I WOULD be as ignorant as the dawn,
That has looked down
On that old queen measuring a town
With the pin of a brooch,
Or on the withered men that saw
From their pedantic Babylon
The careless planets in their courses,
The stars fade out where the moon comes,
And took their tablets and made sums--
Yet did but look, rocking the glittering coach
Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses.
I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --
Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
I walked abroad in a snowy day:
I ask'd the soft snow with me to play:
She play'd & she melted in all her prime,
And the winter call'd it a dreadful crime.
Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with
rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love,
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love,
the pay is certain one way or another
(I loved a certain person ardently and my
love was not return'd,
Yet out of that I have written these songs).
A screen of cloud veils the mountain,
And cold monkeys squawk from green pines.
Fungi abound, but seeds dormant,
Searching for sprouts -- alas, in vain.
Somewhere near there's a fairy cave
Where flutes and lutes are often played.
Its Way is overgrown with moss,
And the old stone gate yields no clue.
Where have all the fairy folk gone?
Looking back, there's an endless plain
Where flowers fall like streaming tears.
It's easy to grow old; Where is
the messenger to bring some news?
To tell who the Golden Phoenix charms?
Waking from a deep, restless dream
What remains are blooms on the stream.
Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy the Human Dress.
The Human Dress is forged Iron,
The Human Form a fiery Forge,
The Human Face a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart its hungry Gorge.
When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of
the night?
The debt is paid,
The verdict said,
The Furies laid,
The plague is stayed,
All fortunes made;
Turn the key and bolt the door,
Sweet is death forevermore.
Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
Nor murdering hate, can enter in.
All is now secure and fast;
Not the gods can shake the Past;
Flies-to the adamantine door
Bolted down forevermore.
None can re-enter there, --
No thief so politic,
No Satan with a royal trick
Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finish what is packed,
Alter or mend eternal Fact.
There is health in thy gray wing,
Health of nature's furnishing.
Say, thou modern-winged antique,
Was thy mistress ever sick?
In each heaving of thy wing
Thou dost health and leisure bring,
Thou dost waive disease and pain
And resume new life again.
My mind's a map. A mad sea-captain drew
it
Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked
as jugs,
And states bright-patterned like Arabian
rugs.
"Here there be tygers." "Here we buried
Jim."
Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim
About their buried idol, drowned so cold
He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold.
A country like the dark side of the moon,
A cider-apple country, harsh and boon,
A country savage as a chestnut-rind,
A land of hungry sorcerers.
Your mind?
--Your mind is water through an April
night,
A cherry-branch, plume-feathery with its
white,
A lavender as fragrant as your words,
A room where Peace and Honor talk like
birds,
Sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth
Of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth,
Flutters and beats about those lovely
things.
You are the soul, enchanted with its
wings,
The single voice that raises up the dead
To shake the pride of angels.
I have said.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 