Some Imagist Poets An Anthology (1915) Edited for the Web by Bob Blair

Childhood

I



THE bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood

Put me out of love with God.

I can't believe in God's goodness;

I can believe

In many avenging gods.

Most of all I believe

In gods of bitter dullness,

Cruel local gods

Who scared my childhood.



II



I've seen people put

A chrysalis in a match-box,

"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come."

But when it broke its shell

It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison

And tried to climb to the light

For space to dry its wings.

That's how I was.

Somebody found my chrysalis

And shut it in a match-box.

My shrivelled wings were beaten,

Shed their colours in dusty scales

Before the box was opened

For the moth to fly.



III



I hate that town;

I hate the town I lived in when I was little;

I hate to think of it.

There wre always clouds, smoke, rain

In that dingly little valley.

It rained; it always rained.

I think I never saw the sun until I was nine --

And then it was too late;

Everything's too late after the first seven years.

The long street we lived in

Was duller than a drain

And nearly as dingy.

There were the big College

And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall.

There were the sordid provincial shops --

The grocer's, and the shops for women,

The shop where I bought transfers,

And the piano and gramaphone shop

Where I used to stand

Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures

Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone.

How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was!

On wet days -- it was always wet --

I used to kneel on a chair

And look at it from the window.

The dirty yellow trams

Dragged noisily along

With a clatter of wheels and bells

And a humming of wires overhead.

They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines

And then the water ran back

Full of brownish foam bubbles.

There was nothing else to see --

It was all so dull --

Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas

Running along the grey shiny pavements;

Sometimes there was a waggon

Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound

With their hoofs

Through the silent rain.

And there was a grey museum

Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals

And a few relics of the Romans -- dead also.

There was a sea-front,

A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it,

Three piers, a row of houses,

And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour.

I was like a moth --

Like one of those grey Emperor moths

Which flutter through the vines at Capri.

And that damned little town was my match-box,

Against whose sides I beat and beat

Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy

As that damned little town.



IV



At school it was just as dull as that dull High Street.

The front was dull;

The High Street and the other street were dull --

And there was a public park, I remember,

And that was damned dull, too,

With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick,

And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on,

And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in,

And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones,

And the swings, which were for "Board-School children,"

And its gravel paths.

And on Sundays they rang the bells,

From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches.

They had a Salvation Army.

I was taken to a High Church;

The parson's name was Mowbray,

"Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it --"

That's what I heard people say.

I took a little black book

To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church,

And I had to sit on a hard bench,

Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms

And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed,

And then there was nothing to do

Except to play trains with the hymn-books.

There was nothing to see,

Nothing to do,

Nothing to play with,

Except that in an empty room upstairs

There was a large tin box

Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta,

Of the Declaration of Independence

And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada.

There were also several packets of stamps,

Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots,

Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak,

Indians and Men-of-war

From the United States,

And the green and red portraits

Of King Francobello

Of Italy.



V



I don't believe in God.

I do believe in avenging gods

Who plague us for sins we never sinned

But who avenge us.

That's why I'll never have a child,

Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box

For the moth to spoil and crush its brght colours,

Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.

Richard Aldington

The Poplar

WHY do you always stand there shivering

Between the white stream and the road?

The people pass through the dust

On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars;

The waggoners go by at down;

The lovers walk on the grass path at night.

Stir from your roots, walk, poplar!

You are more beautiful than they are.

I know that the white wind loves you,

Is always kissing you and turning up

The white lining of your green petticoat.

The sky darts through you like blue rain,

And the grey rain drips on your flanks

And loves you.

And I have seen the moon

Slip his silver penny into your pocket

As you straightened your hair;

And the white mist curling and hesitating

Like a bashful lover about your knees.

I know you, poplar;

I have watched you since I was ten.

But if you had a little real love,

A little strength,

You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers

And go walking down the white road

Behind the waggoners.

There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill.

Will you always stand there shivering?

Richard Aldington

Round-Pond

WATER ruffled and speckled by galloping wind

Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breaks

Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight.

The shining of the sun upon the water

Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals

In a long wavering irregular flight.

The water is cold to the eye

As the wind to the cheek.

In the budding chestnuts

Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open

The starlings make their clitter-clatter;

And the blackbirds in the grass

Are getting as fat as the pigeons.

Too-hoo, this is brave;

Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress.

Richard Aldington

Daisy

"Plus quan se atque suos amavit omnes,

nunc . . ."

             CATULLUS

YOU were my playmate by the sea.

We swam together.

Your girl's body had no breasts.

We found prawns among the rocks;

We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing;

In the evening we played games with the others.

It made me glad to be by you.

Sometimes I kissed you,

And you were always glad to kiss me;

But I was afraid -- I was only fourteen.

And I had quite forgotten you,

You and your name.

To-day I pass through the streets.

She who touches my arms and talks with me

Is -- who knows? -- Helen of Sparta,

Dryope, Laodamia . . . .

And there are you

A whore in Oxford Street.

Richard Aldington

Epigrams

A Girl



YOU were that clear Sicilian fluting

That pains our thought even now.

You were the notes

Of cold fantastic grief

Some few found beautiful.



New Love



She had new leaves

After her dead flowers,

Like the little almond-tree

Which the frost hurt.



October



The beech-leaves are silver

For lack of the tree's blood.

At your kiss my lips

Become like the autumn beech-leaves.

Richard Aldington

The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time

ZEUS,

Brazen-thunder-hurler,

Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos,

Send vengeance on these Oreads

Who strew

White frozen flecks of mist and cloud

Over the brown trees and the tufted grass

Of the meadows, where the stream

Runs black through shining banks

Of bluish white.

Zeus,

Are the halls of heaven broken up

That you flake down upon me

Feather-strips of marble?

Dis and Styx!

When I stamp my hoof

The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft

So that I reel upon two slippery points . . . .

Fool, to stand here cursing

When I might be running!

Richard Aldington

Lemures

IN Nineveh

And beyond Nineveh

In the dusk

They were afraid.

In Thebes of Egypt

In the dust

They chanted of them to the dead.

In my Lesbos and Achaia

Where the God dwelt

We knew them.

Now men say "They are not":

But in the dusk

Ere the white sun comes --

A gay child that bears a white candle --

I am afraid of their rustling,

Of their terrible silence,

The menace of their secrecy.

Richard Aldington

The Pool

ARE you alive?

I touch you.

You quiver like a sea-fish.

I cover you with my net.

What are you -- banded one?

H.D.

The Garden

I.



YOU are clear,

O rose, cut in rock,

hard as the descent of hail.

I could scrape the colour

from the petal,

like spilt dye from a rock.

If I could break you

I could break a tree.

If I could stir

I could break a tree,

I could break you.



II.



O wind,

rend open the heat,

cut apart the heat,

rend it sideways.

Fruit can not drop

through this thick air:

fruit can not fall into heat

that presses up and blunts

the points of pears

and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat,

plough through it,

turning it on either side

of your path.

H.D.

Sea Lily

REED,

slashed and torn,

but doubly rich --

such great heads as yours

drift upon temple-steps,

but you are shattered

in the wind.

Myrtle-bark

is flecked from you,

scales are dashed from your stem

sand cuts your petal,

furrows it with hard edge,

like flint

on a bright stone.

Yet though the whole wind

slash as your bark,

you are lifted up,

aye -- though it hiss

to cover you with froth.

H.D.

Sea Iris

I.



WEED, moss-weed,

root tangled in sand,

sea-iris, brittle flower,

one petal like a shell

is broken,

and you print a shadow

like a thin twig.

Fortunate one,

scented and stinging,

rigid myrrh-bud,

camphor-flower,

sweet and salt -- you are wind

in our nostrils.



II.



Do the murex-fishers

drench you as they pass?

Do your root drag up colour

from the sand?

Have they slipped gold under you;

rivets of gold?

Band of iris-flowers

above the waves,

You are painted blue,

painted like a fresh prow

stained among the salt weeds.

H.D.

Sea Rose

ROSE, harsh rose,

marred and with stint of petals,

meagre flower, thin,

sparse of leaf,

more precious

than a wet rose,

single on a stem --

you are caught in the drift.

Stunted, with small leaf,

you are flung on the sands,

you are lifted

in the crisp sand

that drives in the wind.

Can the spice-rose

drip such acrid fragrance

hardened in a leaf?

H.D.

Oread

WHIRL up, sea --

Whirl your pointed pines,

Splash your great pines

On our rocks,

Hurl your green over us,

Cover us with your pools of fir.

H.D.

Orion Dead

[Artemis speaks]



THE cornel-trees

uplift from the furrows,

the roots at their bases

strike lower through the barley-sprays.

So arise and face me.

I am poisoned with the rage of song.

I once pierced the flesh
of the wild-deer,
now am I afraid to touch
the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?


I will tear the full flowers
and the little heads
of the grape-hyacinths.
I will strip the life from the bulb
until the ivory layers
lie like narcissus petals
on the black earth.


Arise,
lest I bend an ash-tree
into a taut bow,
and slay -- and tear
all the roots from the earth.

The cornel-wood blazes

and strikes through the barley-sprays,

but I have lost heart for this.

I break a staff.

I break the tough branch.

I know no light in the woods.

I have lost pace with the winds.

H.D.

The Blue Symphony

I.



THE darkness rolls upward.

The thick darkness carries with it

Rain and a ravel of cloud.

The sun comes forth upon earth.

Palely the dawn

Leaves me facing timidly

Old gardens sunken:

And in the gardens is water.

Sombre wrecks -- autumnal leaves;

Shadowy roofs

In the blue mist,

And a willow-branch that is broken.

O old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees!

Blue and cool:

Blue, tremulously,

Blow faint puffs of smoke

Across sombre pools.

The damp green smell of rotted wood;

And a heron that cries from out the water.



II.



Through the upland meadows

I go alone.

For I dreamed of someone last night

Who is waiting for me.

Flower and blossom, tell me do you know of her?

Have the rocks hidden her voice?

They are very blue and still.

Long upward road that is leading me,

Light hearted I quit you,

For the long loose ripples of the meadow-grass

Invite me to dance upon them.

Quivering grass

Daintily poised

For her foot's tripping.

O blown clouds, could I only race up like you,

Oh, the last slopes that are sun-drenched and steep!

Look, the sky!

Across black valleys

Rise blue-white aloft

Jagged, unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death.

Solitude. Silence.



III.



One chuckles by the brook for me:

One rages under the stone.

One makes a spout of his mouth,

One whispers -- one is gone.

One over there on the water

Spreads cold ripples

For me

Enticingly.

The vast dark trees

Flow like blue veils

Of tears

Into the water.

Sour sprites,

Moaning and chuckling,

What have you hidden from me?

"In the palace of the blue stone she lies forever

Bound hand and foot."

Was it the wind

That rattled the reeds together?

Dry reeds, a faint shiver in the grasses.



IV.



On the left hand there is a temple:

And a palace on the right-hand side.

Foot-passengers in scarlet

Pass over the glittering tide.

Under the bridge

The old river flows

Low and monotonous

Day after day.

I have heard and have seen

All the news that has been:

Autumn's gold and Spring's green!

Now in my palace

I see foot-passengers

Crossing the river:

Pilgrims of Autumn

In the afternoons.

Lotus pools:

Petals in the water.

Such are my dreams.

For me silks are outspread.

I take my ease, unthinking.



V.



And now the lowest pine-branch

Is drawn across the disk of the sun.

Old friends who will forget me soon

I must go on,

Towards those blue death-mountains

I have forgot so long.

In the marsh grasses

There lies forever

My last treasure,

With the hope of my heart.

The ice is glazing over.

Torn lanterns flutter,

On the leaves is snow.

In the frosty evening

Toll the old bell for me

Once, in the sleepy temple.

Perhaps my soul will hear.

Afterglow:

Before the stars peep

I shall creeep out into darkness.

John Gould Fletcher

London Excursion

Bus



GREAT walls of green,

City that is afar.

We gallop along

Alert and penetrating,

Roads open about us,

Housetops keep at a distance.

Soft-curling tendrils,

Swim backwards from our image:

We are a red bulk,

Projecting the angular city, in shadows, at our feet.

Black coarse-squared shapes,

Hump and growl and assemble.

It is the city that takes us to itself,

Vast thunder riding down strange skies.

An arch under which we slide

Divides our lives for us:

After we have passed it

We know we have left something behind

We shall not see again.

Passivity,

Gravity,

Are changed into hesitating, clanking pistons and wheels.

The trams come whooping up one by one,

Yellow pulse-beats spreading through darkness.

Music-hall posters squall out:

The passengers shrink together,

I enter indelicately into all their souls.

It is a glossy skating rink,

On which winged spirals clasp and bend eath other:

And suddenly slide backwards towards the centre,

After a too-brief release.

A second arch is a wall

To separate our souls from rotted cables

Of stale greenness.

A shadow cutting off the country from us,

Out of it rise red walls.

Yet I revolt: I bend, I twist myself,

I curl into a million convolutions:

Pink shapes without angle,

Anything to be soft and woolly,

Anything to escape.

Sudden lurch of clamours,

Two more viaducts

Stretch out red yokes of steel,

Crushing my rebellion.

My soul shrieking

Is jolted forwards by a long hot bar --

Into direct distances.

It pierces the small of my back.



Approach



ONLY this morning I sang of roses;

Now I see with a swift stare,

The city forcing up through the air

Black cubes close piled and some half-crumbling over.

My roses are battered into pulp:

And there swells up in me

Sudden desire for something changeless,

Thrusts of sunless rock

Unmelted by hissing wheels.



Arrival



Here is too swift a movement,

The rest is too still.

It is a red sea

Licking

The housefronts.

They quiver gently

From base to summit.

Ripples of impulse run through them,

Flattering resistance.

Soon they will fall;

Already smoke yearns upward.

Clouds of dust,

Crash of collapsing cubes.

I prefer deeper patience,

Monotony of stalled beasts.

O angle-builders,

Vainly have you prolonged your effort,

For I descend amid you,

Past rungs and slopes of curving slippery steel.



Walk



Sudden struggle for foothold on the pavement,

Familiar ascension.

I do not heed the city any more,

It has given me a duty to perform.

I pass along nonchalantly,

Insinuating myself into self-baffling movements.

Impalpable charm of back streets

In which I find myself:

Cool spaces filled with shadow.

Passers-by, white hammocks in the sunlight.

Bulging outcrush into old tumult;

Attainment, as of a narrow harbour,

Of some shop forgotten by traffic

With cool-corridored walls.



Bus-Top



Black shapes bending

Taxicabs crush in the crowd.

The tops are each a shining square

Shuttles that steadily press through woolly fabric.

Drooping blossom,

Gas-standards over

Spray out jingling tumult

Of white-hot rays.

Monotonous domes of bowler-hats

Vibrate in the heat.

Silently, easily we sway through braying traffic,

Down the crowded street.

The tumult crouches over us,

Or suddenly drifts to one side.



Transposition



I am blown like a leaf

Hither and thither.

The city about me

Resolves itself into sound of many voices,

Rustling and fluttering,

Leaves shaken by the breeze.

A million forces ignore me, I know not why,

I am drunken with it all.

Suddenly I feel an immense will

Stored up hither to and unconscious till this instant.

Projecting my body

Across a streeet, in the face of all its traffic.

I dart and dash:

I do not know why I go.

These people watch me,

I yield them my adventure.

Lazily I lounge through labyrintine corridors,

And with eyes suddenly altered,

I peer into an office I do not know,

And wonder at a startled face that penetrates my own.

Roses -- pavement --

I will take all this city away with me --

People -- uproar -- the pavement jostling and flickering --

Women with incredible eyelids:

Dandies in spats:

Hard-faced throng discussing me -- I know them all.

I will take them away with me,

I insistently rob them of their essence,

I must have it all before night,

To sing amid my green.

I glide out unobservant

In the midst of the traffic

Blown like a leaf

Hither and thither,

Till the city resolves itself into the clamour of voices,

Crying hollowly, like the wind rustling through the forest

Against the frozen housefronts:

Lost in the glitter of a million movements.



Peripeteia



I can no longer find a place for myself:

I go.

There are too many things to detain me,

But the force behind is reckless.

Noise, uproar, movement

Slide me outwards,

Black sleet shivering

Down red walls.

In thick jungles of green, this gyration,

My centrifugal folly,

Through roaring dust and futility spattered,

Will find its own repose.

Golden lights will gleam sullenly into silence,

Before I return.



Mid-Flight



We rush, a black throng,

Straight upon darkness:

Motes scattered

By the arc's rays.

Over the bridge fluttering,

It is theatre-time,

No one heeds.

Lost amid greenness

We will sleep all night;

And in the morning

Coming forth, we will shake wet wings

Over the settled dust of to-day.

The city hurls its cobbled streets after us,

To drive us faster.

We must attain the night

Before endless processions

Of lamps

Push us back.

A clock with quivering hands

Leaps to the trajectory-angle of our departure.

We leave behind pale traces of achievement:

Fires that we kindled but were too tired to put out,

Broad gold fans brushing softly over dark walls,

Stifled uproar of night.

We are already cast forth:

The signal of our departure

Jerks down before we have learned we are to go.



Station



We descend

Into a wall of green.

Straggling shapes:

Afterwards none are seen.

I find myself

Alone.

I look back:

The city has grown.

One grey wall

Windowed, unlit.

Heavily, night

Crushes the face of it.

I go on.

My memories freeze

Like birds' cry

In hollow trees.

I go on.

Up and outright

To the hostility

Of night.

John Gould Fletcher

Trees

ELM trees

and the leaf the boy in me hated

long ago --

rough and sandy.

Poplars

and their leaves,

tender, smooth to the fingers,

and a secret in their smell

I have forgotten.

Oaks

and forest glades,

heart aching with wonder, fear:

their bitter mast.

Willows

and the scented beetle

we put in our handkerchiefs;

and the roots of one

that spread into a river:

nakedness, water and joy.

Hawthorn,

white and odorous with blossom,

framing the quiet fields,

and swaying flowers and grasses,

and the hum of bees.

Oh, these are the things that are with me now,

in the town;

and I am grateful

for this minute of my manhood.

F.S. Flint

Lunch

FRAIL beauty,

green, gold and incandescent whiteness,

narcissi, daffodils,

you have brought me Spring and longing,

wistfulness,

in your irradiance.

Therefore, I sit here

among the people,

dreaming,

and my heart arches

with all the hawthorn blossom,

the bees humming,

the light wind upon the poplars,

and your warmth and your love

and your eyes . . .

they smile and know me.

F.S. Flint

Malady

I MOVE:

perhaps I have wakened;

this is a bed;

this is a room;

and there is light . . .

Darkness!

Have I performed

the dozen acts or so

that make me the man

men see?

The door opens,

and on the landing --

quiet!

I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness!

Stairs, banisters, a handrail:

all indistinguishable.

One step farther down or up,

and why?

But up is harder. Down!

Down to this white blur;

it gives before me.

Me?

I extend all ways:

I fit into the walls and they pull me.

Light?

Light! I know it is light.

Stillness, and then,

something moves:

green, oh green, dazzling lightning!

And joy! this is my room;

there are my books, there the piano,

there the last bar I wrote,

there the last line,

and oh the sunlight!

A parrot screeches.

F.S. Flint

Accident

DEAR one!

you sit there

in the corner of the carriage;

and you do not know me;

and your eyes forbid.

Is it the dirt, the squalor,

the wear of human bodies,

and the dead faces of our neighbours?

These are but symbols.

You are proud; I praise you;

your mouth is set; you see beyond us;

and you see nothing.

I have the vision of your calm, cold face,

and of the black hair that waves above it;

I watch you; I love you;

I desire you.

There is a quiet here

within the thud-thud of the wheels

upon the railway.

There is a quiet here

within my heart,

but tense and tender . . .

This is my station . . .

F.S. Flint

Fragment

   . . . THAT night I loved you

in the candlelight.

Your golden hair

strewed the sweet whiteness of the pillows

and the counterpane.

O the darkness of the corners,

the warm air, and the stars

framed in the casement of the ships' lights!

The waves lapped into the harbour;

the boats creaked;

a man's voice sang out on the quay;

and you loved me.

In your love were the tall tree fuchsias,

the blue of the hortensias, the scarlet nasturtiums,

the trees on the hills,

the roads we had covered,

and the sea that had borne your body

before the rock of Hartland.

You loved me with these

and with the kindness of people,

country folk, sailors and fisherman,

and the old lady who had lodged us and supped us.

You loved me with yourself

that was these and more,

changed as the earth is changed

into the bloom of flowers.

F.S. Flint

Houses

EVENING and quiet:

a bird trills in the poplar trees

behind the house with the dark green door

across the road.

Into the sky,

the red earthenware and the galvanised iron chimneys

thrust their cowls.

The hoot of the steamers on the Thames is plain.

No wind;

the trees merge, green with green;

a car whirs by;

footsteps and voices take their pitch

in the key of dusk,

far-off and near, subdued.

Solid and square to the world

the houses stand,

their windows blocked with venetian blinds.

Nothing will move them.

F.S. Flint

Eau-Forte

ON black bare trees a stale cream moon

hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds.

Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low,

tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram.

Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square;

and round the bend six bullocks come.

A hobbling, dirt-grimed drover guides

their clattering feet to death and shame.

F.S. Flint

Ballad of Another Ophelia

OH, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,

Lamps in a wash of rain,

Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard,

O, tears on the window pane!

Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,

Full of disappointment and of rain,

Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples

Of Autumn tell the withered tale again.

All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,

Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,

Cluck, my marigold bird, and again

Cluck for your yellow darlings.

For the grey rat found the gold thirteen

Huddled away in the dark,

Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,

Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Once I had a lover bright like running water,

Once his face was laughing like the sky;

Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter

On the buttercups -- and buttercups was I.

What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom,

What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?

'Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom --

What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men?

Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,

And her shift is lying white upon the floor,

That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thie, a rainstorm

Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.

Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,

Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct -- !

And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,

Did you see the wicked sun that winked?

D. H. Lawrence

Illicit

IN front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow,

And between us and it, the thunder;

And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers

Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.

You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals,

And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber

I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber

Lightning falls from heaven.

Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats

A dark boat through the gloom -- and whither?

The thunder roars. But still we have each other.

The naked lightnings in the heaven dither

And disappear. What have we but each other?

The boat has gone.

D. H. Lawrence

Fireflies in the Corn

LOOK at the little darlings in the corn!

The rye is taller than you, who think yourself

So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne

Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights

Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn.

And always likely! -- Oh, if I could ride

With my head held high-serene against the sky

Do you think I'd have a creature like you at my side

With your gloom and your doubt that you love me?

O darling rye,

How I adore you for your simple pride!

And those bright fireflies wafting in between

And over the swaying cornstalks, just above

All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green

Stars come low and wandering here for love

Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene -- !

How I adore you, you happy things, you dears

Riding the air and carrying all the time

Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers

My heart to see you settling and trying to climb

The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears.

All over the corn's dim motion, against the blue

Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm

Of questing brilliant things: -- you joy, you true

Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm

My poor and perished soul at the joy of you!

The Man answers and she mocks

You're a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do!

-- Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine.

And I give you everything that you want me to.

-- Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever can shine?

D. H. Lawrence

A Woman and Her Dead Husband

AH, stern cold man,

How can you lie so relentless hard

While I wash you with weeping water!

Ah, face, carved hard and cold,

You have been like this, on your guard

Against me, since death began.

You masquerader!

How can you shame to act this part

Of unswerving indifference to me?

It is not you; why disguise yourself

Against me, to break my heart,

You evader?

You've a warm mouth,

A good warm mouth always sooner to soften

Even than your sudden eyes.

Ah cruel, to keep your mouth

Relentless, however often

I kiss it in drouth.

You are not he.

Who are you, lying in his pace on the bed

And rigid and indifferent to me?

His mouth, though he laughed or sulked

Was always warm and red

And good to me.

And his eyes could see

The white moon hang like a breast revealed

By the slipping shawl of stars,

Could see the small stars tremble

As the heart beneath did wield

Systole, diastole.

And he showed it me

So, when he made his love to me;

And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out,

And his eyes were deep like the sea

With shadow, and he looked at me,

Till I sank in him like the sea,

Awfully.

Oh, he was multiform --

Which then was he among the manifold?

The gay, the sorrowful, the seer?

I have loved a rich race of men in one --

-- But not this, this never-warm

Metal-cold -- !

Ah, masquerader!

With your steel face white-enamelled

Were you he, after all, and I never

Saw you or felt you in kissing?

-- Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled

With fear, evader!

You will not stir,

Nor hear me, not a sound.

-- Then it was you --

And all this time you were

Like this when I lived with you.

It is not true,

I am frightened, I am frightened of you

And of everything.

O God! -- God too

Has deceived me in everything,

In everything.

D. H. Lawrence

The Mowers

THERE'S four men mowing down by the river;

    I can hear the sound of the scythe strokes, four

Sharp breaths swishing: -- yea, but I

    Am sorry for what's i' store.

The first man out o' the four that's mowin'

    Is mine: I mun claim him once for all:

-- But I'm sorry for him, on his young feet, knowin'

    None o' the trouble he's led to stall.

As he sees me bringin' the dinner, he lifts

    His head as proud as a deer that looks

Shoulder-deep out o' th' corn: and wipes

    His scythe blade bright, unhooks

His scythe stone, an' over the grass to me!

    -- Lad, tha's gotten a chilt in me,

An' a man an' a father tha'lt ha'e to be,

    My young slim lad, an' I'm sorry for thee.

D. H. Lawrence

Scent of Irises

A FAINT, sickening scent of irises

Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table

A fine proud spike of purple irises

Rising above the clsss-room litter, makes me unable

To see the class's lifted and bended faces

Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable.

I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless

Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast

You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped

Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast

Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks

Dissolved in the golden sorcery you should not outlast.

You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation,

You sitting in the cowslips of the meadows above,

-- Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-bobs,

Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love --

You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,

You, with your face all rich, like the sheen on a dove -- !

You are always asking, do I remember, remember

The buttercup bog-end where the flowers rose up

And kindled you over deep with a coat of gold?

You ask again, do the healing days close up

The open darkness which then drew us in,

The dark that swallows all, and nought throws up.

You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night

Burnt like a sacrifice; -- you invisible --

Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!

-- And yes, thank God, it still is possible

The healing days shall close the darkness up

Wherein I breathed you like a smoke or dew.

Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,

The golden fire has gone, and your face is ash

Indistinguishable in the grey, chill day,

The night has burnt you out, at last the good

Dark fire burns on untroubled without clash

Of you upon the dead leaves saying me yea.

D. H. Lawrence

Green

THE sky was apple-green,

The sky was green wine held up in the sun,

The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green

They shone, clear like flowers undone,

For the first time, now for the first time seen.

D. H. Lawrence

Venus Transiens

TELL me,

Was Venus more beautiful

Than you are,

When she topped

The crinkled waves,

Drifting shoreward

On her plaited shell?

Was Botticelli's vision

Fairer than mine;

And were the painted rosebuds

He tossed his lady,

Of better worth

Than the words I blow about you

To cover your too great loveliness

As with a gauze

Of misted silver?

For me,

You stand poised

In the blue and buoyant air,

Cinctured by bright winds,

Treading the sunlight.

And the waves which precede you

Ripple and stir

The sands at my feet.

Amy Lowell

The Travelling Bear

GRASS-BLADES push up between the cobblestones

And catch the sun on their flat sides

Shooting it back,

Gold and emerald,

Into the eyes of passers-by.

And over the cobblestones,

Square-footed and heavy,

Dances the trained bear.

The cobbles cut his feet,

And he has a ring in his nose

But still he dances,

For the keeper pricks him with a sharp stick,

Under his fur.

Now the crowd gapes and chuckles,

And boys and young women shuffle their feet in time to the dancing bear,

They see him wobbling

Against a dust of emerald and gold,

And they are greatly delighted.

The legs of the bear shake with fatigue

And his back aches,

And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him.

But still he dances,

Because of the little, pointed stick.

Amy Lowell

The Letter

LITTLE cramped words scrawling all over the paper

Like draggled fly's legs,

What can you tell of the flaring moon

Through the oak leaves?

Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor

Spattered with moonlight?

Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them

Of blossoming hawthorns,

And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness

Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against

The want of you;

Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,

And posting it.

And I scald alone, here, under the fire

Of the greater moon.

Amy Lowell

Grotesque

WHY do the lilies goggle their tongues at me

When I pluck them;

And writhe, and twist,

And stangle themselves against my fingers,

So that I can hardly weave the garland

For your hair?

Why do they shriek your name

And spit at me

When I would cluster them?

Must I kill them

To make them lie still,

And send you a wreath of lolling corpses

To turn putrid and soft

On your forehead

While you dance?

Amy Lowell

Bullion

MY thoughts

Chink against my ribs

And roll about like silver hail-stones.

I should like to spill them out,

And pour them, all shining,

Over you.

But my heart is shut upon them

And holds them straitly.

Come, You! and open my heart;

That my thoughts torment me no longer,

But glitter in your hair.

Amy Lowell

Solitaire

WHEN night drifts along the streets of the city,

And sifts down between the uneven roofs,

My mind begins to peek and peer.

It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,

And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,

Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.

It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,

And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.

How light and laughing my mind is,

When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,

And the city is still!

Amy Lowell

The Bombardment

SLOWLY, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones of the Cathedral square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!

The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the firelight. The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies leap in the bohemian glasses on the étagère. Her hands are restless, but the white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the étagère. It lies there formless and flowing, with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. A thin bell-note pricks through the silence. A door creaks. The old lady speaks: "Victor, clear away that broken glass." "Alas! Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, Victor, one hundred years ago my father brought it -- " Boom! The room shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!

It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is shut within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his ink, his pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses itself up at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin he can see copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp in the cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom! The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long broken spears of disheveled water and flattens into the earth. Boom! And there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding rain. Again, Boom! -- Boom! -- Boom! He stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling the city! Boom! Boom!

A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made the bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake." "Hush, my Darling, I am here." "But, Mother, something so queer has happened, the room shook." Boom! "Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom! "Where is Father? I am so afraid." Boom! The child sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and creaks. Boom!

Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears apart on the spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone, zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses against the rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet night.

Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to scorch. Boom! The bohemian glass on the étagère is no longer there. Boom! A stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old lady cannot walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts. Boom! -- Boom! -- Boom!

The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the flames. Over the roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its gold on the sky the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and chuckles along the floors.

The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower flickering at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the ceiling beams.

The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter and crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly and without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple crashes down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes along the gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom!

Amy Lowell