Chapter 8

Sometimes about the painted kiosk The mimic soldiers strut and stride, Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons Her book, they steal across the square, And launch their paper navies where Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee, And now they rush, a boisterous band— And, tiny hand on tiny hand, Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you, And children climbed me, for their sake Though it be winter I would break Into spring blossoms white and blue!

ON THE SALE BY AUCTION OF KEATS’ LOVE LETTERS

THESE are the letters which Endymion wrote To one he loved in secret, and apart. And now the brawlers of the auction mart Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note, Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote The merchant’s price. I think they love not art Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

Is it not said that many years ago, In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran With torches through the midnight, and began To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw Dice for the garments of a wretched man, Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe?

THE NEW REMORSE

THE sin was mine; I did not understand. So now is music prisoned in her cave, Save where some ebbing desultory wave Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand. And in the withered hollow of this land Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave, That hardly can the leaden willow crave One silver blossom from keen Winter’s hand.

But who is this who cometh by the shore? (Nay, love, look up and wonder!) Who is this Who cometh in dyed garments from the South? It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss The yet unravished roses of thy mouth, And I shall weep and worship, as before.

FANTAISIES DÉCORATIVES

I LE PANNEAU

UNDER the rose-tree’s dancing shade There stands a little ivory girl, Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl With pale green nails of polished jade.

The red leaves fall upon the mould, The white leaves flutter, one by one, Down to a blue bowl where the sun, Like a great dragon, writhes in gold.

The white leaves float upon the air, The red leaves flutter idly down, Some fall upon her yellow gown, And some upon her raven hair.

She takes an amber lute and sings, And as she sings a silver crane Begins his scarlet neck to strain, And flap his burnished metal wings.

She takes a lute of amber bright, And from the thicket where he lies Her lover, with his almond eyes, Watches her movements in delight.

And now she gives a cry of fear, And tiny tears begin to start: A thorn has wounded with its dart The pink-veined sea-shell of her ear.

And now she laughs a merry note: There has fallen a petal of the rose Just where the yellow satin shows The blue-veined flower of her throat.

With pale green nails of polished jade, Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl, There stands a little ivory girl Under the rose-tree’s dancing shade.

II LES BALLONS

AGAINST these turbid turquoise skies The light and luminous balloons Dip and drift like satin moons, Drift like silken butterflies;

Reel with every windy gust, Rise and reel like dancing girls, Float like strange transparent pearls, Fall and float like silver dust.

Now to the low leaves they cling, Each with coy fantastic pose, Each a petal of a rose Straining at a gossamer string.

Then to the tall trees they climb, Like thin globes of amethyst, Wandering opals keeping tryst With the rubies of the lime.

CANZONET

I HAVE no store Of gryphon-guarded gold; Now, as before, Bare is the shepherd’s fold. Rubies nor pearls Have I to gem thy throat; Yet woodland girls Have loved the shepherd’s note.

Then pluck a reed And bid me sing to thee, For I would feed Thine ears with melody, Who art more fair Than fairest fleur-de-lys, More sweet and rare Than sweetest ambergris.

What dost thou fear? Young Hyacinth is slain, Pan is not here, And will not come again. No hornèd Faun Treads down the yellow leas, No God at dawn Steals through the olive trees.

Hylas is dead, Nor will he e’er divine Those little red Rose-petalled lips of thine. On the high hill No ivory dryads play, Silver and still Sinks the sad autumn day.

SYMPHONY IN YELLOW

AN omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly, And, here and there, a passer-by Shows like a little restless midge.

Big barges full of yellow hay Are moored against the shadowy wharf, And, like a yellow silken scarf, The thick fog hangs along the quay.

The yellow leaves begin to fade And flutter from the Temple elms, And at my feet the pale green Thames Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

IN THE FOREST

OUT of the mid-wood’s twilight Into the meadow’s dawn, Ivory limbed and brown-eyed, Flashes my Faun!

He skips through the copses singing, And his shadow dances along, And I know not which I should follow, Shadow or song!

O Hunter, snare me his shadow! O Nightingale, catch me his strain! Else moonstruck with music and madness I track him in vain!

TO MY WIFE

WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS

I CAN write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say.

For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair.

And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It will whisper of the garden, You will understand.

WITH A COPY OF ‘A HOUSE OF POMEGRANATES’

GO, little book, To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl, Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl: And bid him look Into thy pages: it may hap that he May find that golden maidens dance through thee.

ROSES AND RUE

(To L. L.)

COULD we dig up this long-buried treasure, Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love’s song, We are parted too long.

Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead, Could we live it all over again, Were it worth the pain!

I remember we used to meet By an ivied seat, And you warbled each pretty word With the air of a bird;

And your voice had a quaver in it, Just like a linnet, And shook, as the blackbird’s throat With its last big note;

And your eyes, they were green and grey Like an April day, But lit into amethyst When I stooped and kissed;

And your mouth, it would never smile For a long, long while, Then it rippled all over with laughter Five minutes after.

You were always afraid of a shower, Just like a flower: I remember you started and ran When the rain began.

I remember I never could catch you, For no one could match you, You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, Little wings to your feet.

I remember your hair—did I tie it? For it always ran riot— Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: These things are old.

I remember so well the room, And the lilac bloom That beat at the dripping pane In the warm June rain;

And the colour of your gown, It was amber-brown, And two yellow satin bows From your shoulders rose.

And the handkerchief of French lace Which you held to your face— Had a small tear left a stain? Or was it the rain?

On your hand as it waved adieu There were veins of blue; In your voice as it said good-bye Was a petulant cry,

‘You have only wasted your life.’ (Ah, that was the knife!) When I rushed through the garden gate It was all too late.

Could we live it over again, Were it worth the pain, Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead!

Well, if my heart must break, Dear love, for your sake, It will break in music, I know, Poets’ hearts break so.

But strange that I was not told That the brain can hold In a tiny ivory cell God’s heaven and hell.

DÉSESPOIR

THE seasons send their ruin as they go, For in the spring the narciss shows its head Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red, And in the autumn purple violets blow, And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow; Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again And this grey land grow green with summer rain And send up cowslips for some boy to mow.

But what of life whose bitter hungry sea Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night Covers the days which never more return? Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory.

PAN

DOUBLE VILLANELLE

I

O goat-foot God of Arcady! This modern world is grey and old, And what remains to us of thee?

No more the shepherd lads in glee Throw apples at thy wattled fold, O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Nor through the laurels can one see Thy soft brown limbs, thy beard of gold, And what remains to us of thee?

And dull and dead our Thames would be, For here the winds are chill and cold, O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Then keep the tomb of Helice, Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad wold, And what remains to us of thee?

Though many an unsung elegy Sleeps in the reeds our rivers hold, O goat-foot God of Arcady! Ah, what remains to us of thee?

II

Ah, leave the hills of Arcady, Thy satyrs and their wanton play, This modern world hath need of thee.

No nymph or Faun indeed have we, For Faun and nymph are old and grey, Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!

This is the land where liberty Lit grave-browed Milton on his way, This modern world hath need of thee!

A land of ancient chivalry Where gentle Sidney saw the day, Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!

This fierce sea-lion of the sea, This England lacks some stronger lay, This modern world hath need of thee!

Then blow some trumpet loud and free, And give thine oaten pipe away, Ah, leave the hills of Arcady! This modern world hath need of thee!

THE SPHINX

TO MARCEL SCHWOB IN FRIENDSHIP AND IN ADMIRATION

THE SPHINX

IN a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom.

Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she does not stir For silver moons are naught to her and naught to her the suns that reel.

Red follows grey across the air, the waves of moonlight ebb and flow But with the Dawn she does not go and in the night-time she is there.

Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the while this curious cat Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold.

Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the tawny throat of her Flutters the soft and silky fur or ripples to her pointed ears.

Come forth, my lovely seneschal! so somnolent, so statuesque! Come forth you exquisite grotesque! half woman and half animal!

Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and put your head upon my knee! And let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted like the Lynx!

And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory and grasp The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round your heavy velvet paws!

* * * * *

A THOUSAND weary centuries are thine while I have hardly seen Some twenty summers cast their green for Autumn’s gaudy liveries.

But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sandstone obelisks, And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked on Hippogriffs.

O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to Osiris knelt? And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union for Antony

And drink the jewel-drunken wine and bend her head in mimic awe To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny from the brine?

And did you mark the Cyprian kiss white Adon on his catafalque? And did you follow Amenalk, the God of Heliopolis?

And did you talk with Thoth, and did you hear the moon-horned Io weep? And know the painted kings who sleep beneath the wedge-shaped Pyramid?

* * * * *

LIFT up your large black satin eyes which are like cushions where one sinks! Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphinx! and sing me all your memories!

Sing to me of the Jewish maid who wandered with the Holy Child, And how you led them through the wild, and how they slept beneath your shade.

Sing to me of that odorous green eve when crouching by the marge You heard from Adrian’s gilded barge the laughter of Antinous

And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and watched with hot and hungry stare The ivory body of that rare young slave with his pomegranate mouth!

Sing to me of the Labyrinth in which the twi-formed bull was stalled! Sing to me of the night you crawled across the temple’s granite plinth

When through the purple corridors the screaming scarlet Ibis flew In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the moaning Mandragores,

And the great torpid crocodile within the tank shed slimy tears, And tare the jewels from his ears and staggered back into the Nile,

And the priests cursed you with shrill psalms as in your claws you seized their snake And crept away with it to slake your passion by the shuddering palms.

* * * * *

WHO were your lovers? who were they who wrestled for you in the dust? Which was the vessel of your Lust? What Leman had you, every day?

Did giant Lizards come and crouch before you on the reedy banks? Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on you in your trampled couch?

Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling toward you in the mist? Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with passion as you passed them by?

And from the brick-built Lycian tomb what horrible Chimera came With fearful heads and fearful flame to breed new wonders from your womb?

* * * * *

OR had you shameful secret quests and did you harry to your home Some Nereid coiled in amber foam with curious rock crystal breasts?

Or did you treading through the froth call to the brown Sidonian For tidings of Leviathan, Leviathan or Behemoth?

Or did you when the sun was set climb up the cactus-covered slope To meet your swarthy Ethiop whose body was of polished jet?

Or did you while the earthen skiffs dropped down the grey Nilotic flats At twilight and the flickering bats flew round the temple’s triple glyphs

Steal to the border of the bar and swim across the silent lake And slink into the vault and make the Pyramid your lúpanar

Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the painted swathèd dead? Or did you lure unto your bed the ivory-horned Tragelaphos?

Or did you love the god of flies who plagued the Hebrews and was splashed With wine unto the waist? or Pasht, who had green beryls for her eyes?

Or that young god, the Tyrian, who was more amorous than the dove Of Ashtaroth? or did you love the god of the Assyrian

Whose wings, like strange transparent talc, rose high above his hawk-faced head, Painted with silver and with red and ribbed with rods of Oreichalch?

Or did huge Apis from his car leap down and lay before your feet Big blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured nenuphar?

* * * * *

HOW subtle-secret is your smile! Did you love none then? Nay, I know Great Ammon was your bedfellow! He lay with you beside the Nile!

The river-horses in the slime trumpeted when they saw him come Odorous with Syrian galbanum and smeared with spikenard and with thyme.

He came along the river bank like some tall galley argent-sailed, He strode across the waters, mailed in beauty, and the waters sank.

He strode across the desert sand: he reached the valley where you lay: He waited till the dawn of day: then touched your black breasts with his hand.

You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame: you made the hornèd god your own: You stood behind him on his throne: you called him by his secret name.

You whispered monstrous oracles into the caverns of his ears: With blood of goats and blood of steers you taught him monstrous miracles.

White Ammon was your bedfellow! Your chamber was the steaming Nile! And with your curved archaic smile you watched his passion come and go.

* * * * *

WITH Syrian oils his brows were bright: and wide-spread as a tent at noon His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent the day a larger light.

His long hair was nine cubits’ span and coloured like that yellow gem Which hidden in their garment’s hem the merchants bring from Kurdistan.

His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of new-made wine: The seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure of his eyes.

His thick soft throat was white as milk and threaded with thin veins of blue: And curious pearls like frozen dew were broidered on his flowing silk.

* * * * *

ON pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was too bright to look upon: For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous ocean-emerald,

That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of the Colchian caves Had found beneath the blackening waves and carried to the Colchian witch.

Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine-wreathed corybants, And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to draw his chariot,

And lines of swarthy Nubians bare up his litter as he rode Down the great granite-paven road between the nodding peacock-fans.

The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon in their painted ships: The meanest cup that touched his lips was fashioned from a chrysolite.

The merchants brought him cedar chests of rich apparel bound with cords: His train was borne by Memphian lords: young kings were glad to be his guests.

Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon’s altar day and night, Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Ammon’s carven house—and now

Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones crawl from stone to stone For ruined is the house and prone the great rose-marble monolith!

Wild ass or trotting jackal comes and couches in the mouldering gates: Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the fallen fluted drums.

And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced ape of Horus sits And gibbers while the fig-tree splits the pillars of the peristyle

* * * * *

THE god is scattered here and there: deep hidden in the windy sand I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in impotent despair.

And many a wandering caravan of stately negroes silken-shawled, Crossing the desert, halts appalled before the neck that none can span.

And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his yellow-striped burnous To gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was thy paladin.

* * * * *

GO, seek his fragments on the moor and wash them in the evening dew, And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated paramour!

Go, seek them where they lie alone and from their broken pieces make Thy bruisèd bedfellow! And wake mad passions in the senseless stone!

Charm his dull ear with Syrian hymns! he loved your body! oh, be kind, Pour spikenard on his hair, and wind soft rolls of linen round his limbs!

Wind round his head the figured coins! stain with red fruits those pallid lips! Weave purple for his shrunken hips! and purple for his barren loins!

* * * * *

AWAY to Egypt! Have no fear. Only one God has ever died. Only one God has let His side be wounded by a soldier’s spear.

But these, thy lovers, are not dead. Still by the hundred-cubit gate Dog-faced Anubis sits in state with lotus-lilies for thy head.

Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon strains his lidless eyes Across the empty land, and cries each yellow morning unto thee.

And Nilus with his broken horn lies in his black and oozy bed And till thy coming will not spread his waters on the withering corn.

Your lovers are not dead, I know. They will rise up and hear your voice And clash their cymbals and rejoice and run to kiss your mouth! And so,

Set wings upon your argosies! Set horses to your ebon car! Back to your Nile! Or if you are grown sick of dead divinities

Follow some roving lion’s spoor across the copper-coloured plain, Reach out and hale him by the mane and bid him be your paramour!

Couch by his side upon the grass and set your white teeth in his throat And when you hear his dying note lash your long flanks of polished brass

And take a tiger for your mate, whose amber sides are flecked with black, And ride upon his gilded back in triumph through the Theban gate,

And toy with him in amorous jests, and when he turns, and snarls, and gnaws, O smite him with your jasper claws! and bruise him with your agate breasts!

* * * * *

WHY are you tarrying? Get hence! I weary of your sullen ways, I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent magnificence.

Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light flicker in the lamp, And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful dews of night and death.

Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake, Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances to fantastic tunes,

Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your black throat is like the hole Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic tapestries.

Away! The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying through the Western gate! Away! Or it may be too late to climb their silent silver cars!

See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled towers, and the rain Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs with tears the wannish day.

What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with uncouth gestures and unclean, Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you to a student’s cell?

* * * * *

WHAT songless tongueless ghost of sin crept through the curtains of the night, And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked, and bade you enter in?

Are there not others more accursed, whiter with leprosies than I? Are Abana and Pharphar dry that you come here to slake your thirst?

Get hence, you loathsome mystery! Hideous animal, get hence! You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me what I would not be.

You make my creed a barren sham, you wake foul dreams of sensual life, And Atys with his blood-stained knife were better than the thing I am.

False Sphinx! False Sphinx! By reedy Styx old Charon, leaning on his oar, Waits for my coin. Go thou before, and leave me to my crucifix,

Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches the world with wearied eyes, And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every soul in vain.

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

IN MEMORIAM C. T. W. SOMETIME TROOPER OF THE ROYAL HORSE GUARDS OBIIT H.M. PRISON, READING, BERKSHIRE JULY 7, 1896

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

I

HE did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom he loved, And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men In a suit of shabby grey; A cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay; But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day.