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Title: An Indian Ass
Author: Harold Acton
Release date: February 19, 2022 [eBook #67441]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: Duckworth, 1925
Credits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INDIAN ASS ***
AN INDIAN ASS
By the same author
AQUARIUM
AN INDIAN ASS
BY
HAROLD ACTON
“Ha ha! ha ha! this world doth pass
Most merrily, I’ll be sworn;
For many an honest Indian ass
Goes for an Unicorn.
Most merrily, I’ll be sworn;
For many an honest Indian ass
Goes for an Unicorn.
Ty hye! ty hye! O sweet delight!
He tickles this age that can
Call Tullia’s ape a marmosyte
And Leda’s goose a swan.”
He tickles this age that can
Call Tullia’s ape a marmosyte
And Leda’s goose a swan.”
DUCKWORTH
3 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C.
First published in 1925
All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
CONTENTS
Lament for Adonis
NOW fogs enfold the sea
And berries fall from eaves,
The cat’s eyes glitter green into the dark.
The sloping hills of myrrh,
The trees with tender anise overweighed,
The pointed flag-leaves stir
Only to weep again,
Only to sob and mourn Adonis dead.
And berries fall from eaves,
The cat’s eyes glitter green into the dark.
The sloping hills of myrrh,
The trees with tender anise overweighed,
The pointed flag-leaves stir
Only to weep again,
Only to sob and mourn Adonis dead.
Throughout this dolorous night of cloudy jade
Even the hornless dragon of the sea,
The green and golden sequined basilisk,
The water-scorpion and the python-king
Like sad eclipses trail about the land.
The crane, the ibis and the mango-bird,
The jungle-fowl, the heron and the roc,
The badger and three-footed tortoise join
In pouring out their eyes.
Even the hornless dragon of the sea,
The green and golden sequined basilisk,
The water-scorpion and the python-king
Like sad eclipses trail about the land.
The crane, the ibis and the mango-bird,
The jungle-fowl, the heron and the roc,
The badger and three-footed tortoise join
In pouring out their eyes.
O Cypris violet-stoled, O wrapped in purple woof
Arise and beat your azure-veined breasts!
Small jewelled nipples, bleed!
For I have seen you make that curved mouth
A bed of balsam, bed of crisp lush flowers,
Whose poor crushed frozen lips compactly closed
Lie, flakes of ice, where once were flakes of fire,
Their loveliness a thing of agony.
The moon has slanted off, and querulous ghosts
Hover along the brink of treacherous voids
And leap into this night of blinded eyes
(Blind now to pleasure’s lapping ecstasies);
This peacock-throated night whose stifling cries
Shudder and crack: ’tis Misery who calls
“Woe” to the black solemnities of sky
For loveliest Adonis—he is dead.
Arise and beat your azure-veined breasts!
Small jewelled nipples, bleed!
For I have seen you make that curved mouth
A bed of balsam, bed of crisp lush flowers,
Whose poor crushed frozen lips compactly closed
Lie, flakes of ice, where once were flakes of fire,
Their loveliness a thing of agony.
The moon has slanted off, and querulous ghosts
Hover along the brink of treacherous voids
And leap into this night of blinded eyes
(Blind now to pleasure’s lapping ecstasies);
This peacock-throated night whose stifling cries
Shudder and crack: ’tis Misery who calls
“Woe” to the black solemnities of sky
For loveliest Adonis—he is dead.
Low on the hills he lies, the lovely bleeding one,
His throat aflash with faint stunned strands of light.
Low on the hills he lies and breathes his life away
And from his thigh of milk-white agate gashed,
Slit by the cruel tusk,
The ruby blood drips down his skin of snow.
Beneath his brows stars set in crystal deep
(Once memories, hungers glinted in their pools),
Are glazed dim, opaque and lustreless,
The blue orbs burn no more beneath translucent lids.
His locks are wet with the clear drops of night,
The rose has fled his lip: the very kiss hangs dead,
The kiss that Cypris never will forego.
His throat aflash with faint stunned strands of light.
Low on the hills he lies and breathes his life away
And from his thigh of milk-white agate gashed,
Slit by the cruel tusk,
The ruby blood drips down his skin of snow.
Beneath his brows stars set in crystal deep
(Once memories, hungers glinted in their pools),
Are glazed dim, opaque and lustreless,
The blue orbs burn no more beneath translucent lids.
His locks are wet with the clear drops of night,
The rose has fled his lip: the very kiss hangs dead,
The kiss that Cypris never will forego.
And when the bitter white wind breaks the morn,
His gathered hounds bay gloom about his corpse,
The green-haired Nereids of the marsh make moan,
Frail flowers dabble pollened cheeks with tears,
From vavicel to calyx petals weep....
Long spiral tufts of drooping galingale,
The shadowy deer-grass and the swallow-wort
Sob through their bat’s wing tissues tremulous,
The poplars weeping amber in the vales,
The orchises and sandal-trees, lament.
His gathered hounds bay gloom about his corpse,
The green-haired Nereids of the marsh make moan,
Frail flowers dabble pollened cheeks with tears,
From vavicel to calyx petals weep....
Long spiral tufts of drooping galingale,
The shadowy deer-grass and the swallow-wort
Sob through their bat’s wing tissues tremulous,
The poplars weeping amber in the vales,
The orchises and sandal-trees, lament.
But Aphrodite with unbraided hair
And tragic thorn-pierced feet so delicate,
Calls through the woodlands and again, again.
O, more than music’s many stringèd charms,
His lulling name reverberates afar
Where faint sails clasp the ribbands of the sea.
But round his navel leaps the thick dark blood,
His chest is lapped in scarlet from the thighs,
Now purpled are those limbs afore as white
As veils of snow unflecked by merest breeze.
And tragic thorn-pierced feet so delicate,
Calls through the woodlands and again, again.
O, more than music’s many stringèd charms,
His lulling name reverberates afar
Where faint sails clasp the ribbands of the sea.
But round his navel leaps the thick dark blood,
His chest is lapped in scarlet from the thighs,
Now purpled are those limbs afore as white
As veils of snow unflecked by merest breeze.
Cypris was fair: whilst her Adonis lived
The light would melt her body into song,
But with Adonis has her beauty died,
Died as a vaporous melody on a lute.
“Woe, woe, for Cypris!” all the mountains call,
The oak-trees answer: “For Adonis, woe!”
For Aphrodite all the rivers weep,
The wells bewail Adonis on the hills.
Echo resounds “Ai, ai ... Adonis dead ...
Most beautiful Adonis ... he is dead.”
As Venus saw the wasting limbs, the wound
Gashed in the whiteness of her loved one’s thighs,
She clasped him to her, moaning supply warm
Against his chilled inertness:
The light would melt her body into song,
But with Adonis has her beauty died,
Died as a vaporous melody on a lute.
“Woe, woe, for Cypris!” all the mountains call,
The oak-trees answer: “For Adonis, woe!”
For Aphrodite all the rivers weep,
The wells bewail Adonis on the hills.
Echo resounds “Ai, ai ... Adonis dead ...
Most beautiful Adonis ... he is dead.”
As Venus saw the wasting limbs, the wound
Gashed in the whiteness of her loved one’s thighs,
She clasped him to her, moaning supply warm
Against his chilled inertness:
“Farewell, Adonis; once, as I was telling
Deluding tales of happiness, the morrow,
When I had thought that joy had come for dwelling,
Came sorrow.
Deluding tales of happiness, the morrow,
When I had thought that joy had come for dwelling,
Came sorrow.
“The almoner of death, the silent creeper,
Has snared my love, and I shall see him never,
I, manacled in miseries, a weeper
For ever.
Has snared my love, and I shall see him never,
I, manacled in miseries, a weeper
For ever.
“A widowed goddess with her beauty setting
Like a gold sun to rise no longer, never,
Whose love, with Acheron, is fast forgetting
Her for ever.”
Like a gold sun to rise no longer, never,
Whose love, with Acheron, is fast forgetting
Her for ever.”
For each blood drop the Paphian sheds a tear,
And tears and blood on earth are turned to flowers:
The ruby blood brings forth the pursy rose,
The tears bring forth the air-white wind-flower,
For loveliest Adonis—he is dead.
And tears and blood on earth are turned to flowers:
The ruby blood brings forth the pursy rose,
The tears bring forth the air-white wind-flower,
For loveliest Adonis—he is dead.
No seemly couch, this lonely bed of leaves
For dead Adonis: beautiful in death
As one that stumbles on a slumber, falls
On downy-wingèd doze of braided air.
For dead Adonis: beautiful in death
As one that stumbles on a slumber, falls
On downy-wingèd doze of braided air.
Your bed let him possess, O Cytherea,
Lay him to sleep on couch of twisted gold,
The couch that yearns for wan Adonis’ limbs.
Cast on him drooping eyes of jasmine-flowers,
Nay, all the flowers have faded in his death,
As keen swift lovely murmurs drowned on breeze.
Sprinkle his limbs with bakkaris and myrrh,
Nay, perished all the perfumes in his death,
All flushed soft legendary scents dissolve—
Disquieting erotic memories.
Lay him to sleep on couch of twisted gold,
The couch that yearns for wan Adonis’ limbs.
Cast on him drooping eyes of jasmine-flowers,
Nay, all the flowers have faded in his death,
As keen swift lovely murmurs drowned on breeze.
Sprinkle his limbs with bakkaris and myrrh,
Nay, perished all the perfumes in his death,
All flushed soft legendary scents dissolve—
Disquieting erotic memories.
The torches on the lintel all are quenched
And Hymenæus rends the bridal crown.
No more the song is “Hymen”: a new song
The Graces grieve like mournful Autumn boughs,
The toneless sound that means a broken heart:
“Woe, for Adonis, son of Cinyrus!”
To him the Muses chant their starry music,
And painted insects floating motionless
At their weird sound, unconscious of the day,
Bright feathered wings hung in the gloom of thought
Mimic the melancholy atmosphere
And dry words start and rattle in the throat,
Shudder in sorrow; but he does not heed.
And Hymenæus rends the bridal crown.
No more the song is “Hymen”: a new song
The Graces grieve like mournful Autumn boughs,
The toneless sound that means a broken heart:
“Woe, for Adonis, son of Cinyrus!”
To him the Muses chant their starry music,
And painted insects floating motionless
At their weird sound, unconscious of the day,
Bright feathered wings hung in the gloom of thought
Mimic the melancholy atmosphere
And dry words start and rattle in the throat,
Shudder in sorrow; but he does not heed.
When Frigates from Long Voyages ...
WHEN frigates from long voyages
Drift into harbour, then I see
Whirled momentary mirages
Of inspissated greenery—
Mazed mangroves casting their aerial roots,
And diamond water-shoots
Embroidering the air.
And in the drowsy hanging-gardens there
Roam slowly-swaying elephants;
The fulgurant phœnix with her sycophants,
Those trailing-plumèd birds of paradise,
Sits on a cactus thorn.
And gleaming in the ruby-veinèd morn
Lie pools of liquid amber for the indolent crocodile
To flounder in and dolorously smile.
Spick diving gannets, speckled pelicans,
Flutter with feather-footed ptarmigans.
Orange-liveried marmosets
Climb slender cypress minarets.
Strange garrisons
Of emerald-mailed chameleons,
And peacocks, fans outspread as gonfalons,
Shrill-voiced as amazons;
Coiled dinosaurs that lap the hydromel
From many a mauve-lipped shell....
The unicorns are neighing from afar,
Where hills of cinnabar
Loom high
Like venomous Borgia-philtres on the sky.
Drift into harbour, then I see
Whirled momentary mirages
Of inspissated greenery—
Mazed mangroves casting their aerial roots,
And diamond water-shoots
Embroidering the air.
And in the drowsy hanging-gardens there
Roam slowly-swaying elephants;
The fulgurant phœnix with her sycophants,
Those trailing-plumèd birds of paradise,
Sits on a cactus thorn.
And gleaming in the ruby-veinèd morn
Lie pools of liquid amber for the indolent crocodile
To flounder in and dolorously smile.
Spick diving gannets, speckled pelicans,
Flutter with feather-footed ptarmigans.
Orange-liveried marmosets
Climb slender cypress minarets.
Strange garrisons
Of emerald-mailed chameleons,
And peacocks, fans outspread as gonfalons,
Shrill-voiced as amazons;
Coiled dinosaurs that lap the hydromel
From many a mauve-lipped shell....
The unicorns are neighing from afar,
Where hills of cinnabar
Loom high
Like venomous Borgia-philtres on the sky.
Capriccio Espagnol
“Y entre puente y otro puente
Zaragoza es my tierra.”
Zaragoza es my tierra.”
OF blood blown-dry brown velvet, baldaquins,
Words guttural—then soft as dulcimers:
Of rays of rapid light through fishes’ fins
Prisoned in tanks profound where nothing stirs;
Of nights that ooze weird sounds, and starry eyes
On lattice fixed and bulging balconies:—
Words guttural—then soft as dulcimers:
Of rays of rapid light through fishes’ fins
Prisoned in tanks profound where nothing stirs;
Of nights that ooze weird sounds, and starry eyes
On lattice fixed and bulging balconies:—
Of these my brain built castles rapidly,
And tolled metallic like a beaten bell
Of hard green copper; straggling aimlessly
Over ravine and granite citadel
Were cities unpremeditated, dry,
As draughts of space inhaled from scorching sky.
And tolled metallic like a beaten bell
Of hard green copper; straggling aimlessly
Over ravine and granite citadel
Were cities unpremeditated, dry,
As draughts of space inhaled from scorching sky.
Through these Cathedrals rose like cachalots
Twisted of height and gloom and sudden glow.
Their glossy floors reflect the crimson clots
Of vestment swirling, swishing to and fro—
And when the beadle taps his ponderous mace
Faint echoes rustle from the Altar’s lace.
Twisted of height and gloom and sudden glow.
Their glossy floors reflect the crimson clots
Of vestment swirling, swishing to and fro—
And when the beadle taps his ponderous mace
Faint echoes rustle from the Altar’s lace.
Within the town: feeble electric light
Among the dusty foliage of the trees,
Like gentle cheeks against the steely night,
With boughs of thick smooth silver; jubilees
Of saints are frequent—in their thoughtfulness
The citizens will give their saint a dress.
Among the dusty foliage of the trees,
Like gentle cheeks against the steely night,
With boughs of thick smooth silver; jubilees
Of saints are frequent—in their thoughtfulness
The citizens will give their saint a dress.
They lift her from the gilded canopy,
Studded in far Peru, on which she stands,
Sumptuous, realistic, in each eye
A gaping jewel; sprouting from her hands
Are paper flowers—in their thoughtfulness
They give their saint a new magenta dress.
Studded in far Peru, on which she stands,
Sumptuous, realistic, in each eye
A gaping jewel; sprouting from her hands
Are paper flowers—in their thoughtfulness
They give their saint a new magenta dress.
The ceremony done, and people doff
Their piety: serrated streets resound
With gossip, vacuous laughter, idle scoff.
Like strips of tape the scattered crowds confound,
Mantillas and a rout of dusky hair,
Stray thoughts jerk off and clatter in the air....
Their piety: serrated streets resound
With gossip, vacuous laughter, idle scoff.
Like strips of tape the scattered crowds confound,
Mantillas and a rout of dusky hair,
Stray thoughts jerk off and clatter in the air....
Austere this land, and yet it utters flesh:
The longing ache of contact, lids like song
And lips like speech melodious: a mesh
For Don Juans and sanguine passions; strong
This earth of sprinkled blood, the seed of gold,
Whose tainted glitters dazzle young and old!
The longing ache of contact, lids like song
And lips like speech melodious: a mesh
For Don Juans and sanguine passions; strong
This earth of sprinkled blood, the seed of gold,
Whose tainted glitters dazzle young and old!
Trépak
THE trees sprawl up like trumpets in the night,
Great ghosts of once-viridian: but now,
Fibred with brittle tufts of massy snow,
They creak with burdened whiteness, for the bright
Blue-prismed stalactites like wounds of light
Are pendulous from their pagoda-boughs.
And when a wind whirs in among the trees,
As some Silenus fumbling frantic hands
Into a cleft of honey, they cast off
A whittling dust of little hispid stars.
The moon is hungry. Lo! the moon has thinned
To finger-nail’s fine fringe; she is forlorn
With thought of Spring’s flown hollow spells of joy,
When the now-passionless statue of her mind
Was tremulous with passion, nescient lips
Stammered lush ingenuities of love.
Then Summer crackled like a yawn of fire:
The big-lipped consummation of desire.
A starved, lean-ribbed dog with rheumy eyes
Yelps up at her, his poor thin thread of voice
Nigh snaps, and trails its note into a growl,
Then tumbles, frozen stark, amongst the snow.
The barbèd minutes shiver chillily
In wait for something.
Great ghosts of once-viridian: but now,
Fibred with brittle tufts of massy snow,
They creak with burdened whiteness, for the bright
Blue-prismed stalactites like wounds of light
Are pendulous from their pagoda-boughs.
And when a wind whirs in among the trees,
As some Silenus fumbling frantic hands
Into a cleft of honey, they cast off
A whittling dust of little hispid stars.
The moon is hungry. Lo! the moon has thinned
To finger-nail’s fine fringe; she is forlorn
With thought of Spring’s flown hollow spells of joy,
When the now-passionless statue of her mind
Was tremulous with passion, nescient lips
Stammered lush ingenuities of love.
Then Summer crackled like a yawn of fire:
The big-lipped consummation of desire.
A starved, lean-ribbed dog with rheumy eyes
Yelps up at her, his poor thin thread of voice
Nigh snaps, and trails its note into a growl,
Then tumbles, frozen stark, amongst the snow.
The barbèd minutes shiver chillily
In wait for something.
Ho! who’s this, a man?
In this torn catafalque of barren boughs?
A patriarchal bearded brittle-bones
Daft, dazed with drink, shuffles his slipshod feet
Scattering sprays of crisply sparkling snow.
Death clanks his rusty mail and flaps his wings
And ogling, draws the man into a dance:
In this torn catafalque of barren boughs?
A patriarchal bearded brittle-bones
Daft, dazed with drink, shuffles his slipshod feet
Scattering sprays of crisply sparkling snow.
Death clanks his rusty mail and flaps his wings
And ogling, draws the man into a dance:
“No more the malady of life unlived
With no grand-opera effects; no more
Heroic sunsets, agonies of rose
To wear you faint; no more the whirlpool’s mist
Of good and evil. It shall be revealed
There is no meaning, no significance
In all this clamour, in this viscous trail
Of sentimental sanatoriums.
Those frowning stoic caryatides,
Who contemplate in decorous solitude
This elegant Golgotha of futile birth,
Are fraudulent mountebanks; unmanicured,
Life’s pointed nails grapple and tear your flanks
Without a murmur trembling from your lips,
O broken vessel sprayed with broken light,
Come to oblivion’s arms; sepulchral night,
Inchoate truth await you—they are kind.
Close your red lashless eyelids. Death is fair....”
With no grand-opera effects; no more
Heroic sunsets, agonies of rose
To wear you faint; no more the whirlpool’s mist
Of good and evil. It shall be revealed
There is no meaning, no significance
In all this clamour, in this viscous trail
Of sentimental sanatoriums.
Those frowning stoic caryatides,
Who contemplate in decorous solitude
This elegant Golgotha of futile birth,
Are fraudulent mountebanks; unmanicured,
Life’s pointed nails grapple and tear your flanks
Without a murmur trembling from your lips,
O broken vessel sprayed with broken light,
Come to oblivion’s arms; sepulchral night,
Inchoate truth await you—they are kind.
Close your red lashless eyelids. Death is fair....”
The Investiture of a Spinster Hob-Goblin
OH have you heard the chaunt of snails
Tilting upon a big brown leaf,
And held the insect world in fief
And pared the devil’s gilded nails?
Tilting upon a big brown leaf,
And held the insect world in fief
And pared the devil’s gilded nails?
And have you parlied with the rose,
And seen the ballet of the bats
And watched the sloths, our acrobats,
Performing at our antic-shows?
And seen the ballet of the bats
And watched the sloths, our acrobats,
Performing at our antic-shows?
And have you drunk the tears of stars,
And bathed in bubbles of the moon,
And heard the gay grasshoppers croon,
Who use their bodies as guitars?
And bathed in bubbles of the moon,
And heard the gay grasshoppers croon,
Who use their bodies as guitars?
Then, if you’ve seen the phœnix land
Or if a satyr’s beard you’ve sawn,
And filed the eye-brows of a faun,
We will admit you to our band.
Or if a satyr’s beard you’ve sawn,
And filed the eye-brows of a faun,
We will admit you to our band.
The Were-Wolf
ALL in the hush of a green night,
He left the downy marriage-bed
In a chill sweat, his face chalk-white,
His voice spoke hoarsely of the dead.
He left the downy marriage-bed
In a chill sweat, his face chalk-white,
His voice spoke hoarsely of the dead.
The young wife, wakened by his howls,
Clutched bed-post dumb with fright, surprise;
Like lepers huddled under cowls,
Red films lay on her husband’s eyes.
Clutched bed-post dumb with fright, surprise;
Like lepers huddled under cowls,
Red films lay on her husband’s eyes.
“I am become a wolf,” he said,
“And I will to the churchyard-site
To throttle graves, to raise the dead.
Strange flesh will be my fare to-night!”
“And I will to the churchyard-site
To throttle graves, to raise the dead.
Strange flesh will be my fare to-night!”
Hilarity
COME, let us sing the world’s hilarity,
Now that a silence overspreads the hills,
Each crevice, muscle, wimpling in a haze,
Blue-ragged fustian of twilight: come
And crack the sky with laughter, mounting shrill,
Let it dissolve the æther, let it break
In bubbles, circles ever-bosoming,
As when a trout has troubled a still pool.
Now that a silence overspreads the hills,
Each crevice, muscle, wimpling in a haze,
Blue-ragged fustian of twilight: come
And crack the sky with laughter, mounting shrill,
Let it dissolve the æther, let it break
In bubbles, circles ever-bosoming,
As when a trout has troubled a still pool.
Scatter it like a hungry pack of hounds,
Worry and tear and grind it into strips,
Ravish and tread on it, then let it be
To crawl before us like the ooze of oil,
A worm of shame, a mean and squamous thing.
Worry and tear and grind it into strips,
Ravish and tread on it, then let it be
To crawl before us like the ooze of oil,
A worm of shame, a mean and squamous thing.
Hysteria, guide us! Let our laughter heave,
Swell shriek on shriek, till it engender fear
Like peacocks in abandoned palaces
Whose sharp and melancholy discords ring
And rinse like lightning through the vaulted roofs
At sunset hour, when skies are smeared with blood.
Come, drown the viol’s pallid amber notes,
Submerge the fevered pluckings at the lute,
Let no soft rippling cadences be spilled,
But beat a riot out upon the drums.
Fescennine gongs shall kindle us to blaze,
And thus our fumes, well ballasted, will steer
Towards the placid stars and make them reel.
Swell shriek on shriek, till it engender fear
Like peacocks in abandoned palaces
Whose sharp and melancholy discords ring
And rinse like lightning through the vaulted roofs
At sunset hour, when skies are smeared with blood.
Come, drown the viol’s pallid amber notes,
Submerge the fevered pluckings at the lute,
Let no soft rippling cadences be spilled,
But beat a riot out upon the drums.
Fescennine gongs shall kindle us to blaze,
And thus our fumes, well ballasted, will steer
Towards the placid stars and make them reel.
Our lives are cratered with great pocks and scabs,
Meticulously morselled into pangs,
Birth-scream, death-rattle, straggling years between,
Of childhood and uneasy puberty,
Of adolescence and maturity,
Resolve tormented into slow decay,
Crabbed, agued, rheumatic, cough our lives away.
And some, less fortunate, cough up their blood.
Meticulously morselled into pangs,
Birth-scream, death-rattle, straggling years between,
Of childhood and uneasy puberty,
Of adolescence and maturity,
Resolve tormented into slow decay,
Crabbed, agued, rheumatic, cough our lives away.
And some, less fortunate, cough up their blood.
Then let us sing the world’s hilarity!
With plunging pistons let our laughter press,
Lumbering in massed squadrons, vitriol
To blister the anæmic orb of moon.
And there are many hours before the dawn.
The hilewort, nightshade, agrimony-wand
Surrender to the fingers of the breeze,
Lay bare their throats, let loose their floating hair.
With plunging pistons let our laughter press,
Lumbering in massed squadrons, vitriol
To blister the anæmic orb of moon.
And there are many hours before the dawn.
The hilewort, nightshade, agrimony-wand
Surrender to the fingers of the breeze,
Lay bare their throats, let loose their floating hair.
Some luckless women bear their children blind
And some hare-lipped and others lunatick
With soft and fumbling brains and shifting eyes,
Who dandle curly flowers, their lolling tongues
Clicking and moist with unrestrained saliva.
Perhaps ’twere better that they were born blind,
Never to see the ugliness of man,
The mirrors of his noisome, clammy thoughts,
Like night-grown fungi pushing on the air,
But hold sweet music palpable, and sounds,
Tones, undertones: a paradise of hues,
And glowing forms in silk embroideries.
The silence, too, will seem a rhythmic motion,
A saraband for snow-white feet to tread,
And not a tortured cripple crouching low
Amongst the blotting shadows of his soul,
To nurse his agony with evil oaths,
The blight-scarred sickly vapours of remorse,
Sputtered and writhing from his twisted lips.
And some hare-lipped and others lunatick
With soft and fumbling brains and shifting eyes,
Who dandle curly flowers, their lolling tongues
Clicking and moist with unrestrained saliva.
Perhaps ’twere better that they were born blind,
Never to see the ugliness of man,
The mirrors of his noisome, clammy thoughts,
Like night-grown fungi pushing on the air,
But hold sweet music palpable, and sounds,
Tones, undertones: a paradise of hues,
And glowing forms in silk embroideries.
The silence, too, will seem a rhythmic motion,
A saraband for snow-white feet to tread,
And not a tortured cripple crouching low
Amongst the blotting shadows of his soul,
To nurse his agony with evil oaths,
The blight-scarred sickly vapours of remorse,
Sputtered and writhing from his twisted lips.
Were a revolver fired with loud report,
The only music welcome to our ears,
The poor blind man would tremble, clutch a chair....
The only music welcome to our ears,
The poor blind man would tremble, clutch a chair....
Day after day the limbs of man are gnawed
And flayed by every manner of disease,
Eaten of lice, they seem the spawn of slugs,
And cancer slowly scrabbles at their vitals.
The small-pox ploughs their faces into ruts
And scurvy furrows, strange deformities
Distend and hunch them into monstrous shapes,
Like shadows gripping at realities,
To scrape a livid grave amongst the slime.
Some calcined ashen white with leprosy
Will scream for terror at their dreadful hands,
The touch of which would seem to cause decay
The roots they tear, the pappy fruit they pluck,
And prowling beasts will turn in haste and flee
Before their weary footsteps through the night.
And flayed by every manner of disease,
Eaten of lice, they seem the spawn of slugs,
And cancer slowly scrabbles at their vitals.
The small-pox ploughs their faces into ruts
And scurvy furrows, strange deformities
Distend and hunch them into monstrous shapes,
Like shadows gripping at realities,
To scrape a livid grave amongst the slime.
Some calcined ashen white with leprosy
Will scream for terror at their dreadful hands,
The touch of which would seem to cause decay
The roots they tear, the pappy fruit they pluck,
And prowling beasts will turn in haste and flee
Before their weary footsteps through the night.
Our quickened hearts have grated on themselves,
We groin with lappered morphews of the mind,
Our wanton mirth has frozen into sorrow,
And we had thought to fashion of our joy
Round crackling pearls to pelt our wine-drenched loves.
But we were to have sung hilarity!
We groin with lappered morphews of the mind,
Our wanton mirth has frozen into sorrow,
And we had thought to fashion of our joy
Round crackling pearls to pelt our wine-drenched loves.
But we were to have sung hilarity!
Our clowns are turned into tragedians,
And Pierrot’s chalk-white face is crinkled up
With bitter weeping; roguish Harlequin,
His apple cheeks all wet and blobbed with tears,
Wanders the streets of Bergamo alone.
And floating through the utter silences,
Our sobs well hugely, spasms echoing
To jeer and mock at us, abortive fools,
Who came to sing the world’s hilarity.
And Pierrot’s chalk-white face is crinkled up
With bitter weeping; roguish Harlequin,
His apple cheeks all wet and blobbed with tears,
Wanders the streets of Bergamo alone.
And floating through the utter silences,
Our sobs well hugely, spasms echoing
To jeer and mock at us, abortive fools,
Who came to sing the world’s hilarity.
The Gods
LIGHTNING zigzags and again
Comets reel like tipsy girls,
Bulbous clouds let down the rain,
Little silver chains of pearls.
Comets reel like tipsy girls,
Bulbous clouds let down the rain,
Little silver chains of pearls.
Through the frenzied city beats
A bourdon-drumming, heavy, low.
In long and apoplectic streets
The gods are passing to and fro.
A bourdon-drumming, heavy, low.
In long and apoplectic streets
The gods are passing to and fro.
I watch them walk among the crowds,
Their beards a-glittering with stars,
Until they merge into the clouds
Among the chimney’s fat cigars.
Their beards a-glittering with stars,
Until they merge into the clouds
Among the chimney’s fat cigars.
As Dmitri Karamazoff sang on the way to Chaos
EIGHT days without a sun: but I am calm
And cultivate my tulips fixedly,
I watch them flick their flighty freckled tongues
Mocking and sweetly monstrous blares of time.
(We weep to see you haste away so soon!)
The gas is near extinct upon the plush,
Like the last birds its flares have ebbed away.
Blue witness of the Second Empire, gas!—
In cabriolets we echoed through the night
And caracoled with busselled courtesans—
You lit the boulevards and avenues,
While Paul Verlaine, a candle in his hand,
Would totter up to bed and watch the moon
Comme un point sur un i—so orotund....
Through fumes and crapulous velleities.
And cultivate my tulips fixedly,
I watch them flick their flighty freckled tongues
Mocking and sweetly monstrous blares of time.
(We weep to see you haste away so soon!)
The gas is near extinct upon the plush,
Like the last birds its flares have ebbed away.
Blue witness of the Second Empire, gas!—
In cabriolets we echoed through the night
And caracoled with busselled courtesans—
You lit the boulevards and avenues,
While Paul Verlaine, a candle in his hand,
Would totter up to bed and watch the moon
Comme un point sur un i—so orotund....
Through fumes and crapulous velleities.
But now the batteries like headaches beat
Against the temples of humanity;
A network of pure electricity
Installed for quick transmission through the world
Pours a perpetual electric day.
Men plough their fields by searchlights from the skies,
By searchlights blatant, geometrical,
As fingers from each god-like aeroplane
Pointed to each created mass of flesh
Accusing and forewarning.
Against the temples of humanity;
A network of pure electricity
Installed for quick transmission through the world
Pours a perpetual electric day.
Men plough their fields by searchlights from the skies,
By searchlights blatant, geometrical,
As fingers from each god-like aeroplane
Pointed to each created mass of flesh
Accusing and forewarning.
O empresses of jade who slumber on your cushions,
Who slumber delicately on your cushions!
If we were moulded of a subtle stone
Instead of being merely flesh and bone,
We’d imitate your cool and elegant curves.
To chill green jade our hot and shattered nerves
Would clot or petrify or fossilize—
And moss to moist the finnèd lids of eyes,
Lush velvet soaking on the irises
Looped round with tiredness and its swollen reds
Would grow about our damask four-post beds.
We would be green, an ecstasy of green!
As small sea-violets, virgin forest’s green,
Where trees like coral sponges dab the air,
And through each weft you hear a piece of wind,
A tiny concertina-push of sound
And then an inrush, sobbing gently inward.
Who slumber delicately on your cushions!
If we were moulded of a subtle stone
Instead of being merely flesh and bone,
We’d imitate your cool and elegant curves.
To chill green jade our hot and shattered nerves
Would clot or petrify or fossilize—
And moss to moist the finnèd lids of eyes,
Lush velvet soaking on the irises
Looped round with tiredness and its swollen reds
Would grow about our damask four-post beds.
We would be green, an ecstasy of green!
As small sea-violets, virgin forest’s green,
Where trees like coral sponges dab the air,
And through each weft you hear a piece of wind,
A tiny concertina-push of sound
And then an inrush, sobbing gently inward.
Why do we drown in customs, why become
Lost dying flames and strangers to the skies
Whose beams with clouds like wingèd chariots fly?
Why do we climb the towers which break our knees,
Horrible towers from which, when we look down
We wish to hurl ourselves?
O, then the ant-like herd below would feel
A gentle spray of entrails—they’d recoil!—
Perhaps one woman faints: we do not care,
The worm has not become our paramour,
The worm has not yet pierced our winding-sheets.
Lost dying flames and strangers to the skies
Whose beams with clouds like wingèd chariots fly?
Why do we climb the towers which break our knees,
Horrible towers from which, when we look down
We wish to hurl ourselves?
O, then the ant-like herd below would feel
A gentle spray of entrails—they’d recoil!—
Perhaps one woman faints: we do not care,
The worm has not become our paramour,
The worm has not yet pierced our winding-sheets.
Then why not, like Empedocles,
Lower our limbs into volcano-craters,
And make the world believe that mighty God
Translated us into His company
On dolphins’ backs across a nectar lake,
To share the glory of His attributes,
His love like myrrh and incense and the fruits
That dangle from exotic herbs and trees
All gold and ripe as from Hesperides?
Lower our limbs into volcano-craters,
And make the world believe that mighty God
Translated us into His company
On dolphins’ backs across a nectar lake,
To share the glory of His attributes,
His love like myrrh and incense and the fruits
That dangle from exotic herbs and trees
All gold and ripe as from Hesperides?
An architect of ruin onion-eyed
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry
Has cast the die of quick finality
Among the cheese-mites in this gap of time.
Through Chaos: murmurs, stumblings, hordes that rend
The fabric which is called reality.
The light, which was a sluice of molten gold,
The crystal winds, disperse in empty air.
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry
Has cast the die of quick finality
Among the cheese-mites in this gap of time.
Through Chaos: murmurs, stumblings, hordes that rend
The fabric which is called reality.
The light, which was a sluice of molten gold,
The crystal winds, disperse in empty air.
The deep red empty holes which were our eyes
Sense only burstings of electric globes.
Louder the heat, like vitriol, wounds our ears
Burning with dull blue thunder.
And then—a tune upon the piccolo,
One of the musical Unemployed, I know,
Or some stray angel with pink sugar wings
Trying to see the cheerful side of things!
Sense only burstings of electric globes.
Louder the heat, like vitriol, wounds our ears
Burning with dull blue thunder.
And then—a tune upon the piccolo,
One of the musical Unemployed, I know,
Or some stray angel with pink sugar wings
Trying to see the cheerful side of things!