Year: 2020

“Six Significant Landscapes” by Wallace Stevens

"Six Significant Landscapes"

I.

An old man sits

In the shadow of a pine tree

In China.

He sees a larkspur,

Blue and white,

At the edge of the shadow,

Move in the wind.

His beard moves in the wind.

The pine tree moves in the wind.

Thus water flows

Over weeds.

 

II.

The night is of the color

 

[ . . . ]

 

Wallace Stevens' sequence "Six Significant Landscapes" was published in the 1916 Others anthology. To read this poem sequence in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

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“Gothic” by Aldous Huxley

"Gothic"

Sharp spires pierce upwards, and the clouds are full of

tumbling bells. Reckless, break-neck, head over heels

down an airy spiral of stairs run the bells.' Upon Paul's

steeple stands a tree.'

Up again and then once more to the bottom, two steps at

a time. 'As full of apples as can be.'

 

[ . . . ]

 

Aldous Huxley's poem "Gothic" was published in the 1918 "cycle" of Wheels. to read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

“‘Ah, Koelue. . .'” by Isaac Rosenberg

"'Ah, Koelue. . .'"

Ah, Koelue !

Had you embalmed your beauty, so

It could not backward go,

Or change in any way,

What were the use, if on my eyes

The embalming spices were not laid

To keep us fixed,

Two amorous sculptures passioned endlessly ?

What were the use, if my sight grew,

And its far branches were cloud-hung,

You small at the roots, like grass,

While the new lips my spirit would kiss

Were not red lips of flesh,

But the huge kiss of power ?

Where yesterday soft hair through my fingers fell,

A shaggy mane would entwine,

And no slim form work fire to my thighs,

But human Life's inarticulate mass

Throb the pulse of a thing

Whose mountain flanks awry

Beg my mastery mine !

Ah ! I will ride the dizzy beast of the world

My road my way

 

Isaac Rosenberg's poem "'Ah, Koelue. . .'" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1916-1917. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below"

Archive.org

Project Gutenberg (HTML version)

“Childhood” by Richard Aldington

"Childhood" 

I.
The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood

Put me out of love with God.

I can't believe in God's goodness;

I can believe

In many avenging gods.

Most of all I believe

In gods of bitter dullness,

Cruel local gods

Who seared my childhood.

 

II.
I've seen people put

A chrysalis in a match-box,

"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come."

But when it broke its shell

It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison

And tried to climb to the light

For space to dry its wings.

 

[ . . . ]

 

Richard Aldington's poem "Childhood" was published in the 1915 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

HathiTrust

The Modernist Journals Project

“Kaleidoscopics” by Ferdinand Reyher

"Kaleidoscopics"

Gondolas with white freightage

Passed,

And muted barcaroles

Destroyed old houses.

 

The iridescent plush rope sways

With the rhythm

Of an old canzone of Genoa

 

He died.

Let us dance elegant fandangos

In blues and golds,

And consort

With blinder things than parchment bats

To gather dripping garlands

Of mottled toadstools

To show the hate we loved him with.

 

[ . . . ]

 

Ferdinand Reyher's poem "Kaleidoscopics" was published in the 1916 Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

“Outskirts” by Sacheverell Sitwell

"Outskirts"

The gold voice of the sunset was most clearly in the air

As I wandered through the outskirts of the town.

 

And here disposed upon the grass, I see

Confetti-thick the amorous couples,—

What thoughts, what scenes, evoke, evaporate

In leaden minds like theirs?

Can I create them? These things

Which mean the happiness of multitudes?

A river bank, grass for a dancing floor,

The concertina's wail, and then the darkening day.

 

Raise your eyes from ground to trees

And see them stretch elastically

Tall and taller,—then look along

 

[ . . . ]

 

Sacheverell Sitwell's poem "Outskirts" was published in the 1918 "cycle" of the Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

“Discovery” by John Freeman

"Discovery"

Beauty walked over the hills and made them bright.

She in the long fresh grass scattered her rains

Sparkling and glittering like a host of stars,

But not like stars cold, severe, terrible.

Hers was the laughter of the wind that leaped

Arm-full of shadows, flinging them far and wide.

Hers the bright light within the quick green

Of every new leaf on the oldest tree.

It was her swimming made the river run

Shining as the sun;

Her voice, escaped from winter's chill and dark,

Singing in the incessant lark. . . .

All this was hers yet all this had not been

Except 'twas seen.

It was my eyes, Beauty, that made thee bright;

My ears that heard, the blood leaping in my veins,

The vehemence of transfiguring thought

Not lights and shadows, birds, grasses and rains

That made thy wonders wonderful.

For it has been, Beauty, that I have seen thee,

Tedious as a painted cloth at a bad play,

Empty of meaning and so of all delight.

Now thou hast blessed me with a great pure bliss,

Shaking thy rainy light all over the earth,

And I have paid thee with my thankfulness.

 

John Freeman's poem "Discovery" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1916-1917. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

Project Gutenberg (HTML version)

“Mid-Day” by H.D.

"Mid-Day"

The light beats upon me.

I am startled—

A split leaf crackles on the paved floor—

I am anguished—defeated.

 

A slight wind shakes the seed-pods.

My thoughts are spent

As the black seeds.

[ . . . ]

 

H.D.'s poem "Mid-Day" was published in the 1916 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read the poem in full in this publication context follow the links below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

Project Gutenberg (text version)

“To a Fumbling Lover” by Jeanne D’Orge

"To a Fumbling Lover"

The sea would know the way to go about it

The moon has taught the tide a thousand

subtle ways of mastery

[ . . . ]

Jeanne D'Orge's poem "To a Fumbling Lover" was published in 1920 in the third Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org 

Sonnet “This is no time for prayers or words or song” by Nancy Cunard

Sonnet

This is no time for prayers or words or song.

With folded hands we sit and slowly stare.

The world's old wheels go round, and like a fair

The clowns and peep-shows ever pass along.

[ . . . ]

Nancy Cunard's sonnet "This is no time for prayers or words or song" was published in the first "cycle" of the Wheels anthology in 1916. To read this sonnet in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

Modernist Journals Project