  TIARE TAHITI 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 land Hard for us to understand. Out of time, beyond the sun, All are one in Paradise, You and Pupure are one, And TaÜ, and the ungainly wise. There the Eternals are, and there The Good, the Lovely, and the True, And Types, whose earthly copies were The 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 love Faint 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, TeÏpo's feet, And the hands of Matua, Stars and sunlight there shall meet, Coral's hues and rainbows there, And TeÜra'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 dreams Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff, Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems, All time-entangled human love. And you'll no longer swing and sway Divinely 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 missing The palms, and sunlight, and the south; And there's an end, I think, of kissing, When our mouths are one with Mouth.... TaÜ here, Mamua, Crown the hair, and come away! Hear the calling of the moon, And the whispering scents that stray About 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 there Pursuing down the soundless deep Limbs 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 laughter And faces individual, Well this side of Paradise!... There's little comfort in the wise. Papeete, February 1914 RETROSPECT 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 trace In the heaven of your face. In your stupidity I found The sweet hush after a sweet sound. All about you was the light That 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 known Your 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 THE GREAT LOVER I have been so great a lover: filled my days So 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 bear Our hearts at random down the dark of life. Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far, My night shall be remembered for a star That outshone all the suns of all men's days. Shall I not crown them with immortal praise Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see The 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 names Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames, And set them as a banner, that men may know, To dare the generations, burn, and blow Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming.... White plates and cups, clean-gleaming, Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust; Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust Of 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 soon Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen Unpassioned 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 lingers About 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 foam That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home; And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould; Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew; 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 power To 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 trust And sacramented covenant to the dust. —Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake, And give what's left of love again, and make New friends, now strangers.... But the best I've known, Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown About the winds of the world, and fades from brains Of living men, and dies. Nothing remains. O dear my loves, O faithless, once again This one last gift I give: that after men Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed, Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved." Mataiea, 1914 HEAVEN 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, Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And, sure, the reverent eye must see A 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 One Who 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; 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. DOUBTS 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 know Doubts 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 wise Behind 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? THERE'S WISDOM IN WOMEN "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? HE WONDERS WHETHER TO PRAISE OR TO BLAME HER 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. A MEMORY (From a sonnet-sequence) Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept Softly 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 crept About my head, and held it. I had rest Unhoped 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 gain Of that poor moment's kindliness, and ease, And sleepy mother-comfort! Child, you know How easily love leaps out to dreams like these, Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened so Takes all too long to lay asleep again. Waikiki, October 1913 ONE DAY Today I have been happy. All the day I held the memory of you, and wove Its 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 WAIKIKI Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes, Somewhere an eukaleli thrills and cries And 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 one Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly, A long while since, and by some other sea. Waikiki, 1913 HAUNTINGS In the grey tumult of these after years Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part; And less-than-echoes of remembered tears Hush all the loud confusion of the heart; And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of mirth and crying Hungers, 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. The Pacific, 1914 SONNET (Suggested by some of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research) Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun, We'll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread Those dusty high-roads of the aimless dead Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run Down some close-covered by-way of the air, Some low sweet alley between wind and wind, Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find Some whispering ghost-forgotten nook, and there Spend in pure converse our eternal day; Think each in each, immediately wise; Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say What this tumultuous body now denies; And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; And see, no longer blinded by our eyes. MUTABILITY They say there's a high windless world and strange, Out of the wash of days and temporal tide, Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide, Æterna corpora, subject to no change. There the sure suns of these pale shadows move; There stand the immortal ensigns of our war; Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star, And perishing hearts, imperishable Love.... Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile; Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over; Love has no habitation but the heart. Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile, Cling, and are borne into the night apart. The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover. South Kensington—Makaweli, 1913 |
|
