| |
| Leave Casella. | |
| Send out your thought upon the Mantuan palace— | |
| Drear waste, great halls, | |
| Silk tatters still in the frame, Gonzaga’s splendor | |
| Alight with phantoms! What have we of them, | 5 |
| Or much or little? | |
| Where do we come upon the ancient people? | |
| “All that I know is that a certain star”— | |
| All that I know of one, Joios, Tolosan, | |
| Is that in middle May, going along | 10 |
| A scarce discerned path, turning aside, | |
| In level poplar lands, he found a flower, and wept. | |
| “Y a la primera flor,” he wrote, | |
| “Qu’ieu trobei, tornei em plor.” | |
| There’s the one stave, and all the rest forgotten. | 15 |
| I’ve lost the copy I had of it in Paris, | |
| Out of the blue and gilded manuscript | |
| Decked out with Couci’s rabbits, | |
| And the pictures, twined with the capitals, | |
| Purporting to be Arnaut and the authors. | 20 |
| Joios we have. By such a margent stream, | |
| He strayed in the field, wept for a flare of color, | |
| When Coeur de Lion was before Chalus. | |
| Or there’s En Arnaut’s score of songs, two tunes; | |
| The rose-leaf casts her dew on the ringing glass, | 25 |
| Dolmetsch will build our age in witching music. | |
| Viols da Gamba, tabors, tympanons: | |
| |
| “Yin-yo laps in the reeds, my guest departs, | |
| The maple leaves blot up their shadows, | |
| The sky is full of autumn, | 30 |
| We drink our parting in saki. | |
| Out of the night comes troubling lute music, | |
| And we cry out, asking the singer’s name, | |
And get this answer:
“‘Many a one | |
| Brought me rich presents; my hair was full of jade, | 35 |
| And my slashed skirts, drenched in expensive dyes, | |
| Were dipped in crimson, sprinkled with rare wines. | |
| I was well taught my arts at Ga-ma-rio, | |
| And then one year I faded out and married.’ | |
The lute-bowl hid her face.
“We heard her weeping.” | 40 |
| |
| Society, her sparrows, Venus’ sparrows, and Catullus | |
| Hung on the phrase (played with it as Mallarmé | |
| Played for a fan, “Rêveuse pour que je plonge,”); | |
| Wrote out his crib from Sappho: | |
| “God’s peer that man is in my sight— | 45 |
| Yea, and the very gods are under him, | |
| Who sits opposite thee, facing thee, near thee, | |
| Gazing his fill and hearing thee, | |
| And thou smilest. Woe to me, with | |
| Quenched senses, for when I look upon thee, Lesbia, | 50 |
| There is nothing above me | |
| And my tongue is heavy, and along my veins | |
| Runs the slow fire, and resonant | |
| Thunders surge in behind my ears, | |
| And the night is thrust down upon me.” | 55 |
| |
| That was the way of love, flamma dimanat. | |
| And in a year, “I love her as a father”; | |
| And scarce a year, “Your words are written in water”; | |
| And in ten moons, “Caelius, Lesbia illa— | |
| That Lesbia, Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia | 60 |
| Whom Catullus once loved more | |
| Than his own soul and all his friends, | |
| Is now the drab of every lousy Roman.” | |
| So much for him who puts his trust in woman. | |
So the murk opens.
Dordoigne! When I was there, | 65 |
| There came a centaur, spying the land, | |
| And there were nymphs behind him. | |
| Or going on the road by Salisbury | |
| Procession on procession— | |
| For that road was full of peoples, | 70 |
| Ancient in various days, long years between them. | |
| Ply over ply of life still wraps the earth here. | |
Catch at Dordoigne.
Viscount St. Antoni | |
| In the warm damp of spring, | |
| Feeling the night air full of subtle hands, | 75 |
Plucks at a viol, singing:
“As the rose— | |
| Si com, si com”—they all begin “si com.” | |
| “For as the rose in trellis | |
| Winds in and through and over, | |
| So is your beauty in my heart, that is bound through and over. | 80 |
| So lay Queen Venus in her house of glass, | |
The pool of worth thou art,
Flood-land of pleasure.” | |
| But the Viscount Pena | |
| Went making war into an hostile country | |
| Where he was wounded: | 85 |
| “The news held him dead.” | |
| St. Antoni in favor, and the lady | |
| Ready to hold his hands— | |
| This last report upset the whole convention. | |
| She rushes off to church, sets up a gross of candles, | 90 |
| Pays masses for the soul of Viscount Pena. | |
| |
| Thus St. Circ has the story: | |
| “That sire Raimon Jordans, of land near Caortz, | |
| Lord of St. Antoni, loved this Viscountess of Pena | |
| ‘Gentle’ and ‘highly prized.’ | 95 |
| And he was good at arms and bos trobaire, | |
| And they were taken with love beyond all measure,” | |
| And then her husband was reported dead, | |
| “And at this news she had great grief and sorrow,” | |
| And gave the church such wax for his recovery, | 100 |
| That he recovered, and | |
| “At this news she had great grief and teen,” | |
| And fell to moping, dismissed St. Antoni; | |
| “Thus was there more than one in deep distress.” | |
| |
| So ends that novel. And the blue Dordoigne | 105 |
| Stretches between white cliffs, | |
| Pale as the background of a Leonardo. | |
| “As rose in trellis, that is bound over and over,” | |
A wasted song?
No Elis, Lady of Montfort, | |
| Wife of William à Gordon, heard of the song, | 110 |
Sent him her mild advances.
Gordon? Or Gourdon | |
Juts into the sky
Like a thin spire, | |
| Blue night’s pulled down around it | |
| Like tent flaps, or sails close hauled. When I was there, | |
| La noche de San Juan, a score of players | 115 |
| Were walking about the streets in masquerade, | |
| With pikes and paper helmets, and the booths, | |
| Were scattered align, the rag ends of the fair. | |
| False arms! True arms? You think a tale of lances … | |
| A flood of people storming about Spain! | 120 |
| My cid rode up to Burgos, | |
| Up to the studded gate between two towers, | |
Beat with his lance butt.
A girl child of nine, | |
| Comes to a little shrine-like platform in the wall, | |
| Lisps out the words, a-whisper, the King’s writ: | 125 |
| “Let no man speak to Diaz or give him help or food | |
| On pain of death, his eyes torn out, | |
| His heart upon a pike, his goods sequestered.” | |
| He from Bivar, cleaned out, | |
| From empty perches of dispersed hawks, | 130 |
| From empty presses, | |
| Came riding with his company up the great hill— | |
“Afe Minaya!”—
to Burgos in the spring, | |
| And thence to fighting, to down-throw of Moors, | |
| And to Valencia rode he, by the beard!— | 135 |
Muy velida.
Of onrush of lances, | |
| Of splintered staves, riven and broken casques, | |
| Dismantled castles, of painted shields split up, | |
| Blazons hacked off, piled men and bloody rivers; | |
| Then “sombre light upon reflecting armor” | 140 |
| And portents in the wind, when De las Nieblas | |
| Set out to sea-fight, | |
| Y dar neuva lumbre las armas y hierros.” | |
| Full many a fathomed sea-change in the eyes | |
| That sought with him the salt sea victories. | 145 |
Another gate?
And Kumasaka’s ghost come back to tell | |
| The honor of the youth who’d slain him. | |
Another gate.
The kernelled walls of Toro, las almenas; | |
| Afield, a king come in an unjust cause. | |
| Atween the chinks aloft flashes the armored figure, | 150 |
| Muy linda, a woman, Helen, a star, | |
Lights the king’s features …
“No use, my liege— | |
| She is your highness’ sister,” breaks in Ancures; | |
| “Mal fuego s’enciende!” | |
| Such are the gestes of war “told over and over.” | 155 |
And Ignez?
Was a queen’s tire-woman, | |
| Court sinecure, the court of Portugal; | |
| And the young prince loved her—Pedro, | |
| Later called the cruel. And other courtiers were jealous. | |
| Two of them stabbed her with the king’s connivance, | 160 |
| And he, the prince, kept quiet a space of years— | |
| Uncommon the quiet. | |
| And he came to reign, and had his will upon the dagger-players, | |
| And held his court, a wedding ceremonial— | |
| He and her dug-up corpse in cerements | 165 |
| Crowned with the crown and splendor of Portugal. | |
| A quiet evening and a decorous procession; | |
| Who winked at murder kisses the dead hand, | |
| Does leal homage, | |
| “Que depois de ser morta foy Rainha.” | 170 |
| Dig up Camoens, hear out his resonant bombast: | |
| “That among the flowers, | |
| As once was Proserpine, | |
| Gatheredst thy soul’s light fruit and every blindness, | |
| Thy Enna the flary mead-land of Mondego, | 175 |
| Long art thou sung by maidens in Mondego.” | |
| What have we now of her, his “linda Ignez”? | |
| Houtmans in jail for debt in Lisbon—how long after?— | |
| Contrives a company, the Dutch eat Portugal, | |
| Follow her ship’s tracks, Roemer Vischer’s daughters, | 180 |
| Talking some Greek, dally with glass engraving; | |
| Vondel, the Eglantine, Dutch Renaissance— | |
| The old tale out of fashion, daggers gone; | |
| And Gaby wears Braganza on her throat— | |
| Commuted, say, another public pearl | 185 |
| Tied to a public gullet. Ah, mon rêve, | |
| It happened; and now go think— | |
| Another crown, thrown to another dancer, brings you to modern times? | |
| |
| I knew a man, but where ’twas is no matter: | |
| Born on a farm, he hankered after painting; | 190 |
| His father kept him at work; | |
| No luck—he married and got four sons; | |
| Three died, the fourth he sent to Paris— | |
| Ten years of Julian’s and the ateliers, | |
| Ten years of life, his pictures in the salons, | 195 |
| Name coming in the press. | |
| And when I knew him, | |
| Back once again, in middle Indiana, | |
| Acting as usher in the theatre, | |
| Painting the local drug-shop and soda bars, | 200 |
| The local doctor’s fancy for the mantel-piece; | |
| Sheep—jabbing the wool upon their flea-bit backs— | |
| The local doctor’s ewe-ish pastoral; | |
| Adoring Puvis, giving his family back | |
| What they had spent for him, talking Italian cities, | 205 |
Local excellence at Perugia,
dreaming his renaissance, | |
Take my Sordello!
| |
| |
