LOOK at them standing there in
authority
The
pale-faces,
As if it
could have any effect any more.
Pale-face authority,
Caryatids,
Pillars of white bronze
standing rigid, lest the skies fall.
What a job they’ve got to keep it
up.
Their poor,
idealist foreheads naked capitals
To the entablature of clouded
heaven.
When the skies are going to fall,
fall they will
In a
great chute and rush of debacle downwards.
Oh and I wish the high and
super-gothic heavens would
come down
now,
The heavens
above, that we yearn to and aspire to.
I do not yearn, nor aspire, for I am
a blind Samson.
And
what is daylight to me that I should look skyward?
Only I grope among you,
pale-faces, caryatids, as among a
forest of pillars that
hold up the dome of high ideal
heaven
Which is my prison,
And all these human pillars of
loftiness, going stiff, metallic —
stunned with the weight of their
responsibility
I
stumble against them.
Stumbling-blocks, painful
ones.
To keep on holding up this ideal
civilisation
Must be
excruciating: unless you stiffen into metal,
when
it is easier to stand stock rigid than to
move.
This is why I tug at them,
individually, with my arm
round their
waist
The human
pillars.
They are
not stronger than I am, blind Samson.
The house sways.
I shall be so glad when it comes
down.
I am so tired
of the limitations of their Infinite.
I am so sick of the pretensions of the
Spirit.
I am so
weary of pale-face importance.
Am I not blind, at the round-turning
mill?
Then why
should I fear their pale faces?
Or love the effulgence of their holy
light,
The sun of
their righteousness?
To me, all faces are
dark,
All lips are
dusky and valved.
Save your lips, O
pale-faces,
Which
are slips of metal,
Like slits in an automatic-machine, you columns of give —
and-take.
To me, the earth rolls ponderously,
superbly
Coming my
way without forethought or afterthought.
To me, men’s footfalls fall
with a dull, soft rumble,
ominous and
lovely,
Coming my
way.
But not your foot-falls,
pale-faces,
They are
a clicketing of bits of disjointed metal
Working in
motion.
To me, men are palpable, invisible
nearnesses in the dark
Sending out magnetic vibrations of warning,
pitch-dark throbs
of invitation.
But you, pale-faces,
You are painful, harsh-surfaced
pillars that give off nothing
except
rigidity,
And I jut
against you if I try to move, for you are every —
where, and I am blind,
Sightless among all your
visuality,
You
staring caryatids.
See if I don’t bring you down, and
all your high opinion
And all your ponderous roofed-in erection of
right and wrong
Your
particular heavens,
With a smash.
See if your skies aren’t
falling!
And my
head, at least, is thick enough to stand it, the
smash.
See if I don’t move under a dark and
nude, vast heaven
When your world is in ruins, under your fallen skies.
Caryatids,
pale-faces.
See if I
am not Lord of the dark and moving hosts
Before I
die.
Florence.