Sandhya | Page 9

golden heart.
The room is lost in dark.
The ivory keys, white fringe
Of a music
long since mute;
Yet, in the black night
Tremble and toss notes

Unheard, undreamt,--like sleep
Sleepless, and waking full of smart.
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In the golden afterglow you lay,
When the emerald moon
Made thin
silver fog-veils
For the bride of night,
Whose saffron-sandled feet

Walked the foam-strewn floor of the sea.
In my arms you listened

To words of love
Poured by the infinite heaven of my heart,

Echoed by the endless symphony of the sky.
Your silent gaze,


Deeper than the song of the sea,
Farther than the moon,
Nearer than
your own heart-beat,
Asked mine for speech.
"What can my love
say
At this sad sacred hour?"
Hour of parting this!
Love's
ever-feared moment,
Longing's much-dreaded end,
Yet no voice
sorrows in our being,
No woe dims the moon-face tonight.
Between
the sheltering dunes and fading light
On an aërial couch lying,

Adorned in kiss-woven garments of nudity
Our spirits garlanded with
myriad embraces,
Borne on passion's flaming wings
Cross this
ocean of parting
Unto that far island of Cythera
Where only love
reigns
In eternal majesty.
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HENRIK IBSEN
Lone as the lone north star,
Stern as the rocks that guard the sanctity
of his home, Pure as the white snow of his land,
And beauteous his
visions like the fjords
At each turn of the mariner's helm.
The lofty glaciers engage his eyes,
As life's height the sight of his
mind;
And his Imagination, expansive as the sea,
Tries to push the
boundary-line of the sky, his Soul,
Further and further, where a new
North Star
Awaits his exploring eye.
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AFTER HEARING "MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME"
I know not whose the words,
Nor the maker of their music;
In my
sorrow-laden heart
The aroma of its pathetic art
Like the soothing
breath of dream.
Joy borrows its charm from sorrow;
Sorrow feverish with the color of
joy;
An opaque crystal, a stone on life's string
Made of music that
doth ring
As the stars on the lyre of night.

A pain it is, made perfect;
A call made clear by the voice of peace;

A silver stream of song
Darkened, yet floweth on and on
Between
black banks of memory, into the Soul's white home.
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THE COMING OF THE TIDE OF NIGHT
Pale this twilight-face,
Shade-ridden the horizon-light;
The forest, a
green-gold vision of grace
In its frame of lavender mist.
No rose-leaf washed in moonlight;
No vine on vermilion walls;

Pale sunlight fading into night,
Dark tunes, the music of the hour.
No death, nor life is ours, here;
But the vast vague sea of black

Sounded by star-mariners
Seeking the Infinite's track.
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DEAD LOVE
Pour no blood on ashes, brother,
That is not the way;
Better say
nothing,
Blood is no life-giver;
It makes death look so gay.
Dead life, or dead love
Need no blood at all.
No trumpet's call can

Bring back what you lived, and strove:
The ashes know no thrall!
Why cry for a colored glass
That for jewel you took;
The
magic--the dream--
All returning to dust and grass,
Not a day love
your soul forsook.
At last, you have known it,
That is more than they do.
Be not afraid,
O friend,
Alone, alas, alone! you have loved and lived it,
Pour no
blood on the ashes, for blood can not turn into dew.
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It is the same twilight, dear,
The hour of love and tear
When in
raiments of shadows
Fancies, fears, hopes, and sorrows
Tread the
path of sunset,
While like barks of jet
Float the clouds from east to
west.
I think of thee, my darling,
As in my heart strange chords ring
Out
melodies of many memories,
And half-forgotten reveries
Telling of
this or that scene,
That is and has been
Trod by thee, Queen of
queens.
My dreams of thee are ceaseless,
As my love of thee is endless;

Whether it be sunset or sunrise,
Hour of star-song, or bird-cries
It is
of thee that I dream,
In the heart of my soul's stream
That flows to
thy feet, my darling.
Dark grows both east and west;
Flower-heads droop into rest,
As I
seek to lay my heart and loving
On thy star-white breast, my darling,

And sink into that pool of sleep
That rises from thy singing's deep,

While all are silent, as my desires near thee, my Queen.
What peace thy presence breathes!
What serenity weaves its wreathes!

What myriad wonders touch hands
Across many seas, from many
lands,
When a thought of thee
Heralds thy coming to me
Between
palpitating desires, and fragrant dreams.
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WEARINESS
Weariness the tune of this evening melody,
Pain the lute to which I
sing;
Ah! goddess, why this gray measure
In thy starry harmony?
The white conch[4] of the half-moon
Silent as though all worship's
ceased,
No incense-perfume from the forest censer
The breeze
brings; all still, like torrid noon.

I row in a black bark on a copper-colored sea,
The sun fades like a
golden bubble in its deep;
Weariness the chart that I hold in my hand,

Weariness the tune of this evening melody.
[Footnote 4: In a Hindu temple conch shells are blown during or at the
close of a worship.]
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A call, not a song;
A command, not a prayer;
No mellowing
moonlight, but dawn,
Frail, fanciful, and fair
In the east of my
dream and desire.
At the portal of unending desire,
Draped in
diaphanous dreams,
With a