John Dos Passos

“ Of budding leaves, the sing-song
Of waters brightly gurgling through meadowland,
Are shouting with the shouting throng,
Crying Cypris, Cyprian,
Queen of the seafoam, Queen of the budding year,
Queen of eyes that flame and hands that twine,
Return to us, return from the fields of asphodel.
And all the grey town of Asolo
Is full of lutes and songs of love,
And vows exchanged from balcony to balcony
Across the singing streets ...
But in the garden of the nunnery,
Of the sisters of poverty, daughters of dust,
The cock crows. The cock crows. ”

“ The garden full of spearshafts and shouting
and the whine of arrows and the red bows of Tartars
and trampling of the sharp hoofs of war-horses.
Under the golden moon
the men with hairy arms
struck off the heads of the tulips in the tulip-bed
and of the poets in a row.
The king lifted the hand that held the flaming dragon-flower. ”

“ Crosslegged in a corner a child with brown hands
sounds the zambomba.
Outside down the purple street
stopping sometimes at a door, breathing deep
the heady wine of sunset, stride with clattering steps
those to whom the time will never come
of work-stiffened unrestless hands.
The rain-swelled clouds of winter roam
like a herd of swine over the town and the dark plain.
The wineshops full of shuffling and talk, tanned faces
bright eyes, moist lips moulding desires
blow breaths of strong wine in the faces of passers-by. ”

“ O the sudden sideways lift of his back and his arms
as he swings the plow from the furrow.
And behind the river sheening blue
and the white beach and the sails of schooners,
and hoarsely laughing the black crows
wheel and glint. Ha! Haha!
Other springs you answered their laughing
and shouted at them across the fallow lands
that smelt of wild garlic and pinewoods and earth.
This year the crows flap cawing overhead Ha! Haha!
and the plow-harness clinks
and the pines echo the moaning shore.
No one laughs back at the laughing crows.
No one shouts from the edge of the new-plowed field. ”

“ You shall be thrashed, when I rule Asolo.
—What strange dreams, mumbled in his beard
The ancient watchman, come from eating tripe.
VI
HARLEQUINADE
Shrilly whispering down the lanes
That serpent through the ancient night,
They, the scoffers, the scornful of chains,
Stride their turbulent flight.
The stars spin steel above their heads
In the shut irrevocable sky;
Gnarled thorn-branches tear to shreds
Their cloaks of pageantry.
A wind blows bitter in the grey,
Chills the sweat on throbbing cheeks,
And tugs the gaudy rags away
From their lean bleeding knees. ”

“ The moist laden air of a garden in Granada,
spice of leaves bruised by the sun;
she sits in a dress of crimson brocade
dark as blood under the white moon
and watches the ripples spread
in the gurgling fountain;
her lashes curve to her cheeks
as she stares wide-eyed
lips drawn against the teeth and trembling;
gravel crunches down the path;
brown in a crimson swirl
she stands with full lips
head tilted back ... O her small breasts
against my panting breast. ”

“ Red earth
giver of all things
of the yellow grain and the oil
and the wine to all gods sacred
of the fragrant sticks that crackle in the hearth
and the crisp swaying grass
that swells to dripping the udders of the cows,
of the jessamine the girls stick in their hair
when they walk in twos and threes in the moonlight,
and of the pallid autumnal crocuses ...
are there no fields yet to plow?
Are there no fields yet to plow
where with sweat and straining of muscles
good things may be wrung from the earth
and brown limbs going home tired through the evening? ”

“ Down the road
against the blue haze
that hangs before the great ribbed forms of the mountains
people come home from the fields;
they pass a moment in relief
against the amber frieze of the sunset
before turning the bend
towards the twinkling smoke-breathing village.
A boy in sandals with brown dusty legs
and brown cheeks where the flush of evening
has left its stain of wine.
A donkey with a jingling bell
and ears askew.
Old women with water jars
of red burnt earth.
Men bent double under burdens of faggots
that trail behind them the fragrance
of scorched uplands. ”

“ To drink in one strong jessamine scented draught
sadness of flesh, twining madness of the night.
O such a night for scaling garden walls;
yet I lie alone in my narrow bed
and stare at the blank walls, forever afraid,
of a watchdog's barking.
Granada
IX
Rain-swelled the clouds of winter
drag themselves like purple swine across the plain.
On the trees the leaves hang dripping
fast dripping away all the warm glamour
all the ceremonial paint of gorgeous bountiful autumn.
The black wet boles are vacant and dead.
Among the trampled leaves already mud
rot the husks of the rich nuts. ”

“ Freed the peoples from the dragon that devoured them,
That scorched with greed their pleasant fields and villages,
Their quiet delightful places:
So they of the frock-coats, amid wreaths and flags victorious,
To the crowds in the flaring squares,
And a murmurous applause
Rises like smoke to mingle in the sky
With the crashing of the bells.
But, resounding in the sky,
Louder than the tramp of feet,
Louder than the crash of bells,
Louder than the blare of bands, victorious,
Shrieks the inextinguishable laughter of the gods. ”

“ His blood sprinkled the tulips
and the poets in a row.
(The gongs are quiet in the temples.
Men with hairy arms
scattering with taut bows through the city;
there is blood on new spearshafts.)
The long gold nails of the king's right hand
were held together at the tips
in an attitude of discernment.
The geometrical glitter of snowflakes,
the pointed breasts of yellow girls
crimson with henna,
the swirl of river-eddies about a barge
where men sit drinking,
the eternal dragon of magnificence.... ”

“ Thistledown clouds
cover the whole sky
scurry on the southwest wind
over the sea and islands;
somehow in the sundown
the wind has shaken out plumed seed
of thistles milkweed asphodel,
raked from off great fields of dandelions
their ghosts of faded golden springs
and carried them in billowing of mist
to scurry in moonlight
out of the west.
They hide the moon
the whole sky is grey with them
and the waves.
They will fall in rain
over country gardens
where thrushes sing. ”

“ I have lain biting my cheeks
many nights with ears murmurous
with the songs of these strange men.
My arms have stung as if burned
by the touch of red ants with anguish
to circle strokingly
her bulging smooth body.
My blood has soured to gall.
The ten toes of my feet are hard
as buzzards' claws from the stones
of roads, from clambering
cold rockfaces of hills.
For uncountable days' journeys
jouncing on the humps of camels
iron horizons have swayed
like the rail of a ship at sea
mountains have tossed like wine
shaken hard in a wine cup. ”

“ My mad desires
circle through the fields and sniff along the hedges,
hounds that have lost the scent.
Misto
V
VIRGEN DE LAS ANGUSTIAS
The street is full of drums
and shuffle of slow moving feet.
Above the roofs in the shaking towers
the bells yawn.
The street is full of drums
and shuffle of slow moving feet.
The flanks of the houses glow
with the warm glow of candles,
and above the upturned faces,
crowned, robed in a cone-shaped robe
of vast dark folds glittering with gold,
swaying on the necks of men, swaying
with the strong throb of drums,
haltingly she advances. ”

“ II
A boy with rolled up shirtsleeves
turns the handle.
Grind, grind.
The black sphere whirls
above a charcoal fire.
Grind, grind.
The boy sweats and grits his teeth and turns
while a man blows up the coals.
Grind, grind.
Thicker comes the blue curling smoke,
the moka-scented smoke
heavy with early morning
and the awakening city
with click-clack click-clack on the cobblestones
and the young winter sunshine
advancing inquisitively
across the black and white tiles of my bedroom floor. ”

“ A pompous ragged minstrel
sings beside our dining-table
a very old romantic song:
I love the sound of the hunting-horns
deep in the woods at night.
A wind makes dance the fine acacia leaves
and flutters the cloths of the tables. ”

“ And a sweetness from the gorse on the flowerstand
And brushes with his cool careless cheek the cheeks
Of those on the street; mine, an old gnarled man's,
The powdered cheeks of the girl who with faded eyes
Stands in the shadow; a sailor's scarred brown cheeks,
And a little child's, who walks along whispering
To her sufficient self. ”

“ But the Roman poet lies back confident
On his magenta cushions and mattresses,
Thinks of Greek bronzes
At the sight of the straining backs of his slaves.
The slaves' breasts shine with sweat,
And they draw deep breaths of the cooler air
As they lurch through tunnel after tunnel of leaves. ”

“ For men have cut down the woods where the laurel grew
to build streets of frame houses,
they have dug in the hills after iron
and frightened the troll-king away;
at night in the woods no hunter puffs out his cheeks
to call to the kill on the hunting-horn. ”

“ Socks slip down
fingermarks smudge white collars;
they run and tussle in the shadows
kicking the gravel with muddied boots
with cheeks flushed hotter than the sky
eyes brighter than the street-lamps
with fingers tingling and breath fast:
banqueters early drunken
on the fierce cold wine of the dead year. ”

“ By wandering women in this town.
The laws forbid the opening of the gate
Till next day once the sun is down.
—Watchman know that I who wait
Am Queen of Jerusalem, Queen
Of Cypress, Lady of Asolo, friend
Of the Doge and the Venetian State.
There is a sound of drums, and torches flare
Dims the star-swarm, and war-horns' braying
Drowns the fiddling of crickets in the wall,
Hoofs strike fire on the flinty road,
Mules in damasked silk caparisoned
Climb in long train, strange shadows in torchlight,
The road that winds to the city gate. ”

“ Her eyebrows are black
her lips rubbed scarlet
breasts firm as peaches
gold curls gold against her cheeks.
She dead
all of her dead way over there in Paris.
O golden Aphrodite.
The eye of the man from Weehawken slants
away from the eye of the man from Sioux City.
They stare at the unquiet gold dripping sky-signs. ”

“ Outside, behind the white swirling patterns of coalsmoke,
hunched fruit-trees slide by
slowly pirouetting,
and poplars and aspens on tiptoe
peer over each other's shoulders
at the long black rattling train;
colts sniff and fling their heels in air
across the dusty meadows,
and the sun now and then
looks with vague interest through the clouds
at the blonde harvest mottled with poppies,
and the Joseph's cloak of fields, neatly sewn together with hedges,
that hides the grisly skeleton
of the elemental earth. ”

“ We will hear the singing of drunken men
and the songs whores sing
in their doorways at night
and the endless soft crooning
of all the mothers,
and what words the young men hum
when they walk beside the river
their arms hot with caresses,
their cheeks pressed against their girls' cheeks. ”

“ The café waiters are craning at the door
the girl in the gloveshop is nose against the glass.
O the glitter of the brass
and the flutter of the plumes
and the tramp of the uniform feet!
Run run run to see the soldiers.
The boy with a tray
of pastries on his head
is walking fast, keeping time;
his white and yellow cakes are trembling in the sun
his cheeks are redder
and his bluestriped tunic streams
as he marches to the rum tum of the drums.
Run run run to see the soldiers. ”

“ They come from the fields tired
softness of flowers in their eyes
and moisture of rank sprouting meadows.
They stroll back with tired steps
lips still soft with the softness of petals
voices faint with the whisper of woods;
and they wander through the darkling streets
full of stench of bodies and clothes and merchandise
full of the hard hum of iron things ”

“ Sunk in champagne-colored couches
While Tristans with fair flowing hair
And round cheeks rosy as cherubs
Stand and stretch their arms,
And let their great slow tears
Roll and fall,
And splash in the huge gold cups. ”

“ They will drizzle
over new-plowed fields
wet the red cheeks of men harrowing
and a smell of garlic and clay
will steam from the new-sowed land
and sharp-eared young herdsmen will feel
in the windy rain
lisp of tremulous love-makings
interlaced soundless kisses
impact of dead springs
nuzzling tremulous at life
in the red sundown. ”

“ And that Night were there many Marvels and Prodigies observed; the Welkin was near consumed with fire and Spirits and Banashees grumbled and wailed above the roof and many that were in that place hid themselves in Dens and Burrows in the ground. Of the swanlike and grievously melodious Ditties the Minstrels fashioned in that fearsome Night these only are preserved for the Admiration of the Age. ”

“ And when the news of the Death of the Empress of that Far Country did come to them, they fashioned of her an Image in doleful wise and poured out Rum and Marsala Sack and divers Liquors such as were procurable in that place into Cannikins to do her Honor and did wake and keen and make moan most piteously to hear. ”