I. THE GENERAL'S WIFE REFUSES
It isn't that I don't like them,
My dear Mrs. Kinfoot,
But I know
I am not clever,
And I like your old friends best.
As for the General
He disapproves of Art,
And does not believe in it.
He has noticed
That Artists
Have an odd look in their eyes,
And a shifty expression.
In fact,
The General disapproves of Art.
He finds that Artists
Are stupid
And difficult to talk to—
He remembers meeting one
In '97
Who was not interested
In Polo,
—And appeared
To be unaware of the existence
Of the old Duke of Cambridge.
My husband didn't get angry,
He just said to him, like that,
"What are you interested in?
ART, I suppose?"
In spite of this
The General thinks
That music is more dangerous
—And subversive of discipline
Than painting—
For—in painting—
That is to say
In good painting—
You can see put down on canvas
What you can see yourself—
—And you can touch it
With your finger—
A picture should be the same
As a coloured photograph,
Except that the camera
Reveals things
Invisible to the Human Eye;
That is wrong!
(By the Human Eye
The General says
He means
His own eye)
But in Music
You can see nothing,
And you are unable
To touch it
With your fingers;
The General disapproves of Art,
—But it makes him positively nervous
To hear music.
The General says that,
As far as he can make out,
All musicians
Have been German—
But he can only remember
The name of one—
Nietzsche!
As the war
Was German in origin,
It is obvious that it was made
By German Composers
And not
By German Generals
—Many of whom were fine fellows
Who loved a good joke.
The General remembers one
Who laughed like anything
At one of his stories.
The war was made by German musicians
—Just as surely
As our own
Pacific and imaginative policy
Was interpreted
By Kipling and Lady Butler.
"Never trust a Man
Who plays the piano,"
The General says.
He thinks that
In the main,
The British have a sound interest
In this matter.
Probably Charles I,
Played the piano—
And, at any rate,
He collected Pictures.
The English would never
Behead anyone
For governing badly;
It is only Barbarians,
Like the Russians,
Who would do this.
The General
Disapproves of Art.
But, of all these things,
The General says
He dislikes poetry most,
Kipling is different;
He is a Man-of-the-World.
But the General says
That if he got hold
Of one of these long-haired
Conscientious Objectors,
Who write things
Which don't even rhyme
He'd——
So you see, dear,
That it's better for us
Not to come.
II. AUX BORDS DE LA MER
Where frightened woolly clouds, like sheep
Scurry across blue skies; where sleep
Sings from the little waves that reach
In strict formation to the beach,
Are houses—covers of red-plush,
To hide our thoughts in, lest we blush.
* * * * *
Here live kind ladies—hence they come
To persecute us—I am dumb
When they give from wide saucer-eye
Intolerable sympathy,
Or testify solicitude,
By platitude on platitude,
Mix Law-and-Order, Church-and-State
With little tales of Bishop Tait,
Or harass my afflicted soul
With most fantastic rigmarole
Of Bolshevik and Pope in league
With Jewish and Sinn-Fein intrigue—
I love to watch them, as they troop
Revolving, through each circus-hoop
Of new-laid eggs—left at the door—
With Patriotism—for the Poor—
Of ball-committee, Church Bazaar,
All leading up to a great war,
A new great war—greater by far
—Oh! much more great—than any war.
Kind lady, leave me, go enthral
The pauper-ward, and hospital!
III. GIARDINO PUBBLICO
Petunias in mass formation,
An angry rose, a hard carnation,
Hot yellow grass, a yellow palm
Rising, giraffe-like, into calm
—All these glare hotly in the sun.
Behind are woods, where shadows run
Like water through the dripping shade
That leaves and laughing wind have made.
Here silence, like a silver bird,
Pecks at the fruit-ripe heat. We heard
Townward, the voices, glazed with starch,
Of Tourists on belated march
From church to church, to praise by rule
The beauties of the Tuscan school,
Clanging of trams, a hidden flute,
Sharp as the taste of unripe fruit;
Street organs join with tolling bell
To threaten us with both Heaven and Hell,
But through all taps a nearing sound
As of stage-horses pawing ground.
Then like a whale, confined in cage,
(In grandeur of a borrowed carriage)
The old Marchesa swam in sight
In tinkling jet that caught the light,
Making the sun hit out each tone
As if it played a xylophone,
Till she seems like a rainbow, where
She swells, and whale-like, spouts the air.
* * * * *
And as she drove, she imposed her will
Upon all things both live and still;
Lovers hid quickly—none withstood
That awful glance of widowhood;
Each child, each tree, the shrilling heat
Became encased in glacial jet,
The very songbird in the air
Became a scarecrow, dangling there,
While, if you turned to stare, you knew
The punishment Lot's wife went through.
* * * * *
Her crystal cage moves on. Stagnation
Now thaws again to animation;
Gladly the world receives reprieve
Till six o'clock to-morrow eve,
When punctual as the sun, she'll drive
Life out of everything alive,
Then in gigantic glory, fade
Sunward, through the western glade....
IV. ULTIMATE JUDGMENT
Within the sunny greenness of the close,
Secure, a heavy breathing fell, then rose—
Here undulating chins sway to and fro,
As heavy blossoms do; the cheek's faint glow
Points to post-prandial port. The willow weeps
Hushed are the birds—in fact—the Bishop sleeps.
Then, suddenly, the wide sky blazes red;
Up from their graves arise the solemn dead,
The world is shaken; buildings fall in twain,
Exulting hills shout loud, then shout again
While, with the thunder of deep rolling drums
The angels sing—— At last Salvation comes.
The weak, the humble, the disdained, the poor
Are judged the first, and climb to Heaven's door.
* * * * * *
The Bishop wakes to see his palace crash
Down on the rocking ground—but in a flash
It dawns upon him;—with impressive frown,
He sees his second-housemaid in a crown,
In rainbow robes that glisten like a prism
"I warned them..." said the Bishop—
"Bolshevism!"
V. AN OLD-FASHIONED SPORTSMAN
We thank thee,
O Lord,
That the War is over.
We can now
Turn our attention
Again
To money-making.
Railway-Shares must go up;
Wages must come down;
Smoke shall come out
Of the chimneys of the North,
And we will manufacture battle-ships.
We thank thee, O Lord,
But we must refuse
To consider
Music, Painting, or Poetry.
Our sons and brothers
Went forth to fight,
To kill certain things,
Cubism, Futurism and Vers-libre
"All this Poetry-and-Rubbish,"
We said
"Will not stand the test of war."
We will not read a book
—Unless it is a best seller.
There has been enough art
In the past,
Life is concerned
With killing and maiming.
If they cannot kill men
Why can't they kill animals?
There is still
Big Game in Africa
—Or there might be trouble
Among the natives.
We thank thee, O Lord,
But we will not read poetry.
But as the Pharisees
Approached the tomb
They saw the boulder
Rolled back,
And that the tomb was empty
—They said
"It's very disconcerting."
I am not at all
Narrow-minded.
I know a tune
When I hear one,
And I know
What I like—
I did not so much mind
That He blasphemed
Saying that He was the Son-of-God,
But He was never
What I call
A Sportsman;
He went out into the desert
For forty days
—And never shot anything
And when He hoped He would drown
He walked on the water.
... No—we will not read poetry.