Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1921/Francesca
FRANCESCA(1904—1917)
I.
Sweet of the dawn is she!Sure of her garlands fair,Sure of her morning brief,With what an airShe hands EternityA bud, a leaf!
Far down a world wound-redAll unappalled she looks;Where I stare barrenly,She beauty plucksFrom an untrampled bed,Till suddenly I see.
Once more a star shall breakFor me the crocus' mould;The full year's end sleep inA marigold;And firs in the snow wind shakeLocks of genie and jinn.
Again over earth and meShall fall the coverletSpread by a godmother moon.Till we forgetNight's thin, gold ironyThat hid nor scar nor bone.
O, sweet with her to climbYouth's high, unguided trail!Along sky ledges haste,Palms to the galeThat showers song and rhymeAs petals blow and waste!
And when in mothy lightOf trees and listening dusk,I see her filmy goTo him, her knight,What sap of bloom shall flowInto dream's silvered husk!
What if, at her matron kneeIn some yet covered year,The bardling I never boreHas sound of the hidden seaThat calls till a heart, or a sphere,Is dumb or more?
My wand is she that smitesOpen the prophet's wall;My arrow in the sun,Sped for no fall;My bird along the heightsWhere I shall never run.
IIShe sleeps now.Her hair, duskily nursing her cheek,Fills me with strange music,Like the dark flowing water of snow-fields.Her brow, that was mere, frail porcelain,Holding a child's few treasures,In a pale, prophetic expanseOver dreams that bide their vast venture.
I gaze long at her face,Thinking at last I shall know her;For awake she is always hidingIn ripples and pools of change.Waves of April flow around her,And she is my willow witch,Weaving her web of windsAbove the blue water;But she lifts her eyes,Like two hours of June,And is so nearly a roseThat to-morrow the dawn will be lappingGold from her open heart;Then a laugh like Christmas dayShuffles the seasons,And I see chrysanthemums in a Southern garden;White breasts in the dusk.
But now she sleeps; no stirs;Stirs with the covetous feverThat armoured in silence creepsBy the wariest watch of lovers, And the miracle bars of skill."Talk to me, Tifa, talk.""Of what, dear Beauty?""Ah, that is it—beauty."I lose a whisper, and wait."The song—the song we heard—"And I know I must tell againThe story of the bird, the lowland roverThat high above our mountain orchardSang till a cadent coastRose on the unbodied air,And all our outbound dreams put backWhere his music made a shore.
(Words, words! So softThat they may fall on painAnd make it less! Softer than leavesTapping a forest sleeper; while the heartIs like a swollen glacier crowding earth.)
Up he went singing; climbed a spiral chainThat linked his joy to heaven;And circling, swerving as he rose, he builtAn airy masonry of smoothest domesAnd jetting minarets, as though he sawFrom his blue height a city of the EastAnd in a music mirror set it fairFor his high rapture. Did we see it?Slim, flowing alleys, streets that woundTo temples cool as shaded lakes;Pure arches, pillars of piled notes;Cornice and frieze and pendant flungIn rillets from one tiny heartAs prodigal as God's?
What, dearest? When you dieYou'll stop and live there? Not go onTo Heaven?
No, you rememberOur city fell; came tumbling to the grassWith all its palaces and domes,Not one note on another,Where he, the breathless builder, fluttered,Happy in ruin.
Yes, he panted so?Tell you cool things?
(Words, words!Running like water under leaves,That they may fall on painAnd make it less!)
Cool, my heavenliest?Then shall we walk againBetween the winter and the cliffWhere green things clung?—the little venturers,Lustrous and shyly brave, that feed on shadeAnd tug at scornful bowldersTill they are gay and gentle?They were all there; the fronds and tresses;Fingers and baby's palm;The curling tufts, the plumelets proudly niched,And little unknown leavesThat make the cold their mother;The hearts and lances and unpious spires;The emerald gates to houses of the gnomes.The fairy tents that vanish at a name;Each greener than Spring's footprint when her trackIs bright as sea-wet beryl;Yet wearing like an outer soulA silvered breath of winter. ThereThey waited, magically caughtWithin a crystal smile. A place, we thought,Where one might listen, standing long,Thinking to hear some secretEarth tells but once to time. They waited, pearled in eagerness,—Small subject wonderers of a landWhose king was out-o'-doorsAnd would betimes go by.He came—the sun!The swift, old marvel of the sun!For thirty midday seconds came the sun!And you were still as every leaf he touched,Long after his gold passing.
Yes? Your breathWent all away into the shining?God spoke too loud that time? Tell you—
Sleep holds her . . .But sleep comes creeping, and takesNo sudden throne. If it be not sleep,But the other? . . .
I sit in the folds of a dreadAs in a husk that widens and swellsTill it strikes the sky.Who is it standing, a fiendLike a mountain darkening upwardDropping and dropping and droppingThe ocean into a glass?Why are the walls so near and so cold?Wavering and greenish white?Why are they rocking, and covered with shadowsThat mightily grasp and fade?
. . . . . ]l know. We are under the sea.Like a petal her face goes drifting;A white rose petal that swirls away.Far up is the water's clear surface;High up, where the sky used to be;And above it lies the good air.We must climb . . . climb, my loveliest.Climb . . . we cannot breathe . . . down here . . .Under the sea.
IIIIf Death had taken my orange-tree,Its gold-lit boughs, and magic birdsSinging for me,I would not bear, though bright the dead,This daunted head.
If Death had taken the one whose careMy fortune feeds, my roof endows,—Leaving me bare,—I'd meet the world from some kind door,Gay as before.
If Death had taken my friend, the god,Who walks among us masked as man,Wearing the clodTo find his brother, I could live,Love and forgive.
But she was Beauty; planets swing,And ages toil, that one like herMay make dust sing;And I, who held her hand, must goAlone, and know.
Scribner's MagazineOlive Tilford Dargan