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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:04:32 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:04:32 -0700 |
| commit | 5c8326a05e7ea1dc956384a7bdbe8b9e883d6f33 (patch) | |
| tree | 5bd8a2ea1a27c84d1e1d44a20afa5e1fea26928c /45643-h | |
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diff --git a/45643-h/45643-h.htm b/45643-h/45643-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d9b498 --- /dev/null +++ b/45643-h/45643-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4572 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" 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 Poems, by Iris Tree. + </title> + <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 40px; + margin-right: 40px; +} + +h1,h2 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; + margin-top: 2.5em; + margin-bottom: 1em; +} +h2.left {text-align: left; font-size: 120%; font-weight: normal;} +h2.left.large {font-size: 150%; font-weight: bold;} + +h3 {text-align: left; margin: 2em auto 1em 8em;} + +h1 {line-height: 1;} + +h2+p {margin-top: 1.5em;} + +.transnote h2 { + margin-top: .5em; + margin-bottom: 1em; +} + +p { + text-indent: 1.75em; + margin-top: .51em; + margin-bottom: .24em; + text-align: justify; +} +.caption p {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} +p.center {text-indent: 0;} + +.p1 {margin-top: 1em;} +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} + +.in0 {text-indent: 0;} +.in2 {padding-left: 2em;} +.in4 {padding-left: 4em;} + +.small {font-size: 70%;} +.smaller {font-size: 85%;} +.large {font-size: 150%;} +.xlarge {font-size: 175%;} + +p.drop-cap1, p.drop-cap2, p.drop-cap3, p.drop-cap4, p.drop-cap5 { + text-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 1.1em; +} +p.drop-cap1:first-letter, p.drop-cap2:first-letter, p.drop-cap3:first-letter, + p.drop-cap4:first-letter, p.drop-cap5:first-letter { + float: left; + margin: .2em .5em 0 0; + font-size: 250%; + line-height:0.5em; + text-indent: 0; + clear: both; +} +p.drop-cap1 .smcap1 {margin-left: -.7em;} +p.drop-cap2 .smcap1 {margin-left: -1em;} +p.drop-cap3 .smcap1 {margin-left: -1.2em;} +p.drop-cap4 .smcap1 {margin-left: -1.3em;} +p.drop-cap5 .smcap1 {margin-left: -1.6em;} +p .smcap1 {font-size: 110%;} +.smcap1 {font-variant: small-caps;} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} +.smcap.smaller {font-size: 75%;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin: 4em auto 4em 0; + clear: both; +} +hr.center { + width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; +} + +.tb { + text-align: center; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-bottom: .5em; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + max-width: 80%; + border-collapse: collapse; +} + +.tdl { + text-align: left; + vertical-align: top; + padding-right: 1em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -1.5em; +} +.tdl.hdr { + padding: 1em 0 .25em 1.5em; + font-size: 125%; +} + +.tdl.noq { padding-left: 3.3em;} + +.tdr { + text-align: right; + vertical-align: bottom; + padding-left: .3em; + white-space: nowrap; +} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + right: 4px; + text-indent: 0em; + text-align: right; + font-size: 70%; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + font-style: normal; + letter-spacing: normal; + line-height: normal; + color: #acacac; + border: 1px solid #acacac; + background: #ffffff; + padding: 1px 2px; +} + +.figcenter, .figleft { + margin: 2em auto 2em auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; +} +.figleft {margin-left: 0; text-align: left;} + +.caption { + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; + margin-top: .5em; +} + +.poem-container { + text-align: left; + font-size: 98%; + margin-top: 4em; + page-break-before: always; +} +h2+.poem-container, h3+.poem-container {margin-top: 0;} + +.poem { + display: inline-block; + text-align: left; + margin-left: 0; + width: 100%; +} + +.poem .stanza{ + padding: 0.5em 0; + page-break-inside: avoid; +} + +.poem .tb {text-align: left; margin: .3em 0 0 4em;} + +.poem p {margin: 0; padding: 0; text-indent: 0;} +.poem p.i0 {margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem p.i4 {margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem p.i6 {margin-left: 2.75em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem p.i25 {margin-left: 25em;} + +.transnote { + background-color: #EEE; + border: thin dotted; + font-family: sans-serif, serif; + color: #000; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5%; + margin-top: 4em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + padding: 1em; +} + +span.locked {white-space:nowrap;} + +.narrow {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 20em;} + +@media print, handheld +{ + h1, h2, .newpage {page-break-before: always;} + h1.nobreak, h2.nobreak, .nobreak {page-break-before: avoid; padding-top: 0;} + h3 {padding-left: 8em; page-break-after: avoid;} + .intact {page-break-inside: avoid;} + + p { + margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .25em; + } + + table {width: 100%; max-width: 100%;} + .tdl.noq { padding-left: 3.4em;} + + p.drop-cap1, p.drop-cap2, p.drop-cap3, p.drop-cap4, p.drop-cap5 { + text-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0; + } + p.drop-cap1:first-letter, p.drop-cap2:first-letter, p.drop-cap3:first-letter, + p.drop-cap4:first-letter, p.drop-cap5:first-letter { + float: none; + font-size: 100%; + margin: 0 0 0 0; + text-indent: 0; + } + + p.drop-cap1 .smcap1, p.drop-cap2 .smcap1, p.drop-cap3 .smcap1, + p.drop-cap4 .smcap1, p.drop-cap5 .smcap1 { + margin-left: 0;} + p .smcap1 {font-size: 100%;} + .smcap1 {font-variant: normal;} + + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i6 {margin-left: 1.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i25 {margin-left: 15em;} + +} + +@media handheld +{ + body {margin: 0;} + + hr { + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + + .poem-container {text-align: left; margin-left: 0;} + .poem {display: block;} + .poem .tb {text-align: left; padding-left: 2em;} + + .transnote { + page-break-inside: avoid; + margin-left: 2%; + margin-right: 2%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + padding: .5em; + } + .narrow {padding-left: 4em;} + +} + </style> + </head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45643 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 279px;"> +<img src="images/i_cover.jpg" width="279" height="400" alt="Cover" /> +</div> + +<hr class="newpage p4 center" /> + +<h1 class="nobreak">POEMS BY +IRIS TREE</h1> + +<hr class="center" /> + +<p class="in0 newpage p4 narrow drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> author returns thanks for +permission to use in this collection +of her poems, those which +have appeared in Poetry, Vanity +Fair and the "Wheels" Anthology.</p> + +<hr class="center" /> + +<div id="i_frontis" class="newpage figcenter" style="width: 398px;"> + <img src="images/i_frontis.jpg" width="398" height="600" class="newpage p4" alt="" /><div class="caption"> + HEAD OF IRIS TREE<span class="in4"> <span class="smcap">By Jacob Epstein</span></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 338px;"> +<img src="images/i_005.jpg" width="338" height="600" class="newpage p4" alt="Title Page" /> +</div> + +<div id="i_005a" class="newpage figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> + <img src="images/i_005a.jpg" width="300" height="161" class="newpage p4" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="p1 center xlarge"> +<span class="large">Poems</span><br /> +<span class="small">by</span><br /> +<span class="xlarge">Iris Tree</span></p> + +<p class="p2 center"><span class="small">Decorations by</span><br /> +Curtis Moffat</p> + +<p class="p2 center">LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD<br /> +NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY<br /> +MCMXX +</p> + +<p class="p2 center smaller"> +Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company<br /> +New York, U. S. A. +</p> + +<hr class="center" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">v</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h2> + +<div class="center"> +<table summary="Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl hdr">ROCKETS AND ASHES</td></tr> + <tr class="small"> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdr">PAGE</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">You Preach to Me of Laws, You Tie My Limbs</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">We Are the Caretakers of Empty Houses</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">From Far Away the Lost Adventures Gleam</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Give Me, O God, the Power of Laughter Still</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Winding Down the Street in Wearied Gaiety</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Tranquillity Stirred by a Sudden Spasm</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Could Explain</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Feel in Me a Manifold Desire</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Silence</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Should Like to Say to the World</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">You Pass as in a Drugged Delirium</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">O Faces that Look so Coldly at Me</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I See Myself in Many Different Dresses</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">There are Songs Enough of Love, of Joy, of Grief</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">How Often, When the Thought of Suicide</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">It is Still Something to have Cheated God</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">What Words that Move on Wings in a Long Drift</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Think Myself</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Adored, Wild, Strange, Irresistible</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">A Rose</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Like Flocks of Tired Birds When Autumn Comes</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Oh, Just Beyond the Curve of Ideal Quest</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Ah! You, from the Small High-Walled Acre of Your Lives</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Mouth of the Dust I Kiss, Corruption Absolute</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_36">36</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">vi</a></span></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Curtains are Drawn as though it still were Night</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Black Velvet</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Nerves</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">My Pain has All the Patience of a Nun</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Scandal-Monger After All is Right</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Woods of Brown Gloom Sombring with the Hush of Death</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Feel So Much Alone</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">The Complex Life</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Shall We Be Christened Poets, Children of God</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">When I Am Weary at the Antic Chance</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Moods</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl hdr">SMOKE</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Now is the Evening Dipped Knee-Deep in Blood</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Blow Upon Blow They Bruise the Daylight Wan</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">A Ragged Drummer Rides Along the Street</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Zeppelins</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">O Flattery, Imposture, Battle Show</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">What Will Happen to the Beggar, and the Sinner, and the Sad</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">If I Were What I Would Be, and Could Break</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Holy Russia</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">How Deeply Nurtured is Your Foolishness</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Of All Who Died in Silence Far Away</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">And Afterwards, When Honour Has Made Good</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Pity the Slain that Laid Away Their Lives</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl hdr">FLAME<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">You Have Understood so Little of Me, and My Adoration</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Lulled are the Dazzling Colours of the Day</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Washed at My Feet by the Curded Foam of Sluggish Waves</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">My Poems Cannot Laugh. They are the Voice</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">On the Hill There is a Tavern, Long-Loved, Well-Remembered</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Oh Canst Thou Not Hear in My Heart All Its Whispering Fears</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">As in the Silence the Clear Moonlight Drips</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Can but Give Thee Unsubstantial Things</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Have No Other Friend but Thee</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Bodies Heaving Like Waves</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Your Face to Me is Like a Beautiful City</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Oh! Why Will You Not Let Me Love You</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">My Devotion Kneels to You</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Islands</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Many Things I'd Find to Charm You</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl hdr">LAMPLIGHT AND STARLIGHT</td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Lamp-posts</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">London</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Slowly the Pale Feet of Morning</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">What Have I to Do With Them</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Among the Crumbling Arches of Decay</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">As a Nun's Face from Her Black Draperies</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Sun is Lord of Life and Colour</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Bahama Islands</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Thoughts of London</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Streets</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_109">109</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Laughter and Singing Come With the Morning</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">In the Night I Hear My Loneliness Calling</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Sunday</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Leaves are Singing, and the Sea</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">How Soundly Sleepeth the Fool</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Moonlit Lilacs Under the Window</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Old Woman Forever Sitting</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Loneliness I Love</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">I Met an Indian</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">From the Fathomless Depth of My Boredom</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Lolling in Snow, Like Kings in Ermine Coats</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Roots of Our Longing are Probing the Heart of Night</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Vahdah</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Starlight Silences</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Mountain is an Emperor</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Know What Happiness Is</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">Long Hath the Pen Lain Idle in My Hand</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Lay My Heart on a Stone</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Cold Light Steals Into My Soul</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">The Caravans of Spring are in the Town</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">I Dread the Beauty of Approaching Spring</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">To My Father</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">To My Mother</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">London Grows Sad at Evening</span>"</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">Ah! the Spring</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl noq"><span class="smcap">The Undertone of the Volga Boat Song</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr class="center" /> + +<h2 class="left large"><a name="ROCKETS_AND_ASHES" id="ROCKETS_AND_ASHES">ROCKETS AND ASHES</a></h2> + +<div id="ip_viii" class="figleft" style="width: 249px;"><img src="images/i_011.jpg" width="249" height="500" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">You</span> preach to me of laws, you tie my limbs</p> +<p class="i6">With rights and wrongs and arguments of good,</p> +<p class="i0">You choke my songs and fill my mouth with hymns,</p> +<p class="i2">You stop my heart and turn it into wood.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I serve not God, but make my idol fair</p> +<p class="i2">From clay of brown earth, painted bright with blood,</p> +<p class="i0">Dressed in sweet flesh and wonder of wild hair</p> +<p class="i2">By Beauty's fingers to her changing mood.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The long line of the sea, the straight horizon,</p> +<p class="i2">The toss of flowers, the prance of milky feet,</p> +<p class="i0">And moonlight clear as glass my great religion,</p> +<p class="i2">And sunrise falling on the quiet street.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The coloured crowd, the unrestrained, the gay,</p> +<p class="i2">And lovers in the secret sheets of night</p> +<p class="i0">Trembling like instruments of music, till the day</p> +<p class="i2">Stands marvelling at their sleeping bodies white.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Age creeps upon your timid little faces</p> +<p class="i2">Beneath each black umbrella sly and slow,</p> +<p class="i0">Proud in the unimportance of your places</p> +<p class="i2">You sit in twilight prophesying woe.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">So dim and false and grey, take my compassion,</p> +<p class="i2">I from my pageant golden as the day</p> +<p class="i0">Pity your littleness from all my passion,</p> +<p class="i2">Leave you my sins to weep and whine away!</p> +</div> +<p>1914</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">We</span> are the caretakers of empty houses,</p> +<p class="i4">The moon leans her slender body against the door,</p> +<p class="i0">But the lock is jarred with rust.</p> +<p class="i0">The sun looks in through the window,</p> +<p class="i0">But its closed shutters are as blinded eyes.</p> +<p class="i0">Our souls are full of dead and beautiful things</p> +<p class="i0">Like bowls of potpourri,</p> +<p class="i0">A dust of petals</p> +<p class="i0">Rustling through the tired fingers of a ghost.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">From</span> far away the lost adventures gleam,</p> +<p class="i4">The print of childhood's feet that dance and run,</p> +<p class="i0">The love of her who showed me to the sun</p> +<p class="i0">In triumph of creation, who did seem</p> +<p class="i0">With vivid spirit like a rainbow stream</p> +<p class="i0">To paint the shells, young blossoms, one by one</p> +<p class="i0">Each strange and delicate toy, whose hands have spun</p> +<p class="i0">The woven cloth of wonder like a dream ...</p> +<p class="i0">The row of soldiered books, authority</p> +<p class="i0">Sharp as the scales I strummed upon the keys,</p> +<p class="i0">The priest who damned the things I dared not praise,</p> +<p class="i0">Rebellion, love made sad with <span class="locked">mystery—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And like a firefly through the twilit trees</p> +<p class="i0">Romance, the golden play-boy of my days.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Give</span> me, O God, the power of laughter still,</p> +<p class="i4">I shall have need of humour, deftest foil</p> +<p class="i0">Against the army of infuriated pride,</p> +<p class="i0">Against the shields of reason, and the spears</p> +<p class="i0">Of savage moments, sharp-edged bitterness;</p> +<p class="i0">Against the blazoned armour of intolerance,</p> +<p class="i0">And all the flags of sentiment waved aloft....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Love, Humour, and Rebellion, go with me,</p> +<p class="i0">Three musketeers of faithful following.</p> +<p class="i0">We will fear nothing.—Is not laughter brave,</p> +<p class="i0">That unconcerned goes rippling through despair?</p> +<p class="i0">Is not rebellion brave, that fiercely moves</p> +<p class="i0">Against the buttressed prisons of the world?</p> +<p class="i0">And is not love the bravest of them all,</p> +<p class="i0">So frail to hold his white hands up to Heaven</p> +<p class="i0">While the red fists are threatening all around,</p> +<p class="i0">And hate is beating on the battledrums?</p> +<p class="i0">As d'Artagnan upon a starved grey horse</p> +<p class="i0">Goes singing ballads on adventurous roads,</p> +<p class="i0">I ride my fancy blithely into danger</p> +<p class="i0">To throw my gauntlet at the feet of pride</p> +<p class="i0">And stick my roses in the cap of Love....</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Winding</span> down the street in wearied gaiety, the barrel-organ dribbled out its song</p> +<p class="i4">Merged with the thud of feet forever dallying indifferent and indefinite along.</p> +<p class="i0">The houses stood like rows of cripples, some paralysed, some hunch-backed and some bent with age,</p> +<p class="i0">They seemed at war, their chimneys threatening, their brows hung heavy in a sombre rage.</p> +<p class="i0">Crab-like the children crawled, while always hammering above their heads the scolding shrewish tongue;</p> +<p class="i0">They grew as bloodless flowers unflourishing, waxen and pale from out the dust and dung.</p> +<p class="i0">Above I saw the strip of sunset fluttering, even as washed-out rags upon the line,</p> +<p class="i0">I listened to the sparrows twittering, and the hours ticking in a slow decline.</p> +<p class="i0">Then beaded on the hem of evening, the coloured lights were threaded here and there,</p> +<p class="i0">Till proud with sweets and plumes and oranges, the shops grew brilliant in the tinsel glare.</p> +<p class="i0">Grey was the death-bed of the twilight, shuddering the faint hands of the day stretched to the night,</p> +<p class="i0">Fending it off, or feebly wavering over the pallid glints of stolen light.</p> +<p class="i0">And grey the faces that were gathering among the fallen ashes of the day,</p> +<p class="i0">And red the faces, yellow, flickering, under the lamps upon the long highway.</p> +<p class="i0">And some were gashed with smiles, and quaint grimaces of hate and pain and hunger and despair,</p> +<p class="i0">And some wore coloured hats and meek frivolities, limp ribbons, and false pansies in their hair,</p> +<p class="i0">But all were cold, and all seemed passionless; there shone no zest or splendour in their lives,</p> +<p class="i0">Nor hope in anything but holidays, or watching funerals, or taking wives.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span> +<p class="i0">I dared not think, for truth rose horrible, slapping the face with coarse uncaring hand,</p> +<p class="i0">But like them cheated into merriment, I wilfully refused to understand;</p> +<p class="i0">Turned me away from wan-eyed poverty, trod pity underfoot, oh, danced on grief,</p> +<p class="i0">Bade the crowd sing and fill my desolation, bade them be glad and hide my disbelief.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Strange we so love the world—for presently, out of my window looking on the city,</p> +<p class="i0">I blessed the night, and the roofs slumbering all huddled, and I felt no shame nor pity</p> +<p class="i0">For all our dusty days of journeying amid the wreck and ruins of our dreams,</p> +<p class="i0">Meandering in a bleared forgetfulness, where lethe laps the wharf of sleeping streams.</p> +<p class="i0">I only breathed the air, intensified by the ascending breath of million lungs,</p> +<p class="i0">And heard the labouring metropolis, quickened by whispers of a million tongues;</p> +<p class="i0">And felt a king of splendid loneliness, and felt an atom of the peopled spaces,</p> +<p class="i0">And felt again my lordly egoism, one face distinct among the blur of faces.</p> +</div> +<p>1913</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Tranquility</span> stirred by a sudden spasm,</p> +<p class="i4">Knives of rain that cut the silence,</p> +<p class="i0">Storms that rattle the bones of the forest,</p> +<p class="i0">Calm of the marble-terraced night</p> +<p class="i0">Charred with the spattering of rockets.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Drums will I hear and battles now,</p> +<p class="i0">And the long death howl of wolves by night,</p> +<p class="i0">Watching the moon on the forest tops,</p> +<p class="i0">Walking with delicate frightened steps</p> +<p class="i0">To the slaughter-house of a red sunrise.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I could</span> explain</p> +<p class="i4">The complicated lore that drags the soul</p> +<p class="i0">From what shall profit him</p> +<p class="i0">To gild damnation with his choicest gold.</p> +<p class="i0">But you</p> +<p class="i0">Are poring over precious books and do not hear</p> +<p class="i0">Our plaintive, frivolous songs;</p> +<p class="i0">For we in stubborn vanity ascend</p> +<p class="i0">On ladders insecure,</p> +<p class="i0">Toward the tottering balconies</p> +<p class="i0">To serenade our painted paramours;</p> +<p class="i0">Caught by the lure of dangerous pale hands,</p> +<p class="i0">Oblivion's heavy lids on sleepless eyes</p> +<p class="i0">That cheat between unrest and false repose.</p> +<p class="i0">And we are haunted</p> +<p class="i0">By spectral Joy once murdered in a rage,</p> +<p class="i0">Now taking shape of Pleasure,</p> +<p class="i0">Disguised in many clothes and skilful masks.</p> +<p class="i0">I could disclose</p> +<p class="i0">The truth that hangs between our lies</p> +<p class="i0">And jostles sleep to semi-consciousness;</p> +<p class="i0">Truth, that stings like nettles</p> +<p class="i0">Our frail hands dare not pluck</p> +<p class="i0">From out our garden's terraced indolence.</p> +<p class="i0">We are not happy,</p> +<p class="i0">And you make us dumb with loving hands</p> +<p class="i0">Reproachful on our lips.</p> +<p class="i0">Nor can we sob our sorrows on your breast,</p> +<p class="i0">For we have bartered diamonds for glass,</p> +<p class="i0">Our tears for smiles,</p> +<p class="i0">Eternity for now.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I feel</span> in me a manifold desire</p> +<p class="i4">From many lands and times and clamouring peoples,</p> +<p class="i0">And I the Queen</p> +<p class="i0">Of crowding vagabonds,</p> +<p class="i0">Ghosts of lost years in seeming fancy dress,</p> +<p class="i0">With pathos of torn laces</p> +<p class="i0">And broken swords;</p> +<p class="i0">Cut-throats and kings and poets</p> +<p class="i0">Who have loved me</p> +<p class="i0">In visions wild, not knowing</p> +<p class="i0">What I was.</p> +<p class="i0">In me no end</p> +<p class="i0">Even where the last content</p> +<p class="i0">Clasps on my head a crown</p> +<p class="i0">Of shining <span class="locked">endurance—</span></p> +<p class="i0">I slip from all my robes</p> +<p class="i0">Into the rags of a tattered romance;</p> +<p class="i0">The stars crowd at the window,</p> +<p class="i0">Their jealous destiny</p> +<p class="i0">Raps at the <span class="locked">door—</span></p> +<p class="i0">They bob and wink and leer,</p> +<p class="i0">And I must leave the lamplight for the road</p> +<p class="i0">To keep strange company.</p> +<p class="i0">Farewell and Hail!</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Silence</span>—</p> +<p class="i4">Somewhere on earth</p> +<p class="i0">There is a purpose that I miss or have forgotten.</p> +<p class="i0">The trees stand bolt upright</p> +<p class="i0">Like roofless pillars of a broken temple.</p> +<p class="i0">There is a purpose in Heaven,</p> +<p class="i0">But for me</p> +<p class="i0">Nothing.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I should</span> like to say to the world:</p> +<p class="i4">I have launched my soul like a ship upon free waters;</p> +<p class="i0">Beautiful she stands in the docks with proud masts cutting the sky,</p> +<p class="i0">Perfectly poised, her white sails spreading like wings,</p> +<p class="i0">Her figurehead a woman with breasts that daunt the spray,</p> +<p class="i0">Her flag a flutter of coloured exuberance.</p> +<p class="i0">I should like to see her plunging out of the idle harbour</p> +<p class="i0">Where the sulky tide drifts scum, and the sailors wrangle and shout,</p> +<p class="i0">In a thunder of churning waves ramping before her like dappled stallions,</p> +<p class="i0">Blossoming behind her a field of etiolate lilies....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But to the mimicking, plotting, miserly, cynical,</p> +<p class="i0">To the rabble and gabble that dance and kill on the quay,</p> +<p class="i0">I can only say that my soul is a sleeping gondola</p> +<p class="i0">Lulled by a jester's mandolin, till night is atinkle with tunes</p> +<p class="i0">And lantern-lights, along the indolent backwaters.</p> +</div> +<p>1915</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">You</span> pass as in a drugged delirium</p> +<p class="i4">Wrought strange upon the mind's distraction;</p> +<p class="i0">You sing a blasphemous Te Deum</p> +<p class="i0">To harlot virgins, and a fraction</p> +<p class="i0">Of your fulginous colour passes,</p> +<p class="i0">Stains my spirit's great conception</p> +<p class="i0">As it dips into your glasses.</p> +<p class="i0">I that am the sole exception</p> +<p class="i0">To your stillborn, false devices,</p> +<p class="i0">I that know you, I that hate you,</p> +<p class="i0">I that drank now spit your vices</p> +<p class="i0">Through my loathing reinstate you;</p> +<p class="i0">Dive once more into the stagnance,</p> +<p class="i0">Kiss your cynic lips and drink you,</p> +<p class="i0">Concentrate your cruel fragrance,</p> +<p class="i0">Steal your flowers before I sink you,</p> +<p class="i0">Lift with hate instead of praises,</p> +<p class="i0">Show you honour of my scorning,</p> +<p class="i0">Garlanded you go to blazes</p> +<p class="i0">With my rhymes for your adorning!</p> +</div> +<p>1913</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">O faces</span> that look so coldly at me,</p> +<p class="i4">Colder than dawn through the windows of festival,</p> +<p class="i0">Colder than dawn with her grey nun's face.</p> +<p class="i0">You blame me, you curse me with your eyes,</p> +<p class="i0">While your lips are filled with flattering syllables,</p> +<p class="i0">With tinkling bells that harass my calm,</p> +<p class="i0">Disturb my silence and shatter my thoughts.</p> +<p class="i0">Your laughter waltzes like musical boxes,</p> +<p class="i0">How can I hear the triumphant symphonies?</p> +<p class="i0">The scarlet rhapsodies and beryl-cold sonatas? ...</p> +<p class="i0">Ah, strangers, ah, vacant tedious faces,</p> +<p class="i0">Bobbing beneath the feathery hats,</p> +<p class="i0">You have stolen the wings of birds for your garnishing,</p> +<p class="i0">And the stars and the dim pale petals of the sea</p> +<p class="i0">To make your breasts resplendent, to glitter your <span class="locked">dress,—</span></p> +<p class="i0">How I might love you and weep for you,</p> +<p class="i0">Crowning your brows with a wreath of songs</p> +<p class="i0">If you could understand my singing,</p> +<p class="i0">If you could understand my love!</p> +<p class="i0">But you are waltzing with your marionettes</p> +<p class="i0">And marching to the music of the <span class="locked">clock—</span></p> +<p class="i0">I cannot bear you to watch me</p> +<p class="i0">With those cold eyes through which I see,</p> +<p class="i0">Emptiness only and dust.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I see</span> myself in many different dresses,</p> +<p class="i4">In many moods, and many different places;</p> +<p class="i0">All gold amid the grey where solemn faces</p> +<p class="i0">Are silence to my mirth—a flame that blesses</p> +<p class="i0">From yellow lamp the darkness which oppresses ...</p> +<p class="i0">Or mid the dancers in their trivial laces</p> +<p class="i0">Aloof, as in the ring a lion paces,</p> +<p class="i0">Disdainful of their slander or caresses.</p> +<p class="i0">I see myself the child of many races,</p> +<p class="i0">Poisoners, martyrs, harlots and princesses;</p> +<p class="i0">Within my soul a thousand weary traces</p> +<p class="i0">Of pain and joy and passionate <span class="locked">excesses—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Eternal beauty that our brief love chases</p> +<p class="i0">With snatch of desperate hands and dying tresses.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">There</span> are songs enough of love, of joy, of grief:</p> +<p class="i6">Roads to the sunset, alleys to the moon;</p> +<p class="i0">Poems of the red rose and the golden leaf,</p> +<p class="i2">Fantastic faery and gay ballad tune.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The long road unto nothing I will sing,</p> +<p class="i2">Sing on one note, monotonous and dry,</p> +<p class="i0">Of sameness, calmness and the years that bring</p> +<p class="i2">No more emotion than the fear to die.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Grey house, grey house and after that grey house,</p> +<p class="i2">Another house as grey and steep and still:</p> +<p class="i0">An old cat tired of playing with a mouse,</p> +<p class="i2">A sick child tired of chasing down the hill.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Shuffle and hurry, idle feet, and slow,</p> +<p class="i2">Grim face and merry face, so ugly all!</p> +<p class="i0">Why do you hurry? Where is there to go?</p> +<p class="i2">Why are you shouting? Who is there to call?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Lovers still kissing, feverish to drain</p> +<p class="i2">Stale juices from the shrivelled fruit of lust:</p> +<p class="i0">A black umbrella held up in the rain,</p> +<p class="i2">The raindrops making patterns in the dust.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">If this distaste I hold for fools is such,</p> +<p class="i2">Shall I not spit upon myself as well?</p> +<p class="i0">Do I not eat and drink and smile as much?</p> +<p class="i2">Do I not fatten also in this hell?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Sadness and joy—if they were melted up,</p> +<p class="i2">Things that were great—upon the fires of time</p> +<p class="i0">Drop but as soup in the accustomed cup,</p> +<p class="i2">Settle in stagnance, trickle into grime.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Faith, freedom, art that fire a man or two</p> +<p class="i2">And set him like a pilgrim on his way</p> +<p class="i0">With Beauty's face before him—what of you,</p> +<p class="i2">Priest, Butcher, Scholar, King, upon that day?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The dullard-masses that no god can save!</p> +<p class="i2">If I were God, to rise and strike you down</p> +<p class="i0">And break your churches in an angry wave</p> +<p class="i2">And make a furious bonfire of your town!</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">God in a coloured globe, alone and still,</p> +<p class="i2">Embroidering wonders with a fearless brain,</p> +<p class="i0">On loom of spaces measureless, to fill</p> +<p class="i2">The empty air with passion and with pain.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Emblazon all the heavens with desire</p> +<p class="i2">And Wisdom delved for in the depths of <span class="locked">time—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Thoughts sculptured mountainous, and fancy's fire</p> +<p class="i2">Caught in the running swiftness of a rhyme.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Passion high-pedestalled, pangs turned to treasure,</p> +<p class="i2">Perfected and undone and built afresh</p> +<p class="i0">With concentrated agony and Pleasure ...</p> +<p class="i2">If I were God, and not a weight of flesh!</p> +</div> +<p>1914</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">How</span> often, when the thought of suicide</p> +<p class="i4">With ghostly weapon beckons us to die,</p> +<p class="i0">The ghosts of many foods alluring glide</p> +<p class="i0">On golden dishes, wine in purple tide</p> +<p class="i0">To drown our whim. Things danced before the eye</p> +<p class="i0">Like tasselled grapes to Tantalus: The sly</p> +<p class="i0">Blue of a curling trout, the battened pride</p> +<p class="i0">Of ham in frills, complacent quails that lie</p> +<p class="i0">Resigned to death like heroes—July peas,</p> +<p class="i0">Expectant bottles foaming at the <span class="locked">brink—</span></p> +<p class="i0">White bread, and honey of the golden <span class="locked">bees—</span></p> +<p class="i0">A peach with velvet coat, some prawns in pink,</p> +<p class="i0">A slice of beef carved deftly, Stilton cheese,</p> +<p class="i0">And cup where berries float and bubbles wink.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">It</span> is still something to have cheated God</p> +<p class="i4">And bored the Devil with so easy prey,</p> +<p class="i0">And in the midst of summer woods to raise</p> +<p class="i0">A leafless tree whose stark limbs mock at Heaven,</p> +<p class="i0">Flaunting an iron hatred in the midst of <span class="locked">hope—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Yet sometimes in the loneliness of night</p> +<p class="i0">My buried longings blossom on the boughs,</p> +<p class="i0">My wistful longings come out star by star,</p> +<p class="i0">Till the great sky is light with my desire,</p> +<p class="i0">And on the winds my songs are galloping....</p> +<p class="i0">Ah, to what dismal greyness creeps the soul</p> +<p class="i0">Too weak, too tired, to struggle from the slough!</p> +<p class="i0">My weapons rust, my pen is in the dust,</p> +<p class="i0">The moulting feathers plucked from out my wings</p> +<p class="i0">Lie dangling in the hats I stole them for.</p> +<p class="i0">My heart is floating in a claret cup,</p> +<p class="i0">My brain is toppling drunken at the brim,</p> +<p class="i0">My life is drowned within the lurid dregs.</p> +<p class="i0">I turn and fold my hands in a last appeal,</p> +<p class="i0">What heaven shall I pray to and for what,</p> +<p class="i0">Now that my songs to penny tunes are set,</p> +<p class="i0">And nothing is to save of me but flesh?</p> +</div> +<p>1913</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">What</span> words that move on wings in a long drift</p> +<p class="i4">Can waft this silence into weary ears,</p> +<p class="i0">And steal into the veins and fingertips</p> +<p class="i0">Of restless bodies, like magnificent ships</p> +<p class="i0">Proud from the seas that calmly sail through fears,</p> +<p class="i0">Mean streets, and miseries, with passage swift.</p> +<p class="i0">What words pricked from the stars and shimmering together,</p> +<p class="i0">Or swept like little winds through leaves alert,</p> +<p class="i0">Can filter through the chinks of bolted doors</p> +<p class="i0">Deaf to the clamours knocking without pause,</p> +<p class="i0">Steeled with indifference against all hurt,</p> +<p class="i0">Deaf to the cry of man, and rack of weather:</p> +<p class="i0">To sing the hubbub of this glittering night,</p> +<p class="i0">Where all the lamps each with a separate soul</p> +<p class="i0">Throb to the ecstasies of dancing life;</p> +<p class="i0">And Beauty, gleaming high her magic knife</p> +<p class="i0">Cuts free the tethered heart from long control</p> +<p class="i0">And flings it like a ball with mad delight</p> +<p class="i0">Into the silver lap of the young moon.</p> +<p class="i0">What needles quick, what threads, what fingers fine</p> +<p class="i0">Can broider tapestries as rich as these,</p> +<p class="i0">Stranger than dreams and drifting melodies,</p> +<p class="i0">Transparent as the gods we half divine,</p> +<p class="i0">Frail as the thoughts that dwindle in a swoon</p> +<p class="i0">Ghostly before begetting. Tinged with pain</p> +<p class="i0">That glimmers pale on hands we cannot find,</p> +<p class="i0">And visioned faces that our dreams create</p> +<p class="i0">Born in the land forbidden us of fate</p> +<p class="i0">And longed for all our lives ... What words can bind</p> +<p class="i0">Forever Joy, that never comes again!</p> +</div> +<p>1915</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I think</span> myself</p> +<p class="i4">The fool of tragedy strutting upon the stage</p> +<p class="i0">Where murder creeps and whispers.</p> +<p class="i0">The jester clad in piebald tights</p> +<p class="i0">Half black, half golden, with no company</p> +<p class="i0">Save bells that jingle,</p> +<p class="i0">And an effigy,</p> +<p class="i0">The grinning image painted like myself</p> +<p class="i0">Upon a stick....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I think myself</p> +<p class="i0">The fool of comedy mournfully straying</p> +<p class="i0">Amid the revellers,</p> +<p class="i0">Loving the moon and my own shadow</p> +<p class="i0">With its strange solemn <span class="locked">gestures—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Loving the painted moon</p> +<p class="i0">That lets me play with shadows.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I am the jester on an empty stage</p> +<p class="i0">Playing a pantomime</p> +<p class="i0">To spectres in the stalls,</p> +<p class="i0">Listening at last</p> +<p class="i0">For ghostly mirth and phantom hands applauding,</p> +<p class="i0">And for some king with decadent tired fingers</p> +<p class="i0">To fling a white gardenia at my feet.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> adored, wild, strange, irresistible,</p> +<p class="i4">How they fail one at the last!</p> +<p class="i0">What is there in your faces</p> +<p class="i0">That we should worship with our souls?</p> +<p class="i0">Most lovable, perfidious,</p> +<p class="i0">Vague—</p> +<p class="i0">Molesting even our visions</p> +<p class="i0">With treacherous pathos.</p> +<p class="i0">O vulgarity, mediocrity, stupidity,</p> +<p class="i0">What is it in you that makes us lavish our love,</p> +<p class="i0">Covering your meagre bodies</p> +<p class="i0">With our passionate mantle, dyed with blood and dreams?</p> +<p class="i0">Life and its grey days, and time</p> +<p class="i0">Are a thin curtain through which you shadow,</p> +<p class="i0">Or a dim glass through which you peer.</p> +<p class="i0">You climb in at the windows of our souls</p> +<p class="i0">With ladders and stratagems,</p> +<p class="i0">You mope in corners with reproachful eyes.</p> +<p class="i0">But what do you do for us</p> +<p class="i0">Lute players, dancers, deceivers,</p> +<p class="i0">Other than lie with red lips</p> +<p class="i0">And cajole with tears of beryl?</p> +<p class="i0">People—</p> +<p class="i0">Men and women with laughable, tragic faces</p> +<p class="i0">Winking at love,</p> +<p class="i0">Treading our songs and illusions</p> +<p class="i0">Under petulant feet!</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="A_ROSE" id="A_ROSE">A ROSE</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">What</span> do you ask of me with your beauty, what are you urging</p> +<p class="i4">Of labour and painful aspiring to flatter your perfection?</p> +<p class="i0">What secretness of love with terrible blushes surging</p> +<p class="i0">Unseen, have found in you at last their passionate reflection?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">What dreams that lovers knew, as sleep with subtle magic</p> +<p class="i0">Tore off the rags of life and made her dance with body spangled,</p> +<p class="i0">Drew back the vacant hours, the tedious and the tragic,</p> +<p class="i0">And showed the glittering souls from bodies we had <span class="locked">mangled;—</span></p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">What visions made you, emblem of longing and love that has died unrequited,</p> +<p class="i0">And all lost joys, and tears, and beauty passionately given,</p> +<p class="i0">Winked at by folly, skewered by the butcher, danced on and slighted,</p> +<p class="i0">That now spring up from death, showing their slayers the colours of Heaven?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">You have burst from the ground with your joy, you are pining and bleeding,</p> +<p class="i0">Your scent is heavy with sorrowful love; oh, memories clinging,</p> +<p class="i0">What do you ask of my soul with such fierceness of pleading,</p> +<p class="i0">I that was glad to forget ... What do you need of my singing?</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">Like</span> flocks of tired birds when autumn comes,</p> +<p class="i4">My spirit flags across the darkening fields</p> +<p class="i0">And melts into the drabness of the sky</p> +<p class="i0">And falls like dust upon the huddled corn.</p> +<p class="i0">But many wizened faces brown and sad</p> +<p class="i0">Peer from the bushes as I wander <span class="locked">past,—</span></p> +<p class="i0">They tell me all those things that old men say</p> +<p class="i0">As youth looks up through tears with pallid cheek.</p> +<p class="i0">"When you are grey and crooked as ourselves,</p> +<p class="i0">When you have bowed before all other gods,</p> +<p class="i0">And found them false, then shall you come at last</p> +<p class="i0">To that dark King of grief, and he shall bless</p> +<p class="i0">Your bread with tears, and manacle your hands,</p> +<p class="i0">And call you slave and lover." ...</p> +<p class="i0">Shall not a child take Pain for company</p> +<p class="i0">And share her loneliness with him?</p> +<p class="i0">Does not a youth know tears</p> +<p class="i0">In the first bitterness of broken love?</p> +<p class="i0">Is Grief so proud a king that none shall come</p> +<p class="i0">To seek him save the blind, the halt, the lame? ...</p> +<p class="i0">He is a tramp, a beggar, and a clown,</p> +<p class="i0">He sits a jester at the feet of kings</p> +<p class="i0">And scurries with the leaves in Autumn's train.</p> +<p class="i0">He rides the wooden horses at a fair,</p> +<p class="i0">And dances with the jiggers on the stage.</p> +<p class="i0">Led by the violins of discontent</p> +<p class="i0">That whine their music to my listening soul,</p> +<p class="i0">I dance with him the dance of withered leaves,</p> +<p class="i0">We dance together to the tunes of rain</p> +<p class="i0">Played on one note upon the only string.</p> +</div> +<p>1913</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Oh,</span> just beyond the curve of ideal quest</p> +<p class="i4">That changes as a sea wave to the wind,</p> +<p class="i0">Beyond the cloud that folds around a star,</p> +<p class="i0">And dawn, that stands ajar to let us in,</p> +<p class="i0">Lies that to which our loves and dreams have gone,</p> +<p class="i0">The paradise of all we might have been,</p> +<p class="i0">While we are washed back downwards in the dark</p> +<p class="i0">Where tides recede, to dwindle with the foam.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">Ah!</span> you, from the small high-walled acre of your lives,</p> +<p class="i4">Your windows only looking upon gardens,</p> +<p class="i0">Only perceiving love and death and truth</p> +<p class="i0">As facts that come to pass,</p> +<p class="i0">That pass and leave you still</p> +<p class="i0">Within your safe small prisons,</p> +<p class="i0">Older, duller,</p> +<p class="i0">To walk and talk among the evergreens.</p> +<p class="i0">You have never known</p> +<p class="i0">Delight of dying slowly,</p> +<p class="i0">Poisoned with raptures</p> +<p class="i0">In many hues from the slim-cut decanters of <span class="locked">death—</span></p> +<p class="i0">The tunes</p> +<p class="i0">That dishevel and smooth,</p> +<p class="i0">Cajole and <span class="locked">melancholize—</span></p> +<p class="i0">The dance</p> +<p class="i0">Which is a whirling of leaves</p> +<p class="i0">In their last scorn of sorrow</p> +<p class="i0">Flung upwards by the wind</p> +<p class="i0">Into the haggard face of <span class="locked">winter—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Nor felt your souls go blowing like balloons</p> +<p class="i0">Tossed by impulsive hands;</p> +<p class="i0">Nor slid as skaters swiftly</p> +<p class="i0">Over the crackling crystals of perilous ice,</p> +<p class="i0">Buffeted with bouquets and blinded with confetti ...</p> +<p class="i0">You have not felt the abandon</p> +<p class="i0">Of light love</p> +<p class="i0">Dragged by the hair across a slippery floor....</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Mouth</span> of the dust I kiss, corruption absolute,</p> +<p class="i4">Worm, that shall come at last to be my paramour,</p> +<p class="i0">Envenomed, unseen wanderer who alone is mute,</p> +<p class="i0">Yet greater than gods or heroes that have gone before.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">For you I sheave the harvest of my hair,</p> +<p class="i0">For you the whiteness of my flesh, my passion's valour,</p> +<p class="i0">For you I throw upon the grey screen of the air</p> +<p class="i0">My prism-like conceptions, my gigantic colour.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">For you the delicate hands that fashion to make great</p> +<p class="i0">Clay, and white paper, plant a tongue in silence,</p> +<p class="i0">For you the battle-frenzy, and the might of hate,</p> +<p class="i0">Science for giving wounds, and healing science.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">For you the heart's wild love, beauty, long care,</p> +<p class="i0">Virginity, passionate womanhood, perfected wholeness,</p> +<p class="i0">For you the unborn child that I prepare,</p> +<p class="i0">You, flabby, boneless, brainless, senseless, soulless!</p> +</div> +<p>1913</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> curtains are drawn as though it still were night,</p> +<p class="i4">A slip of dawn between them is a dangling silver ribbon;</p> +<p class="i0">And all about the room is quietness—Each patient chair</p> +<p class="i0">Erect, alert, in place. A letter on the table and a book</p> +<p class="i0">Lie as you left them, now bereft of <span class="locked">purpose—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Garish a little in the room's sedateness, you</p> +<p class="i0">Returning dressed so frivolously in all your coloured clothes!</p> +<p class="i0">How grey and sober, full of placid wit</p> +<p class="i0">The furniture, the pictures on the wall;</p> +<p class="i0">How steely swift the light, stabbing you to the heart</p> +<p class="i0">As you stand at the window, bright as rushing blood.</p> +<p class="i0">Garish your hair, your shoes, your startling chalky face</p> +<p class="i0">And white, white gloves ...</p> +<p class="i0">What time is it? ... Still ticks the tireless clock,</p> +<p class="i0">With face grimacing ... nearly six it is....</p> +<p class="i0">Yet hurries not nor lingers, like our hearts,</p> +<p class="i0">For in its dial eternity is <span class="locked">housed—</span></p> +<p class="i0">A cock should crow ... there are no cocks in town!</p> +<p class="i0">But a water cart with surly noise below</p> +<p class="i0">Grates unconcerned along the disconsolate street.</p> +<p class="i0">How cold and how familiar all these things,</p> +<p class="i0">To you so lonely in the enormous dawn</p> +<p class="i0">Slowly unfastening that vermilion dress ...</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="BLACK_VELVET" id="BLACK_VELVET">BLACK VELVET</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> darkness of the trees at deep midnight</p> +<p class="i4">And sombreness of shadows in the lake;</p> +<p class="i0">A mountain in the starlight wide awake</p> +<p class="i0">Dreaming to Heaven with imperial might</p> +<p class="i0">Of lifted shoulders, huge against the bright</p> +<p class="i0">Bespattered jewelry of stars—the ache</p> +<p class="i0">Of silence, and the sobbing tides that break</p> +<p class="i0">From music. Slumbering cities—candle light</p> +<p class="i0">Snuffed in the flooding darkness, and the train</p> +<p class="i0">Of Queens that go to scaffold for a <span class="locked">sin—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Or splash of blackness manifest of pain,</p> +<p class="i0">Hamlet among his court, a Harlequin</p> +<p class="i0">Of tragedies ... Mysterious ... And again</p> +<p class="i0">Venetian masks against a milky skin.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="NERVES" id="NERVES">NERVES</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">These</span> curious looms where we have spun our fancies,</p> +<p class="i4">These intricate webs where our desires are threaded,</p> +<p class="i0">These weird trapezes that our passion frenzies</p> +<p class="i0">Strange acrobats to catch them dizzy headed.</p> +<p class="i0">These tightening strings upon our spirit's fiddles</p> +<p class="i0">Tuneful or out of tune where music hungers</p> +<p class="i0">From writhing bow, these intertwining riddles</p> +<p class="i0">Mazes and labyrinths and storms and languors.</p> +<p class="i0">These colours twinging on a prism's edges,</p> +<p class="i0">These speckled patterns of fanatic madness</p> +<p class="i0">From glittering eyeballs, these unresting dredges</p> +<p class="i0">For pearls within the depths of sadness and of <span class="locked">gladness—</span></p> +<p class="i0">O tortuous thoughts, what are you seeking after</p> +<p class="i0">As flies around a carcass with a humming dreary,</p> +<p class="i0">Gibing the silent dead with treacherous laughter,</p> +<p class="i0">Molesting quietness and waking up the weary!</p> +<p class="i0">What then, what then, can sleep not crush you to forgetting</p> +<p class="i0">With all her body's beauty, cannot peace submerge you</p> +<p class="i0">O wrangling, juggling, jangling, <span class="locked">pirouetting—</span></p> +<p class="i0">What hope can drag you from the small desires that urge you?</p> +<p class="i0">You have lassoed the moon and trapped the sun's bright lion,</p> +<p class="i0">And trodden out the red stars into ashes,</p> +<p class="i0">Destroyed night's temple and broken the pillars of iron,</p> +<p class="i0">And striped the snowy horses of the clouds with zebra gashes ...</p> +<p class="i0">You have debauched the world! And as I sit here weary,</p> +<p class="i0">Deafened with your demands and torn in tatters,</p> +<p class="i0">The world seems suddenly most passionless and dreary,</p> +<p class="i0">A poor bewildered clown—and nothing matters.</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">My</span> pain has all the patience of a nun</p> +<p class="i4">Who kneels and prays for Heaven on the stone,</p> +<p class="i0">In some chill cellar where the amens moan,</p> +<p class="i0">Ave Maria, the long penance spun</p> +<p class="i0">Forever. And the tapers one by one</p> +<p class="i0">Stand like cold angels round the Virgin's throne.</p> +<p class="i0">My soul is tired from kneeling all alone,</p> +<p class="i0">Its little candles yearning to the sun.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Long have I dreamed of Paradise and seen</p> +<p class="i0">Bright mirages of glory on the grey</p> +<p class="i0">Of sad horizons; I have kept the green</p> +<p class="i0">Surprise of spring through winter and dismay,</p> +<p class="i0">Tasting within the bitter dregs of spleen</p> +<p class="i0">Drugs that bring peace, and wine that maketh gay.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> scandal-monger after all is <span class="locked">right—</span></p> +<p class="i4">The old and cunning voice with weary repetition</p> +<p class="i0">Is justified in all dull words and warnings.</p> +<p class="i0">I see at last how you,</p> +<p class="i0">Spendthrift of passion</p> +<p class="i0">In love's bankruptcy,</p> +<p class="i0">Borrow new beauty from each passing <span class="locked">face—</span></p> +<p class="i0">How being too lavish you did steal</p> +<p class="i0">From generous <span class="locked">hands—</span></p> +<p class="i0">You are the idol builder and the robber of temples,</p> +<p class="i0">Praising with passionate psalms</p> +<p class="i0">The thing you cannot <span class="locked">worship—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And yet your prayers have stirred</p> +<p class="i0">Belief in <span class="locked">us—</span></p> +<p class="i0">We see beyond the false and weary face</p> +<p class="i0">Into your haggard soul and trust from <span class="locked">pity—</span></p> +<p class="i0">We hear beyond the idle music of your voice,</p> +<p class="i0">A wisdom taught by cruelty</p> +<p class="i0">And a tired scorn of treachery and <span class="locked">guile—</span></p> +<p class="i0">We see your wounds and weep,</p> +<p class="i0">You meet our pity with a traitor's <span class="locked">kiss—</span></p> +<p class="i0">For, you are schooled in suffering and schooled</p> +<p class="i0">In teaching pain to <span class="locked">others—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And all that mob of furious accusation</p> +<p class="i0">To which you turn the cheek, or curse so well,</p> +<p class="i0">Are but the ghosts of bodies you have murdered,</p> +<p class="i0">That drive you on in vengeance to fresh crime.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Woods</span> of brown gloom sombring with the hush of death,</p> +<p class="i4">Wind's lassitude that sets the tired leaves shivering,</p> +<p class="i0">Starved yellow leaves sighing beneath the feet, a breath</p> +<p class="i0">Consumptive, old, and fever-red leaves quivering,</p> +<p class="i0">As with an earthward flutter like a ghostly butterfly</p> +<p class="i0">Listless they perish, wavering and hovering.</p> +<p class="i0">Skeleton branches where the rooks flap wings and cry,</p> +<p class="i0">Perched upon ribs and fingers; and the white mists covering</p> +<p class="i0">The far-off hills and bloodless visage of the sun.</p> +<p class="i0">No noise save the meandering dribble of a rivulet,</p> +<p class="i0">No noise save of the slow hours dropping one by one</p> +<p class="i0">As embers, no colour save Time's ashen coverlet....</p> +<p class="i0">How melancholy here the gayest tunes would sound</p> +<p class="i0">From shrill carousers riotous and merry all,</p> +<p class="i0">As echoes of lost joy their dancing feet upon the ground,</p> +<p class="i0">As funeral bagpipes at a burial.</p> +<p class="i0">And I who wander passionless and forlorn,</p> +<p class="i0">A leaf-forsaken tree symbolic of dejection,</p> +<p class="i0">In rags of old desires, dispirited and torn,</p> +<p class="i0">See in the stagnant glass of Time my soul's reflection.</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I feel</span> so much alone,</p> +<p class="i4">And yet I know that many hopes are storming</p> +<p class="i0">My shut heart;</p> +<p class="i0">For I am bolted fast in my own house.</p> +<p class="i0">I pace distracted through its corridors</p> +<p class="i0">To the music of Love's knocking hands</p> +<p class="i0">Against the gate,</p> +<p class="i0">Or silence when they sleep.</p> +<p class="i0">I cannot find the key to let them in,</p> +<p class="i0">I, my own host and guest and ghost,</p> +<p class="i0">Imprisoned in myself!</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="THE_COMPLEX_LIFE" id="THE_COMPLEX_LIFE">THE COMPLEX LIFE</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I know</span> it to be true that those who live</p> +<p class="i4">As do the grasses and the lilies of the field</p> +<p class="i0">Receiving joy from Heaven, sweetly yield</p> +<p class="i0">Their joy to Earth, and taking Beauty, give.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But we are gathered for the looms of Fate</p> +<p class="i0">That Time with ever-turning multiplying wheels</p> +<p class="i0">Spins into complex patterns and conceals</p> +<p class="i0">His huge invention with forms intricate.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Each generation blindly fills the plan,</p> +<p class="i0">A sorry muddle or an inspiration of God</p> +<p class="i0">With many processes from out the sod,</p> +<p class="i0">The Earth and Heaven are mingled and made man.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">We must be tired and sleepless, gaily sad,</p> +<p class="i0">Frothing like waves in clamorous confusion,</p> +<p class="i0">A chemistry of subtle interfusion,</p> +<p class="i0">Experiments of genius that the ignorant call mad.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">We spell the crimes of our unruly days,</p> +<p class="i0">We see a fabled Arcady in our mind,</p> +<p class="i0">We crave perfection that we may not find.</p> +<p class="i0">Time laughs within the clock and Destiny plays.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">You peasants and you hermits, simple livers!</p> +<p class="i0">So picturesquely pure, all unconcerned</p> +<p class="i0">While we give up our bodies to be burned,</p> +<p class="i0">And dredge for treasure in the muddy rivers.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">We drink and die and sell ourselves for power,</p> +<p class="i0">We hunt with treacherous steps and stealthy knife,</p> +<p class="i0">We make a gaudy havoc of our life</p> +<p class="i0">And live a thousand ages in an hour.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Our loves are spoilt by introspective guile,</p> +<p class="i0">We vivisect our souls with elaborate tools,</p> +<p class="i0">We dance in couples to the tune of fools,</p> +<p class="i0">And dream of harassed continents the while.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Subconscious visions hold us and we fashion</p> +<p class="i0">Delirious verses, tortured statues, spasms of paint,</p> +<p class="i0">Make cryptic perorations of complaint,</p> +<p class="i0">Inverted religion, and perverted passion.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But since we are children of this age,</p> +<p class="i0">In curious ways discovering salvation,</p> +<p class="i0">I will not quit my muddled generation,</p> +<p class="i0">But ever plead for Beauty in this rage.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Although I know that Nature's bounty yields</p> +<p class="i0">Unto simplicity a beautiful content,</p> +<p class="i0">Only when battle breaks me and my strength is spent</p> +<p class="i0">Will I give back my body to the fields.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Shall</span> we be christened poets, children of God,</p> +<p class="i4">For blowing sighs into the listeners' ears,</p> +<p class="i0">For tugging at the moaning bells of death,</p> +<p class="i0">And coming as the autumn grave-digger</p> +<p class="i0">To close the eyes of flowers, and shut the fingers</p> +<p class="i0">Of wind upon the rushes,</p> +<p class="i0">Of music upon silence?</p> +<p class="i0">Shall we be given wreathes of bay and laurel</p> +<p class="i0">For forcing tragedy into a rhyme</p> +<p class="i0">As a gaunt beggar in a spangled vest?</p> +<p class="i0">The poet ever wanders after Death,</p> +<p class="i0">The flunkey on a funeral chariot</p> +<p class="i0">Pouring the wine at feasts of burial;</p> +<p class="i0">And all the roses that he plucks from summer</p> +<p class="i0">Are carried to the crypts to deck a corpse....</p> +<p class="i0">How shall the world learn how to laugh again</p> +<p class="i0">When all its songs have only learnt to weep?</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">When</span> I am weary at the antic chance,</p> +<p class="i4">The hobby-horses and the wooden lance,</p> +<p class="i0">The hope and fear in jugglery, and see</p> +<p class="i0">How starved the juggler, mean and miserly,</p> +<p class="i0">And life a laboured trick—the years advance</p> +<p class="i0">A shrilling chorus in affected dance</p> +<p class="i0">With lust of many eyes that watch and wink</p> +<p class="i0">Fixed on them; or a clown in feverish pink</p> +<p class="i0">Will draw gross laughter by a hideous <span class="locked">prance—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Vulgarity and sin and souls askance,</p> +<p class="i0">Where fiddles squeal and all the follies <span class="locked">spin—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Till, when the stage is empty, Harlequin</p> +<p class="i0">Through curtained silence trips as from a trance</p> +<p class="i0">With blushing flowers for Columbine—Romance.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="MOODS" id="MOODS">MOODS</a></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I crouched</span> upon cushions and wallowed in their somnolent caresses,</p> +<p class="i4">And—listening with dread for the moment of my own silence</p> +<p class="i0">Rending the flimsy lace of <span class="locked">whisperings—</span></p> +<p class="i0">My gnome dances before me</p> +<p class="i0">Behind a fan of smoke,</p> +<p class="i0">My dwarf squats on my shoulders</p> +<p class="i0">Tweeking their moulted wings,</p> +<p class="i0">My ape peers in the mirror of my face</p> +<p class="i0">Mimicking my soul's gaunt <span class="locked">gestures—</span></p> +<p class="i0">My wolf bays through my moonly loneliness</p> +<p class="i0">Blotching the night with <span class="locked">howls—</span></p> +<p class="i0">My laughter goes whining away on the wind,</p> +<p class="i0">Laughs that are whipped by a soul too sick with merriment,</p> +<p class="i0">Too satiate with humour's emptiness!...</p> +</div> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">Ah! loveliness with little pointed feet</p> +<p class="i0">Dancing across the leer of ugliness,</p> +<p class="i0">Skimming like a gold thread</p> +<p class="i0">Through a necklace of vile <span class="locked">masks—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Lifting with lotus fingers</p> +<p class="i0">The blue arras of <span class="locked">nightmare—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Loveliness like a delicate silver flute</p> +<p class="i0">Pressed to a negro's <span class="locked">lips—</span></p> +</div> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">Do you then wish for all those griefs</p> +<p class="i0">Whose snarling hands you kiss,</p> +<p class="i0">Kneeling in adoration to a dagger</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> +<p class="i0">As saints before a cross?</p> +<p class="i0">You who have tossed all flowers away,</p> +<p class="i0">Coveting the drenched red peonies of blood</p> +<p class="i0">Their javelin-petals wet with <span class="locked">slaughter,—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Do you then crave your own blood's offering,</p> +<p class="i0">Your own breast's pallor pierced with knives of flame?</p> +<p class="i0">In your ears are the pattering of the hunter's feet,</p> +<p class="i0">Softer than death, and omens mouthed by winds of twilight,</p> +<p class="i0">You lean across the precipice of time</p> +<p class="i0">Calling and crying</p> +<p class="i0">For the last abyssmal passion of self-slaughter—</p> +</div> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">Waiting,</p> +<p class="i0">Like grey cloud-giants climbing the hills of Heaven</p> +<p class="i0">Carrying vast burdens over the crags of <span class="locked">chaos—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Waiting,</p> +<p class="i0">Like trees that hear the far-off moan of winds,</p> +<p class="i0">Like listening trees that hug their branches round them,</p> +<p class="i0">Their leaves whispering lividly the rumour of storms,</p> +<p class="i0">Waiting like a vast arch of quietness</p> +<p class="i0">Through which a screaming messenger shall <span class="locked">dart—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Like a dense hood of silence</p> +<p class="i0">Pierced by a sword of <span class="locked">music—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Waiting, like the deathly stillness of a pool</p> +<p class="i0">Reflecting the diver poised before he plunges....</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="center" /> + +<h2 class="left large"><a name="SMOKE" id="SMOKE">SMOKE</a></h2> + +<div id="ip_49" class="figleft" style="width: 252px;"><img src="images/i_053.jpg" width="252" height="500" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Now</span> is the evening dipped knee-deep in blood</p> +<p class="i4">And the dun hills stand fearful in their places.</p> +<p class="i0">Cunning in sin, we shuffle down the streets</p> +<p class="i0">With burdens of vainglory on our backs,</p> +<p class="i0">Spinning with spider-hands the miser's web</p> +<p class="i0">Or sitting placid, gay and fat with ease.</p> +<p class="i0">But out beyond, the armies of the world</p> +<p class="i0">March doomwards to the rhythm of the drum</p> +<p class="i0">Under the thirsting sun. Death holds his state:</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">His skeleton hands are filled with scarlet spoil:</p> +<p class="i0">He stands on flaming ramparts, waving high</p> +<p class="i0">The ensign of decay. All his bones are dressed</p> +<p class="i0">With livid roses; all his pillars black</p> +<p class="i0">Are girt in ashen poppies, and on dust</p> +<p class="i0">He raises up his awful golden throne.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Oh! your fierce shrieks have fainted on deaf ears;</p> +<p class="i0">Your tears have flowed on feet of carven stone;</p> +<p class="i0">Your blood is spilt for the boiling-pot of God</p> +<p class="i0">Where good and evil mix; and all your rage</p> +<p class="i0">Is but a thin smoke wafted in His face.</p> +</div> +<p>1914</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Blow</span> upon blow they bruise the daylight wan,</p> +<p class="i4">Scar upon scar they rend the quiet shore;</p> +<p class="i0">They ride on furious, leaving every man</p> +<p class="i0">Crushed like a maggot by the hoofs of war:</p> +<p class="i0">Gods that grow tired of paradisial water</p> +<p class="i0">And fill their cups with steaming wine of slaughter.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I fear a thing more terrible than death:</p> +<p class="i0">The glamour of the battle grips us <span class="locked">yet—</span></p> +<p class="i0">As crowds before a fire that hold their breath</p> +<p class="i0">Watching the burning houses, and forget</p> +<p class="i0">All they will lose, but marvel to behold</p> +<p class="i0">Its dazzling strength, the glamour of its gold.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I fear the time when slow the flame expires,</p> +<p class="i0">When this kaleidoscope of roaring color</p> +<p class="i0">Fades, and rage faints; and of the funeral-fires</p> +<p class="i0">That shone with battle, nothing left of valour</p> +<p class="i0">Save chill ignoble ashes for despair</p> +<p class="i0">To strew with widowed hands upon her hair.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Livid and damp unfolds the winding-sheet,</p> +<p class="i0">Hiding the mangled body of the Earth:</p> +<p class="i0">The slow grey aftermath, the limping feet</p> +<p class="i0">Of days that shall not know the sound of mirth,</p> +<p class="i0">But pass in dry-eyed patience, with no trust</p> +<p class="i0">Save to end living and be heaped with dust.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">That stillness that must follow where Death trod,</p> +<p class="i0">The sullen street, the empty drinking-hall,</p> +<p class="i0">The tuneless voices cringing praise to God,</p> +<p class="i0">Deaf gods, that did not heed the anguished call,</p> +<p class="i0">Now to be soothed with humbleness and praise,</p> +<p class="i0">With fawning kisses for the hand that slays.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> +<p class="i0">Across the world from out the fevered ground</p> +<p class="i0">Decay from every pore exhales its breath;</p> +<p class="i0">A cloak of penance winding close around</p> +<p class="i0">The bright desire of spring. And unto Death,</p> +<p class="i0">As to a conquering king, we yield the keys</p> +<p class="i0">Of Beauty's gates upon our bended knees.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The maiden loverless shall go her ways,</p> +<p class="i0">And child unfathered feed on crust and husk;</p> +<p class="i0">The sun that was the glory of our days</p> +<p class="i0">Shining as tinsel till the moody dusk</p> +<p class="i0">Into our starving outstretched arms shall lay</p> +<p class="i0">Her silent sleep, the only boon we pray.</p> +</div> +<p>1914</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap2"><span class="smcap1">A ragged</span> drummer rides along the street,</p> +<p class="i4">And at his coming</p> +<p class="i0">The silence fills with tunes and rustling feet</p> +<p class="i0">And voices humming.</p> +<p class="i0">He rode a year ago from far away,</p> +<p class="i0">On charger prancing,</p> +<p class="i0">With bright new buttons and with ribbons gay,</p> +<p class="i0">And banners dancing.</p> +<p class="i0">Oh, he was fatter than the bursting drum</p> +<p class="i0">He bore so proudly,</p> +<p class="i0">His roaring music woke the silence dumb</p> +<p class="i0">To thunder loudly.</p> +<p class="i0">And by his side the old men and the young</p> +<p class="i0">Had followed cheering</p> +<p class="i0">Into the sunset smiling as they sung,</p> +<p class="i0">Nor thought of fearing.</p> +<p class="i0">They left their lovers and their mothers' lap,</p> +<p class="i0">Their homes demolish,</p> +<p class="i0">"For, look, I have a ribbon for my cap,</p> +<p class="i0">A sword to polish!"</p> +<p class="i0">And so the town was silent once again,</p> +<p class="i0">Though tunes of battle</p> +<p class="i0">Beat fearful in the wind, or in the rain</p> +<p class="i0">Ghost drums would rattle.</p> +<p class="i0">But at the chuckling dice or careful loom,</p> +<p class="i0">Or candled churches</p> +<p class="i0">A few forgot or prayed or followed doom</p> +<p class="i0">With drunken lurches....</p> +<p class="i0">Now loom and bar and church disgorge the throng,</p> +<p class="i0">In huddled masses</p> +<p class="i0">They stand aghast to hear the drummer's song</p> +<p class="i0">As back he <span class="locked">passes—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Palsied and drear and bent he turns alone</p> +<p class="i0">In rags and tatters,</p> +<p class="i0">And on a soundless barrel with a bone</p> +<p class="i0">He beats and batters.</p> +<p class="i0">"Where march your feet so gaily, careless crowd,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> +<p class="i0">That we may kiss them?</p> +<p class="i0">Where sound your little songs that rang so loud</p> +<p class="i0">To us that miss them?"</p> +<p class="i0">There are no songs, no happy marching feet,</p> +<p class="i0">No favours flying:</p> +<p class="i0">The drummer passes ... on the quiet street</p> +<p class="i0">The sun is dying.</p> +<p class="i0">Sun that must bleed to death so red and brave!...</p> +<p class="i0">Have done with weeping,</p> +<p class="i0">But put your ribbons on a soldier's grave</p> +<p class="i0">As he lies sleeping.</p> +</div> +<p>1914</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="ZEPPELINS" id="ZEPPELINS">ZEPPELINS</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"> +<p class="i25 smaller">MIDNIGHT</p> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Suddenly</span></p> +<p class="i4">Shutting our lips upon a jest</p> +<p class="i0">As we are sipping thoughts from little glasses,</p> +<p class="i0">A gun bursts thunder and the echoing streets</p> +<p class="i0">Quiver with startled <span class="locked">terrors—</span></p> +<p class="i0">How swift runs fear: quicksilver that is free!</p> +<p class="i0">Now every muscle weakens, every pulse</p> +<p class="i0">Is set at gallop-pace and every nerve</p> +<p class="i0">Stretched taut with horror and a wild revolt....</p> +<p class="i0">How sweetly spins the world to noise of music,</p> +<p class="i0">How sweet to live life's arrogant adventure!</p> +<p class="i0">Live in a vain world wracked with a thousand pangs,</p> +<p class="i0">Limp in a dull street housed with crumbling dreams,</p> +<p class="i0">To breathe and eat and sleep and love and sigh</p> +<p class="i0">A little longer, oh a little year!</p> +<p class="i0">Forgotten prayers rise up in resurrection,</p> +<p class="i0">And resolutions of new wondrous lives</p> +<p class="i0">Choke up our hearts and fling us to our knees....</p> +<p class="i0">Worms creep in dreadful hunger from the ground,</p> +<p class="i0">The lurid silent people loved by death,</p> +<p class="i0">And peer into our eyes with sly forebodings</p> +<p class="i0">To drag our body's glory from the light.</p> +<p class="i0">Though all the world should fall into their cells</p> +<p class="i0">And lie within their larders shelf on <span class="locked">shelf—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Yet will I toss the sheets of dust away,</p> +<p class="i0">Yet <i>will I</i> be the mistress of the sun!</p> +</div> + +<div class="tb">* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span></div> + +<div class="intact"> +<p class="i25 smaller">1 A. M.</p> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Look how they struggle in a mist of fire,</p> +<p class="i0">Those hunchbacked chimneys and distorted <span class="locked">domes—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Now gloat on Hell, the colour seems to roar,</p> +<p class="i0">An army fierce upon its own destruction,</p> +<p class="i0">A famished monster tearing in its claws</p> +<p class="i0">Gigantic foods to glut its lean desire</p> +<p class="i0">Digesting all the world!...</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> +<p class="i0">Look at the eager people open-mouthed</p> +<p class="i0">That stand as foolish rabbits hypnotised</p> +<p class="i0">By the uncoiling rhythm of a snake,</p> +<p class="i0">Their earth adoring senses caught awhile</p> +<p class="i0">In the red whirlwind of ascending wings;</p> +<p class="i0">Their spirits straining upward upon strings</p> +<p class="i0">Like kites and air balloons, but more grotesque,</p> +<p class="i0">Lacking the ephemeral beauty of a <span class="locked">toy—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Yet for an hour</p> +<p class="i0">Dyed with the colour that their drabness fears</p> +<p class="i0">They kiss the feet of beauty as she passes</p> +<p class="i0">Starwards, tremendous in a coat of fire.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="tb">* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span></div> + +<div class="intact"> +<p class="i25 smaller">3 A. M.</p> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The dawn seems drained of blood so <span class="locked">colourless—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Slowly the river moves as though in sleep</p> +<p class="i0">While silent barges</p> +<p class="i0">Slide from the mist like dreams;</p> +<p class="i0">The intricate patterns of the scaffolding</p> +<p class="i0">Are drawn against the sky</p> +<p class="i0">More delicate than lace.</p> +<p class="i0">All the shimmering lights</p> +<p class="i0">Have shrunk away from morning</p> +<p class="i0">As a blue peacock sheaves his starry tail....</p> +<p class="i0">I am alone, most utterly alone,</p> +<p class="i0">More lonely than the last man in the world</p> +<p class="i0">Straying amid the dust of vanished lives.</p> +<p class="i0">More lonely than a spirit stolen from heaven</p> +<p class="i0">Who stands beside that nebulous cold river</p> +<p class="i0">Dividing sleep from death,</p> +<p class="i0">Eternity from time....</p> +<p class="i0">Nothing disturbs the white peace of the dawn,</p> +<p class="i0">She brings no feverous memories of night</p> +<p class="i0">And sheds no tears.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> +<p class="i0">Only two hours ago</p> +<p class="i0">Fire walked in crimson armour through the city</p> +<p class="i0">Piercing the night's black tent with glittering javelins,</p> +<p class="i0">While shrieks and whispered omens flew like bats</p> +<p class="i0">Among the silver foliage of the stars....</p> +<p class="i0">But rage has left no furrow in the sky,</p> +<p class="i0">No wake of sparks across the placid water....</p> +<p class="i0">This is the ominous and sacred hour</p> +<p class="i0">When priest-like the world kneels</p> +<p class="i0">Bowed low toward the empty throne of <span class="locked">day—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Soon will the herald trumpet-blast be heard</p> +<p class="i0">And the flamingo messengers will come</p> +<p class="i0">Flocking from out the burnished cage of sunrise....</p> +<p class="i0">This is the hour of nothing,</p> +<p class="i0">Colourless and chill</p> +<p class="i0">Oblivion's hands are folded on the world,</p> +<p class="i0">As sits an idol holding in his fingers</p> +<p class="i0">A scentless lotus carven out of stone.</p> +</div> + +<div class="tb">* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span></div> + +<div class="intact"> +<p class="i25 smaller">4 A. M.</p> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Leaving the dun river with hurried tapping feet</p> +<p class="i0">And up the long uncomfortable street</p> +<p class="i0">With eyes uninterested yet forced to see and read</p> +<p class="i0">The dingy notices once sharp and bright with greed,</p> +<p class="i0">Now drear with want, that swear the Queen's Hotel</p> +<p class="i0">And Brown's Hotel and King's are doing <span class="locked">well—</span></p> +<p class="i0">A soldier and a beggar mock me as I go,</p> +<p class="i0">The light steals after me, emerging slow</p> +<p class="i0">And pale from the dim alleys shadow-crouched.</p> +<p class="i0">I hurried by the drunkard as he slouched</p> +<p class="i0">From lamp-post unto lamp-post.... Then I saw</p> +<p class="i0">Caught in the mirror of a tailor's door</p> +<p class="i0">My own reflection as I hurried past,</p> +<p class="i0">My flaring colours and my face <span class="locked">aghast—</span></p> +<p class="i0">The scarlet tassel of my hat that hung</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> +<p class="i0">Limp as a spent flame, and my skirt that clung</p> +<p class="i0">About my knees and fluttered at the back:</p> +<p class="i0">An injured moth, with sulphur stripes and black,</p> +<p class="i0">My bag flamboyant as a pillar-box;</p> +<p class="i0">My frayed gilt fringe of hair and tarnished locks.</p> +<p class="i0">Jagged and crude and swift I seemed to pass</p> +<p class="i0">Painted too brightly on that temperate glass.</p> +<p class="i0">... An omnibus from sudden corner reels:</p> +<p class="i0">Silence lies mangled underneath the wheels.</p> +</div> +<p>1915</p> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">O flattery,</span> imposture, battle show,</p> +<p class="i4">What banners have you woven from the parted raiment,</p> +<p class="i0">What crimes from Calvary, what endless flow</p> +<p class="i0">Of blood from blood, revenge, exacted payment!</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">How have you turned the simple truth to lies</p> +<p class="i0">Made capital from creeds and missed their beauty,</p> +<p class="i0">Exalted vainly with self-pitying sighs</p> +<p class="i0">The wrongs enacted in the name of duty.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And ever quoting God for your excuse,</p> +<p class="i0">Bribing divinity to cloak your shame,</p> +<p class="i0">You train the spirit for material use,</p> +<p class="i0">You sacrifice men's hearts to feed your flame.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">When shall the world be rid of these bald priests,</p> +<p class="i0">Pig-snouted with their gilded wolfish ears,</p> +<p class="i0">The scarlet cardinals of drunken feasts</p> +<p class="i0">Whose hands are washed in blood, whose feet in tears?</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">What</span> will happen to the beggar, and the sinner, and the sad,</p> +<p class="i4">And the drunk that drinks for sorrow, and the maimed, and mad;</p> +<p class="i0">What will happen to the starving, and the rebel run from drilling,</p> +<p class="i0">Cowardly, afraid of fighting, and the child who stole a shilling?</p> +<p class="i0">They shall go to prison black</p> +<p class="i0">With a striped shirt on the back,</p> +<p class="i0">Feast on bread and water there</p> +<p class="i0">In a cell, without a care.</p> +<p class="i0">They shall learn at least their duty,</p> +<p class="i0">Never tempted more of <span class="locked">beauty—</span></p> +<p class="i0">They shall walk in rows and praise the Lord,</p> +<p class="i0">And one or two shall hang upon a <span class="locked">cord—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And two or three shall die of grief <span class="locked">alone—</span></p> +<p class="i0">(And this is well, for sinners should atone,)</p> +<p class="i0">And five or six shall curse the God that made them,</p> +<p class="i0">(And this is wicked, for the priests forbade them,)</p> +<p class="i0">And those that grew from dust shall go to dust</p> +<p class="i0">Downtrodden. Saith the preacher:—"God is just."</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">If</span> I were what I would be, and could break</p> +<p class="i4">The buttressed fortress of stupidity</p> +<p class="i0">Where laws are sentinels, and lies the masonry,</p> +<p class="i0">Surrounded with inertia, weedy lake,</p> +<p class="i0">Where centuries of mud lie curdled, and the fake</p> +<p class="i0">Grandeur of cardboard turrets, solemn <span class="locked">puppetry—</span></p> +<p class="i0">The gods are blinking at us sleepily,</p> +<p class="i0">Tired of our games, the muddles that we make,</p> +<p class="i0">The bloodshed, idol worshipping, the chess</p> +<p class="i0">Of king, queen, castle, bishop, knight and <span class="locked">pawn—</span></p> +<p class="i0">The rigid squares of black and white, they dress</p> +<p class="i0">With their perpetual challenge—faded, worn,</p> +<p class="i0">Are all the creeds and praises you profess</p> +<p class="i0">To weary gods that stretch themselves and yawn.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="HOLY_RUSSIA" id="HOLY_RUSSIA">HOLY RUSSIA</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> ghostly blood of thee is in my veins,</p> +<p class="i4">Back through the centuries of death and birth,</p> +<p class="i0">Sometime I thrilled with thy gigantic pains,</p> +<p class="i0">My kin lie somewhere covered with thine earth.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And ever as in dreams I seem to see</p> +<p class="i0">Those streets and people with their colours cold;</p> +<p class="i0">Thou hast the singing hungers of the sea,</p> +<p class="i0">The tides of restless passion ages old.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I know thy humours and their contradiction,</p> +<p class="i0">I know thy fevers and hallucinations,</p> +<p class="i0">I see beneath the painted mask of fiction</p> +<p class="i0">Thy face of fierce and weary exaltations.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And art thou come to gaze with wakened eyes</p> +<p class="i0">Into the sick world's travail and her grief,</p> +<p class="i0">Dost thou from thy long battling surmise</p> +<p class="i0">The end of battle and the world's relief?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">While we are creeping in our crooked ways</p> +<p class="i0">Along the crumbling roads of worn-out creeds</p> +<p class="i0">Where Ignorance walks royally through days</p> +<p class="i0">That smell of death, decay and bloody deeds.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">While we still cry to God for strength to kill,</p> +<p class="i0">Reminding Him that Britain rules the waves,</p> +<p class="i0">And grind young bones for the commercial mill,</p> +<p class="i0">And build munition works among the graves.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Still crying "Honour," "Country" and "The Flag,"</p> +<p class="i0">"The last heroic fight in Freedom's name!"</p> +<p class="i0">Though Kings make mouths at Kings, and Prelates <span class="locked">brag—</span></p> +<p class="i0">They boast of murder and they reek of shame!...</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Thou that hast touched the mystic wounds of God,</p> +<p class="i0">And strewn with broken hearts the Virgin's feet,</p> +<p class="i0">Feeling beneath the burden and the rod</p> +<p class="i0">His justice and Her pity in the street.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Justice and Pity, crying in the <span class="locked">wind—</span></p> +<p class="i0">We only hear the guns that never cease,</p> +<p class="i0">The flapping of our flags has made us blind!</p> +<p class="i0">We may not see the sacred gods of peace.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But thou dost build fanatic temples for them,</p> +<p class="i0">And thou dost pave the road with sanity,</p> +<p class="i0">And all the train of bitter ghosts adore them,</p> +<p class="i0">Who died to puff a monarch's vanity.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I hear thy orchestras of holy cheers,</p> +<p class="i0">The drum that life has snatched away from death,</p> +<p class="i0">And all the sighing rhythm of thy tears,</p> +<p class="i0">And the brave laughter of thy trumpet-breath.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0"><span class="smcap">Peace!</span> But a cynic whispered in my ear</p> +<p class="i0">How kings like worms still wrangled for a crown</p> +<p class="i0">That lay amid the dust—and I could hear</p> +<p class="i0">A hum of money-changing in the town.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I feared that afterwards, when all is won,</p> +<p class="i0">We shall forget the meaning of thy <span class="locked">deed—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And man will creep as he has always done</p> +<p class="i0">Along the little gutters of his greed.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">How</span> deeply nurtured is your foolishness,</p> +<p class="i4">Calling destruction great and slaughter brave,</p> +<p class="i0">Making large triumph of a little grave,</p> +<p class="i0">Imperial purple of a mourning dress,</p> +<p class="i0">The gun an emblem of your <span class="locked">godliness—</span></p> +<p class="i0">A fluttering ribbon or a banner's wave,</p> +<p class="i0">A medal or a bayonet, or rave</p> +<p class="i0">Of singing, marching in the forward press</p> +<p class="i0">Of hatred to the banging of a band;</p> +<p class="i0">Your country's honour and the world's release.</p> +<p class="i0">Are <i>they</i> not strong in courage who withstand</p> +<p class="i0">The armies of your folly and shall cease</p> +<p class="i0">To tarnish with spilt life their motherland?</p> +<p class="i0">Cowards—or martyrs—crucified for peace.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Of</span> all who died in silence far away</p> +<p class="i4">Where sympathy was busy with other things,</p> +<p class="i0">Busy with worlds, inventing how to slay,</p> +<p class="i0">Troubled with rights and wrongs and governments and kings.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The little dead who knew so large a love,</p> +<p class="i0">Whose lives were sweet unto themselves a shepherding</p> +<p class="i0">Of hopes, ambitions, wonders in a drove</p> +<p class="i0">Over the hills of time, that now are graves for burying.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Of all the tenderness that flowed to them,</p> +<p class="i0">A milky way streaming from out their mother's breast,</p> +<p class="i0">Stars were they to her night, and she the stem</p> +<p class="i0">From which they flowered—now barren and left unblessed.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Of all the sparkling kisses that they gave</p> +<p class="i0">Spangling a secret radiance on adoring hands,</p> +<p class="i0">Now stifled in the darkness of a grave</p> +<p class="i0">With kiss of loneliness and death's embracing bands.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">No more!—And we, the mourners, dare not wear</p> +<p class="i0">The black that folds our hearts in secrecy of pain,</p> +<p class="i0">But must don purple and bright standards bear,</p> +<p class="i0">Vermilion of our honour, a bloody train.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">We dare not weep who must be brave in <span class="locked">battle—</span></p> +<p class="i0">"Another death—another day—another inch of <span class="locked">land—</span></p> +<p class="i0">The dead are cheering and the ghost drums rattle" ...</p> +<p class="i0">The dead are deaf and dumb and cannot understand....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Of all who died in darkness far away</p> +<p class="i0">Nothing is left of them but <span class="smcap smaller">LOVE</span>, who triumphs now,</p> +<p class="i0">His arms held crosswise to the budding day,</p> +<p class="i0">The passion-red roses clustering his brow.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">And</span> afterwards, when honour has made good,</p> +<p class="i4">And all you think you fight for shall take place,</p> +<p class="i0">A late rejoicing to a crippled race;</p> +<p class="i0">The bulldog's teeth relax and snap for food,</p> +<p class="i0">The eagles fly to their forsaken brood,</p> +<p class="i0">Within the ravaged nest. When no disgrace</p> +<p class="i0">Shall spread a blush across the haggard face</p> +<p class="i0">Of anxious Pride, already flushed with blood.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">In victory will you have conquered Hate,</p> +<p class="i0">And stuck old Folly with a bayonet</p> +<p class="i0">And battered down the hideous prison gate?</p> +<p class="i0">Or will the fatted gods be gloried yet,</p> +<p class="i0">Glutted with gold and dust and empty state,</p> +<p class="i0">The incense of our anguish and our sweat?</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Pity</span> the slain that laid away their lives,</p> +<p class="i4">Pity the prisoners mangled with gyves,</p> +<p class="i0">Thin little children and widowed wives,</p> +<p class="i0">And the broken soldier who survives.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Pity the woman whose body was sold</p> +<p class="i0">For a little bread or a little gold,</p> +<p class="i0">And a little fire to keep out the cold,</p> +<p class="i0">So tired, and fearful of growing old.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Pity the people in the grey street</p> +<p class="i0">Before the dawn trooping with listless feet</p> +<p class="i0">Down to their work in the dust and the heat,</p> +<p class="i0">For a little bread and a little meat.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Pity the criminal sentenced to die,</p> +<p class="i0">Loving life so, with the world in his eye,</p> +<p class="i0">In his ears and his heart, with the passionate cry</p> +<p class="i0">Of love that will call when he may not reply.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Pity them all, the imperative faces</p> +<p class="i0">That peer through the dark where we sleep in our laces,</p> +<p class="i0">Where we skulk among cushions in opulent places,</p> +<p class="i0">With indolent postures and frivolous graces.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Eyes that prick the darkness, fingers thin</p> +<p class="i0">Tearing at hypocrisy, and Sin</p> +<p class="i0">That batters the door and staggers in....</p> +<p class="i0">The streets surround with clamour and din,</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Drowning our flutes, till the cries of the city</p> +<p class="i0">Flurry us, flutter us, force us to pity,</p> +<p class="i0">Force us to sigh and arrange a committee,</p> +<p class="i0">Tea-party charity danced to a ditty....</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The scarlet ribbons flutter and wave,</p> +<p class="i0">A rebel flag on a rebel grave,</p> +<p class="i0">But to us the strong alone are brave,</p> +<p class="i0">And only the rich are worthy to save!</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Yet who shall blame us, plaited and curled,</p> +<p class="i0">Where silk banners fly and the red flags are furled,</p> +<p class="i0">Flags that blow where the dead are hurled,</p> +<p class="i0">Tattered and dripping with blood of the world!</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="center" /> + +<h2 class="left large"><a name="FLAME" id="FLAME">FLAME</a></h2> + +<div id="ip_71" class="figleft" style="width: 249px;"><img src="images/i_075.jpg" width="249" height="500" alt="" /></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">You</span> have understood so little of me, and my adoration</p> +<p class="i4">That shone upon my forehead, like a crown of curious stones,</p> +<p class="i0">You turned into a cap and bells for Folly's coronation</p> +<p class="i0">And made a foolish tinkling from my laughter and my</p> +<p class="i0">moans.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">You have led me through the market like an ass upon the halter,</p> +<p class="i0">You have fed me upon thistles; I was driven by the crowd;</p> +<p class="i0">But my faith in what I am, my conceit, you cannot alter;</p> +<p class="i0">I was proud in pomp and purple, as a clown I leave you proud!</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">A greater pride than sits upon a throne for mere adorning,</p> +<p class="i0">A fiercer strength than in the gods of wood that cannot bow;</p> +<p class="i0">I tore my purple into rags and knelt to bear your scorning,</p> +<p class="i0">And I am rebel leader to a band of beggars now.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">In the twilight of my love I stand and strew the bitter ashes;</p> +<p class="i0">They are blown into my eyes again, the fires that shone for you;</p> +<p class="i0">In the blushing of the sunset their ghostly fervour flashes</p> +<p class="i0">As they sink for everlasting in the darkness and the dew.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Your heart is as a moonstone hieroglyphed with secret letters;</p> +<p class="i0">You have never read my passion, as I never learnt their sign,</p> +<p class="i0">But I praise your haunting beauty and I bear the bruise of fetters</p> +<p class="i0">And I reel from your remembrance as I spill the ancient wine.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> +<p class="i0">All those women I have envied with their pink and foolish faces,</p> +<p class="i0">Moths that have out-distanced me in circling round your head,</p> +<p class="i0">For the strangeness of your kisses and the curse of your embraces</p> +<p class="i0">And the frenzy of pursuing where your despot feet have led.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I will shout, and tear the darkness; I will snuff the candles sacred</p> +<p class="i0">With the rage of my abasement, with the blast of my farewell;</p> +<p class="i0">I will smile with cynic softness, but my tears are dropping acrid</p> +<p class="i0">And sizzling in a gutter down the white-hot streets of Hell!</p> +</div> +<p>1914</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Lulled</span> are the dazzling colours of the day,</p> +<p class="i4">And mild the heavens, burnt out like an ash.</p> +<p class="i0">Hungry and strange along the shadowed dusk</p> +<p class="i0">Walks Melancholy, and with bitter mouth</p> +<p class="i0">Sucks the last juices from the sun's ripe fruit.</p> +<p class="i0">Now can I sing the sickly lines of love</p> +<p class="i0">And of love's failure, spell my sorrows out</p> +<p class="i0">In the sad spaces of the gloaming night,</p> +<p class="i0">And stooping, huddled, hide me in the dark.</p> +<p class="i0">My words were fireless in the flaming sun,</p> +<p class="i0">And all the throats of flowers from their content</p> +<p class="i0">Puffed back my pinings proudly in my face</p> +<p class="i0">And bade me give them tunes to make them dance....</p> +<p class="i0">Lean, hungry, like my love the moon looks down</p> +<p class="i0">From the white solitudes of Heaven. All aghast</p> +<p class="i0">And sterile as the arms of my desire</p> +<p class="i0">She flings her light despairing on the sky.</p> +<p class="i0">The night is strange and still, for dropping tears,</p> +<p class="i0">Or burying hatred in a deep-dug grave.</p> +</div> +<p>1914</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Washed</span> at my feet by the curded foam of sluggish waves,</p> +<p class="i4">As the rain splinters and the mud gleams with malicious light,</p> +<p class="i0">Like a frail shell, million tinged and quaintly wrought</p> +<p class="i0">The thought of you, which held against mine ear</p> +<p class="i0">Hums all the echoed melodies of your soul;</p> +<p class="i0">The sigh of wearied life, the ebbing sweet of love,</p> +<p class="i0">The little tunes of wine mixed with the chants of death,</p> +<p class="i0">The following of beauty's fugitive limbs</p> +<p class="i0">Whose classic feet, and rapturous pale breast</p> +<p class="i0">Gleam on the clouds and foam,</p> +<p class="i0">Call to her <span class="locked">lovers.—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Thus standing in the blasting of the wind,</p> +<p class="i0">And numb with ceaseless drip of moments from the cloud</p> +<p class="i0">Of lowering hours, I toy with this strange relic of the sea,</p> +<p class="i0">Turned with such perfectness from her tumultuous wheels,</p> +<p class="i0">Thoughts of you million tinged and quaintly wrought.</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">My</span> poems cannot laugh. They are the voice</p> +<p class="i4">Of birds that mourn and cry above the sea,</p> +<p class="i0">And this wild joy my love has brought to me</p> +<p class="i0">Lies dumb and knows not how it shall rejoice.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I am most weary of the petulant songs I sing,</p> +<p class="i0">Most tired of tunes that only learn to weep,</p> +<p class="i0">And long to turn my dreams from their pale sleep</p> +<p class="i0">Into a gentle minstrelsy with harp of silver string;</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">To fashion for my love one perfect verse</p> +<p class="i0">Symmetrically threaded by beauty word on word,</p> +<p class="i0">Flowing and flashing like the luted laughter of a bird</p> +<p class="i0">To bless the soul with music which I ravished with a curse.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But as a coward in the general gloom</p> +<p class="i0">I mimic fortune with my tunes of ill,</p> +<p class="i0">Nor pipe despite her wistful mirth and trill</p> +<p class="i0">Of love that moves with music into Doom;</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Of love that thrills with joy the graveyard cold,</p> +<p class="i0">And like a gay canary in a cage</p> +<p class="i0">Mocks at his prison, and with flippant rage</p> +<p class="i0">Flaunts his bright wing to fill the gloom with gold.</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">On</span> the hill there is a tavern, long-loved, well-remembered,</p> +<p class="i4">Where all the sleepy afternoon the little tables dream,</p> +<p class="i0">And the cool green bottles ranged, laugh and gleam with golden highlights,</p> +<p class="i0">And the waiters wrangle, and the flies, with murmurs merged and mixed.</p> +<p class="i0">We will go there, you and I, to wake the nodding contentment,</p> +<p class="i0">And toast our fancies reverently with red wine and with white wine,</p> +<p class="i0">And with eyes mesmerised to the horizon gazing,</p> +<p class="i0">Dream our iridescent dreams and sigh our shadowy sighs.</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Oh</span> canst thou not hear in my heart all its whispering fears</p> +<p class="i4">Whose wind-like voices</p> +<p class="i0">Flutter the leaves of my hope and bow them with tears</p> +<p class="i0">While the body rejoices.</p> +<p class="i0">Till all the pomp and beauty of day, the Cardinal Sun</p> +<p class="i0">Trailing his scarlet vesture</p> +<p class="i0">Leaves after light the pale hills sullen and dun,</p> +<p class="i0">Turns with a gesture</p> +<p class="i0">Colour and glory to smoke that is deathly and grey.</p> +<p class="i0">I follow the shadows of sorrow</p> +<p class="i0">That press so close to the dancing heels of the day</p> +<p class="i0">And darken the morrow.</p> +<p class="i0">The world turns pale and cold, for I seem to see</p> +<p class="i0">Beyond its golden visor</p> +<p class="i0">The leering skull that derides at our lives and me</p> +<p class="i0">Being older than life and wiser....</p> +<p class="i0">I hear the cry of the world that writhes to the lash of the whip</p> +<p class="i0">Beyond the sound of the treetops singing</p> +<p class="i0">To the wind's persuasive violins and bells of dews that drip,</p> +<p class="i0">Or rush of feathers winging....</p> +<p class="i0">Dost thou fear death as I? Ah no, but thy lips are against my cheek</p> +<p class="i0">Murmuring tenderly</p> +<p class="i0">The perfumed lies stolen from spring that wistfully through the bleak</p> +<p class="i0">Windows of frost so slenderly</p> +<p class="i0">Steals her little ghost's flute. Thou tellest of things that might be</p> +<p class="i0">If life were as kind as a lover,</p> +<p class="i0">If we were beloved of the world and the world of we.</p> +<p class="i0">Thy white words hover</p> +<p class="i0">Dove-like in rose leaf evenings over the nest</p> +<p class="i0">Silvering heaven</p> +<p class="i0">With rustle of lovers that nestle together for rest.</p> +<p class="i0">If I could have given</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> +<p class="i0">My tired lips to kisses and my body to sleep and to thee,</p> +<p class="i0">Ah then and then only</p> +<p class="i0">The dust were as gentleness mingling thy beauty with me</p> +<p class="i0">And death were not lonely.</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">As</span> in the silence the clear moonlight drips</p> +<p class="i4">Among the fields that love her drowsily,</p> +<p class="i0">These passionate moments trickle on through time,</p> +<p class="i0">From soul to languorous soul.</p> +<p class="i0">Like mad musicians upon fretted harps,</p> +<p class="i0">The senses play upon the poignant <span class="locked">nerves,—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And colours clothe our mood</p> +<p class="i0">As smoke against the light, as shimmering prisms</p> +<p class="i0">Irised with pallors of an opal's heart</p> +<p class="i0">In which the glittered pattern of desire</p> +<p class="i0">Smoulders and changes....</p> +<p class="i0">O love, thou nightingale-throated singer,</p> +<p class="i0">Thread on thy jewelled chords from start to star</p> +<p class="i0">And keep thy silver delicate delight</p> +<p class="i0">Out of the flush and lustre that makes mad.</p> +<p class="i0">Let thy fairy feet</p> +<p class="i0">Go tripping down a scarcely scented path,</p> +<p class="i0">Between an avenue of breathless flowers.</p> +<p class="i0">The hours glide by as swans across a lake,</p> +<p class="i0">Across the luminous waters of desire,</p> +<p class="i0">And beat as wings the rustle of soft words,</p> +<p class="i0">As love bends down,</p> +<p class="i0">Breathing his adoration on a fainting mouth.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I can</span> but give thee unsubstantial things</p> +<p class="i4">Wrapt as in rose-leaves between thought and thought,</p> +<p class="i0">No gems or garments marvellously wrought</p> +<p class="i0">On ivory spools with rare embroiderings.</p> +<p class="i0">Nor for thy fingers precious, fabled rings</p> +<p class="i0">That cardinals have worn, and queens have bought</p> +<p class="i0">With blood and beauty. I have only sought</p> +<p class="i0">A song that hovers on illusive wings.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Accept from me a dream that hath no art,</p> +<p class="i0">I give my empty hands for thee to hold,</p> +<p class="i0">Take thou the gift of silence for my part,</p> +<p class="i0">With all the deeper things I have not told.</p> +<p class="i0">Yet if thou canst, decipher in my heart</p> +<p class="i0">Its passions writ in hieroglyphs of gold.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span></p> + +<h3><a name="I" id="I">I</a></h3> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I have</span> no other friend but thee,</p> +<p class="i4">But while I tell thee all my thought</p> +<p class="i0">Thine ears are buzzing with gossip of dreams,</p> +<p class="i0">Soothsayings and sighs, and little <span class="locked">things—</span></p> +<p class="i0">How canst thou listen to me?</p> +</div> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">Perchance I roamed under the old moon too long,</p> +<p class="i0">And when my cheek grew pale</p> +<p class="i0">I laid it against thine to feel the blood beat back</p> +<p class="i0">Responsive in the double rose of <span class="locked">joy—</span></p> +<p class="i0">But I feel thee shifting away into loneliness</p> +<p class="i0">Where the ghost moon glides between us....</p> +</div> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">When at a masquerade</p> +<p class="i0">I meet thee in the shrill indifferent throng,</p> +<p class="i0">Our faces painted each in some disguise</p> +<p class="i0">Of varnished revelry;</p> +<p class="i0">I whisper in thine ear</p> +<p class="i0">Fables, and flatteries, and inconsequent tales,</p> +<p class="i0">Trivial as the dust that whirls about our feet,</p> +<p class="i0">And shower the multicoloured streamers high</p> +<p class="i0">Where Folly is king of <span class="locked">midnight—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Suddenly dost thou snatch thy mask aside,</p> +<p class="i0">And thy still face looks out,</p> +<p class="i0">Weary and overwise</p> +<p class="i0">Where the mad pretence avails not.</p> +</div> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">Long ago we walked together in a garden;</p> +<p class="i0">It was evening and the leaves fell down;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span> +<p class="i0">Silently we passed over the dead, the fallen,</p> +<p class="i0">Over flowers and branches that were withered <span class="locked">there—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And the air was weary with the scent of other days,</p> +<p class="i0">A fragrance faint and pensive.</p> +<p class="i0">The sighing of the leaves beneath our feet</p> +<p class="i0">Were as old dreams retold,</p> +<p class="i0">Stirred from the golden quilt of memory,</p> +<p class="i0">And farewells rang their whispering bells,</p> +<p class="i0">Tolling the days away.</p> +<p class="i0">But peace lay folded between our hands</p> +<p class="i0">As we thought of the vanishing years</p> +<p class="i0">And of love dying in the arms of love.</p> +</div> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">Sometimes I look into the glass</p> +<p class="i0">And see my face without the conquering light</p> +<p class="i0">That gave me glamour when I gave thee love.</p> +<p class="i0">Fain would I bathe in the fountains of beauty,</p> +<p class="i0">To glitter with the crystals of her sparkling desire,</p> +<p class="i0">And touch with my feet the floors of a bright paven Hell,</p> +<p class="i0">And rear my head among the lilies of Heaven.</p> +<p class="i0">I would be for thee</p> +<p class="i0">As a ring of white flowers on the sward,</p> +<p class="i0">As a red fire playing to thy breath,</p> +<p class="i0">As a flock of kingfishers</p> +<p class="i0">Surprised from the dark fringe of rushes!</p> +<p class="i0">Remember only this,</p> +<p class="i0">My will toward all loveliness, and look</p> +<p class="i0">Deep in thyself for my reflected soul.</p> +</div> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">Be perfect—for I love thee more in thought</p> +<p class="i0">Than thou canst reach in every trivial day.</p> +<p class="i0">Since days are as the flowers on a wreath</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> +<p class="i0">That wither while we bind them each to each.</p> +<p class="i0">Only the soul is timeless, and no round of days</p> +<p class="i0">Can wall it in a little space of ground.</p> +<p class="i0">Sometimes our minds are cheated by the clock</p> +<p class="i0">And crave love, wisdom, joy within an hour,</p> +<p class="i0">But the patient spirit stands</p> +<p class="i0">Waiting the last fulfilment.</p> +<p class="i0">Around thy soul my thoughts are as garlands</p> +<p class="i0">Or as an endless rosary.</p> +<p class="i0">Be perfect! lest my psalm should falter</p> +<p class="i0">And my hands part from the unriveted faith</p> +<p class="i0">With Amen scarcely sighed.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Bodies</span> heaving like waves,</p> +<p class="i4">Sighing through the dishevelled tresses of foam,</p> +<p class="i0">The massive whiteness of limbs flung out of shadow,</p> +<p class="i0">Splashed with ecstasial moonlight,</p> +<p class="i0">Sculptured voluptuously in ephemeral marbles.</p> +<p class="i0">Lingering touch of fingers,</p> +<p class="i0">Cooler than the curving ringlets of spray</p> +<p class="i0">Fluting the new-blown petals of a shell,</p> +<p class="i0">And kisses murmuring as the lips of darkness</p> +<p class="i0">Against the ivory forehead of the moon.</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Your</span> face to me is like a beautiful city</p> +<p class="i4">Dreaming forever by the rough wild sea,</p> +<p class="i0">And I the ship upon a wilderness of waves</p> +<p class="i0">Heavily laden with memories....</p> +<p class="i0">I roam over all the earth</p> +<p class="i0">Making rhymes of you, and singing songs,</p> +<p class="i0">Because your face will never let me rest,</p> +<p class="i0">Because I can not frame it in a star</p> +<p class="i0">Surrounded with my cloudy reveries,</p> +<p class="i0">Because I may not pluck it like a flower</p> +<p class="i0">To breathe the incense of its perfumed <span class="locked">soul—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Your face is like the carved hilt of a sword</p> +<p class="i0">Whose sheath is in my breast!</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Oh!</span> why will you not let me love you</p> +<p class="i4">Well enough?</p> +<p class="i0">You have plucked my blossoms,</p> +<p class="i0">Gathered the leaves</p> +<p class="i0">And revived them with water;</p> +<p class="i0">But all the tortuous roots</p> +<p class="i0">Delving for your spirit</p> +<p class="i0">In subterranean passions</p> +<p class="i0">With a blind unresting desire,</p> +<p class="i0">Have you felt them, have you known?</p> +<p class="i0">In the blackest night of sleep</p> +<p class="i0">Though I be sunk a thousand fathoms</p> +<p class="i0">In the cerulean depths of slow oblivion,</p> +<p class="i0">My soul still swims toward you</p> +<p class="i0">Against the envious pressure of the tide....</p> +<p class="i0">You who are so tired, so filled with sleep</p> +<p class="i0">That you would brush a rose-leaf from your cheek</p> +<p class="i0">Lest its heaviness should stir your rest,</p> +<p class="i0">How can you shoulder the weight of my great burden</p> +<p class="i0">That is too vast for me to bear alone?</p> +<p class="i0">I tell you</p> +<p class="i0">Love is no little thing,</p> +<p class="i0">No moth-winged Cupid painted on the air,</p> +<p class="i0">No thin flute music petaling the silence</p> +<p class="i0">As leaves that flutter from a cherry tree.</p> +<p class="i0">It is the thought that broods upon its death,</p> +<p class="i0">The dread of mountains looking to the storm</p> +<p class="i0">Ere shrieks of lightning cleave their breasts in twain.</p> +<p class="i0">It is the fire that pillars up the stars</p> +<p class="i0">To mix its flame with their eternal gold.</p> +<p class="i0">Oh, listen to me!</p> +<p class="i0">You shall hear my message sung from sphere to sphere</p> +<p class="i0">As star-dust pouring a path through Heaven.</p> +<p class="i0">You shall know me</p> +<p class="i0">In the pensive shadows of trees,</p> +<p class="i0">In the luminary phantoms</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> +<p class="i0">Reflected in the stillness of a lake;</p> +<p class="i0">In the arrows of sunlight shot through meshing leaves</p> +<p class="i0">And quivering in the moss;</p> +<p class="i0">In the abandoned play of breakers</p> +<p class="i0">Showering their crystals to the moon;</p> +<p class="i0">In the folly of rainbow dolphins.</p> +<p class="i0">I only ask of you</p> +<p class="i0">To be the diver in my deepest pool,</p> +<p class="i0">To bring from out its blue obscurity</p> +<p class="i0">The things my life has moulded unaware,</p> +<p class="i0">Treasures my passion and my hunger fashioned</p> +<p class="i0">In loneliness of prayer unlit by life,</p> +<p class="i0">Created out of nothing save myself</p> +<p class="i0">Within the blind fast silence of the soul.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">My</span> devotion kneels to you,</p> +<p class="i4">Holding a candle to illumine your face.</p> +<p class="i0">My loneliness is your shadow</p> +<p class="i0">Along the solitary roads.</p> +<p class="i0">My passion is a book between your hands</p> +<p class="i0">Whose leaves are as the leaves of violets,</p> +<p class="i0">A volume of pressed flowers</p> +<p class="i0">Scenting your fingers though you read it not.</p> +<p class="i0">And my white faith</p> +<p class="i0">Is a silken surplice clothing you in peace.</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="ISLANDS" id="ISLANDS">ISLANDS</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">As</span> launched upon the loneliness of time</p> +<p class="i4">We float and dream of what the waves conceal,</p> +<p class="i0">Each like a thought that rolls with rapid zeal</p> +<p class="i0">Succeeded by a breaker of fierce crime,</p> +<p class="i0">Or curling passion, or a rhythm of rhyme,</p> +<p class="i0">Or indolent ripple sighing at the <span class="locked">keel—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Beyond us, though our fretted longings reel,</p> +<p class="i0">The lulled horizon sleeps, the still hours <span class="locked">climb—</span></p> +<p class="i0">So toss our weary ships, till from afar</p> +<p class="i0">Our visioned island rises suddenly,</p> +<p class="i0">Where palaces like cloudy colours are,</p> +<p class="i0">With scented gardens terraced to the sea,</p> +<p class="i0">The silver steps to our appointed star</p> +<p class="i0">Where gleam the spires that pierce eternity.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Many</span> things I'd find to charm you,</p> +<p class="i4">Books and scarves and silken socks,</p> +<p class="i0">All the seven rainbow colours</p> +<p class="i0">Black and white with 'broidered clocks.</p> +<p class="i0">Then a stick of polished whalebone</p> +<p class="i0">And a coat of tawny fur,</p> +<p class="i0">And a row of gleaming bottles</p> +<p class="i0">Filled with rose-water and myrrh.</p> +<p class="i0">Rarest brandy of the 'fifties,</p> +<p class="i0">Old liqueurs in leather kegs,</p> +<p class="i0">Golden Sauterne, copper sherry</p> +<p class="i0">And a nest of plover's eggs.</p> +<p class="i0">Toys of tortoise-shell and jasper,</p> +<p class="i0">Little boxes cut in jade;</p> +<p class="i0">Handkerchiefs of finest cambric,</p> +<p class="i0">Damask cloths and dim brocade.</p> +<p class="i0">Six musicians of the Magyar,</p> +<p class="i0">Madness making harmony;</p> +<p class="i0">And a bed austere and narrow</p> +<p class="i0">With a quilt from Barbary.</p> +<p class="i0">You shall have a bath of amber,</p> +<p class="i0">A Venetian looking-glass,</p> +<p class="i0">And a crimson-chested parrot</p> +<p class="i0">On a lawn of terraced grass.</p> +<p class="i0">Then a small Tanagra statue</p> +<p class="i0">Found anew in ruins old,</p> +<p class="i0">Or an azure plate from Persia,</p> +<p class="i0">Or my hair in plaits of gold;</p> +<p class="i0">Or my scalp that like an Indian</p> +<p class="i0">You shall carry for a purse,</p> +<p class="i0">Or my spilt blood in a goblet ...</p> +<p class="i0">Or a volume of my verse.</p> +</div> +<p>1916</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="center" /> + +<h2 class="left large"><a name="LAMPLIGHT_AND_STARLIGHT" id="LAMPLIGHT_AND_STARLIGHT">LAMPLIGHT AND STARLIGHT</a></h2> + +<div id="ip_94" class="figleft" style="width: 249px;"><img src="images/i_097.jpg" width="249" height="500" alt="" /></div> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="LAMP-POSTS" id="LAMP-POSTS">LAMP-POSTS</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> eternal flame of laughter and desire</p> +<p class="i4">Breaks the long darkness with a little glance,</p> +<p class="i0">Till all the gloom is radiant in a dance</p> +<p class="i0">Of yellow hopefulness, reflecting fire</p> +<p class="i0">That dreams from Heaven's lamps as we aspire</p> +<p class="i0">Sadly toward their jubilance—Romance</p> +<p class="i0">Of faery glitter in the streets of <span class="locked">chance—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Those beacon-trees that blossom from the mire</p> +<p class="i0">Within the fog of our despairing gloom;</p> +<p class="i0">In the glum alleys, down the haunted night</p> +<p class="i0">Through tunnelling of subterranean doom,</p> +<p class="i0">Among the grovelling shadows, kingly bright,</p> +<p class="i0">They bear their coronets of golden bloom</p> +<p class="i0">To front our anguish with their brave delight.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="LONDON" id="LONDON">LONDON</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Richer</span> than fields of corn that fire in summer,</p> +<p class="i4">Strange as the moon on forest rising sudden,</p> +<p class="i0">More fearful and beloved than peace or silence,</p> +<p class="i0">Heart with my heart at pace in throbbing fever,</p> +<p class="i0">Calling towards me with a voice incessant.</p> +<p class="i0">Thou that begot me: From whose streets triumphant</p> +<p class="i0">I, coloured fiercely with thy passion, wakened!</p> +<p class="i0">I sucked red wine, not milk, from thy gaunt bosom,</p> +<p class="i0">My senses in thy fearfulness found beauty,</p> +<p class="i0">And honey in thine oaths and lamentations.</p> +<p class="i0">I played about thy feet that know not resting</p> +<p class="i0">And bathed me in the sweat of thine endeavour.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">When on thy gala-nights the thronged lamps glitter,</p> +<p class="i0">Sparkle like sequins, and the plumes of shadow</p> +<p class="i0">With curling smoke, with rain and rippling gutter</p> +<p class="i0">Are tossed in feathered gaiety about <span class="locked">thee—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Thick grow the crowded streets in coloured pageant,</p> +<p class="i0">Kaleidoscope of people, circling, crossing,</p> +<p class="i0">Till the brain frenzies to a thousand patterns,</p> +<p class="i0">While the ears buzz with noises of their laughter;</p> +<p class="i0">Shouts hoarse and coarse and shrill in one great roaring,</p> +<p class="i0">As of the angry ocean in her travail ...</p> +<p class="i0">They haunt me in the tranquil of the forest,</p> +<p class="i0">Those faces pain has marked and toil has mangled;</p> +<p class="i0">Pangs greater than the lonely Crucifixion</p> +<p class="i0">Here crucified each day with lust and hunger,</p> +<p class="i0">Hung up unlovely in the open market;</p> +<p class="i0">Made gay with paper garlands, covered over</p> +<p class="i0">With tinsel loincloth, painted like a puppet,</p> +<p class="i0">Lest the elect in passing should be startled,</p> +<p class="i0">Lest they should smear the blameless brow of honour!</p> +<p class="i0">With bloody shoes and spinning-wheels of traffic</p> +<p class="i0">Vermilion-splashed, the city rushes onward,</p> +<p class="i0">And thorns of death and lust and fruitless labour</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> +<p class="i0">Lie underneath the feet forever dancing.</p> +<p class="i0">Gay tunes are rasped upon a weary fiddle,</p> +<p class="i0">Or voice of moaning in the tinkling cymbal,</p> +<p class="i0">Offspring of humour from disaster's bowels.</p> +<p class="i0">I love the bitter and the rude, the drunken,</p> +<p class="i0">The tramps and thieves that skulk among the shadows;</p> +<p class="i0">The faces red as fire and dead as ashes,</p> +<p class="i0">A million faces scattered like confetti,</p> +<p class="i0">All changing, whirling, trodden into nothing.</p> +<p class="i0">There Beauty wanders strange, an-hungered, weary,</p> +<p class="i0">Throned on a dust-heap, or triumphant reeling</p> +<p class="i0">In mad disorder from the couch of chaos.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">O ragged Beauty, through the mournful houses,</p> +<p class="i0">How frail the feet that lead the dawn towards us,</p> +<p class="i0">Blushed in the sunrise with a great ambition,</p> +<p class="i0">Spent in the evening like a rose of fever,</p> +<p class="i0">Fainting before us paler than a lily.</p> +<p class="i0">While here each day self-satisfied and placid</p> +<p class="i0">Moves opulent among the groves of summer;</p> +<p class="i0">The larks delight, the laughter of the thrushes,</p> +<p class="i0">The kindly peasants in their ruddy orchard,</p> +<p class="i0">Please for a while until the spirit sickens</p> +<p class="i0">And turns her panting to her ancient lover.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Oh, well I know the quickening of the pulses,</p> +<p class="i0">Joy bursting through disgust as field and pasture</p> +<p class="i0">Grow fewer, paler, till the eager houses</p> +<p class="i0">Like hungry animals eat up the spaces</p> +<p class="i0">And close upon the miles that God created,</p> +<p class="i0">With triumph of man's greed. As warriors listening</p> +<p class="i0">To the far rhythm in the drums of battle,</p> +<p class="i0">As seamen hear the mighty tide-wave bursting,</p> +<p class="i0">I feel the scamper of your feet approaching</p> +<p class="i0">And your great starving arms and strangling fingers</p> +<p class="i0">That drag me back to my perverted Heaven!</p> +</div> +<p>1914</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Slowly</span> the pale feet of morning</p> +<p class="i4">Tread out the ashes of midnight still burning with feverous lamplight,</p> +<p class="i2">Colourless, cold, as the rainclad</p> +<p class="i0">Sleep-druggèd river that carries the wreckage of cities out sea-ward.</p> +<p class="i2">Slowly the fingers of dawn-light</p> +<p class="i0">Snuff out the candles that yearned to those Gods of delirium,</p> +<p class="i2">Sleep-huge as shadows grimacing</p> +<p class="i0">From niches made black with the smoke of a fire-spangled passion.</p> +<p class="i2">Smoothly the wild hair of darkness</p> +<p class="i0">Is plaited for rest, and the faces of visions are covered with sleep veils.</p> +<p class="i2">Patiently, Morning, the priestess</p> +<p class="i0">Drones out a psalm for the souls that we damned in the blackness,</p> +<p class="i2">Gashed with the daggers of street-lights,</p> +<p class="i0">Crushing the poisonous berries of sinister <span class="locked">kisses,—</span></p> +<p class="i2">Morning with healing and kindness</p> +<p class="i0">Folds up the dresses dishevelled with terror and laughter,</p> +<p class="i2">Sweeps up the rags of our shadows</p> +<p class="i0">That danced in a red smoke of dreams on the walls of oblivion.</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">What</span> have I to do with them,</p> +<p class="i4">The red athletes in their snow-white clothes?</p> +<p class="i0">They are sun lovers and moon haters,</p> +<p class="i0">Toiling or playing in the fields</p> +<p class="i0">Whereon no shadows lie,</p> +<p class="i0">Pensively, whispering <span class="locked">together—</span></p> +<p class="i0">They are space lovers and haters of the stars,</p> +<p class="i0">Soundly they sleep by night nor ever see</p> +<p class="i0">The tiaraed brows of darkness.</p> +<p class="i0">I weary of their striving upward and onward,</p> +<p class="i0">Away from the green hush of twilight,</p> +<p class="i0">Where silence drips from the trees,</p> +<p class="i0">Away from the solemn avenues</p> +<p class="i0">Where the ghosts blow by</p> +<p class="i0">Along with a drift of leaves.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Let us linger awhile</p> +<p class="i0">Far away from the frets and wars of the world,</p> +<p class="i0">From the strong men</p> +<p class="i0">With their strident hymning voices and marching <span class="locked">feet—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Let us walk alone</p> +<p class="i0">For the love of our own shadows</p> +<p class="i0">Stretching their length on lawns of powdered silver,</p> +<p class="i0">With behind us the sky's grey curtain</p> +<p class="i0">Drawn backward from the moon....</p> +<p class="i0">Let us sit by the fireside</p> +<p class="i0">And hear the wind's shrill orchestras,</p> +<p class="i0">Fiddle and fife and flute,</p> +<p class="i0">And omened bagpipe screaming....</p> +<p class="i0">Let us lie abed and dream</p> +<p class="i0">Through the long summer's morning</p> +<p class="i0">Of trivial things, and beautiful....</p> +<p class="i0">Let us dance with Folly when midnight knocks on his golden gong;</p> +<p class="i0">Let us run through pools of wine</p> +<p class="i0">And be splashed with purple.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> +<p class="i0">Let us, being sick, make merry,</p> +<p class="i0">And rejoice when we are weary.</p> +<p class="i0">Let us sit by our grave as at a banquet,</p> +<p class="i0">Drinking to Death.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">What have we to do with them,</p> +<p class="i0">Sons of the sun and the soil,</p> +<p class="i0">Daughters of the hearth and the field?</p> +<p class="i0">They that remake the world</p> +<p class="i0">Melting our idols for silver,</p> +<p class="i0">Our goblets for gold;</p> +<p class="i0">Tearing our temples down</p> +<p class="i0">To build their red brick villages.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The doomed world faints into mist,</p> +<p class="i0">World of our indolence and dreams,</p> +<p class="i0">And the faces and bodies we love</p> +<p class="i0">Sink through oblivion, and are seen</p> +<p class="i0">Dimly, as divers through the waters.</p> +<p class="i0">Old worlds and new worlds!</p> +<p class="i0">Let us slip between them,</p> +<p class="i0">And float on the stream that floweth <span class="locked">nowhither—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Our red ambitions burn</p> +<p class="i0">To a blue smoke of forgetting;</p> +<p class="i0">Our moonshine faints on the tide that goeth out,</p> +<p class="i0">As the sun leers to the tide that cometh in.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">Among</span> the crumbling arches of decay</p> +<p class="i4">Where all around the red new buildings crept,</p> +<p class="i0">Where huge machines had rolled the past away,</p> +<p class="i0">And the dead princes lay accursed and slept;</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Among the ruins I beheld a man</p> +<p class="i0">Who heeded not the engines as they neared,</p> +<p class="i0">Painting dead carnivals upon a fan,</p> +<p class="i0">He smiled and trifled with his pointed beard.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And here and there were flung a mess of things,</p> +<p class="i0">Tokens and fripperies and faded dresses,</p> +<p class="i0">Kept from the courtships of a thousand kings,</p> +<p class="i0">Tossed roses for the tossing of caresses.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">A carven sabre hung upon the wall,</p> +<p class="i0">A toy thing, with no rust of blood upon it,</p> +<p class="i0">A tray of glasses, an embroidered shawl,</p> +<p class="i0">A muff, a bottle and a feathered bonnet.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And mirrors flashed their argent memories</p> +<p class="i0">Out of the shadows where they laughed and gleamed,</p> +<p class="i0">While ghostly faces of past vanities</p> +<p class="i0">Come back to dream there where they once had dreamed.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The stranger turned his head and bowed to me</p> +<p class="i0">And waved me vaguely to a gilded chair.</p> +<p class="i0">I spoke: "You are a connoisseur, I see,</p> +<p class="i0">You really have a fine collection there."</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">He bowed to me again, and in his hand</p> +<p class="i0">Dangled a string of gems, they caught my eye</p> +<p class="i0">With beckoning lights—I could not <span class="locked">understand—</span></p> +<p class="i0">His fingers seemed to touch them like a sigh</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">So much he loved their frail inconsequence.</p> +<p class="i0">I spoke of progress conquering decay,</p> +<p class="i0">And tired the stillness with my common sense</p> +<p class="i0">Loud-spoken in the jargon of the day.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But I have never met so queer a man,</p> +<p class="i0">"I better love my memories," he said,</p> +<p class="i0">"Look at those painted figures on the fan,</p> +<p class="i0">How delicate and wistful are the dead."</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">As</span> a nun's face from her black draperies</p> +<p class="i4">So full of mystery the moon looks down.</p> +<p class="i0">She dreams of a passion that shall outlive time,</p> +<p class="i0">Of Beauty's face beheld unveiled and close,</p> +<p class="i0">Of God Who blows the worlds like bubbles up,</p> +<p class="i0">Smiling away, to watch them swell and die.</p> +<p class="i0">She dreams of music played among the stars</p> +<p class="i0">When the slow tongues of silence are unloosed.</p> +<p class="i0">Above the city glittering giddily,</p> +<p class="i0">Above the jostling heads of man she moves,</p> +<p class="i0">Strange as a dreamer walking in her sleep.</p> +</div> +<p>1912</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> sun is lord of life and colour,</p> +<p class="i4">Blood of the rose and hyacinth,</p> +<p class="i0">Hair of the sea and forests,</p> +<p class="i0">Crown of the cornfields,</p> +<p class="i0">Body of the hills.</p> +<p class="i0">The moon is the harlot of Death,</p> +<p class="i0">Slaughterer of the Sun,</p> +<p class="i0">Priestess and poisoner she goes</p> +<p class="i0">With all her silver flock of wandering souls,</p> +<p class="i0">Her chant of wailing waters,</p> +<p class="i0">The bed of shimmering dust from which she comes</p> +<p class="i0">Bound all around with bandages of mist....</p> +<p class="i0">The living are as blossoms and fruit on the tree,</p> +<p class="i0">The dead are as lilies and wind on the marshes;</p> +<p class="i0">The living are as cherries that bow to the morning</p> +<p class="i0">Beckoning to the loitering stranger,</p> +<p class="i0">The wind, to sing them his eerie ballads.</p> +<p class="i0">The dead are as frozen skeleton branches</p> +<p class="i0">Whereon the stillness perches like an owl....</p> +<p class="i0">The dead are as snows on the cherry orchard.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="BAHAMA_ISLANDS" id="BAHAMA_ISLANDS">BAHAMA ISLANDS</a></h2> +</div> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">All</span> down the somnolent street where pale tinged houses dream</p> +<p class="i4">The negroes go, black faces crowding together;</p> +<p class="i0">And between the palm leaves dancing with lethargic gestures,</p> +<p class="i0">The bright long water spreads, green as a parrot's <span class="locked">wing—</span></p> +<p class="i0">We have rest here and a monotony of wheels,</p> +<p class="i0">A peaceful noise like bees that moan in <span class="locked">June—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And the sun rusts not, but his brazen heraldries</p> +<p class="i0">Tarnished with evening are burnished with the dawn.</p> +<p class="i0">Yet pain comes stabbing in the night with silver knife through the window,</p> +<p class="i0">A blanched moon full of fear and the burden of <span class="locked">desire—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And nothing rids us utterly of grief,</p> +<p class="i0">We who have pilgrim souls that will not sleep.</p> +</div> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class="stanza nobreak"> +<p class="i0">Moonlight planting the world with lilies, so hushed it seems and scented,</p> +<p class="i0">But in the chapel is a droning where the negroes chant their hymns</p> +<p class="i0">And we in aureoled loneliness go down the street contented,</p> +<p class="i0">With hearts that beat for pleasure to the rhythm of our limbs.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="THOUGHTS_OF_LONDON" id="THOUGHTS_OF_LONDON">THOUGHTS OF LONDON</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Oh,</span> have I bartered and forgotten thee,</p> +<p class="i4">Selling thy tarnished twilights for gold sun,</p> +<p class="i0">Relinquishing thy dreams that used to run</p> +<p class="i0">A ragged troop along thy streets with me?</p> +<p class="i0">Cast off the glitter of thy jewelry,</p> +<p class="i0">Thy lamp-light, starlight, colours crudely spun,</p> +<p class="i0">The eloquent ugliness, the roofs of dun,</p> +<p class="i0">The fogs that swathe in bands of mystery?</p> +<p class="i0">Mother of dreams and laughter and despair!</p> +<p class="i0">Thy joy my Heaven is, my Hell thy pain,</p> +<p class="i0">Thy labyrinthian streets wind everywhere,</p> +<p class="i0">Thy sins and passions baffle me again;</p> +<p class="i0">And all my hopes thy lamps that flick and glare,</p> +<p class="i0">And all my griefs thy beggars in the rain.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="STREETS" id="STREETS">STREETS</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I am</span> going</p> +<p class="i4">Up and down the roads and alleys</p> +<p class="i0">Through the forests of the city,</p> +<p class="i0">Hunting thoughts, hunting dreams.</p> +<p class="i0">My mind shall wander through the streets</p> +<p class="i0">Whistling to a vague adventure,</p> +<p class="i0">Plucking strange fancies where they lurk and peer</p> +<p class="i0">And casting them away.</p> +<p class="i0">Dusk is creeping through the town</p> +<p class="i0">Lighting the lamps and loitering,</p> +<p class="i0">Leaving smoky clouds of shadow,</p> +<p class="i0">Hovering clouds of peace;</p> +<p class="i0">And behind her race the winds</p> +<p class="i0">Whining to the scent of darkness,</p> +<p class="i0">Scattering the dust</p> +<p class="i0">With their swift hounds' feet....</p> +<p class="i0">I am a hunter in the city's jungle,</p> +<p class="i0">Exploring all her secret mysteries.</p> +<p class="i0">I know her well,</p> +<p class="i0">The moaning highways,</p> +<p class="i0">And whispering alleys,</p> +<p class="i0">The chimney-dishevelled roofs</p> +<p class="i0">Where the moon walks delicately</p> +<p class="i0">As a stray spectral cat;</p> +<p class="i0">The little forlorn squares</p> +<p class="i0">Where one tree stands</p> +<p class="i0">Drooping bedraggled hair and fingers</p> +<p class="i0">Over the benches where the people sit</p> +<p class="i0">And stir not from their sullen postures,</p> +<p class="i0">Staring out where evening passes</p> +<p class="i0">With such a sauntering dreamy step.</p> +<p class="i0">I know her parks that spring had decked with garlands,</p> +<p class="i0">Fluttered with flags and child imaginings,</p> +<p class="i0">Powdered with blossoms exquisite and shy,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> +<p class="i0">Haunted with lovers and their last year's ghosts.</p> +<p class="i0">Now stripped with autumn, as the ragpicker</p> +<p class="i0">Wrapped in his tattered coat emaciate</p> +<p class="i0">Picks up the littered wreck of holiday</p> +<p class="i0">To mount the dust heap where our memories lie</p> +<p class="i0">Sprawled in a mess of ruins....</p> +<p class="i0">I know her monotone of gloomy mansions,</p> +<p class="i0">Repeating each in each a dull despair,</p> +<p class="i0">Indifferent and dignified;</p> +<p class="i0">Those tarnished prisons lined with white and gold,</p> +<p class="i0">With dismal silences of velvet carpets,</p> +<p class="i0">Where starving souls are kept</p> +<p class="i0">Feeding upon each other's isolations,</p> +<p class="i0">Not daring to escape....</p> +<p class="i0">Some roads seem steep as mountains, weary me</p> +<p class="i0">With their crude temples built in praise of lust,</p> +<p class="i0">Squatting and smiling at some hideous dream</p> +<p class="i0">Of fat bejewelled goddesses, or gods</p> +<p class="i0">Frock-coated, undismayed by prayers and tears,</p> +<p class="i0">Their hats atilt like halos on their heads....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I love the ribald multi-coloured crowd,</p> +<p class="i0">Its radiant loves, and laughters, all the faces</p> +<p class="i0">That are as songs, as flowers, as hovering stardust....</p> +<p class="i0">I love the memory-crusted taverns</p> +<p class="i0">In which my heart has leapt to a fiddler's tune</p> +<p class="i0">Until the dawn,</p> +<p class="i0">Like a white minstrel stopped to sing</p> +<p class="i0">Fantastic serenades, and called me forth</p> +<p class="i0">Where through the crystal chandeliers of morning</p> +<p class="i0">Dew-prismed shone the sun....</p> +<p class="i0">I love the narrow streets whose crippled houses</p> +<p class="i0">Are bathed in vitriol twilights,</p> +<p class="i0">Spitting smoke,</p> +<p class="i0">Or making oaths and mouths at one another....</p> +<p class="i0">While between</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> +<p class="i0">The flaring tinsel lights of shop and window</p> +<p class="i0">Are gaps of goblin darkness passaging</p> +<p class="i0">Into Cimmerian depths of mystery and sin....</p> +<p class="i0">Wan children stare at me, and in their eyes</p> +<p class="i0">I see the flickering pallor of the lamps,</p> +<p class="i0">Reflective of the solitude of stars....</p> +<p class="i0">And I am thrilled</p> +<p class="i0">With horror and the hope for tragedies....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But, they surround my heart these weary streets,</p> +<p class="i0">Yea, in my soul they cut their mournful paths,</p> +<p class="i0">And through them pass forever</p> +<p class="i0">Those shadow figures trudging through the grey</p> +<p class="i0">Like penitent souls through haunted corridors....</p> +<p class="i0">Ah, Grief, thou wanderer,</p> +<p class="i0">Thou maker of music, lingering and sweet!</p> +<p class="i0">Here dost thou pause to play thy shrill faint tunes,</p> +<p class="i0">Thy fingers touch the stops to loose our tears,</p> +<p class="i0">And shake our hearts, and fold our hands in prayer.</p> +<p class="i0">Through all the winding mazes of the city</p> +<p class="i0">Thy stooping shoulders and thy pitiful face are seen,</p> +<p class="i0">And thou dost stand before the gate of brass,</p> +<p class="i0">And by the iron door,</p> +<p class="i0">Under the windows where we sit and wait</p> +<p class="i0">For some sweet promise to unfold itself</p> +<p class="i0">From the shut scrolls of sleep,</p> +<p class="i0">And at the dusty curtain that divides</p> +<p class="i0">Glory from Death,</p> +<p class="i0">And lover from the lover....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Now in my room I sit</p> +<p class="i0">And round me falls the darkness</p> +<p class="i0">In rustling folds of peace.</p> +<p class="i0">But round my heart I know</p> +<p class="i0">No scarves of sleep and silence can be bound</p> +<p class="i0">To shut the city out.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> +<p class="i0">For I shall feel the rush of streets</p> +<p class="i0">Shooting inquisitive fingers into chaos,</p> +<p class="i0">Piercing the night's remote divinity.</p> +<p class="i0">And I shall never rid me of these scars</p> +<p class="i0">That time and man have cut into my thought,</p> +<p class="i0">Never shake off my shoulders</p> +<p class="i0">The burden of the city's pain.</p> +<p class="i0">Oh, never shall we escape thee,</p> +<p class="i0">Mother of mutiny and want,</p> +<p class="i0">Thou beautiful mistress of Grief....</p> +<p class="i0">Oh, never shall we escape thy insomnial nights</p> +<p class="i0">Beating with ineloquent hands</p> +<p class="i0">The tambourines of time,</p> +<p class="i0">The drums of war;</p> +<p class="i0">Fevering our minds</p> +<p class="i0">With the swollen traffic of thoughts,</p> +<p class="i0">The wheels and rattle of an endless search....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Tired I am with wandering,</p> +<p class="i0">Pricked with the lights and jostled by the worlds,</p> +<p class="i0">More jaded than the Moon, more hopeless, grey,</p> +<p class="i0">Than that sad pilgrim lost amid the stars!...</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Laughter</span> and singing come with the morning,</p> +<p class="i4">When Life doth mask his face with a gilded visor,</p> +<p class="i0">And dons his arrogant clothes.</p> +<p class="i0">But in the night,</p> +<p class="i0">When the unsheathed moon stands naked and pale,</p> +<p class="i0">We too put off our opulent disguise</p> +<p class="i0">And stand alone in the baffling darkness,</p> +<p class="i0">Fighting with our sins,</p> +<p class="i0">Weeping for our loneliness,</p> +<p class="i0">That moon-like gropes forever through the desolate air.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">In</span> the night I hear my loneliness calling</p> +<p class="i4">The long shrill note of the seabird's cry</p> +<p class="i0">Over the fuming spite of breakers,</p> +<p class="i0">Over the brumous, sulky tides.</p> +<p class="i0">All the ocean is craving Heavenward,</p> +<p class="i0">And the wild sky crushes downward toward the sea,</p> +<p class="i0">Where the clouds stoop their passionate bodies,</p> +<p class="i0">And the waves rear their supplicating hands.</p> +<p class="i0">Mine eyes grow tired of looking outward forever,</p> +<p class="i0">Away from the firelight and my sleeping idols,</p> +<p class="i0">To where the darkness is shattered with gusts of white,</p> +<p class="i0">Wings of ship, and bird, and cloud, and wave,</p> +<p class="i0">Flashing their signals of <span class="locked">unrest.—</span></p> +<p class="i0">My longing is a warm thing in a cold street,</p> +<p class="i0">Taking refuge by the chinks of lighted <span class="locked">doors—</span></p> +<p class="i0">My longing is a pale ghost stepping into the sunlight</p> +<p class="i0">That falls in golden curtains sumptuous and <span class="locked">hushed—</span></p> +<p class="i0">My longing is a fiddler making a thin tune through the silence,</p> +<p class="i0">Through the heavy pauses of <span class="locked">sleep.—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Ah! Stop up my ears lest I hear my longing call,</p> +<p class="i0">Lest I hear my loneliness crying!</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="SUNDAY" id="SUNDAY">SUNDAY</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">How</span> beautiful is the world's delight,</p> +<p class="i4">How trivial, yet as sweet as a passing dream</p> +<p class="i0">That makes the harassed sleeper in the night</p> +<p class="i0">Smile, and on waking sigh. Forever the stream</p> +<p class="i0">Of time moves onward; as in coloured boats</p> +<p class="i0">A thousand souls go sailing,</p> +<p class="i0">And stilly down the tide my spirit floats</p> +<p class="i0">Singing or wailing</p> +<p class="i0">To the tune the waters make. Here we forget a space</p> +<p class="i0">The crawling sins of man that sting and gloat,</p> +<p class="i0">The pain and fear that haggers every face,</p> +<p class="i0">But vaguely and remote</p> +<p class="i0">The strident trumpet and the clamorous voices <span class="locked">sound—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Grief doth forget to curse her Gods or pray,</p> +<p class="i0">While pagan follies squander all around</p> +<p class="i0">Their brief gay hours in holiday;</p> +<p class="i0">For all prayers die when laughter is on the <span class="locked">lips.—</span></p> +<p class="i0">How frail the moods of joy, how sweet to see them pass</p> +<p class="i0">Like bubbles on the tide, like coloured ships</p> +<p class="i0">Sailing on glass!</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> leaves are singing, and the sea,</p> +<p class="i4">And the sand in the wind,</p> +<p class="i0">Blown grass and hurrying people;</p> +<p class="i0">Full of melodious strings and lutes and flutes</p> +<p class="i0">Rustling and whispering forever.</p> +<p class="i0">The sad music of Life is in my ears,</p> +<p class="i0">Never ceasing, never asleep,</p> +<p class="i0">And my heart is strung between chord and chord</p> +<p class="i0">Like a crucifix in a rosary.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">How</span> soundly sleepeth the fool,</p> +<p class="i4">With profane snore taunting the solemn-pillared <span class="locked">night—</span></p> +<p class="i0">He hath no dreams of restless, subtle forms</p> +<p class="i0">That shift across a feverish vacancy;</p> +<p class="i0">Nor doth he hear the drums of time</p> +<p class="i0">Beating against oblivion tunes of war,</p> +<p class="i0">Goading the crippled hours on their endless <span class="locked">march—</span></p> +<p class="i0">But waketh to yawn in the face of the sun,</p> +<p class="i0">Then turneth back to sleep....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">How soundly the wise man sleepeth,</p> +<p class="i0">Couched royally in the purple of the dark</p> +<p class="i0">With his white mistress, <span class="locked">Peace—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And when the morning stealeth on his rest,</p> +<p class="i0">As a rose he doth pluck her from the spreading tree of days,</p> +<p class="i0">And reviveth his heart</p> +<p class="i0">With the perfume of the world....</p> +<p class="i0">But 'twixt the wise and the foolish</p> +<p class="i0">Many nights shed sorrow and fear,</p> +<p class="i0">And nets are spread for timid feet,</p> +<p class="i0">And the waves beat on the shifting sand....</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Moonlit</span> lilacs under the window,</p> +<p class="i4">And the pale smell of their falling blossoms,</p> +<p class="i0">And the white floating beams like luminous moths</p> +<p class="i0">Fluttering from bloom to bloom.</p> +<p class="i0">Sprays of lilac flowers</p> +<p class="i0">Frothing at the green verge of midnight waves,</p> +<p class="i0">Frozen to motionless icicles.</p> +<p class="i0">Moonlight flows over me,</p> +<p class="i0">Spreads her bright watery hair over my face,</p> +<p class="i0">Full of illicit, marvellous perfumes</p> +<p class="i0">Wreathed with syringa and plaited with hyacinths;</p> +<p class="i0">Hair of the moonlight falling about me,</p> +<p class="i0">Straight and cool as the drooping tresses of rain.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Old</span> woman forever sitting</p> +<p class="i4">Alone in the large hotel under the fans,</p> +<p class="i0">Infinitely alone where around you spin</p> +<p class="i0">So many lives like painted tops,</p> +<p class="i0">Smearing the void a moment with their hues,</p> +<p class="i0">Giddily catching at balance as they pause.</p> +<p class="i0">What crime was yours, old woman,</p> +<p class="i0">What sin against the Earth</p> +<p class="i0">That she should give you now</p> +<p class="i0">A cap of dust and furrows on your cheeks,</p> +<p class="i0">And at the end</p> +<p class="i0">A hole dug in the mould?</p> +<p class="i0">Is death the promise of Fate's last rebound,</p> +<p class="i0">Revenge of Time that waits within the clock</p> +<p class="i0">And laughs awry at life,</p> +<p class="i0">For a kiss, for a dream, for a child that you bore,</p> +<p class="i0">For a fresh rose pinned to your bosom?</p> +<p class="i0">The owl is in your spirit,</p> +<p class="i0">Blinking through the oldest tree of <span class="locked">wisdom—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And now your fingers are weaving</p> +<p class="i0">The cold pale invisible blossoms of death</p> +<p class="i0">Into a waxen wreath,</p> +<p class="i0">And Time</p> +<p class="i0">Sits down beside you knitting with quick hands</p> +<p class="i0">Grey counterpanes to cover up a grave!</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Loneliness</span> I love,</p> +<p class="i4">And that is why they have called me forth into the streets.</p> +<p class="i0">Loneliness I love,</p> +<p class="i0">But the crowd has clutched at me with fawning hands,...</p> +<p class="i0">My spirit speaks</p> +<p class="i0">In the scented quietness of a divine melancholy</p> +<p class="i0">Murmuring the tunes</p> +<p class="i0">For which my dreams are the delicate instruments.</p> +<p class="i0">The shadowy silences</p> +<p class="i0">Have made me beautiful and dressed me in velvet dignities,</p> +<p class="i0">And that is why</p> +<p class="i0">The noise of tambourines has maddened my soul into dancing,</p> +<p class="i0">And I am clad</p> +<p class="i0">In the lust-lipped whispering of furtive caresses.</p> +<p class="i0">Holiness I love,</p> +<p class="i0">And touching the virginal pierced feet of martyrs,</p> +<p class="i0">The crucified feet</p> +<p class="i0">Nestled among lilies and hallowing candles.</p> +<p class="i0">Holiness I love</p> +<p class="i0">And the melodious absolution falling on my sins.</p> +<p class="i0">But that is why</p> +<p class="i0">Blasphemous priests have forced my hands to tear</p> +<p class="i0">The vesture of secrecy</p> +<p class="i0">Which hides the human nakedness of God.</p> +</div> + +<div class="tb">* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span></div> + + +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I met</span> an Indian underneath a tree, under a ragged tree,</p> +<p class="i4">His face was yellow and wrinkled like some stone whereon a God had writ</p> +<p class="i0">And his emaciated fingers drew circles in the dust....</p> +<p class="i0">I bent my mouth to his ear, crying "O father, O Prophet!</p> +<p class="i0">I have wandered far over the earth troubled with doubts that will not let me rest,</p> +<p class="i0">Canst thou not tell me with all thy wizardries and meditations</p> +<p class="i0">The purpose of our lives upon this world,</p> +<p class="i0">The secret truth Earth shelters in her womb?"</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But he was listening to the whispering of the mountains,</p> +<p class="i0">To the boom of God's paces on the rocks,</p> +<p class="i0">And the swishing steps of his followers in the rivers.</p> +<p class="i0">Then suddenly he pointed to the arched doorway in between the hills,</p> +<p class="i0">And the mysterious purple curtain of the dusk that drooped from cliff to cliff.</p> +<p class="i0">I saw in his eyes the vision of highborn ghosts,</p> +<p class="i0">Of divine ivory faces wreathed with the flowers of <span class="locked">wisdom—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And I knew that he had found only the half-spoken promises of Heaven....</p> +</div> + +<div class="tb">* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I saw a drunkard laughing in a tavern,</p> +<p class="i0">His cup was tilted and the wine spilt crimson on the sprawled arms and distracted hair of a woman fallen asleep,</p> +<p class="i0">I watched him there and wondered</p> +<p class="i0">If ever the bubbling goblins of wine had whispered him life's secret.</p> +<p class="i0">But he raised the cup of his carousals and gazed at emptiness,</p> +<p class="i0">Toasting some wild, irreverent dream,</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> +<p class="i0">Some flame-red salamander pirouetting among the dead waste ashes of <span class="locked">time—</span></p> +<p class="i0">And I knew that he had found only the secrets of sleep....</p> +</div> + +<div class="tb">* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">A woman sat within a little house,</p> +<p class="i0">Scolding and singing ballads to her child,</p> +<p class="i0">And all around came the quarrel of children's voices.</p> +<p class="i0">Yet one boy sat apart within the furthest corner of the room</p> +<p class="i0">Painting an animal with coloured chalks.</p> +<p class="i0">I lingered by the fire thinking of life, its vanities and mysteries,</p> +<p class="i0">But the woman did not heed me,</p> +<p class="i0">Nor her pale son that sat so hunched and still,</p> +<p class="i0">Painting his visions with the broken chalks,</p> +<p class="i0">For they had discovered the absorbing painful secrets of giving birth....</p> +</div> + +<div class="tb">* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">It was evening as I wandered,</p> +<p class="i0">By a lake two lovers leaned, smiling to see their faces in the water,</p> +<p class="i0">For they had found within each other's souls</p> +<p class="i0">An argent flattering mirror wherein to gaze and see their faces change with all the moods and shadows of the day....</p> +<p class="i0">Not here should I discover the answer to bring light into my darkness,</p> +<p class="i0">Into the dim psychic crystals of my soul opalled with the changing colours of <span class="locked">unrest—</span></p> +<p class="i0">So I went away into the loneliness, asking the forests and the mountains and the sea</p> +<p class="i0">The knowledge of life's baffling mysteries.</p> +<p class="i0">But they were roaring in a wind of memories,</p> +<p class="i0">Gathering the rain into their bodies to make them fierce and strong,</p> +<p class="i0">Heaving their shoulders upward to the morning,</p> +<p class="i0">Crowning their foreheads with sunlight.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> +<p class="i0">And I knew that they were Life itself,</p> +<p class="i0">The pushing vehemence that rushes from the strangling arms of Death,</p> +<p class="i0">Nor could they guess</p> +<p class="i0">The purpose of God's beauty in their joy....</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">From</span> the fathomless depth of my boredom, from the</p> +<p class="i4">last room of its emptiness, an elf has come to play</p> +<p class="i0">with me.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">As comes a little gold spider to a prison cell teasing the</p> +<p class="i0">criminal from his darkness to tear at a thread of sunlight,</p> +<p class="i0">and kiss the mouth of a shy morning whispering through</p> +<p class="i0">the window.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">An elf has come to dance with me, blown like a leaf on</p> +<p class="i0">the path of my autumn lassitude.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Sprightly one, dervish! You are the living adventure</p> +<p class="i0">born of my dead childhood, you are the small god in the</p> +<p class="i0">temples of my unbelief, you are the bird that nests in ruined</p> +<p class="i0">temples, laying your silver eggs by moonlight and singing</p> +<p class="i0">when the pagan birds are still.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">You are the dream-sower in the fields of sleep, you have</p> +<p class="i0">jingled the star-bells on the hood of darkness, and from the</p> +<p class="i0">knarled, stark tree of time have flung me the apple of</p> +<p class="i0">eternal laughter.</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">Lolling</span> in snow, like kings in ermine coats, the gilt-crowned</p> +<p class="i4">bottles lie.... Our thoughts are dangled in</p> +<p class="i0">a laughter of leaves as bunches of blue and yellow grapes</p> +<p class="i0">for faery beggars, for ragged fancies to pluck and taste.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Our music shall be the minstrelsy of ghostly ballad-mongers</p> +<p class="i0">that have stolen from the ashen banquets of death to bless</p> +<p class="i0">our revels.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Our spirits shall flit like those winged faces of cherubs</p> +<p class="i0">that never can alight, but swing forever on the azure ribbons</p> +<p class="i0">of the sky.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And all our dreams and kisses shall be as the rose-leaves</p> +<p class="i0">falling on ancient festivals, as the shadows of rose-leaves</p> +<p class="i0">falling on phantom lovers in the sleep-pillared temples of</p> +<p class="i0">our first archaic passion.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> roots of our longing are probing the heart of night,</p> +<p class="i4">delving and twining together that our ultimate truth</p> +<p class="i0">may grow out of the darkness that bewilders and nourishes.</p> +<p class="i0">Out of the earth, the dust, the crystals of frost that bind</p> +<p class="i0">themselves like a tight crown over our heads.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Through the mould and the frost our hair and fingers shall</p> +<p class="i0">prick their spears of pallor and flame, and in the green</p> +<p class="i0">ardour of our up-rushing leaves the red goblets of fire</p> +<p class="i0">shall open, and masses of white flowers, milky as the star-sprays</p> +<p class="i0">that droop over Heaven, shall splash their bright</p> +<p class="i0">foam from the darkness, as waves that rise and break into</p> +<p class="i0">a fountain of blossoms.</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="VAHDAH" id="VAHDAH">VAHDAH</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Sun-aureoled</span> lilies are your priestesses,</p> +<p class="i4">They stand like choirs in silver surplices,</p> +<p class="i0">Melodious streams of silence fill the room,</p> +<p class="i0">And pensive listeners lean within the gloom</p> +<p class="i0">Of purple quietness. A laughter full of <span class="locked">holiness—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Like the wild bells of lilies ringing in the loneliness</p> +<p class="i0">Of star-reflected gardens walled with <span class="locked">night,—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Thrills from your soul which empties its delight</p> +<p class="i0">As rain on lilies, or as sunlight falling slenderly</p> +<p class="i0">To gild their ivory temples, and as moonlight shutting tenderly</p> +<p class="i0">Their alabaster doors.... A white peace grows,</p> +<p class="i0">And love, within your spirit like a lily and a rose.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap4"><span class="smcap1">Starlit</span> silences!</p> +<p class="i4">Breeding fears, swarming with sudden deaths,</p> +<p class="i0">With separations, burdens, and despairs,</p> +<p class="i0">Weaving slow eerie fancies in my brain ...</p> +<p class="i0">Forlorn shorn monks go down the cloisters of quietness</p> +<p class="i0">With tortured crucifixes cut in ivory</p> +<p class="i0">Clasped in their praying hands,</p> +<p class="i0">And psalmed with lips renunciate of kisses ...</p> +<p class="i0">Forgotten days are painted on the night</p> +<p class="i0">In parables and symbols of remorse</p> +<p class="i0">That jeer from out the wind-stirred tapestries.</p> +<p class="i0">The hangman's rope coils upward like a snake</p> +<p class="i0">Out of the death-coloured waters,</p> +<p class="i0">While the black barges pass</p> +<p class="i0">Funereal,</p> +<p class="i0">Carrying doom from mist to mist....</p> +<p class="i0">And madmen steal about the wintry parks</p> +<p class="i0">Under the high glum walls of an asylum,</p> +<p class="i0">With eyes lit up in phosphorescent ecstasies,</p> +<p class="i0">With fumbling hands</p> +<p class="i0">That grope for things invisibly obscene.</p> +<p class="i0">Even the clock</p> +<p class="i0">Grown idiot too from keeping madmen's time</p> +<p class="i0">Gibbers the hours away in irrelevant chimes....</p> +<p class="i0">Silence embalms the dead with scented bands</p> +<p class="i0">And is the watchman to deserted houses,</p> +<p class="i0">And draws the violet curtain on the day,</p> +<p class="i0">And fits a mask of silver to the moon.</p> +<p class="i0">Silence brings corpses from the crypts of memory</p> +<p class="i0">And sits them round us in the empty chairs,</p> +<p class="i0">Opens the secret chambers of our hopes</p> +<p class="i0">And shows us there in awful pantomime</p> +<p class="i0">Lust wreathing love with poppies and with ashes,</p> +<p class="i0">And Beauty dressing Sin for carnival,</p> +<p class="i0">And Peace made drunken with a cup of blood.</p> +<p class="i0">It winds as ivy round our listening thoughts</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> +<p class="i0">Shutting all sounds away, enclosing us</p> +<p class="i0">Within its stifled virid twilight....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Cry out, sing, make noises,</p> +<p class="i0">Bacchantes, revellers, clowns!</p> +<p class="i0">Bring myriad lamps in clusters, likening grapes</p> +<p class="i0">That spill the wine of light into our gloom;</p> +<p class="i0">Pressing against our lips</p> +<p class="i0">The red grape-kisses of pleasure.</p> +<p class="i0">Bring the hounds,</p> +<p class="i0">The garlanded white ones,</p> +<p class="i0">To bay and snarl and tear the flying rags</p> +<p class="i0">Of stillness shadowing away!</p> +<p class="i0">Lean over me, O Life,</p> +<p class="i0">And whisper all thy lying flatteries</p> +<p class="i0">That drag me back from Silence and her dead.</p> +<p class="i0">I have kept vigil on my soul too long</p> +<p class="i0">Within this vast cathedral of dim sleep,</p> +<p class="i0">Languidly gathering</p> +<p class="i0">The cold grey lilies of the stars</p> +<p class="i0">To slip between her passive waxen hands....</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> mountain is an Emperor.</p> +<p class="i4">The clouds are his beard, and the stars his diadem;</p> +<p class="i0">His bauble is the moon;</p> +<p class="i0">He is dressed in silver forests, and the mist his train;</p> +<p class="i0">His feet are two white rivers.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I know</span> what happiness <span class="locked">is—</span></p> +<p class="i4">It is the negation of thought,</p> +<p class="i0">The shutting off</p> +<p class="i0">Of all those brooding phantoms that surround</p> +<p class="i0">As dank trees in a forest</p> +<p class="i0">Cutting the daylight into rags,</p> +<p class="i0">Caging the sun</p> +<p class="i0">In rusted prison bars.</p> +<p class="i0">Happiness loves to lie at a river's edge</p> +<p class="i0">And make no song,</p> +<p class="i0">But listen to the water's murmuring wisdom,</p> +<p class="i0">The kissing touch of leaves wind-bowed together,</p> +<p class="i0">The feathery swish of cloud wings on a hill;</p> +<p class="i0">Opening wide the violet-petalled doors</p> +<p class="i0">Of every shy and cloistered sense,</p> +<p class="i0">That all the scent and music of the world</p> +<p class="i0">May rush into the soul.</p> +<p class="i0">And happiness expands</p> +<p class="i0">The rainbow arch for a procession of dreams,</p> +<p class="i0">For moth-like fancies winged with evening,</p> +<p class="i0">For dove-breasted silences,</p> +<p class="i0">For shadowy reveries</p> +<p class="i0">And starry pilgrims....</p> +<p class="i0">I know what happiness <span class="locked">is—</span></p> +<p class="i0">It is the giving back to Earth</p> +<p class="i0">Of all our furtive thefts,</p> +<p class="i0">The lurid jewels that we stole away</p> +<p class="i0">From passion, sin and pain,</p> +<p class="i0">Because they glittered strangely, luring us</p> +<p class="i0">With their forbidden beauty.</p> +<p class="i0">Because our childish fingers curiously</p> +<p class="i0">Crave the pale secrets of the moon</p> +<p class="i0">And grope for dangerous toys.</p> +<p class="i0">Happiness comes in giving back to Earth</p> +<p class="i0">The things we took from her with violent hands,</p> +<p class="i0">Remembering only</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> +<p class="i0">That her dust is our garment,</p> +<p class="i0">Her fruits our endeavour,</p> +<p class="i0">Her waters our priestess,</p> +<p class="i0">Her leaves our interpreters to God,</p> +<p class="i0">Her hills our infinite patience.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">Long</span> hath the pen lain idle in my hand,</p> +<p class="i4">Or traced slow sentences without a rhyme,</p> +<p class="i0">Words strung at random to beguile the time</p> +<p class="i0">As children threading beads upon a strand.</p> +<p class="i0">I have strayed far away from fairyland</p> +<p class="i0">Whose little hills grow steep and hard to climb;</p> +<p class="i0">I creep along the valleys in the slime,</p> +<p class="i0">Or hide me like an ostrich in the sand.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">For I have sought a mellow idleness,</p> +<p class="i0">To be forever buried as a fly</p> +<p class="i0">Lies casketed in amber; where the stress</p> +<p class="i0">Of peril, hunger, Death can never cry</p> +<p class="i0">To wake me from my sanguine weariness,</p> +<p class="i0">Or cloud the lucid stillness with a sigh.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I laid</span> my heart on a stone</p> +<p class="i4">And stood in the wood to watch.</p> +<p class="i0">Presently a priest came by;</p> +<p class="i0">He hid it in his cowl</p> +<p class="i0">And buried it in the graveyard.</p> +<p class="i0">Now is it grown into a cyclamen tree,</p> +<p class="i0">Clustering over the wall,</p> +<p class="i0">Beckoning far along the twilight road;</p> +<p class="i0">Nodding and singing where the cypress moans,</p> +<p class="i0">Ringing its little bells while the great bell tolls.</p> +<p class="i0">Whiter than ghosts are its flowers,</p> +<p class="i0">And its scent is sweeter than ghostly <span class="locked">music—</span></p> +<p class="i0">All the men and priests that pass</p> +<p class="i0">In the night when the stars lean down,</p> +<p class="i0">Smell the heavy fragrance there</p> +<p class="i0">And feel the gentle touch of dripping dew.</p> +<p class="i0">Then they cross themselves and go</p> +<p class="i0">Hurriedly, warily,</p> +<p class="i0">Dreaming of pale women,</p> +<p class="i0">Under the pale stars.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> cold light steals into my soul</p> +<p class="i4">Revealing its emptiness,</p> +<p class="i0">The cold winds batter at my heart</p> +<p class="i0">And make its lonely tenant shake with <span class="locked">fear—</span></p> +<p class="i0">The raindrops slide across the window-glass</p> +<p class="i0">Like sighs that fall from patient weariness;</p> +<p class="i0">And coldly smiling time</p> +<p class="i0">Peers with his clock-face, ticking in my brain</p> +<p class="i0">The pulse of a monotonous remorse.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">The</span> caravans of spring are in the town,</p> +<p class="i4">Lighting their brilliant torches in the park,</p> +<p class="i0">Dangling their bells, engirdling each stark</p> +<p class="i0">Black tree with coloured rings. The houses frown</p> +<p class="i0">Against the beryl sky, yet wear a crown</p> +<p class="i0">Of hazy dream, or flash a golden spark</p> +<p class="i0">Of sun-fire in their windows glum and dark;</p> +<p class="i0">The people blow like petals up and down.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">But London tires at evening, each grey street</p> +<p class="i0">Mourns as the slow procession passes by,</p> +<p class="i0">Traffic and crowd, and Time on loitering feet.</p> +<p class="i0">Spring droops his lute, the slender echoes sigh,</p> +<p class="i0">And wistfully the jaded revellers meet,</p> +<p class="i0">Their pomp in tatters and their wreaths awry.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I dread</span> the beauty of approaching spring</p> +<p class="i4">Now the old month is dead and the young moon</p> +<p class="i0">Has pierced my heart with her sharp silver horns.</p> +<p class="i0">My tired soul is startled out of sleep</p> +<p class="i0">By all the urging joy of bud and leaf,</p> +<p class="i0">And in the barren yard where I have paced</p> +<p class="i0">Content with prison and despair's monotony,</p> +<p class="i0">The trees break into music wild and shrill,</p> +<p class="i0">And flowers come out like stars amid the dust,</p> +<p class="i0">Bewildering my loneliness with beauty....</p> +<p class="i0">For winter with her melancholy face</p> +<p class="i0">Shone back my miseries as in a glass,</p> +<p class="i0">And wept and whined in harmony with me;</p> +<p class="i0">And I could listen by the withering ashes</p> +<p class="i0">To the ill-omened drum of dropping rain,</p> +<p class="i0">And sighing harken sighs and mute feel silence,</p> +<p class="i0">And cold stretch forth my hand into the snows,</p> +<p class="i0">And hating, hear the laughter of the wind</p> +<p class="i0">Whose mad hands tear the sky.</p> +<p class="i0">But now again the promise of the spring</p> +<p class="i0">Shall lift my martyred spirit from the dust,</p> +<p class="i0">To where the lilied altar shines with peace,</p> +<p class="i0">And the white priestess comes</p> +<p class="i0">Crowning each candle with a gold desire</p> +<p class="i0">Engirdling with pallors</p> +<p class="i0">The forehead of a divine ghost.</p> +<p class="i0">Ah, but they die, these gods, the candles dwindle</p> +<p class="i0">And spring is but a radiant beckoning</p> +<p class="i0">To death that follows slowly, silently....</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">O flitting swallows, fleeting laugh of wind,</p> +<p class="i0">O flash of silver in the wings of dawn</p> +<p class="i0">That are spread out and closed. O hush of night</p> +<p class="i0">Breathless with love, oh swish of whispering tide</p> +<p class="i0">That swells and shrinks upon the dreaming shore.</p> +<p class="i0">O gentle eyes of children wonder-wide</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> +<p class="i0">That grow too soon to weariness and close;</p> +<p class="i0">O scuttling run of rabbit on the hills,</p> +<p class="i0">And flight of lazy rooks above the elm;</p> +<p class="i0">O birds' eggs frail, tinged faintly, nestled close,</p> +<p class="i0">And mystery of flower in the bud.</p> +<p class="i0">O burning galaxy of buttercups,</p> +<p class="i0">And drone of bees above the pouting <span class="locked">rose,—</span></p> +<p class="i0">O twilit lovers stilled with reverie</p> +<p class="i0">And footprints of them swerving on the sand</p> +<p class="i0">And darkness of them clasped against the sky!</p> +<p class="i0">I see beyond the glory of your days</p> +<p class="i0">The grey days marching one behind the other</p> +<p class="i0">To the bleak tunes of silence.</p> +<p class="i0">When mists shall smear the radiance of the moon</p> +<p class="i0">And the lean thief shall pass,</p> +<p class="i0">Snatching the glittering toys away from love,</p> +<p class="i0">Plucking the feathers from the wings of peace.</p> +<p class="i0">And Life herself, grown old and crooked now,</p> +<p class="i0">Shall go the way that her long shadow points,</p> +<p class="i0">Her long black shadow down the roads of sleep.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="TO_MY_FATHER" id="TO_MY_FATHER">TO MY FATHER</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap1"><span class="smcap1">I cannot</span> think that you have gone away,</p> +<p class="i4">You loved the earth—and life lit up your eyes,</p> +<p class="i0">And flickered in your smile that would surmise</p> +<p class="i0">Death as a song, a poem, or a play.</p> +<p class="i0">You were reborn afresh with every day,</p> +<p class="i0">And baffled fortune in some new disguise.</p> +<p class="i0">Ah! can it perish when the body dies,</p> +<p class="i0">Such youth, such love, such passion to be gay?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">We shall not see you come to us and leave</p> +<p class="i0">A conqueror—nor catch on fairy wing</p> +<p class="i0">Some slender fancy—nor new wonders weave</p> +<p class="i0">Upon the loom of your imagining.</p> +<p class="i0">The world is wearier, grown dark to grieve</p> +<p class="i0">Her child that was a pilgrim and a king.</p> +</div> +<p>1917</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="TO_MY_MOTHER" id="TO_MY_MOTHER">TO MY MOTHER</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">At</span> evening when the twilight curtains fall,</p> +<p class="i4">Before the lamps are lit within my room,</p> +<p class="i0">My memories hang bright upon the gloom,</p> +<p class="i0">Like ancient frescoes painted on the wall.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And I can hear the call of birds and bells</p> +<p class="i0">And shadowy sound of waves, and wind through leaves</p> +<p class="i0">And wind that rustles through the burnished sheaves,</p> +<p class="i0">And far off voices whispering farewells.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I dream again the joy I used to know</p> +<p class="i0">While straying by the sea that hardly sighed</p> +<p class="i0">A sorrow in my singing, as the tide</p> +<p class="i0">Crept up to clasp me, smiled, and let me go.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">And I remember all the glad lost hours,</p> +<p class="i0">The racing of brown rabbits on the hill,</p> +<p class="i0">The winds that prowled around the lonely mill,</p> +<p class="i0">Laburnum laughter, music of the flowers.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The berries plucked with loitering delight,</p> +<p class="i0">Staining the dusk with purple, till the thought</p> +<p class="i0">Of starry little ghosts behind us caught</p> +<p class="i0">Our hearts and made us fearful of the night.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The London evenings huddled in the rain</p> +<p class="i0">Whose misty prisms shone with lamplight pale,</p> +<p class="i0">Making our hearts seem sinister and frail,</p> +<p class="i0">Fainting our thoughts with mystery and pain.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">I have a world of memories to dream,</p> +<p class="i0">To touch with loving fingers as a sigh</p> +<p class="i0">Revives a little flame and lets it die.</p> +<p class="i0">Ah, were the days as lovely as they seem</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">Now that they look so peaceful lying dead?</p> +<p class="i0">And is it all the hope of Joy we have,</p> +<p class="i0">The broken trophies of the things she gave</p> +<p class="i0">And took away to give us dreams instead?</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i0">The things we love and lose before we find</p> +<p class="i0">The way to love them well enough and keep,</p> +<p class="i0">That now are woven on the looms of sleep</p> +<p class="i0">That now are only music of the wind.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">London</span> grows sad at evening,</p> +<p class="i4">And we at the windows sit</p> +<p class="i0">To watch her moods,</p> +<p class="i0">Wearying with her.</p> +<p class="i0">Even a noise of laughter from the street</p> +<p class="i0">Sounds in our ears</p> +<p class="i0">Like something dropped and shattered on the stone.</p> +<p class="i0">Then her musician comes,</p> +<p class="i0">A wandering, malicious spirit;</p> +<p class="i0">The organ grinder, playing those old tunes</p> +<p class="i0">We know too well,</p> +<p class="i0">That hurt us with fatigue.</p> +<p class="i0">Till Hope like a harlequin,</p> +<p class="i0">His glitter hidden in a ragged coat,</p> +<p class="i0">The lamplighter, goes by,</p> +<p class="i0">Planting his pale flames in the dusk.</p> +</div> +<p>1918</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap5"><span class="smcap1">Ah!</span> the spring,</p> +<p class="i4">Sudden, surprising,</p> +<p class="i0">Melting the iron scales around the heart</p> +<p class="i0">As the earliest sun</p> +<p class="i0">Melts the cold case of dew on <span class="locked">leaves—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Ah! the streets like odorous rivers</p> +<p class="i0">Chanting the echoes of <span class="locked">seas—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Ah! the flowers in shop-windows</p> +<p class="i0">Beseeching, persuasive,</p> +<p class="i0">Reluctant to let their beauty flow away</p> +<p class="i0">From thoughts that mirror them in <span class="locked">passing—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Beautiful exiles</p> +<p class="i0">Fluttering in their chains,</p> +<p class="i0">Thrilled with the noise of bees,</p> +<p class="i0">The music of meadows</p> +<p class="i0">Still hovering around <span class="locked">them—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Flower fingers, flower-touches,</p> +<p class="i0">Passional, reminiscent,</p> +<p class="i0">Rippling the soul's still <span class="locked">waters—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Flower galaxies,</p> +<p class="i0">Enamelled bridges arching from dream to dream,</p> +<p class="i0">Garlands splashing over the eyes of satyrs,</p> +<p class="i0">The furtive woodland eyes,</p> +<p class="i0">The pointed inquisitive <span class="locked">ears—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Pallid flowers foaming on hill-crests,</p> +<p class="i0">Gushing heavenwards</p> +<p class="i0">From a sea of stormy <span class="locked">mountains—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Opening and shutting exquisite doors,</p> +<p class="i0">As the senses open to music,</p> +<p class="i0">Shut upon silence,</p> +<p class="i0">Open to beauty,</p> +<p class="i0">Close their caskets upon <span class="locked">love—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Ah! the flowers in the windows,</p> +<p class="i0">Amorous of poets</p> +<p class="i0">Making a chaplet of song!</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="newpage"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak left"><a name="THE_UNDERTONE_OF_THE_VOLGA_BOAT_SONG" id="THE_UNDERTONE_OF_THE_VOLGA_BOAT_SONG">THE UNDERTONE OF THE VOLGA BOAT SONG</a></h2> +</div> + +<div class="poem-container nobreak"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="drop-cap3"><span class="smcap1">O</span> God,</p> +<p class="i4">We have nothing to give Thee,</p> +<p class="i0">We are as fog that drifts on the river,</p> +<p class="i0">As the wailing of voices blown through <span class="locked">mist—</span></p> +<p class="i0">We are as those that carry bags of dust</p> +<p class="i0">Heaping them with the <span class="locked">dust—</span></p> +<p class="i0">We are covered with the dust of days,</p> +<p class="i0">We are pale from the dust of dreamless nights</p> +<p class="i0">Shaken before we were <span class="locked">rested—</span></p> +<p class="i0">At dawn we are found by the sun</p> +<p class="i0">Adrift, labouring, thinking of <span class="locked">nothing—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Our wine is bitter, it has made us drunk,</p> +<p class="i0">Our bread is coarse,</p> +<p class="i0">We are always athirst and hungry....</p> +<p class="i0">O God, we have been patient,</p> +<p class="i0">We have grown old in weariness,</p> +<p class="i0">Our lives are as the labouring of the <span class="locked">wind—</span></p> +<p class="i0">We are huddled together in the dawn,</p> +<p class="i0">The sleeping houses pass us,</p> +<p class="i0">The dawn is a field of nettles</p> +<p class="i0">Stinging us from rest....</p> +<p class="i0">O God,</p> +<p class="i0">We have nothing to give Thee but patience,</p> +<p class="i0">We have suffered evil and believed Thee good,</p> +<p class="i0">Thy face is the gentleness of the distance,</p> +<p class="i0">The river is placid with the thought of <span class="locked">Thee—</span></p> +<p class="i0">Our tears have washed us harder than the rocks,</p> +<p class="i0">And like the rocks we wait,</p> +<p class="i0">Grow old with waiting....</p> +<p class="i0">Weariness, the river</p> +<p class="i0">Flowing through banks of sleep....</p> +<p class="i0">O God, we have nothing to give Thee,</p> +<p class="i0">Take our great weariness,</p> +<p class="i0">We that have never lived and never slept,</p> +<p class="i0">Take our long weariness, O God!...</p> +</div> +<p>1919</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="newpage p4 transnote"> +<h2 class="nobreak"><a name="Transcribers_Notes" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcribers' Notes:</a></h2> + +<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were not changed.</p> + +<p>Ellipses are reproduced as printed in the original book.</p> + +<p>Most of the poems' titles appear only in the Table of Contents, not with +the poems themselves.</p> + +<p>When the Transcriber could not to determine whether a verse at the top +of a page was a new stanza or part of the stanza on the previous page, +the latter was assumed.</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_42">42</a>: "sombring" was printed that way.</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_89">89</a>: "Because I can not" was printed with "can" and "not" as +separate words.</p> +</div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45643 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/45643-h/images/cover.jpg b/45643-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9681f31 --- /dev/null +++ b/45643-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/45643-h/images/i_005.jpg b/45643-h/images/i_005.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..63e54cf --- /dev/null +++ b/45643-h/images/i_005.jpg diff --git a/45643-h/images/i_005a.jpg b/45643-h/images/i_005a.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..938340a --- /dev/null +++ b/45643-h/images/i_005a.jpg diff --git a/45643-h/images/i_011.jpg b/45643-h/images/i_011.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e64f9c --- /dev/null +++ b/45643-h/images/i_011.jpg diff --git a/45643-h/images/i_053.jpg b/45643-h/images/i_053.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8cbf759 --- /dev/null +++ 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