VI
Here, for a moment, I must pause, For, as you see, I've come to the core of my dream; There is so much to tell And I don't know what I ought or ought not to tell... And another thing troubles me about all this-- Did it really happen? Was it only a dream in the Luxembourg? Was it a vision of what will be, My spirit brooding over her so intensely That for an hour I saw the future? For, though I know it all went on in my brain, Yet it was so vivid I seemed to behold it Clearly in a clear crystal glass. I saw her and I saw myself. And yet it all happened within myself.
I did not go into the garden saying: "I will sit down and tell myself a tale Of what I should like to happen And how she came to love me.." But just after I had paid my sous For the hard iron chair in the gardens, Suddenly I was at my desk in England, As I told you just now, and the dream unrolled Exactly as I tell it to you with all the details I remember so clearly and could not invent. But what is the present, past and future? If it did not happen, it will happen. Oh, promise me it shall happen, For when I assert that it must happen Either now or in many millions of years, I do not quite believe my assertion.
But you may think it far more amazing That even in a dream a supple wood-nymph Should love such a man. Well, the Queen kissed Alain Chartier's lips (And he was no beauty among trouveres) And the Lady Margurite, Who was the fairest of all the ladies of Provence, Loved Guilhelm de Cabestanh, and died for his memory, And you remember how Peire Vidal ran mad for his Wolf Lady. Until she gave him back right reason with one kiss, And how the Lady of Tripoli came to Jaufre Rudel As he lay dying, and she too kissed him, Saying that such a love should not go unrewarded.
Then there is the man in the langue d'oil tale Who fought with no armor but his lady's shift, And sent it to her all torn and bloody from the battle; And she kissed it, and put it on over her jewels and silk As she sat at the high table by the side of her lord, For she said: "He did that for me, And shall I be ashamed for this man's love?" clad in the bloody shift she poured wine to the guests, And all men present praised her for her grant amor, And (says the poet) her lord spake not a word, for he dared not.
My love is such a woman As the supple, high-breasted, high-spirited Ladies of Provence, With no fear of the burgesses and the sleek priests Always strangling life with their unctuous fingers. She has the gaiety of old Provence, And I think she would not despise The unknown lady of Guilhem d Poitiers, Who was a poet as well as a sovereign prince. Guilhem had his lady's effigy painted on his long steel shield, for said he, "It is fitting I bear her in battle, Since she has so often borne me in her bed."
Yet if she is like a lady of old Provence, Why do I say she is a supple wood-nymph? But how do you know that those noble women Whose eyes drew the clerk from the cloister, The knight's hand from the spear to the lute, How do you know they were not wood and hill nymphs, Daughters of the gods, semi-immortals, Bringing men love and gaiety and beauty, Fighting in their way, as becomes fair women, The Jewish gloom and the gloomy Christ?
And again I say she is a wood-nymph Because she is brave and frank and honest and herself, Not in this world, which is full of dreary people, The only fine, vivid characters are like her Who are not the epitome of an education, a caste or a class, But are keen enough and strong enough To work through prejudices and customs And to give themselves directly to life and those they love. Now, if you will think of an English gentleman, Who is a sort of tidy collection of prejudices; And if you will think of an American debutante Waiting in her car to be presented at Court-- you will see the kind of person she is not. And, unless I am bitterly wrong about her, Her values are the true values...
And there is yet another reason I call her my wood-nymph, When I was younger they called me a faun Because I have pointed ears and tell the truth, And if you know nothing else about wood-nymphs and fauns You will know the Carnival love song Lorenzo de' Medici wrote about them...