BOOK II

Argonaut and

Juggernaut

BY

OSBERT SITWELL

LONDON

Chatto & Windus

1919

_All rights reserved_

TO

THE MEMORY OF

ROBERT ROSS

My thanks are due to Messrs. Blackwell for permission to reprint

certain poems which first appeared in the anthology "Wheels," and to

the editors of _The Times_, the _Nation_, _Art and Letters_, the

_Cambridge Magazine_, _Everyman_, _Colour_, _New Paths_, and _Poetry

and Drama_ (New Series), for allowing me to reprint various poems which

first appeared in their columns. Several of the war verses at the end

of this volume first appeared in the _Nation_ under the signature

"Miles."

"HOW SHALL WE RISE TO GREET THE DAWN?"

How shall we rise to greet the dawn?

Not timidly,

With a hand above our eyes,

But greet the strong light

Joyfully;

Nor will we mistake the dawn

For the mid-day.

We must create and fashion a new God--

A God of power, of beauty, and of strength--

Created painfully, cruelly,

Labouring from the revulsion of men's minds.

It is not that the money-changers

Ply their trade

Within the sacred places;

But that the old God

Has made the Stock Exchange his Temple.

We must drive him from it.

Why should we tinker with clay feet?

We will fashion

A perfect unity

Of precious metals.

Let us tear the paper moon

From its empty dome.

Let us see the world with young eyes.

Let us harness the waves to make power,

And in so doing,

Seek not to spoil their rolling freedom,

But to endow

The soiled and straining cities

With the same splendour of strength.

We will not be afraid,

Tho' the golden geese cackle in the Capitol,

In fear

That their eggs may be placed

In an incubator.

Continually they cackle thus--

These venerable birds--

Crying, "Those whom the Gods love

Die young,"

Or something of that sort.

But we will see that they live

And prosper.

Let us prune the tree of language

Of its dead fruit.

Let us melt up the clichés

Into molten metal;

Fashion weapons that will scald and flay;

Let us curb this eternal humour

And become witty.

Let us dig up the dragon's teeth

From this fertile soil;

Swiftly,

Before they fructify;

Let us give them as medicine

To the writhing monster itself.

We must create and fashion a new God--

A God of power, of beauty, and of strength;

Created painfully, cruelly,

Labouring from the revulsion of men's minds.

Cast down the idols of a thousand years,

Crush them to dust

Beneath the dancing rhythm of our feet.

Oh! let us dance upon the weak and cruel:

We must create and fashion a new God.

_November_, 1918.

CONTENTS

PREFACE POEM

"How shall We rise to Greet the Dawn?"

BOOK I: THE PHOENIX-FEASTERS

PART I

Prelude

The Silence of God

Adventure

Dusk

Sailor-Song

The Dance

Why should a Sailor ride the Sea?

PART II

Cornucopia

Song

Prospect Road

BOOK II: GREEN-FLY

War Horses

Church-Parade

At the House of Mrs. Kinfoot

Green-fly

De Luxe

BOOK III: PROMENADES

Nocturne

Lament of the Mole Catcher

The Beginning

The End

Fountains

Song of the Fauns

"A Sculptor's Cruelty"

Pierrot Old

Night

From Carcassonne

Progress

Return of the Prodigal

London Squares

Tears

Clavichords

Promenades

Clown Pondi

Lausiac Theme

Metamorphosis

The Gipsy Queen

Black Mass

Pierrot at the War

Spring Hours

BOOK IV: WAR POEMS

"Therefore is the Name of it called Babel"

Twentieth-Century Harlequinade

This Generation

Sheep-Song

The Poet's Lament

Judas and the Profiteer

Rhapsode

The Modern Abraham

The Trap

The Eternal Club

Heaven

The Blind Pedlar

Hymn to Moloch

Armchair

Ragtime

Peace Celebration

The Next War

BOOK I

THE PHOENIX-FEASTERS

_To_ EDITH

THE PHOENIX-FEASTERS

PART I

PRELUDE

We have wandered through the dim valleys of sleep

--That lie so still and far--

Have bathed in the lakes of silence,

Where each star

Shines brighter than its own reflection in the heavens;

Where, diving deep,

My soul has sought to catch and keep

The silver feathers of the moon

That float like down upon the waters,

In whose pale rest

We find

Forgetfulness of death

That comes so soon

--Waters that lull the mind

With some sweet breath

Of wind, of flowers,

With summer showers of rain,

Or quicken it with recreative pain.

We have fled further from this leaden cage,

Seeking those rainbow forests,

Where the light

Thrills through you, shaking, fainting, with delight;

Where sway tall luminous trees

Wind-swept in one vast flashing harmony,

That like a wave

Splashes its seething sound

And then envelops you.

We have strayed to other places,

Courts of fear,

That stretch like echoes through the endless dusk

Drenched with dead memories;

Like musk

They cling about you

In a heavy cloud.

Each shadow-sound we hear

Clutches the heart.

With fevered hands we tear

The terror-pulsing walls

--Fight our way out

--Out

Into other Courts

As vague and full of fear.

And we have found the proud and distant palaces of night.

THE SILENCE OF GOD

One night upon the southern sea

In helpless calm we lay,

Waiting for day,

Waiting for day.

As goldripe fruit fall from a tree

A comet fell; no other sight,

But in the ocean tracks of light

Trembled--then passed away,

Away.

No sound broke on our waiting ears,

Though instinct whispered wayward fears

Of things we cannot tell--

Of things the sea could tell.

No wisp of wind, no watery sound

Reached us; as if high on the ground

We stayed. A sense of fever fell

Upon each mind,

Each soul and mind.

Until our eyes, that ever sought

The cloying empty darkness, find

Another shape--or is it wrought

Of terror?--on the deep

The endless deep.

All dark it lay. No light shone out;

And though we cried across, no shout

Came back to us. As if in sleep

The black bulk lay so still,

So still.

No sign came back; no answering cry

Cleft the immense monotony

That swathed us like a funeral pall,

In folds of menace; almost shrill

The silence seemed,

And we so small.

Swiftly a boat was lowered down;

The rowlocks creaked; our track shone white

Behind us like God's frown,

God's frown.

We clambered up that great ship's height;

There was no light; there was no sound;

Nor was there any being found

Upon that ship,

That ship.

We groped our way along. God knows

How long the rats had been alone

With dust and rust! Yet flight was shown

To have been instant, in the grip

Of some force stronger than its foes

--Its human foes.

* * * * *

Then sudden from the dark there thrilled

The distant dying of a song

That hung like haze upon the sea, and filled

Each soul with joy and terror strong,

With joy and terror strong.

Upon the sombre air were spent

These notes, as from a hidden place

Where all time and all love lay pent

In lingering embrace--

In lingering embrace.

Deep in our hearts we felt the call;

We knew that if our fate should send

That song again, we must leave all

And follow to the end,

The end.

ADVENTURE

Down through the torrid seas we swept,

Sails curved like bows about to shoot.

As an arrow speeds through the air

Our ship parted the clinging waters.

Then, out of the ocean

Blossomed a distant land.

* * * * *

The air quivered,

Dancing above it

In a frenzy of passion.

Waves of heat trembled towards us

Across the cool lassitude of the ocean.

They rolled new odours at us,

Sounding the chords of hidden senses,

Till we were alert

With minds as sensitive and taut

As resined strings.

The sea itself

Crouched down behind us,

Urging us on,

Driving us on,

To unknown

Perilous adventures.

* * * * *

Ships and sea were forgotten.

We trampled

And stumbled

On, on,

Through the burning sand

To the hot shroud of the squat threatening forest,

Where, as you walked,

You tore apart

A solid sheet of air.

Brown satyrs grimaced at us,

Swinging with long hairy arms

From crooked branch to crooked branch.

The sun

Was at its height.

Rays pierced the hot shade;

White lines of light

Shot through the shadows

To where a point of green

Shuddered with dangerous movement,

Throbbed and hummed with the whirr of insects.

Birds more bright than any streamers from the sun

Cleft the air

Like hammers;

Scintillating wings

Tossed patches of colour

Into the dark shimmering air.

Shrill calls

Whistled like knives

Hurled through the empty heat.

Frantic chattering rose up.

Through the honeycombed darkness

Slim animals

--Their hides splashed with false sunlight--

Quivered away

Into the hollow distance.

Or clattered past us,

Cloven hooves

Kicking at the hard, bent trunks

Of gnarled trees.

Large hairy fruits of wood

Were cast at us,

Snarlingly,

From the darkness.

Faces

--Faces peered down

From the interwoven boughs.

Hastily we stumbled on;

Hurriedly we stumbled back,

Bewildered.

Small tracks

Tripped through the blackness

Hither and thither;

Twigs crawled from under our feet,

Hissing away

In venom

--And we were bewildered.

Then suddenly

We felt,

Rumbling in curling patterns through the ground,

The beating of drums.

As winds bellow into caves,

As waves swirl and curl into hollows,

We heard the blowing of wooden trumpets

And of pipes.

Soon,

Under the western canopy of the sun,

Where the fevered hills lay huddled together,

We saw great gourd-shaped palaces

Loom up like mountains.

Figures played on trumpets,

Twisted like snakes,

Or on the curved, carved horns of unknown beasts.

In the sound was mirrored

The panic seizures of the night,

--The fear of things that walk in darkness.

The drums were painted

In hot colours

That, even through the dusk,

Glowed torture and writhing torment.

Like a shower of molten lead

The din fell down upon us

From the Palaces.

Bare yellow women

Hurried

To greet us;

Their heels swayed inward

As they walked.

They offered fruits

--Fruits that were strange to us;

Mellow they were, and with a scent

Of sun, of summer,

And of woodland nights.

We ate

--And dreams closed round.

* * * * *

DUSK

Night like a hawk

Swooped down

On to the phoenix bird,

--Tore out its flaming feathers.

Solitary plumes

Flared down into the darkness,

Floating above the distant sea.

Stillness and heat clung together;

And the hawk

Spread out her wings.

Gigantic pinions

Flutter the air above,

Fanning our faces

And

We sing.....

SAILOR-SONG

On swinging seas our ship has flown

--In sun and shadow lands alit.

We saw the sack of Carthage Town

(And Dido building it).

Cassandra, direful prophetess,

We heard foretell the fate of Troy,

And through its streets helped wheel and press

That wooden, painted toy.

We've seen events aboard this hulk

Of grave import and mystery

--The serpent's writhing horrid bulk

Go seething through the sea.

Then once we left Atlantis Town.

Behind us like a lily flower

It blossomed; but then down, far down,

Sank every vane and tower.

Now you can hear the clanging beat

Of bells beneath the furious foam.

In coral palaces the great

Sea monsters make their home.

Their corridors with pearl are pav'd;

Float down them in an endless flight

Fierce finny beasts. The walls are laved

In irridescent light.

We brought gifts--myrrh and frankincense--

From Khubla to the Great Moghul;

Espied the Juggernaut immense

Pound over flesh and skull;

Saw desert-men atone for ills

With frenzied hands, with wounds that gape,

--The hermits hidden in the hills

--The Herod in his Tyrian Cape.

From out our ship, held fast by gale,

We watched Andromeda's release;

Beheld the galleon in full sail

That flew the Golden Fleece.

Icarus, proud of his new power,

We saw stretch out his wings to fly.

We heard in that tremendous hour

The cry from Calvary.

Thus many things we understand

That puzzle landsmen: we can tell

Of perils in each time and land;

But outside Heaven or Hell

No fruit so strange we tasted save

But one; none cast so strange a spell

Except the fruit the first Eve gave

To the first man who fell.

THE DANCE

The song ends.

The rocking earth

Plunges madly

--Lunges like a man

About to fight.

Trees roll beckoning branches at us,

Branches that swing and sway.

From the forest

The animals

Howl

Like laughter.

With their burning scimiters

Flames slice the night.

Monotony,

A life preserved in ocean salt,

Scales off our limbs.

Within our veins

The liquor of this fruit-of-fire

Mounts in splendour inexhaustible.

The world itself

Dances

To make us dance

In cosmic frenzy.

WHY SHOULD A SAILOR RIDE THE SEA?

Why should a sailor ride the sea,

When he can drink and dance and sing,

Or watch the stars out-blossoming

Upon the tree of night?

Why should he face the tear-salt waves,

When he can sing, or feast on fruit,

Dance to the silver-sobbing lute,

And all men seem his slaves?

No more to ship or sea we'll go,

To watch the land sink out of sight

Suffused by purple fumes of night,

Each heart weighed down with woe.

But under rustling fretted lace

Of leaves, we'll dance and stamp our feet

In frenzy, to the furious beat,

--The rhythm of all space.

Or watch each dappled fawn and elf

Spring from the green lairs where they hide;

Now every soul is multiplied

And communes with itself.

The softly sailing moon is now

A pendulum, hung in a vast

Blue bubble--so to mark our fast

Lithe movements to and fro.

Down from the sky the willing stars

Fall round each brow a crown to form;

Till feet and limbs, a rushing storm,

Dance whirling on in ecstasy.

The earth dances;

The earth dances;

Trees charge at us

Like horsemen;

Forests swoop

Down the hill,

Charging at us,

But we are brave,

Full of a fiery courage,

And go onward

Onward,

Through the galloping trees.

We shout

Glowing phrases

--Snatches of ineffable wit.

The frenzy in our feet

Must surely set the world afire.

Yet still the stars

Rain down their golden tremors of delight,

And the moon

Sweeps like a bird

Through the arch of space.

We, too,

Float downward

Gently

To soft shipwreck.

We, too,

Are of the kindred of the Pleiades;

Reel on our golden path

Down,

Down,

Through the curved emptiness of the heavens.

PART II

CORNUCOPIA

Now music fills the night with moving shades;

Its velvet darkness, veined like a grape,

Obscures and falls round many a subtle shape

--Figures that steal through cool tall colonnades,

Vast minotaurian corridors of sleep;

Rhythmic they pass us, splashed by red cascades

Of wine, fierce-flashing fountains whose proud waves

Shimmer awhile; plunge foaming over steep

Age-polished rocks, into the dim cold caves

Of starlit dusk below--then merge with night,

Softly as children sinking into sleep.

But now more figures sway into our sight;

Strong and bare-shouldered, pressed and laden down,

Stagger across the terraces. They bear

Great Cornucopia of summer fruit

And heavy roses scented with the noon

--Piled up with fruit and blossoms, all full blown,

Crimson, or golden as the harvest moon--

Piled up and overflowing in a flood

Of riches; brilliant-plumaged birds, that sing

As the faint playing on a far sweet lute,

Warble their tales of conquest and of love;

Perch on each shoulder; sweep each rainbow wing

Like light'ning through the breathless dark above.

Heaped up in vases gems shine hard and bright;

Sudden they flare out--gleaming red like blood--

For now the darkness turns to swelling light,

Great torches gild each shadow, tear the sky,

As drums tear through the silence of the night;

Breaking its crystal quiet--making us cry

Or catch our sobbing breath in sudden fear.

A shadow stumbles, and the jewels shower

On to the pavers with a sharp sweet sound.

They mingle with the fountain drops that flower

Up in a scarlet bloom above the ground,

A beauteous changing blossom; then they rain

On to the broad mysterious terraces,

Where sea-gods rise to watch in cold disdain

Before those vast vermillion palaces,

--Watch where the slumbering coral gods of noon,

Drunk with the sudden golden light and flare

Of flaming torches, try to pluck and tear

That wan enchanted lotus flower, the moon,

Down from its calm still waters; thus they fall,

Like flowing plumes, the fountains of our festival.

Slowly the torches die. They echo long,

These last notes of a Bacchanalian song,

Of drifting drowsy beauty, born of sleep,

--Vast as the sea, as changing and as deep.

In thanksgiving for shelt'ring summer skies

Still, far away, a fervent red light glows.

Small winds brush past against our lips and eyes,

Caress them like a laughing summer rose,

And rainbow moths flit by, in circling flight.

A harp sobs out its crystal syruppings;

Faintly it sounds, as the poor petal-wings,

Fragile yet radiant, of a butterfly

Beating against the barriers of night.

Then from the Ocean came the Syren song,

Heavy with perfume, yet faint as a sigh,

Kissing our minds, and changing right from wrong;

Chaining our limbs; making our bodies seem

Inert and spellbound, dead as in a dream.

* * * * *

Bound by the silver fetters of your voice

To this new slavery of dreams,

We, listening, rejoice.

The magic strains

Swell in this darkness star-devoid.

The music streams

Upon the world in patterns passionate yet clear,

And stains

Each soul. The mind, decoyed

By thoughts that grind and tear

Away old values,

Is sent down other thoughts

So subtly swift,

That in their fleeting passage

They can cut adrift our souls

Upon a sea of wonder and of fear.

Within the arid minds of men

This music sounds but once, for then

They hear no other song.

In it, tumultuous rush of wings,

The glamour of old lovely things

In deserts buried long,

The grace of beasts that bound and leap

With movements blithe and strong

--Of those that creep

Away in hissing-reptile rage--

All these, all these are found.

They hear

The secrets, solved, of each dead age,

Each mystery is clear.

For in this music's flow, the din

Of spheres that tear and speed and spin

Through pulsing space is heard,

And all things men have loved and feared

Are mirror'd in each sound.

SONG

Our hidden voices, wreathed with love's soft flowers,

Wind-toss'd thro' valleys, tremble across seas

To turbann'd cities; touch tall lonely towers,

Call to you thro' the sky, the wind, the trees.

Misted and golden as the hanging moon,

That like a summer fruit floats from the sky,

Thrills out our distant age-enchanted tune,

--Nor will it let you pass our beauty by.

But if it should not reach to stir your mind,

Then hold a summer rose against the ear,

Till through its crimson sweetness you can hear

The falling flow of rhythm--so designed

That from this secret island, like a star

Shining above a shrouded world, our song

Cleaves through the darkest night and echoes long,

Bidding you follow whether near or far.

Come hither where the mermaids churn the foam,

Lashing their tails across the calm, or dive

To groves and gardens of bright flowers; then roam

Beneath the shade of stone-branched trees, or drive

Some slow sea-monster to its musselled home.

Here, as a ladder, they climb up and down

The rainbow's steep refracted steps of light,

Till, when the dusk sends down its rippling frown,

They quiver back to us in silver flight.

The moon sails down once more; our mermaids bring

Rich gifts of ocean fruit. Again we sing.

Enchantment, love, vague fear, and memories

That cling about us like the fumes of wine

With myriad love-enhancing mysteries

We pour out in one song--intense--divine,

Down the deep moonlit chasms of the waves

Our song floats on the opiate breeze. Why seek

To goad your carven galleys, fast-bound slaves

Who search each sweeping line of bay and creek,

Only to stagger on a hidden rock, or find

The limp dead sails swept off by sudden wind?

Thus always you must search the cruel sea,

For if you find us mankind shall be free!

But when you sleep we grasp you by the hand,

And to the trickling honey of the flute

We lead you to a distant shimmering land

Where lotus-eaters munch their golden fruit,

Then fall upon the fields of summer flowers

In drunken sunlit slumber, while a fawn

Prances and dances round them.

Oh, those hours

When through the crystal valleys of the dawn

Down from the haunted forests of the night

There dash the dew-drenched centaurs on their way,

Mad with the sudden rush of golden light

--Affright the lotus-eaters, as they sway

Towards the woodlands in a stumbling flight.

In these deep groves we follow through the cool

Shadow of high columnar trees, to find

The fallen sky within a forest pool

That's faintly veiled and fretted by a wind,

Lest our white flashing limbs should turn you blind.

* * * * *

As the sweet sound of bells that fall and fade

In watery circles on the verge of night,

So rounded ripples spread beneath the shade

Of flowing branches dripping with green light.

Thus do we wander; but when day is spent

We grope our way thro' vast tall palaces,

Palaces sinister and somnolent,

Where lurk dim fears and unknown menaces.

These high pale walls and this pale shining floor

Seem built of bones, by ages planed and ground

To a white smoothness.

On this rock-bound shore

The bodies of dead sailors oft are found.

These sombre arches pierce the sullen sky.

These pillars are the pillars of the night.

Of what avail your strife and agony?

Why seek to search and struggle for the light?

Our music chains you: binds your limbs from flight.

PROSPECT ROAD

Gigantic houses, tattered by all time,

Raise their immense and ruined bulk and height

In one unending universal street,

Against a strange and sunken yellow sky

--Like sunset trickling through into the sea,

Down to the depths--yellow and grey and green.

Blind windows face the interminable road;

Innumerable those windows seem to stretch

All smeared and stained and stamped with time and blood,

--Stains that seem faces--horrid twitching masks

Moving their lewd derisive lips and tongues,

Spitting out treacheries with vampire lips--

Or eyes that gaze from far blank-stretching walls

--The tortured eyes of those who see their death

Approaching æon-by-æon along this road.

Behind the walls sound voices whispering

Of dire and hidden, carefully hidden, thoughts--

Cruel, wicked and unfathomable things

That lie behind this infamy of stone.

Then clamour, shrieking voices, or a pause

That falls like lead through the suspended air;

Broken by laughter--rending piercing sounds

That seem to tear the fabric of our minds.

Slinking along these wicked, stricken walls,

I reached a shining distant point of light.

And glory came--vast and unending light,

Rays--flashing, writhing rays of light.

And then the music sounded. Ah, that sound!

Cadences rose and fell unendingly--

Quivering, shining waves of sound and sight--

Sounds of the universe--the cries of space

And planets tumbling wildly round our world

--Showing the meaning of the meaningless.

"God and eternity"--strange flashing sounds

The whirl of time, "Melchisedec"--"Glory of God"

And space--the universe--like framing words--

"Gog and Magog"--"Infinity"--the rush of waters

And the sky comes down.

Down with the splintering stars.

1916-1919.

BOOK II

GREEN FLY

WAR-HORSES

How they come out

--These Septuagenarian Butterflies--

After resting

For four years!

Surely they are more spirited

Than ever?

Their enamelled wings

Are rusty with waiting

--Their eyelids

Sag a little

Like those of a bloodhound;

But they swim gaily into the limelight.

Oh, these war-horses!

They have seen it through.

Theirs has been a splendid part!

The waiting--the weariness!

For the Queens of Sheba

Are used to courts and feasting;

But for four years

Platitudes have remained

Uncoined,

For there have been few parties

And only

Three stout meals

A day.

But now

They have come out.

They have preened

And dried themselves

After their blood-bath.

Old men seem a little younger,

And tortoise-shell combs

Are longer than ever;

Earrings weigh down aged ears;

And Golconda has given them of its best.

They have seen it through!

Theirs is the triumph,

And, beneath

The carved smile of the Mona Lisa

False teeth,

Rattle

Like machine guns,

In anticipation

Of food and platitudes.

Les Veilles Dames Sans Merci!

CHURCH-PARADE

The flattened sea is harsh and blue--

Lies stiff beneath--one tone, one hue,

While concertina waves unfold

The painted shimmering sands of gold.

Each bird that whirls and wheels on high

Must strangle, stifle in, its cry,

For nothing that's of Nature born

Should seem so on the Sabbath morn.

The terrace glitters hard and white,

Bedaubed and flecked with points of light

That flicker at the passers-by--

Reproachful as a curate's eye.

And china flowers, in steel-bound beds,

Flare out in blues and flaming reds;

Each blossom, rich and opulent,

Stands like a soldier; and its scent

Is turned to camphor in the air.

No breath of wind would ever dare

To make the trees' plump branches sway,

Whose thick green leaves hang down to pray.

The stiff, tall churches vomit out

Their rustling masses of devout,

Tall churches whose stained Gothic night

Refuses to receive the light!

Watch how the stately walk along

Toward the terrace, join the throng

That paces carefully up and down

Above a cut-out cardboard town!

With prayer-book rigid in each hand,

They look below at sea and sand.

The round contentment in their eyes

Betrays their favourite fond surmise,

That all successful at a trade

Shall tread an eternal Church-Parade,

And every soul that's sleek and fat

Shall gain a heavenly top-hat.

From out the Church's Gothic night,

Past beds of blossoms china-bright,

Beneath the green trees' porous shade,

We watch the sea-side Church-Parade.

AT THE HOUSE OF MRS. KINFOOT

At the house of Mrs. Kinfoot

Are collected

Men and women

Of all ages.

They are supposed

To sing, paint, or to play the piano.

In the drawing-room

The fireplace is set

With green tiles

Of an acanthus pattern.

The black curls of Mrs. Kinfoot

Are symmetrical.

--Descended, it is said,

From the Kings of Ethiopia--

But the British bourgeoisie has triumphed.

Mr. Kinfoot is bald

And talks

In front of the fireplace

With his head on one side,

And his right hand

In his pocket.

The joy of catching tame elephants,

And finding them to be white ones,

Still gleams from the jungle-eyes

Of Mrs. Kinfoot,

But her mind is no jungle

Of Ethiopia,

But a sound British meadow.

Listen then to the gospel of Mrs. Kinfoot:

"The world was made for the British bourgeoisie,

They are its Swiss Family Robinson;

The world is not what it was.

We cannot understand all this unrest!

Adam and Eve were born to evening dress

In the southern confines

Of Belgravia.

Eve was very artistic, and all that,

And felt the fall

Quite dreadfully.

Cain was such a man of the world

And belonged to every club in London;

His father simply adored him,

--But had never really liked Abel,

Who was rather a milk-sop.

Nothing exists which the British bourgeoisie

Does not understand;

Therefore there is no death

--And, of course, no life.

The British bourgeoisie

Is not born,

And does not die,

But, if it is ill,

It has a frightened look in its eyes.

The War was splendid, wasn't it?

Oh yes, splendid, splendid."

Mrs. Kinfoot is a dear,

And so artistic.

GREEN-FLY

I.

Like ninepins houses stand up square

In lines; their windows mouths to bite

At servants, who lean out to stare

At anything that moves in sight.

Where once was green-limbed tree or ledge

Of greener moss or flowery lane,

Set back behind a private hedge

Each house repeats itself again.

Each house repeats itself again,

But smaller still and yet more dry;

For--just as those who live within--

So have these houses progeny.

Throughout each dusty endless year,

Whose days seem merely wet or fine,

These children constantly appear

In an unending dusty line.

As, on a rose that is ill-grown

Nature, insulted and defied,

Showers down a blight, so sends she down

On houses, those who live inside.

II.

Within each high, well-papered room,

Compressed, all darkness lay,

Darkness of night, and crypt, and tomb,

Nor ever entered day.

But through the endless black there crept,

With groping hand and groping thought,

With eyes that blinked, but never wept,

And minds that fell, but never fought,

The wonderless, the hard, the nice,

Who scurry at a ray of light,

Then, like a flock of frightened mice,

Career back into night.

From out this damning dreadful dark

(While history, thundering, rolls by)

They wait for an anæmic lark

To sing from weak blue sky.

Or if a dog is hurt, why then

They see the evil, and they cry.

But yet they watch ten million men

Go out to end in agony!

Their own strange God they have set up,

Of clay, of iron, and mothéd hide;

Whose eyes, each convex as a cup,

Reflect the herd endeified.

Their twisted feet in boots He made

To walk the narrow asphalt way,

And gave each room a curtain's shade

To muffle out the light of day.

For this God understands their need;

Created lids for each pale eye;

He sculped each mouth to say "Agreed,"

And gives them coffins if they die.

When, if for punishment they go

To other lands, why, it should be

The judgment that, down there below,

They see this world as they might see!

A world of contrast, shade and light--

Clashing romance and cruelty,

But stricken with the dreadful blight

Of fear to feel and fear to cry.

Where for a moment lives are filled

With love or hate--where born of pain

The children grow up--to be killed!

Where freedom--dead--is born again.

Wherein life's pattern crude and shrill

Is weft by neither foe nor friend,

But by some rough colossal will

Towards some vast invisible end.

But in those houses dark there creep,

With bodies wrapt in woollen dress,

With eyes that blink but never weep,

The sentimental wonderless!

DE LUXE

I.

HYMN.

Above from plaster-mountains,

Wine-shadowed by the sea,

Spurt white-wool clouds, as fountains

Whirl from a rockery.

These clouds were surely given

To keep the hills from harm,

For when a cloud is riven

The fatted rain falls warm.

Through porous leaves the sun drops

Each dripping stalactite

Of green. The chiselled tree-tops

Seem cut from malachite.

Stiff leaves with ragged edges

(Each one a wooden sword)

Are carved to prickly hedges,

On which, with one accord,

Their clock-work songs of calf-love

Stout birds stop to recite,

From cages which the sun wove

Of shade and latticed light.

Each brittle booth and joy-store

Shines brightly. Below these

The ocean at a toy shore

Yaps like a Pekinese.

II.

NURSERY RHYME.

The dusky king of Malabar

Is chief of Eastern Potentates;

Yet he wears no clothes except

The jewels that decency dictates.

A thousand Malabaric wives

Roam beneath green-tufted palms;

Revel in the vileness

That Bishop Heber psalms.

From honey-combs of light and shade

They stop to watch black bodies dart

Into the sea to search for pearls.

By means of diabolic art

Magicians keep the sharks away;

Mutter, utter, each dark spell,

So that if a thief should steal,

One more black would go to Hell.

But Mrs. Freudenthal, in furs,

From brioche dreams to mild surprise

Awakes; the music throbs and purrs.

The cellist, with albino eyes,

Rivets attention; is, in fact,

The very climax; pink eyes flash

Whenever nervous and pain-racked

He hears the drums and cymbols clash.

Mrs. Freudenthal day-dreams

--Ice-spoon half-way to her nose--

Till the girl in ochre screams,

Hits out at the girl in rose.

This is not at all the way

To act in large and smart hotels;

Angrily the couples sway,

Eagerly the riot swells.

Girls who cannot act with grace

Should learn behaviour; stay at home;

A convent is the proper place.

Why not join the Church of Rome?

A waiter nearly drops the tray

--Twenty tea-cups in one hand.

Now the band joins in the fray,

Fighting for the Promised Land.

Mrs. Freudenthal resents

The scene; and slowly rustles out,

But the orchestra relents,

Waking from its fever bout.