Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
For everybody knows or elseshould know
Thats Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Of poets that are always gay,
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Carries a musical instmment.
Delight to imagine them seated there;
Old civilisations put to the sword.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Lapis Lazuli
Who handled marble as ifit were bronze,
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
The great stage curtain about to drop,
I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
Until the town lie beaten flat.
That if nothing drastic is done
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Made draperies that seemed to rise
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,
One asks for mournful melodies;
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
It cannot grow by an inch or anounce.
And those that build them again are gay.
Sweetens the little half-way house
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
All perform their tragic play,
A symbol of longevity;
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
On all the tragic scene they stare.
Every discoloration of the stone,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
All things fall and are built again,
Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
There, on the mountain and the sky,
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
