They come from the fields flushed
carrying bunches of limp flowers
they plucked on teeming meadows
and moist banks scented of mushrooms.
They come from the fields tired
softness of flowers in their eyes
and moisture of rank sprouting meadows.
They stroll back with tired steps
lips still soft with the softness of petals
voices faint with the whisper of woods;
and they wander through the darkling streets
full of stench of bodies and clothes and merchandise
full of the hard hum of iron things;
and into their cheeks that the wind had burned and the sun
that kisses burned out on the rustling meadows
into their cheeks soft with lazy caresses
comes sultry
caged breath of panthers
fetid, uneasy
fury of love sprouting hot in the dust and stench
of walls and clothes and merchandise,
pent in the stridence of the twilight streets.
And they look with terror in each other's eyes
and part their hot hands stained with grasses and flowerstalks
and are afraid of their kisses.
VIII
EMBARQUEMENT POUR CYTHERE
AFTER WATTEAU
The mists have veiled the far end of the lake
this sullen amber afternoon;
our island is quite hidden, and the peaks
hang wan as clouds above the ruddy haze.
Come, give your hand that lies so limp,
a tuberose among brown oak-leaves;
put your hand in mine and let us leave
this bank where we have lain the day long.
In the boat the naked oarsman stands.
Let us walk faster, or do you fear to tear
that brocaded dress in apricot and grey?
Love, there are silk cushions in the stern
maroon and apple-green,
crocus-yellow, crimson, amber-grey.
We will lie and listen to the waves
slap soft against the prow, and watch the boy
slant his brown body to the long oar-stroke.
But, love, we are more beautiful than he.
We have forgotten the grey sick yearning nights
brushed off the old cobwebs of desire;
we stand strong
immortal as the slender brown boy who waits
to row our boat to the island.
But love how your steps drag.
And what is this bundle of worn brocades I press
so passionately to me? Old rags of the past,
snippings of Helen's dress, of Melisande's,
scarfs of old paramours rotted in the grave
ages and ages since.
No lake
the ink yawns at me from the writing table.
IX
LA RUE DU TEMPS PASSE
Far away where the tall grey houses fade
A lamp blooms dully through the dusk,
Through the effacing dusk that gently veils
The traceried balconies and the wreaths
Carved above the shuttered windows
Of forgotten houses.
Behind one of the crumbled garden walls
A pale woman sits in drooping black
And stares with uncomprehending eyes
At the thorny angled twigs that bore
Years ago in the moon-spun dusk
One scarlet rose.
In an old high room where the shadows troop
On tiptoe across the creaking boards
A shrivelled man covers endless sheets
Rounding out in his flourishing hand
Sentence after sentence loud
With dead kings' names.
Looking out at the vast grey violet dusk
A pale boy sits in a window, a book
Wide open on his knees, and fears
With cold choked fear the thronging lives
That lurk in the shadows and fill the dusk
With menacing steps.
Far away the gaslamp glows dull gold
A vague tulip in the misty night.
The clattering drone of a distant tram
Grows loud and fades with a hum of wires
Leaving the street breathless with silence, chill
And the listening houses.
_Bordeaux_
X
_O douce Sainte Genevieve
ramene moi a ta ville, Paris._
In the smoke of morning the bridges
are dusted with orangy sunshine.
Bending their black smokestacks far back
muddling themselves in their spiralling smoke
the tugboats pass under the bridges
and behind them
stately
gliding smooth like clouds
the barges come
black barges
with blunt prows spurning the water gently
gently rebuffing the opulent wavelets
of opal and topaz and sapphire,
barges casually come from far towns
towards far towns unhurryingly bound.
The tugboats shrieks and shrieks again
calling beyond the next bend and away.
In the smoke of morning the bridges
are dusted with orangy sunshine.
_O douce Sainte Genevieve
ramene moi a ta ville, Paris._
Big hairy-hoofed horses are drawing
carts loaded with flour-sacks,
white flour-sacks, bluish
in the ruddy flush of the morning streets.
On one cart two boys perch
wrestling and their arms and faces
glow ruddy against the white flour-sacks
as the sun against the flour-white sky.
_O douce Sainte Genevieve
ramene moi a ta ville, Paris._
Under the arcade
loud as castanettes with steps
of little women hurrying to work
an old hag who has a mole on her chin
that is tufted with long white hairs
sells incense-sticks, and the trail of their strangeness lingers
in the many-scented streets
among the smells of markets and peaches
and the must of old books from the quays
and the warmth of early-roasting coffee.
The old hag's incense has smothered
the timid scent of wild strawberries
and triumphantly mingled with the strong reek from the river
of green slime along stonework of docks
and the pitch-caulked decks of barges,
barges casually come from far towns
towards far towns unhurryingly bound.
_O douce Sainte Genevieve
ramene moi a ta ville, Paris._
XI
A L'OMBRE DES JEUNES FILLES EN FLEURS
And now when I think of you
I see you on your piano-stool
finger the ineffectual bright keys
and even in the pinkish parlor glow
your eyes sea-grey are very wide
as if they carried the reflection
of mocking black pinebranches
and unclimbed red-purple mountains mist-tattered
under a violet-gleaming evening.
But chirruping of marriageable girls
voices of eager, wise virgins,
no lamp unlit every wick well trimmed,
fill the pinkish parlor chairs,
bobbing hats and shrill tinkling teacups
in circle after circle about you
so that I can no longer see your eyes.
Shall I tear down the pinkish curtains
smash the imitation ivory keyboard
that you may pluck with bare fingers on the strings?
I sit cramped in my chair.
Futility tumbles everlastingly
like great flabby snowflakes about me.
Were they in your eyes, or mine
the tattered mists about the mountains
and the pitiless grey sea?
_1919_