Paris

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 font-style:italic; font-variant:small-caps; font-size:32pt; line-height:1.0; font-size:12pt; line-height:1.0; font-size:11pt; line-height:1.0; font-size:10pt; line-height:1.0; font-size:8pt; line-height:1.0; font-size:7pt; line-height:1.0; text-align:justify; text-align:justify; English French Latin Greek Russian Italian PARIS A POEM BY HOPE MIRRLEES Printed by Leonard&Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, Paradise Road, Richmond 1919
ANOTRE DAME DE PARISEN RECONNAISSANCEDES GRACES ACCORDEES
Iwantaholophrase NORD-SUD ZIG-ZAG LIONNOIR CACAOBLOOKER Black-figured vases in Etruscan tombs RUE DU BAC (DUBONNET) SOLFERINO (DUBONNET) CHAMBRE DES DEPUTES Brekekekek coax coax we are passing under the Seine DUBONNET The Scarlet Woman shouting BYRRH and deafening St. John at Patmos Vous descendez Madame? qui souvent se pese bien se connait qui bien se connait bien se porte CONCORDE Ican't Imustgoslowly (3) TheTuileriesareinatrance becausethepaintershave staredatthemsolong Little boys in black overalls whose hands, sticky with play, are like the newly furled leaves of the horse- chestnuts ride round and round on wooden horses till their heads turn. Pigeons perch on statues And are turned to stone. Le départ pour Cythère. These nymphs are harmless, Fear not their soft mouths—— Some Pasteur made the Gauls immune Against the bite of Nymphs...look Gambetta A red stud in the button-hole of his frock-coat The obscene conjugal tutoiment Mais c'est logique. The Esprit Français is leaning over him, Whispering (4) Secrets exquisitesignificant fadeplastic Of the XXIIIth Duchess of Alba Long long as the Eiffel Tower Fathoms deep in haschich With languid compelling finger Pointing invisible Magi To a little white Maltese: The back-ground gray and olive-green Like le Midi, the Louvre, la Seine.... Of ivory paper-knives, a lion carved on the handle, Lysistrata had one, but the worksmanship of these is Empire.... Of... I see the Arc de Triomphe, Square and shadowy like Julius Cæsar's dreams: Scorn the laws of solid geometry, Step boldly into the wall of the Salle Caillebotte And on and on... I hate the Etoile The Bois bores me: (5) Tortoises with gem-encrusted carapace A Roman boy picking a thorn out of his foot A flock of discalceated Madame Récamiers Moaning for the Chateaubriand de nos jours. And yet...quite near Saunters the ancient rue Saint-Honoré Shabby and indifferent, as a Grand Seigneur from Brit- tany An Auvergnat, all the mountains of Auvergne in every chestnut that he sells.... Paris is a huge home-sick peasant, He carries a thousand villages in his heart. Hidden courts With fauns in very low-relief piping among lotuses And creepers grown on trellises Are secret valleys where little gods are born. One often hears a cock Do do do miii He cannot sing of towns—— Old Hesiod's ghost with leisure to be melancholy Amid the timeless idleness of Acheron Yearning for ‘Works and Days’...hark! The lovely Spirit of the Year Is stiff and stark (6) Laid out in acres of brown fields, The crisp, straight lines of his archaic drapery Well chiselled by the plough... And there are pretty things—— Children hung with amulets Playing at Pigeon vole, Red roofs, Blue smocks, And jolly saints... AU BONMARCHE ACTUELLEMENT TOILETTES PRINTANIERES The jeunesse dorée of the sycamores. In the Churches during Lent Christ and the Saints are shrouded in mauve veils. Far away in gardens Crocuses, Chionodoxa, the Princess in a Serbian fairy-tale, Then The goldsmith's chef d’œuvre——lily of the valley, Soon Dog-roses will stare at gypsies, wanes, and pilgrimages (7) All the time Scentless Lyons’ roses, Icy, Plastic, Named after wives of Mayors.... Did Ingres paint a portrait of Madame Jacquemart André? In the Louvre The Pietà of Avignon, L'Olympe, Giles, Mantegna's Seven Deadly Sins, The Chardins; They arise, serene and unetiolated, one by one from their subterranean sleep of fivelong years. Like Duncan they slept well. President Wilson grins like a dog and runs about the city, sniffing with innocent enjoyment the diluvial urine of Gargantua. The poplar buds are golden chrysalids; The Ballet of green Butterflies Will soon begin. (8) During the cyclic Grand Guignol of Catholicism Shrieks, Lacerations, Bloody sweat—— Le petit Jésus fait pipi. Lilac spring is Solomon's little sister; she has no breasts. LAIT SUPERIEUR DE LA FERME DE RAMBOUILLET ICI ON CONSULTE LE BOTTIN CHARCUTERIE COMESTIBLES DE Ire CHOIX APERITIFS ALIMENTS DIABETIQUES DEUIL EN 24 HEURES Messieursetdames Little temples of Mercury; The circumference of their templum A nice sense of scale, (9) A golden drop of Harpagon’s blood, Preserve from impious widening. Great bunches of lilac among syphons, vermouth, Bocks, tobacco. Messieursetdames NE FERMEZ PAS LA PORTE S. V. P. LE PRIMUS S'EN CHARGERA At marble tables sit ouvriers in blue linen suits discuss- ing: La journée de huit heures, Whether Landru is a Sadist, The learned seal at the Nouveau Cirque Cottin.... Echoes of Bossuet chanting dead queens. méticuleux bélligerants hebdomadaire immonde The Roman Legions Wingèd Invisible Fight their last fight in Gaul. (10) The ghost of Père Lachaise Is walking the streets, He is draped in a black curtain embroidered with the letter H, He is hung with paper wreaths, He is beautiful and horrible and the close friend of Rousseau, the official of the Douane. The unities are smashed, The stage is thick with corpses.... Kind clever gaillards Their eidola in hideous frames inset with the brass motto mort au champ d'honneur; And little widows moaning Le pauvre grand! Le pauvre grand! And petites bourgeoises with tight lips and strident voices are counting out the change and saying Mes- sieursetdames and their hearts are the ruined province of Picardie.... They are not like us, who, ghoul-like, bury our friends a score of times before they’re dead but—— Never never again will the Marne Flow between happy banks. It is pleasant to sit on the Grand Boulevards—— They smell of (11) Cloacæ Hot indiarubber Poudre de riz Algerian tobacco Monsieur Jourdain in the blue and red of the Zouaves Is premier danseur in the Ballet Turque ’Ya bon! Mamamouchi YANKEES -- ‘‘and say besides that in Aleppo once...’’ Many a Mardi Gras and Carême Prenant of the Peace Carnival; Crape veils, Mouths pursed up with lip-salve as if they had just said: Cho-co-lat ... ‘‘Elles se balancent sur les hanches.’’ Lizard-eyes, Assyrian beards, Boots with cloth tops—– The tart little face, whose brain, the Arabs said, was one of the three perches of the Spirit of God. Ouiouioui, c’esi passionnant——on en a pour son argent. Le fromage n’est pas un plat logique. A a a a a oui c’est un délicieux garçon Il me semble que toute femme sincère doit se retrouver en Anna Karénine. (12) Never the catalepsy of the Teuton What time Subaqueous Cell on cell Experience Very slowly Is forming up Into something beautiful——awful——huge The coming to...... Thick halting speech——the curse of vastness.The first of May T h e r e i s n o l i l y o f (13) t h e v a l l e y There was a ritual fight for her sweet body Between two virgins——Mary and the moon The wicked April moon. The silence of la grève: Rain The Louvre is melting into mist It will soon be transparent And through it will glimmer the mysterious island gardens of the Place du Carrousel. The Seine, old egotist, meanders imperturbably to- wards the sea, Ruminating on weeds and rain... If through his sluggish watery sleep come dreams They are the blue ghosts of king-fishers. (14) The Eiffel Tower is two dimensional, Etched on thick white paper. Poilus in wedgwood blue with bundles Terre de Sienne are camping round the gray sphinx of the Tuileries They look as if a war-artist were making a sketch of them in chalks, to be ‘edited’ in the Rue des Pyram- ides at 10 francs a copy. Désœvrement, Apprehension; Vronsky and Anna Starting up in separate beds in a cold sweat Reading calamity in the same dream Of a gigantic sinister mujik.... Whatever happens, some day it will look beautiful: Clio is a great French painter, She walks upon the waters and they are still. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stand motionless and plastic mid the flames. Manet’s Massacres de Jours de Juin, David’s Prise de la Bastille, Poussin’s Fronde, Hang in a quiet gallery. All this time the Virgin has not been idle; The windows of les Galéries Lafayette, le Bon Marché, la Samaritaine, (15) Hold holy bait Waxen Pandoras in white veils and ties of her own decking; Catéchisme de Persévérance, The decrees of the Seven Œcumenical Councils re- duced to the format of the Bibliothèque Rose, Première Communion, (Prometheus has swallowed the bait) Petits Lycéens, Por-no-gra-phie, Charming pigmy brides, Little Saint Hugh avenged—– the children eat the jew. PHOTO MIDGET Heigh ho! I wade knee-deep in dreams—– Heavy sweet going As through a field of hay in Périgord. The Louvre, the Ritz, the Palais-Royale, the Hôtel de Ville Are light and frail Plaster pavilions of pleasure Set up to serve the ten days junketing Of citizens in masks and dominoes A l’occasion du marriage de Monseigneur le Dauphin. (16) From the top floor of an old Hôtel, Tranced, I gaze down at the narrow rue de Beaune. Hawkers chant their wares liturgically: Hatless women in black shawls Carry long loaves--Triptolemos in swaddling clothes: Workmen in pale blue: Barrows of vegetables: Busy dogs: They come and go. They are very small. Stories.... The lost romance Penned by some Ovid, an unwilling thrall In Fairyland, No one knows its name; It was the guild-secret of the Italian painters. They spent their lives in illustrating it.... The Chinese village in a genius’s mind.... Little funny things ceaselessly happening. In the Ile Saint-Louis, in the rue Saint Antoine, in the Place des Vosges The Seventeenth Century lies exquisitely dying.... (17) Husssh
In the parish of Saint Thomas d’Aquin there is an alley called l’impasse des Deux Anges Houses with rows of impassive windows; They are like blind dogs The only thing that they can see are ghosts. Hark to the small dry voice As of an old nun chanting Masses For the soul of a brother killed at Sebastopol.... moliere est mort dans cette maison le 17 fevrier 1673 voltaire est mort dans cette maison le 30 mai 1778 (18) chateaubriand est mort dans cette maison le 4 juillet 1848 That is not all, Paradise cannot hold for long the famous dead of Paris.... There are les Champs Elysées! Sainte-Beuve, a tight bouquet in his hand for Madame Victor-Hugo, Passes on the Pont-Neuf the duc de la Rochefoucauld With a superbly leisurely gait Making for the salon d’automne Of Madame de Lafayette; They cannot see each other. Il fait lourd, The dreams have reached my waist. We went to Benediction in Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Droning...droning...droning. The Virgin sits in her garden; She wears the blue habit and the wingèd linen head- dress of the nuns of Saint Vincent de Paul. The Holy Ghost coos in his dove-cot. The Seven Stagesof the Cross are cut in box, (19) Lilies bloom, blue, green, and pink, The bulbs were votive offerings From a converted Jap. An angelic troubadour Sings her songs Of little venial sins. Upon the wall of sunset-sky wasps never fret The plums of Paradise. La Liberté La Press! La Liberté La Presse! The sun is sinking behind le Petit-Palais. In the Algerian desert they are shouting the Koran. La Liberté La Presse! The sky is apricot; Against it there pass Across the Pont Solférino Fiacres and little people all black, Flies nibbling the celestial apricot—— That one with broad-brimmed hat and tippeted pelisse must be a priest. They are black and two-dimensional and look like silhouettes of Louis-Philippe citizens. All down the Quais the bouquinistes shut their green boxes. (20) From the VIIme arrondissement Night like a vampire Sucks all colour, all sound. The winds are sleeping in their Hyperbórean cave; The narrow streets bend proudly to the stars; From time to time a taxi hoots like an owl. But behind the ramparts of the Louvre Freud has dredged the river and, grinning horribly, waves his garbage in a glare of electricity. Taxis, Taxis, Taxis, They moan and yell and squeak Like a thousand tom-cats in rut. The whores like lions are seeking their meat from God: An English padre tilts with the Moulin Rouge: Crotchets and quavers have the heads of niggers and they writhe in obscene syncopation: Toutes les cartes marchent avec une allumette! A hundred lenses refracting the Masque of the Seven Deadly sins for American astigmatism: ‘‘I dont like the gurls of the night-club——they love women.’’ (21) Toutes les cates marchent avec une allumette! DAWN Verlaine's bed-time...Alchemy Absynthe, Algerian tobacco, Talk, talk, talk, Manuring the white violets of the moon. The President of the Republiclies in bed beside his wife, and it may be at this very moment... In the Abbaye of Port-Royal babies are being born, Perhaps someone who cannot sleep is reading le Crime et le Châtiment The sun is rising, Soon les Halles will open, The sky is saffron behind the two towers of Nôtre- Dame. JE VOUS SALUE PARIS PLEIN DE GRACE. * * * ** ** 3 Rue de Beaune Paris Spring19169
NOTES P.I.Nord-Sud, one of the underground railways of Paris. Dubonnet, Zig-zag, Lion Noir, Cacao Blooker are posters. Rue du Bac , etc. are names of stations. P.II.“It is pleasant to sit on the Grands Boule-vards”to page 13 “the curse of vastness” is a de-scription of the Grands Boulevards. P.13.“The first of May, there is no lily of the valley. ” On May I, the Mois de Marie, lily of the valley is normally sold in all the streets of Paris; but on May I, 1919, the day of the general strike, no lily of the valley was offered for sale. P.14.The April moon, la lune rousse, is supposed to have a malign influence on vegetation. P.15.“The windows of les Galéries Laffayette, etc.” During Lent life-size wax dolls, dressed like candidates for Première Communion, are exposed in the windows of the big shops. P.22.The Abbaye de Port-Royal is now a maternity hospital. (23)