Month: June 2018

“Arizona: The Windmills” by John Gould Fletcher

Arizona
The Windmills

The windmills, like great sunflowers of steel,
Lift themselves proudly over the straggling houses ;
And at their feet the deep blue-green alfalfa
Cuts the desert like the stroke of a sword.

Yellow melon flowers
Crawl beneath the withered peach-trees ;
A date-palm throws its heavy fronds of steel
Against the scoured metallic sky.

The houses, doubled-roofed for coolness,
Cower amid the manzanita scrub.
A man with jingling spurs
Walks heavily out of a vine-bowered doorway,
Mounts his pony, rides away.

The windmills stare at the sun.
The yellow earth cracks and blisters.
Everything is still.

[...]

John Gould Fletcher's sequence "Arizona" containing the poem "The Windmills" was published in the 1916 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read this poem in full in this publication context, follow the links below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

Project Gutenberg (text version)

“The Merry-Go-Round” by Aldous Huxley

The Merry-Go-Round

The machine is ready to start. The symbolic beasts
grow resty, curvetting where they stand at their places
in the great blue circle of the year. The Showman's voice
rings out. 'Montez, mesdames et messieurs, montez. You,
sir, must bestride the Ram. You will take the Scorpion.
Yours, madame, is the Goat. As for you there, blackguard
boy, you must be content with the Fishes. I have allotted
you the Virgin, mademoiselle.' . . . 'Polisson !' 'Pardon,
pardon. Evidemment, c'est le Sagittaire qu'on demande.
Ohé, les dards! The rest must take what comes. The
Twins shall counterpoise one another in the Scales. So, so.
Now away we go, away.'

[...]

Aldous Huxley's poem "The Merry-Go-Round" was published in the 1918 "cycle" of Wheels. The poem can be read it in its entirety in digitized versions of this publication by following the links below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

 

“Banal Sojourn” by Wallace Stevens

Banal Sojourn

Two wooden tubs of blue hydrangeas stand at the
       foot of the stone steps.
The sky is a blue gum streaked with rose. The
       trees are black.
The grackles crack their throats of bone in the
       smooth air.
Moisture and heat have swollen the garden into a
       slum of bloom.
Pardie! Summer is like a fat beast, sleepy in
       mildew,

[...]

Wallace Stevens' poem "Banal Sojourn" was published in the 1919 Others anthology. The original formatting has been respected. To read the poem in its entirety in this publication context follow the link below:

Archive.org

“The Giant Puffball” by Edmund Blunden

The Giant Puffball

From what sad star I know not, but I found 
Myself new-born below the coppice rail,
No bigger than the dewdrops and as round,
In a sward, no cattle might assail.

And so I gathered mightiness and grew
With this one dream kindling in me, that I 
Should never cease from conquering light and dew
Till my white splendour touched the trembling sky.

A century of blue and stilly light
Bowed down before me, the dew came again,
The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night,
The sun returned and long abode; but then

[ . . . ]

Edmund Blunden's poem "The Giant Puffball" was published in the 1922 Georgian Poetry anthology. To read it in full in a digitized version of this publication click the following link:

Archive.org