Part 2

I suppose the thing which is so satisfying in Mr. Aldington’s work is the intense feeling which underlies the astringent utterance. With all his stern, uncompromising technique (for Mr. Aldington is a remarkable technician) goes a passionate violence of feeling. The Imagists are constantly accused of being inhuman, mere intellectuals. How strange it is that the feeling which merely turns white and makes no movement should go unperceived, while hysterical screams and lamentations, over in a moment, pass for the outpourings of true passion! What we have outgrown on the stage still holds in poetry, it seems.

Feeling there surely is in _Childhood_, printed in _Some Imagist Poets_. Yet, somehow, the poem is not as good as it ought to be. I suspect that Mr. Aldington has not yet quite mastered the technique of the long poem. Feeling is there, and we get the dullness of the little town perfectly, and the stale, salt smell of the harbour; and there are excellent descriptions—the public park, and the wonderful box in the attic—but the poem as a whole does not “get over.” Necessarily more discursive than the shorter poems, it has not enough command of the dramatic to succeed. Having taught himself for years to say things in the fewest possible words, the length of this poem has weakened the poet’s method. He must study the requirements of the longer poem a little more before he will be quite at home in it. Such as it is, _Childhood_ is interesting as showing the broadening of its author’s mind and interests. He no longer sees with the eyes of other centuries; he sees things about him, and as they are.

Here is a perfectly modern picture:

Round-Pond

Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. The shining of the sun upon the water Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals In a long wavering irregular flight.

The water is cold to the eye As the wind to the cheek.

In the budding chestnuts Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open The starlings make their clitter-clatter; And the blackbirds in the grass Are getting as fat as the pigeons.

Too-hoo, this is brave; Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress.

How very well he has given the glinting of the sunlight! And that “Too-hoo, this is brave” is delightfully joyous and adolescent.

Of all the poems which Mr. Aldington has written, _The Poplar_ is certainly the most generally liked. And I am not prepared to say that the public is not right. Perhaps it really is the best, I don’t know. I am very fond of it.

The Poplar

Why do you always stand there shivering Between the white stream and the road? The people pass through the dust On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; The wagoners go by at dawn; The lovers walk on the grass path at night.

Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! You are more beautiful than they are.

I know that the white wind loves you, Is always kissing you and turning up The white lining of your green petticoat. The sky darts through you like blue rain, And the grey rain drips on your flanks And loves you. And I have seen the moon Slip his silver penny into your pocket As you straightened your hair; And the white mist curling and hesitating Like a bashful lover about your knees. I know you, poplar; I have watched you since I was ten. But if you had a little real love, A little strength, You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers And go walking down the white road Behind the wagoners.

There are beautiful beaches down beyond the hill. Will you always stand there shivering?

I wish I had space to quote many more of these poems. _The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time_ is a charming bit of humour, and _Daisy_, very modern, aching, and inevitable. But I will give one more little piece which he calls an epigram:

New Love

She has new leaves After her dead flowers, Like the little almond-tree Which the frost hurt.

This is sophisticated poetry. How often have I not read that in the reviews, couched in terms of reproach! Why? Is it to be desired that the world should not grow? Is it a better art which appeals only to primitive instincts? The primary needs of satisfying hunger, preserving life, procreating life, are all very well, but civilized man has further preoccupations. Mr. Aldington’s is a highly civilized—yes, if you like, a highly sophisticated, art. A certain mellowness of temper is needed to thoroughly appreciate it; crude minds do not react to such delicate stimuli. Admitting that, and admitting it as a feather, not as a rotten egg, we have in Mr. Aldington a lyrist of unusual achievement and fine promise.

Café Sketches

ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE

I.

Here amid the night-lights Of the great city, With the laughing crowd around me I sit alone In one of those strange hours Walled in with solitude That are my lot forever amid these lights. Fronting the empty table before me And its cortege of seven waiters— Fronting the restless sea of unknown faces— I mourn for you, boundlessly curious lady, For you and for your esteemed consort— But for you chiefly.

Presently persons will come out And shake legs. I do not want legs shaken. I want immortal souls shaken unreasonably. I want to see dawn spilled across the blackness Like a scrambled egg on the skillet; I want miracles, wonders, Tidings out of deeps I do not know ... But I have a horrible suspicion That neither you Nor your esteemed consort Nor I myself Can ever provide these simple things For which I am so patiently waiting.

II.

Base people! How I dislike you!

Some of you have come from Park Avenue, Almost as you might go slumming. Some of you have come from the suburbs, Almost as you might go to heaven. From Greenwich Village there are a few of you; God alone knows why you have come. And perhaps there are in your midst A few incredible two-headed beings From that mythical land of horrors, Hoboken. Also the traveling salesmen, mainly Hebraic; And the wide-eyed yokels from the little villages of Illinois; And the two young men-about-town Conscious of their new evening-clothes; And the three ladies Who are trying to pick up someone for the night. And the music,—Oh Christ and Mohammed and Buddha, the music! ... Base people! How I dislike you! Do you know why I have come here? It will not interest you; nevertheless, I tell you— I have come here to be alone.

III.

One night, long ago, As at this table I sat reflective, A girl came And took my hand And sat beside me. She was no creature of the roaring town, But a woman of breeding With young and delicate eyes. I had seen her sitting A long way off At a large supper-table with many others— Groomed men and richly dressed women And an elephantine dowager. Now, between the dances, She had strayed away; And with a wave of her hand to them, Signifying she had found a friend, She sat down and looked at me.

We did not talk. For I did not understand her coming, And she seemed to desire no speech. Then suddenly She laid her hands upon mine across the table And whispered—“I am so lonely!” “I am so lonely!” And after we had looked at each other a long time in silence,— Silence of doubt, silence of comprehension,— She turned, and left me.

And now tonight I forget this sea of faces ...

IV.

In a remote corner Sits tonight One whom I know to be a poet— A great poet, but keyed In a pitch that is neither the world’s Nor that of other poets. Once he was a keen knife of spirit Stabbing dull hearts; But now he is wearied out wholly Save for the brief renascence of the midnight hour. Across the table A pale, flame-lipped, very exquisite girl Looks at him with inscrutable eyes. Then, as his lips move— Then, as he leans forward— I see, I divine, that he says:

“Light-foot whisperer over the dark abysses!— Beautiful breast Never to be forgotten!— Evilly have you worked upon me! Now the orange floods of afternoon And the watery green depths of the midnight, The vestal dawn And the scarlet screaming dawn Flicker with your passage!

“Glittering, gay, fantastic, unhappy child— You seem as old as the oldest sin of the world And as young as its newest rapture. You are to me fresh April, And the last days of October,— Honey, and myrrh,— The delicate dusk, and the stark dawn-light. I have expected you a long time With wonder and with terror; And now, with your kiss upon my lips, I await the miracle to result— Corruption, or transfiguration.”

And she, having listened With eyes inscrutable and lips that were motionless, Drank the champagne in her glass, And looked curiously into the distance; While he went on:

“You have brought me a lost wonder And stirred in me a romance I had forgotten.

“Now I again see landscapes Clothed in their rightful mystery, And the dusk is again holy, And food is again sweet.

“Now I am alive Who was dead.”

But her lips did not move, Not even with a smile. And then he said, While the violins sang with him:

“Lovely child—on your breast Could a head find snowy rest? Could the dizzy pulses cease And the madness take release? Yes! Yes! that I know— For I dreamed it long ago. But, child, on what breast Shall _your_ head find rest?”

She turned her eyes away from him, And her lips were as quiet as lilies .... Red lilies of a garden in Cashmere .... Then the dancers fluttered out Into the pools of the spot-lights .... And she smiled.

V.

Last night I saw these two, Or two like them, In the midnight streets. But before they came There came an apparition.—

It was a cab, worn, withered, and blighted. A man like a moth-eaten Archangel Gabriel Sat on the box of the crazy thing. Obviously it had been through Hell; But its inside was musty and threadbare As though companies of faded virgins Had ridden in it for generations. The horse, as you looked at him from the sidewalk, Staggered with all four legs; But to one sitting inside the cab He must have seemed so thin of beam As to vanish altogether.

The Archangel Gabriel was inclined to stoutness And wore a well-preserved Derby hat. He drove through the night incredulously, With vague haltings As if ready to be struck dumb Should passengers dare To accept his ciceronage.

Ah, the passengers! When they rushed Out of a grilled doorway and across the sidewalk Their white faces glimmered As though they would have accepted anything That could carry them swiftly or slowly Away from the insupportable Oppression of Here and Now. They bundled into the cab,— Four of them— Two, whose glass throats were wound with wire and silver Being destined for destruction That the other two, with human throats, Might inherit the _Vita Nuova_.

Then suddenly the Archangel Gabriel, Leaving the Plaza and steering northwesterly, Drove his precarious vehicle to the entrance of the Park And straight down Into the depths of the sea. Through watery glooms And swift gleams as of wave-light,— Along alleys where vast forests of sea-weed Aped the summer swaying of terrestrial foliage, The silent cab moved on, And the midnight ocean closed around it. Huge branches of coral Inky or amber Lifted themselves in the gloom Like processional lamp-posts; And now and then a peering dolphin Poised questioningly beside the path Like a policeman.

Now they were gone beyond my sight. Slowly I followed them; But the sea retreated before me; I could not enter the depths of their traversing. And I walked as in a trance Pursuing the receding waters Down the avenues of lamp-posts, Of foliage, of policemen.

Then, after hours, years, ages, I saw my quarry returning; And the sea drew forward with it In a dark wave and swept over me. There was the cab,— And lo! of the two ghostly passengers, One had become an undulant mermaid And the other a surging triton— And they swayed in hollows and foam-heights Of the shaken water— Knees, hair, arms Tossed in confusion— They were spilled out upon the deep And the sea-birds shrieked above them.

I think that they went then To the Sea King’s Palace; But this is all That I myself saw.

VI.

Streets everywhere,— Endless, labyrinthine, chasmy, crowded,— All leading through the Egyptian night of ancient blackness To these oases of tables,— These howling dervish-tents,— These feasts of lanterns .... Strange altars of the midnight! Doubtful sanctuaries between wars! Perilous tombs of forgotten goddesses!

VII.

I mark you well, my companions, Though you do not mark me.

To which one of you shall I go As the girl to me once came, And take your hands, and speak With silence across gulfs of silence?

Where in your mist Is the friend who might be mine? Do the pale blue veils of smoke So utterly hide him?

Life, like a restless wave, Has gathered us here together As pebbles upon a remote shore— Scattered when the next wave shall come.

VIII.

It is a chaos, this world. Therefore it rests me.

For I have striven long To create a world of my heart’s desire,— To erect pinnacles of dream That should shine amid the sunlight, Giving intelligible form To the intentions of the earth.

And I am tired— Tired of my pinnacles of dream,— Both those that shine already amid the sunlight And those that shall never be upraised. And I descend Into this chaos, this real world of waiters, And it rests me.

IX.

I too have been here with my gay companions— But I do not like it. For I love my companions with an inexpressible passion— I love them better Elsewhere.

This is a place Of desolation— Of those who do not love Or honor one another— A purgatory, a hall That is entrance to the Pit, Whither many a one Will go from here.

Now I will rise, And taking with me the volume Of George Santayana, on the back of which I have been writing,— Taking my black lacquer stick That is now almost famous,— I will pay the check, Forgetting not the waiter, And hie me to a friend, if I can find him; Or failing that, I will go home And in the awed grey dawnlight Read from Santayana’s “The Life of Reason” In five noble volumes.

For this is a place of madness, And this city is doomed.

Emma Goldman on Trial

LOUISE BRYANT

Just about the time that one Portland, Oregon, newspaper had smugly remarked, editorially, that Portland was far ahead of many other cities in its treatment of Emma Goldman in that it ignored her altogether, pandemonium broke loose. Within a few days, that paper and all the others in town gave Miss Goldman such front page notices and such flaring headlines that the war in Europe seemed quite an insignificant thing compared to the peril which seemed to be threatening the “Rose City” on account of her presence in our midst.

The apparent reason for this agitation was that one little, old woman by the name of Mrs. Josephine Johnson had heard through a friend, whose name she refused to divulge (even when so ordered by the court) that on the evening of the lecture on Friedrich Nietzsche somebody had distributed a pamphlet on birth control.

The real reason for the arrest was that the police wished to break up the meeting. They had previously sent Miss Goldman a notice that she could not speak any more in Portland on any subject whatever. This order could never have been carried out as we have free speech in Portland, so they used another method.

Miss Goldman and Dr. Reitman were arrested on the evening of August 6 just after the meeting began, and at 10:30 at night all bail except cash was refused, which is contrary to all idea of justice. But for the efforts of Mr. C. E. S. Wood, who has always been a staunch friend of all free-thinkers, Miss Goldman would have been thrown into jail in a city where she has been allowed to lecture every year for nearly twenty years and where her friends have come to look forward to her annual visits as we do to all the other good things that come to us, like the spring and the rain and the sunshine; for of just such healing and life-giving qualities are her inspirational messages.

There were two trials. The first was the usual sort and really is of small interest. At this trial held in the Municipal court, Miss Goldman and Dr. Reitman were found guilty of distributing obscene literature and fined $100 each. As a matter of fact, Miss Goldman knew nothing about the distribution of the leaflet, but she certainly would have approved of it if she had.

This sentence of the lower court was promptly appealed, and in the second trial, which took place in Dept. 5 of the Circuit court under Judge William N. Gatens, the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

When we remember that one of our bravest rebels, Margaret Sanger, will soon have to face a trial on a similar charge we can only hope, vainly and wildly perhaps, that she will be fortunate enough to have a presiding judge as fair-minded as Judge Gatens.

Some of his remarks were so refreshing, coming as they did in such fine defiance of the usual attitude of those on the bench towards those who are accused, that they are worthy of quoting:

During the trial Judge Gatens said:

“The Court says the defendants are not here charged, as has been stated by the council, with creating anarchistic tendencies, or with being anarchists; they are here to be charged for the offense set forth in the information and for no other offense.

“Every person, when charged with a crime, should have the right to know the nature of the crime with which he is charged, meet the witnesses face to face, and be tried without prejudice; not to be tried on the ground that you don’t like this person or that person because they have some view different from yours.

“Now it seems to me that the trouble with our people today is that there is too much prudery. Ignorance and prudery are the millstones about the neck of progress. Everyone knows that. We are all shocked by many things publicly stated that we know privately ourselves, but we haven’t got the nerve to get up and admit it; and when some person brings our attention to something we already know, we feign modesty and we feel that the public has been outraged and decency has been shocked when as a matter of fact we know all these things ourselves.

“I am a member of the Oregon Hygiene Society. We get out literature and place it in the toilets all over the state, telling people how to guard against the evils of venereal diseases and so forth. We do that for the uplift of humanity, to protect society from all those things, and the public does not seem to be very much shocked about it.”

Poetry Versus Imagism

HUNTLY CARTER

_I entirely disagree with Mr. Carter’s point of view—as much of it as I can fathom. But I hope his article will provoke discussion that will lead to clearer understanding of the Imagist’s art in a country where even poets are blind to it. Mr. Carter states his position briefly as follows: “The Imagists claim that the subjects with which they deal find a completer and more adequate poetical expression in the Imagist form than in any other. Granting that this is so, the question still remains whether this form is essential to poetry or whether it tends to exclude poetry. So one has to consider what poetry really is and what it implies. My article is designed for this purpose.” How horrible!—to treat miracles like this!—The Editor._

A few years ago I went to the Falkland Islands to sheep-farm for a bare subsistence, and while living on a lonely station twenty miles from everywhere, so to speak, tending my flock, what time the half-breeds came and helped themselves to my humble belongings, I experienced a new emotion. Perhaps it would be more correct to say I became aware of the nature of an old emotion. I felt the currents of transcendent energy which I felt in my childhood. But I now felt them more frequently, and I saw that I was elevated by them beyond the normal course of every-day life. At such moments I forgot the sheep, the pastures and the marauding half-breeds. I even forgot the strong colour and form of nature. I saw something ridding me of solid things and leaving nothing but a fluid universe. I saw distinct forms melting to formative motions. I had been caught in the midst of an intense current—a transforming current of livingness. Moreover, I was free to the current, with the result that I became a part of itself—fluid—unresistingly, and was actuated accordingly. For the time being, I moved as the fluid element most moved me. Later reflection showed me that I was moved by some ineffable thing which I believe to be poetry. It may be that the soul is made of poetry, and after the human soul has freed itself from the fetters of materialism it becomes re-converted to poetry; that is, a part of its own flow or motion. I do not think materialists will understand this. But it will be clear to the spiritual minded.

I am sure that the hypothesis, that poetry is simply soul-stuff, is a verifiable one. I am convinced that in my Falkland Island days, whenever I was raised by intensity out of my material self at a higher level than actuality, whenever such intensity annihilated time and space, obliterated that personality which I call Huntly Carter, lifted me to the infinite and eternal and left me dumb, I was experiencing poetry. I know that the hypothesis involves two assumptions. First, that poetry cannot be written. It can only be expressed in motion or action. And it can only be expressed by the person who receives it direct from its source or fount. Hence a significant poet is not one who writes verse, but one who lives poetry, _is_ poetry. The second assumption is that every human being who possesses the smallest soul vibration possesses a poetry-sense, and is, in fact, a potential poet. Given absolute freedom, he, too, would become poetry, such is the power of conversion residing in the element waiting to operate upon him. Which is not absurd when we come to think of it.

I find I am not alone in the attempt to rescue poetry from the lumber heap of verbalism and verbalists, to say nothing of verbiage, and to restore it to the infinite. I remember reading in an early number of the London _Poetry Review_ that life has a rhythmic origin and poetry resides first of all in the rhythms of motion and sound. Of course “sound” is redundant, seeing that sound is the result of motion. I read further that poetry ultimately finds its way into language as the vocal expression of the fundamental motion or rhythm. Could anything be clearer? We feel the motion or rhythm and act it. And we attempt to express it in words in the last resort. Perhaps, some day nearer the millennium, it will be discovered that language (verbal of course) is the last resort of the poetically destitute.