Peace comes not here,
No dream-bird trills:
They haunt her lodging
In the hills.
SIESTA
Bring me some oranges on blue china,
With a jade-and-silver spoon,
And drowse on your silken mats beside me
In the burning noon.
Bring me red wine in cups of crystal,
With melons on chrysoprase,
And place them softly with jewelled fingers
Before my gaze.
Hasten, my dove of scented whisperings,
My lily, my Xacan!
Bring bubbling pipes for the cool shadows,
And my peacock fan.
And bid Isarrib, my chief musician,
Weave quiet songs within,
That my soul in the circles of a great glamour
May float and spin.
And O, you gaudy and whistling parrots
In your high, flowered maze,
Still your harsh, petulant quarrelling
With the mocking jays.
TO ONE WHO EATS LARKS
Ah, my brave Vitellius!
Ah, your tastes are marvellous!
When you eat your singing birds
Do you leave the bones--and words,
The proud music in the throat?...
Not a note, not a note?
Doubtless they were not so pleasant
As the brains of a young pheasant,
Or flamingoes' tongues, whose duty
Never was to utter beauty.
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