Amy Lowell poetry: J.-K. Huysmans

Amy Lowell

(1874-1925)

 

J.-K. Huysmans

A flickering glimmer through a window-pane,

A dim red glare through mud bespattered glass,

Cleaving a path between blown walls of sleet

Across uneven pavements sunk in slime

To scatter and then quench itself in mist.

And struggling, slipping, often rudely hurled

Against the jutting angle of a wall,

And cursed, and reeled against, and flung aside

By drunken brawlers as they shuffled past,

A man was groping to what seemed a light.

His eyelids burnt and quivered with the strain

Of looking, and against his temples beat

The all enshrouding, suffocating dark.

He stumbled, lurched, and struck against a door

That opened, and a howl of obscene mirth

Grated his senses, wallowing on the floor

Lay men, and dogs and women in the dirt.

He sickened, loathing it, and as he gazed

The candle guttered, flared, and then went out.

Through travail of ignoble midnight streets

He came at last to shelter in a porch

Where gothic saints and warriors made a shield

To cover him, and tortured gargoyles spat

One long continuous stream of silver rain

That clattered down from myriad roofs and spires

Into a darkness, loud with rushing sound

Of water falling, gurgling as it fell,

But always thickly dark. Then as he leaned

Unconscious where, the great oak door blew back

And cast him, bruised and dripping, in the church.

His eyes from long sojourning in the night

Were blinded now as by some glorious sun;

He slowly crawled toward the altar steps.

He could not think, for heavy in his ears

An organ boomed majestic harmonies;

He only knew that what he saw was light!

He bowed himself before a cross of flame

And shut his eyes in fear lest it should fade.

 

Amy Lowell poetry

fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: Archive K-L, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Lowell, Amy