Month: January 2019

“The Mother” by Edith Sitwell

The Mother

I.

Our dreams create the babes we bear;
Our beauty goes to make them fair.
We give them all we have of good,
Our blood to drink, our hearts for food;

And in our souls they lie and rest
Until upon their mother's breast
So innocent and sweet they lie.
They live to curse us; then they die.

When he was born, it seemed the spring
Had come again with birds to sing
And blossoms dancing in the sun
Where streams released from winter run.

His sunlit hair was all my gold;
His loving eyes my wealth untold.
All heaven was hid within the breast
Whereon my child was laid to rest.

He grew to manhood. Then one came
False-hearted as Hell's blackest shame,
To steal my child from me, and thrust
The soul I loved down to the dust.

Her hungry, wicked lips were red
As that dark blood my son's hand shed ;
Her eyes were black as Hell's own night,
Her ice-cold breast was winter-white.—

I had put by a little gold
To bury me when I was cold.
Her fanged, wanton kiss to buy
My son's love willed that I should die.

[ . . . ]

Edith Sitwell's poem "The Mother" was published in the first "cycle" of Wheels in 1916. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

Librivox audio recording hosted on Archive.org

“Maisonnettes” by Douglas Goldring

Maisonnettes

The houses in Windermere Street are 'let off in
                                                                    floors'
Which perhaps is the reason it always seems so alert.
Little groups of young men and girls gather round
                                                                 its front doors,
And keen eyes at all windows observe their endeavors
                                                                              to flirt.

[ . . . ]

Douglas Goldring's poem "Maisonnettes" was published in the 1916 Others anthology. To read the poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Archive.org

“Late Snow” by J.C. Squire

Late Snow

The heavy train through the dim country went rolling,
       rolling,
Interminably passing misty snow-covered plough-land
       ridges
That merged in the snowy sky; came turning
       meadows, fences,
Came gullies and passed, and ice-coloured streams
       under frozen bridges.

Across the travelling landscape evenly drooped and
       lifted
The telegraph wires, thick ropes of snow in the wind-
       less air;

[ . . . ]

J.C. Squire's poem "Late Snow" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1920-1922. To read the poem in full in a digitized version of this anthology, follow the link below:

Archive.org

“Searchlight” by F.S. Flint

Searchlight

There has been no sound of guns,
no roar of exploding bombs;
but the darkness has an edge
that grits the nerves of the sleeper.

He awakens;
nothing disturbs the stillness,
save perhaps the light, slow flap,
once only, of the curtain
dim in the darkness.

Yet there is something else
that drags him from his bed;
and he stands in the darkness
with his feet cold against the floor
and the cold air round his ankles.

[ . . . ]

F.S. Flint's poem "Searchlight" was published in the 1917 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read this poem in digitized versions of this publication, follow the links below:

Hathitrust

The Modernist Journals Project

Project Gutenberg