To be swept away by the housemaid’s crimson fist.
O lord, have patience
Justitia mosse il mio alto fattore
Mi fece la divina potestate
La somma sapienza e il primo amore
O lord, have patience
5
Pardon these derelictions—
I shall convince these romantic irritations
By my classical convictions.
In silent corridors of death
In silent corridors of death
Short sighs and stifled breath,
Short breath and silent sighing;
Somewhere the soul crying.
5
And I wander alone
Without haste without hope without fear
Without pressure or touch—
There is no moan
Of Souls dying
10
Nothing here
But the warm
Dry airless sweet scent
Of the alleys of death
Of the corridors of death
[Commentary I 1165–68 · Textual History II 590–91]
Airs of Palestine, No. 2
God from a Cloud to Spender spoke
And breathed command: ‘Take thou this Rod,
And smite therewith the living Rock’;
And Spender hearkened unto God.
5
God shook the Cloud from East to West,
Riding the swart tempestuous blast;
And Spender, like a man possess’d,
Stood quaking, tremulous, aghast.
And Spender struck the living Rock,
10
And lo! the living Rock was wet,
From which henceforth at twelve o’clock
Issues the Westminster Gazette.
Swift at the stroke of Spender’s pen
The viscid torrents crawl and writhe
15
Down the long lanes of dogs and men
To Canning Town and Rotherhithe,
To Bermondsey and Wapping Stair,
To Clapham Junction and to Sheen,
To Leicester and to Grosvenor Square
20
Bubble those floods of bilious green.
[Commentary I 1168–71 · Textual History II 591]
To Old Bond Street, the street of gems,
To Hammersmith and Stamford’s rill;
Troubling the sources of the Thames
Mounting the crest of Highgate Hill.
25
And higher still the torrent flows
And circles Zion’s pearly wall,
Wherein, by Mary’s garden close,
There sit Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
For there the risen souls flock in
30
And there they innocently strip,
And purge themselves of all their sin
Up to the navel or the hip.
And such as have the skill to swim
Attain at length the farther shore
35
Cleansed and rejoiced in every limb,
And hate the Germans more and more.
They are redeemed from heresies
And all their frowardness forget;
The scales are fallen from their eyes
40
Thanks to the Westminster Gazette.
Petit Epître
Ce n’est pas pour qu’on se dégoute
Ou gout d’égout de mon Ego
Qu’ai fait des vers de faits divers
Qui sentent un peu trop la choucroute.
5
Mais qu’est-ce que j’ai fait, nom d’un nom,
Pour faire ressortir les chacals?
J’ai dit qu’il y a une odeur mâle
Et aussi une odeur fémelle
Et que ces deux sont pas la même.
10
(L’autre jour, à mi-carême,
Je l’ai constaté, chez une telle).
Ce que dit autrement le prêtre.
Surtout à la saison de rut.
Alors, on a fait chahue
15
Et enfoncé mes deux fenêtres.
[Commentary I 1172–74 · Textual History II 591–92]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait, nom d’un nom,
Pour agiter les morpions?
Ce que j’ai fait, je te le dis,
Je conçevais un Paradis
20
Ou l’on partagerait ses biens;
(J’aurais également les tiens).
Monsieur le préfet de police
Il en a assez, de ses vices,
Il marmotte, lunettes sur le nez:
25
‘C’est de la promiscuité.’
Alors, il faut que je lui rende
Cinq cents balles, qui sert d’amende.
Messieurs les rédacteurs
Et tous les autres maîtres-chanteurs
30
Et tous les gens étiquetés
M’ont dressé tous, leur questionnaires.
‘Il se moque de l’égalité?’
—‘Mais c’est un vrai réactionnaire’.
‘Il dit du mal de nos ministres?’
35
—‘Mais c’est un saboteur, le cuistre’.
‘Ici il cite un allemand?’
—‘Mais c’est un suppôt de Satan!’
[Commentary I 1174 · Textual History II 592]
‘Est-ce qu’il doute la vie future?’
—‘Certes, c’est un homme de moeurs impures’.
40
‘Ne nie pas l’existence de Dieu?’
—‘Comme il est superstitueux!’
‘Est-ce qu’il n’a pas d’enfants?’
—‘Il est eunuque, ça s’entend’.
‘Pour les dames
45
Ne réclame
pas la vote? Pédéraste, sans doute’.
‘Quant à son livre, qu’on s’en foute!’
Ces baragouins
De sagouins
50
Je les entends le long de la route.
Tristan Corbière
‘Il devint pour un instant parisien’
Marin! je te connais, rentier du cinquième
Qui veillait dans la nuit comme un vieil hibou;
Râclant sa gorge, toi qu’on nomme an Ankou,
Sur un grabat accroupi, barbe pointue, gueule blême.
5
Dans la chambre voisine s’entretiennent des scandales
Un commis portugais et une dame à cent sous:
Entre les chuchotements à travers quelques trous
—Bat sur les côtes brétonnes la mer en rafales.
Des rayons de soleil, par une chaude après-midi
10
Nous montrent, au Luxembourg, des messieurs barbus gris
Redingotés, clignant des dames à la poudre de riz.
Et Lieutenant Loti, très bien dans sa tenue,
Se promène dans les pages des complaisantes Revues
Comme au coin du boulevard une vielle ancienne grue.
[Commentary I 1174–76 · Textual History II 592–93]
Ode
To you particularly, and to all the Volscians
Great hurt and mischief.
Tired.
Subterrene laughter synchronous
With silence from the sacred wood
And bubbling of the uninspired
Mephitic river.
5
Misunderstood
The accents of the now retired
Profession of the calamus.
Tortured.
When the bridegroom smoothed his hair
10
There was blood upon the bed.
Morning was already late.
Children singing in the orchard
(Io Hymen, Hymenæe)
Succuba eviscerate.
15
Tortuous.
By arrangement with Perseus
The fooled resentment of the dragon
Sailing before the wind at dawn.
Golden apocalypse. Indignant
20
At the cheap extinction of his taking-off.
Now lies he there
Tip to tip washed beneath Charles’ Wagon.
[Commentary I 1177–80 · Textual History II 593]
The Death of the Duchess
I
The inhabitants of Hampstead have silk hats
On Sunday afternoon go out to tea
On Saturday have tennis on the lawn, and tea
On Monday to the city, and then tea.
5
They know what they are to feel and what to think,
They know it with the morning printer’s ink
They have another Sunday when the last is gone
They know what to think and what to feel
The inhabitants of Hampstead are bound forever on the wheel.
10
But what is there for you and me
For me and you
What is there for us to do
Where the leaves meet in leafy Marylebone?
In Hampstead there is nothing new
15
And in the evening, through lace curtains, the aspidistra grieves.
II
In the evening people hang upon the bridge rail
Like onions under the eaves.
In the square they lean against each other, like sheaves
Or walk like fingers on a table
5
Dogs’ eyes reaching over the table
Are in their heads when they stare
Supposing that they have the heads of birds
Beaks and no words,
What words have we?
<
[Commentary I 1180–81 · Textual History II 593–94]
10
I should like to be in a crowd of beaks without words
But it is terrible to be alone with another person.
We should have marble floors
And firelight on your hair
There will be no footsteps up and down the stair
15
The people leaning against another in the square
Discuss the evening’s news, and other bird things.
My thoughts tonight have tails, but no wings.
They hang in clusters on the chandelier
Or drop one by one upon the floor.
20
Under the brush her hair
Spread out in little fiery points of will
Glowed into words, then was suddenly still.
‘You have cause to love me, I did enter you in my heart
Before ever you vouchsafed to ask for the key’.
25
With her back turned, her arms were bare
Fixed for a question, her hands behind her hair
And the firelight shining where the muscle drew.
My thoughts in a tangled bunch of heads and tails —
One suddenly released, fell to the floor
30
One that I knew:
‘Time to regain the door’.
It crossed the carpet and expired on the floor.
And if I said ‘I love you’ should we breathe
Hear music, go a-hunting, as before?
35
The hands relax, and the brush proceed?
Tomorrow when we open to the chambermaid
When we open the door
[Commentary I 1181–83 · Textual History II 594]
Could we address her or should we be afraid?
If it is terrible alone, it is sordid with one more.
40
If I said ‘I do not love you’ we should breathe
The hands relax, and the brush proceed?
How terrible that it should be the same!
In the morning, when they knock upon the door
We should say: This and this is what we need
45
And if it rains, the closed carriage at four.
We should play a game of chess
The ivory men make company between us
We should play a game of chess
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
50
Time to regain the door.
‘When I grow old I shall have all the court
Powder their hair with arras, to be like me.
But I know you love me, it must be that you love me’.
Then I suppose they found her
55
As she turned
To interrogate the silence fixed behind her.
I am steward of her revenue
But I know, and I know she knew …
[Commentary I 1183 · Textual History II 595]
Song
The golden foot I may not kiss or clutch
Glowed in the shadow of the bed
This thought this ghost this pendulum in the head
Swinging from life to death
5
Bleeding between two lives
Waiting a touch a breath
The wind sprang up and broke the bells
Is it a dream or something else
When the surface of the blackened river
10
Is a face that sweats with tears?
I saw across an alien river
The campfire shake the spears
Elegy
And breathe a hypocrite’s amen!
The wrong’d Aspatia returned
Wreathed in the wingèd cyclamen.
5
How steadfastly I should have mourned
The sinking of so dear a head!
Were’t not for dreams: a dream restores
The always inconvenient dead.
The sweat transpirèd from my pores!
10
I saw sepulchral gates, flung wide
Reveal (as in a tale by Poe)
The features of the injured bride!
>
[Commentary I 1183–86 · Textual History II 595–96]
That hand, prophetical and slow
(Once warm, once lovely, often kissed)
15
Tore the disordered cerements,
Around that head the scorpions hissed!
Remorse unbounded, grief intense
Had striven to expiate the fault—
But poison not my present bliss!
20
And keep within thy charnel vault!
God, in a rolling ball of fire
Pursues by day my errant feet.
His flames of anger and desire
Approach me with consuming heat.
Dirge
Full fathom five your Bleistein lies
Under the flatfish and the squids.
Graves’ Disease in a dead jew’s eyes!
When the crabs have eat the lids.
5
Lower than the wharf rats dive
Though he suffer a sea-change
Still expensive rich and strange
That is lace that was his nose
See upon his back he lies
10
(Bones peep through the ragged toes)
With a stare of dull surprise
Flood tide and ebb tide
Roll him gently side to side
See the lips unfold unfold
15
From the teeth, gold in gold
Lobsters hourly keep close watch
Hark! now I hear them scratch scratch scratch
[Commentary I 1187–89 · Textual History II 596–97]
Those are pearls that were his eyes. See!
Those are pearls that were his eyes. See!
And the crab clambers through his stomach, the eel grows big
And the torn algae drift above him,
And the sea colander.
5
Still and quiet brother are you still and quiet
Exequy
Persistent lover
s will repair
(In time) to my suburban tomb,
A pilgrimage, when I become
A local deity of love,
5
And pious vows and votive prayer
Shall hover in my sacred grove
Sustained on that Italian air.
When my athletic marble form
Forever lithe, forever young,
10
With grateful garlands shall be hung
And flowers of deflowered maids;
The cordial flame shall keep me warm,
A bloodless shade among the shades
Doing no good, but not much harm.
15
While the melodious fountain falls
(Carved by the cunning Bolognese)
The Adepts twine beneath the trees
The sacrificial exercise.
They terminate the festivals
20
With some invariable surprise
Of fireworks, or an Austrian waltz.
>
[Commentary I 1189–90 · Textual History II 597–98]
But if, more violent, more profound,
One soul, disdainful or disdained,
Shall come, his shadowed beauty stained
25
The colour of the withered year,
Self-immolating on the Mound
Just at the crisis, he shall hear
A breathless chuckle underground.
SOVEGNA VOS A TEMPS DE MON DOLOR.
The Builders
Song for Unison Singing from ‘The Rock’
Ill done and undone