http://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/upimage/PCMS-0132_1_7.pdf

Media

Part of The Fête, typed manuscript with additional autograph manuscript on reverse, undated

Text

Published in The Eg
May 1919

THE FETE.

.

9

Gordon Street ,
Gordon Square ,
W. C.

..

THE FETE.

To-night
again
the Moon's whit e mat
Stretches across the dormitory floor
While ou tside , like an evil cat
The pion prowls down the dark corridor,
Planning, I know , to pounce on me in spite
For getting leave to sleep in town last night.
But i t wasnone of us who made that noise.
Only the old brown owl that hoots and fli es
Out of the ivy -- ; He will say it was us boys Seigneur
Mon Dieu ! the sacre sould of spies !
He wou l d l ike to catch each dream that lies
Hidden behind our sleepy eyes;
Their dream? but mine - , i t is the Moon and t h e Woo d
that s ee s;
All my long life how I shall hate the trees !
In the Place d'Armes,
the dusty planes,
all Summer through
Do zed with the market women in the sun and scarcely
stirred
To s ee t he qu iet things that crossed the square
A tiny funeral , the flying shadow of a bird ,
The hump-backed barber , Celestin Lemaire,
Ol d Madame Michel in her three-wheeled chair,
And filing
past to vespers, t wo and t wo,
The demoiselle s of the Pensionnat
Towed like a ship through the• harbour bar
Saf e into port where l e p etit Jesus
Perhaps makes nothing of t he l ook they s hot at you -:
Si . c'est defendu, mais que
voulez
vous?
I t was t he sun.
The sunshine we aves
A pattern on dull stones: the sunshine leave s
The portraiture of dre ams upon the ey e s
Beforeit dies.
All Summer through
t h e drowsy planes
The dust hung white upon
Ti ll suddenl y they woke
wit h the Autumn rains.

(1)

It is not only the little
boys
Who have hardly got away from toys,
But I, who am seventeen next year
Some nig hts, in bed , have grown cold to hear
That lonel y passion of the rain
Which makes you think of being dead
And of somewhere living to lay your head
As if you we re a child again
Crying f or one thing , known and near
Your empty heart to still the hunger and the fear
That pelts and beats with it against t he pane .

But I remember smiling too
At all the Sun 's soft t ricks and those Autumn dreads
In Winter-time when the g rey light .broke slowly through
The frosted window-lace
to drag us shivering from our beds.
And when at dusk the •singing win d swung down
Straight from the stars to the dark count r y roads beyond the
.
twinkling
town,
Strikingthe leafl ess poplar boughs as he went by
Like some poor stray dog by the wayside lying dead
We left behind us the ol d world
of dread
I and the wind as we strode whistling
on under the Winter sky.

And then in Spring f or three days came the fair
Just as the planes were starting into bud
Above t h e caravans:
you saw the dancing bear
Pass on his chain; and h eard the jingle
and the thud.
Only four days ago
They let you out of this dull show
To slither d own the montaine russeand the chaff the man a la
tete de veau,
Hit , slick,the bulls-eye at the Tir
Spin r ound and round till your head went queer
On the porcs-roulants.
Oh! la la, la Fete!
Va pour du vin et l e tete-a-tete
Wi th the girl who sugars the quafres!
Pauvre tt e
How thin she was; but she smiled, yo u bet,
As she took you r tip - "One
does not f orget
The good days, Monsieur" .
Said with a grace
But sacrebl eu ! what a ghost of a f ace!
And no fun t oo for, the demoiselles
Of the Pensionnat, who were hurried past
With their "Oh! que c'est be au - Ah! que c'est, belle! 11
A lap-dog's life f rom first to last!
The good nights are no t made fo r sle ep , nor the good days f or
dreamingin,
And at the end in the big Ci r cus t ent we sat and shook a.nd
s tewed l ike sin!

Some chil dren the r e, had got -- but where?
Sent from the South, perhaps - a red b ouquet
Of ros es sweetening
the fetid
a ir
ith scent from gar dens by far away blue bay.
They threw one at the dancing bear , ,
The white clown caught it t .
From St Remy 's tower
The d eep slow bell tolled out the hour .
The black clown,with his dirty grin
Lay, sprawling in the dust a s She r od e in .
(3)

\

She stood on a white horse
--, and suddenly you saw the bend 1:
Of a far-off road
at dawn
wi the Knights riding by
A f iel d . of s pears -- and then t h e gallant day·
•
Goout in storm, with ragged clouds low down, sullen
grey
Against
red heavens:
wild and awful
such a s ky
As witnes se s against you at the end
Of a great battle ,. bugles blowing, . b l ood and dust o 1 d Morte-d'
Arthur, , fight you must --;
It died in anger.
But
it was
not death
That had you by the throat
stoppingyour breath,
She looked like Victory .
She rode my way.

and

The

'

the black clown and t h en she fl ew
She laughed at
A bird above us on the wing
Of her white arrns , and you saw through
A rent in the o l d t ent, a patch of sky
with
one dim star.
She flew,but not so high
.. And then - she did not fly;
She stood in the bright moonlight
at the doo r
Of a strange room , s he threw h er slippers on the floor Again , again,
You heard the patt er of the rain ;
The starving rain, it was this Thing ,
Summer was this, the gold mist
in your eyes -;
Oh!
God
i t dies.
But after
death?
Tonight
the splendour and the sting
Blows back and catches a t your bre ath ,
The smell of beasts , the smell of dust , the scent of all
th e roses in the world,
the s ea , the Spring The beat of drums , the pad of hoofs , music, the Dream, the
Dream, the Enchanted Thing!

At f irst you scarcely saw h er face,
You knew the maddening f ee t werethere ,
What called was that half-hid den , white unrest
To which now and then she pressed
Her fi nger- tips : but as she sla cke ned pace
And turned and l ocked at you it grew quite bare:
There was no t anything yo u did not dare: Like trumpeters
the hours passed until th e last day of the
Fair.
( 4)

,.

In the Place d' Armes all afternoon
The, building birds had sun
"Soon soon"
The shuttered streets slept sound that night
It was f u ll moon:
The path into the wood was almost white,
The
trees were very
stilland seemed to stare:
Not far before your soul the Dream flits on, '
But
when you touch it, it is gone
And quite alon e your soul stands there.

Mother of Christ, no one has s een your eyes: how can men pray
Even to you?
There were only wolves'
eyes in the wood My Mother is a woman too:
Nothing is true that is not good
With
that quick smile of hers , I have heard her say -:
I wish I had gone b ack home to - day,
I shou ld have watched the lightthat so gently dies
From our high window, in the Paris skies ,
The l ong straight chain
Of lamps hung out along
the Seine:
I would hav e tur ned to h er and let the rain
Be a t on . her breast
as it does against the pane --:
Nothing will be t h e same again -;
•
There
is something strange
in my little Mother'seyes.
There is something new in the ol d heavenly air of Spring The smell of beasts, the smell of dust --, The Enchanted Thing !

All my life long I sha ll see moonlight

on the f e rn
And the black trunks of tree s.
Only the hair
Of any woman c an belong to God.
The stalks are crue lly broken where
we trod,
There had been vio l ets there.
I shall not care
As I used t o do when I se e the bracken burn.
CHARLOTTE M. MEW

( 5)

Reproductions from the Charlotte Mew Digital Collection are provided courtesy of the
University at Buffalo Libraries.

Preferred Citation:
[Title], Digital Collections - University at Buffalo Libraries, accessed [date accessed], [URL].