Contemporary Belgian Poetry Part 33

Two ancient mariners from the Northern Main One autumn eve came sailing home again, From Sicily and its deceitful islands, Carrying a shoal of sirens On board.

Sharpened with pride they sail into their bay; Among the mists that mark the homeward way They cut their pa.s.sage like a sword; Under a mournful and monotonous gale, One autumn evening of a sadness pale, Into their northern fjord they sail.

From the safe sh.o.r.e the burghers of the haven Gaze listless, cold, and craven: And on the masts, and in the ropes, behold The sirens covered with gold Biting, like vines, Their bodies' sinuous lines.

The burghers gaze with closed and sullen mouth, Nor see the ocean booty of the south, Brought in the fog's despite; The vessel seems a basket silver-white, Laden with flesh and fruit and gold for home, Advancing borne on wings of foam.

The sirens sing, and in the cordage they With arms stretched out in lyres, And lifted b.r.e.a.s.t.s like fires, Sing and sing a lay Before the rolling eve, Which reaps upon the sea the lights of day; The sirens sing, and cleave Around the masts as curves the handle of the urn And still the citizens, uncouth and taciturn, Hear not the song.

They do not know their friends away so long-- The ancient mariners twain--nor understand The vessel is of their own land, Neither the foc-jibs of their own Making, nor the sails themselves have sewn; Of this deep dream they fathom naught, Which makes the sea glad with its journeyings, Since it was not the lie of all the things That in their village to their youth were taught.

And the ship pa.s.ses by the harbour mole, Luring them to the wonder of its soul, But none will gather them the fruits Of flesh and gold that load the trellised shoots.

THE TOWN.

Every road goes to the town.

Under the mist that the sun illumes, She, where her terraces arise And taper to the terraced skies, Herself as from a dream exhumes.

Yonder glimmer looking down, Bridges trimmed with iron lace, Leaps in air and caught in s.p.a.ce; Blocks and columns like the head Of a Gorgon gashed and red; O'er the suburbs chimneys tower; Gables open like a flower, Under stagnant roofs that frown.

This is the many-tentacled town, This is the flaming octopus, The ossuary of all of us.

At the country's end she waits, Feeling towards the old estates.

Meteoric gas-lamps line Docks where tufted masts entwine; Still they burn in noontides cold, Monster eggs of viscous gold; Never seems the sun to shine: Mouth as it is of radiance, shut By reeking smoke and driving s.m.u.t.

A river of pitch and naphtha rolls By wooden bridges, mortared moles; And the raw whistles of the ships Howl with fright in the fog that grips: With a red signal light they peer Towards the sea to which they steer.

Quays with clashing buffers groan; Carts grate o'er the cobble-stone; Cranes are cubes of shadow raising, And slipping them in cellars blazing; Bridges opening lift a vast Gibbet till the ships have pa.s.sed; Letters of bra.s.s inscribe the world, On roofs, and walls, and shop-fronts curled, Face to face in battle ma.s.sed.

Wheels file and file, the drosky plies, Trains are rolling, effort flies; And like a prow becalmed, the glare Of gilded stations here and there; And, from their platforms, ramified Rails beneath the city glide, In tunnels and in craters, whence They storm in network flashing thin Out into hubbub, dust, and din.

This is the many-tentacled town.

The street, with eddies tied like ropes Around its squares, runs out and gropes Along the city up and down, And runs back far enlaced, and lined With crowds inextricably twined, Whose mad feet beat the flags beneath, Whose eyes are filled with hate, whose teeth s.n.a.t.c.h at the time they cannot catch.

Dawn, eve, and night, lost in the press, They welter in their weariness, And cast to chance the bitter seed Of labour that no gain can breed.

And dens black with inanity Where poisoned sits the clerk and fasts; And banks wide open to the blasts Of the winds of their insanity.

Outside, in wadding of the damp, Red lights in streaks, like burning rags, Straggle from reeking lamp to lamp.

And alcohol goads life that lags.

The bar upon the causey ma.s.ses Its tabernacle of looking-gla.s.ses, Reflecting drunken louts and hags.

To and fro a young girl pa.s.ses, And sells lights to the lolling men; Debauch buys famine in her den; And carnal l.u.s.t ignited sallies To dance to death in rotten alleys.

l.u.s.t roars and leaps from breast to breast, Whipped to a rage uproarious, To a blind crush of limbs in quest Of the pleasure of gold and phosphorus; And in and out wan women fare, With s.e.xual symbols in their hair.

The atmosphere of reeking dun At times recedes towards the sun, As though a loud cry called to Peace To bid the deafening noises cease; But all the city puffs and blows With such a violent snort and flush, That the dying seek in vain the hush Of silence that eyes need to close.

Such is the day--and when the eves With ebony hammers carve the skies, Over the plain the city heaves Its shimmer of colossal lies; Her haunting, gilt desires arise; Her radiance to the stars is cast; She gathers her gas in golden sheaves; Her rails are highways flying fast To the mirage of happiness That strength and fortune seem to bless; Like a great army swell her walls; And all the smoke she still sends down Reaches the fields in radiant calls.

This is the many-tentacled town, This is the burning octopus, The ossuary of all of us, The carcase with solemn candles lit.

And all the long ubiquitous Roads and pathways reach to it.

THE MUSIC-HALL.

Under the enormous fog Whose wings the city arteries clog, 'Mid ringing plaudits, at the back Of a radiant hall their Orients they unpack.

The acrobat on airy trestles poises; Great suns of stra.s.s shine o'er the scene; Clashing their fists stand cymbal-players, lean Breakers of cries and noises;

And when the ballet-corps with painted faces In a thicket of perplexing steps appear, Tangling and disentangling labyrinthine paces, The hall, hung with its gorgeous chandelier, That o'er a surging sea of faces glares, The hall with heavy velvet clad, With balconies like pad on pad, Is like a belly that a woman bares.

Swarming battalions of flesh and thighs March under arches flowered with thousand dyes; Lace, petticoats, throats, legs, and hips: Teams of rut whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s, though bridled, yet Are bounding, yoke by yoke the coiled dance trips, Blue with paint and raw with sweat.

Hands, vainly opening, seem to seize Only invisible desire that flees; A dancer, darting legs her tights leave bare, Stiffens obscenity in the air; Another with swimming eyes and flanks that writhe Shrinks like a trampled beast above the loud Flare of the footlights swaying with the lithe l.u.s.t of the gloating crowd.

O blasphemy vociferously hurled In crying gold on the Beauty of the world!

Atrocious feint of Art, while Art sublime Is lying ma.s.sacred and sunk in slime!

O noisy pleasure singing as it treads On tortured ugliness that twists and cries; Pleasure against Joy's grain that nurtures heads With alcohol, with alcohol men's eyes; O pleasure whose rank mouth calls out for flowers, And vomits the vile ferment it devours!

Pleasure of old, heroic, calm, and bare, Walked with calm hands and forehead clear as air; The wind and the sun danced in his heart, he pressed Divine, harmonious life, to his warm breast; His breast that breathed it in was Beauty's source; He knew no law that dared call Beauty coa.r.s.e; Sunrise and sunset, springs with mosses gra.s.sed, And the green bough that brushed him as he pa.s.sed, Thrilled to his deep soul through his flesh, and were The kiss of things that love makes lovelier.

Now senile and debauched, he licks and eats Sin that beguiles him with her poisoned teats; Now in his garden of anomalies Bibles, codes, texts, and rules he multiplies, And ravishes the faith he then denies.

His loves are gold. His hatreds? Flights unto Beauty that grows still lovelier, still more true, Opening in starry flowers in heavens blue.

Look where he haunts these halls of monstrous art, Whose burning windows to the heavens dart A restlessness by gazing still renewed: Here is the beast transformed to a mult.i.tude.

Filled with contagion thousand eyes deflect To find a million more they may infect; One mind to thousands casts its brazier fire, To be consumed the more in sick desire, To breed new vices, unimagined h.e.l.l.

The conscience changes, and the brain as well; Another race is bred from putrid sp.a.w.n, A writhen black totality, a sum Of ciphers spreading in a weltering sc.u.m, That outrages the healthfulness of Dawn.

O shames and crimes of crowds that reek and stain The city like a bellowing hurricane; Gulfed in the plaster boxes tier on tier Of theatres and halls obscene and blear!

The stage is like a fan unfurled.

Enamelled minarets grotesquely curled.

Houses and terraces and avenues.

Under the limelight's changing hues, First in slow rhythms, then with violent sweep, Gathering swift kisses, touching b.r.e.a.s.t.s that leap, Meet the Bayaderes with swaying hips; Negro boys, whose heads with plumes are tipped, With their foam-coloured teeth in lips Like a red v.u.l.v.a open ripped, Move all as pushed along in sluggish poses.

A drum beats, an obstinate horn cries long, A raw fife tickles a stupid song, And at the last, for the final apotheosis, A mad a.s.sault over the boards is sweeping, Gold and throats and thighs in stages heaping In curled entanglements; and then all closes With garments splitting offering rounded shapes And vice half hid in flowers like tempting grapes.

And the orchestra dies, or suddenly halts, And climbs, and swells, and rolls in whipped a.s.saults; Out of the violins wriggle spasms dark; Lascivious dogs in the tempest seem to bark Of heavy bra.s.ses and of strong ba.s.soons; A manifold desire swells, sickens, swoons, Revives, and with such heavy violence heaves, The sense cries out, and helpless reels, And prost.i.tutes itself to a spasm that relieves.

And midnight peals.

The dense crowd pours and at the doors unfurls.

The hall is closed--and on the black causeways, Gaudy beneath the gaslamps' leering gaze, Red in the fog like flesh, await the girls.