  I am going Up and down the roads and alleys Through the forests of the city, Hunting thoughts, hunting dreams. My mind shall wander through the streets Whistling to a vague adventure, Plucking strange fancies where they lurk and peer And casting them away. Dusk is creeping through the town Lighting the lamps and loitering, Leaving smoky clouds of shadow, Hovering clouds of peace; And behind her race the winds Whining to the scent of darkness, Scattering the dust With their swift hounds' feet.... I am a hunter in the city's jungle, Exploring all her secret mysteries. I know her well, The moaning highways, And whispering alleys, The chimney-dishevelled roofs Where the moon walks delicately As a stray spectral cat; The little forlorn squares Where one tree stands Drooping bedraggled hair and fingers Over the benches where the people sit And stir not from their sullen postures, Staring out where evening passes With such a sauntering dreamy step. I know her parks that spring had decked with garlands, Fluttered with flags and child imaginings, Powdered with blossoms exquisite and shy, Haunted with lovers and their last year's ghosts. Now stripped with autumn, as the ragpicker Wrapped in his tattered coat emaciate Picks up the littered wreck of holiday To mount the dust heap where our memories lie Sprawled in a mess of ruins.... I know her monotone of gloomy mansions, Repeating each in each a dull despair, Indifferent and dignified; Those tarnished prisons lined with white and gold, With dismal silences of velvet carpets, Where starving souls are kept Feeding upon each other's isolations, Not daring to escape.... Some roads seem steep as mountains, weary me With their crude temples built in praise of lust, Squatting and smiling at some hideous dream Of fat bejewelled goddesses, or gods Frock-coated, undismayed by prayers and tears, Their hats atilt like halos on their heads.... I love the ribald multi-coloured crowd, Its radiant loves, and laughters, all the faces That are as songs, as flowers, as hovering stardust.... I love the memory-crusted taverns In which my heart has leapt to a fiddler's tune Until the dawn, Like a white minstrel stopped to sing Fantastic serenades, and called me forth Where through the crystal chandeliers of morning Dew-prismed shone the sun.... I love the narrow streets whose crippled houses Are bathed in vitriol twilights, Spitting smoke, Or making oaths and mouths at one another.... While between The flaring tinsel lights of shop and window Are gaps of goblin darkness passaging Into Cimmerian depths of mystery and sin.... Wan children stare at me, and in their eyes I see the flickering pallor of the lamps, Reflective of the solitude of stars.... And I am thrilled With horror and the hope for tragedies.... But, they surround my heart these weary streets, Yea, in my soul they cut their mournful paths, And through them pass forever Those shadow figures trudging through the grey Like penitent souls through haunted corridors.... Ah, Grief, thou wanderer, Thou maker of music, lingering and sweet! Here dost thou pause to play thy shrill faint tunes, Thy fingers touch the stops to loose our tears, And shake our hearts, and fold our hands in prayer. Through all the winding mazes of the city Thy stooping shoulders and thy pitiful face are seen, And thou dost stand before the gate of brass, And by the iron door, Under the windows where we sit and wait For some sweet promise to unfold itself From the shut scrolls of sleep, And at the dusty curtain that divides Glory from Death, And lover from the lover.... Now in my room I sit And round me falls the darkness In rustling folds of peace. But round my heart I know No scarves of sleep and silence can be bound To shut the city out. For I shall feel the rush of streets Shooting inquisitive fingers into chaos, Piercing the night's remote divinity. And I shall never rid me of these scars That time and man have cut into my thought, Never shake off my shoulders The burden of the city's pain. Oh, never shall we escape thee, Mother of mutiny and want, Thou beautiful mistress of Grief.... Oh, never shall we escape thy insomnial nights Beating with ineloquent hands The tambourines of time, The drums of war; Fevering our minds With the swollen traffic of thoughts, The wheels and rattle of an endless search.... Tired I am with wandering, Pricked with the lights and jostled by the worlds, More jaded than the Moon, more hopeless, grey, Than that sad pilgrim lost amid the stars!... 1918 Laughter and singing come with the morning, When Life doth mask his face with a gilded visor, And dons his arrogant clothes. But in the night, When the unsheathed moon stands naked and pale, We too put off our opulent disguise And stand alone in the baffling darkness, Fighting with our sins, Weeping for our loneliness, That moon-like gropes forever through the desolate air. 1918 In the night I hear my loneliness calling The long shrill note of the seabird's cry Over the fuming spite of breakers, Over the brumous, sulky tides. All the ocean is craving Heavenward, And the wild sky crushes downward toward the sea, Where the clouds stoop their passionate bodies, And the waves rear their supplicating hands. Mine eyes grow tired of looking outward forever, Away from the firelight and my sleeping idols, To where the darkness is shattered with gusts of white, Wings of ship, and bird, and cloud, and wave, Flashing their signals of unrest.— My longing is a warm thing in a cold street, Taking refuge by the chinks of lighted doors— My longing is a pale ghost stepping into the sunlight That falls in golden curtains sumptuous and hushed— My longing is a fiddler making a thin tune through the silence, Through the heavy pauses of sleep.— Ah! Stop up my ears lest I hear my longing call, Lest I hear my loneliness crying! 1918 |
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