Chapter III: Part THREE: Never May the Fruit Be Plucked

Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the bough And gathered into barrels. He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs. Though the branches bend like reeds, Though the ripe fruit splash in the grass or wrinkle on the tree, He that would eat of love may bear away with him Only what his belly can hold, Nothing in the apron, Nothing in the pockets. Never, never may the fruit be gathered from the bough And harvested in barrels. The winter of love is a cellar of empty bins, In an orchard soft with rot.

THE CONCERT

No, I will go alone. I will come back when it’s over. Yes, of course I love you. No, it will not be long. Why may you not come with me?-- You are too much my lover. You would put yourself Between me and song.

If I go alone, Quiet and suavely clothed, My body will die in its chair, And over my head a flame, A mind that is twice my own, Will mark with icy mirth The wise advance and retreat Of armies without a country, Storming a nameless gate, Hurling terrible javelins down From the shouting walls of a singing town Where no women wait!

Armies clean of love and hate, Marching lines of pitiless sound Climbing hills to the sun and hurling Golden spears to the ground!

Up the lines a silver runner Bearing a banner whereon is scored The milk and steel of a bloodless wound Healed at length by the sword!

You and I have nothing to do with music. We may not make of music a filigree frame, Within which you and I, Tenderly glad we came, Sit smiling, hand in hand.

Come now, be content. I will come back to you, I swear I will; And you will know me still. I shall be only a little taller Than when I went.

HYACINTH

I am in love with him to whom a hyacinth is dearer Than I shall ever be dear. On nights when the field-mice are abroad he cannot sleep: He hears their narrow teeth at the bulbs of his hyacinths. But the gnawing at my heart he does not hear.

TO ONE WHO MIGHT HAVE BORNE A MESSAGE

Had I known that you were going I would have given you messages for her, Now two years dead, Whom I shall always love.

As it is, should she entreat you how it goes with me, You must reply, as well as with most, you fancy; That I love easily, and pass the time. And she will not know how all day long between My life and me her shadow intervenes, A young thin girl, Wearing a white skirt and a purple sweater And a narrow pale blue ribbon about her hair.

I used to say to her, “I love you Because your face is such a pretty color, No other reason.” But it was not true.

Oh, had I only known that you were going, I could have given you messages for her!

SIEGE

This I do, being mad: Gather baubles about me, Sit in a circle of toys, and all the time Death beating the door in.

_White jade and an orange pitcher,_
_Hindu idol, Chinese god,--_
_Maybe next year, when I’m richer--_
_Carved beads and a lotus pod...._

And all this time Death beating the door in.

THE CAIRN

When I think of the little children learning In all the schools of the world, Learning in Danish, learning in Japanese That two and two are four, and where the rivers of the world Rise, and the names of the mountains and the principal cities, My heart breaks. Come up, children! Toss your little stones gaily On the great cairn of Knowledge! (Where lies what Euclid knew, a little gray stone, What Plato, what Pascal, what Galileo: Little gray stones, little gray stones on a cairn.) Tell me, what is the name of the highest mountain? Name me a crater of fire! a peak of snow! Name me the mountains on the moon! But the name of the mountain that you climb all day, Ask not your teacher that.

SPRING SONG

I know why the yellow forsythia Holds its breath and will not bloom, And the robin thrusts his beak in his wing.

Want me to tell you? Think you can bear it? Cover your eyes with your hand and hear it. You know how cold the days are still? And everybody saying how late the Spring is? Well--cover your eyes with your hand--the thing is, There isn’t going to be any Spring.

_No parking here! No parking here! They said to Spring: No parking here!_

Spring came on as she always does, Laid her hand on the yellow forsythia,-- Little boys turned in their sleep and smiled, Dreaming of marbles, dreaming of agates; Little girls leapt from their beds to see Spring come by with her painted wagons, Colored wagons creaking with wonder--

Laid her hand on the robin’s throat; When up comes you-know-who, my dear, You-know-who in a fine blue coat, And says to Spring: No parking here!

_No parking here! No parking here! Move on! Move on! No parking here!_

Come walk with me in the city gardens. (Better keep an eye out for you-know-who) Did ever you see such a sickly showing?-- Middle of June, and nothing growing; The gardeners peer and scratch their heads And drop their sweat on the tulip-beds, But not a blade thrusts through.

_Come, move on! Don’t you know how to walk? No parking here! And no back-talk!_

Oh, well--hell, it’s all for the best. She certainly made a lot of clutter, Dropping petals under the trees, Taking your mind off your bread and butter.

Anyhow, it’s nothing to me. I can remember, and so can you. (Though we’d better watch out for you-know-who, When we sit around remembering Spring).

We shall hardly notice in a year or two. You can get accustomed to anything.

MEMORY OF CAPE COD

The wind in the ash-tree sounds like surf on the
shore at Truro.
I will shut my eyes . . . hush, be still with your
silly bleating, sheep on Shillingstone Hill . . .

_They said: Come along! They said: Leave your_
_pebbles on the sand and come along, it’s long after_
_sunset!_
_The mosquitoes will be thick in the pine-woods along_
_by Long Nook, the wind’s died down!_
_They said: Leave your pebbles on the sand, and your_
_shells, too, and come along, we’ll find you another_
_beach like the beach at Truro._

Let me listen to wind in the ash ... it sounds like
surf on the shore.