Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TRAITOR, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TRAITOR, by                    
First Line: Fain would I drive away the image of the spring. Each day of lilacs
Last Line: Thee?
Subject(s): Betrayal; Hearts; Sin; Spring


Fain would I drive away the image of the Spring. Each day of lilacs mauve,
primroses pale, each day of frisking lambkins white 'mid vernal mists at play,
of babbling streams, clear skies, and birds gay jargonning, to the heart of
heaven unfolding the marguerite of gold an impassive deity shreds down with
finger slow, each day that gilds the grass, whence subtle perfumes pass,
although new life I know breathing them once again, is a sin of drunkenness, a
long remorse to me.

Sin, perfidy, remorse to me from dawn to dark, false to my brothers, dead for
you, France, in the stark nakedness of the plain or horror of the wood, sin
'gainst the dead, the sin of yearning yet to be, original sin, the sin of a
voluptuous mood, remorse for being alive, drunk with the Spring's gay feast,
fiend that regales the soul with bright hours exquisite, perfidy to the slain,
the soldiers dead for me in the great plain to the north, in the great wood to
the east!

A felon's heart is mine. Poesy, poesy, who caused me to assign my vital force to
thee? What are they worth, those hymns of gladness that employed my powers,
those hymns to Spring, scenes of forgotten loves. Old heart, your country's
racked and all your strength is void! Nature and nothing more my singing can
portray. Sad, when one can but chant the breeze in poplar groves, the sun of
orange storm through pine-tops black and still, the swift trout in the stream
churned by the clacking mill, the loriot's laugh that falls from the fresh
hawthorn-spray.

Hill, butterfly-caressed, with clover overspread, tell me, O lovely hill, tell
me the thing you know. As springlike doth it show, the black height of Eparge,
at this daylight hour that makes more wounded and more dead? The mountain of
black mud heroic charges gain -- wall crumbling with the wreck of wounded as
with slain -- a floundering host, their guns engulfed in pits of slime. Flatter
my eyes, fair hill, a felon's heart is mine!

O little stream of May, forget-me-nots enwreathe, at this fair hour of eve when
calling peewits glide, tell me, O little stream, what happens now beside the
bankless Yser's tide whence one sole spire doth start. Say, does the lamb browse
there, the golden broom, the air absorb the scent of sage that thrills my soul
like wine, or of a deadly gas in vortices of doom? Console me, vernal stream,
mine is a felon's heart.

Swallow that earthward dips, a felon's heart is mine.
Storm with the noise of steps, a felon's heart is mine.
All my white cherry-trees, a felon's heart is mine.
My friend, the rainbow arch, a felon's heart is mine.
My sweetheart, soul of eve, a felon's heart is mine.
Companionable toad, a felon's heart is mine.
France of my springtimes, what a traitorous heart have I!

A felon's heart is mine. Poesy, poesy, who caused me to assign my vital force to
thee?





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