  You mutter, with your face Pleading for more room because It has scanned a panorama: You mutter, with every difference On your face an error in size Mesmerized by the sight of a sky-line: “Life is a nightmare and something delicate.” Lady, they have made a world for you, And if you dare to leave it They will flagellate you With the bones of dead men’s thoughts, And five senses, five termagants Snapping at the uneasy mind. “No, five riotous flirts,” You say, “and each one has A thick blandishment to master the mind.” Yes, lady, through the bold disarrangement of words Life acquires with great foresight An interesting nervousness. But O lady with a decadent music Somehow silent in lines of flesh, Finding your face too small, Finding the earth too small, Have they not informed you That crowding life into seven words Is an insincere and minor epigram? And have they not reprimanded you Because you fail to observe Their vile and fervent spontaneity, These howlers of earthly shrouds? And have they neglected to drive The bluster of their knuckles against your face Because you rush from the leg and arm Anecdotes of microscopical towns, Bandying with a fantasy Which they call thin and valueless? “Life is a nightmare and something delicate,” You repeat, and then, “O yes, they have done these things To me because I take not seriously The interval between two steps Made by Death, who has grown a little tired. When Death recovers his vigor The intervals will become Shorter and shorter until No more men are alive. But now they have their chance. The wild, foul fight of life Delights in refreshing phrases— Swift-pouring tranquillities and ecstasies Atoning for the groaning stampede That desecrates the light Between each dawn and twilight. And those who stand apart Use the edged art of their minds To cut the struggling pack of bodies Into naked, soiled distinctness.” Lady, do not let them hear you. You are too delicate— Deliberately, nimbly, remotely, strongly Delicate—and you will remind them Too much of Death, who is also The swiftly fantastic compression Of every adjective and adverb Marching to nouns that live Beyond the intentions of men. Men are not able, lady, They will smear your face With the loose, long hatred of their words. I will wash your face With new metaphors and similes, Telling carefully with my hands That I love you not for your skin, And every bird at twilight Will be enviously astonished At your face now insubstantial Indeed, you have an irony That ironically doubts Whether its power is supreme, And at such times you accept The adequate distraction Of cold and shifting fantasy. This is your mood and mine, And with it we open the window To look upon the night. The night, with distinguished coherence, Is saying yes to the soul And mending its velvet integrity Torn by one forlorn Animal that bounds From towns and villages. The night is Blake in combat With an extraordinary wolf Whose head can take the mobile Protection of a smile; Whose heart contains the ferocious Lies of ice and fire; Whose heart with stiff and sinuous Promises swindles the lips and limbs of men; Whose heart persuades its confusion To welcome the martyred certainties Whose brain is but a calmness Where the falsehoods of earth Can fashion masks of ideas. Welcome the wolf. Bring lyrics to fondle his hair. Summon your troops of words And exalt his gasping contortions. Lady, it is my fear That makes me give you these commands. Men will force upon you The garland of their spit If you fail to glorify, Or eagerly disrobe, The overbearing motives of their flesh. And every irony of yours Will be despised unless A hand of specious warmth Directs the twist of your blades. O lady, you are flashing detachment Clad in exquisitely careful Fantasy, and on your face Pity and irony unite To form the nimble light of contemplations. Men will dread you as they fear Death, the Ultimate Preciosity. Stay with me within this chamber And tell me that your heart Is near to a spiral of pain Curving perfectly From the squirming of a world. See, you have made me luminous With this news, and my heart, Fighting to be original, Ends its struggle in yours. Of conscious imagination Upon the darkness of this room. Night and window still remain. Night, spiritual acrobat, Evades with great undulations The moans and exultations of men. His madly elastic invitation To the souls of men Gathers up the imagination Of one poet, starving in a room Where rats and scandals ravish the light. With conscious combinations of words The poet bounds through space with Night. Together they observe The bleeding, cheated mob Of bodies robbed by one quick thrill. Cold, exact, and fanciful, They drop the new designs of words Upon a vastly obvious contortion. Poet and night can see No difference between The peasant, groveling and marred, And smoother men who cringe more secretly. Yet they give these men The imaginary distinctions of words. Compassionate poet and night. You say: “With glaring details Attended by the voices of men, Morning will attack the poet. Men will brandish adjectives. Tenuous! Stilted! Artificial! Dreams of warm permanence Will grasp the little weapons Furnished by the servant-mind. |
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