Some Imagist Poets, 1916 Part 9

Shoes beat, slap, Shuffle, rap, And the nasal pipes squeal with their pigs' voices, Little pigs' voices Weaving among the dancers, A fine, white thread Linking up the dancers.

Bang! b.u.mp! Tong!

Petticoats, Stockings, Sabots, Delirium flapping its thigh-bones; Red, blue, yellow, Drunkenness steaming in colours; Red, yellow, blue, Colours and flesh weaving together, In and out, with the dance, Coa.r.s.e stuffs and hot flesh weaving together.

Pigs' cries white and tenuous, White and painful, White and-- b.u.mp!

Tong!

SECOND MOVEMENT

Pale violin music whiffs across the moon, A pale smoke of violin music blows over the moon, Cherry petals fall and flutter, And the white Pierrot, Wreathed in the smoke of the violins, Splashed with cherry petals falling, falling, Claws a grave for himself in the fresh earth With his finger-nails.

THIRD MOVEMENT

An organ growls in the heavy roof-groins of a church, It wheezes and coughs.

The nave is blue with incense, Writhing, twisting, Snaking over the heads of the chanting priests.

_Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine;_ The priests whine their b.a.s.t.a.r.d Latin And the censers swing and click.

The priests walk endlessly Round and round, Droning their Latin Off the key.

The organ crashes out in a flaring chord And the priests. .h.i.tch their chant up half a tone.

_Dies illa, dies irae,_ _Calamitatis et miseriae,_ _Dies magna et amara valde._ A wind rattles the leaded windows.

The little pear-shaped candle-flames leap and flutter.

_Dies illa, dies irae,_ The swaying smoke drifts over the altar.

_Calamitatis et miseriae,_ The shuffling priests sprinkle holy water.

_Dies magna et amara valde._ And there is a stark stillness in the midst of them, Stretched upon a bier.

His ears are stone to the organ, His eyes are flint to the candles, His body is ice to the water.

Chant, priests, Whine, shuffle, genuflect.

He will always be as rigid as he is now Until he crumbles away in a dust heap.

_Lacrymosa dies illa,_ _Qua resurget ex favilla_ _Judicandus h.o.m.o reus._ Above the grey pillars, the roof is in darkness.

THE END