Poem I

Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoonYou have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do--With “I have saved this afternoon for you”;And four wax candles in the darkened room,Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,An atmosphere of Juliet’s tombPrepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.We have been, let us say, to hear the latest PoleTransmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger tips.“So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soulShould be resurrected only among friendsSome two or three, who will not touch the bloomThat is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.”--And so the conversation slipsAmong velleities and carefully caught regretsThrough attenuated tones of violinsMingled with remote cornetsAnd begins.

“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,And how, how rare and strange it is, to findIn a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,(For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind!How keen you are!)To find a friend who has these qualities,Who has, and givesThose qualities upon which friendship lives.How much it means that I say this to you--Without these friendships--life, what cauchemar!”Among the windings of the violinsAnd the ariettesOf cracked cornetsInside my brain a dull tom-tom beginsAbsurdly hammering a prelude of its own,Capricious monotoneThat is at least one definite “false note.”--Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,Admire the monumentsDiscuss the late events,Correct our watches by the public clocks.Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.