Forty Two Poems
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James Elroy Flecker >> Forty Two Poems
HIALMAR SPEAKS TO THE RAVEN
from Leconte de Lisle
Night on the bloodstained snow: the wind is chill:
And there a thousand tombless warriors lie,
Grasping their swords, wild-featured. All are still.
Above them the black ravens wheel and cry.
A brilliant moon sends her cold light abroad:
Hialmar arises from the reddened slain,
Heavily leaning on his broken sword,
And bleeding from his side the battle-rain.
"Hail to you all: is there one breath still drawn
Among those fierce and fearless lads who played
So merrily, and sang as sweet in the dawn
As thrushes singing in the bramble shade?
"They have no word to say: my helm's unbound,
My breastplate by the axe unriveted:
Blood's on my eyes; I hear a spreading sound,
Like waves or wolves that clamour in my head.
"Eater of men, old raven, come this way,
And with thine iron bill open my breast:
To-morrow find us where we lie to-day,
And bear my heart to her that I love best.
"Through Upsala, where drink the Jarls and sing,
And clash their golden bowls in company,
Bird of the moor, carry on tireless wing
To Ylmer's daughter there the heart of me.
"And thou shalt see her standing straight and pale,
High pedestalled on some rook-haunted tower:
She has two earrings, silver and vermeil,
And eyes like stars that shine in sunset hour.
"Tell her my love, thou dark bird ominous;
Give her my heart, no bloodless heart and vile
But red compact and strong, O raven. Thus
Shall Ylmer's daughter greet thee with a smile.
"Now let my life from twenty deep wounds flow,
And wolves may drink the blood. My time is done.
Young, brave and spotless, I rejoice to go
And sit where all the Gods are, in the sun."
THE BALLAD OF THE STUDENT IN THE SOUTH
It was no sooner than this morn
That first I found you there,
Deep in a field of southern corn
As golden as your hair.
I had read books you had not read,
Yet I was put to shame
To hear the simple words you said,
And see your eyes aflame.
Shall I forget when prying dawn
Sends me about my way,
The careless stars, the quiet lawn,
And you with whom I lay?
Your's is the beauty of the moon,
The wisdom of the sea,
Since first you tasted, sweet and soon,
Of God's forbidden tree.
Darling, a scholar's fancies sink
So faint beneath your song;
And you are right, why should we think,
We who are young and strong?
For we are simple, you and I,
We do what others do,
Linger and toil and laugh and die
And love the whole night through.
THE QUEEN'S SONG
Had I the power
To Midas given of old
To touch a flower
And leave the petals gold
I then might touch thy face,
Delightful boy,
And leave a metal grace,
A graven joy.
Thus would I slay, -
Ah, desperate device!
The vital day
That trembles in thine eyes,
And let the red lips close
Which sang so well,
And drive away the rose
To leave a shell.
Then I myself,
Rising austere and dumb
On the hight shelf
Of my half-lighted room,
Would place the shining bust
And wait alone,
Until I was but dust,
Buried unknown.
Thus in my love
For nations yet unborn,
I would remove
From our two lives the morn,
And muse on loveliness
In mine armchair,
Content should Time confess
How sweet you were.
LORD ARNALDOS
Quien hubiese tal ventura?
The strangest of adventures,
That happen by the sea,
Befell to Lord Arnaldos
On the Evening of St. John;
For he was out a hunting -
A huntsman bold was he! -
When he beheld a little ship
And close to land was she.
Her cords were all of silver,
Her sails of cramasy;
And he who sailed the little ship
Was singing at the helm;
The waves stood still to hear him,
The wind was soft and low;
The fish who dwell in darkness
Ascended through the sea,
And all the birds in heaven
Flew down to his mast-tree.
Then spake the Lord Arnaldos,
(Well shall you hear his words!)
"Tell me for God's sake, sailor,
What song may that song be?"
The sailor spake in answer,
And answer thus made he; -
"I only tell my song to those
Who sail away with me."
WE THAT WERE FRIENDS
We that were friends to-night have found
A sudden fear, a secret flame:
I am on fire with that soft sound
You make, in uttering my name.
Forgive a young and boastful man
Whom dreams delight and passions please,
And love me as great women can
Who have no children at their knees.
MY FRIEND
I had a friend who battled for the truth
With stubborn heart and obstinate despair,
Till all his beauty left him, and his youth,
And there were few to love him anywhere.
Then would he wander out among the graves,
And think of dead men lying in a row;
Or, standing on a cliff observe the waves,
And hear the wistful sound of winds below;
And yet they told him nothing. So he sought
The twittering forest at the break of day,
Or on fantastic mountains shaped a thought
As lofty and impenitent as they.
And next he went in wonder through a town
Slowly by day and hurriedly by night,
And watched men walking up the street and down
With timorous and terrible delight.
Weary, he drew man's wisdom from a book,
And pondered on the high words spoken of old,
Pacing a lamplit room: but soon forsook
The golden sentences that left him cold.
After, a woman found him, and his head
Lay on her breast, till he forgot his pain
In gentle kisses on a midnight bed,
And welcomed royal-winged joy again.
When love became a loathing, as it must,
He knew not where to turn; and he was wise,
Being now old, to sink among the dust,
And rest his rebel heart, and close his eyes.
IDEAL
When all my gentle friends had gone
I wandered in the night alone:
Beneath the green electric glare
I saw men pass with hearts of stone.
Yet still I heard them everywhere,
Those golden voices of the air:
"Friend, we will go to hell with thee,
Thy griefs, thy glories we will share,
And rule the earth, and bind the sea,
And set ten thousand devils free;--"
"What dost thou, stranger, at my side,
Thou gaunt old man accosting me?
Away, this is my night of pride!
On lunar seas my boat will glide
And I shall know the secret things."
The old man answered: "Woe betide!"
Said I "The world was made for kings:
To him who works and working sings
Come joy and majesty and power
And steadfast love with royal wings."
"O watch these fools that blink and cower,"
Said that wise man: "and every hour
A score is born, a dozen dies."
Said I: --"In London fades the flower;
But far away the bright blue skies
Shall watch my solemn walls arise,
And all the glory, all the grace
Of earth shall gather there, and eyes
Will shine like stars in that new place."
Said he. "Indeed of ancient race
Thou comest, with thy hollow scheme.
But sail, O architect of dream,
To lands beyond the Ocean stream.
Where are the islands of the blest,
And where Atlantis, where Theleme?"
MARY MAGDALEN
O eyes that strip the souls of men!
There came to me the Magdalen.
Her blue robe with a cord was bound,
Her hair with Lenten lilies crowned.
"Arise," she said "God calls for thee,
Turned to new paths thy feet must be.
Leave the fever and the feast
Leave the friend thou lovest best:
For thou must walk in barefoot ways,
To give my dear Lord Jesus praise."
Then answered I--"Sweet Magdalen,
God's servant, once beloved of men,
Why didst thou change old ways for new,
Thy trailing red for corded blue,
Roses for lilies on thy brow,
Rich splendour for a barren vow?"
Gentle of speech she answered me:-
"Sir, I was sick with revelry.
True, I have scarred the night with sin,
A pale and tawdry heroine;
But once I heard a voice that said
'Who lives in sin is surely dead,
But whoso turns to follow me
Hath joy and immortality.'"
"O Mary, not for this," I cried,
"Didst thou renounce thy scented pride.
Not for a taste of endless years
Or barren joy apart from tears
Didst thou desert the courts of men.
Tell me thy truth, sweet Magdalen!"
She trembled, and her eyes grew dim:-
"For love of Him, for love of Him."
I ROSE FROM DREAMLESS HOURS
I rose from dreamless hours and sought the morn
That beat upon my window: from the sill
I watched sweet lands, where Autumn light newborn
Swayed through the trees and lingered on the hill.
If things so lovely are, why labour still
To dream of something more than this I see?
Do I remember tales of Galilee,
I who have slain my faith and freed my will?
Let me forget dead faith, dead mystery,
Dead thoughts of things I cannot comprehend.
Enough the light mysterious in the tree,
Enough the friendship of my chosen friend.
PRAYER
Let me not know how sins and sorrows glide
Along the sombre city of our rage,
Or why the sons of men are heavy-eyed.
Let me not know, except from printed page,
The pain of litter love, of baffled pride,
Or sickness shadowing with a long presage.
Let me not know, since happy some have died
Quickly in youth or quietly in age,
How faint, how loud the bravest hearts have cried.
A MIRACLE OF BETHLEHEM
SCENE: A street of that village.
Three men with ropes, accosted by a stranger.
THE STRANGER
I pray you, tell me where you go
With heads averted from the skies,
And long ropes trailing in the snow,
And resolution in your eyes.
THE FIRST MAN
I am a lover sick of love,
For scorn rewards my constancy;
And now I hate the stars above,
Because my dear will naught of me.
THE SECOND MAN
I am a beggar man, and play
Songs with a splendid swing in them,
But I have seen no food to-day.
They want no song in Bethlehem.
THE THIRD MAN
I am an old man, Sir, and blind,
A child of darkness since my birth.
I cannot even call to mind
The beauty of the scheme of earth.
Therefore I sought to understand
A secret hid from mortal eyes,
So in a far and fragrant land
I talked with men accounted wise,
And I implored the Indian priest
For wisdom from his holy snake,
Yet am no wiser in the least,
And have not seen the darkness break.
STRANGER
And whither go ye now, unhappy three?
THE THREE MEN WITH ROPES
Sir, in our strange and special misery
We met this night, and swore in bitter pride
To sing one song together, friend with friend,
And then, proceeding to the country side,
To bind this cordage to a barren tree,
And face to face to give our lives an end,
And only thus shall we be satisfied.
(They make to continue their road)
THE STRANGER
Stay for a moment. Great is your despair,
But God is kind. What voice from over there?
A WOMAN (from a lattice)
My lover, O my lover, come to me!
FIRST MAN
God with you. (he runs to the window)
STRANGER
Ah, how swiftly gone is he!
MANY VOICES, (heard singing in a cottage)
There is a softness in the night
A wonder in that splendid star
That fills us with delight,
Poor foolish working people that we are,
And only fit to keep
A little garden or a dozen sheep.
Old broken women at the fire
Have many ancient tales they sing,
How the whole world's desire
Should blossom here, and how a child should bring
New glory to his race
Though born in so contemptible a place.
Let all come in, if any brother go
In shame or hunger, cold or fear,
Through all this waste of snow.
To night the Star, the Rose, the Song are near,
And still inside the door
Is full provision for another score.
(The Beggar runs to them)
THE STRANGER (to the Blind Man)
Do you not mean to share these joys?
THE BLIND MAN
Aweary of this earthly noise
I pace my silent way.
Come you and help me tie this rope:
I would not lose my only hope.
Already clear the birds I hear,
Already breaks the day.
STRANGER
O foolish and most blind old man,
Where are those other two?
THE BLIND MAN
Why, one is wed and t'other fed:
Small thanks they gave to you.
STRANGER
To me no thanks are due.
Yet since I have some little power
Bequeathed me at this holy hour,
I tell you, friend, that God shall grant
This night to you your dearest want.
THE BLIND MAN
Why this sweet odour? Why this flame?
I am afraid. What is your name?
THE STRANGER
Ask your desire, for this great night
Is passing.
THE BLIND MAN
Sir, I ask my sight.
THE STRANGER
To see this earth? Or would you see
That hidden world which sent you me?
THE BLIND MAN
O sweet it were but once before I die
To track the bird about the windy sky,
Or watch the soft and changing grace
Imprinted on a human face.
Yet grant me that which most I struggled for,
Since I am old, and snow is on the ground.
On earth there's little to be found,
And I would bear with earth no more.
O gentle youth,
A fool am I, but let me see the Truth!
THE STRANGER
Gaze in my eyes.
THE BLIND MAN
How can I gaze?
What song is that, and what these rays
Of splendour and this rush of wings?
THE STRANGER
These are the new celestial things.
THE BLIND MAN
Round the body of a child
A great dark flame runs wild.
What may this be?
THE STRANGER
Look further, you shall see.
THE BLIND MAN
Out on the sea of time and far away
The Empires sail like ships, and many years
Scatter before them in a mist of spray:
Beyond is mist--when the mist clears -
Enough--Away!--O friend, I would be there!
STRANGER
It is most sure that God has heard his prayer.
(The stranger vanishes)
THE BEGGAR
(Leading a troop of revellers from the house where they were singing)
Come, brothers, seek my friend and bring him in.
On such a night as this it were a sin
To leave the blind alone.
THE REVELLERS
Greatly we fear lest he, still resolute,
Have wandered to the fields for poisoned fruit.
THE BEGGAR
See here upon this stone . . .
He is all frozen . . . take him to a bed
And warm his hands.
THE REVELLERS
O sorrow, he is dead!
GRAVIS DULCIS IMMUTABILIS
Come, let me kiss your wistful face
Where Sorrow curves her bow of pain,
And live sweet days and bitter days
With you, or wanting you again.
I dread your perishable gold:
Come near me now; the years are few.
Alas, when you and I are old
I shall not want to look at you:
And yet come in. I shall not dare
To gaze upon your countenance,
But I shall huddle in my chair,
Turn to the fire my fireless glance,
And listen, while that slow and grave
Immutable sweet voice of yours
Rises and falls, as falls a wave
In summer on forgotten shores.
PILLAGE
They will trample our gardens to mire, they will bury our city in fire;
Our women await their desire, our children the clang of the chain.
Our grave-eyed judges and lords they will bind by the neck with cords,
And harry with whips and swords till they perish of shame or pain,
And the great lapis lazuli dome where the gods of our race had a home
Will break like a wave from the foam, and shred into fiery rain.
No more on the long summer days shall we walk in the meadow-sweet ways
With the teachers of music and phrase, and the masters of dance and
design.
No more when the trumpeter calls shall we feast in the white-light halls;
For stayed are the soft footfalls of the moon-browed bearers of wine,
And lost are the statues of Kings and of Gods with great glorious wings,
And an empire of beautiful things, and the lips of the love who was mine.
We have vanished, but not into night, though our manhood we sold to
delight,
Neglecting the chances of fight, unfit for the spear and the bow.
We are dead, but our living was great: we are dumb, but a song of our
State
Will roam in the desert and wait, with its burden of long, long ago,
Till a scholar from sea-bright lands unearth from the years and the sands
Some image with beautiful hands, and know what we want him to know.
THE BALLAD OF ZACHO
(a Greek Legend.)
Zacho the King rode out of old
(And truth is what I tell)
With saddle and spurs and a rein of gold
To find the door of Hell.
And round around him surged the dead
With soft and lustrous eyes.
"Why came you here, old friend?" they said:
"Unwise . . . unwise . . . unwise!
"You should have left to the prince your son
Spurs and saddle and rein:
Your bright and morning days are done;
You ride not out again."
"I came to greet my friends who fell
Sword-scattered from my side;
And when I've drunk the wine of Hell
I'll out again and ride!"
But Charon rose and caught his hair
In fingers sharp and long.
"Loose me, old ferryman: play fair:
Try if my arm be strong."
Thrice drave he hard on Charon's breast,
And struck him thrice to ground,
Till stranger ghosts came out o' the west
And sat like stars around.
And thrice old Charon rose up high
And seized him as before.
"Loose me! a broken man am I,
And fight with you no more.''
"Zacho, arise, my home is near;
I pray you walk with me:
I've hung my tent so full of fear
You well may shake to see.
"Home to my home come they who fight,
Who fight but not to win:
Without, my tent is black as night,
And red as fire within.
"Though winds blow cold and I grow old,
My tent is fast and fair:
The pegs are dead men's stout right arms,
The cords, their golden hair."
PAVLOVNA IN LONDON
I listened to the hunger-hearted clown,
Sadder than he: I heard a woman sing, -
A tall dark woman in a scarlet gown -
And saw those golden toys the jugglers fling.
I found a tawdry room and there sat I,
There angled for each murmur soft and strange,
The pavement-cries from darkness and below:
I watched the drinkers laugh, the lovers sigh,
And thought how little all the world would change
If clowns were audience, and we the Show.
What starry music are they playing now?
What dancing in this dreary theatre?
Who is she with the moon upon her brow,
And who the fire-foot god that follows her? -
Follows among those unbelieved-in trees
Back-shadowing in their parody of light
Across the little cardboard balustrade;
And we, like that poor Faun who pipes and flees,
Adore their beauty, hate it for too bright,
And tremble, half in rapture, half afraid.
Play on, O furtive and heartbroken Faun!
What is your thin dull pipe for such as they?
I know you blinded by the least white dawn,
And dare you face their quick and quivering Day?
Dare you, like us, weak but undaunted men,
Reliant on some deathless spark in you
Turn your dull eyes to what the gods desire,
Touch the light finger of your goddess; then
After a second's flash of gold and blue,
Drunken with that divinity, expire?
O dance, Diana, dance, Endymion,
Till calm ancestral shadows lay their hands
Gently across mine eyes: in days long gone
Have I not danced with gods in garden lands?
I too a wild unsighted atom borne
Deep in the heart of some heroic boy
Span in the dance ten thousand years ago,
And while his young eyes glittered in the morn
Something of me felt something of his joy,
And longed to rule a body, and to know.
Singer long dead and sweeter-lipped than I,
In whose proud line the soul-dark phrases burn,
Would you could praise their passionate symmetry,
Who loved the colder shapes, the Attic urn.
But your far song, my faint one, what are they,
And what their dance and faery thoughts and ours,
Or night abloom with splendid stars and pale?
'Tis an old story that sweet flowers decay,
And dreams, the noblest, die as soon as flowers,
And dancers, all the world of them, must fail.
THE SENTIMENTALIST
There lies a photograph of you
Deep in a box of broken things.
This was the face I loved and knew
Five years ago, when life had wings;
Five years ago, when through a town
Of bright and soft and shadowy bowers
We walked and talked and trailed our gown
Regardless of the cinctured hours.
The precepts that we held I kept;
Proudly my ways with you I went:
We lived our dreams while others slept,
And did not shrink from sentiment.
Now I go East and you stay West
And when between us Europe lies
I shall forget what I loved best
Away from lips and hands and eyes.
But we were Gods then: we were they
Who laughed at fools, believed in friends,
And drank to all that golden day
Before us, which this poem ends.
DON JUAN IN HELL
(from Baudelaire.)
The night Don Juan came to pay his fees
To Charon, by the caverned water's shore,
A beggar, proud-eyed as Antisthenes,
Stretched out his knotted fingers on the oar.
Mournful, with drooping breasts and robes unsewn
The shapes of women swayed in ebon skies,
Trailing behind him with a restless moan
Like cattle herded for a sacrifice.
Here, grinning for his wage, stood Sganarelle,
And here Don Luis pointed, bent and dim,
To show the dead who lined the holes of Hell,
This was that impious son who mocked at him.
The hollow-eyed, the chaste Elvira came,
Trembling and veiled, to view her traitor spouse.
Was it one last bright smile she thought to claim,
Such as made sweet the morning of his vows?
A great stone man rose like a tower on board,
Stood at the helm and cleft the flood profound:
But the calm hero, leaning on his sword,
Gazed back, and would not offer one look round.
THE BALLAD OF ISKANDER
Aflatun and Aristu and King Iskander
Are Plato, Aristotle, Alexander.
Sultan Iskander sat him down
On his golden throne, in his golden crown,
And shouted, "Wine and flute-girls three,
And the Captain, ho! of my ships at sea."
He drank his bowl of wine; he kept
The flute-girls dancing till they wept,
Praised and kissed their painted lips,
And turned to the Captain of All his Ships
And cried, "O Lord of my Ships that go
From the Persian Gulf to the Pits of Snow,
Inquire for men unknown to man!"
Said Sultan Iskander of Yoonistan.
"Daroosh is dead, and I am King
Of Everywhere and Everything:
Yet leagues and leagues away for sure
The lion-hearted dream of war.
"Admiral, I command you sail!
Take you a ship of silver mail,
And fifty sailors, young and bold,
And stack provision deep in the hold,
"And seek out twenty men that know
All babel tongues which flaunt and flow;
And stay! Impress those learned two,
Old Aflatun, and Aristu.
"And set your prow South-western ways
A thousand bright and dimpling days,
And find me lion-hearted Lords
With breasts to feed Our rusting swords."
The Captain of the Ships bowed low.
"Sir," he replied, "I will do so."
And down he rode to the harbour mouth,
To choose a boat to carry him South.
And he launched a ship of silver mail,
With fifty lads to hoist the sail,
And twenty wise--all tongues they knew,
And Aflatun, and Aristu.
There had not dawned the second day
But the glittering galleon sailed away,
And through the night like one great bell
The marshalled armies sang farewell.
In twenty days the silver ship
Had passed the Isle of Serendip,
And made the flat Araunian coasts
Inhabited, at noon, by Ghosts.
In thirty days the ship was far
Beyond the land of Calcobar,
Where men drink Dead Men's Blood for wine,
And dye their beards alizarine.
But on the hundredth day there came
Storm with his windy wings aflame,
And drave them out to that Lone Sea
Whose shores are near Eternity.
* * *
For seven years and seven years
Sailed those forgotten mariners,
Nor could they spy on either hand
The faintest level of good red land.
Bird or fish they saw not one;
There swam no ship beside their own,
And day-night long the lilied Deep
Lay round them, with its flowers asleep.
The beams began to warp and crack,
The silver plates turned filthy black,
And drooping down on the carven rails
Hung those once lovely silken sails.
And all the great ship's crew who were
Such noble lads to do and dare
Grew old and tired of the changeless sky
And laid them down on the deck to die.
And they who spake all tongues there be
Made antics with solemnity,
Or closely huddled each to each
Talked ribald in a foreign speech.
And Aflatun and Aristu
Let their Beards grow, and their Beards grew
Round and about the mainmast tree
Where they stood still, and watched the sea.
And day by day their Captain grey
Knelt on the rotting poop to pray:
And yet despite ten thousand prayers
They saw no ship that was not theirs.
* * *
When thrice the seven years had passed
They saw a ship, a ship at last!
Untarnished glowed its silver mail,
Windless bellied its silken sail.
With a shout the grizzled sailors rose
Cursing the years of sick repose,
And they who spake in tongues unknown
Gladly reverted to their own.
The Captain leapt and left his prayers
And hastened down the dust-dark stairs,
And taking to hand a brazen Whip
He woke to life the long dead ship.
But Aflatun and Aristu,
Who had no work that they could do,
Gazed at the stranger Ship and Sea
With their beards around the mainmast tree.
Nearer and nearer the new boat came,
Till the hands cried out on the old ship's shame -
"Silken sail to a silver boat,
We too shone when we first set float!"
Swifter and swifter the bright boat sped,
But the hands spake thin like men long dead -
"How striking like that boat were we
In the days, sweet days, when we put to sea.
The ship all black and the ship all white
Met like the meeting of day and night,
Met, and there lay serene dark green
A twilight yard of the sea between.
And the twenty masters of foreign speech
Of every tongue they knew tried each;
Smiling, the silver Captain heard,
But shook his head and said no word.