Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LILACS; TO A -- AND H --, ROYAL AIR FORCE, AUGUST 1925, by WILLIAM FAULKNER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LILACS; TO A -- AND H --, ROYAL AIR FORCE, AUGUST 1925, by                    
First Line: We sit drinking tea
Last Line: He's not dead, poor chap; he didn't die . . .
Subject(s): Flowers; Lilacs; War


We sit drinking tea
Beneath the lilacs on a summer afternoon,
Comfortably, at our ease
With fresh linen on our knees
And we sit, we three
In diffident contentedness
Lest we let each other guess
How happy we are
Together here, watching the young moon
Lying shyly on her back, and the first star.

There are women here:
Smooth-shouldered creatures in sheer scarves, that pass
And eye me strangely as they pass.
One of them, my hostess, pauses near:
. . . Are you quite all right, sir? . . . she stops to ask
. . . You are a bit lonely, I fear.
Will you have more tea? cigarettes? no? . . .
I thank her, waiting for them to go . . .
To me they are as figures on a masque.
. . . Who? . . . shot down
Last spring . . . poor chap, his mind . . .
The doctors say . . . hoping rest will bring . . .
Busy with their tea and cigarettes and books
Their voices come to me like tangled rooks.
We sit in silent amity.

. . . It was a morning in late May . . .
A white woman, a white wanton near a brake,
A rising whiteness mirrored in a lake;
And I, old chap, was out before the day
In my little pointed-eared machine,
Stalking her through the shimmering reaches of the sky.
I knew that I could catch her when I liked
For no nymph ever ran as swiftly as she could.
We mounted, up and up,
And found her at the border of a wood,
A cloud forest, and pausing at its brink
I felt her arms and her cool breath.
The bullet struck me here, I think,
In the left breast
And killed my little pointed-eared machine. I saw it fall
The last wine in the cup. . .
I thought that I could find her when I liked
But now I wonder if I found her, after all.

One should not die like this
On such a day,
From angry bullets, or other modern way.
Yet science is a dangerous mouth to kiss.
One should fall, I think, to some Etruscan dart
In meadows where the Oceanides
Flower the wanton grass with dancing
And, on such a day as this,
Become a tall wreathed column: I should like to be
An ilex on an isle in purple seas.
Instead, I had a bullet through my heart . . .

. . . Yes, you are right:
One should not die like this,
And for no cause nor reason in the world.
Its well enough for one like you to talk
Of going in the far thin sky to stalk
The mouth of death, you did not know the bliss
Of home and children, the serene
Of living and of work and joy that was our heritage.
And, best of all, of age.
We were too young.
Still . . . he draws his hand across his eyes
. . . Still, it could not be otherwise.

We had been
Raiding over Mannheim. You've seen
The place? Then you know
How one hangs just beneath the stars and sees
The quiet darkness burst and shatter against them,
And, rent by spears of light, rise in shuddering waves
Crested with restless futile flickerings.
The black earth drew us down, that night,
Out of the bullet-tortured air,
A great black bowl of fireflies. . .
There is an end to this, somewhere. . . .
One should not die like this. . .

One should not die like this.
His voice has dropped and the wind is mouthing his words
While the lilacs nod their heads on slender stalks,
Agreeing while he talks,
Caring not if he is heard, or is not heard.
One should not die like this . . .
Half audible, half silent words
That hover like grey birds
About our heads.
We sit in silent amity.
I am cold, for now the sun is gone
And the air is cooler where we three
Are sitting. The light has followed the sun
And I no longer see
The pale lilacs stirring against the lilae pale sky.

They bend their heads toward me as one head.
. . . Old man . . . they say . . . How did you die? . . .

I -- I am not dead.

I hear their voices as from a great distance . . . Not dead
He's not dead, poor chap; he didn't die . . .





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