Amy Lowell
I walk down the garden-paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jeweled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden-paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.
And the splashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.
I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover.
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon--
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.
Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.
In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.
In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?
The female-type collectors to whom I refer above seem oblivious to copyright
protection; I was about to reproduce "Patterns" here when I noticed
the longest copyright notice I have ever run across in my life, a full page of such in
"The Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell", undated Cambridge Edition,
fourth printing.
How odd that there is no publishing date! Even Louis Untermeyer's
introduction is undated. The latest copyright is 1925 but the volume (from my
local public library - I can't find my anthology) was acquired June 1975.
Christ! What are copyrights for?
The poem was first published in The Little Review for August, 1915.
The copy I finally located and reproduced above was unrestricted (it has since been
reproduced all over the place). Actually, in long retrospect, it IS a cry
against old forms and repressions.
TAPS
"Day is Done"
If you, too, have felt the chills while listening to "Taps" but have never seen all the
words to the song until now, or didn't even know there was more than one verse,
here they are:
-
Day is done
Gone the sun
From the lakes
From the hills
From the sky
All is well
Safely rest
God is nigh
Fading light
Dims the sight
And a star
Gems the sky
Gleaming bright
From afar
Drawing nigh
Falls the night
Thanks and praise
For our days
Neath the sun
Neath the stars
Neath the sky
As we go
This we know
God is nigh.
The story, as I was told (and have not verified) is that it all reportedly began in 1862
during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men
near Harrison's Landing in Virginia. The Confederate Army was on the other
side of a the narrow strip of land. During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the
moans of a soldier who lay severely wounded on the field. Not knowing if it
was a Union or Confederate soldier, the Captain decided to risk his life and bring the
stricken man back for medical attention. Crawling on his stomach through the
gunfire, the Captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his
encampment.
When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a
Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead. The Captain lit a lantern and
suddenly caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, he
saw the face of the soldier. It was his own son. The boy had been
studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without haviung told his
father, the boy had enlisted in the Confederate Army.
The following morning, the heartbroken father asked permission of his superiors to
give his son a full military burial, despite his enemy status. His request was
only partially granted.
The Captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral
dirge for his son at the funeral. The request was turned down since the soldier
was a Confederate. But, out of respect for the father, they did say they could
give him only one musician.
The Captain chose a bugler. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical
notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the dead youth's uniform.
This wish was granted. The haunting melody, we now know as "Taps" ... used
at military funerals was born.
[I am indebted to M. Desantis for this story.]
NORMA PENCILS and PENS - one of my most prized
posessions as a small boy was my Norma four-color
mechanical pencil; it came with BLACK,
RED,
BLUE, and
GREEN
leads and a large pink eraser under the cap. The
lead holders were extended and retracted by sliding
serrated buttons on color-keyed slides out and back;
they engaged detents which held the lead holders in or
out and there was a third detent which extended the
lead holder far enough out that you could screw it in
or out to adjust or replace the lead [shown at
approximately full size (5-¾" / 145mm long) on
a 14" screen]:
(20 Sep 04 photo by and © 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
The above picture shows all holders retracted for
pocket storage. This example is NOT my orginal
pencil; that one was badly worn away, down to bare
brass, on all operating and contact surfaces after 20
or more years of heavy use. This one was a
much-later business gift (ca. 1970? - it has my name
incorrectly engraved on the other side, probably by a
classic old Hermes machine, just like my old eyeglass
frames and my slide rules). Ca. 1960 or later,
Norma dropped one color and added a ball-point pen.
(21 Sep 04)
Here's the pencil with the BLUE
lead out normally:
(21 Sep 04 photo by and © 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
and here it is with the RED
lead out fully (for adjustment):
(21 Sep 04 photo by and © 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
There's a guy/gal, apparently H. Kirtley of West Virginia, who hasn't the
courtesy to identify him/herself or provide an e-address, who offers a "
Dolphin Stress Test, which my cousin, a shrink, failed. I tried
it and don't get it. What do dolphins have to do with anything?
Besides, why should I give a good G-d damn about a stupid picture of two
cows or steers jumping out of the water?
I checked it twice; you can double
check me!
PREHISTORIC MASTODON - here are fragments of a
whimsically-illustrated ditty from the Junior Natural History
Magazine ca. 1940-44 (or so); the magazine was published by the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City and it's
not archived:
(01 Mar 08)
Prehistoric mastodon
Didn't have his glasses on
- - -
Fell, was buried, fossilized.
- - -
Archaeologist, with glee, shouts,
"HA, them's bones I see!"
- - -
and that's all I can remember.
Can anyone out there please remember the whole thing or tell me
where to find it (preferably before I die)?
You may wish to visit my preceding page on Culture (kultcha?).
May I also suggest that if you are on or near Long Island, you enjoy the
Big Grey Celtic music concerts? The only thing Celtic about me is my touch
o' the Blarney (BS = Blarney Stone) and my Scythian roots (my mother was a
Magyar), but I dearly love the Irish and Scottish music.
Serious fans of art must, of course, visit the Museum of Depressionist Art and the The Gallery of the Unidentifiable!
If you enjoy creative lunacy, visit the Pseudodictionary!
Stay tuned!
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III -
1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
2008
- All rights reserved.
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