The promiscuous wind wafts idly from the quays
A smell of ships and curious woods and casks
And a sweetness from the gorse on the flowerstand
And brushes with his cool careless cheek the cheeks
Of those on the street; mine, an old gnarled man's,
The powdered cheeks of the girl who with faded eyes
Stands in the shadow; a sailor's scarred brown cheeks,
And a little child's, who walks along whispering
To her sufficient self.

O promiscuous wind.

Bordeaux

A long grey street with balconies.
Above the gingercolored grocer's shop
trail pink geraniums
and further up a striped mattress
hangs from a window
and the little wooden cage
of a goldfinch.

Four blind men wabble down the street
with careful steps on the rounded cobbles
scraping with violin and flute
the interment of a tune.

People gather:
women with market-baskets
stuffed with green vegetables,
men with blankets on their shoulders
and brown sunwrinkled faces.

Pipe the flutes, squeak the violins;
four blind men in a row
at the interment of a tune ...
But on the plate
coppers clink
round brown pennies
a merry music at the funeral,
penny swigs of wine
penny gulps of gin
peanuts and hot roast potatoes
red disks of sausage
tripe steaming in the corner shop ...

And overhead
the sympathetic finch
chirps and trills
approval.

Calle de Toledo, Madrid

A boy with rolled up shirtsleeves
turns the handle.
Grind, grind.
The black sphere whirls
above a charcoal fire.
Grind, grind.
The boy sweats and grits his teeth and turns
while a man blows up the coals.
Grind, grind.
Thicker comes the blue curling smoke,
the moka-scented smoke
heavy with early morning
and the awakening city
with click-clack click-clack on the cobblestones
and the young winter sunshine
advancing inquisitively
across the black and white tiles of my bedroom floor.
Grind, grind.
The coffee is done.
The boy rubs his arms and yawns,
and the sphere and the furnace are trundled away
to be set up at another café.

A poor devil
whose dirty ashen white body shows through his rags
sniffs sensually
with dilated nostrils
the heavy coffee-fragrant smoke,
and turns to sleep again
in the feeble sunlight of the greystone steps.

Calle Espoz y Mina

Women are selling tuberoses in the square,
and sombre-tinted wreaths
stiffly twined and crinkly
for this is the day of the dead.

Women are selling tuberoses in the square.
Their velvet odor fills the street
somehow stills the tramp of feet;
for this is the day of the dead.

Their presence is heavy about us
like the velvet black scent of the flowers:
incense of pompous interments,
patter of monastic feet,
drone of masses drowsily said
for the thronging dead.

Women are selling tuberoses in the square
to cover the tombs of the envious dead
and shroud them again in the lethean scent
lest the dead should remember.

Difuntos; Madrid

Above the scuffling footsteps of crowds
the clang of trams
the shouts of newsboys
the stridence of wheels,
very calm,
floats the sudden trill of a pipe
three silvery upward notes
wistfully quavering,
notes a Thessalian shepherd might have blown
to call his sheep
in the emerald shade
of Tempe,
notes that might have waked the mad women sleeping
among pinecones in the hills
and stung them to headlong joy
of the presence of their mad Iacchos,
notes like the glint of sun
making jaunty the dark waves of Tempe.

In the street an old man is passing
wrapped in a dun brown mantle
blowing with bearded lips on a shining panpipe
while he trundles before him
a grindstone.

The scissors grinder.

Calle Espoz y Mina

Rain slants on an empty square.

Across the expanse of cobbles
rides an old shawl-muffled woman
black on a donkey with pert ears
that places carefully
his tiny sharp hoofs
as if the cobbles were eggs.
The paniers are full
of bright green lettuces
and purple cabbages,
and shining red bellshaped peppers,
dripping, shining, a band in marchtime,
in the grey rain,
in the grey city.

Plaza Santa Ana

The fountain some dead king put up,
conceived in pompous imageries,
piled with mossgreened pans and centaurs
topped by a prudish tight-waisted Cybele
(Cybele the many-breasted mother of the grain)
spurts with a solemn gurgle of waters.

Where the sun is warmest
their backs against the greystone basin
sit, hoarding every moment of the palefaced sun,
(thy children Cybele)
Pan a bearded beggar with blear eyes;
his legs were withered by a papal bull,
those shaggy legs so nimble to pursue
through groves of Arcadian myrtle
the nymphs of the fountains and valleys;
a young Faunus with soft brown face
and dirty breast bared to the sun;
the black hair crisps about his ears
with some grace yet;
a little barefoot Eros
crouching to scratch his skinny thighs
who stares with wide gold eyes aghast
at the yellow shiny trams that clatter past.

All day long they doze in the scant sun
and watch the wan leaves rustle to the ground
from the yellowed limetrees of the avenue.
They are still thine Cybele
nursed at thy breast;
(like a woman's last foster-children
that still would suck grey withered dugs).
They have not scorned thy dubious bounty
for stridence of grinding iron
and pale caged lives
made blind by the dust of toil
to coin the very sun to gold.

Plaza de Cibeles

Footsteps
and the leisurely patter of rain.

Beside the lamppost in the alley
stands a girl in a long sleek shawl
that moulds vaguely to the curves
of breast and arms.
Her eyes are in shadow.

A smell of frying fish;
footsteps of people going to dinner
clatter eagerly through the lane.
A boy with a trough of meat on his shoulder
turns by the lamppost,
his steps drag.
The green light slants
in the black of his eyes.
Her eyes are in shadow.

Footsteps of people going to dinner
clatter eagerly; the rain
falls with infinite nonchalance ...
a man turns with a twirl of moustaches
and the green light slants on his glasses
on the round buttons of his coat.
Her eyes are in shadow.

A woman with an umbrella
keeps her eyes straight ahead
and lifts her dress
to avoid the mud on the pavingstones.

An old man stares without fear
into the eyes of the girl
through the stripes of the rain.
His steps beat faster and he sniffs hard suddenly
the smell of dinner and frying fish.
Was it a flame of old days
expanding in his cold blood,
or a shiver of rigid graves,
chill clay choking congealing?

Beside the lamppost in the alley
stands a girl in a long sleek shawl
that moulds vaguely to the curves
of breast and arms.

Calle del Gato

A brown net of branches
quivers above silver trunks of planes.
Here and there
a late leaf flutters
its faint death-rattle in the wind.
Beyond, the sky burns fervid rose
like red wine held against the sun.

Schoolboys are playing in the square
dodging among the silver tree-trunks
collars gleam and white knees
as they romp shrilly.

Lamps bloom out one by one
like jessamine, yellow and small.
At the far end a church's dome
flat deep purple cuts the sky.

Schoolboys are romping in the square
in and out among the silver tree-trunks
out of the smoked rose shadows
through the timid yellow lamplight ...
Socks slip down
fingermarks smudge white collars;
they run and tussle in the shadows
kicking the gravel with muddied boots
with cheeks flushed hotter than the sky
eyes brighter than the street-lamps
with fingers tingling and breath fast:
banqueters early drunken
on the fierce cold wine of the dead year.

Paseo de la Castellana

Green against the livid sky
in their square dun-colored towers
hang the bronze bells of Castile.
In their unshakeable square towers
jutting from the slopes of hills
clang the bells of all the churches
the dustbrown churches of Castile.

How they swing the green bronze bells
athwart olive twilights of Castile
till their fierce insistant clangour
rings down the long plowed slopes
breaks against the leaden hills
whines among the trembling poplars
beside sibilant swift green rivers.

O you strong bells of Castile
that commanding clang your creed
over treeless fields and villages
that huddle in arroyos, gleaming
orange with lights in the greenish dusk;
can it be bells of Castile,
can it be that you remember?

Groans there in your bronze green curves
in your imperious evocation
stench of burnings, rattling screams
quenched among the crackling flames?
The crowd, the pile of faggots in the square,
the yellow robes.... Is it that
bells of Castile that you remember?

Toledo——Madrid

The Tagus flows with a noise of wiers through Aranjuez.
The speeding dark-green water mirrors the old red walls
and the balustrades and close-barred windows of the palace;
and on the other bank three stooping washerwomen
whose bright red shawls and piles of linen gleam in the green,
the swirling green where shimmer the walls of Aranjuez.

The Tagus flows with a noise of wiers through Aranjuez.
And slipping by mirrors the brown-silver trunks of the planes and the hedges
of box and spires of cypress and alleys of yellowing elms;
and on the other bank three grey mules pulling a cart
loaded with turnips, driven by a man in a blue woolen sash
who strides along whistling and does not look towards Aranjuez.

Beyond ruffled velvet hills
the sky burns yellow like a candle-flame.

Sudden a village
roofs against the sky
leaping buttresses
a church
and a tower utter dark like the heart
of a candleflame.

Swing the bronze-bells
uncoiling harsh slow sound through the dusk
that growls out in the conversational clatter
Of the trainwheels and the rails.

A hill humps unexpectedly to hide
the tower erect like a pistil
in the depths of the tremendous flaming
flower of the west.

Getafe

Genteel noise of Paris hats
and beards that tilt this way and that.
Mirrors create on either side
infinities of chandeliers.

The orchestra is tuning up:
Twanging of the strings of violins
groans from cellos
toodling of flutes.

Legs apart, with white fronts
the musicians stand
amiably as pelicans.

Tap. Tap. Tap.
With a silken rustle beards, hats
sink back in appropriate ecstasy.
A little girl giggles.
Crystals of infinities of chandeliers
tremble in the first long honey-savored chord.

From under a wide black hat
curving just to hide her ears
peers the little face of Juliet
of all child lovers
who loved in impossible gardens
among roses huge as moons
and twinkling constellations of jessamine,
Juliet, Isabel, Cressida,
and that unknown one who went forth at night
wandering the snarling streets of Jerusalem.

She presses her handkerchief to her mouth
to smother her profane giggling.
Her skin is browner than the tone of cellos,
flushes like with pomegranate juice.

Clapping. Genteel noise of Paris hats
and beards that tilt this way and that.

Her face lost in infinities of glittering chandeliers.

Ritz

There's a sound of drums and trumpets
above the rumble of the street.
(Run run run to see the soldiers.)
All alike all abreast keeping time
to the regimented swirl
of the glittering brass band.

The café waiters are craning at the door
the girl in the gloveshop is nose against the glass.
O the glitter of the brass
and the flutter of the plumes
and the tramp of the uniform feet!
Run run run to see the soldiers.

The boy with a tray
of pastries on his head
is walking fast, keeping time;
his white and yellow cakes are trembling in the sun
his cheeks are redder
and his bluestriped tunic streams
as he marches to the rum tum of the drums.
Run run run to see the soldiers.

The milkman with his pony
slung with silvery metal jars
schoolboys with their packs of books
clerks in stiff white collars
old men in cloaks
try to regiment their feet
to the glittering brass beat.
Run run run to see the soldiers.

Puerta del Sol

Night of clouds
terror of their flight across the moon.
Over the long still plains
blows a wind out of the north;
a laden wind out of the north
rattles the leaves of the liveoaks
menacingly and loud.

Black as old blood on the cold plain
close throngs spread to beyond lead horizons
swaying shrouded crowds
and their rustle in the knife-keen wind
is like the dry death-rattle of the winter grass.

(Like mouldered shrouds the clouds fall
from the crumbling skull of the dead moon.)

Huge, of grinning brass
steaming with fresh stains
their God
gapes with smudged expectant gums
above the plain.

Flicker through the flames of the wide maw
rigid square bodies of men
opulence of childbearing women
slimness of young men, and girls
with small curved breasts.

(Loud as musketry rattles the sudden laughter of the dead.)

Thicker hotter the blood drips
from the cold brass lips.

Swift over grainless fields
swift over shellplowed lands
ever leaner swifter darker
bay the hounds of the dead,
before them drive the pale ones
white limbs scarred and blackened
laurel crushed in their cold fingers,
the spark quenched in their glazed eyes.

Thicker hotter the blood drips
from the avenging lips
of the brass God;
(and rattling loud as musketry
the laughter of the unsated dead).

The clouds have blotted the haggard moon.
A harsh wind shrills from the cities of the north
Ypres, Lille, Liège, Verdun,
and from the tainted valleys
the cross-scarred hills.
Over the long still plains
the wind out of the north
rattles the leaves of the liveoaks.

Cuatro Caminos

The weazened old woman without teeth
who shivers on the windy street corner
displays her roasted chestnuts invitingly
like marriageable daughters.

Calle Atocha

The clattering streets are bright with booths
lighted by balancing candleflames
ranged with figures in painted clay,
Virgins adoring and haloed bambinos,
St. Joseph at his joiner's bench
Judean shepherds and their sheep
camels of the Eastern kings.

Esta noche es noche buena
nadie piensa a dormir.

The streets resound with dancing
and chortle of tambourines,
strong rhythm of dancing
drumming of tambourines.

Flicker through the greenish lamplight
of the clattering cobbled streets
flushed faces of men
women in mantillas
children with dark wide eyes,
teeth flashing as they sing:

La santa Virgen es en parto
a las dos va desparir.
Esta noche es noche buena
nadie piensa a dormir.

Beetred faces of women
whose black mantillas have slipped
from their sleek and gleaming hair,
streaming faces of men.

With click of heels on the pavingstones
boys in tunics are dancing
eyes under long black lashes
flash as they dance to the drum
of tambourines beaten with elbow and palm.
A flock of girls comes running
squealing down the street.

Boys and girls are dancing
flushed and dripping dancing
to the beat on drums and piping
on flutes and jiggle
of the long notes of accordions
and the wild tune swirls and sweeps
along the frosty streets,
leaps above the dark stone houses
out among the crackling stars.

Esta noche es noche buena
nadie piensa a dormir.

In the street a ragged boy
too poor to own a tambourine
slips off his shoes and beats them together
to the drunken reeling time,
dances on his naked feet.

Esta noche es noche buena
nadie piensa a dormir.

Madrid

The old strong towers the Moors built
on the ruins of a Roman camp
have sprung into spreading boistrous foam
of daisies and alyssum flowers,
and sprout of clover and veiling grass
from out of the cracks in the tawny stones
makes velvet soft the worn stairs
and grooved walks where clanked the heels
of the grave mailed knights who had driven and killed
the darkskinned Moors,
and where on silken knees their sons
knelt on the nights of the full moon
to vow strange deeds for their lady's grace.

The old strong towers are crumbled and doddering now
and sit like old men smiling in the sun.

About them clamber the giggling flowers
and below the sceptic sea gently
laughing in daisywhite foam on the beach
rocks the ships with flapping sails
that flash white to the white village on the shore.

On a wall where the path is soft with flowers
the brown goatboy lies, his cap askew
and whistles out over the beckoning sea
the tune the village band jerks out,
a shine of brass in the square below:
a swaggering young buck of a tune
that slouches cap on one side, cigarette
at an impudent tilt, out past the old
toothless and smilingly powerless towers,
out over the ever-youthful sea
that claps bright cobalt hands in time
and laughs along the tawny beaches.

Denia

How fine to die in Denia
young in the ardent strength of sun
calm in the burning blue of the sea
in the stabile clasp of the iron hills;
Denia where the earth is red
as rust and hills grey like ash.
O to rot into the ruddy soil
to melt into the omnipotent fire
of the young white god, the flamegod the sun,
to find swift resurrection
in the warm grapes born of earth and sun
that are crushed to must under the feet
of girls and lads,
to flow for new generations of men
a wine full of earth
of sun.

The road winds white among ashen hills
grey clouds overhead
grey sea below.
The road clings to the strong capes
hangs above the white foam-line
of unheard breakers
that edge with lace the scarf of the sea
sweeping marbled with sunlight
to the dark horizon
towards which steering intently
like ducks with red bellies
swim the black laden steamers.

The wind blows the dust of the road
and whines in the dead grass
and is silent.

I can hear my steps
and the clink of coins in one pocket
and the distant hush of the sea.

On the highroad to Villajoyosa

The greyish snow of the pass
is starred with the sad lilac
of autumn crocuses.

Hissing among the brown leaves
of the scruboaks
bruising the tender crocus petals
a sleetgust sweeps the pass.

The air is calm again.
Under a bulging sky motionless overhead
the mountains heave velvet black
into the cloudshut distance.

South the road winds
down a wide valley
towards stripes of rain
through which shine straw yellow
faint as a dream
the rolling lands of New Castile.

A fresh gust whines through the snowbent grass
pelting with sleet the withering crocuses,
and rustles the dry leaves of the scruboaks
with a sound as of gallop of hoofs
far away on the grey stony road
a sound as of faintly heard cavalcades
of old stern kings
climbing the cold iron passes
stopping to stare with cold hawkeyes
at the pale plain.

Puerto de Navecerrada

Soft as smoke are the blue green pines
in the misty lavender twilight
yellow as flame the flame-shaped poplars
whose dead leaves fall
vaguely spinning through the tinted air
till they reach the brownish mirror of the stream
where they are borne a tremulous pale fleet
over gleaming ripples to the sudden dark
beneath the Roman bridge.

Forever it stands the Roman bridge
a firm strong arch in the purple mist
and ever the yellow leaves are swirled
into the darkness beneath
where echoes forever the tramp of feet
of the weary feet that bore
the Eagles and the Law.

And through the misty lavender twilight
the leaves of the poplars fall and float
with the silent stream to the deep night
beneath the Roman bridge.

Cercedilla

In the velvet calm of long grey slopes of snow
the silky crunch of my steps.
About me vague dark circles of mountains
secret, listening in the intimate silence.

Bleating of sheep, the bark of a dog
and, dun-yellow in the snow
a long flock straggles.
Crying of lambs,
twitching noses of snowflecked ewes,
the proud curved horns of a regal broadgirthed ram,
yellow backs steaming;
then, tails and tracks in the snow,
and the responsible lope of the dog
who stops with a paw lifted to look back
at the baked apple face of the shepherd.

Cercedilla

You were beside me on the stony path
down from the mountain.

And I was the rain that lashed such flame into your cheeks
and the sensuous rolling hills
where the mists clung like garments.

I was the sadness that came out of the languid rain
and the soft dove-tinted hills
and choked you with the harsh embrace of a lover
so that you almost sobbed.

Siete Picos

When they sang as they marched in step
on the long path that wound to the valley
I followed lonely in silence.

When they sat and laughed by the hearth
where our damp clothes steamed in the flare
of the noisy prancing flames
I sat still in the shadow
for their language was strange to me.

But when as they slept I sat
and watched by the door of the cabin
I was not lonely
for they lay with quiet faces
stroked by the friendly tongues
of the silent firelight
and outside the white stars swarmed
like gnats about a lamp in autumn
an intelligible song.

Cercedilla

I lie among green rocks
on the thyme-scented mountain.
The thistledown clouds and the sky
grey-white and grey-violet
are mirrored in your dark eyes
as in the changing pools of the mountain.

I have made for your head
a wreath of livid crocuses.
How strange they are the wan lilac crocuses
against your dark smooth skin
in the intense black of your wind-towseled hair.

Sleet from the high snowfields
snaps a lash down the mountain
bruising the withered petals
of the last crocuses.

I am alone in the swirling mist
beside the frozen pools of the mountain.

La Maliciosa

Infinities away already
are your very slender body
and the tremendous dark of your eyes
where once beyond the laughingness of childhood,
came a breath of jessamine prophetic of summer,
a sudden flutter of yellow butterflies
above dark pools.

Shall I take down my books
and weave from that glance a romance
and build tinsel thrones for you
out of old poets' fancies?

Shall I fashion a temple about you
where to burn out my life like frankincense
till you tower dark behind the sultry veil
huge as Isis?

Or shall I go back to childhood
remembering butterflies in sunny fields
to cower with you when the chilling shadow fleets
across the friendly sun?

Bordeaux

And neither did Beatrice and Dante ...
But Beatrice they say
was a convention.

November, 1916——February, 1917.

The autumn leaves that this morning danced with the wind,
curtseying in slow minuettes,
giddily whirling in bacchanals,
balancing, hesitant, tiptoe,
while the wind whispered of distant hills,
and clouds like white sails, sailing
in limpid green ice-colored skies,
have crossed the picket fence
and the three strands of barbed wire;
they have leapt the green picket fence
despite the sentry's bayonet.

Under the direction of a corporal
three soldiers in khaki are sweeping them up,
sweeping up the autumn leaves,
crimson maple leaves, splotched with saffron,
ochre and cream,
brown leaves of horse-chestnuts ...
and the leaves dance and curtsey round the brooms,
full of mirth,
wistful of the journey the wind promised them.

This morning the leaves fluttered gaudily,
reckless, giddy from the wind's dances,
over the green picket fence
and the three strands of barbed wire.
Now they are swept up
and put in a garbage can
with cigarette butts
and chewed-out quids of tobacco,
burnt matches, old socks, torn daily papers,
and dust from the soldiers' blankets.

And the wind blows tauntingly
over the mouth of the garbage can,
whispering, Far away,
mockingly, Far away ...

And I too am swept up
and put in a garbage can
with smoked cigarette ash
and chewed-out quids of tobacco;
I am fallen into the dominion
of the great dusty queen ...
Ennui, iron goddess, cobweb-clothed
goddess of all useless things,
of attics cluttered with old chairs
for centuries unsatupon,
of strong limbs wriggling on office stools,
of ancient cab-horses and cabs
that sleep all day in silent sunny squares,
of camps bound with barbed wire,
and green picket fences—
bind my eyes with your close dust
choke my ears with your grey cobwebs
that I may not see the clouds
that sail away across the sky,
far away, tauntingly,
that I may not hear the wind
that mocks and whispers and is gone
in pursuit of the horizon.

The ropes of the litter creak and groan
As the bearers turn down the steep path;
Pebbles scuttle under slipping feet.
But the Roman poet lies back confident
On his magenta cushions and mattresses,
Thinks of Greek bronzes
At the sight of the straining backs of his slaves.

The slaves' breasts shine with sweat,
And they draw deep breaths of the cooler air
As they lurch through tunnel after tunnel of leaves.
At last, where the spray swirls like smoke,
And the river roars in a cauldron of green,
The poet feels his fat arms quiver
And his eyes and ears drowned and exalted
In the reverberance of the fall.

The ropes of the litter creak and groan,
The embroidered curtains, moist with spray,
Flutter in the poet's face;
Pebbles scuttle under slipping feet
As the slaves strain up the path again,
And the Roman poet lies back confident
Among silk cushions of gold and magenta,
His hands clasped across his mountainous belly,
Thinking of the sibyll and fate,
And gorgeous and garlanded death,
Mouthing hexameters.

But I, my belly full and burning as the sun
With the good white wine of the Alban hills
Stumble down the path
Into the cool green and the roar,
And wonder, and am abashed.