The Ghetto And Other Poems By Lola Ridge

The GhettoLola Ridge TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE Will you feast with me, American People? But what have I that shall seem good to you! On my board are bitter applesAnd honey served on thorns,And in my flagons fluid iron,Hot from the crucibles. How should such fare entice you! CONTENTS The GhettoManhattanBroadwayFlotsamSpringBowery AfternoonPromenadeThe FogFacesDebrisDedicationThe Song of IronFrank Little at CalvarySpiresThe Legion of IronFuelA Toast“The Everlasting Return,”PalestineThe SongTo the OthersBabelThe FiddlerDawn WindNorth WindThe DestroyerLullabyThe FoundlingThe Woman with JewelsSubmergedArt and LifeBrooklyn BridgeDreamsThe FireA MemoryThe EdgeThe GardenUnder-SongA Worn RoseIron WineDispossessedThe StarThe Tidings The larger part of the poem entitled “The Ghetto” appeared originally in THE NEW REPUBLIC and some of poems were printed in THE INTERNATIONAL, OTHERS, POETRY, etc. To the editors who first published the poems the author makes due acknowledgment. THE GHETTO I Cool, inaccessible airIs floating in velvety blackness shot with steel-blue lights, But no breath stirs the heatLeaning its ponderous bulk upon the Ghetto And most on Hester street… The heat…Nosing in the body’s overflow,Like a beast pressing its great steaming belly close, Covering all avenues of air… The heat in Hester street,Heaped like a drayWith the garbage of the world. Bodies dangle from the fire escapesOr sprawl over the stoops…Upturned faces glimmer pallidly–Herring-yellow faces, spotted as with a mold, And moist faces of girlsLike dank white lilies,And infants’ faces with open parched mouths that suck at the air as at empty teats. Young women pass in groups,Converging to the forums and meeting halls, Surging indomitable, slowThrough the gross underbrush of heat. Their heads are uncovered to the stars,And they call to the young men and to one another With a free camaraderie.Only their eyes are ancient and alone… The street crawls undulant,Like a river addledWith its hot tide of fleshThat ever thickens.Heavy surges of fleshBreak over the pavements,Clavering like a surf–Flesh of this abidingBrood of those ancient mothers who saw the dawn break over Egypt… And turned their cakes upon the dry hot stones And went onTill the gold of the Egyptians fell down off their arms… Fasting and athirst…And yet on… Did they vision–with those eyes darkly clear, That looked the sun in the face and were not blinded– Across the centuriesThe march of their enduring flesh?Did they hear–Under the molten silenceOf the desert like a stopped wheel– (And the scorpions tick-ticking on the sand…) The infinite procession of those feet? II I room at Sodos’–in the little green room that was Bennie’s– With SadieAnd her old father and her mother,Who is not so old and wears her own hair. Old Sodos no longer makes saddles.He has forgotten how.He has forgotten most things–even Bennie who stays away and sends wine on holidays–And he does not like Sadie’s mother Who hides God’s candles,Nor SadieWhose young pagan breath puts out the light– That should burn always,Like Aaron’s before the Lord. Time spins like a crazy dial in his brain, And night by nightI see the love-gesture of his armIn its green-greasy coat-sleeveCircling the Book,And the candles gleaming starklyOn the blotched-paper whiteness of his face, Like a miswritten psalm…Night by nightI hear his lifted praise,Like a broken whinnyingBefore the Lord’s shut gate. Sadie dresses in black.She has black-wet hair full of cold lights And a fine-drawn face, too white.All day the power machinesDrone in her ears…All day the fine dust fliesTill throats are parched and itchAnd the heat–like a kept corpse–Fouls to the last corner. Then–when needles move more slowly on the cloth And sweaty fingers slackenAnd hair falls in damp wisps over the eyes– Sped by some power within,Sadie quivers like a rod…A thin black piston flying,One with her machine. She–who stabs the piece-work with her bitter eye And bids the girls: “Slow down–You’ll have him cutting us again!”She–fiery static atom,Held in place by the fierce pressure all about– Speeds up the driven wheelsAnd biting steel–that twiceHas nipped her to the bone. Nights, she readsThose books that have most unset thought, New-poured and malleable,To which her thoughtLeaps fusing at white heat,Or spits her fire out in some dim manger of a hall, Or at a protest meeting on the Square,Her lit eyes kindling the mob…Or dances madly at a festival.Each dawn finds her a little whiter, Though up and keyed to the long day,Alert, yet weary… like a birdThat all night long has beat about a light. The Gentile lover, that she charms and shrews, Is one more pebble in the packFor Sadie’s mother,Who greets him with her narrowed eyes That hold some welcome back.“What’s to be done?” she’ll say,“When Sadie wants she takes…Better than Bennie with his Christian woman… A man is not so like,If they should fight,To call her Jew…” Yet when she lies in bedAnd the soft babble of their talk comes to her And the silences…I know she never sleepsTill the keen draught blowing up the empty hall Edges through her transomAnd she hears his foot on the first stairs. Sarah and Anna live on the floor above. Sarah is swarthy and ill-dressed.Life for her has no ritual.She would break an ideal like an egg for the winged thing at the core. Her mind is hard and brilliant and cutting like an acetylene torch. If any impurities drift there, they must be burnt up as in a clear flame. It is droll that she should work in a pants factory. –Yet where else… tousled and collar awry at her olive throat. Besides her hands are unkempt.With English… and everything… there is so little time. She reads without bias–Doubting clamorously–Psychology, plays, science, philosophies– Those giant flowers that have bloomed and withered, scattering their seed… –And out of this young forcing soil what growth may come– what amazing blossomings. Anna is different.One is always aware of Anna, and the young men turn their heads to look at her.She has the appeal of a folk-songAnd her cheap clothes are always in rhythm. When the strike was on she gave half her pay. She would give anything–save the praise that is hers And the love of her lyric body. But Sarah’s desire covets nothing apart. She would share all things…Even her lover. III The sturdy Ghetto childrenMarch by the parade,Waving their toy flags,Prancing to the bugles–Lusty, unafraid…Shaking little fire sticksAt the night–The old blinking night–Swerving out of the way,Wrapped in her darkness like a shawl. But a small girlCowers apart.Her braided head,Shiny as a black-bird’sIn the gleam of the torch-light,Is poised as for flight.Her eyes have the glowOf darkened lights. She stammers in Yiddish,But I do not understand,And there flits across her faceA shadowAs of a drawn blind.I give her an orange,Large and golden,And she looks at it blankly.I take her little cold hand and try to draw her to me, But she is stiff…Like a doll… Suddenly she darts through the crowdLike a little white panicBlown along the night–Away from the terror of oncoming feet… And drums rattling like curses in red roaring mouths… And torches spluttering silver fireAnd lights that nose out hiding-places… To the night–Squatting like a hunchbackUnder the curved stoop–The old mammy-nightThat has outlived beauty and knows the ways of fear– The night–wide-opening crooked and comforting arms, Hiding her as in a voluminous skirt. The sturdy Ghetto childrenMarch by the parade,Waving their toy flags,Prancing to the bugles,Lusty, unafraid.But I see a white frockAnd eyes like hooded lightsOut of the shadow of pogromsWatching… watching… IV Calicoes and furs,Pocket-books and scarfs,Razor strops and knives(Patterns in check…) Olive hands and russet head,Pickles red and coppery,Green pickles, brown pickles,(Patterns in tapestry…) Coral beads, blue beads,Beads of pearl and amber,Gewgaws, beauty pins–Bijoutry for chits–Darting rays of violet,Amethyst and jade…All the colors out to play,Jumbled iridescently…(Patterns in stained glassShivered into bits!) Nooses of gay ribbonTugging at one’s sleeve,Dainty little gartersHanging out their sign…Here a pout of frilly things–There a sonsy feather…(White beards, black beardsLike knots in the weave…) And ah, the little babies–Shiny black-eyed babies–(Half a million pink toesWriggling altogether.)Baskets full of babiesLike grapes on a vine. Mothers waddling in and out,Making all things right–Picking up the slipped threadsIn Grand street at night–Grand street like a great bazaar,Crowded like a float,Bulging like a crazy quiltStretched on a line. But nearer seenThis litter of the EastTakes on a garbled majesty. The herded stallsIn dissolute array…The glitter and the jumbled fineryAnd strangely juxtaposedCans, paper, ragsAnd colors decomposing,Faded like old hair,With flashes of barbaric huesAnd eyes of mystery…FlungLike an ancient tapestry of motley weave Upon the open wall of this new land. Here, a tawny-headed girl…Lemons in a greenish brothAnd a huge earthen bowlBy a bronzed merchantWith a tall black lamb’s wool cap upon his head… He has no glance for her.His thrifty eyesBend–glittering, intentTheir hoarded looksUpon his merchandise,As though it were some splendid cloth Or sumptuous raimentStitched in gold and red… He seldom talksSave of the goods he spreads–The meager cotton with its dismal flower– But with his skinny handsThat hover like two hawksAbove some luscious meat,He fingers lovingly each calico,As though it were a gorgeous shawl, Or costly vestureWrought in silken thread,Or strange bright carpetMade for sandaled feet… Here an old grey scholar stands.His brooding eyes–That hold long vistas without endOf caravans and trees and roads,And cities dwindling in remembrance– Bend mostly on his tapes and thread. What if they tweak his beard–These raw young seed of IsraelWho have no backward vision in their eyes– And mock him as he swaysAbove the sunken arches of his feet– They find no peg to hang their taunts upon. His soul is like a rockThat bears a front worn smoothBy the coarse friction of the sea,And, unperturbed, he keeps his bitter peace. What if a rigid arm and stuffed blue shape, Backed by a nickel starDoes prod him on,Taking his proud patience for humility… All gutters are as oneTo that old race that has been thrust From off the curbstones of the world…And he smiles with the pale ironyOf one who holdsThe wisdom of the Talmud stored away In his mind’s lavender. But this young trader,Born to trade as to a caul,Peddles the notions of the hour.The gestures of the craft are hisAnd all the loreAs when to hold, withdraw, persuade, advance… And be it gum or flags,Or clean-all or the newest thing in tags, Demand goes to him as the bee to flower. And he–appraisingAll who come and goWith his amazingSlight-of-mind and glanceAnd nimble thoughtAnd nature balanced like the scales at nought– Looks Westward where the trade-lights glow, And sees his vision rise–A tape-ruled vision,Circumscribed in stone–Some fifty stories to the skies. V As I sit in my little fifth-floor room– Bare,Save for bed and chair,And coppery stainsLeft by seeping rainsOn the low ceilingAnd green plaster walls,Where when night fallsGolden lady-bugsCome out of their holes,And roaches, sepia-brown, consort… I hear bells pealingOut of the gray church at Rutgers street, Holding its high-flung cross above the Ghetto, And, one floor down across the court,The parrot screaming:Vorwärts… Vorwärts… The parrot frowsy-white,Everlastingly swingingOn its iron bar. A little old woman,With a wig of smooth black hairGummed about her shrunken brows,Comes sometimes on the fire escape. An old stooped mother,The left shoulder lowWith that uneven droopiness that women know Who have suckled many young…Yet I have seen no other than the parrot there. I watch her mornings as she shakes her rugs Feebly, with futile reachAnd fingers without clutch.Her thews are slackAnd curved the ruined backAnd flesh empurpled like old meat,Yet each conspiresTo feed those guttering firesWith which her eyes are quick. On Friday nightsHer candles signalInfinite fine raysTo other windows,Coupling other lights,Linking the tenementsLike an endless prayer. She seems less lonely than the birdThat day by day about the dismal house Screams out his frenzied word…That night by night–If a dog yelpsOr a cat yawlsOr a sick child whines,Or a door screaks on its hinges,Or a man and woman fight–Sends his cry above the huddled roofs: Vorwärts… Vorwärts… VI In this dingy cafeThe old men sit muffled in woollens. Everything is faded, shabby, colorless, old… The chairs, loose-jointed,Creaking like old bones–The tables, the waiters, the walls, Whose mottled plasterBlends in one tone with the old flesh. Young life and young thought are alike barred, And no unheralded noises jolt old nerves, And old wheezy breathsPass around old thoughts, dry as snuff, And there is no divergence and no friction Because life is flattened and ground as by many mills. And it is here the Committee–Sweet-breathed and smooth of skinAnd supple of spine and knee,With shining unpouched eyesAnd the blood, high-powered,Leaping in flexible arteries–The insolent, young, enthusiastic, undiscriminating Committee, Who would placard tombstonesAnd scatter leaflets even in graves, Comes trampling with sacrilegious feet! The old men turn stiffly,Mumbling to each other.They are gentle and torpid and busy with eating. But one lifts a face of clayish pallor,There is a dull fury in his eyes, like little rusty grates. He rises slowly,Trembling in his many swathings like an awakened mummy, Ridiculous yet terrible.–And the Committee flings him a waste glance, Dropping a leaflet by his plate. A lone fire flickers in the dusty eyes. The lips chant inaudibly.The warped shrunken body straightens like a tree. And he curses…With uplifted arms and perished fingers, Claw-like, clutching…So centuries agoThe old men cursed Acosta,When they, prophetic, heard upon their sepulchres Those feet that may not halt nor turn aside for ancient things. VII Here in this room, bare like a barn,Egos gesture one to the other–Naked, unformed, unwingedEgos out of the shell,Examining, searching, devouring–Avid alike for the flower or the dung… (Having no dainty antennae for the touch and withdrawal– Only the open maw…) Egos cawing,Expanding in the mean egg…Little squat tailors with unkempt faces, Pale as lard,Fur-makers, factory-hands, shop-workers, News-boys with battling eyesAnd bodies yet vibrant with the momentum of long runs, Here and there a woman… Words, words, words,Pattering like hail,Like hail falling without aim…Egos rampant,Screaming each other down.One motions perpetually,Waving arms like overgrowths.He has burning eyes and a coughAnd a thin voice pipingLike a flute among trombones. One, red-bearded, rearingA welter of maimed face bashed in from some old wound, Garbles Max Stirner.His words knock each other like little wooden blocks. No one heeds him,And a lank boy with hair over his eyes Pounds upon the table.–He is chairman. Egos yet in the primer,Hearing world-voicesChanting grand arias…Majors resonant,Stunning with sound…Baffling minorsHalf-heard like rain on pools…Majestic discordancesGreater than harmonies…–Gleaning out of it allPassion, bewilderment, pain… Egos yearning with the world-old want in their eyes– Hurt hot eyes that do not sleep enough… Striving with infinite effort,Frustrate yet ever pursuingThe great white Liberty,Trailing her dissolving glory over each hard-won barricade– Only to fade anew… Egos crying out of unkempt deepsAnd waving their dreams like flags– Multi-colored dreams,Winged and glorious… A gas jet throws a stunted flame,Vaguely illumining the groping faces. And through the uncurtained windowFalls the waste light of stars,As cold as wise men’s eyes…Indifferent great stars,Fortuitously glancingAt the secret meeting in this shut-in room, Bare as a manger. VIII Lights go outAnd the stark trunks of the factories Melt into the drawn darkness,Sheathing like a seamless garment. And mothers take home their babies,Waxen and delicately curled,Like little potted flowers closed under the stars. Lights go outAnd the young men shut their eyes,But life turns in them… Life in the cramped ovaTearing and rending asunder its living cells… Wars, arts, discoveries, rebellions, travails, immolations, cataclysms, hates…Pent in the shut flesh.And the young men twist on their beds in languor and dizziness unsupportable…Their eyes–heavy and dimmedWith dust of long oblivions in the gray pulp behind– Staring as through a choked glass.And they gaze at the moon–throwing off a faint heat– The moon, blond and burning, creeping to their cots Softly, as on naked feet…Lolling on the coverlet… like a woman offering her white body. Nude glory of the moon!That leaps like an athlete on the bosoms of the young girls stripped of their linens;Stroking their breasts that are smooth and cool as mother-of-pearl Till the nipples tingle and burn as though little lips plucked at them. They shudder and grow faint.And their ears are filled as with a delirious rhapsody, That Life, like a drunken player,Strikes out of their clear white bodies As out of ivory keys. Lights go out…And the great lovers linger in little groups, still passionately debating, Or one may walk in silence, listening only to the still summons of Life– Life making the great Demand…Calling its new Christs…Till tears come, blurring the stars That grow tender and comforting like the eyes of comrades; And the moon rolls behind the BatteryLike a word molten out of the mouth of God. Lights go out…And colors rush together,Fusing and floating away…Pale worn gold like the settings of old jewels… Mauves, exquisite, tremulous, and luminous purples And burning spires in aureoles of lightLike shimmering auras. They are covering up the pushcarts… Now all have gone save an old man with mirrors– Little oval mirrors like tiny pools.He shuffles up a darkened streetAnd the moon burnishes his mirrors till they shine like phosphorus… The moon like a skull,Staring out of eyeless sockets at the old men trundling home the pushcarts. IX A sallow dawn is in the skyAs I enter my little green room.Sadie’s light is still burning…Without, the frail moonWorn to a silvery tissue,Throws a faint glamour on the roofs, And down the shadowy spiresLights tip-toe out…Softly as when lovers close street doors. Out of the BatteryA little windStirs idly–as an armTrails over a boat’s side in dalliance– Rippling the smooth dead surface of the heat, And Hester street,Like a forlorn woman over-bornBy many babies at her teats,Turns on her trampled bed to meet the day. LIFE!Startling, vigorous life,That squirms under my touch,And baffles me when I try to examine it, Or hurls me back without apology.Leaving my ego ruffled and preening itself. Life,Articulate, shrill,Screaming in provocative assertion, Or out of the black and clotted gutters, Piping in silvery thinSweet staccatoOf children’s laughter, Or clinging over the pushcartsLike a litter of tiny bellsOr the jingle of silver coins,Perpetually changing hands,Or like the Jordan somberlySwirling in tumultuous uncharted tides, Surface-calm. Electric currents of life,Throwing off thoughts like sparks,Glittering, disappearing,Making unknown circuits,Or out of spent particles stirringFeeble contortions in old faithsPassing before the new. Long nights argued awayIn meeting hallsBack of interminable stairways–In Roumanian wine-shopsAnd little Russian tea-rooms… Feet echoing through deserted streets In the soft darkness before dawn…Brows aching, throbbing, burning–Life leaping in the shaken fleshLike flame at an asbestos curtain. Life–Pent, overflowingStoops and façades,Jostling, pushing, contriving,Seething as in a great vat… Bartering, changing, extorting,Dreaming, debating, aspiring,Astounding, indestructibleLife of the Ghetto… Strong flux of life,Like a bitter wineOut of the bloody stills of the world… Out of the Passion eternal. MANHATTAN LIGHTS MANHATTAN Out of the night you burn, Manhattan, In a vesture of gold–Span of innumerable arcs,Flaring and multiplying–Gold at the uttermost circles fading Into the tenderest hint of jade,Or fusing in tremulous twilight blues, Robing the far-flung offices,Scintillant-storied, forking flame, Or soaring to luminous amethystOver the steeples aureoled– Diaphanous gold,Veiling the Woolworth, argentlyRising slender and starkMellifluous-shrill as a vender’s cry, And towers squatting graven and coldOn the velvet bales of the dark,And the Singer’s appraisingIndolent idol’s eye,And night like a purple cloth unrolled– Nebulous goldThrowing an ephemeral glory about life’s vanishing points, Wherein you burn…You of unknown voltageWhirling on your axis…Scrawling vermillion signaturesOver the night’s velvet hoarding… Insolent, towering sphericalTo apices ever shifting. BROADWAY Light!Innumerable ions of light,Kindling, irradiating,All to their foci tending… Light that jingles like anklet chains On bevies of little lithe twinkling feet, Or clingles in myriad vibrationsLike trillions of porcelainVases shattering… Light over the laminae of roofs,Diffusing in shimmering nebulaeAbout the night’s boundaries,Or billowing in pearly foamSubmerging the low-lying stars… Light for the feast prolonged–Captive light in the goblets quivering… Sparks evanescentStruck of meeting looks–Fringed eyelids leashingSheathed and leaping lights…Infinite bubbles of lightBursting, reforming…Silvery filings of lightIncessantly falling…Scintillant, sided dust of lightOut of the white flares of Broadway– Like a great spurious diamondIn the night’s corsage faceted… Broadway,In ambuscades of light,Drawing the charmed multitudesWith the slow suction of her breath– Dangling her naked soulBehind the blinding gold of eunuch lights That wind about her like a bodyguard. Or like a huge serpent, iridescent-scaled, Trailing her coruscating lengthOver the night prostrate–Triumphant poised,Her hydra heads above the avenues,Values appraisingAnd her avid eyesGlistening with eternal watchfulness… Broadway–Out of her towers rampant,Like an unsubtle courtezanReserving nought for some adventurous night. FLOTSAM Crass rays streaming from the vestibules; Cafes glittering like jeweled teeth;High-flung signsBlinking yellow phosphorescent eyes; Girls in blackCircling monotonouslyAbout the orange lights… Nothing to guess at…Save the darkness aboveCrouching like a great cat. In the dim-lit square,Where dishevelled treesTustle with the wind–the wind like a scythe Mowing their last leaves–Arcs shimmering through a greenish haze– Pale oval arcsLike ailing virgins,Each out of a halo circumscribed,Pallidly staring… Figures drift upon the benchesWith no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling– Slovenly figures like untied parcels,And papers wrapped about their knees Huddled one to the other,Cringing to the wind–The sided wind,Leaving no breach untried… So many and all so still…The fountain slobbering its stone basin Is louder than They–Flotsam of the five oceansHere on this raft of the world. This old man’s headHas found a woman’s shoulder.The wind juggles with her shawlThat flaps about them like a sail,And splashes her red faded hairOver the salt stubble of his chin.A light foam is on his lips,As though dreams surged in himBreaking and ebbing away…And the bare boughs shuffle above him And the twigs rattle like dice… She–diffused like a broken beetle–Sprawls without grace,Her face gray as asphalt,Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges… Shadows ply about her mouth–Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree, That dances above her its dance of dry bones. II A uniformed front,Paunched;A glance like a blow,The swing of an arm,Verved, vigorous;Boot-heels clankingIn metallic rhythm;The blows of a baton,Quick, staccato… –There is a rustling along the benches As of dried leaves raked over…And the old man lifts a shaking palsied hand, Tucking the displaced paper about his knees. Colder…And a frost under foot,Acid, corroding,Eating through worn bootsoles. Drab forms blur into greenish vapor.Through boughs like cross-bones,Pale arcs flare and shiverLike lilies in a wind. High over BroadwayA far-flung signGlitters in indigo darknessAnd spurts again rhythmically,Spraying great dropsRed as a hemorrhage. SPRING A spring wind on the Bowery,Blowing the fluff of night shelters Off bedraggled garments,And agitating the gutters, that eject little spirals of vapor Like lewd growths. Bare-legged children stamp in the puddles, splashing each other, One–with a choir-boy’s faceTwits me as I pass…The word, like a muddied drop,Seems to roll over and not out ofThe bowed lips,Yet dewy redAnd sweetly immature. People sniff the air with an upward look– Even the mite of a girlWho never plays…Her mother smiles at herWith eyes like vacant lotsRimming vistas of mean streetsAnd endless washing days…Yet with sun on the linesAnd a drying breeze. The old candy womanShivers in the young wind.Her eyes–littered with memoriesLike ancient garrets,Or dusty unaired rooms where someone died– Ask nothing of the spring. But a pale pink dreamTrembles about this young girl’s body, Draping it like a glowing aura. She gloats in a mirrorOver her gaudy hat,With its flower God never thought of… And the dream, unrestrained,Floats about the loins of a soldier, Where it quivers a moment,Warming to a crimsonLike the scarf of a toreador… But the delicate gossamer breaks at his contact And recoils to her in strands of shattered rose. BOWERY AFTERNOON Drab discolorationOf faces, façades, pawn-shops,Second-hand clothing,Smoky and fly-blown glass of lunch-rooms, Odors of rancid life… Deadly uniformityOf eyes and windowsAlike devoid of light…Holes wherein life scratches–Mangy lifeNosing to the gutter’s end… Show-rooms and mimic pillarsFlaunting out of their gaudy vestibules Bosoms and posturing thighs… Over all the ElevatedDroning like a bloated fly. PROMENADE Undulant rustlings, Of oncoming silk, Rhythmic, incessant, Like the motion of leaves… Fragments of color In glowing surprises… Pink inuendoes Hooded in gray Like buds in a cobweb Pearled at dawn… Glimpses of green And blurs of gold And delicate mauves That snatch at youth… And bodies all rosily Fleshed for the airing, In warm velvety surges Passing imperious, slow… Women drift into the limousinesThat shut like silken casketsOn gems half weary of their glittering… Lamps open like pale moon flowers…Arcs are radiant opalsStrewn along the dusk…No common lights invade.And spires rise like litanies–Magnificats of stoneOver the white silence of the arcs, Burning in perpetual adoration. THE FOG Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk– Snaring, illuding, concealing,Magically conjuring–Turning to fairy-coachesBeetle-backed limousinesScampering under the great Arch–Making a decoy of blue overallsAnd mystery of a scarlet shawl–Indolently–Knowing no impediment of its sure advance– Descends the fog. FACES A late snow beatsWith cold white fists upon the tenements– Hurriedly drawing blinds and shutters,Like tall old slatternsPulling aprons about their heads. Lights slanting out of Mott StreetGibber out,Or dribble through bar-room slits,Anonymous shapesConniving behind shuttered panesCaper and disappear…Where the BoweryIs throbbing like a fistulaBack of her ice-scabbed fronts. Livid facesGlimmer in furtive doorways,Or spill out of the black pockets of alleys, Smears of faces like muddied beads,Making a ghastly rosaryThe night mumbles overAnd the snow with its devilish and silken whisper… Patrolling arcsBlowing shrill blasts over the Bread Line Stalk them as they pass,Silent as though accouched of the darkness, And the wind noses among them, Like a skunkThat roots about the heart… Colder:And the Elevated slams upon the silence Like a ponderous door.Then all is still again,Save for the wind fumbling overThe emptily swaying faces–The wind rummagingLike an old Jew… Faces in glimmering rows…(No sign of the abject life–Not even a blasphemy…)But the spindle legs keep timeTo a limping rhythm,And the shadows twitch upon the snow Convulsively–As though death playedWith some ungainly dolls. LABOR DEBRIS I love those spiritsThat men stand off and point at,Or shudder and hood up their souls– Those ruined ones,Where Liberty has lodged an hourAnd passed like flame,Bursting asunder the too small house. DEDICATION I would be a torch unto your hand,A lamp upon your forehead, Labor,In the wild darkness before the Dawn That I shall never see… We shall advance together, my Beloved, Awaiting the mighty ushering…Together we shall make the last grand charge And ride with gorgeous DeathWith all her spangles onAnd cymbals clashing…And you shall rush on exultant as I fall– Scattering a brief fire about your feet… Let it be so…Better–while life is quickAnd every pain immense and joy supreme, And all I have and amFlames upward to the dream…Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn, Burning out the wick. THE SONG OF IRON I Not yet hast Thou soundedThy clangorous music,Whose strings are under the mountains… Not yet hast Thou spokenThe blooded, implacable Word… But I hear in the Iron singing–In the triumphant roaring of the steam and pistons pounding– Thy barbaric exhortation…And the blood leaps in my arteries, unreproved, Answering Thy call…All my spirit is inundated with the tumultuous passion of Thy Voice, And sings exultant with the Iron,For now I know I too am of Thy Chosen… Oh fashioned in fire–Needing flame for Thy ultimate word– Behold me, a cupolaPoured to Thy use! Heed not my tremulous bodyThat faints in the grip of Thy gauntlet. Break it… and cast it aside…But make of my spiritThat dares and enduresThy crucible…Pour through my soulThy molten, world-whelming song. … Here at Thy uttermost gateLike a new Mary, I wait… II Charge the blast furnace, workman…Open the valves–Drive the fires high…(Night is above the gates). How golden-hot the ore isFrom the cupola spurting,Tossing the flaming petalsOver the silt and furnace ash–Blown leaves, devastating,Falling about the world… Out of the furnace mouth–Out of the giant mouth–The raging, turgid, mouth–Fall fiery blossomsGold with the gold of buttercupsIn a field at sunset,Or huskier gold of dandelions,Warmed in sun-leavings,Or changing to the paler hueAt the creamy hearts of primroses. Charge the converter, workman–Tired from the long night?But the earth shall suck up darkness– The earth that holds so much…And out of these molten flowers,Shall shape the heavy fruit… Then open the valves–Drive the fires high,Your blossoms nurturing.(Day is at the gatesAnd a young wind…) Put by your rod, comrade,And look with me, shading your eyes… Do you not see–Through the lucent hazeOut of the converter rising–In the spirals of fireSmiting and blinding,A shadowy shapeWhite as a flame of sacrifice,Like a lily swaying? III The ore leaping in the crucibles,The ore communicant,Sending faint thrills along the leads… Fire is running along the roots of the mountains… I feel the long recoil of earthAs under a mighty quickening…(Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron…) All palpitant, I wait… IV Here ye, Dictators–late Lords of the Iron, Shut in your council rooms, palsied, depowered– The blooded, implacable Word?Not whispered in cloture, one to the other, (Brother in fear of the fear of his brother…) But chanted and thunderedOn the brazen, articulate tongues of the Iron Babbling in flame… Sung to the rhythm of prisons dismantled, Manacles riven and ramparts defaced…(Hearts death-anointed yet hearing life calling…) Ankle chains bursting and gallows unbraced… Sung to the rhythm of arsenals burning… Clangor of iron smashing on iron,Turmoil of metal and dissonant baying Of mail-sided monsters shattered asunder… Hulks of black turbines all mangled and roaring, Battering egress through ramparted walls… Mouthing of engines, made rabid with power, Into the holocaust snorting and plunging… Mighty converters torn from their axis, Flung to the furnaces, vomiting fire,Jumbled in white-heaten masses disshapen… Writhing in flame-tortured levers of iron… Gnashing of steel serpents twisting and dying… Screeching of steam-glutted cauldrons rending… Shock of leviathans prone on each other… Scaled flanks touching, ore entering ore… Steel haunches closing and grappling and swaying In the waltz of the mating locked mammoths of iron, Tasting the turbulent fury of living,Mad with a moment’s exuberant living! Crash of devastating hammers despoiling.. Hands inexorable, marringWhat hands had so cunningly moulded… Structures of steel welded, subtily tempered, Marvelous wrought of the wizards of ore, Torn into octaves discordantly clashing, Chords never final but onward progressing In monstrous fusion of sound ever smiting on sound in mad vortices whirling… Till the ear, tortured, shrieks for cessation Of the raving inharmonies hatefully mingling… The fierce obligato the steel pipes are screaming… The blare of the rude molten music of Iron… FRANK LITTLE AT CALVARY I He walked under the shadow of the Hill Where men are fed into the firesAnd walled apart…Unarmed and alone,He summoned his mates from the pit’s mouth Where tools rested on the floorsAnd great cranes swungUnemptied, on the iron girders.And they, who were the Lords of the Hill, Were seized with a great fear,When they heard out of the silence of wheels The answer ringingIn endless reverberationsUnder the mountain… So they covered up their facesAnd crept upon him as he slept…Out of eye-holes in black clothThey looked upon him who had flungBetween them and their ancient prey The frail barricade of his life…And when night–that has connived at so much– Was heavy with the unborn day,They haled him from his bed… Who might know of that wild ride?Only the bleak Hill–The red Hill, vigilant,Like a blood-shot eyeIn the black mask of night–Dared watch them as they racedBy each blind-folded streetGodiva might have ridden down…But when they stopped beside the Place, I know he turned his faceWistfully to the accessory night… And when he saw–against the sky,Sagged like a silken netUnder its load of stars–The black bridge poisedLike a gigantic spider motionless… I know there was a silence in his heart, As of a frozen sea,Where some half lifted arm, mid-way Wavers, and drops heavily… I know he waved to life,And that life signaled back, transcending space, To each high-powered sense,So that he missed no gesture of the wind Drawing the shut leaves close…So that he saw the light on comrades’ faces Of camp fires out of sight…And the savor of meat and breadBlew in his nostrils… and the breath Of unrailed spacesWhere shut wild clover smelled as sweet As a virgin in her bed. I know he looked once at America,Quiescent, with her great flanks on the globe, And once at the skies whirling above him… Then all that he had spoken againstAnd struck against and thrust against Over the frail barricade of his lifeRushed between him and the stars… II Life thunders on…Over the black bridgeThe line of lighted carsCreeps like a monstrous serpentSpooring gold… Watchman, what of the track? Night… silence… stars…All’s Well! III Light…(Breaking mists…Hills gliding like hands out of a slipping hold…) Light over the pit mouths,Streaming in tenuous rays down the black gullets of the Hill… (The copper, insensate, sleeping in the buried lode.) Light…Forcing the clogged windows of arsenals… Probing with long sentient fingers in the copper chips… Gleaming metallic and coldIn numberless slivers of steel…Light over the trestles and the iron clips Of the black bridge–poised like a gigantic spider motionless– Sweet inquisition of light, like a child’s wonder… Intrusive, innocently staring lightThat nothing appals… Light in the slow fumbling summer leaves, Cooing and callingAll winged and avid thingsWaking the early flies, keen to the scent… Green-jeweled iridescent fliesUnerringly steering–Swarming over the blackened lips,The young day sprays with indiscriminate gold… Watchman, what of the Hill? Wheels turn;The laden carsGo rumbling to the mill,And Labor walks beside the mules… All’s Well with the Hill! SPIRES Spires of Grace Church,For you the workers of the worldTravailed with the mountains…Aborting their own dreamsTill the dream of you arose–Beautiful, swaddled in stone–Scorning their hands. THE LEGION OF IRON They pass through the great iron gates– Men with eyes gravely discerning,Skilled to appraise the tunnage of cranes Or split an inch into thousandths–Men tempered by fire as the ore isAnd planned to resistanceLike steel that has cooled in the trough; Silent of purpose, inflexible, set to fulfilment– To conquer, withstand, overthrow…Men mannered to large undertakings, Knowing force as a brotherAnd power as something to play with, Seeing blood as a slip of the iron,To be wiped from the toolsLest they rust. But what if they stood aside,Who hold the earth so careless in the crook of their arms? What of the flamboyant citiesAnd the lights guttering out like candles in a wind… And the armies halted…And the train mid-way on the mountain And idle men chaffing across the trenches… And the cursing and lamentationAnd the clamor for grain shut in the mills of the world? What if they stayed apart,Inscrutably smiling,Leaving the ground encumbered with dead wire And the sea to row-boatsAnd the lands marooned–Till Time should like a paralytic sit, A mildewed hulk above the nations squatting? FUEL What of the silence of the keysAnd silvery hands? The iron sings… Though bows lie broken on the strings,The fly-wheels turn eternally… Bring fuel–drive the fires high…Throw all this artist-lumber inAnd foolish dreams of making things… (Ten million men are called to die.) As for the common men apart,Who sweat to keep their common breath, And have no hour for books or art–What dreams have these to hide from death! A TOAST Not your martyrs anointed of heaven– The ages are red where they trod–But the Hunted–the world’s bitter leaven– Who smote at your imbecile God– A being to pander and fawn to, To propitiate, flatter and dread As a thing that your souls are in pawn to, A Dealer who traffics the dead; A Trader with greed never sated, Who barters the souls in his snares, That were trapped in the lusts he created, For incense and masses and prayers– They are crushed in the coils of your halters; ‘Twere well–by the creeds ye have nursed– That ye send up a cry from your altars, A mass for the Martyrs Accursed; A passionate prayer from reprieval For the Brotherhood not understood– For the Heroes who died for the evil, Believing the evil was good. To the Breakers, the Bold, the Despoilers, Who dreamed of a world over-thrown… They who died for the millions of toilers– Few–fronting the nations alone! –To the Outlawed of men and the Branded, Whether hated or hating they fell–I pledge the devoted, red-handed, Unfaltering Heroes of Hell! ACCIDENTALS “THE EVERLASTING RETURN” It is dark… so dark, I remember the sun on Chios… It is still… so still, I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean… Ten times we had watched the moonRise like a thin white virgin out of the waters And round into a full maternity…For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh Save the man flesh on either handThat was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea. The Athenian boy sat on my left…His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine… And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian, Grinning PhildarWith his mouth pulled taut as by reins from his black gapped teeth. Many a whip had coiled about himAnd his shoulders were rutted deep as wet ground under chariot wheels, And his skin was red and tough as a bull’s hide cured in the sun. He did not sing like the other slaves,But when a big wind came up he screamed with it. And always he looked out to sea,Save when he tore at his fish endsOr spat across me at the Greek boy, whose mouth was red and apart like an opened fruit. We had rowed from dawn and the green galley hard at our stern. She was green and squat and skulked close to the sea. All day the tish of their paddles had tickled our ears, And when night came onAnd little naked stars dabbled in the water And half the crouching moonSlid over the silver belly of the sea thick-scaled with light, We heard them singing at their oars…We who had no breath for song. There was no sound in our boatSave the clingle of wrist chainsAnd the sobbing of the young Greek. I cursed him that his hair blew in my mouth, tasting salt of the sea… I cursed him that his oar kept ill time… When he looked at me I cursed him again, That his eyes were soft as a woman’s. How long… since their last shell gouged our batteries? How long… since we rose at aim with a sleuth moon astern? (It was the damned green moon that nosed us out… The moon that flushed our periscope till it shone like a silver flame…) They loosed each man’s right handAs the galley spent on our decks… And amazed and bloodied we reared half up And fought askew with the left hand shackled… But a zigzag fire leapt in our socketsAnd knotted our thews like string… Our thews grown stiff as a crooked spine that would not straighten… How long… since our gauges fellAnd the sea shoved us under?It is dark… so dark…Darkness presses hairy-hotWhere three make crowded company… And the rank steel smells….It is still… so still…I seem to hear the windOn the dimpled face of the water fathoms above… It was still… so still… we three that were left alive Stared in each other’s faces…But three make bitter company at one man’s bread… And our hate grew sharp and bright as the moon’s edge in the water. One grinned with his mouth awry from the long gapped teeth… And one shivered and whined like a gull as the waves pawed us over… But one struck with his hate in his hand… After that I rememberOnly the dead men’s oars that flapped in the sea… The dead men’s oars that rattled and clicked like idiots’ tongues. It is still… so still, with the jargon of engines quiet. We three awaiting the crunch of the seaReach our hands in the dark and touch each other’s faces… We three sheathing hate in our hearts… But when hate shall have made its circuit, Our bones will be loving companyHere in the sea’s den…And one whimpers and cries on his God And one sits sullenlyBut both draw away from me…For I am the pyre their memories burn on… Like black flames leapingOur fiery gestures light the walled-in darkness of the sea… The sea that kneels above us…And makes no sign. PALESTINE Old plant of Asia–Mutilated vineHolding earth’s leaping sapIn every stem and shootThat lopped off, sprouts again–Why should you seek a plateau walled about, Whose garden is the world? THE SONG That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron, And the smoke bluish near earth and bronze in the sunshine floating like cotton-down,And the harsh and terrible screaming, And that strange vibration at the roots of us… Desire, fierce, like a song…And we heard(Do you remember?)All the Red Cross bands on Fifth avenue And bugles in little home townsAnd children’s harmonicas bleating America! And after…(Do you remember?)The drollery of the wind on our faces, And horizons reeling,And the terror of the plainHeaving like a gaunt pelvis to the sun… Under us–threshing and twangingTorn-up roots of the Song… TO THE OTHERS I see you, refulgent ones,Burning so steadilyLike big white arc lights…There are so many of you.I like to watch you weaving–Altogether and with precisionEach his ray–Your tracery of light,Making a shining way about America. I note your infinite reactions–In glasswareAnd sequinAnd puddlesAnd bits of jet–And here and there a diamond… But you do not yet see me,Who am a torch blown along the wind, Flickering to a sparkBut never out. BABEL Oh, God did cunningly, there at Babel– Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul, So that never again should men be ableTo fashion one infinite, towering whole. THE FIDDLER In a little Hungarian cafeMen and women are drinkingYellow wine in tall goblets. Through the milky haze of the smoke,The fiddler, under-sized, blond,Leans to his violinAs to the breast of a woman.Red hair kindles to fireOn the black of his coat-sleeve,Where his white thin handTrembles and dives,Like a sliver of moonlight,When wind has broken the water. DAWN WIND Wind, just arisen–(Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars, Or niche of cliff under the eagles?)You of living things,So gay and tender and full of play– Why do you blow on my thoughts–like cut flowers Gathered and laid to dry on this paper, rolled out of dead wood? I see youShaking that flower at me with soft invitation And frisking away,Deliciously rumpling the grass… So you fluttered the curtains about my cradle, Prattling of fieldsBefore I had had my milk…Did I stir on my pillow, making to follow you, Fleet One? I–swaddled, unwinged, like a bird in the egg. Let beMy dreams that crackle under your breath… You have the dust of the world to blow on… Do not tag me and dance away, looking back… I am too old to play with you,Eternal Child. NORTH WIND I love you, malcontentMale wind–Shaking the pollen from a flowerOr hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand. Blow on and over my dreams…Scatter my sick dreams…Throw your lusty arms about me…Envelop all my hot body…Carry me to pine forests–Great, rough-bearded forests…Bring me to stark plains and steppes… I would have the North to-night–The cold, enduring North. And if we should meet the Snow,Whirling in spirals,And he should blind my eyes…Ally, you will defend me–You will hold me close,Blowing on my eyelids. THE DESTROYER I am of the wind…A wisp of the battering wind… I trail my fingers along the AlpsAnd an avalanche falls in my wake… I feel in my quivering lengthWhen it buries the hamlet beneath… I hurriedly sweep asideThe cities that clutter our path… As we whirl about the circle of the globe… As we tear at the pillars of the world… Open to the wind,The Destroyer!The wind that is battering at your gates. LULLABY Rock-a-by baby, woolly and brown…(There’s a shout at the door an’ a big red light…) Lil’ coon baby, mammy is down…Han’s that hold yuh are steady an’ white… Look piccaninny–such a gran’ blazeLickin’ up the roof an’ the sticks of home– Ever see the like in all yo’ days!–Cain’t yuh sleep, mah bit-of-honey-comb? Rock-a-by baby, up to the sky!Look at the cherries driftin’ by–Bright red cherries spilled on the groun’– Piping-hot cherries at nuthin’ a poun’! Hush, mah lil’ black-bug–doan yuh weep. Daddy’s run away an’ mammy’s in a heapBy her own fron’ door in the blazin’ heat Outah the shacks like warts on the street… An’ the singin’ flame an’ the gleeful crowd Circlin’ aroun’… won’t mammy be proud! With a stone at her hade an’ a stone on her heart, An’ her mouth like a red plum, broken apart… See where the blue an’ khaki prance,Adding brave colors to the danceAbout the big bonfire white folks make– Such gran’ doin’s fo’ a lil’ coon’s sake! Hear all the eagah feet runnin’ in town– See all the willin’ han’s reach outah night– Han’s that are wonderful, steady an’ white! To toss up a lil’ babe, blinkin’ an’ brown… Rock-a-by baby–higher an’ higher!Mammy is sleepin’ an’ daddy’s run lame… (Soun’ may yuh sleep in yo’ cradle o’ fire!) Rock-a-by baby, hushed in the flame… (An incident of the East St. Louis Race Riots, when some white women flung a living colored baby into the heart of a blazing fire.) THE FOUNDLING Snow wraiths circle usLike washers of the dead,Flapping their white wet clothsImpatientlyAbout the grizzled head,Where the coarse hair mats like grass, And the efficient windWith cold professional basteProbes like a lancetThrough the cotton shirt… About us are white cliffs and space.No façades show,Nor roof nor any spire…All sheathed in snow…The parasitic snowThat clings about them like a blight. Only detached lightsFloat hazily like greenish moons,And endlesslyDown the whore-street,Accouched and comforted and sleeping warm, The blizzard waltzes with the night. THE WOMAN WITH JEWELS The woman with jewels sits in the cafe, Spraying light like a fountain.Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers And on her arms, great as thighs,Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat. She is obesely beautiful.Her eyes are full of bleared lights, Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for shore… And her mouth is scarlet and full–only a little crumpled– like a flower that has been pressed apart… Why does she come alone to this obscure basement– She who should have a litter and hand-maidens to support her on either side? She ascends the stairway, and the waiters turn to look at her, spilling the soup.The black satin dress is a little lifted, showing the dropsical legs in their silken fleshings…The mountainous breasts tremble…There is an agitation in her gems,That quiver incessantly, emitting trillions of fiery rays… She erupts explosive breaths…Every step is an adventureFrom this…The serpent’s toothSaved Cleopatra. SUBMERGED I have known only my own shallows–Safe, plumbed places,Where I was wont to preen myself. But for the abyssI wanted a plank beneathAnd horizons… I was afraid of the silenceAnd the slipping toe-hold… Oh, could I now diveInto the unexplored deeps of me–Delve and bring up and giveAll that is submerged, encased, unfolded, That is yet the best. ART AND LIFE When Art goes bounding, lean,Up hill-tops fired greenTo pluck a rose for life. Life like a broody henCluck-clucks him back again. But when Art, imbecile,Sits old and chillOn sidings shaven clean,And counts his clusteringDead daisies on a stringWith witless laughter…. Then like a new JillToiling up a hillLife scrambles after. BROOKLYN BRIDGE Pythoness body–archingOver the night like an ecstasy–I feel your coils tightening…And the world’s lessening breath. DREAMS Men die…Dreams only change their houses.They cannot be lined up against a wall And quietly buried under ground,And no more heard of…However deep the pit and heaped the clay– Like seedlings of old timeHooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world– Dreams will to light. THE FIRE The old men of the world have made a fire To warm their trembling hands.They poke the young men in.The young men burn like withes. If one run a little way,The old men are wrath.They catch him and bind him and throw him again to the flames. Green withes burn slow…And the smoke of the young men’s torment Rises round and sheer as the trunk of a pillared oak, And the darkness thereof spreads over the sky…. Green withes burn slow…And the old men of the world sit round the fire And rub their hands….But the smoke of the young men’s torment Ascends up for ever and ever. A MEMORY I rememberThe crackle of the palm treesOver the mooned white roofs of the town… The shining town…And the tender fumbling of the surf On the sulphur-yellow beachesAs we sat… a little apart… in the close-pressing night. The moon hung above us like a golden mango, And the moist air clung to our faces,Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child And we watched the out-flung seaRolling to the purple edge of the world, Yet ever back upon itself…As we… Inadequate night…And mooned white memoryOf a tropic sea…How softly it comes upLike an ungathered lily. THE EDGE I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me… But there was time…And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain, staring into the abyss…I do not know how long…I could not count the hours, they ran so fast Like little bare-foot urchins–shaking my hands away… But I rememberSomewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein… And a wind came out of the grass,Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw. As the night grewThe gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth Fell in ashen folds about the hills,Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them… There must have been a spent moon,For the Tall One’s veil held a shimmer of silver… That too I remember…And the tenderly rocking mountainSilenceAnd beating stars… DawnLay like a waxen hand upon the world, And folded hillsBroke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold, Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily,Flecked with sun,Fine as a golden pollen–It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow. I smelled the raw sweet essences of things, And heard spiders in the leavesAnd ticking of little feet,As tiny creatures came out of their doors To see God pouring light into his star… … It seemed life heldNo future and no past but this… And I too got up stiffly from the earth, And held my heart up like a cup… THE GARDEN Bountiful Givers,I look along the yearsAnd see the flowers you threw…AnemonesAnd sprigs of graySparse heather of the rocks,Or a wild violetOr daisy of a daisied field…But each your best. I might have worn them on my breastTo wilt in the long day…I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase And watched each petal sallowing…I might have held them so–mechanically– Till the wind winnowed all the leavesAnd left upon my handsA little smear of dust. InsteadI hid them in the soft warm loamOf a dim shadowed place…DeepIn a still cool grotto,Lit only by the memories of starsAnd the wide and luminous eyesOf dead poetsThat love me and that I love…Deep… deep…Where none may see–not even ye who gave– About my soul your garden beautiful. UNDER-SONG There is music in the strong Deep-throated bush,Whisperings of song Heard in the leaves’ hush–Ballads of the trees In tongues unknown–A reminiscent tone On minor keys… Boughs swaying to and fro Though no winds pass…Faint odors in the grass Where no flowers grow,And flutterings of wings And faint first notes,Once babbled on the boughs Of faded springs. Is it music from the graves Of all things fairTrembling on the staves Of spacious air–Fluted by the winds Songs with no words–Sonatas from the throats Of master birds? One peering through the husk Of darkness thrownMay hear it in the dusk– That ancient tone,Silvery as the light Of long dead starsYet falling through the night In trembling bars. A WORN ROSE Where to-day would a dainty buyerImbibe your scented juice,Pale ruin with a heart of fire;Drain your succulence with her lips, Grown sapless from much use…Make minister of her desireA chalice cup where no bee sips– Where no wasp wanders in? Close to her white flesh housed an hour, One held you… her spent formDrew on yours for its wasted dower– What favour could she do you more? Yet, of all who drink therein, None know it is the warmOdorous heart of a ravished flowerTingles so in her mouth’s red core… IRON WINE The ore in the crucible is pungent, smelling like acrid wine, It is dusky red, like the ebb of poppies, And purple, like the blood of elderberries. Surely it is a strong wine–juice distilled of the fierce iron. I am drunk of its fumes.I feel its fiery fluxDiffusing, permeating,Working some strange alchemy…So that I turn aside from the goodly board, So that I look askance upon the common cup, And from the mouths of cruciblesSuck forth the acrid sap. DISPOSSESSED Tender and tremulous green of leavesTurned up by the wind,Twanging among the vines–Wind in the grassBlowing a clear pathFor the new-stripped soul to pass… The naked soul in the sunlight…Like a wisp of smoke in the sunlight On the hill-side shimmering. Dance light on the wind, little soul, Like a thistle-down floatingOver the butterfliesAnd the lumbering bees… Come away from that treeAnd its shadow grey as a stone… Bathe in the pools of lightOn the hillside shimmering–Shining and wetted and warm in the sun-spray falling like golden rain– But do not linger and lookAt that bleak thing under the tree. THE STAR Last nightI watched a star fall like a great pearl into the sea, Till my ego expanding encompassed sea and star, Containing both as in a trembling cup. THE TIDINGS(Easter 1916) Censored lies that mimic truth… Censored truth as pale as fear… My heart is like a rousing bell– And but the dead to hear… My heart is like a mother bird, Circling ever higher,And the nest-tree rimmed about By a forest fire… My heart is like a lover foiled By a broken stair–They are fighting to-night in Sackville Street, And I am not there!