Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the
city. It stops a moment
on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping
and trickling
over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit
of a gargoyle,
and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square.
Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about
in the sky?
Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom,
again! After it, only water
rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of the gargoyle.
Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!
The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about
from the firelight.
The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies
leap in the bohemian glasses on the `etagere’. Her hands
are restless,
but the white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will
it never cease
to torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration
shatters a glass
on the `etagere’. It lies there, formless and glowing,
with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing
red,
blood-red. A thin bell-note pricks through the silence. A
door creaks.
The old lady speaks: “Victor, clear away that broken
glass.” “Alas!
Madame, the bohemian glass!” “Yes, Victor, one hundred
years ago
my father brought it –” Boom! The room shakes,
the servitor quakes.
Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!
It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he
is shut
within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his
table, his ink,
his pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls
are pierced with
beams of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain
tosses itself
up at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin
he can see
copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp
in a cedar-tree
grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, iridescent,
shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom!
The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain
rears up
in long broken spears of dishevelled water and flattens into the
earth. Boom!
And there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding
rain.
Again, Boom! — Boom! — Boom! He stuffs his fingers
into his ears.
He sees corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It
is night,
and they are shelling the city! Boom! Boom!
A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What
has made
the bed shake? “Mother, where are you? I am
awake.” “Hush, my Darling,
I am here.” “But, Mother, something so queer happened,
the room shook.”
Boom! “Oh! What is it? What is
the matter?” Boom! “Where is Father?
I am so afraid.” Boom! The child sobs and
shrieks. The house
trembles and creaks. Boom!
Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All
his trials
oozing across the floor. The life that was his choosing,
lonely, urgent,
goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory,
that is his story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance,
and the jig of drunken brutes.
Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of
slime.
Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window,
he can see
the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead
of the roof,
and the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire,
behind the lacings of stone, zigzagging in and out of the carved
tracings,
squirms the fire. It spouts like yellow wheat from the
gargoyles, coils round
the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light. It
leaps into the night
and hisses against the rain. The Cathedral is a burning
stain on the white,
wet night.
Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to
it begin to scorch.
Boom! The bohemian glass on the `etagere’ is no longer
there.
Boom! A stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains.
The old lady cannot walk. She watches the creeping stalk
and counts.
Boom! — Boom! — Boom!
The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet
of silver.
But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The
city burns.
Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the flames.
Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing
its gold on the sky,
the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and
chuckles
along the floors.
The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower
flickering at the window. The little red lips of flame
creep along
the ceiling beams.
The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at
the burning Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with
people.
They seek shelter and crowd into the cellars. They shout
and call,
and over all, slowly and without force, the rain drops into the
city.
Boom! And the steeple crashes down among the people. Boom! Boom,
again!
The water rushes along the gutters. The fire roars and
mutters. Boom!
***
More poems by Amy Lowell