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                             DES IMAGISTES




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             «Καὶ κείνα Σικελά, καὶ ἐν Αἰτναίαισιν ἔπαιζεν
             ἀόσι, καὶ μέλος ᾖδε τὸ Δώριον.»
                                          Επιτάφιος Βίωνος

                        “And she also was of Sikilia and was gay in
                          the valleys of Ætna, and knew the Doric
                          singing.”




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                             DES IMAGISTES

                              AN ANTHOLOGY






                                NEW YORK
                        ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI
                            96 FIFTH AVENUE
                                  1914




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                            Copyright, 1914
                                   By
                        Albert and Charles Boni




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                                CONTENTS


 RICHARD ALDINGTON
     Choricos       7
     To a Greek Marble       10
     Au Vieux Jardin       11
     Lesbia       12
     Beauty Thou Hast Hurt Me Overmuch       13
     Argyria       14
     In the Via Sestina       15
     The River       16
     Bromios       17
     To Atthis       19

 H. D.
     Sitalkas       20
     Hermes of the Ways I       21
     Hermes of the Ways II       22
     Priapus       24
     Acon       26
     Hermonax       28
     Epigram       30

 F. S. FLINT
     I       31
     II Hallucination       32
     III       33
     IV       34
     V The Swan       35

 SKIPWITH CANNÉLL
     Nocturnes       36

 AMY LOWELL
     In a Garden       38

 WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
     Postlude       39

 JAMES JOYCE
     I Hear an Army       40

 EZRA POUND
     Δώρια       41
     The Return       42
     After Ch’u Yuan       43
     Liu Ch’e       44
     Fan-Piece for Her Imperial Lord       45
     Ts’ai Chi’h       46

 FORD MADOX HUEFFER
     In the Little Old Market-Place       47

 ALLEN UPWARD
     Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar       51

 JOHN COURNOS after K. TETMAIER
     The Rose       54

 DOCUMENTS
     To Hulme (T. E.) and Fitzgerald       57
     Vates, the Social Reformer       59
     Fragments Addressed by Clearchus H. to Aldi       62

 _Bibliography_       63




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                                CHORICOS


           The ancient songs
           Pass deathward mournfully.

           Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths,
           Regretful eyes, and drooping breasts and wings—
           Symbols of ancient songs
           Mournfully passing
           Down to the great white surges,
           Watched of none
           Save the frail sea-birds
           And the lithe pale girls,
           Daughters of Okeanus.

           And the songs pass
           From the green land
           Which lies upon the waves as a leaf
           On the flowers of hyacinth;
           And they pass from the waters,
           The manifold winds and the dim moon,
           And they come,
           Silently winging through soft Kimmerian dusk,
           To the quiet level lands
           That she keeps for us all,
           That she wrought for us all for sleep
           In the silver days of the earth’s dawning—
           Proserpina, daughter of Zeus.

           And we turn from the Kuprian’s breasts,
           And we turn from thee,
           Phoibos Apollon,
           And we turn from the music of old
           And the hills that we loved and the meads,
           And we turn from the fiery day,
           And the lips that were over sweet;
           For silently
           Brushing the fields with red-shod feet,
           With purple robe
           Searing the flowers as with a sudden flame,
           Death,
           Thou hast come upon us.

           And of all the ancient songs
           Passing to the swallow-blue halls
           By the dark streams of Persephone,
           This only remains:
           That we turn to thee,
           Death,
           That we turn to thee, singing
           One last song.

           O Death,
           Thou art an healing wind
           That blowest over white flowers
           A-tremble with dew;
           Thou art a wind flowing
           Over dark leagues of lonely sea;
           Thou art the dusk and the fragrance;
           Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling;
           Thou art the pale peace of one
           Satiate with old desires;
           Thou art the silence of beauty,
           And we look no more for the morning
           We yearn no more for the sun,
           Since with thy white hands,
           Death,
           Thou crownest us with the pallid chaplets,
           The slim colourless poppies
           Which in thy garden alone
           Softly thou gatherest.

           And silently,
           And with slow feet approaching,
           And with bowed head and unlit eyes,
           We kneel before thee:
           And thou, leaning towards us,
           Caressingly layest upon us
           Flowers from thy thin cold hands,
           And, smiling as a chaste woman
           Knowing love in her heart,
           Thou sealest our eyes
           And the illimitable quietude
           Comes gently upon us.

                                            RICHARD ALDINGTON




                           TO A GREEK MARBLE


                 Πότνια, πότνια
                 White grave goddess,
                 Pity my sadness,
                 O silence of Paros.

                 I am not of these about thy feet,
                 These garments and decorum;
                 I am thy brother,
                 Thy lover of aforetime crying to thee,
                 And thou hearest me not.

                 I have whispered thee in thy solitudes
                 Of our loves in Phrygia,
                 The far ecstasy of burning noons
                 When the fragile pipes
                 Ceased in the cypress shade,
                 And the brown fingers of the shepherd
                 Moved over slim shoulders;
                 And only the cicada sang.

                 I have told thee of the hills
                 And the lisp of reeds
                 And the sun upon thy breasts,

                 And thou hearest me not,
                 Πότνια, πότνια,
                 Thou hearest me not.

                                      RICHARD ALDINGTON




                            AU VIEUX JARDIN


        I have sat here happy in the gardens,
        Watching the still pool and the reeds
        And the dark clouds
        Which the wind of the upper air
        Tore like the green leafy boughs
        Of the divers-hued trees of late summer;
        But though I greatly delight
        In these and the water lilies,
        That which sets me nighest to weeping
        Is the rose and white colour of the smooth flag-stones,
        And the pale yellow grasses
        Among them.

                                              RICHARD ALDINGTON




                                 LESBIA


             Use no more speech now;
             Let the silence spread gold hair above us
             Fold on delicate fold;
             You had the ivory of my life to carve.
             Use no more speech.
                           .   .   .   .

             And Picus of Mirandola is dead;
             And all the gods they dreamed and fabled of,
             Hermes, and Thoth, and Christ, are rotten now,
             Rotten and dank.
                           .   .   .   .

             And through it all I see your pale Greek face;
             Tenderness makes me as eager as a little child
             To love you

             You morsel left half cold on Caesar’s plate.

                                          RICHARD ALDINGTON




                   BEAUTY THOU HAST HURT ME OVERMUCH


                      The light is a wound to me.
                      The soft notes
                      Feed upon the wound.

                      Where wert thou born
                      O thou woe
                      That consumest my life?
                      Whither comest thou?

                      Toothed wind of the seas,
                      No man knows thy beginning.
                      As a bird with strong claws
                      Thou woundest me,
                      O beautiful sorrow.

                                RICHARD ALDINGTON




                                ARGYRIA


             O you,
             O you most fair,
             Swayer of reeds, whisperer
             Among the flowering rushes,
             You have hidden your hands
             Beneath the poplar leaves,
             You have given them to the white waters.

             Swallow-fleet,
             Sea-child cold from waves,
             Slight reed that sang so blithely in the wind,
             White cloud the white sun kissed into the air;
             Pan mourns for you.

             White limbs, white song,
             Pan mourns for you.

                                          RICHARD ALDINGTON




                           IN THE VIA SESTINA


                O daughter of Isis,
                Thou standest beside the wet highway
                Of this decayed Rome,
                A manifest harlot.

                Straight and slim art thou
                As a marble phallus;
                Thy face is the face of Isis
                Carven

                As she is carven in basalt.
                And my heart stops with awe
                At the presence of the gods,

                There beside thee on the stall of images
                Is the head of Osiris
                Thy lord.

                                       RICHARD ALDINGTON




                               THE RIVER


                                   I

               I drifted along the river
               Until I moored my boat
               By these crossed trunks.

               Here the mist moves
               Over fragile leaves and rushes,
               Colourless waters and brown fading hills.

               She has come from beneath the trees,
               Moving within the mist,
               A floating leaf.

                                  II

               O blue flower of the evening,
               You have touched my face
               With your leaves of silver.

               Love me for I must depart.

                                       RICHARD ALDINGTON




                                BROMIOS


             The withered bonds are broken.
             The waxed reeds and the double pipe
             Clamour about me;
             The hot wind swirls
             Through the red pine trunks.

             Io! the fauns and the satyrs.
             The touch of their shagged curled fur
             And blunt horns!

             They have wine in heavy craters
             Painted black and red;
             Wine to splash on her white body.
             Io!
             She shrinks from the cold shower—
             Afraid, afraid!

             Let the Maenads break through the myrtles
             And the boughs of the rohododaphnai.
             Let them tear the quick deers’ flesh.
             Ah, the cruel, exquisite fingers!

             Io!
             I have brought you the brown clusters,
             The ivy-boughs and pine-cones.

             Your breasts are cold sea-ripples,
             But they smell of the warm grasses.

             Throw wide the chiton and the peplum,
             Maidens of the Dew.
             Beautiful are your bodies, O Maenads,
             Beautiful the sudden folds,
             The vanishing curves of the white linen
             About you.

             Io!
             Hear the rich laughter of the forest,
             The cymbals,
             The trampling of the panisks and the centaurs.

                                         RICHARD ALDINGTON