A Pushcart at the Curb Part 9

_Porte Maillot_

V

As a gardener in a pond splendid with lotus and Indian nenuphar wades to his waist in the warm black water stooping to this side and that to cull the snaky stems of the floating white glittering lilies groping to break the harsh stems of the imperious lotus lifting the huge flowers high in a cl.u.s.ter in his hand till they droop against the moon; so I grope through the streets of the night culling out of the pool of the spring-reeking, rain-reeking city gestures and faces.

_Place St. Michel_

VI TO A. K. MC C.

This is a garden where through the russet mist of cl.u.s.tered trees and strewn November leaves, they crunch with vainglorious heels of ancient vermillion the dry dead of spent summer's greens, and stalk with mincing sceptic steps and sound of snuffboxes snapping to the capping of an epigram, in fluffy attar-scented wigs ...

the exquisite Augustans.

_Tuileries_

VII

They come from the fields flushed carrying bunches of limp flowers they plucked on teeming meadows and moist banks scented of mushrooms.

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; and into their cheeks that the wind had burned and the sun that kisses burned out on the rustling meadows into their cheeks soft with lazy caresses comes sultry caged breath of panthers fetid, uneasy fury of love sprouting hot in the dust and stench of walls and clothes and merchandise, pent in the stridence of the twilight streets.

And they look with terror in each other's eyes and part their hot hands stained with gra.s.ses and flowerstalks and are afraid of their kisses.

VIII EMBARQUEMENT POUR CYTHERE AFTER WATTEAU

The mists have veiled the far end of the lake this sullen amber afternoon; our island is quite hidden, and the peaks hang wan as clouds above the ruddy haze.

Come, give your hand that lies so limp, a tuberose among brown oak-leaves; put your hand in mine and let us leave this bank where we have lain the day long.

In the boat the naked oarsman stands.

Let us walk faster, or do you fear to tear that brocaded dress in apricot and grey?

Love, there are silk cushions in the stern maroon and apple-green, crocus-yellow, crimson, amber-grey.

We will lie and listen to the waves slap soft against the prow, and watch the boy slant his brown body to the long oar-stroke.

But, love, we are more beautiful than he.

We have forgotten the grey sick yearning nights brushed off the old cobwebs of desire; we stand strong immortal as the slender brown boy who waits to row our boat to the island.

But love how your steps drag.

And what is this bundle of worn brocades I press so pa.s.sionately to me? Old rags of the past, snippings of Helen's dress, of Melisande's, scarfs of old paramours rotted in the grave ages and ages since.

No lake the ink yawns at me from the writing table.

IX LA RUE DU TEMPS Pa.s.sE

Far away where the tall grey houses fade A lamp blooms dully through the dusk, Through the effacing dusk that gently veils The traceried balconies and the wreaths Carved above the shuttered windows Of forgotten houses.

Behind one of the crumbled garden walls A pale woman sits in drooping black And stares with uncomprehending eyes At the th.o.r.n.y angled twigs that bore Years ago in the moon-spun dusk One scarlet rose.

In an old high room where the shadows troop On tiptoe across the creaking boards A shrivelled man covers endless sheets Rounding out in his flourishing hand Sentence after sentence loud With dead kings' names.

Looking out at the vast grey violet dusk A pale boy sits in a window, a book Wide open on his knees, and fears With cold choked fear the thronging lives That lurk in the shadows and fill the dusk With menacing steps.

Far away the gaslamp glows dull gold A vague tulip in the misty night.

The clattering drone of a distant tram Grows loud and fades with a hum of wires Leaving the street breathless with silence, chill And the listening houses.

_Bordeaux_

X

_O douce Sainte Genevieve ramene moi a ta ville, Paris._

In the smoke of morning the bridges are dusted with orangy sunshine.

Bending their black smokestacks far back muddling themselves in their spiralling smoke the tugboats pa.s.s under the bridges and behind them stately gliding smooth like clouds the barges come black barges with blunt prows spurning the water gently gently rebuffing the opulent wavelets of opal and topaz and sapphire, barges casually come from far towns towards far towns unhurryingly bound.

The tugboats shrieks and shrieks again calling beyond the next bend and away.

In the smoke of morning the bridges are dusted with orangy sunshine.

_O douce Sainte Genevieve ramene moi a ta ville, Paris._

Big hairy-hoofed horses are drawing carts loaded with flour-sacks, white flour-sacks, bluish in the ruddy flush of the morning streets.

On one cart two boys perch wrestling and their arms and faces glow ruddy against the white flour-sacks as the sun against the flour-white sky.

_O douce Sainte Genevieve ramene moi a ta ville, Paris._

Under the arcade loud as castanettes with steps of little women hurrying to work an old hag who has a mole on her chin that is tufted with long white hairs sells incense-sticks, and the trail of their strangeness lingers in the many-scented streets among the smells of markets and peaches and the must of old books from the quays and the warmth of early-roasting coffee.

The old hag's incense has smothered the timid scent of wild strawberries and triumphantly mingled with the strong reek from the river of green slime along stonework of docks and the pitch-caulked decks of barges, barges casually come from far towns towards far towns unhurryingly bound.

_O douce Sainte Genevieve ramene moi a ta ville, Paris._

XI A L'OMBRE DES JEUNES FILLES EN FLEURS

And now when I think of you I see you on your piano-stool finger the ineffectual bright keys and even in the pinkish parlor glow your eyes sea-grey are very wide as if they carried the reflection of mocking black pinebranches and unclimbed red-purple mountains mist-tattered under a violet-gleaming evening.

But chirruping of marriageable girls voices of eager, wise virgins, no lamp unlit every wick well trimmed, fill the pinkish parlor chairs, bobbing hats and shrill tinkling teacups in circle after circle about you so that I can no longer see your eyes.