Puella Mea
Harun Omar and Master Hafizkeep your dead beautiful ladies.Mine is a little lovelierthan any of your ladies were.
In her perfectest arraymy lady, moving in the day,is a little stranger thingthan crisp Sheba with her kingin the morning wandering. Through the young and awkward hoursmy lady perfectly moving,through the new world scarce astirmy fragile lady wanderingin whose perishable poiseis the mystery of Spring(with her beauty more than snowdexterous and fugitivemy very frail lady driftingdistinctly, moving like a mythin the uncertain morning, withApril feet like sudden flowersand all her body filled with May)—moving in the unskilful daymy lady utterly alive,to me is a more curious thing(a thing more nimble and complete)than ever to Judea's kingwere the shapely sharp cunningand withal delirious feetof the Princess Salomécarefully dancing in the noiseof Herod's silence, long ago.
If she a little turn her headI know that I am wholly dead:nor ever did on such a throatthe lips of Tristram slowly dote,La beale Isoud whose leman was.And if my lady look at me(with her eyes which like two elvesincredibly amuse themselves)with a look of faerie,perhaps a little suddenly(as sometimes the improbablebeauty of my lady will)—at her glance my spirit shiesrearing (as in the miracleof a lady who had eyeswhich the king's horses might not kill.) But should my lady smile, it werea 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 dewwhen the world was young and new(a flower such as the world hadin springtime when the world was madand Launcelot spoke to Guenever,a flower which most heavy hungwith silence when the world was youngand Diarmid looked in Grania's eyes.) But should my lady's beauty playat not speaking (sometimes asit will) the silence of her facedoth immediately makein my heart so great a noise,as in the sharp and thirsty bloodof Paris would not all the Troysof Helen's beauty: never didLord Jason (in impossible thingsvictorious impossibly)so wholly burn, to undertakeMedea's rescuing eyes; nor hewhen swooned the white egyptian daywho with Egypt's body lay.
Lovely as those ladies weremine is a little lovelier.
And if she speak in her frail way,it is wholly to bewitchmy smallest thought with a most swiftradiance wherein slowly driftmurmurous things divinely bright;it is foolingly to smitemy spirit with the lithe free twitchof scintillant space, with the cool writheof gloom truly which syncopatesome sunbeam's skilful fingerings;it is utterly to lullwith foliate inscrutablesweetness my soul obedient;it is to stroke my being withnumbing forests, frolicsome,fleetly mystical, aroamwith keen creatures of idiom(beings alert and innocentvery deftly upon whichindolent miracles impinge)—it is distinctly to confutemy reason with the deep caressof every most shy thing and mute,it is to quell me with the twingeof all living intense things. Never my soul so fortunateis (past the luck of all dead menand loving) as invisibly whenupon her palpable solitudea furtive occult fragrance steals,a gesture of immaculateperfume—whereby (with fear aglow)my soul is wont wholly to knowthe poignant instantaneous fernwhose scrupulous enchanted frondstoward all things intrinsic yearn,the immanent subliminalfern of her delicious voice(of her voice which always dwellsbeside the vivid magicalimpetuous and utter pondsof dream; and very secret foodits leaves inimitable findbeyond the white authentic springs,beyond the sweet instinctive wells,which make to flourish the minutespontaneous meadow of her mind)—the vocal fern, alway which feelsthe keen ecstatic actual tread(and thereto perfectly responds)of all things exquisite and dead,all living things and beautiful.
(Caliph and king their ladies hadto love them and to make them glad,when the world was young and mad,in the city of Bagdad—mine is a little lovelierthan any of their ladies were.)
Her body is most beauteous,being for all things amorousfashioned very curiouslyof roses and of ivory.The immaculate crisp headis such as only certain deadand careful painters love to usefor their youngest angels (whosepraising bodies in a rowbetween slow glories fleetly go.)Upon a keen and lovely throatthe strangeness of her face doth float,which in eyes and lips consists—alway upon the mouth there trystscurvingly a fragile smilewhich like a flower lieth (whilewithin the eyes is dimly hearda wistful and precarious bird.)Springing from fragrant shoulders small,ardent, and perfectly withalsmooth to stroke and sweet to seeas a supple and young tree,her slim lascivious arms alightin skilful wrists which hint at flight—my lady's very singularand slenderest hands moreover are(which as lilies smile and quail)of all things perfect the most frail.
(Whoso rideth in the taleof Chaucer knoweth many a pairof companions blithe and fair;who to walk with Master Gowerin Confessio doth prefershall not lack for beauty there,nor he that will amaying gowith my lord Boccaccio—whoso knocketh at the doorof Marie and of Maleorefindeth of ladies goodly storewhose beauty did in nothing err.If to me there shall appearthan a rose more sweetly known,more silently than a flower,my lady naked in her hair—I for those ladies nothing carenor any lady dead and gone.)
When the world was like a songheard behind a golden door,poet and sage and caliph hadto love them and to make them gladladies with lithe eyes and long(when the world was like a flowerOmar Hafiz and Harunloved their ladies in the moon)—fashioned very curiouslyof roses and ivoryif naked she appear to memy flesh is an enchanted tree;with her lips' most frail partingmy body hears the cry of Spring,and with their frailest syllableits leaves go crisp with miracle.
Love!—maker of my lady,in that alway beyond thispoem or any poem sheof whose body words are afraidperfectly 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 deadwho with Grania strangely fled,who with Egypt went to bed,whom white-thighed Semiramisput up her mouth to wholly kiss—never boast your dead beauties,mine being unto me sweeter(of whose why delicious glancethings which never more shall be,perfect things of faerie,are intense inhabitants;in whose warm superlativebody do distinctly liveall sweet cities passed away—in her flesh at break of dayare the smells of Nineveh,in her eyes when day is goneare 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 worldpoises a moment (futile, proud,a costly morsel of sweet tears)gesticulates, and disappears—of all dainties which do crowdgaily upon oblivionsweeter 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 talemade of laughter and of dew,was a flight, a flower, a flame,was a tendril fleetly curledupon frailness) used to stroll(very slowly) one or twoladies like flowers made,softly used to wholly moveslender ladies made of dream(in the lazy world and newsweetly used to laugh and loveladies with crisp eyes and frail,in the city of Bagdad.)
Keep your dead beautiful ladiesHarun Omar and Master Hafiz.