Classic Poem

I

This year I have sent you
A small chocolate heart entirely surrounded
By roses carved in sugar
In the middle there are two hands in paper
Clasped with a yellow charm at the wristbone
In the veins of it there is a music running
Of days spread like peacock tails
Of days worn savagely like parrot feathers I believe that the truth should be spoken but if it be questions you are asking answer that in youth the day is so full that the voice swells loud and wide to surround it and with age does the day wear thin like an old beast boned with pain; answer that the years run through the fingers and the trees set aside their leaves as if they were tears falling Ask that the wind rattle sleep to a heart that turns and turns in its own anguish, shuddering and smoldering it to ashes stirred by the wind; that winter be softened by flames that leap like horned stags in the chimney: not a man scarred with the cold, tied stiff by it, frozen with his own water fallen fanwise upon a wall where lizards no longer burrow for shade and slumber with grains of sand fallen in yellow stars between their claws Behind us lie nights feathered with sleep, the mouth saluting feet swifter than gulls. Next year I shall make you a carpet of many small faces, the petals of almond flowers, with temples split on the tip of a chianti sunset: and land like a child's ear lying open for speech to whittle and pierce it.

THE LEGEND There were two men as fine as wild beasts, and as wild, with silky coats and tongues as red as satin, who set out to cross the snow, leaping and sporting together like young dogs in the cold. They had not gone far, with the memory of their own hearths still burning in them, when they came upon a traveler who, like a scarecrow fallen among white sheaves of wheat, had dropped in his own steps in the snow. He was an old man and as the two fell upon their knees beside him to lift up his hands and his head in order to breathe upon his flesh, they could see the scars and the blemishes which time had laid upon his skin. They had kneeled down by his side and emptied their mouths in blasts of sweet breath upon his neck and his palms, but in his veins they could perceive no stirring of life, and not only did their breathing upon him fail to revive him, but the breaths themselves strangely enough floated away in pure little halos as perfectly formed as the rings which hang about the necks of doves. As they chafed his hands between their own and sought upon their persons for warm drinks with which to thaw the saps of his body, they were filled with a fear and a dismay of this man's flesh. On the back of his hands sprung thin forests of gray entangled hairs which grew thicker upon his wrists and his forearms, and in his neck were scars illy-sewn in angry welts, and his great ears were planted with stained gray ferns of hair. They looked upon him, and as they looked into each other's faces over the stiff flesh of the old man, they were aware of their own beautiful bodies, clean and without blemish in their clothing. And then they let fall his hands from their own and they made haste to be off and so abandon him to the ferocity of his own dying. But as they fled over the snow from where the old man was lying, their shadows pursued them as if with evil intent, and their hearts began to smite them. One thought: " Were I to give this old man my fair hands and the beauty of my arms to bear him, then to be sure I could save him from death. " And the other thought: " Were I to bestow upon him all the fire of my limbs and the wits of my clear mind, these gifts would surely bring him to shelter and spare him for many long years to come. " And thus they went on, questioning and chiding themselves in their own hearts. But before long they had succumbed to the doubts which the old man's plight had stirred in them, and with ennobled and richer decision they turned upon their steps to regain his side and to bear unto him the gifts of their strength and their goodwill. But as they ran the snow fell suddenly apart before them and a youth of great beauty and gentleness emerged from the cruel ground. His feet were bared to the cold but white violets and all manner of early blossoms were springing up between his toes. With his fingers he played upon an instrument of which they had no knowledge, and to this melody of his own making he said unto them:

Wiefor shud ye feer deth for hyme
Ande weifer shud ye tremble
Fer hev not I suffered that ther shud be pece in yur harts
Ande hev not I dyed fer ye
That ye myghte liv to a gret olde age
Now do I aske won favore of ye
Ande it is thet ye giv not yur beautye
Unto thum who hev no eyes fer it
Ande thet ye luv not thum who hev killed me The beautiful youth struck his instrument with his fingers and he looked upon their wondering faces, and he spoke again to them:

Won daye I shall aske of ye to giv yur blud
Fer the lyfe of a yung lamb
But thum who hev never looked upon me
Giv not the breth of yur mouths to suckle thum And as they gazed in wonder upon him, the earth closed again upon the elegant youth and the snow fell again in the same way that it had fallen, but it was as if a weight had been lifted from their hearts that he had spoken to them. So they joined hands together and continued lightly on their way. And no more thought did they give to the old man who had perished until at the change of the season they chanced to pass again by the place where he had fallen, and lo, there had grown up a great tree, and its branches spread out over them as they paused and sheltered them from a passing shower.

II

Now are there voices of children
Hard cold at the door singing
And in the blood a tide rising as if an army were stirring.
I would say that a man and his country wither
When a sea runs between them
But the words of my mouth take flight as I come to them
And the word of truth lies still in my heart.

Italy, contained in you
As richly as in the skin of a grape,
I would find on your tongue some flavor
On your lips some word of him.
Italy
Like opening a window upon a garden
Which need not be pruned, pathed, swept, or weeded,
A land sown with miracles
Before which the snow parts into spring,
A coast you walk drawing
The warm sea back on your shoulders
The sun down over your brows.

Here the wind has fallen in strange ways
And the vanes fly in the storm crying
East, west, to the lost elements.
I would go down
Into the towns that remember
The hills turned green again
The roads bitter with dust
I would talk of him for whom the waters fall softly.

III Houses are not teeth in the hill, nor claws deep in the rock's bark, but riders got weary, dismounted to lie down at the side of the water, to touch the pine needles and stare at their own faces. They come up out of the grass and into the hard leather of the boughs and go off over the roads, shod feet among the thistles and loose rock seeking the spare places and points as high needles. Here in the north are the riders got weary, laid down with fires built at their hearts, with mouths humming of corn-bread, of white meal, of foxfeet, with thought of you warmer than any fuel winged in the chimney. Now in forests and forests do the trees stand dark and sorrowing, and I say to them that their fine limbs shall kneel to you, their nimble necks arch to you. I say you will put in their mouths reins of light flexible as minnows, and out, out, the dark far earth will be soft under the hoofs of the wind

galloping
galloping galloping
galloping
with nostrils like wild black pansies opened on the fog.