Men, Women and Ghosts
by Amy Lowell


Men, Women and Ghosts

by Amy Lowell [American (Massachusetts) poet and critic -- 1874-1925.]

"`. . . See small portions of the Eternal World that ever groweth':  . . . .
So sang a Fairy, mocking, as he sat on a streak'd tulip,
Thinking none saw him:  when he ceas'd I started from the trees,
And caught him in my hat, as boys knock down a butterfly."
                                   William Blake.  "Europe.  A Prophecy."

          `Thou hast a lap full of seed,
          And this is a fine country.'
                                   William Blake.

Preface

This is a book of stories.  For that reason I have excluded
all purely lyrical poems.  But the word "stories" has been stretched
to its fullest application.  It includes both narrative poems,
properly so called; tales divided into scenes; and a few pieces
of less obvious story-telling import in which one might say
that the dramatis personae are air, clouds, trees, houses, streets,
and such like things.

It has long been a favourite idea of mine that the rhythms of `vers libre'
have not been sufficiently plumbed, that there is in them a power of variation
which has never yet been brought to the light of experiment.
I think it was the piano pieces of Debussy, with their strange likeness
to short vers libre poems, which first showed me the close kinship
of music and poetry, and there flashed into my mind the idea of using
the movement of poetry in somewhat the same way that the musician uses
the movement of music.

It was quite evident that this could never be done in the strict pattern
of a metrical form, but the flowing, fluctuating rhythm of vers libre
seemed to open the door to such an experiment.  First, however,
I considered the same method as applied to the more pronounced
movements of natural objects.  If the reader will turn to the poem,
"A Roxbury Garden", he will find in the first two sections
an attempt to give the circular movement of a hoop bowling along the ground,
and the up and down, elliptical curve of a flying shuttlecock.

From these experiments, it is but a step to the flowing rhythm of music.
In "The Cremona Violin", I have tried to give this flowing, changing rhythm
to the parts in which the violin is being played.  The effect
is farther heightened, because the rest of the poem is written
in the seven line Chaucerian stanza; and, by deserting this ordered pattern
for the undulating line of vers libre, I hoped to produce
something of the suave, continuous tone of a violin.  Again,
in the violin parts themselves, the movement constantly changes,
as will be quite plain to any one reading these passages aloud.

In "The Cremona Violin", however, the rhythms are fairly obvious and regular.
I set myself a far harder task in trying to transcribe the various movements
of Stravinsky's "Three Pieces `Grotesques', for String Quartet".
Several musicians, who have seen the poem, think the movement
accurately given.

These experiments lead me to believe that there is here much food for thought
and matter for study, and I hope many poets will follow me
in opening up the still hardly explored possibilities of vers libre.

A good many of the poems in this book are written in "polyphonic prose".
A form about which I have written and spoken so much
that it seems hardly necessary to explain it here.  Let me hastily add,
however, that the word "prose" in its name refers only
to the typographical arrangement, for in no sense is this a prose form.
Only read it aloud, Gentle Reader, I beg, and you will see what you will see.
For a purely dramatic form, I know none better in the whole range of poetry.
It enables the poet to give his characters the vivid, real effect
they have in a play, while at the same time writing in the `decor'.

One last innovation I have still to mention.  It will be found
in "Spring Day", and more fully enlarged upon in the series,
"Towns in Colour".  In these poems, I have endeavoured to give
the colour, and light, and shade, of certain places and hours,
stressing the purely pictorial effect, and with little or no reference
to any other aspect of the places described.  It is an enchanting thing
to wander through a city looking for its unrelated beauty,
the beauty by which it captivates the sensuous sense of seeing.

I have always loved aquariums, but for years I went to them and looked,
and looked, at those swirling, shooting, looping patterns of fish,
which always defied transcription to paper until I hit upon
the "unrelated" method.  The result is in "An Aquarium".
I think the first thing which turned me in this direction
was John Gould Fletcher's "London Excursion", in "Some Imagist Poets".
I here record my thanks.

For the substance of the poems -- why, the poems are here.
No one writing to-day can fail to be affected by the great war
raging in Europe at this time.  We are too near it to do more
than touch upon it.  But, obliquely, it is suggested in many of these poems,
most notably those in the section, "Bronze Tablets".  The Napoleonic Era
is an epic subject, and waits a great epic poet.  I have only been able
to open a few windows upon it here and there.  But the scene from the windows
is authentic, and the watcher has used eyes, and ears, and heart, in watching.

                                             Amy Lowell
July 10, 1916.

Contents

    Figurines in Old Saxe

Patterns
Pickthorn Manor
The Cremona Violin
The Cross-Roads
A Roxbury Garden
1777

    Bronze Tablets

The Fruit Shop
Malmaison
The Hammers
Two Travellers in the Place Vendome

    War Pictures

The Allies
The Bombardment
Lead Soldiers
The Painter on Silk
A Ballad of Footmen

    The Overgrown Pasture

Reaping
Off the Turnpike
The Grocery
Number 3 on the Docket

    Clocks Tick a Century

Nightmare:  A Tale for an Autumn Evening
The Paper Windmill
The Red Lacquer Music-Stand
Spring Day
The Dinner-Party
Stravinsky's Three Pieces "Grotesques", for String Quartet
Towns in Colour
 Red Slippers
 Thompson's Lunch Room -- Grand Central Station
 An Opera House
 Afternoon Rain in State Street
 An Aquarium

The two sea songs quoted in "The Hammers" are taken from
`Songs:  Naval and Nautical, of the late Charles Dibdin', London,
John Murray, 1841.  The "Hanging Johnny" refrain, in "The Cremona Violin",
is borrowed from the old, well-known chanty of that name.

  ---------------------
  Men, Women and Ghosts
  ---------------------

    Figurines in Old Saxe

Patterns

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 jewelled 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 plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.