UC-NRLF 530 PAN S REEDS AND OTHER VERSE By WILLIAM MACKAY CALDWELL GIFT OF <U-6 P PAN S REEDS AND OTHER VERSE By WILLIAM MACKAY CALDWELL * 329407 Copyrighted, 1915, by WILLIAM MACKAY CALDWELL All rights reserved Stain Print, LOS ANGELES c PAN S REEDS CONTENTS Page PAN S REEDS 7 AN OLD CHURCH 9 SONNET 12 BALLAD OF THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMEN .13 AMOR SABINUM 15 PRAYER 17 THOU WITHIN (Ode) 18 SONNET: CREATION 21 THE EMPTY ROOM 22 UNE ROSE DE L HiER SOIR (Villanelle) 23 SABINE NOCTURNE (Sonnet) 25 THE PRAY-ER OF WALPI (Chaunt) ... .26 Contents Continued Page LA SAINTE VIERGE D AviuoN 30 JAPANESE LOVE SONG 31 UNO ASPECTU IN AMOR INCIDERE (Sonnet) 33 THE STREET CALLED SORROW-LOVE (Dirge) 34 ROSA MYSTICA 37 LA DOULEUR DE TROUVERE (Ballad) 39 THE HERD-BOY OF LACUNA 41 LA DEMOISELLE DE MONS (Chanson) 43 SONNET (Japan: Winter) 45 NIGHT OF THE PAINTED SANDS 46 SONNET: BEAUTY 49 STELLA AMORIS (A LEGEND OF THE STARRY VALES OF ARCADY) 50 se tu sequi tua Stella Non puoi fallire al glorioso porto . . Francesco Petrarca. PAN S REEDS PAN S REEDS r N has fallen now. Across the sky Two nestward doves. Touched with the ^^, afterglow, A rush-grown stream breaking its melody To play around a nymph s soft limbs: and lo! Where the myrrh-meadows amaranthine lie, Pan with his reeds, his jolly cheeks a-blow. Mellow the hills. A disc of golden frost, The slow moon mounting through a coronal Of olives, now in amber clouds is lost, Now breaks to draw a circled interval About an oak, against whose gnarled trunk mossed Leans Pan, cross-legged, imperturbable. Pan, with his satyr hooves and pointed ears, His weazened face, and wicked little eye, Eld with the evil of a thousand years Ah me! so soon as his soft threnody She lists, forgot will be her wild, shy fears In the sweet strains he plays so leisurely. [7] PAN S REEDS Hark to their throbbing! how their silver melts In little pearl-drops as a moist flow r drips Its fulness on a pool in tiny belts Of crystal, till the wood-dove hears, and sips Ah, cease your liquid strains, bad Pan, or else Her fluttering heart will be upon your lips! Clear shine the skies, starry with dots of gold That cluster round him, an enraptured crowd Of listeners: faint across the silvery wold A shadow flits, gauzed in the night s thin shroud- And the old moon, who saw the World unfold, Hides his kind face behind a passing cloud. [8] PAN S REEDS AN OLD CHURCH aXDER the China-trees soft shade An old church is, whose crumbling walls Are rotted where the ivy crawls Like tapestry of faded jade. And there, before its doors ajar. I rest and list the sad refrain By kind, dead fingers played again. Than Tosti s Vorei sadder far. A low wind soughs, and where I stand The autumn leaves fall one by one In gold and pink and vermillion, Like snowflakes on a lonely land. And one by one the dead leaves fall. And in my heart is winter s drear; The shedding trees are not more bare, The wind more lone a vesperal. [9] PAN S REEDS A cowled Brother slowly walks Within the doors, and kneels in prayer: But in his heart there is no tear, For with the God he loves he talks While filtering through a painted pane Like amethyst upon the aisle, Where I and one once knelt awhile, The last light throws its jeweled stain. And from mine eyes drop, one by one. The hot, wet tears like falling leaves: The very twilight with me grieves, Tn gathering mistral sets the sun. And no pearl beads the wint ry sky, For each pearl is a jeweled tear. And every tear a crystal prayer All counted on my rosary. [10] PAN S REEDS The cowled Brother, satiate, Solemnly rising from his knees, Goes out beneath the China-trees And enters through the convent gate. The organ keys, with sough and swing, Sob unplayed Vorei to my ear And in the vacant aisle I hear The flutter of a passing wing! Again the wind makes mornful tune And just above the leafless trees, Wrapped in filmy, shiv ring fleece, Like a poor goatherd slinks the moon. An old church is, whose crumbling walls Beneath the China-trees, (all white And tapestried in ghostly light), Are rotted where the ivy crawls. [11] PAN S REEDS SONNET HIKE as a pearl or crystal prayer, is wrought, Jewel of craven sorrow, from a soul A tear, when touched by running tides is stole Some jetsam from the further shores of Thought, And round the pier of memory is caught The flotsam washed up by the dark grey roll Of recollection, many a mocking ghoul Of things desired and prayed and come to naught! . . . fell gloaming hours, when drear remem brance knells The void to wound with horrid brazen gong . . . And yet for those who list a music wells Tuneful with hope from e en those sightless hells, Like a bird s round of liquid, lovely song Telling of starbright night from darksome dells. [12] PAN S REEDS BALLAD OF THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMEN N score Christian gentlemen, Riding with sword and lance; The Lion-and-lillies flanking The civilized ordinance; And a sandaled Fray, and a great Cross, Leading the long advance. Ten score Christian gentlemen Bearing the Word of God Over the fiery deserts Where never had Christian trod, With the Wine of the Chalice on every brow, And the sign of the Cross on each sword. Ten score Christian gentlemen A Bishop had blessed their zeal, Sealing the lilly-name of Christ On lips that were visored in steel! And their cry as they rode to the paynim abode Was, "Christ! and the Church s weal!" [13] PAN S REEDS Ten score Christian gentlemen Suddenly ceased that cry, For as Merlin had walked before them, Or each had Don Quixote s eye, Roof, and spire, and minaret Flared out in gold on the sky! Ten score Christian gentlemen Stared in a golden trance, And this one thought of a lady of rank, And that of a castle in France Then the visors snapped: "Are you ready, fair sirs? So! lances in lead advance!" Four score Christian gentlemen, Sword-arms weary and red, Riding in gold-piled saddles And the long, long line of the Dead! And a sandaled Fray with the gentle Crucifix on ahead. PAN S REEDS AMOR SABINUM 0! now the brazen hands of morning lift The valley mists! Below, the spires of Rome. Above, as argosies, in sweet spendthrift The sailing clouds breaking with creamy foam Across a sea of lapis-lazuli: Climbing and twisting through the winey loam, White in the sapphire veining of the sky, The old Valerian viaduct mounts upward to the eye Through meads with laurel coronals entwined: And where rug-like the myrtle floweret Are lain, their edge with faint laburnum lined, The trippings of bare feet their incense fret As the brown peasants Salian measures tread, Scattering petal-clouds; and sweeter yet Than vervaine carpet through the valley spread, Ripe lips on laughing lips with the merry grape stained red. [15] PAN S REEDS Ah me! a score of centuries are fled Since Horace drained his homely amphorae Of Sabine vintage! (Are the Dead so dead?) Methinks that still a weary, tear-dimmed eye Strains from the icy Euxine o er the mere, As Ovid, exiled, labours to descry The wild-thymed Sabine meads, the sparkling air, Damon in idlesse loosing the strands of Lyce s hair. [16] PAN S REEDS PRAYER AN of the wondrous Birth, whom Heaven s star 1 I J. J. t d V V* A -I O OLCVl V-^ Was need to write thy coming in the sky, Be thou my judge, lest This of which am I Slay me as slew it thine own avatar. And if thy feet are shod in fiery brass, And thou are robed in sheet of whitest flame. And in thy presence angel legions pass With eyes averted, and thy dreadful Name Is sealed yet art thou not that human same That dared the priests the ravenous stones to hurl At her who neither matron was, nor girl? And took on lips of clay the kiss of shame? And with thy weary, human eyes rained tears For those thy murderers in Gesthemane? . . . (What hope of mercy in our man-made years!) Man of the wondrous Birth, my jury be! [17] PAN S REEDS THOU WITHIN (ODE) GHOU THE WITHIN ME, Human and God, The fullness of whose treasury Is on me showered Rich as is rain-kissed vineyard, utterly To THEE I turn in prayer. (Ah, well beloved of me Who -built your altar there, The symphony of her had lit the stars in Christ s own hair! Fragrant with flower, THOU whom the feeble priests call "Soul" THOU are not that insensate bower Of their deaf God beyond control! Not there We found YOU in the silver of an hour That YOU made grow Into a garden where A living stream through Dian s meads has now. [18] PAN S REEDS And it was THOU who, when the new-horned moon Came peeping like a timid little fellow Across the perfect hour of our noon. And in the east we saw the skies grow yellow As the gold stars lift their voices ah, too soon They sang the orison of waking Day! Chorded THY music from our twi-stringed souls (That were such gentle, happy virelai From flow r-fretted angels citherns and citholes, How could They make such threnody to slav!) What time I drew Her hyacinth within me In one long-breathed rhapsody And knew Her audibly, THOU, God she built WITHIN, Loved our Love: But when a little Day would make it Sin That of our Love we strove, Break the sweet melody rather than Its cadences be unshrove. PAN S REEDS Yet THOU, O God whose altar she built HERE- Thy fulgence wilt outlive the lampless Throne, As angels eyes at night linger upon A sea to drive the clouds of unlit Fear. Still with me One, YOU LL make the flowers grow Over the grove of neither moon nor sun, So that their song for me shall say to her, "I love you so!" [20] PAN S REEDS SONNET: CREATION first . . . white! . . . indescribably P ure white Flooding and blending all . .from Nothing wrought . Shadow: . . . (and that is Birth, and that is Art!) Lo! the alternate Doors of Day and Night Flung wide the null of ether to invite, Which, travailing to Dawn the gold t impart. A barrier burst from out its swollen heart. Bending in prisms three of virgin light; Till through the Doors heraldic rode the Sun, Impaling in an estoiled field a-whirl Rioting the prismatic crystal of The Rainbow . . . lo! singing Earth s orison In flower-borning at its arched throat GIRL! (And that is Birth, and Art; and that is Love!) [21] PAN S REEDS THE EMPTY ROOM XHAD asked her to wait; the fire was there, Feeble and groping about the hearth; Wanted but time for the flame to flare From the coals, all live but smothered with earth. So I nursed the flicker for all its worth Nursed it into a little glow Till the logs were crackling with merry mirth: Then I rose from my knees, and turned . . . and lo! The room was empty of all save dearth! [22] PAN S REEDS UNE ROSE DE L HIER SOIR (Villanelle) OOR rose, wilt and bare! Where now is your flow r That she wore in her hair? You were blown then, and fair, And you grew in her bower, Poor rose, wilt and bare! In her gold you did fare: Did that scent you devour That she wore in her hair? [23] PAN S REEDS And her cheek you were near- Bid it steal all your dower, Poor rose, wilt and bare? So she cast you out here^, Now your fragrance is o er That she wore in her hair! (Is that rain? or a tear?) Well, you lived for an hour, Poor rose, wilt and bare, That she wore in her hair! [24] PAN S REEDS SABINE NOCTURNE (SONNET) QUIETEST hour. In the di-toned light The weary vintagers wend home ward; high A mower with his scythe, against the sky Climbs the faint hills before arising night. Far down the valley twinkling panes invite To cottage cheer: about, soft rushes sigh As some shy maid telling her rosary, Her pulsing secret love to set aright. Hark! faint from bellfry in the lowlands toll Sad trental for some hamlet father s soul. Or tear-voiced masses for some new-born mite, Gone where, like tracery of needle-hole In the rare broidery of a Cardinal s stole, The Evening Star is pricked in lacey white. [25] PAN S REEDS THE PRAY-ER OF WALPI (Chaunt.) HE camp fire made, the horses fed, A rock of basalt, turreted, We saw against the sky. The silence of the evening air Was rended by a long-wailed prayer, Like to a Muezzin s cry. In silhouette upon the edge Of an overhanging tier of ledge That cut the dome like bars, A figure stretched its arms in chaunt, Eerie, attenuated, gaunt, To its brothers, the gold stars. [26] PAN S REEDS Over the saffron skyline came, Wrapped in a sheet of silver flame, The first edge of the moon. Along the Milky Way the light Blazed like a city street at night, White with the heat of June. Up from the ledge, monotonous, Nor eager, nor in fearful stress, Mounted the long-breathed prayer As the healing Archer his Arrow aims Most like, it mounted in thin flames Through the hot, electric air. [27] PAN S REEDS Then like a thrown hand-ball, higher The moon went free, and a belt of fire Stood all about its rim, Till it bulged sheer out from the circled rield Like the center stud of a rounded shield, And hung right over him. It penciled the scaur as in white chalk; The drooped corn wilt on the parched stalk, The gaunt kine, blear and blind; And we saw that the land was dead with drouth When suddenly some clouds ran south After a feathered wind. [28] PAN S REEDS And still the solemn monotone Went on, and on, and on, and on; The moon fell from the sky: The stars began to run about: We sought the camp, and worn out In fitful sleep closed eye. Each hour we heard the faint prayer spoke And when the heart of night was broke We stood beneath again. The pray-er on the ledge was gone But the golden feet of early dawn Were wetted with the rain. [29] PAN S REEDS LA SAINTE VIERGE D AVILION O EAR, were I not of common clay, Long since my drifting argosy To Avilion had found its way.) In yonder flower-pavilion Awaits me fairest of all Queens Of faery-footed Avilion. Her cheek with vervaine dusk-wind kissed, Her tresses all about her free, A drifting nocturne of gold mist. Across the mere her gold is sent Star-eyed: (an onyx chorister Herseems, so star-like is her scent.) And ever and anon her call Is waft to me in villenage. As notes from dulcet virginal. It may not be: the mere us part, Where I am mortal-tossed, God wot! But holden in her rosy palm, Lo! is the crystal of my heart! [30] PAN S REEDS JAPANESE LOVE SONG O VAPORY moon of Fujisan! O moon on the evening sea! Soft as the glow from a moor d sampan, Or gold on a heron s wing- Rise up, rise up and my lover bring Over the waters to me! O vapory moon of Fujisan! O moon on the evening sea! O beautiful star with golden eyes! O star with the amber mouth! Shine where my sailor-lover lies; Lest his sanpan lose its way Shine out, shine out through the night, where play The winds of the odorous south Beautiful star with the golden eyes! O star with the amber mouth! [31] PAN S REEDS O silvery cloud with fleecy sail! O cloud with the ebon hull! Wondrous big and wondrous frail O cloud that my lover brings! Sail on, sail on, your beautiful wings Outspread like a homing gull! Silvery cloud with the fleecy sail! O cloud with the ebon hull! [32] PAN S REEDS UNO ASPECTU IN AMOR INCIDERE (WOODLAND SONNET) LJRELY 1 valued as a lush-rose bloom IMy shy nymphood, nor dreamed it made to spill Like a torn flow r with tassels loosed, until Pan s lips fell fiercely on mine in the gloom, And I a god s soft voice then listened, "Whom Love s shrines are lighted for yields not to ill!"- . . . nothing ... a falling star ... is this tendril 1, woven in the warp of Venus loom? And all is wonderous changed. The timid girth Bound by the heavens seems a little womb To ve born the throbbing beauty of the earth (Say, barren lush-rose, dost them think it worth Thy timid petals on the meadow strewn, This god-like knowledge, this more wide re-birth?; [33] PAN S REEDS THE STREET CALLED SORROW-LOVE (DIRGE) 1DING its face from the sapphire morn; Darkling and damp; ..Dingy; malodorous; unshorn Of last night s garbage; its paint still on, I hit blotched and drab in the murky lamp; Afraid of the day above; This is the grave of the thing still-born The street called Sorrow-Love. A curtain raises; a face peers out. Ghastly as Doom, Wearing the scarlet that last night s rout Over the wine with flirt and flout Made seem like the rose soft bloom; Now like the ashen mask of A nightmare blinks in the fetid gloom Of the street called Sorrow-Love. [34] PAN S REEDS Faint in the distance the city s roar: Louder than Hell In this horrible silence, more awful far Than a sudden oath, or a banged-to door, Or the crash of a brazen bell, Are the steps from above Down the stairs as you slink pleasure o er From the street called Sorrow-Love. And this is the thing that hurts most sore- Rotten and dead As a weed in a cave on a sunless shore Is your SELF as you grope from the dismal maw Of the place where your revel is sped. And the day, without glove, Holds to your eyes what you ve comraded In the street called Sorrow-Love. [35] PAN S REEDS And why does the alley bear that name? Listen and know: A woman s Love is her daylight fame, But you and I, to our lasting shame, Have built it this street below The Heavens above So, gentlemen, on with our merry game In the street called Sorrow-Love! [36] PAN S REEDS ROSA MYSTICA rHOUGHT this land unfragrant, unprofitable, and bare, Until one day I found a little flower growing there All ripe and sweet, with scarlet, dewy petal-lips apart And then straightway I made the land a present of my heart. The sands seemed never-ending, and the cactus drear and bleak, And a grey coyote was howling like a damned soul from a peak, And the food-packs on my saddle were just about as bare When all at once I found the little flower growing there! [37] PAN S REEDS And suddenly the desert changed all its awful face; I saw the cactus waving their arms like things of grace, And the grey coyote was singing a very pleasing hymn, And I smelled the stars in heaven as the night came creeping in. And the fragrance was as attar; and when the moon rose up I toasted it in nectar in my rusted coffee-cup; Then the gold stars sang together, and my soul filled with their Art, For the little flower I found out there is known as "OPEN HEART." [38] PAN S REEDS LE DOULEUR DU TROUVERE (BALLADE) this old World was young, the King Upon his blazoned dais, His court would gather round and sing Ballades and rondelais: Ah me! the joyaunce of those days Of chivalry and song, Of brave devoir, and courtly ways, When this old World was young! When this old World was young, a maid Would bid her lover fare An errant forth, and with his blade Fetch guerdon for her hair. No talk of golden dower was there, Nor Love upon it hung, The proofs of Love were DO and DARE, When this old World was young! [39] PAN S REEDS When this old World was young, a knight Would down some byeroad chance In keeping of his knightly plight. And break a gallant lance; And Monarchs for a lady s glance, Or gauntlet lightly flung, Would stake their scepters, a 1 outrance, When this old World was young! L ENVOI Ah well, the World is somewhat sere, And words sound different on the tongue; Kings called me (sings the sad trouvere) "Cousin," when this old World was young! [40] PAN S REEDS THE HERD-BOY OF LACUNA / HELL-ROSE against moss-mellowed grey Dies in the sky the hot last jrfght; Blood-purple bursts the heart of day Into the star-rimmed bowl of night; And where the feathered corn grows white A goatherd-boy must vigil keep; A nightingale in mischief-spite Mocks, "Herd-boy, close your eyes and sleep!" Clear shine the stars: the girdled scaur Two herons circle: sleepy and slow Like trickle from a silver jar A stream breaks on some stones: and lo! Where weave the willows to and fro, With brown-earth olla in her hands, betore the goatherd s eyes drooped low The Mirage-girl inviting stands! [41] PAN S REEDS Hard by the corn a gaunt coyote, The water dripping from his jaw; Adown the canon s shadowed throat A puma stealths on velvet paw. No use, poor goats, to leap and ba-a-a! Nor nightingale to cry and whirl! They ve gone to where romances are, The herd-boy and the Mirage-girl. [42] PAN S REEDS LA DEMOISELLE DE MONS (Chanson) ERE was a girl of Mons Who a gold locket wore; It lies upon her bones. Dull gold on white: more fair It was not, I have read, Than the gold hair of her That blew across the wall Hard by the castle keep, Where rest the Seneschal. [43] PAN S REEDS A high knight was her wooer (The Seneschal him wist), And eke a troubadour. The troubadour her kist The watching Seneschal Drew bolt on them nor missed! * * * * There was a girl of Mons (God s bane upon its stones!) Who a gold locket wore: It lies upon her bones. [44] PAN S REEDS SONNET (Japan : Winter) E iris flow r is o er: the cherry flown: The petal-white Sumida crystal-massed With ice now: where the maple s soul has passed From aureate life to listless russet, (blown Like dropped notes in a careless monotone Dirged by each swirling gust to winter s blast Addressed as streams to swell the ocean s vast,) A golgotha of leaves, the earth is strewn. But where the kindlier billows beat the shore, Bringing their secret from the dread Below, Tossing their spendthrift garden in the air, A thread of gold the grey sun catches, raw Falls on the fluted rocks a tress . . . and lo! Some unknown weed blossoms to flower there! [45] PAN S REEDS NIGHT OF THE PAINTED SANDS gH, well beloved, beside me rest; The evening shadows draw anigh, The arowp s song is of his nest, Like prayer-sticks, in the fire-sky The sun s last beams are lit and smell The gold stars in the desert air! Ai-ah! the night-breeze loves to dwell In the nopals woven in your hair O, lover! my lover! Who wove those blood-red flowers there? See! now the sunset in the west Goes flaming in a scarlet whorl; Soon by the Twilight-boy caressed Will sleep the Heliotis-girl; Soon o er the vineyard slow above, Through amber clouds the moon will climb Your lips are as a winepress, love, Ah, crush the grape that is on mine! O, lover! my lover! I m drunk upon their scarlet wine! [46] PAN S REEDS Lo! in the west the red fire dies, And rose and gold to saffron wane; Blue-black the sacred mesa lies, And all is stilly as yon crane One-legged its chrome-streaked back upon. Lie still, beloved, till I have guessed (Your eyes are like the spots upon The sacred anltani s breast!) O, lover! my lover! What other girls these arms have pressed? Along the trail the beetles sleep Each on the other s brittle wings, While through the drooping cornfields creep- Where the wiu-e his night-song sings The grey dusk-shadows, drear and thin, Swift as a wolf-pack from their lair Hold me, beloved, and hide me in The raven tassels of your hair! O, lover! my lover! I want to hide my heart-beats there! [47] PAN S REEDS How hot the yune is! let s rise And seek the roof, and watch the night, And bathe us in the curling skies Painted in coal and silver-white Alas! the pearl-stars cluster lower, The White Coyote is on his Throne By the sacred silence of this hour Tell me, has such Love as our own, O, lover! my lover! In any other sky been known? Lo! now the starry lights grow wan; The Dawn-youth s skyline path grows red; Johan-ai s hand your shoulder on Is lain to say the night is dead. High o er the red-stone cliffs above The Ripener lifts his golden jar Give me your lips once more, beloved, How parched and tired and bruised they are! O, lover! my lover! Rise up! there wanes the Morning Star! [48] PAN S REEDS SONNET: BEAUTY EAUTY is amaranth: the sapphirine Wind no tare blows upon the virgin sward: The carefree billow wears no glaring fraud Tenhance the opal of its hyaline. What paints the rose? A web of silver sheen Hides the tree-rot. Shining above, pearl-starred. More sweet to Jesus than the spikenard The tears of shame shed by the Magdalene. Earth, Heaven, Sea only by man create. The Ugly lives: God kens no record of Pain, Woe, Fright, Death, Hypocrisy, or Hate, We fashioned those like as a sweaty glove To hide the hand. Strip it, and roseate, See the clean palm of Beauty, Truth, and Love! [49] PAN S REEDS STELLA AMORIS (A Legend of the Starry Vales of Arcady) IN a dear country where the rivers run Far from the cities tumult and despite Through honeyed mazes rich in flow r-delight Wherein might Dian s virgin veil be spun, As Phreton s car drove down the horizon. And To wreathed his moon-horned head in night, A goatherd lad, his lonely watch begun, Gazed in the fire of a star and saw its crystal heart grow bright. And o er his head the rosy flame burned close, Himward lured from the golden orchestra. As, rich as orioled aria, From his young throat a lovely song arose, A liquid lyric, silvery as goes A bird s quick round of starbright opera: And as an oracle its answer shows, Grew in the constellation s heart the Stella Mystical [50] PAN S REEDS And she, in garland virgin blossomry Loosed by the gold zone of her satellite Her breasts as stirred pond-lillies, flower-light Glowing hke flesh-warmed pearls: drew near on T, shy Trepidant feet, ready the meads to fly ... i( ; ni nearer a ros e of flame their mouths In Venus chalice . . . Sweet, the denary that ni" ht ame and WGnt in the Spired And all night in that amaranthine dell With flowers below, and orbed worlds above My goatherd and the mystic Star ^f Love Made merriment with them that therein dwell, And teased the scolding squirrel in their cell And Played each flower was their treasure-trove, And dabbled toes among the asphodel, And stole the rose s wine, and frolic d through the lovely grove [51] PAN S REEDS Until the shy and early-startled fawn Threw up their heads and smelled the coming day, And sought the sorel for the pasture way, Who on the tree bark rubbed their velvet horn, And stretched their lordly limbs, until with dawn Began the wild wood-dove their virelai, And in the skies the onyx lights grew wan . . . Then shy as a disrobed girl the star-nymph fled from the boy away. And after her a little spell he ran: Then flung him down among the meadow-sweet; And wept, and cursed, and break them with his feet: And when the sun its westward course began, Arose, and like a young barbarian Upon his naked chest with clenched fists beat: And twixt his tears and curses through the span Of day his goats drove o er the meads, nor stopped to let them eat [52] PAN S REEDS Till, as the ev n gathered, he drew near A merry city hung with gay festoon And watched it frolic like a mad buffoon- And o er the headlands to a bay did peer And saw strange ships go by with tarry gear And gaudy sails; and list the sailor s croon Until the sun s last thread like burnished spear Waved through the sea-gate, and in gold began to full the moon. Then marked a temple with a marble stair get in a grove above the hyaline btill bay; and toward a small lamp s ruby shine baw a hushed throng draw nigh in evening prayer Maidens with fruit, and youths with spoil of spear Who lay their gifts before a hidden shrine- And wondered all night long what dripped in there Nor knew the priestly secret of the flow ring corn and vine: [53] PAN S REEDS Till strolling on the fretted sands, he saw The sea in oily phosphoresence rise To lay in pools violet-deep as eyes Of woman on the cave-indented shore. Winnowed with opal fringes from the maw Of lined aenemones: ah me! more wise He had not peered to see the lupanar Where, love deflowered, a falling star was mirrored in that guise! For there are those who say on mortal eyes That pierce the stars white chastity too plain. In frosted wrath, or luminous love, is lain The heraldry of earthly sacrifice, Labeling such the children of the skies, To whom all fleshly happiness is vain: E en as a Christ who for his fellows dies. Or God, or Goth, each stargazer somewise this world has slain, [54] PAN S REEDS Dear children of a flower pregnancy Enciente with Merlin s mythopoeic wand, Sirened with every cloudlet s tressy strand, Seeing with good old Don Quixote s eye A dragon in each tiercel circling high, A palace in each byre, dwell in a land Of poppy-builded castles girdled by A rosary of romances in orbital saraband. And ne er again the star s chrysallis may My goatherd have in nocturn dalliance: So with the dawn he roused him from his trance, - Xor cared that wicked gnomes his flock made fey And drove them o er the mountains far away, But when the sun the mist pierced with its lance, Arose, and gat him where the rock-beat spray Dashed its white crest, and in its mane his soul rode from durance. [55] PAN S REEDS And as for those who sneer at verity, And at the moon s white mystery cry "mew!" And scientifically explain the dew, And say that in each child is born the lie, At faeries gibe, and think love venery, They are not half so wise as those who knew, When sleeping off his last debauchery To garland old Silenus from whose drouth creation grew. So, some good god had tearful ruth, and brought The boy s drowned body from the heartless foam On to the sands, and bade the warm sun comb The frosted brine from out the curls, and caught In flower chalices the pearlery wrought Upon his lids in crystals of a poem, And flung them on th empyric vales, that fraught With threaded tears of love for stars be lit the heav enly dome. (FINIS CORONATjOPUS) [56] THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 6 VERDUE. FEB 9 1940 FEB 1 194 1 YA 01678 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 329407 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY