Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ETERNAL ADVENTURE: BOOK 1, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ETERNAL ADVENTURE: BOOK 1, by                    
First Line: I felt a limit should be set to these joys that rouse such envious strife
Last Line: * * * * * * *
Subject(s): Adventure & Adventurers; Dreams; Life; Love; Nightmares


I

I felt a limit should be set to these joys that rouse such envious strife and in
the arms of Margaret I had resolved to end my life.

Therefore I said to life, "My dream, thus I would have you close. You seem like
a recital that extends beyond its wonted time, and ends,

ends in a murmuring, alas! where the white bed doth vigil keep, whither, with
drooping head, doth pass the speaker almost fast asleep."

II.

"No," says my love, my faithful friend (what new dawn in thy soul doth gleam?),
"it is not finished yet, your dream, not yet doth your recital end."

I heard, "A free release I give from my arms, dear soul in discontent," then
wakened, still a prisoner, pent by all this life I yet must live!

"From this life of love devoid of blame." -- I heard -- and with heart that
could not break sighed toward the hearth: "Extinguished flame," but straightway
found myself awake.

III.

Did I against my will obey? Yes, I wish to live in joy profound, chase the
daybreak where the chime doth sound -- a kick for the hearthstone's ashes grey,

quite dead: let us run, life glad and feigned! -- The heavens with purest rose
are stained, the fields an azure dew doth hide. I go, so get you gone, my dear.

The hedge -- the road -- the world so wide. Even as the day my sight is clear! .
. . (this bourne alone is manifest where, 'neath a poplar's shade, I rest).

IV.

No image through my tears doth pass -- tears both of gladness and distress --
save of my grief and happiness, a pebble dark, a pebble white.

Two pebbles on the road displayed for my shadow two bright eyes have made. Hark,
frenzied soul that doubts, my shade squints in a fashion to affright.

The swallow high in heaven doth fly. Piercing the azure comes his cry. I've time
enough to scan the sky, all day it will be fair and bright.

V.

Here, by this roadside pastoral, with clasping hands to crown my knees, seated
must I in thought recall all of our secret miseries?

Smiling as gentle zephyrs toy with my long hair, my mustaches, pray can I not
gain the air of joy while I regard my shadow grey?

Freedom from love have I not found, who down the distant road doth press and
gives no sign of turning round? . . . Yes. Then am I contented? Yes.

VI.

Swallows, behold my joy and pride! Towards you I raise this face of mine, and
towards thy zenith's silver shine, sweet heaven! I fear the countryside

as I fear the past. Let us agree to theorise upon the themes of time to come,
eternity, eyes still directed toward our dreams.

Alas! to seek for naked truth and only images surprise, O heaven, that on thy
silver roof spring from the tears that cloud my eyes.

VII.

Face worn with many a scarlet stream whereon the eyes of angels dream, suffusing
red doth swift o'errun this gulf that feels thy breath, O sun.

Behold the brazier of the dawn that in my eyes doth lose its sigh: in vapour all
my tears have gone, pink mist to merge with flaming sky.

Let us drop our kindled glance to where Nature, all fresh and green, doth shine,
to meet the contemplative stare, the fresh regard of browsing kine.

VIII.

Mornings of Spring, their candid light! -- Formerly when I was a child, I oft
caressed the freshness mild of the dawn upon my curtains white.

The door swings wide. O freshness sweet, stir of my mother's snowy feet, when,
all dawn, I gave myself, elate, to her kisses, fresh and delicate.

The window gaped. Joy undefiled! I uttered cries of ecstacy. One cannot always
be a child nor evermore a poet be.

IX.

Alas! and as today, indeed, I saw the nonchalant, grazing herd drink the Spring
grasses lightly stirred on the blue crystal of the mead.

Trembling with joy and young desire while to those kisses fond I turned eyes
where love's fires but newly burned, -- houp! I removed my night attire.

Nor did my dressing hold me long. I yearned with instant speed to fly to the
curlew's call, the swallow's song, cravated like a butterfly.

X.

Today I fear the past, uncouth mirages that the fields deform, my shadow tinted
like the storm, and all the fancies of my youth.

Once as I chased the curlew grey I fell in the pond. Three months I lay in bed
and deemed it azure sky, where Mother crooned a lullaby.

Another day with joy aglow. . . . Why does this memory rise and blast its
fairness, God? I do not know. But I believe I fear the past.

XI.

Ah, then I wished to die, to search bright Paradise the first of all . . .
Softly the pealing bell did call to the painted heavens that decked the church .
. .

With the help of God, on His breast to be, His loved one, that fierce angel shy
who beats his pinions jealously when other angels come too nigh!

Hosannah! In my fancy wild these arms to beat the skies did seem . . . One
cannot always be a child, and who can realise his dream?

XII.

And here I am. (God can testify in youth how proud a lad was I.) Here I am to
mourn a vanished day. -- "What is that dust-cloud far away?"

Heart, jealous, fervent, quick to trust, what art thou now? This wretched stone!
And with my soul what have I done? -- "Who's coming yonder in the dust?"

Your heads the hurricane has bowed, flowers of my sensibility. "At present I can
plainly see the gypsies come in motley crowd.

XIII.

"They'll soon be here." -- To the senses, heart, thou didst resign thy
sovereignty. And thou, my soul, the dwelling art of that cold demon, Mockery.

Fervour ecstacy, fair childhood's dower, into what limbo were you cast? Why do I
still invoke your power since I am frightened by the past?

Before me my remorses pour slowly, in rain that does not tire, black demons
sparks have frosted o'er, which, as they take their form, take fire.

XIV.

O, how thy dust is dark and drear, staining with blackness all the plain, grimy
road! Ah me, to see again the peasant's golden sunlight clear.

Here's the whole horde of mountebanks. Whips crack. The dust in tumult flees.
The horses, heaving wiry flanks, drag the complaining axle-trees.

Great oaths of energetic heads. Clumping shoes. The stir a trumpet spreads. And
gypsy faces dark with tan smile at the windows of the van.

XV.

How my regard, at war with fate, O you whose hands the osiers plait, the magic
eyes of one doth note who from her car with tuneful throat

chanteth of love's inhuman thrall, to the guzla, thrummed in minor key by a
handsome, lithe romanichal on a little horse from Hungary.

Seeking adventure, courting strife, I followed them at twelve years old --
singing my tira-lira bold -- no matter where, afar, through life!

XVI.

Why could I not remain at home, a faithful child with parents fond? why must I
strive to pass beyond the loving age of Hop-o'-My-Thumb?
He scattered pebbles, to be sure, wishing his home once more to see, escaping
from the wood obscure. 'Tis the obscure that tempted me.

The child becomes the youth, and soon the youth is the young man, who is first
man, then slippered pantaloon. How, prithee, will you alter this?

XVII.

Love? Bah! It has so often been born, in so many lives, and then so often
vanished from our ken, the heart has lost its rights therein.

"Dear, precious pet! A prodigy! Sweetest of babes! Perfection rare! Take but a
step, you're in the snare: all's an enigma instantly."

Nature's profound and secret lure, all that my school-books did not say, all
that remained to me obscure, combined to make me run away.

XVIII.

My stricken mother wept at home. My father raised the garrison. I was caught
before three days had passed and the gypsy chief in jail was cast.

My drum, gold, white, and blue (a deft red clown its lore had taught to me,
caustic, compassionate), was left at the threshold of their hostelry.

And despite this flattering drum, that went rocking above my heart content, in
that three days' sojourn I can say that I sinned three hundred sins a day.

XIX.

To whom do I speak? To the winds that pass? To the cows that drink the pearly
grass? Alone I tell it as before, my shadow as sole auditor.

My ear between harsh fingers (ah! more than three hundred times a day) home I
was haled, to my mamma, who, in her love, half-swooning lay.

"College," my father said, "and soon!" -- "Hangman!" my mother cried, aswoon.
And I thought, my heart with grief asmother, my father did not love my mother.

XX.

Dark seer o'er tedium's woes that reigns, friend of the streams that lash the
panes, of winds that autumn's anger show, of water's sad and sombre flow

o'er the highway's dark declivities, where, like a rat, the evening flees, how
this ingrate heart was praised by thee, black wizard of my destiny.

Two months emprisoned in my room each with the other did commune. In vain you
strove the hope to tame of a heart already made for fame.

XXI.

No, all thine arts could ne'er have tamed a heart for high adventure framed.
Ennui, I drove thee forth to reign far from the crystal window-pane

I opened to the beaming sun. -- "Still fresh I hold in memory, Mother, the day
you gave to me a 'Childhood of Napoleon.'"

"Mother, all day its leaves I turned! against my trembling knees it burned . . .
What gift was this, O Mother mild? . . . Till then I was a little child."

XXII.

A boy morose, young men among, knowing too well what he would be, he did not
play with anyone when all Brienne was plunged in glee

but in the playground's shade remote wandered, with grave, sleepwalking eyes,
like the pale, muttering idiot who in the twilight prophesies.

And then at last I understood why boyish games I would forswear, seeking,
instead, the gloomy wood to prophesy a little there.

XXIII.

October -- and the day malign when I must quit my prison-cell, my chamber white,
the house as well, God! and my birth's horizon-line.

I wept so much! But all I won from a father worshipped, none the less, was this
walk through morning's loveliness of a mother and her little son.

In her hand she, too, wept bitterly like a child that's overwhelmed with sorrow.
"I cannot see him go from me today . . .I cannot . . . Ah! tomorrow! . . ."

XXIV.

The poplars of our meadows fair, bent to the wind of heaven, their fate
bemoaning, seemed with mournful air to say: "Call us unfortunate."

The bleating she-goat at her stake, 'neath trailing clouds o'er heaven that
streamed, pulling upon her tether seemed to say: "Call me unfortunate,"

the clouds: "Unfortunate we are, we who in tatters skim the sky," and Mother,
with her heart at war, said: "How unfortunate am I!"

XXV.

How prophet-like do I appear! Sleet falls . . . Farewell to sunny days . . .
Dreamer with no umbrella near, the collar of your coat upraise.

-- Though such a rain as in the Last Judgment will fall our forms harassed, I
wept no more. With courage bold, alas! my mother I consoled.

Then, to the house returning slow, college my fancy dwelt upon, and in the
mingled rain and snow, I dreamed of young Napoleon.
* * * * * * *





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