Nirvana Days. Rice Cale Young
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.
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
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.
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
My gondola is a black sea-swan,
And glides beneath the moon.
Dark