Complete Poems and Plays (5 page)

Paint me a cavernous waste shore

Cast in the unstilled Cyclades,

Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks

Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me Aeolus above

Reviewing the insurgent gales

Which tangle Ariadne’s hair

And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands

(Nausicaa and Polypheme).

Gesture of orang-outang

Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair

Slitted below and gashed with eyes,

This oval O cropped out with teeth:

The sickle motion from the thighs

Jackknifes upward at the knees

Then straightens out from heel to hip

Pushing the framework of the bed

And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave

Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,

Knows the female temperament

And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man

Is history, said Emerson

Who had not seen the silhouette

Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)

Tests the razor on his leg

Waiting until the shriek subsides.

The epileptic on the bed

Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor

Find themselves involved, disgraced,

Call witness to their principles

And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria

Might easily be misunderstood;

Mrs. Turner intimates

It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,

Enters padding on broad feet,

Bringing sal volatile

And a glass of brandy neat.

Pipit sate upright in her chair

Some distance from where I was sitting;

Views
of
Oxford
Colleges

Lay on the table, with the knitting.

Daguerreotypes and silhouettes,

Her grandfather and great great aunts,

Supported on the mantelpiece

An
Invitation
to
the
Dance
.

         .    .    .    .    .

I shall not want Honour in Heaven

For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney

And have talk with Coriolanus

And other heroes of that kidney.

I shall not want Capital in Heaven

For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond.

We two shall lie together, lapt

In a five per cent. Exchequer Bond.

I shall not want Society in Heaven,

Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;

Her anecdotes will be more amusing

Than Pipit’s experience could provide.

I shall not want Pipit in Heaven:

Madame Blavatsky will instruct me

In the Seven Sacred Trances;

Piccarda de Donati will conduct me.

      .    .    .    .    .

But where is the penny world I bought

To eat with Pipit behind the screen?

The red-eyed scavengers are creeping

From Kentish Town and Golder’s Green;

Where are the eagles and the trumpets?

Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.

Over buttered scones and crumpets

Weeping, weeping multitudes

Droop in a hundred A.B.C.’s.

Malheur à la malheureuse Tamise

Qui coule si près du Spectateur.

Le directeur

Conservateur

Du Spectateur

Empeste la brise.

Les actionnaires

Réactionnaires

Du Spectateur

Conservateur

Bras dessus bras dessous

Font des tours

A pas de loup.

Dans un égout

Une petite fille

En guenilles

Camarde

Regarde

Le directeur

Du Spectateur

Conservateur

Et crève d’amour.

En Amérique, professeur;

En Angleterre, journaliste;

C’est à grands pas et en sueur

Que vous suivrez à peine ma piste.

En Yorkshire, conférencier;

A Londres, un peu banquier,

Vous me paierez bien la tête.

C’est à Paris que je me coiffe

Casque noir de jemenfoutiste.

En Allemagne, philosophe

Surexcité par Emporheben

Au grand air de Bergsteigleben;

J’erre toujours de-ci de-là

A divers coups de tra là là

De Damas jusqu’ à Omaha.

Je célébrai mon jour de fête

Dans une oasis d’Afrique

Vêtu d’une peau de girafe.

On montrera mon cénotaphe

Aux côtes brûlantes de Mozambique.

Ils ont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent à Terre Haute;

Mais une nuit d’été, les voici à Ravenne,

A l’aise entre deux draps, chez deux centaines de punaises;

La sueur aestivale, et une forte odeur de chienne.

Ils restent sur le dos écartant les genoux

De quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures.

On relève le drap pour mieux égratigner.

Moins d’une lieue d’ici est Saint Apollinaire

En Classe, basilique connue des amateurs

De chapitaux d’acanthe que tournoie le vent.

Ils vont prendre le train de huit heures

Prolonger leurs misères de Padoue à Milan

Où se trouve la Cène, et un restaurant pas cher.

Lui pense aux pourboires, et rédige son bilan.

Ils auront vu la Suisse et traversé la France.

Et Saint Apollinaire, raide et ascétique,

Vieille usine désaffectée de Dieu, tient encore

Dans ses pierres écroulantes la forme précise de Byzance.

The broad-backed hippopotamus

Rests on his belly in the mud;

Although he seems so firm to us

He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood is weak and frail.

Susceptible to nervous shock;

While the True Church can never fail

For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo’s feeble steps may err

In compassing material ends,

While the True Church need never stir

To gather in its dividends.

The ’potamus can never reach

The mango on the mango-tree;

But fruits of pomegranate and peach

Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo’s voice

Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,

But every week we hear rejoice

The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus’s day

Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;

God works in a mysterious way —

The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the ’potamus take wing

Ascending from the damp savannas,

And quiring angels round him sing

The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean

And him shall heavenly arms enfold.

Among the saints he shall be seen

Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,

By all the martyr’d virgins kist,

While the True Church remains below

Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.