Prayers and Fantasies

Richard Aldington

I
To have passed so close to annihilation, and (which is worse)
   to have become stained so inalterably with the ideas
   and habits of masses-this leaves me immeasurably dis-
   couraged, out of love with myself.
Now I am good only to mimic inferior masters. My thoughts
   are stifling-heavy grey dust from a scorched road.
For me silence; or if speech, then some humble poem in
   prose. Indeed I am too conscientious-or shall we say
   too impotent?-to dare the cool rhythm of prose, the
   sharp edges of poetry.
Nymphes de Parnasse! Encore un Pégasse rate!

                       u
Touch once again with the lips of thought the fair rigid
    limbs of goddesses men imagined beside the inland sea.
    Give the life of our blood to one among them, and wor-
    ship in her oval of tremulous gold the beauty of that
    body whose embrace would murder us with ecstasy.
Recall from Orcus the Foam-born, lady of many names;
    make for her a broidered throne among the dusky
    colonnades of the soul.
Death, a fierce exaltation, sweeps from the lips of the con-
    queror; but from hers, gently, a frail kiss, breathes a
    savor of life.
                      Il

Slowly, too slowly, the night, with its noise and its fear and
   its murder, yields to the dawn. One by one the guns
   cease. Quicker, O dawn, quicker-dazzle the hateful
   stars, lighten for us the weight of the shadows.
The last rat scuttles away; the first lark thrills with a beat-
   ing of wings and song. The light is soft; deliberately,
   consciously, the young dawn moves. My unclean flesh
   is penetrated with her sweetness and she does not dis-
   dain even me.
Out of the East as from a temple comes a procession of girls
   and young men, smiling, brave, candid, ignorant of
   grief.
Few know the full bitterness of night, but they alone will
   know the full beauty of dawn-if dawn ever comes.

                      IV

Life has deceived us. The thoughts we found so vivid and
   fresh were dull and crass as the prayers muttered to a
   worn rosary by an infidel priest.
The joy we felt in beauty, our sense of discovery at the
   touch of some age-green bronze; even the sick horror at
   some battlefield where the flesh had not quite fallen
   from the shattered bones-all this was old, a thousand
   times felt and forgotten.

And is the kiss of your mouth then but the reflection of dead
   kisses, the gleam of your breast a common thing? Was
   the touch of your hand but a worn memory of hands
   crumbled into cool dust?

                      v

And in the end one comes to love flowers as women, and
   women as flowers. Beauty recoils from excess. Imitate
   the wise Easterns, and let a few sprays of blossom
   decorate the empty chamber of the soul and spread their
   fragrance through its recesses.
Ah! To retain.this fragrance, to make permanent this most
   precious of essences, this mingling of suave and acrid
   perfumes-something wild and tender and perverse and
   immortal!
I will make for myself, from tempered silver, an Aphrodite
   with narrow hips and small pointed breasts, and wide
   brow above gay, subtle eyes; and in her hand shall be a
   perfume ball sweet with this divine fragrance.

                      VI

Escape, let the soul escape from this insanity, this insult to
   God, from this ruined landscape, these murdered fields,
   this bitterness, this agony, from this harsh death and
   disastrous mutilation, from this filth and labor, this
   stench of dead bodies and unwashed living bodies-
   escape, let the soul escape!
Let the soul escape and move with emotion along ilex walks
   under a quiet sky. There, lingering for a while beside
   the marble head of some shattered Hermes, it strews
   the violets of regret for a lost loveliness as transient as
   itself. Or perhaps, by some Homeric sea, watching the
   crisp foam blown by a straight wind, it gathers sea-
   flowers, exquisite in their acrid restraint of color and
   austere sparseness of petal.
There, perhaps, among flowers, at twilight, under the glim-
   mer of the first stars, it will find a sensation of a quiet,
   almost kindly universe, indifferent to this festering
   activity.

                      vit

The gods have ceased to be truth, they have become poetry.
   Now only simple pure hearts and those who are weary
   of doubt believe. Why not pray to the gods, any god?
   Perhaps even from the immensity of space will come
   a gently ironic echo.
"Dionysios, lord of life and laughter, from whom come twin
   gifts of ecstasy, hear me.
I pray the noble Iacchos of reverent mien and wide tolerant
   eyes, to look mildly upon me and to show me the mystery
   of beauty, the mystery of vineyards, the mystery of
   death.

And I pray the young Dionysios, the bearer of the fawn-
   skin, the charioteer of leopards, the lover of white
   breasts, to show me the mystery of love.
And grant that nothing ignoble may render me base to my-
   self; let desire be always fresh and keen; let me never
   love or be loved through ennui, through pity or through
   lassitude."

                      vill

The moon high-seated above the ridge, fills the ruined village
   with tranquil light and black broken shadows-ruined
   walls, shattered timbers, piles of rubbish, torn-up
   ground, almost beautiful in this radiance, in this quiet
   June air. Lush grass in the tangled gardens sways very
   softly, and white moths dart over the bending sprays.
Somehow to-night the air blows clearer, sweeter-the
   chemistry of earth is slowly purifying the corrupting
   bodies, the waste and garbage of armies. Sweetness,
    darkness, clean peace-the marble rock of some Greek
    island, piercing its sparse garment of lavenders and
    mints like a naked nymph among rustling leaves,
Heavy-scented the air to-night-new-mown hay ?-a pungent
    exotic odor-ah! phosfene. . . .
And to-morrow there will be huddled corpses with blue
    horrible faces and foam on their writhed mouths.
                              Richard Aldington
France, 1918