UPON this flat, misshapen day
My weary sullen thoughts grow grey—
Grey waters, and grey, sunless cliffs,
Bleak gaiety of flowers, whiffs
Of loneliness, ah loneliness
To ever clasp in my caress.
And shall I, poor mazed lunatic,
When memories come crowding thick,
Dangle a silly mandrake-root,
Swinging upon Time’s parachute?
Can thoughts have colours, colours thoughts,
Or do I wander midst the orts
Of half-forgotten nightmare-pyres?
We poets have exchanged our lyres
For heart-strings. We have souls to save
From boredom; come then, let’s be brave
And sing the baser passions, sing
Until the blood jerked up will ring
A matins for our lusts and shames,
And men will tingle at our names.
My weary sullen thoughts grow grey—
Grey waters, and grey, sunless cliffs,
Bleak gaiety of flowers, whiffs
Of loneliness, ah loneliness
To ever clasp in my caress.
And shall I, poor mazed lunatic,
When memories come crowding thick,
Dangle a silly mandrake-root,
Swinging upon Time’s parachute?
Can thoughts have colours, colours thoughts,
Or do I wander midst the orts
Of half-forgotten nightmare-pyres?
We poets have exchanged our lyres
For heart-strings. We have souls to save
From boredom; come then, let’s be brave
And sing the baser passions, sing
Until the blood jerked up will ring
A matins for our lusts and shames,
And men will tingle at our names.
Lame Lady
A POOR lame lady limps along
Low sloping fields of tender green,
She’d love to break into a song
Or dance, a figure slim, serene.
Low sloping fields of tender green,
She’d love to break into a song
Or dance, a figure slim, serene.
All nature seems a parquet floor
To please the sense, to please the eye,
And Lazarus forgets each sore
Beneath the thickly-coated sky.
To please the sense, to please the eye,
And Lazarus forgets each sore
Beneath the thickly-coated sky.
The poor lame lady senses whole
The shafts of coloured warmth arise,
A thirsty solitude of soul
Looms in her vague pathetic eyes.
The shafts of coloured warmth arise,
A thirsty solitude of soul
Looms in her vague pathetic eyes.
The hollow spells of Spring are fleet
And quick thoughts clatter through her head....
“An awkward duck with webbèd feet!...
Ah! better far to lie a-bed.”
And quick thoughts clatter through her head....
“An awkward duck with webbèd feet!...
Ah! better far to lie a-bed.”
Conversations and Crumbling
“WELL, here we are. I venture to believe
We have not met since Venice ... seven years....
My sons were killed, and I was left to grieve
With Adelaide and Fanny ... they are dears.”
I look around and find two fleshy ears
Dangling a pair of ear-rings ... it’s a phase....
But all the same I wish that they’d wear stays.
We have not met since Venice ... seven years....
My sons were killed, and I was left to grieve
With Adelaide and Fanny ... they are dears.”
I look around and find two fleshy ears
Dangling a pair of ear-rings ... it’s a phase....
But all the same I wish that they’d wear stays.
When Regent Street is up I always feel
That London Bridge is also falling down,
Symbolic hulks of granite, orange peel,
And somebody who’s losing half-a-crown....
It is so queer, so queer, to live in town....
And then I see myself and purse my lips
“With no more conscience than a snake has hips.”[C]
That London Bridge is also falling down,
Symbolic hulks of granite, orange peel,
And somebody who’s losing half-a-crown....
It is so queer, so queer, to live in town....
And then I see myself and purse my lips
“With no more conscience than a snake has hips.”[C]
Yes, here am I bathed in a maudlin smile!
And here are: you, he, it, and everyone
Except the person who’s alone worth while.
Calmly I rise with broken threads, I run
Stirred by my own intrinsic power to sun
Self-consciousness to flesh-burst—I’ve begun
With unabated sarcasm to rise
In self-opinion, sinking with closed eyes.
And here are: you, he, it, and everyone
Except the person who’s alone worth while.
Calmly I rise with broken threads, I run
Stirred by my own intrinsic power to sun
Self-consciousness to flesh-burst—I’ve begun
With unabated sarcasm to rise
In self-opinion, sinking with closed eyes.
A subtle crepitation in the air
As if the nomad camels would return,
As if the burly lion left his lair
To have his hair curled daintily. I burn.
You do not listen: “there’s so much to learn
From scientific data, palimpsest....”
I tell you they will crumble with the rest.
As if the nomad camels would return,
As if the burly lion left his lair
To have his hair curled daintily. I burn.
You do not listen: “there’s so much to learn
From scientific data, palimpsest....”
I tell you they will crumble with the rest.
Before the wolf returns to Regent Street,
Before he digs up fashionable tombs,
Before the nightingale with music sweet
Pierces the Piccadilly catacombs,
Before the screech-owl adds to ruin-glooms,
The merry robin-redbreast and the wren
Will trill their notes in Bayswater again.
Before he digs up fashionable tombs,
Before the nightingale with music sweet
Pierces the Piccadilly catacombs,
Before the screech-owl adds to ruin-glooms,
The merry robin-redbreast and the wren
Will trill their notes in Bayswater again.
“The worst of influenza’s over now,
But rents are high ... the weather is not cold
Considering the month of year, but how
The war has broken through our lives! how old”....
Above her grave time soon will rake the mould:
Already she is smouldering away,
Already she is fettled for decay.
But rents are high ... the weather is not cold
Considering the month of year, but how
The war has broken through our lives! how old”....
Above her grave time soon will rake the mould:
Already she is smouldering away,
Already she is fettled for decay.
Pleasures and vanities, regrets, desires
Dumped on a dung-heap where the lilies grow....
And these shall be their own sad funeral-pyres,
Destruction totters and his steps are slow.
The miles to Babylon? I do not know.
But this I know: these folk on gilded chairs
Had better kneel and say their hopeless prayers.
Dumped on a dung-heap where the lilies grow....
And these shall be their own sad funeral-pyres,
Destruction totters and his steps are slow.
The miles to Babylon? I do not know.
But this I know: these folk on gilded chairs
Had better kneel and say their hopeless prayers.
[C] A line from “Louisville Lou”: a certain fox-trot.
Intermezzo
THAT sinister, that sombre poet-waif
Presses his brow against the window-pane,
(That window-pane of cruel, wicked glass),
Watching the sour and curdled flakes of snow.
With eyes like pale grey membranes fixed and glazed
Ever he stares upon snow-silent fields,
And sweating skies that lean towards the earth
Like a great toper leaning at a bar.
Ever the mournful cries of mountain-apes
Echo, re-echo, and abysmally,
Ever the sour snow falls. And where’s the moon?
It must hang high, oh, somewhere in the heavens.
And somewhere, waking in the middle night
Soft longing arms spread out in love’s embrace
Find nothing, no one; in a dazed despair
Grope for a form to clasp, to touch, and then
Fall limply back in dismal loneliness.
Perpetual Penelopes unspin
The webs they spun meticulous at day.
Somewhere the honey-throated nightingale
Is voiceless for the burden of his love,
And somewhere it is good to be alive....
Presses his brow against the window-pane,
(That window-pane of cruel, wicked glass),
Watching the sour and curdled flakes of snow.
With eyes like pale grey membranes fixed and glazed
Ever he stares upon snow-silent fields,
And sweating skies that lean towards the earth
Like a great toper leaning at a bar.
Ever the mournful cries of mountain-apes
Echo, re-echo, and abysmally,
Ever the sour snow falls. And where’s the moon?
It must hang high, oh, somewhere in the heavens.
And somewhere, waking in the middle night
Soft longing arms spread out in love’s embrace
Find nothing, no one; in a dazed despair
Grope for a form to clasp, to touch, and then
Fall limply back in dismal loneliness.
Perpetual Penelopes unspin
The webs they spun meticulous at day.
Somewhere the honey-throated nightingale
Is voiceless for the burden of his love,
And somewhere it is good to be alive....
THREE TRANSLATIONS FROM THE FRENCH
(For Edith Sitwell)
I
The Gibbet
(Derived from Aloysius Bertrand)
OH, do I hear the night-raped wind
Who screams in travail, do I hear
The blunt ropes of the gibbet grind,
The hanged man’s writhing sigh so drear?
Who screams in travail, do I hear
The blunt ropes of the gibbet grind,
The hanged man’s writhing sigh so drear?
Oh, can it be some cricket’s song
Vibrating shrill amongst the weeds
And sterile moss? throughout the long
Finned languid hours when summer bleeds
Vibrating shrill amongst the weeds
And sterile moss? throughout the long
Finned languid hours when summer bleeds
Outstretched and pallid on a bier.
Oh, can it be some spot-swift fly
Who winds his horn round each deaf ear?
Some beetle plucking stealthily
Oh, can it be some spot-swift fly
Who winds his horn round each deaf ear?
Some beetle plucking stealthily
A morsel of corrupting flesh,
A trailing wisp, a bleeding hair,
Until his spirit, fed and fresh,
Will bid him frisk upon the air?
A trailing wisp, a bleeding hair,
Until his spirit, fed and fresh,
Will bid him frisk upon the air?
Oh, can it be some spider squat
Who sings and sows at half an ell
Of satin, for a new cravat
To deck his strangled throat in Hell?
Who sings and sows at half an ell
Of satin, for a new cravat
To deck his strangled throat in Hell?
II
Saint
(After Mallarmé)
HIGH at a window
Of old gilded sandalwood
Where once the viol
Mingled with dulcimer,
Of old gilded sandalwood
Where once the viol
Mingled with dulcimer,
Sits the Saint pallid,
The missal of parchment
Lies open where vespers
And complines were chaunted:
The missal of parchment
Lies open where vespers
And complines were chaunted:
At monstrance-glazing
Grazed by the Angel’s
Harp curved by winging
Aloft on the twilight
Grazed by the Angel’s
Harp curved by winging
Aloft on the twilight
III
Hérodiade
Translated from Mallarmé
Scene
The Nurse—Hérodiade
NURSE. You live, Princess? or do I see your shade?
Your fingers at my lips and all their rings
Cease to proceed in an unlearned-of age....
Your fingers at my lips and all their rings
Cease to proceed in an unlearned-of age....
Hérodiade. Recede.
The immaculate blond torrent of my hair
Freezes my limbs with horror when it bathes
Their solitude, and interlaced with light
My hair’s immortal. Me a kiss would murder,
Would kill, if beauty were not death, oh woman....
Driven by what allurement, should I know?
What morn forgotten by the prophets pours
O’er dying distances, these dismal feasts?
And you have seen me enter, nurse of winter,
The heavy prison built of stone and iron
Where aged lions drag the centuries,
And fatal, I advanced, with shielded hands,
Through desert-perfume of these ancient kings:
But have you still beheld my very dread?
I stop to dream of exiles, and I strip,
As near a pond whose gush of water welcomes,
The pallid lilies in me, smitten, charmed
My eyes pursue the languor of the wreck
Descend, in silence, through my reverie,
The lions part my indolence of robe
And gaze on feet whose curves would calm the sea.
Quiet the shudder of your crumbling flesh,
And mimicking the fashions of my hair
So fierce that makes you fear their shock of manes,
Come, help, as thus you dare no longer see me,
Within a mirror nonchalantly combing.
The immaculate blond torrent of my hair
Freezes my limbs with horror when it bathes
Their solitude, and interlaced with light
My hair’s immortal. Me a kiss would murder,
Would kill, if beauty were not death, oh woman....
Driven by what allurement, should I know?
What morn forgotten by the prophets pours
O’er dying distances, these dismal feasts?
And you have seen me enter, nurse of winter,
The heavy prison built of stone and iron
Where aged lions drag the centuries,
And fatal, I advanced, with shielded hands,
Through desert-perfume of these ancient kings:
But have you still beheld my very dread?
I stop to dream of exiles, and I strip,
As near a pond whose gush of water welcomes,
The pallid lilies in me, smitten, charmed
My eyes pursue the languor of the wreck
Descend, in silence, through my reverie,
The lions part my indolence of robe
And gaze on feet whose curves would calm the sea.
Quiet the shudder of your crumbling flesh,
And mimicking the fashions of my hair
So fierce that makes you fear their shock of manes,
Come, help, as thus you dare no longer see me,
Within a mirror nonchalantly combing.
Nurse. My child, unless you wish to sample myrrh
Gay in its sealèd bottles, would you prove
The grave funereal virtue of the essence
Ravished from roses’ dim senility?
Gay in its sealèd bottles, would you prove
The grave funereal virtue of the essence
Ravished from roses’ dim senility?
Hérodiade. Leave there those perfumes! Nurse, do you not know
I hate them, do you wish me then, to feel
My languid frame drown in their drunkenness?
I crave: my hair of flowers not created
To strew oblivion of human anguish,
But gold, for ever virgin of the spices,
In cruel flashes and in heavy pallor,
Will mark the sterile chilliness of metals,
Having reflected you, my native jewels,
Vases and arms, from solitary childhood.
I hate them, do you wish me then, to feel
My languid frame drown in their drunkenness?
I crave: my hair of flowers not created
To strew oblivion of human anguish,
But gold, for ever virgin of the spices,
In cruel flashes and in heavy pallor,
Will mark the sterile chilliness of metals,
Having reflected you, my native jewels,
Vases and arms, from solitary childhood.
Nurse. Pardon, oh queen, for age eclipsed the plea
With which you deign to vindicate my mind
Grown sallow as an old or gloomy book....
With which you deign to vindicate my mind
Grown sallow as an old or gloomy book....
Hérodiade. Enough! before me hold this mirror. Mirror!
Cold water frozen hard within your frame
By weariness; how often, dream-tormented
And searching for my memories, like leaves
Beneath the hole profound within your ice,
In you I seemed a shadow, but, what horror
At dusk when in your fountain I have known
The nudity of my dishevelled dream!
Nurse, am I beautiful?
Cold water frozen hard within your frame
By weariness; how often, dream-tormented
And searching for my memories, like leaves
Beneath the hole profound within your ice,
In you I seemed a shadow, but, what horror
At dusk when in your fountain I have known
The nudity of my dishevelled dream!
Nurse, am I beautiful?
Nurse. In truth, a star,
But this tress tumbles....
But this tress tumbles....
Hérodiade. Check in your offence
Which chills my blood towards its source, and quell
This gesture of notorious irreligion:
Tell me, in grim emotion what sure demon
Throws you this kiss, these perfumes, should I breathe it?
And, oh my heart, this hand still sacrilegious,
Since I believe you wished to touch me, say
They are a day which will not be extinguished
Without calamity upon the tower....
Oh day Hérodiade beholds with dread!
Which chills my blood towards its source, and quell
This gesture of notorious irreligion:
Tell me, in grim emotion what sure demon
Throws you this kiss, these perfumes, should I breathe it?
And, oh my heart, this hand still sacrilegious,
Since I believe you wished to touch me, say
They are a day which will not be extinguished
Without calamity upon the tower....
Oh day Hérodiade beholds with dread!
Nurse. Indeed, a strange day, from which heaven guard you!
You wander, lonely shadow, recent passion,
Looking within you, premature in terror:
Even as an immortal exquisite,
And hideously beautiful, my child
As....
You wander, lonely shadow, recent passion,
Looking within you, premature in terror:
Even as an immortal exquisite,
And hideously beautiful, my child
As....
Hérodiade. Were you not about to touch me?
Nurse. I would belong to him, for whom the Fates
Reserve your secrets.
Reserve your secrets.
Hérodiade. Oh! be silent!
Nurse. Sometimes
He’ll come, perchance?
He’ll come, perchance?
Hérodiade. I pray you, do not listen,
Innocent stars!
Innocent stars!
Nurse. How else, ’mid sombre terrors
To dream a suppliant, more implacable,
That god the treasure of your grace attends!
For whom, devoured of agony, you guard
The mystery, vain splendour of your being?
To dream a suppliant, more implacable,
That god the treasure of your grace attends!
For whom, devoured of agony, you guard
The mystery, vain splendour of your being?
Hérodiade. For me.
Nurse. Sad flower seen with atony
In water, doleful flower that grows alone,
Nor has anxiety but cloudy sound.
In water, doleful flower that grows alone,
Nor has anxiety but cloudy sound.
Hérodiade. Go, keep your pity with your irony.
Nurse. Expound however: no, ingenuous child,
Some day this scorn triumphant will diminish....
Some day this scorn triumphant will diminish....
Hérodiade. But who would touch me, reverenced of lions?
Besides, I want no human thing; if, chiselled,
You see me with eyes lost in Paradise,
’Tis when I call to mind your milk of yore.
Besides, I want no human thing; if, chiselled,
You see me with eyes lost in Paradise,
’Tis when I call to mind your milk of yore.
Hérodiade. Yes, it is for myself, deserted, that I flower!
Gardens of amethyst, you know too well—
Fled without end into the wise abysms
Dazzled and dazed; you unawared-of golds
Who guard your antique mellowness of light
Beneath the sombre slumber of a soil
Primordial and primitive; and you
Oh stones from which my pure and jewel eyes
Borrow their melody of clarity;
You, metals, which surrender to my hair
A fatal splendour and its massive gait!
Woman who speak of mortal, as for you,
Created in malignant centuries,
Born for the spite of caverns sybilline!
According as from calyx of my clothes
The white thrill of my nudity emerge,
Aroma of the fierce, the savage joys—
Woman who speak of mortal! prophesy
That if the tepid azure of the summer,
To whom the woman natively unveils,
Sees me in starlike shivering chastity,
I die!
I love the dread of being virgin
And I desire to live the terror of my hair—
To sense, inviolate reptile, on my couch
At evening, stir within my useless flesh
The frigid sparkle of your pallid lucence,
O you who die calcined with chastity,
White night of icicles and cruel snow!
And your lone sister, oh eternal sister,
My dream will mount towards you airily:
Already as the rare limpidity
Of one who dreamt it, in my native-land
Monotonous, I think myself alone,
And all around me lives in the idolatry
That in a mirror’s dozing calm reflects
Hérodiade of clear and diamond gaze....
Yea, last of spells! I feel it, I’m alone.
Gardens of amethyst, you know too well—
Fled without end into the wise abysms
Dazzled and dazed; you unawared-of golds
Who guard your antique mellowness of light
Beneath the sombre slumber of a soil
Primordial and primitive; and you
Oh stones from which my pure and jewel eyes
Borrow their melody of clarity;
You, metals, which surrender to my hair
A fatal splendour and its massive gait!
Woman who speak of mortal, as for you,
Created in malignant centuries,
Born for the spite of caverns sybilline!
According as from calyx of my clothes
The white thrill of my nudity emerge,
Aroma of the fierce, the savage joys—
Woman who speak of mortal! prophesy
That if the tepid azure of the summer,
To whom the woman natively unveils,
Sees me in starlike shivering chastity,
I die!
I love the dread of being virgin
And I desire to live the terror of my hair—
To sense, inviolate reptile, on my couch
At evening, stir within my useless flesh
The frigid sparkle of your pallid lucence,
O you who die calcined with chastity,
White night of icicles and cruel snow!
And your lone sister, oh eternal sister,
My dream will mount towards you airily:
Already as the rare limpidity
Of one who dreamt it, in my native-land
Monotonous, I think myself alone,
And all around me lives in the idolatry
That in a mirror’s dozing calm reflects
Hérodiade of clear and diamond gaze....
Yea, last of spells! I feel it, I’m alone.
Nurse. And will you die then, Madam?
Hérodiade. Grandmother, no,
Be calm: withdrawing, pardon this flint heart,
But, if you wish, first close the shutters fast,
Seraphic azure smiles within the pane’s
Profundity. I loathe the lovely azure.
The waters lull themselves and, over there,
Do you not know a country where the sky,
So sinister, has all the heated looks
Of Venus who is burning in the leaves
At evening? I’ll thither ...
Light these tapers,
Mere childishness, you say, whose nimble flames
Weep a strange weeping ’mid the empty gold
And ...
Be calm: withdrawing, pardon this flint heart,
But, if you wish, first close the shutters fast,
Seraphic azure smiles within the pane’s
Profundity. I loathe the lovely azure.
The waters lull themselves and, over there,
Do you not know a country where the sky,
So sinister, has all the heated looks
Of Venus who is burning in the leaves
At evening? I’ll thither ...
Light these tapers,
Mere childishness, you say, whose nimble flames
Weep a strange weeping ’mid the empty gold
And ...
Nurse. Now?
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London