Ididnotknow
One half the substance of his speech with me.
Ezra-Pound-Provenca-English
'T was not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated, and been brought within Unto the hearth of their heart's home That they might do this wonder thing; Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before.
AN IDYL FOR GLAUCUS
Nel suo aspetto tal dentro mifei Glauco nel gustar del? erba
guahlesilffe"**consorto in mar degli altri dei* PARADISO, i, 67-9. "As Glaucus tasting the grass that made
hint sea-fellow with the other gods. "
I
WHITHER he went I may not follow him.
His eyes Were strange to-day. They always were,
After their fashion, kindred of the sea.
i Anglo-Saxon, "Earth. " 22
? To-dayIfoundhim. Itwasverylong
That I had sought among the nets, and when I
asked
The fishermen, they laughed at me.
I sought long days amid the cliffs thinking to find The body-house of him, and then
There at the blue cave-mouth my joy
Grew pain for suddenness, to see him 'live. Whither he went I may not come, it seems
He is become estranged from all the rest,
And all the sea is now his wonder-house.
And he may sink unto strange depths, he tells me of, That have no light as we it deem. E'ennowhespeaksstrangewords.
Ididnotknow One half the substance of his speech with me. And then when I saw naught he sudden leaped, And shot, a gleam of silver, down, away.
And I have spent three days upon this rock
And yet he comes no more.
He did not even seem to know
I watched him gliding through the vitreous deep.
n
They chide me that the skein I used to spin Holds not my interest now,
They mock me at the route. Well, I have come
again.
Last night I saw three white forms move,
Out past the utmost wave that bears the white foam
crest.
I somehow knew that he was one of them.
23
AnIdyl
? AnIdyl ^Glaucus
Oime, Oime! I think each time they come
^P *rom t^ie sea ^eart to our rea m
"
^ f a*1 They are more far-removed from the shore.
When first I found him here, he slept
E'en as he might after a long night's taking on the
deep,
And when he woke some whit the old kind smile
Dwelt round his lips and held him near to me. But then strange gleams shot through the grey-deep
eyes
As though he saw beyond and saw not me, And when he moved to speak it troubled him. And then he plucked at grass and bade me eat. And then forgot me for the sea its charm
And leapt him in the wave and so was gone.
in
I wonder why he mocked me with the grass.