QTD ECTRA 
 
 O 
 
 New roetns 
 
 EMANUEL MOK&AN 
 ANNE KNISH 
 
UNIVERSITY FARM 
 
 1/5 
 S7 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UMIVEKSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 

 
SPECTRA 
 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 A BOOK OF POETIC EXPERIMENTS 
 BY 
 
 &&A^^-<r^i 
 AND 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 
 :GEO 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 1916 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
COPYRIGHT 1916 BY 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 
 PRINTED IN AMERICA 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TO REMY DE GOURMONT (EMANUEL MORGAN) vii 
 
 PREFACE (ANNE KNISH) ix 
 
 SPECTRA BY EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 OPUS PAGE 
 
 1 DRUMS S3 
 
 2 HOPE 14 
 
 6 IF I WERE ONLY DAFTER 56 
 
 7 A BUNCH OF GRAPES 8 
 9 FROGS' LEGS ON A PLATE 57 
 
 13 A PEACOCK-FEATHER II 
 
 14 I HAD PUT OUT MY LEAVES 51 
 
 15 DESPAIR COMES 6 
 
 16 THE GUILLOTINE 2O 
 
 17 NEEDLES AND PINS 46 
 29 KNIVES 31 
 31 THANK GOD THAT WE CAN LAUGH 27 
 
 40 TWO COCKTAILS ROUND A SMILE 35 
 
 41 SPECTRES 2 
 
 45 THE LOCUST-TREE 49 
 
 46 NO OTHER ANGLE 4O 
 
 47 GIVER OF BRIBES IN THE BRIGHTNESS OF MORNING 37 
 55 THE IMPOSSIBLE 43 
 
 62 THREE LITTLE CREATURES l6 
 
 63 SPEARS 23 
 
 78 I AM BESET 63 
 
 79 ONLY LOVERS 66 
 101 THE PIANO 6l 
 IO4 MADAGASCAR 59 
 
 V 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 
 SPECTRA BY ANNE KNISH 
 
 
 OPUS 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 THE SECONDS BOB BY 
 
 41 
 
 40 
 
 I HAVE NOT WRITTEN THAT YOU MAY READ 
 
 26 
 
 50 
 
 THE PIANO LIVES IN A DUSK ' 
 
 I 
 
 67 
 
 I WOULD NOT IN THE EARLY MORNING 
 
 10 
 
 76 
 
 YEARS ARE NOTHING 
 
 4 
 
 80 
 
 OH, MY LITTLE HOUSE OF GLASS 
 
 52 
 
 88 
 
 SO WE CAME BACK AGAIN 
 
 36 
 
 96 
 
 YOU ARE THE DELPHIC ORACLE 
 
 33 
 
 118 
 
 IF BATHING WERE A VIRTUE 
 
 7 
 
 122 
 
 UPSTAIRS THERE LIES A SODDEN THING 
 
 39 
 
 126 
 
 HIS EYES 
 
 12 
 
 131 
 
 I AM WEARY 
 
 18 
 
 134 
 
 LISTEN, MY FRIEND 
 
 21 
 
 135 
 
 IN A TOMB OF ARGOLIS 
 
 64 
 
 150 
 
 SOUNDS 
 
 29 
 
 151 
 
 CANDLE, CANDLE 
 
 15 
 
 181 
 
 SKEPTICAL CAT 
 
 62 
 
 182 
 
 HE'S THE REMNANT OF A SUIT 
 
 60 
 
 187 
 
 I BO NOT KNOW VERY MUCH 
 
 58 
 
 191 
 
 THE BLACK BARK OF A DOG 
 
 48 
 
 195 
 
 HER SOUL WAS FRECKLED 
 
 55 
 
 200 
 
 IF I SHOULD ENTER TO HIS CHAMBER 
 
 45 
 

 TO REMY DE GOURMONT 
 
 POET, a wreath ! 
 
 No matter how we had combined our flowers, 
 You would have worn them being ours. . . . 
 On you, on them, the showers 
 
 O roots beneath ! 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN. 
 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS volume is the first compilation of the 
 recent experiments in Spectra. It is the 
 aim of the Spectric group to push the possibili 
 ties of poetic expression into a new region, 
 to attain a fresh brilliance of impression by a 
 method not so wholly different from the meth 
 ods of Futurist Painting. 
 
 An explanation of the term "Spectric" will 
 indicate something of the nature of the tech 
 nique which it describes. "Spectric" has, in 
 this connection, three separate but closely re 
 lated meanings. In the first place, it speaks, 
 to the mind, of that process of diffraction by 
 which are disarticulated the several colored and 
 other rays of which light is composed. It in 
 dicates our feeling that the theme of a poem 
 is to be regarded as a prism, upon which the 
 colorless white light of infinite existence falls 
 and is broken up into glowing, beautiful, and 
 intelligible hues. In its second sense, the term 
 Spectric relates to the reflex vibrations of physi 
 cal sight, and suggests the luminous appearance 
 
PREFACE 
 
 which is seen after exposure of the eye to in 
 tense light, and, by analogy, the after-colors of 
 the poet's initial vision. In its third sense, Spec- 
 trie connotes the overtones, adumbrations, or 
 spectres which for the poet haunt all objects 
 both of the seen and the unseen world, those 
 shadowy projections, sometimes grotesque, 
 which, hovering around the real, give to the real 
 its full ideal significance and its poetic worth. 
 These spectres are the manifold spell and true 
 essence of objects, like the magic that would 
 inevitably encircle a mirror from the hand of 
 Helen of Troy. 
 
 Just as the colors of the rainbow recombine 
 into a white light, just as the reflex of the 
 eye's picture vividly haunts sleep, just as the 
 ghosts which surround reality are the vital part 
 of that existence, so may the Spectric vision, 
 if successful, synthesize, prolong, and at the 
 same time multiply the emotional images of the 
 reader. The rays which the poet has dissoci 
 ated into colorful beauty should recombine in 
 the reader's brain into a new intensity of unified 
 brilliance. The reflex of the poet's sight should 
 sustain the original perception with a haunting 
 keenness. The insubstantiality of the poet's 
 spectres should touch with a tremulous vibrancy 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 of ultimate fact the reader's sense of the im 
 mediate theme. 
 
 If the Spectrist wishes to describe a land 
 scape, he will not attempt a map, but will put 
 down those winged emotions, those fantastic 
 analogies, which the real scene awakens in his 
 own mind. In practice this will be found to be 
 the vividest of all modes of communication, as 
 the touch of hands quickens a mere exchange 
 of names. 
 
 It may be noted that to Spectra, to these re 
 flected experiences of life, as we perceive them, 
 adheres often a tinge of humor. Occidental 
 art, in contrast to art in the Orient, has until 
 lately been afraid of the flash of humor in its 
 serious works. But a growing acquaintance 
 with Chinese painting is surely liberating in 
 our poets and painters a happy sense of the 
 disproportion of man to his assumed place 
 in the universe, a sense of the tortuous grotesque 
 vanity of the individual. By this weapon, man 
 helps defend his intuition of the Absolute and 
 of his own obscure but real relation to it. 
 
 The Spectric method is as yet in its infancy; 
 and the poems that follow are only experimental 
 efforts toward the desired end. Among them, 
 the most obvious illustrations of the method 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 are perhaps Opus 41 by Emanuel Morgan and 
 Opus 76 by Anne Knish. 
 
 Emanuel Morgan, with whom the Spectric 
 theory originated, has found the best expres 
 sion of his genius in regular metrical forms and 
 rhyme. Anne Knish, on the other hand, has 
 used only free verse. We wish to make it clear 
 that the Spectric manner does not necessitate 
 the employment of either of these metrical sys 
 tems to the exclusion of the other. 
 
 Although the members of our group would by 
 no means attempt to establish a claim as actual 
 inventors of the Spectric method, yet we can 
 justifiably say that we have for the first time 
 used the method consciously and consistently, 
 and formulated its possibilities by means of 
 elaborate experiment. Among recent poets in 
 English, we have noted few who can be re 
 garded in a sure sense as Spectrists. 
 
 ANNE KNISH. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 50 
 
 THE piano lives in a dusk 
 Where rich amber lights 
 Quiver obscurely. 
 
 It exists only at twilight; 
 And somewhere afar 
 In the depths of a tropic forest 
 The sun is now setting, and the phoenix looks 
 Mysteriously toward the gold. 
 
 . I think I must have been born in such a forest, 
 Or in the tangle of a Chinese screen. 
 
 There is indigo in this music ; 
 This dusk is filled with amber lights; 
 Through the tangled evening of heavy flower- 
 scents 
 
 Come footfalls 
 That surely I can almost remember. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 41 
 
 SPECTRES came dancing up the wind, 
 Trailing down the long grass, 
 Shooting high, undisciplined, 
 
 To join the sun and see you pass . . . 
 The colors of the pointed glass. 
 
 Under a willow-maze you went 
 
 Unsaddened . . . But a violet beam 
 
 Fell on the white face, backward bent, 
 Of a body in a stream. 
 
 Into the sun you came again, 
 
 With sun-red light your feet were shod . . 
 And round you stood a ring of feathered men 
 
 With naked arms acknowledging a god. 
 
 Indigo-birds and squirrels on a tree 
 And orioles flashed in and out . . . 
 
 The yellow outline of Eurydice 
 
 Waited for Orpheus in a black redoubt. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 With a beaded fern you waved away a gnat . . . 
 
 And maidens, hung with vivid beads of 
 
 green, 
 One of them bearing in her arms an orange cat, 
 
 Held palms about a queen. 
 
 Then you were lost to sight 
 
 And locking trees became the clouds of you, 
 Till you emerged, the moon upon your shoulder, 
 and the night 
 
 Bloomed blue. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 76 
 
 are nothing; 
 Days alone count; 
 These, and the nights. 
 I have seen the grey stars marching, 
 And the green bubbles in wine, 
 And there are Gothic vaults of sleep. 
 
 My cathedral 
 Has one great spire 
 Tawny in the sunlight. 
 Gargoyles haunt its nave; 
 High up amid its dark arches 
 Forgotten songs live shadowy. 
 Gold and sardonyx 
 Deck its altars. 
 Its mighty roof 
 Is copper rivering with the rain. 
 
 Tomorrow lightning swords will come 
 And thunder of cannon. 
 They will unrivet this roof 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 Of mighty copper. 
 
 Before the eyes of my gargoyles, 
 
 In the sound of my forgotten songs, 
 
 They will take it. 
 
 And as the rain sluices down 
 
 I shall have to follow my roof into the war. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 15 
 
 DESPAIR comes when all comedy 
 Is tame 
 And there is left no tragedy 
 
 In any name, 
 When the round and wounded breathing 
 
 Of love upon the breast 
 Is not so glad a sheathing 
 As an old brown vest. 
 
 Asparagus is feathery and tall, 
 
 And the hose lies rotting by the garden-wall. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 118 
 
 F bathing were a virtue, not a lust, 
 I would be dirtiest. 
 
 I 
 
 To some, housecleaning is a holy rite. 
 For myself, houses would be empty 
 But for the golden motes dancing in sunbeams. 
 
 Tax-assessors frequently overlook valuables. 
 Today they noted my jade. 
 But my memory of you escaped them. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 7 
 
 BEYOND her lips in the dark are a man's 
 feet 
 
 Composed and dead . . . 
 In the light between her lips is a moving 
 
 tongue-tip sweet, 
 Red. 
 
 Her arms are his white robes, 
 
 They cover a king, 
 His ornaments her crescent lobes 
 
 And two moons on a string. 
 
 Sheba, Sheba, Proserpina, Salome, 
 
 See, I am cornel king, god, saint I 
 With the stone of a volcano O show that you 
 
 know me, 
 
 Pound till the true blood pricks through the 
 paint! 
 
 Twitch of the dead man's feet if he remembers 
 A bunch of grapes and a ripped-open 
 gown. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 And the live man's eyes are night after embers, 
 Two black spots on a white-faced clown . . . 
 
 And in the dawn, lava . . . rolling down . . . 
 Down-rolling lava on an up-pointing town. 
 
io SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 67 
 
 I WOULD not in the early morning 
 Start my mind on its inevitable journey 
 Toward the East. 
 There are white domes somewhere 
 Under that blue enameled sky, white domes, 
 
 white domes; 
 Therefore even the cream 
 Is safest yellow. 
 Cream is better than lemon 
 In tea at breakfast. 
 I think of tigers as eating lemons. 
 Thank God this tea comes from the green 
 
 grocer, 
 Not from Ceylon. 
 
SPECTRA ii 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 15 
 
 O PEACOCK-FEATHER 
 Drawn through a death-dim hole, 
 With colors blurred together, 
 Persian pattern of a soul 
 
 Is it enough to have belonged 
 To the exaltation of a bird 
 
 Round whom they thronged 
 Each time her high tail stirred? 
 
 ... I loved a woman whose two eyes, 
 One blue, one gray, 
 
 Would block 
 
 Like cliffs my foothold in the skies . . 
 She is dead, they say 
 Dead as a peacock. 
 
12 SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 126 
 
 HIS eyes 
 Are the resurrection. 
 Once when beneath the moonrise 
 They looked into mine, 
 Grey mists held mastery between us, 
 And I knew that his soul 
 Had gone down into death. 
 But tonight a golden star-dust 
 Is pouring through space, 
 And the mist is burned away by it. 
 Tonight his soul awakens 
 Out of its splendid cerements, 
 And through his eyes the miracle 
 Arises to the earth. 
 
 I have prayed long beside the tomb 
 And touched the grave-cloths 
 With living fingers. 
 I have lain my breasts 
 Against the granite 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 Of the sarcophagus 
 
 Where he was. 
 
 Prayers for the dead I offered up 
 
 And hecatombs. 
 
 Today there was a wonder in the sunrise. 
 I knew that there were glories in the sky 
 And new branches of willow on the earth. 
 And my soul trembled with prophecy. 
 
 I prophesied 
 The resurrection. 
 Now it has come. 
 And I lie shaken 
 Before its tumult. 
 
14 SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 OpUS 2 
 
 HOPE 
 Is the antelope 
 Over the hills; 
 Fear 
 
 Is the wounded deer 
 Bleeding in rills; 
 Care 
 
 Is the heavy bear 
 Tearing at meat; 
 Fun 
 
 Is the mastodon 
 Vanished complete . . . 
 
 And I am the stag with the golden horn 
 Waiting till my day is born. 
 
SPECTRA 15 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 151 
 
 /HANDLE, candle, 
 V>j Flicker and flow 
 I knew you once 
 
 But it was not long ago, 
 
 it was 
 
 Last night. 
 
 And you spoiled my otherwise bright 
 
 evening. 
 
16 SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 62 
 
 THREE little creatures gloomed across the 
 floor 
 
 And stood profound in front of me, 
 And one was Faith, and one was Hope, 
 And one was Charity. 
 
 Faith looked for what it could not find, 
 
 Hope looked for what was lost, 
 (Love looked and looked but Love was blind) , 
 
 Charity's eyes were crossed. 
 
 Then with a leap a single shape, 
 
 With beauty on its chin, 
 Brandished a little screaming ape . . . 
 
 And each one, like a pin, 
 
 Fell to a pattern on the rug 
 
 As flat as they could be 
 And died there comfortable and snug, 
 
 Faith, Hope and Charity. 
 
SPECTRA 17 
 
 That shape, it was my shining soul 
 Bludgeoning every sham . . . 
 
 O little ape, be glad that I 
 Can be the thing I am ! 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 131 
 
 1AM weary of salmon dawns 
 And of cinnamon sunsets ; 
 Silver-grey and iron-grey 
 Of winter dusk and morn 
 Torture me ; and in the amethystine shadows 
 Of snow, and in the mauve of curving clouds 
 Some poison has dwelling. 
 
 Ivory on a fan of Venice, 
 Black-pearl of a bowl of Japan, 
 Prismatic lustres of Phoenician glass, 
 Fawn-tinged embroideries from looms of 
 
 Bagdad, 
 
 The green of ancient bronze, cinereous tinge 
 Of iron gods, 
 
 These, and the saffron of old cerements, 
 Violet wine, 
 Zebra-striped onyx, 
 
 Are to me like the narrow walls of home 
 To the land-locked sailor. 
 
SPECTRA 19 
 
 I must have fire-brands I 
 I must have leaves ! 
 I must have sea-deeps! 
 
20 SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 1 6 
 
 DEATH on a cross was not the blade 
 In Mary's heart . . . 
 For the mother of man and the son of the maid 
 
 Had walked one night apart, 
 When his beard was not yet grown and, 
 
 afraid, 
 She had seen his young words dart. 
 
 Between a mother and a son, 
 
 The guillotine . . . 
 It falls, it falls, and one by one, 
 
 Unseeing and unseen, 
 They face the great sharp shining ton 
 
 That time has eaten green. 
 
 Between the shoulder and the head 
 
 The guillotine must play 
 And cleave with clash unmerited 
 
 The generating clay . . . 
 Till the separated parts, not dead, 
 
 Rise and walk away. 
 
SPECTRA 2i 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 134. 
 
 ISTEN, my friend, 
 
 That you may understand me, 
 
 In my earliest youth 
 I dreamed in hues volcanic. 
 I saw each day open 
 Like a curtain of flame. 
 Black slaves attended 
 My waking moments; 
 Three ebony slaves 
 Washed sleep from my white body. 
 Three ebony slaves 
 Around my ivory smoothness 
 Folded heavy robes 
 Of crimson and white. 
 And as I issued forth 
 Into the blue vault of the daylight 
 A grey ape pranced before me 
 And a leopard crept behind. 
 
22 SPECTRA 
 
 This was the state 
 Of my young heritage. 
 Scarlet as the voice of trumpets 
 Was the pageant of my days. 
 Can I accept now 
 The twilight? 
 
 And soon the dark, where all colors 
 Die? 
 
 Before I die, I will hold one last revel! 
 I will have golden cups and poppy curtains! 
 And yet 
 
 No! ... In a black hall 
 The black table shall spread far down before 
 
 me 
 
 And all the feasters garbed in black. 
 Then, at the feast's height, I arising 
 Shall with a gesture like the midnight 
 Throw back my midnight robe and suddenly 
 
 stand 
 Naked, the sole white flame of the world. 
 
SPECTRA 23 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 63 
 
 THE seven deathly spears of memory 
 Setting behind a god, a golden glorious 
 Halo of land and sea 
 Even for you and me, 
 Even for us ... 
 
 The spear of Egypt, 
 Orange, 
 
 Through the sleeping lid, 
 With all the power of the bulk of a pyramid. 
 
 The spear of Chile, 
 Yellow, 
 
 Through the thrilling cheek, 
 With all the push of an upturned Andean peak* 
 
 The spear of Thibet, 
 Violet, 
 
 Through the eager hand, 
 The thrust of the iron of a silent land. 
 
24 SPECTRA 
 
 The spear of the Ice-Poles, 
 Green, 
 
 Through the warm-breathing breast, 
 The glacial east and the glacial west. 
 
 The spear of Norway, 
 Blue, 
 
 Through the curved arm-pit, 
 The cheerless sun majestic in a jagged slit. 
 
 The spear of India, 
 Indigo, 
 
 Through the holy side, 
 
 A heaven-touching temple-roof down a moun 
 tain-slide. 
 
 The spear of Europe, 
 Red, 
 
 In the mouth's breath, 
 The million-splintering scream of death . . . 
 
 Even to us, 
 
 The seven-spearing sun, 
 
 The sword of separation before our love is 
 done; 
 
 Even for us, 
 A simian shape 
 
SPECTRA 25 
 
 Throwing seven souls on the sea-wet cape ; 
 
 Even for us 
 
 Who smile mouth to mouth, 
 The full tornado from the seven- forked south; 
 
 Even to us 
 
 Who clasp with our knees, 
 The scattering upheaval of the seven cold seas 1 
 
 And this is as near as lovers ever come, 
 Their words are dumb ; 
 This is as near as they have ever kissed, 
 Their lips are ocean-mist. 
 
 Yet what avail the seven 
 Spears of memory 
 Against the obstinate archery 
 Of light, the spears of heaven? 
 
26 SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 40 
 
 I HAVE not written, reader, 
 That you may read. . . . 
 They sit in rows in the bare school-room 
 Reading. 
 
 Throwing rocks at windows is better, 
 And oh the tortoise-shell cat with the can tied 
 
 on! 
 
 I would rather be a can-tier 
 Than a writer for readers. 
 
 I have written, reader, 
 For abstruse reasons. 
 Gold in the mine . . . 
 Black water seeping into tunnels . . . 
 A plank breaks, and the roof falls . . . 
 Three men suffocated. 
 The wife of one now works in a laundry; 
 The wife of another has married a fat man; 
 I forget about the third. 
 
SPECTRA 27 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 57 
 
 THE night is growing deep with snow 
 O put your hand in mine, 
 While the mirthful secrets that we know 
 
 Bloom in the fire-shine 
 Flakes falling with an undertow 
 Of delicate design. 
 
 Hushed are the courts where ladies went 
 
 Unquestioning to quaff 
 Goblets of liquid firmament 
 
 Thank God that we can laugh ! 
 
 Hushed are the plains where Asia poured 
 The blood of peacock kings 
 
 But we can echo, thank the Lord, 
 What the China teapot sings : 
 
 Nothing bereaves 
 The eternal tune 
 Of little crisp leaves 
 Green in the moon. 
 
28 SPECTRA 
 
 The night is deeper still with snow . . . 
 
 O let us never stir 
 From the mirthful secrets that we know 
 
 Of old diameter! 
 Eve laughed at Adam long ago, 
 
 And Adam laughed at her. 
 
SPECTRA 29 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 750 
 
 SOUNDS, pure sounds 
 Nothing 
 
 Vibrancies of the air 
 And yet 
 
 This summer night 
 There are crickets shrilling 
 Beyond the deep bassoon of frogs. 
 They cease for a moment 
 As the rattling clangor 
 Of the trolley 
 Bumps by. 
 I hear footsteps 
 Hollow on the pavement 
 Now deserted 
 And blank of sound. 
 They die. 
 
 The crickets now are sleeping; 
 Even the leaves 
 Grow still. 
 
30 SPECTRA 
 
 And slowly 
 
 Out of the blankness, out of the silence, 
 Emerges on soundless wings 
 The long sweet-sloping 
 Rise and fall of far viol notes, 
 The mad Nirvana, 
 The faint and spectral 
 Dream-music 
 Of my heart's desire. 
 
SPECTRA 31 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 29 
 
 KNIVES for feet, and wheels for a chin, 
 And the long smooth iron bore for a 
 
 neck, 
 
 And bullets for hands. . . . And the root runs in, 
 The root of blood no stone can check, 
 From the breasts of the grinding crash of sin, 
 From engines hugging in a wreck. 
 
 A thousand round-red mouths of pain 
 
 Blaring black, 
 
 A twisting comrade on his back 
 
 In a round-red stain, 
 
 Clotted stalks of red sumac, 
 
 Discs of the sun on a bayonet-stack . . . 
 
 Blood, flame, a cataract 
 Thrown upward from a desert place : 
 Flame and blood, the one blind fact, 
 Contained, or spouting from the face, 
 Or coiling out of bellies, packed 
 In a stinking spent embrace . . . 
 
32 SPECTRA 
 
 Country, a babble of black spume . . . 
 Faith, an eyeball in the sand . . . 
 Mother, a nail through a broken hand 
 A kissing fume 
 
 And out of her breast the bloody bubbling milk- 
 red breath 
 Of death. 
 
SPECTRA 33 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus g6 
 
 'OU are the Delphic Oracle 
 Of the Under-World. 
 
 As we sit talking, 
 All of us together, 
 You flash forth sudden utterance 
 Of buried things 
 That writhe in obscure life 
 Within our minds' last darkness. 
 That which we think and say not 
 You say and think not. 
 In us these thoughts 
 Like worms stir vilely. 
 
 But from you they depart as sudden butterflies 
 Crimson and green against the pure sky. 
 
 Many are the revelers; 
 Few are the thyrsus-bearers; 
 And sole is Dionysus. 
 
34 SPECTRA 
 
 This I inscribe to you, 
 Singer, 
 
 In memory of the crags of Delphi 
 And the Thessalian vales beyond. 
 
SPECTRA 35 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 40 
 
 TWO cocktails round a smile, 
 A grapefruit after grace, 
 Flowers in an aisle 
 
 . . . Were your face. 
 
 A strap in a street-car, 
 A sea-fan on the sand, 
 
 A beer on a bar 
 
 . . . Were your hand. 
 
 The pillar of a porch, 
 The tapering of an egg, 
 
 The pine of a torch 
 
 . . . Were your leg. 
 
 Sun on the Hellespont, 
 
 White swimmers in the bowl 
 
 Of the baptismal font 
 Are your soul. 
 
36 SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 88 
 
 SO we came back again 
 After some years 
 Just revisiting 
 The scenes of our sin. 
 Nothing is there but the garden; 
 And we had expected 
 That we would be there. 
 
 I heard a wind blowing 
 Down the sky. 
 It came with heavy auguries 
 And passed. 
 
 There was a soothsayer once in Rome 
 Who on a white altar 
 Inspected the purple entrails of victims, 
 
SPECTRA 37 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 47 
 
 GIVER of bribes in the brightness of 
 morning, 
 Cities have wavered and rocked and gone 
 
 down . . . 
 But the lamps of the altars hang round you, 
 
 adorning 
 
 The niche of your neck and the drift of your 
 gown. 
 
 O bribe-giver, marked with purple metal 
 Cut in your naked contentment there shows 
 
 On the curve of your breast one carven petal 
 From heaven's impenetrable rose! 
 
 You open the window to myriad windows, 
 The high triangular door of the world . . . 
 
 Till the walls and the roofs and the curious 
 
 keystone, 
 The carven rose with its petals uncurled, 
 
38 SPECTRA 
 
 Are swayed in the swathe of the uppermost 
 
 ether, 
 Where stars are the columns upholding a 
 
 dome, 
 
 And the edifice rolls on a corner of ocean, 
 Lifts on a wave, poises on foam . . . 
 
 We stand on the rose, we are images golden, 
 
 We move interchanging, attaining one crest: 
 One chin and one mouth and one nose and one 
 
 forehead, 
 
 One mouth and one chin and one neck and 
 one breast . . . 
 
 I pull you apart from me, struggle to bind you, 
 
 I free you, I rend you in seven great rays . . . 
 
 And we cling to them all ... but we lose 
 
 them, and slowly 
 
 We slip with the rainbow down the blue 
 bays. 
 
SPECTRA 39 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 
 OpUS 122 
 
 T TPSTAIRS there lies a sodden thing 
 l^J Sleeping. 
 Soon it will come down 
 And drink coffee. 
 
 I shall h^vG to smile at it across the table. 
 How can I ? 
 
 For I know that at this moment 
 It sleeps without a sign of life ; it is as good as 
 
 dead. 
 
 I will not consort with reformed corpses, 
 I the life-lover, I the abundant. 
 I have known living only; 
 I will not acknowledge kinship with death. 
 White graves or black, linen or porphyry, 
 Are all one to me. 
 And yet, on the Lybian plains 
 Where dust is blown, 
 A king once 
 
 Built of baked clay and bulls of bronze 
 A tomb that makes me waver. 
 
40 SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 46 
 
 1ONLY know that you are given me 
 For my delight. 
 No other angle finishes my soul 
 But you, you white. 
 
 I know that I am given you, 
 
 Black whirl to white, 
 To lift the seven colors up ... 
 
 Focus of light! 
 
SPECTRA 41 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus i 
 
 REITERATION! . . . 
 
 The seconds bob by, 
 
 So many, so many, 
 
 Each ugly in its own way 
 
 As raw meats are all ugly. 
 
 Why do we feed on the dead? 
 
 Or would at least it were with cries and lust 
 
 Of slaying our human food 
 
 Beneath a cannibal sun ! 
 
 But these old corpses of alien creatures 1 . . 
 
 I loathe them ! 
 
 And too many heads go by the window, 
 
 All alien 
 
 Filers of saws, doubtless, 
 
 Or lechers 
 
 Or Sabbath-keepers. 
 
 Morality comes from God. 
 
 He was busy. 
 
42 SPECTRA 
 
 He forgot to make beauty. 
 
 Why does he not call back into their hen-house 
 
 This ugly straggling flock of seconds 
 
 That trail by 
 
 With pin-feathers showing? 
 
SPECTRA 43 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 55 
 
 WHY ask it of me? the impossible! 
 Shall I pick up the lightning in my 
 
 hand? 
 
 Have I not given homages too well 
 For words to understand? 
 
 Words take you from me, bring you back again, 
 Dance in our presence, cover your proud face 
 
 With the incredible counterpane, 
 Break our embrace . . . 
 
 No, not to you 
 
 Your wish, 
 But to some kangaroo 
 
 Or cuttle-fish 
 
 Or octopus or eagle or tarantula 
 
 Or elephant or dove 
 Or some peninsula 
 
 Let me speak love 
 
44 SPECTRA 
 
 Or call some battle or some temple-bell 
 
 Or many-curving pine 
 Or some cool truth-containing well 
 
 Or thin cathedral mine I 
 
SPECTRA 45 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 200 
 
 IF I should enter to his chamber 
 And suddenly touch him, 
 Would he fade to a thin mist, 
 Or glow into a fire-ball, 
 Or burst like a punctured light-globe? 
 It is impossible that he would merely yawn and 
 
 rub 
 And say "What is it?" 
 
46 SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 17 
 
 MAN-THUNDER, woman-lightning, 
 Rumble, gleam; 
 Refusal, 
 Scream. 
 
 Needles and pins of pain 
 
 All pointed the same way; 
 Parellel lines of pain 
 
 When the lips are gray 
 
 And know not what they say : 
 Rain, 
 Rain. 
 
 But after the whirl of fright 
 And great shouts and flashes, 
 The pounding clashes 
 And deep slashes, 
 After the scattered ashes 
 
SPECTRA 47 
 
 Of the night, 
 Heaven's height 
 
 Abashes 
 
 With a gleam through unknown lashes 
 Of delicious points of light. 
 
48 SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 
 
 THE black bark of a dog 
 Made patterns against the night. 
 And little leaves flute-noted across the moon. 
 
 I seemed to feel your soft looks 
 Steal across that quiet evening room 
 Where once our souls spoke, long ago. 
 
 For that was of a vastness; 
 And this night is of a vastness . . . 
 
 There was a dog-bark then 
 It was the sound 
 
 Of my rebellious and incredulous heart. 
 Its patterns twined about the stars 
 And drew them down 
 And devoured them. 
 
SPECTRA 49 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 45 
 
 AN angel, bringing incense, prays 
 Forever in that tree . . . 
 I go blind still when the locust sways 
 Those honey-domes for me. 
 
 All the fragrances of dew, O angel, are there, 
 The myrrhic rapture of young hair, 
 
 The lips of lust; 
 
 And all the stenches of dust, 
 Even the palm and the fingers of a hand burnt 
 bare 
 
 With a curling sweet-smelling crust, 
 And the bitter staleness of old hair, 
 
 Powder on a withering bust . . r 
 
 The moon came through the window to our 
 
 bed. 
 
 And the shadows of the locust-tree 
 On your white sweet body made of me, 
 Of my lips, a drunken bee. . . . 
 
50 SPECTRA 
 
 O tree-like Spring, O blossoming days, 
 
 I, who some day shall be dead, 
 
 Shall have ever a lover to sway with me. 
 
 For when my face decays 
 
 And the earth moulds in my nostrils, shall 
 
 there not be 
 
 The breath therein of a locust-tree, 
 The seed, the shoot of a locust-tree, 
 The honey-domes of a locust-tree, 
 Till lovers go blind and sway with me? 
 
 O tree-like Spring, O blossomy days, 
 To sway as long as the locust sways I 
 
SPECTRA 51 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 14 
 
 BESIDE the brink of dream 
 I had put out my willow-roots and 
 
 leaves 
 As by a stream 
 
 Too narrow for the invading greaves 
 Of Rome in her trireme . . . 
 Then you came like a scream 
 Of beeves. 
 
52 SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 80 
 
 OH my little house of glass ! 
 How carefully 
 I have planted shrubbery 
 To plume before your transparency. 
 Light is too amorous of you, 
 Transfusing through and through 
 Your panes with an effulgence never new. 
 Sometimes 
 
 I am terribly tempted 
 To throw the stones myself. 
 
SPECTRA 53 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus i 
 
 T I iHEY enter with long trailing of shadowy 
 J. cloth, 
 
 And each with one hand praying in the air, 
 And the softness of their garments is the gray- 
 ness of a moth 
 The lost and broken night-moth of despair. 
 
 And they keep a wounded distance 
 
 With following bare feet, 
 A distance Isadoran 
 
 And the dark moons beat 
 Their drums. 
 
 More desolate than they are Isadora stands, 
 The blaze of the sun on her grief; 
 
 The stars of a willow are in both her hands, 
 And her heart is the shape of a leaf. 
 
 And they come to her for comfort 
 And her black-thrown hair 
 
54 SPECTRA 
 
 Is a harp of consolation 
 Singing anthems in the air. 
 
 With the dark she wrestles, daring alone, 
 Though their young arms would aid; 
 
 Her body wreathes and brightens, never 
 
 thrown, 
 Unvanquished, unafraid . . . 
 
 Till light comes leaping 
 
 On little children's feet, 
 Comes leaping Isadoran 
 
 And the white stars beat 
 Their drums. 
 
SPECTRA 55 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 19$ 
 
 HER soul was freckled 
 Like the bald head 
 Of a jaundiced Jewish banker. 
 Her fair and featurous face 
 Writhed like 
 
 An albino boa-constrictor. 
 She thought she resembled the Mona Lisa. 
 This demonstrates the futility of thinking. 
 
56 SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 6 
 
 IF I were only dafter 
 I might be making hymns 
 To the liquor of your laughter 
 And the lacquer of your limbs, 
 
 But you turn across the table 
 
 A telescope of eyes, 
 And it lights a Russian sable 
 
 Running circles in the skies. . , 
 
 Till I go running after, 
 Obeying all your whims 
 
 For the liquor of your laughter 
 And the lacquer of your limbs. 
 
SPECTRA 57 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 9 
 
 WHEN frogs' legs on a plate are brought 
 to me 
 
 As though I were divinity in France, 
 I feel as God would feel were He to see 
 Imperial Russians dance. 
 
 These people's thoughts and gestures and con 
 cerns 
 
 Move like a Russian ballet made of eggs; 
 A bright-smirched canvas heaven heaves and 
 
 burns 
 Above their arms and legs. 
 
 Society hops this way and that, well-taught; 
 
 But while I watch, in cloudy state, 
 I feel as God would feel if he were brought 
 
 Frogs' legs on a plate. 
 
SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 187 
 
 1DO not know very much, 
 But I know this 
 That the storms of contempt that sweep over 
 
 us, 
 
 Ready to blast any edifice before then 
 Rise from the fathomless maelstrom 
 Of contempt for ourselves. 
 If there be a god, 
 May he preserve me 
 From striking with these lightnings 
 Those whom I love. 
 
 Saying which, 
 Zarathustra strolled on 
 Down Fifth Avenue. 
 
 The last three lines 
 Are symptomatic. 
 
SPECTRA 59 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 104 
 
 OW terrible to entertain a lunatic! 
 To keep his earnestness from coming 
 close ! 
 
 H 
 
 A Madagascar land-crab once 
 Lifted blue claws at me 
 And rattled long black eyes 
 That would have got me 
 Had I not been gay. 
 
60 SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 182 
 
 HE'S the remnant of a suit that has been 
 drowned ; 
 
 That's what decided me," said Clarice. 
 "And so I married him. 
 I really wanted a merman; 
 And this slimy quality in him 
 Won me. 
 
 No one forbade the banns. 
 Ergo will you love me?" 
 
SPECTRA 61 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 1 01 
 
 HE not only plays 
 One note 
 
 But holds another note 
 Away from it 
 As a lover 
 Lifts 
 
 A waft of hair 
 From loved eyes. 
 
 The piano shivers, 
 When he touches it, 
 And the leg shines. 
 
62 SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 181 
 
 SKEPTICAL cat, 
 Calm your eyes, and come to me. 
 For long ago, in some palmed forest, 
 I too felt claws curling 
 Within my fingers . . . 
 Moons wax and wane; 
 My eyes, too, once narrowed and widened . 
 Why do you shrink back? 
 Come to me : let me pat you 
 Come, vast-eyed one . . . 
 Or I will spring upon you 
 And with steel-hook fingers 
 Tear you limb from limb. . . . 
 
 There were twins in my cradle. . . . 
 
SPECTRA 63 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 
 Opus 78 
 
 I AM beset by liking so many people. 
 What can I do but hide my face away? 
 Lest, looking up in love, I see no eyes or lids 
 In the gleaming whirl of clay, 
 Lest, reaching for the fingers of love, 
 I know not which are they, 
 Lest the dear-lipped multitude, 
 Kissing me, choke me dead ! 
 
 O green eyes in the breakers, 
 
 White heave unquieted, 
 
 What can I do but dive again, again again 
 
 To hide my head! 
 
64 SPECTRA 
 
 ANNE KNISH 
 Opus 135 
 
 IN a tomb of Argolis, 
 Under an arch of great stones, 
 Where my eyes were sightless, groping, 
 I touched this figment of clay. 
 
 Forgotten vase of immemorial Greece, 
 Colorless form! 
 
 I have entered to the blind dark 
 Of the tomb where you have slept forever 
 And with the dreams of my importunate hands 
 I touch you in the profound darkness. 
 
 You are cold and estranged ; 
 Yet the ends of my fingers cling to your porous 
 
 surface. 
 
 You are thin and very tall ; 
 My palm can cover your mouth. 
 Your lip curves but a little ; 
 Around your throat 
 My two hands meet, 
 
SPECTRA 65 
 
 And then part as I follow the swelling 
 Rhythm that downward widens, 
 And I pass around and under, 
 And the returning line 
 Ebbs home. 
 
 Beneath your feet I touch cold marble; 
 My hand returns 
 To sleep upon your breast 
 Dreaming it warm. 
 
66 SPECTRA 
 
 EMANUEL MORGAN 
 Opus 79 
 
 ONLY the wise can see me in the mist, 
 For only lovers know that I am here 
 After his piping, shall the organist 
 Be portly and appear? 
 
 Pew after pew, 
 
 Wave after wave . . . 
 Shall the digger dig and then undo 
 
 His own dear grave? 
 
 Hear me in the playing 
 
 Of a big brass band . . . 
 See me, straying 
 
 With children hand in hand ... 
 
 Smell me, a dead fish . . . 
 
 Taste me, a rotten tree. . . . 
 Someday touch me, all you wish, 
 
 In the wide sea. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 BRANCH OF THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE 
 
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