“From the Balcony: Multitudes” by Edith Sitwell

From the Balcony: Multitudes

Beneath the midnight skies, grown copper-cold,

On titan-stairways like the world's great cause

Unmeaning endlessness,—processions pause

In Babel-labyrinths, where huge cascades

Of diamond fall between vast colonnades

And diaper the floors with moons of gold.

[ . . . ]

Edith Sitwell's poem "From the Balcony: Multitudes" was published in the 1917 Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

Librivox audio recording hosted on Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

“Lalla Ram” by Marguerite Zorach

Lalla Ram

The garden was warm, languid,

The tiny shadows of nime trees softly fingered white

balconies,

The palms fell limply back from the heavy sun,

Everything was old, beautifully old,

Everything was old, with the energy of life for-

gotten

[ . . . ]

Margeurite Zorach's poem "Lalla Ram" was published in the 1916 Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Archive.org

 

 

 

“Seven Seals” by D.H. Lawrence

Seven Seals

Since this is the last night I keep you home,

Come, I will consecrate you for the journey.

 

Rather I had you would not go. Nay come,

I will not again reproach you. Lie back

And let me love you a long time ere you go.

For you are sullen-hearted still, and lack

The will to love me. But even so

I will set a seal upon you from my lip,

Will set a guard of honour at each door,

Seal up each channel out of which might slip

Your love for me.

 

I kiss your mouth. Ah, love,

Could I but seal its ruddy, shining spring

Of passion, parch it up, destroy, remove

Its softly-stirring, crimson welling-up

Of kisses ! Oh, help me, God ! Here at the source

I'd lie for ever drinking and drawing in

Your fountains, as heaven drinks from out their course

The floods.

 

I close your ears with kisses

And seal your nostrils ; and round your neck you'll

wear—

Nay, let me work—a delicate chain of kisses.

Like beads they go around, and not one misses

To touch its fellow on either side.

 

And there

Full mid-between the champaign of your breast

I place a great and burning seal of love

Like a dark rose, a mystery of rest

Lawrence On the slow bubbling of your rhythmic heart.

Nay, I persist, and very faith shall keep

You integral to me. Each door, each mystic port

Of egress from you I will seal and steep

In perfect chrism.

Now it is done. The mort

Will sound in heaven before it is undone.

 

But let me finish what I have begun

And shirt you now invulnerable in the mail

Of iron kisses, kisses linked like steel.

Put greaves upon your thighs and knees, and frail

Webbing of steel on your feet. So you shall feel

Ensheathed invulnerable with me, with seven

Great seals upon your outgoings, and woven

Chain of my mystic will wrapped perfectly

Upon you, wrapped in indomitable me.

 

D.H. Lawrence's poem "Seven Seals" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1918-1919. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Archive.org

“The Letter” by Amy Lowell

The Letter

Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper

Like draggled fly's legs,

What can you tell of the flaring moon

Through the oak leaves?

Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor

Spattered with moonlight?

Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them

Of blossoming hawthorns,

And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness

Beneath my hand.

 

I am tired, Beloved, o f chafing my heart against

The want of you;

Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,

And posting it.

And I scald alone, here, under the fire

Of the great moon.

 

Amy Lowell's poem "The Letter" was published in the 1915 Some Imagist Poets anthology. Follow the links below to read the poem in a digitized version of this publication:

Archive.org

HathiTrust

The Modernist Journals Project

“Rag-time” by Osbert Sitwell

Rag-time

The lamps glow here and there, then echo down
The vast deserted vistas of the town :—
Each light the echo'd note of some refrain
Repeated in the city's fevered brain.
Yet all is still, save when there wanders past
—Finding the silence of the night too long—
Some tattered wretch who, from the night outcast,
Sings with an aching heart a comic song.

[ . . . ]

Osbert Sitwell's poem "Rag-time" was published in the 1917 Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

Librivox audio recording hosted on Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project