Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ROMAN WOMEN, by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN Poet's Biography First Line: Close by the mamertine Last Line: O pincian woman, do not come to rome! Alternate Author Name(s): Brown, T. E. Subject(s): Roman Empire; Women | ||||||||
I CLOSE by the Mamertine Her eyes swooped into mine. O Jove supreme! What gleam Of sovereignty! what hate -- Large, disproportionate! What lust August! Imperial state Of full-orbed throbbings solved In vast and dissolute content -- Love-gluts revolved In lazy rumination, rent, As then, by urgence of the immediate sting! The tiger spring Is there; the naked strife Of sinewy gladiators, knife Slant-urged, Locusta drugs, Suburran rangings, Messalina hugs; Neronic crapula-pangs I' the dizzy morning; gangs Of captives: -- "Pretty men enough, Eh, Livia?" Puff Of lecherous torches; ooze Of gutter-creeping gore; the booze Gnathic, Trimalchial; hot hiss Of leno in the lobby -- This, And more. No wonder if her brow Is arched to empire even now! No wonder If bated thunder Sleeps in her silken lashes! If flashes Of awful splendour light the purple mud That clogs the sphered depths palatial! No wonder if a blotch of blood Lies murd'rous in the centre of the ball! II That look was Heaven or Hell, As you shall please to take it -- Enormity of love, or lust so fell The Devil could not slake it -- And so -- and so -- She passes -- I shall never know. III Ah! now I have you, Julia, Brutus' mate, Such lip, such brow, Such port, such gait: A body, where the act of every sense, Compounds a final excellence -- Ah, glorious woman! Whence This perfect good, If not from juice Of finer blood, Perfumed with use Of ardours pure, intense With strains of sweet control? Clear soul, If unpropitious starr'd, You wear the fitting vesture, You have the native gesture, And your most wanton thought mounts guard On chastity's fair fence. IV Woman, a word with you! Round-ribbed, large-flanked, Broad-shouldered (God be thanked!), Face fair and free, And pleasant for a man to see -- I know not whom you love; but -- hark! be true: Partake his honest joys; Cling to him, grow to him, make noble boys For Italy. V Pomegranate, orange, rose, Chewed to a paste (Her flesh); A miscellaneous nose, No waist; Mouth ript and ragg'd, Ears nipt and jagg'd, As fresh From bull-dog grapplings; tongue Beet-root, crisp, strong, Now curled against the teeth, Lip-cleaving now, like flower from sheath. Now fix'd, now vibrant, blowing spray Of spittle on the King's highway. VI Pretty? I think so; Crushed, I admit it, and crumpled and bruised, And smashed out of shape, The poor little ape, And sorely and sadly abused Yes, I should say so -- Like a streamlet defiled at the source, Condemned in advance -- Not a ghost of a chance -- Invertebrate morals, of course! Pretty? yes, pretty -- For the sighs and the sobs and the tears Have got mixed with the mesh Of her wonderful flesh, And leavened the growth of the years. Pretty, and more -- For she sighs not, and sobs not, nor weeps; But the sobs and the sighs And the tears of her eyes Dissolve in the physical deeps. And they soften and sweeten the whole, And in abject submission To any condition She fashions the ply of her soul. VII Good wife, good mother -- yes, I know. But what a glow Of elemental fires! What breadth, what stately flow Of absolute desires -- How bound To household task And daily round, It boots not ask! Good mother, and good wife -- These women seem to live suspended life. As lakes, dark-gleaming till the night is done, Expect the sun, So these, That wont to hold Jove's offspring on their knees, Take current odds, Accept life's lees, And wait returning Gods. VIII Ah! naughty little girl, With teeth of pearl, You exquisite little brute, So young, so dissolute -- Ripe orange brushed From an o'erladen tree, chance-crushed And bruised and battered on the street, And yet so merry and so sweet! Ah, child, don't scoff -- Yes, yes, I see -- you lovely wretch, be off! IX This is the Forum of Augustus -- see The continuity Of all these Forums, and the size -- (By Jove, those eyes!). Three pillars of the peristyle -- that's all; A fragment of the wall; Some doubtful traces of the cella -- (Down the Bonella!). Corinthian capitals -- observe how fine The helices entwine -- Your Badeker a minutino -- (Ha! the Baccino!). The Arco de' Pantani shows the ground Has risen all around. Of course you know we're far above the level Of -- (Gone? The Devil!). Badeker tells how many feet we stand Above old Rome. He's grand! He is so plain, is Badeker -- (Again she's there!). I really -- 'pon my word, you know, this book This badeker -- (Look! look!) -- This English Badeker's so plain -- (She's there again!). You don't seem quite to -- (What a heavenly boddice!) -- You don't -- (A perfect goddess!) -- I mean, you seem a bit distrait -- (O, blue! O, green! O -- blazes -- Fire away!). X "You seem so strange to me, You merman from the Northern sea" -- "A barnacle from Noah's ark?" "Well -- yes -- a sort of shark!" "Ah, blow then, darling, blow! Blow in my ears, and let the warm breath flow, And search the inmost vault Of my sad brain. Blow, love -- Blow in the cooing of the dove, Blow out the singing of the salt!" XI A little maiden, fifteen years or under -- And, as the curtain swings with heavy lurch, Behold, she stands within St. Peter's Church -- O wonder! wonder! wonder! And yet not so -- her birthright rather seems it She claims, whose breast the brooding sunshine warms To absolute sense of colours and of forms -- Her birthright 'tis she deems it. Or nothing deems -- but, very sweet and grave, Yet proud withal to be at last in Rome, And see the shops, and see St. Peter's Dome, She passes up the nave. And if some angel spreads a silver wing I know not -- Visibly accompanying her Are but her mother and her grandmother -- The lovely little thing! Such soil, such children, representing clearly The land they live in; so that if this pet Of subtlest variance had the alphabet, You'd think it nature merely. And if, where stemming crags the torrent shatter, She stood before the sunlit waterfall, And wrapp'd the rainbow round her like a shawl, It were a simple matter. Now Mary and her dead Son -- she has seen them: -- "Yes, darling, wrought by Michael Angelo"! And now, too short to reach to Peter's toe, They lift her up between them; And, having kissed, she soft unclasps her mother, As graduated woman from to-day; And blushing thinks, how Seppe's sick till they Shall marry one another. And when to-night her Seppe comes to meet her, And, for the one poor kiss she gave to Peter, Exacts a vengeful twenty, if she can For kisses, she will tell him all the plan Of Peter's Church, and What a tiny kiss It was, "Seppino; not like this, or this!" And how, hard by, the hungry Englishman Looked just as if he'd eat her! XII Why does she stare at you like that? The glow Flew sheeted, As from the furnace seven times heated For Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego. Is it immediate sense Of difference? Of complement? And so -- While we want sun and grapes, This burning creature gapes For ice and snow! XIII O Englishwoman on the Pincian, I love you not, nor ever can -- Astounding woman on the Pincian! I know your mechanism well-adjusted, I see your mind and body have been trusted To all the proper people: I see you straight as is a steeple; I see you are not old; I see you are a rich man's daughter; I see you know the use of gold, But also know the use of soap-and-water; And yet I love you not, nor ever can -- Distinguished woman on the Pincian! You have no doubt of your preeminence, Nor do I make pretence To challenge it for my poor little slattern, Whose costume dates from Saturn -- My wall-flower with the long, love-draggled fringes But then the controversy hinges On higher forms; and you must bear Comparisons more noble. Stare, yes, stare -- I love you not, nor ever can, You peerless woman on the Pincian. No, you'll not see her on the Pincian, My Roman woman, wife of Roman man! Elsewhere you may -- And she is bright as is the day; And she is sweet, that honest workman's wife Fulfilled with bounteous life: Her body balanced like a spring In equipoise of perfect natural grace; Her soul unquestioning Of all but genial cares; her face, Her frock, her attitude, her pace The confluence of absolute harmonies -- And you, my Lady Margaret, Pray what have you to set 'Gainst splendours such as these? No, I don't love you, and I never can, Pretentious woman on the Pincian! But morals -- beautiful serenity Of social life, the sugar and the tea, The flannels and the soup, the coals, The patent recipes for saving souls, And other things: the chill dead sneer Conventional, the abject fear Of form-transgressing freedom -- I admit That you have these; but love you not a whit The more, nor ever can, Alarming female on the Pincian! Come out, O woman, from this blindness! Rome, too, has women full of loving-kindness, Has noble women, perfect in all good That makes the glory of great womanhood -- But they are Women! I have seen them bent On gracious errand; seen how goodness lent The grave, ineffable charm That guards from possibility of harm A creature so divinely made, So softly swayed With native gesture free -- The melting-point of passionate purity. Yes -- soup and flannels too, And tickets for them -- just like you -- Tracts, books, and all the innumerable channels Through which your bounty acts -- Well -- not the tracts, But certainly the flannels -- Her I must love, but you I never can, Unlovely woman on the Pincian. And yet -- Remarkable woman on the Pincian! -- We owe a sort of debt To you, as having gone with us of old To those bleak islands, cold And desolate and grim, Upon the ocean's rim, And shared their horrors with us -- not that then Our poor bewildered ken Could catch the further issues, knowing only That we were very lonely! Ah well, you did us service in your station; And how the progress of our civilisation Has made you quite so terrible It boots not ask; for still You gave us stalwart scions, Suckled the young sea-lions, And smiled infrequent, glacial smiles Upon the sulky isles -- For this and all His mercies ---- stay at home! Here are the passion-flowers! Here are the sunny hours! O Pincian woman, do not come to Rome! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ARISTOTLE TO PHYLLIS by JOHN HOLLANDER A WOMAN'S DELUSION by SUSAN HOWE JULIA TUTWILER STATE PRISON FOR WOMEN by ANDREW HUDGINS THE WOMEN ON CYTHAERON by ROBINSON JEFFERS TOMORROW by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD LADIES FOR DINNER, SAIPAN by KENNETH KOCH GOODBYE TO TOLERANCE by DENISE LEVERTOV A SERMON AT CLEVEDON; GOOD FRIDAY by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN |
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