home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- ON A PICTURE OF A BLACK CENTAUR BY EDMUND DULAC
-
- YOUR hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood,
- Even where horrible green parrots call and swing.
- My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.
- I knew that horse-play, knew it for a murderous thing.
- What wholesome sun has ripened is wholesome food to eat,
- And that alone; yet I, being driven half insane
- Because of some green wing, gathered old mummy wheat
- In the mad abstract dark and ground it grain by grain
- And after baked it slowly in an oven; but now
- I bring full-flavoured wine out of a barrel found
- Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew
- When Alexander's empire passed, they slept so sound.
- Stretch out your limbs and sleep a long Saturnian sleep;
- I have loved you better than my soul for all my words,
- And there is none so fit to keep a watch and keep
- Unwearied eyes upon those horrible green birds.
-