A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems | Page 6

rose.
To an Elephant.
Lord of the trunk and fan-like ears,?Wisest and mightiest next to man,?I see thee hence a million years?Ruling the earth with milder plan.?Dwellers above, beneath the ground,?Shall live contented in that time;?No subtle growths shall e'er confound?Their natural joy and instinct prime.
Not such as those who planned to nought?And groped (wise fools!) beyond their ken?Scarce knowing what they loved or sought--?Those subtle growths, those weary men--?Shall dwell earth's inexperienced brood?In natural joy and instinct prime;?But without evil, without good,?Be each new moment, not all time.
Jungles shall grow where cities stood,?The mighty rivers roar unbridged?The hungry tiger seek his food,?Save for thy bidding, privileged,?Where (weary subtle growths) we bore?Our burden of humanity;?For conscious mind shall work no more?And man himself have ceased to be.
SONGS.
The Palmer's Song.
I will fling ambition away?Like a vain and glittering toy;?With tristful weeping will I pray?And wash my sin's alloy.?I will wear the palmer's weed?And walk in the sandal shoon.?I will walk in the sun by day?And sleep beneath the moon.?I will set forth as the bells toll?And travel to the East,?Because of a sin upon my soul?And the chiding of a priest.
The Song of the Old Men.
We are the old, old men,?Once fierce and high-hearted in frolics,?But now we are three score and ten?Or upwards--mere relics?Of the fine strong pageant of youth,?Which time in his spite and unruth?Has taken.?We are dim and palsied and shaken,?Ah! me--forsaken.
Where are the fair white maids?With flower faces and carriage?Straight as new-smithied blades,?Ripe, ready for marriage??Now all are withered and grey,?Their beauty has passed away,?Ah! madness--?They are bent like hoops with sadness?And the world's badness.
Our voices are hoarse and drear,?As we sit and mumble together,?We have no good tidings to hear?We had sooner have never?(So we grumble together) been born,?That are so sick and forlorn;?Just shadows--?But once bright fishers of shallows,?Swift hunters of meadows.
We are the old, old men,?We have seen and endured much trouble;?It has turned us children again,?And bent us double.?Now we sit like a circle of stones,?And hear in each others' moans?Ill token.?For our sweetest thoughts were broken?Or else unspoken.
The Song of Snorro.
"Oh! who can drink at the world's brink,?Or reach the twilight star??It's a long sail where the winds wail,?And the great waters are.
"Or who can say at the parting day?That he will see once more?His children's faces in happy places,?His true wife at the door?"
Snorro the Viking, his thigh striking,?Laughed in his big red beard.?"Some are bound by sight and sound.?While some have wished and feared.
"Their days dream as a droning stream?Or moonlight in a wood.?Now who can sate his love or hate,?And the tumult of his blood?
"Then cast the die for the open sky?When the great sun beats abroad,?For the foam-fleck and the narrow deck,?The life of oar and sword.
"Life and limb for the wind's hymn,?And all the fears that be,?The ghost-races with ghastly faces,?The phantoms of the sea.
"Mine is the morrow," shouted Snorro,?"I longed and have not feared."?And his great laughter followed after?And rumbled in his beard.
The Island.
Once (was it long ago, dear??Oh! hark to the sighing seas.)?We sailed to a wonderful Island?In the golden Antipodes,?Where the waves wore an azure mantle,?The winds were ever at rest,?For we'd left the Old World behind us?A thousand leagues to the West.
We came to that wonderful Island;?Girt by a ring of foam?It lay in the sea like a jewel?Under an azure dome.?The cliffs were all gold in the sunlight,?The strand was a floor of gold,?So we knew we'd come to the Island?We'd read of in tales of old.
Was it long we stayed in our Island??(Dear, I can never say)?I know we walked on the mountains?Which looked far over the bay.?I know that we laughed for pleasure?(Were we wise or a couple of fools?)?As we gazed at the painted fishes?Which swam in the shallow pools.
And night drew over our Island?The purple pall of the skies,?The air was heavy with fragrance?And soft with the breath of sighs,?And voices out of the forest,?Voices out of the sea,?Told the eternal secret....?Told it to you and me.
And the stars came down from the heavens,?And the magical tropic moon,?To dance a measure together?Over the still lagoon;?And the whisper of distant forests,?The noise of the surf in our ears,?Seemed like the song of the ages?Sung by the passing years.
But we said "farewell" to our Island?Which we had discovered alone....?The sand ... and the palms ... and the headland....?The westering wind ... and the sun.?We said "farewell" to our Island?(Oh! hark to the sullen rain!)?... And I knew as it fell behind us?We should not see it again.
For only a few may go there?And they but once may go,?With glamour of stars above them?And the swinging seas below.?But I still hear its forests whisper,?The noise of the surf on the shore,?In that far-off wonderful Island?Which I shall see no more.
Fair Filamelle.
Fair Filamelle is