And weave ye him his coronal.’
‘There is no summer in the leaves,
And withered are the sedges;
How shall we weave a coronal,
Or gather floral pledges?’
‘That I may not say, Ladies.
Death was ever a churl.
That I may not say, Ladies.
How should he show a reason,
That he has taken our Lord away
Upon such hollow season?’
E. P. Ode pour l’élection de son sépulchreFor three years, out of key with his time,He strove to resuscitate the dead artOf poetry; to maintain ‘the sublime’In the old sense. Wrong from the start —No, hardly, but, seeing he had been bornIn a half savage country, out of date;Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the…
And the flowersBend over with heavy heads.They bend in vain.Empty are the ways of this landWhere IoneWalked once, and now does not walkBut seems like a person just gone.
The first has written a long elegy to ‘Chloris’,To ‘Chloris chaste and cold,’ his ‘only Chloris’.The second has written a sonnetupon the mutability of woman,And the third writes an epigram to Candidia.
Upon these lids that lie over usSodden and lead-heavy.Rest brother, for lo ! the dawn is without !The yellow flame palethAnd the wax runs low.Free us, for without be goodly colours,Green of the wood-moss and flower colours,And coolness beneath the trees.Free us, for we perishIn this ever-flowing monotonyOf ugly print marks, blackUpon white parchment.Free us,…
Still sigh over established and natural factLong since fully discussed by Ovid.They howl. They complain in delicate and exhausted metresThat the twitching of three abdominal nervesIs incapable of producing a lasting Nirvana.
