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Title: Provença

Poems selected from Personae, Exultations, and Canzoniere of Ezra Pound

Author: Ezra Pound

Release date: June 27, 2025 [eBook #76403]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1910

Credits: Sean Robson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROVENÇA ***

PROVENÇA

POEMS

SELECTED FROM PERSONAE, EXULTATIONS,

AND CANZONIERE

OF

EZRA POUND

BOSTON

SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1910,

BY EZRA POUND

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS,

CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

CONTENTS

PERSONAE

LA FRAISNE

5

CINO

7

NA AUDIART

9

VILLONAUD FOR THIS YULE

11

A VILLONAUD, BALLAD OF THE GIBBET

12

MESMERISM

14

FAMAM LIBROSQUE CANO

15

IN TEMPORE SENECTUTIS

17

CAMARADERIE

18

FOR E. McC.

19

BALLAD FOR GLOOM

20

AT THE HEART O’ ME

21

THE TREE

22

AN IDYL FOR GLAUCUS

22

MARVOIL

26

IN THE OLD AGE OF THE SOUL

28

REVOLT AGAINST THE CREPUSCULAR

SPIRIT IN MODERN POETRY

28

AND THUS IN NINEVEH

30

THE WHITE STAG

31

PICCADILLY

31

EXULTATIONS

NIGHT LITANY

37

SESTINA: ALTAFORTE

39

BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE

41

PORTRAIT

43

THE EYES

43

NILS LYKKE

44

“FAIR HELENA” BY RACKHAM

45

GREEK EPIGRAM

45

HISTRION

46

PARACELSUS IN EXCELSIS

46

A SONG OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER

47

SONG

48

PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING

49

ALBA INNOMINATA

50

LAUDANTES

52

PLANH

56

CANZONIERE

OCTAVE

63

SONNET IN TENZONE

63

SONNET

64

CANZON: THE YEARLY SLAIN

64

CANZON: THE SPEAR

67

CANZON

69

CANZON: OF INCENSE

71

CANZONE: OF ANGELS

73

SONNET: CHI È QUESTA?

75

OF GRACE

76

CANZON: THE VISION

76

TO OUR LADY OF VICARIOUS ATONEM

79

EPILOGUE

80

NOTES

81

PERSONAE

“Make-strong old dreams lest this our world lose heart.”

TO MARY MOORE

LA FRAISNE[1]

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 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

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

Which 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 amid 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 sunlight,

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 ....

(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,

O Sinistro.

I 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.

“’Pollo Phoibee, old tin pan, you

Glory to Zeus’ ægis-day,

Shield o’ steel-blue, th’ heaven o’er us

Hath for boss thy lustre gay!

’Pollo 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 e’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.

NA AUDIART

“QUE BE-M VOLS MAL”

Any one 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 preëminent 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 him” 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,

Just for the swirl

Thy satins make 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.[2]

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.[3]

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

Thou wert once she,

Audiart, Audiart,

For whose fairness one forgave,

Audiart, Audiart

Que be-m vols mal.

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 maketh 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!)[4]

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.

A VILLONAUD, BALLAD OF THE GIBBET

OR, THE SONG OF THE SIXTH COMPANION

SCENE: “En cest bourdel ou tenoms nostr 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:

“Frères humains qui après nous vivez.”

DRINK ye a skoal for the gallows tree!

François and Margot and thee and me,

Drink we the comrades merrily

Who 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!

François 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,[5]

Lips shrunk back for the wind’s caress

As lips shrink back when we feel the strain

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!

François 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!

François and Margot and thee and me:

These that we loved shall God love less

And smite alway at their feebleness?

Skoal!! to the Gallows! and then pray we:

God damn his hell out speedily

And bring their souls to his High City.

MESMERISM

“And a cat’s in the water-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’ mankin’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!

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

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

Show 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 I have not ....

And lost mid-page

Such age

As his pardons the habit,

He analyzes form and thought to see

How I ’scaped immortality.

IN TEMPORE SENECTUTIS

“FOR we are old

And the earth passion dieth;

We have watched him die a thousand times,

When he wanes an old wind crieth,

For we are old

And passion hath died for us a thousand times

But we grew never weary.

Memory faileth, as the lotus-loved chimes

Sink into fluttering of wind,

But we grow never weary

For we are old.

The strange night-wonder of your eyes

Dies not, though passion flieth

Along the star fields of Arcturus

And is no more unto our hands;

My lips are cold.

And yet we twain are never weary,

And the strange night-wonder is upon us,

The leaves hold our wonder in their flutterings,

The wind fills our mouths with strange words

For our wonder that grows not old.

The moth-hour of our day is upon us

Holding the dawn;

There is strange Night-wonder in our eyes

Because the Moth-Hour leadeth the dawn

As a maiden, holding her fingers,

The rosy, slender fingers of the dawn.”

He saith: “Red spears bore the warrior dawn

Of old

Strange! Love, hast thou forgotten

The red spears of the dawn,

The pennants of the morning?”

She saith: “Nay, I remember, but now

Cometh the Dawn, and the Moth-Hour

Together with him; softly

For we are old.”

CAMARADERIE

“E tuttoque io fosse a la campagnia di molti, quanto alla vista.”

SOMETIMES I feel thy cheek against my face

Close-pressing, soft as is the South’s first breath

That all the subtle earth-things summoneth

To spring in woodland and in meadow space.

Yea sometimes in a bustling man-filled place

Meseemeth some-wise thy hair wandereth

Across mine eyes, as mist that halloweth

The air awhile and giveth all things grace.

Or on still evenings when the rain falls close

There comes a tremor in the drops, and fast

My pulses run, knowing thy thought hath passed

That beareth thee as doth the wind a rose.

FOR E. McC.

THAT WAS MY COUNTER-BLADE UNDER

LEONARDO TERRONE, 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 ti fidar,” it is the sword that speaks

“In me.”[6]

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.

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.

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?

What should avail me,

O my beloved,

Here in this “Middan-gard”[7]

what should avail me

Out of the booty and

gain of my goings?

THE TREE

From “A Lume Spento.”

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.

AN IDYL FOR GLAUCUS

Nel suo aspetto tal dentro mi fei

Qual si fe’ Glauco nel gustar dell’ erba

Che il fe’ consorto in mar degli altri dei.

PARADISO, 1, 67-9.

“As Glaucus tasting the grass that made

him sea-fellow with the other gods.”

I

WHITHER he went I may not follow him. His eyes

Were strange to-day. They always were,

After their fashion, kindred of the sea.

To-day I found him. It was very long

That I had sought among the nets, and when I asked

The fishermen, they laughed at me.

I sought long days amid the cliffs thinking to find

The body-house of him, and then

There at the blue cave-mouth my joy

Grew pain for suddenness, to see him ’live.

Whither he went I may not come, it seems

He is become estranged from all the rest,

And all the sea is now his wonder-house.

And he may sink unto strange depths, he tells me of,

That have no light as we it deem.

E’en now he speaks strange words. I did not know

One half the substance of his speech with me.

And then when I saw naught he sudden leaped,

And shot, a gleam of silver, down, away.

And I have spent three days upon this rock

And yet he comes no more.

He did not even seem to know

I watched him gliding through the vitreous deep.

II

They chide me that the skein I used to spin

Holds not my interest now,

They mock me at the route. Well, I have come again.

Last night I saw three white forms move,

Out past the utmost wave that bears the white foam crest.

I somehow knew that he was one of them.

Oimè, Oimè! I think each time they come

Up from the sea heart to our realm of air

They are more far-removèd from the shore.

When first I found him here, he slept

E’en as he might after a long night’s taking on the deep,

And when he woke some whit the old kind smile

Dwelt round his lips and held him near to me.

But then strange gleams shot through the grey-deep eyes

As though he saw beyond and saw not me,

And when he moved to speak it troubled him.

And then he plucked at grass and bade me eat.

And then forgot me for the sea its charm

And leapt him in the wave and so was gone.

III

I wonder why he mocked me with the grass.

I know not any more how long it is

Since I have dwelt not in my mother’s house.

I know they think me mad, for all night long

I haunt the sea-marge, thinking I may find

Some day the herb he offered unto me.

Perhaps he did not jest; they say some simples have

More wide-spanned power than old wives draw from them.

Perhaps, found I this grass, he’d come again.

Perhaps ’tis some strange charm to draw him here,

’Thout which he may not leave his new-found crew

That ride the two-foot coursers of the deep,

And laugh in storms and break the fishers’ nets.

Oimè, Oimè!

SONG

Voices in the Wind.

We have worn the blue and vair,

And all the sea-caves

Know us of old, and know our new-found mate.

There’s many a secret stair

The sea-folk climb ...

Out of the Wind.

Oimè, Oimè!

I wonder why the wind, even the wind doth seem

To mock me now, all night, all night, and

I have strayed among the cliffs here.

They say, some day I’ll fall

Down through the sea-bit fissures, and no more

Know the warm cloak of sun, or bathe

The dew across my tired eyes to comfort them.

They try to keep me hid within four walls.

I will not stay!

Oimè!

And the wind saith, “Oimè!”

I am quite tired now.

I know the grass

Must grow somewhere along this Thracian coast,

If only he would come some little while and find it me.

ENDETH THE LAMENT FOR GLAUCUS

MARVOIL[8]

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 Polin,

I ha’ taken to rambling the South here.

The Vicomte of Beziers’s not such a bad lot.

I made rimes to his lady this three year:

Vers and canzone, till that damn’d son of Aragon,

Alfonso the half-bald, took to hanging

His helmet at Beziers.

Then came what might come, to wit: three men and one woman,

Beziers off at Mont-Ausier, I and his lady

Singing the stars in the turrets of Beziers,

And one lean Aragonese cursing the seneschal

To the end that you see, friends:

Aragon cursing in Aragon, Beziers busy at Beziers—

Bored to an inch of extinction,

Tibors all tongue and temper at Mont-Ausier,

Me! in this damn’d inn of Avignon,

Stringing long verse for the Burlatz;

All for one half-bald, knock-knee’d king of the Aragonese,

Alfonso, Quatro, poke-nose.

And if when I am dead

They take the trouble to tear out this wall here,

They’ll know more of Arnaut of Marvoil

Than half his canzoni say of him.

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 deëst.

IN THE OLD AGE OF THE SOUL

I DO not choose to dream; there cometh on me

Some strange old lust for deeds.

As to the nerveless hand of some old warrior

The sword-hilt or the war-worn wonted helmet

Brings momentary life and long-fled cunning,

So to my soul grown old—

Grown old with many a jousting, many a foray,

Grown old with many a hither-coming and hence-going—

Till now they send him dreams and no more deed;

So doth he flame again with might for action,

Forgetful of the council of the elders,

Forgetful that who rules doth no more battle,

Forgetful that such might no more cleaves to him;

So doth he flame again toward valiant doing.

REVOLT

AGAINST THE CREPUSCULAR SPIRIT

IN MODERN POETRY

I WOULD shake off the lethargy of this our time, and give

For shadows—shapes of power,

For dreams—men.

“It is better to dream than do?”

Aye! and, No!

Aye! if we dream great deeds, strong men,

Hearts hot, thoughts mighty.

No! if we dream pale flowers,

Slow-moving pageantry of hours that languidly

Drop as o’er-ripened fruit from sallow trees.

If so we live and die not life but dreams,

Great God, grant life in dreams,

Not dalliance, but life!

Let us be men that dream,

Not cowards, dabblers, waiters

For dead Time to reawaken and grant balm

For ills unnamed.

Great God, if we be damn’d to be not men but only dreams,

Then let us be such dreams the world shall tremble at

And know we be its rulers though but dreams!

Then let us be such shadows as the world shall tremble at

And know we be its masters though but shadow!

High God, if men are grown but pale sick phantoms

That must live only in these mists and tempered lights

And tremble for dim hours that knock o’er loud

Or tread too violent in passing them;

Great God, if these thy sons are grown such thin ephemera,

I bid thee grapple chaos and beget

Some new titanic spawn to pile the hills and stir

This earth again.

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

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.”

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.

“’Tis the white stag, Fame, we’re a-hunting,

Bid the world’s hounds come to horn!”

PICCADILLY

BEAUTIFUL, tragical faces,

Ye that were whole, and are so sunken;

And, O ye vile, ye that might have been loved,

That are so sodden and drunken,

Who hath forgotten you?

O wistful, fragile faces, few out of many!

The gross, the coarse, the brazen,

God knows I cannot pity them, perhaps, as I should do,

But, oh, ye delicate, wistful faces,

Who hath forgotten you?

EXULTATIONS

I am an eternal spirit and the things I make are but ephemera,

yet I endure:

Yea, and the little earth crumbles beneath our feet

and we endure.

TO CARLOS TRACY CHESTER

NIGHT LITANY

O DIEU, purifiez nos cœurs!

Purifiez nos cœurs!

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 cœurs,

Purifiez nos cœurs,

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 cœurs,

Purifiez nos cœurs,

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 cœurs,

O God of the silence,

Purifiez nos cœurs,

O God of waters.

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 (Cœur 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.

III

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!

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.

V

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!”

BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE[9]

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 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.

PORTRAIT

From “La Mère Inconnue.”

NOW would I weave her portrait out of all dim splendour.

Of Provence and far halls of memory,

Lo, there come echoes, faint diversity

Of blended bells at even’s end, or

As the distant seas should send her

The tribute of their trembling, ceaselessly

Resonant. Out of all dreams that be,

Say, shall I bid the deepest dreams attend her?

Nay! For I have seen the purplest shadows stand

Alway with reverent chere that looked on her,

Silence himself is grown her worshipper

And ever doth attend her in that land

Wherein she reigneth, wherefore let there stir

Naught but the softest voices, praising her.

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.

NILS LYKKE

“BEAUTIFUL, infinite memories

That are a-plucking at my heart,

Why will you be ever calling and a-calling,

And a-murmuring in the dark there?

And a-reaching out your long hands

Between me and my beloved?

“And why will you be ever a-casting

The black shadow of your beauty

On the white face of my beloved

And a-glinting in the pools of her eyes?”

“FAIR HELENA” BY RACKHAM

“What I love best in all the world?”

WHEN the purple twilight is unbound,

To watch her slow, tall grace

and its wistful loveliness,

And to know her face

is in the shadow there,

Just by two stars beneath that cloud—

The soft, dim cloud of her hair,

And to think my voice

can reach to her

As but the rumour of some tree-bound stream,

Heard just beyond the forest’s edge,

Until she all forgets I am,

And knows of me

Naught but my dream’s felicity.

GREEK EPIGRAM

DAY and night are never weary,

Nor yet is God of creating

For day and night their torch-bearers,

The aube and the crepuscule.

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.

HISTRION

NO man hath dared to write this thing as yet,

And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great

At times pass through us,

And we are melted into them, and are not

Save reflexions of their souls.

Thus am I Dante for a space and am

One François Villon, ballad-lord and thief

Or am such holy ones I may not write,

Lest blasphemy be writ against my name;

This for an instant and the flame is gone.

’Tis as in midmost us there glows a sphere

Translucent, molten gold, that is the “I”

And into this some form projects itself:

Christus, or John, or eke the Florentine;

And as the clear space is not if a form’s

Imposed thereon,

So cease we from all being for the time,

And these, the Masters of the Soul, live on.

PARACELSUS IN EXCELSIS

“BEING no longer human, why should I

Pretend humanity or don the frail attire?

Men have I known and men, but never one

Was grown so free an essence, or become

So simply element as what I am.

The mist goes from the mirror and I see!

Behold! the world of forms is swept beneath—

Turmoil grown visible beneath our peace,

And we that are grown formless rise above,

Fluids intangible that have been men,

We seem as statues round whose high risen base

Some overflowing river is run mad;

In us alone the element of calm!

A SONG OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER

In “Los Pastores de Belen.”

From the Spanish of Lope de Vega.

AS ye go through these palm-trees,

O holy angels;

Sith sleepeth my child here

Still ye the branches.

O Bethlehem palm-trees

That move to the anger

Of winds in their fury,

Tempestuous voices,

Make ye no clamour,

Run ye less swiftly,

Sith sleepeth the child here

Still ye your branches.

He the divine child

Is here a-wearied

Of weeping the earth-pain,

Here for his rest would he

Cease from his mourning,

Only a little while,

Sith sleepeth this child here

Stay ye the branches.

Cold be the fierce winds,

Treacherous round him.

Ye see that I have not

Wherewith to guard him,

O angels, divine ones

That pass us a-flying,

Sith sleepeth my child here

Stay ye the branches.

Ya veis que no tengo

Con que guardarlo,

O angeles santos

Que vais volando

Por que duerme mi niño

Tened los ramos!

SONG

LOVE thou thy dream

All base love scorning,

Love thou the wind

And here take warning

That dreams alone can truly be,

For ’tis in dream I come to thee.

PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING

THAT IS, PRINCE HENRY PLANTAGENET,

ELDER BROTHER TO RICHARD “CŒUR DE LION”

From the Provençal 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 o’ershadowed, 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.

From this faint world, now 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 honourèd companions

There where there is no grief, nor shall be sadness.

ALBA INNOMINATA

From the Provençal.

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-Away

Have I drunk deep of my Belovèd’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!

LAUDANTES

I

WHEN your beauty is grown old in all men’s songs,

And my poor words are lost amid that throng,

Then you will know the truth of my poor words,

And mayhap dreaming of the wistful throng

That hopeless 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?

III

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.

IV

He speaks to the moonlight concerning the Belovèd.

Pale hair that the moon has shaken

Down over the dark breast of the sea,

O 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

I 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.

O 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

I 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

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.

X

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.

PLANH

It is of the white thoughts that he saw in the Forest.

WHITE Poppy, heavy with dreams,

O White Poppy, 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

—There in the pine wood it is,

And they are white, White Poppy,

They are white like the clouds in the forest of the sky

Ere the stars arise to their hunting.

O White Poppy, who art wiser than love,

I 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.

CANZONIERE

STUDIES IN FORM

“Ma qui la morta poesi risurga.”

TO OLIVIA AND DOROTHY SHAKESPEAR

OCTAVE

FINE songs, fair songs, these golden usuries

Her beauty earns as but just increment,

And they do speak with a most ill intent

Who say they give when they pay debtor’s fees.

I call him bankrupt in the courts of song

Who hath her gold to eye and pays her not,

Defaulter do I call the knave who hath got

Her silver in his heart and doth her wrong.

SONNET IN TENZONE

LA MENTE

“O THOU mocked heart that cowerest by the door

And durst not honour hope with welcoming,

How shall one bid thee for her honour sing,

When song would but show forth thy sorrow’s store?

What things are gold and ivory unto thee?

Go forth, thou pauper fool! Are these for naught?

Is heaven in lotus leaves? What hast thou wrought,

Or brought, or sought wherewith to pay the fee?”

IL CUORE

“If naught I give, naught do I take return.

‘Ronsard me celebroit!’ behold I give

The age-old, age-old fare to fairer fair

And I fare forth into more bitter air;

Though mocked I go, yet shall her beauty live

Till rimes unrime and Truth shall truth unlearn.”

SONNET

IF on the tally-board of wasted days

They daily write me for proud idleness,

Let high Hell summons me, and I confess,

No overt act the preferred charge allays.

To-day I thought—what boots it what I thought?

Poppies and gold! Why should I blurt it out?

Or hawk the magic of her name about

Deaf doors and dungeons where no truth is brought?

Who calls me idle? I have thought of her.

Who calls me idle? By God’s truth I’ve seen

The arrowy sunlight in her golden snares.

Let him among you all stand summonser

Who hath done better things! Let whoso hath been

With worthier works concerned, display his wares!

CANZON: THE YEARLY SLAIN

(Written in reply to Manning’s “Korè.”)

“Et huiusmodi stantiae usus est fere in omnibus cantionibus suis

Arnaldus Danielis et nos eum secut, sumus.”

(DANTE, De Vulgari Eloquio, II. 10.)

I

AH! red-leafed time hath driven out the rose

And crimson dew is fallen on the leaf

Ere ever yet the cold white wheat be sown

That hideth all earth’s green and sere and red;

The Moon-flower’s fallen and the branch is bare,

Holding no honey for the starry bees;

The Maiden turns to her dark lord’s demesne.

II

Fairer than Enna’s field when Ceres sows

The stars of hyacinth and puts off grief,

Fairer than petals on May morning blown

Through apple-orchards where the sun hath shed

His brighter petals down to make them fair;

Fairer than these the Poppy-crowned One flees,

And Joy goes weeping in her scarlet train.

III

The faint damp wind that, ere the even, blows

Piling the west with many a tawny sheaf,

Then when the last glad wavering hours are mown

Sigheth and dies because the day is sped;

This wind is like her and the listless air

Wherewith she goeth by beneath the trees,

The trees that mock her with their scarlet stain.

IV

Love that is born of Time and comes and goes!

Love that doth hold all noble hearts in fief!

As red leaves follow where the wind hath flown,

So all men follow Love when Love is dead.

O Fate of Wind! O Wind that cannot spare,

But drivest out the Maid, and pourest lees

Of all thy crimson on the wold again,

V

Korè my heart is, let it stand sans gloze!

Love’s pain is long, and lo, love’s joy is brief!

My heart erst alway sweet is bitter grown;

As crimson ruleth in the good green’s stead,

So grief hath taken all mine old joy’s share

And driven forth my solace and all ease

Where pleasure bows to all-usurping pain.

VI

Crimson the hearth where one last ember glows!

My heart’s new winter hath no such relief,

Nor thought of Spring whose blossom he hath known

Hath turned him back where Spring is banished.

Barren the heart and dead the fires there,

Blow! O ye ashes, where the winds shall please,

But cry, “Love also is the Yearly Slain.”

VII

Be sped, my Canzon, through the bitter air!

To him who speaketh words as fair as these,

Say that I also know the “Yearly Slain.”

KORÈ

From the “Poems of Frederic Manning,” published by John Murray,

with whose permission we here reprint it.

Yea, she hath passed hereby and blessed the sheaves

And the great garths and stacks and quiet farms,

And all the tawny and the crimson leaves,

Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms

Under the star of dusk through stealing mist

And blest the earth and gone while no man wist.

With slow reluctant feet and weary eyes

And eyelids heavy with the coming sleep,

With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs,

She passed as shadows pass amid the sheep

While the earth dreamed and only I was ware

Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.

The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams,

There was no sound amid the sacred boughs

Nor any mournful music in her streams,

Only I saw the shadow on her brows,

Only I knew her for the Yearly Slain

And wept, and weep until she come again.

CANZON: THE SPEAR

[This fashion of stanza is used by Jaufre Rudel in the song

“D’un amor de lonh.”

The measure is to be sung rather than spoken.]

I

’TIS the clear light of love I praise

That steadfast gloweth o’er deep waters,

A clarity that gleams always.

Though man’s soul pass through troubled waters,

Strange ways to him are opened.

To shore the beaten ship is sped

If only love of light give aid.

II

That fair far spear of light now lays

Its long gold shaft upon the waters.

Ah! might I pass upon its rays

To where it gleams beyond the waters,

Or might my troubled heart be fed

Upon the frail clear light there shed,

Then were my pain at last allay’d.

III

Although the clouded storm dismays

Many a heart upon these waters,

The thought of that far golden blaze

Giveth me heart upon the waters,

Thinking thereof my bark is led

To port wherein no storm I dread;

No tempest maketh me afraid.

IV

Yet when within my heart I gaze

Upon my fair beyond the waters,

Meseems my soul within me prays

To pass straightway beyond the waters.

Though I be alway banished

From ways and woods that she doth tread,

One thing there is that doth not fade,

V

Deep in my heart that spear-print stays,

That wound I gat beyond the waters,

Deeper with passage of the days

That pass as swift and bitter waters,

While a dull fire within my head

Moveth itself if word be said

Which hath concern with that far maid.

VI

My love is lovelier than the sprays

Of eglantine above clear waters,

Or whitest lilies that upraise

Their heads in midst of moated waters.

No poppy in the May-glad mead

Would match her quivering lips’ red

If ’gainst her lips it should be laid.

VII

The light within her eyes, which slays

Base thoughts and stilleth troubled waters,

Is like the gold where sunlight plays

Upon the still o’ershadowed waters.

When anger is there minglèd

There comes a keener gleam instead,

Like flame that burns beneath thin jade.

VIII

Know by the words here minglèd

What love hath made my heart his stead,

Glowing like flame beneath thin jade.

CANZON

TO BE SUNG BENEATH A WINDOW

I

HEART mine, art mine, whose embraces

Clasp but wind that past thee bloweth?

E’en this air so subtly gloweth,

Guerdoned by thy sun-gold traces

That my heart is half afraid

For the fragrance on him laid;

Even so love’s might amazes!

II

Man’s love follows many faces,

My love only one face knoweth;

Towards thee only my love floweth,

And outstrips the swift stream’s paces.

Were this love well here displayed,

As flame flameth ’neath thin jade

Love should glow through these my phrases.

III

Though I’ve roamed through many places,

None there is that my heart troweth

Fair as that wherein fair groweth

One whose land here interlaces

Tuneful words, that I’ve essayed.

Let this tune be gently played

Which my voice herward upraises.

IV

If my praise her grace effaces,

Then ’t is not my heart that showeth,

But the skilless tongue that soweth

Words unworthy of her graces.

Tongue, that hath me so betrayed,

Were my heart but here displayed,

Then were sung her fitting praises.

NOTE. The form and measure are those of Piere Vidal’s

“Ab l’alen tir vas me l’aire.”

The song is fit only to be sung, and is not to be spoken.

CANZON: OF INCENSE

[To this form sings Arnault Daniel,

with seven stanzas instead of five.]

I

THY gracious ways,

O Lady of my heart, have

O’er all my thought their golden glamour cast;

As amber torch-flames, where strange men-at-arms

Tread softly ’neath the damask shield of night,

Rise from the flowing steel in part reflected,

So on my mailed thought that with thee goeth,

Though dark the way, a golden glamour falleth.

II

The censer sways

And glowing coals some art have

To free what frankincense before held fast

Till all the summer of the eastern farms

Doth dim the sense, and dream up through the light,

As memory, by new-born love corrected—

With savour such as only new love knoweth—

Through swift dim ways the hidden pasts recalleth.

III

On barren days,

At hours when I, apart, have

Bent low in thought of the great charm thou hast,

Behold with music’s many stringed charms

The silence groweth thou. O rare delight!

The melody upon clear strings inflected

Were dull when o’er taut sense thy presence floweth,

With quivering notes’ accord that never palleth.

IV

The glowing rays

That from the low sun dart, have

Turned gold each tower and every towering mast;

The saffron flame, that flaming nothing harms

Hides Khadeeth’s pearl and all the sapphire might

Of burnished waves, before her gates collected:

The cloak of graciousness, that round thee gloweth,

Doth hide the thing thou art, as here befalleth.

V

All things worth praise

That unto Khadeeth’s mart have

From far been brought through perils over-passed,

All santal, myrrh, and spikenard that disarms

The pard’s swift anger; these would weigh but light

’Gainst thy delights, my Khadeeth! Whence protected

By naught save her great grace that in him showeth,

My song goes forth and on her mercy calleth.

VI

O censer of the thought that golden gloweth,

Be bright before her when the evening falleth.

VII

Fragrant be thou as a new field one moweth,

O song of mine that “Hers” her mercy calleth.

CANZONE: OF ANGELS

I

HE that is Lord of all the realms of light

Hath unto me from His magnificence

Granted such vision as hath wrought my joy.

Moving my spirit past the last defence

That shieldeth mortal things from mightier sight,

Where freedom of the soul knows no alloy,

I saw what forms the lordly powers employ;

Three splendours, saw I, of high holiness,

From clarity to clarity ascending

Through all the roofless, tacit courts extending

In æther which such subtle light doth bless

As ne’er the candles of the stars hath wooed;

Know ye herefrom of their similitude.

II

Withdrawn within the cavern of his wings,

Grave with the joy of thoughts beneficent,

And finely wrought and durable and clear

If so his eyes showed forth the mind’s content,

So sate the first to whom remembrance clings,

Tissued like bat’s wings did his wings appear,

Not of that shadowy colouring and drear,

But as thin shells, pale saffron, luminous;

Alone, unlonely, whose calm glances shed

Friend’s love to strangers though no word were said,

Pensive his godly state he keepeth thus.

Not with his surfaces his power endeth,

But is as flame that from the gem extendeth.

III

My second marvel stood not in such ease,

But he, the cloudy pinioned, winged him on

Then from my sight as now from memory,

The courier aquiline, so swiftly gone!

The third most glorious of these majesties

Give aid, O sapphires of th’ eternal see,

And by your light illume pure verity.

That azure feldspar hight the microcline,

Or, on its wing, the Menelaus weareth

Such subtlety of shimmering as beareth

This marvel onward through the crystalline,

A splendid calyx that about her gloweth,

Smiting the sunlight on whose ray she goeth.

IV

The diver at Sorrento from beneath

The vitreous indigo, who swiftly riseth,

By will and not by action as it seemeth,

Moves not more smoothly, and no thought surmiseth

How she takes motion from the lustrous sheath

Which, as the trace behind the swimmer, gleameth

Yet presseth back the æther where it streameth.

To her whom it adorns this sheath imparteth

The living motion from the light surrounding;

And thus my nobler parts, to grief’s confounding,

Impart into my heart a peace which starteth

From one round whom a graciousness is cast

Which clingeth in the air where she hath past.

V.—TORNATA

Canzon, to her whose spirit seems in sooth

Akin unto the feldspar, since it is

So clear and subtle and azure, I send thee, saying:

That since I looked upon such potencies

And glories as are here inscribed in truth,

New boldness hath o’erthrown my long delaying,

And that thy words my new-born powers obeying—

Voices at last to voice my heart’s long mood—

Are come to greet her in their amplitude.

NOTE. This form is not Provençal, but that of Dante’s matchless “Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel movete.” IL CONVITO, II, bar the decasyllabic lines which one can scarcely escape in English but which do not, despite all statements to the contrary, correspond to the hendecasyllabic lines in the Italian.

SONNET: CHI È QUESTA?

WHO is she coming, that the roses bend

Their shameless heads to do her passing honour?

Who is she coming with a light upon her

Not born of suns that with the day’s end end?

Say, is it Love who hath chosen the nobler part?

Say, is it Love, that was divinity,

Who hath left his godhead that his home might be

The shameless rose of her unclouded heart?

If this be Love, where hath he won such grace?

If this be Love, how is the evil wrought,

That all men write against his darkened name?

If this be Love, if this .......

O mind give place!

What holy mystery e’er was noosed in thought?

Own that thou scan’st her not, nor count it shame!

OF GRACE

(BALLATA, FRAGMENT)

II

FULL well thou knowest, song, what grace I mean,

E’en as thou know’st the sunlight I have lost.

Thou knowest the way of it and know’st the sheen

About her brows where the rays are bound and crossed,

E’en as thou knowest joy and know’st joy’s bitter cost.

Thou know’st her grace in moving,

Thou dost her skill in loving,

Thou know’st what truth she proveth,

Thou knowest the heart she moveth,

O song where grief assoneth!

CANZON: THE VISION

The form is that of Arnault Daniel’s

“Sols sui que sai lo sobrafan quem soris.”

I

WHEN first I saw thee ’neath the silver mist,

Ruling thy bark of painted sandal-wood,

Did any know thee? By the golden sails

That clasped the ribbands of that azure sea,

Did any know thee save my heart alone?

O ivory woman with thy bands of gold,

Answer the song my luth and I have brought thee!

II

Dream over golden dream that secret cist,

Thy heart, O heart of me, doth hold, and mood

On mood of silver, when the day’s light fails,

Say who hath touched the secret heart of thee,

Or who hath known what my heart hath not known!

O slender pilot whom the mists enfold,

Answer the song my luth and I have wrought thee!

III

When new love plucks the falcon from his wrist,

And cuts the gyve and casts the scarlet hood,

Where is the heron heart whom flight avails?

O quick to prize me Love, how suddenly

From out the tumult truth hath ta’en his own,

And in this vision is our past unrolled.

Lo! With a hawk of light thy love hath caught me.

IV

And I shall get no peace from eucharist,

Nor doling out strange prayers before the rood,

To match the peace that thine hands’ touch entails;

Nor doth God’s light match light shed over me

When thy caught sunlight is about me thrown,

Oh, for the very ruth thine eyes have told,

Answer the rune this love of thee hath taught me.

V

After an age of longing had we missed

Our meeting and the dream, what were the good

Of weaving cloth of words? Were jeweled tales

An opiate meet to quell the malady

Of life unlived? In untried monotone

Were not the earth as vain, and dry, and old,

For thee, O Perfect Light, had I not sought thee?

VI

Calais, in song where word and tone keep tryst,

Behold my heart, and hear mine hardihood!

Calais, the wind is come and heaven pales

And trembles for the love of day to be.

Calais, the words break and the dawn is shown.

Ah, but the stars set when thou wast first bold,

Turn! lest they say a lesser light distraught thee.

VII

O ivory thou, the golden scythe hath mown

Night’s stubble and my joy. Ah, royal souled,

Favour the quest! Lo, Truth and I have sought thee!

TO OUR LADY OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT

(BALLATA)

I

WHO are you that the whole world’s song

Is shaken out beneath your feet

Leaving you comfortless,

Who, that, as wheat

Is garnered, gather in

The blades of man’s sin

And bear that sheaf?

Lady of wrong and grief,

Blameless!

II

All souls beneath the gloom

That pass with little flames,

All these till time be run

Pass one by one

As Christs to save, and die;

What wrong one sowed,

Behold, another reaps!

Where lips awake our joy

The sad heart sleeps

Within.

No man doth bear his sin,

But many sins

Are gathered as a cloud about man’s way.

EPILOGUE

TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI

DANTE and I are come to learn of thee,

O Messire Guido, master of us all,

Love, who hath set his hand upon us three,

Bidding us twain upon thy glory call.

Harsh light hath rent from us the golden pall

Of that frail sleep, His first light seigniory,

And we are come through all the modes that fall

Unto their lot who meet him constantly.

Wherefore, by right, in this lord’s name we greet thee,

Seeing we labour at his labour daily.

Thou, who dost know what way swift words are crossed

O thou, who hast sung till none at song defeat thee,

Grant! by thy might and hers of San Michele,

Thy risen voice send flames this pentecost.

NOTE. This poem foreruns a translation of

“The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido”

now in preparation—E. P.

NOTES

NOTE PRECEDENT 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 silvestris.”

Then becometh it kin to the faun and the dryad, a woodland-dweller amid the rocks and streams

“consociis faunis dryadisque inter saxa sylvarum.”

Janus of Basel.[10]

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 woodland,” 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 (See ‘Lais’ 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) (égaré).

MARVOIL

- The Personae are:

- Arnaut of Marvoil, a troubadour, date 1170-1200.

- The Countess (in her own right) of Burlatz, and of Beziers,

- being the wife of The Vicomte of Beziers.

- Alfonso IV of Aragon.

- Tibors of Mont-Ausier. For fuller mention of her see the

- “razos” on Bertran of Born. She is contemporary with the

- other persons, but I have no strict warrant for dragging her

- name into this particular affair.

Footnotes:

[1] Prefatory note at end of the volume.

[2] I. e. in illumed manuscript.

[3] Reincarnate.

[4] Signum Nativitatis.

[5] Certain gibbeted corpses used to be coated with tar as a preservative; thus one scarecrow served as warning for considerable time. See Hugo, “L’Homme qui Rit.”

[6] Sword-rune, “If thy heart fail thee trust not in me.”

[7] Anglo-Saxon, “Earth.”

[8] See note at end of volume.

[9] Fere = Mate, Companion.

[10] Referendum for contrast. “Daemonalitas” of the Rev. Father Sinistrari of Ameno (1600 circ.). “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, pub. Liseux, Paris, 1879.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Deprecated spellings or ancient words were not corrected.

Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.

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Table of Contents

PROVENÇA

PERSONAE

LA FRAISNE[1]

CINO

NA AUDIART

VILLONAUD FOR THIS YULE

A VILLONAUD, BALLAD OF THE GIBBET

MESMERISM

FAMAM LIBROSQUE CANO

IN TEMPORE SENECTUTIS

CAMARADERIE

FOR E. McC.

BALLAD FOR GLOOM

AT THE HEART O’ ME

THE TREE

AN IDYL FOR GLAUCUS

MARVOIL[8]

IN THE OLD AGE OF THE SOUL

REVOLT

AND THUS IN NINEVEH

THE WHITE STAG

PICCADILLY

EXULTATIONS

NIGHT LITANY

SESTINA: ALTAFORTE

BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE[9]

PORTRAIT

THE EYES

NILS LYKKE

“FAIR HELENA” BY RACKHAM

GREEK EPIGRAM

HISTRION

PARACELSUS IN EXCELSIS

A SONG OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER

SONG

PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING

ALBA INNOMINATA

LAUDANTES

PLANH

CANZONIERE

OCTAVE

SONNET IN TENZONE

SONNET

CANZON: THE YEARLY SLAIN

CANZON: THE SPEAR

CANZON

CANZON: OF INCENSE

CANZONE: OF ANGELS

SONNET: CHI È QUESTA?

OF GRACE

CANZON: THE VISION

TO OUR LADY OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT

EPILOGUE

NOTES

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