Poems 1918-21, Including Three Portraits and Four Cantos
Who hath taught you so subtle a measure, in what hall have you heard it;

What foot beat out your time-bar, what water has mellowed your whistles?

Out-weariers of Apollo will, as we know, continue their Martian generalities.

We have kept our erasers in order,

A new-fangled chariot follows the flower-hung horses;

A young Muse with young loves clustered about her ascends with me into the aether, ...

And there is no high-road to the Muses.

Annalists will continue to record Roman reputations,

Celebrities from the Trans-Caucasus will belaud Roman celebrities

And expound the distentions of Empire,

But for something to read in normal circumstances?

For a few pages brought down from the forked hill unsullied?

I ask a wreath which will not crush my head.

And there is no hurry about it;

I shall have, doubtless, a boom after my funeral,

Seeing that long standing increases all things regardless of quality.

And who would have known the towers pulled down by a deal-wood horse;

Or of Achilles withstaying waters by Simois

Or of Hector spattering wheel-rims,

Or of Polydmantus, by Scamander, or Helenus and Deiphoibos?


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