Poems (Tree)/Among th Crumbling Arches of Decay

by Iris Tree

AMONG the crumbling arches of decay
Where all around the red new buildings crept,
Where huge machines had rolled the past away,
And the dead princes lay accursed and slept;

Among the ruins I beheld a man
Who heeded not the engines as they neared,
Painting dead carnivals upon a fan,
He smiled and trifled with his pointed beard.

And here and there were flung a mess of things,
Tokens and fripperies and faded dresses,
Kept from the courtships of a thousand kings,
Tossed roses for the tossing of caresses.

A carven sabre hung upon the wall,
A toy thing, with no rust of blood upon it,
A tray of glasses, an embroidered shawl,
A muff, a bottle and a feathered bonnet.

And mirrors flashed their argent memories
Out of the shadows where they laughed and gleamed,
While ghostly faces of past vanities
Come back to dream there where they once had dreamed.

The stranger turned his head and bowed to me
And waved me vaguely to a gilded chair.
I spoke: "You are a connoisseur, I see,
You really have a fine collection there."

He bowed to me again, and in his hand
Dangled a string of gems, they caught my eye
With beckoning lights—I could not understand—
His fingers seemed to touch them like a sigh

So much he loved their frail inconsequence.
I spoke of progress conquering decay,
And tired the stillness with my common sense
Loud-spoken in the jargon of the day.

But I have never met so queer a man,
"I better love my memories," he said,
"Look at those painted figures on the fan,
How delicate and wistful are the dead."

1917