIDSUMMER DREAMS (SYMPHONY IN WHITE AND BLUE) + + ORANGE SYMPHONY + + RED SYMPHONY + + VIOLET SYMPHONY + + GREY SYMPHONY + + POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR (A SYMPHONY IN SCARLET) + + + + + SECTION I + + THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE + + + + PROLOGUE + + + The house that I write of, faces the north: + No sun ever seeks + Its six white columns, + The nine great windows of its face. + + It fronts foursquare the winds. + + Under the penthouse of the veranda roof, + The upper northern rooms + Gloom outwards mournfully. + + Staring Ionic capitals + Peer in them: + Owl-like faces. + + On winter nights + The wind, sidling round the corner, + Shoots upwards + With laughter. + + The windows rattle as if some one were in them wishing to get out + And ride upon the wind. + + Doors lead to nowhere: + Squirrels burrow between the walls. + Closets in every room hang open, + Windows are stared into by uncivil ancient trees. + + In the middle of the upper hallway + There is a great circular hole + Going up to the attic. + A wooden lid covers it. + + All over the house there is a sense of futility; + Of minutes dragging slowly + And repeating + Some worn-out story of broken effort and desire. + + + + + PART I. THE HOUSE + + + + BEDROOM + + + The clump of jessamine + Softly beneath the rain + Rocks its golden flowers. + + In this room my father died: + His bed is in the corner. + No one has slept in it + Since the morning when he wakened + To meet death's hands at his heart. + I cannot go to this room, + Without feeling something big and angry + Waiting for me + To throw me on the bed, + And press its thumbs in my throat. + + The clump of jessamine + Without, beneath the rain, + Rocks its golden flowers. + + + + LIBRARY + + + Stuffy smell of mouldering leather, + Tattered arm-chairs, creaking doors, + Books that slovenly elbow each other, + Sown with children's scrawls and long + Worn out by contact with generations: + Tattered tramps displaying yourselves-- + "We, though you broke our backs, did not complain." + If I had my way, + I would take you out and bury you quickly, + Or give you to the clean fire. + + + + INDIAN SKULL + + + Some one dug this up and brought it + To our house. + In the dark upper hall, I see it dimly, + Looking at me through the glass. + + Where dancers have danced, and weary people + Have crept to their bedrooms in the morning, + Where sick people have tossed all night, + Where children have been born, + Where feet have gone up and down, + Where anger has blazed forth, and strange looks have passed, + It has rested, watching meanwhile + The opening and shutting of doors, + The coming and going of people, + The carrying out of coffins. + + Earth still clings to its eye-sockets, + It will wait, till its vengeance is accomplished. + + + + OLD NURSERY + + + In the tired face of the mirror + There is a blue curtain reflected. + If I could lift the reflection, + Peer a little beyond, I would see + A boy crying + Because his sister is ill in another room + And he has no one to play with: + A boy listlessly scattering building blocks, + And crying, + Because no one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana. + I cannot lift the curtain: + It is stiff and frozen. + + + + THE BACK STAIRS + + + In the afternoon + When no one is in the house, + I suddenly hear dull dragging feet + Go fumbling down those dark back stairs, + That climb up twisting, + As if they wanted no one to see them. + Beating a dirge upon the bare planks + I hear those feet and the creak of a long-locked door. + + My mother often went + Up and down those selfsame stairs, + From the room where by the window + She would sit all day and listlessly + Look on the world that had destroyed her, + She would go down in the evening + To the room where she would sleep, + Or rather, not sleep, but all night + Lie staring fiercely at the ceiling. + + In the afternoon + When no one is in the house: + I suddenly hear dull dragging feet + Beating out their futile tune, + Up and down those dark back stairs, + But there is no one in the shadows. + + + + THE WALL CABINET + + + Above the steep back stairs + So high that only a ladder can come to it, + There is a wall cabinet hidden away. + + No one ever unlocks it; + The key is lost, the door is barred, + It is shut and still. + + Some say, a previous tenant + Filled its shelves with rows of bottles, + Bottles of spirit, filled with spiders. + + I do not know. + Above the sleepy still back stairs, + It watches, shut and still. + + + + THE CELLAR + + + Faintly lit by a high-barred grating, + The low-hung cellar, + Flattens itself under the house. + + In one corner + There is a little door, + So low, it can scarcely be seen. + + Beyond, + There is a narrow room, + One must feel for the walls in the dark. + + One shrinks to go + To the end of it, + Feeling the smooth cold wall. + + Why did the builders who made this house, + Stow one room away like this? + + + + THE FRONT DOOR + + + It was always the place where our farewells were taken, + When we travelled to the north. + + I remember there was one who made some journey, + But did not come back. + Many years they waited for him, + At last the one who wished the most to see him, + Was carried out of this selfsame door in death. + + Since then all our family partings + Have been at another door. + + + + + PART II. THE ATTIC + + + + IN THE ATTIC + + + Dust hangs clogged so thick + The air has a dusty taste: + Spider threads cling to my face, + From the broad pine-beams. + There is nothing living here, + The house below might be quite empty, + No sound comes from it. + The old broken trunks and boxes, + Cracked and dusty pictures, + Legless chairs and shattered tables, + Seem to be crying + Softly in the stillness + Because no one has brushed them. + No one has any use for them, now, + Yet I often wonder + If these things are really dead: + If the old trunks never open + Letting out grey flapping things at twilight? + If it is all as safe and dull + As it seems? + + Why then is the stair so steep, + Why is the doorway always locked, + Why does nobody ever come? + + + + THE CALENDAR IN THE ATTIC + + + I wonder how long it has been + Since this old calendar hung here, + With my birthday date upon it, + Nothing else--not a word of writing-- + Not a mark of any hand. + + Perhaps it was my father + Who left it thus + For me to see. + + Perhaps my mother + Smiled as she saw it; + But in later years did not smile. + If I could tear it down, + From the wall + Somehow + I would be content. + But I am afraid, as a little child, to touch it. + + + + THE HOOPSKIRT + + + In the night when all are sleeping, + Up here a tiny old dame comes tripping, + Looking for her lost hoopskirt. + + My great-grandaunt--I never saw her-- + Her ghost doesn't know me from another, + She stalks up the attic stairs angrily. + + The dust sets her sneezing and coughing, + By the trunk she is limping and hopping, + But alas--the trunk is locked. + + What's an old dame to do, anyway! + Must stay in a mouldy grave day on day, + Or go to heaven out of style. + + In the night when all are snoring, + The old lady makes a dreadful clatter, + Going down the attic stairs. + + What was that? A ghost or a burglar? + Oh, it was only the wind in the chimney, + Yes, and the attic door that slammed. + + + + THE LITTLE CHAIR + + + I know not why, when I saw the little chair, + I suddenly desired to sit in it. + + I know not why, when I sat in the little chair, + Everything changed, and life came back to me. + + I am convinced no one at all has grown up in the house, + The break that I dreamed, itself was a dream and is broken. + + I will sit in the little chair and wait, + Till the others come looking after me. + + And if it is after nightfall they will come, + So much the better. + + For the little chair holds me as tightly as death; + And rocking in it, I can hear it whisper strange things. + + + + IN THE DARK CORNER + + + I brush the dust from this old portrait: + Yes, it is the same face, exactly, + Why does it look at me still with such a look of hate? + + I brush the dust from a heap of magazines: + Here there is all what you have written, + All that you struggled long years and went down to darkness for. + + O God, to think what I am writing + Will be ever as this! + + O God, to think that my own face + May some day glare from this dust! + + + + THE TOY CABINET + + + By the old toy cabinet, + I stand and turn over dusty things: + Chessmen--card games--hoops and balls-- + Toy rifles, helmets, swords, + In the far corner + A doll's tea-set in a box. + + Where are you, golden child, + Who gave tea to your dolls and me? + The golden child is growing old, + Further than Rome or Babylon + From you have passed those foolish years. + She lives--she suffers--she forgets. + + By the old toy cabinet, + I idly stand and awkwardly + Finger the lock of the tea-set box. + What matter--why should I look inside, + Perhaps it is empty after all! + Leave old things to the ghosts of old; + + My stupid brain refuses thought, + I am maddened with a desire to weep. + + + + THE YARDSTICK + + + Yardstick that measured out so many miles of cloth, + Yardstick that covered me, + I wonder do you hop of nights + Out to the still hill-cemetery, + And up and down go measuring + A clayey grave for me? + + + + + PART III. THE LAWN + + + + THE THREE OAKS + + + There are three ancient oaks, + That grow near to each other. + + They lift their branches + High as beckoning + With outstretched arms, + For some one to come and stand + Under the canopy of their leaves. + + Once long ago I remember + As I lay in the very centre, + Between them: + A rotten branch suddenly fell + Near to me. + + I will not go back to those oaks: + Their branches are too black for my liking. + + + + AN OAK + + + Hoar mistletoe + Hangs in clumps + To the twisted boughs + Of this lonely tree. + + Beneath its roots I often thought treasure was buried: + For the roots had enclosed a circle. + + But when I dug beneath them, + I could only find great black ants + That attacked my hands. + + When at night I have the nightmare, + I always see the eyes of ants + Swarming from a mouldering box of gold. + + + + ANOTHER OAK + + + Poison ivy crawls at its root, + I dare not approach it, + It has an air of hate. + + One would say a man had been hanged to its branches, + It holds them in such a way. + + The moon gets tangled in it, + A distant steeple seems to bark + From its belfry to the sky. + + Something that no one ever loved, + Is buried here: + Some grey shape of deadly hate, + Crawls on the back fence just beyond. + + Now I remember--once I went + Out by night too near this oak, + And a red cat suddenly leapt + From the dark and clawed my face. + + + THE OLD BARN + + + Owls flap in this ancient barn + With rotted doors. + + Rats squeak in this ancient barn + Over the floors. + + Owls flap warily every night, + Rats' eyes gleam in the cold moonlight. + + There is something hidden in this barn, + With barred doors. + + Something the owls have torn, + And the rats scurry with over the floors. + + + + THE WELL + + + The well is not used now, + Its waters are tainted. + + I remember there was once a man went down + To clean it. + He found it very cold and deep, + With a queer niche in one of its sides, + From which he hauled forth buckets of bricks and dirt. + + + + THE TREES + + + When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops, + The trees are not the same. + + I know they are not the same, + Because there is one tree that is missing, + And it stood so long by another, + That the other, feeling lonely, + Now is slowly dying too. + + When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops + That dead tree comes back; + Like a great blue sphere of smoke + Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass, + Rustling through frayed Branches, + Something eerily cheeping through it, + Something creeping through its shade. + + + + VISION + + + You who flutter and quiver + An instant + Just beyond my apprehension; + Lady, + I will find the white orchid for you, + If you will but give me + One smile between those wayward drifts of hair. + + I will break the wild berries that loop themselves over the marsh-pool, + For your sake, + And the long green canes that swish against each other, + I will break, to set in your hands. + For there is no wonder like to you, + You who flutter and quiver + An instant + Just beyond my apprehension. + + + + EPILOGUE + + + Why it was I do not know, + But last night I vividly dreamed + Though a thousand miles away, + That I had come back to you. + + The windows were the same: + The bed, the furniture the same, + Only there was a door where empty wall had always been, + And someone was trying to enter it. + + I heard the grate of a key, + An unknown voice apologetically + Excused its intrusion just as I awoke. + + But I wonder after all + If there was some secret entranceway, + Some ghost I overlooked, when I was there. + + + + + + SECTION II + + SYMPHONIES + + + + + 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. + + Oh, 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. + + Oh, 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. + These 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 hopes of my heart. + + The ice is glazing over, + Tom 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. + + + + + SOLITUDE IN THE CITY + + (_Symphony in Black and Gold_) + + + + I + + WORDS AT MIDNIGHT + + + Because the night is so still, + Because there is no one about, + Not the tiny squeak of a mouse over the carpet, + Nor the slow beat of a clock at the top of the stairway, + I am afraid of the night that is coming to me. + + I know out there + Some one is thinking of me, some one is wondering about me, + Some one is needing me, some one is dying for my sake, + Yet I remain alone. + + I know that life is calling: I cannot resist it: + Too much of myself I have given ever to turn away, + I know that shame, sickness, death itself shall befall me, + And I am afraid. + + O night, hide me in your long cold arms: + Let me sleep, but let me not live this life! + There are too many people with haggard eyes standing + before me + Saying, "To live you must suffer even as we." + + Yet life bitterly bids me: "Go on to the last, + No matter the mud and the cold rain and the darkness: + No matter the drear pilgrims in whose eyes you shall look for long, + And see all suffering, madness, death and despair." + + Because my heart is cramped in, + Because I have suffered much, + Because my hope is like a candle-flame quenched at midnight, + Because I dare dream yet of joy, + I can take my night and the life that is coming to me. + + + + II + + THE EVENING RAIN + + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing, + As it slowly slips on the motionless pavement; + Greasy and grey is the rain of the evening, + As it dribbles into the dirty gutters + And slides down the drains with a roar! + + Ragged men cower + Under the doorways: + Umbrellas nod like drowsy birds. + Bat-umbrellas, + Teetering, balancing, + Where will you spread your wings to-night? + + Tangled between the factory-chimneys, + I have seen the golden lamps wake this evening: + Spinning and whirling, darting and dancing, + Tangled with the glittering rain. + + Omnibuses lurch + Heavily homeward + Elephants tinselled in tawdry gold: + Taxicabs fight + Like wild birds squalling, + Wild birds with roaring, clattering wings. + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing, + As it shivers to jewel-heaps spilt on the pavement. + The façades frown gloomily at its beauty, + The façades are dreaming of the day. + + With rippling, curling, + Serpentine convolutions + The pavements drip with drunken light. + Crimson and gold, + Shot with opal, + They glare against the sullen night. + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing + As it slowly dries on the dirty pavement. + Red low-browed clouds jut over the sky: + And in the cool sky there are stars. + + + + III + + STREET OF SORROWS + + + You street of sorrows bending + Over your golden lamps in the evening; + Dark street that is very silent, + And everywhere the same: + Elsewhere there is song and riot, + Like golden fireflies flickering, + Elsewhere the crane's gaunt muscles + Tug the city up to the stars. + + But who in the dawn should come near you? + There are dry leaves rattling behind him. + And who should come in the noonday? + There are shadows that squat on the pave. + And who should come in the evening? + There is one: a ship in dark waters. + And who should come at nightfall, + To feel cold hands at his heart? + + You street of solitude waiting + Patient and still in the evening: + Old street that is very weary, + And everywhere the same; + You that have seen joy passing. + Into pain, into tears, into darkness, + Street of the dead and musty, + I have drunk your cold poison to-night. + + + + IV + + SONG IN THE DARKNESS + + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + Henceforth the keys and wards of me are held in other hands. + + Dark clouds trail over the sky: + Troops of song retreating: + But in the sunset + Once more have I seen aloft + Incredible summits of gold, far on the south horizon. + + One purple veil of rain + Floats downward over the city; + And as it settles slowly + The light goes out of it. + + Chimneys with massive summits + Stand gaunt and black and evil: + Like a river of lead, to seaward + The river steadily rolls. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + Life takes me in black coils. + + One green light glitters: + Then a swift taxi + Scatters another + As it speeds on. + + The chimneys rank + Their motionless forces + Against the swift movement + Of tugs in the stream; + Against the flame-chariots + Of the Embankment; + Against the bowing trees, + Against the blowing smoke, + Against the busy rain. + + With dying might + The light invades + The city's hall: + Curtained by dripping fringes + Of buoyant tattered cloud, + Tossed by the wind. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary; + And all my city of dreams is burning up to-night. + + But yet there waits for me something lost back in the darkness: + Something I have never seized: a shape, a voice, a gesture, + Something behind my shoulder: grey robes that stir and rustle. + Something that moves away from me when I would touch it with my hand. + + Cities of the beyond, what great black-walled horizons + Dare you climb up, and down what steep incredible valleys? + I suddenly perceive that I have been mocked in you, + And therefore will I sow the earth with rain of stars to-night. + It is the last night that I can be solitary; + The rain invites to drunkenness: the wind blows + through my brain. + + Shiplike the sliding golden trams + Procession by and intercross: + With tulips, daffodils, crocuses + The whole street blossoms at my feet: + Now kindle, flames, and let blow out + The crimson rose against the grey, + Let night itself be blotted out + In life's monotonous drone of day. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + It is the last time that no feet + But mine can beat upon the floor; + It is the last time that no hands + But mine can pound upon my heart; + It is the last time that no voice + But mine can cry and yet be lost; + It is the last time I shall see + The pavements like a mirror stare at me. + + + + + GREEN SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + The glittering leaves of the rhododendrons + Balance and vibrate in the cool air; + While in the sky above them + White clouds chase each other. + + Like scampering rabbits, + Flashes of sunlight sweep the lawn; + They fling in passing + Patterns of shadow, + Golden and green. + + With long cascades of laughter, + The mating birds dart and swoop to the turf: + 'Mid their mad trillings + Glints the gay sun behind the trees. + + Down there are deep blue lakes: + Orange blossom droops in the water. + + In the tower of the winds, + All the bells are set adrift: + Jingling + For the dawn. + + Thin fluttering streamers + Of breeze lash through the swaying boughs, + Palely expectant + The earth receives the slanting rain. + + I am a glittering raindrop + Hugged close by the cool rhododendron. + I am a daisy starring + The exquisite curves of the close-cropped turf. + + The glittering leaves of the rhododendron + Are shaken like blue-green blades of grass, + Flickering, cracking, falling: + Splintering in a million fragments. + + The wind runs laughing up the slope + Stripping off handfuls of wet green leaves, + To fling in peoples' faces. + Wallowing on the daisy-powdered turf, + Clutching at the sunlight, + Cavorting in the shadow. + + Like baroque pearls, + Like cloudy emeralds, + The clouds and the trees clash together; + Whirling and swirling, + In the tumult + Of the spring, + And the wind. + + + + II. + + + The trees splash the sky with their fingers, + A restless green rout of stars. + + With whirling movement + They swing their boughs + About their stems: + Planes on planes of light and shadow + Pass among them, + Opening fanlike to fall. + + The trees are like a sea; + Tossing; + Trembling, + Roaring, + Wallowing, + Darting their long green flickering fronds up at the sky, + Spotted with white blossom-spray. + + The trees are roofs: + Hollow caverns of cool blue shadow, + Solemn arches + In the afternoons. + The whole vast horizon + In terrace beyond terrace, + Pinnacle above pinnacle, + Lifts to the sky + Serrated ranks of green on green. + + They caress the roofs with their fingers, + They sprawl about the river to look into it; + Up the hill they come + Gesticulating challenge: + They cower together + In dark valleys; + They yearn out over the fields. + + Enamelled domes + Tumble upon the grass, + Crashing in ruin + Quiet at last. + + The trees lash the sky with their leaves, + Uneasily shaking their dark green manes. + + + + III + + + Far let the voices of the mad wild birds be calling me, + I will abide in this forest of pines. + + When the wind blows + Battling through the forest, + I hear it distantly, + The crash of a perpetual sea. + + When the rain falls, + I watch silver spears slanting downwards + From pale river-pools of sky, + Enclosed in dark fronds. + + When the sun shines, + I weave together distant branches till they enclose mighty circles, + I sway to the movement of hooded summits, + I swim leisurely in deep blue seas of air. + + I hug the smooth bark of stately red pillars + And with cones carefully scattered + I mark the progression of dark dial-shadows + Flung diagonally downwards through the afternoon. + + This turf is not like turf: + It is a smooth dry carpet of velvet, + Embroidered with brown patterns of needles and cones. + These trees are not like trees: + They are innumerable feathery pagoda-umbrellas, + Stiffly ungracious to the wind, + Teetering on red-lacquered stems. + + In the evening I listen to the winds' lisping, + While the conflagrations of the sunset flicker and clash behind me, + Flamboyant crenellations of glory amid the charred ebony boles. + + In the night the fiery nightingales + Shall clash and trill through the silence: + Like the voices of mermaids crying + From the sea. + + Long ago has the moon whelmed this uncompleted temple. + Stars swim like gold fish far above the black arches. + + Far let the timid feet of dawn fly to catch me: + I will abide in this forest of pines: + For I have unveiled naked beauty, + And the things that she whispered to me in the darkness, + Are buried deep in my heart. + + Now let the black tops of the pine-trees break like a spent wave, + Against the grey sky: + These are tombs and memorials and temples and altars sun-kindled for me. + + + + + GOLDEN SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Seen from afar, the city + To-day is like a golden cloud: + Strayed from the sky and moulded + Into dim motionless towers. + + Music is passing far off: + Music serenely + Is climbing up and vanishing + On the long grey stairways of the sky, + In fanlike rays of light. + + Now it falls slowly, + Careering, toppling, + Shivering and quivering like burnished glass or laburnum-blossom, + Golden cascades. + + Peace: now let the music + Sound from further away, + Red bells out of memory's + Blue dream of regret. + + Seen from afar, the city + To-day is like a fleet of sails: + Breaking the foam of dark forests, + In which I have strayed so long. + + They march together slowly, + The golden temple terraces, + Against the dark remembrance + Of my pools of despair. + + O golden angelus that sounded prolonging uncertain memories, + I have seen the swallows hovering to you and followed their dark trails + of passage. + + The gates of the city lie open, + And the whole world goes homeward, + Full-pulsing bells in the foreground, + Catching my soul with them + On where the sun soars broadly through the incense-dome of the sky. + + + + II + + + High chimes from the belfry; + The noonday approaches + With its golden apparel + Rustling about its feet. + + High dreams of my city, + Where we, a band of brothers, + Build our proud dream of beauty + Before we fall into dust. + + The golden days have come for us: + With mandolins, sword-thrusts, laughter. + Even the very dust of the street + Grows gold beneath our feet. + + Bronze bell-notes poured from deep blue wells: + Molten gold out of the sky. + Pillars of yellow marble + On the summits of which the gods sleep. + + Now we are swimming; + About us a great golden halo + Vibrates from us downwards, + Ebbing its life away. + + Golden clouds are circling + Like angels and archangels + About the eye of the sun. + + Flaming sunset: + Mad conflagrations + Licking at the earth, + The blue-black walls of space, + Iron mountains vast on the horizon. + + O golden spear that dartled through the darkness! + The evening star sparkled and threw us its message. + + + + III + + In the bosom of the desert + I will lie at the last. + + Not the grey desert of sand + But the golden desert of great wild grasses, + This shall receive my soul. + + In the high plateaus, + The wind will be like a flute-note calling me + Day after day. + + Short bursts of surf, + The wind climbs up and stops in the grass; + And the golden petals + Brush drowsily over my face. + + White butterfly that flutters across my sea of golden blossom; + Tell me, what are you looking for, lone white butterfly? + + I am seeking for a strange lonely white flower; + Its petals are honeyless; and in the wind it is still. + + White butterfly, come, fold your wings over my heart: + I am the white blossom, the white dead blossom for you. + + In the golden bosom of the prairie, + I am lying at the last + Like a pool that is stilled. + + But they who shared with me my life's adventure, + Who tossed their ducats like dandelions into the sunlight, + I know that somewhere they with songs are building, + Golden towers more beautiful than my own. + + + + IV + + + I only know in the midnight, + Something will be born of me. + + The village drowses in the darkness, + But aloft in the temple + There is a thud of gongs and a shuffle of hollow voices + In the dark corridors. + + The golden temple + That kindled like a rose against the sunset, + Now is dark and silent, + One light glimmers from its façade. + + In the inner shrine + One stiff golden curtain + Hangs from floor to roof. + + Black, impassive, helmeted + In felt like stiff black warriors, + The lamas slowly gather, + Kneeling in a row. + + The hollow brazen trumpets + Blare and snore. + The drums, festooned with skulls, + Roar. + + Suddenly with a clash of gongs, + And a squeal from ear-splitting bugles, + The golden veil is rent. + + Cavernous blue darkness! + And within it + Smiling, + Naked, + Rose-empurpled, + Rippling with crimson-violet light, behold the god. + + Hail, great jewel in the lotus blossom! + Rosy flame that kindling + Flashes on the emptiness + Or Nirvana's sea! + + Before the shrine, as before, + Once more the golden curtain, + And the black shapes vanish. + + Aloft in the hollow temple + There is a shuffle of feet and a sound of hollow voices, + Soon lost. + + The village drowses in the darkness: + Like a vast black cube + The temple looms above it, + There is no light on its façade. + + Suddenly, all the golden temple + Kindles like a rose against the dawn. + + I only know in the midnight + Something has been born of me. + + + + + WHITE SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Forlorn and white, + Whorls of purity about a golden chalice, + Immense the peonies + Flare and shatter their petals over my face. + + They slowly turn paler, + They seem to be melting like blue-grey flakes of ice, + Thin greyish shivers + Fluctuating mid the dark green lance-thrust of the leaves. + + Like snowballs tossed, + Like soft white butterflies, + The peonies poise in the twilight. + And their narcotic insinuating perfume + Draws me into them + Shivering with the coolness, + Aching with the void. + They kiss the blue chalice of my dreams + Like a gesture seen for an instant and then lost forever. + + * * * * * + + Outwards the petals + Thrust to embrace me, + Pale daggers of coldness + Run through my aching breast. + + Outwards, still outwards, + Till on the brink of twilight + They swirl downwards silently, + Flurry of snow in the void. + + Outwards, still outwards, + Till the blue walls are hidden, + And in the blinding white radiance + Of a whirlpool of clouds, I awake. + + * * * * * + + Like spraying rockets + My peonies shower + Their glories on the night. + + Wavering perfumes, + Drift about the garden; + Shadows of the moonlight, + Drift and ripple over the dew-gemmed leaves. + + Soar, crash, and sparkle, + Shoal of stars drifting + Like silver fishes, + Through the black sluggish boughs. + + Towards the impossible, + Towards the inaccessible, + Towards the ultimate, + Towards the silence, + Towards the eternal, + These blossoms go. + + The peonies spring like rockets in the twilight, + And out of them all I rise. + + + + II + + + Downwards through the blue abyss it slides, + The white snow-water of my dreams, + Downwards crashing from slippery rock + Into the boiling chasm: + In which no eye dare look, for it is the chasm of death. + + Upwards from the blue abyss it rises, + The chill water-mist of my dreams; + Upwards to greyish weeping pines, + And to skies of autumn ever about my heart, + It is blue at the beginning, + And blue-white against the grey-greenness; + It wavers in the upper air, + Catching unconscious sparkles, a rainbow-glint of sunlight, + And fading in the sad depths of the sky. + + Outwards rush the strong pale clouds, + Outwards and ever outwards; + The blue-grey clouds indistinguishable one from another: + Nervous, sinewy, tossing their arms and brandishing, + Till on the blue serrations of the horizon + They drench with their black rain a great peak of changeless snow. + + * * * * * + + As evening came on, I climbed the tower, + To gaze upon the city far beneath: + I was not weary of day; but in the evening + A white mist assembled and gathered over the earth + And blotted it from sight. + + But to escape: + To chase with the golden clouds galloping over the horizon: + Arrows of the northwest wind + Singing amid them, + Ruffling up my hair! + + As evening came on the distance altered, + Pale wavering reflections rose from out the city, + Like sighs or the beckoning of half-invisible hands. + Monotonously and sluggishly they crept upwards + A river that had spent itself in some chasm, + And dwindled and foamed at last at my weary feet. + + Autumn! Golden fountains, + And the winds neighing + Amid the monotonous hills: + Desolation of the old gods, + Rain that lifts and rain that moves away; + In the greenback torrent + Scarlet leaves. + + It was now perfectly evening: + And the tower loomed like a gaunt peak in mid-air + Above the city: its base was utterly lost. + It was slowly coming on to rain, + And the immense columns of white mist + Wavered and broke before the faint-hurled spears. + + I will descend the mountains like a shepherd, + And in the folds of tumultuous misty cities, + I will put all my thoughts, all my old thoughts, safely to sleep. + + For it is already autumn, + O whiteness of the pale southwestern sky! + O wavering dream that was not mine to keep! + + * * * * * + + In midnight, in mournful moonlight, + By paths I could not trace, + I walked in the white garden, + Each flower had a white face. + + Their perfume intoxicated me: thus I began my dream. + + I was alone; I had no one to guide me, + But the moon was like the sun: + It stooped and kissed each waxen petal, + One after one. + + Green and white was that garden: diamond rain hung in the branches, + You will not believe it! + + In the morning, at the dayspring, + I wakened, shivering; lo, + The white garden that blossomed at my feet + Was a garden hidden in snow. + It was my sorrow to see that all this was a dream. + + + + III + + + Blue, clogged with purple, + Mists uncoil themselves: + Sparkling to the horizon, + I see the snow alone. + + In the deep blue chasm, + Boats sleep under gold thatch; + Icicle-like trees fret + Faintly rose-touched sky. + + Under their heaped snow-eaves, + Leaden houses shiver. + Through thin blue crevasses, + Trickles an icy stream. + + The pines groan white-laden, + The waves shiver, struck by the wind; + Beyond from treeless horizons, + Broken snow-peaks crawl to the sea. + + * * * * * + + Wearily the snow glares, + Through the grey silence, day after day, + Mocking the colourless cloudless sky + With the reflection of death. + + There is no smoke through the pine tops, + No strong red boatmen in pale green reeds, + No herons to flicker an instant, + No lanterns to glow with gay ray. + + No sails beat up to the harbour, + With creaking cordage and sailors' song. + Somnolent, bare-poled, indifferent, + They sleep, and the city sleeps. + + Mid-winter about them casts, + Its dreary fortifications: + Each day is a gaunt grey rock, + And death is the last of them all. + + * * * * * + + Over the sluggish snow, + Drifts now a pallid weak shower of bloom; + Boredom of fresh creation, + Death-weariness of old returns. + + White, white blossom, + Fall of the shattered cups day on day: + Is there anything here that is not ancient, + That has not bloomed a thousand years ago? + + Under the glare of the white-hot day, + Under the restless wind-rakes of the winter, + White blossom or white snow scattered, + And beneath them, dark, the graves. + + Dark graves never changing, + White dream drifting, never changing above them: + O that the white scroll of heaven might be rolled up, + And the naked red lightning thrust at the smouldering + earth! + + + + + MIDSUMMER DREAMS + + _(Symphony in White and Blue)_ + + + + I + + + There is a tall white weed growing at the top of this sand hill: + In the grass + It is very still. + + It lifts its heavy bracts of flattened bloom + Against the sky + Hazily grey with brume. + + Out over yonder boats pass + And the swallows + Flatten themselves on the grass. + + The lake is silvering beneath the heat. + The wind's feet + Touch lazily each crest, + Like white gulls slow flapping + To windward. + + One rose white cloud slowly disengages, loosening itself, + And stands + Above the larkspur-coloured water: + Like Dione's daughter + Braiding up her wet hair with her pale, hands. + + + + II + + + The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees, + Which do not lift one drooping leaf, this night of June. + There is no lazy breeze to set them clashing adrift. + + Thin gleams of silver rise and break in the air, + Fireflies--here and there. + + Forest of blue masses suddenly quivering with rapid points of white, + Are the forests beneath the sea where no breeze passes + As still as you to-night? + + The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees; + Through my window, the bed cut evenly with diagonal shafts of light, + Is a boat rocking out adrift. + + Under it bend the silver tips of the dark blue coral trees, + And fireflies like glass fish + Drift and ripple upwards in the breeze. + + + + III + + + We are drifting slowly, you and I, + To where the clouds are lifting + High-fretted towers in the sky: + Palaces of ivory, + Which we look at dreamily. + Over our sail + Frail white clouds, + Drift as slowly + Over the undulant pale blue silk of the water, + As we. + + We are racing swiftly, you and I, + The sun darts one firm track + Through the blue-black + Of the crinkled water. + Gold spirals spattering, flashing, + The water heaves and curls away at our bow, + A mad fish splashing. + + We are rocked together, you and I, + To this undulant movement. + White cloud with blue water blent, + Cloud dipping down to wave its lazy head, + Wave curling under cloud its cloudy blue. + I and you, + All alone, alone, at last. + I hold you fast. + + + + IV + + + The midsummer clouds were piling up upon the south horizon, + Mountains of drifting translucence in the larkspur-fields of the sky: + Ascending and toppling in crumbled ravines, dribbling down chasms + of silence, + Reassembling in crowded multitudes, massive forms one above another. + And I saw in their ridges and hollows, the appearance of a woman + Immeasurable, carven in stainless marble, motionless, naked, fair: + Her head thrown back, her pointed breasts up-gleaming in chill sunlight, + Her heavy flanks dark in the shadow, resting forever inert. + And up to her there suddenly clomb and hurried another cloud, + Huge, hairy, bulging, and knobby, with dark and knotted brows: + And he thrust out long bungling arms to her and drew himself up to her, + And I watched them melting together, blue mouth to sad white mouth. + + + + + ORANGE SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Now that all the world is filled + With armies clamouring; + Now that men no longer live and die, one by one, + But in vague indeterminate multitudes: + + Now that the trees are coppery towers, + Now that the clouds loom southward, + Now that the glossy creeper + Spatters the walls like spilt wine: + + I will go out alone, + To catch strong joy of solitude + Where the treelines, in gold and scarlet, + Swing strong grape-cables up the smouldering face of the hill. + + + + II + + + Guns crashing, + Thudding, + Ululating, + Tumultuous. + + Guns yelping over the cracked earth, + Where dry bugles blare. + + Here in this hollow + It is very quiet, + Only the wind's hissing laughter + In the place of tombs. + + One by one these gaunt scarred faces + Lift up blurred wrinkled inscriptions + Silently beseeching me to stop and ponder. + What does it matter if I do not stop to read them? + No one at all has gone this way that I have chosen before. + + A leaf drops slowly in silence; + It is a long time twisting and hovering on its way to + the earth. + + Guns booming, + Bellowing, + Crashing, + Desperate. + Insistent outcry of savage guns, + Rocking the gloomy hollow. + + I will run out like the wind, + Snarling, with savage laughter; + Like the wind that tosses the grey-black clouds, + Against the shot-racked barrier of flaming trees. + + I will race between the grey guns, + And the clouds, like shrapnel exploding, + Flinging their hail through the tumult, + Bursting, will melt in cold spray. + + I am the wanderer of the world; + No one can hold me. + Not the cannon assembled for battle, + Nor the gloomy graves of the hollow, + Nor the house where I long time slumbered, + Nor the hilltop where roads are straggling. + + My feet must march to the wind. + Like a leaf dropping slowly, + An orange butterfly turning and twisting, + I touch with moist passionate palms the leaden inscriptions + Of my past. Then I turn to depart. + + + + III + + + The trees dance about the inn; + The wind thrusts them into flamelets. + Now my thoughts gipsying, + Go forth to strange walls and new fires. + + Mouths stained with brown-red berries, + Bronzed cheeks sunken, unshaven, + Ragged attire; + We swing our guitars at the hip + As we tramp heedless, uncaring. + + In the inn the fire crackles: + On the hearth the wine is simmering. + Lift up the brown beaker one instant, + Drink deeply--fling out the last coin--let us go. + On the plains there is drooping harvest, + But no harvest can for long time hold us, + We have seen the winds, baffled, + Racing up the orange-flecked trench of the hills. + + + + IV + + + On the hill summit + Where the gusty wind all night long has assailed me, + Now I see stars vanishing + Before the long cold clutching fingers of dawn. + + Stars scintillant, fire-hued, metallic, + Topaz fruit of the deep-blue garden: + Southward you go, my constellations, + And leave me with the white day, alone. + + Over the hilltop + Swish with a scurry of wings + Millions of pale brown birds, + Songless, pulsing southward. + + Birds who have filled the trees, + And who fled long ago at my passing, + Now you clatter in heedless tumult, + Fanning with your hot wings my face. + + Carry this word to the southward; + Say that I have forgotten them that wait for me, + All the loves and the hates need expect me no longer, + In the autumn at last I am alone. + + Suddenly + The wind crashes through the tree-tops, + Stripping away their orange-tiled domes; + Stark blue skeletons, forbidding + Gesticulate in my face. + You whom I planted and lavished + With all the wealth and beauty I had to bestow + Hurry away, vain harvest, + The winds' scythes can reap you, + Where you lie on the earth, and to death's barns you can go. + + Beyond the hilltop + I have seen only the sky. + The wind, naked, prodding up black-furred clouds, + Cossacks of winter. + + Cry, wind, + Shriek to the shivering southland, + That I am going into winter, + That I do not hope to return. + + Farewell, crowded stars, + Farewell, birds, winds, clouds and tree-tops, + I, weary of you all, seek my destined joy in the north-land, + Amid blue ice and the rose-purple night of the pole. + + + + V + + + Beyond the land there lies the sea; + And on the sea with wings unfurled, + Bloodily huge the sunset rests, + Feathers flickering and claws curled, + Watching to seize the ruined world. + + Rolling in a torrent, + Brown leaves, my achievements, + Rise up from dark-wooded valleys + And scatter themselves on the sea; + Brown birds, my wild dreams, + Mingle their bodies together, + Shrieking and clamouring as they pass, + Black charred silhouettes + Against the west, curtained in orange flame. + Now the wind starts up + And strikes the seething water: + Hissing in uncoiled fury + Each foam-curled wave darts forward + To clash and batter + The smouldering iron-rust cliff, + Where the end of my road is lost. + + Rise up, black clouds; + Pounce upon the sunset: + Tear it with your jagged teeth. + Fling yourselves, seething winds, in circles + Upon the blue-black water, + Swirl, leaves, and dance + Amid the chaos of breakers, + Flicker, birds, an instant + Against the tawny tiger throat of the sun + Which is snarling in the west. + Beat down, O great winds, westward, + Loose reins and gallop to seaward, + Rush me, too, to that ocean, + In which I have found my goal. + + Lash me, lap me, rugged waves of blue-black water, + Dash me, clutch me and do not let me rest one instant; + All through the purple-blue night rock and soothe me, + Till I awaken dreamingly at the faint rose breast of the dawn. + + + + + RED SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Over the ink-black cauldron of the sea, + Heavily, on wings of leaden cloud, + Howling the sunset + Races out to assail me. + + Long have I voyaged, + Night after night the grey rains swept the sea: + The heaving breakers + Hissed and quivered but held no light. + + Now my voyage is ending, + White storm winds have swept bare my soul; + With their harsh laughter, + Their maddening mockery, + Their bayonet-thrusts of despair. + + Over the keen, clean-swept zenith + Roll crushingly, huge masses of cloud: + Dull, ponderous, sagging with the burden + Of creaking snow. + + They drop flat on the sea, + They hang menacing over me, + They festoon the sun + With swags of crimson light. + + They stripe the horizon, + They bar every way with their iron tongues; + They loom weltering over my effort, + They steadfastly close me in. + + Meanwhile the sun + With dying force + Wrenches one little crack + In the midst of the sagging masses, + And I steer on to it. + + Like a crimson lake + The light overflows and touches the bulging surfaces + With carmine, with scarlet, + With orange, with vermillion, + With brick red, with bluish purple, + With maroon, with rose, with russet, + With savage green, with snowy blue, + With grey, with ebony, with gold. + + It is the storm of the evening + That races out shrieking + To assail me, + And I hail it. + + + + II + + + The sky's vast emptiness + Is crowded with fragments colliding, + Ragged, splintered masses + Swirling away to the night. + + The volcano of the sun + Has burst and split its crater: + Black slag is hurled to the zenith + Above the red lava-sea. + + Black shrivelled, charred fragments + Fall into the scarlet torrent: + Huge tresses of darkness sweep over my face, + Leaving me choking. + + The sea is one crimson steaming fire; + Each fanged wavelet + Flickers and dances about the one behind it, + Hungrily licking at the ship. + + Fierce whirling swords, + Tossed spear-heads lancelike + Spit and stab, then suddenly fall + Leaving me there + On a rolling summit of flame, facing a gulf of despair. + + The ship + Lurches + With ice-crusted prow into the wave-trough; + And rises, rapidly dripping liquid lire, + Long twisted necklaces, that burn out to green frozen chrysolite. + + + + III + + + Over my head a bell beats: it is midnight. + Perhaps I will live to the dawn. + + About me are the mouths of yawning furnaces + And from these scarlet mouths the heat outpours, + And darts and licks its dry tongues at my brain + Till it, too, seems a black shell almost bursting + With the force of flame in it. + + Still, wearily, I swing my shovel, + Spattering the black coal over the palates + Of the snoring mouths which rapidly swallow. + There is nothing else to do. + + My legs seem melting away in sweat beneath me: + In my body my lungs and heart are fighting for air, + My eyes are seared by the appalling scarlet, + Of the furnaces about me--I scarcely-see them--My + shovelfuls fall short with every swing. + + Without I hear the battering of the tempest, + The ship is pounded sideways by black immeasurable wave-thrusts, + And rising dizzily again, like a half-senseless fighter, + Is again sent downwards, by those unseen fists. + + My shovel rises to the ship's slow recovery, + My shovel shoots out at the smash of toppling masses, + Sometimes I pause and pant for an endless instant, + While the ship crouches, quivering. + + Over my head a bell beats: it is morning. + Wearily I drop the shovel, + And drag myself to the deck. + + + + IV + + + Afar + There is something that seems a shore; + The sky has been blown clean of clouds except to westward, + And these stare hard at me, like huge sardonyx towers. + + I cling to a half-shattered rail that reels and dances, + Soused by the choking water, + My face a streaming mass of blood and salt and grime, + I wait and dizzily I try to remember. + + What is this city that out there awaits me? + Am I its conqueror? + + Will scarlet flags hang fluttering in the streets + To greet my coming? + Will crimson lanterns + Jingle and toss in festival to-night? + + Has the fire burned the ship and is the water + But stinging icy fire, + That whips and sears my face? + + Down there the furnaces go out, for the water + Sloshes about the floor; + And steaming acrid fumes arise, + No living soul could stay in such a place. + + Out here the decks are shattered, + The boats are shorn away, + And far on the horizon, + The city glares with its sardonyx towers. + + Now the red bells, + The black-red bells, + The storm bells, + Break loose from the horizon, + Leaping upon the eastern sea, + And breaking it in their teeth. + + The towers + Infuriate, enkindle + From base to summit, + In layers, and orange terraces, + Against the blue snow haze that drifts down on them from the east. + + The ship of my soul + Is rolling to port at last, + With one clang from its heaving boilers, + One sigh from its shaking funnels, + One rattle from its loosened chains. + I will lash myself to the masthead + And wait + Empty-eyed and open-mouthed, + Till the city that is all one scarlet flame of death + Takes me to itself at last. + + + + + VIOLET SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + But yesterday + Moonsails were raking high the harbour of my dreams. + + Dull night of trees, + Dark sorrows drooping, + Glittering raindrops gleam on you + In recollection + Of my despair. + + But yesterday + Stardust was scattered deep on the dark gulf of my dreams. + + Wind of the night, + Questing, swaying, calling, + Rustle of dull grasses, + Why do you trouble me? + + Yesterday + Purple mist was powdered on the windless sea of dreams. + + Faces of the night that pass me, + Haggard, monotonous faces, + Windblown hair and lustful lips, + I am not what you desire. + + Yesterday + One--two--sails above the mist--. + Windswallows that hover + Towards the rainclouds of the horizon, + Out of the reedy harbours + Rocking, swaying, falling, + Blown to sea and parted + Yesterday, + Yesterday. + + + + II + + + Purple-blue bloom of night, + Globed grapes clustered morosely + Down the dark vineyards of untrodden streets: + + The noise of the moments is like the clash of the hoofs of a horse + rattling, + Thin tattoo in the stillness: + The noise of the moments takes me, uncaring, + Towards the day. + + With brassy crash, dawn's corybants + Invade and trample the vineyard: + Like a faun I hide and watch them, + A dark cup in my hand. + + Spoilers of my vineyard, + Spilling the lees of my sweet red wine, + You will yet ask in vain for a cup that is not yours, + A purple, dewy cup of lonely night. + + Tramplers in the morning, + Sunburnt faces and weary lips, + There is yet a cup here you cannot have, + I hold it in my hands. + + Would you drink of it? + Lay down your thyrse and timbrel. + Break the harsh dance that flickers through the morning, + Forget the scarlet perfumes of the day. + + Remember only starless night, cool swish of many seas. + + Faint pearl-glow of evening, + Cool marble in the silence: + Purple-blue grapes of night crushed freshly, + Deep sleep and the drowsy stars. + + + + III + + + I love the night that in long violet shroud + Slowly and lovingly wraps up the day, + Hiding its blurred imperfections + In endless tenderness. + + I love the day's + High violet cone of light, + With thin haze on the horizon + Like a wavering summer sea. + + But most of all I love midsummer dawn, + When far-off planes of light ascend and tremble together + Like distant purple waves, the sound of whose dim breaking + Is lost in the wild babel of awaking birds. + + + + IV + + + Twisted fragments of violet paper, + The dawn drops you + Into the green bowl filled with the day's grey waves. + + I love the night's + Deep purple grapes + That yesterday + Were crushed and spilled, + In long and sluggish rivers + That joined and made a sea, + Where, half-guessed through the mist, + Two golden sails + Drifted on silently. + + The blue fume of my dreams + Is laced with violet flame. + + One golden sail alone came back to rest + In its nest + Among the reeds. + The other sail is lost; + Behind the mist, + Beyond the craggy rock, + About which race in jagged white + The waves, + Horizon on horizon far away + She waits. + But through the day, + Comes no faint song, nor creaking of the ropes. + + Twisted fragments of violet paper, + Charred and fallen: + Out of the green bowl lazily coils grey smoke. + + + + + GREY SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Up on the hillside a long row of larches + Shake from their grizzled Beards the vestiges of rain, + From grey-blue melting ice-slabs 'neath their arches + The spring goes up again. + + Writhing, exuding, + Up-steaming, streaming, + The earth is breathing to the sky + Wet clouds of spring. + + Dim rosy fans, the trees + As they flick to and fro, + Seem driving greyish vapour + Over the snow. + + The sky remodulates itself + From violet-grey to blue, + Under the upturned eaves of the blue larches + The sun looks through. + + Now with the heat of the sun + The grey-blue ice-slabs quiver, + They slide in muddy trickles + Towards the river. + + Up on the hillside between the long row of larches + Fume up from south pale clouds that bear the rain; + In pearl and violet arches + They break and shape again. + + + + II + + + I have seen in the evening + The greyish-violet clouds + Roll wearily back from northward + To the place whence first they came. + + One or two orange lamps burnt low + Against deep purple hills-- + + The wind was hurrying, bundling them together, + The pines awoke to sing + The song of the snow buzzing and screaming + On its one string. + + I have seen within my heart + Crocuses, purple and gold, + Drop cold and dull and colourless + Beneath the snow. + + One or two orange lamps burnt low, + Vain memories. + + The wind has driven me too many winters, + My songs are snowflakes whirling about my breast. + I will wrap my frozen and bitter songs about me, + In one grey drift, and rest. + + + + III + + + Fluttering and soft the snow + Flings outward, swirls and settles, + But when I try to seize it, + The wind tears it away. + + Through poised green platforms of enormous pines, + I see far hilltops pushing up blue roofs. + Snow comes, + And hums + Through the woof + Of the lower branches. + It skips and dances: + It drops in sluggish folds + Of grey, + To where the frozen rhododendron bushes + With lower air-gusts play, + And the earth hushes + Its movement. + + Fluttering and soft the snow is blent + In long loose spirals with my dream. + + It is all I have, the snow, + And I know + That when I chase it, it will fly from me; + Beyond the lifeless green, + Beyond the low blue hills, + Beyond the pale straw-coloured glare, + Down in the west + It goes; + Straight southward where the purple-orange flare + Of sunset flows, + And into the blackened heart of my last rose + Pours its despair. + + Fluttering, soft, and dim + Regrets that skip and skim + Grey in the grey twilight; + Slim and weary whirls the snow, + And where it goes I too shall go. + + + + IV + + + Of my long nights afar in alien cities + I have remembered only this: + They were black scarves all dusted over with silver, + In which I wrapped my dreams; + They were black screens on which I made those pictures + That faded out next day. + + Youth without glory, manhood one mad struggle, + Maturity a battle without trumpet calls: + Long gleams from pallid suns seen only in my dreaming + Struck those dissolving walls. + + And of my days, + I only know + They slipped and fell, + Like too-brief sunsets, + Into the hill-ravines that held the snow. + Three lofty pines + At the corners of my heart + Waited, apart. + + They only see + In the mystery + Of the grey sky, + The jaggled clouds that fly, + Endlessly. + + + + + POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR + + _(A Symphony in Scarlet)_ + + + + I + + + The words that I have written + To me become as poppies: + Deep angry disks of scarlet flame full-glowing in the stillness + Of a shut room. + + Silken their edges undulate out to me, + Drooping on their hairy stems; + Flaring like folded shawls, down-curved like rockets starting + To break and shatter their light. + + Wide-flaunting and heavy, crinkle-lipped blossom, + Darting faint shivers through me; + Globed Chinese lanterns on green silk cords a-swaying + Over motionless pools. + + These are lamps of a festival of sleep held each night to welcome me, + Crimson-bursting through dark doors. + Out to the dull, blue, heavy fumes of opium rolling + From their rent red hearts, I go to seek my dream. + + + + II + + + A riven wall like a face half torn away + Stares blankly at the evening: + And from a window like a crooked mouth + It barks at the sunset sky. + + And over there, beyond, + On plains where night has settled, + Ten-like encampments of vaporous blue smoke or mist, + Three men are riding. + + One of them looks and sees the sky: + One of them looks and sees the earth: + The last one looks and sees nothing at all. + They ride on. + + One of them pauses and says, "It is death." + Another pauses and says, "It is life." + The last one pauses and says, "'Tis a dream." + His bridle shakes. + + The sky + Is filled with oval violet-tinted clouds + Through which the sun long settled strikes at random, + Enkindling here and there blotched circles of rosy light. + + These are poppies, + Unclosing immense corollas, + Waving the horsemen on. + + Over the earth, upheaving, folding, + They ride: their bridles shake: + One of them sees the sky is red: + One of them sees the earth is dark: + The last man sees he rides to his death, + Yet he says nothing at all. + + + + III + + + There will be no harvest at all this year; + For the gaunt black slopes arising + Lift the wrinkled aching furrows of their fields, falling away, + To the rainy sky in vain. + + But in the furrows + There is grass and many flowers. + Scarlet tossing poppies + Flutter their wind-slashed edges, + On which gorged black flies poise and sway in drunken sleep. + + The black flies hang + Above the tangled trampled grasses, + Grey, crumpled bundles lie in them: + They sprawl, + Heave faintly; + And between their stiffened fingers, + Run out clogged crimson trickles, + Spattering the poppies and standing in beads on the grass. + + + + IV + + + I saw last night + Sudden puffs of flame in the northern sky. + + The sky was an even expanse of rolling grey smoke, + Lit faintly by the moon that hung + Its white face in a dead tree to the east. + + Within the depths of greenish greyish smoke + Were roars, + Crackles and spheres of vapour, + And then + Huge disks of crimson shooting up, falling away. + + And I said these are flower petals, + Sleep petals, dream petals, + Blown by the winds of a dream. + + But still the crimson rockets rose. + They seemed to be + One great field of immense poppies burning evenly, + Casting their viscid perfume to the earth. + + The earth is sown with dead, + And out of these the red + Blooms are pushing up, advancing higher, + And each night brings them nigher, + Closer, closer to my heart. + + + + V + + + By the sluggish canal + That winds between thin ugly dunes, + There are no passing boats with creaking ropes to-day. + + But when the evening + Crouches down, like a hurt rabbit, + Under the everlasting raincloud whirling up the north horizon, + Downwards on the stream will float + Glowing points of fire. + + Orange, coppery, scarlet, + Crimson, rosy, flickering, + They pass, the lanterns + Of the unknown dead. + + Out where the sea, sailless, + Is mouthing and fretting + Its chaos of pebbles and dried sticks by the dunes. + + By the wall of that house + That looks like a face half torn away, + And from its flat mouth barks at the sky, + The sky which is shot with broad red disks of light, + Petals drowsily falling. + + + + VI + + + "It was not for a sacred cause, + Nor for faith, nor for new generations, + That unburied we roll and float + Beneath this flaming tumult of drunken sleep-flowers. + But it was for a mad adventure, + Something we longed for, poisonous, seductive, + That we dared go out in the night together, + Towards the glow that called us, + On the unsown fields of death. + + "Now we lie here reaped, ungarnered, + Red swaths of a new harvest: + But you who follow after, + Must struggle with our dream: + And out of its restless and oppressive night, + Filled with blue fumes, dull, choking, + You will draw hints of that vision + Which we hold aloof in silence." + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Goblins and Pagodas, by John Gould Fletcher + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOBLINS AND PAGODAS *** + +***** This file should be named 38856-8.txt or 38856-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/8/5/38856/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org +(From images generously made available by the Internet +Archive.) + + +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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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: Goblins and Pagodas + +Author: John Gould Fletcher + +Release Date: February 13, 2012 [EBook #38856] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOBLINS AND PAGODAS *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org +(From images generously made available by the Internet +Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1>GOBLINS AND PAGODAS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JOHN GOULD FLETCHER</h2> + + + +<h5>BOSTON AND NEW YORK</h5> + +<h5>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h5> + +<h5>The Riverside Press Cambridge</h5> + +<h5>1916</h5> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4>TO</h4> + +<h4>DAISY</h4> +<p><a href="#CONTENTS">Contents</a></p> +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<p>Thanks are due to the editor of The Egoist, London, for permission to +reprint The Ghosts of an Old House and the Orange Symphony; to the +editor of Poetry, Chicago, for permission to reprint the Blue Symphony; +and to the editor of The Little Review for permission to reprint the +Green Symphony.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>PREFACE</h3> + + +<h4>I</h4> + +<p>The second half of the nineteenth and the first fifteen years of the +twentieth century have been a period of research, of experiment, of +unrest and questioning. In science and philosophy we have witnessed an +attempt to destroy the mechanistic theory of the universe as developed +by Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. The unknowable has been questioned: +hypotheses have been shaken: vitalism and idealism have been proclaimed. +In the arts, the tendency has been to strip each art of its inessentials +and to disclose the underlying basis of pure form. In life, the +principles of nationality, of racial culture, of individualism, of +social development, of Christian ethics, have been discussed, debated, +and examined from top to bottom, until at last, in the early years of +the twentieth century we find all Europe, from the leaders of thought +down to the lowest peasantry, engaged in a mutually destructive war of +which few can trace the beginnings and none can foresee the end. The +fundamental tenets of thought, art, life itself, have been shaken: and +either civilization is destined to some new birth, or mankind will +revert to the conditions of life, thought, and social intercourse that +prevailed in the Stone Age.</p> + +<p>Like all men of my generation, I have not been able to resist this +irresistible upheaval of ideas and of forces: and, to the best of my +ability, I have tried to arrive at a clear understanding of the +fundamentals of æsthetic form as they affect the art to which I have +felt myself instinctively akin, the art of poetry. That I have +completely attained such an understanding, it would be idle for me to +pretend: but I believe, and have induced some others to believe, that I +have made a few steps towards it. Some explanation of my own peculiar +theories and beliefs is necessary, however, to those who have not +specifically concerned themselves with poetry, or who suffer in the +presence of any new work of art from the normal human reaction that all +art principles are so essentially fixed that any departure from accepted +ideas is madness.</p> + + +<h4>II</h4> + +<p>The fundamental basis of all the arts is the same. In every case art +aims at the evocation of some human emotion in the spectator or +listener. Where science proceeds from effects to causes, and seeks to +analyze the underlying causes of emotion and sensation, art reverses the +process, and constructs something that will awaken emotions, according +to the amount of receptiveness with which other people approach it. Thus +architecture gives us feelings of density, proportion, harmony: +sculpture, of masses in movement; painting, of colour-harmony and the +ordered composition of lines and volumes from which arise sensations of +space: music, of the development of sounds into melodic line, harmonic +progression, tonal opposition, and symphonic structure.</p> + +<p>The object of literature is not dissimilar from these. Literature aims +at releasing the emotions that arise from the formed words of a certain +language. But literature is probably a less pure—and hence more +universal—art than any I have yet examined. For it must be apparent to +all minds that not only is a word a definite symbol of some fact, but +also it is a thing capable of being spoken or sounded. The art of +literature, then, in so far as it deals with definite statements, is +akin to painting or photography: in so far as it deals with sounded +words, it is akin to music.</p> + + +<h4>III</h4> + +<p>Literature, therefore, does not depend on the peculiar twists and quirks +which represent, to those who can read, the words, but rather on the +essential words themselves. In fact, literature existed before writing; +and writing in itself is of no value from the purely literary sense, +except in so far as it preserves and transmits from generation to +generation the literary emotion. Style, whether in prose or poetry, is +an attempt to develop this essentially musical quality of literature, to +evoke the magic that exists in the sound-quality of words, as well as +to combine these sound-qualities in definite statements or sentences. +The difference between prose and poetry is, therefore, not a difference +of means, but of psychological effect and reaction. The means employed, +the formed language, is the same: but the resultant impression is quite +different.</p> + +<p>In prose, the emotions expressed are those that are capable of +development in a straight line. In so far as prose is pure, it confines +itself to the direct orderly progression of a thought or conception or +situation from point to point of a flat surface. The sentences, as they +develop this conception from its beginning to conclusion, move on, and +do not return upon themselves. The grouping of these sentences into +paragraphs gives the breadth of the thought. The paragraphs, sections, +and chapters are each a square, in that they represent a division of the +main thought into parallel units, or blocks of subsidiary ideas. The +sensation of depth is finally obtained by arranging these blocks in a +rising climacteric progression, or in parallel lines, or in a sort of +zigzag figure.</p> + +<p>The psychological reaction that arises from the intelligent appreciation +of poetry is quite different. In poetry, we have a succession of curves. +The direction of the thought is not in straight lines, but wavy and +spiral. It rises and falls on gusts of strong emotion. Most often it +creates strongly marked loops and circles. The structure of the stanza +or strophe always tends to the spherical. Depth is obtained by making +one sphere contain a number of concentric, or overlapping spheres.</p> + +<p>Hence, when we speak of poetry we usually mean regular rhyme and metre, +which have for so long been considered essential to all poetry, not as a +device for heightening musical effect, as so many people suppose, but +merely to make these loops and circles more accentuated, and to make the +line of the poem turn upon itself more recognizably. But it must be +recognized that just as Giotto's circle was none the less a circle, +although not drawn with compasses, so poetic circles can be constructed +out of subtler and more musical curves than that which painstakingly +follows the selfsame progression of beats, and catches itself up on the +same point of rhyme for line after line. The key pattern on the lip of a +Greek vase may be beautiful, but it is less beautiful, less satisfying, +and less conclusive a test of artistic ability than the composition of +satyrs and of mænads struggling about the centre. Therefore I maintain, +and will continue to do so, that the mere craftsman-ability to write in +regular lines and metres no more makes a man a poet than the ability to +stencil wall-papers makes him a painter.</p> + +<p>Rather is it more important to observe that almost any prose work of +imaginative literature, if examined closely, will be found to contain a +plentiful sprinkling of excellent verses; while many poems which the +world hails as master-pieces, contain whole pages of prose. The fact is, +that prose and poetry are to literature as composition and colour are +to painting, or as light and shadow to the day, or male and female to +mankind. There are no absolutely perfect poets and no absolutely perfect +prose-writers. Each partakes of some of the characteristics of the +other. The difference between poetry and prose is, therefore, a +difference between a general roundness and a general squareness of +outline. A great French critic, recently dead, who devoted perhaps the +major part of his life to the study of the æsthetics of the French +tongue, declared that Flaubert and Chateaubriand wrote only poetry. If +there are those who cannot see that in the only true and lasting sense +of the word poetry, this remark was perfectly just, then all I have +written above will be in vain.</p> + + +<h4>IV</h4> + +<p>Along with the prevailing preoccupation with technique which so marks +the early twentieth century, there has gone also a great change in the +subject-matter of art. Having tried to explain the aesthetic form-basis +of poetry, I shall now attempt to explain my personal way of viewing its +content.</p> + +<p>It is a significant fact that every change in technical procedure in the +arts is accompanied by, and grows out of, a change in subject-matter. To +take only one out of innumerable examples, the new subject-matter of +Wagner's music-dramas, of an immeasurably higher order than the usual +libretto, created a new form of music, based on motifs, not melodies. +Other examples can easily be discovered. The reason for this is not +difficult to find.</p> + +<p>No sincere artist cares to handle subject-matter that has already been +handled and exhausted. It is not a question of a desire to avoid +plagiarism, or of self-conscious searching for novelty, but of a +perfectly spontaneous and normal appeal which any new subject-matter +always makes. Hence, when a new subject appears to any artist, he always +realizes it more vividly than an old one, and if he is a good artist, he +realizes it so vividly that he recreates it in what is practically a +novel form.</p> + +<p>This novel form never is altogether novel, nor is the subject altogether +a new subject. For, as I pointed out at the beginning of this preface, +that all arts sprang practically out of the same primary sensations, so +the subject-matter of all art must forever be the same: namely, nature +and human life. Hence, any new type of art will always be found, in +subject-matter as well as in technique, to have its roots in the old. +Art is like a kaleidoscope, capable of many changes, while the material +which builds up those changes remains the same.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, although the subject-matter in this book is not altogether +new, yet I have realized it in a way which has not often been tried, and +out of that fresh and quite personal realization have sprung my +innovations in subject as well as technique. Let me illustrate by a +concrete example.</p> + + +<h4>V</h4> + +<p>A book lies on my desk. It has a red binding and is badly printed on +cheap paper. I have had this book with me for several years. Now, +suppose I were to write a poem on this book, how would I treat the +subject?</p> + +<p>If I were a poet following in the main the Victorian tradition, I should +write my poem altogether about the contents of this book and its author. +My poem would be essentially a criticism of the subject-matter of the +book. I should state at length how that subject-matter had affected me. +In short, what the reader would obtain from this sort of poem would be +my sentimental reaction towards certain ideas and tendencies in the work +of another.</p> + +<p>If I were a realist poet, I should write about the book's external +appearance. I should expatiate on the red binding, the bad type, the +ink-stain on page sixteen. I should complain, perhaps, of my poverty at +not being able to buy a better edition, and conclude with a gibe at the +author for not having realized the sufferings of the poor.</p> + +<p>Neither of these ways, however, of writing about this book possesses any +novelty, and neither is essentially my own way. My own way of writing +about it would be as follows:—</p> + +<p>I should select out of my life the important events connected with my +ownership of this book, and strive to write of them in terms of the +volume itself, both as regards subject-matter and appearance. In other +words, I should link up my personality and the personality of the book, +and make each a part of the other. In this way I should strive to evoke +a soul out of this piece of inanimate matter, a something characteristic +and structural inherent in this in-organic form which is friendly to me +and responds to my mood.</p> + +<p>This method is not new, although it has not often been used in +Occidental countries. Professor Fenollosa, in his book on Chinese and +Japanese art, states that it was universally employed by the Chinese +artists and poets of the Sung period in the eleventh century A.D. He +calls this doctrine of the interdependence of man and inanimate nature, +the cardinal doctrine of Zen Buddhism. The Zen Buddhists evolved it from +the still earlier Taoist philosophy, which undoubtedly inspired Li Po +and the other great Chinese poets of the seventh and eighth centuries +A.D.</p> + + +<h4>VI</h4> + +<p>In the first poems of this volume, the "Ghosts of an Old House," I have +followed the method already described. I have tried to evoke, out of the +furniture and surroundings of a certain old house, definite emotions +which I have had concerning them. I have tried to relate my childish +terror concerning this house—a terror not uncommon among children, as I +can testify—to the aspects that called it forth.</p> + +<p>In the "Symphonies," which form the second part of this volume, I have +gone a step further. My aim in writing these was, from the beginning, to +narrate certain important phases of the emotional and intellectual +development—in short, the life—of an artist, not necessarily myself, +but of that sort of artist with which I might find myself most in +sympathy. And here, not being restrained by any definite material +phenomena, as in the Old House, I have tried to state each phase in the +terms of a certain colour, or combination of colours, which is +emotionally akin to that phase. This colour, and the imaginative +phantasmagoria of landscape which it evokes, thereby creates, in a +definite and tangible form, the dominant mood of each poem.</p> + +<p>The emotional relations that exist between form, colour, and sound have +been little investigated. It is perfectly true that certain colours +affect certain temperaments differently. But it is also true that there +is a science of colour, and that certain of its laws are already +universally known, if not explained. Naturally enough, it is to the +painters we must first turn if we want to find out what is known about +colour. We discover that painters continually are speaking of hot and +cold colour: red, yellow, orange being generally hot, and green, blue, +and violet cold—mixed colours being classed hot and cold according to +the proportions they contain of the hot and cold colours. We also +discover that certain colours will not fit certain forms, but rebel at +the combination. This is so far true that scarcely any landscape painter +finishes his pictures from nature, but in the studio: and almost any art +student, painting a landscape, will disregard the colour before him and +employ the colour-scheme of his master or of some painter he admires. As +Delacroix noted in his journal: "A conception having become a +composition must move in the milieu of a colour peculiar to it. There +seems to be a particular tone belonging to some part of every picture +which is a key that governs all the other tones."</p> + +<p>Therefore, we must admit that there is an intimate relation between +colour and form. It is the same with colour and sounds. Many musicians +have observed the phenomenon, that when certain notes, or combinations +of them, are sounded, certain colours are also suggested to the eye. A +Russian composer, Scriabine, went so far as to construct colour-scales, +and an English scientist, Professor Wallace Rimington, has built an +organ which plays in colours, instead of notes. Unfortunately, the +musicians have given this subject less attention than the painters, and +therefore our knowledge concerning the relations of colour and sound is +more fragmentary and incomplete. Nevertheless, these relations exist, +and it is for the future to develop them more fully.</p> + +<p>Literature, and especially poetry, as I have already pointed out, +partakes of the character of both painting and music. The impressionist +method is quite as applicable to writing as it is to landscape. Poems +can be written in major or minor keys, can be as full of dominant motif +as a Wagner music-drama, and even susceptible of fugal treatment. +Literature is the common ground of many arts, and in its highest +development, such as the drama as practised in fifth-century Athens, is +found allied to music, dancing, and colour. Hence, I have called my +works "Symphonies," when they are really dramas of the soul, and hence, +in them I have used colour for verity, for ornament, for drama, for its +inherent beauty, and for intensifying the form of the emotion that each +of these poems is intended to evoke.</p> + + +<h4>VII</h4> + +<p>Let us take an artist, a young man at the outset of his career. His +years of searching, of fumbling, of other men's influence, are coming to +an end. Sure of himself, he yet sees that he will spend all his life +pursuing a vision of beauty which will elude him at the very last. This +is the first symphony, which I have called the "Blue," because blue +suggests to me depth, mystery, and distance.</p> + +<p>He finds himself alone in a great city, surrounded by noise and +clamour. It is as if millions of lives were tugging at him, drawing him +away from his art, tempting him to go out and whelm his personality in +this black whirlpool of struggle and failure, on which float golden +specks—the illusory bliss of life. But he sees that all this is only +another illusion, like his own. Here we have the "Symphony in Black and +Gold."</p> + +<p>He emerges from the city, and in the country is re-intoxicated with +desire for life by spring. He vows himself to a self-sufficing pagan +worship of nature. This is the "Green Symphony."</p> + +<p>Quickened by spring, he dreams of a marvellous golden city of art, fall +of fellow-workers. This city appears to him at times like some Italian +town of the Renaissance, at others like some strange Oriental +golden-roofed monastery-temple. He sees himself dead in the desert far +away from it. Yet its blossoming is ever about him. Something divine has +been born of him after death.</p> + +<p>So he passes to the "White Symphony," the central poem of this series, +in which I have sought to describe the artist's struggle to attain +unutterable and superhuman perfection. This struggle goes on from the +midsummer of his life to midwinter. The end of it is stated in the poem.</p> + +<p>There follows a brief interlude, which I have called a "Symphony in +White and Blue." These colours were chosen perhaps more +idiosyncratically in this case than in the others. I have tried to +depict the sort of temptation that besets most artists at this stage of +their career: the temptation to abandon the struggle for the sake of a +purely sensual existence. In this case, however, the appeal of +sensuality is conveyed under the guise of a dream. It is resisted, and +the struggle begins anew.</p> + +<p>War breaks out, not alone in the external world, but in the artist's +soul. He finds he must follow his personality wherever it leads him, +despite all obstacles. This is the "Orange Symphony."</p> + +<p>Now follow long years of struggle and neglect. He is shipwrecked, and +still afar he sees his city of art, but this time it is red, a phantom +mocking his impotent rage.</p> + +<p>Old age follows. All is violet, the colour of regret and remembrance. He +is living only in the past, his life a succession of dreams.</p> + +<p>Lastly, all things fade out into absolute grey, and it is now midwinter. +Looking forth on the world again he still sees war, like a monstrous red +flower, dominating mankind. He hears the souls of the dead declaring +that they, too, have died for an adventure, even as he is about to die.</p> + +<p>Such, in the briefest possible analysis, is the meaning of the poems +contained in this book.</p> + +<p><i>January</i>, 1916.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a><b>CONTENTS</b></p> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a href="#SECTION_I">SECTION I. THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#PROLOGUE">PROLOGUE</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#PART_I_THE_HOUSE">PART I. THE HOUSE</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#BEDROOM">Bedroom</a><br /> +<a href="#LIBRARY">Library</a><br /> +<a href="#INDIAN_SKULL">Indian Skull</a><br /> +<a href="#OLD_NURSERY">Old Nursery</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_BACK_STAIRS">The Back Stairs</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_WALL_CABINET">The Wall Cabinet</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_CELLAR">The Cellar</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_FRONT_DOOR">The Front Door</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#PART_II_THE_ATTIC">PART II. THE ATTIC</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#IN_THE_ATTIC">In the Attic</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_CALENDAR_IN_THE_ATTIC">The Calendar in the Attic</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_HOOPSKIRT">The Hoopskirt</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_LITTLE_CHAIR">The Little Chair</a><br /> +<a href="#IN_THE_DARK_CORNER">In the Dark Corner</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_TOY_CABINET">The Toy Cabinet</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_YARDSTICK">The Yardstick</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#PART_III_THE_LAWN">PART III. THE LAWN</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#THE_THREE_OAKS">The Three Oaks</a><br /> +<a href="#AN_OAK">An Oak</a><br /> +<a href="#ANOTHER_OAK">Another Oak</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_OLD_BARN">The Old Barn</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_WELL">The Well</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_TREES">The Trees</a><br /> +<a href="#VISION">Vision</a><br /> +<a href="#EPILOGUE">Epilogue</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#SECTION_II">SECTION II. SYMPHONIES</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#BLUE_SYMPHONY">BLUE SYMPHONY</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#SOLITUDE_IN_THE_CITY">SOLITUDE IN THE CITY (SYMPHONY IN BLACK AND GOLD)</a> +<br /><br /> +<a href="#WORDS_AT_MIDNIGHT">I. Words at Midnight</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_EVENING_RAIN">II. The Evening Rain</a><br /> +<a href="#STREET_OF_SORROWS">III. Street of Sorrows</a><br /> +<a href="#SONG_IN_THE_DARKNESS">IV. Song in the Darkness</a><br /> +<br /> +<a href="#GREEN_SYMPHONY">GREEN SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#GOLDEN_SYMPHONY">GOLDEN SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#WHITE_SYMPHONY">WHITE SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#MIDSUMMER_DREAMS">MIDSUMMER DREAMS (SYMPHONY IN WHITE AND BLUE)</a> +<br /> +<a href="#ORANGE_SYMPHONY">ORANGE SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#RED_SYMPHONY">RED SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#VIOLET_SYMPHONY">VIOLET SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#GREY_SYMPHONY">GREY SYMPHONY</a> +<br /> +<a href="#POPPIES_OF_THE_RED_YEAR">POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR (A SYMPHONY IN SCARLET)</a> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="SECTION_I" id="SECTION_I"></a>SECTION I</h3> + +<h4>THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE</h4> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="PROLOGUE" id="PROLOGUE"></a>PROLOGUE<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The house that I write of, faces the north:<br /> +No sun ever seeks<br /> +Its six white columns,<br /> +The nine great windows of its face.<br /> +<br /> +It fronts foursquare the winds.<br /> +<br /> +Under the penthouse of the veranda roof,<br /> +The upper northern rooms<br /> +Gloom outwards mournfully.<br /> +<br /> +Staring Ionic capitals<br /> +Peer in them:<br /> +Owl-like faces.<br /> +<br /> +On winter nights<br /> +The wind, sidling round the corner,<br /> +Shoots upwards<br /> +With laughter.<br /> +<br /> +The windows rattle as if some one were in them wishing to get out<br /> +And ride upon the wind.<br /> +<br /> +Doors lead to nowhere:<br /> +Squirrels burrow between the walls.<br /> +Closets in every room hang open,<br /> +Windows are stared into by uncivil ancient trees.<br /> +<br /> +In the middle of the upper hallway<br /> +There is a great circular hole<br /> +Going up to the attic.<br /> +A wooden lid covers it.<br /> +<br /> +All over the house there is a sense of futility;<br /> +Of minutes dragging slowly<br /> +And repeating<br /> +Some worn-out story of broken effort and desire.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="PART_I_THE_HOUSE" id="PART_I_THE_HOUSE"></a>PART I. THE HOUSE<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="BEDROOM" id="BEDROOM"></a>BEDROOM<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The clump of jessamine<br /> +Softly beneath the rain<br /> +Rocks its golden flowers.<br /> +<br /> +In this room my father died:<br /> +His bed is in the corner.<br /> +No one has slept in it<br /> +Since the morning when he wakened<br /> +To meet death's hands at his heart.<br /> +I cannot go to this room,<br /> +Without feeling something big and angry<br /> +Waiting for me<br /> +To throw me on the bed,<br /> +And press its thumbs in my throat.<br /> +<br /> +The clump of jessamine<br /> +Without, beneath the rain,<br /> +Rocks its golden flowers.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LIBRARY" id="LIBRARY"></a>LIBRARY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Stuffy smell of mouldering leather,<br /> +Tattered arm-chairs, creaking doors,<br /> +Books that slovenly elbow each other,<br /> +Sown with children's scrawls and long<br /> +Worn out by contact with generations:<br /> +Tattered tramps displaying yourselves—<br /> +"We, though you broke our backs, did not complain."<br /> +If I had my way,<br /> +I would take you out and bury you quickly,<br /> +Or give you to the clean fire.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="INDIAN_SKULL" id="INDIAN_SKULL"></a>INDIAN SKULL<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Some one dug this up and brought it<br /> +To our house.<br /> +In the dark upper hall, I see it dimly,<br /> +Looking at me through the glass.<br /> +<br /> +Where dancers have danced, and weary people<br /> +Have crept to their bedrooms in the morning,<br /> +Where sick people have tossed all night,<br /> +Where children have been born,<br /> +Where feet have gone up and down,<br /> +Where anger has blazed forth, and strange looks have passed,<br /> +It has rested, watching meanwhile<br /> +The opening and shutting of doors,<br /> +The coming and going of people,<br /> +The carrying out of coffins.<br /> +<br /> +Earth still clings to its eye-sockets,<br /> +It will wait, till its vengeance is accomplished.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="OLD_NURSERY" id="OLD_NURSERY"></a>OLD NURSERY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In the tired face of the mirror<br /> +There is a blue curtain reflected.<br /> +If I could lift the reflection,<br /> +Peer a little beyond, I would see<br /> +A boy crying<br /> +Because his sister is ill in another room<br /> +And he has no one to play with:<br /> +A boy listlessly scattering building blocks,<br /> +And crying,<br /> +Because no one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana.<br /> +I cannot lift the curtain:<br /> +It is stiff and frozen.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_BACK_STAIRS" id="THE_BACK_STAIRS"></a>THE BACK STAIRS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In the afternoon<br /> +When no one is in the house,<br /> +I suddenly hear dull dragging feet<br /> +Go fumbling down those dark back stairs,<br /> +That climb up twisting,<br /> +As if they wanted no one to see them.<br /> +Beating a dirge upon the bare planks<br /> +I hear those feet and the creak of a long-locked door.<br /> +<br /> +My mother often went<br /> +Up and down those selfsame stairs,<br /> +From the room where by the window<br /> +She would sit all day and listlessly<br /> +Look on the world that had destroyed her,<br /> +She would go down in the evening<br /> +To the room where she would sleep,<br /> +Or rather, not sleep, but all night<br /> +Lie staring fiercely at the ceiling.<br /> +<br /> +In the afternoon<br /> +When no one is in the house:<br /> +I suddenly hear dull dragging feet<br /> +Beating out their futile tune,<br /> +Up and down those dark back stairs,<br /> +But there is no one in the shadows.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_WALL_CABINET" id="THE_WALL_CABINET"></a>THE WALL CABINET<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Above the steep back stairs<br /> +So high that only a ladder can come to it,<br /> +There is a wall cabinet hidden away.<br /> +<br /> +No one ever unlocks it;<br /> +The key is lost, the door is barred,<br /> +It is shut and still.<br /> +<br /> +Some say, a previous tenant<br /> +Filled its shelves with rows of bottles,<br /> +Bottles of spirit, filled with spiders.<br /> +<br /> +I do not know.<br /> +Above the sleepy still back stairs,<br /> +It watches, shut and still.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_CELLAR" id="THE_CELLAR"></a>THE CELLAR<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Faintly lit by a high-barred grating,<br /> +The low/hung cellar,<br /> +Flattens itself under the house.<br /> +<br /> +In one corner<br /> +There is a little door,<br /> +So low, it can scarcely be seen.<br /> +<br /> +Beyond,<br /> +There is a narrow room,<br /> +One must feel for the walls in the dark.<br /> +<br /> +One shrinks to go<br /> +To the end of it,<br /> +Feeling the smooth cold wall.<br /> +<br /> +Why did the builders who made this house,<br /> +Stow one room away like this?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_FRONT_DOOR" id="THE_FRONT_DOOR"></a>THE FRONT DOOR<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +It was always the place where our farewells were taken,<br /> +When we travelled to the north.<br /> +<br /> +I remember there was one who made some journey,<br /> +But did not come back.<br /> +Many years they waited for him,<br /> +At last the one who wished the most to see him,<br /> +Was carried out of this selfsame door in death.<br /> +<br /> +Since then all our family partings<br /> +Have been at another door.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="PART_II_THE_ATTIC" id="PART_II_THE_ATTIC"></a>PART II. THE ATTIC<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="IN_THE_ATTIC" id="IN_THE_ATTIC"></a>IN THE ATTIC<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Dust hangs clogged so thick<br /> +The air has a dusty taste:<br /> +Spider threads cling to my face,<br /> +From the broad pine-beams.<br /> +There is nothing living here,<br /> +The house below might be quite empty,<br /> +No sound comes from it.<br /> +The old broken trunks and boxes,<br /> +Cracked and dusty pictures,<br /> +Legless chairs and shattered tables,<br /> +Seem to be crying<br /> +Softly in the stillness<br /> +Because no one has brushed them.<br /> +No one has any use for them, now,<br /> +Yet I often wonder<br /> +If these things are really dead:<br /> +If the old trunks never open<br /> +Letting out grey flapping things at twilight?<br /> +If it is all as safe and dull<br /> +As it seems?<br /> +<br /> +Why then is the stair so steep,<br /> +Why is the doorway always locked,<br /> +Why does nobody ever come?<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_CALENDAR_IN_THE_ATTIC" id="THE_CALENDAR_IN_THE_ATTIC"></a>THE CALENDAR IN THE ATTIC<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I wonder how long it has been<br /> +Since this old calendar hung here,<br /> +With my birthday date upon it,<br /> +Nothing else—not a word of writing—<br /> +Not a mark of any hand.<br /> +<br /> +Perhaps it was my father<br /> +Who left it thus<br /> +For me to see.<br /> +<br /> +Perhaps my mother<br /> +Smiled as she saw it;<br /> +But in later years did not smile.<br /> +If I could tear it down,<br /> +From the wall<br /> +Somehow<br /> +I would be content.<br /> +But I am afraid, as a little child, to touch it.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_HOOPSKIRT" id="THE_HOOPSKIRT"></a>THE HOOPSKIRT<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +In the night when all are sleeping,<br /> +Up here a tiny old dame comes tripping,<br /> +Looking for her lost hoopskirt.<br /> +<br /> +My great-grandaunt—I never saw her—<br /> +Her ghost doesn't know me from another,<br /> +She stalks up the attic stairs angrily.<br /> +<br /> +The dust sets her sneezing and coughing,<br /> +By the trunk she is limping and hopping,<br /> +But alas—the trunk is locked.<br /> +<br /> +What's an old dame to do, anyway!<br /> +Must stay in a mouldy grave day on day,<br /> +Or go to heaven out of style.<br /> +<br /> +In the night when all are snoring,<br /> +The old lady makes a dreadful clatter,<br /> +Going down the attic stairs.<br /> +<br /> +What was that? A ghost or a burglar?<br /> +Oh, it was only the wind in the chimney,<br /> +Yes, and the attic door that slammed.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_LITTLE_CHAIR" id="THE_LITTLE_CHAIR"></a>THE LITTLE CHAIR<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I know not why, when I saw the little chair,<br /> +I suddenly desired to sit in it.<br /> +<br /> +I know not why, when I sat in the little chair,<br /> +Everything changed, and life came back to me.<br /> +<br /> +I am convinced no one at all has grown up in the house,<br /> +The break that I dreamed, itself was a dream and is broken.<br /> +<br /> +I will sit in the little chair and wait,<br /> +Till the others come looking after me.<br /> +<br /> +And if it is after nightfall they will come,<br /> +So much the better.<br /> +<br /> +For the little chair holds me as tightly as death;<br /> +And rocking in it, I can hear it whisper strange things.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="IN_THE_DARK_CORNER" id="IN_THE_DARK_CORNER"></a>IN THE DARK CORNER<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I brush the dust from this old portrait:<br /> +Yes, it is the same face, exactly,<br /> +Why does it look at me still with such a look of hate?<br /> +<br /> +I brush the dust from a heap of magazines:<br /> +Here there is all what you have written,<br /> +All that you struggled long years and went down to darkness for.<br /> +<br /> +O God, to think what I am writing<br /> +Will be ever as this!<br /> +<br /> +O God, to think that my own face<br /> +May some day glare from this dust!<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_TOY_CABINET" id="THE_TOY_CABINET"></a>THE TOY CABINET<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +By the old toy cabinet,<br /> +I stand and turn over dusty things:<br /> +Chessmen—card games—hoops and balls—<br /> +Toy rifles, helmets, swords,<br /> +In the far corner<br /> +A doll's tea-set in a box.<br /> +<br /> +Where are you, golden child,<br /> +Who gave tea to your dolls and me?<br /> +The golden child is growing old,<br /> +Further than Rome or Babylon<br /> +From you have passed those foolish years.<br /> +She lives—she suffers—she forgets.<br /> +<br /> +By the old toy cabinet,<br /> +I idly stand and awkwardly<br /> +Finger the lock of the tea-set box.<br /> +What matter—why should I look inside,<br /> +Perhaps it is empty after all!<br /> +Leave old things to the ghosts of old;<br /> +<br /> +My stupid brain refuses thought,<br /> +I am maddened with a desire to weep.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_YARDSTICK" id="THE_YARDSTICK"></a>THE YARDSTICK<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yardstick that measured out so many miles of cloth,<br /> +Yardstick that covered me,<br /> +I wonder do you hop of nights<br /> +Out to the still hill-cemetery,<br /> +And up and down go measuring<br /> +A clayey grave for me?<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="PART_III_THE_LAWN" id="PART_III_THE_LAWN"></a>PART III. THE LAWN<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_THREE_OAKS" id="THE_THREE_OAKS"></a>THE THREE OAKS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +There are three ancient oaks,<br /> +That grow near to each other.<br /> +<br /> +They lift their branches<br /> +High as beckoning<br /> +With outstretched arms,<br /> +For some one to come and stand<br /> +Under the canopy of their leaves.<br /> +<br /> +Once long ago I remember<br /> +As I lay in the very centre,<br /> +Between them:<br /> +A rotten branch suddenly fell<br /> +Near to me.<br /> +<br /> +I will not go back to those oaks:<br /> +Their branches are too black for my liking.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="AN_OAK" id="AN_OAK"></a>AN OAK<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hoar mistletoe<br /> +Hangs in clumps<br /> +To the twisted boughs<br /> +Of this lonely tree.<br /> +<br /> +Beneath its roots I often thought treasure was buried:<br /> +For the roots had enclosed a circle.<br /> +<br /> +But when I dug beneath them,<br /> +I could only find great black ants<br /> +That attacked my hands.<br /> +<br /> +When at night I have the nightmare,<br /> +I always see the eyes of ants<br /> +Swarming from a mouldering box of gold.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="ANOTHER_OAK" id="ANOTHER_OAK"></a>ANOTHER OAK<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Poison ivy crawls at its root,<br /> +I dare not approach it,<br /> +It has an air of hate.<br /> +<br /> +One would say a man had been hanged to its branches,<br /> +It holds them in such a way.<br /> +<br /> +The moon gets tangled in it,<br /> +A distant steeple seems to bark<br /> +From its belfry to the sky.<br /> +<br /> +Something that no one ever loved,<br /> +Is buried here:<br /> +Some grey shape of deadly hate,<br /> +Crawls on the back fence just beyond.<br /> +<br /> +Now I remember—once I went<br /> +Out by night too near this oak,<br /> +And a red cat suddenly leapt<br /> +From the dark and clawed my face.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_OLD_BARN" id="THE_OLD_BARN"></a>THE OLD BARN<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Owls flap in this ancient barn<br /> +With rotted doors.<br /> +<br /> +Rats squeak in this ancient barn<br /> +Over the floors.<br /> +<br /> +Owls flap warily every night,<br /> +Rats' eyes gleam in the cold moonlight.<br /> +<br /> +There is something hidden in this barn,<br /> +With barred doors.<br /> +<br /> +Something the owls have torn,<br /> +And the rats scurry with over the floors.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_WELL" id="THE_WELL"></a>THE WELL<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The well is not used now,<br /> +Its waters are tainted.<br /> +<br /> +I remember there was once a man went down<br /> +To clean it.<br /> +He found it very cold and deep,<br /> +With a queer niche in one of its sides,<br /> +From which he hauled forth buckets of bricks and dirt.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_TREES" id="THE_TREES"></a>THE TREES<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops,<br /> +The trees are not the same.<br /> +<br /> +I know they are not the same,<br /> +Because there is one tree that is missing,<br /> +And it stood so long by another,<br /> +That the other, feeling lonely,<br /> +Now is slowly dying too.<br /> +<br /> +When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops<br /> +That dead tree comes back;<br /> +Like a great blue sphere of smoke<br /> +Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass,<br /> +Rustling through frayed Branches,<br /> +Something eerily cheeping through it,<br /> +Something creeping through its shade.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="VISION" id="VISION"></a>VISION<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +You who flutter and quiver<br /> +An instant<br /> +Just beyond my apprehension;<br /> +Lady,<br /> +I will find the white orchid for you,<br /> +If you will but give me<br /> +One smile between those wayward drifts of hair.<br /> +<br /> +I will break the wild berries that loop themselves over the marsh-pool,<br /> +For your sake,<br /> +And the long green canes that swish against each other,<br /> +I will break, to set in your hands.<br /> +For there is no wonder like to you,<br /> +You who flutter and quiver<br /> +An instant<br /> +Just beyond my apprehension.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="EPILOGUE" id="EPILOGUE"></a>EPILOGUE<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Why it was I do not know,<br /> +But last night I vividly dreamed<br /> +Though a thousand miles away,<br /> +That I had come back to you.<br /> +<br /> +The windows were the same:<br /> +The bed, the furniture the same,<br /> +Only there was a door where empty wall had always been,<br /> +And someone was trying to enter it.<br /> +<br /> +I heard the grate of a key,<br /> +An unknown voice apologetically<br /> +Excused its intrusion just as I awoke.<br /> +<br /> +But I wonder after all<br /> +If there was some secret entranceway,<br /> +Some ghost I overlooked, when I was there.<br /> +</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="SECTION_II" id="SECTION_II"></a>SECTION II</h3> + +<h4>SYMPHONIES</h4> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="BLUE_SYMPHONY" id="BLUE_SYMPHONY"></a>BLUE SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 /> +Oh, old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees!<br /> +<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.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 /> +<br /> +Oh, 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.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 /> +<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.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 /> +<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 /> +These are my dreams.<br /> +<br /> +For me silks are outspread.<br /> +I take my ease, unthinking.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +V<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +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 hopes of my heart.<br /> +<br /> +The ice is glazing over,<br /> +Tom 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.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="SOLITUDE_IN_THE_CITY" id="SOLITUDE_IN_THE_CITY"></a>SOLITUDE IN THE CITY<br /> +<br /> +(<i>Symphony in Black and Gold</i>)<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<a name="WORDS_AT_MIDNIGHT" id="WORDS_AT_MIDNIGHT"></a>WORDS AT MIDNIGHT<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Because the night is so still,<br /> +Because there is no one about,<br /> +Not the tiny squeak of a mouse over the carpet,<br /> +Nor the slow beat of a clock at the top of the stairway,<br /> +I am afraid of the night that is coming to me.<br /> +<br /> +I know out there<br /> +Some one is thinking of me, some one is wondering about me,<br /> +Some one is needing me, some one is dying for my sake,<br /> +Yet I remain alone.<br /> +<br /> +I know that life is calling: I cannot resist it:<br /> +Too much of myself I have given ever to turn away,<br /> +I know that shame, sickness, death itself shall befall me,<br /> +And I am afraid.<br /> +<br /> +O night, hide me in your long cold arms:<br /> +Let me sleep, but let me not live this life!<br /> +There are too many people with haggard eyes standing<br /> +before me<br /> +Saying, "To live you must suffer even as we."<br /> +<br /> +Yet life bitterly bids me: "Go on to the last,<br /> +No matter the mud and the cold rain and the darkness:<br /> +No matter the drear pilgrims in whose eyes you shall look for long,<br /> +And see all suffering, madness, death and despair."<br /> +<br /> +Because my heart is cramped in,<br /> +Because I have suffered much,<br /> +Because my hope is like a candle-flame quenched at midnight,<br /> +Because I dare dream yet of joy,<br /> +I can take my night and the life that is coming to me.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_EVENING_RAIN" id="THE_EVENING_RAIN"></a>THE EVENING RAIN<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing,<br /> +As it slowly slips on the motionless pavement;<br /> +Greasy and grey is the rain of the evening,<br /> +As it dribbles into the dirty gutters<br /> +And slides down the drains with a roar!<br /> +<br /> +Ragged men cower<br /> +Under the doorways:<br /> +Umbrellas nod like drowsy birds.<br /> +Bat-umbrellas,<br /> +Teetering, balancing,<br /> +Where will you spread your wings to-night?<br /> +<br /> +Tangled between the factory-chimneys,<br /> +I have seen the golden lamps wake this evening:<br /> +Spinning and whirling, darting and dancing,<br /> +Tangled with the glittering rain.<br /> +<br /> +Omnibuses lurch<br /> +Heavily homeward<br /> +Elephants tinselled in tawdry gold:<br /> +Taxicabs fight<br /> +Like wild birds squalling,<br /> +Wild birds with roaring, clattering wings.<br /> +<br /> +O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing,<br /> +As it shivers to jewel-heaps spilt on the pavement.<br /> +The façades frown gloomily at its beauty,<br /> +The façades are dreaming of the day.<br /> +<br /> +With rippling, curling,<br /> +Serpentine convolutions<br /> +The pavements drip with drunken light.<br /> +Crimson and gold,<br /> +Shot with opal,<br /> +They glare against the sullen night.<br /> +<br /> +O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing<br /> +As it slowly dries on the dirty pavement.<br /> +Red low-browed clouds jut over the sky:<br /> +And in the cool sky there are stars.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<a name="STREET_OF_SORROWS" id="STREET_OF_SORROWS"></a>STREET OF SORROWS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +You street of sorrows bending<br /> +Over your golden lamps in the evening;<br /> +Dark street that is very silent,<br /> +And everywhere the same:<br /> +Elsewhere there is song and riot,<br /> +Like golden fireflies flickering,<br /> +Elsewhere the crane's gaunt muscles<br /> +Tug the city up to the stars.<br /> +<br /> +But who in the dawn should come near you?<br /> +There are dry leaves rattling behind him.<br /> +And who should come in the noonday?<br /> +There are shadows that squat on the pave.<br /> +And who should come in the evening?<br /> +There is one: a ship in dark waters.<br /> +And who should come at nightfall,<br /> +To feel cold hands at his heart?<br /> +<br /> +You street of solitude waiting<br /> +Patient and still in the evening:<br /> +Old street that is very weary,<br /> +And everywhere the same;<br /> +You that have seen joy passing.<br /> +Into pain, into tears, into darkness,<br /> +Street of the dead and musty,<br /> +I have drunk your cold poison to-night.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<a name="SONG_IN_THE_DARKNESS" id="SONG_IN_THE_DARKNESS"></a>SONG IN THE DARKNESS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary:<br /> +Henceforth the keys and wards of me are held in other hands.<br /> +<br /> +Dark clouds trail over the sky:<br /> +Troops of song retreating:<br /> +But in the sunset<br /> +Once more have I seen aloft<br /> +Incredible summits of gold, far on the south horizon.<br /> +<br /> +One purple veil of rain<br /> +Floats downward over the city;<br /> +And as it settles slowly<br /> +The light goes out of it.<br /> +<br /> +Chimneys with massive summits<br /> +Stand gaunt and black and evil:<br /> +Like a river of lead, to seaward<br /> +The river steadily rolls.<br /> +<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary:<br /> +Life takes me in black coils.<br /> +<br /> +One green light glitters:<br /> +Then a swift taxi<br /> +Scatters another<br /> +As it speeds on.<br /> +<br /> +The chimneys rank<br /> +Their motionless forces<br /> +Against the swift movement<br /> +Of tugs in the stream;<br /> +Against the flame-chariots<br /> +Of the Embankment;<br /> +Against the bowing trees,<br /> +Against the blowing smoke,<br /> +Against the busy rain.<br /> +<br /> +With dying might<br /> +The light invades<br /> +The city's hall:<br /> +Curtained by dripping fringes<br /> +Of buoyant tattered cloud,<br /> +Tossed by the wind.<br /> +<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary;<br /> +And all my city of dreams is burning up to-night.<br /> +<br /> +But yet there waits for me something lost back in the darkness:<br /> +Something I have never seized: a shape, a voice, a gesture,<br /> +Something behind my shoulder: grey robes that stir and rustle.<br /> +Something that moves away from me when I would touch it with my hand.<br /> +<br /> +Cities of the beyond, what great black-walled horizons<br /> +Dare you climb up, and down what steep incredible valleys?<br /> +I suddenly perceive that I have been mocked in you,<br /> +And therefore will I sow the earth with rain of stars to-night.<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary;<br /> +The rain invites to drunkenness: the wind blows<br /> +through my brain.<br /> +<br /> +Shiplike the sliding golden trams<br /> +Procession by and intercross:<br /> +With tulips, daffodils, crocuses<br /> +The whole street blossoms at my feet:<br /> +Now kindle, flames, and let blow out<br /> +The crimson rose against the grey,<br /> +Let night itself be blotted out<br /> +In life's monotonous drone of day.<br /> +<br /> +It is the last night that I can be solitary:<br /> +It is the last time that no feet<br /> +But mine can beat upon the floor;<br /> +It is the last time that no hands<br /> +But mine can pound upon my heart;<br /> +It is the last time that no voice<br /> +But mine can cry and yet be lost;<br /> +It is the last time I shall see<br /> +The pavements like a mirror stare at me.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="GREEN_SYMPHONY" id="GREEN_SYMPHONY"></a>GREEN SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The glittering leaves of the rhododendrons<br /> +Balance and vibrate in the cool air;<br /> +While in the sky above them<br /> +White clouds chase each other.<br /> +<br /> +Like scampering rabbits,<br /> +Flashes of sunlight sweep the lawn;<br /> +They fling in passing<br /> +Patterns of shadow,<br /> +Golden and green.<br /> +<br /> +With long cascades of laughter,<br /> +The mating birds dart and swoop to the turf:<br /> +'Mid their mad trillings<br /> +Glints the gay sun behind the trees.<br /> +<br /> +Down there are deep blue lakes:<br /> +Orange blossom droops in the water.<br /> +<br /> +In the tower of the winds,<br /> +All the bells are set adrift:<br /> +Jingling<br /> +For the dawn.<br /> +<br /> +Thin fluttering streamers<br /> +Of breeze lash through the swaying boughs,<br /> +Palely expectant<br /> +The earth receives the slanting rain.<br /> +<br /> +I am a glittering raindrop<br /> +Hugged close by the cool rhododendron.<br /> +I am a daisy starring<br /> +The exquisite curves of the close-cropped turf.<br /> +<br /> +The glittering leaves of the rhododendron<br /> +Are shaken like blue-green blades of grass,<br /> +Flickering, cracking, falling:<br /> +Splintering in a million fragments.<br /> +<br /> +The wind runs laughing up the slope<br /> +Stripping off handfuls of wet green leaves,<br /> +To fling in peoples' faces.<br /> +Wallowing on the daisy-powdered turf,<br /> +Clutching at the sunlight,<br /> +Cavorting in the shadow.<br /> +<br /> +Like baroque pearls,<br /> +Like cloudy emeralds,<br /> +The clouds and the trees clash together;<br /> +Whirling and swirling,<br /> +In the tumult<br /> +Of the spring,<br /> +And the wind.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The trees splash the sky with their fingers,<br /> +A restless green rout of stars.<br /> +<br /> +With whirling movement<br /> +They swing their boughs<br /> +About their stems:<br /> +Planes on planes of light and shadow<br /> +Pass among them,<br /> +Opening fanlike to fall.<br /> +<br /> +The trees are like a sea;<br /> +Tossing;<br /> +Trembling,<br /> +Roaring,<br /> +Wallowing,<br /> +Darting their long green flickering fronds up at the sky,<br /> +Spotted with white blossom-spray.<br /> +<br /> +The trees are roofs:<br /> +Hollow caverns of cool blue shadow,<br /> +Solemn arches<br /> +In the afternoons.<br /> +The whole vast horizon<br /> +In terrace beyond terrace,<br /> +Pinnacle above pinnacle,<br /> +Lifts to the sky<br /> +Serrated ranks of green on green.<br /> +<br /> +They caress the roofs with their fingers,<br /> +They sprawl about the river to look into it;<br /> +Up the hill they come<br /> +Gesticulating challenge:<br /> +They cower together<br /> +In dark valleys;<br /> +They yearn out over the fields.<br /> +<br /> +Enamelled domes<br /> +Tumble upon the grass,<br /> +Crashing in ruin<br /> +Quiet at last.<br /> +<br /> +The trees lash the sky with their leaves,<br /> +Uneasily shaking their dark green manes.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Far let the voices of the mad wild birds be calling me,<br /> +I will abide in this forest of pines.<br /> +<br /> +When the wind blows<br /> +Battling through the forest,<br /> +I hear it distantly,<br /> +The crash of a perpetual sea.<br /> +<br /> +When the rain falls,<br /> +I watch silver spears slanting downwards<br /> +From pale river-pools of sky,<br /> +Enclosed in dark fronds.<br /> +<br /> +When the sun shines,<br /> +I weave together distant branches till they enclose mighty circles,<br /> +I sway to the movement of hooded summits,<br /> +I swim leisurely in deep blue seas of air.<br /> +<br /> +I hug the smooth bark of stately red pillars<br /> +And with cones carefully scattered<br /> +I mark the progression of dark dial-shadows<br /> +Flung diagonally downwards through the afternoon.<br /> +<br /> +This turf is not like turf:<br /> +It is a smooth dry carpet of velvet,<br /> +Embroidered with brown patterns of needles and cones.<br /> +These trees are not like trees:<br /> +They are innumerable feathery pagoda-umbrellas,<br /> +Stiffly ungracious to the wind,<br /> +Teetering on red-lacquered stems.<br /> +<br /> +In the evening I listen to the winds' lisping,<br /> +While the conflagrations of the sunset flicker and clash behind me,<br /> +Flamboyant crenellations of glory amid the charred ebony boles.<br /> +<br /> +In the night the fiery nightingales<br /> +Shall clash and trill through the silence:<br /> +Like the voices of mermaids crying<br /> +From the sea.<br /> +<br /> +Long ago has the moon whelmed this uncompleted temple.<br /> +Stars swim like gold fish far above the black arches.<br /> +<br /> +Far let the timid feet of dawn fly to catch me:<br /> +I will abide in this forest of pines:<br /> +For I have unveiled naked beauty,<br /> +And the things that she whispered to me in the darkness,<br /> +Are buried deep in my heart.<br /> +<br /> +Now let the black tops of the pine-trees break like a spent wave,<br /> +Against the grey sky:<br /> +These are tombs and memorials and temples and altars sun-kindled for me.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="GOLDEN_SYMPHONY" id="GOLDEN_SYMPHONY"></a>GOLDEN SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Seen from afar, the city<br /> +To-day is like a golden cloud:<br /> +Strayed from the sky and moulded<br /> +Into dim motionless towers.<br /> +<br /> +Music is passing far off:<br /> +Music serenely<br /> +Is climbing up and vanishing<br /> +On the long grey stairways of the sky,<br /> +In fanlike rays of light.<br /> +<br /> +Now it falls slowly,<br /> +Careering, toppling,<br /> +Shivering and quivering like burnished glass or laburnum-blossom,<br /> +Golden cascades.<br /> +<br /> +Peace: now let the music<br /> +Sound from further away,<br /> +Red bells out of memory's<br /> +Blue dream of regret.<br /> +<br /> +Seen from afar, the city<br /> +To-day is like a fleet of sails:<br /> +Breaking the foam of dark forests,<br /> +In which I have strayed so long.<br /> +<br /> +They march together slowly,<br /> +The golden temple terraces,<br /> +Against the dark remembrance<br /> +Of my pools of despair.<br /> +<br /> +O golden angelus that sounded prolonging uncertain memories,<br /> +I have seen the swallows hovering to you and followed their dark trails<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of passage.</span><br /> +<br /> +The gates of the city lie open,<br /> +And the whole world goes homeward,<br /> +Full-pulsing bells in the foreground,<br /> +Catching my soul with them<br /> +On where the sun soars broadly through the incense-dome of the sky.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +High chimes from the belfry;<br /> +The noonday approaches<br /> +With its golden apparel<br /> +Rustling about its feet.<br /> +<br /> +High dreams of my city,<br /> +Where we, a band of brothers,<br /> +Build our proud dream of beauty<br /> +Before we fall into dust.<br /> +<br /> +The golden days have come for us:<br /> +With mandolins, sword-thrusts, laughter.<br /> +Even the very dust of the street<br /> +Grows gold beneath our feet.<br /> +<br /> +Bronze bell-notes poured from deep blue wells:<br /> +Molten gold out of the sky.<br /> +Pillars of yellow marble<br /> +On the summits of which the gods sleep.<br /> +<br /> +Now we are swimming;<br /> +About us a great golden halo<br /> +Vibrates from us downwards,<br /> +Ebbing its life away.<br /> +<br /> +Golden clouds are circling<br /> +Like angels and archangels<br /> +About the eye of the sun.<br /> +<br /> +Flaming sunset:<br /> +Mad conflagrations<br /> +Licking at the earth,<br /> +The blue-black walls of space,<br /> +Iron mountains vast on the horizon.<br /> +<br /> +O golden spear that dartled through the darkness!<br /> +The evening star sparkled and threw us its message.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +In the bosom of the desert<br /> +I will lie at the last.<br /> +<br /> +Not the grey desert of sand<br /> +But the golden desert of great wild grasses,<br /> +This shall receive my soul.<br /> +<br /> +In the high plateaus,<br /> +The wind will be like a flute-note calling me<br /> +Day after day.<br /> +<br /> +Short bursts of surf,<br /> +The wind climbs up and stops in the grass;<br /> +And the golden petals<br /> +Brush drowsily over my face.<br /> +<br /> +White butterfly that flutters across my sea of golden blossom;<br /> +Tell me, what are you looking for, lone white butterfly?<br /> +<br /> +I am seeking for a strange lonely white flower;<br /> +Its petals are honeyless; and in the wind it is still.<br /> +<br /> +White butterfly, come, fold your wings over my heart:<br /> +I am the white blossom, the white dead blossom for you.<br /> +<br /> +In the golden bosom of the prairie,<br /> +I am lying at the last<br /> +Like a pool that is stilled.<br /> +<br /> +But they who shared with me my life's adventure,<br /> +Who tossed their ducats like dandelions into the sunlight,<br /> +I know that somewhere they with songs are building,<br /> +Golden towers more beautiful than my own.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +I only know in the midnight,<br /> +Something will be born of me.<br /> +<br /> +The village drowses in the darkness,<br /> +But aloft in the temple<br /> +There is a thud of gongs and a shuffle of hollow voices<br /> +In the dark corridors.<br /> +<br /> +The golden temple<br /> +That kindled like a rose against the sunset,<br /> +Now is dark and silent,<br /> +One light glimmers from its façade.<br /> +<br /> +In the inner shrine<br /> +One stiff golden curtain<br /> +Hangs from floor to roof.<br /> +<br /> +Black, impassive, helmeted<br /> +In felt like stiff black warriors,<br /> +The lamas slowly gather,<br /> +Kneeling in a row.<br /> +<br /> +The hollow brazen trumpets<br /> +Blare and snore.<br /> +The drums, festooned with skulls,<br /> +Roar.<br /> +<br /> +Suddenly with a clash of gongs,<br /> +And a squeal from ear-splitting bugles,<br /> +The golden veil is rent.<br /> +<br /> +Cavernous blue darkness!<br /> +And within it<br /> +Smiling,<br /> +Naked,<br /> +Rose-empurpled,<br /> +Rippling with crimson-violet light, behold the god.<br /> +<br /> +Hail, great jewel in the lotus blossom!<br /> +Rosy flame that kindling<br /> +Flashes on the emptiness<br /> +Or Nirvana's sea!<br /> +<br /> +Before the shrine, as before,<br /> +Once more the golden curtain,<br /> +And the black shapes vanish.<br /> +<br /> +Aloft in the hollow temple<br /> +There is a shuffle of feet and a sound of hollow voices,<br /> +Soon lost.<br /> +<br /> +The village drowses in the darkness:<br /> +Like a vast black cube<br /> +The temple looms above it,<br /> +There is no light on its façade.<br /> +<br /> +Suddenly, all the golden temple<br /> +Kindles like a rose against the dawn.<br /> +<br /> +I only know in the midnight<br /> +Something has been born of me.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="WHITE_SYMPHONY" id="WHITE_SYMPHONY"></a>WHITE SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Forlorn and white,<br /> +Whorls of purity about a golden chalice,<br /> +Immense the peonies<br /> +Flare and shatter their petals over my face.<br /> +<br /> +They slowly turn paler,<br /> +They seem to be melting like blue-grey flakes of ice,<br /> +Thin greyish shivers<br /> +Fluctuating mid the dark green lance-thrust of the leaves.<br /> +<br /> +Like snowballs tossed,<br /> +Like soft white butterflies,<br /> +The peonies poise in the twilight.<br /> +And their narcotic insinuating perfume<br /> +Draws me into them<br /> +Shivering with the coolness,<br /> +Aching with the void.<br /> +They kiss the blue chalice of my dreams<br /> +Like a gesture seen for an instant and then lost forever. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +Outwards the petals<br /> +Thrust to embrace me,<br /> +Pale daggers of coldness<br /> +Run through my aching breast.<br /> +<br /> +Outwards, still outwards,<br /> +Till on the brink of twilight<br /> +They swirl downwards silently,<br /> +Flurry of snow in the void.<br /> +<br /> +Outwards, still outwards,<br /> +Till the blue walls are hidden,<br /> +And in the blinding white radiance<br /> +Of a whirlpool of clouds, I awake. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +Like spraying rockets<br /> +My peonies shower<br /> +Their glories on the night.<br /> +<br /> +Wavering perfumes,<br /> +Drift about the garden;<br /> +Shadows of the moonlight,<br /> +Drift and ripple over the dew-gemmed leaves.<br /> +<br /> +Soar, crash, and sparkle,<br /> +Shoal of stars drifting<br /> +Like silver fishes,<br /> +Through the black sluggish boughs.<br /> +<br /> +Towards the impossible,<br /> +Towards the inaccessible,<br /> +Towards the ultimate,<br /> +Towards the silence,<br /> +Towards the eternal,<br /> +These blossoms go.<br /> +<br /> +The peonies spring like rockets in the twilight,<br /> +And out of them all I rise.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Downwards through the blue abyss it slides,<br /> +The white snow-water of my dreams,<br /> +Downwards crashing from slippery rock<br /> +Into the boiling chasm:<br /> +In which no eye dare look, for it is the chasm of death.<br /> +<br /> +Upwards from the blue abyss it rises,<br /> +The chill water-mist of my dreams;<br /> +Upwards to greyish weeping pines,<br /> +And to skies of autumn ever about my heart,<br /> +It is blue at the beginning,<br /> +And blue-white against the grey-greenness;<br /> +It wavers in the upper air,<br /> +Catching unconscious sparkles, a rainbow-glint of sunlight,<br /> +And fading in the sad depths of the sky.<br /> +<br /> +Outwards rush the strong pale clouds,<br /> +Outwards and ever outwards;<br /> +The blue-grey clouds indistinguishable one from another:<br /> +Nervous, sinewy, tossing their arms and brandishing,<br /> +Till on the blue serrations of the horizon<br /> +They drench with their black rain a great peak of changeless snow. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +As evening came on, I climbed the tower,<br /> +To gaze upon the city far beneath:<br /> +I was not weary of day; but in the evening<br /> +A white mist assembled and gathered over the earth<br /> +And blotted it from sight.<br /> +<br /> +But to escape:<br /> +To chase with the golden clouds galloping over the horizon:<br /> +Arrows of the northwest wind<br /> +Singing amid them,<br /> +Ruffling up my hair!<br /> +<br /> +As evening came on the distance altered,<br /> +Pale wavering reflections rose from out the city,<br /> +Like sighs or the beckoning of half-invisible hands.<br /> +Monotonously and sluggishly they crept upwards<br /> +A river that had spent itself in some chasm,<br /> +And dwindled and foamed at last at my weary feet.<br /> +<br /> +Autumn! Golden fountains,<br /> +And the winds neighing<br /> +Amid the monotonous hills:<br /> +Desolation of the old gods,<br /> +Rain that lifts and rain that moves away;<br /> +In the greenback torrent<br /> +Scarlet leaves.<br /> +<br /> +It was now perfectly evening:<br /> +And the tower loomed like a gaunt peak in mid-air<br /> +Above the city: its base was utterly lost.<br /> +It was slowly coming on to rain,<br /> +And the immense columns of white mist<br /> +Wavered and broke before the faint-hurled spears.<br /> +<br /> +I will descend the mountains like a shepherd,<br /> +And in the folds of tumultuous misty cities,<br /> +I will put all my thoughts, all my old thoughts, safely to sleep.<br /> +<br /> +For it is already autumn,<br /> +O whiteness of the pale southwestern sky!<br /> +O wavering dream that was not mine to keep! +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +In midnight, in mournful moonlight,<br /> +By paths I could not trace,<br /> +I walked in the white garden,<br /> +Each flower had a white face.<br /> +<br /> +Their perfume intoxicated me: thus I began my dream.<br /> +<br /> +I was alone; I had no one to guide me,<br /> +But the moon was like the sun:<br /> +It stooped and kissed each waxen petal,<br /> +One after one.<br /> +<br /> +Green and white was that garden: diamond rain hung in the branches,<br /> +You will not believe it!<br /> +<br /> +In the morning, at the dayspring,<br /> +I wakened, shivering; lo,<br /> +The white garden that blossomed at my feet<br /> +Was a garden hidden in snow.<br /> +It was my sorrow to see that all this was a dream.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Blue, clogged with purple,<br /> +Mists uncoil themselves:<br /> +Sparkling to the horizon,<br /> +I see the snow alone.<br /> +<br /> +In the deep blue chasm,<br /> +Boats sleep under gold thatch;<br /> +Icicle-like trees fret<br /> +Faintly rose-touched sky.<br /> +<br /> +Under their heaped snow-eaves,<br /> +Leaden houses shiver.<br /> +Through thin blue crevasses,<br /> +Trickles an icy stream.<br /> +<br /> +The pines groan white-laden,<br /> +The waves shiver, struck by the wind;<br /> +Beyond from treeless horizons,<br /> +Broken snow-peaks crawl to the sea. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +Wearily the snow glares,<br /> +Through the grey silence, day after day,<br /> +Mocking the colourless cloudless sky<br /> +With the reflection of death.<br /> +<br /> +There is no smoke through the pine tops,<br /> +No strong red boatmen in pale green reeds,<br /> +No herons to flicker an instant,<br /> +No lanterns to glow with gay ray.<br /> +<br /> +No sails beat up to the harbour,<br /> +With creaking cordage and sailors' song.<br /> +Somnolent, bare-poled, indifferent,<br /> +They sleep, and the city sleeps.<br /> +<br /> +Mid-winter about them casts,<br /> +Its dreary fortifications:<br /> +Each day is a gaunt grey rock,<br /> +And death is the last of them all. +</p> +<hr class="hra" /> +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +Over the sluggish snow,<br /> +Drifts now a pallid weak shower of bloom;<br /> +Boredom of fresh creation,<br /> +Death-weariness of old returns.<br /> +<br /> +White, white blossom,<br /> +Fall of the shattered cups day on day:<br /> +Is there anything here that is not ancient,<br /> +That has not bloomed a thousand years ago?<br /> +<br /> +Under the glare of the white-hot day,<br /> +Under the restless wind-rakes of the winter,<br /> +White blossom or white snow scattered,<br /> +And beneath them, dark, the graves.<br /> +<br /> +Dark graves never changing,<br /> +White dream drifting, never changing above them:<br /> +O that the white scroll of heaven might be rolled up,<br /> +And the naked red lightning thrust at the smouldering<br /> +earth!<br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="MIDSUMMER_DREAMS" id="MIDSUMMER_DREAMS"></a>MIDSUMMER DREAMS<br /> +<br /> +<i>(Symphony in White and Blue)</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +There is a tall white weed growing at the top of this sand hill:<br /> +In the grass<br /> +It is very still.<br /> +<br /> +It lifts its heavy bracts of flattened bloom<br /> +Against the sky<br /> +Hazily grey with brume.<br /> +<br /> +Out over yonder boats pass<br /> +And the swallows<br /> +Flatten themselves on the grass.<br /> +<br /> +The lake is silvering beneath the heat.<br /> +The wind's feet<br /> +Touch lazily each crest,<br /> +Like white gulls slow flapping<br /> +To windward.<br /> +<br /> +One rose white cloud slowly disengages, loosening itself,<br /> +And stands<br /> +Above the larkspur-coloured water:<br /> +Like Dione's daughter<br /> +Braiding up her wet hair with her pale, hands.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees,<br /> +Which do not lift one drooping leaf, this night of June.<br /> +There is no lazy breeze to set them clashing adrift.<br /> +<br /> +Thin gleams of silver rise and break in the air,<br /> +Fireflies—here and there.<br /> +<br /> +Forest of blue masses suddenly quivering with rapid points of white,<br /> +Are the forests beneath the sea where no breeze passes<br /> +As still as you to-night?<br /> +<br /> +The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees;<br /> +Through my window, the bed cut evenly with diagonal shafts of light,<br /> +Is a boat rocking out adrift.<br /> +<br /> +Under it bend the silver tips of the dark blue coral trees,<br /> +And fireflies like glass fish<br /> +Drift and ripple upwards in the breeze.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +We are drifting slowly, you and I,<br /> +To where the clouds are lifting<br /> +High-fretted towers in the sky:<br /> +Palaces of ivory,<br /> +Which we look at dreamily.<br /> +Over our sail<br /> +Frail white clouds,<br /> +Drift as slowly<br /> +Over the undulant pale blue silk of the water,<br /> +As we.<br /> +<br /> +We are racing swiftly, you and I,<br /> +The sun darts one firm track<br /> +Through the blue-black<br /> +Of the crinkled water.<br /> +Gold spirals spattering, flashing,<br /> +The water heaves and curls away at our bow,<br /> +A mad fish splashing.<br /> +<br /> +We are rocked together, you and I,<br /> +To this undulant movement.<br /> +White cloud with blue water blent,<br /> +Cloud dipping down to wave its lazy head,<br /> +Wave curling under cloud its cloudy blue.<br /> +I and you,<br /> +All alone, alone, at last.<br /> +I hold you fast.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The midsummer clouds were piling up upon the south horizon,<br /> +Mountains of drifting translucence in the larkspur-fields of the sky:<br /> +Ascending and toppling in crumbled ravines, dribbling down chasms<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of silence,</span><br /> +Reassembling in crowded multitudes, massive forms one above another.<br /> +And I saw in their ridges and hollows, the appearance of a woman<br /> +Immeasurable, carven in stainless marble, motionless, naked, fair:<br /> +Her head thrown back, her pointed breasts up-gleaming in chill sunlight,<br /> +Her heavy flanks dark in the shadow, resting forever inert.<br /> +And up to her there suddenly clomb and hurried another cloud,<br /> +Huge, hairy, bulging, and knobby, with dark and knotted brows:<br /> +And he thrust out long bungling arms to her and drew himself up to her,<br /> +And I watched them melting together, blue mouth to sad white mouth.<br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="ORANGE_SYMPHONY" id="ORANGE_SYMPHONY"></a>ORANGE SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Now that all the world is filled<br /> +With armies clamouring;<br /> +Now that men no longer live and die, one by one,<br /> +But in vague indeterminate multitudes:<br /> +<br /> +Now that the trees are coppery towers,<br /> +Now that the clouds loom southward,<br /> +Now that the glossy creeper<br /> +Spatters the walls like spilt wine:<br /> +<br /> +I will go out alone,<br /> +To catch strong joy of solitude<br /> +Where the treelines, in gold and scarlet,<br /> +Swing strong grape-cables up the smouldering face of the hill.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Guns crashing,<br /> +Thudding,<br /> +Ululating,<br /> +Tumultuous.<br /> +<br /> +Guns yelping over the cracked earth,<br /> +Where dry bugles blare.<br /> +<br /> +Here in this hollow<br /> +It is very quiet,<br /> +Only the wind's hissing laughter<br /> +In the place of tombs.<br /> +<br /> +One by one these gaunt scarred faces<br /> +Lift up blurred wrinkled inscriptions<br /> +Silently beseeching me to stop and ponder.<br /> +What does it matter if I do not stop to read them?<br /> +No one at all has gone this way that I have chosen before.<br /> +<br /> +A leaf drops slowly in silence;<br /> +It is a long time twisting and hovering on its way to<br /> +the earth.<br /> +<br /> +Guns booming,<br /> +Bellowing,<br /> +Crashing,<br /> +Desperate.<br /> +Insistent outcry of savage guns,<br /> +Rocking the gloomy hollow.<br /> +<br /> +I will run out like the wind,<br /> +Snarling, with savage laughter;<br /> +Like the wind that tosses the grey-black clouds,<br /> +Against the shot-racked barrier of flaming trees.<br /> +<br /> +I will race between the grey guns,<br /> +And the clouds, like shrapnel exploding,<br /> +Flinging their hail through the tumult,<br /> +Bursting, will melt in cold spray.<br /> +<br /> +I am the wanderer of the world;<br /> +No one can hold me.<br /> +Not the cannon assembled for battle,<br /> +Nor the gloomy graves of the hollow,<br /> +Nor the house where I long time slumbered,<br /> +Nor the hilltop where roads are straggling.<br /> +<br /> +My feet must march to the wind.<br /> +Like a leaf dropping slowly,<br /> +An orange butterfly turning and twisting,<br /> +I touch with moist passionate palms the leaden inscriptions<br /> +Of my past. Then I turn to depart.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The trees dance about the inn;<br /> +The wind thrusts them into flamelets.<br /> +Now my thoughts gipsying,<br /> +Go forth to strange walls and new fires.<br /> +<br /> +Mouths stained with brown-red berries,<br /> +Bronzed cheeks sunken, unshaven,<br /> +Ragged attire;<br /> +We swing our guitars at the hip<br /> +As we tramp heedless, uncaring.<br /> +<br /> +In the inn the fire crackles:<br /> +On the hearth the wine is simmering.<br /> +Lift up the brown beaker one instant,<br /> +Drink deeply—fling out the last coin—let us go.<br /> +On the plains there is drooping harvest,<br /> +But no harvest can for long time hold us,<br /> +We have seen the winds, baffled,<br /> +Racing up the orange-flecked trench of the hills.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +On the hill summit<br /> +Where the gusty wind all night long has assailed me,<br /> +Now I see stars vanishing<br /> +Before the long cold clutching fingers of dawn.<br /> +<br /> +Stars scintillant, fire-hued, metallic,<br /> +Topaz fruit of the deep-blue garden:<br /> +Southward you go, my constellations,<br /> +And leave me with the white day, alone.<br /> +<br /> +Over the hilltop<br /> +Swish with a scurry of wings<br /> +Millions of pale brown birds,<br /> +Songless, pulsing southward.<br /> +<br /> +Birds who have filled the trees,<br /> +And who fled long ago at my passing,<br /> +Now you clatter in heedless tumult,<br /> +Fanning with your hot wings my face.<br /> +<br /> +Carry this word to the southward;<br /> +Say that I have forgotten them that wait for me,<br /> +All the loves and the hates need expect me no longer,<br /> +In the autumn at last I am alone.<br /> +<br /> +Suddenly<br /> +The wind crashes through the tree-tops,<br /> +Stripping away their orange-tiled domes;<br /> +Stark blue skeletons, forbidding<br /> +Gesticulate in my face.<br /> +You whom I planted and lavished<br /> +With all the wealth and beauty I had to bestow<br /> +Hurry away, vain harvest,<br /> +The winds' scythes can reap you,<br /> +Where you lie on the earth, and to death's barns you can go.<br /> +<br /> +Beyond the hilltop<br /> +I have seen only the sky.<br /> +The wind, naked, prodding up black-furred clouds,<br /> +Cossacks of winter.<br /> +<br /> +Cry, wind,<br /> +Shriek to the shivering southland,<br /> +That I am going into winter,<br /> +That I do not hope to return.<br /> +<br /> +Farewell, crowded stars,<br /> +Farewell, birds, winds, clouds and tree-tops,<br /> +I, weary of you all, seek my destined joy in the north-land,<br /> +Amid blue ice and the rose-purple night of the pole.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +V<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Beyond the land there lies the sea;<br /> +And on the sea with wings unfurled,<br /> +Bloodily huge the sunset rests,<br /> +Feathers flickering and claws curled,<br /> +Watching to seize the ruined world.<br /> +<br /> +Rolling in a torrent,<br /> +Brown leaves, my achievements,<br /> +Rise up from dark-wooded valleys<br /> +And scatter themselves on the sea;<br /> +Brown birds, my wild dreams,<br /> +Mingle their bodies together,<br /> +Shrieking and clamouring as they pass,<br /> +Black charred silhouettes<br /> +Against the west, curtained in orange flame.<br /> +Now the wind starts up<br /> +And strikes the seething water:<br /> +Hissing in uncoiled fury<br /> +Each foam-curled wave darts forward<br /> +To clash and batter<br /> +The smouldering iron-rust cliff,<br /> +Where the end of my road is lost.<br /> +<br /> +Rise up, black clouds;<br /> +Pounce upon the sunset:<br /> +Tear it with your jagged teeth.<br /> +Fling yourselves, seething winds, in circles<br /> +Upon the blue-black water,<br /> +Swirl, leaves, and dance<br /> +Amid the chaos of breakers,<br /> +Flicker, birds, an instant<br /> +Against the tawny tiger throat of the sun<br /> +Which is snarling in the west.<br /> +Beat down, O great winds, westward,<br /> +Loose reins and gallop to seaward,<br /> +Rush me, too, to that ocean,<br /> +In which I have found my goal.<br /> +<br /> +Lash me, lap me, rugged waves of blue-black water,<br /> +Dash me, clutch me and do not let me rest one instant;<br /> +All through the purple-blue night rock and soothe me,<br /> +Till I awaken dreamingly at the faint rose breast of the dawn.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="RED_SYMPHONY" id="RED_SYMPHONY"></a>RED SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Over the ink-black cauldron of the sea,<br /> +Heavily, on wings of leaden cloud,<br /> +Howling the sunset<br /> +Races out to assail me.<br /> +<br /> +Long have I voyaged,<br /> +Night after night the grey rains swept the sea:<br /> +The heaving breakers<br /> +Hissed and quivered but held no light.<br /> +<br /> +Now my voyage is ending,<br /> +White storm winds have swept bare my soul;<br /> +With their harsh laughter,<br /> +Their maddening mockery,<br /> +Their bayonet-thrusts of despair.<br /> +<br /> +Over the keen, clean-swept zenith<br /> +Roll crushingly, huge masses of cloud:<br /> +Dull, ponderous, sagging with the burden<br /> +Of creaking snow.<br /> +<br /> +They drop flat on the sea,<br /> +They hang menacing over me,<br /> +They festoon the sun<br /> +With swags of crimson light.<br /> +<br /> +They stripe the horizon,<br /> +They bar every way with their iron tongues;<br /> +They loom weltering over my effort,<br /> +They steadfastly close me in.<br /> +<br /> +Meanwhile the sun<br /> +With dying force<br /> +Wrenches one little crack<br /> +In the midst of the sagging masses,<br /> +And I steer on to it.<br /> +<br /> +Like a crimson lake<br /> +The light overflows and touches the bulging surfaces<br /> +With carmine, with scarlet,<br /> +With orange, with vermillion,<br /> +With brick red, with bluish purple,<br /> +With maroon, with rose, with russet,<br /> +With savage green, with snowy blue,<br /> +With grey, with ebony, with gold.<br /> +<br /> +It is the storm of the evening<br /> +That races out shrieking<br /> +To assail me,<br /> +And I hail it.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The sky's vast emptiness<br /> +Is crowded with fragments colliding,<br /> +Ragged, splintered masses<br /> +Swirling away to the night.<br /> +<br /> +The volcano of the sun<br /> +Has burst and split its crater:<br /> +Black slag is hurled to the zenith<br /> +Above the red lava-sea.<br /> +<br /> +Black shrivelled, charred fragments<br /> +Fall into the scarlet torrent:<br /> +Huge tresses of darkness sweep over my face,<br /> +Leaving me choking.<br /> +<br /> +The sea is one crimson steaming fire;<br /> +Each fanged wavelet<br /> +Flickers and dances about the one behind it,<br /> +Hungrily licking at the ship.<br /> +<br /> +Fierce whirling swords,<br /> +Tossed spear-heads lancelike<br /> +Spit and stab, then suddenly fall<br /> +Leaving me there<br /> +On a rolling summit of flame, facing a gulf of despair.<br /> +<br /> +The ship<br /> +Lurches<br /> +With ice-crusted prow into the wave-trough;<br /> +And rises, rapidly dripping liquid lire,<br /> +Long twisted necklaces, that burn out to green frozen chrysolite.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Over my head a bell beats: it is midnight.<br /> +Perhaps I will live to the dawn.<br /> +<br /> +About me are the mouths of yawning furnaces<br /> +And from these scarlet mouths the heat outpours,<br /> +And darts and licks its dry tongues at my brain<br /> +Till it, too, seems a black shell almost bursting<br /> +With the force of flame in it.<br /> +<br /> +Still, wearily, I swing my shovel,<br /> +Spattering the black coal over the palates<br /> +Of the snoring mouths which rapidly swallow.<br /> +There is nothing else to do.<br /> +<br /> +My legs seem melting away in sweat beneath me:<br /> +In my body my lungs and heart are fighting for air,<br /> +My eyes are seared by the appalling scarlet,<br /> +Of the furnaces about me—I scarcely-see them—My<br /> +shovelfuls fall short with every swing.<br /> +<br /> +Without I hear the battering of the tempest,<br /> +The ship is pounded sideways by black immeasurable wave-thrusts,<br /> +And rising dizzily again, like a half-senseless fighter,<br /> +Is again sent downwards, by those unseen fists.<br /> +<br /> +My shovel rises to the ship's slow recovery,<br /> +My shovel shoots out at the smash of toppling masses,<br /> +Sometimes I pause and pant for an endless instant,<br /> +While the ship crouches, quivering.<br /> +<br /> +Over my head a bell beats: it is morning.<br /> +Wearily I drop the shovel,<br /> +And drag myself to the deck.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Afar<br /> +There is something that seems a shore;<br /> +The sky has been blown clean of clouds except to westward,<br /> +And these stare hard at me, like huge sardonyx towers.<br /> +<br /> +I cling to a half-shattered rail that reels and dances,<br /> +Soused by the choking water,<br /> +My face a streaming mass of blood and salt and grime,<br /> +I wait and dizzily I try to remember.<br /> +<br /> +What is this city that out there awaits me?<br /> +Am I its conqueror?<br /> +<br /> +Will scarlet flags hang fluttering in the streets<br /> +To greet my coming?<br /> +Will crimson lanterns<br /> +Jingle and toss in festival to-night?<br /> +<br /> +Has the fire burned the ship and is the water<br /> +But stinging icy fire,<br /> +That whips and sears my face?<br /> +<br /> +Down there the furnaces go out, for the water<br /> +Sloshes about the floor;<br /> +And steaming acrid fumes arise,<br /> +No living soul could stay in such a place.<br /> +<br /> +Out here the decks are shattered,<br /> +The boats are shorn away,<br /> +And far on the horizon,<br /> +The city glares with its sardonyx towers.<br /> +<br /> +Now the red bells,<br /> +The black-red bells,<br /> +The storm bells,<br /> +Break loose from the horizon,<br /> +Leaping upon the eastern sea,<br /> +And breaking it in their teeth.<br /> +<br /> +The towers<br /> +Infuriate, enkindle<br /> +From base to summit,<br /> +In layers, and orange terraces,<br /> +Against the blue snow haze that drifts down on them from the east.<br /> +<br /> +The ship of my soul<br /> +Is rolling to port at last,<br /> +With one clang from its heaving boilers,<br /> +One sigh from its shaking funnels,<br /> +One rattle from its loosened chains.<br /> +I will lash myself to the masthead<br /> +And wait<br /> +Empty-eyed and open-mouthed,<br /> +Till the city that is all one scarlet flame of death<br /> +Takes me to itself at last.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="VIOLET_SYMPHONY" id="VIOLET_SYMPHONY"></a>VIOLET SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +But yesterday<br /> +Moonsails were raking high the harbour of my dreams.<br /> +<br /> +Dull night of trees,<br /> +Dark sorrows drooping,<br /> +Glittering raindrops gleam on you<br /> +In recollection<br /> +Of my despair.<br /> +<br /> +But yesterday<br /> +Stardust was scattered deep on the dark gulf of my dreams.<br /> +<br /> +Wind of the night,<br /> +Questing, swaying, calling,<br /> +Rustle of dull grasses,<br /> +Why do you trouble me?<br /> +<br /> +Yesterday<br /> +Purple mist was powdered on the windless sea of dreams.<br /> +<br /> +Faces of the night that pass me,<br /> +Haggard, monotonous faces,<br /> +Windblown hair and lustful lips,<br /> +I am not what you desire.<br /> +<br /> +Yesterday<br /> +One—two—sails above the mist—.<br /> +Windswallows that hover<br /> +Towards the rainclouds of the horizon,<br /> +Out of the reedy harbours<br /> +Rocking, swaying, falling,<br /> +Blown to sea and parted<br /> +Yesterday,<br /> +Yesterday.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Purple-blue bloom of night,<br /> +Globed grapes clustered morosely<br /> +Down the dark vineyards of untrodden streets:<br /> +<br /> +The noise of the moments is like the clash of the hoofs of a horse<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">rattling,</span><br /> +Thin tattoo in the stillness:<br /> +The noise of the moments takes me, uncaring,<br /> +Towards the day.<br /> +<br /> +With brassy crash, dawn's corybants<br /> +Invade and trample the vineyard:<br /> +Like a faun I hide and watch them,<br /> +A dark cup in my hand.<br /> +<br /> +Spoilers of my vineyard,<br /> +Spilling the lees of my sweet red wine,<br /> +You will yet ask in vain for a cup that is not yours,<br /> +A purple, dewy cup of lonely night.<br /> +<br /> +Tramplers in the morning,<br /> +Sunburnt faces and weary lips,<br /> +There is yet a cup here you cannot have,<br /> +I hold it in my hands.<br /> +<br /> +Would you drink of it?<br /> +Lay down your thyrse and timbrel.<br /> +Break the harsh dance that flickers through the morning,<br /> +Forget the scarlet perfumes of the day.<br /> +<br /> +Remember only starless night, cool swish of many seas.<br /> +<br /> +Faint pearl-glow of evening,<br /> +Cool marble in the silence:<br /> +Purple-blue grapes of night crushed freshly,<br /> +Deep sleep and the drowsy stars.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I love the night that in long violet shroud<br /> +Slowly and lovingly wraps up the day,<br /> +Hiding its blurred imperfections<br /> +In endless tenderness.<br /> +<br /> +I love the day's<br /> +High violet cone of light,<br /> +With thin haze on the horizon<br /> +Like a wavering summer sea.<br /> +<br /> +But most of all I love midsummer dawn,<br /> +When far-off planes of light ascend and tremble together<br /> +Like distant purple waves, the sound of whose dim breaking<br /> +Is lost in the wild babel of awaking birds.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Twisted fragments of violet paper,<br /> +The dawn drops you<br /> +Into the green bowl filled with the day's grey waves.<br /> +<br /> +I love the night's<br /> +Deep purple grapes<br /> +That yesterday<br /> +Were crushed and spilled,<br /> +In long and sluggish rivers<br /> +That joined and made a sea,<br /> +Where, half-guessed through the mist,<br /> +Two golden sails<br /> +Drifted on silently.<br /> +<br /> +The blue fume of my dreams<br /> +Is laced with violet flame.<br /> +<br /> +One golden sail alone came back to rest<br /> +In its nest<br /> +Among the reeds.<br /> +The other sail is lost;<br /> +Behind the mist,<br /> +Beyond the craggy rock,<br /> +About which race in jagged white<br /> +The waves,<br /> +Horizon on horizon far away<br /> +She waits.<br /> +But through the day,<br /> +Comes no faint song, nor creaking of the ropes.<br /> +<br /> +Twisted fragments of violet paper,<br /> +Charred and fallen:<br /> +Out of the green bowl lazily coils grey smoke.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="GREY_SYMPHONY" id="GREY_SYMPHONY"></a>GREY SYMPHONY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Up on the hillside a long row of larches<br /> +Shake from their grizzled Beards the vestiges of rain,<br /> +From grey-blue melting ice-slabs 'neath their arches<br /> +The spring goes up again.<br /> +<br /> +Writhing, exuding,<br /> +Up-steaming, streaming,<br /> +The earth is breathing to the sky<br /> +Wet clouds of spring.<br /> +<br /> +Dim rosy fans, the trees<br /> +As they flick to and fro,<br /> +Seem driving greyish vapour<br /> +Over the snow.<br /> +<br /> +The sky remodulates itself<br /> +From violet-grey to blue,<br /> +Under the upturned eaves of the blue larches<br /> +The sun looks through.<br /> +<br /> +Now with the heat of the sun<br /> +The grey-blue ice-slabs quiver,<br /> +They slide in muddy trickles<br /> +Towards the river.<br /> +<br /> +Up on the hillside between the long row of larches<br /> +Fume up from south pale clouds that bear the rain;<br /> +In pearl and violet arches<br /> +They break and shape again.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I have seen in the evening<br /> +The greyish-violet clouds<br /> +Roll wearily back from northward<br /> +To the place whence first they came.<br /> +<br /> +One or two orange lamps burnt low<br /> +Against deep purple hills—<br /> +<br /> +The wind was hurrying, bundling them together,<br /> +The pines awoke to sing<br /> +The song of the snow buzzing and screaming<br /> +On its one string.<br /> +<br /> +I have seen within my heart<br /> +Crocuses, purple and gold,<br /> +Drop cold and dull and colourless<br /> +Beneath the snow.<br /> +<br /> +One or two orange lamps burnt low,<br /> +Vain memories.<br /> +<br /> +The wind has driven me too many winters,<br /> +My songs are snowflakes whirling about my breast.<br /> +I will wrap my frozen and bitter songs about me,<br /> +In one grey drift, and rest.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Fluttering and soft the snow<br /> +Flings outward, swirls and settles,<br /> +But when I try to seize it,<br /> +The wind tears it away.<br /> +<br /> +Through poised green platforms of enormous pines,<br /> +I see far hilltops pushing up blue roofs.<br /> +Snow comes,<br /> +And hums<br /> +Through the woof<br /> +Of the lower branches.<br /> +It skips and dances:<br /> +It drops in sluggish folds<br /> +Of grey,<br /> +To where the frozen rhododendron bushes<br /> +With lower air-gusts play,<br /> +And the earth hushes<br /> +Its movement.<br /> +<br /> +Fluttering and soft the snow is blent<br /> +In long loose spirals with my dream.<br /> +<br /> +It is all I have, the snow,<br /> +And I know<br /> +That when I chase it, it will fly from me;<br /> +Beyond the lifeless green,<br /> +Beyond the low blue hills,<br /> +Beyond the pale straw-coloured glare,<br /> +Down in the west<br /> +It goes;<br /> +Straight southward where the purple-orange flare<br /> +Of sunset flows,<br /> +And into the blackened heart of my last rose<br /> +Pours its despair.<br /> +<br /> +Fluttering, soft, and dim<br /> +Regrets that skip and skim<br /> +Grey in the grey twilight;<br /> +Slim and weary whirls the snow,<br /> +And where it goes I too shall go.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Of my long nights afar in alien cities<br /> +I have remembered only this:<br /> +They were black scarves all dusted over with silver,<br /> +In which I wrapped my dreams;<br /> +They were black screens on which I made those pictures<br /> +That faded out next day.<br /> +<br /> +Youth without glory, manhood one mad struggle,<br /> +Maturity a battle without trumpet calls:<br /> +Long gleams from pallid suns seen only in my dreaming<br /> +Struck those dissolving walls.<br /> +<br /> +And of my days,<br /> +I only know<br /> +They slipped and fell,<br /> +Like too-brief sunsets,<br /> +Into the hill-ravines that held the snow.<br /> +Three lofty pines<br /> +At the corners of my heart<br /> +Waited, apart.<br /> +<br /> +They only see<br /> +In the mystery<br /> +Of the grey sky,<br /> +The jaggled clouds that fly,<br /> +Endlessly.<br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%;"> +<a name="POPPIES_OF_THE_RED_YEAR" id="POPPIES_OF_THE_RED_YEAR"></a>POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR<br /> +<br /> +<i>(A Symphony in Scarlet)</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +The words that I have written<br /> +To me become as poppies:<br /> +Deep angry disks of scarlet flame full-glowing in the stillness<br /> +Of a shut room.<br /> +<br /> +Silken their edges undulate out to me,<br /> +Drooping on their hairy stems;<br /> +Flaring like folded shawls, down-curved like rockets starting<br /> +To break and shatter their light.<br /> +<br /> +Wide-flaunting and heavy, crinkle-lipped blossom,<br /> +Darting faint shivers through me;<br /> +Globed Chinese lanterns on green silk cords a-swaying<br /> +Over motionless pools.<br /> +<br /> +These are lamps of a festival of sleep held each night to welcome me,<br /> +Crimson-bursting through dark doors.<br /> +Out to the dull, blue, heavy fumes of opium rolling<br /> +From their rent red hearts, I go to seek my dream.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +II<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +A riven wall like a face half torn away<br /> +Stares blankly at the evening:<br /> +And from a window like a crooked mouth<br /> +It barks at the sunset sky.<br /> +<br /> +And over there, beyond,<br /> +On plains where night has settled,<br /> +Ten-like encampments of vaporous blue smoke or mist,<br /> +Three men are riding.<br /> +<br /> +One of them looks and sees the sky:<br /> +One of them looks and sees the earth:<br /> +The last one looks and sees nothing at all.<br /> +They ride on.<br /> +<br /> +One of them pauses and says, "It is death."<br /> +Another pauses and says, "It is life."<br /> +The last one pauses and says, "'Tis a dream."<br /> +His bridle shakes.<br /> +<br /> +The sky<br /> +Is filled with oval violet-tinted clouds<br /> +Through which the sun long settled strikes at random,<br /> +Enkindling here and there blotched circles of rosy light.<br /> +<br /> +These are poppies,<br /> +Unclosing immense corollas,<br /> +Waving the horsemen on.<br /> +<br /> +Over the earth, upheaving, folding,<br /> +They ride: their bridles shake:<br /> +One of them sees the sky is red:<br /> +One of them sees the earth is dark:<br /> +The last man sees he rides to his death,<br /> +Yet he says nothing at all.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +III<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +There will be no harvest at all this year;<br /> +For the gaunt black slopes arising<br /> +Lift the wrinkled aching furrows of their fields, falling away,<br /> +To the rainy sky in vain.<br /> +<br /> +But in the furrows<br /> +There is grass and many flowers.<br /> +Scarlet tossing poppies<br /> +Flutter their wind-slashed edges,<br /> +On which gorged black flies poise and sway in drunken sleep.<br /> +<br /> +The black flies hang<br /> +Above the tangled trampled grasses,<br /> +Grey, crumpled bundles lie in them:<br /> +They sprawl,<br /> +Heave faintly;<br /> +And between their stiffened fingers,<br /> +Run out clogged crimson trickles,<br /> +Spattering the poppies and standing in beads on the grass.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +IV<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +I saw last night<br /> +Sudden puffs of flame in the northern sky.<br /> +<br /> +The sky was an even expanse of rolling grey smoke,<br /> +Lit faintly by the moon that hung<br /> +Its white face in a dead tree to the east.<br /> +<br /> +Within the depths of greenish greyish smoke<br /> +Were roars,<br /> +Crackles and spheres of vapour,<br /> +And then<br /> +Huge disks of crimson shooting up, falling away.<br /> +<br /> +And I said these are flower petals,<br /> +Sleep petals, dream petals,<br /> +Blown by the winds of a dream.<br /> +<br /> +But still the crimson rockets rose.<br /> +They seemed to be<br /> +One great field of immense poppies burning evenly,<br /> +Casting their viscid perfume to the earth.<br /> +<br /> +The earth is sown with dead,<br /> +And out of these the red<br /> +Blooms are pushing up, advancing higher,<br /> +And each night brings them nigher,<br /> +Closer, closer to my heart.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +V<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +By the sluggish canal<br /> +That winds between thin ugly dunes,<br /> +There are no passing boats with creaking ropes to-day.<br /> +<br /> +But when the evening<br /> +Crouches down, like a hurt rabbit,<br /> +Under the everlasting raincloud whirling up the north horizon,<br /> +Downwards on the stream will float<br /> +Glowing points of fire.<br /> +<br /> +Orange, coppery, scarlet,<br /> +Crimson, rosy, flickering,<br /> +They pass, the lanterns<br /> +Of the unknown dead.<br /> +<br /> +Out where the sea, sailless,<br /> +Is mouthing and fretting<br /> +Its chaos of pebbles and dried sticks by the dunes.<br /> +<br /> +By the wall of that house<br /> +That looks like a face half torn away,<br /> +And from its flat mouth barks at the sky,<br /> +The sky which is shot with broad red disks of light,<br /> +Petals drowsily falling.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +VI<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +"It was not for a sacred cause,<br /> +Nor for faith, nor for new generations,<br /> +That unburied we roll and float<br /> +Beneath this flaming tumult of drunken sleep-flowers.<br /> +But it was for a mad adventure,<br /> +Something we longed for, poisonous, seductive,<br /> +That we dared go out in the night together,<br /> +Towards the glow that called us,<br /> +On the unsown fields of death.<br /> +<br /> +"Now we lie here reaped, ungarnered,<br /> +Red swaths of a new harvest:<br /> +But you who follow after,<br /> +Must struggle with our dream:<br /> +And out of its restless and oppressive night,<br /> +Filled with blue fumes, dull, choking,<br /> +You will draw hints of that vision<br /> +Which we hold aloof in silence."<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<b>THE END</b></p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Goblins and Pagodas, by John Gould Fletcher + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOBLINS AND PAGODAS *** + +***** This file should be named 38856-h.htm or 38856-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/8/5/38856/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org +(From images generously made available by the Internet +Archive.) + + +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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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: Goblins and Pagodas + +Author: John Gould Fletcher + +Release Date: February 13, 2012 [EBook #38856] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOBLINS AND PAGODAS *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org +(From images generously made available by the Internet +Archive.) + + + + + +GOBLINS AND PAGODAS + +BY + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + +1916 + + + + + +TO + +DAISY + + + +Thanks are due to the editor of The Egoist, London, for permission to +reprint The Ghosts of an Old House and the Orange Symphony; to the +editor of Poetry, Chicago, for permission to reprint the Blue Symphony; +and to the editor of The Little Review for permission to reprint the +Green Symphony. + + + + +PREFACE + + +I + +The second half of the nineteenth and the first fifteen years of the +twentieth century have been a period of research, of experiment, of +unrest and questioning. In science and philosophy we have witnessed an +attempt to destroy the mechanistic theory of the universe as developed +by Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. The unknowable has been questioned: +hypotheses have been shaken: vitalism and idealism have been proclaimed. +In the arts, the tendency has been to strip each art of its inessentials +and to disclose the underlying basis of pure form. In life, the +principles of nationality, of racial culture, of individualism, of +social development, of Christian ethics, have been discussed, debated, +and examined from top to bottom, until at last, in the early years of +the twentieth century we find all Europe, from the leaders of thought +down to the lowest peasantry, engaged in a mutually destructive war of +which few can trace the beginnings and none can foresee the end. The +fundamental tenets of thought, art, life itself, have been shaken: and +either civilization is destined to some new birth, or mankind will +revert to the conditions of life, thought, and social intercourse that +prevailed in the Stone Age. + +Like all men of my generation, I have not been able to resist this +irresistible upheaval of ideas and of forces: and, to the best of my +ability, I have tried to arrive at a clear understanding of the +fundamentals of aesthetic form as they affect the art to which I have +felt myself instinctively akin, the art of poetry. That I have +completely attained such an understanding, it would be idle for me to +pretend: but I believe, and have induced some others to believe, that I +have made a few steps towards it. Some explanation of my own peculiar +theories and beliefs is necessary, however, to those who have not +specifically concerned themselves with poetry, or who suffer in the +presence of any new work of art from the normal human reaction that all +art principles are so essentially fixed that any departure from accepted +ideas is madness. + + +II + +The fundamental basis of all the arts is the same. In every case art +aims at the evocation of some human emotion in the spectator or +listener. Where science proceeds from effects to causes, and seeks to +analyze the underlying causes of emotion and sensation, art reverses the +process, and constructs something that will awaken emotions, according +to the amount of receptiveness with which other people approach it. Thus +architecture gives us feelings of density, proportion, harmony: +sculpture, of masses in movement; painting, of colour-harmony and the +ordered composition of lines and volumes from which arise sensations of +space: music, of the development of sounds into melodic line, harmonic +progression, tonal opposition, and symphonic structure. + +The object of literature is not dissimilar from these. Literature aims +at releasing the emotions that arise from the formed words of a certain +language. But literature is probably a less pure--and hence more +universal--art than any I have yet examined. For it must be apparent to +all minds that not only is a word a definite symbol of some fact, but +also it is a thing capable of being spoken or sounded. The art of +literature, then, in so far as it deals with definite statements, is +akin to painting or photography: in so far as it deals with sounded +words, it is akin to music. + + +III + +Literature, therefore, does not depend on the peculiar twists and quirks +which represent, to those who can read, the words, but rather on the +essential words themselves. In fact, literature existed before writing; +and writing in itself is of no value from the purely literary sense, +except in so far as it preserves and transmits from generation to +generation the literary emotion. Style, whether in prose or poetry, is +an attempt to develop this essentially musical quality of literature, to +evoke the magic that exists in the sound-quality of words, as well as +to combine these sound-qualities in definite statements or sentences. +The difference between prose and poetry is, therefore, not a difference +of means, but of psychological effect and reaction. The means employed, +the formed language, is the same: but the resultant impression is quite +different. + +In prose, the emotions expressed are those that are capable of +development in a straight line. In so far as prose is pure, it confines +itself to the direct orderly progression of a thought or conception or +situation from point to point of a flat surface. The sentences, as they +develop this conception from its beginning to conclusion, move on, and +do not return upon themselves. The grouping of these sentences into +paragraphs gives the breadth of the thought. The paragraphs, sections, +and chapters are each a square, in that they represent a division of the +main thought into parallel units, or blocks of subsidiary ideas. The +sensation of depth is finally obtained by arranging these blocks in a +rising climacteric progression, or in parallel lines, or in a sort of +zigzag figure. + +The psychological reaction that arises from the intelligent appreciation +of poetry is quite different. In poetry, we have a succession of curves. +The direction of the thought is not in straight lines, but wavy and +spiral. It rises and falls on gusts of strong emotion. Most often it +creates strongly marked loops and circles. The structure of the stanza +or strophe always tends to the spherical. Depth is obtained by making +one sphere contain a number of concentric, or overlapping spheres. + +Hence, when we speak of poetry we usually mean regular rhyme and metre, +which have for so long been considered essential to all poetry, not as a +device for heightening musical effect, as so many people suppose, but +merely to make these loops and circles more accentuated, and to make the +line of the poem turn upon itself more recognizably. But it must be +recognized that just as Giotto's circle was none the less a circle, +although not drawn with compasses, so poetic circles can be constructed +out of subtler and more musical curves than that which painstakingly +follows the selfsame progression of beats, and catches itself up on the +same point of rhyme for line after line. The key pattern on the lip of a +Greek vase may be beautiful, but it is less beautiful, less satisfying, +and less conclusive a test of artistic ability than the composition of +satyrs and of maenads struggling about the centre. Therefore I maintain, +and will continue to do so, that the mere craftsman-ability to write in +regular lines and metres no more makes a man a poet than the ability to +stencil wall-papers makes him a painter. + +Rather is it more important to observe that almost any prose work of +imaginative literature, if examined closely, will be found to contain a +plentiful sprinkling of excellent verses; while many poems which the +world hails as master-pieces, contain whole pages of prose. The fact is, +that prose and poetry are to literature as composition and colour are +to painting, or as light and shadow to the day, or male and female to +mankind. There are no absolutely perfect poets and no absolutely perfect +prose-writers. Each partakes of some of the characteristics of the +other. The difference between poetry and prose is, therefore, a +difference between a general roundness and a general squareness of +outline. A great French critic, recently dead, who devoted perhaps the +major part of his life to the study of the aesthetics of the French +tongue, declared that Flaubert and Chateaubriand wrote only poetry. If +there are those who cannot see that in the only true and lasting sense +of the word poetry, this remark was perfectly just, then all I have +written above will be in vain. + + +IV + +Along with the prevailing preoccupation with technique which so marks +the early twentieth century, there has gone also a great change in the +subject-matter of art. Having tried to explain the aesthetic form-basis +of poetry, I shall now attempt to explain my personal way of viewing its +content. + +It is a significant fact that every change in technical procedure in the +arts is accompanied by, and grows out of, a change in subject-matter. To +take only one out of innumerable examples, the new subject-matter of +Wagner's music-dramas, of an immeasurably higher order than the usual +libretto, created a new form of music, based on motifs, not melodies. +Other examples can easily be discovered. The reason for this is not +difficult to find. + +No sincere artist cares to handle subject-matter that has already been +handled and exhausted. It is not a question of a desire to avoid +plagiarism, or of self-conscious searching for novelty, but of a +perfectly spontaneous and normal appeal which any new subject-matter +always makes. Hence, when a new subject appears to any artist, he always +realizes it more vividly than an old one, and if he is a good artist, he +realizes it so vividly that he recreates it in what is practically a +novel form. + +This novel form never is altogether novel, nor is the subject altogether +a new subject. For, as I pointed out at the beginning of this preface, +that all arts sprang practically out of the same primary sensations, so +the subject-matter of all art must forever be the same: namely, nature +and human life. Hence, any new type of art will always be found, in +subject-matter as well as in technique, to have its roots in the old. +Art is like a kaleidoscope, capable of many changes, while the material +which builds up those changes remains the same. + +Nevertheless, although the subject-matter in this book is not altogether +new, yet I have realized it in a way which has not often been tried, and +out of that fresh and quite personal realization have sprung my +innovations in subject as well as technique. Let me illustrate by a +concrete example. + + +V + +A book lies on my desk. It has a red binding and is badly printed on +cheap paper. I have had this book with me for several years. Now, +suppose I were to write a poem on this book, how would I treat the +subject? + +If I were a poet following in the main the Victorian tradition, I should +write my poem altogether about the contents of this book and its author. +My poem would be essentially a criticism of the subject-matter of the +book. I should state at length how that subject-matter had affected me. +In short, what the reader would obtain from this sort of poem would be +my sentimental reaction towards certain ideas and tendencies in the work +of another. + +If I were a realist poet, I should write about the book's external +appearance. I should expatiate on the red binding, the bad type, the +ink-stain on page sixteen. I should complain, perhaps, of my poverty at +not being able to buy a better edition, and conclude with a gibe at the +author for not having realized the sufferings of the poor. + +Neither of these ways, however, of writing about this book possesses any +novelty, and neither is essentially my own way. My own way of writing +about it would be as follows:-- + +I should select out of my life the important events connected with my +ownership of this book, and strive to write of them in terms of the +volume itself, both as regards subject-matter and appearance. In other +words, I should link up my personality and the personality of the book, +and make each a part of the other. In this way I should strive to evoke +a soul out of this piece of inanimate matter, a something characteristic +and structural inherent in this in-organic form which is friendly to me +and responds to my mood. + +This method is not new, although it has not often been used in +Occidental countries. Professor Fenollosa, in his book on Chinese and +Japanese art, states that it was universally employed by the Chinese +artists and poets of the Sung period in the eleventh century A.D. He +calls this doctrine of the interdependence of man and inanimate nature, +the cardinal doctrine of Zen Buddhism. The Zen Buddhists evolved it from +the still earlier Taoist philosophy, which undoubtedly inspired Li Po +and the other great Chinese poets of the seventh and eighth centuries +A.D. + + +VI + +In the first poems of this volume, the "Ghosts of an Old House," I have +followed the method already described. I have tried to evoke, out of the +furniture and surroundings of a certain old house, definite emotions +which I have had concerning them. I have tried to relate my childish +terror concerning this house--a terror not uncommon among children, as I +can testify--to the aspects that called it forth. + +In the "Symphonies," which form the second part of this volume, I have +gone a step further. My aim in writing these was, from the beginning, to +narrate certain important phases of the emotional and intellectual +development--in short, the life--of an artist, not necessarily myself, +but of that sort of artist with which I might find myself most in +sympathy. And here, not being restrained by any definite material +phenomena, as in the Old House, I have tried to state each phase in the +terms of a certain colour, or combination of colours, which is +emotionally akin to that phase. This colour, and the imaginative +phantasmagoria of landscape which it evokes, thereby creates, in a +definite and tangible form, the dominant mood of each poem. + +The emotional relations that exist between form, colour, and sound have +been little investigated. It is perfectly true that certain colours +affect certain temperaments differently. But it is also true that there +is a science of colour, and that certain of its laws are already +universally known, if not explained. Naturally enough, it is to the +painters we must first turn if we want to find out what is known about +colour. We discover that painters continually are speaking of hot and +cold colour: red, yellow, orange being generally hot, and green, blue, +and violet cold--mixed colours being classed hot and cold according to +the proportions they contain of the hot and cold colours. We also +discover that certain colours will not fit certain forms, but rebel at +the combination. This is so far true that scarcely any landscape painter +finishes his pictures from nature, but in the studio: and almost any art +student, painting a landscape, will disregard the colour before him and +employ the colour-scheme of his master or of some painter he admires. As +Delacroix noted in his journal: "A conception having become a +composition must move in the milieu of a colour peculiar to it. There +seems to be a particular tone belonging to some part of every picture +which is a key that governs all the other tones." + +Therefore, we must admit that there is an intimate relation between +colour and form. It is the same with colour and sounds. Many musicians +have observed the phenomenon, that when certain notes, or combinations +of them, are sounded, certain colours are also suggested to the eye. A +Russian composer, Scriabine, went so far as to construct colour-scales, +and an English scientist, Professor Wallace Rimington, has built an +organ which plays in colours, instead of notes. Unfortunately, the +musicians have given this subject less attention than the painters, and +therefore our knowledge concerning the relations of colour and sound is +more fragmentary and incomplete. Nevertheless, these relations exist, +and it is for the future to develop them more fully. + +Literature, and especially poetry, as I have already pointed out, +partakes of the character of both painting and music. The impressionist +method is quite as applicable to writing as it is to landscape. Poems +can be written in major or minor keys, can be as full of dominant motif +as a Wagner music-drama, and even susceptible of fugal treatment. +Literature is the common ground of many arts, and in its highest +development, such as the drama as practised in fifth-century Athens, is +found allied to music, dancing, and colour. Hence, I have called my +works "Symphonies," when they are really dramas of the soul, and hence, +in them I have used colour for verity, for ornament, for drama, for its +inherent beauty, and for intensifying the form of the emotion that each +of these poems is intended to evoke. + + +VII + +Let us take an artist, a young man at the outset of his career. His +years of searching, of fumbling, of other men's influence, are coming to +an end. Sure of himself, he yet sees that he will spend all his life +pursuing a vision of beauty which will elude him at the very last. This +is the first symphony, which I have called the "Blue," because blue +suggests to me depth, mystery, and distance. + +He finds himself alone in a great city, surrounded by noise and +clamour. It is as if millions of lives were tugging at him, drawing him +away from his art, tempting him to go out and whelm his personality in +this black whirlpool of struggle and failure, on which float golden +specks--the illusory bliss of life. But he sees that all this is only +another illusion, like his own. Here we have the "Symphony in Black and +Gold." + +He emerges from the city, and in the country is re-intoxicated with +desire for life by spring. He vows himself to a self-sufficing pagan +worship of nature. This is the "Green Symphony." + +Quickened by spring, he dreams of a marvellous golden city of art, fall +of fellow-workers. This city appears to him at times like some Italian +town of the Renaissance, at others like some strange Oriental +golden-roofed monastery-temple. He sees himself dead in the desert far +away from it. Yet its blossoming is ever about him. Something divine has +been born of him after death. + +So he passes to the "White Symphony," the central poem of this series, +in which I have sought to describe the artist's struggle to attain +unutterable and superhuman perfection. This struggle goes on from the +midsummer of his life to midwinter. The end of it is stated in the poem. + +There follows a brief interlude, which I have called a "Symphony in +White and Blue." These colours were chosen perhaps more +idiosyncratically in this case than in the others. I have tried to +depict the sort of temptation that besets most artists at this stage of +their career: the temptation to abandon the struggle for the sake of a +purely sensual existence. In this case, however, the appeal of +sensuality is conveyed under the guise of a dream. It is resisted, and +the struggle begins anew. + +War breaks out, not alone in the external world, but in the artist's +soul. He finds he must follow his personality wherever it leads him, +despite all obstacles. This is the "Orange Symphony." + +Now follow long years of struggle and neglect. He is shipwrecked, and +still afar he sees his city of art, but this time it is red, a phantom +mocking his impotent rage. + +Old age follows. All is violet, the colour of regret and remembrance. He +is living only in the past, his life a succession of dreams. + +Lastly, all things fade out into absolute grey, and it is now midwinter. +Looking forth on the world again he still sees war, like a monstrous red +flower, dominating mankind. He hears the souls of the dead declaring +that they, too, have died for an adventure, even as he is about to die. + +Such, in the briefest possible analysis, is the meaning of the poems +contained in this book. + +_January_, 1916. + + + + + CONTENTS + + SECTION I. THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE + + PROLOGUE + + PART I. THE HOUSE + + Bedroom + Library + Indian Skull + Old Nursery + The Back Stairs + The Wall Cabinet + The Cellar + The Front Door + + PART II. THE ATTIC + + In the Attic + The Calendar in the Attic + The Hoopskirt + The Little Chair + In the Dark Corner + The Toy Cabinet + The Yardstick + + PART III. THE LAWN + + The Three Oaks + An Oak + Another Oak + The Old Barn + The Well + The Trees + Vision + Epilogue + + SECTION II. SYMPHONIES + + BLUE SYMPHONY + + SOLITUDE IN THE CITY (SYMPHONY IN BLACK AND GOLD) + + I. Words at Midnight + II. The Evening Rain + III. Street of Sorrows + IV. Song in the Darkness + + GREEN SYMPHONY + + GOLDEN SYMPHONY + + WHITE SYMPHONY + + MIDSUMMER DREAMS (SYMPHONY IN WHITE AND BLUE) + + ORANGE SYMPHONY + + RED SYMPHONY + + VIOLET SYMPHONY + + GREY SYMPHONY + + POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR (A SYMPHONY IN SCARLET) + + + + + SECTION I + + THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD HOUSE + + + + PROLOGUE + + + The house that I write of, faces the north: + No sun ever seeks + Its six white columns, + The nine great windows of its face. + + It fronts foursquare the winds. + + Under the penthouse of the veranda roof, + The upper northern rooms + Gloom outwards mournfully. + + Staring Ionic capitals + Peer in them: + Owl-like faces. + + On winter nights + The wind, sidling round the corner, + Shoots upwards + With laughter. + + The windows rattle as if some one were in them wishing to get out + And ride upon the wind. + + Doors lead to nowhere: + Squirrels burrow between the walls. + Closets in every room hang open, + Windows are stared into by uncivil ancient trees. + + In the middle of the upper hallway + There is a great circular hole + Going up to the attic. + A wooden lid covers it. + + All over the house there is a sense of futility; + Of minutes dragging slowly + And repeating + Some worn-out story of broken effort and desire. + + + + + PART I. THE HOUSE + + + + BEDROOM + + + The clump of jessamine + Softly beneath the rain + Rocks its golden flowers. + + In this room my father died: + His bed is in the corner. + No one has slept in it + Since the morning when he wakened + To meet death's hands at his heart. + I cannot go to this room, + Without feeling something big and angry + Waiting for me + To throw me on the bed, + And press its thumbs in my throat. + + The clump of jessamine + Without, beneath the rain, + Rocks its golden flowers. + + + + LIBRARY + + + Stuffy smell of mouldering leather, + Tattered arm-chairs, creaking doors, + Books that slovenly elbow each other, + Sown with children's scrawls and long + Worn out by contact with generations: + Tattered tramps displaying yourselves-- + "We, though you broke our backs, did not complain." + If I had my way, + I would take you out and bury you quickly, + Or give you to the clean fire. + + + + INDIAN SKULL + + + Some one dug this up and brought it + To our house. + In the dark upper hall, I see it dimly, + Looking at me through the glass. + + Where dancers have danced, and weary people + Have crept to their bedrooms in the morning, + Where sick people have tossed all night, + Where children have been born, + Where feet have gone up and down, + Where anger has blazed forth, and strange looks have passed, + It has rested, watching meanwhile + The opening and shutting of doors, + The coming and going of people, + The carrying out of coffins. + + Earth still clings to its eye-sockets, + It will wait, till its vengeance is accomplished. + + + + OLD NURSERY + + + In the tired face of the mirror + There is a blue curtain reflected. + If I could lift the reflection, + Peer a little beyond, I would see + A boy crying + Because his sister is ill in another room + And he has no one to play with: + A boy listlessly scattering building blocks, + And crying, + Because no one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana. + I cannot lift the curtain: + It is stiff and frozen. + + + + THE BACK STAIRS + + + In the afternoon + When no one is in the house, + I suddenly hear dull dragging feet + Go fumbling down those dark back stairs, + That climb up twisting, + As if they wanted no one to see them. + Beating a dirge upon the bare planks + I hear those feet and the creak of a long-locked door. + + My mother often went + Up and down those selfsame stairs, + From the room where by the window + She would sit all day and listlessly + Look on the world that had destroyed her, + She would go down in the evening + To the room where she would sleep, + Or rather, not sleep, but all night + Lie staring fiercely at the ceiling. + + In the afternoon + When no one is in the house: + I suddenly hear dull dragging feet + Beating out their futile tune, + Up and down those dark back stairs, + But there is no one in the shadows. + + + + THE WALL CABINET + + + Above the steep back stairs + So high that only a ladder can come to it, + There is a wall cabinet hidden away. + + No one ever unlocks it; + The key is lost, the door is barred, + It is shut and still. + + Some say, a previous tenant + Filled its shelves with rows of bottles, + Bottles of spirit, filled with spiders. + + I do not know. + Above the sleepy still back stairs, + It watches, shut and still. + + + + THE CELLAR + + + Faintly lit by a high-barred grating, + The low-hung cellar, + Flattens itself under the house. + + In one corner + There is a little door, + So low, it can scarcely be seen. + + Beyond, + There is a narrow room, + One must feel for the walls in the dark. + + One shrinks to go + To the end of it, + Feeling the smooth cold wall. + + Why did the builders who made this house, + Stow one room away like this? + + + + THE FRONT DOOR + + + It was always the place where our farewells were taken, + When we travelled to the north. + + I remember there was one who made some journey, + But did not come back. + Many years they waited for him, + At last the one who wished the most to see him, + Was carried out of this selfsame door in death. + + Since then all our family partings + Have been at another door. + + + + + PART II. THE ATTIC + + + + IN THE ATTIC + + + Dust hangs clogged so thick + The air has a dusty taste: + Spider threads cling to my face, + From the broad pine-beams. + There is nothing living here, + The house below might be quite empty, + No sound comes from it. + The old broken trunks and boxes, + Cracked and dusty pictures, + Legless chairs and shattered tables, + Seem to be crying + Softly in the stillness + Because no one has brushed them. + No one has any use for them, now, + Yet I often wonder + If these things are really dead: + If the old trunks never open + Letting out grey flapping things at twilight? + If it is all as safe and dull + As it seems? + + Why then is the stair so steep, + Why is the doorway always locked, + Why does nobody ever come? + + + + THE CALENDAR IN THE ATTIC + + + I wonder how long it has been + Since this old calendar hung here, + With my birthday date upon it, + Nothing else--not a word of writing-- + Not a mark of any hand. + + Perhaps it was my father + Who left it thus + For me to see. + + Perhaps my mother + Smiled as she saw it; + But in later years did not smile. + If I could tear it down, + From the wall + Somehow + I would be content. + But I am afraid, as a little child, to touch it. + + + + THE HOOPSKIRT + + + In the night when all are sleeping, + Up here a tiny old dame comes tripping, + Looking for her lost hoopskirt. + + My great-grandaunt--I never saw her-- + Her ghost doesn't know me from another, + She stalks up the attic stairs angrily. + + The dust sets her sneezing and coughing, + By the trunk she is limping and hopping, + But alas--the trunk is locked. + + What's an old dame to do, anyway! + Must stay in a mouldy grave day on day, + Or go to heaven out of style. + + In the night when all are snoring, + The old lady makes a dreadful clatter, + Going down the attic stairs. + + What was that? A ghost or a burglar? + Oh, it was only the wind in the chimney, + Yes, and the attic door that slammed. + + + + THE LITTLE CHAIR + + + I know not why, when I saw the little chair, + I suddenly desired to sit in it. + + I know not why, when I sat in the little chair, + Everything changed, and life came back to me. + + I am convinced no one at all has grown up in the house, + The break that I dreamed, itself was a dream and is broken. + + I will sit in the little chair and wait, + Till the others come looking after me. + + And if it is after nightfall they will come, + So much the better. + + For the little chair holds me as tightly as death; + And rocking in it, I can hear it whisper strange things. + + + + IN THE DARK CORNER + + + I brush the dust from this old portrait: + Yes, it is the same face, exactly, + Why does it look at me still with such a look of hate? + + I brush the dust from a heap of magazines: + Here there is all what you have written, + All that you struggled long years and went down to darkness for. + + O God, to think what I am writing + Will be ever as this! + + O God, to think that my own face + May some day glare from this dust! + + + + THE TOY CABINET + + + By the old toy cabinet, + I stand and turn over dusty things: + Chessmen--card games--hoops and balls-- + Toy rifles, helmets, swords, + In the far corner + A doll's tea-set in a box. + + Where are you, golden child, + Who gave tea to your dolls and me? + The golden child is growing old, + Further than Rome or Babylon + From you have passed those foolish years. + She lives--she suffers--she forgets. + + By the old toy cabinet, + I idly stand and awkwardly + Finger the lock of the tea-set box. + What matter--why should I look inside, + Perhaps it is empty after all! + Leave old things to the ghosts of old; + + My stupid brain refuses thought, + I am maddened with a desire to weep. + + + + THE YARDSTICK + + + Yardstick that measured out so many miles of cloth, + Yardstick that covered me, + I wonder do you hop of nights + Out to the still hill-cemetery, + And up and down go measuring + A clayey grave for me? + + + + + PART III. THE LAWN + + + + THE THREE OAKS + + + There are three ancient oaks, + That grow near to each other. + + They lift their branches + High as beckoning + With outstretched arms, + For some one to come and stand + Under the canopy of their leaves. + + Once long ago I remember + As I lay in the very centre, + Between them: + A rotten branch suddenly fell + Near to me. + + I will not go back to those oaks: + Their branches are too black for my liking. + + + + AN OAK + + + Hoar mistletoe + Hangs in clumps + To the twisted boughs + Of this lonely tree. + + Beneath its roots I often thought treasure was buried: + For the roots had enclosed a circle. + + But when I dug beneath them, + I could only find great black ants + That attacked my hands. + + When at night I have the nightmare, + I always see the eyes of ants + Swarming from a mouldering box of gold. + + + + ANOTHER OAK + + + Poison ivy crawls at its root, + I dare not approach it, + It has an air of hate. + + One would say a man had been hanged to its branches, + It holds them in such a way. + + The moon gets tangled in it, + A distant steeple seems to bark + From its belfry to the sky. + + Something that no one ever loved, + Is buried here: + Some grey shape of deadly hate, + Crawls on the back fence just beyond. + + Now I remember--once I went + Out by night too near this oak, + And a red cat suddenly leapt + From the dark and clawed my face. + + + THE OLD BARN + + + Owls flap in this ancient barn + With rotted doors. + + Rats squeak in this ancient barn + Over the floors. + + Owls flap warily every night, + Rats' eyes gleam in the cold moonlight. + + There is something hidden in this barn, + With barred doors. + + Something the owls have torn, + And the rats scurry with over the floors. + + + + THE WELL + + + The well is not used now, + Its waters are tainted. + + I remember there was once a man went down + To clean it. + He found it very cold and deep, + With a queer niche in one of its sides, + From which he hauled forth buckets of bricks and dirt. + + + + THE TREES + + + When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops, + The trees are not the same. + + I know they are not the same, + Because there is one tree that is missing, + And it stood so long by another, + That the other, feeling lonely, + Now is slowly dying too. + + When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops + That dead tree comes back; + Like a great blue sphere of smoke + Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass, + Rustling through frayed Branches, + Something eerily cheeping through it, + Something creeping through its shade. + + + + VISION + + + You who flutter and quiver + An instant + Just beyond my apprehension; + Lady, + I will find the white orchid for you, + If you will but give me + One smile between those wayward drifts of hair. + + I will break the wild berries that loop themselves over the marsh-pool, + For your sake, + And the long green canes that swish against each other, + I will break, to set in your hands. + For there is no wonder like to you, + You who flutter and quiver + An instant + Just beyond my apprehension. + + + + EPILOGUE + + + Why it was I do not know, + But last night I vividly dreamed + Though a thousand miles away, + That I had come back to you. + + The windows were the same: + The bed, the furniture the same, + Only there was a door where empty wall had always been, + And someone was trying to enter it. + + I heard the grate of a key, + An unknown voice apologetically + Excused its intrusion just as I awoke. + + But I wonder after all + If there was some secret entranceway, + Some ghost I overlooked, when I was there. + + + + + + SECTION II + + SYMPHONIES + + + + + 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. + + Oh, 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. + + Oh, 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. + These 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 hopes of my heart. + + The ice is glazing over, + Tom 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. + + + + + SOLITUDE IN THE CITY + + (_Symphony in Black and Gold_) + + + + I + + WORDS AT MIDNIGHT + + + Because the night is so still, + Because there is no one about, + Not the tiny squeak of a mouse over the carpet, + Nor the slow beat of a clock at the top of the stairway, + I am afraid of the night that is coming to me. + + I know out there + Some one is thinking of me, some one is wondering about me, + Some one is needing me, some one is dying for my sake, + Yet I remain alone. + + I know that life is calling: I cannot resist it: + Too much of myself I have given ever to turn away, + I know that shame, sickness, death itself shall befall me, + And I am afraid. + + O night, hide me in your long cold arms: + Let me sleep, but let me not live this life! + There are too many people with haggard eyes standing + before me + Saying, "To live you must suffer even as we." + + Yet life bitterly bids me: "Go on to the last, + No matter the mud and the cold rain and the darkness: + No matter the drear pilgrims in whose eyes you shall look for long, + And see all suffering, madness, death and despair." + + Because my heart is cramped in, + Because I have suffered much, + Because my hope is like a candle-flame quenched at midnight, + Because I dare dream yet of joy, + I can take my night and the life that is coming to me. + + + + II + + THE EVENING RAIN + + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing, + As it slowly slips on the motionless pavement; + Greasy and grey is the rain of the evening, + As it dribbles into the dirty gutters + And slides down the drains with a roar! + + Ragged men cower + Under the doorways: + Umbrellas nod like drowsy birds. + Bat-umbrellas, + Teetering, balancing, + Where will you spread your wings to-night? + + Tangled between the factory-chimneys, + I have seen the golden lamps wake this evening: + Spinning and whirling, darting and dancing, + Tangled with the glittering rain. + + Omnibuses lurch + Heavily homeward + Elephants tinselled in tawdry gold: + Taxicabs fight + Like wild birds squalling, + Wild birds with roaring, clattering wings. + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing, + As it shivers to jewel-heaps spilt on the pavement. + The facades frown gloomily at its beauty, + The facades are dreaming of the day. + + With rippling, curling, + Serpentine convolutions + The pavements drip with drunken light. + Crimson and gold, + Shot with opal, + They glare against the sullen night. + + O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing + As it slowly dries on the dirty pavement. + Red low-browed clouds jut over the sky: + And in the cool sky there are stars. + + + + III + + STREET OF SORROWS + + + You street of sorrows bending + Over your golden lamps in the evening; + Dark street that is very silent, + And everywhere the same: + Elsewhere there is song and riot, + Like golden fireflies flickering, + Elsewhere the crane's gaunt muscles + Tug the city up to the stars. + + But who in the dawn should come near you? + There are dry leaves rattling behind him. + And who should come in the noonday? + There are shadows that squat on the pave. + And who should come in the evening? + There is one: a ship in dark waters. + And who should come at nightfall, + To feel cold hands at his heart? + + You street of solitude waiting + Patient and still in the evening: + Old street that is very weary, + And everywhere the same; + You that have seen joy passing. + Into pain, into tears, into darkness, + Street of the dead and musty, + I have drunk your cold poison to-night. + + + + IV + + SONG IN THE DARKNESS + + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + Henceforth the keys and wards of me are held in other hands. + + Dark clouds trail over the sky: + Troops of song retreating: + But in the sunset + Once more have I seen aloft + Incredible summits of gold, far on the south horizon. + + One purple veil of rain + Floats downward over the city; + And as it settles slowly + The light goes out of it. + + Chimneys with massive summits + Stand gaunt and black and evil: + Like a river of lead, to seaward + The river steadily rolls. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + Life takes me in black coils. + + One green light glitters: + Then a swift taxi + Scatters another + As it speeds on. + + The chimneys rank + Their motionless forces + Against the swift movement + Of tugs in the stream; + Against the flame-chariots + Of the Embankment; + Against the bowing trees, + Against the blowing smoke, + Against the busy rain. + + With dying might + The light invades + The city's hall: + Curtained by dripping fringes + Of buoyant tattered cloud, + Tossed by the wind. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary; + And all my city of dreams is burning up to-night. + + But yet there waits for me something lost back in the darkness: + Something I have never seized: a shape, a voice, a gesture, + Something behind my shoulder: grey robes that stir and rustle. + Something that moves away from me when I would touch it with my hand. + + Cities of the beyond, what great black-walled horizons + Dare you climb up, and down what steep incredible valleys? + I suddenly perceive that I have been mocked in you, + And therefore will I sow the earth with rain of stars to-night. + It is the last night that I can be solitary; + The rain invites to drunkenness: the wind blows + through my brain. + + Shiplike the sliding golden trams + Procession by and intercross: + With tulips, daffodils, crocuses + The whole street blossoms at my feet: + Now kindle, flames, and let blow out + The crimson rose against the grey, + Let night itself be blotted out + In life's monotonous drone of day. + + It is the last night that I can be solitary: + It is the last time that no feet + But mine can beat upon the floor; + It is the last time that no hands + But mine can pound upon my heart; + It is the last time that no voice + But mine can cry and yet be lost; + It is the last time I shall see + The pavements like a mirror stare at me. + + + + + GREEN SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + The glittering leaves of the rhododendrons + Balance and vibrate in the cool air; + While in the sky above them + White clouds chase each other. + + Like scampering rabbits, + Flashes of sunlight sweep the lawn; + They fling in passing + Patterns of shadow, + Golden and green. + + With long cascades of laughter, + The mating birds dart and swoop to the turf: + 'Mid their mad trillings + Glints the gay sun behind the trees. + + Down there are deep blue lakes: + Orange blossom droops in the water. + + In the tower of the winds, + All the bells are set adrift: + Jingling + For the dawn. + + Thin fluttering streamers + Of breeze lash through the swaying boughs, + Palely expectant + The earth receives the slanting rain. + + I am a glittering raindrop + Hugged close by the cool rhododendron. + I am a daisy starring + The exquisite curves of the close-cropped turf. + + The glittering leaves of the rhododendron + Are shaken like blue-green blades of grass, + Flickering, cracking, falling: + Splintering in a million fragments. + + The wind runs laughing up the slope + Stripping off handfuls of wet green leaves, + To fling in peoples' faces. + Wallowing on the daisy-powdered turf, + Clutching at the sunlight, + Cavorting in the shadow. + + Like baroque pearls, + Like cloudy emeralds, + The clouds and the trees clash together; + Whirling and swirling, + In the tumult + Of the spring, + And the wind. + + + + II. + + + The trees splash the sky with their fingers, + A restless green rout of stars. + + With whirling movement + They swing their boughs + About their stems: + Planes on planes of light and shadow + Pass among them, + Opening fanlike to fall. + + The trees are like a sea; + Tossing; + Trembling, + Roaring, + Wallowing, + Darting their long green flickering fronds up at the sky, + Spotted with white blossom-spray. + + The trees are roofs: + Hollow caverns of cool blue shadow, + Solemn arches + In the afternoons. + The whole vast horizon + In terrace beyond terrace, + Pinnacle above pinnacle, + Lifts to the sky + Serrated ranks of green on green. + + They caress the roofs with their fingers, + They sprawl about the river to look into it; + Up the hill they come + Gesticulating challenge: + They cower together + In dark valleys; + They yearn out over the fields. + + Enamelled domes + Tumble upon the grass, + Crashing in ruin + Quiet at last. + + The trees lash the sky with their leaves, + Uneasily shaking their dark green manes. + + + + III + + + Far let the voices of the mad wild birds be calling me, + I will abide in this forest of pines. + + When the wind blows + Battling through the forest, + I hear it distantly, + The crash of a perpetual sea. + + When the rain falls, + I watch silver spears slanting downwards + From pale river-pools of sky, + Enclosed in dark fronds. + + When the sun shines, + I weave together distant branches till they enclose mighty circles, + I sway to the movement of hooded summits, + I swim leisurely in deep blue seas of air. + + I hug the smooth bark of stately red pillars + And with cones carefully scattered + I mark the progression of dark dial-shadows + Flung diagonally downwards through the afternoon. + + This turf is not like turf: + It is a smooth dry carpet of velvet, + Embroidered with brown patterns of needles and cones. + These trees are not like trees: + They are innumerable feathery pagoda-umbrellas, + Stiffly ungracious to the wind, + Teetering on red-lacquered stems. + + In the evening I listen to the winds' lisping, + While the conflagrations of the sunset flicker and clash behind me, + Flamboyant crenellations of glory amid the charred ebony boles. + + In the night the fiery nightingales + Shall clash and trill through the silence: + Like the voices of mermaids crying + From the sea. + + Long ago has the moon whelmed this uncompleted temple. + Stars swim like gold fish far above the black arches. + + Far let the timid feet of dawn fly to catch me: + I will abide in this forest of pines: + For I have unveiled naked beauty, + And the things that she whispered to me in the darkness, + Are buried deep in my heart. + + Now let the black tops of the pine-trees break like a spent wave, + Against the grey sky: + These are tombs and memorials and temples and altars sun-kindled for me. + + + + + GOLDEN SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Seen from afar, the city + To-day is like a golden cloud: + Strayed from the sky and moulded + Into dim motionless towers. + + Music is passing far off: + Music serenely + Is climbing up and vanishing + On the long grey stairways of the sky, + In fanlike rays of light. + + Now it falls slowly, + Careering, toppling, + Shivering and quivering like burnished glass or laburnum-blossom, + Golden cascades. + + Peace: now let the music + Sound from further away, + Red bells out of memory's + Blue dream of regret. + + Seen from afar, the city + To-day is like a fleet of sails: + Breaking the foam of dark forests, + In which I have strayed so long. + + They march together slowly, + The golden temple terraces, + Against the dark remembrance + Of my pools of despair. + + O golden angelus that sounded prolonging uncertain memories, + I have seen the swallows hovering to you and followed their dark trails + of passage. + + The gates of the city lie open, + And the whole world goes homeward, + Full-pulsing bells in the foreground, + Catching my soul with them + On where the sun soars broadly through the incense-dome of the sky. + + + + II + + + High chimes from the belfry; + The noonday approaches + With its golden apparel + Rustling about its feet. + + High dreams of my city, + Where we, a band of brothers, + Build our proud dream of beauty + Before we fall into dust. + + The golden days have come for us: + With mandolins, sword-thrusts, laughter. + Even the very dust of the street + Grows gold beneath our feet. + + Bronze bell-notes poured from deep blue wells: + Molten gold out of the sky. + Pillars of yellow marble + On the summits of which the gods sleep. + + Now we are swimming; + About us a great golden halo + Vibrates from us downwards, + Ebbing its life away. + + Golden clouds are circling + Like angels and archangels + About the eye of the sun. + + Flaming sunset: + Mad conflagrations + Licking at the earth, + The blue-black walls of space, + Iron mountains vast on the horizon. + + O golden spear that dartled through the darkness! + The evening star sparkled and threw us its message. + + + + III + + In the bosom of the desert + I will lie at the last. + + Not the grey desert of sand + But the golden desert of great wild grasses, + This shall receive my soul. + + In the high plateaus, + The wind will be like a flute-note calling me + Day after day. + + Short bursts of surf, + The wind climbs up and stops in the grass; + And the golden petals + Brush drowsily over my face. + + White butterfly that flutters across my sea of golden blossom; + Tell me, what are you looking for, lone white butterfly? + + I am seeking for a strange lonely white flower; + Its petals are honeyless; and in the wind it is still. + + White butterfly, come, fold your wings over my heart: + I am the white blossom, the white dead blossom for you. + + In the golden bosom of the prairie, + I am lying at the last + Like a pool that is stilled. + + But they who shared with me my life's adventure, + Who tossed their ducats like dandelions into the sunlight, + I know that somewhere they with songs are building, + Golden towers more beautiful than my own. + + + + IV + + + I only know in the midnight, + Something will be born of me. + + The village drowses in the darkness, + But aloft in the temple + There is a thud of gongs and a shuffle of hollow voices + In the dark corridors. + + The golden temple + That kindled like a rose against the sunset, + Now is dark and silent, + One light glimmers from its facade. + + In the inner shrine + One stiff golden curtain + Hangs from floor to roof. + + Black, impassive, helmeted + In felt like stiff black warriors, + The lamas slowly gather, + Kneeling in a row. + + The hollow brazen trumpets + Blare and snore. + The drums, festooned with skulls, + Roar. + + Suddenly with a clash of gongs, + And a squeal from ear-splitting bugles, + The golden veil is rent. + + Cavernous blue darkness! + And within it + Smiling, + Naked, + Rose-empurpled, + Rippling with crimson-violet light, behold the god. + + Hail, great jewel in the lotus blossom! + Rosy flame that kindling + Flashes on the emptiness + Or Nirvana's sea! + + Before the shrine, as before, + Once more the golden curtain, + And the black shapes vanish. + + Aloft in the hollow temple + There is a shuffle of feet and a sound of hollow voices, + Soon lost. + + The village drowses in the darkness: + Like a vast black cube + The temple looms above it, + There is no light on its facade. + + Suddenly, all the golden temple + Kindles like a rose against the dawn. + + I only know in the midnight + Something has been born of me. + + + + + WHITE SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Forlorn and white, + Whorls of purity about a golden chalice, + Immense the peonies + Flare and shatter their petals over my face. + + They slowly turn paler, + They seem to be melting like blue-grey flakes of ice, + Thin greyish shivers + Fluctuating mid the dark green lance-thrust of the leaves. + + Like snowballs tossed, + Like soft white butterflies, + The peonies poise in the twilight. + And their narcotic insinuating perfume + Draws me into them + Shivering with the coolness, + Aching with the void. + They kiss the blue chalice of my dreams + Like a gesture seen for an instant and then lost forever. + + * * * * * + + Outwards the petals + Thrust to embrace me, + Pale daggers of coldness + Run through my aching breast. + + Outwards, still outwards, + Till on the brink of twilight + They swirl downwards silently, + Flurry of snow in the void. + + Outwards, still outwards, + Till the blue walls are hidden, + And in the blinding white radiance + Of a whirlpool of clouds, I awake. + + * * * * * + + Like spraying rockets + My peonies shower + Their glories on the night. + + Wavering perfumes, + Drift about the garden; + Shadows of the moonlight, + Drift and ripple over the dew-gemmed leaves. + + Soar, crash, and sparkle, + Shoal of stars drifting + Like silver fishes, + Through the black sluggish boughs. + + Towards the impossible, + Towards the inaccessible, + Towards the ultimate, + Towards the silence, + Towards the eternal, + These blossoms go. + + The peonies spring like rockets in the twilight, + And out of them all I rise. + + + + II + + + Downwards through the blue abyss it slides, + The white snow-water of my dreams, + Downwards crashing from slippery rock + Into the boiling chasm: + In which no eye dare look, for it is the chasm of death. + + Upwards from the blue abyss it rises, + The chill water-mist of my dreams; + Upwards to greyish weeping pines, + And to skies of autumn ever about my heart, + It is blue at the beginning, + And blue-white against the grey-greenness; + It wavers in the upper air, + Catching unconscious sparkles, a rainbow-glint of sunlight, + And fading in the sad depths of the sky. + + Outwards rush the strong pale clouds, + Outwards and ever outwards; + The blue-grey clouds indistinguishable one from another: + Nervous, sinewy, tossing their arms and brandishing, + Till on the blue serrations of the horizon + They drench with their black rain a great peak of changeless snow. + + * * * * * + + As evening came on, I climbed the tower, + To gaze upon the city far beneath: + I was not weary of day; but in the evening + A white mist assembled and gathered over the earth + And blotted it from sight. + + But to escape: + To chase with the golden clouds galloping over the horizon: + Arrows of the northwest wind + Singing amid them, + Ruffling up my hair! + + As evening came on the distance altered, + Pale wavering reflections rose from out the city, + Like sighs or the beckoning of half-invisible hands. + Monotonously and sluggishly they crept upwards + A river that had spent itself in some chasm, + And dwindled and foamed at last at my weary feet. + + Autumn! Golden fountains, + And the winds neighing + Amid the monotonous hills: + Desolation of the old gods, + Rain that lifts and rain that moves away; + In the greenback torrent + Scarlet leaves. + + It was now perfectly evening: + And the tower loomed like a gaunt peak in mid-air + Above the city: its base was utterly lost. + It was slowly coming on to rain, + And the immense columns of white mist + Wavered and broke before the faint-hurled spears. + + I will descend the mountains like a shepherd, + And in the folds of tumultuous misty cities, + I will put all my thoughts, all my old thoughts, safely to sleep. + + For it is already autumn, + O whiteness of the pale southwestern sky! + O wavering dream that was not mine to keep! + + * * * * * + + In midnight, in mournful moonlight, + By paths I could not trace, + I walked in the white garden, + Each flower had a white face. + + Their perfume intoxicated me: thus I began my dream. + + I was alone; I had no one to guide me, + But the moon was like the sun: + It stooped and kissed each waxen petal, + One after one. + + Green and white was that garden: diamond rain hung in the branches, + You will not believe it! + + In the morning, at the dayspring, + I wakened, shivering; lo, + The white garden that blossomed at my feet + Was a garden hidden in snow. + It was my sorrow to see that all this was a dream. + + + + III + + + Blue, clogged with purple, + Mists uncoil themselves: + Sparkling to the horizon, + I see the snow alone. + + In the deep blue chasm, + Boats sleep under gold thatch; + Icicle-like trees fret + Faintly rose-touched sky. + + Under their heaped snow-eaves, + Leaden houses shiver. + Through thin blue crevasses, + Trickles an icy stream. + + The pines groan white-laden, + The waves shiver, struck by the wind; + Beyond from treeless horizons, + Broken snow-peaks crawl to the sea. + + * * * * * + + Wearily the snow glares, + Through the grey silence, day after day, + Mocking the colourless cloudless sky + With the reflection of death. + + There is no smoke through the pine tops, + No strong red boatmen in pale green reeds, + No herons to flicker an instant, + No lanterns to glow with gay ray. + + No sails beat up to the harbour, + With creaking cordage and sailors' song. + Somnolent, bare-poled, indifferent, + They sleep, and the city sleeps. + + Mid-winter about them casts, + Its dreary fortifications: + Each day is a gaunt grey rock, + And death is the last of them all. + + * * * * * + + Over the sluggish snow, + Drifts now a pallid weak shower of bloom; + Boredom of fresh creation, + Death-weariness of old returns. + + White, white blossom, + Fall of the shattered cups day on day: + Is there anything here that is not ancient, + That has not bloomed a thousand years ago? + + Under the glare of the white-hot day, + Under the restless wind-rakes of the winter, + White blossom or white snow scattered, + And beneath them, dark, the graves. + + Dark graves never changing, + White dream drifting, never changing above them: + O that the white scroll of heaven might be rolled up, + And the naked red lightning thrust at the smouldering + earth! + + + + + MIDSUMMER DREAMS + + _(Symphony in White and Blue)_ + + + + I + + + There is a tall white weed growing at the top of this sand hill: + In the grass + It is very still. + + It lifts its heavy bracts of flattened bloom + Against the sky + Hazily grey with brume. + + Out over yonder boats pass + And the swallows + Flatten themselves on the grass. + + The lake is silvering beneath the heat. + The wind's feet + Touch lazily each crest, + Like white gulls slow flapping + To windward. + + One rose white cloud slowly disengages, loosening itself, + And stands + Above the larkspur-coloured water: + Like Dione's daughter + Braiding up her wet hair with her pale, hands. + + + + II + + + The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees, + Which do not lift one drooping leaf, this night of June. + There is no lazy breeze to set them clashing adrift. + + Thin gleams of silver rise and break in the air, + Fireflies--here and there. + + Forest of blue masses suddenly quivering with rapid points of white, + Are the forests beneath the sea where no breeze passes + As still as you to-night? + + The moon puts out her face at a rift between the trees; + Through my window, the bed cut evenly with diagonal shafts of light, + Is a boat rocking out adrift. + + Under it bend the silver tips of the dark blue coral trees, + And fireflies like glass fish + Drift and ripple upwards in the breeze. + + + + III + + + We are drifting slowly, you and I, + To where the clouds are lifting + High-fretted towers in the sky: + Palaces of ivory, + Which we look at dreamily. + Over our sail + Frail white clouds, + Drift as slowly + Over the undulant pale blue silk of the water, + As we. + + We are racing swiftly, you and I, + The sun darts one firm track + Through the blue-black + Of the crinkled water. + Gold spirals spattering, flashing, + The water heaves and curls away at our bow, + A mad fish splashing. + + We are rocked together, you and I, + To this undulant movement. + White cloud with blue water blent, + Cloud dipping down to wave its lazy head, + Wave curling under cloud its cloudy blue. + I and you, + All alone, alone, at last. + I hold you fast. + + + + IV + + + The midsummer clouds were piling up upon the south horizon, + Mountains of drifting translucence in the larkspur-fields of the sky: + Ascending and toppling in crumbled ravines, dribbling down chasms + of silence, + Reassembling in crowded multitudes, massive forms one above another. + And I saw in their ridges and hollows, the appearance of a woman + Immeasurable, carven in stainless marble, motionless, naked, fair: + Her head thrown back, her pointed breasts up-gleaming in chill sunlight, + Her heavy flanks dark in the shadow, resting forever inert. + And up to her there suddenly clomb and hurried another cloud, + Huge, hairy, bulging, and knobby, with dark and knotted brows: + And he thrust out long bungling arms to her and drew himself up to her, + And I watched them melting together, blue mouth to sad white mouth. + + + + + ORANGE SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Now that all the world is filled + With armies clamouring; + Now that men no longer live and die, one by one, + But in vague indeterminate multitudes: + + Now that the trees are coppery towers, + Now that the clouds loom southward, + Now that the glossy creeper + Spatters the walls like spilt wine: + + I will go out alone, + To catch strong joy of solitude + Where the treelines, in gold and scarlet, + Swing strong grape-cables up the smouldering face of the hill. + + + + II + + + Guns crashing, + Thudding, + Ululating, + Tumultuous. + + Guns yelping over the cracked earth, + Where dry bugles blare. + + Here in this hollow + It is very quiet, + Only the wind's hissing laughter + In the place of tombs. + + One by one these gaunt scarred faces + Lift up blurred wrinkled inscriptions + Silently beseeching me to stop and ponder. + What does it matter if I do not stop to read them? + No one at all has gone this way that I have chosen before. + + A leaf drops slowly in silence; + It is a long time twisting and hovering on its way to + the earth. + + Guns booming, + Bellowing, + Crashing, + Desperate. + Insistent outcry of savage guns, + Rocking the gloomy hollow. + + I will run out like the wind, + Snarling, with savage laughter; + Like the wind that tosses the grey-black clouds, + Against the shot-racked barrier of flaming trees. + + I will race between the grey guns, + And the clouds, like shrapnel exploding, + Flinging their hail through the tumult, + Bursting, will melt in cold spray. + + I am the wanderer of the world; + No one can hold me. + Not the cannon assembled for battle, + Nor the gloomy graves of the hollow, + Nor the house where I long time slumbered, + Nor the hilltop where roads are straggling. + + My feet must march to the wind. + Like a leaf dropping slowly, + An orange butterfly turning and twisting, + I touch with moist passionate palms the leaden inscriptions + Of my past. Then I turn to depart. + + + + III + + + The trees dance about the inn; + The wind thrusts them into flamelets. + Now my thoughts gipsying, + Go forth to strange walls and new fires. + + Mouths stained with brown-red berries, + Bronzed cheeks sunken, unshaven, + Ragged attire; + We swing our guitars at the hip + As we tramp heedless, uncaring. + + In the inn the fire crackles: + On the hearth the wine is simmering. + Lift up the brown beaker one instant, + Drink deeply--fling out the last coin--let us go. + On the plains there is drooping harvest, + But no harvest can for long time hold us, + We have seen the winds, baffled, + Racing up the orange-flecked trench of the hills. + + + + IV + + + On the hill summit + Where the gusty wind all night long has assailed me, + Now I see stars vanishing + Before the long cold clutching fingers of dawn. + + Stars scintillant, fire-hued, metallic, + Topaz fruit of the deep-blue garden: + Southward you go, my constellations, + And leave me with the white day, alone. + + Over the hilltop + Swish with a scurry of wings + Millions of pale brown birds, + Songless, pulsing southward. + + Birds who have filled the trees, + And who fled long ago at my passing, + Now you clatter in heedless tumult, + Fanning with your hot wings my face. + + Carry this word to the southward; + Say that I have forgotten them that wait for me, + All the loves and the hates need expect me no longer, + In the autumn at last I am alone. + + Suddenly + The wind crashes through the tree-tops, + Stripping away their orange-tiled domes; + Stark blue skeletons, forbidding + Gesticulate in my face. + You whom I planted and lavished + With all the wealth and beauty I had to bestow + Hurry away, vain harvest, + The winds' scythes can reap you, + Where you lie on the earth, and to death's barns you can go. + + Beyond the hilltop + I have seen only the sky. + The wind, naked, prodding up black-furred clouds, + Cossacks of winter. + + Cry, wind, + Shriek to the shivering southland, + That I am going into winter, + That I do not hope to return. + + Farewell, crowded stars, + Farewell, birds, winds, clouds and tree-tops, + I, weary of you all, seek my destined joy in the north-land, + Amid blue ice and the rose-purple night of the pole. + + + + V + + + Beyond the land there lies the sea; + And on the sea with wings unfurled, + Bloodily huge the sunset rests, + Feathers flickering and claws curled, + Watching to seize the ruined world. + + Rolling in a torrent, + Brown leaves, my achievements, + Rise up from dark-wooded valleys + And scatter themselves on the sea; + Brown birds, my wild dreams, + Mingle their bodies together, + Shrieking and clamouring as they pass, + Black charred silhouettes + Against the west, curtained in orange flame. + Now the wind starts up + And strikes the seething water: + Hissing in uncoiled fury + Each foam-curled wave darts forward + To clash and batter + The smouldering iron-rust cliff, + Where the end of my road is lost. + + Rise up, black clouds; + Pounce upon the sunset: + Tear it with your jagged teeth. + Fling yourselves, seething winds, in circles + Upon the blue-black water, + Swirl, leaves, and dance + Amid the chaos of breakers, + Flicker, birds, an instant + Against the tawny tiger throat of the sun + Which is snarling in the west. + Beat down, O great winds, westward, + Loose reins and gallop to seaward, + Rush me, too, to that ocean, + In which I have found my goal. + + Lash me, lap me, rugged waves of blue-black water, + Dash me, clutch me and do not let me rest one instant; + All through the purple-blue night rock and soothe me, + Till I awaken dreamingly at the faint rose breast of the dawn. + + + + + RED SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Over the ink-black cauldron of the sea, + Heavily, on wings of leaden cloud, + Howling the sunset + Races out to assail me. + + Long have I voyaged, + Night after night the grey rains swept the sea: + The heaving breakers + Hissed and quivered but held no light. + + Now my voyage is ending, + White storm winds have swept bare my soul; + With their harsh laughter, + Their maddening mockery, + Their bayonet-thrusts of despair. + + Over the keen, clean-swept zenith + Roll crushingly, huge masses of cloud: + Dull, ponderous, sagging with the burden + Of creaking snow. + + They drop flat on the sea, + They hang menacing over me, + They festoon the sun + With swags of crimson light. + + They stripe the horizon, + They bar every way with their iron tongues; + They loom weltering over my effort, + They steadfastly close me in. + + Meanwhile the sun + With dying force + Wrenches one little crack + In the midst of the sagging masses, + And I steer on to it. + + Like a crimson lake + The light overflows and touches the bulging surfaces + With carmine, with scarlet, + With orange, with vermillion, + With brick red, with bluish purple, + With maroon, with rose, with russet, + With savage green, with snowy blue, + With grey, with ebony, with gold. + + It is the storm of the evening + That races out shrieking + To assail me, + And I hail it. + + + + II + + + The sky's vast emptiness + Is crowded with fragments colliding, + Ragged, splintered masses + Swirling away to the night. + + The volcano of the sun + Has burst and split its crater: + Black slag is hurled to the zenith + Above the red lava-sea. + + Black shrivelled, charred fragments + Fall into the scarlet torrent: + Huge tresses of darkness sweep over my face, + Leaving me choking. + + The sea is one crimson steaming fire; + Each fanged wavelet + Flickers and dances about the one behind it, + Hungrily licking at the ship. + + Fierce whirling swords, + Tossed spear-heads lancelike + Spit and stab, then suddenly fall + Leaving me there + On a rolling summit of flame, facing a gulf of despair. + + The ship + Lurches + With ice-crusted prow into the wave-trough; + And rises, rapidly dripping liquid lire, + Long twisted necklaces, that burn out to green frozen chrysolite. + + + + III + + + Over my head a bell beats: it is midnight. + Perhaps I will live to the dawn. + + About me are the mouths of yawning furnaces + And from these scarlet mouths the heat outpours, + And darts and licks its dry tongues at my brain + Till it, too, seems a black shell almost bursting + With the force of flame in it. + + Still, wearily, I swing my shovel, + Spattering the black coal over the palates + Of the snoring mouths which rapidly swallow. + There is nothing else to do. + + My legs seem melting away in sweat beneath me: + In my body my lungs and heart are fighting for air, + My eyes are seared by the appalling scarlet, + Of the furnaces about me--I scarcely-see them--My + shovelfuls fall short with every swing. + + Without I hear the battering of the tempest, + The ship is pounded sideways by black immeasurable wave-thrusts, + And rising dizzily again, like a half-senseless fighter, + Is again sent downwards, by those unseen fists. + + My shovel rises to the ship's slow recovery, + My shovel shoots out at the smash of toppling masses, + Sometimes I pause and pant for an endless instant, + While the ship crouches, quivering. + + Over my head a bell beats: it is morning. + Wearily I drop the shovel, + And drag myself to the deck. + + + + IV + + + Afar + There is something that seems a shore; + The sky has been blown clean of clouds except to westward, + And these stare hard at me, like huge sardonyx towers. + + I cling to a half-shattered rail that reels and dances, + Soused by the choking water, + My face a streaming mass of blood and salt and grime, + I wait and dizzily I try to remember. + + What is this city that out there awaits me? + Am I its conqueror? + + Will scarlet flags hang fluttering in the streets + To greet my coming? + Will crimson lanterns + Jingle and toss in festival to-night? + + Has the fire burned the ship and is the water + But stinging icy fire, + That whips and sears my face? + + Down there the furnaces go out, for the water + Sloshes about the floor; + And steaming acrid fumes arise, + No living soul could stay in such a place. + + Out here the decks are shattered, + The boats are shorn away, + And far on the horizon, + The city glares with its sardonyx towers. + + Now the red bells, + The black-red bells, + The storm bells, + Break loose from the horizon, + Leaping upon the eastern sea, + And breaking it in their teeth. + + The towers + Infuriate, enkindle + From base to summit, + In layers, and orange terraces, + Against the blue snow haze that drifts down on them from the east. + + The ship of my soul + Is rolling to port at last, + With one clang from its heaving boilers, + One sigh from its shaking funnels, + One rattle from its loosened chains. + I will lash myself to the masthead + And wait + Empty-eyed and open-mouthed, + Till the city that is all one scarlet flame of death + Takes me to itself at last. + + + + + VIOLET SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + But yesterday + Moonsails were raking high the harbour of my dreams. + + Dull night of trees, + Dark sorrows drooping, + Glittering raindrops gleam on you + In recollection + Of my despair. + + But yesterday + Stardust was scattered deep on the dark gulf of my dreams. + + Wind of the night, + Questing, swaying, calling, + Rustle of dull grasses, + Why do you trouble me? + + Yesterday + Purple mist was powdered on the windless sea of dreams. + + Faces of the night that pass me, + Haggard, monotonous faces, + Windblown hair and lustful lips, + I am not what you desire. + + Yesterday + One--two--sails above the mist--. + Windswallows that hover + Towards the rainclouds of the horizon, + Out of the reedy harbours + Rocking, swaying, falling, + Blown to sea and parted + Yesterday, + Yesterday. + + + + II + + + Purple-blue bloom of night, + Globed grapes clustered morosely + Down the dark vineyards of untrodden streets: + + The noise of the moments is like the clash of the hoofs of a horse + rattling, + Thin tattoo in the stillness: + The noise of the moments takes me, uncaring, + Towards the day. + + With brassy crash, dawn's corybants + Invade and trample the vineyard: + Like a faun I hide and watch them, + A dark cup in my hand. + + Spoilers of my vineyard, + Spilling the lees of my sweet red wine, + You will yet ask in vain for a cup that is not yours, + A purple, dewy cup of lonely night. + + Tramplers in the morning, + Sunburnt faces and weary lips, + There is yet a cup here you cannot have, + I hold it in my hands. + + Would you drink of it? + Lay down your thyrse and timbrel. + Break the harsh dance that flickers through the morning, + Forget the scarlet perfumes of the day. + + Remember only starless night, cool swish of many seas. + + Faint pearl-glow of evening, + Cool marble in the silence: + Purple-blue grapes of night crushed freshly, + Deep sleep and the drowsy stars. + + + + III + + + I love the night that in long violet shroud + Slowly and lovingly wraps up the day, + Hiding its blurred imperfections + In endless tenderness. + + I love the day's + High violet cone of light, + With thin haze on the horizon + Like a wavering summer sea. + + But most of all I love midsummer dawn, + When far-off planes of light ascend and tremble together + Like distant purple waves, the sound of whose dim breaking + Is lost in the wild babel of awaking birds. + + + + IV + + + Twisted fragments of violet paper, + The dawn drops you + Into the green bowl filled with the day's grey waves. + + I love the night's + Deep purple grapes + That yesterday + Were crushed and spilled, + In long and sluggish rivers + That joined and made a sea, + Where, half-guessed through the mist, + Two golden sails + Drifted on silently. + + The blue fume of my dreams + Is laced with violet flame. + + One golden sail alone came back to rest + In its nest + Among the reeds. + The other sail is lost; + Behind the mist, + Beyond the craggy rock, + About which race in jagged white + The waves, + Horizon on horizon far away + She waits. + But through the day, + Comes no faint song, nor creaking of the ropes. + + Twisted fragments of violet paper, + Charred and fallen: + Out of the green bowl lazily coils grey smoke. + + + + + GREY SYMPHONY + + + + I + + + Up on the hillside a long row of larches + Shake from their grizzled Beards the vestiges of rain, + From grey-blue melting ice-slabs 'neath their arches + The spring goes up again. + + Writhing, exuding, + Up-steaming, streaming, + The earth is breathing to the sky + Wet clouds of spring. + + Dim rosy fans, the trees + As they flick to and fro, + Seem driving greyish vapour + Over the snow. + + The sky remodulates itself + From violet-grey to blue, + Under the upturned eaves of the blue larches + The sun looks through. + + Now with the heat of the sun + The grey-blue ice-slabs quiver, + They slide in muddy trickles + Towards the river. + + Up on the hillside between the long row of larches + Fume up from south pale clouds that bear the rain; + In pearl and violet arches + They break and shape again. + + + + II + + + I have seen in the evening + The greyish-violet clouds + Roll wearily back from northward + To the place whence first they came. + + One or two orange lamps burnt low + Against deep purple hills-- + + The wind was hurrying, bundling them together, + The pines awoke to sing + The song of the snow buzzing and screaming + On its one string. + + I have seen within my heart + Crocuses, purple and gold, + Drop cold and dull and colourless + Beneath the snow. + + One or two orange lamps burnt low, + Vain memories. + + The wind has driven me too many winters, + My songs are snowflakes whirling about my breast. + I will wrap my frozen and bitter songs about me, + In one grey drift, and rest. + + + + III + + + Fluttering and soft the snow + Flings outward, swirls and settles, + But when I try to seize it, + The wind tears it away. + + Through poised green platforms of enormous pines, + I see far hilltops pushing up blue roofs. + Snow comes, + And hums + Through the woof + Of the lower branches. + It skips and dances: + It drops in sluggish folds + Of grey, + To where the frozen rhododendron bushes + With lower air-gusts play, + And the earth hushes + Its movement. + + Fluttering and soft the snow is blent + In long loose spirals with my dream. + + It is all I have, the snow, + And I know + That when I chase it, it will fly from me; + Beyond the lifeless green, + Beyond the low blue hills, + Beyond the pale straw-coloured glare, + Down in the west + It goes; + Straight southward where the purple-orange flare + Of sunset flows, + And into the blackened heart of my last rose + Pours its despair. + + Fluttering, soft, and dim + Regrets that skip and skim + Grey in the grey twilight; + Slim and weary whirls the snow, + And where it goes I too shall go. + + + + IV + + + Of my long nights afar in alien cities + I have remembered only this: + They were black scarves all dusted over with silver, + In which I wrapped my dreams; + They were black screens on which I made those pictures + That faded out next day. + + Youth without glory, manhood one mad struggle, + Maturity a battle without trumpet calls: + Long gleams from pallid suns seen only in my dreaming + Struck those dissolving walls. + + And of my days, + I only know + They slipped and fell, + Like too-brief sunsets, + Into the hill-ravines that held the snow. + Three lofty pines + At the corners of my heart + Waited, apart. + + They only see + In the mystery + Of the grey sky, + The jaggled clouds that fly, + Endlessly. + + + + + POPPIES OF THE RED YEAR + + _(A Symphony in Scarlet)_ + + + + I + + + The words that I have written + To me become as poppies: + Deep angry disks of scarlet flame full-glowing in the stillness + Of a shut room. + + Silken their edges undulate out to me, + Drooping on their hairy stems; + Flaring like folded shawls, down-curved like rockets starting + To break and shatter their light. + + Wide-flaunting and heavy, crinkle-lipped blossom, + Darting faint shivers through me; + Globed Chinese lanterns on green silk cords a-swaying + Over motionless pools. + + These are lamps of a festival of sleep held each night to welcome me, + Crimson-bursting through dark doors. + Out to the dull, blue, heavy fumes of opium rolling + From their rent red hearts, I go to seek my dream. + + + + II + + + A riven wall like a face half torn away + Stares blankly at the evening: + And from a window like a crooked mouth + It barks at the sunset sky. + + And over there, beyond, + On plains where night has settled, + Ten-like encampments of vaporous blue smoke or mist, + Three men are riding. + + One of them looks and sees the sky: + One of them looks and sees the earth: + The last one looks and sees nothing at all. + They ride on. + + One of them pauses and says, "It is death." + Another pauses and says, "It is life." + The last one pauses and says, "'Tis a dream." + His bridle shakes. + + The sky + Is filled with oval violet-tinted clouds + Through which the sun long settled strikes at random, + Enkindling here and there blotched circles of rosy light. + + These are poppies, + Unclosing immense corollas, + Waving the horsemen on. + + Over the earth, upheaving, folding, + They ride: their bridles shake: + One of them sees the sky is red: + One of them sees the earth is dark: + The last man sees he rides to his death, + Yet he says nothing at all. + + + + III + + + There will be no harvest at all this year; + For the gaunt black slopes arising + Lift the wrinkled aching furrows of their fields, falling away, + To the rainy sky in vain. + + But in the furrows + There is grass and many flowers. + Scarlet tossing poppies + Flutter their wind-slashed edges, + On which gorged black flies poise and sway in drunken sleep. + + The black flies hang + Above the tangled trampled grasses, + Grey, crumpled bundles lie in them: + They sprawl, + Heave faintly; + And between their stiffened fingers, + Run out clogged crimson trickles, + Spattering the poppies and standing in beads on the grass. + + + + IV + + + I saw last night + Sudden puffs of flame in the northern sky. + + The sky was an even expanse of rolling grey smoke, + Lit faintly by the moon that hung + Its white face in a dead tree to the east. + + Within the depths of greenish greyish smoke + Were roars, + Crackles and spheres of vapour, + And then + Huge disks of crimson shooting up, falling away. + + And I said these are flower petals, + Sleep petals, dream petals, + Blown by the winds of a dream. + + But still the crimson rockets rose. + They seemed to be + One great field of immense poppies burning evenly, + Casting their viscid perfume to the earth. + + The earth is sown with dead, + And out of these the red + Blooms are pushing up, advancing higher, + And each night brings them nigher, + Closer, closer to my heart. + + + + V + + + By the sluggish canal + That winds between thin ugly dunes, + There are no passing boats with creaking ropes to-day. + + But when the evening + Crouches down, like a hurt rabbit, + Under the everlasting raincloud whirling up the north horizon, + Downwards on the stream will float + Glowing points of fire. + + Orange, coppery, scarlet, + Crimson, rosy, flickering, + They pass, the lanterns + Of the unknown dead. + + Out where the sea, sailless, + Is mouthing and fretting + Its chaos of pebbles and dried sticks by the dunes. + + By the wall of that house + That looks like a face half torn away, + And from its flat mouth barks at the sky, + The sky which is shot with broad red disks of light, + Petals drowsily falling. + + + + VI + + + "It was not for a sacred cause, + Nor for faith, nor for new generations, + That unburied we roll and float + Beneath this flaming tumult of drunken sleep-flowers. + But it was for a mad adventure, + Something we longed for, poisonous, seductive, + That we dared go out in the night together, + Towards the glow that called us, + On the unsown fields of death. + + "Now we lie here reaped, ungarnered, + Red swaths of a new harvest: + But you who follow after, + Must struggle with our dream: + And out of its restless and oppressive night, + Filled with blue fumes, dull, choking, + You will draw hints of that vision + Which we hold aloof in silence." + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Goblins and Pagodas, by John Gould Fletcher + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOBLINS AND PAGODAS *** + +***** This file should be named 38856.txt or 38856.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/8/5/38856/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org +(From images generously made available by the Internet +Archive.) + + +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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