Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MAN WHO FELL NAKED FROM PARADISE, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MAN WHO FELL NAKED FROM PARADISE, by                    
First Line: Silence, the hay is sweet, and 'tis the hour of grain
Last Line: Breathed by the deity.
Subject(s): Dreams; Fantasy; Happiness; Heaven; Life; Nightmares; Joy; Delight; Paradise


Silence, the hay is sweet, and 'tis the hour of grain.

O soft, green heaven! Happy souls of those who scythe and sickle ply! The metal
shines. The arms are bare. O'er the hill a horn of the moon doth bend. Let fair
arms nonchalantly extend! As yet no shrilling cricket's cry troubles the evening
atmosphere. The day strews clouds, a roseate rain: one would say it shed its
leaves to die, in the silence, at the horizon clear.

Yes. I feel that the world is but a dream. The sun sets. The pale moon doth
beam. Yes. . . . I pass, they see my form appear, remote on the roadway's dusty
reaches -- in silhouette between the beeches -- and they call to me and I make
reply: "Come, lads, have done with drudgeries! Enough you have laboured for
today. Lay down the scythes, put the sickles by. Group yourselves about me. I am
here. Hark to the seller of images.

From the crest of the hill I have not seen, approaching like a bank of mist, the
cart that every eve keeps tryst to bring you to your hearth-fire's boon, nor,
circling 'gainst the heaven's dull green, the whip of Toby. No. I've seen only
the rising of the moon, and I have come to tell you this.

This slope is more steep with every sun. Each day a day older are my shanks.
Help me then -- thanks -- in my descent. Almost I upset you, little one? --
Great eyes of blue . . . Do they love to dream? O fair, attentive chin! Come
here, that I may kiss you, sweet, and then hark to a true word in your ear. "The
sun sets. The pale moon doth beam. My child, this world is but a dream."

Heigh, don't forget what I told you all! I've come to move your hearts to
laughter. Last night I fathomed the hereafter, reading in palms what must
befall. Bah! For this evening I devise a legend strange and rare.

And first -- do you wish to please me well? -- Go, little ones, and dance a
round so wild you will tumble to the ground, dizzied. Thereafter, I will tell
the story of Coxcomb, he who fell naked from Paradise.

Without so much as a blouse, poor wight, bare and pink, like a frog without its
hide, arrived on earth in such a plight, judge if he was not mortified.

Turn, turn, sweet lads and maidens shy, till you make the round indeed a round.
See how they wreathe a goodly crown upon the front of Cybele!

-- Coxcomb, fallen sheer from the tempest's brow, thought himself god, seven
times a man. Yet he was costumed God knows how . . . But the whole matter you
shall scan.

Come, you have whirled enough, I wis, for many now are lying prone. Wool-
gathering all the wits have gone. Hark to the seller of images.

-- Since then he makes the tour of the world, Coxcomb, vendor of Verities, on
his head a fool's cap proudly twirled (do you hear it tinkle in the breeze? . .
.), in his hand a blade that oft assails the vanguards of the summer gales.

Pell-mell at his heels policemen run, 'neath the rain, through the wind, and in
the sun, for 'tis his boast he can invoke crowds of imaginary folk, make the far
horizon furnish throngs, and the depths of earth, to hear his songs. And if in a
deserted land, Coxcomb, with lifted arm should stand launching a hymn to the
Infinite, indubitably you would hear each bush a murmuring transmit, "You have
the right of it, Brigadier," and instantly on every hand, through fields, and
roads and standing grain, policemen would give chase again.

Who but myself should Coxcomb be? At least 'tis fitting thus to deem. Your
pleasure will be more extreme, sweeter will prove your gaiety.

Good folk, attention. I commence. Those who do not comprehend the tale, the
dolts and dullards, I'll dispatch to catch me flies in the moonlight pale.

I hear the stars their silence trail like a veil immense o'er the garnered
grain. At the far limit of the plain dies the sun. The hour is opportune.

I shall only stop to blow my nose because of the evening dew. I fly on the wings
of Fantasy. Remain here, seated, you!

Those that are bored had best embrace, Jack kissing Jill and contrary-wise, and
recommence their vows and sighs, not troubling me whate'er their case.

Silence, the hay is sweet, and 'tis the hour of grain. See also whether . . .
the hour is opportune.

I fly on the wings of Fantasy, 'neath the silver of the moon.

II

Frightened by Destiny, which to him this orb decreed, and dreading, furtively,
lest he by chance exceed the sum of human souls that on Earth he should create,
that number consecrate, which, where the gods abide, Earth's entity controls,
and filled with panic fears lest he Destiny's law transgress, and wounded in his
pride at his abasement slow from himself to nothingness, till none his fame
might know, our God, one of the least presiding o'er the spheres, Earth's primal
deity, feeling a little old, with memory far from hale whose scope each day
decreased, resolved, one summer night, to count his universe, and, foreseeing
the approach of the Last Census Day, his company to coach, decided to rehearse
the pageant in his Vale.

And 'twas a wondrous sight, but none were there to see.

Some in siestas deep by the Malayan Sea where o'er their honeyed sleep drowses
the tulip-tree, others no doubt a prey to opium immense where all of China lay
immersed in poppied trance, and the shepherds, too, who sat a dormant, pastoral
group around Jehosophat, ringed by their bleating troupe, some at Beauvais in
France, since night was well advanced, each on his wages bent, as though 'neath
Morpheus' wand from Brest to Kohinoor, from Yedo to Golcond the living slept
secure, yea slumbered like the dead, the thief beneath his tent, the banker in
his bed, and the Cossack stretched, perforce, on the withers of his horse.

Through that midnight, splendour-filled, all of the living slept, letting their
souls, in crowds, escape from misty dreams to blend themselves, obscure, with
the souls Death's urn had spilled in multi-coloured streams, and those fallen
from the clouds like a river of stars that swept down the Vale's declivity And
'twas a wondrous sight but none were there to see.

On high archangels soared to sound the trumpet there, like lightning's vivid
glare launching their thunders gold, and angels, garland-wise, sustained the
trumpets blare, and the universe gleamed fair in the pavilions gold.

And the sweet child-angels made their small hands shine again with the stars
that thither strayed to re-illume their flame, or, from the blue-paved lodge
allotted to their sway, trotted to play hop-scotch across the Milky Way.

Above a forest, God was glorious at his ease. Bent towards the tawny fires that
graced his fingers bland, he shone before the souls without an, "if you please,"
all in the eternal charm exhaled from each white hand.

Saint Michael, at his side, whirling his keen-edged sword, aerated the Divine
ceremoniously. The slopes of Olive's mount prolonged their dreaming, and the
Popes, 'neath the roses, Latin sang to hymn the risen Lord.

At the summit Lucifer of his sombre shadow made a screen and to his brows that
velvet strove to bring. In vain! His ruby glance consumed the succouring shade
till his eyes blinked, half-blind, 'neath the rays' burnishing.

But in truth the fairest thing would have been to hear the song, flush with the
mountain line,

the chorus of the stars. The air, so vast their throng, was all in seed-pearls
fine,

flush with the mountain line, and blithely did they sing:

"A little living air our radiance still doth shed but we are little, blest
religions that are dead. 'Tis true that they declare we are the stars. Ah, well,
no prouder for that thought our microcosms swell. We are dead, dead, dead, yet
keep unchanged eternally a little living air. Hark rather to the rare tinkling,
our secret voice on the robe of Destiny. Have we not still the right to glory in
our fire, being Destiny's choice, the gauds that deck her stately gown? 'Tis we,
in all renown, spangle her night attire. What does it matter now! Enough of
coquetry! There's no more thought of us, lights innocent and fair. Hark to our
song, regard where our merged radiance shines. Poised in the evening sky, evil
we muse towards none, and 'tis the shepherds come to worship at our shrines.

A STAR.

Yet, my sisters, we retain some curiosity, still doth the living world our
ribbed composure nudge. My sisters, you are wise, bend from the skies and see!
What doth this stir portend? What might this tumult be?

ANOTHER.

Is it not some deity that they are going to judge?

THE STAR OF THE MORNING.

Ah, my sister, you don't know? According to report 'tis the Christian's god, my
sister.

ALL THE STARS.

The Christian's god! . . . Hoho! Then we shall have good sport.

THE STAR OF THE MORNING.

'Twas the Sun that told me the circumstance. I combed his rays with my comb of
blue.

ALL THE STARS.

Waltz two by two. Behold our dance.

As I have said above all of the living slept, some in siestas deep by the
Malayan Sea where o'er their honeyed sleep drowses the tulip-tree; others no
doubt a prey to opium immense where all of China lay immersed in poppied trance,
souls to oblivion sent, who knows? perchance they snored, the thief beneath his
tent, the banker in his bed, and the Cossack stretched, perforce, on the withers
of his horse.

III.

All of the living slept? -- save Coxcomb only. He to life that evening leapt,
breathed by the Deity.





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