Lord of the Galicians,
Ferdinand
II.
Pound-Ezra-Umbra-The-Early-Poems-of-Ezra-Pound
'Tis no fit speech for me.
Mistress she seems of such great modesty
That every other woman were called " Wrath. "
The thing she's like when her glance strays,
No one could ever tell the charm she hath For all the noble powers bend toward her
She being beauty's godhead manifest.
Our daring ne'er before held such high quest ; But ye ! There is not in you so much grace That we can understand her rightfully.
92
' i '^
? PERCHE NON FURO A ME GLI OCCHI MIEI SPENTI
AH why ! why were mine eyes not quenched for me, Or stricken so that from their vision none
Had ever come within my mind to say
"" Listen, dost thou not hear me in thine heart ?
Fear of new torments was then so displayed
To me, so cruel and so sharp of edge
That soul " us
my cried, Ah, mistress, bring aid,
Lest the eyes and I remain in grief always. "
But thou hast left-them so that Love's self cometh
And weepeth over them so piteously
That there's a deep voice heard whose sound in part
Turned unto words, is this: "Whoever knoweth Pain's depth, Jet him look on this man whose heart Death beareth in his hand cut cruciform. "
93
? AVETE IN VOI LI FIORI, E LA VERDURA
THOU hast in thee the flower and the green
And that which gleameth and is fair of sight, Thy form is more resplendent than sun's sheen ; Who sees thee not, can ne'er know worth aright. Nay, in this world there is no creature seen
So fashioned fair and full of all delight ;
Fearers of Love who fearing meet thy mien,
Thereby assured, do solve them of their fright.
The ladies of whom thy cortege consisteth Please me in this, that they've thy favour won ;
I bid them now, as courtesy existeth,
To prize more high thy lordship of their state,
And honour thee with powers commensurate, Since thou dost shine out far above them all.
94
? CERTO MIE RIME A TE MANDAR VOGLIENDO
NAY, when I would have sent my verses to thee
To say how harshly my heart is oppressed, Love in an ashen vision manifest
Appeared and spake : " Say not that I foredo thee. For though thy friend be he I understand
He is, he will not have his spirit so inured
But that to hear of all thou hast endured,
Of that blare flame that hath thee 'neath its hand, Would blear his mind out. Verily before !
Yea, he were dead, heart, life, ere he should hear
To the last meaning of the portent wrought.
Andthou thouknowestwellIamAmor ;
Who leave with thee mine ashen likeness here
And bear from thee thine 9' away every thought.
95
? MORTE GENTIL, RIMEDIO DE' CATTIVI
DEATH who art haught, the wretched's remedy, Grace ! Grace ! hands joined I do beseech it thee,
Come, see and conquer for worse things on me Are launched by love. My senses that did live,
Consumed are and quenched, and e'en in this place Where I was galliard, now I see that I am
Fallen away, and where my steps I misplace,
Fall pain and grief; to open tears I nigh am,
And greater ills He'd send if greater may be.
Sweet Death, now is the time thou may'st avail me
And snatch me from His hand's hostility.
Ahwoe howoftI "Lovetell menow: ! cry
Why dost thou ill only unto thine own, " Like him of hell who maketh the damned groan ?
? UNA FIGURA DE LA DONNA MIA
MY Lady's face it is they worship there At San Michele in Orto, Guido mine,
Near her fair semblance that is clear and holy Sinners take refuge and get consolation. Whoso before her kneeleth reverently
No longer wasteth but is comforted ;
The sick are healed and devils driven forth,
And those with crooked eyes see straightway straight. Great ills she cureth in an open place,
With reverence the folk all kneel unto her, And two lamps shed the glow about her form.
Her voice is borne out through far-lying ways
'Till brothers minor : "
cry Idolatry,"
For envy of her precious neighbourhood.
O CIECO MONDO, DI LUSINGHE
PIENO
Called a Madrigale
O WORLD gone blind and full of false deceits,
Deadly's the poison with thy joys connected,
O treacherous thou, and guileful and suspected : Sure he is mad who for thy checks retreats
And for scant nothing looseth that green prize Which over-gleans all other loveliness ;
Wherefore the wise man scorns thee at all hours When he would taste the fruit of pleasant flowers.
G
97
.
? DI DOGLIA COR CONVIEN CH'IO PORTO
Fragment of a Canzone, miscalled a Ballata
SITH need hath bound my heart in bands of grief,
Sith I turn flame in pleasure's lapping fire, I sing how I lost a treasure by desire
And left all virtue and am low descended.
I tell, with senses dead, what scant relief
My heart from war hath in his life's small might. Nay ! were not death turned pleasure in my sight Then Love would weep to see me so offended.
Yet, for I'm come upon a madder season, The firm opinion which I held of late
Stands in a changed state,
And I show not how much my soul is grieved
There where I am deceived
Since through my heart midway a mistress went And in her passage all mine hopes were spent.
? FROM THE BALLATE OF GUIDO CAVALCANTl
IO VIDI DONNE CON LA DONNA MIA
FAIR women I saw passing where she passed, And none among them woman, to my vision ; But were like nothing save her shadow cast.
I praise her in no cause save verity's
None other dispraise, if ye comprehend me. A spirit moveth speaking prophecies
Foretelling : Spirits mine, swift death shall end ye, Cruel ! if seeing me no tears forelend ye,
Sith but the being in thought sets wide mine eyes For sobbing out my heart's full memories.
99
? SE M'HAI DEL TUTTO OBLIATO MERCEDE
THO' all thy piteous mercy fall away Not for thy failing shall my faith so fall,
That Faith speaks on of services unpaid To the unpitied heart.
What that heart feeleth ? Ye believe me not. Who sees such things ? Surely no one at all,
For Love me gives a spirit on his part Who dieth if portrayed.
Thence, when that pleasure so assaileth me. And the sighing faileth me,
Within my heart a rain of love descendeth
With such benignity That I am forced to cry :
, " Thou hast me utterly. "
100
? VEGGIO NEGLI OCCHI DE LA DONNA MIA
LIGHT do I see within my Lady's eyes
And loving spirits in its plenisphere
Which bear in strange delight on my heart's care
Till Joy's awakened from that sepulchre.
That which befalls me in my Lady's presence
Bars explanations intellectual,
I seem to see a lady wonderful
Spring forth between her lips, one whom no sense Can fully tell the mind of, and one whence
Another, in beauty, springeth marvellous,
From whom a star goes forth and speaketh thus :
"Now thy salvation is gone forth from thee. "
There where this Lady's loveliness appeareth,
Is heard a voice which goes before her ways
And seems to sing her name with such sweet praise That my mouth fears to speak what name she beareth, And my heart trembles for the grace she weareth, While far in my soul's deep the sighs astir
" Look well
Then shalt thou see her virtue risen in heaven. "
LA FORTE, E NOVA MIA DISAVVENTURA
THE harshness of my strange and new misventure
Hath in my mind distraught
The wonted fragrance of love's every thought.
101
Speak thus
:
!
For if thou look on her,
? Already is my life in such part shaken
That she, my gracious lady of delight, Hath left my soul most desolate forsaken
And e'en the place she was, is gone from sight ; 'Till there rests not within me so much might
That my mind can reach forth
To comprehend the flower of her worth.
A noble thought is come well winged with death, Saying that I shall ne'er see her again,
And this harsh torment, with no pity fraught, Increaseth bitterness and in its strain
I cry, and find none to attend my pain,
While for the flame I feel,
I thank that lord who turns grief's fortune wheel.
Full of all anguish and within Fear's gates
The spirit of my heart lies sorrowfully, Thanks to that Fortune who my fortune hates,
Who 'th spun death's lot where it most irketh me
And given hope that's ta'en in treachery, Which ere it died aright
Had robbed me of mine hours of delight.
O words of mine foredone and full of terror,
Whither it please ye, go forth and proclaim
Grief. Throughout all your wayfare, in your error Make ye soft clamour of my Lady's name,
While I downcast and fallen upon shame Keep scant shields over me,
To whomso runs, death's colours cover me.
102
? ERA IN PENSIER D'AMOR, QUAND' IO TROVAI
BEING in thought of love I came upon Two damsels strange
So quiet in their modest courtesies Their aspect coming softly on my vision
Made me " reply,
" The rains
Who
Of love are falling, falling within us. "
sang
hold the
O' the virtues noble, high, without omission.
Surely ye
keys
Ah, little maids, hold me not in derision,
For the wound I bear within me
5
And this heart o' mine ha slain me.
I was in Toulouse lately. "
And then toward me they so turned their eyes That they could see my wounded heart's ill ease, And how a little spirit born of sighs
Had issued forth from out the cicatrice.
Perceiving so the depth of my distress, She who was smiling, said,
"Love's joy hath vanquished
greatly
Then she who had first mocked me, in better part
Gave me all courtesy in her replies.
who thine heart upon
Thisman. Beholdhow
"
She " That said,
Lady,
Cut her full image, clear, by Love's device,
Hath looked so fixedly in through thine eyes That she's made Love appear there ;
If thou great pain or fear bear
Recommend thee unto him "
!
103
,
!
? Then the other piteous, full of misericorde, Fashioned for pleasure in love's fashioning :
" His heart's apparent wound, I give my word,
Was got from eyes whose power's an o'er great thmg, Which eyes have left in his a glittering
That mine cannot endure.
Tell me, hast thou a sure
"
To her dread question with such fears attended,
" Maid o' the I " memories render wood," said, my
Tolosa and the dusk and these things blended : A lady in a corded bodice, slender
Mandetta is the name Love's spirits lend her A lightning swift to fall,
Memory of those eyes ?
And naught within recall
Death wounds Her Save, ! My !
ENVOI
" eyes!
Speed Ballatet' unto Tolosa city
And go in softly 'neath the golden roof
And there cry out, " Will courtesy or pity
Of any most fair lady, put to proof,
Lead me to her with whom is my behoof? "
Then if thou get her choice Say, with a lowered voice, "It is thy grace I seek here. "
104
? PERCH' IO NON SPERO DI TORNAR GlA MAI
BECAUSE no hope is left me, Ballatetta, Of return to Tuscany,
Light-foot go thou some fleet way
Unto my Lady straightway, And out of her courtesy
Great honour will she do thee.
Tidings thou bearest with thee sorrow-fain Full of all grieving, overcast with fear.
On guard ! Lest any one see thee or hear, Any who holds high nature in disdain,
For sure if so, to my increase of pain, Thou wert made prisoner
And held afar from her ;
Hereby new harms were given Me and, after death even, Dolour and griefs renewed.
Thou knowest, Ballatetta, that Death layeth His hand upon me whom hath Life forsaken ;
Thou knowest well how great a tumult swayeth My heart at sound of her whom each sense crieth, Till all my mournful body is so shaken
That I cannot endure here,
Would'st thou make service sure here ?
Lead forth my soul with thee
(I pray thee earnestly)
When it parts from my heart here.
105
? Ah, Ballatetta, to thy friendliness,
I do give o'er this trembling soul's poor case. Bring thou it there where her dear pity is,
And when thou hast found that Lady of all grace
Speak through thy sighs, my Ballad, with thy face Low bowed, thy words in sum :
"
servant is come
This soul who would dwell with thee
Behold, thy
Asundered suddenly
From Him, Love's servitor. "
O smothered voice and weak that tak'st the road Out from the weeping heart and dolorous,
Go, crying out my shatter'd mind's alarm,
Forth with my soul and this song piteous
Until thou find a lady of such charm,
So sweetly intelligent
That e'en thy sorrow is spent.
Take thy fast place before her. And thou, Soul mine, adore her
Alway, with all thy might.
QUANDO DI MORTE MI CONVIEN TRAR VITA
IF all my life be but some deathly moving Joy dragged from heaviness
Seeing my deep distress
How doth Love's spirit call me unto loving ?
106
? How summon up my heart for dalliance ? When 'tis so sorrowful
And manacled by sighs so mournfully
That e'en the will for grace dare not advance ?
Weariness over all
Spoileth that heart of power, despoiling me. And song, sweet laughter, and benignity
Are grown three grievous sighs, Till all men's careless eyes
May see Death risen to my countenance.
Love that is born of loving like delight Within my heart sojourneth
And fashions a new from person
1
desire, Yet toppleth down to vileness all his might,
So all love's daring spurneth
That man who knoweth service and its hire.
For love, then why doth he of me inquire ?
Only because he sees
Me cry on death for ease,
While Death doth point me on toward all mischance.
And I can cry for Grief so heavily,
As hath man never,
For Grief drags to my heart a heart so sore
With wandering speech of her, who cruelly Outwearieth me ever . . . !
O Mistress, spoiler of my valour's store ! Accursed by the hour when Amor
Was born in such a wise That my life in his eyes
Grew matter of pleasure and acceptable ! 1 Formandodidesionovapersona.
107
? SOL PER PIETA TI PREGO, GIOVINEZZA
FOR naught save pity do I pray thy youth That thou have care for Mercy's castaway !
Death cometh on me in his battle array !
And my soul finds him in his decadence
So over-wearied by that spirit wried
(For whom thou car'st not till his ways be tried,
Showing thyself thus wise in ignorance
To hold him hostile) that I pray that mover
And victor and slayer of every hard-wrought thing That ere mine end he show him conquering.
Sith at his blows, who holds life in despite,
Thou seest clear how, in my barbed distress,
He wounds me there where dwells mine humbleness, Till my soul living turneth in my sight
To speech, in words that grievous sighs o'ercover. Until mine eyes see worth's self wavering
Grant me thy mercies for my covering !
108
? IO PRIEGO VOI CHE DI DOLOR PARLATE
I PRAY ye gentles, ye who speak of grief, Out of new clemency, for my relief
That ye disdain not to attend my pain.
I see my heart stand up before mine eyes
While my self-torturing soul receiveth
Love's mortal stroke and in that moment dies,
Yea, in the very instant he perceiveth
Milady, and yet that smiling sprite who cleaveth To her in joy, this very one is he
Who sets the seal of my mortality.
But should ye hear my sad heart's lamentation Then would a trembling reach your heart's midmost. For Love holds with me such sweet conversation
That Pity, by your sighs, ye would accost. To all less keen than ye the sense were lost,
Nor other hearts could think soft nor speak loudly How dire the throng of sorrows that enshroud me.
Yea from my mind behold what tears arise As soon as it hath news of Her, Milady,
Forth move they making passage through the eyes
Wherethrough there goes a spirit sorrowing, Which entereth the air so weak a thing
That no man else its place discovereth Or deems it such an almoner of Death.
? FIVE CANZONl OF ARNAUT DANIEL L'AURA AMARA
THE bitter air
Strips panoply From trees
Where softer winds set leaves,
And glad Beaks
Now in brakes are coy, Scarce peep the wee Mates
And un-mates.
What gaud's the work?
What good the glees? What curse
I strive to shake !
Me hath she cast from high, In fell disease
I lie, and deathly fearing.
So clear the flare
That first lit me
To seize
Her whom my soul believes ; If cad
Sneaks,
Blabs, slanders, myjoy Counts little fee
Baits
no
? And their hates.
I scorn their perk And preen, at ease.
Disburse
Can she, and wake
Such firm delights, that I Am hers, froth, lees,
Bigod ! from toe to ear-ring.
Amor, look yare ! Know certainly
The keys :
How she thy suit receives ; Nor add
Piques,
'Twere folly to annoy. I'm true, so dree
Fates
No debates
Shake me, nor jerk. My verities
Turn terse, And yet I ache ;
Her lips, not snows that fly
Have potencies
To slake, to cool my searing.
4
Behold my prayer, (Or company
Of these)
Seeks, whom such height achieves ;
in
;
? Well clad
Seeks
Her, and would not cloy.
Heart apertly States
Thought. Hopewaits 'Gainst death to irk :
False brevities
And worse ! !
To her I raik,
Sole her ; all others' dry Felicities
I count not worth the leering.
Ah visage, where
Each quality But frees
One pride-shaft more, that cleaves Me; mad frieks
(O' thy beck) destroy,
And mockery Baits
Me, and rates. Yet I not shirk
Thy velleities, Averse
Me not, nor slake
Desire. God draws not nigh
To Dome,1 with pleas Wherein's so little veering.
1 " Cils de Doma " Passage unexplained by commentators,
taken some to mean the Virgin, Our Lady of Puy de Dome. There is another
Dome, on Dordoigne.
being
by
? Now chant prepare, And melody
To please
The king; who will judge thy sheaves.
Worth, sad,
Sneaks
Here ; double employ Hath there. Get thee Plates
Full, and cates,
Nor lurk Here till decrees
Reverse,
And ring thou take.
Straight t' Arago I'd ply Cross the wide seas
But "Rome" disturbs my hearing.
CODA
At midnight mirk, In secrecies
I nurse
My served make 1
In heart ; nor try
My melodies
At other's door nor mearing.
Make =fere, companion ; Raik =haste precipitate.
113
Gifts, go !
? AUTET E BAS ENTRELS PRIMS
FUOILLS
Cadahus En son us.
Now high and low, where leaves renew,
Come buds on bough and spalliard pleach And no beak nor throat is muted,
Auzel each in tune contrasted Letteth loose
Wriblis 1
Joy for them and spring would set
Song on me, but Love assaileth
Me and sets my words t' his dancing.
I thank my God and mine eyes too,
Since through them the perceptions reach, Porters ofjoys that have refuted
Every ache and shame I've tasted. They reduce
Pains, and noose
Me in Amor's corded net.
Her beauty in me prevaileth
Till bonds seem but joy's advancing.
My thanks, Amor, that I win through ;
Thy long delays I naught impeach Though flame 's in my marrow rooted
I'd not quench it, well 't hath lasted,
Burns profuse, Held recluse
Lest knaves know our hearts are met. Murrain on the mouth that aileth,
So he finds her not entrancing.
1
spruce.
Wriblis Tf
;
? He doth in Love's book misconstrue, And from that book none can him teach, Who saith ne'er 's in speech recruited Aught whereby the heart is dasted. Words' abuse
Doth traduce
Worth, but I run no such debt.
Right 'tis if man over-raileth
He tear tongue on tooth mischancing.
That I love her, is pride, is true, But my fast secret knows no breach.
Since Paul's writ was executed
Or the forty days first fasted, Not Cristus
Could produce
Her similar, where one can get
Charms total, for no charm faileth Her who's memory's enhancing.
Grace and valour, the keep of you She is, who holds me ; each to each,
She sole, I sole, so fast suited, Other women's lures are wasted, And no truce
But misuse
Have I for them, they're not let To my heart, where she regaleth Me with delights I'm not chancing.
Arnaut loves, and ne'er will fret
Love with o'er-speech, his throat quaileth, Braggart voust is naught t' his fancy.
? GLAMOUR AND INDIGO
SWEET cries and cracks
and lays and chants inflected
By auzels who, in their latin belikes,
Chirme each to each, even as you and I
Pipe toward those girls on whom our thoughts attract ; Are but more cause that I, whose overweening
Search is. toward the Noblest, set in cluster
Lines where no word pulls wry, no rhyme breaks
gauges.
No culs de sacs
nor false ways me deflected
When first I pierced her fort within its dykes,
Hers, for whom my hungry insistency
Passes the gnaw whereby was Vivian wracked ;
Day-long I stretch, all times, like a bird preening, And yawn for her, who hath o'er others thrust her
As high as true joy is o'er ire and rages.
Welcome not lax,
and my words were protected
Not blabbed to other, when I set my likes
On her ; not brass but gold was 'neath the die, That day we kissed, and after it she flacked
O'er me her cloak of indigo, for screening
Me from all culvertz' eyes, whose blathered bluster Can set such spites abroad, win jibes for wages.
116
? God, who did tax
not Longus' sin, respected That blind centurion beneath the spikes
And him forgave, grant that we two shall lie Within one room, and seal therein our pact,
Yea, that she kiss me in the half-light, leaning
To me, and laugh and strip and stand forth in the lustre
Where lamp-light with light limb but half engages.
The flowers wax
with buds but half perfected ;
Tremble on twig that shakes when the bird strikes
In homage similar, you'd count them sages.
Mouth, now what knacks ! !
What folly hath infected
Thee ? Gifts, that th' Emperor of the Salonikes Or Lord of Rome were greatly honoured by,
Or Syria's lord, thou dost from me distract ;
O fool I am ! to hope for intervening
But not more fresh than she !
Though Rome and Palestine were one compact, Would lure me from her; and with hands convening I give me to her. And if kings could muster
From Love that shields not love !
To call him mad, who 'gainst his joy engages.
POLITICAL POSTSCRIPT
The slimy jacks
with adders' tongues bisected,
I fear no whit, nor have ; and if these tykes Have led Gallicia's king to villainy
No empery,
Yea, it were juster
? His cousin in pilgrimage hath he attacked
Weknow RaimontheCount'sson
Stands without screen. The royal filibuster Redeems not honour till he unbar the cages.
CODA
I should have seen it, but I was on such affair, Seeing the true king crown'd, here in Estampa.
NOTES. Vivien, Strophe 2, nebotz Sain Guillem, an allusion to the romance Enfances Vivien.
Longus, centurion in the Crucifixion legend.
Lord of the Galicians, Ferdinand II. King of Galicia, 1157-1188, son of
Berangere, sister of Raimon Berenger IV. ("quattro figlie ebbe," etc. ) of Aragon, Count of Barcelona. His second son, lieutenant of
Provence, 1168.
The King at Etampe, Phillipe August, crowned 29th May 1180, at age of 1 6. This poem might date Arnaut's birth as early as 1150.
118
my meaning
? LANCAN SON PASSAT LI GIURE
WHEN the frosts are gone and over, And are stripped from hill and hollow, When in close the blossom blinketh From the spray where the fruit cometh,
The flower and song and the clarion Of the season sweet and merry
Bid me with high joy to bear me
Through days while April's coming on.
Though joy's right hard to discover, Such" sly ways doth false Love follow,
Only sure he never drinketh
At the fount where true faith hometh ;
A thousand girls, but two or one Of her falsehoods over chary,
Stabbing whom vows make unwary Their tenderness is vilely done.
The most wise runs drunkest lover,
Sans pint-pot or wine to swallow, If a whim her locks unlinketh, One stray hair his noose becometh.
When evasion's fairest shown
Then the sly puss purrs most near ye. Innocents at heart be ware ye,
When she seems colder than a nun.
See, I thought so highly of her ! Trusted, but the game is hollow*
Not one won piece soundly clinketh ; All the cardinals that Rome hath,
Yea they all were put upon. 119
? Her device is "
Slyly Wary. "
Cunning are the snares they carry.
Yet while they watched they'd be undone,
Whom Love makes so mad a rover, '11 take a cuckoo for a swallow,
If she say so, sooth ! he thinketh
There's a plain where Puy-de-Dome is. Till his eyes and nails are gone,
He'll throw dice and follow fairly Sure as old tales never vary
For his fond heart he is foredone.
Well I know, sans writing's cover, What a plain is, what's a hollow.
I know well whose honour sinketh, And who 'tis that shame consumeth.
They meet. I lose reception. 'Gainst this cheating I'd not parry,
Nor amid such false speech tarry,
But from her lordship will be gone.
CODA
Sir Bertram, sure no pleasure's won
Like this freedom, naught so merry 'Twixt Nile 'n' where the suns miscarry
To where the rain falls from the sun.
120
? ANS QUEL CIM RESTON DE BRANCHAS
ERE the winter recommences
And the leaf from bough is wrested, On Love's mandate will I render
A brief end to long prolusion :
So well have I been taught his steps and paces
That I can stop the tidal-sea's inflowing.
My stot outruns the hare ; his speed amazes.
Me he bade without pretences
That I go not, though requested ; That I make no new surrender
Nor abandon our seclusion :
" Differ from violets, whose fear effaces
Their hue ere winter; behold the glowing
Laurel stays, stay thou. Year long the genet blazes. "
" You who commit no offences 'Gainst constancy ; have not quested ;
Though a maid send her
Assent not !
Suit to thee. Think you confusion
Will come to her who shall track out your traces ?
And give your enemies a chance for boasts and crowing ? No!
After God, see that she have your praises. "
Coward, shall I trust not defences. ! Faint ere the suit be tested ? Follow ! till she extend her Favour !
Keep on, try conclusion,
For if I get in this naught but disgraces,
Then must I pilgrimage past Ebro's flowing And seek for luck amid the Lernian mazes.
121
? If I've passed bridge-rails and fences, Think you then that I am bested ?
No ! for with no food or slender
Ration, I'd have joy's profusion
To hold her kissed, and there are never spaces
Wide to keep me from her, but she'd be showing In my heart, and stand forth before his gazes.
Lovelier maid from Nile to Sences Is not vested nor divested,
So great is her bodily splendour That you would think it illusion.
Amor, if she but hold me in her embraces,
I shall not feel cold hail nor winter's blowing Nor break for all the pain in fever's dazes.
Arnaut hers from foot to face is,
He would not have Lucerne, without her, owing Him, nor lord the land whereon the Ebro grazes.
122
? THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T. E. HULME
Hulme's five poems were published as his Complete Poetical Works at the end of Ripostes, in 1912; there is, and now can be, no further addition, unless my abbreviation of some of his talk made when he came home with his first wound in 1915 may be half counted among them.
AUTUMN
A TOUCH of cold in the Autumn night
I walked abroad.
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded, And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.
MANA ABODA
Beauty is the marking-time, the stationary vibration, the feigned ecstasy of an impulse unable to reach its natural end.
MANA ABODA, whose bent form
The sky in arched circle is,
Seems ever for an unknown grief to mourn. YetonadayI heardhercry:
" I weary of the roses and the singing poets Josephs all, not tall enough to try. "
123
? ABOVE THE DOCK
ABOVE the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast's corded height, Hangsthemoon. Whatseemedsofaraway Is but a child's balloon, forgotten after play.
THE EMBANKMENT
Thefantasia ofafallen gentleman on a cold> bitter night ONCE, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement, Now see I
That warmth's the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.
CONVERSION
LIGHTHEARTED I walked into the valley wood In the time of hyacinths,
Till beauty like a scented cloth
Cast over, stifled me. I was bound Motionless and faint of breath
By loveliness that is her own eunuch.
Now pass I to the final river Ignominiously, in a sack, without sound, As any peeping Turk to the Bosphorus.
124
? POEM Abbreviatedfrom the Conversation of Mr T. E. H.
OVER the flat slope of St Eloi A wide wall of sandbags.
Night,
In the silence desultory men
Pottering over small fires, cleaning their mess-tins : To and fro, from the lines,
Men walk as on Piccadilly, Making paths in the dark, Through scattered dead horses, Over a dead Belgian's belly.
The Germans have rockets. The English have no rockets.
Behind the lines, cannon, hidden, lying back miles. Before the line, chaos :
My mind is a corridor. The minds about me are corridors.
Nothing suggests itself. There is nothing to do but keep on.
125
? NOTES
NOTE TO "LA FRAISNE"
" When the soul is exhausted of fire, then doth the spirit return unto its primal nature and there is upon it a peace great and of the woodland
"
magna pax et si[~vestris"
Then becometh it kin to the faun and the dryad, a woodland- dweller amid the rocks and streams
" consociis faunis dryadisque inter saxa syl<varum"
Janus of Basel. 1
Also has Mr Yeats in his Celtic Twilight treated of such, and I because in such a mood, feeling myself divided between myself corporal and a self aetherial " a dweller by streams and in wood land," eternal because simple in elements
being
freed of the
weight
of a soul "
capable
of salvation or
damnation,"
"
Aeternus quia simplex naturae^
a grievous striving thing that after much straining was mercifully taken
from me ;
'*
as had one passed saying as one in the Book of the Dead.
am the assembler of
and had taken it with
lo
leaving me thus simplex naturae, even so at peace and trans-sentient as a wood pool I made it.
The Legend thus : " Miraut de Garzelas, after the pains he bore a-loving Riels of Calidorn and that to none avail, ran mad in the forest.
"Yea even as Peire Vidal ran as a wolf for her of Penautier though some say that 'twas folly or as Garulf Bisclavret so ran truly, till the King brought him respite (as one may read in the Lais of Marie de France), so was he ever by the Ash Tree. "
Hear ye his speaking : (low, slowly he speaketh it, as one drawn apart, reflecting) (tgart).
1 Referendum for contrast. Daemonalitas of the Rev. Father Sinistrari of Ameno (1600 arc. ). "A treatise wherein is shown that there are in existence on earth rational creatures besides man, endowed like him with a body and soul, that are born and die like him, redeemed by our LordJesusChrist,andcapableofreceivingsalvationordamnation. " Latin and English text. Liseux, Paris, 1879.
127
I,
I,
souls,"
him,
? Personae
La Fraisne Cino Audiart Marvoil Altaforte Vidal
Sketches " (in
PERSONAE AND PORTRAITS Main outline of E. P. 's 'work to date
Sketches (in "Lustra") Millwins
Bellaires etc.
(Later) I Vecchii
Nodier Raconte etc.
(and Cathay in general)
Ripostes ") Portrait d'une Femme
Major Seafarer
Phasellus Ille Girl
An Object Quies
Exile's Letter
Personae
Homage to Sextus Propertius
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALumeSpento.
Personae, 1909
Exultations, 1909 vElkin Mathews. London.
Canzoni, 1911
Ripostes, 1912. Swift. Reissue by Elkin Mathews, 1915.
Lustra, author's edition. Pp. 124. 1916.
Lustra, publisher's edition. Pp. 116. Elkin Mathews, 1916.
Quia Pauper Amavi. Egoist Ltd. , 1919. (Cathay, Mathews, 1915 ;
included in Lustra. )
Translation of Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti. Swift.
London, 1912.
American edition. Small Maynard. Boston.
Prose works : Spirit of Romance ; Gaudier Rrzeska ; Noh, a Study
of the Classical Stage of Japan (from the MSS. of Ernest Fenollosa) ; Pavannes and Divisions ; Instigations.
128
Venice, 1908.
That every other woman were called " Wrath. "
The thing she's like when her glance strays,
No one could ever tell the charm she hath For all the noble powers bend toward her
She being beauty's godhead manifest.
Our daring ne'er before held such high quest ; But ye ! There is not in you so much grace That we can understand her rightfully.
92
' i '^
? PERCHE NON FURO A ME GLI OCCHI MIEI SPENTI
AH why ! why were mine eyes not quenched for me, Or stricken so that from their vision none
Had ever come within my mind to say
"" Listen, dost thou not hear me in thine heart ?
Fear of new torments was then so displayed
To me, so cruel and so sharp of edge
That soul " us
my cried, Ah, mistress, bring aid,
Lest the eyes and I remain in grief always. "
But thou hast left-them so that Love's self cometh
And weepeth over them so piteously
That there's a deep voice heard whose sound in part
Turned unto words, is this: "Whoever knoweth Pain's depth, Jet him look on this man whose heart Death beareth in his hand cut cruciform. "
93
? AVETE IN VOI LI FIORI, E LA VERDURA
THOU hast in thee the flower and the green
And that which gleameth and is fair of sight, Thy form is more resplendent than sun's sheen ; Who sees thee not, can ne'er know worth aright. Nay, in this world there is no creature seen
So fashioned fair and full of all delight ;
Fearers of Love who fearing meet thy mien,
Thereby assured, do solve them of their fright.
The ladies of whom thy cortege consisteth Please me in this, that they've thy favour won ;
I bid them now, as courtesy existeth,
To prize more high thy lordship of their state,
And honour thee with powers commensurate, Since thou dost shine out far above them all.
94
? CERTO MIE RIME A TE MANDAR VOGLIENDO
NAY, when I would have sent my verses to thee
To say how harshly my heart is oppressed, Love in an ashen vision manifest
Appeared and spake : " Say not that I foredo thee. For though thy friend be he I understand
He is, he will not have his spirit so inured
But that to hear of all thou hast endured,
Of that blare flame that hath thee 'neath its hand, Would blear his mind out. Verily before !
Yea, he were dead, heart, life, ere he should hear
To the last meaning of the portent wrought.
Andthou thouknowestwellIamAmor ;
Who leave with thee mine ashen likeness here
And bear from thee thine 9' away every thought.
95
? MORTE GENTIL, RIMEDIO DE' CATTIVI
DEATH who art haught, the wretched's remedy, Grace ! Grace ! hands joined I do beseech it thee,
Come, see and conquer for worse things on me Are launched by love. My senses that did live,
Consumed are and quenched, and e'en in this place Where I was galliard, now I see that I am
Fallen away, and where my steps I misplace,
Fall pain and grief; to open tears I nigh am,
And greater ills He'd send if greater may be.
Sweet Death, now is the time thou may'st avail me
And snatch me from His hand's hostility.
Ahwoe howoftI "Lovetell menow: ! cry
Why dost thou ill only unto thine own, " Like him of hell who maketh the damned groan ?
? UNA FIGURA DE LA DONNA MIA
MY Lady's face it is they worship there At San Michele in Orto, Guido mine,
Near her fair semblance that is clear and holy Sinners take refuge and get consolation. Whoso before her kneeleth reverently
No longer wasteth but is comforted ;
The sick are healed and devils driven forth,
And those with crooked eyes see straightway straight. Great ills she cureth in an open place,
With reverence the folk all kneel unto her, And two lamps shed the glow about her form.
Her voice is borne out through far-lying ways
'Till brothers minor : "
cry Idolatry,"
For envy of her precious neighbourhood.
O CIECO MONDO, DI LUSINGHE
PIENO
Called a Madrigale
O WORLD gone blind and full of false deceits,
Deadly's the poison with thy joys connected,
O treacherous thou, and guileful and suspected : Sure he is mad who for thy checks retreats
And for scant nothing looseth that green prize Which over-gleans all other loveliness ;
Wherefore the wise man scorns thee at all hours When he would taste the fruit of pleasant flowers.
G
97
.
? DI DOGLIA COR CONVIEN CH'IO PORTO
Fragment of a Canzone, miscalled a Ballata
SITH need hath bound my heart in bands of grief,
Sith I turn flame in pleasure's lapping fire, I sing how I lost a treasure by desire
And left all virtue and am low descended.
I tell, with senses dead, what scant relief
My heart from war hath in his life's small might. Nay ! were not death turned pleasure in my sight Then Love would weep to see me so offended.
Yet, for I'm come upon a madder season, The firm opinion which I held of late
Stands in a changed state,
And I show not how much my soul is grieved
There where I am deceived
Since through my heart midway a mistress went And in her passage all mine hopes were spent.
? FROM THE BALLATE OF GUIDO CAVALCANTl
IO VIDI DONNE CON LA DONNA MIA
FAIR women I saw passing where she passed, And none among them woman, to my vision ; But were like nothing save her shadow cast.
I praise her in no cause save verity's
None other dispraise, if ye comprehend me. A spirit moveth speaking prophecies
Foretelling : Spirits mine, swift death shall end ye, Cruel ! if seeing me no tears forelend ye,
Sith but the being in thought sets wide mine eyes For sobbing out my heart's full memories.
99
? SE M'HAI DEL TUTTO OBLIATO MERCEDE
THO' all thy piteous mercy fall away Not for thy failing shall my faith so fall,
That Faith speaks on of services unpaid To the unpitied heart.
What that heart feeleth ? Ye believe me not. Who sees such things ? Surely no one at all,
For Love me gives a spirit on his part Who dieth if portrayed.
Thence, when that pleasure so assaileth me. And the sighing faileth me,
Within my heart a rain of love descendeth
With such benignity That I am forced to cry :
, " Thou hast me utterly. "
100
? VEGGIO NEGLI OCCHI DE LA DONNA MIA
LIGHT do I see within my Lady's eyes
And loving spirits in its plenisphere
Which bear in strange delight on my heart's care
Till Joy's awakened from that sepulchre.
That which befalls me in my Lady's presence
Bars explanations intellectual,
I seem to see a lady wonderful
Spring forth between her lips, one whom no sense Can fully tell the mind of, and one whence
Another, in beauty, springeth marvellous,
From whom a star goes forth and speaketh thus :
"Now thy salvation is gone forth from thee. "
There where this Lady's loveliness appeareth,
Is heard a voice which goes before her ways
And seems to sing her name with such sweet praise That my mouth fears to speak what name she beareth, And my heart trembles for the grace she weareth, While far in my soul's deep the sighs astir
" Look well
Then shalt thou see her virtue risen in heaven. "
LA FORTE, E NOVA MIA DISAVVENTURA
THE harshness of my strange and new misventure
Hath in my mind distraught
The wonted fragrance of love's every thought.
101
Speak thus
:
!
For if thou look on her,
? Already is my life in such part shaken
That she, my gracious lady of delight, Hath left my soul most desolate forsaken
And e'en the place she was, is gone from sight ; 'Till there rests not within me so much might
That my mind can reach forth
To comprehend the flower of her worth.
A noble thought is come well winged with death, Saying that I shall ne'er see her again,
And this harsh torment, with no pity fraught, Increaseth bitterness and in its strain
I cry, and find none to attend my pain,
While for the flame I feel,
I thank that lord who turns grief's fortune wheel.
Full of all anguish and within Fear's gates
The spirit of my heart lies sorrowfully, Thanks to that Fortune who my fortune hates,
Who 'th spun death's lot where it most irketh me
And given hope that's ta'en in treachery, Which ere it died aright
Had robbed me of mine hours of delight.
O words of mine foredone and full of terror,
Whither it please ye, go forth and proclaim
Grief. Throughout all your wayfare, in your error Make ye soft clamour of my Lady's name,
While I downcast and fallen upon shame Keep scant shields over me,
To whomso runs, death's colours cover me.
102
? ERA IN PENSIER D'AMOR, QUAND' IO TROVAI
BEING in thought of love I came upon Two damsels strange
So quiet in their modest courtesies Their aspect coming softly on my vision
Made me " reply,
" The rains
Who
Of love are falling, falling within us. "
sang
hold the
O' the virtues noble, high, without omission.
Surely ye
keys
Ah, little maids, hold me not in derision,
For the wound I bear within me
5
And this heart o' mine ha slain me.
I was in Toulouse lately. "
And then toward me they so turned their eyes That they could see my wounded heart's ill ease, And how a little spirit born of sighs
Had issued forth from out the cicatrice.
Perceiving so the depth of my distress, She who was smiling, said,
"Love's joy hath vanquished
greatly
Then she who had first mocked me, in better part
Gave me all courtesy in her replies.
who thine heart upon
Thisman. Beholdhow
"
She " That said,
Lady,
Cut her full image, clear, by Love's device,
Hath looked so fixedly in through thine eyes That she's made Love appear there ;
If thou great pain or fear bear
Recommend thee unto him "
!
103
,
!
? Then the other piteous, full of misericorde, Fashioned for pleasure in love's fashioning :
" His heart's apparent wound, I give my word,
Was got from eyes whose power's an o'er great thmg, Which eyes have left in his a glittering
That mine cannot endure.
Tell me, hast thou a sure
"
To her dread question with such fears attended,
" Maid o' the I " memories render wood," said, my
Tolosa and the dusk and these things blended : A lady in a corded bodice, slender
Mandetta is the name Love's spirits lend her A lightning swift to fall,
Memory of those eyes ?
And naught within recall
Death wounds Her Save, ! My !
ENVOI
" eyes!
Speed Ballatet' unto Tolosa city
And go in softly 'neath the golden roof
And there cry out, " Will courtesy or pity
Of any most fair lady, put to proof,
Lead me to her with whom is my behoof? "
Then if thou get her choice Say, with a lowered voice, "It is thy grace I seek here. "
104
? PERCH' IO NON SPERO DI TORNAR GlA MAI
BECAUSE no hope is left me, Ballatetta, Of return to Tuscany,
Light-foot go thou some fleet way
Unto my Lady straightway, And out of her courtesy
Great honour will she do thee.
Tidings thou bearest with thee sorrow-fain Full of all grieving, overcast with fear.
On guard ! Lest any one see thee or hear, Any who holds high nature in disdain,
For sure if so, to my increase of pain, Thou wert made prisoner
And held afar from her ;
Hereby new harms were given Me and, after death even, Dolour and griefs renewed.
Thou knowest, Ballatetta, that Death layeth His hand upon me whom hath Life forsaken ;
Thou knowest well how great a tumult swayeth My heart at sound of her whom each sense crieth, Till all my mournful body is so shaken
That I cannot endure here,
Would'st thou make service sure here ?
Lead forth my soul with thee
(I pray thee earnestly)
When it parts from my heart here.
105
? Ah, Ballatetta, to thy friendliness,
I do give o'er this trembling soul's poor case. Bring thou it there where her dear pity is,
And when thou hast found that Lady of all grace
Speak through thy sighs, my Ballad, with thy face Low bowed, thy words in sum :
"
servant is come
This soul who would dwell with thee
Behold, thy
Asundered suddenly
From Him, Love's servitor. "
O smothered voice and weak that tak'st the road Out from the weeping heart and dolorous,
Go, crying out my shatter'd mind's alarm,
Forth with my soul and this song piteous
Until thou find a lady of such charm,
So sweetly intelligent
That e'en thy sorrow is spent.
Take thy fast place before her. And thou, Soul mine, adore her
Alway, with all thy might.
QUANDO DI MORTE MI CONVIEN TRAR VITA
IF all my life be but some deathly moving Joy dragged from heaviness
Seeing my deep distress
How doth Love's spirit call me unto loving ?
106
? How summon up my heart for dalliance ? When 'tis so sorrowful
And manacled by sighs so mournfully
That e'en the will for grace dare not advance ?
Weariness over all
Spoileth that heart of power, despoiling me. And song, sweet laughter, and benignity
Are grown three grievous sighs, Till all men's careless eyes
May see Death risen to my countenance.
Love that is born of loving like delight Within my heart sojourneth
And fashions a new from person
1
desire, Yet toppleth down to vileness all his might,
So all love's daring spurneth
That man who knoweth service and its hire.
For love, then why doth he of me inquire ?
Only because he sees
Me cry on death for ease,
While Death doth point me on toward all mischance.
And I can cry for Grief so heavily,
As hath man never,
For Grief drags to my heart a heart so sore
With wandering speech of her, who cruelly Outwearieth me ever . . . !
O Mistress, spoiler of my valour's store ! Accursed by the hour when Amor
Was born in such a wise That my life in his eyes
Grew matter of pleasure and acceptable ! 1 Formandodidesionovapersona.
107
? SOL PER PIETA TI PREGO, GIOVINEZZA
FOR naught save pity do I pray thy youth That thou have care for Mercy's castaway !
Death cometh on me in his battle array !
And my soul finds him in his decadence
So over-wearied by that spirit wried
(For whom thou car'st not till his ways be tried,
Showing thyself thus wise in ignorance
To hold him hostile) that I pray that mover
And victor and slayer of every hard-wrought thing That ere mine end he show him conquering.
Sith at his blows, who holds life in despite,
Thou seest clear how, in my barbed distress,
He wounds me there where dwells mine humbleness, Till my soul living turneth in my sight
To speech, in words that grievous sighs o'ercover. Until mine eyes see worth's self wavering
Grant me thy mercies for my covering !
108
? IO PRIEGO VOI CHE DI DOLOR PARLATE
I PRAY ye gentles, ye who speak of grief, Out of new clemency, for my relief
That ye disdain not to attend my pain.
I see my heart stand up before mine eyes
While my self-torturing soul receiveth
Love's mortal stroke and in that moment dies,
Yea, in the very instant he perceiveth
Milady, and yet that smiling sprite who cleaveth To her in joy, this very one is he
Who sets the seal of my mortality.
But should ye hear my sad heart's lamentation Then would a trembling reach your heart's midmost. For Love holds with me such sweet conversation
That Pity, by your sighs, ye would accost. To all less keen than ye the sense were lost,
Nor other hearts could think soft nor speak loudly How dire the throng of sorrows that enshroud me.
Yea from my mind behold what tears arise As soon as it hath news of Her, Milady,
Forth move they making passage through the eyes
Wherethrough there goes a spirit sorrowing, Which entereth the air so weak a thing
That no man else its place discovereth Or deems it such an almoner of Death.
? FIVE CANZONl OF ARNAUT DANIEL L'AURA AMARA
THE bitter air
Strips panoply From trees
Where softer winds set leaves,
And glad Beaks
Now in brakes are coy, Scarce peep the wee Mates
And un-mates.
What gaud's the work?
What good the glees? What curse
I strive to shake !
Me hath she cast from high, In fell disease
I lie, and deathly fearing.
So clear the flare
That first lit me
To seize
Her whom my soul believes ; If cad
Sneaks,
Blabs, slanders, myjoy Counts little fee
Baits
no
? And their hates.
I scorn their perk And preen, at ease.
Disburse
Can she, and wake
Such firm delights, that I Am hers, froth, lees,
Bigod ! from toe to ear-ring.
Amor, look yare ! Know certainly
The keys :
How she thy suit receives ; Nor add
Piques,
'Twere folly to annoy. I'm true, so dree
Fates
No debates
Shake me, nor jerk. My verities
Turn terse, And yet I ache ;
Her lips, not snows that fly
Have potencies
To slake, to cool my searing.
4
Behold my prayer, (Or company
Of these)
Seeks, whom such height achieves ;
in
;
? Well clad
Seeks
Her, and would not cloy.
Heart apertly States
Thought. Hopewaits 'Gainst death to irk :
False brevities
And worse ! !
To her I raik,
Sole her ; all others' dry Felicities
I count not worth the leering.
Ah visage, where
Each quality But frees
One pride-shaft more, that cleaves Me; mad frieks
(O' thy beck) destroy,
And mockery Baits
Me, and rates. Yet I not shirk
Thy velleities, Averse
Me not, nor slake
Desire. God draws not nigh
To Dome,1 with pleas Wherein's so little veering.
1 " Cils de Doma " Passage unexplained by commentators,
taken some to mean the Virgin, Our Lady of Puy de Dome. There is another
Dome, on Dordoigne.
being
by
? Now chant prepare, And melody
To please
The king; who will judge thy sheaves.
Worth, sad,
Sneaks
Here ; double employ Hath there. Get thee Plates
Full, and cates,
Nor lurk Here till decrees
Reverse,
And ring thou take.
Straight t' Arago I'd ply Cross the wide seas
But "Rome" disturbs my hearing.
CODA
At midnight mirk, In secrecies
I nurse
My served make 1
In heart ; nor try
My melodies
At other's door nor mearing.
Make =fere, companion ; Raik =haste precipitate.
113
Gifts, go !
? AUTET E BAS ENTRELS PRIMS
FUOILLS
Cadahus En son us.
Now high and low, where leaves renew,
Come buds on bough and spalliard pleach And no beak nor throat is muted,
Auzel each in tune contrasted Letteth loose
Wriblis 1
Joy for them and spring would set
Song on me, but Love assaileth
Me and sets my words t' his dancing.
I thank my God and mine eyes too,
Since through them the perceptions reach, Porters ofjoys that have refuted
Every ache and shame I've tasted. They reduce
Pains, and noose
Me in Amor's corded net.
Her beauty in me prevaileth
Till bonds seem but joy's advancing.
My thanks, Amor, that I win through ;
Thy long delays I naught impeach Though flame 's in my marrow rooted
I'd not quench it, well 't hath lasted,
Burns profuse, Held recluse
Lest knaves know our hearts are met. Murrain on the mouth that aileth,
So he finds her not entrancing.
1
spruce.
Wriblis Tf
;
? He doth in Love's book misconstrue, And from that book none can him teach, Who saith ne'er 's in speech recruited Aught whereby the heart is dasted. Words' abuse
Doth traduce
Worth, but I run no such debt.
Right 'tis if man over-raileth
He tear tongue on tooth mischancing.
That I love her, is pride, is true, But my fast secret knows no breach.
Since Paul's writ was executed
Or the forty days first fasted, Not Cristus
Could produce
Her similar, where one can get
Charms total, for no charm faileth Her who's memory's enhancing.
Grace and valour, the keep of you She is, who holds me ; each to each,
She sole, I sole, so fast suited, Other women's lures are wasted, And no truce
But misuse
Have I for them, they're not let To my heart, where she regaleth Me with delights I'm not chancing.
Arnaut loves, and ne'er will fret
Love with o'er-speech, his throat quaileth, Braggart voust is naught t' his fancy.
? GLAMOUR AND INDIGO
SWEET cries and cracks
and lays and chants inflected
By auzels who, in their latin belikes,
Chirme each to each, even as you and I
Pipe toward those girls on whom our thoughts attract ; Are but more cause that I, whose overweening
Search is. toward the Noblest, set in cluster
Lines where no word pulls wry, no rhyme breaks
gauges.
No culs de sacs
nor false ways me deflected
When first I pierced her fort within its dykes,
Hers, for whom my hungry insistency
Passes the gnaw whereby was Vivian wracked ;
Day-long I stretch, all times, like a bird preening, And yawn for her, who hath o'er others thrust her
As high as true joy is o'er ire and rages.
Welcome not lax,
and my words were protected
Not blabbed to other, when I set my likes
On her ; not brass but gold was 'neath the die, That day we kissed, and after it she flacked
O'er me her cloak of indigo, for screening
Me from all culvertz' eyes, whose blathered bluster Can set such spites abroad, win jibes for wages.
116
? God, who did tax
not Longus' sin, respected That blind centurion beneath the spikes
And him forgave, grant that we two shall lie Within one room, and seal therein our pact,
Yea, that she kiss me in the half-light, leaning
To me, and laugh and strip and stand forth in the lustre
Where lamp-light with light limb but half engages.
The flowers wax
with buds but half perfected ;
Tremble on twig that shakes when the bird strikes
In homage similar, you'd count them sages.
Mouth, now what knacks ! !
What folly hath infected
Thee ? Gifts, that th' Emperor of the Salonikes Or Lord of Rome were greatly honoured by,
Or Syria's lord, thou dost from me distract ;
O fool I am ! to hope for intervening
But not more fresh than she !
Though Rome and Palestine were one compact, Would lure me from her; and with hands convening I give me to her. And if kings could muster
From Love that shields not love !
To call him mad, who 'gainst his joy engages.
POLITICAL POSTSCRIPT
The slimy jacks
with adders' tongues bisected,
I fear no whit, nor have ; and if these tykes Have led Gallicia's king to villainy
No empery,
Yea, it were juster
? His cousin in pilgrimage hath he attacked
Weknow RaimontheCount'sson
Stands without screen. The royal filibuster Redeems not honour till he unbar the cages.
CODA
I should have seen it, but I was on such affair, Seeing the true king crown'd, here in Estampa.
NOTES. Vivien, Strophe 2, nebotz Sain Guillem, an allusion to the romance Enfances Vivien.
Longus, centurion in the Crucifixion legend.
Lord of the Galicians, Ferdinand II. King of Galicia, 1157-1188, son of
Berangere, sister of Raimon Berenger IV. ("quattro figlie ebbe," etc. ) of Aragon, Count of Barcelona. His second son, lieutenant of
Provence, 1168.
The King at Etampe, Phillipe August, crowned 29th May 1180, at age of 1 6. This poem might date Arnaut's birth as early as 1150.
118
my meaning
? LANCAN SON PASSAT LI GIURE
WHEN the frosts are gone and over, And are stripped from hill and hollow, When in close the blossom blinketh From the spray where the fruit cometh,
The flower and song and the clarion Of the season sweet and merry
Bid me with high joy to bear me
Through days while April's coming on.
Though joy's right hard to discover, Such" sly ways doth false Love follow,
Only sure he never drinketh
At the fount where true faith hometh ;
A thousand girls, but two or one Of her falsehoods over chary,
Stabbing whom vows make unwary Their tenderness is vilely done.
The most wise runs drunkest lover,
Sans pint-pot or wine to swallow, If a whim her locks unlinketh, One stray hair his noose becometh.
When evasion's fairest shown
Then the sly puss purrs most near ye. Innocents at heart be ware ye,
When she seems colder than a nun.
See, I thought so highly of her ! Trusted, but the game is hollow*
Not one won piece soundly clinketh ; All the cardinals that Rome hath,
Yea they all were put upon. 119
? Her device is "
Slyly Wary. "
Cunning are the snares they carry.
Yet while they watched they'd be undone,
Whom Love makes so mad a rover, '11 take a cuckoo for a swallow,
If she say so, sooth ! he thinketh
There's a plain where Puy-de-Dome is. Till his eyes and nails are gone,
He'll throw dice and follow fairly Sure as old tales never vary
For his fond heart he is foredone.
Well I know, sans writing's cover, What a plain is, what's a hollow.
I know well whose honour sinketh, And who 'tis that shame consumeth.
They meet. I lose reception. 'Gainst this cheating I'd not parry,
Nor amid such false speech tarry,
But from her lordship will be gone.
CODA
Sir Bertram, sure no pleasure's won
Like this freedom, naught so merry 'Twixt Nile 'n' where the suns miscarry
To where the rain falls from the sun.
120
? ANS QUEL CIM RESTON DE BRANCHAS
ERE the winter recommences
And the leaf from bough is wrested, On Love's mandate will I render
A brief end to long prolusion :
So well have I been taught his steps and paces
That I can stop the tidal-sea's inflowing.
My stot outruns the hare ; his speed amazes.
Me he bade without pretences
That I go not, though requested ; That I make no new surrender
Nor abandon our seclusion :
" Differ from violets, whose fear effaces
Their hue ere winter; behold the glowing
Laurel stays, stay thou. Year long the genet blazes. "
" You who commit no offences 'Gainst constancy ; have not quested ;
Though a maid send her
Assent not !
Suit to thee. Think you confusion
Will come to her who shall track out your traces ?
And give your enemies a chance for boasts and crowing ? No!
After God, see that she have your praises. "
Coward, shall I trust not defences. ! Faint ere the suit be tested ? Follow ! till she extend her Favour !
Keep on, try conclusion,
For if I get in this naught but disgraces,
Then must I pilgrimage past Ebro's flowing And seek for luck amid the Lernian mazes.
121
? If I've passed bridge-rails and fences, Think you then that I am bested ?
No ! for with no food or slender
Ration, I'd have joy's profusion
To hold her kissed, and there are never spaces
Wide to keep me from her, but she'd be showing In my heart, and stand forth before his gazes.
Lovelier maid from Nile to Sences Is not vested nor divested,
So great is her bodily splendour That you would think it illusion.
Amor, if she but hold me in her embraces,
I shall not feel cold hail nor winter's blowing Nor break for all the pain in fever's dazes.
Arnaut hers from foot to face is,
He would not have Lucerne, without her, owing Him, nor lord the land whereon the Ebro grazes.
122
? THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T. E. HULME
Hulme's five poems were published as his Complete Poetical Works at the end of Ripostes, in 1912; there is, and now can be, no further addition, unless my abbreviation of some of his talk made when he came home with his first wound in 1915 may be half counted among them.
AUTUMN
A TOUCH of cold in the Autumn night
I walked abroad.
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded, And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.
MANA ABODA
Beauty is the marking-time, the stationary vibration, the feigned ecstasy of an impulse unable to reach its natural end.
MANA ABODA, whose bent form
The sky in arched circle is,
Seems ever for an unknown grief to mourn. YetonadayI heardhercry:
" I weary of the roses and the singing poets Josephs all, not tall enough to try. "
123
? ABOVE THE DOCK
ABOVE the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast's corded height, Hangsthemoon. Whatseemedsofaraway Is but a child's balloon, forgotten after play.
THE EMBANKMENT
Thefantasia ofafallen gentleman on a cold> bitter night ONCE, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement, Now see I
That warmth's the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.
CONVERSION
LIGHTHEARTED I walked into the valley wood In the time of hyacinths,
Till beauty like a scented cloth
Cast over, stifled me. I was bound Motionless and faint of breath
By loveliness that is her own eunuch.
Now pass I to the final river Ignominiously, in a sack, without sound, As any peeping Turk to the Bosphorus.
124
? POEM Abbreviatedfrom the Conversation of Mr T. E. H.
OVER the flat slope of St Eloi A wide wall of sandbags.
Night,
In the silence desultory men
Pottering over small fires, cleaning their mess-tins : To and fro, from the lines,
Men walk as on Piccadilly, Making paths in the dark, Through scattered dead horses, Over a dead Belgian's belly.
The Germans have rockets. The English have no rockets.
Behind the lines, cannon, hidden, lying back miles. Before the line, chaos :
My mind is a corridor. The minds about me are corridors.
Nothing suggests itself. There is nothing to do but keep on.
125
? NOTES
NOTE TO "LA FRAISNE"
" When the soul is exhausted of fire, then doth the spirit return unto its primal nature and there is upon it a peace great and of the woodland
"
magna pax et si[~vestris"
Then becometh it kin to the faun and the dryad, a woodland- dweller amid the rocks and streams
" consociis faunis dryadisque inter saxa syl<varum"
Janus of Basel. 1
Also has Mr Yeats in his Celtic Twilight treated of such, and I because in such a mood, feeling myself divided between myself corporal and a self aetherial " a dweller by streams and in wood land," eternal because simple in elements
being
freed of the
weight
of a soul "
capable
of salvation or
damnation,"
"
Aeternus quia simplex naturae^
a grievous striving thing that after much straining was mercifully taken
from me ;
'*
as had one passed saying as one in the Book of the Dead.
am the assembler of
and had taken it with
lo
leaving me thus simplex naturae, even so at peace and trans-sentient as a wood pool I made it.
The Legend thus : " Miraut de Garzelas, after the pains he bore a-loving Riels of Calidorn and that to none avail, ran mad in the forest.
"Yea even as Peire Vidal ran as a wolf for her of Penautier though some say that 'twas folly or as Garulf Bisclavret so ran truly, till the King brought him respite (as one may read in the Lais of Marie de France), so was he ever by the Ash Tree. "
Hear ye his speaking : (low, slowly he speaketh it, as one drawn apart, reflecting) (tgart).
1 Referendum for contrast. Daemonalitas of the Rev. Father Sinistrari of Ameno (1600 arc. ). "A treatise wherein is shown that there are in existence on earth rational creatures besides man, endowed like him with a body and soul, that are born and die like him, redeemed by our LordJesusChrist,andcapableofreceivingsalvationordamnation. " Latin and English text. Liseux, Paris, 1879.
127
I,
I,
souls,"
him,
? Personae
La Fraisne Cino Audiart Marvoil Altaforte Vidal
Sketches " (in
PERSONAE AND PORTRAITS Main outline of E. P. 's 'work to date
Sketches (in "Lustra") Millwins
Bellaires etc.
(Later) I Vecchii
Nodier Raconte etc.
(and Cathay in general)
Ripostes ") Portrait d'une Femme
Major Seafarer
Phasellus Ille Girl
An Object Quies
Exile's Letter
Personae
Homage to Sextus Propertius
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALumeSpento.
Personae, 1909
Exultations, 1909 vElkin Mathews. London.
Canzoni, 1911
Ripostes, 1912. Swift. Reissue by Elkin Mathews, 1915.
Lustra, author's edition. Pp. 124. 1916.
Lustra, publisher's edition. Pp. 116. Elkin Mathews, 1916.
Quia Pauper Amavi. Egoist Ltd. , 1919. (Cathay, Mathews, 1915 ;
included in Lustra. )
Translation of Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti. Swift.
London, 1912.
American edition. Small Maynard. Boston.
Prose works : Spirit of Romance ; Gaudier Rrzeska ; Noh, a Study
of the Classical Stage of Japan (from the MSS. of Ernest Fenollosa) ; Pavannes and Divisions ; Instigations.
128
Venice, 1908.
