TO CARLOS TRACY CHESTER
"amicitiae longaevitate"
I have to thank the Editors of the English Review and the Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette for permission to include in this volume certain poems which originally appeared in those papers.
CONTENTS
[GUIDO INVITES YOU THUS]
[NIGHT LITANY]
[SANDALPHON]
[SESTINA: ALTAFORTE]
[PIERE VIDAL OLD]
[BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE]
[HYMN III FROM THE LATIN OF FLAMINIUS]
[SESTINA FOR YSOLT]
[PORTRAIT (FROM "LA MÈRE INCONNUE")]
[FAIR HELENA]
[LAUDANTES DECEM]
[AUX BELLES DE LONDRES]
[FRANCESCA]
[GREEK EPIGRAM]
[COLUMBUS' EPITAPH]
[PLOTINUS]
[ON HIS OWN FACE IN A GLASS]
[HISTRION]
[THE EYES]
[DEFIANCE]
[SONG]
[NEL BIANCHEGGIAR]
[NILS LYKKE]
[A SONG OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER]
[PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING]
[ALBA INNOMINATA]
[PLANH]
[EXULTATIONS]
Guido invites you thus[1]
"Lappo I leave behind and Dante too,
Lo, I would sail the seas with thee alone!
Talk me no love talk, no bought-cheap fiddl'ry,
Mine is the ship and thine the merchandise,
All the blind earth knows not th' emprise
Whereto thou calledst and whereto I call.
Lo, I have seen thee bound about with dreams,
Lo, I have known thy heart and its desire;
Life, all of it, my sea, and all men's streams
Are fused in it as flames of an altar fire!
Lo, thou hast voyaged not! The ship is mine."