No More Learning

Bertrans, En Bertrans, left a fine canzone :
66
I love have turned me out. you, you
Maent,
The voice at Montfort, Lady Agnes' hair, Bel Miral's stature, the vicountess' throat,
Set all together, are not worthy of you. . . " And all the while you sing out that canzone,
Think you that Maent lived at Montaignac, One at Chalais, another at Malemort HardoverBrive foreveryladyacastle,
Each place strong.
Oh, is it easy enough ? Tairiran held hall in Montaignac,
103
? NEAR PERIGORD
His brother-in-law was all there was of power In Perigord, and this good union
Gobbled all the land, and held it later
for some hundreds years. And our En Bertrans was in Altafort,
Hub of the wheel, the stirrer-up of strife,
As caught by Dante in the last wallow of hell
The headless trunk " that made its head a lamp. "
For separation wrought out separation,
And he who set the strife between brother and
brother
And had his way with the old English king,
Viced in such torture for the "
counterpass. "
How would you live, with neighbours set about
you
Poictiers and Brive, untaken Rochechouart, Spread like the finger-tips of one frail hand ;
And you on that great mountain of a palm
Not a neat ledge, not Foix between its streams, But one huge back half-covered up with pine, Worked for and snatched from the string-purse of
Born
The four round towers, four brothers mostly
fools :
What could he do but play the desperate chess, And stir old grudges ?
" Pawn your castles, lords ! Let the Jews pay. "
104
? NEAR PERIGORD
And the great scene
(That, maybe, never happened ! ) Beaten at last,
Before the hard old king :
" Your son, ah, since he died
My wit and worth are cobwebs brushed aside In the full flare of grief. Do what you will. "
Take the whole man, and ravel out the story. He loved this lady in castle Montaignac ? Thecastleflankedhim hehadneedofit.
You read to-day, how long the overlords of
Perigord,
The Talleyrands, have held the place, it was no
transient fiction.
And Maent failed him ? Or saw through the
scheme ?
And all his net-like thought of new alliance ? Chalais is high, a-level with the poplars.
Its lowest stones just meet the valley tips
Where the low Dronne is filled with water-lilies. And Rochecouart can match it, stronger yet,
The very spur's end, built on sheerest cliff,
And Malemort keeps its close hold on Brive, While Born his own close purse, his rabbit warren, His subterranean chamber with a dozen doors, A-bristle with antennae to feel roads,
To sniff the traffic into Perigord. 105
? NEAR PERIGORD
And that hard phalanx, that unbroken line,
The ten good miles from thence to Maent's castle, Allofhisflank howcouldhedowithouther? And all the road to Cahors, to Toulouse ?
What would he do without her ?
" Papiol,
Goforthrightsinging Anhes,Cembelins. Thereisathroat; ah,therearetwowhitehands; There is a trellis full of early roses,
And all my heart is bound about with love. Where am I come with compound flatteries
"
Take his own speech, make what you will of it And still the knot, the first knot, of Maent ?
Isitalovepoem? Didhesingofwar? Is it an intrigue to run subtly out,
Born of a jongleur's tongue, freely to pass Up and about and in and out the land,
Mark him a craftsman and a strategist ? (St. Leider had done as much at Polhonac,
Singing a different stave, as closely hidden. )
Oh, there is precedent, legal tradition,
To sing one thing when your song means another,
106
What doors are open to fine compliment ? And every one half jealous of Maent ?
He wrote the catch to pit their jealousies
Against her, give her pride in them ?
? '
"
NEAR PERIGORD
Et alUrar ab lor bordon
Foix' count knew that. What is Sir Bertrans'
singing ?
Maent, Maent, and yet again Maent,
Or war and broken heaumes and politics ?
II
End fact. Try fiction, Let us say we see
En Bertrans, a tower-room at Hautefort,
Sunset, the ribbon-like road lies, in red cross-light, South toward Montaignac, and he bends at a
table
Scribbling, swearing between his teeth, by his left hand
Lie little strips of parchment covered over, Scratched and erased with al and ochaisos.
Testing his list of rhymes, a lean man ? Bilious ? With a red straggling beard ?
And the green cat's-eye lifts toward Montaignac.
Or take his "magnet" singer setting out,
Dodging his way past Aubeterre, singing at Chalais
In the vaulted hall,
Or, by a lichened tree at Rochecouart
Aimlessly watching a hawk above the valleys, Waiting his turn in the mid-summer evening,
107
? NEAR PERIGORD
Thinking of Aelis, whom he loved heart and soul. . .
To find her half alone, Montfort away,
And a brown, placid, hated woman visiting her, Spoiling his visit, with a year before the next one. Little enough ?
Or carry him forward. " Go through all the
courts,
My Magnet," Bertrand had said.
We came to Ventadour
In the mid love court, he sings out the canzon,
No one hears save Arrimon Luc D'Esparo
No one hears aught save the gracious sound of
compliments.
Sir Arrimon counts on his fingers, Montfort,
Rochecouart, Chalais, the rest, the tactic, Malemort, guesses beneath, sends word to Coeur
de Lion :
The compact, de Born smoked out, trees felled About his castle, cattle driven out !
Or no one sees it, and En Bertrans prospered ?
And ten years after, or twenty, as you will, Arnaut and Richard lodge beneath Chalus :
The dull round towers encroaching on the field, The tents tight drawn, horses at tether
Further and out of reach, the purple night,
108
? Plantagenet puts the riddle
:
" Did he love her ? "
NEAR PERIGORD
The crackling of small fires, the bannerets,
The lazy leopards on the largest banner,
Stray gleams on hanging mail, an armourer's torch-
flare
Melting on steel.
And in the quietest space
They probe old scandals, say de Born is dead ;
And we've the gossip (skipped six hundred years). Richardshalldieto-morrow leavehimthere
Talking of trobar clus with Daniel.
And the "best craftsman" sings out his friend's
song,
Enviesitsvigour. . . anddeploresthetechnique, Dispraises his own skill ? That's as you will.
And they discuss the dead man,
And Arnaut " Did he love sister ? parries : your
True, he has praised her, but in some opinion He wrote that praise only to show he had
The favour of your party, had been well received. "
" You knew the man. "
" You knew the man. "
"I am an artist, you have tried both metiers. "
" You were born near him. "
"" Do we know our friends ?
" Say that he saw the castles, say that he loved
Maent " !
109 i
? NEAR PERIGORD
" Say that he loved her, does it solve the riddle? " End the discussion, Richard goes out next day
And gets a quarrel-bolt shot through his vizard, Pardons the bowman, dies,
Ends our discussion. Arnaut ends
" In sacred odour"
And we can leave the talk till Dante writes :
Surely I saw, and still before my eyes
Goes on that headless trunk, that bears for light
Its own head swinging, gripped by the dead hair9 And like a swinging lamp that says, "Ah me! I severed men$ my head and heart
Ye see here severed, my life's counterpart" Or take En Bertrans ?
Ill
Ed eran due in uno, ed uno in due. Inferno, XXVIII, 125.
" and the Auvezere Bewildering spring, by
Poppies and day's-eyes in the green email
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.
110
(that's apocryphal ! )
? NEAR PERIGORD
And great wings beat above us in the twilight, And the great wheels in heaven
Boreustogether. . . surging. . . andapart. . . Believing we should meet with lips and hands.
High,highandsure. . . andthenthecounter-
thrust :
* Why do you love me ? Will you always love
me?
But I am like the grass, I can not love you. '
* and I love and love Or, 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 .
" ,!
111 I2
? 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.
112
? VILLANELLE
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 just, at least, found them ?
Twice they promised to come.
"
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. ' ")
113
5: Between the night and morning ?
"
? III
Now the third day is here
no word from either ;
No word from her nor him, Only another man's note :
" Dear I am Pound,
1
VILLANELLE
114
leaving England.
'
? Dans un Omnibus de Londres
LES yeux d'une morte aimee
M'ont salue,
Enchasses dans un visage stupide
Dont tous les autres traits etaient banals, Us m'ont salue
Et alors je vis bien des choses Au dedans de ma memoire
Eemuer, S'eveiller.
Je vis des canards sur le bord d'un lac minuscule, Aupres d'un petit enfant gai, bossu.
"
Des patriciennes,
aux toisons couleur de lin,
Et des pigeonnes Grasses
comme des poulardes. 115
Je vis les colonnes anciennes en "toe Du Pare Monceau,
Et deux petites filles graciles,
? DANS UN OMNIBUS DE LONDRES
Je vis le pare,
Et tous les gazons divers
Ou nous avions loue des chaises Pour quatre sous.
Je vis les cygnes noirs,
Japonais, Leurs ailes
Teintees de couleur sang-de-dragon,
Et toutes les fleurs D'Armenonville.
Les yeux d'une morte M'ont salue.
116
? To a Friend Writing on Cabaret Dancers
" Breathe not the word to-morrow in her ears. " Vir Quidem, on Dancers.
GOOD "Hedgethorn," for we'll anglicize your name
Until the last slut's hanged and the last pig disemboweled,
Seeing your wife is charming and your child Sings in the open meadow at least the kodak
says so
My good fellow, you, on a cabaret silence And the dancers, you write a sonnet,
Say "Forget To-morrow," being of all men The most prudent, orderly, and decorous !
" " has no so write. Pepita to-morrow, you
Pepita has such to-morrows: with the hands
puffed out,
The pug-dog's features encrusted with tallow
Sunk in a frowsy collar an unbrushed black. She will not bathe too often, but her jewels
117
? CABARET DANCERS
Will be a stuffy, opulent sort of fungus
Spread on both hands and on the up-pushed
bosom
It juts like a shelf between the jowl and corset.
Have you, or I seen most of cabarets, good Hedgethorn ?
Here's Pepita, tall and slim as an Egyptian
mummy,
Marsh-cranberries, the ribbed and angular pods Flare up with scarlet orange on stiff stalks
And so Pepita
flares on the crowded stage before our
tables
Or slithers about between the dishonest waiters
" Carmen est maigre, un trait de bistre
"
And " rend la flamme "
you know the deathless verses.
I search the features, the avaricious features Pulled by the kohl and rouge out of resemblance
Six pence the object for a change of passion.
" Write me a poem. "
Come now, my dear Pepita, "-ita, bonita, chiquita,"
that's what you mean you advertising spade,
118
Cerne son ceil de gitana
? CABARET DANCERS
Or take the intaglio, my fat great-uncle's heir- loom :
Cupid, astride a phallus with two wings, Swinging a cat-o'-nine-tails.
No.
I have seen through the crust.
I don't know what you look like But your smile pulls one way
and your painted grin another, While that cropped fool,
that torn-boy who can't earn her living.
Come, come to-morrow,
To-morrow in ten years at the latest,
She will be drunk in the ditch, but you, Pepita,
Will be quite rich, quite plump, with pug-bitch features,
With a black tint staining your cuticle, Prudent and svelte Pepita.
" writmea " Poete, poeme !
Spanish and Paris, love of the arts part of your geisha-culture !
Euhenia, in short skirts, slaps her wide stomach, Pulls up a roll of fat for the pianist,
Pepita,
" Pauvre femme " she maigre !
says. He sucks his chop bone,
That some one else has paid for,
grins up an amiable grin, Explains the decorations.
119
? CABARET DANCERS
Good Hedgethorn, they all have futures, All these people.
Old Popkoff
Will dine next week with Mrs. Basil,
Will meet a duchess and an ex-diplomat's widow FromWeehawken whohasneverknown
Any
but " " and Italian nobles. Majesties
Euhenia will have a fonda in Orbajosa.
The amorous nerves will give way to digestive ^
" Delight thy soul in fatness," saith the preacher. We can't preserve the elusive " mica salis"
It may last well in these dark northern climates, Nell Gwynn's still here, despite the reformation, And Edward's mistresses still light the stage,
A glamour of classic youth in their deportment. The prudent whore is not without her future,
Her bourgeois dulness is deferred. Herpresentdulness. . .
Oh well, her present dulness . . .
Now in Venice, 'Storante al Giardino, I went early, Saw the performers come : him, her, the baby,
A quiet and respectable-tawdry trio ;
An hour later : a show of calves and spangles,
" Un e due fanno tre"
Night after night,
No change, no change of program, " Che I La donna e mobile"
120
? Homage to Quintus Septimius Florentis Christianus
(Ex libris Graecae) I
THEODORUS will be pleased at my death,
And someone else will be pleased at the death of
Theodoras,
And yet everyone speaks evil of death.
II
This place is the Cyprian's, for she has ever the
fancy
To be looking out across the bright sea, Therefore the sailors are cheered, and the waves
Keep small with reverence, beholding her image. Anyte.
Ill
A sad and great evil is the expectation of death And there are also the inane expenses of the
funeral
Let us therefore cease from pitying the dead For after death there comes no other calamity.
;
121
Palladas.
? Woman ? Take her.
Agathas Scholasticus.
V
Oh, woman is a consummate rage,
but dead, or asleep, she pleases. She has two excellent seasons.
Palladas.
HOMAGE
IV
Troy
Whither, city, are your profits and your gilded shrines,
And your barbecues of great oxen,
And the tall women walking your streets, in gilt
clothes,
With their perfumes in little alabaster boxes ? Where is the work of your home-born sculptors ?
Time's tooth is into the lot, and war's and fate's too.
Envy has taken your all,
Save your douth and your story.
VI
Nicharcus upon Phidon his doctor
Phidon neither purged me, nor touched me,
But I remembered the name of his fever medicine
122
and died.
? Fish and the Shadow
THE salmon-trout drifts in the stream,
The soul of the salmon-trout floats over the
stream
Like a little wafer of light.
The salmon moves in the sun-shot, bright shallow sea*
As light as the shadow of the fish
that falls through the water, She came into the large room by the stair,
Yawning a little she came with the sleep still upon her.
" I am just from bed. The sleep is still in my
eyes.
"Come. Ihavehadalongdream. "
AndI: "Thatwood?
And two springs have passed us. "
123
? FISH AND THE SHADOW
" Not so far, no, not so far now, Thereisaplace butnooneelseknowsit Afield in a valley . . .
leu lo sai"
She must speak of the time
Of Arnaut de I " sui Mareuil, thought, qtfieu
avinen"
Light as the shadow of the fish
That falls through the pale green water.
124
Qu'ieu sui avinen,
? UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY
Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
IMft*
,950
12Dec'50BZ
,
LD 21-100m-91 '48(B399sl6)476
RARE BOOXS
OCT1 1952LU
JAN 2 5 1956 LU
P6853 L8
?