| XII What's this of death, from you who never will die? Think you the wrist that fashioned you in clay, The thumb that set the hollow just that way In your full throat and lidded the long eye So roundly from the forehead, will let die Broken, forgotten, under foot some day Your unimpeachable body, and so slay The work he most had been remembered by? I tell you this: whatever of dust to dust Goes down, whatever of ashes may return To its essential self in its own season, Loveliness such as yours will not be lost, But, cast in bronze upon his very urn, Make known him Master, and for what good reason. XIII I see so clearly now my similar years Repeat each other, shod in rusty black, Like one hack following another hack In meaningless procession, dry of tears, Driven empty, lest the noses sharp as shears Of gutter-urchins at a hearse's back Should sniff a man died friendless, and attack With silly scorn his deaf triumphant ears; I see so clearly how my life must run One year behind another year until At length these bones that leap into the sun Are lowered into the gravel, and lie still, I would at times the funeral were done And I abandoned on the ultimate hill. XIV Your face like a chamber where a king Dies of his wounds, untended and alone, Stifling with courteous gesture the crude moan That speaks too loud of mortal perishing, Rising on elbow in the dark to sing Some rhyme now out of season but well known In days when banners in his face were blown And every woman had a rose to fling. I know that through your eyes which look on me Who stand regarding you with pitiful breath, You see beyond the moment's pause, you see The sunny sky, the skimming bird beneath, And, fronting on your windows hopelessly, Black in the noon, the broad estates of Death. IV I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring. Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime. XV The light comes back with Columbine; she brings A touch of this, a little touch of that, Coloured confetti, and a favor hat, Patches, and powder, dolls that work by strings And moons that work by switches, all the things That please a sick man's fancy, and a flat Spry convalescent kiss, and a small pat Upon the pillow, — paper offerings. The light goes out with her; the shadows sprawl. Where she has left her fragrance like a shawl I lie alone and pluck the counterpane, Or on a dizzy elbow rise and hark — And down like dominoes along the dark Her little silly laughter spills again! XVI Lord Archer, Death, whom sent you in your stead? What faltering prentice fumbled at your bow, That now should wander with the insanguine dead In whom forever the bright blood must flow? Or is it rather that impairing Time Renders yourself so random, or so dim? Or are you sick of shadows and would climb A while to light, a while detaining him? For know, this was no mortal youth, to be To be of you confounded, but a heavenly guest, Assuming earthly garb for love of me, And hell's demure attire for love of jest: Bring me asphodel and a dark feather, He will return, and we shall laugh together! XVII Loving you less than life, a little less Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess I cannot swear I love you not at all. For there is that about you in this light — A yellow darkness, sinister of rain — Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight To dwell on you, and dwell on you again. And I made aware of many a week I shall consume, remembering in what way Your brown hair grows about your brow and cheek, And what divine absurdities you say: Till all the world, and I, and surely you, Will know I love you, whether or not I do. XVIII I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind, Am urged by your propinquity to find Your person fair, and feel a certain zest To bear your body's weight upon my breast: So subtly is the fume of life designed, To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind, And leave me once again undone, possessed. Think not for this, however, the poor treason Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, I shall remember you with love, or season My scorn with pity, — let me make it plain: I find this frenzy insufficient reason For conversation when we meet again. XIX What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its bows more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more. XX Still will I harvest beauty where it grows: In coloured fungus and the spotted fog Surprised on foods forgotten; in ditch and bog Filmed brilliant with irregular rainbows Of rust and oil, where half a city throws Its empty tins; and in some spongy log Whence headlong leaps the oozy emerald frog. . . . And a black pupil in the green scum shows. Her the inhabiter of diverse places Surmising at all doors, I push them all. Oh, you that fearful of a creaking hinge Turn back forevermore with craven faces, I tell you Beauty bears an ultra fringe Unguessed of you upon her gossamer shawl! XXI How healthily their feet upon the floor Strike down! These are no spirits, but a band Of children, surely, leaping hand in hand Into the air in groups of three and four, Wearing their silken rags as if they wore Leaves only and light grasses, or a strand Of black elusive seaweed oozing sand, And running hard as if along a shore. I know how lost forever, and at length How still these lovely tossing limbs shall lie, And the bright laughter and the panting breath; And yet, before such beauty and such strength, Once more, as always when the dance is high, I am rebuked that I believe in death. XXII Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release From dusty bondage into luminous air. O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day, When first the shaft into his vision shone Of light anatomized! Euclid alone Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they Who, though once only and then but far away, Have heard her massive sandal set on stone. |
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