<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap">xt751c1tf70s https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt751c1tf70s/data/mets.xml Rice, Cale Young, 1872-1943. 19151908  books b92-251-31802686v2 English Doubleday, Page, : Garden City, N.Y. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Collected plays and poems (vol. 2) / by Cale Young Rice. text Collected plays and poems (vol. 2) / by Cale Young Rice. 1915 2002 true xt751c1tf70s section xt751c1tf70s 


COLLECTED PLAYS AND POEMS

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COLLECTED PLAYS

    AND POEMS


           BY

    CALE YOUNG RICE


     VOLUME TWO


 GARDEN CITY    NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
        1915

 
Copyright, I904, I909, ig9o, by
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMIUANY
11 rights reserved, including that of
  translation into foreign languages,
     including the Scandinavian

Copyright, i908, i909, i9i5, by
      CALE YOUNG RICE

 
CONTENTS


MANY GODS


" All's Well".
The Proselyte Recants
Love in Japan   .
Maple Leaves on Miyajima.
Typhoon.
Penang
When the Wind Is Low.
The Pagoda Slave   .
The Ships of the Sea.
Kinchinjunga .
The Barren Woman .
By the Taj Mahal      .
Love's Cynic.
In a Tropical Garden
The Wind's Word       .
The Shrine of Shrines
From a Felucca
The Egyptian Wakes


PAGE
 5
 8
1 2
'5
' 7
'9
22
24
27
28
3I
34
37
44
47
48
49
50

 
CONTENTS


The Imam's Parable.
Songs of a Sea-Farer.
A Song of the Sects .
The City .
Via Amorosa .
Dusk at Hiroshima .
In a Shinto Temple Garden.
Far Fujiyama    .
On Miyajima Mountain.
Old Age.
On the Yang-tse-Kiang .
The Sea-Armies .
The Christian in Exile
The Parsee Woman .
Shah Jehan to Mumtaz Mahal
Princess Jehanara  .
A Singhalese Love Lament .
On the Arabian Gulf.
The Ramessid  .  .
Immortal Foes   .
The Conscript
The Cross of the Sepulchre
Alpine Chant .
The Man of Might .
In Time of Awe .
Sunrise in Utah.
Consolation.


           PAGE
         5'
            53
            55
            58
     .   59
            6i
            62
            63
            64
            66
            67
            69
            71
            73
            75
            77
            78
            8i
            82
            83
            85
            87
            88
            go
            9I
            93
            94


Vl

 
CONTENTS


Waves .
Vis Ultima
Meredith


            Vii
            PAGE
 .  .   .  96
  .  .  .  98
  .  .  . 100


           CHARLES DI TOCCA

Charles di Tocca, a play.


NIRVANA DAYS


Invocation
The Strong Man to His Sires
The Fairies of God .
A Song of the Old Venetians
Nirvana Days
The Young to the Old
Off the Irish Coast .
A Vision of Venus and Adonis
Somnambulism.
Serenata Magica .
O-Shichi and Moto .
A Prayer .
The Infinite's Quest .
Lad and Lass.
At Stratford .
The Image Painter
Wanda.


 lo9


245
246
25I
253
255
268
270
27I
273
275
278
287
288
289
291
292
294

 
Viii


In a Storm
Antagonists
Seeds .
The Soul's Return
Romance
On the Atlantic .
The Great Buddha
A Nikko Shrine
The Question.
I'll Look No More
Night's Occultism
Uncrowned
Written in Hell
At the Helm
Dead Love
Mortal Sin
Sea-Mad .
Wormwood
Quest and Requital
Love in Extremis.
Quarrel  .
Of the Flesh .
A Death Song.
On Ballyteigue Bay
Night-Riders
Honor.    . .
Brude.    . .


CONTENTS
                         PAGE
                         298
                      .  299
                      301
    . .   .  .  .  .  . 302
    . .  .  .  .   .  . 302
                         304
                      . 306
)f Kamakura to the Sphinx  307
                         309
  .  . .  .   .  . I  3II
    . .. .  .  .  .  .  3313
                         314
                         315
    . ..  .  . .   .  . 3i6
    . I. .  .  .  .   . 321
    . .. .  .  .  .   . 322
                -. .... 324
    . .. .  .  .  .  .  32,5
    .  ...  .  .     .  327
                .  .  . 329
 . .  .  .  .  .  ...  - -336
       . . ...  .  .  .  338
    . .. .  .  .  .   . 340
             . . .  ..I 343
             . . . ... . 345
    . .. .  .  .  .  .  349
    . .. .   . .  .  .  352
                        355

 
CONTENTS


SONG-SURF


With Omar    .
Jael
To the Sea   .
The Day-Moon
A Sea-Ghost .
On the Moor .
The Cry of Eve
lary at Nazareth
Adelil.
Intimation
In July
From Above
By the Indus.
Evocation .
The Child God Gave.
The Winds     .  .
Transcended   .  .
Love's Way to Childhood
Autumn.
Shinto .
Maya.
A Japanese Mother .
The Dead Gods .
Call to Your Mate, Bob-WI
The Dying Poet .


                 PAGE
               377
   . ...      .390
. .  .  .  .  .....396
 .  .  .  .  . 399
   . .. .  .  . 40I
   . .. .  .   403
   . .. .  .  . 405
   . .. .  .  . 409
   . I. .  .  . 412
   . .. .     .414
         .. ...  4I5
   . .. .  .  . 4i8
   . .. .  .  . 4I9
   . .. .  .  . 42I
   . .. .  .  . 423
   . .. .  .  . 425
   . .. .  .  . 428
              . 429
   . .. .  .  . 43I
   . .. .  .  . 432
 .  .          434
   . .. .  .  . 436
...     .  . 438
hite.            442
                444


ix

 
C[)IE'.NTS


The Outcast .
April.
August Guests
To a Dove
At Tintern Abbey
Oh, Go Not Out .
Human Love .
The Victory  .
At Winter's End .
Mother-Love .
To a Warbler..     .
Songs to A. H. R.
  The World's. and Mine
  Love-Call in Spring
  Mating.
  Untold
  Love-Watch    .
  At Amalfi
The Atoner    .  .
The Ramble .
Return
Lisette .
From One Blind   .
In a Cemetery
Waking
Storm-Ebb
Lingering


     PAGE
  .  447
     450
   .  452
   .  453
.... 455
  .  457
  . 459
  .  460
     461
     463
     465

     467
     468
     469
     470
     47'
     47'
     473
     474
     477
     480
     482
     483
     485
     486
     488


x

 
[TENT


Faun-Call .
The Lighthouseman .
Serenity.
Wanton June .
Spirit of Rain.
Tearless
Sunset-Lovers.
The Empty Cross
Song.
To Her Who Shall Come
Storm-Twilight   .
War
Wildness.
Before Autumn      .
Fulfilment .
Last Sight of Land   .
Silence .


                  DAVID
David, a play.


'S               xi
               PAGE
             . 490
              492
               494
             . 496
             . 498
             .  499
               50I
               503
               505
               So6
               509
    . .. .  .  .510
               5I"
               5I2
               5I4
               5i6
               5I8


I..  .    525


co)N

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MANY GODS

 
FIRST PUBLISHED I9IO

 
         To
  FINIS KING FARR
AN OLD AND DEAR COMRADE

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"ALL'S WELL"


The illimitable leaping of the sea,
The mouthing of his madness to the moon,
The seething of his endless sorcery,
His prophecy no power can attune,
Swept over me as, on the sounding prow
Of a great ship that steered into the stars,
I stood and felt the awe upon my brow
Of death and destiny and all that mars.


                 II

The wind that blew from Cassiopeia cast
Wanly upon my ear a rune that rung;
The sailor in his eyrie on the mast
Sang an "All's well," that to the spirit clung

                  5

 
MANY GODS


Like a lost voice from some aerial realm
Where ships sail on forever to no shore,
Where Time gives Immortality the helm,
And fades like a far phantom from life's door.


                   III

"And is all well, 0 Thou Unweariable,
Who launchest worlds upon bewildered space,"
Rose in me, "All or did thy hand grow dull
Building this world that bears a piteous race
O was it launched too soon or launched too late
Or can it be a derelict that drifts
Beyond thy ken toward some reef of Fate
On which Oblivion's sand forever shifts"


                   IV

The sea grew softer as I questioned - calm
With mystery that like an answer moved,
And from infinity there fell a bairn,
The old peace that God is, tho all unproved.


6

 
               MANY GODS                   7

The old faith that tho gulfs sidereal stun
The soul, and knowledge drown within their deep,
There is no world that wanders, no not one
Of all the millions, that He does not keep.

 
THE PROSELYTE RECANTS


              (In Japan)

  Where the fair golden idols
  Sit in darkness and in silence
While the temple drum beats solemnly and slow;
  Where the tall cryptomerias
  Sway in worship round about
And the rain that is falling whispers low;
  I can hear strange voices
  Of the dead and forgotten,
On the dimly rising incense I can see
  The lives I have lived,
  And my lives unbegotten,
NVamu Ainida Butsu pity me!
                    8

 
MANY GODS


  I was born this karma
  Of a mother in Chuzenji,
Where Nantai-zan looks down into the lake;
  Where the white-thronged pilgrims

  Climb to altars in the clouds
And behold the holy eastern dawn awake.
  It was there I wandered
  Till a priest of the Christians
With the crucifix he wore compelled my gaze.
  In grief I had grown,
  So upon its grief I pondered.
Namu Amizda Butsu, keep my days!


  It was wrong, he told me,
  To pray Jiso for my children,
And Binzuru for healing of my ills.
  And our gods so many
  Were conceived, he said, in sin,
From Lord Shaka to the least upon the hills.


9

 
MANY GODS


  In despair I listened
  For my heart beat hopeless,
Not a temple of my land had helped me live.
  But alas that day
  When I let my soul be christened!
Namu Amida Bulsu, 0 forgive!


  For the Christ they gave me
  As the only Law and Lotus,
As the only way to Light that will not wane,
  May perchance have power
  For the people of the West,
But to me he seemed the servitor of pain.
  For in pain he perished
  As one born to passion:
In some other life no doubt his sin was great,
  Tho they told me no,
  Those who followed him and cherished.
Namu Amida Butsu, such is fate.


so

 
                MANY GODS

  So again to idols
  Of the Buddha who is boundless,
While the temple drum is beating thro the rain,
  I have turned from treason
  Into Meditation's truth,
From the strife the Western god regards as gain.
  And if now I'm dying
  As the voices tell me,
To the lives that I must live I'll meekly go;
  Till my long grief ends
  In Nirvana, and my sighing.
Namu Amida Butsu, be it so!

 
LOVE IN JAPAN


         I

Dragon-fly lighting
On the temple-bell,
Whose soul do you bear
On the Day of the Dead
The soul of my lover
Ah me, the plighting
Between two hearts
That were never wed!


Dragon-fly, quickly,
The priest is coming!
Oh, the boom
Of the bitter bell!


1 2

 
MANY GODS


Now you are gone
And my tears fall thickly.
How of Heaven
Do the gods make Hell!


        II


The semi is silent
  (Autumn rains!)
The wind-bells tinkle
  (How chill it is!)
The quick lights come
On the shoji-panes.
Come, 0 Baku,
Eater of dreams!


The maple darkens
  (Pale grow I!)
The near night shivers
  (The temple fades.)


r3

 
14              MANY GODS

             Haunting love
             Will not cease to cry!
             Come, 0 Baku,
             Eater of dreams!


             The wild mists gather
               (Ah, my tears!)
             The pane-lights vanish
               (For some there is rest.)
             But for me -
             The remembered years!
             Come, 0 Baku,
             Eater of dreams!

 
MAPLE LEAVES ON MIYAJIMA


The summer has come,
The summer has gone,
And the maple leaves lift fairy hands
That ripple upon the winds of dawn
Where the dim pagoda stands.
They ripple and beckon yearningly
To their sister fairies over the sea,
But help comes not,
So they fall and flee
From Autumn over the sands.


And down the mountain.
And into the tide,
Some are blown where the sampans glide,
And some are strewn by the temple's side,
              I  

 
         MANY GODS

And some by the torii.
But Autumn ever
Pursues them till,
As ever before,
She has her will,
And leaves them desolate, dead and still,
Ravished afar and wide;
Leaves them desolate; crying shrill,
"No beauty shall abide!"

 
TYPHOON


          (At tHong-kong)

I was weary and slept on the Peak;
  The air clung close like a shroud,
And ever the blue-fly at my ear
  Hung haunting and hot and loud;
I awoke and the sky was dun
  With awe and a dread that soon
Went shuddering thro my heart. for I knew
  That it meant typhoon! typhoon!


In the harbour below, far down,
  The junks like fowl in a flock
Were tossing in wingless terror, or fled
  Fluttering in from the shock.
The city, a breathless bend
  Of roofs, by the water strewn,
                 17

 
MANY GODS


Lay silent and waiting, yet there was none
  Within it but said typhoon!


Then it came, like a million winds
  Gone mad immeasurably,
A torrid and tortuous tempest stung
  By rape of the fair South Sea.
And it swept like a scud escaped
  From craters of sun or moon,
And struck as no power of Heaven could,
  Or of Hell - typhoon! typhoon!


And the junks were smitten and torn,
  The drowning struggled and cried,
Or, dashed on the granite walls of the sea,
  In succourless hundreds died.
Till I shut the sight from my eyes
  And prayed for my soul to swoon:
If ever I see God's face, let it
  Be guiltless of that typhoon!


118

 
PENANG


I want to go back to Singapore
  And ship along the Straits,
To a bungalow I know beside Penang;
  Where cocoanut palms along the shore
    Are waving, and the gates
Of Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore.
  I want to go back and hear the surf
    Come beating in at night,
Like the washing of eternity over the dead.
  I want to see dawn fare up and day
    Go down in golden light;
I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!


I want to go back to Singapore
And up along the Straits
                   19

 
20MANY GODS


To the bungalow that waits me by the tide.
  Where the Tamil and Malay tell their lore
    At evening - and the fates
Have set no soothiess canker at life's core.
  I want to go back and mend my heart
    Beneath the tropic moon,
While the tamarind-tree is whispering thoughts
        of sleep.
  I want to believe that Earth again
    With Heaven is in tune.
I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!


I want to go back to Singapore
  And ship along the Straits
To the bungalow I left upon the strand.
  Where the foam of the world grows faint before
    It enters, and abates
In meaning as I hear the palm-wind pour.
  I want to go back and end my days
    Some evening when the Cross


20

 
                 MANY GODS                  2 1

On the southern sky hangs heavily far and sad.
I want to remember when I die
   That life elsewhere was loss.
I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!

 
WHEN THE WIND IS LOW


                (To A. II. R.)

W\hen the wind is low, and the sea is soft,
  And the far heat-lightning plays
On the rim of the \Vest where dark clouds nest
  On a darker bank of haze;
When I lean o'er the rail with you that I love
  And gaze to my heart's content;
I know that the heavens are there above -
  But you are my firmament.


When the phosphor-stars are thrown from the bow
  And the watch climbs up the shroud;
When the dim mast dips as the vessel slips
  Thro the foam that seethes aloud;
                     22

 
             MANY GODS                   2.3

I know that the years of our life are few,
  And fain as a bird to flee,
That time is as brief as a drop of dew -
  But you are Eternity.

 
THE PAGODA SLAVE


(At Shuae Dagohn, in old Rangoon)

All night long the pagoda slave
Hears the wind-bells high in the air
Tinkle with low sweet tongue and grave
    In praise of Lord Gautama.
All night long where the lone spire sends
Its golden height to the starry light
    He hears their tune
    And watches the moon
And fears he shall never reach Nirvana.


Round and round by a hundred shrines
Glittering at the great Shwe's base
Falls the sound of his feet mid lines
    Droned from. the sacred Wisdom.
                 24

 
MANY GODS


Round and round where the idols gaze
So pitiless on his pained distress
    He passes on,
    Pale-eyed and wan-
A pariah like the dogs behind him.


Oh, what sin in a life begot
Thousands of lives ago did he sin
That he is now by all forgot,
    Even by Lord Gautama 
Oh, what sin, that the lowest shun
His very name as a thing of shame -
    A sound to taint
    The winds that faint
From the high bells that hear it uttered!


Midnight comes and the hours of morn,
Tapers die and the flowers all
From the most feted altars: lorn
    And desolate is their odour.


2 5

 
MANY GODS


Midnight goes, but he watches still
By each cold spire the moon sets fire,
    By every palm
    Whose silvery calm
Pillar and jewelled porch pray under.


Is it dawn that is breaking . . No,
Only a star that falls in the sea,
Only a wind-bell's louder flow
    Of praise to Lord Gautama.
Faithless dawn! with illusive feet
It comes too late to ease his fate.
    He sinks asleep
    A helpless heap,
Tho for it he never may reach Nirvana.


26

 
THE SHIPS OF THE SEA


Into port when the sun was setting
  Rode the ship that bore my love,
Over the breakers wildly fretting,
  Under the skies above.


Down to the beach I ran to meet him;
  He would come as he had said:
And he came -in a sailor's coffin,
      Dead! . . . . . .


O the ships of the sea!
  The women they set apart!
The tide has nothing now to tell me,
  The breakers break my heart!


27

 
KINCHINJUTNGA


(ITFhicir is t/IC next highest of mnountains)

                    I

O white Priest of Eternity, around

Whose lofty summit veiling clouds arise

Of the earth's immemorial sacrifice
To Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies;

O Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows,

First-born of Asia whose maternal throes

Seem changed now to a million human woes,
Holy thou art and still! Be so, nor sound

One sigh of all the mystery in thee found.


                    II

For in this world too much is overclear,
Immortal Ministrant to many lands,

From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sands
                    2S

 
MANY GODS


Rivers that each libation poured expands.
Too much is known, 0 Ganges-giving sire;
Thy people fathom life and find it dire,
Thy people fathom death, and, in it, fire
To live again, tho in Illusion's sphere,
Behold concealed as Grief is in a tear.


                    III

Wherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites,
Tho dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, falls
In strange austerity, whose trance appals,
Before thee, and a suppliant on thee calls.
Continue still thy silence high and sure,
That something beyond fleeting may endure -
Something that shall forevermore allure
Imagination on to mystic flights
Wherein alone no wing of Evil lights.


                    IV

Yea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytes
Of lifted granite round with reachless snows.


29

 
MANY GODS


Stand for Eternity while pilgrim rows
Of all the nations envy thy repose.
Ensheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled.
Be that alone on earth which has not failed.
Be that which never yet has yearned or ailed,
But since primeval Power upreared thy heights
Has stood above all deaths and all delights.


And tho thy loftier Brother shall lie King,
High-priest be thou to Brahma unrevealed,
While thy white sanctity forever sealed
In icy silence leaves desire congealed.
In ghostly ministrations to the sun,
And to the mendicant stars and the moon-nun,
Be holy still, till East to Vest has run,
And till no sacrificial suffering
On any shrine is left to tell life's sting.

 
THE BARREN WOMAN


          (Benares)

At the burning-ghat, 0 Kali,
  Mother divine and dread,
See, I am waiting with open lips
  Over the newly dead.
I am childless and barren; pity
  And let me catch the soul
Of him who here on the kindled bier
  Pays to Existence toll.


See, by his guileless body
  I cook the bread and eat.
Give me the soul he does not need
  Now, for conception sweet.
Hear, or my lord and husband
  Shall send me from his door
              31

 
MANY GODS


And take to his side a fairer bride
  Whose breast shall he less poor.


Oft I have sought thy temples,
  By Ganges now I seek,
Where ashes of all the dead are strewn.
  And is my prayer not meek.-
The ghats and the shrines and the people
  That bathe in the holy Stream
Have heard my cry, 0 goddess high,
  Shall I not have my dream 


The women of Oudh and Jaipur
  Look on my face with scorn.
Children about their garments cling,
  To me shall none be born2
The death-fires quiver faster,
  O hasten, goddess, a sign,
That from this doom into my womb
Thy pledge has passed, divine.


3 2

 
          MANY GODS                   33

Woe! there is naught hut ashes,
  Now, and the weepers go.
Lone on the ghat they leave me, lone,
  With Jut the River's flow.
Kali, I ask not jewels
  Nor justice, beauty nor shrift,
But for the lowest woman's right,
  A child - tho I die of the gift!

 
BY THE TAJ MAHAL


Under the Indian stars,
MIumtaz NMahal, I am sitting,
Watching them wind their silent way
Over your wistful Tomb;
Watching the crescent prow
Of the moon among them flitting,
Fair as the shallop that bore your soul
To Paradise's Room.


Under the Indian stars,
With palm and peepul about me,
With dome and kiosk and minaret
Mounting against the sky,
I seem to see your face
In all the fairness without me;
              34

 
MANY GODS


In all the sadness that fills my heart
To hear your lover's cry.


Under the Indian stars
I look for your Jasmine Tower,
Along the River whose barren bed
Lies gray beneath the moon.
And thro its magic doors
You seem like a spirit flower,
Wandering back from Allah's bourne
To seek for some lost boon.


Under the Indian stars
I see you softly moving,
Among your jewel-lit maidens there,
A sweet and ghostly queen.
And the scent of attar flung
In your marble font seems proving
That passion never can die from love,
If truly love has been.


'35

 
MANY GODS


Under the Indian stars
He comes, " the Shadow of Allah,"
Jehan, the lord of Magnificence,
The liege who holds your heart.
The silver doors swing back
And alone with him you hallow
The amorous night-whose moon has made
Such visions in me start.


Under the Indian stars -
But the end of all is moaning!
I hear his dying breath that from
Your Tomb shall never die.
For every jasper flower
He set in its dream seems loaning
To Beauty a grief, Mumtaz Mahal,
And unto Fate a sigh.


36

 
LOVE'S CYNIC


O you poets, ever pretending
  Love is immortal, pipe the truth!
Empty your books of lies, the ending
  Of no passion can be -Youth.
"Heaven," you breathe, "will join the broken .'
  Come, was the Infinite e'er wed,
That He must evermore be thinking
  Of your wedding bed


                  It

Pipe the truth! tho it clip the glamour
  Out of your rhymes and rip your dream.

Is death a wench you would enamour,
  Wistful thus, with a word-stream
                  37

 
3MANY GODS


No. It is but a Sponge that passes,
  One the Appeaseless e'er will squeeze
Back into Lethe's flood - whose lasting
  Is eternities.


                 HII

"False!" cry you, "and an unbeseeming
  Blasphemy! "- Weell, look around.
Is it not only in blaspheming
  Truth is ever to be found
Whether it be, one thing I ask you,
  Lovers and poets, tell, I pray,
Was there ever a love-oath ended
  Ere the Judgment Day


                 IV

"O," you answer, "ill is in all things."
  But in an ancient lie what's good
Is it not better just to call things
What they are -not what we would


.38

 
MANY GODS


When you are clinging to your mistress,
  Love does seem for Eternity.
Cling to her then, but know that Wanting
  Fools the best that be.


               V

"Yet her brows and her eyes that murmur
  All the music," you say, "of God"'
Press her lips but a little firmer -
  You will feel that they are -sod.
"But there is living soul beyond them,
  And it is love's till all things end"
Children alone build Paradises
  With but pence to spend.


               VI

"Ai-ho now! that is like the cynic,"
  Pitying runs your poet-smile,
"He has sat at the Devil's clinic
  With some dead love up the while."


39

 
40MANY GODS


Dead or alive are one with passions,
  Under the potent knife of Truth
They will be seen composed of craving-
  And a little ruth.


               VII

"Then the world on a lie is living"
  Many a lie has filled its maw!
"Better illusion tho than giving
  Such assent to a loveless Law
Well, there's a saying Socratean
  That in his ditch the swine is sure.
Yet does he prove by his contentment
  That it will endure


              VIII

Clasp her close! But the truth is in you,
  Tho you have rhymed and rammed it down,
Hid it with honey-words that win you
  Wreaths that you know bedeck the clown.


40

 
MANY GODS


Kings they will call you and uplifters
  Of your kind Lord save the mark,
That we are still for fire dependent
  On so false a spark.


                  rx

And so fond! for you hold immortal
  What has been born a day or two!
"But it was destined" Ay, your portal
  Only has God to heed -- and you!
He with his trillion thirsty planets,
  All in the throes of death and life,
Surely has time to spare for choosing
  Your )ehooven wd ife!


                  x

By my faith, there is not a creature
  Mad as a poet, pants the breeze!
Give him a mistress and he'll preach her
  As creation's Masterpiece.


4 r

 
2MANY GODS


Let him but lean for half an hour
  Over her lips and he will swear
That he would dive thro death unfathomed
  To regain her there.


               XI

And believe that his oath is able!
  That there is not in all the sea
Water enough to quench the fable
  Of his soul's intensity.
Yet there was never a rose that blossomed
  And endured beyond its day.
There was never a fire enkindled
  But Cold had its way.


              XII

"Pessimist," is your mortal answer,
  W Wait till the love-wind pierces you!"

Wait  I have been the veriest dancer
  To it, and, dupe still, would do


42

 
           MANY GODS                   43

Truth to the death - shall I confess it -
  For but a moment on one breast.
Wherefore I add -and Adam bless it! -
  Who loves once is like the rest.

 
IN A TROPICAL GARDEN


               (Peradeniya, Ceylon)

                       I

The sun moves here as a master-mage of nature all
      day long,
  With fingers of heat and light that touch to a
      mystical growth all things.
The spell of him puts pale Time to sleep, as an opiate
      strange and strong,
  And a waft of his wand, the wind, enchantment
      brings.

                       II

The python roots of the rubber-tree, where the cobra
      slips in peace,
  Are wonders that he has waved from the earth as
      a presage of his power.
                      44

 
MANY GODS


And the giant stems of the bamboo-grass, the pool
      astounded, sees,
  Are a marvel to keep it still hour after hour.


                       III


The long lianas that reach in dream)
      to tree
  Are dazed with the sense of sap
      tangle of their sprays.

The scarlet-hearted hibiscus stands
      the torrid bee
  Is husht upon its rim, as in amaze.


y rout from tree


he calls to the


entranced and


                        IV

And there the palm, the talipot, with its lofty blossom-
      spire,
  The cocoanut and the slim areca listening await
What sorceries of his trembling rays of equatorial
      fire
  Will next be laid upon some lesser mate.


45

 
MANY GODS


                      V

For all day long it is so; his hot hypnotic eye


      commands
  With steady ray; and the
      enchantment forth.
And all night long in the
      voiced hyla-bands
  Chant of it in chill strain


earth obeys and brings


humid dark the high-


from South to North.


VI


A wondrous mage is he, in a land where dreams to
      verity
  Are wrought as swift as clouds are wrought, when
      winds wing up the South.
The mage of a land born of the sea, and destined
      e'er to be
  Beyond all fear of famishing and drouth.


46

 
THE WIND'S WORD


  A star that I love,
  The sea, and I,
Spake together across the night.
  "Have peace," said the star,
  "Have power," said the sea;
"Yea " I answered, " and Fame's delight!"


  The wind on his way
  To Araby
Paused and listened and sighed and said,
  "I passed on the sands
  A Pharaoh's tomb:
All these did he have - and he is dead."


47

 
THE SHRINE OF SHRINES


There is in Egypt by the ancient Nile
A temple of imperishable stone,
Stupendous, columned, hieroglyphed, and known
To all the world as Faith's supremest shrine.
Half in debris it stands, a granite pile
Gigantic, stayed midway in resurrection,
An awe, an inspiration, a dejection
To all who would the cryptic past divine.
The god of it was Ammon, and a throng
Of worshippers from Thebes the royal-gated
Forever at its fervid pylons waited
While priests poured ever a prophetic song.
And yet this Ammon, who gave Egypt laws,
Is not - and is forgot - and never was!


48

 
FROM A FELUCCA


A white tomb in the desert,
An Arab at his prayers
Beside the Nile's dark water,
Where the lone camel fares.
An ibis on the sunset,
A slow shadouf at rest,
And in the caravansary
Low music for the guest.

Above the tawny city
A gleam of minarets,
Resounding the muezzin's
Clear call as the sun sets.
A mystery, a silence,
A breathing of strange balm,
A peace from Allah on the wind
And on the sky his calm.
          49

 
THE EGYPTIAN WAKES


I woke at night in my eternal tomb
The desert sands had hid a thousand years,
And heard the Nile-crier across the gloom
Calling, "The flood has come! beseech the gods!"

I rose in haste, and ran amid blind fears
To the barterers of grain and oil and wine,
Culled for the praise and service of divine
Great Isis, by the slave who for her plods.
But as I passed along, woe! what was this,
Strange faces and strange fashions and strange fanes
Standing upon the midnight; Oh, the pains
That swept across my startled thought's abyss!
I moaned. My body crumbled into dust.
And then my soul fled Here - where all souls must.


50

 
THE IMAM'S PARABLE


Behold, the wind of the Desert rose,
  Khamsin, in a shroud of sand,
And swept the Libyan waste, across
  To far Somali-land.
His voice was thick with the drouth of death
And smote the earth as a burning breath,
Or as a curse which Allah saith
  Unto a (lemon-band.


The caravan from the oasis
  Of palm-engirt Kirkr
Shuddered and couched in shaken heaps,
  The horror to endure.
Its mighty Sheik, like a soul in Hell
Who longs for the lute of Israfel,
                  5'

 
52               MANY GOD)S

   Longed for the trickle of Keneh's well,
     Imperishably pure!


   Three days he longed, and the wind three days
     About him whirled the shroud.
   Then did a shrill dawn bring the sun-
     And a gaunt vulture-crowd.
   A few bleak bones on the Desert still
   Lie for the Judgment Day to thrill
   Again into life - if Allah will:
     Let not your heart be proud.

 
SONGS OF A SEA-FARER


Many are on the sea to-day
  With all sails set.
The tide rolls in a restive gray,
  The wind blows wet.
The gull is weary of his wings,
And I am weary of all things.


Heavy upon me longing lies,
  My sad eyes gaze
Across sad leagues that sink and rise
  And sink always.
My life has sunk and risen so,
I'd have it cease awhile to flow.


53

 
54MANY GODS


               II

All the winds of the sea weary,
  All the waves of the sea rest,
All the wants of my heart settle
  Softly now in my breast.
All the stars that in heaven anchor,
  Golden buoys of Elysian light,
Send me across the gulf promise
  That I am faring right.


So while clouds that are left lonely
  At the gates of the far West

Wait, so still, for the moon's coming
  To renew their quest,
I am held by a low vesper
  Haunting afar the vague twilight,
Then with my soul at peace whisper,
  Hallowedly, good-night.


54

 
A SONG OF THE SECTS


             (In a Jerusalem tavern)

A Latin and Greek, praise God, are we, Armenian
    and Copt,
And we're all drunk as drunk can be, for we've
    together sopped.
Not one of us but spits at the creed the others mouth
    and purr,
But we all believe, we all believe, in the Holy
    Sepulchre!

              The Armenian sings

The Copt comes out of Egypt-land and with a brag-
    gart face
He'll tell you that his fathers piled the Pyramids in
    place.


55

 
MANY GODS


In his Monophysite Christ we set no faith, the
    blasphemer !
But we </pre>