Chapter III: The Poet (3)

How often when he turned away his lips So beautiful in careless weariness From mine embrace, I felt the torturings Of a disease and drank the bitter draughts Of jealousy! How often, when he lay Reclining on mine arms and breathing gently, I thought I held the graspless image of Beauty light-born, and said: "What is there more For me to hope?" O flowers, did you know it? Can you, too, mingle your little hidden hearts Fed with sweet honey, the pure frankincense Of a thrice-blue and earth-transcending worship, With love's uneasy little tremblings?

Of jealousy! How often, when he lay Reclining on mine arms and breathing gently, I thought I held the graspless image of Beauty light-born, and said: "What is there more For me to hope?" O flowers, did you know it? Can you, too, mingle your little hidden hearts Fed with sweet honey, the pure frankincense Of a thrice-blue and earth-transcending worship, With love's uneasy little tremblings?

Oh, The bitterest and saddest blows, the blows That know no healing on this earth of ours, Come from our dearest! Thus he fled and left me A bitterness beyond all sorrow's pangs, O little flowers, flowers of dark death!

TO MY WIFE

Here bloomed our home; the young plant verdant blossomed In the cool shade of the fresh green grape-vine; And here the mystic moon, entwined in green, Descended like a first-seen ghost on us.

Here the two fountains of desire refreshed Our years: the one, before our eyes; the others, In dreams. The fair Muse silenced here care's crickets And stirred the sacred frenzy of the lyre.

Here we enjoyed our first-born's flutterings; And here the little gleaming face and round, Our second fruit, maddened us with pure joy! As the unhoped return of a longed friend, Here we received one day into our bosom The transitory child beyond compare, The third one, who transformed the worldly air About us into flowing wine for gods, An offering unto the gleaming light Of high Olympus, dwelling of the blessed!

Here was thy youth, even when care oppressed thee, A fair Venetian painting, the blithe work Of a light-beaming Titian, that revealed Pure shining joy in thy lithe body's form.

Here bloomed our home; the young plant verdant blossomed, Hidden in the cool shade of the green vine. Now, nothing remains. Only the mystic moon Weeps in a palace voiceless, wide, and gloomy!

The life that died here wished for April as Grave-digger, and a flower-bed as grave. Oh, who had cursed it? Nothing but a tomb Was found for it! A tomb unfit and graceless!

THE ANSWER

Take me and hear me, Hamadryads fair, And Aegipans, Wood-Nymphs, and shepherd gods! The bridal beds are set! The forest glades, In flurry! The Flower Festival has come! The bacchic revelry bursts forth in glow And frenzy! Where is nature and where is Its end? I know not whether I am myself; Great Pan, it seems, dwells in my bosom here.

O wonder! I do live the holy life And wild of purest nature's elements! O God of the golden crown, the three fair Graces And the Nine Sisters of the Song gave me The gift of tranquil visions beautiful! I filled me with the foam-begotten beauty Of all! I hear the nightingales' sweet song In answer to the song of Sophocles! The woes of Aeschylus resound prophetic, Ocean-born! Face to face with me, as swift As glance, green-clad Atlantides rise forth From the abyss and sink in it again.

Phoenicians battling with the sea brought me From far away; I am the reveller World-wandering! Arts, talks, and images Are bristling in the air! Take me, O Nymphs Into your bosom! Satyrs, hear my words!

Yet Satyrs, Centaurs, Hamadryad Nymphs, And golden-spoken Hellades at once Made answer to my pleading with one voice From cities, mountains, forests, cliffs, and plains:

"Gods' wine is not for thee, O reveller!"

And the lithe Tanagraean maiden spoke With awe-inspiring prophetess Cassandra, Ivy-crowned Maenads, Gods Olympian, And the song-nourished Hellades; they spoke From the far cave of fair Calypso to The wisdom-haunted Alexandria:

"Silence! Pale monk and idle chatterer! Silence! Turn back to thy lone cloister cell."

And the Pindaric heroes laugh in scorn With the white goddesses of marble wrought By Scopas' hand; laugh, and their laughter-peals Are echoed loud and deep from far away!

THOUGHT

More than the godlike gleams of sculptured stone, More than the golden rhythms the poet weaves, Who knows if a good act unknown, some wound's Balsam, shines not with brighter lasting beams?

Who knows if for some god's unfailing ear, The dogged sin and filthy vice are not A thrice-wise and tempestuous harmony Of melodies sung by Virtue's lips serene?

Bright shine the temples of Fair Art; bright shine The rainbows heavenly of Thought; and bright, The chariots of warriors triumphant! Yet in the temple of the Universe, Can they be costlier than the mute Thought And Glory of the flower, at whose birth The dawn rejoices and whose early death The saddened evening silently laments?

The thoughtful sage high-rising smites the gates Of the Infinite and questions every Sphinx; Yet who knows if the soldier with no will, Obeying blindly, is not nearer Truth?

O struggle vast! Who knows what power measures The measureless and creates the great? Is it the matchless thought of the endowed, Or the dim soul of multitudes that bursts, Thoughtless of reason, into life? Who knows?

The holy man lifts up his hand to bless With readiness; yet who needs more such blessing? Is it the free-born bird that makes its nest Wherever its strong wings would waft it, or The flowery plant bound by a bit of earth?

Which is the light of Truth? Is it the Law That is all eyes or is it some blind love? What leads us there? The hidden path where bent And trembling we seek our way, or the wide road That makes us fly with wingèd confidence?

O Thought, thou dream-crowned maiden, ever wrestling With a blood-filled, swift woman masculine, Whose bosom, thine or hers, is doomed to yield The destined milk to nourish and to heal Our sickened life with health Olympian?

O Thought, thou angel, ever wrestling on With a strong giant flinging his hundred hands About thy neck to strangle thee, wilt thou Battle with sword or lily? Oh, the world Will crumble ere thy struggle finds an end!

THE SINNER

O hapless one, when thou wert born, there came The Fate thrice-blessed and clasped thee in her arms To bless thee with a hero's mighty deeds And wrap thee in the purple of a king, The Fate whose blessings teem with light and might.

Yet there, the other Fate, the bitch of ruin Unspoken and of voiceless death, kept watch; And she led thee away from the blue shore With lilies sown, to the salt marsh of terror And the sheer precipice of fearful trembling!

Nor could thy baby hands grasp more than this, A cheerless tatter from the sacred veil Of thy good mother Fate, the veil embroidered With the star-spangled sky by master hand!

O hapless One, while virgin joy bathes thee Abundant and thy tears are yet a baby's, Something within thee groans, the muffled madness Of fettered murderers, the madness of Lone cells. And while thou showest the calm life Of tame things and of love in thy still nook, Thou breedest fettered wraths and bridled hatreds. Should they burst forth, ruin and wilderness Would reign. O hapless One, the greenest spots Even of thy existence are but full Of pitfalls opened wide and yawning void! No dawning was thy lot; even those boughs Young of thine early years were parched with drought! Whatever white thou touchedst was defiled! And thine old age, if thou couldst bare thy youth, Would shriek with fear and fly from thy youth's face!

A sneering power or a grace divine Mercilessly nailed down thy hands and will, O cowardly, decrepit, idle man, Infirm and hapless, starless night enclosed In a weak child! Death will not come to thee As to the toiling laborer who toils The whole day long, and towards evening, sleep, Even before he lies, in bed to rest, Creeps sweetly upon him and seals his eyes.

Thy death shall be laden with graspless horror Such as one feels who sinned in secrecy And dreads each hour detection of his sin, Trial, death sentence, and the hangman's rope.

O hapless One, would that in thy death struggle Her bosom might still shine before thine eyes, The good Fate's breast, who blessed thy birth with goodness, The Fate whose blessings teem with light and might! Would that thou couldst show her the humble shred Torn from the star-wrought sacred veil of hers And tell her: "See, in the deep darkness smiles Something, a dawn on which I still hold fast!"

O hapless One! Would that the mighty heroes And royal purples and the blessings full Of light and might and all thou knewest not In thy dark empty life could shine upon Thy passing as the lights of distant stars!

THE END

A wedding guest, I travel far abroad! The bride, thrice-beautiful; the groom, a wizard; And I ride swiftly to the wedding feast. The land is far, and I must travel on; An endless path before me leads away.

And the far land a vision was! The steed, A smoke! The wedding, angels' shadows fleet! While I,--O cruel wakening!--lie down For ever palsy-stricken and bed-ridden!

And only you, old tunes familiar, I hold. I hold you as a dying darling child, Languid and glowing with the fever's heat, Holds on to his dear plaything, with white wings New-grown for his long journey, even I, The child unskilled, dream-roaming, stript of will!

Old tunes familiar, waft me upon Your shining wings for healing or for death To the cool shadow of the pure-white home And lay me gently on a loving bosom.

THE PALM TREE

TO DOSINES, WHO HEARD IT FIRST.

THE PALM TREE

_Once in a garden about a palm tree's shade, some blue flowers, here very dark and there very light, talked with each other. A poet who now is dead, passed by; and he put their talk into these rhythms:_

O Palm Tree, someone's hand has cast us here; Was it the hand led by a cursed Fate, Or moved by mind of good intent? Who knows? What impulse seized us from the cave of sleep Below to bring us to the surface here? Is it a savior's or destroyer's power That sets us motionless beneath thy shade? And is thy shade the shade of life or death?

* * * * *

The glare of the hot sun drowned everything; Gluttonous locusts groped for food about; And then, a rain. The flowers, that had drooped To sleep, awake to drink the drops of dew. And then, the clear sky's festival begins More azure than before to spread above thee.

Only thy trembling crest drops here and there Some large and shining rain-pearls on the earth.

* * * * *

The garden glitters with a new-born life; And each bird dreams it is a nightingale; Only from thy lone heights like bullets fall Thy pearl-clear drops, and oh, the pain thereof! The dew drops make a crown for everything; The gurgling waters are a balm to all; Why should this god-sent goodness of all things Be blow for us and suffering and flame?

* * * * *

How cruelly thy bullets fall and smite! No ear above and not an eye before us! Beneath thy shade we live; thy trunk is world To us; thy crown, a star-spun sky, our sky! If thou art a god merciless, reveal Thyself! If not, but nod and give us calm! Either cease slaying us one by one, or pour On us at once a flood to drown us all!

Our pain is as reward and treasure found! The golden seal of harmony has stamped us, And while Death touches us, we glory, victors! We tremble; hail O rhythm's thrice-sacred tremor! A worm may live sunless beneath the earth That a new butterfly of silken wings May live an hour of perfect life and die. The wound's gash turns into a living fountain!

* * * * *

Things gray, things crystal, myriad hues of green, Gushings of fountains clear, and caterpillars, Earth's things immovable, air-sailing ships, And little worms, and bees, and butterflies, Sweet flower-grails and censers, fondling grass, The moss-down's countless kisses, echoes from Below, and mandolins ethereal, Leaves quivering and lilies languor-bringing!

* * * * *

The turtle-doves know not what you know, blossoms, The chosen things of beautiful loves, you! Kisses and starts and wooings of the boughs! The birth of each of you is a world's dawn! You know, O little tearful short-lived things, You know pleasure's and joy's eternities! We, the gold garlands wreathed about thy root, Are like celestial and thoughtful eyes!

* * * * *

Blithe flowers, boughs that hang with blossoms full, From dandelions to the chamaemele, You may be like the glowing coals or gems, Or like a maiden's rosy cheeks and lips. Though you, like hands, may open full or empty, And though you be dawn's smiles or evening's candles, Or the fair palaces of Fairy Dew, The gazing eyes are we! We are the eyes!

* * * * *

Though small we are, a great world hides in us; And in us clouds of care and dales of grief You may descry; the sky's tranquility; The heaving of the sea about the ships At evenings; tears that roll not down the cheeks; And something else inexplicable. Oh, What prison's kin are we? Who would believe it? One, damnèd, and godlike, dwells in us; and she is Thought!

* * * * *

Frolick, and form, and wanton playfulness, And some unspoken radiant vanity, And some enrapturing bewitching charm, And perfect virgin beauty are your own! Fading like gods' pale images, you seem! Even the bird sometimes bows to your grace! And Nereids wind-footed fan your faces, O roses with a thousand smiles divine!

* * * * *

A god commanded it, the flower-haired April! "O flowing fragrance, change to brilliancy!" Thus you are scentless, roses of Bengal; All others' perfume is bright light in you. And thou, O lily, king among the flowers, From what far world hast thou been led astray? Was it from fragrance's own womb, or from The whitest star? And we, O Palm? Who knows!

River ethereal of fragrance, stay! Thou hast not flowed nor watered us at birth. We said to fragrance: "Cease thy flowing course; Well not from us; nor be our breath! Sink deep Into our heart's recesses; close thyself Regardless of thy perfume in our soul! Then seek to find our thought and live with it And flow from it as honey from the bee!"

* * * * *

"Bring forth from the rich treasures of the sun All colors, flowers, and deck yourselves with them!" We said unto our little brothers: "Make Robes of the heaven's rainbow for your raiment!" And to ourselves we said: "Soul, I Shall let aside all brilliance! I need not Sunset or dawn; enough would be something Of the great sea and of the heaven's smile!"

* * * * *

Become a cloud, O great Desire, and speak With lightnings and with thunders! Rise, a lark, And sing and soar towards a new starry garden! Turn all thy flooding music into love, Mingle with it all children's innocence And all the beauty that is thine; still thou Wilt have love's shadow only but not love. For love shines, burns, illumines quenchlessly!

* * * * *

The garden draws life from a triple soul, A soul that spreads creeping upon the earth With roots beneath and wings above. A city, The caterpillar builds in its great depths; The bird builds love towards heights ethereal! About all green things live to be thy slaves And trimming ornaments, O palm! How high Skyward thou raisest thy grace-moulded body!

* * * * *

No ivy limits and no offshoot mars Thy trunk's unchained and chiseled nakedness; And yet, though naked, with a charm dream-wrought Thou coverest the alleys of the garden. And as an emblem of thy reign, a crown Of beams pearl-born and silver-born shines bright As it hangs trembling from thy top, O palm. Oh what a rhythm governs thy form divine!

* * * * *

So beautiful is not the cypress young As it waves towards the sky, moved by the breeze! So beautiful is not the mossy fountain That sings like bard and nourishes like mother! So beautiful is not sunrise or sunset! Another world's day hangs from thy high crest! So beautiful is not the tranquil lake! Gods and their hymns god-sung are at thy feet!

* * * * *

Neither an angel's shade in a hermit's cave, Nor harmony's voice in Night's deep silence, Nor the great maker's thought just as it dawns In his wide-fronted heaven, and is still A maiden dream unyoked before it finds A dwelling in the form of word or music, Color or marble! None of these is like Thine image caught and mirrored in our thought!

Is it transparent and immortal blood That flows in thee, or sap too weak to wake thee From thy long spell of blind and voiceless sleep Into a crystal life's fair revelry? Is thy head's crown another's counterfeit, Or thine own locks that smitten by the wind Become stringed lyres to sing in murmurs sweet Of the world's symphony and of thy beauty?

* * * * *

Neither thy boughs nor locks they are, but wings That thou wouldst ply with gentle flutterings! Wings? They are not, though they become; and ever A hunger tortures thee, and ever thou Strugglest to enter a sublimer world! Right, left, high, far, thou seekest a fair city, Some sunlit Athens, and standest bent on flying With swans and cranes towards the azure heavens.

* * * * *

Art thou a relic of a dead age and great, Or the first dew of a becoming life? Now some Wood Nymph bound within thee peeps out Struggling to flow into the light about; And now thou risest like the column last Of an old temple that once stood in Hellas. Evening or morning, end or a beginning, Something binds thee to skies beyond all sight.

* * * * *

Hosannas from thy boughs and palm leaves flow, Hosannas from thy royal height, as prayer To some unknown god's charms, who passes by Revealing his fair godhead first to thee. And lo, the hillsides answer thine hosannas! Oh, what thy visions, what thy secrets are? Some tremor, from new heavens wafted, makes The supple flowers and green leaves quiver.

* * * * *

And we? The migrant bird did come to us; The passing wind did touch us with its wing; The restless brook did check its rapid course; The child did cast on us his guileless glance; The jonquil proud did greet us with a nod; And the moon did look down to see us here; And all beheld our surface; none our depths! Thus the world glided over us and vanished!

* * * * *

Sweet orange blossoms, what asked the nightingales? What would the dry cicala know of noontide? All things that groan from the great depths of earth, All songs that mount exultant to the stars, The eating moth's faint voice, the restless cricket's, Perfumes and breezes, creatures lone and mated, All things that fly and creep and bend and stoop, Something they know of thee and hide it from us.

* * * * *

Within our breasts, a soul of storm and pitch Puts into our minds evil thoughts of thee. The magpie chatters long to the night bat Of thee; the locust boasts she is like thee; The wasp draws ample pleasure in thy shelter; And the night raven finds delight in thee. A world of evil and of scorn lies wait For thee who mountest tranquil to the stars.

O Health blown from the heart of the pure pine! Where thy feet tread, fruits grow 'midst thorns and clover; If with the streams thou flowest, the elements Shine; for pure wine, thou reapest the fair clusters; And where thou lingerest, a city rises! Thy breasts flow ever with milk; thy lips with dew! O mother fruitful, strong, and whole, some ill Rots us and we are pale like death's faint tapers!

* * * * *

Boughs, tresses, wings; shadows whose grace divine Frolics and spreads as bough or tress or wing; Another night, you took another form In the enchanted pitiless moonlight, A form that was neither bough, tress, nor wing: Swords you seemed, ready to descend and smite! Night's roaming butterfly, be merciful! Lift us upon thy wings and fly away!

* * * * *

Illness and wakefulness have tortured us, O palm, and we saw thee bend secretly! The dragon's heads and dogwoods were awake; We saw thee leading a strange dance with them At night; and in our first sleep, we beheld thee A heavy dream roaming with mulleins and Chameleons; about thee closed whole gardens Of thistles, aloes hard, and hosts of briars!

* * * * *

We dreamed and lo, thou wert demanding tribute Of life, blood-drenched; and in thy being raged A savage hunger; and some beast flesh-eating Nestled in thee and gnawed a hole through thee; And thy winged body turned into a cave; A vulture perched as crown upon thy head; And like fire-flames, and sea-waves, and sword-blades, From root to top, fierce snakes crept up and coiled!

* * * * *

Who ever thought of it? What Fate has ruled That from ill-smelling things and worthless stuff Should rise things of resplendent green? and from Deforming filth, the thrice-pure miracle Of May and April? Hence things blue and black Mingle in us; and in our souls, spread oceans And narrow paths; and while our minds converse With things sublime, something thrice-base defiles us!

* * * * *

O Sun, assail and strangle all black dreams, Our life's dim vapors and ill-working demons! But nourish all things good and beautiful Like sunbeams playing and like nightingales! And thou, O moon, spread over savage Night A veil translucent of heart-felt sympathy! Wave everywhere, O Beauty's purple robe! Let the great world be love and love's sweet lyre!

* * * * *

Day comes! Light scatters a thousand eyes on thee So that thou mayest greet the woods and mountains, The nests upon the trees, the palaces Of cities, and the ships on open seas Or ports. At nights, mounted on steeds of light Beautiful Fairies come from high to serve thee; The poplar lifts its many hands to thee; And the dark cypresses lull thee to sleep.

With pelicans and eagles thou conversest, And drop by drop thou drinkest the world's music; Thou seest things far, things near, and things above; Things infinite, intangible, and great; And thou communest with air-sailing ships, Light-rays, and wings, and the world-mounting ladder; While we, bent low, and lashed by sorrow's whip, Listen to the great throbbing of Earth's heart!

* * * * *

We heard it, the great throbbing of Earth's heart, The new song inconceivable, unheard, Of consummate and perfect sound! Through it, some thunder-stricken angel groans; All April's gardens breathe in fragrant balms; Some unfulfilled and secret longings weep; And a fire crackles that will ruin worlds! Something that passes by, an endless riddle!

* * * * *

Tell thou the sunlit story of the air; We shall unroll to you the tale of blackness. Come, let us mingle the two elements, Thy mighty power with our own winning grace! In unseen places, small and cold and sunless, A world of workers and of corsairs dwell; And there are paths and deeds of theirs, and days, And what the infinite air-spheres have not!

* * * * *

A swarm of bees has told us of their life, And a new youth and wise shone unto us! The grass hides unsuspected miracles; Beside us, the ant opens a deep path; A lizard, slowly creeping from below, Brought us here news of countries, nations, arts; A butterfly on her swift flight to wed The little flowers broadened our world of thought!

* * * * *

Unwedded, fruitless Palm, fair mystery! Strange was the hour--who will believe it now?-- The divine world willed to become a thought, And thought revealed itself unto our mind! Now, unto darkness and to riddles new, Our little life is ready to depart! O Palm, make answer; lo, before thou speakest Thy word sublime, a hand lays wait to smite!

* * * * *

O Palm, a hand did spread to sow us here; That hand will spread again to root us out, And we shall die! The billow and the wind And the still waters will sweep us away Mercilessly! The flowery spring will not Lament us! The wide world will never know We perished! And beneath thy shadow's charms, Another fragrant race will rise to life.

* * * * *

Nor will there be a monument for us That might retain the phantom of our passing! Only about thee will a robe of light Adorn thee with a new and deathless gleam: And it shall be our thought, and word, and rime! And in the eyes of an astonished world, Thou wilt appear like a gold-green new star; Yet neither thou nor others will know of us!

FOOTNOTES

[1] This essay is republished, with a few changes, from _Poet Lore_,
vol. xxviii, no. 1, pp. 78-104.

[2] My translation of it originally appeared in the _Stratford
Journal_, from which I quote it in its entirety.

[3] Tigrane Yergate, _op. cit._, p. 710.

[4] Jean Moréas, _Voyage de Grèce_, 1898.

[5] On Patras, the birth-place of the poet. See Introduction, p. 13.

[6] On Missolonghi, the place of the poet's childhood. See
Introduction, p. 15.

[7] On the Island of Corfu, one of the most important centers of the
literary renaissance of modern Greece.

[8] Iacobos Polylas, 1826-98, translator of the _Odyssey_ and of parts
of the _Iliad_, and an important figure in the struggle for the
vernacular. He has also translated some of Shakespeare's plays.

[9] Dionysios Solomos, born in Zante, 1748, died in Corfu, 1857. He is
the first great poet of modern Greece. He has written lyrics in
Italian and in Greek. Several of his songs have spread as folk
songs throughout the Greek world. He is mainly known as the poet of
the modern Greek national hymn to Liberty.

[10] Gerasimos Markoras, born in Cephalonia, 1826, died in Corfu, 1911,
a lyric and epic poet. His poem "Oath" was inspired by the Cretan
struggle for freedom.

[11] On Egypt, whence the first lights of civilization dawned on Greece.

[12] On Mt. Athos, the Holy Mountain of the modern Greeks, inhabited by
about ten thousand monks. Although called by its hermits "the
virgin's garden" no female creature is allowed to enter its ground.

[13] Panselenus, a famous Byzantine painter, who is believed to be the
author of some of the Madonnas and Christs found in the monasteries
of the mountain.

[14] On classic Greece, in contrast with the following sonnet which
refers to the spirit of Greece throughout the ages, from the
classic period to the time of the Byzantine Empire.

[15] The Islands of the Ionian Sea.

[16] The hero of medieval Greece, Digenes Akritas, who is supposed to
have lived on the slopes of the Taurus mountains in Asia Minor and
to have fought against the invading Saracens. There are a great
number of folk-songs about him not only in Greek but in Turkish,
Bulgarian, Serbian, and Albanian as well.

[17] The word, meaning "blessed one," is here applied to ideal womanhood
and must not be confused with Makaria of p. 103, the mythical
Theban princess.

[18] The translator of Homer and Shakespeare. See notes 8 and 9, p. 80.

[19] A pseudonym for Constantine Chatzopoulos, one of the leading
literary figures in Athens to-day. He has written poems under this
pseudonym. But he is now mainly known as a master of short stories
which he has published under his real name, and as the translator
of Göthe's _Faust_ and of Hofmannsthal's _Electra_. This poem
dedicated to him was written during the unfortunate Greco-Turkish
war of 1897.

[20] Maviles was born in Ithaca, 1860, and fell in the battle of
Driscos, November 29, 1912. He is the writer of exquisite sonnets
and the successful translator of various foreign poems. The
Cretan Revolution of 1896 is here alluded to, which led to the
Greco-Turkish war of 1897. Maviles was one of the first to hasten
to Crete to help in the struggle for liberty.

[21] Alexandros Pallis is one of the greatest literary figures of
contemporary Greece, who, like Psicharis, has lived mostly far from
Greece. He is a poet, a critic, and a satirist. But his fame is
mainly due to his translation of the _Iliad_ and that of the _New
Testament_. The publication of the latter caused the student riots
of 1901.

[22] The poet had in mind the following lines of Sully Prudhomme from
his _Stances et Poèmes_, L'âme:

Tous les corps offrent des contours,
Mais d'ou vienne la forme qui touche?
Comment fais-tu les grands amours,
Petite ligne de la bouche?

PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A.