Chapter II

The sêmi is silent (Autumn rains!) The wind-bells tinkle (How chill it is!) The quick lights come On the shoji-panes. Come, O Baku, Eater of dreams!

The maple darkens
(Pale grow I!)
The near night shivers
(The temple fades.)

Haunting love Will not cease to cry! Come, O Baku, Eater of dreams!

The wild mists gather (Ah, my tears!) The pane-lights vanish (For some there is rest.) But for me-- The remembered years! Come, O Baku, Eater of dreams!

MAPLE LEAVES ON MIYAJIMA

The summer has come, The summer has gone, And the maple leaves lift fairy hands That ripple upon the winds of dawn Where the dim pagoda stands. They ripple and beckon yearningly To their sister fairies over the sea, But help comes not, So they fall and flee From Autumn over the sands.

And down the mountain And into the tide, Some are blown where the sampans glide, And some are strewn by the temple's side, And some by the torii. But Autumn ever Pursues them till, As ever before, She has her will, And leaves them desolate, dead and still, Ravished afar and wide; Leaves them desolate; crying shrill, "No beauty shall abide!"

TYPHOON

(_At Hong-kong_)

I was weary and slept on the Peak;
The air clung close like a shroud,
And ever the blue-fly's buzz in my ear
Hung haunting and hot and loud;
I awoke and the sky was dun
With awe and a dread that soon
Went shuddering thro my heart, for I knew
That it meant typhoon! typhoon!

In the harbour below, far down,
The junks like fowl in a flock
Were tossing in wingless terror, or fled
Fluttering in from the shock.
The city, a breathless bend
Of roofs, by the water strewn,
Lay silent and waiting, yet there was none
Within it but said typhoon!

Then it came, like a million winds
Gone mad immeasurably,
A torrid and tortuous tempest stung
By rape of the fair South Sea.
And it swept like a scud escaped
From craters of sun or moon,
And struck as no power of Heaven could,
Or of Hell--typhoon! typhoon!

And the junks were smitten and torn,
The drowning struggled and cried,
Or, dashed on the granite walls of the sea,
In succourless hundreds died.
Till I shut the sight from my eyes
And prayed for my soul to swoon:
If ever I see God's face, let it
Be guiltless of that typhoon!

PENANG

I want to go back to Singapore
And ship along the Straits,
To a bungalow I know beside Penang;
Where cocoanut palms along the shore
Are waving, and the gates
Of Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore.
I want to go back and hear the surf
Come beating in at night,
Like the washing of eternity over the dead.
I want to see dawn fare up and day
Go down in golden light;
I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!

I want to go back to Singapore
And up along the Straits
To the bungalow that waits me by the tide.
Where the Tamil and Malay tell their lore
At evening--and the fates
Have set no soothless canker at life's core.
I want to go back and mend my heart
Beneath the tropic moon,
While the tamarind-tree is whispering thoughts of sleep.
I want to believe that Earth again
With Heaven is in tune.
I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!

I want to go back to Singapore
And ship along the Straits
To the bungalow I left upon the strand.
Where the foam of the world grows faint before
It enters, and abates
In meaning as I hear the palm-wind pour.
I want to go back and end my days
Some evening when the Cross
On the southern sky hangs heavily far and sad.
I want to remember when I die
That life elsewhere was loss.
I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!

WHEN THE WIND IS LOW

(_To A. H. R._)

When the wind is low, and the sea is soft,
And the far heat-lightning plays
On the rim of the West where dark clouds nest
On a darker bank of haze;
When I lean o'er the rail with you that I love
And gaze to my heart's content;
I know that the heavens are there above--
But you are my firmament.

When the phosphor-stars are thrown from the bow
And the watch climbs up the shroud;
When the dim mast dips as the vessel slips
Thro the foam that seethes aloud;
I know that the years of our life are few,
And fain as a bird to flee,
That time is as brief as a drop of dew--
But you are Eternity.

THE PAGODA SLAVE

(_At Shwe Dagohn, in old Rangoon_)

All night long the pagoda slave Hears the wind-bells high in the air Tinkle with low sweet tongue and grave In praise of Lord Gautama. All night long where the lone spire sends Its golden height to the starry light He hears their tune And watches the moon And fears he shall never reach Nirvana.

Round and round by a hundred shrines Glittering at the great Shwe's base Falls the sound of his feet mid lines Droned from the sacred Wisdom. Round and round where the idols gaze So pitiless on his pained distress He passes on, Pale-eyed and wan-- A pariah like the dogs behind him.

Oh, what sin in a life begot Thousands of lives ago did he sin That he is now by all forgot, Even by Lord Gautama? Oh, what sin, that the lowest shun His very name as a thing of shame-- A sound to taint The winds that faint From the high bells that hear it uttered!

Midnight comes and the hours of morn, Tapers die and the flowers all From the most fêted altars: lorn And desolate is their odour. Midnight goes, but he watches still By each cold spire the moon sets fire, By every palm Whose silvery calm Pillar and jewelled porch pray under.

Is it dawn that is breaking?... No, Only a star that falls in the sea, Only a wind-bell's louder flow Of praise to Lord Gautama. Faithless dawn! with illusive feet It comes too late to ease his fate. He sinks asleep A helpless heap, Tho for it he may never reach Nirvana.

THE SHIPS OF THE SEA

Into port when the sun was setting
Rode the ship that bore my love,
Over the breakers wildly fretting,
Under the skies that shone above.

Down to the beach I ran to meet him;
He would come as he had said:
And he came--in a sailor's coffin,
Dead!...

O the ships of the sea! the women
They from all hope but Heaven part!
The tide has nothing now to tell me,
The breakers only break my heart!

KINCHINJUNGA

(_Which is the next highest of mountains_)

I

O white Priest of Eternity, around Whose lofty summit veiling clouds arise Of the earth's immemorial sacrifice To Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies; O Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows, First-born of Asia whose maternal throes Seem changed now to a million human woes, Holy thou art and still! Be so, nor sound One sigh of all the mystery in thee found.

II

For in this world too much is overclear, Immortal Ministrant to many lands, From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sands Rivers that each libation poured expands. Too much is known, O Ganges-giving sire; Thy people fathom life and find it dire, Thy people fathom death, and, in it, fire To live again, tho in Illusion's sphere, Behold concealed as Grief is in a tear.

III

Wherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites, Tho dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, falls In strange austerity, whose trance appals, Before thee, and a suppliant on thee calls. Continue still thy silence high and sure, That something beyond fleeting may endure-- Something that shall forevermore allure Imagination on to mystic flights Wherein alone no wing of Evil lights.

IV

Yea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytes Of lifted granite round with reachless snows. Stand for Eternity while pilgrim rows Of all the nations envy thy repose. Ensheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled. Be that alone on earth which has not failed. Be that which never yet has yearned or ailed, But since primeval Power upreared thy heights Has stood above all deaths and all delights.