Canzoni & Ripostes Part 14

Gra.s.s, and low fields, and hills, And sun, Oh, sun enough!

Out and alone, among some Alien people!

A VIRGINAL

No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately, I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness, For my surrounding air has a new lightness; Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly And left me cloaked as with a gauze of aether; As with sweet leaves; as with a subtle clearness.

Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.

No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour, Soft as spring wind that's come from birchen bowers.

Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches, As winter's wound with her sleight hand she staunches, Hath of the tress a likeness of the savour: As white their bark, so white this lady's hours.

PAN IS DEAD

Pan is dead. Great Pan is dead.

Ah! bow your heads, ye maidens all, And weave ye him his coronal.

There is no summer in the leaves, And withered are the sedges; How shall we weave a coronal, Or gather floral pledges?

That I may not say, Ladies.

Death was ever a churl.

That I may not say, Ladies.

How should he show a reason, That he has taken our Lord away Upon such hollow season?

THE PICTURE[1]

The eyes of this dead lady speak to me, For here was love, was not to be drowned out, And here desire, not to be kissed away.

The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.

[1] "Venus Reclining," by Jacopo del Sellaio (1442-93).

OF JACOPO DEL SELLAIO

This man knew out the secret ways of love, No man could paint such things who did not know.

And now she's gone, who was his Cyprian, And you are here, who are "The Isles" to me.

And here's the thing that lasts the whole thing out: The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.

THE RETURN

See, they return; ah, see the tentative Movements, and the slow feet, The trouble in the pace and the uncertain Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one, With fear, as half-awakened; As if the snow should hesitate And murmur in the wind, and half turn back; These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"

Inviolable.

G.o.ds of the winged shoe!

With them the silver hounds, sniffing the trace of air!

Haie! Haie!

These were the swift to harry; These the keen-scented; These were the souls of blood.

Slow on the leash, pallid the leash-men.

EFFECTS OF MUSIC UPON A COMPANY OF PEOPLE

I

DEUX MOVEMENTS

1. Temple qui fut.

2. Poissons d'or.

1

A soul curls back, Their souls like petals, Thin, long, spiral, Like those of a chrysanthemum curl Smoke-like up and back from the Vavicel, the calyx, Pale green, pale gold, transparent, Green of plasma, rose-white, Spirate like smoke, Curled, Vibrating, Slowly, waving slowly.

O Flower animate!

O calyx!

O crowd of foolish people!

2

The petals!

On the tip of each the figure Delicate.

See, they dance, step to step.

Flora to festival, Twine, bend, bow, Frolic involve ye.

Woven the step, Woven the tread, the moving.

Ribands they move, Wave, bow to the centre.

Pause, rise, deepen in colour, And fold in drowsily.