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I Hung up on body parts in the particulate daylight, you step out of a Beckett play to find yourself in a memory resisting itself, as meat hits the fan so to speak against the white blanket of the grainy void. You never know where it’s going, the body, the boy swathed in bullets with those black eyes pissing a letter-opener in the desert mud near a disabled Mercedes. When things enter the room you think bazooka and check your hat. A puddle of warm ice-cream in anticipation. Here’s where Coney Island drops like a discarded napkin and you can’t go home again. Mucous brimming the banks, a cake of dust in the shape of a rocking chair ticking away. But soon it will snow as exquisite dogs languish from inside a sandwich tied to a parachute. No time for ballads, the table is set. II Light solidifies in cells, the keeper of lost keys. They don’t belong to anyone, the keys. Playing the game backwards reveals nothing a blind child could not guess by the hairs on his arm. The lips on old men are lockboxes in the terminal of no-knowing without gratitude for the despair of angels. You have to suffer, you have to fill up in order to implode, to be recognized for the necessities of commerce. They unhinge, finally, the doors you walk through into phantom stairwells in telephonic hum smelling of wet coal and doll’s hair. Precipitous adjectives gush from a cracked faucet in the chancellery restroom. Someone is stifling laughter from underneath a card table where an electric utility had fallen from his sleeve. They say that trussed birds derive no pleasure from the music of mangled wagons and that gas seeps like a well-kept secret imperiling dust mites in the spleens of hooded maidens locked away from the light. Everything is descending, even the scholarship of the ancient adverbs. Mouths twist into almonds and you wonder how the noise can drown itself out with nothing but nouns and dinner plates and gallows, with history a hiccup waiting to happen. III The music is an absence of colliding masses. You can cut your feet on the proverbial and be too close to hear it, the other music, the suffocation of things that can’t fly. A beautiful cacophony flutters in the brightness of dead calm as true objects lost in the politeness of daylight fill the grail of a new primitive. You choke on little candles and all through the night your legs cramp in the sweat of the moonlight. For no good reason a tenderness of geese is billowing in the curtains, as holes in the face open and close and paper scorches sky with futile encryption. Those armchairs foundering in the scum of the surf. Deafness craving disaster green in the spine, knowing the cocktail party’s over. Now it’s all red and your lips are trembling in believability, but it’s only a flickering image in the dark quadrant of your eye bending the light as they mow the daisies under the stars, for no good reason.

patricia beer O Lord thou draggest me out From the deep harbor άρτταγησόμεθα: we shall be caught up. Plymouth as it was, the Hoe laid out above Goemagot chary with scattered primrose, a stand of tulips that court the sun as glacially as girls beneath rayon doll hats and parasols inclining to passersby on the promenade. Beyond the breakwater,Warspite between Grenville and Hood. Narrow-eyed gulls with heartrending mews like paramours. Then Padua, balanced upon its own rubble. Raw colors returning with the first days of spring unkempt and ravenous to the faculty, students linking arms with practiced ease in giro through a stream of bicycles trilling in sweet voices. Kisses desired in full view returned, the elegant cafes audible from the river where the sky wanders through its city. Austen and Gaskell. Coffee, a stroll. Austen again. Brontë. I met her. The gray, lavish eyes. A ruthless stare softened by an accent. She was gracious, even to my callow posturing — called one windy effort that ended O Lord thou draggest me out a most faithful homage to Eliot, grave with kindly mockery. I drank my bitter tea. But consider this: her calves in sheer silk still a girl’s, her polished tan half-heels set against them: magnificent. That Italian air, the strict bob ordering her face. And driving back with Pinkie at his schoolmasterly pace, I picked my nails and watched myself in the dark wing when “The King in Thule” suddenly swelled with falling cadence through the speakers, its pure aurality heralding the shattering white late snow of April, the road a vein of black ore exhausting itself slowly to the north, the fields at Rogationtide émpty, innocent of all things, even life. i                   ii                                                     iii fay pomerance Beneath the shadow of hís wings, the scales stand baited against us. Maddox, charming predator, robustly mustachioed, vivid behind thick lenses condemning that discredited iconography— towers collapsing through quicksand, pavanes of anguish, the bodies of the lost ransacked by hobgoblins — reclines, his hatred virtue, its vital purity and strength, all his outrage told against those humiliating genuflections. Since there is no model for her features, conceive of her blanched as the Cabbage White, each brushstroke the drama of a tiny kenosis, the bright clatter of ferrules over- heard as conversation at a distant table, queasy and isolating — Babel. Tower of teacups at ominous angles in the studio, rings indelibly stamped in the watercolor paper’s grain. Stretched in membranes of fat: passover, Lamb. Burning leaven. Head ringing with psilocybin and gin, I kneel in the foreground of my own life quarter-sized, self-consciously humbled, like the donor in Altdorfer’s Crucifixion peering through the shadow of the cross to the city emptied of day laborers that rides at ease in the sun, bay deliciously windswept, the curdled blue of high summer fading out beyond the spruce where she stands in her living robes — and still I cannot comprehend how incidental we are to our own redemption, though the sacrifice remains intimate in violence, the half-accepting flinch of the face as if breasting the parapet or tensed into the impact of a tube train, the rapt mother in the privacy of her distress. Here is the gate of horn, the hacked bough of ash that even dying shivers forth gaily its barrowloads of leaves. jack clemo Let there be a chamber wherein no other light comes Not that I forget, but that, increasingly, the objects of my memory become ripe for disparagement: irrational or petit bourgeois, complicit in imperial power, conjurors of air slapped down by wolfish lecturers with gestures of ennui, pared nails and implacable smiles, vicious with piety. Little traitor, I defend them with a wounded stare and no more — perhaps, I find my place among them, being so cold and all. Bone-white pits of china clay gouged through that vision, the extravagant gaze of grace balanced upon us, its soteriology divorced from nature — something terrifying in declaration, his unforgiving line like being hunted. From the steeply-banked clay tips new dumps of refuse clatter to extend the protectorate of sand, sparse prickles of mica like fields in snow — above all, the dogma never thaws. And nothing. The day we climbed slowly out of Antequera through the cloud base stippled in dew, the lightly slung blue bells of nazarenes blazed between karst and darkness, wild rose and orchid, the unaccountable blood of the peony aching toward a sound that was both forsakenness and longing — wolves baying somewhere deep in the park — and I turned to you and wanted to know what next? Lost, we turned and turned and turned about among the stacks. Wings drilling the invisible host from cover to cover alerted us, the cramped and sullen thorns in anguish loomed. Until, picking our way down a gully deepening into spate, the fog whitened, glared alarmingly, then lifted in one sweep from the sheer drop-off of the cliff — we saw as if through glass the road receding among gray rocks | the citadel.

it befalls us. an exchanged glance, reflective spasm. Is it a fantastically unlaminated question set in flesh or valentine that wears the air as its apparel? If you cut a heart from parchment, is it still a heart? A nontrivial knot, where turns of every gradient may kiss and tell. Does the vessel have edges? Or is it all connectedness, an embedding to be stretched or bent. Imagine being simultaneously alive, bound in both directions with a bow! Is it diachronic, a phenomenon that changes over time? Without ardor theory suffers. That’s why I’m stuck on you with wanton glue, per- severing, styling something blobbish and macabre into something pointed, neat. Love is a gift that springs from an unlit spot. Resin and rue. Even when I’m in the dark I’m in the dark with you. say it quivers rather than contracts, fluttery with ruptions. Doctors call it holiday heart. Valentine’s Day — named for a saint whose head is venerated in Rome — is also National Organ Donor Day, okay? Give anatomical dark chocolates infused with true invariance. With smoked salt pepper and beau- jolais in a plain brown box embellished with praises in a romance language in your hand. Please none cosseted in plush like the stuff inside a coffin. I’m just praying. Can you find a pulse or dry needle trigger point? Just saying this fudge has tears in it. Someone’s been sweating over this. Listen, Mr. Stethoscope, I’m at the end of my hope. Still, I’ll grow another blossom for that blossom-crowned skull. some give vinegar valentines. no pillow words. Just floppy organ thistleburr. Froot Loops and craft wire fashioned on a snarky jig: “To My Pocket Prince.” “By Bitch Possessed.” Tough tits, isn’t it? Some call it a day marked by commodified flowers, obligation chocolate. Some live on clinical sprinkles, asking where’s the feast. The carnelian pin with openwork components that let you see its self-pleasuring mechanism, storm hormones, and single pulsing vein. What even is it? Here’s the thing. A gift cannot be cynical unless the giver is. I will pay you to test this for me. Its closets vast with steadfastness at best at least for me surpass all other closets in the flesh. I’m sending this from my memory foam head. Valentines intensify the surface, heart the depths.

To Mary Sidney In your lace ruff you resemble a giant snowflake or a spider web pearled with dew. What poets you catch in your symmetries, at your long table at Wilton what wits (Spenser, Fulke- Greville, Drayton) pitch into the roasted piglet, stewed apples, carp. If you rowzed God up, He knocked you back on your heels, Lady— “O God, why hast thou thus Repulst, and scattred us?”—Through the high windows at Wilton seethe rumors of battle, Philip’s pussing thigh, death in the Lowlands. Mother Wrong, Daughter Strife stalk the cities; still you keep house with grammar, you salt the psalms for long preserving. “As smoke in wind, as wax at fire doth waste” the unjust dissolve. Your stanzas stay, still sting the tongue. Dawn finds you kneeling on stone, calling again the bleak God you believe will answer you. You mix medicines, you write in invisible ink. But Time trumps Fame which undoes Death which masters Chastity and Love—which leaves Eternity, your Master wrote, master of all. And like your lace, your lines shine, not pale, “but whitely, and more whitely pure than snow on windless hill that flaking falls, as one whom labour did to rest allure.” Translate us too, rough line by line, into your crystalline severe design.

Swift as a spirit hastening to his task Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth. The smokeless altars of the mountain snows Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth Of light, the Ocean's orison arose To which the birds tempered their matin lay, All flowers in field or forest which unclose Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, Swinging their censers in the element, With orient incense lit by the new ray Burned slow & inconsumably, & sent Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air, And in succession due, did Continent, Isle, Ocean, & all things that in them wear The form & character of mortal mould Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear Their portion of the toil which he of old Took as his own & then imposed on them; But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem The cone of night, now they were laid asleep, Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep Of a green Apennine: before me fled The night; behind me rose the day; the Deep Was at my feet, & Heaven above my head When a strange trance over my fancy grew Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread Was so transparent that the scene came through As clear as when a veil of light is drawn O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew That I had felt the freshness of that dawn, Bathed in the same cold dew my brow & hair And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn Under the self same bough, & heard as there The birds, the fountains & the Ocean hold Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air. And then a Vision on my brain was rolled. As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay This was the tenour of my waking dream. Methought I sate beside a public way Thick strewn with summer dust, & a great stream Of people there was hurrying to & fro Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam, All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know Whither he went, or whence he came, or why He made one of the multitude, yet so Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky One of the million leaves of summer's bier.— Old age & youth, manhood & infancy, Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear, Some flying from the thing they feared & some Seeking the object of another's fear, And others as with steps towards the tomb Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath, And others mournfully within the gloom Of their own shadow walked, and called it death ... And some fled from it as it were a ghost, Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath. But more with motions which each other crost Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw Or birds within the noonday ether lost, Upon that path where flowers never grew; And weary with vain toil & faint for thirst Heard not the fountains whose melodious dew Out of their mossy cells forever burst Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told Of grassy paths, & wood lawns interspersed With overarching elms & caverns cold, And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they Pursued their serious folly as of old .... And as I gazed methought that in the way The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June When the South wind shakes the extinguished day.— And a cold glare, intenser than the noon But icy cold, obscured with [[blank]] light The Sun as he the stars. Like the young moon When on the sunlit limits of the night Her white shell trembles amid crimson air And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might Doth, as a herald of its coming, bear The ghost of her dead Mother, whose dim form Bends in dark ether from her infant's chair, So came a chariot on the silent storm Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape So sate within as one whom years deform Beneath a dusky hood & double cape Crouching within the shadow of a tomb, And o'er what seemed the head, a cloud like crape, Was bent a dun & faint etherial gloom Tempering the light; upon the chariot's beam A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume The guidance of that wonder-winged team. The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings Were lost: I heard alone on the air's soft stream The music of their ever moving wings. All the four faces of that charioteer Had their eyes banded . . . little profit brings Speed in the van & blindness in the rear, Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun Or that his banded eyes could pierce the sphere Of all that is, has been, or will be done.— So ill was the car guided, but it past With solemn speed majestically on . . . The crowd gave way, & I arose aghast, Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance, And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast The million with fierce song and maniac dance Raging around; such seemed the jubilee As when to greet some conqueror's advance Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea From senatehouse & prison & theatre When Freedom left those who upon the free Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear. Nor wanted here the true similitude Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er The chariot rolled a captive multitude Was driven; althose who had grown old in power Or misery,—all who have their age subdued, By action or by suffering, and whose hour Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe, So that the trunk survived both fruit & flower; All those whose fame or infamy must grow Till the great winter lay the form & name Of their own earth with them forever low, All but the sacred few who could not tame Their spirits to the Conqueror, but as soon As they had touched the world with living flame Fled back like eagles to their native noon, Of those who put aside the diadem Of earthly thrones or gems, till the last one Were there;—for they of Athens & Jerusalem Were neither mid the mighty captives seen Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them Or fled before . . Now swift, fierce & obscene The wild dance maddens in the van, & those Who lead it, fleet as shadows on the green, Outspeed the chariot & without repose Mix with each other in tempestuous measure To savage music .... Wilder as it grows, They, tortured by the agonizing pleasure, Convulsed & on the rapid whirlwinds spun Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure Was soothed by mischief since the world begun, Throw back their heads & loose their streaming hair, And in their dance round her who dims the Sun Maidens & youths fling their wild arms in air As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now Bending within each other's atmosphere Kindle invisibly; and as they glow Like moths by light attracted & repelled, Oft to new bright destruction come & go. Till like two clouds into one vale impelled That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle And die in rain,—the fiery band which held Their natures, snaps . . . ere the shock cease to tingle One falls and then another in the path Senseless, nor is the desolation single, Yet ere I can say where the chariot hath Past over them; nor other trace I find But as of foam after the Ocean's wrath Is spent upon the desert shore.—Behind, Old men, and women foully disarrayed Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind, Limp in the dance & strain, with limbs decayed, Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still Farther behind & deeper in the shade. But not the less with impotence of will They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose Round them & round each other, and fulfill Their work and to the dust whence they arose Sink & corruption veils them as they lie And frost in these performs what fire in those. Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry, Half to myself I said, "And what is this? Whose shape is that within the car? & why"- I would have added—"is all here amiss?" But a voice answered . . "Life" . . . I turned & knew (O Heaven have mercy on such wretchedness!) That what I thought was an old root which grew To strange distortion out of the hill side Was indeed one of that deluded crew, And that the grass which methought hung so wide And white, was but his thin discoloured hair, And that the holes it vainly sought to hide Were or had been eyes.—"lf thou canst forbear To join the dance, which I had well forborne," Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware, "I will now tell that which to this deep scorn Led me & my companions, and relate The progress of the pageant since the morn; "If thirst of knowledge doth not thus abate, Follow it even to the night, but I Am weary" . . . Then like one who with the weight Of his own words is staggered, wearily He paused, and ere he could resume, I cried, "First who art thou?" . . . "Before thy memory "I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did, & died, And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit Earth had with purer nutriment supplied "Corruption would not now thus much inherit Of what was once Rousseau—nor this disguise Stained that within which still disdains to wear it.— "If I have been extinguished, yet there rise A thousand beacons from the spark I bore."— "And who are those chained to the car?" "The Wise, "The great, the unforgotten: they who wore Mitres & helms & crowns, or wreathes of light, Signs of thought's empire over thought; their lore "Taught them not this—to know themselves; their might Could not repress the mutiny within, And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night "Caught them ere evening." "Who is he with chin Upon his breast and hands crost on his chain?" "The Child of a fierce hour; he sought to win "The world, and lost all it did contain Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; & more Of fame & peace than Virtue's self can gain "Without the opportunity which bore Him on its eagle's pinion to the peak From which a thousand climbers have before "Fall'n as Napoleon fell."—I felt my cheek Alter to see the great form pass away Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak That every pigmy kicked it as it lay— And much I grieved to think how power & will In opposition rule our mortal day— And why God made irreconcilable Good & the means of good; and for despair I half disdained mine eye's desire to fill With the spent vision of the times that were And scarce have ceased to be . . . "Dost thou behold," Said then my guide, "those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, "Frederic, & Kant, Catherine, & Leopold, Chained hoary anarch, demagogue & sage Whose name the fresh world thinks already old— "For in the battle Life & they did wage She remained conqueror—I was overcome By my own heart alone, which neither age "Nor tears nor infamy nor now the tomb Could temper to its object."—"Let them pass"— I cried—"the world & its mysterious doom "Is not so much more glorious than it was That I desire to worship those who drew New figures on its false & fragile glass "As the old faded."—"Figures ever new Rise on the bubble, paint them how you may; We have but thrown, as those before us threw, "Our shadows on it as it past away. But mark, how chained to the triumphal chair The mighty phantoms of an elder day— "All that is mortal of great Plato there Expiates the joy & woe his master knew not; That star that ruled his doom was far too fair— "And Life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not, Conquered the heart by love which gold or pain Or age or sloth or slavery could subdue not— "And near [[blank]] walk the [[blank]] twain, The tutor & his pupil, whom Dominion Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.— "The world was darkened beneath either pinion Of him whom from the flock of conquerors Fame singled as her thunderbearing minion; "The other long outlived both woes & wars, Throned in new thoughts of men, and still had kept The jealous keys of truth's eternal doors "If Bacon's spirit [[blank]] had not leapt Like lightning out of darkness; he compelled The Proteus shape of Nature's as it slept "To wake & to unbar the caves that held The treasure of the secrets of its reign— See the great bards of old who inly quelled "The passions which they sung, as by their strain May well be known: their living melody Tempers its own contagion to the vein "Of those who are infected with it—I Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!— "And so my words were seeds of misery— Even as the deeds of others."—"Not as theirs," I said—he pointed to a company In which I recognized amid the heirs Of Caesar's crime from him to Constantine, The Anarchs old whose force & murderous snares Had founded many a sceptre bearing line And spread the plague of blood & gold abroad, And Gregory & John and men divine Who rose like shadows between Man & god Till that eclipse, still hanging under Heaven, Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode For the true Sun it quenched.—"Their power was given But to destroy," replied the leader—"I Am one of those who have created, even "If it be but a world of agony."— "Whence camest thou & whither goest thou? How did thy course begin," I said, "& why? "Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow Of people, & my heart of one sad thought.— Speak."—"Whence I came, partly I seem to know, "And how & by what paths I have been brought To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess; Why this should be my mind can compass not; "Whither the conqueror hurries me still less. But follow thou, & from spectator turn Actor or victim in this wretchedness, "And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn From thee.—Now listen . . . In the April prime When all the forest tops began to burn "With kindling green, touched by the azure clime Of the young year, I found myself asleep Under a mountain which from unknown time "Had yawned into a cavern high & deep, And from it came a gentle rivulet Whose water like clear air in its calm sweep "Bent the soft grass & kept for ever wet The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove With sound which all who hear must needs forget "All pleasure & all pain, all hate & love, Which they had known before that hour of rest: A sleeping mother then would dream not of "The only child who died upon her breast At eventide, a king would mourn no more The crown of which his brow was dispossest "When the sun lingered o'er the Ocean floor To gild his rival's new prosperity.— Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore "Ills, which if ills, can find no cure from thee, The thought of which no other sleep will quell Nor other music blot from memory— "So sweet & deep is the oblivious spell.— Whether my life had been before that sleep The Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell "Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep, I know not. I arose & for a space The scene of woods & waters seemed to keep, "Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace Of light diviner than the common Sun Sheds on the common Earth, but all the place "Was filled with many sounds woven into one Oblivious melody, confusing sense Amid the gliding waves & shadows dun; "And as I looked the bright omnipresence Of morning through the orient cavern flowed, And the Sun's image radiantly intense "Burned on the waters of the well that glowed Like gold, and threaded all the forest maze With winding paths of emerald fire—there stood "Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze Of his own glory, on the vibrating Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays, "A shape all light, which with one hand did fling Dew on the earth, as if she were the Dawn Whose invisible rain forever seemed to sing "A silver music on the mossy lawn, And still before her on the dusky grass Iris her many coloured scarf had drawn.— "In her right hand she bore a crystal glass Mantling with bright Nepenthe;—the fierce splendour Fell from her as she moved under the mass "Of the deep cavern, & with palms so tender Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow, Glided along the river, and did bend her "Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream That whispered with delight to be their pillow.— "As one enamoured is upborne in dream O'er lily-paven lakes mid silver mist To wondrous music, so this shape might seem "Partly to tread the waves with feet which kist The dancing foam, partly to glide along The airs that roughened the moist amethyst, "Or the slant morning beams that fell among The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees; And her feet ever to the ceaseless song "Of leaves & winds & waves & birds & bees And falling drops moved in a measure new Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze "Up from the lake a shape of golden dew Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon, Moves up the east, where eagle never flew.— "And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune To which they moved, seemed as they moved, to blot The thoughts of him who gazed on them, & soon "All that was seemed as if it had been not, As if the gazer's mind was strewn beneath Her feet like embers, & she, thought by thought, "Trampled its fires into the dust of death, As Day upon the threshold of the east Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath "Of darkness reillumines even the least Of heaven's living eyes—like day she came, Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased "To move, as one between desire and shame Suspended, I said—'If, as it doth seem, Thou comest from the realm without a name, " 'Into this valley of perpetual dream, Shew whence I came, and where I am, and why— Pass not away upon the passing stream.' " 'Arise and quench thy thirst,' was her reply, And as a shut lily, stricken by the wand Of dewy morning's vital alchemy, "I rose; and, bending at her sweet command, Touched with faint lips the cup she raised, And suddenly my brain became as sand "Where the first wave had more than half erased The track of deer on desert Labrador, Whilst the fierce wolf from which they fled amazed "Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore Until the second bursts—so on my sight Burst a new Vision never seen before.— "And the fair shape waned in the coming light As veil by veil the silent splendour drops From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite "Of sunrise ere it strike the mountain tops— And as the presence of that fairest planet Although unseen is felt by one who hopes "That his day's path may end as he began it In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it, "Or the soft note in which his dear lament The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress That turned his weary slumber to content.— "So knew I in that light's severe excess The presence of that shape which on the stream Moved, as I moved along the wilderness, "More dimly than a day appearing dream, The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep A light from Heaven whose half extinguished beam "Through the sick day in which we wake to weep Glimmers, forever sought, forever lost.— So did that shape its obscure tenour keep "Beside my path, as silent as a ghost; But the new Vision, and its cold bright car, With savage music, stunning music, crost "The forest, and as if from some dread war Triumphantly returning, the loud million Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.— "A moving arch of victory the vermilion And green & azure plumes of Iris had Built high over her wind-winged pavilion, "And underneath aetherial glory clad The wilderness, and far before her flew The tempest of the splendour which forbade Shadow to fall from leaf or stone;—the crew Seemed in that light like atomies that dance Within a sunbeam.—Some upon the new "Embroidery of flowers that did enhance The grassy vesture of the desart, played, Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance; "Others stood gazing till within the shade Of the great mountain its light left them dim.— Others outspeeded it, and others made "Circles around it like the clouds that swim Round the high moon in a bright sea of air, And more did follow, with exulting hymn, "The chariot & the captives fettered there, But all like bubbles on an eddying flood Fell into the same track at last & were "Borne onward.—I among the multitude Was swept; me sweetest flowers delayed not long, Me not the shadow nor the solitude, "Me not the falling stream's Lethean song, Me, not the phantom of that early form Which moved upon its motion,—but among "The thickest billows of the living storm I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.— "Before the chariot had begun to climb The opposing steep of that mysterious dell, Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme "Of him whom from the lowest depths of Hell Through every Paradise & through all glory Love led serene, & who returned to tell "In words of hate & awe the wondrous story How all things are transfigured, except Love; For deaf as is a sea which wrath makes hoary "The world can hear not the sweet notes that move The sphere whose light is melody to lovers—- A wonder worthy of his rhyme—the grove "Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers, The earth was grey with phantoms, & the air Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers "A flock of vampire-bats before the glare Of the tropic sun, bring ere evening Strange night upon some Indian isle,—thus were "Phantoms diffused around, & some did fling Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves, Behind them, some like eaglets on the wing "Were lost in the white blaze, others like elves Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes Upon the sunny streams & grassy shelves; "And others sate chattering like restless apes On vulgar paws and voluble like fire. Some made a cradle of the ermined capes "Of kingly mantles, some upon the tiar Of pontiffs sate like vultures, others played Within the crown which girt with empire "A baby's or an idiot's brow, & made Their nests in it; the old anatomies Sate hatching their bare brood under the shade "Of demon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes To reassume the delegated power Arrayed in which these worms did monarchize "Who make this earth their charnel.—Others more Humble, like falcons sate upon the fist Of common men, and round their heads did soar, "Or like small gnats & flies, as thick as mist On evening marshes, thronged about the brow Of lawyer, statesman, priest & theorist, "And others like discoloured flakes of snow On fairest bosoms & the sunniest hair Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow "Which they extinguished; for like tears, they were A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained In drops of sorrow.—I became aware "Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained The track in which we moved; after brief space From every form the beauty slowly waned, "From every firmest limb & fairest face The strength & freshness fell like dust, & left The action & the shape without the grace "Of life; the marble brow of youth was cleft With care, and in the eyes where once hope shone Desire like a lioness bereft "Of its last cub, glared ere it died; each one Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown "In Autumn evening from a popular tree— Each, like himself & like each other were, At first, but soon distorted, seemed to be "Obscure clouds moulded by the casual air; And of this stuff the car's creative ray Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there "As the sun shapes the clouds—thus, on the way Mask after mask fell from the countenance And form of all, and long before the day "Was old, the joy which waked like Heaven's glance The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died, And some grew weary of the ghastly dance "And fell, as I have fallen by the way side, Those soonest from whose forms most shadows past And least of strength & beauty did abide."— "Then, what is Life?" I said . . . the cripple cast His eye upon the car which now had rolled Onward, as if that look must be the last, And answered .... "Happy those for whom the fold Of ...

I Sun-blazed, over Romsley, a livid rain-scarp. XIII Whose lives are hidden in God? Whose? Who can now tell what was taken, or where, or how, or whether it was received: how ditched, divested, clamped, sifted, over- laid, raked over, grassed over, spread around, rotted down with leafmould, accepted as civic concrete, reinforceable base cinderblocks: tipped into Danube, Rhine, Vistula, dredged up with the Baltic and the Pontic sludge: committed in absentia to solemn elevation, Trauermusik, musique funèbre, funeral music, for male and female voices ringingly a cappella, made for double string choirs, congregated brass, choice performers on baroque trumpets hefting, like glassblowers, inventions of supreme order? XIV As to bad faith, Malebranche might argue it rests with inattention. Stupidity is not admissible. However, the status of apprehension remains at issue. Some qualities are best left unrecognized. Needless to say, unrecognized is not unacknowledged. Unnamed is not nameless. XVII If the gospel is heard, all else follows: the scattering, the diaspora, the shtetlach, ash pits, pits of indigo dye. Penitence can be spoken of, it is said, but is itself beyond words; even broken speech presumes. Those Christian Jews of the first Church, huddled sabbath-survivors, keepers of the word; silent, inside twenty years, doubly outcast: even so I would remember— the scattering, the diaspora. We do not know the saints. His mercy is greater even than his wisdom. If the gospel is heard, all else follows. We shall rise again, clutching our wounds. XXXV Even now, I tell myself, there is a language to which I might speak and which would rightly hear me; responding with eloquence; in its turn, negotiating sense without insult given or injury taken. Familiar to those who already know it elsewhere as justice, it is met also in the form of silence. XXIX Rancorous, narcissistic old sod—what makes him go on? We thought, hoped rather, he might be dead. Too bad. So how much more does he have of injury time? XL For wordly, read worldly; for in equity, inequity; for religious read religiose; for distinction detestation. Take accessible to mean acceptable, accommodating, openly servile. Is that right, Missis, or is that right? I don’t care what I say, do I? XLI For iconic priesthood, read worldly pique and ambition. Change insightfully caring to pruriently intrusive. Delete chastened and humbled. Insert humiliated. Interpret slain in the spirit as browbeaten to exhaustion. For hardness of heart read costly dislike of cant. XLII Excuse me—excuse me—I did not say the pain is lifting. I said the pain is in the lifting. No—please—forget it. XLIII This is quite dreadful—he’s become obsessed. There you go, there you go—narrow it down to obsession! LI Whatever may be meant by moral landscape, it is for me increasingly a terrain seen in cross-section: igneous, sedimentary, conglomerate, metamorphic rock- strata, in which particular grace, individual love, decency, endurance, are traceable across the faults. LII Admittedly at times this moral landscape to my exasperated ear emits archaic burrings like a small, high-fenced electricity sub-station of uncertain age in a field corner where the flies gather and old horses shake their sides. LXVI Christ has risen yet again to their ritual supplication. It seems weird that the comedy never self-destructs. Actually it is strengthened—if attenuation is strength. (Donne said as much of gold. Come back, Donne, I forgive you; and lovely Herbert.) But what strange guild is this that practises daily synchronized genuflection and takes pride in hazing my Jewish wife? If Christ be not risen, Christians are petty temple-schismatics, justly cast out of the law. Worse things have befallen Israel. But since he is risen, he is risen even for these high-handed underlings of self- worship: who, as by obedience, proclaim him risen indeed. LXVII Instruct me further in your travail, blind interpreter. Suppose I cannot unearth what it was they buried: research is not anamnesis. Nor is this a primer of innocence exactly. Did the centurion see nothing irregular before the abnormal light seared his eyeballs? Why do I take as my gift a wounded and wounding introspection? The rule is clear enough: last alleluias forte, followed by indifferent coffee and fellowship. LXIX What choice do you have? These are false questions. Fear is your absolute, yet in each feature infinitely variable, Manichean beyond dispute, for you alone, the skeletal maple, a loose wire tapping the wind. LXX Active virtue: that which shall contain its own passion in the public weal— do you follow?—or can you at least take the drift of the thing? The struggle for a noble vernacular: this did not end with Petrarch. But where is it? Where has it got us? Does it stop, in our case, with Dryden, or, perhaps, Milton’s political sonnets?—the cherished stock hacked into ransom and ruin; the voices of distinction, far back, indistinct. Still, I’m convinced that shaping, voicing, are types of civic action. Or, slightly to refashion this, that Wordsworth’s two Prefaces stand with his great tract on the Convention of Cintra, witnessing to the praesidium in the sacred name of things betrayed.Intrinsic value I am somewhat less sure of. It seems implicate with active virtue but I cannot say how, precisely. Partaking of both fact and recognition, it must be, therefore, in effect, at once agent and predicate: imponderables brought home to the brute mass and detail of the world; there, by some, to be pondered. XCVI Ignorant, assured, there comes to us a voice— Unchallengeable—of the foundations, distinct authority devoted to indistinction. With what proximity to justice stands the record of mischance, heroic hit-or-miss, the air so full of flak and tracer, legend says, you pray to live unnoticed. M r Ives took Emersonian self-reliance the whole way on that. Melville, half-immolated, rebuilt the pyre. Holst, some time later, stumbled on dharma. What can I say?— At worst and best a blind ennoblement, flood-water, hunched, shouldering at the weir, the hatred that is in the nature of love. CXVIII By default, as it so happens, here we have good and bad angels caught burning themselves characteristic antiphons; and here the true and the false shepherds discovered already deep into their hollow debate. Is that all? No, add spinners of fine calumny, confectioners of sugared malice; add those who find sincerity in heartless weeping. Add the pained, painful clowns, brinksmen of perdition. Sidney: best realizer and arguer of music, that ‘divine striker upon the senses’, steady my music to your Augustinian grace-notes, with your high craft of fret. I am glad to have learned how it goes with you and with Italianate- Hebraic Milton: your voices pitched exactly— somewhere—between Laus Deo and defiance. CXIX And yes—bugger you, MacSikker et al.,—I do mourn and resent your desolation of learning: Scientia that enabled, if it did not secure, forms of understanding, far from despicable, and furthest now, as they are most despised. By understanding I understand diligence and attention, appropriately understood as actuated self-knowledge, a daily acknowledgement of what is owed the dead. CXX As with the Gospels, which it is allowed to resemble, in Measure for Measure moral uplift is not the issue. Scrupulosity, diffidence, shrill spirituality, conviction, free expression, come off as poorly as deceit or lust. The ethical motiv is—so we may hazard— opportunism, redemptive and redeemed; case-hardened on case-law, casuistry’s own redemption; the general temper a caustic equity. CXXI So what is faith if it is not inescapable endurance? Unrevisited, the ferns are breast-high, head-high, the days lustrous, with their hinterlands of thunder. Light is this instant, far-seeing into itself, its own signature on things that recognize salvation. I am an old man, a child, the horizon is Traherne’s country. CXLVII To go so far with the elaborately- vested Angel of Naked Truth: and where are we, finally? Don’t say that—we are nowhere finally. And nowhere are you— nowhere are you—any more—more cryptic than a schoolyard truce. Cry Kings, Cross, or Crosses, cry Pax, cry Pax, but to be healed. But to be healed, and die! CXLVIII Obnoxious means, far back within itself, easily wounded. But vulnerable, proud anger is, I find, a related self of covetousness. I came late to seeing that. Actually, I had to be shown it. What I saw was rough, and still pains me. Perhaps it should pain me more. Pride is our crux: be angry, but not proud where that means vainglorious. Take Leopardi’s words or—to be accurate—BV’s English cast of them: when he found Tasso’s poor scratch of a memorial barely showing among the cold slabs of defunct pomp. It seemed a sad and angry consolation. So—Croker, MacSikker, O’Shem—I ask you: what are poems for? They are to console us with their own gift, which is like perfect pitch. Let us commit that to our dust. What ought a poem to be? Answer,a sad and angry consolation.

Before our lives divide for ever, While time is with us and hands are free, (Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea) I will say no word that a man might say Whose whole life's love goes down in a day; For this could never have been; and never, Though the gods and the years relent, shall be. Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour, To think of things that are well outworn? Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower, The dream foregone and the deed forborne? Though joy be done with and grief be vain, Time shall not sever us wholly in twain; Earth is not spoilt for a single shower; But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn. It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart, Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain. The singing seasons divide and depart, Winter and summer depart in twain. It will grow not again, it is ruined at root, The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit; Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart, With sullen savour of poisonous pain. I have given no man of my fruit to eat; I trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine. Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet, This wild new growth of the corn and vine, This wine and bread without lees or leaven, We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven, Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet, One splendid spirit, your soul and mine. In the change of years, in the coil of things, In the clamour and rumour of life to be, We, drinking love at the furthest springs, Covered with love as a covering tree, We had grown as gods, as the gods above, Filled from the heart to the lips with love, Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, O love, my love, had you loved but me! We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved As the moon moves, loving the world; and seen Grief collapse as a thing disproved, Death consume as a thing unclean. Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fast Soul to soul while the years fell past; Had you loved me once, as you have not loved; Had the chance been with us that has not been. I have put my days and dreams out of mind, Days that are over, dreams that are done. Though we seek life through, we shall surely find There is none of them clear to us now, not one. But clear are these things; the grass and the sand, Where, sure as the eyes reach, ever at hand, With lips wide open and face burnt blind, The strong sea-daisies feast on the sun. The low downs lean to the sea; the stream, One loose thin pulseless tremulous vein, Rapid and vivid and dumb as a dream, Works downward, sick of the sun and the rain; No wind is rough with the rank rare flowers; The sweet sea, mother of loves and hours, Shudders and shines as the grey winds gleam, Turning her smile to a fugitive pain. Mother of loves that are swift to fade, Mother of mutable winds and hours. A barren mother, a mother-maid, Cold and clean as her faint salt flowers. I would we twain were even as she, Lost in the night and the light of the sea, Where faint sounds falter and wan beams wade, Break, and are broken, and shed into showers. The loves and hours of the life of a man, They are swift and sad, being born of the sea. Hours that rejoice and regret for a span, Born with a man's breath, mortal as he; Loves that are lost ere they come to birth, Weeds of the wave, without fruit upon earth. I lose what I long for, save what I can, My love, my love, and no love for me! It is not much that a man can save On the sands of life, in the straits of time, Who swims in sight of the great third wave That never a swimmer shall cross or climb. Some waif washed up with the strays and spars That ebb-tide shows to the shore and the stars; Weed from the water, grass from a grave, A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme. There will no man do for your sake, I think, What I would have done for the least word said. I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink, Broken it up for your daily bread: Body for body and blood for blood, As the flow of the full sea risen to flood That yearns and trembles before it sink, I had given, and lain down for you, glad and dead. Yea, hope at highest and all her fruit, And time at fullest and all his dower, I had given you surely, and life to boot, Were we once made one for a single hour. But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart, Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart; And deep in one is the bitter root, And sweet for one is the lifelong flower. To have died if you cared I should die for you, clung To my life if you bade me, played my part As it pleased you — these were the thoughts that stung, The dreams that smote with a keener dart Than shafts of love or arrows of death; These were but as fire is, dust, or breath, Or poisonous foam on the tender tongue Of the little snakes that eat my heart. I wish we were dead together to-day, Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight, Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay, Out of the world's way, out of the light, Out of the ages of worldly weather, Forgotten of all men altogether, As the world's first dead, taken wholly away, Made one with death, filled full of the night. How we should slumber, how we should sleep, Far in the dark with the dreams and the dews! And dreaming, grow to each other, and weep, Laugh low, live softly, murmur and muse; Yea, and it may be, struck through by the dream, Feel the dust quicken and quiver, and seem Alive as of old to the lips, and leap Spirit to spirit as lovers use. Sick dreams and sad of a dull delight; For what shall it profit when men are dead To have dreamed, to have loved with the whole soul's might, To have looked for day when the day was fled? Let come what will, there is one thing worth, To have had fair love in the life upon earth: To have held love safe till the day grew night, While skies had colour and lips were red. Would I lose you now? would I take you then, If I lose you now that my heart has need? And come what may after death to men, What thing worth this will the dead years breed? Lose life, lose all; but at least I know, O sweet life's love, having loved you so, Had I reached you on earth, I should lose not again, In death nor life, nor in dream or deed. Yea, I know this well: were you once sealed mine, Mine in the blood's beat, mine in the breath, Mixed into me as honey in wine, Not time, that sayeth and gainsayeth, Nor all strong things had severed us then; Not wrath of gods, nor wisdom of men, Nor all things earthly, nor all divine, Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death. I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew, You had grown strong as the sun or the sea. But none shall triumph a whole life through: For death is one, and the fates are three. At the door of life, by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death; Death could not sever my soul and you, As these have severed your soul from me. You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you, Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer. But will it not one day in heaven repent you? Will they solace you wholly, the days that were? Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss, Meet mine, and see where the great love is, And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you; The gate is strait; I shall not be there. But you, had you chosen, had you stretched hand, Had you seen good such a thing were done, I too might have stood with the souls that stand In the sun's sight, clothed with the light of the sun; But who now on earth need care how I live? Have the high gods anything left to give, Save dust and laurels and gold and sand? Which gifts are goodly; but I will none. O all fair lovers about the world, There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me. My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirled Round and round in a gulf of the sea; And still, through the sound and the straining stream, Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream, The bright fine lips so cruelly curled, And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free. Free, without pity, withheld from woe, Ignorant; fair as the eyes are fair. Would I have you change now, change at a blow, Startled and stricken, awake and aware? Yea, if I could, would I have you see My very love of you filling me, And know my soul to the quick, as I know The likeness and look of your throat and hair? I shall not change you. Nay, though I might, Would I change my sweet one love with a word? I had rather your hair should change in a night, Clear now as the plume of a black bright bird; Your face fail suddenly, cease, turn grey, Die as a leaf that dies in a day. I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard. Far off it walks, in a bleak blown space, Full of the sound of the sorrow of years. I have woven a veil for the weeping face, Whose lips have drunken the wine of tears; I have found a way for the failing feet, A place for slumber and sorrow to meet; There is no rumour about the place, Nor light, nor any that sees or hears. I have hidden my soul out of sight, and said "Let none take pity upon thee, none Comfort thy crying: for lo, thou art dead, Lie still now, safe out of sight of the sun. Have I not built thee a grave, and wrought Thy grave-clothes on thee of grievous thought, With soft spun verses and tears unshed, And sweet light visions of things undone? "I have given thee garments and balm and myrrh, And gold, and beautiful burial things. But thou, be at peace now, make no stir; Is not thy grave as a royal king's? Fret not thyself though the end were sore; Sleep, be patient, vex me no more. Sleep; what hast thou to do with her? The eyes that weep, with the mouth that sings?" Where the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten, The cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by, The misconceived and the misbegotten, I would find a sin to do ere I die, Sure to dissolve and destroy me all through, That would set you higher in heaven, serve you And leave you happy, when clean forgotten, As a dead man out of mind, am I. Your lithe hands draw me, your face burns through me, I am swift to follow you, keen to see; But love lacks might to redeem or undo me; As I have been, I know I shall surely be; "What should such fellows as I do?" Nay, My part were worse if I chose to play; For the worst is this after all; if they knew me, Not a soul upon earth would pity me. And I play not for pity of these; but you, If you saw with your soul what man am I, You would praise me at least that my soul all through Clove to you, loathing the lives that lie; The souls and lips that are bought and sold, The smiles of silver and kisses of gold, The lapdog loves that whine as they chew, The little lovers that curse and cry. There are fairer women, I hear; that may be; But I, that I love you and find you fair, Who are more than fair in my eyes if they be, Do the high gods know or the great gods care? Though the swords in my heart for one were seven, Should the iron hollow of doubtful heaven, That knows not itself whether night-time or day be, Reverberate words and a foolish prayer? I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and none other, Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me; Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast: O fair white mother, in days long past Born without sister, born without brother, Set free my soul as thy soul is free. O fair green-girdled mother of mine, Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain, Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine, Thy large embraces are keen like pain. Save me and hide me with all thy waves, Find me one grave of thy thousand graves, Those pure cold populous graves of thine Wrought without hand in a world without stain. I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide; My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips, I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside; Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were, Filled full with life to the eyes and hair, As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips With splendid summer and perfume and pride. This woven raiment of nights and days, Were it once cast off and unwound from me, Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways, Alive and aware of thy ways and thee; Clear of the whole world, hidden at home, Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam, A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays, A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea. Fair mother, fed with the lives of men, Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say. Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again; Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they. But death is the worst that comes of thee; Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea, But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when, Having given us love, hast thou taken away? O tender-hearted, O perfect lover, Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart. The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover, Shall they not vanish away and apart? But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth; Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth; Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover; From the first thou wert; in the end thou art. And grief shall endure not for ever, I know. As things that are not shall these things be; We shall live through seasons of sun and of snow, And none be grievous as this to me. We shall hear, as one in a trance that hears, The sound of time, the rhyme of the years; Wrecked hope and passionate pain will grow As tender things of a spring-tide sea. Sea-fruit that swings in the waves that hiss, Drowned gold and purple and royal rings. And all time past, was it all for this? Times unforgotten, and treasures of things? Swift years of liking and sweet long laughter, That wist not well of the years thereafter Till love woke, smitten at heart by a kiss, With lips that trembled and trailing wings? There lived a singer in France of old By the tideless dolorous midland sea. In a land of sand and ruin and gold There shone one woman, and none but she. And finding life for her love's sake fail, Being fain to see her, he bade set sail, Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold, And praised God, seeing; and so died he. Died, praising God for his gift and grace: For she bowed down to him weeping, and said "Live;" and her tears were shed on his face Or ever the life in his face was shed. The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung Once, and her close lips touched him and clung Once, and grew one with his lips for a space; And so drew back, and the man was dead. O brother, the gods were good to you. Sleep, and be glad while the world endures. Be well content as the years wear through; Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures; Give thanks for life, O brother, and death, For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath, For gifts she gave you, gracious and few, Tears and kisses, that lady of yours. Rest, and be glad of the gods; but I, How shall I praise them, or how take rest? There is not room under all the sky For me that know not of worst or best, Dream or desire of the days before, Sweet things or bitterness, any more. Love will not come to me now though I die, As love came close to you, breast to breast. I shall never be friends again with roses; I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes, As a wave of the sea turned back by song. There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire, Face to face with its own desire; A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes; I shall hate sweet music my whole life long. The pulse of war and passion of wonder, The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine, The stars that sing and the loves that thunder, The music burning at heart like wine, An armed archangel whose hands raise up All senses mixed in the spirit's cup Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder — These things are over, and no more mine. These were a part of the playing I heard Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife; Love that sings and hath wings as a bird, Balm of the wound and heft of the knife. Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep Than overwatching of eyes that weep, Now time has done with his one sweet word, The wine and leaven of lovely life. I shall go my ways, tread out my measure, Fill the days of my daily breath With fugitive things not good to treasure, Do as the world doth, say as it saith; But if we had loved each other — O sweet, Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet, The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure To feel you tread it to dust and death — Ah, had I not taken my life up and given All that life gives and the years let go, The wine and honey, the balm and leaven, The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low? Come life, come death, not a word be said; Should I lose you living, and vex you dead? I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven, If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?

Can life be a blessing, Or worth the possessing, Can life be a blessing if love were away? Ah no! though our love all night keep us waking, And though he torment us with cares all the day, Yet he sweetens, he sweetens our pains in the taking, There's an hour at the last, there's an hour to repay. In ev'ry possessing, The ravishing blessing, In ev'ry possessing the fruit of our pain, Poor lovers forget long ages of anguish, Whate'er they have suffer'd and done to obtain; 'Tis a pleasure, a pleasure to sigh and to languish, When we hope, when we hope to be happy again.

(excerpt) From Book I And so bifel, whan comen was the tym e Of Aperil, whan clothed is the med e With new e grene, of lusty Veer the prym e , And swot e smellen flour e s white and red e , In sondry wises shew e d, as I red e , The folk of Troie hir observaunces old e , Palladion e s fest e for to hold e . And to the temple, in al hir best e wys e , In general ther went e many a wight, To herknen of Palladion the servys e ; And nam e ly, so many a lusty knyght, So many a lady fressh and mayden bright, Ful wel aray e d, both mest e , mene, and lest e , Ye, both e for the seson and the fest e . Among thise other e folk was Criseyda, In widew e s habit blak; but nath e les, Right as our first e lettre is now an A, In beautee first so stood she, mak e les; Hire goodly lokyng glad e d al the prees. Nas nevere yet seyn thing to ben preys e d derr e , Nor under cloud e blak so bright a sterr e As was Criseyde, as folk seyde everichon e That hir bihelden in hir blak e wed e ; And yet she stood ful lowe and stille allon e , Byhynden other folk, in litel bred e , And neigh the dore, ay under sham e s dred e , Simple of atir and debonaire of cher e , With ful assur e d lokyng and maner e . This Troilus, as he was wont to gid e His yong e knyght e s, lad hem up and doun In thilk e larg e temple on every sid e , Byholding ay the ladies of the town, Now here, now there; for no devoc{.i}oun Hadde he to non, to reven hym his rest e , But gan to preise and lakken whom hym lest e . And in his walk ful faste he gan to wayten If knyght or squyer of his compaigni e Gan for to syke, or lete his eighen baiten On any womman that he koude espy e ; He wold e smyle, and holden it foly e , And seye him thus, "God woot, she slepeth soft e For love of the, whan thou turnest ful oft e ! "I have herd told, pardieux, of your lyvyng e , Ye loveres, and youre lew e d observaunces, And which a labour folk han in wynnyng e Of love, and in the kepyng which doutaunces; And whan your preye is lost, woo and penaunces. O veray fool e s! nyce and blynde be ye! Ther nys nat oon kan war by other be." And with that word he gan cast up the brow e , Ascaunc e s, "Loo! is this naught wisely spoken?" At which the god of love gan loken row e Right for despit, and shop for to ben wroken. He kidde anoon his bow e nas naught broken; For sodeynly he hitte him att e full e ; And yet as proud a pekok kan he pull e ! O blynd e world, O blynde entenc{.i}oun! How often falleth al the effect contrair e Of surquidrie and foul presumpc{.i}oun; For kaught is proud, and kaught is debonair e . This Troilus is clomben on the stair e , And litel weneth that he moot descenden; But al-day faileth thing that fool e s wenden. As proud e Bayard gynneth for to skipp e Out of the wey, so pryketh hym his corn, Til he a lasshe have of the long e whipp e ; Than thynketh he, "Though I praunce al byforn First in the trays, ful fat and new e shorn, Yet am I but an hors, and horses law e I moot endure, and with my fer e s draw e ."

(excerpt) From Book V The morwen com, and gostly for to speke, This Diomede is come un-to Criseyde; And shortly, lest that ye my tale breke, So wel he for hym-selven spak and seyde, That alle hire sikes soore adown he leyde. And finaly, the sothe for to seyne, He refte hir of the grete of al hire peyne. And after this the storie telleth us That she hym yaf the fair e baye stede, The which he ones wan of Troilus; And ek a broche (and that was litel nede) That Troilus was, she yaf this Diomede. And ek, the bet from sorwe him to releve, She made hym were a pencel of hire sleve. I fynde ek in the stories ell es-where, Whan thorugh the body hurt was Diomede Of Troilus, tho wepte she many a teer e, Whan that she saugh his wyde wowndes blede; And that she took, to kepen hym, good hede; And for to hele hym of his sorwes smerte, Men seyn, I not, that she yaf hym hire herte. But trew ely, the storie telleth us, Ther made nevere woman moore wo Than she, whan that she falsed Troilus. She seyde, "Allas! for now is clene a-go My name of trouthe in love, for evere-mo! For I have falsed oon the gentileste That ever e was, and oon the worthieste! "Allas, of me, un-to the world es ende, Shal neyther been y-writen nor y-songe No good word, for thise bok es wol me shende. O, rolled shal I ben on many a tonge! Thorugh-out the world my belle shal be ronge; And wommen moost wol haten me of alle. Allas, that swich a cas me sholde falle! "Thei wol seyn, in as muche as in me is, I have hem don dishonour, weylawey! Al be I nat the firste that dide amys, What helpeth that to don my blame awey? But syn I see ther is no bettr e way, And that to late is now for me to rewe, To Diomede algate I wol be trewe. "But, Troilus, syn I no bettr e may, And syn that thus departen ye and I, Yet prey I God, so yeve yow right good day, As for the gentileste, trewely, That evere I say, to serven feythfully, And best kan ay his lady honour kepe;"— And with that word she brast anon to wepe. "And certes, yow ne haten shal I never e; And frendes love, that shal ye han of me, And my good word, al sholde I lyven evere. And, trewely, I wolde sory be For to seen yow in adversitee. And giltelees, I woot wel, I yow leve; But al shal passe; and thus take I my leve." But trew ely, how longe it was bytwene, That she forsok him for this Diomede, Ther is non auctor telleth it, I wene. Take every man now to his bokes heede; He shal no terme fynden, out of drede. For though that he bigan to wowe hire sone, Er he hire wan, yet was ther more to doone. Ne me ne list this sely womman chyd e Forther than the story e wol devyse. Hire name, allas! is publisshed so wyde That for hire gilt it oughte ynough suffis e. And if I myghte excuse hire any wyse, For she so sory was for hire untrouthe, I-wis, I wolde excuse hire yet for routhe. Go, litel book, go, litel myn trageedy e, Ther God thi makere yet, er that he dye, So sende myght to make in som com�dye! But litel book, no makyng thou nenvie, But subgit be to alle poesye; And kis the steppes, whereas thou seest pace Virgile, Ovide, Omer, Lucan, and Stac e. And for ther is so gret diversitee In Englissh and in writyng of oure tong e, So prey I God that noon myswrite thee, Ne thee mysmetre for defaute of tonge. And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe, That thow be understonde God I beseche! But yet to purpos of my rather speche.— The wrath, as I bigan yow for to sey e, Of Troilus, the Grekis boughten deere; For thousandes his hondes maden deye, As he that was with-outen any peere, Save Ector, in his tyme, as I kan heere. But weilaway, save only Goddes wille! Despitously hym slough the fierse Achille. And whan that he was slayn in this maner e, His lighte goost ful blisfully is went Up to the holownesse of the eighthe spere, In convers letynge everich element; And ther he saugh, with ful avysement, The erratik sterres, herkenyng armonye With sown es fulle of hevenyssh melodie. And doun from thenn es faste he gan avyse This litel spot of erthe, that with the se Embrac ed is, and fully gan despise This wrecched world, and held al vanitee To respect of the pleyn felicitee That is in hevene above; and at the last e, Ther he was slayn, his lokyng doun he caste; And in hym-self he lough right at the wo Of hem that wepten for his deth so fast e; And dampned al oure werk that foloweth so The blynde lust, the which that may not laste, And sholden al our herte on heven caste. And forth he wente, shortly for to telle, Ther as Mercúrye sorted hym to dwelle.— Swich fyn hath, lo, this Troilus for lov e, Swich fyn hath al his grete worthynesse; Swich fyn hath his estat reál above, Swich fyn his lust, swich fyn hath his noblesse: Swich fyn hath false worldes brotelnesse! And thus bigan his lovyng of Criseyde, As I have told, and in this wise he deyde. O yong e fresshe folkes, he or she, In which that love up groweth with your age, Repeyreth hoom fro worldly vanytee, And of youre herte up-casteth the visage To thilk e God that after his ymage Yow made, and thynketh al nys but a fair e This world, that passeth soone as flour es faire. And loveth hym, the which that right for lov e Upon a crois, oure soul es for to beye, First starf, and roos, and sit in hevene above; For he nyl falsen no wight, dar I seye, That wol his herte al holly on him leye. And sin he best to love is, and most meke, What nedeth feynede loves for to seke? Lo here, of payens cors ed olde rites, Lo here, what alle hir goddes may availle; Lo here, thise wrecched worldes appetites; Lo here, the fyn and guerdoun for travaille Of Jove, Appollo, of Mars, of swich rascaill e! Lo here, the forme of olde clerkis speche In poetrie, if ye hir bok es seche.— O moral Gower, this book I direct e To the, and to the, philosophical Strod e, To vouchen sauf, ther nede is, to correcte, Of youre benignitees and zeles goode. And to that sothfast Crist, that starf on rode, With al myn herte of mercy evere I preye; And to the Lord right thus I speke and seye: Thou oon, and two, and three, eterne on lyv e, That regnest ay in three, and two, and oon, Uncircumscript, and al maist circumscrive, Us from visible and invisible foon Defende; and to thy mercy, everichon, So make us, Jesus, for thi mercy digne, For love of mayde and moder thyn benigne! Amen.