The Project Gutenberg eBook, Collected Poems, by Alfred Noyes

COLLECTED POEMS

BY

ALFRED NOYES

VOLUME ONE

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1906, 1907, 1908, BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1910, 1911, BY
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1906, 1909, BY
ALFRED NOYES

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. All dramatic and acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved. Application for the right of performing should be made to the publishers

October, 1913

CONTENTS

Page
The Loom of Years [1]
In the Heart of the Woods [2]
Art [5]
Triolet [8]
A Triple Ballad of Old Japan [8]
The Symbolist [10]
Haunted in Old Japan [11]
Necromancy [12]
The Mystic [15]
The Flower of Old Japan [17]
Apes and Ivory [48]
A Song of Sherwood [49]
The World's May-Queen [50]
Pirates [53]
A Song of England [55]
The Old Sceptic [57]
The Death of Chopin [59]
Song [62]
Butterflies [62]
Song of the Wooden-Legged Fiddler [66]
The Fisher-Girl [67]
A Song of Two Burdens [71]
Earth-Bound [72]
Art, the Herald [74]
The Optimist [74]
A Post-Impression [76]
The Barrel-Organ [80]
The Litany of War [85]
The Origin of Life [86]
The Last Battle [88]
The Paradox [89]
The Progress of Love [94]
The Forest of Wild Thyme [123]
Forty Singing Seamen [171]
The Empire Builders [175]
Nelson's Year [177]
In Time of War [180]
Ode For the Seventieth Birthday of Swinburne [186]
In Cloak of Grey [188]
A Ride for the Queen [189]
Song [191]
The Highwayman [192]
The Haunted Palace [196]
The Sculptor [200]
Summer [201]
At Dawn [204]
The Swimmer's Race [206]
The Venus of Milo [208]
The Net of Vulcan [209]
Niobe [209]
Orpheus and Eurydice [211]
From the Shore [220]
The Return [222]
Remembrance [223]
A Prayer [224]
Love's Ghost [224]
On a Railway Platform [225]
Oxford Revisited [226]
The Three Ships [228]
Slumber-Songs of the Madonna [230]
Enceladus [235]
In the Cool of the Evening [241]
A Roundhead's Rallying Song [242]
Vicisti, Galilæe [243]
Drake [246]

COLLECTED POEMS

EARLY POEMS

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES PAYNE

THE LOOM OF YEARS

In the light of the silent stars that shine on the struggling sea,
In the weary cry of the wind and the whisper of flower and tree,
Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears,
I hear the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

The leaves of the winter wither and sink in the forest mould
To colour the flowers of April with purple and white and gold:
Light and scent and music die and are born again
In the heart of a grey-haired woman who wakes in a world of pain.

The hound, the fawn and the hawk, and the doves that croon and coo,
We are all one woof of the weaving and the one warp threads us through,
One flying cloud on the shuttle that carries our hopes and fears
As it goes thro' the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

The crosiers of the fern, and the crown, the crown of the rose,
Pass with our hearts to the Silence where the wings of music close,
Pass and pass to the Timeless that never a moment mars,
Pass and pass to the Darkness that made the suns and stars.

Has the soul gone out in the Darkness? Is the dust sealed from sight?
Ah, hush, for the woof of the ages returns thro' the warp of the night!
Never that shuttle loses one thread of our hopes and fears,
As It comes thro' the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

O, woven in one wide Loom thro' the throbbing weft of the whole,
One in spirit and flesh, one in body and soul,
The leaf on the winds of autumn, the bird in its hour to die,
The heart in its muffled anguish, the sea in its mournful cry,

One with the flower of a day, one with the withered moon,
One with the granite mountains that melt into the noon,
One with the dream that triumphs beyond the light of the spheres,
We come from the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

IN THE HEART OF THE WOODS

I

The Heart of the woods, I hear it, beating, beating afar,
In the glamour and gloom of the night, in the light of the rosy star,
In the cold sweet voice of the bird, in the throb of the flower-soft sea!...
For the Heart of the woods is the Heart of the world and the Heart of Eternity,
Ay, and the burning passionate Heart of the heart in you and me.

Love of my heart, love of the world, linking the golden moon
With the flowery moths that flutter thro' the scented leaves of June, And the mind of man with beauty, and youth with the dreaming night
Of stars and flowers and waters and breasts of glimmering white,
And streaming hair of fragrant dusk and flying limbs of lovely light;

Life of me, life of me, shining in sun and cloud and wind,
In the dark eyes of the fawn and the eyes of the hound behind,
In the leaves that lie in the seed unsown, and the dream of the babe unborn,
O, flaming tides of my blood, as you flow thro' flower and root and thorn,
I feel you burning the boughs of night to kindle the fires of morn.

Soul of me, soul of me, yearning wherever a lavrock sings,
Or the crimson gloom is winnowed by the whirr of wood-doves' wings,
Or the spray of the foam-bow rustles in the white dawn of the moon,
And mournful billows moan aloud, Come soon, soon, soon,
Come soon, O Death with the Heart of love and the secret of the rune.

Heart of me, heart of me, heart of me, beating, beating afar,
In the green gloom of the night, in the light of the rosy star,
In the cold sweet voice of the bird, in the throb of the flower-soft sea!...
O, the Heart of the woods is the Heart of the world and the Heart of Eternity,
Ay, and the burning passionate Heart of the heart in you and me.

II

O, Death will never find us in the heart of the wood,
The song is in my blood, night and day:
We will pluck a scented petal from the Rose upon the Rood
Where Love lies bleeding on the way. We will listen to the linnet and watch the waters leap,
When the clouds go dreaming by,
And under the wild roses and the stars we will sleep,
And wander on together, you and I.

We shall understand the mystery that none has understood,
We shall know why the leafy gloom is green.
O, Death will never find us in the heart of the wood
When we see what the stars have seen!
We have heard the hidden song of the soft dews falling
At the end of the last dark sky,
Where all the sorrows of the world are calling,
We must wander on together, you and I.

They are calling, calling, Away, come away!
And we know not whence they call;
For the song is in our hearts, we hear it night and day,
As the deep tides rise and fall:
O, Death will never find us in the heart of the wood,
While the hours and the years roll by!
We have heard it, we have heard it, but we have not understood,
We must wander on together, you and I.

The wind may beat upon us, the rain may blind our eyes,
The leaves may fall beneath the winter's wing;
But we shall hear the music of the dream that never dies,
And we shall know the secret of the Spring.
We shall know how all the blossoms of evil and of good
Are mingled in the meadows of the sky;
And then—if Death can find us in the heart of the wood—
We shall wander on together, you and I.

ART

(IMITATED FROM DE BANVILLE AND GAUTIER)

I

Yes! Beauty still rebels!
Our dreams like clouds disperse:
She dwells
In agate, marble, verse.

No false constraint be thine!
But, for right walking, choose
The fine,
The strict cothurnus, Muse.

Vainly ye seek to escape
The toil! The yielding phrase
Ye shape
Is clay, not chrysoprase.

And all in vain ye scorn
That seeming ease which ne'er
Was born
Of aught but love and care.

Take up the sculptor's tool!
Recall the gods that die
To rule
In Parian o'er the sky.

For Beauty still rebels!
Our dreams like clouds disperse:
She dwells
In agate, marble, verse.

II

When Beauty from the sea,
With breasts of whiter rose
Than we
Behold on earth, arose.

Naked thro' Time returned
The Bliss of Heaven that day,
And burned
The dross of earth away.

Kings at her splendour quailed.
For all his triple steel
She haled
War at her chariot-wheel.

The rose and lily bowed
To cast, of odour sweet
A cloud
Before her wandering feet.

And from her radiant eyes
There shone on soul and sense
The skies'
Divine indifference.

O, mortal memory fond!
Slowly she passed away
Beyond
The curling clouds of day.

Return, we cry, return,
Till in the sadder light
We learn
That she was infinite.

The Dream that from the sea
With breasts of whiter rose
Than we
Behold on earth, arose.

III

Take up the sculptor's tool!
Becall the dreams that die
To rule
In Parian o'er the sky; And kings that not endure
In bronze to re-ascend
Secure
Until the world shall end.

Poet, let passion sleep
Till with the cosmic rhyme
You keep
Eternal tone and time,

By rule of hour and flower,
By strength of stern restraint
And power
To fail and not to faint.

The task is hard to learn
While all the songs of Spring
Return
Along the blood and sing.

Yet hear—from her deep skies,
How Art, for all your pain,
Still cries
Ye must be born again!

Reject the wreath of rose,
Take up the crown of thorn
That shows
To-night a child is born.

The far immortal face
In chosen onyx fine
Enchase,
Delicate line by line.

Strive with Carrara, fight
With Parian, till there steal
To light
Apollo's pure profile.

Set the great lucid form
Free from its marble tomb
To storm
The heights of death and doom.

Take up the sculptor's tool!
Recall the gods that die
To rule
In Parian o'er the sky,

TRIOLET

Love, awake! Ah, let thine eyes
Open, clouded with thy dreams.
Now the shy sweet rosy skies,
Love, awake. Ah, let thine eyes
Dawn before the last star dies.
O'er thy breast the rose-light gleams:
Love, awake! Ah, let thine eyes
Open, clouded with thy dreams.

A TRIPLE BALLAD OF OLD JAPAN

In old Japan, by creek and bay,
The blue plum-blossoms blow,
Where birds with sea-blue plumage gay
Thro' sea-blue branches go:
Dragons are coiling down below
Like dragons on a fan;
And pig-tailed sailors lurching slow
Thro' streets of old Japan.

There, in the dim blue death of day
Where white tea-roses grow,
Petals and scents are strewn astray
Till night be sweet enow,
Then lovers wander whispering low
As lovers only can,
Where rosy paper lanterns glow
Thro' streets of old Japan.

From Wonderland to Yea-or-Nay
The junks of Weal-and-Woe
Dream on the purple water-way
Nor ever meet a foe;
Though still, with stiff mustachio
And crookéd ataghan,
Their pirates guard with pomp and show
The ships of old Japan.

That land is very far away,
We lost it long ago!
No fairies ride the cherry spray,
No witches mop and mow,
The violet wells have ceased to flow;
And O, how faint and wan
The dawn on Fusiyama's snow,
The peak of old Japan.

Half smilingly, our hearts delay,
Half mournfully forego
The blue fantastic twisted day
When faithful Konojo,
For small white Lily Hasu-ko
Knelt in the Butsudan,
And her tomb opened to bestrow
Lilies thro' old Japan.

There was a game they used to play
I' the San-ju-san-jen Dō,
They filled a little lacquer tray
With powders in a row,
Dry dust of flowers from Tashiro
To Mount Daimugenzan,
Dry little heaps of dust, but O
They breathed of old Japan.

Then knights in blue and gold array
Would on their thumbs bestow
A pinch from every heap and say,
With many a hum and ho, What blossoms, nodding to and fro
For joy of maid or man,
Conceived the scents that puzzled so
The brains of old Japan.

The hundred ghosts have ceased to affray
The dust of Kyotó,
Ah yet, what phantom blooms a-sway
Murmur, a-loft, a-low,
In dells no scythe of death can mow,
No power of reason scan,
O, what Samúrai singers know
The Flower of old Japan?

Dry dust of blossoms, dim and gray,
Lost on the wind? Ah, no,
Hark, from yon clump of English may,
A cherub's mocking crow,
A sudden twang, a sweet, swift throe,
As Daisy trips by Dan,
And careless Cupid drops his bow
And laughs—from old Japan.

There, in the dim blue death of day
Where white tea-roses grow,
Petals and scents are strewn astray
Till night be sweet enow,
Then lovers wander, whispering low,
As lovers only can,
Where rosy paper lanterns glow
Thro' streets of old Japan.

THE SYMBOLIST

Help me to seek that unknown land!
I kneel before the shrine.
Help me to feel the hidden hand
That ever holdeth mine.

I kneel before the Word, I kneel
Before the Cross of flame
I cry, as thro' the gloom I steal,
The glory of the Name.

Help me to mourn, and I shall love;
What grief is like to mine?
Crown me with thorn, the stars above
Shall in the circlet shine!

The Temple opens wide: none sees
The love, the dream, the light!
O, blind and finite, are not these
Blinding and infinite?

The veil, the veil is rent: the skies
Are white with wings of fire,
Where victim souls triumphant rise
In torment of desire.

Help me to seek: I would not find,
For when I find I know
I shall have clasped the hollow wind
And built a house of snow.

HAUNTED IN OLD JAPAN

Music of the star-shine shimmering o'er the sea
Mirror me no longer in the dusk of memory:
Dim and white the rose-leaves drift along the shore.
Wind among the roses, blow no more!

All along the purple creek, lit with silver foam,
Silent, silent voices, cry no more of home!
Soft beyond the cherry-trees, o'er the dim lagoon,
Dawns the crimson lantern of the large low moon.

We that loved in April, we that turned away
Laughing ere the wood-dove crooned across the May,
Watch the withered rose-leaves drift along the shore.
Wind among the roses, blow no more!

We the Sons of Reason, we that chose to bride
Knowledge, and rejected the Dream that we denied,
We that chose the Wisdom that triumphs for an hour,
We that let the young love perish like a flower....

We that hurt the kind heart, we that went astray,
We that in the darkness idly dreamed of day....
... Ah! The dreary rose-leaves drift along the shore.
Wind among the roses, blow no more!

Lonely starry faces, wonderful and white,
Yearning with a cry across the dim sweet night,
All our dreams are blown a-drift as flowers before a fan,
All our hearts are haunted in the heart of old Japan.

Haunted, haunted, haunted—we that mocked and sinned
Hear the vanished voices wailing down the wind,
Watch the ruined rose-leaves drift along the shore.
Wind among the roses, blow no more!

All along the purple creek, lit with silver foam,
Sobbing, sobbing voices, cry no more of home!
Soft beyond the cherry-trees, o'er the dim lagoon,
Dawns the crimson lantern of the large low moon.

NECROMANCY

(AFTER THE PROSE OF BAUDELAIRE)

This necromantic palace, dim and rich,
Dim as a dream, rich as a reverie,
I knew it all of old, surely I knew
This floating twilight tinged with rose and blue,
This moon-soft carven niche
Whence the calm marble, wan as memory,
Slopes to the wine-brimmed bath of cold dark fire
Perfumed with old regret and dead desire.

There the soul, slumbering in the purple waves
Of indolence, dreams of the phantom years,
Dreams of the wild sweet flower of red young lips
Meeting and murmuring in the dark eclipse
Of joy, where pain still craves
One tear of love to mingle with their tears,
One passionate welcome ere the wild farewell,
One flash of heaven across the fires of hell.

* * * *

Queen of my dreams, queen of my pitiless dreams,
Dim idol, moulded of the wild white rose,
Coiled like a panther in that silken gloom
Of scented cushions, where the rich hushed room
Breaks into soft warm gleams,
As from her slumbrous clouds Queen Venus glows,
Slowly thine arms up-lift to me, thine eyes
Meet mine, without communion or surmise.

Here, at thy feet, I watched, I watched all day
Night floating in thine eyes, then with my hands
Covered my face from that dumb cry of pain:
And when at last I dared to look again
My heart was far away,
Wrapt in the fragrant gloom of Eastern lands,
Under the flower-white stars of tropic skies
Where soft black floating flowers turned to ... thine eyes.

I breathe, I breathe the perfume of thine hair:
Bury in thy deep hair my fevered face,
Till as to men athirst in desert dreams
The savour and colour and sound of cool dark streams
Float round me everywhere,
And memories float from some forgotten place,
Fulfilling hopeless eyes with hopeless tears
And fleeting light of unforgotten years.

Dim clouds of music in the dim rich hours
Float to me thro' the twilight of thine hair,
And sails like blossoms float o'er purple seas,
And under dark green skies the soft warm breeze
Washes dark fruit, dark flowers,
Dark tropic maidens in some island lair
Couched on the warm sand nigh the creaming foam
To dream and sing their tawny lovers home.

Lost in the magic ocean of thine hair
I find the haven of the heart of song:
There tired ships rest against the pale red sky!
And yet again there comes a thin sad cry
And all the shining air
Fades, where the tall dark singing seamen throng
From many generations, many climes,
Fades, fades, as it has faded many times.

I hear the sweet cool whisper of the waves!
Drowned in the slumbrous billows of thine hair,
I dream as one that sinks thro' passionate hours
In a strange ship's wild fraughtage of dark flowers
Culled for pale poets' graves;
And opiate odours load the empurpled air
That flows and droops, a dark resplendent pall
Under the floating wreaths funereal.

Under the heavy midnight of thine hair
An altar flames with spices of the south
Burning my flesh and spirit in the flame;
Till, looking tow'rds the land from whence I came
I find no comfort there,
And all the darkness to my thirsty mouth
Is fire, but always and in every place
Blossoms the secret wonder of thy face.

* * * *

The walls, the very walls are woven of dreams,
All undefined by blasphemies of art!
Here, pure from finite hues the very night
Conceives the mystic harmonies of light,
Delicious glooms and gleams;
And sorrow falls in rose-leaves on the heart,
And pain that yearns upon the passing hour
Is but a perfume haunting a dead flower.

Hark, as a hammer on a coffin falls
A knock upon the door! The colours wane,
The dreams vanish! And leave that foul white scar,
Tattoo'd with dreadful marks, the old calendar
Blotching the blistered walls!
The winter whistles thro' a shivered pane,
And scatters on the bare boards at my feet
These poor soiled manuscripts, torn, incomplete...

The scent of opium floats about my breath;
But Time resumes his dark and hideous reign;
And, with him, hideous memories troop, I know.
Hark, how the battered clock ticks, to and fro,—
Life, Death—Life, Death—Life, Death—
O fool to cry! O slave to bow to pain,
Coward to live thus tortured with desire
By demon nerves in hells of sensual fire.

THE MYSTIC

With wounds out-reddening every moon-washed rose
King Love went thro' earth's garden-close!
From that first gate of birth in the golden gloom,
I traced Him. Thorns had frayed His garment's hem,
Ay, and His flesh! I marked, I followed them
Down to that threshold of—the tomb?

And there Love vanished, yet I entered! Night
And Doubt mocked at the dwindling light:
Strange claw-like hands flung me their shadowy hate.
I clomb the dreadful stairways of desire
Between a thousand eyes and wings of fire
And knocked upon the second Gate.

The second Gate! When, like a warrior helmed,
In battle on battle overwhelmed,
My soul lay stabbed by all the swords of sense,
Blinded and stunned by stars and flowers and trees,
Did I not struggle to my bended knees
And wrestle with Omnipotence?

Did earth not flee before me, when the breath
Of worship smote her with strange death,
Withered her gilded garment, broke her sword,
Shattered her graven images and smote
All her light sorrows thro' the breast and throat
Whose death-cry crowned me God and Lord?

Yea, God and Lord! Had tears not purged my sight?
I saw the myriad gates of Light
Opening and shutting in each way-side flower,
And like a warder in the gleam of each,
Death, whispering in some strange eternal speech
To every passing hour.

The second Gate? Was I not born to pass
A million? Though the skies be brass
And the earth iron, shall I not win thro' all?
Shall I who made the infinite heavens my mark
Shrink from this first wild horror of the dark,
These formless gulfs, these glooms that crawl?

Never was mine that easy faithless hope
Which makes all life one flowery slope
To heaven! Mine be the vast assaults of doom,
Trumpets, defeats, red anguish, age-long strife,
Ten million deaths, ten million gates to life,
The insurgent heart that bursts the tomb.

Vain, vain, unutterably vain are all
The sights and sounds that sink and fall,
The words and symbols of this fleeting breath:
Shall I not drown the finite in the Whole,
Cast off this body and complete my soul
Thro' deaths beyond this gate of death?

It will not open! Through the bars I see
The glory and the mystery
Wind upward ever! The earth-dawn breaks! I bleed
With beating here for entrance. Hark, O hark,
Love, Love, return and give me the great Dark,
Which is the Light of Life indeed.

THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN

DEDICATED TO CAROL, A LITTLE MAIDEN Of MYAKO.

PERSONS OF THE TALE

Ourselves
The Tall Thin Man
The Dwarf Behind the Twisted Pear-tree
Creeping Sin
The Mad Moonshee
The Nameless One

Pirates, Mandarins, Bonzes, Priests, Jugglers, Merchants, Ghastroi, Weirdrians, etc.

PRELUDE

You that have known the wonder zone
Of islands far away;
You that have heard the dinky bird
And roamed in rich Cathay;
You that have sailed o'er unknown seas
To woods of Amfalula trees
Where craggy dragons play:
Oh, girl or woman, boy or man,
You've plucked the Flower of Old Japan!

Do you remember the blue stream;
The bridge of pale bamboo;
The path that seemed a twisted dream
Where everything came true;
The purple cherry-trees; the house
With jutting eaves below the boughs;
The mandarins in blue,
With tiny, tapping, tilted toes,
And curious curved mustachios?

The road to Old Japan! you cry,
And is it far or near?
Some never find it till they die;
Some find it everywhere;
The road where restful Time forgets
His weary thoughts and wild regrets
And calls the golden year
Back in a fairy dream to smile
On young and old a little while.

Some seek it with a blazing sword,
And some with old blue plates;
Some with a miser's golden hoard;
Some with a book of dates;
Some with a box of paints; a few
Whose loads of truth would ne'er pass through
The first, white, fairy gates;
And, oh, how shocked they are to find
That truths are false when left behind!

Do you remember all the tales
That Tusitala told,
When first we plunged thro' purple vales
In quest of buried gold?
Do you remember how he said
That if we fell and hurt our head
Our hearts must still be bold,
And we must never mind the pain
But rise up and go on again?

Do you remember? Yes; I know
You must remember still:
He left us, not so long ago,
Carolling with a will,
Because he knew that he should lie
Under the comfortable sky
Upon a lonely hill,
In Old Japan, when day was done;
"Dear Robert Louis Stevenson."

And there he knew that he should find
The hills that haunt us now;
The whaups that cried upon the wind
His heart remembered how;
And friends he loved and left, to roam
Far from the pleasant hearth of home,
Should touch his dreaming brow;
Where fishes fly and birds have fins,
And children teach the mandarins.

Ah, let us follow, follow far
Beyond the purple seas;
Beyond the rosy foaming bar,
The coral reef, the trees,
The land of parrots, and the wild
That rolls before the fearless child
Its ancient mysteries:
Onward and onward, if we can,
To Old Japan—to Old Japan.

PART I

EMBARKATION

When the firelight, red and clear,
Flutters in the black wet pane,
It is very good to hear
Howling winds and trotting rain:
It is very good indeed,
When the nights are dark and cold,
Near the friendly hearth to read
Tales of ghosts and buried gold.

So with cozy toes and hands
We were dreaming, just like you;
Till we thought of palmy lands
Coloured like a cockatoo;
All in drowsy nursery nooks
Near the clutching fire we sat,
Searching quaint old story-books
Piled upon the furry mat.

Something haunted us that night
Like a half-remembered name;
Worn old pages in that light
Seemed the same, yet not the same:
Curling in the pleasant heat
Smoothly as a shell-shaped fan,
O, they breathed and smelt so sweet
When we turned to Old Japan!

Suddenly we thought we heard
Someone tapping on the wall,
Tapping, tapping like a bird.
Then a panel seemed to fall
Quietly; and a tall thin man
Stepped into the glimmering room,
And he held a little fan,
And he waved it in the gloom.

Curious red, and golds, and greens
Danced before our startled eyes,
Birds from painted Indian screens,
Beads, and shells, and dragon-flies;
Wings, and flowers, and scent, and flame,
Fans and fish and heliotrope;
Till the magic air became
Like a dream kaleidoscope.

Then he told us of a land
Far across a fairy sea;
And he waved his thin white hand
Like a flower, melodiously;
While a red and blue macaw
Perched upon his pointed head,
And as in a dream, we saw
All the curious things he said.

Tucked in tiny palanquins,
Magically swinging there,
Flowery-kirtled mandarins
Floated through the scented air; Wandering dogs and prowling cats
Grinned at fish in painted lakes;
Cross-legged conjurers on mats
Fluted low to listening snakes.

Fat black bonzes on the shore
Watched where singing, faint and far,
Boys in long blue garments bore
Roses in a golden jar.
While at carven dragon ships
Floating o'er that silent sea,
Squat-limbed gods with dreadful lips
Leered and smiled mysteriously.

Like an idol, shrined alone,
Watched by secret oval eyes,
Where the ruby wishing-stone
Smouldering in the darkness lies,
Anyone that wanted things
Touched the jewel and they came;
We were wealthier than kings
Could we only do the same.

Yes; we knew a hundred ways
We might use it if we could;
To be happy all our days
As an Indian in a wood;
No more daily lesson task,
No more sorrow, no more care;
So we thought that we would ask
If he'd kindly lead us there.

Ah, but then he waved his fan,
Laughed and vanished through the wall;
Yet as in a dream, we ran
Tumbling after, one and all;
Never pausing once to think,
Panting after him we sped;
Far away his robe of pink
Floated backward as he fled.

Down a secret passage deep,
Under roofs of spidery stairs,
Where the bat-winged nightmares creep,
And a sheeted phantom glares
Rushed we; ah, how strange it was
Where no human watcher stood;
Till we reached a gate of glass
Opening on a flowery wood.

Where the rose-pink robe had flown,
Borne by swifter feet than ours,
On to Wonder-Wander town,
Through the wood of monstrous flowers;
Mailed in monstrous gold and blue
Dragon-flies like peacocks fled;
Butterflies like carpets, too,
Softly fluttered overhead.

Down the valley, tip-a-toe,
Where the broad-limbed giants lie
Snoring, as when long ago
Jack on a bean-stalk scaled the sky;
On to Wonder-Wander town
Stole we past old dreams again,
Castles long since battered down,
Dungeons of forgotten pain.

Noonday brooded on the wood,
Evening caught us ere we crept
Where a twisted pear-tree stood,
And a dwarf behind it slept;
Round his scraggy throat he wore,
Knotted tight, a scarlet scarf;
Timidly we watched him snore,
For he seemed a surly dwarf.

Yet, he looked so very small,
He could hardly hurt us much;
We were nearly twice as tall,
So we woke him with a touch Gently, and in tones polite,
Asked him to direct our path;
O, his wrinkled eyes grew bright
Green with ugly gnomish wrath.

He seemed to choke,
And gruffly spoke,
"You're lost: deny it, if you can!
You want to know
The way to go?
There's no such place as Old Japan.

"You want to seek—
No, no, don't speak!
You mean you want to steal a fan.
You want to see
The fields of tea?
They don't grow tea in Old Japan.

"In China, well
Perhaps you'd smell
The cherry bloom: that's if you ran
A million miles
And jumped the stiles,
And never dreamed of Old Japan.

"What, palanquins,
And mandarins?
And, what d'you say, a blue divan?
And what? Hee! hee!
You'll never see
A pig-tailed head in Old Japan.

"You'd take away
The ruby, hey?
I never heard of such a plan!
Upon my word
It's quite absurd
There's not a gem in Old Japan!

"Oh, dear me, no!
You'd better go
Straight home again, my little man:
Ah, well, you'll see
But don't blame me;
I don't believe in Old Japan."

Then, before we could obey,
O'er our startled heads he cast,
Spider-like, a webby grey
Net that held us prisoned fast;
How we screamed, he only grinned,
It was such a lonely place;
And he said we should be pinned
Safely in his beetle-case.

Out he dragged a monstrous box
From a cave behind the tree!
It had four-and-twenty locks,
But he could not find the key,
And his face grew very pale
When a sudden voice began
Drawing nearer through the vale,
Singing songs of Old Japan,

SONG

Satin sails in a crimson dawn
Over the silky silver sea;
Purple veils of the dark withdrawn;
Heavens of pearl and porphyry;
Purple and white in the morning light
Over the water the town we knew,
In tiny state, like a willow-plate,
Shone, and behind it the hills were blue.

There, we remembered, the shadows pass
All day long like dreams in the night;
There, in the meadows of dim blue grass,
Crimson daisies are ringed with white. There the roses flutter their petals,
Over the meadows they take their flight,
There the moth that sleepily settles
Turns to a flower in the warm soft light.

There when the sunset colours the streets
Everyone buys at wonderful stalls
Toys and chocolates, guns and sweets,
Ivory pistols, and Persian shawls:
Everyone's pockets are crammed with gold;
Nobody's heart is worn with care,
Nobody ever grows tired and old,
And nobody calls you "Baby" there.

There with a hat like a round white dish
Upside down on each pig-tailed head,
Jugglers offer you snakes and fish,
Dreams and dragons and gingerbread;
Beautiful books with marvellous pictures,
Painted pirates and streaming gore,
And everyone reads, without any strictures,
Tales he remembers for evermore.

There when the dim blue daylight lingers
Listening, and the West grows holy,
Singers crouch with their long white fingers
Floating over the zithern slowly:
Paper lamps with a peachy bloom
Burn above on the dim blue bough,
While the zitherns gild the gloom
With curious music! I hear it now!

Now: and at that mighty word
Holding out his magic fan,
Through the waving flowers appeared,
Suddenly, the tall thin man:
And we saw the crumpled dwarf
Trying to hide behind the tree,
But his knotted scarlet scarf
Made him very plain to see.

Like a soft and smoky cloud
Passed the webby net away;
While its owner squealing loud
Down behind the pear-tree lay;
For the tall thin man came near,
And his words were dark and gruff,
And he swung the dwarf in the air
By his long and scraggy scruff.

There he kickled whimpering.
But our rescuer touched the box,
Open with a sudden spring
Clashed the four-and-twenty locks;
Then he crammed the dwarf inside,
And the locks all clattered tight:
Four-and-twenty times he tried
Whether they were fastened right.

Ah, he led us on our road,
Showed us Wonder-Wander town;
Then he fled: behind him flowed
Once again the rose-pink gown:
Down the long deserted street,
All the windows winked like eyes,
And our little trotting feet
Echoed to the starry skies.

Low and long for evermore
Where the Wonder-Wander sea
Whispers to the wistful shore
Purple songs of mystery,
Down the shadowy quay we came—
Though it hides behind the hill
You will find it just the same
And the seamen singing still.

There we chose a ship of pearl,
And her milky silken sail
Seemed by magic to unfurl,
Puffed before a fairy gale; Shimmering o'er the purple deep,
Out across the silvery bar,
Softly as the wings of sleep
Sailed we towards the morning star.

Over us the skies were dark,
Yet we never needed light;
Softly shone our tiny bark
Gliding through the solemn night;
Softly bright our moony gleam,
Glimmered o'er the glistening waves,
Like a cold sea-maiden's dream
Globed in twilit ocean caves.

So all night our shallop passed
Many a haunt of old desire,
Blurs of savage blossom massed
Red above a pirate-fire;
Huts that gloomed and glanced among
Fruitage dipping in the blue;
Songs the sirens never sung,
Shores Ulysses never knew.

All our fairy rigging shone
Richly as a rainbow seen
Where the moonlight floats upon
Gossamers of gold and green:
All the tiny spars were bright;
Beaten gold the bowsprit was;
But our pilot was the night,
And our chart a looking-glass.

PART II

THE ARRIVAL

With rosy finger-tips the Dawn
Drew back the silver veils,
Till lilac shimmered into lawn
Above the satin sails; And o'er the waters, white and wan,
In tiny patterned state,
We saw the streets of Old Japan
Shine, like a willow plate.

O, many a milk-white pigeon roams
The purple cherry crops,
The mottled miles of pearly domes,
And blue pagoda tops,
The river with its golden canes
And dark piratic dhows,
To where beyond the twisting vanes
The burning mountain glows.

A snow-peak in the silver skies
Beyond that magic world,
We saw the great volcano rise
With incense o'er it curled,
Whose tiny thread of rose and blue
Has risen since time began,
Before the first enchanter knew
The peak of Old Japan.

Nobody watched us quietly steer
The pinnace to the painted pier,
Except one pig-tailed mandarin,
Who sat upon a chest of tea
Pretending not to hear or see!...
His hands were very long and thin,
His face was very broad and white;
And O, it was a fearful sight
To see him sit alone and grin!

His grin was very sleek and sly:
Timidly we passed him by.
He did not seem at all to care:
So, thinking we were safely past,
We ventured to look back at last.
O, dreadful blank!—He was not there!
He must have hid behind his chest:
We did not stay to see the rest.

But, as in reckless haste we ran,
We came upon the tall thin man,
Who called to us and waved his fan,
And offered us his palanquin:
He said we must not go alone
To seek the ruby wishing-stone,
Because the white-faced mandarin
Would dog our steps for many a mile,
And sit upon each purple stile
Before we came to it, and smile
And smile; his name was Creeping Sin.

He played with children's beating hearts,
And stuck them full of poisoned darts
And long green thorns that stabbed and stung:
He'd watch until we tried to speak,
Then thrust inside his pasty cheek
His long, white, slimy tongue:
And smile at everything we said;
And sometimes pat us on the head,
And say that we were very young:
He was a cousin of the man
Who said that there was no Japan.

And night and day this Creeping Sin
Would follow the path of the palanquin;
Yet if we still were fain to touch
The ruby, we must have no fear,
Whatever we might see or hear,
And the tall thin man would take us there;
He did not fear that Sly One much,
Except perhaps on a moonless night,
Nor even then if the stars were bright.

So, in the yellow palankeen
We swung along in state between
Twinkling domes of gold and green
Through the rich bazaar, Where the cross-legged merchants sat,
Old and almond-eyed and fat,
Each upon a gorgeous mat,
Each in a cymar;
Each in crimson samite breeches,
Watching his barbaric riches.

Cherry blossom breathing sweet
Whispered o'er the dim blue street
Where with fierce uncertain feet
Tawny pirates walk:
All in belts and baggy blouses,
Out of dreadful opium houses,
Out of dens where Death carouses,
Horribly they stalk;
Girt with ataghan and dagger,
Right across the road they swagger.

And where the cherry orchards blow,
We saw the maids of Miyako,
Swaying softly to and fro
Through the dimness of the dance:
Like sweet thoughts that shine through dreams
They glided, wreathing rosy gleams,
With stately sounds of silken streams,
And many a slim kohl-lidded glance;
Then fluttered with tiny rose-bud feet
To a soft frou-frou and a rhythmic beat
As the music shimmered, pursuit, retreat,
"Hands across, retire, advance!"
And again it changed and the glimmering throng
Faded into a distant song.

SONG

The maidens of Miyako
Dance in the sunset hours,
Deep in the sunset glow,
Under the cherry flowers.

With dreamy hands of pearl
Floating like butterflies,
Dimly the dancers whirl
As the rose-light dies;

And their floating gowns, their hair
Upbound with curious pins,
Fade thro' the darkening air
With the dancing mandarins.

And then, as we went, the tall thin man
Explained the manners of Old Japan;
If you pitied a thing, you pretended to sneer;
Yet if you were glad you ran to buy
A captive pigeon and let it fly;
And, if you were sad, you took a spear
To wound yourself, for fear your pain
Should quietly grow less again.

And, again he said, if we wished to find
The mystic City that enshrined
The stone so few on earth had found,
We must be very brave; it lay
A hundred haunted leagues away,
Past many a griffon-guarded ground,
In depths of dark and curious art,
Where passion-flowers enfold apart
The Temple of the Flaming Heart,
The City of the Secret Wound.

About the fragrant fall of day
We saw beside the twisted way
A blue-domed tea-house, bossed with gold;
Hungry and thirsty we entered in,
How should we know what Creeping Sin
Had breathed in that Emperor's ear who sold
His own dumb soul for an evil jewel
To the earth-gods, blind and ugly and cruel?
We drank sweet tea as his tale was told,
In a garden of blue chrysanthemums,
While a drowsy swarming of gongs and drums
Out of the sunset dreamily rolled.

But, as the murmur nearer drew,
A fat black bonze, in a robe of blue,
Suddenly at the gate appeared;
And close behind, with that evil grin,
Was it Creeping Sin, was it Creeping Sin?
The bonze looked quietly down and sneered.
Our guide! Was he sleeping? We could not wake him.
However we tried to pinch and shake him!

Nearer, nearer the tumult came,
Till, as a glare of sound and flame,
Blind from a terrible furnace door
Blares, or the mouth of a dragon, blazed
The seething gateway: deaf and dazed
With the clanging and the wild uproar
We stood; while a thousand oval eyes
Gapped our fear with a sick surmise.

Then, as the dead sea parted asunder,
The clamour clove with a sound of thunder
In two great billows; and all was quiet.
Gaunt and black was the palankeen
That came in dreadful state between
The frozen waves of the wild-eyed riot
Curling back from the breathless track
Of the Nameless One who is never seen:
The close drawn curtains were thick and black;
But wizen and white was the tall thin man
As he rose in his sleep:
His eyes were closed, his lips were wan,
He crouched like a leopard that dares not leap.

The bearers halted: the tall thin man,
Fearfully dreaming, waved his fan,
With wizard fingers, to and fro;
While, with a whimper of evil glee,
The Nameless Emperor's mad Moonshee
Stepped in front of us: dark and slow Were the words of the doom that he dared not name;
But, over the ground, as he spoke there came
Tiny circles of soft blue flame;
Like ghosts of flowers they began to glow,
And flow like a moonlit brook between
Our feet and the terrible palankeen.

But the Moonshee wrinkled his long thin eyes,
And sneered, "Have you stolen the strength of the skies?
Then pour before us a stream of pearl!
Give us the pearl and the gold we know,
And our hearts will be softened and let you go;
But these are toys for a foolish girl—
These vanishing blossoms—what are they worth?
They are not so heavy as dust and earth:
Pour before us a stream of pearl!"

Then, with a wild strange laugh, our guide
Stretched his arms to the West and cried
Once, and a song came over the sea;
And all the blossoms of moon-soft fire
Woke and breathed as a wind-swept lyre,
And the garden surged into harmony;
Till it seemed that the soul of the whole world sung,
And every petal became a tongue
To tell the thoughts of Eternity.

But the Moonshee lifted his painted brows
And stared at the gold on the blue tea-house:
"Can you clothe your body with dreams?" he sneered;
"If you taught us the truths that we always know
Our heart might be softened and let you go:
Can you tell us the length of a monkey's beard,
Or the weight of the gems on the Emperor's fan,
Or the number of parrots in Old Japan?"

And again, with a wild strange laugh, our guide
Looked at him; and he shrunk aside,
Shrivelling like a flame-touched leaf;
For the red-cross blossoms of soft blue fire
Were growing and fluttering higher and higher,
Shaking their petals out, sheaf by sheaf,
Till with disks like shields and stems like towers
Burned the host of the passion-flowers
... Had the Moonshee flown like a midnight thief?
... Yet a thing like a monkey, shrivelled and black,
Chattered and danced as they forced him back.

As the coward chatters for empty pride,
In the face of a foe that he cannot but fear,
It chattered and leapt from side to side,
And its voice rang strangely upon the ear.
As the cry of a wizard that dares not own
Another's brighter and mightier throne;
As the wrath of a fool that rails aloud
On the fire that burnt him; the brazen bray
Clamoured and sang o'er the gaping crowd,
And flapped like a gabbling goose away.

THE CRY OF THE MAD MOONSHEE

If the blossoms were beans,
I should know what it means—
This blaze, which I certainly cannot endure;
It is evil, too,
For its colour is blue,
And the sense of the matter is quite obscure.
Celestial truth
Is the food of youth;
But the music was dark as a moonless night.
The facts in the song
Were all of them wrong,

And there was not a single sum done right;
Tho' a metaphysician amongst the crowd,
In a voice that was notably deep and loud,
Repeated, as fast as he was able,
The whole of the multiplication table.

So the cry flapped off as a wild goose flies,
And the stars came out in the trembling skies,
And ever the mystic glory grew
In the garden of blue chrysanthemums,
Till there came a rumble of distant drums;
And the multitude suddenly turned and flew.
... A dead ape lay where their feet had been ...
And we called for the yellow palankeen,
And the flowers divided and let us through.

The black-barred moon was large and low
When we came to the Forest of Ancient Woe;
And over our heads the stars were bright.
But through the forest the path we travelled
Its phosphorescent aisle unravelled
In one thin ribbon of dwindling light:
And twice and thrice on the fainting track
We paused to listen. The moon grew black,
But the coolies' faces glimmered white,
As the wild woods echoed in dreadful chorus
A laugh that came horribly hopping o'er us
Like monstrous frogs thro' the murky night.

Then the tall thin man as we swung along
Sang us an old enchanted song
That lightened our hearts of their fearful load.
But, e'en as the moonlit air grew sweet,
We heard the pad of stealthy feet
Dogging us down the thin white road;
And the song grew weary again and harsh,
And the black trees dripped like the fringe of a marsh,
And a laugh crept out like a shadowy toad;
And we knew it was neither ghoul nor djinn:
It was Creeping Sin! It was Creeping Sin!

But we came to a bend, and the white moon glowed
Like a gate at the end of the narrowing road
Far away; and on either hand,
As guards of a path to the heart's desire,
The strange tall blossoms of soft blue fire
Stretched away thro' that unknown land,
League on league with their dwindling lane
Down to the large low moon; and again
There shimmered around us that mystical strain,
In a tongue that it seemed we could understand.

SONG

Hold by right and rule by fear
Till the slowly broadening sphere
Melting through the skies above
Merge into the sphere of love.

Hold by might until you find
Might is powerless o'er the mind:
Hold by Truth until you see,
Though they bow before the wind,
Its towers can mock at liberty.

Time, the seneschal, is blind;
Time is blind: and what are we?
Captives of Infinity,
Claiming through Truth's prison bars
Kinship with the wandering stars.

O, who could tell the wild weird sights
We saw in all the days and nights
We travelled through those forests old.
We saw the griffons on white cliffs,
Among fantastic hieroglyphs,
Guarding enormous heaps of gold:

We saw the Ghastroi—curious men
Who dwell, like tigers, in a den,
And howl whene'er the moon is cold;
They stripe themselves with red and black
And ride upon the yellow Yak.

Their dens are always ankle-deep
With twisted knives, and in their sleep
They often cut themselves; they say
That if you wish to live in peace
The surest way is not to cease
Collecting knives; and never a day
Can pass, unless they buy a few;
And as their enemies buy them too
They all avert the impending fray,
And starve their children and their wives
To buy the necessary knives.

* * * *

The forest leapt with shadowy shapes
As we came to the great black Tower of Apes:
But we gave them purple figs and grapes
In alabaster amphoras:
We gave them curious kinds of fruit
With betel nuts and orris-root,
And then they let us pass:
And when we reached the Tower of Snakes
We gave them soft white honey-cakes,
And warm sweet milk in bowls of brass:
And on the hundredth eve we found
The City of the Secret Wound.

We saw the mystic blossoms blow
Round the City, far below;
Faintly in the sunset glow
We saw the soft blue glory flow O'er many a golden garden gate:
And o'er the tiny dark green seas
Of tamarisks and tulip-trees,
Domes like golden oranges
Dream aloft elate.

And clearer, clearer as we went,
We heard from tower and battlement
A whisper, like a warning, sent
From watchers out of sight;
And clearer, brighter, as we drew
Close to the walls, we saw the blue
Flashing of plumes where peacocks flew
Thro' zones of pearly light.

On either side, a fat black bonze
Guarded the gates of red-wrought bronze,
Blazoned with blue sea-dragons
And mouths of yawning flame;
Down the road of dusty red,
Though their brown feet ached and bled,
Our coolies went with joyful tread:
Like living fans the gates outspread
And opened as we came.

PART III

THE MYSTIC RUBY

The white moon dawned; the sunset died;
And stars were trembling when we spied
The rose-red temple of our dreams:
Its lamp-lit gardens glimmered cool
With many an onyx-paven pool,
Amid soft sounds of flowing streams;
Where star-shine shimmered through the white
Tall fountain-shafts of crystal light
In ever changing rainbow-gleams.

Priests in flowing yellow robes
Glided under rosy globes
Through the green pomegranate boughs
Moonbeams poured their coloured rain;
Roofs of sea-green porcelain
Jutted o'er the rose-red house;
Bells were hung beneath its eaves;
Every wind that stirred the leaves
Tinkled as tired water does.

The temple had a low broad base
Of black bright marble; all its face
Was marble bright in rosy bloom;
And where two sea-green pillars rose
Deep in the flower-soft eave-shadows
We saw, thro' richly sparkling gloom,
Wrought in marvellous years of old
With bulls and peacocks bossed in gold,
The doors of powdered lacquer loom.

Quietly then the tall thin man,
Holding his turquoise-tinted fan,
Alighted from the palanquin;
We followed: never painter dreamed
Of how that dark rich temple gleamed
With gules of jewelled gloom within;
And as we wondered near the door
A priest came o'er the polished floor
In sandals of soft serpent-skin;
His mitre shimmered bright and blue
With pigeon's breast-plumes. When he knew
Our quest he stroked his broad white chin,
And looked at us with slanting eyes
And smiled; then through his deep disguise
We knew him! It was Creeping Sin!

But cunningly he bowed his head
Down on his gilded breast and said
Come: and he led us through the dusk
Of passages whose painted walls
Gleamed with dark old festivals; Till where the gloom grew sweet with musk
And incense, through a door of amber
We came into a high-arched chamber.

There on a throne of jasper sat
A monstrous idol, black and fat;
Thick rose-oil dropped upon its head:
Drop by drop, heavy and sweet,
Trickled down to its ebon feet
Whereon the blood of goats was shed,
And smeared around its perfumed knees
In savage midnight mysteries.

It wore about its bulging waist
A belt of dark green bronze enchased
With big, soft, cloudy pearls; its wrists
Were clasped about with moony gems
Gathered from dead kings' diadems;
Its throat was ringed with amethysts,
And in its awful hand it held
A softly smouldering emerald.

Silkily murmured Creeping Sin,
"This is the stone you wished to win!"
"White Snake," replied the tall thin man,
"Show us the Ruby Stone, or I
Will slay thee with my hands." The sly
Long eyelids of the priest began
To slant aside; and then once more
He led us through the fragrant door.

And now along the passage walls
Were painted hideous animals,
With hooded eyes and cloven stings:
In the incense that like shadowy hair
Streamed over them they seemed to stir
Their craggy claws and crooked wings.
At last we saw strange moon-wreaths curl
Around a deep, soft porch of pearl.

O, what enchanter wove in dreams
That chapel wild with shadowy gleams
And prismy colours of the moon?
Shrined like a rainbow in a mist
Of flowers, the fretted amethyst
Arches rose to a mystic tune;
And never mortal art inlaid
Those cloudy floors of sea-soft jade.

There, in the midst, an idol rose
White as the silent starlit snows
On lonely Himalayan heights:
Over its head the spikenard spilled
Down to its feet, with myrrh distilled
In distant, odorous Indian nights:
It held before its ivory face
A flaming yellow chrysoprase.

O, silkily murmured Creeping Sin,
"This is the stone you wished to win."
But in his ear the tall thin man
Whispered with slow, strange lips—we knew
Not what, but Creeping Sin went blue
With fear; again his eyes began
To slant aside; then through the porch
He passed, and lit a tall, brown torch.

Down a corridor dark as death,
With beating hearts and bated breath
We hurried; far away we heard
A dreadful hissing, fierce as fire
When rain begins to quench a pyre;
And where the smoky torch-light flared
Strange vermin beat their bat-like wings,
And the wet walls dropped with slimy things.

And darker, darker, wound the way,
Beyond all gleams of night and day,
And still that hideous hissing grew
Louder and louder on our ears,
And tortured us with eyeless fears; Then suddenly the gloom turned blue,
And, in the wall, a rough rock cave
Gaped, like a phosphorescent grave.

And from the purple mist within
There came a wild tumultuous din
Of snakes that reared their heads and hissed
As if a witch's cauldron boiled;
All round the door great serpents coiled,
With eyes of glowing amethyst,
Whose fierce blue flames began to slide
Like shooting stars from side to side.

Ah! with a sickly gasping grin
And quivering eyelids, Creeping Sin
Stole to the cave; but, suddenly,
As through its glimmering mouth he passed,
The serpents flashed and gripped him fast:
He wriggled and gave one awful cry,
Then all at once the cave was cleared;
The snakes with their victim had disappeared.

And fearlessly the tall thin man
Opened his turquoise-tinted fan
And entered; and the mists grew bright,
And we saw that the cave was a diamond hall
Lit with lamps for a festival.
A myriad globes of coloured light
Went gliding deep in its massy sides,
Like the shimmering moons in the glassy tides
Where a sea-king's palace enchants the night.

Gliding and flowing, a glory and wonder,
Through each other, and over, and under,
The lucent orbs of green and gold,
Bright with sorrow or soft with sleep,
In music through the glimmering deep,
Over their secret axles rolled,
And circled by the murmuring spheres
We saw in a frame of frozen tears
A mirror that made the blood run cold.

For, when we came to it, we found
It imaged everything around
Except the face that gazed in it;
And where the mirrored face should be
A heart-shaped Ruby fierily
Smouldered; and round the frame was writ,
Mystery: Time and Tide shall pass,
I am the Wisdom Looking-Glass.

This is the Ruby none can touch:
Many have loved it overmuch;
Its fathomless fires flutter and sigh,
Being as images of the flame
That shall make earth and heaven the same
When the fire of the end reddens the sky,
And the world consumes like a burning pall,
Till where there is nothing, there is all.

So we looked up at the tall thin man
And we saw that his face grew sad and wan:
Tears were glistening in his eyes:
At last, with a breaking sob, he bent
His head upon his breast and went
Swiftly away! With dreadful cries
We rushed to the softly glimmering door
And stared at the hideous corridor.
But his robe was gone as a dream that flies:
Back to the glass in terror we came,
And stared at the writing round the frame.

We could not understand one word:
And suddenly we thought we heard
The hissing of the snakes again:
How could we front them all alone?
O, madly we clutched at the mirrored stone
And wished we were back on the flowery plain:
And swifter than thought and swift as fear
The whole world flashed, and behold we were there.

Yes; there was the port of Old Japan,
With its twisted patterns, white and wan,
Shining like a mottled fan
Spread by the blue sea, faint and far;
And far away we heard once more
A sound of singing on the shore,
Where boys in blue kimonos bore
Roses in a golden jar:
And we heard, where the cherry orchards blow,
The serpent-charmers fluting low,
And the song of the maidens of Miyako.

And at our feet unbroken lay
The glass that had whirled us thither away:
And in the grass, among the flowers
We sat and wished all sorts of things:
O, we were wealthier than kings!
We ruled the world for several hours!
And then, it seemed, we knew not why,
All the daisies began to die.

We wished them alive again; but soon
The trees all fled up towards the moon
Like peacocks through the sunlit air:
And the butterflies flapped into silver fish;
And each wish spoiled another wish;
Till we threw the glass down in despair;
For, getting whatever you want to get,
Is like drinking tea from a fishing net.

At last we thought we'd wish once more
That all should be as it was before;
And then we'd shatter the glass, if we could;
But just as the world grew right again,
We heard a wanderer out on the plain
Singing what none of us understood;
Yet we thought that the world grew thrice more sweet
And the meadows were blossoming under his feet.

And we felt a grand and beautiful fear,
For we knew that a marvellous thought drew near;
So we kept the glass for a little while:
And the skies grew deeper and twice as bright,
And the seas grew soft as a flower of light,
And the meadows rippled from stile to stile;
And memories danced in a musical throng
Thro' the blossom that scented the wonderful song.

SONG

We sailed across the silver seas
And saw the sea-blue bowers,
We saw the purple cherry trees,
And all the foreign flowers,
We travelled in a palanquin
Beyond the caravan,
And yet our hearts had never seen
The Flower of Old Japan.

The Flower above all other flowers,
The Flower that never dies;
Before whose throne the scented hours
Offer their sacrifice;
The Flower that here on earth below
Reveals the heavenly plan;
But only little children know
The Flower of Old Japan.

There, in the dim blue flowery plain
We wished with the magic glass again
To go to the Flower of the song's desire:
And o'er us the whole of the soft blue sky
Flashed like fire as the world went by,
And far beneath us the sea like fire
Flashed in one swift blue brilliant stream,
And the journey was done, like a change in a dream.

PART IV

THE END OF THE QUEST

Like the dawn upon a dream
Slowly through the scented gloom
Crept once more the ruddy gleam
O'er the friendly nursery room.
There, before our waking eyes,
Large and ghostly, white and dim,
Dreamed the Flower that never dies,
Opening wide its rosy rim.

Spreading like a ghostly fan,
Petals white as porcelain,
There the Flower of Old Japan
Told us we were home again;
For a soft and curious light
Suddenly was o'er it shed.
And we saw it was a white
English daisy, ringed with red.

Slowly, as a wavering mist
Waned the wonder out of sight,
To a sigh of amethyst,
To a wraith of scented light.
Flower and magic glass had gone;
Near the clutching fire we sat
Dreaming, dreaming, all alone,
Each upon a furry mat.

While the firelight, red and clear,
Fluttered in the black wet pane,
It was very good to hear
Howling winds and trotting rain.
For we found at last we knew
More than all our fancy planned,
All the fairy tales were true,
And home the heart of fairyland.

EPILOGUE

Carol, every violet has
Heaven for a looking-glass!

Every little valley lies
Under many-clouded skies;
Every little cottage stands
Girt about with boundless lands.
Every little glimmering pond
Claims the mighty shores beyond—
Shores no seamen ever hailed,
Seas no ship has ever sailed.

All the shores when day is done
Fade into the setting sun,
So the story tries to teach
More than can be told in speech.

Beauty is a fading flower,
Truth is but a wizard's tower,
Where a solemn death-bell tolls,
And a forest round it rolls.

We have come by curious ways
To the Light that holds the days;
We have sought in haunts of fear
For that all-enfolding sphere:
And lo! it was not far, but near.

We have found, O foolish-fond,
The shore that has no shore beyond.

Deep in every heart it lies
With its untranscended skies;
For what heaven should bend above
Hearts that own the heaven of love?

Carol, Carol, we have come
Back to heaven, back to home.

APES AND IVORY

Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong,
Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song,
Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East,
O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast.

Or is it an elephant, white as milk and bearing a severed head
That tatters his broad soft wrinkled flank in tawdry patches of red,
With a negro giant to walk beside and a temple dome above,
Where ruby and emerald shatter the sun,—is it these that should please my love?

Or is it a palace of pomegranates, where ivory-limbed young slaves
Lure a luxury out of the noon in the swooning fountain's waves;
Or couch like cats and sun themselves on the warm white marble brink?
O, Love has little to ask of these, this day in May, I think.

Is it Lebanon cedars or purple fruits of the honeyed southron air,
Spikenard, saffron, roses of Sharon, cinnamon, calamus, myrrh,
A bed of spices, a fountain of waters, or the wild white wings of a dove,
Now, when the winter is over and gone, is it these that should please my love?

The leaves outburst on the hazel-bough and the hawthorn's heaped wi' flower,
And God has bidden the crisp clouds build my love a lordlier tower,
Taller than Lebanon, whiter than snow, in the fresh blue skies above;
And the wild rose wakes in the winding lanes of the radiant land I love.

Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong,
Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song,
Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East,
O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast.

A SONG OF SHERWOOD

Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?
Grey and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake,
Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,
Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.

Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thieves
Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves,
Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June:
All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon,
Like a flight of rose-leaves fluttering in a mist
Of opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.

Merry, merry England is waking as of old,
With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold:
For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting spray
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Love is in the greenwood building him a house
Of wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs:
Love is in the greenwood, dawn is in the skies,
And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.