Death on the Holy Mountain

by David Dickinson

  Out of the battles of old times.

  ‘You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,

  And bind up your long hair and sigh;

  And all men’s hearts must burn and beat;

  And candle-like foam on the dim sand,

  And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,

  Live but to light your passing feet.’

  ‘It’s so beautiful, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Do you think the poet is still writing to his bitch goddess?’

  ‘I’m sure that’s what Young James thinks. He was always very fond of Yeats. But don’t you see, Lucy, he’s letting us know that he’s alive, that he’s in America for the present. Maybe Young James will come back some day.’

  ‘And what does the other side of the letter say?’

  Powerscourt read very quietly, pausing every now and then to look into Lady Lucy’s eyes.

  ‘Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

  Enwrought with golden and silver light,

  The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

  Of night and light and the half light,

  I would spread the cloths under your feet:

  But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

  I have spread my dreams under your feet;

  Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’