women

Come back to St. Andrews! Before you went away
You said you would be wretched where you could not see the Bay,
The East sands and the West sands and the castle in the sea
Come back to St. Andrews--St. Andrews and me.

Oh, it's dreary along South Street when the rain is coming down,
And the east wind makes the student draw more close his warm red gown,
As I often saw you do, when I watched you going by
On the stormy days to College, from my window up on high.

I wander on the Lade Braes, where I used to walk with you,

When a girl's sixteen, and as poor as she's pretty,
And she hasn't a friend and she hasn't a home,
Heigh-ho! She's as safe in Paris city
As a lamb night-strayed where the wild wolves roam;
And that was I; oh, it's seven years now
(Some water's run down the Seine since then),
And I've almost forgotten the pangs and the tears now,
And I've almost taken the measure of men.
II
Oh, I found me a lover who loved me only,
Artist and poet, and almost a boy.
And my heart was bruised, and my life was lonely,

(In Memory of a Commission)

Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.

Their noble names were mentioned -- O the burning black disgrace! --
By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave it,
And 'coruscating innocence' the learned Judges gave it.

Whan bells war rung, an mass was sung,
A wat a' man to bed were gone,
Clark Sanders came to Margret's window,
With mony a sad sigh and groan.

"Are ye sleeping, Margret," he says,
"Or are ye waking, presentlie?
Give me my faith and trouthe again,
A wat, trew-love, I gied to thee."

"Your faith and trouth ye's never get,
Nor our trew love shall never twain,
Till ye come with me in my bower,
And kiss me both cheek and chin."

"My mouth it is full cold, Margret,

Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.
Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor

He was six foot four, and forty-six
and even colder than he thought he was
James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks

Not that I cared about the other woman.
Those perfumed breasts with hearts
of pure rock salt.
Lot's wives-
all of them.

I didn't care
if they fondled him at parties,
eased him in at home
between a husband & a child,
sucked him dry
with vacuum cleaner kisses.

It was the coldness that I minded,
though he's warned me.

at one stage in my life
I met a man who claimed to have
visited Pound at St. Elizabeths.

then I met a woman who not only
claimed to have visited
E.P.
but also to have made love
to him—she even showed
me
certain sections in the
Cantos
where Ezra was supposed to have
mentioned
her.

so there was this man and
this woman
and the woman told me
that Pound had never
mentioned a visit from this
man
and the man claimed that the
lady had had nothing to do

a woman precedes me up the long rope.
her dangling braids the color of rain.
maybe i should have had braids.
maybe i should have kept the body i started,
slim and possible as a boy's bone.
maybe i should have wanted less.
maybe i should have ignored the bowl in me
burning to be filled.
maybe i should have wanted less.
the woman passes the notch in the rope
marked Sixty. I rise toward it, struggling,
hand over hungry hand.

1

You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother

...
Whan bells war rung, an mass was sung,
A wat a' man to bed were gone,
Clark Sanders came to Margret's window,
With mony a sad sigh and groan.

"Are ye sleeping, Margret," he says,
"Or are ye waking, presentlie?
Give me my faith and trouthe again,
A wat, trew-love, I gied to thee."

"Your faith and trouth ye's never get,
Nor our trew love shall never twain,
Till ye come with me in my bower,
And kiss me both cheek and chin."