I. SONG
"Ah! Que bonitos
Son los enanos,
Los chiquititos,
Y Mezicanos."
Old Mexican Song.
How jolly are the dwarfs, the little ones, the Mexicans
Hidden by the singing of wind through sugar-cane,
Out comes the pretty one,
Out comes the ugly one,
Out comes the dwarf with the wicked smile and thin.
The little women caper and simper and flutter fans,
The little men laugh, stamp, strut and stamp again,
Dance to the bag-pipe drone,
Of insect semitone,
Swelling from ground slashed with light like zebra skin.
The little Cardinal, the humming-bird, whose feathers flare
Like flame across the valley of volcanic stone,
Fiery arrow from a rainbow
That the armoured plants have slain, low
Stoops to watch the dwarfs as they dance out of sight.
Hair, long and black as jet, is floating yet on amber air
Honey-shaded by the shadow of Popacatapetl's cone,
Their fluttering reboses
Like purple-petal'd roses
Fall through tropic din with a clatter of light.
The crooked dwarf now ripples the strings of a mandoline,
His floating voice has wings that brush us like a butterfly;
Music fills the mountains
With a riot of fountains
That spray back on the hot plain like a waterfall.
Smaller grow the dwarfs, singing "I'll bring shoes of satin,"
Smaller they grow, fade to golden motes, then die.
Where is the pretty one,
Where is the ugly one,
Where is that tongue of flame, the little Cardinal?
II. MAXIXE
"Los enanitos
Se enajaren."
Old Mexican Song.
The Mexican dwarfs can dance for miles
Stamping their feet and scattering smiles,
Till the loud hills laugh and laugh again
At the dancing dwarfs in the golden plain,
Till the bamboos sing as the dwarfs dance by,
Kicking their feet at a jagged sky,
That torn by leaves and gashed by hills
Rocks to the rhythm the hot sun shrills;
The bubble sun stretches shadows that pass
To noiseless jumping-jacks of glass,
So long and thin, so silent and opaque,
That the lions shake their orange manes, and quake;
And a shadow that leaps over Popacatapetl
Terrifies the tigers as they settle
Cat-like limbs, cut with golden bars,
Under bowers of flowers that shimmer like stars.
Buzzing of insects flutters above,
Shaking the rich trees' treasure-trove
Till the fruit rushes down like a comet, whose tail
Thrashes the night with its golden flail,
The fruit hisses down with a plump from its tree
Like the singing of a rainbow as it dips into the sea.
Loud red trumpets of great blossoms blare
Triumphantly like heralds who blow a fanfare,
Till the humming-bird, bearing heaven on its wing,
Flies from the terrible blossoming,
And the humble honey-bee is frightened by the fine
Honey that is heavy like money and purple like wine,
While birds that flaunt their pinions like pennons
Shriek from their trees of oranges and lemons,
And the scent rises up in a cloud, to make
The hairy, swinging monkeys feel so weak
That they each throw down a bitten coconut or mango.
* * * * *
Up flames a flamingo over the fandango,
Glowing like a fire, and gleaming like a ruby.
From Guadalajara to Guadalupe
It flies—in flying drops a feather
... And the snatching dwarfs stop dancing—and fight together.
OUT OF THE FLAME
I
From my high window,
From my high window in a southern city,
I peep through the slits of the shutters,
Whose steps of light
Span darkness like a ladder.
Throwing wide the shutters
I let the streets into the silent room
With sudden clatter;
Walk out upon the balcony
Whose curving irons are bent
Like bows about to shoot—
Bows from which the mortal arrows
Cast from dark eyes, dark-lashed
And shadowed by mantillas,
Shall in the evening
Rain down upon men's hearts
Paraded here, in southern climes,
More openly.
But, at this early moment of the day,
The balconies are empty;
Only the sun, still drowsy-fingered,
Plucks, pizzicato, at the rails,
Draws out of them faint music
Of rain-washed air,
Or, when each bell lolls out its idiot tongue,
When Time lets drop his cruel scythe,
They sing in sympathy.
The sun, then, plucks these irons,
As far below,
That child
Draws his stick along the railings.
The sound of it brings my eye down to him....
Oh heart, dry heart,
It is yourself again!
How nearly are we come together!
If, at this moment,
One long ribbon was unfurled
From me to him,
I should be shown
Above, in a straight line—
A logical growth,
And yet,
I wave, but he will not look up;
I call, but he will not answer.
II
From where I stand
The beauty of the early morning
Suffocates me;
It is as if fingers closed round my heart.
The light flows down the hills in rivulets,
So you could gather it up in the cup of your hands,
While pools,
The cold eyes of the gods,
Are cradled in those hollows.
Cool are the clouds,
Anchored in the heaven;
Green as ice are they,
To temper the heat in the valleys
With arches of violet shadow.
You can hear from the distant woods
The thud of the centaurs' hoofs
As they gallop down to drink,
Shatter the golden roofs
Of the trees, for swift as the wind
They gallop down to the brink
Of the waters that echo their laughter,
Cavernous as rolling of boulders down hills;
Lolling, they lap at the gurgling waters.
* * * * *
But nearer rises the sound,
Red, ragged as his comb,
Of a cock crowing;
A bird flies up to me at the window,
Leaping, like music, with regular rhythm,
Sinks down, then, to the city beneath.
III
Below, the ants are hurrying down the footways,
Dressed, here, in bright colours.
Under their various intolerable burdens
They stagger along.
Stop to converse, move, wave their antennæ.
* * * * *
The fruit-seller is opening his stall,
Oranges are piled in minute pyramids,
While melons, green melons,
Swing from the roof in string cradles.
The butcher festoons his shop
With swags and gay wreaths of entrails;
Beautiful heads with horns,
Are nailed up, as on pagan altars,
(Though their ears are fresh from the hearing
Of Orpheus playing his lute).
The Aguador arranges his glasses,
Out of which the sun will strike
His varying scales of crystal music
This afternoon, round the arena.
The Matador prepares for the fight,
Is, indeed, already in the Tavern,
Where later and refreshed with blood,
He will celebrate his triumph
Among the poignant kindling
Of stringéd instruments.
* * * * *
—But the child has run away crying;
I call—but no answer comes.
IV
The chatter of the daylight grows
As I look upon the market-place,
Where there is a droning of bag-pipes,
And the hard, wooden music of the hills;
The housewife has left her cottage in the forest,
Driving here through the early tracks of the sun.
The beggars are already at their posts,
Their dry flesh peeps through their garments.
Their old ritual whining
Causes no show of pity.
Why should the hucksters, the busy people notice?
God himself has stood here, out at elbows,
Waiting patiently in the market-place,
While they chatter in gay booths.
But how I fear for them,
These who are not afraid!
I shout to them to make them understand.
They talk more, cease talking and look up,
They all look up, remain gaping.
* * * * *
I went back into the water-cool room,
Put on my coloured coat, my buskin,
And mask of Harlequin.
They see me, this time.
"Come on, come on," they cry,
"You are just in time.
There is fun down here in the market-place.
Two men have been run over,
And there's to be a public execution.
The gallows are nearly up.
—And after, in the evening,
We will go round the wineshops,
Strumming guitars,
While trills Dolores in her wide, red skirt.
Oh come on, come on!"
—But the paint from my mask runs down
And dyes my clothing.
V
It is not thus in the Northern cities,
Where the cold breathes close to the window-pane,
Where the brittle flowers of the frost
Crackle at the window's edge.
From my window in the Northern city
I can hear the rattle and roar of the town,
As the carts go lumbering over the bridges,
As the men in dark clothes hurry over the bridges.
They do not parade their hearts here,
They bury them at their lives' beginning.
They must hurry, or they will be late for their work;
Their work is their bread.
Without bread, how can they work?
They have no time for pleasure,
Nor is work any pleasure to them.
Their faces are masked with weariness,
Drab with their working.
(Only the tramp who moves among them
Unnoticed, despised,
Has eyes that have seen).
They must work till the guns go again,
Giving them their only pretence to glory.
They have no time to fear,
No time to think of an end.
Foolishly I called to them on the bridges;
Only a few stopped, looked up
—But these were convulsed with fury.
Said one to another
"I have never seen a man
Behave like that before."
But most of them were mute,
And could not see.
* * * * *
Through the murkiness of the Northern dawn,
The gas already flares out
In the glass palaces,
Where to-night, weary and dulled with smoke and with drink,
They will seek, in a brief oblivion,
Laughter, and the mask of Ally Sloper.
* * * * *
Thus it is in the Northern cities,
Where the cold lies close to the window-pane,
Where the grass grows its little blades of steel
And the wind is armed with seven whips.
VI
Happy is Orpheus as he plays,
The dumb beasts listen quietly,
The music strokes their downy ears,
Melts the fierce fire within.
Only with music can you tame the beasts,
Break them of their grizzly feasts;
Only with music can you open eyes to wonder.
But if they will not hear?
The people have lost faith in music,
Few are there to call, and none to answer.
* * * * *
When the Prince kissed the Sleeping Beauty,
He broke the wicked spell of cobwebs;
She answered, opened her eyes.
When Narcissus looked into the pool,
The cruel waters gave him their reply
—Even that was a better fate
Than to cry out in the lonely night
—And not to be answered.
VII
From my high window in a Southern city,
Floating above the geometrical array
Of roofs, squares and interlacing streets,
One can see beyond
Into far valleys,
That seem at first
To be open blue flowers
Scattered here and there on the mountains.
The forests are so far away,
They creep like humble green moss
Over slopes that are mountains.
And there sounds other music
Than the falling streams,
Or the deep penetrating glow
Of sunlight piercing through green leaves.
VIII
When Orpheus with his wind-swift fingers
Ripples the strings that gleam like rain,
The wheeling birds fly up and sing,
Hither, thither, echoing.
There is a crackling of dry twigs,
A sweeping of leaves along the ground.
Tawny faces and dumb eyes
Peer through the fluttering green screens,
That mask ferocious teeth and claws
Now tranquil.
As the music sighs upon the hills,
The young ones hear,
Come skipping, ambling, rolling down,
Their soft ears flapping as they run,
Their fleecy coats catching in the thickets,
Till they lie, listening, round his feet.
* * * * *
Unseen for centuries,
Fabulous creatures creep out of their caverns.
The unicorn
Prances down from his bed of leaves,
His milk-white muzzle still stained green
With the munching, crunching of mountain herbs.
The griffin usually so fierce,
Now tame and amiable again—
Has covered the white bones in his secret cavern
With a rustling pall of dank, dead leaves,
While the Salamander—true lover of art—
Flickers, and creeps out of the flame;
Gently now, and away he goes,
Kindles his proud and blazing track
Across the forest
—Lies listening,
Cools his fever in this flowing water.
* * * * *
When the housewife returns,
Carrying her basket,
She will not understand.
She misses nothing,
Has heard nothing in the woods.
She will only see
That the fire is dead,
The grate cold.
* * * * *
But the child left in the empty house
Saw the Salamandar in the flame,
Heard a strange wind, like music, in the forest,
And has gone out to look for it,
Alone.