Ihaverun where festival was loudWith drum and brass among the crowdOf panic revellers, whose criesAffront the quiet of the skies;Whose dancing lights contract the deepInfinity of night and sleepTo a narrow turmoil of troubled fire.And I have found my heart's desireIn beechen caverns that autumn fillsWith the blue shadowiness of distant hills;Whose luminous grey pillars bearThe stooping sky: calm is the air,Nor any sound is heard to marThat crystal silence—as from far,Far off a man may seeThe busy world all utterlyHushed as an old memorial scene.Long evenings I have sat and beenStrangely content, while in my handsI held a wealth of coloured strands,Shimmering plaits of silk and skeinsOf soft bright wool. Each colour drainsNew life at the lamp's round pool of gold;Each sinks again when I withholdThe quickening radiance, to a wanAnd shadowy oblivionOf what it was. And in my mindBeauty or sudden love has shinedAnd wakened colour in what was deadAnd turned to gold the sullen leadOf mean desires and everyday'sPoor thoughts and customary ways.Sometimes in lands where mountains throwTheir silent spell on all below,Drawing a magic circle wideAbout their feet on every side,Robbed of all speech and thought and act,I have seen God in the cataract.In falling water and in flame,Never at rest, yet still the same,God shows himself. And I have knownThe swift fire frozen into stone,And water frozen changelesslyInto the death of gems. And ILong sitting by the thunderous millHave seen the headlong wheel made still,And in the silence that ensuedHave known the endless solitudeOf being dead and utterly nought.Inhabitant of mine own thought,I look abroad, and all I seeIs my creation, made for me:Along my thread of life are pearledThe moments that make up the world.
Iwouldimmortalize these nymphs: so brightTheir sunlit colouring, so airy light,It floats like drowsing down. Loved I a dream?My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seemA subtle tracery of branches grownThe tree's true self—proving that I have knownNo triumph, but the shadow of a rose.But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... supposeThey bodied forth your senses' fabulous thirst?Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first,As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring,Beget: the other, sighing, passioning,Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?No, through this quiet, when a weary swoonCrushes and chokes the latest faint essayOf morning, cool against the encroaching day,There is no murmuring water, save the gushOf my clear fluted notes; and in the hushBlows never a wind, save that which through my reedPuffs out before the rain of notes can speedUpon the air, with that calm breath of artThat mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly,Where inspiration seeks its native sky.You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake,The sun's own mirror which I love to take,Silent beneath your starry flowers, tellHow here I cut the hollow rushes, wellTamed by my skill, when on the glaucous goldOf distant lawns about their fountain coldA living whiteness stirs like a lazy wave;And at the first slow notes my panpipes gaveThese flocking swans, these naiads, rather, flyOr dive.Noon burns inert and tawny dry,Nor marks how clean that Hymen slipped awayFrom me who seek in song the real A.Wake, then, to the first ardour and the sight,O lonely faun, of the old fierce white light,With, lilies, one of you for innocence.Other than their lips' delicate pretence,The light caress that quiets treacherous lovers,My breast, I know not how to tell, discoversThe bitten print of some immortal's kiss.But hush! a mystery so great as thisI dare not tell, save to my double reed,Which, sharer of my every joy and need,Dreams down its cadenced monologues that weFalsely confuse the beauties that we seeWith the bright palpable shapes our song creates:My flute, as loud as passion modulates,Purges the common dream of flank and breast,Seen through closed eyes and inwardly caressed,Of every empty and monotonous line.
Bloom then, O Syrinx, in thy flight malign,A reed once more beside our trysting-lake.Proud of my music, let me often makeA song of goddesses and see their rapeProfanely done on many a painted shape.So when the grape's transparent juice I drain,I quell regret for pleasures past and feignA new real grape. For holding towards the skyThe empty skin, I blow it tight and lieDream-drunk till evening, eyeing it.Tell o'erRemembered joys and plump the grape once more.Between the reeds I saw their bodies gleamWho cool no mortal fever in the streamCrying to the woods the rage of their desire:And their bright hair went down in jewelled fireWhere crystal broke and dazzled shudderingly.I check my swift pursuit: for see where lie,Bruised, being twins in love, by languor sweet,Two sleeping girls, clasped at my very feet.I seize and run with them, nor part the pair,Breaking this covert of frail petals, whereRoses drink scent of the sun and our light play'Mid tumbled flowers shall match the death of day.I love that virginal fury—ah, the wildThrill when a maiden body shrinks, defiled,Shuddering like arctic light, from lips that searIts nakedness ... the flesh in secret fear!Contagiously through my linked pair it fliesWhere innocence in either, struggling, dies,Wet with fond tears or some less piteous dew.Gay in the conquest of these fears, I grewSo rash that I must needs the sheaf divideOf ruffled kisses heaven itself had tied.For as I leaned to stifle in the hairOf one my passionate laughter (taking careWith a stretched finger, that her innocenceMight stain with her companion's kindling senseTo touch the younger little one, who layChild-like unblushing) my ungrateful preySlips from me, freed by passion's sudden death,Nor heeds the frenzy of my sobbing breath.
Let it pass! others of their hair shall twistA rope to drag me to those joys I missed.See how the ripe pomegranates bursting redTo quench the thirst of the mumbling bees have bled;So too our blood, kindled by some chance fire,Flows for the swarming legions of desire.At evening, when the woodland green turns goldAnd ashen grey, 'mid the quenched leaves, behold!Red Etna glows, by Venus visited,Walking the lava with her snowy treadWhene'er the flames in thunderous slumber die.I hold the goddess!Ah, sure penalty!
But the unthinking soul and body swoonAt last beneath the heavy hush of noon.Forgetful let me lie where summer's drouthSifts fine the sand and then with gaping mouthDream planet-struck by the grape's round wine-red star.
Nymphs, I shall see the shade that now you are.
Whenthe child's forehead, full of torments red,Cries out for sleep and its pale host of dreams,His two big sisters come unto his bed,Having long fingers, tipped with silvery gleams.
They set him at a casement, open wideOn seas of flowers that stir in the blue airs,And through his curls, all wet with dew, they slideThose terrible searching finger-tips of theirs.
He hears them breathing, softly, fearfully,Honey-sweet ruminations, slow respired:Then a sharp hiss breaks time and melody—Spittle indrawn, old kisses new-desired.
Down through the perfumed silences he hearsTheir eyelids fluttering: long fingers thrill,Probing a lassitude bedimmed with tears,While the nails crunch at every louse they kill.
He is drunk with Languor—soft accordion-sigh,Delirious wine of Love in Idleness;Longings for tears come welling up and die,As slow or swift he feels their magical caress.
B. H. Blackwell, Oxford.
NOW READYIN THE VALLEY OF VISIONBY GEOFFREY FABER, AUTHOR OF "INTERFLOW."SONNETS AND POEMSBY ELEANOR FARJEON, AUTHOR OF "NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN."THE DEFEAT OF YOUTH, AND OTHER POEMSBY ALDOUS HUXLEY, AUTHOR OF "THE BURNING WHEEL."IN PREPARATIONSONGS FOR SALEAN ANTHOLOGY OF VERSE, EDITED BY E. B. C. JONES FROM BOOKS ISSUED RECENTLY BY B. H. BLACKWELL.CLOWNS' HOUSESBY EDITH SITWELL, EDITOR OF "WHEELS."
NOW READY
IN PREPARATION
FIRST THREE BOOKS
SONGS AND SAYINGS OF WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE, MINNESAENGERENGLISHED BY FRANK BETTS.THE FUNERAL ORATION OF PERICLESENGLISHED BY THOMAS HOBBES OF MALMESBURY.BALLADES OF FRANCOIS VILLONINTERPRETED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY PAUL HOOKHAM.
¶ The series is limited in the case of each volume to an edition of five hundred copies on hand-made paper, printed in two colours in Dolphin old style type, and published at two shillings and sixpence net.
OXFORDB. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD ST.
¶ "Beautiful little books ... containing poetry, real poetry."—The New Witness.
I., II., III. and IV. [Out of print.]
THE IRON AGEBY FRANK BETTS. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GILBERT MURRAY.THE TWO WORLDSBY SHERARD VINES.THE BURNING WHEELBY A. L. HUXLEY.A VAGABOND'S WALLETBY STEPHEN REID-HEYMAN.OP. I.BY DOROTHY L. SAYERS. [Out of print.]LYRICAL POEMSBY DOROTHY PLOWMAN.THE WITCHES' SABBATHBY E. H. W. MEYERSTEIN.A SCALLOP SHELL OF QUIETPOEMS BY FOUR WOMEN. INTRODUCED BY MARGARET L. WOODS.AT A VENTUREPOEMS BY EIGHT YOUNG WRITERS.ALDEBARANBY M. ST. CLARE BYRNE.LIADAIN AND CURITHIRBY MOIREEN FOX.LINNETS IN THE SLUMSBY MARION PRYCE.OUT OF THE EASTBY VERA AND MARGARET LARMINIE.DUNCHBY SUSAN MILES.DEMETER AND OTHER POEMSBY ELEANOR HILL.CARGOBY S. BARRINGTON GATES.DREAMS AND JOURNEYSBY FREDEGOND SHOVE.THE PEOPLE'S PALACEBY SACHEVERELL SITWELL.GALLEYS LADENPOEMS BY FOUR WRITERS.
OXFORDB. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD ST.