The vicious apes of either sex
Grinned and mouthed and stretched their necks,
Their little lusts skipped back and forth,
Not very pretty or complex.

Each has five senses; every sense
Is like a false gate in a fence,
They think the gates are bona fide,
Such is their only innocence.

And think themselves extremely wise
When any sense records its lies,
They mumble what they feel or hear,
Unmindful still of Paradise.

When I walked through the town last night
In vain they drew their curtains tight,
Through walls of brick I plainly saw
The imbecile, the troglodyte.

Paris, 1919

XIV

The change of many tides has swung the flow
Of those green weeds that cling like filthy fur
Upon the timbers of this voyager
That sank in the clear water long ago. 
Whence did she sail? the sands of ages blur
The answer to the secret, and as though
They mocked and knew, sleek fishes, to and fro,
Trail their grey carrion shadows over her. 
Coffer of all life gives and hides away,
It matters not if London or if Tyre
Sped you to sea on some remoter day;
Beneath your decks immutable desire
And hope and hate and envy still conspire,
While all the gaping faces nod and sway.

Brussels, 1919

XV

Piero di Cosimo,
Your unicorns and afterglow,
Your black leaves cut against the sky,
Black crosses where the young gods die,
Black horizons where the sea
And clouds contend perpetually,
And hanging low,
The menace of the night:—­

They called you madman.  Were they right,
Piero di Cosimo?

Pomfret, 1919

XVI

I would know what can not be known;
I would reach beyond my sphere,
And question the stars in their courses,
And the dead of many a year. 
I would tame the infinite forces
That bend me down like the grain,
Peace would I give to the fields where the young men died,
Peace to the sea where the ships of battle ride,
And light again to the eyes of the beautiful slain.

This would I do, but today against the sky,
They who were building a cross grinned as I passed them by.

Pomfret, 1919

XVII

The yellow bird is singing by the pond,
And all about him stars have burst in bloom,
A colonnade stands pallidly beyond,
And beneath that a solitary tomb. 
Who lies within that tomb I do not know,
The yellow bird intones his threnody
In notes as colourless as driven snow,
Clashing with the green hush and out of key.

O cease, your endless song is out of tune,
Where all these old forgotten things are sleeping,—­
Give back to silence’s eternal keeping
The windless pond, the hanging colonnade,
Lest in the wane of the long afternoon,
The Dead awake, unhappy and afraid.