Lustra

Front matter

From photo-portrait by Alvin Langdon Coburn

EZRA POUND.

LUSTRA

Tenzone

Tenzone

Will people accept them? (i.e. these songs). As a timorous wench from a centaur (or a centurion), Already they flee, howling in terror.

Will they be touched with the verisimilitudes? Their virgin stupidity is untemptable. I beg you, my friendly critics, Do not set about to procure me an audience.

I mate with my free kind upon the crags; the hidden recesses Have heard the echo of my heels, in the cool light, in the darkness.

The Condolence

The Condolence

O my fellow sufferers, songs of my youth, A lot of asses praise you because you are "virile," We, you, I! We are "Red Bloods"! Imagine it, my fellow sufferers Our maleness lifts us out of the ruck, Who'd have foreseen it?

O my fellow sufferers, we went out under the trees, We were in especial bored with male stupidity. We went forth gathering delicate thoughts, Our "fantastikon" delighted to serve us. We were not exasperated with women, for the female is ductile.

And now you hear what is said to us: We are compared to that sort of person Who wanders about announcing his sex As if he had just discovered it. Let us leave this matter, my songs, and return to that which concerns us.

The Garret

The Garret

Come let us pity those who are better off than we are. Come, my friend, and remember that the rich have butlers and no friends, And we have friends and no butlers. Come let us pity the married and the unmarried.

Dawn enters with little feet like a gilded Pavlova, And I am near my desire. Nor has life in it aught better Than this hour of clear coolness, the hour of waking together.

The Garden

The Garden

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anæmia.

And round about there is a rabble Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding. Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like someone to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion.

Ortus

Ortus

How have I laboured? How have I not laboured To bring her soul to birth, To give these elements a name and a centre!

She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid. She has no name, and no place. How have I laboured to bring her soul into separation; To give her a name and her being!

Surely you are bound and entwined, You are mingled with the elements unborn; I have loved a stream and a shadow.

I beseech you enter your life. I beseech you learn to say "I" When I question you: For you are no part, but a whole; No portion, but a being.

Salutation

Salutation

O generation of the thoroughly smug and thoroughly uncomfortable, I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun, I have seen them with untidy families, I have seen their smiles full of teeth and heard ungainly laughter.

And I am happier than you are, And they were happier than I am; And the fish swim in the lake and do not even own clothing.

Salutation the Second

Salutation the Second

You were praised, my books, because I had just come from the country;

I was twenty years behind the times so you found an audience ready.

I do not disown you, do not you disown your progeny.

Here they stand without quaint devices, Here they are with nothing archaic about them.

Watch the reporters spit, Watch the anger of the professors, Watch how the pretty ladies revile them:

"Is this," they say, "the nonsense that we expect of poets?"

"Where is the Picturesque?" "Where is the vertigo of emotion?"

"No! his first work was the best." "Poor Dear! he has lost his illusions."

Go, little naked and impudent songs, Go with a light foot! (Or with two light feet, if it please you!) Go and dance shamelessly! Go with an impertinent frolic!

Greet the grave and the stodgy, Salute them with your thumbs at your noses.

Here are your bells and confetti. Go! rejuvenate things! Rejuvenate even "The Spectator." Go! and make cat calls! Dance and make people blush, Dance the dance of the phallus and tell anecdotes of Cybele! Speak of the indecorous conduct of the Gods! (Tell it to Mr. Strachey.)

Ruffle the skirts of prudes, speak of their knees and ankles. But, above all, go to practical people— go! jangle their door-bells! Say that you do no work and that you will live forever.

The Spring

The Spring

Cydonian spring with her attendant train, Maelids and water-girls, Stepping beneath a boisterous wind from Thrace, Throughout this sylvan place Spreads the bright tips, And every vine-stock is Clad in new brilliancies. And wild desire Falls like black lightning. O bewildered heart, Though every branch have back what last year lost, She, who moved here amid the cyclamen, Moves only now a clinging tenuous ghost.

Albâtre

Albâtre

This lady in the white bath-robe which she calls a peignoir Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend, And the delicate white feet of her little white dog Are not more delicate than she is, Nor would Gautier himself have despised their contrasts in whiteness As she sits in the great chair Between the two indolent candles.

Causa

Causa

I join these words for four people, Some others may overhear them, O world, I am sorry for you, You do not know these four people.

Commission

Commission

Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied, Go also to the nerve-wracked, go to the enslaved-by-convention, Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors. Go as a great wave of cool water, Bear my contempt of oppressors.

Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds.

Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of her ennuis, Go to the women in suburbs.

Go to the hideously wedded, Go to them whose failure is concealed, Go to the unluckily mated, Go to the bought wife, Go to the woman entailed.

Go to those who have delicate lust, Go to those whose delicate desires are thwarted.

Go like a blight upon the dulness of the world; Go with your edge against this, Strengthen the subtle cords, Bring confidence upon the algae and the tentacles of the soul.

Go in a friendly manner, Go with an open speech. Be eager to find new evils and new good, Be against all forms of oppression. Go to those who are thickened with middle age, To those who have lost their interest.

Go to the adolescent who are smothered in family— Oh how hideous it is To see three generations of one house gathered together! It is like an old tree with shoots, And with some branches rotted and falling.

Go out and defy opinion, Go against this vegetable bondage of the blood. Be against all sorts of mortmain.

A Pact

A Pact

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman— I have detested you long enough. I come to you as a grown child Who has had a pig-headed father; I am old enough now to make friends. It was you that broke the new wood, Now is a time for carving. We have one sap and one root— Let there be commerce between us.

Surgit Fama

Surgit Fama

There is a truce among the gods, Korè is seen in the North Skirting the blue-gray sea In gilded and russet mantle.

The corn has again its mother and she, Leuconoë, That failed never women, Fails not the earth now.

The tricksome Hermes is here; He moves behind me Eager to catch my words, Eager to spread them with rumour; To set upon them his change Crafty and subtle; To alter them to his purpose; But do thou speak true, even to the letter:

"Once more in Delos, once more is the altar a-quiver. Once more is the chant heard. Once more are the never abandoned gardens Full of gossip and old tales."

Preference

Preference

It is true that you say the gods are more use to you than fairies, But for all that I have seen you on a high, white, noble horse, Like some strange queen in a story.

It is odd that you should be covered with long robes and trailing tendrils and flowers; It is odd that you should be changing your face and resembling some other woman to plague me; It is odd that you should be hiding yourself In the cloud of beautiful women who do not concern me.

And I, who follow every seed-leaf upon the wind? You will say that I deserve this.

Dance Figure

Dance Figure

For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee

Dark eyed, O woman of my dreams, Ivory sandaled, There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet.

I have not found thee in the tents, In the broken darkness. I have not found thee at the well-head Among the women with pitchers.

Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark; Thy face as a river with lights.

White as an almond are thy shoulders; As new almonds stripped from the husk.

They guard thee not with eunuchs; Not with bars of copper.

Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest. A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in patterns, hast thou gathered about thee, O Nathat-Ikanaie, "Tree-at-the-river."

As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me; Thy fingers a frosted stream.

Thy maidens are white like pebbles; Their music about thee!

There is none like thee among the dancers; None with swift feet.

April

April

Nympharum membra disjecta.

Three spirits came to me And drew me apart To where the olive boughs Lay stripped upon the ground: Pale carnage beneath bright mist.

Gentildonna

Gentildonna

She passed and left no quiver in the veins, who now Moving among the trees, and clinging in the air she severed, Fanning the grass she walked on then, endures:

Grey olive leaves beneath a rain-cold sky.

The Rest

The Rest

O Helpless few in my country, O remnant enslaved!

Artists broken against her, A-stray, lost in the villages, Mistrusted, spoken-against,

Lovers of beauty, starved, Thwarted with systems, Helpless against the control;

You who can not wear yourselves out By persisting to successes, You who can only speak, Who can not steel yourselves into reiteration;

You of the finer sense, Broken against false knowledge, You who can know at first hand, Hated, shut in, mistrusted:

Take thought: I have weathered the storm, I have beaten out my exile.

Les Millwin

Les Millwin

The little Millwins attend the Russian Ballet. The mauve and greenish souls of the little Millwins Were seen lying along the upper seats Like so many unused boas.

The turbulent and undisciplined host of art students— The rigorous deputation from "Slade"— Was before them. With arms exalted, with fore-arms Crossed in great futuristic X's, the art students Exulted, they beheld the splendours of Cleopatra.

And the little Millwins beheld these things; With their large and anæmic eyes they looked out upon this configuration.

Let us therefore mention the fact, For it seems to us worthy of record.

Further Instructions

Further Instructions

Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions, Let us express our envy of the man with a steady job and no worry about the future. You are very idle, my songs. I fear you will come to a bad end. You stand about in the streets, You loiter at the corners and bus-stops You do next to nothing at all.

You do not even express our inner nobilities, You will come to a very bad end.

And I? I have gone half cracked, I have talked to you so much that I almost see you about me, Insolent little beasts, shameless, devoid of clothing!

But you, newest song of the lot, You are not old enough to have done much mischief, I will get you a green coat out of China With dragons worked upon it, I will get you the scarlet silk trousers From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa Maria Novella, Lest they say we are lacking in taste, Or that there is no caste in this family.

A Song of the Degrees

A Song of the Degrees

I

Rest me with Chinese colours,

For I think the glass is evil.

II

The wind moves above the wheat—

With a silver crashing, A thin war of metal. I have known the golden disc, I have seen it melting above me. I have known the stone-bright place, The hall of clear colours.

III

O glass subtly evil, confusion of colours!

O light bound and bent in, soul of the captive, Why am I warned? Why am I sent away? Why is your glitter full of curious mistrust? O glass subtle and cunning, O powdery gold! O filaments of amber, two-faced iridescence!

Dum Capitolium Scandet

Dum Capitolium Scandet

How many will come after me singing as well as I sing, none better; Telling the heart of their truth as I have taught them to tell it; Fruit of my seed, my unnameable children.

Know then that I loved you from afore-time, Clear speakers, naked in the sun, untrammelled.

Ite

Ite

Go, my songs, seek your praise from the young and from the intolerant, Move among the lovers of perfection alone. Seek ever to stand in the hard Sophoclean light And take your wounds from it gladly.

Το Καλὸν

Το Καλὸν

Even in my dreams you have denied yourself to me And sent me only your handmaids.

The Study in Aesthetics

The Study in Aesthetics

The very small children in patched clothing, Being smitten with an unusual wisdom, Stopped in their play as she passed them And cried up from their cobbles: Guarda! Ahi, guarda! ch' è be'a!

But three years after this I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do not know— For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young Dantes and thirty-four Catulli;

And there had been a great catch of sardines, And his elders Were packing them in the great wooden boxes For the market in Brescia, and he Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish And getting in both of their ways; And in vain they commanded him to sta fermo! And when they would not let him arrange The fish in the boxes He stroked those which were already arranged, Murmuring for his own satisfaction This identical phrase: Ch' è be'a.

And at this I was mildly abashed.

Bella.

The Bellaires

The Bellaires

The good Bellaires Do not understand the conduct of this world's affairs. In fact they understood them so badly That they have had to cross the Channel.

Nine lawyers, four counsels, five judges and three proctors of the King, Together with the respective wives, husbands, sisters and heterogeneous connections of the good Bellaires, Met to discuss their affairs; But the good Bellaires have so little understood their affairs That now there is no one at all Who can understand any affair of theirs. Yet Fourteen hunters still eat in the stables of The good Squire Bellaire; But these may not suffer attainder,

For they may not belong to the good Squire Bellaire But to his wife. On the contrary, if they do not belong to his wife, He will plead A "freedom from attainder" For twelve horses and also for twelve boarhounds From Charles the Fourth; And a further freedom for the remainder Of horses, from Henry the Fourth. But the judges, Being free of medieval scholarship, Will pay no attention to this, And there will be only the more confusion, Replevin, estoppel, espavin and what not.

Nine lawyers, four counsels, etc., Met to discuss their affairs, But the sole result was bills From lawyers to whom no one was indebted, And even the lawyers Were uncertain who was supposed to be indebted to them.

Wherefore the good Squire Bellaire Resides now at Agde and Biaucaire. To Carcassonne, Pui, and Alais He fareth from day to day,

Or takes the sea air Between Marseilles And Beziers.

And for all this I have considerable regret, For the good Bellaires Are very charming people.

The New Cake of Soap

The New Cake of Soap

Lo, how it gleams and glistens in the sun Like the cheek of a Chesterton.

Salvationists

Salvationists

I

Come, my songs, let us speak of perfection—

We shall get ourselves rather disliked.

II

Ah yes, my songs, let us resurrect

The very excellent term Rusticus. Let us apply it in all its opprobrium To those to whom it applies. And you may decline to make them immortal. For we shall consider them and their state In delicate Opulent silence.

III

Come, my songs,

Let us take arms against this sea of stupidities— Begining with Mumpodorus; And against this sea of vulgarities— Beginning with Nimmim; And against this sea of imbeciles— All the Bulmenian literati.

Arides

Arides

The bashful Arides Has married an ugly wife, He was bored with his manner of life, Indifferent and discouraged he thought he might as Well do this as anything else.

Saying within his heart, "I am no use to myself, "Let her, if she wants me, take me." He went to his doom.

Epitaph

Epitaph

Leucis, who intended a Grand Passion, Ends with a willingness-to-oblige.

The Bath Tub

The Bath Tub

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

Amitiés

Amitiés

Old friends the most. W. B. Y.

I

To one, on returning certain years after.

You wore the same quite correct clothing, You took no pleasure at all in my triumphs, You had the same old air of condescension Mingled with a curious fear That I, myself, might have enjoyed them.

Te voilà, mon Bourrienne, you also shall be immortal.

II

To another.

And we say good-bye to you also, For you seem never to have discovered That your relationship is wholly parasitic; Yet to our feasts you bring neither Wit, nor good spirits, nor the pleasing attitudes Of discipleship.

III

But you, bos amic, we keep on, For to you we owe a real debt: In spite of your obvious flaws, You once discovered a moderate chop-house.

IV

Iste fuit vir incultus, Deo laus, quod est sepultus, Vermes habent eius vultum A-a-a-a—A-men. Ego autem jovialis Gaudero contubernalis Cum jocunda femina.

Meditatio

Meditatio

When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs I am compelled to conclude That man is the superior animal.

When I consider the curious habits of man I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.

To Dives

To Dives

Who am I to condemn you, Dives, I who am as much embittered With poverty As you are with useless riches?

Ladies

Ladies

Agathas.

Four and forty lovers had Agathas in the old days, All of whom she refused; And now she turns to me seeking love, And her hair also is turning.

Young Lady.

I have fed your lar with poppies, I have adored you for three full years; And now you grumble because your dress does not fit And because I happen to say so.

Lesbia Ilia

Memnon, Memnon, that lady Who used to walk about amongst us With such gracious uncertainty, Is now wedded To a British householder. Lugete, Veneres! Lugete, Cupidinesque!

Passing

Flawless as Aphrodite, Thoroughly beautiful, Brainless, The faint odour of your patchouli, Faint, almost, as the lines of cruelty about your chin, Assails me, and concerns me almost as little.

Coda

Coda

O my songs, Why do you look so eagerly and so curiously into people's faces, Will you find your lost dead among them?

Phyllidula

Phyllidula

Phyllidula is scrawny but amorous, Thus have the gods awarded her That in pleasure she receives more than she can give, If she does not count this blessed Let her change her religion.

The Patterns

The Patterns

Erinna is a model parent, Her children have never discovered her adulteries.

Lalage is also a model parent, Her offspring are fat and happy.

The Seeing Eye

The Seeing Eye

The small dogs look at the big dogs; They observe unwieldy dimensions And curious imperfections of odour.

Here is a formal male group: The young men look upon their seniors, They consider the elderly mind And observe its inexplicable correlations.

Said Tsin-Tsu: It is only in small dogs and the young That we find minute observation.

Ancora

Ancora

Good God! They say you are risqué, O canzonetti! We who went out into the four A.M. of the world Composing our albas, We who shook off our dew with the rabbits, We who have seen even Artemis a-binding her sandals, Have we ever heard the like? O mountains of Hellas!!

Gather about me, O Muses! When we sat upon the granite brink in Helicon Clothed in the tattered sunlight, O Muses with delicate shins, O Muses with delectable knee-joints, When we splashed and were splashed with The lucid Castalian spray, Had we ever such an epithet cast upon us!!

"Dompna pois de me no'us cal"

A TRANSLATION

From the Provençal of En Bertrans de Born.

"Dompna pois de me no'us cal"

Lady, since you care nothing for me, And since you have shut me away from you Causelessly, I know not where to go seeking, For certainly I will never again gather Joy so rich, and if I find not ever A lady with look so speaking To my desire, worth yours whom I have lost, I'll have no other love at any cost.

And since I could not find a peer to you, Neither one so fair, nor of such heart, So eager and alert, Nor with such art In attire, nor so gay Nor with gift so bountiful and so true,

I will go out a-searching, Culling from each a fair trait To make me a borrowed lady Till I again find you ready.

Bels Cembelins, I take of you your colour, For it's your own, and your glance Where love is, A proud thing I do here, For, as to colour and eyes I shall have missed nothing at all, Having yours. I ask of Midons Aelis (of Montfort) Her straight speech free-running, That my phantom lack not in cunning.

At Chalais of the Viscountess, I would That she give me outright Her two hands and her throat, So take I my road To Rochechouart, Swift-foot to my Lady Anhes, Seeing that Tristan's lady Iseutz had never Such grace of locks, I do ye to wit, Though she'd the far fame for it.

Of Audiart at Malemort, Though she with a full heart Wish me ill, I'd have her form that's laced

So cunningly, Without blemish, for her love Breaks not nor turns aside. I of Miels-de-ben demand Her straight fresh body, She is so supple and young, Her robes can but do her wrong.

Her white teeth, of the Lady Faidita I ask, and the fine courtesy She hath to welcome one, And such replies she lavishes Within her nest; Of Bels Mirals, the rest, Tall stature and gaiety, To make these avail She knoweth well, betide No change nor turning aside.

Ah, Bels Senher, Maent, at last I ask naught from you, Save that I have such hunger for This phantom As I've for you, such flame-lap, And yet I'd rather Ask of you than hold another, Mayhap, right close and kissed. Ah, lady, why have you cast Me out, knowing you hold me so fast!

The Coming of War: Actaeon

The Coming of War: Actaeon

An image of Lethe, and the fields Full of faint light but golden, Gray cliffs, and beneath them A sea Harsher than granite, unstill, never ceasing; High forms with the movement of gods, Perilous aspect; And one said: "This is Actaeon." Actaeon of golden greaves!

Over fair meadows, Over the cool face of that field, Unstill, ever moving, Hosts of an ancient people, The silent cortège.

After Ch'u Yuan

After Ch'u Yuan

I will get me to the wood Where the gods walk garlanded in wistaria, By the silver blue flood move others with ivory cars. There come forth many maidens to gather grapes for the leopards, my friend, For there are leopards drawing the cars.

I will walk in the glade, I will come out of the new thicket and accost the procession of maidens.

Liu Ch'e

Liu Ch'e

The rustling of the silk is discontinued, Dust drifts over the court-yard, There is no sound of foot-fall, and the leaves Scurry into heaps and lie still, And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath them:

A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.

Fan-piece, for her Imperial Lord

Fan-piece, for her Imperial Lord

O fan of white silk, clear as frost on the grass-blade, You also are laid aside.

Ts'ai Chi'h

Ts'ai Chi'h

The petals fall in the fountain, the orange-coloured rose-leaves, Their ochre clings to the stone.

Alba

Alba

As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley She lay beside me in the dawn.

Heather

Heather

The black panther treads at my side, And above my fingers There float the petal-like flames.

The milk-white girls Unbend from the holly-trees, And their snow-white leopard Watches to follow our trace.

In a Station of the Metro

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

Coitus

Coitus

The gilded phaloi of the crocuses are thrusting at the spring air. Here is there naught of dead gods But a procession of festival, A procession, O Giulio Romano, Fit for your spirit to dwell in. Dione, your nights are upon us.

The dew is upon the leaf. The night about us is restless.

The Faun

The Faun

Ha! sir, I have seen you sniffing and snoozling about among my flowers. And what, pray, do you know about horticulture, you capriped?

"Come, Auster, come, Apeliota, And see the faun in our garden. But if you move or speak This thing will run at you And scare itself to spasms."

Tempora

Tempora

Io! Io! Tamuz! The Dryad stands in my court-yard With plaintive, querulous crying. (Tamuz. Io! Tamuz!) Oh, no, she is not crying: "Tamuz." She says, "May my poems be printed this week? The god Pan is afraid to ask you, May my poems be printed this week?"

The Encounter

The Encounter

All the while they were talking the new morality Her eyes explored me. And when I arose to go Her fingers were like the tissue Of a Japanese paper napkin.

Black Slippers: Bellotti

Black Slippers: Bellotti

At the table beyond us With her little suede slippers off, With her white-stocking'd feet Carefully kept from the floor by a napkin, She converses: Connaissez-vous Ostende? The gurgling Italian lady on the other side of the restaurant Replies with a certain hauteur, But I await with patience To see how Celestine will re-enter her slippers. She re-enters them with a groan.

Society

Society

The family position was waning, And on this account the little Aurelia, Who had laughed on eighteen summers, Now bears the palsied contact of Phidippus.

Image from D'Orleans

Image from D'Orleans

Young men riding in the street In the bright new season Spur without reason, Causing their steeds to leap.

And at the pace they keep Their horses' armoured feet Strike sparks from the cobbled street In the bright new season.

Papyrus

Papyrus

Spring… Too long… Gongula…

"Ione, Dead the Long Year"

"Ione, Dead the Long Year"

Empty are the ways, Empty are the ways of this land And the flowers Bend over with heavy heads. They bend in vain. Empty are the ways of this land Where Ione Walked once, and now does not walk

But seems like a person just gone.

Shop Girl

Shop Girl

For a moment she rested against me Like a swallow half blown to the wall, And they talk of Swinburne's women, And the shepherdess meeting with Guido, And the harlots of Baudelaire.

ἰμέρρω

ἰμέρρω

Thy soul Grown delicate with satieties, Atthis. O Atthis, I long for thy lips.

I long for thy narrow breasts, Thou restless, ungathered.

To Formianus' Young Lady Friend

To Formianus' Young Lady Friend

After Valerius Catullus

All Hail! young lady with a nose by no means too small, With a foot unbeautiful, and with eyes that are not black, With fingers that are not long, and with a mouth undry, And with a tongue by no means too elegant, You are the friend of Formianus, the vendor of cosmetics, And they call you beautiful in the province, And you are even compared to Lesbia.

O most unfortunate age!

L'Art, 1910

L'Art, 1910

Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth, Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.

Tame Cat

Tame Cat

"It rests me to be among beautiful women. Why should one always lie about such matters?

I repeat: It rests me to converse with beautiful women Even though we talk nothing but nonsense,

The purring of the invisible antennæ Is both stimulating and delightful."

Simulacra

Simulacra

Why does the horse-faced lady of just the unmentionable age Walk down Longacre reciting Swinburne to herself, inaudibly? Why does the small child in the soiled-white imitation fur coat Crawl in the very black gutter beneath the grape stand? Why does the really handsome young woman approach me in Sackville Street Undeterred by the manifest age of my trappings?

Women before a Shop

Women Before a Shop

The gew-gaws of false amber and false turquoise attract them. "Like to like nature": these agglutinous yellows!

Epilogue

Epilogue

O chansons foregoing You were a seven days' wonder, When you came out in the magazines You created considerable stir in Chicago,

And now you are stale and worn out, You're a very depleted fashion, A hoop-skirt, a calash, An homely, transient antiquity.

Only emotion remains.

Your emotions? Are those of a maître-de-café.

The Social Order

The Social Order

I

This government official,

Whose wife is several years his senior, Has such a caressing air When he shakes hands with young ladies.

II

(Pompes Funèbres)

This old lady,

Who was "so old that she was an atheist," Is now surrounded By six candles and a crucifix, While the second wife of a nephew Makes hay with the things in her house. Her two cats Go before her into Avernus; A sort of chloroformed suttee, And it is to be hoped that their spirits will walk With their tails up, And with a plaintive, gentle mewing, For it is certain that she has left on this earth No sound Save a squabble of female connections.