Poetry of Eli Siegel
Ladies Ever, Ever, Ever Lightly Go Across Sweet, Green Swards
Sweet lady, once going over a sward,
An English sward, manors had them,
There you are, tripping over green,
And your body lightly crossing green.
The sward is green now, the manor’s no more, but there’s a green sward now where once a green sward was, the only sward your body lightly, yet deeply went across.
Go, lady, across swards. Let death come, yet be gay.
You are immortal, as green swards are; so are manors, manorial halls, and say the armorial bearings in manorial halls.
Sweet lady, you saw armor, now old; you saw big doors, and black and old.
Lady, it is said you went quietly into green earth; those who say so don’t know enough; they need to know more; what know they of how green earth and green swards can be.
Lady, lightly go across green swards; they still are and you are.
How little is known, of truth, about sweet ladies lightly going over green swards.
Suppose the world was better; it would mean a fairer knowing of sweet ladies, once going, now going over sweet, clean, green swards of England.
Fall, armorial bearings; moulder, manorial halls (near green swards, near this green sward); do this, but sweet ladies ever, ever, ever lightly go across sweet green swards, under a sweet, clean sun, in sweet mornings, and there’s England, and she’s sweet, too.
Sweet is the world when seen as pleasing; sweetness is pleasingness coming from being right with the world; therefore, sweet lady, sweet sward, sweet green, sweet England, sweet morning.
It may do.
It is so.
It is true:
Ladies ever, ever, ever lightly go across sweet, green swards, in sweet Englands, in sweet mornings.
(Aesthetic Realism Foundation)
© 1927, 1979 by Eli Siegel