Part 3

I have gone seeking for you in the twilight, Here in the flurry of Fifth Avenue, Here where they pass between their teas and teas. Is it such madness? though you could not be Ever in all that crowd, no gown Of all their subtle sorts could be your gown.

Yet I am fed with faces, is there one That even in the half-light mindeth me.

VII

THE HOUSE OF SPLENDOUR

'Tis Evanoe's, A house not made with hands, But out somewhere beyond the worldly ways Her gold is spread, above, around, inwoven, Strange ways and walls are fashioned out of it.

And I have seen my Lady in the sun, Her hair was spread about, a sheaf of wings, And red the sunlight was, behind it all.

And I have seen her there within her house, With six great sapphires hung along the wall, Low, panel-shaped, a-level with her knees, And all her robe was woven of pale gold.

There are there many rooms and all of gold, Of woven walls deep patterned, of email, Of beaten work; and through the claret stone, Set to some weaving, comes the aureate light.

Here am I come perforce my love of her, Behold mine adoration Maketh me clear, and there are powers in this Which, played on by the virtues of her soul, Break down the four-square walls of standing time.

VIII

THE FLAME

'Tis not a game that plays at mates and mating, Provençe knew; 'Tis not a game of barter, lands and houses, Provençe knew. We who are wise beyond your dream of wisdom, Drink our immortal moments; we "pass through." We have gone forth beyond your bonds and borders, Provençe knew; And all the tales they ever writ of Oisin Say but this: That man doth pass the net of days and hours. Where time is shrivelled down to time's seed corn We of the Ever-living, in that light Meet through our veils and whisper, and of love.

O smoke and shadow of a darkling world, Barters of passion, and that tenderness That's but a sort of cunning! O my Love, These, and the rest, and all the rest we knew.

'Tis not a game that plays at mates and mating, 'Tis not a game of barter, lands and houses, 'Tis not "of days and nights" and troubling years, Of cheeks grown sunken and glad hair gone gray; There _is_ the subtler music, the clear light

Where time burns back about th' eternal embers. We are not shut from all the thousand heavens: Lo, there are many gods whom we have seen, Folk of unearthly fashion, places splendid, Bulwarks of beryl and of chrysophrase.

Sapphire Benacus, in thy mists and thee Nature herself's turned metaphysical, Who can look on that blue and not believe?

Thou hooded opal, thou eternal pearl, O thou dark secret with a shimmering floor, Through all thy various mood I know thee mine;

If I have merged my soul, or utterly Am solved and bound in, through aught here on earth, There canst thou find me, O thou anxious thou, Who call'st about my gates for some lost me; I say my soul flowed back, became translucent. Search not my lips, O Love, let go my hands, This thing that moves as man is no more mortal. If thou hast seen my shade sans character, If thou hast seen that mirror of all moments, That glass to all things that o'ershadow it, Call not that mirror me, for I have slipped Your grasp, I have eluded.

IX

(HORAE BEATAE INSCRIPTIO)

How will this beauty, when I am far hence, Sweep back upon me and engulf my mind!

How will these hours, when we twain are gray, Turned in their sapphire tide, come flooding o'er us!

X

(THE ALTAR)

Let us build here an exquisite friendship, The flame, the autumn, and the green rose of love Fought out their strife here, 'tis a place of wonder; Where these have been, meet 'tis, the ground is holy.

IX

(AU SALON)

Her grave, sweet haughtiness Pleaseth me, and in like wise Her quiet ironies. Others are beautiful, none more, some less.

I suppose, when poetry comes down to facts, When our souls are returned to the gods and the spheres they belong in, Here in the every-day where our acts Rise up and judge us;

I suppose there are a few dozen verities That no shift of mood can shake from us:

One place where we'd rather have tea (Thus far hath modernity brought us) "Tea" (Damn you!) Have tea, damn the Caesars, Talk of the latest success, give wing to some scandal, Garble a name we detest, and for prejudice? Set loose the whole consummate pack to bay like Sir Roger de Coverley's

This our reward for our works, sic crescit gloria mundi: Some circle of not more than three that we prefer to play up to,

Some few whom we'd rather please than hear the whole aegrum vulgrus Splitting its beery jowl a-meaowling our praises.

Some certain peculiar things, cari laresque, penates, Some certain accustomed forms, the absolute unimportant.

XII

(AU JARDIN)

O You away high there, you that lean From amber lattices upon the cobalt night, I am below amid the pine trees, Amid the little pine trees, hear me!

"The jester walked in the garden." Did he so? Well, there's no use your loving me That way, Lady; For I've nothing but songs to give you.

I am set wide upon the world's ways To say that life is, some way, a gay thing, But you never string two days upon one wire But there'll come sorrow of it. And I loved a love once, Over beyond the moon there, I loved a love once, And, may be, more times,

But she danced like a pink moth in the shrubbery.

Oh, I know you women from the "other folk," And it'll all come right, O' Sundays.

"The jester walked in the garden." Did he so?

RIPOSTES OF EZRA POUND

Gird on thy star, We'll have this out with fate

TO

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

CONTENTS

SILET IN EXITUM CUIUSDAM APPARUIT THE TOMB AT AKR ÇAAR PORTRAIT D'UNE FEMME N.Y. A GIRL "PHASELLUS ILLE" AN OBJECT QUIES THE SEAFARER ECHOES: I. ECHOES: II. AN IMMORALITY DIEU! QU'IL LA FAIT SALVE PONTIFEX DORIA [Greek] THE NEEDLE SUB MARE PLUNGE A VIRGINAL PAN IS DEAD THE PICTURE OF JACOPO DEL SELLAIO THE RETURN EFFECTS OF MUSIC UPON A COMPANY OF PEOPLE I. DEUX MOVEMENTS II. FROM A THING BY SCHUMANN

THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T.E. HULME

PREFATORY NOTE AUTUMN MANA ABODA ABOVE THE DOCK THE EMBANKMENT CONVERSION

RIPOSTES

SILET

When I behold how black, immortal ink Drips from my deathless pen--ah, well-away! Why should we stop at all for what I think? There is enough in what I chance to say.

It is enough that we once came together; What is the use of setting it to rime? When it is autumn do we get spring weather, Or gather may of harsh northwindish time?

It is enough that we once came together; What if the wind have turned against the rain? It is enough that we once came together; Time has seen this, and will not turn again;

And who are we, who know that last intent, To plague to-morrow with a testament!

IN EXITUM CUIUSDAM

_On a certain one's departure_

"Time's bitter flood"! Oh, that's all very well, But where's the old friend hasn't fallen off, Or slacked his hand-grip when you first gripped fame?

I know your circle and can fairly tell What you have kept and what you've left behind: I know my circle and know very well How many faces I'd have out of mind.

APPARUIT

Golden rose the house, in the portal I saw thee, a marvel, carven in subtle stuff, a portent. Life died down in the lamp and flickered, caught at the wonder.

Crimson, frosty with dew, the roses bend where thou afar moving in the glamorous sun drinkst in life of earth, of the air, the tissue golden about thee.

Green the ways, the breath of the fields is thine there, open lies the land, yet the steely going darkly hast thou dared and the dreaded æther parted before thee.

Swift at courage thou in the shell of gold, casting a-loose the cloak of the body, camest straight, then shone thine oriel and the stunned light faded about thee.

Half the graven shoulder, the throat aflash with strands of light inwoven about it, loveliest of all things, frail alabaster, ah me! swift in departing,

Clothed in goldish weft, delicately perfect, gone as wind! The cloth of the magical hands! Thou a slight thing, thou in access of cunning dar'dst to assume this?

THE TOMB AT AKR ÇAAR

"I am thy soul, Nikoptis. I have watched These five millennia, and thy dead eyes Moved not, nor ever answer my desire, And thy light limbs, wherethrough I leapt aflame, Burn not with me nor any saffron thing.

See, the light grass sprang up to pillow thee, And kissed thee with a myriad grassy tongues; But not thou me.

I have read out the gold upon the wall, And wearied out my thought upon the signs. And there is no new thing in all this place.

I have been kind. See, I have left the jars sealed, Lest thou shouldst wake and whimper for thy wine. And all thy robes I have kept smooth on thee.

O thou unmindful! How should I forget! --Even the river many days ago, The river, thou wast over young. And three souls came upon Thee--

And I came. And I flowed in upon thee, beat them off; I have been intimate with thee, known thy ways. Have I not touched thy palms and finger-tips, Flowed in, and through thee and about thy heels? How 'came I in'? Was I not thee and Thee?

And no sun comes to rest me in this place, And I am torn against the jagged dark, And no light beats upon me, and you say No word, day after day.

Oh! I could get me out, despite the marks And all their crafty work upon the door, Out through the glass-green fields.... * * * * * Yet it is quiet here: I do not go."

PORTRAIT D'UNE FEMME

Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea, London has swept about you this score years And bright ships left you this or that in fee: Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things, Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. Great minds have sought you--lacking someone else. You have been second always. Tragical? No. You preferred it to the usual thing: One dull man, dulling and uxorious, One average mind--with one thought less, each year. Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit Hours, where something might have floated up. And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay. You are a person of some interest, one comes to you And takes strange gain away: Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion; Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two, Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else That might prove useful and yet never proves, That never fits a corner or shows use, Or finds its hour upon the loom of days: The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work; Idols and ambergris and rare inlays, These are your riches, your great store; and yet For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things, Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff: In the slow float of differing light and deep, No! there is nothing! In the whole and all, Nothing that's quite your own. Yet this is you.

N.Y.

My City, my beloved, my white! Ah, slender, Listen! Listen to me, and I will breathe into thee a soul. Delicately upon the reed, attend me!

_Now do I know that I am mad,_ _For here are a million people surly with traffic;_ _This is no maid._ _Neither could I play upon any reed if I had one._

My City, my beloved, Thou art a maid with no breasts, Thou art slender as a silver reed. Listen to me, attend me! And I will breathe into thee a soul, And thou shalt live for ever.

A GIRL

The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast-- Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms.

Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child--_so_ high--you are, And all this is folly to the world.

"PHASELLUS ILLE"

This _papier-mâché_, which you see, my friends, Saith 'twas the worthiest of editors. Its mind was made up in "the seventies," Nor hath it ever since changed that concoction. It works to represent that school of thought Which brought the hair-cloth chair to such perfection, Nor will the horrid threats of Bernard Shaw Shake up the stagnant pool of its convictions; Nay, should the deathless voice of all the world Speak once again for its sole stimulation, 'Twould not move it one jot from left to right.

Come Beauty barefoot from the Cyclades, She'd find a model for St Anthony In this thing's sure _decorum_ and behaviour.

AN OBJECT

This thing, that hath a code and not a core, Hath set acquaintance where might be affections, And nothing now Disturbeth his reflections.

QUIES

This is another of our ancient loves. Pass and be silent, Rullus, for the day Hath lacked a something since this lady passed; Hath lacked a something. 'Twas but marginal.

THE SEAFARER

(_From the early Anglo-Saxon text_)

May I for my own self song's truth reckon, Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days Hardship endured oft. Bitter breast-cares have I abided, Known on my keel many a care's hold, And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted, My feet were by frost benumbed. Chill its chains are; chafing sighs Hew my heart round and hunger begot Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not That he on dry land loveliest liveth, List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea, Weathered the winter, wretched outcast Deprived of my kinsmen; Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew, There I heard naught save the harsh sea And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries, Did for my games the gannet's clamour, Sea-fowls' loudness was for me laughter, The mews' singing all my mead-drink. Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed With spray on his pinion. Not any protector May make merry man faring needy. This he little believes, who aye in winsome life Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business, Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft Must bide above brine. Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north, Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now The heart's thought that I on high streams The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone. Moaneth alway my mind's lust That I fare forth, that I afar hence Seek out a foreign fastness. For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst, Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed; Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare Whatever his lord will. He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight Nor any whit else save the wave's slash, Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water. Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries, Fields to fairness, land fares brisker, All this admonisheth man eager of mood, The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks On flood-ways to be far departing. Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying, He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow, The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not-- He the prosperous man--what some perform Where wandering them widest draweth. So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock, My mood 'mid the mere-flood, Over the whale's acre, would wander wide. On earth's shelter cometh oft to me, Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer, Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly, O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow My lord deems to me this dead life On loan and on land, I believe not That any earth-weal eternal standeth Save there be somewhat calamitous That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain. Disease or oldness or sword-hate Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body. And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after-- Laud of the living, boasteth some last word, That he will work ere he pass onward, Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice, Daring ado,... So that all men shall honour him after And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English, Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast, Delight mid the doughty. Days little durable, And all arrogance of earthen riches, There come now no kings nor Cæsars Nor gold-giving lords like those gone. Howe'er in mirth most magnified, Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest, Drear all this excellence, delights undurable! Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth. Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low. Earthly glory ageth and seareth. No man at all going the earth's gait, But age fares against him, his face paleth, Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions, Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven, Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth, Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry, Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart, And though he strew the grave with gold, His born brothers, their buried bodies Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

ECHOES

I

GUIDO ORLANDO, SINGING

Befits me praise thine empery, Lady of Valour, Past all disproving; Thou art the flower to me-- Nay, by Love's pallor-- Of all good loving.

Worthy to reap men's praises Is he who'd gaze upon Truth's mazes. In like commend is he, Who, loving fixedly, Love so refineth,

Till thou alone art she In whom love's vested; As branch hath fairest flower Where fruit's suggested.

This great joy comes to me, To me observing How swiftly thou hast power To pay my serving.

II[1]

Thou keep'st thy rose-leaf Till the rose-time will be over, Think'st thou that Death will kiss thee? Think'st thou that the Dark House Will find thee such a lover As I? Will the new roses miss thee?

Prefer my cloak unto the cloak of dust 'Neath which the last year lies, For thou shouldst more mistrust Time than my eyes.

[1] Asclepiades, Julianus Ægyptus.

AN IMMORALITY

Sing we for love and idleness, Naught else is worth the having.

Though I have been in many a land, There is naught else in living.

And I would rather have my sweet, Though rose-leaves die of grieving,

Than do high deeds in Hungary To pass all men's believing.

DIEU! QU'IL LA FAIT

_From Charles D'Orleans_ _For music_

God! that mad'st her well regard her, How she is so fair and bonny; For the great charms that are upon her Ready are all folk to reward her.

Who could part him from her borders When spells are alway renewed on her? God! that mad'st her well regard her, How she is so fair and bonny.

From here to there to the sea's border, Dame nor damsel there's not any Hath of perfect charms so many. Thoughts of her are of dream's order: God! that mad'st her well regard her.

SALVE PONTIFEX

(A.C.S.)

One after one they leave thee, High Priest of Iacchus, Intoning thy melodies as winds intone The whisperings of leaves on sunlit days. And the sands are many And the seas beyond the sands are one In ultimate, so we here being many Are unity; nathless thy compeers, Knowing thy melody, Lulled with the wine of thy music Go seaward silently, leaving thee sentinel O'er all the mysteries, High Priest of Iacchus. For the lines of life lie under thy fingers, And above the vari-coloured strands Thine eyes look out unto the infinitude Of the blue waves of heaven, And even as Triplex Sisterhood Thou fingerest the threads knowing neither Cause nor the ending, High Priest of Iacchus, Draw'st forth a multiplicity Of strands, and, beholding The colour thereof, raisest thy voice Towards the sunset, O High Priest of Iacchus! And out of the secrets of the inmost mysteries Thou chantest strange far-sourced canticles: O High Priest of Iacchus! Life and the ways of Death her Twin-born sister, that is life's counterpart, And of night and the winds of night; Silent voices ministering to the souls Of hamadryads that hold council concealèd In streams and tree-shadowing Forests on hill slopes, O High Priest of Iacchus, All the manifold mystery Thou makest a wine of song, And maddest thy following even With visions of great deeds And their futility, O High Priest of Iacchus! Though thy co-novices are bent to the scythe Of the magian wind that is voice of Persephone, Leaving thee solitary, master of initiating Mænads that come through the Vine-entangled ways of the forest Seeking, out of all the world, Madness of Iacchus, That being skilled in the secrets of the double cup They might turn the dead of the world Into pæans, O High Priest of Iacchus, Wreathed with the glory of thy years of creating Entangled music, Breathe! Now that the evening cometh upon thee, Breathe upon us, that low-bowed and exultant Drink wine of Iacchus, that since the conquering Hath been chiefly containèd in the numbers Of them that, even as thou, have woven Wicker baskets for grape clusters Wherein is concealèd the source of the vintage, O High Priest of Iacchus, Breathe thou upon us Thy magic in parting! Even as they thy co-novices, At being mingled with the sea, While yet thou madest thy canticles Serving upright before the altar That is bound about with shadows Of dead years wherein thy Iacchus Looked not upon the hills, that being Uncared for, praised not him in entirety. O High Priest of Iacchus, Being now near to the border of the sands Where the sapphire girdle of the sea Encinctureth the maiden Persephone, released for the spring, Look! Breathe upon us The wonder of the thrice encinctured mystery Whereby thou being full of years art young, Loving even this lithe Persephone That is free for the seasons of plenty; Whereby thou being young art old And shalt stand before this Persephone Whom thou lovest, In darkness, even at that time That she being returned to her husband Shall be queen and a maiden no longer, Wherein thou being neither old nor young Standing on the verge of the sea Shalt pass from being sand, O High Priest of Iacchus, And becoming wave Shalt encircle all sands, Being transmuted through all The girdling of the sea.

O High Priest of Iacchus, Breathe thou upon us!

_Note._--This apostrophe was written three years before Swinburne's death.

DORIA [Greek]

Be in me as the eternal moods of the bleak wind, and not As transient things are--gaiety of flowers. Have me in the strong loneliness of sunless cliffs And of grey waters. Let the gods speak softly of us In days hereafter, The shadowy flowers of Orcus Remember Thee.

THE NEEDLE

Come, or the stellar tide will slip away, Eastward avoid the hour of its decline, Now! for the needle trembles in my soul!

Here have we had our vantage, the good hour. Here we have had our day, your day and mine. Come now, before this power That bears us up, shall turn against the pole.

Mock not the flood of stars, the thing's to be. O Love, come now, this land turns evil slowly. The waves bore in, soon will they bear away.

The treasure is ours, make we fast land with it. Move we and take the tide, with its next favour, Abide Under some neutral force Until this course turneth aside.

SUB MARE