In the last twilight
Of Indian gods;
And they can’t wake.
Indians dance and run and stamp —
No good.
White men make gold-mines and the mountains unmake them
In their sleep.
The Indians laugh in their sleep
From fear,
Like a man when he sleeps and his sleep is over, and he
can’t wake up,
And he lies like a log and screams and his scream is silent
Because his body can’t wake up;
So he laughs from fear, pure fear, in the grip of the sleep.
A dark membrane over the will, holding a man down
Even when the mind has flickered awake;
A membrane of sleep, like a black blanket.
We walk in our sleep, in this land,
Somnambulist wide-eyed afraid.
We scream for someone to wake us
And our scream is soundless in the paralysis of sleep,
And we know it.
The Penitentes lash themselves till they run with blood
In their efforts to come awake for one moment;
To tear the membrane of this sleep . . .
No good.
The Indians thought the white man would awake them . . .
And instead, the white men scramble asleep in the mountains,
And ride on horseback asleep forever through the desert,
And shoot one another, amazed and mad with somnambulism,
Thinking death will awaken something . . .
No good.
Born with a caul,
A black membrane over the face,
And unable to tear it,
Though the mind is awake.
Mountains blanket-wrapped
Round the ash-white hearth of the desert;
And though the sun leaps like a thing unleashed in the sky
They can’t get up, they are under the blanket.
Taos.
AUTUMN AT TAOS
OVER the rounded sides of the Rockies, the aspens of autumn,
The aspens of autumn,
Like yellow hair of a tigress brindled with pins.
Down on my hearth-rug of desert, sage of the mesa,
An ash-grey pelt
Of wolf all hairy and level, a wolf’s wild pelt.
Trot-trot to the mottled foot-hills, cedar-mottled and piñon;
Did you ever see an otter?
Silvery-sided, fish-fanged, fierce-faced whiskered, mottled.
When I trot my little pony through the aspen-trees of the
canyon,
Behold me trotting at ease betwixt the slopes of the golden
Great and glistening-feathered legs of the hawk of Horus;
The golden hawk of Horus
Astride above me.
But under the pines
I go slowly
As under the hairy belly of a great black bear.
Glad to emerge and look back
On the yellow, pointed aspen-trees laid one on another like
Feathers,
Feather over feather on the breast of the great and golden
Hawk as I say of Horus.
Pleased to be out in the sage and the pine fish-dotted foot —
hills,
Past the otter’s whiskers,
On to the fur of the wolf-pelt that strews the plain.
And then to look back to the rounded sides of the squatting
Rockies,
Tigress brindled with aspen
Jaguar-splashed, puma-yellow, leopard-livid slopes of America.
Make big eyes, little pony
At all these skins of wild beasts;
They won’t hurt you.
Fangs and claws and talons and beaks and hawk-eyes
Are nerveless just now.
So be easy.
Taos.
SPIRITS SUMMONED WEST
ENGLAND seems full of graves to me,
Full of graves.
Women I loved and cherished, like my mother;
Yet I had to tell them to die.
England seems covered with graves to me.
Women’s graves.
Women who were gentle
And who loved me
And whom I loved
And told to die.
Women with the beautiful eyes of the old days,
Belief in love, and sorrow of such belief.
“Hush, my love, then, hush.
Hush, and die, my dear!”
Women of the older generation, who knew
The full doom of loving and not being able to take back.
Who understood at last what it was to be told to die.
Now that the graves are made, and covered;
Now that in England pansies and such-like grow on the
graves of women;
Now that in England is silence, where before was a moving
of soft-skirted women,
Women with eyes that were gentle in olden belief in
love;
Now then that all their yearning is hushed, and covered
over with earth.
England seems like one grave to me.
And I, I sit on this high American desert
With dark-wrapped Rocky Mountains motionless squatting
around in a ring,
Remembering I told them to die, to sink into the grave in
England,
The gentle-kneed women.
So now I whisper: Come away,
Come away from the place of graves, come west,
Women,
Women whom I loved and told to die.
Come back to me now,
Now the divided yearning is over;
Now you are husbandless indeed, no more husband to cherish like
a child
And wrestle tvith for the prize of perfect love.
No more children to launch in a world you mistrust.
Now you need know in part
No longer, or carry the burden of a man on your heart,
Or the burden of Man writ large.
Now you are disemburdened of Man and a man
Come back to me.
Now you are free of the toils of a would-be-perfect love
Come to me and be still.
Come back then, you who were wives and mothers
And always virgins
Overlooked.
Come back then, mother, my love, whom I told to die.
It was only I who saw the virgin you
That had no home.
The overlooked virgin,
My love.
You overlooked her too.
Now that the grave is made of mother and wife,
Now that the grave is made and lidded over with turf.
Come, delicate, overlooked virgin, come back to me
And be still,
Be glad.
I didn’t tell you to die, for nothing.
I wanted the virgin you to be home at last
In my heart.
Inside my innermost heart,
Where the virgin in woman comes home to a man.
The homeless virgin
Who never in all her life could find the way home
To that difficult innermost place in a man.
Now come west, come home,
Women I’ve loved for gentleness,
For the virginal you.
Find the way now that you never could find in life,
So I told you to die.
Virginal first and last
Is woman.
Now at this last, my love, my many a love,
You whom I loved for gentleness,
Come home to me.
They are many, and I loved them, shall always love them,
And they know it,
The virgins.
And my heart is glad to have them at last.
Now that the wife and mother and mistress is buried in earth,
Come home to me, my love, my loves, my many loves,
Come west to me.
For virgins are not exclusive of virgins
As wives are of wives;
And motherhood is jealous,
But in virginity jealousy does not enter.
Taos.
THE AMERICAN EAGLE
THE dove of Liberty sat on an egg
And hatched another eagle.
But didn’t disown the bird.
Down with all eagles! cooed the Dove.
And down all eagles began to flutter, reeling from their
perches:
Eagles with two heads, eagles with one, presently eagles
with none
Fell from the hooks and were dead.
Till the American Eagle was the only eagle left in the world.
Then it began to fidget, shifting from one leg to the other,
Trying to look like a pelican,
And plucking out of his plumage a few loose feathers to
feather the nests of all
The new naked little republics come into the world.
But the feathers were, comparatively, a mere flea-bite.
And the bub-eagle that Liberty had hatched was growing a
startling big bird
On the roof of the world;
A bit awkward, and with a funny squawk in his voice,
His mother Liberty trying always to teach him to coo
And him always ending with a yawp
Coo! Coo! Coo! Coo-ark! Coo-ark! Quark!! Quark!!
YAWP!!!
So he clears his throat, the young Cock-eagle!
Now if the lilies of France lick Solomon in all his glory;
And the leopard cannot change his spots;
Nor the British lion his appetite;
Neither can a young Cock-eagle sit simpering
With an olive-sprig in his mouth.
It’s not his nature.
The big bird of the Amerindian being the eagle,
Red Men still stick themselves over with bits of his fluff,
And feel absolutely IT.
So better make up your mind, American Eagle,
Whether you’re a sucking dove, Roo — coo — ooo! Quark!
Yawp!!
Or a pelican
Handing out a few loose golden breast-feathers, at moulting
time;
Or a sort of prosperity-gander
Fathering endless ten-dollar golden eggs.
Or whether it actually is an eagle you are,
With a Roman nose
And claws not made to shake hands with,
And a Me-Almighty eye.
The new Proud Republic
Based on the mystery of pride.
Overweening men, full of power of life, commanding a
teeming obedience.
Eagle of the Rockies, bird of men that are masters,
Lifting the rabbit-blood of the myriads up into something
splendid,
Leaving a few bones;
Opening great wings in the face of the sheep-faced ewe
Who is losing her lamb,
Drinking a little blood, and loosing another royalty unto the
world.
Is that you, American Eagle?
Or are you the goose that lays the golden egg?
Which is just a stone to anyone asking for meat.
And are you going to go on for ever
Laying that golden egg,
That addled golden egg?
IMAGIST POETRY
CONTENTS
BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA
ILLICIT
FIREFLIES IN THE CORN
A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND
THE MOWERS
SCENT OF IRISES
GREEN
BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA
Oh, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
Lamps in a wash of rain,
Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard,
Oh, tears on the window pane!
Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,
Full of disappointment and of rain,
Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples
Of Autumn tell the withered tale again.
All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,
Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,
Cluck, my marigold bird, and again
Cluck for your yellow darlings.
For the grey rat found the gold thirteen
Huddled away in the dark,
Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,
Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.
····
Once I had a lover bright like running water,
Once his face was laughing like the sky;
Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter
On the buttercups — and buttercups was I.
What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom,
What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?
‘T is the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom —
What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men?
Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,
And her shift is lying white upon the floor,
That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm
Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.
Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,
Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct — !
And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,
Did you see the wicked sun that winked?
ILLICIT
In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow,
And between us and it, the thunder;
And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers
Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.
You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals,
And through the scent of the balcony’s naked timber
I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber
Lightning falls from heaven.
Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats
A dark boat through the gloom — and whither?
The thunder roars. But still we have each other.
The naked lightnings in the heaven dither
And disappear. What have we but each other?
The boat has gone.
FIREFLIES IN THE CORN
A Woman taunts her Lover
Look at the little darlings in the corn!
The rye is taller than you, who think yourself
So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne
Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights
Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn.
And always likely! — Oh, if I could ride
With my head held high-serene against the sky
Do you think I’d have a creature like you at my side
With your gloom and your doubt that you love me? O darling rye,
How I adore you for your simple pride!
And those bright fireflies wafting in between
And over the swaying cornstalks, just above
All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green
Stars come low and wandering here for love
Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene — !
How I adore you, you happy things, you dears
Riding the air and carrying all the time
Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers
My heart to see you settling and trying to climb
The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears.
All over the corn’s dim motion, against the blue
Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm
Of questing brilliant things: — you joy, y
ou true
Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm
My poor and perished soul at the joy of you!
The Man answers and she mocks
You’re a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do!
— Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine.
And I give you everything that you want me to.
— Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever can shine?
A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND
Ah, stern cold man,
How can you lie so relentless hard
While I wash you with weeping water!
Ah, face, carved hard and cold,
You have been like this, on your guard
Against me, since death began.
You masquerader!
How can you shame to act this part
Of unswerving indifference to me?
It is not you; why disguise yourself
Against me, to break my heart,
You evader?
You’ve a warm mouth,
A good warm mouth always sooner to soften
Even than your sudden eyes.
Ah cruel, to keep your mouth
Relentless, however often
I kiss it in drouth.
You are not he.
Who are you, lying in his place on the bed
And rigid and indifferent to me?
His mouth, though he laughed or sulked
Was always warm and red
And good to me.
And his eyes could see
The white moon hang like a breast revealed
By the slipping shawl of stars,
Could see the small stars tremble
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 848
