- The Project Gutenberg EBook of Silhouettes, by Arthur Symons
- This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
- almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
- re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
- with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
- Title: Silhouettes
- Author: Arthur Symons
- Release Date: July 28, 2009 [EBook #29531]
- Language: English
- *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SILHOUETTES ***
- Produced by Ruth Hart
- SILHOUETTES.
- BY
- ARTHUR SYMONS
- SECOND EDITION
- REVISED AND ENLARGED
- LONDON: LEONARD SMITHERS
- EFFINGHAM HOUSE: ARUNDEL STREET
- STRAND: MDCCCXCVI
- TO
- KATHERINE WILLARD,
- NOW
- KATHERINE BALDWIN.
- _Paris: May,_ 1892.
- _London: February,_ 1896.
- CONTENTS.
- *Preface:
- Being a Word on Behalf of Patchouli: p. xiii.
- At Dieppe:
- After Sunset: p. 3.
- On the Beach: p. 4.
- Rain on the Down: p. 5.
- Before the Squall: p. 6.
- Under the Cliffs: p. 7.
- Requies: p. 8.
- Masks and Faces:
- Pastel: p. 11.
- Her Eyes: p. 12.
- Morbidezza: p. 13.
- Maquillage: p. 14.
- *Impression: p. 15.
- An Angel of Perugino: p. 16.
- At Fontainebleau: p. 17.
- On the Heath: p. 18.
- In the Oratory: p. 19.
- Pattie: p. 20.
- In an Omnibus: p. 21.
- On Meeting After: p. 22.
- In Bohemia: p. 23.
- Emmy: p. 24.
- Emmy at the Eldorado: p. 26.
- *At the Cavour: p. 27.
- In the Haymarket: p. 28.
- At the Lyceum: p. 29.
- The Blind Beggar: p. 30.
- The Old Labourer: p. 31.
- The Absinthe Drinker: p. 32.
- Javanese Dancers p. 33.
- Love's Disguises:
- Love in Spring: p. 37.
- Gipsy Love p. 38.
- In Kensington Gardens: p. 39.
- *Rewards: p. 40.
- Perfume: p. 41.
- Souvenir: p. 42.
- *To Mary: p. 43.
- To a Great Actress: p. 44.
- Love in Dreams: p. 45.
- Music and Memory: p. 46.
- *Spring Twilight: p. 47.
- In Winter: p. 48.
- *Quest: p. 49.
- To a Portrait: p. 50.
- *Second Thoughts: p. 51.
- April Midnight: p. 52.
- During Music: p. 53.
- On the Bridge: p. 54.
- "I Dream of Her": p. 55.
- *Tears: p. 56.
- *The Last Exit: p. 57.
- After Love: p. 58.
- Alla Passeretta Bruna: p. 59.
- Nocturnes:
- Nocturne: p. 63.
- Her Street: p. 64.
- On Judges' Walk: p. 65.
- In the Night: p. 66.
- Fêtes Galantes:
- *Mandoline: p. 69.
- *Dans l'Allée p. 70.
- *Cythère: p. 71.
- *Les Indolents: p. 72.
- *Fantoches: p. 73.
- *Pantomine: p. 74.
- *L'Amour par Terre: p. 75.
- *A Clymène: p. 76.
- From Romances sans Parole p. 71.
- Moods and Memories:
- City Nights: p. 81.
- A White Night: p. 82.
- In the Valley: p. 83.
- Peace at Noon: p. 84.
- In Fountain Court: p. 85.
- At Burgos: p. 86.
- At Dawn: p. 87.
- In Autumn: p. 88.
- On the Roads: p. 89.
- *Pierrot in Half-Mourning: p. 90.
- For a Picture of Watteau: p. 91.
- * The Preface, and the nineteen Poems marked with an asterisk,
- were not contained in the first edition. One Poem has been omitted,
- and many completely rewritten.
- PREFACE:
- BEING A WORD ON BEHALF OF PATCHOULI.
- AN ingenuous reviewer once described some verses of mine as
- "unwholesome," because, he said, they had "a faint smell of
- Patchouli about them." I am a little sorry he chose Patchouli, for that
- is not a particularly favourite scent with me. If he had only chosen
- Peau d'Espagne, which has a subtle meaning, or Lily of the Valley,
- with which I have associations! But Patchouli will serve. Let me ask,
- then, in republishing, with additions, a collection of little pieces,
- many of which have been objected to, at one time or another, as
- being somewhat deliberately frivolous, why art should not, if it
- please, concern itself with the artificially charming, which, I
- suppose, is what my critic means by Patchouli? All art, surely, is a
- form of artifice, and thus, to the truly devout mind, condemned
- already, if not as actively noxious, at all events as needless. That is a
- point of view which I quite understand, and its conclusion I hold to
- be absolutely logical. I have the utmost respect for the people who
- refuse to read a novel, to go to the theatre, or to learn dancing. That
- is to have convictions and to live up to them. I understand also the
- point of view from which a work of art is tolerated in so far as it is
- actually militant on behalf of a religious or a moral idea. But what I
- fail to understand are those delicate, invisible degrees by which a
- distinction is drawn between this form of art and that; the
- hesitations, and compromises, and timorous advances, and shocked
- retreats, of the Puritan conscience once emancipated, and yet afraid
- of liberty. However you may try to convince yourself to the contrary,
- a work of art can be judged only from two standpoints: the
- standpoint from which its art is measured entirely by its morality,
- and the standpoint from which its morality is measured entirely by
- its art.
- Here, for once, in connection with these "Silhouettes," I have not, if
- my recollection serves me, been accused of actual immorality. I am
- but a fair way along the "primrose path," not yet within singeing
- distance of the "everlasting bonfire." In other words, I have not yet
- written "London Nights," which, it appears (I can scarcely realize it,
- in my innocent abstraction in aesthetical matters), has no very
- salutary reputation among the blameless moralists of the press. I
- need not, therefore, on this occasion, concern myself with more than
- the curious fallacy by which there is supposed to be something
- inherently wrong in artistic work which deals frankly and lightly
- with the very real charm of the lighter emotions and the more
- fleeting sensations.
- I do not wish to assert that the kind of verse which happened to
- reflect certain moods of mine at a certain period of my life, is the
- best kind of verse in itself, or is likely to seem to me, in other years,
- when other moods may have made me their own, the best kind of
- verse for my own expression of myself. Nor do I affect to doubt that
- the creation of the supreme emotion is a higher form of art than the
- reflection of the most exquisite sensation, the evocation of the most
- magical impression. I claim only an equal liberty for the rendering
- of every mood of that variable and inexplicable and contradictory
- creature which we call ourselves, of every aspect under which we
- are gifted or condemned to apprehend the beauty and strangeness
- and curiosity of the visible world.
- Patchouli! Well, why not Patchouli? Is there any "reason in nature"
- why we should write exclusively about the natural blush, if the
- delicately acquired blush of rouge has any attraction for us? Both
- exist; both, I think, are charming in their way; and the latter, as a
- subject, has, at all events, more novelty. If you prefer your
- "new-mown hay" in the hayfield, and I, it may be, in a scent-bottle, why
- may not my individual caprice be allowed to find expression as well
- as yours? Probably I enjoy the hayfield as much as you do; but I
- enjoy quite other scents and sensations as well, and I take the former
- for granted, and write my poem, for a change, about the latter. There
- is no necessary difference in artistic value between a good poem
- about a flower in the hedge and a good poem about the scent in a
- sachet. I am always charmed to read beautiful poems about nature in
- the country. Only, personally, I prefer town to country; and in the
- town we have to find for ourselves, as best we may, the _décor_
- which is the town equivalent of the great natural _décor_ of fields
- and hills. Here it is that artificiality comes in; and if any one sees no
- beauty in the effects of artificial light, in all the variable, most
- human, and yet most factitious town landscape, I can only pity him,
- and go on my own way.
- That is, if he will let me. But he tells me that one thing is right and
- the other is wrong; that one is good art and the other is bad; and I
- listen in amazement, sometimes not without impatience, wondering
- why an estimable personal prejudice should be thus exalted into a
- dogma, and uttered in the name of art. For in art there can be no
- prejudices, only results. If we arc to save people's souls by the
- writing of verses, well and good. But if not, there is no choice but to
- admit an absolute freedom of choice. And if Patchouli pleases one,
- why not Patchouli?
- Arthur Symons.
- London, _February,_1896.
- AT DIEPPE.
- AFTER SUNSET.
- THE sea lies quieted beneath
- The after-sunset flush
- That leaves upon the heaped grey clouds
- The grape's faint purple blush.
- Pale, from a little space in heaven
- Of delicate ivory,
- The sickle-moon and one gold star
- Look down upon the sea.
- ON THE BEACH.
- NIGHT, a grey sky, a ghostly sea,
- The soft beginning of the rain:
- Black on the horizon, sails that wane
- Into the distance mistily.
- The tide is rising, I can hear
- The soft roar broadening far along;
- It cries and murmurs in my car
- A sleepy old forgotten song.
- Softly the stealthy night descends,
- The black sails fade into the sky:
- Is this not, where the sea-line ends,
- The shore-line of infinity?
- I cannot think or dream: the grey
- Unending waste of sea and night,
- Dull, impotently infinite,
- Blots out the very hope of day.
- RAIN ON THE DOWN.
- NIGHT, and the down by the sea,
- And the veil of rain on the down;
- And she came through the mist and the rain to me
- From the safe warm lights of the town.
- The rain shone in her hair,
- And her face gleamed in the rain;
- And only the night and the rain were there
- As she came to me out of the rain.
- BEFORE THE SQUALL.
- THE wind is rising on the sea,
- White flashes dance along the deep,
- That moans as if uneasily
- It turned in an unquiet sleep.
- Ridge after rocky ridge upheaves
- A toppling crest that falls in spray
- Where the tormented beach receives
- The buffets of the sea's wild play.
- On the horizon's nearing line,
- Where the sky rests, a visible wall.
- Grey in the offing, I divine
- The sails that fly before the squall.
- UNDER THE CLIFFS.
- BRIGHT light to windward on the horizon's verge;
- To leeward, stormy shadows, violet-black,
- And the wide sea between
- A vast unfurrowed field of windless green;
- The stormy shadows flicker on the track
- Of phantom sails that vanish and emerge.
- I gaze across the sea, remembering her.
- I watch the white sun walk across the sea,
- This pallid afternoon,
- With feet that tread as whitely as the moon,
- And in his fleet and shining feet I see
- The footsteps of another voyager.
- REQUIES.
- O IS it death or life
- That sounds like something strangely known
- In this subsiding out of strife,
- This slow sea-monotone?
- A sound, scarce heard through sleep,
- Murmurous as the August bees
- That fill the forest hollows deep
- About the roots of trees.
- O is it life or death,
- O is it hope or memory,
- That quiets all things with this breath
- Of the eternal sea?
- MASKS AND FACES.
- PASTEL.
- THE light of our cigarettes
- Went and came in the gloom:
- It was dark in the little room.
- Dark, and then, in the dark,
- Sudden, a flash, a glow,
- And a hand and a ring I know.
- And then, through the dark, a flush
- Ruddy and vague, the grace--
- A rose--of her lyric face.
- HER EYES.
- BENEATH the heaven of her brows'
- Unclouded noon of peace, there lies
- A leafy heaven of hazel boughs
- In the seclusion of her eyes;
- Her troubling eyes that cannot rest;
- And there's a little flame that dances
- (A firefly in a grassy nest)
- In the green circle of her glances;
- A frolic Faun that must be hid,
- Shyly, in some fantastic shade,
- Where pity droops a tender lid
- On laughter of itself afraid.
- MORBIDEZZA.
- WHITE girl, your flesh is lilies
- Grown 'neath a frozen moon,
- So still is
- The rapture of your swoon
- Of whiteness, snow or lilies.
- The virginal revealment,
- Your bosom's wavering slope,
- Concealment,
- 'Neath fainting heliotrope,
- Of whitest white's revealment,
- Is like a bed of lilies,
- A jealous-guarded row,
- Whose will is
- Simply chaste dreams:--but oh,
- The alluring scent of lilies!
- MAQUILLAGE.
- THE charm of rouge on fragile cheeks,
- Pearl-powder, and, about the eyes,
- The dark and lustrous Eastern dyes;
- The floating odour that bespeaks
- A scented boudoir and the doubtful night
- Of alcoves curtained close against the light
- Gracile and creamy white and rose,
- Complexioned like the flower of dawn,
- Her fleeting colours are as those
- That, from an April sky withdrawn,
- Fade in a fragrant mist of tears away
- When weeping noon leads on the altered day.
- IMPRESSION.
- TO M. C.
- THE pink and black of silk and lace,
- Flushed in the rosy-golden glow
- Of lamplight on her lifted face;
- Powder and wig, and pink and lace,
- And those pathetic eyes of hers;
- But all the London footlights know
- The little plaintive smile that stirs
- The shadow in those eyes of hers.
- Outside, the dreary church-bell tolled,
- The London Sunday faded slow;
- Ah, what is this? what wings unfold
- In this miraculous rose of gold?
- AN ANGEL OF PERUGINO.
- HAVE I not seen your face before
- Where Perugino's angels stand
- In those calm circles, and adore
- With singing throat and lifted hand?
- So the pale hair lay crescent-wise,
- About the placid forehead curled,
- And the pale piety of eyes
- Was as God's peace upon the world.
- And you, a simple child serene,
- Wander upon your quiet way,
- Nor know that any eyes have seen
- The Umbrian halo crown the day.
- AT FONTAINEBLEAU.
- IT was a day of sun and rain,
- Uncertain as a child's quick moods;
- And I shall never pass again
- So blithe a day among the woods.
- The forest knew you and was glad,
- And laughed for very joy to know
- Her child was with her; then, grown sad,
- She wept, because her child must go.
- And you would spy and you would capture
- The shyest flower that lit the grass:
- The joy I had to watch your rapture
- Was keen as even your rapture was.
- The forest knew you and was glad,
- And laughed and wept for joy and woe.
- This was the welcome that you had
- Among the woods of Fontainebleau.
- ON THE HEATH.
- HER face's wilful flash and glow
- Turned all its light upon my face
- One bright delirious moment's space,
- And then she passed: I followed slow
- Across the heath, and up and round,
- And watched the splendid death of day
- Upon the summits far away,
- And in her fateful beauty found
- The fierce wild beauty of the light
- That startles twilight on the hills,
- And lightens all the mountain rills,
- And flames before the feet of night.
- IN THE ORATORY.
- THE incense mounted like a cloud,
- A golden cloud of languid scent;
- Robed priests before the altar bowed,
- Expecting the divine event.
- Then silence, like a prisoner bound,
- Rose, by a mighty hand set free,
- And dazzlingly, in shafts of sound,
- Thundered Beethoven's Mass in C.
- She knelt in prayer; large lids serene
- Lay heavy on the sombre eyes,
- As though to veil some vision seen
- Upon the mounts of Paradise.
- Her dark face, calm as carven stone.
- The face that twilight shows the day,
- Brooded, mysteriously alone,
- And infinitely far away.
- Inexplicable eyes that drew
- Mine eyes adoring, why from me
- Demand, new Sphinx, the fatal clue
- That seals my doom or conquers thee?
- PATTIE.
- COOL comely country Pattie, grown
- A daisy where the daisies grow,
- No wind of heaven has ever blown
- Across a field-flower's daintier snow.
- Gold-white among the meadow-grass
- The humble little daisies thrive;
- I cannot see them as I pass,
- But I am glad to be alive.
- And so I turn where Pattie stands,
- A flower among the flowers at play;
- I'll lay my heart into her hands,
- And she will smile the clouds away.
- IN AN OMNIBUS.
- YOUR smile is like a treachery,
- A treachery adorable;
- So smiles the siren where the sea
- Sings to the unforgetting shell.
- Your fleeting Leonardo face,
- Parisian Monna Lisa, dreams
- Elusively, but not of streams
- Born in a shadow-haunted place.
- Of Paris, Paris, is your thought,
- Of Paris robes, and when to wear
- The latest bonnet you have bought
- To match the marvel of your hair.
- Yet that fine malice of your smile,
- That faint and fluctuating glint
- Between your eyelids, does it hint
- Alone of matters mercantile?
- Close lips that keep the secret in,
- Half spoken by the stealthy eyes,
- Is there indeed no word to win,
- No secret, from the vague replies
- Of lips and lids that feign to hide
- That which they feign to render up?
- Is there, in Tantalus' dim cup,
- The shadow of water, nought beside?
- ON MEETING AFTER.
- HER eyes are haunted, eyes that were
- Scarce sad when last we met.
- What thing is this has come to her
- That she may not forget?
- They loved, they married: it is well!
- But ah, what memories
- Are these whereof her eyes half tell,
- Her haunted eyes?
- IN BOHEMIA.
- DRAWN blinds and flaring gas within,
- And wine, and women, and cigars;
- Without, the city's heedless din;
- Above, the white unheeding stars.
- And we, alike from each remote,
- The world that works, the heaven that waits,
- Con our brief pleasures o'er by rote,
- The favourite pastime of the Fates.
- We smoke, to fancy that we dream,
- And drink, a moment's joy to prove,
- And fain would love, and only seem
- To love because we cannot love.
- Draw back the blinds, put out the light:
- 'Tis morning, let the daylight come.
- God! how the women's checks are white,
- And how the sunlight strikes us dumb!
- EMMY.
- EMMY'S exquisite youth and her virginal air,
- Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile,
- Come to me out of the past, and I see her there
- As I saw her once for a while.
- Emmy's laughter rings in my ears, as bright,
- Fresh and sweet as the voice of a mountain brook,
- And still I hear her telling us tales that night,
- Out of Boccaccio's book.
- There, in the midst of the villainous dancing-hall,
- Leaning across the table, over the beer,
- While the music maddened the whirling skirts of the ball,
- As the midnight hour drew near,
- There with the women, haggard, painted and old,
- One fresh bud in a garland withered and stale,
- She, with her innocent voice and her clear eyes, told
- Tale after shameless tale.
- And ever the witching smile, to her face beguiled,
- Paused and broadened, and broke in a ripple of fun,
- And the soul of a child looked out of the eyes of a child,
- Or ever the tale was done.
- O my child, who wronged you first, and began
- First the dance of death that you dance so well?
- Soul for soul: and I think the soul of a man
- Shall answer for yours in hell.
- EMMY AT THE ELDORADO.
- TO meet, of all unlikely things,
- Here, after all one's wanderings!
- But, Emmy, though we meet,
- What of this lover at your feet?
- For, is this Emmy that I see?
- A fragile domesticity
- I seem to half surprise
- In the evasions of those eyes.
- Once a child's cloudless eyes, they seem
- Lost in the blue depths of a dream,
- As though, for innocent hours,
- To stray with love among the flowers.
- Without regret, without desire,
- In those old days of love on hire,
- Child, child, what will you do,
- Emmy, now love is come to you?
- Already, in so brief a while,
- The gleam has faded from your smile;
- This grave and tender air
- Leaves you, for all but one, less fair.
- Then, you were heedless, happy, gay,
- Immortally a child; to-day
- A woman, at the years' control:
- Undine has found a soul.
- AT THE CAVOUR.
- WINE, the red coals, the flaring gas,
- Bring out a brighter tone in cheeks
- That learn at home before the glass
- The flush that eloquently speaks.
- The blue-grey smoke of cigarettes
- Curls from the lessening ends that glow;
- The men are thinking of the bets,
- The women of the debts, they owe.
- Then their eyes meet, and in their eyes
- The accustomed smile comes up to call,
- A look half miserably wise.
- Half heedlessly ironical.
- IN THE HAYMARKET.
- I DANCED at your ball a year ago,
- To-night I pay for your bread and cheese,
- "And a glass of bitters, if you please,
- For you drank my best champagne, you know!"
- Madcap ever, you laugh the while,
- As you drink your bitters and munch your bread;
- The face is the same, and the same old smile
- Came up at a word I said.
- A year ago I danced at your ball,
- I sit by your side in the bar to-night;
- And the luck has changed, you say: that's all!
- And the luck will change, you say: all right!
- For the men go by, and the rent's to pay,
- And you haven't a friend in the world to-day;
- And the money comes and the money goes:
- And to-night, who cares? and to-morrow, who knows?
- AT THE LYCEUM.
- HER eyes are brands that keep the angry heat
- Of fire that crawls and leaves an ashen
- The dust of this devouring flame she hath
- Upon her cheeks and eyelids. Fresh and sweet
- In days that were, her sultry beauty now
- Is pain transfigured, love's impenitence,
- The memory of a maiden innocence,
- As a crown set upon a weary brow.
- She sits, and fain would listen, fain forget;
- She smiles, but with those tragic, waiting eyes,
- Those proud and piteous lips that hunger yet
- For love's fulfilment. Ah, when Landry cries
- "My heart is dead!" with what a wild regret
- Her own heart feels the throb that never dies!
- THE BLIND BEGGAR.
- HE stands, a patient figure, where the crowd
- Heaves to and fro beside him. In his ears
- All day the Fair goes thundering, and he hears
- In darkness, as a dead man in his shroud.
- Patient he stands, with age and sorrow bowed,
- And holds a piteous hat of ancient yean;
- And in his face and gesture there appears
- The desperate humbleness of poor men proud.
- What thoughts are his, as, with the inward sight,
- He sees those mirthful faces pass him by?
- Is the long darkness darker for that light.
- The misery deeper when that joy is nigh?
- Patient, alone, he stands from morn to night,
- Pleading in his reproachful misery.
- THE OLD LABOURER.
- HIS fourscore years have bent a back of oak,
- His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits;
- His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits
- Bending above the hearthstone's feeble smoke.
- Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land;
- He wrung his bread from out the stubborn soil;
- He saw his masters flourish through his toil;
- He held their substance in his horny hand.
- Now he is old: he asks for daily bread:
- He who has sowed the bread he may not taste
- Begs for the crumbs: he would do no man wrong.
- The Parish Guardians, when his case is read,
- Will grant him (yet with no unseemly haste)
- Just seventeen pence to starve on, seven days long.
- THE ABSINTHE DRINKER.
- GENTLY I wave the visible world away.
- Far off, I hear a roar, afar yet near,
- Far off and strange, a voice is in my ear,
- And is the voice my own? the words I say
- Fall strangely, like a dream, across the day;
- And the dim sunshine is a dream. How clear,
- New as the world to lovers' eyes, appear
- The men and women passing on their way!
- The world is very fair. The hours are all
- Linked in a dance of mere forgetfulness.
- I am at peace with God and man. O glide,
- Sands of the hour-glass that I count not, fall
- Serenely: scarce I feel your soft caress.
- Rocked on this dreamy and indifferent tide.
- JAVANESE DANCERS,
- TWITCHED strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums.
- Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting;
- And now the stealthy dancer comes
- Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling;
- Smiling between her painted lids a smile,
- Motionless, unintelligible, she twines
- Her fingers into mazy lines,
- Twining her scarves across them all the while.
- One, two, three, four step forth, and, to and fro,
- Delicately and imperceptibly,
- Now swaying gently in a row,
- Now interthreading slow and rhythmically,
- Still with fixed eyes, monotonously still,
- Mysteriously, with smiles inanimate,
- With lingering feet that undulate,
- With sinuous fingers, spectral hands that thrill,
- The little amber-coloured dancers move,
- Like little painted figures on a screen,
- Or phantom-dancers haply seen
- Among the shadows of a magic grove.
- LOVE'S DISGUISES.
- LOVE IN SPRING.
- GOOD to be loved and to love for a little, and then
- Well to forget, be forgotten, ere loving grow life!
- Dear, you have loved me, but was I the man among men?
- Sweet, I have loved you, but scarcely as mistress or wife.
- Message of Spring in the hearts of a man and a maid,
- Hearts on a holiday: ho! let us love: it is Spring.
- Joy in the birds of the air, in the buds of the glade,
- Joy in our hearts in the joy of the hours on the wing.
- Well, but to-morrow? To-morrow, good-bye: it is over.
- Scarcely with tears shall we part, with a smile who had met.
- Tears? What is this? But I thought we were playing at lover.
- Play-time is past. I am going. And you love me yet!
- GIPSY LOVE.
- THE gipsy tents are on the down,
- The gipsy girls are here;
- And it's O to be off and away from the town
- With a gipsy for my dear!
- We'd make our bed in the bracken
- With the lark for a chambermaid;
- The lark would sing us awake in the mornings
- Singing above our head.
- We'd drink the sunlight all day long
- With never a house to bind us;
- And we'd only flout in a merry song
- The world we left behind us.
- We would be free as birds are free
- The livelong day, the livelong day;
- And we would lie in the sunny bracken
- With none to say us nay.
- The gipsy tents are on the down,
- The gipsy girls are here;
- And it's O to be off and away from the town
- With a gipsy for my dear!
- IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.
- UNDER the almond tree,
- Room for my love and me!
- Over our heads the April blossom;
- April-hearted are we.
- Under the pink and white,
- Love in her eyes alight;
- Love and the Spring and Kensington Gardens:
- Hey for the heart's delight!
- REWARDS.
- BECAUSE you cried, I kissed you, and,
- Ah me! how should I understand
- That piteous little you were fain
- To cry and to be kissed again?
- Because you smiled at last, I thought
- That I had found what I had sought.
- But soon I found, without a doubt,
- No man can find a woman out.
- I kissed your tears, and did not stay
- Till I had kissed them all away.
- Ah, hapless me! ah, heartless child!
- She would not kiss me when she smiled.
- PERFUME.
- SHAKE out your hair about me, so,
- That I may feel the stir and scent
- Of those vague odours come and go
- The way our kisses went.
- Night gave this priceless hour of love,
- But now the dawn steals in apace,
- And amorously bends above
- The wonder of your face.
- "Farewell" between our kisses creeps,
- You fade, a ghost, upon the air;
- Yet, ah! the vacant place still keeps
- The odour of your hair.
- SOUVENIR.
- HOW you haunt me with your eyes!
- Still that questioning persistence,
- Sad and sweet, across the distance
- Of the days of love and laughter,
- Those old days of love and lies.
- Not reproaching, not reproving,
- Only, always, questioning,
- Those divinest eyes can bring
- Memories of certain summers,
- Nights of dreaming, days of loving,
- When I loved you, when your kiss,
- Shyer than a bird to capture,
- Lit a sudden heaven of rapture;
- When we neither dreamt that either
- Could grow old in heart like this.
- Do you still, in love's December,
- Still remember, still regret
- That sweet unavailing debt?
- Ah, you haunt me, to remind me
- You remember, I forget!
- TO MARY.
- IF, Mary, that imperious face,
- And not in dreams alone,
- Come to this shadow-haunted place
- And claim dominion;
- If, for your sake, I do unqueen
- Some well-remembered ghost,
- Forgetting much of what hath been
- Best loved, remembered most;
- It is your witchery, not my will,
- Your beauty, not my choice:
- My shadows knew me faithful, till
- They heard your living voice.
- TO A GREAT ACTRESS.
- SHE has taken my heart, though she knows not, would care not.
- It thrills at her voice like a reed in the wind;
- I would taste all her agonies, have her to spare not,
- Sin deep as she sinned,
- To be tossed by the storm of her love, as the ocean
- Rocks vessels to wreck; to be hers, though the cost
- Were the loss of all else: for that moment's emotion
- Content to be lost!
- To be, for a moment, the man of all men to her,
- All the world, for one measureless moment complete;
- To possess, be possessed! To be mockery then to her,
- Then to die at her feet!
- LOVE IN DREAMS.
- I LIE on my pallet bed,
- And I hear the drip of the rain;
- The rain on my garret roof is falling,
- And I am cold and in pain.
- I lie on my pallet bed,
- And my heart is wild with delight;
- I hear her voice through the midnight calling,
- As I lie awake in the night.
- I lie on my pallet bed,
- And I see her bright eyes gleam;
- She smiles, she speaks, and the world is ended,
- And made again in a dream.
- MUSIC AND MEMORY.
- To K.W.
- ACROSS the tides of music, in the night,
- Her magical face,
- A light upon it as the happy light
- Of dreams in some delicious place
- Under the moonlight in the night.
- Music, soft throbbing music in the night,
- Her memory swims
- Into the brain, a carol of delight;
- The cup of music overbrims
- With wine of memory, in the night.
- Her face across the music, in the night,
- Her face a refrain,
- A light that sings along the waves of light,
- A memory that returns again,
- Music in music, in the night.
- SPRING TWILIGHT.
- To K. W.
- THE twilight droops across the day,
- I watch her portrait on the wall
- Palely recede into the grey
- That palely comes and covers all.
- The sad Spring twilight, dull, forlorn,
- The menace of the dreary night:
- But in her face, more fair than morn,
- A sweet suspension of delight.
- IN WINTER.
- PALE from the watery west, with the pallor of winter a-cold,
- Rays of the afternoon sun in a glimmer across the trees;
- Glittering moist underfoot, the long alley. The firs, one by one,
- Catch and conceal, as I saunter, and flash in a dazzle of gold
- Lower and lower the vanishing disc: and the sun alone sees
- At I wait for my love in the fir-tree alley alone with the sun.
- QUEST.
- I CHASE a shadow through the night,
- A shadow unavailing;
- Out of the dark, into the light,
- I follow, follow: is it she?
- Against the wall of sea outlined,
- Outlined against the windows lit,
- The shadow flickers, and behind
- I follow, follow after it.
- The shadow leads me through the night
- To the grey margin of the sea;
- Out of the dark, into the light,
- I follow unavailingly.
- TO A PORTRAIT.
- A PENSIVE photograph
- Watches me from the shelf:
- Ghost of old love, and half
- Ghost of myself!
- How the dear waiting eyes
- Watch me and love me yet:
- Sad home of memories,
- Her waiting eyes!
- Ghost of old love, wronged ghost,
- Return, though all the pain
- Of all once loved, long lost,
- Come back again.
- Forget not, but forgive!
- Alas, too late I cry.
- We are two ghosts that had their chance to live,
- And lost it, she and I.
- SECOND THOUGHTS.
- WHEN you were here, ah foolish then!
- I scarcely knew I loved you, dear.
- I know it now, I know it when
- You are no longer here.
- When you were here, I sometimes tired,
- Ah me! that you so loved me, dear.
- Now, in these weary days desired,
- You are no longer here.
- When you were here, did either know
- That each so loved the other, dear?
- But that was long and long ago:
- You are no longer here.
- APRIL MIDNIGHT.
- SIDE by side through the streets at midnight,
- Roaming together,
- Through the tumultuous night of London,
- In the miraculous April weather.
- Roaming together under the gaslight,
- Day's work over,
- How the Spring calls to us, here in the city,
- Calls to the heart from the heart of a lover!
- Cool the wind blows, fresh in our faces,
- Cleansing, entrancing,
- After the heat and the fumes and the footlights,
- Where you dance and I watch your dancing.
- Good it is to be here together,
- Good to be roaming;
- Even in London, even at midnight,
- Lover-like in a lover's gloaming.
- You the dancer and I the dreamer,
- Children together,
- Wandering lost in the night of London,
- In the miraculous April weather.
- DURING MUSIC.
- THE music had the heat of blood,
- A passion that no words can reach;
- We sat together, and understood
- Our own heart's speech.
- We had no need of word or sign,
- The music spoke for us, and said
- All that her eyes could read in mine
- Or mine in hers had read.
- ON THE BRIDGE.
- MIDNIGHT falls across hollow gulfs of
- night
- As a stone that falls in a sounding well;
- Under us the Seine flows through dark and light,
- While the beat of time--hark!--is audible.
- Lights on bank and bridge glitter gold and red,
- Lights upon the stream glitter red and white;
- Under us the night, and the night overhead.
- We together, we alone together in the night.
- "I DREAM OF HER."
- I DREAM of her the whole night long,
- The pillows with my tears are wet.
- I wake, I seek amid the throng
- The courage to forget.
- Yet still, as night comes round, I dread,
- With unavailing fears,
- The dawn that finds, beneath my head,
- The pillows wet with tears.
- TEARS.
- O HANDS that I have held in mine,
- That knew my kisses and my tears,
- Hands that in other years
- Have poured my balm, have poured my wine;
- Women, once loved, and always mine,
- I call to you across the years,
- I bring a gift of tears,
- I bring my tears to you as wine.
- THE LAST EXIT.
- OUR love was all arrayed in pleasantness,
- A tender little love that sighed and smiled
- At little happy nothings, like a child,
- A dainty little love in fancy dress.
- But now the love that once was half in play
- Has come to be this grave and piteous thing.
- Why did you leave me all this suffering
- For all your memory when you went away?
- You might have played the play out, O my friend,
- Closing upon a kiss our comedy.
- Or is it, then, a fault of taste in me,
- Who like no tragic exit at the end?
- AFTER LOVE.
- O TO part now, and, parting now,
- Never to meet again;
- To have done for ever, I and thou,
- With joy, and so with pain.
- It is too hard, too hard to meet
- As friends, and love no more;
- Those other meetings were too sweet
- That went before.
- And I would have, now love it over,
- An end to all, an end:
- I cannot, having been your lover,
- Stoop to become your friend!
- ALLA PASSERETTA BRUNA.
- IF I bid you, you will come,
- If I bid you, you will go,
- You are mine, and so I take you
- To my heart, your home;
- Well, ah, well I know
- I shall not forsake you.
- I shall always hold you fast,
- I shall never set you free,
- You are mine, and I possess you
- Long as life shall last;
- You will comfort me,
- I shall bless you.
- I shall keep you as we keep
- Flowers for memory, hid away,
- Under many a newer token
- Buried deep,
- Roses of a gaudier day,
- Rings and trinkets, bright and broken.
- Other women I shall love,
- Fame and fortune I may win,
- But when fame and love forsake me
- And the light is night above,
- You will let me in,
- You will take me.
- NOCTURNES.
- NOCTURNE.
- ONE little cab to hold us two,
- Night, an invisible dome of cloud,
- The rattling wheels that made our whispers loud,
- As heart-beats into whispers grew;
- And, long, the Embankment with its lights,
- The pavement glittering with fallen rain,
- The magic and the mystery that are night's,
- And human love without the pain.
- The river shook with wavering gleams,
- Deep buried as the glooms that lay
- Impenetrable as the grave of day,
- Near and as distant as our dreams.
- A bright train flashed with all its squares
- Of warm light where the bridge lay mistily.
- The night was all about us: we were free,
- Free of the day and all its cares!
- That was an hour of bliss too long,
- Too long to last where joy is brief.
- Yet one escape of souls may yield relief
- To many weary seasons' wrong.
- "O last for ever!" my heart cried;
- It ended: heaven was done.
- I had been dreaming by her side
- That heaven was but begun.
- HER STREET.
- (IN ABSENCE.)
- I PASSED your street of many memories.
- A sunset, sombre pink, the flush
- Of inner rose-leaves idle fingers crush,
- Died softly, as the rose that dies.
- All the high heaven behind the roof lay thus,
- Tenderly dying, touched with pain
- A little; standing there I saw again
- The sunsets that were dear to us.
- I knew not if 'twere bitter or more sweet
- To stand and watch the roofs, the sky.
- O bitter to be there and you not nigh,
- Yet this had been that blessed street.
- How the name thrilled me, there upon the wall!
- There was the house, the windows there
- Against the rosy twilight high and bare,
- The pavement-stones: I knew them all!
- Days that have been, days that have fallen cold!
- I stood and gazed, and thought of you,
- Until remembrance sweet and mournful drew
- Tears to eyes smiling as of old.
- So, sad and glad, your memory visibly
- Alive within my eyes, I turned;
- And, through a window, met two eyes that burned,
- Tenderly questioning, on me.
- ON JUDGES' WALK.
- THAT night on Judges' Walk the wind
- Was as the voice of doom;
- The heath, a lake of darkness, lay
- As silent as the tomb.
- The vast night brooded, white with stars,
- Above the world's unrest;
- The awfulness of silence ached
- Like a strong heart repressed.
- That night we walked beneath the trees,
- Alone, beneath the trees;
- There was some word we could not say
- Half uttered in the breeze.
- That night on Judges' Walk we said
- No word of all we had to say;
- But now there shall be no word said
- Before the Judge's Day.
- IN THE NIGHT.
- THE moonlight had tangled the trees
- Under our feet as we walked in the night,
- And the shadows beneath us were stirred by the breeze
- In the magical light;
- And the moon was a silver fire,
- And the stars were flickers of flame,
- Golden and violet and red;
- And the night-wind sighed my desire,
- And the wind in the tree-tops whispered and said
- In her ear her adorable name.
- But her heart would not hear what I heard,
- The pulse of the night as it beat,
- Love, Love, Love, the unspeakable word,
- In its murmurous repeat;
- She heard not the night-wind's sigh,
- Nor her own name breathed in her ear,
- Nor the cry of my heart to her heart,
- A speechless, a clamorous cry:
- "Love! Love! will she hear? will she hear?"
- O heart, she will hear, by and by,
- When we part, when for ever we part.
- FÊTES GALANTES.
- AFTER PAUL VERLAINE.
- MANDOLINE,
- THE singers of serenades
- Whisper their faded vows
- Unto fair listening maids
- Under the singing boughs.
- Tircis, Aminte, are there,
- Clitandre is over-long,
- And Damis for many a fair
- Tyrant makes many a song.
- Their short vests, silken and bright,
- Their long pale silken trains,
- Their elegance of delight,
- Twine soft blue silken chains.
- And the mandolines and they,
- Faintlier breathing, swoon
- Into the rose and grey
- Ecstasy of the moon.
- DANS L'ALLÉE.
- AS in the age of shepherd king and queen,
- Painted and frail amid her nodding bows,
- Under the sombre branches, and between
- The green and mossy garden-ways she goes,
- With little mincing airs one keeps to pet
- A darling and provoking perroquet.
- Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds
- With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings,
- So vaguely hints of vague erotic things
- That her eye smiles, musing among its folds.
- --Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth,
- Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly,
- In her divine unconscious pride of youth,
- The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye.
- CYTHÈRE.
- BY favourable breezes fanned,
- A trellised arbour is at hand
- To shield us from the summer airs;
- The scent of roses, fainting sweet,
- Afloat upon the summer heat,
- Blends with the perfume that she wears.
- True to the promise her eyes gave,
- She ventures all, and her mouth rains
- A dainty fever through my veins;
- And Love, fulfilling all things, save
- Hunger, we 'scape, with sweets and ices,
- The folly of Love's sacrifices.
- LES INDOLENTS.
- BAH! spite of Fate, that says us nay,
- Suppose we die together, eh?
- --A rare conclusion you discover!
- --What's rare is good. Let us die so,
- Like lovers in Boccaccio.
- --Hi! hi! hi! you fantastic lover!
- --Nay, not fantastic. If you will,
- Fond, surely irreproachable.
- Suppose, then, that we die together?
- --Good sir, your jests are fitlier told
- Than when you speak of love or gold.
- Why speak at all, in this glad weather?
- Whereat, behold them once again,
- Tircis beside his Dorimène,
- Not far from two blithe rustic rovers,
- For some caprice of idle breath
- Deferring a delicious death.
- Hi! hi! hi! what fantastic lovers!
- FANTOCHES.
- SCARAMOUCHE waves a threatening hand
- To Pulcinella, and they stand,
- Two shadows, black against the moon.
- The old doctor of Bologna pries
- For simples with impassive eyes,
- And mutters o'er a magic rune.
- The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed,
- Glides slyly 'neath the trees, in quest
- Of her bold pirate lover's sail;
- Her pirate from the Spanish main,
- Whose passion thrills her in the pain
- Of the loud languorous nightingale.
- PANTOMIME.
- PIERROT, no sentimental swain,
- Washes a pâté down again
- With furtive flagons, white and red.
- Cassandre, to chasten his content,
- Greets with a tear of sentiment
- His nephew disinherited.
- That blackguard of a Harlequin
- Pirouettes, and plots to win
- His Colombine that flits and flies.
- Colombine dreams, and starts to find
- A sad heart sighing in the wind,
- And in her heart a voice that sighs.
- L'AMOUR PAR TERRE.
- THE wind the other evening overthrew
- The little Love who smiled so mockingly
- Down that mysterious alley, so that we,
- Remembering, mused thereon a whole day through.
- The wind has overthrown him! The poor stone
- Lies scattered to the breezes. It is sad
- To see the lonely pedestal, that had
- The artist's name, scarce visible, alone,
- Oh! it is sad to see the pedestal
- Left lonely! and in dream I seem to hear
- Prophetic voices whisper in my ear
- The lonely and despairing end of all.
- Oh! it is sad! And thou, hast thou not found
- One heart-throb for the pity, though thine eye
- Lights at the gold and purple butterfly
- Brightening the littered leaves upon the ground.
- À CLYMÈNE.
- MYSTICAL strains unheard,
- A song without a word,
- Dearest, because thine eyes.
- Pale as the skies,
- Because thy voice, remote
- As the far clouds that float
- Veiling for me the whole
- Heaven of the soul,
- Because the stately scent
- Of thy swan's whiteness, blent
- With the white lily's bloom
- Of thy perfume,
- Ah! because thy dear love,
- The music breathed above
- By angels halo-crowned,
- Odour and sound,
- Hath, in my subtle heart,
- With some mysterious art
- Transposed thy harmony,
- So let it be!
- FROM ROMANCES SANS PAROLES.
- TEARS in my heart that weeps,
- Like the rain upon the town,
- What drowsy languor steeps
- In tears my heart that weeps?
- O sweet sound of the rain
- On earth and on the roofs!
- For a heart's weary pain
- O the song of the rain!
- Vain tears, vain tears, my heart!
- What, none hath done thee wrong?
- Tears without reason start,
- From my disheartened heart.
- This is the weariest woe,
- O heart, of love and hate
- Too weary, not to know
- Why thou hast all this woe.
- MOODS AND MEMORIES.
- CITY NIGHTS.
- I. IN THE TRAIN.
- THE train through the night of the town,
- Through a blackness broken in twain
- By the sudden finger of streets;
- Lights, red, yellow, and brown,
- From curtain and window-pane,
- The flashing eyes of the streets.
- Night, and the rush of the train,
- A cloud of smoke through the town,
- Scaring the life of the streets;
- And the leap of the heart again,
- Out into the night, and down
- The dazzling vista of streets!
- II. IN THE TEMPLE.
- THE grey and misty night,
- Slim trees that hold the night among
- Their branches, and, along
- The vague Embankment, light on light.
- The sudden, racing lights!
- I can just hear, distinct, aloof,
- The gaily clattering hoof
- Beating the rhythm of festive nights.
- The gardens to the weeping moon
- Sigh back the breath of tears.
- O the refrain of years on years
- 'Neath the weeping moon!
- A WHITE NIGHT.
- THE yellow moon across the clouds
- That shiver in the sky;
- White, hurrying travellers, the clouds,
- And, white and aching cold on high,
- Stars in the sky.
- Whiter, along the frozen earth,
- The miracle of snow;
- Close covered as for sleep, the earth
- Lies, mutely slumbering below
- Its shroud of snow.
- Sleepless I wander in the night,
- And, wandering, watch for day;
- Earth sleeps, yet, high in heaven, the night
- Awakens, faint and far away,
- A phantom day.
- IN THE VALLEY.
- DOWN the valley will I wander, singing songs forlorn,
- Waiting for the maiden coming up between the corn.
- Down below I hear the river babbling to the breeze,
- And I see the sunlight kiss the tresses of the trees.
- All the corn is shining with the tears of early rain:
- Come, thou sunlight of mine eyes, and bring the dawn again!
- Down the valley will I wander, singing songs forlorn,
- Till I meet the maiden coming up between the corn.
- PEACE AT NOON.
- HERE there is peace, cool peace,
- Upon these heights, beneath these trees;
- Almost the peace of sleep or death,
- To wearying brain, to labouring breath.
- Here there is rest at last,
- A sweet forgetting of the past;
- There is no future here, nor aught
- Save this soft healing pause of thought.
- IN FOUNTAIN COURT.
- THE fountain murmuring of sleep,
- A drowsy tune;
- The flickering green of leaves that keep
- The light of June;
- Peace, through a slumbering afternoon,
- The peace of June.
- A waiting ghost, in the blue sky,
- The white curved moon;
- June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I
- Wait too, with June;
- Come, through the lingering afternoon,
- Soon, love, come soon.
- AT BURGOS.
- MIRACULOUS silver-work in stone
- Against the blue miraculous skies,
- The belfry towers and turrets rise
- Out of the arches that enthrone
- That airy wonder of the skies.
- Softly against the burning sun
- The great cathedral spreads its wings;
- High up, the lyric belfry sings.
- Behold Ascension Day begun
- Under the shadow of those wings!
- AT DAWN.
- SHE only knew the birth and death
- Of days, when each that died
- Was still at mom a hope, at night
- A hope unsatisfied.
- The dark trees shivered to behold
- Another day begin;
- She, being hopeless, did not weep
- As the grey dawn came in.
- IN AUTUMN.
- FRAIL autumn lights upon the leaves
- Beacon the ending of the year.
- The windy rains are here,
- Wet nights and blowing winds about the eaves.
- Here in the valley, mists begin
- To breathe about the river side
- The breath of autumn-tide.
- The dark fields wait to take the harvest in.
- And you, and you are far away.
- Ah, this it is, and not the rain
- Now loud against the pane,
- That takes the light and colour from the day!
- ON THE ROADS.
- THE road winds onward long and white,
- It curves in mazy coils, and crooks
- A beckoning finger down the height;
- It calls me with the voice of brooks
- To thirsty travellers in the night.
- I leave the lonely city street,
- The awful silence of the crowd;
- The rhythm of the roads I beat,
- My blood leaps up, I shout aloud,
- My heart keeps measure with my feet.
- Nought know, nought care I whither I wend:
- 'Tis on, on, on, or here or there.
- What profiteth it an aim or end?
- I walk, and the road leads anywhere.
- Then forward, with the Fates to friend!
- 'Tis on and on! Who knows but thus
- Kind Chance shall bring us luck at last?_
- _ Adventures to the adventurous!
- Hope flies before, and the hours slip past:
- O what have the hours in store for us?
- A bird sings something in my ear,
- The wind sings in my blood a song
- Tis good at times for a man to hear;
- The road winds onward white and long,
- And the best of Earth is here!
- PIERROT IN HALF-MOURNING.
- I THAT am Pierrot, pray you pity me!
- To be so young, so old in misery:
- See me, and how the winter of my grief
- Wastes me, and how I whiten like a leaf,
- And how, like a lost child, lost and afraid,
- I seek the shadow, I that am a shade,
- I that have loved a moonbeam, nor have won
- Any Diana to Endymion.
- Pity me, for I have but loved too well
- The hope of the too fair impossible.
- Ah, it is she, she, Columbine: again
- I see her, and I woo her, and in vain.
- She lures me with her beckoning finger-tip;
- How her eyes shine for me, and how her lips
- Bloom for me, roses, roses, red and rich!
- She waves to me the white arms of a witch
- Over the world: I follow, I forget
- All, but she'll love me yet, she'll love me yet!
- FOR A PICTURE OF WATTEAU.
- HERE the vague winds have rest;
- The forest breathes in sleep,
- Lifting a quiet breast;
- It is the hour of rest.
- How summer glides away!
- An autumn pallor blooms
- Upon the check of day.
- Come, lovers, come away!
- But here, where dead leaves fall
- Upon the grass, what strains,
- Languidly musical,
- Mournfully rise and fall?
- Light loves that woke with spring
- This autumn afternoon
- Beholds meandering,
- Still, to the strains of spring.
- Your dancing feet are faint,
- Lovers: the air recedes
- Into a sighing plaint,
- Faint, as your loves are faint.
- It is the end, the end,
- The dance of love's decease.
- Feign no more now, fair friend!
- It is the end, the end.
- End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Silhouettes, by Arthur Symons
- *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SILHOUETTES ***
- ***** This file should be named 29531-8.txt or 29531-8.zip *****
- This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
- http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/5/3/29531/
- Produced by Ruth Hart
- Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
- will be renamed.
- Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
- one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
- (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
- permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
- set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
- copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
- protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
- Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
- charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
- do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
- rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
- such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
- research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
- practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
- subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
- redistribution.
- *** START: FULL LICENSE ***
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
- PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
- To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
- distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
- (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
- Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
- Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
- http://gutenberg.org/license).
- Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
- electronic works
- 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
- electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
- and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
- (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
- the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
- all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
- If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
- Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
- terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
- entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
- 1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
- used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
- agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
- things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
- even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
- paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
- Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
- and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
- works. See paragraph 1.E below.
- 1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
- or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
- Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
- collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
- individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
- located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
- copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
- works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
- are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
- Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
- freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
- this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
- the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
- keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
- Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
- 1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
- what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
- a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
- the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
- before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
- creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
- Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
- the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
- States.
- 1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
- 1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
- access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
- whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
- phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
- Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
- copied or distributed:
- This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
- almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
- re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
- with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
- 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
- from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
- posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
- and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
- or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
- with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
- work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
- through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
- Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
- 1.E.9.
- 1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
- with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
- must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
- terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
- to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
- permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
- 1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
- License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
- work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
- 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
- electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
- prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
- active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
- Gutenberg-tm License.
- 1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
- compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
- word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
- distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
- "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
- posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
- you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
- copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
- request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
- form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
- License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
- 1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
- performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
- unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
- 1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
- access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
- that
- - You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
- the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
- you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
- owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
- has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
- Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
- must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
- prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
- returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
- sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
- address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
- the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- - You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
- you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
- does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
- License. You must require such a user to return or
- destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
- and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
- Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
- money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
- electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
- of receipt of the work.
- - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
- distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
- electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
- forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
- both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
- Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
- Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
- 1.F.
- 1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
- effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
- public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
- collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
- works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
- "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
- corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
- property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
- computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
- your equipment.
- 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
- of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
- Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
- Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
- Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
- liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
- fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
- LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
- PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
- TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
- LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
- INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
- DAMAGE.
- 1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
- defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
- receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
- written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
- received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
- your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
- the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
- refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
- providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
- receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
- is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
- opportunities to fix the problem.
- 1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
- in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
- WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
- WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
- 1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
- warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
- If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
- law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
- interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
- the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
- provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
- 1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
- trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
- providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
- with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
- promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
- harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
- that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
- or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
- work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
- Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
- Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
- Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
- electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
- including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
- because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
- people in all walks of life.
- Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
- assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
- goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
- remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
- Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
- and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
- To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
- and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
- and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
- Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
- Foundation
- The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
- 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
- state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
- Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
- number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
- http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
- Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
- permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
- The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
- Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
- throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
- 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
- business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
- information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
- page at http://pglaf.org
- For additional contact information:
- Dr. Gregory B. Newby
- Chief Executive and Director
- gbnewby@pglaf.org
- Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
- Literary Archive Foundation
- Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
- spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
- increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
- freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
- array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
- ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
- status with the IRS.
- The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
- charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
- States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
- considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
- with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
- where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
- SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
- particular state visit http://pglaf.org
- While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
- have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
- against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
- approach us with offers to donate.
- International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
- any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
- outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
- Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
- methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
- ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
- To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
- Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
- works.
- Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
- concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
- with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
- Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
- Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
- editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
- unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
- keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
- Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
- http://www.gutenberg.org
- This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
- including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
- Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
- subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.