THE adored, wild, strange, irresistible,
How they fail one at the last!
What is there in your faces
That we should worship with our souls?
Most lovable, perfidious,
Vague—
Molesting even our visions
With treacherous pathos.
O vulgarity, mediocrity, stupidity,
What is it in you that makes us lavish our love,
Covering your meagre bodies
With our passionate mantle, dyed with blood and dreams?
Life and its grey days, and time
Are a thin curtain through which you shadow,
Or a dim glass through which you peer.
You climb in at the windows of our souls
With ladders and stratagems,
You mope in corners with reproachful eyes.
But what do you do for us
Lute players, dancers, deceivers,
Other than lie with red lips
And cajole with tears of beryl?
People—
Men and women with laughable, tragic faces
Winking at love,
Treading our songs and illusions
Under petulant feet!
How they fail one at the last!
What is there in your faces
That we should worship with our souls?
Most lovable, perfidious,
Vague—
Molesting even our visions
With treacherous pathos.
O vulgarity, mediocrity, stupidity,
What is it in you that makes us lavish our love,
Covering your meagre bodies
With our passionate mantle, dyed with blood and dreams?
Life and its grey days, and time
Are a thin curtain through which you shadow,
Or a dim glass through which you peer.
You climb in at the windows of our souls
With ladders and stratagems,
You mope in corners with reproachful eyes.
But what do you do for us
Lute players, dancers, deceivers,
Other than lie with red lips
And cajole with tears of beryl?
People—
Men and women with laughable, tragic faces
Winking at love,
Treading our songs and illusions
Under petulant feet!
1917
31
