I. NEPTUNE IN CHAINS
Enslaved are the old Gods;
Pan pipes soundlessly
For the unheeding bees.
Bound by the trailing tresses of the vine
To soft captivity,
Neptune has left his waves
To stand beneath the frozen, green cascades
Of summer trees.
Is the Sea-God, then, content to rule
The rippling of wayward flowers,
Lulled by the songs that many birds pour out
From their green-cradles, gently-rocked
—Songs that foam like hissing rain
Among the heavy blossoms?
Can he control
The music of the wind through poplar trees,
—Those trees, an instrument
That any wind, however young
Or drunk with drowsing scent
Of petals, crushed by the flaming fingers of the sun
Can play upon?
But darkness, the deliverer
Comes with dreams.
Night's grape-stained waves
Cool his aching body—
The song of the nightingale
Falls round him
Like the froth of little waves;
The warm touch of the evening wind
Thaws the green cascades
Till you can hear
Every liquid sound within the world
—Fountains, falling waterfalls,
And the low murmur of the rolling sea
—And Neptune dreams that he is free.
II. FOUNTAINS
Proud fountains, wave your plumes,
Spread out your phoenix-wing,
Let the tired trees rejoice
Beneath your blossoming
(Tired trees, you whisper low).
High up, high up, above
These green and drooping sails,
A fluttering young wind
Hovers and dives—but fails
To steal a foaming feather.
Sail, like a crystal ship,
Above your sea of glass;
Then, with your quickening touch,
Transmute the things that pass
(Come down, cool wind, come down).
All humble things proclaim,
Within your magic net,
Their kinship to the Gods.
More strange and lovely yet
All lovely things become.
Dead, sculptured stone assumes
The life from which it came;
The kingfisher is now
A moving tongue of flame,
A blue, live tongue of flame—
While birds, less proud of wing,
Crouch, in wind-ruffled shade,
Hide shyly, then pour out,
Their jealous serenade;
... Close now your golden wings!
PARADE
While vapour rises, the sun shines along
A promenade beneath tall trees. In vain
Seek thirsting flowers to thread their crystal song
Upon the liquid harpstrings of the rain.
Sweet air is honey'd with the lulling sound
Of bees, gold-dusted. In the avenue
Each leaf is now a lens the sun has found
To focus light, and cast green shadow through
Where walks Zenobia. Her marmoset
Perched on the shoulder, grabs at ribbon'd flowers
Or youthful curls of elders. Etiquette
Is outraged, and a dowager glowers.
The Marmoset plays with Zenobia's curls,
Clutches the papillon's enamel'd sail;
Gesticulates with idiot hands; unfurls,
Then counts, the piebald rings upon his tail.
Here flutter fan and feather to and fro
As eager birds caressing golden sheaves;
And like the spray of fountains, when winds blow
The froth of laughter foams among the leaves,
Till music, thin as silver wire, uncoils
—Metallic trap to trip unwary players—
A tune, ringed like the monkey's tail; but foils
Any attempt to straighten it—In layers
The idlers pause to watch the stage, where leap
These masked buffoons to which the Old Gods sank.
Over her fan Zenobia may peep
At the lewd gestures of a mountebank.
The silent lime-trees drip their golden scent;
Staccato shrills the puppet, waves a wand,
Postures, exaggerates a sentiment....
The little ape, alone, may understand
How men make Gods, and place them up above;
Then clamber up themselves to throw God down,
Dearly pay deities for former love;
We hold them captive, make them play the clown.
Who knows but that, one day, men may be bound
Thus to make war or love for apeish laughter,
Until the world of gibbering monkeys round
Quiver with laughter at our ape-like slaughter?
* * * * *
Ends song and antic; players quit the stage
To the gloved silence of genteel applause,
Splutters El Capitan in Spanish rage,
Curses his money. Swathed in quiet, like gauze,
The World is still, until a breeze sets free
Green leaves, with plucking sound of mandoline.
Convulsed the monkey capers—seems to see
The wind, that wingéd God and Harlequin.
Who, flying down, sounds waters' silver strings
And brings soft music from far trembling towers,
Snatches a bird-bright feather for his wings
And flickers light on many secret flowers.
ENGLISH GOTHIC
Above the valley floats a fleet
Of white, small clouds. Like castanets
The corn-crakes clack; down in the street
Old ladies air their canine pets.
The bells boom out with grumbling tone
To warn the people of the place
That soon they'll find, before His Throne,
Their Maker, with a frowning face.
* * * * *
The souls of bishops, shut in stone
By masons, rest in quietude
As flies in amber. They atone
Each buzzing long-dead platitude.
For lichen plants its golden flush
Here, where the gaiter should have bent;
With glossy wings the black crows brush
Carved mitres, caw in merriment.
Wings blacker than a verger's hat
Beat on the air. These birds must learn
Their preaching note by pecking at
The lips of those who, treading fern,
Ascend the steps to Heaven's height.
—The willow herb, down by the wood,
Flares out to mark the phoenix-flight
Of God Apollo's car. Its hood
Singes the trees. The swans who float
—Wings whiter than the foam of sea—
Up the episcopal smooth moat,
Uncurl their necks to ring for tea.
* * * * *
At this sign, in the plump green close,
The Deans say grace. A hair pomade
Scents faded air. But still outside
Stone bishops scale a stone façade.
A thousand strong, church-bound, they look
Across shrill meadows—but to find
The cricket bat defeats the Book
—Matter triumphant over Mind!
Wellington said Waterloo
Was won upon the playing-fields,
Which thought might comfort clergy who
Admire the virtues that rank yields.
But prelates of stone cannot relate
An Iron Duke's strong and silent words.
The knights in armour rest in state
Within, and grasp their marble swords.
Above, where flutter angel-wings
Caught in the organ's rolling loom,
Hang in the air, like jugglers' rings,
Dim quatrefoils of coloured gloom.
Tall arches rise to imitate
The jaws of Jonah's whale. Up flows
The chant. Thin spinsters sibilate
Beneath a full-blown Gothic rose.
Pillars surge upward, break in spray
Upon the high and fretted roof;
But children scream outside—betray
The urging of a cloven hoof.
* * * * *
Tier above tier the Bishops stare
Away, away, ... above the hills;
Their faded eyes repel the glare
Of dying sun, till sunset fills
Each pointed niche, in which they stand,
With glory of earth; humanity
Is spurned by one, with upturned hand,
Who warns them all is vanity.
The swan beneath the sunset arch
Expands his wings, as if to fly.
A thousand saints upon the march
Glow in the water, ... but to die.
A man upon the hill can hear
The organ. Echoes he has found
That, having lost religious fear,
Are pagan; till the rushing sound
Clearly denotes Apollo's car,
That roars past moat and bridge and tree,
The Young God sighs. How far, how far,
Before the night shall set him free?
THE BACKWARD CHILD
Asleep, asleep with closéd eyes
In the womb of time, King Pharaoh lies;
Heavy the darkness is, as rust,
On the cold sword he holds; while dust
Muffles the mocking panoply
With quilted silence, dead and grey.
Here any wandering sound would skim
The sleep off silence, to wake him
Till under the too-smooth mask of gold
Old parchment wrinkles would unfold,
His green and ice-bound limbs expand,
The dead flowers blossom in dead hand;
But comes no sound, save the flitting scowl
Of death-winged bat, or vault-voiced owl,
No sound through the ages all forlorn,
Unless a padding unicorn
Obscures his treasure, ivory white,
In the Egyptian grape-blue night;
Curling his limbs to rest, untangles
His milky mane, while moon-sharp angles
Of pyramids enfold him close
In their defiant, calm repose—
For their harsh angularity
Defeats the hunter's cruelty....
* * * * *
No padding unicorn is this
To prick the Old King's nothingness,
Yet a movement woke, a faint sound stirred
The silence, like a spoken word
No soft night sound, nor anything
But rolling laughter echoing.
* * * * *
Then King Pharaoh stretched, stood up, with a smile
Touched the crowns of the Upper and Lower Nile.
Like the jewels in his crown, had grown more deep
His gypsy eyes in embalméd sleep,
While out of the golden sockets came
A very living, curious flame.
He dashed the gold mask on the floor,
His dry limbs creaked toward the door,
And out of it thrust his nodding head,
A pendulum to count the dead,
—For there below in the lion-coloured sand
Salome danced the Sarabande!
* * * * *
With ruffled plumage, the sun flashed its wing
On a double-crowned, parchment-yellow king.
The clear bronze sides of the pyramids
Shone like polished coffin-lids,
Each side a huge triangular mirror
To magnify each separate terror,
To heighten the shadows, to enhance
How dead was the king, how alive the dance,
Till ashamed the wicked echoes hid
Like bats in the depth of the pyramid,
Or hid far-off in the honey-comb hive
Of caves, where the bearded hermits live.
* * * * *
Serapion-the-Sidonite
Turned from the strange unholy sight.
Left his cave, went up the hill
Where aged Anthony dwells still.
Disturbed in prayer, St. Anthony,
Looks round, recalls a century;
Yet in that whole tempestuous age
Had beheld never such a mirage
(Not even when with book and bell
He cleansed the hill he loves so well
—That hill of Venusberg, whose name
The poor vile heathen still proclaim)
Led by two Bishops, with his high crook,
The old saint summons round his flock.
They, hour by hour, together read
The paternoster and the creed,
While Christian choirs of shrill-birds bless
The Saint's white-bearded holiness.
* * * * *
Below the heathen nightingales,
Embalm, within their seven veils
Of song, Salome—swathings fine
Scented with fountain, rose and vine—
Tired Pharaoh falls back in his box;
The lid snaps down. The golden flocks
Of stars browse round the singing trees
And orchards of Hesperides.
Down here no sound, except forlorn
Sad padding of the unicorn
Who seeks a refuge from the snare
Of cruel hunters; lurking here
His horn, his mane, his shape are hid
In slumber of the pyramid.
Safe here is he; for in this place
Hide every legendary race;
Saints, satyrs, unicorns, entrance
Us with their fabulous elegance;
And Pharaoh himself sits up to tea
Under the shade of the incense tree
Yet nomads, wandering, will find
No tree, no murmur, no soft wind!