A CHINESE PAINTING
(Late Sung) Clarity ! This bird, this branch of pine, A gull-wing cloud above the cataract :
The sure, calm balance of its space and line ; The colour come exact.
The heart shows timeless in the unrippling mirror. But our scalded epoch shudders, leaving mc To think of this : their time too had its horror, But the art came free.
Did they find in the foam-creamed cliffs some cave Or through that turbulent drowning reach a deep Where they could not hear the virtual waters rave ; And yet not fall to sleep ?
For with the silk's soft texture and its light This dark-green branch, this red bird still unroll An unemphatic lesson to our fright : —Transcend the lethal Whole !
—Those images of desert, dangerous seas Still come unbidden to an unfree pen : I seek instead that landscape's calm, that !ICC .S, To fit this art for men.
RollFicr CONQUEST.
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