Lament of the Masks

(For W.B. Yeats) // For the time has come O Poet, / To descant your praise-names ...

I

At the bend of the road, / The last bend before the broken teeth of the river: // And the rumour awakens / Like smell of wet earth after rain, / Elephant-feathered breed, // Burgeons into clamour, mounts up, caparisoned, / Charges to the assault; // And in cold and blue / Of iron-mask, envelopes the haven in which / Catechumen rehearse, // Like snails on anthills, whispered canticles: // Warped voices — / For we answer the cannon / From far off — // And from throats of iron — // In bird-masks — / Unlike accusing tones that issue forth javelins — / Bring, O Poet, // Panegyrics for the arch-priest of the sanctuary ...

II

Waggoner of the great Dawn — / For it is forbidden to mention your name — // How many beacon flames / Can ever challenge the sun? // Water of baptism, / Ladder to the ethereal ivory tower — // Ten thousand rivers / Can never challenge the sea. // Thunder above the earth, / Sacrifice too huge for the vulture — // Twenty thousand cannons / Must still do homage to your breath. // Hunter of elephants, / Earth tremor upon the land — // For the time has come, O Poet, / To descant your praise-names —

III

They thought you would stop pursuing the white elephant / They thought you would stop pursuing the white elephant / But you pursued the white elephant without turning back — / You who chained the white elephant with your magic flute / You who trapped the white elephant like a common rabbit / You who sent the white elephant trembling into your net — / And stripped him of his horns, and made them your own / You who fashioned his horns into ivory trumpets — // They put you into the eaves thatch / You split the thatch / They poured you into an iron mould / You burst the mould; // For like the dog’s mouth you were never at rest, / Who, fighting a battle in front, / Mapped out, with dust-of-combat ahead of you, / The next battle field at the rear — // That generations unborn / Might never taste the steel — // Who converted a jungle into marble palaces / Who watered a dry valley and weeded its banks — // For we had almost forgotten / Your praise-names — // Who transformed a desert into green pasture / Who commanded highways to pass thro the forest — / And will remain a mountain / Even in your sleep ...

IV

But will a flutist never stop to wipe his nose? / Two arms can never encircle a giant iroko. // Night breezes drum on the plantain leaf: / Let the plantain leaf take over the dance ...