No More Learning

Oaks
and forest glades,
heart aching with wonder, fear:
their bitter mast.

Willows
and the scented beetle
we put in our handkerchiefs;
and the roots of one
that spread into a river:
nakedness, water and joy.

Hawthorn,
white and odorous with blossom,
framing the quiet fields,
and swaying flowers and grasses,
and the hum of bees.

Oh, these are the things that are with me now,
in the town;
and I am grateful
for this minute of my manhood.


LUNCH

Frail beauty,
green, gold and incandescent whiteness,
narcissi, daffodils,
you have brought me Spring and longing,
wistfulness,
in your irradiance.

Therefore, I sit here
among the people,
dreaming,
and my heart aches
with all the hawthorn blossom,
the bees humming,
the light wind upon the poplars,
and your warmth and your love
and your eyes . . .
they smile and know me.


MALADY

I move;
perhaps I have wakened;
this is a bed;
this is a room;
and there is light. . . .

Darkness!

Have I performed
the dozen acts or so
that make me the man
men see?

The door opens,
and on the landing--
quiet!
I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness!

Stairs, banisters, a handrail:
all indistinguishable.
One step farther down or up,
and why?
But up is harder. Down!
Down to this white blur;
it gives before me.

Me?

I extend all ways:
I fit into the walls and they pull me.

Light?

Light! I know it is light.

Stillness, and then,
something moves:
green, oh green, dazzling lightning!
And joy! this is my room;
there are my books, there the piano,
there the last bar I wrote,
there the last line,
and oh the sunlight!

A parrot screeches.


ACCIDENT

Dear one!
you sit there
in the corner of the carriage;
and you do not know me;
and your eyes forbid.

Is it the dirt, the squalor,
the wear of human bodies,
and the dead faces of our neighbours?
These are but symbols.

You are proud; I praise you;
your mouth is set; you see beyond us;
and you see nothing.

I have the vision of your calm, cold face,
and of the black hair that waves above it;
I watch you; I love you;
I desire you.

There is a quiet here
within the thud-thud of the wheels
upon the railway.

There is a quiet here
within my heart,
but tense and tender. . . .

This is my station. . . .


FRAGMENT

. . . That night I loved you
in the candlelight.
Your golden hair
strewed the sweet whiteness of the pillows
and the counterpane.
O the darkness of the corners,
the warm air, and the stars
framed in the casement of the ships' lights!
The waves lapped into the harbour;
the boats creaked;
a man's voice sang out on the quay;
and you loved me.
In your love were the tall tree fuchsias,
the blue of the hortensias, the scarlet nasturtiums,
the trees on the hills,
the roads we had covered,
and the sea that had borne your body
before the rocks of Hartland.
You loved me with these
and with the kindness of people,
country folk, sailors and fishermen,
and the old lady who had lodged us and supped us.
You loved me with yourself
that was these and more,
changed as the earth is changed
into the bloom of flowers.


HOUSES

Evening and quiet:
a bird trills in the poplar trees
behind the house with the dark green door
across the road.

Into the sky,
the red earthenware and the galvanised iron chimneys
thrust their cowls.
The hoot of the steamers on the Thames is plain.

No wind;
the trees merge, green with green;
a car whirs by;
footsteps and voices take their pitch
in the key of dusk,
far-off and near, subdued.

Solid and square to the world
the houses stand,
their windows blocked with venetian blinds.

Nothing will move them.


EAU-FORTE

On black bare trees a stale cream moon
hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds.

Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low,
tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram.

Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square;
and round the bend six bullocks come.

A hobbling, dirt-grimed drover guides
their clattering feet to death and shame.




D. H. LAWRENCE



D. H. LAWRENCE


BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA

Oh, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
Lamps in a wash of rain,
Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard,
Oh, tears on the window pane!

Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,
Full of disappointment and of rain,
Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples
Of Autumn tell the withered tale again.

All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,
Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,
Cluck, my marigold bird, and again
Cluck for your yellow darlings.

For the grey rat found the gold thirteen
Huddled away in the dark,
Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,
Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.

* * * * * *

Once I had a lover bright like running water,
Once his face was laughing like the sky;
Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter
On the buttercups--and buttercups was I.

What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom,
What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?
'T is the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom--
What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men?

Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,
And her shift is lying white upon the floor,
That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm
Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.

Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,
Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct--!
And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,
Did you see the wicked sun that winked?


ILLICIT

In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow,
And between us and it, the thunder;
And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers
Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.

You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals,
And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber
I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber
Lightning falls from heaven.

Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats
A dark boat through the gloom--and whither?
The thunder roars. But still we have each other.
The naked lightnings in the heaven dither
And disappear. What have we but each other?
The boat has gone.


FIREFLIES IN THE CORN

_A Woman taunts her Lover_
Look at the little darlings in the corn!
The rye is taller than you, who think yourself
So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne
Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights
Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn.

And always likely! --Oh, if I could ride
With my head held high-serene against the sky
Do you think I'd have a creature like you at my side
With your gloom and your doubt that you love me? O darling rye,
How I adore you for your simple pride!

And those bright fireflies wafting in between
And over the swaying cornstalks, just above
All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green
Stars come low and wandering here for love
Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene--!

How I adore you, you happy things, you dears
Riding the air and carrying all the time
Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers
My heart to see you settling and trying to climb
The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears.

All over the corn's dim motion, against the blue
Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm
Of questing brilliant things:--you joy, you true
Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm
My poor and perished soul at the joy of you!

_The Man answers and she mocks_
You're a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do!
--Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine.
And I give you everything that you want me to.
--Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever _can_ shine?


A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND

Ah, stern cold man,
How can you lie so relentless hard
While I wash you with weeping water!
Ah, face, carved hard and cold,
You have been like this, on your guard
Against me, since death began.

You masquerader!
How can you shame to act this part
Of unswerving indifference to me?
It is not you; why disguise yourself
Against me, to break my heart,
You evader?

You've a warm mouth,
A good warm mouth always sooner to soften
Even than your sudden eyes.
Ah cruel, to keep your mouth
Relentless, however often
I kiss it in drouth.

You are not he.
Who are you, lying in his place on the bed
And rigid and indifferent to me?
His mouth, though he laughed or sulked
Was always warm and red
And good to me.

And his eyes could see
The white moon hang like a breast revealed
By the slipping shawl of stars,
Could see the small stars tremble
As the heart beneath did wield
Systole, diastole.

And he showed it me
So, when he made his love to me;
And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out,
And his eyes were deep like the sea
With shadow, and he looked at me,
Till I sank in him like the sea,
Awfully.

Oh, he was multiform--
Which then was he among the manifold?
The gay, the sorrowful, the seer?
I have loved a rich race of men in one--
--But not this, this never-warm
Metal-cold--!

Ah, masquerader!
With your steel face white-enamelled
Were you he, after all, and I never
Saw you or felt you in kissing?
--Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled
With fear, evader!

You will not stir,
Nor hear me, not a sound.
--Then it was you--
And all this time you were
Like this when I lived with you.
It is not true,
I am frightened, I am frightened of you
And of everything.
O God! --God too
Has deceived me in everything,
In everything.


THE MOWERS

There's four men mowing down by the river;
I can hear the sound of the scythe strokes, four
Sharp breaths swishing:--yea, but I
Am sorry for what's i' store.

The first man out o' the four that's mowin'
Is mine: I mun claim him once for all:
--But I'm sorry for him, on his young feet, knowin'
None o' the trouble he's led to stall.

As he sees me bringin' the dinner, he lifts
His head as proud as a deer that looks
Shoulder-deep out o' th' corn: and wipes
His scythe blade bright, unhooks

His scythe stone, an' over the grass to me!
--Lad, tha 's gotten a chilt in me,
An' a man an' a father tha 'lt ha'e to be,
My young slim lad, an' I'm sorry for thee.


SCENT OF IRISES

A faint, sickening scent of irises
Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table
A fine proud spike of purple irises
Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable
To see the class's lifted and bended faces
Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable.

I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless
Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast
You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped
Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast
Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks
Dissolved in the golden sorcery you should not outlast.

You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation,
You sitting in the cowslips of the meadows above,
--Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs,
Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love--
You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,
You, with your face all rich, like the sheen on a dove--!

You are always asking, do I remember, remember
The buttercup bog-end where the flowers rose up
And kindled you over deep with a coat of gold?
You ask again, do the healing days close up
The open darkness which then drew us in,
The dark that swallows all, and nought throws up.

You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night
Burnt like a sacrifice;--you invisible--
Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!
--And yes, thank God, it still is possible
The healing days shall close the darkness up
Wherein I breathed you like a smoke or dew.

Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,
The golden fire has gone, and your face is ash
Indistinguishable in the grey, chill day,
The night has burnt you out, at last the good
Dark fire burns on untroubled without clash
Of you upon the dead leaves saying me yea.


GREEN

The sky was apple-green,
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green
They shone, clear like flowers undone,
For the first time, now for the first time seen.




AMY LOWELL



AMY LOWELL


VENUS TRANSIENS

Tell me,
Was Venus more beautiful
Than you are,
When she topped
The crinkled waves,
Drifting shoreward
On her plaited shell?
Was Botticelli's vision
Fairer than mine;
And were the painted rosebuds
He tossed his lady,
Of better worth
Than the words I blow about you
To cover your too great loveliness
As with a gauze
Of misted silver?

For me,
You stand poised
In the blue and buoyant air,
Cinctured by bright winds,
Treading the sunlight.
And the waves which precede you
Ripple and stir
The sands at my feet.


THE TRAVELLING BEAR

Grass-blades push up between the cobblestones
And catch the sun on their flat sides
Shooting it back,
Gold and emerald,
Into the eyes of passers-by.

And over the cobblestones,
Square-footed and heavy,
Dances the trained bear.
Tho cobbles cut his feet,
And he has a ring in his nose
Which hurts him;
But still he dances,
For the keeper pricks him with a sharp stick,
Under his fur.

Now the crowd gapes and chuckles,
And boys and young women shuffle their feet in time to the dancing bear.
They see him wobbling
Against a dust of emerald and gold,
And they are greatly delighted.

The legs of the bear shake with fatigue
And his back aches,
And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him.
But still he dances,
Because of the little, pointed stick.


THE LETTER

Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor
Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.


GROTESQUE

Why do the lilies goggle their tongues at me
When I pluck them;
And writhe, and twist,
And strangle themselves against my fingers,
So that I can hardly weave the garland
For your hair?
Why do they shriek your name
And spit at me
When I would cluster them?
Must I kill them
To make them lie still,
And send you a wreath of lolling corpses
To turn putrid and soft
On your forehead
While you dance?


BULLION

My thoughts
Chink against my ribs
And roll about like silver hail-stones.
I should like to spill them out,
And pour them, all shining,
Over you.
But my heart is shut upon them
And holds them straitly.

Come, You! and open my heart;
That my thoughts torment me no longer,
But glitter in your hair.


SOLITAIRE

When night drifts along the streets of the city,
And sifts down between the uneven roofs,
My mind begins to peek and peer.
It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,
And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,
Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.
It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,
And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.
How light and laughing my mind is,
When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,
And the city is still!


THE BOMBARDMENT

Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment on
the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and
trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a
gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral
square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about
in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After
it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of
the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!

The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the firelight.
The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies leap in
the bohemian glasses on the _étagère_. Her hands are restless, but the
white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to
torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the
_étagère_. It lies there formless and glowing, with all its crimson gleams
shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. A thin bell-note
pricks through the silence. A door creaks. The old lady speaks: "Victor,
clear away that broken glass. " "Alas! Madame, the bohemian glass! " "Yes,
Victor, one hundred years ago my father brought it--" Boom! The room
shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!

It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is shut
within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his ink, his
pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced with beams
of sunshine, slipping through young green.
A fountain tosses itself up at
the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin he can see
copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp in a
cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled,
iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom! The
flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long
broken spears of disheveled water and flattens into the earth. Boom! And
there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding rain.
Again, Boom! --Boom! --Boom! He stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees
corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling
the city! Boom! Boom!

A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made the
bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake. " "Hush, my Darling, I am
here. " "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the room shook. " Boom!
"Oh! What is it? What is the matter? " Boom! "Where is Father? I am so
afraid. " Boom! The child sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and creaks.
Boom!

Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing
across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded
by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his
story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases
like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from
people burying their dead. Through the window he can see the rocking
steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears
apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone,
zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire. It spouts
like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John,
and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the night and hisses against the
rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet night.

Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to scorch.
Boom! The bohemian glass on the _étagère_ is no longer there. Boom! A
stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old lady cannot
walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts. Boom! --Boom! --Boom!

The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of
silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The
city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the
flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its gold on
the sky the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and
chuckles along the floors.

The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower flickering
at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the ceiling beams.

The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning
Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter and
crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly and
without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple crashes
down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes along the
gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom!


MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS

by Amy Lowell


by Amy Lowell [American (Massachusetts) poet and critic--1874-1925. ]


[Note on text: Lines longer than 78 characters are broken
and the continuation is indented two spaces. Some obvious errors
have been corrected. ]



"'. . . See small portions of the Eternal World that ever groweth':. . .
So sang a Fairy, mocking, as he sat on a streak'd tulip,
Thinking none saw him: when he ceas'd I started from the trees,
And caught him in my hat, as boys knock down a butterfly. "
William Blake. "Europe. A Prophecy. "

'Thou hast a lap full of seed,
And this is a fine country. '
William Blake.





Preface


This is a book of stories. For that reason I have excluded all purely
lyrical poems. But the word "stories" has been stretched to its fullest
application. It includes both narrative poems, properly so called;
tales divided into scenes; and a few pieces of less obvious
story-telling import in which one might say that the dramatis personae
are air, clouds, trees, houses, streets, and such like things.

It has long been a favourite idea of mine that the rhythms of 'vers
libre' have not been sufficiently plumbed, that there is in them a power
of variation which has never yet been brought to the light of
experiment. I think it was the piano pieces of Debussy, with their
strange likeness to short vers libre poems, which first showed me the
close kinship of music and poetry, and there flashed into my mind the
idea of using the movement of poetry in somewhat the same way that the
musician uses the movement of music.

It was quite evident that this could never be done in the strict pattern
of a metrical form, but the flowing, fluctuating rhythm of vers libre
seemed to open the door to such an experiment. First, however, I
considered the same method as applied to the more pronounced movements
of natural objects. If the reader will turn to the poem, "A Roxbury
Garden", he will find in the first two sections an attempt to give the
circular movement of a hoop bowling along the ground, and the up and
down, elliptical curve of a flying shuttlecock.

From these experiments, it is but a step to the flowing rhythm of music.
In "The Cremona Violin", I have tried to give this flowing, changing
rhythm to the parts in which the violin is being played. The effect is
farther heightened, because the rest of the poem is written in the seven
line Chaucerian stanza; and, by deserting this ordered pattern for the
undulating line of vers libre, I hoped to produce something of the
suave, continuous tone of a violin. Again, in the violin parts
themselves, the movement constantly changes, as will be quite plain to
any one reading these passages aloud.

In "The Cremona Violin", however, the rhythms are fairly obvious and
regular. I set myself a far harder task in trying to transcribe the
various movements of Stravinsky's "Three Pieces 'Grotesques', for String
Quartet". Several musicians, who have seen the poem, think the movement
accurately given.

These experiments lead me to believe that there is here much food for
thought and matter for study, and I hope many poets will follow me in
opening up the still hardly explored possibilities of vers libre.

A good many of the poems in this book are written in "polyphonic prose".
A form about which I have written and spoken so much that it seems
hardly necessary to explain it here. Let me hastily add, however, that
the word "prose" in its name refers only to the typographical
arrangement, for in no sense is this a prose form. Only read it aloud,
Gentle Reader, I beg, and you will see what you will see. For a purely
dramatic form, I know none better in the whole range of poetry. It
enables the poet to give his characters the vivid, real effect they have
in a play, while at the same time writing in the 'decor'.

One last innovation I have still to mention. It will be found in
"Spring Day", and more fully enlarged upon in the series, "Towns in
Colour". In these poems, I have endeavoured to give the colour, and
light, and shade, of certain places and hours, stressing the purely
pictorial effect, and with little or no reference to any other aspect of
the places described. It is an enchanting thing to wander through a
city looking for its unrelated beauty, the beauty by which it captivates
the sensuous sense of seeing.

I have always loved aquariums, but for years I went to them and looked,
and looked, at those swirling, shooting, looping patterns of fish, which
always defied transcription to paper until I hit upon the "unrelated"
method. The result is in "An Aquarium". I think the first thing which
turned me in this direction was John Gould Fletcher's "London
Excursion", in "Some Imagist Poets". I here record my thanks.

For the substance of the poems--why, the poems are here. No one
writing to-day can fail to be affected by the great war raging in Europe
at this time. We are too near it to do more than touch upon it. But,
obliquely, it is suggested in many of these poems, most notably those in
the section, "Bronze Tablets". The Napoleonic Era is an epic subject,
and waits a great epic poet. I have only been able to open a few
windows upon it here and there. But the scene from the windows is
authentic, and the watcher has used eyes, and ears, and heart, in
watching.

Amy Lowell
July 10, 1916.




Contents



Figurines in Old Saxe

Patterns
Pickthorn Manor
The Cremona Violin
The Cross-Roads
A Roxbury Garden
1777


Bronze Tablets

The Fruit Shop
Malmaison
The Hammers
Two Travellers in the Place Vendome


War Pictures

The Allies
The Bombardment
Lead Soldiers
The Painter on Silk
A Ballad of Footmen


The Overgrown Pasture

Reaping
Off the Turnpike
The Grocery
Number 3 on the Docket


Clocks Tick a Century

Nightmare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening
The Paper Windmill
The Red Lacquer Music-Stand
Spring Day
The Dinner-Party
Stravinsky's Three Pieces "Grotesques", for String Quartet
Towns in Colour
Red Slippers
Thompson's Lunch Room--Grand Central Station
An Opera House
Afternoon Rain in State Street
An Aquarium





The two sea songs quoted in "The Hammers" are taken from
'Songs: Naval and Nautical, of the late Charles Dibdin', London,
John Murray, 1841. The "Hanging Johnny" refrain, in "The Cremona Violin",
is borrowed from the old, well-known chanty of that name.





MEN, WOMEN AND GHOSTS




FIGURINES IN OLD SAXE




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 whalebone 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 se'nnight. "
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?




Pickthorn Manor



I

How fresh the Dartle's little waves that day!
A steely silver, underlined with blue,
And flashing where the round clouds, blown away,
Let drop the yellow sunshine to gleam through
And tip the edges of the waves with shifts
And spots of whitest fire, hard like gems
Cut from the midnight moon they were, and sharp
As wind through leafless stems.
The Lady Eunice walked between the drifts
Of blooming cherry-trees, and watched the rifts
Of clouds drawn through the river's azure warp.


II

Her little feet tapped softly down the path.
Her soul was listless; even the morning breeze
Fluttering the trees and strewing a light swath
Of fallen petals on the grass, could please
Her not at all. She brushed a hair aside
With a swift move, and a half-angry frown.
She stopped to pull a daffodil or two,
And held them to her gown
To test the colours; put them at her side,
Then at her breast, then loosened them and tried
Some new arrangement, but it would not do.


III

A lady in a Manor-house, alone,
Whose husband is in Flanders with the Duke
Of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, she's grown
Too apathetic even to rebuke
Her idleness. What is she on this Earth?
No woman surely, since she neither can
Be wed nor single, must not let her mind
Build thoughts upon a man
Except for hers. Indeed that were no dearth
Were her Lord here, for well she knew his worth,
And when she thought of him her eyes were kind.


IV

Too lately wed to have forgot the wooing.
Too unaccustomed as a bride to feel
Other than strange delight at her wife's doing.
Even at the thought a gentle blush would steal
Over her face, and then her lips would frame
Some little word of loving, and her eyes
Would brim and spill their tears, when all they saw
Was the bright sun, slantwise
Through burgeoning trees, and all the morning's flame
Burning and quivering round her. With quick shame
She shut her heart and bent before the law.


V

He was a soldier, she was proud of that.
This was his house and she would keep it well.
His honour was in fighting, hers in what
He'd left her here in charge of. Then a spell
Of conscience sent her through the orchard spying
Upon the gardeners. Were their tools about?
Were any branches broken? Had the weeds
Been duly taken out
Under the 'spaliered pears, and were these lying
Nailed snug against the sunny bricks and drying
Their leaves and satisfying all their needs?