  MIDNIGHT Suddenly Shutting our lips upon a jest As we are sipping thoughts from little glasses, A gun bursts thunder and the echoing streets Quiver with startled terrors— How swift runs fear: quicksilver that is free! Now every muscle weakens, every pulse Is set at gallop-pace and every nerve Stretched taut with horror and a wild revolt.... How sweetly spins the world to noise of music, How sweet to live life's arrogant adventure! Live in a vain world wracked with a thousand pangs, Limp in a dull street housed with crumbling dreams, To breathe and eat and sleep and love and sigh A little longer, oh a little year! Forgotten prayers rise up in resurrection, And resolutions of new wondrous lives Choke up our hearts and fling us to our knees.... Worms creep in dreadful hunger from the ground, The lurid silent people loved by death, And peer into our eyes with sly forebodings To drag our body's glory from the light. Though all the world should fall into their cells And lie within their larders shelf on shelf— Yet will I toss the sheets of dust away, Yet will I be the mistress of the sun! * * * * * 1A.M. Look how they struggle in a mist of fire, Those hunchbacked chimneys and distorted domes— Now gloat on Hell, the colour seems to roar, An army fierce upon its own destruction, A famished monster tearing in its claws Gigantic foods to glut its lean desire Digesting all the world!... Look at the eager people open-mouthed That stand as foolish rabbits hypnotised By the uncoiling rhythm of a snake, Their earth adoring senses caught awhile In the red whirlwind of ascending wings; Their spirits straining upward upon strings Like kites and air balloons, but more grotesque, Lacking the ephemeral beauty of a toy— Yet for an hour Dyed with the colour that their drabness fears They kiss the feet of beauty as she passes Starwards, tremendous in a coat of fire. * * * * * 3A.M. The dawn seems drained of blood so colourless— Slowly the river moves as though in sleep While silent barges Slide from the mist like dreams; The intricate patterns of the scaffolding Are drawn against the sky More delicate than lace. All the shimmering lights Have shrunk away from morning As a blue peacock sheaves his starry tail.... I am alone, most utterly alone, More lonely than the last man in the world Straying amid the dust of vanished lives. More lonely than a spirit stolen from heaven Who stands beside that nebulous cold river Dividing sleep from death, Eternity from time.... Nothing disturbs the white peace of the dawn, She brings no feverous memories of night And sheds no tears. Only two hours ago Fire walked in crimson armour through the city Piercing the night's black tent with glittering javelins, While shrieks and whispered omens flew like bats Among the silver foliage of the stars.... But rage has left no furrow in the sky, No wake of sparks across the placid water.... This is the ominous and sacred hour When priest-like the world kneels Bowed low toward the empty throne of day— Soon will the herald trumpet-blast be heard And the flamingo messengers will come Flocking from out the burnished cage of sunrise.... This is the hour of nothing, Colourless and chill Oblivion's hands are folded on the world, As sits an idol holding in his fingers A scentless lotus carven out of stone. * * * * * 4A.M. Leaving the dun river with hurried tapping feet And up the long uncomfortable street With eyes uninterested yet forced to see and read The dingy notices once sharp and bright with greed, Now drear with want, that swear the Queen's Hotel And Brown's Hotel and King's are doing well— A soldier and a beggar mock me as I go, The light steals after me, emerging slow And pale from the dim alleys shadow-crouched. I hurried by the drunkard as he slouched From lamp-post unto lamp-post.... Then I saw Caught in the mirror of a tailor's door My own reflection as I hurried past, My flaring colours and my face aghast— The scarlet tassel of my hat that hung Limp as a spent flame, and my skirt that clung About my knees and fluttered at the back: An injured moth, with sulphur stripes and black, My bag flamboyant as a pillar-box; My frayed gilt fringe of hair and tarnished locks. Jagged and crude and swift I seemed to pass Painted too brightly on that temperate glass. ... An omnibus from sudden corner reels: Silence lies mangled underneath the wheels. 1915 O flattery, imposture, battle show, What banners have you woven from the parted raiment, What crimes from Calvary, what endless flow Of blood from blood, revenge, exacted payment! How have you turned the simple truth to lies Made capital from creeds and missed their beauty, Exalted vainly with self-pitying sighs The wrongs enacted in the name of duty. And ever quoting God for your excuse, Bribing divinity to cloak your shame, You train the spirit for material use, You sacrifice men's hearts to feed your flame. When shall the world be rid of these bald priests, Pig-snouted with their gilded wolfish ears, The scarlet cardinals of drunken feasts Whose hands are washed in blood, whose feet in tears? 1916 What will happen to the beggar, and the sinner, and the sad, And the drunk that drinks for sorrow, and the maimed, and mad; What will happen to the starving, and the rebel run from drilling, Cowardly, afraid of fighting, and the child who stole a shilling? They shall go to prison black With a striped shirt on the back, Feast on bread and water there In a cell, without a care. They shall learn at least their duty, Never tempted more of beauty— They shall walk in rows and praise the Lord, And one or two shall hang upon a cord— And two or three shall die of grief alone— (And this is well, for sinners should atone,) And five or six shall curse the God that made them, (And this is wicked, for the priests forbade them,) And those that grew from dust shall go to dust Downtrodden. Saith the preacher:—"God is just." 1917 If I were what I would be, and could break The buttressed fortress of stupidity Where laws are sentinels, and lies the masonry, Surrounded with inertia, weedy lake, Where centuries of mud lie curdled, and the fake Grandeur of cardboard turrets, solemn puppetry— The gods are blinking at us sleepily, Tired of our games, the muddles that we make, The bloodshed, idol worshipping, the chess Of king, queen, castle, bishop, knight and pawn— The rigid squares of black and white, they dress With their perpetual challenge—faded, worn, Are all the creeds and praises you profess To weary gods that stretch themselves and yawn. 1917 |
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