Personae Part 7

From the Saddle

D'AUBIGNE TO DIANE

Wearied by wind and wave death goes With gin and snare right near alway Unto my sight. Behind me bay As hounds the tempests of my foes.

Ever on ward against such woes, Pistols my pillow's service pay, Yet Love makes me the poet play.

Thou know'st the rime demands repose, So if my line disclose distress, The soldier and my restlessness And teen, Pardon, dear Lady mine, For since mid war I bear love's pain 'Tis meet my verse, as I, show sign Of powder, gun-match and sulphur stain.

Marvoil

A poor clerk I, "Arnaut the less" they call me, And because I have small mind to sit Day long, long day cooped on a stool A-jumbling o' figures for Maitre Jacques Polin, I ha' taken to rambling the South here.

The Vicomte of Beziers's not such a bad lot.

I made rimes to his lady this three year: Vers and canzone, till that d.a.m.n'd son of Aragon, Alfonso the half-bald, took to hanging _His_ helmet at Beziers.

Then came what might come, to wit: three men and one woman, Beziers off at Mont-Ausier, I and his lady Singing the stars in the turrets of Beziers, And one lean Aragonese cursing the seneschal To the end that you see, friends:

Aragon cursing in Aragon, Beziers busy at Beziers-- Bored to an inch of extinction, Tibors all tongue and temper at Mont-Ausier, Me! in this d.a.m.n'd inn of Avignon, Stringing long verse for the Burlatz; All for one half-bald, knock-knee'd king of the Aragonese, Alfonso, Quatro, poke-nose.

And if when I am dead They take the trouble to tear out this wall here, They'll know more of Arnaut of Marvoil Than half his canzoni say of him.

As for will and testament I leave none, Save this: "Vers and canzone to the Countess of Beziers In return for the first kiss she gave me."

May her eyes and her cheek be fair To all men except the King of Aragon, And may I come speedily to Beziers Whither my desire and my dream have preceded me.

O hole in the wall here! be thou my jongleur As ne'er had I other, and when the wind blows, Sing thou the grace of the Lady of Beziers, For even as thou art hollow before I fill thee with this parchment, So is my heart hollow when she filleth not mine eyes, And so were my mind hollow, did she not fill utterly my thought.

Wherefore, O hole in the wall here, When the wind blows sigh thou for my sorrow That I have not the Countess of Beziers Close in my arms here.

Even as thou shalt soon have this parchment.

O hole in the wall here, be thou my jongleur, And though thou sighest my sorrow in the wind, Keep yet my secret in thy breast here; Even as I keep her image in my heart here.

_Mihi pergamena deest._

Revolt

Against the crepuscular spirit in

modern poetry

I would shake off the lethargy of this our time, and give For shadows--shapes of power For dreams--men.

"It is better to dream than do"?

Aye! and, No!

Aye! if we dream great deeds, strong men, Hearts hot, thoughts mighty.

No! if we dream pale flowers, Slow-moving pageantry of hours that languidly Drop as o'er-ripened fruit from sallow trees.

If so we live and die not life but dreams, Great G.o.d, grant life in dreams, Not dalliance, but life!

Let us be men that dream, Not cowards, dabblers, waiters For dead Time to reawaken and grant balm For ills unnamed.

Great G.o.d, if we be d.a.m.n'd to be not men but only dreams, Then let us be such dreams the world shall tremble at And know we be its rulers though but dreams!

Then let us be such shadows as the world shall tremble at And know we be its masters though but shadow!

Great G.o.d, if men are grown but pale sick phantoms That must live only in these mists and tempered lights And tremble for dim hours that knock o'er loud Or tread too violent in pa.s.sing them;

Great G.o.d, if these thy sons are grown such thin ephemera, I bid thee grapple chaos and beget Some new t.i.tanic sp.a.w.n to pile the hills and stir This earth again.

And Thus in Nineveh

"Aye! I am a poet and upon my tomb Shall maidens scatter rose leaves And men myrtles, ere the night Slays day with her dark sword.

"Lo! this thing is not mine Nor thine to hinder, For the custom is full old, And here in Nineveh have I beheld Many a singer pa.s.s and take his place In those dim halls where no man troubleth His sleep or song.

And many a one hath sung his songs

More craftily, more subtle-souled than I; And many a one now doth surpa.s.s My wave-worn beauty with his wind of flowers, Yet am I poet, and upon my tomb Shall all men scatter rose leaves Ere the night slay light With her blue sword.

"It is not, Raama, that my song rings highest Or more sweet in tone than any, but that I Am here a Poet, that doth drink of life As lesser men drink wine."

The White Stag

I ha' seen them mid the clouds on the heather.

Lo! they pause not for love nor for sorrow, Yet their eyes are as the eyes of a maid to her lover, When the white hart breaks his cover And the white wind breaks the morn.

"_'Tis the white stagy Fame, we're a-hunting, Bid the world's hounds come to horn!_"

_Piccadilly_

_Beautiful, tragical faces,_ _Ye that were whole, and are so sunken;_ _And, O ye vile, ye that might have been loved,_ _That are so sodden and drunken,_ _Who hath forgotten you?_