Latest / Anting-Anting Stories And Other Strange Tales of the Filipinos by Sargent Kayme / Goblins and Pagodas - John Gould Fletcher

Transcript

Goblins and Pagodas - John Gould Fletcher · Anting-Anting Stories And Other Strange Tales of the Filipinos by Sargent Kayme

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Preface of Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Neimo Goblins and Pagodas by
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: John Gould Fletcher, preface one. The second half of the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: nineteenth and the first fifteen years of the twentieth century
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: have been a period of research, of experiment, of unrest,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and questioning. In science and philosophy. We have witnessed an
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: attempt to destroy the mechanistic theory of the universe as
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: developed by Darwin Huxley and Spencer. The unknowable has been questioned,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: hypotheses have been shaken, Vitalism and idealism have been proclaimed.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: In the arts, the tendency has been to strip each
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: art of its inessentials and to disclose the underlying basis
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: of pure form in life. The principles of nationality, of
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: racial culture, of individualism, of social development, of Christian ethics
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: have been discussed, debated, and examined from top to bottom,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: until at last, in the early years of the twentieth century,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: we find all Europe from the leaders of thought down
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to the lowest peasantry, engaged in a mutually destructive war
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of which few can trace the beginnings and none can
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: foresee the end. The fundamental tenets of thought, art, life
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: itself have been shaken, and either civilization is destined to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: some new birth, or mankind will revert to the conditions
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: of life, thought, and social intercourse that prevailed in the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Stone Age. Like all men of my generation, I have
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: not been able to resist this irresistible upheaval of ideas
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and of forces, And to the best of my ability,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I have tried to arrive at a clear understanding of
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the fundamentals of aesthetic form as they affect the art
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to which I have felt myself instinctively akin the art
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: of poetry. That I have completely attained such an understanding,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it would be idle for me to pretend, But I believe,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and have induced some others to believe, that I have
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: made a few steps toward it. Some explanation of my
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: own peculiar theories and beliefs as necessary, however, to those
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: who have not specifically concerned themselves with poetry, or who
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: suffer in the presence of any new work of art
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: from the normal human reaction, that all our principles are
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: so essentially fixed that any departure from accepted ideas is madness. Two,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The fundamental basis of all the arts is the same.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: In every case. Art aims at the evocation of some
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: human emotion. In the spectator or listener. Where science proceeds
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: from effects to causes and seeks to analyze the underlying
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: causes of emotion and sensation, art reverses the process and
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: constructs something that will awaken emotions according to the amount
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: of receptiveness with which other people approach it. Thus, architecture
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: gives us feelings of density, proportion, harmony, sculpture of masses
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: in movement, painting of color harmony, and the ordered composition
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: of lines and volumes from which arise sensations of space,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: music of the development of sounds into melodic line, harmonic progression,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: tonal opposition, and symphonic structure. The object of literature is
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: not dissimilar from these. Literature aims at releasing the emotions
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: that arise from the formed words of a certain language.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: But literature is probably a less pure and hence more
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: universal art than any I have yet examined, For it
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: must be apparent to all minds that not only is
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a word a definite symbol of some fact, but also
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: it is a thing capable of being spoken or sounded.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: The art of literature, then, in so far as it
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: deals with definite statements, is akin to painting or photography.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: In so far as it deals with sounded words, it
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: is akin to music. Three. Literature therefore does not depend
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: on the peculiar twisting quirks which represent to those who
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: can read the words, but rather on the essential words themselves.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: In fact, literature existed before writing, and writing in itself
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: is of no value from the purely literary sense, except
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: in so far as it preserves and transmits from generation
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to generation. The literary emotion style, whether in prose or poetry,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: is an attempt to develop this essentially musical quality of literature,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to evoke the magic that exists in the sound quality
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: of words, as well as to combine these sound qualities
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: in definite statements or sentences. The difference between prose and
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: poetry is therefore not a difference of means, but of
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: psychological effect and reaction. The means employed the formed language
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: is the same, but the resulting impression is quite different.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: In prose, the emotions expressed are those that are capable
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: of development in a straight line. In so far as
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: prose is pure, it confines itself to the direct, orderly
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: progression of a thought or conception or situation from point
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to point of a flat surface. The sentences, as they
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: develop this conception from its beginning to conclusion, move on
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and do not return upon themselves. The grouping of these
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: sentences into paragraphs gives the breadth of the thought. The paragraphs, sections,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and chapters are each a square in that they represent
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: a division of the main thought into parallel units or
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: blocks of subsidiary ideas. The sensation of depth is finally
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: obtained by arranging these blocks in a rising climacteric progression,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: or in parallel lines, or in a sort of zig
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: zag figure. The psychological reaction that arises from the intelligent
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: appreciation of poetry is quite different. In poetry we have
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: a succession of curves. The direction of the thought is
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: not in straight lines, but wavy and spiral. It rises
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and falls on gust of strong emotion. Most often it
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: creates strongly marked loops and circles. The structure of the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: stanza or strophy always tends to be spherical. Depth is
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: obtained by making one sphere contain a number of concentric
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: or overlapping spheres. Hence, when we speak of poetry, we
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: usually mean regular rhyme and meter, which have for so
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: long been considered essential to all poetry. Not as a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: device for heightening musical effect, as so many people suppose,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: but merely to make these loops and circles more accentuated,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and to make the line of the poem turn upon
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: itself more recognizably. But it must be recognized that just
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: as Giado's circle was nonetheless a circle, although not drawn
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: with compasses, so poetic circles can be constructed out of
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: subtler and more musical curves than that which painstakingly follows
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the self same progression of beats and catches itself up
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: on the same point of rhyme, for line after line.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: The key pattern on the lip of a Greek vase
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: may be beautiful, but it is less beautiful, less satisfying,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and less conclusive a test of artistic ability than the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: composition of satyrs and of menods struggling about the center. Therefore,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I maintain, and will continue to do so, that the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: mere craftsman. Ability to write in regular lines and meters
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: no more makes a man a poet than the ability
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: to stensile wall papers makes him a painter. Rather, it
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: is more important to observe that almost any prose work
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: of imaginative literature, if examined closely, will be found to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: contain a plentiful sprinkling of excellent verses, while many poems
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: which the world hails as masterpieces, contain whole pages of prose.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: The fact is that prose and poetry are to literature
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: as composition and color are to painting, or as light
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and shadow to the day, or male and female to mankind.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: There are no absolutely perfect poets, and no absolutely perfect
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: prose writers. Each partakes of some of the characteristics of
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the other. The difference between poetry and prose is therefore
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: a difference between a general roundness and a general squareness
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: of outline. A great French critic, recently dead, who devoted
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: perhaps the major part of his life to the study
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of the aesthetics of the French tongue, declared that Flaubert
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and Chateaubriand wrote only poetry. If there are those who
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: cannot see that in the only true and lasting sense
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of the word poetry. This remark was perfectly just. Then
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: all I have written above will be in vain. Four.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Along with the prevailing preoccupation with the technique which so
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: marks the early twentieth century, there has gone also a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: great change in the subject matter of art. Having tried
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: to explain the esthetic form basis of poetry, I sh
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: our attempt to explain my personal way of viewing its content.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: It is a significant fact that every change in technical
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: procedure in the arts is accompanied by and grows out
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of a change in subject matter. To take only one
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: out of innumerable examples, the new subject matter of Wagner's
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: music dramas of an immeasurably higher order than the usual libretto,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: created a new form of music based on motifs, not melodies.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Other examples can easily be discovered. The reason for this
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: is not difficult to find. No sincere artist cares to
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: handle subject matter that has already been handled and exhausted.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: It is not a question of a desire to avoid plagiarism,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: or of self conscious searching for novelty, but of a
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: perfectly spontaneous and normal appeal which any new subject matter
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: always makes Hence, when a new subject appears to any artist,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: he always realizes it more vividly than an old one,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and if he is a good artist, he realizes it
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: so vividly that he recreates it in what is practically
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a novel form. This novel form never is altogether novel,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: nor is a subject altogether a new subject. For as
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I pointed out at the beginning of this preface, that
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: all arts sprang practically out of the same primary sensations.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: So the subject matter of all art must forever be
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the same, namely nature in human life. Hence, any new
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: type of art will always be found in subject matter
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: as well as in technique. To have its roots in
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the old art is like a kaleidoscope, capable of many changes,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: while the material which builds up those changes remains the same. Nevertheless,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: although the subject matter in this book is not altogether new,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: yet I have realized it in a way which has
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: not often been tried, and out of that fresh and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: quite personal realization have sprung my innovation in subject as
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: well as technique. Let me illustrate by a concrete example. Five.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: A book lies on my desk. It has a red
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: binding and is badly printed on cheap paper. I have
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: had this book with me for several years now. Suppose
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I were to write a poem on this book. How
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: would I treat the subject? If I were a poet,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: following in the main the Victorian tradition, I should write
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: my poem altogether about the contents of this book and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: its author. My poem would be essentially a criticism of
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the subject matter of the book. I should state at
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: length how that subject matter had affected me. In short,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: what the reader would obtain from this sort of poem
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: would be my sentimental reaction towards certain ideas and tendencies
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: in the work of another. If I were a realist poet,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I should write about the book's external appearance. I should
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: expatiate on the red binding, the bad type, the ink
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: stain on page sixteen. I should complain, perhaps of my
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: poverty at not being able to buy a better edition,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and conclude with a job at the author for not
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: having realized the sufferings of the poor. Neither of these ways, however,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: of writing about this book, possesses any novelty, and neither
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: is essentially my own way. My own way of writing
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: about it would be as follows, I should select out
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of my life the important events connected with my ownership
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: of this book, and strive to write of them in
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: terms of the volume itself, both his regard subject matter
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and appearance. In other words, I should link up my
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: personality and the personality of the book and make each
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: a part of the other. In this way, I should
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: strive to evoke a soul out of this piece of
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: inanimate matter, a something characteristic and structural inherent in this
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: inorganic form, which is friendly to me and responds to
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: my mood. This method is not new, although it has
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: not often been used in occidental countries. Professor Fenalosa, in
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: his book on Chinese in Japanese Art, states that it
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: was universally employed by the Chinese artists and poets of
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the Sung period in the eleventh century a d. He
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: calls this doctrine of the interdependence of man and inanimate
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: nature the cardinal doctrine of Zen Buddhism. The Zen Buddhists
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: evolved it from the still early Taoist philosophy, which undoubtedly
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: inspired Li Po and the other great Chinese poets of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the seventh and eighth centuries. A D. Six in the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: first poems of this volume The Ghost of an Old House,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I have followed the method already described. I have tried
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to evoke out of the furniture and surroundings of a
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: certain old house definite emotions which I have had concerning them.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I have tried to relate my childish terror concerning this house,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: a terror not uncommon among children, as I can testify
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: to the aspects that called it. Forth. In the symphonies
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: which form the second part of this volume, I have
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: gone a step further. My aim in writing these was
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: from the beginning to narrate certain important phases of the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: emotional and intellectual development, in short, the life of an artist,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: not necessarily myself, but of that sort of artist with
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: which I might find myself most in sympathy, and here
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: not being restrained by any definite material funai domina. As
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: in the Old House, I have tried to state each
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: phase in the terms of a certain color or combination
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: of colors, which is emotionally akin to that phase. This
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: color in the imaginative phantasmagoria of landscape, which it evokes
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: thereby creates in a definite and tangible form the dominant
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: mood of each poem. The emotional relations that exist between form, color,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and sound have been little investigated. It is perfectly true
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: that certain colors affect certain temperaments differently. But it is
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: also true that there is a science of color, and
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that certain of its laws are already universally known, if
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: not explained naturally enough. It is to the painters we
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: must first turn if we want to find out what
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: is known about color. We discover that painters continually are
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: speaking of hot and cold color, red, yellow, orange being
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: generally hot, and green, blue and violet cold, mixed colors
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: being classed hot and cold according to the proportions they contain.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Of the hot and cold colors. We also discover that
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: certain colors will not fit certain forms, but rebel at
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the combination. This is so far true that scarcely any
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: landscape painter finishes his picture from nature, but in the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: studio in almost any art student painting a landscape will
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: disregard the color before him and employ the color scheme
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: of his master, or of some painter he admires. As
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Delacroix noted in his journal, a conception having begun, a
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: composition must move in the meyleu of a color peculiar
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: to it. There seems to be a particular tone belonging
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to some part of every picture, which is a key
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that governs all the other tones. Therefore, we must admit
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: that there's an intimate relation between color and form. It
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: is the same with color and sounds. Many musicians have
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: observed the phenomenon that when certain notes or combinations of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: them are sounded, certain colors are also suggested to the eye.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: A Russian composer, Scriabine, went so far as to construct
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: color scales, and an English scientists, professor Wallace Rimington, has
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: built an organ which plays in colors instead of notes. Unfortunately,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the musician have given this subject less attention than the painters,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and therefore our knowledge concerning the relations of color and
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: sound is more fragmentary and incomplete. Nevertheless, these relations exist,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and it is for the future to develop them more fully.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Literature and especially poetry, as I have already pointed out,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: partakes of the character of both painting and music. The
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Impressionist method is quite as applicable to writing as it
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: is to landscape. Poems can be written in major or minor.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Keys can be as full of dominant motif as a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Wagner music drama, and even susceptible of fugal treatment. Literature
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: is the common ground of many arts, and in its
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: highest development, such as the drama, as practice this in
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: fifth century Athens, is found allied to music, dancing, and color.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Hence I have called my works symphonies, when they are
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: really dramas of the soul, and hence in them I
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: have used color for verity, for ornament, for drama, for
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: its inherent beauty, and for intensifying the form of the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: emotion that each of these poems is intended to evoke. Seven.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Let us take an artist, a young man at the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: outset of his career. His years of searching, of fumbling,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: of other men's influence are coming to an end. Sure
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of himself, he yet sees that he will spend all
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: his life pursuing a vision of beauty which will elude
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: him at the very last. This is the first symphony,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: which I have called the Blue, because blue suggests to
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: me depth, mystery, and distance. He finds himself alone in
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: a great city, surrounded by noise and clamor. It is
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: as if millions of lives were tugging at him, drawing
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: him away from his art, tempting him to go out
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and whelm his personality in this black whirlpool of struggle
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and failure on which float golden specks the illusory bliss
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of life. But he sees that all this is only
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: another illusion, like his own. Here we have the symphony
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: in black and gold. He emerges from the city and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: in the country is re intoxicated with desire for life.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: By spring, he avows himself to a self sufficing pagan
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: worship of nature. This is the Green Symphony. Quickened by spring.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: He dreams of a marvelous, golden city of art, full
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: of fellow workers. This city appears to him at times
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: like some Italian town of the Renaissance, at others like
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: some strange Oriental golden roofed monastery temple. He sees himself
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: dead in the desert, far away from it, yet its
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: blossoming is ever about him. Something divine has been born
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: of him after death, so he passes to the white Symphony,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the central poem of this series, in which I have
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: sought to describe the artist's struggle to attain unutterable and
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: superhuman perfection. The struggle goes on from the midsummer of
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: his life to midwinter. The end of it is stated
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: in the poem follows a brief interlude, which I have
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: called a symphony in white and blue. These colors were chosen,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: perhaps more idiosyncratically in this case than in the others.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I have tried to depict the sort of temptation that
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: besets most artists at the stage of their career, the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: temptation to abandon the struggle for the sake of a
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: purely sensual existence. In this case, however, the appeal of
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: sensuality is conveyed under the guise of a dream. It
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: is resisted, and the struggle begins. Anew war breaks out,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: not alone in the external world, but in the artist's soul.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: He finds he must follow his personality wherever it leads him,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: despite all obstacles. This is the Orange Symphony. Now, follow
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: long years of struggle neglect, he is shipwrecked and still afar.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: He sees his city of art, but this time it
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: is red, a phantom mocking his impotent rage. Old age follows.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: All is violet, the color of regret and remembrance. He
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: is living only in the past, his life a succession
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of dreams. Lastly, all things fade out into absolute gray,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and it is now midwinter, looking forth on the world again,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: he still sees war like a monstrous red flower dominating mankind.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: He hears the souls of the dead declaring that they
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: too have died for an adventure, even as he is
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: about to die. Such in the briefest possible analysis, is
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the meaning of the poems contained in this book. January
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, end of preface, Section one of Goblins and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording is in
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: the public domain recording by Nemo. The Ghost of an
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Old House prologue. The house that I write of faces
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the north. No sun ever seeks its six white columns,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the nine great windows of its face. It fronts four square.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: The winds under the penthouse of the veranda, roof the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: upper northern rooms gloom outwards, mournfully. Staring ionic capitals peer
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: in them owl like faces. On winter nights, the wind
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: sidling around the corner shoots upwards with laughter. The windows rattle,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: as if someone were in them wishing to get out
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and ride upon the wind. Doors lead to nowhere. Squirrels
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: burrow between the walls. Closets in every room hang open.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Windows are stared into by uncivil ancient trees. In the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: middle of the upper hallway, there is a great circular
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: hole going up to the attic. A wooden lid covers it.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: All over the there is a sense of futility, of
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: minutes dragging slowly and repeating some worn out story of
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: broken effort and desire. End of section Section two of
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by NEMO. Part one.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: The house bedroom, the clump of Jessamine softly beneath the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: rain rocks its golden flowers. In this room my father died.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: His bed is in the corner. No one has slept
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: in it since the morning when he wakened to meet
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: death's hands at his heart. I cannot go to this
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: room without feeling something big and angry waiting for me
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to throw me on the bed and press its thumbs
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: in my throat. The clump of jessamine without beneath the
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: rain rocks, its golden flowers, library, stuffy, smell of moldering leather,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: tattered arm chairs, creaking doors, books that slovenly elbow each
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: other sown with children's scrawls and long worn out by
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: contact of generations, tattered tramps displaying yourselves. We though you
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: broke our backs, did not complain. If I had my way,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I would take you out and bury you quickly, or
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: give you to the clean fire. Indian skull. Someone dug
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: this up and brought it to our house. In the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: dark upper hall, I see it dimly, looking at me
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: through the glass, where dancers have danced, and weary people
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: have crept to their bedrooms in the morning, where sick
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: people have tossed all night, where children have been born,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: where feet have gone up and down, where anger is
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: blazed forth and strange looks have passed. It is rested,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: watching meanwhile, the opening and shutting of doors, the coming
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: and going of people, the carrying out of coffins. Earth
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: still clings to its eye sockets. It will wait till
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: its vengeance is accomplished. Old nursery. In the face of
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the mirror, there is a blue curtain reflected. If I
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: could lift the reflection peer a little beyond, I would
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: see a boy crying because his sister is ill in
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: another room and he has no one to play with.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: A boy listlessly scattering building blocks and crying because no
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I cannot lift the curtain. It is stiff and frozen.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: The backstairs. In the afternoon, when no one is in
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the house, I suddenly hear dull, dragging feet go fumbling
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: down those dark backstairs that climb up, twisting as if
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: they wanted no one to see them, beating a dirge
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: upon the bare planks. I hear those feet and the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: creak of a long locked door. My mother often went
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: up and down those self same stairs from the room
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: where by the window she would sit all day and
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: listlessly look on the world that had destroyed her. She
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: would go down in the evening to the room where
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: she would sleep, or rather not sleep, but all night
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: lie staring fiercely at the ceiling. In the afternoon, when
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: no one is in the house, I suddenly hear dull,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: dragging feet beating out their few tile tune up and
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: down those dark back stairs. But there is no one
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: in the shadows. The wall cabinet above the steep back stairs,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: so high that only a ladder can come to it.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: There is a wall cabinet hidden away. No one ever
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: unlocks it. The key is lost, the door is barred,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: it is shut and still. Some say a previous tenant
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: filled its shells with rows of bottles, bottles of spirit,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: filled with spiders. I do not know. Above the sleepy,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: still back stairs, it watches shut and still, the cellar
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: faintly lit by a high barred grating. The low hung
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: cellar flattens itself under the house. In one corner there
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: is a little door so low it can scarcely be seen.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Beyond there is a narrow room. One must feel for
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the walls. In the dark, one shrinks to go to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the end of it, feeling the smooth, cold wall. Why
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: did the builders who made this house stow one room
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: away like this? The front door. It was always the
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: place where our farewells were taken when we traveled to
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: the north. I remember that there was one who made
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: some journey but did not come back. Many years they
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: waited for him. At last, the one who wished the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: most to see him, was carried out of the self
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: same door in death. Since then, all our family partings
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: have been at another door. End of section Section three
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: of Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Recording by NEMO. Part two.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: The attic in the dust hangs clogs so thick, the
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: air has a dusty taste. Spider threads cling to my
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: face from the broad pine beams. There is nothing living here.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: The house below might be quite empty. No sound comes
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: from it. The old broken trunks and boxes, cracked and
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: dusty pictures, legless chairs, and shattered tables seem to be
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: crying softly in the stillness because no one has brushed them.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: No one has any use for them now. Yet I
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: often wonder if these things are really dead, if the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: old trunks never open, letting out gray flapping things at twilight,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: If it is all as safe and dull as it seems,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Why then is the stair so steep? Why is the
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: doorway always locked? Why does nobody ever come the calendar
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: in the attic? I wonder how long it has been
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: since this old calendar hung here with my birthday date
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: upon it. Nothing else, not a word of writing, not
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a mark of any hand. Perhaps it was my father
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: who left it thus for me to see. Perhaps my
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: mother smiled as she saw it, but in later years
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: did not smile. If I could tear it down from
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the wall. Somehow I would be content, But I am
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: afraid as a little child to touch it the hoopskirt.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: In the night, when all are sleeping up here, a
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: tiny old dame comes tripping looking for her lost hoopskirt,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: my great grandaunt. I never saw her. Her ghost doesn't
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: know me from another. She stalks up the attic stairs angrily.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: The dust sets her, sneezing and coughing. By the trunk,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: she is limping and hopping, But alas the trunk is locked.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: What's an old dame to do anyway? Must stay in
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: a moldy grave day on day, or go to heaven
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: out of style. In the night, when all are snoring,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the old lady makes a dreadful clatter going down the
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: attic stairs. What was that a ghost or a burglar? Oh?
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: It was only the wind in the chimney, Yes, and
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the attic door that's slammed the little chair. I know
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: not why when I saw the little chair I suddenly
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: desired to sit in it. I know not why. When
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I sat in the little chair, everything changed and life
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: came back to me. I am convinced no one at
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: all has grown up in the house. The break that
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I dreamed itself was a dream and is broken. I
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: will sit in a little chair and wait till the
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: others come looking after me, And if it is after nightfall,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: they will come, so much the better, for the little
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: chair holds me as tightly as death, and rocking in it,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I can hear it whisper strange things in the dark corner.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I brushed the dust from this old portrait. Yes it
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: is the same face exactly. Why does it look at
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: me still with such a look of hate? I brush
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the dust from a heap of magazines. Here there is
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: all what you have written, all that you struggled long
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: years and went down to darkness. For, oh God, to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: think what I am writing will be ever as this,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Oh God, to think that my own face may some
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: day glare from this dust. The toy cabinet, By the
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: old toy cabinet, I stand and turn over dusty things,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: chess men, card games, hoops and balls, toy rifles, helmets, swords.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: In the far corner, a doll's tea set in a box.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Where are you, golden child who gave tea to your
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: dows and me? The golden child is growing old further
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: than Rome or Babylon from you have passed those foolish years.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: She lives, she suffers, She forgets by the old toy cabinet.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I idly stand and awkwardly finger the lock of the
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: tea set box. What matter? Why should I look inside?
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Perhaps it is empty? After all? Leave old things to
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the ghost of old. My stupid brain refuses thought. I'm
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: maddened with a desire to weep the yardstick. Yardstick that
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: measured out so many miles of cloth, yardstick that covered me.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: I wonder do you hop of knights out to the
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: still Hill cemetery, and up and down go measuring a
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: clayey grave for me? End of section Section four of
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording Nemo Part three The
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Lawn The three Oaks. There are three ancient oaks that
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: grow near to each other. They lift their branches high
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: as beckoning with outstretched arms for someone to come and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: stand under the canopy of their leaves. Once long ago,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: I remember, as I lay in the very center between them,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: a rotten branch suddenly fell near to me. I will
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: not go back to those oaks. Their branches are too
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: black for my liking. An oak or mistletoe hangs in
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: clumps to the twisted boughs of this lonely tree. Beneath
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: its roots, I often thought treasure was buried, for the
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: roots had enclosed a circle. But when I dug beneath them,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I could only find great black ants that attacked my hands.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: When at night I have the nightmare, I always see
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: the eyes of ants swarming from a moldering box of gold.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Another oak, poison ivy, crawls at its root. I dare
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: not approach it, and has an air of hate. One
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: would say a man had been hanged to its branches.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: It holds them in such a way the moon gets
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: tangled in it. A distant steeple seems to bark from
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: its belfry to the sky. Something that no one ever
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: loved is buried here. Some gray shape of deadly hate
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: crawls on the back fence just beyond now. I remember
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: once I went out by night too near this oak,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and a red cat suddenly leaped from the dark and
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: clawed my face. The old barn owls flap in this
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: ancient barn with rotted doors, rats squeak in the ancient barn.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Over the floors, owls flap whirly every night. Rat's eyes
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: gleam in the cold moonlight. There's something hidden in this
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: barn with barred doors, something the owls have torn, and
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: the rats scurry with over the floors. The well. The
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: well is not used now, its waters are tainted. I
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: remember there was once a man went down to clean it.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: He found it very cold and deep, with a queer
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: niche in one of its sides, from which he hauled
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: forth buckets of bricks and dirt. The trees. When the
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: moonlight strikes the tree tops, the trees are not the same.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I know they are not the same, because there's one
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: tree that is missing, and it stood so long by
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: another that the other, feeling lonely now, is slowly dying too.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: When the moonlight strikes the tree tops, the dead tree
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: comes back like a great blue sphere of smoke, half buoyed,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: half raveling on the grass, rustling through frayed branches, something
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: eerily cheaping through it, something creeping through its shade. Vision,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: You who flutter and quiver an instant just beyond my apprehension, lady,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: I will find the white orchid for you, if you
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: will but give me one smile. Between those wayward drifts
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: of hair, I will break the wild berries that loop
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: themselves over the marsh pool for your sake, And the
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: long green canes that swish against each other, I will
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: break to set in your hands, For there is no
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: wonder like to you, you who flutter and quiver an
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: instant just beyond my apprehension. Epilogue Why it was, I
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: do not know, But last night I vividly dreamed, though
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: a thousand miles away, that I had come back to you.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: The windows were the same, the bed, the furniture the same.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Only there was a door where empty wall had always been,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: and some one was trying to enter it. I heard
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the grade of a key, an unknown voice apologetically excused
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: its intrusion just as I awoke. But I wonder, after all,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: if there was some secret entranceway, some ghost I overlooked
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: when I was there. End of section Section five of
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Nemo Symphonies Blue
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Symphony one. The darkness rolls upward, the thick darkness carries
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: with it rain and a ravel of cloud. The sun
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: comes forth upon earth paley. The dawn leaves me facing
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: timidly old gardens sunken, and in the gardens is water,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: somber wreck autumnal leaves, shadowy roofs in the blue mist,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: and a willow branch that is broken, Oh, old pagodas
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: of my soul, How you glittered across green trees, blue
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and cool blue tremulously blow, faint puffs of smoke across
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: somber pools, the damp green smell of rotted wood, and
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: a heron that cries from out the water. Two through
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: the upland meadows. I go alone, for I dreamed of
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: someone last night who was waiting for me. Flower and blossom,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: tell me do you know of her? Have the rocks
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: hidden her voice? They are very blue and still long
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: upward road that is leading me lighthearted? I quit you
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: for the long, loose ripples of the meadow grass invite
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: me to dance upon them, quivering grass daintily poised for
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: her foot stripping, Oh, blown clouds. Could I only race
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: up like you? Oh? The last slopes that are sun
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: drenched and steep, Look the sky across black valleys rise,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: blue white, aloft, jagged, unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death, solitude, silence. Three,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: One chuckles by the brook for me. One rages under
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: the stone, One makes a spout of his mouth, one whispers,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: one is gone. One over there in the water spreads
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: cold ripples for me. Enticingly, the vast dark trees flow
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: like blue veils of tears into the water, sour sprites,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: moaning and chuckling. What have you hidden from me? In
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: the palace of the blue stone, she lies forever, bound,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: hand and foot. Was it the wind that rattled the
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: reeds together? Dry reeds? A faint shiver in the grasses.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Four On the left hand there is a temple and
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: a palace. On the right hand side, foot passengers and
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: scarlet pass over the glittering tide under the bridge. The
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: old river flows low and monotonous, day after day. I
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: have heard and have seen all the news that has
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: been Autumn's gold and springs green. Now in my palace
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: I see foot passengers crossing the river, pilgrims of autumn
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: in the afternoons, lotus pools, petals in the water. These
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: are my dreams for me. Silks are outspread. I take
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: my ease. I'm thinking five and now the lowest pine
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: branch is drawn across the disk of the sun. Old friends,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: who will forget me soon. I must go on towards
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: those blue death mountains I have forgot so long in
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: the marsh grasses. There lies forever my last treasure, with
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: the hopes of my heart. Is glazing over torn lanterns
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: flutter on the leaves, is snow in the frosty evening.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Told the old bell for me once in the sleepy temple.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Perhaps my soul will hear after glow, before the stars peep,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I shall creep out into darkness. End of section section
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: six of Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Nemo
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Solitude in the City Symphony in Black and Gold. One
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: words at midnight, because the night is so still, because
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: there is no one about, not the tiny squeak of
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: a mouse over the carpet, nor the slow beat of
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: a clock at the top of the stairway. I am
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: afraid of the night that is coming to me. I
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: know out there someone is thinking of me, someone is
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: wondering about me. Some one is needing me, some one
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: is dying for my sake. Yet I remain alone. I
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: know that life is calling. I cannot resist it. Too
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: much of myself I have given ever to turn away.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I know that shame, sickness, death itself shall befall me,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: and I am afraid. Oh night, hide me in your long,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: cold arms. Let me sleep, but let me not live
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: this life. There are too many people with haggard eyes
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: standing before me, saying, to live, you must suffer even
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: as we. Yet life bitterly bids me go on to
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the last, no matter the mud and the cold rain
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: in the darkness, no matter the drear pilgrims, and whose
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: eyes you shall look for long and see all suffering, madness,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: death and despair. Because my heart is cramped in, because
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I've suffered much, because my hope is like a candle
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: flame quenched at midnight. Because I dare dream yet of joy,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: I can take my night and the life that is
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: coming to me. Two. The evening rain, Oh, the rain
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: of the evening is an infinite thing, as it's slips
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: on the motionless pavement. Greasy and gray is the rain
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: of the evening as it dribbles into the dirty gutters
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: and slides down the drains with a roar. Ragged men
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: cower under the doorways. Umbrellas nod like drowsy birds, bat umbrellas, teetering, balancing,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Where will you spread your wings? Tonight? Tangled between the
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: factory chimneys, I have seen the golden lamps wake this evening,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: spinning and whirling, darting and dancing, tangled with a glittering rain.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Omnibuses lurch heavenly homeward elephants tinseled and tawdry. Gold taxicabs
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: fight like wild birds, squalling wild birds with roaring, clattering wings. Oh,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the rain of the evening is an infinite thing. As
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: it shivers to jewel heaps spilt on the pavement. The
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: facades frown gloomily at its beauty. The facades are dreaming
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: of the day with rippling, curling serpentine convolutions. The pavements
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: drip with drunken light, crimson in gold, shot with opal,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: they glare against the sullen night. Oh, the rain of
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: the evening is an infinite thing as it slowly dries
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: on the dirty pavement. Red, low browed clouds shut over
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: the sky, and in the cool sky there are stars.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Three Street of Sorrows, you, Street of sorrows, bending over
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: your golden lamps. In the evening, dark street that is
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: very silent, and everywhere the same elsewhere there is song
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: and riot, like golden fireflies flickering elsewhere the cranes, gaunt
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: muscles tug the city up to the stars. But who
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: in the dawn should come near you, their dry leaves
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: rattling behind him? And who should come? In the noonday
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: there are shadows that squat on the pave, And who
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: should come In the evening there is one a ship
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: in dark waters. And who should come at nightfall to
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: feel cold hands at his heart? U Street of solitude, waiting,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: patient and still in the evening, old street that is
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: very wary, and everywhere the same, you that have seen
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: joy passing into pain, into tears, into darkness. Street of
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: the dead, and musty. I have drunk your cold, poisoned tonight.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Four song in the darkness. It is the last night
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: that I can be solitary. Henceforth the keys and wards
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: of me are held in other hands. Dark clouds trail
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: over the sky, troops of song retreating. But in the
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: sunset once more have I seen a loft incredible summits
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: of gold. Far on the south horizon. One purple veil
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: of rain floats downward over the city, and as it
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: settles slowly, the light goes out of it. Chimneys with
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: massive summits stand gaunt and black and evil, like a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: river of lead to seaward. The river steadily rolls. It
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: is the last night that I can be solitary. Life
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: takes me in black coils. One green light glitters, but
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: a swift taxi scatters another as it speeds on. The
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: chimneys rank their motionless forces against the swift movement of
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: tugs in the stream, against the flame chariots of the embankment,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: against the bowing trees, against the blowing smoke, against the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: busy rain. With dying might, the light invades the city's hall,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: curtained by dripping fringes of buoyant tattered cloud tossed by
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the wind. It is the last night that I can
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: be solitary. In all My city of dreams is burning
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: up tonight. But yet there waits for me, something lost
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: back in the darkness, something I have never seized, a
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: shape of voice, a gesture, something behind my shoulder, gray
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: robes that stir and rustle, something that moves away from
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: me when I would touch it with my hand. Cities
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: of the beyond, What great black walled horizons? Dare you
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: climb up? And down? What steep incredible valleys? I suddenly
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: perceive that I've been mocked in you, And therefore will
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: I sow the earth with rain of stars? Tonight it
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: is last night that I can be solitary. The rain
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: invites to drunkenness. The wind blows through my brain ship
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: like the sliding golden trams, procession by an inner cross
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: with tulips, daffodils, crocuses. The whole street blossoms at my feet.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Now kindle flames and let blow out the crimson rose
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: against the gray. Let night itself be blotted out in
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: life's monotonous drone of day. It is the last night
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: that I can be solitary. It is the last time
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: that no feet but mine can beat upon the floor.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Is the last time that no hands but mine can
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: pound upon my heart. It is the last time that
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: no voice but mine can cry and yet be lost.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: It is the last time I shall see the pavements
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: like a mirror stare at me end of section section
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: seven of Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Nemo
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Green Symphony one. The glittering leaves of the rhododendrons balance
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: and vibrate in the cool air, while in the sky
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: above them, white clouds chase each other like scampering rabbits.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Flashes of sunlight sweep the lawn. They fling in passing
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: patterns of shadow, golden and green, with long cascades of laughter.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: The mating birds dart and swoop to the turf. Mid
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: their mad trillings glints the gay sun behind the trees.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Down there are deep blue lakes, orange blossomed droops in
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: the water. In the tower of the winds, all the
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: bells are set adrift, jingling for the dawn. Thin fluttering
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: streamers of breeze lash through the swaying boughs. Palely expectant,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: the earth receives the slanting rain. I am a glittering
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: rain drop, hugged close by the cool rhododendron. I am
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: a daisy starring the exquisite curves of the close cropped turf.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: The glittering leaves of the rhododendron are shaken, like blue
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: green blades of grass, flickering, cracking, falling, splintering in a
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: million fragments. The wind runs laughing up the slope, stripping
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: off handfuls of wet green leaves, to fling in people's faces,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: wallowing on the daisy powdered turf, clutching at the sunlight,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: cavorting in the shadow like baroque pearls, like cloudy emeralds.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: The clouds and the trees clash together, whirling and swirling
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: in the tumult of the spring and the wind. Two
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: the trees splash the sky with their fingers, a restless
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: green rout of stars. With whirling movement. They swing their
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: boughs about their stems. Planes on planes of light and
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: shadow pass among them, opening fanlike to fall. The trees
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: are like a sea, tossing, trembling, roaring, wallowing, darting their
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: long green flickering fronds up at the sky, spotted with
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: white blossom spray. The trees are roofs, hollow caverns of
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: cool blue shadow, solemn arches. In the afternoons, the whole
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: vast horizon and terrace. Beyond terrace, Pinnacle above pinnacle lifts
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: to the sky, serrated ranks of green on green. They
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: caress the roofs with their fingers. They sprawl about the
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: river to look into it. Up the hill they come,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: gesticulating challenge. They cower together in dark valleys. They yearn
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: out over the fields. Enameled domes tumble upon the grass,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: crashing in ruin quiet. At last, the trees lash the
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: sky with their leaves, uneasily shaking their dark green manes.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: Three far let the voices of the mad wild birds
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: be calling me. I will abide in this forest of pines.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: When the wind blows, battling through the forest, I hear
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: it distantly, the crash of a perpetual sea. When the
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: rain falls, I watch silver spears slanting downwards from pale
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: river pools of sky and closed in dark fronds. When
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: the sun shines, I weave together distant branches till they
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: inclose mighty circles. I sway to the movement of hooded summits.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: I swim leisurely in deep blue seas of air. I
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: hug the smooth bark of stately red pillars, and with
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: cones carefully scattered, I mark the progression of dark dial
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: shadows lung diagonally downwards through the afternoon. This turf is
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: not like turf. It is a smooth, dry carpet of velvet,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: embroidered with brown patterns of needles and cones. These trees
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: are not like trees. They are innumerable, feathery pagoda umbrellas,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: stiffly ungracious to the wind, teetering on red lacquered stems.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: In the evening, I listen to the winds lisping, while
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: the conflagrations of the sunset flicker and clash behind me,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: flamboyant crenellations of glory amid the charred ebony bowls. In
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: the night, the fiery nightingales shall clash and trail through
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: the silence, like the voices of mermaids crying from the sea.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Long ago has the moon whelmed this uncompleted temple. Stars
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: swim like goldfish far above the black arches, far let
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: the timid feet of dawn fly to catch me. I
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: will abide in this forest of pines, for I have
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: unveiled naked beauty, and the things that she whispered to
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: me in the darkness are buried deep in my heart. Now,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: let the black tops of the pine trees break like
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: a spent wave against the gray sky. These are tombs
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: and memorials, and temples and altars sun kindled for me.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: End of section Section eight of Goblins and Pagodas by
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Recording by Nemo. Golden Symphony one seen from Afar. The
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: city today is like a golden cloud strayed from the
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: sky and molded into dim, motionless towers. Music is passing
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: far off. Music serenely is climbing up and vanishing on
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: the long gray stairways of the sky and fanlike rays
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: of light. Now it falls slowly, careering toppling, shivering and
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: quivering like burnished glass, a laburnum blossom, golden cascades. Peace. Now,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: let the music sound from further away, red bells out
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: of memory's blue dream of regret. Seen from Afar, the
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: city to day is like a fleet of sails breaking
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: the foam of dark forests in which I have strayed
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: so long. They march together slowly. The golden temple terraces
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: against the dark remembrance of my pools of despair, O
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: golden angelus that sounded prolonging uncertain memories. I have seen
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: the swallows hovering to you, and followed their dark trails
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: of passage. The gates of the city lie open, and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: the whole world goes homeward, full pulsing bells in the foreground,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: catching my soul with them. On where the sun soars
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: broadly through the incense dome of the sky. Two high
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: chimes from the belfry. The noonday approaches, with its golden apparel,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: rustling about its feet, high dreams of my city, where we,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: a band of brothers, build our proud dream of beauty
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: before we fall into dust. The golden days have come
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: for us. With mandolins, sword thrusts laughter. Even the very
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: dust of the street grows gold beneath our feet, Bronze
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: bell notes poured from deep blue wells, molten gold out
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: of the sky, pillars of yellow marble on the summits
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: of which the gods sleep. Now we are swimming about us.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: A great golden halo vibrates from us downwards, ebbing its
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: life away. Golden clouds are circling like angels and archangels
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: about the eye of the sun. Flaming sunset, mad conflagrations
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: licking at the earth, the blue black walls of space,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: iron mountains vast on the horizon. O golden spear that
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: dartled through the darkness, the evening star sparkled and threw
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: us its message. Three. In the bosom of the desert,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: I will lie at the last, not the gray desert
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: of sand, but the golden desert of great wild grasses.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: This shall receive my soul. In the high plateaus, the
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: wind will be like a flute note to calling me
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: day after day, short burst of surf. The wind climbs
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: up and stops in the grass, and the golden petals
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: brush drowsily over my face. White butterfly that flutters across
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: my sea of golden blossom, tell me what are you
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: looking for, lone white butterfly. I am seeking for a strange,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: lonely white flower. Its petals are honeyless, and in the
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: wind it is still white. Butterfly. Come fold your wings
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: over my heart. I am the white blossom, the white
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: dead blossom for you. In the golden bosom of the prairie.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: I am lying at the last, like a pool that
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: is stilled. But they who shared with me, my life's adventure,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: who tossed their ducats like dandelions into the sunlight. I
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: know that somewhere they with songs, are building golden towers
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: more beautiful than my own. I only know in the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: midnight something will be born of me. The village drowses
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: in the darkness, but aloft in the temple, there's a
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: thud of gongs and a shuffle of hollow voices in
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: the dark quarters. The golden temple that kindled like a
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: rose against the sunset, now is dark and silent. One
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: light glimmers from its facade. In the inner shrine, one
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: stiff golden curtain hangs from floor to roof, black, impassive, helmeted,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: and felt like stiff black warriors. The llamas slowly gathered,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: kneeling in a row. The hollow, brazen trumpets blare and snore.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: The drums, festooned with skulls, roar suddenly with a clash
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: of gongs and a squeal from ears, splitting bugles. The
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: golden veil is rent cavernous blue darkness, and within it
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: smiling naked rose and purpled, rippling with crimson violet light.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Behold the god Hail, great jewel in the lotus blossom
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: rosy flame, that kindling flashes on the emptiness or Nirvana's
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: sea before the shrine, as before. Once more, the golden
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: curtain and the black shapes vanish aloft in the hollow temple,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: there is a shuffle of feet and a sound of
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: hollow voices. Soon lost, the village drowses in the darkness
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: like a vast black cube. The temple looms above it.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: There is no light on its facade. Suddenly all the
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: golden temple kindles like a rose against the dawn. I
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: only know in the midnight something has been born of me.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: End of section Section nine of Goblins and Pagodas by
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording is in the public
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: domain recording by Nemo White Symphony one forlorn in white
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: whorls of purity about a golden chalice immense. The peonies
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: flare and shatter their petals over my face. They slowly
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: turned paler. They seem to be melting, like blue gray
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: flakes of ice, thin grayish shivers fluctuating mid the dark
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: green lance. Thrust of the leaves like snowballs, tossed like
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: soft white butterflies. The peenies poise in the twilight, and
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: their narcotic insinuating perfume draws me into them, Shivering with
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: the coolness, aching with a void, They kiss the blue
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: chalice of my dreams like a gesture scene, for an instant,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: and then lost forever. Outwards, the petals thrust to embrace me.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: Pale daggers of coldness run through my aching breast, outwards,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: still outwards, till on the brink of twilight they swirled downwards, silently,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: flurry of snow in the void, outwards, still outwards, till
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: the blue walls are hidden, and in the blinding white
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: radiance of a whirlpool of clouds, I awake. Like spraying rockets,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: My peenees shower their glories on the night. Wavering perfumes
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: drift about the garden. Shadows of the moonlight drift and
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: ripple over the dew gemmed leaves, soar, crash and sparkle,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: shoal of stars, drifting like silver fishes through the black,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: sluggish boughs, towards the impossible, towards the inaccessible, towards the ultimate,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: towards the silence, towards the eternal. These blossoms go, the
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: peonies spring like rockets in the twilight, and out of
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: them all I rise two downwards through the blue abyss.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: It slides the white snow water of my dreams downwards,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: crashing from slippery rock into the boiling chasm in which
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: no I dare look for. It is the chasm of death.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Upwards from the blue abyss, it rises the chill water
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: mist of my dreams upwards to grayish, weeping pines and
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: two skies of autumn. Ever about my heart, it is
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: blue at the beginning, and blue white against the gray greenness.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: It wavers in the upper air, catching unconscious sparkles, a
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: rainbow glint of sunlight, and fading in the sad depths
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: of the sky. Outwards rush the strong, pale clouds outwards,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: and ever outwards, the blue gray clouds, indistinguishable one from another, nervous, sinewy,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: tossing their arms and brandishing till on the blue serrations
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: of the horizon they drench with their black rain, a
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: great peak of changeless snow. As evening came on, I
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: climbed the tower to gaze upon the city far beneath.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: I was not weary of day, but in the evening,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: a white mist assembled and gathered over the earth and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: blotted it from sight. But to escape to chase with
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: the golden clouds galloping over the horizon, arrows of the northwest,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: wind singing amid them, ruffling up my hair. As evening
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: came on, the distance altered. Pale, wavering reflections rose from
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: out the city, like sighs or the beckoning of half
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: invisible hands. Monotonously and sluggishly, they crept upwards a river
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: that had spent itself in some chasm, and dwindled and
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: foamed at last at my weary feet. Autumn golden fountains
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: and the winds neighing amid the monotonous hills, desolation of
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the old gods, rain that lifts, and rain that moves
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: away in the green, black torrent, scarlet leaves. It was
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: now perfectly evening, and the tower loomed like a gaunt
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: peak in mid air above the city. Its base was
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: utterly lost. It was slowly coming on to rain, and
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: the immense columns of white mist wavered and broke before
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: the faint hurled spears. I will descend the mountains like
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: a shepherd, and in the folds of tumultuous, misty cities.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: I will put all my thoughts, all my old thoughts,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: safely to sleep, for it is already autumn. Oh whiteness
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: of the pale southwestern sky, Oh wavering dream that was
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: not mine to keep. In midnight, in mournful moonlight, by
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: paths I could not trace, I walked in the white garden.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: Each flower had a white face. Their perfume intoxicated me.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: Thus I began my dream. I was alone. I had
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: no one to guide me. But the moon was like
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: the sun. It stooped and kissed each waxen petal, one
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: after one, green and white was that garden. Diamond rain
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: hung in the branches. You will not believe it. In
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: the morning, at the day spring, I wakened, shivering lo
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: the white garden that blossomed at my feet was a
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: garden hidden in snow. It was my sorrow to see
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: that all this was a dream. Three blue clogged with
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: purple mists uncoil themselves, sparkling to the horizon. I see
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: the snow alone in the deep blue chasm. Boats sleep
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: under gold thatch icicle like trees, fret faintly rose touched
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: sky under their heaped snow eaves, leaden houses shiver through
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: thin blue services, trickles an icy stream, The pines grown
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: white laden, the waves shiver, struck by the wind beyond
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: from treeless horizons, broken snow peaks crawl to the sea wearily.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: The snow blares through the gray silence, day after day,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: mocking the colorless, cloudless sky with a reflection of death.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: There is no smoke through the pine tops, no strong
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: red boatmen and pale green reeds, No herons to flicker
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: an instant, no lanterns to glow with gay ray, No
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: sails beat up to the harbor with creaking cordage, and
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: sailors song somnolent, bare, poled, indifferent. They sleep, and the
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: city sleeps. Midwinter about them, casts its dreary fortifications. Each
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: day is a gaunt, gray rock, and death is the
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: last of them. All over the sluggish snow drifts now
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: a pallid, weak shower of bloom, boredom, a fresh creation, death,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: weariness of old returns, white white blossom fall of the
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: shattered cups day on day. Is there anything here that
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: is not ancient, that has not bloomed a thousand years
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: ago under the glare of the white hot day, under
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: the restless wind, rakes of the winter, white blossom or
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: white snow scattered beneath them, dark the graves, dark graves,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: never changing, white dream drifting, never changing above them. Oh,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: that the white scroll of Heaven might be rolled up,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: and the naked red lightning thrust at the smoldering earth.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: End of section Section ten of Goblins and Pagodas by
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: Recording by Nemo Midsummer Dreams Symphony in White and Blue. One.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: There is a tall white weed growing at the top
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: of the sand hill in the grass. It is very still.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: It lifts its heavy bracts, a flattened bloom against the sky,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: hazily gray with broom out over yonder. Boats pass and
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: the swallows flatten themselves on the grass. The lake is
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: silvering beneath the heat. The wind's feet touch lazily each crest,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: like white gulls, slow flopping to windward. One rose white
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: cloud slowly disengages, loosening itself and stands above the larkspur
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: colored water, like Dione's daughter, braiding up her wet hair
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: with her pale hands. Two the moon puts out her
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: face at a rift between the trees, which do not
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: lift one drooping leaf this night of June. There is
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: no lazy breeze to set them clashing a drift. Thin
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: gleams of silver rise and break in the air. Fireflies
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: here and there, forest of blue masses suddenly quivering with
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: rapid points of white. Are the forests beneath the sea,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: where no breeze passes as still as you to night,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: the moon puts out our face at a rift between
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: the trees. Through my window, the bed cut evenly with
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: diagonal shafts of light, is a boat rocking out adrift.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: Under it bend the silver tips of the dark blue
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: coral trees, and fireflies, like glass fish, drift and ripple
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: upwards in the breeze. Three we are drifting slowly, you
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: and I, to where the clouds are lifting high fretted
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: towers in the sky, palaces of ivory, which we look
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: at dreamily over our sail. Frail white clouds drift as
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: slowly over the undulant, pale blue silk of the water
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: as we. We are racing swiftly, you and I. The
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: sun darts one firm track through the blue black of
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: the crinkled water, gold spirals spattering, flashing, The water heaves
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: and curls away at our bow, a mad fish splashing.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: We are rocked together, you and I to this undulant movement,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: white cloud with blue water, blent cloud dripping down to wave,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: its lazy head, wave curling under cloud, its cloudy blue.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: I and jew all alone alone, at last, I hold
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: you fast. Four The midsummer clouds were piling up upon
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: the south horizon, mountains of drifting translucence in the larkspur
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: fields of the sky, ascending and toppling, and crumbled ravines,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: dribbling down, chasms of silence, reassembling in crowded multitudes, massive forms,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: one above another. And I saw in their ridges and
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: hollows the appearance of a woman, immeasurable, carved in stainless marble, motionless, naked, fair,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: her head thrown back, her pointed breast up, gleaming in
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: chill sunlight, her heavy flanks dark in the shadow, resting
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: forever inert, And up to her there suddenly cloam and
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: hurried another cloud, huge hairy, bulging knobby with dark and
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: knotted brows, and he thrust out long bungling arms to her,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: and drew himself up to her. And I watched them
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: melting together, blue mouth to sad white mouth. End of
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: section Section eleven of Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: Nemo Orange Symphony one. Now that all the world is
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: filled with armies clamoring, Now that men no longer live
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: and die one by one, but in vague, indeterminate multitudes.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: Now that the trees are coppery, Now that the clouds
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: loom southward, Now that the glossy creeper spatters the walls
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: like spilt wine, I will go out alone to catch
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: strong joy of solitude. Where the tree lines in gold
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: and scarlet swing strong grape cables up the smoldering face
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: of the hill. Two guns crashing, thudding, ugulating, tumultuous guns
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: yelping over the cracked earth, where dry bugles blare. Here
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: in this hollow, it is very quiet, only the winds
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: hissing laughter in the place of tombs. One by one,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: these gaunt, scarred faces lift up blurred, wrinkled inscriptions, silently
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: beseeching me to stop and ponder What does it matter
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: if I do not stop to read them? No one
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: at all has gone this way that I have chosen before.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: A leaf drops slowly in silence. It is a long time,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: twisting and hovering on its way to the earth. Guns booming, bellowing, crashing,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: desperate insistent outcry of savage guns rocking the gloomy hollow.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: I will run out like the wind, snarling with savage laughter,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: Like the wind that tosses the gray black clouds against
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: the shop racked barrier, flaming trees. I will race between
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: the gray guns and the clouds, like shrapnel, exploding, flinging
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: their hail through the tumult bursting, will melt in cold spray.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: I am the wanderer of the world. No one can
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: hold me, not the cannon assembled for battle, nor the
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: gloomy graves of the hollow, nor the house where I
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: long time slumbered, nor the hilltop where roads are straggling.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: My feet must march to the wind, like a leaf
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: dropping slowly, an orange butterfly, turning and twisting, I touch
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: with moist, passionate palms the leaden inscriptions of my past.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: Then I turn to depart. Three The trees dance about
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: the inn, the wind thrust them into flamelets. Now my thoughts, gipsying,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: go forth to strange walls and new fires, mouths stained
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: with brown, red berries, bronze cheeks, sunken, unshaven, raged attire.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: We swing our guitars at the hip as we tramp,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: heedless on caring. In the end, the fire crackles on
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: the hearth. The wine is simmering. Lift up the brown beaker,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: one instant, drink, deeply, fling out the last coin. Let
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: us go on the plains. There is drooping harvest, but
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: no harvest can for a long time hold us. We
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: have seen the winds, baffled, racing up the orange flecked
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: trench of the hills. Four on the hill's summit, where
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: the gusty wind all night long has assailed me. Now
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: I see stars vanishing before the long cold, clutching fingers
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: of dawn stars, scentillent, fire hued metallic topaz fruit of
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: the deep blue garden. Southward, You go, my constellations, and
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: leave me with a white day alone over the hilltop,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: swish with a scurry of wings, millions of pale brown birds, songless,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: pulsing southward birds who have filled the trees and who
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: fled long ago at my passing. Now you clatter a
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: heedless tumult, fanning with your hot wings my face. Carry
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: this word to the southward, Say that I've forgotten them
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: that wait for me. All the loves and the hates
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: need expect me no longer in the autumn, at last,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: I am alone. Suddenly the wind crashes through the tree tops,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: stripping away their orange tiled domes, stark blue skeletons forbidding,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: gesticulate in my face, you whom I planted and lavished,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: with all the wealth and beauty I had to bestow.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: Hurry away, vain harvest. The wind scythes can reap you
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: where you lie on the earth, and to death's barns.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: You can go beyond the hilltop. I have seen only
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: the sky, the wind, naked, prodding up black furred clouds.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: Cossacks of winter, cry wind shriek to the shivering Southland
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: that I am going into winter, that I do not
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: hope to return. Farewell, crowded stars, farewell birds, winds, clouds
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: and tree tops. I weary of you. All seek my destines.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: Join the Northland amid blue ice and the rose purple
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: night of the pole. Five Beyond the land there lies
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: the sea, and on the sea, with wings unfurled, bloodily huge,
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: the sunset rest feathers flickering and claws curled, watching to
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: seize the ruined world. Rolling in a torrent, Brown leaves,
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: my achievements rise up from dark wooded valleys and scatter
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: themselves on the sea. Brown birds, my wild dreams, mingle
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: their bodies together, shrieking and clamoring as they pass. Black
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: charred silhouettes against the west, curtained in orange flame. Now
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: the wind starts up and strikes the seething water, hissing
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: in uncoiled fury. Each foam curled wave darts forward to
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: clash and batter the smoldering iron rust cliff, where the
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: end of my road is lost. Rise up, black clouds,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: pounce upon the sunset, tear it with your jagged teeth,
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: fling yourselves seething winds and circles upon the blue black water,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: swirl leaves and dance amid the chaos of breakers. Flicker birds,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: an instant against the tawny tiger throat of the sun,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: which is snarling in the west. Beat down o great
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: winds westward, loose rains and gallop to seaward. Rush me too,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: to that ocean in which I found my goal. Lash me,
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: lap me, rugged waves of blue black water, dash me,
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: clutch me, and do not let me rest one instant
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: all through the purple blue night. Rock and soothe me
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: till I awaken dreamingly at the faint rose breast of
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: the dawn. End of section Section twelve of Goblins and
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Recording by NEMA Red Symphony one. Over
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: the ink black cauldron of the sea, heavily on wings
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: of leaden cloud, howling, the sunset races out to assail me.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: Long have I voyaged night after night? The gray rain
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: swept the sea, The heaving breakers hissed and quivered, but
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: held no light. Now my voyage is ending. White storm
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: winds have swept bare my soul with their harsh laughter,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: their maddening mockery, their a thrust of despair over the keen, clean,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: swept zenith roll crushingly huge masses of cloud, dull, ponderous
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: sagging with the burden of creaking snow. They drop flat
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: on the sea, They hang menacing over me. They festoon
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: the sun with swags of crimson light. They stripe the horizon,
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: They bar every way with their iron tongues. They loom
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: weltering over my effort. They steadfastly close me in. Meanwhile,
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: the Sun, with dying force, wrenches one little crack in
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: the midst of the sagging masses, and I steer onto
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: it like a crimson lake. The light overflows and touches
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: the bulging surfaces with carmen, with scarlet, with orange, with vermilion,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: with brick, red, with bluish purple, with maroon, with rose,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: with russet, with savage green, with snowy blue, with gray,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: with ebony, with gold. It is the storm of the
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: evening that races out, shrieking to assail me, and I
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: hail it. Two. The sky's vast emptiness is crowded with fragments, colliding, ragged,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: splintered masses swirling away to the night. The volcano of
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: the Sun has burst and split its crater. Black slag
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: is hurled to the zenith above the red lava sea.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: Black shriveled, charred fragments fall into the scarlet torrent. Huge
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: tresses of darkness sweep over my face, leaving me choking.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: The sea is one crimson steaming fire. Each fanged wavelet
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: flickers and dances about the one behind it, hungrily licking
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: at the ship, fierce whirling swords, tossed spearheads lance like
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: spit and stab, then suddenly fall, leaving me there on
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: a rolling summit of flame, facing a gulf of despair.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: The ship lurches with ice crusted prow into the wave
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: trough and rises, rapidly, dripping liquid fire, long twisted necklaces
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: that burn out to green frozen chrystollite. Three Over my head,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: a bell beats. It is midnight. Perhaps I will live
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: to the dawn. About me are the mouths of yawning furnaces,
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: And from these scarlet mouths the heat outpours and darts
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: and licks its dried tongues at my brain, till it
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: too seems a black shell, almost bursting with a force
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: of flame in it. Still, wearily, I swing my shovel,
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: spattering the black coal over the pallets of the snoring mouths,
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: which rapidly swallow. There is nothing else to do. My
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: legs seem melting away, and sweat beneath me. In my body,
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: my lungs and heart are fighting for air. My eyes
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: are seared by the appalling scarlet of the front. Farnesses
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: about me. I scarcely see them. My shovelfuls fall short
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: with every swing. Without I hear the battering of the tempest.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: The ship is pounded sideways by black, immeasurable wave thrust,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: and rising dizzily again like a half senseless fighter, is
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: again sent downwards by those unseen fists. My shovel rises
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: to the ship's slow recovery. My shovel shoots out at
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: the smash of toppling masses. Sometimes I pause and pant
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: for an endless instant while the ship crouches quivering over
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: my head. A bell beats it is morning. Wearily, I
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: dropped the shovel and dragged myself to the deck four afar.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: There's something that seems ashore. The sky has been blown
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: clean of clouds except to westward, and these stare hard
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: at me, like huge sardonyx towers. I cling to a
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: half shattered rail that reels and dances, soused by the
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: choking water. My face a streaming mass of blood and
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: salt and grime. I wait, and dizzily, I try to
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: Remember what is this city that out there awaits me,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: am I its conqueror. Will scarlet flags hang fluttering in
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: the streets to greet my coming? Will crimson lanterns jingle
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: and toss in festival? Tonight? Has the fire burned the ship?
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: And is the water but stinging, icy fire that whips
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: and sears my face? Down there? The furnaces go out,
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: for the water sloshes about the floor, and steaming acrid
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: fumes arise. No living soul could stay in such a
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: place out here. The decks are shattered, the boats are
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: shorn away, and far on the horizon the city glares
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: with its sardonyx towers. Now the red bells, the black
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: red bells, the storm bells break loose from the horizon,
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: leaping upon the eastern sea and breaking it in their teeth.
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: The towers infuriate and kindle from base to summit in
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: layers and orange terraces against the blue snow haze that
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: drifts down on them from the east. The ship of
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: my Soul is rolling to port at last, with one
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: clang from its heaving boilers, one sigh from its shaking funnels,
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: one rattle from its loosened chains, I will lash myself
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: to the masthead and wait, empty eyed and open mouthed,
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: till the city that is all one scarlet flame of
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: death takes me to itself at last end of section
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: Section thirteen of Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: Nemo Violet Symphony one. But yesterday moonsails were raking high
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: the harbor of my dreams, dull night of trees, dark sorrows, drooping,
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: glittering raindrops, gleama you and recollection of my despair. But
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: yesterday stardust was scattered deep on the dark gulf of
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: my dreams. Wind of the night, questing, swaying, calling, rustle
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: of dull grasses, Why do you trouble me? Yesterday purple
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: mist was powdered on the windless sea of dreams. Faces
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: of the night that pass me, haggard monotonous faces, wind
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: blown hair, and lustful lips. I am not what you desire,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: Yesterday one two sails above the mist, wind swallows that
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: hover towards the rain clouds of the horizon, out of
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: the reedy harbors, rocking, swaying, falling, blown to see and
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: parted yes to day, day, yesterday, two purple blue bloom
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: of night globed grapes clustered morosely down the dark vineyards
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: of on trodden streets. The noise of the moments is
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: like the clash of the hoofs of a horse, rattling
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: thin tattoo in the stillness. The noise of the moments
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: takes me uncarrying towards the day with brassy crash. Dawns
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: corribins invade and trample the vineyard like a fawn. I
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: hide and watch them. A dark cup in my hand,
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: spoilers of my vineyard, spilling the LEAs of my sweet
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: red wine. You will yet ask in vain for a
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: cup that is not yours, A purple, dewy cup of
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: lonely night tramplers in the morning, sun burnt faces and
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: weary lips. There is yet a cup here you cannot have.
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: I hold it in my hands, Would you drink of it?
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: Lay down your thirst and timbrel, Break the harsh dance
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: that flickers through the morning. Forget the scarlet perfumes of
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: the day, Remember only starless night, cool swish of many seas,
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: faint pearl glow of evening cool marble, in the silence
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: purple blue grapes of night crushed freshly deep sleep, and
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: the drowsy stars. Three. I love the night that, in
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: long violet shroud, slowly and lovingly wraps up the day,
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: hiding its blurred imperfect in endless tenderness. I love the
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: day's high violet cone of light with thin haze on
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: the horizon like a wavering summer sea. But most of all,
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: I love midsummer dawn, when far off plains of light
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: ascend and tremble together like distant purple waves, the sound
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: of whose dim breaking is lost in the wild babble
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: of awaking birds. Four twisted fragments of violet paper. The
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: dawn drops you into the green bowl filled with the
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: day's gray waves. I love the night's deep purple grapes
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: that yesterday were crushed and spilled in long and sluggish
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: rivers that joined made as sea, where half dust through
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: the mist. Two golden sails drifted on silently. The blue
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: fume of my dreams is laced with violet flame. One
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: golden sail alone came back to rest in its nest
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: among the reeds. The other sail is lost behind the mist,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: beyond the craggy rock about which race and jagged white
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: the waves horizon on horizon, far away. She waits, but
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: through the day comes no faint song nor creaking of
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: the ropes. Twisted fragments of violet paper, charred and fallen
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: out of the green bowl lazily coils gray smoke. End
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: of section Section fourteen of Goblins and Pagodas by John
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: Gould Fletcher. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: Recording by Nemo Gray Symphony one. Up on the hillside,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: a long row of larches shake from their grizzled beards,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: the vestiges of rain from gray blue melting ice labs
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: neath their arches. The spring goes up again, writhing, exuding up, steaming, streaming.
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: The earth is breathing to the sky. Wet clouds of
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: spring dim rosy fans the trees as they flick to
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: and fro seam, driving grayish vapor over the snow. The
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: sky remodulates itself from violet gray to blue. Under the
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: upturned eaves of the blue larches, the sun looks through.
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: Now with the heat of the sun, the gray blue
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: ice slabs quiver. They slide in muddy trickles towards the river.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: Up on the hillside, between the long row of larches,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: fume up from south, pale clouds that bear the rain,
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: and pearl and violet arches. They break and shape again.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: Two I have seen in the evening the grayish violet
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: clouds roll wearily back from northward to the place whence
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: first they came. One or two orange lamps burnt low
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: against deep purple hills. The wind was hurrying, bundling them together.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: The pines awoke to sing, the sun of the snow,
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: buzzing and screaming on its one string. I have seen
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: within my heart crocuses purple and gold, drop, cold and
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: dull and colorless, beneath the snow, one or two orange
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: lamps burnt low, vein memories. The wind has driven me
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: too many winters. My songs are snowflakes whirling about my breast.
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: I will rap my frozen and bitter songs about me
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: in one gray drift and rest three fluttering and soft.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: The snow flings outward, swirls and settles, But when I
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: try to seize it, the wind tears it away through
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: poised green platforms of enormous pines. I see far hill
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: tops pushing up blue roofs. Snow comes and hums through
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: the woof of the lower branches. It skips and dances,
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: It drops in sluggish folds of gray, to where the
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: frozen rhododendron bushes with lower air gust play, and the
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: earth hushes its movement, fluttering soft. The snow is blent
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: in long, loose spirals with my dream. It is all
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: I have, the snow, and I know that when I
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: chase it, it will fly for me beyond the lifeless green,
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: beyond the low blue hills, beyond the pale, straw colored
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: clare down in the west. It goes straight southward, where
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: the purple orange flare of sunset flows, and into the
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: black and heart of my last rose pours its despair,
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: fluttering soft and dim regrets that skip and skim gray
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: in the gray twilight. Slim and weary whirls the snow.
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: And where it goes, I too shall go. Four of
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: my long nights afarign alien cities, I have remembered only this,
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: There were black scarves, all dusted over with silver, in
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: which I wrapped my dreams. There were black screens on
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: which I made those pictures that faded out next day,
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: youth without glory, manhood one mad struggle, maturity of battle
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: without trumpet calls, long gleams from pallid suns seen only
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: in my dreaming, struck those dissolving walls, and of my
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: days I only know they slipped and fell, like two
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: brief sunsets into the hill ravines that held the snow,
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: three lofty pines at the corners of my heart waded apart.
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: They only see in the mystery of the gray sky,
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: the jagged clouds that fly endlessly. End of section Section
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: fifteen of Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould Fletcher. This
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Nemo.
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: Poppies of the Red Year, a symphony in scarlet one.
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: The words that I have written to me become as poppies, deep,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: angry disk of scarlet, flame full, glowing in the stillness
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: of a shut room, silken, Their edges undulate out to me,
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: drooping on their hairy stems, flaring like folded shawls, down,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: curved like rockets, starting to break and shatter. Their light, wide,
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: flaunting and heavy crinkle lipped blossom, darting faint shivers through me.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: Globed Chinese lanterns on green silk cords as swaying over
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: motionless pools. These are lamps of a festival of sleep,
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: held each night to welcome me. Crimson bursting through dark
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: doors out to the dull blue, heavy fumes of opium
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: rolling from their rent red hearts. I go to seek
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: my dream. Two. A riven wall, like a face half
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: torn away, stares blankly at the evening, and from a window,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: like a crooked mouth, it barks at the sunset sky,
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: and over there beyond, on plains where night is settled
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: tent like encampments of vaporous blue smoke or mist. Three
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: men are riding. One of them looks and sees the sky.
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: One of them looks and sees the earth. The last
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: one looks and sees nothing at all. They ride on.
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: One of them pauses and says it is death. Another
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: pauses and says it is life. The last one pauses
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: and says tis a dream. His bridal shakes. The sky
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: is filled with oval vil tinted clouds, through which the sun,
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: long settled, strikes at random and kindling here and there
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: blotched circles of rosy light. These are poppies, unclosing, immense
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: corollas waving The horsemen on over the earth, upheaving, folding,
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: they ride, their bridles shake. One of them sees the
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: sky is red. One of them sees the earth is dark.
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: The last man sees. He rides to his death. Yet
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: he says nothing at all. Three there'll be no harvest
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: at all this year. For the gaunt black slopes arising
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: lift the wrinkled, aching furrows of their fields, falling away
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: to the rainy sky in vain. But in the furrows
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: there's grass and many flowers. Scarlet tossing poppies flutter their
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: wind slashed edges, on which gorge black flies, poise and
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: sway and drunken sleep. The black flies hang above the tangled,
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: trampled grasses. Gray crumpled bundles lie in them. They sprawl,
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: heave faintly, and between their stiffened fingers run out to
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: clogged crimson trickles, spattering the poppies and standing in beads
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: on the grass. Four. I saw last night sudden puffs
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: of flame in the northern sky. The sky was an
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: even expanse of rolling gray smoke, lit faintly by the
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: moon that hung its white face in a dead tree
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: to the east. Within the depths of greenish grayish smoke
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: were roars, crackles, and spheres of vapor, and then huge
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: disk of crimson shooting up, falling away. And I said,
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: these are flower petals, sleep petals, dream petals, blown by
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: the winds of dream. But still the crimson rockets rose.
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: They seem to be one great field of immense poppies,
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: burning evenly, casting their viscid perfume to the earth. The
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: earth is sown with dead, and out of these the
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: red blooms are pushing up, advancing higher, and each night
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: brings them nigher closer closer to my heart. Five By
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: the sluggish canal that winds between thin, ugly dunes, there
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: are no passing boats with creaking ropes today. But when
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: the evening crouches down like a hurt rabbit under the
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: everlasting rain cloud whirling up the north horizon, downwards on
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: the stream will float glowing points of fire, orange, coppery, scarlet, crimson, rosy, flickering.
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: They pass the lanterns of the unknown dead out where
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: the sea Salus is mouthing and fretting, its chaos of
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: pebbles and dried sticks, by the dunes, by the wall
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: of that house. It looks like a face half torn away,
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: and from its flat mouth barks at the sky, the
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: sky which is shot with broad red disc of light,
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: petals drowsily falling. Six. It was not for a sacred cause,
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: nor for faith, nor for new generations, that unburied we
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: roll and float beneath this flaming tumult of drunken sleep flowers.
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: But it was for a mad adventure, something we longed for, poisonous, seductive,
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: though we dared go out in the night together towards
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: the glow that called us on the unsown fields of death.
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: Now we lie here, reaped, ungarnered, red swaths of a
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: new harvest. But you who follow after must struggle with
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: our dream, and out of its restless and oppressive night,
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: filled with blue fumes, dull choking, you will draw hints
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: of that vision which we hold aloof in silence. End
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: of section. End of Goblins and Pagodas by John Gould
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: Fletcher