ONE time when the cold red winter sun Like a Punch and Judy show shrilled in fun And scattered down its green perfume Like the dust that drifts from the green lime-bloom, I sat at my dressing-table -- that chilly Palely crinolined water-lily And watched my face as spined and brittle As the tall fish, tangled in a little Dark weed, that sea-captains keep In bottles and perpetual sleep. My face seemed the King of Spain's dry map All seamed with gold . . . no one cared a rap As I walked on the grass, like the sheepish buds Of wool that grow on lambs chewing their cuds. The small flowers grew to a hairy husk That holds Eternity for its musk And the satyr's daughter came: I saw She was golden as Venus' castle of straw, And the curls round her golden fruit-face shine Like black ivy-berries that will not make wine. With my black cloak -- (a three-tiered ship on the main) And my face like the map of the King of Spain, Beneath the boughs where like ragged goose-plumes Of the snow hang the spring's first chilly blooms, I swept on towards her; my foot with the gout Clattered like satyr-hoofs, put her to rout, For she thought that I was the satyr-king . . . So she fled like the goat-legged wind of spring Across the sea that was green as grass, Where bird-soft archipelagos pass -- To where like golden bouquets lay Asia, Africa, and Cathay. And now the bird-soft light and shade Touches me not; I promenade Where rain falls with tinkling notes, and cold, Like the castanet-sound of the thinnest gold In chessboard gardens where, knight and pawn Of ivory, scentless flowers are born. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WHAT I'VE BELIEVED IN by JAMES GALVIN WE CAN'T WRITE OURSELVES INTO ETERNAL LIFE by DAVID IGNATOW THE GHOST OF DEACON BROWN by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE ROAD TO AVIGNON by AMY LOWELL DOMESDAY BOOK: DR. TRACE TO THE CORONER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |