Nightmare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening
After a
Print by George Cruikshank
It was a gusty night,
With the wind booming, and swooping,
Looping round corners,
Sliding over the cobble-stones,
Whipping and veering,
And careering over the roofs
Like a thousand clattering horses.
Mr. Spruggins had been dining in
the city,
Mr. Spruggins was none too steady
in his gait,
And the wind played ball with Mr.
Spruggins
And laughed as it whistled past
him.
It rolled him along the street,
With his little feet pit-a-patting
on the flags of the sidewalk,
And his muffler and his coat-tails
blown straight out behind him.
It bumped him against area railings,
And chuckled in his ear when he
said “Ouch!”
Sometimes it lifted him clear off
his little patting feet
And bore him in triumph over three
grey flagstones and a quarter.
The moon dodged in and out of clouds,
winking.
It was all very unpleasant for Mr.
Spruggins,
And when the wind flung him hard
against his own front door
It was a relief,
Although the breath was quite knocked
out of him.
The gas-lamp in front of the house
flared up,
And the keyhole was as big as a
barn door;
The gas-lamp flickered away to a
sputtering blue star,
And the keyhole went out with it.
Such a stabbing, and jabbing,
And sticking, and picking,
And poking, and pushing, and prying
With that key;
And there is no denying that Mr.
Spruggins rapped out an oath or two,
Rub-a-dub-dubbing them out to a
real snare-drum roll.
But the door opened at last,
And Mr. Spruggins blew through it
into his own hall
And slammed the door to so hard
That the knocker banged five times
before it stopped.
Mr. Spruggins struck a light and
lit a candle,
And all the time the moon winked
at him through the window.
“Why couldn’t you find
the keyhole, Spruggins?”
Taunted the wind.
“I can find the keyhole.”
And the wind, thin as a wire,
Darted in and seized the candle
flame
And knocked it over to one side
And pummelled it down-down-down-!
But Mr. Spruggins held the candle
so close that it singed his chin,
And ran and stumbled up the stairs
in a surprisingly agile manner,
For the wind through the keyhole
kept saying, “Spruggins! Spruggins!”
behind him.
The fire in his bedroom burned brightly.
The room with its crimson bed and
window curtains
Was as red and glowing as a carbuncle.
It was still and warm.
There was no wind here, for the
windows were fastened;
And no moon,
For the curtains were drawn.
The candle flame stood up like a
pointed pear
In a wide brass dish.
Mr. Spruggins sighed with content;
He was safe at home.
The fire glowed-red and
yellow roses
In the black basket of the grate-
And the bed with its crimson hangings
Seemed a great peony,
Wide open and placid.
Mr. Spruggins slipped off his top-coat
and his muffler.
He slipped off his bottle-green
coat
And his flowered waistcoat.
He put on a flannel dressing-gown,
And tied a peaked night-cap under
his chin.
He wound his large gold watch
And placed it under his pillow.
Then he tiptoed over to the window
and pulled back the curtain.
There was the moon dodging in and
out of the clouds;
But behind him was his quiet candle.
There was the wind whisking along
the street.
The window rattled, but it was fastened.
Did the wind say, “Spruggins”?
All Mr. Spruggins heard was “S-s-s-s-s-
Dying away down the street.
He dropped the curtain and got into
bed.
Martha had been in the last thing
with the warming-pan;
The bed was warm,
And Mr. Spruggins sank into feathers,
With the familiar ticking of his
watch just under his head.
Mr. Spruggins dozed.
He had forgotten to put out the
candle,
But it did not make much difference
as the fire was so bright...
Too bright!
The red and yellow roses pricked
his eyelids,
They scorched him back to consciousness.
He tried to shift his position;
He could not move.
Something weighed him down,
He could not breathe.
He was gasping,
Pinned down and suffocating.
He opened his eyes.
The curtains of the window were
flung back,
The fire and the candle were out,
And the room was filled with green
moonlight.
And pressed against the window-pane
Was a wide, round face,
Winking-winking-
Solemnly dropping one eyelid after
the other.
Tick-tock-went
the watch under his pillow,
Wink-wink-went
the face at the window.
It was not the fire roses which
had pricked him,
It was the winking eyes.
Mr. Spruggins tried to bounce up;
He could not, because-
His heart flapped up into his mouth
And fell back dead.
On his chest was a fat pink pig,
On the pig a blackamoor
With a ten pound weight for a cap.
His mustachios kept curling up and
down like angry snakes,
And his eyes rolled round and round,
With the pupils coming into sight,
and disappearing,
And appearing again on the other
side.
The holsters at his saddle-bow were
two port bottles,
And a curved table-knife hung at
his belt for a scimitar,
While a fork and a keg of spirits
were strapped to the saddle behind.
He dug his spurs into the pig,
Which trampled and snorted,
And stamped its cloven feet deeper
into Mr. Spruggins.
Then the green light on the floor
began to undulate.
It heaved and hollowed,
It rose like a tide,
Sea-green,
Full of claws and scales
And wriggles.
The air above his bed began to move;
It weighed over him
In a mass of draggled feathers.
Not one lifted to stir the air.
They drooped and dripped
With a smell of port wine and brandy,
Closing down, slowly,
Trickling drops on the bed-quilt.
Suddenly the window fell in with
a great scatter of glass,
And the moon burst into the room,
Sizzling-“S-s-s-s-s-Spruggins!
Spruggins!”
It rolled toward him,
A green ball of flame,
With two eyes in the center,
A red eye and a yellow eye,
Dropping their lids slowly,
One after the other.
Mr. Spruggins tried to scream,
But the blackamoor
Leapt off his pig
With a cry,
Drew his scimitar,
And plunged it into Mr. Spruggins’s
mouth.
Mr. Spruggins got up in the cold
dawn
And remade the fire.
Then he crept back to bed
By the light which seeped in under
the window curtains,
And lay there, shivering,
While the bells of St. George the
Martyr chimed the quarter after seven.
The Paper Windmill
The little boy pressed his face against
the window-pane and looked out at the bright sunshiny
morning. The cobble-stones of the square glistened
like mica. In the trees, a breeze danced and
pranced, and shook drops of sunlight like falling
golden coins into the brown water of the canal.
Down stream slowly drifted a long string of galliots
piled with crimson cheeses. The little boy thought
they looked as if they were roc’s eggs, blocks
of big ruby eggs. He said, “Oh!”
with delight, and pressed against the window with
all his might.
The golden cock on the top of the
‘Stadhuis’ gleamed. His beak was
open like a pair of scissors and a narrow piece of
blue sky was wedged in it. “Cock-a-doodle-do,”
cried the little boy. “Can’t you
hear me through the window, Gold Cocky? Cock-a-doodle-do!
You should crow when you see the eggs of your cousin,
the great roc.” But the golden cock stood
stock still, with his fine tail blowing in the wind.
He could not understand the little boy, for he said
“Cocorico” when he said anything.
But he was hung in the air to swing, not to sing.
His eyes glittered to the bright West wind, and the
crimson cheeses drifted away down the canal.
It was very dull there in the big
room. Outside in the square, the wind was playing
tag with some fallen leaves. A man passed, with
a dogcart beside him full of smart, new milkcans.
They rattled out a gay tune: “Tiddity-tum-ti-ti.
Have some milk for your tea. Cream for your
coffee to drink to-night, thick, and smooth, and sweet,
and white,” and the man’s sabots
beat an accompaniment: “Plop! trop! milk
for your tea. Plop! trop! drink it to-night.”
It was very pleasant out there, but it was lonely
here in the big room. The little boy gulped at
a tear.
It was queer how dull all his toys
were. They were so still. Nothing was still
in the square. If he took his eyes away a moment
it had changed. The milkman had disappeared
round the corner, there was only an old woman with
a basket of green stuff on her head, picking her way
over the shiny stones. But the wind pulled the
leaves in the basket this way and that, and displayed
them to beautiful advantage. The sun patted them
condescendingly on their flat surfaces, and they seemed
sprinkled with silver. The little boy sighed
as he looked at his disordered toys on the floor.
They were motionless, and their colours were dull.
The dark wainscoting absorbed the sun. There
was none left for toys.
The square was quite empty now.
Only the wind ran round and round it, spinning.
Away over in the corner where a street opened into
the square, the wind had stopped. Stopped running,
that is, for it never stopped spinning. It whirred,
and whirled, and gyrated, and turned. It burned
like a great coloured sun. It hummed, and buzzed,
and sparked, and darted. There were flashes
of blue, and long smearing lines of saffron, and quick
jabs of green. And over it all was a sheen like
a myriad cut diamonds. Round and round it went,
the huge wind-wheel, and the little boy’s head
reeled with watching it. The whole square was
filled with its rays, blazing and leaping round after
one another, faster and faster. The little boy
could not speak, he could only gaze, staring in amaze.
The wind-wheel was coming down the
square. Nearer and nearer it came, a great disk
of spinning flame. It was opposite the window
now, and the little boy could see it plainly, but
it was something more than the wind which he saw.
A man was carrying a huge fan-shaped frame on his
shoulder, and stuck in it were many little painted
paper windmills, each one scurrying round in the breeze.
They were bright and beautiful, and the sight was
one to please anybody, and how much more a little boy
who had only stupid, motionless toys to enjoy.
The little boy clapped his hands,
and his eyes danced and whizzed, for the circling
windmills made him dizzy. Closer and closer came
the windmill man, and held up his big fan to the little
boy in the window of the Ambassador’s house.
Only a pane of glass between the boy and the windmills.
They slid round before his eyes in rapidly revolving
splendour. There were wheels and wheels of colours-big,
little, thick, thin-all one clear, perfect
spin. The windmill vendor dipped and raised
them again, and the little boy’s face was glued
to the window-pane. Oh! What a glorious,
wonderful plaything! Rings and rings of windy
colour always moving! How had any one ever preferred
those other toys which never stirred. “Nursie,
come quickly. Look! I want a windmill.
See! It is never still. You will buy me
one, won’t you? I want that silver one,
with the big ring of blue.”
So a servant was sent to buy that
one: silver, ringed with blue, and smartly it
twirled about in the servant’s hands as he stood
a moment to pay the vendor. Then he entered
the house, and in another minute he was standing in
the nursery door, with some crumpled paper on the end
of a stick which he held out to the little boy.
“But I wanted a windmill which went round,”
cried the little boy. “That is the one
you asked for, Master Charles,” Nursie was a
bit impatient, she had mending to do. “See,
it is silver, and here is the blue.” “But
it is only a blue streak,” sobbed the little
boy. “I wanted a blue ring, and this silver
doesn’t sparkle.” “Well, Master
Charles, that is what you wanted, now run away and
play with it, for I am very busy.”
The little boy hid his tears against
the friendly window-pane. On the floor lay the
motionless, crumpled bit of paper on the end of its
stick. But far away across the square was the
windmill vendor, with his big wheel of whirring splendour.
It spun round in a blaze like a whirling rainbow,
and the sun gleamed upon it, and the wind whipped it,
until it seemed a maze of spattering diamonds.
“Cocorico!” crowed the golden cock on
the top of the ‘Stadhuis’. “That
is something worth crowing for.” But the
little boy did not hear him, he was sobbing over the
crumpled bit of paper on the floor.
The Red Lacquer Music-Stand
A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long
since brought
In some fast clipper-ship from China,
quaintly wrought
With bossed and carven flowers and fruits
in blackening gold,
The slender shaft all twined about and
thickly scrolled
With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils,
whirling, curling,
Flinging their new shoots over the four
wings, and swirling
Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps
and streams;
Petals and apples in high relief, and
where the seams
Are worn with handling, through the polished
crimson sheen,
Long streaks of black, the under lacquer,
shine out clean.
Four desks, adjustable, to suit the heights
of players
Sitting to viols or standing
up to sing, four layers
Of music to serve every instrument, are
there,
And on the apex a large flat-topped golden
pear.
It burns in red and yellow, dusty, smouldering
lights,
When the sun flares the old barn-chamber
with its flights
And skips upon the crystal knobs of dim
sideboards,
Legless and mouldy, and hops, glint to
glint, on hoards
Of scythes, and spades, and dinner-horns,
so the old tools
Are little candles throwing brightness
round in pools.
With Oriental splendour, red and gold,
the dust
Covering its flames like smoke and thinning
as a gust
Of brighter sunshine makes the colours
leap and range,
The strange old music-stand seems to strike
out and change;
To stroke and tear the darkness with sharp
golden claws;
To dart a forked, vermilion tongue from
open jaws;
To puff out bitter smoke which chokes
the sun; and fade
Back to a still, faint outline obliterate
in shade.
Creeping up the ladder into the loft,
the Boy
Stands watching, very still, prickly and
hot with joy.
He sees the dusty sun-mote slit by streaks
of red,
He sees it split and stream, and all about
his head
Spikes and spears of gold are licking,
pricking, flicking,
Scratching against the walls and furniture,
and nicking
The darkness into sparks, chipping away
the gloom.
The Boy’s nose smarts with the pungence
in the room.
The wind pushes an elm branch from before
the door
And the sun widens out all along the floor,
Filling the barn-chamber with white, straightforward
light,
So not one blurred outline can tease the
mind to fright.
“O All ye Works of the
Lord, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O let the Earth Bless the
Lord; Yea, let it Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O ye Mountains and Hills,
Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O All ye Green Things upon
the Earth, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him,
and Magnify Him
for ever.”
The Boy will praise his God on an altar
builded fair,
Will heap it with the Works of the Lord.
In the morning air,
Spices shall burn on it, and by their
pale smoke curled,
Like shoots of all the Green Things, the
God of this bright World
Shall see the Boy’s desire to pay
his debt of praise.
The Boy turns round about, seeking with
careful gaze
An altar meet and worthy, but each table
and chair
Has some defect, each piece is needing
some repair
To perfect it; the chairs have broken
legs and backs,
The tables are uneven, and every highboy
lacks
A handle or a drawer, the desks are bruised
and worn,
And even a wide sofa has its cane seat
torn.
Only in the gloom far in the corner there
The lacquer music-stand is elegant and
rare,
Clear and slim of line, with its four
wings outspread,
The sound of old quartets, a tenuous,
faint thread,
Hanging and floating over it, it stands supreme-
Black, and gold, and crimson, in one twisted
scheme!
A candle on the bookcase feels a draught
and wavers,
Stippling the white-washed walls with
dancing shades and quavers.
A bed-post, grown colossal, jigs about
the ceiling,
And shadows, strangely altered, stain
the walls, revealing
Eagles, and rabbits, and weird faces pulled
awry,
And hands which fetch and carry things
incessantly.
Under the Eastern window, where the morning
sun
Must touch it, stands the music-stand,
and on each one
Of its broad platforms is a pyramid of
stones,
And metals, and dried flowers, and pine
and hemlock cones,
An oriole’s nest with the four eggs
neatly blown,
The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three
large brown
Butternuts uncracked, six butterflies
impaled
With a green luna moth, a snake-skin freshly
scaled,
Some sunflower seeds, wampum, and a bloody-tooth
shell,
A blue jay feather, all together piled
pell-mell
The stand will hold no more. The
Boy with humming head
Looks once again, blows out the light,
and creeps to bed.
The Boy keeps solemn vigil, while outside
the wind
Blows gustily and clear, and slaps against
the blind.
He hardly tries to sleep, so sharp his
ecstasy
It burns his soul to emptiness, and sets
it free
For adoration only, for worship.
Dedicate,
His unsheathed soul is naked in its novitiate.
The hours strike below from the clock
on the stair.
The Boy is a white flame suspiring in
prayer.
Morning will bring the sun, the Golden
Eye of Him
Whose splendour must be veiled by starry
cherubim,
Whose Feet shimmer like crystal in the
streets of Heaven.
Like an open rose the sun will stand up
even,
Fronting the window-sill, and when the
casement glows
Rose-red with the new-blown morning, then
the fire which flows
From the sun will fall upon the altar
and ignite
The spices, and his sacrifice will burn
in perfumed light.
Over the music-stand the ghosts of sounds
will swim,
‘Viols d’amore’
and ‘hautbois’ accorded to a hymn.
The Boy will see the faintest breath of
angels’ wings
Fanning the smoke, and voices will flower
through the strings.
He dares no farther vision, and with scalding
eyes
Waits upon the daylight and his great
emprise.
The cold, grey light of dawn was whitening
the wall
When the Boy, fine-drawn by sleeplessness,
started his ritual.
He washed, all shivering and pointed like
a flame.
He threw the shutters open, and in the
window-frame
The morning glimmered like a tarnished
Venice glass.
He took his Chinese pastilles and put
them in a mass
Upon the mantelpiece till he could seek
a plate
Worthy to hold them burning. Alas!
He had been late
In thinking of this need, and now he could
not find
Platter or saucer rare enough to ease
his mind.
The house was not astir, and he dared
not go down
Into the barn-chamber, lest some door
should be blown
And slam before the draught he made as
he went out.
The light was growing yellower, and still
he looked about.
A flash of almost crimson from the gilded
pear
Upon the music-stand, startled him waiting
there.
The sun would rise and he would meet it
unprepared,
Labelled a fool in having missed what
he had dared.
He ran across the room, took his pastilles
and laid
Them on the flat-topped pear, most carefully
displayed
To light with ease, then stood a little
to one side,
Focussed a burning-glass and painstakingly
tried
To hold it angled so the bunched and prismed
rays
Should leap upon each other and spring
into a blaze.
Sharp as a wheeling edge of disked, carnation
flame,
Gem-hard and cutting upward, slowly the
round sun came.
The arrowed fire caught the burning-glass
and glanced,
Split to a multitude of pointed spears,
and lanced,
A deeper, hotter flame, it took the incense
pile
Which welcomed it and broke into a little
smile
Of yellow flamelets, creeping, crackling,
thrusting up,
A golden, red-slashed lily in a lacquer
cup.
“O ye Fire and Heat,
Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O ye Winter and Summer, Bless
ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O ye Nights and Days, Bless
ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O ye Lightnings and Clouds,
Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.”
A moment so it hung, wide-curved, bright-petalled,
seeming
A chalice foamed with sunrise. The
Boy woke from his dreaming.
A spike of flame had caught the card of
butterflies,
The oriole’s nest took fire, soon
all four galleries
Where he had spread his treasures were
become one tongue
Of gleaming, brutal fire. The Boy
instantly swung
His pitcher off the wash-stand and turned
it upside down.
The flames drooped back and sizzled, and
all his senses grown
Acute by fear, the Boy grabbed the quilt
from his bed
And flung it over all, and then with aching
head
He watched the early sunshine glint on
the remains
Of his holy offering. The lacquer
stand had stains
Ugly and charred all over, and where the
golden pear
Had been, a deep, black hole gaped miserably.
His dear
Treasures were puffs of ashes; only the
stones were there,
Winking in the brightness.
The
clock upon the stair
Struck five, and in the kitchen someone
shook a grate.
The Boy began to dress, for it was getting
late.
Spring Day
Bath
The day is fresh-washed and fair,
and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the
air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room
window and bores through the water in the bath-tub
in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves
the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to
bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the
surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections
wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my
finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a
foot, and the planes of light in the water jar.
I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water,
the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The
day is almost too bright to bear, the green water
covers me from the too bright day. I will lie
here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots.
The sky is blue and high. A
crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of
tulips and narcissus in the air.
Breakfast Table
In the fresh-washed sunlight, the
breakfast table is decked and white. It offers
itself in flat surrender, tendering tastes, and smells,
and colours, and metals, and grains, and the white
cloth falls over its side, draped and wide.
Wheels of white glitter in the silver coffee-pot,
hot and spinning like catherine-wheels, they whirl,
and twirl-and my eyes begin to smart, the
little white, dazzling wheels prick them like darts.
Placid and peaceful, the rolls of bread spread themselves
in the sun to bask. A stack of butter-pats, pyramidal,
shout orange through the white, scream, flutter, call:
“Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!”
Coffee steam rises in a stream, clouds the silver
tea-service with mist, and twists up into the sunlight,
revolved, involuted, suspiring higher and higher,
fluting in a thin spiral up the high blue sky.
A crow flies by and croaks at the coffee steam.
The day is new and fair with good smells in the air.
Walk
Over the street the white clouds meet,
and sheer away without touching.
On the sidewalks, boys are playing
marbles. Glass marbles, with amber and blue
hearts, roll together and part with a sweet clashing
noise. The boys strike them with black and red
striped agates. The glass marbles spit crimson
when they are hit, and slip into the gutters under
rushing brown water. I smell tulips and narcissus
in the air, but there are no flowers anywhere, only
white dust whipping up the street, and a girl with
a gay Spring hat and blowing skirts. The dust
and the wind flirt at her ankles and her neat, high-heeled
patent leather shoes. Tap, tap, the little heels
pat the pavement, and the wind rustles among the flowers
on her hat.
A water-cart crawls slowly on the
other side of the way. It is green and gay with
new paint, and rumbles contentedly, sprinkling clear
water over the white dust. Clear zigzagging
water, which smells of tulips and narcissus.
The thickening branches make a pink
‘grisaille’ against the blue sky.
Whoop! The clouds go dashing
at each other and sheer away just in time. Whoop!
And a man’s hat careers down the street in front
of the white dust, leaps into the branches of a tree,
veers away and trundles ahead of the wind, jarring
the sunlight into spokes of rose-colour and green.
A motor-car cuts a swathe through
the bright air, sharp-beaked, irresistible, shouting
to the wind to make way. A glare of dust and
sunshine tosses together behind it, and settles down.
The sky is quiet and high, and the morning is fair
with fresh-washed air.
Midday and Afternoon
Swirl of crowded streets. Shock
and recoil of traffic. The stock-still brick
façade of an old church, against which the waves of
people lurch and withdraw. Flare of sunshine
down side-streets. Eddies of light in the windows
of chemists’ shops, with their blue, gold, purple
jars, darting colours far into the crowd. Loud
bangs and tremors, murmurings out of high windows,
whirring of machine belts, blurring of horses and
motors. A quick spin and shudder of brakes on
an electric car, and the jar of a church-bell knocking
against the metal blue of the sky. I am a piece
of the town, a bit of blown dust, thrust along with
the crowd. Proud to feel the pavement under me,
reeling with feet. Feet tripping, skipping,
lagging, dragging, plodding doggedly, or springing
up and advancing on firm elastic insteps. A boy
is selling papers, I smell them clean and new from
the press. They are fresh like the air, and pungent
as tulips and narcissus.
The blue sky pales to lemon, and great
tongues of gold blind the shop-windows, putting out
their contents in a flood of flame.
Night and Sleep
The day takes her ease in slippered
yellow. Electric signs gleam out along the shop
fronts, following each other. They grow, and
grow, and blow into patterns of fire-flowers as the
sky fades. Trades scream in spots of light at
the unruffled night. Twinkle, jab, snap, that
means a new play; and over the way: plop, drop,
quiver, is the sidelong sliver of a watchmaker’s
sign with its length on another street. A gigantic
mug of beer effervesces to the atmosphere over a tall
building, but the sky is high and has her own stars,
why should she heed ours?
I leave the city with speed.
Wheels whirl to take me back to my trees and my quietness.
The breeze which blows with me is fresh-washed and
clean, it has come but recently from the high sky.
There are no flowers in bloom yet, but the earth
of my garden smells of tulips and narcissus.
My room is tranquil and friendly.
Out of the window I can see the distant city, a band
of twinkling gems, little flower-heads with no stems.
I cannot see the beer-glass, nor the letters of the
restaurants and shops I passed, now the signs blur
and all together make the city, glowing on a night
of fine weather, like a garden stirring and blowing
for the Spring.
The night is fresh-washed and fair
and there is a whiff of flowers in the air.
Wrap me close, sheets of lavender.
Pour your blue and purple dreams into my ears.
The breeze whispers at the shutters and mutters queer
tales of old days, and cobbled streets, and youths
leaping their horses down marble stairways.
Pale blue lavender, you are the colour of the sky
when it is fresh-washed and fair... I smell the
stars... they are like tulips and narcissus...
I smell them in the air.
The Dinner-Party
Fish
“So...” they said,
With their wine-glasses delicately
poised,
Mocking at the thing they cannot
understand.
“So...” they said again,
Amused and insolent.
The silver on the table glittered,
And the red wine in the glasses
Seemed the blood I had wasted
In a foolish cause.
Game
The gentleman with the grey-and-black
whiskers
Sneered languidly over his quail.
Then my heart flew up and laboured,
And I burst from my own holding
And hurled myself forward.
With straight blows I beat upon
him,
Furiously, with red-hot anger, I
thrust against him.
But my weapon slithered over his
polished surface,
And I recoiled upon myself,
Panting.
Drawing-Room
In a dress all softness and half-tones,
Indolent and half-reclined,
She lay upon a couch,
With the firelight reflected in
her jewels.
But her eyes had no reflection,
They swam in a grey smoke,
The smoke of smouldering ashes,
The smoke of her cindered heart.
Coffee
They sat in a circle with their
coffee-cups.
One dropped in a lump of sugar,
One stirred with a spoon.
I saw them as a circle of ghosts
Sipping blackness out of beautiful
china,
And mildly protesting against my
coarseness
In being alive.
Talk
They took dead men’s souls
And pinned them on their breasts
for ornament;
Their cuff-links and tiaras
Were gems dug from a grave;
They were ghouls battening on exhumed
thoughts;
And I took a green liqueur from
a servant
So that he might come near me
And give me the comfort of a living
thing.
Eleven O’Clock
The front door was hard and heavy,
It shut behind me on the house of
ghosts.
I flattened my feet on the pavement
To feel it solid under me;
I ran my hand along the railings
And shook them,
And pressed their pointed bars
Into my palms.
The hurt of it reassured me,
And I did it again and again
Until they were bruised.
When I woke in the night
I laughed to find them aching,
For only living flesh can suffer.
Stravinsky’s Three Pieces “Grotesques”, for String Quartet
First Movement
Thin-voiced, nasal pipes
Drawing sound out and out
Until it is a screeching thread,
Sharp and cutting, sharp and cutting,
It hurts.
Whee-e-e!
Bump! Bump! Tong-ti-bump!
There are drums here,
Banging,
And wooden shoes beating the round,
grey stones
Of the market-place.
Whee-e-e!
Sabots slapping the worn, old
stones,
And a shaking and cracking of dancing
bones;
Clumsy and hard they are,
And uneven,
Losing half a beat
Because the stones are slippery.
Bump-e-ty-tong! Whee-e-e!
Tong!
The thin Spring leaves
Shake to the banging of shoes.
Shoes beat, slap,
Shuffle, rap,
And the nasal pipes squeal with
their pigs’ voices,
Little pigs’ voices
Weaving among the dancers,
A fine white thread
Linking up the dancers.
Bang! Bump! Tong!
Petticoats,
Stockings,
Sabots,
Delirium flapping its thigh-bones;
Red, blue, yellow,
Drunkenness steaming in colours;
Red, yellow, blue,
Colours and flesh weaving together,
In and out, with the dance,
Coarse stuffs and hot flesh weaving
together.
Pigs’ cries white and tenuous,
White and painful,
White and-
Bump!
Tong!
Second Movement
Pale violin music whiffs across
the moon,
A pale smoke of violin music blows
over the moon,
Cherry petals fall and flutter,
And the white Pierrot,
Wreathed in the smoke of the violins,
Splashed with cherry petals falling,
falling,
Claws a grave for himself in the
fresh earth
With his finger-nails.
Third Movement
An organ growls in the heavy roof-groins
of a church,
It wheezes and coughs.
The nave is blue with incense,
Writhing, twisting,
Snaking over the heads of the chanting
priests.
‘Requiem
aeternam dona ei, Domine’;
The priests whine their bastard
Latin
And the censers swing and click.
The priests walk endlessly
Round and round,
Droning their Latin
Off the key.
The organ crashes out in a flaring
chord,
And the priests hitch their chant
up half a tone.
’Dies
illa, dies irae,
Calamitatis
et miseriae,
Dies magna
et amara valde.’
A wind rattles the leaded windows.
The little pear-shaped candle flames
leap and flutter,
‘Dies
illa, dies irae;’
The swaying smoke drifts over the
altar,
‘Calamitatis
et miseriae;’
The shuffling priests sprinkle holy
water,
‘Dies
magna et amara valde;’
And there is a stark stillness in
the midst of them
Stretched upon a bier.
His ears are stone to the organ,
His eyes are flint to the candles,
His body is ice to the water.
Chant, priests,
Whine, shuffle, genuflect,
He will always be as rigid as he
is now
Until he crumbles away in a dust
heap.
’Lacrymosa
dies illa,
Qua resurget ex
favilla
Judicandus homo
reus.’
Above the grey pillars the roof
is in darkness.
Towns in Colour
I
Red Slippers
Red slippers in a shop-window, and
outside in the street, flaws of grey, windy sleet!
Behind the polished glass, the slippers
hang in long threads of red, festooning from the ceiling
like stalactites of blood, flooding the eyes of passers-by
with dripping colour, jamming their crimson reflections
against the windows of cabs and tram-cars, screaming
their claret and salmon into the teeth of the sleet,
plopping their little round maroon lights upon the
tops of umbrellas.
The row of white, sparkling shop fronts
is gashed and bleeding, it bleeds red slippers.
They spout under the electric light, fluid and fluctuating,
a hot rain-and freeze again to red slippers,
myriadly multiplied in the mirror side of the window.
They balance upon arched insteps like
springing bridges of crimson lacquer; they swing up
over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked in
a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July
ponds, flared and burnished by red rockets.
Snap, snap, they are cracker-sparks
of scarlet in the white, monotonous block of shops.
They plunge the clangour of billions
of vermilion trumpets into the crowd outside, and
echo in faint rose over the pavement.
People hurry by, for these are only
shoes, and in a window, farther down, is a big lotus
bud of cardboard whose petals open every few minutes
and reveal a wax doll, with staring bead eyes and flaxen
hair, lolling awkwardly in its flower chair.
One has often seen shoes, but whoever
saw a cardboard lotus bud before?
The flaws of grey, windy sleet beat
on the shop-window where there are only red slippers.
II
Thompson’s Lunch Room-Grand
Central Station
Study in Whites
Wax-white-
Floor, ceiling, walls.
Ivory shadows
Over the pavement
Polished to cream surfaces
By constant sweeping.
The big room is coloured like the
petals
Of a great magnolia,
And has a patina
Of flower bloom
Which makes it shine dimly
Under the electric lamps.
Chairs are ranged in rows
Like sepia seeds
Waiting fulfilment.
The chalk-white spot of a cook’s
cap
Moves unglossily against the vaguely bright wall-
Dull chalk-white striking the retina
like a blow
Through the wavering uncertainty
of steam.
Vitreous-white of glasses with green
reflections,
Ice-green carboys, shifting-greener,
bluer-with the jar of moving water.
Jagged green-white bowls of pressed
glass
Rearing snow-peaks of chipped sugar
Above the lighthouse-shaped castors
Of grey pepper and grey-white salt.
Grey-white placards: “Oyster
Stew, Cornbeef Hash, Frankfurters”:
Marble slabs veined with words in
meandering lines.
Dropping on the white counter like
horn notes
Through a web of violins,
The flat yellow lights of oranges,
The cube-red splashes of apples,
In high plated ‘epergnes’.
The electric clock jerks every half-minute:
“Coming!-Past!”
“Three beef-steaks and a chicken-pie,”
Bawled through a slide while the
clock jerks heavily.
A man carries a china mug of coffee
to a distant chair.
Two rice puddings and a salmon salad
Are pushed over the counter;
The unfulfilled chairs open to receive
them.
A spoon falls upon the floor with
the impact of metal striking stone,
And the sound throws across the
room
Sharp, invisible zigzags
Of silver.
III
An Opera House
Within the gold square of the proscenium
arch,
A curtain of orange velvet hangs
in stiff folds,
Its tassels jarring slightly when
someone crosses the stage behind.
Gold carving edges the balconies,
Rims the boxes,
Runs up and down fluted pillars.
Little knife-stabs of gold
Shine out whenever a box door is
opened.
Gold clusters
Flash in soft explosions
On the blue darkness,
Suck back to a point,
And disappear.
Hoops of gold
Circle necks, wrists, fingers,
Pierce ears,
Poise on heads
And fly up above them in coloured
sparkles.
Gold!
Gold!
The opera house is a treasure-box
of gold.
Gold in a broad smear across the
orchestra pit:
Gold of horns, trumpets, tubas;
Gold-spun-gold, twittering-gold,
snapping-gold
Of harps.
The conductor raises his baton,
The brass blares out
Crass, crude,
Parvenu, fat, powerful,
Golden.
Rich as the fat, clapping hands
in the boxes.
Cymbals, gigantic, coin-shaped,
Crash.
The orange curtain parts
And the prima-donna steps forward.
One note,
A drop: transparent, iridescent,
A gold bubble,
It floats... floats...
And bursts against the lips of a
bank president
In the grand tier.
IV
Afternoon Rain in State Street
Cross-hatchings of rain against
grey walls,
Slant lines of black rain
In front of the up and down, wet
stone sides of buildings.
Below,
Greasy, shiny, black, horizontal,
The street.
And over it, umbrellas,
Black polished dots
Struck to white
An instant,
Stream in two flat lines
Slipping past each other with the
smoothness of oil.
Like a four-sided wedge
The Custom House Tower
Pokes at the low, flat sky,
Pushing it farther and farther up,
Lifting it away from the house-tops,
Lifting it in one piece as though
it were a sheet of tin,
With the lever of its apex.
The cross-hatchings of rain cut
the Tower obliquely,
Scratching lines of black wire across
it,
Mutilating its perpendicular grey
surface
With the sharp precision of tools.
The city is rigid with straight
lines and angles,
A chequered table of blacks and
greys.
Oblong blocks of flatness
Crawl by with low-geared engines,
And pass to short upright squares
Shrinking with distance.
A steamer in the basin blows its
whistle,
And the sound shoots across the
rain hatchings,
A narrow, level bar of steel.
Hard cubes of lemon
Superimpose themselves upon the
fronts of buildings
As the windows light up.
But the lemon cubes are edged with
angles
Upon which they cannot impinge.
Up, straight, down, straight-square.
Crumpled grey-white papers
Blow along the side-walks,
Contorted, horrible,
Without curves.
A horse steps in a puddle,
And white, glaring water spurts
up
In stiff, outflaring lines,
Like the rattling stems of reeds.
The city is heraldic with angles,
A sombre escutcheon of argent and
sable
And countercoloured bends of rain
Hung over a four-square civilization.
When a street lamp comes out,
I gaze at it for fully thirty seconds
To rest my brain with the suffusing,
round brilliance of its globe.
V
An Aquarium
Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,
Silver shiftings,
Rings veering out of rings,
Silver-gold-
Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,
With sharp white bubbles
Shooting and dancing,
Flinging quickly outward.
Nosing the bubbles,
Swallowing them,
Fish.
Blue shadows against silver-saffron
water,
The light rippling over them
In steel-bright tremors.
Outspread translucent fins
Flute, fold, and relapse;
The threaded light prints through
them on the pebbles
In scarcely tarnished twinklings.
Curving of spotted spines,
Slow up-shifts,
Lazy convolutions:
Then a sudden swift straightening
And darting below:
Oblique grey shadows
Athwart a pale casement.
Roped and curled,
Green man-eating eels
Slumber in undulate rhythms,
With crests laid horizontal on their
backs.
Barred fish,
Striped fish,
Uneven disks of fish,
Slip, slide, whirl, turn,
And never touch.
Metallic blue fish,
With fins wide and yellow and swaying
Like Oriental fans,
Hold the sun in their bellies
And glow with light:
Blue brilliance cut by black bars.
An oblong pane of straw-coloured
shimmer,
Across it, in a tangent,
A smear of rose, black, silver.
Short twists and upstartings,
Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles:
Sunshine playing between red and
black flowers
On a blue and gold lawn.
Shadows and polished surfaces,
Facets of mauve and purple,
A constant modulation of values.
Shaft-shaped,
With green bead eyes;
Thick-nosed,
Heliotrope-coloured;
Swift spots of chrysolite and coral;
In the midst of green, pearl, amethyst
irradiations.
Outside,
A willow-tree flickers
With little white jerks,
And long blue waves
Rise steadily beyond the outer islands.