Personae

I do not choose to dream; there cometh on me
Some strange old lust for deeds.
As to the nerveless hand of some old warrior
The sword-hilt or the war-worn wonted helmet
Brings momentary life and long-fled cunning,
So to my soul grown old—
Grown old with many a jousting, many a foray,
Grown old with many a hither-coming and hence-going—
Till now they send him dreams and no more deed;
So doth he flame again with might for action,
Forgetful of the council of the elders,
Forgetful that who rules doth no more battle,
Forgetful that such might no more cleaves to him
So doth he flame again toward valiant doing.

Phoebus shineth ere his splendour flieth
Aurora drives faint light athwart the land
And the drowsy watcher crieth,
"ARISE."

Ref

O'er cliff and ocean the white dawn appeareth
It passeth vigil and the shadows cleareth.

They be careless of the gates, delaying,
Whom the ambush glides to hinder,
Whom I warn and cry to, praying,
"ARISE."

Ref

O'er cliff and ocean the white dawn appeareth
It passeth vigil and the shadows cleareth.

Forth from out Arcturus, North Wind bloweth
The stars of heaven sheathe their glory
And sun-driven forth-goeth
Settentrion.

Ref.

O'er sea mist, and mountain is the dawn display'd
It passeth watch and maketh night afraid.

From a tenth-century MS.

The song of Peire Bremon "Lo Tort" that he made for his Lady in Provença: he being in Syria a crusader.

In April when I see all through
Mead and garden new flowers blow,
And streams with ice-bands broken flow,
Eke hear the birds their singing do;
When spring's grass-perfume floateth by
Then 'tis sweet song and birdlet's cry
Do make mine old joy come anew.

Such time was wont my thought of old
To wander in the ways of love.
Burnishing arms and clang thereof,
And honour-services manifold
Be now my need. Whoso combine
Such works, love is his bread and wine,
Wherefore should his fight the more be bold.

Song bear I, who tears should bring
Sith ire of love mak'th me annoy,
With song think I to make me joy.
Yet ne'er have I heard said this thing:
"He sings who sorrow's guise should wear."
Natheless I will not despair
That sometime I'll have cause to sing.

I should not to despair give way
That some while I'll my lady see.
I trust well He that lowered me
Hath power again to make me gay.
But if e'er I come to my Love's land
And turn again to Syrian strand,
God keep me there for a fool, alway!

God for a miracle well should
Hold my coming from her away,
And hold me in His grace alway
That I left her, for holy-rood.
An I lose her, no joy for me,
Pardi, hath the wide world in fee.
Nor could He mend it, if He would.

Well did she know sweet wiles to take
My heart, when thence I took my way.
'Thout sighing, pass I ne'er a day
For that sweet semblance she did make
To me, saying all in sorrow:
"Sweet friend, and what of me to-morrow?"
"Love mine, why wilt me so forsake?"


ENVOI

Beyond sea be thou sped, my song,
And, by God, to my Lady say
That in desirous, grief-filled way
My nights and my days are full long.
And command thou William the Long-Seer
To tell thee to my Lady dear,
That comfort be her thoughts among.

The only bit of Peire Bremon's work that has come down to us, and through its being printed with the songs of Giraut of Bornelh he is like to lose credit for even this.—E.P.

D'AUBIGNE TO DIANE

Wearied by wind and wave death goes
With gin and snare right near alway
Unto my sight. Behind me bay
As hounds the tempests of my foes.
Ever on ward against such woes,
Pistols my pillow's service pay,
Yet Love makes me the poet play.
Thou know'st the rime demands repose,
So if my line disclose distress,
The soldier and my restlessness
And teen, Pardon, dear Lady mine,
For since mid war I bear love's pain
'Tis meet my verse, as I, show sign
Of powder, gun-match and sulphur stain.

A poor clerk I, "Arnaut the less" they call me,
And because I have small mind to sit
Day long, long day cooped on a stool
A-jumbling o' figures for Maitre Jacques Polin,
I ha' taken to rambling the South here.

The Vicomte of Beziers's not such a bad lot.
I made rimes to his lady this three year:
Vers and canzone, till that damn'd son of Aragon,
Alfonso the half-bald, took to hanging
His helmet at Beziers.
Then came what might come, to wit: three men and one woman,
Beziers off at Mont-Ausier, I and his lady
Singing the stars in the turrets of Beziers,
And one lean Aragonese cursing the seneschal
To the end that you see, friends:

Aragon cursing in Aragon, Beziers busy at Beziers—
Bored to an inch of extinction,
Tibors all tongue and temper at Mont-Ausier,
Me! in this damn'd inn of Avignon,
Stringing long verse for the Burlatz;
All for one half-bald, knock-knee'd king of the Aragonese,
Alfonso, Quatro, poke-nose.

And if when I am dead
They take the trouble to tear out this wall here,
They'll know more of Arnaut of Marvoil
Than half his canzoni say of him.
As for will and testament I leave none,
Save this: "Vers and canzone to the Countess of Beziers
In return for the first kiss she gave me."
May her eyes and her cheek be fair
To all men except the King of Aragon,
And may I come speedily to Beziers
Whither my desire and my dream have preceded me.
O hole in the wall here! be thou my jongleur
As ne'er had I other, and when the wind blows,
Sing thou the grace of the Lady of Beziers,
For even as thou art hollow before I fill thee with
this parchment,
So is my heart hollow when she filleth not mine eyes,
And so were my mind hollow, did she not fill utterly
my thought.

Wherefore, O hole in the wall here,
When the wind blows sigh thou for my sorrow
That I have not the Countess of Beziers
Close in my arms here.
Even as thou shalt soon have this parchment.

O hole in the wall here, be thou my jongleur,
And though thou sighest my sorrow in the wind,
Keep yet my secret in thy breast here;
Even as I keep her image in my heart here.

Mihi pergamena deest.

Against the crepuscular spirit in
modern poetry

I would shake off the lethargy of this our time,
and give
For shadows—shapes of power
For dreams—men.

"It is better to dream than do"?
Aye! and, No!

Aye! if we dream great deeds, strong men,
Hearts hot, thoughts mighty.

No! if we dream pale flowers,
Slow-moving pageantry of hours that languidly
Drop as o'er-ripened fruit from sallow trees.
If so we live and die not life but dreams,
Great God, grant life in dreams,
Not dalliance, but life!

Let us be men that dream,
Not cowards, dabblers, waiters
For dead Time to reawaken and grant balm
For ills unnamed.

Great God, if we be damn'd to be not men but only dreams,
Then let us be such dreams the world shall tremble at
And know we be its rulers though but dreams!
Then let us be such shadows as the world shall tremble at
And know we be its masters though but shadow!

Great God, if men are grown but pale sick phantoms
That must live only in these mists and tempered lights
And tremble for dim hours that knock o'er loud
Or tread too violent in passing them;

Great God, if these thy sons are grown such thin ephemera,
I bid thee grapple chaos and beget
Some new titanic spawn to pile the hills and stir
This earth again.

"Aye! I am a poet and upon my tomb
Shall maidens scatter rose leaves
And men myrtles, ere the night
Slays day with her dark sword.

"Lo! this thing is not mine
Nor thine to hinder,
For the custom is full old,
And here in Nineveh have I beheld
Many a singer pass and take his place
In those dim halls where no man troubleth
His sleep or song.
And many a one hath sung his songs

More craftily, more subtle-souled than I;
And many a one now doth surpass
My wave-worn beauty with his wind of flowers,
Yet am I poet, and upon my tomb
Shall all men scatter rose leaves
Ere the night slay light
With her blue sword.

"It is not, Raama, that my song rings highest
Or more sweet in tone than any, but that I
Am here a Poet, that doth drink of life
As lesser men drink wine."

I ha' seen them mid the clouds on the heather.
Lo! they pause not for love nor for sorrow,
Yet their eyes are as the eyes of a maid to her lover,
When the white hart breaks his cover
And the white wind breaks the morn.

"'Tis the white stagy Fame, we're a-hunting,
Bid the world's hounds come to horn!"

Beautiful, tragical faces,
Ye that were whole, and are so sunken;
And, O ye vile, ye that might have been loved,
That are so sodden and drunken,
Who hath forgotten you?

O wistful, fragile faces, few out of many!

The gross, the coarse, the brazen,
God knows I cannot pity them, perhaps, as I should do,
But, oh, ye delicate, wistful faces,
Who hath forgotten you?

NOTE PRECEDENT TO "LA FRAISNE"

"When the soul is exhausted of fire, then doth the spirit return unto its primal nature and there is upon it a peace great and of the woodland

"magna pax et silvestris."

Then becometh it kin to the faun and the dryad, a woodland-dweller amid the rocks and streams

1. "che lo glorifico." In the Piazza dei Signori, you will find an inscription which translates thus:

"It is here Can Grande della Scala gave welcome to Dante Alighieri, the same which glorified him, dedicating to him that third his song eternal."

"C.G. vi accolse D.A. che lo
glorifico dedicandogli la terza,
delle eterne sue cantiche."

2. Ref. Richard of St. Victor. "On the preparation of the soul for contemplation," where he distinguishes between cogitation, meditation, and contemplation.

In cogitation the thought or attention flits aimlessly about the subject.

In meditation it circles round it, that is, it views it systematically, from all sides, gaining perspective.

In contemplation it radiates from a centre, that is, as light from the sun it reaches out in an infinite number of ways to things that are related to or dependent on it.

The words above are my own, as I have not the Benjamin Minor by me.

Following St. Victor's figure of radiation: Poetry in its acme is expression from contemplation.

3. San Pietro Incarnato. There are several rows of houses intervening between it and the river.

ALBA BELINGALIS

MS. in Latin, with refrain,

"L alba par umet mar atras el poy
Pas abigil miraclar Tenebris."

It was and may still be the oldest fragment of Provençal known.

MARVOIL

The Personae are:

Arnaut of Marvoil, a troubadour, date 1170-1200.
The Countess (in her own right) of Burlatz, and of Beziers, being
the wife of
The Vicomte of Beziers.
Alfonso IV of Aragon.
Tibors of Mont-Ausier. For fuller mention of her see the
"razos" on Bertran of Born. She is contemporary with the
other persons, but I have no strict warrant for dragging her name
into this particular affair.

Marco Londonio's Italian version of "Nel Biancheggiar":

Nel biancheggiar di delicata rosa
Risplendono i colori
D' occidentali fiori
Prima che l'alba, in esultanza ascosa

Voglia baciarli. Ed aleggiar io sento
Qual su dolce lïuto
Nel lor linguaggio muto
Fiorir di gioia e tocco di tormento

Cosi un' arcano senso di languore,
Le sue sognanti dita
Fanno scordar la vita
Spirando in verso tutto pien d'amore....

Senza morir: chè sanno i suoni alati,
Vedendo il nostro stato,
Ch' è dal dolor turbato,
Di lasciarci, morendo, desolati.