Carmen de Boheme

White Buildings

Carmen de Boheme

Sinuously winding through the roomOn smokey tongues of sweetened cigarettes, —Plaintive yet proud the cello tones resumeThe andante of smooth hopes and lost regrets.

Bright peacocks drink from flame-pots by the wall,Just as absinthe-sipping women shiver throughWith shimmering blue from the bowl in Circe’s hall.Their brown eyes blacken, and the blue drop hue.

The andante quivers with crescendo’s start,And dies on fire’s birth in each man’s heart.The tapestry betrays a finger throughThe slit, soft-pulling; — — — and music follows cue.

There is a sweep, — a shattering, — a choirDisquieting of barbarous fantasy.The pulse is in the ears, the heart is higher,And stretches up through mortal eyes to see.

Carmen! Akimbo arms and smouldering eyes; —Carmen! Bestirring hope and lipping eyes; —Carmen whirls, and music swirls and dips.”Carmen!,” comes awed from wine-hot lips.

Finale leaves in silence to replumeBent wings, and Carmen with her flaunts through the gloomOf whispering tapestry, brown with old fringe: —The winers leave too, and the small lamps twinge.

Morning: and through the foggy city gateA gypsy wagon wiggles, striving straight.And some dream still of Carmen’s mystic face, —Yellow, pallid, like ancient lace.

(uncollected)