Part 2
Or on still evenings when the rain falls close There comes a tremor in the drops, and fast My pulses run, knowing thy thought hath passed That beareth thee as doth the wind a rose.
Masks
These tales of old disguisings, are they not Strange myths of souls that found themselves among Unwonted folk that spake a hostile tongue, Some soul from all the rest who'd not forgot The star-span acres of a former lot Where boundless mid the clouds his course he swung, Or carnate with his elder brothers sung E'er ballad makers lisped of Camelot?
Old singers half-forgetful of their tunes, Old painters colour-blind come back once more, Old poets skilless in the wind-heart runes, Old wizards lacking in their wonder-lore:
All they that with strange sadness in their eyes Ponder in silence o'er earth's queynt devyse?
Tally-O
What ho! the wind is up and eloquent. Through all the Winter's halls he crieth Spring. Now will I get me up unto mine own forests And behold their bourgeoning.
Ballad for Gloom
For God, our God, is a gallant foe That playeth behind the veil.
I have loved my God as a child at heart That seeketh deep bosoms for rest, I have loved my God as maid to man But lo, this thing is best:
To love your God as a gallant foe that plays behind the veil, To meet your God as the night winds meet beyond Arcturus' pale.
I have played with God for a woman, I have staked with my God for truth, I have lost to my God as a man, clear eyed, His dice be not of ruth.
For I am made as a naked blade But hear ye this thing in sooth:
Who loseth to God as man to man Shall win at the turn of the game. I have drawn my blade where the lightnings meet But the ending is the same: Who loseth to God as the sword blades lose Shall win at the end of the game.
For God, our God, is a gallant foe that playeth behind the veil, Whom God deigns not to overthrow Hath need of triple mail.
For E. Mc C
_That was my counter-blade under Leonardo Terrone,_ _Master of Fence_.
Gone while your tastes were keen to you, Gone where the grey winds call to you, By that high fencer, even Death, Struck of the blade that no man parrieth; Such is your fence, one saith, One that hath known you. Drew you your sword most gallantly Made you your pass most valiantly 'Gainst that grey fencer, even Death.
Gone as a gust of breath Faith! no man tarrieth, "_Se il cor ti manca_" but it failed thee not! "_Non ti fidar_" it is the sword that speaks "_In me_."[6] Thou trusted'st in thyself and met the blade 'Thout mask or gauntlet, and art laid As memorable broken blades that be Kept as bold trophies of old pageantry. As old Toledos past their days of war Are kept mnemonic of the strokes they bore, So art thou with us, being good to keep In our heart's sword-rack, though thy sword-arm sleep.
ENVOI
Struck of the blade that no man parrieth Pierced of the point that toucheth lastly all, 'Gainst that grey fencer, even Death, Behold the shield! He shall not take thee all.
[Footnote 6: Sword-rune "If thy heart fail thee trust not in me."]
At the Heart o' Me
A.D. 751
With ever one fear at the heart o' me Long by still sea-coasts coursed my Grey-Falcon, And the twin delights of shore and sea were mine, Sapphire and emerald with fine pearls between.
Through the pale courses of the land-caressing in-streams Glided my barge and the kindly strange peoples Gave to me laugh for laugh, and wine for my tales of wandering. And the cities gave me welcome and the fields free passage, With ever one fear at the heart o' me.
An thou should'st grow weary ere my returning, An "_they_" should call to thee from out the borderland, What should avail me booty of whale-ways? What should avail me gold rings or the chain-mail? What should avail me the many-twined bracelets? What should avail me, O my beloved, Here in this "Middan-gard"[7] what should avail me Out of the booty and gain of my goings?
[Footnote 7: Anglo Saxon "Earth".]
XENIA
And Unto thine eyes my heart Sendeth old dreams of the spring-time, Yea of wood-ways my rime Found thee and flowers in and of all streams That sang low burthen, and of roses, That lost their dew-bowed petals for the dreams We scattered o'er them passing by.
Occidit
Autumnal breaks the flame upon the sun-set herds. The sheep on Gilead as tawn hair gleam Neath Mithra's dower and his slow departing, While in the sky a thousand fleece of gold Bear, each his tribute, to the waning god.
Hung on the rafters of the effulgent west, Their tufted splendour shields his decadence, As in our southern lands brave tapestries Are hung king-greeting from the ponticells And drag the pageant from the earth to air, Wherein the storied figures live again, Wind-molden back unto their life's erst guise, All tremulous beneath the many-fingered breath That Aufidus[8] doth take to house his soul.
[Footnote 8: The West wind.]
Search
I have heard a wee wind searching Through still forests for me; I have seen a wee wind searching O'er still sea.
Through woodlands dim have I taken my way; And o'er silent waters night and day Have I sought the wee wind.
An Idyl for Glaucus
_Nel suo aspetto tal dentro mifei_ _Qual si fe' Glauco nel gustar dell' erba_ _Che il fe' consorto in mar degli altri dei._ PARADISO, I, 67-9.
"_As Glaucus tasting the grass that made_ _him sea-fellow with the other gods._"
I
Whither he went I may not follow him. His eyes Were strange to-day. They always were, After their fashion, kindred of the sea.
To-day I found him. It is very long That I had sought among the nets, and when I asked The fishermen, they laughed at me. I sought long days amid the cliffs thinking to find The body-house of him, and then There at the blue cave-mouth my joy Grew pain for suddenness, to see him 'live. Whither he went I may not come, it seems He is become estranged from all the rest, And all the sea is now his wonder-house. And he may sink unto strange depths, he tells me of, That have no light as we it deem. E'en now he speaks strange words. I did not know One half the substance of his speech with me. And then when I saw naught he sudden leaped And shot, a gleam of silver, down, away. And I have spent three days upon this rock And yet he comes no more. He did not even seem to know I watched him gliding through the vitreous deep.
II
They chide me that the skein I used to spin Holds not my interest now, They mock me at the route, well, I have come again. Last night I saw three white forms move Out past the utmost wave that bears the white foam crest. I somehow knew that he was one of them.
Oimè, Oimè. I think each time they come Up from the sea heart to the realm of air They are more far-removed from the shore. When first I found him here, he slept E'en as he might after a long night's taking on the deep. And when he woke some whit the old kind smile Dwelt round his lips and held him near to me. But then strange gleams shot through the grey-deep eyes As though he saw beyond and saw not me. And when he moved to speak it troubled him. And then he plucked at grass and bade me eat. And then forgot me for the sea its charm And leapt him in the wave and so was gone.
III
I wonder why he mocked me with the grass. I know not any more how long it is Since I have dwelt not in my mother's house. I know they think me mad, for all night long I haunt the sea-marge, thinking I may find Some day the herb he offered unto me. Perhaps he did not jest; they say some simples have More wide-spanned power than old wives draw from them.
Perhaps, found I this grass, he'd come again. Perhaps 'tis some strange charm to draw him here, 'Thout which he may not leave his new-found crew That ride the two-foot coursers of the deep, And laugh in storms and break the fishers' nets. Oimè, Oimè!
SONG.
_Voices in the Wind._
We have worn the blue and vair, And all the sea-caves Know us of old, and know our new-found mate. There's many a secret stair The sea-folk climb....
_Out of the Wind._
Oimè, Oimè!
I wonder why the wind, even the wind doth seem To mock me now, all night, all night, and Have I strayed among the cliffs here They say, some day I'll fall Down through the sea-bit fissures, and no more Know the warm cloak of sun, or bathe The dew across my tired eyes to comfort them. They try to keep me hid within four walls. I will not stay! Oimè! And the wind saith; Oimè!
I am quite tired now. I know the grass Must grow somewhere along this Thracian coast, If only he would come some little while and find it me.
ENDETH THE LAMENT FOR GLAUCUS
In Durance
I am homesick after mine own kind, Oh I know that there are folk about me, friendly faces, But I am homesick after mine own kind.
"These sell our pictures"! Oh well, They reach me not, touch me some edge or that, But reach me not and all my life's become One flame, that reacheth not beyond Mine heart's own hearth, Or hides among the ashes there for thee. "Thee"? Oh "thee" is who cometh first Out of mine own-soul-kin, For I am homesick after mine own kind And ordinary people touch me not. Yea, I am homesick After mine own kind that know, and feel And have some breath for beauty and the arts.
Aye, I am wistful for my kin of the spirit And have none about me save in the shadows When come _they_, surging of power, "DAEMON," "Quasi KALOUN" S.T. says, Beauty is most that a "calling to the soul." Well then, so call they; the swirlers out of the mist of my soul, They that come mewards bearing old magic.
But for all that, I am home sick after mine own kind And would meet kindred e'en as I am, Flesh-shrouded bearing the secret. "All they that with strange sadness" Have the earth in mock'ry, and are kind to all, My fellows, aye I know the glory Of th' unbounded ones, but ye, that hide As I hide most the while And burst forth to the windows only whiles or whiles For love, or hope, or beauty or for power, Then smoulder, with the lids half closed And are untouched by echoes of the world.
Oh ye, my fellows: with the seas between us some be, Purple and sapphire for the silver shafts Of sun and spray all shattered at the bows Of such a "Veltro" of the vasty deep As bore my tortoise house scant years agone: And some the hills hold off, The little hills to east us, though here we Have damp and plain to be our shutting in.
And yet my soul sings "Up!" and we are one. Yea thou, and Thou, and THOU, and all my kin To whom my breast and arms are ever warm, For that I love ye as the wind the trees That holds their blossoms and their leaves in cure And calls the utmost singing from the boughs That 'thout him, save the aspen, were as dumb Still shade, and bade no whisper speak the birds of how "Beyond, beyond, beyond, there lies...."
Guillaume de Lorris Belated
A Vision of Italy
Wisdom set apart from all desire, A hoary Nestor with youth's own glad eyes, Him met I at the style, and all benign He greeted me an equal and I knew, By this his lack of pomp, he was himself.
Slow-Smiling is companion unto him, And Mellow-Laughter serves, his trencherman. And I a thousand beauties there beheld. And he and they made merry endlessly. And love was rayed between them as a mist, And yet so fine and delicate a haze It did impede the eyes no whit, Unless it were to make the halo round each one Appear more myriad-jewelled marvellous, Than any pearled and ruby diadem the courts o' earth ha' known. Slender as mist-wrought maids and hamadryads Did meseem these shapes that ministered, These formed harmonies with lake-deep eyes, And first the cities of north Italy I did behold, Each as a woman wonder-fair, And svelte Verona first I met at eve; And in the dark we kissed and then the way Bore us somewhile apart. And yet my heart keeps tryst with her, So every year our thoughts are interwove As fingers were, such times as eyes see much, and tell. And she that loved the master years agone, That bears his signet in her "Signor Square," "Che lo glorifico."[9] She spread her arms, And in that deep embrace All thoughts of woe were perished And of pain and weariness and all the wrack Of light-contending thoughts and battled-gleams, (That our intelligence doth gain by strife against itself) Of things we have not yet the earnèd right to clearly see. And all, yea all that dust doth symbolize Was there forgot, and my enfranchised soul Grew as the liquid elements, and was infused With joy that is not light, nor might nor harmony, And yet hath part and quality of all these three, Whereto is added calm past earthly peace.
Thus with Verona's spirit, and all time Swept on beyond my ken, and as the sea Hath in no wise a form within itself, _Cioè_, as liquid hath no form save where it bounden is By some enshrouding chalice of hard things-- As wine its graven goblet, and the sea Its wave-hewn basalt for a bordering, So had my thought and now my thought's remembrance No "_in_formation" of whatso there passed For this long space the dream-king's horny gate.
And when that age was done and the transfusion Of all my self through her and she through me, I did perceive that she enthroned two things: Verona, and a maid I knew on earth; And dulled some while from dream, and then become That lower thing, deductive intellect, I saw How all things are but symbols of all things,[10] And each of many, do we know But the equation governing. And in my rapture at this vision's scope I saw no end or bourn to what things mean, So praised Pythagoras and once more raised By this said rapture to the house of Dream, Beheld Fenicè as a lotus-flower Drift through the purple of the wedded sea And grow a wraith and then a dark-eyed she, And knew her name was "All-forgetfulness," And hailed her: "Princess of the Opiates," And guessed her evil and her good thereby.
And then a maid of nine "Pavia" hight, Passed with a laugh that was all mystery, And when I turned to her She reached me one clear chalice of white wine, Pressed from the recent grapes that yet were hung Adown her shoulders, and were bound Right cunningly about her elfish brows; So hale a draught, the life of every grape Lurked without ferment in the amber cloud. And memory, this wine was, of all good.
And more I might have seen: Firenza, Goito, Or that proudest gate, Ligurian Genoa, Cornelia of Colombo of far sight, That, man and seer in one, had well been twain, And each a glory to his hills and sea; And past her a great band Bright garlanded or rich with purple skeins, And crimson mantles and queynt fineries That tarnished held but so the more Of dim allurement in their half-shown folds: So swept my vision o'er their filmy ranks, Then rose some opaque cloud, Whose name I have not yet discerned, And music as I heard it one clear night Within our earthly night's own mirroring, _Cioè_,--San Pietro by Adige,[11] Where altar candles blazed out as dim stars, And all the gloom was soft, and shadowy forms Made and sang God, within the far-off choir. And in a clear space high behind Them and the tabernacle of that place, Two tapers shew the master of the keys As some white power pouring forth itself.
And all the church rang low and murmured Thus in my dream of forms the music swayed. And I was lost in it and only woke When something like a mass bell rang, and then That white-foot wind, pale Dawn's annunciatrice. Me bore to earth again, but some strange peace I had not known so well before this swevyn Clung round my head and made me hate earth less.
[Footnote 11: For notes on this poem see end of volume--A Vision of Italy.]
In the Old Age of the Soul
I do not choose to dream; there cometh on me Some strange old lust for deeds. As to the nerveless hand of some old warrior The sword-hilt or the war-worn wonted helmet Brings momentary life and long-fled cunning, So to my soul grown old-- Grown old with many a jousting, many a foray, Grown old with many a hither-coming and hence-going-- Till now they send him dreams and no more deed; So doth he flame again with might for action, Forgetful of the council of the elders, Forgetful that who rules doth no more battle, Forgetful that such might no more cleaves to him So doth he flame again toward valiant doing.
Alba Belingalis
Phoebus shineth ere his splendour flieth Aurora drives faint light athwart the land And the drowsy watcher crieth, "ARISE."
_Ref_
O'er cliff and ocean the white dawn appeareth It passeth vigil and the shadows cleareth.
They be careless of the gates, delaying, Whom the ambush glides to hinder, Whom I warn and cry to, praying, "ARISE."
_Ref_
O'er cliff and ocean the white dawn appeareth It passeth vigil and the shadows cleareth.
Forth from out Arcturus, North Wind bloweth The stars of heaven sheathe their glory And sun-driven forth-goeth Settentrion.
_Ref._
O'er sea mist, and mountain is the dawn display'd It passeth watch and maketh night afraid.
From a tenth-century MS.
From Syria
The song of Peire Bremon "Lo Tort" that he made for his Lady in Provença: he being in Syria a crusader.
In April when I see all through Mead and garden new flowers blow, And streams with ice-bands broken flow, Eke hear the birds their singing do; When spring's grass-perfume floateth by Then 'tis sweet song and birdlet's cry Do make mine old joy come anew.
Such time was wont my thought of old To wander in the ways of love. Burnishing arms and clang thereof, And honour-services manifold Be now my need. Whoso combine Such works, love is his bread and wine, Wherefore should his fight the more be bold.
Song bear I, who tears should bring Sith ire of love mak'th me annoy, With song think I to make me joy. Yet ne'er have I heard said this thing: "He sings who sorrow's guise should wear." Natheless I will not despair That sometime I'll have cause to sing.
I should not to despair give way That some while I'll my lady see. I trust well He that lowered me Hath power again to make me gay. But if e'er I come to my Love's land And turn again to Syrian strand, God keep me there for a fool, alway!
God for a miracle well should Hold my coming from her away, And hold me in His grace alway That I left her, for holy-rood. An I lose her, no joy for me, Pardi, hath the wide world in fee. Nor could He mend it, if He would.
Well did she know sweet wiles to take My heart, when thence I took my way. 'Thout sighing, pass I ne'er a day For that sweet semblance she did make To me, saying all in sorrow: "Sweet friend, and what of me to-morrow?" "Love mine, why wilt me so forsake?"
ENVOI
Beyond sea be thou sped, my song, And, by God, to my Lady say That in desirous, grief-filled way My nights and my days are full long. And command thou William the Long-Seer To tell thee to my Lady dear, That comfort be her thoughts among.
The only bit of Peire Bremon's work that has come down to us, and through its being printed with the songs of Giraut of Bornelh he is like to lose credit for even this.--E.P.
From the Saddle
D'AUBIGNE TO DIANE
Wearied by wind and wave death goes With gin and snare right near alway Unto my sight. Behind me bay As hounds the tempests of my foes. Ever on ward against such woes, Pistols my pillow's service pay, Yet Love makes me the poet play. Thou know'st the rime demands repose, So if my line disclose distress, The soldier and my restlessness And teen, Pardon, dear Lady mine, For since mid war I bear love's pain 'Tis meet my verse, as I, show sign Of powder, gun-match and sulphur stain.
Marvoil
A poor clerk I, "Arnaut the less" they call me, And because I have small mind to sit Day long, long day cooped on a stool A-jumbling o' figures for Maitre Jacques Polin, I ha' taken to rambling the South here.
The Vicomte of Beziers's not such a bad lot. I made rimes to his lady this three year: Vers and canzone, till that damn'd son of Aragon, Alfonso the half-bald, took to hanging _His_ helmet at Beziers. Then came what might come, to wit: three men and one woman, Beziers off at Mont-Ausier, I and his lady Singing the stars in the turrets of Beziers, And one lean Aragonese cursing the seneschal To the end that you see, friends:
Aragon cursing in Aragon, Beziers busy at Beziers-- Bored to an inch of extinction, Tibors all tongue and temper at Mont-Ausier, Me! in this damn'd inn of Avignon, Stringing long verse for the Burlatz; All for one half-bald, knock-knee'd king of the Aragonese, Alfonso, Quatro, poke-nose.
And if when I am dead They take the trouble to tear out this wall here, They'll know more of Arnaut of Marvoil Than half his canzoni say of him. As for will and testament I leave none, Save this: "Vers and canzone to the Countess of Beziers In return for the first kiss she gave me." May her eyes and her cheek be fair To all men except the King of Aragon, And may I come speedily to Beziers Whither my desire and my dream have preceded me. O hole in the wall here! be thou my jongleur As ne'er had I other, and when the wind blows, Sing thou the grace of the Lady of Beziers, For even as thou art hollow before I fill thee with this parchment, So is my heart hollow when she filleth not mine eyes, And so were my mind hollow, did she not fill utterly my thought.