Chapter 3

I see you, refulgent ones, Burning so steadily Like big white arc lights... There are so many of you. I like to watch you weaving-- Altogether and with precision Each his ray-- Your tracery of light, Making a shining way about America.

I note your infinite reactions-- In glassware And sequin And puddles And bits of jet-- And here and there a diamond...

But you do not yet see me, Who am a torch blown along the wind, Flickering to a spark But never out.

BABEL

Oh, God did cunningly, there at Babel-- Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul, So that never again should men be able To fashion one infinite, towering whole.

THE FIDDLER

In a little Hungarian cafe Men and women are drinking Yellow wine in tall goblets.

Through the milky haze of the smoke, The fiddler, under-sized, blond, Leans to his violin As to the breast of a woman. Red hair kindles to fire On the black of his coat-sleeve, Where his white thin hand Trembles and dives, Like a sliver of moonlight, When wind has broken the water.

DAWN WIND

Wind, just arisen-- (Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars, Or niche of cliff under the eagles?) You of living things, So gay and tender and full of play-- Why do you blow on my thoughts--like cut flowers Gathered and laid to dry on this paper, rolled out of dead wood?

I see you Shaking that flower at me with soft invitation And frisking away, Deliciously rumpling the grass...

So you fluttered the curtains about my cradle, Prattling of fields Before I had had my milk... Did I stir on my pillow, making to follow you, Fleet One? I--swaddled, unwinged, like a bird in the egg.

Let be My dreams that crackle under your breath... You have the dust of the world to blow on... Do not tag me and dance away, looking back... I am too old to play with you, Eternal Child.

NORTH WIND

I love you, malcontent Male wind-- Shaking the pollen from a flower Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.

Blow on and over my dreams... Scatter my sick dreams... Throw your lusty arms about me... Envelop all my hot body... Carry me to pine forests-- Great, rough-bearded forests... Bring me to stark plains and steppes... I would have the North to-night-- The cold, enduring North.

And if we should meet the Snow, Whirling in spirals, And he should blind my eyes... Ally, you will defend me-- You will hold me close, Blowing on my eyelids.

THE DESTROYER

I am of the wind... A wisp of the battering wind...

I trail my fingers along the Alps And an avalanche falls in my wake... I feel in my quivering length When it buries the hamlet beneath...

I hurriedly sweep aside The cities that clutter our path... As we whirl about the circle of the globe... As we tear at the pillars of the world... Open to the wind, The Destroyer! The wind that is battering at your gates.

LULLABY

Rock-a-by baby, woolly and brown... (There's a shout at the door an' a big red light...) Lil' coon baby, mammy is down... Han's that hold yuh are steady an' white...

Look piccaninny--such a gran' blaze Lickin' up the roof an' the sticks of home-- Ever see the like in all yo' days! --Cain't yuh sleep, mah bit-of-honey-comb?

Rock-a-by baby, up to the sky! Look at the cherries driftin' by-- Bright red cherries spilled on the groun'-- Piping-hot cherries at nuthin' a poun'!

Hush, mah lil' black-bug--doan yuh weep. Daddy's run away an' mammy's in a heap By her own fron' door in the blazin' heat Outah the shacks like warts on the street...

An' the singin' flame an' the gleeful crowd Circlin' aroun'... won't mammy be proud! With a stone at her hade an' a stone on her heart, An' her mouth like a red plum, broken apart...

See where the blue an' khaki prance, Adding brave colors to the dance About the big bonfire white folks make-- Such gran' doin's fo' a lil' coon's sake!

Hear all the eagah feet runnin' in town-- See all the willin' han's reach outah night-- Han's that are wonderful, steady an' white! To toss up a lil' babe, blinkin' an' brown...

Rock-a-by baby--higher an' higher! Mammy is sleepin' an' daddy's run lame... (Soun' may yuh sleep in yo' cradle o' fire!) Rock-a-by baby, hushed in the flame...

(An incident of the East St. Louis Race Riots, when some white women flung a living colored baby into the heart of a blazing fire.)

THE FOUNDLING

Snow wraiths circle us Like washers of the dead, Flapping their white wet cloths Impatiently About the grizzled head, Where the coarse hair mats like grass, And the efficient wind With cold professional baste Probes like a lancet Through the cotton shirt...

About us are white cliffs and space. No façades show, Nor roof nor any spire... All sheathed in snow... The parasitic snow That clings about them like a blight.

Only detached lights Float hazily like greenish moons, And endlessly Down the whore-street, Accouched and comforted and sleeping warm, The blizzard waltzes with the night.

THE WOMAN WITH JEWELS

The woman with jewels sits in the cafe, Spraying light like a fountain. Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers And on her arms, great as thighs, Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat. She is obesely beautiful. Her eyes are full of bleared lights, Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for shore... And her mouth is scarlet and full--only a little crumpled-- like a flower that has been pressed apart...

Why does she come alone to this obscure basement-- She who should have a litter and hand-maidens to support her on either side?

She ascends the stairway, and the waiters turn to look at her, spilling the soup. The black satin dress is a little lifted, showing the dropsical legs in their silken fleshings... The mountainous breasts tremble... There is an agitation in her gems, That quiver incessantly, emitting trillions of fiery rays... She erupts explosive breaths... Every step is an adventure From this... The serpent's tooth Saved Cleopatra.

SUBMERGED

I have known only my own shallows-- Safe, plumbed places, Where I was wont to preen myself.

But for the abyss I wanted a plank beneath And horizons...

I was afraid of the silence And the slipping toe-hold...

Oh, could I now dive Into the unexplored deeps of me-- Delve and bring up and give All that is submerged, encased, unfolded, That is yet the best.

ART AND LIFE

When Art goes bounding, lean, Up hill-tops fired green To pluck a rose for life.

Life like a broody hen Cluck-clucks him back again.

But when Art, imbecile, Sits old and chill On sidings shaven clean, And counts his clustering Dead daisies on a string With witless laughter....

Then like a new Jill Toiling up a hill Life scrambles after.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

Pythoness body--arching Over the night like an ecstasy-- I feel your coils tightening... And the world's lessening breath.

DREAMS

Men die... Dreams only change their houses. They cannot be lined up against a wall And quietly buried under ground, And no more heard of... However deep the pit and heaped the clay-- Like seedlings of old time Hooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world-- Dreams will to light.

THE FIRE

The old men of the world have made a fire To warm their trembling hands. They poke the young men in. The young men burn like withes.

If one run a little way, The old men are wrath. They catch him and bind him and throw him again to the flames. Green withes burn slow... And the smoke of the young men's torment Rises round and sheer as the trunk of a pillared oak, And the darkness thereof spreads over the sky....

Green withes burn slow... And the old men of the world sit round the fire And rub their hands.... But the smoke of the young men's torment Ascends up for ever and ever.

A MEMORY

I remember The crackle of the palm trees Over the mooned white roofs of the town... The shining town... And the tender fumbling of the surf On the sulphur-yellow beaches As we sat... a little apart... in the close-pressing night.

The moon hung above us like a golden mango, And the moist air clung to our faces, Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child And we watched the out-flung sea Rolling to the purple edge of the world, Yet ever back upon itself... As we...

Inadequate night... And mooned white memory Of a tropic sea... How softly it comes up Like an ungathered lily.

THE EDGE

I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me... But there was time... And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain, staring into the abyss... I do not know how long... I could not count the hours, they ran so fast Like little bare-foot urchins--shaking my hands away... But I remember Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein... And a wind came out of the grass, Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.

As the night grew The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth Fell in ashen folds about the hills, Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them... There must have been a spent moon, For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver...

That too I remember... And the tenderly rocking mountain Silence And beating stars...

Dawn Lay like a waxen hand upon the world, And folded hills Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold, Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily, Flecked with sun, Fine as a golden pollen-- It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow.

I smelled the raw sweet essences of things, And heard spiders in the leaves And ticking of little feet, As tiny creatures came out of their doors To see God pouring light into his star...

... It seemed life held No future and no past but this...

And I too got up stiffly from the earth, And held my heart up like a cup...

THE GARDEN

Bountiful Givers, I look along the years And see the flowers you threw... Anemones And sprigs of gray Sparse heather of the rocks, Or a wild violet Or daisy of a daisied field... But each your best.

I might have worn them on my breast To wilt in the long day... I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase And watched each petal sallowing... I might have held them so--mechanically-- Till the wind winnowed all the leaves And left upon my hands A little smear of dust.

Instead I hid them in the soft warm loam Of a dim shadowed place... Deep In a still cool grotto, Lit only by the memories of stars And the wide and luminous eyes Of dead poets That love me and that I love... Deep... deep... Where none may see--not even ye who gave-- About my soul your garden beautiful.

UNDER-SONG

There is music in the strong Deep-throated bush, Whisperings of song Heard in the leaves' hush-- Ballads of the trees In tongues unknown-- A reminiscent tone On minor keys...

Boughs swaying to and fro Though no winds pass... Faint odors in the grass Where no flowers grow, And flutterings of wings And faint first notes, Once babbled on the boughs Of faded springs.

Is it music from the graves Of all things fair Trembling on the staves Of spacious air-- Fluted by the winds Songs with no words-- Sonatas from the throats Of master birds?

One peering through the husk Of darkness thrown May hear it in the dusk-- That ancient tone, Silvery as the light Of long dead stars Yet falling through the night In trembling bars.

A WORN ROSE

Where to-day would a dainty buyer Imbibe your scented juice, Pale ruin with a heart of fire; Drain your succulence with her lips, Grown sapless from much use... Make minister of her desire A chalice cup where no bee sips-- Where no wasp wanders in?

Close to her white flesh housed an hour, One held you... her spent form Drew on yours for its wasted dower-- What favour could she do you more? Yet, of all who drink therein, None know it is the warm Odorous heart of a ravished flower Tingles so in her mouth's red core...

IRON WINE

The ore in the crucible is pungent, smelling like acrid wine, It is dusky red, like the ebb of poppies, And purple, like the blood of elderberries. Surely it is a strong wine--juice distilled of the fierce iron. I am drunk of its fumes. I feel its fiery flux Diffusing, permeating, Working some strange alchemy... So that I turn aside from the goodly board, So that I look askance upon the common cup, And from the mouths of crucibles Suck forth the acrid sap.

DISPOSSESSED

Tender and tremulous green of leaves Turned up by the wind, Twanging among the vines-- Wind in the grass Blowing a clear path For the new-stripped soul to pass...

The naked soul in the sunlight... Like a wisp of smoke in the sunlight On the hill-side shimmering.

Dance light on the wind, little soul, Like a thistle-down floating Over the butterflies And the lumbering bees...

Come away from that tree And its shadow grey as a stone...

Bathe in the pools of light On the hillside shimmering-- Shining and wetted and warm in the sun-spray falling like golden rain--

But do not linger and look At that bleak thing under the tree.

THE STAR

Last night I watched a star fall like a great pearl into the sea, Till my ego expanding encompassed sea and star, Containing both as in a trembling cup.

THE TIDINGS (Easter 1916)

Censored lies that mimic truth... Censored truth as pale as fear... My heart is like a rousing bell-- And but the dead to hear...

My heart is like a mother bird, Circling ever higher, And the nest-tree rimmed about By a forest fire...

My heart is like a lover foiled By a broken stair-- They are fighting to-night in Sackville Street, And I am not there!

End of Project Gutenberg's The Ghetto and Other Poems, by Lola Ridge