Free Collected Earlier Poems by Anthony Hecht Page A

garden must allow
    For the recalcitrant; a style can teach us how
        To know the world in little where the weed
                   Has license, where by dint of force
                             D’Estes have set their seal.
                             Their spirit entertains.
                   And we are honorable guests
        Come by imagination, come by night,
    Hearing in the velure of darkness impish strings
    Mincing Tartini, hearing the hidden whisperings:
        “
Carissima
, the moon gives too much light,”
                   Though by its shining it invests
                             Her bodice with such gains
                             As show their shadowed worth
                   Deep in the cleavage. Lanterns, lamps
        Of pumpkin-colored paper dwell upon
    The implications of the skin-tight silk, allude
    Directly to the body; under the subdued
        Report of corks, whisperings, the
chaconne
,
                   Boisterous water runs its ramps
                             Out, to the end of mirth.
                             Accommodating plants
                   Give umbrage where the lovers delve
        Deeply for love, give way to their delight,
    As Pliny’s pregnant mouse, bearing unborn within her
    Lewd sons and pregnant daughters, hears the adept beginner:
        “
Cor mio
, your supports are much too tight,”
                   While overhead the stars resolve
                             Every extravagance.
                             Tomorrow, before dawn,
                   Gardeners will come to resurrect
        Downtrodden iris, dispose of broken glass,
    Return the diamond earrings to the villa, but
    As for the moss upon the statue’s shoulder, not
        To defeat its green invasion, but to pass
                   Over the liberal effect
                             Caprice and cunning spawn.
                             For thus it was designed:
                   Controlled disorder at the heart
        Of everything, the paradox, the old
    Oxymoronic itch to set the formal strictures
    Within a natural context, where the tension lectures
        Us on our mortal state, and by controlled
                   Disorder, labors to keep art
                             From being too refined.
                             Susan, it had been once
                   My hope to see this place with you,
        See it as in the hour of thoughtless youth.
    For age mocks all diversity, its genesis,
    And whispers to the heart, “
Cor mio
, beyond all this
        Lies the unchangeable and abstract truth,”
                   Claims of the grass, it is not true,
                             And makes our youth its dunce.
                             Therefore, some later day
                   Recall these words, let them be read
        Between us, let them signify that here
    Are more than formulas, that age sees no more clearly
    For its poor eyesight, and philosophy grows surly,
        That falling water and the blood’s career
                   Lead down the garden path to bed
                             And win us both to May.
A DEEP BREATH AT DAWN
    Morning has come at last. The rational light
    Discovers even the humblest thing that yearns
    For heaven; from its scaled and shadeless height,
    Figures its difficult way among the ferns,
    Nests in the trees, and is ambitious to warm
    The chilled vein, and to light the spider’s thread
    With modulations