Out of the Flame

BOOK I

OUT OF THE FLAME




TWO MEXICAN PIECES

I. SONG



            "Ah! Que bonitos

            Son los enanos,

            Los chiquititos,

            Y Mezicanos."

                        Old Mexican Song.


How jolly are the dwarfs, the little ones, the Mexicans

Hidden by the singing of wind through sugar-cane,

Out comes the pretty one,

Out comes the ugly one,

Out comes the dwarf with the wicked smile and thin.


The little women caper and simper and flutter fans,

The little men laugh, stamp, strut and stamp again,

Dance to the bag-pipe drone,

Of insect semitone,

Swelling from ground slashed with light like zebra skin.


The little Cardinal, the humming-bird, whose feathers flare

Like flame across the valley of volcanic stone,

Fiery arrow from a rainbow

That the armoured plants have slain, low

Stoops to watch the dwarfs as they dance out of sight.


Hair, long and black as jet, is floating yet on amber air

Honey-shaded by the shadow of Popacatapetl's cone,

Their fluttering reboses

Like purple-petal'd roses

Fall through tropic din with a clatter of light.


The crooked dwarf now ripples the strings of a mandoline,

His floating voice has wings that brush us like a butterfly;

Music fills the mountains

With a riot of fountains

That spray back on the hot plain like a waterfall.


Smaller grow the dwarfs, singing "I'll bring shoes of satin,"

Smaller they grow, fade to golden motes, then die.

Where is the pretty one,

Where is the ugly one,

Where is that tongue of flame, the little Cardinal?

II. MAXIXE



            "Los enanitos

            Se enajaren."

                        Old Mexican Song.


The Mexican dwarfs can dance for miles

Stamping their feet and scattering smiles,

Till the loud hills laugh and laugh again

At the dancing dwarfs in the golden plain,

Till the bamboos sing as the dwarfs dance by,

Kicking their feet at a jagged sky,

That torn by leaves and gashed by hills

Rocks to the rhythm the hot sun shrills;

The bubble sun stretches shadows that pass

To noiseless jumping-jacks of glass,

So long and thin, so silent and opaque,

That the lions shake their orange manes, and quake;

And a shadow that leaps over Popacatapetl

Terrifies the tigers as they settle

Cat-like limbs, cut with golden bars,

Under bowers of flowers that shimmer like stars.

Buzzing of insects flutters above,

Shaking the rich trees' treasure-trove

Till the fruit rushes down like a comet, whose tail

Thrashes the night with its golden flail,

The fruit hisses down with a plump from its tree

Like the singing of a rainbow as it dips into the sea.

Loud red trumpets of great blossoms blare

Triumphantly like heralds who blow a fanfare,

Till the humming-bird, bearing heaven on its wing,

Flies from the terrible blossoming,

And the humble honey-bee is frightened by the fine

Honey that is heavy like money and purple like wine,

While birds that flaunt their pinions like pennons

Shriek from their trees of oranges and lemons,

And the scent rises up in a cloud, to make

The hairy, swinging monkeys feel so weak

That they each throw down a bitten coconut or mango.


* * * * *


Up flames a flamingo over the fandango,

Glowing like a fire, and gleaming like a ruby.

From Guadalajara to Guadalupe

It flies—in flying drops a feather

... And the snatching dwarfs stop dancing—and fight together.

OUT OF THE FLAME



I


From my high window,

From my high window in a southern city,

I peep through the slits of the shutters,

Whose steps of light

Span darkness like a ladder.

Throwing wide the shutters

I let the streets into the silent room

With sudden clatter;

Walk out upon the balcony

Whose curving irons are bent

Like bows about to shoot—

Bows from which the mortal arrows

Cast from dark eyes, dark-lashed

And shadowed by mantillas,

Shall in the evening

Rain down upon men's hearts

Paraded here, in southern climes,

More openly.

But, at this early moment of the day,

The balconies are empty;

Only the sun, still drowsy-fingered,

Plucks, pizzicato, at the rails,

Draws out of them faint music

Of rain-washed air,

Or, when each bell lolls out its idiot tongue,

When Time lets drop his cruel scythe,

They sing in sympathy.

The sun, then, plucks these irons,

As far below,

That child

Draws his stick along the railings.

The sound of it brings my eye down to him....

Oh heart, dry heart,

It is yourself again!

How nearly are we come together!

If, at this moment,

One long ribbon was unfurled

From me to him,

I should be shown

Above, in a straight line—

A logical growth,

And yet,

        I wave, but he will not look up;

        I call, but he will not answer.