Poem by Edith Louisa Sitwell

The Girl with the Lint-White Locks

THE bright-striped wooden fields are edged
With noisy cock’s crow trees, scarce fledged--

The trees that spin like tops, all weathers,
Like strange birds ruffling glassy feathers.

My hair is white as flocks of geese,
And water hisses out of this;

And when the late sun burns my cheek
Till it is pink as apples sleek,

I wander in the fields and know
Why kings do squander pennies so--

Lest they at last should weight their eyes!
But beggars’ ragged minds, more wise,

Know without flesh we cannot see--
And so they hoard stupidity

(The dull ancestral memory
That is the only property).

They laugh to see the spring fields edged
With noisy cock’s crow trees scarce fledged,

And flowers that grunt to feel their eyes
Made clear with sight’s finalities.

1. Falsetto Song
2. “Comedy for Marionettes”
3. Singerie
4. The Avenue
5. What the Goosegirl Said about the Dean

Print

1731 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version