She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems (12 page)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Enobarbus:

. . . The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne

Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfumed that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggar'd all description: she did lie

In her pavilion—cloth of gold, of tissue—

O'er-picturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature. On each side her,

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,

With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

And what they undid did.

 

Agrippa:
        O, rare for Antony!

 

Enobarbus:

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,

And made their bends adornings. At the helm

A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle

Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,

That yarely frame the office. From the barge

A strange invisible perfume hits the sense

Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast

Her people out upon her; and Antony,

Enthron'd i' the market-place, did sit alone,

Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

And made a gap in nature.

 

Agrippa:
        Rare Egyptian!

 

Enobarbus:

Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,

Invited her to supper: she replied,

It should be better he became her guest,

Which she entreated: our courteous Antony,

Whom ne'er the word of ‘No' woman heard speak,

Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast;

And for his ordinary, pays his heart,

For what his eyes eat only.

 

Agrippa:
        Royal wench!

 

She made great Cæsar lay his sword to bed;

He plough'd her, and she cropp'd.

 

Enobarbus:
        I saw her once

Hop forty paces through the public street,

And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,

That she did make defect perfection,

And, breathless, power breathe forth.

KIM ADDONIZIO

I want a red dress.

I want it flimsy and cheap,

I want it too tight, I want to wear it

until someone tears it off me.

I want it sleeveless and backless,

this dress, so no one has to guess

what's underneath. I want to walk down

the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store

with all those keys glittering in the window,

past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old

donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers

slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,

hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.

I want to walk like I'm the only

woman on earth and I can have my pick.

I want that red dress bad.

I want it to confirm

your worst fears about me,

to show you how little I care about you

or anything except what

I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment

from its hanger like I'm choosing a body

to carry me into this world, through

the birth-cries and the love-cries too,

and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,

it'll be the goddamned

dress they bury me in.

RICHARD WILBUR

From the dress-box's plashing tis-

Sue paper she pulls out her prize,

Dangling it to one side before my eyes

Like a weird sort of fish

That she has somehow hooked and gaffed

And on the dock-end holds in air—

Limp, corrugated, lank, a catch too rare

Not to be photographed.

I, in my chair, make shift to say

Some bright, discerning thing, and fail,

Proving once more the blindness of the male.

Annoyed, she stalks away

And then is back in half a minute,

Consulting, now, not me at all

But the long mirror, mirror on the wall.

The dress, now that she's in it,

Has changed appreciably, and gains

By lacy shoes, a light perfume

Whose subtle field electrifies the room,

And two slim golden chains.

With a fierce frown and hard-pursed lips

She twists a little on her stem

To test the even swirling of the hem,

Smooths down the waist and hips,

Plucks at the shoulder-straps a bit,

Then turns around and looks behind,

Her face transfigured now by peace of mind.

There is no question—it

Is wholly charming, it is she,

As I belatedly remark,

And may be hung now in the fragrant dark

Of her soft armory.

STEVE KOWIT
after Vidyapati

Cosmetics do no good:

no shadow, rouge, mascara, lipstick—

nothing helps.

However artfully I comb my hair,

embellishing my throat & wrists with jewels,

it is no use—there is no

semblance of the beautiful young girl

I was

& long for still.

My loveliness is past.

& no one could be more aware than I am

that coquettishness at this age

only renders me ridiculous.

I know it. Nonetheless,

I primp myself before the glass

like an infatuated schoolgirl

fussing over every detail,

practicing whatever subtlety

may please him.

I cannot help myself.

The God of Passion has his will of me

& I am tossed about

between humiliation & desire,

rectitude & lust,

disintegration & renewal,

ruin & salvation.

SYLVIA PLATH

You bring me good news from the clinic,

Whipping off your silk scarf, exhibiting the tight white

Mummy-cloths, smiling: I'm all right.

When I was nine, a lime-green anesthetist

Fed me banana gas through a frog-mask. The nauseous vault

Boomed with bad dreams and the Jovian voices of surgeons.

Then mother swam up, holding a tin basin.

O I was sick.

They've changed all that. Traveling

Nude as Cleopatra in my well-boiled hospital shift,

Fizzy with sedatives and unusually humorous,

I roll to an anteroom where a kind man

Fists my fingers for me. He makes me feel something precious

Is leaking from the finger-vents. At the count of two

Darkness wipes me out like chalk on a blackboard . . .

I don't know a thing.

For five days I lie in secret,

Tapped like a cask, the years draining into my pillow.

Even my best friend thinks I'm in the country.

Skin doesn't have roots, it peels away easy as paper.

When I grin, the stitches tauten. I grow backward. I'm twenty,

Broody and in long skirts on my first husband's sofa, my fingers

Buried in the lambswool of the dead poodle;

I hadn't a cat yet.

Now she's done for, the dewlapped lady

I watched settle, line by line, in my mirror—

Old sock-face, sagged on a darning egg.

They've trapped her in some laboratory jar.

Let her die there, or wither incessantly for the next fifty years,

Nodding and rocking and fingering her thin hair.

Mother to myself, I wake swaddled in gauze,

Pink and smooth as a baby.

HILAIRE BELLOC

I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.

But Money gives me pleasure all the time.

RUPERT BROOKE

I have been so great a lover: filled my days

So proudly with the splendor of Love's praise,

The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,

Desire illimitable, and still content,

And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,

For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear

Our hearts at random down the dark of life.

Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife

Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,

My night shall be remembered for a star

That outshone all the suns of all men's days.

Shall I not crown them with immortal praise

Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me

High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see

The inenarrable godhead of delight?

Love is a flame:—we have beaconed the world's night.

A city:—and we have built it, these and I.

An emperor:—we have taught the world to die.

So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,

And the high cause of Love's magnificence.

And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names

Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,

And set them as a banner, that men may know,

To dare the generations, burn, and blow

Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .

These I have loved:

    White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,

Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faëry dust;

Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust

Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;

Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;

And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;

And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,

Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;

Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon

Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss

Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is

Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen

Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;

The benison of hot water; furs to touch;

The good smell of old clothes; and other such—

The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,

Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers

About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .

                                                    Dear names,

And thousand others throng to me! Royal flames;

Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;

Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing:

Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,

Soon turned to peace: and the deep-panting train;

Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam

That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;

And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold

Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mold;

Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;

And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;

And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass;—

All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,

Whatever passes not, in the great hour,

Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power

To hold them with me through the gate of Death.

They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,

Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust

And sacramental covenant to the dust.

—Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,

And give what's left of love again, and make

New friends now strangers. . . .

                                                    But the best I've known

Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown

About the winds of the world, and fades from brains

Of living men, and dies.

                                                    Nothing remains.

O dear my loves, O faithless, once again

This one last gift I give: that after men

Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed

Praise you, “All these were lovely”; say, “He loved.”

AMY LOWELL

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 jeweled 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.

Underneath my stiffened gown

Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,

A basin in the midst of hedges grown

So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,

But she guesses he is near,

And the sliding of the water

Seems the stroking of a dear

Hand upon her.

What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!

I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.

All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,

And he would stumble after,

Bewildered by my laughter.

I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.

I would choose

To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,

A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover.

Till he caught me in the shade,

And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he

clasped me,

Aching, melting, unafraid.

With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,

And the plopping of the waterdrops,

All about us in the open afternoon—

I am very like to swoon

With the weight of this brocade,

For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom

In my bosom,

Is a letter I have hid.

It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.

“Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell

Died in action Thursday se'nnight.”

As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,

The letters squirmed like snakes.

“Any answer, Madam,” said my footman.

“No,” I told him.

“See that the messenger takes some refreshment.

No, no answer.”

And I walked into the garden,

Up and down the patterned paths,

In my stiff, correct brocade.

The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,

Each one.

I stood upright too,

Held rigid to the pattern

By the stiffness of my gown.

Up and down I walked,

Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.

In a month, here, underneath this lime,

We would have broke the pattern;

He for me, and I for him,

He as Colonel, I as Lady,

On this shady seat.

He had a whim

That sunlight carried blessing.

And I answered, “It shall be as you have said.”

Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk

Up and down

The patterned garden-paths

In my stiff, brocaded gown.

The squills and daffodils

Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.

I shall go

Up and down,

In my gown.

Gorgeously arrayed,

Boned and stayed.

And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace

By each button, hook, and lace.

For the man who should loose me is dead,

Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,

In a pattern called a war.

Christ! What are patterns for?