AT THE 
 WORLD'S HEART 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
Class 
 
 TSzs - ^ 
 
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 fa[Mij)htN° ^ f^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
AT THE 
 WORLD'S HEART 
 
 BY 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "PORZIA," "fAR QUESTS," "tHE IMMORTAL LURE," 
 
 "many gods," "nirvana days," "a NIGHT IN 
 
 AVIGNON," "yOLANDA OF CYPRUS," ETC. 
 
 Garden City New York 
 DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 

 Copyright, igi4, by 
 Cale Young Rice 
 
 All rights reserved, including thai i 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 itKluding the Scandinavian 
 
 JAN 27 1914 
 
 CI.A362341 
 

 TO 
 
 A. S. H. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It is with the belief that the poet of the future 
 will come to be more conscious of his planetary, 
 than of his merely national, existence, that I again 
 put forth a volume of poems ranging through both 
 East and West. Awareness of our human unity and 
 identical destiny as earth-dwellers continues to grow 
 upon us; and perhaps no poet can do better than 
 foster this spirit of humanity by a sympathetic 
 interpretation of the life of other lands — as well 
 as of his own. 
 
 I add "as well as of his own." For I would not 
 be taken as meaning that the great poetry of the 
 future will necessarily be world-embracing in its 
 vision. "A writer must see immortality from his 
 own windows," it has been said. But owing to the 
 ease and magic of modern communications our 
 windows have come to be world-windows, and in 
 the view from them nothing is any longer considered 
 as alien. 
 
 September, 1913. Cale Young Rice. 
 
 vii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 At the World's Heart 3 
 
 Sea Rhapsody 7 
 
 "*' The Monsoon Breaks " 9 
 
 In an Oriental Harbour 17 
 
 The Thrall of the Dead 19 
 
 The Peasant of Irimachi 22 
 
 The Broken Trance 25 
 
 The Peasant of Gotemba 28 
 
 Submarine Mountains 30 
 
 The Pilgrim 33 
 
 Pageants of the Sea 35 
 
 The Malay to His Master 39 
 
 Nights on the Indian Ocean 42 
 
 Sighting Arabia 44 
 
 My Country 46 
 
 The Snail and 1 52 
 
 Songs to A. H. R.: 
 
 1. Minglings 54 
 
 2. Fides Perennis Amoris 55 
 
 3. How Many Ways 58 
 
 ix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Songs to A. H. R. : — Continued page 
 
 4. Love and Infinity 59 
 
 5. Star Wanderings 60 
 
 6. In the Night 62 
 
 7. Monitions 63 
 
 8. Transfusion 63 
 
 Beauty and Stillness 65 
 
 The Contessa to Her Judges 09 
 
 On the Upward Road 72 
 
 Chartings 77 
 
 The Four Enchantm:e:nts 80 
 
 The God of Ease 81 
 
 By the Ch'en Gate 83 
 
 A Song for Healing 84 
 
 The Great Wall • 86 
 
 Waikiki Beach 89 
 
 0-TsuYA Forsaken 91 
 
 A Chant at Chion-in Temple 93 
 
 Korean 95 
 
 Theophilus 97 
 
 Basking 100 
 
 The Ballad of the Maid of Orleans 103 
 
 Inlanders 108 
 
 India 109 
 
 The New Moon 110 
 
 The Shah to His Dead Slave 112 
 
 A Parable of Pain 114 
 
 X 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Erostratus ii6 
 
 Aleen 119 
 
 The Striver 121 
 
 Mysteries: 
 
 1. Moonlight 122 
 
 2. The Shadow 123 
 
 3. Sudden Sight 123 
 
 4. NoN SuFFiciT 124 
 
 5. Sic Cum Nobis 125 
 
 6. Bird-Bliss 125 
 
 7. Man and Bird 126 
 
 The Atheist 127 
 
 Judgment 129 
 
 A Mariner's Memory 130 
 
 Under the Sky 131 
 
 Losses 132 
 
 The Profligate 133 
 
 South Seas 136 
 
 Christ, or Mahomet? 137 
 
 To Stromboli 138 
 
 In a Greek Temple 140 
 
 The Hidden Foe 142 
 
 Telepathy 144 
 
 The Explorers 14.6 
 
 To A Boy 148 
 
 Pagans 150 
 
 Argosies iS3 
 
 To the Younger Generation iS4 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 I leant my ear to the world's heart, 
 
 (Beat, beat, beat!) 
 
 I leant my ear to the world's heart, 
 
 Where all its voices meet. 
 
 I heard them sound together, 
 
 I heard them surge alone. 
 
 The far, the near and the nether. 
 
 The known — and the unknown. 
 
 From desert they rose and mountain, 
 
 From city and sea and plain. 
 
 And the voices, all, to one voice 
 
 Blent, in the bitter pain: 
 
 We are the people of Sorrow j 
 Haled from the silent earthy 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Happy is it, 
 
 Happy is love — 
 
 Happier shotdd be birth! 
 
 We come to the land of the living, 
 
 We go to the realm of death, 
 
 We bide for a day 
 
 And then . . . away! 
 
 O why are we given breath/ 
 
 II 
 
 I leant my ear to the world's heart, 
 
 (Leant, more nigh!) 
 
 A saddened ear to the world's heart, 
 
 Fain for a sweeter cry. 
 
 There came the murmur of nations, 
 
 With languor loud, or need. 
 
 The sighing of devastations, 
 
 Of deed and dark misdeed; 
 
 There came the moan of the millions, 
 
 Against their tyrant kind. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 But in it I heard great Hope's word 
 Groping, a way to find: 
 
 We are the people begotten 
 
 Between Delight and Pain, 
 
 Certain is birth. 
 
 Certain are They 
 
 To breed our like again. 
 
 But tho we have filled the valleys 
 
 And the sea and the hills with death 
 
 It shattered there 
 
 Into the prayer, 
 
 O why are we given breath! 
 
 Ill 
 
 I leant my ear to the world's heart, 
 (Long, then, long!) 
 A closer ear to the world's heart, 
 And lo — it beat more strong! 
 And the building of human beauty, 
 The crushing of human crime, 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 The music of human duty 
 Outclarioned fate and time. 
 Yea over the cry of sorrow 
 And doubt that is ever brief 
 There rose the lay of a New Day, 
 The high voice of Belief: 
 
 We are the people of Patience^ 
 
 Who wait — and look before. 
 
 Silent is birth, 
 
 Silent the tomb, 
 
 But silefit Life no more! 
 
 Our gods are becoming One God, 
 
 And tho there is ever death, 
 
 We yet shall learn. 
 
 At some day's turn, 
 
 Why — why we are given breath! 
 
SEA RHAPSODY 
 
 (Out of Hongkong) 
 
 Never again, never again 
 
 Did I hope to breathe such joy! 
 The sea is blue and the winds halloo 
 
 Up to the sun "Ahoy!" 
 "Ahoy!" they shout and the mists they rout 
 
 From the mountain-tops go streaming 
 In happy play where the gulls sway, 
 
 And a million waves are gleaming! 
 
 And every wave, billowing brave. 
 
 Is tipped with a wild delight. 
 A garden of isles around me smiles, 
 
 Bathed in the blue noon light. 
 
8 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 The rude brown bunk of the fishing junk 
 Seems fair as a sea-king's palace: 
 
 O wine of the sky the gods have spilt 
 Out of its crystal chalice! 
 
 For wine is the wind, wine is the sea, 
 
 Glad wine for the sinking spirit. 
 To lift it up from the cling of clay 
 
 Into high Bliss — or near it! 
 So let me drink till I cease to think, 
 
 And know with a sting of rapture 
 That joy is yet as wide as the world 
 
 For men at last to capture! 
 
"THE MONSOON BREAKS !'' 
 
 (Jndia) 
 
 Panting, panting, panting, 
 
 O the terrible heat! 
 
 The fields crack 
 
 And the ryot's back 
 
 Bursts with the cruel beat. 
 
 The wells of the land are empty; 
 
 Six hundred feet, in vain, 
 
 The oxen lower the buckets o'er 
 
 And draw them up again. 
 
 Panting, panting, panting: 
 Parched are the earth and sky. 
 The elephant in the jungle 
 Sucks root and river dry. 
 9 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 The tiger, in whose throat 
 The desert seems to burn, 
 Paces the path, 
 The pool path — 
 But only to return. 
 
 O the terrible heat! 
 
 O the peacock's cry! 
 
 The whine of monkeys in the trees, 
 
 The children crawling on their knees. 
 
 O the terrible heat! 
 
 The gods will let us die: 
 
 Shiva and Parvati and all 
 
 To whom we beat the drum and call, 
 
 Vouch to us no reply. 
 
 II 
 
 Panting, panting, panting; 
 The plague is drawing near. 
 Hot is the sun, hot is the night, 
 And in the heat is fear. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 The plague, of famine mate, 
 Is fumbling at the latch. 
 Soon his step — 
 Death-step ! — 
 Listening we shall catch. 
 
 O! . . . . soon his step! 
 
 There's heard the funeral chant; 
 
 There's smelt the funeral pyre; 
 
 The ghat is red with fire. 
 
 O the terrible heat! 
 
 The gods are adamant. 
 
 Will the monsoon 
 
 Let us swoon 
 
 Unto the last heart-beat? 
 
 in 
 
 Panting, panting, panting . . . 
 Go up toward the sea 
 And look again, ye holy men, 
 To learn if clouds may be. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 Go up into your temples 
 With sacrifice and song. 
 Call to the gods, 
 The cruel gods, 
 
 Who beat us down with rays like rods: 
 Say that we wait too long! 
 
 Say that the wells are dry. 
 
 Say that our flesh is sand. 
 
 Say that the mother's milk is pain. 
 
 The child beats at her breast in vain. 
 
 Say that we curse the land. 
 
 O the terrible heat! 
 
 Say that even the moon 
 
 In fiery flight 
 
 Scorches the night. 
 
 O bring us the monsoon! 
 
 IV 
 
 Panting, panting, panting: 
 The nautch-girl cannot sing, 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 13 
 
 But drops her vina in the dust 
 
 And sinks, a shrivelled thing. 
 
 The fakir has acquired 
 
 No merit for six days, 
 
 But at the tank, 
 
 The shrine's tank. 
 
 That never before of vileness stank, 
 
 Babbles of water sprays. 
 
 O the terrible heat! 
 
 How long must we endure? 
 
 The holy men have come again. 
 
 The beating drums are fewer. 
 
 A cobra in their path 
 
 Licked out an angry tongue 
 
 Into the air — 
 
 O with despair 
 
 Is even the serpent stung! 
 
14 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 VI 
 
 Panting, panting, panting: 
 The night again, and day; 
 And day again, and night again, 
 Burning their endless way. 
 The furnace sun goes down. 
 The branding stars come out 
 
 And sear the eyes 
 Like fiery flies 
 
 Settling upon them — O ye skies, 
 A drop for us, we pray! 
 
 But one — upon the tongue! 
 
 To let us know you care. 
 
 But one — tho it be wrung 
 Of breath sent up in prayer. 
 O the terrible heat! 
 Again the beating drums. 
 What do I hear? 
 A. cry? a cheer? . . . 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 15 
 
 The priests are chanting? nearer, near? . . . 
 Is it the monsoon comes? 
 
 The priests are chanting! . . . O, 
 
 What word is on their lips! 
 ^* The monsoon breaks ! the monsoon breaks !" 
 A darkness sudden grips 
 My eyes: is it the shroud 
 Of blindness, or — a cloud? 
 The monsoon breaks? 
 The rain awakes? 
 
 Out of the darkened sky it shakes? — 
 Louder they cry, and loud! 
 
 O loud! until at last 
 
 The people hear bedazed; 
 
 The sick who drank of burning air, 
 
 The weak, the well, the crazed! 
 
 The temple's sacred cow 
 
 Lows gently at the door; 
 
 The fakir makes his vow 
 
i6 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 And chants his Vedic lore; 
 But all lift up 
 Their lips' cup 
 And drink more of it, more! 
 
 And singing fills the air! . . . 
 
 And soon the Summer's song 
 
 Of greenness covers all the earth, 
 
 For long the rain is, long! 
 
 The rice is flooded far; 
 
 While Shiva, Indra, all 
 
 The gods, who are the world's laws, 
 
 Are lulled to sleep, 
 
 In temples deep. 
 
 By praises without pause. 
 
IN AN ORIENTAL HARBOUR 
 
 All the ships of the world come here, 
 
 Rest a little, then set to sea; 
 Some ride up to the waiting pier, 
 
 Some drop anchor beyond the quay. 
 Some have funnels of blue and black, 
 
 (Some come once but come not back!) 
 Some have funnels of red and yellow, 
 
 Some — O war ! — have funnels of gray. 
 
 All the ships of the world come here, 
 Ships from every billow's foam; 
 
 Fruiter and oiler, collier drear, 
 Liner and lugger and tramp a-roam. 
 
 Some are scented of palm and pine, 
 
 (Some are fain for the Pole's far clime). 
 
 Some are scented of soy and senna. 
 
 Some — ah me! — are scented of home. 
 17 
 
i8 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 All the ships of the world come here, 
 
 Day and night there is sound of bells, 
 Seeking the port they calmly steer, 
 
 Clearing the port they ring farewells. 
 Under the sun or under the stars 
 
 (Under the light of swaying spars). 
 Under the moon or under morning 
 
 Murmur they, as the tide swells. 
 
 All the ships of the world come here. 
 
 Rest a little and then are gone, 
 Over the crystal planet-sphere 
 
 Swept, thro every season, on. 
 Swept to every cape and isle 
 
 (Every coast of cloud or smile). 
 Swept till over them sweeps the sorrow 
 
 Of their last sea-dawn. 
 
THE THRALL OF THE DEAD 
 
 {China) 
 
 Out of the earth, out of the earth 
 
 The innumerable dead 
 Thrust forth their phantom hands to seize 
 
 The living overhead; 
 Ancestral hands from every field, 
 
 By every hut and hill; 
 Ancestral hands that ever wield 
 
 Strong Superstition's will; 
 Ancestral hands by every grave. 
 
 And graves are everywhere, 
 
 Tho strong sweet grain might grow instead 
 
 To lighten famine's care. 
 19 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 Out of the earth, out of the earth, 
 
 North, east and south and west, 
 The souls of father, brother, son, 
 
 Crave worship, without rest; 
 Claim rites and reverence and fear, 
 
 For 111 is in their hands; 
 Claim progeny, who too must rear 
 
 Yet more, for death's demands; 
 Claim sons — and sons — tho millions stare. 
 
 And millions see no shape 
 But that of Hunger, gaunt and bare, 
 
 From which is no escape. 
 
 Out of the earth — the haunted earth! — 
 
 O is there no surcease? 
 Will Custom never loose its clutch 
 
 Upon this people's peace? 
 Must life be ever slave to death — 
 
 A coolie at the tomb? 
 Must it forever draw no breath 
 
 But where the grave has room? 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 21 
 
 Must not a fruit or flower spring 
 
 But they are corpse-begot? 
 O shall there be no fair expanse 
 
 The buried do not blot? 
 
 God of the world, God of the world, 
 
 To carven stick or stone 
 Should all these millions rather pray 
 
 Than unto rotted bone. 
 O rather to the earth, the moon. 
 
 To light the warm sun gives. 
 To Spring, to Summer on the hills — 
 
 To anything that lives! 
 So let the wind of Knowledge sweep 
 
 From Thibet to the sea 
 And save the living from the dead, 
 
 Now and eternally. 
 Yea let the cleansing of it flash, 
 
 Until this land again 
 Shall be no charnel, but the home 
 
 Of free and living men. 
 
THE PEASANT OF IRIMACHI 
 
 (Japan) 
 
 At the time of candle-lighting and rest, 
 
 When the shoji-panes are softly aglow, 
 When the rice within the bowl seems blest 
 
 By Buddha — and the mists creep low, 
 I sit upon the mats, and you, 
 
 0-Kuni, from the grave, come back. 
 I hear at the door 
 Your geta on the floor 
 As you slip like a moon thing thro. 
 
 You have come across the twilit fields. 
 For you know that in the shrine I have set 
 
 All the offerings the long day yields. 
 And know that I never can forget! 
 
 22 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 23 
 
 You know that I am lonely and wait 
 From temple bell at night to bell at morn. 
 And so when you glide, 
 A shadow, to my side, 
 All the longings in my heart abate. 
 
 Yet they say it is not well — the priests, 
 
 And they bid me let the love-fires die, 
 But I go unto their fanes and feasts 
 
 And never can they tell me why! 
 Such love is karma-sent, they say, 
 
 And binds me to a thousand births. 
 But still with the night 
 I set the candle light 
 And you come when the mists creep gray. 
 
 So I toil: with the yoke upon my brow 
 Bear the burden of the beasts: so poor 
 
 That the lowliest neglect my bow. 
 And my gifts the very gods scarce endure. 
 
24 AT THE WORLD'S- HEART 
 
 But still I have the thatch and the shrine 
 And night, 0-Kuni, for my peace. 
 So till I am flung 
 Under earth, like the dung, 
 I shall set the shoji-light to shine. 
 
THE BROKEN TRANCE 
 
 {Kamakura, Japan) 
 
 Blue, blue skies above the Great Buddha bend, 
 
 The crepe-myrtle blooms. 
 
 The semi sing about. 
 The dragon-fly gleams against the pine-tree glooms^ 
 
 The crows upon the hill 
 
 In derision shout. 
 
 ''What," they caw, to the worshipers that come, 
 
 ''O what is your god 
 
 And Nirvana's empty sleep!" 
 The lotos-throng seated on the pale pool nod, 
 
 But heed not at all, 
 
 And to meditation keep. 
 
 25 
 
26 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Keep; tho sad, over Shaka's silent calm, 
 
 A shade creeps strange — 
 
 O is it from the pines? 
 Or is it doubting prescience of the peaceless change 
 
 Enveloping his East 
 
 That he too divines? 
 
 Sees he how, since its wedding with the West, 
 
 Desire born anew 
 
 And Maya shall increase 
 Till all the world's soul again is bound, past rue. 
 
 Upon the Wheel of Things 
 
 With none to release? 
 
 Ay, and how sutra years and centuries 
 
 Shall fall soon away 
 
 From peoples that he found 
 And taught, all- compassionate, to live their day 
 
 In simplest content 
 
 Till beyond life's bound? 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 27 
 
 Blue, blue skies above the Great Buddha bend, 
 
 The crepe-myrtle blooms, 
 
 The semi sing about. 
 The dragon-fly gleams against the pine-tree glooms; 
 
 But never from His Face 
 
 Shall be swept that doubt. 
 
THE PEASANT OF GOTEMBA 
 {Japan) 
 
 The scarecrow in the fields 
 
 Is not so poor as I; 
 Standing amid the rice 
 
 He makes the crows fly high; 
 But if I stood they only 
 
 Would pluck me more awry. 
 
 But him I envy not, 
 
 For he has never heard 
 Airs in the young bamboo 
 
 Breathe low the wind-god's word. 
 
 So deaf is he that Summer 
 
 Can wake him with no bird. 
 28 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 29 
 
 And blind he is, as well, 
 
 Since he has never seen 
 Wild Fujiyama geese. 
 
 Far up above the green. 
 Flecking the dim white summit 
 
 Snow covers, ever clean. 
 
 And he has not a thatch 
 
 To shelter his torn head. 
 Nor a son's hand to pay 
 
 Shrine-rites when he is dead. 
 His poor old straw in winter 
 
 Will to the ox be fed. 
 
 So poverty alone 
 
 Is not too dire for those 
 To whom is given a glimpse 
 
 Behind life's fleeting shows 
 Into the boundless beauty 
 
 The blessed Buddha knows. 
 
SUBMARINE MOUNTAINS 
 
 Under the sea, which is their sky, they rise 
 To watery altitudes as vast as those 
 Of far Himalayan peaks impent in snows 
 And veils of cloud and sacred deep repose. 
 
 Under the sea, their flowing firmament. 
 More dark than any ray of sun can pierce, 
 The earthquake thrust them up with mighty tierce 
 
 And left them to be seen but by the eyes 
 
 Of awed imagination inward bent. 
 
 Their vegetation is the viscid ooze. 
 
 Whose mysteries are past belief or thought. 
 
 Creation seems around them devil-wrought, 
 
 Or by some cosmic urgence gone distraught. 
 
 Adown their precipices chill and dense 
 30 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 31 
 
 With the dank midnight creep or crawl or climb 
 Such tentacled and eyeless things of slime, 
 
 Such monster shapes as tempt us to accuse 
 
 Life of a miscreative impotence. 
 
 About their peaks the shark, their eagle, floats, 
 In the thick azure far beneath the air, 
 Or downward sweeps upon what prey may dare 
 Set forth from any silent weedy lair. 
 
 But one desire on all their slopes is found. 
 Desire of food, the awful hunger strife, 
 Yet here, it may be, was begun our life 
 
 Here all the dreams on which our vision dotes 
 
 In unevolved obscurity were bound. 
 
 Too strange it is, too terrible! And yet 
 It matters not how we were wrought or whence 
 Life came to us with all its throb intense 
 If in it is a Godly Immanence. 
 
 It matters not, — if haply we are more 
 
32 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Than creatures half-conceived by a blind force 
 That sweeps the universe in a chance course: 
 For only in Unmeaning Might is met 
 The intolerable thought none can ignore. 
 
THE PILGRIM 
 
 {As a temple bell sounds) 
 
 A temple bell! . . . 
 And lo, to me, 
 Who fare far out at sea, 
 It brings the gloom 
 Of the temple room — 
 And the holy image 
 Of Buddha seated 
 Upon his lotos! 
 
 And so I pray: 
 
 "O Calm One! in 
 
 The new lives that I win, 
 
 Let me as the sound 
 33 
 
34 ^T THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Of a bell be found 
 To waken worship 
 In souls that wander 
 Toward Nirvana!" 
 
PAGEANTS OF THE SEA 
 
 What memories have I of it, 
 
 The sea, continent-clasping, 
 
 The sea whose spirit is a sorcery, 
 
 The sea whose magic foaming is immortal! 
 
 What memories have I of it thro the years ! 
 
 WTiat memories of its shores! 
 
 Its shadowy headlands doomed to stay the storm; 
 
 Its red cliffs clawing ever into the tides; 
 
 Its misty m^oors of royal heather purpling; 
 
 Its channeled marshes, village-nesting hills; 
 
 Its crags wind-eaten, homes of hungry gulls; 
 
 Its bays — 
 
 With sailless masts that swing to harbour tides 
 
 Until on wings at last they sweep away. 
 35 
 
36 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 What memories have I too 
 
 Of faring out at dawn o'er tameless waters, 
 
 Upon the infinite wasted yearning of them, 
 
 While winds, the mystic harp-strings of the world, 
 
 Were sounding sweet farewells; 
 
 While coast and lighthouse tower were fading fast, 
 
 And from me all the world slipped like a garment. 
 
 What memories of mid-deeps! 
 
 Of heaving on thro haunted vasts of foam. 
 
 Thro swaying terrors of tormented tides; 
 
 While the wind, no more singing, took to raving, 
 
 In rhythmic infinite words, 
 
 A chantey ancient and immeasurable 
 
 Concerning man and God. 
 
 What memories of fog-spaces — 
 
 Wide leaden deserts of dim wavelessness, 
 
 Smooth porpoise-broken glass 
 
 As gray as a dream upon despair's horizon; 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 37 
 
 What sailing soft till lo the shroud was lifted 
 And suddenly there came, as a great joy, 
 The blue sublimity of summer skies, 
 The azure mystery of happy heavens. 
 The passionate sweet parley of the breeze. 
 And dancing waves — that lured us on and on 
 Past islands o'er whose verdant mountain-heads 
 Enchanted clouds were hanging, 
 And whence wild spices wandered; 
 Past iridescent reefs and vessels bound 
 For ports unknown: 
 O far, far past, imtil the sun, in fire. 
 An impotent and shrunken ' Orb lay dying, 
 On heaving twilight purple gathered round. 
 
 And then, what nights! 
 
 The phantom moon in misty resurrection 
 
 Arising from her sepulchre in the East 
 
 And sparkling the dark waters — 
 
 The unremembering moon! 
 
 And covenants of star to faithful star, 
 
38 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Dewy, like tears of God, across the sky; 
 
 And under the moon's fair ring Orion running 
 
 Forever in great war adown the West. 
 
 The nights, the infinite nights! 
 
 With cloud-horizons where the lightning slumbered 
 
 Or wakened once and again with startled watch, 
 
 Again to fall asleep 
 
 And leave the moon-path free for all my thoughts 
 
 To wander peacefully. 
 
 The nights, the opiate nights! 
 
 Until the stars sighed out in dawn's great pallor, 
 
 Just as the lands of my desire appeared. 
 
 'Wliat memories have I of it! 
 
THE MALAY TO HIS MASTER 
 
 The woman is mine, O chief, 
 White chief whom the spirits fear; 
 The woman is mine, 
 I have bought her with blood, 
 My mark is upon her brow. 
 I swept like a shark the sea, 
 
 lord of unbelief, 
 
 1 swept with a trusty score to her isle 
 And brought her home in my prau! 
 
 She lay in her atap-thatch. 
 
 Clad — ah ! — in her red sarong. 
 
 The cocoanut palms 
 
 In the wind she heard, 
 39 
 
40 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 But never my paddles near. 
 I seized her with mating arms — 
 chief, no moon is her match! — 
 She cried to the hunting-men of her tribe. 
 But lo, I carried her clear, 
 
 And tossed her across the surf! 
 
 chief, she is mine not yours! — 
 
 1 bore her away 
 
 Tho the pearls of her teeth 
 Bit deep and her rage beat blind. 
 A hundred of hissing darts, 
 Each dipt in a venom's scurf. 
 Slid after us like swift asps of air, 
 But ever they sank behind. 
 
 And so she is mine, twice mine, 
 
 For when in the jungle here 
 
 I hid her, O lord, 
 
 And sang to her heart 
 
 And planted the rubber round, 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 41 
 
 And bought her your rings and silks 
 And bracelets jewel-fine, 
 And swept her with kisses like the sea, 
 At last was her long hate drowned. 
 
 And so she is mine, is mine! 
 
 White chief, you must give her back. 
 
 I bought her with blood, 
 
 I will keep her with blood. 
 
 So summon your heart from lust, 
 
 Or swift, as you say the night 
 
 Of Malaya falls, — at a sign. 
 
 My people, led by the gods, shall fall 
 
 And make of your passion dust. 
 
NIGHTS ON THE INDIAN OCEAN 
 
 Nights on the Indian Ocean, 
 
 Long nights of moon and foam, 
 When silvery Venus low in the sky 
 
 Follows the sun home. 
 Long nights when the mild monsoon 
 
 Is breaking south-by-west, 
 And when soft clouds and the singing shrouds 
 
 Make all that is seem best. 
 
 Nights on the Indian Ocean, 
 
 Long nights of space and dream, 
 
 When silent Sirius round the Pole 
 Swings on, with steady gleam; 
 
 When oft the pushing prow 
 
 Seems pressing where before 
 42 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 43 
 
 No prow has ever pressed — or shall 
 From hence forevermore. 
 
 Nights on the Indian Ocean, 
 
 Long nights — with land at last, 
 Dim land, dissolving the long sea-spell 
 
 Into a sudden past — 
 That seems as far away 
 
 As this our life shall seem 
 When under the shadow of death's shore 
 
 We drop its ended dream. 
 
SIGHTING ARABIA 
 
 My heart, that is Arabia, O see! 
 That talismanic sweep of sunset coast, 
 Which lies like richly wrought enchant- 
 ment's ghost 
 
 Before us, bringing back youth's witchery! 
 
 "Arabian Nights! " At last to us one comes. 
 The crescent moon upon its purple brow. 
 Will not Haroun and Bagdad rise up now 
 
 There on the shore, to beating of his drums? 
 
 Is not that gull a roc? That sail Sindbad's? 
 
 That rocky pinnacle a minaret? 
 
 Does the wind call to prayer from it? O yet 
 
 I hear the fancy, fervid as a lad's! 
 44 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 45 
 
 "Allah il Allah," rings it; O my heart, 
 Fall prostrate, for to Mecca we are near, 
 That flashing light is but a sign sent clear 
 From her, your houri, as her curtains part ! 
 
 Soon she will lean out from her lattice, soon, 
 And bid you climb up to your Paradise, 
 Which is her panting lips and passion eyes 
 
 Under the drunken sweetness of the moon ! 
 
 O heart, my heart, drink deeply ere they die. 
 The sunset dome, the minaret, the dreams 
 Flashing afar fromyouth's returnless streams: 
 
 For we, my heart, must grow old, you and I ! 
 
MY COUNTRY 
 
 My country, O my country, they call you a Market- 
 place, 
 
 Where only the greed of silver and the gloat of gold 
 are heard, 
 
 Where men care but for getting — a getting that 
 gives no grace. 
 
 Where money-right and money-might are the will 
 of you and the word. 
 
 They call you a land of license — free but to thug 
 
 and thief! 
 
 A servile dumping-place for the dirt of the other 
 
 lands; 
 
 46 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 47 
 
 A pest-house for their crime and their poverty and 
 
 grief; 
 A scavenger of nations — diseased in heart and 
 
 hands. 
 
 They say you have sons no more — sons native- 
 born and brave; 
 
 That the blood of the alien — and the mad — is in 
 your veins, 
 
 And the venom of anarchy, ungovernable and grave, 
 
 Is sweeping toward your heart — is gripping about 
 your reins. 
 
 They say the voice of the people is the voice that 
 
 sounds your doom — 
 Democracy but a monster with a million heads that 
 
 rave — 
 Till the wise, the just and the mighty are banished 
 
 to make more room 
 For the briber and demagogue, for the slanderer 
 
 and the slave. 
 
48 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 So, Prostitute in your passions, they term you, over 
 the seas, 
 
 A Gaud specious and shallow, loose, vulgar, cunning 
 and loud; 
 
 A Lurer away of the soul from its true immensi- 
 ties 
 
 Into the lies of bigness, into the boasts of the crowd. 
 
 My country, O my country, these are the things 
 
 they cry. 
 Your sons who are renegade, your troubled friends 
 
 and foes, 
 And this to them do we answer, who for your fame 
 
 would die. 
 Your lovers deeplier reading the heart of your weal 
 
 and woes, — 
 
 This word to them do we answer: That many a god 
 men serve. 
 
 And Money you, for a moment: tho a worse per- 
 chance is theirs: 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 49 
 
 But that you have worshipped it with a force, a 
 
 faith and a nerve 
 Betraying the might within you for loftier temple 
 
 cares. 
 
 That Money has been your god, your wild Romance 
 of Youth, 
 
 All pardonable to a land with a virgin hope for the 
 world, 
 
 But that you have kept o'er all in the pantheon 
 of Truth, 
 
 One image of endless faith — in a starry flag en- 
 furled; 
 
 Yea, that, if you worshipped Mammon, 'twas ever 
 because its face 
 
 Seemed but as the face of Freedom, your starry- 
 clad and strong, 
 
 And was, to many a million of many a martyred 
 race. 
 
 Who hungered — or to your shelter fled tyranny 
 and wrong. 
 
so AT THE WORLD'S HEART ^ 
 
 Wherefore, for the bread you gave them, we say, 
 
 they shall pay you strength. 
 For the great and glad asylum, a harvest of hope 
 
 and song. 
 And out of their shackles broken shall mould for 
 
 you, at length. 
 Perchance a mightier nation — a manhood yet 
 
 more strong. 
 
 For ever the crime they bring you, as wildly they 
 
 escape, 
 Is but the crime of the ages, that flames in them 
 
 at last. 
 And kindles you unto pity — and progress from the 
 
 ape. 
 Who knows not brotherhood — nor the future from 
 
 the past. 
 
 So when their cry to the clamour of the Monster 
 
 million-voiced 
 Is joined, and the vaster chorus ascends toward 
 
 the Light, 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 51 
 
 We know, with pride, you will listen — nor fear, 
 but be rejoiced, 
 
 And hear, down under the tumult, still hear, deep- 
 hid, the Right. 
 
 And yet — reproach is a warning of a peril that 
 
 may be. 
 We would not have you niggard of your breasts to 
 
 human need. 
 But now the withholding season has come — until 
 
 you see 
 How truly the milk of freedom makes brothers 
 
 every breed. 
 
THE SNAIL AND I 
 
 The snail and I cling to the rock, 
 We two alone by the glassy sea 
 That under the sun draws silently 
 
 Its breath, then breaks with spumy shock; 
 
 We two; for even the briny pool 
 
 Has not one shambling crab that moves; 
 But in its granite glossy grooves 
 The pent tide-water warms its face 
 And still weeds hang their idle lace 
 
 On looms of mosses green and cool. 
 
 The snail and I cling to the rock, 
 
 The tide is slipping inward slow. 
 
 Here to our cleft it soon will flow, 
 
 At his shell-house alone to knock. 
 52 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 53 
 
 The tide that daily comes with food 
 For his dumb small unconscious need 
 That grows no greater: while I bleed 
 With wants no feeding brings content — 
 For dual dreaming man seems meant 
 
 On what the world has not to brood. 
 
 The snail and I cling to the rock, 
 
 Strange comrades whom the sea has cast 
 Together till such hours have passed 
 
 As at my sadness came to knock. 
 
 But wherefore did the long day give 
 Me unto him? lest some gray gull 
 Should on him gorge a fain crop full? 
 Infinity alone knows why: 
 For he was born to live and die, 
 
 As I perchance to die and live. 
 
SONGS TO A. H. R. 
 
 MINGLINGS 
 
 It is the old old vision, 
 
 The moonlit sea — and you. 
 I cannot make disseverance 
 
 Between the two. 
 For all the world's wide beauty 
 
 To me you seem, 
 All that I love in shadow 
 
 Or glow or gleam. 
 
 It is the old old murmur. 
 
 The sea's sound and your voice. 
 54 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 55 
 
 God in his Bliss between them 
 
 Could make no choice. 
 For all the world's deep music 
 
 In you I hear: 
 Nor shall I ask death, ever, 
 
 For aught more dear. 
 
 n 
 
 FIDES PERENNIS AMORIS 
 
 Tho God should send me, 
 
 When I die, 
 To the last star 
 Across His sky, 
 And bid all space between us be 
 Oblivion — one traverseless sea: 
 
 Tho He should give me, 
 
 There, a task. 
 Sweeter than any 
 
 I could ask, 
 
S6 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 And, with the task, achievement, too, 
 Greater than all I here shall do: 
 
 Yea, tho He purposed 
 
 Thus to let 
 Me, severed from you, 
 All forget; 
 Remembrance like a magnet still 
 Would draw my heart to you and will. 
 
 So I should wander 
 
 On the marge 
 Of that new world 
 With strangeness large. 
 Leaving my task to turn a face 
 Somehow toward your dwelling-place. 
 
 And I should listen 
 
 Thro the stars 
 To silent hintings 
 
 Of lost bars 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 57 
 
 Of music that was once your voice: 
 In no dream should I more rejoice. 
 
 Or I should tremble 
 
 When the breeze 
 Brought to my cheek 
 Infinities 
 Of dim forgotten touches love 
 Once swept me with, like a wing'd dove. 
 
 Nor could the presence 
 
 Of His throng 
 Of noblest spirits 
 Hush, for long. 
 In me the unremembered bliss — 
 The vanished spell of days like this. 
 
 For in the trysting 
 
 Of true souls 
 There is no distance 
 
 That controls: 
 
58 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Not space nor God can keep them twain 
 Only annihilation's reign. 
 
 m 
 
 HOW MANY WAYS 
 
 How many ways the Infinite has 
 
 To-night, in earth and sky: 
 A falling star, a rustling leaf, 
 
 The night-wind ebbing by. 
 How many ways the Infinite has: 
 
 A fire-fly over the lea, 
 A whippoorwill on the wooded hill, 
 
 And your dear love to me. 
 
 How many ways the Infinite has: 
 The moon out of the East; 
 
 A cloud that waits her shepherding, 
 To wander silver-fleeced. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 59 
 
 How many ways the Infinite has: 
 
 A home-light in the West, 
 And joy deep-glowing in your eyes. 
 
 Wherein is all my rest. 
 
 IV 
 
 LOVE AND INFINITY 
 
 Across the kindling twilight moon 
 
 A late gull wings to rest. 
 The sea is murmuring underneath 
 
 Its vast eternal quest. 
 The coast-light flashes o'er the tide 
 
 A red and warning eye, 
 And oh the world is very wide, 
 
 But you are nigh! 
 
 The stars come out from zone to zone, 
 
 The wind knows every one 
 And blows their message to my heart, 
 
 As it has ever done. 
 
6o AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 "They are all God's," it tells me, "all, 
 
 However huge or high." 
 But ah I could not trust its call — 
 
 Were you not by! 
 
 STAR-WANDERINGS 
 
 Adown the paths between the stars 
 Last night we went a- wandering. 
 The sod of space beneath our feet 
 
 Was soft as violet dreams. 
 Close, close to many a moon that shone 
 We wandered, hand in hand, alone, 
 And everything to us was known — 
 
 And everything was sweet — 
 For all the world was as it seems 
 
 When love is made complete. 
 
 We wandered past Aldebaran 
 And Vega jewelling the Lyre, 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 6i 
 
 We lost ourselves in nebulas 
 
 Of vast Orion's sword. 
 We called to Sirius, the red, 
 And to many a star that's dead, 
 While echoes back to us were shed 
 
 Of life that glorious was, 
 And while love thro us silent poured 
 
 Its peace, without a pause. 
 
 We wandered, wandered, on and on, 
 Thro dwindling shining ways, till space 
 In all its primal pureness lay, 
 
 A starless reach beyond. 
 And into it we passed to see 
 If God in such a void could be — 
 And still the soul of it was He, 
 
 As of the starry way. 
 Then, ah, time touched us with his wand 
 
 And all was yesterday. 
 
62 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 VI 
 
 IN THE NIGHT 
 
 When I lie unsleeping, 
 
 When the darkness seems 
 Like a lonely sepulchre 
 
 Where I'm shut in dreams, 
 I have but to touch you, 
 
 Reaching thro the night, 
 Then does all the vast tomb change 
 
 Into living light. 
 
 Then does space imbounded 
 
 Fill once mpre with stars, 
 While my worn and haunted heart 
 
 Ceases from old wars. 
 Then does rest come to me. 
 
 And, it may be, sleep: 
 Such infinitude has love — 
 
 Such watch can it keep. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 63 
 
 vn 
 
 MONITIONS 
 
 Sad as an inland gull, far from the salt wave winging, 
 Lost or lured from the sea — from all its heart 
 
 has known, 
 Am I, when I think that death, somewhere, may 
 
 now be bringing 
 The hour, my love, to sever us, and send each 
 
 wandering lone! 
 
 vni 
 
 TRANSFUSION 
 
 A shoal-light flashes East, 
 And livid lightning West, 
 
 The silvery dark night-sea between, 
 On which we ride at rest. 
 
 And gaze far, far away 
 Into the fretless skies, 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 World-sadness in our thought — but ah, 
 Content within our eyes. 
 
 The ship's bell strikes — the sound 
 
 Floats shrouded to our ears, 
 Then suddenly, as at a touch, 
 
 The universe appears 
 A Presence Infinite 
 
 That penetrates our love 
 And makes us one with night and sea 
 
 And all the stars above. 
 
BEAUTY AND STILLNESS 
 
 {In the ruined Greek Theatre, Taormina, Sicily) 
 
 How still it is ! Between me and the sea, 
 Between me and far Etna's snowy slope, 
 
 The midges in the sunlight idly move, 
 As if they had of life but drowsy hope. 
 
 No cock crows, not a bird or wind is singing 
 About this eaglet town whose eyrie hangs 
 
 Upon a high cliff; not a bell is ringing 
 From church or convent tower 
 The sleepy hour; 
 
 And not a voice of afternoon comes bringing 
 
 Amid these ruins joy, or griefs that lower. 
 6s 
 
66 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Thro the rent walls and arches where I lie 
 
 With silent broken columns basking round, 
 Is framed as radiant a scene as eye 
 
 May hope to dwell on; yet my heart unbound 
 Is not enthralled — but to the voiceless vision 
 
 Of villa, castle, sky and sea is cold. 
 And tho their beauties blend, with calm Elysian, 
 Since the bright sunlight's fall 
 Is over all. 
 My thoughts blend not, but brood with indecision, 
 
 That seems all aspiration to appall. 
 
 And what is it that so can trouble us 
 
 Mid scenes so fair and peaceful? Is it, here, 
 
 Times's still destruction striking to the soul 
 The certainty that death is ever near? 
 
 Once there were plaudits where this silence passes, 
 Once there was glory where these ruins reign, 
 
 Once Greece and Rome sat thralled where now 
 the grasses 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 67 
 
 Alone are audience 
 Of the intense 
 Lone tragedy that year on year amasses: 
 O is fate's power upon us so immense? 
 
 Or is it that too-beautiful sometimes 
 
 Will make us sad as too-imperfect can? 
 That the Ideal in full bodiment 
 
 But leaves more bleak the wonted life of man? 
 To Etna, poet of the azure heaven, 
 
 King of myth-makers, does this scene belong; 
 But unto us of lowly mortal leaven, 
 To us who scarce can hope 
 For greater scope 
 On earth than is comprised in seven times seven, 
 
 Must not a grandeur less immortal ope? 
 
 Ay, and more intimately kin to us ! 
 
 So from snow-summit and the sapphire sea. 
 From plain and promontory do I turn. 
 
 And distances that dream majestically. 
 
68 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 To yon bare ledge of rock, where cactus-pendants 
 
 In homely and grotesque confusion cling, 
 As to our niches we, who know transcendence 
 Of this our little life 
 With want so rife, 
 But makes us, oft, dissatisfied attendants 
 Upon dull Toil that soon becomes loathed Strife. 
 
THE CONTESSA TO HER JUDGES 
 
 {Palermo) 
 
 Do not suppose that I confess 
 
 I sinned — I who have killed him! 
 For did he not go nightly there 
 
 To her balcony and sing — 
 Until she bade him up to her 
 
 And in her arms stilled him, 
 Then sent him back with lies of love 
 
 To me — a shameless thing? 
 
 Do not suppose that I confess: 
 
 Not unto God, the Father, 
 
 Sitting, with mercy in His eyes, 
 
 And ready to shrive all, 
 6g 
 
70 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 And shrinking not away from me, 
 But listening to me rather, 
 
 Would I say, "I am on sin's flood, 
 Save me, or I am drowned!" 
 
 Ah no . . . For had he that I loved 
 
 But said, ''I love her better; 
 You are my wife — but Beauty reigns 
 
 As mistress of men's soul!" 
 I would have scorned to spill her cup 
 
 Of joy — but would have let her 
 Clasp it to her and drink of it 
 
 Whatever he should dole. 
 
 Yes, had he only dealt me fair. 
 But once, and not pretended, 
 
 While I with ready doting still 
 Gave all of soul or flesh — 
 
 To a belief I blush for now. 
 We might at last have ended 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 71 
 
 Merely as many have before, 
 Not in this bloody mesh ! 
 
 For love has too its Holy Ghost 
 
 To sin against, past pardon; 
 Love too, and I in killing him 
 
 Have done no more a wrong 
 Than Christ will, when He comes again 
 
 From Paradise, to harden 
 His heart against all blasphemy 
 
 That surges from Hell's throng. 
 
ON THE UPWARD ROAD 
 
 Within a city I paused, in pity 
 Of human sorrow and human wrong; 
 
 Of bitter toiling, of sad assoiling, 
 Of fatal foiling to weak and strong. 
 
 I paused where centred on sin throngs entered 
 A door of evil and lust and greed. 
 
 I saw dark faces whereon disgraces 
 Had writ their traces for all to read. 
 
 I said : // is human, nor man nor woman 
 
 Is worse or better than men before. 
 
 Since timers beginning there has been sinning^ 
 
 While time is spinning there shall be more. 
 72 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 73 
 
 For J spite of sages that search the ages 
 
 Back to the mammoth and saurian; 
 That find a growing, an upward flowing 
 
 Of Good all-knowing, man is hut man. 
 
 In spite of heavens, in spite of leavens. 
 Of yeasty yearnings to run and climby 
 
 He is no surer that life is purer, 
 Or that a Juror sits over time. 
 
 He takes the seasons, each with its treasons 
 Of heat or tempest, of sun or snow, 
 
 Half doubtful whether a better weather 
 Would work together with one so low. 
 
 His gods are many, or one, or any: 
 He must have worship to hush his fear. 
 
 So all the spaces thro which thought races 
 He fills with Faces that hide — yet hear. 
 
74 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Or when death sickens his heart it quickens 
 His need, so lonely for lovers applause, 
 
 That of his dreamings — the merest seemings 
 Of deathless gleamings, he makes him Laws. 
 
 And with repentance will serve their sentence - 
 In hopes of gaining again one breast. 
 
 The universes that doom disperses 
 His faith immerses in Life all-blest. 
 
 He is so little that his acquittal, 
 Of all great Nature impels him to, 
 
 He cries for bravely: yet ever gravely. 
 Or sad, or suavely, the Skies will woo. 
 
 But doubts while wooing, so keeps pursuing 
 Two roads — one starry and one of earth. 
 
 Nor ever clearer seems one, or nearer 
 His goal — or dearer in weal or worth. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 75 
 
 Thus, in a city, impelled by pity 
 
 More than despair I paused and cried. 
 But in my being a deeper seeing, 
 
 A truer pleaing to me replied: — 
 
 You speak in passion — in the dark fashion 
 Of those who suffer because they grope; 
 
 To whom despairing seems the true daring 
 When doubt long-faring no door can ope. 
 
 For His not certain that sin's dark curtain 
 Of imperfection hangs 'still so black; 
 
 That man has lifted no edge, or rifted 
 No fold, or sifted light thro no crack. 
 
 He stumbles ever, in his endeavour, 
 And seems no better than he has been. 
 
 But life is vaster and he more master 
 Now, if no faster he sinks in sin. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 And, too, his duty is not mere beauty 
 
 Of moral being, he is a Child 
 Of higher station, of all creation — 
 
 Whose aspiration runs thro him wild. 
 
 A thousand courses on him life forces, 
 A thotisand visions that bring a need 
 
 To search abysses for all he misses: 
 From all he wisses to frame his creed. 
 
 So all the wages that thro the ages 
 He, Nature's vassal, with toil has won, 
 
 All secrets looted, all lies refuted 
 Must be computed as good well done. 
 
 Praise then be to him that strongly thro him> 
 There flows the efort to find his goal, 
 
 That faith defeated — by false gods cheated, 
 And oft unseated, still rules his soul. 
 
CHARTINGS 
 
 There is no moon, only the sea and stars; 
 
 There is no land, only the vessel's bow 
 
 On which I stand alone and wonder how 
 Men ever dream of ports beyond the bars 
 
 Of Finitude that fix the Here and Now. 
 A meteor falls, and foam beneath me breaks; 
 
 The phosphor fires within it faintly die. 
 
 So soft the sea is that it seems a sky 
 On which eternity to life awakes. 
 
 The universe is spread before my face, 
 
 Worlds where perchance a million seas like this 
 Are flowing and where tides of pain and bliss 
 
 Find, as on earth, so prevalent a place 
 
 That nothing of their wont we there should miss. 
 77 
 
78 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 The Universe, that man has dared to say 
 
 Is but one Being — ah, courageous thought! 
 
 Which is so vast that hope itself is fraught 
 With shame, while saying it, and shrinks away. 
 
 Shrinks, even as now! For clouds sweep up the skies 
 And darken the wide waters circling round, 
 From out whose deep arises the old sound 
 
 Of Terror unto which no tongue replies 
 
 But Faith — that nothing ever shall confound. 
 
 Not only pagan Perseus but the Cross 
 Is shrouded — with wild wind and wilder rain, 
 That on me beat until my soul again 
 
 Sings unsurrendering to fears of Loss. 
 
 For this I know, — yea, tho all else lie hid 
 Uncharted on the waters of our fate. 
 All lands of Whence or Whither, whose estate 
 
 In vain imagination seeks to thrid. 
 
 Yet cannot, for the fog within Death's gate — 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 79 
 
 This thing I know, that life, whate'er its Source 
 Or Destiny, comes with an upward urge. 
 And that we cannot thwart its mighty surge. 
 But with a joy in strife must keep the course. 
 
THE FOUR ENCHANTMENTS 
 
 {Of Japan) 
 
 There is a land I know, where four enchantments 
 ever 
 
 Enfold the heart with beauty — and strangeness 
 from afar, 
 
 And fashion all its hours of unhappiest endeavour 
 
 Into forgotten failure; and these four enchant- 
 ments are: — 
 
 Ever the sound of water, of rain or rushing river; 
 
 Ever the wraith of mist, walking the mountain side; 
 
 And the pines it passes, black; and the temple bells 
 
 that shiver 
 
 The deep grey solemn silence in whose soul the gods 
 
 abide. 
 
 80 
 
THE GOD OF EASE 
 
 (As a prodigal sees htm) 
 
 A temple, now, I know in Yokohama, 
 
 With carven dragons climbing to the eaves. 
 The god of it the heathen call Gautama, 
 
 He's fat and calm, and large of feet and sleeves. 
 The faithful come and clang a gong before him. 
 
 And clap and fling a copper on the floor, 
 And paper lantern shadows swinging o'er him 
 
 Lull lazy longings in me to the core. 
 
 I don't know who Gautama is; they tell me 
 
 He wasn't born a busy Japanee, 
 
 But likely was a Hindu, and they spell me 
 
 His other name that sounds like Shak-mou-nee. 
 8i 
 
82 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 But he's the god for me — the jolly idol 
 Of all that sit so smug about the East, 
 
 For in him there's a smiling that can sidle 
 . Right into me and quiet there the beast. 
 
 And that now's what I Uke — so Yokohama 
 
 Shall be my berth — tho I may come to beg 
 Like any yellow-footed holy lama 
 
 A bowl of rice to keep me on a leg. 
 But if I do — in rags and dirt, and shameless — 
 
 I'll go at night to see that lantern swing; 
 And doubtless I may die forsook and nameless; 
 
 But then, such worship is the only thing! 
 
 For he's the god — Gautama in his shrine there, 
 
 To make you see no heav'n is reached by work. 
 To make you like a heathen go and twine there 
 
 A paper prayer, and feel you never shirk. 
 The priests discovered that and I have learned it, 
 
 I sit and watch the saggy moon go o'er, 
 And ''peace," I say, and "ease," and I have earned it! 
 
 So add my soul, Gautama, to your store! 
 
BY THE CH'EN GATE 
 
 At dusk as wild geese winged their aery way 
 Upon the sunset over proud Peking, 
 
 To where, darker than jade, the mountains lay, 
 
 Set in the misty gold of dying day, 
 
 I stood upon the mighty Tartar wall 
 
 By the great-towered gate, the Ch'en, and felt 
 The yellow myriads move to it and melt. 
 As in some opiate sleep's imagining. 
 
 And slowly thro there came a caravan 
 Of swinging camels out of far Thibet, 
 Upon their tawny flanks the foam still wet 
 
 And in their eyes the desert's ancient span. 
 
 What dreams they bore to me I now forget, 
 
 But thro me rang the name of Kubla Khan. 
 83 
 
A SONG FOR HEALING 
 
 {On the South Seas) 
 
 When I return to the world again, 
 
 The world of fret and fight, 
 To grapple with godless things and men, 
 
 And battle, wrong or right, 
 I will remember this — the sea. 
 And the white stars hanging high, 
 And the vessel's bow 
 Where calmly now 
 I gaze to the boundless sky. 
 
 When I am deaf with the din of strife, 
 
 And blind amid despair. 
 
 When I am choked with the dust of life 
 
 And long for free soul-air, 
 84 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 85 
 
 I will recall this sound — the sea's 
 
 And the wide horizon's hope, 
 
 And the wind that blows 
 
 And the phosphor snows 
 
 That fall as the cleft waves ope. 
 
 When I am beaten — when I fall 
 
 On the bed of black defeat, 
 When I have hungered, and in gall 
 
 Have got but shame to eat, 
 
 I will remember this — the sea, 
 
 And its tide as soft as sleep. 
 
 And the clear night sky 
 
 That heals for aye 
 
 All who will trust its Deep. 
 
THE GREAT WALL 
 
 (China, IQ12) 
 
 Dead Dragon of an empire dead and gone, 
 
 Whose tail within the sea at Shan-hai-quan 
 
 Is lashed to pieces, brick and mortised stone; 
 
 Dead monster lying now in all thy folds 
 
 Of vast futility, till crumbling moulds 
 
 Each scaly parapet and watch-tower claw 
 
 That clutches still up at the sky like bone 
 
 Whose strength is spent, leaving decay alone, - 
 
 Thou art the mummy of tyrannic Law. 
 86 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 87 
 
 II 
 
 A hundred score of seasons was thy length 
 Stretched over mountain spines with crawling 
 
 strength 
 To keep the dread barbarian aback; 
 A hundred score of mailed and guarded miles 
 It ruthlessly was reared thro dark defiles 
 And chasms, which to span cost untold lives 
 And filled a million tombs along its track: 
 For despotry begot thee with its rack — 
 And with it such dark issue still contrives. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Wherefore decay and death unto this land 
 Have come, as unto thee, O Serpent spanned 
 Across the past so vastly yet so vain! 
 In helpless antiquation now it lies, 
 While vulture nations gather on the skies 
 
! AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 To feed upon its huge dismemberment. 
 For, seeing only easy-gotten gain, 
 Heartless to its desire for new birth's pain. 
 They hang above it, with their black intent. 
 
 IV 
 
 And what shall be the end, O Dragon-Snake, 
 Past symbol of thy people? Shall they wake? 
 Shall civilization's arteries, that seek 
 To pour into their veins renewing dower, 
 Make them to feel their many-millioned power 
 And rise in wrath from lethargy to war? 
 If it shall be, then woe to many a beak 
 That plucks now at thy loins by peace made weak; 
 Their depredations then they shall abhor. 
 
WAIKIKI BEACH 
 
 {Honolulu) 
 
 Waft me away, O sunny winds, 
 
 Or let me live beside it. 
 Lying upon the lulling sands. 
 
 Under the high palm shade, 
 Watching the great white comber cream, 
 
 And the brown surf-boats that ride it 
 And Diamond Head that towers o'er, 
 
 In azure skies arrayed. 
 
 Waft me at once away! too strong 
 
 The spell will be to-morrow; 
 Stronger than spirit will the sense 
 
 Of tropic sweetness sink. 
 And of the lotos I shall eat 
 
 Till far away fades sorrow, 
 89 
 
qO at the WORLD'S HEART 
 
 While of the flower-laden light 
 Thro endless years I drink. 
 
 Waft me away, away! O let 
 
 The night and moon not fmd me, 
 Or stars that hang like golden dates 
 
 High upon heaven's tree. 
 For if the day can so beguile 
 
 How will the dusk not bind me? 
 Never could other days and nights 
 
 My yearnings reconcile. 
 
 Waft me away, O swift away, 
 
 Past reef and bar and harbor. 
 Deck me not in the scarlet lei^ 
 
 To drowse me ever more. 
 Say not again Aloha, but 
 
 Farewell, O fairest arbor 
 That ever the sun and cloud and sea 
 
 Reared on a magic shore. 
 
0-TSUYA FORSAKEN 
 
 {She tells of following her lover to find him faithless) 
 
 My geta clacked. A paper lantern moved, led by 
 a hand, before me. The wind moaned. A wet 
 pine struck my face. It seemed as if I heard the 
 river rushing o'er me. 
 
 I followed. In the tea-house geisha danced 
 The Death of Spring. Their shadows fell like petals 
 on the shoji. ... I felt a creeping mist about 
 me cling. 
 
 The bridge was darkly arched. Midway the lan- 
 tern waited. Pale as the hidden moon the hand 
 was I . . . his! . . . She came! . . . 
 
 Will the gods ever know how much I hated! 
 91 
 
92 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 They went ... up thro the torii, by a 
 shrine. Upon the lantern Amida I read. . . . 
 No more shall Amida be god of mine! 
 
 It is not far to the river — down to death. The 
 stars swirled — a conflagration. . . . And yet 
 I could not go. — Shall he be mine in no reincar- 
 nation? 
 
A CHANT AT CHION-IN TEMPLE 
 
 {Kyoto) 
 
 All day long on the mokugno 
 
 The young priest beats, chanting. 
 The incense fumes float to and fro, 
 As from his lips the sutras flow. 
 The altar lights burn pale and low, 
 In the temple dimness panting. 
 
 All day long in the pines without 
 
 The semi seem repeating 
 His sutra-penance round about 
 Green tombs of those whom not the shout 
 Of the great bell hanging o'er can rout 
 
 From silence, with its beating. 
 
 93 
 
94 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 All day long, and the Buddha hears, 
 
 Or seems to hear, far inward, 
 The white-clad pilgrim who appears 
 Upon his way, thro holy years, 
 To all the shrines that faith endears, 
 Till no more tempted sinward. 
 
 All day long, and the moon comes gold 
 
 Above gray-roofed Kyoto. 
 And then behind a near-by fold 
 Of shoji shutting out the cold 
 A shadow falls and as of old 
 
 Is heard the tinkling koto. 
 
 Slow tinkling, till, as from its strings 
 Is poured a girl's heart-haunting, 
 
 The young priest swept from Buddha- thmgi? 
 
 And all that penance-chanting brings 
 
 Is lost in love's imaginings. 
 Its sweet eternal wanting. 
 
KOREAN 
 
 With gourd o'ergrown the village thatches 
 Cluster under the mountain side, 
 
 Like mushrooms that the bright sun matches 
 With the brown soil afar and wide. 
 
 White-clad the peasant ploughs or wanders 
 
 Idly or flecks an easy flail, 
 W^hile at her task the w^oman ponders 
 
 Thoughts that are empty as her pail. 
 
 No temple-top, no dream, no vision 
 
 In any face or shapely thing. 
 
 Here there is seen life's sad elision 
 
 From the Illimi table's well-spring. 
 95 
 
96 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Only the rice to grow — sad duty; 
 
 Only the rice to eat and store. 
 These are divinity and beauty, 
 
 Nor is there longing after more. 
 
THEOPHILUS 
 
 (In his cell on Mount Athos) 
 Circa A . D. 1450 
 
 You hear their blasphemies, O God, 
 
 These helots of Mahomet! 
 Like glutton dogs are they — that turn 
 
 Again to their own vomit. 
 For Heaven, say they, is a place 
 
 Of silks and wines and swooning 
 All day on deep divans, while round 
 
 Are houris, love-lutes tuning. 
 Bright houris — three-score for the couch 
 
 Of each accurst believer — 
 And all black-eyed and beautiful — 
 
 The Fiend is their deceiver! 
 97 
 
98 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 They say this in their pride, O God, 
 While we dwell on our rock — 
 Which never woman's foot has trod . 
 Will you still let them mock! 
 
 They say that Heaven is a place 
 
 Of riches, slaves and pleasure, 
 Where every soothing thrill of sense 
 
 Is lengthened — past all measure - 
 Till a full age of easesome bliss 
 
 Is packed in every second — 
 Only by lips that kiss and hands 
 
 Caressing to be reckoned! 
 And, in this carnal Paradise, 
 
 They say Christ dwells, a prophet 
 But lesser than Mahomet is! — 
 
 God, is it not but Tophet! 
 They say this in their scorn of us 
 
 Who shut from out our brain 
 All memory of woman, thus, 
 
 Upon hard beds of pain. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 99 
 
 So curse them, God, in every land — 
 
 To whom thy Holy Spirit 
 Is but a wind, with frankincense 
 
 And spices to endear it. 
 Which blows across their Paradise 
 
 To sweeten the caresses 
 Of every houri who attends 
 
 Their evil idlenesses. 
 Curse them wdth barrenness and send 
 
 Their souls to Hell for ever, 
 With women's souls just opposite, 
 
 Beyond their want's endeavour. 
 Then in thy Skies — tho Christ saith clear 
 
 That none sent thither wed — 
 Let each who shunned all wom.en here 
 
 On one there rest his head! 
 
BASKING 
 
 Give me a spot in the sun, 
 
 With the lizard basking by me, 
 In Sicily, over the sea. 
 
 Where Winter is sweet as Spring, 
 Where Etna Hfts his plume 
 
 Of curling smoke to try me. 
 But all in vain for I will not climb 
 
 His height so ravishing. 
 
 Give me a spot in the sun. 
 
 So high on a cliff that, under, 
 
 Far down, the flecking sails 
 Like white moths flit the blue; 
 
 lOO 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART lo 
 
 That over me on a crag 
 
 There hangs, O aery wonder, 
 
 A white town drowsing in its nest 
 That cypress-tops peep thro. 
 
 Give me a spot in the sun, 
 
 With contadini singing, 
 And a goat-boy at his pipes 
 
 And donkey bells heard round 
 Upon the mountain paths 
 
 Where a peasant cart comes swinging 
 Mid joyous hot invectives — that 
 
 So blameless here abound. 
 
 Give me a spot in the sun, 
 In a land whose speech is flowers, 
 
 Whose breath is Hybla-sweet, 
 Whose soul is still a faun's. 
 
 Whose limbs the sea enlaps, 
 Thro long delicious hours. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 With liquid tenderness and light 
 Sweet as Elysian dawns. 
 
 Give me a spot in the sun 
 
 With a view o'er vale and villa, 
 O'er grottoed isle and sea 
 
 To Italy and the Cape 
 Around whose turning lies 
 
 Old heathen-hearted Scylla, 
 Whom many an ancient sailor prayed 
 
 The gods he might escape. 
 
 Give me a spot in the sun: 
 
 With sly old Pan as lazy 
 As I, to tempt me flesh and soul 
 
 To disbelief and doubt 
 Of all gods else, from Jove 
 
 To Bacchus born wine-crazy. 
 Give me, I say, this spot in the sun, 
 
 And Realms I'll do without! 
 
THE BALLAD OF THE MAID OF 
 ORLEANS 
 
 Many a man of many a race 
 
 Has done a deed of shame, 
 But never a worse than this was done, 
 
 O England, in thy name! 
 
 The Maid of Orleans lay in her cell, 
 Fated and hung with fetters. 
 
 Ready for burning at the stake. 
 By men — at war her betters. 
 
 But if they burned her would the might 
 
 And mystery she wielded 
 
 Be, by the flaming death of her. 
 
 Once and forever yielded? 
 103 
 
I04 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 "By God, it will not!" said a lord 
 
 Of Albion, her foe; 
 A beast, the vision on whose face 
 
 Was mixed with patriot glow. 
 
 "By God, it will not, for her strength 
 
 Lies in a secret thing — 
 And martyrdom of a virgin maid 
 
 Thro all this land would ring. 
 
 "But — give her body a child," he said, 
 And looked about him hot. 
 
 Thro every man there coldly ran 
 The serpent of his thought. 
 
 "Once give her body a child — " He took 
 The keys from the warden's hand. 
 
 "A maid is a maid, but England's aid 
 By men was ever planned: 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 105 
 
 "A maid is a maid — but all the saints 
 
 That round about her stir 
 Shall be as whispering fiends, if once 
 
 Love has had toll of her." 
 
 He rose; behind him clanged the door; 
 
 It shuddered in their hearts. 
 He went into her cell, where fear 
 
 Pale on her cheek upstarts. 
 
 "The Virgin had a child," he said, 
 
 "And you have none, my dear." 
 He seized her in his arms: a cry 
 
 Rang from her pure and clear. 
 
 He seized her in his arms: she fought. 
 
 O brutal hand that rested 
 One moment on her maiden breast 
 
 Where only God had nested. 
 
io6 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 O brutal hand, O brutal lips, 
 O brutal soul that sought 
 
 To soil virginity as brave 
 As Heaven ever wrought! 
 
 She beat him from her, bleeding, blind - 
 She but a maid, a woman! 
 
 She beat him off — with chastity 
 That strove divinely human. 
 
 He fell, shaken away — with passion 
 Burning still in his eye. 
 
 *'By God, for that one touch," he said, 
 ''I'd dare, tho I should die. 
 
 "And were you but an English wench 
 And I a king," he said. . . . 
 
 She sank fainting upon the floor. 
 He deemed that she was dead. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 107 
 
 O many a man of many a race 
 
 Has done a deed of shame. — 
 They took her on the morrow out 
 
 And burnt her in Christ's name. 
 
INLANDERS 
 
 {Malaya) 
 
 So far away from the sea, O palm, cocoanut palm? 
 
 So far away in the jungle with the Tamil alone for 
 friend? 
 
 Do you lift your head so high, to gaze at the dark 
 night mountains 
 
 That hide you from its foam and the cool surf- 
 wind's low sigh? 
 
 So far away from the sea? Alas, so must I dwell, 
 I who was given a spirit sea- vision alone can sate! 
 And yet there is still the sky, O palm, and the star- 
 tides in it. 
 So let us bide content with our dwellings — you 
 
 and I! 
 
 io8 
 
INDIA 
 
 Strange Pauper among nations, with the rags 
 Of ancient custom on thy wasted limbs; 
 Proud bhnd Faquir, whom hfe forsaken drags 
 Along till all desire within thee dims; 
 Cast from thy neck the chain of skulls that seems 
 A type to thee of endless death and birth; 
 Escape from thy vain striving to escape 
 All that life is of worthlessness or worth. 
 
 Go to the ghat of Freedom and plunge in, 
 
 Or to the fane of it and cast off Caste. 
 
 Then out and cry thy right, with hungry din, 
 
 To all earth has, for breaking of thy fast. 
 
 Get for thy body food, and then thy soul 
 
 Cheated with long denial shall resume 
 
 Its daily love of all that lies between, 
 
 And not beyond, birth and the bitter tomb. 
 109 
 
THE NEW MOON 
 
 {On the Indian Ocean) 
 
 Can anything so slender and so frail 
 As thee, O virgin moon, e'er hope to grow 
 Into the rounded glory that we know 
 A little hence shall fill the world with glow? 
 
 To Jupiter and Venus in rose skies 
 
 Above thee wedded, thou dost only seem 
 A slim bridemaiden casting a shy gleam 
 Upon the nuptial splendour of their dream. 
 
 Or as a Hindu girl shrinking away 
 
 In argent innocence from rites so tense 
 With passion as to quicken all thy sense 
 Too soon with longing's lovely exigence. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART iii 
 
 So with a blushing veil of cloud to cloak 
 Thy naked modesty, how fair the glide 
 Of thy young body is adown the wide 
 Diwan of sunset towering o'er the tide! 
 
 How fair! till in a dark sky-chamber hid 
 
 Thy sweet shape yields to thoughts I will not thrid. 
 
THE SHAH TO HIS DEAD SLAVE 
 
 I look, Laili, for the star we loved 
 So many moons ago, 
 Upon this sea 
 Of Araby, 
 Where stars love most to glow. 
 I find it not, for Allah has 
 So many stars, that part 
 May well be lost 
 Or from Him tossed, 
 As you were from my heart. 
 
 And yet I know that it is there, 
 I feel its spirit light, 
 As I feel you, 
 O child of dew, 
 
 112 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 113 
 
 Slain by my jealous might! 
 'Tis there, yet never shall I see 
 Its face again, or find, 
 Even when death 
 Has drained my breath, 
 Your arms about me twined! 
 
A PARABLE OF PAIN 
 
 My eyes were weary, heavy and red, 
 Pain in my breast had made her bed, 
 Instead of Beauty that I had wed. 
 
 I said, ''Dark concubine of man, 
 Giving him child when none else can, 
 When will he take from thee the ban? 
 
 When will he hold thee to his heart, 
 Sad Hagar, cast from him apart. 
 And know thee for the mate thou art? 
 
 What if thy seed be Ishmael — 
 
 And not the other loved too well? 
 
 Is it less worthy? can he tell? 
 114 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 115 
 
 What if he casts thee and thy child 
 Away from him into the wild 
 Of things sore hated and defiled? 
 
 Equal with Beauty in his house 
 Thou still shalt be to sting and rouse. 
 He shall not wholly break his vows; 
 
 But oft shall welcome thee, thro time, 
 Back to his heart, and from the chime 
 Of thy lone lips learn things sublime." 
 
EROSTRATUS 
 
 (A fable for all critics) 
 
 Hear the tale of Erostratus, 
 Born in the city of Ephesus — 
 Tho, forsooth, there is none of us 
 
 Needs the moral of it! 
 For what one of us cares for fame 
 Till his caring is turned to flame 
 Ready to burn, without a shame, 
 
 Fairest shrines to win it? 
 Ready to shatter or destroy 
 Beauty that is the world's best joy, 
 Art that is pure of all alloy? 
 
 Who of us has done it ? 
 
 ii6 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 117 
 
 Hear the tale of Erostratus, 
 Haunting the streets of Ephesus, 
 Hungering ever thus and thus 
 
 For renown to take him. 
 Craving to be upon men's hps — 
 Mark of their pointing finger-tips, 
 Till he says — as the passion grips 
 
 And the madness moves him — 
 ''Since Diana is praised by all, 
 Down the temple of her shall fall! 
 And the builder shall feel each wall 
 
 Battering in upon him!" 
 
 *' Yea," saith he, with his heart a-craze, 
 *'Unto fame there are many ways; 
 Who cannot build — then, let him raze, 
 
 Thus to be immortal!" 
 Slips he then thro the temple door: 
 Soon swift tongues of flame outpour: 
 He it is that has made them roar: 
 
 Matchless is his chortle! 
 
ii8 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 For a name does he leave men thus. 
 But the moral is not for us 
 Who would doubtless Erostratus 
 Damn, to scrub hell's portal. 
 
ALEEN 
 
 The long line of the foaming coast 
 Is mufSed by the fog's gray ghost. 
 I cross the league of sea between 
 And lift the latch and kiss Aleen. 
 
 She throws a log upon the fire. 
 I draw her to me nigh and nigher. 
 She does not know w^hat a brief time 
 Ago it was my arms held — Crime. 
 
 The surf is beating on the shore. 
 
 We hear our own heart-beatings more. 
 
 She speaks of him and my reply 
 
 Is silence: does she wonder why? 
 119 
 
I20 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 *'I do not love him: have no fear," 
 Her whisper is, against my ear. 
 At last, ''I have no fear," say I. 
 She starts, as at a wild-beast's cry. 
 
 And then she sees red on my coat. 
 A still-born cry throbs in her throat. 
 The fog sweeps by the window pane 
 Her sight is fixed on one dull stain. 
 
 I rise and light my pipe and go, 
 Leaving her standing, staring so. 
 The wind means storm, I think, to-night: 
 'Twill not be that which makes her white. 
 
 And yet had it been yesterday 
 She said those words, I still could pray. 
 There would be still a God above — 
 As proof of Whom there is but love. 
 
THE STRIVER 
 
 When I struggle, with human hands, 
 The hands of God betray me. 
 
 When I cry, "I will win or die!" 
 His silences dismay me. 
 
 Yet, when a victim, low I lie 
 His victor-wreaths arr'^v me. 
 
 For I have held but one defeat 
 
 Final and faith-abjuring; 
 Held — when strife at its worst wa^ rife 
 
 But this thing past the curing; 
 FailuTt to see how surely life 
 
 Grows great with great enduring. 
 
MYSTERIES 
 
 MOONLIGHT 
 
 Since man became man 
 Moonlight on the sea 
 Ne'er rippled and ran 
 But sadly gazed he. 
 
 Till man is no more 
 Moonlight on the wave 
 
 Shall lead his thought o'er 
 From life to the grave. 
 
 122 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 123 
 
 n 
 
 THE SHADOW 
 
 On the dim shoji of the universe 
 
 The Shadow falls 
 Of One who dwells within so vague and vast 
 
 His Shape appalls. 
 
 We stand and view it, lonely in the dark, 
 
 But scarce it comes 
 Ere doubt lest it may be but Maya-dreams 
 
 Our sight benumbs. 
 
 m 
 
 SUDDEN SIGHT 
 
 "There is no land," I said, "in all the world, 
 Only this glassy sea!" 
 
124 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Then lo, on the horizon hung unfurled 
 As fair a shore as any Spring sets free. 
 
 *'God is there none," I cried, ''but only space, 
 
 Star-built and without Soul!" 
 Then lo I looked and all infinity 
 
 No more was space, but God who is its Whole. 
 
 IV 
 
 NON SUFFICIT 
 
 Cover it over with lilies, 
 And cover it with green, 
 
 Yet I know that the awful black 
 Of the coffin lies between. 
 
 Cover my heart with kindness, 
 With comfort-words and grace. 
 
 Still it will be a sepulchre 
 For her remembered face. 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 125 
 
 SIC CUM NOBIS 
 
 They who are wise in Nature's mysteries 
 Tell us the pearl is but a prison cell 
 
 Built by the oyster round a preying worm 
 That creeps, a parasite, into its shell. 
 
 So is it with all beauty that we build: 
 The worm of longing preys upon our heart 
 
 Till with fair word or form or music spell 
 We hush it in imperishable Art. 
 
 VI 
 
 BIRD-BLISS 
 
 There is no mountain, here, or sea, 
 Yet do I feel infinity, 
 For there in the top of a tulip-tree 
 A wild wild bird is singing to me ! 
 
126 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 And full is his throat, at every note, 
 Of God — until my heart's afloat 
 In joy — like every leaf unfurled 
 By May, the sweetheart of the world. 
 
 vn 
 
 MAN AND BIRD 
 
 {At sea) 
 
 Thro the deep rifts of dark Atlantic cloud 
 
 The moonlight breaks and kindles magic foam, 
 
 On which to-night the petrel peacefully 
 
 Will make his watery nest — a heaving home. 
 
 Within his sea-born dreams will there be one 
 Of me who v/atched him in our seething wake 
 
 Long hours to-day? and when dawn brings the sim 
 Will he fare lonelier for my vanished sake? 
 
THE ATHEIST 
 
 Over a scurf of rocks the tide 
 Wanders inward far and wide, 
 Lifting the sea-weed's sloven hair, 
 Filling the pools and foaming there. 
 Sighing, sighing everywhere. 
 
 Merged are the marshes, merged the sands, 
 Save the dunes with pine-tree hands 
 Stretching upward toward the sky 
 Where the sun, their god, moves high: 
 Would I too had a god — e'en I ! 
 
 For the sea is to me but sea, 
 And the sky but infinity. 
 Tides and times are but some chance 
 Born of a primal atom-dance. 
 All is a mesh of Circumstance. 
 
 127 
 
128 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 In it there is no Heart — no Soul — 
 
 No illimitable Goal — 
 
 Only wild happenings that wont 
 
 Makes into laws no might can shunt 
 
 From the deep grooves in which they hunt. 
 
 Wings of the gull I watch or claws 
 
 Of the cold crab whose strangeness awes: 
 
 Faces of men that feel the force 
 
 Of a hid thing they call life's course: 
 
 It is their hoping or remorse. 
 
 Yet it may be that I have missed 
 Something that only they who tryst, 
 Not with the sequence of events 
 But with their viewless Immanence, 
 Find and acclaim with spirit-sense. 
 
JUDGMENT 
 
 Men may say of God 
 
 Everything but this, 
 That He is guilty of our pain 
 
 To bring Him bliss. 
 
 God may say of men 
 
 Everything but one, 
 That we are penal in His sight 
 
 When all is done. 
 
 Each may say of life 
 
 Everything — and still 
 Know that its primal blot came not 
 Thro any will. 
 
A MARINER'S MEMORY 
 
 An irised coral-reef, 
 A lonely wreck upon it, 
 Scuttled by pirate hands, 
 Washed over by the tide. 
 The blue sea-spaces round, 
 Deep in the sunlight drowned, 
 And in a calm profound, — 
 These and no more beside. 
 
 No more, but how they haunt me! 
 
 For still, awake or sleeping. 
 
 Sudden in trance I see 
 
 The reef . . . the sky sun-pale. 
 
 And then, as when marooned 
 
 So long there I had swooned, 
 
 I wake with mind untuned, 
 
 And cry "A sail! a sail!" 
 130 
 
UNDER THE SKY 
 
 Far out to sea go the fishing junks, 
 
 With all sails set, 
 The tide swings gray and the clouds sway. 
 
 The wind blows wet; 
 Blows wet from the long coast lying dim 
 
 As if mist-born. 
 Far out they sail, as the stars pale, 
 
 The stars of morn. 
 
 Far out to sea go the fishing junks. 
 
 And I who pass 
 Upon a deck that is vaster reck 
 
 No more, alas. 
 Of all their life, or they of mine. 
 
 Than comes to this, — 
 
 That under the sky we live and die. 
 
 Like all that is. 
 
 131 
 
LOSSES 
 
 To lose the voice of the sea, 
 
 And hear only its roar, 
 To feel infinity 
 
 Foam thro it never more, 
 To learn that time means death 
 
 And not eternity — 
 Is but to draw no free and fearless breath. 
 
 To watch the slow sun set 
 
 And, in the roseate pause, 
 No more with wan regret 
 
 Desire what neyer was; 
 To find that love, grown pale, 
 
 Can all its faith forget, — 
 
 Is but in life's finalities to fail. 
 132 
 
THE PROFLIGATE 
 
 Peace! I must go, 
 Tho you are all to me, 
 Comrade and friend, 
 Mistress and wife. 
 Ask me not why — 
 It is life's call to me — 
 Staying I die. 
 
 Faithless I am: 
 
 Faithful could never be. 
 
 Mating with you 
 
 Should have brought rest. 
 
 So I believed: 
 
 But — as 'twill ever be — 
 
 I was deceived. 
 
 ^33 
 
134 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Lure of the blood, 
 Whim of perversity, 
 Harries me on — 
 Want of the new; 
 Craving to clasp 
 Tho thro adversity 
 Some one not you. 
 
 Craving for sin. 
 Craving for punishment - 
 Even for pain, 
 Stinging and wild. 
 Craving to be, 
 Spite of admonishment. 
 Madly defiled. 
 
 Madly yet free — 
 Tho you are beautiful: 
 None to compare 
 With you I'll find! — 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 135 
 
 Free to rove on, 
 Basely, undutiful, 
 Cruel, unkind. 
 
 For I am thus. 
 Nothing for long to me 
 Ever can seem 
 Clear of distaste. 
 Fairest of lips, 
 If they belong to me, 
 Soon become waste. 
 
 Too many wants 
 
 God has put into me, 
 
 Noble and vile. 
 
 Human, divine. 
 
 So till life ends 
 
 It shall bring sin to me — 
 
 And husks for swine. 
 
SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Softly the ship pushes 
 Over the wide night ocean, 
 
 Soft her bell rings, 
 
 The mast-light gleams aloft. 
 The helmsman at his task 
 Steadies her keel's motion. 
 
 On she sails and on. 
 
 Soft she sails and soft. 
 
 Planet and constellation 
 
 Climb up her shrouds ever. 
 
 And keep watch after watch 
 
 Above her, calm, withdrawn. 
 
 She seems, like all that is, 
 
 Absolved from all endeavour. 
 
 Soft she sails and soft, 
 
 On she sails and on. 
 136 
 
CHRIST OR MAHOMET 
 
 We came to the Cape as the sun was setting — 
 
 unto Cape Guardafui, 
 Somaliland's unending sand lay desert dark behind. 
 The crescent moon that is Allah's boon and the 
 
 Prophet's sign was fretting 
 To silvery foam a few thin clouds its beauty had 
 
 entwined. 
 
 We came to the Cape and a star of passion, such as 
 
 the Magi followed, 
 Hung over it, and the Infinite to star and crescent 
 
 seemed 
 To murmur: " 'Allah' and 'Christ' are names, but 
 
 empty names ye fashion: 
 
 / am the Nameless — warring creeds are lies, but 
 
 lies ye've dreamed.'' 
 137 
 
TO STROMBOLI 
 
 How beautiful from the sea, 
 How beautiful and holy 
 You rise, as if you were a peak 
 Of the gods, engirt with moly! 
 And yet your lava veins but let 
 One little village live 
 Beneath the terror of your brow 
 Where darkly smoke is drifting, now, 
 Down to its villas lowly. 
 
 How beautiful from the sea. 
 
 Where high the gulls o'erwander 
 
 As if upon the strange deep fires 
 
 Asleep in you to ponder. 
 138 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART i:q 
 
 And all the isles about you gaze 
 Toward your height — or far 
 To where Sicilia's heart of flame 
 Spells on the sky the Titan's name, 
 Above great Etna yonder. 
 
 How beautiful, how vast, 
 
 How linked in ways past knowing 
 
 To that third fate, Vesuvius, 
 
 From out whose throat comes flowing, 
 
 As out of yours, O arbitress 
 
 Of lands that laugh secure, 
 
 Death's word, when for theThree you choose 
 
 To say what myriads life shall lose — 
 
 In awful anguish going. 
 
IN A GREEK TEMPLE 
 
 (During the Balkan War^ 1912) 
 
 Between the sea and the mountains, 
 
 Under the open sky, 
 Blue as of old, Greeks, when you 
 
 Went forth to bleed and die. 
 It stands, superbly columned. 
 
 With architrave and frieze 
 That crumble yet speak gloriously 
 
 Of immortalities. 
 
 And while to-day there is ringing 
 
 Over the busy world 
 
 News of a war which now not Zeus, 
 
 But a New God has hurled, 
 140 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 141 
 
 While cries that Mitylene 
 
 Is taken come again, 
 I gaze upon this shrine you reared 
 
 And think how you were men! 
 
 Men by the might of beauty, 
 
 Men by the might of sword, 
 Men with the heart and soul to ken 
 
 Such joys as gods uphoard. 
 Men who could see the perfect 
 
 That is not taught by pain. 
 O Life, fill up again your cup 
 
 For such a race to drain! 
 
THE HIDDEN FOE 
 
 There is a foe, 
 Secret and certain, 
 Who hides behind 
 Life's every curtain; 
 
 Behind each quest 
 And each achieving, 
 Behind all beauty. 
 All believing. 
 
 And ever ready 
 Is he to thrust 
 His skull-face thro 
 
 And make all dust. 
 
 142 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 143 
 
 So who would hallow 
 Time's slipping sod, 
 Who still would hearten 
 The world with God, 
 
 Must shut this foe 
 From all intrusion 
 This foe, who is — 
 Cold Disillusion. 
 
TELEPATHY 
 
 {Hcy alone, by the sea) 
 
 What has become of little Annette? 
 Her other name I now forget. 
 The sea recalls her strangely yet. 
 
 What has become of her brown hair 
 And body slender pure and fair, 
 Given to me without a prayer? 
 
 What has become of her? That night 
 
 I took her all — and loved her quite. 
 
 Parting I left her strangely white. 
 144 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 145 
 
 {She, on the streets) 
 
 What has become of him — the first 
 To ask of me what now the worst 
 May have for any coin accurst? 
 
 What has become of him : my name 
 Could he recall if that night came? 
 Would he believe who wrought my shame? 
 
 Christ, it was love of him ! — I thought 
 That with my body I had bought 
 Bliss for me ever in his thought. 
 
THE EXPLORERS 
 
 {Captain Scott and his comrades) 
 
 A snow-cairn is their grave, 
 
 Far in the frozen South. 
 A cross of skis above it, 
 With Christ alone to love it. 
 A snow-cairn is their grave. 
 
 And never priestly mouth 
 Shall bring it prayer — or holy care, 
 But only wind — the bitter wind 
 And God shall visit there. 
 
 And see, under the pall — 
 
 Under the snowy stole — 
 
 Heroic faces whiling 
 
 Eternity with smiling. 
 146 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 147 
 
 For so they lie — and all 
 
 The white peace of the Pole 
 Shall wrap them deep within its sleep 
 Till death no more, wintering o'er, 
 His hoary watch shall keep. 
 
TO A BOY 
 
 {Seen with his mother in a Cafe) 
 
 That is your mother, boy? 
 
 The woman with wanton eyes 
 And losel lips, whose laughter slips 
 Passion into men's finger-tips, 
 Till they would clasp her as she sips 
 
 Her wine there, Circe-wise? 
 
 That is your mother? she, 
 
 Who makes of love a disgrace? 
 
 And of desire a shameful fire 
 
 To burn in the blood and never tire - 
 
 Till it is quenched for the old hire 
 
 That women ever face? 
 148 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 149 
 
 That is your mother? Ah! 
 
 And you, do you understand? 
 So little you are, a scant thirteen, 
 Have you heard of Helen and Egypt's queen, 
 And, guessing at what such glances mean, 
 
 Are seared, as with a brand? 
 
 Why then, away . . . and weep! . . . 
 
 Yet O, that eyes should shed 
 Such tears, such piteous tears, as those 
 That start from the heart of a child who knows 
 The breast that has nursed him can enclose 
 
 Unchastities so dread. 
 
PAGANS 
 
 I could not pray if I would to-day, 
 For all the world is given to me 
 In one great joy of wind and June, 
 Heaven and earth and heart in tune. 
 I could not pray, and if God be 
 Other than here I feel and see, 
 Naught proves it, so my bliss is full 
 And wanting is unbelievable. 
 
 So up the hills, to the hill-tops, 
 
 I go to see where the world stops, 
 
 The world that leads my eyes on 
 
 To the rim of the green horizon. 
 
 up the hills where white and dim 
 
 And hazily far the clouds swim 
 150 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 151 
 
 Upon the leafy marge whence leaps 
 The mind, out into azure deeps — 
 Out into vast infinity, 
 As a diver into the sea! 
 
 For not a valley to-day could hold 
 
 My heart shod for the heights! 
 
 The daisies ringed me around with gold — 
 
 But I escaped their fairy fold 
 
 And followed the path with a backward laugh 
 
 Up, where the hawk alights, 
 
 On the topmost bough touching the brow 
 
 Of the bending blue where dreams come true. 
 
 If the dreamer enough delights! 
 
 Or if he will listen, wait, and gaze. 
 
 Till the wind on him, chanting, lays 
 
 The spell of its aery mights! 
 
 And high I sit — as infinite 
 As the universe that streams 
 
IS2 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Mysteriously and magically 
 And joyous thro my dreams. 
 So why should I pray if I would to-day, 
 Since all the world is given to me 
 In one great joy of early June — 
 God himself thro the whole a-swoon, 
 As pagan as are we! 
 
ARGOSIES 
 
 Dim thoughts are flitting o'er my heart 
 
 Like sails over the sea. 
 1 know not on what wind they come 
 
 Or to what quest they flee. 
 I only know they leave behind 
 
 A void of mystery. 
 
 I watch them setting phantom forth, 
 I see them catch the breeze. 
 
 They are like winged things whose ports 
 Are God's eternities. 
 
 Ere Birth I know them — and past Death 
 
 Shall sight them, on new seas. 
 153 
 
TO THE YOUNGER GENERATION 
 
 We have taught you bridle and saddle; 
 
 We have given you room to run; 
 
 Your steeds are bred 
 
 Of a hope high-fed 
 
 That we of our fathers won. 
 
 To us there are still the stirrups 
 
 Of days that we have known, 
 
 But soon you will ride, 
 
 Side by our side, 
 
 Bidding us hold our own. 
 
 The reins of the world you will grapple 
 
 Out of our curbing hands. 
 
 You will change our goal. 
 
 And Time, as a foal, 
 
 154 
 
AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 Will guide with new commands. 
 For so we did in our season, 
 And so your sons shall do, 
 Wherefore we pray, 
 As you break away, 
 But this, ride Vision- true. 
 
 For not in the New lies peril: 
 
 We fear no youngest dream 
 
 That ever was 
 
 Of Utopias 
 
 Wrapped in supernal gleam. 
 
 But know, there is goalless running, 
 
 A spurring, but for speed. 
 
 With an intense 
 
 Low love of sense 
 
 Blind to the world's soul-need. 
 
 Mount then a reproachless saddle, 
 We have given you room to run. 
 
 ^SS 
 
iS6 AT THE WORLD'S HEART 
 
 Your steeds are bred 
 
 Of a hope high-fed; 
 
 So see, ere the race be done, 
 
 That you yield the reins to your children 
 
 More near to the final goal. 
 
 And if we cry 
 
 As you pass us by. 
 
 Heed not — but achieve the Whole. 
 
 THE END 
 
I 
 
 PORZIA 
 
 By 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 T PRESENTS a last phase of the Renais- 
 sance with great effect." Sir Sydney Lee. 
 
 " ' Porzia ' is a very romantic and beauti- 
 ful thing. After a third reading I enjoy and 
 admire it still more." Gilbert Murray, 
 
 "There are certain lyrical qualities in the 
 dramas of Cale Young Rice and certain dra- 
 matic qualities in many of his finest lyrics 
 that make it very difficult for the critic to 
 resolve whether he is highest as singer or 
 dramatist. ' Porzia ' is a poetic play in which 
 these two gifts blend with subtle and powerful 
 effectiveness. It is not written in stereotyped 
 heroic verse, but in sensitive metrical Hues 
 that vary in beat and measure wdth the 
 strength, the tenderness, the anguish, bitter- 
 ness and passion of love or hate they have to 
 express. The bizarre and poignant central 
 incident on which the action of ' Porzia ' turns 
 is such as would have appealed irresistibly 
 to the imagination and dramatic instincts 
 of the great Elizabethan dramatists, and Mr. 
 Rice has developed it with a force and imagina- 
 tive beauty that they alone could have 
 equaled and with a restraint and delicacy of 
 touch which makes pitiful and beautiful a 
 
story they would have clothed in horror. 
 . . . He turns what might have been a 
 tragic close to something that is loftier and 
 more moving. ... It matters little that 
 we hesitate between ranking Mr. Rice highest 
 as dramatist or lyrist; what matters is that 
 he has the faculty divine beyond any living 
 poet of America; his inspiration is true, and 
 his poetry is the real thing." The Lo7idon 
 Bookman. 
 
 "'Porzia' has the swift human movement 
 which Mr. Rice puts into his dramas, and 
 technique of a very high order. . . . The 
 dramatic form is the most difficult to sustain 
 harmoniously and this Mr. Rice always 
 achieves." The Baltimore News. 
 
 "To the making of 'Porzia' Mr. Rice has 
 summoned all the resources of his dramatic 
 skill. On the constructive side it is particu- 
 larly strong. . . . The opening scene is 
 certainly one of the happiest Mr. Rice has 
 written, while the climaxing third act is a 
 brilliant piece of character study .... 
 The play is rich in poetry; . . in it Mr. 
 Rice has scored another success ... in 
 a field where work of permanent value is 
 rarely achieved." Albert S. Henry {The 
 Book News Monthly). 
 
 " Mr. Rice apes neither the high-flown style 
 of the Elizabethans, nor the turgid and cryptic 
 
style of Browning . . . 'Porzia' should 
 attract the praise of all who wish to see real 
 literature written in this country again." 
 The Covington {Ky.) Post. 
 
 "The complete mastery of technique, the 
 dignity and dramatic force of the characters, 
 the beauty of the language and clear directness 
 of the style together with the vivid imagina- 
 tion needed to portray so strikingly the 
 renaissance spirit and atmosphere, make the 
 work one that should last." The Springfield 
 {Mass.) Homestead. 
 
 "It is not unjust to say that Cale Young 
 Rice holds in America the position that 
 Stephen Phillips holds in England." The 
 Scotsman (Edinburgh). 
 
 "Had no other poetic drama than this been 
 written in America, there would be hope for 
 the future of poetry on the stage." John G. 
 Neihardt {The Minneapolis Journal). 
 
 " ' Porzia ' is a very beautiful play. The 
 spiritual uplift at the end thrilled me deeply." 
 Minnie Maddern Fiske. 
 
 Net, $1.25 {postage 12c.) 
 
FAR QUESTS 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 THE countrymen of Cale Young Rice 
 apparently regard him as the equal of 
 the great American poets of the past. 
 Far Quests is good unquestionably. It 
 shows a wide range of thought, and sympathy, 
 and real skill in workmanship, while occasion- 
 ally it rises to heights of simplicity and truth, 
 that suggest such inspiration as should mean 
 lasting fame. — The Daily Telegraph {London). 
 
 "Mr. Rice's lyrics are deeply impressive. 
 A large number are complete and full-blooded 
 works of art." — Prof. Wm. Lyon Phelps {Yale 
 University). 
 
 ^'Far Quests contains much beautiful work — 
 the work of a real poet in imagination and 
 achievement." — Prof. J. W. Mackail {Oxford 
 University). 
 
 "Mr. Rice is determined to get away from 
 local or national hmitations and be at what- 
 ever cost universal. . . . These poems 
 are always animated by a force and freshness 
 of feeling rare in work of such high virtu- 
 osity." — The Scotsman {Edinburgh). 
 
 "Mr. Cale Young Rice is acknowledged by 
 his countrymen to be one of their great poets. 
 
There is great charm in his nature songs (of 
 this volume) and in his songs of the East. 
 Mr. Rice writes with great simplicity and 
 beauty," — The Sphere {London). 
 
 Mr. Rice's forte is poetic drama. Yet in 
 the act of saying this the critic is confronted 
 by such poems as The Mystic . . . These 
 are the poems of a thinker, a man of large 
 horizons, an optimist profoundly impressed 
 with the pathos of man's quest for happiness 
 in all lands." — The Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 " Mr. Rice's latest volume shows no diminu- 
 ition of poetic power. ^ Fecundity is a mark 
 of the genuine poet, and a glance through 
 these pages will demonstrate how rich Mr. 
 Rice is in vitaUty and variety of thought 
 
 . . There is too, the unmistakable qual- 
 ity of style. It is spontaneous, flexible, and 
 strong with the strength of simplicity — a style 
 of rare distinction. — Albert S. Henry ^ (The 
 Book News Monthly, Philadelphia). 
 
 Net, $1.25 (postage 12c,) 
 
THE IMMORTAL LURE 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 It is great art — with great vitality. 
 
 James Lane Allen. 
 
 In the midst of the Spring rush there arrives one 
 book for which all else is pushed aside . . . We 
 have been educated to the belief that a man must be 
 long dead before he can be enrolled with the great 
 ones. Let us forget this cruel teaching . . . This 
 volume contains four poetic dramas all different in 
 setting, and all so beautiful that we cannot choose 
 one more perfect than another. . . . Too extra- 
 vagant praise cannot be given Mr. Rice. 
 
 The San Francisco Call. 
 
 Four brief dramas, different from Paola & Francesca, 
 but excelling it — or any other of Mr. Phillips's work, it 
 is safe to say — in a vivid presentment of a supreme 
 moment in the lives of the characters . . . They 
 form excellent examples of the range of Mr. Rice's 
 genius in this field. The New York Times Review- 
 Mr. Rice is quite the most ambitious, and most 
 distinguished of contemporary poetic dramatists in 
 America. The Boston Transcript {W. S. Braithwaite.) 
 
 The vigor and originality of Mr. Rice's work never 
 outweigh that first qualification, beauty . . • No 
 American writer has so enriched the body of our poetic 
 literature in the past few years. , 
 
 The New Orleans Picayune. 
 
 Mr. Rice is beyond doubt the most distinguished 
 poetic dramatist America has yet produced. 
 
 The Detroit Free Press. 
 
 That in Cale Young Rice a new American poet 
 of great power and originality has arisen cannot be 
 denied. He has somehow discovered the secret 
 of the mystery, wonder and spirituality of human 
 
existence, which has been all but lost in our commer- 
 cial civilization. May he succeed in awakening our 
 people from sordid dreams of gain. 
 
 Rochester (N. Y. ) Post Express. 
 
 No writer in England or America holds himself to 
 higher ideals (than Mr. Rice) and everything he does 
 bears the imprint of exquisite taste and the finest 
 poetic instinct. The Fortlatid Oregonian. 
 
 In simphcity of art form and sheer mystery of 
 romanticism these poetic dramas embody the new 
 century artistry that is remaking current imaginative 
 literature. The Philadelphia North American. 
 
 Cale Young Rice is justly regarded as the leading 
 master of the difficult form of poetic drama. 
 
 Portland {Me.) Press. 
 
 Mr. Rice has outlived the prophesy that he would 
 one day rival Stephen Phillips in the poetic drama. 
 As dexterous in the mechanism of his art, the young 
 American is the Englishman's superior in that unforced 
 quality which bespeaks true inspiration, and in a wider 
 variety of manner and theme. 
 
 San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 Mr. Rice's work has often been compared to Stephen 
 Phillips's and there is great resemblance in their ex- 
 pression of high vision. Mr. Rice's technique is sure 
 . . . his knowledge of his settings impeccable, and 
 one feels sincerely the passion, power and sensuous 
 beauty of the whole. "Arduin"(one of the plays) 
 is perfect tragedy; as rounded as a sphere, as terrible 
 as death. Review of Reviews. 
 
 The Immortal Lure is a very beautiful work. 
 
 The Springfield {Mass.) Republican. 
 
 The action in Mr. Rice's dramas is invariably 
 compact and powerful, his writing remarkably forcible 
 and clear, with a rare grasp of form. The plays are 
 brief and classic. Baltimore News. 
 
perfect 
 
 These four dramas, each a separate unit pe: 
 in itself and differing widely in treatment, are yet 
 vitally related by reason of the one central theme, 
 wrought out with rich imagery and with compelling 
 dramatic power. The Louisville Times {U . S.) 
 
 The literary and poetical merit of these dramas is 
 undeniable, and they are charged with the emotional 
 life and human interest that should, but do not, al- 
 ways go along with those other high gifts. 
 
 The {London) Bookman. 
 
 Mr. Rice never [like Stephen Phillips] mistakes 
 strenuous phrase for strong thought. He makes his 
 blank verse his servant, and it has the ste^ge merit of 
 possessing the freedom of prose while retaining the 
 impassioned movement of poetry. 
 
 The Glasgow {Scotland) Herald. 
 
 These firm and vivid pieces of work are truly wel- 
 come as examples of poetic force that succeeds with- 
 out the help of poetic license. 
 
 The Literary World {London.) 
 
 We do not possess a living American poet whose 
 utterance is so clear, so felicitous, so free from the 
 inane and meretricious folly of sugared lines. . . . 
 No one has a better understanding of the development 
 of dramatic action than Mr. Rice. 
 
 The Book News Monthly {Albert S. Henry.) 
 
 Net, $1.25 (postage 12c.) 
 
 CoDNTHr xiEE R ^B THE-Wbaro'sWoHK {(^)i Thb Garden- 
 in AMEHicA \S/ %^^ Magazine 
 
 DOUBLED AY, PAGE & CO., GARDEN CITY. N. Y. 
 
MANY GODS 
 
 By 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 THESE poems are flashingly, glowingly 
 full of the East. . . . What I 
 am sure of in Mr. Rice is that here 
 we have an American poet whom we may 
 claim as ours." The North American Review 
 {William Dean Howells). 
 
 "Mr. Rice has the gift of leadership. . 
 and he is a force with whom we must reckon." 
 The Boston Transcript. 
 
 . . . *'We find here a poet who strives 
 to reach the goal which marks the best that 
 can be done in poetry." The Book News 
 Monthly (A. S. Henry). 
 
 "When ycu hear the pessimists bewailing 
 the good old time when real poets were abroad 
 in the land ... do not fail to quote 
 them almost anything by Cale Young Rice, 
 a real poet writing to-day. . . . He has 
 done so much splendid work one can scarcely 
 praise him too highly." The San Francisco 
 Call. 
 
 "'In Many Gods' the scenes are those of 
 the East, and while it is not the East of 
 Loti, Arnold or Hearn, it is still a place of 
 
brooding, majesty, mystery and subtle fasci- 
 nation. Iheie IS a temptation to quote 
 such verses for their melody, dignity of form, 
 beauty oi imagery and height of inspiration." 
 2 he Chicago Journal. 
 
 "'Love's Cynic' (a long poem in the vol- 
 ume) might be by Ero-wning at his best." 
 Pittsburg Gazette-Times. 
 
 "This is a serious, and from any standpoint, 
 a successful piece of work ... in it 
 are poems that will become classic." Passaic 
 {New Jersey) News. 
 
 "Mr. Rice must be hailed as one among 
 living masters of his art, one to whom we may 
 look for yet greater things." Presbyterian 
 Advance. 
 
 "This book is in many respects a remark- 
 able work. The poems are indeed poems." 
 The Nashville Banner. 
 
 "Mr. Rice's poetical plays reach a high 
 level of achievement. . . . But these 
 poems show a higher vision and surer mastery 
 of expression than ever before." The London 
 Bookman. 
 
 Net, $i.2S {postage 12c.) 
 
NIRVANA DAYS 
 
 Poems by 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 MR. RICE has the technical cunning 
 that makes up almost the entire 
 equipment of many poets nowadays, 
 but human nature is more to him always 
 . . . and he has the feeling and imagina- 
 tive sympathy without which all poetry is 
 but an empty and vain thing." The London 
 Bookman. 
 
 "Mr. Rice's note is a clarion call, and of his 
 two poems, 'The Strong Man to His Sires' and 
 *The Young to the Old,' the former will send 
 a thrill to the heart of every man who has the 
 instinct of race in his blood, while the latter 
 should be printed above the desk of every 
 minor poet and pessimist. . . . The son- 
 nets of the sequence,, 'Quest and Requital,' 
 have the elements of great poetry in them." 
 The Glasgow {Scotland) Herald. 
 
 "Mr. Rice's poems are singularly free from 
 affectation, and he seems to have written be- 
 cause of the sincere need of expressing some- 
 thing that had to take art form." The Sun 
 {New York). 
 
 "The ability to write verse that scans is 
 quite common. . . . But the inspired 
 thought behind the lines is a different 
 
thing; and it is this thought untrammeled 
 — the clear vision searching into the deeps 
 of human emotion — which gives the verse 
 of Mr. Rice weight and potency. ... In 
 the range of his metrical skill he easily stands 
 with the best of living craftsmen . . . 
 and we have in him ... a poet whose 
 dramas and lyrics will endure." The Book 
 News Monthly {A. S. Henry). 
 
 "These poems are marked by a breadth 
 of outlook, individuality and beauty of 
 thought. The author reveals deep, sincere 
 feeling on topics which do not readily lend 
 themselves to artistic expression and which 
 he makes eminently worth while." The 
 Buffalo {N. Y.) Courier. 
 
 "We get throughout the idea of a vast 
 universe and of the soul merging itself in the 
 infinite. . . . The great poem of the 
 volume, however, is 'The Strong Man to His 
 Sires.'" The Louisville Post {Margaret S. 
 Anderson). 
 
 "The poems possess much music . . . 
 and even in the height of intensified feeling 
 the clearness of Mr. Rice's ideas is not dimmed 
 by the obscure haze that too often goes with 
 the divine fire." The Boston Globe. 
 
 Paper hoards. Net^ $1.2^ {postage 12c.) 
 
A NIGHT IN AVIGNON 
 
 By 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 Successfully produced by Donald Robertson 
 
 IT IS as vivid as a page from Browning. 
 Mr. Rice has the dramatic pulse." 
 James Huneker. 
 
 *'It embraces in small compass all the 
 essentials of the drama. New York Saturday 
 Times Review {Jessie B. Rittenhouse) . 
 
 "It presents one of the most striking 
 situations in dramatic literature and its 
 climax could not be improved." The San 
 Francisco Call. 
 
 "It has undeniable power, and is a very 
 decided poetic achievement." The Boston 
 Transcript. 
 
 "It leaves an enduring impression of a 
 soul tragedy." The Churchman. 
 
 "Since the publication of his 'Charles di 
 Tocca' and other dramas, Cale Young Rice 
 has justly been regarded as a leading Ameri- 
 can master of that difficult form, and many 
 critics have ranked him above Stephen 
 Phillips, at least on the dramatic side of his 
 art. And this judgment is further confirmed 
 by 'A Night in Avignon.' It is almost in- 
 credible that in less than 500 lines Mr. Rice 
 should have been able to create so perfect a 
 
play with so powerful a dramatic effect." The 
 Chicago Record-Herald {Edwin S. S human) 
 
 ''There is poetic richness in this brilliant 
 composition; a beauty of sentiment and 
 grace in every line. It is impressive, metri- 
 cally pleasing and dramatically powerful." 
 The Philadelphia Record. 
 
 ''It offers one of the most striking situa- 
 tions in dramatic Uterature." The Louisville 
 Courier- Journal. 
 
 "The publication of a poetic drama of the 
 quality of Mr. Rice's is an important event 
 in the present tendency of American litera- 
 ture. He is a leader in this most significant 
 movement, and 'A Night in Avignon' is 
 marked, like his other plays, by dramatic 
 directness, high poetic fervor, clarity of 
 poetic diction, and felicity of phrasing." 
 The Chicago Journal. 
 
 "It is a dramatically told episode, and the 
 metre is most effectively handled, making 
 a welcome change for blank verse, and greatly 
 enhancing the interest." Sydney Lee. 
 
 "Many critics, on hearing Mr. Bryce's 
 prediction that America will one day have a 
 poet, would be tempted to remind him of 
 Mr. Rice." The Hartford {Conn.) Courant. 
 Net 50c. {postage 5c.) 
 
YOLANDA OF CYPRUS 
 
 A Poetic Drama by 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 I 
 
 T HAS real life and drama, not merely 
 beautiful words, and so differs from the 
 great mass of poetic plays. 
 
 Prof. Gilbert Murray. 
 
 Minnie Maddern Fisk says: "No one can 
 doubt that it is superior poetically and 
 dramatically to Stephen Phillips's work,'' 
 and that Mr. Rice ranks with Mr. Phillips 
 at his best has often been reaffirmed. 
 
 "It is encouraging to the hope of a native 
 
 drama to know that an American has written 
 
 a play which is at the same time of decided 
 
 poetic merit and of decided dramatic power. " 
 
 The New York Times. 
 
 "The most remarkable quality of the play 
 is its sustained dramatic strength. Poetica/ly 
 it is frequently of great beauty. It is also 
 lofty in conception, lucid and felicitous in 
 style, and the dramatic pulse throbs in every 
 line." The Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 "The characters are drawn with force and 
 the play is dignified and powerful," and adds 
 that if it does not succeed on the stage it 
 will be " because of its excellence. " 
 
 The Springfield Republican. 
 
"Mr. Rice is one of the few present-day 
 poets who have the steadiness and weight for 
 a well-sustained drama.'* 
 
 The Louisville Post {Margaret Anderson), 
 
 *'It has equal command of imagination, 
 dramatic utterance, picturesque effectiveness 
 and metrical harmony. " 
 
 The London {England) Bookman. 
 
 T. P.^s Weekly says: *'It might well stand 
 the difficult test of production and will be 
 welcomed by all who care for serious verse." 
 
 The Glasgow {Scotland) Herald says: *'Yo- 
 landa of Cyprus is finely constructed; the 
 irregular blank verse admirably adapted for 
 the exigencies of intense emotion; the char- 
 acters firmly drawn; and the climax serves 
 the purpose of good stagecraft and poetic 
 justice. '' 
 
 *'It is well constructed and instinct with 
 dramatic power." Sydney Lee. 
 
 "It is as readable as a novel. " 
 
 The Pittsburg Post. 
 
 "Here and there an almost Shakespearean 
 note is struck. In makeup, arrangement, 
 and poetic intensity it ranks with Stephen 
 Phillips's work. " The Book News Monthly. 
 (Net, $1.25 (postage loc.) 
 
 CotJWTHrrins fWS IteWbHia^aTWaoc /W| TrnGAxasm 
 
 INAHEBICA \^^ ^^r NAGAZIKX 
 
 DOUBLEDAY. PAGE & CO., GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
DAVID 
 
 A Poetic Drama by 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 I WAS greatly impressed with it and de- 
 rived a sense of personal encouragement 
 from the evidence of so fine and lofty 
 a product for the stage." Richard Mansfield. 
 
 "It is a powerful piece of dramatic por- 
 traiture in which Cale Young Rice has again 
 demonstrated his insight and power. What 
 he did before in 'Charles di Tocca' he has 
 repeated and improved upon. . . . Not 
 a few instances of his strength might be 
 cited as of almost Shakespearean force. 
 Indeed the strictly literary merit of the tragedy 
 is altogether extraordinary. It is a con- 
 tribution to the drama full of charm and 
 power." The Chicago Tribune. 
 
 "From the standpoint of poetry, dignity 
 of conception, spiritual elevation and finish 
 and beauty of line, Mr. Rice's 'David' is, 
 perhaps, superior to his 'Yolanda of Cyprus,' 
 but the two can scarcely be compared." 
 The New York Times {Jessie B. Rittenhouse) . 
 
 "Never before has the theme received treat- 
 ment in a manner so worthy of i.." The 
 St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 
 
"It needs but a word, for it has been passed 
 upon and approved by critics all over the 
 country." Book News Mo7tthly, And again: 
 "But few recent writers seem to have found 
 the secret of dramatic blank verse; and of 
 that small number, Mr. Rice is, if not first, 
 at least without superior." 
 
 "With instinctive dramatic and poetic 
 power, Mr. Rice combines a knowledge of 
 the exigencies of the stage." Harper's 
 Weekly. 
 
 "It is safe to say that were Mr. Rice an*^. 
 Englishman or a Frenchman, his reputation 
 as his country's most distinquished poetic 
 dramatist would have been assured by a 
 more universal sign of recognition. Tke 
 Baltimore News (writing of all Mr. Rice's 
 plays). 
 
 Nety $1.25 {postage 12c.) 
 
CHARLES DI TOCCA 
 
 By 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 I TAKE off my hat to Mr. Rice. His 
 play is full of poetry, and the pitch and 
 dignity of the whole are remarkable." 
 James Lane Allen. 
 
 ''It is a dramatic poem one reads with a 
 heightened sense of its fine quality through- 
 out. It is sincere, strong, finished and noble, 
 and sustains its distinction of m_anner to the 
 end. . . . The character of Helena is 
 not unworthy of any of the great masters of 
 dramatic utterance." The Chicago Tribune. 
 
 ''The drama is one of the best of the kind 
 ever written by an American author. Its 
 whole tone is masterful, and it must be classed 
 as one of the really literary works of the 
 season." (1903). The Milwaukee Sentinel. 
 
 "It shows a remarkable sense of dramatic 
 construction as well as poetic power and 
 strong characterization." Jajues Mac Arthur, 
 in Harper's Weekly. 
 
 "This play has many elements of perfection. 
 Its plot is developed with ease and with a large 
 dramatic force; its characters are drawn with 
 sympathy and decision; and its thoughts 
 
rise to a very real beauty. By reason of it 
 the writer has gained an assured place among 
 playwrights who seek to give literary as well 
 as dramatic worth to their plays." The 
 Richmond {Va.) News-Leader. 
 
 "The action of the play is admirably com- 
 pact and coherent, and it contains tragic 
 situations which will afford pleasure not only 
 to the student, but to the technical reader." 
 The Nation. 
 
 "It is the most powerful, vital, and truly 
 tragical drama written by an American for 
 some years. There is genuine pathos, mighty 
 yet never repellent passion, great sincerity 
 and penetration, and great elevation and 
 beauty of language." The Chicago Post. 
 
 "Mr. Rice ranks among America's choicest 
 poets on account of his power to turn music 
 into words, his virility, and of the fact that he 
 has something of his own to say." The Boston 
 Globe. 
 
 "The whole play breathes forth the inde- 
 finable spirit of the Italian renaissance. In 
 poetic style and dramatic treatment it is 
 a work of art." The Baltimore Sun. 
 
 Paper hoards. Net, $1.25 {postage, gc.) 
 
SONG-SURF 
 
 (Being the Lyrics of Plays and Lyrics) by 
 
 CALE YOUNG RICE 
 
 MR. RICE'S work betrays wide sym- 
 pathies with nature and life, and a 
 welcome originality of sentiment and 
 metrical harmony." Sydney Lee, 
 
 ''In his lyrics Mr. Rice's imagination works 
 most successfully. He is an optimist — and 
 in these days an optimist is irresistible — 
 and he can touch delicately things too holy 
 for a rough or violent pathos." The London 
 Star {James Douglas). 
 
 "Mr. Rice's highest gift is essentially 
 lyrical. His lyrics have a charm and grace 
 of melody distinctively their own." The 
 London Bookman. 
 
 "Mr. Rice is keenly responsive to the 
 loveliness of the outside world, and he re- 
 veals this beauty in words that sing them- 
 selves." The Boston Transcript. 
 
 "Mr. Rice's- work is everywhere marked 
 by true imaginative power and elevation of 
 feeling." The Scotsman. 
 
 "Mr. Rice's work would seem to rank with 
 the best of our American poets of to-day." 
 The Atlanta Constitution. 
 
*'Mr. Rice's poems are touched with the 
 magic of the muse. They have inspiration, 
 grace and true lyric quality." The Book 
 News Monthly. 
 
 ''Mr. Rice's poetry as a whole is both 
 strongly and delicately spiritual. Many of 
 these lyrics have the true romantic mystery 
 and charm. ... To write thus is no 
 indifferent matter. It indicates not only long 
 work but long brooding on the beauty and 
 mystery of life." The Louisville Post. 
 
 " Mr. Rice is indisputably one of the greatest 
 poets who have lived in America. . . . 
 And some of these (earlier) poems are truly 
 beautiful. The Times-Union {Albany j N, Y.) 
 
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