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diff --git a/45643-0.txt b/45643-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c72bd95 --- /dev/null +++ b/45643-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3739 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45643 *** + + POEMS BY + IRIS TREE + + +The 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. + +[Illustration: + + HEAD OF IRIS TREE BY JACOB EPSTEIN +] + + + + +[Illustration] + + Poems + by + Iris Tree + + Decorations by + Curtis Moffat + + LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD + NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY + MCMXX + + + + + Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company + New York, U. S. A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ROCKETS AND ASHES + + PAGE + "YOU PREACH TO ME OF LAWS, YOU TIE MY LIMBS" 11 + + "WE ARE THE CARETAKERS OF EMPTY HOUSES" 12 + + "FROM FAR AWAY THE LOST ADVENTURES GLEAM" 13 + + "GIVE ME, O GOD, THE POWER OF LAUGHTER STILL" 14 + + "WINDING DOWN THE STREET IN WEARIED GAIETY" 15 + + "TRANQUILLITY STIRRED BY A SUDDEN SPASM" 17 + + "I COULD EXPLAIN" 18 + + "I FEEL IN ME A MANIFOLD DESIRE" 19 + + "SILENCE" 20 + + "I SHOULD LIKE TO SAY TO THE WORLD" 21 + + "YOU PASS AS IN A DRUGGED DELIRIUM" 22 + + "O FACES THAT LOOK SO COLDLY AT ME" 23 + + "I SEE MYSELF IN MANY DIFFERENT DRESSES" 24 + + "THERE ARE SONGS ENOUGH OF LOVE, OF JOY, OF GRIEF" 25 + + "HOW OFTEN, WHEN THE THOUGHT OF SUICIDE" 27 + + "IT IS STILL SOMETHING TO HAVE CHEATED GOD" 28 + + "WHAT WORDS THAT MOVE ON WINGS IN A LONG DRIFT" 29 + + "I THINK MYSELF" 30 + + "THE ADORED, WILD, STRANGE, IRRESISTIBLE" 31 + + A ROSE 32 + + "LIKE FLOCKS OF TIRED BIRDS WHEN AUTUMN COMES" 33 + + "OH, JUST BEYOND THE CURVE OF IDEAL QUEST" 34 + + "AH! YOU, FROM THE SMALL HIGH-WALLED ACRE OF YOUR LIVES" 35 + + "MOUTH OF THE DUST I KISS, CORRUPTION ABSOLUTE" 36 + + "THE CURTAINS ARE DRAWN AS THOUGH IT STILL WERE NIGHT" 37 + + BLACK VELVET 38 + + NERVES 39 + + "MY PAIN HAS ALL THE PATIENCE OF A NUN" 40 + + "THE SCANDAL-MONGER AFTER ALL IS RIGHT" 41 + + "WOODS OF BROWN GLOOM SOMBRING WITH THE HUSH OF DEATH" 42 + + "I FEEL SO MUCH ALONE" 43 + + THE COMPLEX LIFE 44 + + "SHALL WE BE CHRISTENED POETS, CHILDREN OF GOD" 46 + + "WHEN I AM WEARY AT THE ANTIC CHANCE" 47 + + MOODS 48 + + +SMOKE + + "NOW IS THE EVENING DIPPED KNEE-DEEP IN BLOOD" 53 + + "BLOW UPON BLOW THEY BRUISE THE DAYLIGHT WAN" 54 + + "A RAGGED DRUMMER RIDES ALONG THE STREET" 56 + + ZEPPELINS 58 + + "O FLATTERY, IMPOSTURE, BATTLE SHOW" 62 + + "WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE BEGGAR, AND THE SINNER, AND THE SAD" 63 + + "IF I WERE WHAT I WOULD BE, AND COULD BREAK" 64 + + HOLY RUSSIA 65 + + "HOW DEEPLY NURTURED IS YOUR FOOLISHNESS" 67 + + "OF ALL WHO DIED IN SILENCE FAR AWAY" 68 + + "AND AFTERWARDS, WHEN HONOUR HAS MADE GOOD" 69 + + "PITY THE SLAIN THAT LAID AWAY THEIR LIVES" 70 + + +FLAME + + "YOU HAVE UNDERSTOOD SO LITTLE OF ME, AND MY ADORATION" 75 + + "LULLED ARE THE DAZZLING COLOURS OF THE DAY" 77 + + "WASHED AT MY FEET BY THE CURDED FOAM OF SLUGGISH WAVES" 78 + + "MY POEMS CANNOT LAUGH. THEY ARE THE VOICE" 79 + + "ON THE HILL THERE IS A TAVERN, LONG-LOVED, WELL-REMEMBERED" 80 + + "OH CANST THOU NOT HEAR IN MY HEART ALL ITS WHISPERING FEARS" 81 + + "AS IN THE SILENCE THE CLEAR MOONLIGHT DRIPS" 83 + + "I CAN BUT GIVE THEE UNSUBSTANTIAL THINGS" 84 + + "I HAVE NO OTHER FRIEND BUT THEE" 85 + + "BODIES HEAVING LIKE WAVES" 88 + + "YOUR FACE TO ME IS LIKE A BEAUTIFUL CITY" 89 + + "OH! WHY WILL YOU NOT LET ME LOVE YOU" 90 + + "MY DEVOTION KNEELS TO YOU" 92 + + ISLANDS 93 + + "MANY THINGS I'D FIND TO CHARM YOU" 94 + + +LAMPLIGHT AND STARLIGHT + + LAMP-POSTS 97 + + LONDON 98 + + "SLOWLY THE PALE FEET OF MORNING" 100 + + "WHAT HAVE I TO DO WITH THEM" 101 + + "AMONG THE CRUMBLING ARCHES OF DECAY" 103 + + "AS A NUN'S FACE FROM HER BLACK DRAPERIES" 105 + + "THE SUN IS LORD OF LIFE AND COLOUR" 106 + + BAHAMA ISLANDS 107 + + THOUGHTS OF LONDON 108 + + STREETS 109 + + "LAUGHTER AND SINGING COME WITH THE MORNING" 113 + + "IN THE NIGHT I HEAR MY LONELINESS CALLING" 114 + + SUNDAY 115 + + "THE LEAVES ARE SINGING, AND THE SEA" 116 + + "HOW SOUNDLY SLEEPETH THE FOOL" 117 + + "MOONLIT LILACS UNDER THE WINDOW" 118 + + "OLD WOMAN FOREVER SITTING" 119 + + "LONELINESS I LOVE" 120 + + I MET AN INDIAN 121 + + "FROM THE FATHOMLESS DEPTH OF MY BOREDOM" 124 + + "LOLLING IN SNOW, LIKE KINGS IN ERMINE COATS" 125 + + "THE ROOTS OF OUR LONGING ARE PROBING THE HEART OF NIGHT" 126 + + VAHDAH 127 + + "STARLIGHT SILENCES" 128 + + "THE MOUNTAIN IS AN EMPEROR" 130 + + "I KNOW WHAT HAPPINESS IS" 131 + + "LONG HATH THE PEN LAIN IDLE IN MY HAND" 133 + + "I LAY MY HEART ON A STONE" 134 + + "THE COLD LIGHT STEALS INTO MY SOUL" 135 + + "THE CARAVANS OF SPRING ARE IN THE TOWN" 136 + + "I DREAD THE BEAUTY OF APPROACHING SPRING" 137 + + TO MY FATHER 139 + + TO MY MOTHER 140 + + "LONDON GROWS SAD AT EVENING" 142 + + AH! THE SPRING 143 + + THE UNDERTONE OF THE VOLGA BOAT SONG 144 + + + + +ROCKETS AND ASHES + +[Illustration] + + + + + You preach to me of laws, you tie my limbs + With rights and wrongs and arguments of good, + You choke my songs and fill my mouth with hymns, + You stop my heart and turn it into wood. + + I serve not God, but make my idol fair + From clay of brown earth, painted bright with blood, + Dressed in sweet flesh and wonder of wild hair + By Beauty's fingers to her changing mood. + + The long line of the sea, the straight horizon, + The toss of flowers, the prance of milky feet, + And moonlight clear as glass my great religion, + And sunrise falling on the quiet street. + + The coloured crowd, the unrestrained, the gay, + And lovers in the secret sheets of night + Trembling like instruments of music, till the day + Stands marvelling at their sleeping bodies white. + + Age creeps upon your timid little faces + Beneath each black umbrella sly and slow, + Proud in the unimportance of your places + You sit in twilight prophesying woe. + + So dim and false and grey, take my compassion, + I from my pageant golden as the day + Pity your littleness from all my passion, + Leave you my sins to weep and whine away! + + 1914 + + + + + We are the caretakers of empty houses, + The moon leans her slender body against the door, + But the lock is jarred with rust. + The sun looks in through the window, + But its closed shutters are as blinded eyes. + Our souls are full of dead and beautiful things + Like bowls of potpourri, + A dust of petals + Rustling through the tired fingers of a ghost. + + 1918 + + + + + From far away the lost adventures gleam, + The print of childhood's feet that dance and run, + The love of her who showed me to the sun + In triumph of creation, who did seem + With vivid spirit like a rainbow stream + To paint the shells, young blossoms, one by one + Each strange and delicate toy, whose hands have spun + The woven cloth of wonder like a dream ... + The row of soldiered books, authority + Sharp as the scales I strummed upon the keys, + The priest who damned the things I dared not praise, + Rebellion, love made sad with mystery-- + And like a firefly through the twilit trees + Romance, the golden play-boy of my days. + + 1917 + + + + + Give me, O God, the power of laughter still, + I shall have need of humour, deftest foil + Against the army of infuriated pride, + Against the shields of reason, and the spears + Of savage moments, sharp-edged bitterness; + Against the blazoned armour of intolerance, + And all the flags of sentiment waved aloft.... + + Love, Humour, and Rebellion, go with me, + Three musketeers of faithful following. + We will fear nothing.--Is not laughter brave, + That unconcerned goes rippling through despair? + Is not rebellion brave, that fiercely moves + Against the buttressed prisons of the world? + And is not love the bravest of them all, + So frail to hold his white hands up to Heaven + While the red fists are threatening all around, + And hate is beating on the battledrums? + As d'Artagnan upon a starved grey horse + Goes singing ballads on adventurous roads, + I ride my fancy blithely into danger + To throw my gauntlet at the feet of pride + And stick my roses in the cap of Love.... + + 1916 + + + + + Winding down the street in wearied gaiety, the barrel-organ dribbled + out its song + Merged with the thud of feet forever dallying indifferent and + indefinite along. + The houses stood like rows of cripples, some paralysed, some + hunch-backed and some bent with age, + They seemed at war, their chimneys threatening, their brows hung + heavy in a sombre rage. + Crab-like the children crawled, while always hammering above their + heads the scolding shrewish tongue; + They grew as bloodless flowers unflourishing, waxen and pale from out + the dust and dung. + Above I saw the strip of sunset fluttering, even as washed-out rags + upon the line, + I listened to the sparrows twittering, and the hours ticking in a + slow decline. + Then beaded on the hem of evening, the coloured lights were threaded + here and there, + Till proud with sweets and plumes and oranges, the shops grew + brilliant in the tinsel glare. + Grey was the death-bed of the twilight, shuddering the faint hands of + the day stretched to the night, + Fending it off, or feebly wavering over the pallid glints of stolen + light. + And grey the faces that were gathering among the fallen ashes of the + day, + And red the faces, yellow, flickering, under the lamps upon the long + highway. + And some were gashed with smiles, and quaint grimaces of hate and + pain and hunger and despair, + And some wore coloured hats and meek frivolities, limp ribbons, and + false pansies in their hair, + But all were cold, and all seemed passionless; there shone no zest or + splendour in their lives, + Nor hope in anything but holidays, or watching funerals, or taking + wives. + I dared not think, for truth rose horrible, slapping the face with + coarse uncaring hand, + But like them cheated into merriment, I wilfully refused to + understand; + Turned me away from wan-eyed poverty, trod pity underfoot, oh, danced + on grief, + Bade the crowd sing and fill my desolation, bade them be glad and + hide my disbelief. + + Strange we so love the world--for presently, out of my window looking + on the city, + I blessed the night, and the roofs slumbering all huddled, and I felt + no shame nor pity + For all our dusty days of journeying amid the wreck and ruins of our + dreams, + Meandering in a bleared forgetfulness, where lethe laps the wharf of + sleeping streams. + I only breathed the air, intensified by the ascending breath of + million lungs, + And heard the labouring metropolis, quickened by whispers of a + million tongues; + And felt a king of splendid loneliness, and felt an atom of the + peopled spaces, + And felt again my lordly egoism, one face distinct among the blur of + faces. + + 1913 + + + + + Tranquility stirred by a sudden spasm, + Knives of rain that cut the silence, + Storms that rattle the bones of the forest, + Calm of the marble-terraced night + Charred with the spattering of rockets. + + Drums will I hear and battles now, + And the long death howl of wolves by night, + Watching the moon on the forest tops, + Walking with delicate frightened steps + To the slaughter-house of a red sunrise. + + 1918 + + + + + I could explain + The complicated lore that drags the soul + From what shall profit him + To gild damnation with his choicest gold. + But you + Are poring over precious books and do not hear + Our plaintive, frivolous songs; + For we in stubborn vanity ascend + On ladders insecure, + Toward the tottering balconies + To serenade our painted paramours; + Caught by the lure of dangerous pale hands, + Oblivion's heavy lids on sleepless eyes + That cheat between unrest and false repose. + And we are haunted + By spectral Joy once murdered in a rage, + Now taking shape of Pleasure, + Disguised in many clothes and skilful masks. + I could disclose + The truth that hangs between our lies + And jostles sleep to semi-consciousness; + Truth, that stings like nettles + Our frail hands dare not pluck + From out our garden's terraced indolence. + We are not happy, + And you make us dumb with loving hands + Reproachful on our lips. + Nor can we sob our sorrows on your breast, + For we have bartered diamonds for glass, + Our tears for smiles, + Eternity for now. + + 1917 + + + + + I feel in me a manifold desire + From many lands and times and clamouring peoples, + And I the Queen + Of crowding vagabonds, + Ghosts of lost years in seeming fancy dress, + With pathos of torn laces + And broken swords; + Cut-throats and kings and poets + Who have loved me + In visions wild, not knowing + What I was. + In me no end + Even where the last content + Clasps on my head a crown + Of shining endurance-- + I slip from all my robes + Into the rags of a tattered romance; + The stars crowd at the window, + Their jealous destiny + Raps at the door-- + They bob and wink and leer, + And I must leave the lamplight for the road + To keep strange company. + Farewell and Hail! + + 1917 + + + + + Silence-- + Somewhere on earth + There is a purpose that I miss or have forgotten. + The trees stand bolt upright + Like roofless pillars of a broken temple. + There is a purpose in Heaven, + But for me + Nothing. + + 1917 + + + + + I should like to say to the world: + I have launched my soul like a ship upon free waters; + Beautiful she stands in the docks with proud masts cutting + the sky, + Perfectly poised, her white sails spreading like wings, + Her figurehead a woman with breasts that daunt the spray, + Her flag a flutter of coloured exuberance. + I should like to see her plunging out of the idle harbour + Where the sulky tide drifts scum, and the sailors wrangle and + shout, + In a thunder of churning waves ramping before her like dappled + stallions, + Blossoming behind her a field of etiolate lilies.... + + But to the mimicking, plotting, miserly, cynical, + To the rabble and gabble that dance and kill on the quay, + I can only say that my soul is a sleeping gondola + Lulled by a jester's mandolin, till night is atinkle with tunes + And lantern-lights, along the indolent backwaters. + + 1915 + + + + + You pass as in a drugged delirium + Wrought strange upon the mind's distraction; + You sing a blasphemous Te Deum + To harlot virgins, and a fraction + Of your fulginous colour passes, + Stains my spirit's great conception + As it dips into your glasses. + I that am the sole exception + To your stillborn, false devices, + I that know you, I that hate you, + I that drank now spit your vices + Through my loathing reinstate you; + Dive once more into the stagnance, + Kiss your cynic lips and drink you, + Concentrate your cruel fragrance, + Steal your flowers before I sink you, + Lift with hate instead of praises, + Show you honour of my scorning, + Garlanded you go to blazes + With my rhymes for your adorning! + + 1913 + + + + + O faces that look so coldly at me, + Colder than dawn through the windows of festival, + Colder than dawn with her grey nun's face. + You blame me, you curse me with your eyes, + While your lips are filled with flattering syllables, + With tinkling bells that harass my calm, + Disturb my silence and shatter my thoughts. + Your laughter waltzes like musical boxes, + How can I hear the triumphant symphonies? + The scarlet rhapsodies and beryl-cold sonatas? ... + Ah, strangers, ah, vacant tedious faces, + Bobbing beneath the feathery hats, + You have stolen the wings of birds for your garnishing, + And the stars and the dim pale petals of the sea + To make your breasts resplendent, to glitter your dress,-- + How I might love you and weep for you, + Crowning your brows with a wreath of songs + If you could understand my singing, + If you could understand my love! + But you are waltzing with your marionettes + And marching to the music of the clock-- + I cannot bear you to watch me + With those cold eyes through which I see, + Emptiness only and dust. + + 1918 + + + + + I see myself in many different dresses, + In many moods, and many different places; + All gold amid the grey where solemn faces + Are silence to my mirth--a flame that blesses + From yellow lamp the darkness which oppresses ... + Or mid the dancers in their trivial laces + Aloof, as in the ring a lion paces, + Disdainful of their slander or caresses. + I see myself the child of many races, + Poisoners, martyrs, harlots and princesses; + Within my soul a thousand weary traces + Of pain and joy and passionate excesses-- + Eternal beauty that our brief love chases + With snatch of desperate hands and dying tresses. + + 1917 + + + + + There are songs enough of love, of joy, of grief: + Roads to the sunset, alleys to the moon; + Poems of the red rose and the golden leaf, + Fantastic faery and gay ballad tune. + + The long road unto nothing I will sing, + Sing on one note, monotonous and dry, + Of sameness, calmness and the years that bring + No more emotion than the fear to die. + + Grey house, grey house and after that grey house, + Another house as grey and steep and still: + An old cat tired of playing with a mouse, + A sick child tired of chasing down the hill. + + Shuffle and hurry, idle feet, and slow, + Grim face and merry face, so ugly all! + Why do you hurry? Where is there to go? + Why are you shouting? Who is there to call? + + Lovers still kissing, feverish to drain + Stale juices from the shrivelled fruit of lust: + A black umbrella held up in the rain, + The raindrops making patterns in the dust. + + If this distaste I hold for fools is such, + Shall I not spit upon myself as well? + Do I not eat and drink and smile as much? + Do I not fatten also in this hell? + + Sadness and joy--if they were melted up, + Things that were great--upon the fires of time + Drop but as soup in the accustomed cup, + Settle in stagnance, trickle into grime. + + Faith, freedom, art that fire a man or two + And set him like a pilgrim on his way + With Beauty's face before him--what of you, + Priest, Butcher, Scholar, King, upon that day? + + The dullard-masses that no god can save! + If I were God, to rise and strike you down + And break your churches in an angry wave + And make a furious bonfire of your town! + + God in a coloured globe, alone and still, + Embroidering wonders with a fearless brain, + On loom of spaces measureless, to fill + The empty air with passion and with pain. + + Emblazon all the heavens with desire + And Wisdom delved for in the depths of time-- + Thoughts sculptured mountainous, and fancy's fire + Caught in the running swiftness of a rhyme. + + Passion high-pedestalled, pangs turned to treasure, + Perfected and undone and built afresh + With concentrated agony and Pleasure ... + If I were God, and not a weight of flesh! + + 1914 + + + + + How often, when the thought of suicide + With ghostly weapon beckons us to die, + The ghosts of many foods alluring glide + On golden dishes, wine in purple tide + To drown our whim. Things danced before the eye + Like tasselled grapes to Tantalus: The sly + Blue of a curling trout, the battened pride + Of ham in frills, complacent quails that lie + Resigned to death like heroes--July peas, + Expectant bottles foaming at the brink-- + White bread, and honey of the golden bees-- + A peach with velvet coat, some prawns in pink, + A slice of beef carved deftly, Stilton cheese, + And cup where berries float and bubbles wink. + + 1917 + + + + + It is still something to have cheated God + And bored the Devil with so easy prey, + And in the midst of summer woods to raise + A leafless tree whose stark limbs mock at Heaven, + Flaunting an iron hatred in the midst of hope-- + Yet sometimes in the loneliness of night + My buried longings blossom on the boughs, + My wistful longings come out star by star, + Till the great sky is light with my desire, + And on the winds my songs are galloping.... + Ah, to what dismal greyness creeps the soul + Too weak, too tired, to struggle from the slough! + My weapons rust, my pen is in the dust, + The moulting feathers plucked from out my wings + Lie dangling in the hats I stole them for. + My heart is floating in a claret cup, + My brain is toppling drunken at the brim, + My life is drowned within the lurid dregs. + I turn and fold my hands in a last appeal, + What heaven shall I pray to and for what, + Now that my songs to penny tunes are set, + And nothing is to save of me but flesh? + + 1913 + + + + + What words that move on wings in a long drift + Can waft this silence into weary ears, + And steal into the veins and fingertips + Of restless bodies, like magnificent ships + Proud from the seas that calmly sail through fears, + Mean streets, and miseries, with passage swift. + What words pricked from the stars and shimmering together, + Or swept like little winds through leaves alert, + Can filter through the chinks of bolted doors + Deaf to the clamours knocking without pause, + Steeled with indifference against all hurt, + Deaf to the cry of man, and rack of weather: + To sing the hubbub of this glittering night, + Where all the lamps each with a separate soul + Throb to the ecstasies of dancing life; + And Beauty, gleaming high her magic knife + Cuts free the tethered heart from long control + And flings it like a ball with mad delight + Into the silver lap of the young moon. + What needles quick, what threads, what fingers fine + Can broider tapestries as rich as these, + Stranger than dreams and drifting melodies, + Transparent as the gods we half divine, + Frail as the thoughts that dwindle in a swoon + Ghostly before begetting. Tinged with pain + That glimmers pale on hands we cannot find, + And visioned faces that our dreams create + Born in the land forbidden us of fate + And longed for all our lives ... What words can bind + Forever Joy, that never comes again! + + 1915 + + + + + I think myself + The fool of tragedy strutting upon the stage + Where murder creeps and whispers. + The jester clad in piebald tights + Half black, half golden, with no company + Save bells that jingle, + And an effigy, + The grinning image painted like myself + Upon a stick.... + + I think myself + The fool of comedy mournfully straying + Amid the revellers, + Loving the moon and my own shadow + With its strange solemn gestures-- + Loving the painted moon + That lets me play with shadows. + + I am the jester on an empty stage + Playing a pantomime + To spectres in the stalls, + Listening at last + For ghostly mirth and phantom hands applauding, + And for some king with decadent tired fingers + To fling a white gardenia at my feet. + + 1918 + + + + + The adored, wild, strange, irresistible, + How they fail one at the last! + What is there in your faces + That we should worship with our souls? + Most lovable, perfidious, + Vague-- + Molesting even our visions + With treacherous pathos. + O vulgarity, mediocrity, stupidity, + What is it in you that makes us lavish our love, + Covering your meagre bodies + With our passionate mantle, dyed with blood and dreams? + Life and its grey days, and time + Are a thin curtain through which you shadow, + Or a dim glass through which you peer. + You climb in at the windows of our souls + With ladders and stratagems, + You mope in corners with reproachful eyes. + But what do you do for us + Lute players, dancers, deceivers, + Other than lie with red lips + And cajole with tears of beryl? + People-- + Men and women with laughable, tragic faces + Winking at love, + Treading our songs and illusions + Under petulant feet! + + 1917 + + + + +A ROSE + + + What do you ask of me with your beauty, what are you urging + Of labour and painful aspiring to flatter your perfection? + What secretness of love with terrible blushes surging + Unseen, have found in you at last their passionate reflection? + + What dreams that lovers knew, as sleep with subtle magic + Tore off the rags of life and made her dance with body spangled, + Drew back the vacant hours, the tedious and the tragic, + And showed the glittering souls from bodies we had mangled;-- + + What visions made you, emblem of longing and love that has died + unrequited, + And all lost joys, and tears, and beauty passionately given, + Winked at by folly, skewered by the butcher, danced on and + slighted, + That now spring up from death, showing their slayers the colours of + Heaven? + + You have burst from the ground with your joy, you are pining and + bleeding, + Your scent is heavy with sorrowful love; oh, memories clinging, + What do you ask of my soul with such fierceness of pleading, + I that was glad to forget ... What do you need of my singing? + + 1916 + + + + + Like flocks of tired birds when autumn comes, + My spirit flags across the darkening fields + And melts into the drabness of the sky + And falls like dust upon the huddled corn. + But many wizened faces brown and sad + Peer from the bushes as I wander past,-- + They tell me all those things that old men say + As youth looks up through tears with pallid cheek. + "When you are grey and crooked as ourselves, + When you have bowed before all other gods, + And found them false, then shall you come at last + To that dark King of grief, and he shall bless + Your bread with tears, and manacle your hands, + And call you slave and lover." ... + Shall not a child take Pain for company + And share her loneliness with him? + Does not a youth know tears + In the first bitterness of broken love? + Is Grief so proud a king that none shall come + To seek him save the blind, the halt, the lame? ... + He is a tramp, a beggar, and a clown, + He sits a jester at the feet of kings + And scurries with the leaves in Autumn's train. + He rides the wooden horses at a fair, + And dances with the jiggers on the stage. + Led by the violins of discontent + That whine their music to my listening soul, + I dance with him the dance of withered leaves, + We dance together to the tunes of rain + Played on one note upon the only string. + + 1913 + + + + + Oh, just beyond the curve of ideal quest + That changes as a sea wave to the wind, + Beyond the cloud that folds around a star, + And dawn, that stands ajar to let us in, + Lies that to which our loves and dreams have gone, + The paradise of all we might have been, + While we are washed back downwards in the dark + Where tides recede, to dwindle with the foam. + + 1917 + + + + + Ah! you, from the small high-walled acre of your lives, + Your windows only looking upon gardens, + Only perceiving love and death and truth + As facts that come to pass, + That pass and leave you still + Within your safe small prisons, + Older, duller, + To walk and talk among the evergreens. + You have never known + Delight of dying slowly, + Poisoned with raptures + In many hues from the slim-cut decanters of death-- + The tunes + That dishevel and smooth, + Cajole and melancholize-- + The dance + Which is a whirling of leaves + In their last scorn of sorrow + Flung upwards by the wind + Into the haggard face of winter-- + Nor felt your souls go blowing like balloons + Tossed by impulsive hands; + Nor slid as skaters swiftly + Over the crackling crystals of perilous ice, + Buffeted with bouquets and blinded with confetti ... + You have not felt the abandon + Of light love + Dragged by the hair across a slippery floor.... + + 1916 + + + + + Mouth of the dust I kiss, corruption absolute, + Worm, that shall come at last to be my paramour, + Envenomed, unseen wanderer who alone is mute, + Yet greater than gods or heroes that have gone before. + + For you I sheave the harvest of my hair, + For you the whiteness of my flesh, my passion's valour, + For you I throw upon the grey screen of the air + My prism-like conceptions, my gigantic colour. + + For you the delicate hands that fashion to make great + Clay, and white paper, plant a tongue in silence, + For you the battle-frenzy, and the might of hate, + Science for giving wounds, and healing science. + + For you the heart's wild love, beauty, long care, + Virginity, passionate womanhood, perfected wholeness, + For you the unborn child that I prepare, + You, flabby, boneless, brainless, senseless, soulless! + + 1913 + + + + + The curtains are drawn as though it still were night, + A slip of dawn between them is a dangling silver ribbon; + And all about the room is quietness--Each patient chair + Erect, alert, in place. A letter on the table and a book + Lie as you left them, now bereft of purpose-- + Garish a little in the room's sedateness, you + Returning dressed so frivolously in all your coloured clothes! + How grey and sober, full of placid wit + The furniture, the pictures on the wall; + How steely swift the light, stabbing you to the heart + As you stand at the window, bright as rushing blood. + Garish your hair, your shoes, your startling chalky face + And white, white gloves ... + What time is it? ... Still ticks the tireless clock, + With face grimacing ... nearly six it is.... + Yet hurries not nor lingers, like our hearts, + For in its dial eternity is housed-- + A cock should crow ... there are no cocks in town! + But a water cart with surly noise below + Grates unconcerned along the disconsolate street. + How cold and how familiar all these things, + To you so lonely in the enormous dawn + Slowly unfastening that vermilion dress ... + + 1916 + + + + +BLACK VELVET + + + The darkness of the trees at deep midnight + And sombreness of shadows in the lake; + A mountain in the starlight wide awake + Dreaming to Heaven with imperial might + Of lifted shoulders, huge against the bright + Bespattered jewelry of stars--the ache + Of silence, and the sobbing tides that break + From music. Slumbering cities--candle light + Snuffed in the flooding darkness, and the train + Of Queens that go to scaffold for a sin-- + Or splash of blackness manifest of pain, + Hamlet among his court, a Harlequin + Of tragedies ... Mysterious ... And again + Venetian masks against a milky skin. + + 1917 + + + + +NERVES + + + These curious looms where we have spun our fancies, + These intricate webs where our desires are threaded, + These weird trapezes that our passion frenzies + Strange acrobats to catch them dizzy headed. + These tightening strings upon our spirit's fiddles + Tuneful or out of tune where music hungers + From writhing bow, these intertwining riddles + Mazes and labyrinths and storms and languors. + These colours twinging on a prism's edges, + These speckled patterns of fanatic madness + From glittering eyeballs, these unresting dredges + For pearls within the depths of sadness and of gladness-- + O tortuous thoughts, what are you seeking after + As flies around a carcass with a humming dreary, + Gibing the silent dead with treacherous laughter, + Molesting quietness and waking up the weary! + What then, what then, can sleep not crush you to forgetting + With all her body's beauty, cannot peace submerge you + O wrangling, juggling, jangling, pirouetting-- + What hope can drag you from the small desires that urge you? + You have lassoed the moon and trapped the sun's bright lion, + And trodden out the red stars into ashes, + Destroyed night's temple and broken the pillars of iron, + And striped the snowy horses of the clouds with zebra gashes + ... + You have debauched the world! And as I sit here weary, + Deafened with your demands and torn in tatters, + The world seems suddenly most passionless and dreary, + A poor bewildered clown--and nothing matters. + + 1916 + + + + + My pain has all the patience of a nun + Who kneels and prays for Heaven on the stone, + In some chill cellar where the amens moan, + Ave Maria, the long penance spun + Forever. And the tapers one by one + Stand like cold angels round the Virgin's throne. + My soul is tired from kneeling all alone, + Its little candles yearning to the sun. + + Long have I dreamed of Paradise and seen + Bright mirages of glory on the grey + Of sad horizons; I have kept the green + Surprise of spring through winter and dismay, + Tasting within the bitter dregs of spleen + Drugs that bring peace, and wine that maketh gay. + + 1917 + + + + + The scandal-monger after all is right-- + The old and cunning voice with weary repetition + Is justified in all dull words and warnings. + I see at last how you, + Spendthrift of passion + In love's bankruptcy, + Borrow new beauty from each passing face-- + How being too lavish you did steal + From generous hands-- + You are the idol builder and the robber of temples, + Praising with passionate psalms + The thing you cannot worship-- + And yet your prayers have stirred + Belief in us-- + We see beyond the false and weary face + Into your haggard soul and trust from pity-- + We hear beyond the idle music of your voice, + A wisdom taught by cruelty + And a tired scorn of treachery and guile-- + We see your wounds and weep, + You meet our pity with a traitor's kiss-- + For, you are schooled in suffering and schooled + In teaching pain to others-- + And all that mob of furious accusation + To which you turn the cheek, or curse so well, + Are but the ghosts of bodies you have murdered, + That drive you on in vengeance to fresh crime. + + 1917 + + + + + Woods of brown gloom sombring with the hush of death, + Wind's lassitude that sets the tired leaves shivering, + Starved yellow leaves sighing beneath the feet, a breath + Consumptive, old, and fever-red leaves quivering, + As with an earthward flutter like a ghostly butterfly + Listless they perish, wavering and hovering. + Skeleton branches where the rooks flap wings and cry, + Perched upon ribs and fingers; and the white mists covering + The far-off hills and bloodless visage of the sun. + No noise save the meandering dribble of a rivulet, + No noise save of the slow hours dropping one by one + As embers, no colour save Time's ashen coverlet.... + How melancholy here the gayest tunes would sound + From shrill carousers riotous and merry all, + As echoes of lost joy their dancing feet upon the ground, + As funeral bagpipes at a burial. + And I who wander passionless and forlorn, + A leaf-forsaken tree symbolic of dejection, + In rags of old desires, dispirited and torn, + See in the stagnant glass of Time my soul's reflection. + + 1916 + + + + + I feel so much alone, + And yet I know that many hopes are storming + My shut heart; + For I am bolted fast in my own house. + I pace distracted through its corridors + To the music of Love's knocking hands + Against the gate, + Or silence when they sleep. + I cannot find the key to let them in, + I, my own host and guest and ghost, + Imprisoned in myself! + + 1917 + + + + +THE COMPLEX LIFE + + + I know it to be true that those who live + As do the grasses and the lilies of the field + Receiving joy from Heaven, sweetly yield + Their joy to Earth, and taking Beauty, give. + + But we are gathered for the looms of Fate + That Time with ever-turning multiplying wheels + Spins into complex patterns and conceals + His huge invention with forms intricate. + + Each generation blindly fills the plan, + A sorry muddle or an inspiration of God + With many processes from out the sod, + The Earth and Heaven are mingled and made man. + + We must be tired and sleepless, gaily sad, + Frothing like waves in clamorous confusion, + A chemistry of subtle interfusion, + Experiments of genius that the ignorant call mad. + + We spell the crimes of our unruly days, + We see a fabled Arcady in our mind, + We crave perfection that we may not find. + Time laughs within the clock and Destiny plays. + + You peasants and you hermits, simple livers! + So picturesquely pure, all unconcerned + While we give up our bodies to be burned, + And dredge for treasure in the muddy rivers. + + We drink and die and sell ourselves for power, + We hunt with treacherous steps and stealthy knife, + We make a gaudy havoc of our life + And live a thousand ages in an hour. + + Our loves are spoilt by introspective guile, + We vivisect our souls with elaborate tools, + We dance in couples to the tune of fools, + And dream of harassed continents the while. + + Subconscious visions hold us and we fashion + Delirious verses, tortured statues, spasms of paint, + Make cryptic perorations of complaint, + Inverted religion, and perverted passion. + + But since we are children of this age, + In curious ways discovering salvation, + I will not quit my muddled generation, + But ever plead for Beauty in this rage. + + Although I know that Nature's bounty yields + Unto simplicity a beautiful content, + Only when battle breaks me and my strength is spent + Will I give back my body to the fields. + + 1917 + + + + + Shall we be christened poets, children of God, + For blowing sighs into the listeners' ears, + For tugging at the moaning bells of death, + And coming as the autumn grave-digger + To close the eyes of flowers, and shut the fingers + Of wind upon the rushes, + Of music upon silence? + Shall we be given wreathes of bay and laurel + For forcing tragedy into a rhyme + As a gaunt beggar in a spangled vest? + The poet ever wanders after Death, + The flunkey on a funeral chariot + Pouring the wine at feasts of burial; + And all the roses that he plucks from summer + Are carried to the crypts to deck a corpse.... + How shall the world learn how to laugh again + When all its songs have only learnt to weep? + + 1919 + + + + + When I am weary at the antic chance, + The hobby-horses and the wooden lance, + The hope and fear in jugglery, and see + How starved the juggler, mean and miserly, + And life a laboured trick--the years advance + A shrilling chorus in affected dance + With lust of many eyes that watch and wink + Fixed on them; or a clown in feverish pink + Will draw gross laughter by a hideous prance-- + Vulgarity and sin and souls askance, + Where fiddles squeal and all the follies spin-- + Till, when the stage is empty, Harlequin + Through curtained silence trips as from a trance + With blushing flowers for Columbine--Romance. + + 1917 + + + + +MOODS + + +I + + I crouched upon cushions and wallowed in their somnolent caresses, + And--listening with dread for the moment of my own silence + Rending the flimsy lace of whisperings-- + My gnome dances before me + Behind a fan of smoke, + My dwarf squats on my shoulders + Tweeking their moulted wings, + My ape peers in the mirror of my face + Mimicking my soul's gaunt gestures-- + My wolf bays through my moonly loneliness + Blotching the night with howls-- + My laughter goes whining away on the wind, + Laughs that are whipped by a soul too sick with merriment, + Too satiate with humour's emptiness!... + + +II + + Ah! loveliness with little pointed feet + Dancing across the leer of ugliness, + Skimming like a gold thread + Through a necklace of vile masks-- + Lifting with lotus fingers + The blue arras of nightmare-- + Loveliness like a delicate silver flute + Pressed to a negro's lips-- + + +III + + Do you then wish for all those griefs + Whose snarling hands you kiss, + Kneeling in adoration to a dagger + As saints before a cross? + You who have tossed all flowers away, + Coveting the drenched red peonies of blood + Their javelin-petals wet with slaughter,-- + Do you then crave your own blood's offering, + Your own breast's pallor pierced with knives of flame? + In your ears are the pattering of the hunter's feet, + Softer than death, and omens mouthed by winds of twilight, + You lean across the precipice of time + Calling and crying + For the last abyssmal passion of self-slaughter-- + + +IV + + Waiting, + Like grey cloud-giants climbing the hills of Heaven + Carrying vast burdens over the crags of chaos-- + Waiting, + Like trees that hear the far-off moan of winds, + Like listening trees that hug their branches round them, + Their leaves whispering lividly the rumour of storms, + Waiting like a vast arch of quietness + Through which a screaming messenger shall dart-- + Like a dense hood of silence + Pierced by a sword of music-- + Waiting, like the deathly stillness of a pool + Reflecting the diver poised before he plunges.... + + 1919 + + + + +SMOKE + +[Illustration] + + + + + Now is the evening dipped knee-deep in blood + And the dun hills stand fearful in their places. + Cunning in sin, we shuffle down the streets + With burdens of vainglory on our backs, + Spinning with spider-hands the miser's web + Or sitting placid, gay and fat with ease. + But out beyond, the armies of the world + March doomwards to the rhythm of the drum + Under the thirsting sun. Death holds his state: + + His skeleton hands are filled with scarlet spoil: + He stands on flaming ramparts, waving high + The ensign of decay. All his bones are dressed + With livid roses; all his pillars black + Are girt in ashen poppies, and on dust + He raises up his awful golden throne. + + Oh! your fierce shrieks have fainted on deaf ears; + Your tears have flowed on feet of carven stone; + Your blood is spilt for the boiling-pot of God + Where good and evil mix; and all your rage + Is but a thin smoke wafted in His face. + + 1914 + + + + + Blow upon blow they bruise the daylight wan, + Scar upon scar they rend the quiet shore; + They ride on furious, leaving every man + Crushed like a maggot by the hoofs of war: + Gods that grow tired of paradisial water + And fill their cups with steaming wine of slaughter. + + I fear a thing more terrible than death: + The glamour of the battle grips us yet-- + As crowds before a fire that hold their breath + Watching the burning houses, and forget + All they will lose, but marvel to behold + Its dazzling strength, the glamour of its gold. + + I fear the time when slow the flame expires, + When this kaleidoscope of roaring color + Fades, and rage faints; and of the funeral-fires + That shone with battle, nothing left of valour + Save chill ignoble ashes for despair + To strew with widowed hands upon her hair. + + Livid and damp unfolds the winding-sheet, + Hiding the mangled body of the Earth: + The slow grey aftermath, the limping feet + Of days that shall not know the sound of mirth, + But pass in dry-eyed patience, with no trust + Save to end living and be heaped with dust. + + That stillness that must follow where Death trod, + The sullen street, the empty drinking-hall, + The tuneless voices cringing praise to God, + Deaf gods, that did not heed the anguished call, + Now to be soothed with humbleness and praise, + With fawning kisses for the hand that slays. + + Across the world from out the fevered ground + Decay from every pore exhales its breath; + A cloak of penance winding close around + The bright desire of spring. And unto Death, + As to a conquering king, we yield the keys + Of Beauty's gates upon our bended knees. + + The maiden loverless shall go her ways, + And child unfathered feed on crust and husk; + The sun that was the glory of our days + Shining as tinsel till the moody dusk + Into our starving outstretched arms shall lay + Her silent sleep, the only boon we pray. + + 1914 + + + + + A ragged drummer rides along the street, + And at his coming + The silence fills with tunes and rustling feet + And voices humming. + He rode a year ago from far away, + On charger prancing, + With bright new buttons and with ribbons gay, + And banners dancing. + Oh, he was fatter than the bursting drum + He bore so proudly, + His roaring music woke the silence dumb + To thunder loudly. + And by his side the old men and the young + Had followed cheering + Into the sunset smiling as they sung, + Nor thought of fearing. + They left their lovers and their mothers' lap, + Their homes demolish, + "For, look, I have a ribbon for my cap, + A sword to polish!" + And so the town was silent once again, + Though tunes of battle + Beat fearful in the wind, or in the rain + Ghost drums would rattle. + But at the chuckling dice or careful loom, + Or candled churches + A few forgot or prayed or followed doom + With drunken lurches.... + Now loom and bar and church disgorge the throng, + In huddled masses + They stand aghast to hear the drummer's song + As back he passes-- + Palsied and drear and bent he turns alone + In rags and tatters, + And on a soundless barrel with a bone + He beats and batters. + "Where march your feet so gaily, careless crowd, + That we may kiss them? + Where sound your little songs that rang so loud + To us that miss them?" + There are no songs, no happy marching feet, + No favours flying: + The drummer passes ... on the quiet street + The sun is dying. + Sun that must bleed to death so red and brave!... + Have done with weeping, + But put your ribbons on a soldier's grave + As he lies sleeping. + + 1914 + + + + +ZEPPELINS + + + MIDNIGHT + + Suddenly + Shutting our lips upon a jest + As we are sipping thoughts from little glasses, + A gun bursts thunder and the echoing streets + Quiver with startled terrors-- + How swift runs fear: quicksilver that is free! + Now every muscle weakens, every pulse + Is set at gallop-pace and every nerve + Stretched taut with horror and a wild revolt.... + How sweetly spins the world to noise of music, + How sweet to live life's arrogant adventure! + Live in a vain world wracked with a thousand pangs, + Limp in a dull street housed with crumbling dreams, + To breathe and eat and sleep and love and sigh + A little longer, oh a little year! + Forgotten prayers rise up in resurrection, + And resolutions of new wondrous lives + Choke up our hearts and fling us to our knees.... + Worms creep in dreadful hunger from the ground, + The lurid silent people loved by death, + And peer into our eyes with sly forebodings + To drag our body's glory from the light. + Though all the world should fall into their cells + And lie within their larders shelf on shelf-- + Yet will I toss the sheets of dust away, + Yet _will I_ be the mistress of the sun! + + * * * * * + + 1 A. M. + + Look how they struggle in a mist of fire, + Those hunchbacked chimneys and distorted domes-- + Now gloat on Hell, the colour seems to roar, + An army fierce upon its own destruction, + A famished monster tearing in its claws + Gigantic foods to glut its lean desire + Digesting all the world!... + Look at the eager people open-mouthed + That stand as foolish rabbits hypnotised + By the uncoiling rhythm of a snake, + Their earth adoring senses caught awhile + In the red whirlwind of ascending wings; + Their spirits straining upward upon strings + Like kites and air balloons, but more grotesque, + Lacking the ephemeral beauty of a toy-- + Yet for an hour + Dyed with the colour that their drabness fears + They kiss the feet of beauty as she passes + Starwards, tremendous in a coat of fire. + + * * * * * + + 3 A. M. + + The dawn seems drained of blood so colourless-- + Slowly the river moves as though in sleep + While silent barges + Slide from the mist like dreams; + The intricate patterns of the scaffolding + Are drawn against the sky + More delicate than lace. + All the shimmering lights + Have shrunk away from morning + As a blue peacock sheaves his starry tail.... + I am alone, most utterly alone, + More lonely than the last man in the world + Straying amid the dust of vanished lives. + More lonely than a spirit stolen from heaven + Who stands beside that nebulous cold river + Dividing sleep from death, + Eternity from time.... + Nothing disturbs the white peace of the dawn, + She brings no feverous memories of night + And sheds no tears. + + Only two hours ago + Fire walked in crimson armour through the city + Piercing the night's black tent with glittering javelins, + While shrieks and whispered omens flew like bats + Among the silver foliage of the stars.... + But rage has left no furrow in the sky, + No wake of sparks across the placid water.... + This is the ominous and sacred hour + When priest-like the world kneels + Bowed low toward the empty throne of day-- + Soon will the herald trumpet-blast be heard + And the flamingo messengers will come + Flocking from out the burnished cage of sunrise.... + This is the hour of nothing, + Colourless and chill + Oblivion's hands are folded on the world, + As sits an idol holding in his fingers + A scentless lotus carven out of stone. + + * * * * * + + 4 A. M. + + Leaving the dun river with hurried tapping feet + And up the long uncomfortable street + With eyes uninterested yet forced to see and read + The dingy notices once sharp and bright with greed, + Now drear with want, that swear the Queen's Hotel + And Brown's Hotel and King's are doing well-- + A soldier and a beggar mock me as I go, + The light steals after me, emerging slow + And pale from the dim alleys shadow-crouched. + I hurried by the drunkard as he slouched + From lamp-post unto lamp-post.... Then I saw + Caught in the mirror of a tailor's door + My own reflection as I hurried past, + My flaring colours and my face aghast-- + The scarlet tassel of my hat that hung + Limp as a spent flame, and my skirt that clung + About my knees and fluttered at the back: + An injured moth, with sulphur stripes and black, + My bag flamboyant as a pillar-box; + My frayed gilt fringe of hair and tarnished locks. + Jagged and crude and swift I seemed to pass + Painted too brightly on that temperate glass. + ... An omnibus from sudden corner reels: + Silence lies mangled underneath the wheels. + + 1915 + + + + + O flattery, imposture, battle show, + What banners have you woven from the parted raiment, + What crimes from Calvary, what endless flow + Of blood from blood, revenge, exacted payment! + + How have you turned the simple truth to lies + Made capital from creeds and missed their beauty, + Exalted vainly with self-pitying sighs + The wrongs enacted in the name of duty. + + And ever quoting God for your excuse, + Bribing divinity to cloak your shame, + You train the spirit for material use, + You sacrifice men's hearts to feed your flame. + + When shall the world be rid of these bald priests, + Pig-snouted with their gilded wolfish ears, + The scarlet cardinals of drunken feasts + Whose hands are washed in blood, whose feet in tears? + + 1916 + + + + + What will happen to the beggar, and the sinner, and the sad, + And the drunk that drinks for sorrow, and the maimed, and mad; + What will happen to the starving, and the rebel run from drilling, + Cowardly, afraid of fighting, and the child who stole a shilling? + They shall go to prison black + With a striped shirt on the back, + Feast on bread and water there + In a cell, without a care. + They shall learn at least their duty, + Never tempted more of beauty-- + They shall walk in rows and praise the Lord, + And one or two shall hang upon a cord-- + And two or three shall die of grief alone-- + (And this is well, for sinners should atone,) + And five or six shall curse the God that made them, + (And this is wicked, for the priests forbade them,) + And those that grew from dust shall go to dust + Downtrodden. Saith the preacher:--"God is just." + + 1917 + + + + + If I were what I would be, and could break + The buttressed fortress of stupidity + Where laws are sentinels, and lies the masonry, + Surrounded with inertia, weedy lake, + Where centuries of mud lie curdled, and the fake + Grandeur of cardboard turrets, solemn puppetry-- + The gods are blinking at us sleepily, + Tired of our games, the muddles that we make, + The bloodshed, idol worshipping, the chess + Of king, queen, castle, bishop, knight and pawn-- + The rigid squares of black and white, they dress + With their perpetual challenge--faded, worn, + Are all the creeds and praises you profess + To weary gods that stretch themselves and yawn. + + 1917 + + + + +HOLY RUSSIA + + + The ghostly blood of thee is in my veins, + Back through the centuries of death and birth, + Sometime I thrilled with thy gigantic pains, + My kin lie somewhere covered with thine earth. + + And ever as in dreams I seem to see + Those streets and people with their colours cold; + Thou hast the singing hungers of the sea, + The tides of restless passion ages old. + + I know thy humours and their contradiction, + I know thy fevers and hallucinations, + I see beneath the painted mask of fiction + Thy face of fierce and weary exaltations. + + And art thou come to gaze with wakened eyes + Into the sick world's travail and her grief, + Dost thou from thy long battling surmise + The end of battle and the world's relief? + + While we are creeping in our crooked ways + Along the crumbling roads of worn-out creeds + Where Ignorance walks royally through days + That smell of death, decay and bloody deeds. + + While we still cry to God for strength to kill, + Reminding Him that Britain rules the waves, + And grind young bones for the commercial mill, + And build munition works among the graves. + + Still crying "Honour," "Country" and "The Flag," + "The last heroic fight in Freedom's name!" + Though Kings make mouths at Kings, and Prelates brag-- + They boast of murder and they reek of shame!... + + Thou that hast touched the mystic wounds of God, + And strewn with broken hearts the Virgin's feet, + Feeling beneath the burden and the rod + His justice and Her pity in the street. + + Justice and Pity, crying in the wind-- + We only hear the guns that never cease, + The flapping of our flags has made us blind! + We may not see the sacred gods of peace. + + But thou dost build fanatic temples for them, + And thou dost pave the road with sanity, + And all the train of bitter ghosts adore them, + Who died to puff a monarch's vanity. + + I hear thy orchestras of holy cheers, + The drum that life has snatched away from death, + And all the sighing rhythm of thy tears, + And the brave laughter of thy trumpet-breath. + + PEACE! But a cynic whispered in my ear + How kings like worms still wrangled for a crown + That lay amid the dust--and I could hear + A hum of money-changing in the town. + + I feared that afterwards, when all is won, + We shall forget the meaning of thy deed-- + And man will creep as he has always done + Along the little gutters of his greed. + + 1917 + + + + + How deeply nurtured is your foolishness, + Calling destruction great and slaughter brave, + Making large triumph of a little grave, + Imperial purple of a mourning dress, + The gun an emblem of your godliness-- + A fluttering ribbon or a banner's wave, + A medal or a bayonet, or rave + Of singing, marching in the forward press + Of hatred to the banging of a band; + Your country's honour and the world's release. + Are _they_ not strong in courage who withstand + The armies of your folly and shall cease + To tarnish with spilt life their motherland? + Cowards--or martyrs--crucified for peace. + + 1917 + + + + + Of all who died in silence far away + Where sympathy was busy with other things, + Busy with worlds, inventing how to slay, + Troubled with rights and wrongs and governments and kings. + + The little dead who knew so large a love, + Whose lives were sweet unto themselves a shepherding + Of hopes, ambitions, wonders in a drove + Over the hills of time, that now are graves for burying. + + Of all the tenderness that flowed to them, + A milky way streaming from out their mother's breast, + Stars were they to her night, and she the stem + From which they flowered--now barren and left unblessed. + + Of all the sparkling kisses that they gave + Spangling a secret radiance on adoring hands, + Now stifled in the darkness of a grave + With kiss of loneliness and death's embracing bands. + + No more!--And we, the mourners, dare not wear + The black that folds our hearts in secrecy of pain, + But must don purple and bright standards bear, + Vermilion of our honour, a bloody train. + + We dare not weep who must be brave in battle-- + "Another death--another day--another inch of land-- + The dead are cheering and the ghost drums rattle" ... + The dead are deaf and dumb and cannot understand.... + + Of all who died in darkness far away + Nothing is left of them but LOVE, who triumphs now, + His arms held crosswise to the budding day, + The passion-red roses clustering his brow. + + 1917 + + + + + And afterwards, when honour has made good, + And all you think you fight for shall take place, + A late rejoicing to a crippled race; + The bulldog's teeth relax and snap for food, + The eagles fly to their forsaken brood, + Within the ravaged nest. When no disgrace + Shall spread a blush across the haggard face + Of anxious Pride, already flushed with blood. + + In victory will you have conquered Hate, + And stuck old Folly with a bayonet + And battered down the hideous prison gate? + Or will the fatted gods be gloried yet, + Glutted with gold and dust and empty state, + The incense of our anguish and our sweat? + + 1917 + + + + + Pity the slain that laid away their lives, + Pity the prisoners mangled with gyves, + Thin little children and widowed wives, + And the broken soldier who survives. + + Pity the woman whose body was sold + For a little bread or a little gold, + And a little fire to keep out the cold, + So tired, and fearful of growing old. + + Pity the people in the grey street + Before the dawn trooping with listless feet + Down to their work in the dust and the heat, + For a little bread and a little meat. + + Pity the criminal sentenced to die, + Loving life so, with the world in his eye, + In his ears and his heart, with the passionate cry + Of love that will call when he may not reply. + + Pity them all, the imperative faces + That peer through the dark where we sleep in our laces, + Where we skulk among cushions in opulent places, + With indolent postures and frivolous graces. + + Eyes that prick the darkness, fingers thin + Tearing at hypocrisy, and Sin + That batters the door and staggers in.... + The streets surround with clamour and din, + + Drowning our flutes, till the cries of the city + Flurry us, flutter us, force us to pity, + Force us to sigh and arrange a committee, + Tea-party charity danced to a ditty.... + + The scarlet ribbons flutter and wave, + A rebel flag on a rebel grave, + But to us the strong alone are brave, + And only the rich are worthy to save! + + Yet who shall blame us, plaited and curled, + Where silk banners fly and the red flags are furled, + Flags that blow where the dead are hurled, + Tattered and dripping with blood of the world! + + 1918 + + + + +FLAME + +[Illustration] + + + + + You have understood so little of me, and my adoration + That shone upon my forehead, like a crown of curious stones, + You turned into a cap and bells for Folly's coronation + And made a foolish tinkling from my laughter and my + moans. + + You have led me through the market like an ass upon the halter, + You have fed me upon thistles; I was driven by the crowd; + But my faith in what I am, my conceit, you cannot alter; + I was proud in pomp and purple, as a clown I leave you proud! + + A greater pride than sits upon a throne for mere adorning, + A fiercer strength than in the gods of wood that cannot bow; + I tore my purple into rags and knelt to bear your scorning, + And I am rebel leader to a band of beggars now. + + In the twilight of my love I stand and strew the bitter ashes; + They are blown into my eyes again, the fires that shone for + you; + In the blushing of the sunset their ghostly fervour flashes + As they sink for everlasting in the darkness and the dew. + + Your heart is as a moonstone hieroglyphed with secret letters; + You have never read my passion, as I never learnt their sign, + But I praise your haunting beauty and I bear the bruise of + fetters + And I reel from your remembrance as I spill the ancient wine. + All those women I have envied with their pink and foolish faces, + Moths that have out-distanced me in circling round your head, + For the strangeness of your kisses and the curse of your embraces + And the frenzy of pursuing where your despot feet have led. + + I will shout, and tear the darkness; I will snuff the candles + sacred + With the rage of my abasement, with the blast of my farewell; + I will smile with cynic softness, but my tears are dropping + acrid + And sizzling in a gutter down the white-hot streets of Hell! + + 1914 + + + + + Lulled are the dazzling colours of the day, + And mild the heavens, burnt out like an ash. + Hungry and strange along the shadowed dusk + Walks Melancholy, and with bitter mouth + Sucks the last juices from the sun's ripe fruit. + Now can I sing the sickly lines of love + And of love's failure, spell my sorrows out + In the sad spaces of the gloaming night, + And stooping, huddled, hide me in the dark. + My words were fireless in the flaming sun, + And all the throats of flowers from their content + Puffed back my pinings proudly in my face + And bade me give them tunes to make them dance.... + Lean, hungry, like my love the moon looks down + From the white solitudes of Heaven. All aghast + And sterile as the arms of my desire + She flings her light despairing on the sky. + The night is strange and still, for dropping tears, + Or burying hatred in a deep-dug grave. + + 1914 + + + + + Washed at my feet by the curded foam of sluggish waves, + As the rain splinters and the mud gleams with malicious light, + Like a frail shell, million tinged and quaintly wrought + The thought of you, which held against mine ear + Hums all the echoed melodies of your soul; + The sigh of wearied life, the ebbing sweet of love, + The little tunes of wine mixed with the chants of death, + The following of beauty's fugitive limbs + Whose classic feet, and rapturous pale breast + Gleam on the clouds and foam, + Call to her lovers.-- + Thus standing in the blasting of the wind, + And numb with ceaseless drip of moments from the cloud + Of lowering hours, I toy with this strange relic of the sea, + Turned with such perfectness from her tumultuous wheels, + Thoughts of you million tinged and quaintly wrought. + + 1916 + + + + + My poems cannot laugh. They are the voice + Of birds that mourn and cry above the sea, + And this wild joy my love has brought to me + Lies dumb and knows not how it shall rejoice. + + I am most weary of the petulant songs I sing, + Most tired of tunes that only learn to weep, + And long to turn my dreams from their pale sleep + Into a gentle minstrelsy with harp of silver string; + + To fashion for my love one perfect verse + Symmetrically threaded by beauty word on word, + Flowing and flashing like the luted laughter of a bird + To bless the soul with music which I ravished with a curse. + + But as a coward in the general gloom + I mimic fortune with my tunes of ill, + Nor pipe despite her wistful mirth and trill + Of love that moves with music into Doom; + + Of love that thrills with joy the graveyard cold, + And like a gay canary in a cage + Mocks at his prison, and with flippant rage + Flaunts his bright wing to fill the gloom with gold. + + 1916 + + + + + On the hill there is a tavern, long-loved, well-remembered, + Where all the sleepy afternoon the little tables dream, + And the cool green bottles ranged, laugh and gleam with golden + highlights, + And the waiters wrangle, and the flies, with murmurs merged and mixed. + We will go there, you and I, to wake the nodding contentment, + And toast our fancies reverently with red wine and with white + wine, + And with eyes mesmerised to the horizon gazing, + Dream our iridescent dreams and sigh our shadowy sighs. + + 1916 + + + + + Oh canst thou not hear in my heart all its whispering fears + Whose wind-like voices + Flutter the leaves of my hope and bow them with tears + While the body rejoices. + Till all the pomp and beauty of day, the Cardinal Sun + Trailing his scarlet vesture + Leaves after light the pale hills sullen and dun, + Turns with a gesture + Colour and glory to smoke that is deathly and grey. + I follow the shadows of sorrow + That press so close to the dancing heels of the day + And darken the morrow. + The world turns pale and cold, for I seem to see + Beyond its golden visor + The leering skull that derides at our lives and me + Being older than life and wiser.... + I hear the cry of the world that writhes to the lash of the + whip + Beyond the sound of the treetops singing + To the wind's persuasive violins and bells of dews that drip, + Or rush of feathers winging.... + Dost thou fear death as I? Ah no, but thy lips are against my + cheek + Murmuring tenderly + The perfumed lies stolen from spring that wistfully through the + bleak + Windows of frost so slenderly + Steals her little ghost's flute. Thou tellest of things that might + be + If life were as kind as a lover, + If we were beloved of the world and the world of we. + Thy white words hover + Dove-like in rose leaf evenings over the nest + Silvering heaven + With rustle of lovers that nestle together for rest. + If I could have given + My tired lips to kisses and my body to sleep and to thee, + Ah then and then only + The dust were as gentleness mingling thy beauty with me + And death were not lonely. + + 1916 + + + + + As in the silence the clear moonlight drips + Among the fields that love her drowsily, + These passionate moments trickle on through time, + From soul to languorous soul. + Like mad musicians upon fretted harps, + The senses play upon the poignant nerves,-- + And colours clothe our mood + As smoke against the light, as shimmering prisms + Irised with pallors of an opal's heart + In which the glittered pattern of desire + Smoulders and changes.... + O love, thou nightingale-throated singer, + Thread on thy jewelled chords from start to star + And keep thy silver delicate delight + Out of the flush and lustre that makes mad. + Let thy fairy feet + Go tripping down a scarcely scented path, + Between an avenue of breathless flowers. + The hours glide by as swans across a lake, + Across the luminous waters of desire, + And beat as wings the rustle of soft words, + As love bends down, + Breathing his adoration on a fainting mouth. + + 1917 + + + + + I can but give thee unsubstantial things + Wrapt as in rose-leaves between thought and thought, + No gems or garments marvellously wrought + On ivory spools with rare embroiderings. + Nor for thy fingers precious, fabled rings + That cardinals have worn, and queens have bought + With blood and beauty. I have only sought + A song that hovers on illusive wings. + + Accept from me a dream that hath no art, + I give my empty hands for thee to hold, + Take thou the gift of silence for my part, + With all the deeper things I have not told. + Yet if thou canst, decipher in my heart + Its passions writ in hieroglyphs of gold. + + 1917 + + + + +I + + I have no other friend but thee, + But while I tell thee all my thought + Thine ears are buzzing with gossip of dreams, + Soothsayings and sighs, and little things-- + How canst thou listen to me? + + +II + + Perchance I roamed under the old moon too long, + And when my cheek grew pale + I laid it against thine to feel the blood beat back + Responsive in the double rose of joy-- + But I feel thee shifting away into loneliness + Where the ghost moon glides between us.... + + +III + + When at a masquerade + I meet thee in the shrill indifferent throng, + Our faces painted each in some disguise + Of varnished revelry; + I whisper in thine ear + Fables, and flatteries, and inconsequent tales, + Trivial as the dust that whirls about our feet, + And shower the multicoloured streamers high + Where Folly is king of midnight-- + Suddenly dost thou snatch thy mask aside, + And thy still face looks out, + Weary and overwise + Where the mad pretence avails not. + + +IV + + Long ago we walked together in a garden; + It was evening and the leaves fell down; + Silently we passed over the dead, the fallen, + Over flowers and branches that were withered there-- + And the air was weary with the scent of other days, + A fragrance faint and pensive. + The sighing of the leaves beneath our feet + Were as old dreams retold, + Stirred from the golden quilt of memory, + And farewells rang their whispering bells, + Tolling the days away. + But peace lay folded between our hands + As we thought of the vanishing years + And of love dying in the arms of love. + + +V + + Sometimes I look into the glass + And see my face without the conquering light + That gave me glamour when I gave thee love. + Fain would I bathe in the fountains of beauty, + To glitter with the crystals of her sparkling desire, + And touch with my feet the floors of a bright paven Hell, + And rear my head among the lilies of Heaven. + I would be for thee + As a ring of white flowers on the sward, + As a red fire playing to thy breath, + As a flock of kingfishers + Surprised from the dark fringe of rushes! + Remember only this, + My will toward all loveliness, and look + Deep in thyself for my reflected soul. + + +VI + + Be perfect--for I love thee more in thought + Than thou canst reach in every trivial day. + Since days are as the flowers on a wreath + That wither while we bind them each to each. + Only the soul is timeless, and no round of days + Can wall it in a little space of ground. + Sometimes our minds are cheated by the clock + And crave love, wisdom, joy within an hour, + But the patient spirit stands + Waiting the last fulfilment. + Around thy soul my thoughts are as garlands + Or as an endless rosary. + Be perfect! lest my psalm should falter + And my hands part from the unriveted faith + With Amen scarcely sighed. + + 1917 + + + + + Bodies heaving like waves, + Sighing through the dishevelled tresses of foam, + The massive whiteness of limbs flung out of shadow, + Splashed with ecstasial moonlight, + Sculptured voluptuously in ephemeral marbles. + Lingering touch of fingers, + Cooler than the curving ringlets of spray + Fluting the new-blown petals of a shell, + And kisses murmuring as the lips of darkness + Against the ivory forehead of the moon. + + 1919 + + + + + Your face to me is like a beautiful city + Dreaming forever by the rough wild sea, + And I the ship upon a wilderness of waves + Heavily laden with memories.... + I roam over all the earth + Making rhymes of you, and singing songs, + Because your face will never let me rest, + Because I can not frame it in a star + Surrounded with my cloudy reveries, + Because I may not pluck it like a flower + To breathe the incense of its perfumed soul-- + Your face is like the carved hilt of a sword + Whose sheath is in my breast! + + 1918 + + + + + Oh! why will you not let me love you + Well enough? + You have plucked my blossoms, + Gathered the leaves + And revived them with water; + But all the tortuous roots + Delving for your spirit + In subterranean passions + With a blind unresting desire, + Have you felt them, have you known? + In the blackest night of sleep + Though I be sunk a thousand fathoms + In the cerulean depths of slow oblivion, + My soul still swims toward you + Against the envious pressure of the tide.... + You who are so tired, so filled with sleep + That you would brush a rose-leaf from your cheek + Lest its heaviness should stir your rest, + How can you shoulder the weight of my great burden + That is too vast for me to bear alone? + I tell you + Love is no little thing, + No moth-winged Cupid painted on the air, + No thin flute music petaling the silence + As leaves that flutter from a cherry tree. + It is the thought that broods upon its death, + The dread of mountains looking to the storm + Ere shrieks of lightning cleave their breasts in twain. + It is the fire that pillars up the stars + To mix its flame with their eternal gold. + Oh, listen to me! + You shall hear my message sung from sphere to sphere + As star-dust pouring a path through Heaven. + You shall know me + In the pensive shadows of trees, + In the luminary phantoms + Reflected in the stillness of a lake; + In the arrows of sunlight shot through meshing leaves + And quivering in the moss; + In the abandoned play of breakers + Showering their crystals to the moon; + In the folly of rainbow dolphins. + I only ask of you + To be the diver in my deepest pool, + To bring from out its blue obscurity + The things my life has moulded unaware, + Treasures my passion and my hunger fashioned + In loneliness of prayer unlit by life, + Created out of nothing save myself + Within the blind fast silence of the soul. + + 1918 + + + + + My devotion kneels to you, + Holding a candle to illumine your face. + My loneliness is your shadow + Along the solitary roads. + My passion is a book between your hands + Whose leaves are as the leaves of violets, + A volume of pressed flowers + Scenting your fingers though you read it not. + And my white faith + Is a silken surplice clothing you in peace. + + 1919 + + + + +ISLANDS + + + As launched upon the loneliness of time + We float and dream of what the waves conceal, + Each like a thought that rolls with rapid zeal + Succeeded by a breaker of fierce crime, + Or curling passion, or a rhythm of rhyme, + Or indolent ripple sighing at the keel-- + Beyond us, though our fretted longings reel, + The lulled horizon sleeps, the still hours climb-- + So toss our weary ships, till from afar + Our visioned island rises suddenly, + Where palaces like cloudy colours are, + With scented gardens terraced to the sea, + The silver steps to our appointed star + Where gleam the spires that pierce eternity. + + 1917 + + + + + Many things I'd find to charm you, + Books and scarves and silken socks, + All the seven rainbow colours + Black and white with 'broidered clocks. + Then a stick of polished whalebone + And a coat of tawny fur, + And a row of gleaming bottles + Filled with rose-water and myrrh. + Rarest brandy of the 'fifties, + Old liqueurs in leather kegs, + Golden Sauterne, copper sherry + And a nest of plover's eggs. + Toys of tortoise-shell and jasper, + Little boxes cut in jade; + Handkerchiefs of finest cambric, + Damask cloths and dim brocade. + Six musicians of the Magyar, + Madness making harmony; + And a bed austere and narrow + With a quilt from Barbary. + You shall have a bath of amber, + A Venetian looking-glass, + And a crimson-chested parrot + On a lawn of terraced grass. + Then a small Tanagra statue + Found anew in ruins old, + Or an azure plate from Persia, + Or my hair in plaits of gold; + Or my scalp that like an Indian + You shall carry for a purse, + Or my spilt blood in a goblet ... + Or a volume of my verse. + + 1916 + + + + +LAMPLIGHT AND STARLIGHT + +[Illustration] + + + + +LAMP-POSTS + + + The eternal flame of laughter and desire + Breaks the long darkness with a little glance, + Till all the gloom is radiant in a dance + Of yellow hopefulness, reflecting fire + That dreams from Heaven's lamps as we aspire + Sadly toward their jubilance--Romance + Of faery glitter in the streets of chance-- + Those beacon-trees that blossom from the mire + Within the fog of our despairing gloom; + In the glum alleys, down the haunted night + Through tunnelling of subterranean doom, + Among the grovelling shadows, kingly bright, + They bear their coronets of golden bloom + To front our anguish with their brave delight. + + 1917 + + + + +LONDON + + + Richer than fields of corn that fire in summer, + Strange as the moon on forest rising sudden, + More fearful and beloved than peace or silence, + Heart with my heart at pace in throbbing fever, + Calling towards me with a voice incessant. + Thou that begot me: From whose streets triumphant + I, coloured fiercely with thy passion, wakened! + I sucked red wine, not milk, from thy gaunt bosom, + My senses in thy fearfulness found beauty, + And honey in thine oaths and lamentations. + I played about thy feet that know not resting + And bathed me in the sweat of thine endeavour. + + When on thy gala-nights the thronged lamps glitter, + Sparkle like sequins, and the plumes of shadow + With curling smoke, with rain and rippling gutter + Are tossed in feathered gaiety about thee-- + Thick grow the crowded streets in coloured pageant, + Kaleidoscope of people, circling, crossing, + Till the brain frenzies to a thousand patterns, + While the ears buzz with noises of their laughter; + Shouts hoarse and coarse and shrill in one great roaring, + As of the angry ocean in her travail ... + They haunt me in the tranquil of the forest, + Those faces pain has marked and toil has mangled; + Pangs greater than the lonely Crucifixion + Here crucified each day with lust and hunger, + Hung up unlovely in the open market; + Made gay with paper garlands, covered over + With tinsel loincloth, painted like a puppet, + Lest the elect in passing should be startled, + Lest they should smear the blameless brow of honour! + With bloody shoes and spinning-wheels of traffic + Vermilion-splashed, the city rushes onward, + And thorns of death and lust and fruitless labour + Lie underneath the feet forever dancing. + Gay tunes are rasped upon a weary fiddle, + Or voice of moaning in the tinkling cymbal, + Offspring of humour from disaster's bowels. + I love the bitter and the rude, the drunken, + The tramps and thieves that skulk among the shadows; + The faces red as fire and dead as ashes, + A million faces scattered like confetti, + All changing, whirling, trodden into nothing. + There Beauty wanders strange, an-hungered, weary, + Throned on a dust-heap, or triumphant reeling + In mad disorder from the couch of chaos. + + O ragged Beauty, through the mournful houses, + How frail the feet that lead the dawn towards us, + Blushed in the sunrise with a great ambition, + Spent in the evening like a rose of fever, + Fainting before us paler than a lily. + While here each day self-satisfied and placid + Moves opulent among the groves of summer; + The larks delight, the laughter of the thrushes, + The kindly peasants in their ruddy orchard, + Please for a while until the spirit sickens + And turns her panting to her ancient lover. + + Oh, well I know the quickening of the pulses, + Joy bursting through disgust as field and pasture + Grow fewer, paler, till the eager houses + Like hungry animals eat up the spaces + And close upon the miles that God created, + With triumph of man's greed. As warriors listening + To the far rhythm in the drums of battle, + As seamen hear the mighty tide-wave bursting, + I feel the scamper of your feet approaching + And your great starving arms and strangling fingers + That drag me back to my perverted Heaven! + + 1914 + + + + + Slowly the pale feet of morning + Tread out the ashes of midnight still burning with feverous + lamplight, + Colourless, cold, as the rainclad + Sleep-druggèd river that carries the wreckage of cities out + sea-ward. + Slowly the fingers of dawn-light + Snuff out the candles that yearned to those Gods of delirium, + Sleep-huge as shadows grimacing + From niches made black with the smoke of a fire-spangled passion. + Smoothly the wild hair of darkness + Is plaited for rest, and the faces of visions are covered with sleep + veils. + Patiently, Morning, the priestess + Drones out a psalm for the souls that we damned in the blackness, + Gashed with the daggers of street-lights, + Crushing the poisonous berries of sinister kisses,-- + Morning with healing and kindness + Folds up the dresses dishevelled with terror and laughter, + Sweeps up the rags of our shadows + That danced in a red smoke of dreams on the walls of oblivion. + + 1919 + + + + + What have I to do with them, + The red athletes in their snow-white clothes? + They are sun lovers and moon haters, + Toiling or playing in the fields + Whereon no shadows lie, + Pensively, whispering together-- + They are space lovers and haters of the stars, + Soundly they sleep by night nor ever see + The tiaraed brows of darkness. + I weary of their striving upward and onward, + Away from the green hush of twilight, + Where silence drips from the trees, + Away from the solemn avenues + Where the ghosts blow by + Along with a drift of leaves. + + Let us linger awhile + Far away from the frets and wars of the world, + From the strong men + With their strident hymning voices and marching feet-- + Let us walk alone + For the love of our own shadows + Stretching their length on lawns of powdered silver, + With behind us the sky's grey curtain + Drawn backward from the moon.... + Let us sit by the fireside + And hear the wind's shrill orchestras, + Fiddle and fife and flute, + And omened bagpipe screaming.... + Let us lie abed and dream + Through the long summer's morning + Of trivial things, and beautiful.... + Let us dance with Folly when midnight knocks on his golden + gong; + Let us run through pools of wine + And be splashed with purple. + Let us, being sick, make merry, + And rejoice when we are weary. + Let us sit by our grave as at a banquet, + Drinking to Death. + + What have we to do with them, + Sons of the sun and the soil, + Daughters of the hearth and the field? + They that remake the world + Melting our idols for silver, + Our goblets for gold; + Tearing our temples down + To build their red brick villages. + + The doomed world faints into mist, + World of our indolence and dreams, + And the faces and bodies we love + Sink through oblivion, and are seen + Dimly, as divers through the waters. + Old worlds and new worlds! + Let us slip between them, + And float on the stream that floweth nowhither-- + Our red ambitions burn + To a blue smoke of forgetting; + Our moonshine faints on the tide that goeth out, + As the sun leers to the tide that cometh in. + + 1918 + + + + + Among the crumbling arches of decay + Where all around the red new buildings crept, + Where huge machines had rolled the past away, + And the dead princes lay accursed and slept; + + Among the ruins I beheld a man + Who heeded not the engines as they neared, + Painting dead carnivals upon a fan, + He smiled and trifled with his pointed beard. + + And here and there were flung a mess of things, + Tokens and fripperies and faded dresses, + Kept from the courtships of a thousand kings, + Tossed roses for the tossing of caresses. + + A carven sabre hung upon the wall, + A toy thing, with no rust of blood upon it, + A tray of glasses, an embroidered shawl, + A muff, a bottle and a feathered bonnet. + + And mirrors flashed their argent memories + Out of the shadows where they laughed and gleamed, + While ghostly faces of past vanities + Come back to dream there where they once had dreamed. + + The stranger turned his head and bowed to me + And waved me vaguely to a gilded chair. + I spoke: "You are a connoisseur, I see, + You really have a fine collection there." + + He bowed to me again, and in his hand + Dangled a string of gems, they caught my eye + With beckoning lights--I could not understand-- + His fingers seemed to touch them like a sigh + + So much he loved their frail inconsequence. + I spoke of progress conquering decay, + And tired the stillness with my common sense + Loud-spoken in the jargon of the day. + + But I have never met so queer a man, + "I better love my memories," he said, + "Look at those painted figures on the fan, + How delicate and wistful are the dead." + + 1917 + + + + + As a nun's face from her black draperies + So full of mystery the moon looks down. + She dreams of a passion that shall outlive time, + Of Beauty's face beheld unveiled and close, + Of God Who blows the worlds like bubbles up, + Smiling away, to watch them swell and die. + She dreams of music played among the stars + When the slow tongues of silence are unloosed. + Above the city glittering giddily, + Above the jostling heads of man she moves, + Strange as a dreamer walking in her sleep. + + 1912 + + + + + The sun is lord of life and colour, + Blood of the rose and hyacinth, + Hair of the sea and forests, + Crown of the cornfields, + Body of the hills. + The moon is the harlot of Death, + Slaughterer of the Sun, + Priestess and poisoner she goes + With all her silver flock of wandering souls, + Her chant of wailing waters, + The bed of shimmering dust from which she comes + Bound all around with bandages of mist.... + The living are as blossoms and fruit on the tree, + The dead are as lilies and wind on the marshes; + The living are as cherries that bow to the morning + Beckoning to the loitering stranger, + The wind, to sing them his eerie ballads. + The dead are as frozen skeleton branches + Whereon the stillness perches like an owl.... + The dead are as snows on the cherry orchard. + + 1918 + + + + +BAHAMA ISLANDS + + +I + + All down the somnolent street where pale tinged houses dream + The negroes go, black faces crowding together; + And between the palm leaves dancing with lethargic gestures, + The bright long water spreads, green as a parrot's wing-- + We have rest here and a monotony of wheels, + A peaceful noise like bees that moan in June-- + And the sun rusts not, but his brazen heraldries + Tarnished with evening are burnished with the dawn. + Yet pain comes stabbing in the night with silver knife through the + window, + A blanched moon full of fear and the burden of desire-- + And nothing rids us utterly of grief, + We who have pilgrim souls that will not sleep. + + +II + + Moonlight planting the world with lilies, so hushed it seems and + scented, + But in the chapel is a droning where the negroes chant their + hymns + And we in aureoled loneliness go down the street contented, + With hearts that beat for pleasure to the rhythm of our limbs. + + 1917 + + + + +THOUGHTS OF LONDON + + + Oh, have I bartered and forgotten thee, + Selling thy tarnished twilights for gold sun, + Relinquishing thy dreams that used to run + A ragged troop along thy streets with me? + Cast off the glitter of thy jewelry, + Thy lamp-light, starlight, colours crudely spun, + The eloquent ugliness, the roofs of dun, + The fogs that swathe in bands of mystery? + Mother of dreams and laughter and despair! + Thy joy my Heaven is, my Hell thy pain, + Thy labyrinthian streets wind everywhere, + Thy sins and passions baffle me again; + And all my hopes thy lamps that flick and glare, + And all my griefs thy beggars in the rain. + + 1918 + + + + +STREETS + + + I am going + Up and down the roads and alleys + Through the forests of the city, + Hunting thoughts, hunting dreams. + My mind shall wander through the streets + Whistling to a vague adventure, + Plucking strange fancies where they lurk and peer + And casting them away. + Dusk is creeping through the town + Lighting the lamps and loitering, + Leaving smoky clouds of shadow, + Hovering clouds of peace; + And behind her race the winds + Whining to the scent of darkness, + Scattering the dust + With their swift hounds' feet.... + I am a hunter in the city's jungle, + Exploring all her secret mysteries. + I know her well, + The moaning highways, + And whispering alleys, + The chimney-dishevelled roofs + Where the moon walks delicately + As a stray spectral cat; + The little forlorn squares + Where one tree stands + Drooping bedraggled hair and fingers + Over the benches where the people sit + And stir not from their sullen postures, + Staring out where evening passes + With such a sauntering dreamy step. + I know her parks that spring had decked with garlands, + Fluttered with flags and child imaginings, + Powdered with blossoms exquisite and shy, + Haunted with lovers and their last year's ghosts. + Now stripped with autumn, as the ragpicker + Wrapped in his tattered coat emaciate + Picks up the littered wreck of holiday + To mount the dust heap where our memories lie + Sprawled in a mess of ruins.... + I know her monotone of gloomy mansions, + Repeating each in each a dull despair, + Indifferent and dignified; + Those tarnished prisons lined with white and gold, + With dismal silences of velvet carpets, + Where starving souls are kept + Feeding upon each other's isolations, + Not daring to escape.... + Some roads seem steep as mountains, weary me + With their crude temples built in praise of lust, + Squatting and smiling at some hideous dream + Of fat bejewelled goddesses, or gods + Frock-coated, undismayed by prayers and tears, + Their hats atilt like halos on their heads.... + + I love the ribald multi-coloured crowd, + Its radiant loves, and laughters, all the faces + That are as songs, as flowers, as hovering stardust.... + I love the memory-crusted taverns + In which my heart has leapt to a fiddler's tune + Until the dawn, + Like a white minstrel stopped to sing + Fantastic serenades, and called me forth + Where through the crystal chandeliers of morning + Dew-prismed shone the sun.... + I love the narrow streets whose crippled houses + Are bathed in vitriol twilights, + Spitting smoke, + Or making oaths and mouths at one another.... + While between + The flaring tinsel lights of shop and window + Are gaps of goblin darkness passaging + Into Cimmerian depths of mystery and sin.... + Wan children stare at me, and in their eyes + I see the flickering pallor of the lamps, + Reflective of the solitude of stars.... + And I am thrilled + With horror and the hope for tragedies.... + + But, they surround my heart these weary streets, + Yea, in my soul they cut their mournful paths, + And through them pass forever + Those shadow figures trudging through the grey + Like penitent souls through haunted corridors.... + Ah, Grief, thou wanderer, + Thou maker of music, lingering and sweet! + Here dost thou pause to play thy shrill faint tunes, + Thy fingers touch the stops to loose our tears, + And shake our hearts, and fold our hands in prayer. + Through all the winding mazes of the city + Thy stooping shoulders and thy pitiful face are seen, + And thou dost stand before the gate of brass, + And by the iron door, + Under the windows where we sit and wait + For some sweet promise to unfold itself + From the shut scrolls of sleep, + And at the dusty curtain that divides + Glory from Death, + And lover from the lover.... + + Now in my room I sit + And round me falls the darkness + In rustling folds of peace. + But round my heart I know + No scarves of sleep and silence can be bound + To shut the city out. + For I shall feel the rush of streets + Shooting inquisitive fingers into chaos, + Piercing the night's remote divinity. + And I shall never rid me of these scars + That time and man have cut into my thought, + Never shake off my shoulders + The burden of the city's pain. + Oh, never shall we escape thee, + Mother of mutiny and want, + Thou beautiful mistress of Grief.... + Oh, never shall we escape thy insomnial nights + Beating with ineloquent hands + The tambourines of time, + The drums of war; + Fevering our minds + With the swollen traffic of thoughts, + The wheels and rattle of an endless search.... + + Tired I am with wandering, + Pricked with the lights and jostled by the worlds, + More jaded than the Moon, more hopeless, grey, + Than that sad pilgrim lost amid the stars!... + + 1918 + + + + + Laughter and singing come with the morning, + When Life doth mask his face with a gilded visor, + And dons his arrogant clothes. + But in the night, + When the unsheathed moon stands naked and pale, + We too put off our opulent disguise + And stand alone in the baffling darkness, + Fighting with our sins, + Weeping for our loneliness, + That moon-like gropes forever through the desolate air. + + 1918 + + + + + In the night I hear my loneliness calling + The long shrill note of the seabird's cry + Over the fuming spite of breakers, + Over the brumous, sulky tides. + All the ocean is craving Heavenward, + And the wild sky crushes downward toward the sea, + Where the clouds stoop their passionate bodies, + And the waves rear their supplicating hands. + Mine eyes grow tired of looking outward forever, + Away from the firelight and my sleeping idols, + To where the darkness is shattered with gusts of white, + Wings of ship, and bird, and cloud, and wave, + Flashing their signals of unrest.-- + My longing is a warm thing in a cold street, + Taking refuge by the chinks of lighted doors-- + My longing is a pale ghost stepping into the sunlight + That falls in golden curtains sumptuous and hushed-- + My longing is a fiddler making a thin tune through the silence, + Through the heavy pauses of sleep.-- + Ah! Stop up my ears lest I hear my longing call, + Lest I hear my loneliness crying! + + 1918 + + + + +SUNDAY + + + How beautiful is the world's delight, + How trivial, yet as sweet as a passing dream + That makes the harassed sleeper in the night + Smile, and on waking sigh. Forever the stream + Of time moves onward; as in coloured boats + A thousand souls go sailing, + And stilly down the tide my spirit floats + Singing or wailing + To the tune the waters make. Here we forget a space + The crawling sins of man that sting and gloat, + The pain and fear that haggers every face, + But vaguely and remote + The strident trumpet and the clamorous voices sound-- + Grief doth forget to curse her Gods or pray, + While pagan follies squander all around + Their brief gay hours in holiday; + For all prayers die when laughter is on the lips.-- + How frail the moods of joy, how sweet to see them pass + Like bubbles on the tide, like coloured ships + Sailing on glass! + + 1918 + + + + + The leaves are singing, and the sea, + And the sand in the wind, + Blown grass and hurrying people; + Full of melodious strings and lutes and flutes + Rustling and whispering forever. + The sad music of Life is in my ears, + Never ceasing, never asleep, + And my heart is strung between chord and chord + Like a crucifix in a rosary. + + 1918 + + + + + How soundly sleepeth the fool, + With profane snore taunting the solemn-pillared night-- + He hath no dreams of restless, subtle forms + That shift across a feverish vacancy; + Nor doth he hear the drums of time + Beating against oblivion tunes of war, + Goading the crippled hours on their endless march-- + But waketh to yawn in the face of the sun, + Then turneth back to sleep.... + + How soundly the wise man sleepeth, + Couched royally in the purple of the dark + With his white mistress, Peace-- + And when the morning stealeth on his rest, + As a rose he doth pluck her from the spreading tree of days, + And reviveth his heart + With the perfume of the world.... + But 'twixt the wise and the foolish + Many nights shed sorrow and fear, + And nets are spread for timid feet, + And the waves beat on the shifting sand.... + + 1918 + + + + + Moonlit lilacs under the window, + And the pale smell of their falling blossoms, + And the white floating beams like luminous moths + Fluttering from bloom to bloom. + Sprays of lilac flowers + Frothing at the green verge of midnight waves, + Frozen to motionless icicles. + Moonlight flows over me, + Spreads her bright watery hair over my face, + Full of illicit, marvellous perfumes + Wreathed with syringa and plaited with hyacinths; + Hair of the moonlight falling about me, + Straight and cool as the drooping tresses of rain. + + 1918 + + + + + Old woman forever sitting + Alone in the large hotel under the fans, + Infinitely alone where around you spin + So many lives like painted tops, + Smearing the void a moment with their hues, + Giddily catching at balance as they pause. + What crime was yours, old woman, + What sin against the Earth + That she should give you now + A cap of dust and furrows on your cheeks, + And at the end + A hole dug in the mould? + Is death the promise of Fate's last rebound, + Revenge of Time that waits within the clock + And laughs awry at life, + For a kiss, for a dream, for a child that you bore, + For a fresh rose pinned to your bosom? + The owl is in your spirit, + Blinking through the oldest tree of wisdom-- + And now your fingers are weaving + The cold pale invisible blossoms of death + Into a waxen wreath, + And Time + Sits down beside you knitting with quick hands + Grey counterpanes to cover up a grave! + + 1918 + + + + + Loneliness I love, + And that is why they have called me forth into the streets. + Loneliness I love, + But the crowd has clutched at me with fawning hands,... + My spirit speaks + In the scented quietness of a divine melancholy + Murmuring the tunes + For which my dreams are the delicate instruments. + The shadowy silences + Have made me beautiful and dressed me in velvet dignities, + And that is why + The noise of tambourines has maddened my soul into dancing, + And I am clad + In the lust-lipped whispering of furtive caresses. + Holiness I love, + And touching the virginal pierced feet of martyrs, + The crucified feet + Nestled among lilies and hallowing candles. + Holiness I love + And the melodious absolution falling on my sins. + But that is why + Blasphemous priests have forced my hands to tear + The vesture of secrecy + Which hides the human nakedness of God. + + * * * * * + + 1918 + + + + + I met an Indian underneath a tree, under a ragged tree, + His face was yellow and wrinkled like some stone whereon a God had + writ + And his emaciated fingers drew circles in the dust.... + I bent my mouth to his ear, crying "O father, O Prophet! + I have wandered far over the earth troubled with doubts that will not + let me rest, + Canst thou not tell me with all thy wizardries and meditations + The purpose of our lives upon this world, + The secret truth Earth shelters in her womb?" + + But he was listening to the whispering of the mountains, + To the boom of God's paces on the rocks, + And the swishing steps of his followers in the rivers. + Then suddenly he pointed to the arched doorway in between the + hills, + And the mysterious purple curtain of the dusk that drooped from cliff + to cliff. + I saw in his eyes the vision of highborn ghosts, + Of divine ivory faces wreathed with the flowers of wisdom-- + And I knew that he had found only the half-spoken promises of + Heaven.... + + * * * * * + + I saw a drunkard laughing in a tavern, + His cup was tilted and the wine spilt crimson on the sprawled arms + and distracted hair of a woman fallen asleep, + I watched him there and wondered + If ever the bubbling goblins of wine had whispered him life's + secret. + But he raised the cup of his carousals and gazed at emptiness, + Toasting some wild, irreverent dream, + Some flame-red salamander pirouetting among the dead waste ashes of + time-- + And I knew that he had found only the secrets of sleep.... + + * * * * * + + A woman sat within a little house, + Scolding and singing ballads to her child, + And all around came the quarrel of children's voices. + Yet one boy sat apart within the furthest corner of the room + Painting an animal with coloured chalks. + I lingered by the fire thinking of life, its vanities and mysteries, + But the woman did not heed me, + Nor her pale son that sat so hunched and still, + Painting his visions with the broken chalks, + For they had discovered the absorbing painful secrets of giving + birth.... + + * * * * * + + It was evening as I wandered, + By a lake two lovers leaned, smiling to see their faces in the + water, + For they had found within each other's souls + An argent flattering mirror wherein to gaze and see their faces + change with all the moods and shadows of the day.... + Not here should I discover the answer to bring light into my + darkness, + Into the dim psychic crystals of my soul opalled with the changing + colours of unrest-- + So I went away into the loneliness, asking the forests and the + mountains and the sea + The knowledge of life's baffling mysteries. + But they were roaring in a wind of memories, + Gathering the rain into their bodies to make them fierce and + strong, + Heaving their shoulders upward to the morning, + Crowning their foreheads with sunlight. + And I knew that they were Life itself, + The pushing vehemence that rushes from the strangling arms of + Death, + Nor could they guess + The purpose of God's beauty in their joy.... + + 1918 + + + + + From the fathomless depth of my boredom, from the + last room of its emptiness, an elf has come to play + with me. + + As comes a little gold spider to a prison cell teasing the + criminal from his darkness to tear at a thread of sunlight, + and kiss the mouth of a shy morning whispering through + the window. + + An elf has come to dance with me, blown like a leaf on + the path of my autumn lassitude. + + Sprightly one, dervish! You are the living adventure + born of my dead childhood, you are the small god in the + temples of my unbelief, you are the bird that nests in ruined + temples, laying your silver eggs by moonlight and singing + when the pagan birds are still. + + You are the dream-sower in the fields of sleep, you have + jingled the star-bells on the hood of darkness, and from the + knarled, stark tree of time have flung me the apple of + eternal laughter. + + 1919 + + + + + Lolling in snow, like kings in ermine coats, the gilt-crowned + bottles lie.... Our thoughts are dangled in + a laughter of leaves as bunches of blue and yellow grapes + for faery beggars, for ragged fancies to pluck and taste. + + Our music shall be the minstrelsy of ghostly ballad-mongers + that have stolen from the ashen banquets of death to bless + our revels. + + Our spirits shall flit like those winged faces of cherubs + that never can alight, but swing forever on the azure ribbons + of the sky. + + And all our dreams and kisses shall be as the rose-leaves + falling on ancient festivals, as the shadows of rose-leaves + falling on phantom lovers in the sleep-pillared temples of + our first archaic passion. + + 1918 + + + + + The roots of our longing are probing the heart of night, + delving and twining together that our ultimate truth + may grow out of the darkness that bewilders and nourishes. + Out of the earth, the dust, the crystals of frost that bind + themselves like a tight crown over our heads. + + Through the mould and the frost our hair and fingers shall + prick their spears of pallor and flame, and in the green + ardour of our up-rushing leaves the red goblets of fire + shall open, and masses of white flowers, milky as the star-sprays + that droop over Heaven, shall splash their bright + foam from the darkness, as waves that rise and break into + a fountain of blossoms. + + 1919 + + + + +VAHDAH + + + Sun-aureoled lilies are your priestesses, + They stand like choirs in silver surplices, + Melodious streams of silence fill the room, + And pensive listeners lean within the gloom + Of purple quietness. A laughter full of holiness-- + Like the wild bells of lilies ringing in the loneliness + Of star-reflected gardens walled with night,-- + Thrills from your soul which empties its delight + As rain on lilies, or as sunlight falling slenderly + To gild their ivory temples, and as moonlight shutting tenderly + Their alabaster doors.... A white peace grows, + And love, within your spirit like a lily and a rose. + + 1918 + + + + + Starlit silences! + Breeding fears, swarming with sudden deaths, + With separations, burdens, and despairs, + Weaving slow eerie fancies in my brain ... + Forlorn shorn monks go down the cloisters of quietness + With tortured crucifixes cut in ivory + Clasped in their praying hands, + And psalmed with lips renunciate of kisses ... + Forgotten days are painted on the night + In parables and symbols of remorse + That jeer from out the wind-stirred tapestries. + The hangman's rope coils upward like a snake + Out of the death-coloured waters, + While the black barges pass + Funereal, + Carrying doom from mist to mist.... + And madmen steal about the wintry parks + Under the high glum walls of an asylum, + With eyes lit up in phosphorescent ecstasies, + With fumbling hands + That grope for things invisibly obscene. + Even the clock + Grown idiot too from keeping madmen's time + Gibbers the hours away in irrelevant chimes.... + Silence embalms the dead with scented bands + And is the watchman to deserted houses, + And draws the violet curtain on the day, + And fits a mask of silver to the moon. + Silence brings corpses from the crypts of memory + And sits them round us in the empty chairs, + Opens the secret chambers of our hopes + And shows us there in awful pantomime + Lust wreathing love with poppies and with ashes, + And Beauty dressing Sin for carnival, + And Peace made drunken with a cup of blood. + It winds as ivy round our listening thoughts + Shutting all sounds away, enclosing us + Within its stifled virid twilight.... + + Cry out, sing, make noises, + Bacchantes, revellers, clowns! + Bring myriad lamps in clusters, likening grapes + That spill the wine of light into our gloom; + Pressing against our lips + The red grape-kisses of pleasure. + Bring the hounds, + The garlanded white ones, + To bay and snarl and tear the flying rags + Of stillness shadowing away! + Lean over me, O Life, + And whisper all thy lying flatteries + That drag me back from Silence and her dead. + I have kept vigil on my soul too long + Within this vast cathedral of dim sleep, + Languidly gathering + The cold grey lilies of the stars + To slip between her passive waxen hands.... + + 1918 + + + + + The mountain is an Emperor. + The clouds are his beard, and the stars his diadem; + His bauble is the moon; + He is dressed in silver forests, and the mist his train; + His feet are two white rivers. + + 1917 + + + + + I know what happiness is-- + It is the negation of thought, + The shutting off + Of all those brooding phantoms that surround + As dank trees in a forest + Cutting the daylight into rags, + Caging the sun + In rusted prison bars. + Happiness loves to lie at a river's edge + And make no song, + But listen to the water's murmuring wisdom, + The kissing touch of leaves wind-bowed together, + The feathery swish of cloud wings on a hill; + Opening wide the violet-petalled doors + Of every shy and cloistered sense, + That all the scent and music of the world + May rush into the soul. + And happiness expands + The rainbow arch for a procession of dreams, + For moth-like fancies winged with evening, + For dove-breasted silences, + For shadowy reveries + And starry pilgrims.... + I know what happiness is-- + It is the giving back to Earth + Of all our furtive thefts, + The lurid jewels that we stole away + From passion, sin and pain, + Because they glittered strangely, luring us + With their forbidden beauty. + Because our childish fingers curiously + Crave the pale secrets of the moon + And grope for dangerous toys. + Happiness comes in giving back to Earth + The things we took from her with violent hands, + Remembering only + That her dust is our garment, + Her fruits our endeavour, + Her waters our priestess, + Her leaves our interpreters to God, + Her hills our infinite patience. + + 1918 + + + + + Long hath the pen lain idle in my hand, + Or traced slow sentences without a rhyme, + Words strung at random to beguile the time + As children threading beads upon a strand. + I have strayed far away from fairyland + Whose little hills grow steep and hard to climb; + I creep along the valleys in the slime, + Or hide me like an ostrich in the sand. + + For I have sought a mellow idleness, + To be forever buried as a fly + Lies casketed in amber; where the stress + Of peril, hunger, Death can never cry + To wake me from my sanguine weariness, + Or cloud the lucid stillness with a sigh. + + 1918 + + + + + I laid my heart on a stone + And stood in the wood to watch. + Presently a priest came by; + He hid it in his cowl + And buried it in the graveyard. + Now is it grown into a cyclamen tree, + Clustering over the wall, + Beckoning far along the twilight road; + Nodding and singing where the cypress moans, + Ringing its little bells while the great bell tolls. + Whiter than ghosts are its flowers, + And its scent is sweeter than ghostly music-- + All the men and priests that pass + In the night when the stars lean down, + Smell the heavy fragrance there + And feel the gentle touch of dripping dew. + Then they cross themselves and go + Hurriedly, warily, + Dreaming of pale women, + Under the pale stars. + + 1918 + + + + + The cold light steals into my soul + Revealing its emptiness, + The cold winds batter at my heart + And make its lonely tenant shake with fear-- + The raindrops slide across the window-glass + Like sighs that fall from patient weariness; + And coldly smiling time + Peers with his clock-face, ticking in my brain + The pulse of a monotonous remorse. + + 1918 + + + + + The caravans of spring are in the town, + Lighting their brilliant torches in the park, + Dangling their bells, engirdling each stark + Black tree with coloured rings. The houses frown + Against the beryl sky, yet wear a crown + Of hazy dream, or flash a golden spark + Of sun-fire in their windows glum and dark; + The people blow like petals up and down. + + But London tires at evening, each grey street + Mourns as the slow procession passes by, + Traffic and crowd, and Time on loitering feet. + Spring droops his lute, the slender echoes sigh, + And wistfully the jaded revellers meet, + Their pomp in tatters and their wreaths awry. + + 1918 + + + + + I dread the beauty of approaching spring + Now the old month is dead and the young moon + Has pierced my heart with her sharp silver horns. + My tired soul is startled out of sleep + By all the urging joy of bud and leaf, + And in the barren yard where I have paced + Content with prison and despair's monotony, + The trees break into music wild and shrill, + And flowers come out like stars amid the dust, + Bewildering my loneliness with beauty.... + For winter with her melancholy face + Shone back my miseries as in a glass, + And wept and whined in harmony with me; + And I could listen by the withering ashes + To the ill-omened drum of dropping rain, + And sighing harken sighs and mute feel silence, + And cold stretch forth my hand into the snows, + And hating, hear the laughter of the wind + Whose mad hands tear the sky. + But now again the promise of the spring + Shall lift my martyred spirit from the dust, + To where the lilied altar shines with peace, + And the white priestess comes + Crowning each candle with a gold desire + Engirdling with pallors + The forehead of a divine ghost. + Ah, but they die, these gods, the candles dwindle + And spring is but a radiant beckoning + To death that follows slowly, silently.... + + O flitting swallows, fleeting laugh of wind, + O flash of silver in the wings of dawn + That are spread out and closed. O hush of night + Breathless with love, oh swish of whispering tide + That swells and shrinks upon the dreaming shore. + O gentle eyes of children wonder-wide + That grow too soon to weariness and close; + O scuttling run of rabbit on the hills, + And flight of lazy rooks above the elm; + O birds' eggs frail, tinged faintly, nestled close, + And mystery of flower in the bud. + O burning galaxy of buttercups, + And drone of bees above the pouting rose,-- + O twilit lovers stilled with reverie + And footprints of them swerving on the sand + And darkness of them clasped against the sky! + I see beyond the glory of your days + The grey days marching one behind the other + To the bleak tunes of silence. + When mists shall smear the radiance of the moon + And the lean thief shall pass, + Snatching the glittering toys away from love, + Plucking the feathers from the wings of peace. + And Life herself, grown old and crooked now, + Shall go the way that her long shadow points, + Her long black shadow down the roads of sleep. + + 1918 + + + + +TO MY FATHER + + + I cannot think that you have gone away, + You loved the earth--and life lit up your eyes, + And flickered in your smile that would surmise + Death as a song, a poem, or a play. + You were reborn afresh with every day, + And baffled fortune in some new disguise. + Ah! can it perish when the body dies, + Such youth, such love, such passion to be gay? + + We shall not see you come to us and leave + A conqueror--nor catch on fairy wing + Some slender fancy--nor new wonders weave + Upon the loom of your imagining. + The world is wearier, grown dark to grieve + Her child that was a pilgrim and a king. + + 1917 + + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + + At evening when the twilight curtains fall, + Before the lamps are lit within my room, + My memories hang bright upon the gloom, + Like ancient frescoes painted on the wall. + + And I can hear the call of birds and bells + And shadowy sound of waves, and wind through leaves + And wind that rustles through the burnished sheaves, + And far off voices whispering farewells. + + I dream again the joy I used to know + While straying by the sea that hardly sighed + A sorrow in my singing, as the tide + Crept up to clasp me, smiled, and let me go. + + And I remember all the glad lost hours, + The racing of brown rabbits on the hill, + The winds that prowled around the lonely mill, + Laburnum laughter, music of the flowers. + + The berries plucked with loitering delight, + Staining the dusk with purple, till the thought + Of starry little ghosts behind us caught + Our hearts and made us fearful of the night. + + The London evenings huddled in the rain + Whose misty prisms shone with lamplight pale, + Making our hearts seem sinister and frail, + Fainting our thoughts with mystery and pain. + + I have a world of memories to dream, + To touch with loving fingers as a sigh + Revives a little flame and lets it die. + Ah, were the days as lovely as they seem + + Now that they look so peaceful lying dead? + And is it all the hope of Joy we have, + The broken trophies of the things she gave + And took away to give us dreams instead? + + The things we love and lose before we find + The way to love them well enough and keep, + That now are woven on the looms of sleep + That now are only music of the wind. + + 1918 + + + + + London grows sad at evening, + And we at the windows sit + To watch her moods, + Wearying with her. + Even a noise of laughter from the street + Sounds in our ears + Like something dropped and shattered on the stone. + Then her musician comes, + A wandering, malicious spirit; + The organ grinder, playing those old tunes + We know too well, + That hurt us with fatigue. + Till Hope like a harlequin, + His glitter hidden in a ragged coat, + The lamplighter, goes by, + Planting his pale flames in the dusk. + + 1918 + + + + + Ah! the spring, + Sudden, surprising, + Melting the iron scales around the heart + As the earliest sun + Melts the cold case of dew on leaves-- + Ah! the streets like odorous rivers + Chanting the echoes of seas-- + Ah! the flowers in shop-windows + Beseeching, persuasive, + Reluctant to let their beauty flow away + From thoughts that mirror them in passing-- + Beautiful exiles + Fluttering in their chains, + Thrilled with the noise of bees, + The music of meadows + Still hovering around them-- + Flower fingers, flower-touches, + Passional, reminiscent, + Rippling the soul's still waters-- + Flower galaxies, + Enamelled bridges arching from dream to dream, + Garlands splashing over the eyes of satyrs, + The furtive woodland eyes, + The pointed inquisitive ears-- + Pallid flowers foaming on hill-crests, + Gushing heavenwards + From a sea of stormy mountains-- + Opening and shutting exquisite doors, + As the senses open to music, + Shut upon silence, + Open to beauty, + Close their caskets upon love-- + Ah! the flowers in the windows, + Amorous of poets + Making a chaplet of song! + + 1919 + + + + +THE UNDERTONE OF THE VOLGA BOAT SONG + + + O God, + We have nothing to give Thee, + We are as fog that drifts on the river, + As the wailing of voices blown through mist-- + We are as those that carry bags of dust + Heaping them with the dust-- + We are covered with the dust of days, + We are pale from the dust of dreamless nights + Shaken before we were rested-- + At dawn we are found by the sun + Adrift, labouring, thinking of nothing-- + Our wine is bitter, it has made us drunk, + Our bread is coarse, + We are always athirst and hungry.... + O God, we have been patient, + We have grown old in weariness, + Our lives are as the labouring of the wind-- + We are huddled together in the dawn, + The sleeping houses pass us, + The dawn is a field of nettles + Stinging us from rest.... + O God, + We have nothing to give Thee but patience, + We have suffered evil and believed Thee good, + Thy face is the gentleness of the distance, + The river is placid with the thought of Thee-- + Our tears have washed us harder than the rocks, + And like the rocks we wait, + Grow old with waiting.... + Weariness, the river + Flowing through banks of sleep.... + O God, we have nothing to give Thee, + Take our great weariness, + We that have never lived and never slept, + Take our long weariness, O God!... + + 1919 + + + + +Transcribers' Notes: + + +Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were not changed. + +Ellipses are reproduced as printed in the original book. + +Most of the poems' titles appear only in the Table of Contents, not +with the poems themselves. + +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. + +Page 42: "sombring" was printed that way. + +Page 89: "Because I can not" was printed with "can" and "not" as +separate words. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Iris Tree + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45643 *** |