MOODS
MOODS
_Prose Poems by Mercedes de Acosta_
NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
CONTENTS
PAGE
MEMORY 3
FAITH 5
LOVE 7
DISGUST 10
JOY 13
DESPAIR 16
TENDERNESS 18
HURT FEELINGS 22
WEARINESS 24
OPPORTUNITY 26
TIME 28
REVELATION 31
FINDING GOD 34
BRAINSTORM 38
PEACE 41
TWILIGHT DREAMS 44
INTRODUCTION
There is a happy gift revealed in these little pastels, vignettes, or whatever one wishes to name such fragments that Miss de Acosta has written and which refuse to be catalogued and classified. They stand out in one’s reading in refreshing contrast to many opaque books of verse. They are not poetry; but they are the most singable prose, and they have a haunting quality, a breath of mystery, as though a ghost walked in a garden. They are strange, but they are human too; for if Miss de Acosta has anything it is a belief in, and an understanding of, her fellow human beings. In the little picture of the tired woman in the subway she shows with what feeling her heart is charged; and in the fragment of the studio, the climax is deftly approached. Brief as these glimpses of human experience are, they leave one with a sense of finality. It is as though a door were suddenly opened, or a window quickly raised--and then as suddenly closed again. But one has seen the room in its entirety, and the interior has been photographed on the brain.
Miss de Acosta, who comes forward here with her first volume, bears promise of even finer achievement. I like the perfume of these flowers. And I like her directness, her obvious sincerity, her passion for the truth as Life reveals it to her, and her endeavor to give the reader a swift, vivid picture. She may go very far.
CHARLES HANSON TOWNE.
MEMORY
Do you know I am living tonight in a cloud of memory? I, who always preach to you of looking forward, am sitting here silently looking backward and tearing the veil from off the dead faces of the past.
Memory is a strange thing, so poignant and alive in its insistence, so dead and lifeless in its reality, so cruel and portentous in its regrets.
It is curious how, merely in the brain, wide vistas of recollection can be opened, and whole pictures of the past stretch before us by simply recalling the touch of a hand, by the stirring of a soft breath of wind, by a sad prolonged street cry, or by the heavy atmospheric pressure of a warm summer’s night.
Sometimes it is a strain of music across far waters that brings back long-distant years; again it is the odor of a box suddenly opened, which gives forth the fragrance of violets or rose leaves long since dead and which instantly brings a tug at the heart strings and fills the throat with burning tears.
It seems to me a comparatively easy thing to suppress our memories during the day, when a host of things come clamoring and crowding for us to accomplish.
But the past, with its sad, tragic eyes and fantastic shapes, its shrill, melancholy wails and dear, dead voices, its heavily perfumed flowers, its vibrating, pulsing music, its soft, caressing touches and maddening, heart-rending regrets--these all come filing back one by one and play upon the soul and make the lips turn white.... Sometimes at night!
FAITH
I think it does not matter so much what we believe as what we want to believe,--the desire seems to me greater than the accomplishment.
They say “men live by hope,” but I feel men must live by faith or else they perish. Or perhaps faith and hope are very closely akin-- one being the Touch of God, and the other being the Breath of a Divine Perfume He has tossed out upon the world, so that man might still find a smile where there seemed only to be tears.
Today I do not feel that I am groping my way as I have heretofore done, but a strange exaltation is in me as though a star had caught in my hair, or as if a piece of the moon had come down and brushed against my cheek.
I wonder could you understand if I told you why?
If I tell you that for days and nights my soul has been writhing in a corner of darkness,-- oppressed by a thousand apprehensions and crushed by the weight of fear? Until today no light has come its way and yet do you know that in that solitude and stillness I have been conscious of a little something stirring in me and trying to make me believe that help would come? But the dreariness came again and strange grotesque shapes pressed about me and bade me let go and sink and sink....
Then I lay despairing and could not move or raise my eyes--but suddenly, when my faith had almost ceased to be....
God put out His Hand and, stooping down--touched me!
LOVE
It seems absurd I did not recognize it at once, but at first my thoughts were indefinite and I did not know by what name to call it. I had always looked upon it as something so much more personal and individual, and coming this way as it did, it seemed new and strange. It came to me in the subway. I remember it had been raining and as I entered the train I remarked to myself on the hideous smell of damp clothing and dripping umbrellas. At first the crowd was oppressive; I who hate crowds so, shrank a little and tried to gain my balance. It was just then the peculiar thing happened....
Suddenly, in spite of the fact that I was pushed and pulled here and there I did not seem to mind. A man rose giving me a seat, and as I sank into it and the crowds thinned out at a station, I looked across the train and saw a woman dozing in the corner. Her face was worn, white and pinched; her clothes dirty and her hat sliding off.
Every time the train swayed her head lurched forward, each second seeming to assume a more uncomfortable position. I looked at her pathetic face and longed with all my heart to put her tired head upon my shoulder, taking my coat and wrapping it around her emaciated form.
Then I looked down the train and saw an old man; he had apparently been to the hospital, because his head was bandaged and his face contracted from time to time in pain. He gazed slyly about, and when he thought no one was looking he spat upon the floor between his legs. Ordinarily I should have wanted to kill him for it, but then, oddly enough, I felt no disgust but only a great pity and sympathy for him.
A small child opposite was screaming shrilly and every few seconds licking the window pane, while his parents fought and argued with each other beside him. I wanted to take their hands and tell them not to quarrel and I longed to take the child on my lap; cuddling it to me and distracting it from the soiled window pane.
Then as I gazed at all the faces along the seats a great understanding and sympathy for them sprang up within me. I wished I could take them by the hand one by one out into the sunlight, giving them what they most desired, and then be able to rejoice at their good fortune in which I would share no part. I forgot myself completely and a spirit of exaltation came to me such as I had never experienced before. The subway ceased to smell and upon each face and in my heart I seemed to discern a great light. I held my breath while I felt as if I were being carried on by some unknown harmony and rhythm; I was sure that all the eyes in the train had grown kindly and that no one harbored evil in his heart.
Before the feeling faded away--as I knew it would-- and left me again my same selfish and miserable self, I longed to ascertain what this sublime mood could be. As I wondered, back from my brain and all the way down to my heart I heard the words beating and hammering my answer----
“This is love!” they cried.
DISGUST
Do you remember the day I left your house so suddenly and rushed out on the street? Or perhaps you do not recall it and did not remark my absence,--you had so many people there, and your house was fragrant with such quantities of flowers, and every one seemed to pretend at being gay, even if he were not.
And I? I left it all behind me because I heard you boasting in such a light-hearted way of all we had dreamed of and loved so well.
My heart trembled at your careless words and I closed my ears and rushed out before you should have killed my last illusion and made me hate you. Your house, which a few moments before seemed gay and bright, suddenly flung from out its windows the flag of hypocrisy, and became meaningless and empty.
My head ached; and I hurried aimlessly along the street peering into the faces of the passers-by, thinking that in humanity I should find a solace and an answer.... But they only pushed and knocked against me and not one spirit spoke to me.
Then I went into the museum and thought that there with art I could find revelation and be comforted. So I walked through the galleries, but I was followed unendingly by the same unsparing mob that jostled me in the streets and suspicious guards glared at me while all around hung low rows of portraits in heterogeneous fashion which, melting into one another, lost their personality and meant nothing to me.