I

     I know a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives

     First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves

     The world; and, vainly favored, it repays

     The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze

     By no change of its large calm front of snow.

     And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know,

     He cannot have perceived, that changes ever

     At his approach; and, in the lost endeavor

     To live his life, has parted, one by one,

     With all a flower's true graces, for the grace             10

     Of being but a foolish mimic sun,

     With ray-like florets round a disk-like face.

     Men nobly call by many a name the Mount

     As over many  a land of theirs its large

     Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe

     Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie,

     Each to its proper praise and own account:

     Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively.

     II

     Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look

     Across the waters to this twilight nook,                   20

     —The far sad waters.  Angel, to this nook!

     III

     Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed?

     Go!—saying ever as thou dost proceed,

     That I, French Rudel, choose for my device

     A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice

     Before its idol.  See! These inexpert

     And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt

     The woven picture; 't is a woman's skill

     Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so, ill

     Or well, the work is finished.  Say, men feed              30

     On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees

     On my flower's breast as on a platform broad:

     But, as the flower's concern is not for these

     But solely for the sun, so men applaud

     In vain this Rudel, he not looking here

     But to the East—the East!  Go, say this, Pilgrim dear!

     NOTES

     "Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli": Rudel symbolizes his love as the

     aspiration of the sunflower that longs only to become like the sun,

     so losing a flower's true grace, while the sun does not even

     perceive the flower.  He imagines himself as a pilgrim revealing to

     the Lady of Tripoli by means of this symbol the entire sinking of

     self in his love for her.  Even men's praise of his songs is no more

     to him than the bees which bask on a sunflower are to it.

     Rudel was a Provencal troubadour, and lived in the twelfth century.

     The Crusaders, returning from the East, spread abroad wonderful

     reports of the beauty, learning, and wit of the Countess of Tripoli,

     a small duchy on the Mediterranean, north of Palestine.  Rudel,

     although never having seen her, fell in love with her and composed

     songs in honor of her beauty, and finally set out to the East in

     pilgrim's garb.  On his way he was taken ill, but lived to reach the

     port of Tripoli.  The countess, being told of his arrival, went on

     board the vessel.  When Rudel heard she was coming, he revived, said

     she had restored him to life by her coming, and that he was willing

     to die, having seen her.  He died in her arms; she gave him a rich

     and honorable burial in a sepulchre of porphyry on which were

     engraved verses in Arabic.