HAVE I played fellowship with night, to see <br />The allied armies break our gates at dawn <br />And let our general in ? By Bacchus, no ! <br />I have not left my stall, sir, I'm too poor <br />For lazy prentices to hand my wares,– <br />Such delicate chains, like amber linked with love ! <br />Such silvered pins, like hate to let love out !– <br />What know I ? But my Guidarello went <br />To the fountain of the coppersmiths, when first <br />The double cypress showed upon the east. <br />He's home, poor fool, hoarse as a moulting bird <br />From loud throat-loyalty. <br />'The banners burn <br />Still in my soul,' he cries, 'as then in air. <br />The gray air, the gray houses, and the flowers, <br />The flowers, my father! Thyme and twisted sweets <br />From the blue hills I dream of, and thin bells <br />Of faery folds; pomegranates spun in flame, <br />Flame of red rose and golden, flame of sound <br />Blown from hot-throated trumpets, and the flame <br />Of her proud eyes !– <br />She rode beside the duke <br />In velvet coloured as a pansy is <br />And threaded round with gold. Her mantle strained <br />On the warm wind behind her, golden too, <br />Gold as the spires of lilies, and her hair <br />And her dark eyes were danced across with gold.' <br />Gold, gold, poor fool, and she was bought for gold, <br />A golden grief to ride at a duke's rein. <br />Eh well ! The great grow love-in-idleness <br />About their courts. Did Guidarello see <br />Our general too ? 'A little, tired old man, <br />Clad in worn sables with a silver star,' <br />He told me, 'fain to find his house and sleep.'<br /><br />Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fame-26/
