The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAn Indian Ass

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAn Indian AssThis 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 atwww.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: An Indian AssAuthor: Harold ActonRelease date: February 19, 2022 [eBook #67441]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: Duckworth, 1925Credits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INDIAN ASS ***

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 atwww.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: An Indian AssAuthor: Harold ActonRelease date: February 19, 2022 [eBook #67441]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: Duckworth, 1925Credits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

Title: An Indian Ass

Author: Harold Acton

Release date: February 19, 2022 [eBook #67441]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Duckworth, 1925

Credits: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INDIAN ASS ***

AN INDIAN ASSBy the same authorAQUARIUM

BYHAROLD ACTON

“Ha ha! ha ha! this world doth passMost merrily, I’ll be sworn;For many an honest Indian assGoes for an Unicorn.Ty hye! ty hye! O sweet delight!He tickles this age that canCall Tullia’s ape a marmosyteAnd Leda’s goose a swan.”

“Ha ha! ha ha! this world doth passMost merrily, I’ll be sworn;For many an honest Indian assGoes for an Unicorn.

Ty hye! ty hye! O sweet delight!He tickles this age that canCall Tullia’s ape a marmosyteAnd Leda’s goose a swan.”

DUCKWORTH3 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C.First published in 1925All rights reservedPrinted in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

NOW fogs enfold the seaAnd berries fall from eaves,The cat’s eyes glitter green into the dark.The sloping hills of myrrh,The trees with tender anise overweighed,The pointed flag-leaves stirOnly to weep again,Only to sob and mourn Adonis dead.Throughout this dolorous night of cloudy jadeEven the hornless dragon of the sea,The green and golden sequined basilisk,The water-scorpion and the python-kingLike sad eclipses trail about the land.The crane, the ibis and the mango-bird,The jungle-fowl, the heron and the roc,The badger and three-footed tortoise joinIn pouring out their eyes.O Cypris violet-stoled, O wrapped in purple woofArise and beat your azure-veined breasts!Small jewelled nipples, bleed!For I have seen you make that curved mouthA bed of balsam, bed of crisp lush flowers,Whose poor crushed frozen lips compactly closedLie, flakes of ice, where once were flakes of fire,Their loveliness a thing of agony.The moon has slanted off, and querulous ghostsHover along the brink of treacherous voidsAnd leap into this night of blinded eyes(Blind now to pleasure’s lapping ecstasies);This peacock-throated night whose stifling criesShudder and crack: ’tis Misery who calls“Woe” to the black solemnities of skyFor loveliest Adonis—he is dead.Low on the hills he lies, the lovely bleeding one,His throat aflash with faint stunned strands of light.Low on the hills he lies and breathes his life awayAnd from his thigh of milk-white agate gashed,Slit by the cruel tusk,The ruby blood drips down his skin of snow.Beneath his brows stars set in crystal deep(Once memories, hungers glinted in their pools),Are glazed dim, opaque and lustreless,The blue orbs burn no more beneath translucent lids.His locks are wet with the clear drops of night,The rose has fled his lip: the very kiss hangs dead,The kiss that Cypris never will forego.And when the bitter white wind breaks the morn,His gathered hounds bay gloom about his corpse,The green-haired Nereids of the marsh make moan,Frail flowers dabble pollened cheeks with tears,From vavicel to calyx petals weep....Long spiral tufts of drooping galingale,The shadowy deer-grass and the swallow-wortSob through their bat’s wing tissues tremulous,The poplars weeping amber in the vales,The orchises and sandal-trees, lament.But Aphrodite with unbraided hairAnd tragic thorn-pierced feet so delicate,Calls through the woodlands and again, again.O, more than music’s many stringèd charms,His lulling name reverberates afarWhere faint sails clasp the ribbands of the sea.But round his navel leaps the thick dark blood,His chest is lapped in scarlet from the thighs,Now purpled are those limbs afore as whiteAs veils of snow unflecked by merest breeze.Cypris was fair: whilst her Adonis livedThe light would melt her body into song,But with Adonis has her beauty died,Died as a vaporous melody on a lute.“Woe, woe, for Cypris!” all the mountains call,The oak-trees answer: “For Adonis, woe!”For Aphrodite all the rivers weep,The wells bewail Adonis on the hills.Echo resounds “Ai, ai ... Adonis dead ...Most beautiful Adonis ... he is dead.”As Venus saw the wasting limbs, the woundGashed in the whiteness of her loved one’s thighs,She clasped him to her, moaning supply warmAgainst his chilled inertness:“Farewell, Adonis; once, as I was tellingDeluding tales of happiness, the morrow,When I had thought that joy had come for dwelling,Came sorrow.“The almoner of death, the silent creeper,Has snared my love, and I shall see him never,I, manacled in miseries, a weeperFor ever.“A widowed goddess with her beauty settingLike a gold sun to rise no longer, never,Whose love, with Acheron, is fast forgettingHer for ever.”For each blood drop the Paphian sheds a tear,And tears and blood on earth are turned to flowers:The ruby blood brings forth the pursy rose,The tears bring forth the air-white wind-flower,For loveliest Adonis—he is dead.No seemly couch, this lonely bed of leavesFor dead Adonis: beautiful in deathAs one that stumbles on a slumber, fallsOn downy-wingèd doze of braided air.Your bed let him possess, O Cytherea,Lay him to sleep on couch of twisted gold,The couch that yearns for wan Adonis’ limbs.Cast on him drooping eyes of jasmine-flowers,Nay, all the flowers have faded in his death,As keen swift lovely murmurs drowned on breeze.Sprinkle his limbs with bakkaris and myrrh,Nay, perished all the perfumes in his death,All flushed soft legendary scents dissolve—Disquieting erotic memories.The torches on the lintel all are quenchedAnd Hymenæus rends the bridal crown.No more the song is “Hymen”: a new songThe Graces grieve like mournful Autumn boughs,The toneless sound that means a broken heart:“Woe, for Adonis, son of Cinyrus!”To him the Muses chant their starry music,And painted insects floating motionlessAt their weird sound, unconscious of the day,Bright feathered wings hung in the gloom of thoughtMimic the melancholy atmosphereAnd dry words start and rattle in the throat,Shudder in sorrow; but he does not heed.The bending vault of stars,Of cool green quiet stars,Where clouds but catch the palest tinge of day,Is tangled with the sea;The moonlight tossed and thrown by jostling wavesRefrain from dirges, cease,O Cypris, your lament.Again you must bewail another year!

Throughout this dolorous night of cloudy jadeEven the hornless dragon of the sea,The green and golden sequined basilisk,The water-scorpion and the python-kingLike sad eclipses trail about the land.The crane, the ibis and the mango-bird,The jungle-fowl, the heron and the roc,The badger and three-footed tortoise joinIn pouring out their eyes.

O Cypris violet-stoled, O wrapped in purple woofArise and beat your azure-veined breasts!Small jewelled nipples, bleed!For I have seen you make that curved mouthA bed of balsam, bed of crisp lush flowers,Whose poor crushed frozen lips compactly closedLie, flakes of ice, where once were flakes of fire,Their loveliness a thing of agony.The moon has slanted off, and querulous ghostsHover along the brink of treacherous voidsAnd leap into this night of blinded eyes(Blind now to pleasure’s lapping ecstasies);This peacock-throated night whose stifling criesShudder and crack: ’tis Misery who calls“Woe” to the black solemnities of skyFor loveliest Adonis—he is dead.

Low on the hills he lies, the lovely bleeding one,His throat aflash with faint stunned strands of light.Low on the hills he lies and breathes his life awayAnd from his thigh of milk-white agate gashed,Slit by the cruel tusk,The ruby blood drips down his skin of snow.Beneath his brows stars set in crystal deep(Once memories, hungers glinted in their pools),Are glazed dim, opaque and lustreless,The blue orbs burn no more beneath translucent lids.His locks are wet with the clear drops of night,The rose has fled his lip: the very kiss hangs dead,The kiss that Cypris never will forego.

And when the bitter white wind breaks the morn,His gathered hounds bay gloom about his corpse,The green-haired Nereids of the marsh make moan,Frail flowers dabble pollened cheeks with tears,From vavicel to calyx petals weep....Long spiral tufts of drooping galingale,The shadowy deer-grass and the swallow-wortSob through their bat’s wing tissues tremulous,The poplars weeping amber in the vales,The orchises and sandal-trees, lament.

But Aphrodite with unbraided hairAnd tragic thorn-pierced feet so delicate,Calls through the woodlands and again, again.O, more than music’s many stringèd charms,His lulling name reverberates afarWhere faint sails clasp the ribbands of the sea.But round his navel leaps the thick dark blood,His chest is lapped in scarlet from the thighs,Now purpled are those limbs afore as whiteAs veils of snow unflecked by merest breeze.

Cypris was fair: whilst her Adonis livedThe light would melt her body into song,But with Adonis has her beauty died,Died as a vaporous melody on a lute.“Woe, woe, for Cypris!” all the mountains call,The oak-trees answer: “For Adonis, woe!”For Aphrodite all the rivers weep,The wells bewail Adonis on the hills.Echo resounds “Ai, ai ... Adonis dead ...Most beautiful Adonis ... he is dead.”As Venus saw the wasting limbs, the woundGashed in the whiteness of her loved one’s thighs,She clasped him to her, moaning supply warmAgainst his chilled inertness:

“Farewell, Adonis; once, as I was tellingDeluding tales of happiness, the morrow,When I had thought that joy had come for dwelling,Came sorrow.

“The almoner of death, the silent creeper,Has snared my love, and I shall see him never,I, manacled in miseries, a weeperFor ever.

“A widowed goddess with her beauty settingLike a gold sun to rise no longer, never,Whose love, with Acheron, is fast forgettingHer for ever.”

For each blood drop the Paphian sheds a tear,And tears and blood on earth are turned to flowers:The ruby blood brings forth the pursy rose,The tears bring forth the air-white wind-flower,For loveliest Adonis—he is dead.

No seemly couch, this lonely bed of leavesFor dead Adonis: beautiful in deathAs one that stumbles on a slumber, fallsOn downy-wingèd doze of braided air.

Your bed let him possess, O Cytherea,Lay him to sleep on couch of twisted gold,The couch that yearns for wan Adonis’ limbs.Cast on him drooping eyes of jasmine-flowers,Nay, all the flowers have faded in his death,As keen swift lovely murmurs drowned on breeze.Sprinkle his limbs with bakkaris and myrrh,Nay, perished all the perfumes in his death,All flushed soft legendary scents dissolve—Disquieting erotic memories.

The torches on the lintel all are quenchedAnd Hymenæus rends the bridal crown.No more the song is “Hymen”: a new songThe Graces grieve like mournful Autumn boughs,The toneless sound that means a broken heart:“Woe, for Adonis, son of Cinyrus!”To him the Muses chant their starry music,And painted insects floating motionlessAt their weird sound, unconscious of the day,Bright feathered wings hung in the gloom of thoughtMimic the melancholy atmosphereAnd dry words start and rattle in the throat,Shudder in sorrow; but he does not heed.

The bending vault of stars,Of cool green quiet stars,Where clouds but catch the palest tinge of day,Is tangled with the sea;The moonlight tossed and thrown by jostling wavesRefrain from dirges, cease,O Cypris, your lament.Again you must bewail another year!

WHEN frigates from long voyagesDrift into harbour, then I seeWhirled momentary miragesOf inspissated greenery—Mazed mangroves casting their aerial roots,And diamond water-shootsEmbroidering the air.And in the drowsy hanging-gardens thereRoam slowly-swaying elephants;The fulgurant phœnix with her sycophants,Those trailing-plumèd birds of paradise,Sits on a cactus thorn.And gleaming in the ruby-veinèd mornLie pools of liquid amber for the indolent crocodileTo flounder in and dolorously smile.Spick diving gannets, speckled pelicans,Flutter with feather-footed ptarmigans.Orange-liveried marmosetsClimb slender cypress minarets.Strange garrisonsOf emerald-mailed chameleons,And peacocks, fans outspread as gonfalons,Shrill-voiced as amazons;Coiled dinosaurs that lap the hydromelFrom many a mauve-lipped shell....The unicorns are neighing from afar,Where hills of cinnabarLoom highLike venomous Borgia-philtres on the sky.

“Y entre puente y otro puenteZaragoza es my tierra.”

OF blood blown-dry brown velvet, baldaquins,Words guttural—then soft as dulcimers:Of rays of rapid light through fishes’ finsPrisoned in tanks profound where nothing stirs;Of nights that ooze weird sounds, and starry eyesOn lattice fixed and bulging balconies:—Of these my brain built castles rapidly,And tolled metallic like a beaten bellOf hard green copper; straggling aimlesslyOver ravine and granite citadelWere cities unpremeditated, dry,As draughts of space inhaled from scorching sky.Through these Cathedrals rose like cachalotsTwisted of height and gloom and sudden glow.Their glossy floors reflect the crimson clotsOf vestment swirling, swishing to and fro—And when the beadle taps his ponderous maceFaint echoes rustle from the Altar’s lace.Within the town: feeble electric lightAmong the dusty foliage of the trees,Like gentle cheeks against the steely night,With boughs of thick smooth silver; jubileesOf saints are frequent—in their thoughtfulnessThe citizens will give their saint a dress.They lift her from the gilded canopy,Studded in far Peru, on which she stands,Sumptuous, realistic, in each eyeA gaping jewel; sprouting from her handsAre paper flowers—in their thoughtfulnessThey give their saint a new magenta dress.The ceremony done, and people doffTheir piety: serrated streets resoundWith gossip, vacuous laughter, idle scoff.Like strips of tape the scattered crowds confound,Mantillas and a rout of dusky hair,Stray thoughts jerk off and clatter in the air....Austere this land, and yet it utters flesh:The longing ache of contact, lids like songAnd lips like speech melodious: a meshFor Don Juans and sanguine passions; strongThis earth of sprinkled blood, the seed of gold,Whose tainted glitters dazzle young and old!Jagged umber ridges freaked with lines of snow,Bitumen lakes, austere as faded fire,And vague waste lands where gypsies squatting lowCroon winged abandoned musics that expireLike bruised sweet herbs, gushed madness, agoniesOf lances hurled at pulseless arteries.Like vapours anchored to a mountain’s thighLegioned, remote and abstract, yet withalEvocative of an infinity—Beauty becoming metaphysical—This Phœnix-land breeds new birds in the brainFrom ash, for I have never been to Spain.

Of these my brain built castles rapidly,And tolled metallic like a beaten bellOf hard green copper; straggling aimlesslyOver ravine and granite citadelWere cities unpremeditated, dry,As draughts of space inhaled from scorching sky.

Through these Cathedrals rose like cachalotsTwisted of height and gloom and sudden glow.Their glossy floors reflect the crimson clotsOf vestment swirling, swishing to and fro—And when the beadle taps his ponderous maceFaint echoes rustle from the Altar’s lace.

Within the town: feeble electric lightAmong the dusty foliage of the trees,Like gentle cheeks against the steely night,With boughs of thick smooth silver; jubileesOf saints are frequent—in their thoughtfulnessThe citizens will give their saint a dress.

They lift her from the gilded canopy,Studded in far Peru, on which she stands,Sumptuous, realistic, in each eyeA gaping jewel; sprouting from her handsAre paper flowers—in their thoughtfulnessThey give their saint a new magenta dress.

The ceremony done, and people doffTheir piety: serrated streets resoundWith gossip, vacuous laughter, idle scoff.Like strips of tape the scattered crowds confound,Mantillas and a rout of dusky hair,Stray thoughts jerk off and clatter in the air....

Austere this land, and yet it utters flesh:The longing ache of contact, lids like songAnd lips like speech melodious: a meshFor Don Juans and sanguine passions; strongThis earth of sprinkled blood, the seed of gold,Whose tainted glitters dazzle young and old!

Jagged umber ridges freaked with lines of snow,Bitumen lakes, austere as faded fire,And vague waste lands where gypsies squatting lowCroon winged abandoned musics that expireLike bruised sweet herbs, gushed madness, agoniesOf lances hurled at pulseless arteries.

Like vapours anchored to a mountain’s thighLegioned, remote and abstract, yet withalEvocative of an infinity—Beauty becoming metaphysical—This Phœnix-land breeds new birds in the brainFrom ash, for I have never been to Spain.

THE trees sprawl up like trumpets in the night,Great ghosts of once-viridian: but now,Fibred with brittle tufts of massy snow,They creak with burdened whiteness, for the brightBlue-prismed stalactites like wounds of lightAre pendulous from their pagoda-boughs.And when a wind whirs in among the trees,As some Silenus fumbling frantic handsInto a cleft of honey, they cast offA whittling dust of little hispid stars.The moon is hungry. Lo! the moon has thinnedTo finger-nail’s fine fringe; she is forlornWith thought of Spring’s flown hollow spells of joy,When the now-passionless statue of her mindWas tremulous with passion, nescient lipsStammered lush ingenuities of love.Then Summer crackled like a yawn of fire:The big-lipped consummation of desire.A starved, lean-ribbed dog with rheumy eyesYelps up at her, his poor thin thread of voiceNigh snaps, and trails its note into a growl,Then tumbles, frozen stark, amongst the snow.The barbèd minutes shiver chillilyIn wait for something.Ho! who’s this, a man?In this torn catafalque of barren boughs?A patriarchal bearded brittle-bonesDaft, dazed with drink, shuffles his slipshod feetScattering sprays of crisply sparkling snow.Death clanks his rusty mail and flaps his wingsAnd ogling, draws the man into a dance:“No more the malady of life unlivedWith no grand-opera effects; no moreHeroic sunsets, agonies of roseTo wear you faint; no more the whirlpool’s mistOf good and evil. It shall be revealedThere is no meaning, no significanceIn all this clamour, in this viscous trailOf sentimental sanatoriums.Those frowning stoic caryatides,Who contemplate in decorous solitudeThis elegant Golgotha of futile birth,Are fraudulent mountebanks; unmanicured,Life’s pointed nails grapple and tear your flanksWithout a murmur trembling from your lips,O broken vessel sprayed with broken light,Come to oblivion’s arms; sepulchral night,Inchoate truth await you—they are kind.Close your red lashless eyelids. Death is fair....”

Ho! who’s this, a man?In this torn catafalque of barren boughs?A patriarchal bearded brittle-bonesDaft, dazed with drink, shuffles his slipshod feetScattering sprays of crisply sparkling snow.Death clanks his rusty mail and flaps his wingsAnd ogling, draws the man into a dance:

“No more the malady of life unlivedWith no grand-opera effects; no moreHeroic sunsets, agonies of roseTo wear you faint; no more the whirlpool’s mistOf good and evil. It shall be revealedThere is no meaning, no significanceIn all this clamour, in this viscous trailOf sentimental sanatoriums.Those frowning stoic caryatides,Who contemplate in decorous solitudeThis elegant Golgotha of futile birth,Are fraudulent mountebanks; unmanicured,Life’s pointed nails grapple and tear your flanksWithout a murmur trembling from your lips,O broken vessel sprayed with broken light,Come to oblivion’s arms; sepulchral night,Inchoate truth await you—they are kind.Close your red lashless eyelids. Death is fair....”

OH have you heard the chaunt of snailsTilting upon a big brown leaf,And held the insect world in fiefAnd pared the devil’s gilded nails?And have you parlied with the rose,And seen the ballet of the batsAnd watched the sloths, our acrobats,Performing at our antic-shows?And have you drunk the tears of stars,And bathed in bubbles of the moon,And heard the gay grasshoppers croon,Who use their bodies as guitars?Then, if you’ve seen the phœnix landOr if a satyr’s beard you’ve sawn,And filed the eye-brows of a faun,We will admit you to our band.The hedonistic unicorns,Who drive our chariots through the sky,Will lead you to our emperyOf languid dappled damson dawns.

OH have you heard the chaunt of snailsTilting upon a big brown leaf,And held the insect world in fiefAnd pared the devil’s gilded nails?

And have you parlied with the rose,And seen the ballet of the batsAnd watched the sloths, our acrobats,Performing at our antic-shows?

And have you drunk the tears of stars,And bathed in bubbles of the moon,And heard the gay grasshoppers croon,Who use their bodies as guitars?

Then, if you’ve seen the phœnix landOr if a satyr’s beard you’ve sawn,And filed the eye-brows of a faun,We will admit you to our band.

The hedonistic unicorns,Who drive our chariots through the sky,Will lead you to our emperyOf languid dappled damson dawns.

ALL in the hush of a green night,He left the downy marriage-bedIn a chill sweat, his face chalk-white,His voice spoke hoarsely of the dead.The young wife, wakened by his howls,Clutched bed-post dumb with fright, surprise;Like lepers huddled under cowls,Red films lay on her husband’s eyes.“I am become a wolf,” he said,“And I will to the churchyard-siteTo throttle graves, to raise the dead.Strange flesh will be my fare to-night!”And barking at the slice of moonHe scampered nimbly on all fours.She never saw him more; one noonShe spied the imprint of wolf’s claws.

ALL in the hush of a green night,He left the downy marriage-bedIn a chill sweat, his face chalk-white,His voice spoke hoarsely of the dead.

The young wife, wakened by his howls,Clutched bed-post dumb with fright, surprise;Like lepers huddled under cowls,Red films lay on her husband’s eyes.

“I am become a wolf,” he said,“And I will to the churchyard-siteTo throttle graves, to raise the dead.Strange flesh will be my fare to-night!”

And barking at the slice of moonHe scampered nimbly on all fours.She never saw him more; one noonShe spied the imprint of wolf’s claws.

COME, let us sing the world’s hilarity,Now that a silence overspreads the hills,Each crevice, muscle, wimpling in a haze,Blue-ragged fustian of twilight: comeAnd crack the sky with laughter, mounting shrill,Let it dissolve the æther, let it breakIn bubbles, circles ever-bosoming,As when a trout has troubled a still pool.Scatter it like a hungry pack of hounds,Worry and tear and grind it into strips,Ravish and tread on it, then let it beTo crawl before us like the ooze of oil,A worm of shame, a mean and squamous thing.Hysteria, guide us! Let our laughter heave,Swell shriek on shriek, till it engender fearLike peacocks in abandoned palacesWhose sharp and melancholy discords ringAnd rinse like lightning through the vaulted roofsAt sunset hour, when skies are smeared with blood.Come, drown the viol’s pallid amber notes,Submerge the fevered pluckings at the lute,Let no soft rippling cadences be spilled,But beat a riot out upon the drums.Fescennine gongs shall kindle us to blaze,And thus our fumes, well ballasted, will steerTowards the placid stars and make them reel.Our lives are cratered with great pocks and scabs,Meticulously morselled into pangs,Birth-scream, death-rattle, straggling years between,Of childhood and uneasy puberty,Of adolescence and maturity,Resolve tormented into slow decay,Crabbed, agued, rheumatic, cough our lives away.And some, less fortunate, cough up their blood.Then let us sing the world’s hilarity!With plunging pistons let our laughter press,Lumbering in massed squadrons, vitriolTo blister the anæmic orb of moon.And there are many hours before the dawn.The hilewort, nightshade, agrimony-wandSurrender to the fingers of the breeze,Lay bare their throats, let loose their floating hair.Some luckless women bear their children blindAnd some hare-lipped and others lunatickWith soft and fumbling brains and shifting eyes,Who dandle curly flowers, their lolling tonguesClicking and moist with unrestrained saliva.Perhaps ’twere better that they were born blind,Never to see the ugliness of man,The mirrors of his noisome, clammy thoughts,Like night-grown fungi pushing on the air,But hold sweet music palpable, and sounds,Tones, undertones: a paradise of hues,And glowing forms in silk embroideries.The silence, too, will seem a rhythmic motion,A saraband for snow-white feet to tread,And not a tortured cripple crouching lowAmongst the blotting shadows of his soul,To nurse his agony with evil oaths,The blight-scarred sickly vapours of remorse,Sputtered and writhing from his twisted lips.Were a revolver fired with loud report,The only music welcome to our ears,The poor blind man would tremble, clutch a chair....Day after day the limbs of man are gnawedAnd flayed by every manner of disease,Eaten of lice, they seem the spawn of slugs,And cancer slowly scrabbles at their vitals.The small-pox ploughs their faces into rutsAnd scurvy furrows, strange deformitiesDistend and hunch them into monstrous shapes,Like shadows gripping at realities,To scrape a livid grave amongst the slime.Some calcined ashen white with leprosyWill scream for terror at their dreadful hands,The touch of which would seem to cause decayThe roots they tear, the pappy fruit they pluck,And prowling beasts will turn in haste and fleeBefore their weary footsteps through the night.Our quickened hearts have grated on themselves,We groin with lappered morphews of the mind,Our wanton mirth has frozen into sorrow,And we had thought to fashion of our joyRound crackling pearls to pelt our wine-drenched loves.But we were to have sung hilarity!Our clowns are turned into tragedians,And Pierrot’s chalk-white face is crinkled upWith bitter weeping; roguish Harlequin,His apple cheeks all wet and blobbed with tears,Wanders the streets of Bergamo alone.And floating through the utter silences,Our sobs well hugely, spasms echoingTo jeer and mock at us, abortive fools,Who came to sing the world’s hilarity.

Scatter it like a hungry pack of hounds,Worry and tear and grind it into strips,Ravish and tread on it, then let it beTo crawl before us like the ooze of oil,A worm of shame, a mean and squamous thing.

Hysteria, guide us! Let our laughter heave,Swell shriek on shriek, till it engender fearLike peacocks in abandoned palacesWhose sharp and melancholy discords ringAnd rinse like lightning through the vaulted roofsAt sunset hour, when skies are smeared with blood.Come, drown the viol’s pallid amber notes,Submerge the fevered pluckings at the lute,Let no soft rippling cadences be spilled,But beat a riot out upon the drums.Fescennine gongs shall kindle us to blaze,And thus our fumes, well ballasted, will steerTowards the placid stars and make them reel.

Our lives are cratered with great pocks and scabs,Meticulously morselled into pangs,Birth-scream, death-rattle, straggling years between,Of childhood and uneasy puberty,Of adolescence and maturity,Resolve tormented into slow decay,Crabbed, agued, rheumatic, cough our lives away.And some, less fortunate, cough up their blood.

Then let us sing the world’s hilarity!With plunging pistons let our laughter press,Lumbering in massed squadrons, vitriolTo blister the anæmic orb of moon.And there are many hours before the dawn.The hilewort, nightshade, agrimony-wandSurrender to the fingers of the breeze,Lay bare their throats, let loose their floating hair.

Some luckless women bear their children blindAnd some hare-lipped and others lunatickWith soft and fumbling brains and shifting eyes,Who dandle curly flowers, their lolling tonguesClicking and moist with unrestrained saliva.Perhaps ’twere better that they were born blind,Never to see the ugliness of man,The mirrors of his noisome, clammy thoughts,Like night-grown fungi pushing on the air,But hold sweet music palpable, and sounds,Tones, undertones: a paradise of hues,And glowing forms in silk embroideries.The silence, too, will seem a rhythmic motion,A saraband for snow-white feet to tread,And not a tortured cripple crouching lowAmongst the blotting shadows of his soul,To nurse his agony with evil oaths,The blight-scarred sickly vapours of remorse,Sputtered and writhing from his twisted lips.

Were a revolver fired with loud report,The only music welcome to our ears,The poor blind man would tremble, clutch a chair....

Day after day the limbs of man are gnawedAnd flayed by every manner of disease,Eaten of lice, they seem the spawn of slugs,And cancer slowly scrabbles at their vitals.The small-pox ploughs their faces into rutsAnd scurvy furrows, strange deformitiesDistend and hunch them into monstrous shapes,Like shadows gripping at realities,To scrape a livid grave amongst the slime.Some calcined ashen white with leprosyWill scream for terror at their dreadful hands,The touch of which would seem to cause decayThe roots they tear, the pappy fruit they pluck,And prowling beasts will turn in haste and fleeBefore their weary footsteps through the night.

Our quickened hearts have grated on themselves,We groin with lappered morphews of the mind,Our wanton mirth has frozen into sorrow,And we had thought to fashion of our joyRound crackling pearls to pelt our wine-drenched loves.But we were to have sung hilarity!

Our clowns are turned into tragedians,And Pierrot’s chalk-white face is crinkled upWith bitter weeping; roguish Harlequin,His apple cheeks all wet and blobbed with tears,Wanders the streets of Bergamo alone.And floating through the utter silences,Our sobs well hugely, spasms echoingTo jeer and mock at us, abortive fools,Who came to sing the world’s hilarity.

LIGHTNING zigzags and againComets reel like tipsy girls,Bulbous clouds let down the rain,Little silver chains of pearls.Through the frenzied city beatsA bourdon-drumming, heavy, low.In long and apoplectic streetsThe gods are passing to and fro.I watch them walk among the crowds,Their beards a-glittering with stars,Until they merge into the cloudsAmong the chimney’s fat cigars.While lovers in their foolishnessLisp out the night with hopes and fears,Whilst into void and emptinessTime clatters off and disappears.

LIGHTNING zigzags and againComets reel like tipsy girls,Bulbous clouds let down the rain,Little silver chains of pearls.

Through the frenzied city beatsA bourdon-drumming, heavy, low.In long and apoplectic streetsThe gods are passing to and fro.

I watch them walk among the crowds,Their beards a-glittering with stars,Until they merge into the cloudsAmong the chimney’s fat cigars.

While lovers in their foolishnessLisp out the night with hopes and fears,Whilst into void and emptinessTime clatters off and disappears.

EIGHT days without a sun: but I am calmAnd cultivate my tulips fixedly,I watch them flick their flighty freckled tonguesMocking and sweetly monstrous blares of time.(We weep to see you haste away so soon!)The gas is near extinct upon the plush,Like the last birds its flares have ebbed away.Blue witness of the Second Empire, gas!—In cabriolets we echoed through the nightAnd caracoled with busselled courtesans—You lit the boulevards and avenues,While Paul Verlaine, a candle in his hand,Would totter up to bed and watch the moonComme un point sur un i—so orotund....Through fumes and crapulous velleities.But now the batteries like headaches beatAgainst the temples of humanity;A network of pure electricityInstalled for quick transmission through the worldPours a perpetual electric day.Men plough their fields by searchlights from the skies,By searchlights blatant, geometrical,As fingers from each god-like aeroplanePointed to each created mass of fleshAccusing and forewarning.O empresses of jade who slumber on your cushions,Who slumber delicately on your cushions!If we were moulded of a subtle stoneInstead of being merely flesh and bone,We’d imitate your cool and elegant curves.To chill green jade our hot and shattered nervesWould clot or petrify or fossilize—And moss to moist the finnèd lids of eyes,Lush velvet soaking on the irisesLooped round with tiredness and its swollen redsWould grow about our damask four-post beds.We would be green, an ecstasy of green!As small sea-violets, virgin forest’s green,Where trees like coral sponges dab the air,And through each weft you hear a piece of wind,A tiny concertina-push of soundAnd then an inrush, sobbing gently inward.Why do we drown in customs, why becomeLost dying flames and strangers to the skiesWhose beams with clouds like wingèd chariots fly?Why do we climb the towers which break our knees,Horrible towers from which, when we look downWe wish to hurl ourselves?O, then the ant-like herd below would feelA gentle spray of entrails—they’d recoil!—Perhaps one woman faints: we do not care,The worm has not become our paramour,The worm has not yet pierced our winding-sheets.Then why not, like Empedocles,Lower our limbs into volcano-craters,And make the world believe that mighty GodTranslated us into His companyOn dolphins’ backs across a nectar lake,To share the glory of His attributes,His love like myrrh and incense and the fruitsThat dangle from exotic herbs and treesAll gold and ripe as from Hesperides?An architect of ruin onion-eyedLike some fierce tyrant in old tapestryHas cast the die of quick finalityAmong the cheese-mites in this gap of time.Through Chaos: murmurs, stumblings, hordes that rendThe fabric which is called reality.The light, which was a sluice of molten gold,The crystal winds, disperse in empty air.The deep red empty holes which were our eyesSense only burstings of electric globes.Louder the heat, like vitriol, wounds our earsBurning with dull blue thunder.And then—a tune upon the piccolo,One of the musical Unemployed, I know,Or some stray angel with pink sugar wingsTrying to see the cheerful side of things!

But now the batteries like headaches beatAgainst the temples of humanity;A network of pure electricityInstalled for quick transmission through the worldPours a perpetual electric day.Men plough their fields by searchlights from the skies,By searchlights blatant, geometrical,As fingers from each god-like aeroplanePointed to each created mass of fleshAccusing and forewarning.

O empresses of jade who slumber on your cushions,Who slumber delicately on your cushions!If we were moulded of a subtle stoneInstead of being merely flesh and bone,We’d imitate your cool and elegant curves.To chill green jade our hot and shattered nervesWould clot or petrify or fossilize—And moss to moist the finnèd lids of eyes,Lush velvet soaking on the irisesLooped round with tiredness and its swollen redsWould grow about our damask four-post beds.We would be green, an ecstasy of green!As small sea-violets, virgin forest’s green,Where trees like coral sponges dab the air,And through each weft you hear a piece of wind,A tiny concertina-push of soundAnd then an inrush, sobbing gently inward.

Why do we drown in customs, why becomeLost dying flames and strangers to the skiesWhose beams with clouds like wingèd chariots fly?Why do we climb the towers which break our knees,Horrible towers from which, when we look downWe wish to hurl ourselves?O, then the ant-like herd below would feelA gentle spray of entrails—they’d recoil!—Perhaps one woman faints: we do not care,The worm has not become our paramour,The worm has not yet pierced our winding-sheets.

Then why not, like Empedocles,Lower our limbs into volcano-craters,And make the world believe that mighty GodTranslated us into His companyOn dolphins’ backs across a nectar lake,To share the glory of His attributes,His love like myrrh and incense and the fruitsThat dangle from exotic herbs and treesAll gold and ripe as from Hesperides?

An architect of ruin onion-eyedLike some fierce tyrant in old tapestryHas cast the die of quick finalityAmong the cheese-mites in this gap of time.Through Chaos: murmurs, stumblings, hordes that rendThe fabric which is called reality.The light, which was a sluice of molten gold,The crystal winds, disperse in empty air.

The deep red empty holes which were our eyesSense only burstings of electric globes.Louder the heat, like vitriol, wounds our earsBurning with dull blue thunder.And then—a tune upon the piccolo,One of the musical Unemployed, I know,Or some stray angel with pink sugar wingsTrying to see the cheerful side of things!

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