Part 3
I’m told snow hawthorn massed in bloom Could not cool whiter than your hands, Or candles crackling up the gloom Of churches in chill twilit lands.
Gaunt woman, why so tense your mouth? Is it your blistered heart that speaks? Did colour fluid as the South Light those emaciated cheeks?
I’m told your voice once trembled clear And frail withal as linnet’s wings.... And now your voice is but the mere Vague echo of forgotten things.
“_Once lovers bruised each blue-veined breast_ _And charred my body as ’twere coal._ _Now I would lay me down to rest._ _May Christ receive my wrinkled soul!_”
_Cold Joints_
I
In mental constipation shivering, He went into the fields, where he could sing To ease the sobbing of his plangent mind, With desolate, cracked voice, for they were kind. The sky an ashen cup of neutral air; Black specks of surly rooks whirred cawing there And sombre clots of writhing, stunted trees Stretched withered fingers, creaking traceries Of mazed arms multitudinous; their moan A memory that he was not alone.
Upon the gravel path small frosted stars Glittered and bleared; the rusty railing-bars Were furred with silver lichen as the down Bristled upon a dead man’s throat; a crown Of Gothic spires through lustrous distance crept. The world and all its wedge-shaped engines slept.
Disturbed, he heard the crunch of footsteps fast And looking up, he saw two men that passed. “Good-morning, Mr. Gosling.” “Oh, good-day!” “Bit nippy weather!” then strode on their way With patch-work quilted minds and bowler hats, With Sunday journal, gloves and yellow spats, Into the distance ... while the echoes bear “Bit nippy weather” drifting down the air.
II
Up, silver man nid-nodding by the hearth! The languid summer has trailed out her days.... For this night leave your bible, leave your path Of selfish righteousness; delay your praise Of God till He has given you a seat Amongst the flapping angels. (Fire and sleete And candle-light And Christ receive thy soul.)
Well, these are facts, even if impolite-- As trite and boring as the price of coal. The lyke-wake dirge comes after; now you live-- Too old for fornication--that is true. But you may love the slender fleeting things, The terrible music of the slipping hours, If sordid Life has nothing else to give. In each clock-tick there is a something new-- Unsatiated sweet imaginings, Pianola dreams or orchidaceous flowers! And though you shiver in a slow decay, You still have guts and marrow, though your limbs Be well-nigh licked of blood, you need not stay For ever by the fire and croon cracked hymns!
The children gloze and fleech him all in vain-- The taxi throbs outside. “I hope the rain Won’t spoil the fireworks.” Granpa’s left behind With baby and the adenoided nurse. The maid moves in to draw the window blind. Her lips compressed have never known a curse. Amazed, she sees frail drops are trickling down What she had ever held to be a mask. Half-pitying the old exhausted man So infantine, yet sitting all alone As in blue forest depths a mossy stone, Where toads crouch like the voice in gramophone, She brings him crumpets and a cup of tea.
III
“He’s got hot lips when he plays jazz.” How trite and obvious; of course he has! Sex blossoms on the lips as well as other parts, If not, he is unworthy of an entrance to our hearts. And you invite spontaneous destruction For splitting chips which form so tiresome an obstruction To our imaginative possibilities. No half-dissembled grey tranquillities Of mental judgment! We want elephants, Tough-grained calamities, to clamber up on; To travel petulantly bump-a-bump, to sup on Champagne and slippery flesh of oysters, And conversational quips and roysters With childishly garrulous termagants. And in their company you’ll find it pays To polish up the petals of a phrase!
_Invocation_
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.
_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.
All nature seems a parquet floor 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 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.”
In bed her lameness will not leer, For Sleep’s compassionate and kind, And she will dance and sing and hear The crooning of a phantom wind.
For then her body’s cage-doors wide Are opened, and the spirit free Flutters, and in a burst of pride Dances before Eternity.
_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.
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]
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
[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....
That sinister, that sombre poet-waif So tired to tears and tearless, with those eyes Airily floating in eternal stare, Bartered his soul for void philosophies. But suddenly he flings a weary laugh And walks into the jangling painted world.
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?
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
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
A morsel of corrupting flesh, 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?
It is the clock which tinkles down The hour to the crumbling town. It is a hanged man’s carcass spun With crimson by the setting sun.
II
_Saint_
(AFTER MALLARMÉ)
High at a window 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:
At monstrance-glazing Grazed by the Angel’s Harp curved by winging Aloft on the twilight
For her delicate fingers, On instrument’s plumage She balances soft, A musician of silence.
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....
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.
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?
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.
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....
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?
NURSE. In truth, a star, 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!
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....
HÉRODIADE. Were you not about to touch me?
NURSE. I would belong to him, for whom the Fates Reserve your secrets.
HÉRODIADE. Oh! be silent!
NURSE. Sometimes He’ll come, perchance?
HÉRODIADE. I pray you, do not listen, 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?
HÉRODIADE. For me.
NURSE. Sad flower seen with atony 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....
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.
NURSE. Oh lamentable victim to its fate!
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.
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 ...
NURSE. Now?
HÉRODIADE. Farewell. You lie, oh naked flower of my lips! For I await a thing unheard of yet. Perhaps unconscious of their mystery, Unconscious of your cries, you hurl the sobs Supreme and bruisèd of an infancy Perceiving dimly ’mid its reveries Those frozen gems that separate at last.
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