Part 2
I have fed your lar with poppies, I have adored you for three full years; And now you grumble because your dress does not fit And because I happen to say so.
_Lesbia Illa_
Memnon, Memnon, that lady Who used to walk about amongst us With such gracious uncertainty, Is now wedded To a British householder. _Lugete, Veneres! Lugete, Cupidinesque!_
_Passing_
Flawless as Aphrodite, Thoroughly beautiful, Brainless, The faint odour of your patchouli, Faint, almost, as the lines of cruelty about your chin, Assails me, and concerns me almost as little.
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?
Ancora
Good God! They say you are _risqué_, O canzonetti! We who went out into the four A.M. of the world Composing our albas, We who shook off our dew with the rabbits, We who have seen even Artemis a-binding her sandals, Have we ever heard the like? O mountains of Hellas!!
Gather about me, O Muses! When we sat upon the granite brink in Helicon Clothed in the tattered sunlight, O Muses with delicate shins, O Muses with delectable knee-joints, When we splashed and were splashed with The lucid Castalian spray, Had we ever such an epithet cast upon us!!
A TRANSLATION
FROM THE PROVENÇAL OF EN BERTRANS DE BORN.
=“Dompna pois de me no’us cal”=
Lady, since you care nothing for me, And since you have shut me away from you Causelessly, I know not where 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!
The Coming of War: Actaeon
An image of Lethe, and the fields Full of faint light but golden, Gray cliffs, and beneath them A sea Harsher than granite, unstill, never ceasing; High forms with the movement of gods, Perilous aspect; And one said: “This is Actaeon.” Actaeon of golden greaves!
Over fair meadows, Over the cool face of that field, Unstill, ever moving, Hosts of an ancient people, The silent cortège.
After Ch’u Yuan
I will get me to the wood Where the gods walk garlanded in wistaria, By the silver blue flood move others with ivory cars. There come forth many maidens to gather grapes for the leopards, my friend, For there are leopards drawing the cars.
I will walk in the glade, I will come out of the new thicket and accost the procession of maidens.
Liu Ch’e
The rustling of the silk is discontinued, Dust drifts over the court-yard, There is no sound of foot-fall, and the leaves Scurry into heaps and lie still, And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath them:
A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.
Fan-piece, for her Imperial Lord
O fan of white silk, clear as frost on the grass-blade, You also are laid aside.
Ts’ai Chi’h
The petals fall in the fountain, the orange-coloured rose-leaves, Their ochre clings to the stone.
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.
Alba
As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley She lay beside me in the dawn.
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.
The Faun
Ha! sir, I have seen you sniffing and snoozling about among my flowers. And what, pray, do you know about horticulture, you capriped?
“Come, Auster, come, Apeliota, And see the faun in our garden. But if you move or speak This thing will run at you And scare itself to spasms.”
Pervigilium
The gilded phaloi of the crocuses are thrusting at the spring air. Here is there naught of dead gods But a procession of festival, A procession, O Giulio Romano, Fit for your spirit to dwell in. Dione, your nights are upon us.
The dew is upon the leaf. The night about us is restless.
The Encounter
All the while they were talking the new morality Her eyes explored me. And when I arose to go Her fingers were like the tissue Of a Japanese paper napkin.
Tempora
Io! Io! Tamuz! The Dryad stands in my court-yard With plaintive, querulous crying. (Tamuz. Io! Tamuz!) Oh, no, she is not crying: “Tamuz.” She says, “May my poems be printed this week? The god Pan is afraid to ask you, May my poems be printed this week?”
Black Slippers: Bellotti
At the table beyond us With her little suede slippers off, With her white-stocking’d feet Carefully kept from the floor by a napkin, She converses: _Connaissez-vous Ostende?_ The gurgling Italian lady on the other side of the restaurant Replies with a certain hauteur, But I await with patience To see how Celestine will re-enter her slippers. She re-enters them with a groan.
Society
The family position was waning, And on this account the little Aurelia, Who had laughed on eighteen summers, Now bears the palsied contact of Phidippus.
Image from D’Orleans
Young men riding in the street In the bright new season Spur without reason, Causing their steeds to leap.
And at the pace they keep Their horses’ armoured feet Strike sparks from the cobbled street In the bright new season.
Papyrus
Spring ... Too long ... Gongula ...
“Ione, Dead the Long Year”
Empty are the ways, Empty are the ways of this land And the flowers Bend over with heavy heads. They bend in vain. Empty are the ways of this land Where Ione Walked once, and now does not walk
But seems like a person just gone.
Shop Girl
For a moment she rested against me Like a swallow half blown to the wall, And they talk of Swinburne’s women, And the shepherdess meeting with Guido, And the harlots of Baudelaire.
To Formianus’ Young Lady Friend
AFTER VALERIUS CATULLUS
All Hail! young lady with a nose by no means too small, With a foot unbeautiful, and with eyes that are not black, With fingers that are not long, and with a mouth undry, And with a tongue by no means too elegant, You are the friend of Formianus, the vendor of cosmetics, And they call you beautiful in the province, And you are even compared to Lesbia.
O most unfortunate age!
Tame Cat
“It rests me to be among beautiful women. Why should one always lie about such matters?
I repeat: It rests me to converse with beautiful women Even though we talk nothing but nonsense,
The purring of the invisible antennæ Is both stimulating and delightful.”
L’Art, 1910
Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth, Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
Simulacra
Why does the horse-faced lady of just the unmentionable age Walk down Longacre reciting Swinburne to herself, inaudibly? Why does the small child in the soiled-white imitation fur coat Crawl in the very black gutter beneath the grape stand? Why does the really handsome young woman approach me in Sackville Street Undeterred by the manifest age of my trappings?
Women Before a Shop
The gew-gaws of false amber and false turquoise attract them. “Like to like nature”: these agglutinous yellows!
Epilogue
O chansons foregoing You were a seven days’ wonder, When you came out in the magazines You created considerable stir in Chicago,
And now you are stale and worn out, You’re a very depleted fashion, A hoop-skirt, a calash, An homely, transient antiquity.
Only emotion remains.
Your emotions? Are those of a maître-de-café.
The Social Order
I
This government official, Whose wife is several years his senior, Has such a caressing air When he shakes hands with young ladies.
II
(Pompes Funèbres)
This old lady, Who was “so old that she was an atheist,” Is now surrounded By six candles and a crucifix, While the second wife of a nephew Makes hay with the things in her house. Her two cats Go before her into Avernus; A sort of chloroformed suttee, And it is to be hoped that their spirits will walk With their tails up, And with a plaintive, gentle mewing, For it is certain that she has left on this earth No sound Save a squabble of female connections.
The Tea Shop
The girl in the tea shop is not so beautiful as she was, The August has worn against her. She does not get up the stairs so eagerly, Yes, she also will turn middle-aged, And the glow of youth that she spread about us as she brought us our muffins Will be spread about us no longer. She also will turn middle-aged.
Epitaphs
FU I
Fu I loved the high cloud and the hill, Alas, he died of alcohol.
LI PO
And Li Po also died drunk. He tried to embrace a moon In the Yellow River.
Our Contemporaries
When the Taihaitian princess Heard that he had decided, She rushed out into the sunlight and swarmed up a cocoanut palm tree,
But he returned to this island And wrote ninety Petrarchan sonnets.
NOTE.--Il s’agit d’un jeune poète qui a suivi le culte de Gauguin jusqu’à Tahiti même (et qui vit encore). Étant fort bel homme, quand la princesse bistre entendit qu’il voulait lui accorder ses faveurs elle montra son allegresse de la façon dont nous venons de parler. Malheureusement ses poèmes ne sont remplis que de ses propres subjectivités, style Victorien de la “Georgian Anthology.”
Ancient Wisdom, Rather Cosmic
So-shu dreamed, And having dreamed that he was a bird, a bee, and a butterfly, He was uncertain why he should try to feel like anything else,
Hence his contentment.
The Three Poets
Candidia has taken a new lover And three poets are gone into mourning. The first has written a long elegy to “Chloris,” To “Chloris chaste and cold,” his “only Chloris.” The second has written a sonnet upon the mutability of woman, And the third writes an epigram to Candidia.
The Gipsy
“_Est-ce que vous avez vu des autres--des camarades--avec des singes ou des ours?_”
A Stray Gipsy--A.D. 1912.
That was the top of the walk, when he said: “Have you seen any others, any of our lot, With apes or bears?” --A brown upstanding fellow Not like the half-castes, up on the wet road near Clermont. The wind came, and the rain, And mist clotted about the trees in the valley, And I’d the long ways behind me, gray Arles and Biaucaire, And he said, “Have you seen any of our lot?”
I’d seen a lot of his lot ... ever since Rhodez, Coming down from the fair of St. John, With caravans, but never an ape or a bear.
The Game of Chess
DOGMATIC STATEMENT CONCERNING THE GAME OF CHESS: THEME FOR A SERIES OF PICTURES
Red knights, brown bishops, bright queens, striking the board, falling in strong “L”s of colour, Reaching and striking in angles, holding lines in one colour. This board is alive with light; these pieces are living in form, Their moves break and reform the pattern: Luminous green from the rooks, Clashing with “X”s of queens, looped with the knight-leaps.
“Y” pawns, cleaving, embanking! Whirl! Centripetal! Mate! King down in the vortex, Clash, leaping of bands, straight strips of hard colour, Blocked lights working in. Escapes. Renewal of contest.
Provincia Deserta
At Rochecoart, Where the hills part in three ways, And three valleys, full of winding roads, Fork out to south and north, There is a place of trees ... gray with lichen. I have walked there thinking of old days. At Chalais is a pleached arbour; Old pensioners and old protected women Have the right there-- it is charity. I have crept over old rafters, peering down Over the Dronne, over a stream full of lilies. Eastward the road lies, Aubeterre is eastward, With a garrulous old man at the inn.
I know the roads in that place: Mareuil to the north-east, La Tour, There are three keeps near Mareuil, And an old woman, glad to hear Arnaut, Glad to lend one dry clothing.
I have walked into Perigord, I have seen the torch-flames, high-leaping, Painting the front of that church, And, under the dark, whirling laughter. I have looked back over the stream and seen the high building, Seen the long minarets, the white shafts. I have gone in Ribeyrac and in Sarlat, I have climbed rickety stairs, heard talk of Croy, Walked over En Bertran’s old layout, Have seen Narbonne, and Cahors and Chalus, Have seen Excideuil, carefully fashioned.
I have said: “Here such a one walked. “Here Cœur-de-Lion was slain. “Here was good singing. “Here one man hastened his step. “Here one lay panting.”
I have looked south from Hautefort, thinking of Montaignac, southward. I have lain in Rocafixada, level with sunset, Have seen the copper come down tinging the mountains, I have seen the fields, pale, clear as an emerald, Sharp peaks, high spurs, distant castles. I have said: “The old roads have lain here. “Men have gone by such and such valleys “Where the great halls are closer together.” I have seen Foix on its rock, seen Toulouse, and Arles greatly altered, I have seen the ruined “Dorata.” I have said: “Riquier! Guido.” I have thought of the second Troy, Some little prized place in Auvergnat: Two men tossing a coin, one keeping a castle, One set on the highway to sing. He sang a woman. Auvergne rose to the song; The Dauphin backed him. “The castle to Austors!” “Pieire kept the singing-- “A fair man and a pleasant.” He won the lady, Stole her away for himself, kept her against armed force: So ends that story. That age is gone; Pieire de Maensac is gone. I have walked over these roads; I have thought of them living.
CATHAY
FOR THE MOST PART FROM THE CHINESE OF RIHAKU, FROM THE NOTES OF THE LATE ERNEST FENOLLOSA, AND THE DECIPHERINGS OF THE PROFESSORS MORI AND ARIGA
Song of the Bowmen of Shu
Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots And saying: When shall we get back to our country? Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen, We have no comfort because of these Mongols. We grub the soft fern-shoots, When anyone says “Return,” the others are full of sorrow. Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty. Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return. We grub the old fern-stalks. We say: Will we be let to go back in October? There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort. Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country. What flower has come into blossom? Whose chariot? The General’s. Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong. We have no rest, three battles a month. By heaven, his horses are tired. The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them The horses are well trained, the generals have ivory arrows and quivers ornamented with fish-skin. The enemy is swift, we must be careful. When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring, We come back in the snow, We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty, Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief?
_By Bunno._ _Very early._
The Beautiful Toilet
Blue, blue is the grass about the river And the willows have overfilled the close garden. And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her youth, White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door. Slender, she puts forth a slender hand,
And she was a courtezan in the old days, And she has married a sot, Who now goes drunkenly out And leaves her too much alone.
_By Mei Sheng._ _B.C. 140._
The River Song
This boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are cut magnolia, Musicians with jewelled flutes and with pipes of gold Fill full the sides in rows, and our wine Is rich for a thousand cups. We carry singing girls, drift with the drifting water, Yet Sennin needs A yellow stork for a charger, and all our seamen Would follow the white gulls or ride them. Kutsu’s prose song Hangs with the sun and moon.
King So’s terraced palace is now but a barren hill, But I draw pen on this barge Causing the five peaks to tremble, And I have joy in these words like the joy of blue islands. (If glory could last forever Then the waters of Han would flow northward.) And I have moped in the Emperor’s garden, awaiting an order-to-write! I looked at the dragon-pond, with its willow-coloured water Just reflecting the sky’s tinge, And heard the five-score nightingales aimlessly singing.
The eastern wind brings the green colour into the island grasses at Yei-shu, The purple house and the crimson are full of Spring softness. South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue and bluer, Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-like palace. Vine-strings a hundred feet long hang down from carved railings, And high over the willows, the fine birds sing to each other, and listen, Crying--“Kwan, Kuan,” for the early wind, and the feel of it. The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and wanders off. Over a thousand gates, over a thousand doors are the sounds of spring singing, And the Emperor is at Ko. Five clouds hang aloft, bright on the purple sky, The imperial guards come forth from the golden house with their armour a-gleaming. The Emperor in his jewelled car goes out to inspect his flowers, He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping storks, He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new nightingales, For the gardens at Jo-run are full of new nightingales, Their sound is mixed in this flute, Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.
_By Rihaku._ _8th century A.D._
The River-Merchant’s Wife: a Letter
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played about the front gate, pulling flowers You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you. I never laughed, being bashful. Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling, I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever, and forever. Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed, You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies, And you have been gone five months. The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead. You dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, Too deep to clear them away! The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the West garden, They hurt me. I grow older, If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang, Please let me know beforehand, And I will come out to meet you, As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
_By Rihaku._
The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance
The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew, It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings, And I let down the crystal curtain And watch the moon through the clear autumn.
_By Rihaku._
NOTE.--Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore he has no excuse on account of weather. Also she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.
Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin
March has come to the bridge head, Peach boughs and apricot boughs hang over a thousand gates, At morning there are flowers to cut the heart, And evening drives them on the eastward-flowing waters. Petals are on the gone waters and on the going, And on the back-swirling eddies, But to-day’s men are not the men of the old days, Though they hang in the same way over the bridge-rail.