“In the Little Old Market-Place” by Ford Madox Hueffer

In the Little Old Market-Place

(To the Memory of A.V.)

It rains, it rains,
From gutters and drains
And gargoyles and gables:
It drips from the tables
That tell us the tolls upon grains,
Oxen, asses, sheep, turkeys and fowls
Set into the rain-soaked wall
Of the old Town Hall.

The mountains being so tall
And forcing the town on the river,
The market's so small
That, with the wet cobbles, dark arches and all,
The owls
(For in dark rainy weather the owls fly out
Well before four), so the owls
In the gloom
Have too little room
And brush by the saint on the fountain
In veering about.

The poor saint on the fountain!
Supported by plaques of the giver
To whom we're beholden;
His name was de Sales
And his wife's name von Mangel.
(Now is he a saint or archangel?)
He stands on a dragon
On a ball, on a column
Gazing up at the vines on the mountain :
And his falchion is golden
And his wings are all golden.
He bears golden scales
And in spite of the coils of his dragon, without hint
            of alarm or invective
Looks up at the mists on the mountain.

(Now what saint or archangel
Stands winged on a dragon,
Bearing golden scales and a broad bladed sword all
            golden?
Alas, my knowledge
Of all the saints of the college,
Of all these glimmering, olden
Sacred and misty stories
Of angels and saints and old glories . . .
Is sadly defective.)
The poor saint on the fountain . . .

On top of his column
Gazes up sad and solemn.
But is it towards the top of the mountain
Where the spindrifty haze is
That he gazes?
Or is it into the casement
Where the girl sits sewing?
There's no knowing.

Hear it rain!
And from eight leaden pipes in the ball he stands on
That has eight leaden and copper bands on,
There gurgle and drain
Eight driblets of water down into the basin.

And he stands on his dragon
And the girl sits sewing
High, very high in her casement
And before her are many geraniums in a parket
All growing and blowing
In box upon box
From the gables right down to the basement
With frescoes and carvings and paint . . .

The poor saint!
It rains and it rains,
In the market there isn't an ox,
And in all the emplacement
For waggons there isn't a waggon,
Not a stall for a grape or a raisin,
Not a soul in the market
Save the saint on his dragon
With the rain dribbling down in the basin,
And the maiden that sews in the casement.

They are still and alone,
Mutterseelens alone,
And the rain dribbles down from his heels and his
            crown,

From wet stone to wet stone.
It's grey as at dawn,
And the owls, grey and fawn,
Call from the little town hall
With its arch in the wall,
Where the fire-hooks are stored.

From behind the flowers of her casement
That's all gay with the carvings and paint,
The maiden gives a great yawn,
But the poor saint—
No doubt he's as bored!
Stands still on his column
Uplifting his sword
With never the ease of a yawn
From wet dawn to wet dawn . . .


Ford Madox Hueffer's (he later changed his surname to Ford) poem "In the Little Old Market-Place" was published in the 1914 Des Imagistes anthology. To read the poem in digitized versions of this publication, follow the links below:

“The Return” by Ezra Pound

The Return

See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind
                               and half turn back;
These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"
               Inviolable.

[...]


Ezra Pound's poem "The Return" was published in Des Imagistes (1914), the first of the imagist anthologies. The anthology was first published as an issue of the little magazine The Glebe. To read this poem in digitized versions of Des Imagistes, 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)

“I” (London, my beautiful,) by F.S. Flint

I

London, my beautiful,
it is not the sunset
nor the pale green sky
shimmering through the curtain
of the silver birch,
nor the quietness;
it is not the hopping of birds
upon the lawn,
nor the darkness
stealing over all things
that moves me.


F.S. Flint's poem "I" was the first poem in a sequence published in Des Imagistes (1914), the first of the imagist anthologies. The anthology was first published as an issue of the little magazine The Glebe. To read this poem or the sequence in digitized versions of Des Imagistes, follow the links below:

Archive.org (Publisher: Albert and Charles Boni, NY)

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) 

 

 

“Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar” by Allen Upward

Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar

 

The Bitter Purple Willows

     Meditating on the glory of illustrious lineage I lifted
up my eyes and beheld the bitter purple willows growing
round the tombs of the exalted Mings.

 

The Gold Fish

Like a breath from hoarded musk,
Like the golden fins that move
Where the tank's green shadows part—
Living flames out of the dusk—
Are the lightning throbs of love
In the passionate lover's heart.

 

The Intoxicated Poet

     A poet, having taken the bridle off his tongue, spoke
thus: "More fragrant than the heliotrope, which
blooms all the year round, better than vermilion letters
on tablets of sendal, are thy kisses, thou shy one!"

 

The Jonquils

      I have heard that a certain princess, when she found
that she had been married by a demon, wove a wreath
of jonquils and sent it to the lover of former days.

 

The Mermaid

     The sailor boy who leant over the side of the Junk
of Many Pearls, and combed the green tresses of the
sea with his ivory fingers, believing that he had heard
the voice of a mermaid, cast his body down between
the waves.

 

The Middle Kingdom

     The emperors of fourteen dynasties, clad in robes of
yellow silk embroidered with the Dragon, wearing gold
diadems set with pearls and rubies, and seated on
thrones of incomparable ivory, have ruled over the
Middle Kingdom for four thousand years.

 

The Milky Way

     My mother taught me that every night a procession
of junks carrying lanterns moves silently across the
sky, and the water sprinkled from their paddles falls
to the earth in the form of dew. I no longer believe
that the stars are junks carrying lanterns, no longer
that the dew is shaken from their oars.

 

The Sea-Shell

      To the passionate lover, whose sighs come back to
him on every breeze, all the world is like a murmuring
sea-shell.

 

The Swallow Tower

      Amid a landscape flickering with poplars, and netted
by a silver stream, the Swallow Tower stands in the
haunts of the sun. The winds out of the four quarters
of heaven come to sigh around it, the clouds forsake
the zenith to bathe it with continuous kisses. Against
its sun-worn walls a sea of orchards breaks in white
foam; and from the battlements the birds that flit
below are seen like fishes in a green moat. The windows
of the Tower stand open day and night; the
winged Guests come when they please, and hold communication
with the unknown Keeper of the Tower.


Published in The Glebe (vol. 1, no. 5) in February 1914, special Des Imagistes number (and in subsequent editions of Des Imagistes).

To see Allen Upward's sequence "Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar" in digitized versions of these publications you can visit the following links:

Archive.org (Des Imagistes, published by Albert and Charles Boni, New York, 1914) 

Blue Mountain Project (The Glebe)

Modernist Journals Project (The Glebe)

Modernist Journals Project (Des Imagistes, published by Albert and Charles Boni, New York, 1914)

Modernist Journals Project (Des Imagistes, published by The Poetry Bookshop, London, 1914)

“I Hear an Army” by James Joyce

I Hear an Army

I hear an army charging upon the land,
And the thunder of horses plunging; foam about their
knees:
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
Disdaining the rains, with fluttering whips, the Char-
ioteers.

They cry into the night their battle name:
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling
laughter.

They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long grey hair:
They come out of the sea and run shouting by the
shore.

My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
My love, my love, my love, why have you left me
alone?

 


Published in The Glebe (vol. 1, no. 5) in February 1914. Special Des Imagistes number.

Digitized versions of this publication:
The Modernist Journals Project