. . . . . .
OH, why was it he looked with such a fierceness the sky?
The rustling of the clouds was pearling grey and silver by,
The lady of the clouds had dropped her muff, but on she trailed,
Her dainty gown was powder-blue, her train was dragon-tailed.
Her face was pale as curds and whey with sleepy-starey look,
The stars they must have bored her, for they were her only book—
And yet she seemed disdainful as the poplars bowed their plumes,
With all the feudal worship that a cloudy queen assumes.
Oh, why was it the poet glanced with envy in his eye
Above him at the clouds a-sailing grey and silver by?
Escape
(Rêvons: c’est l’heure—Verlaine)
WE’LL build us stairs of filmy clouds
And mount until the air is clear,
Above this greasy atmosphere
Of callous, artificial crowds.
Away from fœtid cities’ feet
Where, on the asphalt, taxis skate
Like sombre souls who percolate
Through Limbo’s crumbling lazaret.
Away from cities’ clinging noise
And as we are in full ascent
I’ll know the gamut of content
In looking at your perfect poise.
No trees shall pry with envied lust
On too mature a happiness
When I shall taste your lips’ caress,
Unmindful that I sprang from dust.
Courageously, with silent tears
We’ll meet the chaos of the dawn
And silently our hearts shall mourn,
As at an exodus of years.
Pink Night
THE empty trams sing a familiar song
As plaintive as those leaves that once were green
And cling to asphalt, floating else among
The sharp white-pink of quick acetylene.
Like rich saliva sprung from hectic flow’rs
They spray the night with echoing ideas—
Some lose themselves in fickle slanting hours
And some evaporate in pallid fears.
The souls of men have fossilized, grown cold
In this sublimely artificial day,
A criminal’s revolver-crack they hold
Some new device to animate their play!
The lift drops breathless down
And stairs in armies rise.
Then vertigo, the clown
Has caught us in disguise.
Hope
I ALWAYS sing into the night
To strangle innermost affright
When faces, twisted masks of lust,
Leer through the murk like yellow dust.
And varnished voices frailly flit
Down shuddering alleys sparsely lit.
Old harlots lurch with ghostly feet
That agonisingly entreat.
I think I’m hearing ever after
The echoes of polluted laughter,
And I can never be alone
But I must hear a hollow groan.
My mind, as in a nightmare, sees
Young bodies rotting with disease,
Strange scabs of mauve and wizened heads,
Sad hospitals with rows of beds....
Is there no harbour, no escape,
Away from whoring, blood and rape?
Two lovers on a bench: and I
Can hear a new-born baby’s cry.
Pastorale
I RAN into the garden, for the breeze
Was clean and keen and warming to the skin
Like some Peruvian pepper soaked in gin
It forced me to contract into a sneeze.
I ran into the garden, for the sky
Was like a freshly-tinted muslin gown
Which makes the choir-boys gape, the parson frown,
His daughters, envying, look on and sigh.
I ran into the garden, for the sun
Summoned the daisies in their new-washed frills,
Summoned the cowslips and the daffodils
To gay Spring’s festival, each one by one.
I watched the blossoms with the dew in pearls,
The Spring puffed flippancies into my mind
And thoughts too abstract to have been defined
By any but the chaffinch twittering.
Bal Saturnien
I WATCHED the dancers as they twirled
Around the candelabra’d room,
And ladies, diamonded, pearled,
Danced to the big brass jazz-band’s boom.
Rustles of skirts, perfumes that pass,
Faces aglow and eyes that beam;
Floors lucid as a looking-glass,
Lips glossy, puffed with crimson cream.
And I am sad, I know not why
With this illusive merriment;
Candles that flicker out and die,
Lilies that wither—youth that’s spent.
For a Viola-da-gamba
(To be sung by a Eunuch)
I HAVE known beauty
Of skies at eve
Beneath the shadows
That interweave
The boughs that grieve.
I have known beauty
Of suns that set
With fire of amber
And coronet
Of pearl inlet.
I have known beauty
Of fields at dawn
When April shivers
On gilded corn,
And hope is born.
I have known beauty
Of Summer, Spring,
Nebulous Autumn
Cloud gathering
With frail-poised wing.
I have known beauty—
But none so fair
To match the splendour
Of my love’s hair
And snow limbs bare.
Contrasts
(To the sacred memory of Petronius)
AGAIN the agate chalices are filled,
And of a sudden orgiasts are stilled
In wonder, when jet Nubians outpour
The liquid flames instilled from mandragore,
Allured but fearful of their potent sway.
The lantern fruit glow succulent and gay,
Blue-veinéd grapes in massing pendulous,
Small raisins, oranges acidulous
Contracting eyelids till the features wince,
Towering domes of pineapple and quince,
And apples like a film of virgin’s breath,
Strange berries, (you would think they bleed to death!)
Piled pappy plums opaquely amethyst,
Pink furry peaches like a morning mist,
Green mangoes, mellow apricots of gold,
Figs puffed and oozy, melons crystal-cold,
Red mammals of persimmon from the South
And curious pears that glitter in the mouth,
’Mid Tyrian silk, soft laughter, drapery
Of fine-spun damask gleam white napery
Bedizened bosoms, arms baptismal white.
The guests are surfeited with food, and Night
With Sleep and Lust, her ill-assorted sons,
Creeps through the porphyry pavilions.
“Hither and sing, oh Syrian eunuch-boy,
“Those chaste and still-born songs that never cloy
“The prurient senses kindling in the flesh ...
“Come, Aphrodite, send to me a fresh
“Virginal body for my violence,
“That I may more enjoy the somnolence
“Of after-dreams!”
Thus prayed the men of Tyre
And other towns demolished by God’s ire.
But we to-day have learned and waxed more wise.
We look into dear Lady Dodo’s eyes
And sip champagne and eat our fricassee,
Discuss her spaniel’s noble pedigree;
We praise the chef. “And what a pretty dress!
Worth, dear, or Callot?” (Christ! what bashfulness).
And if we wish to have a little game,
Beguile the night in homes of evil fame.
The Pensile Gardens of Babylon
THERE beauty’s footsteps lingered in the soft
And poignant semitones that sped aloft,
In perfumes wavering with finger-tips
So faint, they scarcely fluttered on the lips.
There caravans would halt in flame of day
And many turbaned wanderers would stray
To cool their brown-limbed bodies in the deep
And juicy foam of fountains, where would leap
Eternal jets of water-diamonds
Limned intricate like myriad leafy fronds,
Wetting the marble rims with amber showers
Throughout the endless ballet of the hours....
There Bedouins with liquid amorous eyes
Would listen to the piercing notes arise
From shrilly-vivid parokeets, or pause
To overhear the chattering macaws
And watch the cranes with slender, supple necks
Preening the feathered shadows into flecks
Of purpled hues and finest, mordant white,
Or spy the swans ascend in snowy flight
Over the swinging canopy of leaves;
Whither the sky suavely interweaves
A labyrinth of azure-rifted clouds.
Where saffron-throated birds in whirring crowds
Would weep celestial music with their wings,
And tawny monkeys, tiny nimble things,
Would play their melodramas in the trees,
And throbbing swarms of honey-sucking bees
Vibrate the petalled air in droning waves,
And mingle with the murmuring of slaves.
When shadow night is poisoned by the fangs
Of daily death, with new redoubled pangs
She crackles up in films of aëry haze,
Until the reeling sun with outworn rays
Is hacked to slivers and his regal veins
Spurt crimson jets of flame along the plains,
Suffused to blazing chaos when the sky
Writhes into darkness and her empery.
Then throb the pensile gardens to a swoon,
The great rose-yellow petal of the moon
Curved, white and hovering above the trees,
Shivers a gelid lucency to freeze
The gold of sunset into coldest hues—
A monochrome of silver-tinted blues.
God’s pyrotechnics, shooting star cascades
Splash, sliding, sizzling, ever-whirling blades
Or cataracts and dagger jerks of light
In infinite gyrations down the night.
The hump-backed camels, roding lupanars
Of clouds that lust enamoured of the stars,
Shimmering jewelled pinpricks wistfully
Awed by the vastness and the mystery
Wrapped palpitating round. Then fold on fold
The shoulders of the hills are outlined bold
With pallid smoothness, undulating far
To where the empty, trackless deserts are.
Part II
URBANITIES
Sabbath Morning Rain
LIKE diamond on window pane,
The sky is jagged by spears of rain.
As splashed by layers of grease and lard
The slate-roofs glitter cold and hard.
And people drag their damp-soled feet
Like sacks of dough along the street.
Some orange peel of yesternight
Brightens the gutter’s mud-choked plight.
The ghosts of last night’s riot-spilth
Mingle with puddle, slime and filth.
A lady walks to Church, her pet
White prayer book shielded from the wet.
Umbrella dripping, gloves, frock-coat
A man sails Churchwards like a boat.
Red, smug-faced schoolboys slouch and lurch
Before the grimy Gothic Church.
Soon sound has ceased except th’ inane
Plop-plopping of the Sunday rain.
A Window Speaks
OH pity me! for day by countless day
And night by night in vain anxiety
I wait for something that will never come.
I long to splutter, crumble, cut the dust,
I long to cleave my prisoners, to gash
Their bleeding entrails, slit their tangled guts
Until they die in anguish on the floor.
A window paralysed and stiffened, I
Must even stare upon the dull world’s form
And watch the doings of a thousand clowns
Repeated lamentably day by day.
Dawn rises not with graceful motion here,
But with policemen plodding on their beat
And whistling apple-faces, clattering
Of milk-cans, painted carts and bicycles;
The water in the closet down below
Continually gingles, splish-a-splash,
And I go mad for very monotones.
The neat grey clerks trip to their offices
Meticulously punctual, little bags
Keep runic-rhythm to their gander steps.
The sun blinds like a harsh electric bulb,
Slicing the street in pools of amber light,
Chipping the railings here and chopping there
The tulips of the houses opposite.
The clock strikes nine and now with sleek top-hats,
The tea and toast still tasting in their mouths,
The Times not full digested in their minds,
The pompous middle-aged to business go
Soliloquising fondly to themselves
About the new percentage income tax.
Then convex matrons interview the cook.
A sunburnt cretin cringes down below
For pennies, jangling out the tinny notes
Of some old catch of Marie Lloyd that scarce
Can drag a tune from out its crippled box.
Some children skip in time, a monkey bows
And capers to the laughing passers-by.
The cretin then wheels off and all is still
Save for the singing of the charwoman—
“I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,” she sings
With shrill, cracked voice resounding down the street
Like the sharp scrape of tin-tacks desperate,
Persistent in the hollowed crystal air,
Till sounds dissolve to liquid quietude.
The hot dust smeared along the roadway chokes
The sneezing passers-by and slowly mounts
Into their nostril-caves distressingly
Like microscopic gnats, but now there come
Refreshing rumblings from the water-cart,
Which spits small Beardsley-drops about the street
And trickles down into the gutters fast,
Whilst I am left to numbly contemplate
The thin, white apron strings of cloud above,
Until the raucous luncheon-bell once more
Calls upon men to glut themselves with food.
Then hour on hour of thudded octaves; hour
On hour of doddering on yellow keys—
Long, shapeless valses, British Grenadiers,
Whilst water in the closet down below
Persists in gurgling semitone applause.
The clouds grow sullen and the clerks return
As neat as they set out. But in their minds,
(Impenetrable masks), their tired thoughts
Succeed each other, feeble and fatigued.
One, after supper and a game of whist,
Will rest his run-down clock-work on a bed.
The gas-lamps prick their whiteness in the skies,
The footsteps of a weary harlot’s tread
Remind the street that there is sin abroad.
But dismally sin ever fails to lure
These brazen men from happy families,
Content to snore beneath their handkerchieves.
The clock strikes twelve and I am left alone
To wait for something that will never come....
Seven to Bed
THE sentries in their boxes,
Like rigid dolls of wood,
In saffron-yellow tunics
Lethargically stood.
The shower had not finished
And still her threaded tears
Fell down like little seconds
Across the flight of years.
The pavement was a mirror
Which caught the jets of light,
The twinkling strings of jewels
That pour from lamps at night.
Suffused among the turrets
A solitary bird
Imprisoned in its feathers
A music faint and blurred....
In bed, I heard the creeping,
The rippling drum of rain
And watched the twilight falling
Upon the window pane.
Town Typing Office
HERE in an office of sickly greens
Typists tap fast on black machines;
Middle-aged drudges the hour-long day
Hammer their finger-nails away:
I have just come from the country’s crown,
Shropshire, you know, with clouds of down,
This is a change from the gaping sheep
Grazing for ever, half asleep.
I have just come from the country wealds,
Shropshire, you know, with spinach fields,
Men there are honest and plump and red,
Here they are sallow for lack of bread.
But in the office the clock ticks fast
Telling how soon the hours flit past,
Middle-aged drudges the hour-long day
Hammer their pallid lives away.
Coiffeur Choréographique
To Edith Sitwell
“NEXT gentleman,” the nervous scissors wait
To spoil the hair off some reflecting pate.
“The unemployed, Sir?—half of them are thieves,
Who soil propriety like autumn leaves.”
I wait until my turn. The crack of doom
Summons me from a plush-protected tomb.
“Short round the edge, but not too short will do,
And then I think I’ll have a dry shampoo.”
The scissors ballet-dance about one ear,
Some hairs have fallen down my neck, I fear.
Another pas-de-deux about my eyes—
I do not care for such close harmonies.
But soon the cutting’s done, the barber says:
“The unemployed are dreadful, better days
“May come and make us more content, I hope.”
My head is buried in a cloud of soap,
Till down upon my head Niagara Falls
Descend with all the heat of music halls.
He dries my hair, and as I go he says:
“The unemployed are dreadful, better days——”
I slam the door and wonder, “Will he say
‘The unemployed, Sir,’ on the Judgment Day?”
L’Impératrice des Pagodes
A POOR, drab slattern washed a greasy plate
Daubed and besmeared with crumbs and margarine,
She had small time to think of tinsel Fate
And yet she sang a Fate that might have been.
When she, the Queen of distant Bangalore,
(She saw it on a coloured map at school)
Would lie with Bob upon a cushioned floor
And jeer at Liza, dubbing her a fool.
When she would bathe her limbs in ode-colone[2]
And promenade in parks with German bands,
When she’d no longer watch the stars alone,
But with Bob’s kisses on her melting hands.
When she could gallop down the Margate beach
And have her “photo” taken on the pier—
(Bob told her once her face was like a peach,
A dubious compliment! to witness here).
And the bank-holidays, the giddy nights
Of merry-goes and switch-backs at Earl’s Court—
The penny-in-the-slot machines, the sights
Of pygmies, men deformed of every sort,
Abnormal women, men with scaley skins
And Esmeraldas wise in magic lore
Would bow to stout Viziers, Moujiks and Djins
Encircling Winnie, Queen of Bangalore!
A poor, drab slattern washed a greasy plate
Daubed and besmeared with crumbs and margarine,
She had small time to think of tinsel Fate
And yet she sang a Fate that might have been.
[2] Kitchen-English for “Eau de Cologne.”
Miss Fay the Trapezist
RED ostrich feathers in her hair,
She balances while people stare
At her pink tights through fœtid waves
Of pulsing awe; they are her slaves.
They are her slaves; she smiles and they
Are near-bewitched to see her sway
Along the slender wire trapeze
Into the card-board painted trees.
The sugared music stops, she stands
Upon her plump and milk-white hands.
Bird-like she rises, blows a kiss
To the spectators, moist with bliss.
The brass band plays a tepid valse
Of sickly syrup-sounds, the false
Pearls of a dowager keep time.
They too were pretty in their prime.
Then the spectators clap, they burst
Applause until a molten thirst
Tugs at their dewlaps, when Miss Fay
Flutters a curtsey to the day.
Sotie
(The lion-huntress accounts for one of her rather more unprepossessing guests)
SMALL crumbs of glass he had for eyes
That blinked, myopically wise.
Like midnight suns his laughter froze,
Suavely sterile and morose.
All bistre-brown, an eerie sight,
As shrivelled as a Cenobite
Long vagrant in the Thebaid,
He quite miraculously hid.
But after many years he came
To town, and found it just the same.
He had his hair cut in the Strand
And manicured each psychic hand.
He wrote a book on Cerements
Or some such furtive elements;
He got a title for his pains,
I’m told he has terrific brains!
He had his little eyes exchanged
For larger ones—Mix X. arranged
His skin (enamel so they say!)
And so I had him here to stay.
With eucalyptus in his hair,
He trims his beard if people stare.
He loves to sip beneath the shade
The languid green of lemonade.
Mr. Bedlam’s Sunday Breakfast
MELANCHOLILY he chipped his morning egg,
So human in its roundness that he felt
A murderer, then lifted the too-small spoon
Brimmed with slippery yolk. “Oh, no you shan’t
Fall on my Sunday best.” How like a woman’s kiss
It seemed to slither nudely down his throat.
Glutinous amber. The tea, when milk had flecked it,
Softening the vulgar cairngorm to a mere distinguished
Nebulosity (pompous), nubiferousness (more pompous still),
Was almost worth the drinking, although it lacked
The romance of being specified Chinese.
The fat round butter with the daisy on it,
The daisy that he would soon decapitate,
Looked over-salted, but then the bread was always
Doughy and void of flavour.
To-day the crust was black, as if the soot
Had fallen on a country thatch ... the marmalade,
Scotch and well streaked, smiled on in invitation.
“My headache’s better now. We won’t be late.
And Dr. Chitty’s preaching on Divorce.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained from the original.