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From “Contemporania”
YOU were praised, my books, | |
| because I had just come from the country; | |
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| I was twenty years behind the times | |
| so you found an audience ready. | |
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| I do not disown you, | 5 |
| do not you disown your progeny. | |
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| Here they stand without quaint devices, | |
| Here they are with nothing archaic about them. | |
| Watch the reporters spit, | |
| Watch the anger of the professors, | 10 |
| Watch how the pretty ladies revile them: | |
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| “Is this,” they say, “the nonsense | |
| that we expect of poets?” | |
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| “Where is the Picturesque?” | |
| “Where is the vertigo of emotion?”” | 15 |
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| “No! his first work was the best.” | |
| “Poor Dear! he has lost his illusions. | |
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| Go, little naked and impudent songs, | |
| Go with a light foot! | |
| (Or with two light feet, if it please you!) | 20 |
| Go and dance shamelessly! | |
| Go with an impertinent frolic! | |
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| Greet the grave and the stodgy, | |
| Salute them with your thumbs at your noses. | |
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| Here are your bells and confetti. | 25 |
| Go! rejuvenate things! | |
| Rejuvenate even “The Spectator.” | |
| Go! and make cat calls! | |
| Dance and make people blush, | |
| Dance the dance of the phallus | 30 |
| and tell anecdotes of Cybele! | |
| Speak of the indecorous conduct of the Gods! | |
| (Tell it to Mr. Strachey.) | |
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| Ruffle the skirts of prudes, | |
| speak of their knees and ankles. | 35 |
| But, above all, go to practical people— | |
| go! jangle their door-bells! | |
| Say that you do no work | |
| and that you will live forever. | |
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