Strawberry Hill

I.

The lady Dawn slips off her dress,
And there are little bells upon the trees
And anklets on the feet
Of every girl beneath the red rose trees;
And there are knights with swords of mistletoe,
Bearing the sigil of Maiden and Child
Upon their lunate shields.

The lady Dawn slips off her dress,
While elk whose herds do race across the moon
Lay down the antlers of their speech
Outside the Chapel of the Stone.

The lady Dawn slips off her dress,
And some old man that lives in peace
Upon Strawberry Hill does play at chess
With Helen, mother of the West.

II.

This temporary beauty has no ruth,
And all the desperate clarity of that poured silk
Which sailors name the sea, which moves
Beneath a world that’s terpsichorean and sweet,
Where sunlight steals a kiss
From the cloud-feathered swan
That is the dreaming moon; one could
See in a moment how a Chinese sage might come
To living in a hermitage alone
By some white tairn, with naught
But a grey bowl of sand and a tall tree
With sour pomegranates fraught.
Men are, unless they trade their souls like Esau for a stew,
Like horses that must chafe unless they have
Great snowy steppes to run;
And all the desperate clarity of that poured silk
Could lap a thousand shores and yet be one;
We know that most our organs are unshaped,
But eft in fire we shall bathe and spread these arms
To catch a wind that’s bred beyond the stars,
And dance with dancers that have seen the deeps
Where God has hidden for a time
Many a king that sleeps.