Some Imagist Poets, 1916 Part 3

Great, bright portal, Shelf of rock, Rocks fitted in long ledges, Rocks fitted to dark, to silver-granite, To lighter rock-- Clean cut, white against white.

High--high--and no hill-goat Tramples--no mountain-sheep Has set foot on your fine gra.s.s.

You lift, you are the world-edge, Pillar for the sky-arch.

The world heaved-- We are next to the sky.

Over us, sea-hawks shout, Gulls sweep past.

The terrible breakers are silent From this place.

Below us, on the rock-edge, Where earth is caught in the fissures Of the jagged cliff, A small tree stiffens in the gale, It bends--but its white flowers Are fragrant at this height.

And under and under, The wind booms.

It whistles, it thunders, It growls--it presses the gra.s.s Beneath its great feet.

II

I said: Forever and forever must I follow you Through the stones?

I catch at you--you lurch.

You are quicker than my hand-grasp.

I wondered at you.

I shouted--dear--mysterious--beautiful-- White myrtle-flesh.

I was splintered and torn.

The hill-path mounted Swifter than my feet.

Could a daemon avenge this hurt, I would cry to him--could a ghost, I would shout--O evil, Follow this G.o.d, Taunt him with his evil and his vice.

III

Shall I hurl myself from here, Shall I leap and be nearer you?

Shall I drop, beloved, beloved, Ankle against ankle?

Would you pity me, O white breast?

If I woke, would you pity me, Would our eyes meet?

Have you heard, Do you know how I climbed this rock?

My breath caught, I lurched forward-- I stumbled in the ground-myrtle.

Have you heard, O G.o.d seated on the cliff, How far toward the ledges of your house, How far I had to walk?

IV

Over me the wind swirls.

I have stood on your portal And I know-- You are further than this, Still further on another cliff.

MID-DAY

The light beats upon me.

I am startled-- A split leaf crackles on the paved floor-- I am anguished--defeated.

A slight wind shakes the seed-pods.

My thoughts are spent As the black seeds.

My thoughts tear me.

I dread their fever-- I am scattered in its whirl.

I am scattered like The hot shrivelled seeds.

The shrivelled seeds Are spilt on the path.

The gra.s.s bends with dust.

The grape slips Under its crackled leaf: Yet far beyond the spent seed-pods, And the blackened stalks of mint, The poplar is bright on the hill, The poplar spreads out, Deep-rooted among trees.

O poplar, you are great Among the hill-stones, While I perish on the path Among the crevices of the rocks.

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER

ARIZONA

THE WINDMILLS

The windmills, like great sunflowers of steel, Lift themselves proudly over the straggling houses; And at their feet the deep blue-green alfalfa Cuts the desert like the stroke of a sword.

Yellow melon flowers Crawl beneath the withered peach-trees; A date-palm throws its heavy fronds of steel Against the scoured metallic sky.

The houses, doubled-roofed for coolness, Cower amid the manzanita scrub.

A man with jingling spurs Walks heavily out of a vine-bowered doorway, Mounts his pony, rides away.

The windmills stare at the sun.

The yellow earth cracks and blisters.

Everything is still.

In the afternoon The wind takes dry waves of heat and tosses them, Mingled with dust, up and down the streets, Against the belfry with its green bells:

And, after sunset, when the sky Becomes a green and orange fan, The windmills, like great sunflowers on dried stalks, Stare hard at the sun they cannot follow.

Turning, turning, forever turning In the chill night-wind that sweeps over the valley, With the shriek and the clank of the pumps groaning beneath them, And the choking gurgle of tepid water.