Excerpt from Some Imagist Poets
PREFACE
In March, 1914, a volume appeared entitled “Des Imagistes.” It was a collection of the work of various young poets, presented together as a school. This school has been widely discussed by those interested in new movements in the arts, and has already become a household word. Differences of taste and judgment, however, have arisen among the contributors to that book; growing tendencies are forcing them along different paths. Those of us whose work appears in this volume have therefore decided to publish our collection under a new title, and we have been joined by two or three poets who did not contribute to the first volume, our wider scope making this possible.
In this new book we have followed a slightly different arrangement to that of the former Anthology. Instead of an arbitrary selection by an editor, each poet has been permitted to represent himself by the work he considers his best, the only stipulation being that it should not yet have appeared in book form. A sort of informal committee—consisting of more than half the authors here represented—have arranged the book and decided what [Pg vi]should be printed and what omitted, but, as a general rule, the poets have been allowed absolute freedom in this direction, limitations of space only being imposed upon them. Also, to avoid any appearance of precedence, they have been put in alphabetical order.
As it has been suggested that much of the misunderstanding of the former volume was due to the fact that we did not explain ourselves in a preface, we have thought it wise to tell the public what our aims are, and why we are banded together between one set of covers.
The poets in this volume do not represent a clique. Several of them are personally unknown to the others, but they are united by certain common principles, arrived at independently. These principles are not new; they have fallen into desuetude. They are the essentials of all great poetry, indeed of all great literature, and they are simply these:—
- To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.
- To create new rhythms—as the expression of new moods—and not to copy old rhythms, which merely echo old moods. We do not insist upon “free-verse” as the only method of writing poetry. We fight for it as for [Pg vii]a principle of liberty. We believe that the individuality of a poet may often be better expressed in free-verse than in conventional forms. In poetry, a new cadence means a new idea.
- To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. It is not good art to write badly about aeroplanes and automobiles; nor is it necessarily bad art to write well about the past. We believe passionately in the artistic value of modern life, but we wish to point out that there is nothing so uninspiring nor so old-fashioned as an aeroplane of the year 1911.
- To present an image (hence the name: “Imagist”). We are not a school of painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of his art.
- To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.
- Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence of poetry.
The subject of free-verse is too complicated to be discussed here. We may say briefly, that we attach the term to all that increasing amount of writing whose cadence is more marked, more definite, and closer knit than that of prose, but which is not so violently nor so obviously accented as the so-called “regular verse.” We refer those interested in the question to[Pg viii] the Greek Melic poets, and to the many excellent French studies on the subject by such distinguished and well-equipped authors as Remy de Gourmont, Gustave Kahn, Georges Duhamel, Charles Vildrac, Henri Ghéon, Robert de Souza, André Spire, etc.
We wish it to be clearly understood that we do not represent an exclusive artistic sect; we publish our work together because of mutual artistic sympathy, and we propose to bring out our coöperative volume each year for a short term of years, until we have made a place for ourselves and our principles such as we desire.
Thanks are due to the editors of Poetry, The Smart Set, Poetry and Drama, and The Egoist for their courteous permission to reprint certain of these poems which have been copyrighted to them.
RICHARD ALDINGTON
CHILDHOOD
| I |
| The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood Put me out of love with God. I can’t believe in God’s goodness; I can believe In many avenging gods. Most of all I believe In gods of bitter dullness, Cruel local gods Who seared my childhood. |
| II |
| I’ve seen people put A chrysalis in a match-box, “To see,” they told me, “what sort of moth would come.” But when it broke its shell It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison And tried to climb to the light For space to dry its wings. [Pg 4] That’s how I was. Somebody found my chrysalis And shut it in a match-box. My shrivelled wings were beaten, Shed their colours in dusty scales Before the box was opened For the moth to fly.And then it was too late, Because the beauty a child has, And the beautiful things it learns before its birth, Were shed, like moth-scales, from me. |
| III |
| I hate that town; I hate the town I lived in when I was little; I hate to think of it. There were always clouds, smoke, rain In that dingy little valley. It rained; it always rained. I think I never saw the sun until I was nine— And then it was too late; Everything’s too late after the first seven years. [Pg 5] That long street we lived in Was duller than a drain And nearly as dingy. There were the big College And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. There were the sordid provincial shops— The grocer’s, and the shops for women, The shop where I bought transfers, And the piano and gramaphone shop Where I used to stand Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone.How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! On wet days—it was always wet— I used to kneel on a chair And look at it from the window.The dirty yellow trams Dragged noisily along With a clatter of wheels and bells And a humming of wires overhead. They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines And then the water ran back Full of brownish foam bubbles. [Pg 6] There was nothing else to see— It was all so dull— Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas Running along the grey shiny pavements; Sometimes there was a waggon Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound With their hoofs Through the silent rain. And there was a grey museum I was like a moth—- |
| IV |
| At school it was just dull as that dull High Street. They taught me pothooks— I wanted to be alone, although I was so little, Alone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness, Away somewhere else—The town was dull; The front was dull; The High Street and the other street were dull— And there was a public park, I remember, And that was damned dull too, With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, And its clipped lawns you weren’t allowed to walk on, And the gold-fish pond you mustn’t paddle in, And the gate made out of a whale’s jaw-bones, And the swings, which were for “Board-School children,” And its gravel paths.And on Sundays they rang the bells, From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. They had the Salvation Army. I was taken to a High Church; The parson’s name was Mowbray, “Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it—” That’s what I heard people say. [Pg 8] I took a little black book To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, And I had to sit on a hard bench, Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms, And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed— And then there was nothing to do Except to play trains with the hymn-books. There was nothing to see, |
| [Pg 9]V |
| I don’t believe in God. I do believe in avenging gods Who plague us for sins we never sinned But who avenge us.That’s why I’ll never have a child, Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box For the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours, Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall. |
THE POPLAR
| Why do you always stand there shivering Between the white stream and the road?The people pass through the dust On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; The waggoners go by at dawn; The lovers walk on the grass path at night.Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! You are more beautiful than they are. I know that the white wind loves you, There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill. |
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; |
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 I had quite forgotten you, To-day I pass through the streets. And there are you |
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. |
| new love |
| She has new leaves After her dead flowers, Like the little almond-tree Which the frost hurt. |
| october |
| The beech-leaves are silver For lack of the tree’s blood.At your kiss my lips Become like the autumn beech-leaves. |
THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME
| Zeus, Brazen-thunder-hurler, Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos, Send vengeance on these Oreads Who strew White frozen flecks of mist and cloud Over the brown trees and the tufted grass Of the meadows, where the stream Runs black through shining banks Of bluish white.Zeus, Are the halls of heaven broken up That you flake down upon me Feather-strips of marble?Dis and Styx! When I stamp my hoof The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft So that I reel upon two slippery points…. Fool, to stand here cursing |
LEMURES
| In Nineveh And beyond Nineveh In the dusk They were afraid.In Thebes of Egypt In the dusk They chanted of them to the dead.In my Lesbos and Achaia Where the God dwelt We knew them. Now men say “They are not”: |
- D.
THE POOL
| Are you alive? I touch you. You quiver like a sea-fish. I cover you with my net. What are you—banded one? |
THE GARDEN
| I |
| You are clear, O rose, cut in rock, hard as the descent of hail.I could scrape the colour from the petal, like spilt dye from a rock.If I could break you I could break a tree. If I could stir |
| II |
| O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it sideways.Fruit can not drop [Pg 23]through this thick air: fruit can not fall into heat that presses up and blunts the points of pears and rounds the grapes.Cut the heat, plough through it, turning it on either side of your path. |
SEA LILY
| Reed, slashed and torn, but doubly rich— such great heads as yours drift upon temple-steps, but you are shattered in the wind.Myrtle-bark is flecked from you, scales are dashed from your stem, sand cuts your petal, furrows it with hard edge, like flint on a bright stone.Yet though the whole wind slash at your bark, you are lifted up, aye—though it hiss to cover you with froth. |
SEA IRIS
| I |
| Weed, moss-weed, root tangled in sand, sea-iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken, and you print a shadow like a thin twig.Fortunate one, scented and stinging, rigid myrrh-bud, camphor-flower, sweet and salt—you are wind in our nostrils. |
| II |
| Do the murex-fishers drench you as they pass? Do your roots drag up colour from the sand? Have they slipped gold under you; rivets of gold? [Pg 26] Band of iris-flowers above the waves, You are painted blue, painted like a fresh prow stained among the salt weeds. |
SEA ROSE
| Rose, harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf.more precious than a wet rose, single on a stem— you are caught in the drift.Stunted, with small leaf, you are flung on the sands, you are lifted in the crisp sand that drives in the wind. Can the spice-rose |
OREAD
| Whirl up, sea— Whirl your pointed pines, Splash your great pines On our rocks, Hurl your green over us, Cover us with your pools of fir. |
ORION DEAD
| [Artemis speaks] |
| The cornel-trees uplift from the furrows, the roots at their bases strike lower through the barley-sprays.So arise and face me. I am poisoned with the rage of song.I once pierced the flesh of the wild-deer, now am I afraid to touch the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths? I will tear the full flowers Arise, I break a staff. |