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                          THE WOODEN PEGASUS

                         _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

                            CLOWNS’ HOUSES

                               3_s._ net

           “It affects me like devilled almonds.”--_Land and
                                Water._

                            [Illustration]


                                WHEELS

                       Annual Anthology of Verse

                              =6_s._= net

        “The vanguard of British Poetry.”_The Saturday Review._


                                OXFORD
                            BASIL BLACKWELL





                                  THE
                            WOODEN PEGASUS


                                  BY
                             EDITH SITWELL
            Author of “Clowns’ Houses”; Editor of “Wheels”


                                OXFORD
                            BASIL BLACKWELL
                                 1920


                                  TO

                             HELEN ROOTHAM

                            OSBERT SITWELL

                          SACHEVERELL SITWELL

                                  AND

                             W. T. WALTON




ACKNOWLEDGMENT


My thanks are due to the Editors of _The Saturday Westminster_, _The
Cambridge Magazine_, _Art and Letters_, _The Coterie_, and _The Daily
Mirror_, and to Messrs. Cecil Palmer and Hayward for permission to
reprint certain of these poems.




CONTENTS


SINGERIE                                                              13

THE AVENUE                                                            15

MANDOLINE                                                             17

COMEDY FOR MARIONETTES                                                20

FALSETTO SONG                                                         23

EVENTAIL                                                              24


FIFTEEN BUCOLIC POEMS:

I. WHAT THE GOOSEGIRL SAID ABOUT THE DEAN                             26

II. NOAH                                                              28

III. THE GIRL WITH THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS                               29

IV. THE LADY WITH THE SEWING-MACHINE                                  31

V. BY CANDLELIGHT                                                     33

VI. SERENADE                                                          35

VII. CLOWNS’ HOUSES                                                   36

VIII. THE SATYR IN THE PERIWIG                                        39

IX. THE MUSLIN GOWN                                                   41

X. MISS NETTYBUN AND THE SATYR’S CHILD                                42

XI. QUEEN VENUS AND THE CHOIRBOY                                      43

XII. THE APE SEES THE FAT WOMAN                                       45

XIII. THE APE WATCHES “AUNT SALLY”                                    47

XIV. SPRINGING JACK                                                   48

XV. “TOURNEZ, TOURNEZ, BONS CHEVAUX DE BOIS”                          50


SEVEN NURSERY SONGS:

  I. OLD LADY FLY-AWAY                                                52

 II. GREAT SNORING AND NORWICH                                        53

III. FAT WILLIAM AND THE TRAINS                                       54

 IV. A PENNY FARE TO BABYLON                                          55

  V. THE BUTCHER’S SHOP                                               56

 VI. THE KING OF CHINA’S DAUGHTER                                     57

VII. OLD KING PTOLEMY                                                 58

PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER SHOWS I                                         60

PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER SHOWS II                                        62

SWITCHBACK                                                            63

TRAMS                                                                 64

BANK HOLIDAY I                                                        65

BANK HOLIDAY II                                                       66

SMALL TALK I                                                          67

SMALL TALK II                                                         69

DANSONS LA GIGUE                                                      70

MESSALINA AT MARGATE                                                  72

PEDAGOGUES                                                            75

SONG FROM “THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA”                                      77

THE CHOIR-BOY RIDES ON THE SWITCHBACK                                 78

APRICOT JAM                                                           80

STOPPING PLACE                                                        82

PORTRAIT OF A BARMAID                                                 85

MATERIALISM; OR, PASTOR ---- TAKES THE RESTAURANT CAR FOR HEAVEN      87

THAÏS IN HEAVEN                                                       89


FOUR NOCTURNES:

   I. PROCESSIONS                                                     91

  II. GAIETY                                                          93

 III. VACUUM                                                          96

  IV. “ET L’ON ENTEND À PEINE LEURS PAROLES”                          98

TREATS:

  I. FUNERALS                                                        100

 II. THE COUNTY CALLS                                                102

III. SOLO FOR EAR-TRUMPET                                            104


ANTIC HAY                                                            106

LULLABY                                                              108

WATER MUSIC                                                          109

THE WEB OF EROS                                                      110

DROWNED SUNS                                                         111

THE SPIDER                                                           112

THE DRUNKARD                                                         115

THE MOTHER                                                           117




SINGERIE


    Summer afternoon in Hell!
    Down the empty street it fell,
    Pantaloon and Scaramouche--
    Tongues like flames and shadows louche--
    Flickered down the street together
    In the spangled weather.
    Flames, bright singing-birds that pass,
    Whistled wares as shrill as grass
    (Landscapes clear as glittering glass),
    Whistled all together:
    Papagei, oh Papagei,
    Buy our greenest fruits, oh buy,
    Melons misty from the bloom
    Of mellow moons on some hot night,
    Melting in the August light;
    Apples like an emerald shower;
    Nectarines that falling boom
    On the grass in greenest gloom;
    Peaches bright as parrot’s feather
    Glistening from the moon’s bower;
    Chequered like fritillaries,
    Fat and red are strawberries.
    Parrot-voices shrill together--
    Now they pelt each monkey-face
    (Pantaloon with simian grace)
    From the soft gloom till they smother
    Both the plumed head-dresses
    With the green fruit-gems that glitter
    (Twinkling sharp sounds like a zither).
    Sharp each bird-tongue shrills and hisses,
    Parrot-voices shrieking bane;--
    Down comes every spangled shutter
    With a sudden noise like rain.




THE AVENUE


    In the huge and glassy room,
    Pantaloon, with his tail-feather
    Spangled like the weather,
    Panached, too, with many a plume,
    Watched the monkey Fanfreluche,
    Shivering in his gilded ruche,
    Fawn upon the piano keys--
    Flatter till they answer back,
    Through the scale of centuries,
    Difference between white and black.
    Winds like hurricanes of light
    Change the blackest vacuums
    To a light-barred avenue--
    Semitones of might and right;
    Then, from matter, life comes.
    Down that lengthy avenue
    Leading us we know not where,
    Sudden views creep through the air;
    Oh the keys we stumble through!
    Jungles splashed with violent light,
    Promenades all hard and bright,
    Long tails like the swish of seas,
    Avenue of piano keys.
    Meaning comes to bind the whole,
    Fingers separate from thumbs,
    Soon the shapeless tune comes:
    Bestial efforts at man’s soul.
    What though notes are false and shrill--
    Black streets tumbling down a hill?
    Fundamentally
    I am you, and you are me--
    Octaves fall as emptily.




MANDOLINE


    Down in Hell’s gilded street,
    Snow dances fleet and sweet,
    Bright as a parokeet,

    Or Punchinello,
    All glistening yellow,
    As fruit-jewels mellow,

    Glittering white and black
    As the swan’s glassy back
    On the Styx’ soundless track,

    Sharp as bird’s painted bill,
    Pecking fruit, sweet and shrill,
    On a dark window-sill.

    See the glass house as smooth
    As a wide puppet-booth ...
    Snow strikes it like a sooth

    Melon-shaped mandoline
    With the sharp tang and sheen
    Of flames that cry, “Unclean!”

    Dinah with scarlet ruche,
    Gay-plumaged Fanfreluche,
    Watch shrill as Scaramouche

    In the huge house of glass
    Old shadows bent, alas!
    On ebon sticks now pass--

    Lean on a nigger boy
    Creep like a broken toy--
    Wooden and painted joy.

    Trains sweep the empty floors--
    Pelongs and Pallampores,
    Bulchauls and Sallampores,

    Soundless as any breeze
    (Amber and orangeries)
    From isles in Indian seas.

    Black spangled veils falling
    (The cold is appalling),
    They wave fans, hear calling

    Adder-flames shrieking slow,
    Stinging bright fruit-like snow,
    Down in the street below;

    While an ape, with black spangled veil,
    Plum’d head-dress, face dust-pale,
    Scratch’d with a finger-nail

    Sounds from a mandoline,
    Tuneless and sharp as sin:--
    Shutters whose tang and sheen,

    Shrieking all down the scale,
    Seem like the flames that fail
    Under that onyx nail,

    Light as snow dancing fleet,
    Bright as a parokeet,
    Down in Hell’s empty street.




“COMEDY FOR MARIONETTES”

(To I. C. P.)


    Tang the sharp mandoline!
    Hail, falling in the lean
    Street of Hell, sweeps it clean.

    Under the puppet booth,
    Down in Hell, see the smooth
    Snow bright as fruit and sooth.

    Cherries and plums all freeze--
    Rubies upon the trees,
    Rubied hail falls through these,

    Pelting each young Snow Queen--
    (A swan’s breath, so whitely seen,)
    Flirting her fan in lean

    Streets, passing to and fro,
    White as the flamelike snow,
    Fruit of lips all aglow

    As isles of the cherry
    Or ruby-sweet berry
    All plump sweet and merry.

    Mantillas hide the shame
    Of each duenna dame,
    (Fans made of plumes of flame,)

    Pelted with coral bells
    Out of the orchard hells,
    (Hail with sweet fruitage smells).

    Now on the platform seen,
    Hoofs clatter with the clean
    Sound of a mandoline....

    Under the tinsel sun,
    See shadow-spiders run!--
    Fatter than any bun,

    Beelzebub in a chair
    Sits on the platform there;
    Candles like cold eyes stare.

    “Master has got the gout,”
    Adder-flames flare and spout
    From his lips ... shadows rout.

    Tiptoe the Barber crept,
    On his furred black locks leapt.
    Candles shrieked, flaring wept.

    Barber takes up the shears....
    “Fur for the shivering fears,
    Cold in Hell these long years.”

    Candles shriek up the scale,
    Creaking down in a wail.
    Hear how their protests fail!

    Only cold, snakish flutes
    Sound like the growing fruits
    Out of slow hidden roots....

    Strange eyes a moment stare,
    Fruit-like and moon-like glare,
    From the bright shutters where

    Hail, falling in the lean
    Street of Hell, sweeps it clean.
    Tang the sharp mandoline!




FALSETTO SONG


    WHEN I was young, in ages past,
    My soul had cast
    Man’s foolish shape,
    And like a black and hairy ape--
    My shadow, he
    Now mimics me.
    Follows slinking in my shade
    Through the corridors of life
    (Stifling ’twixt the walls I made
    With the mud and murderous knife),
    Takes the pulse of my black heart,
    Never once controls my will,
    Apes me selling in the mart
    Song-birds hate did kill.




EVENTAIL


    LOVELY Semiramis
    Closes her slanting eyes:
    Dead is she long ago.
    From her fan, sliding slow,
    Parrot-bright fire’s feathers,
    Gilded as June weathers,
    Plumes bright and shrill as grass
    Twinkle down; as they pass
    Through the green glooms in Hell
    Fruits with a tuneful smell,
    Grapes like an emerald rain,
    Where the full moon has lain,
    Greengages bright as grass,
    Melons as cold as glass,
    Piled on each gilded booth,
    Feel their cheeks growing smooth.
    Apes in plumed head-dresses
    Whence the bright heat hisses,--
    Nubian faces, sly
    Pursing mouth, slanting eye,
    Feel the Arabian
    Winds floating from the fan:
    Salesmen with gilded face
    Paler grow, nod apace;
    “Oh, the fan’s blowing
    Cold winds ... It is snowing!”




FIFTEEN BUCOLIC POEMS


I


WHAT THE GOOSEGIRL SAID ABOUT THE DEAN

    Turn again, turn again,
    Goose Clothilda, Goosie Jane!

    The wooden waves of people creak
    From houses built with coloured straws
    Of heat; Dean Pappus’ long nose snores--
    Harsh as a hautbois, marshy-weak.

    The wooden waves of people creak
    Through the fields all water-sleek;

    And in among the straws of light
    Those bumpkin hautbois-sounds take flight,

    Whence he lies snoring like the moon,
    Clownish-white all afternoon,

    Beneath the trees’ arsenical
    Harsh wood-wind tunes. Heretical--

    (Blown like the wind’s mane
    Creaking woodenly again)

    His wandering thoughts escape like geese,
    Till he, their gooseherd, sets up chase,
    And clouds of wool join the bright race
    For scattered old simplicities.




II

NOAH


    Noah, through green waters slipping sliding like a long sleek eel,
    Slithered up Mount Ararat and climbed into the Ark,--
    Slipping with his long dank hair; and sliding slyly in his barque,
    Pushed it slowly in a wholly glassy creek until we feel
    Pink crags tremble under us and wondrous clear waters run
    Over Shem and Ham and Japhet, moving with their long sleek daughters,
    Swift as fishes rainbow-coloured darting under morning waters....
    Burning seraph beasts sing clearly to the young flamingo Sun.

_Note._--Thanks due to Helen Rootham for her earnest collaboration in
this poem.




III

THE GIRL WITH THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS


    THE bright-striped wooden fields are edged
    With noisy cock’s crow trees, scarce fledged--

    The trees that spin like tops, all weathers,
    Like strange birds ruffling glassy feathers.

    My hair is white as flocks of geese,
    And water hisses out of this;

    And when the late sun burns my cheek
    Till it is pink as apples sleek,

    I wander in the fields and know
    Why kings do squander pennies so--

    Lest they at last should weight their eyes!
    But beggars’ ragged minds, more wise,

    Know without flesh we cannot see--
    And so they hoard stupidity

    (The dull ancestral memory
    That is the only property).

    They laugh to see the spring fields edged
    With noisy cock’s crow trees scarce fledged,

    And flowers that grunt to feel their eyes
    Made clear with sight’s finalities.




IV

THE LADY WITH THE SEWING MACHINE


    ACROSS the fields as green as spinach,
    Cropped as close as Time to Greenwich,

    Stands a high house; if at all,
    Spring comes like a Paisley shawl--

    Patternings meticulous
    And youthfully ridiculous.

    In each room the yellow sun
    Shakes like a canary, run

    On run, roulade, and watery trill--
    Yellow, meaningless, and shrill.

    Face as white as any clock’s,
    Cased in parsley-dark curled locks,

    All day long you sit and sew,
    Stitch life down for fear it grow,

    Stitch life down for fear we guess
    At the hidden ugliness.

    Dusty voice that throbs with heat,
    Hoping with its steel-thin beat

    To put stitches in my mind,
    Make it tidy, make it kind;

    You shall not! I’ll keep it free
    Though you turn earth sky and sea

    To a patchwork quilt to keep
    Your mind snug and warm in sleep.




V

BY CANDLELIGHT


    Houses red as flower of bean,
    Flickering leaves and shadows lean!
    Pantalone, like a parrot,
    Sat and grumbled in the garret,
    Sat and growled and grumbled till
    Moon upon the window-sill,
    Like a red geranium,
    Scented his bald cranium.
    Said Brighella, meaning well--
    “Pack your box and--go to Hell!
    Heat will cure your rheumatism.”
    Silence crowned this optimism.
    Not a sound and not a wail--
    But the fire (lush leafy vale)
    Watched the angry feathers fly.
    Pantalone ’gan to cry--
    Could not, _would_ not, pack his box.
    Shadows (curtseying hens and cocks)
    Pecking in the attic gloom,
    Tried to smother his tail-plume....
    Till a cock’s comb candle-flame,
    Crowing loudly, died: Dawn came.




VI

SERENADE


    The tremulous gold of stars within your hair
      Are yellow bees flown from the hive of night,
    Finding the blossom of your eyes more fair
    Than all the pale flowers folded from the light.
    Then, Sweet, awake, and ope your dreaming eyes
    Ere those bright bees have flown and darkness dies.




VII

CLOWNS’ HOUSES


    Beneath the flat and paper sky
    The sun, a demon’s eye,
    Glowed through the air, that mask of glass;
    All wand’ring sounds that pass

    Seemed out of tune, as if the light
    Were fiddle-strings pulled tight.
    The market square with spire and bell
    Clanged out the hour in Hell.

    The busy chatter of the heat
    Shrilled like a parokeet;
    And shuddering at the noonday light
    The dust lay dead and white

    As powder on a mummy’s face,
    Or fawned with simian grace
    Round booths with many a hard bright toy
    And wooden brittle joy:

    The cap and bells of Time the Clown
    That, jangling, whistled down
    Young cherubs hidden in the guise
    Of every bird that flies;

    And star-bright masks for youth to wear,
    Lest any dream that fare
   --Bright pilgrim--past our ken, should see
    Hints of Reality.

    Upon the sharp-set grass, shrill-green,
    Tall trees like rattles lean,
    And jangle sharp and dizzily;
    But when night falls they sigh

    Till Pierrot moon steals slyly in,
    His face more white than sin,
    Black-masked, and with cool touch lays bare
    Each cherry, plum, and pear.

    Then underneath the veilèd eyes
    Of houses, darkness lies,--
    Tall houses; like a hopeless prayer
    They cleave the sly dumb air.

    Blind are those houses, paper-thin;
    Old shadows hid therein,
    With sly and crazy movements creep
    Like marionettes, and weep.

    Tall windows show Infinity;
    And, hard reality,
    The candles weep and pry and dance
    Like lives mocked at by Chance.

    The rooms are vast as Sleep within:
    When once I ventured in,
    Chill Silence, like a surging sea,
    Slowly enveloped me.




VIII

THE SATYR IN THE PERIWIG


    The Satyr Scarabombadon
    Pulled periwig and breeches on:
    “Grown old and stiff, this modern dress
    Adds monstrously to my distress;
    The gout within a hoofen heel
    Is _very_ hard to bear; I feel
    When crushed into a buckled shoe
    The twinge will be redoubled, too.
    And when I walk in gardens green
    And, weeping, think on what has been,
    Then wipe one eye,--the other sees
    The plums and cherries on the trees.
    Small bird-quick women pass me by
    With sleeves that flutter airily,
    And baskets blazing like a fire
    With laughing fruits of my desire;
    Plums sunburnt as the King of Spain,
    Gold-cheeked as any Nubian,
    With strawberries all goldy-freckled,
    Pears fat as thrushes and as speckled ...
    Pursue them?... Yes, and squeeze a tear:
    ‘Please spare poor Satyr one, my dear.’
    ‘Be off, sir; go and steal your own!’
   --Alas, poor Scarabombadon,
    They’d rend his ruffles, stretch a twig,
    Tear off a satyr’s periwig!”




IX

THE MUSLIN GOWN


    With spectacles that flash,
    Striped foolscap hung with gold
    And silver bells that clash,
    (Bright rhetoric and cold),
    In owl-dark garments goes the Rain,
    Dull pedagogue, again.
    And in my orchard wood
    Small song-birds flock and fly,
    Like cherubs brown and good,
    When through the trees go I
    Knee-deep within the dark-leaved sorrel.
    Cherries red as bells of coral
    Ring to see me come--
    I, with my fruit-dark hair
    As dark as any plum,
    My summer gown as white as air
    And frilled as any quick bird’s there.
    But oh, what shall I do?
    Old Owl-wing’s back from town--
    He’s skipping through dark trees: I know
    He _hates_ my summer gown!




X

MISS NETTYBUN AND THE SATYR’S CHILD


    As underneath the trees I pass
    Through emerald shade on hot soft grass,
    Petunia faces, glowing-hued
    With heat, cast shadows hard and crude--
    Green-velvety as leaves, and small
    Fine hairs like grass pierce through them all.
    But these are all asleep--asleep,
    As through the schoolroom door I creep
    In search of you, for you evade
    All the advances I have made.
    Come, Horace, you must take my hand.
    This sulking state I will not stand!
    But you shall feed on strawberry jam
    At tea-time, if you cease to slam
    The doors that open from our sense--
    Through which I slipped to drag you hence!




XI

QUEEN VENUS AND THE CHOIR-BOY

(TO NAOMI ROYDE SMITH)


    The apples grow like silver trumps
    That red-cheeked fair-haired angels blow--
    So clear their juice; on trees in clumps,
    Feathered as any bird, they grow.

    A lady stood amid those crops--
    Her voice was like a blue or pink
    Glass window full of lollipops;
    Her words were very strange, I think:

    “Prince Paris, too, a fair-haired boy
    Plucked me an apple from dark trees;
    Since when their smoothness makes my joy;
    If you will pluck me one of these

    I’ll kiss you like a golden wind
    As clear as any apples be.”
    And now she haunts my singing mind--
    And oh, she will not set me free.




XII

THE APE SEES THE FAT WOMAN


    Among the dark and brilliant leaves,
    Where flowers seem tinsel firework-sheaves,

    Blond barley-sugar children stare
    Through shining apple-trees, and there

    A lady like a golden wind
    Whose hair like apples tumbles kind,

    And whose bright name, so I believe,
    Is sometimes Venus, sometimes Eve,

    Stands, her face furrowed like my own
    With thoughts wherefrom strange seeds are sown,

    Whence, long since, stars for bright flowers grew
    Like periwinkles pink and blue,--

    (Queer impulses of bestial kind,
    Flesh indivisible from mind.)

    I, painted like the wooden sun,
    Must hand-in-hand with angels run--

    The tinsel angels of the booth
    That lead poor yokels to the truth

    Through raucous jokes, till we can see
    That narrow long Eternity

    Is but the whip’s lash o’er our eyes--
    Spurring to new vitalities.




XIII

THE APE WATCHES “AUNT SALLY”


    The apples are an angel’s meat,
    The shining dark leaves make clear-sweet

    The juice; green wooden fruits alway
    Drop on these flowers as white as day--

    Clear angel-face on hairy stalk;
    (Soul grown from flesh, an ape’s young talk.)

    And in this green and lovely ground
    The Fair, world-like, turns round and round,

    And bumpkins throw their pence to shed
    Aunt Sally’s crude-striped wooden head.

    I do not care if men should throw
    Round sun and moon to make me go,

    (As bright as gold and silver pence) ...
    They cannot drive their own blood hence!




XIV

SPRINGING JACK


    Green wooden leaves clap light away,
    Severely practical, as they

    Shelter the children, candy-pale.
    The chestnut-candles flicker, fail....

    The showman’s face is cubed clear as
    The shapes reflected in a glass

    Of water--(glog, glut, a ghost’s speech
    Fumbling for space from each to each).

    The fusty showman fumbles, must
    Fit in a particle of dust

    The universe, for fear it gain
    Its freedom from my box of brain.

    Yet dust bears seeds that grow to grace
    Behind my crude-striped wooden face

    As I, a puppet tinsel-pink,
    Leap on my springs, learn how to think,

    Then like the trembling golden stalk
    Of some long-petalled star, I walk

    Through the dark heavens until dew
    Falls on my eyes and sense thrills through.




XV

“TOURNEZ, TOURNEZ, BONS CHEVAUX DE BOIS”


    Turn, turn again,
    Ape’s blood in each vein.
    The people that pass
    Seem castles of glass,
    The old and the good,
    Giraffes of blue wood;
    The soldier, the nurse,
    Wooden face and a curse,
    Are shadowed with plumage
    Like birds by the gloomage.
    Blond hair like a clown’s,
    The music floats, drowns
    The creaking of ropes
    The breaking of hopes.
    The wheezing, the old,
    Like harmoniums scold:
    Go to Babylon, Rome,
    The brain-cells called home,
    The grave, New Jerusalem,
    Wrinkled Methusalem:
    From our floating hair
    Derived the first fair
    And queer inspiration
    Of music (the nation
    Of bright-plumed trees
    And harpy-shrill breeze).

    *       *       *       *       *

    Turn, turn again,
    Ape’s blood in each vein.




_SEVEN NURSERY SONGS_




I

OLD LADY FLY-AWAY


    Old Lady Fly-Away
    Lost her temper, night and day,
    Took the bright moon’s broom--
    Swept round the attic room.
    “Dear me, where _can_ it be?
    Not a temper can I see!”
    Sighed the Moon upon the stair:
    “Always look to see, dear,
    When you ‘put your foot down,’
    Lest it crushes Babylon;
    _Try_ to get it nearer home,
    In fields of clover or in Rome!”
    Old Lady Fly-Away
    Knew her temper would not stay,
    So pretended not to hear--
    Sweeping for it on the stair.




II


GREAT SNORING AND NORWICH

    Great Snoring and Norwich
    A dish of pease porridge!
    The clock of Troy town
    Strikes one o’clock; brown
    Honey-bees in the clover
    Are half-the-seas-over,
    And Time is a-boring
    From here to Great Snoring.
    But Time, the grey mouse,
    Can’t wake up the house,
    For old King Priam
    Is sleepy as I am!




III


FAT WILLIAM AND THE TRAINS

    When I should be at work, instead
    I lie and kick for fun, in bed:
    Down the narrow rails, hear trains
    Go quick as other people’s brains--
    Hump their backs and snore and growl,
    Grumble, rumble, tumble, prowl--
    Bearing people, pink as pigs,
    Through water-clear fields dancing jigs.
    Like a whale among my pillows
    Dash I, splash I, sheets in billows
    As the trains toss spangled seas,
    Like bright flags on the tusks of these.
    How I envy those at work
    When I can lie in bed and shirk.




IV


A PENNY FARE TO BABYLON

    “A penny fare to Babylon,
    A penny for each thought!”
    “Oh, ma’am, no, ma’am,
    Can’t be bought!
    The Sun gives pots of money,
    The Moon, her bread and honey,
    When humming like a clover-field
    I go up to town.
    Whitened by the Moon’s flour,
    All the birds I own,
    Lest they be baked into a pie,
    Are flown, dear, flown.
    Though you whistle in the corridors
    That dance into my brain--
    Oh, ma’am, no, ma’am,
    They will not come again.”




V


THE BUTCHER’S SHOP

    Pantaloon jumps in his bright
    Butcher’s shop, where red and white
    Meat hangs up like clown’s attire--
    Laughs as shrill as grass or fire.
    In his house sits Il Dottore,
    In the rickety top story
    Plays a mandoline to please
    Coral bells on cherry trees....
    But the bees have left his bonnet
    For the meat; they buzz upon it--
    Goldy summer lights--they hover
    Like the bees upon red clover,
    Flying straight into the shop,
    Full of facts, where theories stop.




VI


THE KING OF CHINA’S DAUGHTER

The King of China’s daughter, She never would love me Though I hung my
cap and bells upon Her nutmeg tree. For oranges and lemons, The stars in
bright blue air, (I stole them long ago, my dear) Were dangling there.
The Moon did give me silver pence, The Sun did give me gold, And both
together softly blew And made my porridge cold; But the King of China’s
daughter Pretended not to see When I hung my cap and bells upon Her
nutmeg tree.




VII


OLD KING PTOLEMY


    Old King Ptolemy
    Climbed the stair
    Into the attic
    Of Anywhere.
    Old King Ptolemy
    Sulked to bed;
    Maids cleared up his toys--
    “Broken,” they said.
    “The King’s in a temper,
    The King’s in a pet,”
    Wriggling their necks like geese--
    “Oh, what a fret!”
    The Struwwelpeter
    Round-eyed Sun,
    Rocked on his rocking-horse
    Half in fun,--
    Rocked on the landing,
    Rocked on the stair:
    “Babylon’s empty,
    The cupboard is bare....
    King Ptolemy’s snoring
    Sounds on the breeze
    Like the sound of fruit growing
    On mulberry trees.”




PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER-SHOWS


I

    Tall cranes with wooden bodices
    Stuffed full of shadow odyssies.

    They hiss like geese through schoolroom
    bars
    At the bright flower-show of the stars.

    The houses (children’s bricks) float by
    On swords of moonshine, cry and sigh.

    The schoolmen spray with glittering laughter
    This flower-show, budding strangely after.

    “Our map-like cheeks are painted red
    Where sawdust gods were pierced and bled

    “By all this moonshine, and we feel
    Blood should be dry,”--Erazureel

    Cried; “Blue, pink, yellow planets, bright
    Flowers frilled as seas breathe in the night;

    These frillèd pinks, so neat and nice,
    We’ll teach to turn the world to ice.

    Our science then can soon inure
    The stars to blossom from manure;

    The world will be all map-like, plain
    As our lined cheeks, and once again

    The soul (moot point) will scarce intrude
    Its lack of depth and magnitude!”




PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER-SHOWS


II

WHAT THE PROFESSOR SAID TO THE EDITOR OF “WHEELS”

    Old Professor Goosecap
    Watched the planet’s flower-show.
    “Pedagogues well-drilled, mayhap,
    Marshalled in a row,
    Can perceive in China asters
    Half a hemisphere’s disasters,
    With rays to pierce the fourth dimension:
    Come, limit it to our declension!
    Pedagogues, through schoolroom bars,
    Must thrust their faces like a map
    Crownèd with a dunce’s cap,
    To hiss like geese at the stars,
    And crush with wooden toe--
    All growing,
    And blowing,
    These Canterbury bells as they blow,
    These silvery bells in a row!”




SWITCHBACK


    By the blue wooden sea,
    Curling laboriously,
    Coral and amber grots
    (Cherries and apricots),
    Ribbons of noisy heat,
    Binding them head and feet,
    Horses as fat as plums
    Snort as each bumpkin comes.
    Giggles like towers of glass
    (Pink and blue spirals) pass,
    Oh, how the Vacancy
    Laughed at them rushing by!
    “Turn again, flesh and brain,
    Only yourselves again!
    How far above the Ape,
    Differing in each shape,
    You with your regular,
    Meaningless circles are!”




TRAMS


    Castles of crystal,
    Castles of wood,
    Moving on pulleys
    Just as you should!
    See the gay people
    Flaunting like flags,
    Bells in the steeple,
    Sky all in rags.
    Bright as a parrot
    Flaunts the gay heat--
    Songs in the garret,
    Fruit in the street;
    Plump as a cherry,
    Red as a rose,
    Old Mother Berry--
    Blowing her nose!




BANK HOLIDAY


I

    The houses on a see-saw rush
    In the giddy sun’s hard spectrum, push

    The noisy heat’s machinery;
    Like flags of coloured heat they fly.

    The wooden ripples of the smiles
    Suck down the houses, then at whiles,

    Grown suctioned like an octopus,
    They throw them up again at us,

    As we rush by on coloured bars
    Of sense, vibrating flower-hued stars,

    With lips like velvet drinks and winds
    That bring strange Peris to our minds.




BANK HOLIDAY


II

    Seas are roaring like a lion; with their
    wavy flocks Zion,
    Noses like a scimitar,
    Hair a brassy bar
    Come
    To
    The sun’s drum; through
    Light green waters swim their daughters, lashing
    with their eel-sleek-locks
    The furred
    Heads
    Of mermaids that occurred,
    Sinking to their cheap beds.
    Blurred
    Legs, like trunks of tropical
    Plants, rise up and, over all,
    Green as a conservatory,
    Is the light ... another story....
    It has grown too late for life:
    Put on your gloves and take a drive!




SMALL TALK


I

    Upon the noon Cassandra died
    The harpy preened itself outside.

    Bank Holiday put forth its glamour,
    And in the wayside station’s clamour

    We found the café at the rear,
    And sat and drank our Pilsener beer.

    Words smeared upon our wooden faces
    Now paint them into queer grimaces;

    The crackling greeneries that spirt
    Like fireworks, mock our souls inert,

    And we seem feathered like a bird
    Among those shadows scarcely heard.

    Beneath her shade-ribbed switchback mane
    The harpy, breasted like a train,

    Was haggling with a farmer’s wife:
    “Fresh harpy’s eggs, no trace of life.”

    Miss Sitwell, cross and white as chalk,
    Was indisposed for the small talk.

    Since, peering through a shadowed door,
    She saw Cassandra on the floor.




SMALL TALK


II

    Upon the noon
    Cassandra died,
    Harpy soon
    Screeched outside.
    Gardener Jupp,
    In his shed,
    Counted wooden
    Carrots red.
    Black shades pass,
    Dead-stiff there,
    On green baize grass--
    Drink his beer.
    Bumpkin turnip,
    Mask limp-locked,
    White sun frights
    The gardener shocked.
    Harpy creaked
    Her limbs again:
    “I think, she squeaked,
    It’s going to rain!”




DANSONS LA GIGUE


    Dance the jig, whirl
    In the street, girl.
    Rush up and down,
    Houses, to town--
    On the see-saw
    Made out of raw
    Hot yellow rays,
    Crude edges of days.
    Dance the jig, whirl--
    Like your blond curl!
    Oh! it is fine to-day,
    On this Bank Holiday!
    Sound of young feet
    Comes down the street ...
    Never again
    Pleasure or pain....
    Dance the jig, whirl
    In the street, girl.
    Do the dead ache
    In summer, to slake
    Their thirst of love?--Hush,--
    No tears to gush,
    My soul is of mud,
    Cannot weep blood....

    *       *       *       *       *

    Dance the jig, dance the jig,--
    Dance the jig, girl.




MESSALINA AT MARGATE


    The tents are coloured like a child’s balloons;
    They swell upon the air like August moons
    Anchored by waters paler than a pearl;
    The airs like rain-wet shrinking petals curl

    Beneath the rainbow lights of noon that fill
    The open calyx with the faintest thrill,
    Then break in airy bubbles on the sense
    Like sounds upheld in exquisite suspense.

    In grande toilette, and with a parasol
    Bright-fringèd as the noonday sun, (that fool
    Of beauty,) Messalina promenades.
    A crinoline keeps off the other shades:

    Her grape-black hair casts shadows deep as death;
    All curled and high, yet stirring at Time’s breath.
    The powder on her face is shuddering white
    As dust of æons seen in heaven’s light.

    She leaves the sands, where in tents striped like fruits
    The dancers whirl like winds to airy flutes,
    And music, soother than the pulp of pearls
    Whose sweetness decks the swan-white syren girls,

    In air-pale waves like water, has the sheen
    Of mirrors, floats like flower-wing’d stars.--O spleen!
    Leave Regent’s Park and quit society
    Only to find this immorality!

    So now she goes to church, where bonnets steam
    Like incense, and the painted windows seem
    Naught but a coloured veil stupidity
    Had wrought to clothe her dumb soliloquy:

    “There’s comfort in old age: the steam of food
    Ascending like the rich man’s soul to God;
    And little words that crackle as they went,
    How such and such a life was evil spent,

    “Until they make a fire to warm our hands.
    For Time has wrapp’d the heart in swaddling bands,
    But yet they could not save it from the cold.--
    The soul’s a pander grown; for she has sold

    “My body to the Church; does nicely now.
    Oh! Soul has much to learn from flesh, I vow.”
    Thus Messalina, grown both old and fat,--
    The Church’s parrot now, and dull at that!




PEDAGOGUES


    The air is like a jarring bell
    That jangles words it cannot spell,
    And black as Fate, the iron trees
    Stretch thirstily to catch the breeze.

    The fat leaves pat the shrinking air;
    The hot sun’s patronising stare
    Rouses the stout flies from content
    To some small show of sentiment.

    Beneath the terrace shines the green
    Metallic strip of sea, and sheen
    Of sands, where folk flaunt parrot-bright
    With rags and tags of noisy light.

    The brass band’s snorting stabs the sky
    And tears the yielding vacancy--
    The imbecile and smiling blue
    Until fresh meaning trickles through;

    And slowly we perambulate
    With spectacles that concentrate,
    In one short hour, Eternity,
    In one small lens, Infinity.

    With children, our primeval curse,
    We overrun the universe--
    Beneath the giddy lights of noon,
    White as a tired August moon.

    The air is like a jarring bell
    That jangles words it cannot spell,
    And black as Fate, the iron trees
    Stretch thirstily to catch the breeze.




SONG FROM “THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA”


    And shall we never find those diamonds bright
    That were the fawn-queen of Palmyra’s eyes?--
    Ah, dark hot jewels lie hidden from the sight
    Beneath dark palm-trees where the river sighs
    Beyond the tomb of young eternities;
    And in the desert, lonely flowers weep--
    The clouds have such long hair--that tangles Sleep.




THE CHOIR-BOY RIDES ON THE SWITCHBACK


    In the fruit-ripe heat of afternoon
    Each muslined school-child seems a moon;

    And in the tents, those lazy waves
    From out the echoing coral caves

    Of light, like Venus from the sea
    The clown seems, blond hair floating free.

    The switchback, with its noisy run,
    Is turning like the wooden sun

    As he rides on his rocking-horse
    All Struwwelpeter-haired; we course

    On sands as moist as sugar-cane,
    And the Fat Woman’s face and mane

    Are sometimes dappled by the shade
    Into the likeness of some maid

    Long dead ... those golden shadows fell
    On Cressid or Alaciel.

    The beggar-tunes on horseback ride,
    With cheeks as pink as Angels’,--glide

    Through Babylon, Chicago, Troy,
    And Black Man’s Land. Each golden boy

    Blows silver trumpets over these,
    As clear as apples on the trees.

    I will go home and pack my pride,
    Then with these beggar-tunes I’ll ride--

    For all the hymns I try to sing
    Are but Love’s beggars shivering

    In thorny thickets where one sees
    Stars grow for wild wet raspberries.




APRICOT JAM


    Beneath the dancing, glancing green
    The tea is spread amid the sheen
    Of pince-nez (glints of thought); thus seen,
    In sharp reflections only, brain
    Perceives the world all flat and plain
    In rounded segments, joy and pain.
    The parasols dance like the sun,
    Cast wavering nets of shade that run
    Across the chattering table’s fun,
    The laughing faces, and across
    Half-shadowed faces looking cross,
    And black hair with a bird-bright gloss.
    The flashing children stayed and checked,
    Smooth india-rubber leaves reflect
    Their parrot-green on circumspect
    Glazed china, where the negroid tea
    Reflects the world’s obscurity
    In high lights such as pince-nez see.
    And all the sheen of shadows feather
    Muslin frocks like plumes; together,
    In the hot and flashing weather,
    Bird-high voices shrill and chatter
    With the high and glinting clatter
    Tea-cups make, and whispered patter--
    (Listen, and you’ll get a slap!)
    Worlds are small as any map,
    And life will come our way--mayhap.




STOPPING PLACE


    The world grows furry, grunts with sleep ...
    But I must on the surface keep.
    The jolting of the train to me
    Seems some primeval vertebræ
    Attached by life-nerves to my brain--
    Reactionary once again.
    So that I see shapes crude and new
    And ordered,--with some end in view,
    No longer with the horny eyes
    Of other people’s memories.
    Through highly varnished yellow heat,
    As through a lens that does not fit,
    The faces jolt in cubes, and I
    Perceive their odd solidity
    And lack of meaning absolute:
    For why should noses thus protrude,
    And to what purpose can relate
    Each hair so oddly separate?
    Anchored against the puff of breeze,
    As shallow as the crude blue seas,
    The coloured blocks and cubes of faces
    Seem Noah’s arks that shelter races
    Of far absurdities to breed
    Their queer kind after we are dead.
    Blue wooden foliage creaks with heat
    And there are woollen buns to eat--
    Bright-varnished buns to touch and see
    And, black as an Inferno, tea.
    Then (Recketts’ blue) a puff of wind....
    Heredity regains my mind
    And I am sitting in the train
    While thought becomes like flesh,--the brain
    Not independent, but derived
    From hairy matter that half lived--
    Identities not round or whole.
    A questing beast who thirsts for soul,
    The furry vegetation there--
    Purring with heat, sucks in the air;
    And dust that’s gathered in the train,
    Protecting flesh, seems almost brain--
    (That horny substance altering sight);
    How strange, intangible is light
    Whence all is born, and yet by touch
    We live,--the rest is not worth much....
    Once more the world grows furred with sleep,--
    But I must on the surface keep
    While mammoths from the heat are born--
    Great clumsy trains with tusk and horn
    Whereon the world’s too sudden tossed
    Through frondage of our mind, and lost.




PORTRAIT OF A BARMAID


    Metallic waves of people jar
    Through crackling green toward the bar

    Where on the tables, chattering-white,
    The sharp drinks quarrel with the light.

    Those coloured muslin blinds the smiles
    Shroud wooden faces in their wiles--

    Sometimes they splash like water (you
    Yourself reflected in their hue).

    The conversation, loud and bright,
    Seems spinal bars of shunting light

    In firework-spirting greenery,
    O complicate machinery

    For building Babel, iron crane
    Beneath your hair, that blue-ribbed mane

    In noise and murder like the sea
    Without its mutability

    Outside the bar, where jangling heat
    Seems out of tune and off the beat,

    A concertina’s glycerine
    Exudes and mirrors in the green

    Your soul, pure glucose edged with hints
    Of tentative and half-soiled tints.




MATERIALISM; OR, PASTOR ---- TAKES THE RESTAURANT CAR FOR HEAVEN


    Upon sharp floods of noise there glide
    The red-brick houses, float, collide

    With aspidestras, trains on steel
    That lead us not to what we feel.

    Hot glassy lights fill up the gloom
    As water an aquarium,--

    All mirror-bright; beneath these seen,
    Our faces coloured by their sheen,

    Seem objects under water, bent
    By each bright-hued advertisement

    Whose words are stamped upon our skin
    As though the heat had burnt them in.

    The jolting of the train that made
    All objects coloured bars of shade,

    Projects them sideways till they split
    Splinters from eyeballs as they flit.

    Down endless tubes of throats we squeeze
    Our words, lymphatic paint to please

    Our sense of neatness, neutralize
    The overtint and oversize.

    I think it true that Heaven should be
    A narrow train for you and me,

    Where we perpetually must haunt
    The moving oblique restaurant

    And feed on foods of other minds
    Behind the hot and dusty blinds.




THAÏS IN HEAVEN


    When you lay dying fast, you said--
    And, weeping, were not comforted:
    “Look through this paper world! I see

    The lights of Heaven burn like gold
    The other side; and Souls are sold
    For these, yet only flesh, sold we!”

    And then you died and went to bliss.--
    I’m curious now to know if love
    Is really Heaven--where _you_ rove.--
    Your kind of love ... or mine, Thaïs?

    And is there still the clinging mud?
    I think it drowned your soul like wine.
    And do the stars like street-lamps shine,
    Gilding the gutters where you stood,

    And lighting up your small face where
    Thin powder, like a trail of dust,
    Shows the mortality of lust ...
    Still black as hissing rain, your hair?

    Your body had become your soul....
    Thaïs,--do spirits crumble whole?




_FOUR NOCTURNES_




I

PROCESSIONS


    Within the long black avenues of Night
    Go pageants of delight,

    With masks of glass the night has stained with wine,
    Hair lifted like a vine;--

    And all the coloured curtains of the air
    Were fluttered. Passing there,

    The sounds seemed warring suns; and music flowed
    As blood; the mask’d lamps showed

    Tall houses light had gilded like despair:
    Black windows, gaping there.

    Through all the rainbow spaces of our laughter
    Those pageants followed after;

    The negress Night, within her house of glass
    Watched the processions pass.




II

GAIETY


    Blow out the candles. Let the dance begin.
    Already, pale as Sin,

    The candles weep and pry like living things ...
    They dance, who have no wings.

    More vast and black than endless sleep, this room.
    Time beats his empty drum

    Whose hollow sound is echoed in our eyes--
    Deep wells where no moon lies.

    A crumpled paper mask hides every face--
    Creased to a smile of grace,

    With eyelids gilded, so the bitter tears
    Make music for men’s ears.

    These masks, some coloured like an August moon,
    Or white, as sands that swoon

    Within Time’s hour-glass, some as grey as rain,--
    Still mimic joy and pain.

    Thin pointed rags and tags edge our attire ...
    Bright plumes?... or tongues of fire,

    Whose painted laughter cracks the gilded sky
    Of this flat empery

    That has no soil where any flower may root,
    Nor rest for weary foot,

    But endless leagues of mirror: such the ground
    That no horizons bound,--

    Carved topaz water;--sound a mirror seems!
    O! nakedness of dreams

    Beneath the blinding radiance of hot skies
    Where no sun lives or dies.

    *       *       *       *       *

    Now that the dusty, creaking curtain, Day,
    Is folded, laid away,

    Each masked dancer is both piercèd Heart
    And Dream, its poiniard.

    Small winds creep from Infinity.... A flame
    Our blown hair, white as shame.

    Those seeds of worlds, the stars, are nought but blown
    Red tinsel from a Clown;

    The candles, living things to dance and pry:
    Out! hard Reality!




III

VACUUM


    Blown through the leaden circles of our hell,
    Each wisp of soul, tattered by winds of lust,
    Clawed at the voices, like a beaten bell.
    No movement ever raised the lifeless dust,

    As, blown beneath the night’s enormous pall,
    We call to you with goatish prance and paces:
    Our lips are red as nights of festival
    And hell has dyed its fires upon our faces.

    These barren bodies may no children breed
    To quench the sun with their corrupted breath
    Save these our hearts, our breasts, our bodies feed--
    The fruit of love like ours, the worms of death.

    Within our brain the darkness slowly fell:
    Our eyes’ dark vacuum reflects no days--
    No voice, no sight, no thought within our hell--
    But only flesh our loneliness allays.




IV

“ET L’ON ENTEND À PEINE LEURS PAROLES”


    Monotonously fell the rain,
    Like thoughts within an empty brain;

    The lolling weeds that fattened there
    Absorbed the broken lifeless air.

    “Do those dim eyes still hold a flame
    That leaps to Heaven at my name?”

    “Mine eyes would hold God’s face in sight;
    But your lips burned away the light.”

    “Within your brain the blood runs high?”
    “You came like thought; you licked it dry.”

    “Oh, we have burnt our souls with lust
    Till they are whiter than the dust ...

    Now are they white as purity?”
    “You blind mine eyes ... I cannot see.”

    “I am so tired--I fain would creep
    To hide within your heart and weep.”

    “My heart is dust ... no tears to shed.”
    “But carrion lives--it lives”--I said.




_TREATS_




I

FUNERALS


    Beneath umbrellas I can see
    Pink faces sheened with stupidity,

    With whiskers spirting from them, (days
    Of boredom, black and sentient rays

    From other personalities.)
    And, mourners too, white-bearded seas

    Walk slowly by them as they come,
    Sing hymns to the wind’s harmonium.

    Old men shake hands; their clawing grasp
    Seems like a door without a clasp--

    That gapes on slow black emptiness....
    Now,--vanished is her cracked black dress,
    The house grows tall from vacancy,
    And in the kitchen I take tea

    While the furry sun creeps out--that raw
    Life,--sheathes its murderous claw

    And lets its tongue slink out to lap
    The silence--(a slow-leaking tap)....




II

THE COUNTY CALLS


    They came upon us like a train--
    A rush, a scream, then gone again!
    With bodies like a continent
    Encased in silken seas, they went

    And came and called and took their tea
    And patronised the Deity
    Who copies their munificence
    With creditable heart and sense.

    Each face a plaster monument
    For some belovèd aliment,
    Whose everlasting sleep they deign
    To cradle in the Great Inane;

    Each tongue, a noisy clockwork bell
    To toll the passing hour that fell;
    Each hat, an architect’s device
    For building churches, cheap and nice.

    _I saw_ the County Families
    Advance and sit and take their teas;
    I saw the County gaze askance
    At my thin insignificance:

    Small thoughts like frightened fishes glide
    Beneath their eyes’ pale glassy tide:
    They said: “Poor thing! we must be nice!”
    They said: “We know your father!”--twice.




III

SOLO FOR EAR-TRUMPET


    The carriage brushes through the bright
    Leaves (violent jets from life to light).
    Strong polished speed is plunging, heaves
    Between the showers of bright hot leaves.
    The window-glasses glaze our faces
    And jarr them to the very basis,--
    But they could never put a polish
    Upon my manners, or abolish
    My most distinct disinclination
    For calling on a rich relation!
    In her house, bulwark built between
    The life man lives and visions seen,--
    The sunlight hiccups white as chalk,
    Grown drunk with emptiness of talk,
    And silence hisses like a snake,
    Invertebrate and rattling ache.

    *       *       *       *       *

    Till suddenly, Eternity
    Drowns all the houses like a sea,
    And down the street the Trump of Doom
    Blares,--barely shakes this drawing-room
    Where raw-edged shadows sting forlorn
    As dank dark nettles. Down the horn
    Of her ear-trumpet I convey
    The news that: “It is Judgment Day!”
    “Speak louder; I don’t catch, my dear.”
    I roared: “_It is the Trump we hear!_”
    “The _What_?”--“The TRUMP!” ... “I shall complain--
    The boy-scouts practising again!”




ANTIC HAY


    How like a lusty satyr, the hot sun
    Doth in his orbit run
    O’er rivers and the light blue hills of noon,
    And where the white still moon
    Sleeps in the lovely woodlands of the light.
    Made drunken with his might,
    Like flames the goat-foot satyrs leap and fling
    The blossom’d beans of Spring.
    The oreads leave their swan-like fountains, bells
    Of foam, and dark wood-wells,
    And grasses where the pale dew lovelorn lies
    And like an echo dies.
    The river-gods are tossing their blue manes
    Still wet with brine; the reins
    Lie loosely on their plunging horses; earth
    Shakes with the storm of mirth;
    And all the cloudy castles of the air
    Are bathed with radiance. There,
    Beneath dark chestnut trees, King Pan doth sport
    With all his hornèd court.
    Their goat-feet clattering to the oaten tune
    That cools the heat of noon
    Like water gurgling; hoofs all wreath’d with flowers,
    Wild as the dew-pale hours,
    The clownish satyrs dance the antic hay;
    They butt with horns and sway,
    While laughing leaves, like smitten cymbals thrill
    Their sunburnt dance; until
    The light falls like a rain of panick’d leaves
    Through the gold heart of eves.
    O’er misty fields, mild Dian’s old faint horn
    Bloweth a sound forlorn.
    Then from their hives with palest flowers bedight,
    The yellow bees take flight--
    Whirling where old Silenus tries to sing
    Unto his hornèd King
   --Feeding upon gold-freckled strawberries--
    And sting the poor fat fool until he cries.




LULLABY


    Golden night-airs lull his eyes,
    Starlight come not where Love lies,
    Lest your faint light touch his wings
    Who swiftly comes and swiftly flies;
    Lovers, wake him not with sighs,
    But list where Philomela sings
    Lullaby.

    Dreams come tiptoe to his bed,
    Dim fantastic wings outspread
    To fan his pretty sleeping eyes.
    Upon my breast he laid his head
    (On lilies white heap roses red);
    Hushed in my maiden heart, Love lies
    A-sleeping.




WATER MUSIC


    From Florence and from Venice,
    Like silver swans at noon,
    That silken dim winds menace--
    Each barque a drownèd moon,
    I’ll bring you freights of amber,
    Perfumèd like the rose,
    To build your sleeping chamber,
    And song-birds for your close;
    Faint stars to go a-singing,
    Like fluttering nightingales
    From golden cages winging,
    When, Love, your tir’d wing fails.
    And as we come a-rowing,
    Great rainbows rise and swing
    Like haughty peacocks bowing
    In the gardens of the King.




THE WEB OF EROS


    Within your magic web of hair lies furled
    The fire and splendour of the ancient world;
    The dire gold of the comet’s wind-blown hair,
    The songs that turned to gold the evening air
    When all the stars of heaven sang for joy;
    The flames that burnt the cloud-high city Troy;
    The mænad fire of spring on the cold earth,
    The myrrh-lit flames that gave both life and birth
    To the soul-Phœnix, and the star-bright shower
    That came to Danæ in her brazen tower.
    Within your burning web of hair lies furled
    The fire and splendour of the ancient world.




DROWNED SUNS


    The swans more white than those forgotten fair
    Who ruled the kingdoms that of old-time were,
    Within the sunset water deeply gaze
    As though they sought some beautiful dim face,
    The youth of all the world; or pale lost gems,
    And crystal shimmering diadems,
    The moon for ever seeks in woodland streams
    To deck her cool faint beauty; thus in dreams,
    Belov’d, I seek lost suns within your eyes
    And find but wrecks of love’s gold argosies.




THE SPIDER


    The fat light clings upon my skin,
    Like grease that slowly forms a thin
    And foul white film; so close it lies,
    It feeds upon my lips and eyes.

    The black fly hits the window-pane
    That shuts its dirty body in;
    So once, his spirit fought to quit
    The body that imprisoned it.

    He always seemed so fond of me,
    Until one day he chanced to see
    My head, a little on one side,
    Loll softly as if I had died.

    Since then, he rarely looked my way,
    Though he could never know what lay
    Within my brain; though iron his will,
    I thought, he’s young and teachable.

    And often, as I took my drink,
    I chuckled in my heart to think
    Whose dark blood ran within his veins:
    You see, it spared me half my pains.

    The time was very long until
    I had the chance to work my will;
    Once seen, the way was clear as light,
    A father’s patience infinite.

    He always was so sensitive;
    But soon I taught him how to live
    With each day, just a patch of white,
    A blinded patch of black, each night.

    Each day he watched my gaiety.
    It’s very difficult to die
    When one is young.... I pitied him,
    The glass I filled up to the brim,

    His shaking fingers scarce could hold;
    His limbs were trembling as with cold....
    I waited till from night and day
    All meaning I had wiped away,

    And then I gave it him again;
    The wine made heaven in his brain.
    Then spider-like, the kindly wine
    Thrust tentacles through every vein,

    And knotted him so very fast
    I knew I had him safe at last.
    And sometimes in the dawn, I’d creep
    To watch him as he lay asleep,

    And each time, see my son’s face grown
    In some blurred line, more like my own.
    A crumpled rag, he lies all night
    Until the first white smear of light;

    And sleep is but an empty hole ...
    No place for him to hide his soul,
    No outlet there to set him free:
    He never can escape from me.

    Yet still I never know what thought,
    All fly-like, in his mind lies caught:
    His face seems some half-spoken word
    Forgot again as soon as heard,

    Beneath the livid skin of light;
    Oh, just an empty space of white,
    Now all the meaning’s gone. I’ll sit
    A little while, and stare at it.




THE DRUNKARD


    This black tower drinks the blinding light.
    Strange windows livid white,

    Tremble beneath the curse of God.
    Yet living weeds still nod

    To the huge sun, a devil’s eye
    That tracks the souls that die.

    The clock beats like the heart of Doom
    Within the narrow room;

    And whispering with some ghastly air
    The curtains float and stir.

    But still she never speaks a word;
    I think she hardly heard

    When I with reeling footsteps came
    And softly spoke her name.

    But yet she does not sleep. Her eyes
    Still watch in wide surprise

    The thirsty knife that pitied her;
    But those lids never stir,

    Though creeping Fear still gnaws like pain
    The hollow of her brain.

    She must have some sly plan, the cheat,
    To lie so still. The beat

    That once throbbed like a muffled drum
    With fear to hear me come,

    Now never sounds when I creep nigh.
    Oh! she was always sly.

    And if to spite her, I dared steal
    Behind her bed, and feel

    With fumbling fingers for her heart ...
    Ere I could touch the smart,

    Once more wild shriek on shriek would tear
    The dumb and shuddering air....

    And still she never speaks to me.
    She only smiles to see

    How in dark corners secret-sly
    New-born Eternity,

    All spider-like, doth spin and cast
    Strange threads to hold Time fast.




THE MOTHER


I

    Our dreams create the babes we bear;
    Our beauty goes to make them fair.
    We give them all we have of good,
    Our blood to drink, our hearts for food;

    And in our souls they lie and rest
    Until upon their mother’s breast,
    So innocent and sweet they lie.
    They live to curse us; then they die.

    When he was born, it seemed the spring
    Had come again with birds to sing
    And blossoms dancing in the sun
    Where streams released from winter run.

    His sunlit hair was all my gold,
    His loving eyes my wealth untold;
    All heaven was hid within my breast
    Whereon my child was laid to rest.

    He grew to manhood. Then one came
    False-hearted as Hell’s blackest shame,
    To steal my child from me, and thrust
    The soul I loved down to the dust.

    Her hungry, wicked lips were red
    As that dark blood my son’s hand shed.
    Her eyes were black as Hell’s own night,
    Her ice-cold breast was winter-white.

    I had put by a little gold
    To bury me when I was cold.
    Her fangèd, wanton kiss to buy
    My son’s love willed that I should die.

    The gold was hid beneath my bed;
    So little, and my weary head
    Was all the guard it had. They lie
    So quiet and still who soon must die.

    He stole to kill me while I slept--
    The little son, who never wept
    But that I kissed his tears away
    So fast, his weeping seemed but play.

    So light his footfall, yet I heard
    Its echo in my heart, and stirred
    From out my weary sleep to see
    My child’s face bending over me.

    The wicked knife flashed serpent-wise.--
    Yet I saw nothing but his eyes,
    And heard one little word he said
    Go echoing down among the Dead.


II

    They say the Dead may never dream.
    But yet I heard my pierced heart scream
    His name within the dark. They lie
    Who say the Dead can ever die.

    For in the grave I may not sleep
    For dreaming that I hear him weep.
    And in the dark, my dead hands grope
    In search of him. O barren hope!

    I cannot draw his head to rest
    Deep down upon my wounded breast ...
    He gave the breast that fed him well
    To suckle the small worms of Hell.

    The little wicked thoughts that fed
    Upon the weary helpless Dead ...
    They whispered o’er my broken heart,
    They stuck their fangs deep in the smart.

    “The child she bore with bloody sweat
    And agony has paid his debt.
    Through that bleak face the stark winds play;
    The crows have chased his soul away.

    “His body is a blackened rag
    Upon the tree--a monstrous flag.”
    Thus one worm to the other saith.
    Those slow mean servitors of Death,

    They chuckling said: “Your soul, grown blind
    With anguish, is the shrieking Wind
    That blows the flame that never dies
    About his empty, lidless eyes.”

    I tore them from my heart. I said:
    “The life-blood that my son’s hand shed,
    That from my broken heart outburst,
    I’d give again, to quench his thirst.

    “He did no sin. But cold blind earth
    The body was that gave him birth.
    All mine, all mine the sin; the love
    I bore him was not deep enough.”


_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._





End of Project Gutenberg's The wooden Pegasus, by Dame Edith Sitwell