A Woman of Thirty | Page 7

curve in foliations prodigal

Round and around his face,
Extending till the echoes interlace
With

Pride and Prudence, two cranes, gaunt and tall.
Four lesser lions crouch and malign the cranes,
Cursing and gossiping
they shake their manes
While from their long tongues leak
Drops of
thin venom as they speak.
The cranes, unmoved, peck grapes and
grains
From a huge cornucopia, which rains
A plenteous meal from
its antique
Interior (a note quite curiously Greek).
And nine long serpents twist
And twine, twist and twine,
A
riotously beautiful design
Whose elements consist
Of eloquent
spirals, fair and fine,
Embracing cranes and lions, who exist

Seemingly free, yet tangled in that living vine.
And in this chest shall be
Two cubic meters of space
Enough to
hold all memory
Of you and me--
And this shall be the place

Where silence shall embrace
Our bodies, and obliterate the trace

Our souls made on the purity
Of night...
Now lock the chest, for we

Are dead, and lose the key!
The Pedlar
Hark, people, to the cry
Of this curious young magician-pedlar

Seeking a golden bowl!
He wanders through the city
Offering useful tin-ware
For all the
ancient metal
You have left to rust
In the dim, dusty attic
Or
mouldy cellar
Of your soul.
He refuses nothing--
Rusty nails
Which may have played their part

In a crucifixion--
For ten of these he will give
A new tin spoon.
The andirons
Once guarding hearth-fires of content,
Now dusty and
forgotten
In an obscure corner,
He will give for these
A new tin
tea-kettle
With a wooden handle.

And for this antique bowl
Fashioned to hold
Roses or wine?
The eyes of the pedlar glisten!
O woman, if acid reveal
Gold
beneath the tarnished surface
He will gladly give you
His hands, his
eyes, his soul,
His young, white body--
If not,
A mocking laugh
And a bright tin sieve
To hold your wine

And roses.
Portrait of a Lady in Bed
I. THE COVERLET
My cowardice
Covers me safely
From everything...
From cold, which makes me yield
And quietly die
Beneath the
snow;
From heat, which makes me faint
Until cool nothingness receives me;
From hurt, (Seize me, O Lion,
And I shall die of fright
Before I feel
your teeth!)
From love,
Yes, most of all from love.
How can love touch me?
Is it not heat,
Or cold,
Or a lion?
My cowardice covers me
Safely
From everything!
II. THE PILLOW
To know you think of me
Sustains my Spirit
Through the long
night.
(My thought of you
Is wine, banishing sleep!)
Your thoughts of me are feathers,
Light nothings,
Drifting, dancing,


Floating,
Blown by a breath of fancy
Away from your sight.
They would choke me,
They would blind me
With the Nothing I
am to you
If I dared see them;
But I bind them into a pillow,
And
to know that you think of me
Sustains my spirit
Through the night.
III. SOUVENIR
Harlequin, seeing me gay
You loved me,
For fools need mirth,
O solemn Harlequin!
Tall tragedians make me laugh
Joyously, riotously,
Tall, dark
villains, and heroes with blonde hair
Make me laugh uproariously...

(I could elope with a tragedian!)
But you with your clowning, Harlequin,
Brought bony truth too
near--
Harlequin, I might have loved you
But I could not make you gay!
IV. THE CURTAIN
I do not fear
You, or me, or death,
There now is nothing left to fear
But this,
This curtain of blackness.
Once I feared you,
And all you thought and felt
And all you said and did:
I feared myself,
And all you made me
think and feel
And say and do--
Now I no longer fear
Thinking, feeling, saying, doing,
Nor blankness, silence, apathy, torpor--
I do not fear
You, or me, or death--

I only fear
This curtain of blackness
Which is your absence.
V. THE DREAM
Harlequin comes to me, smiling,
Through the white-shining birch
trees
Of the twilight wood.
He has forgiven
My cowardice and hesitations,
Soon I shall sink
into his arms
With all the imagined fervour...
Of a thousand
dreams.
Why does he come so slowly?
There is no longer anything
To mar
our meeting...
This must be real
For Harlequin is still clowning,
He waves his
arms grotesquely
To make me smile....
Quick, into his arms
With unspent fervour.
Why are the trees all
sighing?
Look, whispering birches, if you will,
I and my love
embrace!
They do not look,
They do not seem to care...
Embrace me, my beloved!
(Can these by passionate kisses?
They
feel so thin and cool
Like mist.)
The birches shiver
As though the night-wind stirred them.
Can we be dead?
Portrait of a Gentleman
Tower of stone
Rugged and lonely,
My thoughts like ivy
Embrace
my memory of you,
Climbing riotously, wantonly,
Till the harsh
walls
Are clothed in tender green.

Tower of stone,
Stark walls and a narrow door
Which speak:
"You who are not for me
Are against me,--
If you are mine,

Enter!"
But who would be prisoned
In unknown darkness?
Tower of stone
Rugged and lonely,
I dared not enter and I would
not go
Till clasping you
My arms were bruised and torn.
From the Madison Street Police Station
I, John Shepherd, vagrant,
Petition the park commissioners
For
wider benches.
My soul has long been reconciled
To the prick of gunny-sack,
(O
well-remembered woollen fleeces!)
And rustling vests of newspaper,

And the chill of rubbers on unshod feet,
But to the wasteful
burning of dry leaves,
God's shepherd's mattress,
Never!
Descendant of ancient ones
Who tended flocks and watched the
midnight sky,
My forebears saw the Eastern star appear
Over
Judean hills.