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From “The Day of Summer” To Waldo Frank
HOW long ago was it | |
| The dawn pleased Homer? | |
| And Petrarca—was it among flowers | |
| Dew-full, tearful for the love of the dawn, | |
| That he sang his best song | 5 |
| For Laura? | |
| Did the eyes of joy of Prince Paul Fort | |
| See it well once, | |
| And was it then that he | |
| “Took pleasure in being a Frenchman?” | 10 |
| In New York, | |
| These summer days, | |
| It’s a swollen-faced hour, | |
| Sick with a monstrous cold, | |
| Gasping with the death of an expectance. | 15 |
| Houses there | |
| In a thick row | |
| Militarily shut out the sky; | |
| Another fence | |
| In the east; | 20 |
| Over this one a shameful blush | |
| Strives upward. | |
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| Nevertheless I go to perform the ceremony | |
| Of purification—to wash myself…. | |
| Oh, dear water …. dear, dear soap…. | 25 |
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| Because I am poor | |
| No ceremony will clean me; | |
| In this crowded room | |
| All the things touch me, | |
| Soil me. | 30 |
| To start a day | |
| Feeling dirty | |
| Is to go to war | |
| Unbelievingly. | |
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| A little happy pause here | 35 |
| For me to think of what I shall be doing in the day. | |
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| Now has the deep hot belly of the night | |
| Given birth to noises. | |
| The noises pass | |
| Over me, | 40 |
| I lie | |
| Insensible, | |
| Under. | |
| Work, milk, bread, clothes, potatoes, potatoes….. | |
| |
| This is | 45 |
| The big | |
| Beauty rumbling on. | |
| Is this | |
| The world’s | |
| Music forevermore? | 50 |
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| This and the irrevocable peddlers | |
| Who will come in an hour | |
| To hurl loose: | |
| “Pota-a-a-a-t-o-u-s, yeh-p-l-s, waa-ry meh-l-n?” | |
| Little apocalyptic faces, | 55 |
| Faces of the end of all faces— | |
| Are these the chief musicians? | |
| Please, listen, I have a small, dear soul, and all I want is a noiseless beauty, any little thing, I was born for a sylvan century, may I claim to be left alone?…. I will not even expect you to understand—only…. | |
| Under this, like a cold hating prostitute, | |
| I lie | 60 |
| Insensible…. | |
| And my face is sad because | |
| Once | |
| There was…. | |
| Ah, there was a time….. | 65 |
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| Now go look for the mail— | |
| Go glean the thoughts they drop before your door, | |
| You eternal gleaner. | |
| Love thoughts, too…..? | |
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| Out in the hall | 70 |
| The gas jet | |
| Doesn’t give a damn that it is day already. | |
| Stench | |
| Of drenched clothes | |
| And snore | 75 |
| Of married men. | |
| Who shall ask the furnished-room poets to write | |
| A song for the dawn? | |
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| Oh, MAIL! | |
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Ah, beggars:
“I-am-though-I-refrain-from-saying-it-better-than-you-in-the-end. I-am-perfectly-honest-evidently-nothing-up-my-sleeves….. It-is-out-of-my-bounteous-goodness-that-I-like-you-a-little-in-spite-of…..” | 80 |
| These scanty rights to live— | |
| A clear day, an articulate moment, may take them from us; | |
| So we advance | |
| At every chance | |
| Our stuttering claim and reference. | 85 |
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| Dragging my soul along | |
| I go to the window. | |
| The sun-fingers reach slowly | |
| Over the face of the house in front. | |
| This is the hour they go to their work | 90 |
| Eastward and westward— | |
| Two processions, | |
| Silent. | |
| Shapeless the hats, | |
| Too large the jackets and shoes— | 95 |
| Grotesques walking, | |
| Grotesques for no one to laugh at. | |
| Are they happy perhaps?— | |
| For, of course …. but do they | |
| Really know where they’re going? | 100 |
| Has the first of them | |
| Found | |
| Down there | |
| Something for his happiness? | |
| And has he telephoned or telegraphed to the others | 105 |
| That they are going, | |
| Without looking around, | |
| Without knowing one another, | |
| ALL | |
| TOGETHER | 110 |
| Eastward and westward? | |
| The world has decreed: | |
| These men go | |
| Acknowledged | |
| Eastward and westward. | 115 |
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| Sit down and take the rest of your life, | |
| O poets! | |
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| All my days | |
| Are in this room | |
| Pressing close against me. | 120 |
| I know what I have done, misdone, mistaken, misunderstood, forgotten, overlooked, | |
| And I have lost my youth. | |
| Everybody knows me, | |
| No one wonders at me; | |
| They have placed me in their minds, made me small and tied me up | 125 |
| To throw me in a little dusty corner of their minds. | |
| All my days are huddled | |
| Close against me; | |
| My youth is but a regret and a madness— | |
| A madness …. Jesus Christ! I am not old yet, never mind what I have told you, what I have been! | 130 |
| I have not irremediably committed myself, I am not lost— | |
| For pity’s sake | |
| Let me go, | |
| Let me go free! | |
| For pity’s sake | 135 |
| Let me go | |
| With my youth! | |
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| Ah, the old days are huddled | |
| So close against my chest | |
| That no great freeing gesture | 140 |
| Is possible. . . . . . . . | |
| After the tears, | |
| Cool, new, sensitive, | |
| Under my body hushed and stiff, | |
| I open the door | 145 |
| Quietly, | |
| I close the door behind me | |
| Carefully. | |
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| The street’s greeting: | |
| I’m out of work— | 150 |
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| Damn work—to work and come home in the evening hungry for all the things that could have been done instead! | |
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| But to go | |
| Unemployed | |
| Without hunger | |
| At all! | 155 |
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| Oh, listen, O Street, | |
| Let your word to me be a delicate whisper: | |
| I am young, | |
| Nice day, | |
| I look | 160 |
| Straight ahead, | |
| Staccato steps, | |
| Stiff and cool, | |
| I walk. | |
| (Sweet morning, soeur de charité!) | 165 |
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| It is the light mood in the streets of the morning, | |
| Bouncing on the roofs, kicked | |
| By the rosy foot of the wind. | |
| Ah, we—ah, we are chained to the sidewalk but we hold our eyes upward, | |
| Lightly, lightly. | 170 |
| Do blow away the dust of our dead, | |
| And save us all from them who are smouldering inside our houses! | |
| See the fine dust from those windows, see the dust angry at the sun! | |
| Who threw these kids here among us, them and their fun and war, “GIMME!—GIMME!” | |
| King of the triumphing mood, the iceman cracks easy puns with a landlady of the dust! | 175 |
| Kaiser of the lightness of the morning, the policeman, swinging his stick, writes sacred hieroglyphs. | |
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| Furtively I steal, | |
| From what and whom | |
| I know, | |
| A little youth | 180 |
| For myself. | |
| I know nothing, | |
| I forget nothing, | |
| I’m glad enough to live | |
| In the morning. | 185 |
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