English

LAMENT

From the Breton

The apple boughs bend down with fruit;
— The wall is far too old to mend;
The rout rides up in full pursuit;
— Never ask the end.

The princes send ambassadors
— And high catastrophes portend;
Their galleys drive on desolate shores;
— Never ask the end.

The Pope has tendered me a ring;
— The King of France will stand my friend;
The Devil has shown me a marvellous thing;
— Never ask the end.'

LOVE SONG

From the Icelandic

I was a sea-gull flying north
In the wrong season's
Distress; some fear had cast me forth
And some malfeasance.
The wind conveyed me past control;
My plumes were slanted;
To dash myself against the Pole
Was all I wanted.
My brain was frozen in my head,
My iris blinded;
To be destroyed and quickly dead
Was all I minded;
To dash my body on the ice
In shining splinters
And pile it with a century's
Contiguous winters.

GRACE BEFORE MEAT

From the Gaelic

No man should be tempted
— To be greedy, and grumble
At the cup that he's emptied.
— Its meaning was humble;
Being only to offer
— A drink when he thirsted,
Yet the poor thing might suffer
— A death when he cursed it.

And that woman's ungrateful
— Who fails to encourage
A love like a plateful
— Of butter and porridge.
It cannot be venison
— Because she is angry;
Lacking its benison
— She'll live to go hungry.

One Brief Hour of Grown-up Glory on the Gulf of Mexico.

Far from the age of my Spanish ancestor,
Don Ivan the dreamer,
Friend of Columbus, and Isabel's friend,
Wherever I wander, beggar or guest,
The soul of the U. S. A.: — that is my life-quest.

Still I see the wild Star-Spangled Banner unfurl.

And at last near Biloxi, in glory and sport
I met Doctor Mohawk, while swimming this morning
Straight into the Gulf of Mexico Sun.
The Mohawk! the Mohawk! the Mohawk! the Mohawk!

The porpoise was grandma. The Mohawk was doctor:
" Heap-big-chief-the-Mohawk , " with eye like a tommyhawk.
Naked, in war-paint, tough stock and old stock,
Furious swash-buckler, street-brawler, world-breaker,
Plumed like an Indian, an American dragon,
Tall as Sun-mountain, long as the Sangamon,
With a buffalo beard, all beast, yet all human,
Sire of the Mexican king, Montezuma,
Of Quetzal the Fair God, and prince Guatomozin,
And that fated Peruvian, Atahualpa,
Of King Powhatan and his brown Pocahontas,

BEING A Seven -Y EAR -O LD B OY'S E LABORATE M EMORY OF THE D AY OF H IS B IRTH

In through the window a sea-mustang brought me,
(Smashing the window sash, breaking the law).
I was tied to his back — I do not know who caught me.

Up from Biloxi, up the great Mississippi,
Through the swamps, through the thaw, through the rains that grew raw,
On the tenth of November (the hail storm was nippy).
Up the slow, muddy Sangamon River —
(While we heard the towns cough and we heard the farms shiver),

Palinode

All summer neither rain nor wave washes the cormorants
Perch, and their droppings have painted it shining white.
If the excrement of fish-eaters makes the brown rock a snow-mountain
At noon, a rose in the morning, a beacon at moonrise
On the black water: it is barely possible that even men's present
Lives are something; their arts and sciences (by moonlight)
Not wholly ridiculous, nor their cities merely an offense.

II. To the Children

Power's good; life is not always good but power's good.
So you must think when abundance
Makes pawns of people and all the loaves are one dough.
The steep singleness of passion
Dies; they will say, " What was that? " but the power triumphs.
Loveliness will live under glass
And beauty will go savage in the secret mountains.
There is beauty in power also.
You children must widen your minds' eyes to take mountains
Instead of faces, and millions

I. Reference to a Passage in Plutarch's Life of Sulla

The people buying and selling, consuming pleasures, talking in the archways,
Were all suddenly struck quiet
And ran from under stone to look up at the sky: so shrill and mournful,
So fierce and final, a brazen
Pealing of trumpets high up in the air, in the summer blue over Tuscany.
They marvelled; the soothsayers answered:
" Although the Gods are little troubled toward men, at the end of each period
A sign is declared in heaven

II. T OLSTOI I S P LOWING Y ET

Tolstoi is plowing yet. When the smoke-clouds break,
High in the sky shines a field as wide as the world.
There he toils for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake.

Ah, he is taller than clouds of the little earth.
Only the congress of planets is over him,
And the arching path where new sweet stars have birth.

Wearing his peasant dress, his head bent low,
Tolstoi, that angel of Peace, is plowing yet;
Forward across the field, his horses go.