A Pushcart at the Curb Part 6

Beer is free to soldiers And lips are free, and women, Breathless, stand on tiptoe To see the flushed young thousands in advance.

"Beer is free to soldiers; Give all to the liberators" ...

Under wreaths of laurel And small and large flags fluttering, victorious, They of the frock-coats, with clink of official chains, Are welcoming with eloquence outpouring The liberating thousands, the victorious; In their speaking is a soaring of great phrases, Balloons of tissue paper, Hung with patriotic bunting, That rise serene into the blue, While the crowds with necks uptilted Gaze at their upward soaring Till they vanish in the blue; And each man feels the blood of life Rumble in his ears important With partic.i.p.ation in Events.

But not the fluttering of great flags Or the bra.s.s bands blaring, victorious, Or the speeches of persons in frock coats, Who pause for the handclapping of crowds, Not the stamp of men and women dancing, Or the bubbling of beer in the taverns,-- Frothy mugs free for the victorious--, Not all the trombone-droning of Events, Can drown the inextinguis.h.i.+ble laughter of the G.o.ds.

And they hear it, the old hooded houses, The great creaking peak-gabled houses, That gossip and chuckle to each other Across the clattering streets; They hear it, the old great gates, The grey gates with towers, Where in the changing shrill winds of the years Have groaned the poles of many various-colored banners.

The poplars of the high-road hear it, From their trembling twigs comes a dry laughing, As they lean towards the glare of the city.

And the old hard-laughing paving-stones, Old stones weary with the weariness Of the labor of men's footsteps, Hear it as they quake and clamour Under the garlanded wheels of the yawning confident cannon That are dragged victorious through the flutter of the city.

Beer is free to soldiers, Bubbles on wind-parched lips, Moistens easy kisses Lavished on the liberators.

Beer is free to soldiers All night in steaming bars, In halls delirious with dancing That spill their music into thronging streets.

--All is free to soldiers, To the weary heroes Who have bled, and soaked The whole earth in their sacrificial blood, Who have with their bare flesh clogged The crazy wheels of Juggernaut, Freed the peoples from the dragon that devoured them, That scorched with greed their pleasant fields and villages, Their quiet delightful places:

So they of the frock-coats, amid wreaths and flags victorious, To the crowds in the flaring squares, And a murmurous applause Rises like smoke to mingle in the sky With the cras.h.i.+ng of the bells.

But, resounding in the sky, Louder than the tramp of feet, Louder than the crash of bells, Louder than the blare of bands, victorious, Shrieks the inextinguishable laughter of the G.o.ds.

The old houses rock with it, And wag their great peaked heads, The old gates shake, And the pavings ring with it, As with the iron tramp of old fighters, As with the clank of heels of the victorious, By long ages vanquished.

The spouts in the gurgling fountains Wrinkle their s.h.i.+ny griffin faces, Splash the rhythm in their ice-fringed basins-- Of the inextinguishable laughter of the G.o.ds.

And far up into the inky sky, Where great trailing clouds stride across the world, Darkening the spired cities, And the villages folded in the hollows of hills, And the s.h.i.+ning cincture of railways, And the pale white twining roads, Sounds with the stir of quiet monotonous breath Of men and women stretched out sleeping, Sounds with the thin wail of pain Of hurt things huddled in darkness, Sounds with the victorious racket Of speeches and soldiers drinking, Sounds with the silence of the swarming dead-- The inextinguishable laughter of the G.o.ds.

IX

O I would take my pen and write In might of words A pounding dytheramb Alight with teasing fires of hate, Or drone to numbness in the spell Of old loves long lived away A drowsy vilanelle.

O I would build an Ark of words, A safe ciborium where to lay The secret soul of loveliness.

O I would weave of words in rhythm A gaudily wrought pall For the curious cataphalque of fate.

But my pen does otherwise.

All I can write is the orange tinct with crimson of the beaks of the goose and of the wet webbed feet of the geese that crackle the skimming of ice and curve their white plump necks to the water in the manure-stained rivulet that runs down the broad village street; and of their cantankerous dancings and hissings, with beaks tilted up, half open and necks stiffly extended; and the cure's habit blowing in the stinging wind and his red globular face like a great sausage burst in the cooking that smiles as he takes the shovel hat off his head with a gesture, the hat held at arm's length, sweeping a broad curve, like a censor well swung; and, beyond the last grey gabled house in the village, the gaunt Christ that stretches bony arms and tortured hands to embrace the broad lands leprous with cold the furrowed fields and the meadows and the sprouting oats ghostly beneath the grey bitter blanket of h.o.a.rfrost.

_Sausheim_

X

In a hall on Olympus we held carouse, Sat dining through the warm spring night, Spilling of the crocus-colored wine Gla.s.s after br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.s to rouse The ghosts that dwell in books to flight Of word and image that, divine, In the draining of a gla.s.s would tear The lies from off reality, And the world in gaudy chaos spread Naked-new in the throbbing flare Of songs of long-fled spirits;--free For the wanderer devious roads to tread.

Names waved as banners in our talk: Lucretius, his master, all men who to balk The fear that shrivels us in choking rinds Have thrown their souls like pollen to the winds, Erasmus, Bruno who burned in Rome, Voltaire, All those whose lightning laughter cleaned the air Of the minds of men from the murk of fear-sprung G.o.ds, And straightened the backs bowed under the rulers' rods.

A hall full of the wine and chant of old songs, Smelling of lilacs and early roses and night, Clamorous with the names and phrases of the throngs Of the garlanded dead, and with gla.s.ses pledged to the light Of the dawning to come ...

O in the morning we would go Out into the drudging world and sing And shout down dustblinded streets, hollo From hill to hill, and our thought fling Abroad through all the drowsy earth To wake the sleeper and the worker and the jailed In walls cemented of lies to mirth And dancing joy; laughingly unveiled From the sick mist of fear to run naked and leap And shake the nations from their snoring sleep.

O in the morning we would go Fantastically arrayed In silk and scarlet braid, In rich glitter like the sun on snow With banners of orange, vermillion, black, And jasper-handed swords, Anklets and tinkling gauds Of topaz set twistingly, or lac Laid over with charms of demons' heads In indigo and gold.

Our going a music bold Would be, behind us the tw.a.n.ging threads Of mad guitars, the wail of lutes In wildest harmony; Lilting thumping free, Pipes and kettledrums and flutes And brazen braying trumpet-calls Would wake each work-drowsed town And shake it in laughter down, Untuning in dust the shuttered walls.

O in the morning we would go With doleful steps so dragging and slow And grievous mockery of woe And bury the old G.o.ds where they lay Sodden drunk with men's pain in the day, In the dawn's first new burning white ray That would shrivel like dead leaves the sacred lies, The avengers, the graspers, the wringers of sighs, Of blood from men's work-twisted hands, from their eyes Of tears without hope ... But in the burning day Of the dawn we would see them brooding to slay, In a great wind whirled like dead leaves away.

In a hall on Olympus we held carouse, In our talk as banners waving names, Songs, phrases of the garlanded dead.

Yesterday I went back to that house ...

Guttered candles where were flames, Shattered dust-grey gla.s.ses instead Of the fiery crocus-colored wine, Silence, cobwebs and a mouse Nibbling nibbling the moulded bread Those spring nights dipped in vintage divine In the dawnward chanting of our last carouse.

_1918--1919_

VAGONES DE TERCERA

_Refrain_

HARD ON YOUR RUMP b.u.mP b.u.mP HARD ON YOUR RUMP b.u.mP b.u.mP

I

O the savage munching of the long dark train crunching up the miles crunching up the long slopes and the hills that crouch and sprawl through the night like animals asleep, gulping the winking towns and the shadow-brimmed valleys where lone trees twist their th.o.r.n.y arms.

The smoke flares red and yellow; the smoke curls like a long dragon's tongue over the broken lands.

The train with teeth flas.h.i.+ng gnaws through the piecrust of hills and plains greedy of horizons.

_Alcazar de San Juan_

II TO R. H.

I invite all the G.o.ds to dine on the hard benches of my third cla.s.s coach that joggles over brown uplands dragged at the end of a rattling train.

I invite all the G.o.ds to dine, great G.o.ds and small G.o.ds, G.o.ds of air and earth and sea, and of the grey land where among ghostly rubbish heaps and cast-out things linger the strengthless dead.

I invite all the G.o.ds to dine, Jehovah and Crepitus and Sebek, the slimy crocodile ... But no; wait ... I revoke the invitation.

For I have seen you, crowding G.o.ds, hungry G.o.ds. You have a drab official look.

You have your pockets full of bills, claims for indemnity, for incense unsniffed since men first jumped up in their sleep and drove you out of doors.

Let me instead, O djinn that sows the stars and tunes the strings of the violin, have fifty lyric poets, not pale parson folk, occasional sonneteers, but st.u.r.dy fellows who ride dolphins, who need no wine to make them drunk, who do not fear to meet red death at the meanads' hands or to have their heads at last float vine-crowned on the Thracian sea.

Anacreon, a partridge-wing?

A sip of wine, Simonides?