Read Ebook: The Tempers by Williams William Carlos

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Ebook has 102 lines and 6887 words, and 3 pages

Mother of flames, The men that went ahunting Are asleep in the snow drifts. You have kept the fire burning! Crooked fingers that pull Fuel from among the wet leaves, Mother of flames You have kept the fire burning! The young wives have fallen asleep With wet hair, weeping, Mother of flames! The young men raised the heavy spears And are gone prowling in the darkness. O mother of flames, You who have kept the fire burning! Lo, I am helpless! Would God they had taken me with them!

The Ordeal

O Crimson salamander, Because of love's whim sacred! Swim the winding flame Predestined to disman him And bring our fellow home to us again.

Swim in with watery fang, Gnaw out and drown The fire roots that circle him Until the Hell-flower dies down And he comes home again.

Aye, bring him home, O crimson salamander, That I may see he is unchanged with burning-- Then have your will with him, O crimson salamander.

The Death of Franco of Cologne: His Prophecy of Beethoven

It is useless, good woman, useless: the spark fails me. God! yet when the might of it all assails me It seems impossible that I cannot do it. Yet I cannot. They were right, and they all knew it Years ago, but I--never! I have persisted Blindly and now I am old. I have resisted Everything, but now, now the strife's ended. The fire's out; the old cloak has been mended For the last time, the soul peers through its tatters. Put a light by and leave me; nothing more matters Now; I am done; I am at last well broken! Yet, by God, I'll still leave them a token That they'll swear it was no dead man writ it; A morsel that they'll mark well the day they bit it, That there'll be sand between their gross teeth to crunch yet When goodman Gabriel blows his concluding trumpet. Leave me! And now, little black eyes, come you out here! Ah, you've given me a lively, lasting bout, year After year to win you round me darlings! Precious children, little gambollers! "farlings" They might have called you once, "nearlings" I call you now, I, first of all the yearlings, Upon this plain, for I it was that tore you Out of chaos! It was I bore you! Ah, you little children that go playing Over the five-barred gate, and will still be straying Spite of all that I have ever told you Of counterpoint and cadence which does not hold you-- No more than chains will for this or that strange reason, But you're always at some new loving treason To be away from me, laughing, mocking, Witlessly, perhaps, but for all that forever knocking At this stanchion door of your poor father's heart till--oh, well At least you've shown that you can grow well However much you evade me faster, faster. But, black eyes, some day you'll get a master, For he will come! He shall, he must come! And when he finishes and the burning dust from His wheels settles--what shall men see then? You, you, you, my own lovely children! Aye, all of you, thus with hands together Playing on the hill or there in a tether, Or running free, but all mine! Aye, my very namesakes Shall be his proper fame's stakes. And he shall lead you! And he shall meed you! And he shall build you gold palaces! And he shall wine you from clear chalices! For I have seen it! I have seen it Written where the world-clouds screen it From other eyes Over the bronze gates of paradise!

Portent

Red cradle of the night, In you The dusky child Sleeps fast till his might Shall be piled Sinew on sinew.

Red cradle of the night, The dusky child Sleeping sits upright. Lo how The winds blow now! He pillows back; The winds are again mild.

When he stretches his arms out, Red cradle of the night, The alarms shout From bare tree to tree, Wild In afright! Mighty shall he be, Red cradle of the night, The dusky child!!

Con Brio

Miserly, is the best description of that poor fool Who holds Lancelot to have been a morose fellow, Dolefully brooding over the events which had naturally to follow The high time of his deed with Guinevere. He has a sick historical sight, if I judge rightly, To believe any such thing as that ever occurred. But, by the god of blood, what else is it that has deterred Us all from an out and out defiance of fear But this same perdamnable miserliness, Which cries about our necks how we shall have less and less Than we have now if we spend too wantonly?

Bah, this sort of slither is below contempt!

In the same vein we should have apple trees exempt From bearing anything but pink blossoms all the year, Fixed permanent lest their bellies wax unseemly, and the dear Innocent days of them be wasted quite.

How can we have less? Have we not the deed?

Lancelot thought little, spent his gold and rode to fight Mounted, if God was willing, on a good steed.

Ad Infinitum

Still I bring flowers Although you fling them at my feet Until none stays That is not struck across with wounds: Flowers and flowers That you may break them utterly As you have always done.

Sure happily I still bring flowers, flowers, Knowing how all Are crumpled in your praise And may not live To speak a lesser thing.

Translations from the Spanish, "El Romancero"

However much you're at pains to Offend me, by which I may suffer, What offence is there can make up for The great good he finds who attains you? For though with mortal fear you reward me, Until my sorry sense is plenished, Never can you deny, when all's ended, Calm eyes, that you did regard me.

Thinking thus to dismay me You beheld me with disdain, But instead of destroying the gain, In fact with doubled good you paid me. For though you show them how hardly They keep off from leniency bended, Never can you deny, when all's ended, Calm eyes, that you did regard me.

Ah, little green eyes, Ah, little eyes of mine, Ah, Heaven be willing That you think of me somewise.

The day of departure You came full of grieving And to see I was leaving The tears 'gan to start sure With the heavy torture Of sorrows unbrightened When you lie down at night and When there to you dreams rise, Ah, Heaven be willing That you think of me somewise.

Would God I might know you To which quarter bended And why comprehended When sighings overflow you, And if you must go through Some certain despair, For that you lose his care Who was faithful always. Ah, Heaven be willing That you think of me these days.

Through never a moment I've known how to live lest All my thoughts but as one pressed You-ward for their concernment. May God send chastisement If in this I belie me And if it truth be My own little green eyes. Ah, Heaven be willing That you think of me somewise.

Poplars of the meadow, Fountains of Madrid, Now I am absent from you All are slandering me.

Each of you is elling How evil my chance is The wind among the branches, The fountains in their welling To every one telling You were happy to see. Now I am absent from you All are slandering me.

With good right I may wonder For that at my last leaving The plants with sighs heaving And the waters in tears were. That you played double, never Thought I this could be, Now I am absent from you All are slandering me.

There full in your presence Music you sought to waken, Later I'm forsaken Since you are ware of my absence. God, wilt Thou give me patience Here while suffer I ye, Now I am absent from you All are slandering me.

The day draweth nearer, And morrow ends our meeting, Ere they take thee sleeping Be up--away, my treasure!

Soft, leave her breasts all unheeded, Far hence though the master still remaineth! For soon uptil our earth regaineth The sun all embraces dividing. N'er grew pleasure all unimpeded, N'er was delight lest passion won, And to the wise man the fit occasion Has not yet refused a full measure: Be up--away, my treasure!

If that my love thy bosom inflameth With honest purpose and just intention, To free me from my soul's contention Give over joys the day shameth; Who thee lameth he also me lameth, And my good grace builds all in thy good grace; Be up--away! Fear leaveth place, That thou art here, no more unto pleasure, Be up--away, my treasure!

Although thou with a sleep art wresting, 'Tis rightful thou bringst it close, That of the favour one meeting shows An hundred may hence be attesting. 'Tis fitting too thou shouldst be mindful That the ease which we lose now, in kind, full Many a promise holds for our leisure; Ere they take thee sleeping; Be up--away, my treasure!

Hic Jacet

The coroner's merry little children Have such twinkling brown eyes. Their father is not of gay men And their mother jocular in no wise, Yet the coroner's merry little children Laugh so easily.

They laugh because they prosper. Fruit for them is upon all branches. Lo! how they jibe at loss, for Kind heaven fills their little paunches! It's the coroner's merry, merry children Who laugh so easily.

Contemporania

The corner of a great rain Steamy with the country Has fallen upon my garden.

I go back and forth now And the little leaves follow me Talking of the great rain, Of branches broken, And the farmer's curses!

But I go back and forth In this corner of a garden And the green shoots follow me Praising the great rain.

We are not curst together, The leaves and I, Framing devices, flower devices And other ways of peopling The barren country.

Truly it was a very great rain That makes the little leaves follow me.

To wish Myself Courage

On the day when youth is no more upon me I will write of the leaves and the moon in a tree top! I will sing then the song, long in the making-- When the stress of youth is put away from me.

How can I ever be written out as men say? Surely it is merely an interference with the long song-- This that I am now doing.

But when the spring of it is worn like the old moon And the eaten leaves are lace upon the cold earth-- Then I will rise up in my great desire-- Long at the birth--and sing me the youth-song!

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