“ The flapping of our flags has made us blind!We may not see the sacred gods of peace. But thou dost build fanatic temples for them,And thou dost pave the road with sanity,And all the train of bitter ghosts adore them,Who died to puff a monarch's vanity. I hear thy orchestras of holy cheers,The drum that life has snatched away from death,And all the sighing rhythm of thy tears,And the brave laughter of thy trumpet-breath. Peace! But a cynic whispered in my earHow kings like worms still wrangled for a crownThat lay amid the dust—and I could hearA hum of money-changing in the town. ”
Quotes by Iris Tree
“ The perfumed lies stolen from spring that wistfully through the bleakWindows of frost so slenderlySteals her little ghost's flute. Thou tellest of things that might beIf life were as kind as a lover,If we were beloved of the world and the world of we.Thy white words hoverDove-like in rose leaf evenings over the nestSilvering heavenWith rustle of lovers that nestle together for rest.If I could have given82 My tired lips to kisses and my body to sleep and to thee,Ah then and then onlyThe dust were as gentleness mingling thy beauty with meAnd death were not lonely. ”
“ Beating against oblivion tunes of war,Goading the crippled hours on their endless march—But waketh to yawn in the face of the sun,Then turneth back to sleep.... How soundly the wise man sleepeth,Couched royally in the purple of the darkWith his white mistress, Peace—And when the morning stealeth on his rest,As a rose he doth pluck her from the spreading tree of days,And reviveth his heartWith the perfume of the world....But 'twixt the wise and the foolishMany nights shed sorrow and fear,And nets are spread for timid feet,And the waves beat on the shifting sand.... ”
“ Tarnished with evening are burnished with the dawn.Yet pain comes stabbing in the night with silver knife through the window,A blanched moon full of fear and the burden of desire—And nothing rids us utterly of grief,We who have pilgrim souls that will not sleep. II Moonlight planting the world with lilies, so hushed it seems and scented,But in the chapel is a droning where the negroes chant their hymnsAnd we in aureoled loneliness go down the street contented,With hearts that beat for pleasure to the rhythm of our limbs. ”
“ You who are so tired, so filled with sleepThat you would brush a rose-leaf from your cheekLest its heaviness should stir your rest,How can you shoulder the weight of my great burdenThat is too vast for me to bear alone?I tell youLove is no little thing,No moth-winged Cupid painted on the air,No thin flute music petaling the silenceAs leaves that flutter from a cherry tree.It is the thought that broods upon its death,The dread of mountains looking to the stormEre shrieks of lightning cleave their breasts in twain. ”
“ A greater pride than sits upon a throne for mere adorning,A fiercer strength than in the gods of wood that cannot bow;I tore my purple into rags and knelt to bear your scorning,And I am rebel leader to a band of beggars now. In the twilight of my love I stand and strew the bitter ashes;They are blown into my eyes again, the fires that shone for you;In the blushing of the sunset their ghostly fervour flashesAs they sink for everlasting in the darkness and the dew. Your heart is as a moonstone hieroglyphed with secret letters ”
“ Not here should I discover the answer to bring light into my darkness,Into the dim psychic crystals of my soul opalled with the changing colours of unrest—So I went away into the loneliness, asking the forests and the mountains and the seaThe knowledge of life's baffling mysteries.But they were roaring in a wind of memories,Gathering the rain into their bodies to make them fierce and strong,Heaving their shoulders upward to the morning,Crowning their foreheads with sunlight. ”
“ You are the dream-sower in the fields of sleep, you havejingled the star-bells on the hood of darkness, and from theknarled, stark tree of time have flung me the apple ofeternal laughter.1919125 Lolling in snow, like kings in ermine coats, the gilt-crownedbottles lie.... Our thoughts are dangled ina laughter of leaves as bunches of blue and yellow grapesfor faery beggars, for ragged fancies to pluck and taste. Our music shall be the minstrelsy of ghostly ballad-mongersthat have stolen from the ashen banquets of death to blessour revels. ”
“ Of all the sparkling kisses that they gaveSpangling a secret radiance on adoring hands,Now stifled in the darkness of a graveWith kiss of loneliness and death's embracing bands. No more!—And we, the mourners, dare not wearThe black that folds our hearts in secrecy of pain,But must don purple and bright standards bear,Vermilion of our honour, a bloody train. We dare not weep who must be brave in battle—"Another death—another day—another inch of land—The dead are cheering and the ghost drums rattle" ...The dead are deaf and dumb and cannot understand.... ”
“ When you have bowed before all other gods,And found them false, then shall you come at lastTo that dark King of grief, and he shall blessYour bread with tears, and manacle your hands,And call you slave and lover." ...Shall not a child take Pain for companyAnd share her loneliness with him?Does not a youth know tearsIn the first bitterness of broken love?Is Grief so proud a king that none shall comeTo seek him save the blind, the halt, the lame? ...He is a tramp, a beggar, and a clown,He sits a jester at the feet of kingsAnd scurries with the leaves in Autumn's train. ”
“ As a blue peacock sheaves his starry tail....I am alone, most utterly alone,More lonely than the last man in the worldStraying amid the dust of vanished lives.More lonely than a spirit stolen from heavenWho stands beside that nebulous cold riverDividing sleep from death,Eternity from time....Nothing disturbs the white peace of the dawn,She brings no feverous memories of nightAnd sheds no tears. ”
“ Strange as a dreamer walking in her sleep.1912106 The sun is lord of life and colour,Blood of the rose and hyacinth,Hair of the sea and forests,Crown of the cornfields,Body of the hills.The moon is the harlot of Death,Slaughterer of the Sun,Priestess and poisoner she goesWith all her silver flock of wandering souls,Her chant of wailing waters,The bed of shimmering dust from which she comesBound all around with bandages of mist....The living are as blossoms and fruit on the tree,The dead are as lilies and wind on the marshes ”
“ Out of the earth, the dust, the crystals of frost that bindthemselves like a tight crown over our heads. Through the mould and the frost our hair and fingers shallprick their spears of pallor and flame, and in the greenardour of our up-rushing leaves the red goblets of fireshall open, and masses of white flowers, milky as the star-spraysthat droop over Heaven, shall splash their brightfoam from the darkness, as waves that rise and break intoa fountain of blossoms. ”
“ By spectral Joy once murdered in a rage,Now taking shape of Pleasure,Disguised in many clothes and skilful masks.I could discloseThe truth that hangs between our liesAnd jostles sleep to semi-consciousness;Truth, that stings like nettlesOur frail hands dare not pluckFrom out our garden's terraced indolence.We are not happy,And you make us dumb with loving handsReproachful on our lips.Nor can we sob our sorrows on your breast,For we have bartered diamonds for glass,Our tears for smiles,Eternity for now. ”
“ Grief doth forget to curse her Gods or pray,While pagan follies squander all aroundTheir brief gay hours in holiday;For all prayers die when laughter is on the lips.—How frail the moods of joy, how sweet to see them passLike bubbles on the tide, like coloured shipsSailing on glass!1918116 The leaves are singing, and the sea,And the sand in the wind,Blown grass and hurrying people;Full of melodious strings and lutes and flutesRustling and whispering forever. ”
“ My poems cannot laugh. They are the voiceOf birds that mourn and cry above the sea,And this wild joy my love has brought to meLies dumb and knows not how it shall rejoice. I am most weary of the petulant songs I sing,Most tired of tunes that only learn to weep,And long to turn my dreams from their pale sleepInto a gentle minstrelsy with harp of silver string; To fashion for my love one perfect verseSymmetrically threaded by beauty word on word,Flowing and flashing like the luted laughter of a birdTo bless the soul with music which I ravished with a curse. ”
“ Gibing the silent dead with treacherous laughter,Molesting quietness and waking up the weary!What then, what then, can sleep not crush you to forgettingWith all her body's beauty, cannot peace submerge youO wrangling, juggling, jangling, pirouetting—What hope can drag you from the small desires that urge you? ”
“ Our spirits shall flit like those winged faces of cherubsthat never can alight, but swing forever on the azure ribbonsof the sky. And all our dreams and kisses shall be as the rose-leavesfalling on ancient festivals, as the shadows of rose-leavesfalling on phantom lovers in the sleep-pillared temples ofour first archaic passion.1918126 The roots of our longing are probing the heart of night,delving and twining together that our ultimate truthmay grow out of the darkness that bewilders and nourishes. ”
“ Laughter and singing come with the morning,When Life doth mask his face with a gilded visor,And dons his arrogant clothes.But in the night,When the unsheathed moon stands naked and pale,We too put off our opulent disguiseAnd stand alone in the baffling darkness,Fighting with our sins,Weeping for our loneliness,That moon-like gropes forever through the desolate air. ”
“ For you the heart's wild love, beauty, long care,Virginity, passionate womanhood, perfected wholeness,For you the unborn child that I prepare,You, flabby, boneless, brainless, senseless, soulless!191337 The curtains are drawn as though it still were night,A slip of dawn between them is a dangling silver ribbon;And all about the room is quietness—Each patient chairErect, alert, in place. A letter on the table and a bookLie as you left them, now bereft of purpose—Garish a little in the room's sedateness, youReturning dressed so frivolously in all your coloured clothes! ”
“ Sleep-druggèd river that carries the wreckage of cities out sea-ward.Slowly the fingers of dawn-lightSnuff out the candles that yearned to those Gods of delirium,Sleep-huge as shadows grimacingFrom niches made black with the smoke of a fire-spangled passion.Smoothly the wild hair of darknessIs plaited for rest, and the faces of visions are covered with sleep veils. ”
“ Crushing the poisonous berries of sinister kisses,—Morning with healing and kindnessFolds up the dresses dishevelled with terror and laughter,Sweeps up the rags of our shadowsThat danced in a red smoke of dreams on the walls of oblivion.1919101 What have I to do with them,The red athletes in their snow-white clothes?They are sun lovers and moon haters,Toiling or playing in the fieldsWhereon no shadows lie,Pensively, whispering together—They are space lovers and haters of the stars,Soundly they sleep by night nor ever seeThe tiaraed brows of darkness. ”
“ My wolf bays through my moonly lonelinessBlotching the night with howls—My laughter goes whining away on the wind,Laughs that are whipped by a soul too sick with merriment,Too satiate with humour's emptiness!... ”
“ And all lost joys, and tears, and beauty passionately given,Winked at by folly, skewered by the butcher, danced on and slighted,That now spring up from death, showing their slayers the colours of Heaven? You have burst from the ground with your joy, you are pining and bleeding,Your scent is heavy with sorrowful love ”
“ Ah, but they die, these gods, the candles dwindleAnd spring is but a radiant beckoningTo death that follows slowly, silently.... O flitting swallows, fleeting laugh of wind,O flash of silver in the wings of dawnThat are spread out and closed. O hush of nightBreathless with love, oh swish of whispering tideThat swells and shrinks upon the dreaming shore. ”
“ Shaken before we were rested—At dawn we are found by the sunAdrift, labouring, thinking of nothing—Our wine is bitter, it has made us drunk,Our bread is coarse,We are always athirst and hungry.... ”
“ Your tears have flowed on feet of carven stone;Your blood is spilt for the boiling-pot of GodWhere good and evil mix; and all your rageIs but a thin smoke wafted in His face.191454 Blow upon blow they bruise the daylight wan,Scar upon scar they rend the quiet shore;They ride on furious, leaving every manCrushed like a maggot by the hoofs of war:Gods that grow tired of paradisial waterAnd fill their cups with steaming wine of slaughter. ”
“ Our tears have washed us harder than the rocks,And like the rocks we wait,Grow old with waiting....Weariness, the riverFlowing through banks of sleep....O God, we have nothing to give Thee,Take our great weariness,We that have never lived and never slept,Take our long weariness, O God!... ”
“ The leering skull that derides at our lives and meBeing older than life and wiser....I hear the cry of the world that writhes to the lash of the whipBeyond the sound of the treetops singingTo the wind's persuasive violins and bells of dews that drip,Or rush of feathers winging....Dost thou fear death as I? ”
“ And toast our fancies reverently with red wine and with white wine,And with eyes mesmerised to the horizon gazing,Dream our iridescent dreams and sigh our shadowy sighs.191681 Oh canst thou not hear in my heart all its whispering fearsWhose wind-like voicesFlutter the leaves of my hope and bow them with tearsWhile the body rejoices.Till all the pomp and beauty of day, the Cardinal SunTrailing his scarlet vestureLeaves after light the pale hills sullen and dun,Turns with a gestureColour and glory to smoke that is deathly and grey. ”
“ Bribing divinity to cloak your shame,You train the spirit for material use,You sacrifice men's hearts to feed your flame. When shall the world be rid of these bald priests,Pig-snouted with their gilded wolfish ears,The scarlet cardinals of drunken feastsWhose hands are washed in blood, whose feet in tears?191663 What will happen to the beggar, and the sinner, and the sad,And the drunk that drinks for sorrow, and the maimed, and mad;What will happen to the starving, and the rebel run from drilling,Cowardly, afraid of fighting, and the child who stole a shilling? ”
“ I mimic fortune with my tunes of ill,Nor pipe despite her wistful mirth and trillOf love that moves with music into Doom; Of love that thrills with joy the graveyard cold,And like a gay canary in a cageMocks at his prison, and with flippant rageFlaunts his bright wing to fill the gloom with gold. ”
“ The purpose of God's beauty in their joy....1918124 From the fathomless depth of my boredom, from thelast room of its emptiness, an elf has come to playwith me. As comes a little gold spider to a prison cell teasing thecriminal from his darkness to tear at a thread of sunlight,and kiss the mouth of a shy morning whispering throughthe window. An elf has come to dance with me, blown like a leaf onthe path of my autumn lassitude. ”
“ Moths that have out-distanced me in circling round your head,For the strangeness of your kisses and the curse of your embracesAnd the frenzy of pursuing where your despot feet have led. I will shout, and tear the darkness; I will snuff the candles sacredWith the rage of my abasement, with the blast of my farewell;I will smile with cynic softness, but my tears are dropping acridAnd sizzling in a gutter down the white-hot streets of Hell!191477 Lulled are the dazzling colours of the day,And mild the heavens, burnt out like an ash. ”
