You were my
playmate
by the sea.
Imagists
The sky darts through you like blue rain,
And the grey rain drips on your flanks
And loves you.
And I have seen the moon
Slip his silver penny into your pocket
As you straightened your hair;
And the white mist curling and hesitating
Like a bashful lover about your knees.
I know you, poplar;
I have watched you since I was ten.
But if you had a little real love,
A little strength,
You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers
And go walking down the white road
Behind the waggoners.
There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill.
Will you always stand there shivering?
ROUND-POND
Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind
Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers
Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight.
The shining of the sun upon the water
Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals
In a long wavering irregular flight.
The water is cold to the eye
As the wind to the cheek.
In the budding chestnuts
Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open
The starlings make their clitter-clatter;
And the blackbirds in the grass
Are getting as fat as the pigeons.
Too-hoo, this is brave;
Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress.
DAISY
"_Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,
Nunc_. . . "
CATULLUS.
You were my playmate by the sea.
We swam together.
Your girl's body had no breasts.
We found prawns among the rocks;
We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing;
In the evening we played games with the others.
It made me glad to be by you.
Sometimes I kissed you,
And you were always glad to kiss me;
But I was afraid--I was only fourteen.
And I had quite forgotten you,
You and your name.
To-day I pass through the streets.
She who touches my arm and talks with me
Is--who knows? --Helen of Sparta,
Dryope, Laodamia. . . .
And there are you
A whore in Oxford Street.
EPIGRAMS
A GIRL
You were that clear Sicilian fluting
That pains our thought even now.
You were the notes
Of cold fantastic grief
Some few found beautiful.
