Charlottesville, Virginia
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Venice, Italy
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Two Very Long Poems for the Day
St. Mark
by D. H. Lawrence
There was a lion in Judah
Which whelped, and was Mark.
But winged.
A lion with wings.
At least at Venice.
Even as late as Daniele Manin.
Why should he have wings?
Is he to be a bird also?
Or a spirit?
Or a winged thought?
Or a soaring consciousness?
Evidently he is all that
The lion of the spirit.
Ah, Lamb of God
Would a wingless lion lie down before Thee,
as this winged lion lies?
The lion of the spirit.
Once he lay in the mouth of a cave
And sunned his whiskers,
And lashed his tail slowly, slowly
Thinking of voluptuousness
Even of blood.
But later, in the sun of the afternoon
Having tasted all there was to taste,
and having slept his fill
He fell to frowning, as he lay
with his head on his paws
And the sun coming in through
the narrowest fibril of a slit in his eyes.
So, nine-tenths asleep, motionless, bored,
and statically angry.
He saw in a shaft of light a lamb on a pinnacle,
balancing a flag on its paw.
And he was thoroughly startled.
Going out to investigate
He found the lamb beyond him,
on the inaccessible pinnacle of light.
So he put his paw to his nose, and pondered.
"Guard my sheep," came the silvery voice
from the pinnacle,
"And I will give thee the wings of the morning."
So the lion of the senses thought it was worth it.
Hence he became a curly sheep-dog with dangerous propensities
As Carpaccio will tell you:
Ramping round, guarding the flock of mankind,
Sharpening his teeth on the wolves,
Ramping up through the air like a kestrel
And lashing his tail above the world
And enjoying the sensation of heaven and righteousness and
voluptuous wrath.
There is a new sweetness in his voluptuously licking his paw
Now that it is a weapon of heaven.
There is a new ecstasy in his roar of desirous love
Now that it sounds self-conscious through the unlimited sky.
He is well aware of himself
And he cherishes voluptuous delights,
and thinks about them
And ceases to be a blood-thirsty king of beasts
And becomes the faithful sheep-dog of the Shepherd,
thinking of his voluptuous pleasures
of chasing the sheep to the fold
And increasing the flock, and perhaps giving a real nip
here and there, a real pinch, but always well meant.
And somewhere there is a lioness
The she-mate.
Whelps play between the paws of the lion
The she-mate purrs
Their castle is impregnable, their cave,
The sun comes in their lair, they are well-off
A well-to-do family.
Then the proud lion stalks abroad, alone
And roars to announce himself to the wolves
And also to encourage the red-cross Lamb
And also to ensure a goodly increase in the world.
Look at him, with his paw on the world
At Venice and elsewhere.
Going blind at last.
AND
The Eve of St. Mark: A Fragment
by John Keats
Upon a Sabbath-day it fell;
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell,
That call’d the folks to evening prayer;
The city streets were clean and fair
From wholesome drench of April rains;
And, on the western window panes,
The chilly sunset faintly told
Of unmatur’d green valleys cold,
Of the green thorny bloomless hedge,
Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge,
Of primroses by shelter’d rills,
And daisies on the aguish hills.
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell:
The silent streets were crowded well
With staid and pious companies,
Warm from their fire-side orat’ries;
And moving, with demurest air,
To even-song, and vesper prayer.
Each arched porch, and entry low,
Was fill’d with patient folk and slow,
With whispers hush, and shuffling feet,
While play’d the organ loud and sweet.
The bells had ceas’d, the prayers begun,
And Bertha had not yet half done
A curious volume, patch’d and torn,
That all day long, from earliest morn,
Had taken captive her two eyes,
Among its golden broideries;
Perplex’d her with a thousand things,—
The stars of Heaven, and angels’ wings,
Martyrs in a fiery blaze,
Azure saints and silver rays,
Moses’ breastplate, and the seven,
Candlesticks John saw in Heaven,
The winged Lion of St. Mark,
And the Covenantal Ark,
With its many mysteries,
Cherubim and golden mice.
Bertha was a maiden fair,
Dwelling in th’ old Minster-square;
From her fire-side she could see,
Sidelong, its rich antiquity,
Far as the Bishop’s garden-wall;
Where sycamores and elm-trees tall,
Full-leav’d, the forest had outstript,
By no sharp north-wind ever nipt,
So shelter’d by the mighty pile.
Bertha arose, and read awhile,
With forehead ’gainst the window-pane.
Again she try’d, and then again,
Until the dusk eve left her dark
Upon the legend of St. Mark.
From plaited lawn-frill, fine and thin,
She lifted up her soft warm chin.
With arching neck and swimming eyes,
And daz’d with saintly imageries.
All was gloom, and silent all,
Save now and then the still foot-fall
Of one returning homewards late,
Past the echoing minster-gate.
The clamorous daws, that all the day
Above tree-tops and towers play,
Pair by pair had gone to rest,
Each in its ancient belfry nest,
Where asleep they fall betimes,
To music and the drowsy chimes.
All was silent, all was gloom,
Abroad and in the homely room:
Down she sat, poor cheated soul;
And struck a lamp from the dismal coal;
Lean’d forward, with bright drooping hair
And slant look, full against the glare.
Her shadow, in uneasy guise,
Hover’d about, a giant size,
On ceiling-beam and old oak chair,
The parrot’s cage, and panel square;
And the warm angled winter-screen,
On which were many monsters seen,
Call’d doves of Siam, Lima mice,
And legless birds of Paradise,
Macaw, and tender Avadavat,
And silken-furr’d Angora cat.
Untir’d she read, her shadow still
Glower’d about, as it would fill
The room with wildest forms and shades,
As though some ghostly Queen of spades
Had come to mock behind her back,
And dance, and ruffle her garments black.
Untir’d she read the legend page,
Of holy Mark, from youth to age,
On land, on sea, in pagan chains,
Rejoicing for his many pains.
Sometimes the learned eremite,
With golden star, or dagger bright,
Referr’d to pious poesies
Written in smallest crow-quill size
Beneath the text: and thus the rhyme
Was parcel’d out from time to time:
——‘Als writith he of swevenis,
Men han beforne they wake in bliss,
Whanne that hir friendes thinke him bound
In crimped shroude farre under grounde:
And how a litling childe mote be
A saint er its nativitie,
Gif that the modre (God her blesse!)
Kepen in solitarinesse,
And kissen devoute the holy croce,
Of Goddes love, and Sathan’s force,—
He writith; and thinges many mo
Of swiche thinges I may not show.
Bot I must tellen verilie
Somdel of Saintè Cicilie,
And chieflie what he auctorethe
Of Saintè Markis life and dethe:’
At length her constant eyelids come
Upon the fervent martyrdom;
Then lastly to his holy shrine,
Exalt amid the tapers’ shine
At Venice,—
~About this poem: wiki & wiki
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