The Eagle and the Mole

AVOID the reeking herd,

Shun the polluted flock,

Live like that stoic bird,

The eagle of the rock.

The huddled warmth of crowds

Begets and fosters hate;

He keeps above the clouds

His cliff inviolate.

When flocks are folded warm,

And herds to shelter run,

He sails above the storm,

He stares into the sun.

If in the eagle's track

Your sinews cannot leap,

Avoid the lathered pack,

Turn from the steaming sheep.

If you would keep your soul

From spotted sight or sound,

Live like the velvet mole:

Go burrow underground.

And there hold intercourse

With roots of trees and stones,

With rivers at their source,

And disembodied bones.

Elinor Wylie

Beauty

SAY not of beauty she is good,

Or aught but beautiful,

Or sleek to doves' wings of the wood

Her wild wings of a gull.

Call her not wicked; that word's touch

Consumes her like a curse;

But love her not too much, too much,

For that is even worse.

O, she is neither good nor bad,

But innocent and wild!

Enshrine her and she dies, who had

The hard heart of a child.

Elinor Wylie

Wild Peaches

1

WHEN the world turns completely upside down

You say we'll emigrate to the Eastern Shore

Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;

We'll live among wild peach trees, miles from town,

You'll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown

Homespun, dyed butternut's dark gold colour.

Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,

We'll swim in milk and honey till we drown.

The winter will be short, the summer long,

The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,

Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;

All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.

The squirrels in their silver fur will fall

Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.

2

The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass

Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.

The misted early mornings will be cold;

The little puddles will be roofed with glass.

The sun, which burns from copper into brass,

Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold

Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold

Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.

Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;

A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;

The spring begins before the winter's over.

By February you may find the skins

Of garter snakes and water moccasins

Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.

3

When April pours the colours of a shell

Upon the hills, when every little creek

Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake

In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,

When strawberries go begging, and the sleek

Blue plums lie open to the blackbird's beak,

We shall live well -- we shall live very well.

The months between the cherries and the peaches

Are brimming cornucopias which spill

Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black;

Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches

We'll trample bright persimmons, while you kill

Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.

4

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones

There's something in this richness that I hate.

I love the look, austere, immaculate,

Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.

There's something in my very blood that owns

Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,

A thread of water, churned to milky spate

Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,

Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;

That spring, briefer than apple-blossom's breath,

Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,

Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,

And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.

Elinor Wylie

Les Lauriers Sont Coupée

AH, love, within the shadow of the wood

The laurels are cut down; some other brows

May bear the classic wreath which Fame allows

And find the burden honorable and good.

Have we not passed the laurels as they stood--

Soft in the veil with which Spring endows

The wintry glitter of their woven boughs--

Nor stopped to break the branches while we could?

Ah, love, for other brows they are cut down.

Thornless and scentless are their stems and flowers,

And cold as death their twisted coronal.

Sweeter to us the sharpness of this crown;

Sweeter the wildest roses which are ours;

Sweeter the petals, even when they fall.

Elinor Wylie

The Child on the Curbstone

THE headlights raced; the moon, death-faced,

Stared down on that golden river.

I saw through the smoke the scarlet cloak

Of a boy who could not shiver.

His father's hand forced him to stand,

The traffic thundered slaughter;

One foot he thrust in the whirling dust

As it were running water.

As in a dream I saw the stream

Scatter in drops that glistened;

They flamed, they flashed, his brow they splashed,

And danger's son was christened.

The portent passed; his fate was cast,

Sea-farer, desert-ranger.

Tearless I smiled on that fearless child

Dipping his foot in Danger.

Elinor Wylie

The Lost Path

THE garden's full of scented wallflowers,

And, save that these stir faintly, nothing stirs;

Only a distant bell in hollow chime

Cried out just now for far-forgoten time,

And three reverberate words the great bell spoke.

The knocker's made of brass, the door of oak,

And such a clamor must be loosed on air

By the knocker's blow that knock I do not dare.

The silence is a spell, and if it break,

What things, that now lie sleeping, will awake?

Are simple creatures lying there in cool

Sweet linen sheets, in slumber like the pool

Of moonlight white as water on the floor?

Will they come down laughing and unlock the door?

And will they draw me in, and let me sit

On the tall settle while the lamp is lit?

And shall I see their innocent clean lives

Shining as plainly as the plates and knives,

The blue bowls, and the brass cage with its bird?

But listen! listen! surely something stirred

Within the house, and creeping down the halls

Draws close to me with sinister footfalls.

Will long pale fingers softly lift the latch,

And lead me up, under the osier thatch,

To a little room, a little secret room,

Hung with green arras picturing the doom,

The most disasterous death of some proud knight?

And shall I search the room by candle-light

And see, behind the curtains of my bed,

A murdered man who sleeps as sleep the dead?

Or will my clamorous knocking shake the trees

With lonely thunder through the stillnesses,

And then lie down--the coldest fear of all--

To nothing, and deliberate silence fall

On the house deep in the silence, and no one come

To door or window, staring blind and dumb?

Elinor Wylie

Phases of the Moon

ONCE upon a time I heard

That the flying moon was a Phoenix bird;

Thus she sails through windy skies,

Thus in the willow's arms she lies;

Turn to the East or turn to the West

In many trees she makes her nest.

When she's but a pearly thread

Look among birch leaves overhead;

When she dies in yellow smoke

Look in a thunder-smitten oak;

But in May when the moon is full,

Bright as water and white as wool,

Look for her where she loves to be,

Asleep in a high magnolia tree.

Elinor Wylie

Nadir

IF we must cheat ourselves with any dream,

Then let it be a dream of nobleness:

Since it is necessary to express

Gall from black grapes--to sew an endless seam

With a rusty needle--chase a spurious gleam

Narrowing to the nothing through the less--

Since life's no better than a bitter guess,

And love's a stranger--let us change the theme.

Let us at least pretend--it may be true--

That we can close our lips on poisonous

Dark wine diluted by the Stygean wave;

And let me dream sublimity in you,

And courage, liberal for the two of us:

Let us at least pretend we can be brave.

Elinor Wylie

The Poor Old Cannon

UPBROKE the sun

In red-gold foam;

Thus spoke the gun

At the Soldier's Home:

"Whenever I hear

Blue thunder speak

My voice sounds clear

But little and weak.

"And when the proud

Young cockerels crow

My voice sounds loud,

But gentle and low.

"When the mocking-bird

Prolongs his note

I cannot be heard

Though I split my throat."

Elinor Wylie

October

BEAUTH has a tarnished dress,

And a patchwork cloak of cloth

Dipped deep in mournfulness,

Striped like a moth.

Wet grass where it trails

Dyes it green along the hem;

She has seven silver veils

With cracked bells on them.

She is tired of all these--

Grey gauze, translucent lawn;

The broad cloak of Herakles.

Is tangled flame and fawn.

Water and light are wearing thin:

She has drawn above her head

The warm enormous lion skin

Rough red and gold.

Elinor Wylie

Ophelia

MY locks are shorn for sorrow

Of love which may not be;

Tomorrow and tomorrow

Are plotting cruelty.

The winter wind tangles

These ringlets half-grown,

The sun sprays with spangles

And rays like his own.

Oh, quieter and colder

Is the stream; he will wait;

When my curls touch my shoulder

He will comb them straight.

Elinor Wylie

Poor Earth

IT is not heaven: bitter seed

Leavens its entrails with despair

It is a star where dragons breed:

Devils have a footing there.

The sky has bent it out of shape;

The sun has strapped it to his wheel;

Its course is crooked to escape

Traps and gins of stone and steel.

It balances on air, and spins

Snared by strong transparent space;

I forgive it all its sins;

I kiss the scars upon its face.

Elinor Wylie

Love Song

LOVERS eminent in love

Ever diversities combine;

The vocal chords of the cushat-dove,

The snake's articulated spine.

Such elective elements

Educate the eye and lip

With one's refreshing innocence,

The other's claim to scholarship.

The serpent's knowledge of the world

Learn, and the dove's more naïve charm;

Whether your ringlets should be curled,

And why he likes his claret warm.

Elinor Wylie

Quarrel

LET us quarrel for these reasons:

You detest the salt which seasons

My speech . . . and all my lights go out

In the cold poison of your doubt.

I love Shelley . . . you love Keats

Something parts and something meets.

I love salads . . . you love chops;

Something goes and something stops.

Something hides its face and cries;

Something shivers; something dies.

I love blue ribbons brought from fairs;

You love sitting splitting hairs.

I love truth, and so do you . . .

Tell me, is it truly true?

Elinor Wylie

Death and the Maiden

BARCAROLE ON THE STYX

FAIR youth with the rose at your lips,

A riddle is hid in your eyes;

Discard conversational quips,

Give over elaborate disguise.

The rose's funeral breath

Confirms by intuitive fears;

To prove your devotion, Sir Death,

Avaunt for a dozen of years.

But do not forget to array

Your terror in juvenile charms;

I shall deeply regret my delay

If I sleep in a skeleton's arms.

Elinor Wylie

Primavera in the North

SHE has danced for leagues and leagues,

Over thorns and thistles,

Prancing to a tune of Griegg's

Performed on willow whistles.

Antelopes behold her, dazed,

Velvet-eyed, and furry;

Polar flowers, crackle-glazed,

Snap beneath her hurry.

In a wig of copper wire,

A gown of scalloped gauzes,

She capers like a flame of fire

Over Arctic mosses.

All her tears have turned to birds,

All her thoughts of dolour

Paint the snow with scarlet words

And traceries of colour.

Elinor Wylie

Little Joke

Stripping an almond tree in flower

The wise apothecary's skill

A single drop of lethal power

From perfect sweetness can distill

From bitterness in efflorescence,

With murderous poisons packed therein;

The poet draws pellucid essence

Pure as a drop of metheglin.

Elinor Wylie

Venetian Interior

ALLEGRA, rising from her canopied dreams,

Slides both white feet across the slanted beams

Which lace the peacock jalousies: behold

An idol of fine clay, with feet of gold.

Elinor Wylie

The Pekingese

FOR A PICTURE

THIS Pekingese, that makes the sand-grains spin,

Is digging little tunnels to Pekin:

Dream him emerging in a porcelain cave

Where wounded dragons stain a pearly wave.

Elinor Wylie

Curious Circumstance

THE sailorman's child

And the girl of the witch--

They can't be defiled

By touching pitch.

The sailorman's son

Had a ship for a nursery;

The other one

Was baptised by sorcery.

Although he's shipped

To the Persian Gulf, her

Body's been dipped

In burning sulphur.

Elinor Wylie