Osbert Sitwell
Reading edition
Born in London, December 6th, 1892, Osbert Sitwell (son of Sir George Sitwell and brother of Edith Sitwell) was educated at Eton and became an officer in the Grenadier Guards, with whom he served in France for various periods from 1914 to 1917.
His first contributions appeared in Wheels (an annual anthology of a few of the younger radical writers, edited by his sister) and disclosed an ironic and strongly individual touch. That impression is strengthened by a reading of Argonaut and Juggernaut (1920), where Sitwell's cleverness and satire are fused. His most remarkable though his least brilliant poems are his irregular and fiery protests against smugness and hypocrisy. But even Sitwell's more conventional poetry has a freshness of movement and definiteness of outline.
THE BLIND PEDLAR
I stand alone through each long day Upon these pavers; cannot see The wares spread out upon this tray —For God has taken sight from me! Many a time I've cursed the night When I was born. My peering eyes Have sought for but one ray of light To pierce the darkness. When the skies Rain down their first sweet April showers On budding branches; when the morn Is sweet with breath of spring and flowers, I've cursed the night when I was born. But now I thank God, and am glad For what I cannot see this day —The young men cripples, old, and sad, With faces burnt and torn away; Or those who, growing rich and old, Have battened on the slaughter, Whose faces, gorged with blood and gold, Are creased in purple laughter!
PROGRESS
The city's heat is like a leaden pall— Its lowered lamps glow in the midnight air Like mammoth orange-moths that flit and flare Through the dark tapestry of night. The tall Black houses crush the creeping beggars down, Who walk beneath and think of breezes cool, Of silver bodies bathing in a pool; Or trees that whisper in some far, small town Whose quiet nursed them, when they thought that gold Was merely metal, not a grave of mould In which men bury all that's fine and fair. When they could chase the jewelled butterfly Through the green bracken-scented lanes or sigh For all the future held so rich and rare; When, though they knew it not, their baby cries Were lovely as the jewelled butterflies.