Why are you forever calling and
murmuring
in the dark there ?
Pound-Ezra-Umbra-The-Early-Poems-of-Ezra-Pound
"
? MARVOIL
A POOR clerk " Arnaut the less " call
I, they me,
And because I have small mind to sit
Day long, long day cooped on a stool
A-jumbling o' figures for Maitre Jacques Polin, I ha* taken to rambling the South here.
The Vicomte of Beziers 's not such a bad lot.
I made rimes to his lady this three year :
Vers and canzone, till that damn'd son of Aragon,
Alfonso the half-bald, took to hanging His helmet at Beziers.
Then came what might come, to wit: three men and
one woman,
Beziers off at Mont-Ausier, I and his lady
Singing the stars in the turrets of Beziers, And one lean Aragonese cursing the seneschal To the end that you see, friends :
Aragon cursing in Aragon, Beziers busy at Beziers Bored to an inch of extinction,
Tibors all tongue and temper at Mont-Ausier, Me ! in this damn'd inn of Avignon,
Stringing long verse for the Burlatz ;
All for one half-bald, knock-knee'd king of the
Aragonese,
Alfonso, Quatro, poke-nose.
And if when I am dead
They take the trouble to tear out this wall here. They'll know more of Arnaut of Marvoil
Than half his canzoni say of him.
32
? As for will and testament I leave none.
Save this: Beziers
" Vers and canzone to the Countess of
In return for the first kiss she gave me. " May her eyes and her cheek be fair
To all men except the King of Aragon, And may I come speedily to Beziers
Whither my desire and my dream have preceded me.
O hole in the wall here! be thou my jongleur As ne'er had I other, and when the wind blows,
Sing thou the grace of the Lady of Beziers,
For even as thou art hollow before I fill thee with this
parchment,
So is my heart hollow when she filleth not mine eyes,
And so were my mind hollow, did she not fill utterly my thought.
Wherefore, O hole in the wall here,
When the wind blows sigh thou for my sorrow
That I have not the Countess of Beziers Close in my arms here.
Even as thou shalt soon have this parchment.
O hole in the wall here, be thou my jongleur,
And though thou sighest my sorrow in the wind, Keep yet my secret in thy breast here ;
Even as I keep her image in my heart here. Mihi pergamena deest
33
? AND THUS IN NINEVEH
"AYE! Iamapoetanduponmytomb Shall maidens scatter rose leaves
And men myrtles, ere the night Slays day with her dark sword.
" Lo ! this thing is not mine
Nor thine to hinder,
For the custom is full old,
And here in Nineveh have I beheld
Many a singer pass and take his place x In those dim halls where no man troubleth
His sleep or song.
And many a one hath sung his songs
More craftily, more subtle-souled than I;
And many a one now doth surpass
My wave-worn beauty with his wind of flowers, Yet am I poet, and upon my tomb
Shall all men scatter rose leaves
Ere the night slay light With her blue sword.
" It is not, Raana, that my song rings highest Or more sweet in tone than any, but that I
Am here a Poet, that doth drink of life As lesser men drink wine. "
34
? EXULTATIONS
GUIDO INVITES YOU THUS
" LAPPO I leave behind and Dante too, Lo, I would sail the seas with thee alone !
Talk me no love talk, no bought-cheap fiddl'ry, Mine is the ship and thine the merchandise,
All the blind earth knows not th'emprise Whereto thou calledst and whereto I call.
Lo, I have seen thee bound about with dreams, Lo, I have known thy heart and its desire ; Life, all of it, my sea, and all men's streams Are fused in it as flames of an altar fire !
Lo, thou hast voyaged not ! The ship is mine. ' 1 The reference is to Dante's sonnet " Guido vorrei . . . "
35
? NIGHT LITANY
O DIEU, purifiez nos coeurs ! Purifiez nos coeurs !
Yea the lines hast thou laid unto me
in pleasant places, And the beauty of this thy Venice
hast thou shown unto me Until is its loveliness become unto me
a thing of tears.
O God, what great kindness
have we done in times past
and forgotten it,
That thou givest this wonder unto us,
O God of waters ?
O God of the night,
What great sorrow
Cometh unto us,
That thou thus repayest us
Before the time of its coming ?
O God of silence,
Purifiez nos cceurs,
Purifiez nos coeurs. For we have seen
The glory of the shadow of the likeness of thine handmaid,
Yea, the glory of the shadow of thy Beauty hath walked
? Upon the shadow of the waters In this thy Venice.
And before the holiness Of the shadow of thy handmaid
Have I hidden mine eyes, O God of waters.
O God of silence,
Purifiez nos cceurs,
Purifiez nos cceurs,
O God of waters,
make clean our hearts within us
And our lips to show forth thy praise, For I have seen the
Shadow of this thy Venice
Floating upon the waters, And thy stars
Have seen this thing out of their far courses Have they seen this thing,
O God of waters, Even as are thy stars
Silent unto us in their far-coursing, Even so is mine heart
become silent within me.
Purifiez nos coeurs God of the silence',
Purifiez nos cceurs God of waters.
37
? SESTINA: ALTAFORTE
LOQUITUR : En Bertrans de Born.
Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a stirrer
up of strife. Eccovi !
Judge ye !
Have I dug him up again ?
The scene is at his castle, Altaforte.
" The Leopard," the device of Richard (Coeur de Lion).
I
DAMN it all ! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come !
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah ! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple,
opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.
II
In hot summer have I great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth's foul peace,
And the lightnings from black heav'n flash crimson, And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing, And through all the riven skies God's swords clash.
Ill
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash ! And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing ! Better one hour's stour than a year's peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music ! Bah ! there's no wine like the blood's crimson !
38
""
Papiols is his jongleur.
Let's to music !
? May
God damn for ever all who " Peace " cry !
VII
IV
And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson. And I watch his spears through the dark clash And it fills all my heart with rejoicing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His lone might 'gainst all darkness opposing.
The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson But is fit only to rot in womanish peace
Far from where worth's won and the swords clash For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music. VI
Papiols, Papiols, to the music !
There's no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle's rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our " The " rush clash. charges 'gainst Leopard's
And let the music of the swords make them crimson ! Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash !
Hell blot black for alway the thought " Peace "
!
39
? PIERE VIDAL OLD
It is of Piere Vidal, the fool par excellence of all Provence, of whom the tale tells how he ran mad, as a wolf, because of his love for Loba of Penautier, and how men hunted him with dogs through the mountains of Cabaret and brought him for dead to the dwelling of this Loba (she-wolf) of Penautier, and how she and her Lord had him healed and made welcome, and he stayed some time at that court. He speaks :
WHEN I but think upon the great dead days
And turn my mind upon that splendid madness, Lo ! I do curse my strength
And blame the sun his gladness ; For that the one is dead
And the red sun mocks my sadness.
Behold me, Vidal, that was fool of fools !
Swift as the king wolf was I and as strong
When tall stags fled me through the alder brakes,
And every jongleur knew me in his song, And the hounds fled and the deer fled
And none fled over long.
Even the grey pack knew me and knew fear. God ! how the swiftest hind's blood spurted hot
Over the sharpened teeth and purpling lips !
Hot was that hind's blood yet it scorched me not
As did first scorn, then lips of the Penautier ! Aye ye are fools, if ye think time can blot
From Piere Vidal's remembrance that blue night. God ! but the purple of the sky was deep !
Clear, deep, translucent, so the stars me seemed Set deep in crystal; and because my sleep
Rare visitor came not, the Saints I guerdon For that restlessness Piere set to keep
4
? One more fool's vigil with the hollyhocks. Swift came the Loba, as a branch that's caught, Torn, green and silent in the swollen Rhone,
Green was her mantle, close, and wrought
Of some thin silk stuff that's scarce stuff at all,
But like a mist wherethrough her white form fought,
And conquered ! Ah God ! conquered ! Silent my mate came as the night was still.
Speech? Words? Faugh! Whotalksofwordsand love ? !
Hot is such love and silent,
Silent as fate is, and as strong until It faints in taking and in giving all.
Stark, keen, triumphant, till it play& at death. God ! she was white then, splendid as some tomb
High wrought of marble, and the panting breath
Ceased utterly. Well, then I waited, drew, Half-sheathed, then naked from its saffron sheath Drew full this dagger that doth tremble here.
Just then she woke and mocked the less keen blade. Ah God, the Loba ! and my only mate !
Was there such flesh made ever and unmade !
God curse the years that turn such women grey !
Behold here Vidal, that was hunted, flayed, Shamed and yet bowed not and that won at last.
And yet I curse the sun for his red gladness,
I that have known strath, garth, brake, dale,
And every run-away of the wood through that great
madness,
Behold me shrivelled as an old oak's trunk
And made men's mock'ry in my rotten sadness ! 41
? No man hath heard the glory of my days :
No man hath dared and won his dare as I :
One night, one body and one welding flame !
What do ye own, ye niggards ! that can buy
Such glory of the earth ?
Such battle-guerdon with his prowesse high ?
O Age gone lax ! O stunted followers, That mask at passions and desire desires,
Behold me shrivelled, and your mock of mocks ; And yet I mock you by the mighty fires
That burnt me to this ash.
Ah!
Cabaret !
Ah Cabaret, thy hills again !
Or who will win ""
Take your hands off me ! . . . \_Sniffingtheair. Ha ! this scent is hot !
? BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE1 Simon Zelotes speaketh it somewhile after the Crucifixion
HA' we lost the goodliest fere o' all For the priests and the gallows tree ?
Aye lover he was of brawny men, O' ships and the open sea.
When they came wi' a host to take Our Man His smile was good to see,
" First let these " go !
our
" Or I'll see ye damned," says he.
quo'
Goodly Fere,
Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
" Why took ye not me when I walked about
"
Alone in the town ?
says he.
Oh we drunk his " Hale " in the good red wine When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere But a man o* men was he.
I ha' seen him drive a hundred men Wi' a bundle o' cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.
They'll no' get him a' in a book I think
Though they write it cunningly ;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.
1 Fere=
43
Mate, Companion.
? If they think they ha' snared our Goodly Fere They are fools to the last degree.
" Pll go to the feast," quo* our Goodly Fere, "Though I go to the gallows tree. "
" Ye ha* seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead," says he,
" Ye shall see one thing to master all : 'Tis how a brave man dies on the tree. "
A son of God was the Goodly Fere That bade us his brothers be.
I ha' seen him cow a thousand men. I have seen him upon the tree.
He cried no cry when they drave the nails And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue But never a cry cried he.
I ha' seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o' Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi' his eyes like the grey o' the sea.
Like the sea that brooks no voyaging With the winds unleashed and free, Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi' twey words spoke' suddently.
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha' slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
I ha' seen him eat o' the honey-comb Sin' they nailed him to the tree.
44
? LAUDANTES DECEM PULCHRITU- DINIS JOHANNAE TEMPLI
I
WHEN your beauty is grown old in all men's songs, And my uncertain words are lost amid that throng,
Then you will know the truth of my words,
And mayhap dreaming of those
Who sigh your praises in their songs,
You will think kindly then of these mad words.
II
I am torn, torn with thy beauty, O Rose of the sharpest thorn !
O Rose of the crimson beauty,
Why hast thou awakened the sleeper?
Why hast thou awakened the heart within me, O Rose of the crimson thorn ?
Ill
The unappeasable loveliness
is calling to me out of the wind,
And because your name
is written upon the ivory doors,
The wave in my heart is as a green wave, unconfined, Tossing the white foam toward you ;
And the lotus that pours
Her fragrance into the purple cup, Is more to be gained with the foam
Than are you with these words of mine. 45
? IV
He speaks to the moonlight concerning her
Pale hair that the moon has shaken Down over the dark breast of the sea,
magic her beauty has shaken
About the heart of me ;
Out of you have I woven a dream
That shall walk in the lonely vale
Betwixt the high hill and the low hill, Until the pale stream
Of the souls of men quench and grow still.
V
Voices speaking to the sun
Red leaf that art blown upward and out and over The green sheaf of the world,
And through the dim forest and under
The shadowed arches and the aisles,
We, who are older than thou art,
Met and remembered when his eyes beheld her
In the garden of the peach-trees, In the day of the blossoming.
VI
1 stood on the hill of Yrma
when the winds were a-hurrying,
With the grasses a-bending I followed them,
Through the brown grasses of Ahva unto the green of Asedon.
I have rested with the voices
in the gardens of Ahthor,
? I have lain beneath the peach-trees
in the hour of the purple :
Because I had awaited in
the garden of the peach-trees, Because I had feared not
in the forest of my mind, Mine eyes beheld the vision of the blossom
There in the peach-gardens past Asedon.
winds of Yrma, let her again come unto me,
Whose hair ye held unbound in the gardens of Ahthor !
VII
Because of the beautiful white shoulders and the rounded breasts
1 can in no wise forget my beloved of the peach-trees, And the little winds that speak when the dawn is
unfurled
And the rose-colour in the grey oak-leaf's fold
When it first comes, and the glamour that rests
On the little streams in the evening ; all of these Call me to her, and all the loveliness in the world Binds me to my beloved with strong chains of gold.
VIII
If the rose-petals which have fallen upon my eyes And if the perfect faces which I see at times
When my eyes are closed
Faces fragile, pale, yet flushed a little, like petals of roses :
If these things have confused my memories of her So that I could not draw her face
47
? Even if I had skill and the colours,
Yet because her face is so like these things
They but draw me nearer unto her in my thought
And thoughts of her come upon my mind gently, As dew upon the petals of roses.
IX
He speaks to the rain
O pearls that hang on your little silver chains, The innumerable voices that are whispering
Among you as you are drawn aside by the wind, Have brought to my mind the soft and eager speech Of one who hath great loveliness,
Which is subtle as the beauty of the rains That hang low in the moonshine and bring
The May softly among us, and unbind
The streams and the crimson and white flowers and
reach
Deep down into the secret places.
The glamour of the soul hath come upon me, And as the twilight comes upon the roses.
Walking silently among them,
So have the thoughts of my heart
Gone out slowly in the twilight
Toward my beloved,
Toward the crimson rose, the fairest.
? AUX BELLES DE LONDRES
I AM aweary with the utter and beautiful weariness And with the ultimate wisdom and with things terrene,
I am aweary with your smiles and your laughter, And the sun and the winds again
Reclaim their booty and the heart o' me.
FRANCESCA
You came in out of the night
And there were flowers in your hands.
Now you will come out of a confusion of people, Out of a turmoil of speech about you.
I who have seen you amid the primal things
Was angry when they spoke your name
In ordinary places.
I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,
And that the world should dry as a dead leaf, Or as a dandelion seed-pod and be swept away,
So that I might find you again, Alone.
49
? PRAYER
DAY and night are never weary,
Nor yet is God of creating
For day and night their torch-bearers
The half light of the dawn and the evening.
So, when I weary of praising the dawn and the sunset, Let me be no more counted among the immortals ;
But number me amid the wearying ones, Let me be a man as the herd,
And as the slave that is given in barter.
THE TREE
I STOOD still and was a tree amid the wood, Knowing the truth of things unseen before ; Of Daphne and the laurel bow
And that god-feasting couple old That grew elm-oak amid the wold.
'Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated, and been brought within Unto the hearth of their heart's home
That they might do this wonder thing ; Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before.
? ON HIS OWN FACE IN A GLASS
O STRANGE face there in the glass !
O ribald company, O saintly host,
O sorrow-swept my fool, What answer? O ye myriad
That strive and play and pass,
Jest, challenge, counterlie ! I? I? I?
And ye?
THE EYES
REST Master, for we be a-weary, weary And would feel the fingers of the wind Upon these lids that lie over us
Sodden and lead-heavy.
Rest brother, for lo ! the dawn is without !
The yellow flame paleth And the wax runs low.
Free us, for without be goodly colours, Green of the wood-moss and flower colours, And coolness beneath the trees.
Free us, for we perish In this ever-flowing monotony Of ugly print marks, black Upon white parchment.
Free us, for there is one Whose smile more availeth
Than all the age-old knowledge of thy books : And we would look thereon.
l
5
? NILS LYKKE
INFINITE memories.
Why are you forever calling and murmuring in the dark there ?
And reaching out your hands between me and my beloved ?
And why are you forever casting The black shadow of your beauty
On the white face of my beloved
And glinting in the pools of her eyes ?
? PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING
That is, Prince Henry Plantagenet, elder brother to Richard " Occur de Lion"
From the Prover^al of Bertrans de Born " Si tuit li dol elh plor elh marrimen. "
IF all the grief and woe and bitterness,
All dolour, ill and every evil chance
That ever came upon this grieving world Were set together they would seem but light
Against the death of the young English King. Worth lieth riven and Youth dolorous,
The world overshadowed, soiled and overcast, Void of all joy and full of ire and sadness.
Grieving and sad and full of bitterness
Are left in teen the liegemen courteous,
The joglars supple and the troubadours.
O'er much hath ta'en Sir Death that deadly warrior
In taking from them the young English King, Who made the freest hand seem covetous.
'Las ! Never was nor will be in this world The balance for this loss in ire and sadness !
O skilful Death and full of bitterness,
Well mayst thou boast that thou the best chevalier That any folk e'er had, hast from us taken ;
Sith nothing is that unto worth pertaineth
But had its life in the young English King,
And better were it, should God grant his pleasure That he should live than many a living dastard That doth but wound the good with ire and sadness.
53
? From this faint world, how full of bitterness Love takes his way and holds his joy deceitful, Sith no thing is but turneth unto anguish
And each to-day 'vails less than yestere'en,
Let each man visage this young English King That was most valiant 'mid all worthiest men !
Gone is his body fine and amorous,
Whence have we grief, discord and deepest sadness.
Him, whom it pleased for our great bitterness To come to earth to draw us from misventure, Who drank of death for our salvacioun,
Him do we pray as to a Lord most righteous
And humble eke, that the young English King
He please to pardon, as true pardon is, And bid go in with honoured companions
There where there is no grief, nor shall be sadness.
54
? ALBA 1
From the Provencal
IN a garden where the whitethorn spreads her leaves My lady hath her love lain close beside her, Tillthewardercriesthedawn Ahdawnthatgrieves! Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
" Please God that night, dear night should never cease, Nor that my love should parted be from me, Norwatchcry'Dawn' Ahdawnthatslayethpeace! Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
" Fair friend and sweet, thy lips ! Our lips again ! Lo, in the meadow there the birds give song !
Ours be the love and Jealousy's the pain !
Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
"Sweet friend and fair take we our joy again
Down in the garden, where the birds are loud,
Till the warder's reed astrain
Cry God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
" Of that sweet wind that comes from Far-Away Have I drunk deep of my Beloved's breath,
Yea ! of my Love's that is so dear and gay.
Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
Envoi
Fair is this damsel and right courteous,
And many watch her beauty's gracious ways, Her heart toward love is no wise traitorous.
Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon ! 1 VideautemQuiaPauper
55
? PLANH
Of White Thoughts he saw in a Forest
HEAVY with dreams,
Thou who art wiser than love,
Though I am hungry for their lips When I see them a-hiding
And a-passing out and in through the shadows
In the pine wood,
And they are white, like the clouds in the sky's forest
Ere the stars arise to their hunting ;
White Poppy, who art wiser than love, 1 am come for peace, yea from the hunting Am I come to thee for peace.
Out of a new sorrow it is,
That my hunting hath brought me.
White Poppy, heavy with dreams,
Though I am hungry for their lips When I see them a-hiding
And a-passing out and in through the shadows And it is white they are
But if one should look at me with the old hunger in
her eyes,
How will I be answering her eyes?
For I have followed the white folk of the forest.
Aye ! It's a long hunting
And it's a deep hunger I have when I see them
a-gliding
And a-flickering there, where the trees stand apart.
But oh, it is sorrow and sorrow When love dies-down in the heart.
56
? AU JARDIN From Canzoni
YOU away high there,
you that lean From amber lattices upon the cobalt night,
1 am below amid the pine trees, Amid the little pine trees, hear me !
" The jester walked in the garden. "
Well, there's no use your loving me That way, Lady ;
For I've nothing but songs to give you.
I am set wide upon the world's ways
To say that life is, some way, a gay thing, But you never string two days upon one wire
But there'll come sorrow of it.
Over beyond the moon there,
And I loved a love once. 1 loved a love once,
And, may be, more times,
But she danced like a pink moth in the shrubbery.
Oh, I know you women from the "other folk," And it'll all come right,
O* Sundays.
"The jester walked in the garden. "
57
Did he so?
Did he so ?
? OBOES
From Poetry and Drama for February 1912
I
FOR A BEERY VOICE
WHY should we worry about to-morrow, When we may all be dead and gone ? Haro! Haro!
Ha-a-ah-rro ! There'll come better men
Who will do, will they not ?
The noble things that we forgot. If there come worse,
what better thing Than to leave them the curse of our ill-doing !
Haro! Haro!
Ha-ah-ah-rro !
II AFTER HEINE
And have you thoroughly kissed my lips ? There was no particular haste,
And are you not ready when evening's come ? There's no particular haste.
You've got the whole night before you,
Heart's-all-beloved-my-own ;
In an uninterrupted night one can Get a good deal of kissing done.
? RIPOSTES
SILET
WHEN I behold how black, immortal ink
Dripsfrommydeathlesspen ah,well-away! Why should we stop at all for what I think ?
There is enough in what I chance to say.
It is enough that we once came together; What is the use of setting it to rime ?
When it is autumn do we get spring weather, Or gather may of harsh northwindish time ?
It is enough that we once came together; What if the wind have turned against the rain ? It is enough that we once came together;
Time has seen this, and will not turn again ;
And who are we, who know that last intent, To plague to-morrow with a testament !
VERONA, 1911
IN EXITUM CUIUSDAM On a certain onis departure
u TIME'S bitter flood "
But where's the old friend hasn't fallen off,
Or slacked his hand-grip when you first gripped fame ?
I know your circle and can fairly tell
What you have kept and what you've left behind : I know my circle and know very well
How many faces I'd have out of mind.
59
!
Oh, that's all very well,
? THE TOMB AT AKR AAR
" I AM thy soul, Nikoptis.
These five millennia, and thy dead eyes Moved not, nor ever answer my desire,
And thy light limbs, wherethrough I leapt aflame, Burn not with me nor any saffron thing.
See, the light grass sprang up to pillow thee,
And kissed thee with a myriad grassy tongues ; But not thou me.
I have read out the gold upon the wall,
And wearied out my thought upon the signs. And there is no new thing in all this place.
I have been kind. See, I have left the jars sealed, Lest thou shouldst wake and whimper for thy wine. And all thy robes I have kept smooth on thee.
thou unmindful !
How should I forget !
Even the river many days ago, The river, thou wast over young.
And three souls came upon Thee
And I came.
And I flowed in upon thee, beat them off;
1 have been intimate with thee, known thy ways.
Have I not touched thy palms and finger-tips, Flowed in, and through thee and about thy heels ?
How ' came I in ' ?
And no sun comes to rest me in this place,
And I am torn against the jagged dark, 60
Was
I not thee and Thee
?
I have watched
? And no light beats upon me, and you say No word, day after day.
Oh ! I could get me out, despite the marks And all their crafty work upon the door,
Out through the glass-green fields. . . .
Yet it is quiet here : I do not go. "
61
? PORTRAIT D'UNE FEMME
YOUR mind and you are our Sargasso Sea, London has swept about you this score years And bright ships left you this or that in fee :
Ideals, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. Greatmindshavesoughtyou lackingsomeoneelse.
Youhavebeensecondalways. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing :
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
Oneaveragemind withonethoughtless,eachyear. Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away :
Trophies fished up ; some curious suggestion ; Fact that leads nowhere ; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves, That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days : The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store ; and yet For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep, No ! there is nothing ! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own. Yet this is you.
62
? N. Y.
MY City, my beloved, my white ! Ah, slender,
Listen to me, and I will breathe into thee a soul.
Delicately upon the reed, attend me !
Now do I know that I am mad,
For here are a million people surly with traffic ;
This is no maid.
Neither could I play upon any reed if I had one.
My City, my beloved,
Thou art a maid with no breasts,
Thou art slender as a silver reed. Listen to me, attend me !
And I will breathe into thee a soul, And thou shalt live for ever.
MADISON AVE. , 1910
A GIRL
THE tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.
Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child so high you are,
And all this is folly to the world.
63
Listen !
? "PHASELLUS ILLE"
THIS papier-m&chd, which you see, my friends, Saith 'twas the worthiest of editors.
Its mind was made up in " the seventies,"
Nor hath it ever since changed that concoction.
It works to represent that school of thought
Which brought the hair-cloth chair to such perfection, Nor will the horrid threats of Bernard Shaw
Shake up the stagnant pool of its convictions ;
Nay, should the deathless voice of all the world
Speak once again for its sole stimulation, 'Twould not move it one jot from left to right.
Come Beauty barefoot from the Cyclades, She'd find a model for St Anthony
In this thing's sure decorum and behaviour.
AN
THIS thing, that hath a code and not a core,
Hath set acquaintance where might be affections,
And nothing now Disturbeth his reflections.
QUIES
THIS is another of our ancient loves.
Pass and be silent, Rullus, for the day
Hath lacked a something since this lady passed ; Hath lacked a something. 'Twas but marginal.
64
OBJECT
? THE SEAFARER
From the early Anglo-Saxon text
MAY I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care's hold, And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
While she tossed close to cliffs.
My feet were by frost benumbed. Chill its chains are ; chafing sighs
Hew my heart round and hunger begot
Mere-wearymood. Lestmanknownot That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea, Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
Deprived of my kinsmen ;
Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew, There I heard naught save the harsh sea
And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
Did for my games the gannet's clamour, Sea-fowls' loudness was for me laughter,
The mews' singing all my mead-drink.
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern In icy feathers ; full oft the eagle screamed
With spray on his pinion.
Not any protector
May make merry man faring needy.
This he little believes, who aye in winsome life
Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business,
E
65
Coldly afflicted,
? Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft Must bide above brine.
Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,
Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then,
Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now The heart's thought that I on high streams
The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone. Moaneth alway my mind's lust
That I fare forth, that I afar hence Seek out a foreign fastness.
For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst, Not though he be given his good, but will have in his
youth greed;
Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the
faithful
But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
Whatever his lord will.
He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight
Nor any whit else save the wave's slash,
Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water,
Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries, Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
On flood-ways to be far departing. Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not
Hetheprosperousman whatsomeperform
Where wandering them widest draweth.
So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock, My mood 'mid the mere-flood,
Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.
66
? On earth's shelter cometh oft to me,
Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly, O'er tracks of ocean ; seeing that anyhow
My lord deems to me this dead life On loan and on land, I believe not
That any earth-weal eternal standeth
Save there be somewhat calamitous
That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain. Disease or oldness or sword-hate
Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body,
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after
Laud of the living, boasteth some last word, That he will work ere he pass onward,
Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice, Daring ado, . . .
So that all men shall honour him after
And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,
Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast, Delight 'mid the doughty.
Days little durable,
And all arrogance of earthen riches, There come now no kings nor Csesars
Nor gold-giving lords like those gone. Howe'er in mirth most magnified,
Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,
Drear all this excellence, delights undurable ! Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth. Tomb hideth trouble.
The blade is layed low.
Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
No man at all going the earth's gait,
But age fares against him, his face paleth, Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,
67
? Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven,
Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth, Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,
Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,
And though he strew the grave with gold, His born brothers, their buried bodies
Be an unlikely treasure hoard.
THE CLOAK i
THOU keep'st thy rose-leaf
Till the rose-time will be over,
Think'st thou that Death will kiss thee ? Think'st thou that the Dark House
Will find thee such a lover
As I ? Will the new roses miss thee ?
Prefer my cloak unto the cloak of dust 'Neath which the last year lies,
For thou shouldst more mistrust Time than my eyes.
1
Asclepiades, Julianus -^Egyptus.
68
? BE in me as the eternal moods
of the bleak wind, and not
As transient things are gaiety of flowers.
Have me in the strong loneliness of sunless cliffs
And of grey waters.
Let the gods speak softly of us In days hereafter,
The shadowy flowers of Orcus Remember thee.
69
? APPARUIT
GOLDEN rose the house, in the portal I saw
thee, a marvel, carven in subtle stuff, a
portent. Life died down in the lamp and flickered,
caught at the wonder.
Crimson, frosty with dew, the roses bend where
thou afar, moving in the glamorous sun, drinkst in life of earth, of the air, the tissue
golden about thee.
Green the ways, the breath of the fields is thine there,
open lies the land, yet the steely going
darkly hast thou dared and the dreaded asther
parted before thee.
Swift at courage thou in the shell of gold, cast
ing a-loose the cloak of the body, earnest
straight, then shone thine oriel and the stunned light
faded about thee.
Half the graven shoulder, the throat aflash with strands of light inwoven about it, loveli
est of all things, frail alabaster, ah me !
? MARVOIL
A POOR clerk " Arnaut the less " call
I, they me,
And because I have small mind to sit
Day long, long day cooped on a stool
A-jumbling o' figures for Maitre Jacques Polin, I ha* taken to rambling the South here.
The Vicomte of Beziers 's not such a bad lot.
I made rimes to his lady this three year :
Vers and canzone, till that damn'd son of Aragon,
Alfonso the half-bald, took to hanging His helmet at Beziers.
Then came what might come, to wit: three men and
one woman,
Beziers off at Mont-Ausier, I and his lady
Singing the stars in the turrets of Beziers, And one lean Aragonese cursing the seneschal To the end that you see, friends :
Aragon cursing in Aragon, Beziers busy at Beziers Bored to an inch of extinction,
Tibors all tongue and temper at Mont-Ausier, Me ! in this damn'd inn of Avignon,
Stringing long verse for the Burlatz ;
All for one half-bald, knock-knee'd king of the
Aragonese,
Alfonso, Quatro, poke-nose.
And if when I am dead
They take the trouble to tear out this wall here. They'll know more of Arnaut of Marvoil
Than half his canzoni say of him.
32
? As for will and testament I leave none.
Save this: Beziers
" Vers and canzone to the Countess of
In return for the first kiss she gave me. " May her eyes and her cheek be fair
To all men except the King of Aragon, And may I come speedily to Beziers
Whither my desire and my dream have preceded me.
O hole in the wall here! be thou my jongleur As ne'er had I other, and when the wind blows,
Sing thou the grace of the Lady of Beziers,
For even as thou art hollow before I fill thee with this
parchment,
So is my heart hollow when she filleth not mine eyes,
And so were my mind hollow, did she not fill utterly my thought.
Wherefore, O hole in the wall here,
When the wind blows sigh thou for my sorrow
That I have not the Countess of Beziers Close in my arms here.
Even as thou shalt soon have this parchment.
O hole in the wall here, be thou my jongleur,
And though thou sighest my sorrow in the wind, Keep yet my secret in thy breast here ;
Even as I keep her image in my heart here. Mihi pergamena deest
33
? AND THUS IN NINEVEH
"AYE! Iamapoetanduponmytomb Shall maidens scatter rose leaves
And men myrtles, ere the night Slays day with her dark sword.
" Lo ! this thing is not mine
Nor thine to hinder,
For the custom is full old,
And here in Nineveh have I beheld
Many a singer pass and take his place x In those dim halls where no man troubleth
His sleep or song.
And many a one hath sung his songs
More craftily, more subtle-souled than I;
And many a one now doth surpass
My wave-worn beauty with his wind of flowers, Yet am I poet, and upon my tomb
Shall all men scatter rose leaves
Ere the night slay light With her blue sword.
" It is not, Raana, that my song rings highest Or more sweet in tone than any, but that I
Am here a Poet, that doth drink of life As lesser men drink wine. "
34
? EXULTATIONS
GUIDO INVITES YOU THUS
" LAPPO I leave behind and Dante too, Lo, I would sail the seas with thee alone !
Talk me no love talk, no bought-cheap fiddl'ry, Mine is the ship and thine the merchandise,
All the blind earth knows not th'emprise Whereto thou calledst and whereto I call.
Lo, I have seen thee bound about with dreams, Lo, I have known thy heart and its desire ; Life, all of it, my sea, and all men's streams Are fused in it as flames of an altar fire !
Lo, thou hast voyaged not ! The ship is mine. ' 1 The reference is to Dante's sonnet " Guido vorrei . . . "
35
? NIGHT LITANY
O DIEU, purifiez nos coeurs ! Purifiez nos coeurs !
Yea the lines hast thou laid unto me
in pleasant places, And the beauty of this thy Venice
hast thou shown unto me Until is its loveliness become unto me
a thing of tears.
O God, what great kindness
have we done in times past
and forgotten it,
That thou givest this wonder unto us,
O God of waters ?
O God of the night,
What great sorrow
Cometh unto us,
That thou thus repayest us
Before the time of its coming ?
O God of silence,
Purifiez nos cceurs,
Purifiez nos coeurs. For we have seen
The glory of the shadow of the likeness of thine handmaid,
Yea, the glory of the shadow of thy Beauty hath walked
? Upon the shadow of the waters In this thy Venice.
And before the holiness Of the shadow of thy handmaid
Have I hidden mine eyes, O God of waters.
O God of silence,
Purifiez nos cceurs,
Purifiez nos cceurs,
O God of waters,
make clean our hearts within us
And our lips to show forth thy praise, For I have seen the
Shadow of this thy Venice
Floating upon the waters, And thy stars
Have seen this thing out of their far courses Have they seen this thing,
O God of waters, Even as are thy stars
Silent unto us in their far-coursing, Even so is mine heart
become silent within me.
Purifiez nos coeurs God of the silence',
Purifiez nos cceurs God of waters.
37
? SESTINA: ALTAFORTE
LOQUITUR : En Bertrans de Born.
Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a stirrer
up of strife. Eccovi !
Judge ye !
Have I dug him up again ?
The scene is at his castle, Altaforte.
" The Leopard," the device of Richard (Coeur de Lion).
I
DAMN it all ! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come !
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah ! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple,
opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.
II
In hot summer have I great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth's foul peace,
And the lightnings from black heav'n flash crimson, And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing, And through all the riven skies God's swords clash.
Ill
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash ! And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing ! Better one hour's stour than a year's peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music ! Bah ! there's no wine like the blood's crimson !
38
""
Papiols is his jongleur.
Let's to music !
? May
God damn for ever all who " Peace " cry !
VII
IV
And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson. And I watch his spears through the dark clash And it fills all my heart with rejoicing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His lone might 'gainst all darkness opposing.
The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson But is fit only to rot in womanish peace
Far from where worth's won and the swords clash For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music. VI
Papiols, Papiols, to the music !
There's no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle's rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our " The " rush clash. charges 'gainst Leopard's
And let the music of the swords make them crimson ! Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash !
Hell blot black for alway the thought " Peace "
!
39
? PIERE VIDAL OLD
It is of Piere Vidal, the fool par excellence of all Provence, of whom the tale tells how he ran mad, as a wolf, because of his love for Loba of Penautier, and how men hunted him with dogs through the mountains of Cabaret and brought him for dead to the dwelling of this Loba (she-wolf) of Penautier, and how she and her Lord had him healed and made welcome, and he stayed some time at that court. He speaks :
WHEN I but think upon the great dead days
And turn my mind upon that splendid madness, Lo ! I do curse my strength
And blame the sun his gladness ; For that the one is dead
And the red sun mocks my sadness.
Behold me, Vidal, that was fool of fools !
Swift as the king wolf was I and as strong
When tall stags fled me through the alder brakes,
And every jongleur knew me in his song, And the hounds fled and the deer fled
And none fled over long.
Even the grey pack knew me and knew fear. God ! how the swiftest hind's blood spurted hot
Over the sharpened teeth and purpling lips !
Hot was that hind's blood yet it scorched me not
As did first scorn, then lips of the Penautier ! Aye ye are fools, if ye think time can blot
From Piere Vidal's remembrance that blue night. God ! but the purple of the sky was deep !
Clear, deep, translucent, so the stars me seemed Set deep in crystal; and because my sleep
Rare visitor came not, the Saints I guerdon For that restlessness Piere set to keep
4
? One more fool's vigil with the hollyhocks. Swift came the Loba, as a branch that's caught, Torn, green and silent in the swollen Rhone,
Green was her mantle, close, and wrought
Of some thin silk stuff that's scarce stuff at all,
But like a mist wherethrough her white form fought,
And conquered ! Ah God ! conquered ! Silent my mate came as the night was still.
Speech? Words? Faugh! Whotalksofwordsand love ? !
Hot is such love and silent,
Silent as fate is, and as strong until It faints in taking and in giving all.
Stark, keen, triumphant, till it play& at death. God ! she was white then, splendid as some tomb
High wrought of marble, and the panting breath
Ceased utterly. Well, then I waited, drew, Half-sheathed, then naked from its saffron sheath Drew full this dagger that doth tremble here.
Just then she woke and mocked the less keen blade. Ah God, the Loba ! and my only mate !
Was there such flesh made ever and unmade !
God curse the years that turn such women grey !
Behold here Vidal, that was hunted, flayed, Shamed and yet bowed not and that won at last.
And yet I curse the sun for his red gladness,
I that have known strath, garth, brake, dale,
And every run-away of the wood through that great
madness,
Behold me shrivelled as an old oak's trunk
And made men's mock'ry in my rotten sadness ! 41
? No man hath heard the glory of my days :
No man hath dared and won his dare as I :
One night, one body and one welding flame !
What do ye own, ye niggards ! that can buy
Such glory of the earth ?
Such battle-guerdon with his prowesse high ?
O Age gone lax ! O stunted followers, That mask at passions and desire desires,
Behold me shrivelled, and your mock of mocks ; And yet I mock you by the mighty fires
That burnt me to this ash.
Ah!
Cabaret !
Ah Cabaret, thy hills again !
Or who will win ""
Take your hands off me ! . . . \_Sniffingtheair. Ha ! this scent is hot !
? BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE1 Simon Zelotes speaketh it somewhile after the Crucifixion
HA' we lost the goodliest fere o' all For the priests and the gallows tree ?
Aye lover he was of brawny men, O' ships and the open sea.
When they came wi' a host to take Our Man His smile was good to see,
" First let these " go !
our
" Or I'll see ye damned," says he.
quo'
Goodly Fere,
Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
" Why took ye not me when I walked about
"
Alone in the town ?
says he.
Oh we drunk his " Hale " in the good red wine When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere But a man o* men was he.
I ha' seen him drive a hundred men Wi' a bundle o' cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.
They'll no' get him a' in a book I think
Though they write it cunningly ;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.
1 Fere=
43
Mate, Companion.
? If they think they ha' snared our Goodly Fere They are fools to the last degree.
" Pll go to the feast," quo* our Goodly Fere, "Though I go to the gallows tree. "
" Ye ha* seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead," says he,
" Ye shall see one thing to master all : 'Tis how a brave man dies on the tree. "
A son of God was the Goodly Fere That bade us his brothers be.
I ha' seen him cow a thousand men. I have seen him upon the tree.
He cried no cry when they drave the nails And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue But never a cry cried he.
I ha' seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o' Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi' his eyes like the grey o' the sea.
Like the sea that brooks no voyaging With the winds unleashed and free, Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi' twey words spoke' suddently.
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha' slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
I ha' seen him eat o' the honey-comb Sin' they nailed him to the tree.
44
? LAUDANTES DECEM PULCHRITU- DINIS JOHANNAE TEMPLI
I
WHEN your beauty is grown old in all men's songs, And my uncertain words are lost amid that throng,
Then you will know the truth of my words,
And mayhap dreaming of those
Who sigh your praises in their songs,
You will think kindly then of these mad words.
II
I am torn, torn with thy beauty, O Rose of the sharpest thorn !
O Rose of the crimson beauty,
Why hast thou awakened the sleeper?
Why hast thou awakened the heart within me, O Rose of the crimson thorn ?
Ill
The unappeasable loveliness
is calling to me out of the wind,
And because your name
is written upon the ivory doors,
The wave in my heart is as a green wave, unconfined, Tossing the white foam toward you ;
And the lotus that pours
Her fragrance into the purple cup, Is more to be gained with the foam
Than are you with these words of mine. 45
? IV
He speaks to the moonlight concerning her
Pale hair that the moon has shaken Down over the dark breast of the sea,
magic her beauty has shaken
About the heart of me ;
Out of you have I woven a dream
That shall walk in the lonely vale
Betwixt the high hill and the low hill, Until the pale stream
Of the souls of men quench and grow still.
V
Voices speaking to the sun
Red leaf that art blown upward and out and over The green sheaf of the world,
And through the dim forest and under
The shadowed arches and the aisles,
We, who are older than thou art,
Met and remembered when his eyes beheld her
In the garden of the peach-trees, In the day of the blossoming.
VI
1 stood on the hill of Yrma
when the winds were a-hurrying,
With the grasses a-bending I followed them,
Through the brown grasses of Ahva unto the green of Asedon.
I have rested with the voices
in the gardens of Ahthor,
? I have lain beneath the peach-trees
in the hour of the purple :
Because I had awaited in
the garden of the peach-trees, Because I had feared not
in the forest of my mind, Mine eyes beheld the vision of the blossom
There in the peach-gardens past Asedon.
winds of Yrma, let her again come unto me,
Whose hair ye held unbound in the gardens of Ahthor !
VII
Because of the beautiful white shoulders and the rounded breasts
1 can in no wise forget my beloved of the peach-trees, And the little winds that speak when the dawn is
unfurled
And the rose-colour in the grey oak-leaf's fold
When it first comes, and the glamour that rests
On the little streams in the evening ; all of these Call me to her, and all the loveliness in the world Binds me to my beloved with strong chains of gold.
VIII
If the rose-petals which have fallen upon my eyes And if the perfect faces which I see at times
When my eyes are closed
Faces fragile, pale, yet flushed a little, like petals of roses :
If these things have confused my memories of her So that I could not draw her face
47
? Even if I had skill and the colours,
Yet because her face is so like these things
They but draw me nearer unto her in my thought
And thoughts of her come upon my mind gently, As dew upon the petals of roses.
IX
He speaks to the rain
O pearls that hang on your little silver chains, The innumerable voices that are whispering
Among you as you are drawn aside by the wind, Have brought to my mind the soft and eager speech Of one who hath great loveliness,
Which is subtle as the beauty of the rains That hang low in the moonshine and bring
The May softly among us, and unbind
The streams and the crimson and white flowers and
reach
Deep down into the secret places.
The glamour of the soul hath come upon me, And as the twilight comes upon the roses.
Walking silently among them,
So have the thoughts of my heart
Gone out slowly in the twilight
Toward my beloved,
Toward the crimson rose, the fairest.
? AUX BELLES DE LONDRES
I AM aweary with the utter and beautiful weariness And with the ultimate wisdom and with things terrene,
I am aweary with your smiles and your laughter, And the sun and the winds again
Reclaim their booty and the heart o' me.
FRANCESCA
You came in out of the night
And there were flowers in your hands.
Now you will come out of a confusion of people, Out of a turmoil of speech about you.
I who have seen you amid the primal things
Was angry when they spoke your name
In ordinary places.
I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,
And that the world should dry as a dead leaf, Or as a dandelion seed-pod and be swept away,
So that I might find you again, Alone.
49
? PRAYER
DAY and night are never weary,
Nor yet is God of creating
For day and night their torch-bearers
The half light of the dawn and the evening.
So, when I weary of praising the dawn and the sunset, Let me be no more counted among the immortals ;
But number me amid the wearying ones, Let me be a man as the herd,
And as the slave that is given in barter.
THE TREE
I STOOD still and was a tree amid the wood, Knowing the truth of things unseen before ; Of Daphne and the laurel bow
And that god-feasting couple old That grew elm-oak amid the wold.
'Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated, and been brought within Unto the hearth of their heart's home
That they might do this wonder thing ; Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before.
? ON HIS OWN FACE IN A GLASS
O STRANGE face there in the glass !
O ribald company, O saintly host,
O sorrow-swept my fool, What answer? O ye myriad
That strive and play and pass,
Jest, challenge, counterlie ! I? I? I?
And ye?
THE EYES
REST Master, for we be a-weary, weary And would feel the fingers of the wind Upon these lids that lie over us
Sodden and lead-heavy.
Rest brother, for lo ! the dawn is without !
The yellow flame paleth And the wax runs low.
Free us, for without be goodly colours, Green of the wood-moss and flower colours, And coolness beneath the trees.
Free us, for we perish In this ever-flowing monotony Of ugly print marks, black Upon white parchment.
Free us, for there is one Whose smile more availeth
Than all the age-old knowledge of thy books : And we would look thereon.
l
5
? NILS LYKKE
INFINITE memories.
Why are you forever calling and murmuring in the dark there ?
And reaching out your hands between me and my beloved ?
And why are you forever casting The black shadow of your beauty
On the white face of my beloved
And glinting in the pools of her eyes ?
? PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING
That is, Prince Henry Plantagenet, elder brother to Richard " Occur de Lion"
From the Prover^al of Bertrans de Born " Si tuit li dol elh plor elh marrimen. "
IF all the grief and woe and bitterness,
All dolour, ill and every evil chance
That ever came upon this grieving world Were set together they would seem but light
Against the death of the young English King. Worth lieth riven and Youth dolorous,
The world overshadowed, soiled and overcast, Void of all joy and full of ire and sadness.
Grieving and sad and full of bitterness
Are left in teen the liegemen courteous,
The joglars supple and the troubadours.
O'er much hath ta'en Sir Death that deadly warrior
In taking from them the young English King, Who made the freest hand seem covetous.
'Las ! Never was nor will be in this world The balance for this loss in ire and sadness !
O skilful Death and full of bitterness,
Well mayst thou boast that thou the best chevalier That any folk e'er had, hast from us taken ;
Sith nothing is that unto worth pertaineth
But had its life in the young English King,
And better were it, should God grant his pleasure That he should live than many a living dastard That doth but wound the good with ire and sadness.
53
? From this faint world, how full of bitterness Love takes his way and holds his joy deceitful, Sith no thing is but turneth unto anguish
And each to-day 'vails less than yestere'en,
Let each man visage this young English King That was most valiant 'mid all worthiest men !
Gone is his body fine and amorous,
Whence have we grief, discord and deepest sadness.
Him, whom it pleased for our great bitterness To come to earth to draw us from misventure, Who drank of death for our salvacioun,
Him do we pray as to a Lord most righteous
And humble eke, that the young English King
He please to pardon, as true pardon is, And bid go in with honoured companions
There where there is no grief, nor shall be sadness.
54
? ALBA 1
From the Provencal
IN a garden where the whitethorn spreads her leaves My lady hath her love lain close beside her, Tillthewardercriesthedawn Ahdawnthatgrieves! Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
" Please God that night, dear night should never cease, Nor that my love should parted be from me, Norwatchcry'Dawn' Ahdawnthatslayethpeace! Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
" Fair friend and sweet, thy lips ! Our lips again ! Lo, in the meadow there the birds give song !
Ours be the love and Jealousy's the pain !
Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
"Sweet friend and fair take we our joy again
Down in the garden, where the birds are loud,
Till the warder's reed astrain
Cry God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
" Of that sweet wind that comes from Far-Away Have I drunk deep of my Beloved's breath,
Yea ! of my Love's that is so dear and gay.
Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon !
Envoi
Fair is this damsel and right courteous,
And many watch her beauty's gracious ways, Her heart toward love is no wise traitorous.
Ah God ! Ah God ! That dawn should come so soon ! 1 VideautemQuiaPauper
55
? PLANH
Of White Thoughts he saw in a Forest
HEAVY with dreams,
Thou who art wiser than love,
Though I am hungry for their lips When I see them a-hiding
And a-passing out and in through the shadows
In the pine wood,
And they are white, like the clouds in the sky's forest
Ere the stars arise to their hunting ;
White Poppy, who art wiser than love, 1 am come for peace, yea from the hunting Am I come to thee for peace.
Out of a new sorrow it is,
That my hunting hath brought me.
White Poppy, heavy with dreams,
Though I am hungry for their lips When I see them a-hiding
And a-passing out and in through the shadows And it is white they are
But if one should look at me with the old hunger in
her eyes,
How will I be answering her eyes?
For I have followed the white folk of the forest.
Aye ! It's a long hunting
And it's a deep hunger I have when I see them
a-gliding
And a-flickering there, where the trees stand apart.
But oh, it is sorrow and sorrow When love dies-down in the heart.
56
? AU JARDIN From Canzoni
YOU away high there,
you that lean From amber lattices upon the cobalt night,
1 am below amid the pine trees, Amid the little pine trees, hear me !
" The jester walked in the garden. "
Well, there's no use your loving me That way, Lady ;
For I've nothing but songs to give you.
I am set wide upon the world's ways
To say that life is, some way, a gay thing, But you never string two days upon one wire
But there'll come sorrow of it.
Over beyond the moon there,
And I loved a love once. 1 loved a love once,
And, may be, more times,
But she danced like a pink moth in the shrubbery.
Oh, I know you women from the "other folk," And it'll all come right,
O* Sundays.
"The jester walked in the garden. "
57
Did he so?
Did he so ?
? OBOES
From Poetry and Drama for February 1912
I
FOR A BEERY VOICE
WHY should we worry about to-morrow, When we may all be dead and gone ? Haro! Haro!
Ha-a-ah-rro ! There'll come better men
Who will do, will they not ?
The noble things that we forgot. If there come worse,
what better thing Than to leave them the curse of our ill-doing !
Haro! Haro!
Ha-ah-ah-rro !
II AFTER HEINE
And have you thoroughly kissed my lips ? There was no particular haste,
And are you not ready when evening's come ? There's no particular haste.
You've got the whole night before you,
Heart's-all-beloved-my-own ;
In an uninterrupted night one can Get a good deal of kissing done.
? RIPOSTES
SILET
WHEN I behold how black, immortal ink
Dripsfrommydeathlesspen ah,well-away! Why should we stop at all for what I think ?
There is enough in what I chance to say.
It is enough that we once came together; What is the use of setting it to rime ?
When it is autumn do we get spring weather, Or gather may of harsh northwindish time ?
It is enough that we once came together; What if the wind have turned against the rain ? It is enough that we once came together;
Time has seen this, and will not turn again ;
And who are we, who know that last intent, To plague to-morrow with a testament !
VERONA, 1911
IN EXITUM CUIUSDAM On a certain onis departure
u TIME'S bitter flood "
But where's the old friend hasn't fallen off,
Or slacked his hand-grip when you first gripped fame ?
I know your circle and can fairly tell
What you have kept and what you've left behind : I know my circle and know very well
How many faces I'd have out of mind.
59
!
Oh, that's all very well,
? THE TOMB AT AKR AAR
" I AM thy soul, Nikoptis.
These five millennia, and thy dead eyes Moved not, nor ever answer my desire,
And thy light limbs, wherethrough I leapt aflame, Burn not with me nor any saffron thing.
See, the light grass sprang up to pillow thee,
And kissed thee with a myriad grassy tongues ; But not thou me.
I have read out the gold upon the wall,
And wearied out my thought upon the signs. And there is no new thing in all this place.
I have been kind. See, I have left the jars sealed, Lest thou shouldst wake and whimper for thy wine. And all thy robes I have kept smooth on thee.
thou unmindful !
How should I forget !
Even the river many days ago, The river, thou wast over young.
And three souls came upon Thee
And I came.
And I flowed in upon thee, beat them off;
1 have been intimate with thee, known thy ways.
Have I not touched thy palms and finger-tips, Flowed in, and through thee and about thy heels ?
How ' came I in ' ?
And no sun comes to rest me in this place,
And I am torn against the jagged dark, 60
Was
I not thee and Thee
?
I have watched
? And no light beats upon me, and you say No word, day after day.
Oh ! I could get me out, despite the marks And all their crafty work upon the door,
Out through the glass-green fields. . . .
Yet it is quiet here : I do not go. "
61
? PORTRAIT D'UNE FEMME
YOUR mind and you are our Sargasso Sea, London has swept about you this score years And bright ships left you this or that in fee :
Ideals, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. Greatmindshavesoughtyou lackingsomeoneelse.
Youhavebeensecondalways. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing :
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
Oneaveragemind withonethoughtless,eachyear. Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away :
Trophies fished up ; some curious suggestion ; Fact that leads nowhere ; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves, That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days : The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store ; and yet For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep, No ! there is nothing ! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own. Yet this is you.
62
? N. Y.
MY City, my beloved, my white ! Ah, slender,
Listen to me, and I will breathe into thee a soul.
Delicately upon the reed, attend me !
Now do I know that I am mad,
For here are a million people surly with traffic ;
This is no maid.
Neither could I play upon any reed if I had one.
My City, my beloved,
Thou art a maid with no breasts,
Thou art slender as a silver reed. Listen to me, attend me !
And I will breathe into thee a soul, And thou shalt live for ever.
MADISON AVE. , 1910
A GIRL
THE tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.
Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child so high you are,
And all this is folly to the world.
63
Listen !
? "PHASELLUS ILLE"
THIS papier-m&chd, which you see, my friends, Saith 'twas the worthiest of editors.
Its mind was made up in " the seventies,"
Nor hath it ever since changed that concoction.
It works to represent that school of thought
Which brought the hair-cloth chair to such perfection, Nor will the horrid threats of Bernard Shaw
Shake up the stagnant pool of its convictions ;
Nay, should the deathless voice of all the world
Speak once again for its sole stimulation, 'Twould not move it one jot from left to right.
Come Beauty barefoot from the Cyclades, She'd find a model for St Anthony
In this thing's sure decorum and behaviour.
AN
THIS thing, that hath a code and not a core,
Hath set acquaintance where might be affections,
And nothing now Disturbeth his reflections.
QUIES
THIS is another of our ancient loves.
Pass and be silent, Rullus, for the day
Hath lacked a something since this lady passed ; Hath lacked a something. 'Twas but marginal.
64
OBJECT
? THE SEAFARER
From the early Anglo-Saxon text
MAY I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care's hold, And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
While she tossed close to cliffs.
My feet were by frost benumbed. Chill its chains are ; chafing sighs
Hew my heart round and hunger begot
Mere-wearymood. Lestmanknownot That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea, Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
Deprived of my kinsmen ;
Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew, There I heard naught save the harsh sea
And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
Did for my games the gannet's clamour, Sea-fowls' loudness was for me laughter,
The mews' singing all my mead-drink.
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern In icy feathers ; full oft the eagle screamed
With spray on his pinion.
Not any protector
May make merry man faring needy.
This he little believes, who aye in winsome life
Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business,
E
65
Coldly afflicted,
? Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft Must bide above brine.
Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,
Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then,
Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now The heart's thought that I on high streams
The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone. Moaneth alway my mind's lust
That I fare forth, that I afar hence Seek out a foreign fastness.
For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst, Not though he be given his good, but will have in his
youth greed;
Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the
faithful
But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
Whatever his lord will.
He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight
Nor any whit else save the wave's slash,
Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water,
Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries, Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
On flood-ways to be far departing. Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not
Hetheprosperousman whatsomeperform
Where wandering them widest draweth.
So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock, My mood 'mid the mere-flood,
Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.
66
? On earth's shelter cometh oft to me,
Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly, O'er tracks of ocean ; seeing that anyhow
My lord deems to me this dead life On loan and on land, I believe not
That any earth-weal eternal standeth
Save there be somewhat calamitous
That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain. Disease or oldness or sword-hate
Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body,
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after
Laud of the living, boasteth some last word, That he will work ere he pass onward,
Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice, Daring ado, . . .
So that all men shall honour him after
And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,
Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast, Delight 'mid the doughty.
Days little durable,
And all arrogance of earthen riches, There come now no kings nor Csesars
Nor gold-giving lords like those gone. Howe'er in mirth most magnified,
Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,
Drear all this excellence, delights undurable ! Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth. Tomb hideth trouble.
The blade is layed low.
Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
No man at all going the earth's gait,
But age fares against him, his face paleth, Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,
67
? Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven,
Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth, Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,
Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,
And though he strew the grave with gold, His born brothers, their buried bodies
Be an unlikely treasure hoard.
THE CLOAK i
THOU keep'st thy rose-leaf
Till the rose-time will be over,
Think'st thou that Death will kiss thee ? Think'st thou that the Dark House
Will find thee such a lover
As I ? Will the new roses miss thee ?
Prefer my cloak unto the cloak of dust 'Neath which the last year lies,
For thou shouldst more mistrust Time than my eyes.
1
Asclepiades, Julianus -^Egyptus.
68
? BE in me as the eternal moods
of the bleak wind, and not
As transient things are gaiety of flowers.
Have me in the strong loneliness of sunless cliffs
And of grey waters.
Let the gods speak softly of us In days hereafter,
The shadowy flowers of Orcus Remember thee.
69
? APPARUIT
GOLDEN rose the house, in the portal I saw
thee, a marvel, carven in subtle stuff, a
portent. Life died down in the lamp and flickered,
caught at the wonder.
Crimson, frosty with dew, the roses bend where
thou afar, moving in the glamorous sun, drinkst in life of earth, of the air, the tissue
golden about thee.
Green the ways, the breath of the fields is thine there,
open lies the land, yet the steely going
darkly hast thou dared and the dreaded asther
parted before thee.
Swift at courage thou in the shell of gold, cast
ing a-loose the cloak of the body, earnest
straight, then shone thine oriel and the stunned light
faded about thee.
Half the graven shoulder, the throat aflash with strands of light inwoven about it, loveli
est of all things, frail alabaster, ah me !
