Osbert Sitwell

“ And clings like ivy to the listening walls.
The flickering light flares up—then gutters out.
The shadows seem to shiver and expand
To active, evil things that breathe and live.
But now they whirl and dance in ecstasy.
The highest moment of their mass is near.
We only feel the swaying of the shades,
—Rhythm of wicked music that escapes
Our consciousness, tho' we have known it long—
The music of the evil things of Night
Scarcely remembered from some dim, vast world—
The things that haunted us when we were young
And nearer to our past realities. ”

“ The din grows greater from the universe:
There rises up the smell of fire and iron,—
Not dreary like the smell of burnt-out things,
But like the smell of some gigantic forge—
Cheerful, of good intent, and full of life.
Now all the joyous cries of sea and earth,
The universal harmonies of birth,
Rise up to haunt the slumber of their God.
THE END
Round the great ruins crawl those things of slime
Green ruins lichenous and scarred by moss—
An evil lichen that proclaims world doom,
Like blood dried brown upon a dead man's face. ”

“ And all things men have loved and feared
Are mirror'd in each sound.
SONG
Our hidden voices, wreathed with love's soft flowers,
Wind-toss'd thro' valleys, tremble across seas
To turbann'd cities; touch tall lonely towers,
Call to you thro' the sky, the wind, the trees.
Misted and golden as the hanging moon,
That like a summer fruit floats from the sky,
Thrills out our distant age-enchanted tune,
—Nor will it let you pass our beauty by. ”

“ Loving the sea of faces, eyes with tears,
And gaping mouths wide open—loosely hung;
The acrid, opalescent haze of smoke,
Hanging above the auditorium.
And over it the crowded galleries
That float far up, like painted prows of ships—
All overweighted and alive with men.
I loved the limelight, hard and white and strong,
The throbbing music and the theatre's scent,
That artificial, paper, printed scent
That sweeps across the footlights to the stalls. ”

“ But the British bourgeoisie has triumphed.
Mr. Kinfoot is bald
And talks
In front of the fireplace
With his head on one side,
And his right hand
In his pocket.
The joy of catching tame elephants,
And finding them to be white ones,
Still gleams from the jungle-eyes
Of Mrs. Kinfoot,
But her mind is no jungle
Of Ethiopia,
But a sound British meadow.
Listen then to the gospel of Mrs. Kinfoot:
"The world was made for the British bourgeoisie,
They are its Swiss Family Robinson;
The world is not what it was. ”

“ And wicked as the Prince of Evil Things.
Faintly his glowing presence is revealed to us
Amid the chorus of his satellites.
The consummation of our awful hopes.
PIERROT AT THE WAR
The leaden years have dragged themselves away;
The blossoms of the world lie all dash'd down
And flattened by the hurricane of death:
The roses fallen, and their fragrant breath
Has passed beyond our senses—and we drown
Our tragic thoughts: confine them to the day.
Pierrot was happy here two years ago,
Singing through all the summer-scented hours,
Dancing throughout the warm moon-haunted night. ”

“ Small winds brush past against our lips and eyes,
Caress them like a laughing summer rose,
And rainbow moths flit by, in circling flight.
A harp sobs out its crystal syruppings;
Faintly it sounds, as the poor petal-wings,
Fragile yet radiant, of a butterfly
Beating against the barriers of night.
Then from the Ocean came the Syren song,
Heavy with perfume, yet faint as a sigh,
Kissing our minds, and changing right from wrong;
Chaining our limbs; making our bodies seem
Inert and spellbound, dead as in a dream. ”

“ Of things we cannot tell—
Of things the sea could tell.
No wisp of wind, no watery sound
Reached us; as if high on the ground
We stayed. A sense of fever fell
Upon each mind,
Each soul and mind.
Until our eyes, that ever sought
The cloying empty darkness, find
Another shape—or is it wrought
Of terror?—on the deep
The endless deep.
All dark it lay. No light shone out ”

“ Long writhing bodies fall and twist and rise,
And one can hear them playing in the mud.
Upon the ruined walls there gleam and shine
The track of those grey vast monstrosities—
As some gigantic snail had crawled along.
All round the shining bushes waver lines
Suggesting shadows, slight and grey, but full
Of that which makes one nigh to dead with fear.
Watch how those awful shadows culminate
And dance in one long wish to hurt the world.
A world that now is past all agony!
FOUNTAINS
"The graven fountain-masks suffer and weep. ”

“ Thrills through you, shaking, fainting, with delight;
Where sway tall luminous trees
Wind-swept in one vast flashing harmony,
That like a wave
Splashes its seething sound
And then envelops you.
We have strayed to other places,
Courts of fear,
That stretch like echoes through the endless dusk
Drenched with dead memories;
Like musk
They cling about you
In a heavy cloud.
Each shadow-sound we hear
Clutches the heart.
With fevered hands we tear
The terror-pulsing walls
—Fight our way out
—Out
Into other Courts
As vague and full of fear. ”

“ In the sound was mirrored
The panic seizures of the night,
—The fear of things that walk in darkness.
The drums were painted
In hot colours
That, even through the dusk,
Glowed torture and writhing torment. ”

“ The hurrying throng of homeward-going men,
The cries of children, colour of the streets,
Their whistling and their shouting and their joy,
The lights, the trees, the fanes and towers of churches,
Thanksgiving for the sun, the moon, the earth,
The labour, love, and laughter of our lives.
He thinks they mock his age with ribaldry. ”

“ Those graven fountain-masks are white with woe!
Carved with a happy smile
They strive to weep...
End their eternal laughing—for awhile
To lose themselves in sleep
Or in the silver peacefulness of death.
SONG OF THE FAUNS
When the woods are white beneath the moon
And grass is wet with crystal dew,
When in the pool
So clear and cool
The moon reflects itself anew,
We raise ourselves from daylight's swoon,
We shake away
The sleep of day,
Out from our bosky homes we spring ”

“ All smeared and stained and stamped with time and blood,
—Stains that seem faces—horrid twitching masks
Moving their lewd derisive lips and tongues,
Spitting out treacheries with vampire lips—
Or eyes that gaze from far blank-stretching walls
—The tortured eyes of those who see their death
Approaching æon-by-æon along this road.
Behind the walls sound voices whispering
Of dire and hidden, carefully hidden, thoughts—
Cruel, wicked and unfathomable things
That lie behind this infamy of stone. ”

“ Lest our white flashing limbs should turn you blind.
* * * * *
As the sweet sound of bells that fall and fade
In watery circles on the verge of night,
So rounded ripples spread beneath the shade
Of flowing branches dripping with green light.
Thus do we wander; but when day is spent
We grope our way thro' vast tall palaces,
Palaces sinister and somnolent,
Where lurk dim fears and unknown menaces.
These high pale walls and this pale shining floor
Seem built of bones, by ages planed and ground
To a white smoothness. ”

“ Where live men tread on dead men in the dark,
And skulls are sown in fields once sown with wheat.
Across the sea, where night is dark with blood
And rockets flash, and guns roar hoarse and deep,
They struggle through entanglements and mud,
They suffer wounds—and die—
But here they sleep. ”

“ Nothing exists which the British bourgeoisie
Does not understand;
Therefore there is no death
—And, of course, no life.
The British bourgeoisie
Is not born,
And does not die,
But, if it is ill,
It has a frightened look in its eyes. ”

“ White ringlets swung and tears shone in their poor
Aged eyes. He grew so bitter and found men
For friends as discontented—lost all count
Of caste—denied his father, faith, and then
He preached that dreadful Sermon on the Mount!
But even then he would not let things be;
For when they nailed him high up on the tree,
And gave him vinegar and pierced his side,
He asked God to forgive them—still dissatisfied!"
HEAVEN
A theatre rises dark and mute and drear
Among those houses that stand clustering round. ”

“ The atmosphere is charged with hidden things
—Thoughts that are waiting—wanting to revive
Primeval terrors from their present graves
—Those half-thoughts hidden from the mind of man.
The fear of those bright, countless stars that shine
Celestially serene on summer nights,
—And those, too far for human eye to see—
That make men feel as small and ill at ease
As do the thoughts of immortality ”

“ And brushed away one of those things of slime,
Just as a hawk might sweep upon its prey.
It seems as if the light grows dimmer yet—
No radiance from the dreadful green above,
Only a lustrous light or iridescence
As if from off a carrion-fly,—surrounds
That vegetation which is never touched
By any breeze. The air is thick, and brings
The tainted subtle sweetness of decay. ”

“ Or flower or bird or moon;
Lest life shall lay me lower still,
O Lord—come take it soon."
THE BEGINNING
Great spheres of fire, to which the sun is nought,
Pass thund'ring round our world. A golden mist—
The margin to the universe—falls round
The verges of our vision. ”

“ The round contentment in their eyes
Betrays their favourite fond surmise,
That all successful at a trade
Shall tread an eternal Church-Parade,
And every soul that's sleek and fat
Shall gain a heavenly top-hat. ”

“ Why should we sing to you of little things—
You who lack all imagination?
Why should we sing to you of your poor joys,
That you may see beauty through a poet's mind—
Beauty where there was none before? ”

“ As well as me?" So he comes near and eyes
The lichened features of a faun of stone.
Oh! it is sad to be so young—alone!
PIERROT OLD The harvest moon is at its height,
The evening primrose greets its light
With grace and joy: then opens up
The mimic moon within its cup. ”

“ The very climax; pink eyes flash
Whenever nervous and pain-racked
He hears the drums and cymbols clash.
Mrs. Freudenthal day-dreams
—Ice-spoon half-way to her nose—
Till the girl in ochre screams,
Hits out at the girl in rose.
This is not at all the way
To act in large and smart hotels;
Angrily the couples sway,
Eagerly the riot swells.
Girls who cannot act with grace
Should learn behaviour; stay at home;
A convent is the proper place. ”

“ But to red and swollen eyes.
In the centuries that roll,
Slowly grinding out our tears,
Often thou hast taken toll;
Never till these latter years
Have all nations lost the fray;
Lead not thou our feet astray. ”

“ Their tears ran dry when they were in the womb,
For, entering life—they found it was their tomb.
1917.
To FRANCIS MEYNELL
SHEEP-SONG
From within our pens,
Stout built,
We watch the sorrows of the world.
Imperturbably
We see the blood
Drip and ooze on to the walls.
Without a sigh
We watch our lambs
Stuffed and fattened for the slaughter....
In our liquid eyes lie hidden
The mystery of empty spaces
All the secrets of the vacuum.
Yet we can be moved ”

“ Blackwell for permission to reprint certain poems which first appeared in the anthology "Wheels," and to the editors of The Times, the Nation, Art and Letters, the Cambridge Magazine, Everyman, Colour, New Paths, and Poetry and Drama (New Series) , for allowing me to reprint various poems which first appeared in their columns. Several of the war verses at the end of this volume first appeared in the Nation under the signature "Miles."
"HOW SHALL WE RISE TO GREET THE DAWN?"
How shall we rise to greet the dawn?
Not timidly,
With a hand above our eyes,
But greet the strong light
Joyfully ”

“ And this might promote disloyalty among the children.
When the clamp closed on my leg
It was a ruse
To kill me.
Probably the lifting of it betrays the same purpose!
If I come out now
They will think they can trap rabbits
Whenever they like.
How do I know they will not snare me
Again next year?
Besides, it looks to me from here..."
But the catch drops down,
For the stranger is weary. ”