INVOCATION—AND REPLY

Hear me, brave words, You who of old Came singing birds To a poet’s call: “Many have called us, yet we served not all.” Come words of jade To make green eyes Of a little maid, Come words that sing And let her linnet speech now softly ring. Ivory words Denote her breasts, Two fluttering birds That sit and sing For joy of some unseen delicious spring. Dusky words weave Her falling hair, The world bereave Of shadows long And shake them in a sombre tangled throng. Come you most durable Shining words, ’Gainst the incurable Drift of Time Guard me her sweetness safe within a rhyme. Is that thy need?—Truly the all-complete Imperious need of every mortal lover Since life was lived in Time and Time was rover— To carve the image of that passing-sweet Swift withering flower of Beauty naméd Love; To crystallize a moment’s grace for ever. (“The old old plea yet that is not enough!” Words whisper); to seize Joy; to stay the river Of ever-flowing water bearing down To shadowy oceans all we crave to mind us Of Beauty and her heart of perfect peace. Words, aid me! Set your Time-defying crown On all my heart would never more release. Where wait ye, words? Here. Come! No, poet, find us!