The Project Gutenberg eBook of Aquarium This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Aquarium Author: Harold Acton Release date: March 25, 2019 [eBook #59125] Language: English Credits: Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AQUARIUM *** Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) AQUARIUM _Uniform with this volume._ BUCOLIC COMEDIES. By Edith Sitwell. AQUARIUM BY HAROLD ACTON DUCKWORTH & CO. 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON _First published in 1923._ _All rights reserved._ _Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_. CONTENTS _Part I_ CURVES PAGE AQUARIUM 9 A DAY WILL COME 10 CATHEDRAL INTERIOR 14 YOUNG SAILOR 15 NIGHTS 16 i. Mimi at the Cabaret Vert 16 ii. Malaguenas 17 CONFETTI 18 NIGHT OF ADOLESCENCE 19 CONVERSAZIONE OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 20 PARADISE VILLAS 32 A MORALITY 33 MY HOUSE 36 SONNET 37 OH! WHAT HAVE I TO DO WITH THEE? 38 FOX-TROT 39 ...... 40 ESCAPE 41 PINK NIGHT 42 HOPE 43 PASTORALE 44 BAL SATURNIEN 45 FOR A VIOLA-DA-GAMBA 46 CONTRASTS 47 THE PENSILE GARDENS OF BABYLON 49 _Part II_ URBANITIES SABBATH MORNING RAIN 53 A WINDOW SPEAKS 54 SEVEN TO BED 57 TOWN TYPING OFFICE 58 COIFFEUR CHORÉOGRAPHIQUE 59 L’IMPÉRATRICE DES PAGODES 60 MISS FAY THE TRAPEZIST 62 SOTIE 63 MR. BEDLAM’S SUNDAY BREAKFAST 64 * * * * * Thanks are due to the Editors of the _Spectator_, _New Witness_, _Oxford Chronicle_ and _Eton Candle_ for permission to reprint certain of these poems. _Part I_ CURVES _Aquarium_ If you would view, buy tickets at the door. Your brain for lucre please! the fishes here Require some effort on your part, no more, For comprehension; then the water’s clear And you will see, dimpling in hyaline Fish, oval, strange, glitter as rubied wine In crystal goblets; fish with spotted gills, Great flower-fish like open daffodils, Pale fish that float with mellow, morbid eyes, Dark fish that feed on wings of dragon flies, Fish fulvid and fugacious, hovering Amongst the silver cress with carmine wing, And fish with small reticulated scales Floundering mazed, with iridescent tails Diaphanously quivering ... Mad, necrophilic urchins cleft to trees Of coral, with a sting as keen as bees When they would kiss you; fish electrical And fish with poniards, fierce, inimical, Red fish that bark like mastiffs at the moon, Blue limpets, purple jellies, fish that croon Mauve, melancholy melodies, and fish To suit your mood, good reader, as you wish! _A Day Will Come ..._ The ultimate experiment performed To reach the planes of Mars and Jupiter Without discomfort. First-class passengers With restaurants and Adam sitting rooms, Bathing and barbers, bars American Could while away the slowly-dripping time. Blast-furnaces and gasometers, yards Of bulky timber-joists and refuse-heaps, Pitch, cataclysmic mounds of dross and slag, Deep yawning pits, the seething pores of Hell, Slim towers of factories, vertiginous, Soul-traps to vitiate and brutalize, To mould men bitter and recalcitrant ... The foul miasma of this atmosphere Confabulate in retching multitudes. In tension rapt, awaiting holocausts; Mephitic and fuliginous, the sky-- Where green and yellow lights like demon’s eyes Blink through the murk; ideas as microbes flock Half-garrotted; they struggle: “Air, more air!” Spasmodic; then neurotically grasp A semi-groan before the strangulation. The hooters blare through air ... And women sigh near by, For husbands thrash; they lash Gnarled, purple stripes. Oh Cripes! To bear a child is mild Compared to it, a pit Of Hell is sweet, the heat Is soothing, calm as balm. For what is home? a tomb, And men but wive to thrive; In hope they live to give Despair or worse, to curse The squalid life of wife With travail fraught, distraught. The hooters blare through air ... Obese black columns oscillate the streets. The hands troop out into the twilit hour Like billion-herded emmets, dinosaurs That crawl with crude disaster in their souls. There; poised above, a lemon-rind of moon Recalls a youth of twitterings, desires For nacreous, warm flesh. Oh God! that life Should filter so through factory machines. The ancient recrudescence; slowly-healed Wounds all unripped in agony again. Some lips are taut in bloodless nudity: Are they enhungered for the limbs of dead? No; they have savoured lust till they were lax Of mind and body, with no palate for it For smooth, white thighs and hot, fierce mouths they feel Naught else than heavy-lidded lassitude. All of a sudden voices rend the streets; “Comrades, away! The spring is calling, haste Ere we tear moon and stars from out the sky!” The echoes give them courage, and the town Becomes an archipelago of cries. Men hop and run as little children run Pink-naked on a curling yellow beach. The women gaze from doorsteps, gorgon-eyed And wonder what strange madness troubles them. Sir Simon Moss, reclining in a chair, With stout cigar held firm by regular Well-ordered tusks of tooth, can hear the noise. Another war? to reap more profits in Exceeded mortal fortune. Nay; there blazed Some sorry plague. Perhaps the rabies gript ’em. Thus he pursues his reading of _The Times_. Shrill voices fade, as stars in polychrome Fade on the cold, grey atmosphere of dawn. “Comrades, away! the smack of wind is sweet” Faint as the whisper of dim violins. “Comrades, away ...” faint as the autumn leaves (Burnt paper crackling gently on the breeze). And houses humped like elephants asleep, Insolent hulks out-sprawled on many miles, That muffled women’s sobs; for anxiously They feared the sons would follow in their wake. And the sons followed; far away, the hills Exhaled a ripe, new life where no machines Might pound away the frailly-cobwebbed air. To casual mossy stones and thistle weeds The city crumbled; now its walls lie bare As lidless eyes for crows to peck at them. And in the sloe-gin heat of summer days The sky’s enamel is not quite Limoges But almost; here and there a tiny scratch Of soaring bird, some swallow on the wing Does irritate the surface. Sheer below, Fierce-biting on the edges, rise the trees; Their taper-blossoms opulently lit As girandoles that smoulder silently Blue dust of incense; kohl-eyed evening Sponges the face with dripping fragrances. The vines and olives terraced on the hills Melt on the dean horizon blurringly, Where clouds descend in deluge, liquid-gold. The flies fling flashes on cerulean meres Where steely bream and roach with rosy fins Goggle amongst the shrubberies of cress Half-dizzied by their vacant harmonies. The fruit of the wild gourd or hellebore Has tranced die sense of man; die moonlight leaks In silver puddles on the carpet-lawns. Dry thud of hooves; the satyrs have returned! _Cathedral Interior_ The pear-shaped saffron candle-flames Leap in the velvet-bosomed dark, The priest speaks gently of God’s claims To wistful folk with coughs that bark. Here all is hushed and rabbit-still, The bull-necked columns, numb with gout Of countless ages by God’s will Cast crêpe-like shadows long and stout. Two narrow slits of coloured glass Are pierced by spears of mellow light, The only light allowed to pass Into this consecrated night. Behind a candelabra droops A crucifix of burnished gold, A ray of dancing sunbeams swoops Across the cobwebbed arches old. Here may the sick, the bleeding one Nurture his wounds and calm his fears. Here when their joy in life is done Poor, crumbling men gulp salty tears. And knotted fingers counting beads, And prayers half-whispered never cease. Man slumbers; only heaven heeds, Here in this hollow womb of peace. _Young Sailor_ Drunk with the whiffs of steak in passage-ways, With many a genial bar and kindly scene Of sickly shrimps illumined by the rays Of rose acetylene, He wandered through the streets with empty maw; And winter nights are raw. And through a steaming window he could see A saw-dust restaurant; a woman there Was seated on an ancient lecher’s knee With hat askew and hair In blondine-tendrils falling Flora-wise Over her blinking eyes. Her lips like currants glistened and her arms Sticky with strange narcotics, downy-white. The elder pinched them, sucking in their charms With pudgy fingers tight, And of a sudden pealed behind her scarf A clear, metallic laugh. The youth outside relit his cigarette-- In silence longed for love articulate, But he could watch no longer, for the sweat Trickled a-down his pate And stung his eyes; and what could be attained When wages all were drained? _Nights_ I. Mimi at the Cabaret Vert Mimi la Brunette, each crimson evening sways her silver serpent arms, peals in half falsetto notes, at the Cabaret Vert And with greedy eyes the coarse-lipped men internally undress her. But I sit crumpled by a marble-breasted table, the curacoa is vitriol to my chapped, dry lips. I see through Mimi--I see through her tragedies and I see through the subtle cosmetics of her tired face. (She bore a still-born bastard once, the man she loves, a black-eyed corporal has shell-shock and nigh throttled her in bed). * * * * * And Mimi la Brunette, each crimson evening peals in half falsetto notes, sways her silver serpent arms at the Cabaret Vert. II. Malaguenas Body erect and arm defiantly curved, she flings small steps to the clack of her castanets, which snap their rhythm at one, more musical than the slight scrape of the plectrum on mandoline strings. She turns and yet so slowly, so haughtily ... I wonder if she is an Empress masquerading in this dim-lighted, ill-reputed café. Click and the rhythm swims to Pedro’s head, whose features contain the lineaments of appreciation. Clack and the rhythm swims to Sancha’s head. Whom then shall she favour with a rose? Perhaps she will give no look, but flicker flicker for a moment the darkness of her eyelids and freeze the heart in Pedro’s body beating. The rhythm ceases; Pedro is not the favoured one. A gleam of dagger and muffled fall of a body. _Confetti_ Let us sprinkle in the air Colours, colours everywhere. Peacock’s eyes in April showers Plucked in silver-sandalled hours, Wings of fireflies iridescent, Jets of drift-wood incandescent. Let us hurl them to the skies Ere the pallid dawn arise. Minion jewel-plumaged birds, Specks and flecks in dappled herds, Tangle in your moonlit hair Whilst you’re smiling unaware. In the paper fluttering Pipe-like voices seem to sing, Little flutes of heron bone, Tremulously soft in tone As by eerie wizards played, Make one wonder, half afraid. Empty trickle of the breeze Through the perfumed orangeries Like a tiptoe of a faun, Come a-heralding the dawn. Let us sprinkle in the air Colours, colours everywhere. _Night of Adolescence_ Steel-cold without; sheer icicles of air That hang down perpendicular with blades, Chimeric poniards, vitrine points of ice To freeze the spirituous tissues numb. But in this throbbing, warmly-bosomed room I sit and drink the fumes of glowing coals, Allow my limbs to spread in languid ease, Relaxing as a selfish, pensive cat, Absorbing warmth into my seething pores And drowning in a mass of phantom breasts.... The kettle bubbles humanly and croons A far-off, distance-faded lullaby, And I forget those frozen stalactites, Those gushing waterfalls of winter wind, That sap the brain and turn the blood to snow Until I suck my breath in sudden gasps. Within, the heat is curdling into flesh, Vague, supple limbs to weave a night of lust And throats lain back to kiss at my desire White, soft and curving, I may nibble then Such mad caresses as will flay my lips. Those tender tendrils curling on the nape Are coils of anaconda for my hands To twine in subtly inspissated shapes To my own delectation; and those eyes Resign like perfumed stars to my caress. _Conversazione of Musical Instruments_ Overture In the nebular effects of cigarette smoke, The eyes may be closed heavy or drowsing open, The iris drugged by the wine and the women, White arms, mouths of carmine, ankles so slender You might fear that they would snap candy-wise. In the nebular effects of cigarette smoke, Through the various hemispheres the eye turns, One of us is breathing out rhythms For the gratification of an audience. Animated in the hum of conversation, We achieve miracles. When the veneer is shed and the heart lain bare We turn men’s thoughts to Heaven or to Hell-- Cathedral Altar or the Brothel couch. Though it be in the nebular effects of cigarette smoke And the eyes may be closed heavy or drowsing open, The ear-drums beat electric-nimble And the brain is their poor prone prisoner, When we breathe out our rhythms. I STRING INSTRUMENTS _Violin_ (_virtuosity_) A phosphorescent butterfly I creep into the hair Of those who are aware That I divinely flutter by. Or I’m a vinous liquor spirting bright Shivers of splintered glass into the night, Or shimmering I skate Where lovers celebrate The hour their captive passions, cooped with bars, Were freed, uncrumpled shirts beneath the stars-- (Pale, weary breaths of paille-de-riz The corsage of Semiramis). My notes are aromatic traceries Wherewith I swing my perfume through the trees Fiercely exotic; fading on the breeze Until my respiration fails And what was ambergris Melts now to liquorice. I stagger on the air With all my plumage bare, A galleon bereft of sails. Or I can be as vulgar as a music-hall in Paraguay, And I can jig and jig away To cynically flirt With sentimental dirt; Veneered as candied peel, Or gilded fruit, I reel Into a singing cabaret. For there in my proximity They listen to my creed, (And so I do not need To preach my own sublimity). I imitate the flavour of vanille To give distinguished patronage the chill, And I can give neuralgia, Hysterics and nostalgia To counterfeit the gardens of Seville. I can creak as any sparrow Which pricks the curve Of every nerve With a throstle sharp and narrow. And I can be as raucous as A golden-spotted jaguar And I can be as glaucous as The trees in Nicaragua. Drink in my subtle melodies, My chartreuse-tinted threnodies.... _Violoncello_ (known more popularly as the ’cello to rhyme with mellow-yellow) I am the waxen fruit of instruments; I drone till beads of perspiration break Upon the foreheads of my audience. I swell tumultuous; my dullard sounds Ebb platitudes in doleful indigo. Voluptuously blatant in my greed, I am the woman garbed in heliotrope, Whose bustle panics peacocks in the park. Some take my mellow notes for rosaries-- So holy, steadfast, pure they seem to be. (Like dear Prince Albert on a promenade, Inspired apostle of the simple life, With all his homely virtues on parade). And I am music’s Edinburgh rock, A laxative caressing to the ear, A sanitary purge unto the sense; A sentimental background in the life Of modest daughter and domestic wife. _Chorus of Guitar and Mandoline_ I snatch the silence whimpering (Nocturnal perfumes make me sneeze) My nostrils twitch; I snap the air, I twang along the cardboard breeze. I jump and rattle, Reel and prattle In Andalusian orangeries. Now an elegant fandango, Now a lithe and lissome tango, Then I swoop like a flamingo On a juicy-breasted mango Hidden in the noisy leafage of the Guadalquivir. _Harp_ Drips of dear ineffectual water, April showers of pallid arsenic evaporating to unsubstantial air, I once melted the heart of Cuchulain and his warriors And Tom Moore grew quite sentimental about me in Tara’s halls, Where my ripply waves of watery sounds Turned to thin strips of paper on the breeze. Now I can faint but to transparent moons And the intensified weariness of stars. I can whimper the same faded melodies With their aroma of blurred cinnamon. But the warriors have tired of listening, For the Trocaderos call them with their Coon jazz-bands. _Double-Bass_ I strut with wicked tiger-eyes Beware! Beware! Bubbles of rubied flame arise When villain gloats or hero dies ’Tis I am there. When the last-breathed cry is uttered, When the ghastly raven’s fluttered. And the scoundrel’s curse is muttered Beware! beware! ’Tis I am there. I am a draught from an envenomed winepress Low-humming ere the thud and thunderstorm-- And then at nightfall I decline, subsiding. My flames will flicker out into the starlight And I shall scoop into the dome of darkness A filmy vault of crystallising silver. _Xylophone_ Little bells on golden strings, Little, glittering, glassy things, Frail humming-birds with freckled wings.... Marionettes And Pirouettes And steel-arpeggio flutterings. With my music-box precision I can conjure up a vision Of nurseries and unicorns And silver cows with crumpled horns, Of daisies and forget-me-nots, Of cherry-jam and coffee-pots, Perpetual kaleidoscopes Of jumping-jacks and skipping ropes. I chatter for eternity, So help yourself to China tea! _Banjo_ Kiddy, Oh ma honey Are you giddy for a song Or a run for your money? For I’ll buzz you one along For I’m tin and string and wire And wire and string and tin, I can tang a tune for hire; I can thump until I’m thin. Gee! I’ll strut a juicy fox-trot (Lilly-oh ma loo, ma loo) Or a Coon’s banana cakewalk (Come and kiss me, ducky, do!). (A vision of red-mouths, outthrust bellies in a leafy créme-de-menthe tropic.) WIND INSTRUMENTS _Trombone_ I am the brawny man without a brain Who yawns a heartfelt music mournfully. The military orchestra reveres My manliness. Each Sunday afternoon I lead in the Gaillard-Apothéose. For I exude no poignant, fevered sounds And yet I have my share of sentiment. The soldier boy who perished by his will For King and Country’s call, I represent. I stand for honour, bravery’s my spouse And that I swear’s no enviable rôle-- My sounds lack pepper often when they seem To fall in relaxation on a couch, But hold my player culpable for that; Confiteor! I know I have defects; But do not grudge me my solidity! _Hautbois_ The descendant of that reed The shepherds played in Attica, Drowsing to the indolence of their brown bodies, I peck the eyes of silence With the vulture-beak of my primeval harshness. Yet the high keys of an organ Are rivals lean to mine, Sonorous in primitive ingenuities Which blister the most Wagnerian cynics[1] With their clear-dropping, honey-comb dripping notes. For you expect in flurry cohorts The bees to swarm out “zoo-oom, zoo-oom” Scything the phosphorescence on this air Of agate-carved medallions, Where all are statuettes from Tanagra. _Trumpet_ The turbid air is buttered over now With streaks of marbled stillness, as the prow Of some deserted galleon; then I, A pennon floating down the jagged sky, Dissolve the butter with a single blast Until the quiet falls, a broken mast Like giant hail that thrashes on the leads I paralyse and rip the air to shreds, I flash my sparks of forest-powdering noise; The formidable fanfares that I poise, Ominous heralds of catastrophe, As grapes of cloudy vintage on a sea Purple and swollen, lecherous for thirst, That wait until the thunderclaps, then burst. When calm is ravished and I make retreat Still throbs the air, still fevered temples beat.... _Cor._ I trumpet orange clear and strong And then I falter in my song, My breath falls stertorous when I climb, My notes are sudden-shivery in the ankles. Fierce red I turn, but like a blurry prism Half-red, half-yellow, sinewy I grip With potent gums onto the banister Of music. My notes call often desperate retreats From battle-fields corpse-rich, still dear, still strong, More passionate than grief, fevered than hatred, Still dear, still strong, I wail a-down the breeze-- Which raises a poignant odour of putrefaction. _Flute_ Though sharp I ne- ver harp Upon My clear- ness like A fear- ful bird. My fresh And pier- cing mesh Of notes Entrap The sense And lap The mind. I re- present The light Of moon In night Of June. A sea Of scent From wood- land vine I could Define With clear- ness like A fear- ful bird. PERCUSSION _Cymbals_ Arrows glitter through the air, Wherewith, we, plumed of dappled rainbows, Ravage quiet. Shrilly shimmering, we whizz, hiss, Thrash our eruptions volcanic, Clattering into scythes Which pierce the lead-of-air. Our arrogant syncopations become Bright sunflowers of steel waxing gigantical, Then, more animated, clash; there.... Have two suns collided? And tell me has the curtain been pulled down? _Drum_ Men go to be murdered like innocent lambs At the slaughter-house, gentle as beeves or as hams. Boum, boum--boum, boum, boum. They are singing away, they are singing away, They are bidding farewell to the realms of the day ... Boum, boum--boum, boum, boum. And look at all the faces at the windows peering out! The bonny lads are going to war, “Hurray! hurray!” they shout, “The bonny boys, Hurray! Hurray! They look so happy and so gay!” Boum, boum--boum, boum, boum. Some are going to their funerals: I roll with bloodshot eyes. Some are going to a land of death and never to arise. Except to sing a “Glory, Hallelujah” to the King And dance around his throne of gold and warble in a ring-- Boum, boum--boum, boum, boum. The fields of France will run in little rivers of their blood And a few, all gashed and gory, will be sprawling in the mud. Some are going to a land of death, and never to arise, Some are going to their funerals; I roll with bloodshot eyes-- Boum, boum--boum, boum, boum. And their lithe and youthful bodies will be broken mannequins That the Doctors will be cutting, and the bandages and pins Will take the place of cockroaches and rats with pinkish eyes And the lice that suck the blood of every soldier ere he dies. Boum, boum--boum, boum, boum. And I persuade the sceptic that he’s fighting for a cause “To fight for Right with all his Might” with fang and tooth and claws, When I’m rolling he forgets the facts and thinks of youth and glory And forgets that if he does return he’ll tell another story. Boum, boum--boum, boum, boum! (bis). _Paradise Villas_ Limbs metal-cold and gorgon eyes With nude enamelled mouth, she lies Within a vibrant, moaning gloom, Awaiting canker and the tomb. And through a shifting polka-light A clock ticks and the hours take flight, Brown undertakers drag their feet, Well drilled to harden at defeat. One crumpled man with pale, thin hands To hide his face and sorrow, stands. With systole, a calm on all, Diastole, they bear the pall. A strangled sob. (What shakes the floor?) The undertakers slam the door. The orange sashes of the sun Revolve to blood in unison. _A Morality, or the Twelve Forces of Nature Enchained_ The forest leaves dropped manna on the ground, Pure amber trailed from ev’ry twining bough, From flow’r to flow’r the comfortable sound Of bees would echo mauvely, whilst the plough Would print his dull design On undulating hill And from the rifted rocks Clear honey would distil. The heifer overfed on spicy herbs And so his breath was perfume on the air. The frisking antelope, unwilling, curbs Abnormal appetite; he wanders there With mouth all rosy-stained From cropping purple meads, As any parrot’s bill Or pomegranate seeds. And, as a multitude of dancing stars, Bright, pearly dew shone tremulous in grass Of bladed scimitars that threatened wars On any prying mortal that would pass. For only folk with hooves, The Centaurs’ company, Had leave to sojourn here-- The Titans’ empery. The mountains lost their foreheads in the clouds; The saffron-wingèd manticor of day, As constellations glimmered from their shrouds, Had taken sudden fear and flown away. On fallen blossoms stretched Beneath ten mango groves One Titan slept and snored With nostrils wide as stoves. Caparisoned in trappings massy gold, Six Titanesses, heaped on mammoths, ride, That grunt beneath their weight until they scold And lacerate each fibrous, knotted hide. The mountains tremble now, And cedars spin like tops, The satyrs hide in caves Until the thudding stops. Theia dismounted from her mammoth first, Adjusting pince-nez, angrily she cried: “May nephew Zeus, ignoble and accurst, In anguish die with will unsatisfied!” The Titans moved their limbs-- Reverberant for miles. The moonlight chequered lawns Seemed sprayed with dimpled smiles. Immediate attack upon the gods Was counselled now, for Kronos’ fevered ire Was kindled iron-white; the fiercest rods Could not avenge indignities so dire. All chaos now released-- The giants hundred-armed Shall take them prisoners Frustrated and alarmed. The octopus, the dolphin and the whale Bewildered, seek the bottom of the sea, Where coral tree-tops clatter in the gale And frighten mermaids sipping at their tea. For even here, where peace And periwinkles dwell, Those bursts of gas and steam Jar shrill as booths in hell. The Titans, when they cough, engender squalls; Their energy is not consumed by age. They’d like to stretch their arms and shake St. Paul’s, But they’re entrapped as mice within a cage. And none to pity these, Now bound in sorry plight, Who played piquet with stars And shuffled them at night! _My House_ There is a place of dim, familiar things, Of contacts vaguely subtle to the touch-- I call it home; in my imaginings Each detail is of value overmuch. There is a place where every little nook, And every cupboard with its special smell, Are clear upon my mind as in a book, I love it with a love that’s hard to tell. There is a garden too where essences Of flowers queerly mingle in the air, And butterflies, strange iridescences, Flutter about when evening enters there. _Sonnet_ My soul is flailed by myriad little whips That sweetly sting my tender thoughts, but yet There comes a time when I would fain forget The small red cruelty that’s in your lips. Forget your eyes, that ferret me from sleep, And, if no power can help me from above, I’ll beat your slender body into love And bruise your silken throat until you weep. In violence is love omnipotent-- The subtlest is the fiercely-bitten kiss That purity and passion interweaves Until we never know what life has meant And wait for the supremity of bliss-- The silent thunder floating in the leaves. _Oh! what have I to do with Thee?_ Oh what have I to do with thee, Thou pallid, pallid crucifix? My sins are past all memory, My soul fit only for the Styx. Oh what have I to do with thee, Hanging so limp and stark and cold? To whom the world in revelry Looks up ere quickly it grows old. Oh what have I to do with thee? The bloody sweat from off thy brow Bears witness of thy death for me, Who am so thankless to thee now. Oh what have I to do with thee, Thou death-pale Christ still fresh with youth, Drooping thy head in agony And anguish for the name of truth? Oh what have I to do with thee, Thou pierced by nail and bruised by thong? Yet spare me in my misery, For I am weak whilst thou art strong. _Fox-Trot_ (_Dapper Dan_) Distressfully aware, he was employed In dangling clumsy legs into the void, But the melancholy whistles Of the ukulele wavered And a tear-drop semiquavered From the music, and the thistles Were extracted And his feet Were attracted By the fleet, Neat notes ... Those tightly-fitting pairs of gloves that dance And beam like a Belasco star On Broadway, where the houses all advance To show how very small we are. And the liquid music throbs Jujubes, Crystal-sparkling thoughts in gobs And cubes-- Flicker-snicker as a scintillating blind In the breeze, To appease The famished Coney Island of the mind. ...... Oh, why was it he looked with such a fierceness the sky? The rustling of the clouds was pearling grey and silver by, The lady of the clouds had dropped her muff, but on she trailed, Her dainty gown was powder-blue, her train was dragon-tailed. Her face was pale as curds and whey with sleepy-starey look, The stars they must have bored her, for they were her only book-- And yet she seemed disdainful as the poplars bowed their plumes, With all the feudal worship that a cloudy queen assumes. Oh, why was it the poet glanced with envy in his eye Above him at the clouds a-sailing grey and silver by? _Escape_ (_Rêvons: c’est l’heure--Verlaine_) We’ll build us stairs of filmy clouds And mount until the air is clear, Above this greasy atmosphere Of callous, artificial crowds. Away from foetid cities’ feet Where, on the asphalt, taxis skate Like sombre souls who percolate Through Limbo’s crumbling lazaret. Away from cities’ clinging noise And as we are in full ascent I’ll know the gamut of content In looking at your perfect poise. No trees shall pry with envied lust On too mature a happiness When I shall taste your lips’ caress, Unmindful that I sprang from dust. Courageously, with silent tears We’ll meet the chaos of the dawn And silently our hearts shall mourn, As at an exodus of years. _Pink Night_ The empty trams sing a familiar song As plaintive as those leaves that once were green And cling to asphalt, floating else among The sharp white-pink of quick acetylene. Like rich saliva sprung from hectic flow’rs They spray the night with echoing ideas-- Some lose themselves in fickle slanting hours And some evaporate in pallid fears. The souls of men have fossilized, grown cold In this sublimely artificial day, A criminal’s revolver-crack they hold Some new device to animate their play! _The lift drops breathless down And stairs in armies rise. Then vertigo, the clown Has caught us in disguise._ _Hope_ I always sing into the night To strangle innermost affright When faces, twisted masks of lust, Leer through the murk like yellow dust. And varnished voices frailly flit Down shuddering alleys sparsely lit. Old harlots lurch with ghostly feet That agonisingly entreat. I think I’m hearing ever after The echoes of polluted laughter, And I can never be alone But I must hear a hollow groan. My mind, as in a nightmare, sees Young bodies rotting with disease, Strange scabs of mauve and wizened heads, Sad hospitals with rows of beds.... Is there no harbour, no escape, Away from whoring, blood and rape? Two lovers on a bench: and I Can hear a new-born baby’s cry. _Pastorale_ I ran into the garden, for the breeze Was clean and keen and warming to the skin Like some Peruvian pepper soaked in gin It forced me to contract into a sneeze. I ran into the garden, for the sky Was like a freshly-tinted muslin gown Which makes the choir-boys gape, the parson frown, His daughters, envying, look on and sigh. I ran into the garden, for the sun Summoned the daisies in their new-washed frills, Summoned the cowslips and the daffodils To gay Spring’s festival, each one by one. I watched the blossoms with the dew in pearls, The Spring puffed flippancies into my mind And thoughts too abstract to have been defined By any but the chaffinch twittering. _Bal Saturnien_ I watched the dancers as they twirled Around the candelabra’d room, And ladies, diamonded, pearled, Danced to the big brass jazz-band’s boom. Rustles of skirts, perfumes that pass, Faces aglow and eyes that beam; Floors lucid as a looking-glass, Lips glossy, puffed with crimson cream. And I am sad, I know not why With this illusive merriment; Candles that flicker out and die, Lilies that wither--youth that’s spent. _For a Viola-da-gamba_ (To be sung by a Eunuch) I have known beauty Of skies at eve Beneath the shadows That interweave The boughs that grieve. I have known beauty Of suns that set With fire of amber And coronet Of pearl inlet. I have known beauty Of fields at dawn When April shivers On gilded corn, And hope is born. I have known beauty Of Summer, Spring, Nebulous Autumn Cloud gathering With frail-poised wing. I have known beauty-- But none so fair To match the splendour Of my love’s hair And snow limbs bare. _Contrasts_ (To the sacred memory of Petronius) Again the agate chalices are filled, And of a sudden orgiasts are stilled In wonder, when jet Nubians outpour The liquid flames instilled from mandragore, Allured but fearful of their potent sway. The lantern fruit glow succulent and gay, Blue-veinéd grapes in massing pendulous, Small raisins, oranges acidulous Contracting eyelids till the features wince, Towering domes of pineapple and quince, And apples like a film of virgin’s breath, Strange berries, (you would think they bleed to death!) Piled pappy plums opaquely amethyst, Pink furry peaches like a morning mist, Green mangoes, mellow apricots of gold, Figs puffed and oozy, melons crystal-cold, Red mammals of persimmon from the South And curious pears that glitter in the mouth, ’Mid Tyrian silk, soft laughter, drapery Of fine-spun damask gleam white napery Bedizened bosoms, arms baptismal white. The guests are surfeited with food, and Night With Sleep and Lust, her ill-assorted sons, Creeps through the porphyry pavilions. “Hither and sing, oh Syrian eunuch-boy, “Those chaste and still-born songs that never cloy “The prurient senses kindling in the flesh ... “Come, Aphrodite, send to me a fresh “Virginal body for my violence, “That I may more enjoy the somnolence “Of after-dreams!” Thus prayed the men of Tyre And other towns demolished by God’s ire. But we to-day have learned and waxed more wise. We look into dear Lady Dodo’s eyes And sip champagne and eat our fricassee, Discuss her spaniel’s noble pedigree; We praise the _chef_. “And what a pretty dress! Worth, dear, or Callot?” (Christ! what bashfulness). And if we wish to have a little game, Beguile the night in homes of evil fame. _The Pensile Gardens of Babylon_ There beauty’s footsteps lingered in the soft And poignant semitones that sped aloft, In perfumes wavering with finger-tips So faint, they scarcely fluttered on the lips. There caravans would halt in flame of day And many turbaned wanderers would stray To cool their brown-limbed bodies in the deep And juicy foam of fountains, where would leap Eternal jets of water-diamonds Limned intricate like myriad leafy fronds, Wetting the marble rims with amber showers Throughout the endless ballet of the hours.... There Bedouins with liquid amorous eyes Would listen to the piercing notes arise From shrilly-vivid parokeets, or pause To overhear the chattering macaws And watch the cranes with slender, supple necks Preening the feathered shadows into flecks Of purpled hues and finest, mordant white, Or spy the swans ascend in snowy flight Over the swinging canopy of leaves; Whither the sky suavely interweaves A labyrinth of azure-rifted clouds. Where saffron-throated birds in whirring crowds Would weep celestial music with their wings, And tawny monkeys, tiny nimble things, Would play their melodramas in the trees, And throbbing swarms of honey-sucking bees Vibrate the petalled air in droning waves, And mingle with the murmuring of slaves. When shadow night is poisoned by the fangs Of daily death, with new redoubled pangs She crackles up in films of aëry haze, Until the reeling sun with outworn rays Is hacked to slivers and his regal veins Spurt crimson jets of flame along the plains, Suffused to blazing chaos when the sky Writhes into darkness and her empery. Then throb the pensile gardens to a swoon, The great rose-yellow petal of the moon Curved, white and hovering above the trees, Shivers a gelid lucency to freeze The gold of sunset into coldest hues-- A monochrome of silver-tinted blues. God’s pyrotechnics, shooting star cascades Splash, sliding, sizzling, ever-whirling blades Or cataracts and dagger jerks of light In infinite gyrations down the night. The hump-backed camels, roding lupanars Of clouds that lust enamoured of the stars, Shimmering jewelled pinpricks wistfully Awed by the vastness and the mystery Wrapped palpitating round. Then fold on fold The shoulders of the hills are outlined bold With pallid smoothness, undulating far To where the empty, trackless deserts are. _Part II_ URBANITIES _Sabbath Morning Rain_ Like diamond on window pane, The sky is jagged by spears of rain. As splashed by layers of grease and lard The slate-roofs glitter cold and hard. And people drag their damp-soled feet Like sacks of dough along the street. Some orange peel of yesternight Brightens the gutter’s mud-choked plight. The ghosts of last night’s riot-spilth Mingle with puddle, slime and filth. A lady walks to Church, her pet White prayer book shielded from the wet. Umbrella dripping, gloves, frock-coat A man sails Churchwards like a boat. Red, smug-faced schoolboys slouch and lurch Before the grimy Gothic Church. Soon sound has ceased except th’ inane Plop-plopping of the Sunday rain. _A Window Speaks_ Oh pity me! for day by countless day And night by night in vain anxiety I wait for something that will never come. I long to splutter, crumble, cut the dust, I long to cleave my prisoners, to gash Their bleeding entrails, slit their tangled guts Until they die in anguish on the floor. A window paralysed and stiffened, I Must even stare upon the dull world’s form And watch the doings of a thousand clowns Repeated lamentably day by day. Dawn rises not with graceful motion here, But with policemen plodding on their beat And whistling apple-faces, clattering Of milk-cans, painted carts and bicycles; The water in the closet down below Continually gingles, splish-a-splash, And I go mad for very monotones. The neat grey clerks trip to their offices Meticulously punctual, little bags Keep runic-rhythm to their gander steps. The sun blinds like a harsh electric bulb, Slicing the street in pools of amber light, Chipping the railings here and chopping there The tulips of the houses opposite. The clock strikes nine and now with sleek top-hats, The tea and toast still tasting in their mouths, _The Times_ not full digested in their minds, The pompous middle-aged to business go Soliloquising fondly to themselves About the new percentage income tax. Then convex matrons interview the cook. A sunburnt cretin cringes down below For pennies, jangling out the tinny notes Of some old catch of Marie Lloyd that scarce Can drag a tune from out its crippled box. Some children skip in time, a monkey bows And capers to the laughing passers-by. The cretin then wheels off and all is still Save for the singing of the charwoman-- “I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,” she sings With shrill, cracked voice resounding down the street Like the sharp scrape of tin-tacks desperate, Persistent in the hollowed crystal air, Till sounds dissolve to liquid quietude. The hot dust smeared along the roadway chokes The sneezing passers-by and slowly mounts Into their nostril-caves distressingly Like microscopic gnats, but now there come Refreshing rumblings from the water-cart, Which spits small Beardsley-drops about the street And trickles down into the gutters fast, Whilst I am left to numbly contemplate The thin, white apron strings of cloud above, Until the raucous luncheon-bell once more Calls upon men to glut themselves with food. Then hour on hour of thudded octaves; hour On hour of doddering on yellow keys-- Long, shapeless valses, British Grenadiers, Whilst water in the closet down below Persists in gurgling semitone applause. The clouds grow sullen and the clerks return As neat as they set out. But in their minds, (Impenetrable masks), their tired thoughts Succeed each other, feeble and fatigued. One, after supper and a game of whist, Will rest his run-down clock-work on a bed. * * * * * The gas-lamps prick their whiteness in the skies, The footsteps of a weary harlot’s tread Remind the street that there is sin abroad. But dismally sin ever fails to lure These brazen men from happy families, Content to snore beneath their handkerchieves. The clock strikes twelve and I am left alone To wait for something that will never come.... _Seven to Bed_ The sentries in their boxes, Like rigid dolls of wood, In saffron-yellow tunics Lethargically stood. The shower had not finished And still her threaded tears Fell down like little seconds Across the flight of years. The pavement was a mirror Which caught the jets of light, The twinkling strings of jewels That pour from lamps at night. Suffused among the turrets A solitary bird Imprisoned in its feathers A music faint and blurred.... In bed, I heard the creeping, The rippling drum of rain And watched the twilight falling Upon the window pane. _Town Typing Office_ Here in an office of sickly greens Typists tap fast on black machines; Middle-aged drudges the hour-long day Hammer their finger-nails away: I have just come from the country’s crown, Shropshire, you know, with clouds of down, This is a change from the gaping sheep Grazing for ever, half asleep. I have just come from the country wealds, Shropshire, you know, with spinach fields, Men there are honest and plump and red, Here they are sallow for lack of bread. But in the office the clock ticks fast Telling how soon the hours flit past, Middle-aged drudges the hour-long day Hammer their pallid lives away. _Coiffeur Choréographique_ To Edith Sitwell “Next gentleman,” the nervous scissors wait To spoil the hair off some reflecting pate. “The unemployed, Sir?--half of them are thieves, Who soil propriety like autumn leaves.” I wait until my turn. The crack of doom Summons me from a plush-protected tomb. “Short round the edge, but not too short will do, And then I think I’ll have a dry shampoo.” The scissors ballet-dance about one ear, Some hairs have fallen down my neck, I fear. Another pas-de-deux about my eyes-- I do not care for such close harmonies. But soon the cutting’s done, the barber says: “The unemployed are dreadful, better days “May come and make us more content, I hope.” My head is buried in a cloud of soap, Till down upon my head Niagara Falls Descend with all the heat of music halls. He dries my hair, and as I go he says: “The unemployed are dreadful, better days----” I slam the door and wonder, “Will he say ‘The unemployed, Sir,’ on the Judgment Day?” _L’Impératrice des Pagodes_ A poor, drab slattern washed a greasy plate Daubed and besmeared with crumbs and margarine, She had small time to think of tinsel Fate And yet she sang a Fate that might have been. When she, the Queen of distant Bangalore, (She saw it on a coloured map at school) Would lie with Bob upon a cushioned floor And jeer at Liza, dubbing her a fool. When she would bathe her limbs in ode-colone[2] And promenade in parks with German bands, When she’d no longer watch the stars alone, But with Bob’s kisses on her melting hands. When she could gallop down the Margate beach And have her “photo” taken on the pier-- (Bob told her once her face was like a peach, A dubious compliment! to witness here). And the bank-holidays, the giddy nights Of merry-goes and switch-backs at Earl’s Court-- The penny-in-the-slot machines, the sights Of pygmies, men deformed of every sort, Abnormal women, men with scaley skins And Esmeraldas wise in magic lore Would bow to stout Viziers, Moujiks and Djins Encircling Winnie, Queen of Bangalore! A poor, drab slattern washed a greasy plate Daubed and besmeared with crumbs and margarine, She had small time to think of tinsel Fate And yet she sang a Fate that might have been. _Miss Fay the Trapezist_ Red ostrich feathers in her hair, She balances while people stare At her pink tights through foetid waves Of pulsing awe; they are her slaves. They are her slaves; she smiles and they Are near-bewitched to see her sway Along the slender wire trapeze Into the card-board painted trees. The sugared music stops, she stands Upon her plump and milk-white hands. Bird-like she rises, blows a kiss To the spectators, moist with bliss. The brass band plays a tepid valse Of sickly syrup-sounds, the false Pearls of a dowager keep time. They too were pretty in their prime. Then the spectators clap, they burst Applause until a molten thirst Tugs at their dewlaps, when Miss Fay Flutters a curtsey to the day. _Sotie_ (The lion-huntress accounts for one of her rather more unprepossessing guests) Small crumbs of glass he had for eyes That blinked, myopically wise. Like midnight suns his laughter froze, Suavely sterile and morose. All bistre-brown, an eerie sight, As shrivelled as a Cenobite Long vagrant in the Thebaid, He quite miraculously hid. But after many years he came To town, and found it just the same. He had his hair cut in the Strand And manicured each psychic hand. He wrote a book on Cerements Or some such furtive elements; He got a title for his pains, I’m told he has terrific brains! He had his little eyes exchanged For larger ones--Mix X. arranged His skin (enamel so they say!) And so I had him here to stay. With eucalyptus in his hair, He trims his beard if people stare. He loves to sip beneath the shade The languid green of lemonade. _Mr. Bedlam’s Sunday Breakfast_ Melancholily he chipped his morning egg, So human in its roundness that he felt A murderer, then lifted the too-small spoon Brimmed with slippery yolk. “Oh, no you shan’t Fall on my Sunday best.” How like a woman’s kiss It seemed to slither nudely down his throat. Glutinous amber. The tea, when milk had flecked it, Softening the vulgar cairngorm to a mere distinguished Nebulosity (pompous), nubiferousness (more pompous still), Was almost worth the drinking, although it lacked The romance of being specified Chinese. The fat round butter with the daisy on it, The daisy that he would soon decapitate, Looked over-salted, but then the bread was always Doughy and void of flavour. To-day the crust was black, as if the soot Had fallen on a country thatch ... the marmalade, Scotch and well streaked, smiled on in invitation. “My headache’s better now. We won’t be late. And Dr. Chitty’s preaching on Divorce.” FOOTNOTES: [1] Bother those lick-spittles! [2] Kitchen-English for “Eau de Cologne.” TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained from the original. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AQUARIUM *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. 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