“Milk for the Cat” by Harold Monro

"Milk for the Cat"

When the tea is brought at five o'clock,
And all the neat curtains are drawn with care.
The little black cat with bright green eyes
Is suddenly purring there.

At first she pretends, having nothing to do,
She has come in merely to blink by the grate.
But, though tea may be late or the milk may be sour,
She is never late.

And presently her agate eyes
Take a soft large milky haze.
And her independent casual glance
Becomes a stiff, hard gaze.

Then she stamps her claws or lifts her ears,
Or twists her tail and begins to stir.
Till suddenly all her lithe body becomes
One breathing, trembling purr.

The children eat and wriggle and laugh;
The two old ladies stroke their silk:
But the cat is grown small and thin with desire,
Transformed to a creeping lust for milk.

The white saucer like some full moon descends
At last from the clouds of the table above;
She sighs and dreams and thrills and glows.
Transfigured with love.

She nestles over the shining rim.
Buries her chin in the creamy sea;
Her tail hangs loose; each drowsy paw
Is doubled under each bending knee.

A long, dim ecstasy holds her life;
Her world is an infinite shapeless white,
Till her tongue has curled the last holy drop.
Then she sinks back into the night,

Draws and dips her body to heap
Her sleepy nerves in the great arm-chair,
Lies defeated and buried deep
Three or four hours unconscious there.

 

Harold Monro's poem "Milk for the Cat" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1913-1915. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below: 

Archive.org

HathiTrust 

Project Gutenberg (text version)

 

“Church Parade” by Osbert Sitwell

"Church Parade"

The flattened sea is harsh and blue—
Lies stiff beneath—one tone, one hue,

While concertina waves unfold
The painted shimmering sands of gold.

Each bird that whirls and wheels on high
Must strangle, stifle in, its cry,

For nothing that's of Nature born
Should seem so on the Sabbath morn.

The terrace glitters hard and white,
Bedaubed and flecked with points of light

That flicker at the passers-by—
Reproachful as a curate's eye.

[ . . . ]

 

Osbert Sitwell's poem "Church Parade" was published in the 1920 Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

Modernist Journals Project

“Soldiers” by F.S. Flint

"Soldiers"
To R.A. 

Brother,

I saw you on a muddy road

in France

pass by with your battalion,

rifle at the slope, full marching order,

arm swinging;

and I stood at ease,

[ . . . ]

F.S. Flint's poem "Soldiers" was published in the 1917 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

HathiTrust - Digitized by the University of Virginia

The Modernist Journals Project

Project Gutenberg (HTML version)

“Childhood Memories” by William Saphier

"Childhood Memories"

Those years are foliage of trees,

their trunks hidden by bushes'

behind them a grey haze topped with silver

hides the swinging steps of my first love

the Danube.

 

On its face

grave steel palaces with smoking torches,

parading monasteries moved slowly to the Black Sea

till the bared branches scratched the north wind.

 

On its bed

a great Leviathan waited

for the ceremonies on the arrival of Messiah

and bobbing small fishes snapped sun splinters

 

for the pleasure of the monster.

Along its shores

red capped little hours danced

with rainbow colored kites,

messengers to heaven.

 

My memory is a sigh

of swallows swinging

through a slow dormant summer

to a timid line on the horizon.

 

William Saphier's poem "Childhood Memories" was published in the third Others anthology in 1920. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org