Read Ebook: Some Imagist Poets: An Anthology by Aldington Richard Fletcher John Gould Flint F S Frank Stewart H D Hilda Doolittle Lawrence D H David Herbert Lowell Amy

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Ebook has 321 lines and 15210 words, and 7 pages

RICHARD ALDINGTON Childhood 3 The Poplar 10 Round-Pond 12 Daisy 13 Epigrams 15 The Faun sees Snow for the First Time 16 Lemures 17

H. D. The Pool 21 The Garden 22 Sea Lily 24 Sea Iris 25 Sea Rose 27 Oread 28 Orion Dead 29

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER The Blue Symphony 33 London Excursion 39

F. S. FLINT Trees 53 Lunch 55 Malady 56 Accident 58 Fragment 60 Houses 62 Eau-Forte 63

D. H. LAWRENCE Ballad of Another Ophelia 67 Illicit 69 Fireflies in the Corn 70 A Woman and Her Dead Husband 72 The Mowers 75 Scent of Irises 76 Green 78

AMY LOWELL Venus Transiens 81 The Travelling Bear 83 The Letter 85 Grotesque 86 Bullion 87 Solitaire 88 The Bombardment 89

BIBLIOGRAPHY 93

RICHARD ALDINGTON

RICHARD ALDINGTON

CHILDHOOD

The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood Put me out of love with God. I can't believe in God's goodness; I can believe In many avenging gods. Most of all I believe In gods of bitter dullness, Cruel local gods Who seared my childhood.

I've seen people put A chrysalis in a match-box, "To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." But when it broke its shell It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison And tried to climb to the light For space to dry its wings.

That's how I was. Somebody found my chrysalis And shut it in a match-box. My shrivelled wings were beaten, Shed their colours in dusty scales Before the box was opened For the moth to fly.

And then it was too late, Because the beauty a child has, And the beautiful things it learns before its birth, Were shed, like moth-scales, from me.

I hate that town; I hate the town I lived in when I was little; I hate to think of it. There were always clouds, smoke, rain In that dingy little valley. It rained; it always rained. I think I never saw the sun until I was nine-- And then it was too late; Everything's too late after the first seven years.

That long street we lived in Was duller than a drain And nearly as dingy. There were the big College And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. There were the sordid provincial shops-- The grocer's, and the shops for women, The shop where I bought transfers, And the piano and gramaphone shop Where I used to stand Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone.

How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! On wet days--it was always wet-- I used to kneel on a chair And look at it from the window.

The dirty yellow trams Dragged noisily along With a clatter of wheels and bells And a humming of wires overhead. They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines And then the water ran back Full of brownish foam bubbles.

There was nothing else to see-- It was all so dull-- Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas Running along the grey shiny pavements; Sometimes there was a waggon Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound With their hoofs Through the silent rain.

And there was a grey museum Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals And a few relics of the Romans--dead also. There was the sea-front, A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it, Three piers, a row of houses, And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour.

At school it was just dull as that dull High Street. They taught me pothooks-- I wanted to be alone, although I was so little, Alone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness, Away somewhere else--

The town was dull; The front was dull; The High Street and the other street were dull-- And there was a public park, I remember, And that was damned dull too, With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," And its gravel paths.

And on Sundays they rang the bells, From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. They had the Salvation Army. I was taken to a High Church; The parson's name was Mowbray, "Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it--" That's what I heard people say.

I took a little black book To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, And I had to sit on a hard bench, Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms, And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed-- And then there was nothing to do Except to play trains with the hymn-books.

There was nothing to see, Nothing to do, Nothing to play with, Except that in an empty room upstairs There was a large tin box Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, Of the Declaration of Independence And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. There were also several packets of stamps, Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, Indians and Men-of-war From the United States, And the green and red portraits Of King Francobollo Of Italy.

I don't believe in God. I do believe in avenging gods Who plague us for sins we never sinned But who avenge us.

That's why I'll never have a child, Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours, Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.

THE POPLAR

Why do you always stand there shivering Between the white stream and the road?

The people pass through the dust On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; The waggoners go by at dawn; The lovers walk on the grass path at night.

Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! You are more beautiful than they are.

I know that the white wind loves you, Is always kissing you and turning up The white lining of your green petticoat. The sky darts through you like blue rain, And the grey rain drips on your flanks And loves you. And I have seen the moon Slip his silver penny into your pocket As you straightened your hair; And the white mist curling and hesitating Like a bashful lover about your knees.

I know you, poplar; I have watched you since I was ten. But if you had a little real love, A little strength, You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers And go walking down the white road Behind the waggoners.

There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill. Will you always stand there shivering?

ROUND-POND

Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. The shining of the sun upon the water Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals In a long wavering irregular flight.

The water is cold to the eye As the wind to the cheek.

In the budding chestnuts Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open The starlings make their clitter-clatter; And the blackbirds in the grass Are getting as fat as the pigeons.

Too-hoo, this is brave; Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress.

DAISY

CATULLUS.

You were my playmate by the sea. We swam together. Your girl's body had no breasts.

We found prawns among the rocks; We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing; In the evening we played games with the others.

It made me glad to be by you.

Sometimes I kissed you, And you were always glad to kiss me; But I was afraid--I was only fourteen.

And I had quite forgotten you, You and your name.

To-day I pass through the streets. She who touches my arm and talks with me Is--who knows?--Helen of Sparta, Dryope, Laodamia....

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