UMBRA
»f
EZRA POUND
UMBRA
THE EARLY POEMS OF
EZRA POUND
All that he now 'wishes to keep in circulation from
" Personae? "Exultations? " Ripostes," etc. With
translations from Guido Cavalcanti and
Arnaut Daniel and poems by
the late T. E. HULME
LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, CORK STREET
MCMXX
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED. EDINBURGH
DEDICATION FROM " PERSONA E
THIS BOOK IS FOR
MARY MOORE
OF TRENTON, IF SHE
WANTS IT
Other volumes from which this is collected
were dedicated to Wm. Brooke Smith (in
memoriam) ; to Carlos T. Chester ; to
Wm. Carlos Williams, and the intended
"Arnaut Daniel " to Wm. Pierce Shepard.
One hundred copies of this Edition
have been printed on English hand
made paper, for England and
America, numbered and signed by
the Author, of which this is
CONTENTS
PERSONAE :—
PAGE
Grace before Song . . . . . .11
La Fraisne ....... 12
Cino ........ 14
Na Audiart ....... 16
Villonaud for this Yule . . . . .19
A Villonaud : Ballad of the Gibbet . . . .20
Mesmerism . . . . . . . 22
Famam Librosque Cano ..... 23
Praise of Ysolt ...... 25
For E. McC . . . . . . .27
At the Heart o' Me . . . . . .28
The White Stag . . . . . . .29
In Durance ....... 30
Marvoil ....... 32
And Thus in Nineveh ..... 34
EXULTATIONS :—
Guido invites you thus . . 35
Night Litany ....... 36
Sestina : Altaforte ...... 38
Piere Vidal Old ...... 40
Ballad of the Goodly Fere . . . . .43
Laudantes Decem Pulchritudinis Johannae Templi . . 45
Aux Belles de Londres ..... 49
Francesca ....... 49
Prayer ........ 50
The Tree. (From A Lume Spento) . . . .50
On His Own Face in a Glass . . . .51
The Eyes . . . . . . .51
Nils Lykke ........ 52
Planh for the Young English King . . . -53
Alba . . . . . . . -55
Planh ........ 56
FROM "CANZONI": —
PAGE
Au Jardin . >: v«;: . . • .. « 57
FROM "POETRY AND DRAMA" FOR FEBRUARY 1912:—
Oboes I. For a Beery Voice , . . * 58
II. After Heine . . * . . •"•£ 58
RIPOSTES :—
Silet . ,» . . . . . '' f ~; ;'--. 59
In Exitum Cuiusdam . . . .',-'• j, - . 59
The Tomb at Akr £aar ', , • • > * 60
Portrait d'une Ferame , ••'».-•• . . . . 62
N.Y. . -,-:;/: v;.C- .;'.: . , . , . . .63
A Girl. , . v' • '•; ".' / .. v , . . . . 63
"Phasellus Ille" . 'V; -;V . • • • 64
An Object . ?v '--'\ .; ^ v;« . . 64
Quies .... •...'••». . j, . 64
The Seafarer . . . ; > V ./ . 65
The Cloak "., ^, ;^j : . . ' -;.'. . 68
Acfyua . » " . » ^; . ;. . 69
Apparuit v '-; . . /# t . . 70
The Needle . v. - '.. ^ ,-; \ ^ , . 71
Sub Mare . V V » t » . . 71
Plunge. . V * :'>, • ; • ' • . 72
A Virginal . f.\ ;v . . >> . 73
Pan is Dead . ,. ;; '.^': v- ,v ; ,7 » . 74
An Immorality : > ,- , . *,. - . • • 75
Dieu ! Qu'il la fait . . V .- * . 75
The Picture . . . '* -";. . ^ . 76
Of Jacopo Del Sellaio / .. ... 76
The Return . >^- • v : » > • 77
Effects of Music upon a Company of People —
I. Deux Mouvements . . * . /:;*. 78
II. From a Thing by Schumann . < . : '.'.« 79
Phanopoeia, I., II., and III. . f:p| " '. , '..., 80
The Alchemist, unpublished 1912 .. . . . 82
Cantus Planus . *< V *\ V ^•^' *-.. V 84
8
TRANSLATIONS
FROM THE SONNETS OF GUIDO CAVALCANTI : —
PAGE
Voi, che per gli occhi miei passaste al core . . 87
lo vidi gli occhi dove Amor si mise .- ' » , . . 88
O Donna mia, non vedestu colui . . . .89
Gli miei folli occhi, che'n prima guardaro . . .90
Tu m'hai si piena di dolor la mente . . .91
Chi e questa che vien, ch'ogni uom la mira . . 92
Perche non furo a me gli occhi miei spenti . . . 93
Avete in voi li fieri, e la verdura , • < . 94
Certo mie rime a te mandar vogliendo ; . .!." v • 95
Morte gentil, rimedio de' cattivi . :" ,' ; . . 96
Una figura de la donna mia . ' L» -.;•'• i « , . 97
O cieco mondo, di lusinghe pieno . . . • 97
(Called a Madrigale)
Poiche di doglia cor convien ch'io porto . . .98
(Fragment of a Canzone, miscalled a Ballata)
FROM THE BALLATE OF GUIDO CAVALCANTI : —
lo vidi donne con la donna mia . . . .99
Se m'hai del tutto obliato mercede . . . 100
Veggio negli occhi de la donna mia . . . 101
La forte, e nova mia disavventura .... 101
Era in pensier d'Amor quand' io trovai . . . 103
Perch' io non spero di tornar gia mai . . .105
Quando di morte mi convien trar vita . . . 106
Sol per pieta ti prego giovinezza . . . . 108
Io priego voi che di dolor parlate .... 109
FIVE CANZONI OF ARNAUT DANIEL : — l
L'Aura Amara . . • . . . .no
Autet e bas entrels prims fuoills . «• . . 114
Glamour and Indigo (Dotttz brats e critz] . . .116
Lancan 'son passat li giure . . . . .119
Ans quel cim reston de branchas . . . . 121
1 " Sols sui que sai," from this series, appears in Quia Pauper Amavi\ further study
of Arnaut in Instigations.
THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T. E. HULME :—
Jf PAGE
Autumn . . ... . . . . . 123
Mana Aboda . . . . !• ~ •-' - . .123
Above the Dock % : . . . •• . , m 12^
The Embankment . . . , . . 124
Conversion . . . , . . . I24
I25
(Abbreviated from the Conversation of Mr T. E. H.)
NOTES : —
1. Note to "La Fraisne" . . . . .127
2. Personae and Portraits . . . . .128
Bibliography . . . . . . .128
10
PERSONAE
GRACE BEFORE SONG
LORD GOD of heaven that with mercy dight
Th' alternate prayer-wheel of the night and light
Eternal hast to thee, and in whose sight
Our days as rain drops in the sea surge fall,
As bright white drops upon a leaden sea
Grant so my songs to this grey folk may be :
As drops that dream and gleam and falling catch the
sun.
Evanescent mirrors every opal one
Of such his splendour as their compass is,
Be bold, My Songs, to seek such death as this.
ii
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
LA FRAISNE'
SCENE : The Ash Wood of Mahern
FOR I was a gaunt, grave councillor
Being in all things wise, and very old,
But I have put aside this folly and the cold
That old age weareth for a cloak.
I was quite strong — at least they said so—
The young men at the sword-play ;
But I have put aside this folly, being gay
In another fashion that more suiteth me.
I have curled 'mid the boles of the ash wood,
I have hidden my face where the oak
Spread his leaves over me, and the yoke
Of the old ways of men have I cast aside.
By the still pool of Mar-nan-otha
Have I found me a bride
That was a dog-wood tree some syne.
She hath called me from mine old ways
She hath hushed my rancour of council,
Bidding me praise
Naught but the wind that flutters in the leaves.
She hath drawn me from mine old ways,
Till men say that I am mad ;
But I have seen the sorrow of men, and am glad,
For I know that the wailing and bitterness are a folly.
And I ? I have put aside all folly and all grief.
I wrapped my tears in an ellum leaf
1 Prefatory note at end of volume.
12
And left them under a stone
And now men call me mad because I have thrown
All folly from me, putting it aside
To leave the old barren ways of men,
Because my bride
Is a pool of the wood, and
Though all men say that I am mad
It is only that I am glad,
Very glad, for my bride hath toward me a great love
That is sweeter than the love of women
That plague and burn and drive one away.
Aie-e ! 'Tis true that I am gay
Quite gay, for I have her alone here
And no man troubleth us.
Once when I was among the young men . .>•••:'
And they said I was quite strong, among the young men,
Once there was a woman . . .
. . . but I forget . . . she was . . .
... I hope she will not come again.
... I do not remember . . ;V
I think she hurt me once, but . . .
That was very long ago.
I do not like to remember things any more.
I like one little band of winds that blow
In the ash trees here :
For we are quite alone
Here 'mid the ash trees.
CINO
Italian Campagna 1309, the open road
BAH ! I have sung women in three cities,
But it is all the same ;
And I will sing of the sun.
Lips, words, and you snare them,
Dreams, words, and they are as jewels,
Strange spells of old deity,
Ravens, nights, allurement :
And they are not ;
Having become the souls of song.
Eyes, dreams, lips, and the night goes.
Being upon the road once more,
They are not.
Forgetful in their towers of our tuneing
Once for Wind-runeing
They dream us-toward and
Sighing, say, " Would Cino,
Passionate Cino, of the wrinkling eyes,
Gay Cino, of quick laughter,
Cino, of the dare, the jibe,
Frail Cino, strongest of his tribe
That tramp old ways beneath the sun-light,
Would Cino of the Luth were here ! "
Once, twice, a year —
Vaguely thus word they :
" Cino ? " " Oh, eh, Cino Polnesi
The singer is't you mean ? "
" Ah yes, passed once our way,
A saucy fellow, but . . .
N
(Oh they are all one these vagabonds),
Peste ! 'tis his own songs ?
Or some other's that he sings ?
But you, My Lord, how with your city ? "
But you " My Lord," God's pity !
And all I knew were out, My Lord, you
Were Lack-land Cino, e'en as I am,
0 Sinistro.
1 have sung women in three cities.
But it is all one.
I will sing of the sun.
... eh ? ... they mostly had grey eyes,
But it is all one, I will sing of the sun.
" 'Polio Phoibee, old tin pan, you
Glory to Zeus' aegis-day,
Shield o' steel-blue, th' heaven o'er us
Hath for boss thy lustre gay !
'Polio Phoibee, to our way-fare
Make thy laugh our wander-lied ;
Bid thy 'fulgence bear away care.
Cloud and rain-tears pass they fleet !
Seeking o'er the new-laid rast-way
To the gardens of the sun . . .
I have sung women in three cities
But it is all one.
I will sing of the white birds
In the blue waters of heaven,
The clouds that are spray to its sea.
15
NA AUDIART
Que be-m vols mal
NOTE : Anyone who has read anything of the troubadours knows well
the tale of Bertran of Born and My Lady Maent of Montaignac, and
knows also the song he made when she would none of him, the song
wherein he, seeking to find or make her equal, begs of each preeminent
lady of Langue d'Oc some trait or some fair semblance : thus of Cembelins
her " esgart amoros " to wit, her love-lit glance, of Aelis her speech free-
running, of the Vicomptess of Chales her throat and her two hands, at
Roacoart of Anhes her hair golden as Iseult's ; and even in this fashion of
Lady Audiart "although she would that ill come unto him1' he sought
and praised the lineaments of the torse. And all this to make " Una
dompna soiseubuda " a borrowed lady or as the Italians translated it " Una
donna ideale."
THOUGH thou well dost wish me ill
Audiart, Audiart,
Where thy bodice laces start
As ivy fingers clutching through
Its crevices,
Audiart, Audiart,
Stately, tall and lovely tender
Who shall render
Audiart, Audiart
Praises meet unto thy fashion ?
Here a word kiss !
Pass I on
Unto Lady " Miels-de-Ben,"
Having praised thy girdle's scope
How the stays ply back from it ;
I breathe no hope
That thou shouldst . . .
Nay no whit
Bespeak thyself for anything.
Just a word in thy praise, girl,
16
Just for the swirl
Thy satins made upon the stair,
'Cause never a flaw was there
Where thy torse and limbs are met
Though thou hate me, read it set
In rose and gold.1
Or when the minstrel, tale half told,
Shall burst to lilting at the phrase
" Audiart, Audiart " .
Bertrans, master of his lays,
Bertrans of Aultaforte thy praise
Sets forth, and though thou hate me well,
Yea though thou wish me ill
Audiart, Audiart.
Thy loveliness is here writ till,
Audiart,
Oh, till thou come again.2
And being bent and wrinkled, in a form
That hath no perfect limning, when the warm
Youth dew is cold
Upon thy hands, and thy old soul
Scorning a new, wry'd casement,
Churlish at seemed misplacement,
Finds the earth as bitter
As now seems it sweet,
Being so young and fair
As then only in dreams,
Being then young and wry'd,
Broken of ancient pride,
Thou shalt then soften,
Knowing, I know not how,
1 I.e. in illumed manuscript. 2 Reincarnate.
B 17
Thou wert once she
Audiart, Audiart
For whose fairness one forgave
Audiart,
Audiart Que be-m vols mal.
18
VILLONAUD FOR THIS YULE
TOWARDS the Noel that morte saison
(Christ make the shepherds'* homage dear ! )
Then when the grey wolves everychone
Drink of the winds their chill small-beer
And lap o' the snows food's gueredon
Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer
(Skoal ! with the dregs if the clear be gone !)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.
Ask ye what ghosts I dream upon ?
(What of the magians* scented gear ?}
The ghosts of dead loves everyone
That make the stark winds reek with fear
Lest love return with the foison sun
And slay the memories that me cheer
(Such as I drink to mine fashion)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.
Where are the joys my heart had won?
(Saturn and Mars to Zeus drawn near /) l
Where are the lips mine lay upon,
Aye ! where are the glances feat and clear
That bade my heart his valour don ?
I skoal to the eyes as grey-blown mere
(Who knows whose was that paragon ?)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.
Prince : ask me not what I have done
Nor what God hath that can me cheer
But ye ask first where the winds are gone
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.
1 Signum Nativitatis.
19
A VILLONAUD : BALLAD OF THE
GIBBET
OR THE SONG OF THE SIXTH COMPANION
SCENE : " En ce bourdel ou tenons nostre estat"
It being remembered that there were six of us with Master Villon, when
that expecting presently to be hanged he writ a ballad whereof ye know :
" Freres humains qui apres nous <vi<vez."
DRINK ye a skoal for the gallows tree !
Fraiu^ois and Margot and thee and me,
Drink we the comrades merrily
That said us, " Till then " for the gallows tree !
Fat Pierre with the hook gauche-main,
Thomas Larron " Ear-the-less,"
Tybalde and that armouress
Who gave this poignard its premier stain
Pinning the Guise that had been fain
To make him a mate of the " Haulte Noblesse "
And bade her be out with ill address
As a fool that mocketh his drue's disdeign.
Drink we a skoal for the gallows tree !
Francois and Margot and thee and me,
Drink we to Marienne Ydole,
That hell brenn not her o'er cruelly.
Drink we the lusty robbers twain,
Black is the pitch o' their wedding dress, l
Lips shrunk back for the wind's caress
As lips shrink back when we feel the strain
1 Certain gibbeted corpses used to be coated with tar as a preservative ;
thus one scarecrow served as warning for considerable time. See Hugo,
UHomme qui Rit.
20
Of love that loveth in hell's disdeign,
And sense the teeth through the lips that press
'Gainst our lips for the soul's distress
That striveth to ours across the pain.
Drink we skoal to the gallows tree !
Fra^ois and Margot and thee and me,
For Jehan and Raoul de Vallerie
Whose frames have the night and its winds in fee.
Maturin, Guillaume, Jacques d'Allmain,
Culdou lacking a coat to bless
One lean moiety of his nakedness
That plundered St Hubert back o' the fane :
Aie ! the lean bare tree is widowed again
For Michault le Borgne that would confess
In " faith and troth " to a traitoress,
" Which of his brothers had he slain ? "
But drink we skoal to the gallows tree !
Fran9ois and Margot and thee and me :
These that we loved shall God love less
And smite alway at their faibleness ?
Skoal ! ! to the gallowsj and then pray we :
God damn his hell out speedily
And bring their souls to his " Haulte Citee."
21
MESMERISM
" And a cafs in the tuater-butt" — ROBERT BROWNING
AYE you're a man that ! ye old mesmerizer
Tyin' your meanin' in seventy swadelin's,
One must of needs be a hang'd early riser
To catch you at worm turning. Holy Odd's bodykins !
" Cat's i' the water butt ! " Thought's in your verse-
barrel,
Tell us this thing rather, then we'll believe you,
You, Master Bob Browning, spite your apparel
Jump to your sense and give praise as we'd lief do.
You wheeze as a head-cold long-tonsilled Calliope,
But God ! what a sight you ha' got o' our in'ards,
Mad as a hatter but surely no Myope,
Broad as all ocean and leanin' man-kin'ards.
Heart that was big as the bowels of Vesuvius,
Words that were wing'd as her sparks in eruption,
Eagled and thundered as Jupiter Pluvius,
Sound in your wind past all signs o' corruption.
Here's to you, Old Hippety-Hop o' the accents,
True to the Truth's sake and crafty dissector,
You grabbed at the gold sure ; had no need to pack cents
Into your versicles.
Clear sight's elector !
22
FAMAM LIBROSQUE CANO
YOUR songs?
Oh ! The little mothers
Will sing them in the twilight,
And when the night
Shrinketh the kiss of the dawn
That loves and kills,
What time the swallow fills
Her note, the little rabbit folk
That some call children,
Such as are up and wide
Will laugh your verses to each other,
Pulling on their shoes for the day's business.
Serious child business that the world
Laughs at, and grows stale ;
Such is the tale
— Part of it — of thy song-life.
Mine?
A book is known by them that read
That same. Thy public in my screed
Is listed. Well ! Some score years hence
Behold mine audience,
As we had seen him yesterday.
Scrawny, be-spectacled, out at heels,
Such an one as the world feels
A sort of curse against its guzzling
And its age-lasting wallow for red greed
And yet; full speed
23
Though it should run for its own getting,
Will turn aside to sneer at
'Cause he hath
No coin, no will to snatch the aftermath
Of Mammon
Such an one as women draw away from
For the tobacco ashes scattered on his coat
And sith his throat
Shows razor's unfamiliarity
And three days' beard ;
Such an one picking a ragged
Backless copy from the stall,
Too cheap for cataloguing,
Loquitur,
"Ah-eh! the strange rare name . . ; '
Ah-eh ! He must be rare if even / have not
And lost mid-page
Such age
As his pardons the habit,
He analyses form and thought to see
How I 'scaped immortality.
24
PRAISE OF YSOLT
IN vain have I striven,
to teach my heart to bow ;
In vain have I said to him
"There be many singers greater than thou."
But his answer cometh, as winds and as lutany,
As a vague crying upon the night
That leaveth me no rest, saying ever,
" Song, a song."
Their echoes play upon each other in the twilight
Seeking ever a song.
Lo, I am worn with travail
And the wandering of many roads hath made my eyes
As dark red circles filled with dust.
Yet there is a trembling upon me in the twilight,
And little red elf words crying " A song,"
Little grey elf words crying for a song,
Little brown leaf words crying " A song,"
Little green leaf words crying for a song.
The words are as leaves, old brown leaves in the
spring time
Blowing they know not whither, seeking a song.
White words as snow flakes but they are cold,
Moss words, lips words, words of slow streams.
In vain have I striven
to teach my soul to bow,
In vain have I pled with him :
"There be greater souls than thou."
For in the morn of my years there came a woman
As moon light calling,
25
As the moon calleth the tides,
" Song, a song."
Wherefore I made her a song and she went from me
As the moon doth from the sea,
But still came the leaf words, little brown elf words
Saying " The soul sendeth us."
" A song, a song ! "
And in vain I cried unto them " I have no song
For she I sang of hath gone from me."
But my soul sent a woman, a woman of the wonderfolk,
A woman as fire upon the pine woods
crying " Song, a song."
As the flame crieth unto the sap.
My song was ablaze with her and she went from me
As flame leaveth the embers so went she unto new
forests
And the words were with me
crying ever " Song, a song."
And I " I have no song,"
Till my soul sent a woman as the sun :
Yea as the sun calleth to the seed,
As the spring upon the bough
So is she that cometh, the mother of songs,
She that holdeth the wonder words within her eyes
The words, little elf words
that call ever unto me
" Song, a song."
ENVOI
In vain have I striven with my soul
to teach my soul to bow.
What soul boweth
while in his heart art thou ?
26
FOR E. McC
That 'was my counter-blade under Leonardo Terrene, Master of Fence
GONE while your tastes were keen to you,
Gone where the grey winds call to you,
By that high fencer, even Death,
Struck of the blade that no man parrieth ;
Such is your fence, one saith,
One that hath known you.
Drew you your sword most gallantly
Made you your pass most valiantly
'Gainst that grey fencer, even Death.
Gone as a gust of breath
Faith ! no man tarrieth,
" Se il cor ti manca" but it failed thee not!
" Non tifidar^ it is the sword that speaks
"/» me '."!
Thou trusted'st in thyself and met the blade
'Thout mask or gauntlet, and art laid
As memorable broken blades that be
Kept as bold trophies of old pageantry.
As old Toledos past their days of war
Are kept mnemonic of the strokes they bore,
So art thou with us, being good to keep
In our heart's sword-rack, though thy sword-arm
sleep.
ENVOI
Struck of the blade that no man parrieth
Pierced of the point that toucheth lastly all,
'Gainst that grey fencer, even Death,
Behold the shield ! He shall not take thee all.
1 Sword-rune " If thy heart fail thee trust not in me."
27
AT THE HEART O' ME
A.D. 751
WITH ever one fear at the heart o' me
Long by still sea-coasts
coursed my Grey-Falcon,
And the twin delights
of shore and sea were mine,
Sapphire and emerald with
fine pearls between.
Through the pale courses of
the land-caressing in-streams
Glided my barge and
the kindly strange peoples
Gave to me laugh for laugh,
and wine for my tales of wandering
And the cities gave me welcome
and the fields free passage,
With ever one fear
at the heart o' me.
An thou should'st grow weary
ere my returning,
An " they " should call to thee
from out the borderland,
What should avail me
booty of whale- ways ?
What should avail me
gold rings or the chain-mail ?
What should avail me
the many-twined bracelets ?
28
What should avail me,
O my beloved,
Here in this " Middan-gard " l
what should avail me
Out of the booty and
gain of my goings ?
1 Anglo-Saxon "Earth."
THE WHITE STAG
I HA* seen them 'mid the clouds on the heather.
Lo ! they pause not for love nor for sorrow,
Yet their eyes are as the eyes of a maid to her lover,
When the white hart breaks his cover
And the white wind breaks the morn.
the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting,
Bid the world's hounds come to horn ! "
29
IN DURANCE
I AM homesick after mine own kind,
Oh I know that there are folk about me, friendly faces,
But I am homesick after mine own kind.
" These sell our pictures " ! Oh well,
They reach me not, touch me some edge or that,
But reach me not and all my life's become
One flame, that reaches not beyond
My heart's own hearth,
Or hides among the ashes there for thee.
"Thee"? Oh, "Thee" is who cometh first
Out of mine own soul-kin,
For I am homesick after mine own kind
And ordinary people touch me not.
And I am homesick
After mine own kind that know, and feel
And have some breath for beauty and the arts.
Aye, I am wistful for my kin of the spirit
And have none about me save in the shadows
When come they, surging of power, " DAEMON,"
"Quasi KALOUN." S.T. says Beauty is most that, a
"calling to the soul."
Well then, so call they, the swirlers out of the mist of
my soul,
They that come me wards, bearing old magic.
But for all that, I am homesick after mine own kind
And would meet kindred even as I am,
Flesh-shrouded bearing the secret.
" All they that with strange sadness "
30
Have the earth in mockery, and are kind to all,
My fellows, aye I know the glory
Of th' unbounded ones, but ye, that hide
As I hide most the while
And burst forth to the windows only whiles or whiles
For love, or hope, or beauty or for power,
Then smoulder, with the lids half closed
And are untouched by echoes of the world.
Oh ye, my fellows : with the seas between us some be,
Purple and sapphire for the silver shafts
Of sun and spray all shattered at the bows ;
And some the hills hold off,
The little hills to east us, though here we
Have damp and plain to be our shutting in.
And yet my soul sings " Up ! " and we are one.
Yea thou, and Thou, and THOU, and all my kin
To whom my breast and arms are ever warm,
For that I love ye as the wind the trees
That holds their blossoms and their leaves in cure
And calls the utmost singing from the boughs
That 'thout him, save the aspen, were as dumb
Still shade, and bade no whisper speak the birds of how
"Beyond, beyond, beyond, there lies . . ."
MARVOIL
A POOR clerk I, " Arnaut the less " they call me,
And because I have small mind to sit
Day long, long day cooped on a stool
A-jumbling o' figures for Maitre Jacques Pol in,
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 : " Vers and canzone to the Countess of
Beziers
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 ! I am a poet and upon my tomb
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
0 God of the silence ',
Purifiez nos cceurs
0 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. " Papiols " is his jongleur.
" The Leopard," the device of Richard (Coeur de Lion).
I
DAMN it all ! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come ! Let's to music !
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
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 charges 'gainst " The Leopard's " rush clash.
May God damn for ever all who cry " Peace ! "
VII
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! Who talks of words and
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 ? Or who will win
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 !
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 ! " quo' our Goodly Fere,
" Or I'll see ye damned," says he.
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 = Mate, Companion.
43
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,
0 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.
0 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.
5l
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
ALBA1
From the Provencal
IN a garden where the whitethorn spreads her leaves
My lady hath her love lain close beside her,
Till the warder cries the dawn — Ah dawn that grieves !
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,
Nor watch cry 'Dawn' — Ah dawn that slayeth peace!
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- A way
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 Vide autem Quia Pauper
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 ;
0 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
0 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."
Did he so ?
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.
And I loved a love once.
Over beyond the moon there,
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."
Did he so?
57
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
Drips from my deathless pen — 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 " ! Oh, that's all very well,
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
THE TOMB AT AKR £AAR
" I AM thy soul, Nikoptis. I have watched
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.
0 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 ' ? Was I not thee and Thee ?
And no sun comes to rest me in this place,
And I am torn against the jagged dark,
60
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.
Great minds have sought you — lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical ?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing :
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind — with one thought less, each year.
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 ! 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
"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 OBJECT
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
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. Coldly afflicted,
My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains are ; chafing sighs
Hew my heart round and hunger begot
Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
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
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 —
He the prosperous man — what some perform
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
No, no ! 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 ; as with a subtle clearness.
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.
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 Venus Reclining, by Jacopo del Sellaio (14.42-1493).
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.
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
SALT US
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
Chant for 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,
Remember this fire.
Elain, Tireis, Alcmena
'Mid the silver rustling of wheat,
Agradiva, Anhes, Ardenca,
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
VOI, 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.
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 ?
Ah God ! The thing she's like when her glance strays,
Let Amor tell. 'Tis no fit speech for me.
Mistress she seems of such great modesty
That every other woman were called " Wrath."
No one could ever tell the charm she hath
For all the noble powers bend toward her
She being beauty's godhead manifest.
•i '^ '
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
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 my soul cried, " Ah, mistress, bring us 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.
And thou ; thou knowest well I am Amor
Who leave with thee mine ashen likeness here
And bear away from thee thine every thought.9'
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.
Ah woe ! how oft I cry " Love tell me now :
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
Speak thus : " Look well ! For if thou look on her,
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
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
Who sang " The rains
Of love are falling, falling within us."
So quiet in their modest courtesies
Their aspect coming softly on my vision
Made me reply, " Surely ye hold the keys
O' the virtues noble, high, without omission.
Ah, little maids, hold me not in derision,
For the wound I bear within me
And this heart o' mine ha5 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
This man. Behold how greatly ! "
Then she who had first mocked me, in better part
Gave me all courtesy in her replies.
She said, " That Lady, who upon thine heart
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
Memory of those eyes ? "
To her dread question with such fears attended,
" Maid o' the wood," I said, " my memories render
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,
And naught within recall
Save, Death ! My wounds ! Her eyes ! "
ENVOI
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 :
" Behold, thy servant is come
— This soul who would dwell with thee — •
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 person from desire,1
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 Formando di desio nova persona.
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, my joy
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. Hope waits
'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 Passage unexplained by commentators, " Cils de Doma " being taken by
some to mean the Virgin, Our Lady of Puy de Dome. There is another
Dome, on Dordoigne.
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,
Gifts, go ! 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 make1
In heart ; nor try
My melodies
At other's door nor mearing.
Make =fere, companion ; Raik =haste precipitate.
113
AUTET E BAS ENTRELS PRIMS
FUOILLS
Cadahus
En son us.
Now high and low, where leaves renew,
Come buds on bough and spalliard pleach
And no beak nor throat is muted,
Auzel each in tune contrasted
Letteth loose
Wriblis1 spruce.
Joy for them and spring would set
Song on me, but Love assaileth
Me and sets my words t' his dancing.
I thank my God and mine eyes too,
Since through them the perceptions reach,
Porters of joys that have refuted
Every ache and shame I've tasted.
They reduce
Pains, and noose
Me in Amor's corded net.
Her beauty in me prevaileth
Till bonds seem but joy's advancing.
My thanks, Amor, that I win through ;
Thy long delays I naught impeach ;
Though flame 's in my marrow rooted
I'd not quench it, well 't hath lasted,
Burns profuse,
Held recluse
Lest knaves know our hearts are met.
Murrain on the mouth that aileth,
So he finds her not entrancing.
1 Wriblis Tf
He doth in Love's book misconstrue,
And from that book none can him teach,
Who saith ne'er 's in speech recruited
Aught whereby the heart is dasted.
Words' abuse
Doth traduce
Worth, but I run no such debt.
Right 'tis if man over-raileth
He tear tongue on tooth mischancing.
That I love her, is pride, is true,
But my fast secret knows no breach.
Since Paul's writ was executed
Or the forty days first fasted,
Not Cristus
Could produce
Her similar, where one can get
Charms total, for no charm faileth
Her who's memory's enhancing.
Grace and valour, the keep of you
She is, who holds me ; each to each,
She sole, I sole, so fast suited,
Other women's lures are wasted,
And no truce
But misuse
Have I for them, they're not let
To my heart, where she regaleth
Me with delights I'm not chancing.
Arnaut loves, and ne'er will fret
Love with o'er-speech, his throat quaileth,
Braggart voust is naught t' his fancy.
GLAMOUR AND INDIGO
SWEET cries and cracks
and lays and chants inflected
By auzels who, in their latin belikes,
Chirme each to each, even as you and I
Pipe toward those girls on whom our thoughts attract ;
Are but more cause that I, whose overweening
Search is. toward the Noblest, set in cluster
Lines where no word pulls wry, no rhyme breaks
gauges.
No culs de sacs
nor false ways me deflected
When first I pierced her fort within its dykes,
Hers, for whom my hungry insistency
Passes the gnaw whereby was Vivian wracked ;
Day-long I stretch, all times, like a bird preening,
And yawn for her, who hath o'er others thrust her
As high as true joy is o'er ire and rages.
Welcome not lax,
and my words were protected
Not blabbed to other, when I set my likes
On her ; not brass but gold was 'neath the die,
That day we kissed, and after it she flacked
O'er me her cloak of indigo, for screening
Me from all culvertz' eyes, whose blathered bluster
Can set such spites abroad, win jibes for wages.
116
God, who did tax
not Longus' sin, respected
That blind centurion beneath the spikes
And him forgave, grant that we two shall lie
Within one room, and seal therein our pact,
Yea, that she kiss me in the half-light, leaning
To me, and laugh and strip and stand forth in the lustre
Where lamp-light with light limb but half engages.
The flowers wax
with buds but half perfected ;
Tremble on twig that shakes when the bird strikes —
But not more fresh than she ! No empery,
Though Rome and Palestine were one compact,
Would lure me from her; and with hands convening
I give me to her. And if kings could muster
In homage similar, you'd count them sages.
Mouth, now what knacks ! !
What folly hath infected
Thee ? Gifts, that th' Emperor of the Salonikes
Or Lord of Rome were greatly honoured by,
Or Syria's lord, thou dost from me distract ;
O fool I am ! to hope for intervening
From Love that shields not love ! Yea, it were juster
To call him mad, who 'gainst his joy engages.
POLITICAL POSTSCRIPT
The slimy jacks
with adders' tongues bisected,
I fear no whit, nor have ; and if these tykes
Have led Gallicia's king to villainy —
His cousin in pilgrimage hath he attacked —
We know — Raimon the Count's son — my meaning
Stands without screen. The royal filibuster
Redeems not honour till he unbar the cages.
CODA
I should have seen it, but I was on such affair,
Seeing the true king crown'd, here in Estampa.
NOTES. — Vivien, Strophe 2, nebotz Sain Guillem, an allusion to the
romance Enfances Vivien.
Longus, centurion in the Crucifixion legend.
Lord of the Galicians, Ferdinand II. King of Galicia, 1157-1188, son of
Berangere, sister of Raimon Berenger IV. ("quattro figlie ebbe," etc.)
of Aragon, Count of Barcelona. His second son, lieutenant of
Provence, 1168.
The King at Etampe, Phillipe August, crowned 29th May 1180, at
age of 1 6. This poem might date Arnaut's birth as early as 1150.
118
LANCAN SON PASSAT LI GIURE
WHEN the frosts are gone and over,
And are stripped from hill and hollow,
When in close the blossom blinketh
From the spray where the fruit cometh,
The flower and song and the clarion
Of the season sweet and merry
Bid me with high joy to bear me
Through days while April's coming on.
Though joy's right hard to discover,
Such" sly ways doth false Love follow,
Only sure he never drinketh
At the fount where true faith hometh ;
A thousand girls, but two or one
Of her falsehoods over chary,
Stabbing whom vows make unwary
Their tenderness is vilely done.
• The most wise runs drunkest lover,
Sans pint-pot or wine to swallow,
If a whim her locks unlinketh,
One stray hair his noose becometh.
When evasion's fairest shown
Then the sly puss purrs most near ye.
Innocents at heart be ware ye,
When she seems colder than a nun.
See, I thought so highly of her !
Trusted, but the game is hollow*
Not one won piece soundly clinketh ;
All the cardinals that Rome hath,
Yea they all were put upon.
119
Her device is " Slyly Wary."
Cunning are the snares they carry.
Yet while they watched they'd be undone,
Whom Love makes so mad a rover,
'11 take a cuckoo for a swallow,
If she say so, sooth ! he thinketh
There's a plain where Puy-de-Dome is.
Till his eyes and nails are gone,
He'll throw dice and follow fairly
— Sure as old tales never vary—
For his fond heart he is foredone.
Well I know, sans writing's cover,
What a plain is, what's a hollow.
I know well whose honour sinketh,
And who 'tis that shame consumeth.
They meet. I lose reception.
'Gainst this cheating I'd not parry,
Nor amid such false speech tarry,
But from her lordship will be gone.
CODA
Sir Bertram, sure no pleasure's won
Like this freedom, naught so merry
'Twixt Nile 'n' where the suns miscarry
To where the rain falls from the sun.
120
ANS QUEL CIM RESTON DE
BRANCHAS
ERE the winter recommences
And the leaf from bough is wrested,
On Love's mandate will I render
A brief end to long prolusion :
So well have I been taught his steps and paces
That I can stop the tidal-sea's inflowing.
My stot outruns the hare ; his speed amazes.
Me he bade without pretences
That I go not, though requested ;
That I make no new surrender
Nor abandon our seclusion :
" Differ from violets, whose fear effaces
Their hue ere winter; behold the glowing
Laurel stays, stay thou. Year long the genet blazes."
" You who commit no offences
'Gainst constancy ; have not quested ;
Assent not ! Though a maid send her
Suit to thee. Think you confusion
Will come to her who shall track out your traces ?
And give your enemies a chance for boasts and crowing ?
No ! After God, see that she have your praises."
Coward, shall I trust not defences.!
Faint ere the suit be tested ?
Follow ! till she extend her
Favour ! Keep on, try conclusion,
For if I get in this naught but disgraces,
Then must I pilgrimage past Ebro's flowing
And seek for luck amid the Lernian mazes.
121
If I've passed bridge-rails and fences,
Think you then that I am bested ?
No ! for with no food or slender
Ration, I'd have joy's profusion
To hold her kissed, and there are never spaces
Wide to keep me from her, but she'd be showing
In my heart, and stand forth before his gazes.
Lovelier maid from Nile to Sences
Is not vested nor divested,
So great is her bodily splendour
That you would think it illusion.
Amor, if she but hold me in her embraces,
I shall not feel cold hail nor winter's blowing
Nor break for all the pain in fever's dazes.
Arnaut hers from foot to face is,
He would not have Lucerne, without her, owing
Him, nor lord the land whereon the Ebro grazes.
122
THE COMPLETE POETICAL
WORKS OF T. E. HULME
Hulme's five poems were published as his Complete Poetical Works
at the end of Ripostes, in 1912; there is, and now can be, no further
addition, unless my abbreviation of some of his talk made when he
came home with his first wound in 1915 may be half counted among
them.
AUTUMN
A TOUCH of cold in the Autumn night —
I walked abroad.
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded,
And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.
MANA ABODA
Beauty is the marking-time, the stationary vibration, the feigned ecstasy
of an impulse unable to reach its natural end.
MANA ABODA, whose bent form
The sky in arched circle is,
Seems ever for an unknown grief to mourn.
Yet on a day I heard her cry :
" I weary of the roses and the singing poets —
Josephs all, not tall enough to try."
123
ABOVE THE DOCK
ABOVE the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast's corded height,
Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away
Is but a child's balloon, forgotten after play.
THE EMBANKMENT
The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a cold> bitter night
ONCE, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement,
Now see I
That warmth's the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.
CONVERSION
LIGHTHEARTED I walked into the valley wood
In the time of hyacinths,
Till beauty like a scented cloth
Cast over, stifled me. I was bound
Motionless and faint of breath
By loveliness that is her own eunuch.
Now pass I to the final river
Ignominiously, in a sack, without sound,
As any peeping Turk to the Bosphorus.
124
POEM
Abbreviated from the Conversation of Mr T. E.H.
OVER the flat slope of St Eloi
A wide wall of sandbags.
Night,
In the silence desultory men
Pottering over small fires, cleaning their mess-tins :
To and fro, from the lines,
Men walk as on Piccadilly,
Making paths in the dark,
Through scattered dead horses,
Over a dead Belgian's belly.
The Germans have rockets. The English have no
rockets.
Behind the lines, cannon, hidden, lying back miles.
Before the line, chaos :
My mind is a corridor. The minds about me are
corridors.
Nothing suggests itself. There is nothing to do but
keep on.
125
NOTES •
NOTE TO "LA FRAISNE"
" When the soul is exhausted of fire, then doth the spirit return
unto its primal nature and there is upon it a peace great and of the
woodland
" magna pax et si[~vestris"
Then becometh it kin to the faun and the dryad, a woodland-
dweller amid the rocks and streams
" consociis faunis dryadisque inter sax a syl<varum"
Janus of Basel.1
Also has Mr Yeats in his Celtic Twilight treated of such, and I
because in such a mood, feeling myself divided between myself
corporal and a self aetherial " a dweller by streams and in wood
land," eternal because simple in elements
" Aeternus quia simplex naturae^
being freed of the weight of a soul " capable of salvation or damnation,"
a grievous striving thing that after much straining was mercifully taken
from me ; as had one passed saying as one in the Book of the Dead.
'* I, lo I, am the assembler of souls," and had taken it with him,
leaving me thus simplex naturae, even so at peace and trans-sentient as
a wood pool I made it.
The Legend thus : " Miraut de Garzelas, after the pains he bore
a-loving Riels of Calidorn and that to none avail, ran mad in the
forest.
"Yea even as Peire Vidal ran as a wolf for her of Penautier
though some say that 'twas folly or as Garulf Bisclavret so ran truly,
till the King brought him respite (as one may read in the Lais of
Marie de France), so was he ever by the Ash Tree."
Hear ye his speaking : (low, slowly he speaketh it, as one drawn
apart, reflecting) (tgart).
1 Referendum for contrast. Daemonalitas of the Rev. Father Sinistrari
of Ameno (1600 arc.). "A treatise wherein is shown that there are
in existence on earth rational creatures besides man, endowed like him
with a body and soul, that are born and die like him, redeemed by our
Lord Jesus Christ, and capable of receiving salvation or damnation." Latin
and English text. Liseux, Paris, 1879.
127
PERSONAE AND PORTRAITS
Main outline of E.P.'s 'work to date
Personae — Sketches (in "Lustra") —
La Fraisne Mill wins
Cino Bellaires
Audiart etc.
Marvoil (Later)
Altaforte I Vecchii
Vidal Nodier Raconte
etc.
Etudes —
Guido
Arnaut
Langued'Oc
Sketches (in " Ripostes ") —
Portrait d'une Femme
Phasellus Ille
Girl
An Object
Quies
Major Personae —
Seafarer
Exile's Letter (and
Cathay in general)
Homage to Sextus Propertius
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Lume Spento. Venice, 1908.
Personae, 1909 "j
Exultations, 1909 vElkin Mathews. London.
Canzoni, 1911
Ripostes, 1912. Swift. Reissue by Elkin Mathews, 1915.
Lustra, author's edition. Pp. 124. 1916.
Lustra, publisher's edition. Pp. 116. Elkin Mathews, 1916.
Quia Pauper Amavi. Egoist Ltd., 1919. (Cathay, Mathews, 1915 ;
included in Lustra. )
Translation of Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti. Swift.
London, 1912.
American edition. Small Maynard. Boston.
Prose works : Spirit of Romance ; Gaudier Rrzeska ; Noh, a Study
of the Classical Stage of Japan (from the MSS. of Ernest
Fenollosa) ; Pavannes and Divisions ; Instigations.
128
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