Classic Poem

" Where is little Wide Eyes? "
" Where but in the farmyard. "
" Have I never told you
To be careful of the child? "
" Well, you would not think that
There she would come harmward,
If you saw the stallion tremble
When she pats him, and grow mild. "

" Nurse, it's not of danger
From animals I'm thinking;
Rather of a fashion
Which of late has grown too rife:
Girls of county families,
Of men in my position,
With grooms are so familiar,
It's as bad as man and wife!

And then there is this Never-to-be-
Too-much-deprecated
Tendency towards bringing
Only daughters up as boys;
If the Queen were living,
She would never tolerate it. . . .
What's their masquerading
To the magic it destroys! "

" Well I know that queer things
Happen in the country:
Nothing could be queerer
Than a King to take his cue
From his subjects' families,
Or pardon their effrontery
Who dared to tell his daughter
Or her Nannie what to do. "

" I, not unobservant,
Nurse, have noticed anger
Often used by women
Who were not irascible,
Out of mere resentment
When they could no longer
Argue a position
Which had proved untenable.

If your speech is ended,
Listen, my good woman,
Nothing is achieved by
Incoherent talk:
Tell her that the country
Is an open farmyard,
Wide Eyes will go with you
And her maidens for a walk.

Any distance inland
Needs the stoutest buskin,
Sandals are more suited
To the firmly-sanded shore;
No matter where you go to,
Surely come by dusk in.
I trust we need not talk about
The farmyard any more. "

Dunes are here on this side,
There, that piny headland;
Midway, like a giant,
Is that landward-leaning tree,
Angry with the constant
Briny-blowing West Wind,
Poising up a shoulderstone
To cast it in the sea.

Do you see that wave there,
Where the crescent curves lift,
Transilluminating
For a second into green
Miles of crystal daylight,
Then, the hissing snowdrift:
Light so water-tangled
That its sightless self is seen — ?

That is how the daylight,
Barely vespertinal,
Save but for a feeling
That a moon was very near,
Looked above the headland
Of the sandy, sinal
Crescent, while it waited
For a crescent in the air.

Taller than the tallest
Of her young companions,
Wide Eyes never wilted
Where the broken ground begins:
That's the Archer Goddess,
With her bosom belted!
No; it is a tomboy
With the scratches on her shins!

Certainly unconscious
That she was a maiden
Who could fill with banners
Frontiers of Kings!
Once you saw her swinging
From her youthful haunches,
You would feel that manners
Were not all-important things.

" If I raced you up there,
Which of you could whistle?
Just you watch me running
When I get my second wind. "
Moulding in her short skirt
Limbs to jump the thistle,
A cry of wonder reached her
From the little group behind.

Gambolling and charging,
Low head shaken sideways,
Swerving as though guided
By his tassel rudder tail,
Snorting more than stamping
A ripple on the tideways,
A Bull, where nothing ever
Drew a furrow but a sail!

Eyes beneath a broad brow
Widen with amazement,
Not because the women
Who were with her ran away;
But because a bull used
Water for a pavement.
Down the fearless maiden went
To meet him at the Bay.

White as any Maytree
In the milky Maytime,
Clothed about her middle
With a dress as deep as haws,
On the beach she waited
In the silver of the daytime,
A blurred green moon above her
Like a May branch in the shaws.

Clear against the bright wall
Of the low horizon
On the bull came, prancing,
Lifting up his knees.
He came on as gaily
As a galley dancing
While its sail is being lowered
And the shouts are from the quays.

Like a man of Yorkshire
Grunting after Christmas,
When the curly foreheads
And the appetites convene,
White against the dark green
Pines along the isthmus;
He landed hardly wetted
By his gambols on the brine.

Beating Heart of Nature
What is it divorced us
From your mighty pulses
Throbbing into Sense!
Sorra much the Hermit,
Reason gives, who cursed us:
Even Love goes ebbing
From his deadly prescience!

Now he runs around her,
Now he stands before her,
Now his mighty breathings
Tighten up her clothes;
Now he runs around her,
Now he kneels before her,
Now she pulls her instep
From the spraying of his nose!

Who except a fool would
Think he knew the mental
Processes that act upon
A widow, wife or maid?
But the very sight of
Strength becoming gentle —
That is what they can't resist:
A married man has said.

Not the alabaster
Palaces of Minos
Ever held a better
Or a bull more quickly tamed:
Glancing coat half-ruffled
Like a pool amid the spinous
Dells of Ida's island
For a hundred cities famed.

From his dewlap only
Drops of water trickled,
For she felt his back warm,
Silky-soft and dry,
And no common bull's hide!
For it never tickled,
When she held the strong beast
Tight with either thigh.

Maybe, had she noticed,
When she first went near him,
That he had no halter
Nor the ring he should have worn,
She might have cast about her
For another way to steer him:
Bulls are ill-directed
When you take them by the horn.

Once he had her mounted,
Even had she willed it,
She could not have left him
While the sea was yet below,
But she held on lightly
To the garlands on the gilded
Horns, more blunt, but stronger
Than the horns of buffalo.

Some wondered was she laughing at
The bucketing and heaving
Bull who tried her courage
When he sent the waves aswirl;
Some wondered was she sorry for
The home that she was leaving:
All talk! They only wondered
What would happen to the girl!

Because the tales that suit me best
Are tales without a moral
Like this — unless at Harmony
It hints in times afar,
Before with all creation
And ourselves we came to quarrel;
Before the animals found out
What animals we are.

Because I love the days in which
Such miracles were common,
Because I can suggest to you,
So sceptical of all,
(The mind provides the prodigy)
That many a horsey woman
Would welcome well such miracle
When riding for a fall — ;

Because the thoughts I dwell upon
Would never pass a teacher
Who maintains the World was made
According to the word
Of men who separate Mankind
From Universal Nature —
For what eloping god to-day
Would turn into a Ford?

Because I hold an Age of Faith
Whose dogma is emphatic
Is happier than such as this
When, if there's faith about,
'Tis not in gods by girls transformed,
But Jewish mathematic,
I go for Truth to Beauty
Which is subject to less doubt.

So I see the white Bull
As the water yellowed
With the purple-vested
Girl upon his back,
Laughing when he dipt down,
Laughing when he bellowed,
Laughing when she dug her heels
To goad him on the track.

Peace instead of panic now
Where, long ago, erumpent
Through the trance of quiet
Of that farmstead with a roar —
Sand instead of cities since —
The Bull bore off triumphant
That sweet and self-made burden
From the blest Sidonian shore.

What about her father?
Formal proclamation
That it was her nurse's
Fault was no excuse
In the eyes of " County, "
Nor a consolation;
But glory when the Church declared
His son-in-law was Zeus!