Sword Blades and Poppy Seed | Page 3

a sword.?It hacked and carved like a cutlass blade,?And the noise in the air the broad words made?Was the cry of the wind at a window-pane?On an Autumn night of sobbing rain.?Then it would run like a steady stream?Under pinnacled bridges where minarets gleam,?Or lap the air like the lapping tide?Where a marble staircase lifts its wide?Green-spotted steps to a garden gate,?And a waning moon is sinking straight?Down to a black and ominous sea,?While a nightingale sings in a lemon tree.
I walked as though some opiate?Had stung and dulled my brain, a state?Acute and slumbrous. It grew late.?We stopped, a house stood silent, dark.?The old man scratched a match, the spark?Lit up the keyhole of a door,?We entered straight upon a floor?White with finest powdered sand?Carefully sifted, one might stand?Muddy and dripping, and yet no trace?Would stain the boards of this kitchen-place.?From the chimney, red eyes sparked the gloom,?And a cricket's chirp filled all the room.?My host threw pine-cones on the fire?And crimson and scarlet glowed the pyre?Wrapped in the golden flame's desire.?The chamber opened like an eye,?As a half-melted cloud in a Summer sky?The soul of the house stood guessed, and shy?It peered at the stranger warily.?A little shop with its various ware?Spread on shelves with nicest care.?Pitchers, and jars, and jugs, and pots,?Pipkins, and mugs, and many lots?Of lacquered canisters, black and gold,?Like those in which Chinese tea is sold.?Chests, and puncheons, kegs, and flasks,?Goblets, chalices, firkins, and casks.?In a corner three ancient amphorae leaned?Against the wall, like ships careened.?There was dusky blue of Wedgewood ware,?The carved, white figures fluttering there?Like leaves adrift upon the air.?Classic in touch, but emasculate,?The Greek soul grown effeminate.?The factory of Sevres had lent?Elegant boxes with ornament?Culled from gardens where fountains splashed?And golden carp in the shadows flashed,?Nuzzling for crumbs under lily-pads,?Which ladies threw as the last of fads.?Eggshell trays where gay beaux knelt,?Hand on heart, and daintily spelt?Their love in flowers, brittle and bright,?Artificial and fragile, which told aright?The vows of an eighteenth-century knight.?The cruder tones of old Dutch jugs?Glared from one shelf, where Toby mugs?Endlessly drank the foaming ale,?Its froth grown dusty, awaiting sale.?The glancing light of the burning wood?Played over a group of jars which stood?On a distant shelf, it seemed the sky?Had lent the half-tones of his blazonry?To paint these porcelains with unknown hues?Of reds dyed purple and greens turned blues,?Of lustres with so evanescent a sheen?Their colours are felt, but never seen.?Strange winged dragons writhe about?These vases, poisoned venoms spout,?Impregnate with old Chinese charms;?Sealed urns containing mortal harms,?They fill the mind with thoughts impure,?Pestilent drippings from the ure?Of vicious thinkings. "Ah, I see,"?Said I, "you deal in pottery."?The old man turned and looked at me.?Shook his head gently. "No," said he.
Then from under his cloak he took the thing?Which I had wondered to see him bring?Guarded so carefully from sight.?As he laid it down it flashed in the light,?A Toledo blade, with basket hilt,?Damascened with arabesques of gilt,?Or rather gold, and tempered so?It could cut a floating thread at a blow.?The old man smiled, "It has no sheath,?'Twas a little careless to have it beneath?My cloak, for a jostle to my arm?Would have resulted in serious harm.?But it was so fine, I could not wait,?So I brought it with me despite its state."?"An amateur of arms," I thought,?"Bringing home a prize which he has bought."?"You care for this sort of thing, Dear Sir?"?"Not in the way which you infer.?I need them in business, that is all."?And he pointed his finger at the wall.?Then I saw what I had not noticed before.?The walls were hung with at least five score?Of swords and daggers of every size?Which nations of militant men could devise.?Poisoned spears from tropic seas,?That natives, under banana trees,?Smear with the juice of some deadly snake.?Blood-dipped arrows, which savages make?And tip with feathers, orange and green,?A quivering death, in harlequin sheen.?High up, a fan of glancing steel?Was formed of claymores in a wheel.?Jewelled swords worn at kings' levees?Were suspended next midshipmen's dirks, and these?Elbowed stilettos come from Spain,?Chased with some splendid Hidalgo's name.?There were Samurai swords from old Japan,?And scimitars from Hindoostan,?While the blade of a Turkish yataghan?Made a waving streak of vitreous white?Upon the wall, in the firelight.?Foils with buttons broken or lost?Lay heaped on a chair, among them tossed?The boarding-pike of a privateer.?Against the chimney leaned a queer?Two-handed weapon, with edges dull?As though from hacking on a skull.?The rusted blood corroded it still.?My host took up a paper spill?From a heap which lay in an earthen bowl,?And lighted it at a burning coal.?At either end of the table, tall?Wax candles were placed, each in a small,?And slim, and burnished candlestick?Of pewter. The old man lit each wick,?And the room leapt more obviously?Upon my mind, and I could see?What the flickering fire had hid from me.?Above the