Tall windows show Infinity;
And, hard reality,
The candles weep and pry and dance
Like lives mocked at by Chance.
The rooms are vast as Sleep within:
When once I ventured in,
Chill Silence, like a surging sea,
Slowly enveloped me.
VIII
THE SATYR IN THE PERIWIG
THE Satyr Scarabombadon
Pulled periwig and breeches on:
“Grown old and stiff, this modern dress
Adds monstrously to my distress;
The gout within a hoofen heel
Is very hard to bear; I feel
When crushed into a buckled shoe
The twinge will be redoubled, too.
And when I walk in gardens green
And, weeping, think on what has been,
Then wipe one eye,—the other sees
The plums and cherries on the trees.
Small bird-quick women pass me by
With sleeves that flutter airily,
And baskets blazing like a fire
With laughing fruits of my desire;
Plums sunburnt as the King of Spain,
Gold-cheeked as any Nubian,
With strawberries all goldy-freckled,
Pears fat as thrushes and as speckled ...
Pursue them?... Yes, and squeeze a tear:
‘Please spare poor Satyr one, my dear.’
‘Be off, sir; go and steal your own!’
—Alas, poor Scarabombadon,
They’d rend his ruffles, stretch a twig,
Tear off a satyr’s periwig!”
IX
THE MUSLIN GOWN
WITH spectacles that flash,
Striped foolscap hung with gold
And silver bells that clash,
(Bright rhetoric and cold),
In owl-dark garments goes the Rain,
Dull pedagogue, again.
And in my orchard wood
Small song-birds flock and fly,
Like cherubs brown and good,
When through the trees go I
Knee-deep within the dark-leaved sorrel.
Cherries red as bells of coral
Ring to see me come—
I, with my fruit-dark hair
As dark as any plum,
My summer gown as white as air
And frilled as any quick bird’s there.
But oh, what shall I do?
Old Owl-wing’s back from town—
He’s skipping through dark trees: I know
He hates my summer gown!
X
MISS NETTYBUN AND THE SATYR’S CHILD
AS underneath the trees I pass
Through emerald shade on hot soft grass,
Petunia faces, glowing-hued
With heat, cast shadows hard and crude—
Green-velvety as leaves, and small
Fine hairs like grass pierce through them all.
But these are all asleep—asleep,
As through the schoolroom door I creep
In search of you, for you evade
All the advances I have made.
Come, Horace, you must take my hand.
This sulking state I will not stand!
But you shall feed on strawberry jam
At tea-time, if you cease to slam
The doors that open from our sense—
Through which I slipped to drag you hence!
XI
QUEEN VENUS AND THE CHOIR-BOY
(To Naomi Royde Smith)
THE apples grow like silver trumps
That red-cheeked fair-haired angels blow—
So clear their juice; on trees in clumps,
Feathered as any bird, they grow.