Los más leídos ▸
Katherine Mansfield
The candle is a fairy house
That’s smooth and round and white,
And Mother carries it about
Whenever it is night.
Right at the top a fairy lives,
A lovely yellow one,
And if you blow a little bit
It has all sorts of fun.
It bows and dances by itself
In such a clever way,
And then it stretches very tall;
“Well, it grows fast,” you say.
The little chimney of the house
Is black and really sweet,
And there the candle fairy stands
Though you can’t see its feet.
You glow in my heart
Like the flames of uncounted candles.
But when I go to warm my hands,
My clumsiness overturns the light,
And then I stumble
Against the tables and chairs.
A LITTLE brown room in a sea of fields.
Fields pink as rose-mallows
Under a fading rose-mallow sky.
Four candles on a tall iron candlestick.
Clustered like altar lights.
Above, the models of four brown Chinese junks
Sailing round the brown walls.
Silent and motionless.
The quick cut of a vibrating string.
Another, and another.
Biting into the silence.
Notes pierce, sharper and sharper ;
They draw up in a freshness of sound.
Higher — higher, to the whiteness of intolerable beauty.
They are jagged and clear.
Like snow peaks against the sky ;
my own acre
among the whorehouses of the Lord
I walk ’round it
finding no time to speak
walk my mastiff on by the virtuosos
with their discreet tricks
who are witty till 12 at night
and I am ashamed to sit alone
my candle not enough to light
my own ache
a bat in the church
they light candles
for the new year
Morning is a present
I did not receive.
I chose a pair
of candlesticks, made
a well in the night,
and so was rid
of another Christmas.
By the light of the moon,
my little candle is a stranger.
The pretty woman speaks Latin
and I love her books
by an inch of candle,
see the images burn
in the sovereign, singing tongue.
In the red, I eat as little as I can
of old candle.
See how they come to double
the price of things.
I am troubled
with a secret dispute:
who I will marry
and in which ink.
I examine my head and find a closet:
a boy’s clothes,
mischief and a candle,
a great fear.
a scallop is absurd for ears
and delicate of heart
it heard an alarm and clapped
only to go
so I bless God but fear
my candle going out
Now the days begin to shorten
and when the candle is going out
the smoke descends
like a mind turned quiet
and we hear love take leave
without speaking…
Bed and rose,
wine, fire, candle, soap
and many other things…
Time and trouble
give me rain and a hat
and I am
a sad king.