Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MATINAL SURVEY OF THE CITY, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MATINAL SURVEY OF THE CITY, by                    
First Line: O justly made divine, unclose thy hands, sweet dawn, those fingers
Last Line: Sweet to me, against white walls the sound of all these shutters blue!
Subject(s): Chimney Sweepers & Chimneys; Cities; Spring; Urban Life


O justly made divine, unclose thy hands, sweet Dawn, those fingers flushed with
rose -- but keep thy mittens on: caress the rime of morn o'er glittering roofs.
The cold bites? Ah! This instant born my Aurora pale behold.

No more than it does me. But I blow, my sweetheart fair, on my fingers. Hot!
hot! hot! -- What sovereign joy is there! A tomtit on the mill of the sleeping
town doth sing as through its streets I pass in lonely wandering.

Rays of the dawning day, freshness ineffable of this morning, and I go, furtive,
to find the key of a city by repute the happiest of all and like Aurora blessed
in its calm destiny.

To the tomtit's lisping strain no emulous voice replies. Hushed is the
nightingale. The cock has sung his psalm. Do you plan to give the town, O God of
paradise, served on a silver tray to the angel proved most calm?

There is indeed -- I hark -- the murmur crystalline of a fountain, two, no,
three. (And this one's silver sheen reflects a candid brow, the brow of Jean
Racine.) Of that sound is this a part? (Do these verses bear the sign

of that speaker eloquent of falsehoods most divine? Water flows, the verses sing
and fade, 'tis all a dream.) O calm Ferte-Milon, naught has your silence broken
save the tomtit, and no doubt for angels I have spoken.

Of the mill upon the Ourcq the parget white doth sway. A supple bridge doth
cross canal and rushing stream in two bounds -- but with no noise -- like those
lithe tomcats gray that in silver gutters leap, watched by the lunar beam.

And truly! there remains above the town displayed a slender crescent moon that
Dawn, distraught, doth crave. Alas! she wounds her hands against the sickle's
blade, and sanguine roses fall to daub the golden wave.

The sparks that blue and rose and gold and crimson burn, silver and grey, those
sparks that in this verse return: so sweetly they have come within my eyes to
play, to sleep there, there to dream of life that lasts for aye!

Let us softly leap the stream for all is lulled to rest. The street of La
Chaussee, the town's main street, I find, like silent desert sands in rosy
whiteness dressed, seems to have quite forgot the shadows of mankind.

But I've no shadow . . . ah! 'tis there, but light as down. Like a faint wreath
of smoke in air my shadow flees. Am I nothing but a soul? -- Now, praise to God,
I sneeze. -- A little winter wind has swept across the town.

Then 'tis the swallows' joy in circling flight is spread. A creaking weathercock
blends with their twittering cry. But in the fountain 'tis that, lifting not my
head, there, close beside Racine, I love to see the sky.

Blue shutters, roofs of slate, soft clouds of morning clear, is it by such a
stair that one to God may rise? Would you ascend, my soul, and leave my body
here below, more drunk to grow with the rapture of my eyes?

Cobblestones charm me first, most worthy of renown, there are hundreds, one,
two, three, ten thousand by my guess. All of them I admire (what sparkling
cleanliness!) in climbing up the street that dominates the town.

"Ding!" The half hour? Magic spell a single peal may bring! Of its vibration
born lo, a whole church uprises. Eh? yes, 'tis Notre-Dame with tower all
quivering. "Ding! ding!" 'tis seven times thus that the bell evangelises,

and the belfry with each chime soars loftier, broadens vaster, or is it I draw
near tilting my chin in air? -- Dawn! see this Finger sway 'gainst the horizon
there: does it not point for thee thy Maker and thy Master?

Yes, thou canst see him, thou . . . I, better I observe the fifteen hundred
roofs of the little town that go down the main street 'neath my eyes, fine and
light, and far below on the road to Rheims defile, making a sudden curve.

What chimneys! Ah, Seigneur! What vanes above the eaves! Angels in rosy air what
martial trumpets play! Chimneys, in very sooth, warriors one well might say.
Windows, no blossoms now, cultivate laurel leaves.

I see the mill, its wheel, set where the Ourcq meanders, its high tower, bushes,
signs, Lions and Salamanders, and Racine, three times Racine, half-bare -- child
-- deity of olden times -- Ave! Hail! Three times hail to thee!

There's the Hotel de Ville with its French flag there my inn o'er which with
eyes of green, my Savage doth preside, and the other ancient church below; come,
courage then!-----the hands of citizens push all the shutters wide.

Who now doth over me this sombre shadow throw? Houses somnambulant, who with a
bound awake, to your shutters' noise ascend by swift assault to take the hill
all flower-bedecked, the shade of the chateau!

You remain! . . . Good, I alone shall go to gaze on you from the height, then
with both hands applaud you frantically, for, though I know not why, it is most
sweet to me, against white walls the sound of all these shutters blue!





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