Richard Aldington Poems

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At the British Museum

 I turn the page and read: 
"I dream of silent verses where the rhyme 
Glides noiseless as an oar." 
The heavy musty air, the black desks, 
The bent heads and the rustling noises 
In the great dome 
Vanish ...
And 
The sun hangs in the cobalt-blue sky, 
The boat drifts over the lake shallows, 
The fishes skim like umber shades...Read more of this...

Bombardment

 Four days the earth was rent and torn
By bursting steel,
The houses fell about us;
Three nights we dared not sleep,
Sweating, and listening for the imminent crash
Which meant our death. 

The fourth night every man,
Nerve-tortured, racked to exhaustion,
Slept, muttering and twitching,
While the shells crashed overhead.

The fifth day there came a hush;
We left our holes
And looked above the wreckage of the earth
To...Read more of this...

Childhood

 I 

The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood 
Put me out of love with God. 
I can't believe in God's goodness; 
I can believe 
In many avenging gods. 
Most of all I believe 
In gods of bitter dullness, 
Cruel local gods 
Who scared my childhood. 

II 

I've seen people put 
A chrysalis in a match-box, 
"To see," they...Read more of this...

Daisy

 Plus quan se atque suos amavit omnes, 
nunc... 
- Catullus

You were my playmate by the sea. 
We swam together. 
Your girl's body had no breasts. 

We found prawns among the rocks; 
We liked to feel the sun and to do nothing; 
In the evening we played games with the others. 

It made me glad to be by you. 

Sometimes...Read more of this...

Epilogue

 Che son contenti nel fuoco

We are of those that Dante saw
Glad, for love's sake, among the flames of hell,
Outdaring with a kiss all-powerful wrath;
For we have passed athwart a fiercer hell,
Through gloomier, more desperate circles
Than ever Dante dreamed:
And yet love kept us glad....Read more of this...

Goodbye!

 Come, thrust your hands in the warm earth 
And feel her strength through all your veins; 
Breathe her full odors, taste her mouth, 
Which laughs away imagined pains; 
Touch her life's womb, yet know 
This substance makes your grave also.

Shrink not; your flesh is no more sweet 
Than flowers which daily blow and die; 
Nor are your mein and...Read more of this...

Images

 I

Like a gondola of green scented fruits 
Drifting along the dark canals of Venice, 
You, O exquisite one, 
Have entered into my desolate city. 

II

The blue smoke leaps 
Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing. 
So my love leaps forth toward you, 
Vanishes and is renewed. 

III

A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky 
When the sunset is faint vermilion 
In...Read more of this...

Lemures

 In Nineveh 
And beyond Nineveh 
In the dusk 
They were afraid. 

In Thebes of Egypt 
In the dust 
They chanted of them to the dead. 

In my Lesbos and Achaia 
Where the God dwelt 
We knew them. 

Now men say "They are not": 
But in the dusk 
Ere the white sun comes -
A gay child that bears a white...Read more of this...

Prelude

 How could I love you more? 
I would give up 
Even that beauty I have loved too well 
That I might love you better. 
Alas, how poor the gifts that lovers give 
I can but give you of my flesh and strength, 
I can but give you these few passing days 
And passionate words that, since our speech began,...Read more of this...

Round-Pond

 Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind 
Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breaks 
Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. 
The shining of the sun upon the water 
Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals 
In a long wavering irregular flight. 

The water is cold to the eye 
As the wind to the cheek. 

In the budding chestnuts...Read more of this...

The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time

 Zeus, 
Brazen-thunder-hurler, 
Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos, 
Send vengeance on these Oreads 
Who strew 
White frozen flecks of mist and cloud 
Over the brown trees and the tufted grass 
Of the meadows, where the stream 
Runs black through shining banks 
Of bluish white. 

Zeus, 
Are the halls of heaven broken up 
That you flake down upon me 
Feather-strips of marble? 

Dis and...Read more of this...

The Poplar

 Why do you always stand there shivering 
Between the white stream and the road? 

The people pass through the dust 
On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; 
The waggoners go by at down; 
The lovers walk on the grass path at night. 

Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! 
You are more beautiful than they are. 

I know that the white...Read more of this...