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Title: Men, Women and Ghosts

Author: Amy Lowell

Posting Date: July 21, 2008 [EBook #841]
Release Date: March, 1997

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS ***




Produced by Alan Light





MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS

by Amy Lowell


by Amy Lowell [American (Massachusetts) poet and critic--1874-1925.]


[Note on text:  Lines longer than 78 characters are broken
and the continuation is indented two spaces.  Some obvious errors
have been corrected.]



 "'... See small portions of the Eternal World that ever groweth':...
 So sang a Fairy, mocking, as he sat on a streak'd tulip,
 Thinking none saw him:  when he ceas'd I started from the trees,
 And caught him in my hat, as boys knock down a butterfly."
                                William Blake.  "Europe.  A Prophecy."

           'Thou hast a lap full of seed,
           And this is a fine country.'
                                    William Blake.





Preface


This is a book of stories.  For that reason I have excluded all purely
lyrical poems.  But the word "stories" has been stretched to its fullest
application.  It includes both narrative poems, properly so called;
tales divided into scenes; and a few pieces of less obvious
story-telling import in which one might say that the dramatis personae
are air, clouds, trees, houses, streets, and such like things.

It has long been a favourite idea of mine that the rhythms of 'vers
libre' have not been sufficiently plumbed, that there is in them a power
of variation which has never yet been brought to the light of
experiment. I think it was the piano pieces of Debussy, with their
strange likeness to short vers libre poems, which first showed me the
close kinship of music and poetry, and there flashed into my mind the
idea of using the movement of poetry in somewhat the same way that the
musician uses the movement of music.

It was quite evident that this could never be done in the strict pattern
of a metrical form, but the flowing, fluctuating rhythm of vers libre
seemed to open the door to such an experiment.  First, however, I
considered the same method as applied to the more pronounced movements
of natural objects.  If the reader will turn to the poem, "A Roxbury
Garden", he will find in the first two sections an attempt to give the
circular movement of a hoop bowling along the ground, and the up and
down, elliptical curve of a flying shuttlecock.

From these experiments, it is but a step to the flowing rhythm of music.
In "The Cremona Violin", I have tried to give this flowing, changing
rhythm to the parts in which the violin is being played.  The effect is
farther heightened, because the rest of the poem is written in the seven
line Chaucerian stanza; and, by deserting this ordered pattern for the
undulating line of vers libre, I hoped to produce something of the
suave, continuous tone of a violin.  Again, in the violin parts
themselves, the movement constantly changes, as will be quite plain to
any one reading these passages aloud.

In "The Cremona Violin", however, the rhythms are fairly obvious and
regular. I set myself a far harder task in trying to transcribe the
various movements of Stravinsky's "Three Pieces 'Grotesques', for String
Quartet". Several musicians, who have seen the poem, think the movement
accurately given.

These experiments lead me to believe that there is here much food for
thought and matter for study, and I hope many poets will follow me in
opening up the still hardly explored possibilities of vers libre.

A good many of the poems in this book are written in "polyphonic prose".
A form about which I have written and spoken so much that it seems
hardly necessary to explain it here.  Let me hastily add, however, that
the word "prose" in its name refers only to the typographical
arrangement, for in no sense is this a prose form. Only read it aloud,
Gentle Reader, I beg, and you will see what you will see. For a purely
dramatic form, I know none better in the whole range of poetry. It
enables the poet to give his characters the vivid, real effect they have
in a play, while at the same time writing in the 'decor'.

One last innovation I have still to mention.  It will be found in
"Spring Day", and more fully enlarged upon in the series, "Towns in
Colour".  In these poems, I have endeavoured to give the colour, and
light, and shade, of certain places and hours, stressing the purely
pictorial effect, and with little or no reference to any other aspect of
the places described.  It is an enchanting thing to wander through a
city looking for its unrelated beauty, the beauty by which it captivates
the sensuous sense of seeing.

I have always loved aquariums, but for years I went to them and looked,
and looked, at those swirling, shooting, looping patterns of fish, which
always defied transcription to paper until I hit upon the "unrelated"
method.  The result is in "An Aquarium". I think the first thing which
turned me in this direction was John Gould Fletcher's "London
Excursion", in "Some Imagist Poets". I here record my thanks.

For the substance of the poems--why, the poems are here. No one
writing to-day can fail to be affected by the great war raging in Europe
at this time.  We are too near it to do more than touch upon it.  But,
obliquely, it is suggested in many of these poems, most notably those in
the section, "Bronze Tablets".  The Napoleonic Era is an epic subject,
and waits a great epic poet.  I have only been able to open a few
windows upon it here and there.  But the scene from the windows is
authentic, and the watcher has used eyes, and ears, and heart, in
watching.

                                            Amy Lowell
July 10, 1916.




Contents



     Figurines in Old Saxe

 Patterns
 Pickthorn Manor
 The Cremona Violin
 The Cross-Roads
 A Roxbury Garden
 1777


     Bronze Tablets

 The Fruit Shop
 Malmaison
 The Hammers
 Two Travellers in the Place Vendome


     War Pictures

 The Allies
 The Bombardment
 Lead Soldiers
 The Painter on Silk
 A Ballad of Footmen


     The Overgrown Pasture

 Reaping
 Off the Turnpike
 The Grocery
 Number 3 on the Docket


     Clocks Tick a Century

 Nightmare:  A Tale for an Autumn Evening
 The Paper Windmill
 The Red Lacquer Music-Stand
 Spring Day
 The Dinner-Party
 Stravinsky's Three Pieces "Grotesques", for String Quartet
 Towns in Colour
  Red Slippers
  Thompson's Lunch Room--Grand Central Station
  An Opera House
  Afternoon Rain in State Street
  An Aquarium





The two sea songs quoted in "The Hammers" are taken from
'Songs:  Naval and Nautical, of the late Charles Dibdin', London,
John Murray, 1841.  The "Hanging Johnny" refrain, in "The Cremona Violin",
is borrowed from the old, well-known chanty of that name.





MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS




FIGURINES IN OLD SAXE




Patterns



  I walk down the garden paths,
  And all the daffodils
  Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
  I walk down the patterned garden-paths
  In my stiff, brocaded gown.
  With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
  I too am a rare
  Pattern.  As I wander down
  The garden paths.

  My dress is richly figured,
  And the train
  Makes a pink and silver stain
  On the gravel, and the thrift
  Of the borders.
  Just a plate of current fashion,
  Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
  Not a softness anywhere about me,
  Only whalebone and brocade.
  And I sink on a seat in the shade
  Of a lime tree.  For my passion
  Wars against the stiff brocade.
  The daffodils and squills
  Flutter in the breeze
  As they please.
  And I weep;
  For the lime-tree is in blossom
  And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

  And the plashing of waterdrops
  In the marble fountain
  Comes down the garden-paths.
  The dripping never stops.
  Underneath my stiffened gown
  Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
  A basin in the midst of hedges grown
  So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
  But she guesses he is near,
  And the sliding of the water
  Seems the stroking of a dear
  Hand upon her.
  What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
  I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
  All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

  I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
  And he would stumble after,
  Bewildered by my laughter.
  I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles
    on his shoes.
  I would choose
  To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
  A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
  Till he caught me in the shade,
  And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
  Aching, melting, unafraid.
  With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
  And the plopping of the waterdrops,
  All about us in the open afternoon--
  I am very like to swoon
  With the weight of this brocade,
  For the sun sifts through the shade.

  Underneath the fallen blossom
  In my bosom,
  Is a letter I have hid.
  It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
  "Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
  Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
  As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
  The letters squirmed like snakes.
  "Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
  "No," I told him.
  "See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
  No, no answer."
  And I walked into the garden,
  Up and down the patterned paths,
  In my stiff, correct brocade.
  The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
  Each one.
  I stood upright too,
  Held rigid to the pattern
  By the stiffness of my gown.
  Up and down I walked,
  Up and down.

  In a month he would have been my husband.
  In a month, here, underneath this lime,
  We would have broke the pattern;
  He for me, and I for him,
  He as Colonel, I as Lady,
  On this shady seat.
  He had a whim
  That sunlight carried blessing.
  And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
  Now he is dead.

  In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
  Up and down
  The patterned garden-paths
  In my stiff, brocaded gown.
  The squills and daffodils
  Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
  I shall go
  Up and down,
  In my gown.
  Gorgeously arrayed,
  Boned and stayed.
  And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
  By each button, hook, and lace.
  For the man who should loose me is dead,
  Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
  In a pattern called a war.
  Christ!  What are patterns for?




Pickthorn Manor



      I

  How fresh the Dartle's little waves that day!
   A steely silver, underlined with blue,
  And flashing where the round clouds, blown away,
   Let drop the yellow sunshine to gleam through
  And tip the edges of the waves with shifts
   And spots of whitest fire, hard like gems
      Cut from the midnight moon they were, and sharp
   As wind through leafless stems.
  The Lady Eunice walked between the drifts
  Of blooming cherry-trees, and watched the rifts
      Of clouds drawn through the river's azure warp.


      II

  Her little feet tapped softly down the path.
   Her soul was listless; even the morning breeze
  Fluttering the trees and strewing a light swath
   Of fallen petals on the grass, could please
  Her not at all.  She brushed a hair aside
   With a swift move, and a half-angry frown.
      She stopped to pull a daffodil or two,
   And held them to her gown
  To test the colours; put them at her side,
  Then at her breast, then loosened them and tried
      Some new arrangement, but it would not do.


      III

  A lady in a Manor-house, alone,
   Whose husband is in Flanders with the Duke
  Of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, she's grown
   Too apathetic even to rebuke
  Her idleness.  What is she on this Earth?
   No woman surely, since she neither can
      Be wed nor single, must not let her mind
   Build thoughts upon a man
  Except for hers.  Indeed that were no dearth
  Were her Lord here, for well she knew his worth,
      And when she thought of him her eyes were kind.


      IV

  Too lately wed to have forgot the wooing.
   Too unaccustomed as a bride to feel
  Other than strange delight at her wife's doing.
   Even at the thought a gentle blush would steal
  Over her face, and then her lips would frame
   Some little word of loving, and her eyes
      Would brim and spill their tears, when all they saw
   Was the bright sun, slantwise
  Through burgeoning trees, and all the morning's flame
  Burning and quivering round her.  With quick shame
      She shut her heart and bent before the law.


      V

  He was a soldier, she was proud of that.
   This was his house and she would keep it well.
  His honour was in fighting, hers in what
   He'd left her here in charge of.  Then a spell
  Of conscience sent her through the orchard spying
   Upon the gardeners.  Were their tools about?
      Were any branches broken?  Had the weeds
   Been duly taken out
  Under the 'spaliered pears, and were these lying
  Nailed snug against the sunny bricks and drying
      Their leaves and satisfying all their needs?


      VI

  She picked a stone up with a little pout,
   Stones looked so ill in well-kept flower-borders.
  Where should she put it?  All the paths about
   Were strewn with fair, red gravel by her orders.
  No stone could mar their sifted smoothness.  So
   She hurried to the river.  At the edge
      She stood a moment charmed by the swift blue
   Beyond the river sedge.
  She watched it curdling, crinkling, and the snow
  Purfled upon its wave-tops.  Then, "Hullo,
      My Beauty, gently, or you'll wriggle through."


      VII

  The Lady Eunice caught a willow spray
   To save herself from tumbling in the shallows
  Which rippled to her feet.  Then straight away
   She peered down stream among the budding sallows.
  A youth in leather breeches and a shirt
   Of finest broidered lawn lay out upon
      An overhanging bole and deftly swayed
   A well-hooked fish which shone
  In the pale lemon sunshine like a spurt
  Of silver, bowed and damascened, and girt
      With crimson spots and moons which waned and played.


      VIII

  The fish hung circled for a moment, ringed
   And bright; then flung itself out, a thin blade
  Of spotted lightning, and its tail was winged
   With chipped and sparkled sunshine.  And the shade
  Broke up and splintered into shafts of light
   Wheeling about the fish, who churned the air
      And made the fish-line hum, and bent the rod
   Almost to snapping.  Care
  The young man took against the twigs, with slight,
  Deft movements he kept fish and line in tight
      Obedience to his will with every prod.


      IX

  He lay there, and the fish hung just beyond.
   He seemed uncertain what more he should do.
  He drew back, pulled the rod to correspond,
   Tossed it and caught it; every time he threw,
  He caught it nearer to the point.  At last
   The fish was near enough to touch.  He paused.
      Eunice knew well the craft--"What's got the thing!"
   She cried.  "What can have caused--
  Where is his net?  The moment will be past.
  The fish will wriggle free."  She stopped aghast.
      He turned and bowed.  One arm was in a sling.


      X

  The broad, black ribbon she had thought his basket
   Must hang from, held instead a useless arm.
  "I do not wonder, Madam, that you ask it."
   He smiled, for she had spoke aloud.  "The charm
  Of trout fishing is in my eyes enhanced
   When you must play your fish on land as well."
      "How will you take him?" Eunice asked.  "In truth
   I really cannot tell.
  'Twas stupid of me, but it simply chanced
  I never thought of that until he glanced
      Into the branches.  'Tis a bit uncouth."


      XI

  He watched the fish against the blowing sky,
   Writhing and glittering, pulling at the line.
  "The hook is fast, I might just let him die,"
   He mused.  "But that would jar against your fine
  Sense of true sportsmanship, I know it would,"
   Cried Eunice.  "Let me do it."  Swift and light
      She ran towards him.  "It is so long now
   Since I have felt a bite,
  I lost all heart for everything."  She stood,
  Supple and strong, beside him, and her blood
      Tingled her lissom body to a glow.


      XII

  She quickly seized the fish and with a stone
   Ended its flurry, then removed the hook,
  Untied the fly with well-poised fingers.  Done,
   She asked him where he kept his fishing-book.
  He pointed to a coat flung on the ground.
   She searched the pockets, found a shagreen case,
      Replaced the fly, noticed a golden stamp
   Filling the middle space.
  Two letters half rubbed out were there, and round
  About them gay rococo flowers wound
      And tossed a spray of roses to the clamp.


      XIII

  The Lady Eunice puzzled over these.
   "G. D." the young man gravely said.  "My name
  Is Gervase Deane.  Your servant, if you please."
   "Oh, Sir, indeed I know you, for your fame
  For exploits in the field has reached my ears.
   I did not know you wounded and returned."
      "But just come back, Madam.  A silly prick
   To gain me such unearned
  Holiday making.  And you, it appears,
  Must be Sir Everard's lady.  And my fears
      At being caught a-trespassing were quick."


      XIV

  He looked so rueful that she laughed out loud.
   "You are forgiven, Mr. Deane.  Even more,
  I offer you the fishing, and am proud
   That you should find it pleasant from this shore.
  Nobody fishes now, my husband used
   To angle daily, and I too with him.
      He loved the spotted trout, and pike, and dace.
   He even had a whim
  That flies my fingers tied swiftly confused
  The greater fish.  And he must be excused,
      Love weaves odd fancies in a lonely place."


      XV

  She sighed because it seemed so long ago,
   Those days with Everard; unthinking took
  The path back to the orchard.  Strolling so
   She walked, and he beside her.  In a nook
  Where a stone seat withdrew beneath low boughs,
   Full-blossomed, hummed with bees, they sat them down.
      She questioned him about the war, the share
   Her husband had, and grown
  Eager by his clear answers, straight allows
  Her hidden hopes and fears to speak, and rouse
      Her numbed love, which had slumbered unaware.


      XVI

  Under the orchard trees daffodils danced
   And jostled, turning sideways to the wind.
  A dropping cherry petal softly glanced
   Over her hair, and slid away behind.
  At the far end through twisted cherry-trees
   The old house glowed, geranium-hued, with bricks
      Bloomed in the sun like roses, low and long,
   Gabled, and with quaint tricks
  Of chimneys carved and fretted.  Out of these
  Grey smoke was shaken, which the faint Spring breeze
      Tossed into nothing.  Then a thrush's song


      XVII

  Needled its way through sound of bees and river.
   The notes fell, round and starred, between young leaves,
  Trilled to a spiral lilt, stopped on a quiver.
   The Lady Eunice listens and believes.
  Gervase has many tales of her dear Lord,
   His bravery, his knowledge, his charmed life.
      She quite forgets who's speaking in the gladness
   Of being this man's wife.
  Gervase is wounded, grave indeed, the word
  Is kindly said, but to a softer chord
      She strings her voice to ask with wistful sadness,


      XVIII

  "And is Sir Everard still unscathed?  I fain
   Would know the truth."  "Quite well, dear Lady, quite."
  She smiled in her content.  "So many slain,
   You must forgive me for a little fright."
  And he forgave her, not alone for that,
   But because she was fingering his heart,
      Pressing and squeezing it, and thinking so
   Only to ease her smart
  Of painful, apprehensive longing.  At
  Their feet the river swirled and chucked.  They sat
      An hour there.  The thrush flew to and fro.


      XIX

  The Lady Eunice supped alone that day,
   As always since Sir Everard had gone,
  In the oak-panelled parlour, whose array
   Of faded portraits in carved mouldings shone.
  Warriors and ladies, armoured, ruffed, peruked.
   Van Dykes with long, slim fingers; Holbeins, stout
      And heavy-featured; and one Rubens dame,
   A peony just burst out,
  With flaunting, crimson flesh.  Eunice rebuked
  Her thoughts of gentler blood, when these had duked
      It with the best, and scorned to change their name.


      XX

  A sturdy family, and old besides,
   Much older than her own, the Earls of Crowe.
  Since Saxon days, these men had sought their brides
   Among the highest born, but always so,
  Taking them to themselves, their wealth, their lands,
   But never their titles.  Stern perhaps, but strong,
      The Framptons fed their blood from richest streams,
   Scorning the common throng.
  Gazing upon these men, she understands
  The toughness of the web wrought from such strands
      And pride of Everard colours all her dreams.


      XXI

  Eunice forgets to eat, watching their faces
   Flickering in the wind-blown candle's shine.
  Blue-coated lackeys tiptoe to their places,
   And set out plates of fruit and jugs of wine.
  The table glitters black like Winter ice.
   The Dartle's rushing, and the gentle clash
      Of blossomed branches, drifts into her ears.
   And through the casement sash
  She sees each cherry stem a pointed slice
  Of splintered moonlight, topped with all the spice
      And shimmer of the blossoms it uprears.


      XXII

  "In such a night--" she laid the book aside,
   She could outnight the poet by thinking back.
  In such a night she came here as a bride.
   The date was graven in the almanack
  Of her clasped memory.  In this very room
   Had Everard uncloaked her.  On this seat
      Had drawn her to him, bade her note the trees,
   How white they were and sweet
  And later, coming to her, her dear groom,
  Her Lord, had lain beside her in the gloom
      Of moon and shade, and whispered her to ease.


      XXIII

  Her little taper made the room seem vast,
   Caverned and empty.  And her beating heart
  Rapped through the silence all about her cast
   Like some loud, dreadful death-watch taking part
  In this sad vigil.  Slowly she undrest,
   Put out the light and crept into her bed.
      The linen sheets were fragrant, but so cold.
   And brimming tears she shed,
  Sobbing and quivering in her barren nest,
  Her weeping lips into the pillow prest,
      Her eyes sealed fast within its smothering fold.


      XXIV

  The morning brought her a more stoic mind,
   And sunshine struck across the polished floor.
  She wondered whether this day she should find
   Gervase a-fishing, and so listen more,
  Much more again, to all he had to tell.
   And he was there, but waiting to begin
      Until she came.  They fished awhile, then went
   To the old seat within
  The cherry's shade.  He pleased her very well
  By his discourse.  But ever he must dwell
      Upon Sir Everard.  Each incident


      XXV

  Must be related and each term explained.
   How troops were set in battle, how a siege
  Was ordered and conducted.  She complained
   Because he bungled at the fall of Liege.
  The curious names of parts of forts she knew,
   And aired with conscious pride her ravelins,
      And counterscarps, and lunes.  The day drew on,
   And his dead fish's fins
  In the hot sunshine turned a mauve-green hue.
  At last Gervase, guessing the hour, withdrew.
      But she sat long in still oblivion.


      XXVI

  Then he would bring her books, and read to her
   The poems of Dr. Donne, and the blue river
  Would murmur through the reading, and a stir
   Of birds and bees make the white petals shiver,
  And one or two would flutter prone and lie
   Spotting the smooth-clipped grass.  The days went by
      Threaded with talk and verses.  Green leaves pushed
   Through blossoms stubbornly.
  Gervase, unconscious of dishonesty,
  Fell into strong and watchful loving, free
      He thought, since always would his lips be hushed.


      XXVII

  But lips do not stay silent at command,
   And Gervase strove in vain to order his.
  Luckily Eunice did not understand
   That he but read himself aloud, for this
  Their friendship would have snapped.  She treated him
   And spoilt him like a brother.  It was now
      "Gervase" and "Eunice" with them, and he dined
   Whenever she'd allow,
  In the oak parlour, underneath the dim
  Old pictured Framptons, opposite her slim
      Figure, so bright against the chair behind.


      XXVIII

  Eunice was happier than she had been
   For many days, and yet the hours were long.
  All Gervase told to her but made her lean
   More heavily upon the past.  Among
  Her hopes she lived, even when she was giving
   Her morning orders, even when she twined
      Nosegays to deck her parlours.  With the thought
   Of Everard, her mind
  Solaced its solitude, and in her striving
  To do as he would wish was all her living.
      She welcomed Gervase for the news he brought.


      XXIX

  Black-hearts and white-hearts, bubbled with the sun,
   Hid in their leaves and knocked against each other.
  Eunice was standing, panting with her run
   Up to the tool-house just to get another
  Basket.  All those which she had brought were filled,
   And still Gervase pelted her from above.
      The buckles of his shoes flashed higher and higher
   Until his shoulders strove
  Quite through the top.  "Eunice, your spirit's filled
  This tree.  White-hearts!"  He shook, and cherries spilled
      And spat out from the leaves like falling fire.


      XXX

  The wide, sun-winged June morning spread itself
   Over the quiet garden.  And they packed
  Full twenty baskets with the fruit.  "My shelf
   Of cordials will be stored with what it lacked.
  In future, none of us will drink strong ale,
   But cherry-brandy."  "Vastly good, I vow,"
      And Gervase gave the tree another shake.
   The cherries seemed to flow
  Out of the sky in cloudfuls, like blown hail.
  Swift Lady Eunice ran, her farthingale,
      Unnoticed, tangling in a fallen rake.


      XXXI

  She gave a little cry and fell quite prone
   In the long grass, and lay there very still.
  Gervase leapt from the tree at her soft moan,
   And kneeling over her, with clumsy skill
  Unloosed her bodice, fanned her with his hat,
   And his unguarded lips pronounced his heart.
      "Eunice, my Dearest Girl, where are you hurt?"
   His trembling fingers dart
  Over her limbs seeking some wound.  She strove
  To answer, opened wide her eyes, above
      Her knelt Sir Everard, with face alert.


      XXXII

  Her eyelids fell again at that sweet sight,
   "My Love!" she murmured, "Dearest!  Oh, my Dear!"
  He took her in his arms and bore her right
   And tenderly to the old seat, and "Here
  I have you mine at last," she said, and swooned
   Under his kisses.  When she came once more
      To sight of him, she smiled in comfort knowing
   Herself laid as before
  Close covered on his breast.  And all her glowing
  Youth answered him, and ever nearer growing
      She twined him in her arms and soft festooned


      XXXIII

  Herself about him like a flowering vine,
   Drawing his lips to cling upon her own.
  A ray of sunlight pierced the leaves to shine
   Where her half-opened bodice let be shown
  Her white throat fluttering to his soft caress,
   Half-gasping with her gladness.  And her pledge
      She whispers, melting with delight.  A twig
   Snaps in the hornbeam hedge.
  A cackling laugh tears through the quietness.
  Eunice starts up in terrible distress.
      "My God!  What's that?"  Her staring eyes are big.


      XXXIV

  Revulsed emotion set her body shaking
   As though she had an ague.  Gervase swore,
  Jumped to his feet in such a dreadful taking
   His face was ghastly with the look it wore.
  Crouching and slipping through the trees, a man
   In worn, blue livery, a humpbacked thing,
      Made off.  But turned every few steps to gaze
   At Eunice, and to fling
  Vile looks and gestures back.  "The ruffian!
  By Christ's Death!  I will split him to a span
      Of hog's thongs."  She grasped at his sleeve, "Gervase!


      XXXV

  What are you doing here?  Put down that sword,
   That's only poor old Tony, crazed and lame.
  We never notice him.  With my dear Lord
   I ought not to have minded that he came.
  But, Gervase, it surprises me that you
   Should so lack grace to stay here."  With one hand
      She held her gaping bodice to conceal
   Her breast.  "I must demand
  Your instant absence.  Everard, but new
  Returned, will hardly care for guests.  Adieu."
      "Eunice, you're mad."  His brain began to reel.


      XXXVI

  He tried again to take her, tried to twist
   Her arms about him.  Truly, she had said
  Nothing should ever part them.  In a mist
   She pushed him from her, clasped her aching head
  In both her hands, and rocked and sobbed aloud.
   "Oh!  Where is Everard?  What does this mean?
      So lately come to leave me thus alone!"
   But Gervase had not seen
  Sir Everard.  Then, gently, to her bowed
  And sickening spirit, he told of her proud
      Surrender to him.  He could hear her moan.


      XXXVII

  Then shame swept over her and held her numb,
   Hiding her anguished face against the seat.
  At last she rose, a woman stricken--dumb--
   And trailed away with slowly-dragging feet.
  Gervase looked after her, but feared to pass
   The barrier set between them.  All his rare
      Joy broke to fragments--worse than that, unreal.
   And standing lonely there,
  His swollen heart burst out, and on the grass
  He flung himself and wept.  He knew, alas!
      The loss so great his life could never heal.


      XXXVIII

  For days thereafter Eunice lived retired,
   Waited upon by one old serving-maid.
  She would not leave her chamber, and desired
   Only to hide herself.  She was afraid
  Of what her eyes might trick her into seeing,
   Of what her longing urge her then to do.
      What was this dreadful illness solitude
   Had tortured her into?
  Her hours went by in a long constant fleeing
  The thought of that one morning.  And her being
      Bruised itself on a happening so rude.


      XXXIX

  It grew ripe Summer, when one morning came
   Her tirewoman with a letter, printed
  Upon the seal were the Deane crest and name.
   With utmost gentleness, the letter hinted
  His understanding and his deep regret.
   But would she not permit him once again
      To pay her his profound respects?  No word
   Of what had passed should pain
  Her resolution.  Only let them get
  Back the old comradeship.  Her eyes were wet
      With starting tears, now truly she deplored


      XL

  His misery.  Yes, she was wrong to keep
   Away from him.  He hardly was to blame.
  'Twas she--she shuddered and began to weep.
   'Twas her fault!  Hers!  Her everlasting shame
  Was that she suffered him, whom not at all
   She loved.  Poor Boy!  Yes, they must still be friends.
      She owed him that to keep the balance straight.
   It was such poor amends
  Which she could make for rousing hopes to gall
  Him with their unfulfilment.  Tragical
      It was, and she must leave him desolate.


      XLI

  Hard silence he had forced upon his lips
   For long and long, and would have done so still
  Had not she--here she pressed her finger tips
   Against her heavy eyes.  Then with forced will
  She wrote that he might come, sealed with the arms
   Of Crowe and Frampton twined.  Her heart felt lighter
      When this was done.  It seemed her constant care
   Might some day cease to fright her.
  Illness could be no crime, and dreadful harms
  Did come from too much sunshine.  Her alarms
      Would lessen when she saw him standing there,


      XLII

  Simple and kind, a brother just returned
   From journeying, and he would treat her so.
  She knew his honest heart, and if there burned
   A spark in it he would not let it show.
  But when he really came, and stood beside
   Her underneath the fruitless cherry boughs,
      He seemed a tired man, gaunt, leaden-eyed.
   He made her no more vows,
  Nor did he mention one thing he had tried
  To put into his letter.  War supplied
      Him topics.  And his mind seemed occupied.


      XLIII

  Daily they met.  And gravely walked and talked.
   He read her no more verses, and he stayed
  Only until their conversation, balked
   Of every natural channel, fled dismayed.
  Again the next day she would meet him, trying
   To give her tone some healthy sprightliness,
      But his uneager dignity soon chilled
   Her well-prepared address.
  Thus Summer waned, and in the mornings, crying
  Of wild geese startled Eunice, and their flying
      Whirred overhead for days and never stilled.


      XLIV

  One afternoon of grey clouds and white wind,
   Eunice awaited Gervase by the river.
  The Dartle splashed among the reeds and whined
   Over the willow-roots, and a long sliver
  Of caked and slobbered foam crept up the bank.
   All through the garden, drifts of skirling leaves
      Blew up, and settled down, and blew again.
   The cherry-trees were weaves
  Of empty, knotted branches, and a dank
  Mist hid the house, mouldy it smelt and rank
      With sodden wood, and still unfalling rain.


      XLV

  Eunice paced up and down.  No joy she took
   At meeting Gervase, but the custom grown
  Still held her.  He was late.  She sudden shook,
   And caught at her stopped heart.  Her eyes had shown
  Sir Everard emerging from the mist.
   His uniform was travel-stained and torn,
      His jackboots muddy, and his eager stride
   Jangled his spurs.  A thorn
  Entangled, trailed behind him.  To the tryst
  He hastened.  Eunice shuddered, ran--a twist
      Round a sharp turning and she fled to hide.


      XLVI

  But he had seen her as she swiftly ran,
   A flash of white against the river's grey.
  "Eunice," he called.  "My Darling.  Eunice.  Can
   You hear me?  It is Everard.  All day
  I have been riding like the very devil
   To reach you sooner.  Are you startled, Dear?"
      He broke into a run and followed her,
   And caught her, faint with fear,
  Cowering and trembling as though she some evil
  Spirit were seeing.  "What means this uncivil
      Greeting, Dear Heart?"  He saw her senses blur.


      XLVII

  Swaying and catching at the seat, she tried
   To speak, but only gurgled in her throat.
  At last, straining to hold herself, she cried
   To him for pity, and her strange words smote
  A coldness through him, for she begged Gervase
   To leave her, 'twas too much a second time.
      Gervase must go, always Gervase, her mind
   Repeated like a rhyme
  This name he did not know.  In sad amaze
  He watched her, and that hunted, fearful gaze,
      So unremembering and so unkind.


      XLVIII

  Softly he spoke to her, patiently dealt
   With what he feared her madness.  By and by
  He pierced her understanding.  Then he knelt
   Upon the seat, and took her hands:  "Now try
  To think a minute I am come, my Dear,
   Unharmed and back on furlough.  Are you glad
      To have your lover home again?  To me,
   Pickthorn has never had
  A greater pleasantness.  Could you not bear
  To come and sit awhile beside me here?
      A stone between us surely should not be."


      XLIX

  She smiled a little wan and ravelled smile,
   Then came to him and on his shoulder laid
  Her head, and they two rested there awhile,
   Each taking comfort.  Not a word was said.
  But when he put his hand upon her breast
   And felt her beating heart, and with his lips
      Sought solace for her and himself.  She started
   As one sharp lashed with whips,
  And pushed him from her, moaning, his dumb quest
  Denied and shuddered from.  And he, distrest,
      Loosened his wife, and long they sat there, parted.


      L

  Eunice was very quiet all that day,
   A little dazed, and yet she seemed content.
  At candle-time, he asked if she would play
   Upon her harpsichord, at once she went
  And tinkled airs from Lully's 'Carnival'
   And 'Bacchus', newly brought away from France.
      Then jaunted through a lively rigadoon
   To please him with a dance
  By Purcell, for he said that surely all
  Good Englishmen had pride in national
      Accomplishment.  But tiring of it soon


      LI

  He whispered her that if she had forgiven
   His startling her that afternoon, the clock
  Marked early bed-time.  Surely it was Heaven
   He entered when she opened to his knock.
  The hours rustled in the trailing wind
   Over the chimney.  Close they lay and knew
      Only that they were wedded.  At his touch
   Anxiety she threw
  Away like a shed garment, and inclined
  Herself to cherish him, her happy mind
      Quivering, unthinking, loving overmuch.


      LII

  Eunice lay long awake in the cool night
   After her husband slept.  She gazed with joy
  Into the shadows, painting them with bright
   Pictures of all her future life's employ.
  Twin gems they were, set to a single jewel,
   Each shining with the other.  Soft she turned
      And felt his breath upon her hair, and prayed
   Her happiness was earned.
  Past Earls of Crowe should give their blood for fuel
  To light this Frampton's hearth-fire.  By no cruel
      Affrightings would she ever be dismayed.


      LIII

  When Everard, next day, asked her in joke
   What name it was that she had called him by,
  She told him of Gervase, and as she spoke
   She hardly realized it was a lie.
  Her vision she related, but she hid
   The fondness into which she had been led.
      Sir Everard just laughed and pinched her ear,
   And quite out of her head
  The matter drifted.  Then Sir Everard chid
  Himself for laziness, and off he rid
      To see his men and count his farming-gear.


      LIV

  At supper he seemed overspread with gloom,
   But gave no reason why, he only asked
  More questions of Gervase, and round the room
   He walked with restless strides.  At last he tasked
  Her with a greater feeling for this man
   Than she had given.  Eunice quick denied
      The slightest interest other than a friend
   Might claim.  But he replied
  He thought she underrated.  Then a ban
  He put on talk and music.  He'd a plan
      To work at, draining swamps at Pickthorn End.


      LV

  Next morning Eunice found her Lord still changed,
   Hard and unkind, with bursts of anger.  Pride
  Kept him from speaking out.  His probings ranged
   All round his torment.  Lady Eunice tried
  To sooth him.  So a week went by, and then
   His anguish flooded over; with clenched hands
      Striving to stem his words, he told her plain
   Tony had seen them, "brands
  Burning in Hell," the man had said.  Again
  Eunice described her vision, and how when
      Awoke at last she had known dreadful pain.


      LVI

  He could not credit it, and misery fed
   Upon his spirit, day by day it grew.
  To Gervase he forbade the house, and led
   The Lady Eunice such a life she flew
  At his approaching footsteps.  Winter came
   Snowing and blustering through the Manor trees.
      All the roof-edges spiked with icicles
   In fluted companies.
  The Lady Eunice with her tambour-frame
  Kept herself sighing company.  The flame
      Of the birch fire glittered on the walls.


      LVII

  A letter was brought to her as she sat,
   Unsealed, unsigned.  It told her that his wound,
  The writer's, had so well recovered that
   To join his regiment he felt him bound.
  But would she not wish him one short "Godspeed",
   He asked no more.  Her greeting would suffice.
      He had resolved he never should return.
   Would she this sacrifice
  Make for a dying man?  How could she read
  The rest!  But forcing her eyes to the deed,
      She read.  Then dropped it in the fire to burn.


      LVIII

  Gervase had set the river for their meeting
   As farthest from the farms where Everard
  Spent all his days.  How should he know such cheating
   Was quite expected, at least no dullard
  Was Everard Frampton.  Hours by hours he hid
   Among the willows watching.  Dusk had come,
      And from the Manor he had long been gone.
   Eunice her burdensome
  Task set about.  Hooded and cloaked, she slid
  Over the slippery paths, and soon amid
      The sallows saw a boat tied to a stone.


      LIX

  Gervase arose, and kissed her hand, then pointed
   Into the boat.  She shook her head, but he
  Begged her to realize why, and with disjointed
   Words told her of what peril there might be
  From listeners along the river bank.
   A push would take them out of earshot.  Ten
      Minutes was all he asked, then she should land,
   He go away again,
  Forever this time.  Yet how could he thank
  Her for so much compassion.  Here she sank
      Upon a thwart, and bid him quick unstrand


      LX

  His boat.  He cast the rope, and shoved the keel
   Free of the gravel; jumped, and dropped beside
  Her; took the oars, and they began to steal
   Under the overhanging trees.  A wide
  Gash of red lantern-light cleft like a blade
   Into the gloom, and struck on Eunice sitting
      Rigid and stark upon the after thwart.
   It blazed upon their flitting
  In merciless light.  A moment so it stayed,
  Then was extinguished, and Sir Everard made
      One leap, and landed just a fraction short.


      LXI

  His weight upon the gunwale tipped the boat
   To straining balance.  Everard lurched and seized
  His wife and held her smothered to his coat.
   "Everard, loose me, we shall drown--" and squeezed
  Against him, she beat with her hands.  He gasped
   "Never, by God!"  The slidden boat gave way
      And the black foamy water split--and met.
   Bubbled up through the spray
  A wailing rose and in the branches rasped,
  And creaked, and stilled.  Over the treetops, clasped
      In the blue evening, a clear moon was set.


      LXII

  They lie entangled in the twisting roots,
   Embraced forever.  Their cold marriage bed
  Close-canopied and curtained by the shoots
   Of willows and pale birches.  At the head,
  White lilies, like still swans, placidly float
   And sway above the pebbles.  Here are waves
      Sun-smitten for a threaded counterpane
   Gold-woven on their graves.
  In perfect quietness they sleep, remote
  In the green, rippled twilight.  Death has smote
      Them to perpetual oneness who were twain.




The Cremona Violin



      Part First

  Frau Concert-Meister Altgelt shut the door.
  A storm was rising, heavy gusts of wind
  Swirled through the trees, and scattered leaves before
  Her on the clean, flagged path.  The sky behind
  The distant town was black, and sharp defined
  Against it shone the lines of roofs and towers,
  Superimposed and flat like cardboard flowers.

  A pasted city on a purple ground,
  Picked out with luminous paint, it seemed.  The cloud
  Split on an edge of lightning, and a sound
  Of rivers full and rushing boomed through bowed,
  Tossed, hissing branches.  Thunder rumbled loud
  Beyond the town fast swallowing into gloom.
  Frau Altgelt closed the windows of each room.

  She bustled round to shake by constant moving
  The strange, weird atmosphere.  She stirred the fire,
  She twitched the supper-cloth as though improving
  Its careful setting, then her own attire
  Came in for notice, tiptoeing higher and higher
  She peered into the wall-glass, now adjusting
  A straying lock, or else a ribbon thrusting

  This way or that to suit her.  At last sitting,
  Or rather plumping down upon a chair,
  She took her work, the stocking she was knitting,
  And watched the rain upon the window glare
  In white, bright drops.  Through the black glass a flare
  Of lightning squirmed about her needles.  "Oh!"
  She cried.  "What can be keeping Theodore so!"

  A roll of thunder set the casements clapping.
  Frau Altgelt flung her work aside and ran,
  Pulled open the house door, with kerchief flapping
  She stood and gazed along the street.  A man
  Flung back the garden-gate and nearly ran
  Her down as she stood in the door.  "Why, Dear,
  What in the name of patience brings you here?

  Quick, Lotta, shut the door, my violin
  I fear is wetted.  Now, Dear, bring a light.
  This clasp is very much too worn and thin.
  I'll take the other fiddle out to-night
  If it still rains.  Tut! Tut! my child, you're quite
  Clumsy.  Here, help me, hold the case while I--
  Give me the candle.  No, the inside's dry.

  Thank God for that!  Well, Lotta, how are you?
  A bad storm, but the house still stands, I see.
  Is my pipe filled, my Dear?  I'll have a few
  Puffs and a snooze before I eat my tea.
  What do you say?  That you were feared for me?
  Nonsense, my child.  Yes, kiss me, now don't talk.
  I need a rest, the theatre's a long walk."

  Her needles still, her hands upon her lap
  Patiently laid, Charlotta Altgelt sat
  And watched the rain-run window.  In his nap
  Her husband stirred and muttered.  Seeing that,
  Charlotta rose and softly, pit-a-pat,
  Climbed up the stairs, and in her little room
  Found sighing comfort with a moon in bloom.

  But even rainy windows, silver-lit
  By a new-burst, storm-whetted moon, may give
  But poor content to loneliness, and it
  Was hard for young Charlotta so to strive
  And down her eagerness and learn to live
  In placid quiet.  While her husband slept,
  Charlotta in her upper chamber wept.

  Herr Concert-Meister Altgelt was a man
  Gentle and unambitious, that alone
  Had kept him back.  He played as few men can,
  Drawing out of his instrument a tone
  So shimmering-sweet and palpitant, it shone
  Like a bright thread of sound hung in the air,
  Afloat and swinging upward, slim and fair.

  Above all things, above Charlotta his wife,
  Herr Altgelt loved his violin, a fine
  Cremona pattern, Stradivari's life
  Was flowering out of early discipline
  When this was fashioned.  Of soft-cutting pine
  The belly was.  The back of broadly curled
  Maple, the head made thick and sharply whirled.

     The slanting, youthful sound-holes through
     The belly of fine, vigorous pine
     Mellowed each note and blew
     It out again with a woody flavour
     Tanged and fragrant as fir-trees are
     When breezes in their needles jar.

     The varnish was an orange-brown
     Lustered like glass that's long laid down
     Under a crumbling villa stone.
     Purfled stoutly, with mitres which point
     Straight up the corners.  Each curve and joint
     Clear, and bold, and thin.
     Such was Herr Theodore's violin.

  Seven o'clock, the Concert-Meister gone
  With his best violin, the rain being stopped,
  Frau Lotta in the kitchen sat alone
  Watching the embers which the fire dropped.
  The china shone upon the dresser, topped
  By polished copper vessels which her skill
  Kept brightly burnished.  It was very still.

  An air from 'Orfeo' hummed in her head.
  Herr Altgelt had been practising before
  The night's performance.  Charlotta had plead
  With him to stay with her.  Even at the door
  She'd begged him not to go.  "I do implore
  You for this evening, Theodore," she had said.
  "Leave them to-night, and stay with me instead."

  "A silly poppet!"  Theodore pinched her ear.
  "You'd like to have our good Elector turn
  Me out I think."  "But, Theodore, something queer
  Ails me.  Oh, do but notice how they burn,
  My cheeks!  The thunder worried me.  You're stern,
  And cold, and only love your work, I know.
  But Theodore, for this evening, do not go."

  But he had gone, hurriedly at the end,
  For she had kept him talking.  Now she sat
  Alone again, always alone, the trend
  Of all her thinking brought her back to that
  She wished to banish.  What would life be?  What?
  For she was young, and loved, while he was moved
  Only by music.  Each day that was proved.

  Each day he rose and practised.  While he played,
  She stopped her work and listened, and her heart
  Swelled painfully beneath her bodice.  Swayed
  And longing, she would hide from him her smart.
  "Well, Lottchen, will that do?"  Then what a start
  She gave, and she would run to him and cry,
  And he would gently chide her, "Fie, Dear, fie.

  I'm glad I played it well.  But such a taking!
  You'll hear the thing enough before I've done."
  And she would draw away from him, still shaking.
  Had he but guessed she was another one,
  Another violin.  Her strings were aching,
  Stretched to the touch of his bow hand, again
  He played and she almost broke at the strain.

  Where was the use of thinking of it now,
  Sitting alone and listening to the clock!
  She'd best make haste and knit another row.
  Three hours at least must pass before his knock
  Would startle her.  It always was a shock.
  She listened--listened--for so long before,
  That when it came her hearing almost tore.

  She caught herself just starting in to listen.
  What nerves she had:  rattling like brittle sticks!
  She wandered to the window, for the glisten
  Of a bright moon was tempting.  Snuffed the wicks
  Of her two candles.  Still she could not fix
  To anything.  The moon in a broad swath
  Beckoned her out and down the garden-path.

  Against the house, her hollyhocks stood high
  And black, their shadows doubling them.  The night
  Was white and still with moonlight, and a sigh
  Of blowing leaves was there, and the dim flight
  Of insects, and the smell of aconite,
  And stocks, and Marvel of Peru.  She flitted
  Along the path, where blocks of shadow pitted

  The even flags.  She let herself go dreaming
  Of Theodore her husband, and the tune
  From 'Orfeo' swam through her mind, but seeming
  Changed--shriller.  Of a sudden, the clear moon
  Showed her a passer-by, inopportune
  Indeed, but here he was, whistling and striding.
  Lotta squeezed in between the currants, hiding.

  "The best laid plans of mice and men," alas!
  The stranger came indeed, but did not pass.
  Instead, he leant upon the garden-gate,
  Folding his arms and whistling.  Lotta's state,
  Crouched in the prickly currants, on wet grass,
  Was far from pleasant.  Still the stranger stayed,
  And Lotta in her currants watched, dismayed.

  He seemed a proper fellow standing there
  In the bright moonshine.  His cocked hat was laced
  With silver, and he wore his own brown hair
  Tied, but unpowdered.  His whole bearing graced
  A fine cloth coat, and ruffled shirt, and chased
  Sword-hilt.  Charlotta looked, but her position
  Was hardly easy.  When would his volition

  Suggest his walking on?  And then that tune!
  A half-a-dozen bars from 'Orfeo'
  Gone over and over, and murdered.  What Fortune
  Had brought him there to stare about him so?
  "Ach, Gott im Himmel!  Why will he not go!"
  Thought Lotta, but the young man whistled on,
  And seemed in no great hurry to be gone.

  Charlotta, crouched among the currant bushes,
  Watched the moon slowly dip from twig to twig.
  If Theodore should chance to come, and blushes
  Streamed over her.  He would not care a fig,
  He'd only laugh.  She pushed aside a sprig
  Of sharp-edged leaves and peered, then she uprose
  Amid her bushes.  "Sir," said she, "pray whose

  Garden do you suppose you're watching?  Why
  Do you stand there?  I really must insist
  Upon your leaving.  'Tis unmannerly
  To stay so long."  The young man gave a twist
  And turned about, and in the amethyst
  Moonlight he saw her like a nymph half-risen
  From the green bushes which had been her prison.

  He swept his hat off in a hurried bow.
  "Your pardon, Madam, I had no idea
  I was not quite alone, and that is how
  I came to stay.  My trespass was not sheer
  Impertinence.  I thought no one was here,
  And really gardens cry to be admired.
  To-night especially it seemed required.

  And may I beg to introduce myself?
  Heinrich Marohl of Munich.  And your name?"
  Charlotta told him.  And the artful elf
  Promptly exclaimed about her husband's fame.
  So Lotta, half-unwilling, slowly came
  To conversation with him.  When she went
  Into the house, she found the evening spent.

  Theodore arrived quite wearied out and teased,
  With all excitement in him burned away.
  It had gone well, he said, the audience pleased,
  And he had played his very best to-day,
  But afterwards he had been forced to stay
  And practise with the stupid ones.  His head
  Ached furiously, and he must get to bed.


      Part Second

     Herr Concert-Meister Altgelt played,
     And the four strings of his violin
     Were spinning like bees on a day in Spring.
     The notes rose into the wide sun-mote
     Which slanted through the window,
     They lay like coloured beads a-row,
     They knocked together and parted,
     And started to dance,
     Skipping, tripping, each one slipping
     Under and over the others so
     That the polychrome fire streamed like a lance
     Or a comet's tail,
     Behind them.
     Then a wail arose--crescendo--
     And dropped from off the end of the bow,
     And the dancing stopped.
     A scent of lilies filled the room,
     Long and slow.  Each large white bloom
     Breathed a sound which was holy perfume from a blessed censer,
     And the hum of an organ tone,
     And they waved like fans in a hall of stone
     Over a bier standing there in the centre, alone.
     Each lily bent slowly as it was blown.
     Like smoke they rose from the violin--
     Then faded as a swifter bowing
     Jumbled the notes like wavelets flowing
     In a splashing, pashing, rippling motion
     Between broad meadows to an ocean
     Wide as a day and blue as a flower,
     Where every hour
     Gulls dipped, and scattered, and squawked, and squealed,
     And over the marshes the Angelus pealed,
     And the prows of the fishing-boats were spattered
     With spray.
     And away a couple of frigates were starting
     To race to Java with all sails set,
     Topgallants, and royals, and stunsails, and jibs,
     And wide moonsails; and the shining rails
     Were polished so bright they sparked in the sun.
     All the sails went up with a run:
         "They call me Hanging Johnny,
            Away-i-oh;
         They call me Hanging Johnny,
            So hang, boys, hang."
     And the sun had set and the high moon whitened,
     And the ship heeled over to the breeze.
     He drew her into the shade of the sails,
     And whispered tales
     Of voyages in the China seas,
     And his arm around her
     Held and bound her.
     She almost swooned,
     With the breeze and the moon
     And the slipping sea,
     And he beside her,
     Touching her, leaning--
     The ship careening,
     With the white moon steadily shining over
     Her and her lover,
     Theodore, still her lover!

     Then a quiver fell on the crowded notes,
     And slowly floated
     A single note which spread and spread
     Till it filled the room with a shimmer like gold,
     And noises shivered throughout its length,
     And tried its strength.
     They pulled it, and tore it,
     And the stuff waned thinner, but still it bore it.
     Then a wide rent
     Split the arching tent,
     And balls of fire spurted through,
     Spitting yellow, and mauve, and blue.
     One by one they were quenched as they fell,
     Only the blue burned steadily.
     Paler and paler it grew, and--faded--away.
           Herr Altgelt stopped.

  "Well, Lottachen, my Dear, what do you say?
  I think I'm in good trim.  Now let's have dinner.
  What's this, my Love, you're very sweet to-day.
  I wonder how it happens I'm the winner
  Of so much sweetness.  But I think you're thinner;
  You're like a bag of feathers on my knee.
  Why, Lotta child, you're almost strangling me.

  I'm glad you're going out this afternoon.
  The days are getting short, and I'm so tied
  At the Court Theatre my poor little bride
  Has not much junketing I fear, but soon
  I'll ask our manager to grant a boon.
  To-night, perhaps, I'll get a pass for you,
  And when I go, why Lotta can come too.

  Now dinner, Love.  I want some onion soup
  To whip me up till that rehearsal's over.
  You know it's odd how some women can stoop!
  Fraeulein Gebnitz has taken on a lover,
  A Jew named Goldstein.  No one can discover
  If it's his money.  But she lives alone
  Practically.  Gebnitz is a stone,

  Pores over books all day, and has no ear
  For his wife's singing.  Artists must have men;
  They need appreciation.  But it's queer
  What messes people make of their lives, when
  They should know more.  If Gebnitz finds out, then
  His wife will pack.  Yes, shut the door at once.
  I did not feel it cold, I am a dunce."

  Frau Altgelt tied her bonnet on and went
  Into the streets.  A bright, crisp Autumn wind
  Flirted her skirts and hair.  A turbulent,
  Audacious wind it was, now close behind,
  Pushing her bonnet forward till it twined
  The strings across her face, then from in front
  Slantingly swinging at her with a shunt,

  Until she lay against it, struggling, pushing,
  Dismayed to find her clothing tightly bound
  Around her, every fold and wrinkle crushing
  Itself upon her, so that she was wound
  In draperies as clinging as those found
  Sucking about a sea nymph on the frieze
  Of some old Grecian temple.  In the breeze

  The shops and houses had a quality
  Of hard and dazzling colour; something sharp
  And buoyant, like white, puffing sails at sea.
  The city streets were twanging like a harp.
  Charlotta caught the movement, skippingly
  She blew along the pavement, hardly knowing
  Toward what destination she was going.

  She fetched up opposite a jeweller's shop,
  Where filigreed tiaras shone like crowns,
  And necklaces of emeralds seemed to drop
  And then float up again with lightness.  Browns
  Of striped agates struck her like cold frowns
  Amid the gaiety of topaz seals,
  Carved though they were with heads, and arms, and wheels.

  A row of pencils knobbed with quartz or sard
  Delighted her.  And rings of every size
  Turned smartly round like hoops before her eyes,
  Amethyst-flamed or ruby-girdled, jarred
  To spokes and flashing triangles, and starred
  Like rockets bursting on a festal day.
  Charlotta could not tear herself away.

  With eyes glued tightly on a golden box,
  Whose rare enamel piqued her with its hue,
  Changeable, iridescent, shuttlecocks
  Of shades and lustres always darting through
  Its level, superimposing sheet of blue,
  Charlotta did not hear footsteps approaching.
  She started at the words:  "Am I encroaching?"

  "Oh, Heinrich, how you frightened me!  I thought
  We were to meet at three, is it quite that?"
  "No, it is not," he answered, "but I've caught
  The trick of missing you.  One thing is flat,
  I cannot go on this way.  Life is what
  Might best be conjured up by the word:  'Hell'.
  Dearest, when will you come?"  Lotta, to quell

  His effervescence, pointed to the gems
  Within the window, asked him to admire
  A bracelet or a buckle.  But one stems
  Uneasily the burning of a fire.
  Heinrich was chafing, pricked by his desire.
  Little by little she wooed him to her mood
  Until at last he promised to be good.

  But here he started on another tack;
  To buy a jewel, which one would Lotta choose.
  She vainly urged against him all her lack
  Of other trinkets.  Should she dare to use
  A ring or brooch her husband might accuse
  Her of extravagance, and ask to see
  A strict accounting, or still worse might be.

  But Heinrich would not be persuaded.  Why
  Should he not give her what he liked?  And in
  He went, determined certainly to buy
  A thing so beautiful that it would win
  Her wavering fancy.  Altgelt's violin
  He would outscore by such a handsome jewel
  That Lotta could no longer be so cruel!

  Pity Charlotta, torn in diverse ways.
  If she went in with him, the shopman might
  Recognize her, give her her name; in days
  To come he could denounce her.  In her fright
  She almost fled.  But Heinrich would be quite
  Capable of pursuing.  By and by
  She pushed the door and entered hurriedly.

  It took some pains to keep him from bestowing
  A pair of ruby earrings, carved like roses,
  The setting twined to represent the growing
  Tendrils and leaves, upon her.  "Who supposes
  I could obtain such things!  It simply closes
  All comfort for me."  So he changed his mind
  And bought as slight a gift as he could find.

  A locket, frosted over with seed pearls,
  Oblong and slim, for wearing at the neck,
  Or hidden in the bosom; their joined curls
  Should lie in it.  And further to bedeck
  His love, Heinrich had picked a whiff, a fleck,
  The merest puff of a thin, linked chain
  To hang it from.  Lotta could not refrain

  From weeping as they sauntered down the street.
  She did not want the locket, yet she did.
  To have him love her she found very sweet,
  But it is hard to keep love always hid.
  Then there was something in her heart which chid
  Her, told her she loved Theodore in him,
  That all these meetings were a foolish whim.

  She thought of Theodore and the life they led,
  So near together, but so little mingled.
  The great clouds bulged and bellied overhead,
  And the fresh wind about her body tingled;
  The crane of a large warehouse creaked and jingled;
  Charlotta held her breath for very fear,
  About her in the street she seemed to hear:
      "They call me Hanging Johnny,
         Away-i-oh;
      They call me Hanging Johnny,
         So hang, boys, hang."

  And it was Theodore, under the racing skies,
  Who held her and who whispered in her ear.
  She knew her heart was telling her no lies,
  Beating and hammering.  He was so dear,
  The touch of him would send her in a queer
  Swoon that was half an ecstasy.  And yearning
  For Theodore, she wandered, slowly turning

  Street after street as Heinrich wished it so.
  He had some aim, she had forgotten what.
  Their progress was confused and very slow,
  But at the last they reached a lonely spot,
  A garden far above the highest shot
  Of soaring steeple.  At their feet, the town
  Spread open like a chequer-board laid down.

  Lotta was dimly conscious of the rest,
  Vaguely remembered how he clasped the chain
  About her neck.  She treated it in jest,
  And saw his face cloud over with sharp pain.
  Then suddenly she felt as though a strain
  Were put upon her, collared like a slave,
  Leashed in the meshes of this thing he gave.

  She seized the flimsy rings with both her hands
  To snap it, but they held with odd persistence.
  Her eyes were blinded by two wind-blown strands
  Of hair which had been loosened.  Her resistance
  Melted within her, from remotest distance,
  Misty, unreal, his face grew warm and near,
  And giving way she knew him very dear.

  For long he held her, and they both gazed down
  At the wide city, and its blue, bridged river.
  From wooing he jested with her, snipped the blown
  Strands of her hair, and tied them with a sliver
  Cut from his own head.  But she gave a shiver
  When, opening the locket, they were placed
  Under the glass, commingled and enlaced.

  "When will you have it so with us?"  He sighed.
  She shook her head.  He pressed her further.  "No,
  No, Heinrich, Theodore loves me," and she tried
  To free herself and rise.  He held her so,
  Clipped by his arms, she could not move nor go.
  "But you love me," he whispered, with his face
  Burning against her through her kerchief's lace.

  Frau Altgelt knew she toyed with fire, knew
  That what her husband lit this other man
  Fanned to hot flame.  She told herself that few
  Women were so discreet as she, who ran
  No danger since she knew what things to ban.
  She opened her house door at five o'clock,
  A short half-hour before her husband's knock.


      Part Third

  The 'Residenz-Theater' sparked and hummed
  With lights and people.  Gebnitz was to sing,
  That rare soprano.  All the fiddles strummed
  With tuning up; the wood-winds made a ring
  Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting
  Of sharp, red brass pierced every ear-drum; patting
  From muffled tympani made a dark slatting

  Across the silver shimmering of flutes;
  A bassoon grunted, and an oboe wailed;
  The 'celli pizzicato-ed like great lutes,
  And mutterings of double basses trailed
  Away to silence, while loud harp-strings hailed
  Their thin, bright colours down in such a scatter
  They lost themselves amid the general clatter.

  Frau Altgelt in the gallery, alone,
  Felt lifted up into another world.
  Before her eyes a thousand candles shone
  In the great chandeliers.  A maze of curled
  And powdered periwigs past her eyes swirled.
  She smelt the smoke of candles guttering,
  And caught the glint of jewelled fans fluttering

  All round her in the boxes.  Red and gold,
  The house, like rubies set in filigree,
  Filliped the candlelight about, and bold
  Young sparks with eye-glasses, unblushingly
  Ogled fair beauties in the balcony.
  An officer went by, his steel spurs jangling.
  Behind Charlotta an old man was wrangling

  About a play-bill he had bought and lost.
  Three drunken soldiers had to be ejected.
  Frau Altgelt's eyes stared at the vacant post
  Of Concert-Meister, she at once detected
  The stir which brought him.  But she felt neglected
  When with no glance about him or her way,
  He lifted up his violin to play.

     The curtain went up?  Perhaps.  If so,
     Charlotta never saw it go.
     The famous Fraeulein Gebnitz' singing
     Only came to her like the ringing
     Of bells at a festa
     Which swing in the air
     And nobody realizes they are there.
     They jingle and jangle,
     And clang, and bang,
     And never a soul could tell whether they rang,
     For the plopping of guns and rockets
     And the chinking of silver to spend, in one's pockets,
     And the shuffling and clapping of feet,
     And the loud flapping
     Of flags, with the drums,
     As the military comes.
     It's a famous tune to walk to,
     And I wonder where they're off to.
     Step-step-stepping to the beating of the drums.
     But the rhythm changes as though a mist
     Were curling and twisting
     Over the landscape.
     For a moment a rhythmless, tuneless fog
     Encompasses her.  Then her senses jog
     To the breath of a stately minuet.
     Herr Altgelt's violin is set
     In tune to the slow, sweeping bows, and retreats and advances,
     To curtsies brushing the waxen floor as the Court dances.
     Long and peaceful like warm Summer nights
     When stars shine in the quiet river.  And against the lights
     Blundering insects knock,
     And the 'Rathaus' clock
     Booms twice, through the shrill sounds
     Of flutes and horns in the lamplit grounds.
     Pressed against him in the mazy wavering
     Of a country dance, with her short breath quavering
     She leans upon the beating, throbbing
     Music.  Laughing, sobbing,
     Feet gliding after sliding feet;
     His--hers--
     The ballroom blurs--
     She feels the air
     Lifting her hair,
     And the lapping of water on the stone stair.
     He is there!  He is there!
     Twang harps, and squeal, you thin violins,
     That the dancers may dance, and never discover
     The old stone stair leading down to the river
     With the chestnut-tree branches hanging over
     Her and her lover.
     Theodore, still her lover!

  The evening passed like this, in a half faint,
  Delirium with waking intervals
  Which were the entr'acts.  Under the restraint
  Of a large company, the constant calls
  For oranges or syrops from the stalls
  Outside, the talk, the passing to and fro,
  Lotta sat ill at ease, incognito.

  She heard the Gebnitz praised, the tenor lauded,
  The music vaunted as most excellent.
  The scenery and the costumes were applauded,
  The latter it was whispered had been sent
  From Italy.  The Herr Direktor spent
  A fortune on them, so the gossips said.
  Charlotta felt a lightness in her head.

  When the next act began, her eyes were swimming,
  Her prodded ears were aching and confused.
  The first notes from the orchestra sent skimming
  Her outward consciousness.  Her brain was fused
  Into the music, Theodore's music!  Used
  To hear him play, she caught his single tone.
  For all she noticed they two were alone.


      Part Fourth

  Frau Altgelt waited in the chilly street,
  Hustled by lackeys who ran up and down
  Shouting their coachmen's names; forced to retreat
  A pace or two by lurching chairmen; thrown
  Rudely aside by linkboys; boldly shown
  The ogling rapture in two bleary eyes
  Thrust close to hers in most unpleasant wise.

  Escaping these, she hit a liveried arm,
  Was sworn at by this glittering gentleman
  And ordered off.  However, no great harm
  Came to her.  But she looked a trifle wan
  When Theodore, her belated guardian,
  Emerged.  She snuggled up against him, trembling,
  Half out of fear, half out of the assembling

  Of all the thoughts and needs his playing had given.
  Had she enjoyed herself, he wished to know.
  "Oh! Theodore, can't you feel that it was Heaven!"
  "Heaven!  My Lottachen, and was it so?
  Gebnitz was in good voice, but all the flow
  Of her last aria was spoiled by Klops,
  A wretched flutist, she was mad as hops."

  He was so simple, so matter-of-fact,
  Charlotta Altgelt knew not what to say
  To bring him to her dream.  His lack of tact
  Kept him explaining all the homeward way
  How this thing had gone well, that badly.  "Stay,
  Theodore!" she cried at last.  "You know to me
  Nothing was real, it was an ecstasy."

  And he was heartily glad she had enjoyed
  Herself so much, and said so.  "But it's good
  To be got home again."  He was employed
  In looking at his violin, the wood
  Was old, and evening air did it no good.
  But when he drew up to the table for tea
  Something about his wife's vivacity

  Struck him as hectic, worried him in short.
  He talked of this and that but watched her close.
  Tea over, he endeavoured to extort
  The cause of her excitement.  She arose
  And stood beside him, trying to compose
  Herself, all whipt to quivering, curdled life,
  And he, poor fool, misunderstood his wife.

  Suddenly, broken through her anxious grasp,
  Her music-kindled love crashed on him there.
  Amazed, he felt her fling against him, clasp
  Her arms about him, weighing down his chair,
  Sobbing out all her hours of despair.
  "Theodore, a woman needs to hear things proved.
  Unless you tell me, I feel I'm not loved."

  Theodore went under in this tearing wave,
  He yielded to it, and its headlong flow
  Filled him with all the energy she gave.
  He was a youth again, and this bright glow,
  This living, vivid joy he had to show
  Her what she was to him.  Laughing and crying,
  She asked assurances there's no denying.

  Over and over again her questions, till
  He quite convinced her, every now and then
  She kissed him, shivering as though doubting still.
  But later when they were composed and when
  She dared relax her probings, "Lottachen,"
  He asked, "how is it your love has withstood
  My inadvertence?  I was made of wood."

  She told him, and no doubt she meant it truly,
  That he was sun, and grass, and wind, and sky
  To her.  And even if conscience were unruly
  She salved it by neat sophistries, but why
  Suppose her insincere, it was no lie
  She said, for Heinrich was as much forgot
  As though he'd never been within earshot.

  But Theodore's hands in straying and caressing
  Fumbled against the locket where it lay
  Upon her neck.  "What is this thing I'm pressing?"
  He asked.  "Let's bring it to the light of day."
  He lifted up the locket.  "It should stay
  Outside, my Dear.  Your mother has good taste.
  To keep it hidden surely is a waste."

  Pity again Charlotta, straight aroused
  Out of her happiness.  The locket brought
  A chilly jet of truth upon her, soused
  Under its icy spurting she was caught,
  And choked, and frozen.  Suddenly she sought
  The clasp, but with such art was this contrived
  Her fumbling fingers never once arrived

  Upon it.  Feeling, twisting, round and round,
  She pulled the chain quite through the locket's ring
  And still it held.  Her neck, encompassed, bound,
  Chafed at the sliding meshes.  Such a thing
  To hurl her out of joy!  A gilded string
  Binding her folly to her, and those curls
  Which lay entwined beneath the clustered pearls!

  Again she tried to break the cord.  It stood.
  "Unclasp it, Theodore," she begged.  But he
  Refused, and being in a happy mood,
  Twitted her with her inefficiency,
  Then looking at her very seriously:
  "I think, Charlotta, it is well to have
  Always about one what a mother gave.

  As she has taken the great pains to send
  This jewel to you from Dresden, it will be
  Ingratitude if you do not intend
  To carry it about you constantly.
  With her fine taste you cannot disagree,
  The locket is most beautifully designed."
  He opened it and there the curls were, twined.

  Charlotta's heart dropped beats like knitting-stitches.
  She burned a moment, flaming; then she froze.
  Her face was jerked by little, nervous twitches,
  She heard her husband asking:  "What are those?"
  Put out her hand quickly to interpose,
  But stopped, the gesture half-complete, astounded
  At the calm way the question was propounded.

  "A pretty fancy, Dear, I do declare.
  Indeed I will not let you put it off.
  A lovely thought:  yours and your mother's hair!"
  Charlotta hid a gasp under a cough.
  "Never with my connivance shall you doff
  This charming gift."  He kissed her on the cheek,
  And Lotta suffered him, quite crushed and meek.

  When later in their room she lay awake,
  Watching the moonlight slip along the floor,
  She felt the chain and wept for Theodore's sake.
  She had loved Heinrich also, and the core
  Of truth, unlovely, startled her.  Wherefore
  She vowed from now to break this double life
  And see herself only as Theodore's wife.


      Part Fifth

  It was no easy matter to convince
  Heinrich that it was finished.  Hard to say
  That though they could not meet (he saw her wince)
  She still must keep the locket to allay
  Suspicion in her husband.  She would pay
  Him from her savings bit by bit--the oath
  He swore at that was startling to them both.

  Her resolution taken, Frau Altgelt
  Adhered to it, and suffered no regret.
  She found her husband all that she had felt
  His music to contain.  Her days were set
  In his as though she were an amulet
  Cased in bright gold.  She joyed in her confining;
  Her eyes put out her looking-glass with shining.

  Charlotta was so gay that old, dull tasks
  Were furbished up to seem like rituals.
  She baked and brewed as one who only asks
  The right to serve.  Her daily manuals
  Of prayer were duties, and her festivals
  When Theodore praised some dish, or frankly said
  She had a knack in making up a bed.

  So Autumn went, and all the mountains round
  The city glittered white with fallen snow,
  For it was Winter.  Over the hard ground
  Herr Altgelt's footsteps came, each one a blow.
  On the swept flags behind the currant row
  Charlotta stood to greet him.  But his lip
  Only flicked hers.  His Concert-Meistership

  Was first again.  This evening he had got
  Important news.  The opera ordered from
  Young Mozart was arrived.  That old despot,
  The Bishop of Salzburg, had let him come
  Himself to lead it, and the parts, still hot
  From copying, had been tried over.  Never
  Had any music started such a fever.

  The orchestra had cheered till they were hoarse,
  The singers clapped and clapped.  The town was made,
  With such a great attraction through the course
  Of Carnival time.  In what utter shade
  All other cities would be left!  The trade
  In music would all drift here naturally.
  In his excitement he forgot his tea.

  Lotta was forced to take his cup and put
  It in his hand.  But still he rattled on,
  Sipping at intervals.  The new catgut
  Strings he was using gave out such a tone
  The "Maestro" had remarked it, and had gone
  Out of his way to praise him.  Lotta smiled,
  He was as happy as a little child.

  From that day on, Herr Altgelt, more and more,
  Absorbed himself in work.  Lotta at first
  Was patient and well-wishing.  But it wore
  Upon her when two weeks had brought no burst
  Of loving from him.  Then she feared the worst;
  That his short interest in her was a light
  Flared up an instant only in the night.

  'Idomeneo' was the opera's name,
  A name that poor Charlotta learnt to hate.
  Herr Altgelt worked so hard he seldom came
  Home for his tea, and it was very late,
  Past midnight sometimes, when he knocked.  His state
  Was like a flabby orange whose crushed skin
  Is thin with pulling, and all dented in.

  He practised every morning and her heart
  Followed his bow.  But often she would sit,
  While he was playing, quite withdrawn apart,
  Absently fingering and touching it,
  The locket, which now seemed to her a bit
  Of some gone youth.  His music drew her tears,
  And through the notes he played, her dreading ears

  Heard Heinrich's voice, saying he had not changed;
  Beer merchants had no ecstasies to take
  Their minds off love.  So far her thoughts had ranged
  Away from her stern vow, she chanced to take
  Her way, one morning, quite by a mistake,
  Along the street where Heinrich had his shop.
  What harm to pass it since she should not stop!

  It matters nothing how one day she met
  Him on a bridge, and blushed, and hurried by.
  Nor how the following week he stood to let
  Her pass, the pavement narrowing suddenly.
  How once he took her basket, and once he
  Pulled back a rearing horse who might have struck
  Her with his hoofs.  It seemed the oddest luck

  How many times their business took them each
  Right to the other.  Then at last he spoke,
  But she would only nod, he got no speech
  From her.  Next time he treated it in joke,
  And that so lightly that her vow she broke
  And answered.  So they drifted into seeing
  Each other as before.  There was no fleeing.

  Christmas was over and the Carnival
  Was very near, and tripping from each tongue
  Was talk of the new opera.  Each book-stall
  Flaunted it out in bills, what airs were sung,
  What singers hired.  Pictures of the young
  "Maestro" were for sale.  The town was mad.
  Only Charlotta felt depressed and sad.

  Each day now brought a struggle 'twixt her will
  And Heinrich's.  'Twixt her love for Theodore
  And him.  Sometimes she wished to kill
  Herself to solve her problem.  For a score
  Of reasons Heinrich tempted her.  He bore
  Her moods with patience, and so surely urged
  Himself upon her, she was slowly merged

  Into his way of thinking, and to fly
  With him seemed easy.  But next morning would
  The Stradivarius undo her mood.
  Then she would realize that she must cleave
  Always to Theodore.  And she would try
  To convince Heinrich she should never leave,
  And afterwards she would go home and grieve.

  All thought in Munich centered on the part
  Of January when there would be given
  'Idomeneo' by Wolfgang Mozart.
  The twenty-ninth was fixed.  And all seats, even
  Those almost at the ceiling, which were driven
  Behind the highest gallery, were sold.
  The inches of the theatre went for gold.

  Herr Altgelt was a shadow worn so thin
  With work, he hardly printed black behind
  The candle.  He and his old violin
  Made up one person.  He was not unkind,
  But dazed outside his playing, and the rind,
  The pine and maple of his fiddle, guarded
  A part of him which he had quite discarded.

     It woke in the silence of frost-bright nights,
     In little lights,
     Like will-o'-the-wisps flickering, fluttering,
     Here--there--
     Spurting, sputtering,
     Fading and lighting,
     Together, asunder--
     Till Lotta sat up in bed with wonder,
     And the faint grey patch of the window shone
     Upon her sitting there, alone.
     For Theodore slept.

  The twenty-eighth was last rehearsal day,
  'Twas called for noon, so early morning meant
  Herr Altgelt's only time in which to play
  His part alone.  Drawn like a monk who's spent
  Himself in prayer and fasting, Theodore went
  Into the kitchen, with a weary word
  Of cheer to Lotta, careless if she heard.

     Lotta heard more than his spoken word.
     She heard the vibrating of strings and wood.
     She was washing the dishes, her hands all suds,
     When the sound began,
     Long as the span
     Of a white road snaking about a hill.
     The orchards are filled
     With cherry blossoms at butterfly poise.
     Hawthorn buds are cracking,
     And in the distance a shepherd is clacking
     His shears, snip-snipping the wool from his sheep.
     The notes are asleep,
     Lying adrift on the air
     In level lines
     Like sunlight hanging in pines and pines,
     Strung and threaded,
     All imbedded
     In the blue-green of the hazy pines.
     Lines--long, straight lines!
     And stems,
     Long, straight stems
     Pushing up
     To the cup of blue, blue sky.
     Stems growing misty
     With the many of them,
     Red-green mist
     Of the trees,
     And these
     Wood-flavoured notes.
     The back is maple and the belly is pine.
     The rich notes twine
     As though weaving in and out of leaves,
     Broad leaves
     Flapping slowly like elephants' ears,
     Waving and falling.
     Another sound peers
     Through little pine fingers,
     And lingers, peeping.
     Ping!  Ping!  pizzicato, something is cheeping.
     There is a twittering up in the branches,
     A chirp and a lilt,
     And crimson atilt on a swaying twig.
     Wings!  Wings!
     And a little ruffled-out throat which sings.
     The forest bends, tumultuous
     With song.
     The woodpecker knocks,
     And the song-sparrow trills,
     Every fir, and cedar, and yew
     Has a nest or a bird,
     It is quite absurd
     To hear them cutting across each other:
     Peewits, and thrushes, and larks, all at once,
     And a loud cuckoo is trying to smother
     A wood-pigeon perched on a birch,
     "Roo--coo--oo--oo--"
     "Cuckoo!  Cuckoo!  That's one for you!"
     A blackbird whistles, how sharp, how shrill!
     And the great trees toss
     And leaves blow down,
     You can almost hear them splash on the ground.
     The whistle again:
     It is double and loud!
     The leaves are splashing,
     And water is dashing
     Over those creepers, for they are shrouds;
     And men are running up them to furl the sails,
     For there is a capful of wind to-day,
     And we are already well under way.
     The deck is aslant in the bubbling breeze.
     "Theodore, please.
     Oh, Dear, how you tease!"
     And the boatswain's whistle sounds again,
     And the men pull on the sheets:
         "My name is Hanging Johnny,
            Away-i-oh;
         They call me Hanging Johnny,
            So hang, boys, hang."
     The trees of the forest are masts, tall masts;
     They are swinging over
     Her and her lover.
     Almost swooning
     Under the ballooning canvas,
     She lies
     Looking up in his eyes
     As he bends farther over.
     Theodore, still her lover!

  The suds were dried upon Charlotta's hands,
  She leant against the table for support,
  Wholly forgotten.  Theodore's eyes were brands
  Burning upon his music.  He stopped short.
  Charlotta almost heard the sound of bands
  Snapping.  She put one hand up to her heart,
  Her fingers touched the locket with a start.

  Herr Altgelt put his violin away
  Listlessly.  "Lotta, I must have some rest.
  The strain will be a hideous one to-day.
  Don't speak to me at all.  It will be best
  If I am quiet till I go."  And lest
  She disobey, he left her.  On the stairs
  She heard his mounting steps.  What use were prayers!

  He could not hear, he was not there, for she
  Was married to a mummy, a machine.
  Her hand closed on the locket bitterly.
  Before her, on a chair, lay the shagreen
  Case of his violin.  She saw the clean
  Sun flash the open clasp.  The locket's edge
  Cut at her fingers like a pushing wedge.

  A heavy cart went by, a distant bell
  Chimed ten, the fire flickered in the grate.
  She was alone.  Her throat began to swell
  With sobs.  What kept her here, why should she wait?
  The violin she had begun to hate
  Lay in its case before her.  Here she flung
  The cover open.  With the fiddle swung

  Over her head, the hanging clock's loud ticking
  Caught on her ear.  'Twas slow, and as she paused
  The little door in it came open, flicking
  A wooden cuckoo out:  "Cuckoo!"  It caused
  The forest dream to come again.  "Cuckoo!"
  Smashed on the grate, the violin broke in two.

  "Cuckoo!  Cuckoo!" the clock kept striking on;
  But no one listened.  Frau Altgelt had gone.




The Cross-Roads



A bullet through his heart at dawn.  On the table a letter signed with a
woman's name.  A wind that goes howling round the house, and weeping as
in shame.  Cold November dawn peeping through the windows, cold dawn
creeping over the floor, creeping up his cold legs, creeping over his
cold body, creeping across his cold face. A glaze of thin yellow
sunlight on the staring eyes.  Wind howling through bent branches.  A
wind which never dies down.  Howling, wailing. The gazing eyes glitter
in the sunlight.  The lids are frozen open and the eyes glitter.


The thudding of a pick on hard earth.  A spade grinding and crunching.
Overhead, branches writhing, winding, interlacing, unwinding,
scattering; tortured twinings, tossings, creakings.  Wind flinging
branches apart, drawing them together, whispering and whining among
them.  A waning, lopsided moon cutting through black clouds.  A stream
of pebbles and earth and the empty spade gleams clear in the moonlight,
then is rammed again into the black earth.  Tramping of feet.  Men and
horses. Squeaking of wheels.

"Whoa!  Ready, Jim?"

"All ready."

Something falls, settles, is still.  Suicides have no coffin.

"Give us the stake, Jim.  Now."

Pound!  Pound!

"He'll never walk.  Nailed to the ground."

An ash stick pierces his heart, if it buds the roots will hold him. He
is a part of the earth now, clay to clay.  Overhead the branches sway,
and writhe, and twist in the wind.  He'll never walk with a bullet in
his heart, and an ash stick nailing him to the cold, black ground.


Six months he lay still.  Six months.  And the water welled up in his
body, and soft blue spots chequered it.  He lay still, for the ash stick
held him in place.  Six months!  Then her face came out of a mist of
green. Pink and white and frail like Dresden china, lilies-of-the-valley
at her breast, puce-coloured silk sheening about her.  Under the young
green leaves, the horse at a foot-pace, the high yellow wheels of the
chaise scarcely turning, her face, rippling like grain a-blowing, under
her puce-coloured bonnet; and burning beside her, flaming within his
correct blue coat and brass buttons, is someone.  What has dimmed the
sun? The horse steps on a rolling stone; a wind in the branches makes a
moan. The little leaves tremble and shake, turn and quake, over and
over, tearing their stems.  There is a shower of young leaves, and a
sudden-sprung gale wails in the trees.

The yellow-wheeled chaise is rocking--rocking, and all the branches
are knocking--knocking.  The sun in the sky is a flat, red plate, the
branches creak and grate.  She screams and cowers, for the green foliage
is a lowering wave surging to smother her.  But she sees nothing. The
stake holds firm.  The body writhes, the body squirms. The blue spots
widen, the flesh tears, but the stake wears well in the deep, black
ground.  It holds the body in the still, black ground.


Two years!  The body has been in the ground two years.  It is worn away;
it is clay to clay.  Where the heart moulders, a greenish dust, the
stake is thrust.  Late August it is, and night; a night flauntingly
jewelled with stars, a night of shooting stars and loud insect noises.
Down the road to Tilbury, silence--and the slow flapping of large
leaves. Down the road to Sutton, silence--and the darkness of
heavy-foliaged trees. Down the road to Wayfleet, silence--and the
whirring scrape of insects in the branches.  Down the road to
Edgarstown, silence--and stars like stepping-stones in a pathway
overhead.  It is very quiet at the cross-roads, and the sign-board
points the way down the four roads, endlessly points the way where
nobody wishes to go.

A horse is galloping, galloping up from Sutton.  Shaking the wide, still
leaves as he goes under them.  Striking sparks with his iron shoes;
silencing the katydids.  Dr. Morgan riding to a child-birth over Tilbury
way; riding to deliver a woman of her first-born son.  One o'clock from
Wayfleet bell tower, what a shower of shooting stars!  And a breeze all
of a sudden, jarring the big leaves and making them jerk up and down.
Dr. Morgan's hat is blown from his head, the horse swerves, and curves
away from the sign-post.  An oath--spurs--a blurring of grey mist. A
quick left twist, and the gelding is snorting and racing down the
Tilbury road with the wind dropping away behind him.

The stake has wrenched, the stake has started, the body, flesh from
flesh, has parted.  But the bones hold tight, socket and ball, and
clamping them down in the hard, black ground is the stake, wedged
through ribs and spine. The bones may twist, and heave, and twine, but
the stake holds them still in line.  The breeze goes down, and the round
stars shine, for the stake holds the fleshless bones in line.


Twenty years now!  Twenty long years!  The body has powdered itself
away; it is clay to clay.  It is brown earth mingled with brown earth.
Only flaky bones remain, lain together so long they fit, although not
one bone is knit to another.  The stake is there too, rotted through,
but upright still, and still piercing down between ribs and spine in a
straight line.

Yellow stillness is on the cross-roads, yellow stillness is on the
trees. The leaves hang drooping, wan.  The four roads point four yellow
ways, saffron and gamboge ribbons to the gaze.  A little swirl of dust
blows up Tilbury road, the wind which fans it has not strength to do
more; it ceases, and the dust settles down.  A little whirl of wind
comes up Tilbury road.  It brings a sound of wheels and feet. The wind
reels a moment and faints to nothing under the sign-post. Wind again,
wheels and feet louder.  Wind again--again--again. A drop of rain,
flat into the dust.  Drop!--Drop!  Thick heavy raindrops, and a
shrieking wind bending the great trees and wrenching off their leaves.

Under the black sky, bowed and dripping with rain, up Tilbury road,
comes the procession.  A funeral procession, bound for the graveyard at
Wayfleet.  Feet and wheels--feet and wheels.  And among them one who
is carried.

The bones in the deep, still earth shiver and pull.  There is a quiver
through the rotted stake.  Then stake and bones fall together in a
little puffing of dust.

Like meshes of linked steel the rain shuts down behind the procession,
now well along the Wayfleet road.

He wavers like smoke in the buffeting wind.  His fingers blow out like
smoke, his head ripples in the gale.  Under the sign-post, in the
pouring rain, he stands, and watches another quavering figure drifting
down the Wayfleet road.  Then swiftly he streams after it.  It flickers
among the trees.  He licks out and winds about them.  Over, under,
blown, contorted.  Spindrift after spindrift; smoke following smoke.
There is a wailing through the trees, a wailing of fear, and after it
laughter--laughter--laughter, skirling up to the black sky.
Lightning jags over the funeral procession.  A heavy clap of thunder.
Then darkness and rain, and the sound of feet and wheels.





A Roxbury Garden



      I

    Hoops

  Blue and pink sashes,
  Criss-cross shoes,
  Minna and Stella run out into the garden
  To play at hoop.

  Up and down the garden-paths they race,
  In the yellow sunshine,
  Each with a big round hoop
  White as a stripped willow-wand.

  Round and round turn the hoops,
  Their diamond whiteness cleaving the yellow sunshine.
  The gravel crunches and squeaks beneath them,
  And a large pebble springs them into the air
  To go whirling for a foot or two
  Before they touch the earth again
  In a series of little jumps.

  Spring, Hoops!
  Spit out a shower of blue and white brightness.
  The little criss-cross shoes twinkle behind you,
  The pink and blue sashes flutter like flags,
  The hoop-sticks are ready to beat you.
  Turn, turn, Hoops!  In the yellow sunshine.
  Turn your stripped willow whiteness
  Along the smooth paths.

  Stella sings:
     "Round and round, rolls my hoop,
     Scarcely touching the ground,
     With a swoop,
     And a bound,
     Round and round.
     With a bumpety, crunching, scattering sound,
     Down the garden it flies;
     In our eyes
     The sun lies.
     See it spin
     Out and in;
     Through the paths it goes whirling,
     About the beds curling.
     Sway now to the loop,
     Faster, faster, my hoop.
     Round you come,
     Up you come,
     Quick and straight as before.
     Run, run, my hoop, run,
     Away from the sun."

  And the great hoop bounds along the path,
  Leaping into the wind-bright air.

  Minna sings:
     "Turn, hoop,
     Burn hoop,
     Twist and twine
     Hoop of mine.
     Flash along,
     Leap along,
     Right at the sun.
     Run, hoop, run.
     Faster and faster,
     Whirl, twirl.
     Wheel like fire,
     And spin like glass;
     Fire's no whiter
     Glass is no brighter.
     Dance,
     Prance,
     Over and over,
     About and about,
     With the top of you under,
     And the bottom at top,
     But never a stop.
     Turn about, hoop, to the tap of my stick,
     I follow behind you
     To touch and remind you.
     Burn and glitter, so white and quick,
     Round and round, to the tap of a stick."

  The hoop flies along between the flower-beds,
  Swaying the flowers with the wind of its passing.

  Beside the foxglove-border roll the hoops,
  And the little pink and white bells shake and jingle
  Up and down their tall spires;
  They roll under the snow-ball bush,
  And the ground behind them is strewn with white petals;
  They swirl round a corner,
  And jar a bee out of a Canterbury bell;
  They cast their shadows for an instant
  Over a bed of pansies,
  Catch against the spurs of a columbine,
  Jostle the quietness from a cluster of monk's-hood.
  Pat! Pat! behind them come the little criss-cross shoes,
  And the blue and pink sashes stream out in flappings of colour.

  Stella sings:
     "Hoop, hoop,
     Roll along,
     Faster bowl along,
     Hoop.
     Slow, to the turning,
     Now go!--Go!
     Quick!
     Here's the stick.
     Rat-a-tap-tap it,
     Pat it, flap it.
     Fly like a bird or a yellow-backed bee,
     See how soon you can reach that tree.
     Here is a path that is perfectly straight.
     Roll along, hoop, or we shall be late."

  Minna sings:
     "Trip about, slip about, whip about
     Hoop.
     Wheel like a top at its quickest spin,
     Then, dear hoop, we shall surely win.
     First to the greenhouse and then to the wall
     Circle and circle,
     And let the wind push you,
     Poke you,
     Brush you,
     And not let you fall.
     Whirring you round like a wreath of mist.
     Hoopety hoop,
     Twist,
     Twist."

  Tap! Tap! go the hoop-sticks,
  And the hoops bowl along under a grape arbour.
  For an instant their willow whiteness is green,
  Pale white-green.
  Then they are out in the sunshine,
  Leaving the half-formed grape clusters
  A-tremble under their big leaves.

  "I will beat you, Minna," cries Stella,
  Hitting her hoop smartly with her stick.
  "Stella, Stella, we are winning," calls Minna,
  As her hoop curves round a bed of clove-pinks.
  A humming-bird whizzes past Stella's ear,
  And two or three yellow-and-black butterflies
  Flutter, startled, out of a pillar rose.
  Round and round race the little girls
  After their great white hoops.

  Suddenly Minna stops.
  Her hoop wavers an instant,
  But she catches it up on her stick.
  "Listen, Stella!"
  Both the little girls are listening;
  And the scents of the garden rise up quietly about them.
  "It's the chaise!  It's Father!
  Perhaps he's brought us a book from Boston."
  Twinkle, twinkle, the little criss-cross shoes
  Up the garden path.
  Blue--pink--an instant, against the syringa hedge.
  But the hoops, white as stripped willow-wands,
  Lie in the grass,
  And the grasshoppers jump back and forth
  Over them.


      II

    Battledore and Shuttlecock

  The shuttlecock soars upward
  In a parabola of whiteness,
  Turns,
  And sinks to a perfect arc.
  Plat! the battledore strikes it,
  And it rises again,
  Without haste,
  Winged and curving,
  Tracing its white flight
  Against the clipped hemlock-trees.
  Plat!
  Up again,
  Orange and sparkling with sun,
  Rounding under the blue sky,
  Dropping,
  Fading to grey-green
  In the shadow of the coned hemlocks.
  "Ninety-one."  "Ninety-two."  "Ninety-three."
  The arms of the little girls
  Come up--and up--
  Precisely,
  Like mechanical toys.
  The battledores beat at nothing,
  And toss the dazzle of snow
  Off their parchment drums.
  "Ninety-four."  Plat!
  "Ninety-five."  Plat!
  Back and forth
  Goes the shuttlecock,
  Icicle-white,
  Leaping at the sharp-edged clouds,
  Overturning,
  Falling,
  Down,
  And down,
  Tinctured with pink
  From the upthrusting shine
  Of Oriental poppies.

  The little girls sway to the counting rhythm;
  Left foot,
  Right foot.
  Plat!  Plat!
  Yellow heat twines round the handles of the battledores,
  The parchment cracks with dryness;
  But the shuttlecock
  Swings slowly into the ice-blue sky,
  Heaving up on the warm air
  Like a foam-bubble on a wave,
  With feathers slanted and sustaining.
  Higher,
  Until the earth turns beneath it;
  Poised and swinging,
  With all the garden flowing beneath it,
  Scarlet, and blue, and purple, and white--
  Blurred colour reflections in rippled water--
  Changing--streaming--
  For the moment that Stella takes to lift her arm.
  Then the shuttlecock relinquishes,
  Bows,
  Descends;
  And the sharp blue spears of the air
  Thrust it to earth.

  Again it mounts,
  Stepping up on the rising scents of flowers,
  Buoyed up and under by the shining heat.
  Above the foxgloves,
  Above the guelder-roses,
  Above the greenhouse glitter,
  Till the shafts of cooler air
  Meet it,
  Deflect it,
  Reject it,
  Then down,
  Down,
  Past the greenhouse,
  Past the guelder-rose bush,
  Past the foxgloves.

  "Ninety-nine," Stella's battledore springs to the impact.
  Plunk!  Like the snap of a taut string.
  "Oh!  Minna!"
  The shuttlecock drops zigzagedly,
  Out of orbit,
  Hits the path,
  And rolls over quite still.
  Dead white feathers,
  With a weight at the end.


      III

    Garden Games

  The tall clock is striking twelve;
  And the little girls stop in the hall to watch it,
  And the big ships rocking in a half-circle
  Above the dial.
  Twelve o'clock!
  Down the side steps
  Go the little girls,
  Under their big round straw hats.
  Minna's has a pink ribbon,
  Stella's a blue,
  That is the way they know which is which.
  Twelve o'clock!
  An hour yet before dinner.
  Mother is busy in the still-room,
  And Hannah is making gingerbread.

  Slowly, with lagging steps,
  They follow the garden-path,
  Crushing a leaf of box for its acrid smell,
  Discussing what they shall do,
  And doing nothing.

  "Stella, see that grasshopper
  Climbing up the bank!
  What a jump!
  Almost as long as my arm."
  Run, children, run.
  For the grasshopper is leaping away,
  In half-circle curves,
  Shuttlecock curves,
  Over the grasses.
  Hand in hand, the little girls call to him:
     "Grandfather, grandfather gray,
     Give me molasses, or I'll throw you away."

  The grasshopper leaps into the sunlight,
  Golden-green,
  And is gone.

  "Let's catch a bee."
  Round whirl the little girls,
  And up the garden.
  Two heads are thrust among the Canterbury bells,
  Listening,
  And fingers clasp and unclasp behind backs
  In a strain of silence.

  White bells,
  Blue bells,
  Hollow and reflexed.
  Deep tunnels of blue and white dimness,
  Cool wine-tunnels for bees.
  There is a floundering and buzzing over Minna's head.

  "Bend it down, Stella.  Quick!  Quick!"
  The wide mouth of a blossom
  Is pressed together in Minna's fingers.
  The stem flies up, jiggling its flower-bells,
  And Minna holds the dark blue cup in her hand,
  With the bee
  Imprisoned in it.
  Whirr! Buzz! Bump!
  Bump! Whiz! Bang!
  BANG!!
  The blue flower tears across like paper,
  And a gold-black bee darts away in the sunshine.

  "If we could fly, we could catch him."
  The sunshine is hot on Stella's upturned face,
  As she stares after the bee.
  "We'll follow him in a dove chariot.
  Come on, Stella."
  Run, children,
  Along the red gravel paths,
  For a bee is hard to catch,
  Even with a chariot of doves.

  Tall, still, and cowled,
  Stand the monk's-hoods;
  Taller than the heads of the little girls.
  A blossom for Minna.
  A blossom for Stella.
  Off comes the cowl,
  And there is a purple-painted chariot;
  Off comes the forward petal,
  And there are two little green doves,
  With green traces tying them to the chariot.
  "Now we will get in, and fly right up to the clouds.
     Fly, Doves, up in the sky,
     With Minna and me,
     After the bee."

  Up one path,
  Down another,
  Run the little girls,
  Holding their dove chariots in front of them;
  But the bee is hidden in the trumpet of a honeysuckle,
  With his wings folded along his back.

  The dove chariots are thrown away,
  And the little girls wander slowly through the garden,
  Sucking the salvia tips,
  And squeezing the snapdragons
  To make them gape.
  "I'm so hot,
  Let's pick a pansy
  And see the little man in his bath,
  And play we're he."
  A royal bath-tub,
  Hung with purple stuffs and yellow.
  The great purple-yellow wings
  Rise up behind the little red and green man;
  The purple-yellow wings fan him,
  He dabbles his feet in cool green.
  Off with the green sheath,
  And there are two spindly legs.
  "Heigho!" sighs Minna.
  "Heigho!" sighs Stella.
  There is not a flutter of wind,
  And the sun is directly overhead.

  Along the edge of the garden
  Walk the little girls.
  Their hats, round and yellow like cheeses,
  Are dangling by the ribbons.
  The grass is a tumult of buttercups and daisies;
  Buttercups and daisies streaming away
  Up the hill.
  The garden is purple, and pink, and orange, and scarlet;
  The garden is hot with colours.
  But the meadow is only yellow, and white, and green,
  Cool, and long, and quiet.
  The little girls pick buttercups
  And hold them under each other's chins.
  "You're as gold as Grandfather's snuff-box.
  You're going to be very rich, Minna."
  "Oh-o-o!  Then I'll ask my husband to give me a pair of garnet earrings
  Just like Aunt Nancy's.
  I wonder if he will.
  I know.  We'll tell fortunes.
  That's what we'll do."
  Plump down in the meadow grass,
  Stella and Minna,
  With their round yellow hats,
  Like cheeses,
  Beside them.
  Drop,
  Drop,
  Daisy petals.
     "One I love,
     Two I love,
     Three I love I say..."
  The ground is peppered with daisy petals,
  And the little girls nibble the golden centres,
  And play it is cake.

  A bell rings.
  Dinner-time;
  And after dinner there are lessons.




1777



      I

    The Trumpet-Vine Arbour

  The throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are wide open,
  And the clangour of brass beats against the hot sunlight.
  They bray and blare at the burning sky.
  Red!  Red!  Coarse notes of red,
  Trumpeted at the blue sky.
  In long streaks of sound, molten metal,
  The vine declares itself.
  Clang!--from its red and yellow trumpets.
  Clang!--from its long, nasal trumpets,
  Splitting the sunlight into ribbons, tattered and shot with noise.

  I sit in the cool arbour, in a green-and-gold twilight.
  It is very still, for I cannot hear the trumpets,
  I only know that they are red and open,
  And that the sun above the arbour shakes with heat.
  My quill is newly mended,
  And makes fine-drawn lines with its point.
  Down the long, white paper it makes little lines,
  Just lines--up--down--criss-cross.
  My heart is strained out at the pin-point of my quill;
  It is thin and writhing like the marks of the pen.
  My hand marches to a squeaky tune,
  It marches down the paper to a squealing of fifes.
  My pen and the trumpet-flowers,
  And Washington's armies away over the smoke-tree to the Southwest.
  "Yankee Doodle," my Darling!  It is you against the British,
  Marching in your ragged shoes to batter down King George.
  What have you got in your hat?  Not a feather, I wager.
  Just a hay-straw, for it is the harvest you are fighting for.
  Hay in your hat, and the whites of their eyes for a target!
  Like Bunker Hill, two years ago, when I watched all day from the house-top
  Through Father's spy-glass.
  The red city, and the blue, bright water,
  And puffs of smoke which you made.
  Twenty miles away,
  Round by Cambridge, or over the Neck,
  But the smoke was white--white!
  To-day the trumpet-flowers are red--red--
  And I cannot see you fighting,
  But old Mr. Dimond has fled to Canada,
  And Myra sings "Yankee Doodle" at her milking.
  The red throats of the trumpets bray and clang in the sunshine,
  And the smoke-tree puffs dun blossoms into the blue air.


      II

    The City of Falling Leaves

  Leaves fall,
  Brown leaves,
  Yellow leaves streaked with brown.
  They fall,
  Flutter,
  Fall again.
  The brown leaves,
  And the streaked yellow leaves,
  Loosen on their branches
  And drift slowly downwards.
  One,
  One, two, three,
  One, two, five.
  All Venice is a falling of Autumn leaves--
  Brown,
  And yellow streaked with brown.

  "That sonnet, Abate,
  Beautiful,
  I am quite exhausted by it.
  Your phrases turn about my heart
  And stifle me to swooning.
  Open the window, I beg.
  Lord!  What a strumming of fiddles and mandolins!
  'Tis really a shame to stop indoors.
  Call my maid, or I will make you lace me yourself.
  Fie, how hot it is, not a breath of air!
  See how straight the leaves are falling.
  Marianna, I will have the yellow satin caught up with silver fringe,
  It peeps out delightfully from under a mantle.
  Am I well painted to-day, 'caro Abate mio'?
  You will be proud of me at the 'Ridotto', hey?
  Proud of being 'Cavalier Servente' to such a lady?"
  "Can you doubt it, 'Bellissima Contessa'?
  A pinch more rouge on the right cheek,
  And Venus herself shines less..."
  "You bore me, Abate,
  I vow I must change you!
  A letter, Achmet?
  Run and look out of the window, Abate.
  I will read my letter in peace."
  The little black slave with the yellow satin turban
  Gazes at his mistress with strained eyes.
  His yellow turban and black skin
  Are gorgeous--barbaric.
  The yellow satin dress with its silver flashings
  Lies on a chair
  Beside a black mantle and a black mask.
  Yellow and black,
  Gorgeous--barbaric.
  The lady reads her letter,
  And the leaves drift slowly
  Past the long windows.
  "How silly you look, my dear Abate,
  With that great brown leaf in your wig.
  Pluck it off, I beg you,
  Or I shall die of laughing."

  A yellow wall
  Aflare in the sunlight,
  Chequered with shadows,
  Shadows of vine leaves,
  Shadows of masks.
  Masks coming, printing themselves for an instant,
  Then passing on,
  More masks always replacing them.
  Masks with tricorns and rapiers sticking out behind
  Pursuing masks with plumes and high heels,
  The sunlight shining under their insteps.
  One,
  One, two,
  One, two, three,
  There is a thronging of shadows on the hot wall,
  Filigreed at the top with moving leaves.
  Yellow sunlight and black shadows,
  Yellow and black,
  Gorgeous--barbaric.
  Two masks stand together,
  And the shadow of a leaf falls through them,
  Marking the wall where they are not.
  From hat-tip to shoulder-tip,
  From elbow to sword-hilt,
  The leaf falls.
  The shadows mingle,
  Blur together,
  Slide along the wall and disappear.
  Gold of mosaics and candles,
  And night blackness lurking in the ceiling beams.
  Saint Mark's glitters with flames and reflections.
  A cloak brushes aside,
  And the yellow of satin
  Licks out over the coloured inlays of the pavement.
  Under the gold crucifixes
  There is a meeting of hands
  Reaching from black mantles.
  Sighing embraces, bold investigations,
  Hide in confessionals,
  Sheltered by the shuffling of feet.
  Gorgeous--barbaric
  In its mail of jewels and gold,
  Saint Mark's looks down at the swarm of black masks;
  And outside in the palace gardens brown leaves fall,
  Flutter,
  Fall.
  Brown,
  And yellow streaked with brown.

  Blue-black, the sky over Venice,
  With a pricking of yellow stars.
  There is no moon,
  And the waves push darkly against the prow
  Of the gondola,
  Coming from Malamocco
  And streaming toward Venice.
  It is black under the gondola hood,
  But the yellow of a satin dress
  Glares out like the eye of a watching tiger.
  Yellow compassed about with darkness,
  Yellow and black,
  Gorgeous--barbaric.
  The boatman sings,
  It is Tasso that he sings;
  The lovers seek each other beneath their mantles,
  And the gondola drifts over the lagoon, aslant to the coming dawn.
  But at Malamocco in front,
  In Venice behind,
  Fall the leaves,
  Brown,
  And yellow streaked with brown.
  They fall,
  Flutter,
  Fall.





BRONZE TABLETS




The Fruit Shop



  Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown,
  High-waisted, girdled with bright blue;
  A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown
  She pluckered her little brows into
  As she picked her dainty passage through
  The dusty street.  "Ah, Mademoiselle,
  A dirty pathway, we need rain,
  My poor fruits suffer, and the shell
  Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain
  Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
  The baker down at the corner says
  We need a battle to shake the clouds;
  But I am a man of peace, my ways
  Don't look to the killing of men in crowds.
  Poor fellows with guns and bayonets for shrouds!
  Pray, Mademoiselle, come out of the sun.
  Let me dust off that wicker chair.  It's cool
  In here, for the green leaves I have run
  In a curtain over the door, make a pool
  Of shade.  You see the pears on that stool--
  The shadow keeps them plump and fair."
  Over the fruiterer's door, the leaves
  Held back the sun, a greenish flare
  Quivered and sparked the shop, the sheaves
  Of sunbeams, glanced from the sign on the eaves,
  Shot from the golden letters, broke
  And splintered to little scattered lights.
  Jeanne Tourmont entered the shop, her poke
  Bonnet tilted itself to rights,
  And her face looked out like the moon on nights
  Of flickering clouds.  "Monsieur Popain, I
  Want gooseberries, an apple or two,
  Or excellent plums, but not if they're high;
  Haven't you some which a strong wind blew?
  I've only a couple of francs for you."
  Monsieur Popain shrugged and rubbed his hands.
  What could he do, the times were sad.
  A couple of francs and such demands!
  And asking for fruits a little bad.
  Wind-blown indeed!  He never had
  Anything else than the very best.
  He pointed to baskets of blunted pears
  With the thin skin tight like a bursting vest,
  All yellow, and red, and brown, in smears.
  Monsieur Popain's voice denoted tears.
  He took up a pear with tender care,
  And pressed it with his hardened thumb.
  "Smell it, Mademoiselle, the perfume there
  Is like lavender, and sweet thoughts come
  Only from having a dish at home.
  And those grapes!  They melt in the mouth like wine,
  Just a click of the tongue, and they burst to honey.
  They're only this morning off the vine,
  And I paid for them down in silver money.
  The Corporal's widow is witness, her pony
  Brought them in at sunrise to-day.
  Those oranges--Gold!  They're almost red.
  They seem little chips just broken away
  From the sun itself.  Or perhaps instead
  You'd like a pomegranate, they're rarely gay,
  When you split them the seeds are like crimson spray.
  Yes, they're high, they're high, and those Turkey figs,
  They all come from the South, and Nelson's ships
  Make it a little hard for our rigs.
  They must be forever giving the slips
  To the cursed English, and when men clips
  Through powder to bring them, why dainties mounts
  A bit in price.  Those almonds now,
  I'll strip off that husk, when one discounts
  A life or two in a nigger row
  With the man who grew them, it does seem how
  They would come dear; and then the fight
  At sea perhaps, our boats have heels
  And mostly they sail along at night,
  But once in a way they're caught; one feels
  Ivory's not better nor finer--why peels
  From an almond kernel are worth two sous.
  It's hard to sell them now," he sighed.
  "Purses are tight, but I shall not lose.
  There's plenty of cheaper things to choose."
  He picked some currants out of a wide
  Earthen bowl.  "They make the tongue
  Almost fly out to suck them, bride
  Currants they are, they were planted long
  Ago for some new Marquise, among
  Other great beauties, before the Chateau
  Was left to rot.  Now the Gardener's wife,
  He that marched off to his death at Marengo,
  Sells them to me; she keeps her life
  From snuffing out, with her pruning knife.
  She's a poor old thing, but she learnt the trade
  When her man was young, and the young Marquis
  Couldn't have enough garden.  The flowers he made
  All new!  And the fruits!  But 'twas said that he
  Was no friend to the people, and so they laid
  Some charge against him, a cavalcade
  Of citizens took him away; they meant
  Well, but I think there was some mistake.
  He just pottered round in his garden, bent
  On growing things; we were so awake
  In those days for the New Republic's sake.
  He's gone, and the garden is all that's left
  Not in ruin, but the currants and apricots,
  And peaches, furred and sweet, with a cleft
  Full of morning dew, in those green-glazed pots,
  Why, Mademoiselle, there is never an eft
  Or worm among them, and as for theft,
  How the old woman keeps them I cannot say,
  But they're finer than any grown this way."
  Jeanne Tourmont drew back the filigree ring
  Of her striped silk purse, tipped it upside down
  And shook it, two coins fell with a ding
  Of striking silver, beneath her gown
  One rolled, the other lay, a thing
  Sparked white and sharply glistening,
  In a drop of sunlight between two shades.
  She jerked the purse, took its empty ends
  And crumpled them toward the centre braids.
  The whole collapsed to a mass of blends
  Of colours and stripes.  "Monsieur Popain, friends
  We have always been.  In the days before
  The Great Revolution my aunt was kind
  When you needed help.  You need no more;
  'Tis we now who must beg at your door,
  And will you refuse?"  The little man
  Bustled, denied, his heart was good,
  But times were hard.  He went to a pan
  And poured upon the counter a flood
  Of pungent raspberries, tanged like wood.
  He took a melon with rough green rind
  And rubbed it well with his apron tip.
  Then he hunted over the shop to find
  Some walnuts cracking at the lip,
  And added to these a barberry slip
  Whose acrid, oval berries hung
  Like fringe and trembled.  He reached a round
  Basket, with handles, from where it swung
  Against the wall, laid it on the ground
  And filled it, then he searched and found
  The francs Jeanne Tourmont had let fall.
  "You'll return the basket, Mademoiselle?"
  She smiled, "The next time that I call,
  Monsieur.  You know that very well."
  'Twas lightly said, but meant to tell.
  Monsieur Popain bowed, somewhat abashed.
  She took her basket and stepped out.
  The sunlight was so bright it flashed
  Her eyes to blindness, and the rout
  Of the little street was all about.
  Through glare and noise she stumbled, dazed.
  The heavy basket was a care.
  She heard a shout and almost grazed
  The panels of a chaise and pair.
  The postboy yelled, and an amazed
  Face from the carriage window gazed.
  She jumped back just in time, her heart
  Beating with fear.  Through whirling light
  The chaise departed, but her smart
  Was keen and bitter.  In the white
  Dust of the street she saw a bright
  Streak of colours, wet and gay,
  Red like blood.  Crushed but fair,
  Her fruit stained the cobbles of the way.
  Monsieur Popain joined her there.
  "Tiens, Mademoiselle,
        c'est le General Bonaparte, partant pour la Guerre!"




Malmaison



I

How the slates of the roof sparkle in the sun, over there, over there,
beyond the high wall!  How quietly the Seine runs in loops and windings,
over there, over there, sliding through the green countryside!  Like
ships of the line, stately with canvas, the tall clouds pass along the
sky, over the glittering roof, over the trees, over the looped and
curving river. A breeze quivers through the linden-trees.  Roses bloom
at Malmaison. Roses!  Roses!  But the road is dusty.  Already the
Citoyenne Beauharnais wearies of her walk.  Her skin is chalked and
powdered with dust, she smells dust, and behind the wall are roses!
Roses with smooth open petals, poised above rippling leaves...  Roses
.. They have told her so.  The Citoyenne Beauharnais shrugs her
shoulders and makes a little face.  She must mend her pace if she would
be back in time for dinner.  Roses indeed!  The guillotine more likely.


The tiered clouds float over Malmaison, and the slate roof sparkles in
the sun.


II

Gallop!  Gallop!  The General brooks no delay.  Make way, good people,
and scatter out of his path, you, and your hens, and your dogs, and your
children.  The General is returned from Egypt, and is come in a
'caleche' and four to visit his new property.  Throw open the gates,
you, Porter of Malmaison.  Pull off your cap, my man, this is your
master, the husband of Madame.  Faster!  Faster!  A jerk and a jingle
and they are arrived, he and she.  Madame has red eyes.  Fie!  It is for
joy at her husband's return.  Learn your place, Porter.  A gentleman
here for two months?  Fie!  Fie, then!  Since when have you taken to
gossiping. Madame may have a brother, I suppose.  That--all green, and
red, and glitter, with flesh as dark as ebony--that is a slave; a
bloodthirsty, stabbing, slashing heathen, come from the hot countries to
cure your tongue of idle whispering.


A fine afternoon it is, with tall bright clouds sailing over the trees.


"Bonaparte, mon ami, the trees are golden like my star, the star I
pinned to your destiny when I married you.  The gypsy, you remember her
prophecy! My dear friend, not here, the servants are watching; send them
away, and that flashing splendour, Roustan.  Superb--Imperial, but..
My dear, your arm is trembling; I faint to feel it touching me!  No,
no, Bonaparte, not that--spare me that--did we not bury that last
night! You hurt me, my friend, you are so hot and strong.  Not long,
Dear, no, thank God, not long."

The looped river runs saffron, for the sun is setting.  It is getting
dark. Dark.  Darker.  In the moonlight, the slate roof shines palely
milkily white.

The roses have faded at Malmaison, nipped by the frost.  What need for
roses? Smooth, open petals--her arms.  Fragrant, outcurved
petals--her breasts. He rises like a sun above her, stooping to touch
the petals, press them wider. Eagles.  Bees.  What are they to open
roses! A little shivering breeze runs through the linden-trees, and the
tiered clouds blow across the sky like ships of the line, stately with
canvas.


III

The gates stand wide at Malmaison, stand wide all day.  The gravel of
the avenue glints under the continual rolling of wheels. An officer
gallops up with his sabre clicking; a mameluke gallops down with his
charger kicking.  'Valets de pied' run about in ones, and twos, and
groups, like swirled blown leaves.  Tramp!  Tramp!  The guard is
changing, and the grenadiers off duty lounge out of sight, ranging along
the roads toward Paris.

The slate roof sparkles in the sun, but it sparkles milkily, vaguely,
the great glass-houses put out its shining.  Glass, stone, and onyx now
for the sun's mirror.  Much has come to pass at Malmaison. New rocks and
fountains, blocks of carven marble, fluted pillars uprearing antique
temples, vases and urns in unexpected places, bridges of stone, bridges
of wood, arbours and statues, and a flood of flowers everywhere, new
flowers, rare flowers, parterre after parterre of flowers.  Indeed, the
roses bloom at Malmaison.  It is youth, youth untrammeled and advancing,
trundling a country ahead of it as though it were a hoop.  Laughter, and
spur janglings in tessellated vestibules.  Tripping of clocked and
embroidered stockings in little low-heeled shoes over smooth
grass-plots. India muslins spangled with silver patterns slide
through trees--mingle--separate--white day fireflies flashing
moon-brilliance in the shade of foliage.

"The kangaroos!  I vow, Captain, I must see the kangaroos."

"As you please, dear Lady, but I recommend the shady linden alley and
feeding the cockatoos."

"They say that Madame Bonaparte's breed of sheep is the best in all
France."

"And, oh, have you seen the enchanting little cedar she planted when the
First Consul sent home the news of the victory of Marengo?"

Picking, choosing, the chattering company flits to and fro.  Over the
trees the great clouds go, tiered, stately, like ships of the line
bright with canvas.

Prisoners'-base, and its swooping, veering, racing, giggling, bumping.
The First Consul runs plump into M. de Beauharnais and falls. But he
picks himself up smartly, and starts after M. Isabey.  Too late, M. Le
Premier Consul, Mademoiselle Hortense is out after you.  Quickly, my
dear Sir!  Stir your short legs, she is swift and eager, and as graceful
as her mother.  She is there, that other, playing too, but lightly,
warily, bearing herself with care, rather floating out upon the air than
running, never far from goal.  She is there, borne up above her guests
as something indefinably fair, a rose above periwinkles.  A blown rose,
smooth as satin, reflexed, one loosened petal hanging back and down. A
rose that undulates languorously as the breeze takes it, resting upon
its leaves in a faintness of perfume.


There are rumours about the First Consul.  Malmaison is full of women,
and Paris is only two leagues distant.  Madame Bonaparte stands on the
wooden bridge at sunset, and watches a black swan pushing the pink and
silver water in front of him as he swims, crinkling its smoothness into
pleats of changing colour with his breast. Madame Bonaparte presses
against the parapet of the bridge, and the crushed roses at her belt
melt, petal by petal, into the pink water.


IV

A vile day, Porter.  But keep your wits about you.  The Empress will
soon be here.  Queer, without the Emperor!  It is indeed, but best not
consider that.  Scratch your head and prick up your ears. Divorce is not
for you to debate about.  She is late?  Ah, well, the roads are muddy.
The rain spears are as sharp as whetted knives. They dart down and down,
edged and shining.  Clop-trop!  Clop-trop! A carriage grows out of the
mist.  Hist, Porter.  You can keep on your hat. It is only Her Majesty's
dogs and her parrot.  Clop-trop! The Ladies in Waiting, Porter.
Clop-trop!  It is Her Majesty.  At least, I suppose it is, but the
blinds are drawn.

"In all the years I have served Her Majesty she never before passed the
gate without giving me a smile!"

You're a droll fellow, to expect the Empress to put out her head in the
pouring rain and salute you.  She has affairs of her own to think about.

Clang the gate, no need for further waiting, nobody else will be coming
to Malmaison to-night.


White under her veil, drained and shaking, the woman crosses the
antechamber. Empress!  Empress!  Foolish splendour, perished to dust.
Ashes of roses, ashes of youth.  Empress forsooth!

Over the glass domes of the hot-houses drenches the rain.  Behind her a
clock ticks--ticks again.  The sound knocks upon her thought with the
echoing shudder of hollow vases.  She places her hands on her ears, but
the minutes pass, knocking.  Tears in Malmaison.  And years to come each
knocking by, minute after minute.  Years, many years, and tears, and
cold pouring rain.

"I feel as though I had died, and the only sensation I have is that I am
no more."

Rain!  Heavy, thudding rain!


V

The roses bloom at Malmaison.  And not only roses.  Tulips, myrtles,
geraniums, camelias, rhododendrons, dahlias, double hyacinths. All the
year through, under glass, under the sky, flowers bud, expand, die, and
give way to others, always others.  From distant countries they have
been brought, and taught to live in the cool temperateness of France.
There is the 'Bonapartea' from Peru; the 'Napoleone Imperiale'; the
'Josephinia Imperatrix', a pearl-white flower, purple-shadowed, the
calix pricked out with crimson points.  Malmaison wears its flowers as a
lady wears her gems, flauntingly, assertively.  Malmaison decks herself
to hide the hollow within.

The glass-houses grow and grow, and every year fling up hotter
reflections to the sailing sun.

The cost runs into millions, but a woman must have something to console
herself for a broken heart.  One can play backgammon and patience, and
then patience and backgammon, and stake gold napoleons on each game won.
Sport truly!  It is an unruly spirit which could ask better.  With her
jewels, her laces, her shawls; her two hundred and twenty dresses, her
fichus, her veils; her pictures, her busts, her birds.  It is absurd
that she cannot be happy.  The Emperor smarts under the thought of her
ingratitude. What could he do more?  And yet she spends, spends as never
before. It is ridiculous.  Can she not enjoy life at a smaller figure?
Was ever monarch plagued with so extravagant an ex-wife.  She owes her
chocolate-merchant, her candle-merchant, her sweetmeat purveyor; her
grocer, her butcher, her poulterer; her architect, and the shopkeeper
who sells her rouge; her perfumer, her dressmaker, her merchant of
shoes. She owes for fans, plants, engravings, and chairs.  She owes
masons and carpenters, vintners, lingeres.  The lady's affairs are in
sad confusion.

And why?  Why?

Can a river flow when the spring is dry?


Night.  The Empress sits alone, and the clock ticks, one after one. The
clock nicks off the edges of her life.  She is chipped like an old bit
of china; she is frayed like a garment of last year's wearing. She is
soft, crinkled, like a fading rose.  And each minute flows by brushing
against her, shearing off another and another petal. The Empress crushes
her breasts with her hands and weeps.  And the tall clouds sail over
Malmaison like a procession of stately ships bound for the moon.


Scarlet, clear-blue, purple epauletted with gold.  It is a parade of
soldiers sweeping up the avenue.  Eight horses, eight Imperial
harnesses, four caparisoned postilions, a carriage with the Emperor's
arms on the panels. Ho, Porter, pop out your eyes, and no wonder.  Where
else under the Heavens could you see such splendour!

They sit on a stone seat.  The little man in the green coat of a Colonel
of Chasseurs, and the lady, beautiful as a satin seed-pod, and as pale.
The house has memories.  The satin seed-pod holds his germs of Empire.
We will stay here, under the blue sky and the turreted white clouds. She
draws him; he feels her faded loveliness urge him to replenish it. Her
soft transparent texture woos his nervous fingering.  He speaks to her
of debts, of resignation; of her children, and his; he promises that she
shall see the King of Rome; he says some harsh things and some pleasant.
But she is there, close to him, rose toned to amber, white shot with
violet, pungent to his nostrils as embalmed rose-leaves in a twilit
room.

Suddenly the Emperor calls his carriage and rolls away across the
looping Seine.


VI

Crystal-blue brightness over the glass-houses.  Crystal-blue streaks and
ripples over the lake.  A macaw on a gilded perch screams; they have
forgotten to take out his dinner.  The windows shake.  Boom!  Boom! It
is the rumbling of Prussian cannon beyond Pecq.  Roses bloom at
Malmaison. Roses!  Roses!  Swimming above their leaves, rotting beneath
them. Fallen flowers strew the unraked walks.  Fallen flowers for a
fallen Emperor! The General in charge of him draws back and watches.
Snatches of music--snarling, sneering music of bagpipes.  They say a
Scotch regiment is besieging Saint-Denis.  The Emperor wipes his face,
or is it his eyes. His tired eyes which see nowhere the grace they long
for.  Josephine! Somebody asks him a question, he does not answer,
somebody else does that. There are voices, but one voice he does not
hear, and yet he hears it all the time.  Josephine!  The Emperor puts up
his hand to screen his face. The white light of a bright cloud spears
sharply through the linden-trees. 'Vive l'Empereur!'  There are troops
passing beyond the wall, troops which sing and call.  Boom!  A pink rose
is jarred off its stem and falls at the Emperor's feet.

"Very well.  I go."  Where!  Does it matter?  There is no sword to
clatter. Nothing but soft brushing gravel and a gate which shuts with a
click.

"Quick, fellow, don't spare your horses."

A whip cracks, wheels turn, why burn one's eyes following a fleck of
dust.


VII

Over the slate roof tall clouds, like ships of the line, pass along the
sky. The glass-houses glitter splotchily, for many of their lights are
broken. Roses bloom, fiery cinders quenching under damp weeds.  Wreckage
and misery, and a trailing of petty deeds smearing over old
recollections.

The musty rooms are empty and their shutters are closed, only in the
gallery there is a stuffed black swan, covered with dust.  When you
touch it, the feathers come off and float softly to the ground.  Through
a chink in the shutters, one can see the stately clouds crossing the sky
toward the Roman arches of the Marly Aqueduct.




The Hammers



      I

    Frindsbury, Kent, 1786

  Bang!
  Bang!
  Tap!
  Tap-a-tap!  Rap!
  All through the lead and silver Winter days,
  All through the copper of Autumn hazes.
  Tap to the red rising sun,
  Tap to the purple setting sun.
  Four years pass before the job is done.
  Two thousand oak trees grown and felled,
  Two thousand oaks from the hedgerows of the Weald,
  Sussex had yielded two thousand oaks
  With huge boles
  Round which the tape rolls
  Thirty mortal feet, say the village folks.
  Two hundred loads of elm and Scottish fir;
  Planking from Dantzig.
  My!  What timber goes into a ship!
  Tap!  Tap!
  Two years they have seasoned her ribs on the ways,
  Tapping, tapping.
  You can hear, though there's nothing where you gaze.
  Through the fog down the reaches of the river,
  The tapping goes on like heart-beats in a fever.
  The church-bells chime
  Hours and hours,
  Dropping days in showers.
  Bang!  Rap!  Tap!
  Go the hammers all the time.
  They have planked up her timbers
  And the nails are driven to the head;
  They have decked her over,
  And again, and again.
  The shoring-up beams shudder at the strain.
  Black and blue breeches,
  Pigtails bound and shining:
  Like ants crawling about,
  The hull swarms with carpenters, running in and out.
  Joiners, calkers,
  And they are all terrible talkers.
  Jem Wilson has been to sea and he tells some wonderful tales
  Of whales, and spice islands,
  And pirates off the Barbary coast.
  He boasts magnificently, with his mouth full of nails.
  Stephen Pibold has a tenor voice,
  He shifts his quid of tobacco and sings:
      "The second in command was blear-eyed Ned:
         While the surgeon his limb was a-lopping,
      A nine-pounder came and smack went his head,
         Pull away, pull away, pull away!  I say;
         Rare news for my Meg of Wapping!"
  Every Sunday
  People come in crowds
  (After church-time, of course)
  In curricles, and gigs, and wagons,
  And some have brought cold chicken and flagons
  Of wine,
  And beer in stoppered jugs.
  "Dear!  Dear!  But I tell 'ee 'twill be a fine ship.
  There's none finer in any of the slips at Chatham."

  The third Summer's roses have started in to blow,
  When the fine stern carving is begun.
  Flutings, and twinings, and long slow swirls,
  Bits of deal shaved away to thin spiral curls.
  Tap!  Tap!  A cornucopia is nailed into place.
  Rap-a-tap!  They are putting up a railing filigreed like Irish lace.
  The Three Town's people never saw such grace.
  And the paint on it!  The richest gold leaf!
  Why, the glitter when the sun is shining passes belief.
  And that row of glass windows tipped toward the sky
  Are rubies and carbuncles when the day is dry.
  Oh, my!  Oh, my!
  They have coppered up the bottom,
  And the copper nails
  Stand about and sparkle in big wooden pails.
  Bang!  Clash!  Bang!
      "And he swigg'd, and Nick swigg'd,
         And Ben swigg'd, and Dick swigg'd,
      And I swigg'd, and all of us swigg'd it,
         And swore there was nothing like grog."
  It seems they sing,
  Even though coppering is not an easy thing.
  What a splendid specimen of humanity is a true British workman,
  Say the people of the Three Towns,
  As they walk about the dockyard
  To the sound of the evening church-bells.
  And so artistic, too, each one tells his neighbour.
  What immense taste and labour!
  Miss Jessie Prime, in a pink silk bonnet,
  Titters with delight as her eyes fall upon it,
  When she steps lightly down from Lawyer Green's whisky;
  Such amazing beauty makes one feel frisky,
  She explains.
  Mr. Nichols says he is delighted
  (He is the firm);
  His work is all requited
  If Miss Jessie can approve.
  Miss Jessie answers that the ship is "a love".
  The sides are yellow as marigold,
  The port-lids are red when the ports are up:
  Blood-red squares like an even chequer
  Of yellow asters and portulaca.
  There is a wide "black strake" at the waterline
  And above is a blue like the sky when the weather is fine.
  The inner bulwarks are painted red.
  "Why?" asks Miss Jessie.  "'Tis a horrid note."
  Mr. Nichols clears his throat,
  And tells her the launching day is set.
  He says, "Be careful, the paint is wet."
  But Miss Jessie has touched it, her sprigged muslin gown
  Has a blood-red streak from the shoulder down.
  "It looks like blood," says Miss Jessie with a frown.

  Tap!  Tap!  Rap!
  An October day, with waves running in blue-white lines and a capful of wind.
  Three broad flags ripple out behind
  Where the masts will be:
  Royal Standard at the main,
  Admiralty flag at the fore,
  Union Jack at the mizzen.
  The hammers tap harder, faster,
  They must finish by noon.
  The last nail is driven.
  But the wind has increased to half a gale,
  And the ship shakes and quivers upon the ways.
  The Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard is coming
  In his ten-oared barge from the King's Stairs;
  The Marine's band will play "God Save Great George Our King";
  And there is to be a dinner afterwards at the Crown, with speeches.
  The wind screeches, and flaps the flags till they pound like hammers.
  The wind hums over the ship,
  And slips round the dog-shores,
  Jostling them almost to falling.
  There is no time now to wait for Commissioners and marine bands.
  Mr. Nichols has a bottle of port in his hands.
  He leans over, holding his hat, and shouts to the men below:
  "Let her go!"
  Bang!  Bang!  Pound!
  The dog-shores fall to the ground,
  And the ship slides down the greased planking.
  A splintering of glass,
  And port wine running all over the white and copper stem timbers.
  "Success to his Majesty's ship, the Bellerophon!"
  And the red wine washes away in the waters of the Medway.


      II

    Paris, March, 1814

  Fine yellow sunlight down the rue du Mont Thabor.
  Ten o'clock striking from all the clock-towers of Paris.
  Over the door of a shop, in gilt letters:
  "Martin--Parfumeur", and something more.
  A large gilded wooden something.
  Listen!  What a ringing of hammers!
  Tap!
  Tap!
  Squeak!
  Tap!  Squeak!  Tap-a-tap!
  "Blaise."
  "Oui, M'sieu."
  "Don't touch the letters.  My name stays."
  "Bien, M'sieu."
  "Just take down the eagle, and the shield with the bees."
  "As M'sieu pleases."
  Tap!  Squeak!  Tap!
  The man on the ladder hammers steadily for a minute or two,
  Then stops.
  "He!  Patron!
  They are fastened well, Nom d'un Chien!
  What if I break them?"
  "Break away,
  You and Paul must have them down to-day."
  "Bien."
  And the hammers start again,
  Drum-beating at the something of gilded wood.
  Sunshine in a golden flood
  Lighting up the yellow fronts of houses,
  Glittering each window to a flash.
  Squeak!  Squeak!  Tap!
  The hammers beat and rap.
  A Prussian hussar on a grey horse goes by at a dash.
  From other shops, the noise of striking blows:
  Pounds, thumps, and whacks;
  Wooden sounds:  splinters--cracks.
  Paris is full of the galloping of horses and the knocking of hammers.
  "Hullo! Friend Martin, is business slack
  That you are in the street this morning?  Don't turn your back
  And scuttle into your shop like a rabbit to its hole.
  I've just been taking a stroll.
  The stinking Cossacks are bivouacked all up and down the Champs Elysees.
  I can't get the smell of them out of my nostrils.
  Dirty fellows, who don't believe in frills
  Like washing.  Ah, mon vieux, you'd have to go
  Out of business if you lived in Russia.  So!
  We've given up being perfumers to the Emperor, have we?
  Blaise,
  Be careful of the hen,
  Maybe I can find a use for her one of these days.
  That eagle's rather well cut, Martin.
  But I'm sick of smelling Cossack,
  Take me inside and let me put my head into a stack
  Of orris-root and musk."
  Within the shop, the light is dimmed to a pearl-and-green dusk
  Out of which dreamily sparkle counters and shelves of glass,
  Containing phials, and bowls, and jars, and dishes; a mass
  Of aqueous transparence made solid by threads of gold.
  Gold and glass,
  And scents which whiff across the green twilight and pass.
  The perfumer sits down and shakes his head:
  "Always the same, Monsieur Antoine,
  You artists are wonderful folk indeed."
  But Antoine Vernet does not heed.
  He is reading the names on the bottles and bowls,
  Done in fine gilt letters with wonderful scrolls.
  "What have we here?  'Eau Imperial Odontalgique.'
  I must say, mon cher, your names are chic.
  But it won't do, positively it will not do.
  Elba doesn't count.  Ah, here is another:
  'Baume du Commandeur'.  That's better.  He needs something to smother
  Regrets.  A little lubricant, too,
  Might be useful.  I have it,
  'Sage Oil', perhaps he'll be good now; with it we'll submit
  This fine German rouge.  I fear he is pale."
  "Monsieur Antoine, don't rail
  At misfortune.  He treated me well and fairly."
  "And you prefer him to Bourbons, admit it squarely."
  "Heaven forbid!"  Bang!  Whack!
  Squeak!  Squeak!  Crack!
  CRASH!
  "Oh, Lord, Martin!  That shield is hash.
  The whole street is covered with golden bees.
  They look like so many yellow peas,
  Lying there in the mud.  I'd like to paint it.
  'Plum pudding of Empire'.  That's rather quaint, it
  Might take with the Kings.  Shall I try?"  "Oh, Sir,
  You distress me, you do."  "Poor old Martin's purr!
  But he hasn't a scratch in him, I know.
  Now let us get back to the powders and patches.
  Foolish man,
  The Kings are here now.  We must hit on a plan
  To change all these titles as fast as we can.
  'Bouquet Imperatrice'.  Tut!  Tut!  Give me some ink--
  'Bouquet de la Reine', what do you think?
  Not the same receipt?
  Now, Martin, put away your conceit.
  Who will ever know?
  'Extract of Nobility'--excellent, since most of them are killed."
  "But, Monsieur Antoine--"
  "You are self-willed,
  Martin.  You need a salve
  For your conscience, do you?
  Very well, we'll halve
  The compliments, also the pastes and dentifrices;
  Send some to the Kings, and some to the Empresses.
  'Oil of Bitter Almonds'--the Empress Josephine can have that.
  'Oil of Parma Violets' fits the other one pat."
  Rap!  Rap!  Bang!
  "What a hideous clatter!
  Blaise seems determined to batter
  That poor old turkey into bits,
  And pound to jelly my excellent wits.
  Come, come, Martin, you mustn't shirk.
  'The night cometh soon'--etc.  Don't jerk
  Me up like that.  'Essence de la Valliere'--
  That has a charmingly Bourbon air.
  And, oh! Magnificent!  Listen to this!--
  'Vinaigre des Quatre Voleurs'.  Nothing amiss
  With that--England, Austria, Russia and Prussia!
  Martin, you're a wonder,
  Upheavals of continents can't keep you under."
  "Monsieur Antoine, I am grieved indeed
  At such levity.  What France has gone through--"
  "Very true, Martin, very true,
  But never forget that a man must feed."
  Pound!  Pound!  Thump!
  Pound!
  "Look here, in another minute Blaise will drop that bird on the ground."
  Martin shrugs his shoulders.  "Ah, well, what then?--"
  Antoine, with a laugh:  "I'll give you two sous for that antiquated hen."
  The Imperial Eagle sells for two sous,
  And the lilies go up.
        A man must choose!


      III

    Paris, April, 1814

  Cold, impassive, the marble arch of the Place du Carrousel.
  Haughty, contemptuous, the marble arch of the Place du Carrousel.
  Like a woman raped by force, rising above her fate,
  Borne up by the cold rigidity of hate,
  Stands the marble arch of the Place du Carrousel.
  Tap!  Clink-a-tink!
  Tap!  Rap!  Chink!
  What falls to the ground like a streak of flame?
  Hush!  It is only a bit of bronze flashing in the sun.
  What are all those soldiers?  Those are not the uniforms of France.
  Alas!  No!  The uniforms of France, Great Imperial France, are done.
  They will rot away in chests and hang to dusty tatters in barn lofts.
  These are other armies.  And their name?
  Hush, be still for shame;
  Be still and imperturbable like the marble arch.
  Another bright spark falls through the blue air.
  Over the Place du Carrousel a wailing of despair.
  Crowd your horses back upon the people, Uhlans and Hungarian Lancers,
  They see too much.
  Unfortunately, Gentlemen of the Invading Armies, what they do not see,
    they hear.
  Tap!  Clink-a-tink!
  Tap!
  Another sharp spear
  Of brightness,
  And a ringing of quick metal lightness
  On hard stones.
  Workmen are chipping off the names of Napoleon's victories
  From the triumphal arch of the Place du Carrousel.

  Do they need so much force to quell the crowd?
  An old Grenadier of the line groans aloud,
  And each hammer tap points the sob of a woman.
  Russia, Prussia, Austria, and the faded-white-lily Bourbon king
  Think it well
  To guard against tumult,
  A mob is an undependable thing.
  Ding!  Ding!
  Vienna is scattered all over the Place du Carrousel
  In glittering, bent, and twisted letters.
  Your betters have clattered over Vienna before,
  Officer of his Imperial Majesty our Father-in-Law!
  Tink!  Tink!
  A workman's chisel can strew you to the winds,
  Munich.
  Do they think
  To pleasure Paris, used to the fall of cities,
  By giving her a fall of letters!

  It is a month too late.
  One month, and our lily-white Bourbon king
  Has done a colossal thing;
  He has curdled love,
  And soured the desires of a people.
  Still the letters fall,
  The workmen creep up and down their ladders like lizards on a wall.
  Tap!  Tap!  Tink!
  Clink!  Clink!
  "Oh, merciful God, they will not touch Austerlitz!
  Strike me blind, my God, my eyes can never look on that.
  I would give the other leg to save it, it took one.
  Curse them!  Curse them!  Aim at his hat.
  Give me the stone.  Why didn't you give it to me?
  I would not have missed.  Curse him!
  Curse all of them!  They have got the 'A'!"
  Ding!  Ding!
  "I saw the Terror, but I never saw so horrible a thing as this.
  'Vive l'Empereur!  Vive l'Empereur!'"
  "Don't strike him, Fritz.
  The mob will rise if you do.
  Just run him out to the 'quai',
  That will get him out of the way.
  They are almost through."
  Clink!  Tink!  Ding!
  Clear as the sudden ring
  Of a bell
  "Z" strikes the pavement.
  Farewell, Austerlitz, Tilsit, Presbourg;
  Farewell, greatness departed.
  Farewell, Imperial honours, knocked broadcast by the beating hammers
    of ignorant workmen.
  Straight, in the Spring moonlight,
  Rises the deflowered arch.
  In the silence, shining bright,
  She stands naked and unsubdued.
  Her marble coldness will endure the march
  Of decades.
  Rend her bronzes, hammers;
  Cast down her inscriptions.
  She is unconquerable, austere,
  Cold as the moon that swims above her
  When the nights are clear.


      IV

    Croissy, Ile-de-France, June, 1815

  "Whoa!  Victorine.
  Devil take the mare!  I've never seen so vicious a beast.
  She kicked Jules the last time she was here,
  He's been lame ever since, poor chap."
  Rap!  Tap!
  Tap-a-tap-a-tap!  Tap!  Tap!
  "I'd rather be lame than dead at Waterloo, M'sieu Charles."
  "Sacre Bleu!  Don't mention Waterloo, and the damned grinning British.
  We didn't run in the old days.
  There wasn't any running at Jena.
  Those were decent days,
  And decent men, who stood up and fought.
  We never got beaten, because we wouldn't be.
  See!"
  "You would have taught them, wouldn't you, Sergeant Boignet?
  But to-day it's everyone for himself,
  And the Emperor isn't what he was."
  "How the Devil do you know that?
  If he was beaten, the cause
  Is the green geese in his army, led by traitors.
  Oh, I say no names, Monsieur Charles,
  You needn't hammer so loud.
  If there are any spies lurking behind the bellows,
  I beg they come out.  Dirty fellows!"
  The old Sergeant seizes a red-hot poker
  And advances, brandishing it, into the shadows.
  The rows of horses flick
  Placid tails.
  Victorine gives a savage kick
  As the nails
  Go in.  Tap!  Tap!
  Jules draws a horseshoe from the fire
  And beats it from red to peacock-blue and black,
  Purpling darker at each whack.
  Ding!  Dang!  Dong!
  Ding-a-ding-dong!
  It is a long time since any one spoke.
  Then the blacksmith brushes his hand over his eyes,
  "Well," he sighs,
  "He's broke."
  The Sergeant charges out from behind the bellows.
  "It's the green geese, I tell you,
  Their hearts are all whites and yellows,
  There's no red in them.  Red!
  That's what we want.  Fouche should be fed
  To the guillotine, and all Paris dance the carmagnole.
  That would breed jolly fine lick-bloods
  To lead his armies to victory."
  "Ancient history, Sergeant.
  He's done."
  "Say that again, Monsieur Charles, and I'll stun
  You where you stand for a dung-eating Royalist."
  The Sergeant gives the poker a savage twist;
  He is as purple as the cooling horseshoes.
  The air from the bellows creaks through the flues.
  Tap!  Tap!  The blacksmith shoes Victorine,
  And through the doorway a fine sheen
  Of leaves flutters, with the sun between.
  By a spurt of fire from the forge
  You can see the Sergeant, with swollen gorge,
  Puffing, and gurgling, and choking;
  The bellows keep on croaking.
  They wheeze,
  And sneeze,
  Creak!  Bang!  Squeeze!
  And the hammer strokes fall like buzzing bees
  Or pattering rain,
  Or faster than these,
  Like the hum of a waterfall struck by a breeze.
  Clank! from the bellows-chain pulled up and down.
  Clank!
  And sunshine twinkles on Victorine's flank,
  Starting it to blue,
  Dropping it to black.
  Clack!  Clack!
  Tap-a-tap!  Tap!
  Lord!  What galloping!  Some mishap
  Is making that man ride so furiously.
  "Francois, you!
  Victorine won't be through
  For another quarter of an hour."  "As you hope to die,
  Work faster, man, the order has come."
  "What order?  Speak out.  Are you dumb?"
  "A chaise, without arms on the panels, at the gate
  In the far side-wall, and just to wait.
  We must be there in half an hour with swift cattle.
  You're a stupid fool if you don't hear that rattle.
  Those are German guns.  Can't you guess the rest?
  Nantes, Rochefort, possibly Brest."
  Tap!  Tap! as though the hammers were mad.
  Dang!  Ding!  Creak!  The farrier's lad
  Jerks the bellows till he cracks their bones,
  And the stifled air hiccoughs and groans.
  The Sergeant is lying on the floor
  Stone dead, and his hat with the tricolore
  Cockade has rolled off into the cinders.  Victorine snorts and lays back
    her ears.
  What glistens on the anvil?  Sweat or tears?


      V

    St. Helena, May, 1821

  Tap!  Tap!  Tap!
  Through the white tropic night.
  Tap!  Tap!
  Beat the hammers,
  Unwearied, indefatigable.
  They are hanging dull black cloth about the dead.
  Lustreless black cloth
  Which chokes the radiance of the moonlight
  And puts out the little moving shadows of leaves.
  Tap!  Tap!
  The knocking makes the candles quaver,
  And the long black hangings waver
  Tap!  Tap!  Tap!
  Tap!  Tap!
  In the ears which do not heed.
  Tap!  Tap!
  Above the eyelids which do not flicker.
  Tap!  Tap!
  Over the hands which do not stir.
  Chiselled like a cameo of white agate against the hangings,
  Struck to brilliance by the falling moonlight,
  A face!
  Sharp as a frozen flame,
  Beautiful as an altar lamp of silver,
  And still.  Perfectly still.
  In the next room, the men chatter
  As they eat their midnight lunches.
  A knife hits against a platter.
  But the figure on the bed
  Between the stifling black hangings
  Is cold and motionless,
  Played over by the moonlight from the windows
  And the indistinct shadows of leaves.

  Tap!  Tap!
  Upholsterer Darling has a fine shop in Jamestown.
  Tap!  Tap!
  Andrew Darling has ridden hard from Longwood to see to the work in his shop
    in Jamestown.
  He has a corps of men in it, toiling and swearing,
  Knocking, and measuring, and planing, and squaring,
  Working from a chart with figures,
  Comparing with their rules,
  Setting this and that part together with their tools.
  Tap!  Tap!  Tap!
  Haste indeed!
  So great is the need
  That carpenters have been taken from the new church,
  Joiners have been called from shaping pews and lecterns
  To work of greater urgency.
  Coffins!
  Coffins is what they are making this bright Summer morning.
  Coffins--and all to measurement.
  There is a tin coffin,
  A deal coffin,
  A lead coffin,
  And Captain Bennett's best mahogany dining-table
  Has been sawed up for the grand outer coffin.
  Tap!  Tap!  Tap!
  Sunshine outside in the square,
  But inside, only hollow coffins and the tapping upon them.
  The men whistle,
  And the coffins grow under their hammers
  In the darkness of the shop.
  Tap!  Tap!  Tap!

  Tramp of men.
  Steady tramp of men.
  Slit-eyed Chinese with long pigtails
  Bearing oblong things upon their shoulders
  March slowly along the road to Longwood.
  Their feet fall softly in the dust of the road;
  Sometimes they call gutturally to each other and stop to shift shoulders.
  Four coffins for the little dead man,
  Four fine coffins,
  And one of them Captain Bennett's dining-table!
  And sixteen splendid Chinamen, all strong and able
  And of assured neutrality.
  Ah!  George of England, Lord Bathhurst & Co.
  Your princely munificence makes one's heart glow.
  Huzza!  Huzza!  For the Lion of England!

  Tap!  Tap!  Tap!
  Marble likeness of an Emperor,
  Dead man, who burst your heart against a world too narrow,
  The hammers drum you to your last throne
  Which always you shall hold alone.
  Tap!  Tap!
  The glory of your past is faded as a sunset fire,
  Your day lingers only like the tones of a wind-lyre
  In a twilit room.
  Here is the emptiness of your dream
  Scattered about you.
  Coins of yesterday,
  Double napoleons stamped with Consul or Emperor,
  Strange as those of Herculaneum--
  And you just dead!
  Not one spool of thread
  Will these buy in any market-place.
  Lay them over him,
  They are the baubles of a crown of mist
  Worn in a vision and melted away at waking.
  Tap!  Tap!
  His heart strained at kingdoms
  And now it is content with a silver dish.
  Strange World!  Strange Wayfarer!
  Strange Destiny!
  Lower it gently beside him and let it lie.
  Tap!  Tap!  Tap!




Two Travellers in the Place Vendome

  Reign of Louis Philippe



  A great tall column spearing at the sky
  With a little man on top.  Goodness!  Tell me why?
  He looks a silly thing enough to stand up there so high.

  What a strange fellow, like a soldier in a play,
  Tight-fitting coat with the tails cut away,
  High-crowned hat which the brims overlay.

  Two-horned hat makes an outline like a bow.
  Must have a sword, I can see the light glow
  Between a dark line and his leg.  Vertigo

  I get gazing up at him, a pygmy flashed with sun.
  A weathercock or scarecrow or both things in one?
  As bright as a jewelled crown hung above a throne.

  Say, what is the use of him if he doesn't turn?
  Just put up to glitter there, like a torch to burn,
  A sort of sacrificial show in a lofty urn?

  But why a little soldier in an obsolete dress?
  I'd rather see a Goddess with a spear, I confess.
  Something allegorical and fine.  Why, yes--

  I cannot take my eyes from him.  I don't know why at all.
  I've looked so long the whole thing swims.  I feel he ought to fall.
  Foreshortened there among the clouds he's pitifully small.

  What do you say?  There used to be an Emperor standing there,
  With flowing robes and laurel crown.  Really?  Yet I declare
  Those spiral battles round the shaft don't seem just his affair.

  A togaed, laurelled man's I mean.  Now this chap seems to feel
  As though he owned those soldiers.  Whew!  How he makes one reel,
  Swinging round above his circling armies in a wheel.

  Sweeping round the sky in an orbit like the sun's,
  Flashing sparks like cannon-balls from his own long guns.
  Perhaps my sight is tired, but that figure simply stuns.

  How low the houses seem, and all the people are mere flies.
  That fellow pokes his hat up till it scratches on the skies.
  Impudent!  Audacious!  But, by Jove, he blinds the eyes!





WAR PICTURES




The Allies

August 14th, 1914



Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself.  The zigzagging
cry of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the
head of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching
men. Men weighed down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war.
The cry jars and splits against the brazen, burnished sky.

This is the war of wars, and the cause?  Has this writhing worm of men a
cause?

Crackling against the polished sky is an eagle with a sword.  The eagle
is red and its head is flame.


In the shoulder of the worm is a teacher.

His tongue laps the war-sucked air in drought, but he yells defiance at
the red-eyed eagle, and in his ears are the bells of new philosophies,
and their tinkling drowns the sputter of the burning sword.  He shrieks,
"God damn you!  When you are broken, the word will strike out new
shoots."

His boots are tight, the sun is hot, and he may be shot, but he is in
the shoulder of the worm.


A dust speck in the worm's belly is a poet.

He laughs at the flaring eagle and makes a long nose with his fingers.
He will fight for smooth, white sheets of paper, and uncurdled ink. The
sputtering sword cannot make him blink, and his thoughts are wet and
rippling.  They cool his heart.

He will tear the eagle out of the sky and give the earth tranquillity,
and loveliness printed on white paper.


The eye of the serpent is an owner of mills.

He looks at the glaring sword which has snapped his machinery and struck
away his men.

But it will all come again, when the sword is broken to a million dying
stars, and there are no more wars.


Bankers, butchers, shop-keepers, painters, farmers--men, sway and
sweat. They will fight for the earth, for the increase of the slow, sure
roots of peace, for the release of hidden forces.  They jibe at the
eagle and his scorching sword.

One!  Two!--One!  Two!--clump the heavy boots.  The cry hurtles
against the sky.

Each man pulls his belt a little tighter, and shifts his gun to make it
lighter.  Each man thinks of a woman, and slaps out a curse at the
eagle.  The sword jumps in the hot sky, and the worm crawls on to the
battle, stubbornly.

This is the war of wars, from eye to tail the serpent has one cause:
PEACE!




The Bombardment



Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city.  It stops a moment
on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and
trickling over his stone cloak.  It splashes from the lead conduit of a
gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral
square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep
about in the sky? Boom!  The sound swings against the rain.  Boom,
again!  After it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil
from the spout of the gargoyle. Silence.  Ripples and mutters.  Boom!


The room is damp, but warm.  Little flashes swarm about from the
firelight. The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of
rubies leap in the bohemian glasses on the 'etagere'.  Her hands are
restless, but the white masses of her hair are quite still.  Boom!  Will
it never cease to torture, this iteration!  Boom!  The vibration
shatters a glass on the 'etagere'.  It lies there, formless and glowing,
with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red,
blood-red.  A thin bell-note pricks through the silence.  A door creaks.
The old lady speaks:  "Victor, clear away that broken glass."  "Alas!
Madame, the bohemian glass!"  "Yes, Victor, one hundred years ago my
father brought it--"  Boom!  The room shakes, the servitor quakes.
Another goblet shivers and breaks.  Boom!


It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is
shut within its clash and murmur.  Inside is his candle, his table, his
ink, his pen, and his dreams.  He is thinking, and the walls are pierced
with beams of sunshine, slipping through young green.  A fountain tosses
itself up at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin
he can see copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves.  A wind-harp
in a cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain,
bubbled, iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and
higher.  Boom! The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems.  The
fountain rears up in long broken spears of dishevelled water and
flattens into the earth.  Boom! And there is only the room, the table,
the candle, and the sliding rain. Again, Boom!--Boom!--Boom!  He
stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees corpses, and cries out in
fright.  Boom!  It is night, and they are shelling the city!  Boom!
Boom!


A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness.  What has made
the bed shake?  "Mother, where are you?  I am awake."  "Hush, my
Darling, I am here."  "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the
room shook." Boom!  "Oh!  What is it?  What is the matter?"  Boom!
"Where is Father? I am so afraid."  Boom!  The child sobs and shrieks.
The house trembles and creaks.  Boom!


Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered.  All his trials oozing
across the floor.  The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent,
goaded by a hope, all gone.  A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that is
his story.  Boom!  Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes.
Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime.
Wails from people burying their dead.  Through the window, he can see
the rocking steeple.  A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and
the sky tears apart on a spike of flame.  Up the spire, behind the
lacings of stone, zigzagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms
the fire.  It spouts like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round
the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light.  It leaps into the
night and hisses against the rain.  The Cathedral is a burning stain on
the white, wet night.


Boom!  The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to
scorch. Boom!  The bohemian glass on the 'etagere' is no longer there.
Boom!  A stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old
lady cannot walk.  She watches the creeping stalk and counts.
Boom!--Boom!--Boom!


The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of
silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads.
The city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run
the flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls.  Smearing its
gold on the sky, the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and
lisps and chuckles along the floors.


The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower
flickering at the window.  The little red lips of flame creep along the
ceiling beams.


The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning
Cathedral.  Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter
and crowd into the cellars.  They shout and call, and over all, slowly
and without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom!  And the steeple
crashes down among the people.  Boom!  Boom, again! The water rushes
along the gutters.  The fire roars and mutters.  Boom!




Lead Soldiers



The nursery fire burns brightly, crackling in cheerful little explosions
and trails of sparks up the back of the chimney.  Miniature rockets
peppering the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala flamed a
night of victorious wars.

The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his head forward and back,
slowly, and looks into the air with his blue-green eyes.  He stares into
the air and nods--forward and back.  The red rose in his hand is a
crimson splash on his yellow coat.  Forward and back, and his blue-green
eyes stare into the air, and he nods--nods.


   Tommy's soldiers march to battle,
   Trumpets flare and snare-drums rattle.
   Bayonets flash, and sabres glance--
   How the horses snort and prance!
   Cannon drawn up in a line
   Glitter in the dizzy shine
   Of the morning sunlight.  Flags
   Ripple colours in great jags.
   Red blows out, then blue, then green,
   Then all three--a weaving sheen
   Of prismed patriotism.  March
   Tommy's soldiers, stiff and starch,
   Boldly stepping to the rattle
   Of the drums, they go to battle.


Tommy lies on his stomach on the floor and directs his columns. He puts
his infantry in front, and before them ambles a mounted band. Their
instruments make a strand of gold before the scarlet-tunicked soldiers,
and they take very long steps on their little green platforms, and from
the ranks bursts the song of Tommy's soldiers marching to battle. The
song jolts a little as the green platforms stick on the thick carpet.
Tommy wheels his guns round the edge of a box of blocks, and places a
squad of cavalry on the commanding eminence of a footstool.


The fire snaps pleasantly, and the old Chinaman nods--nods.  The fire
makes the red rose in his hand glow and twist.  Hist!  That is a bold
song Tommy's soldiers sing as they march along to battle.

Crack!  Rattle!  The sparks fly up the chimney.


   Tommy's army's off to war--
   Not a soldier knows what for.
   But he knows about his rifle,
   How to shoot it, and a trifle
   Of the proper thing to do
   When it's he who is shot through.
   Like a cleverly trained flea,
   He can follow instantly
   Orders, and some quick commands
   Really make severe demands
   On a mind that's none too rapid,
   Leaden brains tend to the vapid.
   But how beautifully dressed
   Is this army!  How impressed
   Tommy is when at his heel
   All his baggage wagons wheel
   About the patterned carpet, and
   Moving up his heavy guns
   He sees them glow with diamond suns
   Flashing all along each barrel.
   And the gold and blue apparel
   Of his gunners is a joy.
   Tommy is a lucky boy.
       Boom!  Boom!  Ta-ra!

The old mandarin nods under his purple umbrella.  The rose in his hand
shoots its petals up in thin quills of crimson.  Then they collapse and
shrivel like red embers.  The fire sizzles.


Tommy is galloping his cavalry, two by two, over the floor.  They must
pass the open terror of the door and gain the enemy encamped under the
wash-stand. The mounted band is very grand, playing allegro and leading
the infantry on at the double quick.  The tassel of the hearth-rug has
flung down the bass-drum, and he and his dapple-grey horse lie
overtripped, slipped out of line, with the little lead drumsticks
glistening to the fire's shine.

The fire burns and crackles, and tickles the tripped bass-drum with its
sparkles.

The marching army hitches its little green platforms valiantly, and
steadily approaches the door.  The overturned bass-drummer, lying on the
hearth-rug, melting in the heat, softens and sheds tears.  The song
jeers at his impotence, and flaunts the glory of the martial and still
upstanding, vaunting the deeds it will do.  For are not Tommy's soldiers
all bright and new?


   Tommy's leaden soldiers we,
   Glittering with efficiency.
   Not a button's out of place,
   Tons and tons of golden lace
   Wind about our officers.
   Every manly bosom stirs
   At the thought of killing--killing!
   Tommy's dearest wish fulfilling.
   We are gaudy, savage, strong,
   And our loins so ripe we long
   First to kill, then procreate,
   Doubling so the laws of Fate.
   On their women we have sworn
   To graft our sons.  And overborne
   They'll rear us younger soldiers, so
   Shall our race endure and grow,
   Waxing greater in the wombs
   Borrowed of them, while damp tombs
   Rot their men.  O Glorious War!
   Goad us with your points, Great Star!



The china mandarin on the bookcase nods slowly, forward and
back--forward and back--and the red rose writhes and wriggles,
thrusting its flaming petals under and over one another like tortured
snakes.

The fire strokes them with its dartles, and purrs at them, and the old
man nods.


Tommy does not hear the song.  He only sees the beautiful, new,
gaily-coloured lead soldiers.  They belong to him, and he is very proud
and happy.  He shouts his orders aloud, and gallops his cavalry past the
door to the wash-stand.  He creeps over the floor on his hands and knees
to one battalion and another, but he sees only the bright colours of his
soldiers and the beautiful precision of their gestures. He is a lucky
boy to have such fine lead soldiers to enjoy.


Tommy catches his toe in the leg of the wash-stand, and jars the
pitcher. He snatches at it with his hands, but it is too late.  The
pitcher falls, and as it goes, he sees the white water flow over its
lip.  It slips between his fingers and crashes to the floor.  But it is
not water which oozes to the door.  The stain is glutinous and dark, a
spark from the firelight heads it to red.  In and out, between the fine,
new soldiers, licking over the carpet, squirms the stream of blood,
lapping at the little green platforms, and flapping itself against the
painted uniforms.


The nodding mandarin moves his head slowly, forward and back. The rose
is broken, and where it fell is black blood.  The old mandarin leers
under his purple umbrella, and nods--forward and back, staring into
the air with blue-green eyes.  Every time his head comes forward a
rosebud pushes between his lips, rushes into full bloom, and drips to
the ground with a splashing sound.  The pool of black blood grows and
grows, with each dropped rose, and spreads out to join the stream from
the wash-stand.  The beautiful army of lead soldiers steps boldly
forward, but the little green platforms are covered in the rising stream
of blood.


The nursery fire burns brightly and flings fan-bursts of stars up the
chimney, as though a gala flamed a night of victorious wars.




The Painter on Silk



  There was a man
  Who made his living
  By painting roses
  Upon silk.

  He sat in an upper chamber
  And painted,
  And the noises of the street
  Meant nothing to him.

  When he heard bugles, and fifes, and drums,
  He thought of red, and yellow, and white roses
  Bursting in the sunshine,
  And smiled as he worked.

  He thought only of roses,
  And silk.
  When he could get no more silk
  He stopped painting
  And only thought
  Of roses.

  The day the conquerors
  Entered the city,
  The old man
  Lay dying.
  He heard the bugles and drums,
  And wished he could paint the roses
  Bursting into sound.




A Ballad of Footmen



  Now what in the name of the sun and the stars
  Is the meaning of this most unholy of wars?

  Do men find life so full of humour and joy
  That for want of excitement they smash up the toy?

  Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
  All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"

  Are not quite the same.  All these men by the ears,
  And nine nations of women choking with tears.

  It is folly to think that the will of a king
  Can force men to make ducks and drakes of a thing

  They value, and life is, at least one supposes,
  Of some little interest, even if roses

  Have not grown up between one foot and the other.
  What a marvel bureaucracy is, which can smother

  Such quite elementary feelings, and tag
  A man with a number, and set him to wag

  His legs and his arms at the word of command
  Or the blow of a whistle!  He's certainly damned,

  Fit only for mince-meat, if a little gold lace
  And an upturned moustache can set him to face

  Bullets, and bayonets, and death, and diseases,
  Because some one he calls his Emperor, pleases.

  If each man were to lay down his weapon, and say,
  With a click of his heels, "I wish you Good-day,"

  Now what, may I ask, could the Emperor do?
  A king and his minions are really so few.

  Angry?  Oh, of course, a most furious Emperor!
  But the men are so many they need not mind his temper, or

  The dire results which could not be inflicted.
  With no one to execute sentence, convicted

  Is just the weak wind from an old, broken bellows.
  What lackeys men are, who might be such fine fellows!

  To be killing each other, unmercifully,
  At an order, as though one said, "Bring up the tea."

  Or is it that tasting the blood on their jaws
  They lap at it, drunk with its ferment, and laws

  So patiently builded, are nothing to drinking
  More blood, any blood.  They don't notice its stinking.

  I don't suppose tigers do, fighting cocks, sparrows,
  And, as to men--what are men, when their marrows

  Are running with blood they have gulped; it is plain
  Such excellent sport does not recollect pain.

  Toll the bells in the steeples left standing.  Half-mast
  The flags which meant order, for order is past.

  Take the dust of the streets and sprinkle your head,
  The civilization we've worked for is dead.

  Squeeze into this archway, the head of the line
  Has just swung round the corner to 'Die Wacht am Rhein'.





THE OVERGROWN PASTURE




Reaping



  You want to know what's the matter with me, do yer?
  My! ain't men blinder'n moles?
  It ain't nothin' new, be sure o' that.
  Why, ef you'd had eyes you'd ha' seed
  Me changin' under your very nose,
  Each day a little diff'rent.
  But you never see nothin', you don't.
  Don't touch me, Jake,
  Don't you dars't to touch me,
  I ain't in no humour.
  That's what's come over me;
  Jest a change clear through.
  You lay still, an' I'll tell yer,
  I've had it on my mind to tell yer
  Fer some time.
  It's a strain livin' a lie from mornin' till night,
  An' I'm goin' to put an end to it right now.
  An' don't make any mistake about one thing,
  When I married yer I loved yer.
  Why, your voice 'ud make
  Me go hot and cold all over,
  An' your kisses most stopped my heart from beatin'.
  Lord!  I was a silly fool.
  But that's the way 'twas.
  Well, I married yer
  An' thought Heav'n was comin'
  To set on the door-step.
  Heav'n didn't do no settin',
  Though the first year warn't so bad.
  The baby's fever threw you off some, I guess,
  An' then I took her death real hard,
  An' a mopey wife kind o' disgusts a man.
  I ain't blamin' yer exactly.
  But that's how 'twas.
  Do lay quiet,
  I know I'm slow, but it's harder to say 'n I thought.
  There come a time when I got to be
  More wife agin than mother.
  The mother part was sort of a waste
  When we didn't have no other child.
  But you'd got used ter lots o' things,
  An' you was all took up with the farm.
  Many's the time I've laid awake
  Watchin' the moon go clear through the elm-tree,
  Out o' sight.
  I'd foller yer around like a dog,
  An' set in the chair you'd be'n settin' in,
  Jest to feel its arms around me,
  So long's I didn't have yours.
  It preyed on me, I guess,
  Longin' and longin'
  While you was busy all day, and snorin' all night.
  Yes, I know you're wide awake now,
  But now ain't then,
  An' I guess you'll think diff'rent
  When I'm done.
  Do you mind the day you went to Hadrock?
  I didn't want to stay home for reasons,
  But you said someone 'd have to be here
  'Cause Elmer was comin' to see t' th' telephone.
  An' you never see why I was so set on goin' with yer,
  Our married life hadn't be'n any great shakes,
  Still marriage is marriage, an' I was raised God-fearin'.
  But, Lord, you didn't notice nothin',
  An' Elmer hangin' around all Winter!
  'Twas a lovely mornin'.
  The apple-trees was jest elegant
  With their blossoms all flared out,
  An' there warn't a cloud in the sky.
  You went, you wouldn't pay no 'tention to what I said,
  An' I heard the Ford chuggin' for most a mile,
  The air was so still.
  Then Elmer come.
  It's no use your frettin', Jake,
  I'll tell you all about it.
  I know what I'm doin',
  An' what's worse, I know what I done.
  Elmer fixed th' telephone in about two minits,
  An' he didn't seem in no hurry to go,
  An' I don't know as I wanted him to go either,
  I was awful mad at your not takin' me with yer,
  An' I was tired o' wishin' and wishin'
  An' gittin' no comfort.
  I guess it ain't necessary to tell yer all the things.
  He stayed to dinner,
  An' he helped me do the dishes,
  An' he said a home was a fine thing,
  An' I said dishes warn't a home
  Nor yet the room they're in.
  He said a lot o' things,
  An' I fended him off at first,
  But he got talkin' all around me,
  Clost up to the things I'd be'n thinkin',
  What's the use o' me goin' on, Jake,
  You know.
  He got all he wanted,
  An' I give it to him,
  An' what's more, I'm glad!
  I ain't dead, anyway,
  An' somebody thinks I'm somethin'.
  Keep away, Jake,
  You can kill me to-morrer if you want to,
  But I'm goin' to have my say.
  Funny thing!  Guess I ain't made to hold a man.
  Elmer ain't be'n here for mor'n two months.
  I don't want to pretend nothin',
  Mebbe if he'd be'n lately
  I shouldn't have told yer.
  I'll go away in the mornin', o' course.
  What you want the light fer?
  I don't look no diff'rent.
  Ain't the moon bright enough
  To look at a woman that's deceived yer by?
  Don't, Jake, don't, you can't love me now!
  It ain't a question of forgiveness.
  Why!  I'd be thinkin' o' Elmer ev'ry minute;
  It ain't decent.
  Oh, my God!  It ain't decent any more either way!




Off the Turnpike



  Good ev'nin', Mis' Priest.
  I jest stepped in to tell you Good-bye.
  Yes, it's all over.
  All my things is packed
  An' every last one o' them boxes
  Is on Bradley's team
  Bein' hauled over to th' depot.
  No, I ain't goin' back agin.
  I'm stoppin' over to French's fer to-night,
  And goin' down first train in th' mornin'.
  Yes, it do seem kinder queer
  Not to be goin' to see Cherry's Orchard no more,
  But Land Sakes!  When a change's comin',
  Why, I al'ays say it can't come too quick.
  Now, that's real kind o' you,
  Your doughnuts is always so tasty.
  Yes, I'm goin' to Chicago,
  To my niece,
  She's married to a fine man, hardware business,
  An' doin' real well, she tells me.
  Lizzie's be'n at me to go out ther for the longest while.
  She ain't got no kith nor kin to Chicago, you know
  She's rented me a real nice little flat,
  Same house as hers,
  An' I'm goin' to try that city livin' folks say's so pleasant.
  Oh, yes, he was real generous,
  Paid me a sight o' money fer the Orchard;
  I told him 'twouldn't yield nothin' but stones,
  But he ain't farmin' it.
  Lor', no, Mis' Priest,
  He's jest took it to set and look at the view.
  Mebbe he wouldn't be so stuck on the view
  Ef he'd seed it every mornin' and night for forty year
  Same's as I have.
  I dessay it's pretty enough,
  But it's so pressed into me
  I c'n see't with my eyes shut.
  No.  I ain't cold, Mis' Priest,
  Don't shut th' door.
  I'll be all right in a minit.
  But I ain't a mite sorry to leave that view.
  Well, mebbe 'tis queer to feel so,
  An' mebbe 'taint.
  My!  But that tea's revivin'.
  Old things ain't always pleasant things, Mis' Priest.
  No, no, I don't cal'late on comin' back,
  That's why I'd ruther be to Chicago,
  Boston's too near.
  It ain't cold, Mis' Priest,
  It's jest my thoughts.
  I ain't sick, only--
  Mis' Priest, ef you've nothin' ter take yer time,
  An' have a mind to listen,
  Ther's somethin' I'd like ter speak about
  I ain't never mentioned it,
  But I'd like to tell yer 'fore I go.
  Would you mind lowerin' them shades,
  Fall twilight's awful grey,
  An' that fire's real cosy with the shades drawed.
  Well, I guess folks about here think I've be'n dret'ful onsociable.
  You needn't say 'taint so, 'cause I know diff'rent.
  An' what's more, it's true.
  Well, the reason is I've be'n scared out o' my life.
  Scared ev'ry minit o' th' time, fer eight year.
  Eight mortal year 'tis, come next June.
  'Twas on the eighteenth o' June,
  Six months after I'd buried my husband,
  That somethin' happened ter me.
  Mebbe you'll mind that afore that
  I was a cheery body.
  Hiram was too,
  Al'ays liked to ask a neighbor in,
  An' ev'n when he died,
  Barrin' low sperrits, I warn't averse to seein' nobody.
  But that eighteenth o' June changed ev'rythin'.
  I was doin' most o' th' farmwork myself,
  With jest a hired boy, Clarence King, 'twas,
  Comin' in fer an hour or two.
  Well, that eighteenth o' June
  I was goin' round,
  Lockin' up and seein' to things 'fore I went to bed.
  I was jest steppin' out t' th' barn,
  Goin' round outside 'stead o' through the shed,
  'Cause there was such a sight o' moonlight
  Somehow or another I thought 'twould be pretty outdoors.
  I got settled for pretty things that night, I guess.
  I ain't stuck on 'em no more.
  Well, them laylock bushes side o' th' house
  Was real lovely.
  Glitt'rin' and shakin' in the moonlight,
  An' the smell o' them rose right up
  An' most took my breath away.
  The colour o' the spikes was all faded out,
  They never keep their colour when the moon's on 'em,
  But the smell fair 'toxicated me.
  I was al'ays partial to a sweet scent,
  An' I went close up t' th' bushes
  So's to put my face right into a flower.
  Mis' Priest, jest's I got breathin' in that laylock bloom
  I saw, layin' right at my feet,
  A man's hand!
  It was as white's the side o' th' house,
  And sparklin' like that lum'nous paint they put on gate-posts.
  I screamed right out,
  I couldn't help it,
  An' I could hear my scream
  Goin' over an' over
  In that echo be'ind th' barn.
  Hearin' it agin an' agin like that
  Scared me so, I dar'sn't scream any more.
  I jest stood ther,
  And looked at that hand.
  I thought the echo'd begin to hammer like my heart,
  But it didn't.
  There was only th' wind,
  Sighin' through the laylock leaves,
  An' slappin' 'em up agin the house.
  Well, I guess I looked at that hand
  Most ten minits,
  An' it never moved,
  Jest lay there white as white.
  After a while I got to thinkin' that o' course
  'Twas some drunken tramp over from Redfield.
  That calmed me some,
  An' I commenced to think I'd better git him out
  From under them laylocks.
  I planned to drag him in t' th' barn
  An' lock him in ther till Clarence come in th' mornin'.
  I got so mad thinkin' o' that all-fired brazen tramp
  Asleep in my laylocks,
  I jest stooped down and grabbed th' hand and give it an awful pull.
  Then I bumped right down settin' on the ground.
  Mis' Priest, ther warn't no body come with the hand.
  No, it ain't cold, it's jest that I can't abear thinkin' of it,
  Ev'n now.
  I'll take a sip o' tea.
  Thank you, Mis' Priest, that's better.
  I'd ruther finish now I've begun.
  Thank you, jest the same.
  I dropped the hand's ef it'd be'n red hot
  'Stead o' ice cold.
  Fer a minit or two I jest laid on that grass
  Pantin'.
  Then I up and run to them laylocks
  An' pulled 'em every which way.
  True es I'm settin' here, Mis' Priest,
  Ther warn't nothin' ther.
  I peeked an' pryed all about 'em,
  But ther warn't no man ther
  Neither livin' nor dead.
  But the hand was ther all right,
  Upside down, the way I'd dropped it,
  And glist'nin' fit to dazzle yer.
  I don't know how I done it,
  An' I don't know why I done it,
  But I wanted to git that dret'ful hand out o' sight
  I got in t' th' barn, somehow,
  An' felt roun' till I got a spade.
  I couldn't stop fer a lantern,
  Besides, the moonlight was bright enough in all conscience.
  Then I scooped that awful thing up in th' spade.
  I had a sight o' trouble doin' it.
  It slid off, and tipped over, and I couldn't bear
  Ev'n to touch it with my foot to prop it,
  But I done it somehow.
  Then I carried it off be'ind the barn,
  Clost to an old apple-tree
  Where you couldn't see from the house,
  An' I buried it,
  Good an' deep.

  I don't rec'lect nothin' more o' that night.
  Clarence woke me up in th' mornin',
  Hollerin' fer me to come down and set th' milk.
  When he'd gone,
  I stole roun' to the apple-tree
  And seed the earth all new turned
  Where I left it in my hurry.
  I did a heap o' gardenin'
  That mornin'.
  I couldn't cut no big sods
  Fear Clarence would notice and ask me what I wanted 'em fer,
  So I got teeny bits o' turf here and ther,
  And no one couldn't tell ther'd be'n any diggin'
  When I got through.
  They was awful days after that, Mis' Priest,
  I used ter go every mornin' and poke about them bushes,
  An' up and down the fence,
  Ter find the body that hand come off of.
  But I couldn't never find nothin'.
  I'd lay awake nights
  Hearin' them laylocks blowin' and whiskin'.
  At last I had Clarence cut 'em down
  An' make a big bonfire of 'em.
  I told him the smell made me sick,
  An' that warn't no lie,
  I can't abear the smell on 'em now;
  An' no wonder, es you say.
  I fretted somethin' awful 'bout that hand
  I wondered, could it be Hiram's,
  But folks don't rob graveyards hereabouts.
  Besides, Hiram's hands warn't that awful, starin' white.
  I give up seein' people,
  I was afeared I'd say somethin'.
  You know what folks thought o' me
  Better'n I do, I dessay,
  But mebbe now you'll see I couldn't do nothin' diff'rent.
  But I stuck it out,
  I warn't goin' to be downed
  By no loose hand, no matter how it come ther
  But that ain't the worst, Mis' Priest,
  Not by a long ways.
  Two year ago, Mr. Densmore made me an offer for Cherry's Orchard.
  Well, I'd got used to th' thought o' bein' sort o' blighted,
  An' I warn't scared no more.
  Lived down my fear, I guess.
  I'd kinder got used to th' thought o' that awful night,
  And I didn't mope much about it.
  Only I never went out o' doors by moonlight;
  That stuck.
  Well, when Mr. Densmore's offer come,
  I started thinkin' 'bout the place
  An' all the things that had gone on ther.
  Thinks I, I guess I'll go and see where I put the hand.
  I was foolhardy with the long time that had gone by.
  I know'd the place real well,
  Fer I'd put it right in between two o' the apple roots.
  I don't know what possessed me, Mis' Priest,
  But I kinder wanted to know
  That the hand had been flesh and bone, anyway.
  It had sorter bothered me, thinkin' I might ha' imagined it.
  I took a mornin' when the sun was real pleasant and warm;
  I guessed I wouldn't jump for a few old bones.
  But I did jump, somethin' wicked.
  Ther warn't no bones!
  Ther warn't nothin'!
  Not ev'n the gold ring I'd minded bein' on the little finger.
  I don't know ef ther ever was anythin'.
  I've worried myself sick over it.
  I be'n diggin' and diggin' day in and day out
  Till Clarence ketched me at it.
  Oh, I know'd real well what you all thought,
  An' I ain't sayin' you're not right,
  But I ain't goin' to end in no county 'sylum
  If I c'n help it.
  The shiv'rin' fits come on me sudden like.
  I know 'em, don't you trouble.
  I've fretted considerable about the 'sylum,
  I guess I be'n frettin' all the time I ain't be'n diggin'.
  But anyhow I can't dig to Chicago, can I?
  Thank you, Mis' Priest,
  I'm better now.  I only dropped in in passin'.
  I'll jest be steppin' along down to French's.
  No, I won't be seein' nobody in the mornin',
  It's a pretty early start.
  Don't you stand ther, Mis' Priest,
  The wind'll blow yer lamp out,
  An' I c'n see easy, I got aholt o' the gate now.
  I ain't a mite tired, thank you.
  Good-night.




The Grocery



  "Hullo, Alice!"
  "Hullo, Leon!"
  "Say, Alice, gi' me a couple
  O' them two for five cigars,
  Will yer?"
  "Where's your nickel?"
  "My!  Ain't you close!
  Can't trust a feller, can yer."
  "Trust you!  Why
  What you owe this store
  Would set you up in business.
  I can't think why Father 'lows it."
  "Yer Father's a sight more neighbourly
  Than you be.  That's a fact.
  Besides, he knows I got a vote."
  "A vote!  Oh, yes, you got a vote!
  A lot o' good the Senate'll be to Father
  When all his bank account
  Has run away in credits.
  There's your cigars,
  If you can relish smokin'
  With all you owe us standin'."
  "I dunno as that makes 'em taste any diff'rent.
  You ain't fair to me, Alice, 'deed you ain't.
  I work when anythin's doin'.
  I'll get a carpenterin' job next Summer sure.
  Cleve was tellin' me to-day he'd take me on come Spring."
  "Come Spring, and this December!
  I've no patience with you, Leon,
  Shilly-shallyin' the way you do.
  Here, lift over them crates o' oranges
  I wanter fix 'em in the winder."
  "It riles yer, don't it, me not havin' work.
  You pepper up about it somethin' good.
  You pick an' pick, and that don't help a mite.
  Say, Alice, do come in out o' that winder.
  Th' oranges c'n wait,
  An' I don't like talkin' to yer back."
  "Don't you!  Well, you'd better make the best o' what you can git.
  Maybe you won't have my back to talk to soon.
  They look good in pyramids with the 'lectric light on 'em,
  Don't they?
  Now hand me them bananas
  An' I'll string 'em right acrost."
  "What do yer mean
  'Bout me not havin' you to talk to?
  Are yer springin' somethin' on me?"
  "I don't know 'bout springin'
  When I'm tellin' you right out.
  I'm goin' away, that's all."
  "Where?  Why?
  What yer mean--goin' away?"
  "I've took a place
  Down to Boston, in a candy store
  For the holidays."
  "Good Land, Alice,
  What in the Heavens fer!"
  "To earn some money,
  And to git away from here, I guess."
  "Ain't yer Father got enough?
  Don't he give yer proper pocket-money?"
  "He'd have a plenty, if you folks paid him."
  "He's rich I tell yer.
  I never figured he'd be close with you."
  "Oh, he ain't.  Not close.
  That ain't why.
  But I must git away from here.
  I must!  I must!"
  "You got a lot o' reason in yer
  To-night.
  How long d' you cal'late
  You'll be gone?"
  "Maybe for always."
  "What ails yer, Alice?
  Talkin' wild like that.
  Ain't you an' me goin' to be married
  Some day."
  "Some day!  Some day!
  I guess the sun'll never rise on some day."
  "So that's the trouble.
  Same old story.
  'Cause I ain't got the cash to settle right now.
  You know I love yer,
  An' I'll marry yer as soon
  As I c'n raise the money."
  "You've said that any time these five year,
  But you don't do nothin'."
  "Wot could I do?
  Ther ain't no work here Winters.
  Not fer a carpenter, ther ain't."
  "I guess you warn't born a carpenter.
  Ther's ice-cuttin' a plenty."
  "I got a dret'ful tender throat;
  Dr. Smiles he told me
  I mustn't resk ice-cuttin'."
  "Why haven't you gone to Boston,
  And hunted up a job?"
  "Have yer forgot the time I went expressin'
  In the American office, down ther?"
  "And come back two weeks later!
  No, I ain't."
  "You didn't want I should git hurted,
  Did yer?
  I'm a sight too light fer all that liftin' work.
  My back was commencin' to strain, as 'twas.
  Ef I was like yer brother now,
  I'd ha' be'n down to the city long ago.
  But I'm too clumsy fer a dancer.
  I ain't got Arthur's luck."
  "Do you call it luck to be a disgrace to your folks,
  And git locked up in jail!"
  "Oh, come now, Alice,
  'Disgrace' is a mite strong.
  Why, the jail was a joke.
  Art's all right."
  "All right!
  All right to dance, and smirk, and lie
  For a livin',
  And then in the end
  Lead a silly girl to give you
  What warn't hers to give
  By pretendin' you'd marry her--
  And she a pupil."
  "He'd ha' married her right enough,
  Her folks was millionaires."
  "Yes, he'd ha' married her!
  Thank God, they saved her that."
  "Art's a fine feller.
  I wish I had his luck.
  Swellin' round in Hart, Schaffner & Marx fancy suits,
  And eatin' in rest'rants.
  But somebody's got to stick to the old place,
  Else Foxfield'd have to shut up shop,
  Hey, Alice?"
  "You admire him!
  You admire Arthur!
  You'd be like him only you can't dance.
  Oh, Shame!  Shame!
  And I've been like that silly girl.
  Fooled with your promises,
  And I give you all I had.
  I knew it, oh, I knew it,
  But I wanted to git away 'fore I proved it.
  You've shamed me through and through.
  Why couldn't you hold your tongue,
  And spared me seein' you
  As you really are."
  "What the Devil's the row?
  I only said Art was lucky.
  What you spitfirin' at me fer?
  Ferget it, Alice.
  We've had good times, ain't we?
  I'll see Cleve 'bout that job agin to-morrer,
  And we'll be married 'fore hayin' time."
  "It's like you to remind me o' hayin' time.
  I've good cause to love it, ain't I?
  Many's the night I've hid my face in the dark
  To shut out thinkin'!"
  "Why, that ain't nothin'.
  You ain't be'n half so kind to me
  As lots o' fellers' girls.
  Gi' me a kiss, Dear,
  And let's make up."
  "Make up!
  You poor fool.
  Do you suppose I care a ten cent piece
  For you now.
  You've killed yourself for me.
  Done it out o' your own mouth.
  You've took away my home,
  I hate the sight o' the place.
  You're all over it,
  Every stick an' stone means you,
  An' I hate 'em all."
  "Alice, I say,
  Don't go on like that.
  I can't marry yer
  Boardin' in one room,
  But I'll see Cleve to-morrer,
  I'll make him----"
  "Oh, you fool!
  You terrible fool!"
  "Alice, don't go yit,
  Wait a minit,
  I'll see Cleve----"
  "You terrible fool!"
  "Alice, don't go.
  Alice----"  (Door slams)




Number 3 on the Docket



  The lawyer, are you?
  Well!  I ain't got nothin' to say.
  Nothin'!
  I told the perlice I hadn't nothin'.
  They know'd real well 'twas me.
  Ther warn't no supposin',
  Ketchin' me in the woods as they did,
  An' me in my house dress.
  Folks don't walk miles an' miles
  In the drifted snow,
  With no hat nor wrap on 'em
  Ef everythin's all right, I guess.
  All right?  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!
  Nothin' warn't right with me.
  Never was.
  Oh, Lord!  Why did I do it?
  Why ain't it yesterday, and Ed here agin?
  Many's the time I've set up with him nights
  When he had cramps, or rheumatizm, or somethin'.
  I used ter nurse him same's ef he was a baby.
  I wouldn't hurt him, I love him!
  Don't you dare to say I killed him.  'Twarn't me!
  Somethin' got aholt o' me.  I couldn't help it.
  Oh, what shall I do!  What shall I do!
  Yes, Sir.
  No, Sir.
  I beg your pardon, I--I--
  Oh, I'm a wicked woman!
  An' I'm desolate, desolate!
  Why warn't I struck dead or paralyzed
  Afore my hands done it.
  Oh, my God, what shall I do!
  No, Sir, ther ain't no extenuatin' circumstances,
  An' I don't want none.
  I want a bolt o' lightnin'
  To strike me dead right now!
  Oh, I'll tell yer.
  But it won't make no diff'rence.
  Nothin' will.
  Yes, I killed him.
  Why do yer make me say it?
  It's cruel!  Cruel!
  I killed him because o' th' silence.
  The long, long silence,
  That watched all around me,
  And he wouldn't break it.
  I tried to make him,
  Time an' agin,
  But he was terrible taciturn, Ed was.
  He never spoke 'cept when he had to,
  An' then he'd only say "yes" and "no".
  You can't even guess what that silence was.
  I'd hear it whisperin' in my ears,
  An' I got frightened, 'twas so thick,
  An' al'ays comin' back.
  Ef Ed would ha' talked sometimes
  It would ha' driven it away;
  But he never would.
  He didn't hear it same as I did.
  You see, Sir,
  Our farm was off'n the main road,
  And set away back under the mountain;
  And the village was seven mile off,
  Measurin' after you'd got out o' our lane.
  We didn't have no hired man,
  'Cept in hayin' time;
  An' Dane's place,
  That was the nearest,
  Was clear way 'tother side the mountain.
  They used Marley post-office
  An' ours was Benton.
  Ther was a cart-track took yer to Dane's in Summer,
  An' it warn't above two mile that way,
  But it warn't never broke out Winters.
  I used to dread the Winters.
  Seem's ef I couldn't abear to see the golden-rod bloomin';
  Winter'd come so quick after that.
  You don't know what snow's like when yer with it
  Day in an' day out.
  Ed would be out all day loggin',
  An' I set at home and look at the snow
  Layin' over everythin';
  It 'ud dazzle me blind,
  Till it warn't white any more, but black as ink.
  Then the quiet 'ud commence rushin' past my ears
  Till I most went mad listenin' to it.
  Many's the time I've dropped a pan on the floor
  Jest to hear it clatter.
  I was most frantic when dinner-time come
  An' Ed was back from the woods.
  I'd ha' give my soul to hear him speak.
  But he'd never say a word till I asked him
  Did he like the raised biscuits or whatever,
  An' then sometimes he'd jest nod his answer.
  Then he'd go out agin,
  An' I'd watch him from the kitchin winder.
  It seemed the woods come marchin' out to meet him
  An' the trees 'ud press round him an' hustle him.
  I got so I was scared o' th' trees.
  I thought they come nearer,
  Every day a little nearer,
  Closin' up round the house.
  I never went in t' th' woods Winters,
  Though in Summer I liked 'em well enough.
  It warn't so bad when my little boy was with us.
  He used to go sleddin' and skatin',
  An' every day his father fetched him to school in the pung
  An' brought him back agin.
  We scraped an' scraped fer Neddy,
  We wanted him to have a education.
  We sent him to High School,
  An' then he went up to Boston to Technology.
  He was a minin' engineer,
  An' doin' real well,
  A credit to his bringin' up.
  But his very first position ther was an explosion in the mine.
  And I'm glad!  I'm glad!
  He ain't here to see me now.
  Neddy!  Neddy!
  I'm your mother still, Neddy.
  Don't turn from me like that.
  I can't abear it.  I can't!  I can't!
  What did you say?
  Oh, yes, Sir.
  I'm here.
  I'm very sorry,
  I don't know what I'm sayin'.
  No, Sir,
  Not till after Neddy died.
  'Twas the next Winter the silence come,
  I don't remember noticin' it afore.
  That was five year ago,
  An' it's been gittin' worse an' worse.
  I asked Ed to put in a telephone.
  I thought ef I felt the whisperin' comin' on
  I could ring up some o' th' folks.
  But Ed wouldn't hear of it.
  He said we'd paid so much for Neddy
  We couldn't hardly git along as 'twas.
  An' he never understood me wantin' to talk.
  Well, this year was worse'n all the others;
  We had a terrible spell o' stormy weather,
  An' the snow lay so thick
  You couldn't see the fences even.
  Out o' doors was as flat as the palm o' my hand,
  Ther warn't a hump or a holler
  Fer as you could see.
  It was so quiet
  The snappin' o' the branches back in the wood-lot
  Sounded like pistol shots.
  Ed was out all day
  Same as usual.
  An' it seemed he talked less'n ever.
  He didn't even say 'Good-mornin'', once or twice,
  An' jest nodded or shook his head when I asked him things.
  On Monday he said he'd got to go over to Benton
  Fer some oats.
  I'd oughter ha' gone with him,
  But 'twas washin' day
  An' I was afeared the fine weather'd break,
  An' I couldn't do my dryin'.
  All my life I'd done my work punctual,
  An' I couldn't fix my conscience
  To go junketin' on a washin'-day.
  I can't tell you what that day was to me.
  It dragged an' dragged,
  Fer ther warn't no Ed ter break it in the middle
  Fer dinner.
  Every time I stopped stirrin' the water
  I heerd the whisperin' all about me.
  I stopped oftener'n I should
  To see ef 'twas still ther,
  An' it al'ays was.
  An' gittin' louder
  It seemed ter me.
  Once I threw up the winder to feel the wind.
  That seemed most alive somehow.
  But the woods looked so kind of menacin'
  I closed it quick
  An' started to mangle's hard's I could,
  The squeakin' was comfortin'.
  Well, Ed come home 'bout four.
  I seen him down the road,
  An' I run out through the shed inter th' barn
  To meet him quicker.
  I hollered out, 'Hullo!'
  But he didn't say nothin',
  He jest drove right in
  An' climbed out o' th' sleigh
  An' commenced unharnessin'.
  I asked him a heap o' questions;
  Who he'd seed
  An' what he'd done.
  Once in a while he'd nod or shake,
  But most o' th' time he didn't do nothin'.
  'Twas gittin' dark then,
  An' I was in a state,
  With the loneliness
  An' Ed payin' no attention
  Like somethin' warn't livin'.
  All of a sudden it come,
  I don't know what,
  But I jest couldn't stand no more.
  It didn't seem 's though that was Ed,
  An' it didn't seem as though I was me.
  I had to break a way out somehow,
  Somethin' was closin' in
  An' I was stiflin'.
  Ed's loggin' axe was ther,
  An' I took it.
  Oh, my God!
  I can't see nothin' else afore me all the time.
  I run out inter th' woods,
  Seemed as ef they was pullin' me;
  An' all the time I was wadin' through the snow
  I seed Ed in front of me
  Where I'd laid him.
  An' I see him now.
  There!  There!
  What you holdin' me fer?
  I want ter go to Ed,
  He's bleedin'.
  Stop holdin' me.
  I got to go.
  I'm comin', Ed.
  I'll be ther in a minit.
  Oh, I'm so tired!
        (Faints)





CLOCKS TICK A CENTURY




Nightmare:  A Tale for an Autumn Evening

      After a Print by George Cruikshank



  It was a gusty night,
  With the wind booming, and swooping,
  Looping round corners,
  Sliding over the cobble-stones,
  Whipping and veering,
  And careering over the roofs
  Like a thousand clattering horses.
  Mr. Spruggins had been dining in the city,
  Mr. Spruggins was none too steady in his gait,
  And the wind played ball with Mr. Spruggins
  And laughed as it whistled past him.
  It rolled him along the street,
  With his little feet pit-a-patting on the flags of the sidewalk,
  And his muffler and his coat-tails blown straight out behind him.
  It bumped him against area railings,
  And chuckled in his ear when he said "Ouch!"
  Sometimes it lifted him clear off his little patting feet
  And bore him in triumph over three grey flagstones and a quarter.
  The moon dodged in and out of clouds, winking.
  It was all very unpleasant for Mr. Spruggins,
  And when the wind flung him hard against his own front door
  It was a relief,
  Although the breath was quite knocked out of him.
  The gas-lamp in front of the house flared up,
  And the keyhole was as big as a barn door;
  The gas-lamp flickered away to a sputtering blue star,
  And the keyhole went out with it.
  Such a stabbing, and jabbing,
  And sticking, and picking,
  And poking, and pushing, and prying
  With that key;
  And there is no denying that Mr. Spruggins rapped out an oath or two,
  Rub-a-dub-dubbing them out to a real snare-drum roll.
  But the door opened at last,
  And Mr. Spruggins blew through it into his own hall
  And slammed the door to so hard
  That the knocker banged five times before it stopped.
  Mr. Spruggins struck a light and lit a candle,
  And all the time the moon winked at him through the window.
  "Why couldn't you find the keyhole, Spruggins?"
  Taunted the wind.
  "I can find the keyhole."
  And the wind, thin as a wire,
  Darted in and seized the candle flame
  And knocked it over to one side
  And pummelled it down--down--down--!
  But Mr. Spruggins held the candle so close that it singed his chin,
  And ran and stumbled up the stairs in a surprisingly agile manner,
  For the wind through the keyhole kept saying, "Spruggins!  Spruggins!"
    behind him.
  The fire in his bedroom burned brightly.
  The room with its crimson bed and window curtains
  Was as red and glowing as a carbuncle.
  It was still and warm.
  There was no wind here, for the windows were fastened;
  And no moon,
  For the curtains were drawn.
  The candle flame stood up like a pointed pear
  In a wide brass dish.
  Mr. Spruggins sighed with content;
  He was safe at home.
  The fire glowed--red and yellow roses
  In the black basket of the grate--
  And the bed with its crimson hangings
  Seemed a great peony,
  Wide open and placid.
  Mr. Spruggins slipped off his top-coat and his muffler.
  He slipped off his bottle-green coat
  And his flowered waistcoat.
  He put on a flannel dressing-gown,
  And tied a peaked night-cap under his chin.
  He wound his large gold watch
  And placed it under his pillow.
  Then he tiptoed over to the window and pulled back the curtain.
  There was the moon dodging in and out of the clouds;
  But behind him was his quiet candle.
  There was the wind whisking along the street.
  The window rattled, but it was fastened.
  Did the wind say, "Spruggins"?
  All Mr. Spruggins heard was "S-s-s-s-s--"
  Dying away down the street.
  He dropped the curtain and got into bed.
  Martha had been in the last thing with the warming-pan;
  The bed was warm,
  And Mr. Spruggins sank into feathers,
  With the familiar ticking of his watch just under his head.
  Mr. Spruggins dozed.
  He had forgotten to put out the candle,
  But it did not make much difference as the fire was so bright...
  Too bright!
  The red and yellow roses pricked his eyelids,
  They scorched him back to consciousness.
  He tried to shift his position;
  He could not move.
  Something weighed him down,
  He could not breathe.
  He was gasping,
  Pinned down and suffocating.
  He opened his eyes.
  The curtains of the window were flung back,
  The fire and the candle were out,
  And the room was filled with green moonlight.
  And pressed against the window-pane
  Was a wide, round face,
  Winking--winking--
  Solemnly dropping one eyelid after the other.
  Tick--tock--went the watch under his pillow,
  Wink--wink--went the face at the window.
  It was not the fire roses which had pricked him,
  It was the winking eyes.
  Mr. Spruggins tried to bounce up;
  He could not, because--
  His heart flapped up into his mouth
  And fell back dead.
  On his chest was a fat pink pig,
  On the pig a blackamoor
  With a ten pound weight for a cap.
  His mustachios kept curling up and down like angry snakes,
  And his eyes rolled round and round,
  With the pupils coming into sight, and disappearing,
  And appearing again on the other side.
  The holsters at his saddle-bow were two port bottles,
  And a curved table-knife hung at his belt for a scimitar,
  While a fork and a keg of spirits were strapped to the saddle behind.
  He dug his spurs into the pig,
  Which trampled and snorted,
  And stamped its cloven feet deeper into Mr. Spruggins.
  Then the green light on the floor began to undulate.
  It heaved and hollowed,
  It rose like a tide,
  Sea-green,
  Full of claws and scales
  And wriggles.
  The air above his bed began to move;
  It weighed over him
  In a mass of draggled feathers.
  Not one lifted to stir the air.
  They drooped and dripped
  With a smell of port wine and brandy,
  Closing down, slowly,
  Trickling drops on the bed-quilt.
  Suddenly the window fell in with a great scatter of glass,
  And the moon burst into the room,
  Sizzling--"S-s-s-s-s--Spruggins!  Spruggins!"
  It rolled toward him,
  A green ball of flame,
  With two eyes in the center,
  A red eye and a yellow eye,
  Dropping their lids slowly,
  One after the other.
  Mr. Spruggins tried to scream,
  But the blackamoor
  Leapt off his pig
  With a cry,
  Drew his scimitar,
  And plunged it into Mr. Spruggins's mouth.

  Mr. Spruggins got up in the cold dawn
  And remade the fire.
  Then he crept back to bed
  By the light which seeped in under the window curtains,
  And lay there, shivering,
  While the bells of St. George the Martyr chimed the quarter after seven.




The Paper Windmill



The little boy pressed his face against the window-pane and looked out
at the bright sunshiny morning.  The cobble-stones of the square
glistened like mica.  In the trees, a breeze danced and pranced, and
shook drops of sunlight like falling golden coins into the brown water
of the canal.  Down stream slowly drifted a long string of galliots
piled with crimson cheeses.  The little boy thought they looked as if
they were roc's eggs, blocks of big ruby eggs.  He said, "Oh!" with
delight, and pressed against the window with all his might.


The golden cock on the top of the 'Stadhuis' gleamed.  His beak was open
like a pair of scissors and a narrow piece of blue sky was wedged in it.
"Cock-a-doodle-do," cried the little boy.  "Can't you hear me through
the window, Gold Cocky?  Cock-a-doodle-do!  You should crow when you see
the eggs of your cousin, the great roc."  But the golden cock stood
stock still, with his fine tail blowing in the wind. He could not
understand the little boy, for he said "Cocorico" when he said anything.
But he was hung in the air to swing, not to sing. His eyes glittered to
the bright West wind, and the crimson cheeses drifted away down the
canal.


It was very dull there in the big room.  Outside in the square, the wind
was playing tag with some fallen leaves.  A man passed, with a dogcart
beside him full of smart, new milkcans.  They rattled out a gay tune:
"Tiddity-tum-ti-ti.  Have some milk for your tea.  Cream for your coffee
to drink to-night, thick, and smooth, and sweet, and white," and the
man's sabots beat an accompaniment:  "Plop! trop! milk for your tea.
Plop! trop! drink it to-night."  It was very pleasant out there, but it
was lonely here in the big room.  The little boy gulped at a tear.


It was queer how dull all his toys were.  They were so still. Nothing
was still in the square.  If he took his eyes away a moment it had
changed.  The milkman had disappeared round the corner, there was only
an old woman with a basket of green stuff on her head, picking her way
over the shiny stones.  But the wind pulled the leaves in the basket
this way and that, and displayed them to beautiful advantage. The sun
patted them condescendingly on their flat surfaces, and they seemed
sprinkled with silver.  The little boy sighed as he looked at his
disordered toys on the floor.  They were motionless, and their colours
were dull. The dark wainscoting absorbed the sun.  There was none left
for toys.


The square was quite empty now.  Only the wind ran round and round it,
spinning.  Away over in the corner where a street opened into the
square, the wind had stopped.  Stopped running, that is, for it never
stopped spinning.  It whirred, and whirled, and gyrated, and turned. It
burned like a great coloured sun.  It hummed, and buzzed, and sparked,
and darted.  There were flashes of blue, and long smearing lines of
saffron, and quick jabs of green.  And over it all was a sheen like a
myriad cut diamonds.  Round and round it went, the huge wind-wheel, and
the little boy's head reeled with watching it.  The whole square was
filled with its rays, blazing and leaping round after one another,
faster and faster.  The little boy could not speak, he could only gaze,
staring in amaze.


The wind-wheel was coming down the square.  Nearer and nearer it came, a
great disk of spinning flame.  It was opposite the window now, and the
little boy could see it plainly, but it was something more than the wind
which he saw.  A man was carrying a huge fan-shaped frame on his
shoulder, and stuck in it were many little painted paper windmills, each
one scurrying round in the breeze.  They were bright and beautiful, and
the sight was one to please anybody, and how much more a little boy who
had only stupid, motionless toys to enjoy.


The little boy clapped his hands, and his eyes danced and whizzed, for
the circling windmills made him dizzy.  Closer and closer came the
windmill man, and held up his big fan to the little boy in the window of
the Ambassador's house.  Only a pane of glass between the boy and the
windmills.  They slid round before his eyes in rapidly revolving
splendour.  There were wheels and wheels of colours--big, little,
thick, thin--all one clear, perfect spin.  The windmill vendor dipped
and raised them again, and the little boy's face was glued to the
window-pane.  Oh!  What a glorious, wonderful plaything! Rings and rings
of windy colour always moving!  How had any one ever preferred those
other toys which never stirred.  "Nursie, come quickly.  Look! I want a
windmill.  See!  It is never still.  You will buy me one, won't you? I
want that silver one, with the big ring of blue."


So a servant was sent to buy that one:  silver, ringed with blue, and
smartly it twirled about in the servant's hands as he stood a moment to
pay the vendor.  Then he entered the house, and in another minute he was
standing in the nursery door, with some crumpled paper on the end of a
stick which he held out to the little boy.  "But I wanted a windmill
which went round," cried the little boy.  "That is the one you asked
for, Master Charles," Nursie was a bit impatient, she had mending to do.
"See, it is silver, and here is the blue."  "But it is only a blue
streak," sobbed the little boy.  "I wanted a blue ring, and this silver
doesn't sparkle."  "Well, Master Charles, that is what you wanted, now
run away and play with it, for I am very busy."


The little boy hid his tears against the friendly window-pane.  On the
floor lay the motionless, crumpled bit of paper on the end of its stick.
But far away across the square was the windmill vendor, with his big
wheel of whirring splendour.  It spun round in a blaze like a whirling
rainbow, and the sun gleamed upon it, and the wind whipped it, until it
seemed a maze of spattering diamonds.  "Cocorico!" crowed the golden
cock on the top of the 'Stadhuis'.  "That is something worth crowing
for." But the little boy did not hear him, he was sobbing over the
crumpled bit of paper on the floor.




The Red Lacquer Music-Stand



 A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought
 In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought
 With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,
 The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled
 With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,
 Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling
 Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;
 Petals and apples in high relief, and where the seams
 Are worn with handling, through the polished crimson sheen,
 Long streaks of black, the under lacquer, shine out clean.
 Four desks, adjustable, to suit the heights of players
 Sitting to viols or standing up to sing, four layers
 Of music to serve every instrument, are there,
 And on the apex a large flat-topped golden pear.
 It burns in red and yellow, dusty, smouldering lights,
 When the sun flares the old barn-chamber with its flights
 And skips upon the crystal knobs of dim sideboards,
 Legless and mouldy, and hops, glint to glint, on hoards
 Of scythes, and spades, and dinner-horns, so the old tools
 Are little candles throwing brightness round in pools.
 With Oriental splendour, red and gold, the dust
 Covering its flames like smoke and thinning as a gust
 Of brighter sunshine makes the colours leap and range,
 The strange old music-stand seems to strike out and change;
 To stroke and tear the darkness with sharp golden claws;
 To dart a forked, vermilion tongue from open jaws;
 To puff out bitter smoke which chokes the sun; and fade
 Back to a still, faint outline obliterate in shade.
 Creeping up the ladder into the loft, the Boy
 Stands watching, very still, prickly and hot with joy.
 He sees the dusty sun-mote slit by streaks of red,
 He sees it split and stream, and all about his head
 Spikes and spears of gold are licking, pricking, flicking,
 Scratching against the walls and furniture, and nicking
 The darkness into sparks, chipping away the gloom.
 The Boy's nose smarts with the pungence in the room.
 The wind pushes an elm branch from before the door
 And the sun widens out all along the floor,
 Filling the barn-chamber with white, straightforward light,
 So not one blurred outline can tease the mind to fright.

   "O All ye Works of the Lord, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
     for ever.
   O let the Earth Bless the Lord; Yea, let it Praise Him, and Magnify Him
     for ever.
   O ye Mountains and Hills, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
     for ever.
   O All ye Green Things upon the Earth, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him,
     and Magnify Him for ever."

 The Boy will praise his God on an altar builded fair,
 Will heap it with the Works of the Lord.  In the morning air,
 Spices shall burn on it, and by their pale smoke curled,
 Like shoots of all the Green Things, the God of this bright World
 Shall see the Boy's desire to pay his debt of praise.
 The Boy turns round about, seeking with careful gaze
 An altar meet and worthy, but each table and chair
 Has some defect, each piece is needing some repair
 To perfect it; the chairs have broken legs and backs,
 The tables are uneven, and every highboy lacks
 A handle or a drawer, the desks are bruised and worn,
 And even a wide sofa has its cane seat torn.
 Only in the gloom far in the corner there
 The lacquer music-stand is elegant and rare,
 Clear and slim of line, with its four wings outspread,
 The sound of old quartets, a tenuous, faint thread,
 Hanging and floating over it, it stands supreme--
 Black, and gold, and crimson, in one twisted scheme!

 A candle on the bookcase feels a draught and wavers,
 Stippling the white-washed walls with dancing shades and quavers.
 A bed-post, grown colossal, jigs about the ceiling,
 And shadows, strangely altered, stain the walls, revealing
 Eagles, and rabbits, and weird faces pulled awry,
 And hands which fetch and carry things incessantly.
 Under the Eastern window, where the morning sun
 Must touch it, stands the music-stand, and on each one
 Of its broad platforms is a pyramid of stones,
 And metals, and dried flowers, and pine and hemlock cones,
 An oriole's nest with the four eggs neatly blown,
 The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three large brown
 Butternuts uncracked, six butterflies impaled
 With a green luna moth, a snake-skin freshly scaled,
 Some sunflower seeds, wampum, and a bloody-tooth shell,
 A blue jay feather, all together piled pell-mell
 The stand will hold no more.  The Boy with humming head
 Looks once again, blows out the light, and creeps to bed.

 The Boy keeps solemn vigil, while outside the wind
 Blows gustily and clear, and slaps against the blind.
 He hardly tries to sleep, so sharp his ecstasy
 It burns his soul to emptiness, and sets it free
 For adoration only, for worship.  Dedicate,
 His unsheathed soul is naked in its novitiate.
 The hours strike below from the clock on the stair.
 The Boy is a white flame suspiring in prayer.
 Morning will bring the sun, the Golden Eye of Him
 Whose splendour must be veiled by starry cherubim,
 Whose Feet shimmer like crystal in the streets of Heaven.
 Like an open rose the sun will stand up even,
 Fronting the window-sill, and when the casement glows
 Rose-red with the new-blown morning, then the fire which flows
 From the sun will fall upon the altar and ignite
 The spices, and his sacrifice will burn in perfumed light.
 Over the music-stand the ghosts of sounds will swim,
 'Viols d'amore' and 'hautbois' accorded to a hymn.
 The Boy will see the faintest breath of angels' wings
 Fanning the smoke, and voices will flower through the strings.
 He dares no farther vision, and with scalding eyes
 Waits upon the daylight and his great emprise.

 The cold, grey light of dawn was whitening the wall
 When the Boy, fine-drawn by sleeplessness, started his ritual.
 He washed, all shivering and pointed like a flame.
 He threw the shutters open, and in the window-frame
 The morning glimmered like a tarnished Venice glass.
 He took his Chinese pastilles and put them in a mass
 Upon the mantelpiece till he could seek a plate
 Worthy to hold them burning.  Alas!  He had been late
 In thinking of this need, and now he could not find
 Platter or saucer rare enough to ease his mind.
 The house was not astir, and he dared not go down
 Into the barn-chamber, lest some door should be blown
 And slam before the draught he made as he went out.
 The light was growing yellower, and still he looked about.
 A flash of almost crimson from the gilded pear
 Upon the music-stand, startled him waiting there.
 The sun would rise and he would meet it unprepared,
 Labelled a fool in having missed what he had dared.
 He ran across the room, took his pastilles and laid
 Them on the flat-topped pear, most carefully displayed
 To light with ease, then stood a little to one side,
 Focussed a burning-glass and painstakingly tried
 To hold it angled so the bunched and prismed rays
 Should leap upon each other and spring into a blaze.
 Sharp as a wheeling edge of disked, carnation flame,
 Gem-hard and cutting upward, slowly the round sun came.
 The arrowed fire caught the burning-glass and glanced,
 Split to a multitude of pointed spears, and lanced,
 A deeper, hotter flame, it took the incense pile
 Which welcomed it and broke into a little smile
 Of yellow flamelets, creeping, crackling, thrusting up,
 A golden, red-slashed lily in a lacquer cup.

   "O ye Fire and Heat, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
     for ever.
   O ye Winter and Summer, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
     for ever.
   O ye Nights and Days, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
     for ever.
   O ye Lightnings and Clouds, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
     for ever."

 A moment so it hung, wide-curved, bright-petalled, seeming
 A chalice foamed with sunrise.  The Boy woke from his dreaming.
 A spike of flame had caught the card of butterflies,
 The oriole's nest took fire, soon all four galleries
 Where he had spread his treasures were become one tongue
 Of gleaming, brutal fire.  The Boy instantly swung
 His pitcher off the wash-stand and turned it upside down.
 The flames drooped back and sizzled, and all his senses grown
 Acute by fear, the Boy grabbed the quilt from his bed
 And flung it over all, and then with aching head
 He watched the early sunshine glint on the remains
 Of his holy offering.  The lacquer stand had stains
 Ugly and charred all over, and where the golden pear
 Had been, a deep, black hole gaped miserably.  His dear
 Treasures were puffs of ashes; only the stones were there,
 Winking in the brightness.
                             The clock upon the stair
 Struck five, and in the kitchen someone shook a grate.
 The Boy began to dress, for it was getting late.




Spring Day


Bath

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and
narcissus in the air.

The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the
water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white.  It
cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright
light.

Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance,
dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir
of my finger sets them whirring, reeling.  I move a foot, and the planes
of light in the water jar.  I lie back and laugh, and let the
green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me.  The day is
almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright
day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots.

The sky is blue and high.  A crow flaps by the window, and there is a
whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.


Breakfast Table

In the fresh-washed sunlight, the breakfast table is decked and white.
It offers itself in flat surrender, tendering tastes, and smells, and
colours, and metals, and grains, and the white cloth falls over its
side, draped and wide.  Wheels of white glitter in the silver
coffee-pot, hot and spinning like catherine-wheels, they whirl, and
twirl--and my eyes begin to smart, the little white, dazzling wheels
prick them like darts. Placid and peaceful, the rolls of bread spread
themselves in the sun to bask. A stack of butter-pats, pyramidal, shout
orange through the white, scream, flutter, call:  "Yellow!  Yellow!
Yellow!"  Coffee steam rises in a stream, clouds the silver tea-service
with mist, and twists up into the sunlight, revolved, involuted,
suspiring higher and higher, fluting in a thin spiral up the high blue
sky.  A crow flies by and croaks at the coffee steam. The day is new and
fair with good smells in the air.


Walk

Over the street the white clouds meet, and sheer away without touching.

On the sidewalks, boys are playing marbles.  Glass marbles, with amber
and blue hearts, roll together and part with a sweet clashing noise.
The boys strike them with black and red striped agates. The glass
marbles spit crimson when they are hit, and slip into the gutters under
rushing brown water.  I smell tulips and narcissus in the air, but there
are no flowers anywhere, only white dust whipping up the street, and a
girl with a gay Spring hat and blowing skirts.  The dust and the wind
flirt at her ankles and her neat, high-heeled patent leather shoes.
Tap, tap, the little heels pat the pavement, and the wind rustles among
the flowers on her hat.

A water-cart crawls slowly on the other side of the way.  It is green
and gay with new paint, and rumbles contentedly, sprinkling clear water
over the white dust.  Clear zigzagging water, which smells of tulips and
narcissus.

The thickening branches make a pink 'grisaille' against the blue sky.

Whoop!  The clouds go dashing at each other and sheer away just in time.
Whoop!  And a man's hat careers down the street in front of the white
dust, leaps into the branches of a tree, veers away and trundles ahead
of the wind, jarring the sunlight into spokes of rose-colour and green.

A motor-car cuts a swathe through the bright air, sharp-beaked,
irresistible, shouting to the wind to make way.  A glare of dust and
sunshine tosses together behind it, and settles down.  The sky is quiet
and high, and the morning is fair with fresh-washed air.


Midday and Afternoon

Swirl of crowded streets.  Shock and recoil of traffic.  The stock-still
brick facade of an old church, against which the waves of people lurch
and withdraw.  Flare of sunshine down side-streets.  Eddies of light in
the windows of chemists' shops, with their blue, gold, purple jars,
darting colours far into the crowd.  Loud bangs and tremors, murmurings
out of high windows, whirring of machine belts, blurring of horses and
motors.  A quick spin and shudder of brakes on an electric car, and the
jar of a church-bell knocking against the metal blue of the sky.  I am a
piece of the town, a bit of blown dust, thrust along with the crowd.
Proud to feel the pavement under me, reeling with feet.  Feet tripping,
skipping, lagging, dragging, plodding doggedly, or springing up and
advancing on firm elastic insteps. A boy is selling papers, I smell them
clean and new from the press. They are fresh like the air, and pungent
as tulips and narcissus.

The blue sky pales to lemon, and great tongues of gold blind the
shop-windows, putting out their contents in a flood of flame.


Night and Sleep

The day takes her ease in slippered yellow.  Electric signs gleam out
along the shop fronts, following each other.  They grow, and grow, and
blow into patterns of fire-flowers as the sky fades.  Trades scream in
spots of light at the unruffled night.  Twinkle, jab, snap, that means a
new play; and over the way:  plop, drop, quiver, is the sidelong sliver
of a watchmaker's sign with its length on another street. A gigantic mug
of beer effervesces to the atmosphere over a tall building, but the sky
is high and has her own stars, why should she heed ours?

I leave the city with speed.  Wheels whirl to take me back to my trees
and my quietness.  The breeze which blows with me is fresh-washed and
clean, it has come but recently from the high sky.  There are no flowers
in bloom yet, but the earth of my garden smells of tulips and narcissus.

My room is tranquil and friendly.  Out of the window I can see the
distant city, a band of twinkling gems, little flower-heads with no
stems. I cannot see the beer-glass, nor the letters of the restaurants
and shops I passed, now the signs blur and all together make the city,
glowing on a night of fine weather, like a garden stirring and blowing
for the Spring.

The night is fresh-washed and fair and there is a whiff of flowers in
the air.

Wrap me close, sheets of lavender.  Pour your blue and purple dreams
into my ears.  The breeze whispers at the shutters and mutters queer
tales of old days, and cobbled streets, and youths leaping their horses
down marble stairways.  Pale blue lavender, you are the colour of the
sky when it is fresh-washed and fair... I smell the stars... they
are like tulips and narcissus... I smell them in the air.




The Dinner-Party



      Fish

  "So..." they said,
  With their wine-glasses delicately poised,
  Mocking at the thing they cannot understand.
  "So..." they said again,
  Amused and insolent.
  The silver on the table glittered,
  And the red wine in the glasses
  Seemed the blood I had wasted
  In a foolish cause.


      Game

  The gentleman with the grey-and-black whiskers
  Sneered languidly over his quail.
  Then my heart flew up and laboured,
  And I burst from my own holding
  And hurled myself forward.
  With straight blows I beat upon him,
  Furiously, with red-hot anger, I thrust against him.
  But my weapon slithered over his polished surface,
  And I recoiled upon myself,
  Panting.


      Drawing-Room

  In a dress all softness and half-tones,
  Indolent and half-reclined,
  She lay upon a couch,
  With the firelight reflected in her jewels.
  But her eyes had no reflection,
  They swam in a grey smoke,
  The smoke of smouldering ashes,
  The smoke of her cindered heart.


      Coffee

  They sat in a circle with their coffee-cups.
  One dropped in a lump of sugar,
  One stirred with a spoon.
  I saw them as a circle of ghosts
  Sipping blackness out of beautiful china,
  And mildly protesting against my coarseness
  In being alive.


      Talk

  They took dead men's souls
  And pinned them on their breasts for ornament;
  Their cuff-links and tiaras
  Were gems dug from a grave;
  They were ghouls battening on exhumed thoughts;
  And I took a green liqueur from a servant
  So that he might come near me
  And give me the comfort of a living thing.


      Eleven O'Clock

  The front door was hard and heavy,
  It shut behind me on the house of ghosts.
  I flattened my feet on the pavement
  To feel it solid under me;
  I ran my hand along the railings
  And shook them,
  And pressed their pointed bars
  Into my palms.
  The hurt of it reassured me,
  And I did it again and again
  Until they were bruised.
  When I woke in the night
  I laughed to find them aching,
  For only living flesh can suffer.




Stravinsky's Three Pieces "Grotesques", for String Quartet



      First Movement

  Thin-voiced, nasal pipes
  Drawing sound out and out
  Until it is a screeching thread,
  Sharp and cutting, sharp and cutting,
  It hurts.
  Whee-e-e!
  Bump!  Bump!  Tong-ti-bump!
  There are drums here,
  Banging,
  And wooden shoes beating the round, grey stones
  Of the market-place.
  Whee-e-e!
  Sabots slapping the worn, old stones,
  And a shaking and cracking of dancing bones;
  Clumsy and hard they are,
  And uneven,
  Losing half a beat
  Because the stones are slippery.
  Bump-e-ty-tong!  Whee-e-e!  Tong!
  The thin Spring leaves
  Shake to the banging of shoes.
  Shoes beat, slap,
  Shuffle, rap,
  And the nasal pipes squeal with their pigs' voices,
  Little pigs' voices
  Weaving among the dancers,
  A fine white thread
  Linking up the dancers.
  Bang!  Bump!  Tong!
  Petticoats,
  Stockings,
  Sabots,
  Delirium flapping its thigh-bones;
  Red, blue, yellow,
  Drunkenness steaming in colours;
  Red, yellow, blue,
  Colours and flesh weaving together,
  In and out, with the dance,
  Coarse stuffs and hot flesh weaving together.
  Pigs' cries white and tenuous,
  White and painful,
  White and--
  Bump!
  Tong!


      Second Movement

  Pale violin music whiffs across the moon,
  A pale smoke of violin music blows over the moon,
  Cherry petals fall and flutter,
  And the white Pierrot,
  Wreathed in the smoke of the violins,
  Splashed with cherry petals falling, falling,
  Claws a grave for himself in the fresh earth
  With his finger-nails.


      Third Movement

  An organ growls in the heavy roof-groins of a church,
  It wheezes and coughs.
  The nave is blue with incense,
  Writhing, twisting,
  Snaking over the heads of the chanting priests.
     'Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine';
  The priests whine their bastard Latin
  And the censers swing and click.
  The priests walk endlessly
  Round and round,
  Droning their Latin
  Off the key.
  The organ crashes out in a flaring chord,
  And the priests hitch their chant up half a tone.
     'Dies illa, dies irae,
     Calamitatis et miseriae,
     Dies magna et amara valde.'
  A wind rattles the leaded windows.
  The little pear-shaped candle flames leap and flutter,
     'Dies illa, dies irae;'
  The swaying smoke drifts over the altar,
     'Calamitatis et miseriae;'
  The shuffling priests sprinkle holy water,
     'Dies magna et amara valde;'
  And there is a stark stillness in the midst of them
  Stretched upon a bier.
  His ears are stone to the organ,
  His eyes are flint to the candles,
  His body is ice to the water.
  Chant, priests,
  Whine, shuffle, genuflect,
  He will always be as rigid as he is now
  Until he crumbles away in a dust heap.
     'Lacrymosa dies illa,
     Qua resurget ex favilla
     Judicandus homo reus.'
  Above the grey pillars the roof is in darkness.




Towns in Colour



   I

Red Slippers

Red slippers in a shop-window, and outside in the street, flaws of grey,
windy sleet!


Behind the polished glass, the slippers hang in long threads of red,
festooning from the ceiling like stalactites of blood, flooding the eyes
of passers-by with dripping colour, jamming their crimson reflections
against the windows of cabs and tram-cars, screaming their claret and
salmon into the teeth of the sleet, plopping their little round maroon
lights upon the tops of umbrellas.

The row of white, sparkling shop fronts is gashed and bleeding, it
bleeds red slippers.  They spout under the electric light, fluid and
fluctuating, a hot rain--and freeze again to red slippers, myriadly
multiplied in the mirror side of the window.


They balance upon arched insteps like springing bridges of crimson
lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked
in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared
and burnished by red rockets.

Snap, snap, they are cracker-sparks of scarlet in the white, monotonous
block of shops.

They plunge the clangour of billions of vermilion trumpets into the
crowd outside, and echo in faint rose over the pavement.


People hurry by, for these are only shoes, and in a window, farther
down, is a big lotus bud of cardboard whose petals open every few
minutes and reveal a wax doll, with staring bead eyes and flaxen hair,
lolling awkwardly in its flower chair.

One has often seen shoes, but whoever saw a cardboard lotus bud before?


The flaws of grey, windy sleet beat on the shop-window where there are
only red slippers.



   II

Thompson's Lunch Room--Grand Central Station

   Study in Whites


  Wax-white--
  Floor, ceiling, walls.
  Ivory shadows
  Over the pavement
  Polished to cream surfaces
  By constant sweeping.
  The big room is coloured like the petals
  Of a great magnolia,
  And has a patina
  Of flower bloom
  Which makes it shine dimly
  Under the electric lamps.
  Chairs are ranged in rows
  Like sepia seeds
  Waiting fulfilment.
  The chalk-white spot of a cook's cap
  Moves unglossily against the vaguely bright wall--
  Dull chalk-white striking the retina like a blow
  Through the wavering uncertainty of steam.
  Vitreous-white of glasses with green reflections,
  Ice-green carboys, shifting--greener, bluer--with the jar of moving water.
  Jagged green-white bowls of pressed glass
  Rearing snow-peaks of chipped sugar
  Above the lighthouse-shaped castors
  Of grey pepper and grey-white salt.
  Grey-white placards:  "Oyster Stew, Cornbeef Hash, Frankfurters":
  Marble slabs veined with words in meandering lines.
  Dropping on the white counter like horn notes
  Through a web of violins,
  The flat yellow lights of oranges,
  The cube-red splashes of apples,
  In high plated 'epergnes'.
  The electric clock jerks every half-minute:
  "Coming!--Past!"
  "Three beef-steaks and a chicken-pie,"
  Bawled through a slide while the clock jerks heavily.
  A man carries a china mug of coffee to a distant chair.
  Two rice puddings and a salmon salad
  Are pushed over the counter;
  The unfulfilled chairs open to receive them.
  A spoon falls upon the floor with the impact of metal striking stone,
  And the sound throws across the room
  Sharp, invisible zigzags
  Of silver.



      III

   An Opera House


  Within the gold square of the proscenium arch,
  A curtain of orange velvet hangs in stiff folds,
  Its tassels jarring slightly when someone crosses the stage behind.
  Gold carving edges the balconies,
  Rims the boxes,
  Runs up and down fluted pillars.
  Little knife-stabs of gold
  Shine out whenever a box door is opened.
  Gold clusters
  Flash in soft explosions
  On the blue darkness,
  Suck back to a point,
  And disappear.
  Hoops of gold
  Circle necks, wrists, fingers,
  Pierce ears,
  Poise on heads
  And fly up above them in coloured sparkles.
  Gold!
  Gold!
  The opera house is a treasure-box of gold.
  Gold in a broad smear across the orchestra pit:
  Gold of horns, trumpets, tubas;
  Gold--spun-gold, twittering-gold, snapping-gold
  Of harps.
  The conductor raises his baton,
  The brass blares out
  Crass, crude,
  Parvenu, fat, powerful,
  Golden.
  Rich as the fat, clapping hands in the boxes.
  Cymbals, gigantic, coin-shaped,
  Crash.
  The orange curtain parts
  And the prima-donna steps forward.
  One note,
  A drop:  transparent, iridescent,
  A gold bubble,
  It floats... floats...
  And bursts against the lips of a bank president
  In the grand tier.



      IV

   Afternoon Rain in State Street


  Cross-hatchings of rain against grey walls,
  Slant lines of black rain
  In front of the up and down, wet stone sides of buildings.
  Below,
  Greasy, shiny, black, horizontal,
  The street.
  And over it, umbrellas,
  Black polished dots
  Struck to white
  An instant,
  Stream in two flat lines
  Slipping past each other with the smoothness of oil.
  Like a four-sided wedge
  The Custom House Tower
  Pokes at the low, flat sky,
  Pushing it farther and farther up,
  Lifting it away from the house-tops,
  Lifting it in one piece as though it were a sheet of tin,
  With the lever of its apex.
  The cross-hatchings of rain cut the Tower obliquely,
  Scratching lines of black wire across it,
  Mutilating its perpendicular grey surface
  With the sharp precision of tools.
  The city is rigid with straight lines and angles,
  A chequered table of blacks and greys.
  Oblong blocks of flatness
  Crawl by with low-geared engines,
  And pass to short upright squares
  Shrinking with distance.
  A steamer in the basin blows its whistle,
  And the sound shoots across the rain hatchings,
  A narrow, level bar of steel.
  Hard cubes of lemon
  Superimpose themselves upon the fronts of buildings
  As the windows light up.
  But the lemon cubes are edged with angles
  Upon which they cannot impinge.
  Up, straight, down, straight--square.
  Crumpled grey-white papers
  Blow along the side-walks,
  Contorted, horrible,
  Without curves.
  A horse steps in a puddle,
  And white, glaring water spurts up
  In stiff, outflaring lines,
  Like the rattling stems of reeds.
  The city is heraldic with angles,
  A sombre escutcheon of argent and sable
  And countercoloured bends of rain
  Hung over a four-square civilization.
  When a street lamp comes out,
  I gaze at it for fully thirty seconds
  To rest my brain with the suffusing, round brilliance of its globe.



      V

   An Aquarium


  Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,
  Silver shiftings,
  Rings veering out of rings,
  Silver--gold--
  Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,
  With sharp white bubbles
  Shooting and dancing,
  Flinging quickly outward.
  Nosing the bubbles,
  Swallowing them,
  Fish.
  Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,
  The light rippling over them
  In steel-bright tremors.
  Outspread translucent fins
  Flute, fold, and relapse;
  The threaded light prints through them on the pebbles
  In scarcely tarnished twinklings.
  Curving of spotted spines,
  Slow up-shifts,
  Lazy convolutions:
  Then a sudden swift straightening
  And darting below:
  Oblique grey shadows
  Athwart a pale casement.
  Roped and curled,
  Green man-eating eels
  Slumber in undulate rhythms,
  With crests laid horizontal on their backs.
  Barred fish,
  Striped fish,
  Uneven disks of fish,
  Slip, slide, whirl, turn,
  And never touch.
  Metallic blue fish,
  With fins wide and yellow and swaying
  Like Oriental fans,
  Hold the sun in their bellies
  And glow with light:
  Blue brilliance cut by black bars.
  An oblong pane of straw-coloured shimmer,
  Across it, in a tangent,
  A smear of rose, black, silver.
  Short twists and upstartings,
  Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles:
  Sunshine playing between red and black flowers
  On a blue and gold lawn.
  Shadows and polished surfaces,
  Facets of mauve and purple,
  A constant modulation of values.
  Shaft-shaped,
  With green bead eyes;
  Thick-nosed,
  Heliotrope-coloured;
  Swift spots of chrysolite and coral;
  In the midst of green, pearl, amethyst irradiations.

  Outside,
  A willow-tree flickers
  With little white jerks,
  And long blue waves
  Rise steadily beyond the outer islands.





Some Books by Amy Lowell



  Poetry


  What's O'Clock
  Legends
  Pictures of the Floating World
  Can Grande's Castle
  Men, Women and Ghosts
  Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
  A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass    (already online)
  A Critical Fable

  Fir-Flower Tablets:  Poems Translated from the Chinese
    (In collaboration with Florence Ayscough)


  Prose

  Tendencies in Modern American Poetry
  Six French Poets:  Studies in Contemporary Literature
  John Keats





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