POETRY.
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 When 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 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 uncouth 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 chess-board gardens where, knight and pawn Of ivory, scentless flowers are born. EDITII SITWELL.
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