PART I 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing cock; Tu—whit! Tu—whoo! And hark, again! the crowing cock, How drowsily it crew. Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.
Ne Rubeam, Pingui donatus Munere (Horace, Epistles II.i.267) While you, great patron of mankind, sustain The balanc'd world, and open all the main; Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;
Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-fac’d suitor ‘gins to woo him.
[Introduction] Lo now! four other acts upon the stage, Childhood, and Youth, the Manly, and Old-age. The first: son unto Phlegm, grand-child to water, Unstable, supple, moist, and cold’s his Nature. The second: frolic claims his pedigree; From blood and air, for hot and moist is he. The third of fire and choler is compos’d, Vindicative, and quarrelsome dispos’d. The last, of earth and heavy melancholy, Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly. Childhood was cloth’d in white, and given to show, His spring was intermixed with some snow. Upon his head a Garland Nature set: Of Daisy, Primrose, and the Violet.
The nicest child I ever knew Was Charles Augustus Fortescue. He never lost his cap, or tore His stockings or his pinafore: In eating Bread he made no Crumbs, He was extremely fond of sums, To which, however, he preferred The Parsing of a Latin Word— He sought, when it was within his power, For information twice an hour, And as for finding Mutton-Fat Unappatising, far from that! He often, at his Father’s Board, Would beg them, of his own accord, To give him, if they did not mind,
By that he ended had his ghostly sermon, The fox was well induc'd to be a parson, And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire, How to a benefice he might aspire. "Marry, there" (said the priest) "is art indeed: Much good deep learning one thereout may read; For that the ground-work is, and end of all, How to obtain a beneficial. First, therefore, when ye have in handsome wise Yourself attired, as you can devise, Then to some nobleman yourself apply, Or other great one in the worldes eye, That hath a zealous disposition To God, and so to his religion. There must thou fashion eke a godly zeal,
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's Wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour, And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come
I When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter," And proved it—'twas no matter what he said: They say his system 'tis in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head; And yet who can believe it! I would shatter Gladly all matters down to stone or lead, Or adamant, to find the World a spirit, And wear my head, denying that I wear it.
II What a sublime discovery 'twas to make the Universe universal egotism, That all's ideal—all ourselves: I'll stake the World (be it what you will) that that's no schism.
After the clash of elevator gates And the long sinking, she emerges where, A slight thing in the morning’s crosstown glare, She looks up toward the window where he waits, Then in a fleeting taxi joins the rest Of the huge traffic bound forever west.
On such grand scale do lovers say good-bye— Even this other pair whose high romance
We sat together at one summer’s end, That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, And you and I, and talked of poetry. I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
The man Flammonde, from God knows where, With firm address and foreign air, With news of nations in his talk And something royal in his walk, With glint of iron in his eyes, But never doubt, nor yet surprise, Appeared, and stayed, and held his head As one by kings accredited.
The Muses are turned gossips; they have lost The buskined step, and clear high-sounding phrase, Language of gods. Come, then, domestic Muse, In slip-shod measure loosely prattling on, Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream, Or droning flies, or shoes lost in the mire By little whimpering boy, with rueful face — Come, Muse, and sing the dreaded washing day.
Fashionable women in luxurious homes, With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills, Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief; Hostess or guest, and always so supplied With graceful deference and courtesy; Surrounded by their servants, horses, dogs, — These tell us they have all the rights they want.
Successful women who have won their way Alone, with strength of their unaided arm, Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up By the sweet aid of ‘woman’s influence’; Successful any way, and caring naught For any other woman’s unsuccess, — These tell us they have all the rights they want.
Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall. And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand, And from the crown thereof a carcanet Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday, Came Tristram, saying, "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?"
For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once Far down beneath a winding wall of rock Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead. From roots like some black coil of carven snakes, Clutch'd at the crag, and started thro' mid air
[Étude from the Fourth Treatise of the Convivio, Chapter XXVII]
In my youth, not unstaind and in much ignoble; in manhood, struggling to ring true yet knowing often my defection from these graces Dante lists proper to Man: temperance, courage, love, courtesy,
Invoked every sundown, it’s you, painted on clouds rouging our treasured plain and all who walk it, with leaf-fresh kids and women damp from traveling, city-bound, in the radiance of a just-stopped shower; it’s you, mother eternally young, courtesy of death’s plucking hand, rose at the fragrant point of unpetaling, you who are the alpha of every neurosis, every torturing anxiety, and for this I give you gratitude for time past, time present, time future.
By the last few times we saw her it was clear That things were different. When you tried to help her Get out of the car or get from the car to the door Or across the apartment house hall to the elevator There was a new sense of heaviness Or of inertia in the body. It wasn’t That she was less willing to be helped to walk But that the walking itself had become less willing.
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