Canzoni & Ripostes Part 7

IN THE AIR

_The invisible Spirit of the Star answers them_:

Bend in your singing, gracious potencies, Bend low above your ivory bows and gold!

That which ye know but dimly hath been wrought High in the luminous courts and azure ways: Bend in your praise; For though your subtle thought Sees but in part the source of mysteries, Yet are ye bidden in your songs, sing this:

_"Gloria! gloria in excelsis_ _Pax in terra nunc natast."_

_Angels continuing in song_:

Shepherds and kings, with lambs and frankincense Go and atone for mankind's ignorance: Make ye soft savour from your ruddy myrrh.

Lo, how G.o.d's son is turned G.o.d's almoner.

Give ye this little Ere he give ye all.

ON EARTH

_One of the Magi_:

How the deep-voiced night turns councillor!

And how, for end, our starry meditations Admit us to his board!

_A Shepherd_:

Sir, we be humble and perceive ye are Men of great power and authority, And yet we too have heard.

DIANA IN EPHESUS

(_Lucina dolentibus_:)

"Behold the deed! Behold the act supreme!

With mine own hands have I prepared my doom, Truth shall grow great eclipsing other truth, And men forget me in the aging years."

_Explicit._

MAESTRO DI TOCAR

(W.R.)

You, who are touched not by our mortal ways Nor girded with the stricture of our bands, Have but to loose the magic from your hands And all men's hearts that glimmer for a day, And all our loves that are so swift to flame Rise in that s.p.a.ce of sound and melt away.

ARIA

My love is a deep flame that hides beneath the waters.

--My love is gay and kind, My love is hard to find as the flame beneath the waters.

The fingers of the wind meet hers With a frail swift greeting.

My love is gay and kind and hard of meeting, As the flame beneath the waters hard of meeting.

L'ART

When brightest colours seem but dull in hue And n.o.blest arts are shown mechanical, When study serves but to heap clue on clue That no great line hath been or ever shall, But hath a savour like some second stew Of many pot-lots with a smack of all.

'Twas one man's field, another's hops the brew, Twas vagrant accident not fate's fore-call.

Horace, that thing of thine is overhauled, And "Wood notes wild" weaves a concocted sonnet.

Here aery Sh.e.l.ley on the text hath called, And here, Great Scott, the Murex, Keats comes on it.

And all the lot howl, "Sweet Simplicity!"

'Tis Art to hide our theft exquisitely.

SONG IN THE MANNER OF HOUSMAN

O Woe, woe, People are born and die, We also shall be dead pretty soon Therefore let us act as if we were dead already.

The bird sits on the hawthorn tree But he dies also, presently.

Some lads get hung, and some get shot.

Woeful is this human lot.

_Woe! woe, etcetera_....

London is a woeful place, Shropshire is much pleasanter.

Then let us smile a little s.p.a.ce Upon fond nature's morbid grace.

_Oh, Woe, woe, woe, etcetera_....

TRANSLATIONS FROM HEINE

VON "DIE HEIMKEHR"

I

Is your hate, then, of such measure?