Georgian Poetry 1913-15 Part 18

He bowed not, nor disputed, but he saw Those ill-created joyless G.o.ds, and loathed, And saw them creeping, creeping round the walls, Death breeding death, wile witnessing to wile, And sickened at the dull iniquity Should be rewarded, and for ever breathe Contagion on the folk gathered in prayer.

His truth should not be doomed to march among This falsehood to the ages. He was called, And he must labour there; if so the king Would grant it, where the pillars bore the roof A galleried way of meditation nursed Secluded time, with wall of ready stone In panels for the carver set between The windows--there his chisel should be set,-- It was his plea. And the king spoke of him, Scorning, as one lack-fettle, among all these Eager to take the riches of renown; One fearful of the light or knowing nothing Of light's dimension, a witling who would throw Honour aside and praise spoken aloud All men of heart should covet. Let him go Grubbing out of the sight of those who knew The worth of substance; there was his proper trade.

A squat and curious toad indeed ... The eyes, Patient and grey, were dumb as were the lips, That, fixed and governed, h.o.a.rded from them all The larger laughter lifting in his heart.

Straightway about his gallery he moved, Measured the windows and the virgin stone, Till all was weighed and patterned in his brain.

Then first where most the shadows struck the wall, Under the sills, and centre of the base, From floor to sill out of the stone was wooed Memorial folly, as from the chisel leapt His chastening laughter searching priest and king-- Huge and wrinkled toad, with legs asplay, And belly loaded, leering with great eyes Busily fixed upon the void.

All days His chisel was the first to ring across The temple's quiet; and at fall of dusk Pa.s.sing among the carvers homeward, they Would speak of him as mad, or weak against The challenge of the world, and let him go Lonely, as was his will, under the night Of stars or cloud or summer's folded sun, Through crop and wood and pasture-land to sleep.

None took the narrow stair as wondering How did his chisel prosper in the stone, Unvisited his labour and forgot.

And times when he would lean out of his height And watch the G.o.ds growing along the walls, The row of carvers in their linen coats Took in his vision a virtue that alone Carving they had not nor the thing they carved.

Knowing the health that flowed about his close Imagining, the daily quiet won From process of his clean and supple craft, Those carvers there, far on the floor below, Would haply be transfigured in his thought Into a gallant company of men Glad of the strict and loyal reckoning That proved in the just presence of the brain Each chisel-stroke. How surely would he prosper In pleasant talk at easy hours with men So fashioned if it might be--and his eyes Would pa.s.s again to those dead G.o.ds that grew In spreading evil round the temple walls; And, one dead pressure made, the carvers moved Along the wall to mould and mould again The self-same G.o.d, their chisels on the stone Tapping in dull precision as before, And he would turn, back to his lonely truth.

He carved apace. And first his people's G.o.ds, About the toad, out of their sterile time, Under his hand thrilled and were recreate.

The bull, the pard, the camel and the ram, Tiger and owl and bat--all were the signs Visibly made body on the stone Of sightless thought adventuring the host That is mere spirit; these the bloom achieved By secret labour in the flowing wood Of rain and air and wind and continent sun ...

His tiger, lithe, immobile in the stone, A swift destruction for a moment leashed, Sprang crying from the jealous stealth of men Opposed in cunning watch, with engines hid Of torment and calamitous desire.

His leopard, swift on lean and paltry limbs, Was fear in flight before accusing faith.

His bull, with eyes that often in the dusk Would lift from the sweet meadow gra.s.s to watch Him homeward pa.s.sing, bore on ma.s.sy beam The burden of the patient of the earth.

His camel bore the burden of the d.a.m.ned, Being gaunt, with eyes aslant along the nose.

He had a friend, who hammered bronze and iron And cupped the moonstone on a silver ring, One constant like himself, would come at night Or bid him as a guest, when they would make Their poets touch a starrier height, or search Together with unparsimonious mind The crowded harbours of mortality.

And there were jests, wholesome as harvest ale, Of homely habit, bred of hearts that dared Judgment of laughter under the eternal eye: This frolic wisdom was his carven owl.

His ram was lordship on the lonely hills, Alert and fleet, content only to know The wind mightily pouring on his fleece, With yesterday and all unrisen suns Poorer than disinherited ghosts. His bat Was ancient envy made a mockery, Cowering below the newer eagle carved Above the arches with wide pinion spread, His faith's dominion of that happy dawn.

And so he wrought the G.o.ds upon the wall, Living and crying out of his desire, Out of his patient incorruptible thought, Wrought them in joy was wages to his faith.

And other than the G.o.ds he made. The stalks Of bluebells heavy with the news of spring, The vine loaded with plenty of the year, And swallows, merely tenderness of thought Bidding the stone to small and fragile flight; Leaves, the thin relics of autumnal boughs, Or ma.s.sed in June ...

All from their native pressure bloomed and sprang Under his shaping hand into a proud And governed image of the central man,-- Their moulding, charts of all his travelling.

And all were deftly ordered, duly set Between the windows, underneath the sills, And roofward, as a motion rightly planned, Till on the wall, out of the sullen stone, A glory blazed, his vision manifest, His wonder captive. And he was content.

And when the builders and the carvers knew Their labours done, and high the temple stood Over the cornlands, king and counsellor And priest and chosen of the people came Among a ceremonial mult.i.tude To dedication. And, below the thrones Where king and archpriest ruled above the throng, Highest among the ranked artificers The carvers stood. And when, the temple vowed To holy use, tribute and choral praise Given as was ordained, the king looked down Upon the gathered folk, and bade them see The comely G.o.ds fashioned about the walls, And keep in honour men whose precious skill Could so adorn the sessions of their worship, Gravely the carvers bowed them to the ground.

Only the man with wide and patient eyes Stood not among them; nor did any come To count his labour, where he watched alone Above the coloured throng. He heard, and looked Again upon his work, and knew it good, Smiled on his toad, pa.s.sed down the stair unseen, And sang across the teeming meadows home.

JAMES ELROY FLECKER

THE OLD SHIPS

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep Beyond the village which men still call Tyre, With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep For Famagusta and the hidden sun That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire; And all those ships were certainly so old-- Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun, Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges, The pirate Genoese h.e.l.l-raked them till they rolled Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.

But now through friendly seas they softly run, Painted the mid-sea blue or sh.o.r.e-sea green, Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold.

But I have seen Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn And image tumbled on a rose-swept bay A drowsy ship of some yet older day; And, wonder's breath indrawn, Thought I--who knows--who knows--but in that same (Fished up beyond aeaea, patched up new --Stern painted brighter blue--) That talkative, bald-headed seaman came (Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar) From Troy's doom-crimson sh.o.r.e, And with great lies about his wooden horse Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course.

It was so old a ship--who knows, who knows?

--And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain To see the mast burst open with a rose, And the whole deck put on its leaves again.

A FRAGMENT

O pouring westering streams Shouting that I have leapt the mountain bar, Down curve on curve my journey's white way gleams-- My road along the river of return.

I know the countries where the white moons burn, And heavy star on star Dips on the pale and crystal desert hills.

I know the river of the sun that fills With founts of gold the lakes of Orient sky.

And I have heard a voice of broken seas And from the cliffs a cry.

Ah still they learn, those cave-eared Cyclades, The Triton's friendly or his fearful horn, And why the deep sea-bells but seldom chime, And how those waves and with what spell-swept rhyme In years of morning, on a summer's morn Whispering round his castle on the coast, Lured young Achilles from his haunted sleep And drave him out to dive beyond those deep Dim purple windows of the empty swell, His ivory body flitting like a ghost Over the holes where flat blind fishes dwell, All to embrace his mother throned in her sh.e.l.l.

SANTORIN

(A Legend of the aegean)

'Who are you, Sea Lady, And where in the seas are we?

I have too long been steering By the flashes in your eyes.

Why drops the moonlight through my heart, And why so quietly Go the great engines of my boat As if their souls were free?'

'Oh ask me not, bold sailor; Is not your ship a magic ship That sails without a sail: Are not these isles the Isles of Greece And dust upon the sea?

But answer me three questions And give me answers three.

What is your ship?" 'A British.'

'And where may Britain be?'

'Oh it lies north, dear lady; It is a small country.'

'Yet you will know my lover, Though you live far away: And you will whisper where he has gone, That lily boy to look upon And whiter than the spray.'

'How should I know your lover, Lady of the sea?'

'Alexander, Alexander, The King of the World was he.'

'Weep not for him, dear lady, But come aboard my ship.

So many years ago he died, He's dead as dead can be.'

'O base and brutal sailor To lie this lie to me.

His mother was the foam-foot Star-sparkling Aphrodite; His father was Adonis Who lives away in Lebanon, In stony Lebanon, where blooms His red anemone.

But where is Alexander, The soldier Alexander, My golden love of olden days The King of the world and me?'

She sank into the moonlight And the sea was only sea.

YASMIN

(A Ghazel)