Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Part 23

As I would free the white almond from the green husk So would I strip your trappings off, Beloved.

And fingering the smooth and polished kernel I should see that in my hands glittered a gem beyond counting.

Music

The neighbour sits in his window and plays the flute.

From my bed I can hear him, And the round notes flutter and tap about the room, And hit against each other, Blurring to unexpected chords.

It is very beautiful, With the little flute-notes all about me, In the darkness.

In the daytime, The neighbour eats bread and onions with one hand And copies music with the other.

He is fat and has a bald head, So I do not look at him, But run quickly past his window.

There is always the sky to look at, Or the water in the well!

But when night comes and he plays his flute, I think of him as a young man, With gold seals hanging from his watch, And a blue coat with silver b.u.t.tons.

As I lie in my bed The flute-notes push against my ears and lips, And I go to sleep, dreaming.

A Lady

You are beautiful and faded Like an old opera tune Played upon a harpsichord; Or like the sun-flooded silks Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.

In your eyes Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes, And the perfume of your soul Is vague and suffusing, With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.

Your half-tones delight me, And I grow mad with gazing At your blent colours.

My vigour is a new-minted penny, Which I cast at your feet.

Gather it up from the dust, That its sparkle may amuse you.

In a Garden

Gus.h.i.+ng from the mouths of stone men To spread at ease under the sky In granite-lipped basins, Where iris dabble their feet And rustle to a pa.s.sing wind, The water fills the garden with its rus.h.i.+ng, In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns.

Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone, Where trickle and plash the fountains, Marble fountains, yellowed with much water.

Splas.h.i.+ng down moss-tarnished steps It falls, the water; And the air is throbbing with it.

With its gurgling and running.

With its leaping, and deep, cool murmur.

And I wished for night and you.

I wanted to see you in the swimming-pool, White and s.h.i.+ning in the silver-flecked water.

While the moon rode over the garden, High in the arch of night, And the scent of the lilacs was heavy with stillness.

Night, and the water, and you in your whiteness, bathing!

A Tulip Garden

Guarded within the old red wall's embrace, Marshalled like soldiers in gay company, The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace!

Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry, With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye Of purple batteries, every gun in place.

Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread, With torches burning, stepping out in time To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead, We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime Parades that army. With our utmost powers We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers.

[End of original text.]

Notes:

After Hearing a Waltz by Bartok: Originally: After Hearing a Waltz by Bartok:

A Blockhead: "There are non, ever. As a monk who prays"

changed to: "There are none, ever. As a monk who prays"

A Tale of Starvation: "And he neither eat nor drank."

changed to: "And he neither ate nor drank."

The Great Adventure of Max Breuck: Stanza headings were originally Roman Numerals.

The Book of Hours of Sister Clotilde: The following names are presented in this etext sans accents: Marguerite, Angelique, Veronique, Franc,ois.

The following unconnected lines in the etext are presented sans accents:

The factory of Sevres had lent Strange winged dragons writhe about And rich perfumed smells A faery moons.h.i.+ne was.h.i.+ng pale the crowds Our eyes will close to undisturbed rest.

And terror-winged steps. His heart began On the striped ground

Some books by Amy Lowell:

Poetry: A Critical Fable * A Dome of Many-Coloured Gla.s.s (1912) * Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914) * Men, Women and Ghosts (1916) Can Grande's Castle (1918) Pictures of the Floating World (1919) Legends (1921) What's O'Clock (1925) East Wind Ballads For Sale

(In collaboration with Florence Ayscough) Fir-Flower Tablets: Poems Translated from the Chinese (1921)