Others

Grace Before Song

Lord God of heaven that with mercy dight
Th'alternate prayer wheel of the night and light
Eternal hath to thee, and in whose sight
Our days as rain drops in the sea surge fall,


As bright white drops upon a leaden sea
Grant so my songs to this grey folk may be:


As drops that dream and gleam and falling catch the sun
Evan'scent mirrors every opal one
Of such his splendor as their compass is,
So, bold My Songs, seek ye such death as this.

Heather


The black panther treads at my side,
And above my fingers
There float the petal-like flames.


The milk-white girls
Unbend from the holly-trees,
And their snow-white leopard
Watches to follow our trace.

Fratres Minores

With minds still hovering above their testicles
Certain poets here and in France
Still sigh over established and natural fact
Long since fully discussed by Ovid.
They howl. They complain in delicate and exhausted metres
That the twitching of three abdominal nerves
Is incapable of producing a lasting Nirvana.

Further Instructions

Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions.
Let us express our envy for the man with a steady job and no worry about the future.
You are very idle, my songs,
I fear you will come to a bad end.
You stand about the streets, You loiter at the corners and bus-stops,
You do next to nothing at all.


You do not even express our inner nobilitys,
You will come to a very bad end.


And I? I have gone half-cracked.
I have talked to you so much that I almost see you about me,
Insolent little beasts! Shameless! Devoid of clothing!


But you, newest song of the lot,
You are not old enough to have done much mischief.
I will get you a green coat out of China
With dragons worked upon it.
I will get you the scarlet silk trousers
From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa Maria Novella;
Lest they say we are lacking in taste,
Or that there is no caste in this family.

Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord

O fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside.

Erat Hora

‘Thank you, whatever comes.' And then she turned
And, as the ray of sun on hanging flowers
Fades when the wind hath lifted them aside,
Went swiftly from me. Nay, whatever comes
One hour was sunlit and the most high gods
May not make boast of any better thing
Than to have watched that hour as it passed.

Envoi


Go, dumb-born book,
Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes:
Hadst thou but song
As thou hast subjects known,
Then were there cause in thee that should condone
Even my faults that heavy upon me lie
And build her glories their longevity.
Tell her that sheds
Such treasure in the air,
Recking naught else but that her graces give
Life to the moment,
I would bid them live
As roses might, in magic amber laid,
Red overwrought with orange and all made
One substance and one colour
Braving time.
Tell her that goes
With song upon her lips
But sings not out the song, nor knows
The maker of it, some other mouth,
May be as fair as hers,
Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers,
When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid,
Siftings on siftings in oblivion,
Till change hath broken down
All things save Beauty alone.

Envoi


Go, dumb-born book,
Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes:
Hadst thou but song
As thou hast subjects known,
Then were there cause in thee that should condone
Even my faults that heavy upon me lie
And build her glories their longevity.
Tell her that sheds
Such treasure in the air,
Recking naught else but that her graces give
Life to the moment,
I would bid them live
As roses might, in magic amber laid,
Red overwrought with orange and all made
One substance and one colour
Braving time.
Tell her that goes
With song upon her lips
But sings not out the song, nor knows
The maker of it, some other mouth,
May be as fair as hers,
Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers,
When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid,
Siftings on siftings in oblivion,
Till change hath broken down
All things save Beauty alone.

Envoi


Go, dumb-born book,
Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes:
Hadst thou but song
As thou hast subjects known,
Then were there cause in thee that should condone
Even my faults that heavy upon me lie
And build her glories their longevity.
Tell her that sheds
Such treasure in the air,
Recking naught else but that her graces give
Life to the moment,
I would bid them live
As roses might, in magic amber laid,
Red overwrought with orange and all made
One substance and one colour
Braving time.
Tell her that goes
With song upon her lips
But sings not out the song, nor knows
The maker of it, some other mouth,
May be as fair as hers,
Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers,
When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid,
Siftings on siftings in oblivion,
Till change hath broken down
All things save Beauty alone.

Dompna Pois De Me No'us Cal

FROM THE PROVENCAL OF EN BERTRANS DE BORN
Lady, since you care nothing for me,
And since you have shut me away from you
Causelessly,
I know not wnere to go seeking,
For certainly
I will never again gather
Joy so rich, and if I find not ever
A lady with look so speaking
To my desire, worth yours whom I have lost,
I’ll have no other love at any cost.


And since I could not find a peer to you,
Neither one so fair, nor of such heart,
So eager and alert,
Nor with such art
In attire, nor so gay
Nor with gift so bountiful and so true,
I will go out a-searching,
Culling from each a fair trait
To make me a borrowed lady
Till I again find you ready.


Bels Cembelins, I take of you your colour,
For it's your own, and your glance
Where love is,
A proud thing I do here,
For, as to colour and eyes
I shall have missed nothing at all,
Having yours.
I ask of Midons Aelis (of Montfort)
Her straight speech free-running,
That my phantom lack not in cunning,


At Chalais of the Viscountess, I would
That she give me outright
Her two hands and her throat,
So take I my road
To Rochechouart,
Swift-foot to my Lady Anhes,
Seeing that Tristan's lady Iseutz had never
Such grace of locks, I do ye to wit,
Though she'd the far fame for it.


Of Audiart at Malemort,
Though she with a full heart
Wish me ill,
I'd have her form that's laced
So cunningly,
Without blemish, for her love
Breaks not nor turns aside.
I of Miels-de-ben demand



Her straight fresh body,
She is so supple and young,
Her robes can but do her wrong.


Her white teeth, of the Lady Faidita
I ask, and the fine courtesy
She hath to welcome one,
And such replies she lavishes
Within her nest;
Of Bels Mirals, the rest,
Tall stature and gaiety,
To make these avail
She knoweth well, betide
No change nor turning aside.


Ah, Bels Senher, Maent, at last
I ask naught from you,
Save that I have such hunger for
This phantom
As I've for you, such flame-lap,
And yet I'd rather
Ask of you than hold another,
Mayhap, right close and kissed.
Ah, lady, why have you cast
Me out, knowing you hold me so fast!

De Ægypto

I even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.


I have beheld the Lady of Life,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.


Green and gray is her raiment,
Trailing along the wind.


I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.


Manus animam pinxit,
My pen is in my hand


To write the acceptable word. . . .
My mouth to chant the pure singing!


Who hath the mouth to receive it,
The song of the Lotus of Kumi?


I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.


I am flame that riseth in the sun,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.


The moon is upon my forehead,
The winds are under my lips.


The moon is a great pearl in the waters of sapphire,
Cool to my fingers the flowing waters.


I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

De Ægypto

I even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.


I have beheld the Lady of Life,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.


Green and gray is her raiment,
Trailing along the wind.


I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.


Manus animam pinxit,
My pen is in my hand


To write the acceptable word. . . .
My mouth to chant the pure singing!


Who hath the mouth to receive it,
The song of the Lotus of Kumi?


I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.


I am flame that riseth in the sun,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.


The moon is upon my forehead,
The winds are under my lips.


The moon is a great pearl in the waters of sapphire,
Cool to my fingers the flowing waters.


I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

Dance Figure

For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee


Dark-eyed,
O woman of my dreams,
Ivory sandalled,
There is none like thee among the dancers,
None with swift feet.
I have not found thee in the tents,
In the broken darkness.
I have not found thee at the well-head
Among the women with pitchers.
Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark;
Thy face as a river with lights.


White as an almond are thy shoulders;
As new almonds stripped from the husk.
They guard thee not with eunuchs;
Not with bars of copper.


Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest.
A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in
patterns, hast thou gathered about thee,
O Nathat-Ikanaie, 'Tree-at-the-river'.


As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me;
Thy fingers a frosted stream.


Thy maidens are white like pebbles;
Their music about thee!


There is none like thee among the dancers;
None with swift feet.

Dance Figure

For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee


Dark-eyed,
O woman of my dreams,
Ivory sandalled,
There is none like thee among the dancers,
None with swift feet.
I have not found thee in the tents,
In the broken darkness.
I have not found thee at the well-head
Among the women with pitchers.
Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark;
Thy face as a river with lights.


White as an almond are thy shoulders;
As new almonds stripped from the husk.
They guard thee not with eunuchs;
Not with bars of copper.


Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest.
A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in
patterns, hast thou gathered about thee,
O Nathat-Ikanaie, 'Tree-at-the-river'.


As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me;
Thy fingers a frosted stream.


Thy maidens are white like pebbles;
Their music about thee!


There is none like thee among the dancers;
None with swift feet.

Coda


O My songs,
Why do you look so eagerly and so curiously into
people's faces,
Will you find your lost dead among them?

Canto XLIX: For the Seven Lakes

For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses:
Rain; empty river; a voyage,
Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight
Under the cabin roof was one lantern.
The reeds are heavy; bent;
and the bamboos speak as if weeping.


Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes
against sunset
Evening is like a curtain of cloud,
a blurr above ripples; and through it
sharp long spikes of the cinnamon,
a cold tune amid reeds.
Behind hill the monk's bell
borne on the wind.
Sail passed here in April; may return in October
Boat fades in silver; slowly;
Sun blaze alone on the river.


Where wine flag catches the sunset
Sparse chimneys smoke in the cross light


Comes then snow scur on the river
And a world is covered with jade
Small boat floats like a lanthorn,
The flowing water closts as with cold. And at San Yin
they are a people of leisure.


Wild geese swoop to the sand-bar,
Clouds gather about the hole of the window
Broad water; geese line out with the autumn
Rooks clatter over the fishermen's lanthorns,


A light moves on the north sky line;
where the young boys prod stones for shrimp.
In seventeen hundred came Tsing to these hill lakes.
A light moves on the South sky line.


State by creating riches shd. thereby get into debt?
This is infamy; this is Geryon.
This canal goes still to TenShi
Though the old king built it for pleasure


K E I M E N R A N K E I
K I U M A N M A N K E I
JITSU GETSU K O K W A
T A N FUKU T A N K A I


Sun up; work
sundown; to rest
dig well and drink of the water
dig field; eat of the grain



Imperial power is? and to us what is it?


The fourth; the dimension of stillness.
And the power over wild beasts.

Canto III

Another's a half-cracked fellow—John Heydon,
Worker of miracles, dealer in levitation,
In thoughts upon pure form, in alchemy,
Seer of pretty visions ('servant of God and secretary of nature');
Full of plaintive charm, like Botticelli's,
With half-transparent forms, lacking the vigor of gods.
Thus Heydon, in a trance, at Bulverton,
Had such a sight:
Decked all in green, with sleeves of yellow silk
Slit to the elbow, slashed with various purples.
Her eyes were green as glass, her foot was leaf-like.
She was adorned with choicest emeralds,
And promised him the way of holy wisdom.
'Pretty green bank,' began the half-lost poem.
Take the old way, say I met John Heydon,
Sought out the place,
Lay on the bank, was 'plungèd deep in swevyn;'
And saw the company—Layamon, Chaucer—
Pass each in his appropriate robes;
Conversed with each, observed the varying fashion.
And then comes Heydon.
'I have seen John Heydon.'
Let us hear John Heydon!
'Omniformis
Omnis intellectus est'—thus he begins, by spouting half of Psellus.
(Then comes a note, my assiduous commentator:
Not Psellus De Daemonibus, but Porphyry's Chances,
In the thirteenth chapter, that 'every intellect is omni-form.')
Magnifico Lorenzo used the dodge,
Says that he met Ficino
In some Wordsworthian, false-pastoral manner,
And that they walked along, stopped at a well-head,
And heard deep platitudes about contentment
From some old codger with an endless beard.
'A daemon is not a particular intellect,
But is a substance differed from intellect,'
Breaks in Ficino,
'Placed in the latitude or locus of souls'—
That's out of Proclus, take your pick of them.
Valla, more earth and sounder rhetoric—
Prefacing praise to his Pope Nicholas:
'A man of parts, skilled in the subtlest sciences;
A patron of the arts, of poetry; and of a fine discernment.'
Then comes a catalogue, his jewels of conversation.
No, you've not read your Elegantiae—
A dull book?—shook the church.
The prefaces, cut clear and hard:
'Know then the Roman speech, a sacrament,'
Spread for the nations, eucharist of wisdom,
Bread of the liberal arts.
Ha! Sir Blancatz,
Sordello would have your heart to give to all the princes;



Valla, the heart of Rome,
Sustaining speech, set out before the people.
'Nec bonus Christianus ac bonus
Tullianus.'
Marius, Du Bellay, wept for the buildings,
Baldassar Castiglione saw Raphael
'Lead back the soul into its dead, waste dwelling,'
Corpore laniato; and Lorenzo Valla,
'Broken in middle life? bent to submission?—
Took a fat living from the Papacy'
(That's in Villari, but Burckhardt's statement is different)—
'More than the Roman city, the Roman speech'
(Holds fast its part among the ever-living).
'Not by the eagles only was Rome measured.'
'Wherever the Roman speech was, there was Rome,'
Wherever the speech crept, there was mastery
Spoke with the law's voice while your Greek, logicians...
More Greeks than one! Doughty's 'divine Homeros'
Came before sophistry. Justinopolitan
Uncatalogued Andreas Divus,
Gave him in Latin, 1538 in my edition, the rest uncertain,
Caught up his cadence, word and syllable:
'Down to the ships we went, set mast and sail,
Black keel and beasts for bloody sacrifice,
Weeping we went.'
I've strained my ear for -ensa, -ombra, and -ensa
And cracked my wit on delicate canzoni—
Here's but rough meaning:
'And then went down to the ship, set keel to breakers,
Forth on the godly sea;
We set up mast and sail on the swarthy ship,
Sheep bore we aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping. And winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas—
Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller.
Thus with stretched sail
We went over sea till day's end:
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean.
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpiercèd ever
With glitter of sun-rays,
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven,
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
Thither we in that ship, unladed sheep there,
The ocean flowing backward, came we through to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin, poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine,



Water mixed with white flour.
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-heads
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best,
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods.
Sheep, to Tiresias only,
Black, and a bell sheep;
Dark blood flowed in the fosse.
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead
Of brides, of youths, and of many passing old,
Virgins tender, souls stained with recent tears,
Many men mauled with bronze lance-heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreary arms:
These many crowded about me,
With shouting, pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds—sheep slain of bronze,
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine.
Unsheathed the narrow steel,
I sat to keep off the impetuous, impotent dead
Till I should hear Tiresias.
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth—
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other,
Pitiful spirit—and I cried in hurried speech:
'Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?' And he in heavy speech:
'Ill fate and abundant wine! I slept in Circe's ingle,
Going down the long ladder unguarded, I fell against the buttress,
Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied!
Heap up mine arms, be tomb by the sea-board, and inscribed,
A man of no fortune and with a name to come;
And set my oar up, that I swung 'mid fellows.'
Came then another ghost, whom I beat off, Anticlea,
And then Tiresias, Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me and spoke first:
'Man of ill hour, why come a second time,
Leaving the sunlight, facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
Stand from the fosse, move back, leave me my bloody bever,
And I will speak you true speeches.'
'And I stepped back,
Sheathing the yellow sword. Dark blood he drank then
And spoke: 'Lustrous Odysseus, shalt
Return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
Lose all companions.' Foretold me the ways and the signs.
Came then Anticlea, to whom I answered:
'Fate drives me on through these deeps; I sought Tiresias.'
I told her news of Troy, and thrice her shadow
Faded in my embrace.
Then had I news of many faded women—
Tyro, Alcmena, Chloris—



Heard out their tales by that dark fosse, and sailed
By sirens and thence outward and away,
And unto Circe buried Elpenor's corpse.'


Lie quiet, Divus.
In Officina Wechli, Paris,


M. D. three X's, Eight, with Aldus on the Frogs,
And a certain Cretan's
Hymni Deorum:
(The thin clear Tuscan stuff
Gives way before the florid mellow phrase.)
Take we the Goddess, Venus:
Venerandam,
Aurean coronam habentem, pulchram,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, maritime,
Light on the foam, breathed on by zephyrs,
And air-tending hours. Mirthful, orichalci
, with golden
Girdles and breast bands.
Thou with dark eye-lids,
Bearing the golden bough of Argicida.

Canto III

Another's a half-cracked fellow—John Heydon,
Worker of miracles, dealer in levitation,
In thoughts upon pure form, in alchemy,
Seer of pretty visions ('servant of God and secretary of nature');
Full of plaintive charm, like Botticelli's,
With half-transparent forms, lacking the vigor of gods.
Thus Heydon, in a trance, at Bulverton,
Had such a sight:
Decked all in green, with sleeves of yellow silk
Slit to the elbow, slashed with various purples.
Her eyes were green as glass, her foot was leaf-like.
She was adorned with choicest emeralds,
And promised him the way of holy wisdom.
'Pretty green bank,' began the half-lost poem.
Take the old way, say I met John Heydon,
Sought out the place,
Lay on the bank, was 'plungèd deep in swevyn;'
And saw the company—Layamon, Chaucer—
Pass each in his appropriate robes;
Conversed with each, observed the varying fashion.
And then comes Heydon.
'I have seen John Heydon.'
Let us hear John Heydon!
'Omniformis
Omnis intellectus est'—thus he begins, by spouting half of Psellus.
(Then comes a note, my assiduous commentator:
Not Psellus De Daemonibus, but Porphyry's Chances,
In the thirteenth chapter, that 'every intellect is omni-form.')
Magnifico Lorenzo used the dodge,
Says that he met Ficino
In some Wordsworthian, false-pastoral manner,
And that they walked along, stopped at a well-head,
And heard deep platitudes about contentment
From some old codger with an endless beard.
'A daemon is not a particular intellect,
But is a substance differed from intellect,'
Breaks in Ficino,
'Placed in the latitude or locus of souls'—
That's out of Proclus, take your pick of them.
Valla, more earth and sounder rhetoric—
Prefacing praise to his Pope Nicholas:
'A man of parts, skilled in the subtlest sciences;
A patron of the arts, of poetry; and of a fine discernment.'
Then comes a catalogue, his jewels of conversation.
No, you've not read your Elegantiae—
A dull book?—shook the church.
The prefaces, cut clear and hard:
'Know then the Roman speech, a sacrament,'
Spread for the nations, eucharist of wisdom,
Bread of the liberal arts.
Ha! Sir Blancatz,
Sordello would have your heart to give to all the princes;



Valla, the heart of Rome,
Sustaining speech, set out before the people.
'Nec bonus Christianus ac bonus
Tullianus.'
Marius, Du Bellay, wept for the buildings,
Baldassar Castiglione saw Raphael
'Lead back the soul into its dead, waste dwelling,'
Corpore laniato; and Lorenzo Valla,
'Broken in middle life? bent to submission?—
Took a fat living from the Papacy'
(That's in Villari, but Burckhardt's statement is different)—
'More than the Roman city, the Roman speech'
(Holds fast its part among the ever-living).
'Not by the eagles only was Rome measured.'
'Wherever the Roman speech was, there was Rome,'
Wherever the speech crept, there was mastery
Spoke with the law's voice while your Greek, logicians...
More Greeks than one! Doughty's 'divine Homeros'
Came before sophistry. Justinopolitan
Uncatalogued Andreas Divus,
Gave him in Latin, 1538 in my edition, the rest uncertain,
Caught up his cadence, word and syllable:
'Down to the ships we went, set mast and sail,
Black keel and beasts for bloody sacrifice,
Weeping we went.'
I've strained my ear for -ensa, -ombra, and -ensa
And cracked my wit on delicate canzoni—
Here's but rough meaning:
'And then went down to the ship, set keel to breakers,
Forth on the godly sea;
We set up mast and sail on the swarthy ship,
Sheep bore we aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping. And winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas—
Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller.
Thus with stretched sail
We went over sea till day's end:
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean.
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpiercèd ever
With glitter of sun-rays,
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven,
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
Thither we in that ship, unladed sheep there,
The ocean flowing backward, came we through to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin, poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine,



Water mixed with white flour.
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-heads
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best,
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods.
Sheep, to Tiresias only,
Black, and a bell sheep;
Dark blood flowed in the fosse.
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead
Of brides, of youths, and of many passing old,
Virgins tender, souls stained with recent tears,
Many men mauled with bronze lance-heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreary arms:
These many crowded about me,
With shouting, pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds—sheep slain of bronze,
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine.
Unsheathed the narrow steel,
I sat to keep off the impetuous, impotent dead
Till I should hear Tiresias.
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth—
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other,
Pitiful spirit—and I cried in hurried speech:
'Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?' And he in heavy speech:
'Ill fate and abundant wine! I slept in Circe's ingle,
Going down the long ladder unguarded, I fell against the buttress,
Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied!
Heap up mine arms, be tomb by the sea-board, and inscribed,
A man of no fortune and with a name to come;
And set my oar up, that I swung 'mid fellows.'
Came then another ghost, whom I beat off, Anticlea,
And then Tiresias, Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me and spoke first:
'Man of ill hour, why come a second time,
Leaving the sunlight, facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
Stand from the fosse, move back, leave me my bloody bever,
And I will speak you true speeches.'
'And I stepped back,
Sheathing the yellow sword. Dark blood he drank then
And spoke: 'Lustrous Odysseus, shalt
Return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
Lose all companions.' Foretold me the ways and the signs.
Came then Anticlea, to whom I answered:
'Fate drives me on through these deeps; I sought Tiresias.'
I told her news of Troy, and thrice her shadow
Faded in my embrace.
Then had I news of many faded women—
Tyro, Alcmena, Chloris—



Heard out their tales by that dark fosse, and sailed
By sirens and thence outward and away,
And unto Circe buried Elpenor's corpse.'


Lie quiet, Divus.
In Officina Wechli, Paris,


M. D. three X's, Eight, with Aldus on the Frogs,
And a certain Cretan's
Hymni Deorum:
(The thin clear Tuscan stuff
Gives way before the florid mellow phrase.)
Take we the Goddess, Venus:
Venerandam,
Aurean coronam habentem, pulchram,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, maritime,
Light on the foam, breathed on by zephyrs,
And air-tending hours. Mirthful, orichalci
, with golden
Girdles and breast bands.
Thou with dark eye-lids,
Bearing the golden bough of Argicida.

Canto III

Another's a half-cracked fellow—John Heydon,
Worker of miracles, dealer in levitation,
In thoughts upon pure form, in alchemy,
Seer of pretty visions ('servant of God and secretary of nature');
Full of plaintive charm, like Botticelli's,
With half-transparent forms, lacking the vigor of gods.
Thus Heydon, in a trance, at Bulverton,
Had such a sight:
Decked all in green, with sleeves of yellow silk
Slit to the elbow, slashed with various purples.
Her eyes were green as glass, her foot was leaf-like.
She was adorned with choicest emeralds,
And promised him the way of holy wisdom.
'Pretty green bank,' began the half-lost poem.
Take the old way, say I met John Heydon,
Sought out the place,
Lay on the bank, was 'plungèd deep in swevyn;'
And saw the company—Layamon, Chaucer—
Pass each in his appropriate robes;
Conversed with each, observed the varying fashion.
And then comes Heydon.
'I have seen John Heydon.'
Let us hear John Heydon!
'Omniformis
Omnis intellectus est'—thus he begins, by spouting half of Psellus.
(Then comes a note, my assiduous commentator:
Not Psellus De Daemonibus, but Porphyry's Chances,
In the thirteenth chapter, that 'every intellect is omni-form.')
Magnifico Lorenzo used the dodge,
Says that he met Ficino
In some Wordsworthian, false-pastoral manner,
And that they walked along, stopped at a well-head,
And heard deep platitudes about contentment
From some old codger with an endless beard.
'A daemon is not a particular intellect,
But is a substance differed from intellect,'
Breaks in Ficino,
'Placed in the latitude or locus of souls'—
That's out of Proclus, take your pick of them.
Valla, more earth and sounder rhetoric—
Prefacing praise to his Pope Nicholas:
'A man of parts, skilled in the subtlest sciences;
A patron of the arts, of poetry; and of a fine discernment.'
Then comes a catalogue, his jewels of conversation.
No, you've not read your Elegantiae—
A dull book?—shook the church.
The prefaces, cut clear and hard:
'Know then the Roman speech, a sacrament,'
Spread for the nations, eucharist of wisdom,
Bread of the liberal arts.
Ha! Sir Blancatz,
Sordello would have your heart to give to all the princes;



Valla, the heart of Rome,
Sustaining speech, set out before the people.
'Nec bonus Christianus ac bonus
Tullianus.'
Marius, Du Bellay, wept for the buildings,
Baldassar Castiglione saw Raphael
'Lead back the soul into its dead, waste dwelling,'
Corpore laniato; and Lorenzo Valla,
'Broken in middle life? bent to submission?—
Took a fat living from the Papacy'
(That's in Villari, but Burckhardt's statement is different)—
'More than the Roman city, the Roman speech'
(Holds fast its part among the ever-living).
'Not by the eagles only was Rome measured.'
'Wherever the Roman speech was, there was Rome,'
Wherever the speech crept, there was mastery
Spoke with the law's voice while your Greek, logicians...
More Greeks than one! Doughty's 'divine Homeros'
Came before sophistry. Justinopolitan
Uncatalogued Andreas Divus,
Gave him in Latin, 1538 in my edition, the rest uncertain,
Caught up his cadence, word and syllable:
'Down to the ships we went, set mast and sail,
Black keel and beasts for bloody sacrifice,
Weeping we went.'
I've strained my ear for -ensa, -ombra, and -ensa
And cracked my wit on delicate canzoni—
Here's but rough meaning:
'And then went down to the ship, set keel to breakers,
Forth on the godly sea;
We set up mast and sail on the swarthy ship,
Sheep bore we aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping. And winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas—
Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller.
Thus with stretched sail
We went over sea till day's end:
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean.
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpiercèd ever
With glitter of sun-rays,
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven,
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
Thither we in that ship, unladed sheep there,
The ocean flowing backward, came we through to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin, poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine,



Water mixed with white flour.
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-heads
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best,
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods.
Sheep, to Tiresias only,
Black, and a bell sheep;
Dark blood flowed in the fosse.
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead
Of brides, of youths, and of many passing old,
Virgins tender, souls stained with recent tears,
Many men mauled with bronze lance-heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreary arms:
These many crowded about me,
With shouting, pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds—sheep slain of bronze,
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine.
Unsheathed the narrow steel,
I sat to keep off the impetuous, impotent dead
Till I should hear Tiresias.
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth—
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other,
Pitiful spirit—and I cried in hurried speech:
'Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?' And he in heavy speech:
'Ill fate and abundant wine! I slept in Circe's ingle,
Going down the long ladder unguarded, I fell against the buttress,
Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied!
Heap up mine arms, be tomb by the sea-board, and inscribed,
A man of no fortune and with a name to come;
And set my oar up, that I swung 'mid fellows.'
Came then another ghost, whom I beat off, Anticlea,
And then Tiresias, Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me and spoke first:
'Man of ill hour, why come a second time,
Leaving the sunlight, facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
Stand from the fosse, move back, leave me my bloody bever,
And I will speak you true speeches.'
'And I stepped back,
Sheathing the yellow sword. Dark blood he drank then
And spoke: 'Lustrous Odysseus, shalt
Return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
Lose all companions.' Foretold me the ways and the signs.
Came then Anticlea, to whom I answered:
'Fate drives me on through these deeps; I sought Tiresias.'
I told her news of Troy, and thrice her shadow
Faded in my embrace.
Then had I news of many faded women—
Tyro, Alcmena, Chloris—



Heard out their tales by that dark fosse, and sailed
By sirens and thence outward and away,
And unto Circe buried Elpenor's corpse.'


Lie quiet, Divus.
In Officina Wechli, Paris,


M. D. three X's, Eight, with Aldus on the Frogs,
And a certain Cretan's
Hymni Deorum:
(The thin clear Tuscan stuff
Gives way before the florid mellow phrase.)
Take we the Goddess, Venus:
Venerandam,
Aurean coronam habentem, pulchram,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, maritime,
Light on the foam, breathed on by zephyrs,
And air-tending hours. Mirthful, orichalci
, with golden
Girdles and breast bands.
Thou with dark eye-lids,
Bearing the golden bough of Argicida.

Canto 13

Kung walked
by the dynastic temple
and into the cedar grove,
and then out by the lower river,
And with him Khieu Tchi

and Tian the low speaking
And "we are unknown," said Kung,
"You will take up charioteering?

"Then you will become known,
"Or perhaps I should take up charioterring, or archery?
"Or the practice of public speaking?"
And Tseu-lou said, "I would put the defences in order,"
And Khieu said, "If I were lord of a province
"I would put it in better order than this is."
And Tchi said, "I would prefer a small mountain temple,
"With order in the observances,

with a suitable performance of the ritual,"
And Tian said, with his hand on the strings of his lute
The low sounds continuing

after his hand left the strings,
And the sound went up like smoke, under the leaves,
And he looked after the sound:

"The old swimming hole,
"And the boys flopping off the planks,
"Or sitting in the underbrush playing mandolins."

And Kung smiled upon all of them equally.
And Thseng-sie desired to know:

"Which had answered correctly?"
And Kung said, "They have all answered correctly,
"That is to say, each in his nature."
And Kung raised his cane against Yuan Jang,

Yuan Jang being his elder,
For Yuan Jang sat by the roadside pretending to
be receiving wisdom.
And Kung said
"You old fool, come out of it,
"Get up and do something useful."

And Kung said
"Respect a child's faculties
"From the moment it inhales the clear air,
"But a man of fifty who knows nothng

Is worthy of no respect."
And "When the prince has gathered about him
"All the savants and artists, his riches will be fully employed."
And Kung said, and wrote on the bo leaves:

If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;
And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;

And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.
And Kung gave the words "order"



and "brotherly deference"
And said nothing of the "life after death."
And he said


"Anyone can run to excesses,
"It is easy to shoot past the mark,
"It is hard to stand firm in the middle."


And they said: If a man commit murder
Should his father protect him, and hide him?
And Kung said:
He should hide him.


And Kung gave his daughter to Kong-Tchang
Although Kong-Tchang was in prison.
And he gave his niece to Nan-Young
although Nan-Young was out of office.
And Kung said "Wan ruled with moderation,

"In his day the State was well kept,
"And even I can remember
"A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
"I mean, for things they didn't know,
"But that time seems to be passing.
A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
But that time seems to be passing."
And Kung said, "Without character you will

"be unable to play on that instrument
"Or to execute the music fit for the Odes.
"The blossoms of the apricot

"blow from the east to the west,
"And I have tried to keep them from falling."

Ballatetta


The light became her grace and dwelt among
Blind eyes and shadows that are formed as men;
Lo, how the light doth melt us into song:


The broken sunlight for a healm she beareth
Who hath my heart in jurisdiction.
In wild-wood never fawn nor fallow fareth
So silent light; no gossamer is spun
So delicate as she is, when the sun
Drives the clear emeralds from the bended grasses
Lest they should parch too swiftly, where she passes.

Ballatetta


The light became her grace and dwelt among
Blind eyes and shadows that are formed as men;
Lo, how the light doth melt us into song:


The broken sunlight for a healm she beareth
Who hath my heart in jurisdiction.
In wild-wood never fawn nor fallow fareth
So silent light; no gossamer is spun
So delicate as she is, when the sun
Drives the clear emeralds from the bended grasses
Lest they should parch too swiftly, where she passes.

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 a 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.

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.’