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Title: Nirvana Days

Author: Cale Young Rice

Release date: October 7, 2009 [eBook #30198]

Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David Garcia, Ritu Aggarwal and the Online

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIRVANA DAYS ***

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.

NIRVANA DAYS

NIRVANA DAYS

BY

CALE YOUNG RICE

AUTHOR OF

CHARLES DI TOCCA, A NIGHT IN AVIGNON,

YOLANDA OF CYPRUS, DAVID, ETC.

NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

MCMIX

Copyright, 1909, by Cale Young Rice

TO

JAMES LANE ALLEN

WITH FRIENDSHIP AND

FAITHFUL ESTEEM

FOREWORD

A few of the poems of this volume are retained from two of the author's earlier volumes which are now out of print. The rest are new.

CONTENTS

NON-DRAMATIC:

PAGE

INVOCATION

3

THE FAIRIES OF GOD

4

A SONG OF THE OLD VENETIANS

6

NIRVANA DAYS

8

THE YOUNG TO THE OLD

21

OFF THE IRISH COAST

23

A VISION OF VENUS AND ADONIS

24

SOMNAMBULISM

26

SERENATA MAGICA

28

O-SHICHI AND MOTO

31

AS OF OLD

40

A PRAYER

42

THE SONG OF A NATURE WORSHIPER

43

THE INFINITE'S QUEST

45

LAD AND LASS

46

THE STRONG MAN TO HIS SIRES

48

AT STRATFORD

53

THE IMAGE PAINTER

54

WANDA

56

IN A STORM

60

ANTAGONISTS

61

SEEDS

63

WORLD-SORROW

64

THE SOUL'S RETURN

67

BIRTHRIGHT

69

ROMANCE

71

ON THE ATLANTIC

73

BY A SILENT STREAM

74

THE GREAT BUDDHA OF KAMAKURA TO THE SPHINX

76

NECROMANCE

78

LOOK NOT TO THE WEST

79

A NIKKO SHRINE

81

THE QUESTION

83

I'LL LOOK NO MORE

85

NIGHT'S OCCULTISM

86

MORE OR LESS DRAMATIC:

PAGE

UNCROWNED

87

WRITTEN IN HELL

88

AT THE HELM

93

DEAD LOVE

94

MORTAL SIN

96

SEA-MAD

97

THE DEATH-SPRITE

99

WORMWOOD

103

QUEST AND REQUITAL (A Quatorzain Sequence)

105

LOVE IN EXTREMIS

112

OVER THE DREGS

114

BEWITCHED

116

QUARREL

118

OF THE FLESH

120

A DEATH SONG

123

ON BALLYTEIGUE BAY

125

NIGHT-RIDERS

129

HONOR

132

BRUDE, A DRAMATIC FANTASY

135

NIRVANA DAYS

INVOCATION

(From a High Cliff)

Sweep unrest

Out of my blood,

Winds of the sea! Sweep the fog

Out of my brain

For I am one

Who has told Life he will be free.

Who will not doubt of work that's done,

Who will not fear the work to do.

Who will hold peaks Promethean

Better than all Jove's honey-dew.

Who when the Vulture tears his breast

Will smile into the Terror's Eyes.

Who for the World has this Bequest—

Hope, that eternally is wise.

THE FAIRIES OF GOD

Last night I slipt from the banks of dream

And swam in the currents of God,

On a tide where His fairies were at play,

Catching salt tears in their little white hands,

For human hearts;

And dancing dancing, in gala bands,

On the currents of God;

And singing, singing:—

There is no wind blows here or spray—

Wind upon us!

Only the waters ripple away

Under our feet as we gather tears.

God has made mortals for the years,

Us for alway!

God has made mortals full of fears,

Fears for the night and fears for the day.

If they would free them from grief that sears,

If they would keep all that love endears,

If they would lay no more lilies on biers—

Let them say!

For we are swift to enchant and tire

Time's will!

Our feet are wiser than all desire,

Our song is better than faith or fame;

To whom it is given no ill e'er came,

Who has it not grows chill!

Who has it not grows laggard and lame,

Nor knows that the world is a Minstrel's lyre,

Smitten and never still!...

Last night on the currents of God.

A SONG OF THE OLD VENETIANS

The seven fleets of Venice

Set sail across the sea

For Cyprus and for Trebizond

Ayoub and Araby.

Their gonfalons are floating far,

St. Mark's has heard the mass,

And to the noon the salt lagoon

Lies white, like burning glass.

The seven fleets of Venice—

And each its way to go,

Led by a Falier or Tron,

Zorzi or Dandalo.

The Patriarch has blessed them all,

The Doge has waved the word,

And in their wings the murmurings

Of waiting winds are heard.

The seven fleets of Venice—

And what shall be their fate?

One shall return with porphyry

And pearl and fair agàte.

One shall return with spice and spoil

And silk of Samarcand.

But nevermore shall one win o'er

The sea, to any land.

Oh, they shall bring the East back,

And they shall bring the West,

The seven fleets our Venice sets

A-sail upon her quest.

But some shall bring despair back

And some shall leave their keels

Deeper than wind or wave frets,

Or sun ever steals.

NIRVANA DAYS

I

If I were in Japan today,

In little Japan today,

I'd watch the sampan-rowers ride

On Yokohama bay.

I'd watch the little flower-folk

Pass on the Bund, where play

Of "foreign" music fills their ears

With wonder new alway.

Or in a kuruma I'd step

And "Noge-yama!" cry,

And bare brown feet should wheel me fast

Where Noge-yama, high

Above the city and sea's vast

Uprises, with the sigh

Of pines about its festal fanes

Built free to sun and sky.

And there till dusk I'd sit and think

Of Shaka Muni, lord

Of Buddhas; or of Fudo's fire

And rope and lifted sword.

And, ere I left, a surging shade

Of clouds, a distant horde,

Should break and Fugi's cone stand clear—

With sutras overscored.

Sutras of ice and rock and snow,

Written by hands of heat

And thaw upon it, till 'twould seem

Meant for the final seat

Of the lord Buddha and his bliss—

If ever he repeat

This life where millions still are bound

Within Illusion's cheat.

II

Or were I in Japan today—

Perchance at Kyoto—

Down Tera-machi I would search

For charm or curio.

Up narrow stairs in sandals pure

Of soil or dust I'd go

Into a room of magic shapes—

Gods, dragons, dread Nio.

And seated on the silent mats,

With many a treasure near—

Of ivory the gods have dreamt,

And satsuma as dear,

Of bronzes whose mysterious mint

Seems not of now or here—

I'd buy and dream and dream and buy,

Lost far in Mâyâ's sphere.

Then gathering up my gains at last,

Mid "sayonaras" soft

And bows and gentle courtesies

Repeated oft and oft,

My host and I should part—"O please

The skies much weal to waft

His years," I'd think, then cross San-jo

To fair Chion-in aloft.

For set aloft and set apart,

Beyond the city's din,

Under the shade of ancient heights

Lies templed calm Chion-in.

And there the great bell's booming fills

Its gates all day, and thin

Low beating on mokugyo, by

Priests passioning for sin.

And there the sun upon its courts

And carvings, gods and graves,

Rests as no light of earth-lands known,

Like to Nirvana laves

And washes with sweet under-flow

Into the soul's far caves.

And no more shall this life seem real

To one who feels its waves.

"No more!" I'd say, then wander on

To Kiyomizu-shrine,

Which is so old antiquity's

Far self cannot divine

Its birth, but knows that Kwannon, she

Of mercy's might benign,

Has reached her thousand hands always

From it to Nippon's line.

And She should hear my many prayers,

And have my freest gifts.

And many days beside her should

I watch the crystal rifts

Of Otawa's clear waters earn

Their way, o'er rocks and drifts,

Beside the trestled temple down—

Like murmurs of sweet shrifts.

Then, when the city wearied me,

To Katsura I'd wend—

A garden hid across green miles

Of rice-lands quaintly penned.

And, by the stork-bestridden lake,

I'd walk or musing mend

My soul with lotus-memories

And hopes—without an end.

III

Or were I in Japan today,

Hiroshima should call

My heart—Hiroshima built round

Her ancient castle wall.

By the low flowering moat where sun

And silence ever fall

Into a swoon, I'd build again

Old days of Daimyo thrall.

Of charge and bloody countercharge,

When many a samurai

Fierce-panoplied fell at its pale,

Suppressing groan or cry;

Suppressing all but silent hates

That swept from eye to eye,

While lips smiled decorously on,

Or mocked urbane goodbye.

Then to the river I would pass

And drift upon its tide

By many a tea-house hung in bloom

Above its mirrored side.

And geisha fluttering gay before

Their guests should pause in pied

Kimono, then with laughter bright

Behind the shoji hide.

Unto an isle of Ugina's

Low port my craft should swing,

Or scarce an island seems it now

To my fair fancying,

But a shrined jut of earth up thro

The sea from which to sing

Unto the evening star of all

Night's incarnations bring.

Then backward thro the darkened streets

I'd walk: long lanterns writ

With ghostly characters should dance

Beside each door, or flit,

Thin paper spirits, to and fro

And mow the wind, when it

Demanded of them reverence

And passed with twirl or twit.

What music, too, of samisen

And koto I should hear!

Tinkle on weirder tinkle thro

The strangely wistful ear

What shadows on the shoji-door

Of my dim soul should veer

All night in sleep, and haunt the light

Of many a coming year!

IV

Or were I in Japan today,

From Ujina I'd sail

For mountain-isled Migajima

Upon the distance, frail

As the mirage, to Amida,

Of this world's transient tale,

Where he sits clothed in boundless light

And sees it vainly ail.

Up to the great sea-torii,

Its temple-gate, I'd wind,

There furl my sail beneath its beam;

And soon my soul should find

What it shall never, tho it sift

The world elsewhere, and blind

Itself at last with sight of all

Earth's blisses to mankind.

"Migajima! Migajima!"

How would enchantment chant

The syllables within me, till

Desire should cease and pant

Of passion press no more my will—

But let charmed peace supplant

All thought of birth and death and birth—

Yea, karma turn askant.

For on Migajima none may

Give birth and none may die—

Since birth and death are equal sins

Unto the wise. So I

Should muse all day where the sea spills

Its murmur softly by

The still stone lanterns all arow

Under the deathless sky.

And under cryptomeria-tree

And camphor-tree and pine,

And tall pagoda, rising roof

On roof into the shine

Of the pure air—red roof on roof,

With memories in each line

Of far Confucian China where

They first were held divine.

And o'er Migajima the moon

Should rise for me again.

So magical its glow, I dare

Think of it only when

My heart is strong to shun the snare

Of witcheries that men

May lose their souls in evermore,

Nor, after, care nor ken.

V

Yes, were I in Japan today

These things I'd do, and more.

For Ise gleams in royal groves,

And Nara with its lore,

And Nikko hid in mountains—where

The Shogun, great of yore,

Built timeless tombs whose glory glooms

Funereally o'er.

These things I'd do! But last of all,

On Kamakura's lea,

I'd seek Daibutsu's face of calm

And still the final sea

Of all the West within me—from

Its fret and fever free

My spirit—into patience, peace,

And passion's mastery.

THE YOUNG TO THE OLD

You who are old—

And have fought the fight—

And have won or lost or left the field—

Weigh us not down

With fears of the world, as we run!

With the wisdom that is too right,

The warning to which we cannot yield,

The shadow that follows the sun,

Follows forever!

And with all that desire must leave undone,

Though as a god it endeavor;

Weigh, weigh us not down!

But gird our hope to believe—

That all that is done

Is done by dream and daring—

Bid us dream on!

That Earth was not born

Or Heaven built of bewaring—

Yield us the dawn!

You dreamt your hour—and dared, but we

Would dream till all you despaired of be;

Would dare—till the world,

Won to a new wayfaring,

Be thence forever easier upward drawn!

OFF THE IRISH COAST

Gulls on the wind,

Crying! crying!

Are you the ghosts

Of Erin's dead?

Of the forlorn

Whose days went sighing

Ever for Beauty

That ever fled?

Ever for Light

That never kindled?

Ever for Song

No lips have sung?

Ever for Joy

That ever dwindled?

Ever for Love that stung?

A VISION OF VENUS AND ADONIS

I know not where it was I saw them sit,

For in my dreams I had outwandered far

That endless wanderer men call the sea—

Whose winds like incantations wrap the world

And help the moon in her high mysteries.

I know not how it was that I was led

Unto their tryst; or what dim infinite

Of perfect and imperishable night

Hung round, a radiance ineffable;

For I was too intoxicate and tranced

With beauty that I knew was very love.

So when divinity from her had stolen

Into his spirit, as, from fields of myrrh

Or forests of red sandal by the sea,

Steal slaking airs, and he began to speak,

I could but gather these few fleeting words:

"Your glance sends fragrance sweeter than the lily,

Your hands are visible bodiments of song

You are the voice that April light has lost,

Her silence that was music of glad birds.

The wind's heart have you, and its mystery,

When poet Spring comes piping o'er the hills

To make of Tartarus forgotten fear.

Yea all the generations of the world,

Whose whence and whither but the gods shall know.

Are vassal to your vows forevermore."

And she, I knew, made answer, for her words

Fell warm as womanhood with wordless things,

But I had drifted on within my dream,

To that pale space which is oblivion.

SOMNAMBULISM

I

Night is above me,

And Night is above the night.

The sea is beside me soughing, or is still.

The earth as a somnambulist moves on

In a strange sleep ...

A sea-bird cries.

And the cry wakes in me

Dim, dead sea-folk, my sires—

Who more than myself are me.

Who sat on their beach long nights ago and saw

The sea in its silence;

And cursed it or implored:

Or with the Cross defied;

Then on the morrow in their boats went down.

II

Night is above me ...

And Night is above the night.

Rocks are about me, and, beyond, the sand ...

And the low reluctant tide,

That rushes back to ebb a last farewell

To the flotsam borne so long upon its breast.

Rocks.... But the tide is out,

And the slime lies naked, like a thing ashamed

That has no hiding-place.

And the sea-bird hushes—

The bird and all far cries within my blood—

And earth as a somnambulist moves on.

SERENATA MAGICA

(Venetian)

My gondola is a black sea-swan,

And glides beneath the moon.

Dark palaces beside me pass,

Like visions in a beryl-glass

Of what shall never be, alas,

Or what has been too soon.

Like what shall never be, but in

The breathing of a swoon.

My gondola is a black sea-swan,

And makes her mystic way

From door to phantom water-door,

While carven balconies hang o'er

And casements framed for love say more

Than love can ever say.

Say more than any voice but voice

Of silent magic may.

My gondola is a black sea-swan—

Rialto lies behind.

And by me the Salute swings,

A loveliness that must take wings

And vanish, as imaginings

Within an Afrit's mind;

As vague and vast imaginings

That can no substance find.

My gondola is a black sea-swan:

San Marco and the shaft

Of the slim Campanile steal

Into my trance and leave a seal

Upon my senses, like the feel

Of long enchantment quaffed:

Of long enchantments such as songs

Of sage Al Raschid waft.

My gondola is a black sea-swan

And gains to the lagoon,

Where samphire and sea-lavender

Around me float or softly stir,

While far-off Venice still lifts her

Fair witchery to the moon

And all that wonder e'er gave birth

Seems out of beauty hewn.

O-SHICHI AND MOTO

I

O-Shichi, all my heart today

Is dreaming of your fate;

And of your little house that stood

Beside the temple gate;

Of its plum-garden hid away

Behind white paper doors;

And of the young boy-priest who read too late with you love-lores.

II

O-Shichi dwelt in Yedo—where

A thousand wonders dwell.

Gods, golden palaces and shrines

That like a charm enspell.

O-Shichi dwelt among them there,

More wondrous, she, than all—

A flower some forgetful god had from his hand let fall.

III

And all her days were as the dream

On flowers in the sun.

And all her ways were as the waves

That by Shin-bashi run.

And in her gaze there was the gleam

Of stars that cannot wait

Too long for love and so fare forth from heaven to find a mate.

IV

O-Shichi dwelt so, till one night

When all the city slept,

When not a paper lantern swung,

When only fire-flies swept

Soft cipherings of spirit-light

Across the temple's gloom—

Sudden a cry was heard—the cry that should O-Shichi doom.

V

For following the cry came flame,

A Chaya's roof a-blaze.

And quickly was the street a stream

Of stricken folk, whose gaze

Knew well that when the morning came

Their homes would be but smoke

Vanished upon the winds: now had O-Shichi's fate awoke.

VI

And waited. For at morning priests

In pity of her years

And desolation led her back

Behind the great god's spheres;

The great god Buddha, who of beasts

And men all mindful was.

O Buddha, in thy very courts O-Shichi learned love's laws!

VII

Love of the body and the soul,

Not of Nirvana's state!

Love that beyond itself can see

No beauty wise or great.

O-Shichi for a moon—a whole

Moon happy there beheld

The young boy-priest whose yearning e'er into his eyes upwelled.

VIII

So all too soon for her was found

Elsewhere a kindly thatch.

And all too soon O-Shichi heard

Behind her close love's latch.

They led her from the temple's ground

Into untrysting days.

And all too soon that happy moon was hid in sorrow's haze.

IX

For now at dawn she rose to dress

With blooms some honored vase,

Or to embroider or brew tea's

Sweet ceremonial grace.

Or she at dusk, in sick distress,

Before the butsudan,

Must to ancestral tablets pray—not to her Moto-San!

X

Not unto him, her love, who sways

Her breast, as moon the tide,

Whose breath is incense—Ah, again

To see him softly glide

Before the grave god-idol's gaze

Of inward ecstasy,

To watch the great bell boom for him its mystic sutra-plea.

XI

But weeks grew into weariness,

And weariness to pain,

And pain to lonely wildness, which

Set fire unto her brain.

And, "I will see my love!" distress

Made fair O-Shichi cry,

"Tho for ten lives away from him I then must live and die."

XII

Yet—no! She dared not go to him,

To her he could not come.

Then, sudden a thought her being swept

And struck her loud heart dumb.

Till in her rose confusion dim,

Fear fighting with Desire—

Which to O-Shichi took the shape of Fudo, god of fire.

XIII

And Fudo won her: for that night

Did fond O-Shichi dare

To set aflame her father's house,

Hoping again to share

The temple with her acolyte,

Her lover-priest, who, spent

With speechless passion for her face, in vain strove to repent.

XIV

But ah! what destiny can do

Is not for folly's hand.

The flames O-Shichi kindled were

From sea to Shiba fanned.

And it was learned a love-sick girl

Had charred a thousand homes.

Then were the fury-smitten folk like to a sea that foams.

XV

And so they seized her: but not in

The temple—O not there

Had she been led again by priests

In pity—led to share

Her lover's eyes; no, but her sin

Brought not one dear delight

To poor O-Shichi—who was now to look on her last rite.

XVI

For to the stake they bound her—fire

They lit—to be her fate....

O-Shichi, have I dreamt it all?

Your face, the temple gate,

The fair boy-priest shut from desire

In Buddhahood to-be?

Then let me dream and ever dream, O flower by Yedo's sea.

AS OF OLD

The fishermen bade their wives farewell,

(The sun floated merry up the morning)

They sang, to the rhythm of the low-swung swell,

"O come, lads, scorning

The highlands high,

There's no warning

In the blue south sky,

There's no warning,

O come, lads, free,

We'll cross the harbor bar and put to sea!"

The fisherwives prayed, the sails blew fast,

(O home it is happy where there's hoping)

They prayed—till the mist dimmed each dim mast:

Then "We're not moping,"

They sweetly sang,

"Winds come groping

And clouds o'erhang,

But we're not moping

Tho left ashore;

They'll come to us at dusk when day is o'er."

But swifter than God the sea-quake came,

(The fishers they were swallowed in its swirling)

O swifter than men could name God's name.

And white waves curling

Hissed in to shore.

The sea-birds whirling

Saw what, dashed hoar?

The sea-birds whirling

Saw dead upborne

The fishers that went forth upon the morn.

A PRAYER

One cricket left, of summer's choir.

One glow-worm, flashing life's last fire.

One frog with leathern croak

Beneath the oak,—

And the pool stands leaden

Where November twilights deaden

Day's unspent desire.

One star in heaven—East or West.

One wind—a gypsy seeking rest.

One prayer within my heart—

For all who part

Upon Death's dark portal,

With no hope of an immortal

Morrow for life's quest.

THE SONG OF A NATURE WORSHIPER

Live! Live! Live!

O send no day unto death,

Undrained of the light, of the song, of the dew,

Distilling within its breath.

Drink deep of the sun, drink deep of the night,

Drink deep of the tempest's brew,

Of summer, of winter, of autumn, of spring—

Whose flight can give what men never give!—

Live!

Live! Live! Live!

And love life's every throb:

The twinkling of shadows enmeshed in the trees,

The passionate sunset's sob;

The hurtling of wind, the heaving of hill,

The moon-dizzy cloud, the seas

That sweep with infinite sweeping all shores,

And thrill with a joy unfugitive!—

Live!

Live! Live! Live!

Unloose from custom and care,

From duty and sorrow and clinging design

Thy soul, through the silent Air.

Go into the fields where Nature's alone

And drink from her mystic wine

Divinity—till thou art even as She,

Great all ills of the world to forgive!

Live!

THE INFINITE'S QUEST

All night the rain

And the wind that beat

Dull wings of pain

On the seas without.

All night a Voice

That broke in my brain

And blew blind thoughts about.

All night they whirled

As a haunted throng

From some dim world

Where there is no rest.

All night the rain.

And the wind that swirled,

And the Infinite's lone quest.

LAD AND LASS

I heard the buds open their lips and whisper,

Whisper,

"Spring is here!"

The robins listened

And sang it loud.

The blue-birds came

In a fluttering crowd.

The cardinal preached

It high and proud,

Spring!

And thro the warm earth their song went trilling,

Trilling,

"Wake! Arise!"

The kingcups quickly

Assembled, strong.

The bluets stept

From the moss in throng.

Like fairies too

Came the cress along.

Spring!

And love in your breast, my lass, awaking—

Waking.

Love was born!

Your eyes were kindled,

Your lips were warm.

Wild beauties broke

From your face and form.

And all my heart

Was a heaven-storm,

Was Spring!

THE STRONG MAN TO HIS SIRES

Tonight as I was riding on a wave

Of triumph and of glory,

A Question suddenly, as from the grave,

Rose in me, culpatory.

"Whence come to you this joyance and this strength"

It said, "this might of vision?

This will that measures all things to its length,

That cuts with calm decision?

"This blood within your veins, that is as wine

Which Destiny's self blesses.

Whence flows it, from what grape that is divine,

Or trodden from what presses?

"Do you so proud forget what hands have borne

You to the heights and crowned you?

Would you behold what sackcloth has been worn

That laurels may surround you?"...

"I would—O lips invisible! whose breath"—

I answered—"so arraigns me;

Whose voice is as a sound sent forth of Death,

And like to Death entrains me.

"I would! For if the flesh of me and soul

Are fibred with the ages,

My triumph is of them and manifold

Of all life's mystic stages."

So, forth they came—a vast ancestral line,

Upon my vision teeming,

All shapes whose natal semblance could affine

Them to me, faintly gleaming.

I knew them as I knew myself, and felt

The Day of each within me;

And so began to speak, the while they dwelt

About—they who had been me.

"My Sires," I said, "think you I have forgot

The fervor of your living?

How into me is moulded all you thought.

Of getting or of giving?

"Think you I do not feel my every drop

Of blood is as an ocean

In which are surging and will never stop

All things your hope gave motion?

"My senses, that are swift to take delight

And shrine it in their being,

Are they not born of all your faith, and bright

With all your bliss of seeing?

"And my full heart within whose fount I hear

Your voices that are vanished,

Can it forget its gratitude or fear

Foes that you braved and banished?

"No. But the blindly striving years that led

You to the Rose's beauty,

Or taught you out of Ill to disembed

The golden veins of Duty;

"The wasting and incalculable wants

That in you quailed or quivered;

The longing that lit stars no dark now daunts—

I know, who stand delivered!

"To you then from whose throng the centuries

Long dead slip now their shrouding,

Who from oblivion's profundities

Rise up, and round are crowding,

"I say, Immortal do I hold your will!

Its gathered might ascending

Is sacred with the unconquerable might

Of God—who sees its ending;

"Of God—on whose strong Vine, Heredity,

Rooted in Voids primeval,

The world climbs ever to some great To-Be

Of passion or reprieval."

I said—and on night's infinite beheld

Silence alone beside me;

And majesty of greater meanings welled

Into my soul, to guide me.

AT STRATFORD

I could not sleep. The wind poured in my ear

Immortal names—Lear, Hamlet, Hal, Macbeth,

And thro the night I heard the rushing breath

Of ghost and witch and fool go whirling by.

I followed them, under the phantom sphere

Of the pale moon, along the Avon's near

And nimbused flowing, followed to his bier—

Who had evoked them first with mighty eye.

And as I gazed upon the peaceful spire

That points above earth's most immortal dust,

I could have asked God for His starry Lyre

Out of the skies to play my praise upon.

I could have shouted, as, O Wind, thou must,

"Here lies Humanity: kneel, and pass on."

THE IMAGE PAINTER

Up under the roof, in cold or heat,

Far up, aloof from the city street,

She sat all day

And painted gray

Cold idols, scarcely human.

And if she thought of ease and rest,

Of love that spells God's name the best,

Her few friends heard but one request—

"Pray for a tired little woman."

She sat from dawn till weary dusk.

Her hands plied on—with but a husk

Of bread to break

And for Christ's sake

To bless: was He not human?

Then when the light would leave her brush

She'd sit there still, in the dim hush,

And say aloud, lest tears should rush—

"Pray for a tired little woman."

They found her so—one morning when

A knock brought no sweet welcome ken

Of her still face

And cloistral grace

And brow so bravely human.

They found her by the window bar,

Her eyes fixed where had been some star.

O you that rest, where'er you are,

Pray for the tired little woman.

WANDA

"She shall be sportive as the fawn

That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;"

I'm Wanda born

Of the mirthful morn

So I heard the red-buds whisper

To the forest beech,

Tho I know that each

Is but a gossipy lisper.

I taunt the brook

With his hair outshook

O'er the weir so cool and mossy,

And mock the crow

As he peers below

With a caw that's vain and saucy.

Where the wahoo reds

And the sumac spreads

Tall plumes o'er the purple privet,

I beg a kiss

Of the wind, tho I wis

Right well he never will give it.

I hide in the nook

And sunbeams look

For me everywhere, like fairies.

Then out I glide

By the gray deer's side—

Ha, ha, but he never tarries!

Then I fright the hare

From his turfy lair

And after him send a volley

Of song that stops

Him under the copse

In wonderment at my folly.

And Autumn cries

"Be sad!" or sighs

Thro her nun lips palely pouting.

But then I leap

To the woods and keep

It wild with gleeing and shouting.

And when the sun

Has almost spun

A path to his far Golconda,

I climb the hill

And listen, still,

While he calls me—"Wanda! Wanda!"

And then I go

To the valley—Oh,

My dreams are sweeter than dreaming!

All night I play

Over lands of Fay,

In delight that seems not seeming.

IN A STORM

(To a Petrel)

All day long in the spindrift swinging,

Bird of the sea! bird of the sea!

How I would that I had thy winging—

How I envy thee!

How I would that I had thy spirit,

So to careen, joyous to cry,

Over the storm and never fear it!

Into the night that hovers near it!

Calm on a reeling sky!

All day long, and the night, unresting!

Ah! I believe thy every breath

Means that Life's Best comes ever breasting

Peril and pain and death!

ANTAGONISTS

I

Life flung to Art this voice, of mercy bare.

"Fool, to my human earth come you, so free,

To wreathe with phantom immortality

Whoever climbs with passionate lone care

That shifting, feverous and shadow stair

To Beauty—which is vainer than the sea

On furious thirst, or than a mote to Me

Who fill yon infinite great Everywhere?

Let them alone—my children! they are born

To mart and soil and saving commerce o'er

Wind, wave and many-fruited continents.

And you can feed them but of crumbs and scorn,

And futile glory when they are no more.

Within my hand alone is recompense!"

II

But Art made fierce reply, "Anathema,

On you who fill flesh but the spirit scorn.

Who give it to the unrequiting law

Of your brute soullessness and heart unborn

To aught than barter in your low bazaar—

Though Beauty die for it from star to star.

You are the god of Judas and those who

Betrayed Him unto nail and thorn and sword!

Of that relentless worm-bit Florence horde

Who drove lone Dante from them till he grew

So great in death they begged his bones to strew

Their pride and wealth and useless praise upon.

Anathema! I cry; and will, till none

Of all earth's children still shall worship you."

SEEDS

A thousand years

In a mummy's hand

A seed may lie.

Then, planted, spring

Into life again

Under sun and sky.

A thousand days

In a soul's dark ways

A word may wait.

But a touch at length

May arouse its strength

And the word proves—Fate.

WORLD-SORROW

(The Cry of the Modern)

World-sorrow have I known, like unto God.

Nothing there is of pain but echoes down

My breast with wan reverberance and pang,

And peaceless passes thro it evermore.

The struck bird's cry wounds my all-feeling blood

To pity that will not be solacèd,

Sounds on me like far pleas of the unborn

Against predestined days. A withering bud

Brews barrenness thro all the verdancy

Of Spring. And in a tear—tho anguish shape it

On the warm lid of joy—earth's Tragedy,

Whose curtain falls not for it has no end,

Comes mirrored to me as infinite Ill.

How shall I 'scape it! How, O how escape

The trooping of prayers lost upon the void,

Of hopes misborn and fading not to rest!

How shall I burn not with all vain-lit loves

That alway billow thro me their slow fire

Fed by the agony of new-broke hearts!

How loose me from too long commisery

For those whom unrequiting Time has given

To the altar of the aching world's unrest!

A grief immitigable to the Hand

Whose mystery of returning sun can heal

Winter away, seems here; a grief but calm

Of immortality can make forgiven!

For even as all the gleaming girth of stars

That wreathe the Illimitable beauteously

Quench not the vast of night, so do all joys

Life strews along her passing to the grave

Prevail not o'er the shadow of sure death.

And O Humanity, long-suffering Harp

Of passion-strings unnumbered, shall His skill

Flung thus forever o'er thy fragile rest

Build but these harmonies that seem sometimes

Unworth the misery of the trampled worm?

Would, would I were not vibrant with all strains

He strikes from thee, or else more perfect tuned!

World-sorrow have I known, like unto God.

THE SOUL'S RETURN

Let me lie here—

I care not for the distant hills today,

And the blue sphere

Of far infinity that draws away

All to its deep,

Would only sweep

Soothing the farther from me with its sway.

Let me lie here—

Gazing with vacant sadness on this weed.

The cricket near

Will utter all my heart can bear to heed.

Another voice

Would swell the noise

And surge, that ever sound in human need.

Let me lie here:

For now, so long my wasted soul has tossed

On the wide Mere

Of Mystery Hope's wing alone has crossed,

I ask no more

Than to restore

To simple things the wonder they have lost.

BIRTHRIGHT

(To A. H. R.)

My own, among the unnumbered years

God casts from that full Garner which

Is His Eternity one shall

Be ours, beyond all fate or fears.

For, ranging lone amid its thorns.

Seeking the buds that grew between,

We met and made its morning seem

New in a world grown old to morns.

And so tho He may scatter still

Many a fadeless other round,

In none, for us shall there be found

That first awakening and thrill.

But as in peace we tread Love's Land,

To which it gave us right of birth,

We shall remember that New Earth

Came when we first walked hand in hand.

ROMANCE

(To A. H. R. on North Cliff, Lynton, Devon)

White-caps hurry to meet the shore

An hundred fathoms down.

Gray sails are shimmering on the wind

Far out from Lynmouth town.

High crags above us are whispering keen,

The heather and the ling

Laugh to the sky as driven by

The wild gulls cry or cling.

And, where the far sun like a god

Scatters the mist, lies Shore.

Is it Romance's magic realm

Spring reigns forever o'er?

Romance that our morning hearts could see

Across the darkest foam?

Then do we know it well, my love,

Because it is our Home.

ON THE ATLANTIC

(To A. H. R.)

Who stood upon that schooner's driven deck

Last night as reefed and shuddering she hove

Into the twilight and all desperate drove

From wave to angrier wave that sought her wreck?

Who labored at her helm and watched the wind

Stagger the sea with all his stunning might,

Until in dimness dwindling from our sight

She vanished in the wrack that rode behind?

We know not, you and I, but our two souls

That followed as storm-petrels o'er the waves

Felt all the might of Him who sinks or saves,

And all the pity of earth's unreached goals.

Felt all—then swift returning to our love

Dwelt in its peace, uplifted safe above.

BY A SILENT STREAM

To sit by a silent stream,

Watching water-lilies dream:

While breezes winnow

The floating seeds,

And the aery minnow

Weaves his wavy web among the reeds.

Where a fallen sycamore

Whitely arches a pathway o'er,

And shadows darkle

The lambent cool,

As, softly a-sparkle.

Sunbeams arrow lightnings thro the pool.

Where the everlasting's breath

Odors mysteries of death.

Where iron-weeds, rusted

Leaf and pod,

By insects dusted,

Rustle—then in autumn sadness nod.

To sit ... till every sense

Lose thought of whither and whence;

Till earth and heaven

And faith and fate

No longer leaven

Life, with hope or fear, or love or hate.

THE GREAT BUDDHA OF KAMAKURA TO THE SPHINX

Grave brother of the burning sands,

Whose eyes enshrine forever

The desert's soul, are you not worn

Of gazing outward to dim strands

Of stars that weary never?

Infinity no answer has

For Time's untold distresses.

Its deepest maze of mystery

Is but Illusion built up as

The blind build skies—with guesses.

Nor has Eternity a place

On any starry summit.

The winds of Death are wide as Life,

And leave no world untouched—but race,

And soon with Night benumb it.

And Karma is the law of soul

And star—yea, of all Being.

And from it but one way there is.

Retreat into that trancèd Whole—

Which is not Sight nor Seeing;

Which is not Mind nor Mindlessness,

Nor Deed nor driven Doer,

Nor Want nor Wasting of Desire;

But only that which won can bless;

And of all else is pure.

Turn then your eyes from the far track

Of worlds, and gazing inward,

O brother, fare where Life has come,

Yea, into its far Whence fare back.

All other ways are sinward.

NECROMANCE

Can heedless gazing teach me more than toil?

Can swaying of sere sedge along the slope,

Or the dull lisp of oaken limbs that foil

The sun's ensheathing fervor, interfuse

My vacant being with far meanings whose

Soft airs blow from the hidden seas of Hope?

Or can the wintry sumac sably stooping

So charm and lift my heart from heartless drooping

When other healings all were asked in vain?

Yes—there are witcheries in the things of earth

That breathe with an illimitable voice

Wisdom and calm to us, and lure to birth

Dim intimations bidding us rejoice

Even in the great mystery of Pain.

LOOK NOT TO THE WEST

Look not to the west where the sun is dying

On fields of darkening clouds!

Look not to the west where the wild birds nest

And the winds are hieing

To sweep away sleep from the forest,

And tatter the shrouds of sable silence

Lit by the fire-fly's morris-dance.

Look not to the west—

'Tis best for the heart to hear not the chants

Of Evening over day's death!

Look not to the west where the sun is dying—

The sun that rose with song!

Look not to the west where the closèd quest

Of thy soul seems lying;

Where every sorrow that ever

Was wed with wrong in human breast,

From the sea of its radiance never fades!

Look not to the west—

'Tis best for the heart to see not the shades

That rise—the wrecks of the Past!

A NIKKO SHRINE

Under the sway, in old Japan,

Of silent cryptic trees,

There is a shrine the worldliest

Would near with bended knees.

Green, thro a torii, the way

Leads to it, worn, across

A rivulet whose voice intones

With mystery of moss.

A mystery that is everywhere:

The god beneath his shrine

Seems but a mossy shape—yet so

Ensheathed is more divine.

For tho Nature has muffled him

And sealed him there away,

The meaning of all faith remains—

That men will ever pray.

Aye will, as long as soul has need,

As long as earth is sod

With tombs, bow down the knee to all

That wakens in them God.

THE QUESTION

I shall lie so one day,

With lips of Silence set;

Eyes that no tear can wet

Again: a thing of Clay.

I shall lie so, and Earth

Will seize again her dust—

Though she must gnaw and rust

The coffin's iron girth.

I shall lie so—and they

Who still the Day bestride,

Will stand so by my side

And with sad yearning say:

"What is he now, this man,

Shut in a pallor there,

His spirit that could dare,

What—what now is its span?

"A withered atom's space

Within a withered brain?

Or can it from the Wain

To far Orion race?"

And, like all that have died,

I shall but answer—naught.

Yet Time this truth has taught:

The Question—will abide.

I'LL LOOK NO MORE

I'll look no more! thro timeless hours my eyes

Without intent have watched the slowing flight

Of ebon crows across quiescent skies

Till all are gone; the last, a lonely bird,

Scudding to rest thro streams of golden curd

That flow far eastward to the coming night.

And as I turn again to foiling thought

My spirit leaves me—as faint zephyrs leave

The trees at evening; tho all day they've sought

A place to hide them in and fondly grieve.

And silently the slow oil sinks beneath

The noiseless burning wick of yellow flame.

It is as if God back to him would breathe

All the world's given life, and end its Aim.

NIGHT'S OCCULTISM

Northward the twilight thro dark drifts

Of cloud-wreck lingers cold.

Southward the sated lightning sinks

Beneath the wooded wold.

Eastward immovable deep shade

Is sealed with mystery.

Westward a memory of dead gold

Wakes on a sunset sea.

Under, is earth's still orbiting;

Over, a clearing star:

In all, the spirit litany

Of life's strange avatar.

UNCROWNED

I am not other than men are, you say?

But faulty and failing? And your love can lend

No glory of illusion to o'erlay

The lack, and make me seem one in whom blend

Nobilities wherein your heart may lose

All that it feels of flaw in me, or rues?

Can it so be? Did ever woman love

Whose faith wreathed not about the brow she chose

Aureolas illumining him above

All that another thinks he is, or knows?

I ask it bravely, for the way is long,

And, haloless, should I not lead you wrong?

WRITTEN IN HELL

(By Sir Giles, whom the Witch of Urm leads to Judas Iscariot)

Against a castle moated gloomily by a bitter drain of blood,

From whose fetid wave contumely

Of all truth was reeking fumily

And infectiously, I stood;

Waiting for her sign—

A shriek repeated nine.

I shrank at every aspish quivering fear set crawling in my breast.

But betimes I felt a shivering

Shriek cut ear and brain with slivering

Stings of terror, sin, unrest—

Christ! it raised the dead

Out of the moat's black bed.

Nine times—and then across the thickening reek a rusty draw was dropped;

Thro portcullis sped a quickening

Shadow past to where with sickening

Feet, befixed by awe I stopped—

There she laughed a laugh

No devil's soul could quaff.

I swear its clamor tore the stuttering leaves from shrub and shrunken tree;

Swear no limbo e'er heard muttering

Like that spawn of echoes sputtering

Midnight with their drunken glee—

Yet, ere half were done,

I could not hear a one.

She put her finger burning eerily to my lips—I heard them lock.

Led me then a marsh-way, cheerily—

Tho the quick ooze spurted drearily

Thro root-rotten curd and rock.

Things like water-ghouls

Slid slimily in pools.

She stepped just once upon a hideous burrow, dank and haired with grass;

Fixed upon me eyes perfidious

As a fiend's are, yet insidious—

Questioned if I dared to pass.

"I will search all Hell

To find him," from me fell.

And so was drawn thro dark cadaverous with the sound of gabbling dead.

Where we heard them hoot palaverous

Drivel learned beneath unsavorous

Moulds, and saw a glutton's head

Grin to a hissing bat,

That scraped him as he spat.

Witch she was, I knew, turned shepherdess to a soul blind as a sheep's.

But I dogged her on o'er jeopardous

Steeps down which she sped with leopardess

Limbs into miasmic deeps.

"Swim," she gasped behind—

Then like a she-wolf whined.

It almost seemed to me as deadening as the sluice of dreary Styx.

Fire and foulness mixed with leadening

Slush I drank; but swam the reddening

Stuff a league with weary licks.

Up a sulphurous bank

We climbed, and there I sank.

Again she laughed that laugh—a shrivelling, ghastly, gaunt, uncanny spate.

Up I sprang and cursed my snivelling

Soul for weariness—for drivelling,

And for so forgetting Hate.

"You will find him there"

She pointed—thro her hair.

I write these words from Hell where bloodily locked with him in fight I woke.

Where we fall down caverns ruddily

Spilt with glazing gore and muddily

Dashed with stagnant night and smoke.

Yet I do not care,

For he groans by me—there.

AT THE HELM

(Nova Scotian)

Fog, and a wind that blows the sea

Blindly into my eyes.

And I know not if my soul shall be

When the day dies.

But if it be not and I lose

All that men live to gain—

I who have little known but hues

Of wind and rain—

Still I shall envy no man's lot,

For I have held this great,

Never in whines to have forgot

That Fate is Fate.

DEAD LOVE

If this should never end—

This wandering in oblivious mood

Along a rutless road that leads

From wood to deeper wood—

This crunching with unheedful foot

Acorns, I think, and withered leaves ...

Perhaps a rotten root—

If this should never end—

This seeing with insentient eyes

Something that seems like earth, and, too,

Like overbending skies;

This feeling, well—that time is space,

Space, time; and each a pallid glass

In which Life sees her face—

If it should never end—

The road, the wandering and the feel

Of dead infinities that seem

O'er our dead sense to steal,

And like seas cease above—

Would it much matter, love?

MORTAL SIN

(Song for a drama)

Much the wind

Knows of my heart,

Though he whispers in my ear

That he has seen me burn and start

When I dream of your breast, my dear.

Much the wind

Knows of my soul!

For no soul has he to lose

On a mistress who can dole

Kisses that drug as poison-dews.

SEA-MAD

(A Breton Maid)

Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me!

One said:

"Away! he is dead!

Upon my foam I have flung his head!

Go back to your cote, you shall never wed!—

(Nor he!)"

Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me.

Two brake.

The third with a quake

Cried loud, "O maid, I'll find for thy sake

His dead lost body: prepare his wake!"

(And back it plunged to the sea!)

Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me.

One bore—

And swept on the shore—

His pale, pale face I shall kiss no more!

Ah, woe to women death passes o'er!

(Woe's me!)

THE DEATH-SPRITE

(A ballad for God)

A. D. 909

Three kings with naught of a care

To a hunting went;

Three kings of stirrup fair

And of yew-bow bent.

Away they rode with a song

On the summer tide;

Away from thrid and throng

By the blue lake side.

And "Ho!" they vaunted aloud

To the morning hills.

And "Ha!"—What reck the proud

For the God of Ills?

Naught! so they swagged thro the glade

Where the roe-buck rose:

She nosed the wind, affrayed

By the blod "Ho, hos!"

"Three arrows now to her heart!"

They shouted, and sped,

Each king, an evil dart

With a flinten head.

And O she staggered down—

O unpitied, slain!

But in her dreadful swoun

There was more than pain!

For Horror sprang from her blood,

A Spectre of Death!

It drew them thro the wood—

Where a Chapel saith

Masses for souls that are lost

In the wilds of sin—

There mumbled, "Ye'll pay cost

Ere to shrift ye win!"

Then led them to a bay tree

By an open grave,

Where three ghost-kings in three

Stony coffins clave.

Which spake, "Lo, we too were fair!"—

"Unto this ye'll come!"—

"Ay ye, who of naught beware!"—

So spake—and were dumb.

Then of fright and dread the kings flung

Away yew-tree bow

(The Chapel bell slow rung

With the bleak wind's blow).

And fast they fled thro the glade

To the castle hall.

But God had not been stayed—

They were lepers, all!

Woe then to kings! to the pelf

That men call pride!

Christ shrive us all from self,

From the Death-sprite hide!

WORMWOOD

(In Old England)

What is he whispering to her there

Under the hedge-row spray?

"Spring, Spring, Spring?"—Is the world so fair

To him, fool, that he has no care

As he cuckoos it all day?

Is he quite sure—quite sure the sap

Of life's not hate, but love?

If I should tell him there's no gap

Between her and a ... nameless hap,

Would he still want his "dove"?

Or would he go as blind to buds

As I am, who watch here,

While he is pouring poet floods

From his thin lips, and while his blood's

Burning for her so near?

It would be swords—swords!... And his steel

Should rip death from my breast.

But would he ever know the feel

Of Spring again, of its ribald reel,

As once I did, the best?

No! He would curse henceforward leaf

And flower and light—as I.

Spring?—It is fire, lust, ashes, grief—

All that a Hell can hold, in fief!...

He'll learn it ere he die.

QUEST AND REQUITAL

I

(Before He Comes)

Sweet under swooning blue and mellow mist

September waves of forest overflow

The hills with crimson, amaranth and gold.

Winds warm with the memory of scented hours

Dead Summer gathers in her leafy lap,

Rustle the distance with dim murmurings

That sink upon the air as soft as shades

Dropt from the overleaning clouds to earth;

While golden-rod and sedge and aster hushed

In sunny silence and the oblivion

Of life drawn from the insentient veins of Time,

Await the searing swoon of Autumn's reign.

It is a day when death must seem as birth,

And birth as death; and life—till love comes—pain.

II

(He Has Come)

These are the leafy hills and listless vales

Of iridescent Autumn—this the oak

Against whose lichened bole I leant and looked

Away the sunny hours of afternoon.

Here are the bitter-sweet and elder sprays

I fingered, dreaming to the muted flow

Of breezes overhead—and here the word

I wrote unwittingly upon the soil.

How long ago it was I cannot tell:

The loneliness of unrequited love

Lies like a blank eternity between

Those hours and these I hear slip thro my heart.

I only know all days I've ever seen

Must seem now of some other life apart!

III

(He Loves)

"Will you let any moment dip its wing

Into your heart and find no love of me

To tint with deathless Dream"—he said—"and Spring,

Its flight to the dim bourne of memory?

Will you have any grief that can forget

How grief should find forgetfulness in love?

And since your soul in my soul's zone is set

Will it sometimes ask other spheres to rove

Where touch and voice of me shall not be met?

Ah no! in all the underdeeps of Death

Or overheights of Life it still shall be

At tryst with mine thro moan or ecstasy.

In all!" ... Yet ere a year he'll draw no breath

But is another's!—Will God let it be?

IV

(Betrayed by Him)

All day I've bent my heart beneath the yoke

Of goading toil, remembering to forget,

To still upon my lips his kiss that woke

Me in elysian love one word has broke—

One stinging word of severance and regret.

All day I've blotted from my eyes his face,

But now at evening tide it comes again,

And memories into my darkened soul

Rush as the stars into high heaven's space.

As the bright stars! But, ah, tomorrow! when

Once more I must forget and see life's goal,

That was so green, with sering laurel hung.

Tomorrow and tomorrow! till is wrung

Peace from the piteous hours I strive among!

V

(Finding No Peace)

I say unto all hearts that cannot rest

For want of love, for beating loud and lonely,

Pray the great Mercy-God to give you only

Love that is passionless within the breast.

Pray that it may not be a haunting fire,

A vision that shall steal insatiably

All beauteous content, all sweet desire,

From faith and dream, star, flower, and song, and sea.

But seek that soul and soul may meet together

Knowing they have forever been but one—

Meet and be surest when ill's chartless weather

Drives blinding gales of doubt across their sun.

Pray—pray! lost love uptorn shall seem as nether

Hell-hate and rage beyond oblivion.

VI

(In After Years to Him)

You say that love then led us—you and me?

I say 'twas hate, that wore love's wanting eyes:

Hate that I could not tear away the lies

That wrapped you with their silken sorcery.

Hate that for you I could not open skies

Where beauty lives of her own loveliness;

That God would give me no omnipotence

To purge and mould anew your soul's numb sense.

Aye, hate that I could love you not tho love

Pent in me ached with passion-born distress—

While thro unfathomable dark the Prize

Seemed sinking, as my soul, from heaven above.

Love, say you? love? and hate rent us apart?

I tell you hate alone so tears the heart.

VII

(To Him After His Death)

God who can bind the stars eternally

With but a breath of spirit speech, a thought;

Who can within earth's arms lay the mad sea

Unseverably, and count it as sheer naught;

With his All-might could bind not you and me.

For tho He pressed us heart to burning heart

And set then to the passion that enthralls

His sanction, still our souls stood e'er apart,

As aliens beating fierce against the walls

Of dark unsympathy that would upstart.

Stood aliens, aye! and would tho we should meet,

Beyond the oblivion of unnumbered births,

Upon some world where Time cannot repeat

The feeblest syllable that once was earth's.

LOVE IN EXTREMIS

I care not what they say who hold

We should speak but of life and joy;

I have met death in one I love,

Death lusting to destroy.

And I have fought him vein by vein,

Loosened his cold and creeping clutch,

Driven him from her—twice and thrice—

With might too much.

Yet with too little! for I know

That she at last will lie there still.

Then all my fire of love shall fail

To thaw that chill;

For it will freeze light from her eyes,

Pulse from her breast and from her soul

Me, whom no opiate of peace

Can e'er console.

None: ... till I follow her, in time,

And find her, though all Dust deny!

With that to be I'll front the day,

And fronting die.

OVER THE DREGS

If I had died last year when Death

And I were at finger-tips, till Life

Slipping between blew her warm breath

Into my heart again and veins,

And opened my eyes and nulled my pains—

If I had died where would you be?

You so passionate, yet quick

To escape from passion's mastery,

When clasping and kiss and touch are gone,

And days and space are between us drawn?

Where would you be? My arms you chose—

Arms too ready to seize and sin—

And kept no burning forbiddance in those

Still eyes of yours, or else, I think ...

No! I unsay it! No!... So drink.

Drink! the last glass! And then ... "My thought?"

It is that when we've reached the last

Of pleasure we are like two who've fought,

Who have no common love but love

Of fighting—so does our passion prove!

For it is only passion—such!

Tho clasping and kiss and touch were love,

A little—and sometimes, maybe, much,

When soul and heaven looked far away,

And flesh seemed only flesh—and clay.

But, it is ended! So, drink!... How

You've ruined me, as I have you!

All that you might have been! and—now!

All that I was, until ... 'Tis clear

I should have died in Spring last year.

BEWITCHED

(On a Devon Moor)

Why do I babble of bitter chills—

And icy trees—and snowy fallows?

Why do I shudder as twilight spills

A ghostly gray and the bent moon sallows

The moor with her wicked flame?

Why do the gibbering croons of the hag

In her hut by the wood

Go muttering, muttering in my blood—

Till the hoot of an owl

On the snag of a tomb

Breaks out of the gloom

Like the wail of a witch's name?

Ugh, it is drawing my feet away—

The road's gone! the moonlet's sunken!

What shall I do if it comes to fray

With fiends invisible, wild and drunken—

Fiends on a churchless fell!

Ha, is it cracking of ice in the bog

That is clutching my throat,

Or devils gnawing the widow's shoat?

By the Cross of the Christ,

There's a fog that is black

As—U-r-r!—at my back!—

They are dragging me ... down to ... hell!

QUARREL

And is it so

That two who stand

Heart closed in heart,

Hand knit to hand,

Can let love go

Asunder, so?

Speak hard—not understand?

That one asks much?

One gives too small?

And so is lost,

It may be—All?

That for a touch

Of pride we such

A heaven can let fall?

No!—But to Fate

Say with me, "Go:

Death may bring dross

But this I know;

Love can abate

Life's harshest hate,

So loving I bend low."

OF THE FLESH

(At Monte Carlo)

We met upon the street;

Quick passion sprung into the eye of each;

No dilettante heat!

For though I do not love her now, beseech

You, signor, do you think

We could face so in any spot, nor fear

To leap the fatal brink

Into each other's arms—that, once a-near,

Hell's self could make us shrink?

No, no! Such love as ours

Stabbed peace heart-deep and burnt the flesh to mad.

It scorned the simple powers

Of sympathy and mild repose, and had

One thirst alone—to hold

Each other mouth to still unsated mouth

Until, perchance, the cold

And damp of death should end some night its drouth.

But only day would come,

Unlock our arms and show us duty's eye

Calm, pale, and sternly dumb.

And so we'd swear never to kiss or sigh

Again—for well we knew

God grants such boons only to man and wife.

But night distilled the dew

Of loneliness—and so, once more, that life.

And how was the spell burst?

Each long embrace seemed sweeter than the last;

Each dulling heart-beat nurst

The shame, until I tore me from the past,

And cried, "I hate my soul,

And thine and this false love!" She fainted—fell.

I kissed her lips ... stole

The ring that choked her finger ... said farewell.

And since then Time has pressed

Ten restless years. But if I saw her lay

Her hand upon her breast,

As once she used, and send her soul to say

A word with those dark eyes ...

Ha, what is that, signor? "Respect?... My wife?"

That's as may be. You rise?

Adieu, signor. Fate deals the cards in life.

A DEATH SONG

(For a Drama)

Toll no bell and say no prayer,

Let no rose die on my bier.

All I hoped for shall appear

Or be well forgotten, there.

(Like the waves of yesteryear.)

Toll no bell and drop no sigh,

Bear me softly to the tomb;

Life was dark, but light is nigh—

Light no sorrow shall consume

(And no kiss of love—or cry).

Toll no bell; the clod will toll

Grief enough for any ear.

When the last has sounded clear,

Know that I have reached the Goal

(Which is God seen thro no tear).

ON BALLYTEIGUE BAY

I've heard the sea-dead three nights come keening

And crying to my door.

Why will they affright me with their threening

Forevermore!

O have they no grave in the salt sea-places

To lay them in?

Do they know, do they know—with their cold dead faces!—

Know ... my sin?

There's blood on my soul. The Lord cannot wipe it

Away with His own blood.

I've beaten my breast with blows that stripe it,

And burned His Rood

With kisses that shrivel my lips—that shrivel

To sin on the air.

But the night and the storm cry on me evil.

Does He not care?

There's blood on my soul: but then ... she should never

Have said it was his—the child—

And hers—for she knew I'd never forgive her ...

I grew so wild

There was just one thing to be done—to kill her:

Just one—no more.

I took the keen steel ... one stroke would still her ...

I counted four.

And she fell—fell down on the kelp—none near her.

But when she lay so fair

I kissed her ... because I knew I should fear her,

And smoothed her hair;

And shut her two eyes that fixed me fearless

Of death and pain.

And the blood on my hand I wiped off tearless—

And that on my brain.

And I buried her quickly. The thorn-trees cover

Her grave with spines. I pray

That each in its fall will prick her and shove her

To colder clay.

But ... yonder! ... she's up! and moans in the heather

A whimpering thing!

I'll bury her deeper in Autumn weather ...

Or Winter ... or Spring.

And then if she comes with them still to call me

Each night, I'll tell her loud

He was mine! and laugh when they try to pall me

With sea and shroud.

And I'll swear not to care for Christ or Devil.

They'll skitter back

To the waves, at that, and be gone with their revel....

God spare me the rack!

NIGHT-RIDERS[1]

[1]  This clan of tobacco outlaws in Kentucky during 1907-1908 cast such disgrace on her good name as years will not suffice to erase.

See them mount in the dead of night—

Men, three hundred strong!

Armed and silent, masked from the light,

Speeding swartly along.

What is their errand? manly fight?

Clench with a manly foe?

I would rather be dead of wrong

Than ride among them so.

See them enter the sleeping town.

Hear the warning shot!

Keep to your beds, free men—down, down!

Dare you to move?—dare not!

These are your masters—these who crown

Black Anarchy their king—

I would rather my hand should rot

Than have it do this thing.

See them steal to the house they seek—

Brave men, O, brave all!

There lies a sick boy, fever-weak;

Who comes forth at call?

A woman? "Go in, you bitch!" they reek.

"Give us the old man out!"

Rather my bitten tongue should fall

To palsy than so shout.

And—they have him, "the old man," now,

Bound—with nine beside.

One, a Judge of the Law's grave brow,

Sworn by it to bide.

"Lash him!"—a hundred lashes plow

A free-born back with pain!

God, shall we let such cowards ride

And burn and beat and stain?

O the shame, and the bitter shame,

That thus, across our land,

Crime can arise and write her name

Broad, with a bloody hand!

O the shame, and the bitter shame

Upon our chivalry.

I would rather have led the band

That diced on Calvary.

So, Night-errants, ride on and ride—

Avenging, wrongly, wrong.

But when the children at your side

Grow lawless up and strong;

When at their drunken hands you've died

As beasts beside your door,

You will repent, God knows it—long,

These nights to Hell made o'er.

HONOR

(To the Night-Riders Who Murdered Hedges)

Honor to men

Who leave their homes

And children safe asleep,

To take the cover of night and fright

Women that wake and weep!

Honor, again,

To those who mount

For blood—hounds in a pack!

But let us honor the most of all—

Men that shoot in the back!

For, it is good

To fare a-field

And frighten helpless things,

And how good with a torch to scorch

A poor man's harvestings.

But, if you would

Do something high

And blameless, brave not black,

Ride till you find a peaceful man—

Then shoot—shoot in the back!

Why, there was one

In Palestine

Who gave a certain kiss.

More, fine friends, do you give who live

In a land not far from this!

For what he had done

He hanged himself—

Shame made a sick heart crack.

But you will muster and ride again—

And shoot—shoot in the back!

Oh, and you may!

But wait, the Day

Will come—shall it not come?

The Sovereign Law that you flaunt and daunt,

Will she lie always dumb?

Her prisons gray

They are slow, but wide;

When they open, you will lack

Many a thing—but most the fair,

Brave chance to shoot in the back!

O that a man

Should write such words

Of any soul alive!

That any shameless ear should hear—

And still in stealth connive

To burn and to ban,

From home and help,

The weak who fear the rack!

That he could wait till Justice turns,

Then shoot—shoot in the back!

BRUDE[2]

(A Dramatic Fantasy)

[2]  This sketch, written in 1898, was in no sense conceived for the stage.

Dealing with:

Boadicea, queen of the Britons.

Lamora, a Gaulish captive.

Brude, a Druid.

Cormo, a warrior.

Corlun, Druid high-priest,

and

Horma, a wandering hag.

SCENE: A Hall of hewn wood, on the island of Mona, in which BOADICEA sits enthroned and attended. On her right, warriors, long-haired, mustached and painted with woad. On the left, a band of Druids robed in white: among them BRUDE, whom she watches jealously from time to time. On the floor in front of her cringes LAMORA, held by CORMO.

Boadicea. Britons, hear!

Ye know how my lord,

Caerleon's liege,

Swore feal to the Romans

His lorn wife and daughters—

When the wolf, Death,

Gnawed life from his heart.

Ye know how the Roman,

Ravenous traitor,

Slaves us with thongs

Of brutal behest.

Will ye still daunt

Your necks to the noose?

All. No! no! Queen! no, no, no!

Boadicea. Then, warriors of iron,

Sworded with terror,

Fly to your henges!

Fight till ye crowd

Hell with the ghosts

Of ethlings that Britons hate.

Warriors. To the slaughter! Hro! to the slaughter!

[They rush from the hall in haste.

Boadicea (continuing). And ye, Druid seers,

Heard by the gods,

Feared by the fiends,

Ye must away!

To your dark fane,

The gaunt oak-forest

Holy with mistle!

White-robed as spirits,

Gold knives uplifting,

Sing to the serpents,

Seek the Charmed Egg!

Druids (bowing with weird signs). Great is the Queen.

Her Druids hear.

But shall no gift be made?

Boadicea. Yea ... since Lactantius,

God more than all gods,

Will not be soothed

By sheep or cattle,

On your high altar

Slay ye this maiden of Gaul!

[Points to LAMORA, who cries out to her, then to BRUDE:

Lamora. Nay, Queen, O pity!

O, Brude, win pity!

Let her not yield me

Prey to the gods.

Rather in battle

'Gainst the hard Roman

Would I be trampled

Into the grave.

Trampled by war-hoofs ...

Into a grave of blood!

Boadicea. Proud-lip! mocker!

Dare you sputter

Shame on the awful gods?

[Strikes her down.... BRUDE watches helpless.

Corlun (coming forward). Kneel, Druids, kneel!

Then bear her away!

Meet me at midnight,

Druids' day,

Deep within Mona's wood.

[They kneel, then go, bearing LAMORA.

SCENE II: Sunset. A rocky cave near the forest. BRUDE facing back and forth with restless muttering.

Brude. O thou Lactantius,

Whom other gods

Worship with trembling,

While their star-chariots

Roll to the sea!

Symbolled by circles,

Endless in being,

Dost thou love life-blood

As Druids say?

When the white maiden's

Pierced on the altar

Dost thou drink praises

From her wide wound?

So teach the seers,

So did I, Brude, swear—

Till I saw Lamora!

Her eyes are love-fires,

Her words are sorcery

Stronger than god-laws!

But ... who comes hither?

[Has heard a moan.

Hither harasser

Of these my thoughts?

Ha! is it Lamora

Followed by Cormo?

Curses like vampires

Fall on his head!

[Steps aside.

Lamora (entering in despair). Mother! sweet mother,

Far in the Eastland,

Soon must thy daughter

Pass from earth's day!

Ne'er shall a boy-babe

Suck from her bosom

Valor to strangle

Wolves in the lair!

Never shall husband

From the red war-fields

Bring her the foeman's spoils!

Cormo (behind her). Lamora, proud one—

Lamora. Leave me, viper!

Stand from me farther!

Will you e'en now

With tongue spit poison

On my last ebbing hour?

Cormo. Nay, maiden, cruel,

But I will aid thee.

Words are as smoke,

Deeds as flame!

Hear! I will save thee

From Druid talons

And bear thee whither thou wilt:

Give but thy vow to wed me!

Lamora. Wed thee?—thee?...

Never—while cliffs

O'er the plain jutting

Plight void death to the leaper!

Never while waves

Curl gray lips

Yearning to gulf the doomed!

Cormo. Then thou shalt die! shalt die!

Druids shall gash

Streamings of life

Out of thy shrinking sides!

Lamora. Then die I will!...

But not thro fear.

Coward of Britons,

Will I e'er mother

Child of thy loins.

Rather let flames,

Tongues of the gods,

Suck the red life from my breast.

Yea, let the gods,

Glutless as men,

And, as women,

Treacherous, vain—

Strike, at the call of thy Queen!

[Goes, followed by CORMO.

Brude (coming forward). No! thou shalt live, live, live!

[Goes into cave, then comes forth with a knife.

SCENE III: Midnight. A stormy glade in the forest. On one side a cromlech whereon LAMORA lies bound: CORLUN beside her with an uplifted blade of gold. On the other side Druids—around a pot of serpents over a fire in the cavern of an uprooted tree.

[BRUDE is among them, watchful.

Corlun (chanting). Orpo!—Ai!—

Now shall the Roman

Backward be driven,

O gods!

Orpo!—Ai!—

For to the death stroke

Lamora's given,

O gods!

Orpo! Ai!—

Her skyward soul

Thro the dank dark shall rise,

As the morn's sun

Unto your halls

Far o'er the skies.

And she shall say

Thus Druids crave

Help of the helpers of men.

Druids (incanting around the cavern). Orpo!—Ai!—

Serpents are spawned

Of devils' spit,

O gods!

Orpo!—Ai!—

Spit boiled with blood

In caverns lit

By fungous fangs

From Mona's wood.

[They circle. BRUDE steals behind CORLUN.

Orpo!—Ai!—

Serpents are spawned

In magic broth

To coil and wriggle,

Writhe and twist;

Till their froth

Becomes a mist,

Till the mist

An egg shall form—

Charm that Druids prize.

Brude (with a sudden cry). Corlun, the gods

Wait for thy soul!

[Slays him.

Lamora, fly!

With me, fly—

Thro the black forest!

[Has cut her bonds.

Great Lactantius,

Maker of gods,

Loves not the maiden's death-cry!

[They escape.

Druids (in terror). Corlun is slain!

Corlun! slain!

Woe to the Druids!

Woe from the heavens!

Woe from the ireful Queen!

[They pursue confusedly.

SCENE IV: Dawn; far in the forest. Enter BRUDE and LAMORA faintingly to a spot where HORMA, the hag, unseen by them is gathering herbs.

Lamora. Strength no more

Wings me for flight.

With hunger of sleep I faint.

[Falls.

Brude (sinking by her). Yet ere thy sleep,

Maid like the dawn,

List to my heart's wild uttering!

All I have dared

Was for thy love—

Tho but to love thee

Would I dare all!

Lamora. Ah! What is love,

Brude wise and noble?

Is it this burning

Far in my breast

Melting my soul to thine?

Is it this power

Hid in my eyes

Shaping thy face

On hill and cloud?

Is it this whisper,

As of sea-waves,

Singing thy name to me?

Yea! So now we may sleep.

[They lie down. HORMA, the hag, who has heard them, creeps maundering up and gazes at them.

Horma. Owl and eaglet?

Have they fled?

Then let witch-toads sing!

Oaths forgotten,

Would they wed?

Then let bull-bats,

Wild a-wing,

Flap the moon from heaven!

Deep in the forest—

Ha! ho! ho!

[Breaks off, hearing shouts. Continues.

They'll be slain!

[Fleeing.

They'll be slain!

Brude (waking). What was my dream?...

[Hears the shouts.

Lamora! Lamora!

[They start up and look at each other. Silence.

Lamora (at length). So was it doomed.

Now we must cross

Thro the death-fog

Unto the blest.

But side by side,

And ere they come.

[Hands him her knife.

Here we shall die.

But in the Meadows

Where the thin shades

Wander and wander,

Ever in love we'll live!

Fold first thy arms around me.

[They embrace.

Brude (starting from her). Hear! they have come—

Cormo! The Queen!...

Lamora. Then strike! for thy face

Alone would I see in death!

Brude (killing her then himself). Cormo!... Queen!... Death!

Ye shall never ... tear us apart!

[Falls with her in his arms, as BOADICEA and warriors enter.

Boadicea (seeing them). Dead!... Leave them, food

For beast and bird!

Leave them! away! away!

[All go with pride and spurning.

THE END

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Table of Contents

NIRVANA DAYS

NIRVANA DAYS

CALE YOUNG RICE

NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY MCMIX Copyright, 1909, by Cale Young Rice

JAMES LANE ALLEN

FOREWORD

CONTENTS

NIRVANA DAYS

INVOCATION

(From a High Cliff)

THE FAIRIES OF GOD

A SONG OF THE OLD VENETIANS

NIRVANA DAYS

I

II

III

IV

V

THE YOUNG TO THE OLD

OFF THE IRISH COAST

A VISION OF VENUS AND ADONIS

SOMNAMBULISM

I

II

SERENATA MAGICA

(Venetian)

O-SHICHI AND MOTO

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

AS OF OLD

A PRAYER

THE SONG OF A NATURE WORSHIPER

THE INFINITE'S QUEST

LAD AND LASS

THE STRONG MAN TO HIS SIRES

AT STRATFORD

THE IMAGE PAINTER

WANDA

IN A STORM

(To a Petrel)

ANTAGONISTS

I

II

SEEDS

WORLD-SORROW

(The Cry of the Modern)

THE SOUL'S RETURN

BIRTHRIGHT

(To A. H. R.)

ROMANCE

(To A. H. R. on North Cliff, Lynton, Devon)

ON THE ATLANTIC

(To A. H. R.)

THE GREAT BUDDHA OF KAMAKURA TO THE SPHINX

NECROMANCE

LOOK NOT TO THE WEST

A NIKKO SHRINE

THE QUESTION

I'LL LOOK NO MORE

NIGHT'S OCCULTISM

UNCROWNED

WRITTEN IN HELL

(By Sir Giles, whom the Witch of Urm leads to Judas Iscariot)

AT THE HELM

(Nova Scotian)

DEAD LOVE

MORTAL SIN

(Song for a drama)

SEA-MAD

(A Breton Maid)

THE DEATH-SPRITE

(A ballad for God) A. D. 909

WORMWOOD

(In Old England)

QUEST AND REQUITAL

I (Before He Comes)

II (He Has Come)

III (He Loves)

IV (Betrayed by Him)

V (Finding No Peace)

VI (In After Years to Him)

VII (To Him After His Death)

LOVE IN EXTREMIS

OVER THE DREGS

BEWITCHED

(On a Devon Moor)

QUARREL

OF THE FLESH

(At Monte Carlo)

A DEATH SONG

(For a Drama)

ON BALLYTEIGUE BAY

NIGHT-RIDERS[1]

HONOR

(To the Night-Riders Who Murdered Hedges)

BRUDE[2]

(A Dramatic Fantasy)

THE END

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