OUT OF THE FLAME
TWO MEXICAN PIECES
I. SONG
"Ah! Que bonitos
Son los enanos,
Los chiquititos,
Y Mezicanos."
_Old Mexican Song._
How jolly are the dwarfs, the little ones, the Mexicans
Hidden by the singing of wind through sugar-cane,
Out comes the pretty one,
Out comes the ugly one,
Out comes the dwarf with the wicked smile and thin.
The little women caper and simper and flutter fans,
The little men laugh, stamp, strut and stamp again,
Dance to the bag-pipe drone,
Of insect semitone,
Swelling from ground slashed with light like zebra skin.
The little Cardinal, the humming-bird, whose feathers flare
Like flame across the valley of volcanic stone,
Fiery arrow from a rainbow
That the armoured plants have slain, low
Stoops to watch the dwarfs as they dance out of sight.
Hair, long and black as jet, is floating yet on amber air
Honey-shaded by the shadow of Popacatapetl's cone,
Their fluttering reboses
Like purple-petal'd roses
Fall through tropic din with a clatter of light.
The crooked dwarf now ripples the strings of a mandoline,
His floating voice has wings that brush us like a butterfly;
Music fills the mountains
With a riot of fountains
That spray back on the hot plain like a waterfall.
Smaller grow the dwarfs, singing "I'll bring shoes of satin,"
Smaller they grow, fade to golden motes, then die.
Where is the pretty one,
Where is the ugly one,
Where is that tongue of flame, the little Cardinal?
II. MAXIXE
"Los enanitos
Se enajaren."
_Old Mexican Song._
The Mexican dwarfs can dance for miles
Stamping their feet and scattering smiles,
Till the loud hills laugh and laugh again
At the dancing dwarfs in the golden plain,
Till the bamboos sing as the dwarfs dance by,
Kicking their feet at a jagged sky,
That torn by leaves and gashed by hills
Rocks to the rhythm the hot sun shrills;
The bubble sun stretches shadows that pass
To noiseless jumping-jacks of glass,
So long and thin, so silent and opaque,
That the lions shake their orange manes, and quake;
And a shadow that leaps over Popacatapetl
Terrifies the tigers as they settle
Cat-like limbs, cut with golden bars,
Under bowers of flowers that shimmer like stars.
Buzzing of insects flutters above,
Shaking the rich trees' treasure-trove
Till the fruit rushes down like a comet, whose tail
Thrashes the night with its golden flail,
The fruit hisses down with a plump from its tree
Like the singing of a rainbow as it dips into the sea.
Loud red trumpets of great blossoms blare
Triumphantly like heralds who blow a fanfare,
Till the humming-bird, bearing heaven on its wing,
Flies from the terrible blossoming,
And the humble honey-bee is frightened by the fine
Honey that is heavy like money and purple like wine,
While birds that flaunt their pinions like pennons
Shriek from their trees of oranges and lemons,
And the scent rises up in a cloud, to make
The hairy, swinging monkeys feel so weak
That they each throw down a bitten coconut or mango.
* * * * *
Up flames a flamingo over the fandango,
Glowing like a fire, and gleaming like a ruby.
From Guadalajara to Guadalupe
It flies--in flying drops a feather
... And the snatching dwarfs stop dancing--and fight together.
OUT OF THE FLAME
I
From my high window,
From my high window in a southern city,
I peep through the slits of the shutters,
Whose steps of light
Span darkness like a ladder.
Throwing wide the shutters
I let the streets into the silent room
With sudden clatter;
Walk out upon the balcony
Whose curving irons are bent
Like bows about to shoot--
Bows from which the mortal arrows
Cast from dark eyes, dark-lashed
And shadowed by mantillas,
Shall in the evening
Rain down upon men's hearts
Paraded here, in southern climes,
More openly.
But, at this early moment of the day,
The balconies are empty;
Only the sun, still drowsy-fingered,
Plucks, pizzicato, at the rails,
Draws out of them faint music
Of rain-washed air,
Or, when each bell lolls out its idiot tongue,
When Time lets drop his cruel scythe,
They sing in sympathy.
The sun, then, plucks these irons,
As far below,
That child
Draws his stick along the railings.
The sound of it brings my eye down to him....
Oh heart, dry heart,
It is yourself again!
How nearly are we come together!
If, at this moment,
One long ribbon was unfurled
From me to him,
I should be shown
Above, in a straight line--
A logical growth,
And yet,
I wave, but he will not look up;
I call, but he will not answer.
II
From where I stand
The beauty of the early morning
Suffocates me;
It is as if fingers closed round my heart.
The light flows down the hills in rivulets,
So you could gather it up in the cup of your hands,
While pools,
The cold eyes of the gods,
Are cradled in those hollows.
Cool are the clouds,
Anchored in the heaven;
Green as ice are they,
To temper the heat in the valleys
With arches of violet shadow.
You can hear from the distant woods
The thud of the centaurs' hoofs
As they gallop down to drink,
Shatter the golden roofs
Of the trees, for swift as the wind
They gallop down to the brink
Of the waters that echo their laughter,
Cavernous as rolling of boulders down hills;
Lolling, they lap at the gurgling waters.
* * * * *
But nearer rises the sound,
Red, ragged as his comb,
Of a cock crowing;
A bird flies up to me at the window,
Leaping, like music, with regular rhythm,
Sinks down, then, to the city beneath.
III
Below, the ants are hurrying down the footways,
Dressed, here, in bright colours.
Under their various intolerable burdens
They stagger along.
Stop to converse, move, wave their antennæ.
* * * * *
The fruit-seller is opening his stall,
Oranges are piled in minute pyramids,
While melons, green melons,
Swing from the roof in string cradles.
The butcher festoons his shop
With swags and gay wreaths of entrails;
Beautiful heads with horns,
Are nailed up, as on pagan altars,
(Though their ears are fresh from the hearing
Of Orpheus playing his lute).
The Aguador arranges his glasses,
Out of which the sun will strike
His varying scales of crystal music
This afternoon, round the arena.
The Matador prepares for the fight,
Is, indeed, already in the Tavern,
Where later and refreshed with blood,
He will celebrate his triumph
Among the poignant kindling
Of stringéd instruments.
* * * * *
--But the child has run away crying;
I call--but no answer comes.
IV
The chatter of the daylight grows
As I look upon the market-place,
Where there is a droning of bag-pipes,
And the hard, wooden music of the hills;
The housewife has left her cottage in the forest,
Driving here through the early tracks of the sun.
The beggars are already at their posts,
Their dry flesh peeps through their garments.
Their old ritual whining
Causes no show of pity.
Why should the hucksters, the busy people notice?
God himself has stood here, out at elbows,
Waiting patiently in the market-place,
While they chatter in gay booths.
But how I fear for them,
These who are not afraid!
I shout to them to make them understand.
They talk more, cease talking and look up,
They all look up, remain gaping.
* * * * *
I went back into the water-cool room,
Put on my coloured coat, my buskin,
And mask of Harlequin.
They see me, this time.
"Come on, come on," they cry,
"You are just in time.
There is fun down here in the market-place.
Two men have been run over,
And there's to be a public execution.
The gallows are nearly up.
--And after, in the evening,
We will go round the wineshops,
Strumming guitars,
While trills Dolores in her wide, red skirt.
Oh come on, come on!"
--But the paint from my mask runs down
And dyes my clothing.
V
It is not thus in the Northern cities,
Where the cold breathes close to the window-pane,
Where the brittle flowers of the frost
Crackle at the window's edge.
From my window in the Northern city
I can hear the rattle and roar of the town,
As the carts go lumbering over the bridges,
As the men in dark clothes hurry over the bridges.
They do not parade their hearts here,
They bury them at their lives' beginning.
They must hurry, or they will be late for their work;
Their work is their bread.
Without bread, how can they work?
They have no time for pleasure,
Nor is work any pleasure to them.
Their faces are masked with weariness,
Drab with their working.
(Only the tramp who moves among them
Unnoticed, despised,
Has eyes that have seen).
They must work till the guns go again,
Giving them their only pretence to glory.
They have no time to fear,
No time to think of an end.
Foolishly I called to them on the bridges;
Only a few stopped, looked up
--But these were convulsed with fury.
Said one to another
"I have never seen a man
Behave like that before."
But most of them were mute,
And could not see.
* * * * *
Through the murkiness of the Northern dawn,
The gas already flares out
In the glass palaces,
Where to-night, weary and dulled with smoke and with drink,
They will seek, in a brief oblivion,
Laughter, and the mask of Ally Sloper.
* * * * *
Thus it is in the Northern cities,
Where the cold lies close to the window-pane,
Where the grass grows its little blades of steel
And the wind is armed with seven whips.
VI
Happy is Orpheus as he plays,
The dumb beasts listen quietly,
The music strokes their downy ears,
Melts the fierce fire within.
Only with music can you tame the beasts,
Break them of their grizzly feasts;
Only with music can you open eyes to wonder.
But if they will not hear?
The people have lost faith in music,
Few are there to call, and none to answer.
* * * * *
When the Prince kissed the Sleeping Beauty,
He broke the wicked spell of cobwebs;
She answered, opened her eyes.
When Narcissus looked into the pool,
The cruel waters gave him their reply
--Even that was a better fate
Than to cry out in the lonely night
--And not to be answered.
VII
From my high window in a Southern city,
Floating above the geometrical array
Of roofs, squares and interlacing streets,
One can see beyond
Into far valleys,
That seem at first
To be open blue flowers
Scattered here and there on the mountains.
The forests are so far away,
They creep like humble green moss
Over slopes that are mountains.
And there sounds other music
Than the falling streams,
Or the deep penetrating glow
Of sunlight piercing through green leaves.
VIII
When Orpheus with his wind-swift fingers
Ripples the strings that gleam like rain,
The wheeling birds fly up and sing,
Hither, thither, echoing.
There is a crackling of dry twigs,
A sweeping of leaves along the ground.
Tawny faces and dumb eyes
Peer through the fluttering green screens,
That mask ferocious teeth and claws
Now tranquil.
As the music sighs upon the hills,
The young ones hear,
Come skipping, ambling, rolling down,
Their soft ears flapping as they run,
Their fleecy coats catching in the thickets,
Till they lie, listening, round his feet.
* * * * *
Unseen for centuries,
Fabulous creatures creep out of their caverns.
The unicorn
Prances down from his bed of leaves,
His milk-white muzzle still stained green
With the munching, crunching of mountain herbs.
The griffin usually so fierce,
Now tame and amiable again--
Has covered the white bones in his secret cavern
With a rustling pall of dank, dead leaves,
While the Salamander--true lover of art--
Flickers, and creeps out of the flame;
Gently now, and away he goes,
Kindles his proud and blazing track
Across the forest
--Lies listening,
Cools his fever in this flowing water.
* * * * *
When the housewife returns,
Carrying her basket,
She will not understand.
She misses nothing,
Has heard nothing in the woods.
She will only see
That the fire is dead,
The grate cold.
* * * * *
But the child left in the empty house
Saw the Salamandar in the flame,
Heard a strange wind, like music, in the forest,
And has gone out to look for it,
Alone.
TWO DANCES
I. COUNTRY DANCE
The Lion and the Unicorn
Dance now together,
There in the golden corn--
For it is summer weather.
The Lion, seen between the sheaves,
Is more strong than fair,
Yet he lets the singing thieves
Rustle through his tawny hair.
As he treads, the red-gold grain
Curtsies and bows down;
The birds tear at his ruffled mane,
Stealing seed to feed Troy Town.
For famine, in that fabled land,
Grows, as the years pass.
(Is it golden grain or sand
From a broken hour-glass?)
Night comes; over azure ground
Roves an argent breeze:
The Unicorn can still be found
Trampling down the fleur-de-lys.
Elegant and moon-white
As a ghost, the Unicorn
Dances for his own delight
Under the flowering thorn.
While deep in the sleeping wood
The Lion breathes heavily,
Though every dove in each tree coo'd,
Yet would he sleep on wearily.
* * * * *
The Unicorn and Lion strong
Dance now together
(But surely they did no wrong--
For it was the summer weather?)
In among the red-gold grain,
Ankle-deep in the Lilies of France--
And I, for one, could scarce refrain
From joining that heraldic dance.
II. FOX TROT
WHEN SOLOMON MET THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
The navy at Ezion-Geba
Gazed across the water amazed;
When Solomon met the Queen of Sheba
Lions in the desert were dazed
With wonder at her striped pavilion
That blazed like a new parhelion;
They roared their admiration
At this strange coruscation
Till the satyrs
Took their tawny children
Trampling through the sand
To march with the procession, to march with the band.
The flaming phoenix flew with its feathers to fan
The Queen at the head of her caravan;
But, the phoenix, though famously fabulous,
Was jealous, envious, and emulous
For the Queen of Sheba had a retinue
Strictly in keeping with her revenue--
Six thousand camels and camelopards
Ten thousand and ninety nigger bodyguards.
The camelopards, proud-necked and tall
Would scarcely deign to notice the Queen at all,
But holding their heads as high as zebras
Looked down on a hundred dwarf, harnessed zebras
Bred for their stripes, with such success
That the Queen could play a game of chess
When travelling. The camels kneel
Offer their humps for the Queen to feel,
Nodding arched-necks and plumes of ostrich-feather,
Dyed like her bright Abyssinian weather.
The ten thousand niggers beat on gourds and golden gongs,
Slashing the air with their piebald songs.
* * * * *
Thus the Queen met the King of Jerusalem
And he
Seemed wiser
Than Methuselem,
With a great black beard,
And a nose like a scythe,
He lived in the palace,
And subsisted on a tithe!
He gave the Queen of Sheba a welcome;
Proportionate to her income;
But this amazing Amazon
Was lovable, generous and free.
She brought a gift to Solomon of cinnamon,
With an Almug and a Nutmeg tree--
These he placed before his palace
For the pleased
Admiration
Of the populace.
Each sweet-smelling branch bore a budding bell of gold
(Oh! the blood of Israelites ran cold...)
When evening-wind blurred the hills with blue
The swinging and the singing of the bells sang true,
These by some magic stratagem
Played the Sheban National Anthem,
While the trill of each bell was like an Abyssinian bird,
Or the golden voice of the Queen--for each word
She spoke, trembled, sparkled in the air,
Then spread its wings, and flew from her.
But the Queen of Sheba went with Solomon
To his country house at Lebanon.
She did not bring him any cedar trees
For these
Would have been de-trop.
Instead she brought him some Pekoe-trees
In a beautiful Chinese bowl
(For she had a very marked objection to
Endowing Newcastle with coal)
And she brought him gifts of hot-house grapes,
Of ivory,
Of ebony,
Of elephants and apes,
Of peacocks, of pearls, and a hundred pygmy slaves
With skins like an orange, and hair that waves,
And each of them wore a turban,
Picked out with the plumes of a pelican,
But of all her gifts, by far the rarest,
Brought from the terrible central forest,
With a vein of gold in its ivory horn,
Was a lovelorn
Milk-white unicorn;
But the King, though sweet as honey,
Had an eye for the value of money,
So he only gave her a heraldic lion
Embossed with the arms (and nose) of Zion.
* * * * *
Though the Queen of Sheba loved Solomon
She was not happy at Lebanon,
It was not the woman of the Edomites,
The Zidonians,
The Moabites,
The Hittites,
or the Ammonites!
She would even listen to his proverbs, she put up with
very many wrongs--
But in secretly reading his notebook, she found Solomon's
"Song-of-Songs"
She knew it at once--it was poetry! And she left The
Palace that day,
But Solomon knew not where she went to nor why she had
roamed away!
But every evening in Jerusalem
The Almug and the Nutmeg trees
Flaunt the Sheban National Anthem
Like a banner on the spice-laden breeze.
And oh! each golden bell
Seemed a turtle-dove
That coo'd
Within the moonlit shadow
Of an Abyssinian wood....
* * * * *
But we wonder what she looked like--this fascinating
phantasmagoria....
Atalanta, Gioconda, Semiramis--or the late Queen Victoria?
TWO GARDEN PIECES
I. NEPTUNE IN CHAINS
Enslaved are the old Gods;
Pan pipes soundlessly
For the unheeding bees.
Bound by the trailing tresses of the vine
To soft captivity,
Neptune has left his waves
To stand beneath the frozen, green cascades
Of summer trees.
Is the Sea-God, then, content to rule
The rippling of wayward flowers,
Lulled by the songs that many birds pour out
From their green-cradles, gently-rocked
--Songs that foam like hissing rain
Among the heavy blossoms?
Can he control
The music of the wind through poplar trees,
--Those trees, an instrument
That any wind, however young
Or drunk with drowsing scent
Of petals, crushed by the flaming fingers of the sun
Can play upon?
But darkness, the deliverer
Comes with dreams.
Night's grape-stained waves
Cool his aching body--
The song of the nightingale
Falls round him
Like the froth of little waves;
The warm touch of the evening wind
Thaws the green cascades
Till you can hear
Every liquid sound within the world
--Fountains, falling waterfalls,
And the low murmur of the rolling sea
--And Neptune dreams that he is free.
II. FOUNTAINS
Proud fountains, wave your plumes,
Spread out your phoenix-wing,
Let the tired trees rejoice
Beneath your blossoming
(Tired trees, you whisper low).
High up, high up, above
These green and drooping sails,
A fluttering young wind
Hovers and dives--but fails
To steal a foaming feather.
Sail, like a crystal ship,
Above your sea of glass;
Then, with your quickening touch,
Transmute the things that pass
(Come down, cool wind, come down).
All humble things proclaim,
Within your magic net,
Their kinship to the Gods.
More strange and lovely yet
All lovely things become.
Dead, sculptured stone assumes
The life from which it came;
The kingfisher is now
A moving tongue of flame,
A blue, live tongue of flame--
While birds, less proud of wing,
Crouch, in wind-ruffled shade,
Hide shyly, then pour out,
Their jealous serenade;
... Close now your golden wings!
PARADE
While vapour rises, the sun shines along
A promenade beneath tall trees. In vain
Seek thirsting flowers to thread their crystal song
Upon the liquid harpstrings of the rain.
Sweet air is honey'd with the lulling sound
Of bees, gold-dusted. In the avenue
Each leaf is now a lens the sun has found
To focus light, and cast green shadow through
Where walks Zenobia. Her marmoset
Perched on the shoulder, grabs at ribbon'd flowers
Or youthful curls of elders. Etiquette
Is outraged, and a dowager glowers.
The Marmoset plays with Zenobia's curls,
Clutches the papillon's enamel'd sail;
Gesticulates with idiot hands; unfurls,
Then counts, the piebald rings upon his tail.
Here flutter fan and feather to and fro
As eager birds caressing golden sheaves;
And like the spray of fountains, when winds blow
The froth of laughter foams among the leaves,
Till music, thin as silver wire, uncoils
--Metallic trap to trip unwary players--
A tune, ringed like the monkey's tail; but foils
Any attempt to straighten it--In layers
The idlers pause to watch the stage, where leap
These masked buffoons to which the Old Gods sank.
Over her fan Zenobia may peep
At the lewd gestures of a mountebank.
The silent lime-trees drip their golden scent;
Staccato shrills the puppet, waves a wand,
Postures, exaggerates a sentiment....
The little ape, alone, may understand
How men make Gods, and place them up above;
Then clamber up themselves to throw God down,
Dearly pay deities for former love;
We hold them captive, make them play the clown.
Who knows but that, one day, men may be bound
Thus to make war or love for apeish laughter,
Until the world of gibbering monkeys round
Quiver with laughter at our ape-like slaughter?
* * * * *
Ends song and antic; players quit the stage
To the gloved silence of genteel applause,
Splutters El Capitan in Spanish rage,
Curses his money. Swathed in quiet, like gauze,
The World is still, until a breeze sets free
Green leaves, with plucking sound of mandoline.
Convulsed the monkey capers--seems to see
The wind, that wingéd God and Harlequin.
Who, flying down, sounds waters' silver strings
And brings soft music from far trembling towers,
Snatches a bird-bright feather for his wings
And flickers light on many secret flowers.
ENGLISH GOTHIC
Above the valley floats a fleet
Of white, small clouds. Like castanets
The corn-crakes clack; down in the street
Old ladies air their canine pets.
The bells boom out with grumbling tone
To warn the people of the place
That soon they'll find, before His Throne,
Their Maker, with a frowning face.
* * * * *
The souls of bishops, shut in stone
By masons, rest in quietude
As flies in amber. They atone
Each buzzing long-dead platitude.
For lichen plants its golden flush
Here, where the gaiter should have bent;
With glossy wings the black crows brush
Carved mitres, caw in merriment.
Wings blacker than a verger's hat
Beat on the air. These birds must learn
Their preaching note by pecking at
The lips of those who, treading fern,
Ascend the steps to Heaven's height.
--The willow herb, down by the wood,
Flares out to mark the phoenix-flight
Of God Apollo's car. Its hood
Singes the trees. The swans who float
--Wings whiter than the foam of sea--
Up the episcopal smooth moat,
Uncurl their necks to ring for tea.
* * * * *
At this sign, in the plump green close,
The Deans say grace. A hair pomade
Scents faded air. But still outside
Stone bishops scale a stone façade.
A thousand strong, church-bound, they look
Across shrill meadows--but to find
The cricket bat defeats the Book
--Matter triumphant over Mind!
Wellington said Waterloo
Was won upon the playing-fields,
Which thought might comfort clergy who
Admire the virtues that rank yields.
But prelates of stone cannot relate
An Iron Duke's strong and silent words.
The knights in armour rest in state
Within, and grasp their marble swords.
Above, where flutter angel-wings
Caught in the organ's rolling loom,
Hang in the air, like jugglers' rings,
Dim quatrefoils of coloured gloom.
Tall arches rise to imitate
The jaws of Jonah's whale. Up flows
The chant. Thin spinsters sibilate
Beneath a full-blown Gothic rose.
Pillars surge upward, break in spray
Upon the high and fretted roof;
But children scream outside--betray
The urging of a cloven hoof.
* * * * *
Tier above tier the Bishops stare
Away, away, ... above the hills;
Their faded eyes repel the glare
Of dying sun, till sunset fills
Each pointed niche, in which they stand,
With glory of earth; humanity
Is spurned by one, with upturned hand,
Who warns them all is vanity.
The swan beneath the sunset arch
Expands his wings, as if to fly.
A thousand saints upon the march
Glow in the water, ... but to die.
A man upon the hill can hear
The organ. Echoes he has found
That, having lost religious fear,
Are pagan; till the rushing sound
Clearly denotes Apollo's car,
That roars past moat and bridge and tree,
The Young God sighs. How far, how far,
Before the night shall set him free?
THE BACKWARD CHILD
Asleep, asleep with closéd eyes
In the womb of time, King Pharaoh lies;
Heavy the darkness is, as rust,
On the cold sword he holds; while dust
Muffles the mocking panoply
With quilted silence, dead and grey.
Here any wandering sound would skim
The sleep off silence, to wake him
Till under the too-smooth mask of gold
Old parchment wrinkles would unfold,
His green and ice-bound limbs expand,
The dead flowers blossom in dead hand;
But comes no sound, save the flitting scowl
Of death-winged bat, or vault-voiced owl,
No sound through the ages all forlorn,
Unless a padding unicorn
Obscures his treasure, ivory white,
In the Egyptian grape-blue night;
Curling his limbs to rest, untangles
His milky mane, while moon-sharp angles
Of pyramids enfold him close
In their defiant, calm repose--
For their harsh angularity
Defeats the hunter's cruelty....
* * * * *
No padding unicorn is this
To prick the Old King's nothingness,
Yet a movement woke, a faint sound stirred
The silence, like a spoken word
No soft night sound, nor anything
But rolling laughter echoing.
* * * * *
Then King Pharaoh stretched, stood up, with a smile
Touched the crowns of the Upper and Lower Nile.
Like the jewels in his crown, had grown more deep
His gypsy eyes in embalméd sleep,
While out of the golden sockets came
A very living, curious flame.
He dashed the gold mask on the floor,
His dry limbs creaked toward the door,
And out of it thrust his nodding head,
A pendulum to count the dead,
--For there below in the lion-coloured sand
Salome danced the Sarabande!
* * * * *
With ruffled plumage, the sun flashed its wing
On a double-crowned, parchment-yellow king.
The clear bronze sides of the pyramids
Shone like polished coffin-lids,
Each side a huge triangular mirror
To magnify each separate terror,
To heighten the shadows, to enhance
How dead was the king, how alive the dance,
Till ashamed the wicked echoes hid
Like bats in the depth of the pyramid,
Or hid far-off in the honey-comb hive
Of caves, where the bearded hermits live.
* * * * *
Serapion-the-Sidonite
Turned from the strange unholy sight.
Left his cave, went up the hill
Where aged Anthony dwells still.
Disturbed in prayer, St. Anthony,
Looks round, recalls a century;
Yet in that whole tempestuous age
Had beheld never such a mirage
(Not even when with book and bell
He cleansed the hill he loves so well
--That hill of Venusberg, whose name
The poor vile heathen still proclaim)
Led by two Bishops, with his high crook,
The old saint summons round his flock.
They, hour by hour, together read
The paternoster and the creed,
While Christian choirs of shrill-birds bless
The Saint's white-bearded holiness.
* * * * *
Below the heathen nightingales,
Embalm, within their seven veils
Of song, Salome--swathings fine
Scented with fountain, rose and vine--
Tired Pharaoh falls back in his box;
The lid snaps down. The golden flocks
Of stars browse round the singing trees
And orchards of Hesperides.
Down here no sound, except forlorn
Sad padding of the unicorn
Who seeks a refuge from the snare
Of cruel hunters; lurking here
His horn, his mane, his shape are hid
In slumber of the pyramid.
Safe here is he; for in this place
Hide every legendary race;
Saints, satyrs, unicorns, entrance
Us with their fabulous elegance;
And Pharaoh himself sits up to tea
Under the shade of the incense tree
Yet nomads, wandering, will find
No tree, no murmur, no soft wind!
NURSERY RHYME
THE ROCKING-HORSE
Gentle hills hold on their lap
Cloud-rippled meadows where tall trees sigh.
The round pool catches in her lap
Greenness of tree and breadth of sky.
The mottled thrush that sings, serene,
Of English worm in English lane,
Is left behind. We change the scene
For jungle or for rolling plain.
I rock the children, carry them
On wooden waves that creak like me,
From Joppa to Jerusalem
Or to a far Cerulean sea,
Where flutter winds that bear the balm
And breathing of a million flowers
That nod beneath a feathery palm;
Where dusky figures, in cool bowers
Of fretted coral, singing, swim
--Forget the missionary who wishes
To make them chant a British hymn
And hide their nakedness from fishes.
* * * * *
Within the limits of this stride
I can encompass any space;
Time's painted gates are open wide,
The Old Gods give me their embrace.
Now off to Babylon we trot
To see the hanging gardens, where
Tree, trailing vine and mossy grot
Show proudly in the upper air
Above the shifting evening throng,
Like giant galleons with full sails;
These streams have robbed their crystal song
From honey-throated nightingales.
We've watched the Roman legions pass
--The Tower of Babel, waver ... fall;
We've stroked the wooden horse that was
The hidden breach in great Troy's wall.
Softly the rainbow Pantaloon,
Slinks down night's alley. (Oh! how still is
The evening on this wide lagoon,
Where palaces like water-lilies
Float palely in the trembling peace
Of stars and little waves.) Sails past
Jason, who stole the golden fleece
To nail it high above his mast....
.... In Toad-stool Farm we're back again;
See how the fat and dappled cow
Crouches in buttercups; come rain,
To make the green lush meadows grow!
TWO MYTHOLOGICAL POEMS
I. THE JEALOUS GODDESS
Silenus left the mainland
On a floating barrel of wine,
His sail was plaited from peach-leaves, and
The leaves of the fig and vine.
Small waves seemed masks of laughter
As they rose at Silenus agape,
For his feet were purple with the slaughter
And the crushing of the Phoenix-blooded grape.
But the little golden winds of the autumn
Flew with him all the way,
Like a fleecy flock of Seraphim
They waited on him all the day--
When the Syren swam to sing to him
From her island where the dolphins play,
They pelted her with lemons and with persimmon
Till the Syren dived away.
They blew down silver trumpets to summon
Sea-monsters that peer from the spray.
But the sound of seraphic hunting-horn
Brayed to the nearing golden strand,
Till each ogre, dragon, giant and unicorn
Sprang from his cave, to guard his land
--This dear, dear land of Venus
Where the hippogriff and griffin play!
For if the Syren sang to Silenus
What would Jealous Venus say?
II. BACCHANALIA
"... From over-indulgence in wine, and
other dietetic peccadilloes."
BAEDEKER'S "Southern Italy."
Where little waves claw the golden grapes,
Springing at the terraced hills like lions,
Where pirates swagger in earrings and black-capes
And the roses and the lilies grow like dandelions,
Silenus, I regret to say, sat
On an empty, purple vat,
(And his life-long love, the Lady Venus
Had left for Olympus, shocked at Silenus).
The Syren's voice, like a golden bee,
Trembles through the leaves of each lemon tree,
Winging, like a bird, from her island grove
It brought Silenus a message of love;
But, as, rather helpless, he heard the Syren's song
He felt that his behaviour was material--was wrong,
He tore the tinted vine-leaves from his tousled hair
Shouted for his satellites, dragged them from their lair,
Mentioned, most severely, the iniquities of drink
(Though his speech came thick and indistinct);
But his followers were angry, woken out of sleep,
Recalled to him that the sea was deep,
That if it was water he really would prefer,
And the singing of the Syren, he could go to look for her!
But, Silenus, though pink and fat,
Was strong, for the matter of that...
He fought like a lion, and bellowed like a seal,
But he had filled his followers with missionary zeal,
They swung him high, and swung him low,
Then threw him (plomp) where the salt waves blow.
The syren stopped her singing at a piteous cry,
Saw a spout of water mounting hundreds of feet high,
And Jonah aboard a neighbouring sail,
Sang "Yo-ho, yo-ho, I spy a whale!"