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Leave Casella. | |
Send out your thought upon the Mantuan palace | |
Drear waste, great halls, | |
Silk tatters still in the frame, Gonzagas 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, | |
Quieu trobei, tornei em plor. | |
Theres the one stave, and all the rest forgotten. | 15 |
Ive lost the copy I had of it in Paris, | |
Out of the blue and gilded manuscript | |
Decked out with Coucis 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 theres En Arnauts 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: | |
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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 singers 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 |
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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: | |
Gods 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 |
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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 comthey 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. | |
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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. | |
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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 nights 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
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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 Kings 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 Kumasakas ghost come back to tell | |
The honor of the youth whod 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 kings features
No use, my liege | |
She is your highness sister, breaks in Ancures; | |
Mal fuego senciende! | |
Such are the gestes of war told over and over. | 155 |
And Ignez? Was a queens tire-woman, | |
Court sinecure, the court of Portugal; | |
And the young prince loved herPedro, | |
Later called the cruel. And other courtiers were jealous. | |
Two of them stabbed her with the kings 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 souls 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 Lisbonhow long after? | |
Contrives a company, the Dutch eat Portugal, | |
Follow her ships tracks, Roemer Vischers 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? | |
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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 luckhe married and got four sons; | |
Three died, the fourth he sent to Paris | |
Ten years of Julians 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 doctors fancy for the mantel-piece; | |
Sheepjabbing the wool upon their flea-bit backs | |
The local doctors 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!
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