Edith Sitwell

“ And star-bright masks for youth to wear,
Lest any dream that fare
—Bright pilgrim—past our ken, should see
Hints of Reality.
Upon the sharp-set grass, shrill-green,
Tall trees like rattles lean,
And jangle sharp and dizzily;
But when night falls they sigh
Till Pierrot moon steals slyly in,
His face more white than sin,
Black-masked, and with cool touch lays bare
Each cherry, plum, and pear.
Then underneath the veilèd eyes
Of houses, darkness lies,—
Tall houses; like a hopeless prayer
They cleave the sly dumb air. ”

“ She leaves the sands, where in tents striped like fruits
The dancers whirl like winds to airy flutes,
And music, soother than the pulp of pearls
Whose sweetness decks the swan-white syren girls,
In air-pale waves like water, has the sheen
Of mirrors, floats like flower-wing’d stars.—O spleen! ”

“ We overrun the universe—
Beneath the giddy lights of noon,
White as a tired August moon.
The air is like a jarring bell
That jangles words it cannot spell,
And black as Fate, the iron trees
Stretch thirstily to catch the breeze.
{77} SONG FROM “THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA”
AND shall we never find those diamonds bright
That were the fawn-queen of Palmyra’s eyes?—
Ah, dark hot jewels lie hidden from the sight
Beneath dark palm-trees where the river sighs
Beyond the tomb of young eternities;
And in the desert, lonely flowers weep—
The clouds have such long hair—that tangles Sleep. ”

“ Each muslined school-child seems a moon;
And in the tents, those lazy waves
From out the echoing coral caves
Of light, like Venus from the sea
The clown seems, blond hair floating free.
The switchback, with its noisy run,
Is turning like the wooden sun
As he rides on his rocking-horse
All Struwwelpeter-haired; we course
On sands as moist as sugar-cane,
And the Fat Woman’s face and mane
Are sometimes dappled by the shade
Into the likeness of some maid{79}
Long dead ... ”

“ With masks of glass the night has stained with wine,
Hair lifted like a vine;—
And all the coloured curtains of the air
Were fluttered. Passing there,
The sounds seemed warring suns; and music flowed
As blood; the mask’d lamps showed
Tall houses light had gilded like despair:
Black windows, gaping there.{92}
Through all the rainbow spaces of our laughter
Those pageants followed after ”

“ Thus one worm to the other saith.
Those slow mean servitors of Death,
They chuckling said: “Your soul, grown blind
With anguish, is the shrieking Wind
That blows the flame that never dies
About his empty, lidless eyes.”
I tore them from my heart. I said:
“The life-blood that my son’s hand shed,
That from my broken heart outburst,
I’d give again, to quench his thirst.
“He did no sin. But cold blind earth
The body was that gave him birth.
All mine, all mine the sin; the love
I bore him was not deep enough.”
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. ”

“ SOLO FOR EAR-TRUMPET
THE carriage brushes through the bright
Leaves (violent jets from life to light) .
Strong polished speed is plunging, heaves
Between the showers of bright hot leaves.
The window-glasses glaze our faces
And jarr them to the very basis,—
But they could never put a polish
Upon my manners, or abolish
My most distinct disinclination
For calling on a rich relation!
In her house, bulwark built between
The life man lives and visions seen,—
The sunlight hiccups white as chalk,
Grown drunk with emptiness of talk,
And silence hisses like a snake,
Invertebrate and rattling ache. ”

“ Tongues like flames and shadows louche—
Flickered down the street together
In the spangled weather.
Flames, bright singing-birds that pass,
Whistled wares as shrill as grass
(Landscapes clear as glittering glass) ,
Whistled all together:
Papagei, oh Papagei,
Buy our greenest fruits, oh buy,
Melons misty from the bloom
Of mellow moons on some hot night,
Melting in the August light;
Apples like an emerald shower;
Nectarines that falling boom
On the grass in greenest gloom ”

“ Like flames the goat-foot satyrs leap and fling
The blossom’d beans of Spring.
The oreads leave their swan-like fountains, bells
Of foam, and dark wood-wells,
And grasses where the pale dew lovelorn lies
And like an echo dies.
The river-gods are tossing their blue manes
Still wet with brine; the reins
Lie loosely on their plunging horses; earth
Shakes with the storm of mirth;
And all the cloudy castles of the air
Are bathed with radiance. There,{107}
Beneath dark chestnut trees, King Pan doth sport
With all his hornèd court. ”

“ The fusty showman fumbles, must
Fit in a particle of dust
The universe, for fear it gain
Its freedom from my box of brain.
Yet dust bears seeds that grow to grace
Behind my crude-striped wooden face{49}
As I, a puppet tinsel-pink,
Leap on my springs, learn how to think,
Then like the trembling golden stalk
Of some long-petalled star, I walk
Through the dark heavens until dew
Falls on my eyes and sense thrills through. ”

“ Like water gurgling; hoofs all wreath’d with flowers,
Wild as the dew-pale hours,
The clownish satyrs dance the antic hay;
They butt with horns and sway,
While laughing leaves, like smitten cymbals thrill
Their sunburnt dance ”

“ METALLIC waves of people jar
Through crackling green toward the bar
Where on the tables, chattering-white,
The sharp drinks quarrel with the light.
Those coloured muslin blinds the smiles
Shroud wooden faces in their wiles—
Sometimes they splash like water (you
Yourself reflected in their hue) .
The conversation, loud and bright,
Seems spinal bars of shunting light
In firework-spirting greenery,
O complicate machinery
For building Babel, iron crane
Beneath your hair, that blue-ribbed mane{86} ”

“ WITHIN your magic web of hair lies furled
The fire and splendour of the ancient world;
The dire gold of the comet’s wind-blown hair,
The songs that turned to gold the evening air
When all the stars of heaven sang for joy; ”

“ Your soul, pure glucose edged with hints
Of tentative and half-soiled tints. ”

“ Tall windows show Infinity;
And, hard reality,
The candles weep and pry and dance
Like lives mocked at by Chance. ”

“ Full of facts, where theories stop.
{57} VI
THE KING OF CHINA’S DAUGHTER
The King of China’s daughter, She never would love me Though I hung my cap and bells upon Her nutmeg tree. For oranges and lemons, The stars in bright blue air, (I stole them long ago, my dear) Were dangling there. The Moon did give me silver pence, The Sun did give me gold, And both together softly blew And made my porridge cold; But the King of China’s daughter Pretended not to see When I hung my cap and bells upon Her nutmeg tree.{58}
VII ”

“ Note.—Thanks due to Helen Rootham for her earnest collaboration in this poem.{29}
III
THE GIRL WITH THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS
THE bright-striped wooden fields are edged
With noisy cock’s crow trees, scarce fledged—
The trees that spin like tops, all weathers,
Like strange birds ruffling glassy feathers.
My hair is white as flocks of geese,
And water hisses out of this;
And when the late sun burns my cheek
Till it is pink as apples sleek,
I wander in the fields and know
Why kings do squander pennies so—
Lest they at last should weight their eyes! ”

“ All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,
Stitch life down for fear we guess
At the hidden ugliness.
Dusty voice that throbs with heat,
Hoping with its steel-thin beat
To put stitches in my mind,
Make it tidy, make it kind;
You shall not! I’ll keep it free
Though you turn earth sky and sea
To a patchwork quilt to keep
Your mind snug and warm in sleep. ”

“ Adder-flames flare and spout
{22}From his lips ... shadows rout.
Tiptoe the Barber crept,
On his furred black locks leapt.
Candles shrieked, flaring wept.
Barber takes up the shears....
“Fur for the shivering fears,
Cold in Hell these long years.”
Candles shriek up the scale,
Creaking down in a wail.
Hear how their protests fail!
Only cold, snakish flutes
Sound like the growing fruits
Out of slow hidden roots.... ”

“ Trains sweep the empty floors—
Pelongs and Pallampores,
Bulchauls and Sallampores,
Soundless as any breeze
(Amber and orangeries)
From isles in Indian seas.
Black spangled veils falling
(The cold is appalling) ,
They wave fans, hear calling{19}
Adder-flames shrieking slow,
Stinging bright fruit-like snow,
Down in the street below ”