THE EBON MUSE AND OTHER POEMS ENGL's^ikj* BY JOHN MYERS O'HARA FK \V! THE TEXT OF LEON LAV I OI'VUKIilT IIKI'OSIT. THE EBON MUSE THE EBON MUSE AND OTHER POEMS BY LEON LAVIAUX ENGLISHED BY JOHN MYERS O'HARA PORTLAND MAINE SMITH & SALE MDCCCCXIV COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY SMITH & SALE Of this edition two hundred copies have been printed. No. /^. JUN27l9i4 ?f HE dominant note of the first volume of Leon Laviaux, the young Creole poet, is a glorification of the_/?//t' dc couleur — a theme unique in literature. His poetry, except in so far as it pertains to an appreciation of natural beauty in the tropics, is unreservedly laudative of the dark-skinned races. This singular predilec- tion is due, as he tells us, both to heredity and environment. He seeks to give it expression in strange and erotic songs, through whose fulgu- rant smoke break flashes of lyric fire. They are brief bursts of passion, like volcanic puffs, too fierce and impetuous for prolonged fervor. Even this can be noticed in the fragmentary character of " The Ebon Muse," his only attempt at sus- tained utterance. It would seem that the imagi- native impulse, in those somnolent lands where inertia rules, was incapable of any enduring flight. This is undoubtedly the effect of climatic condi- tions on the mind. But Laviaux is still young. A cool whiff of more virile air, from zones alien to the eternal blue, may yet invigorate his Muse. Then we may have something worthier than these songs that voice the ultra-emotion of youth over plastic beauty — songs that shall breathe to us, through the scent of jasmine and the lure of palm, the soul of the Creole isles. J. M. o. CONTENTS The Ebon Muse . 3 Creole Idyls LIKE SLAVE AND SLAVE I I DARK ON THE SEAWARD DAWN . . 1 3 A FOAMING LINE . 14 NOON .... 15 MYRIAD MURMURS HUSH 16 ZOMOQUfi 18 THE SHIELD A GOD 19 CARIBBEAN WIND 20 OVER THE HILL . 21 NIGHT, WOULD THAT I . 23 LUORE THE ORANGE FLARE 29 TWO GOLDEN DOVES 31 THE SAPPHIRE TIDE 32 MY PASSION FOR GOLDEN FL ESH . . 33 CONTENTS PAGE ZaIre out of thy large fruit-luscious mouth, zaire 37 the grace of the white and brute of the black 38 strange frenzies fill ... 39 a sorcery 40 Tanesse thou art fair as the palm . . 43 sluggish as some palm-fringed and placid flood 44 your flesh has the scent . . 45 undo the scarf that hides . .- 46 Fafine thy parroquets, fafine ... 49 nude in the cool . . . . 50 though fair, o north, thy nymphs 5 1 my amber dove . . . . . 52 You will find the colors of the flesh are even more varied and surprising than the colors of fruit. Nevertheless it is only with fruit colors that many of these skin- tints can correctly be compared. There are banana-tints , lemon-tones, orange-hues, zvith sometimes such mingling of ruddiness as in the pink ripening of the mango. Agreeable to the eyes the darker skins certainly are, and often very retnarkable — all clear tones of bronze being represented ; but the brighter tints are absolutely beautiful. There is one rare race type, totally unlike the rest; the skin has a perfectly golden tone, an exquisite metallic yellow ; the eyes are long and have long silky lashes ; the hair is a mass of thick, rich, glossy curls that shoiv blue lights in the sun. What mingling of races prodttced this beautiful type? I do not think the term olive always indicates the color of this skin, which seemed to me exactly the tint of gold ; and the hair flashes with bluish lights like the plumage of certain black birds. Physically the fille de couleur may certainly be classed, as white Creole writers have not hesitated to class her, luith the most bea^itiful women of the humaii race. She has inher- ited not only the finer characteristics bodily of either parent race, but something else belonging originally to neither, and created by special climatic and physical conditions — a grace, a suppleness of form, a delicacy of extremities, so that all lines described by the bending of limbs are parts of clean curves. Among her class there are figures to make you dream of Atalanta — and all, whether ugly or attractive as to feature, are finely shaped as to body and limb — a type of the htiman thorojighbitd representing the true secret of grace — economy of force. — LAFCADtO HEARD. / am, by fates decree And my heredity. Of soul a Jiedonist, Offtesh an ebonist. THE EBON MUSE THE EBON MUSE SAW two palms, like temple columns, soar Into the night, and under far, the shore Encircle with its arms of sand the sea That sighed upon its bosom drowsily ; And all the slopes that fell in flowers to meet The wave receding foamless at their feet, As wide and gradual steps of purple seemed Ascending to the summit where I dreamed ; Above the palms that mingled crowns and made An arch where rustling verdure overswayed. Full-orbed, and like a splendid lamp, the moon Hung golden in the starless dusk of June; The very air was odor, and the calm Was that of love's own sleep on sea and palm ; And on my lids and in my heart the spell With irresistible insistence fell ; Each drowsy sense was yielding, but before The ways of dream had closed the final door. Out of a sudden flash of lyric flame. And virginal for me, the vision came ! She came for me, out of a cloud of fire, A regal evocation of desire ; For me, sole dreamer of a Creole isle, Sole wooer of her world-forgotten smile ; She came from some dim haunt of spirit-peace, The asphodel of shadow and surcease ; Across the sea, as o'er the Stygian stream. Leaving the hidden shore of dusk and dream ; I saw her dimly, gazing from afar, As through horizon mists a sable star ; The banished Muse, released from that malign Decree that doomed her to her sister Nine ; In Song's far dawn they first beheld her nude. Abashed before a goddess ebon-hued ; Drooping their lids, they turned from her in shame, A being branded with almighty blame ; Swiftly repulsing her they turned away, Mnemosyne's white daughters of the day; And left her, child of chaos, with the blight Born of the black abysses of the night. Like a bronze statue, in the softer glow. She stood immobile, near to me, and lo ! Where well a laureled throng might bend to her, I was alone, her poet-worshipper ; Her lids, unlifted still, were thrall to sleep, Sweet where the underworld is poppy-deep ; Unravished still the lips that parted mute. Riper and moister than a luscious fruit ; One hand was raised while one was pressed to feel, Against her heart, its passionate appeal ; The surging thrill of life in every vein. Glowing and potent for delight and pain ; Erect and tense, lifting their pointed pride, Inviolate her breasts in fervor vied; Between her shoulders shone a glossy track. The dented slope of her imperial back ; The contour of her torso seemed to me A polished buckler of black ivory ; Her loins' curves like a lyre's whose symmetries Dipped faultless to the dimples of the knees ; Her arms with darkling sheen were sleek and fair. Her throat blue-shadowed where the lustrous hair Clung as the crater's smoke that densely drifts When the far cloud below it breaks and lifts ; And fruits and flowers, upon her burning mouth, Bruised juice and drenched the perfume of the South ; The mystery of the heavens was in her eyes. Creation's vast and fathomless surmise ; Elusive vision of immortal love Falling through shadow from the dome above ; She seemed the incarnation of the night, The glorious antithesis of light ; As darkness deepened all her beauty shone Fairer than any underneath the sun ; And leaping upward, a triumphal span Of sudden stars from wave to zenith ran ; The lustre of the moon, a paling power, Lingered as for a god's own bridal hour ; And up the purple steps she came to me. The last between the summit and the sea. She came with passion in her eyes that were Dewy with languor, and with lips of myrrh ; Beneath her lashes lurked volcanic fire. Her breath was fragrance and her glance desire ; Fervor and flame of song were in her face, All memory of beauty in her grace ; Promise of swift fruition and the fair Largess of virile years to live and share ; Fresh flowers to hide the faded ones below, An aureole to crown the waning glow ; Rapture for torture, smiles for futile tears. And satiation for the pang that sears ; Illusion upon illusion, and the arts Of great dead lovers, earth's memorial hearts ; All this and more my soul was conscious of, Delirious with her beauty and her love ; She came and stood before me, and delight Half stifled speech and almost blinded sight ; I dared not look, so stirred by all I felt, But every sense was conscious that she knelt. She leaned to me and laid her lips on mine, Imperiously bending but benign ; I drank the lyric fervor of her mouth, The soul to sing the glamor of the South ; High inspiration and the will to make A vital strain to which the world would wake ; Leaving the beaten paths of Song to blow Strange music where a fameless people go ; The equal glory of the night and day. Wresting from light its long unchallenged sway ; A hymn of racial beauty, rare and new. The rival lure beneath the ebon hue ; The radiance of the suns that triumph in The finer lustre of the golden skin ; Burnished as bronze or sable as the rise. Velvet and deep, of moonless midnight skies. This was the gift, my heritage, that she Gave with the kiss whose fire is memory ; Whose freshness is of Heliconian dews. The consecration of the Ebon Muse. CREOLE IDYLS LIKE slave and slave With mighty plumes, Great palm trees wave Their clustered blooms ; Along the shores A curving mile Of blackamoors In giant file. Their trunks that show An ebon gleam, A shining row Of torsos seem ; Each crest of green As madras wound In silken sheen Their brows around. And unelate, This pageantry A potentate Has made of me ; The yellow sand Is my divan That perfume-fanned I bask upon. Red rifts above The waves that break, A circle of Flamingos make; My slaves I mark With listless eye, And near me dark Sultanas lie. 12 DARK on the seaward dawn, Into the roseate fire, The palms aspire ; Into the void they yawn, Summit to summit wed, Green-helmeted. 13 A FOAMING line Of waves define The outer bar Of shores afar ; Beneath the beat Of blinding heat, The ocean's hue Is molten blue; Where shoreward wide The surges ride, Two buzzards stand Upon the sand ; And high in air, Against the glare. Two others fly And blot the sky ; Between the sun And soar of one Colossal palm That lords the calm. NOON! Silence and heat ; A Creole tune On the lips of old Fadette ! Noon! Drowsy and sweet The. patois croon On the lips of old Fadette ! 15 M YRIAD murmurs hush A haunt of sloth, Heavy with heat and lush With giant growth ; Masses of cyclic mold Impede the way, Pungent with scent of old And vast decay ; Under the leaves that dome Profundity, Yellow lianas roam From tree to tree ; Ever the endless green, The endless shade ; Riot of plants that screen The forest glade ; Brilliant with flowers that surge From tangled strife, Breathing creative urge Of tropic life ; i6 Potence of earth elate And savage grown, Under the suns that sate Its belting zone. 17 ZOMOQUE! Ecstatic bird, Sing on, thy heart to ease ; While the glad trees Toss a white cloud of blossoms to the breeze ! Zomoque! I have not heard The nightingale, but these Mad melodies Are more to me than songs of other seas ! i8 T HE shield a god Might bear who trod Along the world ; Or disk of fire Immortal ire From heaven hurled ; The sea-line's rim Is purple dim Beneath its glow ; It leaves a scar Of cinnabar, And sinks below. 19 o CARIBBEAN wind! Freshen afar and bend The trees that are to thee Thy twilight litany ; Stir in their tops and send Through palm and tamarind, Blown from a shadowed sea, Thy vesper prayer to me. o VER the hill Of stunted palms Faint rumbles come ; Breaking the still Night with its calms, The voodoo drum ! Odor of leaves, Flowers of the vine. Odor of flesh ; Riot that weaves. Bodies that shine. Dances that mesh ; Black satyrs steal. Like jaguars, On nymphs as black; And whirl and reel. Beneath the stars. Demoniac ; Powdered with dust, Panting they writhe In fierce embrace ; Burning with lust, Humid and lithe Their limbs enlace Over the hill Of stunted palms Faint rumbles come ; Breaking the still Night with its calms, The voodoo drum ! NIGHT, would that I, God of the sky, Heaped gems on thy dark Bare breasts that I mark ; Mine for delight, Amorous Night! Night, ere we part, Take from thy heart One jewel to be Cast earthward for me ; Swiftly a star Falls from afar ! 23 o F my loves there arc four That my song would endear , Golden Luore I Ebon Zaire I And with lyric caress Laurel each, as a queen ; Bronze-hued Tanesse ! Amber Fafine I LUORE THE orange flare Is wide on the west, Luore ! And verdured palms in the lucent air Tower by the shore. The jasmine scent Swoons heavy and sweet, Luore ! Where blossom-thick is the vine's ascent Over the door. Your languid eyes Are dim with desire, Luore ! And in your heart is the heat that skies At noon can pour. Your body cleaves In ardor to mine, Luore ! Close as the vine, with its fragrant leaves, The palm upbore. As sweet as fruit And poignant your kiss, Luore ! Our lips, with ravishing fire, embrute At rapture's core. 29 Soul of the South, I could, O my queen, Luore ! Yield all my life on your luscious mouth And be no more. 30 Two golden doves That fill their scented nest : Haunt of the Loves, Twin treasures of her breast ; Fairer than throat Or shoulder garment-free, My glances gloat Upon their luxury. 31 THE sapphire tide, Foam-fringed and inlet-wide, Creeps to the beach ; And the long ripples reach Like silver lips o'erlapping each on each ; And eager o'er The body of Luore, That lies supine. They melt away as wine Poured lavish by some lover on a shrine ; Linger and kiss With lips of liquid bliss Each charm, and trace The way of their embrace, Until they vanish in some secret grace ; And then, at last, Their fluid lure is passed ; And blithely she Comes dripping from the sea. And gives herself, a golden nymph, to me. 32 M" Y passion for golden flesh Seeks a honied mesh (Like a bird that would soar From its nest no more) In thy beautiful bosom, Luore ! My kisses, that flow as fire O'er a fane, expire (Like a flambeau of yore At the bridal door) In thy beautiful bosom, Luore ! 33 ZAIRE OUT of thy large fruit-luscious mouth, Zaire ! As music fell, With velvet iteration on my ear. That syllable ; As soft as flowers that patois of the French From musky lips That slur the guttural, O comely wench, Caressful slips ; Its murmur wooes the sense with fervor of Some drowsy wine ; — O language of the Creole isle of love. Thou, too, art mine ! 37 THE grace of the white and brute of the black Were mixed in thee ; A simian face — the slope of thy back, Callipyge ! Dark lustre of lines that are sculpture-sleek, The vapid leer ; A whim for the monstrous did Nature wreak In tall Zaire ! 38 STRANGE frenzies fill Thy black and shining bosom's rise and fall Wild passion's primal thrill, Its brutal rapture immolating all ; The gust that sweeps The unrelenting flame along the blood ; The tidal throe that keeps Writhing the crest of its voluptuous flood ; The slime and fire That overboil the crater of thy soul ; The ruin of desire That tears, like the tornado, to its goal. 39 A SORCERY Is thine intense ; The odor of thy bosom is to me A potent redolence ; Poignant yet sweet, It breathes thy race; Enters my veins, a fierce and virile heat. Burning for thy embrace. 40 TANESSE T HOU art fair as the palm By the shore, in the calm Of the night, Tanesse ! Thou art regal to me As that loveliest tree Of the south, Tanesse ! 43 SLUGGISH as some palm-fringed and placid flood Of current slow, The hidden fervor blended in thy blood Must ever flow ; A tropic fire that slumbers in thy veins, My bronze capresse ; Languor of isles of indolence that reigns In thee, Tanesse ! 44 YOUR flesh has the scent Of an exquisite musk, From the amorous dusk Of the orient ; But the ankle-bells, That tinkle and fret Like a silver jet, Are a ring of shells ; And the madras green. As thy crowning gem. Is the diadem On thy tresses seen ; And the girdled whisk Of a garment loose Is the passion-noose Of an odalisque ; And the jasmine gates. With their attar-jar, Is the dim bazaar Where thy lover waits. 45 u NDO the scarf that hides Thy breast whose bronze divides In turgent loveliness Of hue, Tanesse ! For charms of fairer tint Bare throat and shoulder hint ; Sleek slopes that my caress Descends, Tanesse ! 46 FAFINE THY parroquets, Fafine, With plumage green, Doze in the mango tree ; Only the insect-sound Strident around ; Life is a revery. Broad on the sleeping town The sun beats down ; White the deserted street ; Hot is the hillward noon, My octoroon ; Dream in the shadow. Sweet ! Curl on the woven mat Lithe as a cat. Lissome of limb and arm ; Slumber will soon relax, Supple as wax. All of thy body's charm. 49 N UDE in the cool Palm-shaded pool ; The ripples gloat Around your throat ; Your amber limbs Seem lotus stems ; Your hair the blue Weed's floating hue ; Your face a far Strange nenuphar. Hot humid dusk Of moon and musk ; Great stars that light The languid night ; A couch of moss To dream across ; And near to me — Oh, ecstasy ! The moon's soft sheen On you, Fafine. 50 THOUGH fair, O North, thy nymphs And half divine; Colder to me the glimpse Than snow of thine ; Fair with the statue's grace. Its frozen dream ; Whose faultless curves no trace Of tint redeem ; Thrall to the law within. To Nature true ; Give me the golden skin Or darker hue. Futile, O lure of white, Thy pale appeal ! Mine is an Afric blight That few may feel. 51 Y amber dove, My Creole queen, M O leave me not, my love ! The Northern skies Are grey, and lean Above a land of sighs ; And none will care Of all, Fafine, For beauty deemed less fair ; Their hearts are cold. Their ways are mean. Their only god is gold ; When you forsake These slopes of green, Your heart, Fafine, will break ; My southland rose. Abide between My arms that fold you close ; Ah, tears ! they tell. My Creole queen, That this is not farewell ! HERE ENDS THE EBON MUSE AND OTHER POEMS ENGLISHED BY JOHN MYERS O'HARA FROM THE TEXT OF LfiON LAVIAUX AND PRINTED BY SMITH & SALE PORTLAND MAINE Deacidifiod using the Bookkeeper process. Neutraltzrng Agent; Magnesium Oxjde Treatment Date: MAR -sm JBBKKEEPER PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES. LP.