Early Writings Read online

  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 ...”

  REVOLT

  Against the Crepuscular Spirit in Modern Poetry

  I would shake off the lethargy of this our time,

  and give

  For shadows—shapes of power

  For dreams—men.

  “It is better to dream than do”?

  Aye! and, No!

  Aye! if we dream great deeds, strong men,

  Hearts hot, thoughts mighty.

  No! if we dream pale flowers,

  Slow-moving pageantry of hours that languidly

  Drop as o’er-ripened fruit from sallow trees.

  If so we live and die not life but dreams,

  Great God, grant life in dreams,

  Not dalliance, but life!

  Let us be men that dream,

  Not cowards, dabblers, waiters

  For dead Time to reawaken and grant balm

  For ills unnamed.

  Great God, if we be damn’d to be not men but only dreams,

  Then let us be such dreams the world shall tremble at

  And know we be its rulers though but dreams!

  Then let us be such shadows as the world shall tremble at

  And know we be its masters though but shadow!

  Great God, if men are grown but pale sick phantoms

  That must live only in these mists and tempered lights

  And tremble for dim hours that knock o’er loud

  Or tread too violent in passing them;

  Great God, if these thy sons are grown such thin ephemera,

  I bid thee grapple chaos and beget

  Some new titanic spawn to pile the hills and stir

  This earth again.

  SESTINA: ALTAFORTE

  LOQUITUR1: En2 Bertrans de Born.

  Dante3 Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a stirrer up of strife.

  Eccovi!4

  Judge ye!

  Have I dug him up again?

  The scene is at his castle, Altaforte. “Papiols” is his jongleur.5

  “The Leopard,” the device of Richard Cœur de Lion.

  I

  Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.

  You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let’s to music!

  I have no life save when the swords clash.

  But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing

  And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,

  Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.

  II

  In hot summer have I great rejoicing

  When the tempests kill the earth’s foul peace,

  And the lightnings from black heav’n flash crimson,

  And the fierce thunders roar me their music

  And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,

  And through all the riven skies God’s swords clash.

  III

  Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!

  And the shrill neighs of destriers6 in battle rejoicing,

  Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!

  Better one hour’s stour than a year’s peace

  With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!

  Bah! there’s no wine like the blood’s crimson!

  IV

  And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.

  And I watch his spears through the dark clash

  And it fills all my heart with rejoicing

  And pries wide my mouth with fast music

  When I see him so scorn and defy peace,

  His lone might ’gainst all darkness opposing.

  V

  The man who fears war and squats opposing

  My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson

  But is fit only to rot in womanish peace

  Far from where worth’s won and the swords clash

  For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;

  Yea, I fill all the air with my music.

  VI

  Papiols, Papiols, to the music!

  There’s no sound like to swords swords opposing,

  No cry like the battle’s rejoicing

  When our elbows and swords drip the crimson

  And our charges ’gainst “The Leopard’s” rush clash.

  May God damn for ever all who cry “Peace!”

  VII

  And let the music of the swords make them crimson!

  Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!

  Hell blot black for alway the thought “Peace”!

  PIERE VIDAL OLD

  It is of Piere Vidal, the fool par excellence of all Provence, of whom the tale tells how he ran mad, as a wolf, because of his love for Loba of Penautier, and how men hunted him with dogs through the mountains of Cabaret and brought him for dead to the dwelling of this Loba (she-wolf) of Penautier, and how she and her Lord had him healed and made welcome, and he stayed some time at that court. He speaks:

  When I but think upon the great dead days

  And turn my mind upon that splendid madness,

  Lo! I do curse my strength

  And blame the sun his gladness;

  For that the one is dead

  And the red sun mocks my sadness.

  Behold me, Vidal, that was fool of fools!

  Swift as the king wolf was I and as strong

  When tall stags fled me through the alder brakes,

  And every jongleur knew me in his song,

  And the hounds fled and the deer fled

  And none fled over-long.

  Even the grey pack knew me and knew fear.

  God! how the swiftest hind’s blood spurted hot

  Over the sharpened teeth and purpling lips!

  Hot was that hind’s blood yet it scorched me not

  As did first scorn, then lips of the Penautier!

  Aye ye are fools, if ye think time can blot

  From Piere Vidal’s remembrance that blue night.

  God! but the purple of the sky was deep!

  Clear, deep, translucent, so the stars me seemed

  Set deep in crystal; and because my sleep

  —Rare visitor—came not,—the Saints I guerdon1

  For that restlessness—Piere set to keep

  One more fool’s vigil with the hollyhocks.

  Swift came the Loba, as a branch that’s caught,

  Torn, green and silent in the swollen Rhone,

  Green was her mantle, close, and wrought

  Of some thin silk stuff that’s scarce stuff at all,

  But like a mist wherethrough her white form fought,

  And conquered! Ah God! conquered!

  Silent my mate came as the night was still.

  Speech? Words? Faugh! Who talks of words and love?!

  Hot is such love and silent,

  Silent as fate is, and as strong until

  It faints in taking and in giving all.

  Stark, keen, triumphant, till it plays at death.

  God! she was white then, splendid as some tomb

  High wrought of marble, and the panting breath

  Ceased utterly. Well, then I waited, drew,

  Half-sheathed, then naked from its saffron sheath

  Drew full this dagger that doth tremble here.

  Just then she woke and mocked the less keen blade.

  Ah God, the Loba! and my only mate!

  Was there such flesh made ever and unmade!

  God curse the years that turn such women grey!

  Behold here Vidal, that was hunted, flayed,

  Shamed and yet bowed not and that won at last.

  And yet I curse the sun for his red gladness,

  I that have known strath, garth, brake, dale,

  And every run-away of the wood through that great madness,

  Behold me shrive
lled as an old oak’s trunk

  And made men’s mock’ry in my rotten sadness!

  No man hath heard the glory of my days:

  No man hath dared and won his dare as I:

  One night, one body and one welding flame!

  What do ye own, ye niggards! that can buy

  Such glory of the earth? Or who will win

  Such battle-guerdon with his “prowesse high”?

  O Age gone lax! O stunted followers,

  That mask at passions and desire desires,

  Behold me shrivelled, and your mock of mocks;

  And yet I mock you by the mighty fires

  That burnt me to this ash.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Ah! Cabaret! Ah Cabaret, thy hills again!

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Take your hands off me! ... [Sniffing the air.

  Ha! this scent is hot!

  BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE

  Simon Zelotes1 speaketh it somewhile after the Crucifixion

  Fere=Mate, Companion.

  Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all

  For the priests and the gallows tree?

  Aye lover he was of brawny men,

  O’ ships and the open sea.

  When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man

  His smile was good to see,

  “First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,

  “Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he.

  Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears

  And the scorn of his laugh rang free,

  “Why took ye not me when I walked about

  Alone in the town?” says he.

  Oh we drunk his “Hale” in the good red wine

  When we last made company,

  No capon priest was the Goodly Fere

  But a man o’ men was he.

  I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men

  Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,

  That they took the high and holy house

  For their pawn and treasury.

  They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book I think

  Though they write it cunningly;

  No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere

  But aye loved the open sea.

  If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere

  They are fools to the last degree.

  “I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere,

  “Though I go to the gallows tree.”

  “Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,

  And wake the dead,” says he,

  “Ye shall see one thing to master all:

  ’Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”

  A son of God was the Goodly Fere

  That bade us his brothers be.

  I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.

  I have seen him upon the tree.

  He cried no cry when they drave the nails

  And the blood gushed hot and free,

  The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue

  But never a cry cried he.

  I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men

  On the hills o’ Galilee,

  They whined as he walked out calm between,

  Wi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea.

  Like the sea that brooks no voyaging

  With the winds unleashed and free,

  Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret

  Wi’ twey words spoke’ suddently.

  A master of men was the Goodly Fere,

  A mate of the wind and sea,

  If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere

  They are fools eternally.

  I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb

  Sin’ they nailed him to the tree.

  “BLANDULA, TENULLA, VAGULA”

  What hast thou, O my soul, with paradise?

  Will we not rather, when our freedom’s won,

  Get us to some clear place wherein the sun

  Lets drift in on us through the olive leaves

  A liquid glory? If at Sirmio,1

  My soul, I meet thee, when this life’s outrun,

  Will we not find some headland consecrated

  By aery apostles of terrene delight,

  Will not our cult be founded on the waves,

  Clear sapphire, cobalt, cyanine,

  On triune2 azures, the impalpable

  Mirrors unstill of the eternal change?

  Soul, if She meet us there, will any rumour

  Of havens more high and courts desirable

  Lure us beyond the cloudy peak of Riva?3

  UND DRANG

  Nay, dwells he in cloudy rumour alone?

  Binyon1

  I

  I am worn faint,

  The winds of good and evil

  Blind me with dust

  And burn me with the cold,

  There is no comfort being over-man;

  Yet are we come more near

  The great oblivions and the labouring night,

  Inchoate truth and the sepulchral forces.

  II

  Confusion, clamour, ’mid the many voices

  Is there a meaning, a significance?

  That life apart from all life gives and takes,

  This life, apart from all life’s bitter and life’s sweet,

  Is good.

  Ye see me and ye say: exceeding sweet

  Life’s gifts, his youth, his art,

  And his too soon acclaim.

  I also knew exceeding bitterness,

  Saw good things altered and old friends fare forth,

  And what I loved in me hath died too soon,

  Yea I have seen the “gray above the green”;

  Gay have I lived in life;

  Though life hath lain

  Strange hands upon me and hath torn my sides,

  Yet I believe.

  . . . . . . .

  Life is most cruel where she is most wise.

  III

  The will to live goes from me.

  I have lain

  Dull and out-worn

  with some strange, subtle sickness.

  Who shall say

  That love is not the very root of this,

  O thou afar?

  Yet she was near me,

  that eternal deep.

  O it is passing strange that love

  Can blow two ways across one soul.

  And I was Aengus2 for a thousand years,

  And she, the ever-living, moved with me

  And strove amid the waves, and

  would not go.

  IV

  ELEGIA

  “Far buon tempo e trionfare”

  “I have put my days and dreams out of mind”3

  For all their hurry and their weary fret

  Availed me little. But another kind

  Of leaf that’s fast in some more sombre wind,

  Is man on life, and all our tenuous courses

  Wind and unwind as vainly.

  I have lived long, and died,

  Yea I have been dead, right often,

  And have seen one thing:

  The sun, while he is high, doth light our wrong

  And none can break the darkness with a song.

  To-day’s the cup. To-morrow is not ours:

  Nay, by our strongest bands we bind her not,

  Nor all our fears and our anxieties

  Turn her one leaf or hold her scimitar.

  The deed blots out the thought

  And many thoughts, the vision;

  And right’s a compass with as many poles

  As there are points in her circumference,

  ’Tis vain to seek to steer all courses even,

  And all things save sheer right are vain enough.

  The blade were vain to grow save toward the sun,

  And vain th’ attempt to hold her green forever.

  All things in season and no thing o’er long!

  Love and desire an
d gain and good forgetting,

  Thou canst not stay the wheel, hold none too long!

  V

  How our modernity,

  Nerve-wracked and broken, turns

  Against time’s way and all the way of things,

  Crying with weak and egoistic cries!

  All things are given over,

  Only the restless will

  Surges amid the stars

  Seeking new moods of life,

  New permutations.

  See, and the very sense of what we know

  Dodges and hides as in a sombre curtain

  Bright threads leap forth, and hide, and leave no pattern.

  VI

  I thought I had put Love by for a time

  And I was glad, for to me his fair face

  Is like Pain’s face.

  A little light,

  The lowered curtain and the theatre!

  And o’er the frail talk of the inter-act

  Something that broke the jest! A little light,

  The gold, and half the profile!

  The whole face

  Was nothing like you, yet that image cut

  Sheer through the moment.

  VIb

  I have gone seeking for you in the twilight,