Oimè, Oimè! I think each time they come Up from the sea heart to our realm of air They are more far-removèd from the shore. When first I found him here, he slept E’en as he might after a long night’s taking on the deep, And when he woke some whit the old kind smile Dwelt round his lips and held him near to me. But then strange gleams shot through the grey-deep eyes As though he saw beyond and saw not me, And when he moved to speak it troubled him. And then he plucked at grass and bade me eat. And then forgot me for the sea its charm And leapt him in the wave and so was gone. III I wonder why he mocked me with the grass. I know not any more how long it is Since I have dwelt not in my mother’s house. I know they think me mad, for all night long I haunt the sea-marge, thinking I may find Some day the herb he offered unto me. Perhaps he did not jest; they say some simples have More wide-spanned power than old wives draw from them. Perhaps, found I this grass, he’d come again. Perhaps ’tis some strange charm to draw him here, ’Thout which he may not leave his new-found crew That ride the two-foot coursers of the deep, And laugh in storms and break the fishers’ nets. Oimè, Oimè! SONG _Voices in the Wind._ We have worn the blue and vair, And all the sea-caves Know us of old, and know our new-found mate. There’s many a secret stair The sea-folk climb ... _Out of the Wind._ Oimè, Oimè! I wonder why the wind, even the wind doth seem To mock me now, all night, all night, and I have strayed among the cliffs here. They say, some day I’ll fall Down through the sea-bit fissures, and no more Know the warm cloak of sun, or bathe The dew across my tired eyes to comfort them. They try to keep me hid within four walls. I will not stay! Oimè! And the wind saith, “Oimè!” I am quite tired now. I know the grass Must grow somewhere along this Thracian coast, If only he would come some little while and find it me. ENDETH THE LAMENT FOR GLAUCUS MARVOIL[8] A poor clerk I, “Arnaut the less” they call me, And because I have small mind to sit Day long, long day cooped on a stool A-jumbling o’ figures for Maitre Jacques Polin, I ha’ taken to rambling the South here. The Vicomte of Beziers’s not such a bad lot. I made rimes to his lady this three year: Vers and canzone, till that damn’d son of Aragon, Alfonso the half-bald, took to hanging _His_ helmet at Beziers. Then came what might come, to wit: three men and one woman, Beziers off at Mont-Ausier, I and his lady Singing the stars in the turrets of Beziers, And one lean Aragonese cursing the seneschal To the end that you see, friends: