Harun Omar and Master
Hafiz
keep your dead
beautiful ladies.
Mine is a little
lovelier
than any of your ladies
were.
In her perfectest array
my lady, moving in the
day,
is a little stranger
thing
than crisp Sheba with
her king
in the morning
wandering.
Through the young and awkward hours my
lady perfectly moving,
through the new world
scarce astir
my fragile lady
wandering
in whose perishable
poise
is the mystery of
Spring
(with her beauty more
than snow
dexterous and fugitive
my very frail lady
drifting
distinctly, moving like
a myth
in the uncertain
morning, with
April feet like sudden
flowers
and all her body filled
with May)
--moving in the
unskilful day
my lady utterly alive,
to me is a more curious
thing
(a thing more nimble
and complete)
than ever to Judea’s
king
were the shapely sharp
cunning
and withal delirious
feet
of the Princess Salomé
carefully dancing in
the noise
of Herod’s silence,
long ago.
If she a little turn
her head
I know that I am wholly
dead:
nor ever did on such a
throat
the lips of Tristram
slowly dote,
La beale Isoud whose
leman was.
And if my lady look at
me
(with her eyes which
like two elves
incredibly amuse
themselves)
with a look of faerie,
perhaps a little
suddenly
(as sometimes the
improbable
beauty of my lady will)
--at her glance my
spirit shies
rearing (as in the
miracle
of a lady who had eyes
which the king’s horses
might not kill.)
But should my lady smile, it were a
flower of so pure surprise
(it were so very new a
flower,
a flower so frail, a
flower so glad)
as trembling used to
yield with dew
when the world was
young and new
(a flower such as the
world had
in springtime when the
world was mad
and Launcelot spoke to
Guenever,
a flower which most
heavy hung
with silence when the
world was young
and Diarmid looked in
Grania’s eyes.)
But should my lady’s beauty play at
not speaking (sometimes as
it will) the silence of
her face
doth immediately make
in my heart so great a
noise,
as in the sharp and
thirsty blood
of Paris would not all
the Troys
of Helen’s beauty:
never did
Lord Jason (in
impossible things
victorious impossibly)
so wholly burn, to
undertake
Medea’s rescuing eyes;
nor he
when swooned the white
egyptian day
who with Egypt’s body
lay.
Lovely as those ladies
were
mine is a little
lovelier.
And if she speak in her
frail way,
it is wholly to bewitch
my smallest thought
with a most swift
radiance wherein slowly
drift
murmurous things
divinely bright;
it is foolingly to
smite
my spirit with the
lithe free twitch
of scintillant space,
with the cool writhe
of gloom truly which
syncopate
some sunbeam’s skilful
fingerings;
it is utterly to lull
with foliate
inscrutable
sweetness my soul
obedient;
it is to stroke my
being with
numbing forests,
frolicsome,
fleetly mystical, aroam
with keen creatures of
idiom
(beings alert and
innocent
very deftly upon which
indolent miracles
impinge)
--it is distinctly to
confute
my reason with the deep
caress
of every most shy thing
and mute,
it is to quell me with
the twinge
of all living intense
things.
Never my soul so fortunate is
(past the luck of all dead men
and loving) as
invisibly when
upon her palpable
solitude
a furtive occult
fragrance steals,
a gesture of immaculate
perfume--whereby (with
fear aglow)
my soul is wont wholly
to know
the poignant
instantaneous fern
whose scrupulous
enchanted fronds
toward all things
intrinsic yearn,
the immanent subliminal
fern of her delicious
voice
(of her voice which
always dwells
beside the vivid
magical
impetuous and utter
ponds
of dream; and very
secret food
its leaves inimitable
find
beyond the white
authentic springs,
beyond the sweet
instinctive wells,
which make to flourish
the minute
spontaneous meadow of
her mind)
--the vocal fern, alway
which feels
the keen ecstatic
actual tread
(and thereto perfectly
responds)
of all things exquisite
and dead,
all living things and
beautiful.
(Caliph and king their
ladies had
to love them and to
make them glad,
when the world was
young and mad,
in the city of Bagdad--
mine is a little
lovelier
than any of their ladies
were.)
Her body is most
beauteous,
being for all things
amorous
fashioned very
curiously
of roses and of ivory.
The immaculate crisp
head
is such as only certain
dead
and careful painters
love to use
for their youngest
angels (whose
praising bodies in a
row
between slow glories
fleetly go.)
Upon a keen and lovely
throat
the strangeness of her
face doth float,
which in eyes and lips
consists
--alway upon the mouth
there trysts
curvingly a fragile
smile
which like a flower
lieth (while
within the eyes is
dimly heard
a wistful and
precarious bird.)
Springing from fragrant
shoulders small,
ardent, and perfectly
withal
smooth to stroke and
sweet to see
as a supple and young
tree,
her slim lascivious
arms alight
in skilful wrists which
hint at flight
--my lady’s very
singular
and slenderest hands
moreover are
(which as lilies smile
and quail)
of all things perfect
the most frail.
(Whoso rideth in the
tale
of Chaucer knoweth many
a pair
of companions blithe
and fair;
who to walk with Master
Gower
in Confessio doth
prefer
shall not lack for
beauty there,
nor he that will
amaying go
with my lord
Boccaccio--
whoso knocketh at the
door
of Marie and of Maleore
findeth of ladies
goodly store
whose beauty did in
nothing err.
If to me there shall
appear
than a rose more
sweetly known,
more silently than a
flower,
my lady naked in her
hair--
I for those ladies
nothing care
nor any lady dead and
gone.)
When the world was like
a song
heard behind a golden
door,
poet and sage and
caliph had
to love them and to
make them glad
ladies with lithe eyes
and long
(when the world was
like a flower
Omar Hafiz and Harun
loved their ladies in
the moon)
--fashioned very
curiously
of roses and ivory
if naked she appear to
me
my flesh is an
enchanted tree;
with her lips’ most
frail parting
my body hears the cry
of Spring,
and with their frailest
syllable
its leaves go crisp
with miracle.
Love!--maker of my
lady,
in that alway beyond
this
poem or any poem she
of whose body words are
afraid
perfectly beautiful is,
forgive these words
which I have made.
And never boast your
dead beauties,
you greatest lovers in
the world!
never boast your
beauties dead
who with Grania
strangely fled,
who with Egypt went to
bed,
whom white-thighed
Semiramis
put up her mouth to
wholly kiss--
never boast your dead
beauties,
mine being unto me
sweeter
(of whose why delicious
glance
things which never more
shall be,
perfect things of
faerie,
are intense
inhabitants;
in whose warm
superlative
body do distinctly live
all sweet cities passed
away--
in her flesh at break
of day
are the smells of
Nineveh,
in her eyes when day is
gone
are the cries of
Babylon.)
Diarmid Paris and
Solomon,
Omar Harun and Master
Hafiz,
to me your ladies are
all one--
keep your dead
beautiful ladies.
Eater of all things
lovely--Time!
upon whose watering
lips the world
poises a moment
(futile, proud,
a costly morsel of
sweet tears)
gesticulates, and
disappears--
of all dainties which
do crowd
gaily upon oblivion
sweeter than any there
is one;
to touch it is the fear
of rhyme--
in life’s very fragile
hour
(when the world was
like a tale
made of laughter and of
dew,
was a flight, a flower,
a flame,
was a tendril fleetly
curled
upon frailness) used to
stroll
(very slowly) one or
two
ladies like flowers
made,
softly used to wholly
move
slender ladies made of
dream
(in the lazy world and
new
sweetly used to laugh
and love
ladies with crisp eyes
and frail,
in the city of Bagdad.)
Keep your dead
beautiful ladies
Harun Omar and Master
Hafiz.