Upon the gravel path small frosted stars
Glittered and bleared; the rusty railing-bars
Were furred with silver lichen as the down
Bristled upon a dead man’s throat; a crown
Of Gothic spires through lustrous distance crept.
The world and all its wedge-shaped engines slept.
Disturbed, he heard the crunch of footsteps fast
And looking up, he saw two men that passed.
“Good-morning, Mr. Gosling.” “Oh, good-day!”
“Bit nippy weather!” then strode on their way
With patch-work quilted minds and bowler hats,
With Sunday journal, gloves and yellow spats,
Into the distance ... while the echoes bear
“Bit nippy weather” drifting down the air.
II
UP, silver man nid-nodding by the hearth!
The languid summer has trailed out her days....
For this night leave your bible, leave your path
Of selfish righteousness; delay your praise
Of God till He has given you a seat
Amongst the flapping angels. (Fire and sleete
And candle-light
And Christ receive thy soul.)
Well, these are facts, even if impolite—
As trite and boring as the price of coal.
The lyke-wake dirge comes after; now you live—
Too old for fornication—that is true.
But you may love the slender fleeting things,
The terrible music of the slipping hours,
If sordid Life has nothing else to give.
In each clock-tick there is a something new—
Unsatiated sweet imaginings,
Pianola dreams or orchidaceous flowers!
And though you shiver in a slow decay,
You still have guts and marrow, though your limbs
Be well-nigh licked of blood, you need not stay
For ever by the fire and croon cracked hymns!
The children gloze and fleech him all in vain—
The taxi throbs outside.
“I hope the rain
Won’t spoil the fireworks.”
Granpa’s left behind
With baby and the adenoided nurse.
The maid moves in to draw the window blind.
Her lips compressed have never known a curse.
Amazed, she sees frail drops are trickling down
What she had ever held to be a mask.
Half-pitying the old exhausted man
So infantine, yet sitting all alone
As in blue forest depths a mossy stone,
Where toads crouch like the voice in gramophone,
She brings him crumpets and a cup of tea.
III
“HE’S got hot lips when he plays jazz.”
How trite and obvious; of course he has!
Sex blossoms on the lips as well as other parts,
If not, he is unworthy of an entrance to our hearts.
And you invite spontaneous destruction
For splitting chips which form so tiresome an obstruction
To our imaginative possibilities.
No half-dissembled grey tranquillities
Of mental judgment! We want elephants,
Tough-grained calamities, to clamber up on;
To travel petulantly bump-a-bump, to sup on
Champagne and slippery flesh of oysters,
And conversational quips and roysters
With childishly garrulous termagants.
And in their company you’ll find it pays
To polish up the petals of a phrase!
Invocation
UPON this flat, misshapen day
My weary sullen thoughts grow grey—
Grey waters, and grey, sunless cliffs,
Bleak gaiety of flowers, whiffs
Of loneliness, ah loneliness
To ever clasp in my caress.
And shall I, poor mazed lunatic,
When memories come crowding thick,
Dangle a silly mandrake-root,
Swinging upon Time’s parachute?
Can thoughts have colours, colours thoughts,
Or do I wander midst the orts
Of half-forgotten nightmare-pyres?
We poets have exchanged our lyres
For heart-strings. We have souls to save
From boredom; come then, let’s be brave
And sing the baser passions, sing
Until the blood jerked up will ring
A matins for our lusts and shames,
And men will tingle at our names.