See how the frail white pagodas of blossom
stand up on the great green hills
of the chestnuts
and how the sun has burned the wintry murk
and all the stale odor of anguish
out of the sky
so that the swollen clouds bellying with sail
can parade in pomp like white galleons.
And they move the slow plumed clouds
above the spidery grey webs of cities
above fields full of golden chime
of cowslips
above warbling woods where the ditches
are wistfully patined
with primroses pale as the new moon
above hills all golden with gorse
and gardens frothed
to the brim of their grey stone walls
with apple bloom, cherry bloom,
and the raspberry-stained bloom of peaches and almonds.
So do the plumed clouds sail
swelling with satiny pomp of parade
towards somewhere far away
where in a sparkling silver sea
full of little flakes of indigo
the great salt waves have heaved and stirred
into blossoming of foam,
and lifted on the rush of the warm wind
towards the gardens and the spring-mad cities of the shore
Aphrodite Aphrodite is reborn.
And even in this city park
galled with iron rails
shrill with the clanging of ironbound wheels
on the pavings of the unquiet streets,
little children run and dance and sing
with spring-madness in the sun,
and the frail white pagodas of blossom
stand up on the great green hills
of the chestnuts
and all their tiers of tiny gargoyle faces
stick out gold and red-striped tongues
in derision of the silly things of men.
Jardin du Luxembourg
II
The shadows make strange streaks and mottled arabesques
of violet on the apricot-tinged walks
where the thin sunlight lies
like flower-petals.
On the cool wind there is a fragrance
indefinable
of strawberries crushed in deep woods.
And the flushed sunlight,
the wistful patterns of shadow
on gravel walks between tall elms
and broad-leaved lindens,
the stretch of country,
yellow and green,
full of little particolored houses,
and the faint intangible sky,
have lumped my soggy misery,
like clay in the brown deft hands of a potter,
and moulded a song of it.
Saint Germain-en-Laye
III
In the dark the river spins,
Laughs and ripples never ceasing,
Swells to gurgle under arches,
Swishes past the bows of barges,
in its haste to swirl away
From the stone walls of the city
That has lamps that weight the eddies
Down with snaky silver glitter,
As it flies it calls me with it
Through the meadows to the sea.
I close the door on it, draw the bolts,
Climb the stairs to my silent room;
But through the window that swings open
Comes again its shuttle-song,
Spinning love and night and madness,
Madness of the spring at sea.
IV
The streets are full of lilacs
lilacs in boys' buttonholes
lilacs at women's waists;
arms full of lilacs, people trail behind them through the moist night
long swirls of fragrance,
fragrance of gardens
fragrance of hedgerows where they have wandered
all the May day
where the lovers have held each others hands
and lavished vermillion kisses
under the portent of the swaying plumes
of the funereal lilacs.
The streets are full of lilacs
that trail long swirls and eddies of fragrance
arabesques of fragrance
like the arabesques that form and fade
in the fleeting ripples of the jade-green river.
Porte Maillot
V
As a gardener in a pond
splendid with lotus and Indian nenuphar
wades to his waist in the warm black water
stooping to this side and that to cull the snaky stems
of the floating white glittering lilies
groping to break the harsh stems of the imperious lotus
lifting the huge flowers high
in a cluster in his hand
till they droop against the moon;
so I grope through the streets of the night
culling out of the pool
of the spring-reeking, rain-reeking city
gestures and faces.
Place St. Michel
VI
TO A. K. MC C.
This is a garden
where through the russet mist of clustered trees
and strewn November leaves,
they crunch with vainglorious heels
of ancient vermillion
the dry dead of spent summer's greens,
and stalk with mincing sceptic steps
and sound of snuffboxes snapping
to the capping of an epigram,
in fluffy attar-scented wigs ...
the exquisite Augustans.
Tuileries
VII
They come from the fields flushed
carrying bunches of limp flowers
they plucked on teeming meadows
and moist banks scented of mushrooms.
They come from the fields tired
softness of flowers in their eyes
and moisture of rank sprouting meadows.
They stroll back with tired steps
lips still soft with the softness of petals
voices faint with the whisper of woods;
and they wander through the darkling streets
full of stench of bodies and clothes and merchandise
full of the hard hum of iron things;
and into their cheeks that the wind had burned and the sun
that kisses burned out on the rustling meadows
into their cheeks soft with lazy caresses
comes sultry
caged breath of panthers
fetid, uneasy
fury of love sprouting hot in the dust and stench
of walls and clothes and merchandise,
pent in the stridence of the twilight streets.
And they look with terror in each other's eyes
and part their hot hands stained with grasses and flowerstalks
and are afraid of their kisses.
VIII
EMBARQUEMENT POUR CYTHERE
AFTER WATTEAU
The mists have veiled the far end of the lake
this sullen amber afternoon;
our island is quite hidden, and the peaks
hang wan as clouds above the ruddy haze.
Come, give your hand that lies so limp,
a tuberose among brown oak-leaves;
put your hand in mine and let us leave
this bank where we have lain the day long.
In the boat the naked oarsman stands.
Let us walk faster, or do you fear to tear
that brocaded dress in apricot and grey?
Love, there are silk cushions in the stern
maroon and apple-green,
crocus-yellow, crimson, amber-grey.
We will lie and listen to the waves
slap soft against the prow, and watch the boy
slant his brown body to the long oar-stroke.
But, love, we are more beautiful than he.
We have forgotten the grey sick yearning nights
brushed off the old cobwebs of desire;
we stand strong
immortal as the slender brown boy who waits
to row our boat to the island.
But love how your steps drag.
And what is this bundle of worn brocades I press
so passionately to me? Old rags of the past,
snippings of Helen's dress, of Melisande's,
scarfs of old paramours rotted in the grave
ages and ages since.
No lake
the ink yawns at me from the writing table.
IX
LA RUE DU TEMPS PASSE
Far away where the tall grey houses fade
A lamp blooms dully through the dusk,
Through the effacing dusk that gently veils
The traceried balconies and the wreaths
Carved above the shuttered windows
Of forgotten houses.
Behind one of the crumbled garden walls
A pale woman sits in drooping black
And stares with uncomprehending eyes
At the thorny angled twigs that bore
Years ago in the moon-spun dusk
One scarlet rose.
In an old high room where the shadows troop
On tiptoe across the creaking boards
A shrivelled man covers endless sheets
Rounding out in his flourishing hand
Sentence after sentence loud
With dead kings' names.
Looking out at the vast grey violet dusk
A pale boy sits in a window, a book
Wide open on his knees, and fears
With cold choked fear the thronging lives
That lurk in the shadows and fill the dusk
With menacing steps.
Far away the gaslamp glows dull gold
A vague tulip in the misty night.
The clattering drone of a distant tram
Grows loud and fades with a hum of wires
Leaving the street breathless with silence, chill
And the listening houses.
Bordeaux
X
O douce Sainte GeneviÈve
ramÈne moi a ta ville, Paris.
In the smoke of morning the bridges
are dusted with orangy sunshine.
Bending their black smokestacks far back
muddling themselves in their spiralling smoke
the tugboats pass under the bridges
and behind them
stately
gliding smooth like clouds
the barges come
black barges
with blunt prows spurning the water gently
gently rebuffing the opulent wavelets
of opal and topaz and sapphire,
barges casually come from far towns
towards far towns unhurryingly bound.
The tugboats shrieks and shrieks again
calling beyond the next bend and away.
In the smoke of morning the bridges
are dusted with orangy sunshine.
O douce Sainte GeneviÈve
ramÈne moi a ta ville, Paris.
Big hairy-hoofed horses are drawing
carts loaded with flour-sacks,
white flour-sacks, bluish
in the ruddy flush of the morning streets.
On one cart two boys perch
wrestling and their arms and faces
glow ruddy against the white flour-sacks
as the sun against the flour-white sky.
O douce Sainte GeneviÈve
ramÈne moi a ta ville, Paris.
Under the arcade
loud as castanettes with steps
of little women hurrying to work
an old hag who has a mole on her chin
that is tufted with long white hairs
sells incense-sticks, and the trail of their strangeness lingers
in the many-scented streets
among the smells of markets and peaches
and the must of old books from the quays
and the warmth of early-roasting coffee.
The old hag's incense has smothered
the timid scent of wild strawberries
and triumphantly mingled with the strong reek from the river
of green slime along stonework of docks
and the pitch-caulked decks of barges,
barges casually come from far towns
towards far towns unhurryingly bound.
O douce Sainte GeneviÈve
ramÈne moi a ta ville, Paris.
XI
A L'OMBRE DES JEUNES FILLES EN FLEURS
And now when I think of you
I see you on your piano-stool
finger the ineffectual bright keys
and even in the pinkish parlor glow
your eyes sea-grey are very wide
as if they carried the reflection
of mocking black pinebranches
and unclimbed red-purple mountains mist-tattered
under a violet-gleaming evening.
But chirruping of marriageable girls
voices of eager, wise virgins,
no lamp unlit every wick well trimmed,
fill the pinkish parlor chairs,
bobbing hats and shrill tinkling teacups
in circle after circle about you
so that I can no longer see your eyes.
Shall I tear down the pinkish curtains
smash the imitation ivory keyboard
that you may pluck with bare fingers on the strings?
I sit cramped in my chair.
Futility tumbles everlastingly
like great flabby snowflakes about me.
Were they in your eyes, or mine
the tattered mists about the mountains
and the pitiless grey sea?
1919
