IThe winter evening settles downWith smell of steaks in passageways.Six o'clock.The burnt-out ends of smoky days.And now a gusty shower wrapsThe grimy scrapsOf withered leaves about your feetAnd newspapers from vacant lots;The showers beatOn broken blinds and chimney-pots,And at the corner of the streetA lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.And then the lighting of the lamps.IIThe morning comes to consciousnessOf faint stale smells of beerFrom the sawdust-trampled streetWith all its muddy feet that pressTo early coffee-stands.With the other masqueradesThat time resumes,One thinks of all the handsThat are raising dingy shadesIn a thousand furnished rooms.IIIYou tossed a blanket from the bed,You lay upon your back, and waited;You dozed, and watched the night revealingThe thousand sordid imagesOf which your soul was constituted;They flickered against the ceiling.And when all the world came backAnd the light crept up between the shutters,And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,You had such a vision of the streetAs the street hardly understands;Sitting along the bed's edge, whereYou curled the papers from your hair,Or clasped the yellow soles of feetIn the palms of both soiled hands.IVHis soul stretched tight across the skiesThat fade behind a city block,Or trampled by insistent feetAt four and five and six o'clock;And short square fingers stuffing pipes,And evening newspapers, and eyesAssured of certain certainties,The conscience of a blackened streetImpatient to assume the world.I am moved by fancies that are curledAround these images, and cling:The notion of some infinitely gentleInfinitely suffering thing.Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;The worlds revolve like ancient womenGathering fuel in vacant lots.
Twelve o'clock.Along the reaches of the streetHeld in a lunar synthesis,Whispering lunar incantationsDisolve the floors of memoryAnd all its clear relations,Its divisions and precisions,Every street lamp that I passBeats like a fatalistic drum,And through the spaces of the darkMidnight shakes the memoryAs a madman shakes a dead geranium.Half-past one,The street lamp sputtered,The street lamp muttered,The street lamp said,"Regard that womanWho hesitates toward you in the light of the doorWhich opens on her like a grin.You see the border of her dressIs torn and stained with sand,And you see the corner of her eyeTwists like a crooked pin."The memory throws up high and dryA crowd of twisted things;A twisted branch upon the beachEaten smooth, and polishedAs if the world gave upThe secret of its skeleton,Stiff and white.A broken spring in a factory yard,Rust that clings to the form that the strength has leftHard and curled and ready to snap.Half-past two,The street-lamp said,"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,Slips out its tongueAnd devours a morsel of rancid butter."So the hand of the child, automatic,Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running alongthe quay.I could see nothing behind that child's eye.I have seen eyes in the streetTrying to peer through lighted shutters,And a crab one afternoon in a pool,An old crab with barnacles on his back,Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.Half-past three,The lamp sputtered,The lamp muttered in the dark.The lamp hummed:"Regard the moon,La lune ne garde aucune rancune,She winks a feeble eye,She smiles into corners.She smooths the hair of the grass.The moon has lost her memory.A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,Her hand twists a paper rose,That smells of dust and old Cologne,She is alone With all the old nocturnal smellsThat cross and cross across her brain.The reminiscence comesOf sunless dry geraniumsAnd dust in crevices,Smells of chestnuts in the streetsAnd female smells in shuttered roomsAnd cigarettes in corridorsAnd cocktail smells in bars."The lamp said,"Four o'clock,Here is the number on the door.Memory!You have the key,The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,Mount.The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."The last twist of the knife.
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,And along the trampled edges of the streetI am aware of the damp souls of housemaidsSprouting despondently at area gates.The brown waves of fog toss up to meTwisted faces from the bottom of the street,And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirtsAn aimless smile that hovers in the airAnd vanishes along the level of the roofs.
The readers of the Boston Evening TranscriptSway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.When evening quickens faintly in the street,Wakening the appetites of life in someAnd to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript,I mount the steps and ring the bell, turningWearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,If the street were time and he at the end of the street,And I say, "Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript."
Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,And lived in a small house near a fashionable squareCared for by servants to the number of four.Now when she died there was silence in heavenAnd silence at her end of the street.The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet—He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before.The dogs were handsomely provided for,But shortly afterwards the parrot died too.The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece,And the footman sat upon the dining-tableHolding the second housemaid on his knees—Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.
Miss Nancy Ellicott Strode across the hills and broke them,Rode across the hills and broke them—The barren New England hills—Riding to houndsOver the cow-pasture.Miss Nancy Ellicott smokedAnd danced all the modern dances;And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it,But they knew that it was modern.Upon the glazen shelves kept watchMatthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith,The army of unalterable law.
When Mr. Apollinax visited the United StatesHis laughter tinkled among the teacups.I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,And of Priapus in the shrubberyGaping at the lady in the swing.In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah'sHe laughed like an irresponsible foetus.His laughter was submarine and profoundLike the old man of the sea'sHidden under coral islandsWhere worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence,Dropping from fingers of surf.I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chairOr grinning over a screenWith seaweed in its hair.I heard the beat of centaur's hoofs over the hard turfAs his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon."He is a charming man"—"But after all what did he mean?"—"His pointed ears... He must be unbalanced,"—"There was something he said that I might have challenged."Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. CheetahI remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon.
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in herlaughter and being part of it, until her teeth wereonly accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. Iwas drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentaryrecovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of herthroat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. Anelderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedlyspreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rustygreen iron table, saying: "If the lady and gentlemanwish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady andgentleman wish to take their tea in the garden..." Idecided that if the shaking of her breasts could bestopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon mightbe collected, and I concentrated my attention withcareful subtlety to this end.
I observe: "Our sentimental friend the moon!Or possibly (fantastic, I confess)It may be Prester John's balloonOr an old battered lantern hung aloftTo light poor travellers to their distress."She then: "How you digress!"And I then: "Some one frames upon the keysThat exquisite nocturne, with which we explainThe night and moonshine; music which we seizeTo body forth our vacuity."She then: "Does this refer to me?""Oh no, it is I who am inane.""You, madam, are the eternal humorist,The eternal enemy of the absolute,Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist!With your air indifferent and imperiousAt a stroke our mad poetics to confute—"And—"Are we then so serious?"
O quam te memorem Virgo...
Stand on the highest pavement of the stair—Lean on a garden urn—Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair—Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise—Fling them to the ground and turnWith a fugitive resentment in your eyes:But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.So I would have had him leave,So I would have had her stand and grieve,So he would have leftAs the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,As the mind deserts the body it has used.I should findSome way incomparably light and deft,Some way we both should understand,Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.She turned away, but with the autumn weatherCompelled my imagination many days,Many days and many hours:Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.And I wonder how they should have been together!I should have lost a gesture and a pose.Sometimes these cogitations still amazeThe troubled midnight and the noon's repose.