Men, Women and Ghosts | Page 4

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