Is it true? Are Ariel's whims Embodied in your artful limbs? And Puck, they say, betrayed you all his lore: Did he? Are you-- As now to me at any rate you seem, Twisting a Longhi into fun and air,-- Are you, perhaps, that unpropounded theme Of playfulness Mozart forgot to score, As lyrical and debonair and new And fair? The rhythm snaps. Surely I caught you there? You are, at least I'm almost sure you were, Some truant from the lesser Piero's store, A living Procne by a livelier shore, Where lustier satyrs ply remorselessly More pagan antics by a bluer sea, A sea as frankly unmysterious As Theocritus. 1918. AFTER AS CLEPIADES '_Ηδὺ θέρους διψῶιντι χιὼν ποτόν..._ O iced gin-slings are pretty good in Ascot week at tea, And, though no poet, I protest lilacs have bloomed for me: But when beneath one baldaquin two bees are but one sting, The lilacs and the juniper are quite another thing. 1921. THE LAST INFIRMITY Then tell me this, how must I praise you, dear And desperate doubter of all pleasant things-- Infidel to yourself--who neither clear, Untroubled truth, nor chequered flatteries, Nor love's tried tales and trusted sorceries, Will hear? In vain the throstle sings, Roses are red in vain, and sunlight fair: For all that amorous armoury of words, Which poets forge themselves from ecstasy, For all youth's uncontrived _niaiseries_, Melodious similes of flowers and birds, For well-found compliment or unfeigned prayer, You do not care. You are the last word of a thousand years, _Fine fleur_ of Europe's slow civility. All subtlest products of her ceaseless toils, The middle ages' mystic gaiety, The gorgeous hubris of Italian dawn, The slow maturing vintage of its spoils, What Titian dreamed of, what Velasquez guessed, Rambouillet played with, Versailles half expressed, You are the heir to: and to you have gone Voltaire's thin smiles and Prévost's prettiest tears. Listen! You are that mystery, That still life that just lies Below the surface. Sometimes you'd surmise, So smooth, so silently, the stream goes by, That it were dead: but, peering past the brink, An inch below the glass you catch a wink, A twist, the thrilling sense of flow. And there! And there! And see the green weeds blow And strain against the strong, subaqueous wind. So, just beneath that faint, diaphanous snow, Your skin, it flutters pulsewise: now behind That bright brown eye stays frozen; now afar Mocks our dull inquisition that would know What life is, what you are. 1921. _ΠΑΝΤΩΝ ΓΛΥΚΥΤΑΤΩΝ ΜΕΤΑΒΟΛΗ._ Frankly, I do not greatly care Always to be my best; I like sometimes to take the air, Sometimes to take a rest. Sometimes, austere philosopher, I scan what thought reveals: At other times I much prefer Silk stockings and high heels. And sometimes Beauty moves me much, And sometimes Pleasure more: Great Art seems sometimes Double Dutch, And Amabel a bore.