Songs, Sighs and Curses
By
Adolf Wolff
SEPTEMBER 1913
Published by THE GLEBE at Ridgefield,
New Jersey
Copyright, 1913
By
Adolf Wolff.
TO LEONARD D. ABBOTT.
Dear Friend:—To whom else than to you can I dedicate this little wreath of poems? Weeds or flowers, without you, they would not have been. Your interest, your sympathy, your appreciation were the sunshine and rain that brought them forth—to blossom for a moment or forever.
ADOLF WOLFF.
NOTE.—All the poems in this volume were written in the year 1912-13. When asked in what sequence he would arrange his poems, Wolff threw the manuscripts in the air, saying, “Let Fate decide.” They now appear in the order in which they were picked up from the floor. This is true of all except the proem and those comprising the group under the heading “To One Who Could Not Love,” which appear towards the end of the volume.
THE PROEM
I sing and sigh and also curse,
Thus only can I give expression
To that which will not brook repression;
I am alive, I have a voice,
And so I sing and sigh and curse—
All life doth sing and sigh and curse.
The joy of love is in my song,
I sigh for pleasures yet untasted—
For things I dream—o’er moments wasted
And sometimes interrupt my song
With clenched fist to curse a wrong—
It is a joy to curse a wrong.
And so I sing and sigh and curse—
All life doth sing and sigh and curse.
CAPTIVES
I visited the Zoo one dreary day,
And in the lion’s house I watched a lion,
A great Numidian lion in his cage,
With eyes three-quarters closed, with haughty gait,
Pace up and down the limits of his cage.
Was he oblivious of the tyrant bars,
The gaze of human eyes, his captive state,
And did he blink but better thus to see
The jungle’s vast expanse?
He suddenly stood still; and, face to face,
We stood and stared into each other’s eyes,
And we each saw in one another’s eyes
A royal captive in a wretched cage.
IF I WERE GOD
If I were God—the first thing I would do
Would be to make all women beautiful.—
All women beautiful—and all men strong.
Then I’d resign—and make myself a man.
That’s just what I would do—if I were God.
OPTIMISM
On that cold table, where shameless, without blushing
They spread their nakedness,
I see what yesterday had been a living beauty
And is to-day a corpse—
A flimsy mass of tissues and of juices,
The prey of autopsy to-day,
To-morrow prey of worms and dissolution.
And whilst the perfume of this lifeless flower,
Concoction made of chemicals and death,
Inflicts an outrage on my sense of odor,
Does disenchantment fill me with disgust?
Does Death’s black wing engulf me in its shadow?
And being face to face with life’s fragility
Am I made sick of life?
I am not sick of life.
I prize life more knowing how brief it is,
How insecure, how fragile and how fleeting.
I love the eyes bright with the spark of life,
I love them more knowing they’ll soon be dimmed.
I love the lips aglow with warmth of life,
I love them more because they’ll soon be cold.
I love all flesh that palpitates with life,
I love it more knowing it soon shall be
An inert, flimsy mass of fetid tissue.
I love the voice that rings with sounds of life,
I love it more knowing ’twill soon be silent.
I love the mind pregnant with living thought,
I love it more knowing that soon ’twill be
The tomb of thought.
I therefore let the dead bury their dead,
And like a buzzing bee in quest of flowers
I seek the flowers of life that gladly yield
The sap that love distills to joy—that joy
That is much sweeter than the sweetest honey.
THE CLOUD
There hovers over me a muddy cloud,
Enveloping me in its gloomy shadow,
That dims the native sunshine of my heart,
That dulls the keen perception of the mind,
That stunts the latent powers of the soul,
That smothers all the rising flames of hope,
That cowes the wings of genius that would soar.
I am forever followed by this cloud,
I can’t escape, I cannot flee this cloud,
This muddy, gloomy, hell-begotten cloud—
The dollar sign is traced upon this cloud!
QUESTIONINGS
Is it because the sun caresses me
And makes me warm with its delightful rays
That it is mine? That it is only mine?
Is it because I frolic in the sea,
The sea that hugs me with a thousand waves,
That it is mine? That it is only mine?
Is it because I hold you in my arms
And madly kiss you, calling you my love,
That you are mine? That you are only mine?
THE LIBERTY I LOATHE
I am at large, can go this way and that,
No dungeon walls, no prison bars say halt,
When roving fancies seize upon my feet.
But am I free? Can I be truly free
When that which lives within me is repressed,
When my true self in vain from deep within
Doth clamor for the right of self-expression?
What hideous mockery of freedom this!
Put me in jail, put me in jail for life,
Let bread and water be my only fare,
Make rats and spiders my associates.
But have the light into my dungeon pour
From overhead and give me clay,
Oh, give me lots of clay—the tender flesh,
The oily, tender flesh of mother earth,
Responsive as a mistress to the touch,
And I will have a feast no king e’er knew,
And taste of pleasures that the gods would envy.
And I will make unto myself a world,
A world of which myself would be the God,
A world in which my every dream and thought,
My every feeling and my every passion
Would find embodiment in plastic form.
Oh, for a prison where I could be free!
ON SEEING THE GARMENT STRIKERS MARCH
I see a hundred thousand marching by.
I also see as many, many millions
That are in spirit also marching by.
And lo! methinks this is but a rehearsal
For the Exodus from the Land of Bondage—
And I behold with my prophetic eyes
God’s chosen people crossing the Red Sea;
The workers of the world, God’s chosen people,
Are crossing the Red Sea of Revolution.
And I behold the Industrial Commonwealth,
The Promised Land of plenty and of peace,
Where each one, under his own fig-tree seated,
Shall sing his praises to the Lord of Life.
THE TOILERS
Crouching they cling like vermin to the earth
And with their bleeding fingers scrape the earth
But for a little dust, their sustenance,
A little dust mixed with the sweat of brow,
The blood of fingers and the tears of pain.
’Tis not for them the sun shines gloriously,
The flowers bloom, the fruit hangs on the tree,
’Tis not for them the birds and poets sing,
Or lovely women smile.
They have to crouch and cling and sweat and scrape
But for a little dust—their sustenance.
PANEROTICISM
I love all women’s smiling eyes,
I love all women’s tempting lips,
I love all women’s loving hearts,
I love all women’s tender skin,
I love all women’s glowing flesh,
I love all women’s weakness,
I love all women’s strength.
I love! I love! I love!
APHRODITE
I’ve seen a Venus not of marble carved
By some great sculptor’s hand in ancient Greece,
Unearthed in a mutilated state
By archaeologists in quest of ruins
And pedestaled in temple of fine art.
The Venus I have seen was made of flesh,
Of ordinary, living, human flesh,
More beautiful than statue e’er could be.
She stands behind a counter in a store
From morning until night dispensing wares—
A living Venus at five dollars per.
THE TYRANNY OF RHYME
Inane coquette, depart from me,
Thou siren known as Muse of rhyme,
Thou fain wouldst make thy slave of me,
To give thee all my thought, my time,
And all the love that’s in my heart,
I know thee well, depart! depart!
I love a nobler Muse than thee,
She’s simple, free, intense, sublime,
Her rhythm has sweeter melody
Than e’er could have thy wanton rhyme.
I gave to Rhythm my soul, my heart,
O Muse of Rhyme, depart! depart!
LINES INSPIRED ON MEETING A LADY
To A. L.
I look at life as an astronomer
Looks at the star-filled sky.
Life seems a sky to me, all human beings
Rotating in their orbits are as stars.
Some are obscure and some are luminous,
Some give the light and warmth to solar systems,
Some shed on lovers’ heads soft lunar light.
Some, like the comets, cosmic vagabonds,
Are ever tramping the sidereal roads,
And others, myriad-massed in endless stretches,
Compose the glory of the Milky Way.
I look at life as an astrologer
Believing in the influence of stars,
Their influences evil, beneficial.
Perplexed I ponder o’er the laws mysterious
That govern all the movements of the stars.
And I am troubled in my inmost being
At the appearance of a new-found star
As on the threshold of a mystery.
There hove into my sphere a new-found star
Of primal magnitude, magnificent,
Whose magnetism most irrestistibly
Attracts me to itself.
Am I to be the happy satellite
Of this fair human sun whose smile or frown
Could make me be a fertile Earth or Moon,
A fertile Earth or frozen, barren Moon?
Oh, will it just continue in its course,
Rotating in its orbit and recede,
Recede, recede, and leave me far behind
Obscure and cold and sad and all alone?...
OSCAR WILDE
The work was done.
The spirit-moulders of immortal souls
Wiped from their brows the sweat and washed their hands,
And standing by, in full contentment gazed
Upon their wondrous work.
A masterpiece! it was a masterpiece!
A genius to be born unto the world,
One more to swell that galaxy of stars
That makes the cosmic bosom swell with pride.
Another inextinguishable star
To scintillate throughout eternity.
The angels stood, heads bowed in reverence
Before what was to be the poet Wilde,
And as they stood, these proud progenitors,
In blissful contemplation of their child,
There fell upon them, as a shadow cast
By purple clouds upon a limpid lake,
A sadness that no human voice could tell.
Forebodings of the suffering of Wilde
Depressed them so that, kneeling down, they wept.
They wept over the dire humiliation
Awaiting him who is the pride of God,
And over man’s stupidity they wept—
The colossal stupidity of man.
IMPERIALISM
With one great gesture of my love-mad arms
Would that I could embrace the entire world,
The entire world of love-inspiring women.
With one unending pressure of my lips
I wish that I could kiss the entire world,
The entire world of love-inspiring women.
With one great spasm of ecstasy supreme
Would that I could possess the entire world,
The entire world of love-inspiring women.
THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR
The children of the poor are little plants
That grow in sandy soil midst rocks and weeds
And rusty cans of tin, and other junk
Within the gloomy shadow of a wall,
The gloomy shadow of a mildewed wall;
Poor little plants! poor children of the poor.
THE CALL OF SEX
Know you that bottomless and boundless sea,
Each heaving billow whereof is a woman?
Oh, how my love-parched body craves to plunge
Into the soothing substance of this sea!...
Oh, for the joy of absolute abandon
To the caressing furore of this sea;
The frantic joy of breaking all restrictions,
Of daring all the dangers of this sea!
The ecstatic and the harrowing sensation
Of rising, ever rising on a wave,
A giant wave that rises, ever rises,
And then to be replunged into the deep!
The all-absorbing, all-inclusive deep.
What if the mouth doth swallow liquid bitter;
What if the heinous sharks men call disease
Snap at my flesh, infecting me with poison,
And even what if that mysterious mermaid,
That moon-pale Undine claim me as her own
And seal our union with the kiss of death?
What of it? Does not all life end in death?
Give me the death of Tristan and Isolde:
I die for life and love,—I fear not death.
IMMORTALITY
At dawn of day the stars die one by one.
They only seem to die, but do not die.
There is no death for humans, or for stars.
What we call life and death is only rhythm.
It is all cadence, measure, rest, inflection,
The poetry, the music of the spheres.
The universe is one stupendous poem
Whereof the suns and stars are words and letters,
And we frail humans, punctuation marks.
TO LIVE OR NOT TO LIVE
To be or not to be is not the question;
The question is, to live or not to live.
Alive or dead or only vegetating,
One thing is sure, we cannot help but being.
To live! to be alive; to live intensely!
To live with every fibre of the frame,
With every sinew, every nerve and muscle;
To live like this, or not to live at all.
But we are cowards, we are fools and misers,
Afraid to live—afraid to pay the price—
The price of youth,—the price of youth is age;
The price—the price of joy is pain.
And disenchantment is the price of love.
And Life—the price of Life is Death.
Come, let us live, and let us live intensely.
Life! Life! more Life! more Life at any cost.
MY RICHES
Behold in me one richer than a king,
Richer than Croesus was or Solomon,
Aye, richer even than a Rockefeller.
And lo! the gilded portals of my palace
Are thrown wide open, and the spacious vaults,
Staked full of treasures even to o’erflowing
Remain unguarded, and I welcome thee
To enter and partake of all my riches.
My palace is my heart; my wealth, my treasure
Is love, immeasurable, boundless love.
DEPRIVATION
The world is like a tapestry to me,
Immense and wonderful, where interwoven
With art most consummate by masterhand
I see a maze of beings and of things.
I can but see a little at a time,
My sight is limited, the view is vast,
The picture disconcertingly complex.
But often, here and there, a brilliant spot,
A woman’s figure in life’s tapestry
Attracts my gaze and holds me in its spell.
And, like a child that’s crying for the moon,
My hands would grasp that which delights mine eye,
To press it fondly to my happy heart.
Alas, the world, as tapestry and tomb,
Will not give up its own.
A SPHINX
I like to see a woman wearing furs,
Long-haired and dark and vicious looking furs,
Strong smelling, soft, exotic looking furs,
Contrasting strongly with her brilliant flesh,
Her tender, warm and angel-tinted flesh.
I love the angel and the beast in women.
That’s why I like a woman wearing furs.
EXCUSE ME, MUSE
’Tis not the hour to sing of pink-hued vapors
So softly sailing under azure skies;
Nor of the shadow warm and so mysterious
Cast by the lashes of a woman’s eyes.
’Tis not the time for soft euphonious sighing
And holding converse with pale lunar light.
’Tis not the hour for musing and for dreaming,
Excuse me, Muse, I must go out and fight.
And I will fight as long as infants suckle
In vain at parched breasts devoid of milk;
As long as my poor sisters sell their bodies
For bread and rags, while parasites wear silk.
As long as slave and master, thief and pauper
Remain such terms as may to man apply,
So long, I say, my lyre shall be a weapon,
My song shall be the rebel’s battle cry.
NOEL
Tormented Galilean who art Lord
Of those that crucify thee every day
And every hour and minute of the day
And every hour and minute of the night:
With pious glee they celebrate the night
That witnessed thine appearance upon earth,
That night when angels chanted “peace on earth.”
They chanted “Peace on earth, good will to men,”
And thou wert crowned with thorns by hands of men
And thou wert spat upon by mouths of men
And thou hast been betrayed by kiss of men;
Condemned by men and crucified by men,
Aye, crucified and deified by men.
And every year for many centuries,
On Christmas eve for many centuries,
In churches and cathedrals Christians sing
Their gladness of the coming of the Lord.
The organ’s thunder glorifies the Lord,
The priests and ministers exalt the Lord,
The infant Lord the virgin Mary bore;
On Christmas eve it was in Bethlehem:
And whilst they fete the babe of Bethlehem,
Ten thousand babes on earth die painful deaths
And millions live to live lives worse than death
And still the massacre of innocents
Goes on relentlessly. Poor innocents!
LINES TO THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING
Imposing pile of pale and polished stone,
Cathedral-like in thy solemnity,
Thy rectilinear grandeur awes my soul,
And makes me shudder!
Monstrous sacrilege, O when before
Has thing so big been made for end so small?
Unholy Temple of the priests of lucre,
How most appropriate thy pallor is,
So like in color to the tint of bones—
Thy slender, upright lines so much like bones—
So much like children’s bones.
How like unto the pyramids thou art;
The tyrants’ tombs, built by a million slaves.
And like the pyramids, ere long
Thou’lt be the relic of an age gone by.
THE ARTISTS
They have been born to model and to mould
The shapeless clay into expressive form
Even as gods! to seize the fleeting shades,
The subtle hues of things that pass or stay
And make them live and glow intensely.
They have been born to tell their wondrous dreams
In rhythmic stanzas full of strength and grace,
To plunge into the very depths of things,
To seek the precious essence that is fit
For distillation to symphonic strain.
Require them not to leave their sacred sphere,
To mix with common vendors in the mart,
To traffic their creations and to throw
The priceless pearls of genius to the swine
For but a bowl of vinegar and gall.
O bring to them the little bread and milk
Which they must have to live, and if you can
Rejoice to give them honey. Be to them
What ravens were unto a prophet once.
Does not the beauty they create or dream
Atone for all our ugly deeds or thoughts,
Even as the saints who pray for those that sin
Sustain the equilibrium that must be
In order that the world may not be doomed?
Eternal malediction fall on those
Who mock or crucify these chosen ones
And let them be thrice blessed who help to clear
Life’s rugged road of thorns for those who pass
And passing, leave this world more beautiful.
CAIN REFORMED
Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes, indeed,
I keep him, aye, I keep him hard at work.
I also keep the fruit of all his work
And of his children’s work I keep the fruit.
And when he does not keep the laws I make
That give me power to keep him hard at work,
I am his keeper, keeping him in jail.
Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes, indeed.
GOLGOTHA
On the Golgotha of mine inmost being
There stands a crucifix,
And in the deepest recess of my being
In perpetuity Good Friday reigns.
And always in the stillness of the night,
The endless night within mine inmost being,
I hear the moaning and the supplications
Of him that’s crucified within my being.
I see the wounds of side and hands and feet,
The wounds that glow like rubies in the night,
That cast a lurid glare upon the night,
Those mystic wounds in number like the senses.
Four horrid wounds upon the hands and feet,
One on the side, thus making five in all,
Just as the senses, making five in all.
And in the endless night within my being
I hear the moaning and the supplications.
“Oh, tear me from my cross,” entreats the Christ,
“For I am Joy, thy God, the son of Life.
Oh, tear me from my cross,” entreats the Christ.
That cursed instrument of agony,
Is conscience; human conscience is the cross—
The cross whereon our Joy is crucified.
My Lord, I will redeem thee from thy cross,
And give thee burial in mine aching heart,
Whence thou shalt rise and henceforth ever reign
Over the Kingdom of the blessed flesh.
IDOLATRY
I stood before a leg in the museum,
A marble leg, a mutilated leg,
Supported by a rod of polished bronze.
This leg of some hermaphroditic god
Was carved in Greece, when ancient Greece was young.
In deepest reverence I stood and gazed
Upon this relic of an absent god.
And as I stood I wondered if perchance
Idolatry is not this very act,
That thus enshrines an ancient piece of stone,
Whilst living sculptors are compelled to waste
In fruitless idleness that precious power
Which carves the Victories of Samothrace.
Idolators, ye worship graven stones
But are indifferent to the gods that carve them.
TO ARTURO GIOVANNITTI
Arturo Giovannitti, fellow worker
In song and in revolt, sing on! sing on!
The battling warriors in the war of classes
Have need of your inspired, inspiring voice,
You are the rebel, leader, poet, prophet,
You have already worn the martyr’s crown.
If there be in me just one spark of envy,
It is that I was not like you in gaol.
I envied you that most supreme distinction
Of living in the shadow of the cross
With all the sacred shades of martyred rebels,
A fellow worker of departed Christs.
NIGHTMARE
I had a dream, I had a horrid dream.
I dreamt that Byron travels for a house
That handles wines from Portugal and Spain,
That Shelley is a cashier of a bank,
That Keats is valet to a wealthy Jew,
That Oscar Wilde lays bricks, that Edgar Poe
Is selling silks and satins on the road,
And that Walt Whitman, he of noble height,
Is manager of a department store.
And I would have dreamed on, had not disgust,
A flood of dire disgust, awakened me,
And I myself was forced to rush downtown
To live the life I shudder at in dream.
LINES WRITTEN ON SEEING HENRI’S PAINTING OF THE LADY IN BLACK VELVET
The Lady in black velvet is the night,
The deep, uncanny, weird, mysterious night,
The witching, troubling, awe-inspiring night,
Serene and silent, sweet and subtle night,
Tempestuous, tragic, black and feverish night.
The Lady in black velvet is the night,
Her robe of black as black as blackest night,
Enfolds a world—a world of sleepless night,
A world of sighs, of cravings and of crimes,
Of maddening joys, of languors that consume,
Of pains unbearable, of livid fears,
Of nightmares and of dreams.
Then there’s the sombre gray of shifting clouds
Whose masses rent asunder now reveal
The radiant luminary of the night,
Her silv’ry, radiant face is Queen of night.
The Lady in black velvet is the night.
THE BABE
Fruit of a moment of supremest bliss,
A passionate embrace, a long drawn kiss,
Soft, pink and warm and chubby little thing,
Most helpless being, despotic as a king.
Third cousin to the gold-fish, the kitten and the chick,
As free from care as they are, as shame-free and as quick
To feel that life means living and living must be joy,
That nothing is of value unless it be a toy.