IX. INTERLUDEThe days, the nights, flow one by one above us,The hours go silently over our lifted faces,We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea.Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together.We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee.We sit at tables and sip our morning coffee,We read the papers for tales of lust or crime.The door swings shut behind the latest comer.We set our watches, regard the time.What have we done? I close my eyes, rememberThe great machine whose sinister brain before meSmote and smote with a rhythmic beat.My hands have torn down walls, the stone and plaster.I dropped great beams to the dusty street.My eyes are worn with measuring cloths of purple,And golden cloths, and wavering cloths, and pale.I dream of a crowd of faces, white with menace.Hands reach up to tear me. My brain will fail.Here, where the walls go down beneath our picks,These walls whose windows gap against the sky,Atom by atom of flesh and brain and marbleWill build a glittering tower before we die . . .The young boy whistles, hurrying down the street,The young girl hums beneath her breath.One goes out to beauty, and does not know it.And one goes out to death.
X. SUDDEN DEATH'Number four—the girl who died on the table—The girl with golden hair—'The purpling body lies on the polished marble.We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare . . .One, who held the ether-cone, remembersHer dark blue frightened eyes.He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breastMore hurriedly fall and rise.Her hands made futile gestures, she turned her headFighting for breath; her cheeks were flushed to scarlet,—And, suddenly, she lay dead.And all the dreams that hurried along her veinsCame to the darkness of a sudden wall.Confusion ran among them, they whirled and clamored,They fell, they rose, they struck, they shouted,Till at last a pallor of silence hushed them all.What was her name? Where had she walked that morning?Through what dark forest came her feet?Along what sunlit walls, what peopled street?Backward he dreamed along a chain of days,He saw her go her strange and secret ways,Waking and sleeping, noon and night.She sat by a mirror, braiding her golden hair.She read a story by candlelight.Her shadow ran before her along the street,She walked with rhythmic feet,Turned a corner, descended a stair.She bought a paper, held it to scan the headlines,Smiled for a moment at sea-gulls high in sunlight,And drew deep breaths of air.Days passed, bright clouds of days. Nights passed. And musicMurmured within the walls of lighted windows.She lifted her face to the light and danced.The dancers wreathed and grouped in moving patterns,Clustered, receded, streamed, advanced.Her dress was purple, her slippers were golden,Her eyes were blue; and a purple orchidOpened its golden heart on her breast . . .She leaned to the surly languor of lazy music,Leaned on her partner's arm to rest.The violins were weaving a weft of silver,The horns were weaving a lustrous brede of gold,And time was caught in a glistening pattern,Time, too elusive to hold . . .Shadows of leaves fell over her face,—and sunlight:She turned her face away.Nearer she moved to a crouching darknessWith every step and day.Death, who at first had thought of her only an instant,At a great distance, across the night,Smiled from a window upon her, and followed her slowlyFrom purple light to light.Once, in her dreams, he spoke out clearly, crying,'I am the murderer, death.I am the lover who keeps his appointmentAt the doors of breath!'She rose and stared at her own reflection,Half dreading there to findThe dark-eyed ghost, waiting beside her,Or reaching from behindTo lay pale hands upon her shoulders . . .Or was this in her mind? . . .She combed her hair. The sunlight glimmeredAlong the tossing strands.Was there a stillness in this hair,—A quiet in these hands?Death was a dream. It could not change these eyes,Blow out their light, or turn this mouth to dust.She combed her hair and sang. She would live forever.Leaves flew past her window along a gust . . .And graves were dug in the earth, and coffins passed,And music ebbed with the ebbing hours.And dreams went along her veins, and scattering cloudsThrew streaming shadows on walls and towers.
XI.Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glaresWith purple lights in the canyoned street.The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares . . .The trodden grass in the park is covered with white,The streets grow silent beneath our feet . . .The city dreams, it forgets its past to-night.And one, from his high bright window looking downOver the enchanted whiteness of the town,Seeing through whirls of white the vague grey towers,Desires like this to forget what will not pass,The littered papers, the dust, the tarnished grass,Grey death, stale ugliness, and sodden hours.Deep in his heart old bells are beaten again,Slurred bells of grief and pain,Dull echoes of hideous times and poisonous places.He desires to drown in a cold white peace of snow.He desires to forget a million faces . . .In one room breathes a woman who dies of hunger.The clock ticks slowly and stops. And no one winds it.In one room fade grey violets in a vase.Snow flakes faintly hiss and melt on the window.In one room, minute by minute, the flutist playsThe lamplit page of music, the tireless scales.His hands are trembling, his short breath fails.In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,And thinks the air is fire.The drunkard swears and touches the harlot's heartstringsWith the sudden hand of desire.And one goes late in the streets, and thinks of murder;And one lies staring, and thinks of death.And one, who has suffered, clenches her hands despairing,And holds her breath . . .Who are all these, who flow in the veins of the city,Coil and revolve and dream,Vanish or gleam?Some mount up to the brain and flower in fire.Some are destroyed; some die; some slowly stream.And the new are born who desire to destroy the old;And fires are kindled and quenched; and dreams are broken,And walls flung down . . .And the slow night whirls in snow over towers of dreamers,And whiteness hushes the town.
IAs evening falls,And the yellow lights leap one by oneAlong high walls;And along black streets that glisten as if with rain,The muted city seemsLike one in a restless sleep, who lies and dreamsOf vague desires, and memories, and half-forgotten pain . . .Along dark veins, like lights the quick dreams run,Flash, are extinguished, flash again,To mingle and glow at last in the enormous brainAnd die away . . .As evening falls,A dream dissolves these insubstantial walls,—A myriad secretly gliding lights lie bare . . .The lovers rise, the harlot combs her hair,The dead man's face grows blue in the dizzy lamplight,The watchman climbs the stair . . .The bank defaulter leers at a chaos of figures,And runs among them, and is beaten down;The sick man coughs and hears the chisels ringing;The tired clownSees the enormous crowd, a million faces,Motionless in their places,Ready to laugh, and seize, and crush and tear . . .The dancer smooths her hair,Laces her golden slippers, and runs through the doorTo dance once more,Hearing swift music like an enchantment rise,Feeling the praise of a thousand eyes.As darkness fallsThe walls grow luminous and warm, the wallsTremble and glow with the lives within them moving,Moving like music, secret and rich and warm.How shall we live tonight? Where shall we turn?To what new light or darkness yearn?A thousand winding stairs lead down before us;And one by one in myriads we descendBy lamplit flowered walls, long balustrades,Through half-lit halls which reach no end.
II. THE SCREEN MAIDENYou read—what is it, then that you are reading?What music moves so silently in your mind?Your bright hand turns the page.I watch you from my window, unsuspected:You move in an alien land, a silent age . . .. . . The poet—what was his name—? Tokkei—Tokkei—The poet walked alone in a cold late rain,And thought his grief was like the crying of sea-birds;For his lover was dead, he never would love again.Rain in the dreams of the mind—rain forever—Rain in the sky of the heart—rain in the willows—But then he saw this face, this face like flame,This quiet lady, this portrait by Hiroshigi;And took it home with him; and with it cameWhat unexpected changes, subtle as weather!The dark room, cold as rain,Grew faintly fragrant, stirred with a stir of April,Warmed its corners with light again,And smoke of incense whirled about this portrait,And the quiet lady there,So young, so quietly smiling, with calm hands,Seemed ready to loose her hair,And smile, and lean from the picture, or say one word,The word already clear,Which seemed to rise like light between her eyelids . .He held his breath to hear,And smiled for shame, and drank a cup of wine,And held a candle, and searched her faceThrough all the little shadows, to see what secretMight give so warm a grace . . .Was it the quiet mouth, restrained a little?The eyes, half-turned aside?The jade ring on her wrist, still almost swinging? . . .The secret was denied,He chose his favorite pen and drew these verses,And slept; and as he sleptA dream came into his heart, his lover entered,And chided him, and wept.And in the morning, waking, he remembered,And thought the dream was strange.Why did his darkened lover rise from the garden?He turned, and felt a change,As if a someone hidden smiled and watched him . . .Yet there was only sunlight there.Until he saw those young eyes, quietly smiling,And held his breath to stare,And could have sworn her cheek had turned—a little . . .Had slightly turned away . . .Sunlight dozed on the floor . . . He sat and wondered,Nor left his room that day.And that day, and for many days thereafter,He sat alone, and thoughtNo lady had ever lived so beautifulAs Hiroshigi wrought . . .Or if she lived, no matter in what country,By what far river or hill or lonely sea,He would look in every face until he found her . . .There was no other as fair as she.And before her quiet face he burned soft incense,And brought her every dayBoughs of the peach, or almond, or snow-white cherry,And somehow, she seemed to say,That silent lady, young, and quietly smiling,That she was happy there;And sometimes, seeing this, he started to tremble,And desired to touch her hair,To lay his palm along her hand, touch faintlyWith delicate finger-tipsThe ghostly smile that seemed to hover and vanishUpon her lips . . .Until he knew he loved this quiet lady;And night by night a dreadLeered at his dreams, for he knew that HiroshigiWas many centuries dead,—And the lady, too, was dead, and all who knew her . .Dead, and long turned to dust . . .The thin moon waxed and waned, and left him paler,The peach leaves flew in a gust,And he would surely have died; but there one dayA wise man, white with age,Stared at the portrait, and said, 'This HiroshigiKnew more than archimage,—Cunningly drew the body, and called the spirit,Till partly it entered there . . .Sometimes, at death, it entered the portrait wholly . .Do all I say with care,And she you love may come to you when you call her . . . 'So then this ghost, Tokkei,Ran in the sun, bought wine of a hundred merchants,And alone at the end of dayEntered the darkening room, and faced the portrait,And saw the quiet eyesGleaming and young in the dusk, and held the wine-cup,And knelt, and did not rise,And said, aloud, 'Lo-san, will you drink this wine?'Said it three times aloud.And at the third the faint blue smoke of incenseRose to the walls in a cloud,And the lips moved faintly, and the eyes, and the calm hands stirred;And suddenly, with a sigh,The quiet lady came slowly down from the portrait,And stood, while worlds went by,And lifted her young white hands and took the wine cup;And the poet trembled, and said,'Lo-san, will you stay forever?'—'Yes, I will stay.'—'But what when I am dead?''When you are dead your spirit will find my spirit,And then we shall die no more.'Music came down upon them, and spring returning,They remembered worlds before,And years went over the earth, and over the sea,And lovers were born and spoke and died,But forever in sunlight went these two immortal,Tokkei and the quiet bride . . .
III. HAUNTED CHAMBERSThe lamplit page is turned, the dream forgotten;The music changes tone, you wake, rememberDeep worlds you lived before,—deep worlds hereafterOf leaf on falling leaf, music on music,Rain and sorrow and wind and dust and laughter.Helen was late and Miriam came too soon.Joseph was dead, his wife and children starving.Elaine was married and soon to have a child.You dreamed last night of fiddler-crabs with fiddles;They played a buzzing melody, and you smiled.To-morrow—what? And what of yesterday?Through soundless labyrinths of dream you pass,Through many doors to the one door of all.Soon as it's opened we shall hear a music:Or see a skeleton fall . . .We walk with you. Where is it that you lead us?We climb the muffled stairs beneath high lanterns.We descend again. We grope through darkened cells.You say: this darkness, here, will slowly kill me.It creeps and weighs upon me . . . Is full of bells.This is the thing remembered I would forget—No matter where I go, how soft I tread,This windy gesture menaces me with death.Fatigue! it says, and points its finger at me;Touches my throat and stops my breath.My fans—my jewels—the portrait of my husband—The torn certificate for my daughter's grave—These are but mortal seconds in immortal time.They brush me, fade away: like drops of water.They signify no crime.Let us retrace our steps: I have deceived you:Nothing is here I could not frankly tell you:No hint of guilt, or faithlessness, or threat.Dreams—they are madness. Staring eyes—illusion.Let us return, hear music, and forget . . .
IV. ILLICITOf what she said to me that night—no matter.The strange thing came next day.My brain was full of music—something she played me—;I couldn't remember it all, but phrases of itWreathed and wreathed among faint memories,Seeking for something, trying to tell me something,Urging to restlessness: verging on grief.I tried to play the tune, from memory,—But memory failed: the chords and discords climbedAnd found no resolution—only hung there,And left me morbid . . . Where, then, had I heard it? . . .What secret dusty chamber was it hinting?'Dust', it said, 'dust . . . and dust . . . and sunlight . .A cold clear April evening . . . snow, bedraggled,Rain-worn snow, dappling the hideous grass . . .And someone walking alone; and someone sayingThat all must end, for the time had come to go . . . 'These were the phrases . . . but behind, beneath themA greater shadow moved: and in this shadowI stood and guessed . . . Was it the blue-eyed lady?The one who always danced in golden slippers—And had I danced with her,—upon this music?Or was it further back—the unplumbed twilightOf childhood?—No—much recenter than that.You know, without my telling you, how sometimesA word or name eludes you, and you seek itThrough running ghosts of shadow,—leaping at it,Lying in wait for it to spring upon it,Spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound:Until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest,You hear it, see it flash among the branches,And scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it—Well, it was so I followed down this music,Glimpsing a face in darkness, hearing a cry,Remembering days forgotten, moods exhausted,Corners in sunlight, puddles reflecting stars—;Until, of a sudden, and least of all suspected,The thing resolved itself: and I rememberedAn April afternoon, eight years ago—Or was it nine?—no matter—call it nine—A room in which the last of sunlight faded;A vase of violets, fragrance in white curtains;And, she who played the same thing later, playing.She played this tune. And in the middle of itAbruptly broke it off, letting her handsFall in her lap. She sat there so a moment,With shoulders drooped, then lifted up a rose,One great white rose, wide opened like a lotos,And pressed it to her cheek, and closed her eyes.'You know—we've got to end this—Miriam loves you . . .If she should ever know, or even guess it,—What would she do?—Listen!—I'm not absurd . . .I'm sure of it. If you had eyes, for women—To understand them—which you've never had—You'd know it too . . . ' So went this colloquy,Half humorous, with undertones of pathos,Half grave, half flippant . . . while her fingers, softly,Felt for this tune, played it and let it fall,Now note by singing note, now chord by chord,Repeating phrases with a kind of pleasure . . .Was it symbolic of the woman's weaknessThat she could neither break it—nor conclude?It paused . . . and wandered . . . paused again; while she,Perplexed and tired, half told me I must go,—Half asked me if I thought I ought to go . . .Well, April passed with many other evenings,Evenings like this, with later suns and warmer,With violets always there, and fragrant curtains . . .And she was right: and Miriam found it out . . .And after that, when eight deep years had passed—Or nine—we met once more,—by accident . . .But was it just by accident, I wonder,She played this tune?—Or what, then, was intended? . . .
V. MELODY IN A RESTAURANTThe cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us,Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes;You strike a match and stare upon the flame.The tiny fire leaps in your eyes a moment,And dwindles away as silently as it came.This melody, you say, has certain voices—They rise like nereids from a river, singing,Lift white faces, and dive to darkness again.Wherever you go you bear this river with you:A leaf falls,—and it flows, and you have pain.So says the tune to you—but what to me?What to the waiter, as he pours your coffee,The violinist who suavely draws his bow?That man, who folds his paper, overhears it.A thousand dreams revolve and fall and flow.Some one there is who sees a virgin steppingDown marble stairs to a deep tomb of roses:At the last moment she lifts remembering eyes.Green leaves blow down. The place is checked with shadows.A long-drawn murmur of rain goes down the skies.And oaks are stripped and bare, and smoke with lightning:And clouds are blown and torn upon high forests,And the great sea shakes its walls.And then falls silence . . . And through long silence fallsThis melody once more:'Down endless stairs she goes, as once before.'So says the tune to him—but what to me?What are the worlds I see?What shapes fantastic, terrible dreams? . . .I go my secret way, down secret alleys;My errand is not so simple as it seems.
VI. PORTRAIT OF ONE DEADThis is the house. On one side there is darkness,On one side there is light.Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns—O, any number—it will still be night.And here are echoing stairs to lead you downwardTo long sonorous halls.And here is spring forever at these windows,With roses on the walls.This is her room. On one side there is music—On one side not a sound.At one step she could move from love to silence,Feel myriad darkness coiling round.And here are balconies from which she heard you,Your steady footsteps on the stair.And here the glass in which she saw your shadowAs she unbound her hair.Here is the room—with ghostly walls dissolving—The twilight room in which she called you 'lover';And the floorless room in which she called you 'friend.'So many times, in doubt, she ran between them!—Through windy corridors of darkening end.Here she could stand with one dim light above herAnd hear far music, like a sea in caverns,Murmur away at hollowed walls of stone.And here, in a roofless room where it was raining,She bore the patient sorrow of rain alone.Your words were walls which suddenly froze around her.Your words were windows,—large enough for moonlight,Too small to let her through.Your letters—fragrant cloisters faint with music.The music that assuaged her there was you.How many times she heard your step ascendingYet never saw your face!She heard them turn again, ring slowly fainter,Till silence swept the place.Why had you gone? . . . The door, perhaps, mistaken . . .You would go elsewhere. The deep walls were shaken.A certain rose-leaf—sent without intention—Became, with time, a woven web of fire—She wore it, and was warm.A certain hurried glance, let fall at parting,Became, with time, the flashings of a storm.Yet, there was nothing asked, no hint to tell youOf secret idols carved in secret chambersFrom all you did and said.Nothing was done, until at last she knew you.Nothing was known, till, somehow, she was dead.How did she die?—You say, she died of poison.Simple and swift. And much to be regretted.You did not see her passSo many thousand times from light to darkness,Pausing so many times before her glass;You did not see how many times she hurriedTo lean from certain windows, vainly hoping,Passionate still for beauty, remembered spring.You did not know how long she clung to music,You did not hear her sing.Did she, then, make the choice, and step out bravelyFrom sound to silence—close, herself, those windows?Or was it true, instead,That darkness moved,—for once,—and so possessed her? . . .We'll never know, you say, for she is dead.
VII. PORCELAINYou see that porcelain ranged there in the window—Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!They're works of art—minutely seen and felt,Each petal done devoutly. Is it failureTo spend your blood like this?Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimmingOf lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal—My brain unfolding! There you'll see me sittingDay after day, close to a certain window,Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .Sometimes my wife comes there to speak to me . . .Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,Dilate to a gorgeous size, blow delicate bubbles,Drowse among dark green weeds. On rainy days,You'll see a gas-light shedding light behind me—An eye-shade round my forehead. There I sit,Twirling the tiny brushes in my paint-cups,Painting the pale pink rosebuds, minute violets,Exquisite wreaths of dark green ivy leaves.On this leaf, goes a dream I dreamed last nightOf two soft-patterned toads—I thought them stones,Until they hopped! And then a great black spider,—Tarantula, perhaps, a hideous thing,—It crossed the room in one tremendous leap.Here,—as I coil the stems between two leaves,—It is as if, dwindling to atomy size,I cried the secret between two universes . . .A friend of mine took hasheesh once, and saidJust as he fell asleep he had a dream,—Though with his eyes wide open,—And felt, or saw, or knew himself a partOf marvelous slowly-wreathing intricate patterns,Plane upon plane, depth upon coiling depth,Amazing leaves, folding one on another,Voluted grasses, twists and curves and spirals—All of it darkly moving . . . as for me,I need no hasheesh for it—it's too easy!Soon as I shut my eyes I set out walkingIn a monstrous jungle of monstrous pale pink roseleaves,Violets purple as death, dripping with water,And ivy-leaves as big as clouds above me.Here, in a simple pattern of separate violets—With scalloped edges gilded—here you have meThinking of something else. My wife, you know,—There's something lacking—force, or will, or passion,I don't know what it is—and so, sometimes,When I am tired, or haven't slept three nights,Or it is cloudy, with low threat of rain,I get uneasy—just like poplar treesRuffling their leaves—and I begin to thinkOf poor Pauline, so many years ago,And that delicious night. Where is she now?I meant to write—but she has moved, by this time,And then, besides, she might find out I'm married.Well, there is more—I'm getting old and timid—The years have gnawed my will. I've lost my nerve!I never strike out boldly as I used to—But sit here, painting violets, and rememberThat thrilling night. Photographers, she said,Asked her to pose for them; her eyes and forehead,—Dark brown eyes, and a smooth and pallid forehead,—Were thought so beautiful.—And so they were.Pauline . . . These violets are like words remembered . . .Darling! she whispered . . . Darling! . . . Darling! . . . Darling!Well, I suppose such days can come but once.Lord, how happy we were! . . .Here, if you only knew it, is a story—Here, in these leaves. I stopped my work to tell it,And then, when I had finished, went on thinking:A man I saw on a train . . . I was still a boy . . .Who killed himself by diving against a wall.Here is a recollection of my wife,When she was still my sweetheart, years ago.It's funny how things change,—just change, by growing,Without an effort . . . And here are trivial things,—A chill, an errand forgotten, a cut while shaving;A friend of mine who tells me he is married . . .Or is that last so trivial? Well, no matter!This is the sort of thing you'll see of me,If you look hard enough. This, in its way,Is a kind of fame. My life arranged before youIn scrolls of leaves, rosebuds, violets, ivy,Clustered or wreathed on plate and cup and platter . . .Sometimes, I say, I'm just like John the Baptist—You have my head before you . . . on a platter.
VIII. COFFINS: INTERLUDEWind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its towerTicks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.We are like music, each voice of it pursuingA golden separate dream, remote, persistent,Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.Death, from street to alley, from door to window,Cries out his news,—of unplumbed worlds approaching,Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.But why comes death,—he asks,—in a world so perfect?Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passesDown jangled streets, and dies.The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;From freezing rooms as bare as rock.The curtains are closed across deserted windows.Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,—They are blown away like windflung chords of music,They drift away; the sudden music has died.And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowlyAnd sees the shadow of death in many faces,And thinks the world is strange.He desires immortal music and spring forever,And beauty that knows no change.
IX. CABARETWe sit together and talk, or smoke in silence.You say (but use no words) 'this night is passingAs other nights when we are dead will pass . . .'Perhaps I misconstrue you: you mean only,'How deathly pale my face looks in that glass . . .'You say: 'We sit and talk, of things important . . .How many others like ourselves, this instant,Mark the pendulum swinging against the wall?How many others, laughing, sip their coffee—Or stare at mirrors, and do not talk at all? . . .'This is the moment' (so you would say, in silence)When suddenly we have had too much of laughter:And a freezing stillness falls, no word to say.Our mouths feel foolish . . . For all the days hereafterWhat have we saved—what news, what tune, what play?'We see each other as vain and futile tricksters,—Posturing like bald apes before a mirror;No pity dims our eyes . . .How many others, like ourselves, this instant,See how the great world wizens, and are wise? . . .'Well, you are right . . . No doubt, they fall, these seconds . . .When suddenly all's distempered, vacuous, ugly,And even those most like angels creep for schemes.The one you love leans forward, smiles, deceives you,Opens a door through which you see dark dreams.But this is momentary . . . or else, enduring,Leads you with devious eyes through mists and poisonsTo horrible chaos, or suicide, or crime . . .And all these others who at your conjurationGrow pale, feeling the skeleton touch of time,—Or, laughing sadly, talk of things important,Or stare at mirrors, startled to see their faces,Or drown in the waveless vacuum of their days,—Suddenly, as from sleep, awake, forgettingThis nauseous dream; take up their accustomed ways,Exhume the ghost of a joke, renew loud laughter,Forget the moles above their sweethearts' eyebrows,Lean to the music, rise,And dance once more in a rose-festooned illusionWith kindness in their eyes . . .They say (as we ourselves have said, remember)'What wizardry this slow waltz works upon us!And how it brings to mind forgotten things!'They say 'How strange it is that one such eveningCan wake vague memories of so many springs!'And so they go . . . In a thousand crowded places,They sit to smile and talk, or rise to ragtime,And, for their pleasures, agree or disagree.With secret symbols they play on secret passions.With cunning eyes they seeThe innocent word that sets remembrance trembling,The dubious word that sets the scared heart beating . . .The pendulum on the wallShakes down seconds . . . They laugh at time, dissembling;Or coil for a victim and do not talk at all.
X. LETTERFrom time to time, lifting his eyes, he seesThe soft blue starlight through the one small window,The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,—And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.It is so long, indeed, since I have written,—Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,—That these first words I write seem cold and strange.Are you the man I knew, or have you altered?Altered, of course—just as I too have altered—And whether towards each other, or more apart,We cannot say . . . I've just re-read your letter—Not through forgetfulness, but more for pleasure—Pondering much on all you say in itOf mystic consciousness—divine conversion—The sense of oneness with the infinite,—Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose . . .Well, you believe one must have faith, in some sort,If one's to talk through this dark world contented.But is the world so dark? Or is it ratherOur own brute minds,—in which we hurry, trembling,Through streets as yet unlighted? This, I think.You have been always, let me say, "romantic,"—Eager for color, for beauty, soon discontentedWith a world of dust and stones and flesh too ailing:Even before the question grew to problemAnd drove you bickering into metaphysics,You met on lower planes the same great dragon,Seeking release, some fleeting satisfaction,In strange aesthetics . . . You tried, as I remember,One after one, strange cults, and some, too, morbid,The cruder first, more violent sensations,Gorgeously carnal things, conceived and actedWith splendid animal thirst . . . Then, by degrees,—Savoring all more delicate gradationsIn all that hue and tone may play on flesh,Or thought on brain,—you passed, if I may say so,From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve.Let us regard ourselves, you used to say,As instruments of music, whereon our livesWill play as we desire: and let us yieldThese subtle bodies and subtler brains and nervesTo all experience plays . . . And so you wentFrom subtle tune to subtler, each heard once,Twice or thrice at the most, tiring of each;And closing one by one your doors, drew inSlowly, through darkening labyrinths of feeling,Towards the central chamber . . . Which now you've reached.What, then's, the secret of this ultimate chamber—Or innermost, rather? If I see it clearlyIt is the last, and cunningest, resortOf one who has found this world of dust and flesh,—This world of lamentations, death, injustice,Sickness, humiliation, slow defeat,Bareness, and ugliness, and iteration,—Too meaningless; or, if it has a meaning,Too tiresomely insistent on one meaning:Futility . . . This world, I hear you saying,—With lifted chin, and arm in outflung gesture,Coldly imperious,—this transient world,What has it then to give, if not containingDeep hints of nobler worlds? We know its beauties,—Momentary and trivial for the most part,Perceived through flesh, passing like flesh away,—And know how much outweighed they are by darkness.We are like searchers in a house of darkness,A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns,Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random,Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle,An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairwayLeading to who knows what; but never seeingThe whole at once . . . We grope our way a little,And then grow tired. No matter what we touch,Dust is the answer—dust: dust everywhere.If this were all—what were the use, you ask?But this is not: for why should we be seeking,Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty,To lift our minds, if there were only dust?This is the central chamber you have come to:Turning your back to the world, until you cameTo this deep room, and looked through rose-stained windows,And saw the hues of the world so sweetly changed.Well, in a measure, so only do we all.I am not sure that you can be refuted.At the very last we all put faith in something,—You in this ghost that animates your world,This ethical ghost,—and I, you'll say, in reason,—Or sensuous beauty,—or in my secret self . . .Though as for that you put your faith in these,As much as I do—and then, forsaking reason,—Ascending, you would say, to intuition,—You predicate this ghost of yours, as well.Of course, you might have argued,—and you should have,—That no such deep appearance of designCould shape our world without entailing purpose:For can design exist without a purpose?Without conceiving mind? . . . We are like childrenWho find, upon the sands, beside a sea,Strange patterns drawn,—circles, arcs, ellipses,Moulded in sand . . . Who put them there, we wonder?Did someone draw them here before we came?Or was it just the sea?—We pore upon them,But find no answer—only suppositions.And if these perfect shapes are evidenceOf immanent mind, it is but circumstantial:We never come upon him at his work,He never troubles us. He stands aloof—Well, if he stands at all: is not concernedWith what we are or do. You, if you like,May think he broods upon us, loves us, hates us,Conceives some purpose of us. In so doingYou see, without much reason, will in law.I am content to say, 'this world is ordered,Happily so for us, by accident:We go our ways untroubled save by lawsOf natural things.' Who makes the more assumption?If we were wise—which God knows we are not—(Notice I call on God!) we'd plumb this riddleNot in the world we see, but in ourselves.These brains of ours—these delicate spinal clusters—Have limits: why not learn them, learn their cravings?Which of the two minds, yours or mine, is sound?Yours, which scorned the world that gave it freedom,Until you managed to see that world as omen,—Or mine, which likes the world, takes all for granted,Sorrow as much as joy, and death as life?—You lean on dreams, and take more credit for it.I stand alone . . . Well, I take credit, too.You find your pleasure in being at one with all things—Fusing in lambent dream, rising and fallingAs all things rise and fall . . . I do that too—With reservations. I find more varied pleasureIn understanding: and so find beauty evenIn this strange dream of yours you call the truth.Well, I have bored you. And it's growing late.For household news—what have you heard, I wonder?You must have heard that Paul was dead, by this time—Of spinal cancer. Nothing could be done—We found it out too late. His death has changed me,Deflected much of me that lived as he lived,Saddened me, slowed me down. Such things will happen,Life is composed of them; and it seems wisdomTo see them clearly, meditate upon them,And understand what things flow out of them.Otherwise, all goes on here much as always.Why won't you come and see us, in the spring,And bring old times with you?—If you could see meSitting here by the window, watching VenusGo down behind my neighbor's poplar branches,—Just where you used to sit,—I'm sure you'd come.This year, they say, the springtime will be early.