Part 16

This is the song of the wave, of the wave that falls— Wild as a burst of day-gold blown through the colours of morning It shivers to infinite atoms up the rumbling steep of sand. This is the wave.

VIII

This is the song of the wave that died in the fullness of life. The prodigal this, that lavished its largess of strength In the lust of attainment. Aiming at things for Heaven too high, Sure in the pride of life, in the richness of strength. So tried it the impossible height, till the end was found: Where ends the soul that yearns for the fillet of morning stars, The soul in the toils of the journeying worlds, Whose eye is filled with the Image of God, And the end is Death!

GEORGE CABOT LODGE

FRIMAIRE

Dearest, we are like two flowers Blooming in the garden, A purple aster flower and a red one Standing alone in a withered desolation.

The garden plants are shattered and seeded, One brittle leaf scrapes against another, Fiddling echoes of a rush of petals. Now only you and I nodding together.

Many were with us; they have all faded. Only we are purple and crimson, Only we in the dew-clear mornings, Smarten into color as the sun rises.

When I scarcely see you in the flat moonlight, And later when my cold roots tighten, I am anxious for morning, I cannot rest in fear of what may happen.

You or I—and I am a coward. Surely frost should take the crimson. Purple is a finer color, Very splendid in isolation.

So we nod above the broken Stems of flowers almost rotted. Many mornings there cannot be now For us both. Ah, Dear, I love you!

AMY LOWELL

PATTERNS

I walk down the garden paths, And all the daffodils Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. I walk down the patterned garden paths In my stiff, brocaded gown. With my powdered hair and jewelled fan, I too am a rare Pattern. As I wander down The garden paths.

My dress is richly figured, And the train Makes a pink and silver stain On the gravel, and the thrift Of the borders. Just a plate of current fashion, Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes. Not a softness anywhere about me, Only a whale-bone and brocade. And I sink on a seat in the shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills Flutter in the breeze As they please. And I weep; For the lime tree is in blossom And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the splashing of waterdrops In the marble fountain Comes down the garden paths. The dripping never stops. Underneath my stiffened gown Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin, A basin in the midst of hedges grown So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding, But she guesses he is near, And the sliding of the water Seems the stroking of a dear Hand upon her. What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown! I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground. All the pink and silver crumpled up upon the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after, Bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword hilt and the buckles on his shoes. I would choose To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover, Till he caught me in the shade, And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me, Aching, melting, unafraid. With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops, And the plopping of the waterdrops, All about us in the open afternoon— I am very like to swoon With the weight of this brocade, For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom In my bosom, Is a letter I have hid. It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke. “Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell Died in action Thursday sen’night.” As I read it in the white morning sunlight. The letters squirmed like snakes. “Any answer, Madam,” said my footman. “No,” I told him. “See that the messenger takes some refreshment. No, no answer.” And I walked into the garden, Up and down the patterned paths, In my stiff, correct brocade. The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun, Each one. I stood upright too, Held rigid to the pattern By the stiffness of my gown. Up and down I walked, Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband, In a month, here, underneath this lime, We would have broke the pattern; He for me, and I for him, He as Colonel, I as lady, On this shady seat. He had a whim That sunlight carried blessing. And I answered, “It shall be as you have said.” Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk Up and down The patterned garden paths In my stiff, brocaded gown. The squills and the daffodils Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.

I shall go Up and down, In my gown. Gorgeously arrayed, Boned and stayed. And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace By each button, hook and lace. For the man who should loose me is dead, Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, In a pattern called a war. Christ! What are patterns for?

AMY LOWELL

A BATHER

Thick dappled by circles of sunshine and fluttering shade. Your bright, naked body advances, blown over by leaves, Half-quenched in their various green, just a point of you showing, A knee or a thigh, sudden glimpsed, then at once blotted into The filmy and flickering forest, to start out again Triumphant in smooth, supple roundness, edged sharp as white ivory, Cool, perfect, with rose rarely tinting your lips and your breasts, Swelling out from the green in the opulent curves of ripe fruit, And hidden, like fruit, by the swift intermittence of leaves. So, clinging to branches and moss, you advance on the ledges Of rock which hang over the stream, with the wood-smells about you, The pungence of strawberry plants and of gum-oozing spruces, While below runs the water impatient, impatient to take you, To splash you, to run down your sides, to sing you of deepness, Of pools brown and golden, with brown-and-gold flags on their borders, Of blue, lingering skies floating solemnly over your beauty, Of undulant waters a-sway in the effort to hold you To keep you submerged and quiescent while over you glories The summer. Oread, Dryad, or Naiad, or just Woman, clad only in youth and in gallant perfection, Standing up in a great burst of sunshine, you dazzle my eyes Like a snow-star, a moon, your effulgence burns up in a halo, For you are the chalice which holds all the races of men. You slip into the pool and the water folds over your shoulder, And over the tree-tops the clouds slowly follow your swimming, To behold the way they act. And the scent of the woods is sweet on this hot summer morning.

AMY LOWELL

LEPRECHAUNS AND CLURICAUNS

Over where the Irish hedges Are with blossoms white as snow, Over where the limestone ledges Through the soft green grasses show— There the fairies may be seen In their jackets of red and green, Leprechauns and cluricauns, And the other ones, I ween.

And, bedad, it is a wonder To behold the way they act. They’re the lads that seldom blunder, Wise and wary, that’s the fact. You may hold them with your eye; Look away and off they fly; Leprechauns and cluricauns, Bedad, but they are sly!