APRIL
1.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land,
2.
When April scatters coins of primrose gold
Among the copper leaves in thickets old,
And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,
To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies.
3.
What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew,
Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew,
And beckoning woos me, from the fatal tree
To pluck a garland for herself, or me?
4.
Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
5.
Whan that Aprille with hir shoures soote
The droghte of Merche hath perced to the roote
6.
Cleare or cloudie sweet as Aprill showring,
Smoth or frowning So is hir face to mee,
Pleasd or smiling like milde May all flowring,
When skies blew silke and medowes carpets bee,
7.
Why are you vext Ladie, why doe you frowne?
Here dwell no frowns, nor anger, from these gates
Sorrow flies farre: see here be all the pleasurs
That fancie can beget on youthfull thoughts
When the fresh blood grows lively, and returns
Brisk as the April buds in primrose season.
1.
—“Are we not here now;”—continued the Corporal—“and are we not,”—dropping his hat plumb upon the ground—and pausing, before he pronounced the word,—“gone! in a moment?” The descent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it.—Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and forerunner, like it;
2.
For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide,
With ribbons and bibbons on every side
And bells, and buttons, and loops, and lace,
So that nobody ever could see the face
3.
I must have looked aghast, but he seemed to think he had done rather well. There was a hint of a smile on his face. He also appeared to have decided that the examination was over and started to look around for his hat. He reached out his hand and took hold of his wife’s head, tried to lift it off, to put it on.
4.
Six years older, shorter, wider, with breasts on her belly and no hair (though she took the peculiar step of putting her wig in curlers) and slippers just visible under a long, padded baby-pink housecoat. But the real difference was Hortense was eighty-four.
5.
With varying vanities, from every part,
They shift the moving toyshop of their heart,
Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive,
Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive.
6.
He brought back a knife. Unsheathed, it smiled at me, curving up in a grin.
He took the hat from my mouth.
‘Tell me you love me,’ he said.
Gently, I did.
The end came anyway.
7.
‘Look, she made me this bow to my hat, and put in the feather last night. There now, you are going to laugh at me too. But why should not I wear pink ribbons? I do not care if it is the Doctor’s favourite colour.’
1.
I tried to say, “The death she has died, Sergeant, was a death of her own seeking.” No! the words wouldn’t come. The dumb trembling held me in its grip. I couldn’t feel the driving rain. I couldn’t see the rising tide. As in the vision of a dream, the poor lost creature came back before me. I saw her again as I had seen her in the past time—on the morning when I went to fetch her into the house. I heard her again, telling me that the Shivering Sand seemed to draw her to it against her will,
2.
This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening, and the wood-thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to shore.
3.
Flora was fair, and blooming as that flower
Which spreads its blossom to the April shower;
Her gentle manners and unstudied grace
Still added lustre to her beaming face,
While every look, by purity refined,
Displayed the lovelier beauties of her mind.
4.
Then the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall. The water bounded from the mountain-top, tore leaves and branches from the trees, poured like a cold shower over the struggling heap on the sand. Presently the heap broke up and figures staggered away. Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand.
5.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
6.
And sometimes too a burst of rain,
Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends
In one continuous flood. Still over head
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still
The deluge deepens; till the fields around
Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave.
7.
There’s a mountain of blackness in the sky, and the greatest rain falling has been these long years on the earth. The gods help Conchubor. He’ll be a sorry man this night, reaching his dun, and he with all his spirits, thinking to himself he’ll be putting his arms around her in two days or three.
1.
There are two beds, a big one for madame and a smaller one on the opposite side for monsieur. The wash-basin is shut off by a curtain. It is a large room, the smell of cheap hotels faint, almost imperceptible. The street outside is narrow, cobblestoned, going sharply uphill and ending in a flight of steps. What they call an impasse.
2.
Dear Paris of the hot white hands, the scarlet lips, the scented hair,
Une jolie fille à vendre, très cher;
A thing of gaiety, a thing of sorrow,
Bought tonight, possessed, and tossed
Back to the mart again to-morrow.
3.
He had pulled down the green baize blind, and was looking over the roofs and chimney-pots of Paris and all about with all his eyes, munching the while a roll and a savoury saveloy, in which there was evidence of much garlic. He ate with great relish, for he had been all morning at Carrel’s studio, drawing from the life.
4.
If I rightly remember, it happened on that afternoon when
Word of the nearer approach of a new Neapolitan army
First was spread. I began to bethink me of Paris Septembers,
Thought I could fancy the look of that old ’Ninety-two. On that evening
Three or four, or, it may be, five, of these people were slaughtered.
5.
Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court the air. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife’s lover’s wife, the kerchiefed housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hands. In Rodot’s Yvonne and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties,
6.
Long petticoats to hide the feet,
Silk hose with clocks of scarlet;
A load of perfume, sick’ning sweet,
Bought of Parisian varlet.
7.
She bid me adieu twice – I repeated it as often; and so cordial was the parting between us, that had it happen’d any where else, I’m not sure but I should have signed it with a kiss of charity, as warm and holy as an apostle.
But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men — I did, what amounted to the same thing —
— I bid God bless her.
1.
Even working in a library for two years had not lessened her love of reading. There was Frenchman’s Creek. She stopped for a second, remembering the glamour of the Frenchman. If only a man like that would come into the library. But if he did, he’d be bound to fall in love with Gloria.
A commotion at the issue desk woke her out of her reverie. A man with a moustache and a purple face, wearing a blazer, was agitatedly waving a copy of Molly Parkin’s latest novel.
‘It’s filth,’ he roared, ‘sheer filth.’
2.
A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room: I slipped in there. It contained a book-case: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.
3.
The Way I read a Letter’s – this –
’Tis first – I lock the Door –
And push it with my fingers – next –
For transport it be sure –
4.
But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.
5.
I’m reading with the light on
though it’s 4 o’clock in the afternoon
and the skylight overhead, masked
with a calico blind, casts
a whiteness in the air as if a blanket
of snow had covered the pane
and light was filtering through flakes.
6.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always list’ning to himself appears.
All books he reads, and all he reads assails,
From Dryden’s Fables down to Durfey’s Tales.
7.
‘Why then,’ said the medical gentleman, ‘there are hopes for me yet; I may attend half the old women in Bristol if I’ve decent luck. Get out, you mouldy old villain, get out.’ With this adjuration, which was addressed to the large book, the medical gentleman kicked the volume with remarkable agility to the further end of the shop, and pulling off his green spectacles, grinned the identical grin of Robert Sawyer, Esquire, formerly of Guy’s Hospital in the Borough, with a private residence in Lant-street.