The Lady of the Poets

In these water-perished fields
I have sown
The seed of many loves
And one thin stalk
Grew up and genuflected
When I blew 
My breath upon the waste
Of idle talk

Listen, and if you do
Do not listen that you may find
Something that might make you stronger braver purer
In body and mind
Do not listen with greedy ears
Or you will be sorry.

Listen, and if you do
Do not listen that you may find
Something that might make you stronger, braver, purer
In body and mind
Do not listen with greedy ears
Lest the knowledge you get prove
A load of indigestable [sic] experience
The refuse from the mine of love.

Listen, and if you do
Do not listen that you may steal
From the purse of beauty a rare coin
Or you will be deceived
For what the poet gives
You can take only by right
His song is a maiden who has never been taken
In her own despite
Do not listen with greedy ears
Or the knowledge you get will prove
A load of indigestable [sic] experience
Refuse from the mine of love.

My sorrow is a soft kind thing
Like love
Or like the rain of forgiveness
Or the crusted hate
That I yesterday gloried in.

Somebody is moving across the headlands
Talking to himself - 
A grey thinker.
The clay is whitening in the windy light
Where the sparrows are bathing.

We have sown in the dry dust
Of yesterday our seed
Of vision or foolish jest
Or actual deed
We probe the vein of the beast
But it does not bleed.

We have sown in the dry dust
of yesterday our seed
of vision or foolish jest
or actual deed
we probe the heart of Life
but it does not bleed.

Yesterday I saw the Earth beautiful
And was not afraid.
Life is a day's walk and the grave
A tired man's bed:
I said
I was not angry or ill-disposed
Towards the men who had
The cushy civil service jobs
I was not sad
Seeing the tear-moist beauty
Of November's tree
A chromium sun would light the afternoon