The Fan

LOVELY Semiramis

Closes her slanting eyes:

Dead is she long ago.

From her fan, sliding slow,

Parrot-bright fire's feathers,

Gilded as June weathers,

Plumes bright and shrill as grass

Twinkle down; as they pass

Through the green glooms in Hell

Fruits with a tuneful smell,

Grapes like an emerald rain,

Where the full moon has lain,

Greengages bright as grass,

Melons as cold as glass,

Piled on each gilded booth,

Feel their cheeks growing smooth.

Apes in plumed head-dresses

Whence the bright heat hisses,--

Nubian faces, sly

Pursing mouth, slanting eye,

Feel the Arabian

Winds floating from the fan.

Edith Sitwell

Aubade

JANE, Jane,

Tall as a crane,

The morning light creaks down again;

Comb your cockscomb-ragged hair,

Jane, Jane, come down the stair.

Each dull blunt wooden stalactite

Of rain creaks, hardened by the light,

Sounding like an overtone

From some lonely world unknown.

But the creaking empty light

Will never harden into sight,

Will never penetrate your brain

With overtones like the blunt rain.

The light would show (if it could harden)

Eternities of kitchen garden,

Cockscomb flowers that none will pluck,

And wooden flowers that 'gin to cluck.

In the kitchen you must light

Flames as staring, red and white,

As carrots or as turnips shining

Where the cold dawn light lies whining.

Cockscomb hair on the cold wind

Hangs limp, turns the milk's weak mind . . .

Jane, Jane,

Tall as a crane,

The morning light creaks down again!

Edith Sitwell

Clowns' Houses

BENEATH the flat and paper sky

The sun, a demon's eye,

Glowed through the air, that mask of glass;

All wand'ring sounds that pass

Seemed out of tune, as if the light

Were fiddle-strings pulled tight.

The market-square with spire and bell

Clanged out the hour in Hell;

The busy chatter of the heat

Shrilled like a parakeet;

And shuddering at the noonday light

The dust lay dead and white

As powder on a mummy's face,

Or fawned with simian grace

Round booths with many a hard bright toy

And wooden brittle joy:

The cap and bells of Time the Clown

That, jangling, whistled down

Young cherubs hidden in the guise

Of every bird that flies;

And star-bright masks for youth to wear,

Lest any dream that fare

--Bright pilgrim--past our ken, should see

Hints of Reality.

Upon the sharp-set grass, shrill-green,

Tall trees like rattles lean,

And jangle sharp and dissily;

But when night falls they sign

Till Pierrot moon steals slyly in,

His face more white than sin,

Black-masked, and with cool touch lays bare

Each cherry, plum, and pear.

Then underneath the veiled eyes

Of houses, darkness lies--

Tall houses; like a hopeless prayer

They cleave the sly dumb air.

Blind are those houses, paper-thin

Old shadows hid therein,

With sly and crazy movements creep

Like marionettes, and weep.

Tall windows show Infinity;

And, hard reality,

The candles weep and pry and dance

Like lives mocked at by Chance.

The rooms are vast as Sleep within;

When once I ventured in,

Chill Silence, like a surging sea,

Slowly enveloped me.

Edith Sitwell

Came the Great Popinjay

CAME the great Popinjay

Smelling his nosegay:

In cages like grots

The birds sang gavottes.

'Herodiade's flea

Was named sweet Amanda,

She danced like a lady

From here to Uganda.

Oh, what a dance was there!

Long-haired, the candle

Salome-like tossed her hair

To a dance tune by Handel.' . . .

Dance they still? Then came

Courtier Death,

Blew out the candle flame

With civet breath.

Edith Sitwell

When Cold December

WHEN cold December

Froze to grisamber

The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees--

Then fading slow

And furred is the snow

As the almond's sweet husk--

And smelling like musk.

The snow amygdaline

Under the eglantine

Where the bristling stars shine

Like a gilt porcupine--

The snow confesses

The little Princesses

On their small chioppines

Dance under the orpines.

See the casuistries

Of their slant fluttering eyes--

Gilt as the zodiac

(Dancing Herodiac).

Only the snow slides

Like gilded myrrh--

From the rose-branches--hides

Rose-roots that stir.

Edith Sitwell

By the Lake

ACROSS the flat and the pastel snow

Two people go . . . . 'And do you remember

When last we wandered this shore?' . . . 'Ah no!

For it is cold-hearted December.'

'Dead, the leaves that like asses's ears hung on the trees

When last we wandered and squandered joy here;

Now Midas your husband will listen for these

Whispers--these tears for joy's bier.'

And as they walk, they seem tall pagodas;

And all the ropes let down from the cloud

Ring the hard cold bell-buds upon the trees--codas

Of overtones, ecstasies, grown for love's shroud.

Edith Sitwell

Bells of Gray Crystal

BELLS of gray crystal

Break on each bough--

The swans' breath will mist all

The cold airs now.

Like tall pagodas

Two people go,

Trail their long codas

Of talk through the snow.

Lonely are these

And lonely and I . . . .

The clouds, gray Chinese geese

Sleek through the sky.

Edith Sitwell