The Project Gutenberg eBook of Aquarium

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Title: Aquarium

Author: Harold Acton

Release date: March 25, 2019 [eBook #59125]
Most recently updated: February 20, 2022

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from images made available by the
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AQUARIUM *** 






[1]


AQUARIUM




[2]






Uniform with this volume.


BUCOLIC COMEDIES. By Edith Sitwell.







[3]

AQUARIUM


BY

HAROLD ACTON


DUCKWORTH & CO.


3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON






[4]


First published in 1923.

All rights reserved.





Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.





[5]

CONTENTS




Part I


CURVES


 PAGE


Aquarium      9


A Day Will Come      10


Cathedral Interior      14


Young Sailor      15


Nights      16


i. Mimi at the Cabaret Vert  16


ii. Malaguenas  17


Confetti      18


Night of Adolescence      19


Conversazione of Musical Instruments      20


Paradise Villas      32


A Morality      33


My House      36


Sonnet      37


Oh! what have I to do with Thee?      38


Fox-Trot      39


......      40


Escape      41


Pink Night      42


Hope      43[6]


Pastorale      44


Bal Saturnien      45


For a Viola-da-gamba      46


Contrasts      47


The Pensile Gardens of Babylon       49


 


Part II


URBANITIES


Sabbath Morning Rain      53


A Window Speaks      54


Seven to Bed      57


Town Typing Office      58


Coiffeur Choréographique      59


L’Impératrice des Pagodes      60


Miss Fay the Trapezist      62


Sotie      63


Mr. Bedlam’s Sunday Breakfast      64








Thanks are due to the Editors of the Spectator, New
Witness, Oxford Chronicle and Eton Candle for permission
to reprint certain of these poems.





[7]

Part I


CURVES


[8]





[9]

 Aquarium






IF you would view, buy tickets at the door.


Your brain for lucre please! the fishes here


Require some effort on your part, no more,


For comprehension; then the water’s clear


And you will see, dimpling in hyaline


Fish, oval, strange, glitter as rubied wine


In crystal goblets; fish with spotted gills,


Great flower-fish like open daffodils,


Pale fish that float with mellow, morbid eyes,


Dark fish that feed on wings of dragon flies,


Fish fulvid and fugacious, hovering


Amongst the silver cress with carmine wing,


And fish with small reticulated scales


Floundering mazed, with iridescent tails


Diaphanously quivering ...


Mad, necrophilic urchins cleft to trees


Of coral, with a sting as keen as bees


When they would kiss you; fish electrical


And fish with poniards, fierce, inimical,


Red fish that bark like mastiffs at the moon,


Blue limpets, purple jellies, fish that croon


Mauve, melancholy melodies, and fish


To suit your mood, good reader, as you wish!







[10]

 A Day Will Come ...








THE ultimate experiment performed


To reach the planes of Mars and Jupiter


Without discomfort. First-class passengers


With restaurants and Adam sitting rooms,


Bathing and barbers, bars American


Could while away the slowly-dripping time.






Blast-furnaces and gasometers, yards


Of bulky timber-joists and refuse-heaps,


Pitch, cataclysmic mounds of dross and slag,


Deep yawning pits, the seething pores of Hell,


Slim towers of factories, vertiginous,


Soul-traps to vitiate and brutalize,


To mould men bitter and recalcitrant ...


The foul miasma of this atmosphere


Confabulate in retching multitudes.






In tension rapt, awaiting holocausts;


Mephitic and fuliginous, the sky—


Where green and yellow lights like demon’s eyes


Blink through the murk; ideas as microbes flock


Half-garrotted; they struggle: “Air, more air!”


Spasmodic; then neurotically grasp


A semi-groan before the strangulation.






The hooters blare


through air ...


And women sigh


near by,


For husbands thrash;


they lash
[11]

Gnarled, purple stripes.


Oh Cripes!


To bear a child


is mild


Compared to it,


a pit


Of Hell is sweet,


the heat


Is soothing, calm


as balm.


For what is home?


a tomb,


And men but wive


to thrive;


In hope they live


to give


Despair or worse,


to curse


The squalid life


of wife


With travail fraught,


distraught.


The hooters blare


through air ...


Obese black columns oscillate the streets.


The hands troop out into the twilit hour


Like billion-herded emmets, dinosaurs


That crawl with crude disaster in their souls.


There; poised above, a lemon-rind of moon


Recalls a youth of twitterings, desires


For nacreous, warm flesh. Oh God! that life


Should filter so through factory machines.
[12]

The ancient recrudescence; slowly-healed


Wounds all unripped in agony again.


Some lips are taut in bloodless nudity:


Are they enhungered for the limbs of dead?


No; they have savoured lust till they were lax


Of mind and body, with no palate for it


For smooth, white thighs and hot, fierce mouths they feel


Naught else than heavy-lidded lassitude.






All of a sudden voices rend the streets;


“Comrades, away! The spring is calling, haste


Ere we tear moon and stars from out the sky!”


The echoes give them courage, and the town


Becomes an archipelago of cries.


Men hop and run as little children run


Pink-naked on a curling yellow beach.


The women gaze from doorsteps, gorgon-eyed


And wonder what strange madness troubles them.


Sir Simon Moss, reclining in a chair,


With stout cigar held firm by regular


Well-ordered tusks of tooth, can hear the noise.


Another war? to reap more profits in


Exceeded mortal fortune. Nay; there blazed


Some sorry plague. Perhaps the rabies gript ’em.


Thus he pursues his reading of The Times.






Shrill voices fade, as stars in polychrome


Fade on the cold, grey atmosphere of dawn.


“Comrades, away! the smack of wind is sweet”


Faint as the whisper of dim violins.


“Comrades, away ...” faint as the autumn leaves


(Burnt paper crackling gently on the breeze).
[13]

And houses humped like elephants asleep,


Insolent hulks out-sprawled on many miles,


That muffled women’s sobs; for anxiously


They feared the sons would follow in their wake.






And the sons followed; far away, the hills


Exhaled a ripe, new life where no machines


Might pound away the frailly-cobwebbed air.


To casual mossy stones and thistle weeds


The city crumbled; now its walls lie bare


As lidless eyes for crows to peck at them.


And in the sloe-gin heat of summer days


The sky’s enamel is not quite Limoges


But almost; here and there a tiny scratch


Of soaring bird, some swallow on the wing


Does irritate the surface. Sheer below,


Fierce-biting on the edges, rise the trees;


Their taper-blossoms opulently lit


As girandoles that smoulder silently


Blue dust of incense; kohl-eyed evening


Sponges the face with dripping fragrances.


The vines and olives terraced on the hills


Melt on the dean horizon blurringly,


Where clouds descend in deluge, liquid-gold.


The flies fling flashes on cerulean meres


Where steely bream and roach with rosy fins


Goggle amongst the shrubberies of cress


Half-dizzied by their vacant harmonies.


The fruit of the wild gourd or hellebore


Has tranced die sense of man; die moonlight leaks


In silver puddles on the carpet-lawns.


Dry thud of hooves; the satyrs have returned!







[14]

 Cathedral Interior








THE pear-shaped saffron candle-flames


Leap in the velvet-bosomed dark,


The priest speaks gently of God’s claims


To wistful folk with coughs that bark.






Here all is hushed and rabbit-still,


The bull-necked columns, numb with gout


Of countless ages by God’s will


Cast crêpe-like shadows long and stout.






Two narrow slits of coloured glass


Are pierced by spears of mellow light,


The only light allowed to pass


Into this consecrated night.






Behind a candelabra droops


A crucifix of burnished gold,


A ray of dancing sunbeams swoops


Across the cobwebbed arches old.






Here may the sick, the bleeding one


Nurture his wounds and calm his fears.


Here when their joy in life is done


Poor, crumbling men gulp salty tears.






And knotted fingers counting beads,


And prayers half-whispered never cease.


Man slumbers; only heaven heeds,


Here in this hollow womb of peace.







[15]

 Young Sailor








DRUNK with the whiffs of steak in passage-ways,


With many a genial bar and kindly scene


Of sickly shrimps illumined by the rays


Of rose acetylene,


He wandered through the streets with empty maw;


And winter nights are raw.






And through a steaming window he could see


A saw-dust restaurant; a woman there


Was seated on an ancient lecher’s knee


With hat askew and hair


In blondine-tendrils falling Flora-wise


Over her blinking eyes.






Her lips like currants glistened and her arms


Sticky with strange narcotics, downy-white.


The elder pinched them, sucking in their charms


With pudgy fingers tight,


And of a sudden pealed behind her scarf


A clear, metallic laugh.






The youth outside relit his cigarette—


In silence longed for love articulate,


But he could watch no longer, for the sweat


Trickled a-down his pate


And stung his eyes; and what could be attained


When wages all were drained?







[16]

 Nights


I. Mimi at the Cabaret Vert








MIMI la Brunette, each crimson evening


sways her silver serpent arms,


peals in half falsetto notes,


at the Cabaret Vert


And with greedy eyes the coarse-lipped men internally undress her.


But I sit crumpled by a marble-breasted table,


the curacoa is vitriol to my chapped, dry lips.


I see through Mimi—I see through her tragedies


and I see through the subtle cosmetics


of her tired face.


(She bore a still-born bastard once,


the man she loves, a black-eyed corporal


has shell-shock and nigh throttled her in bed).












And Mimi la Brunette, each crimson evening


peals in half falsetto notes,


sways her silver serpent arms


at the Cabaret Vert.



[17]

II. Malaguenas




BODY erect and arm defiantly curved,


she flings small steps to the clack of her castanets,


which snap their rhythm at one, more musical


than the slight scrape of the plectrum on mandoline strings.


She turns and yet so slowly, so haughtily ...


I wonder if she is an Empress masquerading


in this dim-lighted, ill-reputed café.


Click and the rhythm swims to Pedro’s head,


whose features contain the lineaments of appreciation.


Clack and the rhythm swims to Sancha’s head.


Whom then shall she favour with a rose?


Perhaps she will give no look, but flicker


flicker for a moment the darkness of her eyelids


and freeze the heart in Pedro’s body beating.


The rhythm ceases; Pedro is not the favoured one.


A gleam of dagger and muffled fall of a body.







[18]

 Confetti






LET us sprinkle in the air


Colours, colours everywhere.


Peacock’s eyes in April showers


Plucked in silver-sandalled hours,


Wings of fireflies iridescent,


Jets of drift-wood incandescent.


Let us hurl them to the skies


Ere the pallid dawn arise.


Minion jewel-plumaged birds,


Specks and flecks in dappled herds,


Tangle in your moonlit hair


Whilst you’re smiling unaware.


In the paper fluttering


Pipe-like voices seem to sing,


Little flutes of heron bone,


Tremulously soft in tone


As by eerie wizards played,


Make one wonder, half afraid.


Empty trickle of the breeze


Through the perfumed orangeries


Like a tiptoe of a faun,


Come a-heralding the dawn.


Let us sprinkle in the air


Colours, colours everywhere.







[19]

 Night of Adolescence








STEEL-COLD without; sheer icicles of air


That hang down perpendicular with blades,


Chimeric poniards, vitrine points of ice


To freeze the spirituous tissues numb.






But in this throbbing, warmly-bosomed room


I sit and drink the fumes of glowing coals,


Allow my limbs to spread in languid ease,


Relaxing as a selfish, pensive cat,


Absorbing warmth into my seething pores


And drowning in a mass of phantom breasts....   






The kettle bubbles humanly and croons


A far-off, distance-faded lullaby,


And I forget those frozen stalactites,


Those gushing waterfalls of winter wind,


That sap the brain and turn the blood to snow


Until I suck my breath in sudden gasps.






Within, the heat is curdling into flesh,


Vague, supple limbs to weave a night of lust


And throats lain back to kiss at my desire


White, soft and curving, I may nibble then


Such mad caresses as will flay my lips.


Those tender tendrils curling on the nape


Are coils of anaconda for my hands


To twine in subtly inspissated shapes


To my own delectation; and those eyes


Resign like perfumed stars to my caress.







[20]

 Conversazione of Musical Instruments


Overture








IN the nebular effects of cigarette smoke,


The eyes may be closed heavy or drowsing open,


The iris drugged by the wine and the women,


White arms, mouths of carmine, ankles so slender


You might fear that they would snap candy-wise.






In the nebular effects of cigarette smoke,


Through the various hemispheres the eye turns,


One of us is breathing out rhythms


For the gratification of an audience.


Animated in the hum of conversation,


We achieve miracles.


When the veneer is shed and the heart lain bare


We turn men’s thoughts to Heaven or to Hell—


Cathedral Altar or the Brothel couch.






Though it be in the nebular effects of cigarette smoke


And the eyes may be closed heavy or drowsing open,


The ear-drums beat electric-nimble


And the brain is their poor prone prisoner,


When we breathe out our rhythms.




[21]


I

String Instruments








Violin (virtuosity)






A phosphorescent butterfly


I creep into the hair


Of those who are aware


That I divinely flutter by.


Or I’m a vinous liquor spirting bright


Shivers of splintered glass into the night,


Or shimmering I skate


Where lovers celebrate


The hour their captive passions, cooped with bars,


Were freed, uncrumpled shirts beneath the stars—


(Pale, weary breaths of paille-de-riz


The corsage of Semiramis).


My notes are aromatic traceries


Wherewith I swing my perfume through the trees


Fiercely exotic; fading on the breeze


Until my respiration fails


And what was ambergris


Melts now to liquorice.


I stagger on the air


With all my plumage bare,


A galleon bereft of sails.


Or I can be as vulgar as a music-hall in Paraguay,


And I can jig and jig away


To cynically flirt


With sentimental dirt;
[22]

Veneered as candied peel,


Or gilded fruit, I reel


Into a singing cabaret.


For there in my proximity


They listen to my creed,


(And so I do not need


To preach my own sublimity).


I imitate the flavour of vanille


To give distinguished patronage the chill,


And I can give neuralgia,


Hysterics and nostalgia


To counterfeit the gardens of Seville.


I can creak as any sparrow


Which pricks the curve


Of every nerve


With a throstle sharp and narrow.


And I can be as raucous as


A golden-spotted jaguar


And I can be as glaucous as


The trees in Nicaragua.


Drink in my subtle melodies,


My chartreuse-tinted threnodies....










Violoncello (known more popularly as

the ’cello to rhyme with mellow-yellow)






I am the waxen fruit of instruments;


I drone till beads of perspiration break


Upon the foreheads of my audience.


I swell tumultuous; my dullard sounds


Ebb platitudes in doleful indigo.
[23]

Voluptuously blatant in my greed,


I am the woman garbed in heliotrope,


Whose bustle panics peacocks in the park.


Some take my mellow notes for rosaries—


So holy, steadfast, pure they seem to be.


(Like dear Prince Albert on a promenade,


Inspired apostle of the simple life,


With all his homely virtues on parade).


And I am music’s Edinburgh rock,


A laxative caressing to the ear,


A sanitary purge unto the sense;


A sentimental background in the life


Of modest daughter and domestic wife.










Chorus of Guitar and Mandoline






I snatch the silence whimpering


(Nocturnal perfumes make me sneeze)


My nostrils twitch; I snap the air,


I twang along the cardboard breeze.


I jump and rattle,


Reel and prattle


In Andalusian orangeries.


Now an elegant fandango,


Now a lithe and lissome tango,


Then I swoop like a flamingo


On a juicy-breasted mango


Hidden in the noisy leafage of the Guadalquivir.










Harp






Drips of dear ineffectual water,


April showers of pallid arsenic evaporating to unsubstantial air,
[24]

I once melted the heart of Cuchulain and his warriors


And Tom Moore grew quite sentimental about me in Tara’s halls,


Where my ripply waves of watery sounds


Turned to thin strips of paper on the breeze.


Now I can faint but to transparent moons


And the intensified weariness of stars.


I can whimper the same faded melodies


With their aroma of blurred cinnamon.


But the warriors have tired of listening,


For the Trocaderos call them with their Coon jazz-bands.










Double-Bass






I strut with wicked tiger-eyes


Beware! Beware!


Bubbles of rubied flame arise


When villain gloats or hero dies


’Tis I am there.


When the last-breathed cry is uttered,


When the ghastly raven’s fluttered.


And the scoundrel’s curse is muttered


Beware! beware!


’Tis I am there.


I am a draught from an envenomed winepress


Low-humming ere the thud and thunderstorm—


And then at nightfall I decline, subsiding.


My flames will flicker out into the starlight


And I shall scoop into the dome of darkness


A filmy vault of crystallising silver.




[25]








Xylophone






Little bells on golden strings,


Little, glittering, glassy things,


Frail humming-birds with freckled wings....


Marionettes


And Pirouettes


And steel-arpeggio flutterings.


With my music-box precision


I can conjure up a vision


Of nurseries and unicorns


And silver cows with crumpled horns,


Of daisies and forget-me-nots,


Of cherry-jam and coffee-pots,


Perpetual kaleidoscopes


Of jumping-jacks and skipping ropes.


I chatter for eternity,


So help yourself to China tea!










Banjo






Kiddy, Oh ma honey


Are you giddy for a song


Or a run for your money?


For I’ll buzz you one along


For I’m tin and string and wire


And wire and string and tin,


I can tang a tune for hire;


I can thump until I’m thin.
[26]

Gee! I’ll strut a juicy fox-trot


(Lilly-oh ma loo, ma loo)


Or a Coon’s banana cakewalk


(Come and kiss me, ducky, do!).






(A vision of red-mouths, outthrust bellies in a leafy

créme-de-menthe tropic.)


 Wind Instruments








Trombone






I am the brawny man without a brain


Who yawns a heartfelt music mournfully.


The military orchestra reveres


My manliness. Each Sunday afternoon


I lead in the Gaillard-Apothéose.


For I exude no poignant, fevered sounds


And yet I have my share of sentiment.


The soldier boy who perished by his will


For King and Country’s call, I represent.


I stand for honour, bravery’s my spouse


And that I swear’s no enviable rôle—


My sounds lack pepper often when they seem


To fall in relaxation on a couch,


But hold my player culpable for that;


Confiteor! I know I have defects;


But do not grudge me my solidity!










Hautbois






The descendant of that reed


The shepherds played in Attica,


Drowsing to the indolence of their brown bodies,
[27]

I peck the eyes of silence


With the vulture-beak of my primeval harshness.


Yet the high keys of an organ


Are rivals lean to mine,


Sonorous in primitive ingenuities


Which blister the most Wagnerian cynics[1]


With their clear-dropping, honey-comb dripping notes.


For you expect in flurry cohorts


The bees to swarm out “zoo-oom, zoo-oom”


Scything the phosphorescence on this air


Of agate-carved medallions,


Where all are statuettes from Tanagra.






[1] Bother those lick-spittles!








Trumpet






The turbid air is buttered over now


With streaks of marbled stillness, as the prow


Of some deserted galleon; then I,


A pennon floating down the jagged sky,


Dissolve the butter with a single blast


Until the quiet falls, a broken mast


Like giant hail that thrashes on the leads


I paralyse and rip the air to shreds,


I flash my sparks of forest-powdering noise;


The formidable fanfares that I poise,


Ominous heralds of catastrophe,


As grapes of cloudy vintage on a sea


Purple and swollen, lecherous for thirst,


That wait until the thunderclaps, then burst.


When calm is ravished and I make retreat


Still throbs the air, still fevered temples beat....




[28]








Cor.






I trumpet orange clear and strong


And then I falter in my song,


My breath falls stertorous when I climb,


My notes are sudden-shivery in the ankles.


Fierce red I turn, but like a blurry prism


Half-red, half-yellow, sinewy I grip


With potent gums onto the banister


Of music.


My notes call often desperate retreats


From battle-fields corpse-rich, still dear, still strong,


More passionate than grief, fevered than hatred,


Still dear, still strong, I wail a-down the breeze—


Which raises a poignant odour of putrefaction.










Flute






Though sharp


I ne-


ver harp


Upon


My clear-


ness like


A fear-


ful bird.


My fresh


And pier-


cing mesh


Of notes


Entrap


The sense


And lap


The mind.
[29]

I re-


present


The light


Of moon


In night


Of June.


A sea


Of scent


From wood-


land vine


I could


Define


With clear-


ness like


A fear-


ful bird.




 Percussion








Cymbals






Arrows glitter through the air,


Wherewith, we, plumed of dappled rainbows,


Ravage quiet.


Shrilly shimmering, we whizz, hiss,


Thrash our eruptions volcanic,


Clattering into scythes


Which pierce the lead-of-air.


Our arrogant syncopations become


Bright sunflowers of steel waxing gigantical,


Then, more animated, clash; there....


Have two suns collided?


And tell me has the curtain been pulled down?




[30]








Drum






Men go to be murdered like innocent lambs


At the slaughter-house, gentle as beeves or as hams.


Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum.


They are singing away, they are singing away,


They are bidding farewell to the realms of the day ...


Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum.


And look at all the faces at the windows peering out!


The bonny lads are going to war, “Hurray! hurray!” they shout,


“The bonny boys, Hurray! Hurray!


They look so happy and so gay!”


Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum.






Some are going to their funerals: I roll with bloodshot eyes.


Some are going to a land of death and never to arise.


Except to sing a “Glory, Hallelujah” to the King


And dance around his throne of gold and warble in a ring—


Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum.






The fields of France will run in little rivers of their blood


And a few, all gashed and gory, will be sprawling in the mud.


Some are going to a land of death, and never to arise,


Some are going to their funerals; I roll with bloodshot eyes—


Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum.





[31]

And their lithe and youthful bodies will be broken mannequins


That the Doctors will be cutting, and the bandages and pins


Will take the place of cockroaches and rats with pinkish eyes


And the lice that suck the blood of every soldier ere he dies.


Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum.






And I persuade the sceptic that he’s fighting for a cause


“To fight for Right with all his Might” with fang and tooth and claws,


When I’m rolling he forgets the facts and thinks of youth and glory


And forgets that if he does return he’ll tell another story.


Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum! (bis).







[32]

 Paradise Villas








LIMBS metal-cold and gorgon eyes


With nude enamelled mouth, she lies


Within a vibrant, moaning gloom,


Awaiting canker and the tomb.






And through a shifting polka-light


A clock ticks and the hours take flight,


Brown undertakers drag their feet,


Well drilled to harden at defeat.






One crumpled man with pale, thin hands


To hide his face and sorrow, stands.


With systole, a calm on all,


Diastole, they bear the pall.






A strangled sob. (What shakes the floor?)


The undertakers slam the door.


The orange sashes of the sun


Revolve to blood in unison.







[33]

 A Morality, or the Twelve Forces of Nature
Enchained








THE forest leaves dropped manna on the ground,


Pure amber trailed from ev’ry twining bough,


From flow’r to flow’r the comfortable sound


Of bees would echo mauvely, whilst the plough


Would print his dull design


On undulating hill


And from the rifted rocks


Clear honey would distil.






The heifer overfed on spicy herbs


And so his breath was perfume on the air.


The frisking antelope, unwilling, curbs


Abnormal appetite; he wanders there


With mouth all rosy-stained


From cropping purple meads,


As any parrot’s bill


Or pomegranate seeds.






And, as a multitude of dancing stars,


Bright, pearly dew shone tremulous in grass


Of bladed scimitars that threatened wars


On any prying mortal that would pass.


For only folk with hooves,


The Centaurs’ company,


Had leave to sojourn here—


The Titans’ empery.






The mountains lost their foreheads in the clouds;


The saffron-wingèd manticor of day,
[34]

As constellations glimmered from their shrouds,


Had taken sudden fear and flown away.


On fallen blossoms stretched


Beneath ten mango groves


One Titan slept and snored


With nostrils wide as stoves.






Caparisoned in trappings massy gold,


Six Titanesses, heaped on mammoths, ride,


That grunt beneath their weight until they scold


And lacerate each fibrous, knotted hide.


The mountains tremble now,


And cedars spin like tops,


The satyrs hide in caves


Until the thudding stops.






Theia dismounted from her mammoth first,


Adjusting pince-nez, angrily she cried:


“May nephew Zeus, ignoble and accurst,


In anguish die with will unsatisfied!”


The Titans moved their limbs—


Reverberant for miles.


The moonlight chequered lawns


Seemed sprayed with dimpled smiles.






Immediate attack upon the gods


Was counselled now, for Kronos’ fevered ire


Was kindled iron-white; the fiercest rods


Could not avenge indignities so dire.


All chaos now released—


The giants hundred-armed


Shall take them prisoners


Frustrated and alarmed.

[35]





The octopus, the dolphin and the whale


Bewildered, seek the bottom of the sea,


Where coral tree-tops clatter in the gale


And frighten mermaids sipping at their tea.


For even here, where peace


And periwinkles dwell,


Those bursts of gas and steam


Jar shrill as booths in hell.






The Titans, when they cough, engender squalls;


Their energy is not consumed by age.


They’d like to stretch their arms and shake St. Paul’s,


But they’re entrapped as mice within a cage.


And none to pity these,


Now bound in sorry plight,


Who played piquet with stars


And shuffled them at night!







[36]

 My House








THERE is a place of dim, familiar things,


Of contacts vaguely subtle to the touch—


I call it home; in my imaginings


Each detail is of value overmuch.






There is a place where every little nook,


And every cupboard with its special smell, 


Are clear upon my mind as in a book,


I love it with a love that’s hard to tell.






There is a garden too where essences


Of flowers queerly mingle in the air,


And butterflies, strange iridescences,


Flutter about when evening enters there.







[37]

 Sonnet








MY soul is flailed by myriad little whips


That sweetly sting my tender thoughts, but yet


There comes a time when I would fain forget


The small red cruelty that’s in your lips.                    


Forget your eyes, that ferret me from sleep,


And, if no power can help me from above,


I’ll beat your slender body into love


And bruise your silken throat until you weep.






In violence is love omnipotent—


The subtlest is the fiercely-bitten kiss


That purity and passion interweaves


Until we never know what life has meant


And wait for the supremity of bliss—


The silent thunder floating in the leaves.







[38]

 Oh! what have I to do with Thee?








OH what have I to do with thee,


Thou pallid, pallid crucifix?


My sins are past all memory,


My soul fit only for the Styx.






Oh what have I to do with thee,


Hanging so limp and stark and cold?


To whom the world in revelry


Looks up ere quickly it grows old.






Oh what have I to do with thee?


The bloody sweat from off thy brow


Bears witness of thy death for me,


Who am so thankless to thee now.






Oh what have I to do with thee,


Thou death-pale Christ still fresh with youth,


Drooping thy head in agony


And anguish for the name of truth?






Oh what have I to do with thee,


Thou pierced by nail and bruised by thong?


Yet spare me in my misery,


For I am weak whilst thou art strong.







[39]

Fox-Trot (Dapper Dan)








DISTRESSFULLY aware, he was employed


In dangling clumsy legs into the void,


But the melancholy whistles


Of the ukulele wavered


And a tear-drop semiquavered


From the music, and the thistles


Were extracted


And his feet


Were attracted


By the fleet,


Neat notes ...






Those tightly-fitting pairs of gloves that dance


And beam like a Belasco star


On Broadway, where the houses all advance


To show how very small we are.


And the liquid music throbs


Jujubes,


Crystal-sparkling thoughts in gobs


And cubes—


Flicker-snicker as a scintillating blind


In the breeze,


To appease


The famished Coney Island of the mind.







[40]

.  .  .  .  .  .








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?







[41]

 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.







[42]

 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.







[43]

 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.







[44]

 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.







[45]

 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.







[46]

 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.







[47]

 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
[48]

“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.







[49]

 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.
[50]

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.







[51]

Part II


URBANITIES


[52]





[53]

 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.







[54]

 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
[55]

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.
[56]

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....







[57]

 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.







[58]

 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.







[59]

 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?”







[60]

 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!





[61]

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.”





[62]

 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.







[63]

 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.







[64]

 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.