No More Learning

I'll be under the earth, a boneless phantom,

At rest in the myrtle groves of the dark kingdom:

You'll be an old woman hunched over the fire,

Regretting my love for you, your fierce disdain,

So live, believe me: don't wait for another day,

Gather them now the roses of life, and desire.

Note: W. B. Yeats' free adaptation is the well-known poem 'When you are old and grey and full of sleep' (In 'The Rose'). The myrtle groves are those of the Underworld in Classical mythology.

Sonnets Pour Helene Book II: XLIX

That night Love drew you down into the ballroom

To dance a sweet love-ballet with subtle art,

Your eyes though it was evening, brought the day

Like so many lightning flashes through the gloom.

A dance divine, that, time after time, resumed,

Broke, and re-formed again, circling every way,

Merged and then parted, turned, then turned away,

Mirroring the curves Meander's course assumed.

Now rounded, now stretched out, now narrowing,

Now tapering, now triangular, now forming

Ranks like flights of Cranes in frost-escaping line.

I'm wrong, you didn't dance: your feet were fluttering

Over the surface of the ground, your body altering,

Its nature transformed that night to the divine.

Note: The Meander was the river in Asia Minor (Menderes Nehri in modern Turkey) noted for its sinuous curves. The flight of Cranes is most famously mentioned in Homer's Iliad.

Les Odes: A Sa Maistresse

Sweetheart, let's see if the rose

That in morning light disclosed

Her crimson dress to the Sun,

This evening has lost once more

The folds of her crimson tussore,

And her, as your, complexion.

Ah! See how in such short space

My sweetheart, she's filled the place

With all the beauty's she's lost!

O, so unnatural Nature,

You whose ephemeral flower

Lasts only from dawn to dusk!
Then believe me, my sweetheart, do,

While time still flowers for you,

In its freshest novelty,

Cull, ah cull your youthful bloom:

As it blights this flower, the doom

Of age will blight your beauty.

Les Odes: O Fontaine Bellerie

O Fount of Bellerie,

Fountain sweet to see,

Dear to our Nymphs when, lo,

Waves hide them at your source

Fleeing the Satyr so,

Who follows them, in his course,

To the borders of your flow.

Eternal Nymph, you're the grace

Of my ancestral place:

So, in this fresh, green view,

See your Poet, who brings

An un-weaned kid to you,

Whose horns, in offering,

Bud from its brow in youth.

In summer I sleep, and lie

On your grassy banks, or write

In your green willows immersed,

Seeking to spread your glory

Through all the universe,

Demanding that Memory

Keeps you alive, through verse.

The flames of the Dog Days keep

Far from your green steep,

Because your shade around

Is always close and deep,

For the shepherds changing ground,

The weary oxen, the sheep,

And the cattle that wander round.

Rejoice: forever you'll be

The Princess of Founts to me,

Singing your issuing

From broken stone, a force,

That, as a gurgling spring,

Bring water from your source,

An endless dancing thing.

Note: Bellerie was situated on his family estate La Possonniere. The Dog Days were the August days when Sirius the Dog Star was in the ascendancy. This ode is based on Horace's Ode III:xiii.

Les Odes: 'Pourquoy comme une jeune poutre'

Why like a skittish mare

Do you glance askance at me?

Why, untamed do you scare

At any approach you see?

You won't let anyone touch,

But if I had you to hand,

Be sure, it wouldn't take much

To bridle you where you stand.

Then I'd teach you how to run,

And turn and twist and move,

A teacher to spur you on

In all the arenas of love.

But among the grasses now,

You only seek meadows sweet,

Because you've not yet found

The rider you long to meet.

Index of First Lines

I'd like to turn the deepest of yellows,
At the sorrow I'm made to feel by Love,
Now fearfulness, and now hopefulness
I'd like to be Ixion or Tantalus,
Whether her golden hair curls languidly,
Sweet beauty, murderess of my life,
Moon with dark eyes, goddess with horses black,
Now, when Jupiter, fired by his lusts,
I'd like to burn all the dross of my human clay,
Now when the sky and when the earth again
It was hot, and sleep, gently flowing,
Those twin pulses of thickly clotted milk
I'm sending you some flowers, that my hand
Marie, the man who'd change the letters of your name
Kiss me then Marie: no then, don't kiss me,
As in May month, on its stem we see the rose
Among love's pounding seas, for me there's no support,
The other day you saw me, as you passed by,
So often forging peace, so often fighting,
Though the human spirit gives itself noble airs
In these long winter nights when the idle Moon
When you are truly old, beside the evening candle,
That night Love drew you down into the ballroom
Sweetheart, let's see if the rose
O Fount of Bellerie,
Why like a skittish mare


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