Collected Works (Vol. III)

18 THE STAR AND THE GARTER Ay ! God of scissors ! barber God ! My earlier mystery did you learn? Unshoe the aching pseudopod ! Mysterious donkey, chew or churn Your human-kindness-milk to butter ! I gave you gratis God's advice (Since God's responsible) to—mutter In gutter, pav your tithe to vice Since virtue kicks you down its stairs. So thus I clothed it in strange word To catch you thinking unawares. Think ? do you think ? Then, thinks a bird. Read your Descartes ! Nietzsche demurred? To you, who give yourself such airs, This riddle cannot offer snares ! ‘ ; ‘ . : Love’s mass is holier than wine and wafer. Thou couldst not beetle be: then, be cock- chafer !"’ Hence my address, this swoodier Swood To Khephra, hence the ambiguous speech, The alluring analogue, the good, The loftiest heaven Art hopes to reach, The highest goal of man as man ; The sly Paraprosdokian. You could not love! You could not serve The scouring of Love's scullery! You, tcos Gdocww? Ha, you swerve Back to that subtler meaning! Few Can guess that miracle of reserve, That sacrament of mathematics, That threescore glee, that three times three, That added scream of hydrostatics ! Not I, for one! Be assured, to fail With me no arriére-pensée lends. Fall once the penny, head or tail, I care not—all the less my friends! Faultlessly faulty! Regular In ice or fire, ’tis nullness counts, So, spring of those Parnassian founts, A thousand garters heralded Thy flawless solitary star : A million garters shall bestead The poet’s turn, when, lone and far, All are dismissed: Some man, low brute, Cry ‘‘ Shame, O star that would not shoot, And yet went out!” But I, my dear, (Good-bye!) get neither shriek nor groan: Kiss, curse, cat’s hiss, I shall not hear, My dear, for I shall be alone. III. What change of language! Ah, my dear, The reason is not far to seek. You know of old how oft I veer From French to Zend, from Jap to Greek. Teste der titre polyglot Del Berashith, xaXos kitab! I trust you take me, do you not? But change of thought—ay ! there's the barb To stick and quiver in your heart ! Well, little lady, what of art? IV, All things are branded change, My thought Long ran in one delicious groove. Now newly sits the appointed court To try another case, to prove Another crime. Last week the law Dealt with the garter's gross offence, You were the Judge, enthroned on awe: I wove that eloquent defence, Unwove that Rhadamanthine frown Which I had made myéeelf, my star; For I was counsel for the crown, And I the prisoner at the bar. Did you not see—the sight is sad !— How tiny was the part you played, How little use the poet had Even in Maytime for a maid? Why! all's a whirl; but I, be sure, Am axle, if at all I be; So you, if yet your light endure, Are model, and no more, to me, So well you sit, though, you shall earn Beyond your hourly increment A knowledge. Are you fit to learn, Or will you rather be content With muddled mighty talk of Teutons Evolving from the tangled Skein, Nietzsche's research compared to Newton’s In some one’s enervated brain. (Did I say—brain ?) I'll talk, and you Listen or not, as best beseems Your lily languor. Irish stew Shall float like dewdrops in your dreams. So shall my new Apocalypse Appear to you, my model! You saw a languor on my lips, A dawn of many molten suns, And laughed in springtide of delight ; But now eclipse inveils your mood Of me: descends artistic night ; I see a sun called solitude. So models kiss, and understand So far: the picture moves them not. By label they approve the grand; By critic’s candour rave o’er rot. But, let me hoist you Thornycroft, And cry ‘' Behold this Rodin!” bring Some Poynter, lift the thing aloft, Announce a Morice, see you fling Your soul on knees in fervid praise :— If so—Off, Lilith ! runs the phrase. Now, is no barb upon the dart? Now, little lady, What of art? Once Vv. Moreover (just a word) this chance I fling you over space—for luck ! This Scotland yet may catch your France, My crow grow germane to your cluck,