Conversations and Crumbling

“WELL, here we are. I venture to believe We have not met since Venice ... seven years.... My sons were killed, and I was left to grieve With Adelaide and Fanny ... they are dears.” I look around and find two fleshy ears Dangling a pair of ear-rings ... it’s a phase.... But all the same I wish that they’d wear stays. When Regent Street is up I always feel That London Bridge is also falling down, Symbolic hulks of granite, orange peel, And somebody who’s losing half-a-crown.... It is so queer, so queer, to live in town.... And then I see myself and purse my lips “With no more conscience than a snake has hips.”[C] Yes, here am I bathed in a maudlin smile! And here are: you, he, it, and everyone Except the person who’s alone worth while. Calmly I rise with broken threads, I run Stirred by my own intrinsic power to sun Self-consciousness to flesh-burst—I’ve begun With unabated sarcasm to rise In self-opinion, sinking with closed eyes. A subtle crepitation in the air As if the nomad camels would return, As if the burly lion left his lair To have his hair curled daintily. I burn. You do not listen: “there’s so much to learn From scientific data, palimpsest....” I tell you they will crumble with the rest. Before the wolf returns to Regent Street, Before he digs up fashionable tombs, Before the nightingale with music sweet Pierces the Piccadilly catacombs, Before the screech-owl adds to ruin-glooms, The merry robin-redbreast and the wren Will trill their notes in Bayswater again. “The worst of influenza’s over now, But rents are high ... the weather is not cold Considering the month of year, but how The war has broken through our lives! how old”.... Above her grave time soon will rake the mould: Already she is smouldering away, Already she is fettled for decay. Pleasures and vanities, regrets, desires Dumped on a dung-heap where the lilies grow.... And these shall be their own sad funeral-pyres, Destruction totters and his steps are slow. The miles to Babylon? I do not know. But this I know: these folk on gilded chairs Had better kneel and say their hopeless prayers.