The Project Gutenberg eBook of Nirvana Days, by Cale Young Rice.

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

NIRVANA DAYS

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

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.

NIRVANA DAYS

INVOCATION

(From a High Cliff)

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,
[Pg 5]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,
[Pg 7]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

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
[Pg 9]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
[Pg 10]This life where millions still are bound
Within Illusion's cheat.

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—
[Pg 11]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.
[Pg 12]

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.
[Pg 13]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
[Pg 14]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.
[Pg 15]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
[Pg 16]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!

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,
[Pg 17]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.
[Pg 18]

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.
[Pg 19]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.

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
[Pg 22]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

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,
[Pg 25]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

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
[Pg 29]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:
[Pg 30]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

III

VII

VIII

XII

XIII

XIV

XVI

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:
[Pg 41]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

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,
[Pg 44]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

LAD AND LASS

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?
[Pg 49]

"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.
[Pg 50]

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?
[Pg 51]

"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,
[Pg 52]

"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

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?
[Pg 55]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

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,
[Pg 57]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!
[Pg 58]

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!"
[Pg 59]

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)

ANTAGONISTS

SEEDS

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.
[Pg 65]

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
[Pg 66]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

BIRTHRIGHT

(To A. H. R.)

ROMANCE

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

ON THE ATLANTIC

(To A. H. R.)

BY A SILENT STREAM

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.
[Pg 77]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

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;
[Pg 80]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

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)

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
[Pg 89]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.
[Pg 90]

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
[Pg 91]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.
[Pg 92]

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)

DEAD LOVE

MORTAL SIN

(Song for a drama)

SEA-MAD

(A Breton Maid)

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?
[Pg 100]

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
[Pg 101]

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).
[Pg 102]

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,
[Pg 104]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

(Before He Comes)

(He Has Come)

III

(He Loves)

(Betrayed by Him)

(Finding No Peace)

(In After Years to Him)

VII

(To Him After His Death)

LOVE IN EXTREMIS

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
[Pg 115]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!
[Pg 117]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

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
[Pg 121]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,
[Pg 122]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)

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
[Pg 126]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;
[Pg 127]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.
[Pg 128]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]

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!
[Pg 130]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!
[Pg 131]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,
[Pg 133]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
[Pg 134]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)

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.

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,
[Pg 137]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!

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!
[Pg 138]
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!

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.
[Pg 139]Trampled by war-hoofs ...
Into a grave of blood!

Boadicea. Proud-lip! mocker!
Dare you sputter
Shame on the awful gods?

Corlun (coming forward). Kneel, Druids, kneel!
Then bear her away!
Meet me at midnight,
Druids' day,
Deep within Mona's wood.

Brude. O thou Lactantius,
Whom other gods
[Pg 140]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?
[Pg 141]Ha! is it Lamora
Followed by Cormo?
Curses like vampires
Fall on his head!

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!
[Pg 142]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
[Pg 143]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!

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
[Pg 145]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.

Orpo!—Ai!—
Serpents are spawned
In magic broth
To coil and wriggle,
[Pg 146]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!

Druids (in terror). Corlun is slain!
Corlun! slain!
Woe to the Druids!
[Pg 147]Woe from the heavens!
Woe from the ireful Queen!

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?
[Pg 148]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,
[Pg 149]Wild a-wing,
Flap the moon from heaven!
Deep in the forest—
Ha! ho! ho!

Lamora (at length). So was it doomed.
Now we must cross
Thro the death-fog
Unto the blest.
[Pg 150]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!

[Pg 151] Boadicea (seeing them). Dead!... Leave them, food
For beast and bird!
Leave them! away! away!

THE END

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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