From under a wide black hat
curving just to hide her ears
peers the little face of Juliet
of all child lovers
who loved in impossible gardens
among roses huge as moons
and twinkling constellations of jessamine,
Juliet, Isabel, Cressida,
and that unknown one who went forth at night
wandering the snarling streets of Jerusalem.
She presses her handkerchief to her mouth
to smother her profane giggling.
Her skin is browner than the tone of cellos,
flushes like with pomegranate juice.
... The moist laden air of a garden in Granada,
spice of leaves bruised by the sun;
she sits in a dress of crimson brocade
dark as blood under the white moon
and watches the ripples spread
in the gurgling fountain;
her lashes curve to her cheeks
as she stares wide-eyed
lips drawn against the teeth and trembling;
gravel crunches down the path;
brown in a crimson swirl
she stands with full lips
head tilted back ... O her small breasts
against my panting breast.
Clapping. Genteel noise of Paris hats
and beards that tilt this way and that.
Her face lost in infinities of glittering chandeliers.
_Ritz_
XIII
There's a sound of drums and trumpets
above the rumble of the street.
(Run run run to see the soldiers.)
All alike all abreast keeping time
to the regimented swirl
of the glittering brass band.
The café waiters are craning at the door
the girl in the gloveshop is nose against the glass.
O the glitter of the brass
and the flutter of the plumes
and the tramp of the uniform feet!
Run run run to see the soldiers.
The boy with a tray
of pastries on his head
is walking fast, keeping time;
his white and yellow cakes are trembling in the sun
his cheeks are redder
and his bluestriped tunic streams
as he marches to the rum tum of the drums.
Run run run to see the soldiers.
The milkman with his pony
slung with silvery metal jars
schoolboys with their packs of books
clerks in stiff white collars
old men in cloaks
try to regiment their feet
to the glittering brass beat.
Run run run to see the soldiers.
_Puerta del Sol_
XIV
Night of clouds
terror of their flight across the moon.
Over the long still plains
blows a wind out of the north;
a laden wind out of the north
rattles the leaves of the liveoaks
menacingly and loud.
* * * * *
Black as old blood on the cold plain
close throngs spread to beyond lead horizons
swaying shrouded crowds
and their rustle in the knife-keen wind
is like the dry death-rattle of the winter grass.
(Like mouldered shrouds the clouds fall
from the crumbling skull of the dead moon.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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