{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30225/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30225","id":"gutenberg_30225","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30225","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Poetry"],"text":"MANY GODS\n\n\nOTHER BOOKS BY\nCALE YOUNG RICE\n\n    Nirvana Days\n    Yolanda of Cyprus\n    Plays and Lyrics\n    A Night in Avignon\n    Charles di Tocca\n    David\n\n\n\n\nMANY GODS\n\nBY\n\nCALE YOUNG RICE\n\nNEW YORK\nDOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY\nMCMX\n\n\nALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION\nINTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY\nPUBLISHED, FEBRUARY, 1910\n\n\nTO\n\nFINIS KING FARR\n\nAN OLD\n\nAND DEAR COMRADE\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPAGE\n\n\"ALL'S WELL\"                    3\n\nTHE PROSELYTE RECANTS           6\n\nLOVE IN JAPAN                  10\n\nMAPLE LEAVES ON MIYAJIMA       13\n\nTYPHOON                        15\n\nPENANG                         17\n\nWHEN THE WIND IS LOW           20\n\nTHE PAGODA SLAVE               22\n\nTHE SHIPS OF THE SEA           25\n\nKINCHINJUNGA                   26\n\nTHE BARREN WOMAN               29\n\nBY THE TAJ MAHAL               32\n\nLOVE'S CYNIC                   35\n\nIN A TROPICAL GARDEN           42\n\nTHE WIND'S WORD                46\n\nTHE SHRINE OF SHRINES          47\n\nFROM A FELUCCA                 48\n\nTHE EGYPTIAN WAKES             49\n\nTHE IMAM'S PARABLE             50\n\nSONGS OF A SEA-FARER           52\n\nA SONG OF THE SECTS            54\n\nTHE CITY                       57\n\nVIA AMOROSA                    58\n\nDUSK AT HIROSHIMA              60\n\nTHE WANDERER                   61\n\nIN A SHINTO TEMPLE GARDEN      64\n\nFAR FUJIYAMA                   65\n\nON MIYAJIMA MOUNTAIN           66\n\nOLD AGE                        68\n\nON THE YANG-TSE-KIANG          69\n\nTHE SEA-ARMIES                 71\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN IN EXILE         73\n\nTHE PARSEE WOMAN               75\n\nSHAH JEHAN TO MUMTAZ MAHAL     77\n\nPRINCESS JEHANARA              79\n\nA CINGHALESE LOVE LAMENT       80\n\nON THE ARABIAN GULF            83\n\nTHE RAMESSID                   84\n\nIMMORTAL FOES                  85\n\nTHE CONSCRIPT                  87\n\nNAVIS IGNOTA                   89\n\nTHE CROSS OF THE SEPULCHRE     91\n\nTHE NUN                        92\n\nALPINE CHANT                   94\n\nTHE MAN OF MIGHT               96\n\nIN TIME OF AWE                 97\n\nSUNRISE IN UTAH                99\n\nCONSOLATION                   100\n\nWAVES                         102\n\nVIS ULTIMA                    104\n\nMEREDITH                      106\n\n\n\n\nMANY GODS\n\n\n\n\n\"ALL'S WELL\"\n\n\nI\n\nThe illimitable leaping of the sea,\nThe mouthing of his madness to the moon,\nThe seething of his endless sorcery,\nHis prophecy no power can attune,\nSwept over me as, on the sounding prow\nOf a great ship that steered into the stars,\nI stood and felt the awe upon my brow\nOf death and destiny and all that mars.\n\n\nII\n\nThe wind that blew from Cassiopeia cast\nWanly upon my ear a rune that rung;\nThe sailor in his eyrie on the mast\nSang an \"All's well,\" that to the spirit clung\nLike a lost voice from some a\u00ebrial realm\nWhere ships sail on forever to no shore,\nWhere Time gives Immortality the helm,\nAnd fades like a far phantom from life's door.\n\n\nIII\n\n\"And is all well, O Thou Unweariable\nLauncher of worlds upon bewildered space,\"\nRose in me, \"All? or did thy hand grow dull\nBuilding this world that bears a piteous race?\nO was it launched too soon or launched too late?\nOr can it be a derelict that drifts\nBeyond thy ken toward some reef of Fate\nOn which Oblivion's sand forever shifts?\"\n\n\nIV\n\nThe sea grew softer as I questioned--calm\nWith mystery that like an answer moved,\nAnd from infinity there fell a balm,\nThe old peace that God _is_, tho all unproved.\nThe old faith that tho gulfs sidereal stun\nThe soul, and knowledge drown within their deep,\nThere is no world that wanders, no not one\nOf all the millions, that He does not keep.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROSELYTE RECANTS\n\n(_In Japan_)\n\n\n  Where the fair golden idols\n  Sit in darkness and in silence\nWhile the temple drum beats solemnly and slow;\n  Where the tall cryptomerias\n  Sway in worship round about\nAnd the rain that is falling whispers low;\n  I can hear strange voices\n  Of the dead and forgotten,\nOn the dimly rising incense I can see\n  The lives I have lived,\n  And my lives unbegotten,\n_Namu Amida Butsu_ pity me!\n\n  I was born this karma\n  Of a mother in Chuzenji,\nWhere Nantai-zan looks down into the lake;\n  Where the white-thronged pilgrims\n  Climb to altars in the clouds\nAnd behold the holy eastern dawn awake.\n  It was there I wandered\n  Till a priest of the Christians\nWith the crucifix he wore compelled my gaze.\n  In grief I had grown,\n  So upon its grief I pondered.\n_Namu Amida Butsu_, keep my days!\n\n  It was wrong, he told me,\n  To pray Jiso for my children,\nAnd Binzuru for healing of my ills.\n  And our gods so many\n  Were conceived, he said, in sin,\nFrom Lord Shaka to the least upon the hills.\n  In despair I listened\n  For my heart beat hopeless,\nNot a temple of my land had helped me live.\n  But alas that day\n  When I let my soul be christened!\n_Namu Amida Butsu_, O forgive!\n\n  For the Christ they gave me\n  As the only Law and Lotus,\nAs the only way to Light that will not wane,\n  May perchance have power\n  For the people of the West,\nBut to me he seemed the servitor of pain.\n  For in pain he perished\n  As one born to passion:\nIn some other life no doubt his sin was great,\n  Tho they told me no,\n  Those who followed him and cherished.\n_Namu Amida Butsu_, such is fate.\n\n  So again to idols\n  Of the Buddha who is boundless,\nWhile the temple drum is beating thro the rain,\n  I have turned from treason\n  Into Meditation's truth,\nFrom the strife the Western god regards as gain.\n  And if now I'm dying\n  As the voices tell me,\nTo the lives that I must live I'll meekly go;\n  Till my long grief ends\n  In Nirvana, and my sighing.\n_Namu Amida Butsu_, be it so!\n\n\n\n\nLOVE IN JAPAN\n\n\nI\n\nDragon-fly lighting\nOn the temple-bell,\nWhose soul do you hear\nOn the Day of the Dead?\nThe soul of my lover?\nAh me, the plighting\nBetween two hearts\nThat were never wed!\n\nDragon-fly, quickly,\nThe priest is coming!\nOh, the boom\nOf the bitter bell!\nNow you are gone\nAnd my tears fall thickly.\nHow of Heaven\nDo the gods make Hell!\n\n\nII\n\nThe s\u00eami is silent\n  (Autumn rains!)\nThe wind-bells tinkle\n  (How chill it is!)\nThe quick lights come\nOn the shoji-panes.\nCome, O Baku,\nEater of dreams!\n\nThe maple darkens\n  (Pale grow I!)\nThe near night shivers\n  (The temple fades.)\n\nHaunting love\nWill not cease to cry!\nCome, O Baku,\nEater of dreams!\n\nThe wild mists gather\n  (Ah, my tears!)\nThe pane-lights vanish\n  (For some there is rest.)\nBut for me--\nThe remembered years!\nCome, O Baku,\nEater of dreams!\n\n\n\n\nMAPLE LEAVES ON MIYAJIMA\n\n\nThe summer has come,\nThe summer has gone,\nAnd the maple leaves lift fairy hands\nThat ripple upon the winds of dawn\nWhere the dim pagoda stands.\nThey ripple and beckon yearningly\nTo their sister fairies over the sea,\nBut help comes not,\nSo they fall and flee\nFrom Autumn over the sands.\n\nAnd down the mountain\nAnd into the tide,\nSome are blown where the sampans glide,\nAnd some are strewn by the temple's side,\nAnd some by the torii.\nBut Autumn ever\nPursues them till,\nAs ever before,\nShe has her will,\nAnd leaves them desolate, dead and still,\nRavished afar and wide;\nLeaves them desolate; crying shrill,\n\"No beauty shall abide!\"\n\n\n\n\nTYPHOON\n\n(_At Hong-kong_)\n\n\nI was weary and slept on the Peak;\n  The air clung close like a shroud,\nAnd ever the blue-fly's buzz in my ear\n  Hung haunting and hot and loud;\nI awoke and the sky was dun\n  With awe and a dread that soon\nWent shuddering thro my heart, for I knew\n  That it meant typhoon! typhoon!\n\nIn the harbour below, far down,\n  The junks like fowl in a flock\nWere tossing in wingless terror, or fled\n  Fluttering in from the shock.\nThe city, a breathless bend\n  Of roofs, by the water strewn,\nLay silent and waiting, yet there was none\n  Within it but said typhoon!\n\nThen it came, like a million winds\n  Gone mad immeasurably,\nA torrid and tortuous tempest stung\n  By rape of the fair South Sea.\nAnd it swept like a scud escaped\n  From craters of sun or moon,\nAnd struck as no power of Heaven could,\n  Or of Hell--typhoon! typhoon!\n\nAnd the junks were smitten and torn,\n  The drowning struggled and cried,\nOr, dashed on the granite walls of the sea,\n  In succourless hundreds died.\nTill I shut the sight from my eyes\n  And prayed for my soul to swoon:\nIf ever I see God's face, let it\n  Be guiltless of that typhoon!\n\n\n\n\nPENANG\n\n\nI want to go back to Singapore\n  And ship along the Straits,\nTo a bungalow I know beside Penang;\n  Where cocoanut palms along the shore\n    Are waving, and the gates\nOf Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore.\n  I want to go back and hear the surf\n    Come beating in at night,\nLike the washing of eternity over the dead.\n  I want to see dawn fare up and day\n    Go down in golden light;\nI want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!\n\nI want to go back to Singapore\n  And up along the Straits\nTo the bungalow that waits me by the tide.\n  Where the Tamil and Malay tell their lore\n    At evening--and the fates\nHave set no soothless canker at life's core.\n  I want to go back and mend my heart\n    Beneath the tropic moon,\nWhile the tamarind-tree is whispering thoughts of sleep.\n  I want to believe that Earth again\n    With Heaven is in tune.\nI want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!\n\nI want to go back to Singapore\n  And ship along the Straits\nTo the bungalow I left upon the strand.\n  Where the foam of the world grows faint before\n    It enters, and abates\nIn meaning as I hear the palm-wind pour.\n  I want to go back and end my days\n    Some evening when the Cross\nOn the southern sky hangs heavily far and sad.\n  I want to remember when I die\n    That life elsewhere was loss.\nI want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!\n\n\n\n\nWHEN THE WIND IS LOW\n\n(_To A. H. R._)\n\n\nWhen the wind is low, and the sea is soft,\n  And the far heat-lightning plays\nOn the rim of the West where dark clouds nest\n  On a darker bank of haze;\nWhen I lean o'er the rail with you that I love\n  And gaze to my heart's content;\nI know that the heavens are there above--\n  But you are my firmament.\n\nWhen the phosphor-stars are thrown from the bow\n  And the watch climbs up the shroud;\nWhen the dim mast dips as the vessel slips\n  Thro the foam that seethes aloud;\nI know that the years of our life are few,\n  And fain as a bird to flee,\nThat time is as brief as a drop of dew--\n  But you are Eternity.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PAGODA SLAVE\n\n(_At Shwe Dagohn, in old Rangoon_)\n\n\nAll night long the pagoda slave\nHears the wind-bells high in the air\nTinkle with low sweet tongue and grave\n    In praise of Lord Gautama.\nAll night long where the lone spire sends\nIts golden height to the starry light\n    He hears their tune\n    And watches the moon\nAnd fears he shall never reach Nirvana.\n\nRound and round by a hundred shrines\nGlittering at the great Shwe's base\nFalls the sound of his feet mid lines\n    Droned from the sacred Wisdom.\nRound and round where the idols gaze\nSo pitiless on his pained distress\n    He passes on,\n    Pale-eyed and wan--\nA pariah like the dogs behind him.\n\nOh, what sin in a life begot\nThousands of lives ago did he sin\nThat he is now by all forgot,\n    Even by Lord Gautama?\nOh, what sin, that the lowest shun\nHis very name as a thing of shame--\n    A sound to taint\n    The winds that faint\nFrom the high bells that hear it uttered!\n\nMidnight comes and the hours of morn,\nTapers die and the flowers all\nFrom the most f\u00eated altars: lorn\n    And desolate is their odour.\nMidnight goes, but he watches still\nBy each cold spire the moon sets fire,\n    By every palm\n    Whose silvery calm\nPillar and jewelled porch pray under.\n\nIs it dawn that is breaking?... No,\nOnly a star that falls in the sea,\nOnly a wind-bell's louder flow\n    Of praise to Lord Gautama.\nFaithless dawn! with illusive feet\nIt comes too late to ease his fate.\n    He sinks asleep\n    A helpless heap,\nTho for it he may never reach Nirvana.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHIPS OF THE SEA\n\n\nInto port when the sun was setting\n  Rode the ship that bore my love,\nOver the breakers wildly fretting,\n  Under the skies that shone above.\n\nDown to the beach I ran to meet him;\n  He would come as he had said:\n  And he came--in a sailor's coffin,\n    Dead!...\n\nO the ships of the sea! the women\n  They from all hope but Heaven part!\nThe tide has nothing now to tell me,\n  The breakers only break my heart!\n\n\n\n\nKINCHINJUNGA\n\n(_Which is the next highest of mountains_)\n\n\nI\n\nO white Priest of Eternity, around\nWhose lofty summit veiling clouds arise\nOf the earth's immemorial sacrifice\nTo Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies;\nO Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows,\nFirst-born of Asia whose maternal throes\nSeem changed now to a million human woes,\nHoly thou art and still! Be so, nor sound\nOne sigh of all the mystery in thee found.\n\n\nII\n\nFor in this world too much is overclear,\nImmortal Ministrant to many lands,\nFrom whose ice-altars flow to fainting sands\nRivers that each libation poured expands.\nToo much is known, O Ganges-giving sire;\nThy people fathom life and find it dire,\nThy people fathom death, and, in it, fire\nTo live again, tho in Illusion's sphere,\nBehold concealed as Grief is in a tear.\n\n\nIII\n\nWherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites,\nTho dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, falls\nIn strange austerity, whose trance appals,\nBefore thee, and a suppliant on thee calls.\nContinue still thy silence high and sure,\nThat something beyond fleeting may endure--\nSomething that shall forevermore allure\nImagination on to mystic flights\nWherein alone no wing of Evil lights.\n\n\nIV\n\nYea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytes\nOf lifted granite round with reachless snows.\nStand for Eternity while pilgrim rows\nOf all the nations envy thy repose.\nEnsheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled.\nBe that alone on earth which has not failed.\nBe that which never yet has yearned or ailed,\nBut since primeval Power upreared thy heights\nHas stood above all deaths and all delights.\n\n\nV\n\nAnd tho thy loftier Brother shall be King,\nHigh-priest be thou to Brahma unrevealed,\nWhile thy white sanctity forever sealed\nIn icy silence leaves desire congealed.\nIn ghostly ministrations to the sun,\nAnd to the mendicant stars and the moon-nun,\nBe holy still, till East to West has run,\nAnd till no sacrificial suffering\nOn any shrine is left to tell life's sting.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BARREN WOMAN\n\n(_Benares_)\n\n\nAt the burning-ghat, O Kali,\n  Mother divine and dread,\nSee, I am waiting with open lips\n  Over the newly dead.\nI am childless and barren; pity\n  And let me catch the soul\nOf him who here on the kindled bier\n  Pays to Existence toll.\n\nSee, by his guileless body\n  I cook the bread and eat.\nGive me the soul he does not need\n  Now, for conception sweet.\nHear, or my lord and husband\n  Shall send me from his door\nAnd take to his side a fairer bride\n  Whose breast shall be less poor.\n\nOft I have sought thy temples,\n  By Ganges now I seek,\nWhere ashes of all the dead are strewn,\n  And is my prayer not meek?\nThe ghats and the shrines and the people\n  That bathe in the holy Stream\nHave heard my cry, O goddess high,\n  Shall I not have my dream?\n\nThe women of Oudh and Jaipur\n  Look on my face with scorn.\nChildren about their garments cling,\n  To me shall none be born?\nThe death-fires quiver faster,\n  O hasten, goddess, a sign,\nThat from this doom into my womb\n  Thy pledge has passed, divine.\n\nWoe! there is naught but ashes,\n  Now, and the weepers go.\nLone on the ghat they leave me, lone,\n  With but the River's flow.\nKali, I ask not jewels\n  Nor justice, beauty nor shrift,\nBut for the lowest woman's right,\n  A child--tho I die of the gift!\n\n\n\n\nBY THE TAJ MAHAL\n\n\nUnder the Indian stars,\nMumtaz Mahal, I am sitting,\nWatching them wind their silent way\nOver your wistful Tomb;\nWatching the crescent prow\nOf the moon among them flitting,\nFair as the shallop that bore your soul\nTo Paradise's Room.\n\nUnder the Indian stars,\nWith palm and peepul about me,\nWith dome and kiosk and minaret\nMounting against the sky,\nI seem to see your face\nIn all the fairness without me;\nIn all the sadness that fills my heart\nTo hear your lover's cry.\n\nUnder the Indian stars\nI look for your Jasmine Tower,\nAlong the River whose barren bed\nLies gray beneath the moon.\nAnd thro its magic doors\nYou seem like a spirit flower,\nWandering back from Allah's bourne\nTo seek for some lost boon.\n\nUnder the Indian stars\nI see you softly moving,\nAmong your jewel-lit maidens there,\nA sweet and ghostly queen,\nAnd the scent of attar flung\nIn your marble font seems proving\nThat passion never can die from love,\nIf truly love has been.\n\nUnder the Indian stars\n_He_ comes, \"the Shadow of Allah,\"\nJehan, the lord of Magnificence,\nThe liege who holds your heart.\nThe silver doors swing back\nAnd alone with him you hallow\nThe amorous night--whose moon has made\nSuch visions in me start.\n\nUnder the Indian stars--\nBut the end of all is moaning!\nI hear his dying breath that from\nYour Tomb shall never die.\nFor every jasper flower\nHe set in its dream seems loaning\nTo Beauty a grief, Mumtaz Mahal,\nAnd unto Fate a sigh.\n\n\n\n\nLOVE'S CYNIC\n\n\nI\n\nO you poets, ever pretending\n  Love is immortal, pipe the truth!\nEmpty your books of lies, the ending\n  Of no passion can be--Youth.\n\"Heaven,\" you breathe, \"will join the broken?\"\n  Come, was the Infinite e'er wed,\nThat He must evermore be thinking\n  Of your wedding bed?\n\n\nII\n\nPipe the truth! tho it clip the glamour\n  Out of your rhymes and rip your dream.\nDo you believe words can enamour\n  Death and dry up Lethe's stream?\nDeath? it is but a Sponge that passes,\n  One the Appeaseless e'er will squeeze\nBack into Lethe's flood--whose lasting\n  Is eternities.\n\n\nIII\n\n\"False!\" cry you, \"and an unbeseeming\n  Blasphemy!\"--Well, look around.\nIs it not only in blaspheming\n  Truth is ever to be found?\nWhether it be, one thing I ask you,\n  Lovers and poets, tell, I pray,\nWas there ever a love-oath ended\n  Ere the Judgment Day?\n\n\nIV\n\n\"O,\" you answer, \"ill is in all things.\"\n  But in an ancient lie what's good?\nIs it not better just to call things\n  What they are--not what we would?\nWhen you are clinging to your mistress,\n  Love has the face of Eternity.\nCling to her then, but know that Wanting\n  Fools the best that be.\n\n\nV\n\n\"Yet her brows and her eyes that murmur\n  All the music,\" you say, \"of God!\"\nPress her lips but a little firmer--\n  You will feel that they are--sod.\n\"But there is living soul beyond them,\n  And it is love's till all things end?\"\nChildren alone build Paradises\n  With but pence to spend.\n\n\nVI\n\n\"Ai-ho now! that is like the cynic,\"\n  Pitying runs your poet-smile,\n\"He has sat at the Devil's clinic\n  With some dead love up the while.\"\nDead or alive are one with passions,\n  Under the potent knife of Truth\nThey will be seen composed of craving--\n  And a little ruth.\n\n\nVII\n\n\"Then the world on a lie is living?\"\n  Many a lie has filled its maw!\n\"Better illusion tho than giving\n  Faith to a fatal loveless Law?\"\nThere is a certain Socratean\n  Saying that swine of their ditch are sure;\nYet do they prove by their contentment\n  That it will endure?\n\n\nVIII\n\nClasp her close! But the truth is in you,\n  Tho you have rhymed and rammed it down,\nHid it with honey-words that win you\n  Wreaths that you know bedeck the clown.\nKings they will call you and uplifters\n  Of your kind? Lord save the mark,\nThat we are still for fire dependent\n  On so false a spark.\n\n\nIX\n\nAnd so fond! for you hold immortal\n  What has been born a day or two!\n\"But it was destined?\" Ay, your portal\n  Only has God to heed--and you!\nHe with his thrice three million thirsting\n  Worlds in the throes of death and life\nSurely has time to spare for choosing\n  Your behooven wife!\n\n\nX\n\nBy my faith, there is not a creature\n  Mad as a poet, pants the breeze!\nGive him a mistress and he'll preach her\n  As creation's Masterpiece.\nLet him but lean for half an hour\n  Over her lips and he will swear\nThat he would dive thro death unfathomed\n  To regain her there.\n\n\nXI\n\nAnd believe that his oath is able!\n  That there is not in all the sea\nWater enough to quench the fable\n  Of his soul's intensity.\nYet there was never a rose that blossomed\n  And endured beyond its day.\nThere was never a fire enkindled\n  But the great Cold had its way.\n\n\nXII\n\n\"Pessimist,\" is your mortal answer,\n  \"Wait till the love-wind pierces you!\"\nWait? I have been the veriest dancer\n  To it, and, dupe still, would do\nTruth to the death--shall I confess it?--\n  For but a moment on one breast.\nWherefore I add--and Adam bless it!--\n  Who loves once is like the rest.\n\n\n\n\nIN A TROPICAL GARDEN\n\n(_Peradeniya, Ceylon_)\n\n\nI\n\nThe sun moves here as a master-mage of nature all day long,\n  With fingers of heat and light that touch to a mystical growth all things.\nThe spell of him puts pale Time to sleep, as an opiate strange and strong,\n  And a waft of his wand, the wind, enchantment brings.\n\n\nII\n\nThe python roots of the rubber-tree where the cobra slips in peace\n  Are wonders that he has waved from the earth as a presage of his power.\nAnd the giant stems of the bamboo-grass, the pool astounded, sees,\n  Are a marvel to keep it still hour after hour.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe long lianas that reach in dreamy rout from tree to tree\n  Are dazed with the sense of sap that he calls to the tangle of their sprays.\nThe scarlet-hearted hibiscus stands entranced and the torrid bee\n  Is husht upon its rim, as in amaze\n\nIV\n\nAnd there the palms, the talipot with its lofty blossom-spire,\n  The cocoanut and the slim areca listening await\nWhat sorceries of his trembling rays of equatorial fire\n  Will next be laid upon some lesser mate.\n\n\nV\n\nThe river, too, that he winds as a magic circle round the wealth\n  He has here engendered, has the glide of a serpent lost in trance;\nAnd scents of clove and cinnamon that sip cool from it, in stealth\n  Pour it upon the air like necromance.\n\n\nVI\n\nAnd down where the rain-tree and the rife breadfruit together lean\n  Over its flow, and the flying-foxes hanging head to earth\nSuddenly drop then flap aloft on large bat-wing, is seen\n  More of his mazing wizardry in birth.\n\n\nVII\n\nAll day long it is so that his hot hypnotic eye commands\n  With steady ray; and the earth obedient brings enchantment forth.\nAll night long in the humid dark the high-voiced hyla-bands\n  Chant of it in chill strain from South to North.\n\n\nVIII\n\nA wondrous mage, in a land whose dreams are made reality\n  As swift as clouds are made when the young Monsoon is in the South.\nA land that is born of the sea and by it destined e'er to be\n  Beyond all fear of famishing and drouth.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WIND'S WORD\n\n\n  A star that I love,\n  The sea, and I,\nSpake together across the night.\n  \"Have peace,\" said the star,\n  \"Have power,\" said the sea,\n\"Yea!\" I answered, \"and Fame's delight!\"\n\n  The wind on his way\n  To Araby\nPaused and listened and sighed and said,\n  \"I passed on the sands\n  A Pharaoh's tomb:\nAll these did he have--and he is dead.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHRINE OF SHRINES\n\n\nThere is in Egypt by the ancient Nile\nA temple of imperishable stone,\nStupendous, columned, hieroglyphed, and known\nTo all the world as Faith's supremest shrine.\nHalf in debris it stands, a granite pile\nGigantic, stayed midway in resurrection,\nAn awe, an inspiration, a dejection\nTo all who would the cryptic past divine.\nThe god of it was Ammon, and a throng\nOf worshippers from Thebes the royal-gated\nForever at its fervid pylons waited\nWhile priests poured ever a prophetic song.\nAnd yet this Ammon, who gave Egypt laws,\nIs not--and is forgot--and never was!\n\n\n\n\nFROM A FELUCCA\n\n\nA white tomb in the desert,\nAn Arab at his prayers\nBeside the Nile's dark water,\nWhere the lone camel fares.\nAn ibis on the sunset,\nA slow shadouf at rest,\nAnd in the caravansary\nLow music for the guest.\n\nAbove the tawny city\nA gleam of minarets,\nResounding the muezzin's\nClear call as the sun sets.\nA mystery, a silence,\nA breathing of strange balm,\nA peace from Allah on the wind\nAnd on the sky his calm.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EGYPTIAN WAKES\n\n\nI woke at night in my eternal tomb\nThe desert sands had hid a thousand years,\nAnd heard the Nile-crier across the gloom\nCalling, \"The flood has come! beseech the gods!\"\nI rose in haste, as one who blindly hears,\nAnd sought the barterers of grain and wine\nCulled for the praise and service of divine\nGreat Isis, by the slave who for her plods.\nBut as I passed along, woe! what was this,\nStrange faces and strange fashions and strange fanes\nStanding upon the midnight; Oh, the pains\nThat swept across my startled thought's abyss!\nI moaned. My body crumbled into dust.\nAnd then my soul fled Here--where all souls must.\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMAM'S PARABLE\n\n\nBehold, the wind of the Desert rose,\n  Khamsin, in a shroud of sand,\nAnd swept the Libyan waste, across\n  To far Somali-land.\nHis voice was thick with the drouth of death\nAnd smote the earth as a burning breath,\nOr as a curse which Allah saith\n  Unto a demon-band.\n\nThe caravan from the oasis\n  Of palm-engirt K\u00fbrk\u00fbr\nShuddered and couched in shaken heaps,\n  The horror to endure.\nIts mighty Sheik, like a soul in Hell\nWho longs for the lute of Israfel,\nLonged for the trickle of Keneh's well,\n   Imperishably pure!\n\nThree days he longed, and the wind three days\n  About him whirled the shroud.\nThen did a shrill dawn bring the sun--\n  And a gaunt vulture-crowd.\nA few bleak bones on the Desert still\n  Lie for the Judgment Day to thrill\nAgain into life--if Allah will:\n  _Let not your heart be proud._\n\n\n\n\nSONGS OF A SEA-FARER\n\n\nI\n\nMany are on the sea to-day\n  With all sails set.\nThe tide rolls in a restive gray,\n  The wind blows wet.\nThe gull is weary of his wings,\nAnd I am weary of all things.\n\nHeavy upon me longing lies,\n  My sad eyes gaze\nAcross the leagues that sink and rise\n  And sink always.\nMy life has sunk and risen so,\nI'd have it cease awhile to flow.\n\n\nII\n\nAll the winds of the sea weary,\n  All the waves of the sea rest,\nAll the wants of my heart settle\n  Softly now in my breast.\nAll the stars that in heaven anchor,\n  Golden buoys of Elysian light,\nSend me across the gulf promise\n  That I am faring right.\n\nSo while clouds that are left lonely\n  At the gates of the far West\nWait, so still, for the moon's stiller\n  Stealing from her nest,\nI am held by a low vesper\n  Haunting afar the vague twilight,\nThen with my soul at peace whisper\n  Hallowedly good-night.\n\n\n\n\nA SONG OF THE SECTS\n\n(_In a Jerusalem tavern_)\n\n\nA Latin and Greek, praise God, are we, Armenian and Copt,\nAnd we're all drunk as drunk can be, for we've together sopped.\nNot one of us but spits at the creed the others mouth and purr,\nBut we all believe, we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!\n\n_The Armenian sings_\n\nThe Copt comes out of Egypt-land and with a braggart face\nHe'll tell you that his fathers piled the Pyramids in place.\nIn his Monophysite Christ we set no faith, the blasphemer!\nBut we all believe, we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!\n\n_The Latin sings_\n\nThe Greek will curse you if you call his Ikons images,\nAnd damns your soul to Hell--no purgatory, if you please!\nAbout Procession of the Ghost he's prickly as a burr,\nBut he believes, as we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!\n\n_The Copt sings_\n\nOf heretics God leaves unburnt, Armenians are worst,\nThey will not celebrate the Day, that was for Christ the first.\nNo wine with water mixed for them, as well mix heathen myrrh--\nOr not believe, as we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!\n\n_The Greek sings_\n\nThe Latin swears his Roman Pope is judge infallible.\nWherefore you may be very sure the Devil from his skull\nWill drink a toast unto all liars, who such a lie aver--\nTho they believe, as we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!\n\n_The Four again_\n\nA Latin and Greek, praise God, are we, Armenian and Copt,\nAnd we're all drunk as drunk can be, for we've together sopped.\nNot one of us but hankers to hang all Jews on a Juniper,\nFor we all believe, we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!\n\n\n\n\nTHE CITY\n\n\nSoft and fair by the Desert's edge,\n  And on the dim blue edge of the sea,\nWhere white gulls wing all day and fledge\nTheir young on the high cliff's sandy ledge,\nThere is a city I have beheld,\nSometime or where, by day or dream,\nI know not which, for it seems enspelled\n  As I am by its memory.\n\nPale minarets of the Prophet pierce\n  Above it into the white of the skies,\nAnd sails enchanted a thousand years\nFlit at its feet while fancy steers.\nNo face of all its faces to me\nIs known--no passion of it or pain.\nIt is but a city by the sea,\n  Enshrined forever beyond my eyes!\n\n\n\n\nVIA AMOROSA\n\n(_To A. H. R._)\n\n\nWhen we two walk, my love, on the path\n  The moon makes over the sea,\nTo the end of the world where sorrow hath\n  An end that is ecstasy,\nShould we not think of the other road\n  Of wearying dust and stone\nOur feet would fare did each but care\n  To follow the way alone?\n\nWhen we two slip at night to the skies\n  And find one star that we keep\nAs a trysting-place to which our eyes\n  May lead our souls ere sleep,\nShould we not pause for a little space\n  And think how many must sigh\nBecause they gaze over starry ways\n  With no heart-comrade by?\n\nWhen we two then lie down to our dreams\n  That deepen still the delight\nOf our wandering where stars and streams\n  Stray in immortal light,\nShould we not grieve with the myriads\n  From East of earth to West\nWho lay them down at night but to drown\n  The longing for some loved breast?\n\nAh, yes, for life has a thousand gifts,\n  But love it is gives life.\nWho walks thro his world alone e'er lifts\n  A soul that is sorrow-rife.\nBut they to whom it is given to tread\n  The moon-path and not sink\nCan ever say the unhappiest way\n  Earth has is fair to the brink.\n\n\n\n\nDUSK AT HIROSHIMA\n\n\nSoftly the bamboo bends\nAs the sun sinks down unglowing,\nSofter the willow ends\nA sigh to the dusk around.\nQuickly the brief bat wends\nHis flittering way, thro flowing\nFields of the autumn air,\nThat are husht of the city's sound.\n\nTemple and thatch and stream\nAre forgetting the light that lingers,\nMountain and mist in dream\nAlready are lost, afar.\nFaintingly comes the beam\nOf the moon--then viewless fingers\nTinkle a samisen,\nAnd astir on the East is a star.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WANDERER\n\n\n    When moonlight on the face\n      Of the great Buddha falls\n    As he sits in Nirvana\n      On the shores of Kamakura,\n    When the pines about him place\n      Soft shadows at his feet\nLike offerings of penitence and tears,\n    I hear in the grace\n      Of the wind's low susurra\n    A voice that calls me still\n      To my home within the West,\n    But I've lingered overlong\n      In the East's strange arcana\nAnd no more is there desire within my breast.\n\n    I left it when a boy,\n      That far home and, alas,\n    'Twas so fair that my dreaming\n      Earth had fairer was a madness.\n    I left it for the joy\n      Of wandering the world,\nAnd heathen-hearted lands have I beheld!\n    But when at last cloy\n      Of delight brought sadness\n    Like lotus to my veins,\n      And forgetfulness seemed fate,\n    I had fared unto this shrine\n      And the moon as now was beaming,\nAnd here have I awaited--and await.\n\n    But not for any gift\n      Of its god, or any grace\n    That in living or in dying\n      Men in text or sutra sigh for.\n    And not for any shrift\n      Nirvana has, or skies\nWhere Paradise imperishably smiles.\n    But only for the sift\n      Of the wind, that seems to die for\n    My soul's enduring peace\n      In the dwelling of the Tomb.\n    And only for the drift\n      Of the moon that comes denying\nEternity to everything but Doom.\n\n\n\n\nIN A SHINTO TEMPLE GARDEN\n\n\nUnder the torii, robed in green,\n  The old priest creeps to the shrine.\nOver the bridge the still stork stands,\n  The crow caws not in the pine.\n\nFar in the distance bugles blow,\n  War's bloody memory wakes.\nThe priest prays on--for his sons that are dead,\n  And the heart within him breaks.\n\n\n\n\nFAR FUJIYAMA\n\n\nAgainst the phantom gold of failing skies\nI see the ghost of Fujiyama rise\nAnd think of the innumerable eyes\n  That have beheld its vision sunset-crowned.\nThe peasant in his field of rice or tea,\nThe prince in gardens dreaming by the sea,\nThe priest to whom the s\u00eami in the tree\n  Was but some shrilling soul's incarnate sound.\n\nAnd as I think upon them, lo, the trance\nOf backward time and distant circumstance,\nOf Karma's all-remembering necromance,\n  Lies suddenly before my boundless sight.\nIt is as if, a moment, Buddhahood\nWere given to me; as if understood\nAt last were vague Nirvana's vaguer good;\n  As if time were dissolved in living light.\n\n\n\n\nON MIYAJIMA MOUNTAIN\n\n(_To A. H. R._)\n\n\nOut on the sea the sampans ride\n  And the mountains brim with mist and sun.\nO we are in Japan again\n  And the spell is about us spun!\nThe spell of the old enchanting East,\nOf Buddha and many a blissful priest,\nThe spell that has never, never ceased\n  To haunt us!\n\nGlad we behold the temple-tops\n  And the lanterns in religious row\nStanding, like acolytes of stone,\n  Where the pine and camphor grow.\nAnd o'er them the old pagoda prays\nBlessing upon their dreaming days,\nAnd upon the eightfold sacred ways\n    From Sorrow!\n\nAh, and the torii too is there\n  Where the tranced sea enters to his shrine\nDaily, with tidal mystery\n  And majesty divine.\nHe enters now, as the nuptial sea\nOf love first entered our hearts, to be\nLord of their tides eternally,\n    And Master!\n\n\n\n\nOLD AGE\n\n\nI have heard the wild geese,\n  I have seen the leaves fall,\nThere was frost last night\n  On the garden wall.\nIt is gone to-day\n  And I hear the wind call.\n  The wind?... that is all.\n\nIf the swallow will light\n  When evening is near;\nIf the crane will not scream\n  Like a soul in fear;\nI will think no more\n  Of the dying year,\n  And the wind, its seer.\n\n\n\n\nON THE YANG-TSE-KIANG\n\n\n  Down the Yang-tse bat-wing junk\n  And tatterdemalion sampan glide,\nSails of brown and black and yellow swinging.\n  Down the Yang-tse bat-wing junks\n  Fish-eyed and gaudy take the tide,\n  Forth to the sea in sloth they ride,\n      The coolies singing.\n\n  Off in the field the peasant toils\n  And along the canal the low tows slip,\nFruit of the red persimmon piled upon them.\n  Off in the field the peasant toils--\n  With lip and brow the dull years strip\n  Bare of the dreams of life, whose grip\n      Has grimly drawn them.\n\n  High on the hill the yam\u00ean rests\n  And the temple beside it sleeps in sun,\nFar in the distance faints the city dreary.\n  High on the hill the yam\u00ean rests,\n  And dun dead shadows o'er it run:\n  This is the land where Time begun\n      And now grows weary.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEA-ARMIES\n\n\n  The wild sea-armies led by the wind\n    Are following in our wake,\nWhite-crested shouting millions moving on.\n  They have broken their camp of Calm and o'er\n    The world rebellion make,\nWith banner of cloud and mist above them drawn.\n\n  They have heard the call of infinite Death,\n    The ordering of his word,\n\"Arise, go forth and conquer where ye can;\n  For that is the only law ye know,\n    Its mandate men have heard,\nLet them beware when they your path would span.\n\n  \"Let them beware, for I am lord\n    Of all that on earth has name,\nAnd unto you is given most my might.\n  Ride on, ye have many a ship to rend,\n    And many a mast to maim,\nAnd many a land to lash and soul to fright.\"\n\n  So on they ride, a ravaging horde,\n    From shore to shuddering shore,\nBeyond us in the bleak star-buried dawn;\n  Nor know that when they have camped again\n    And sleep, Life will restore\nUnto her world the hope they have withdrawn.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN IN EXILE\n\n(_Mandalay_)\n\n\nThe palms along the old fort wall are paling,\n  The mountains in the evening light are red,\nThe moon has dropped into the moat from heaven,\n  A spell barbaric over all is spread.\nBut what is that to him, a stranger lonely,\n  In a land strange to all his faith and dim?\nHe cares not for old splendours, he would only\n  Hear on the air a simple Sabbath hymn.\n\nThe paddy-birds their snowy flight are taking\n  From the tall tamarind unto their nest,\nThe bullock-carts along the road are creaking,\n  The bugles o'er the wall are sounding rest.\nOn a calm jetty looking off to Mecca\n  Sons of Mahomet watch the low day's rim.\nHe too is waiting for it--with an echo\n  Upon his lips of a believer's hymn.\n\nThe red gate-towers rise against the twilight,\n  The palace of the heathen king is hid,\nThe white bridge bent across the moat beside it\n  Seems now of all unholinesses rid.\nHe wishes it were so with all this city\n  Whose Buddha-built pagodas skyward swim;\nBut he can only gaze on them and pity--\n  And sing within his heart a Christian hymn.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PARSEE WOMAN\n\n(_At Bombay_)\n\n\nCast me out from among you,\n  I will not see my child\nLaid aloft where the vultures\n  May clamour for him, wild!\nThe earth you say is holy,\n  Not to be soiled by death,\nAnd a Parsee still should hold divine\n  What Zoroaster saith.\n\nAy, and so I will hold it,\n  But see his pale sweet face,\nAs pure as the palest flower\n  Left dead in Spring's embrace.\nThe sun we worship daily\n  Shrined it for seven years,\nThen shall it go to cruel beaks,\n  There where the sea-wind veers?\n\nNo, no, no! tho you send me\n  A beggar from your door,\nYou, my lord, whom I honour,\n  And you, his sisters four,\nTo whom there have come no children\n  To make your bosoms feel\nHow even a thought so full of throe\n  Can make my sick brain reel.\n\nAh, you are deaf? you scorn me\n  And loathe, as a thing defiled?\nMy lord, I am but a woman\n  Who longs to see her child\nLaid in a tomb, entreasured\n  Under the shrouding sod.\nO would I had never given birth,\n  Or that earth had no God!\n\n\n\n\nSHAH JEHAN TO MUMTAZ MAHAL\n\n\n  I see as in a pale mirage\n  The palm that o'er you sways,\nThe waters of the Jumna wan are beating.\n  One pearl-cloud, like a far-off Taj,\n  A dome of grief betrays--\nIts beauty as was yours will be too fleeting!\n\n  The world is wider than I knew\n  Now that your face is gone!\nWhile you were here no destiny seemed boundless.\n  So I am lost and find no clue\n  To any dusk or dawn!\nLife has become a quest decayed and groundless.\n\n  Come back! come back or let me find\n  The jungle leads at last\nUnto your lips and bosom recreated!\n  O somewhere I again must wind\n  My arms about you, cast\nInto one word my love all unabated!\n\n\n\n\nPRINCESS JEHANARA\n\n\nWhere the road leads from Delhi to the South,\nAnd dingy camel-trains creep in the dust\nPast ruin-heaps of old Firozabad\nAnd Indropat unpitied of the drouth;\nBy a lone tree, above a Pool whose sad\nPrayer-water all the turban-people trust,\nIs a heat-hidden tomb, and on it just\nA few faint blades of bent and grieving grass.\n\"Jehanara's it is,\" with ready mouth\nA Moslem tells the stranger, \"once she said,\n'The covering of the poor is only grass,\nLet it be mine alone when I am dead.'\"\nAnd who has stood there, where about her Rest\nRise high Imperial tombs, knows hers is best.\n\n\n\n\nA SINGHALESE LOVE LAMENT\n\n\n  As the cocoanut-palm\n    That pines, my love,\n  Away from the sound\n    Of the planter's voice,\n  Am I, for I hear\n    No more resound\nYour song by the pearl-strewn sea!\n  The sun may come\n    And the moon wax round,\n  And in its beam\n    My mates may rejoice,\n  But I feast not\n    And my heart is dumb,\nAs I long, O long, for thee!\n\n  In the jungle-deeps,\n    Where the cobra creeps,\n  The leopard lies\n    In wait for me.\n  But O, my love,\n    When the daylight dies\nThere is more to my dread than he!\n  Harsh lonely tears\n    That assail my eyes\n  Are worse to bear,\n    For the misery\n  That makes them well\n    Is the long, long years\nThat I moan away from thee!\n\n  O again, again,\n    In my katamaran\n  A-keel would I push\n    To your palmy door!\n  Again would I hear\n    The heave and hush\nOf your song by the plantain-tree.\n  But far away\n    Do I toil and crush\n  The hopes that arise\n    At my sick heart's core.\n  For never near\n    Does it come, the day\nThat draws me again to thee!\n\n\n\n\nON THE ARABIAN GULF\n\n\nFrom a far minaret of faithful cloud\nA wraith-muezzin of the sunset cried\nOver the sea that swung with sultan pride,\n\"Allah is Beauty, there is none beside!\nAllah is Beauty, not to be denied\nBy Death or any Infidel dark-browed!\"\n\nAnd every wave that worshipped, every one\nUnder the mosque of heaven arching high,\nLifted a white crest with assenting sigh\nAnd answered, \"Let all gods but Allah die,\nYea, let all gods! until the world shall cry,\nBeauty alone is left under the sun!\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE RAMESSID\n\n\nUpon an image of immortal stone,\nSeated and vast, the moon of Luxor falls,\nLending to it a stillness that appals,\nA mystery Osirian and strange.\nThe hands outplaced upon the knees in lone\nAnd placid majesty reveal the power\nOf Egypt in her most triumphal hour,\nThe calm of tyranny that cannot change.\nIt is of that Great king, who heard the cries\nOf millions toil to lift him to the skies,\nWho saw them perish at their task like flies,\nYet let no eye of pity o'er them range.\nWhat rue, then, if his desecrated face\nRots now at Cairo in a mummy case?\n\n\n\n\nIMMORTAL FOES\n\n\nAt Bedrashein between the pyramids\nI saw the wing\u00e8d sun fold up his pinions\nAnd sink into the nether world's dominions\nWhere Set sent ill on the Egyptian dead.\nI saw the ancient Desert, that outbids\nThe Nile for the date-lands between them spread,\nFling over Memphis that is vanish\u00e8d,\nAnother shroud of sand, then bid his minions,\nThe winds, lie down upon their boundless bed.\n\nI saw where temples vowed to Serapis\nAnd granite splendours men name Pharaonic\nAre kept by Time in silence and sardonic\nConcealment--mummied in deep mystic tombs.\nAnd when the stars came out in quiet bliss,\nI heard Eternity with all its dooms,\nPast and to come, sound softly the mnemonic\nOf Death who waits all worlds that Life enwombs.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONSCRIPT\n\n\nThe camel at the old sakiyeh\n  Toils around and round.\nAweary is he of the Nile\n  And of the wailing sound\nOf the slow wheel he turns all day\nTo lift the water on its way\nOver the fields of Ahmed Bey,\n  That with green grain abound.\n\nAweary is he, too, of fell\u00e0heen\n  Who compel him on,\nWith thick-voiced chanting till the day\n  Over the West has gone.\nFor the bold Desert was he made,\nThe Bedouin, his lord, to aid,\nNot for this peasant wheel of trade\n  That ever must be drawn.\n\nBut on he toils while dahabiyeh\n  And dark felucca glide\nBelow him on the glassy flow\n  Of the gray river's tide.\nThen when the night has come lies down,\nIn sleep the servile day to drown--\nLike all whom Life turns with a frown\n  From their true fate aside.\n\n\n\n\nNAVIS IGNOTA\n\n\nLord, what ship goes forth to-day?\n  I see her setting West.\nShall she have thy winds aright,\nStars to guide her with their light,\nShall she sweep the seas to sight\n  Of land and harbour-rest?\n\nAwful is thy ocean-wrath,\n  And none can chart thy shoals\nWhen storm unassuaging hath\nBlotted sun and planet-path.\nShall she, Lord, escape the scath\n  And live, with all her souls?\n\nFor it is a beauteous thing\n  That ships should sail the sea.\nSplendid is their plunge and swing\nInto waves that foam and fling\nMaelstroms at their bows to bring\n  Them down to destiny.\n\nAnd she, too, courageous rides\n  Away into the gloom.\nNow her lights are lost in tides\nOf the windy spray that glides\nThro the darkness, Lord, abides\n  Thy Dove with her--or Doom?\n\nI shall know perhaps some day,\n  Or, knowing not, recall\nHow my heart was fain to pray\nFor a ship that bravely lay\nTo her task: O Lord, so may\n  Each vessel of us all!\n\n\n\n\nTHE CROSS OF THE SEPULCHRE\n\n\nWithin the Holy Sepulchre, breast-high,\nThere is a cross uncounted lips have kissed,\nMillions the world to dust has long dismissed,\nMillions that now hope of it but to die.\nPilgrims, I saw, from out far fervid lands\nOf superstition, North and West and South,\nBend to it each a trembling, reverent mouth,\nThen kneel where Christ was said to loose Death's bands.\nAnd then I wondered if He who believed\nIn the One God were wounded sore by this,\nWhether He shrinks at each ecstatic kiss,\nOr knowing how humanity is grieved,\nKnows too that it is better to give Hope\nThan Truth, if only one is in man's scope.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NUN\n\n\nA lone palm leans in the moonlight\n  Over a convent wall.\nThe sea below is waking and breaking\n  With quiet heave and fall.\nA young nun sits at the window;\n  For Heaven she is too fair;\nYet even the Dove of God might nest\n  In her bosom beating there.\n\nA lone ship sails from the harbour:\n  Whom does it bear away?\nHer lover who sin-hearted has parted\n  And left her but to pray?\nShe has no lover, nor ever\n  Has heard afar love's sigh.\nOnly the convent's vesper vow\n  Has ever dimmed her eye.\n\nFor naught knows she of her beauty,\n  More than the palm of its peace;\nAnd who beyond Christ's portal to mortal\n  Desires would bend her knees?\nThe ways of the World have flowers,\n  And any who will pluck those;\nBut let there ever be a place\n  Where none may pluck God's rose.\n\n\n\n\nALPINE CHANT\n\n\nI'm tramping thro the mountains,\nThey are rising white around me,\nSnow peaks like patriarchs\n  That Winter has enthroned.\nI'm tramping up the valleys\nWhere the cataracts sound me\nThunders they have shrilly\n  From eternity intoned.\n\nI'm tramping thro the mountains,\nWith the clouds for my companions,\nSoft clouds that float and cling\n  From crag to cloven crag.\nI'm passing by the chalets\nThat o'erhang the high ca\u00f1ons,\nPassing where the shepherds\n  And the flocks they pipe to lag.\n\nI'm tramping thro the mountains\nWhere the pines in proud procession\nClimb like a hardy host\n  To halo-heights of sun.\nI'm listening for the sallies\nOf the avalanche's Hessian\nHurl of ice and granite\n  Into gulfs Avernian.\n\nI'm tramping thro the mountains\nAnd the wind is yodling to me\nYearnings of the glaciers\n  To flow to summer lands.\nI'm treading up the valleys\nWith no wanting to undo me--\nFor to-day I'm goalless\n  And the great God understands!\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN OF MIGHT\n\n\nNo moment drooped between his thought and action,\n  No morrow died between his dream and deed.\nWithin his soul there was no fatal faction\n  That could betray him in his hour of need.\n\n\n\n\nIN TIME OF AWE\n\n\nThe fierce sea-sunset over the world\n  Springs like a wounded spirit,\nThe waves all day have hissed and hurled\nTheir fangs and the spray has swept and swirled,\nAnd ships in the gray gale's lair have furled\n  Their sails--well may they fear it!\n\nThe night will be but a monstrous seethe\n  Of terrors elemental.\nThe clouds will wrap in a ghastly wreath\nOf gloom the winds that in them breathe,\nAnd all that lives in the sea beneath\n  By fear shall be made gentle;\n\nAnd sink down, down to the nether deeps,\n  Below the foam and fretting.\nDown where the sullen water sleeps\nAlway and the slow sand coldly creeps\nOver the lone wreck, which Death keeps\n  To guard him 'gainst forgetting.\n\nAnd there in the ominous vast calm\n  They'll harbour, like enchanted\nChill shapes he has strangely conjured from\nThe silence of his masterdom;\nThere float till again they feel the qualm\n  Of hunger thro them panted.\n\nAnd then once more far up will they spring,\n  To drift and sport and plunder,\nShark, eel and whale and devil-thing,\nWith tooth to rend and tail to sting.\nTo the sea, O God, does horror cling\n  And haunting past all wonder.\n\n\n\n\nSUNRISE IN UTAH\n\n\nThe dun sand-cliffs that break the desert's sea\nRose suddenly upon my sight at dawn,\nAnd terrible in an eternity\nOf death took silently the sunrise on.\nPurple funereal from rifted skies\nSwept down across their proud sterility,\nOnly to die as here all glory dies,\nOn barrenness I did not dream could be.\nO God, for a bird-song! or opening lips\nOf but one flower upon the fatal air,\nFor but the voice of water as it drips,\nOr stir of leaves the day-wind makes aware!\nO God, for these, for life! or from the face\nOf the world wipe so irreparable a place!\n\n\n\n\nCONSOLATION\n\n\nI\n\nCome to me, shadows, down the hill,\nLie softly at my feet.\nThe sun has worked his will\nAnd the day is done.\nCome to me softly and distil\nYour dews and dreams, that heat\nAnd hours of heartless glare have overrun.\n\n\nII\n\nCome to me, shadows, down the hill\nAnd bring with you the night,\nFire-flies and the whippoorwill\nAnd ah, the moon--\nWhose soft interpretings can still\nThe tangled tongues of right\nAnd wrong, and hope and fear, that haunt the noon.\n\n\nIII\n\nCome to me, shadows, down the hill--\nAnd let there follow Sleep,\nWhich is God's tidal Will\nThat overflows\nThe world--obliterating ill,\nAnd in its soothing sweep\nMurmuring more of mercy than man knows.\n\n\n\n\nWAVES\n\n\nThe evening sails come home\n  With twilight in their wings.\nThe harbour-light across the gloam\n        Springs;\n      The wind sings.\n\nThe waves begin to tell\n  The sea's night-sorrow o'er,\nWeaving within their ancient spell\n        More\n      Than earth's lore.\n\nThe rising moon wafts strange\n  Low lures across the tide,\nOn which my dim thoughts seem to range,\n        Stride\n      Upon stride,\nUntil, with flooding thrill,\n  They seem at last to blend\nWith waves that from the Eternal Will\n        Wend,\n      Without end.\n\n\n\n\nVIS ULTIMA\n\n\nThere is no day but leads me to\n  A peak impossible to scale,\n  A task at which my hands must fail,\n  A sea I cannot swim or sail.\nThere is no night I suffer thro\n  But Destiny rules stern and pale:\nAnd yet what I am meant to do\n  I will do, ere Death drop his veil.\n\nAnd it shall be no little thing,\n  Tho to oblivion it fall,\n  For I shall strive to it thro all\n  That can imperil or appal.\nSo at each morning's trumpet-ring\n  I mount again, less slave and thrall,\nAnd at the barriers gladly fling\n  A fortitude that scorns to crawl.\n\n\n\n\nMEREDITH\n\n\nWhat am I reading? He is dead?\nHe the great interpreter\nAnd seer--England's noblest head?\nWhat am I reading? It is hushed?\nThe deepest voice that life had found\nTo read a century profound\nWith all time's seethe and stir?\n\nWhy, it is but a scanty score\nOf days, since, at his side,\nClasping his hand with more than pride,\nI felt that the immortal tide\nOf his great mind would long break o'er\nThe cold command of Death.\nStill in my ear is echoing\nThe surf of his strong words, and still\nAgainst the wild trees on the Hill\nHis cottage sheltered under,\nI see the toss of his gray locks,\nLike Lear's--for he had felt the sting\nOf all too greatly giving\nThe kingdom of his mind to those\nWho for it held him mad.\n\nO England, guard thy living\nLike him from a like fate!\nFor not the mighty thunder\nOf thy proud name from all the rocks\nOf all the world can compensate\nA nation whom no Song makes glad,\nAnd whom no Seer makes great.\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Many Gods","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":8955}