Osbert Sitwell

“ The chatter of the daylight grows
As I look upon the market-place,
Where there is a droning of bag-pipes,
And the hard, wooden music of the hills;
The housewife has left her cottage in the forest,
Driving here through the early tracks of the sun.
The beggars are already at their posts,
Their dry flesh peeps through their garments.
Their old ritual whining
Causes no show of pity.
Why should the hucksters, the busy people notice?
God himself has stood here, out at elbows,
Waiting patiently in the market-place,
While they chatter in gay booths. ”

“ On sounds forgotten and forbidden.
—For muttering of muted bell
Swells music from the nightingales
Whose crystal gurglings excel
The singing streams that formed these vales
So fruitfully luxuriant still
To eyes closed like a curving sword
—Though now no sound save droning thrill
Of shifting sand is ever heard.
Yet of an influence here felt
Tradition tells the Bedouin.
Into grey sand the mirages melt.
Spell the Arab's road to ruin.
On through the dusk he hears his name
Called, then repeated—seek he must
That voice which calls, like wealth or fame
Only to lead from dust to dust ”

“ Till the fruit rushes down like a comet, whose tail
Thrashes the night with its golden flail,
The fruit hisses down with a plump from its tree
Like the singing of a rainbow as it dips into the sea. ”

“ Aspire to feed the lions, yet unlike Daniel,
Once there insist on resting in their den,
To treat them as one would a King Charles Spaniel
With frowns—with bones and biscuits, now and then?
For Mrs. Freudenthal is weary of
Her auction-bridge and hissing hotel-friend,
Seeks spheres where Novelist and Romanoff
Eat with Artistic Ladies without end.
Money is power—a golden pedestal
Atones for beauty that is long, long dead—
As Orpheus, Mrs. Kinfoot has enchanted all,
The lions who have not thundered—and then fled. ”

“ YOUTH AT THE PROW, AND PLEASURE AT THE HELM
Battista Sforza, led by unicorns,
Triumphant, ever set in amber light
By Piero, yet keeps her course; adorns
Her empty palace, still, that floating height
Where Raphael was born—Isotta's name,
Near-by, still, rose-like, clambers through the gloom
Of Malatesta's temple, built to fame
His pagan love, half pleasure-house, half tomb.
Then, even tyrants drunk with blood and pride,
And ever vaunting poison-cup and knife,
No less than angels beauty made; they died,
But Art, their pleasure, still extols their life. ”

“ Though the fox gnawed his entrails, would not cry;
These never wince, nor hurl the mirror at Truth,
Though Old Age disembowel them secretly.
Throughout the day, blue shadows in the valley
Hover, crouch down, till dusk will let them rend
The last light on the hills; so wrinkles rally
To overwhelm them at their sudden end—
For Death strikes at the Old as well as Young,
And these—and these—may die at balls or races,
Or living death may make them loll the tongue,
Twitching in doll-like, hideous grimaces. ”

“ At the dancing dwarfs in the golden plain,
Till the bamboos sing as the dwarfs dance by,
Kicking their feet at a jagged sky,
That torn by leaves and gashed by hills
Rocks to the rhythm the hot sun shrills;
The bubble sun stretches shadows that pass
To noiseless jumping-jacks of glass,
So long and thin, so silent and opaque,
That the lions shake their orange manes, and quake;
And a shadow that leaps over Popacatapetl
Terrifies the tigers as they settle
Cat-like limbs, cut with golden bars,
Under bowers of flowers that shimmer like stars. ”

“ Still you encourage those whom you can hire
To fix on canvas, for the future race
Of War-horses to simper at—admire,
The painted image of your painted face.
And any artist, author, or musician,
—If second-rate—is useful as a bait
To fish for guests—remember words like "Titian"
"—Shakespeare" "—Mozart," let go—and trust to Fate
To pull you through—avoid ideas—they're common
And might crack through the varnish of your smile,
Impinge upon your worship of God Mammon
Filling your soul with pity, and things vile. ”

“ The World is still, until a breeze sets free
Green leaves, with plucking sound of mandoline.
Convulsed the monkey capers—seems to see
The wind, that wingéd God and Harlequin.
Who, flying down, sounds waters' silver strings
And brings soft music from far trembling towers,
Snatches a bird-bright feather for his wings
And flickers light on many secret flowers.
ENGLISH GOTHIC
Above the valley floats a fleet
Of white, small clouds. Like castanets
The corn-crakes clack; down in the street
Old ladies air their canine pets. ”

“ And stank with crime, and reeked with foul disease.
—No crime of passion—only crime for gold,
Or crimes of rulers drunk with their stupidity;
The people walk with faces deathly cold,
Or marked and masked with their cupidity.
But Mrs. Freudenthal knows her own mind,
And means to follow up and win the game,
Seek pleasure with the others of her kind,
Who live and die alike, and share the same
Ideals. ”

“ While birds that flaunt their pinions like pennons
Shriek from their trees of oranges and lemons,
And the scent rises up in a cloud, to make
The hairy, swinging monkeys feel so weak
That they each throw down a bitten coconut or mango.
* * * * *
Up flames a flamingo over the fandango,
Glowing like a fire, and gleaming like a ruby.
From Guadalajara to Guadalupe
It flies—in flying drops a feather
... And the snatching dwarfs stop dancing—and fight together. ”

“ These masked buffoons to which the Old Gods sank.
Over her fan Zenobia may peep
At the lewd gestures of a mountebank.
The silent lime-trees drip their golden scent;
Staccato shrills the puppet, waves a wand,
Postures, exaggerates a sentiment....
The little ape, alone, may understand
How men make Gods, and place them up above ”

“ A light, within her glassy car, betrays
Folding of chins beneath the aquilinity
Of heavy curling features, and displays
A likeness to Assyrian Divinity.
When comes the dusk, life's cloak is thrown aside ”

“ The syren stopped her singing at a piteous cry,
Saw a spout of water mounting hundreds of feet high,
And Jonah aboard a neighbouring sail,
Sang "Yo-ho, yo-ho, I spy a whale!"
BOOK II
SING PRAISES
SATIRES
EXPLANATION
SUBTLETY OF THE SERPENT
"Now the serpent was more
subtil than any beast of
the field which the Lord
God had made."
GENESIS iii. 1.
Through the green masses of the undergrowth,
Pools of silent water,
Where float large flowers and patches of white light,
Crawls the serpent, subtle, sad,
And tired of well-doing.
Nevermore will he help humanity. ”