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diff --git a/38857-0.txt b/38857-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be55239 --- /dev/null +++ b/38857-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1325 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38857 *** + +IRRADIATIONS + +SAND AND SPRAY + +BY + +JOHN GOULD FLETCHER + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + +1915 + + + + +TO + +AMY LOWELL + +BEST OF FRIENDS AND POETS + + + + +Thanks are due to the Editors of Poetry (Chicago) and The Egoist +(London) for permission to reprint here matter that originally appeared +in the pages of their respective publications. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The art of poetry as practised in the English-speaking countries to-day, +is in a greatly backward state. Among the reading public there are +exactly three opinions generally held about it. The first, and by far +the most popular, view is that all poets are fools and that poetry is +absurd. The second is that poetry is an agreeable after-dinner +entertainment, and that a poet is great because he has written quotable +lines. The last and worst is that which strives to press the poet into +the service of some philosophical dogma, ism, or fad. + +For these views the poets themselves, and no others, are largely +responsible. With their exaggerated vanity, they have attempted to make +of their craft a Masonic secret, iterating that a poet composes by ear +alone; that rhythm is not to be analyzed, that rhyme is sacrosanct; that +poets, by some special dispensation of Providence, write by inspiration, +being born with more insight than other men; and so forth. Is it any +wonder that the public is indifferent, hostile, or befooled when poets +themselves disdain to explain clearly what they are trying to do, and +refuse to admit the public into the privacy of their carefully guarded +workrooms? + +It was Theophile Gautier, I think, who offered to teach any one how to +write poetry in twenty-five lessons. Now this view has in it some +exaggeration, but, at the same time, much truth. No amount of lessoning +will turn an idiot into a wise man, or enable a man to say something +when he is naturally one who has nothing to say. Nevertheless, I believe +that there would have been fewer mute inglorious Miltons, greater +respect paid to poetry, and many better poets, if the poets themselves +had stopped working through sheer instinct and set themselves the task +of considering some elementary principles in their craft. In this +belief, and in the hope of enlightening some one as to the aim and +purpose of my work, I am writing this preface. + +To begin with, the basis of English poetry is rhythm, or, as some would +prefer to call it, cadence. This rhythm is obtained by mingling stressed +and unstressed syllables. Stress may be produced by accent. It may--and +often is--produced by what is known as quantity, the breath required to +pronounce certain syllables being more than is required on certain +others. However it be produced, it is precisely this insistence upon +cadence, upon the rhythm of the line when spoken, which sets poetry +apart from prose, and not--be it said at the outset--a certain way of +printing, with a capital letter at the beginning of each line, or an +insistence upon end-rhymes. + +Now this rhythm can be made the same in every line of the poem. This was +the aim of Alexander Pope, for instance. My objection to this method is +that it is both artificial and unmusical. In the case of the eighteenth +century men, it gave the effect of a perfectly balanced pattern, like a +minuet or fugue. In the case of the modern imitator of Kipling or +Masefield, it gives the effect of monotonous rag-time. In neither case +does it offer full scope for emotional development. + +I maintain that poetry is capable of as many gradations in cadence as +music is in time. We can have a rapid group of syllables--what is called +a line--succeeded by a slow heavy one; like the swift, scurrying-up of +the wave and the sullen dragging of itself away. Or we can gradually +increase or decrease our _tempo_, creating _accelerando_ and +_rallentando_ effects. Or we can follow a group of rapid lines with a +group of slow ones, or a single slow, or _vice versa_. Finally, we can +have a perfectly even and unaltered movement throughout if we desire to +be monotonous. + +The good poem is that in which all these effects are properly used to +convey the underlying emotions of its author, and that which welds all +these emotions into a work of art by the use of dominant _motif_, +subordinate themes proportionate treatment, repetition, variation,--what +in music is called development, reversal of roles, and return In short, +the good poem fixes a free emotion, or a free range of emotions, into an +inevitable and artistic whole. The real secret of the greatest English +poets lies not in their views on life,--which were, naturally, only +those which every sane man is obliged to hold,--but in their profound +knowledge of their craft, whereby they were enabled to put forth their +views in perfect form. Each era of man has its unique and self-sufficing +range of expression and experience, and therefore every poet must seek +anew for himself, out of the language-medium at his disposal, rhythms +which are adequate and forms which are expressive of his own unique +personality. + +As regards the length of the lines themselves, that depends altogether +upon the apparatus which Nature has given us, to enable us to breathe +and to speak. Each line of a poem, however many or few its stresses, +represents a single breath, and therefore a single perception. The +relation between breath and perception is a commonplace of Oriental +philosophy. As we breathe so do we know the universe, whether by sudden, +powerful gusts of inspiration, or through the calmer--but rarer--gradual +ascent into the hidden mysteries of knowledge, and slow falling away +therefrom into darkness. + +So much for the question of metre. The second range of problems with +which we are immediately concerned, when we examine the poetic craft, is +that which is generally expressed under the name of rhyme. + +Now rhyme is undoubtedly an element of poetry, but it is neither an +indissoluble element, nor is it, in every case, an inevitable one. In +the main, the instinct which makes for rhyme is sound. Poetry is an art +which demands--though not invariably--the utmost richness and fulness of +musical effect. When rhyme is considered as an additional instrument of +what may be called the poetic orchestra, it both loses and gains in +importance. It loses because it becomes of no greater import than +assonance, consonance, alliteration, and a host of similar devices. It +gains because it is used intelligently as a device for adding richness +of effect, instead of blindly as a mere tag at the end of a line. + +The system which demands that the end of every line of poetry must rhyme +with the end of some one preceding or following it, has not even the +merit of high antiquity or of civilized adherence. In its essence it is +barbarous; it derives from the stamping of feet, clapping of hands, +pounding of drums, or like devices of savage peoples to mark the rhythms +in their dances and songs. And its introduction into European poetry, as +a rule to be invariably followed, dates precisely from the time of the +break-up of the Latin civilization, and the approach of what the +historians know as the Dark Ages. Since it has come into common use +among European peoples, every poet of eminence has tried to avoid its +fatiguing monotony, by constructing new stanza-forms. Dante, Petrarch, +Chaucer, Spenser, all these were innovators or developers of what may be +known as formal metre. But let us not forget that the greatest of all, +Shakespeare, used rhyme in his plays, only as additional decoration to +a lyric, or in a perfectly legitimate fashion as marking the necessary +pause at the close of a scene. Let us also remember that, as he advanced +in thought and expression, he gradually abandoned rhyme for the only +reason that an artist abandons anything; because it was no longer +adequate. + +The process that began with the Pervigilium Veneris, the mediæval +hymn-writers, and the Provençal troubadours, and which culminated in the +orchestral blank verse of Shakespeare, has now passed through all the +stages of reduction to formula, eclecticism, archaistic reaction, +vulgarization, gramaphone popularity, and death. Milton--Gibbon among +poets--reduced it to his too-monotonous organ-roll. Dryden, Pope and his +followers, endlessly repeated a formula. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, +attempted a return to the Elizabethan and to the even earlier ballad +forms. In the later nineteenth century we come back to still earlier +forms. Ballades, rondeaus, even sestinas appear. Gradually we find the +public attention dropping away from these juggling feats performed with +stale form, and turning to what may be called the new balladist--the +street singer who is content to doggerelize and make strident a once +noble form. We have our Masefields, our Kiplings, and worse. Rag-time +has at last made its appearance in poetry. Let us be grateful to the man +who invented it--Nicholas Vachel Lindsay--but let us admit that the +force of nature can no further go. + +It is time to create something new. It is time to strip poetry of +meaningless tatters of form, and to clothe her in new, suitable +garments. Portents and precursors there have been in plenty. We already +have Blake, Matthew Arnold, Whitman, Samuel Butler, and I know not how +many more. Every one is talking--many poets, poeticules, and poetasters +are writing--what they call "free verse." Let there be no mistake about +one thing. Free verse that is flabby, in-organic, shapelessly obvious, +is as much of a crime against poetry as the cheapest echo of a Masefield +that any doggerel scribbler ever strummed. Let poets drop their +formulas--"free" or otherwise--and determine to discipline themselves +through experiment. There is much to be learned from the precursors I +have mentioned. There is a great deal to be learned from the French +poets--Parnassians, Symbolists, Whitmanites, Fantaisistes--who have, in +the years 1860 to 1900, created a new Renaissance under our noses. But +above all, what will teach us the most is our language and life. Never +was life lived more richly, more fully, with more terrible blind +intensity than it is being lived at this instant. Never was the noble +language which is ours surpassed either in richness or in concision. We +have the material with which to work, and the tools to do the work with. +It is America's opportunity to lay the foundations for a new flowering +of English verse, and to lay them as broad as they are strong. + +_January, 1915._ + + + + CONTENTS + + + IRRADIATIONS + + EPILOGUE + + + SAND AND SPRAY (A SEA-SYMPHONY) + + PART I. THE GALE + + PART II. VARIATIONS + + (1) SAILBOATS + (2) THE TIDE + (3) THE SANDS + (4) THE GULLS + (5) STEAMERS + (6) NIGHT OF STARS + + PART III. VARIATIONS + + (1) THE GROUNDSWELL + (2) SNOW AT SEA + (3) THE NIGHT WIND + (4) THE WRECK + (5) TIDE OF STORMS + + PART IV. THE CALM + + + + + IRRADIATIONS + + + + I + + The spattering of the rain upon pale terraces + Of afternoon is like the passing of a dream + Amid the roses shuddering 'gainst the wet green stalks + Of the streaming trees--the passing of the wind + Upon the pale lower terraces of my dream + Is like the crinkling of the wet grey robes + Of the hours that come to turn over the urn + Of the day and spill its rainy dream. + Vague movement over the puddled terraces: + Heavy gold pennons--a pomp of solemn gardens + Half hidden under the liquid veil of spring: + Far trumpets like a vague rout of faded roses + Burst 'gainst the wet green silence of distant forests: + A clash of cymbals--then the swift swaying footsteps + Of the wind that undulates along the languid terraces. + Pools of rain--the vacant terraces + Wet, chill and glistening + Towards the sunset beyond the broken doors of to-day. + + + II + + Gaunt sails--bronze boats of the evening-- + Float along the river where aloft + Like dim swans the clouds die + Softly. + + I am afraid to traverse the long still streets of evening; + For I fear to see the ghosts that stare at me + From the shadows. + I will stay indoors instead and await my wandering dream. + + She is about me, fluid yet, and formless; + The wind in her hair whispers like dim violins: + And the faint glint of her eyes shifts like a sudden movement + Over the surface of a dark pool. + + She comes to me slowly down the lost streets of the evening, + And their immutable silence is in her feet. + Let no lamps flare--be still, my heart--hands, stay: + For I would touch the lips of my new love with my lips. + + + III + + In the grey skirts of the fog seamews skirl desolately, + And flick like bits of paper propelled by a wind + About the flabby sails of a departing ship + Crawling slowly down the low reaches + Of the river. + About the keel there is a bubbling and gurgling + Of grumpy water; + And as the prow noses out a way for itself, + It seems to weave a dream of bubbles and flashing foam, + A dream of strange islands whereto it is bound: + Pear-islands drenched with the dawn. + The palms flash under the immense dark sky, + Down which the sun dives to embrace the earth: + Drums boom and conches bray, + And with a crash of crimson cymbals + Suddenly appears above the polished backs of slaves + A king in a breastplate of gold + Gigantic + Amid tossed roses and swaying dancers + That melt into pale undulations and muffled echoes + 'Mid the bubbling of the muddy lumpy water, + And the swirling of the seamews above the sullen river. + + + IV + + The iridescent vibrations of midsummer light + Dancing, dancing, suddenly flickering and quivering + Like little feet or the movement of quick hands clapping, + Or the rustle of furbelows or the clash of polished gems. + The palpitant mosaic of the midday light + Colliding, sliding, leaping and lingering: + O, I could lie on my back all day, + And mark the mad ballet of the midsummer sky. + + + V + + Over the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds; + Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street. + + Whirlpools of purple and gold, + Winds from the mountains of cinnabar, + Lacquered mandarin moments, palanquins swaying and balancing + Amid the vermilion pavilions, against the jade balustrades. + Glint of the glittering wings of dragon-flies in the light: + Silver filaments, golden flakes settling downwards, + Rippling, quivering flutters, repulse and surrender, + The sun broidered upon the rain, + The rain rustling with the sun. + + Over the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds; + Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street. + + + VI + + The balancing of gaudy broad pavilions + Of summer against the insolent breeze: + The bellying of the sides of striped tents, + Swelling taut, shuddering in quick collapse, + Silent under the silence of the sky. + + Earth is streaked and spotted + With great splashes and dapples of sunlight: + The sun throws an immense circle of hot light upon the world, + Rolling slowly in ponderous rhythm + Darkly, musically forward. + + All is silent under the steep cone of afternoon: + The sky is imperturbably profound. + The ultimate divine union seems about to be accomplished, + All is troubled at the attainment + Of the inexhaustible infinite. + + The rolling and the tossing of the sides of immense pavilions + Under the whirling wind that screams up the cloudless sky. + + + VII + + Flickering of incessant rain + On flashing pavements: + Sudden scurry of umbrellas: + Bending, recurved blossoms of the storm. + + The winds came clanging and clattering + From long white highroads whipping in ribbons up summits: + They strew upon the city gusty wafts of appleblossom, + And the rustling of innumerable translucent leaves. + + Uneven tinkling, the lazy rain + Dripping from the eaves. + + + VIII + + The fountain blows its breathless spray + From me to you and back to me. + + Whipped, tossed, curdled, + Crashing, quivering: + I hurl kisses like blows upon your lips. + The dance of a bee drunken with sunlight: + Irradiant ecstasies, white and gold, + Sigh and relapse. + + The fountain tosses pallid spray + Far in the sorrowful, silent sky. + + + IX + + The houses of the city no longer hum and play: + They lie like careless drowsy giants, dumb, estranged. + + One presses to his breast his toy, a lighted pane: + One stirs uneasily: one is cold in death. + + And the late moon, fearfully peering over an immense shoulder, + Sees, in the shadow below, the unpeopled hush of a street. + + + X + + The trees, like great jade elephants, + Chained, stamp and shake 'neath the gadflies of the breeze + The trees lunge and plunge, unruly elephants: + The clouds are their crimson howdah-canopies, + The sunlight glints like the golden robe of a Shah. + Would I were tossed on the wrinkled backs of those trees + + + XI + + The clouds are like a sombre sea: + On shining screens of ebony + Are carven marvels of my heart. + + 'Gainst crimson placques of cinnabar + Shrills, like a diamond, dawn's last star. + + The gardens of my heart are green: + The rain drips off the glistening leaves. + In the humid gardens of my soul, + The crimson peonies explode. + + I am like a drop of rose-flushed rain, + Clinging to crimson petals of love. + + In the afternoon, over gold screens, + I will brush the blue dust of my dreams. + + + XII + + The pine, rough-bearded Pan of the woods + Whispered in my ear his sleepy-sweet song. + Like liquid fire it ran through my veins. + Thus he piped: Sad, lonely son of the woods, + Lie down in the long still grass and sleep, + Ere the dawn has hidden her swelling breasts, + Ere the morning has covered her massive flanks, + With the flame-coloured mantle of noon. + Lie down in the dewless grass nor awake + To see whether afternoon has hurried in + From the rim of her purple robe dropping dim flowers + Golden flowers with pollen-dusty cups, + Flowers of silence. Heed not though eve + Should sail, a grey swan, in the pool of the sky, + Spreading low ripples. Heed these not! + Only awake when slim twilight + Plunges her body in the last blown spray of the sun! + Awake, then, for twilight and dawn are your day: + Therefore lie down in the long dim grass and sleep, + And I will blow my low pipes over you. + + + XIII + + As I went through the city by day + I saw shadows in sunlight: + But in the night I saw everywhere + Stars within the darkness. + + (A coldly fluting breeze: + Dark Pan under the trees. + Low laughter: up the sky + A star like a street-lamp left on high.) + + As I went through the city by day + I was hustled by jostling people. + But in the night, the wind of the darkness + Whispered, "Hush!" to my soul. + + + XIV + + Brown bed of earth, still fresh and warm with love, + Now hold me tight: + Broad field of sky, where the clouds laughing move, + Fill up my pores with light: + You trees, now talk to me, chatter and scold or weep, + Or drowsing stand: + You winds, now play with me, you wild things creep, + You boulders, bruise my hand! + I now am yours and you are mine: it matters not + What Gods herein I see: + You grow in me, I am rooted to this spot, + We drink and pass the cup, immortally. + + + XV + + O seeded grass, you army of little men + Crawling up the long slope with quivering, quick blades of steel: + You who storm millions of graves, tiny green tentacles of Earth, + Interlace yourselves tightly over my heart, + And do not let me go: + For I would lie here forever and watch with one eye + The pilgrimaging ants in your dull, savage jungles, + The while with the other I see the stiff lines of the slope + Break in mid-air, a wave surprisingly arrested, + And above them, wavering, dancing, bodiless, colourless, unreal, + The long thin lazy fingers of the heat. + + + XVI + + An ant crawling up a grass-blade, + And above it, the sky. + I shall remember these when I die: + An ant and a butterfly + And the sky. + + The grass is full of forget-me-nots and poppies: + Through the air darts many a fly. + The ant toils up its grass-blade, + The careless hours go by. + + The grass-blades bow to the feet of the lazy hours: + They walk out of the wood, showering shadows on flowers. + Their robes flutter vaguely far off there in the clearing: + I see them sometimes from the corner of my eye. + + + XVII + + The wind that drives the fine dry sand + Across the strand: + The sad wind spinning arabesques + With a wrinkled hand. + + Labyrinths of shifting sand, + The dancing dunes! + + I will arise and run with the sand, + And gather it greedily in my hand: + I will wriggle like a long yellow snake over the beaches. + I will lie curled up, sleeping, + And the wind shall chase me + Far inland. + + My breath is the music of the mad wind; + Shrill piping, stamping of drunken feet, + The fluttering, tattered broidery flung + Over the dunes' steep escarpments. + + The fine dry sand that whistles + Down the long low beaches. + + + XVIII + + Blue, brown, blue: sky, sand, sea: + I swell to your immensity. + I will run over the endless beach, + I will shout to the breaking spray, + I will touch the sky with my fingers. + My happiness is like this sand: + I let it run out of my hand. + + + XIX + + The clouds pass + Over the polished mirror of the sky: + The clouds pass, puffs of grey, + There is no star. + + The clouds pass slowly: + Suddenly a disengaged star flashes. + The night is cold and the clouds + Roll slowly over the sky. + + + XX + + I dance: + I exist in motion: + A wind-shaken flower spilling my drops in the sunlight. + + I feel the muscles bending, relaxing beneath me; + I direct the rippling sweep of the lines of my body; + Its impact crashes through the thin walls of the atmosphere, + I dance. + + About me whirls + The sombre hall, the gaudy stage, the harsh glare of the footlights, + And in the brains of thousands watching + Little flames leap quivering to the music of my effort. + + I have danced: + I have expressed my soul + In unbroken rhythm, + Sorrow, and flame. + I am tired: I would be extinguished beneath your beating hands. + + + XXI + + Not noisily, but solemnly and pale, + In a meditative ecstasy you entered life: + As performing some strange rite, to which you alone held the clue. + Child, life did not give rude strength to you; + from the beginning, you would seem to have thrown away, + As something cold and cumbersome, that armour men use against death. + You would perhaps look on him face to face, and so learn the secret + Whether that face wears oftenest a smile or no? + Strange, old, and silent being, there is something + Infinitely vast in your intense tininess: + I think you could point out, with a smile, some curious star + Far off in the heavens, which no man has seen before. + + + XXII + + The morning is clean and blue and the wind blows up the clouds: + Now my thoughts gathered from afar + Once again in their patched armour, with rusty plumes and blunted swords, + Move out to war. + + Smoking our morning pipes we shall ride two and two + Through the woods. + For our old cause keeps us together, + And our hatred is so precious not death or defeat can break it. + + God willing, we shall this day meet that old enemy + Who has given us so many a good beating. + Thank God we have a cause worth fighting for, + And a cause worth losing and a good song to sing. + + + XXIII + + Torridly the moon rolls upward + Against the smooth immensity of midsummer sky, + Changeless, inexhaustible: + The city beneath is still: + Heaven and Earth are clasped together, + Momently life grows as careless + As the life of the intense stars. + Out of the houses climbing, + Fuming up windows, flickering from every roof-top, + Rigid on sonorous pinnacles, + Silently swirl aloft + Love's infinite flamelets. + + + XXIV + + O all you stars up yonder, + Do you hear me? Beautiful, winking, sullen eyes, + I am tired of seeing you in the same old places, + Night after night in the sky. + I hoped you would dance--but after twenty-six years, + I find you are determined to stay as you are. + So I make it known to you, stars clustered or solitary, + That I want you to fall into my lap to-night. + Come down, little stars, let me play with you: + I will string you like beads, and shovel you together, + And wear you in my ears, and scatter you over people-- + And toss you back, like apples, if I choose. + + + XXV + + As I wandered over the city through the night, + I saw many strange things: + But I have forgotten all + Except one painted face. + Gaudy, shameless night-orchid, + Heavy, flushed, sticky with narcotic perfume, + There was something in you which made me prefer you + Above all the feeble forget-me-nots of the world. + You were neither burnt out nor pallid, + There was plain, coarse, vulgar meaning in every line of you + And no make-believe: + You were at least alive, + When all the rest were but puppets of the night. + + + XXVI + + Slowly along the lamp-emblazoned street, + Amid the last sad drifting crowds of midnight + Like lost souls wandering, + Comes marching by solemnly + As for some gem-bedecked ritual of old, + A monotonous procession of black carts + Full crowded with blood-red blossom: + Scarlet geraniums + Unfolding their fiery globes upon the night. + These are the memories of day moulded in jagged flame: + Lust, joy, blood, and death. + With crushed hands, weary eyes, and hoarse clamour, + We consecrate and acclaim them tumultuously + Ere they pass, contemptuous, beyond the unpierced veil of silence. + + + XXVII + + I think there was an hour in which God laughed at me, + For as I passed along the street, + saw that all the women--although their bodies were dexterously concealed-- + Were thinking with all their might what men were like: + And the men, mechanically correct, cigars at lips, + Were wanting to rush at the women, + But were restrained by respectability or timidity, + Or fear of the consequences or vanity or some puerile dream + Of a pale ideal lost in the vast grey sky. + So I said to myself, it is time to end all this: + I will take the first woman that comes along. + And then God laughed at me--and I too smiled + To see that He was in such good humour and that the sun was shining. + + + XXVIII + + I remember, there was a day + During which I did not write a line of verse: + Nor did I speak a word to any woman, + Nor did I meet with death. + + Yet all that day I was fully occupied: + My eyes saw trees, clouds, streets, houses, people; + My lungs breathed air; + My mouth swallowed food and drink; + My hands seized things, my feet touched earth, + Or spurned it at my desire. + + On that day I know I would have been sufficiently happy, + If I could have kept my brain from bothering at all + About my next trite poem; + About the tedious necessities of sex; + And about the day on which I would at last meet death. + + + XXIX + + It is evening, and the earth + Wraps her shoulders in an old blue shawl. + Afar off there clink the polychrome points of the stars, + Indefatigable, after all these years! + Here upon earth there is life, and then death, + Dawn, and later nightfall, + Fire, and the quenching of embers: + But why should I not remember that my night is dawn in another part of + the world, + If the idea fits my fancy? + Dawns of marvellous light, wakeful, sleepy, weary, dancing dawns, + You are rose petals settling through the blue of my evening: + I light my pipe to salute you, + And sit puffing smoke in the air and never say a word. + + + XXX + + I have seemed often feeble and useless to myself, + And many times I have wished that the tedium of my life + Lay at last dissolved in the cold acid of death: + Yet I have not forgotten + The sparkling of waters in the sunlight, + The sound of a woman's voice, + Gliding dancers, + Chanting worshippers, + A child crying, + The wind amid the hills. + These I can remember, + And I think they are more of me + Than the wrinkles on my face and the hungry ache at my heart. + + + XXXI + + My stiff-spread arms + Break into sudden gesture; + My feet seize upon the rhythm; + My hands drag it upwards: + Thus I create the dance. + + I drink of the red bowl of the sunlight: + I swim through seas of rain: + I dig my toes into earth: + I taste the smack of the wind: + I am myself: + I live. + + The temples of the gods are forgotten or in ruins: + Professors are still arguing about the past and the future: + I am sick of reading marginal notes on life, + I am weary of following false banners: + I desire nothing more intensely or completely than this present; + There is nothing about me you are more likely to notice than my being: + Let me therefore rejoice silently, + A golden butterfly glancing against an unflecked wall. + + + XXXII + + Today you shall have but little song from me, + For I belong to the sunlight. + This I would not barter for any kingdom. + + I am a wheeling swallow, + Blue all over is my delight. + I am a drowsy grass-blade + In the greenest shadow. + + + XXXIII + + My desire goes bristling and growling like an angry leopard; + My ribs are a hollow grating, my hair is coarse and hard, + My flanks are like sharp iron wedges, my eyes glitter as chill glass; + Down below there are the meadows where my famished hopes are feeding, + I will waylay them to windward, stalking in watchful patience, + I will pounce upon them, plunging my muzzle in the hot spurt of their + blood. + + + XXXIV + + The flag let loose for a day of festivity; + Free desperate symbol of battle and desire, + Leaping, lunging, tossing up the halyards; + Below it a tumult of music, + Above it the streaming wastes of the sky, + Pinnacles of clouds, pyres of dawn, + Infinite effort, everlasting day. + The immense flag waving + Aloft in glory: + Over seas and hilltops + Transmitting its lightnings. + + + XXXV + + What weave you, what spin you, + What wonder win you, + You looms of desire? + Sin that is splendour, + Love that is shameless, + Life that is glory, + Life that is all. + + + XXXVI + + Like cataracts that crash from a crumbling crag + Into the dull-blue smouldering gulf of a lake below, + Landlocked amid the mountains, so my soul + Was a gorge that was filled with the warring echoes of song. + + Of old, they wore + Shining armour, and banners of broad gold they bore: + Now they drift, like a wild bird's cry, + Downwards from chill summits of the sky. + Fountains of flashing joy were their source afar; + Now they lie still, to mirror every star. + In circles of opal, ruby, blue, out-thrown, + They drift down to a dull, dark monotone. + + Pluck the loose strings, singer, + Thrum the strings; + For the wind brings distant, drowsy bells of song. + Loose the plucked string, poet, + Spurn the strings, + For the echoes of memory float through the gulf for long. + + My songs seem now one humming note afar: + Light as ether, quivering 'twixt star and star, + But yet, so still + I know not whence they come, if mine they are. + Yet that low note + Increases in force as if it said, "I will": + Kindled by God's fierce breath, it would the whole world fill. + Till steadily outwards thrown, + By trumpets blazoned, from the sky downblown, + It grows a vast march, massive, monotonous, known + Of old gold trumpeteers + Through infinite years: + Bursting the white, thronged vaults of the cool sky. + Till hurtling down there falls one mad black hammer-blow: + Then the chained echoes in their maniac woe + Are loosed against the silence, to shriek uncannily. + + The strings shiver faintly, poet: + Strike the strings, + Speed the song: + Tremulous upward rush of wheeling, whirling wings. + + + EPILOGUE + + The barking of little dogs in the night is more remembered than + the shining of the stars: + Only those who watch for long may see the moon rise: + And they are mad ever after and go with blind eyes + Nosing hungrily in the gutter for the scraps that men throw to the dogs; + Few heed their babblings. + + + + SAND AND SPRAY + + A SEA-SYMPHONY + + + + + PART I. THE GALE + + + _Allegro furioso._ + + + Pale green-white, in a gallop across the sky, + The clouds retreating from a perilous affray + Carry the moon with them, a heavy sack of gold; + Sharp arrows, stars between them shoot and play. + + The wind, as it strikes the sand, + Clutches with rigid hands + And tears from them + Thin ribbons of pallid sleet, + Long stinging hissing drift, + Which it trails up inland. + + I lean against the bitter wind: + My body plunges like a ship. + Out there I see grey breakers rise, + Their ravelled beards are white, + And foam is in their eyes. + My heart is blown from me to-night + To be transfixed by all the stars. + + Steadily the wind + Rages up the shore: + In the trees it roars and battles, + With rattling drums + And heavy spears, + Towards the housefronts on it comes. + + The village, a loose mass outflung, + Breaks its path. + Between the walls + It bounces, tosses in its wrath. + It is broken, it is lost. + + With green-grey eyes, + With whirling arms, + With clashing feet, + With bellowing lungs, + Pale green-white in a gallop across the sky, + The wind comes. + + The great gale of the winter flings himself flat upon earth. + + He hurriedly scribbles on the sand + His transient tragic destiny. + + + + + PART II. VARIATIONS + + + (1) SAILBOATS + + _Scherzando._ + + + Light as thin-winged swallows pirouetting and gyrating, + The sails dance in the estuary: + Now heeling to the gust, now cantering, + Bobbing as shuttles back and forth from each other. + I They scorn the black steamers that steadily near them + I On a course direct, with white spume of smoke from their bows, + With snapping crash of breakers they fling themselves forward: + Black on the wing-tips, white on the underside. + These are the birds of the land breeze, + Nesting on green waves in the gold sunlight: + These are the sailships + Heeling and tossing about in the estuary. + + + + (2) THE TIDE + + _Con moto ondeggiante_ + + + The tide makes music + At the foot of the beach; + The waves sing together + Rumble of breakers. + Ships there are swaying, + Into the distance, + Thrum of the cordage, + Slap of the sails. + + The tide makes music + At the foot of the beach; + Low notes of an organ + 'Gainst the dull clang of bells. + The tide's tense purple + On the untrodden sand: + Its throat is blue, + Its hands are gold. + + The tide makes music: + The tide all day + Catches light from the clouds + That float over the sky. + + Ocean, old serpent, + Coils up and uncoils; + With sinuous motion, + With rustle of scales. + + + (3) THE SANDS + + _Lento._ + + + Shallow pools of water + Are drinking up the sky; + Chasms of cool blue-white + In the brown of the sands. + The clouds are in them, + The houses on the shore, + The winds rumple the even + Glimmer of the reflection. + + _Appassionato._ + + I dash across those shallow pools: + Starring their gauzy surface: + A plopping rush of bubbles: + I turn and watch my boot-tracks + Oozing upwards slowly in the dark wind-wrinkled sand. + + + (4) THE GULLS + + _Molto Allegro._ + + + White stars scattering, + Pale rain of spray-drops, + Delicate flash of smoke wind-drifted low and high, + Silver upon dark purple, + The gulls quiver + In a noiseless flight, far out across the sky. + + + (5) STEAMERS + + _Maestoso._ + + + Like black plunging dolphins with red bellies, + The steamers in herds + Swim through the choppy breakers + On this day of winds and clouds. + Wallowing and plunging, + They seek their path, + The smoke of their snorting + Hangs in the sky. + + Like black plunging dolphins with red bellies, + The steamers pass, + Flapping their propellers + Salt with the spray. + Their iron sides glisten, + Their stays thrash: + Their funnels quiver + With the heat from beneath. + + Like black plunging dolphins with red bellies, + The steamers together + Dive and roll through the tumult + Of green hissing water. + + These are the avid of spoil, + Gleaners of the seas, + They loom on their adventure + Up purple and chrome horizons. + + + (6) NIGHT OF STARS + + _Allegro brillante._ + + + The sky immense, bejewelled with rain of stars, + Hangs over us: + The stars like a sudden explosion powder the zenith + With green and gold; + North-east, south-west the Milky Way's pale streamers + Flash past in flame; + The sky is a swirling cataract + Of fire, on high. + + Over us the sky up to the zenith + Palpitates with tense glitter: + About our keel the foam bubbles and curdles + In phosphorescent joy. + Flame boils up to meet down-rushing flame + In the blue stillness. + Aloft a single orange meteor + Crashes down the sky. + + + + + PART III. VARIATIONS + + + (1) THE GROUNDSWELL. + + _Marcia Funebre._ + + + With heavy doleful clamour, hour on hour, and day on day, + The muddy groundswell lifts and breaks and falls and slides away. + + The cold and naked wind runs shivering over the sands, + Salt are its eyes, open its mouth, its brow wet, blue its hands. + + It finds naught but a starving gull whose wings trail at its side, + And the dull battered wreckage, grey jetsam of the tide. + + The lifeless chilly slaty sky with no blue hope is lit, + A rusty waddling steamer plants a smudge of smoke on it. + + Stupidly stand the factory chimneys staring over all, + The grey grows ever denser, and soon the night will fall: + + The wind runs sobbing over the beach and touches with its hands + Straw, chaff, old bottles, broken crates, the litter of the sands. + + Sometimes the bloated carcase of a dog or fish is found, + Sometimes the rumpled feathers of a sea-gull shot or drowned. + + Last year it was an unknown man who came up from the sea, + There is his grave hard by the dunes under a stunted tree. + + With heavy doleful clamour, hour on hour, and day on day, + The muddy groundswell lifts and breaks and falls and slides away. + + + (2) SNOW AT SEA + + _Andante._ + + + Silently fell + The snow on the waters + In the grey dusk + Of the winter evening: + Swirling and falling, + Sucked into the oily + Blue-black surface + Of the sea. + + We pounded on slowly; + From our bows sheeted + A shuddering mass of heavy foam: + Night closed about us, + But ere we were darkened, + We saw close in + A great gaunt schooner + Beating to southward. + + Silently fell + The snow on the waters, + As we pounded north + In the winter evening. + + + (3) THE NIGHT WIND + + _Adagio lamentoso._ + + + Wind of the night, wind of the long cool shadows, + Wind from the garden gate stealing up the avenue, + Wind caressing my cool pale cheek completely, + All my happiness goes out to you. + + Wind flapping aimlessly at my yellow window curtain, + Wind suddenly insisting on your way down to the sea, + Buoyant wind, sobbing wind, wind shuddering and plaintive, + Why come you from beyond through the night's blue mystery? + + Wind of my dream, wind of the delicate beauty, + Wind strumming idly at the harp-strings of my heart: + Wind of the autumn--O melancholy beauty, + Touch me once--one instant--you and I shall never part! + + Wind of the night, wind that has fallen silent, + Wind from the dark beyond crying suddenly, eerily, + What terrible news have you shrieked out there in the stillness? + The night is cool and quiet and the wind has crept to sea. + + + (4) THE WRECK + + _Grave: triste._ + + + Its huge red prow + Uplifted in a tragic attitude, + It waits out there; the seas around + Bubble and hiss with moaning sound: + In sight of port at the gates of the sea, + It waits upreared expectantly. + + It has known the joy of battle, + It has known the shock of wreck: + The spray coated its planking, + The sands swallow its deck: + Monument of the sea, + That knows and that forgets eternally. + + It heaves its scarred brow towards the city: + The city pays it little heed: + Indifferent, brutal, without pity, + Stern cargo-steamers trudge and speed; + The sun glares on it and the gulls wheel and flash, + The rain beats on its deck, the winds pass silently; + It is out there alone with the immense sea: + Alone with its forgotten tragedy. + + + (5) TIDE OF STORMS + + _Allegro con fuoco._ + + + Crooked, crawling tide with long wet fingers + Clutching at the gritty beach in the roar and spurt of spray, + Tide of gales, drunken tide, lava-burst of breakers, + Black ships plunge upon you from sea to sea away. + + Shattering tide, tide of winds, tide of the long still winter, + What matter though ships fail, men sink, there vanish glory? + War-clouds shall hurl their stinging sleet upon our last adventure, + Night-winds shall brokenly whisper our bitter, tragic story. + + + + + PART IV. THE CALM + + _Largo._ + + + In the morning I saw three great ships + Almost motionless + Becalmed on an infinite horizon. + + The clatter of waves up the beach, + The grating rush of wet pebbles, + The loud monotonous song of the surf, + All these have soothed me + And have given + My soul to rest. + + At noon I shall see waves flashing, + White power of spray. + + The steamers, stately, + Kick up white puffs of spray behind them. + The boiling wake + Merges in the blue-black mirror of the sea. + + One eye of the sun sees all: + The world, the wave, my heart. + I am content. + + In the afternoon I shall dream a dream + Of islands beyond the horizon. + + White clouds drift over the sky, + Frigates on a long voyage. + + In the evening a mute blue stillness + Clutches at my heart. + Stars sparkle upon the tips of my fingers. + + Mystical hush, + Fire in the darkness; + The breaking of dreams. + + But in the morning I shall see three great + Almost motionless + Becalmed on an infinite horizon. + + THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Irradiations; Sand and Spray, by +John Gould Fletcher + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38857 *** |