The Project Gutenberg eBook ofLondon Sonnets

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofLondon SonnetsThis 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: London SonnetsAuthor: Humbert WolfeRelease date: March 11, 2020 [eBook #61598]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON SONNETS ***

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: London SonnetsAuthor: Humbert WolfeRelease date: March 11, 2020 [eBook #61598]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)

Title: London Sonnets

Author: Humbert Wolfe

Release date: March 11, 2020 [eBook #61598]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON SONNETS ***

“ADVENTURERS ALL” SERIESNo. XXVII.

LONDON SONNETS

AdventurersAll.A SERIES OF YOUNG POETSUNKNOWNTO FAME.

Come my friends.... ’Tis not too late to seek anewer world. It may be that the gulfs will washus down.... It may be we shall touch the happy isles.Yet our purpose holds ... to sail beyond the sunset.Ulysses

BYHUMBERT WOLFEOxfordBasil Blackwell, Broad Street,1920

Thesewere the first anemones—God only in his heaven seesHow moving on their small green feetThey blossomed in a London street,From a cool valley, as I guess,Beneath a hill in Lyonesse.

TO J.

Some of these verses have appeared inThe Saturday Review,The Spectator,The Westminster Gazette, and are republished by the courtesy of the editors of these journals.

IT’S not my fault, now is it? I’m a Jew.I’d a been born a Christian quick enoughIf only so I could have sold my stuffDouble the price, and not be called a screw.There’s half-day Saturday at Synagogue,And when Atonement comes a whole day lost.O, I don’t grumble; still one counts the costWhen on the top I’m treated like a dog.And, though a Jew should’nt by rights complainBein’ the chosen, can’t a man have dreams?Clothes’ dealing’s not the desert, still it seemsWe all of us are wandering again.I often think when the Shemah begins“O God o’ Jacob ain’t we paid our sins?”

YOU go by motor-bus from HammersmithAnd come back loud and cheerful after darkAdorned with twigs you’ve plucked in Bushey Park,Eating the sandwiches you started with.And you don’t care, why should you? when you’re broughtInto the grimy streets out of the green,That, if you’d had the luck, you might have beenThe sort of cove who lives at Hampton Court.You’ve got the murders and the betting news,And slums to bake in and the picture shows.Why should you care if somewhere a red roseBurns all night through, and the great avenuesAre lit as though with candles. What’s the odds?London’s for you; the summer’s for the gods.

You’ve got the murders and the betting news,And slums to bake in and the picture shows.Why should you care if somewhere a red roseBurns all night through, and the great avenuesAre lit as though with candles. What’s the odds?London’s for you; the summer’s for the gods.

HE wanted me to tear me ’ands to bitsAlong o’ the box-makers, ’stead of whichI took and bought a basket, struck a pitchTo sell me flowers by the Hotel Ritz.I like ’is cheek. It isn’t ’im wot sitsWorking in darkness till your fingers itchAnd ’arf your side is broken with a stitch—’Im swanking in ’is blessed epaulittes!Nor I don’t care, not what you might say careIf ’e’s gone orf. Not that I’d reely mindIf, ’earing that I’d got a bit to spare,He come back sudden. I should act refined,Pin ’im ’is flower in with me ’and quite steadyAnd then say proud-like, “Why if it ain’t Freddy.”

ODAMN those marble tables: makes me larfTo think I’ve finished with them. I believeIf you rubbed hard on each one with your sleeve,You’d find cut on them some gel’s epitaph.They look like tombstones, don’t they? in a rowQuietly waiting in a mason’s yard.Seein’ them there cruel and white and hardOne might ha’ guessed, I think, how things would go.But we don’t heed no warning, gels like me,And so I stayed, and now they’ve got my nameCarved deep, with something written about shameFor the next gel (when her turn comes) to see.One comfort though, if God damns us who fellHe can’t find worse to ’urt us, not in ’Ell.

THE upper clawses they don’t like the smellNor they don’t need to. They can pay for food,But we who sometimes cawn’t, it does us good.Lord, what a life to ’ave fried fish to sell!Warm all day long and nuthin’ much to doAnd always a hot bit if you’re inclined.Shut all day Sundays and if you’ve a mindAlways go out and pitch into a Jew.But wanting won’t mend ’oles up in your socksNor cure that ’ungry feeling when you standsClappin’ your stummick with your empty ’andsAnd thinking gently of a wooden boxWhere they will lay you at the parish chargeStraight if you’re small and doubled if you’re large.

THE quiet folk who live in KensingtonMothers of pleasant girls and worthy wivesLiving at ease their comfortable livesDon’t think what roots their homes are built upon,Don’t think, or wouldn’t listen if you shewedThat beyond cure by love or change by hateLike hooded lepers at each corner wait,The streets behind the Tottenham Court Road.Row upon row the phantom houses stainThe sweetness of the air and not a dayDies, but some woman’s child turns down that wayAlong those streets and is not seen again.And only God can in his mercy sayWhich is more cruel, Kensington or they.

THE Yorkshire Grey like any other pub,Quietly blazes till the final shout“Time’s-up” sends the companions tumbling out,Giving their lips a last reluctant rub.And if you’re passing by on any dayYou’ll hear a woman with a barrel organ,Sing in a high cracked voice what sounds like “Morgen,Morgen kommt nie und heute is mir weh,”And every day whether its rain or shineShe holds an old umbrella with a handleOf curiously carved silver. Whether scandalOr tragedy, its no affair of mine.Why should I care then when some drunken fellerSends her to blazes, her and her umbrella.

THERE’S a small cafe off the AvenueWhere Alphonse, that old sinner, used to fixA five-course dinner up at one and six,And trust to luck and youth to pull him through.I can’t remember much about the wineExcept that it was ninepence for the quartCalled claret and was nothing of the sort,Cheap like the rest and like the rest divine.But Alphonse, I suppose, is long since spedAnd madame’s knitting needles rusted throughAnd even Marguerite, like us she flewTo wait on, waited on by death instead.Well Alphonse, well Madame, well MargueriteThey’ve no more use for us in Wardour Street.

BECAUSE they are so many and the same,The little houses row on weary row;Because they are so loveless and so lameIt were a bitter thing to tell them so.And ill to laugh at those who hither cameNot without hope and not without a glow,And who, perchance, by sorrow struck or shameNot without tears look back before they go.Here is no place for laughter nor for blame,And not for tears, since none shall ever knowWhat here is done and suffered, nor proclaimThe end to which these myriad spirits grow.He understands, whose heart rememberethThat here is all the tale of life and death.

Here is no place for laughter nor for blame,And not for tears, since none shall ever knowWhat here is done and suffered, nor proclaimThe end to which these myriad spirits grow.He understands, whose heart rememberethThat here is all the tale of life and death.

ALL roads in London lead the one last way,Like little streams that find a flowing riverThey find the one great road that runs for ever,Yet has no London name. They know it, theyWho when the lamps in Oxford Street are lightedAnd star-strewn Thames through all his bridges moving,Velvet assumes, see not for all their lovingThese things they loved, hear not, as uninvited,To London revel calling Piccadilly.They have gone over to the bitter strangerLight-foot and heavy, hug-the-hearth and rangerOur streets desert. And under rose and lily(Even through Kew were unto lilac setting)Sleeping they pass forgotten and forgetting.

SOMETIMES when I think of loveI think of Mimi singing in Boheme,Just as the tune across the footlights cameWhen we were young, my dear, at Covent Garden!Poor music, but before the senses hardenPuccini’s made for boys and girls to wearSpite of sham passion and a poitrinaire.For if they looked and didn’t find the keyAt least they found the hearts of you and me.That sort of love age thinks of with a smileHow innocent it was of truth and guile,How young perhaps and yet how half-divineAnd how imperishably yours and mine.You will not wonder nor will you reproveMy thoughts of Mimi when I think of love.

SOMETIMES when I think of loveI see a boat upon a river,And the rushes suddenly shiver,Because of a perilous foot that treadsThe reeds and the flowers into their beds.Because of a music that shakes and beginsA different music and conscious of sinsA tune was old at the birth of the riverA tune is asleep in the blood for everAsleep in the blood and loving and hatingThe time and the hour for which it is waiting.Puccini yields to a sob in the throatA hand round the heart as note answers noteWith the music that wrenches and melts and gripsThe hands hot on hands, the lips close on lipsCruelly volleying clearer and strongerTill we are a boy and a girl no longer.And we struggle in vain as long as we canHating and loving and welcoming Pan,And you are a woman and I am a man.And you will not wonder and cannot reproveIf I hear Pan’s pipes when I think of love.

SOMETIMES when I think of loveI hear a heavy voice repeat“There’s a good doctor up the street.”And either it seems I am hard at hearingOr stupid perhaps or terribly fearing.For its late of a winter night and rainingWith cry of wind; or is something complaining?One lamp in the street and a leafless treeAnd a thing is moving that frightens me,With fingers that hover about my napeA shape like a hand and yet not a shape.Now all that we had in the past is overEach lover’s alone, the love from the lover.No comforting hand for me in the gloom,No voice of mine in the darkened room.Where is the music and where are the songs?For love has crept off ashamed of his wrongs.Poor love has gone off to rail at passion,And he will not wait for the night to fashionOut of pain and fear and anguish and danger,A lover strange with his love a stranger,And yet, as they were at the operaIncredibly close and familiar,Incredibly close as once on the riverWhen each is a gift and each is a giver.Incredibly close and all they have hoardedOf life and of love in this moment rewarded.Rewarded! Has love in the darkness heardOf the little lost shadow, the small lost third?Love is returning—to find them alone,And if love be a sinner, who casts a stone?Shattered and beaten and blindingly sureOf love and themselves and strong to endureHe finds them, by pain more lastingly crownedThan ever by joy and by laughter were boundHappier lovers and lovers untauntedBy the shameful cries these lovers have haunted.If this be their love, who out of the pitBeing a devil challenges it?In heaven assayed, in hell-fire pricedWho casts the first stone? Not I, says Christ.You will not wonder nor will you reproveIf I think of this, when I think of love.

SOMETIMES when I think of loveI remember how you stooped down from heaven,Because they had told you I was unforgiven,To take half of the storm, and share the stripeAn angel in hell with her guttersnipe.I am thinking then of your lighted faceAnd your hands and the way your fingers laceAs you sit quietly reading a book.Perhaps I move and you suddenly lookAcross the room and the soul in your eyesIs bright as it looks with the old surpriseChanging for ever, for ever the sameAnd you break my heart as you speak my name.You must not wonder, you will not reproveIf sometimes I dare not think of love.

SO old, so changed, and oddEven as God,I am, so odd and old,That I am bitter coldIn heart and limbLike him.I might in heaven be,Even as He.So lonely and so rareBeyond the utmost prayerMy spirit weighs,Dead days.Or I might work in hellHis miracle.Changing from joy to tears,To quiet all the years,With icy rod,Like God.I might immortal beEven as He.Saying, as heaven saith,What Victory, Oh death,What sting can save,Oh grave?As I, alone and dumb,What doth not comeEver, He waits to seeAnd surely, waiting, heMust pray ah pray! to dieEven as I.

SO old, so changed, and oddEven as God,I am, so odd and old,That I am bitter coldIn heart and limbLike him.

I might in heaven be,Even as He.So lonely and so rareBeyond the utmost prayerMy spirit weighs,Dead days.

Or I might work in hellHis miracle.Changing from joy to tears,To quiet all the years,With icy rod,Like God.

I might immortal beEven as He.Saying, as heaven saith,What Victory, Oh death,What sting can save,Oh grave?

As I, alone and dumb,What doth not comeEver, He waits to seeAnd surely, waiting, heMust pray ah pray! to dieEven as I.

THE little houses in the streetAnd the warm blinds at night,Outside the copper on his beatAnd the moon so white, so white.They know what we shall never know,See what we cannot see,The steady lamplit ways that goTo the quiet cemetery.They have not any fear at allOf life and of its end.They hear church bells, their children call,Their wife and death their friend.But for us the moon is white, so whiteIt drowns us and it stings,And we must fly throughout the nightBecause of dangerous things.

THE little houses in the streetAnd the warm blinds at night,Outside the copper on his beatAnd the moon so white, so white.

They know what we shall never know,See what we cannot see,The steady lamplit ways that goTo the quiet cemetery.

They have not any fear at allOf life and of its end.They hear church bells, their children call,Their wife and death their friend.

But for us the moon is white, so whiteIt drowns us and it stings,And we must fly throughout the nightBecause of dangerous things.

LET’S be done with talking,Words are half a snare,That fools use for stalkingWhat was never there.Let’s be done with weeping,Tears are but a signThat a doom is creepingOn what was divine.Why be broken-hearted?Time to break the heartIf we should be partedAnd not care we part.Dear, the wind is overIn the world outside.I was once your lover,You were once my bride.Let’s go out together.In the quiet air,We may find each otherWaiting as we were.

LET’S be done with talking,Words are half a snare,That fools use for stalkingWhat was never there.

Let’s be done with weeping,Tears are but a signThat a doom is creepingOn what was divine.

Why be broken-hearted?Time to break the heartIf we should be partedAnd not care we part.

Dear, the wind is overIn the world outside.I was once your lover,You were once my bride.

Let’s go out together.In the quiet air,We may find each otherWaiting as we were.

MY friend Pierrot your sleeves are far too long.Look! I can hardly find at all your hands.And all your cotton tunic is cut wrong,And what your eyes mean no one understands.Ah yes, Pierrette, my sleeves are far too long.Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot find my hands,But better so than Pierrot did you wrongBy telling you what no one understands.My friend Pierrot you fear to take the light,Look! I can hardly see at all your face.And what I see, Pierrot is very white.Are you afraid? Ashamed? or in disgrace?Ah yes, Pierrette, I dare not take the light.Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot see my face.My candle died with love, and in the nightOh! Harlequin, Pierrette, is my disgrace.My friend Pierrot it seems that things go illWith you. Look! I can hardly hear your word,And the dark shadow round grows darker still,And a new voice which is not yours is heard.Ah yes, Pierrette, it seems that things go ill.Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot hear my word.And the dark shadow which grows darker stillIs death, Pierrette, of which you have not heard.

MY friend Pierrot your sleeves are far too long.Look! I can hardly find at all your hands.And all your cotton tunic is cut wrong,And what your eyes mean no one understands.

Ah yes, Pierrette, my sleeves are far too long.Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot find my hands,But better so than Pierrot did you wrongBy telling you what no one understands.

My friend Pierrot you fear to take the light,Look! I can hardly see at all your face.And what I see, Pierrot is very white.Are you afraid? Ashamed? or in disgrace?

Ah yes, Pierrette, I dare not take the light.Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot see my face.My candle died with love, and in the nightOh! Harlequin, Pierrette, is my disgrace.

My friend Pierrot it seems that things go illWith you. Look! I can hardly hear your word,And the dark shadow round grows darker still,And a new voice which is not yours is heard.

Ah yes, Pierrette, it seems that things go ill.Ah yes, Pierrette, you cannot hear my word.And the dark shadow which grows darker stillIs death, Pierrette, of which you have not heard.

ONLY a glance it was,Only a word!What a romance it wasAll but absurd!All but absurd, you see,Yes but not quite.There’s one more word you see“Death” we must write!She had the knack of it—Less than a kiss,And for the lack of itLook he is this.O what a king he was(Drowned in a pool),What a brave thing he wasO what a fool!While all the rest of usStruggle to fame,Here is the best of usDead with his shame.Shame? Oh I wonder now.What do you say?If you should blunder nowChoose me your way!If you’d thrown hope away;Well would you careThrough life to grope a way?Or would you dareTake up the lot of itLife, love and fame,Make a clean shot of itInto the flame?Ah it was brave of himLet them cry “shame.”Life made no slave of him!But you’ll exclaim,Was she worth trying for?He thought her so.Was she worth dying for?Yes, and then no.“No,” for a wiser man.“No,” for a less.But the heart cries “Amen,”When he says “yes.”There in the pool he wasJust a dead thing.O what a fool he was,O what a king!

ONLY a glance it was,Only a word!What a romance it wasAll but absurd!

All but absurd, you see,Yes but not quite.There’s one more word you see“Death” we must write!

She had the knack of it—Less than a kiss,And for the lack of itLook he is this.

O what a king he was(Drowned in a pool),What a brave thing he wasO what a fool!

While all the rest of usStruggle to fame,Here is the best of usDead with his shame.

Shame? Oh I wonder now.What do you say?If you should blunder nowChoose me your way!

If you’d thrown hope away;Well would you careThrough life to grope a way?Or would you dare

Take up the lot of itLife, love and fame,Make a clean shot of itInto the flame?

Ah it was brave of himLet them cry “shame.”Life made no slave of him!But you’ll exclaim,

Was she worth trying for?He thought her so.Was she worth dying for?Yes, and then no.

“No,” for a wiser man.“No,” for a less.But the heart cries “Amen,”When he says “yes.”

There in the pool he wasJust a dead thing.O what a fool he was,O what a king!

TELL me, dead lover, you who broke my heart(O dead indeed, since love himself is dead).Need I remember that we came to part,May I forget to whom and why you fled?Tell me, dead lover, since the grave is strong,And those who sleep are cured of joy and pain,And now no love may reach you, do I wrongIf I begin to love you all again?And see, dead lover, since the shadows fallAnd nothing now is false and nothing true.Might I not dream (you would not know at all)That I, O love, was loved once more by you.And since, dead lover, death defeats your pride,And ere it dreamed of pride my love awoke,O let me think, it was because you died,And not because you left me, my heart broke.

TELL me, dead lover, you who broke my heart(O dead indeed, since love himself is dead).Need I remember that we came to part,May I forget to whom and why you fled?

Tell me, dead lover, since the grave is strong,And those who sleep are cured of joy and pain,And now no love may reach you, do I wrongIf I begin to love you all again?

And see, dead lover, since the shadows fallAnd nothing now is false and nothing true.Might I not dream (you would not know at all)That I, O love, was loved once more by you.

And since, dead lover, death defeats your pride,And ere it dreamed of pride my love awoke,O let me think, it was because you died,And not because you left me, my heart broke.

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