Stillness, and then,
something moves:
green, oh green, dazzling lightning!
something moves:
green, oh green, dazzling lightning!
Imagists
.
Darkness!
Have I performed
the dozen acts or so
that make me the man
men see?
The door opens,
and on the landing--
quiet!
I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness!
Stairs, banisters, a handrail:
all indistinguishable.
One step farther down or up,
and why?
But up is harder. Down!
Down to this white blur;
it gives before me.
Me?
I extend all ways:
I fit into the walls and they pull me.
Light?
Light! I know it is light.
Stillness, and then,
something moves:
green, oh green, dazzling lightning!
And joy! this is my room;
there are my books, there the piano,
there the last bar I wrote,
there the last line,
and oh the sunlight!
A parrot screeches.
ACCIDENT
Dear one!
you sit there
in the corner of the carriage;
and you do not know me;
and your eyes forbid.
Is it the dirt, the squalor,
the wear of human bodies,
and the dead faces of our neighbours?
These are but symbols.
You are proud; I praise you;
your mouth is set; you see beyond us;
and you see nothing.
I have the vision of your calm, cold face,
and of the black hair that waves above it;
I watch you; I love you;
I desire you.
There is a quiet here
within the thud-thud of the wheels
upon the railway.
There is a quiet here
within my heart,
but tense and tender. . . .
This is my station.
Darkness!
Have I performed
the dozen acts or so
that make me the man
men see?
The door opens,
and on the landing--
quiet!
I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness!
Stairs, banisters, a handrail:
all indistinguishable.
One step farther down or up,
and why?
But up is harder. Down!
Down to this white blur;
it gives before me.
Me?
I extend all ways:
I fit into the walls and they pull me.
Light?
Light! I know it is light.
Stillness, and then,
something moves:
green, oh green, dazzling lightning!
And joy! this is my room;
there are my books, there the piano,
there the last bar I wrote,
there the last line,
and oh the sunlight!
A parrot screeches.
ACCIDENT
Dear one!
you sit there
in the corner of the carriage;
and you do not know me;
and your eyes forbid.
Is it the dirt, the squalor,
the wear of human bodies,
and the dead faces of our neighbours?
These are but symbols.
You are proud; I praise you;
your mouth is set; you see beyond us;
and you see nothing.
I have the vision of your calm, cold face,
and of the black hair that waves above it;
I watch you; I love you;
I desire you.
There is a quiet here
within the thud-thud of the wheels
upon the railway.
There is a quiet here
within my heart,
but tense and tender. . . .
This is my station.