The Project Gutenberg eBook of The wooden Pegasus This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The wooden Pegasus Author: Edith Sitwell Release date: July 5, 2020 [eBook #62560] Most recently updated: July 22, 2024 Language: English Credits: Produced by Charlene Taylor, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOODEN PEGASUS *** THE WOODEN PEGASUS _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ CLOWNS’ HOUSES 3_s._ net “It affects me like devilled almonds.”--_Land and Water._ [Illustration] WHEELS Annual Anthology of Verse =6_s._= net “The vanguard of British Poetry.”_The Saturday Review._ OXFORD BASIL BLACKWELL THE WOODEN PEGASUS BY EDITH SITWELL Author of “Clowns’ Houses”; Editor of “Wheels” OXFORD BASIL BLACKWELL 1920 TO HELEN ROOTHAM OSBERT SITWELL SACHEVERELL SITWELL AND W. T. WALTON ACKNOWLEDGMENT My thanks are due to the Editors of _The Saturday Westminster_, _The Cambridge Magazine_, _Art and Letters_, _The Coterie_, and _The Daily Mirror_, and to Messrs. Cecil Palmer and Hayward for permission to reprint certain of these poems. CONTENTS SINGERIE 13 THE AVENUE 15 MANDOLINE 17 COMEDY FOR MARIONETTES 20 FALSETTO SONG 23 EVENTAIL 24 FIFTEEN BUCOLIC POEMS: I. WHAT THE GOOSEGIRL SAID ABOUT THE DEAN 26 II. NOAH 28 III. THE GIRL WITH THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS 29 IV. THE LADY WITH THE SEWING-MACHINE 31 V. BY CANDLELIGHT 33 VI. SERENADE 35 VII. CLOWNS’ HOUSES 36 VIII. THE SATYR IN THE PERIWIG 39 IX. THE MUSLIN GOWN 41 X. MISS NETTYBUN AND THE SATYR’S CHILD 42 XI. QUEEN VENUS AND THE CHOIRBOY 43 XII. THE APE SEES THE FAT WOMAN 45 XIII. THE APE WATCHES “AUNT SALLY” 47 XIV. SPRINGING JACK 48 XV. “TOURNEZ, TOURNEZ, BONS CHEVAUX DE BOIS” 50 SEVEN NURSERY SONGS: I. OLD LADY FLY-AWAY 52 II. GREAT SNORING AND NORWICH 53 III. FAT WILLIAM AND THE TRAINS 54 IV. A PENNY FARE TO BABYLON 55 V. THE BUTCHER’S SHOP 56 VI. THE KING OF CHINA’S DAUGHTER 57 VII. OLD KING PTOLEMY 58 PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER SHOWS I 60 PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER SHOWS II 62 SWITCHBACK 63 TRAMS 64 BANK HOLIDAY I 65 BANK HOLIDAY II 66 SMALL TALK I 67 SMALL TALK II 69 DANSONS LA GIGUE 70 MESSALINA AT MARGATE 72 PEDAGOGUES 75 SONG FROM “THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA” 77 THE CHOIR-BOY RIDES ON THE SWITCHBACK 78 APRICOT JAM 80 STOPPING PLACE 82 PORTRAIT OF A BARMAID 85 MATERIALISM; OR, PASTOR ---- TAKES THE RESTAURANT CAR FOR HEAVEN 87 THAÏS IN HEAVEN 89 FOUR NOCTURNES: I. PROCESSIONS 91 II. GAIETY 93 III. VACUUM 96 IV. “ET L’ON ENTEND À PEINE LEURS PAROLES” 98 TREATS: I. FUNERALS 100 II. THE COUNTY CALLS 102 III. SOLO FOR EAR-TRUMPET 104 ANTIC HAY 106 LULLABY 108 WATER MUSIC 109 THE WEB OF EROS 110 DROWNED SUNS 111 THE SPIDER 112 THE DRUNKARD 115 THE MOTHER 117 SINGERIE Summer afternoon in Hell! Down the empty street it fell, Pantaloon and Scaramouche-- Tongues like flames and shadows louche-- Flickered down the street together In the spangled weather. Flames, bright singing-birds that pass, Whistled wares as shrill as grass (Landscapes clear as glittering glass), Whistled all together: Papagei, oh Papagei, Buy our greenest fruits, oh buy, Melons misty from the bloom Of mellow moons on some hot night, Melting in the August light; Apples like an emerald shower; Nectarines that falling boom On the grass in greenest gloom; Peaches bright as parrot’s feather Glistening from the moon’s bower; Chequered like fritillaries, Fat and red are strawberries. Parrot-voices shrill together-- Now they pelt each monkey-face (Pantaloon with simian grace) From the soft gloom till they smother Both the plumed head-dresses With the green fruit-gems that glitter (Twinkling sharp sounds like a zither). Sharp each bird-tongue shrills and hisses, Parrot-voices shrieking bane;-- Down comes every spangled shutter With a sudden noise like rain. THE AVENUE In the huge and glassy room, Pantaloon, with his tail-feather Spangled like the weather, Panached, too, with many a plume, Watched the monkey Fanfreluche, Shivering in his gilded ruche, Fawn upon the piano keys-- Flatter till they answer back, Through the scale of centuries, Difference between white and black. Winds like hurricanes of light Change the blackest vacuums To a light-barred avenue-- Semitones of might and right; Then, from matter, life comes. Down that lengthy avenue Leading us we know not where, Sudden views creep through the air; Oh the keys we stumble through! Jungles splashed with violent light, Promenades all hard and bright, Long tails like the swish of seas, Avenue of piano keys. Meaning comes to bind the whole, Fingers separate from thumbs, Soon the shapeless tune comes: Bestial efforts at man’s soul. What though notes are false and shrill-- Black streets tumbling down a hill? Fundamentally I am you, and you are me-- Octaves fall as emptily. MANDOLINE Down in Hell’s gilded street, Snow dances fleet and sweet, Bright as a parokeet, Or Punchinello, All glistening yellow, As fruit-jewels mellow, Glittering white and black As the swan’s glassy back On the Styx’ soundless track, Sharp as bird’s painted bill, Pecking fruit, sweet and shrill, On a dark window-sill. See the glass house as smooth As a wide puppet-booth ... Snow strikes it like a sooth Melon-shaped mandoline With the sharp tang and sheen Of flames that cry, “Unclean!” Dinah with scarlet ruche, Gay-plumaged Fanfreluche, Watch shrill as Scaramouche In the huge house of glass Old shadows bent, alas! On ebon sticks now pass-- Lean on a nigger boy Creep like a broken toy-- Wooden and painted joy. Trains sweep the empty floors-- Pelongs and Pallampores, Bulchauls and Sallampores, Soundless as any breeze (Amber and orangeries) From isles in Indian seas. Black spangled veils falling (The cold is appalling), They wave fans, hear calling Adder-flames shrieking slow, Stinging bright fruit-like snow, Down in the street below; While an ape, with black spangled veil, Plum’d head-dress, face dust-pale, Scratch’d with a finger-nail Sounds from a mandoline, Tuneless and sharp as sin:-- Shutters whose tang and sheen, Shrieking all down the scale, Seem like the flames that fail Under that onyx nail, Light as snow dancing fleet, Bright as a parokeet, Down in Hell’s empty street. “COMEDY FOR MARIONETTES” (To I. C. P.) Tang the sharp mandoline! Hail, falling in the lean Street of Hell, sweeps it clean. Under the puppet booth, Down in Hell, see the smooth Snow bright as fruit and sooth. Cherries and plums all freeze-- Rubies upon the trees, Rubied hail falls through these, Pelting each young Snow Queen-- (A swan’s breath, so whitely seen,) Flirting her fan in lean Streets, passing to and fro, White as the flamelike snow, Fruit of lips all aglow As isles of the cherry Or ruby-sweet berry All plump sweet and merry. Mantillas hide the shame Of each duenna dame, (Fans made of plumes of flame,) Pelted with coral bells Out of the orchard hells, (Hail with sweet fruitage smells). Now on the platform seen, Hoofs clatter with the clean Sound of a mandoline.... Under the tinsel sun, See shadow-spiders run!-- Fatter than any bun, Beelzebub in a chair Sits on the platform there; Candles like cold eyes stare. “Master has got the gout,” Adder-flames flare and spout From his lips ... shadows rout. Tiptoe the Barber crept, On his furred black locks leapt. Candles shrieked, flaring wept. Barber takes up the shears.... “Fur for the shivering fears, Cold in Hell these long years.” Candles shriek up the scale, Creaking down in a wail. Hear how their protests fail! Only cold, snakish flutes Sound like the growing fruits Out of slow hidden roots.... Strange eyes a moment stare, Fruit-like and moon-like glare, From the bright shutters where Hail, falling in the lean Street of Hell, sweeps it clean. Tang the sharp mandoline! FALSETTO SONG WHEN I was young, in ages past, My soul had cast Man’s foolish shape, And like a black and hairy ape-- My shadow, he Now mimics me. Follows slinking in my shade Through the corridors of life (Stifling ’twixt the walls I made With the mud and murderous knife), Takes the pulse of my black heart, Never once controls my will, Apes me selling in the mart Song-birds hate did kill. EVENTAIL LOVELY Semiramis Closes her slanting eyes: Dead is she long ago. From her fan, sliding slow, Parrot-bright fire’s feathers, Gilded as June weathers, Plumes bright and shrill as grass Twinkle down; as they pass Through the green glooms in Hell Fruits with a tuneful smell, Grapes like an emerald rain, Where the full moon has lain, Greengages bright as grass, Melons as cold as glass, Piled on each gilded booth, Feel their cheeks growing smooth. Apes in plumed head-dresses Whence the bright heat hisses,-- Nubian faces, sly Pursing mouth, slanting eye, Feel the Arabian Winds floating from the fan: Salesmen with gilded face Paler grow, nod apace; “Oh, the fan’s blowing Cold winds ... It is snowing!” FIFTEEN BUCOLIC POEMS I WHAT THE GOOSEGIRL SAID ABOUT THE DEAN Turn again, turn again, Goose Clothilda, Goosie Jane! The wooden waves of people creak From houses built with coloured straws Of heat; Dean Pappus’ long nose snores-- Harsh as a hautbois, marshy-weak. The wooden waves of people creak Through the fields all water-sleek; And in among the straws of light Those bumpkin hautbois-sounds take flight, Whence he lies snoring like the moon, Clownish-white all afternoon, Beneath the trees’ arsenical Harsh wood-wind tunes. Heretical-- (Blown like the wind’s mane Creaking woodenly again) His wandering thoughts escape like geese, Till he, their gooseherd, sets up chase, And clouds of wool join the bright race For scattered old simplicities. II NOAH Noah, through green waters slipping sliding like a long sleek eel, Slithered up Mount Ararat and climbed into the Ark,-- Slipping with his long dank hair; and sliding slyly in his barque, Pushed it slowly in a wholly glassy creek until we feel Pink crags tremble under us and wondrous clear waters run Over Shem and Ham and Japhet, moving with their long sleek daughters, Swift as fishes rainbow-coloured darting under morning waters.... Burning seraph beasts sing clearly to the young flamingo Sun. _Note._--Thanks due to Helen Rootham for her earnest collaboration in this poem. III THE GIRL WITH THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS THE bright-striped wooden fields are edged With noisy cock’s crow trees, scarce fledged-- The trees that spin like tops, all weathers, Like strange birds ruffling glassy feathers. My hair is white as flocks of geese, And water hisses out of this; And when the late sun burns my cheek Till it is pink as apples sleek, I wander in the fields and know Why kings do squander pennies so-- Lest they at last should weight their eyes! But beggars’ ragged minds, more wise, Know without flesh we cannot see-- And so they hoard stupidity (The dull ancestral memory That is the only property). They laugh to see the spring fields edged With noisy cock’s crow trees scarce fledged, And flowers that grunt to feel their eyes Made clear with sight’s finalities. IV THE LADY WITH THE SEWING MACHINE ACROSS the fields as green as spinach, Cropped as close as Time to Greenwich, Stands a high house; if at all, Spring comes like a Paisley shawl-- Patternings meticulous And youthfully ridiculous. In each room the yellow sun Shakes like a canary, run On run, roulade, and watery trill-- Yellow, meaningless, and shrill. Face as white as any clock’s, Cased in parsley-dark curled locks, All day long you sit and sew, Stitch life down for fear it grow, Stitch life down for fear we guess At the hidden ugliness. Dusty voice that throbs with heat, Hoping with its steel-thin beat To put stitches in my mind, Make it tidy, make it kind; You shall not! I’ll keep it free Though you turn earth sky and sea To a patchwork quilt to keep Your mind snug and warm in sleep. V BY CANDLELIGHT Houses red as flower of bean, Flickering leaves and shadows lean! Pantalone, like a parrot, Sat and grumbled in the garret, Sat and growled and grumbled till Moon upon the window-sill, Like a red geranium, Scented his bald cranium. Said Brighella, meaning well-- “Pack your box and--go to Hell! Heat will cure your rheumatism.” Silence crowned this optimism. Not a sound and not a wail-- But the fire (lush leafy vale) Watched the angry feathers fly. Pantalone ’gan to cry-- Could not, _would_ not, pack his box. Shadows (curtseying hens and cocks) Pecking in the attic gloom, Tried to smother his tail-plume.... Till a cock’s comb candle-flame, Crowing loudly, died: Dawn came. VI SERENADE The tremulous gold of stars within your hair Are yellow bees flown from the hive of night, Finding the blossom of your eyes more fair Than all the pale flowers folded from the light. Then, Sweet, awake, and ope your dreaming eyes Ere those bright bees have flown and darkness dies. VII CLOWNS’ HOUSES Beneath the flat and paper sky The sun, a demon’s eye, Glowed through the air, that mask of glass; All wand’ring sounds that pass Seemed out of tune, as if the light Were fiddle-strings pulled tight. The market square with spire and bell Clanged out the hour in Hell. The busy chatter of the heat Shrilled like a parokeet; And shuddering at the noonday light The dust lay dead and white As powder on a mummy’s face, Or fawned with simian grace Round booths with many a hard bright toy And wooden brittle joy: The cap and bells of Time the Clown That, jangling, whistled down Young cherubs hidden in the guise Of every bird that flies; And star-bright masks for youth to wear, Lest any dream that fare --Bright pilgrim--past our ken, should see Hints of Reality. Upon the sharp-set grass, shrill-green, Tall trees like rattles lean, And jangle sharp and dizzily; But when night falls they sigh Till Pierrot moon steals slyly in, His face more white than sin, Black-masked, and with cool touch lays bare Each cherry, plum, and pear. Then underneath the veilèd eyes Of houses, darkness lies,-- Tall houses; like a hopeless prayer They cleave the sly dumb air. Blind are those houses, paper-thin; Old shadows hid therein, With sly and crazy movements creep Like marionettes, and weep. Tall windows show Infinity; And, hard reality, The candles weep and pry and dance Like lives mocked at by Chance. The rooms are vast as Sleep within: When once I ventured in, Chill Silence, like a surging sea, Slowly enveloped me. VIII THE SATYR IN THE PERIWIG The Satyr Scarabombadon Pulled periwig and breeches on: “Grown old and stiff, this modern dress Adds monstrously to my distress; The gout within a hoofen heel Is _very_ hard to bear; I feel When crushed into a buckled shoe The twinge will be redoubled, too. And when I walk in gardens green And, weeping, think on what has been, Then wipe one eye,--the other sees The plums and cherries on the trees. Small bird-quick women pass me by With sleeves that flutter airily, And baskets blazing like a fire With laughing fruits of my desire; Plums sunburnt as the King of Spain, Gold-cheeked as any Nubian, With strawberries all goldy-freckled, Pears fat as thrushes and as speckled ... Pursue them?... Yes, and squeeze a tear: ‘Please spare poor Satyr one, my dear.’ ‘Be off, sir; go and steal your own!’ --Alas, poor Scarabombadon, They’d rend his ruffles, stretch a twig, Tear off a satyr’s periwig!” IX THE MUSLIN GOWN With spectacles that flash, Striped foolscap hung with gold And silver bells that clash, (Bright rhetoric and cold), In owl-dark garments goes the Rain, Dull pedagogue, again. And in my orchard wood Small song-birds flock and fly, Like cherubs brown and good, When through the trees go I Knee-deep within the dark-leaved sorrel. Cherries red as bells of coral Ring to see me come-- I, with my fruit-dark hair As dark as any plum, My summer gown as white as air And frilled as any quick bird’s there. But oh, what shall I do? Old Owl-wing’s back from town-- He’s skipping through dark trees: I know He _hates_ my summer gown! X MISS NETTYBUN AND THE SATYR’S CHILD As underneath the trees I pass Through emerald shade on hot soft grass, Petunia faces, glowing-hued With heat, cast shadows hard and crude-- Green-velvety as leaves, and small Fine hairs like grass pierce through them all. But these are all asleep--asleep, As through the schoolroom door I creep In search of you, for you evade All the advances I have made. Come, Horace, you must take my hand. This sulking state I will not stand! But you shall feed on strawberry jam At tea-time, if you cease to slam The doors that open from our sense-- Through which I slipped to drag you hence! XI QUEEN VENUS AND THE CHOIR-BOY (TO NAOMI ROYDE SMITH) The apples grow like silver trumps That red-cheeked fair-haired angels blow-- So clear their juice; on trees in clumps, Feathered as any bird, they grow. A lady stood amid those crops-- Her voice was like a blue or pink Glass window full of lollipops; Her words were very strange, I think: “Prince Paris, too, a fair-haired boy Plucked me an apple from dark trees; Since when their smoothness makes my joy; If you will pluck me one of these I’ll kiss you like a golden wind As clear as any apples be.” And now she haunts my singing mind-- And oh, she will not set me free. XII THE APE SEES THE FAT WOMAN Among the dark and brilliant leaves, Where flowers seem tinsel firework-sheaves, Blond barley-sugar children stare Through shining apple-trees, and there A lady like a golden wind Whose hair like apples tumbles kind, And whose bright name, so I believe, Is sometimes Venus, sometimes Eve, Stands, her face furrowed like my own With thoughts wherefrom strange seeds are sown, Whence, long since, stars for bright flowers grew Like periwinkles pink and blue,-- (Queer impulses of bestial kind, Flesh indivisible from mind.) I, painted like the wooden sun, Must hand-in-hand with angels run-- The tinsel angels of the booth That lead poor yokels to the truth Through raucous jokes, till we can see That narrow long Eternity Is but the whip’s lash o’er our eyes-- Spurring to new vitalities. XIII THE APE WATCHES “AUNT SALLY” The apples are an angel’s meat, The shining dark leaves make clear-sweet The juice; green wooden fruits alway Drop on these flowers as white as day-- Clear angel-face on hairy stalk; (Soul grown from flesh, an ape’s young talk.) And in this green and lovely ground The Fair, world-like, turns round and round, And bumpkins throw their pence to shed Aunt Sally’s crude-striped wooden head. I do not care if men should throw Round sun and moon to make me go, (As bright as gold and silver pence) ... They cannot drive their own blood hence! XIV SPRINGING JACK Green wooden leaves clap light away, Severely practical, as they Shelter the children, candy-pale. The chestnut-candles flicker, fail.... The showman’s face is cubed clear as The shapes reflected in a glass Of water--(glog, glut, a ghost’s speech Fumbling for space from each to each). The fusty showman fumbles, must Fit in a particle of dust The universe, for fear it gain Its freedom from my box of brain. Yet dust bears seeds that grow to grace Behind my crude-striped wooden face As I, a puppet tinsel-pink, Leap on my springs, learn how to think, Then like the trembling golden stalk Of some long-petalled star, I walk Through the dark heavens until dew Falls on my eyes and sense thrills through. XV “TOURNEZ, TOURNEZ, BONS CHEVAUX DE BOIS” Turn, turn again, Ape’s blood in each vein. The people that pass Seem castles of glass, The old and the good, Giraffes of blue wood; The soldier, the nurse, Wooden face and a curse, Are shadowed with plumage Like birds by the gloomage. Blond hair like a clown’s, The music floats, drowns The creaking of ropes The breaking of hopes. The wheezing, the old, Like harmoniums scold: Go to Babylon, Rome, The brain-cells called home, The grave, New Jerusalem, Wrinkled Methusalem: From our floating hair Derived the first fair And queer inspiration Of music (the nation Of bright-plumed trees And harpy-shrill breeze). * * * * * Turn, turn again, Ape’s blood in each vein. _SEVEN NURSERY SONGS_ I OLD LADY FLY-AWAY Old Lady Fly-Away Lost her temper, night and day, Took the bright moon’s broom-- Swept round the attic room. “Dear me, where _can_ it be? Not a temper can I see!” Sighed the Moon upon the stair: “Always look to see, dear, When you ‘put your foot down,’ Lest it crushes Babylon; _Try_ to get it nearer home, In fields of clover or in Rome!” Old Lady Fly-Away Knew her temper would not stay, So pretended not to hear-- Sweeping for it on the stair. II GREAT SNORING AND NORWICH Great Snoring and Norwich A dish of pease porridge! The clock of Troy town Strikes one o’clock; brown Honey-bees in the clover Are half-the-seas-over, And Time is a-boring From here to Great Snoring. But Time, the grey mouse, Can’t wake up the house, For old King Priam Is sleepy as I am! III FAT WILLIAM AND THE TRAINS When I should be at work, instead I lie and kick for fun, in bed: Down the narrow rails, hear trains Go quick as other people’s brains-- Hump their backs and snore and growl, Grumble, rumble, tumble, prowl-- Bearing people, pink as pigs, Through water-clear fields dancing jigs. Like a whale among my pillows Dash I, splash I, sheets in billows As the trains toss spangled seas, Like bright flags on the tusks of these. How I envy those at work When I can lie in bed and shirk. IV A PENNY FARE TO BABYLON “A penny fare to Babylon, A penny for each thought!” “Oh, ma’am, no, ma’am, Can’t be bought! The Sun gives pots of money, The Moon, her bread and honey, When humming like a clover-field I go up to town. Whitened by the Moon’s flour, All the birds I own, Lest they be baked into a pie, Are flown, dear, flown. Though you whistle in the corridors That dance into my brain-- Oh, ma’am, no, ma’am, They will not come again.” V THE BUTCHER’S SHOP Pantaloon jumps in his bright Butcher’s shop, where red and white Meat hangs up like clown’s attire-- Laughs as shrill as grass or fire. In his house sits Il Dottore, In the rickety top story Plays a mandoline to please Coral bells on cherry trees.... But the bees have left his bonnet For the meat; they buzz upon it-- Goldy summer lights--they hover Like the bees upon red clover, Flying straight into the shop, Full of facts, where theories stop. VI THE KING OF CHINA’S DAUGHTER The King of China’s daughter, She never would love me Though I hung my cap and bells upon Her nutmeg tree. For oranges and lemons, The stars in bright blue air, (I stole them long ago, my dear) Were dangling there. The Moon did give me silver pence, The Sun did give me gold, And both together softly blew And made my porridge cold; But the King of China’s daughter Pretended not to see When I hung my cap and bells upon Her nutmeg tree. VII OLD KING PTOLEMY Old King Ptolemy Climbed the stair Into the attic Of Anywhere. Old King Ptolemy Sulked to bed; Maids cleared up his toys-- “Broken,” they said. “The King’s in a temper, The King’s in a pet,” Wriggling their necks like geese-- “Oh, what a fret!” The Struwwelpeter Round-eyed Sun, Rocked on his rocking-horse Half in fun,-- Rocked on the landing, Rocked on the stair: “Babylon’s empty, The cupboard is bare.... King Ptolemy’s snoring Sounds on the breeze Like the sound of fruit growing On mulberry trees.” PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER-SHOWS I Tall cranes with wooden bodices Stuffed full of shadow odyssies. They hiss like geese through schoolroom bars At the bright flower-show of the stars. The houses (children’s bricks) float by On swords of moonshine, cry and sigh. The schoolmen spray with glittering laughter This flower-show, budding strangely after. “Our map-like cheeks are painted red Where sawdust gods were pierced and bled “By all this moonshine, and we feel Blood should be dry,”--Erazureel Cried; “Blue, pink, yellow planets, bright Flowers frilled as seas breathe in the night; These frillèd pinks, so neat and nice, We’ll teach to turn the world to ice. Our science then can soon inure The stars to blossom from manure; The world will be all map-like, plain As our lined cheeks, and once again The soul (moot point) will scarce intrude Its lack of depth and magnitude!” PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER-SHOWS II WHAT THE PROFESSOR SAID TO THE EDITOR OF “WHEELS” Old Professor Goosecap Watched the planet’s flower-show. “Pedagogues well-drilled, mayhap, Marshalled in a row, Can perceive in China asters Half a hemisphere’s disasters, With rays to pierce the fourth dimension: Come, limit it to our declension! Pedagogues, through schoolroom bars, Must thrust their faces like a map Crownèd with a dunce’s cap, To hiss like geese at the stars, And crush with wooden toe-- All growing, And blowing, These Canterbury bells as they blow, These silvery bells in a row!” SWITCHBACK By the blue wooden sea, Curling laboriously, Coral and amber grots (Cherries and apricots), Ribbons of noisy heat, Binding them head and feet, Horses as fat as plums Snort as each bumpkin comes. Giggles like towers of glass (Pink and blue spirals) pass, Oh, how the Vacancy Laughed at them rushing by! “Turn again, flesh and brain, Only yourselves again! How far above the Ape, Differing in each shape, You with your regular, Meaningless circles are!” TRAMS Castles of crystal, Castles of wood, Moving on pulleys Just as you should! See the gay people Flaunting like flags, Bells in the steeple, Sky all in rags. Bright as a parrot Flaunts the gay heat-- Songs in the garret, Fruit in the street; Plump as a cherry, Red as a rose, Old Mother Berry-- Blowing her nose! BANK HOLIDAY I The houses on a see-saw rush In the giddy sun’s hard spectrum, push The noisy heat’s machinery; Like flags of coloured heat they fly. The wooden ripples of the smiles Suck down the houses, then at whiles, Grown suctioned like an octopus, They throw them up again at us, As we rush by on coloured bars Of sense, vibrating flower-hued stars, With lips like velvet drinks and winds That bring strange Peris to our minds. BANK HOLIDAY II Seas are roaring like a lion; with their wavy flocks Zion, Noses like a scimitar, Hair a brassy bar Come To The sun’s drum; through Light green waters swim their daughters, lashing with their eel-sleek-locks The furred Heads Of mermaids that occurred, Sinking to their cheap beds. Blurred Legs, like trunks of tropical Plants, rise up and, over all, Green as a conservatory, Is the light ... another story.... It has grown too late for life: Put on your gloves and take a drive! SMALL TALK I Upon the noon Cassandra died The harpy preened itself outside. Bank Holiday put forth its glamour, And in the wayside station’s clamour We found the café at the rear, And sat and drank our Pilsener beer. Words smeared upon our wooden faces Now paint them into queer grimaces; The crackling greeneries that spirt Like fireworks, mock our souls inert, And we seem feathered like a bird Among those shadows scarcely heard. Beneath her shade-ribbed switchback mane The harpy, breasted like a train, Was haggling with a farmer’s wife: “Fresh harpy’s eggs, no trace of life.” Miss Sitwell, cross and white as chalk, Was indisposed for the small talk. Since, peering through a shadowed door, She saw Cassandra on the floor. SMALL TALK II Upon the noon Cassandra died, Harpy soon Screeched outside. Gardener Jupp, In his shed, Counted wooden Carrots red. Black shades pass, Dead-stiff there, On green baize grass-- Drink his beer. Bumpkin turnip, Mask limp-locked, White sun frights The gardener shocked. Harpy creaked Her limbs again: “I think, she squeaked, It’s going to rain!” DANSONS LA GIGUE Dance the jig, whirl In the street, girl. Rush up and down, Houses, to town-- On the see-saw Made out of raw Hot yellow rays, Crude edges of days. Dance the jig, whirl-- Like your blond curl! Oh! it is fine to-day, On this Bank Holiday! Sound of young feet Comes down the street ... Never again Pleasure or pain.... Dance the jig, whirl In the street, girl. Do the dead ache In summer, to slake Their thirst of love?--Hush,-- No tears to gush, My soul is of mud, Cannot weep blood.... * * * * * Dance the jig, dance the jig,-- Dance the jig, girl. MESSALINA AT MARGATE The tents are coloured like a child’s balloons; They swell upon the air like August moons Anchored by waters paler than a pearl; The airs like rain-wet shrinking petals curl Beneath the rainbow lights of noon that fill The open calyx with the faintest thrill, Then break in airy bubbles on the sense Like sounds upheld in exquisite suspense. In grande toilette, and with a parasol Bright-fringèd as the noonday sun, (that fool Of beauty,) Messalina promenades. A crinoline keeps off the other shades: Her grape-black hair casts shadows deep as death; All curled and high, yet stirring at Time’s breath. The powder on her face is shuddering white As dust of æons seen in heaven’s light. She leaves the sands, where in tents striped like fruits The dancers whirl like winds to airy flutes, And music, soother than the pulp of pearls Whose sweetness decks the swan-white syren girls, In air-pale waves like water, has the sheen Of mirrors, floats like flower-wing’d stars.--O spleen! Leave Regent’s Park and quit society Only to find this immorality! So now she goes to church, where bonnets steam Like incense, and the painted windows seem Naught but a coloured veil stupidity Had wrought to clothe her dumb soliloquy: “There’s comfort in old age: the steam of food Ascending like the rich man’s soul to God; And little words that crackle as they went, How such and such a life was evil spent, “Until they make a fire to warm our hands. For Time has wrapp’d the heart in swaddling bands, But yet they could not save it from the cold.-- The soul’s a pander grown; for she has sold “My body to the Church; does nicely now. Oh! Soul has much to learn from flesh, I vow.” Thus Messalina, grown both old and fat,-- The Church’s parrot now, and dull at that! PEDAGOGUES The air is like a jarring bell That jangles words it cannot spell, And black as Fate, the iron trees Stretch thirstily to catch the breeze. The fat leaves pat the shrinking air; The hot sun’s patronising stare Rouses the stout flies from content To some small show of sentiment. Beneath the terrace shines the green Metallic strip of sea, and sheen Of sands, where folk flaunt parrot-bright With rags and tags of noisy light. The brass band’s snorting stabs the sky And tears the yielding vacancy-- The imbecile and smiling blue Until fresh meaning trickles through; And slowly we perambulate With spectacles that concentrate, In one short hour, Eternity, In one small lens, Infinity. With children, our primeval curse, We overrun the universe-- Beneath the giddy lights of noon, White as a tired August moon. The air is like a jarring bell That jangles words it cannot spell, And black as Fate, the iron trees Stretch thirstily to catch the breeze. SONG FROM “THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA” And shall we never find those diamonds bright That were the fawn-queen of Palmyra’s eyes?-- Ah, dark hot jewels lie hidden from the sight Beneath dark palm-trees where the river sighs Beyond the tomb of young eternities; And in the desert, lonely flowers weep-- The clouds have such long hair--that tangles Sleep. THE CHOIR-BOY RIDES ON THE SWITCHBACK In the fruit-ripe heat of afternoon Each muslined school-child seems a moon; And in the tents, those lazy waves From out the echoing coral caves Of light, like Venus from the sea The clown seems, blond hair floating free. The switchback, with its noisy run, Is turning like the wooden sun As he rides on his rocking-horse All Struwwelpeter-haired; we course On sands as moist as sugar-cane, And the Fat Woman’s face and mane Are sometimes dappled by the shade Into the likeness of some maid Long dead ... those golden shadows fell On Cressid or Alaciel. The beggar-tunes on horseback ride, With cheeks as pink as Angels’,--glide Through Babylon, Chicago, Troy, And Black Man’s Land. Each golden boy Blows silver trumpets over these, As clear as apples on the trees. I will go home and pack my pride, Then with these beggar-tunes I’ll ride-- For all the hymns I try to sing Are but Love’s beggars shivering In thorny thickets where one sees Stars grow for wild wet raspberries. APRICOT JAM Beneath the dancing, glancing green The tea is spread amid the sheen Of pince-nez (glints of thought); thus seen, In sharp reflections only, brain Perceives the world all flat and plain In rounded segments, joy and pain. The parasols dance like the sun, Cast wavering nets of shade that run Across the chattering table’s fun, The laughing faces, and across Half-shadowed faces looking cross, And black hair with a bird-bright gloss. The flashing children stayed and checked, Smooth india-rubber leaves reflect Their parrot-green on circumspect Glazed china, where the negroid tea Reflects the world’s obscurity In high lights such as pince-nez see. And all the sheen of shadows feather Muslin frocks like plumes; together, In the hot and flashing weather, Bird-high voices shrill and chatter With the high and glinting clatter Tea-cups make, and whispered patter-- (Listen, and you’ll get a slap!) Worlds are small as any map, And life will come our way--mayhap. STOPPING PLACE The world grows furry, grunts with sleep ... But I must on the surface keep. The jolting of the train to me Seems some primeval vertebræ Attached by life-nerves to my brain-- Reactionary once again. So that I see shapes crude and new And ordered,--with some end in view, No longer with the horny eyes Of other people’s memories. Through highly varnished yellow heat, As through a lens that does not fit, The faces jolt in cubes, and I Perceive their odd solidity And lack of meaning absolute: For why should noses thus protrude, And to what purpose can relate Each hair so oddly separate? Anchored against the puff of breeze, As shallow as the crude blue seas, The coloured blocks and cubes of faces Seem Noah’s arks that shelter races Of far absurdities to breed Their queer kind after we are dead. Blue wooden foliage creaks with heat And there are woollen buns to eat-- Bright-varnished buns to touch and see And, black as an Inferno, tea. Then (Recketts’ blue) a puff of wind.... Heredity regains my mind And I am sitting in the train While thought becomes like flesh,--the brain Not independent, but derived From hairy matter that half lived-- Identities not round or whole. A questing beast who thirsts for soul, The furry vegetation there-- Purring with heat, sucks in the air; And dust that’s gathered in the train, Protecting flesh, seems almost brain-- (That horny substance altering sight); How strange, intangible is light Whence all is born, and yet by touch We live,--the rest is not worth much.... Once more the world grows furred with sleep,-- But I must on the surface keep While mammoths from the heat are born-- Great clumsy trains with tusk and horn Whereon the world’s too sudden tossed Through frondage of our mind, and lost. PORTRAIT OF A BARMAID Metallic waves of people jar Through crackling green toward the bar Where on the tables, chattering-white, The sharp drinks quarrel with the light. Those coloured muslin blinds the smiles Shroud wooden faces in their wiles-- Sometimes they splash like water (you Yourself reflected in their hue). The conversation, loud and bright, Seems spinal bars of shunting light In firework-spirting greenery, O complicate machinery For building Babel, iron crane Beneath your hair, that blue-ribbed mane In noise and murder like the sea Without its mutability Outside the bar, where jangling heat Seems out of tune and off the beat, A concertina’s glycerine Exudes and mirrors in the green Your soul, pure glucose edged with hints Of tentative and half-soiled tints. MATERIALISM; OR, PASTOR ---- TAKES THE RESTAURANT CAR FOR HEAVEN Upon sharp floods of noise there glide The red-brick houses, float, collide With aspidestras, trains on steel That lead us not to what we feel. Hot glassy lights fill up the gloom As water an aquarium,-- All mirror-bright; beneath these seen, Our faces coloured by their sheen, Seem objects under water, bent By each bright-hued advertisement Whose words are stamped upon our skin As though the heat had burnt them in. The jolting of the train that made All objects coloured bars of shade, Projects them sideways till they split Splinters from eyeballs as they flit. Down endless tubes of throats we squeeze Our words, lymphatic paint to please Our sense of neatness, neutralize The overtint and oversize. I think it true that Heaven should be A narrow train for you and me, Where we perpetually must haunt The moving oblique restaurant And feed on foods of other minds Behind the hot and dusty blinds. THAÏS IN HEAVEN When you lay dying fast, you said-- And, weeping, were not comforted: “Look through this paper world! I see The lights of Heaven burn like gold The other side; and Souls are sold For these, yet only flesh, sold we!” And then you died and went to bliss.-- I’m curious now to know if love Is really Heaven--where _you_ rove.-- Your kind of love ... or mine, Thaïs? And is there still the clinging mud? I think it drowned your soul like wine. And do the stars like street-lamps shine, Gilding the gutters where you stood, And lighting up your small face where Thin powder, like a trail of dust, Shows the mortality of lust ... Still black as hissing rain, your hair? Your body had become your soul.... Thaïs,--do spirits crumble whole? _FOUR NOCTURNES_ I PROCESSIONS Within the long black avenues of Night Go pageants of delight, With masks of glass the night has stained with wine, Hair lifted like a vine;-- And all the coloured curtains of the air Were fluttered. Passing there, The sounds seemed warring suns; and music flowed As blood; the mask’d lamps showed Tall houses light had gilded like despair: Black windows, gaping there. Through all the rainbow spaces of our laughter Those pageants followed after; The negress Night, within her house of glass Watched the processions pass. II GAIETY Blow out the candles. Let the dance begin. Already, pale as Sin, The candles weep and pry like living things ... They dance, who have no wings. More vast and black than endless sleep, this room. Time beats his empty drum Whose hollow sound is echoed in our eyes-- Deep wells where no moon lies. A crumpled paper mask hides every face-- Creased to a smile of grace, With eyelids gilded, so the bitter tears Make music for men’s ears. These masks, some coloured like an August moon, Or white, as sands that swoon Within Time’s hour-glass, some as grey as rain,-- Still mimic joy and pain. Thin pointed rags and tags edge our attire ... Bright plumes?... or tongues of fire, Whose painted laughter cracks the gilded sky Of this flat empery That has no soil where any flower may root, Nor rest for weary foot, But endless leagues of mirror: such the ground That no horizons bound,-- Carved topaz water;--sound a mirror seems! O! nakedness of dreams Beneath the blinding radiance of hot skies Where no sun lives or dies. * * * * * Now that the dusty, creaking curtain, Day, Is folded, laid away, Each masked dancer is both piercèd Heart And Dream, its poiniard. Small winds creep from Infinity.... A flame Our blown hair, white as shame. Those seeds of worlds, the stars, are nought but blown Red tinsel from a Clown; The candles, living things to dance and pry: Out! hard Reality! III VACUUM Blown through the leaden circles of our hell, Each wisp of soul, tattered by winds of lust, Clawed at the voices, like a beaten bell. No movement ever raised the lifeless dust, As, blown beneath the night’s enormous pall, We call to you with goatish prance and paces: Our lips are red as nights of festival And hell has dyed its fires upon our faces. These barren bodies may no children breed To quench the sun with their corrupted breath Save these our hearts, our breasts, our bodies feed-- The fruit of love like ours, the worms of death. Within our brain the darkness slowly fell: Our eyes’ dark vacuum reflects no days-- No voice, no sight, no thought within our hell-- But only flesh our loneliness allays. IV “ET L’ON ENTEND À PEINE LEURS PAROLES” Monotonously fell the rain, Like thoughts within an empty brain; The lolling weeds that fattened there Absorbed the broken lifeless air. “Do those dim eyes still hold a flame That leaps to Heaven at my name?” “Mine eyes would hold God’s face in sight; But your lips burned away the light.” “Within your brain the blood runs high?” “You came like thought; you licked it dry.” “Oh, we have burnt our souls with lust Till they are whiter than the dust ... Now are they white as purity?” “You blind mine eyes ... I cannot see.” “I am so tired--I fain would creep To hide within your heart and weep.” “My heart is dust ... no tears to shed.” “But carrion lives--it lives”--I said. _TREATS_ I FUNERALS Beneath umbrellas I can see Pink faces sheened with stupidity, With whiskers spirting from them, (days Of boredom, black and sentient rays From other personalities.) And, mourners too, white-bearded seas Walk slowly by them as they come, Sing hymns to the wind’s harmonium. Old men shake hands; their clawing grasp Seems like a door without a clasp-- That gapes on slow black emptiness.... Now,--vanished is her cracked black dress, The house grows tall from vacancy, And in the kitchen I take tea While the furry sun creeps out--that raw Life,--sheathes its murderous claw And lets its tongue slink out to lap The silence--(a slow-leaking tap).... II THE COUNTY CALLS They came upon us like a train-- A rush, a scream, then gone again! With bodies like a continent Encased in silken seas, they went And came and called and took their tea And patronised the Deity Who copies their munificence With creditable heart and sense. Each face a plaster monument For some belovèd aliment, Whose everlasting sleep they deign To cradle in the Great Inane; Each tongue, a noisy clockwork bell To toll the passing hour that fell; Each hat, an architect’s device For building churches, cheap and nice. _I saw_ the County Families Advance and sit and take their teas; I saw the County gaze askance At my thin insignificance: Small thoughts like frightened fishes glide Beneath their eyes’ pale glassy tide: They said: “Poor thing! we must be nice!” They said: “We know your father!”--twice. III SOLO FOR EAR-TRUMPET The carriage brushes through the bright Leaves (violent jets from life to light). Strong polished speed is plunging, heaves Between the showers of bright hot leaves. The window-glasses glaze our faces And jarr them to the very basis,-- But they could never put a polish Upon my manners, or abolish My most distinct disinclination For calling on a rich relation! In her house, bulwark built between The life man lives and visions seen,-- The sunlight hiccups white as chalk, Grown drunk with emptiness of talk, And silence hisses like a snake, Invertebrate and rattling ache. * * * * * Till suddenly, Eternity Drowns all the houses like a sea, And down the street the Trump of Doom Blares,--barely shakes this drawing-room Where raw-edged shadows sting forlorn As dank dark nettles. Down the horn Of her ear-trumpet I convey The news that: “It is Judgment Day!” “Speak louder; I don’t catch, my dear.” I roared: “_It is the Trump we hear!_” “The _What_?”--“The TRUMP!” ... “I shall complain-- The boy-scouts practising again!” ANTIC HAY How like a lusty satyr, the hot sun Doth in his orbit run O’er rivers and the light blue hills of noon, And where the white still moon Sleeps in the lovely woodlands of the light. Made drunken with his might, Like flames the goat-foot satyrs leap and fling The blossom’d beans of Spring. The oreads leave their swan-like fountains, bells Of foam, and dark wood-wells, And grasses where the pale dew lovelorn lies And like an echo dies. The river-gods are tossing their blue manes Still wet with brine; the reins Lie loosely on their plunging horses; earth Shakes with the storm of mirth; And all the cloudy castles of the air Are bathed with radiance. There, Beneath dark chestnut trees, King Pan doth sport With all his hornèd court. Their goat-feet clattering to the oaten tune That cools the heat of noon Like water gurgling; hoofs all wreath’d with flowers, Wild as the dew-pale hours, The clownish satyrs dance the antic hay; They butt with horns and sway, While laughing leaves, like smitten cymbals thrill Their sunburnt dance; until The light falls like a rain of panick’d leaves Through the gold heart of eves. O’er misty fields, mild Dian’s old faint horn Bloweth a sound forlorn. Then from their hives with palest flowers bedight, The yellow bees take flight-- Whirling where old Silenus tries to sing Unto his hornèd King --Feeding upon gold-freckled strawberries-- And sting the poor fat fool until he cries. LULLABY Golden night-airs lull his eyes, Starlight come not where Love lies, Lest your faint light touch his wings Who swiftly comes and swiftly flies; Lovers, wake him not with sighs, But list where Philomela sings Lullaby. Dreams come tiptoe to his bed, Dim fantastic wings outspread To fan his pretty sleeping eyes. Upon my breast he laid his head (On lilies white heap roses red); Hushed in my maiden heart, Love lies A-sleeping. WATER MUSIC From Florence and from Venice, Like silver swans at noon, That silken dim winds menace-- Each barque a drownèd moon, I’ll bring you freights of amber, Perfumèd like the rose, To build your sleeping chamber, And song-birds for your close; Faint stars to go a-singing, Like fluttering nightingales From golden cages winging, When, Love, your tir’d wing fails. And as we come a-rowing, Great rainbows rise and swing Like haughty peacocks bowing In the gardens of the King. THE WEB OF EROS Within your magic web of hair lies furled The fire and splendour of the ancient world; The dire gold of the comet’s wind-blown hair, The songs that turned to gold the evening air When all the stars of heaven sang for joy; The flames that burnt the cloud-high city Troy; The mænad fire of spring on the cold earth, The myrrh-lit flames that gave both life and birth To the soul-Phœnix, and the star-bright shower That came to Danæ in her brazen tower. Within your burning web of hair lies furled The fire and splendour of the ancient world. DROWNED SUNS The swans more white than those forgotten fair Who ruled the kingdoms that of old-time were, Within the sunset water deeply gaze As though they sought some beautiful dim face, The youth of all the world; or pale lost gems, And crystal shimmering diadems, The moon for ever seeks in woodland streams To deck her cool faint beauty; thus in dreams, Belov’d, I seek lost suns within your eyes And find but wrecks of love’s gold argosies. THE SPIDER The fat light clings upon my skin, Like grease that slowly forms a thin And foul white film; so close it lies, It feeds upon my lips and eyes. The black fly hits the window-pane That shuts its dirty body in; So once, his spirit fought to quit The body that imprisoned it. He always seemed so fond of me, Until one day he chanced to see My head, a little on one side, Loll softly as if I had died. Since then, he rarely looked my way, Though he could never know what lay Within my brain; though iron his will, I thought, he’s young and teachable. And often, as I took my drink, I chuckled in my heart to think Whose dark blood ran within his veins: You see, it spared me half my pains. The time was very long until I had the chance to work my will; Once seen, the way was clear as light, A father’s patience infinite. He always was so sensitive; But soon I taught him how to live With each day, just a patch of white, A blinded patch of black, each night. Each day he watched my gaiety. It’s very difficult to die When one is young.... I pitied him, The glass I filled up to the brim, His shaking fingers scarce could hold; His limbs were trembling as with cold.... I waited till from night and day All meaning I had wiped away, And then I gave it him again; The wine made heaven in his brain. Then spider-like, the kindly wine Thrust tentacles through every vein, And knotted him so very fast I knew I had him safe at last. And sometimes in the dawn, I’d creep To watch him as he lay asleep, And each time, see my son’s face grown In some blurred line, more like my own. A crumpled rag, he lies all night Until the first white smear of light; And sleep is but an empty hole ... No place for him to hide his soul, No outlet there to set him free: He never can escape from me. Yet still I never know what thought, All fly-like, in his mind lies caught: His face seems some half-spoken word Forgot again as soon as heard, Beneath the livid skin of light; Oh, just an empty space of white, Now all the meaning’s gone. I’ll sit A little while, and stare at it. THE DRUNKARD This black tower drinks the blinding light. Strange windows livid white, Tremble beneath the curse of God. Yet living weeds still nod To the huge sun, a devil’s eye That tracks the souls that die. The clock beats like the heart of Doom Within the narrow room; And whispering with some ghastly air The curtains float and stir. But still she never speaks a word; I think she hardly heard When I with reeling footsteps came And softly spoke her name. But yet she does not sleep. Her eyes Still watch in wide surprise The thirsty knife that pitied her; But those lids never stir, Though creeping Fear still gnaws like pain The hollow of her brain. She must have some sly plan, the cheat, To lie so still. The beat That once throbbed like a muffled drum With fear to hear me come, Now never sounds when I creep nigh. Oh! she was always sly. And if to spite her, I dared steal Behind her bed, and feel With fumbling fingers for her heart ... Ere I could touch the smart, Once more wild shriek on shriek would tear The dumb and shuddering air.... And still she never speaks to me. She only smiles to see How in dark corners secret-sly New-born Eternity, All spider-like, doth spin and cast Strange threads to hold Time fast. THE MOTHER I Our dreams create the babes we bear; Our beauty goes to make them fair. We give them all we have of good, Our blood to drink, our hearts for food; And in our souls they lie and rest Until upon their mother’s breast, So innocent and sweet they lie. They live to curse us; then they die. When he was born, it seemed the spring Had come again with birds to sing And blossoms dancing in the sun Where streams released from winter run. His sunlit hair was all my gold, His loving eyes my wealth untold; All heaven was hid within my breast Whereon my child was laid to rest. He grew to manhood. Then one came False-hearted as Hell’s blackest shame, To steal my child from me, and thrust The soul I loved down to the dust. Her hungry, wicked lips were red As that dark blood my son’s hand shed. Her eyes were black as Hell’s own night, Her ice-cold breast was winter-white. I had put by a little gold To bury me when I was cold. Her fangèd, wanton kiss to buy My son’s love willed that I should die. The gold was hid beneath my bed; So little, and my weary head Was all the guard it had. They lie So quiet and still who soon must die. He stole to kill me while I slept-- The little son, who never wept But that I kissed his tears away So fast, his weeping seemed but play. So light his footfall, yet I heard Its echo in my heart, and stirred From out my weary sleep to see My child’s face bending over me. The wicked knife flashed serpent-wise.-- Yet I saw nothing but his eyes, And heard one little word he said Go echoing down among the Dead. II They say the Dead may never dream. But yet I heard my pierced heart scream His name within the dark. They lie Who say the Dead can ever die. For in the grave I may not sleep For dreaming that I hear him weep. And in the dark, my dead hands grope In search of him. O barren hope! I cannot draw his head to rest Deep down upon my wounded breast ... He gave the breast that fed him well To suckle the small worms of Hell. The little wicked thoughts that fed Upon the weary helpless Dead ... They whispered o’er my broken heart, They stuck their fangs deep in the smart. “The child she bore with bloody sweat And agony has paid his debt. Through that bleak face the stark winds play; The crows have chased his soul away. “His body is a blackened rag Upon the tree--a monstrous flag.” Thus one worm to the other saith. Those slow mean servitors of Death, They chuckling said: “Your soul, grown blind With anguish, is the shrieking Wind That blows the flame that never dies About his empty, lidless eyes.” I tore them from my heart. I said: “The life-blood that my son’s hand shed, That from my broken heart outburst, I’d give again, to quench his thirst. “He did no sin. But cold blind earth The body was that gave him birth. All mine, all mine the sin; the love I bore him was not deep enough.” _Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOODEN PEGASUS *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. 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