Classic Poem

I

The man stood silent, peering past
His utmost verge of memory.
What lay beyond, beyond that vast
Bewildering darkness and dead sea
Of noisome vapors and dread night?
No light! not any sense of light
Beyond that life when Love was born
On that first, far, dim rim of morn:
No light beyond that beast that clung
In darkness by the light of love
And died to save her young.
And yet we know life must have been
Before that dark, dread life of pain;
Life germs, love germs of gentle men,
So small, so still; as still, small rain.
But whence this life, this living soul,
This germ that grows a godlike whole?
I can but think of that sixth day
When God first set His hand to clay,
And did in His own image plan
A perfect form, a manly form,
A comely, godlike man.
II

Did soul germs grown down in the deeps,
The while God's Spirit moved upon
The waters? High-set Lima keeps
A rose-path, like a ray of dawn;
And simple, pious peons say
Sweet Santa Rosa passed that way;
And so, because of her fair fame
And saintly face, these roses came.
Shall we not say, ere that first morn,
Where God moved, garmented in mists,
Some sweet soul germs were born?
III

The strange, strong man still kept the prow;
He saw, still saw before light was,
The dawn of love, the huge sea-cow,
The living slime, love's deathless laws.
He knew love lived, lived ere a blade
Of grass, or ever light was made;
And love was in him, of him, as
The light was on the sea of glass.
It made his heart great, and he grew
To look on God all unabashed;
To look lost eons through.
IV

Illuming love! what talisman!
That Word which makes the world go 'round!
That Word which bore worlds in its plan!
That Word which was the Word profound!
That Word which was the great First Cause,
Before light was, before sight was!
I would not barter love for gold
Enough to fill a tall ship's hold;
Nay, not for great Victoria's worth —
So great the sun sets not upon
In all his round of earth.
I would not barter love for all
The silver spilling from the moon;
I would not barter love at all
Though you should coin each afternoon
Of gold for centuries to be,
And count the coin all down as free
As conqueror fresh home from wars, —
Coin sunset bars, coin heaven-born stars,
Coin all below, coin all above,
Count all down at my feet, yet I —
I would not barter love.
V

The lone man started, stood as when
A strong man hears, yet does not hear.
He raised his hand, let fall, and then
Quick arched his hand above his ear
And leaned a little; yet no sound
Broke through the vast, serene profound.
Man's soul first knew some telephone
In sense and language all its own.
The tall man heard, yet did not hear;
He saw, and yet he did not see
A fair face near and dear.
For there, half hiding, crouching there
Against the capstan, coils on coils
Of rope, some snow still in her hair,
Like Time, too eager for his spoils,
Was such fair face raised to his face
As only dream of dreams give place;
Such shyness, boldness, sea-shell tint,
Such book as only God may print,
Such tender, timid, holy look
Of startled love and trust and hope, —
A gold-bound storybook.
And while the great ship rose and fell,
Or rocked or rounded with the sea,
He saw, — a little thing to tell,
An idle, silly thing, maybe, —
Where her right arm was bent to clasp
Her robe's fold in some closer clasp,
A little isle of melting snow
That round about and to and fro
And up and down kept eddying.
It told so much, that idle isle,
Yet such a little thing.
It told she, too, was of a race
Born ere the baby stars were born;
She, too, familiar with God's face,
Knew folly but to shun and scorn;
She, too, all night had sat to read
By heaven's light, to hear, to heed
The awful voice of God, to grow
In thought, to see, to feel, to know
The harmony of elements
That tear and toss the sea of seas
To foam-built battle-tents.
He saw that drifting isle of snow,
As some lorn miner sees bright gold
Seamed deep in quartz, and joys to know
That here lies hidden wealth untold.
And now his head was lifted strong,
As glad men lift the head in song.
He knew she, too, had spent the night
As he, in all that wild delight
Of tuneful elements; she, too,
He knew, was of that olden time
Ere oldest stars were new.
VI

Her soul's ancestral book bore date
Beyond the peopling of the moon,
Beyond the day when Saturn sate
In royal cincture, and the boon
Of light and life bestowed on stars
And satellites; ere martial Mars
Waxed red with battle rage and shook
The porch of heaven with a look;
Ere polar ice-shafts propt gaunt earth
And slime was but the womb of time,
That knew not yet of birth.
VII

To be what thou wouldst truly be,
Be bravely, truly, what thou art.
The acorn houses the huge tree,
And patient, silent bears its part,
And bides the miracle of time.
For miracle, and more sublime
It is than all that has been writ,
To see the great oak grow from it.
But thus the soul grows, grows the heart, —
To be what thou wouldst truly be.
Be truly what thou art.
To be what thou wouldst truly be,
Be true. God's finger sets each seed,
Or when or where we may not see;
But God shall nourish to its need
Each one, if but it dares be true;
To do what it is set to do.
Thy proud soul's heraldry? 'T is writ
In every gentle action; it
Can never be contested. Time
Dates thy brave soul's ancestral book
From thy first deed sublime.
VIII

Wouldst learn to know one little-flower,
Its perfume, perfect form and hue?
Yea, wouldst thou have one perfect hour
Of all the years that come to you?
Then grow as God hath planted, grow
A lordly oak or daisy low,
As He hath set His garden; be
Just what thou art, or grass or tree.
Thy treasures up in heaven laid
Await thy sure ascending soul,
Life after life, — be not afraid!
IX

Wouldst know the secrets of the soil?
Wouldst have Earth bare her breast to you?
Wouldst know the sweet rest of hard toil?
Be true, be true, be ever true!
Ah me, these self-made cuts of wrong
That hew men down! Behold the strong
And comely Adam bound with lies
And banished from his paradise!
The serpent on his belly still
Eats dirt through all his piteous days,
Do penance as he will.
Poor, heel-bruised, prostrate, tortuous snake!
What soul crawls here upon the ground?
God willed his soul at birth to take
The round of beauteous things, the round
Of earth, the round of boundless skies.
It lied, and lo! how low it lies!
What quick, sleek tongue to lie with here!
Wast thou a broker but last year?
Wast known to fame, wast rich and proud?
Didst live a lie that thou mightst die
With pockets in thy shroud?
X

Be still, be pitiful! that soul
May yet be rich in peace as thine.
Yea, as the shining ages roll
That rich man's soul may rise and shine
Beyond Orion; yet may reel
The Pleiades with belts of steel
That compass commerce in their reach;
May learn and learn, and learning teach,
The while his soul grows grandly old,
How nobler far to share a crust
Than hoard car-loads of gold!
XI

Oh, but to know; to surely know
How strangely beautiful is light!
How just one gleam of light will glow
And grow more beautifully bright
Than all the gold that ever lay
Below the wide-arched Milky Way!
" Let there be light! " and lo! the burst
Of light in answer to the first
Command of high Jehovah's voice!
Let there be light for man to-night,
That all men may rejoice.
XII

The little isle of ice and snow
That in her gathered garment lay,
And dashed and drifted to and fro
Unhindered of her, went its way.
The while the warm winds of Japan
Were with them, and the silent man
Stood by her, saying, hearing naught,
Yet seeing, noting all; as one
Sees not, yet all day sees the sun.
He knew her silence, heeded well
Her dignity of idle hands
In this deep, tranquil spell.
XIII

The true soul surely knows its own,
Deep down in this man's heart he knew,
Somehow, somewhere along the zone
Of time, his soul should come unto
Its safe seaport, some pleasant land
Of rest where she should reach a hand.
He had not questioned God. His care
Was to be worthy, fit to share
The glory, peace, and perfect rest,
Come how or when or where it comes,
As God in time sees best.
Her face reached forward, not to him,
But forward, upward, as for light;
For light that lay a silver rim
Of sea-lit whiteness more than white.
The vast full morning poured and spilled
Its splendor down, and filled and filled
And overfilled the heaped-up sea
With silver molten suddenly.
The night lay trenched in her meshed hair;
The tint of sea-shells left the sea
To make her more than fair.
What massed, what matchless midnight hair!
Her wide, sweet, sultry, drooping mouth,
As droops some flower when the air
Blows odors from the ardent South —
That Sapphic, sensate, bended bow
Of deadly archery; as though
Love's legions fortressed there and sent
Red arrows from his bow fell bent.
Such apples! such sweet fruit concealed
Of perfect womanhood make more
Sweet pain than if revealed.
XIV

How good a thing it is to house
Thy full heart treasures to that day
When thou shalt take her, and carouse
Thenceforth with her for aye and aye;
How good a thing to give the store
That thus the thousand years or more,
Poor, hungered, holy worshiper,
You kept for her, and only her!
How well with all thy wealth to wait
Or year, or thousand thousand years,
Her coming at love's gate!
XV

The winds pressed warm from warm Japan
Upon her pulsing womanhood.
They fanned such fires in the man
His face shone glory where he stood.
In Persia's rose-fields, I have heard,
There sings a sad, sweet, one-winged bird;
Sings ever sad in lonely round
Until his one-winged mate is found;
And then, side laid to side, they rise
So swift, so strong, they even dare
The doorway of the skies.
XVI

How rich was he! how richer she!
Such treasures up in heaven laid,
Where moth and rust may never be,
Nor thieves break in, or make afraid.
Such treasures, where the tranquil soul
Walks space, nor limit nor control
Can know, but journeys on and on
Beyond the golden gates of dawn;
Beyond the outmost round of Mars;
Where God's foot rocks the cradle of
His new-born baby stars.
XVII

As one who comes upon a street,
Or sudden turn in pleasant path,
As one who suddenly may meet
Some scene, some sound, some sense that hath
A memory of olden days,
Of days that long have gone their ways,
She caught her breath, caught quick and fast
Her breath, as if her whole life passed
Before, and pendant to and fro
Swung in the air before her eyes;
And oh, her heart beat so!
How her heart beat! Three thousand years
Of weary, waiting womanhood,
Of folded hands, of falling tears,
Of lone soul-wending through dark wood;
But now at last to meet once more
Upon the bright, all-shining shore
Of earth, in life's resplendent dawn,
And he so fair to look upon!
Tall Phaon and the world aglow!
Tall Phaon, favored of the gods,
And oh, her heart beat so!
Her heart beat so, no word she spake;
She pressed her palms, she leaned her face, —
Her heart beat so, its beating brake
The cord that held her robe in place
About her wondrous, rounded throat,
And in the warm winds let it float
And fall upon her soft, round arm,
So warm it made the morning warm.
Then pink and pearl forsook her cheek,
And, " Phaon, I am Sappho, I — "
Nay, nay, she did not speak.
And was this Sappho, she who sang
When mournful Jeremiah wept?
When harps, where weeping willows hang,
Hung mute and all their music kept?
Such witchery of song as drew
The war-like world to hear her sing,
As moons draw mad seas following.
Aye, this was Sappho; Lesbos hill
Had all been hers, and Tempe's vale,
And song sweet as to kill.
Her dark Greek eyes turned to the sea;
Lo, Phaon's ferry as of old!
He kept his boat's prow still, and he
Was stately, comely, strong, and bold
As when he ferried gods, and drew
Immortal youth from one who knew
His scorn of gold. The Lesbian shore
Lay yonder, and the rocky roar
Against the promontory told,
Told and retold her tale of love
That never can grow old.
Three thousand years! yet love was young
And fair as when Æolis knew
Her glory, and her great soul strung
The harp that still sweeps ages through.
Ionic dance or Doric war,
Or purpled dove or dulcet car,
Or unyoked dove or close-yoked dove,
What meant it all but love and love?
And at the naming of Love's name
She raised her eyes, and lo! her doves!
Just of old they came.
PART THIRD

I

And they sailed on; the sea-doves sailed,
And Love sailed with them. And there lay
Such peace as never had prevailed
On earth since dear Love's natal day.
Great black-backed whales blew bows in clouds,
Wee sea-birds flitted through the shrouds.
A wide-winged, amber albatross
Blew by, and bore his shadow cross,
And, seemed to hang it on the mast,
The while he followed far behind,
The great ship flew so fast.
She questioned her if Phaon knew,
If he could dream, or halfway guess
How she had tracked the ages through
And trained her soul to gentleness
Through many lives, through every part
To make her worthy his great heart.
Would Phaon turn and fly her still,
With that fierce, proud, imperious will,
And scorn her still, and still despise?
She shuddered, turned aside her face,
And lo, her sea-dove's eyes!
II

Then days of rest and restful nights;
And love kept tryst as true love will,
The prow their trysting-place. Delights
Of silence, simply sitting still, —
Of asking nothing, saying naught;
For all that they had ever sought
Sailed with them; words or deeds had been
Impertinence, a selfish sin.
And oh, to know how sweet a thing
Is silence on those restful seas
When Love's dove folds her wing!
The great sea slept. In vast repose
His pillowed head half-hidden lay,
Half-drowned in dread Alaskan snows
That stretch to where no man can say.
His huge arms tossed to left, to right,
Where black woods, banked like bits of night,
As sleeping giants toss their arms
At night about their fearful forms.
A slim canoe, a night-bird's call,
Some gray sea-doves, just these and Love,
And Love indeed was all!
III

Far, far away such cradled Isles
As Jason dreamed and Argos sought
Surge up from endless watery miles!
And thou, the pale high priest of thought,
The everlasting throned king
Of fair Samoa! Shall I bring
Sweet sandal-wood? Or shall I lay
Rich wreaths of California's bay
From sobbing maidens? Stevenson,
Sleep well. Thy work is done; well done!
So bravely, bravely done!
And Molokia's lord of love
And tenderness, and piteous tears
For stricken man! Go forth, O dove!
With olive branch, and still the fears
Of those he meekly died to save.
They shall not perish. From that grave
Shall grow such healing! such as He
Gave stricken men by Galilee.
Great ocean cradle, cradle, keep
These two, the chosen of thy heart,
Rocked in sweet, baby sleep.
IV

Fair land of flowers, land of flame,
Of sun-born seas, of sea-born clime,
Of clouds low shepherded and tam
As white pet sheep at shearing time,
Of great, white, generous high-born rain,
Of rainbows builded not in vain —
Of rainbows builded for the feet
Of love to pass dry-shod and fleet
From isle to isle, when smell of musk
'Mid twilight is, and one lone star
Sits in the brow of dusk.
Oh, dying, sad-voiced, sea-born maid!
And plundered, dying, still sing on.
Thy breast against the thorn is laid —
Sing on, sing on, sweet dying swan.
How pitiful! And so despoiled
By those you fed, for whom you toiled!
Aloha! Hail you, and farewell,
Far echo of some lost sea-shell!
Some song that lost its way at sea,
Some sea-lost notes of nature, lost,
That crying, came to me.
Dusk maid, adieu! One sea-shell less!
Sad sea-shell silenced and forgot.
O Rachel in the wilderness,
Wail on! Your children they are not.
And they who took them, they who laid
Hard hand, shall they not feel afraid?
Shall they who in the name of God
Robbed and enslaved, escape His rod?
Give me some after-world afar
From these hard men, for well I know
Hell must be where they are.
V

Lo! suddenly the lone ship burst
Upon an uncompleted world,
A world so dazzling white, man durst
Not face the flashing search-light hurled
From heaven's snow-built battlements
And high-heaved camp of cloud-wreathed tents.
And boom! boom! boom! from sea or shore
Came one long, deep, continuous roar,
As if God wrought: as if the days,
The first six pregnant mother morns,
Had not quite gone their way.
What word is fitting but the Word
Here in this vast world-fashioning?
What tongue here name the nameless Lord?
What hand lay hand on anything?
Come, let us coin new words of might
And massiveness to name this light,
This largeness, largeness everywhere!
White rivers hanging in the air,
Ice-tied through all eternity!
Nay, peace! It were profane to say:
We dare but hear and see.
Be silent! Hear the strokes resound!
'T is God's hand rounding down the earth.
Take off thy shoes, 't is holy ground,
Behold! a continent has birth!
The skies bow down, Madonna's blue
Enfolds the sea in sapphire. You
May lift, a little spell, your eyes
And feast them on the ice-propped skies,
And feast but for a little space:
Then let thy face fall grateful down
And let thy soul say grace.
VI

At anchor so, and all night through,
The two before God's temple kept.
He spake: " I know yon peak; I knew
A deep ice-cavern there. I slept
With hairy men, or monsters slew,
Or led down misty seas my crew
Of cruel savages and slaves,
And slew who dared the distant waves,
And once a strange, strong ship — and she ,
I bore her to yon cave of ice, —
And Love companioned me.
VII

" Two scenes of all scenes from the first
Have come to me on this great sea:
The one when light from heaven burst,
The one when sweet Love came to me.
And of the two, or best or worst,
I ever hold this second first,
Bear with me. Yonder citadel
Of ice tells all my tongue can tell:
My thirst for love, my pain, my pride,
My soul's warm youth the while she lived,
Its old age when she died.
" I know not if she loved or no.
I only asked to serve and love;
To love and serve, and ever so
My love grew as grows light above, —
Grew from gray dawn to gold midday,
And swept the wide world in its sway.
The stars came down, so close they came,
I called them, named them with her name,
The kind moon came, — came once so near,
That in the hollow of her arm
I leaned my lifted spear.
" And yet, somehow, for all the stars,
And all the silver of the moon,
She looked from out her icy bars
As longing for some sultry noon;
As longing for some warmer kind,
Some far south sunland left behind.
Then I went down to sea. I sailed
Thro' seas where monstrous beasts prevailed,
Such slimy, shapeless, hungered things!
Red griffins, wide-winged, bat-like wings,
Black griffins, black or fire-fed,
That ate my fever-stricken men
Ere yet they were quite dead.
" I could not find her love for her,
Or land, or fit thing for her touch,
And I came back, sad worshiper,
And watched and longed and loved so much!
I watched huge monsters climb and pass
Reflected in great walls, like glass;
Dark, draggled, hairy, fearful forms
Upblown by ever-battling storms,
And streaming still with slime and spray;
So huge from out their sultry seas,
Like storm-torn islands they.
" Then even these she ceased to note,
She ceased at last to look on me,
But, baring to the sun her throat,
She looked and looked incessantly
Away against the south, away
Against the sun the livelong day.
At last I saw her watch the swan
Surge tow'rd the north, surge on and on.
I saw her smile, her first, faint smile;
Then burst a new-born thought, and I,
I nursed that all the while.
VIII

" I somehow dreamed, or guessed, or knew,
That somewhere in the dear earth's heart
Was warmth and tenderness and true
Delight, and all love's nobler part.
I tried to think, aye, thought and thought;
In all the strange fruits that I brought
For her delight I could but find
The sweetness deep within the rind.
All beasts, all birds, some better part
Of central being deepest housed;
And earth must have a heart.
" I watched the wide-winged birds that blew
Continually against the bleak
And ice-built north, and surely knew
The long, lorn croak, the reaching beak,
Led not to ruin evermore;
For they came back came swooping o'er
Each spring, with clouds of younger ones,
So dense, they dimmed the summer suns.
And thus I knew somehow, somewhere,
Beyond earth's ice-built, star-tipt peaks
They found a softer air.
" And too, I heard strange stories, held
In memories of my hairy men,
Vague, dim traditions, dim with eld,
Of other lands and ages when
Nor ices were, nor anything;
But ever one warm, restful spring
Of radiant sunlight: stories told
By dauntless men of giant mold,
Who kept their cavern's icy mouth
Ice-locked, and hungered where they sat,
With sad eyes tow'rd the south:
" Tales of a time ere hate began,
Of herds of reindeer, wild beasts tamed,
When man walked forth in love with man,
Walked naked, and was not ashamed;
Of how a brother beast he slew,
Then night, and all sad sorrows knew;
How tame beasts were no longer tame;
How God drew His great sword of flame
And drove man naked to the snow,
Till, pitying, He made of skins
A coat, and clothed him so.
" And, true or not true, still the same,
I saw continually at night
That far, bright, flashing sword of flame,
Misnamed the Borealis light;
I saw my men, in coats of skin
As God had clothed them, felt the sin
And suffering of that first death
Each day in every icy breath.
Then why should I still disbelieve
These tales of fairer lands than mine,
And let my lady grieve?
IX

" Yea, I would find that land for her!
Then dogs, and sleds, and swift reindeer;
Huge, hairy men, all mailed in fur,
Who knew not yet the name of fear,
Nor knew fatigue, nor aught that ever
To this day has balked endeavor.
And we swept forth, while wide, swift wings
Still sought the Pole in endless strings.
I left her sitting looking south,
Still leaning, looking to the sun, —
My kisses on her mouth!
X

" Far toward the north, so tall, so far,
One tallest ice shaft starward stood —
Stood as if 'twere itself a star,
Scarce fallen from its sisterhood.
Tip-top the glowing apex there
Upreared a huge white polar bear;
He pushed his swart nose up and out,
Then walked the North Star round about,
Below the Great Bear of the main,
The upper main, and as if chained,
Chained with a star-linked chain.
XI

" And we pushed on, up, on, and on,
Until, as in the world of dreams,
We found the very doors of dawn
With warm sun bursting through the seams.
We brake them through, then down, far down,
Until, as in some park-set town,
We found lost Eden. Very rare
The fruit, and all the perfumed air
So sweet, we sat us down to feed
And rest, without a thought or care,
Or ever other need.
" For all earth's pretty birds were here;
And women fair, and very fair;
Sweet song was in the atmosphere,
Nor effort was, nor noise, nor care.
As cocoons from their silken house
Wing forth and in the sun carouse,
My men let fall their housings and
Passed on and on, far down the land
Of purple grapes and poppy bloom
Such warm, sweet land, such peaceful land!
Sweet peace and sweet perfume!
" And I pushed down ere I returned
To climb the cold world's walls of snow,
And saw where earth's heart beat and burned,
An hundred sultry leagues below;
Saw deep seas set with deep-sea isles
Of waving verdure; miles on miles
Of rising sea-birds with their broods,
In all their noisy, happy moods!
Aye, then I knew earth has a heart,
That Nature wastes nor space or place,
But husbands every part.
XII

" My reindeer fretted: I turned back
For her, the heart of me, my soul!
Ah, then, how swift, how white my track!
All Paradise beneath the Pole
Were but a mockery till she
Should share its dreamful sweets with me.
I know not well what next befell,
Save that white heaven grew black hell.
She sat with sad face to the south,
Still sat, sat still: but she was dead —
My kisses on her mouth.
XIII

" What else to do but droop and die?
But dying, how my poor soul yearned
To fly as swift south birds may fly —
To pass that way her eyes had turned,
The dear days she had sat with me,
And search and search eternity!
And, do you know, I surely know
That God has given us to go
The way we will in life or death —
To go, to grow, or good or ill,
As one may draw a breath? "
PART FOURTH

I

Nay, turn not to the past for light;
Nay, teach not Pagan tale forsooth!
Behind lie heathen gods and night,
Before lifts high, white holy truth.
Sweet Orpheus looked back, and lo,
Hell met his eyes and endless woe!
Lot's wife looked back, and for this fell
To something even worse than hell.
Let us have faith, sail, seek and find
The new world and the new world's ways:
Blind Homer led the blind!
II

Come, let us kindle Faith in light!
Yon eagle climbing to the sun
Keeps not the straightest course in sight,
But room and reach of wing and run
Of rounding circle all are his,
Till he at last bathes in the light
Of worlds that look far down on this
Arena's battle for the right.
The stoutest sail that braves the breeze,
The bravest battle ship that rides,
Rides rounding up the seas.
Come, let us kindle faith in man!
What though yon eagle, where he swings,
May moult a feather in God's plan
Of broader, stronger, better wings!
Why, let the moulted feathers lie
As thick as leaves upon the lawn:
These be but proof we cleave the sky
And still round on and on and on.
Fear not for moulting feathers; nay,
But rather fear when all seems fair,
And care is far away.
Come, let us kindle faith in God!
He made, He kept, He still can keep.
The storm obeys His burning rod,
The storm brought Christ to walk the deep.
Trust God to round His own at will;
Trust God to keep His own for aye —
Or strife or strike, or well or ill;
An eagle climbing up the sky —
A meteor down from heaven hurled —
Trust God to round, reform, or rock
His new-born baby world.
III

How full the great, full-hearted seas
That lave high, white Alaska's feet!
How densely green the dense green trees!
How sweet the smell of wood! how sweet!
What sense of high, white newness where
This new world breathes the new, blue air
That never breath of man or breath
Of mortal thing considereth!
And O, that Borealis light!
The angel with his flaming sword
And never sense of night!
IV

Are these the walls of Paradise —
Yon peaks the gates man may not pass?
Lo, everlasting silence lies
Along their gleaming ways of glass!
Just silence and that sword of flame;
Just silence and Jehovah's name,
Where all is new, unnamed, and white!
Come, let us read where angels write —
" In the beginning God " — aye, these
The waters where God's Spirit moved;
These, these, the very seas!
Just one deep, wave-washed chariot wheel:
Such sunset as that far first day!
An unsheathed sword of flame and steel;
Then battle flashes; then dismay,
And mad confusion of all hues
That earth and heaven could infuse,
Till all hues softly fused and blent
In orange worlds of wonderment:
Then dying day, in kingly ire,
Struck back with one last blow, and smote
The world with molten fire.
So fell Alaska, proudly, dead
In battle harness where he fought.
But falling, still high o'er his head
Far flashed his sword in crimson wrought,
Till came his kingly foeman, Dusk,
In garments moist with smell of musk.
The bent moon moved down heaven's steeps
Low-bowed, as when a woman weeps;
Bowed low, half-veiled in widowhood;
Then stars tiptoed the peaks in gold
And burned brown sandal-wood.
Fit death of Day; fit burial rite
Of white Alaska! Let us lay
This leaflet 'mid the musky night
Upon his tomb. Come, come away;
For Phaon talks and Sappho turns
To where the light of heaven burns
To love light, and she leans to hear
With something more than mortal ear
The while the ship has pushed her prow
So close against the fir-set shore
You breathe the spicy bough.
V

Some red men by the low white beach;
Camp fires, belts of dense, black fir:
She leans as if she still would reach
To him the very soul of her.
The red flames cast a silhouette
Against the snow, above the jet
Black, narrow night of fragrant fir,
Behold, what ardent worshiper!
Lim'd out against a glacier peak,
With strong arms crossed upon his breast;
The while she feels him speak:
" How glad was I to walk with Death
Far down his dim, still, trackless lands,
Where wind nor wave nor any breath
Broke ripples o'er the somber sands.
I walked with Death as eagerly
As ever I had sailed this sea.
Then on and on I searched, I sought,
Yet all my seeking came to naught.
I sailed by pleasant, peopled isles
Of song and summer time; I sailed
Ten thousand weary miles!
" I heard a song! She had been sad,
So sad and ever drooping she;
How could she, then, in song be glad
The while I searched? It could not be.
And yet that voice! so like it seemed,
I questioned if I heard or dreamed.
She smiled on me. This made me scorn
My very self; for I was born
To loyalty. I would be true
Unto my love, my soul, my self,
Whatever death might do.
" I fled her face, her proud, fair face,
Her songs that won a world to her.
Had she sat songless in her place,
Sat with no single worshiper,
Sat with bowed head, sad-voiced, alone,
I might have known! I might have known!
But how could I, the savage, know
This sun, contrasting with that snow,
Would waken her great soul to song
That still thrills all the ages through?
I blindly did such wrong!
" Again I fled. I ferried gods;
Yet, pining still, I came to pine
Where drowsy Lesbos Bacchus nods
And drowned my soul in Cyprian wine.
Drowned! drowned my poor, sad soul so deep,
I sank to where damned serpents creep!
Then slowly upward; round by round
I toiled, regained this vantage-ground
And now, at last, I claim mine own,
As some long-banished king comes back
To battle for his throne. "
VI

I do not say that thus he spake
By word of mouth, by human speech;
The sun in one swift flash will take
A photograph of space and reach
The realm of stars. A soul like his
Is like unto the sun in this:
Her soul the plate placed to receive
The swift impressions, to believe,
To doubt no more than you might doubt
The wondrous midnight world of stars
That dawn has blotted out.
VII

And Phaon loved her; he who knew
The North Pole and the South, who named
The stars for her, strode forth and slew
Black, hairy monsters no man tamed;
And all before fair Greece was born,
Or Lesbos yet knew night or morn.
No marvel that she knew him when
He came, the chiefest of all men.
No marvel that she loved and died,
And left such marbled bits of song —
Of broken Phidian pride.
VIII

Oh, but for that one further sense
For man that man shall yet possess!
That sense that puts aside pretense
And sees the truth, that scorns to guess
Or grope, or play at blindman's buff,
But knows rough diamonds in the rough!
Oh, well for man when man shall see,
As see he must man's destiny!
Oh, well when man shall know his mate,
One-winged and desolate, lives on
And bravely dares to wait!
IX

Full morning found them, and the land
Received them, and the chapel gray;
Some Indian huts on either hand,
A smell of pine, a flash of spray, —
White, frozen rivers of the sky
Far up the glacial steeps hard by.
Far ice-peaks flashed with sudden light,
As if they would illume the rite,
'As if they knew his story well,
As if they knew that form, that face,
And all that Time could tell.
X

They passed dusk chieftains two by two,
With totem gods and stroud and shell
They slowly passed, and passing through,
He bought of all — he knew them well.
And one, a bent old man and blind,
He put his hands about, and kind
And strange words whispered in his ear,
So soft, his dull soul could but hear.
And hear he surely did, for he,
With full hands, lifted up his face
And smiled right pleasantly.
How near, how far, how fierce, how tame!
The polar bear, the olive branch;
The dying exile, Christ's sweet name —
Vast silence! then the avalanche!
How much this little church to them —
Alaska and Jerusalem!
The pair passed in, the silent pair
Fell down before the altar there,
The Greek before the gray Greek cross,
And Phaon at her side at last,
For all her weary loss.
The bearded priest came, and he laid
His two hands forth and slowly spake
Strange, solemn words, and slowly prayed,
And blessed them there, for Jesus' sake.
Then slowly they arose and passed,
Still silent, voiceless to the last.
They passed: her eyes were to his eyes,
But his were lifted to the skies,
As looking, looking, that lorn night,
Before the birth of God's first-born
As praying still for Light.
XI

So Phaon knew and Sappho knew
Nor night nor sadness any more. ...
How new the old world, ever new,
When white Love walks the shining shore!
They found their long-lost Eden, found
Her old, sweet songs; such dulcet sound
Of harmonies as soothe the ear
When Love and only Love can hear.
They found lost Eden; lilies lay
Along their path, whichever land
They journeyd from that day.
XII

They never died. Great loves live on.
You need not die and dare the skies
In forms that poor creeds hinge upon
To pass the gates of Paradise.
I know not if that sword of flame
Still lights the North, and leads the same
As when he passed the gates of old.
I know not if they braved the bold,
Defiant walls that fronted them
Where awful Saint Elias broods,
Wrapped in God's garment-hem.
I only know they found the lost,
The long-lost Eden, found all fair
Where naught had been but hail and frost;
As Love finds Eden anywhere.
And wouldst thou, too, live on and on?
Then walk with Nature till the dawn.
Aye, make thy soul worth saving — save
Thy soul from darkness and the grave.
Love God not overmuch, but love
God's world which He called very good;
Then lo, Love's white sea-dove!
XIII

I know not where lies Eden-land;
I only know 't is like unto
God's kingdom, ever right at hand —
Ever right here in reach of you.
Put forth thy hand, or great or small,
In storm or sun, by sea or wood,
And say, as God hath said of all,
Behold, it all is very good,
I know not where lies Eden-land;
I only say receive the dove:
I say put forth thy hand.