New Poems | Page 3

will that holds him there.
The daisies in the grass are bending,?The hawk has dropped, the wind is spending?All the roses, and unending?Rustle of leaves washes out the rending?Cry of a bird.
A red rose goes on the wind.--Ascending?The hawk his wind-swept way is wending?Easily down the sky. The daisies, sending?Strange white signals, seem intending?To show the place whence the scream was heard.
But, oh, my heart, what birds are piping!?A silver wind is hastily wiping?The face of the youngest rose.
And oh, my heart, cease apprehending!?The hawk is gone, a rose is tapping?The window-sash as the west-wind blows.
Knock, knock, 'tis no more than a red rose rapping,?And fear is a plash of wings.?What, then, if a scarlet rose goes flapping?Down the bright-grey ruin of things!
PARLIAMENT HILL IN THE?EVENING
THE houses fade in a melt of mist?Blotching the thick, soiled air?With reddish places that still resist?The Night's slow care.
The hopeless, wintry twilight fades,?The city corrodes out of sight?As the body corrodes when death invades?That citadel of delight.
Now verdigris smoulderings softly spread?Through the shroud of the town, as slow?Night-lights hither and thither shed?Their ghastly glow.
PICCADILLY CIRCUS AT NIGHT
_Street-Walkers_.
WHEN into the night the yellow light is roused like
dust above the towns,?Or like a mist the moon has kissed from off a pool in
the midst of the downs,
Our faces flower for a little hour pale and uncertain
along the street,?Daisies that waken all mistaken white-spread in expectancy
to meet
The luminous mist which the poor things wist was
dawn arriving across the sky,?When dawn is far behind the star the dust-lit town
has driven so high.
All the birds are folded in a silent ball of sleep,
All the flowers are faded from the asphalt isle in
the sea,?Only we hard-faced creatures go round and round,
and keep?The shores of this innermost ocean alive and
illusory.
Wanton sparrows that twittered when morning
looked in at their eyes?And the Cyprian's pavement-roses are gone, and
now it is we?Flowers of illusion who shine in our gauds, make a
Paradise?On the shores of this ceaseless ocean, gay birds of
the town-dark sea.
TARANTELLA
SAD as he sits on the white sea-stone?And the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon,?And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and
the boulders.?He sits like a shade by the flood alone?While I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and the
croon?Of my mockery mocks at him over the waves'
bright shoulders.
What can I do but dance alone,?Dance to the sliding sea and the moon,?For the moon on my breast and the air on my limbs
and the foam on my feet??For surely this earnest man has none?Of the night in his soul, and none of the tune?Of the waters within him; only the world's old
wisdom to bleat.
I wish a wild sea-fellow would come down the
glittering shingle,?A soulless neckar, with winking seas in his eyes?And falling waves in his arms, and the lost soul's kiss?On his lips: I long to be soulless, I tingle?To touch the sea in the last surprise?Of fiery coldness, to be gone in a lost soul's bliss.
IN CHURCH
IN the choir the boys are singing the hymn.
The morning light on their lips?Moves in silver-moist flashes, in musical trim.
Sudden outside the high window, one crow
Hangs in the air?And lights on a withered oak-tree's top of woe.
One bird, one blot, folded and still at the top
Of the withered tree!--in the grail?Of crystal heaven falls one full black drop.
Like a soft full drop of darkness it seems to sway
In the tender wine?Of our Sabbath, suffusing our sacred day.
PIANO
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;?Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see?A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the
tingling strings?And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who
smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song?Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong?To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter
outside?And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano
our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour?With the great black piano appassionato. The
glamour?Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast?Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a
child for the past.
EMBANKMENT AT NIGHT,?BEFORE THE WAR
_Charity_.
BY the river?In the black wet night as the furtive rain slinks
down,?Dropping and starting from sleep?Alone on a seat?A woman crouches.
I must go back to her.
I want to give her?Some money. Her hand slips out of the breast of
her gown?Asleep. My fingers creep?Carefully over the sweet?Thumb-mound, into the palm's deep pouches.
So, the gift!
God, how she starts!?And looks at me, and looks in the palm of her hand!?And again at me!?I turn and run?Down the Embankment, run for my life.
But why?--why?
Because of my heart's?Beating like sobs, I come to myself, and stand?In the street spilled over splendidly?With wet, flat lights. What I've done?I know not, my soul is in strife.
The touch was on the quick. I want to forget.
PHANTASMAGORIA
RIGID sleeps the