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" THE OLD EXPRESSIONS ARE WITH US ALWAYS,
AND THERE ARE ALWAYS OTHERS."
AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE NEW VERSE
EDITED BY
ALFRED KREYMBORG
-» J
J
; •
> # ^
> ^
NEW YORK ' ALFRED A KNOPF ' MCMX^R
715620
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
ALFRED KREYMBORG
Publuhed March, 1916
• •
• •
• •
«
« •
• • •
«
» • •
PRINTED IN AMERICA
CONTENTS
MAHY ALDIS paqe
Thk Sisters 1
walter conrad arensberg
» Voyage a L'Infini 6
The Voick of One Dead 7
JtJNK 7
For Forms That are Free 7
MAXWELL BODENHEIM
The Cotton Picker 8
Sunday in a Certain City Suburb .... 8
The Rear Porches op an Apartment-Bui ldino 9
The Vagabond in the Park 10
After Writing Poetry 10
A Day 11
An Old Neoro Asleep 11
To a Man 11
ROBERT CARLTOX BROWN
I Am Aladdin 12
The Other Night I Dreamed 13
I Love Anything Ostentatious 13
Big Footed People 14
Fly Speck 14
SKIPWITH CANNELL
Ikons 15
adelaide crapsey
CiNQCAINa S4
The Lonely Death 27
MARY CAROLYN DA VIES
Songs of a Girl 28
T^TER Songs SI
T. S. ELIOT
Portrait of a Lady 88
ATHUa DAVISON FICKE
I The Dancer 89
THE SISTERS
i
We four
Live here together
My three old sisters and I
In a white little cottage
With flowers on each side of the path up to the door.
It is here we eat together
At eight one and seven
All the year round,
'It is here we sew together
^On garments for the Church sewing society
Here, — behind our fresh white dimity curtains
That I'll soon have to do up and darn again.
It is this cottage we mean
When we use the word Home
Is it not here we lie down and sleep
I Each night all near together?
iFe never meet
My three old sisters and I.
We never look into each others' eyes
We never look into each others' souls
Or if we do for a moment
■iWe quickly begin to talk about the jam
How mucli sugar to put m and when.
Wc run away and liidc like mice before the light
We are afraid to look into each others' souls
So we keep on sewing, sewing.
My three old sisters are old
Very old.
It is not such a great wliile since they were bom
Yet they are old.
I think it is because they will not look and see.
I am not old
But pretty soon I will be.
I was thinking of that when I went to him
Where he was waiting.
My sisters had been talking together all the long
afternoon
While I sat sewing and silent,
Clacking, clacking away while the lilac scent came in
at the window
And the branches beckoned and sighed.
This is what they said —
" How did that paper come into our house P "
" Fit to be burnt, don't you think? "
Then the third, " It's a sliameleas sheet
To print such a sensual thing."
The paper lay on the table there, between my three
sisters
MARY ALDIB 8
With my poem in it, —
My small happy poem without any name.
^ J had been with him when I wrote it and I wanted him
again
Tie words arose in my heart clamouring for birth —
And there they were, between my three sisters.
Each read it in turn
Holding the paper far off with the tips of her fingers.
■IThen they hustled it into the fire
BCriving it an extra poke with the tongs, a vicious
poke.
1 each sister settled back to her sewing
Vith a satisfled air.
I looked at them and I wondered.
[ looked at each one,
Jid I went to him that night —
Tiere he was waiting.
My three old sisters are dying
Though they do not know it.
They are not dying serenely
After life is over
;y are just getting dryer and dryer
1 sharper and sharper
^Soon there will not he any more of them at all.
f am not like them
I cannot be
Sor I have a reason for living.
4 HART ALOIS
While thej were picking their little pale odourless
blossoms
I gathered my great red flower
And oh I am glad, glad,
For now when the time comes I can die serenely,
I can die after living.
But first what is to come?
I am going to give my three old sisters a shock
Then what a rumpus there will be!
They will upbraid and reproach
And then they will whisper to each other, nodding
slowly and sadly
Telling each other it ia not theirs to judge.
So they will become kind and pitiful
Affirming that I am their sister
And that they will stick by and see me through.
But underneath they will be touching me with the
lifted tips of their fingers,
They would like to hustle me into the fire
With an extra poke of the tongs.
Perhaps I will pretend to hang my head,
Perhaps I will to please them,
I am very obliging —
But in my heart I shall be laughing with a great
laughter
A great exaltation.
MARY ALDIS
Yes, they will upbraid and reproach
In grave and sisterly accents
And mourn over me,
One who has fallen,
Yet I suspect
As each one goes to her cold little room,
Deep in her breast she will envy
With a terrible envy
The child that is mine
And the night
The curious night
When the sun and the moon and the stars
Bent down
And gave me their secrets.
VOYAGE A LTNFINI
The swan existing
la like a song with an accompaniment
Itua^nary.
Across the glassy lake.
Across tile lake to the shadow of the willows,
It is accompanied by an image,
— As by Dehussj's
•* ftefleti dans I'eaw."
The swan that is
Reflects
Upon the solitary water — breast to breast
With the duplicity:
" The otlier one! "
And breast to breast it is confused.
O visionary wedding 1 O stateliness of the procession!
It is accompanied by the image of itself
Alone.
■At night
The lake is a wide silence,
ithout imagination.
WALTER CONRAD AREN8BERO
THE VOICE OF ONE DEAD
Of the relented limbs and the braid, lady,
Bound up in haste at parting.
The secret is kept.
JUNE
These breaking buds,
These buds in a nest of leaves • ^ •
What wings have covered them.
And the warmth of what brooding mother.
That the roses.
The roses themselves.
Come out?
The roses are trying their petals . . •
Fly away, roses, after the wind.
FOR FORMS THAT ARE FREE
Loosen the web, Arachne, and we will waltz.
Loosen, Arachne,
The spider-web that has ensnared
The feet in such a struggling bergamask.
HAxntL BOOnrHIIH
THE COTTON PICKER
Like the arm of a child, lifting shining Ultes from
little brown pond.
The sunlight drew songs from a lithe, grimacing
negresa-
Whose skin was smootlier than the cloudless sky
above her . . .
The flecks of cotton they picked
Brought a changing white stupor to the tepid-faced
women about herj
And her shoulders fell as slowly as the sun abore ha.
Yet the pent satin of her face was always cut by a
smile,
As she hummed of a j oyous Christ,
SUNDAY IN A CERTAIN CITY SUBURB
Four men whose lives are the beginning of sun-
silenced afternoons.
And whose orange and red scarfs are the sole flowers
Of the washed-out afternoons.
Sit, shifting dominoes.
The afternoon outside of them dies, as fruit slowly
pressed between fingers.
But still the four stiff men shift dominoes . . .
Their wives, wide women with tight, garnished hair.
Sit in the back-yard, whispering tiny secrets and
munching strings of grapes.
HAZWK LL SODENHKIH
Their lives are the centers of half-cloudy days,
With now and then a noisj evening
In which they hang the crude little japanese-Ian terns
of their ihoughts
On the ever-swaying strings of their minds . . .
The domino-box is folded, the grapes are eaten.
Children, wheezing and limp, return.
■ THE REAR PORCHES OF AN
APARTMENT-BUILDING
A sky that has never known sun, moon or stars :
A sky that is Hke a dead, kind face
Would have the color of your eyes,
servant-girl, singing of pear-trees in the sun.
And scraping the yellow fruit you once picked
When your la vender- white eyes were alive. ■ .
On the porch above you are two women
Whose faces have the color of brown earth that baa
never felt rain.
The still wet basins of ponds that have been drained
Are their eyes.
They knit gray rosettes and nibble cakes. . .
And on the top-porch are three children
Gravely kissing each others' foreheads —
And an ample nurse with a huge red fan. . .
The passing of the afternoon to them
Is but the lengthening of blue-black shadows on
^^^^ brick walls.
MAXWELL BODENHEIH
THE VAGABOND IN THE PARK
They sit upon little benches, lipa slack, eyelids
blinking
Like flapping white shades In the windows of empty
rooms.
The trees over them shift their lace with rushing,
smothered laughs,
And speak of the nakedness to come.
But the straight, shining women under the trees
Have never known what it is to take off dust-painted
clothes.
AFTER WRITING POETRY
My mind is a naked child
Living in the little half-crimson garden of my soul.
I bring people to the child in the garden.
Perhaps an apple-vender whose face is like a new
wood -cut ;
A shop-girl, like the quickly- sketched princess in some
old water-color;
Or a window-washer who seems to have been taken
From a cool swarthy fresco. . ,
At night when they have gone,
I and the naked child sit beneath a red bush
And chat about them:
Half-regretting the flowers they have taken away.
A DAY
Split, brown-blue clouds are over me,
And browii-blu€ mist is also
Over the little hills of mj sprawling moods
And under the pale blue revery of my soul. . . .
Yet the hills are covered with shouting goat-herds
To whom the mist and rovery is nothing.
i
AN OLD NEGRO ASLEEP
As spilled, dried wine that colors earth,
The yellow-white light sinks into his rubbed brown
face,
And perhaps reaches even the seeded dreams below,
Melting them to webbed shapes he cannot hold.
Happily so, for if he awoke still bearing them.
He would be a filled cheat unable to open itself. . , .
He squats afterward, making white grinning trinkets,
And thinks them the dreams he had.
TO A MAN
The once white statue of a woman, smudged and
bloodied
With the dirty fingers of years, was his mind.
It lay, grave and neglected, at the base of its tall
pedestal. , , .
day I found him washing it with his soul,
iving it with the strength of a smile, to the top
of the pedestal.
BOBIRT CAXLTOH BROWN
I
I am Aladdin.
Wanting a thing I have but to snap my fingers.
Jinn, bring me a lady,
The lady with the magic kiss
That turns troubles Into joys.
The lady of the soft white throat
And flhell-tint cheeks.
Ah, bore you are. Lady !
Thank you, Jinn-
Lady, sing to me
A song as gorgeous as the plumage of a Bird of
Paradise.
Music melts in your mouth.
Becoming vaporous perfume,
Utterly intoxicating me.
Now you may dance for me a while.
Weave a delirious design
With your body,
Ah, you are like a gold fish
Glinting gaily
Darting through sparkling waters.
There, that will do, Lady.
Say you love me, now.
Yes, yes, I believe you.
I could not doubt that voice of yours
As full of the abandon of expression
As your dance.
And now, Lady,
I
' The magic kiss!
Ummin! That is good.
Jinn, take her awaj.
(
(The other night I dreamed
Of a shimmering opalesceiit mermaid
Sitting on a shell of mother of pearl
With her tail cocked up on the edge
Quite saucily.
She was blowing soap bubbles,
Iridescent,
And flirting with a rainbow fish.
I awoke with a stin^g in my eyes
As though one of her gay drifting bubbles
Had burst in my face
With a spatter of soap suds.
But I could not believe that.
Knowing the bite came from bitter tears,
I had seen her only in a dream.
And that I
Could never be
\A rainbow fish.
ni
I love anything ostentatious
Simpler things I despise.
I like to hear a nose blown with a bang
See teeth picked with a flourish
[Watch a fat lady wabble her cargo of flesh
ROBEBT CARLTON BROWN
Ab though it were worth a thousand dollars an ounce.
I think ostentation of any sort
Ib jaai grand.
IV
Big footed people
Go about stepping on things ;
Ideals, egos, the cosmos
They crush
Clod-hoppe rcdl J.
I should hate to have the epidermis
Of an omithorincus
On the sole of an elephantine foot.
I prefer skipping lightly across egg shells
In padded Chinese slippers with blue embroidered
tops.
Fly speck,
You are such a neat, tidy, unimportant
Little thing
That no one takes offense
At sight of you
Or mention of jour name.
But you irritate me
With your polite little airs of decency
Why don't you grow up
And be something?
Even a fly speck
Can aspire to be
A manure heap.
8KIPWITH CANNELL 15
IKONS
I broke a savage bitch
who has two tails.
I named her * Beauty '
from a beast
in Mythology.
We cannot live
in the houses of other men,
We cannot breathe
air from their sick bellies ;
I will travel into lonely places
To laugh and think new thoughts.
2
I have been all
wrong from the beginning.
I will re-create myself.
I will be right.
But I'm in too great haste
to pluck lice away.
3
Let others wash me, serve food to me
And cleanse my pot.
16 8KIPWITH CANN£lL
I cannot be a pot-man.
How can I serve?
How can I be kind or unkind
And myself.
I can be neither more kind nor less kind
Than a meteor
Falling in a city.
Let the pot-men fester in the filth of their pots :
I must uncover
God's feet for the dancing.
A fool once said to me,
" How strange it is that you are
Glad and drunken."
I have burned a thousand things
Desirable but not mine.
I will not dance before God
with my body swathed in cloth.
SKIP WITH cann£ll 17
We young men come up from our beginnings crying,
" Way ! Make way for us ! "
The old ones stand against us
Like lions who are old and angry.
One by one they fall
Under our feet.
Behind us the land is flat
Save for ghosts and the stone giants.
3
Some day the young men
Will come upon me
Crying, " Down with him ! Down with him ! '*
I long for the day when the young men
Come against me.
To try our strength.
I have owed much to older people.
Why should I deny it?
To Nietszche and Mrs. Eddy and Blake and Whit-
man and Gauguin and those old Egyptians
who cut for eternity.
18 BKIPWITH CAHHl
I shall pass over some of thei
I shall crush them.
But
I owe much to older people.
Why should I deny it?
I will gobble up everything
That has been mine from the beginning.
Though I find it in the homes of other men
or in their purses or their thoughts
I will gobble up all
To the last jot of my own.
The man who plows fields is right
be the fields his or another's,
Pot-men are always right
and even the masters
have ploughed strange fields in their day.
For myself
I am no longer concerned with ploughing,
It's for the harvest I yearn.
The harvest the bare land the full dancing.
SKIP WITH cann£ll 19
3
God made dancing.
Only pot-men walk.
The dancers gather at God's table
For joy that is drunken.
Lead was first smelted
From the souls of pot-men.
He who pulls flowers wantonly
Is a giant.
He who pulls flowers for their loveliness or perfume
Is one who can destroy giants
with the perfume of flowers.
I dislike men loving too many women.
I despise those loving their own sex.
They are wrong I am right.
I do not imderstand this
but it is true.
Men wash in their women
As gulls in the sea.
20 8KIPWITH CAKN£lL
When they have spewed forth their white children^
Though they dislike children.
They are happy
Pure.
I do not understand this
but it is true.
8
I went walking on the beaches.
Like sand grains were young men and young women
Lying two by two.
I went walking on the beaches.
With my lantern
I looked in the young men's faces,
And they were all I.
I went walking on the beaches.
The beaches were empty.
They put out the sun like a candle
and all the stars
the moon
and my lantern.
A voice cried from the sea,
" If I vomit a woman at your feet
take her
breed children."
SKIP WITH cann£ll 21
But I had spent my strength.
Then I woke up.
A coyote yapping at the moon
A wolf grinning at the lightning
Is the man of poems
Shouting of Him.
Him!
Him!
Glory on a dying fish.
Blue flies over the garbage.
Him!
Him!
jackal sobbing at his loneliness.
Moon, demon of the heavens,
How great must your hatred be
for the peoples of earth.
Moon, I have poison,
hot and secret.
1 will give you my poison,
devil of the sky.
28 IKIPWITH CAN NELL
You are crowned with stars.
We shall take jour crown away.
We shall give your crown to the sun because of
dawns.
wolf of the skj yapping at your moon.
I am tired of old colors
and old sounds,
I will make new sounds with my mouth
and they shall be music.
I will make new sounds
and new jumps and gestures.
When women lie down before us,
Making soft noises, . .
Our eyes become yellow and we go to them
As mad eagles to the sun.
Women are green and barreled like guns,
Men are red and primed cartridges,
I desipse everything that is not
Green or red.
We are red, they green ; and their greenness
Gives our red value and violence.
8KIPWITH CANNELL 23
And when we leave you
With softness,
With kisses,
We are rich we are selves,
When we withdraw
Deeply
Into the sea.
24 ADELAIDE CRAP8ET
CINQUAINS
NOVEMBER NIGHT
Listen. •
With faint dry sounds
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.
RELEASE
With swift
Great sweep of her
Magnificent arm my pain
Clanged back the doors that shut my soul
From life.
TRIAD
These be
three silent things:
The falling snow . . the hour
Before the dawn • • the mouth of one
Just dead.
TRAPPED
Well and
If day on day
Follows, and weary year
On year . . and ever days and years • •
WeU?
ADELAIDE CRAP8ET 25
MOON-SHADOWS
Still as
On windless nights
The moon-cast shadows are,
So still will be my heart when I
Am dead.
SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS
" Why do
You thus devise
Evil against her? " " For that
She is beautiful, delicate ;
Therefore."
YOUTH
But me
They cannot touch,
Old age and death . • the strange
And ignominious end of old
Dead folk !
THE GUARDED WOUND
If it
Were lighter touch
Than petal of flower resting
On grass, oh still too heavy it were.
Too heavy !
26 ADELAIDE CRAP8ET
WINTER
The cold
With steely clutch
Grips all the land • • alack,
The little people in the hills
Will die!
NIGHT WINDS
The old
Old winds that blew
When chaos was, what do
They tell the clattered trees that I
Should weep?
AMAZE
I know
Not these my hands
And yet I think there was
A woman like me once had hands
Like these.
THE WARNING
Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk . . as strange, as still • •
A white moth flew. . Why am I grown
go cold?
ADELAIDE CRAP8ET 87
FATE DEFIED
As it
Were tissue of silver
I'll wear, O fate, thy grey,
And go mistily radiant, clad
Like the moon.
THE LONELY DEATH
In the cold I will rise, I will bathe
In waters of ice ; myself
Will shiver, and shrive myself.
Alone in the dawn, and anoint
Forehead and feet and hands ;
I will shutter the windows from light,
I will place in their sockets the four
Tall candles and set them a-flame
In the grey of the dawn ; and myself
Win lay myself straight in my bed.
And draw the sheet under my chin.
SONGS OF A GIRL
There is a morning standing at my window, looking
into my room, and saying:
"What wili you do with me?
I am your slave
I will bring to you whatever you wish
Only tell mc wliat you want me to do
And I will do it,
What you want me to bring to you
And it is yours."
And with a sudden rush of tears to my heart, I said:
" Oh, morning, I do not want anything.
There is something I want, oh, very much!
But I do not know what it is exactly.
Perhaps to die — perhaps to live — "
n
not afraid of my own heart,
am not afraid of what may be in the places where
the shadows are piled.
am not afraid — see, I walk straight in
And look everywhere,
am not afraid — ah, what was that?
; is a dangerous place in which to walk — a heart.
Especially one's own.
HART CAROLrS' DAVIS B
I
III
must to be young
Woung euougb to laugb when one should weep —
IV
There are three of us ; the little girl I used to he, the
girl I am, and the woman I am going to be. We
take counsel together concerning what colors we
shall weave into the dream that we are making.
Sometimes they say, she is day-dreaming.
They do not know that we are taking counsel together,
the little girl, and the girl I am, and the woman
that I am going to be,
are many things that they do not know.
alone with just me, the other evening
The me that nobody else knows
The me that is the nicest person I have ever met.
(Ob, quite the nicest!)
I was alone with just me
We had much to talk over
We had never properly met before,
But only caught glimpses
(Sometimes we were sure we wanted to meet, and at
other times we hoped that we never would)
We had all the years before to discuss and all the
I years after to talk about
HABT CAROLTN DATlEi
And there were other things — ourselves, and what
life was — Oh, we had much to talk over.
So we sat there, silently, and did not say a word,
VI
The little kiss is trembling on my lips
It will not leave its home, it is afraid.
" Go, go," I whisper, but it weeps and stays.
The little kiss is restless on my lips
" Nay, I must go," it whispers, " I must go,"
" Ah, wait a little, wait," I counsel, " wait " —
VII
A turn of a stranger's head
Sometimes brings you very near to me.
A color,
A sound,
And I hear your breathing ;
I feel your eyes upon mine.
A room darkened for the death of a day,
And I weep for you ;
A bird crj'ing out its song against its neighboi
A flower new-born, startled —
And
my
heart beats with
jojc
of you —
You whom I never knew
Whom I only loved.
I am going to die too, flower, in a little while
Do not be so proud —
UABT CAROLTir DATI2B
LATER SONGS
I
B one who gives them out is abort of dreams
With jealous husbandry
He deals them carefully
One dream to every two people
" You must share it
We're short of dreams," he says
But they
Are only glad of the excuse of sitting down
To the same dream —
m
n
irhaps
God, planting Eden,
Dropped, by mistake, a seed
In Time's neighbor-plot,
That grew to be
This hour?
Ill
'on and I picked up Life and looked at it curiously
'e did not know whether to keep it for a plaything
or not
It was beautiful to see, like a red firecracker
And we knew, too, that it was lighted.
It
An
^^r-Wed:
dropped it while the fase was still burning -
82 MART CAROLYN DAYIES
IV
The careful ocean sews
Pools, like round blue buttons
On the gray coat of the sancL
V
A wave heaps
Green tangled ribbons of sea-weed
On the gray counter of the sand
Then it rushes away
Like a salesgirl when the gong sounds.
VI
The sun is dying
Alone
On an island
In the bay.
Close your eyes, poppies !
— I would not have you see death
You are so young —
vn
Whose passing foot
Disturbed this ant-hill?
T. ■. KLtDT
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
Thou hagt coTomitted — *'
'Fornication: but that was in another country.
And besides, the imnch w dead."
The Jew of Malta.
I
Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself — as it will seem
to do —
With " I have saved this afternoon for jou "
And four wax candles in the darkened room
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead
An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb
Prepared for all tlie things to be said, or left unsaid.
We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-
tips.
" So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room."
^^— And so the conversation slips
^HjJBong velleitica and carefully caught regrets
Through attenuated tones of vioUua
Mingled with remote cometB
And begins
" You do not know how much the; mean to me,
my friendsi
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends
(For indeed I do not love it . . . you knew? you are
not blind!
How keen you are !)
To find a friend who has these qualities.
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you —
Without these friendships — life, what cauchemarf "
Among the windings of the violins
And the ariettes
Of cracked cornets
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,
Capricious monotone
That is at least one definite " false note."
— Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance.
Admire the monuments,
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hoar and drink our bocks.
Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.
*' Ah my friend, jou do not know, yon do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands ; — "
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
" You let it flow from you, you let it flow.
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see."
I smile, of course.
And go on drinking tea.
" Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all."
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon :
'* I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel.
Sure that across the gulf you r«ach your hand.
You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say : at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friencf,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends
I take my hat : how csn I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?
You will see me any nioming in the park
Reading the comics and the sporting page.
Particularly I remark
An English countess goes upon the stage.
A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance.
Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired
Reiterates some worn-out common song
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?
T. B. ELIOT
^1^ m
The October night comes down ; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
" And so you are going abroad ; and when do you
return ?
But that's a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coining back,
You will find so much to learn."
My smile falls heavily among the bric-a-brac.
" Perhaps you can write to me."
My self-possession flares up for a second;
This Is as I had reckoned.
" I have been wondering frequently of late
(But our beginnings never know our ends!)
Why we have not developed into friends."
I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark
Suddenly, his expression in a glass.
My self-possession gutters ; we are really in the dark.
*' For everybody said so, all our friends,
They all were sure our feelings would relate
So closely! I myself can hardly understand.
We must leave it now to fate.
You will write, at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends."
And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression . . . dance, dance
Like a dancing bear.
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance —
Well ! and what if she should die some afternoon,
Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yeUow and rose;
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand
With the smoke coming down above the house tops ;
Doubtful, for quite a while
Not knowing what to feel or if I understand
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon. . .
Would she not have the advantage, after all?
This music is successful with a " dying fall "
Now that we talk of dying —
And should I have the right to smile?
THE DANCER
Thej were godly people, all of them.
With whom I dined
In the cafe that night —
Substantial citizens
With their virtuous wives
And a stray daughter or two. . . .
And when I spoke mj admiration of your dancing, —
You, the little half-clothed painted cabaret performer
Who was pirouetting before us, —
I received a curious answer. —
It was only as the absurd voicing
Of a preposterous fancy
That one of the virtuous wives said to me —
ly don't you go over and dance with her your-
self!"
Her voice stung me, — it was so sure
That to dance with you would be a shameful and
unpleasant thing.
So I answered crossly — " For a nickel I would."
And one of the daughters.
Who doubtless suffered later for her evil act,
Handed me the nickel. . . .
, That
Ifewh:
MITBUH OATtnif nCKI
And that was how it came to be
That you and I
Before the gaping herd of my respectable fellow-
townsmen
Forgot the world.
Light was the preasure of jour hand
And jour body was as answering to mj touch
As is s little willow to the wind.
I could not see jour painted face against my shoul-
der;
I forgot that you were clad in veils to lure the lust-
ful crowd;
The tawdry glitter of the hour faded and died
As you and I soared up
Upon the music.
O soul of a bird !
O cooling wind from ihe mountains of wild laurel!
O dreamer of a pattern of whirling stars
Down which we moved
In dizzy orbits!
Perfumes of Arabia were around us ;
Tremulous melody heard by none other
Out of some distant garden poured in wild song.
And there were lights in the air;
And there were memories
Of forgotten Thracian hillsides,
And madness, and oblivion,
(
And a fierce white
peace.
ARTHUR DAVISON FICKB 41
Then the dance ended. . • •
And you were once more a little painted harlot
In an ugly caf£
Before a vulgar audience.
So I led you back to your table
And thanked you conventionally,
And turned to go. — But a sudden impulse
Swept me. —
And in the sight of all the gaping respectabilities
I turned to you again
And kissed you
In recognition and farewell
To that winged spirit which you late had been.
MAISONNETTES I
The houses in Windermere Street are ' let off in
floors * I
Which perhaps is the reason it always seems so alert.
Little groups of young men and girls gather round
its front doors,
And keen eyes at all windows observe their endeavors I
to flirt.
Every one in the street knew at once about Lizzie
Brown.
They saw the flash bloke she took up with, and ' knew
how 'twould be.
And they knew why the blinds of the house at the
comer are down.
And who pays the second floor's rent, at 103.
THE HIGHBROWETTES
(^MerveUlemei de nos jours')
" We will now call on Alberic Morphine to give us a
reading.'
The rows of young women look up; their eyes glisten
they shiver
With the kind of emotion that's really very nus-
leading.
All have fine eyes, yellow faces, vile clothes and a
liver.
DOUGLAS OOLDRINO 45
They smoke a great deal, bathe little, and wear no
stays.
Their artistic garments are made on the Grecian
plan;
They flock in their crowds to the pit, for Mr. Shaw's
plays ;
And aspire to a union of souls, with some pimply
young man.
44 FRANCES OREOO
QUEST
Mist
Grey
Tremulous
And a mighty current beat:
Then sound ceased
And light was all,
Restless, tumultuous,
Then Peace.
And from the midst
A flower
White.
And one by one
The petals turned
Till they hung
Seven radiating flames.
And again
The petals fell away
And the calyx was upborne.
Silence
Peace
Mist
The return.
Love.
Not that bright Flaming-winged
But Very-love.
PERCHE
I am the possessor and the possessed.
I am of the unborn,
Mj kind have not yet come upon the earth.
0) are they gone?
Am I then left, a memory of the dead?
Am I dream-wraith, a ghost of beauty fled?
I who possess and am possessed,
Am I bom and dead?
, Strange madnesses beset me.
Passing pageant-wise across my web of thought.
The red circlet of Narcissus gems my blood, —
And I brood on a golden reed.
Who doth possess me — I possess.
Yea, I am dead!
In the pale light from the grave
The Sisters weave:
Crimson — a/nd green and golden thread
Upon Time's robe.
^^ Se
I
LES OMBRES DE LA MER
I grieve my dream :
My dream that was like a golden lacquered bowl,
My dream that was coloured like a Chinese print.
A wave of the sea has been here :
Muffled bells and red
Sea-stained gold :
Green flames under the foam,
The blue shadows darting like fishes.
Tread softly:
Do not cleave the air with Thy presence,
I guard my dead from tlie waters.
HERMAPHRODITUS
As if the soul of all this pulsing world had taken form
in thee, —
That thy face should be the flow of waters :
Thy voice the surge of many restless waters :
Thine eyes, envisioning night and all the depths on
depths of stars therein,
Should be the secret depths of waters :
Thy body's length the grace and suppleness
Of flowers upstanding from the earth.
And I have watched the mystic worry of thy face.
Upturned against the stars and wind,
Grow strange and sad.
Have felt the music that my hands awoke.
Have felt thee start and quiver
And marvelled how all parts of thee attuned.
IRIS
Ah, bow your head, white sword flower,
Lest you pierce the thing you would save, 1
Lest your white beauty slay me.
Let '
r heart's blue stain
Plead for ray frailty.
ALICE OROFF 47
HERMAPHRODITE-US
Behold me !
The perfect one !
Epitome of the universe !
The crystal sphere, —
reflecting
sex, —
being,—
God.
For long ages, —
moonlike, —
I turned one hemisphere
away from God, —
stubbornly reflecting
only half of His perfection,-
Man.
For this sin
God mocked me, —
showing himself in me ;
monster of masculinity, —
tyrannous,
cruel.
4>8 ALICE OROFF
warnmady
death-gluttonous,
Grod, — inverted.
Then through love,
Grod saved me, —
melted my perverseness,
set me spinnmg,
in full God-light, —
reflecting wholly
His perfection,
woman in man,
man in woman, —
herm-aphrodite-us.
Behold me !
The perfect one !
The crystal sphere,—
reflecting perfect sex, —
reflecting perfect being,—
reflecting God.
REVENGE
I seek my revenge in the stars,
The quiet knowing stars.
I seek mj revenge in tlie night,
The solemn truthful night.
And all the infinitude of space
Conies to aid in my revenge.
Let those who rule, rule.
They shall not rule my stars
Nor me;
For I am one with my stars
And my stars are one with me.
Sonietinies there is noise in mj^ stars,
A whirling noise of cynical joy.
And all their voices are lifted with my own
In the joy of revenge;
And I am one with the revenge
And the revenge is one with m«.
We laugh with cynical joy
Until our laughter echoes and echoes
Into the most impenetrable depths of space
And beyond —
Gyrating through the unknown and beyond
And awakening the dumb ears of the world's dead God
To an only thought of mankind.
ALANtON HARTPKNCI
I laugh with joy at the mirth of my stars;
I laugh with joy at my revenge.
And there comes no voice to disturb my mirth.
Except the voice of dying men
Wailing on the winds of space
And death-rattling a^inst the iron-ribbed stars.
But the sound of my mirth
And the mirth of my stars
Drown tlie wailing with cynical laughter.
And our laughter increases
Until it beats in time with the death rattle,
The hymn of our joy and revenge.
Thus all things laugh with my revenge —
Except mankind.
The very ground of earth laughs with me.
The flesh of man laughs with me.
The still voice of pathology tickles my ear,
And I laugh my revenge with pathology,
Understanding that we also shall death-rattle againstJ
the stars. I
But I do not fear, nor does pathology,
For we are one with revenge,
And revenge is death
And death is truth.
I sing the glory of death.
The beauty and truth of death —
And I sing the glory of revenge.
HORACE HOLLSr
YOU
By you all things are changed.
My friends and foes alike
Become as strangers without name,
Incredibly remote by your incredible nearness.
Their speech is foreign, their actions dream,
Ech oes and shad ows that pass but cannot claim.
In them whatever I learned of recognition and
acquaintance,
Whatever tenderness of glance, what sympathetic
touch,
You, you from them withdraw,
Essence of all I know and do and am.
Only memory paths me back to their far world ;
Yet &a I gaze happily through its twilit vista
The past itself stretches me-ward a path of new
a s t onishment,—
All, all its meaning was your sure approach.
Beautiful.
Beauty will come to her
Will go from her
Freely, like laughter.
She will be
HORACE HOLLET
Center, circumference to a great joj
Swiftly passing, repassing
Like water in and from a limpid well.
She is of the new generation, new ;
Torch for the flame of passion.
Flame for the torch of love.
She will grow
Beautiful.
No, beauty itiself wiILgro«
ijf^'
."**
THE miOT
— Vest
But as for me
I pass without debate of life and death,
Stumbling or dancing as the tune is pitched, .
Not choosing, not remembering;
Dragging no chains and aiming for no star.
I know who frowns and grudges :
' Concentrate essence of inconstant moments,
The flower's soul, the fool's way his ! '
And that may be.
But ever I peer about
Observing these anxious fretful folk, these modems.
Tired Atlases who bear
HOaACE HOU.EY 58
A world of borrowed marble and stolen fame, —
I peer about, and ever as I pass
Touch softly each gleammg pillar, each smoking
shrine
And unperccived, drop tears upon them.
Tears.
For men are sleepers in a world of dream,
An unreal, staggering world,
That any moment, as I know,
Will break asunder, crashing, heaved apart
By bursting seeds of God's compelling spring,
Temple on temple, arch on arch
All staggering down and whelmed
In waters of eager thought, in flames of love;
Against which day I neither lock nor loose
Nor own nor will be owned within this doom
That with a few others undetached and free
My soul may cry :
' Lo God within this quickened earth
Plow under this yearning heart which I have borne
So many seasons, unfertile till you had sown.'
Aje,
The fool's way mine.
Where is that Prophet crying within my heartt
HOMAGE
Before me you boiled aa before an altar,
And I reached down and drew you to mj bosom;
Proud of your reverence, and reverence returning,
But craving most your pleasure, not your awe.
My hands about your head curved themselves, as
holding
A treasure, f raple and of glad possession !
Dear were the bones of your skull beneath my fingers,
And I grew brave imagining jour defence.
Not as a man I felt you in my brooding.
But merely a babe, — a babe of my own body :
Precious your worth, but dearer your dependence:
Sometimes I wished to feed you at my breast.
Not to myself, I knew, belonged your homage :
I but the vessel of your holy drinking,
The channel to you of that oiden wonder
Of love and womanhood, — I, but a woman.
Then never need your memory be shamefaced
That I have seen your flesh and soul at worship :
Do you think I did not kneel when you were kneeling?
Even lowlier bowed my head, and bowed my heart.
HELEN HOYT 55
WOOD FEAR
Suddenly,
Far off, •
The lights drew away ;
The path stood still.
Out of the dark.
Noiseless, ominous.
The trunks of the trees towering came toward me ;
Lifted themselves
Out of the dark into a great height
And came toward me.
Near,
Crowding upon me.
Closing in upon me like a wall of menace.
The long boughs stretched out to reach me ;
They leaned toward me, through the blackness.
Slanting,
Slanting
To fall upon me.
But now in a moment
The darkness grew light ;
The boughs of the trees sank from the sky.
And were as before ;
And I was walking as before
Quietly
Along the accustomed path
In the shadows.
HELXN ttOTT
P^VRK GOING TO SLEEP
The shadows under the trees ,
And in the vines by the boat-house
Grow dark,
And the lamps gleam softly.
On the street, far off,
The sound of the cars, rumbling,
Moves drowsily.
The rocks grow dim on the edges of the
anding ^
The boats with tired prows against the landing '
Have fallen asleep heavily:
The monuments sleep
And the trees
And the smooth slow-winding empty paths s
COIGNES
My elbow-knuckles
And the hollows under my knee-caps
Are curious places.
My heels are melancholy.
Dozing and drudging all day.
My toes have turned sullen
From never being amused.
HELEN HOYT 57
RAYS
As I lie here
And you are moving through the room, —
IVom chair to window,
From closet to door —
My eye glances go following you,
Following close;
Touching and loving each separate movement of you ;
Each little turn and step.
My glances reach out like beams, .
Like radii from me to you.
They are shafts of light in my head.
That turn and point
And shift and follow.
Swinging through wide arcs
And small arcs.
Ever directing the rays of their beam
So that they fall on you.
And I see you clearly.
Intensely,
As if all else were darkness.
58 ORRICK JOHNS
OLIVES
FIN- I've ten fingers
OExa Very much admired,
I shall frame them
For they cannot do anything;
They cannot earn dinner
Or even hold a pebble . • .
Pebbles are pretty falling through them.
SHOE- Little old shoe,
8TRINO You need a shoe-string;
I shall find one for you,
For without it you are helpless
As a man who studies regulations.
But with a yellow one
Like a woman who is bald.
BEAU- Oh, beautiful mind,
TiFui- I lost it
MIND In a lot of frying pans
And calendars and carpets
And beer bottles . . • •
Oh, loy beautiful mind !
ORRICK JOHNS
59
MIG-
OLES
Miggles
That was his name,
Everyone always said,
" Miggles did it."
Oh, Miggles,
I admired you from the beginning,
Miggles !
A
BOOM
It is a room that sets people thinking.
So they say,
Lighted like grandma's moonflowers . •
Swish — I hear something in the comer.
Suddenly,
And I wish I were a cat.
BiiUs Blue undershirts,
UNDER- Upon a line,
SHIRTS It is not necessary to say to you
Anything about it —
What they do,
What they might do . . • blue undershirts.
IN
BED
I am tortured
By this borrowed mattress • • •
How do you lie.
Napoleon?
00 ORRICS JOUNS
IN THe They made a statue
MtUAUE Of a general on horseback.
With his face turned nobly
Toward the crupper . . .
'Twas true
Of him
Quite half the time.
I have only a tingling remembrance
Not of his eyes
But of
A dandelion . . .
Nevertheless,
The whole of hira,
The whole of me.
There —
Known, elicited, understood.
Little duck
Made of plaster,
With your head
Upon a spring,
When my hand trembles upon the t
You nod,
And when I chuckle too . . .
Such understanding,
C'est hennurme!
ORRlCK JOHKd
61
IN THE
STB££T
Dinky, slinky,
You must not wink
That way . . .
You hussy,
Do you forget I think
For both of us?
IN THE This morning,
ORCHARD As the quince blossoms died,
The cherries were ripening . . .
Such are all your moments.
Little one.
SOME Now I know
WHERE I have been eating apple-pie for breakfast
In the New England
Of your sexuality.
A
MOON
• •
It lasted a month.
We had one moon
You took it for a baby
And when it cried
For a bib and a bottle,
All was over.
AUalD KKITUBORa
CONVENTION
Beware of a pirate who will scuttle your ship,
a cross-eyed toothless pirate!
I'll blow my great horn, carved of dead men's skulls,
right down your ear and freeze you.
I'll stick my big thumb into your eye
and my knife clean through your thront.
I'll pull out my goblet and drink your blood
while my foot rests on your belly.
I'll laugh a loud laugh that'll shunt your soul to hell
and spit on your face for an epitaph.
I'll kick your carcass to its coflEn, the sea,
a sea that won't sing even a dirge for you.
Then I'll yank down the flag that you hoisted up so
high
and raise the devil's own instead. . . .
Beware of a pirate who will scuttle your ship,
a cross-eyed toothless pirate !
I crawl aboard when your sails begin to fail —
the saUs that are blown by the strength of your will.
ALFRED KRETMBORG 68
MAN TELLS
Do you love that woman, sir?
Yes, that which I make of her.
Isn't she most beautiful?
Yes, because I think her so.
Hasn't she the best of hearts?
Yes, because I want it so.
Then there might be more like her?
Yes, the one you love.
WOMAN TELLS
I know that you do, but — •
when last did you tell me?
I know that you gave, but-
what roses and roses !
I know that you will, but —
such kisses to go !
I know, yes, I know, but — •
Begin!
64 ALFRED KRETMBORG
VISTA
The snow,
ah yes, ah yes indeed,
is white and beautiful, white and beautiful,
verily beautiful —
from my wmdow.
The sea,
ah yes, ah yes indeed,
is green and alluring, green and alluring,
verily alluring —
from the shore.
Love,
ah yes, ah yes, ah yes indeed,
verily yes, ah yes indeed !
THE WHIP OF THE UNBORN
It is not she who rends me so —
no, it is not she.
These eyes are not hers that hate me so
no, they are not hers.
Nor this her breath that flaunts me,
nor these her arms that strangle —
no, these are not hers.
I It is not I who rends i
[ no, it is not ]
' This heart is not mine that goads me on-
Do, this is
Nor these my thoughts that flay mo,
nor this my soul that sneers mo down —
I no, these are not mine.
I Nor that her whip that lashes me,
: that my whip that lashes nie —
L no, this is not ours.
LITTLE FOLK
Of late,
I've been craving a child,
the adoption of a child.
Not a child of mine —
I have so little blood for that,
and that reqmres two —
hut an ordinary child,
like myself,
who will be serious with me,
playfully,
and play with me,
seriously —
I have quarts of blood for that.
Little One:
Will you adopt me?
ALFRED KRETMBORO 67
Said the earth:
I love you, flower.
It is late.
Come back to me.
/ dorCt want to —
/ worCt —
/ want the moon —
/ want —
You've been playing too long, flower.
That isn't good for you.
Nor fair to the morrow.
Come,
said the earth.
IMPROVISATION
Wind:
Why do you play
that long beautiful adagio,
that archaic air,
to-night?
Will it never end?
Or is it the beginning,
some prelude you seek?
Is it a tale you strum?
Yesterday y yesterday —
Have you no more for us?
68 ALPHBD KREVUBOBO
Wind;
Plaj on.
There is nor hope
nor mutiny
in jrou.
A SWORD
A million-bladed sword,
slashing the petty pates
and sticking the smug stoniachs of the past
till the pink blood dribble
and, with a roar of ribald song,
a whirlwind of naked dance,
daunting the laughing boyish present on a pike
against the stare and whisper of the doddering fu-
ture —
a sword is love!
TOWARD LOVE
That beauty has begun to fall out of step
is no excuse,
that others have begun their skulking to the rear
is no excuse,
you who are beginning to compromise
or to seek Some Otlier,
Crucify Nature!
ALFRED KRETMBORO 69
VARIATIONS
WIZARDRY
Your hands,
so strong,
so cool,
wizards
improvising sleep
VARIATION
Till you came
I was I.
CARESS
It was as though one of those trees
the very tallest of them,
that compassionate one —
had bent over me for a moment.
MARCH
The air is drenched with the noise of wind.
I with the noise of you.
70 ALFRSD KRXYMBORO
WILLOWS
This amphitheater of willows
praying that tarn,
are my mes
in constant attendance
on you.
CONTKA MUNDUM
There is one sanctuary
that is never shut —
to you.
PEA CONTSA
Don't weep.
There is sanctuary
from me,
as well.
Come.
FBXEST
I bum candles,
candles —
and no two alike —
at an altar.
ALFRED KRETMBORO 71
OVERHEARD IN AN ASYLUM
And here we have another case,
quite different from the last,
another case quite different —
Listen.
Babyy drink.
The war is over.
Mother's breasts
are rotmd with milk.
Bahy^ rest.
The war is over.
Only pigs
slop over so.
Baby, sleep.
The war is over.
Daddy^s come
with a German coin.
Baby, dream.
The war is over.
You'll be a soldier
too.
We gave her the doll —
Now there we have another case,
quite different from —
72 MINA LOT
LOVE SONGS
Spawn of fantasies
Sitting the appraisable
Fig Cupid bis rosy snout
Rooting erotic garbage
** Once upon a time "
Pulls a weed wbite star-topped
Among wild oats sown in mucous membrane
I would an eye in a Bengal ligbt
Eternity in a sky-rocket
Constellations in an ocean
Whose rivers run no fresher
Than a trickle of saliva
There are suspect places
I must live in my lantern
Trimming subliminal flicker
Virginal to the bellows
Of experience
Colored glass.
The skin-sack
In which a wanton duality
Packed
All the completions of my infnictuous impulses
Something the shape of a man
To the casual vulgarity of the merely observant
More of a clock-work mechanism
Running dovro against time
To which I am not paced
My finger-tips are numb from fretting your hair
A God's door-mat
^^^mi^t 1
On the threshold of your mind.
We mig^t have coupled
In the bed-ridden monopoly of a moment
Or broken flesh with one another
At the profane communion table
Where wine is spilled on promiscuous lips
We might have given birth to a butterfly
With the daily news
Printed in blood on its wings.
MINA LOr
IV
Once in a mezzanino
The starry ceiling
Vaulted an unimaginable family
Bird- like abortions
With human throats
And wisdum's eyes
Who wore lamp-shade red dresses
And woolen hair
One bore a baby
In a padded porte-enfatit
Tied with a sarsanct ribbon
To her goose's wings
But for the abominable shadows
I would have lived
Among their fearful furniture
To teach them to tell me their secrets
For I had guessed mine
That if I should find YOU
And bring you with nne
The brood would be swept clean out.
JOHN RUBSELI. UCCARTHT
SUNDAY MORNING
J have come out here into the wooda
because there are hob-nails in mj shoes,
.And because the people I saw in the town back there
were so spick and span
^Even the rosy little tot with his wide, white collar)
-And because there are so manj cliurches in the town.
3 have come out here into the woods.
The great oak is not spick and span
.And the little oak does not wear a wide, white collar.
j\nd none of us,
Not the stone.
Nor the wood-mouse.
Nor I,
W rangles over the meaning of printer's ink in heavy
^^^ books,
THE THIEF
This man, then, is very much like God.
The scoundrel.
One can excuse omnipotence in deity
(An arm gone, or a friend dead,
And one need not even be a Presbyterian to say:
God wiUs it).
76 JOHN RU88BLL MCCARTHY
I say, having made a Grod, one can forgive Him.
But this man, who by bowing before a minister
Can take the girl.
Body, mind and soul.
And build about her unassailable eternal ramparts
Against the world —
This man is a sort of God.
The scoundrel.
But he is tangible
And waxes hot and cold
And fears hell —
There is no forgiveness.
SATISFACTION
How could any god be happy
With only one hell?
Why, even a dog has different teeth
To crush this flea or that flea.
JOHN IfCCLURB 77
POEMS OF WISTFULNESS
%
I. WANDEKE&
Why do ye find me in these waters?
Well, the old wander-dog in me whined;
So we came,
Baying at the moon,
Wistfully over the world.
n. SOMNAMBULIST
Last night I went a-walking with my dreams
Folk such as ye ha' never seen the like of,
With faces like moonlight on water.
Wistful folk.
One of them had eyes
The color of will-o'-the-wisp.
And another had hair
The color of wind.
We walked in silence
In a grey wood
Until dawn.
TO STATECRAFT EMBALMED
There is nothing to be said for jou. Guard
Your secret. Conceal it under your " hard
Plumage," necromancer.
O
Bird, whose " tents " were " awnings of Egjptiai:
Yam," shall Justice' faint, zigzag inscription —
Leaning like a dancer —
Show
The pulse of its once vivid sovereignty P
You say not, and transmigrating from the
Sarcophagus, you wind
Snow
SOence round us and with moribund talk,
Half limping and half ladified, you stalk
About. Ibis, we find
No
Virtue in you — alive and yet so dumb.
Discreet behavior is not now the sum
Of statesmanlike good sense.
Though
It were the incarnation of dead grace?
As if a death mask ever could replace
Life's faulty excellence !
Slow
To remark the steep, too strict proportion
Of your throne, you'll see the wrenched distortion
Of suicidal dreams.
I
Go
Staggering toward itself and with its bill,
Attack its own identity, until
Foe seems friend and friend seems
Foe.
TO A FRIEND IN THE MAKING
You wild, uncooked young fellow !
The swinked hind will stumble home
Not looking nt the tasks he scorned to shirk.
Impelled to respite by rough hands,
The labored os will bellow ;
While you stand there agape before your handi-
work.
^^iot all good men are mellow.
^^t You savor of a wcdnut rind,
^F Of oak leaves, or plucked mullein on the brae.
And yet with all your clumsiness,
You give me pleasure, fellow ;
• Your candor compensates me for my old bou-
quet.
BLAKE
I wonder if you feel as you look at ub.
As if you were seeing yourself in a mirror at the end
Of a long corridor — walking f rail-ly.
I am sure that we feel as we look at you.
As if we were ambiguous and all but improbable
Reflections of the sun — shining pale-ly.
MARIA NNB MOOR£
GEORGE MOORE
In speaking of * aspiration,'
From the recesses of a pen more dolorous than
blackness itself,
Were you presenting us with one more form of
imperturbable French drollery.
Or was it self directed banter?
Habitual ennui
Took from you, your invisible, hot hel-
met of amemia —
While you were filling your " little glass *'
from the decanter
Of a transparent-murky, would-be-truth-
ful " hobohemia " —
And then facetiously
Went off with it? Your soul's supplanter,
The spirit of good narrative, flatters you, con-
vinced that in reporting briefly
One choice incident, you have known beauty other
than that of stys, on
Which to fix your admiration.
MARIANNE MOORE 81
So far as the future is concerned^
** Shall not one say, with the Russian philosopher^
* How is one to know what one doesn^t know? * **
So far as the present is concerned.
If external action is effete
And rhyme is outmoded,
I shall revert to you,
Habakkuk, as on a recent occasion I was goaded
Into doing, by XY, who was speaking of un-
rhymed verse.
This man said — I think that I repeat
His identical words:
" Hebrew poetry is
Prose with a sort of heightened consciousness.
* Ecstasy affords
The occasion and expediency determines the
form.' "
EDWARD J. O BRIEN
HELXENICA
Cleon doth not forget the gentle footsteps
Of Scylla, a little maiden,
Who returnetli not unto her father's dwelling.
But walketh the long descent into the silence
Tired and alone.
n.
Rhodoclea, whose body veiled the Eun,
Hath fallen into shadow-
Under the grasses.
in.
Plato's passion troubled Timon's soul.
His body followed beauty to the end.
Sunlight sifts across his earthy bed.
Comatas dreameth of music in soft pastures.
His fellow-shepherds have laid his pipe beside him.
Maidenly Bacchis wove her wedding tunic.
Now it lies in the dust
That claspeth her loveliness.
4
Myrrha, whose body was clearer than light on water,
Remembereth not her beauty
In the stillness.
THE TEA SHOP
^^^ The girl in the tea shop
is not so beautiful as she was,
The August*has' worn against her.
She does not get up the stairs so eagerly,
Yes, she also wilt turn middle-aged,
^_ And the glow of youth that she spread about us
^H as she brought us our muffins
^H^ She will spread about us no longer.
|.„
Phylidula is scrawny but amorous,
Thus have the gods awarded her
That in pleasure she receives more than she can give,
If she does not count this blessed
Let her change her religion.
^^P£rinna is a model parent.
Her children have never discovered her adulteries.
PHYLIDULA
THE PATTERNS
Lalagc is also i
model parent,
■o fat and happy.
SHOP GIRL
For a moment she rested against me
Like a swallow half blown to the wall,
And tliej talk of Swinburne's women.
And the shepherdess meeting with Guido,
And the liarlots of Baudelaire.
ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE
She was as pale as one
Who has just produced an abortion.
Her faee was beautiful as a. delicate stone
With the sculptor's dust still on it.
And yet I was glad that it was you and not I
Who had removed her from her first husband.
CODA
O my songs,
Why do you look so eagerly and so curiously into
people's faces,
WUl you find your lost dead among them?
KDWABD RAMOS 85
CHANSON TRISTE
My heart is sorrowful and my dreams are broken,
The light of the sun shines not upon my house.
I went into the forest
Treading the dry leaves
And I saw two gleaming black eyes.
I thought it was a tiger
And my bones cried out in terror.
I thought it was a snake
And my soul writhed in anguish.
I stumbled on a wet tree-root
And fell fainting into the morass,
The green toads croaked at me
The mud oozed round my belly . . •
I turned and saw
Two black gleaming eyes . . •
My heart is sorrowful and my dreams are broken,
The light of the sun shines not upon my house.
86 EDWARD RAMOf
L'ARBRE MYSTIQUE
The slender tree
Has leaves that droop like little folds of silk;
Their delicate green
Melts into the blackness of the night.
Passing beneath
I seem to feel soft touches on my cheek
As though invisible wings
Or the stretching hands of some body-searching
spirit
Brushed past me.
My soul
Disintegrates ;
Like a wave driven by the wind
It bursts.
Each spark
Flies up
To find a body in the silent leaves.
RAPIERE A DEUX POINTS
(to g. k.)
Your eyes
are like two flames
dancing
on the carved surface
of a gem.
MAN RAY 87
THREE DIMENSIONS
Several small houses
Discreetly separated by foliage
And the night —
Maintaining their several identities
By Kght
Which fills the inside of each —
Not as masses they stand
But as walls
Enclosing and excluding
Like shawls
About little old women —
What mystery hides within
What curiosity lurks without
One the other
Knows nothing about.
88 FERDINAND RXYHER
KALEIDOSCOPICS
Grondolas with white freightage
Passed,
And muted barcaroles
Destroyed old houses.
The iridescent plush rope sways
With the rhythm
Of an old canzone of Grenoa.
He died.
Let us dance elegant fandangos
In blues and golds,
And consort
With blinder things than parchment bats
To gather dripping garlands
Of mottled toadstools
To show the hate we loved him with.
Weave together delicate preludes
And stitch in faint cords
Of simple colors
Like gray,
But let us not be betrayed
Beyond beginnings.
'
FKHDINAND RKTKEK 89
The hunchbacked windmill
Grunts,
And the crows caw and creak
Like old leather
And buffet the twisted gnarled darkness
Hour on hour.
Trinn ! Trinn !
Do you hear it?
Like a crystal ball
Split into diamonds
And flung like hailstones
Against tarnished spears:
Trinn! Trinn!
Fourteen queens:
Seven in gold, ^^^^^H
in green, j^^^^^^^
two ^^^^^1
Are covered ^^^^^^|
With an ^^^H
^^^^^B
Dotted with vermilion discs ^^H
And fringed with dusty gold. ^^H
My kn». H
Crack together when I would go ^^H
To one or to the other ^^^^H
Like the fray of slave oars ^^^^^^|
When two old Asian galleys ^^^^^^^H
^^^^H
L 1
nRDIXANO RKTHEB
Tirelve years
Through the mandarin's red coat
I pursued
The white thistle.
And bit at swaying ends
Of snapped gold threads.
Four jaundiced ghouls
Hide in your gray lips
Where the red piura-tree
Is bent
In a haggard arch.
" OTHERS*"
We will sit in spiders' corners
And lure shadows into our game
To do as we wish.
Vowels opening like salmon parasols
Against green embroidery.
Consonants that chime
As clearly as rhine glasses clinking!
JOHN RODKBR 91
TWILIGHT I
Columbine, Harlequin and Pierrot sit relaxed in arm-
chairs in a wide white room.
Columbine sits swingmg her legs.
It grows gradually darker.
They sit as though waiting.
Creepers swing against the window.
It grows darker.
They sit as though waiting.
It grows darker.
Only the windows and the white linen of Pierrot and
Columbine can now be seen.
Harlequin a faint blur.
It grows darker.
Pierrot and Columbine show faintly. The easy-chairs
are rocks of shadow.
They sit as though waiting. . .
The creepers grow larger and swing against the win-
dows.
It grows darker.
THE LUNATIC
Columbine is seated on a kitchen diair before a wide
French window which looks onto a terrace overhang
ing the edge of the world. The room is very large
but tlic wall paper is drab like a slum room. In a
comer is an iron bedstead covered with very white
blankets. It is a wann night.
The moon can be seen rising.
Columbine sits still, relaxed and brooding.
The rising moon touches her niiked arms.
She looks round, startled and shivering.
Then folds her arms over her breast.
Then rises and walks in front of the window in
extreme agitation.
After a while she grows calmer and returns to the
chair, seating herself.
She remains quiet a few moments, but the moon-
beams pierce her.
They shine on her bare arms.
She trembles, raising them and looking at them
curiously . , . and lifts them slowly, suddenly
kissing them.
Then falls a-trembling.
She rises and walks up and down in great agitation.
VFhen she grows quieter, she returns to her chair.
The moonbeams fall full on her and again she
JOHN RODKKB 98
raises her arms to her Ups, kissing them.
She folds her arms tightlj across her breast, rocking
herself.
She opens the window wide, leaning out as though
exhausted.
The moonbeams strike her. She becomes very
excited.
She walks in front of the window to and fro.
Then seats herself on the chair.
The moonbeams are in another corner of the room
and she sits relaxed and brooding.
THE DUTCH DOLLS
To young men, who, being loved, therefrom engen-
der within them a true passion, enduring nobly its
heats and its chills and the vagaries of mistresses
under the phases of the moon.
Who, seeing each new incident with the most inti-
mate and disillusioning psychology, yet remain silent ;
and having suffered with what noble forbearance,
learn they are reviled therefor.
^Kfientlemen, The Dutch Dolls !
94 JOHN RODKSR
Pierrot
To-morrow will pa49s like other days.
Fear, hate, anger,
and at times. . • .
peace.
This till I'm with her.
Then pain, anger, contempt,
and in rare moments,
peace.
Through it all this pitiless unrest
will hold me fast,
till I must go
terrified and blank,
sombre like this street,
these lowering houses,
and she who watches
from trivial curtains
my footfalls sucked into eternity.
Her -first love
Leaning over her while she lay
thrown back across my knees, • . •
I bruised her lips
and the small hard breasts
with strainings and caresses.
JoUK kdDKiEft d5
She does not move. . •
says nothing
Is she wondering what it all means?
But now and then her eyes water, their lids droop,
and her lips quiver.
Her face grows darker. • .
She strains me to her desperately. • •
It's hard to know what these young girls want !
Going home
Come with me to the station !
No!
You don't love me.
Oh. . •
Come then !
" When you go I want to cry."
His own eyes watered, and he felt for the handle of
the door.
How empty the room would be when he'd gone.
The idea oppressed him.
A wild straining each to each.
Don't go !
He freed himself
Ah, No! No!
But he said sadly, you can't keep me.
She went out of the room with averted head.
96 JOHN RODKCR
He knew her eyes would follow him down the street,
but he did not look back at the window.
She might wave to him • • • who left her thus
forever —
Forever. . .
Ah. . . till to-morrow.
Backtalk
It's you, I love, only you !
What then?
You, you, only you!
As much as other men.
You, you, only you !
Come then !
You, you, ah ... as much as other men.
The Moonmaiden
Come!
No!
I will give you a white horse.
No!
I will give you a white baby.
No!
I will give you a white house.
No!
I will give you my own white dead body.
No ! it's cold, get my cloak.
JOHX RODKSR 97
Damn you, Columbine.
Then they didn't 'core you.
(She weeps.)
Interlude — Nostalgie de Vinfini
You tangoed with him
on the lawn
in the moon,
and I smiled.
At times you'd be strong,
walk to me.
You did not think I shook ;
hated you.
And when you'd dance with me,
I went away.
Why do you tell me these years after,
you wept for a long night?
The plot thickens
I laid upon my love
the spell of the kiss,
and left her to her bitter pain.
Outside was Carnival.
98 JOHN RODKKR
When I returned
she was gone.
The night was cold
but I slept warm,
for I said
she sleeps more cold than I.
That my love should leave me
hurts me nothing;
But that the spell of my kiss
might thus easily be broken,
I am ashamed.
The Emperor's Nightmgdle
99
It's only you I love,
she says,
and cannot say aught else.
Poor " Emperor's nightingale.
You, you, ah you,
she sighs.
But yet, when I " go off,"
she'll fling her kisses
for all the gallery to snarl upon.
And so " come off "
and rapt
will pass me on the stairs.
JOHN RODKKR 99
Celtic!
We danced, poor fools, on the world's edge.
Because I saw her nimble legs
clean against the sky,
now there is no thing will give me ease.
FU find again that edge of the world
whereon she dances.
Poor fool! she dances on the world's edge.
The compassionate pilgrim
I laughed,
chatted gaily ;
was most attentive
to the foil I'd brought to pique yoiL
You'd no notion.
And though you laughed,
I saw through it
and was not hurt.
After,
you stood silent, lone
most pitiful.
All this trouble
because I could not kiss you
in the crowded room.
100 JOHN RODKKR
You wanted to keep me
But they'd not let you,
and you gave way.
Now I'm gone
and you're a memory.
Silent, lone,
most pitiful.
The Betrayal
This face is mine,
Hollow and line.
The same, yet bitter wine
I'm drunk upon.
'Twas held by one
Who falsely spun
A web of love.
Below, above.
Yet it will prove
Her evil, should she turn.
But see the lips agirn,
Sad eyes, that bum, that bum.
Exctbses himself for bemg concerned at her going
I've written enough to you,
about you
and because of you ;
and dragged your beauty into too much light.
I
Now I'll nurse an achjiig heart
and with no outlet tor the pain
will crush it under.
I'll forget you in a while
remembering you're nothing.
When I was young,
child of the sun,
inmiinent with fire
I did not write of women.
But you have taken the ichor from my veins,
You have watered the vitriol of my brain.
Datf-Dreamings
I
You'll be sorry later on —
for I'll come back
and, chancing on you in some public place,
you'll tremble. I'll be bronzed;
contempt upon my face ;
ah . . , not for you,
only that I'll have seen strong men dying.
She that's fairest will be on my arm
and in my pocket a thousand pounds.
You'll laugh ■ . .
in spasms of fear . . , your eyes will go
and I'll not sleep for thinking of you
wide-eyed at his side.
HK RODUB
/» Defence
!f I'd not burnt 'jour letters as they came
for fear their weight of love would stifle me,
for fear when I'd grown old
my children or my love would find them,
or older still
the pitiful scrawl across the pages
would mad me with the longing —
... all the pain of youth that passes . , ,
Would I have thus forgot them all —
remembering the half of a phrase,
the splash of a tear.
But you kept my letters
and those I wrote most passionate
when I had ceased to love you,
you showed most proudly. .
Therefore your friends think
' Poets ' oh they're but human
to let themselves be scorned so by n
JOHN RODKER 105
Coltumbine becomes " advanced
»
I hate you !
Kiss me !
Now I really hate you !
Kiss me!
There . . . you see.
Oh • • • how I hate you now.
You're dull, Columbine,
Good Night !
r
HBBTEB BAINSBURY
EPITHALAMION— A Dance to Words
First bridesmaid speaks:
The little yellow flower
The silver girl
With bubbling shower
Of curl on falling curl
On breast of slippery pearl
With mouth of little baby child
And eyes by passion half beguiled
That droop afraid to show
The little that they know
Of boy
And joy
Is now a golden statue, a fair bride,
The petals of her virgin heart spread wide.
Second bridesmaid speaks:
So motionless she stands
With quiet feet and hands
Her mouth is now a woman's mouth
Her eyes are wise with instinct law
Her soul perceives what Eve first saw
In East and West, in North and South
In budding root
In pregnant fruit,
The good of Life
The marriage love of man and wife,
RESTEB SAIIfaBURY
Third bridesmaid speakt:
rThe little nymph ran deep in wood
And where a weeping willow stood
With tearful leaves on sighing boughs
She hung with parted lips
And finger tips
Pressed warm on dewy brows —
I But he the hunter came
Made heaven loud with her name
And caught the little downy thing
With body sweet as spring
And suddenly, how could it be?
She was a prouder thing than he
For he must tate while she will give
The future god for which tliey live —
Happy husband, kiss her now
On fiery lips and frozen brow —
I
Ballet to Words Danced by Five Dancers, Three
Girla and Two Children
Earth like a butterfly
Leaps in gold
From its chrysalis old
And stiff and cold.
A fnO pkle sk J
On the brink of dissolving in dre«nu
Covm tbe Tear's ne* birth ;
Wbile m pusumlcss mn spinning beams
To recaptore the heart of the earth —
Half daring half shy.
Looking ready to ifie.
Like a sigh.
If a violent aind went bj — j
Marries earth to the akj.
The grass breaks in ripples of flowers.
In purple and chrome,
As a sea breaks in foam;
And the lilacs in fountains and showers
Of emerald rain, fling
Their tiny green buds on the wing —
Just poised on the edge of the spring —
To fly
Bye and bye.
To burst into loveliness airily fair,
^ garlands for dryads to weave in their hair,
Jn a virginal dance
With a scent to entrance
The sweet fickle air —
-And late when the evening
Comes subtle and blue,
■And stars are all opening
HESTER 8AIN8BURY 107
Hearts of bright dew —
The sun will slip easily,
Tenderly,
Bright,
Out of sight.
More silver than gold
To behold —
Not as in summer he dies.
When low in the West he lies
In the sanguine flood
Of his own heart's blood,
Shot by the shaft of the maiden moon,
With regret in his eyes
That the amazon comes too soon.
And my little son
Has run
From me
To the flowery hills to the dappled sea ;
For somebody told him that shepherds in spring
Taste the new green sap of the old green trees.
And pluck a feather from the wing
Of a throstle
While they sing.
All together.
In a ring,
And toss it up into the breeze ;
And their brains
Go mod with the ecstuy coursing their veins.
And they wreathe them in violets, dance them in dew,
Till their ankles are blue.
Through and through
Enchantin^y cold with sweet pains —
While the sun in the clouds
Gold-dapples the sheep.
Till the stars in bright crowds
Tempt the shepherds to sleep ;
Who with cjes, wild dark,
And hair like a flame,
Sin^ng still like tlie lark,
Cry loud on the name
Of each his Corinna to come and be tame
To his love,
Like a dove ;
And their sheep
Turn to silver — and sleep.
And my little boy
With his young spring joy
Will not discover the leanness of truth ;
With the magical,
Tragical,
Credence of youth
He will think the sane shepherds he meets on hl(f^
Are mad to-morrow
To his sorrow,
Or yesterday.
I VIE DE BORDEAUX, SAUCE SUPREME
{To E. L.)
Noon of the mom,
Golden,
Breeze-laden.
Fleet the hours
That carried me
Knowing and knowing not
The whither and when.
The hours connived,
Divining the road, de\'ised the goal.
Spared me the dissonant collapse,
Mad-cap conspirators in laughter of flight.
Winking at mortal ecstasj,
Plotters of heavenly interlude.
Quivering like withdrawing wings
The day rose into night
Insensibly.
In my upper room I sat in the half-light
Looking out on the drab roofs,
Tiling, gutters, chimneys, chimney pots —
Everywhere behind the clay tremulous sapphire
deepening.
I was tranquil, grew pensive,
Content of my chair —
PITTS lAKBOVK
Iq coDtcmplation,
Perilous for ecstasy.
Suddenly,
Over my rij^t shoulder.
Without design,
I looked straiglit at the young moon,
Perpendicular,
Peeping through the sky
Like a maiden that would.
My heart did bound.
And I went down into the Quinconces,
Sahara of parks, but for its trees
In flanking, vitiated ranks,
Sand and more sand
Beneath its ugly trees.
Its worm -gnawed, desolate trees,
Dropping a tainted leafage shamelessly
Though the night was summer,
Ruin and curse of trees, ignoble, scrawny.
Mercifully obscured by the night.
It is the park
And does not lack for benches.
There are even metal chairs —
In the daytime they arc let out for hire —
" Deux sous, s'il vous plait " —
If you happen to sit down on one,
But at night they are quite free,
PITTS SANBORN 111
So at night one goes to the Qumconces
Inevitably,
And one is several and sometimes many,
But when the moon is a maid.
Young and discreet,
One in the Quinconces by night.
May easily be two.
But never before the night of that young moon
Did two in the Quinconces
To me
Mean
You.
Oh —
I was full of the god that day.
The droll,
The secret
God!
112 ROBERT ALDBN SANBORN
SOUL OF THE LOTUS
(To Hasegawa)
A white lamp,
hanging —
In its mouth a pink pearl
of flame —
Swinging
by three strands of light. • •
A pool beneath,
Quaint and secret as mud. • •
n
Animate,
Winged for escape
To the cupped hand of night
Scooping pink and green stars
Out of unknown abysses.
The lotus —
But there's the stem, hinimg^
Tale-teUing of some old connection^
Some scandal forgot ten^
In the past of the taciturn mud;
ROBERT ALDBN SANBORN
lis
Over whose face —
Or is it a face
Under the mask of cool water?
The lotus
looks and fades upward,
Tirelessly murmuring,
Politely concealing impatience,
Like a lady reminding a dolt :
^^ Please, you have caught in the door
A slip of my skirt ;
Let me loose,
I must goJ
99
LENTO
Two children walking.
So slow their walk.
So like a sleepy wind their talk —
Arm sagging at the other's waist.
Close as leaves fallen on wet grass
ROBXBT AI.DBN BANBORN
Their slippers follow oily waves of heat,
Lazy as gorged liahes,
Lazy as minuteB
Swimming in the silence of an empty house
In midsummer —
The drifting yellow ashes of the s
cover their hair —
So slow they are,
The drowsy seconds settle on their shoulders
and fold wings — ■
And one small footstt'p sings
To the next one
A lullaby —
The hours wait them at the gate,
Sighing,
As the little feet tick by.
THE WATER-FRONT
On the checker-board,
Sky squares and water squares -
ROBERT ALDBN SANBORN 115
Tipsy tugs,
pert stacks,
queening at the dock. • •
On the checker-board,
Black sea.
White sky,
kissing comers. • •
Slow steam squirms,
eludes the air. • •
Oh the salty little clams.
SnifSng!
THE SNAKE PASSES
Three little children afoot in the grass ;
Getting rich in daisies,
Clutching red burdens of clover.
Playing at rivalry
With skeltering flocks of mad blossoms.
Mirth-shaken, flung by the whisk of the wings
Of the tipsying wind
Into the hands of the children.
6 ROBERT ALDKN BAMBOBtf
Three penniei falling
And lost in the grati. . .
Three fiuthed chMren,
Panting covet otu,
PuUmg the grots apart;
Withering flouiers trampled by the feet
of little hea»t».
A ivllen boy with two pennies
Clenched in his grimy fist;
And a little girl crying.
And one stunned tnth disappointment.
So I did not throw the pennies,
But passed.
And after me fell as rain ceasing
The dropping spray of cool voices,
And silvery flecks of tone
Of the grass,
Parted by children in play.
TIDAX GOSSIP
With a kick of white lace
The ruffled waves
Flirt to the winking sun;
Minding not
the stodgy sleeper,
ROBERT ALDEN SANBORN 117
Whose eye is turned inward
Upon intestinal ructions.
(Despite the fact,
He is their consort.)
But then,
One must do something
To turn the flying edge
of the sickle,
While waiting
the cold sweet lover.
Whose head
on a silver platter
Makes terrible the night.
MAUVE
The rhythm of the sea
Is blent in undulations of gray satin. • •
The ashes of burned violets drift
over a sky. • .
And blurred,
a magical seed of light
Breaks in the whorls of a strange flower!
Did you ever see a flower
With core of tarnished silver
and five black petals?
CABI. lAKDBtraa
CHILD
The young child, Christ, is straight and wise
And askfl questions of the old men, questions
Found under running water for all children
And found under shadows thrown on still waters
Bj tall trees looking downward, old and gnarled.
Found to the eyes of children alone, untold,
Singing a low sung in the loneliness,
And the young child, Christ, goes on asking
And the old men answer nothing and only know love
For the young child, Christ, straight and wise.
STATISTICS
Napoleon shifted
Restless in the old sarcophagus
And murmured to a. watchguard:
" Who goes there? "
" Twenty-one million men,
Soldiers, armies, guns,
Twenty-one million
Afoot, horseback,
In the air.
Under the sea."
And Napoleon turned to his slee
" It is not my world answering;
It is some dreamer who knows nol
frhe world I marched in
From Calais to Moscow."
And he slept on
[n the old sarcophagus
(Vhile the aeroplanes
Droned their motors
Between Napoleon's mausoleum
U
If
LOUIS MAYER'S ICE PICTURES
Whj has the sea hurled itself on the land
Now that summer is gone
And winter is the big player?
I Neither is the winner.
' Both strugglers, sea and land,
Are locked in a standstill.
Only the ice is a victim.
It happened to be caught between.
So the ledges are crumpled . . broken playthings.
Thej are equal to a toy town of blocks
Sacked over by children
Who are gone away.
"wAi^rs bay"
Sigh banks with a hard feel to them
r Stand up from a slow plash of gray waves.
110
cuu. ajunwcms
Humped rodta too
And Utolang twice at the humped rocks
We see thej are not walrus pU viog tag
A* we guessed at first.
No life of blood, throat and nostril
Rons under them ; tbej are granite
Heaved up jreaxs ago to companion the sea.
I can have this rool loneliness
And ;ou can take along what jou want
Here of this cool loneliness.
It is not like prairie land
Nor a single crag
Nor a level of ocean.
Little hills around it
Keep off winter,
The hig rouf^ player.
A disc of cool loneliness,
I always ask it :
What are you waiting for?
It seems so sure somebody is coming.
BECKER
Becker sat in a chair and they killed him ; I don't care.
Becker sat In a chair talking to God about his immor- ,
tal soul and calling, "Jesus, save my soul"; I
don't care.
r hired pimpB and dope-fiends to ahoot a squeal-
ing gambler at noon on a crowded street ; I don't
care.
Becker told the pimps and dope-fiends he'd keep the
coppers from pinching them for croaking Rosen-
^ thai; I don't care,
A lot of girls driven onto the night streets, driven into
saloon back rooms, driven to hangouts of
thieves,
Tired of the coin paid 'em in stores and factories,
peddled their bodies and legs and breasts to raen
for a dollar and two dollars
And some of them died of the syph, some of them
turned dips and boosters, some of them took to
coke and whiskey and went bugs —
And Becker, well, he went flfty-fifty with pimps,
dicks, landlords and politicians — God-damn
Becker and all higher-ups who use stool pigeons,
fixers and go-betweens to wash blood off blood-
money before it gets to them.
ALLACK BTETXNg
PETER QUINCE AT THE CLAVIER
Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you»
Thinking of your blue-shadowcd silk.
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna :
Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt
The basses of their beings throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna,
In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay,
She searched
The touch of springs.
And found
Concealed imaginings.
WALI«ACE STEVENS 128
She sighed.
For so much melody.
Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves.
The dew
Of old devotions.
She walked upon the grass.
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids.
On timid feet.
Fetching her woven scarves.
Yet wavering.
A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned —
A cymbal crashed.
And roaring horns.
Ill
Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.
They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side ;
WALIi^CE STETENS
And OB they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.
Anon, their lamps* uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.
And then, the simpering Byzantines,
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.
IV
Beauty is momentary in the mind —
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But In the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, In their green going,
A wave, Interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of Winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.
Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders ; but, escaping.
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory.
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.
WALLACB BTBTENS
THE SILVER PLOUGH-BOY
A black figure dances in a black field.
It seizes a sheet — from the ground, from a bush —
as if spread there by some wash-woman for the
night.
l" It wraps the sheet around its body, until tlie black
figure is silver.
f It dances down a furrow, in th" early light, back of
a crazy plough, the green blades following.
[ How soon the silver fades in the dust ! How soon the
black figure sHps from the wrinkled sheet ! How
softly the sheet falls to the ground!
SIX SIGNIFICANT LANDSCAPES
An old man sits
In the shadow of a pine tree
In Cliina.
He sees larkspur,
Blue and white.
At the edge of the shadow,
Move in the wind.
His beard moves in the wind.
The pine tree moves in the wind.
Thus water flows
Over weeds.
120 WALLACE 8TBVSN8
The night is of the color
Of a woman's arm:
Night, the female,
Obscure,
Fragrant and supple,
Conceals herself,
A pool shines.
Like a bracelet
Shaken in a dance.
I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller.
For I reach right up to the sun.
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the sea
With my ear.
Nevertheless, I dislike
The way the ants crawl
In and out of my shadow.
IV.
When my dream was near the moon.
The white folds of its gown
Filled with yellow light.
WALLACE STBVSNS 127
The soles of its feet
Grew red.
Its hair filled
With certain blue crystallizations
From stars,
Not far off.
V.
Not all the knives of the lamp-posts.
Nor the chisels of the long streets.
Nor the mallets of the domes
And high towers,
Can carve
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.
VI.
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms.
Looking at the floor.
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids.
Cones, waving lines, ellipses —
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon
Rationalists would wear sombreros.
128 WALUkCE 8TKVSN8
THE FLORIST WEARS KNEE-BREECHES
My flowers are reflected
In your mind
As you are reflected in your glass.
When you look at them,
There is nothing in your mind
Except the reflections
Of my flowers.
But when I look at them
I see only the reflections
In your mind,
And not my flowers.
It is my desire
To bring roses,
And place them before you
In a white dish.
TATTOO
The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there -^
Its two webs.
WAI.ULCS STBYKKS 189
The wAs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.
There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.
SONG
There are great things doing
In the world,
Little rabbit.
There is a damsel,
Sweeter than the sound of the willow,
Dearer than shallow water
Flowing over pebbles.
Of a Sunday,
She wears a long coat,
With twelve buttons on it.
Tell that to your mother.
INSCRIPTION FOB A MONUMENT
To the imagined lives
Evoked by music.
Creatures of horns, flijt«s, drums,
Violins, bassoons, cymlmU —
130 WALLACE 8TEVSN8
Nude porters that glistened in Burma
Defiling from sight ;
Island philosophers spent
By long thought beside fountains ;
Big-bellied ogres curled up in the sunlight.
Stuttering dreams. • • •
BOWL
For what emperor
Was this bowl of Earth designed?
Here are more things
Than on any bowl of the Sungs,
Even the rarest —
Vines that take
The various obscurities of the moon,
Approaching rain
And leaves that would be loose upon the wind,
Pears on pointed trees,
The dresses of women.
Oxen. ...
I never tire
To think of this.
WALLACE STEVENS 131
DOMINATION OF BLACK
At night, by the fire,
The colors of the bushes
And of the fallen leaves,
Repeating themselves,
Turned in the room,
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
Yes : but the color of the heavy hemlocks
Came striding —
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
The colors of their tails
Were like the leaves themselves •
Turning in the wind,
In the twilight wind.
They swept over the room.
Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
Down to the ground.
I heard them cry — the peacocks.
Was it a cry against the twilight
Or against the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
Turning as the flames
Turned in the fire.
182 WALLACE 8TKVSN8
Turning as the tails of the peacocks
Turned in the loud fire,
Loud as the hemlocks
Full of the cry of the peacocks?
Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?
Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
I saw how the night came.
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks.
I felt afraid —
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS 183
PASTORAL
The little sparrows
Hop ingenuously
About the pavement
Quarreling
With sharp voices
Over those things
That interest them.
But we who are wiser
Shut ourselves in
On either hand
And no one knows
Whether we think good
Or evil.
Then again.
The old man who goes about
Gathering dog lime
Walks in the gutter
Without looking up
And his tread
Is more majestic than
That of the Episcopal minister
Approaching the pulpit
Of a Sunday.
These things
Astonish me beyond words.
i
WILLI AU CAHLOa Wn-LUUB
n
THE OGRE
Sweet child,
Little girl with well shaped legs
You cannot touch the thoughts
I put over and under and around you.
This is fortunate for they would
Bum you to an ash otherwise.
Your petals would be quite curled up.
But this is all beyond you — no doubt.
Yet you do feel the brushings
Of the fine needles:
The tentative lines of your whole body
Prove it to me :
So does your fear of me.
Your shyness:
Likewise the toy baby cart
That you are pushing —
And besides, mother has begun
To dress your hair in a Imot,
These are my excuses.
PASTORAL
If I say I have heard voices
Who will believe meP
" None has dipped his hand
In the black waters of the sky
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS 135
Nor picked the yellow lilies
That sway on their clear stems
And no tree has waited
Long enough nor still enough
To touch fingers with the moon.
99
I looked and there were little frogs
With puffed out throats,
Singing in the slime.
APPEAL
You who are so mighty,
Crimson salamander,
Hear me once more.
I lay among the half burned sticks
At the edge of the fire.
The fiend was creeping in.
I felt the cold tips of fingers — .
O crimson salamander!
Give me one little flame.
One!
That I may bind it
Protectingly about the wrist
Of him that flung me here.
Here upon the very center!
This is my song.
136 WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
TRACT
I will teach you
my townspeople
how to perfonn
a funeral —
for you have it
over a troop
of artists —
unless one should
scour the world —
you have the ground sense
necessary.
See ! the hearse leads
I begin with
a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake
not black —
nor white either —
and not polished!
Let it be weathered —
like a farm wagon —
with gilt wheels
(this could be
applied fresh
at small expense)
or no wheels at all
a rough dray to
drag over the ground.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS 137
Knock the glass out!
My God — glass,
my townspeople!
For what purpose?
Is it for the dead
to look out or
for us to see
how well he is housed
or to see
the flowers or
the lack of them —
or what?
To keep the rain
and snow from him?
he will have a
heavier rain soon — ?
pebbles and dirt
and what not —
let there be no glass
and no upholstery
phew!
And no little
brass rollers
and small easy wheels
on the bottom —
my townspeople
what are you thinking of?
A rough
plain hearse then
with gilt wheels
138 WILUAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own wei^t.
No wreaths please —
especially no
hot house flowers.
Some common memento
is better
something he prized
and is known by:
his old clothes —
a few books perhaps
God knows what!
You realize
how we are
about these things
my townspeople —
something will be found —
anything
even flowers
if he had to come to that.
So much
for the hearse —
for heaven's sake tho'
see to the driver!
Take off
the silk hat!
In fact that's no place
at all for him —
up there
WILLIAM CARLOS WILUAM8 189
unceremoniously
dragging our friend out
to his own dignity.
Bring him down —
bring him down !
Low and inconspicuous !
I'd not have him ride
on the wagon at eJl —
damn him —
the undertaker's
understrapper !
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too.
Then briefly
as to yourselves :
walk behind —
as they do in France,
seventh class, or
if you ride
Hell take curtains!
Go with some show
of inconvenience — -.
sit openly —
to the weather
as to grief.
Or do you think
you can shut grief in-.
what — from us?
We who have perhaps
140 WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
nothing to lose?
Share with us
share with us —
it will be money
in your pocket —
remember that, and
this:
there is one land —
and your two feet
are sucked down
so hard on. it that
you cannot raise them — -.
where men are
truly equal
for they all have
nothing.
Go now, I think
you are ready*
TOUCHE
The murderer's little daughter
who is barely ten years old
jerks her shoulders
right and left
so as to catch a glimpse of me
without tummg round.
Her skinny little arms
wrap themselves
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS 141
this way then that
reversely about her body !
Nervously
she crushes her straw hat
about her eyes
and tilts her head
to deepen the shadow —
smiling excitedly!
As best she can
she hides herself
in the full sunlight
her cordy legs writhing
beneath the little flowered dress
that leaves them bare
from mid-thigh to ankle —
Why has she chosen me
for the knife
that darts along her smile?
TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE
Rather notice, mon cher.
that the moon is
tilted above
the point of the steeple
than that its color
is shell-pink.
Rather observe
that it is early morning
142 WILUAM CARLOS WILUAM8
than that the sky
is smooth
as a turquoise.
Rather grasp
how the dark
converging lines
of the steeple
meet at the pinnacle — ;
perceive how
its little ornament
tries to stop them!
See how it fails !
See how the converging lines
of the hexagonal spire
escape upward
receding, dividing!
— sepals
that guard and contain
the flower!
Observe
how motionless
the eaten moon
lies in the protecting lines.
It is true:
in the light colors
of the morning
brown-stone and slate
shine orange and dark blue
but observe
the oppressive weight
WILUAM CARLOS WILLIAMS 143
of the squat edifice!
observe
the jasmine lightness
of the moon!
STILLNESS
Heavy white rooves
of Rutherford
sloping west and east
under the fast darkening sky:
What have I to say to you
that you may whisper it to them
in the night?
Round you
is a great smouldering distance
on all sides
that engulfs you
in utter loneliness.
Lean above their beds tonight
snow covered rooves;
listen ;
feel them stirring warmly within
and say — nothing.
144 ADOLF WOLFF
PRISON WEEDS
The isles of evil odors
a chain of islands
on the river
like ulcers
on the flesh
the isles of evil odors.
I break stones
in the stone shed
big ones
into little ones
big ones
into little ones
big ones
into little ones
big ones
into little ones
I break stones
in the stone shed.
A row of men
a row of naked men
ADOLF WOLFF 145
standing against the wall
waiting,
a desk,
a scribe,
a centurion,
they are recording
marks of identification :
** deep long scar on right side '^
" one on palm of right hand "
" one on back of right hand "
" one on palm of left hand "
" one on back of left hand "
" one on instep of right foot "
" one on sole of right foot "
" one on instep of left foot '*
.** one on sole of left foot '*
« next '*-
Bones
a barrel of bones
the bones of last week's stew
the rotten prison stew
no —
it's not a dog
it's not a cat
it's a man
a man
made in the image of God.
Ummmamjfmia
tbercBzry OcbMcfatatoti
or tm&en of tlw dxtrtlt
thej cany tbe buckets to the r
with |w ff i 4> |iny }im»mI«
tbej cut; the backets to the r
He nerer speaks
he never reads
he never Uugha
Rlways silent
always brooding
ADOLF WOLFF 147
always sad
deep sunken eyes
black beard
noble brow
he resembles a Grerman Christ
no one knows why " he's up '*
no one knows when he came
no one knows when he'll go
they say
" nobody home.'*
" The Priest "
" Who wants the priest? '*
the keeper calls
" I want the priest "
"Well my son?"
"Father!"
" What my son? "
" Father ! "
** the Christ is in the cooler "
The priest passed on
he did not understand.
Early
in the morning
I look out on the river
the little barred window
faces the river
I like to watch
148 ADOLF WOLFF
the life on the river
tugs
scows
sail boats
and steamships
I watch them gliding
along on the river
some up
some down
some fast
some slow
some noisy
some silent
I watch them gliding
along the river
I like to look
at the life on the river
Late at night
I look out on the river
the little barred window
faces the river.
The warden
he's a nice old man
in uniform
so spic and span
his face is red
his hair is white
ADOLF WOLFF 149
his eyes are blue
his smile is bright
his home is swell
his table fine
and I'm quite sure
so is his wine
investigators
go away
with nothing
but the best
to say
they're satisfied
beyond expression
the warden
made such good impression.
The sabbath
damn the sabbath
day of ennui
day without work
day without diversion
day without forgetfulness
day without end
damn the sabbath.
Now
that I'm soon to be free
another day
another night
^0 ADOLF WOLFF
now
that I'm soon to be free
I feel
a strange unease
Maybe the
soul
just before
the expiration of its sentence
on the verge of regaining
the freedom of eternal life
feels
at the thought of separation
from the body
as I feel
at the thought of separation
from my cdL
t
HAnQdaiTZ ZORACH
I
The garden was warm, languid,
The tiny shadows of nime trees softly fingered white
balconies.
The palms fell limply back from the heavy siui,
Everything was old, beautifully old,
Everything was old, with the energy of life for-
gotten
Lalla Ram passed through the garden.
The nime trees gathered in their tiny wavering shad-
ows and grouped themselves in bold patterns
on the walls.
The marigolds burst into generous peals of orange
laughter,
The small yellow flowers rippled in mellow chuckles
that shook their fat green bushes,
The smooth trunks of the palms straightened with
easy royalty and strode about the garden.
The sun shadows were suddenly black and bold in the
white light.
Everything was life and the joy of life,
When Lalla Ram passed through the garden.
J
152 WILUAM ZORACH
THE DEAD
The dead are walking;
I bear the scraping of their shoes upon the floor,
The great rooms echo with their hollow voices ;
I hear the creaking of their shoes upon the stairs,
I see them slanting toward their graves.
The dead are always cold,
I feel the windows rattle as they pass.
The dead are walking in the road
I hear the wailing of children as they pass
Of little children dragged along by the dead.
The hills are black.
The moon is a cold white.
It is like a great mouth opening to swallow the dead.
iiiiililiii
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