My Table

Two heavy tressels, and a board

Where Sato’s gift, a changeless sword,

By pen and paper lies,

That it may moralise

My days out of their aimlessness.

A bit of an embroidered dress

Covers its wooden sheath.

Chaucer had not drawn breath

When it was forged. In Sato’s house,

Curved like new moon, moon luminous

It lay five hundred years;

Yet if no change appears

No moon: only an aching heart

Conceives a changeless work of art.

Our learned men have urged

That when and where ’twas forged

A marvellous accomplishment,

In painting or in pottery, went

From father unto son

And through the centuries ran

And seemed unchanging like the sword.

Soul’s beauty being most adored,

Men and their business took

The soul’s unchanging look;

For the most rich inheritor,

Knowing that none can pass heaven’s door

That loved inferior art,

Had such an aching heart

That he, although a country’s talk

For silken clothes and stately walk,

Had waking wits; it seemed

Juno’s peacock screamed.