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This text has been proofread but is not guaranteed to be free from errors. Corrections to the original text have been left in place.
Title: Region of Lutany, an electronic edition
Author: Bryher, Annie Winifred Ellerman
Publisher: Chapman & Hall
Place published: 
Date: 1914
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REGION OF LUTANYBy WINIFRED ELLERMANCONTENTS
Region of Lutany	       5
Corfu		       7
Leaderless		       8
Palæokastrizza	     13
To Francis Thompson     14
Pansies 		     16
Dwelt a Maid in Lutany  18
Sicily			      20
Ode to the Sea	     22
Pontikonisi		     25
Bluebells		     26
The Pages of the Flowers     27
Song			    29
Tristfulness		     31
5Region of LutanyREGION OF LUTANYWhere is the way to thee,	Region of Lutany?I cried to the swallow and lark in their flight,I cried at the dawn, in the day, and the night,I cried to the cloud, and the wave, and the tree,	None knew the way to thee,	Mistress imperious,	O thou mysterious	Region of Lutany.I sought of my soul if the pathway lay there,Song vanished away, as a bird in the air,I sought if the salt of my tears was the way,I sought if in pleasure the dream-city lay,I roamed in my thought to the future and past,Hoping in dreaming to find it at last,	I cannot reach to thee,	Mistress imperious,	O thou mysterious,	Region of Lutany.1912.CORFUWrapt in the dreaming Ionian sea,  Magical isle of the splendid South,  Is it the charm of thy wave-curved mouth,Or thy vague Greek songs that are haunting me?Is it thy veil of enpurpled hue,  Folding thy hills through the star-swept night?  Or thy red-sailed ships in the silver light, 	Corfu?Are thy quivering sea-shells an argent lute,  Strung with the whispering amethyst spray,  Breathing such songs to the dawn-lit bay,That even the wind of the South is mute,O is it thy sky's cloud-banished blue,  Is it a spell of thy cypress-breast,  Or is it thy poppies that lull me to rest,	Corfu?Corfu, 1913LEADERLESS(To an imaginary poet.)A star-souled leader to Song's laurelled height,Laden with April-visioned minstrelsies,And drifting sea-born lays, thou greeted usA year ago.Thou wished to lead us by thy dream-spun way,Triumphant to the realms of Lutany,Across the portals of the glimmering night,Across the cloud-dim silence of the night,Wherein thou tissued petalled fantasies,Redolent of the sleeping meadow-sweet,All pansy-fragrant with the air of June.We rhymed our little songs, and laughed at thee,We scorned thy visions, scorned thy leadership.A dreaming child, thou wandered long ago,Until the music of the eastern skyWakened the sleeping poems of thy heart;Taught thee of all the multitudinous joysHidden within the stirring of the dawn,Folded within the clouds;Taught thee to grieve,Weeping thy Baby-sorrows to the stars,That they might comfort thee;Taught thee to dream,And live in dream,And make thy life a dream.Thou learnt the inner meaning of all vision,Then thou camest,With thy dawn-splendid eyes,To be our leader.We mocked thee,And the garland round thy head,And triumph in thine eyesFaded and drooped,And thy gold-wingèd soulGrew tired.But still thou wovest greater-soulèd songs,From out the desolation of thine heart,For in thy dreams thou saw the lucent waves,And heard the sea call to thee in the wind,And in the stirring of the falling leaves,And yet we mocked thee.A lonely dreamer in the crowded streets,Thou mused a space,Tissued our longings into rose-winged songs,Then fled away to sea-crowned Lyonnesse,Where thy soul might find freedom,And thy poems glory,Leaving us leaderless,Lonely and leaderless.There, thou art crownedWith the glory of the tempest,And the mighty desolationOf resilient waves;Thine are the songs of the swaying sea-storm,Thou art veiled with the splendour of even,Amber, and argent, and azure,In one cloud over thee.There is thy soul freer than the salt air,Lighter than wind-swept spray,Fairer than foam,But thou art songless,For how could'st thou weave mortal melodies,When thou hast heard the music of the sea,And listed all the quivering harmonies,Of the immeasurable dawn.We are left leaderless,Lonely and leaderless,Now thou hast fled from us,Over the sea.Art thou never sorrowful at night-time,In the glimmer of the firelight,When the great gales creep?Dost thou never wonder as thou listeth,The tempest-thunder,If any rememberThe days of thy leadership?O dreamer of unutterable dreams,Leave thou the sunset-fire,The clinging dawn,The lonely contemplation of the night,Unwrap the radiant silence of thy soul,And come to us,Better it is to stir our hearts with songs,Than sleep thy life away in Lyonnesse,So lead us by thine own dream-woven way,Back to the golden realms of Lutany.1913. PALÆOKASTRIZZABeyond the olive slopes, a sun-crowned peakRose like a lily from the violet sea,Unto the shell-fringed bay the roseal wavesTossed dreamily.A little white-walled monastery sleptUpon a cypress hill, a monk or twoWandered a petalled way, beneath a skyIonian blue.The perfect silence of a southern noon,The distant islands lulled to unstirred peace,And I had reached a long desirèd realm,The Land of Greece.CORFU,1913. TO FRANCIS THOMPSONEnwrapt  within the amethystine foldOf thy first sleep, unsaddened and at peace,Deep in thy heart was born a lute of gold,And dreams of Greece.Afire with all the flame of new-born Song,Mad with its fierce triumphal ecstasy,How could'st thou bar thy heart for very longFrom Lutany.The desolation and the lonelinessOf that sad time, with cold and pain for friend,Tuned by thy heart to visioned loveliness,That had no end.A little calm was thine, some griefs, some sighsAnd strife, with wounds of corn and sneer un-healed,one struggle, and thy dream-enchanted eyesClosed Slumber-sealed.We cannot soothe one sorrow, right one wrong,We cannot add  a bud to thy renown,Within the star-lit garden of thy songThou hast thy crown.Palermo,June, 1913. PANSIESO my glimmering petalled pansies,  Amethyst, purple and golden, and gay,  Will ye not sigh me a thought some day,Scatter a shimmering handful of fancies,  My heart might gather, and hide away.For when your blossoms are veiled with night,	In a wingèd boat,	I could often floatTo the land of your dreamings, all purple white.O my pansies, at even sighing,  Breathe me the dreams that the summer-wind's lute,  Murmurs in time with the leaf-swaying flute,Carolled in March when the winter is dying,  And April stirs in the primrose root.O I would weave such a song for you,	That your buds would keep,	From the land of sleep,To list my singing the whole night through.Siracusa,1913. DWELT A MAID IN LUTANYLong ago there dwelt a maid,All alone in Lutany,All alone-and unafraid,In the realms of minstrelsy,Long ago, ah very long,In a world of Baby song,Tripped the maiden dreamily.Unborn laughters tinged her eyes,  Dreams danced o'er her tresses,She was one rose-sweet surprise,  Gay with happiness,For she taught her heart to glow,Turned her heart to viol and bow,Long ago, ah long ago,  With her Song's caresses.Far she soared on dream-wove wing,To the whitebells echoing,Flitting like an umbered bee,To a dawn-sweet melody.Yet the maiden, tired of dreaming,Longed to flit away,Weary of the lilied gleaming,  Of her merry play,  So she left her minstrelsy,Left her dreamful sanctuary,And the realms of Lutany,  On a summer's day.Long ago, there dwelt a maid,Where wingèd joys fly merrily,Ah, but long ago she strayed  From the fields of Fantasy.Now she seeketh, all day long,To regain the gates of Song,Where dawn-radiant visions throng,In the Land of Lutany.SICILYWhen songs were but the winds that swept thy seas,And rhymes were as thy Spring anemones,Long ere I clasped Ionian lucenciesIn silent dreams to me,I played with thee.Thou whispered to me all thy sweetest tales,The rhymèd flutt'rings of thy fishing sails,The southern thunders of Sirrocan galesThat suddenly Storm over thee.Thou hast one almond tree that I remember,Whose falling petals summer'd thy December:Roses that seemed a stray autumnal ember,Enfolded are for meIn memory.Though now I seek the tiny Grecian bays,O Playfellow of those unsaddened daysWhen joys unhidden danced in all thy ways,I still shall think of thee,My Sicily.ODE TO THE SEAHow shall I tune my lute to sing thy praiseMysterious Sea?All music-wrapt in thine enwallèd waysWith thine own minstrelsy,	Can I out-sing the spray,	Or the West-wind out-play,With my poor Lutany?Within thy crested depths remains, I deem,A sea-spun wreath of all-triumphal joy,So I will set the purple sails of dream,And take the fluted waves for argent toy.How shall I fashion the heart of my song?With the out-flung, thundering northern gale,Where the storm-blown, spray-silvered, sea-	   birds sail,	Swept alongOn the desolate curve of a wind-swayed wave.  O, I will pierce thy soul's most secret cave,	Laugh not, song-wingèd Sea,	Thou shalt not fly form me,My hand's upon thy robe of azure air,	And my wind-sandalled feet	Shall prove them tempest-fleet,Until I grasp the tresses of thine hair.Until I seize thy locks, all dream-inwrought,Mingle my unsung melodies with thine,	Till all thy veilèd thoughtAnd foam-born harmonies are mine, are mine.	Alas, what hast thou done,	Just as my crown was won,Beyond my boasting, imperturbable,	Thou swingest silently,	Majestically free,Why strive to utter the unutterable?My dreamèd triumph is dissolved in mist,Some withered leaves for garlanding, I twist,	Only a hap of seed,	Of some engloomèd weed,Remaineth of my utterance unborn,	Yet, is the rose forbid,	Some charm's discovered, hidWithin the weedy hedgerow by the corn.I furl my sails, I cast each toy away,My strings snap one by one, the notes are muteThe dying wind hushes the sea-swept lute,The clouds of night are blending with the day,O Mystery, O wonder-breathing Sea,With awe-struck, silent lips, I list to thee,to thee, and thine unending lutany.Cattero,1913. PONTIKONISIDream-ceintured isle amid June-sleepy seas,Therein flit vanished songs of lutanists,Folden with azure air, and golden mists,Sweet with red poppies, sad with cypress trees.Low-chanted songs, and voiceless longings sweepTo thine enchanted realms of minstrelsy,Wherein my soul would seek a sanctuary,For silent noon has hushed the world to sleep.CORFU, 1913. BLUEBELLSIn the wildest melodiesRing ye out together,Echoing the southern breezeOf the springtide weather,As a purple cloud ye lie,And your sweetest thoughts ye sigh.Woodland poets, joining inOne great song of gladness,Like a bird your thoughts take wing,Bringing joy and sadness,All we knew not how to say,Floating in your April lay.1911. THE PAGES OF THE FLOWERSGay tinted pages, fly away,	Away, away,Where the lilies weave a tune,For the sun-winged bees of June,	Away, away,Gay tinted pages, fly away.Over wind-hushed meadow-sweet,	Fleet, fleet,Hover by the purple thyme,Where the crimson ramblers climb,	Fleet, fleet,Over wind-hushed meadow-sweet.Where the bronzèd pansies sleep,	Creep, creep,In your gold and azure wings,fold the lupine's echoings,	Creep, creep,Where the bronzèd pansies sleep.Would you know who are these pages?	Ask the Sages,Ask the poets, they will tell you,Butterflies of every hue,	They are pagesOf the flowers, though all the ages.191[3]SONGThe sunset glows  Above the sea,And faintly rose  The cloudlets flee.The night is near  And I would dream,The waves stretch clear  A silver gleam.O, clouds fly not  Beyond the bay,O dreams die not,  Nor fade away,O come not night,  O waves drift on,-The sun takes flight,  The day has gone.Norway, 1912. TRISTFULNESSO azure-wingèd dream, why flit from me?A wind anemone,Shaken with unrevealèd loneliness,Deep in the wilderness,Of some secreted region in my heart,Whose roseal veils, that folded thy surpriseFrom careless eyes,I feared to draw apart.O azure-wingèd dream, why flit from meSo tristfully? Hast thou not made a summer of December,With blossoms of September?A petal fallen from one radiant day,if thou dost leave the silence sheltering thee,So fearfully,How wilt thou fly away?1913.