Goblins and Pagodas

by John Gould Fletcher

PART III. THE LAWN
THE THREE OAKS
There are three ancient oaks,
That grow near to each other.
They lift their branches
High as beckoning
With outstretched arms,
For some one to come and stand
Under the canopy of their leaves.
Once long ago I remember
As I lay in the very centre,
Between them:
A rotten branch suddenly fell
Near to me.
I will not go back to those oaks:
Their branches are too black for my liking.
AN OAK
Hoar mistletoe
Hangs in clumps
To the twisted boughs
Of this lonely tree.
Beneath its roots I often thought treasure was buried:
For the roots had enclosed a circle.
But when I dug beneath them,
I could only find great black ants
That attacked my hands.
When at night I have the nightmare,
I always see the eyes of ants
Swarming from a mouldering box of gold.
ANOTHER OAK
Poison ivy crawls at its root,
I dare not approach it,
It has an air of hate.
One would say a man had been hanged to its branches,
It holds them in such a way.
The moon gets tangled in it,
A distant steeple seems to bark
From its belfry to the sky.
Something that no one ever loved,
Is buried here:
Some grey shape of deadly hate,
Crawls on the back fence just beyond.
Now I remember—once I went
Out by night too near this oak,
And a red cat suddenly leapt
From the dark and clawed my face.
THE OLD BARN
Owls flap in this ancient barn
With rotted doors.
Rats squeak in this ancient barn
Over the floors.
Owls flap warily every night,
Rats' eyes gleam in the cold moonlight.
There is something hidden in this barn,
With barred doors.
Something the owls have torn,
And the rats scurry with over the floors.
THE WELL
The well is not used now,
Its waters are tainted.
I remember there was once a man went down
To clean it.
He found it very cold and deep,
With a queer niche in one of its sides,
From which he hauled forth buckets of bricks and dirt.
THE TREES
When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops,
The trees are not the same.
I know they are not the same,
Because there is one tree that is missing,
And it stood so long by another,
That the other, feeling lonely,
Now is slowly dying too.
When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops
That dead tree comes back;
Like a great blue sphere of smoke
Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass,
Rustling through frayed Branches,
Something eerily cheeping through it,
Something creeping through its shade.
VISION
You who flutter and quiver
An instant
Just beyond my apprehension;
Lady,
I will find the white orchid for you,
If you will but give me
One smile between those wayward drifts of hair.
I will break the wild berries that loop themselves over the marsh-pool,
For your sake,
And the long green canes that swish against each other,
I will break, to set in your hands.
For there is no wonder like to you,
You who flutter and quiver
An instant
Just beyond my apprehension.
EPILOGUE
Why it was I do not know,
But last night I vividly dreamed
Though a thousand miles away,
That I had come back to you.
The windows were the same:
The bed, the furniture the same,
Only there was a door where empty wall had always been,
And someone was trying to enter it.
I heard the grate of a key,
An unknown voice apologetically
Excused its intrusion just as I awoke.
But I wonder after all
If there was some secret entranceway,
Some ghost I overlooked, when I was there.

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SECTION II

SYMPHONIES

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BLUE SYMPHONY
I
The darkness rolls upward.
The thick darkness carries with it
Rain and a ravel of cloud.
The sun comes forth upon earth.
Palely the dawn
Leaves me facing timidly
Old gardens sunken:
And in the gardens is water.
Sombre wreck—autumnal leaves;
Shadowy roofs
In the blue mist,
And a willow-branch that is broken.
Oh, old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees!
Blue and cool:
Blue, tremulously,
Blow faint puffs of smoke
Across sombre pools.
The damp green smell of rotted wood;
And a heron that cries from out the water.
II
Through the upland meadows
I go alone.
For I dreamed of someone last night
Who is waiting for me.
Flower and blossom, tell me, do you know of her?
Have the rocks hidden her voice?
They are very blue and still.
Long upward road that is leading me,
Light hearted I quit you,
For the long loose ripples of the meadow-grass
Invite me to dance upon them.
Quivering grass
Daintily poised
For her foot's tripping.
Oh, blown clouds, could I only race up like you,
Oh, the last slopes that are sun-drenched and steep!
Look, the sky!
Across black valleys
Rise blue-white aloft
Jagged unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death.
Solitude. Silence.
III
One chuckles by the brook for me:
One rages under the stone.
One makes a spout of his mouth
One whispers—one is gone.
One over there on the water
Spreads cold ripples
For me
Enticingly.
The vast dark trees
Flow like blue veils
Of tears
Into the water.
Sour sprites,
Moaning and chuckling,
What have you hidden from me?
"In the palace of the blue stone she lies forever
Bound hand and foot."
Was it the wind
That rattled the reeds together?
Dry reeds,
A faint shiver in the grasses.
IV
On the left hand there is a temple:
And a palace on the right-hand side.
Foot passengers in scarlet
Pass over the glittering tide.
Under the bridge
The old river flows
Low and monotonous
Day after day.
I have heard and have seen
All the news that has been:
Autumn's gold and Spring's green!
Now in my palace
I see foot passengers
Crossing the river:
Pilgrims of autumn
In the afternoons.
Lotus pools:
Petals in the water.
These are my dreams.
For me silks are outspread.
I take my ease, unthinking.
V
And now the lowest pine-branch
Is drawn across the disk of the sun.
Old friends who will forget me soon,
I must go on,
Towards those blue death-mountains
I have forgot so long.
In the marsh grasses
There lies forever
My last treasure,
With the hopes of my heart.
The ice is glazing over,
Tom lanterns flutter,
On the leaves is snow.
In the frosty evening.
Toll the old bell for me
Once, in the sleepy temple.
Perhaps my soul will hear.
Afterglow:
Before the stars peep
I shall creep out into darkness.

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SOLITUDE IN THE CITY
(Symphony in Black and Gold)
I
WORDS AT MIDNIGHT
Because the night is so still,
Because there is no one about,
Not the tiny squeak of a mouse over the carpet,
Nor the slow beat of a clock at the top of the stairway,
I am afraid of the night that is coming to me.
I know out there
Some one is thinking of me, some one is wondering about me,
Some one is needing me, some one is dying for my sake,
Yet I remain alone.
I know that life is calling: I cannot resist it:
Too much of myself I have given ever to turn away,
I know that shame, sickness, death itself shall befall me,
And I am afraid.
O night, hide me in your long cold arms:
Let me sleep, but let me not live this life!
There are too many people with haggard eyes standing
before me
Saying, "To live you must suffer even as we."
Yet life bitterly bids me: "Go on to the last,
No matter the mud and the cold rain and the darkness:
No matter the drear pilgrims in whose eyes you shall look for long,
And see all suffering, madness, death and despair."
Because my heart is cramped in,
Because I have suffered much,
Because my hope is like a candle-flame quenched at midnight,
Because I dare dream yet of joy,
I can take my night and the life that is coming to me.
II
THE EVENING RAIN
O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing,
As it slowly slips on the motionless pavement;
Greasy and grey is the rain of the evening,
As it dribbles into the dirty gutters
And slides down the drains with a roar!
Ragged men cower
Under the doorways:
Umbrellas nod like drowsy birds.
Bat-umbrellas,
Teetering, balancing,
Where will you spread your wings to-night?
Tangled between the factory-chimneys,
I have seen the golden lamps wake this evening:
Spinning and whirling, darting and dancing,
Tangled with the glittering rain.
Omnibuses lurch
Heavily homeward
Elephants tinselled in tawdry gold:
Taxicabs fight
Like wild birds squalling,
Wild birds with roaring, clattering wings.
O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing,
As it shivers to jewel-heaps spilt on the pavement.
The façades frown gloomily at its beauty,
The façades are dreaming of the day.
With rippling, curling,
Serpentine convolutions
The pavements drip with drunken light.
Crimson and gold,
Shot with opal,
They glare against the sullen night.
O the rain of the evening is an infinite thing
As it slowly dries on the dirty pavement.
Red low-browed clouds jut over the sky:
And in the cool sky there are stars.
III
STREET OF SORROWS
You street of sorrows bending
Over your golden lamps in the evening;
Dark street that is very silent,
And everywhere the same:
Elsewhere there is song and riot,
Like golden fireflies flickering,
Elsewhere the crane's gaunt muscles
Tug the city up to the stars.
But who in the dawn should come near you?
There are dry leaves rattling behind him.
And who should come in the noonday?
There are shadows that squat on the pave.
And who should come in the evening?
There is one: a ship in dark waters.
And who should come at nightfall,
To feel cold hands at his heart?
You street of solitude waiting
Patient and still in the evening:
Old street that is very weary,
And everywhere the same;
You that have seen joy passing.
Into pain, into tears, into darkness,
Street of the dead and musty,
I have drunk your cold poison to-night.
IV
SONG IN THE DARKNESS
It is the last night that I can be solitary:
Henceforth the keys and wards of me are held in other hands.
Dark clouds trail over the sky:
Troops of song retreating:
But in the sunset
Once more have I seen aloft
Incredible summits of gold, far on the south horizon.
One purple veil of rain
Floats downward over the city;
And as it settles slowly
The light goes out of it.
Chimneys with massive summits
Stand gaunt and black and evil:
Like a river of lead, to seaward
The river steadily rolls.
It is the last night that I can be solitary:
Life takes me in black coils.
One green light glitters:
Then a swift taxi
Scatters another
As it speeds on.
The chimneys rank
Their motionless forces
Against the swift movement
Of tugs in the stream;
Against the flame-chariots
Of the Embankment;
Against the bowing trees,
Against the blowing smoke,
Against the busy rain.
With dying might
The light invades
The city's hall:
Curtained by dripping fringes
Of buoyant tattered cloud,
Tossed by the wind.
It is the last night that I can be solitary;
And all my city of dreams is burning up to-night.
But yet there waits for me something lost back in the darkness:
Something I have never seized: a shape, a voice, a gesture,
Something behind my shoulder: grey robes that stir and rustle.
Something that moves away from me when I would touch it with my hand.
Cities of the beyond, what great black-walled horizons
Dare you climb up, and down what steep incredible valleys?
I suddenly perceive that I have been mocked in you,
And therefore will I sow the earth with rain of stars to-night.
It is the last night that I can be solitary;
The rain invites to drunkenness: the wind blows
through my brain.
Shiplike the sliding golden trams
Procession by and intercross:
With tulips, daffodils, crocuses
The whole street blossoms at my feet:
Now kindle, flames, and let blow out
The crimson rose against the grey,
Let night itself be blotted out
In life's monotonous drone of day.
It is the last night that I can be solitary:
It is the last time that no feet
But mine can beat upon the floor;
It is the last time that no hands
But mine can pound upon my heart;
It is the last time that no voice
But mine can cry and yet be lost;
It is the last time I shall see
The pavements like a mirror stare at me.

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GREEN SYMPHONY
I
The glittering leaves of the rhododendrons
Balance and vibrate in the cool air;
While in the sky above them
White clouds chase each other.
Like scampering rabbits,
Flashes of sunlight sweep the lawn;
They fling in passing
Patterns of shadow,
Golden and green.
With long cascades of laughter,
The mating birds dart and swoop to the turf:
'Mid their mad trillings
Glints the gay sun behind the trees.
Down there are deep blue lakes:
Orange blossom droops in the water.
In the tower of the winds,
All the bells are set adrift:
Jingling
For the dawn.
Thin fluttering streamers
Of breeze lash through the swaying boughs,
Palely expectant
The earth receives the slanting rain.
I am a glittering raindrop
Hugged close by the cool rhododendron.
I am a daisy starring
The exquisite curves of the close-cropped turf.
The glittering leaves of the rhododendron
Are shaken like blue-green blades of grass,
Flickering, cracking, falling:
Splintering in a million fragments.
The wind runs laughing up the slope
Stripping off handfuls of wet green leaves,
To fling in peoples' faces.
Wallowing on the daisy-powdered turf,
Clutching at the sunlight,
Cavorting in the shadow.
Like baroque pearls,
Like cloudy emeralds,
The clouds and the trees clash together;
Whirling and swirling,
In the tumult
Of the spring,
And the wind.
II.
The trees splash the sky with their fingers,
A restless green rout of stars.
With whirling movement
They swing their boughs
About their stems:
Planes on planes of light and shadow
Pass among them,
Opening fanlike to fall.
The trees are like a sea;
Tossing;
Trembling,
Roaring,
Wallowing,
Darting their long green flickering fronds up at the sky,
Spotted with white blossom-spray.
The trees are roofs:
Hollow caverns of cool blue shadow,
Solemn arches
In the afternoons.
The whole vast horizon
In terrace beyond terrace,
Pinnacle above pinnacle,
Lifts to the sky
Serrated ranks of green on green.
They caress the roofs with their fingers,
They sprawl about the river to look into it;
Up the hill they come
Gesticulating challenge:
They cower together
In dark valleys;
They yearn out over the fields.
Enamelled domes
Tumble upon the grass,
Crashing in ruin
Quiet at last.
The trees lash the sky with their leaves,
Uneasily shaking their dark green manes.
III
Far let the voices of the mad wild birds be calling me,
I will abide in this forest of pines.
When the wind blows
Battling through the forest,
I hear it distantly,
The crash of a perpetual sea.
When the rain falls,
I watch silver spears slanting downwards
From pale river-pools of sky,
Enclosed in dark fronds.
When the sun shines,
I weave together distant branches till they enclose mighty circles,
I sway to the movement of hooded summits,
I swim leisurely in deep blue seas of air.
I hug the smooth bark of stately red pillars
And with cones carefully scattered
I mark the progression of dark dial-shadows
Flung diagonally downwards through the afternoon.
This turf is not like turf:
It is a smooth dry carpet of velvet,
Embroidered with brown patterns of needles and cones.
These trees are not like trees:
They are innumerable feathery pagoda-umbrellas,
Stiffly ungracious to the wind,
Teetering on red-lacquered stems.
In the evening I listen to the winds' lisping,
While the conflagrations of the sunset flicker and clash behind me,
Flamboyant crenellations of glory amid the charred ebony boles.
In the night the fiery nightingales
Shall clash and trill through the silence:
Like the voices of mermaids crying
From the sea.
Long ago has the moon whelmed this uncompleted temple.
Stars swim like gold fish far above the black arches.
Far let the timid feet of dawn fly to catch me:
I will abide in this forest of pines:
For I have unveiled naked beauty,
And the things that she whispered to me in the darkness,
Are buried deep in my heart.
Now let the black tops of the pine-trees break like a spent wave,
Against the grey sky:
These are tombs and memorials and temples and altars sun-kindled for me.