I SHOULD like to say to the world:
I have launched my soul like a ship upon free waters;
Beautiful she stands in the docks with proud masts cutting the sky,
Perfectly poised, her white sails spreading like wings,
Her figurehead a woman with breasts that daunt the spray,
Her flag a flutter of coloured exuberance.
I should like to see her plunging out of the idle harbour
Where the sulky tide drifts scum, and the sailors wrangle and shout,
In a thunder of churning waves ramping before her like dappled stallions,
Blossoming behind her a field of etiolate lilies. . . .
I have launched my soul like a ship upon free waters;
Beautiful she stands in the docks with proud masts cutting the sky,
Perfectly poised, her white sails spreading like wings,
Her figurehead a woman with breasts that daunt the spray,
Her flag a flutter of coloured exuberance.
I should like to see her plunging out of the idle harbour
Where the sulky tide drifts scum, and the sailors wrangle and shout,
In a thunder of churning waves ramping before her like dappled stallions,
Blossoming behind her a field of etiolate lilies. . . .
But to the mimicking, plotting, miserly, cynical,
To the rabble and gabble that dance and kill on the quay,
I can only say that my soul is a sleeping gondola
Lulled by a jester's mandolin, till night is atinkle with tunes
And lantern-lights, along the indolent backwaters.
To the rabble and gabble that dance and kill on the quay,
I can only say that my soul is a sleeping gondola
Lulled by a jester's mandolin, till night is atinkle with tunes
And lantern-lights, along the indolent backwaters.
1915
21
