Classic Poem

A SKY like a dirty canvas tilt
Close on the earth hangs weighing down,
Where water heavy with inland silt
And filth of many a factory town,
Brown river mingling with drab sea,
Laps on the grey sand lazily:
The tide far out on the flat shore,
Slack sea and current come to terms.
A pier of a quarter mile or more,
On stilted footing splayed out wide —
Like a giant kind of those hated worms
With a fringe of legs on either side —
Steps wading through the soft mud-banks
On a hundred iron spindle-shanks
To the fairway where the ferries ply.
The listed boats, nigh toppling
With the press at the gangways, begin to bring
The Saturday-afternoon parade,
With a few free hours and wages paid,
Jostling ashore on its way to buy
Some hasty pleasure. It throngs the pier
And mobs the turnstiles, crammed as tight
As bolting fish shoaled in a weir;
Then out through the clicking brasswork jets,
Twitching its rumpled jackets aright,
And a dozen ways the current sets,
Everyone for his fancy bound:
Dancing, switchback, giddy-go-round,
Or to buy good luck at the gypsies' tent,
Or to muse, with a lordly blank content,
Upon three mangy slouching bears
In the dank bucket of their pound,
Padding the round they've padded for years.

But most of the holiday troops decide
For the coastwise pathway. On one side
They have, as they take their sauntering ways,
An endless reach of shallow tide;
And sunlight filtering through fawn haze
Draws streaks and knots of glistering pale
Slippery lustre of mother-of-pearl
On the paved expanse of airless sea:
Like the vagaries of loop and curl,
The faint bright varnish aimlessly
Trackt on a flagg'd walk by a snail.
But on the left side the path goes
Past tumble-down and shabby rows
Of sheds and booths and old marquees,
For dealing in stale gaieties:
Where a giggling crowd for a penny stares
At an oily nigger saying his prayers;
Or in the clanging shooting-stalls
They fire skew rifles at little balls
Jumping about on water jets;
Or cheer their glee when a girl upsets
Head-over-heels at end of her ride
Down the slope of the taut wire, slung
For the trolley to race its headlong glide,
She like a sack on her pull'd arms hung.

But eating-shops are commonest;
And whether there be a special zest
In ham and eggs, their only fare,
Or some more potent trade thrive there,
These flourish more than all the rest.
Frowsy within, dingy without;
But mouldy finery litter'd about
On mantel-piece and table-top —
Knacks on fancy mats, and a crop
Of tufted grass dyed yellow and pink,
Busts of the King, and glass hand-bells —
With plush-framed panels of glued sea-shells
Pinn'd to the walls, seem meant to make
The munching customer rather think
He eats in a parlour than a shop.
At every door a girl, to take
Her daily gossip, lolls at ease,
Painted to make a parson blink,
And scented to make a foxhound sneeze.
Soon, when the loitering crowds begin,
With female clamour the air will shake,
Harsh as the sound of beaten tin,
Announcing tea and plates of fry;
Lest heedless hunger ramble by
And lust for ham should not awake.
Let a young man one instant give
Notice to these fierce syllables,
A wench will have him by the sleeve,
Whisper seriously in his ear,
And deftly show her petticoat frills.

But there is no trade yet come near.
The girls, posted to draw it in,
Idle awhile, and akimbo lean
Against the jambs of the doors, and throw
Cheerful scandalous banter about
In a reedy metallic effortless shout;
Or vacantly watch the steamships go,
That forth into empty oceans glide
Like gods on placid grand affairs,
No more aware they coast beside
Small gazes at the water's edge
Than any thoughtful traveller cares
For ants and beetles in the hedge.

The girl, though, of the meanest shanty there,
Was late to lounge on duty, and the shop
Open'd without her its crazy blister'd door
Wide and inviting to the table laid.
Already news of frying ham crept out
Hissing and savoury rank, and a slut bustled
In and out of the lean-to den at back
That served as kitchen. Even the music now
Struck up a jaunty racket: this was a neat
Black-drest black-bonneted meagre upright old lady,
With grey shawl tight across her shoulders scrimpt,
Sitting, straight as a rod and iron-stiff,
Her back towards the door. ( " 'Tisn't your face
I'm hiring," she'd been told; " turn on the tunes
And keep your face turned off: mind that.") She held
The rigid corner of her skinny knees
As fixt as limbs fetter'd together; and straight
As her spine was, her head was always leant
A little sideways, and one shoulder shrugged
Immovably up to it; even her elbows prest
Firm on her waist as they'd been lasht there close;
But nimble were her wrists and spry her fingers,
Never a moment flagging in their chase
Of imbecile gaiety. To and fro her hands
Went jangling wolfish chords and tinkling out
Silly flourishing airs; while she herself,
Fast in her stiff black trance, her tilted head
Held up in an unchanging muse to stare
Six inches over the piano-top at nothing,
Took from her wiry busily-trifling hands
Not so much as a shiver.
A door bounced
Clattering open beside her at the back;
It gave upon a flight of upward stairs.
The wench came flurrying in and slammed it to:
A plump pert rattling merry-hearted thing,
Bright with her own good fortune; and that was,
To be alive. She skipt across and laid
Firm hold on the old lady's bony shoulders
And shook her stubborn pose; but the gay hands
Went playing on. So the wench screwed her round;
Those faithfully frivolous hands were only stopt
When the lean body they were jointed to,
But hardly seemed belonging to, was slued
Right from the key-board; then they lay in her lap
And twitched uneasy fingers, as a dog
That lately hunted sleeps with jerking paws.

THE WENCH . The bone of you! — Remind me, the next time
I tickle in the small of my back, to take
Your shoulder-blade for a scratching-post. — Come round,
Bombasine! — I'd to hurry; I was kept.
Look me over and tell me, is my face
Done all to rights? — What 's to do, Missis Eyes?
Whatever 's the scare about? It 's only paint.
THE OLD LADY . You ought to be ashamed.
THE WENCH . The same to you.
THE OLD LADY . A painted face disgusts me.
THE WENCH . That's because
You couldn't paint your dry old prune of a face,
Not if you were a house-painter. — Have sense,
And don't be a cross-patch: tell me how I look.
THE OLD LADY . How should you look? You look like what you are.
THE WENCH . You don't: you look respectable.
THE OLD LADY . You know
I've got to be here.
THE WENCH . And you know I want to.
We can cry quits.
THE OLD LADY . Oh, but my dear, my dear,
If I could help myself, I would help you.
THE WENCH . It would be somebody else if it wasn't me:
I said, have sense.
THE OLD LADY . Will you never have sense
How this painting your face and dressing up
Makes your life, that should be your very own,
Common as open ground? — When workmen cut
A short way to their jobs over a field,
It 's very soon the grass is trodden dirt.
THE WENCH . You skeleton! Calling me dirt! And who
Keeps the procession brisk with rousing tunes?
THE OLD LADY . No need for that taunt: hot and bitter to me
As scalding poison to be doing this.
THE WENCH . O look! Tribes already! — While we're in talk
Good money 's slipping past us, running to waste.
Round you go and vamp us a spanking piece.

A slap and a twisting push left the old lady
Instantly stiffen'd into her posture again,
Her thin back turned severe against the door
With canted head and slightly lifted gaze,
And arms tuckt in; her diligent weaving hands
Might never have paused: back in their dainty pace
Off tript her fingers impudently jingling
Tinsel music to brighten the seduction
The wench was hoarsely busy with outside,
Snatching at likely passengers and shrugged
Laughingly off a dozen times before.
She found her game. A young man, cap awry
To show his grease-lickt forelock, let her grasp
Stay a few seconds on his arm, and felt
Somehow a vague and pleased importance from it.

She knows him hers before he is sure
Himself what his mind is; and towards the door
She has him dragged, and is whispering,
Hugging him down, some cockering thing.
The delicate bloom of her bared arm greeting
His skin with its fine warm youth, her scent,
Her side against him, her merriment,
Set his heart dizzily beating
Burning blood through every vein;
And, startling along his nerves, delight
Flashes trembling into his brain.
Flesh clothes his spirit in flame star-white
One lightning moment — flame of the fire
That carries splendour of worlds like flakes
Of darkening slag; and swift as it came
The brightness dulls — a moment slakes
Flesh that wrapt him in thrilling flame
To flesh that is earth and mere desire.
Now it is easy work, and she
May bend as she likes his waxen will;
He yields, but he goes sulkily,
And makes her seem to hale him still.

THE WENCH . Come along, innocent.
THE YOUTH . I'm not innocent.
THE WENCH . You won't be so stand-offish after tea.
THE YOUTH . I don't want any tea.
THE WENCH . You'll want plenty
Once you have bitten into our ham.
THE YOUTH . I don't
Fancy your fry.
THE WENCH . Are you in dread of thirst?
THE YOUTH . Ay, in a teashop.
THE WENCH . You wait till you sniff
The tea I'll brew you, and see if you don't wish
You'd shipwreckt in the tropics and brought home
The thirst of it undamaged. And the thing is,
What 's cooking in the kitchen now is just
The image of that thirst, the spitting image.
THE YOUTH . Tea 's not my style.
THE WENCH . O, I can size you up.
How's that?
THE YOUTH . Whatever have you put in it?
THE WENCH . Look in the milk-jug.
THE YOUTH . Whisky!
THE WENCH . You didn't think
To meet your old friend here! — Now for the fry:
Chew it up well and get the good of it!
THE YOUTH . By God! The good you call it! Brim me my cup,
Sharp, with the whisky, for a cool long drink.

The brine in deep-sea shrimps were sweet
To the smart pickle of that meat;
The thirst of labour in blazing sun
Were cool and smooth to the rage begun
With the first bite, in gullet and mouth;
And soon a tingling parching drouth
Flayed his throat as though it had been
Dried with quicklime, raspt by shagreen.
And cup after cup laced generously
Liquor'd his nettled palate, till he
Grew easy-minded and talkative,
And often sprawled aside to give
The wench a fondling slack caress,
Twixt mouthfuls of his salty mess.

And still that gaunt demure old lady, set
In visionary rigour, kept her mind
Averted, and her awkward figure still
As ebony carving, while her active hands
Danced lightly over the notes in trivial airs.

THE YOUTH . Does she go by steam?
THE WENCH . She 's a curio.
But she can play.
THE YOUTH . Pretty well, pretty well.
Who put the poker down her back?
THE WENCH . She 's daft.
She 's hazed herself with hours of sitting still
And strumming in black clothes. If I slid out
And left the lights full on she'd play till morning. —
And where do you work?
THE YOUTH . I'm in a builder's yard.
I'm in the joinery-sheds, where saws and planes
And moulders and the rest spin the whole day,
Chattering and growling and squalling.
THE WENCH . Are they machines
I thought such things were tools you carry about.
THE YOUTH . We're all machinery in the sheds. The roof
Is full of rumbling axles, and you walk
Dodging the flapping criss-cross of the belts
That bring the power slanting to the benches.
I run a morticing machine myself.
THE WENCH . Are any Jews in your shop?
THE YOUTH . Ay, there 's one.
I'm down on Jews; I owe them something bitter.
This one cuts wood-blocks at a circular saw;
A dirty Jew! Dirt? There is just one spot
That he keeps clean. Where do you think it is?
THE WENCH . I shouldn't like to say.
THE YOUTH . The end of his nose.
And not because he means it: but it dips
Into his tea at every drink he takes,
And washes itself pale as the white of his eyes
In his brown visnomy, just the fat tip.
I paid him out, though.
THE WENCH . How?
THE YOUTH . To make his blocks
He pushes the wrought-scantling to a stop
And guides it past the humming saw; and slice
It goes like cutting cheese, and a howling yelp
At every slice like thrashing a puppy-dog.
THE WENCH . Who is it yelps? The Jew?
THE YOUTH . He did yelp once;
For I was strolling by, and right in the nick
Nudged the beast's elbow, and his hand just grazed
The screaming teeth. O, Mister Jew screamed then;
It sheared his thumb off, clean as you could wish.
THE WENCH . There 's a smart daring lad. And was there trouble?
THE YOUTH . The whole shop swore him down, gaffer and all;
Swore black was white, that I was at my bench.
THE WENCH . Well, shall we go upstairs?
THE YOUTH . Here 's to free love!

For tipsy enough she reckoned him by this
To let her sneaking hands unheeded go
Ransacking through his pockets while he bent
In earnest all his mind on fuddled lust.
She steadied him across the floor and steered
His lurches to the stairs, cuddling so close
That her embrace, before they were half-way,
Learnt the likely pockets for her to rummage.
They had a giggling scuffle to get through
The doorway; and for all she clipt him firm
And braced herself to hold him, he reeled off
So wide, he nearly stagger'd in her chair
That wistfully unalterable old lady
Keeping her tunes cheerily jigging along
Like clockwork; but no flicker changed her gaze
Yonderly upward at the wallpaper,
No muscle for the scrimmage at her side
Slackened a moment in her angular
Steadfast unconcern. And still she sat
In the same empty unmoving speculation,
And still her fingers went the same glib gait,
Pouncing delicately, after the wench
Had hauled her sot upstairs.

A little girl
Ran frighten'd from outside into the shop,
Calling as she ran, " Miss Cissy! Miss Cissy!"
Her breath, from racing there, caught in her throat,
And her voice hardly shrilled above the old lady's
Never-ending trickle of giddy noise.
But the wench heard and hurried down; the youth
Came lungeing after her, tripping himself
At every step, and loutishly stood by.
And still the serene old lady prettily played.

THE WENCH . Didn't I tell you never to come again?
THE CHILD . But it 's your mother, miss.
THE WENCH . Now you trot backs
Tell her from me I'll not be harried here.
I've had enough of her to-day.
THE CHILD . But, miss,
She 's dead.
THE WENCH . What? — Stop that tinkling shindy, do!

She leant across, and struck those flippant hands
Down from the keys. The old lady settled back
Unruffled in her chair, grave and ignoring;
And blandly waited to begin again.

THE WENCH . Now what 's this story?
THE CHILD . When my aunty called,
There was your mother lying along the floor
As if she'd sprung out of bed — stiff as a crutch
And flat as a flounder, aunty said she was.
THE WENCH . Nay, I should think hardly as flat as that.

She studied her own thoughts a moment. Then,
Pleasantly brisking round on the old lady,
She said a thing to pierce that distant mind.

THE WENCH . I'm finisht here: I shan't come back again.
Nobody now swallowing all I can earn!
I'll pick up easy money on my own.
Keep up your heart and give them lovely tunes.

And she and the child were gone. But looking like
Bewilder'd terror now the old lady gaped
After them, and a gleam of frantic passion
Leapt to her eyes swift as a spark from steel;
Then quencht. And gently to herself she said,
" So she 's the one to escape. She would, of course."

The young man suddenly roused out of his daze:
Where was free love? — He'd lost his chance somehow!
He shoved himself upright away from the wall
Where he had propt his swimming shoulders, stood
Quavering, and then propt himself again
With arms in front, leaning over a table.
He shouted, " Do you mean to swindle me?
She'd made me pay her, up there on the stairs,
I'll tell the police! I'll have the law on you!"

Then the old lady, clenching her lips, and staring
With wide pale eyes at him, slowly stood up,
Decent and black, and very lean and tall.
She must have clutcht her head, for, if it was
The first time in her life, her bonnet now
Tipt ridiculously awry. She reacht
Her hand out for a pot of scarlet grasses,
And poised it ready to shy. " Get out!" she said,
Very quietly. But 'twas the look of her
That startled him like drenching icy water:
" God love me! I've lit among the maniacs!"
He stumbled out, anxiously eyeing her.

So she sat down again. As if she had been
A puppet carefully lower'd on to the chair,
Her limbs folded themselves precise and stiff
Back into her strict attitude again:
With shoulders huncht a little, leaning head,
And elbows squeezed tight in against a waist
Straight as a plank. Unmoving she sat on,
Lonely and prim, lost in a gaze at nothing.

" Another one will come to take her place;
And I shall still be here, luring them in."

Her hands strayed to the keyboard, hesitated,
Fumbled softly, and then ran off in trills
And graces of a skipping flighty tune.