Read Ebook: The Red Battle Flyer by Richthofen Manfred Freiherr Von Grey C G Charles Grey Editor Barker J Ellis Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 539 lines and 49449 words, and 11 pages

The story rose, however.

And I've misplaced it. Frankly, from the first, Had no fixed purpose to deliver it. What principle makes me collaborator With such fantastic business? To resume: He acted like the boy he was. I smiled-- Against the flaming rage that burned his face-- My mocking smile, he thought, the Don Juan Upcurved my lips. I read his very thought Between words spoken; words that he suppressed: It was that I was glad that Claire was ill Because of that male mood when love of man Finds sustenance where suffering lays low The object of desire: If she suffers, The man subdues, devours her. She escapes If free of love. Oh yes, and this he thought: That I was glad she suffered, since my glory Had failed to hold her, failed to satisfy Her noble heart! God's wounds! Why Shelley thought She turned to him and with his spirit found A purity of peace and sweetest friendship, And faith that saves and serves, as men and women Are to each other souls to serve and save! Poor fool! I read it all, or pieced it out With words that I picked up from time to time....

There was this further thing: I am a man, So say they, who accepts the dying creed That woman's love is lawless and a toy When given if no priest has sanctified it-- Not quite, perhaps. The point is further on.

In any case 'tis this: that this belief, Mine or part mine, and coloring my acts, Shadowed no whit the brow of Lady Claire. And that I, greatest lover of my time, Had won this lady's body but to lose The lady's soul, a soul that slipped and fled Out of the hands that clasped her flesh, because She knew me through her gift, thought less of me, And no wise felt herself bound to my life Because she gave her body. Kept her mind, Soul, free, untouched by that gift, by the gift Was cognizant of what is false and poor-- in me. And thus I lost her soul, though earlier I had gained What seemed all to me, all I had the genius To comprehend in woman! Then comes Shelley And finds her soul, the genuine prize, and I Grow sullen with a consciousness of vision Inferior to his. All this they thought. Oh Jesus, what a lie!

I have loved Nature, love her now: and woman Is Nature, and my love for nature means Inclusion of the sex. I have not soared To heights that sickened me and made me laugh At what I sought--or turned from it. No moons Behind the clouds; no terrors and no symbols, No Emilia Vivianni's have I had. I know, believe me, love for woman calls A man's soul up to heights too rare to live in. I have not risen, therefore, will not rise Where thinking stops, because the blood leaves brain Therefore have had no falls, and no recoils Chasing the Plato vision, the star, the wonder, The beauty and the terror, harmony Of nature's art; the passion that would make The loved one of the self-same womb with me, A sister, spouse or angel, daemon, pilot Of life and fate.

How much of truth is here?

Dreams seen most vividly by Petrarch, Dante, Who loved without achievement, balking nature, Till Passion, like an involute, pressed in Harder and harder on its starving leaves, Becomes a fragrance--sublimate of self Sucked out of sorrow's earth, at last becomes A meditative madness. All is written Fairly across my page. "She walks in beauty:" "When we two parted," "Could love like a river," "Bright be the place of thy soul." Lines, lines In "Harold," "Don Juan." Yes, I have loved, But saw how far love lures, how far to venture, Knowing what can and what cannot be made Of the mystery, the wonder, therefore never Have had to laugh at self; find Vivianni A housemaid shelling corn--not threading pearls. Or sit, with idiot eyes, my bones half broken, Icarus bumped amid a field of stones.

I know the hour of farewell. I have said it When my heart trembled, stopped as when a horse Braces its terrored feet to keep from plunging Over the precipice. Farewell! Farewell! I know to say, and turn, and pass my way.

Why! For that matter, even now behold! Do I feel less than Shelley would in this? I leave the Countess for the war in Greece. What's done is done. What's lived is lived. Come, Doctor, Let's practice with the pistols. Mother of God, What is this thing called Life?

THE FOLDING MIRROR

A folding mirror! What may it be? Nothing? Or something? Let me see! Its silver chain is hung to the sky On a planet nail. And it fronts my eye. No stars reflect themselves at first, The mirrors are dustless, vacant and clean. Not even my face shows--am I cursed? What may the mirrors mean?

I watch like a cat that waits to mangle A breathless rat in an alley nook. And a little figure steps into the angle Made by the folding mirrors. Look! His thin legs wobble, bend and dangle Like radish roots. He takes the crook Out of his arms and raises them up, As if in panic, or supplication. He bends and peers, whines like a pup, Walks to and fro in his desperation, Pinches his arms and beats his breast; Runs quivering fingers between his hair, Wavers for weariness, sighs for rest, Looks up to the planet that seems to bear The silver chain like a brad in the wall. Upsprings, searches the mirrors again; Sees for the first the prodigal Waste of stars in the black inane. Stamps with his feet upon the void He stands on, paces on, why, he wonders Is he upborned like an asteroid? Hark! The limitless blackness thunders: The Infinite growls, he whirls and shivers, Runs to cover the mirrors to climb. They yield like the waters of phantom rivers. He acts like a soul new born that quivers Before the mirrors of Space and Time.

Now what's to do? He must fill in. This emptiness with horror is shod. When did this pageant of things begin? Somewhere hiding there is a God. Some one drove that planet nail Into the blue wall; some one hung The silver chain. And what is the tale Of the mirrors here in the blackness swung? The soul is naked, weak and alone, And sees its nakedness in the glass. It must create from wood and stone, Wire and reeds, color and brass. It must create though it be but a mime, Make a reality all its own Before the mirror of white called Time, Before the mirror of blue called Space. Clasp the vastness between their folds, Find laws, raise altars, dream of a face-- Make that real which the hope beholds.

Our terrored manikin commences, Fattens his littleness with clothes. With crowns and miters puffs his senses, Crushes the grape to drown his woes. Fills full the mirrors with faces. Now They are dancing before them, age and youth, Laurels or thorns are bound on a brow. They hunt and slay for a thing called Truth. Dig for treasure, toil for riches, Struggle for place--it is well enough! Some lift their busts into chosen niches. All are hungry for peace and love. And only a few are blind, dispute The thing is a dream. If there be worth It lies in the strings of the lyre or lute, Sounds that never return to earth; Dreams to seeing eyes reflected, Caught from infinite realms afar. How could they be seen, or recollected Except for the Real--except for a Star?

God in the blackness, whirlwind, lightning, God in the blinding fire of the sun Before these empty mirrors brightening See what we do, what we have done! Out of an astral substance molding Music and laws for our hearts' control, Yes, and a hope that the mirrors' folding Lets slip through a growing soul. Are you not proud of us, do you not pity? Is all the glory thine alone? Then if it be, you must take the city Builded, demolished stone from stone. All of our madness, weariness, error, Blindness, weakness, pain and loss, Fumbling feebly before the mirror, Yours is the crown, but yours the cross! Yours is the juice of grape or poppies To fill the void with a make believe; Yours the hope where never a prop is, The opiates, too, that dull, deceive, No less than nature that lifts eternal Vision of Life to quiet the heart: Verse and color that stamp the infernal Dragon of Fear with the feet of Art. Yours and ours the consolations In loneliness and in terror wrought Out of our spirits' desolations, Out of our spirits' love and thought!

A WOMAN OF FORTY

Eyes that have long looked on the world, Taken and stored the soul of outward things, Dread to look on themselves, In the mirror to gaze upon their mirrorings!

There to behold what time has done, what thought Has changed their look and light. I have lost my face through sorrow and dreams And dare not find it, lest it smite

This self to-day, since I may not restore My old self who in gladness without terror Beheld and knew myself Each morning in the mirror!

In the long quest of love I may have found A spirit after whom my passion lusted. But I had trust not giving love, I have given love to hearts I have not trusted.

One thing has come that I would never see, Hidden or trembling in my eyes: Love in the mirror shown fatigued and mild, Hopeless and wise.

WILD BIRDS

The wild birds among the reeds Cry, exult and stretch their wings. Out of the sky they drift And sink to the water's rushes. But the wild birds beat their wings and cry To the newcomer out of the sky!

Is he a stranger, this wild bird out of the sky? Or do they cry to him because of remembered places And remembered days Spent together In the north-land, or the south-land?

Is this the ecstasy of renewal, Or the ecstasy of beginning? For the wild bird touches his bill Against a mate; He brushes her wing with his wing; He quivers with delight For the cool sky of blue, And the touch of her wing!

The wild birds fly up from the reeds of the water, Some for the south, Some for the north. They are gone-- Lost in the sky!

In what water do these mates of a morning Exult on the morrow? What wild birds will cry to them as they sink Out of an unknown sky? To whose cry will she quiver Through her burnished wings to-morrow, In the north-land, In the south-land, Far away?

A LADY

All things are hers: Fishes from all seas, Fruits from all climes. The city lies at her command, And is summoned by buttons Which are pressed for her. Noiselessly feet move on many floors, Serving her. Wheels that turn under coaches Of crystal and ebony, And yachts dreaming in strange waters, And wings--all are hers! And she is free: Her husband comes and goes From his suite below hers. She never sees him, Nor knows his ways, nor his days.

But she is very weary And all alone amid her servants, And guests that come and go. Her lips are red, Her skin is soft and smooth-- But the page blurs before her eyes. Her eyelids are languid, And droop from weariness, Though she will not rest From the long pursuit of love! Her hair is white; The skin of her faultless neck Edges in creases As she turns her perfect head. And the days dawn and die. What day that dawns will bring her love? And day by day she waits for the dawn Of a new life, a great love!

But every morning brings its remembrance Of the increasing years that are gone. And every evening brings its fear Of death which must come, Until her nerves are shaken Like a woman's hair in the wind-- What must be done? Some one tells her that God is love. And when the fears come She says to self over and over, "God is love! God is love! All is well." And she wins a little oblivion, Through saying "God is love," From the truth in her heart which cries: "Love is life, Love is a lover, And love is God!"

She is a flower Which the spring has nourished, And the summer exhausted. Fall is at hand. Weird zephyrs stir her leaves and blossoms; And she says to herself, "It is not fall, For God is love!"

My poor flower! May this therapy ease you into sleep, And the folding of jewelless hands! You are beginning to be sick Of the incurable disease of age, And the weariness of futile flesh!

THE NEGRO WARD

Scarce had I written: it were best To crush this love, to give you up, Drink at one draught the bitter cup, And kill this new life in my breast, Than Parker's breathing seemed to give Ominous sound the end was near. I did so want this man to live-- This negro soldier, dear.

'Twas three in the morning, all was still But Parker's rattle in the throat, Outside I heard the whippoorwill. The new moon like an Indian boat Hung just above the darkened grove, Where you and I had pledged our love, When you were here. Such precious hours, Such fleeting moments then were ours... Alone here in the silent ward, With Parker dying, I was scared. His breath came short, his lips were blue. I asked him: "Is there something more, Parker, that I can do for you?" "Please hold my hand," he said. Before I took it, it was growing cold-- Death, how quick it comes!

Then next I seemed to hear the drums-- For I had fainted for his eyes That stared with such a wide surprise, As the lids fell apart they stared, As if they saw what to behold Had startled his poor soul which fared Where it would not. I heard the drums, The bugle next, lay there so faint With Parker's eyes still in my view, Like bubble motes which flit and paint Themselves upon the heaven's blue. An orderly had mailed meanwhile That letter, to you, there I lay Too weak to write again, unsay What I had written.

Down the aisle, Between our beds a step I heard, A voice: "Our order's here, we leave In half an hour for France." I stirred Like a dead thing, could scarce conceive What tragedy was come. No chance To write you or to telegraph. In twelve hours more, as in a trance I looked from Ellis Island, where My chums could gayly talk and laugh. In two hours more we sailed for France. All this was hard, but still to bear The knowledge of you, your despair, Or change, or bitterness, if you thought That letter came from me, was wrought Out of a heart that could not stake Its own blood for your sake.

I will come back to you at length If I but live and have the strength. How will you like me with hair white, And wasted cheeks, deep lined and pale? It all began that dreadful night Of Parker's death, the strain and fright, The letter it seemed best to write-- From then to now I have been frail. Our ship just missed a submarine, And here the hardships, gas-gangrene, The horrors and the deaths have stripped My life of everything. Is it to prove For duty, you, though bloody-lipped, And fallen my unconquerable love For country and for you through all, Whatever fate befall?

What is my soul's great anguish for? For what this tragedy of war? For what the fate that says to us: Part hands and be magnanimous? For what the judgment which decrees The mother love in me to cease? For separation, hopeless miles Of land and water us between? For what the devil force that smiles At man's immedicable pain?

I have not lost my faith in God. Life has grown dark, I only say: Dear God, my feet have lost the way. Religion, wisdom do not give A place to stand, a space to live. I have not lost my faith in love, That somehow it must rise above The clouds of earth, I still can rest In dreams sometimes upon your breast. But, oh, it seems sometimes a play Where gods are picking a bouquet: The blossom of war, my soul or yours More fragrant grown as it endures....

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE

Homer saw nations, armies, multitudes-- You saw them in the intimate interludes Of Brutus' soul at midnight in a tent When the infection festers the event. Ulysses' course is changed by the sea's trough. You saw an epoch when a hat blows off. Orestes fled the Furies, won his peace Through Apollo in old Greece. But who unbars the mouse traps of your world, Or kills the ambushed serpent where it's curled? Your Fates return, and Fortinbras draws in On Hamlet's impotence and Gertrude's sin. All oceans in a raindrop, drops of dew Containing perfect heavens starred and blue; Angels who mother Calibans, and hopes Are of your vision--great mosaics hued With thoughts of princes, poets, misanthropes, Reveal their minute colors closer viewed. Atomies, maggots, worms or gilded flies, Nothing too small or foul is for your eyes. You made a culture of dreams lost or won Like Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson. You looked in heaven when the lightning shone, Then saw a fairy's whip of cricket bone. For gods and men bacteriologist Of spiritual microbes hidden which subsist In moments of red joy--calm satirist Of worlds forsaken for a woman's hair, Kings slain, states crumbled, heroes false or fair, The madness of the flesh, love on the wrack, A white maid married to a soldier black. Incests, adulteries and secret sins, The fall of monarchs and of manikins. All men at last a rattling empty pod, All men destroyed like flies for sport of God. All Life at last an idiot's furious tale-- You had the strength to say this and not quail! For you what were the unities, the rules Of Plautus, Corneille or the Grecian schools? Flame through a pipe will sing, perhaps, when blown Against the craftsman's silver, but the tone Of worlds in conflagration, that's to be The sacred fire with wings outspread and free, Wherein an Athens falls, a Sidon stands, And where a freezing clown may warm his hands.

If you could empty out a tiger's brain And wire up its spinal cord again To Sappho's brain, it would no doubt devour The tiger's nerves and sinews in an hour. Such muscles and such bones could not endure The avid hunger of a fire so pure. And you, Will Shakspeare, spirit sensitive, You lived past fifty, that is long to live And feed a flame like yours, and let the flame Remake itself and lap at flesh and frame. I say with Jesus, wisdom's eyes are blind To seek a poet out and think to find A slender reed that's shaken by the wind. Come cyclops of the counter, millionaires, Lawyers and statesmen in the world's affairs, And thin away like flesh which acid eats Under the passion even of John Keats. But if you felt and saw love, agony, As Shakspeare knew them you would quickly die. There is no tragedy like the gift of song, It keeps you mortal but demands you strong; It gives you God's eyes blurred with human tears, And crowns a thousand lives in fifty years. Enter the breathless silence where God dwells, See and record all heavens and all hells!

FOR A PLAY

Love began with both of them so gently Meeting, neither thought nor looked intently. Afterward her breath invoked the fire-- Breath to breath set burning their desire.

Is there aught in flesh or is it spirit Conscious of its kindred soul when near it? Woe to flesh or soul that's wholly wakened While the other's soul-depths lie unshakened!

How could she give him all sacred blisses, Long embraces, in the darkness kisses, If she was not his, all else forgetting, Lovers gone and other loves' regretting?

That was just the place her gold was leadened-- Flesh there too alive, to him all deadened. She could harp not to his playing wholly, Yet his heart strings trembled for her solely.

So this love play hastened to the curtain. Each one spoke his lines in accents certain, While at times behind the wings her glances Warmed the prompter's treasonous advances.

Is there greater martyrdom than this is? You have staked your soul where the abyss is. You have given all--oh sorry barter You have lit the fire for you the martyr.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet