Canzoni & Ripostes Part 11

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 aether parted before thee.

Swift at courage thou in the sh.e.l.l 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 a.s.sume this?

THE TOMB AT AKR cAAR

"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 gra.s.s sprang up to pillow thee, And kissed thee with a myriad gra.s.sy 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 gla.s.s-green fields....

Yet it is quiet here: I do not go."

PORTRAIT D'UNE FEMME

Your mind and you are our Sarga.s.so 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-h.o.a.rd 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._