Chapter III

RIGHT
_Ed eran due in uno, ed uno in due._
Inferno, XXVIII, 125.

“Bewildering spring, and by the Auvezere
Poppies and day’s-eyes in the green émail
Rose over us; and we knew all that stream,
And our two horses had traced out the valleys;
Knew the low flooded lands squared out with poplars,
In the young days when the deep sky befriended.
And great wings beat above us in the twilight,
And the great wheels in heaven
Bore us together ... surging ... and apart ...
Believing we should meet with lips and hands.

High, high and sure ... and then the counter-thrust:
‘Why do you love me? Will you always love me?
But I am like the grass, I can not love you.’
Or, ‘Love, and I love and love you,
And hate your mind, not _you_, your soul, your hands.’

So to this last estrangement, Tairiran!

There shut up in his castle, Tairiran’s,
She who had nor ears nor tongue save in her hands,
Gone--ah, gone--untouched, unreachable!
She who could never live save through one person,
She who could never speak save to one person,
And all the rest of her a shifting change,
A broken bundle of mirrors ...!”

Villanelle: the Psychological Hour

I had over-prepared the event,
that much was ominous.
With middle-ageing care
I had laid out just the right books.
I had almost turned down the pages.

_Beauty is so rare a thing._
_So few drink of my fountain._

So much barren regret,
So many hours wasted!
And now I watch, from the window,
the rain, the wandering busses.

“Their little cosmos is shaken”--
the air is alive with that fact.
In their parts of the city
they are played on by diverse forces.
How do I know?
Oh, I know well enough.
For them there is something afoot.

As for me:
I had over-prepared the event--

_Beauty is so rare a thing._
_So few drink of my fountain._

Two friends: a breath of the forest ...
Friends? Are people less friends
because one has lust, at least, found them?
Twice they promised to come.
“_Between the night and morning?_”

_Beauty would drink of my mind._
Youth would awhile forget
my youth is gone from me.

II

(“Speak up! You have danced so stiffly?
Someone admired your works,
And said so frankly.

“Did you talk like a fool,
The first night?
The second evening?”

“_But_ they promised again:
‘To-morrow at tea-time.’”)