Month: March 2019

“Corpse-Day” by Osbert Sitwell

Corpse-Day
July 19th, 1919

Dusk floated up from the earth beneath,
Held in the arms of the evening wind
—The evening wind that softly creeps
Along the jasper-terraces,
To bear with it
The old, sad scent
Of midsummer, of trees and flowers,
Whose bell-shaped blossoms, shaken, torn
By the rough fingers of the day
Ring out their frail and honeyed notes.

[ . . . ]

Osbert Sitwell's poem "Corpse-Day" was published in the fourth cycle of Wheels in 1919. 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

“Nakedness” by Witter Bynner

Nakedness 

Brightness of earth for the hollow of your throat
They brought to you,
And blossoms of death for you to throw away
And many things like links of chains,

[ . . . ]

Witter Bynner's poem "Nakedness" was published in 1920 in the third Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below:

Archive.org

Sonnet “Not with vain tears, when we’re beyond the sun” by Rupert Brooke

"Sonnet"
(Suggested by some of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research)

Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun.
We'll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread
Those dusty high-roads of the aimless dead
Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run
Down some close-covered by-way of the air,
Some low sweet alley between wind and wind.
Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find
Some whispering ghost-forgotten nook, and there

Spend in pure converse our eternal day;
Think each in each, immediately wise;
Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say
What this tumultuous body now denies;
And feel, who have laid our groping hands away;
And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.

Rupert Brooke's sonnet "Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1913-1915. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

HathiTrust

Project Gutenberg (text version)

“Δ’ΩΡΙΑ” by Ezra Pound

Δ'ΩΡΙΑ

Be in me as the eternal moods
                    of the bleak wind, and not
As transient things are—

[ . . . ]

Ezra Pound's poem "Δ'ΩΡΙΑ" was published in the 1914 imagist anthology, Des Imagistes. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below:

Archive.org

The Blue Mountain Project (The Glebe)

The Modernist Journals Project (The Glebe)

The Modernist Journals Project (Publisher: Albert and Charles Boni, NY)

The Modernist Journals Project (Publisher: The Poetry Bookshop, London)