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Title: The wooden Pegasus

Author: Edith Sitwell

Release date: July 5, 2020 [eBook #62560]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Charlene Taylor, Chuck Greif and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This

file was produced from images generously made available

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOODEN PEGASUS ***

THE WOODEN PEGASUS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

CLOWNS’ HOUSES

3s. net

“It affects me like devilled

almonds.”—Land and Water.

WHEELS

Annual Anthology of Verse

6s. 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

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.

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Table of Contents

THE WOODEN PEGASUS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

CONTENTS

SINGERIE

THE AVENUE

MANDOLINE

“COMEDY FOR MARIONETTES” (To I. C. P.)

FALSETTO SONG

EVENTAIL

FIFTEEN BUCOLIC POEMS

I WHAT THE GOOSEGIRL SAID ABOUT THE DEAN

II NOAH

III THE GIRL WITH THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS

IV THE LADY WITH THE SEWING MACHINE

V BY CANDLELIGHT

VI SERENADE

VII CLOWNS’ HOUSES

VIII THE SATYR IN THE PERIWIG

IX THE MUSLIN GOWN

X MISS NETTYBUN AND THE SATYR’S CHILD

XI QUEEN VENUS AND THE CHOIR-BOY (To Naomi Royde Smith)

XII THE APE SEES THE FAT WOMAN

XIII THE APE WATCHES “AUNT SALLY”

XIV SPRINGING JACK

XV “TOURNEZ, TOURNEZ, BONS CHEVAUX DE BOIS”

SEVEN NURSERY SONGS

I OLD LADY FLY-AWAY

II GREAT SNORING AND NORWICH

III FAT WILLIAM AND THE TRAINS

IV A PENNY FARE TO BABYLON

V THE BUTCHER’S SHOP

VI THE KING OF CHINA’S DAUGHTER

VII OLD KING PTOLEMY

PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER-SHOWS

I

PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER-SHOWS

II

SWITCHBACK

TRAMS

BANK HOLIDAY

I

BANK HOLIDAY

II

SMALL TALK I

SMALL TALK II

DANSONS LA GIGUE

MESSALINA AT MARGATE

PEDAGOGUES

SONG FROM “THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA”

THE CHOIR-BOY RIDES ON THE SWITCHBACK

APRICOT JAM

STOPPING PLACE

PORTRAIT OF A BARMAID

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

THAÏS IN HEAVEN

FOUR NOCTURNES

I PROCESSIONS

II GAIETY

III VACUUM

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

TREATS

I FUNERALS

II THE COUNTY CALLS

III SOLO FOR EAR-TRUMPET

ANTIC HAY

LULLABY

WATER MUSIC

THE WEB OF EROS

DROWNED SUNS

THE SPIDER

THE DRUNKARD

THE MOTHER

I

II

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE