My restless blood now lies a-quiver,Knowing that always, exquisitely,This April twilight on the riverStirs anguish in the heart of me.For the fast world in that rare glimmerPuts on the witchery of a dream,The straight grey buildings, richly dimmer,The fiery windows, and the streamWith willows leaning quietly over,The still ecstatic fading skies . . .And all these, like a waiting lover,Murmur and gleam, lift lustrous eyes,Drift close to me, and sideways bendingWhisper delicious words.But IStretch terrible hands, uncomprehending,Shaken with love; and laugh; and cry.My agony made the willows quiver;I heard the knocking of my heartDie loudly down the windless river,I heard the pale skies fall apart,And the shrill stars' unmeaning laughter,And my voice with the vocal treesWeeping. And Hatred followed after,Shrilling madly down the breeze.In peace from the wild heart of clamour,A flower in moonlight, she was there,Was rippling down white ways of glamourQuietly laid on wave and air.Her passing left no leaf a-quiver.Pale flowers wreathed her white, white brows.Her feet were silence on the river;And "Hush!" she said, between the boughs.
In darkness the loud sea makes moan;And earth is shaken, and all evils creepAbout her ways.Oh, now to know you sleep!Out of the whirling blinding moil, alone,Out of the slow grim fight,One thought to wing — to you, asleep,In some cool room that's open to the nightLying half-forward, breathing quietly,One white hand on the whiteUnrumpled sheet, and the ever-moving hairQuiet and still at length! . . .Your magic and your beauty and your strength,Like hills at noon or sunlight on a tree,Sleeping prevail in earth and air.In the sweet gloom above the brown and whiteNight benedictions hover; and the winds of nightMove gently round the room, and watch you there.And through the dreadful hoursThe trees and waters and the hills have keptThe sacred vigil while you slept,And lay a way of dew and flowersWhere your feet, your morning feet, shall tread.And still the darkness ebbs about your bed.Quiet, and strange, and loving-kind, you sleep.And holy joy about the earth is shed;And holiness upon the deep.
From the candles and dumb shadows,And the house where love had died,I stole to the vast moonlightAnd the whispering life outside.But I found no lips of comfort,No home in the moon's light(I, little and lone and frightenedIn the unfriendly night),And no meaning in the voices. . . .Far over the lands and throughThe dark, beyond the ocean,I willed to think of YOU!For I knew, had you been with meI'd have known the words of night,Found peace of heart, gone gladlyIn comfort of that light.Oh! the wind with soft beguilingWould have stolen my thought away;And the night, subtly smiling,Came by the silver way;And the moon came down and danced to me,And her robe was white and flying;And trees bent their heads to meMysteriously crying;And dead voices wept around me;And dead soft fingers thrilled;And the little gods whispered. . . .But everDesperately I willed;Till all grew soft and farAnd silent . . .And suddenlyI found you white and radiant,Sleeping quietly,Far out through the tides of darkness.And I there in that great lightWas alone no more, nor fearful;For there, in the homely night,Was no thought else that mattered,And nothing else was true,But the white fire of moonlight,And a white dream of you.
"Oh! Love," they said, "is King of Kings,And Triumph is his crown.Earth fades in flame before his wings,And Sun and Moon bow down." —But that, I knew, would never do;And Heaven is all too high.So whenever I meet a Queen, I said,I will not catch her eye."Oh! Love," they said, and "Love," they said,"The gift of Love is this;A crown of thorns about thy head,And vinegar to thy kiss!" —But Tragedy is not for me;And I'm content to be gay.So whenever I spied a Tragic Lady,I went another way.And so I never feared to seeYou wander down the street,Or come across the fields to meOn ordinary feet.For what they'd never told me of,And what I never knew;It was that all the time, my love,Love would be merely you.
Safe in the magic of my woodsI lay, and watched the dying light.Faint in the pale high solitudes,And washed with rain and veiled by night,Silver and blue and green were showing.And the dark woods grew darker still;And birds were hushed; and peace was growing;And quietness crept up the hill;And no wind was blowingAnd I knewThat this was the hour of knowing,And the night and the woods and youWere one together, and I should findSoon in the silence the hidden keyOf all that had hurt and puzzled me —Why you were you, and the night was kind,And the woods were part of the heart of me.And there I waited breathlessly,Alone; and slowly the holy three,The three that I loved, together grewOne, in the hour of knowing,Night, and the woods, and you ——And suddenlyThere was an uproar in my woods,The noise of a fool in mock distress,Crashing and laughing and blindly going,Of ignorant feet and a swishing dress,And a Voice profaning the solitudes.The spell was broken, the key denied meAnd at length your flat clear voice beside meMouthed cheerful clear flat platitudes.You came and quacked beside me in the wood.You said, "The view from here is very good!"You said, "It's nice to be alone a bit!"And, "How the days are drawing out!" you said.You said, "The sunset's pretty, isn't it?"
By God! I wish — I wish that you were dead!
When you were there, and you, and you,Happiness crowned the night; I too,Laughing and looking, one of all,I watched the quivering lamplight fallOn plate and flowers and pouring teaAnd cup and cloth; and they and weFlung all the dancing moments byWith jest and glitter. Lip and eyeFlashed on the glory, shone and cried,Improvident, unmemoried;And fitfully and like a flameThe light of laughter went and came.Proud in their careless transience movedThe changing faces that I loved.Till suddenly, and otherwhence,I looked upon your innocence.For lifted clear and still and strangeFrom the dark woven flow of changeUnder a vast and starless skyI saw the immortal moment lie.One instant I, an instant, knewAs God knows all. And it and youI, above Time, oh, blind! could seeIn witless immortality.I saw the marble cup; the tea,Hung on the air, an amber stream;I saw the fire's unglittering gleam,The painted flame, the frozen smoke.No more the flooding lamplight brokeOn flying eyes and lips and hair;But lay, but slept unbroken there,On stiller flesh, and body breathless,And lips and laughter stayed and deathless,And words on which no silence grew.Light was more alive than you.For suddenly, and otherwhence,I looked on your magnificence.I saw the stillness and the light,And you, august, immortal, white,Holy and strange; and every glintPosture and jest and thought and tintFreed from the mask of transiency,Triumphant in eternity,Immote, immortal.Dazed at lengthHuman eyes grew, mortal strengthWearied; and Time began to creep.Change closed about me like a sleep.Light glinted on the eyes I loved.The cup was filled. The bodies moved.The drifting petal came to ground.The laughter chimed its perfect round.The broken syllable was ended.And I, so certain and so friended,How could I cloud, or how distress,The heaven of your unconsciousness?Or shake at Time's sufficient spell,Stammering of lights unutterable?The eternal holiness of you,The timeless end, you never knew,The peace that lay, the light that shone.You never knew that I had goneA million miles away, and stayedA million years. The laughter playedUnbroken round me; and the jestFlashed on. And we that knew the bestDown wonderful hours grew happier yet.I sang at heart, and talked, and eat,And lived from laugh to laugh, I too,When you were there, and you, and you.
In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood,Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning oneFar golden horn in the gold of trees and sunRang out; and held; and died. . . . She thought the woodGrew quieter. Wing, and leaf, and pool of lightForgot to dance. Dumb lay the unfalling stream;Life one eternal instant rose in dreamClear out of time, poised on a golden height. . . .Till a swift terror broke the abrupt hour.The gold waves purled amidst the green above her;And a bird sang. With one sharp-taken breath,By sunlit branches and unshaken flower,The immortal limbs flashed to the human lover,And the immortal eyes to look on death.
The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quickMy cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knewI must think hard of something, or be sick;And could think hard of only one thing — YOU!You, you alone could hold my fancy ever!And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole.Now there's a choice — heartache or tortured liver!A sea-sick body, or a you-sick soul!Do I forget you? Retchings twist and tie me,Old meat, good meals, brown gobbets, up I throw.Do I remember? Acrid return and slimy,The sobs and slobber of a last years woe.And still the sick ship rolls. 'Tis hard, I tell ye,To choose 'twixt love and nausea, heart and belly.
All night the ways of Heaven were desolate,Long roads across a gleaming empty sky.Outcast and doomed and driven, you and I,Alone, serene beyond all love or hate,Terror or triumph, were content to wait,We, silent and all-knowing. SuddenlySwept through the heaven low-crouching from on high,One horseman, downward to the earth's low gate.Oh, perfect from the ultimate height of living,Lightly we turned, through wet woods blossom-hung,Into the open. Down the supernal roads,With plumes a-tossing, purple flags far flung,Rank upon rank, unbridled, unforgiving,Thundered the black battalions of the Gods.
Through my heart's palace Thoughts unnumbered throng;And there, most quiet and, as a child, most wise,High-throned you sit, and gracious. All day longGreat Hopes gold-armoured, jester Fantasies,And pilgrim Dreams, and little beggar Sighs,Bow to your benediction, go their way.And the grave jewelled courtier MemoriesWorship and love and tend you, all the day.But when I sleep, and all my thoughts go straying,When the high session of the day is ended,And darkness comes; then, with the waning light,By lilied maidens on your way attended,Proud from the wonted throne, superbly swaying,You, like a queen, pass out into the night.
Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of springLight-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring;Ah! not now should you come, now when the road beckons,and good friends call,Where are songs to be sung, fights to be fought, yea! and the best of all,Love, on myriad lips fairer than yours, kisses you could not give! . . .Dearest, why should I mourn, whimper, and whine, I that have yet to live?Sorrow will I forget, tears for the best, love on the lips of you,Now, when dawn in the blood wakes, and the sun laughs up the eastern blue;I'll forget and be glad!Only at length, dear, when the great day ends,When love dies with the last light, and the last song has been sung,and friendsAll are perished, and gloom strides on the heaven: then, as alone I lie,'Mid Death's gathering winds, frightened and dumb, sick for the past, may IFeel you suddenly there, cool at my brow; then may I hear the peaceOf your voice at the last, whispering love, calling, ere all can ceaseIn the silence of death; then may I see dimly, and know, a space,Bending over me, last light in the dark, once, as of old, your face.
Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void,lost in the haunted wood,I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitudeWaiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleamGlowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,Unrecaptured.For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glanceOne day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radianceFill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it,End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, litThe flame, burning apart.Face of my dreams vainly in vision whiteGleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnightWhispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs aboveGrated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the sacred groveGreat birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length.I knewLong expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, youSomewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth,White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth,God, immortal and dead!Therefore I go; never to rest, or winPeace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the shrine therein.
So light we were, so right we were, so fair faith shone,And the way was laid so certainly, that, when I'd gone,What dumb thing looked up at you? Was it something heard,Or a sudden cry, that meekly and without a wordYou broke the faith, and strangely, weakly, slipped apart.You gave in — you, the proud of heart, unbowed of heart!Was this, friend, the end of all that we could do?And have you found the best for you, the rest for you?Did you learn so suddenly (and I not by!)Some whispered story, that stole the glory from the sky,And ended all the splendid dream, and made you goSo dully from the fight we know, the light we know?O faithless! the faith remains, and I must passGay down the way, and on alone. Under the grassYou wait; the breeze moves in the trees, and stirs, and calls,And covers you with white petals, with light petals.There it shall crumble, frail and fair, under the sun,O little heart, your brittle heart; till day be done,And the shadows gather, falling light, and, white with dew,Whisper, and weep; and creep to you. Good sleep to you!
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,And all the little emptiness of love!Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace thereBut only agony, and that has ending;And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blestHe who has found our hid security,Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?'We have found safety with all things undying,The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.These laid the world away; poured out the redSweet wine of youth; gave up the years to beOf work and joy, and that unhoped serene,That men call age; and those who would have been,Their sons, they gave, their immortality.Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,And paid his subjects with a royal wage;And Nobleness walks in our ways again;And we have come into our heritage.
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,And sunset, and the colours of the earth.These had seen movement, and heard music; knownSlumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.There are waters blown by changing winds to laughterAnd lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that danceAnd wandering loveliness. He leaves a whiteUnbroken glory, a gathered radiance,A width, a shining peace, under the night.
If I should die, think only this of me:That there's some corner of a foreign fieldThat is for ever England. There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed;A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,A body of England's, breathing English air,Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.And think, this heart, all evil shed away,A pulse in the eternal mind, no lessGives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
When colour goes home into the eyes,And lights that shine are shut againWith dancing girls and sweet birds' criesBehind the gateways of the brain;And that no-place which gave them birth, shall closeThe rainbow and the rose: —Still may Time hold some golden spaceWhere I'll unpack that scented storeOf song and flower and sky and face,And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,Musing upon them; as a mother, whoHas watched her children all the rich day throughSits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,When children sleep, ere night.
Mamua, when our laughter ends,And hearts and bodies, brown as white,Are dust about the doors of friends,Or scent ablowing down the night,Then, oh! then, the wise agree,Comes our immortality.Mamua, there waits a landHard for us to understand.Out of time, beyond the sun,All are one in Paradise,You and Pupure are one,And Tau, and the ungainly wise.There the Eternals are, and thereThe Good, the Lovely, and the True,And Types, whose earthly copies wereThe foolish broken things we knew;There is the Face, whose ghosts we are;The real, the never-setting Star;And the Flower, of which we loveFaint and fading shadows here;Never a tear, but only Grief;Dance, but not the limbs that move;Songs in Song shall disappear;Instead of lovers, Love shall be;For hearts, Immutability;And there, on the Ideal Reef,Thunders the Everlasting Sea!And my laughter, and my pain,Shall home to the Eternal Brain.And all lovely things, they say,Meet in Loveliness again;Miri's laugh, Teipo's feet,And the hands of Matua,Stars and sunlight there shall meet,Coral's hues and rainbows there,And Teura's braided hair;And with the starred 'tiare's' white,And white birds in the dark ravine,And 'flamboyants' ablaze at night,And jewels, and evening's after-green,And dawns of pearl and gold and red,Mamua, your lovelier head!And there'll no more be one who dreamsUnder the ferns, of crumbling stuff,Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems,All time-entangled human love.And you'll no longer swing and swayDivinely down the scented shade,Where feet to Ambulation fade,And moons are lost in endless Day.How shall we wind these wreaths of ours,Where there are neither heads nor flowers?Oh, Heaven's Heaven! — but we'll be missingThe palms, and sunlight, and the south;And there's an end, I think, of kissing,When our mouths are one with Mouth. . . .'Tau here', Mamua,Crown the hair, and come away!Hear the calling of the moon,And the whispering scents that strayAbout the idle warm lagoon.Hasten, hand in human hand,Down the dark, the flowered way,Along the whiteness of the sand,And in the water's soft caress,Wash the mind of foolishness,Mamua, until the day.Spend the glittering moonlight therePursuing down the soundless deepLimbs that gleam and shadowy hair,Or floating lazy, half-asleep.Dive and double and follow after,Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,With lips that fade, and human laughterAnd faces individual,Well this side of Paradise! . . .There's little comfort in the wise.
Papeete, February 1914
In your arms was still delight,Quiet as a street at night;And thoughts of you, I do remember,Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.Love, in you, went passing by,Penetrative, remote, and rare,Like a bird in the wide air,And, as the bird, it left no traceIn the heaven of your face.In your stupidity I foundThe sweet hush after a sweet sound.All about you was the lightThat dims the greying end of night;Desire was the unrisen sun,Joy the day not yet begun,With tree whispering to tree,Without wind, quietly.Wisdom slept within your hair,And Long-Suffering was there,And, in the flowing of your dress,Undiscerning Tenderness.And when you thought, it seemed to me,Infinitely, and like a sea,About the slight world you had knownYour vast unconsciousness was thrown. . . .O haven without wave or tide!Silence, in which all songs have died!Holy book, where hearts are still!And home at length under the hill!O mother quiet, breasts of peace,Where love itself would faint and cease!O infinite deep I never knew,I would come back, come back to you,Find you, as a pool unstirred,Kneel down by you, and never a word,Lay my head, and nothing said,In your hands, ungarlanded;And a long watch you would keep;And I should sleep, and I should sleep!
Mataiea, January 1914
I have been so great a lover: filled my daysSo proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,Desire illimitable, and still content,And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,For the perplexed and viewless streams that bearOur hearts at random down the dark of life.Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strifeSteals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,My night shall be remembered for a starThat outshone all the suns of all men's days.Shall I not crown them with immortal praiseWhom I have loved, who have given me, dared with meHigh secrets, and in darkness knelt to seeThe inenarrable godhead of delight?Love is a flame; — we have beaconed the world's night.A city: — and we have built it, these and I.An emperor: — we have taught the world to die.So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,And the high cause of Love's magnificence,And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those namesGolden for ever, eagles, crying flames,And set them as a banner, that men may know,To dare the generations, burn, and blowOut on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .These I have loved:White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crustOf friendly bread; and many-tasting food;Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soonSmooth away trouble; and the rough male kissOf blankets; grainy wood; live hair that isShining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keenUnpassioned beauty of a great machine;The benison of hot water; furs to touch;The good smell of old clothes; and other such —The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingersAbout dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .Dear names,And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foamThat browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;And washen stones, gay for an hour; the coldGraveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; —All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,Whatever passes not, in the great hour,Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have powerTo hold them with me through the gate of Death.They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trustAnd sacramented covenant to the dust.—— Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,And give what's left of love again, and makeNew friends, now strangers. . . .But the best I've known,Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blownAbout the winds of the world, and fades from brainsOf living men, and dies.Nothing remains.O dear my loves, O faithless, once againThis one last gift I give: that after menShall know, and later lovers, far-removed,Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."
Mataiea, 1914
Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,Each secret fishy hope or fear.Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;But is there anything Beyond?This life cannot be All, they swear,For how unpleasant, if it were!One may not doubt that, somehow, GoodShall come of Water and of Mud;And, sure, the reverent eye must seeA Purpose in Liquidity.We darkly know, by Faith we cry,The future is not Wholly Dry.Mud unto mud! — Death eddies near —Not here the appointed End, not here!But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.Is wetter water, slimier slime!And there (they trust) there swimmeth OneWho swam ere rivers were begun,Immense, of fishy form and mind,Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;And under that Almighty Fin,The littlest fish may enter in.Oh! never fly conceals a hook,Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,But more than mundane weeds are there,And mud, celestially fair;Fat caterpillars drift around,And Paradisal grubs are found;Unfading moths, immortal flies,And the worm that never dies.And in that Heaven of all their wish,There shall be no more land, say fish.
When she sleeps, her soul, I know,Goes a wanderer on the air,Wings where I may never go,Leaves her lying, still and fair,Waiting, empty, laid aside,Like a dress upon a chair. . . .This I know, and yet I knowDoubts that will not be denied.For if the soul be not in place,What has laid trouble in her face?And, sits there nothing ware and wiseBehind the curtains of her eyes,What is it, in the self's eclipse,Shadows, soft and passingly,About the corners of her lips,The smile that is essential she?And if the spirit be not there,Why is fragrance in the hair?
"Oh love is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said,"But love goes lightly over." I bowed her foolish head,And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she;So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly.But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known,And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own,Or how should my dear one, being ignorant and young,Have cried on love so bitterly, with so true a tongue?
I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over,But if to praise or blame you, cannot say.For, who decries the loved, decries the lover;Yet what man lauds the thing he's thrown away?Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught,The more fool I, so great a fool to adore;But if you're that high goddess once I thought,The more your godhead is, I lose the more.Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever!Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you!Most fair, — the blind has lost your face for ever!Most foul, — how could I see you while I kissed you?So . . . the poor love of fools and blind I've proved you,For, foul or lovely, 'twas a fool that loved you.
Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and steptSoftly along the dim way to your room,And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,And holiness about you as you slept.I knelt there; till your waking fingers creptAbout my head, and held it. I had restUnhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.It was great wrong you did me; and for gainOf that poor moment's kindliness, and ease,And sleepy mother-comfort!Child, you knowHow easily love leaps out to dreams like these,Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened soTakes all too long to lay asleep again.
Waikiki, October 1913
Today I have been happy. All the dayI held the memory of you, and woveIts laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,And sent you following the white waves of sea,And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,Stray buds from that old dust of misery,Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.So lightly I played with those dark memories,Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,And love has been betrayed, and murder done,And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.
The Pacific, October 1913
Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and treeDrift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyesSomewhere an 'eukaleli' thrills and criesAnd stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;And new stars burn into the ancient skies,Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,An empty tale, of idleness and pain,Of two that loved — or did not love — and oneWhose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,A long while since, and by some other sea.
Waikiki, 1913
In the grey tumult of these after yearsOft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part;And less-than-echoes of remembered tearsHush all the loud confusion of the heart;And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of mirth and cryingHungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood, —Quite lost, and all but all forgot, undying,Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude.So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams,Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men,Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible,And light on waving grass, he knows not when,And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.