Chapter I: Front Matter

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THE LORD OF MISRULE

And Other Poems

* * * * *

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

DRAKE: AN ENGLISH EPIC
THE ENCHANTED ISLAND AND OTHER POEMS
SHERWOOD
TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN
THE WINE-PRESS
COLLECTED POEMS. 2 VOLS.
A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS EVE (RADA)

* * * * *

Come up, come in with streamers!
Come in with boughs of May!
_Page 1._]

THE LORD OF MISRULE

And Other Poems

by

ALFRED NOYES

With Frontispiece in Colours by Spencer Baird Nichols

New York Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers

Copyright, 1915, by Frederick A. Stokes Company

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages

October, 1915

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE LORD OF MISRULE 1

THE REPEAL 7

THE SEARCH-LIGHTS 9

FORWARD 11

A SPELL 13

CRIMSON SAILS 18

BLIND MOONE OF LONDON 22

OLD GREY SQUIRREL 28

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD 31

THE RIVER OF STARS 34

A KNIGHT OF OLD JAPAN 43

BEYOND DEATH 44

THE STRANGE GUEST 46

GHOSTS 49

THE DAY OF REMEMBRANCE 51

ON THE EMBANKMENT 53

THE IRON CROWN 58

THE OLD DEBATE 59

A SONG OF HOPE 60

THE HEDGE-ROSE OPENS 62

THE MAY-TREE 63

OLD LETTERS 64

LAMPS 66

AT EDEN GATES 68

THE PSYCHE OF OUR DAY 70

PARACLETE 73

AFTER RAIN 75

THE DEATH OF A GREAT MAN 76

THE ROMAN WAY 78

THE INNER PASSION 80

A COUNTRY LANE IN HEAVEN 82

TO THE DESTROYERS 84

THE TRUMPET-CALL 85

THE HEART OF CANADA 89

THE RETURN OF THE HOME-BORN 91

A SALUTE FROM THE FLEET 93

IN MEMORY OF A BRITISH AVIATOR 103

THE WAGGON 105

THE SACRED OAK 107

THE WORLD'S WEDDING 120

IN MEMORIAM: SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR 123

INSCRIPTION 126

VALUES 127

THE HEROIC DEAD 128

THE CRY IN THE NIGHT 130

ASTRID 133

THE INIMITABLE LOVERS 136

THE CRAGS 143

THE GHOST OF SHAKESPEARE, 1914 147

THE WHITE CLIFFS 152

ON THE SOUTH COAST 154

OLDER THAN THE HILLS 156

THE TORCH 158

THE OUTLAW 161

THE YOUNG FRIAR 163

A FOREST SONG 167

THE TRUMPET OF THE LAW 169

THRICE-ARMED 180

THE SONG-TREE 182

THE LORD OF MISRULE

"On May days the wild heads of the parish would choose a Lord of Misrule, whom they would follow even into the church, though the minister were at prayer or preaching, dancing and swinging their may-boughs about like devils incarnate."--_Old Puritan Writer._

All on a fresh May morning, I took my love to church,
To see if Parson Primrose were safely on his perch.
He scarce had got to _Thirdly_, or squire begun to snore,
When, like a sun-lit sea-wave,
A green and crimson sea-wave,
A frolic of madcap May-folk came whooping through the door:--

Come up, come in with streamers!
Come in, with boughs of may!
Come up and thump the sexton,
And carry the clerk away.

Now skip like rams, ye mountains,
Ye little hills, like sheep!
Come up and wake the people
That parson puts to sleep.

They tickled their nut-brown tabors. Their garlands flew in showers,
And lasses and lads came after them, with feet like dancing flowers.
Their queen had torn her green gown, and bared a shoulder as white,
O, white as the may that crowned her,
While all the minstrels round her
Tilted back their crimson hats and sang for sheer delight:

Come up, come in with streamers!
Come in, with boughs of may!
Now by the gold upon your toe
You walked the primrose way.
Come up, with white and crimson!
O, shake your bells and sing;
Let the porch bend, the pillars bow,
Before our Lord, the Spring!

The dusty velvet hassocks were dabbled with fragrant dew.
The font grew white with hawthorn. It frothed in every pew.
Three petals clung to the sexton's beard as he mopped and mowed at the
clerk,
And "Take that sexton away," they cried;
"Did Nebuchadnezzar eat may?" they cried.
"Nay, that was a prize from Betty," they cried, "for kissing her in the
dark."

Come up, come in with streamers!
Come in, with boughs of may!
Who knows but old Methuselah
May hobble the green-wood way?
If Betty could kiss the sexton,
If Kitty could kiss the clerk,
Who knows how Parson Primrose
Might blossom in the dark?

The congregation spluttered. The squire grew purple and all,
And every little chorister bestrode his carven stall.
The parson flapped like a magpie, but none could hear his prayers;
For Tom Fool flourished his tabor,
Flourished his nut-brown tabor,
Bashed the head of the sexton, and stormed the pulpit stairs.

High in the old oak pulpit
This Lord of all misrule--
I think it was Will Summers
That once was Shakespeare's fool--
Held up his hand for silence,
And all the church grew still:
"And are you snoring yet," he said,
"Or have you slept your fill?

"Your God still walks in Eden, between the ancient trees,
Where Youth and Love go wading through pools of primroses.
And this is the sign we bring you, before the darkness fall,
That Spring is risen, is risen again,
That Life is risen, is risen again,
That Love is risen, is risen again, and Love is Lord of all.

"At Paske began our morrice
And, ere Pentecost, our May;
Because, albeit your words be true,
You know not what you say.
You chatter in church like jackdaws,
Words that would wake the dead,
Were there one breath of life in you,
One drop of blood," he said.

"_He died and He went down to hell!_ You know not what you mean.
Our rafters were of green fir. Also our beds were green.
But out of the mouth of a fool, a fool, before the darkness fall,
We tell you He is risen again,
The Lord of Life is risen again,
The boughs put forth their tender buds, and Love is Lord of all!"

He bowed his head. He stood so still,
They bowed their heads as well.
And softly from the organ-loft
The song began to swell.
_Come up with blood-red streamers_,
The reeds began the strain.
The _vox humana_ pealed on high,
_The Spring is risen again!_

The _vox angelica_ replied--_The shadows flee away!
Our house-beams were of cedar. Come in, with boughs of may!_
The _diapason_ deepened it--_Before the darkness fall_,
_We tell you He is risen again!
Our God hath burst His prison again!
Christ is risen, is risen again; and Love is Lord of all._

THE REPEAL

I dreamed the Eternal had repealed
His cosmic code of law last night.
Our prayers had made the Unchanging yield.
Caprice was king from depth to height.

On Beachy Head a shouting throng
Had fired a beacon to proclaim
Their licence. With unmeasured song
They proved it, dancing in the flame.

They quarrelled. One desired the sun,
And one desired the stars to shine.
They closed and wrestled and burned as one,
And the white chalk grew red as wine.

The furnace licked and purred and rolled,
A laughing child held up its hands
Like dreadful torches, dropping gold;
For pain was dead at their commands.

Painless and wild as clouds they burned,
Till the restricted Rose of Day
With all its glorious laws returned,
And the wind blew their ashes away.

THE SEARCH-LIGHTS

"Political morality differs from individual morality because there is no power above the state."

Shadow by shadow, stripped for fight,
The lean black cruisers search the sea.
Night-long their level shafts of light
Revolve, and find no enemy.
Only they know each leaping wave
May hide the lightning, and their grave.

And in the land they guard so well
Is there no silent watch to keep?
An age is dying, and the bell
Rings midnight on a vaster deep.
But over all its waves, once more,
The search-lights move, from shore to shore.

And captains that we thought were dead,
And dreamers that we thought were dumb,
And voices that we thought were fled,
Arise, and call us, and we come;
And "search in thine own soul," they cry;
"For there, too, lurks thine enemy."

Search for the foe in thine own soul,
The sloth, the intellectual pride;
The trivial jest that veils the goal
For which our fathers lived and died;
The lawless dreams, the cynic Art,
That rend thy nobler self apart.

Not far, not far into the night,
These level swords of light can pierce;
Yet for her faith does England fight,
Her faith in this our universe;
Believing Truth and Justice draw
From founts of everlasting law;

Therefore a Power above the State,
The unconquerable Power returns.
The fire, the fire that made her great
Once more upon her altar burns.
Once more, redeemed and healed and whole,
She moves to the Eternal Goal.

FORWARD

_A thousand creeds and battle-cries,
A thousand warring social schemes,
A thousand new moralities,
And twenty thousand thousand dreams!_

_Each on his own anarchic way,
From the old order breaking free,--
Our ruined world desires_, you say,
_Licence, once more, not Liberty._

But ah, beneath the struggling foam,
When storm and change are on the deep,
How quietly the tides come home,
And how the depths of sea-shine sleep;

And we who march towards a goal,
Destroying only to fulfil
The law, the law of that great soul
Which moves beneath your alien will;

We, that like foemen meet the past
Because we bring the future, know
We only fight to achieve at last
A great re-union with our foe;

Re-union in the truths that stand
When all our wars are rolled away;
Re-union of the heart and hand
And of the prayers wherewith we pray;

Re-union in the common needs,
The common strivings of mankind;
Re-union of our warring creeds
In the one God that dwells behind.

Then--in that day--we shall not meet
Wrong with new wrong, but right with right;
Our faith shall make your faith complete
When our battalions re-unite.

Forward!--what use in idle words?--
Forward, O warriors of the soul!
There will be breaking up of swords
When that new morning makes us whole.

A SPELL

(_An Excellent Way to get a Fairy_)

Gather, first, in your left hand
(This must be at fall of day)
Forty grains of wild sea-sand
Where you think a mermaid lay.
I have heard that it is best
If you gather it, warm and sweet,
Out of the dint of her left breast
Where you see her heart has beat.

_Out of the dint in that sweet sand
Gather forty grains, I say;
Yet--if it fail you--understand,
There remains a better way._

Out of this you melt your glass
While the veils of night are drawn,
Whispering, till the shadows pass,
"_Nixie--pixie--leprechaun!_"
Then you blow your magic vial,
Shape it like a crescent moon,
Set it up and make your trial,
Singing, "_Elaby, ah, come soon!_"

_Round the cloudy crescent go,
On the hill-top, in the dawn,
Singing softly, on tip-toe,
"Elaby Gathon! Elaby Gathon!
Nixie--pixie--leprechaun!"_

Bring the blood of a white hen
Slaughtered at the break of day,
While the cock, in the fairy glen,
Thrusts his gold neck every way,
Over the brambles, peering, calling,
Under the ferns, with a sudden fear,
Far and wide--as the dews are falling--
Clamouring, calling, everywhere.

_Round the crimson vial go,
On the hill-top, in the dawn,
Singing softly, on tip-toe,
"Nixie--pixie--leprechaun!"
If this fail, at break of day,
I can show you a better way._

Bring the buds of the hazel-copse,
Where two lovers kissed at noon;
Bring the crushed red wild-thyme tops
Where they murmured under the moon.
Bring the four-leaved clover also,
One of the white, and one of the red,
Bring the flakes of the may that fall so
Lightly over their bridal bed.

_Drop them into the vial--so--
On the hill-top, in the dawn,
Singing softly, on tip-toe,
"Nixie--pixie--leprechaun!"
And, if once will not suffice,
Do it thrice!
If this fail, at break of day,
There remains a better way._

Bring an old and crippled child
--_Ah, tread softly, on tip-toe!_--
Tattered, tearless, wonder-wild,
From that under-world below,
Bring a wizened child of seven
Reeking from the City slime,
Out of hell into your heaven,
Set her knee-deep in the thyme.

_Feed her--clothe her--even so!
Set her on a fairy-throne.
When her eyes begin to glow
Leave her for an hour--alone._

You shall need no spells or charms,
On that hill-top, in that dawn.
When she lifts her wasted arms,
You shall see a veil withdrawn.
There shall be no veil between them,
Though her head be old and wise!
You shall know that she has seen them
By the glory in her eyes.

_Round her irons on that hill
Earth has tossed a fairy fire:
Watch, and listen, and be still,
Lest you baulk your own desire._

When she sees four azure wings
Light upon her claw-like hand;
When she lifts her head and sings,
You shall hear and understand:
You shall hear a bugle calling
Wildly over the dew-dashed down;
And a sound as of the falling
Ramparts of a conquered town.

_You shall hear a sound like thunder;
And a veil shall be withdrawn,
When her eyes grow wide with wonder
On that hill-top, in that dawn._

CRIMSON SAILS

_When Salomon sailed from Ophir_ ...
The clouds of Sussex thyme
That crown the cliffs in mid-July
Were all we needed--you and I--
_But Salomon sailed from Ophir_,
And broken bits of rhyme
Blew to us on the white chalk coast
From O, what elfin clime?

A peacock butterfly flaunted
Its four great crimson wings,
As over the edge of the chalk it flew
Black as a ship on the Channel blue ...
_When Salomon sailed from Ophir_,--
He brought, as the high sun brings,
Honey and spice to the Queen of the South,
Sussex or Saba, a song for her mouth,
Sweet as the dawn-wind over the downs
And the tall white cliffs that the wild thyme crowns
A song that the whole sky sings:--

When Salomon sailed from Ophir,
With Olliphants and gold,
The kings went up, the kings went down,
Trying to match King Salomon's crown,
But Salomon sacked the sunset,
Wherever his black ships rolled.
He rolled it up like a crimson cloth,
And crammed it into his hold.

_Chorus_: Salomon sacked the sunset!
Salomon sacked the sunset!
He rolled it up like a crimson cloth,
And crammed it into his hold.

His masts were Lebanon cedars,
His sheets were singing blue,
But that was never the reason why
He stuffed his hold with the sunset sky!
The kings could cut their cedars,
And sail from Ophir, too;
But Salomon packed his heart with dreams
And all the dreams were true.

_Chorus_: The kings could cut their cedars,
Cut their Lebanon cedars;
But Salomon packed his heart with dreams,
And all the dreams were true.

When Salomon sailed from Ophir,
He sailed not as a king.
The kings--they weltered to and fro,
Tossed wherever the winds could blow;
But Salomon's tawny seamen
Could lift their heads and sing,
Till all their crowded clouds of sail
Grew sweeter than the Spring.

_Chorus_: Their singing sheets grew sweeter,
Their crowded clouds grew sweeter,
For Salomon's tawny seamen, sirs,
Could lift their heads and sing:

When Salomon sailed from Ophir
With crimson sails so tall,
The kings went up, the kings went down,
Trying to match King Salomon's crown;
But Salomon brought the sunset
To hang on his Temple wall;
He rolled it up like a crimson cloth,
So his was better than all.

_Chorus_: Salomon gat the sunset,
Salomon gat the sunset;
He carried it like a crimson cloth
To hang on his Temple wall.

BLIND MOONE OF LONDON

Blind Moone of London
He fiddled up and down,
Thrice for an angel,
And twice for a crown.
He fiddled at the _Green Man_,
He fiddled at the _Rose_;
And where they have buried him
Not a soul knows.

All his tunes are dead and gone, dead as yesterday.
And his lanthorn flits no more
Round the _Devil Tavern_ door,
Waiting till the gallants come, singing from the play;
Waiting in the wet and cold!
All his Whitsun tales are told.
He is dead and gone, sirs, very far away.

He would not give a silver groat
For good or evil weather.
He carried in his white cap
A long red feather.
He wore a long coat
Of the Reading-tawny kind,
And darned white hosen
With a blue patch behind.

So--one night--he shuffled past, in his buckled shoon.
We shall never see his face,
Twisted to that queer grimace,
Waiting in the wind and rain, till we called his tune;
Very whimsical and white,
Waiting on a blue Twelfth Night!
He is grown too proud at last--old blind Moone.

Yet, when May was at the door,
And Moone was wont to sing,
Many a maid and bachelor
Whirled into the ring:
Standing on a tilted wain
He played so sweet and loud
The Mayor forgot his golden chain
And jigged it with the crowd.

Old blind Moone, his fiddle scattered flowers along the street;
Into the dust of Brookfield Fair
Carried a shining primrose air,
Crooning like a poor mad maid, O, very low and sweet,
Drew us close, and held us bound,
Then--to the tune of _Pedlar's Pound_,
Caught us up, and whirled us round, a thousand frolic feet.

Master Shakespeare was his host.
The tribe of Benjamin
Used to call him Merlin's Ghost
At the _Mermaid Inn_.
He was only a crowder,
Fiddling at the door.
Death has made him prouder.
We shall not see him more.

Only--if you listen, please--through the master's themes,
You shall hear a wizard strain,
Blind and bright as wind and rain
Shaken out of willow-trees, and shot with elfin gleams.
_How should I your true love know?_
Scraps and snatches--even so!
That is old blind Moone again, fiddling in your dreams.

Once, when Will had called for sack
And bidden him up and play,
Old blind Moone, he turned his back,
Growled, and walked away,
Sailed into a thunder-cloud,
Snapped his fiddle-string,
And hobbled from _The Mermaid_
Sulky as a king.

Only from the darkness now, steals the strain we knew:
No one even knows his grave!
Only here and there a stave,
Out of all his hedge-row flock, be-drips the may with dew.
And I know not what wild bird
Carried us his parting word:--
_Master Shakespeare needn't take the crowder's fiddle, too._

Will has wealth and wealth to spare.
Give him back his own.
_At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone._
See his little lanthorn-spark.
Hear his ghostly tune,
Glimmering past you, in the dark,
Old blind Moone!

All the little crazy brooks, where love and sorrow run
Crowned with sedge and singing wild,
Like a sky-lark--or a child!--
Old blind Moone, he knew their springs, and played 'em every one;
Stood there, in the darkness, blind,
And sang them into Shakespeare's mind....
Old blind Moone of London, O now his songs are done,
The light upon his lost white face, they say it was the sun!

The light upon his poor old face, they say it was the sun!

OLD GREY SQUIRREL

A great while ago, there was a school-boy.
He lived in a cottage by the sea.
And the very first thing he could remember
Was the rigging of the schooners by the quay.

He could watch them, when he woke, from his window,
With the tall cranes hoisting out the freight.
And he used to think of shipping as a sea-cook,
And sailing to the Golden Gate.

For he used to buy the yellow penny dreadfuls,
And read them where he fished for conger eels,
And listened to the lapping of the water,
The green and oily water round the keels.

There were trawlers with their shark-mouthed flat-fish,
And red nets hanging out to dry,
And the skate the skipper kept because he liked 'em,
And landsmen never knew the fish to fry.

There were brigantines with timber out of Norroway,
Oozing with the syrups of the pine.
There were rusty dusty schooners out of Sunderland,
And ships of the Blue Cross line.

And to tumble down a hatch into the cabin
Was better than the best of broken rules;
For the smell of 'em was like a Christmas dinner,
And the feel of 'em was like a box of tools.

And, before he went to sleep in the evening,
The very last thing that he could see
Was the sailor-men a-dancing in the moonlight
By the capstan that stood upon the quay.

_He is perched upon a high stool in London.
The Golden Gate is very far away.
They caught him, and they caged him, like a squirrel.
He is totting up accounts, and going grey._

_He will never, never, never sail to 'Frisco.
But the very last thing that he will see
Will be sailor-men a-dancing in the sunrise
By the capstan that stands upon the quay...._

_To the tune of an old concertina,
By the capstan that stands upon the quay._

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

Just as the moon was rising, I met a ghostly pedlar
Singing for company beneath his ghostly load,--
Once, there were velvet lads with vizards on their faces,
Riding up to rob me on the great North Road.

Now, my pack is heavy, and my pocket full of guineas
Chimes like a wedding-peal, but little I enjoy
Roads that never echo to the chirrup of their canter,--
The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy.

Rogues were they all, but their raid was from Elf-land!
Shod with elfin silver were the steeds they bestrode.
Merlin buckled on the spurs that wheeled thro' the wet fern
Bright as Jack-o'-Lanthorns off the great North Road.

Tales were told in country inns when Turpin rode to Rippleside!
Puck tuned the fiddle-strings, and country maids grew coy,
Tavern doors grew magical when Colonel Jack might tap at them,
The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy.

What are you seeking then? I asked this honest pedlar.
--O, Mulled Sack or Natty Hawes might ease me of my load!--
Where are they flown then?--Flown where I follow;
They are all gone for ever up the great North Road.

Rogues were they all; but the white dust assoils 'em!
Paradise without a spice of deviltry would cloy.
Heavy is my pack till I meet with Jerry Abershaw,
The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy.

THE RIVER OF STARS

(_A tale of Niagara_)

_The lights of a hundred cities are fed by its midnight power.
Their wheels are moved by its thunder. But they, too, have their hour.
The tale of the Indian lovers, a cry from the years that are flown,
While the river of stars is rolling,
Rolling away to the darkness,
Abides with the power in the midnight, where love may find its own._

She watched from the Huron tents, till the first star shook in the air.
The sweet pine scented her fawn-skins, and breathed from her braided
hair.
Her crown was of milk-white blood-root, because of the tryst she would
keep,
Beyond the river of beauty
That drifted away in the darkness
Drawing the sunset thro' lilies, with eyes like stars, to the deep.

He watched, like a tall young wood-god, from the red pine that she
named;
But not for the peril behind him, where the eyes of the Mohawks flamed.
Eagle-plumed he stood. But his heart was hunting afar,
Where the river of longing whispered ...
And one swift shaft from the darkness
Felled him, her name in his death-cry, his eyes on the sunset star.

* * * * *

She stole from the river and listened. The moon on her wet skin shone.
As a silver birch in a pine-wood, her beauty flashed and was gone.
There was no wave in the forest. The dark arms closed her round.
But the river of life went flowing,
Flowing away to the darkness,
For her breast grew red with his heart's blood, in a night where the
stars are drowned.

_Teach me, O my lover, as you taught me of love in a day,
Teach me of death, and for ever, and set my feet on the way,
To the land of the happy shadows, the land where you are flown._
--And the river of death went weeping,
Weeping away to the darkness.--
_Is the hunting good, my lover, so good that you hunt alone?_

She rose to her feet like a shadow. She sent a cry thro' the night,
_Sa-sa-kuon_, the death-whoop, that tells of triumph in fight.
It broke from the bell of her mouth like the cry of a wounded bird,
But the river of agony swelled it
And swept it along to the darkness,
And the Mohawks, couched in the darkness, leapt to their feet as they
heard.

Close as the ring of the clouds that menace the moon with death,
At once they circled her round. Her bright breast panted for breath.
With only her own wild glory keeping the wolves at bay,
While the river of parting whispered,
Whispered away to the darkness,
She looked in their eyes for a moment, and strove for a word to say.

_Teach me, O my lover!_--She set her foot on the dead.
She laughed on the painted faces with their rings of yellow and red,--
_I thank you, wolves of the Mohawk, for a woman's hands might fail._--
--And the river of vengeance chuckled,
Chuckled away to the darkness,--
_But ye have killed where I hunted. I have come to the end of my trail._

_I thank you, braves of the Mohawk, who laid this thief at my feet.
He tore my heart out living, and tossed it his dogs to eat.
Ye have taught him of death in a moment, as he taught me of love in a
day._
--And the river of passion deepened,
Deepened and rushed to the darkness.--
_And yet may a woman requite you, and set your feet on the way._

_For the woman that spits in my face, and the shaven heads that gibe,
This night shall a woman show you the tents of the Huron tribe.
They are lodged in a deep valley. With all things good it abounds.
Where the red-eyed, green-mooned river
Glides like a snake to the darkness,
I will show you a valley, Mohawks, like the Happy Hunting Grounds._

_Follow!_ They chuckled, and followed like wolves to the glittering
stream.
Shadows obeying a shadow, they launched their canoes in a dream.
Alone, in the first, with the blood on her breast, and her milk-white
crown,
She stood. She smiled at them, _Follow_,
Then urged her canoe to the darkness,
And, silently flashing their paddles, the Mohawks followed her down.

* * * * *

And now--as they slid thro' the pine-woods with their peaks of midnight
blue,
She heard, in the broadening distance, the deep sound that she knew,
A mutter of steady thunder that grew as they glanced along;
But ever she glanced before them
And glanced away to the darkness,
And or ever they heard it rightly, she raised her voice in a song:--

_The wind from the Isles of the Blessed, it blows across the foam.
It sings in the flowing maples of the land that was my home.
Where the moose is a morning's hunt, and the buffalo feeds from the
hand._--
And the river of mockery broadened,
Broadened and rolled to the darkness--
_And the green maize lifts its feathers, and laughs the snow from the
land._

The river broadened and quickened. There was nought but river and sky.
The shores were lost in the darkness. She laughed and lifted a cry:
_Follow me! Sa-sa-kuon!_ Swifter and swifter they swirled--
And the flood of their doom went flying,
Flying away to the darkness,
_Follow me, follow me, Mohawks, ye are shooting the edge of the world._

They struggled like snakes to return. Like straws they were whirled on
her track.
For the whole flood swooped to that edge where the unplumbed night dropt
black,
The whole flood dropt to a thunder in an unplumbed hell beneath,
And over the gulf of the thunder
A mountain of spray from the darkness
Rose and stood in the heavens, like a shrouded image of death.

She rushed like a star before them. The moon on her glorying shone.
_Teach me, O my lover_,--her cry flashed out and was gone.
A moment they battled behind her. They lashed with their paddles and
lunged;
Then the Mohawks, turning their faces
Like a blood-stained cloud to the darkness,
Over the edge of Niagara swept together and plunged.

_And the lights of a hundred cities are fed by the ancient power;
But a cry returns with the midnight; for they, too, have their hour.
Teach me, O my lover, as you taught me of love in a day,
--While the river of stars is rolling,
Rolling away to the darkness,--
Teach me of death, and for ever, and set my feet on the way!_

A KNIGHT OF OLD JAPAN

Make me a stave of song, the Master said,
On yonder cherry-bough, whose white and red
Hangs in the sunset over those green seas.
The young knight looked upon his untried blade,
Then shrugged his wings of gold and blue brocade:
_How should a warrior play with thoughts like these?_

Fresh from the battle, in that self-same hour,
A mail-clad warrior watched each delicate flower
Close in that cloud of beauty against the West.
Drinking the last deep light, he watched it long.
He raised his face as if to pray. _The strong_,
The Master whispered, _are the tenderest_.

BEYOND DEATH

I

In lonely bays
Where Love runs wild,
All among the flowering grasses,
Where light, light, light, as a sea-bird's wing
The chuckle of the child-god passes,
O, to awake, to shake away the night
And find you dreaming there,
On the other side of death, with the sea-wind blowing round you,
And the scent of the thyme in your hair.

II

Tho' beauty perish,
Perish like a flower,
And song be an idle breath,
Tho' heaven be a dream, and youth for but an hour,
And life much less than death,
And the Maker less than that He made,
And hope less than despair,
If Death have shores where Love runs wild
I think you might be there.