I<\/p>\n
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; II<\/p>\n I dream of a Ledaean[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0body, bent III<\/p>\n And thinking of that fit of grief or rage IV<\/p>\n Her present image floats into the mind \u2014 V<\/p>\n What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap VI<\/p>\n Plato thought nature but a spume[6]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0that plays VII<\/p>\n Both nuns and mothers worship images, VIII<\/p>\n Labour is blossoming or dancing where \u2014<\/b>\u00a01928<\/p>\n
\nA kind old nun in a white hood replies;
\nThe children learn to cipher and to sing,
\nTo study reading-books and histories,
\nTo cut and sew, be neat in everything
\nIn the best modern way \u2014 the children’s eyes
\nIn momentary wonder stare upon
\nA sixty-year-old smiling public man.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
\nAbove a sinking fire, a tale that she
\nTold of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
\nThat changed some childish day to tragedy \u2014
\nTold, and it seemed that our two natures blent
\nInto a sphere from youthful sympathy,
\nOr else, to alter Plato’s[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0parable,
\nInto the yolk and white of the one shell.<\/p>\n
\nI look upon one child or t’other there
\nAnd wonder if she stood so at that age \u2014
\nFor even daughters of the swan can share
\nSomething of every paddler’s heritage \u2014
\nAnd had that colour upon cheek or hair,
\nAnd thereupon my heart is driven wild:
\nShe stands before me as a living child.<\/p>\n
\nDid Quattrocento[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0finger fashion it
\nHollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
\nAnd took a mess of shadows for its meat?
\nAnd I though never of Ledaean kind
\nHad pretty plumage once \u2014 enough of that,
\nBetter to smile on all that smile, and show
\nThere is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.<\/p>\n
\nHoney of generation[5]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0had betrayed,
\nAnd that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
\nAs recollection or the drug decide,
\nWould think her Son, did she but see that shape
\nWith sixty or more winters on its head,
\nA compensation for the pang of his birth,
\nOr the uncertainty of his setting forth?<\/p>\n
\nUpon a ghostly paradigm of things;
\nSolider Aristotle[7]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0played the taws
\nUpon the bottom of a king of kings;[8]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWorld-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras[9]<\/sup><\/a>
\nFingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
\nWhat a star sang and careless Muses heard:
\nOld clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.<\/p>\n
\nBut those the candles light are not as those
\nThat animate a mother’s reveries,
\nBut keep a marble or a bronze repose.
\nAnd yet they too break hearts \u2014 O presences
\nThat passion, piety or affection knows,
\nAnd that all heavenly glory symbolise \u2014
\nO self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;<\/p>\n
\nThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
\nNor beauty born out of its own despair,
\nNor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
\nO chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
\nAre you the leaf, the blossom or the bole[10]<\/sup><\/a>?
\nO body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
\nHow can we know the dancer from the dance?<\/p>\n