Chapter 1

E-text prepared by Al Haines

Transcriber's note:

The word "beloved" appears in this book several times, in various upper and lower case combinations. Whatever the combination, in some cases, the second E in "beloved" is e-accent (é) and sometimes it is e-grave (è). Since I had no way of telling if this was what the author intended, or a typesetting error, or some other reason, I have left each exactly as it appears in the original book.

A JONGLEUR STRAYED

Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane

by

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

With an Introduction by Oliver Herford

Garden City ---------- New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1922 Copyright, 1922, by Doubleday, Page & Company All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian Printed in the United States at The Country Life Press, Garden City, N. Y. First Edition

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The writer desires to thank the editors of _The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Life, Judge, Leslie's, Munsey's, Ainslee's, Snappy Stories, Live Stories, The Cosmopolitan_, and _Collier's_ for their kind permission to reprint the following verses.

He desires also to thank the editor of _The New York Evening Post_ for the involuntary gift of a title.

The Catskills,

June, 1922.

TO

THE LOVE

OF

ANDRÉ AND GWEN

_If after times Should pay the least attention to these rhymes, I bid them learn 'Tis not my own heart here That doth so often seem to break and burn-- O no such thing!-- Nor is it my own dear Always I sing: But, as a scrivener in the market-place, I sit and write for lovers, him or her, Making a song to match each lover's case-- A trifling gift sometimes the gods confer!_

(After STRATO)

CONTENTS

I

An Echo from Horace Ballade of the Oldest Duel in the World Sorcery The Dryad May is Back Moon-Marketing Two Birthdays Song The Faithful Lover Love's Tenderness Anima Mundi Ballade of the Unchanging Beloved Love's Arithmetic Beauty's Arithmetic The Valley Ballade of the Bees of Trebizond Broken Tryst The Rival The Quarrel Lovers Shadows After Tibullus A Warning Primum Mobile The Last Tryst The Heart on the Sleeve At Her Feet Reliquiae Love's Proud Farwell The Rose Has Left the Garden

II

The Gardens of Adonis Nature the Healer Love Eternal The Loveliest Face and the Wild Rose As in the Woodland I Walk To a Mountain Spring Noon A Rainy Day In the City Country Largesse Morn The Source Autumn The Rose in Winter The Frozen Stream Winter Magic A Lover's Universe To the Golden Wife Buried Treasure The New Husbandman Paths that Wind The Immortal Gods

III

Ballade of Woman The Magic Flower Ballade of Love's Cloister An Old Love Letter Too Late The Door Ajar Chipmunk Ballade of the Dead Face that Never Dies The End of Laughter The Song that Lasts The Broker of Dreams

IV

At the Sign of the Lyre To Madame Jumel To a Beautiful Old Lady To Lucy Hinton; December 19, 1921

V

OTHER MATTERS, SACRED AND PROFANE

The World's Musqueteer: To Marshal Foch We Are With France Satan: 1920 Under Which King? Man, the Destroyer The Long Purposes of God Ballade to a Departing God Ballade of the Absent Guest Tobacco Next Ballade of the Paid Puritan The Overworked Ghost The Valiant Girls Not Sour Grapes Ballade of Reading Bad Books Ballade of the Making of Songs Ballade of Running Away with Life To a Contemner of the Past

INTRODUCTION

One Spring day in London, long before the invention of freak verse and Freudism, I was standing in front of the Cafe Royal in Regent Street when there emerged from its portals the most famous young writer of the day, the Poet about whose latest work "The Book Bills of Narcissus" all literary London was then talking.

Richard Le Gallienne was the first real poet I had ever laid eyes upon in the flesh and it seemed to my rapt senses that this frock-coated young god, with the classic profile and the dark curls curving from the impeccable silk "tile" that surmounted them as curve the acanthus leaves of a Corinthian capital, could be none other than Anacreon's self in modern shape.

I can see Le Gallienne now, as he steps across the sunlit sidewalk and with gesture Mercurian hails the passing Jehu. I can even hear the quick clud of the cab doors as the smartly turning hansome snatches from my view the glass-dimmed face I was not to behold again until years later at the house of a mutual friend in New York.

In another moment the swiftly moving vehicle was dissolved in the glitter of Regent Street and I fell to musing upon the curious interlacement of parts in this picture puzzle of life.

Here was a common Cabby, for the time being combining in himself the several functions of guide-book, chattel-mortgage and writ of habeas corpus on the person of the most popular literary idol of the hour and all for the matter of maybe no more than half a crown, including the _pourboire_!

Who would not have rejoiced to change places with that cabman! And how might not Pegasus have envied that cab-horse!

* * * * * *

Now after all these years it has come to pass that I am to change places with the cabman.

Perched aloft in the driver's seat of the First Person Singular, it is my proud privilege to crack the prefatory whip and start this newest and best Le Gallienne Vehicle upon its course through the garlanded Via Laurea to the Sign of the Golden Sheaf.

Look at it well, Dear People, before it starts, this golden vehicle of Richard Le Gallienne.

Consider how it is built on the authentic lines of the best workmanship, made to last for generations, maybe for ever.

Take note of its springs so perfectly hung that the Muse may ride in luxurious ease, unjarred by metrical joltings as befits the Queen.

Mark the mirror smooth surface of the lacquer that only time and tireless labour can apply.

Before this Master Coach of Poesy the rattle-jointed Tin Lizzie of Free Verse and the painted jazz wagon of Futurism and the cheap imitation of the Chinese palanquin must turn aside, they have no right of way, these literary road-lice on the garlanded Via Laurea.

With angry thumb, the traffic cop Time will jerk them back to the side streets and byways where they belong, to make way for the Golden Coach of Richard Le Gallienne.

OLIVER HERFORD

I

AN ECHO FROM HORACE

_Lusisti est, et edisti, atque bibisti; Tempus abire, tibi est._

Take away the dancing girls, quench the lights, remove Golden cups and garlands sere, all the feast; away Lutes and lyres and Lalage; close the gates, above Write upon the lintel this; _Time is done for play! Thou hast had thy fill of love, eaten, drunk; the show Ends at last, 'twas long enough--time it is to go._

Thou hast played--ah! heart, how long!--past all count were they, Girls of gold and ivory, bosomed deep, all snow, Leopard swift, and velvet loined, bronze for hair, wild clay Turning at a touch to flame, tense as a strung bow. Cruel as the circling hawk, tame at last as dove,-- Thou hast had thy fill and more than enough of love.

Thou hast eaten; peacock's tongues,--fed thy carp with slaves,-- Nests of Asiatic birds, brought from far Cathay, Umbrian boars, and mullet roes snatched from stormy waves; Half thy father's lands have gone one strange meal to pay; For a morsel on thy plate ravished sea and shore; Thou hast eaten--'tis enough, thou shalt eat no more.

Thou hast drunk--how hast thou drunk! mighty vats, whole seas; Vineyards purpling half a world turned to gold thy throat, Falernian, true Massic, the gods' own vintages, Lakes thou hast swallowed deep enough galleys tall to float; Wildness, wonder, wisdom, all, drunkenness divine, All that dreams within the grape, madness too, were thine.

Time it is to go and sleep--draw the curtains close-- Tender strings shall lull thee still, mellow flutes be blown, Still the spring shall shower down on thy couch the rose, Still the laurels crown thine head, where thou dreamest alone. Thou didst play, and thou didst eat, thou hast drunken deep, Time at last it is to go, time it is to sleep.

BALLADE OF THE OLDEST DUEL IN THE WORLD

A battered swordsman, slashed and scarred, I scarce had thought to fight again, But love of the old game dies hard, So to't, my lady, if you're fain! I'm scarce the mettle to refrain, I'll ask no quarter from your art-- But what if we should both be slain! I fight you, darling, for your heart.

I warn you, though, be on your guard, Nor an old swordsman's craft disdain, He jests at scars--what saith the Bard? Love's wounds are real, and fierce the pain; If we should die of love, we twain! You laugh--_en garde_ then--so we start; Cyrano-like, here's my refrain: I fight you, darling, for your heart.

If compliments I interlard Twixt feint and lunge, you'll not complain Lacking your eyes, the night's un-starred, The rose is beautiful in vain, In vain smells sweet--Rose-in-the-Brain, Dizzying the world--a touch! sweet smart!-- Only the envoi doth remain: I fight you, darling, for your heart.

ENVOI

Princess, I'm yours; the rose-red rain Pours from my side--but see! I dart Within your guard--poor pretty stain! I fight you, darling, for your heart.

SORCERY

Face with the forest eyes, And the wayward wild-wood hair, How shall a man be wise, When a girl's so fair; How, with her face once seen, Shall life be as it has been, This many a year?

Beautiful fearful thing! You undulant sorcery! I dare not hear you sing, Dance not for me; The whiteness of your breast, Divinely manifest I must not see.

Too late, thou luring child, Moon matches little moon; I must not be beguiled, With the honied tune: Yet O to lay my head Twixt moon and moon! 'Twas so my sad heart said, Only last June.

THE DRYAD

My dryad hath her hiding place Among ten thousand trees. She flies to cover At step of a lover, And where to find her lovely face Only the woodland bees Ever discover, Bringing her honey From meadows sunny, Cowslip and clover.

Vainly on beech and oak I knock Amid the silent boughs; Then hear her laughter, The moment after, Making of me her laughing-stock Within her hidden house.

The young moon with her wand of pearl Taps on her hidden door, Bids her beauty flower In that woodland bower, All white like a mortal girl, With moonshine hallowed o'er.

Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees To hide her face from me, Not all her fleeing Should 'scape my seeing, Nor all her ambushed sorceries Secure concealment be For her bright being.

Yea! should she by the laddered pine Steal to the stars on high, Her fairy whiteness, Hidden in brightness, Her hiding-place would so out-shine The constellated sky, She could not 'scape the eye Of my pursuing, Nor her fawn-foot lightness Out-speed my wooing.

MAY IS BACK

May is back, and You and I Are at the stream again-- The leaves are out, And all about The building birds begin To make a merry din: May is back, and You and I Are at the dream again.

May is back, and You and I Lie in the grass again,-- The butterfly Flits painted by, The bee brings sudden fear, Like people talking near; May is back, and You and I Are lad and lass again.

May is back, and You and I Are heart to heart again,-- In God's green house We make our vows Of summer love that stays Faithful through winter days; May is back, and You and I Shall never part again.

MOON-MARKETING

Let's go to market in the moon, And buy some dreams together, Slip on your little silver shoon, And don your cap and feather; No need of petticoat or stocking-- No one up there will think it shocking.

Across the dew, Just I and you, With all the world behind us; Away from rules, Away from fools, Where nobody can find us.

TWO BIRTHDAYS

Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday too, For, had you not been born, I who began to live beholding you Up early as the morn, That day in June beside the rose-hung stream, Had never lived at all-- We stood, do you remember? in a dream There by the water-fall.

You were as still as all the other flowers Under the morning's spell; Sudden two lives were one, and all things "ours"-- How we can never tell. Surely it had been fated long ago-- What else, dear, could we think? It seemed that we had stood for ever so, There by the river's brink.

And all the days that followed seemed as days Lived side by side before, Strangely familiar all your looks and ways, The very frock you wore; Nothing seemed strange, yet all divinely new; Known to your finger tips, Yet filled with wonder every part of you, Your hair, your eyes, your lips.

The wise in love say love was ever thus Through endless Time and Space, Heart linked to heart, beloved, as with us, Only one face--one face-- Our own to love, however fair the rest; 'Tis so true lovers are, For ever breast to breast, On--on--from star to star.

SONG

My eye upon your eyes-- So was I born, One far-off day in Paradise, A summer morn; I had not lived till then, But, wildered, went, Like other wandering men, Nor what Life meant Knew I till then.

My hand within your hand-- So would I live, Nor would I ask to understand Why God did give Your loveliness to me, But I would pray Worthier of it to be, By night and day, Unworthy me!

My heart upon your heart-- So would I die, I cannot think that God will part Us, you and I; The work he did undo, That summer morn; I lived, and would die too, Where I was born, Beloved, in you.

THE FAITHFUL LOVER

All beauty is but thee in echo-shapes, No lovely thing but echoes some of thee, Vainly some touch of thy perfection apes, Sighing as fair as thou thyself to be; Therefore, be not disquieted that I On other forms turn oft my wandering gaze, Nor deem it anywise disloyalty: Nay! 'tis the pious fervour of my eye, That seeks thy face in every other face. As in the mirrored salon of a queen, Flashes from glass to glass, as she walks by, In sweet reiteration still--the queen! So is the world for thee to walk in, sweet; But to see thee is all things to have seen. And, as the moon in every crystal lake, Walking the heaven with little silver feet, Sees each bright copy her reflection take, And every dew-drop holds its little glass, To catch her loveliness as she doth pass, So do all things make haste to copy thee. I, then, to see thee thus over and over, Am wistful too all lovely shapes to see, For each thus makes me more and more thy lover.

LOVE'S TENDERNESS

Deem not my love is only for the bloom, The honey and the marble, that is You; Tis so, Belovéd, common loves consume Their treasury, and vanish like the dew. Nay, but my love's a thing that's far more true; For little loves a little hour hath room, But not for us their brief and trivial doom, In a far richer soil our loving grew, From deeper wells of being it upsprings; Nor shall the wildest kiss that makes one mouth, Draining all nectar from the flowered world, Slake its divine unfathomable drouth; And, when your wings against my heart lie furled, With what a tenderness it dreams and sings!

ANIMA MUNDI

Let all things vanish, if but you remain; For if you stay, beloved, what is gone? Yet, should you go, all permanence is vain, And all the piled abundance is as none.

With you beside me in the desert sand, Your smile upon me, and on mine your hand, Oases green arise, and camel-bells; For in the long adventure of your eyes Are all the wandering ways to Paradise.

Existence, in your being, comes and goes; What were the garden, love, without the rose? In vain were ears to hear, And eyes in vain, Lacking your ordered music, sphere to sphere, Blind, should your beauty blossom not again.

The pulse that shakes the world with rhythmic beat Is but the passing of your little feet; And all the singing vast of all the seas, Down from the pole To the Hesperides, Is but the praying echo of your soul.

Therefore, beloved, know that this is true-- The world exists and vanishes in you! Tis not a lover's fancy; ask the sky If all its stars depend not, even as I, Upon your eyelids, when they open or close; And let the garden answer with the rose.

BALLADE OF THE UNCHANGING BÉLOVED

(TO I----a)

When rumour fain would fright my ear With the destruction and decay Of things familiar and dear, And vaunt of a swift-running day That sweeps the fair old Past away; Whatever else be strange and new, All other things may go or stay, So that there be no change in you.

These loud mutations others fear Find me high-fortressed 'gainst dismay, They trouble not the tranquil sphere That hallows with immortal ray The world where love and lovers stray In glittering gardens soft with dew-- O let them break and burn and slay, So that there be no change in you.

Let rapine its republics rear, And murder its red sceptre sway, Their blood-stained riot comes not near The quiet haven where we pray, And work and love and laugh and play; Unchanged, our skies are ever blue, Nothing can change, for all they say,-- So that there be no change in you.

ENVOI

Princess, let wild men brag and bray, The pure, the beautiful, the true. Change not, and changeless we as they-- So that there be no change in you.

LOVE'S ARITHMETIC

You often ask me, love, how much I love you, Bidding my fancy find An answer to your mind; I say: "Past count, as there are stars above you." You shake your head and say, "Many and bright are they, But that is not enough."

Again I try: "If all the leaves on all the trees Were counted over, And all the waves on all the seas, More times your lover, Yea! more than twice ten thousand times am I." "'Tis not enough," again you make reply.

"How many blades of grass," one day I said, "Are there from here to China? how many bees Have gathered honey through the centuries? Tell me how many roses have bloomed red Since the first rose till this rose in your hair? How many butterflies are born each year? How many raindrops are there in a shower? How many kisses, darling, in an hour?" Thereat you smiled, and shook your golden head; "Ah! not enough!" you said. Then said I: "Dear, it is not in my power To tell how much, how many ways, my love; Unnumbered are its ways even as all these, Nor any depth so deep, nor height above, May match therewith of any stars or seas." "I would hear more," you smiled . . .

"Then, love," I said, "This will I do: unbind me all this gold Too heavy for your head, And, one by one, I'll count each shining thread, And when the tale of all its wealth is told . . ." "As much as that!" you said-- "Then the full sum of all my love I'll speak, To the last unit tell the thing you ask . . ." Thereat the gold, in gleaming torrents shed, Fell loose adown each cheek, Hiding you from me; I began my task.

"'Twill last our lives," you said.

BEAUTY'S WARDROBE

My love said she had nought to wear; Her garments all were old, And soon her body must go bare Against the winter's cold.

I took her out into the dawn, And from the mountain's crest Unwound long wreaths of misty lawn, And wound them round her breast.

Then passed we to the maple grove, Like a great hall of gold, The yellow and the red we wove In rustling flounce and fold.

"Now, love," said I, "go, do it on! And I would have you note No lovely lady dead and gone Had such a petticoat."

Then span I out of milkweeds fine Fair stockings soft and long, And other things of quaint design That unto maids belong.

And beads of amber and of pearl About her neck I strung, And in the bronze of her thick hair The purple grape I hung. . . .

Then led her to a glassy spring, And bade her look and see If any girl in all the world Had such fine clothes as she.

THE VALLEY

I will walk down to the valley And lay my head in her breast, Where are two white doves, The Queen of Love's, In a silken nest; And, all the afternoon, They croon and croon The one word "Rest!" And a little stream That runs thereby Sings "Dream!" Over and over It sings-- "O lover, Dream!"

BALLADE OF THE BEES OF TREBIZOND

There blooms a flower in Trebizond Stored with such honey for the bee, (So saith the antique book I conned) Of such alluring fragrancy, Not sweeter smells the Eden-tree; Thither the maddened feasters fly, Yet--so alas! is it with me-- To taste that honey is to die.

Belovèd, I, as foolish fond, Feast still my eyes and heart on thee, Asking no blessedness beyond Thy face from morn till night to see, Ensorcelled past all remedy; Even as those foolish bees am I, Though well I know my destiny-- To taste that honey is to die.

O'er such a doom shall I despond? I would not from thy snare go free, Release me not from thy sweet bond, I live but in thy mystery; Though all my senses from me flee, I still would glut my glazing eye, Thou nectar of mortality-- To taste that honey is to die.

ENVOI

Princess, before I cease to be, Bend o'er my lips so burning dry Thy honeycombs of ivory-- To taste that honey is to die.

BROKEN TRYST

Waiting in the woodland, watching for my sweet, Thinking every leaf that stirs the coming of her feet, Thinking every whisper the rustle of her gown, How my heart goes up and up, and then goes down and down.

First it is a squirrel, then it is a dove, Then a red fox feather-soft and footed like a dream; All the woodland fools me, promising my love; I think I hear her talking--'tis but the running stream.

Vowelled talking water, mimicking her voice-- O how she promised she'd surely come to-day! There she comes! she comes at last! O heart of mine rejoice-- Nothing but a flight of birds winging on their way.

Lonely grows the afternoon, empty grows the world; Day's bright banners in the west one by one are furled, Sadly sinks the lingering sun that like a lover rose, One by one each woodland thing loses heart and goes.

Back along the woodland, all the day is dead, All the green has turned to gray, and all the gold to lead; O 'tis bitter cruel, sweet, to treat a lover so: If only I were half a man . . . I'd let the baggage go.

THE RIVAL

She failed me at the tryst: All the long afternoon The golden day went by, Until the rising moon; But, as I waited on, Turning my eyes about, Aching for sight of her, Until the stars came out,-- Maybe 'twas but a dream-- There close against my face, "Beauty am I," said one, "I come to take her place."

And then I understood Why, all the waiting through, The green had seemed so green, The blue had seemed so blue, The song of bird and stream Had been so passing sweet, For all the coming not Of her forgetful feet; And how my heart was tranced, For all its lonely ache, Gazing on mirrored rushes Sky-deep in the lake. Said Beauty: "_Me_ you love, You love her for my sake."

THE QUARREL

Thou shall not me persuade This love of ours Can in a moment fade, Like summer flowers;