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