| |
| DO birds sing for their mates? | |
| |
| My song was for one airy and shining, | |
| Lighter than a butterfly’s wings. | |
| On the way, she would half-turn and listen. | |
| She fluttered solemn, occupied, yet I never knew her airy business. | 5 |
| Now that I sing of an earthly woman, | |
| She listens wondering. | |
| |
A HELEN
You looked tired, | |
| For you came from afar, | |
| Perhaps from Greece. | 10 |
| |
| You may have been walking for ages. | |
| |
| You stepped slowly, | |
| As though you carried | |
| Some precious wine. | |
| |
| You stayed a moment… | 15 |
| Then vanished, | |
| Wondering, | |
| As if you were some one else. | |
| |
GIRLS
I | |
| Your family has moulded you. | 20 |
| |
| Marks of their tools and fingers | |
| Show about your torse and face. | |
| |
| Your cheeks near the mouth | |
| Are half-frozen. | |
| |
| Your soul flutters | 25 |
| Faintly. | |
| |
II | |
| Your flesh slopes like rose-petals. | |
| Like rose-petals | |
| It holds and drinks in the light. | 30 |
| |
| Your humid lips | |
| Remember the mother’s milk. | |
| |
| Yet there flutters about you a flame— | |
| Maturing you, withering you. | |
| |
III | 35 |
| In the cafeteria the girl moved briskly | |
| In her imitation silk, sashed, hang-how-it-will dress; | |
| Yet knocked constantly against the customs— | |
| In taking her water, her sugar, her catsup. | |
| |
| In the street too she walked briskly, | 40 |
| The old purse dangling and the old hat moving firmly; | |
| Of a sudden she stopped, looked about, listened— | |
| Struck by the city—shot—like a flying bird. | |
| |
| Then she took herself in hand and went on. | |
| |
.. MYRRH ..
Your face called up a lily | 45 |
| Glowing in the dusk, | |
| Your body the dusk-green stalk. | |
| Your lips were parched, imploring… | |
| |
| As if they thirsted for the kiss behind the kiss, | |
| As if they awaited disappointment. | 50 |
| |
PAIN
Her lips lie tired, discarded. | |
| Her eyes are on the alert, as if for some mystic tryst. | |
| Through the white limbs where desire has leaped and pranced | |
| Now runs the invisible fire— | |
| An offering to some mysterious god. | 55 |
| |
A LADY TALKING TO A POET
For a moment you felt nude and shivered. | |
| |
| Your social position hung near; | |
| You threw it about you— | |
| A garment frail and lacy. | |
| |
THE TRAITOR
He knew the lady’s half-mocking, half-regretful smile, | 60 |
| Fluttering like one of the sweet-pea petals, | |
| Had been fertilized by the sweat and blood of her husband’s vest-workers. | |
| Yet his eyes resented the intrusion | |
| Of firm matter-of-fact chins of servants. | |
| |
A RICH GENTLEMAN
Your nostrils sniff the air, | 65 |
| Your ears stand alert: | |
| Near you, like wolves in the forest, | |
| Lurk other people’s poverty and suffering; | |
| And though your heart is robust— | |
| Tough, like the cheek of a country girl, | 70 |
| You dare not trust it. | |
| |
A PETIT BOURGEOIS
Sharp nails grow out from your fat fingers; | |
| Over your clean-shaven lip glimmers the moustache of a tom-cat. | |
| Your smiles are investments at a hundred per-cent. | |
| |
| Yet one has only one life, one mouth, one stomach, and can take only one woman at a time; | 75 |
| Also, when you were younger, before you knew, | |
| You foolishly allowed suffering to reach your heart. | |
| So your face sometimes contorts wistfully— | |
| You use this sanctimoniously to deceive. | |
| |
LA MORT DE PAUL VERLAINE
The few rosy cloud-splotches | 80 |
| In the bluish-white afternoon sky | |
| Shed down ruddy flowers of light— | |
| Big, capriciously shaped lilies and orchids—so thickly | |
| That some, held at the stems, stood as if growing straight from the grass. | |
| Among them he came—short, heavy, a little ragged, | 85 |
| With eyes and lips that had laughed much with wine; | |
| Faintly-drunk, as if wine-vapors of the past were hovering in his head; | |
| Blowing his flute and dancing, | |
| Now fast, now slow, and now stopping … listening… | |
| An earth-flower among the light flowers. | 90 |
| |
| Tired, he dropped down on the grass. | |
| The light-flowers caressed his cheeks and his drowsy eyes with their cloud-like coolness—piling about him. | |
| Did the trees understand? | |
| |
| The birds sang | |
| As though it were sunrise. | 95 |
| |
DEATH
One comes to me every day— | |
| Gentle, tactful, and of | |
| Admirable dignity. | |
| |
| He is friendly though not wheedling, | |
| He wants me to know him. | 100 |
| Sometimes he touches my arm, | |
| Or even presses it impulsively. | |
| |
TO A WOMAN ASLEEP IN A STREET-CAR
Woman sleeping in the car— | |
| Strange, aloof and far— | |
| Shall I shake you and tell you | 105 |
| Who you are? | |
| |
| Wake up and let us speak— | |
| Till our hearts are bared to the core, | |
| Till we are a man and a woman no more, | |
| Till we are empty like vases that leak, | 110 |
| Till we droop and fall, | |
| Till we are nothing at all. | |
| |
