What was the tune you heard on the way
that you must dawdle here,
cut a reed like any truant,
cut crooked holes in the reed,
and dabble with burbling phrases
which can only tremble and halt
no matter how fearfully carefully you blow?
The tune you heard didn't limp?
Time, you're a dunce.
You could have breathed echo
when the air was near —
now it's a wraith
beyond even tiny embodiment.
That amorphous haze,
arpeggic fall of those leaves,
glint of that bird — or was it a squirrel? —
ought to teach your heedlessness,
no man can essay a pavanne
with his phrases at variance.
And why propose a pavannne
when nobody dances pavannes,
or ask a flute
to mimic the tone of a spinet?
Dear dunce,
your tune begins to sound feminine —
go away.
The phrases are exquisite daggers —
move along, move along:
we have all sought the same lady twice!