Lord Phoibos, when the goddess, lady Leto, bore you,
Clasping a palm tree in her slender hands,
You the most beautiful of immortals, beside the wheel-round lake,
Then all of boundless Delos was filled
With an ambrosial scent; the huge earth laughed,
And the deep waters of the hoary sea rejoiced.
In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned
Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules,
I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes
Were my life's warmth and sunshine, outspread arms
My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced
In yielding to all amorous influence
And multiple impulsion of the flesh,
To feel within my being surge and sway
The force that all the stars acknowledge too.
Amid the nebulous humanity
Where I an atom crawled and cleaved and sundered,
I saw a million motions, but one law;
A gallant knight and his betroth'd bride,
Were walking one day by a river side,
They talk'd of love, and they talk'd of war,
And how very foolish lovers are.
At length the bride to the knight did say,
'There have been many young ladies led astray
By believing in all their lovers said,
And you are false to me I am afraid.'
'No, Ellen, I was never false to thee,
I never gave thee cause to doubt me;
I have always lov'd thee and do still,
And no other woman your place shall fill.'
What will you say tonight, poor soul in solitude,
what will you say my heart, withered till now,
to the so beautiful, so sweet, so dear one,
whose divine gaze recreated the flower?
- We will set Pride now to singing her praises:
Nothing outdoes her sweet air of authority.
Her spiritual flesh has the perfume of angels,
and her eye surrounds us in robes of infinity.
Whether in the night, and alone, and in solitude,
Whether in the street, and among the multitude,
her phantom dances in air, like a flame.
Last night I looked across the hills
And through an arch of darkling pine
Low-swung against a limpid west
I saw a young moon shine.
And as I gazed there blew a wind,
Loosed where the sylvan shadows stir,
Bringing delight to soul and sense
The breath of dying fir.
This morn I saw a dancing host
Of poppies in a garden way,
And straight my heart was mirth-possessed
And I was glad as they.
I heard a song across the sea
As sweet and faint as echoes are,
And glimpsed a poignant happiness
The full inspiration,
Of the beautiful blue.
The music of daffodils,
The voice that soothes.
Your acquaintance is known great,
Majestic as you may be.
The splendor you spread,
The radiance I seek.
Take forth my heart to yours.
Mend it with your breath.
The world stops with the heavens.
Like an aged flower pressed.
Only tears for you can stain this cheek.
Stigmas of only joy will do,
For my soul will always be content,
As long as my heart is mended by you.
Oh, will the footsteps never be done?
The insolent feet
Thronging the street,
Forsaken now of the only one.
The only one out of all the throng,
Whose footfall I knew,
And could tell it so true,
That I leapt to see as she passed along,
As she passed along with her beautiful face,
Which knew full well
Though it did not tell,
That I was there in the window-space.
Now my sense is never so clear.
It cheats my heart,
Making me start
A thousand times, when she is not near.
I drank musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with
the millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter
one night
And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker,
he spoke of a beautiful daughter, and I knew he had
a peace and a happiness up his sleeve somewhere.
Then I heard Jim Kirch make a speech to the Advertising
Association on the trade resources of South America.
And the way he lighted a three-for-a-nickel stogie and
cocked it at an angle regardless of the manners of
our best people,
I never kill a fly because
I think that what we have of laws
To regulate and civilize
Our daily life - we owe to flies.
II
Apropos, I'll tell you of Choo, the spouse
Of the head of the hunters, Wung;
Such a beautiful cave they had for a house,
And a brood of a dozen young.
And Wung would start by the dawn's red light
On the trailing of bird or beast,
And crawl back tired on the brink of night
With food for another feast.
III
Then the young would dance in their naked glee,
And only where the forest fires have sped,
Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
It hides the scars with almost human hands.
And only to the heart that knows of grief,
Of desolating fire, of human pain,
There comes some purifying sweet belief,
Some fellow-feeling beautiful, if brief.
And life revives, and blossoms once again
