Poems (Tree)/Winding Down the Street in Wearied Gaiety
WINDING down the street in wearied gaiety, the barrel-organ dribbled out its song
Merged with the thud of feet forever dallying indifferent and indefinite along.
The houses stood like rows of cripples, some paralysed, some hunch-backed and some bent with age,
They seemed at war, their chimneys threatening, their brows hung heavy in a sombre rage.
Crab-like the children crawled, while always hammering above their heads the scolding shrewish tongue;
They grew as bloodless flowers unflourishing, waxen and pale from out the dust and dung.
Above I saw the strip of sunset fluttering, even as washed- out rags upon the line,
I listened to the sparrows twittering, and the hours ticking in a slow decline.
Then beaded on the hem of evening, the coloured lights were threaded here and there,
Till proud with sweets and plumes and oranges, the shops grew brilliant in the tinsel glare.
Grey was the death-bed of the twilight, shuddering the faint hands of the day stretched to the night,
Fending it off, or feebly wavering over the pallid glints of stolen light.
And grey the faces that were gathering among the fallen ashes of the day,
And red the faces, yellow, flickering, under the lamps upon the long highway.
And some were gashed with smiles, and quaint grimaces of hate and pain and hunger and despair,
And some wore coloured hats and meek frivolities, limp ribbons, and false pansies in their hair,
But all were cold, and all seemed passionless; there shone no zest or splendour in their lives,
Nor hope in anything but holidays, or watching funerals, or taking wives.
I dared not think, for truth rose horrible, slapping the face with coarse uncaring hand,
But like them cheated into merriment, I wilfully refused to understand;
Turned me away from wan-eyed poverty, trod pity underfoot, oh, danced on grief,
Bade the crowd sing and fill my desolation, bade them be glad and hide my disbelief.
Merged with the thud of feet forever dallying indifferent and indefinite along.
The houses stood like rows of cripples, some paralysed, some hunch-backed and some bent with age,
They seemed at war, their chimneys threatening, their brows hung heavy in a sombre rage.
Crab-like the children crawled, while always hammering above their heads the scolding shrewish tongue;
They grew as bloodless flowers unflourishing, waxen and pale from out the dust and dung.
Above I saw the strip of sunset fluttering, even as washed- out rags upon the line,
I listened to the sparrows twittering, and the hours ticking in a slow decline.
Then beaded on the hem of evening, the coloured lights were threaded here and there,
Till proud with sweets and plumes and oranges, the shops grew brilliant in the tinsel glare.
Grey was the death-bed of the twilight, shuddering the faint hands of the day stretched to the night,
Fending it off, or feebly wavering over the pallid glints of stolen light.
And grey the faces that were gathering among the fallen ashes of the day,
And red the faces, yellow, flickering, under the lamps upon the long highway.
And some were gashed with smiles, and quaint grimaces of hate and pain and hunger and despair,
And some wore coloured hats and meek frivolities, limp ribbons, and false pansies in their hair,
But all were cold, and all seemed passionless; there shone no zest or splendour in their lives,
Nor hope in anything but holidays, or watching funerals, or taking wives.
I dared not think, for truth rose horrible, slapping the face with coarse uncaring hand,
But like them cheated into merriment, I wilfully refused to understand;
Turned me away from wan-eyed poverty, trod pity underfoot, oh, danced on grief,
Bade the crowd sing and fill my desolation, bade them be glad and hide my disbelief.
Strange we so love the world for presently, out of my window looking on the city,
I blessed the night, and the roofs slumbering all huddled, and I felt no shame nor pity
For all our dusty days of journeying amid the wreck and ruins of our dreams,
Meandering in a bleared forgetfulness, where lethe laps the wharf of sleeping streams.
I only breathed the air, intensified by the ascending breath of million lungs,
And heard the labouring metropolis, quickened by whispers of a million tongues;
And felt a king of splendid loneliness, and felt an atom of the peopled spaces,
And felt again my lordly egoism, one face distinct among the blur of faces.
I blessed the night, and the roofs slumbering all huddled, and I felt no shame nor pity
For all our dusty days of journeying amid the wreck and ruins of our dreams,
Meandering in a bleared forgetfulness, where lethe laps the wharf of sleeping streams.
I only breathed the air, intensified by the ascending breath of million lungs,
And heard the labouring metropolis, quickened by whispers of a million tongues;
And felt a king of splendid loneliness, and felt an atom of the peopled spaces,
And felt again my lordly egoism, one face distinct among the blur of faces.
1913