No More Learning

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 !
swift in departing.
Clothed in goldish weft, delicately perfect,
gone as wind ! The cloth of the magical hands !
Thou a slight thing, thou in access of cunning dar'dst to assume this ?
70
? THE NEEDLE
COME, or the stellar tide will slip away. Eastward avoid the hour of its decline, Now ! for the needle trembles in my soul !
Here have we had our vantage, the good hour. Here we have had our day, your day and mine. Come now, before this power
That bears us up, shall turn against the pole.
Mock not the flood of stars, the thing's to be. O Love, come now, this land turns evil slowly. The waves bore in, soon will they bear away.
The treasure is ours, make we fast land with it. Move we and take the tide, with its next favour, Abide
Under some neutral force
Until this course turneth aside.
SUB MARE
IT is, and is not, I am sane enough,
Since you have come this place has hovered round me,
This fabrication built of autumn roses, Then there's a goldish colour, different.
And one gropes in these things as delicate Algce reach up and out, beneath
Pale slow green surgings of the underwave,
'Mid these things older than the names they have,
These things that are familiars of the god.
? PLUNGE
I WOULD bathe myself in strangeness :
These comforts heaped upon me, smother me !
I burn, I scald so for the new,
New friends, new faces, Places !
Oh to be out of this, This that is all I wanted
save the new.
And you,
Love, you the much, the more desired !
Do I not loathe all walls, streets, stones, All mire, mist, all fog,
All ways of traffic ?
You, I would have flow over me like water, Oh, but far out of this !
Grass, and low fields, and hills, And sun,
Oh, sun enough !
Out, and alone, among some Alien people !
? A VIRGINAL
Go from me. I have left her lately.
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness.
For my surrounding air hath a new lightness ;
Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly And left me cloaked as with a gauze of aether ;
As with sweet leaves
Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness
To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.
No, no ! Go from me. I have still the flavour,
Soft as spring wind that's come from birchen bowers.
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winter's wound with her sleight hand she staunches,
Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour :
As white their bark, so white this lady's hours.
No,no!
;
as with a subtle clearness.
? PAN IS DEAD
" PAN is dead. Great Pan is dead.
Ah ! bow your heads, ye maidens all, And weave ye him his coronal. "
" There is no summer in the leaves, And withered are the sedges ;
How shall we weave a coronal, Or gather floral pledges ? "
" That I may not say. Ladies. Death was ever a churl.
That I may not say, Ladies. How should he show a reason,
That he has taken our Lord away
"
Upon such hollow season ?
74
? AN IMMORALITY
SING we for love and idleness, Naught else is worth the having.
Though I have been in many a land, There is naught else in living.
And I would rather have my sweet, Though rose-leaves die of grieving,
Than do high deeds in Hungary To pass all men's believing.
DIEU ! QU'IL LA FAIT
From Charles D'Orleans For Music
GOD ! that mad'st her well regard her, How she is so fair and bonny ;
For the great charms that are upon her Ready are all folk to reward her.
Who could part him from her borders When spells are alway renewed on her? God ! that mad'st her well regard her, How she is so fair and bonny.
From here to there to the sea's border, Dame nor damsel there's not any
Hath of perfect charms so many. Thoughts of her are of dream's order : God ! that mad'st her well regard her.
75
? THE PICTURE*
THE eyes of this dead lady speak to me,
For here was love, was not to be drowned out.
And here desire, not to be kissed away. The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.
1
OF JACOPO DEL SELLAIO
THIS man knew out the secret ways of love,
No man could paint such things who did not know.
And now she's gone, who was his Cyprian, And you are here, who are " The Isles " to me.
And here's the thing that lasts the whole thing out The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.
Venus Reclining, by Jacopo del Sellaio (14. 42-1493).
? THE RETURN
SEE, they return ; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering !
See, they return, one, and by one, With fear, as half-awakened ;
As if the snow should hesitate And murmur in the wind,
and half turn back ;
These were the " Wing'd-with-Awe," Inviolable.
Gods of the winged shoe ! With them the silver hounds,
sniffing
the trace of air !
Haie ! Haie !
These were the swift to harry ;
These the keen-scented ;
These were the souls of blood.
Slow on the leash,
pallid the leash-men !
77
? EFFECTS OF MUSIC UPON A COMPANY OF PEOPLE I
DEUX MOUVEMENTS
1 . Temple qui fut
2. Poissons d'or
A SOUL curls back ; Their souls like petals,
Thin, long, spiral,
Like those of a chrysanthemum, curl
Smoke-like up and back from the Vavicel, the calyx,
Pale green, pale gold, transparent, Green of plasma, rose-white, Spirate like smoke,
Curled,
Vibrating,
Slowly, waving slowly. O Flower animate !
O calyx !
O crowd of foolish people !
The petals !
On the tip of each the figure Delicate.
See, they dance, step to step. Flora to festival,
78
? Twine, bend, bow, Frolic involve ye. Woven the step,
Woven the tread, the moving. Ribands they move,
Wave, bow to the centre.
Pause, rise, deepen in colour, And fold in drowsily.
II
FROM A THING BY SCHUMANN
Breast high, floating and welling Their soul, moving beneath the satin,
Plied the gold threads, Pushed at the gauze above it. The notes beat upon this, Beat and indented it
;
Rain dropped and came and fell upon this, Hail and snow,
My sight gone in the flurry !
And then across the white silken, Bellied up, as a sail bellies to the wind,
Over the fluid tenuous, diaphanous, Over this curled a wave, greenish,
Mounted and overwhelmed it.
This membrane floating above,
And bellied out by the up-pressing soul.
Then came a mer-host,
And after them legion of Romans,
The usual, dull, theatrical ! 79
? PHANOPOEIA I
ROSE WHITE, YELLOW, SILVER
THE swirl of light follows me through the square, The smoke of incense
Mounts from the four horns of my bed-posts,
The water-jet of gold light bears us up through the ceilings;
Lapped in the gold-coloured flame I descend through the aether.
The silver ball forms in my hand, It falls and rolls to your feet.
II
SALTUS
The swirling sphere has opened
and you are caught up to the skies,
You are englobed in my sapphire.
lo! lo!
You have perceived the blades of the flame The flutter of sharp-edged sandals.
The folding and lapping brightness Has held in the air before you.
You have perceived the leaves of the flame. 80
? Ill
CONCAVA VALLIS
The wire-like bands of colour involute mount
from my fingers ;
I have wrapped the wind round your shoulders
And the molten metal of your shoulders bends into the turn of the wind,
AOI!
The whirling tissue of light
is woven and grows solid beneath us ;
The sea-clear sapphire of air, the sea-dark clarity, stretches both sea-cliff and ocean.
8r
? THE ALCHEMIST Chantfor the Transmutation of Metals
SAIL of Claustra, Aelis, Azalais,
As you move among the bright trees ;
As your voices, under the larches of Paradise Make a clear sound,
Sail of Claustra, Aelis, Azalais,
Raimona, Tibors, Berangere, 'Neath the dark gleam of the sky ;
Under night, the peacock-throated, Bring the saffron-coloured shell,
Bring the red gold of the maple,
Bring the light of the birch tree in autumn
Mirals, Cembelins, Audiarda,
Elain, Tireis, Alcmena
'Mid the silver rustling of wheat,
Agradiva, Anhes, Ardenca,
Remember this fire.
From the plum-coloured lake, in stillness, From the molten dyes of the water
Bring the burnished nature of fire ;
Briseis, Lianor, Loica,
From the wide earth and the olive,
From the poplars weeping their amber, By the bright flame of the fishing torch
Remember this fire. Midonz, with the gold of the sun, the leaf of the
poplar, by the light of the amber,
Midonz, daughter of the sun, shaft of the tree, silver
of the leaf, light of the yellow of the amber, 82
? Midonz, gift of the God, gift of the light, gift of the amber of the sun,
Give light to the metal. Anhes of Rocacoart, Ardenca, Aemelis,
From the power of grass,
From the white, alive in the seed,
From the heat of the bud,
From the copper of the leaf in autumn,
From the bronze of the maple, from the sap in the
bough ;
Lianor, loanna, Loica,
By the stir of the fin,
By the trout asleep in the gray-green of water ;
Vanna, Mandetta, Viera, Alodetta, Picarda, Manuela From the red gleam of copper,
Ysaut, Ydone, slight rustling of leaves,
Vierna, Jocelynn, daring of spirits,
By the mirror of burnished copper,'
O Queen of Cypress, Out of Erebus, the flat-lying breadth,
Breath that is stretched out beneath the world :
Out of Erebus, out of the flat waste of air, lying
beneath the world ;
Out of the brown leaf-brown colourless
Bring the imperceptible cool. Elain, Tireis, Alcmena,
Quiet this metal !
Let the manes put off their terror, let them put off
their aqueous bodies with fire.
Let them assume the milk-white bodies of agate.
Let them draw together the bones of the metal.
Selvaggia, Guiscarda, Mandetta,
Rain flakes of gold on the water,
83
? Azure and flaking silver of water, Alcyon, Phaetona, Alcmena,
Pallor of silver, pale lustre of Latona,
By these, from the malevolence of the dew
Guard this alembic.
Elain, Tireis, Allodetta
Quiet this metal.
CANTUS PLANUS
THE black panther lies under his rose tree And the fawns come to sniff at his sides :
Evoe, Evoe, Evoe Baccho, O ZAGREUS, Zagreus, Zagreus,
The black panther lies under his rose tree.
|| Hesper adest. Hesper|| adest.
Hesper adest. || ||
? TRANSLATIONS
? FROM THE SONNETS OF GUIDO CAVALCAbTI
CHE PER GLI OCCHI M1EI PASSASTE AL CORE
You, who do breech mine eyes and touch the heart, And start the mind from her brief reveries.
Might pluck my life and agony apart.
Saw you how love assaileth her with sighs,
And lays about him with so brute a might
That all my wounded senses turn to flight. There's a new face upon the seigniory,
And new is the voice that maketh loud my grief.
Love, who hath drawn me down through devious ways, Hath from your noble eyes so swiftly come !
'Tis he hath hurled the dart, wherefrom my pain,
First shot's resultant ! and in flanked amaze
See how my affrighted soul recoileth from That sinister side wherein the heart lies slain.
VOI,
87
? IO VIDI GLI OCCHI DOVE AMOR SI MISE
I SAW the eyes, where Amor ook his place,
When love's might bound me with the fear thereof, Look out at me as they were weary of love.
I say : The heart rent him as he looked on this, And were't not that my Lady lit her grace,
Smiling upon me with her eyes grown glad,
Then were my speech so dolorously clad That Love should mourn amid his victories.
The instant that she deigned to bend her eyes Toward me, a spirit from high heaven rode
And chose my thought the place of his abode,
With such deep parlance of love's verities, That all Love's powers did my sight accost As though I'd won unto his heart's mid-most.
88
? O DONNA iMIA, NON VEDESTU COLUI
O LADY mine, doth not thy sight allege
Him who hath set his hand upon my heart, When dry words rattle in my throat and start And shudder for the terror of his edge?
He was Amor, who since he found you, dwells Ever with me, and he was come from far ;
An archer is he as the Scythians are
Whose only joy is killing someone else.
My sobbing eyes are drawn upon his wrack, And such harsh sighs upon my heart he casteth
That I depart from that sad me he wasteth,
With Death drawn close upon my wavering track, Leading such tortures in his sombre train
As, by all custom, wear out other men.
? GLI MIEI FOLLI OCCHI, CHE'N PRIMA GUARDARO
LADY, my most rash eyes, the first who used
To look upon thy face, the power-fraught, Were, Lady, those by whom I was accused
In that proud keep where Amor holdeth court.
And there before him was their proof adduced,
And judgment wrote me down: "Bondslave" to thee,
Though still I stay Grief's prisoner, unloosed, And Fear hath lien upon the heart of me.
For the which charges, and without respite, They dragged me to a place where a sad horde Of such as Jove and whom Love tortureth Cried out, all pitying as I met their sight,
" Now art thou servant unto such a Lord Thou'lt have none other one save only Death. "
90
? TU M'HAI SI PIENA DI DOLOR LA MENTE
THOU fill'st my mind with griefs so populous That my soul irks him to be on the road. Mine eyes cry out, " We cannot bear the load Of sighs the grievous heart sends upon us. "
Love, sensitive to thy nobility,
Saith, " Sorrow is mine that thou must take thy death From this fair lady who will hear no breath
In argument for aught save pitying thee. "
And I, as one beyond life's compass thrown, Seem but a thing that's fashioned to design, Melted of bronze or carven in tree or stone. A wound I bear within this heart of mine
Which by its mastering quality is grown To be of that heart's death an open sign.
? CHI E QUESTA CHE VIEN, CH'OGNI UOM LA MIRA
WHO is she coming, drawing all men's gaze, Who makes the air one trembling clarity
Till none can speak but each sighs piteously Where she leads Love adown her trodden ways ?
AhGod!
Let Amor tell. '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.