The Certain Hour. Dizain des Poëtes

THE CERTAIN HOUR (Dizain des Poëtes) By JAMES BRANCH CABELL

'Criticism, whatever may be its

pretensions, never does more than to

define the impression which is made upon

it at a certain moment by a work wherein

the writer himself noted the impression

of the world which he received at a

certain hour.'

TO

ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL II

In Dedication of The Certain Hour

Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
One thing unshaken stays:
Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
Whereby decays

Each thing save one thing:-mid this strife diurnal
Of hourly change begot,
Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
And changes not;-

Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers
Find altered by-and-bye,
When, with possession, time anon discovers
Trapped dreams must die,-

For he that visions God, of mankind gathers
One manlike trait alone,
And reverently imputes to Him a father's
Love for his son.

BALLAD OF THE DOUBLE-SOUL

'Les Dieux, qui trop aiment ses faceties cruelles'

PAUL VERVILLE.

In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the sky and the sea,
And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and
this was the Gods' decree:-

'Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth folly and sin;
He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind
to the world within:

'So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling
for phrases or pelf,

Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his
neighbor, and not to himself.'

Yet some have the Gods forgotten,-or is it that subtler mirth

The Gods extort of a certain sort of folk that cumber the earth?

For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one,-
Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,
And derive affright for the nearing night from the light
of the noontide sun.

For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and knew never a fear,
They have linked with another whom omens bother; and
he whispers in one's ear.

And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have trod,
But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears that
it might look odd.

And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower,