A Photograph of the Square
Moonlight for other people, but for us, if you please, no moonlight.
For us, the electric lights in the very heart of the city.
For us the Square, the heart of life (you know where the Square is)—
The long veins of light that are streets run this way and that way out of it.
They carry off part of the blood, and yet the heart seems full of it.
Throbbing, pulsing, one drop is a courtesan, one a great lady.
Here in the Square they mix; everything here is confluent;
See the crush of colors through the bright café windows yonder;
See the laughter and food, the faces, the pink-and-white women;
Then the gamut of passions struck out of different faces
Here in the blur of the streets, as the drops of blood course by you
In the white electric glare or the yellow flood from the street-lamps.
Oh-hé! for the glorious life at night!
For this pushing tide of the human.
What are the fields and streams
To living man and woman?
Oh-hé! How I love this rush of life,
To bathe in it, passing by;
The city to live and love in,
The country to sleep and die!
No, I will stand here yet; no, do not make me go with you,—
Here I gain life and strength from the fierce magnetic current.
Yes, half down the block, if you say you will bring me back here.
Love, let me linger yet; be good to me, love, be patient!
—Just half a block away, and yet the gray gloom and the houses,
Frowning gloomily down, and the click of our feet on the pavement
Make it seem lonely; and yes,—my lips, love, yes,—if you want them—
What a kiss, strange and short, here in the street, in the city!
I to be kissed like this, by the flaring flame of a street-lamp!
What if a passer—then, your face, too, felt so chilly
Touching mine in this air; but oh—and alas!—none the less, love,
No such wonderful kiss shall we ever again give each other.
Sweetened by just the thought of its maddening briefness and folly,
No one can understand but only we two what the savor,
Lent it by strangeness and night, and the stir of the streets just beyond us.
Oh, take me back!—but that kiss, to think we can never re-live it!
One of those wonderful moments not to come twice in a lifetime.
We have the Square to thank for it: it was conceived over yonder.
Now take me back to forget what you and I could not live over
If we should live till these streets and the city are crumbled to ruin,
Wholly forgotten and past, a dream of the dead brutal ages.
For us, the electric lights in the very heart of the city.
For us the Square, the heart of life (you know where the Square is)—
The long veins of light that are streets run this way and that way out of it.
They carry off part of the blood, and yet the heart seems full of it.
Throbbing, pulsing, one drop is a courtesan, one a great lady.
Here in the Square they mix; everything here is confluent;
See the crush of colors through the bright café windows yonder;
See the laughter and food, the faces, the pink-and-white women;
Then the gamut of passions struck out of different faces
Here in the blur of the streets, as the drops of blood course by you
In the white electric glare or the yellow flood from the street-lamps.
Oh-hé! for the glorious life at night!
For this pushing tide of the human.
What are the fields and streams
To living man and woman?
Oh-hé! How I love this rush of life,
To bathe in it, passing by;
The city to live and love in,
The country to sleep and die!
No, I will stand here yet; no, do not make me go with you,—
Here I gain life and strength from the fierce magnetic current.
Yes, half down the block, if you say you will bring me back here.
Love, let me linger yet; be good to me, love, be patient!
—Just half a block away, and yet the gray gloom and the houses,
Frowning gloomily down, and the click of our feet on the pavement
Make it seem lonely; and yes,—my lips, love, yes,—if you want them—
What a kiss, strange and short, here in the street, in the city!
I to be kissed like this, by the flaring flame of a street-lamp!
What if a passer—then, your face, too, felt so chilly
Touching mine in this air; but oh—and alas!—none the less, love,
No such wonderful kiss shall we ever again give each other.
Sweetened by just the thought of its maddening briefness and folly,
No one can understand but only we two what the savor,
Lent it by strangeness and night, and the stir of the streets just beyond us.
Oh, take me back!—but that kiss, to think we can never re-live it!
One of those wonderful moments not to come twice in a lifetime.
We have the Square to thank for it: it was conceived over yonder.
Now take me back to forget what you and I could not live over
If we should live till these streets and the city are crumbled to ruin,
Wholly forgotten and past, a dream of the dead brutal ages.
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.