{"id":1016,"date":"2020-03-21T19:28:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T19:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-collegecomposition\/?post_type=chapter&p=1016"},"modified":"2020-03-27T17:17:33","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T17:17:33","slug":"some-imagist-poets","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-collegecomposition\/chapter\/some-imagist-poets\/","title":{"raw":"Some Imagist Poets","rendered":"Some Imagist Poets"},"content":{"raw":"PREFACE<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIn 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.\r\n\r\nIn 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\u2014consisting of more than half the authors here represented\u2014have 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.\r\n\r\nAs 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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:\u2014\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact<\/em> word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. To create new rhythms\u2014as the expression of new moods\u2014and 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.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. 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.<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. 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.<\/li>\r\n \t
  5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.<\/li>\r\n \t
  6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence of poetry.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nThe 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 Gh\u00e9on, Robert de Souza, Andr\u00e9 Spire, etc.\r\n\r\nWe 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 co\u00f6perative volume each year for a short term of years, until we have made a place for ourselves and our principles such as we desire.\r\n
    <\/div>\r\nThanks are due to the editors of Poetry<\/em>, The Smart Set<\/em>, Poetry and Drama<\/em>, and The Egoist<\/em> for their courteous permission to reprint certain of these poems which have been copyrighted to them.\r\n\r\nRICHARD ALDINGTON<\/strong>\r\n\r\nCHILDHOOD<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    I<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood\r\nPut me out of love with God.\r\nI can't believe in God's goodness;\r\nI can believe\r\nIn many avenging gods.\r\nMost of all I believe\r\nIn gods of bitter dullness,\r\nCruel local gods\r\nWho seared my childhood.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    II<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    I've seen people put\r\nA chrysalis in a match-box,\r\n\"To see,\" they told me, \"what sort of moth would come.\"\r\nBut when it broke its shell\r\nIt slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison\r\nAnd tried to climb to the light\r\nFor space to dry its wings.\r\n[Pg 4]\r\nThat's how I was.\r\nSomebody found my chrysalis\r\nAnd shut it in a match-box.\r\nMy shrivelled wings were beaten,\r\nShed their colours in dusty scales\r\nBefore the box was opened\r\nFor the moth to fly.And then it was too late,\r\nBecause the beauty a child has,\r\nAnd the beautiful things it learns before its birth,\r\nWere shed, like moth-scales, from me.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    III<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    I hate that town;\r\nI hate the town I lived in when I was little;\r\nI hate to think of it.\r\nThere were always clouds, smoke, rain\r\nIn that dingy little valley.\r\nIt rained; it always rained.\r\nI think I never saw the sun until I was nine\u2014\r\nAnd then it was too late;\r\nEverything's too late after the first seven years.\r\n[Pg 5]\r\nThat long street we lived in\r\nWas duller than a drain\r\nAnd nearly as dingy.\r\nThere were the big College\r\nAnd the pseudo-Gothic town-hall.\r\nThere were the sordid provincial shops\u2014\r\nThe grocer's, and the shops for women,\r\nThe shop where I bought transfers,\r\nAnd the piano and gramaphone shop\r\nWhere I used to stand\r\nStaring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures\r\nOf a white dog looking into a gramaphone.How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was!\r\nOn wet days\u2014it was always wet\u2014\r\nI used to kneel on a chair\r\nAnd look at it from the window.The dirty yellow trams\r\nDragged noisily along\r\nWith a clatter of wheels and bells\r\nAnd a humming of wires overhead.\r\nThey threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines\r\nAnd then the water ran back\r\nFull of brownish foam bubbles.\r\n[Pg 6]\r\nThere was nothing else to see\u2014\r\nIt was all so dull\u2014\r\nExcept a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas\r\nRunning along the grey shiny pavements;\r\nSometimes there was a waggon\r\nWhose horses made a strange loud hollow sound\r\nWith their hoofs\r\nThrough the silent rain.\r\n\r\nAnd there was a grey museum\r\nFull of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals\r\nAnd a few relics of the Romans\u2014dead also.\r\nThere was the sea-front,\r\nA long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it,\r\nThree piers, a row of houses,\r\nAnd a salt dirty smell from the little harbour.\r\n\r\nI was like a moth\u2014-\r\nLike one of those grey Emperor moths\r\nWhich flutter through the vines at Capri.\r\nAnd that damned little town was my match-box,\r\nAgainst whose sides I beat and beat\r\nUntil my wings were torn and faded, and dingy\r\nAs that damned little town.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    IV<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    At school it was just dull as that dull High Street.\r\nThey taught me pothooks\u2014\r\nI wanted to be alone, although I was so little,\r\nAlone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness,\r\nAway somewhere else\u2014The town was dull;\r\nThe front was dull;\r\nThe High Street and the other street were dull\u2014\r\nAnd there was a public park, I remember,\r\nAnd that was damned dull too,\r\nWith its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick,\r\nAnd its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on,\r\nAnd the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in,\r\nAnd the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones,\r\nAnd the swings, which were for \"Board-School children,\"\r\nAnd its gravel paths.And on Sundays they rang the bells,\r\nFrom Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches.\r\nThey had the Salvation Army.\r\nI was taken to a High Church;\r\nThe parson's name was Mowbray,\r\n\"Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it\u2014\"\r\nThat's what I heard people say.\r\n[Pg 8]\r\nI took a little black book\r\nTo that cold, grey, damp, smelling church,\r\nAnd I had to sit on a hard bench,\r\nWriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms,\r\nAnd wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed\u2014\r\nAnd then there was nothing to do\r\nExcept to play trains with the hymn-books.\r\n\r\nThere was nothing to see,\r\nNothing to do,\r\nNothing to play with,\r\nExcept that in an empty room upstairs\r\nThere was a large tin box\r\nContaining reproductions of the Magna Charta,\r\nOf the Declaration of Independence\r\nAnd of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada.\r\nThere were also several packets of stamps,\r\nYellow and blue Guatemala parrots,\r\nBlue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak,\r\nIndians and Men-of-war\r\nFrom the United States,\r\nAnd the green and red portraits\r\nOf King Francobollo\r\nOf Italy.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    [Pg 9]V<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    I don't believe in God.\r\nI do believe in avenging gods\r\nWho plague us for sins we never sinned\r\nBut who avenge us.That's why I'll never have a child,\r\nNever shut up a chrysalis in a match-box\r\nFor the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours,\r\nBeating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nTHE POPLAR<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    Why do you always stand there shivering\r\nBetween the white stream and the road?The people pass through the dust\r\nOn bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars;\r\nThe waggoners go by at dawn;\r\nThe lovers walk on the grass path at night.Stir from your roots, walk, poplar!\r\nYou are more beautiful than they are.\r\n\r\nI know that the white wind loves you,\r\nIs always kissing you and turning up\r\nThe white lining of your green petticoat.\r\nThe sky darts through you like blue rain,\r\nAnd the grey rain drips on your flanks\r\nAnd loves you.\r\nAnd I have seen the moon\r\nSlip his silver penny into your pocket\r\nAs you straightened your hair;\r\nAnd the white mist curling and hesitating\r\nLike a bashful lover about your knees.\r\n[Pg 11]\r\nI know you, poplar;\r\nI have watched you since I was ten.\r\nBut if you had a little real love,\r\nA little strength,\r\nYou would leave your nonchalant idle lovers\r\nAnd go walking down the white road\r\nBehind the waggoners.\r\n\r\nThere are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill.\r\nWill you always stand there shivering?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nROUND-POND<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind\r\nWhich puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers\r\nDashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight.\r\nThe shining of the sun upon the water\r\nIs like a scattering of gold crocus-petals\r\nIn a long wavering irregular flight.The water is cold to the eye\r\nAs the wind to the cheek.In the budding chestnuts\r\nWhose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open\r\nThe starlings make their clitter-clatter;\r\nAnd the blackbirds in the grass\r\nAre getting as fat as the pigeons.\r\n\r\nToo-hoo, this is brave;\r\nEven the cold wind is seeking a new mistress.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nDAISY<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    \"Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,<\/em>\r\nNunc<\/em>...\"\r\nCatullus.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    You were my playmate by the sea.\r\nWe swam together.\r\nYour girl's body had no breasts.We found prawns among the rocks;\r\nWe liked to feel the sun and to do nothing;\r\nIn the evening we played games with the others.It made me glad to be by you.\r\n\r\nSometimes I kissed you,\r\nAnd you were always glad to kiss me;\r\nBut I was afraid\u2014I was only fourteen.\r\n\r\nAnd I had quite forgotten you,\r\nYou and your name.\r\n\r\nTo-day I pass through the streets.\r\n[Pg 14]She who touches my arm and talks with me\r\nIs\u2014who knows?\u2014Helen of Sparta,\r\nDryope, Laodamia....\r\n\r\nAnd there are you\r\nA whore in Oxford Street.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nEPIGRAMS<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    a girl<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    You were that clear Sicilian fluting\r\nThat pains our thought even now.\r\nYou were the notes\r\nOf cold fantastic grief\r\nSome few found beautiful.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    new love<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    She has new leaves\r\nAfter her dead flowers,\r\nLike the little almond-tree\r\nWhich the frost hurt.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    october<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    The beech-leaves are silver\r\nFor lack of the tree's blood.At your kiss my lips\r\nBecome like the autumn beech-leaves.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nTHE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    Zeus,\r\nBrazen-thunder-hurler,\r\nCloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos,\r\nSend vengeance on these Oreads\r\nWho strew\r\nWhite frozen flecks of mist and cloud\r\nOver the brown trees and the tufted grass\r\nOf the meadows, where the stream\r\nRuns black through shining banks\r\nOf bluish white.Zeus,\r\nAre the halls of heaven broken up\r\nThat you flake down upon me\r\nFeather-strips of marble?Dis and Styx!\r\nWhen I stamp my hoof\r\nThe frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft\r\nSo that I reel upon two slippery points....\r\n\r\nFool, to stand here cursing\r\nWhen I might be running!<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nLEMURES<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    In Nineveh\r\nAnd beyond Nineveh\r\nIn the dusk\r\nThey were afraid.In Thebes of Egypt\r\nIn the dusk\r\nThey chanted of them to the dead.In my Lesbos and Achaia\r\nWhere the God dwelt\r\nWe knew them.\r\n\r\nNow men say \"They are not\":\r\nBut in the dusk\r\nEre the white sun comes\u2014\r\nA gay child that bears a white candle\u2014\r\nI am afraid of their rustling,\r\nOf their terrible silence,\r\nThe menace of their secrecy.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n
      \r\n \t
    1. D.<\/strong><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nTHE POOL<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
      Are you alive?\r\nI touch you.\r\nYou quiver like a sea-fish.\r\nI cover you with my net.\r\nWhat are you\u2014banded one?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nTHE GARDEN<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
      I<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      You are clear,\r\nO rose, cut in rock,\r\nhard as the descent of hail.I could scrape the colour\r\nfrom the petal,\r\nlike spilt dye from a rock.If I could break you\r\nI could break a tree.\r\n\r\nIf I could stir\r\nI could break a tree,\r\nI could break you.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      II<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      O wind,\r\nrend open the heat,\r\ncut apart the heat,\r\nrend it sideways.Fruit can not drop\r\n[Pg 23]through this thick air:\r\nfruit can not fall into heat\r\nthat presses up and blunts\r\nthe points of pears\r\nand rounds the grapes.Cut the heat,\r\nplough through it,\r\nturning it on either side\r\nof your path.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nSEA LILY\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
      Reed,\r\nslashed and torn,\r\nbut doubly rich\u2014\r\nsuch great heads as yours\r\ndrift upon temple-steps,\r\nbut you are shattered\r\nin the wind.Myrtle-bark\r\nis flecked from you,\r\nscales are dashed\r\nfrom your stem,\r\nsand cuts your petal,\r\nfurrows it with hard edge,\r\nlike flint\r\non a bright stone.Yet though the whole wind\r\nslash at your bark,\r\nyou are lifted up,\r\naye\u2014though it hiss\r\nto cover you with froth.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nSEA IRIS<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
      I<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Weed, moss-weed,\r\nroot tangled in sand,\r\nsea-iris, brittle flower,\r\none petal like a shell\r\nis broken,\r\nand you print a shadow\r\nlike a thin twig.Fortunate one,\r\nscented and stinging,\r\nrigid myrrh-bud,\r\ncamphor-flower,\r\nsweet and salt\u2014you are wind\r\nin our nostrils.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      II<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      Do the murex-fishers\r\ndrench you as they pass?\r\nDo your roots drag up colour\r\nfrom the sand?\r\nHave they slipped gold under you;\r\nrivets of gold?\r\n[Pg 26]\r\nBand of iris-flowers\r\nabove the waves,\r\nYou are painted blue,\r\npainted like a fresh prow\r\nstained among the salt weeds.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n \r\n\r\nSEA ROSE<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
      Rose, harsh rose,\r\nmarred and with stint of petals,\r\nmeagre flower, thin,\r\nsparse of leaf.more precious\r\nthan a wet rose,\r\nsingle on a stem\u2014\r\nyou are caught in the drift.Stunted, with small leaf,\r\nyou are flung on the sands,\r\nyou are lifted\r\nin the crisp sand\r\nthat drives in the wind.\r\n\r\nCan the spice-rose\r\ndrip such acrid fragrance\r\nhardened in a leaf?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n \r\n\r\nOREAD<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
      Whirl up, sea\u2014\r\nWhirl your pointed pines,\r\nSplash your great pines\r\nOn our rocks,\r\nHurl your green over us,\r\nCover us with your pools of fir.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nORION DEAD<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
      [Artemis speaks<\/em>]<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
      The cornel-trees\r\nuplift from the furrows,\r\nthe roots at their bases\r\nstrike lower through the barley-sprays.So arise and face me.\r\nI am poisoned with the rage of song.I once pierced the flesh<\/em>\r\nof the wild-deer,<\/em>\r\nnow am I afraid to touch<\/em>\r\nthe blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?<\/em>\r\n\r\nI will tear the full flowers<\/em>\r\nand the little heads<\/em>\r\nof the grape-hyacinths.<\/em>\r\nI will strip the life from the bulb<\/em>\r\nuntil the ivory layers<\/em>\r\nlie like narcissus petals<\/em>\r\non the black earth.<\/em>\r\n\r\nArise,<\/em>\r\nlest I bend an ash-tree<\/em>\r\ninto a taut bow,<\/em>\r\nand slay\u2014and tear<\/em>\r\nall the roots from the earth.<\/em>\r\n[Pg 30]\r\nThe cornel-wood blazes\r\nand strikes through the barley-sprays,\r\nbut I have lost heart for this.\r\n\r\nI break a staff.\r\nI break the tough branch.\r\nI know no light in the woods.\r\nI have lost pace with the winds.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n ","rendered":"

      PREFACE<\/strong><\/p>\n

      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.<\/p>\n

      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\u2014consisting of more than half the authors here represented\u2014have 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.<\/p>\n

      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.<\/p>\n

      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:\u2014<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact<\/em> word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.<\/li>\n
      2. To create new rhythms\u2014as the expression of new moods\u2014and 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.<\/li>\n
      3. 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.<\/li>\n
      4. 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.<\/li>\n
      5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.<\/li>\n
      6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence of poetry.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        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 Gh\u00e9on, Robert de Souza, Andr\u00e9 Spire, etc.<\/p>\n

        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 co\u00f6perative volume each year for a short term of years, until we have made a place for ourselves and our principles such as we desire.<\/p>\n

        <\/div>\n

        Thanks are due to the editors of Poetry<\/em>, The Smart Set<\/em>, Poetry and Drama<\/em>, and The Egoist<\/em> for their courteous permission to reprint certain of these poems which have been copyrighted to them.<\/p>\n

        RICHARD ALDINGTON<\/strong><\/p>\n

        CHILDHOOD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
        I<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood
        \nPut me out of love with God.
        \nI can’t believe in God’s goodness;
        \nI can believe
        \nIn many avenging gods.
        \nMost of all I believe
        \nIn gods of bitter dullness,
        \nCruel local gods
        \nWho seared my childhood.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        II<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        I’ve seen people put
        \nA chrysalis in a match-box,
        \n“To see,” they told me, “what sort of moth would come.”
        \nBut when it broke its shell
        \nIt slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison
        \nAnd tried to climb to the light
        \nFor space to dry its wings.
        \n[Pg 4]
        \nThat’s how I was.
        \nSomebody found my chrysalis
        \nAnd shut it in a match-box.
        \nMy shrivelled wings were beaten,
        \nShed their colours in dusty scales
        \nBefore the box was opened
        \nFor the moth to fly.And then it was too late,
        \nBecause the beauty a child has,
        \nAnd the beautiful things it learns before its birth,
        \nWere shed, like moth-scales, from me.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        III<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        I hate that town;
        \nI hate the town I lived in when I was little;
        \nI hate to think of it.
        \nThere were always clouds, smoke, rain
        \nIn that dingy little valley.
        \nIt rained; it always rained.
        \nI think I never saw the sun until I was nine\u2014
        \nAnd then it was too late;
        \nEverything’s too late after the first seven years.
        \n[Pg 5]
        \nThat long street we lived in
        \nWas duller than a drain
        \nAnd nearly as dingy.
        \nThere were the big College
        \nAnd the pseudo-Gothic town-hall.
        \nThere were the sordid provincial shops\u2014
        \nThe grocer’s, and the shops for women,
        \nThe shop where I bought transfers,
        \nAnd the piano and gramaphone shop
        \nWhere I used to stand
        \nStaring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures
        \nOf a white dog looking into a gramaphone.How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was!
        \nOn wet days\u2014it was always wet\u2014
        \nI used to kneel on a chair
        \nAnd look at it from the window.The dirty yellow trams
        \nDragged noisily along
        \nWith a clatter of wheels and bells
        \nAnd a humming of wires overhead.
        \nThey threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines
        \nAnd then the water ran back
        \nFull of brownish foam bubbles.
        \n[Pg 6]
        \nThere was nothing else to see\u2014
        \nIt was all so dull\u2014
        \nExcept a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas
        \nRunning along the grey shiny pavements;
        \nSometimes there was a waggon
        \nWhose horses made a strange loud hollow sound
        \nWith their hoofs
        \nThrough the silent rain.<\/p>\n

        And there was a grey museum
        \nFull of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals
        \nAnd a few relics of the Romans\u2014dead also.
        \nThere was the sea-front,
        \nA long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it,
        \nThree piers, a row of houses,
        \nAnd a salt dirty smell from the little harbour.<\/p>\n

        I was like a moth\u2014-
        \nLike one of those grey Emperor moths
        \nWhich flutter through the vines at Capri.
        \nAnd that damned little town was my match-box,
        \nAgainst whose sides I beat and beat
        \nUntil my wings were torn and faded, and dingy
        \nAs that damned little town.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

        <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        IV<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        At school it was just dull as that dull High Street.
        \nThey taught me pothooks\u2014
        \nI wanted to be alone, although I was so little,
        \nAlone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness,
        \nAway somewhere else\u2014The town was dull;
        \nThe front was dull;
        \nThe High Street and the other street were dull\u2014
        \nAnd there was a public park, I remember,
        \nAnd that was damned dull too,
        \nWith its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick,
        \nAnd its clipped lawns you weren’t allowed to walk on,
        \nAnd the gold-fish pond you mustn’t paddle in,
        \nAnd the gate made out of a whale’s jaw-bones,
        \nAnd the swings, which were for “Board-School children,”
        \nAnd its gravel paths.And on Sundays they rang the bells,
        \nFrom Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches.
        \nThey had the Salvation Army.
        \nI was taken to a High Church;
        \nThe parson’s name was Mowbray,
        \n“Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it\u2014”
        \nThat’s what I heard people say.
        \n[Pg 8]
        \nI took a little black book
        \nTo that cold, grey, damp, smelling church,
        \nAnd I had to sit on a hard bench,
        \nWriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms,
        \nAnd wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed\u2014
        \nAnd then there was nothing to do
        \nExcept to play trains with the hymn-books.<\/p>\n

        There was nothing to see,
        \nNothing to do,
        \nNothing to play with,
        \nExcept that in an empty room upstairs
        \nThere was a large tin box
        \nContaining reproductions of the Magna Charta,
        \nOf the Declaration of Independence
        \nAnd of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada.
        \nThere were also several packets of stamps,
        \nYellow and blue Guatemala parrots,
        \nBlue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak,
        \nIndians and Men-of-war
        \nFrom the United States,
        \nAnd the green and red portraits
        \nOf King Francobollo
        \nOf Italy.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

        <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        [Pg 9]V<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        I don’t believe in God.
        \nI do believe in avenging gods
        \nWho plague us for sins we never sinned
        \nBut who avenge us.That’s why I’ll never have a child,
        \nNever shut up a chrysalis in a match-box
        \nFor the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours,
        \nBeating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

        THE POPLAR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Why do you always stand there shivering
        \nBetween the white stream and the road?The people pass through the dust
        \nOn bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars;
        \nThe waggoners go by at dawn;
        \nThe lovers walk on the grass path at night.Stir from your roots, walk, poplar!
        \nYou are more beautiful than they are.<\/p>\n

        I know that the white wind loves you,
        \nIs always kissing you and turning up
        \nThe white lining of your green petticoat.
        \nThe sky darts through you like blue rain,
        \nAnd the grey rain drips on your flanks
        \nAnd loves you.
        \nAnd I have seen the moon
        \nSlip his silver penny into your pocket
        \nAs you straightened your hair;
        \nAnd the white mist curling and hesitating
        \nLike a bashful lover about your knees.
        \n[Pg 11]
        \nI know you, poplar;
        \nI have watched you since I was ten.
        \nBut if you had a little real love,
        \nA little strength,
        \nYou would leave your nonchalant idle lovers
        \nAnd go walking down the white road
        \nBehind the waggoners.<\/p>\n

        There are beautiful beeches down beyond the hill.
        \nWill you always stand there shivering?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

        ROUND-POND<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind
        \nWhich puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers
        \nDashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight.
        \nThe shining of the sun upon the water
        \nIs like a scattering of gold crocus-petals
        \nIn a long wavering irregular flight.The water is cold to the eye
        \nAs the wind to the cheek.In the budding chestnuts
        \nWhose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open
        \nThe starlings make their clitter-clatter;
        \nAnd the blackbirds in the grass
        \nAre getting as fat as the pigeons.<\/p>\n

        Too-hoo, this is brave;
        \nEven the cold wind is seeking a new mistress.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

        DAISY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
        “Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,<\/em>
        \nNunc<\/em>…”
        \nCatullus.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        You were my playmate by the sea.
        \nWe swam together.
        \nYour girl’s body had no breasts.We found prawns among the rocks;
        \nWe liked to feel the sun and to do nothing;
        \nIn the evening we played games with the others.It made me glad to be by you.<\/p>\n

        Sometimes I kissed you,
        \nAnd you were always glad to kiss me;
        \nBut I was afraid\u2014I was only fourteen.<\/p>\n

        And I had quite forgotten you,
        \nYou and your name.<\/p>\n

        To-day I pass through the streets.
        \n[Pg 14]She who touches my arm and talks with me
        \nIs\u2014who knows?\u2014Helen of Sparta,
        \nDryope, Laodamia….<\/p>\n

        And there are you
        \nA whore in Oxford Street.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

        EPIGRAMS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
        a girl<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        You were that clear Sicilian fluting
        \nThat pains our thought even now.
        \nYou were the notes
        \nOf cold fantastic grief
        \nSome few found beautiful.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        new love<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        She has new leaves
        \nAfter her dead flowers,
        \nLike the little almond-tree
        \nWhich the frost hurt.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        october<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
        The beech-leaves are silver
        \nFor lack of the tree’s blood.At your kiss my lips
        \nBecome like the autumn beech-leaves.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

        THE FAUN SEES SNOW FOR THE FIRST TIME<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Zeus,
        \nBrazen-thunder-hurler,
        \nCloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos,
        \nSend vengeance on these Oreads
        \nWho strew
        \nWhite frozen flecks of mist and cloud
        \nOver the brown trees and the tufted grass
        \nOf the meadows, where the stream
        \nRuns black through shining banks
        \nOf bluish white.Zeus,
        \nAre the halls of heaven broken up
        \nThat you flake down upon me
        \nFeather-strips of marble?Dis and Styx!
        \nWhen I stamp my hoof
        \nThe frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft
        \nSo that I reel upon two slippery points….<\/p>\n

        Fool, to stand here cursing
        \nWhen I might be running!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

        LEMURES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
        In Nineveh
        \nAnd beyond Nineveh
        \nIn the dusk
        \nThey were afraid.In Thebes of Egypt
        \nIn the dusk
        \nThey chanted of them to the dead.In my Lesbos and Achaia
        \nWhere the God dwelt
        \nWe knew them.<\/p>\n

        Now men say “They are not”:
        \nBut in the dusk
        \nEre the white sun comes\u2014
        \nA gay child that bears a white candle\u2014
        \nI am afraid of their rustling,
        \nOf their terrible silence,
        \nThe menace of their secrecy.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

          \n
        1. D.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          THE POOL<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Are you alive?
          \nI touch you.
          \nYou quiver like a sea-fish.
          \nI cover you with my net.
          \nWhat are you\u2014banded one?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

          THE GARDEN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
          I<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
          You are clear,
          \nO rose, cut in rock,
          \nhard as the descent of hail.I could scrape the colour
          \nfrom the petal,
          \nlike spilt dye from a rock.If I could break you
          \nI could break a tree.<\/p>\n

          If I could stir
          \nI could break a tree,
          \nI could break you.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

          <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
          II<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
          O wind,
          \nrend open the heat,
          \ncut apart the heat,
          \nrend it sideways.Fruit can not drop
          \n[Pg 23]through this thick air:
          \nfruit can not fall into heat
          \nthat presses up and blunts
          \nthe points of pears
          \nand rounds the grapes.Cut the heat,
          \nplough through it,
          \nturning it on either side
          \nof your path.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

          SEA LILY<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Reed,
          \nslashed and torn,
          \nbut doubly rich\u2014
          \nsuch great heads as yours
          \ndrift upon temple-steps,
          \nbut you are shattered
          \nin the wind.Myrtle-bark
          \nis flecked from you,
          \nscales are dashed
          \nfrom your stem,
          \nsand cuts your petal,
          \nfurrows it with hard edge,
          \nlike flint
          \non a bright stone.Yet though the whole wind
          \nslash at your bark,
          \nyou are lifted up,
          \naye\u2014though it hiss
          \nto cover you with froth.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

          SEA IRIS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
          I<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
          Weed, moss-weed,
          \nroot tangled in sand,
          \nsea-iris, brittle flower,
          \none petal like a shell
          \nis broken,
          \nand you print a shadow
          \nlike a thin twig.Fortunate one,
          \nscented and stinging,
          \nrigid myrrh-bud,
          \ncamphor-flower,
          \nsweet and salt\u2014you are wind
          \nin our nostrils.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
          <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
          II<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
          Do the murex-fishers
          \ndrench you as they pass?
          \nDo your roots drag up colour
          \nfrom the sand?
          \nHave they slipped gold under you;
          \nrivets of gold?
          \n[Pg 26]
          \nBand of iris-flowers
          \nabove the waves,
          \nYou are painted blue,
          \npainted like a fresh prow
          \nstained among the salt weeds.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

           <\/p>\n

          SEA ROSE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Rose, harsh rose,
          \nmarred and with stint of petals,
          \nmeagre flower, thin,
          \nsparse of leaf.more precious
          \nthan a wet rose,
          \nsingle on a stem\u2014
          \nyou are caught in the drift.Stunted, with small leaf,
          \nyou are flung on the sands,
          \nyou are lifted
          \nin the crisp sand
          \nthat drives in the wind.<\/p>\n

          Can the spice-rose
          \ndrip such acrid fragrance
          \nhardened in a leaf?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

           <\/p>\n

          OREAD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Whirl up, sea\u2014
          \nWhirl your pointed pines,
          \nSplash your great pines
          \nOn our rocks,
          \nHurl your green over us,
          \nCover us with your pools of fir.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

          ORION DEAD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
          [Artemis speaks<\/em>]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
          The cornel-trees
          \nuplift from the furrows,
          \nthe roots at their bases
          \nstrike lower through the barley-sprays.So arise and face me.
          \nI am poisoned with the rage of song.I once pierced the flesh<\/em>
          \nof the wild-deer,<\/em>
          \nnow am I afraid to touch<\/em>
          \nthe blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?<\/em><\/p>\n

          I will tear the full flowers<\/em>
          \nand the little heads<\/em>
          \nof the grape-hyacinths.<\/em>
          \nI will strip the life from the bulb<\/em>
          \nuntil the ivory layers<\/em>
          \nlie like narcissus petals<\/em>
          \non the black earth.<\/em><\/p>\n

          Arise,<\/em>
          \nlest I bend an ash-tree<\/em>
          \ninto a taut bow,<\/em>
          \nand slay\u2014and tear<\/em>
          \nall the roots from the earth.<\/em>
          \n[Pg 30]
          \nThe cornel-wood blazes
          \nand strikes through the barley-sprays,
          \nbut I have lost heart for this.<\/p>\n

          I break a staff.
          \nI break the tough branch.
          \nI know no light in the woods.
          \nI have lost pace with the winds.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

           <\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

          \n\t\t\t

          Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
          \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
          \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
          Public domain content<\/div>