Classic Poem

I

He rides a white horse,
— Mary Madonna,
Dappled as clouds are dappled,
— O Mary, Mary,
And the leather of his harness is the colour of the sky.

On his head is a casque with an azure plume
Which none may observe with unswerving eyes.
— A proud gentleman, Mary Madonna.
A knight to fill the forest, riding it crosswise,
— O Mary, Mary.
His hoof-prints dint the beech-mast,
His plume brushes the golden leaves.

No flute man this, to sigh at a lady's elbow.
This is a trumpet fellow, proper for jousting or battle,
— Mary Madonna,
To hack an enemy to pieces, and scale his castle wall.
— O Mary, Mary,
A point for piercing, an edge for shearing, a weight for pounding, a voice for thundering,
And a fan-gleam light to shine down little alleys
Where twisted houses make a jest of day.

There are dead men in his hand,
— Mary Madonna,
And sighing women out beyond his thinking.
— O Mary, Mary,
He will not linger here or anywhere.
He will go about his business with an ineradicable complaisance,
Leaving his dead to rot, his women to weep and regret, his sons to wax into his likeness,
Never dreaming that the absurd lie he believes in
Is a gesture of Fate forcing him to the assumption of a vast importance
Quite other than the blazoning of ceremonial banners to wave above a tomb.

II

Hot with oranges and purples,
In a flowing robe of a marigold colour,
He sweeps over September spaces.
— Scheherezade, do you hear him,
— And the clang of his scimitar knocking on the gates?
The tawny glitter of his turban,
Is it not dazzling —
With the saffron jewel set like a sunflower in the midst?
The brown of his face!
Aye, the brown like the heart of a sunflower.
Who are you to aspire beyond the petals,
To touch the golden burning beneath the marigold robe?
His sash is magnificence clasped by an emerald;
His scimitar is the young moon hanging before a sun-set;
His voice is the sun in mid-heaven
Pouring on whirled ochre dahlias;
His fingers, the flight of Autumn wasps through a honey-coloured afternoon.
So, Scheherezade, he has passed the dragon fountains
And is walking up the marble stairway, stopping to caress the peacocks.
He will lean above you, Scheherezade, like September above an orchard of apples.
He will fill you with the sweetness of spice-fed flames.
Will you burn, Scheherezade, as flowers burn in September sunlight?
Hush, then, for flame is silence,
And silent is the penetrating of the sun.

The dragon fountains splash in the court-yards,
And the peacocks spread their tails.
There are eyes in the tails of the peacocks,
But the palace windows are shuttered and barred.

III

Pipkins, pans, and pannikins,
China teapots, tin and pewter,
Baskets woven of green rushes.
Maudlin, Jennifer, and Prue,
What is lacking in your kitchens?
Are you needing skewers or thimbles,
Spools of cotton, knots of ribbon,
Or a picture for your pantry,
Or a rag-rug for the bed-side?
Plodding, plodding, through the dusty
Lanes between the hawthorn hedges,
My green wheels all white and dusty,
I as dusty as a miller,
White as any clown among them
Dancing on the London stages.
Here I have Grimaldi's latest,
Songs and ballads, sheets of posies
For your feet to ring-a-rosy.
Songs to make you sigh and shudder,
Songs to win you bright eye-glances,
Choruses, and glees, and catches.
Do your cupboards need refilling?
Take a peep into these hampers.
I have goods to loose your purse-strings:
Smocks, and shifts, and fine clocked stockings
Aprons of a dozen sizes,
Muslin dresses sprigged and patterned.
Can you look and not be buying?
Maudlin, Jennifer, and Prue,
Here are dainties for sweetheartings,
Tinsel crackers plumped with mottoes,
Twisted barley sticks and pear-drops.
Here are ear-rings, chains, and brooches,
Choose what gift you'll have him give you.
If the sweetheart days are over,
I have silver forks and bodkins,
Leather breeches, flannel bed-gowns,
Spectacles for eyes grown feeble,
Books to read with them and candles
To light up the page of evenings.
Toys, too, to delight the children,
Rocking-horses, tops, and marbles,
Dolls with jointed arms, and flying
Kites, and hoops, and even the Royal
Game of Goose the world is playing.
When I camp out on a common,
Underneath an oak or linden,
And my horse crops at his supper,
Finding it along the hedge-rows,
Then I play at Goose with one hand
Taking sides against the other.
First my right hand holds the dice-cup,
Then my left, each has its counter.
'Tis a pastime never tires.
Coppers, coppers, for the pedlar.
Maudlin, Jennifer, and Prue,
Fare you well, I must be jogging.
Horse-bells tinkle at the lane-sides,
Green wheels growing whiter, whiter,
Lurching van of whims and whimsies
Vanishing into the distance.

IV

Who would read on a ladder?
But who can read without a ladder?
Cheerful paradox to be resolved never.
Book by book, he steps up and off to all the four quarters
Of all the possible distances.
— Minerva have a care of him,
— For surely he has none for himself.
His eyes are dim with the plague of print,
But he believes them eagle-seeing.
His spectacles have grown to his nose,
But he is unaware of the fact since he never takes them off.
A little black cap on his head;
A rusty dressing-gown, with the quilts run together,
To keep out the cold;
A window out of which he never looks;
A chair from which he never rises.
But do you not know a wharf-side when you see it,
And are you not moved at watching the putting off of the caravels of dream?
Food gets into his mouth by accident
As though fish swam the seas to come there,
And cattle crowded the thoroughfares to reach his lips.
If there are intermediaries, he is unconscious of them,
As he is of everything but his cat,
Who shares his vigils
And has discovered the art of projecting herself into his visions.
He loves a thousand ladies, and fore-gathers with a thousand caravans.
To-day is as remote as yesterday,
And he is avid of either with the intensity of a partaker of each;
He could hobnob as blithely with Julius Caesar as with King George or Samuel Gompers,
And his opinions on affairs of the moment are those of an eye-witness
Although he never sets foot out-of-doors.
— Indeed, Minerva, you should watch the step of this gentleman,
— For he runs so swiftly past events and monuments it seems incredible he should not trip.
The walls of forbidden cities fall before him;
He has but to tap a sheepskin to experience kingdoms,
And circumstance drips from his fingers like dust.
An habituated eye sees much through a pin-prick,
And are not his observations folio wide?
He eats the centuries
And lives a new life every twenty-four hours,
So lengthening his own to an incalculable figure.
If you think you see only an old man mouldering between four walls,
You are greatly mistaken.
Minerva over the door could tell you better
If her stone face would speak.
Talk to him and he will not hear you;
Write a book and he knows you better than you know yourself.
Draw the curtains, then, and bring in tea, with plenty of buttered scones.
Since neither the old gentleman nor Minerva will speak to us,
I think we had best ignore them and go on as we are.