Part 3

I wish that I could go Through the red doors where I could put off My shame like shoes in the porch My pain like garments, And leave my flesh discarded lying Like luggage of some departed traveller Gone one knows not where.

Then I would turn round And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber, I would laugh with joy.

BROODING GRIEF

A yellow leaf from the darkness Hops like a frog before me-- --Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me Stretched in the brindled darkness Of the sick-room, rigid with will To die-- And the quick leaf tore me Back to this rainy swill Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

AMY LOWELL

PATTERNS

I walk down the garden paths, And all the daffodils Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. I walk down the patterned garden paths In my stiff, brocaded gown. With my powdered hair and jewelled fan, I too am a rare Pattern. As I wander down The garden paths.

My dress is richly figured, And the train Makes a pink and silver stain On the gravel, and the thrift Of the borders. Just a plate of current fashion, Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes. Not a softness anywhere about me, Only whale-bone and brocade. And I sink on a seat in the shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills Flutter in the breeze As they please. And I weep; For the lime tree is in blossom And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the plashing of waterdrops In the marble fountain Comes down the garden paths. The dripping never stops. Underneath my stiffened gown Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin, A basin in the midst of hedges grown So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding, But she guesses he is near, And the sliding of the water Seems the stroking of a dear Hand upon her. What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown! I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground. All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after Bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword hilt and the buckles on his shoes. I would choose To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover, Till he caught me in the shade, And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me, Aching, melting, unafraid. With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops, And the plopping of the waterdrops, All about us in the open afternoon-- I am very like to swoon With the weight of this brocade, For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom In my bosom, Is a letter I have hid. It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke. "Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell Died in action Thursday sen'night." As I read it in the white, morning sunlight, The letters squirmed like snakes. "Any answer, Madam," said my footman. "No," I told him. "See that the messenger takes some refreshment. No, no answer." And I walked into the garden, Up and down the patterned paths, In my stiff, correct brocade. The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun, Each one. I stood upright too, Held rigid to the pattern By the stiffness of my gown. Up and down I walked, Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband. In a month, here, underneath this lime, We would have broke the pattern. He for me, and I for him, He as Colonel, I as Lady, On this shady seat. He had a whim That sunlight carried blessing. And I answered, "It shall be as you have said." Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk Up and down The patterned garden paths In my stiff, brocaded gown. The squills and daffodils Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow. I shall go Up and down, In my gown. Gorgeously arrayed, Boned and stayed. And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace By each button, hook, and lace. For the man who should loose me is dead, Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, In a pattern called a war. Christ! What are patterns for?

SPRING DAY

BATH

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.

The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.

Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots.

The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whirl of tulips and narcissus in the air.

BREAKFAST TABLE

In the fresh-washed sunlight, the breakfast table is decked and white. It offers itself in flat surrender, tendering tastes, and smells, and colours, and metals, and grains, and the white cloth falls over its side, draped and wide. Wheels of white glitter in the silver coffee pot, hot and spinning like catherine-wheels, they whirl, and twirl--and my eyes begin to smart, the little white, dazzling wheels prick them like darts. Placid and peaceful the rolls of bread spread themselves in the sun to bask. A stack of butter-pats, pyramidal, shout orange through the white, scream, flutter, call: "Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!" Coffee steam rises in a stream, clouds the silver tea-service with mist, and twists up into the sunlight, revolved, involuted, suspiring higher and higher, fluting in a thin spiral up the high blue sky. A crow flies by and croaks at the coffee steam. The day is new and fair with good smells in the air.

WALK

Over the street the white clouds meet, and sheer away without touching.

On the sidewalk boys are playing marbles. Glass marbles, with amber and blue hearts, roll together and part with a sweet clashing noise. The boys strike them with black and red striped agates. The glass marbles spit crimson when they are hit, and slip into the gutters under rushing brown water. I smell tulips and narcissus in the air, but there are no flowers anywhere, only white dust whipping up the street, and a girl with a gay spring hat and blowing skirts. The dust and the wind flirt at her ankles and her neat, high-heeled patent leather shoes. Tap, tap, the little heels pat the pavement, and the wind rustles among the flowers on her hat.

A water-cart crawls slowly on the other side of the way. It is green and gay with new paint, and rumbles contentedly sprinkling clear water over the white dust. Clear zig-zagging water which smells of tulips and narcissus.

The thickening branches make a pink "grisaille" against the blue sky.

Whoop! The clouds go dashing at each other and sheer away just in time. Whoop! And a man's hat careers down the street in front of the white dust, leaps into the branches of a tree, veers away and trundles ahead of the wind, jarring the sunlight into spokes of rose-colour and green.

A motor car cuts a swath through the bright air, sharp-beaked, irresistible, shouting to the wind to make way. A glare of dust and sunshine tosses together behind it, and settles down. The sky is quiet and high, and the morning is fair with fresh-washed air.

MIDDAY AND AFTERNOON

Swirl of crowded streets. Shock and recoil of traffic. The stock-still brick façade of an old church, against which the waves of people lurch and withdraw. Flare of sunshine down side-streets. Eddies of light in the windows of chemists' shops, with their blue, gold, purple jars, darting colours far into the crowd. Loud bangs and tremors, murmurings out of high windows, whirling of machine belts, blurring of horses and motors. A quick spin and shudder of brakes on an electric car, and the jar of a church bell knocking against the metal blue of the sky. I am a piece of the town, a bit of blown dust, thrust along with the crowd. Proud to feel the pavement under me, reeling with feet. Feet tripping, skipping, lagging, dragging, plodding doggedly, or springing up and advancing on firm elastic insteps. A boy is selling papers, I smell them clean and new from the press. They are fresh like the air, and pungent as tulips and narcissus.

The blue sky pales to lemon, and great tongues of gold blind the shop-windows putting out their contents in a flood of flame.

NIGHT AND SLEEP

The day takes her ease in slippered yellow. Electric signs gleam out along the shop fronts, following each other. They grow, and grow, and blow into patterns of fire-flowers, as the sky fades. Trades scream in spots of light at the unruffled night. Twinkle, jab, snap, that means a new play; and over the way: plop, drop, quiver is the sidelong sliver of a watch-maker's sign with its length on another street. A gigantic mug of beer effervesces to the atmosphere over a tall building, but the sky is high and has her own stars, why should she heed ours?

I leave the city with speed. Wheels whirl to take me back to my trees and my quietness. The breeze which blows with me is fresh-washed and clean, it has come but recently from the high sky. There are no flowers in bloom yet, but the earth of my garden smells of tulips and narcissus.

My room is tranquil and friendly. Out of the window I can see the distant city, a band of twinkling gems, little flower heads with no stems. I cannot see the beer glass, nor the letters of the restaurants and shops I passed, now the signs blur and all together make the city, glowing on a night of fine weather, like a garden stirring and blowing for the Spring.

The night is fresh-washed and fair and there is a whiff of flowers in the air.

Wrap me close, sheets of lavender. Pour your blue and purple dreams into my ears. The breeze whispers at the shutters and mutters queer tales of old days, and cobbled streets, and youths leaping their horses down marble stairways. Pale blue lavender, you are the colour of the sky when it is fresh-washed and fair ... I smell the stars ... they are like tulips and narcissus ... I smell them in the air.

STRAVINSKY'S THREE PIECES, "GROTESQUES" FOR STRING QUARTET

This Quartet was played from the manuscript by the Flonzaley Quartet during their season of 1915 and 1916. The poem is based upon the programme which M. Stravinsky appended to his piece, and is an attempt to reproduce the sound and movement of the music as far as is possible in another medium.

FIRST MOVEMENT

Thin-voiced, nasal pipes Drawing sound out and out Until it is a screeching thread, Sharp and cutting, sharp and cutting, It hurts. Whee-e-e! Bump! Bump! Tong-ti-bump! There are drums here, Banging, And wooden shoes beating the round, grey stones Of the market-place. Whee-e-e! Sabots slapping the worn, old stones, And a shaking and cracking of dancing bones, Clumsy and hard they are, And uneven, Losing half a beat Because the stones are slippery. Bump-e-ty-tong! Whee-e-e! Tong! The thin Spring leaves Shake to the banging of shoes. Shoes beat, slap, Shuffle, rap, And the nasal pipes squeal with their pigs' voices, Little pigs' voices Weaving among the dancers, A fine, white thread Linking up the dancers. Bang! Bump! Tong! Petticoats, Stockings, Sabots, Delirium flapping its thigh-bones; Red, blue, yellow, Drunkenness steaming in colours; Red, yellow, blue, Colours and flesh weaving together, In and out, with the dance, Coarse stuffs and hot flesh weaving together. Pigs' cries white and tenuous, White and painful, White and-- Bump! Tong!

SECOND MOVEMENT

Pale violin music whiffs across the moon, A pale smoke of violin music blows over the moon, Cherry petals fall and flutter, And the white Pierrot, Wreathed in the smoke of the violins, Splashed with cherry petals falling, falling, Claws a grave for himself in the fresh earth With his finger-nails.

THIRD MOVEMENT

An organ growls in the heavy roof-groins of a church, It wheezes and coughs. The nave is blue with incense, Writhing, twisting, Snaking over the heads of the chanting priests. _Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine;_ The priests whine their bastard Latin And the censers swing and click. The priests walk endlessly Round and round, Droning their Latin Off the key. The organ crashes out in a flaring chord And the priests hitch their chant up half a tone. _Dies illa, dies iræ,_ _Calamitatis et miseriæ,_ _Dies magna et amara valde._ A wind rattles the leaded windows. The little pear-shaped candle-flames leap and flutter. _Dies illa, dies iræ,_ The swaying smoke drifts over the altar. _Calamitatis et miseriæ,_ The shuffling priests sprinkle holy water. _Dies magna et amara valde._ And there is a stark stillness in the midst of them, Stretched upon a bier. His ears are stone to the organ, His eyes are flint to the candles, His body is ice to the water. Chant, priests, Whine, shuffle, genuflect. He will always be as rigid as he is now Until he crumbles away in a dust heap. _Lacrymosa dies illa,_ _Qua resurget ex favilla_ _Judicandus homo reus._ Above the grey pillars, the roof is in darkness.

THE END

BIBLIOGRAPHY

RICHARD ALDINGTON _Images._ Poetry Book Shop, London, 1915; and The Four Seas Company, Boston, 1916.

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER _Fire and Wine._ Grant Richards, Ltd., London, 1913. _Fool's Gold._ Max Goschen, London, 1913. _The Dominant City._ Max Goschen, London, 1913. _The Book of Nature._ Constable & Co., London, 1913. _Visions of the Evening._ Erskine McDonald, London, 1913. _Irradiations: Sand and Spray._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1915. _Goblins and Pagodas._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1916.

F. S. FLINT _The Net of Stars._ Elkin Mathews, London, 1909. _Cadences._ Poetry Book Shop, London, 1915.

D. H. LAWRENCE _Love Poems and Others._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1913. Prose: _The White Peacock._ William Heinemann, London, 1911. _The Trespasser._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1912. _Sons and Lovers._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1913. _The Prussian Officer._ Duckworth & Co., London, 1914. _The Rainbow._ Methuen & Co., London, 1915. Drama: _The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd._ Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1914.

AMY LOWELL _A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1915. _Sword Blades and Poppy Seed._ The Macmillan Company, New York; and Macmillan & Co., London, 1914. Prose: _Six French Poets._ The Macmillan Company, New York; and Macmillan and Co., London, 1915.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

The following printer's errors have been corrected:

"from" corrected to "form" (page viii) "sweeling" corrected to "swaling" (page 73)

The following unusual spellings have been retained:

"anarchaic" (page vii)

Some of the poems in this anthology were also included in the following books:

H. D. _Sea Garden._ Constable & Co., London, 1916.

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER _Breakers and Granite._ The Macmillan Company, New York, 1921.

AMY LOWELL _Men, Women and Ghosts._ Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1916.