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.
THE COMING OF WAR: ACTAEON
An image of Lethe,
and the fields
Full of faint light
but golden,
Gray cliffs,
and beneath them
A sea
Harsher than granite,
unstill, never ceasing;
High forms
with the movement of gods,
Perilous aspect;
And one said:
“This is Actaeon.”
Actaeon of golden greaves!
Over fair meadows,
Over the cool face of that field,
Unstill, ever moving,
Host of an ancient people,
The silent cortège.
THE GARDEN
_En robe de parade. Samain_
Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anemia.
And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.
In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
ORTUS
How have I labored?
How have I not labored
To bring her soul to birth,
To give these elements a name and a centre!
She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.
She has no name, and no place.
How have I labored to bring her soul into separation;
To give her a name and her being!
Surely you are bound and entwined,
You are mingled with the elements unborn;
I have loved a stream and a shadow.
I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech you learn to say “I”
When I question you:
For you are no part, but a whole;
No portion, but a being.
THE CHOICE
It is true that you say the gods are more use to you than fairies,
But for all that I have seen you on a high, white, noble horse,
Like some strange queen in a story.
It is odd that you should be covered with long robes and trailing
tendrils and flowers;
It is odd that you should be changing your face and resembling some
other woman to plague me;
It is odd that you should be hiding yourself in the cloud of beautiful
women, who do not concern me.
And I, who follow every seed-leaf upon the wind!
They will say that I deserve this.
THE GARRET
Come let us pity those who are better off than we are.
Come, my friend, and remember
that the rich have butlers and no friends,
And we have friends and no butlers.
Come let us pity the married and the unmarried.
Dawn enters with little feet
like a gilded Pavlova,
And I am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better
Than this hour of clear coolness,
the hour of waking together.
DANCE FIGURE
_For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee_
Dark-eyed,
O woman of my dreams,
Ivory sandaled,
There is none like thee among the dancers,
None with swift feet.
I have not found thee in the tents,
In the broken darkness.
I have not found thee at the well-head
Among the women with pitchers.
Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark;
Thy face as a river with lights.
White as an almond are thy shoulders;
As new almonds stripped from the husk.
They guard thee not with eunuchs;
Not with bars of copper.
Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest.
A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in patterns, hast thou gathered
about thee,
O Nathat-Ikanaie, “Tree-at-the-river.”
As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me;
Thy fingers a frosted stream.
Thy maidens are white like pebbles;
Their music about thee!
There is none like thee among the dancers;
None with swift feet.
FROM “NEAR PÉRIGORD”
_Ed eran due in uno, ed uno in due. Inferno, XXVIII, 125._
I loved a woman. The stars fell from heaven.
And always our two natures were in strife.
Bewildering spring, and by the Auvezère
Poppies and day’s eyes in the green émail
Rose over us; and we knew all that stream,
And our two horses had traced out the valleys;
Knew the low flooded lands squared out with poplars,
In the young days when the deep sky befriended.
And great wings beat above us in the twilight,
And the great wheels in heaven
Bore us together ... surging ... and apart ...
Believing we should meet with lips and hands.
High, high and sure ... and then the counterthrust:
“Why do you love me? Will you always love me?
But I am like the grass, I can not love you.”
Or, “Love, and I love and love you,
And hate your mind, not _you_, your soul, your hands.”
So to this last estrangement, Tairiran!
There shut up in his castle, Tairiran’s,
She who had nor ears nor tongue save in her hands,
Gone—ah, gone—untouched, unreachable!
She who could never live save through one person,
She who could never speak save to one person,
And all the rest of her a shifting change,
A broken bundle of mirrors ... !
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.
THE STUDY IN AESTHETICS
The very small children in patched clothing,
Being smitten with an unusual wisdom,
Stopped in their play as she passed them
And cried up from their cobbles:
_Guarda! Ahi, guarda! ch’e b’ea!_
But three years after this
I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do not know—
For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young Dantes and thirty-four
Catulli;
And there had been a great catch of sardines,
And his elders
Were packing them in the great wooden boxes
For the market in Brescia, and he
Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish
And getting in both of their ways;
And in vain they commanded him to _sta fermo_!
And when they would not let him arrange
The fish in the boxes
He stroked those which were already arranged,
Murmuring for his own satisfaction
This identical phrase:
_Ch’e b’ea_.
And at this I was mildly abashed.
FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS
Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions.
Let us express our envy for the man with a steady job and no worry about
the future.
You are very idle, my songs;
I fear you will come to a bad end.
You stand about the streets. You loiter at the corners and bus-stops,
You do next to nothing at all.
You do not even express our inner nobility;
You will come to a very bad end.
And I? I have gone half cracked.
I have talked to you so much that I almost see you about me,
Insolent little beasts! Shameless! Devoid of clothing!
But you, newest song of the lot,
You are not old enough to have done much mischief.
I will get you a green coat out of China
With dragons worked upon it.
I will get you the scarlet silk trousers
From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa Maria Novella;
Lest they say we are lacking in taste,
Or that there is no caste in this family.
VILLANELLE: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL HOUR
I
I had over-prepared the event—
that much was ominous.
With middle-aging care
I had laid out just the right books,
I almost turned down the right pages.
_Beauty is so rare a thing ...
So few drink of my fountain._
So much barren regret!
So many hours wasted!
And now I watch from the window
rain, wandering busses.
Their little cosmos is shaken—
the air is alive with that fact.
In their parts of the city
they are played on by diverse forces;
I had over-prepared the event.
_Beauty is so rare a thing ...
So few drink at my fountain._
Two friends: a breath of the forest ...
Friends? Are people less friends
because one has just, at last, found them?
Twice they promised to come.
“_Between the night and morning_?”
_Beauty would drink of my mind._
Youth would awhile forget
my youth is gone from me.
Youth would hear speech of beauty.
II
(“Speak up! You have danced so stiffly?
Someone admired your works,
And said so frankly.
“Did you talk like a fool,
The first night?
The second evening?”
“_But_ they promised again:
‘Tomorrow at tea-time.’”)
III
Now the third day is here—
no word from either;
No word from her nor him,
Only another man’s note:
“Dear Pound, I am leaving England.”
BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE
_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 drank 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.
If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
“I’ll 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 gray 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.
BALLAD FOR GLOOM
For God, our God, is a gallant foe
That playeth behind the veil.
I have loved my God as a child at heart
That seeketh deep bosoms for rest,
I have loved my God as maid to man—
But lo, this thing is best:
To love your God as a gallant foe
that plays behind the veil,
To meet your God as the night winds meet
beyond Arcturus’ pale.
I have played with God for a woman,
I have staked with my God for truth,
I have lost to my God as a man, clear-eyed—
His dice be not of ruth.
For I am made as a naked blade,
But hear ye this thing in sooth:
Who loseth to God as man to man
Shall win at the turn of the game.
I have drawn my blade where the lightnings meet
But the ending is the same:
Who loseth to God as the sword blades lose
Shall win at the end of the game.
For God, our God, is a gallant foe
that playeth behind the veil.
Whom God deigns not to overthrow
hath need of triple mail.
LA FRAISNE
_Scene: The Ash Wood of Malvern_
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 rancor 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
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 ...
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.
THE RIVER-MERCHANT’S WIFE: A LETTER
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse;
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look-out?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the west garden—
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you,
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
_From the Chinese of Li Po._
EXILE’S LETTER
_From the Chinese of Li Po, usually considered the greatest poet of
China: written by him while in exile about 760 A. D., to the Hereditary
War-Councillor of Sho, “recollecting former companionship.”_
So-Kin of Rakuho, ancient friend, I now remember
That you built me a special tavern,
By the south side of the bridge at Ten-Shin.
With yellow gold and white jewels
we paid for the songs and laughter,
And we were drunk for month after month,
forgetting the kings and princes.
Intelligent men came drifting in, from the sea
and from the west border,
And with them, and with you especially,
there was nothing at cross-purpose;
And they made nothing of sea-crossing
or of mountain-crossing,
If only they could be of that fellowship.
And we all spoke out our hearts and minds ...
and without regret.
And then I was sent off to South Wei,
smothered in laurel groves,
And you to the north of Raku-hoku,
Till we had nothing but thoughts and memories between us.
And when separation had come to its worst
We met, and travelled together into Sen-Go
Through all the thirty-six folds of the turning and twisting waters;
Into a valley of a thousand bright flowers ...
that was the first valley,
And on into ten thousand valleys
full of voices and pine-winds.
With silver harness and reins of gold,
prostrating themselves on the ground,
Out came the East-of-Kan foreman and his company;
And there came also the “True-man” of Shi-yo to meet me,
Playing on a jewelled mouth-organ.
In the storied houses of San-Ko they gave us
more Sennin music;
Many instruments, like the sound of young phœnix broods.
And the foreman of Kan-Chu, drunk,
Danced because his long sleeves
Wouldn’t keep still, with that music playing.
And I, wrapped in brocade, went to sleep with my head on his lap,
And my spirit so high that it was all over the heavens.
And before the end of the day we were scattered like stars or rain.
I had to be off to So, far away over the waters,
You back to your river-bridge.
And your father, who was brave as a leopard,
Was governor in Hei Shu and put down the barbarian rabble.
And one May he had you send for me, despite the long distance;
And what with broken wheels and so on, I won’t say it wasn’t hard
going ...
Over roads twisted like sheep’s guts.
And I was still going, late in the year,
in the cutting wind from the north,
And thinking how little you cared for the cost ...
and you caring enough to pay it.
Then what a reception!
Red jade cups, food well set, on a blue jewelled table;
And I was drunk, and had no thought of returning;
And you would walk out with me to the western corner of the castle,
To the dynastic temple, with the water about it clear as blue jade,
With boats floating, and the sound of mouth-organs and drums,
With ripples like dragon-scales going grass-green on the water,
Pleasure lasting, with courtezans going and coming without hindrance,
With the willow-flakes falling like snow,
And the vermilioned girls getting drunk about sunset,
And the waters a hundred feet deep reflecting green eyebrows—
Eyebrows painted green are a fine sight in young moonlight,
Gracefully painted—and the girls singing back at each other,
Dancing in transparent brocade,
And the wind lifting the song, and interrupting it,
Tossing it up under the clouds.
And all this comes to an end,
And is not again to be met with.
I went up to the court for examination,
Tried Layu’s luck, offered the Choyu song,
And got no promotion,
And went back to the East Mountains white-headed.
And once again we met, later, at the South Bridge head.
And then the crowd broke up—you went north to San palace.
And if you ask how I regret that parting?
It is like the flowers falling at spring’s end,
confused, whirled in a tangle.
What is the use of talking! And there is no end of talking—
There is no end of things in the heart.
I call in the boy,
Have him sit on his knees to write and seal this,
And I send it a thousand miles, thinking.
(_Translated by Ezra Pound from the notes of the late Ernest
Fenollosa, and the decipherings of the Professors Mori and Araga._)
John Reed
SANGAR
_To Lincoln Steffens_
Somewhere I read a strange, old, rusty tale
Smelling of war; most curiously named
_The Mad Recreant Knight of the West_.
Once, you have read, the round world brimmed with hate,
Stirred and revolted, flashed unceasingly
Facets of cruel splendor. And the strong
Harried the weak ...
Long past, long past, praise God,
In these fair, peaceful, happy days.
_The Tale_:
Eastward the Huns break border,
Surf on a rotten dyke;
They have murdered the Eastern Warder
(His head on a pike).
“Arm thee, arm thee, my father!
Swift rides the Goddes-bane,
And the high nobles gather
On the plain!”
“O blind world-wrath!” cried Sangar,
“Greatly I killed in youth;
I dreamed men had done with anger
Through Goddes truth!”
Smiled the boy then in faint scorn,
Hard with the battle-thrill;
“Arm thee, loud calls the war-horn
And shrill!”
He has bowed to the voice stentorian,
Sick with thought of the grave—
He has called for his battered morion
And his scarred glaive.
On the boy’s helm a glove
Of the Duke’s daughter—
In his eyes splendor of love
And slaughter.
Hideous the Hun advances
Like a sea-tide on sand;
Unyielding, the haughty lances
Make dauntless stand.
And ever amid the clangor,
Butchering Hun and Hun,
With sorrowful face rides Sangar
And his son....
Broken is the wild invader
(Sullied, the whole world’s fountains);
They have penned the murderous raider
With his back to the mountains.
Yet though what had been mead
Is now a bloody lake,
Still drink swords where men bleed,
Nor slake.
Now leaps one into the press—
The hell ’twixt front and front—
Sangar, bloody and torn of dress
(He has borne the brunt).
“Hold!” cries, “Peace! God’s peace!
Heed ye what Christus says—”
And the wild battle gave surcease
In amaze.
“When will ye cast out hate?
Brothers—my mad, mad brothers—
Mercy, ere it be too late,
These are sons of your mothers.
For sake of Him who died on Tree,
Who of all creatures, loved the least—”
“Blasphemer! God of Battles, He!”
Cried a priest.
“Peace!” and with his two hands
Has broken in twain his glaive.
Weaponless, smiling he stands—
(Coward or brave?)
“Traitor!” howls one rank, “Think ye
The Hun be our brother?”
And “Fear we to die, craven, think ye?”
The other.
Then sprang his son to his side,
His lips with slaver were wet,
For he had felt how men died
And was lustful yet;
(On his bent helm a glove
Of the Duke’s daughter,
In his eyes splendor of love
And slaughter)—
Shouting, “Father no more of mine!
Shameful old man—abhorr’d,
First traitor of all our line!”
Up the two-handed sword.
He smote—fell Sangar—and then
Screaming, red, the boy ran
Straight at the foe, and again
Hell began....
Oh, there was joy in Heaven when Sangar came.
Sweet Mary wept, and bathed and bound his wounds,
And God the Father healed him of despair,
And Jesus gripped his hand, and laughed and laughed....
Ernest Rhys
DAGONET’S CANZONET
A queen lived in the South;
And music was her mouth,
And sunshine was her hair,
By day, and all the night
The drowsy embers there
Remember’d still the light;
_My soul, was she not fair!_
But for her eyes—they made
An iron man afraid;
Like sky-blue pools they were,
Watching the sky that knew
Itself transmuted there
Light blue, or deeper blue;
_My soul, was she not fair!_
The lifting of her hands
Made laughter in the lands
Where the sun is, in the South:
But my soul learnt sorrow there
In the secrets of her mouth,
Her eyes, her hands, her hair:
_O soul, was she not fair!_
A SONG OF HAPPINESS
Ah, Happiness:
Who called you “Earandel”?
(Winter-star, I think, that is);
And who can tell the lovely curve
By which you seem to come, then swerve
Before you reach the middle-earth?
And who is there can hold your wing,
Or bind you in your mirth,
Or win you with a least caress,
Or tear, or kiss, or anything—
Insensate Happiness?
Once I thought to have you
Fast there in a child:
All her heart she gave you,
Yet you would not stay.
Cruel, and careless,
Not half reconciled,
Pain you cannot bear;
When her yellow hair
Lay matted, every tress;
When those looks of hers,
Were no longer hers,
You went: in a day
She wept you all away.
Once I thought to give
You, plighted, holily—
No more fugitive,
Returning like the sea:
But they that share so well
Heaven must portion Hell
In their copartnery:
Care, ill fate, ill health,
Came we know not how
And broke our commonwealth.
Neither has you now.
Some wait you on the road,
Some in an open door
Look for the face you showed
Once there—no more.
You never wear the dress
You danced in yesterday;
Yet, seeming gone, you stay,
And come at no man’s call:
Yet, laid for burial,
You lift up from the dead
Your laughing, spangled head.
Yes, once I did pursue
You, unpursuable;
Loved, longed for, hoped for you—
Blue-eyed and morning brow’d.
Ah, lovely Happiness!
Now that I know you well,
I dare not speak aloud
Your fond name in a crowd;
Nor conjure you by night,
Nor pray at morning-light,
Nor count at all on you:
But, at a stroke, a breath,
After the fear of death,
Or bent beneath a load;
Yes, ragged in the dress,
And houseless on the road,
I might surprise you there.
Yes: who of us shall say
When you will come, or where?
Ask children at their play,
The leaves upon the tree,
The ships upon the sea,
Or old men who survived,
And lived, and loved, and wived.
Ask sorrow to confess
Your sweet improvidence,
And prodigal expense
And cold economy,
Ah, lovely Happiness!
Edwin Arlington Robinson
THE MASTER
_Lincoln as he appeared to one soon after the Civil War_
A flying word from here and there
Had sown the name at which we sneered,
But soon the name was everywhere,
To be reviled and then revered:
A presence to be loved and feared,
We cannot hide it, or deny
That we, the gentlemen who jeered,
May be forgotten by and by.
He came when days were perilous
And hearts of men were sore beguiled,
And having made his note of us,
He pondered and was reconciled.
Was ever master yet so mild
As he, and so untamable?
We doubted, even when he smiled,
Not knowing what he knew so well.
He knew that undeceiving fate
Would shame us whom he served unsought;
He knew that he must wince and wait—
The jest of those for whom he fought;
He knew devoutly what he thought
Of us and of our ridicule;
He knew that we must all be taught
Like little children in a school.