Chapter II: A Smoke Song

There is a grey plume of smoke on the horizon,
The smoke of a steamer that has departed over the edge of the world.
There is the smoke of a dying fire in my heart,
The smoke has hurt my eyes, they ache with tears.

AN AFTERGLOW ON THE NILE

Silver and misty rose
And iris-flushed mother-of-pearl
Is the world at the clear day’s close,
River and sky and sand:
Into a land we sail
Soft-hued like the dreams of a girl,
Vaguely outlined and bubble-frail--
Into a mystic land.

Speak, and the vision breaks,
Yea, feel but too strongly, it flies
From the tumult its beauty wakes
Deep in our hearts’ stronghold;
We can but stand and gaze,
With all our souls’ life in our eyes,
As we spin out this day of days
Thin to a thread of gold.

* * * * *

Life has a flagon tall
O’erbrimming with beauty’s clear wine,
We only can sip at it all--
If we could lay it by,
Treasure it, hold it fast,
And revel in colour divine
When the grey days come past,
Then we should never die.

That is for gods alone,
For beauty has butterfly wings,
And we never can make it our own,
Bloom unscattered, unless
We are as gods, apart--
And not one of these wonderful things
May I ever set down, though my heart
Break in its helplessness.

THE EXPLORER

Had I been Adam in Eden-glade
_I_ should have climbed the wall
Or ever the Woman found the fruit,
Crimson and ripe to fall.

For though the garden be Paradise,
Gardens are little worth
To one who thirsts for the wilderness
Lonely in all the earth.

So out of the garden greenery
Heavy with jasmine scent
And past the slumbering gentle beasts
I would go forth content.

I’d think of naught save the wall, but gain
Over the other side
A fair mixed world of evil and good,
Chancy and wild and wide.

Sorrow and hunger and pain and fear,
Peace that is won through strife,
The changing luck of the changing year
Giving its zest to life.

Had _I_ been Adam in Eden-close
Never was wall so high
’Could keep me out of the lean brown earth,
Though it might reach the sky!

_Had I been Adam in Paradise
I should ha’ climbed the wall,
I want not only the sweet of life
But all--all--all!_

SEPTEMBER

The morns are growing misty, the nights are turning cold,
The linden leaves are falling like a shower of gold;
_And over where my heart is, beneath the southern sun,
The shearing’s nearly over and the spring’s begun_.

_The crying flocks are driven to feed in peace again,
They stream and spread and scatter on the smooth green plain,
And in the sky above them the soft spring breezes keep
A flock of clouds as snowy as the new-shorn sheep._

Now later comes the sunshine and sooner comes the dark,
The barefoot newsboys shiver, the ladies in the Park
Wear furs about their shoulders, for autumn winds are keen,
And rusty curling edges fleck the chestnuts’ green.

The mists hang gauzy curtains of pearl and pigeon-blue
Between us and the distance, the street-lamps shining through
Wear each a golden halo diaphanous and fair--
But not one whit more lovely than my own clear air.

_More clear than you can dream it, as bright as diamond
It bathes the plains and ridges and the hills beyond,
It bathes the pillared woodlands that ring with bellbird notes,
With mating calls and answers from a thousand throats._

The lamps are lit in London, beneath their searching light
The smiling anxious faces look strained and very white;
_And over where my heart is, twelve thousand miles away,
The dewy grass is glinting at the break of day_.

LONDON.

RIDING RHYME

Mount, mount in the morning dew;
A man loved me when the world was new.

Ride, ride while the dawn is cool:
I was angry and he was a fool.

Ride, ride through the shadows grey:
I told him to go and he went away.

Ride, ride through the sun’s first gold;
I go alone now the world is old.

Ride, ride, for your horse is good;
He never came to me or understood.

Ride, ride, and you’ll travel far;
I tore my heart out and hid the scar.

Ride with a man at your bridle-rein--
My man never will come again.

Ride, ride, for the sun is strong:
O but a lonely road can be long!

Ride, ride, for the light grows dim:
What of the others? I wanted him.

Home, home, for the tale is told:
I was young and now I am old.

FOUR TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GERMAN