Part 4

Now the third day is here-- no word from either; No word from her nor him, Only another man’s note: “Dear Pound, I am leaving England.”

Dans un Omnibus de Londres

Les yeux d’une morte aimée M’ont salué, Enchassés dans un visage stupide Dont tous les autres traits étaient banals, Ils m’ont salué

Et alors je vis bien des choses Au dedans de ma mémoire Remuer, S’éveiller.

Je vis des canards sur le bord d’un lac minuscule, Auprès d’un petit enfant gai, bossu.

Je vis les colonnes anciennes en “toc” Du Parc Monceau, Et deux petites filles graciles, Des patriciennes, aux toisons couleur de lin, Et des pigeonnes Grasses comme des poulardes.

Je vis le parc, Et tous les gazons divers Où nous avions loué des chaises Pour quatre sous.

Je vis les cygnes noirs, Japonais, Leurs ailes Teintées de couleur sang-de-dragon,

Et toutes les fleurs D’Armenonville.

Les yeux d’une morte M’ont salué.

To a Friend Writing on Cabaret Dancers

RIGHT “_Breathe not the word to-morrow in her ears._” Vir Quidem, on Dancers.

Good “Hedgethorn,” for we’ll anglicize your name Until the last slut’s hanged and the last pig disemboweled, Seeing your wife is charming and your child Sings in the open meadow--at least the kodak says so-- My good fellow, you, on a cabaret silence And the dancers, you write a sonnet, Say “Forget To-morrow,” being of all men The most prudent, orderly, and decorous!

“Pepita” has no to-morrow, so you write.

Pepita has such to-morrows: with the hands puffed out, The pug-dog’s features encrusted with tallow Sunk in a frowsy collar--an unbrushed black. She will not bathe too often, but her jewels Will be a stuffy, opulent sort of fungus Spread on both hands and on the up-pushed bosom-- It juts like a shelf between the jowl and corset.

Have you, or I seen most of cabarets, good Hedgethorn?

Here’s Pepita, tall and slim as an Egyptian mummy, Marsh-cranberries, the ribbed and angular pods Flare up with scarlet orange on stiff stalks And so Pepita flares on the crowded stage before our tables Or slithers about between the dishonest waiters--

“_Carmen est maigre, un trait de bistre_ _Cerne son œil de gitana_”

And “rend la flamme” you know the deathless verses. I search the features, the avaricious features Pulled by the kohl and rouge out of resemblance-- Six pence the object for a change of passion.

“Write me a poem.” Come now, my dear Pepita, “-ita, bonita, chiquita,” that’s what you mean you advertising spade, Or take the intaglio, my fat great-uncle’s heirloom: Cupid, astride a phallus with two wings, Swinging a cat-o’-nine-tails. No. Pepita, I have seen through the crust. I don’t know what you look like But your smile pulls one way and your painted grin another, While that cropped fool, that tom-boy who can’t earn her living. Come, come to-morrow, To-morrow in ten years at the latest, She will be drunk in the ditch, but you, Pepita, Will be quite rich, quite plump, with pug-bitch features, With a black tint staining your cuticle, Prudent and svelte Pepita. “Poète, writ me a poème!” Spanish and Paris, love of the arts part of your geisha-culture!

Euhenia, in short skirts, slaps her wide stomach, Pulls up a roll of fat for the pianist, “Pauvre femme maigre!” she says. He sucks his chop bone, That some one else has paid for, grins up an amiable grin, Explains the decorations. Good Hedgethorn, they all have futures, All these people. Old Popkoff Will dine next week with Mrs. Basil, Will meet a duchess and an ex-diplomat’s widow From Weehawken--who has never known Any but “Majesties” and Italian nobles.

Euhenia will have a _fonda_ in Orbajosa. The amorous nerves will give way to digestive; “Delight thy soul in fatness,” saith the preacher. We can’t preserve the elusive “_mica salis_,” It may last well in these dark northern climates, Nell Gwynn’s still here, despite the reformation, And Edward’s mistresses still light the stage, A glamour of classic youth in their deportment. The prudent whore is not without her future, Her bourgeois dulness is deferred. Her present dulness....

Oh well, her present dulness....

Now in Venice, ‘Storante al Giardino, I went early, Saw the performers come: him, her, the baby, A quiet and respectable-tawdry trio; An hour later: a show of calves and spangles,

“_Un e due fanno tre_,” Night after night, No change, no change of program, “_Chè!_ _La donna è mobile._”

Homage to Quintus Septimius Florentis Christianus

(_Ex libris Graecae_)

I

Theodorus will be pleased at my death, And someone else will be pleased at the death of Theodorus, And yet everyone speaks evil of death.

II

This place is the Cyprian’s, for she has ever the fancy To be looking out across the bright sea, Therefore the sailors are cheered, and the waves Keep small with reverence, beholding her image.

_Anyte._

III

A sad and great evil is the expectation of death-- And there are also the inane expenses of the funeral; Let us therefore cease from pitying the dead For after death there comes no other calamity.

_Palladas._

IV

_Troy_

Whither, O city, are your profits and your gilded shrines, And your barbecues of great oxen, And the tall women walking your streets, in gilt clothes, With their perfumes in little alabaster boxes? Where is the work of your home-born sculptors?

Time’s tooth is into the lot, and war’s and fate’s too. Envy has taken your all, Save your douth and your story.

_Agathas Scholasticus._

V

Woman? Oh, woman is a consummate rage, but dead, or asleep, she pleases. Take her. She has two excellent seasons.

_Palladas._

VI

_Nicharcus upon Phidon his doctor_

Phidon neither purged me, nor touched me, But I remembered the name of his fever medicine and died.

Fish and the Shadow

The salmon-trout drifts in the stream, The soul of the salmon-trout floats over the stream Like a little wafer of light.

The salmon moves in the sun-shot, bright shallow sea....

As light as the shadow of the fish that falls through the water, She came into the large room by the stair, Yawning a little she came with the sleep still upon her.

“I am just from bed. The sleep is still in my eyes. “Come. I have had a long dream.”

And I: “That wood? And two springs have passed us.”

“Not so far, no, not so far now, There is a place--but no one else knows it-- A field in a valley.... _Qu’ieu sui avinen,_ _Ieu lo sai._”

She must speak of the time Of Arnaut de Mareuil, I thought, “_qu’ieu sui avinen_.”

Light as the shadow of the fish That falls through the pale green water.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.