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    H O M E

    Some Imagist Poets
    (1915)


      Richard Aldington

    1. Childhood
    2. The Poplar
    3. Childhood
    4. Round-Pond
    5. Epigrams
    6. The Faun sees Snow for the First Time
    7. Lemures

      H.D.

    8. The Pool
    9. The Garden
    10. Sea Lily
    11. Sea Iris
    12. Sea Rose
    13. Oread
    14. Orion Dead

      John Gould Fletcher

    15. The Blue Symphony
    16. London Excursion

      F. S. Flint

    17. Trees
    18. Lunch
    19. Malady
    20. Accident
    21. Fragment
    22. House
    23. Eau Forte

      D.H. Lawrence

    24. Ballad of Another Ophelia
    25. Illicit
    26. Fireflies in the Corn
    27. A Woman and Her Dead Husband
    28. The Mowers
    29. Scent of Irises
    30. Green

      Amy Lowell

    31. Venus Transiens
    32. The Travelling Bear
    33. The Letter
    34. Grotesque
    35. Bullion
    36. Solitaire
    37. The Bombardment



    Poets' Corner Scripting
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    Hilda Doolittle, H.D. by Man Ray
    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



       
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