Poems 1905-1908

Second Best

Day that I Have Loved

Sleeping Out: Full Moon

In Examination

Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening

Wagner

The Vision of the Archangels

Seaside

On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess

The Song of the Pilgrims

The Song of the Beasts

Failure

Ante Aram

Dawn

The Call

The Wayfarers

The Beginning

 

Wagner

Creeps in half wanton, half asleep,
   One with a fat wide hairless face.
He likes love-music that is cheap;
   Likes women in a crowded place;
      And wants to hear the noise they're making.

His heavy eyelids droop half-over,
   Great pouches swing beneath his eyes.
He listens, thinks himself the lover,
   Heaves from his stomach wheezy sighs;
      He likes to feel his heart's a-breaking.

The music swells. His gross legs quiver.
   His little lips are bright with slime.
The music swells. The women shiver.
   And all the while, in perfect time,
      His pendulous stomach hangs a-shaking.

Queen's Hall, 1908.