Three kites against the sunset
flaunt their long-tailed triangles
above the inquisitive chimney-pots.
A pompous ragged minstrel
sings beside our dining-table
a very old romantic song:
_I love the sound of the hunting-horns
deep in the woods at night._
A wind makes dance the fine acacia leaves
and flutters the cloths of the tables.
The kites tremble and soar.
The voice throbs sugared into croaking base
broken with the burden of the too ancient songs.
And yet, beyond the flaring sky,
beyond the soaring kites,
where are no voices of singers,
no strummings of guitars,
the untarnished songs
hang like great moths just broken
through the dun threads of their cocoons,
moist, motionless, limp
as flowers on the inaccessible twigs
of the yewtree, Ygdrasil,
the untarnished songs.
Will you put your hand in mine
pompous street-singer,
and start on a quest with me?
For men have cut down the woods where the laurel grew
to build streets of frame houses,
they have dug in the hills after iron
and frightened the troll-king away;
at night in the woods no hunter puffs out his cheeks
to call to the kill on the hunting-horn.
Now when the kites flaunt bravely
their tissue-paper glory in the sunset
we will walk together down the darkening streets
beyond these tables and the sunset.
We will hear the singing of drunken men
and the songs whores sing
in their doorways at night
and the endless soft crooning
of all the mothers,
and what words the young men hum
when they walk beside the river
their arms hot with caresses,
their cheeks pressed against their girls' cheeks.
We will lean very close
to the quiet lips of the dead
and feel in our worn-out flesh perhaps
a flutter of wings as they soar from us
the untarnished songs.
But the minstrel sings as the pennies clink:
_I love the sound of the hunting-horns
deep in the woods at night._
O who will go on a quest with me
beyond all wide seas
all mountain passes
and climb at last with me
among the imperishable branches
of the yewtree, Ygdrasil,
so that all the limp unuttered songs
shall spread their great moth-wings and soar
above the craning necks of the chimneys
above the tissue-paper kites and the sunset
above the diners and their dining-tables,
beat upward with strong wing-beats steadily
till they can drink the quenchless honey of the moon.
_Place du Tertre_
X
Dark on the blue light of the stream
the barges lie anchored under the moon.
On icegreen seas of sunset
the moon skims like a curved white sail
bellied by the evening wind
and bound for some glittering harbor
that blue hills circle
among the purple archipelagos of cloud.
So, in the quivering bubble of my memories
the schooners with peaked sails
lean athwart the low dark shore;
their sails glow apricot-color
or glint as white as the salt-bitten shells on the beach
and are curved at the tip like gulls' wings:
their courses are set for impossible oceans
where on the gold imaginary sands
they will unload their many-scented freight
of very childish dreams.
Dark on the blue light of the stream
the barges lie anchored under the moon;
the wind brings from them to my ears
faint creaking of rudder-cords, tiny slappings
of waves against their pitch-smeared flanks,
to my nose a smell of bales and merchandise
the wet familiar smell of harbors
and the old arousing fragrance
making the muscles ache and the blood seethe
and the eyes see the roadsteads and the golden beaches
where with singing they would furl the sails
of the schooners of childish dreams.
On icegreen seas of sunset
the moon skims like a curved white sail:
had I forgotten the fragrance of old dreams
that the smell from the anchored barges
can so fill my blood with bitterness
that the sight of the scudding moon
makes my eyes tingle with salt tears?
In the ship's track on the infertile sea
now many childish bodies float
rotting under the white moon.
_Quai des Grands Augustins_
XI
_Lua cheia esta noit_
Thistledown clouds
cover the whole sky
scurry on the southwest wind
over the sea and islands;
somehow in the sundown
the wind has shaken out plumed seed
of thistles milkweed asphodel,
raked from off great fields of dandelions
their ghosts of faded golden springs
and carried them in billowing of mist
to scurry in moonlight
out of the west.
They hide the moon
the whole sky is grey with them
and the waves.
They will fall in rain
over country gardens
where thrushes sing.
They will fall in rain
down long sparsely lighted streets
hiss on silvery windowpanes
moisten the lips
of girls leaning out
to stare after the footfalls of young men
who splash through the glimmering puddles
with nonchalant feet.
They will slap against the windows of offices
where men in black suits
shaped like pears
rub their abdomens
against frazzled edges of ledgers.
They will drizzle
over new-plowed fields
wet the red cheeks of men harrowing
and a smell of garlic and clay
will steam from the new-sowed land
and sharp-eared young herdsmen will feel
in the windy rain
lisp of tremulous love-makings
interlaced soundless kisses
impact of dead springs
nuzzling tremulous at life
in the red sundown.
Shining spring rain
O scud steaming up out of the deep sea
full of portents of sundown and islands,
beat upon my forehead
beat upon my face and neck
glisten on my outstretched hands,
run bright lilac streams
through the clogged channels of my brain
corrode the clicking cogs the little angles
the small mistrustful mirrors
scatter the shrill tiny creaking
of mustnot darenot cannot
spatter the varnish off me
that I may stand up
my face to the wet wind
and feel my body
and drenched salty palpitant April
reborn in my flesh.
I would spit the dust out of my mouth
burst out of these stiff wire webs
supple incautious
like the crocuses that spurt up too soon
their saffron flames
and die gloriously in late blizzards
and leave no seed.
_Off Pico_