61FT OP 
 ROBERT" 
 BE1PHBR 
 
A NARRATIVE POEM 
 
 BY 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER 
 
 HERBERT B.TURNER & CO. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 1907 
 
Copyright, 1907, by 
 HERBERT B. TURNER & CO. 
 
 Published, March, 1007 
 
 The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. US.A 
 
>W ASPIRATION 
 
 T ET me explain that this was penned amid 
 *-!* the scenes described, in order to get the 
 color, action, and atmosphere, and that from 
 time to time fragments were in print during my 
 wanderings; so you may find bits in the book 
 not entirely new. But as these were photographs, 
 so far as I could make them, they must remain 
 unchanged. 
 
 My aspiration is and ever has been, in my dim 
 and uncertain way, to be a sort of Columbus or 
 a Corte^. " And if 1 perish, I perish." 
 
 But I need room. I need not only the latitude 
 but even the longitude of all known oceans and of 
 all glorious nature to sail these uncharted bucca 
 neer seas. For the tribute of song and story 
 must be not only worthy them but of sympathetic 
 interest and sincere concern to you, my ardent 
 reader. 
 
 Besides and above all, despising the hazard of 
 
 new work and ways, I aspire to picture the 
 
 matchless, magnificent, and terrible splendors of 
 
 our gold- sir own and flame-fed Arctic Empire. 
 
 v 
 
 1 62222 
 
AN ASPIRATION 
 
 At the same time, please let me pioneer a little 
 further and try to set the banner of Song on the 
 sunlit Islands, along the sea bank of everlasting 
 Summer, and over against the cloud-born battle 
 ments of our mighty American Ocean. 
 
 VI 
 
BOOK FIRST 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY , 
 
 OF 
 
 . FORM 1 
 
 CANTO I 
 
 A YUCCA crowned in creamy bloom, 
 ^^ A yucca freighted with perfume, 
 Breathed fragrance up the blossomed steep; 
 The warm sea winds lay half asleep, 
 Lay drowsing in the dreamy wold 
 By Saint Francisco s tawny Bay, 
 As if to fold, forever fold, 
 Worn, wearied wings and rest alway 
 In careless, languid Arcady. 
 
 ii 
 
 Some clean, lean Eucalyptus trees, 
 Wind-torn and tossing to the blue, 
 Kept ward above the silent two 
 Who sat the fragrant sundown seas 
 Above the sounding Golden Gate 
 Nor questioned overmuch of fate; 
 
 3 
 
LIGHT 
 
 For she was dowered, gold on gold, 
 With wealth of face and form untold ! 
 And he was proud and passionate. 
 
 in 
 
 Ten thousand miles of mobile sea 
 This sea of all seas blent as one 
 Wide, unbound book of mystery, 
 Of awe, of sibyl prophecy, 
 Ere yet a ghost or misty ken 
 Of God s far, first Beginning when 
 Vast darkness lay upon the deep; 
 As when God s spirit moved upon 
 Such waters cradled in such sleep 
 Such night as never yet knew dawn, 
 Such night as weird atallaph weaves 
 But never mortal man conceives. 
 
 IV 
 
 He looked to heaven, God; but she 
 Saw only his face and the sea. 
 He said his fond face leaned to hers, 
 The warmest of God s worshipers 
 "In the beginning? Where and when, 
 Before the fashioning of men, 
 Swung first His high lamps to and fro, 
 To light us as we please to go? 
 4 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And where the waters, dark deeps when 
 God spake, and said, Let there be light ? 
 They still house where they housed, as then, 
 Dark curtained with majestic night 
 Dusk Silence, in travail of Light 
 That knew not man or man s, at all 
 Steel battle-ship or wood-built wall. 
 
 "Aye, these, these were the waters when 
 
 God spake and knew His fair first-born 
 
 That silent, new-born baby morn, 
 
 Such eons ere the noise of men. 
 
 His Southern Cross, high-built about 
 
 The deep, set in a town of stars, 
 
 Commemorates, forbids a doubt 
 
 That here first fell God s golden bars 
 
 Red bars, with soft, white silver blent, 
 
 Broad sown from sapphire firmament. 
 
 VI 
 
 " Behold what wave-lights leap and run 
 Swift up the shale from out the sea 
 Inwove with silver, gold and sun! 
 Light lingers in the tawny mane 
 Of wild oats waving lazily 
 Far upon the climbing poppy plain; 
 5 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Far up yon steeps of dusk and dawn 
 Black night, white light, inwound as one. 
 But when, when fell that far, first dawn 
 With ways of gold to walk upon? 
 
 VII 
 
 "I know not when, but only know 
 That darkness lay upon yon deep, 
 Lay cradled, as a child asleep, 
 And that God s spirit moved upon 
 These waters ere the burst of dawn 
 When first His high lamps to and fro 
 Swung forth to guide which way to go. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " I only know that Silence keeps 
 High court forever still hereon, 
 That Silence lords alone these deeps, 
 The silence of God s house, and keeps 
 Inviolate yon water s face. 
 As if still His abiding place, 
 As ere that far, first burst of dawn 
 Ere fretful man set sail upon. 
 
 IX 
 
 "The deeps," he mused, are still, as when 
 Dusk Silence kept her curtained bed 
 Low moaning for the birth of dawn, 
 6 
 
LIGHT 
 
 When she should push black night aside, 
 As some ghoul nightmare most abhorred 
 When she might laughing look upon 
 God s first-born glory, holy Light 
 As when fond Eve exulting cried, 
 In mother-pain, with mother-pride, 
 " Behold the fair first-born of men! 
 I gat a man-child of the Lord!" 
 
 As one discerning some sweet nook 
 Of wild oats, mantling yellow, pink, 
 Will pass, then turn and turn to look, 
 Then pass again to think and think, 
 Then try to not turn back again, 
 But try and try to quite forget 
 And, sighing, try and try in vain; 
 So you would turn and turn again 
 To her, her girlish woman s grace 
 Full-flowered yet fond baby s face. 
 
 XI 
 
 Her wide, sweet mouth, an opened rose, 
 Pushed out, reached out, as if to kiss; 
 A mobile mouth in proud repose 
 This moment, then unlike to this 
 As storm to calm, as day to night, 
 7 
 
LIGHT 
 
 As sullen darkness to swift light; 
 This new-made woman was, the sun 
 And surged sea interwound in one. 
 
 XII 
 
 Her proud and ample lips pushed out 
 As kissing sea-winds unaware; 
 And then they arched in angry pout, 
 As if she cared yet did not care. 
 Then lightning lit her great, wide eyes, 
 As if black thunder walled the skies, 
 And all things took some touch of her, 
 The while she stood nor deigned to stir: 
 The while she saw with vision dim 
 Saw all things, yet saw only him. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Such eyes as compass all the skies, 
 That see all things yet naught have seen; 
 Such eyes of love or sorrow s eyes 
 A martyr or a Magdalene? 
 How sad that all great souls are sad! 
 How sad that gladness is not glad 
 That Love s sad sister is sweet Pain, 
 That only lips of beauty drain 
 Life s full-brimmed, glittering goblet dry, 
 And only drain the cup to die! 
 8 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XIV 
 
 The yellow of her poppy hair 
 Was as red gold is, when at rest; 
 But when aroused was as the west 
 m sunset flame and then take care! 
 Her tall, free-fashioned, supple form 
 Was now some sudden, tropic storm, 
 Was now some lily leaned at play. 
 What sea and sun, sunshine and shower, 
 Full flowered ere the noon of day, 
 Full June ere yet the morn of May, 
 This sun-born blossom of an hour 
 Precocious Californian flower! 
 
 xv 
 
 She answered not but looked away 
 With brown hand arched above her brow, 
 As peers a boatman from his prow, 
 To where white sea-doves wheeled at play. 
 She watched them long, then turned and sighed 
 And looking in his face she cried, 
 While blushing prettily, "Behold, 
 There is no mateless dove, not one! 
 And see! not one unhappy dove, 
 Ten thousand circling in the sun, 
 Entangled as the mesh of fate, 
 Yet each remains as true as gold 
 
 9 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And constant courts his pretty mate. 
 See here! See there! Behold, above 
 I think each dove would die for love." 
 He watched the shallows spume the shore 
 And fleck the shelly, drifting shale, 
 Then far at sea his swift eyes swept 
 Where one tall, stately, snow-white sail 
 Its silent course majestic kept 
 And gloried in its alien mood, 
 As his own soul in solitude 
 
 XVI 
 
 "The shallows murmur and complain, 
 The shallows turn with wind and tide, 
 They fringe with froth and moil the main; 
 They wail and will not be denied 
 Poor, puny babes, unsatisfied! 
 
 XVII 
 
 "The lighthouse clings her beetling steep 
 Above the rock-sown, ragged shore 
 Where Scylla and Charybdis roar 
 And dangers lurk and shallows keep 
 Mad tumult in the house of sleep. 
 The shallows moan and moan alway 
 The deeps have not one word to say. 
 
 10 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XVIII 
 
 " I reckon Silence as a grace 
 That was ere light had name or place; 
 A saint enshrined ere hand was laid 
 To fashioning of man or maid. 
 For, storm or calm, or sun or shade, 
 Fair Silence never truth betrayed; 
 For, ocean deep or dappled sky, 
 Saint Silence never told a lie." 
 
 CANTO II 
 
 TT*ROM out the surge of Sutro s steep, 
 * Beyond the Gate a rock uprears, 
 So sudden, savage, unawares * 
 The very billows start and leap, 
 As frightened at its lifted face, 
 So shoreless, sealess, out of place: 
 A sea-washed, surge-locked isle, as lone 
 As lorn Napoleon on his throne 
 His Saint Helena throne, where still 
 The dazed world in dumb wonder turns 
 To his high throned, imperious will 
 And incense burns and ever burns. 
 Here huge sea-lions climb and cling, 
 Despite of surge and sethe and shock, 
 11 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The topmost limit of the rock, 
 And one is named Napoleon, king. 
 Behold him lord the land, the sea, 
 In lone, unquestioned majesty! 
 
 ii 
 
 She saw, she raised alert her head 
 With eager face and cheery said : 
 "What lusty, upheaved, bull-built neck! 
 What lungs to lift above the roar! 
 What captain on his quarter-deck 
 To mock the sea and scorn the shore! 
 I like that scar across his breast, 
 I like his ardent, lover s zest!" 
 
 in 
 
 The huge sea-beast uprose, uprose, 
 As if to surely topple down; 
 He reached his black and bearded nose 
 Above his harem, gray, black, brown, 
 Sleek, shining, wet or steaming dry, 
 And mouthed and mouthed against the sky. 
 
 IV 
 
 What eloquence, what hot love pain! 
 What land but this, what love but his? 
 What isle of bliss but this and this 
 To roar and love and roar again? 
 12 
 
LIGHT 
 
 What land, what love but this his own, 
 Loud thundered from his slippery throne; 
 Loud thundered in his Sappho s ear, 
 As if she could not, would not hear. 
 
 v 
 
 At last her heart was moved and she 
 Raised two bright eyes to his black beard, 
 Then sudden turned, as if she feared, 
 And threw her headlong in the sea, 
 Another Sappho, all for love. 
 While Phaon towered still above 
 An instant only; yet once more 
 That upheaved head, that great bull neck, 
 That sea-born, bossed, bull-throated roar 
 A poise, a plunge, a flash, a fleck, 
 And far down, caverned in the deep, 
 Where sea-green curtains swing and sweep 
 And varicolored carpets creep, 
 Soft emerald or amethyst, 
 Two lion lovers kept sweet tryst. 
 
 VI 
 
 She looked, looked long, then smiled, then sighed, 
 
 A proud, pure soul unsatisfied, 
 
 Then sat dense grasses suddenly 
 
 And thrust a foot above the sea. 
 
 She threw her backward, arms wide out, 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And up the poppy-spangled steep 
 
 O er grass-set cushions sown in gold, 
 
 As she would sleep yet would not sleep. 
 
 She reached her wide hands fast about 
 
 And grasses, gold and manifold, 
 
 Of lowly blossoms, pink and blue, 
 
 She gathered in and laughing threw, 
 
 With bare-armed, heedless, happy grace 
 
 Threw fragrant handfuls in his face. 
 
 And then as if to sleep she lay, 
 
 A babe nursed at the breast of May 
 
 Lay back with wide eyes to the skies 
 
 And clouds of wondrous butterflies; 
 
 Such Mariposa blooms in air! 
 
 Such bloomy, golden, poppy hair! 
 
 And which were hers or poppy s gold 
 
 Without close care none could have told; 
 
 And which were butterflies or bloom, 
 
 To guess there was not guessing room, 
 
 The while, in quest of sweets or rest, 
 
 They fanned her face, they kissed her breast. 
 
 VII 
 
 That face like to a lilt of song 
 A face of sea-shell tint, with tide 
 Of springtime flowing fast and strong 
 And fearless in its maiden pride 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Such rich rose ambushed in such hair 
 Of heedless, wind-kissed, poppy gold, 
 Blown here, blown there, blown anywhere, 
 Soft-lifting, falling fold on fold, 
 As made gold poppies where she lay 
 Turn envious, turn green as May! 
 What wise face yet what wilful face, 
 A face that would not be denied 
 No more than gipsy winds that race 
 The sea bank in their saucy pride; 
 A form that knew yet only knew 
 The natural, the human, true. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Those two round mounds of Nineveh, 
 What treasures of the past they knew! 
 But these two round mounds here to-day 
 Hold treasures richer far than they, 
 And prophecies more truly true. 
 Old Nineveh s twin mounds are dust; 
 They only know the ghostly past; 
 But these two new mounds hold in trust 
 The awful future, hold the vast 
 Unbounded empire, land or sea, 
 Henceforth, for all eternity. 
 Let pass dead pasts; far wiser turn 
 And delve the future; love and learn. 
 5 
 
 
 . 
 
 VERSITY 
 J 
 
 
LIGHT 
 
 IX 
 
 It seems she dreamed. She slept, we know, 
 A happy, quiet little space, 
 Then thrust a round limb far below 
 And half-way turned aside her face, 
 And then she threw her arms wide out 
 In sleep, and so reached blind about, 
 As if for something she might find 
 From fortune-telling, gipsy wind. 
 
 x 
 
 The soft, warm winds from far away 
 Were weary, and they crept so near 
 They lay against her willing ear 
 As if they had so much to say. 
 And she, she seemed so glad to hear 
 The while she loving, sleeping lay 
 And dreamed of love nor dreamed of doubt, 
 But laughing thrust her form far out 
 And down the fragrant poppy steep 
 In playful, restless, happy sleep. 
 She sighed, she heaved her hilly breast, 
 As one who would but could not rest. 
 
 XI 
 
 How natural, how free, how fair, 
 The while the happy winds on wings, 
 16 
 
LIGHT 
 
 As larger butterflies, laid bare 
 A rippled, braided rim of white 
 And outstretched ankles exquisite. 
 What arms to hold a babe at breast 
 Such breast as prudist never guessed! 
 What shapely limbs, what everything 
 That makes great woman great and good 
 That makes for proud, pure motherhood! 
 
 XII 
 
 Such thews as mount the steeps of morn, 
 Such limbs as love, not lust shall share, 
 Such legs as God has shaped to bear 
 The weight of ages, worlds unborn; 
 Such limbs as Lesbian shrines revealed 
 When comely, longing mothers kneeled; 
 Such thews as Phidias loved to hew, 
 Such limbs as Leighton loved to draw 
 When painting tall, Greek girls at play; 
 Such legs as blind old Homer saw, 
 As Marlowe knew but yesterday, 
 When Helen climbed in dreams for him 
 Her cloud-topped towers of Ilium. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 CANTO III 
 
 AltT HITE sea-gulls glistened in the sun 
 
 Ten thousand if a single one 
 And every sea-dove knew his mate. 
 Far, far at sea, the Farallones 
 Sent up a million plaintive moans 
 From sea-beasts moaning love, or hate. 
 The sun sank weary, flushed and worn, 
 The warm sea-winds sank tattered, torn, 
 The sun and sea lay welded, wed; 
 The day lay crouched upon the deep 
 Half closed, as eyes half closed in sleep, 
 Half closed, as some good book half read. 
 
 ii 
 
 The sea was as an opal sea 
 Inlaid with scintillating light, 
 Yet close about and left and right 
 The sea lay banked and bossed in night, 
 As black as ever night may be. 
 
 in 
 
 The sundown sea all sudden then 
 Lay argent, pallid, white as death. 
 As when some great thing dies; as when 
 
 18 
 
LIGHT 
 
 A god gasps in one final breath 
 
 And heaves full length his somber bed. 
 
 The sundown sea now shone, mobile, 
 
 Translucent, flaming, molten steel, 
 
 Red, green, then tenfold more than red, 
 
 And then of every hue, a hint 
 
 Of doubloons spilling from the mint, 
 
 Alternate, changing, manifold, 
 
 Yet melting, minting all to gold. 
 
 IV 
 
 Far mountain peaks flashed flecks of gold 
 And dashed with dappled flecks the skies. 
 "Behold," said he, "the fleecy fold 
 Now slowly, surely, homeward hies. 
 Such cobalt blue, such sheep of gold, 
 Such gold as hath not place or name 
 In elsewhere land, because no seer 
 Hath seen or dauntless prophet told 
 Where stood the loom in primal peace 
 That wove the fair, first golden fleece. 
 Behold, what gold-flecked flocks of Light! 
 Ten million moving sheep of gold, 
 Wee lambs of gold that nudge their dams, 
 Great horned, wrinkled, heady rams! 
 
LIGHT 
 
 "Slow-shepherded, the golden sheep, 
 With bent horns lowered to the deep, 
 Come home; the hollows of the sea 
 Receive and house them lovingly. 
 The little lambs of Light come home 
 And house them in the argent foam, 
 The while He counts them every one, 
 And shuts the Gate, for day is done. 
 
 VI 
 
 "Aye, day is done, the dying sun 
 Sinks wounded unto death to-night; 
 A great, hurt swan, he sinks to rest, 
 His wings all crimson, blood his breast! 
 What wide, low wings, reached left and right, 
 He sings, and night and swan are one 
 One huge black swan of Helicon. 
 
 VII 
 
 "What crimson breast, what crimson wings 
 The while he dies, and dying sings! 
 Yet safe is housed the happy fold, 
 The golden sheep, the fleece of gold 
 That lured the dauntless Argonaut 
 The fleece that daring Jason sought." 
 20 
 
LIGHT 
 
 VIII 
 
 She waking sighed, soft murmuring, 
 As waters from some wood-walled spring: 
 "Oh happy, huge, horn-headed rams, 
 To guide and lead the golden fleece, 
 To ward the fold of fat increase 
 Fast mated to your golden dams! 
 With bridal gold, what golden bride, 
 What golden twin lambs, side by side! 
 Oh happy, happy nudging lambs, 
 Thrice happy, happy golden dams! 
 
 IX 
 
 His face was still against the west; 
 For still a flush of gold was there 
 That would not or that could not rest, 
 But seemed some night bird of the air. 
 At last, with half-averted head 
 And dreamfully, as dreaming, said: 
 "What banker gathers yonder gold 
 That sinks, sea-washed, beyond the deeps? 
 Lie there no sands to house and hold 
 This sunset gold in countless heaps? 
 There sure must be some far, fierce land, 
 Some Guinea shore, some fire-fed strand, 
 Some glowing, palm-set, pathless spot 
 Where all this sunset gold is stored, 
 21 
 
LIGHT 
 
 As misers gather hoard on board. 
 There sure must be, beyond this sea, 
 Some Argo s gold, some argosy, 
 Some golden fleece, long since forgot, 
 To wait the coming Argonaut." 
 
 She sprang up sudden, savagely, 
 And flushed, and paled, looked far away, 
 Grinding gold poppies with her heel. 
 She could not say, she could but feel. 
 She nothing said, because that they 
 Who really feel can rarely say. 
 And then she looked up, forth and far, 
 And pointed to the pale North Star, 
 The while her color went and came 
 From pink to white, from frost to flame. 
 
 XI 
 
 For this, the one forbidden theme, 
 The one hard, dread, unquiet dream 
 That he should go, lead forth and far 
 Below the triple Arctic star, 
 As he had planned; and now to speak, 
 To hint she heard with pallid cheek. 
 Hard had she tried, had fain forgot 
 How strong, strange men were trending far 
 22 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Against this cold, elusive star, 
 And he their Jason Argonaut! 
 
 CANTO IV 
 
 1LTOW passing fair, how wondrous fair 
 This daughter of the yellow sun! 
 Her sunlit length and strength of hair 
 Seemed sun and gold inwound in one. 
 How strangely silent, unaware, 
 Unconscious quite of strength or grace 
 Or peril of her beauteous face, 
 She stood, the first-born of a race, 
 A proud, new race, scarce yet begun. 
 How tall she stood, free debonair 
 How stately and how supple, tall, 
 The time she loosened and let fall 
 Her tossed and mighty Titian hair! 
 
 So beautiful she was, as one 
 From out some priceless picture-book! 
 You could but love, you had no choice 
 But love and turn again to look. 
 How young she was and yet how old! 
 Red orange ripened in the sun 
 23 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Where never hand had reached as yet. 
 The calm strength of her lifted face, 
 The low notes of her tuneful voice, 
 Were mint-marks of that wondrous race 
 But scarcely born nor known as yet 
 Beyond yon yellow hills that fret 
 Warm sea-winds with their waving pine. 
 A princess of that royal line 
 Of kings who came and silent passed, 
 Yet, passing, set bold, royal hand 
 And mighty mint-mark on the land, 
 And set it there to last and last, 
 As if in bronzen copper cast. 
 
 in 
 
 He, too, was born of men who wooed 
 The savage walks of solitude, 
 And hewed close, clean to nature s laws - 
 Of men who knew not tears or fears, 
 Of men full-sexed, yet men who knew 
 Not sex till perfect manhood was. 
 When men had thews of antique men, 
 And one stood with the strength of ten; 
 When men gat men who dared to do; 
 Gat men of heart who dwelt apart, 
 As Adam dwelt, when giants grew 
 And men as gods drew ample breath 
 24 
 
LIGHT 
 
 As Adams with their thousand years, 
 Ere drunkenness of sex had done 
 The silly world to willing death. 
 
 IV 
 
 What royal parentage, what true 
 
 Nobility, those men who knew 
 
 The light, who chased the yellow sun 
 
 From sea to sea triumphantly, 
 
 And westward fought and westward won, 
 
 As never daring man had done. 
 
 v 
 
 They housed with God upon the height; 
 Companioned with the peak, the pin 
 They led the red-lit firing line. 
 Walled round by room and room and room, 
 They read God s open book at night, 
 And drank His star-distilled perfume; 
 By day they dared the trackless west 
 And chased the battling sun to rest. 
 
 VI 
 
 Such sad, mad marches to the sea, 
 Such silent sacrifice, such trust! 
 Such months of marching, misery, 
 Such mountains heaped with heroes dust! 
 Yet what stout thews the fearless few 
 25 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Who won the sea at last, who knew 
 The cleansing fire and laid hold 
 To hammer out their house of gold! 
 
 VII 
 
 Their cities zone their sea of seas, 
 
 Their white tents top the mountain s crest. 
 
 The coward? He trenched not with these. 
 
 The weakling? He was laid to rest. 
 
 Each man stood forth a man, such men 
 
 As God wrought not since time began, 
 
 Each man a hero, lion each. 
 
 Behold what length of limb, what length 
 
 Of life, of love, what daring reach 
 
 To deep-hived honeycomb! What strength! 
 
 How clean his hands, how stout his heart 
 
 To dare, to do, camp, court or mart. 
 
 He stands so tall, so clean, he hears 
 
 The morning music of the spheres. 
 
 VIII 
 
 He loved her, feared her, far apart, 
 He kept his ways and dreamed his dreams; 
 He sang strange songs, he tuned his heart 
 To music of the pines that preach 
 Such sermons on such holy themes 
 As only he who climbs can reach. 
 26 
 
LIGHT 
 
 IX 
 
 He would not selfish pluck one rose 
 
 To wear upon his breast a day 
 
 And let its perfume pass away 
 
 With any wind that comes or goes. 
 
 Why, he might walk God s garden through 
 
 Nor touch one bud nor fright one bird. 
 
 The music of the spheres he heard, 
 
 The harmony he breathed, he knew. 
 
 He never marred God s harmony 
 
 With one harsh thought. The favored few 
 
 Who cared to live above the sod 
 
 And lift glad faces up to God 
 
 He knew loved all as well as he, 
 
 Had equal right to rose or tree. 
 
 And he must spare all to the day 
 Their willing feet should pass the way 
 God in His garden walked at eve. 
 And as for weaklings who by turn 
 Would jest or jeer, he could but grieve, 
 And pity all and silent say: 
 "Let us lead forth, make fair the way; 
 By time and stress they, too, will learn 
 Which way to live, to love, to turn." 
 27 
 
LIGHT 
 XI 
 
 The long, lean Polar bear uprose, 
 Outreached a paw, a bare, black nose, 
 As if to still hold hard control, 
 By glacier steep or ice-packed main, 
 His mighty battlemented snows. 
 He bared his yellow teeth in vain; 
 Then backed against his bleak North Pole 
 He sulked and shook his icy chain. 
 And he who dared not pluck a rose, 
 As if in chorus with his pine, 
 Must up and lead the battle line 
 Beyond the awesome Arctic chine. 
 
 XII 
 
 No airy sighs, no tales to tell; 
 He knew God is, that all is well, 
 That death is but a name, a date, 
 A milestone by the stormy road, 
 Where you may lay aside your load 
 And bow your face and rest and wait, 
 Defying fear, defying fate. 
 
 XIII 
 
 How fair is San Francisco Bay 
 When golden stars consort and when 
 The moon pours silver paths for men, 
 28 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And care walks by the other way! 
 Huge ships, black-bellied, lay below 
 Broad, yellow flags from silken Chind, 
 Round, blood-red banners from Nippon, 
 Like to her sun at sudden dawn 
 Brave battle-ships as white as snow, 
 With bannered stars tossed to the wind, 
 Warm as a kiss when love is kind. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Twas twilight, such soft, twilight night 
 As only Californians know, 
 When faithful love is forth, and when 
 The Bay lies bathed in mellow light; 
 And perfumed breath and softened breeze 
 Blows far from Honolulu s seas 
 From sundown seas in afterglow 
 When Song sits at the feet of men 
 And pipes, low-voiced as mated dove, 
 For love to measure step with love. 
 
 xv 
 
 And yet, for all the perfumed seas, 
 The peace, the silent harmonies, 
 The two stood mute, estranged before 
 Her high-built, stately, opened door 
 High up the terraced, plunging hill 
 As hushed as death, as white and still. 
 29 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XVI 
 
 The moon, amid her yellow fleet, 
 With full, white sail, moved on and on, 
 And drew, as loving hearts are drawn, 
 All seas of earth fast following, 
 As slow she sailed her sapphire seas. 
 Then, as if pausing, pitying, 
 She poured down at their very feet 
 Broad silver ways to walk upon 
 Which way they would, or east or west, 
 Which way they would, or worst or best. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Her voice was low, low leaned her head, 
 Her two white hands all helpless prest 
 As if to hush her aching breast, 
 As if to bid her aching heart 
 To silent bear its bitter part, 
 The while she choking, sobbing, said: 
 "Then here, for all our poppy days, 
 Here, here, the parting of the ways?" 
 
 XVIII 
 
 "Aye, so you will it. Here divide 
 The ways, forever and a day. 
 You, you you women lead the way 
 You lead where love hangs crucified, 
 3 
 
OF TKF * \ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 1 
 
 / 
 
 s/ 
 
 OF 
 
 
 
 LIGHT 
 
 Where love is laid prone in the dust 
 
 Where cunning, cold men mouth sweet lies 
 
 And make pure love their merchandise. 
 
 You heedless lead to hollow lands 
 
 Of bloodless hearts and nerveless hands; 
 
 I will not rival such, nay, nay 
 
 Not look on such, save with disgust." 
 
 xix 
 
 Her head sank lower still: her hair, 
 Her heavy hair, great skeins of gold, 
 Hung loosened, heedless, fold on fold, 
 As if she cared not, could not care; 
 She tried to speak but nothing said; 
 She could but press her aching heart, 
 Step back a pace and shudder, start, 
 The while she slowly moved her head, 
 As if to say; but nothing said. 
 
 xx 
 
 Her silence lit his soul with rage, 
 He strode before her, forth and back, 
 A lion strident in his cage, 
 Hard bound within his iron track. 
 And then he paused, shook back his head, 
 And fronting her half savage said; 
 "My father, yours, each Argonaut 
 3 
 
LIGHT 
 
 An Alexander, to this sea 
 
 Came forth and conquered mightily. 
 
 XXI 
 
 "God, what great loves, what lovers when 
 These westmost states were born of men, 
 When giants gripped their hands and came 
 With nerves of steel and souls of flame 
 Could you not wait within yon Gate, 
 As their loves dared to wait and wait? 
 An hundred thousand Didos sat 
 Atlantic s sea-bank nor forgot, 
 The while their lovers westmost fought, 
 But patient sat as Dido, when 
 She waved /Eneas back again 
 And bravely dared to smile thereat. 
 
 XXII 
 
 "Hear me! All Europe, rind to core, 
 Is rotting, crumbling, base to top. 
 Withhold the gold and silver prop 
 Our dauntless fathers hewed of yore 
 From yonder seamed Sierras core, 
 And such a toppling you may hear 
 As never fell on mortal ear. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXIII 
 
 "What s London town but sorrow s town 
 And sins, such as I dare not name? 
 Such thousands creeping up and down 
 Its dreary streets in draggled shame! 
 What s London but a market pen 
 Its hundred thousand lewd, rude men? 
 What s London but a town of stone, 
 Its thousand thousand women prone? 
 
 XXIV 
 
 "What s Paris but a printed screen, 
 A gaudy gauze that scant conceals 
 The sensuous nakedness between 
 The folds it but the more reveals? 
 What s Paris but a circus, fair, 
 To tempt this west world s open purse 
 With tawdry trinkets, toys bizarre? 
 Ah, would that she were nothing worse! 
 What s Paris but a piteous mart 
 For west-world mothers crazed to trade 
 Some silly, simpering, weak maid 
 For thread-bare, out-at-elbows rank 
 To outworn, weak degenerate 
 Whose bank is but the faro bank, 
 Whose grave bounds all his real estate; 
 33 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Whose boast, whose only stock in trade, 
 A duel and a ruined maid! 
 
 xxv 
 
 "What s Berlin, Dresden, sorry Rome, 
 But traps that take you unaware? 
 Behold yon paintings, right at home, 
 Where nature paints with patient care 
 Such splendid pictures, sea and shore, 
 As all the world should bow before; 
 Such pictures hanging to the skies 
 Against the walls of Paradise, 
 From base to bastion, as should wake 
 Piave s painter from the dust; 
 Such walls of color crowned in snow, 
 Such steeps, such deeps, profoundly vast, 
 As old-time Art had died to know, 
 And knowing, died content, as he 
 Who looked from Nimo s steep to see, 
 Just once, the Promised Land, and passed! 
 And yet, for all yon scene, this sea, 
 You will not bide, Penelope?" 
 
 XXVI 
 
 "Then go, since you so will it, go! 
 My way lies yonder, forth and far 
 Beneath yon gleaming northmost star 
 34 
 
LIGHT 
 
 O er silent lands of trackless snow. 
 Lo, there leads duty, hope, as when 
 This westmost world demanded men: 
 Such men as led the firing line 
 When blood ran free as festal wine; 
 Such men as when, fast side by side, 
 Our fathers fought and fighting died." 
 
 XXVII 
 
 " But go good by! Go see again 
 The noisy circus, since you must; 
 Its painted women that disgust, 
 Its nauseating monkey men; 
 But mark you, Beautiful, the moth 
 That loves that luring, sensuous light - 
 Nay, hear! I am not wilful, wroth; 
 I love with such exceeding might, 
 My beautiful, my all, my life, 
 I would not, could not take to wife 
 My lily tainted by the touch, 
 The breath, the very sight of such. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 "Shall I see leprous apes lean o er 
 My rose, breathe, touch it if they may, 
 With breath that is a very stench, 
 The while they bow and bend before, 
 35 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Familiar, as with some weak wench, 
 And smirk in double-meaning French? 
 
 XXIX 
 
 "You shrink back angered? Well, adieu; 
 What, not a hand? What, not a touch? . . . 
 My crime is that I love too much, 
 My crime is that I love too true, 
 Love you, love you, not part of you 
 Yea, how much less the rose that droops 
 In fevered halls where folly stoops! 
 
 XXX 
 
 "Yon splendid, triple, midnight star 
 
 Is mine; I follow fast and sure, 
 
 Because it guides so far, so far 
 
 From fevered follies that allure 
 
 Your soul, your splendid, spotless soul 
 
 To wreck where siren billows roll 
 
 Good night ! What, turn aside your face 
 
 That I might never see again 
 
 Its lifted glory and proud grace, 
 
 As some brave beacon light! Well, then, . . . 
 
 Ha, ha! Let s laugh lest one may weep 
 
 How steep your hill seems, steeps how steep! 
 
 How deep down seems the misty town, 
 
 How lone, how dark, how distant down! 
 
 36 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The moon, too, turns her face, her light, 
 As you have turned your face to-night, 
 As you have turned your face from me, 
 My heartless, lost Penelope." 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Then sudden up she tossed her head, 
 
 And, face to his face, proudly said: 
 
 "Penelope! To wait and weave! 
 
 Penelope! To wait and wait, 
 
 As waits a dog within his gate; 
 
 To weave and unweave, grieve and grieve, 
 
 As some weak harem favorite 
 
 Tight fenced from action, life, and light! 
 
 XXXII 
 
 "Why, I should not have sat one day 
 To that dull-threaded, thudding loom, 
 With cowards crowding fast for room 
 To say what brave men dare not say! 
 Why, I had snatched down from the wall 
 His second sword that sad, first day 
 And set its edge to end it all! 
 Had hewn that loom to splinters, yea, 
 Had slashed the warp, enmeshed the woof 
 And called that dog and put to proof 
 Each silly suitor hounding me, 
 Then hoisted sail and bent to sea! 
 37 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 "Penelope! Penelope! 
 
 Of all fool tales in history 
 
 I think this tale the foolishest! 
 
 Why I, the favored of that land, 
 
 Had such fools come to seek my hand, 
 
 Had ranged in line the sexless list 
 
 And frankly answered with my fist!" 
 
 xxxiv 
 
 He passed. She paused. Each helpless hand 
 
 Fell down, fell heavy down as lead; 
 
 She tried but could not understand. 
 
 At last she raised once more her head, 
 
 Set firm her lips, stepped back a pace, 
 
 Looked long his far star in the face, 
 
 Stood stately, still, as fixed as fate, 
 
 Till all the east flushed sudden red; 
 
 Then as she turned within she said, 
 
 " I cannot, will not, will not wait." 
 
BOOK SECOND 
 
CANTO I 
 
 t_T IS triple star led on and on, 
 
 Led up blue, bastioned Chilkoot Pass 
 To clouds, through clouds, above white clouds 
 That droop with snows like beaded strouds 
 Above a world of gleaming glass, 
 Where loomed such cities of the skies 
 As only prophets look upon, 
 As only loving poets see, 
 With prophet ken of mystery. 
 
 ii 
 
 What lone, white silence, left or right, 
 What whiteness, something more than white! 
 Such steel blue whiteness, van or rear 
 Such silence as you could but hear 
 Above the sparkled, frosted rime, 
 
 << vX 
 
 O^ THE A 
 
 IVERSITY 
 
LIGHT 
 
 As if the steely stars kept time 
 
 And sang their mystic, mighty rune 
 
 . . . And oh, the icy, eerie moon! 
 
 in 
 
 What temples, towers, tombs of white, 
 White tombs, white tombstones, left and right, 
 That pushed the passing night aside 
 To ward where fallen stars had died 
 To ward white tombs where dead stars lay 
 White tombs more white, more bright than 
 
 they; 
 
 White tombs high heaped white tombs upon 
 White Ossa piled on Pelion! 
 
 IV 
 
 Pale, steel stars flashed, rose, fell again, 
 Then paused, leaned low, as pitying, 
 And leaning so they ceased to sing, 
 The while the moon, with mother care, 
 Slow rocked her silver rocking-chair. 
 
 v 
 
 Night here, mid-year, is as a span ; 
 Thor comes, a gold-clad king of war, 
 Comes only as the great Thor can. 
 Thor storms the battlements and Thor, 
 Far leaping, clinging crowned upon, 
 
 42 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Throws battle hammer forth and back 
 Until the walls blaze in his track 
 With sparks and it is sudden dawn 
 Dawn, sudden, sparkling, as a gem 
 A jeweled, frost-set diadem 
 Of diamond, ruby, radium. 
 
 VI 
 
 Two tallest, ice-tipt peaks take flame, 
 
 Take yellow flame, take crimson, pink, 
 
 Then, ere you yet have time to think, 
 
 Take hues that never yet had name. 
 
 Then turret, minaret, and tower, 
 
 As if to mark some mystic hour, 
 
 Or ancient, lost Masonic sign, 
 
 Take on a darkness like to night, 
 
 Deep night below the yellow light 
 
 That erstwhile seemed some snow-white tomb. 
 
 Then all is set in ghostly gloom, 
 
 As some dim-lighted, storied shrine 
 
 As if the stars forget to stay 
 
 At court when comes the kingly day. 
 
 VII 
 
 And now the high-built shafts of brass, 
 Gate posts that guard the tomb-set pass, 
 Put off their crowns, rich robes, and all 
 43 
 
L I G H T 
 
 Their sudden, splendid light let fall; 
 And tomb and minaret and tower 
 Again gleam as that midnight hour. 
 While day, as scorning still to wait, 
 Drives fiercely through the ice-built gate 
 That guards the Arctic s outer hem 
 Of white, high-built Jerusalem. 
 
 VIII 
 
 To see, to guess the great white throne, 
 Behold Alaska s ice-built steeps 
 Where everlasting silence keeps 
 And white death lives and lords alone: 
 Go see God s river born full grown 
 The gold of this stream it is good: 
 Here grows the Ark s white gopher wood 
 A wide, white land, unnamed, unknown, 
 A land of mystery and moan. 
 
 IX 
 
 Tall, trim, slim gopher trees incline, 
 A leaning, laden, helpless copse, 
 And moan and creak and intertwine 
 Their laden, twisted, tossing tops, 
 And moan all night and moan all day 
 With winds that walk these steeps alway. 
 
 44 
 
LIGHT 
 
 X 
 
 The melancholy moose looks down, 
 A tattered Capuchin in brown, 
 A gaunt, ungainly, mateless monk, 
 An elephant without his trunk, 
 While far, against the gleaming blue, 
 High up a rock-topt ridge of snow, 
 Where scarce a dream would care to go, 
 Climb countless blue-clad caribou, 
 In endless line till lost to view. 
 
 XI 
 
 The rent ice surges, grinds, and groans, 
 Then gorges, backs, and climbs the shore, 
 Then breaks with sudden rage and roar 
 And plunging, leaping, foams and moans 
 Swift down the surging, seething stream 
 Mad hurdles of some monstrous dream. 
 
 XII 
 
 To see God s river born full grown, 
 To see him burst the womb of earth 
 And leap, a giant at his birth, 
 Through shoreless whiteness, with wild shout 
 A shout so sharp, so cold, so dread 
 You see, feel, hear, his sheeted dead 
 Tis as to know, no longer doubt, 
 45 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Tis as to know the eld Unknown, 
 Aye, bow before the great white throne. 
 
 XIII 
 
 White-hooded nuns, steeps gleaming white, 
 Lean o er his cradle, left and right, 
 And weep the while he moans and cries 
 And rends the earth with agonies; 
 High ice-heaved summits where no thing 
 Has yet set foot or flashed a wing 
 Bare ice-built summits where the white 
 Wide world is but a sea of white 
 White kneeling nuns that kneel and feed 
 The groaning ice god in his greed, 
 And feed, forever feed, man s soul. 
 The full-grown river bounds right on 
 From out his birthplace tow rd the Pole; 
 He knows no limit, no control: 
 He scarce is here till he is gone 
 This sudden, mad, ice-born Yukon. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Beyond white plunging Chilkoot Pass, 
 That trackless Pass of stately tombs, 
 Of midday glories, midnight glooms, 
 Of morn s great gate posts, girt in brass 
 This courtier, born to nature s court, 
 This comrade, peer of peaks, still kept 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Companion with the stars and leapt 
 And laughed, the gliding sea of glass 
 Beneath his feet in merry sport. 
 
 xv 
 
 Then mute red men, the quick canoe, 
 Then o er the ice-born surge and on, 
 Till gleaming snows and steeps were gone, 
 Till wide, deep waters, swirling, blue, 
 Received the sudden, swift canoe, 
 That leapt and laughed and laughing flew. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Then tall, lean trees, girth scarce a span, 
 With moss-set, moss-hung banks of gold 
 Most rich in hue, more gorgeous than 
 Silk carpetings of Turkestan: 
 Deep yellow mosses, rich as gold, 
 More gorgeous than the eye of man 
 Hath seen save in this wonderland 
 Then flashing, tumbling, headlong waves 
 Below white, ice-bound, ice-built shores 
 The river swept a seam of white 
 Where basalt bluffs made day like night. 
 And then they heard no sound, the oars 
 Were idle, still as grassy graves. 
 
 47 
 
LIGHT 
 XVII 
 
 And then the mad, tumultuous moon 
 Spilt silver seas to plunge upon, 
 Possessed the land, a sea of white. 
 That white moon rivaled the red dawn 
 And slew the very name of night, 
 And walked the grave of afternoon 
 That vast, vehement, stark mad moon! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 The wide, still waters, sedgy shore, 
 A lank, brown wolf, a hungry howl, 
 A lean and hungry midday moon; 
 And then again the red man s oar 
 A wide-winged, mute, white Arctic owl, 
 A black, red-crested, screeching loon 
 That knew not night from middle noon, 
 Nor gold-robed sun from lean, lank moon 
 That crazy, black, red-crested loon. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Swift narrows now, and now and then 
 A broken boat with drowning men; 
 The wide, still marshes, dank as death, 
 Where honked the wild goose long and loud 
 With unabated, angry breath. 
 Black swallows twittered in a cloud 
 48 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Above the broad mosquito marsh, 
 The wild goose honked, forlorn and harsh; 
 Honked, fluttered, flew in warlike mood 
 Above her startled, myriad brood, 
 The while the melancholy moose, 
 As if to mock the honking goose, 
 Forsook his wall, plunged in the wave 
 And sank, as sinking in a grave, 
 Sank to his eyes, his great, sad eyes, 
 And watched, in wonder, mute surprise, 
 Watched broken barge and drowning men 
 Drift, swirl, then plunge the gorge again. 
 
 xx 
 
 Again that great white Arctic owl, 
 As pitying, it perched the bank 
 Where swirled a barge and swirling sank 
 A drowned man swirling with white face 
 Low lifting from the swift whirlpool. 
 That distant, doleful, hilltop howl 
 That screaming, crimson-crested fool! 
 And oh, that eerie, ice-made moon 
 That hung the cobalt tent of blue 
 And looked straight down, to look you through, 
 That dead man swirling in his place, 
 That honking, honking, huge gray goose, 
 That solitary, sad-eyed moose, 
 49 
 
LIGHT 
 
 That owl, that wolf, that human loon, 
 And oh, that death s head, hideous moon! 
 
 XXI 
 
 And this the Yukon, night by night, 
 The yellow Yukon, day by day; 
 A land of death, vast, voiceless, white, 
 A graveyard locked in ice-set clay, 
 A graveyard to the Judgment Day. 
 
 XXII 
 
 On, on, the swirling pool was gone, 
 On, on, the boat swept on, swept on, 
 That moon was as a thousand moons! 
 Two dead men swirled, one swept, one sank 
 Two wolves, two owls, two yelling loons! 
 And now three loons! How many moons? 
 How many white owls perch the shore? 
 Three lank, black wolves along the bank 
 That watch the drowned men swirl or sink! 
 Three screeching loons along the brink 
 That moon disputing with the dawn 
 That dared the yellow, dread Yukon! 
 
 XXIII 
 
 And why so like some lorn graveyard 
 Where only owls and loons may say 
 And life goes by the other way? 
 
 5 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Aye, why so hideous and so hard, 
 So deathly hard to look upon? 
 Because this cold, wild, dread Yukon, 
 Of gold-sown banks, of sea white waves, 
 Is but one land, one sea of graves. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Behold where bones hang either bank! 
 Great tusks of beasts before the flood 
 That floated here and floating sank 
 Mid ice-locked walls and ice-hung steep, 
 With muck and stone and moss and mud, 
 Where only death and darkness keep! 
 Lo, this is death-land! Heap on heap, 
 By ice-strown strand or rock-built steep, 
 By moss-brown walls, gray, green or blue, 
 The Yukon cleaves a graveyard through! 
 Three thousand miles of tusk and bone, 
 Strown here, strown there, all heedless strown, 
 All strown and sown just as they lay 
 That time the fearful deluge passed, 
 Safe locked in ices to the last, 
 Safe locked, as records laid away, 
 To wait, to wait, the Judgment Day. 
 
 XXV 
 
 He landed, pierced the ice-locked earth, 
 He burned it to the very bone 
 5 1 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Burned and laid bare the deep bedstone 
 
 Placed at the building, at the birth 
 
 Of morn, and here, there, everywhere, 
 
 Such bones of bison, mastodon! 
 
 Such tusky monsters without name! 
 
 Great ice-bound bones with flesh scarce gone, 
 
 So fresh the wild dogs nightly came 
 
 To fight about and feast upon. 
 
 And gold along the bedrock lay 
 
 So bounteous below the bones 
 
 Men barely need to turn the stones 
 
 To fill their skins, within the day, 
 
 With rich, red gold and go their way. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 "The gold of that place it is good." 
 Lo, here God laid the Paradise! 
 Lo, here each witness of the flood, 
 Tight jailed in ice eternal, lies 
 To wait the bailiff s chorus call: 
 "Come into court, come one, come all!" 
 But why so cold, so deathly cold 
 The battered beasts, the scattered gold, 
 The pleasant trees of Paradise, 
 Deep locked in everlasting ice? 
 
LIGHT 
 XXVII 
 
 Oyez! the red man s simple tale; 
 He says that once, o er hill and vale, 
 Ripe fruits hung ready all the year; 
 That man knew neither frost nor fear, 
 That bison wallowed to the eyes 
 In grass, that palm trees brushed the skies 
 Where birds made music all day long. 
 That then a great chief shaped a spear 
 Bone-tipt and sharp and long and strong, 
 And made a deadly moon-shaped bow, 
 And then a flint-tipt arrow wrought. 
 Then cunning, snake like, creeping low, 
 As creeps a cruel cat, he sought 
 And in sheer wantonness he shot 
 A large-eyed, trusting, silly roe. 
 And then, exultant, crazed, he slew 
 Ten bison, ten tame bear and, too, 
 A harmless, long-limbed, shambling moose; 
 That then the smell of blood let loose 
 The passions of all men and all 
 Uprose and slew, or great or small 
 Uprose and slew till hot midday 
 All four-foot creatures in their way; 
 Then proud, defiant, every one, 
 Shook his red spear-point at the sun. 
 53 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Then God said, through a mist of tears, 
 "What would ye, braves made mad with blood?" 
 And then they shook their bone-tipt spears 
 And cried, "The sun it is not good! 
 Too hot the sun, too long the day; 
 Break off and throw the end away!" 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Then God, most angered instantly, 
 Drew down the day from out the sky 
 And brake the day across his knee 
 And hurled the fragments hot and high 
 And far down till they fell upon 
 The bronzing waves of dread Yukon, 
 Nor spared the red men one dim ray 
 Of light to lead them on their way. 
 
 XXX 
 
 And then the red men filled the lands 
 With wailing for just one faint ray 
 Of light to guide them home that they 
 Might wash and cleanse their blood-red hands. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 But God said, "Yonder, far away 
 Down yon Yukon, your broken day! 
 54 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Go gather it from out the night! 
 That fitful, fearful Northern Light, 
 Is all that ye shall ever know 
 To guide henceforth the way you go. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 " You shall not see my face again, 
 But you shall see cold death instead. 
 This land hath sinned, this land is dead; 
 You drenched your beauteous land in blood, 
 And now behold the wild, white rain 
 Shall fall until a drowning flood 
 Shall fill all things above, below, 
 To wash away the smell of blood, 
 And birds shall die and beasts be dumb, 
 When cold, the cold of death shall come 
 And weave a piteous shroud of snow, 
 In graveyard silence, ever so." 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 The red men say that then the rain 
 Drowned all the fires of the world, 
 Then drowned the fires of the moon 
 That then the sun came not again, 
 Save in the middle summer noon, 
 When hot, red lances they had hurled 
 Are hurled at them like fiery rain, 
 Till Yukon rages like a main. 
 55 
 
LIGHT 
 XXXIV 
 
 With bated breath these skin-clad men 
 Tell why the big-nosed moose foreknew 
 The flood; how, bandy-legged, he flew 
 Far up high Saint Elias : how, 
 Down in the slope of his left horn, 
 The raven rested, night and morn; 
 How, in the hollow of his right, 
 The dove-hued moose-bird nestled low 
 Until they touched the utmost height; 
 How dove and raven soon took flight 
 And winged them forth and far away; 
 But how the moose did stay and stay, 
 His great sad eyes all wet with tears, 
 And keep his steeps two thousand years. 
 
 xxxv 
 
 He heard the half nude red men say, 
 Close huddled to the flame at night, 
 How in the hollow of a palm 
 A woman and a water rat, 
 That dreadful, darkened, drowning day, 
 Crept close and nestled in their fright; 
 And how a bear, tame as a lamb, 
 Came to them in the tree and sat 
 The long, long drift-time to the sea, 
 The while the wooing water rat 
 
 56 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Made love to her incessantly; 
 
 How then the bear became a priest 
 
 And married them at last; how then 
 
 To them was born the shortest, least 
 
 Of all the children of all men, 
 
 And yet most cunning and most brave 
 
 Of all who dare the bleak north wave. 
 
 xxxvi 
 
 What tales of tropic fruit! No tale 
 But of some soft, sweet, sensuous clime, 
 Of love and lovely maiden s trust 
 Some peopled, pleasant, palm-hung vale 
 Of everlasting summer time 
 And, then the deadly sin of lust; 
 Forbidden fruit, shame and disgust! 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 And whence the story of it all, 
 The palm land, love land and the fall? 
 Was t born of ages of desire 
 From such sad children of the snows 
 For something fairer, better, higher? 
 God knows, God knows, God only knows. 
 But I should say, hand laid to heart 
 And head made bare, as I would swear, 
 These piteous, sad-faced children there 
 57 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Knew Eden, the expulsion, knew 
 The deluge, knew the deluge true! 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 And what though this be surely so? 
 Just this: I know, as all men know, 
 As few before this surely knew 
 Just this, and count it great or small, 
 The best of you or worst of you, 
 The Bible, lid to lid, is true! 
 
 CANTO II 
 
 TPHE year waxed weary, gouty, old; 
 -* The crisp days dwindled to a span, 
 The dying year it fell as cold 
 As dead feet of a dying man. 
 The hard, long, weary work was done, 
 The dark, deep pits probed to the bone, 
 And each had just one tale to tell. 
 Ten thousand argonauts as one, 
 Agnostic, Christian, infidel, 
 All said, despite of creed or class, 
 All said as one, "As surely as 
 The Bible is, the deluge was, 
 Whate er the curse, whate er the cause!" 
 
 58 
 
LIGHT 
 
 What merry men these miners were, 
 
 And mighty in their pent-up force! 
 
 They wrought for her, they fought for her, 
 
 For her alone, or night or day, 
 
 In tent or camp, their one discourse 
 
 The Love three thousand miles away, 
 
 The Love who waked to watch and pray. 
 
 in 
 
 Yet rude were they and brutal they, 
 Their love a blended love and lust, 
 Born of this later, loveless day; 
 You could but love them for their truth, 
 Their frankness and their fiery youth, 
 And yet turn from them in disgust, 
 To loathe, to pity, and mistrust. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Siege of Troy knew scarce such men, 
 Such hardy, daring men as they, 
 The coward had not voyaged then, 
 The weak had died upon the way. 
 
 v 
 
 They sang, they sang some like to this, 
 " I say risk all for one warm kiss; 
 
 59 
 
LIGHT 
 
 I say twere better risk the fall, 
 
 Like Romeo, to venture all 
 
 And boldly climb to deadly bliss." 
 
 VI 
 
 I like that savage, Sabine way; 
 What mighty minstrels came of it! 
 Their songs are ringing to this day, 
 The bravest ever sung or writ; 
 Their loves the love of Juliet, 
 Of Portia, Desdemona, yea, 
 The old true loves are living yet; 
 And we, we love, we weep, we sigh, 
 In love with loves that will not die. 
 
 VII 
 
 Then take her, lover, sword in hand, 
 Hot-blooded and red-handed, clasp 
 Her sudden, stormy, tall and grand, 
 And lift her in your iron grasp 
 And kiss her, kiss her till she cries 
 From keen, sweet, happy, killing pain. 
 Aye, kiss her till she seeming dies; 
 Aye, kiss her till she dies, and then, 
 Why kiss her back to life again! 
 
 60 
 
LIGHT 
 
 VIII 
 
 I love all things that truly love, 
 I love the low-voiced cooing dove 
 In wooing time, he woos so true, 
 His soft notes fall so overfull 
 Of love they thrill me through and through. 
 But when the thunder-throated bull 
 Upheaves his head and shakes the air 
 With eloquence and battle s blare, 
 And roars and tears the earth to woo, 
 I like his warlike wooing too. 
 
 IX 
 
 Yet best to love that lover is 
 Who loves all things beneath the sun, 
 Then finds all fair things in just one, 
 And finds all fortune in one kiss. 
 
 x 
 
 How wisely born, how more than wise, 
 How wisely learned must be that soul 
 Who loves all earth, all Paradise, 
 All people, places, pole to pole, 
 Yet in one kiss includes the whole! 
 
 XI 
 
 Give me a lover ever bold, 
 A lover clean, keen, sword in hand, 
 61 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Like to those white-plumed knights of old 
 Whose loves held honor in the land; 
 Those men with hot blood in their veins 
 And hot, swift, iron hand to kill 
 Those women loving well the chains 
 That bound them fast against their will; 
 Yet loved and lived are living still. 
 
 XII 
 
 Enough: the bronzed man launched his boat, 
 A faithful dwarf clutched at the oar, 
 And Boreas began to roar 
 As if to break his burly throat. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Down, down by basalt palisade, 
 Down, down by bleakest ice-piled isle! 
 The mute, dwarf water rat afraid? 
 The water rat it could but smile 
 To hear the cold, wild waters roar 
 Against his savage Arctic shore. 
 
 XIV 
 
 But now he listened, gave a shout, 
 A startled cry, akin to fear. 
 The hand of God had reached swift out 
 And locked, as in an iron vise, 
 The whole white world in blue-black ice, 
 62 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And daylight scarce seemed living more. 
 The day, the year, the world, lay dead. 
 With star-tipt candles foot and head; 
 Great stars, that burn a whole half year, 
 Stood forth, five-horned, and near, so near! 
 
 xv 
 
 The ghost-white day scarce drew a breath, 
 The dying day shrank to a span; 
 There was no life save that of man 
 And woolly dogs man, dogs, and death! 
 The sun, a mass of molten gold, 
 Surged feebly up, then sudden rolled 
 Right back as in a beaten track 
 And left the white world to the moon 
 And five-horned stars of gleaming gold; 
 Such stars as sang in silent rune 
 And oh, the cold, such killing cold 
 As few have felt and none have told! 
 
 XVI 
 
 And now he knew the last dim light 
 Lay on yon ice-shaft, steep and far, 
 Where stood one bold, triumphant star, 
 And he would dare the gleaming height, 
 Would see the death-bed of the day, 
 Whatever fate might make of it. 
 A foolish thing, yet were it fit 
 
 63 
 
LIGHT 
 
 That he who dared to love, to say, 
 To live, should look the last of Light 
 Full in the face, then go his way 
 All silent into lasting night 
 As he had left her, on her height? 
 
 XVII 
 
 He climbed, he climbed, he neared at last 
 
 The Golden Fleece of flitting Light! 
 
 When sudden as an eagle s flight 
 
 An eagle frightened from its nest 
 
 That crowns the topmost, rock-reared crest 
 
 It swooped, it drooped, it, dying, passed. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 As when some sunny, poppy day 
 The Mariposa scatters gold 
 The while he takes his happy flight, 
 Like star dust when the day is old, 
 So passed his Light and all was night 
 
 XIX 
 
 Some star-like scattered flecks of gold 
 Flashed from the far and fading wings 
 That kept the sky, like living things 
 Then oh, the cold, the cruel cold! 
 The light, the life of him had past, 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The spirit of the day had fled; 
 The lover of God s first-born, Light, 
 Descended, mourning for his dead. 
 The last of light, the very last 
 He deemed that he should look upon 
 Until God s everlasting dawn 
 Beyond this dread half year of night 
 Had fled forever from his sight. 
 
 xx 
 
 Twas death to go, thrice death to stay. 
 Turn back, go southward, seek the sun? 
 Yea, better die in search of light, 
 Die boldly, face set forth for day, 
 As many dauntless men have done, 
 Than wail at fate and house with night. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Some woolly dogs, a low, dwarf-chief 
 His trained thews stood him now in stead 
 Broad snow-shoes, skins, a laden sled. 
 That moon was as a brazen thief 
 That dares to mock, laugh, and carouse! 
 It followed, followed everywhere; 
 He hid his face, that moon was there. 
 Such painful light, such piteous pain! 
 It broke into his very brain, 
 As breaks a burglar in a house. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXII 
 
 Scarce seen, a change came, slow, so slow! 
 That moon sank slowly out of sight, 
 The lower world of gleaming white 
 Took on a somber band of woe, 
 A wall of umber round about, 
 So dim at first you could but doubt, 
 That change there was, day after day 
 Nay, nay, not day, I can but say 
 Sleep after sleep, sleep after sleep 
 That band grew darker, deep, more deep, 
 Until there girt a dense dark wall, 
 A low, black wall of ebon hue, 
 Oppressive, deathlike as a pall; 
 It walked with you, close compassed you, 
 While not one thread of light shot through. 
 Above the black a gird of brown 
 Soft blending into amber hue, 
 And then from out the cobalt blue 
 Great, massive, golden stars swung down 
 Like tow rd lights of mountain town. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 At last the moon moved gaunt and slow, 
 Half veiled her hollow, hungry face 
 In amber, kept unsteady pace 
 66 
 
LIGHT 
 
 High up her star-set wall of snow, 
 Nor scarcely deigned to look below. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Then far beyond, above the night, 
 
 Above the umber, amber hue, 
 
 Above the lean moon s blare and blight, 
 
 One mighty ice shaft shimmered through; 
 
 One gleaming peak, as white, as lone 
 
 As you could think the great white throne 
 
 Stood up against the cobalt blue, 
 
 And kept companion with the stars 
 
 Despite dusk walls or umber bars. 
 
 XXV 
 
 That wall, that hideous prison wall, 
 That blackness, umber, amber hue, 
 It cumbers you, encircles you, 
 It mantles as a hearse s pall. 
 Your eyes lift to the star-pricked sky, 
 You lift your frosted face, you pray 
 That e en the sickly moon might stay 
 A time, if but to see you die. 
 Yet how it blinds you, body, soul! 
 You can no longer keep control. 
 Your feebled senses fall astray: 
 You cannot think, you dare not say. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXVI 
 
 And now such under gleam of light, 
 
 Such blazing, flaming, frightful glare; 
 
 Such sudden, deadly, lightning gleam, 
 
 Some like a monstrous, mad nightmare 
 
 Such hideous light, born of such night! 
 
 It burst, with changeful interval, 
 
 From out the ice beneath the wall, 
 
 From out the groaning, surging stream 
 
 That breathed, or tried to breathe, in vain, 
 
 That struggled, strangled, shrieked with pain! 
 
 Twas as if he of Patmos read, 
 
 Sat by with burning pen and said, 
 
 With piteous and prophetic voice, 
 
 "The earth shall pass with rustling noise." 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Swift out the ice-crack, fiery red, 
 
 Swift up the umber wall and back, 
 
 Then round and round, up, down and back, 
 
 The sudden lightning sped and sped, 
 
 Until the walls hung burnished red, 
 
 An instant red, then yellow, white, 
 
 With something more than earthly light. 
 
 68 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 It blinds your eyes until they burn, 
 
 Until you dare not look or turn, 
 
 But think of him who saw and told 
 
 The story of, the glory of, 
 
 The jasper walls, the streets of gold, 
 
 Where trails God s unseen garments hem 
 
 The holy New Jerusalem. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Then while he trudged he tried to think 
 And then another sudden light, 
 Or red or yellow, blue or white, 
 Burst up from out the very brink 
 Of where he passed and, left or right, 
 It burnished yet again the walls! 
 Then up, straight up against the stars 
 That seemed as jostled, rent with jars! 
 Then silent night. Where next and when? 
 Then blank, black interval, and then 
 And oh, those blank, dread intervals, 
 This writing on the umber walls! 
 
 XXX 
 
 The blazing Borealis passed, 
 The umber walls fell down at last 
 And left the great cathedral stars, 
 
 69 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The five-horned stars, blent, burnished bars 
 Of gold, red, gleaming, blinding gold 
 And still the cold, the killing cold! 
 
 XXXI 
 
 The moon resumed all heaven now, 
 She shepherded the stars below 
 Along her wide, white steeps of snow, 
 Nor stooped nor rested, where or how. 
 She bared her full white breast, she dared 
 The sun e er show his face again. 
 She seemed to know no change, she kept 
 Carousal constantly, nor slept, 
 Nor turned aside a breath, nor spared 
 The fearful meaning, the mad pain, 
 The weary eyes, the poor, dazed brain 
 That came at last to feel, to see 
 The dread, dead touch of lunacy. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 How loud the silence! Oh, how loud! 
 How more than beautiful the shroud 
 Of dead Light in the moon-mad north 
 When great torch-tipping stars stand forth 
 Above the black, slow-moving pall 
 As at some fearful funeral ! 
 
 70 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 The moon blares as mad trumpets blare 
 To marshaled warriors long and loud: 
 The cobalt blue knows not a cloud, 
 But oh, beware that moon, beware 
 Her ghostly, graveyard, moon-mad stare! 
 
 xxxiv 
 
 Beware white silence more than white! 
 Beware the five-horned starry rune; 
 Beware the groaning gorge below; 
 Beware the wide, white world of snow, 
 Where trees hang white as hooded nun 
 No thing not white, not one, not one, 
 But most beware that mad white moon. 
 
 xxxv 
 
 All day, all day, all night, all night 
 Nay, nay, not yet or night or day. 
 Just whiteness, whiteness, ghastly white 
 Made doubly white by that mad moon 
 And strange stars jangled out of tune! 
 
 xxxvi 
 
 At last he saw, or seemed to see, 
 Above, beyond, another world. 
 Far up the ice-hung path there curled 
 
LIGHT 
 
 A red-veined cloud, a canopy 
 That topt the fearful ice-built peak 
 That seemed to prop the very porch 
 Of God s house; then, as if a torch 
 Burned fierce, there flashed a fiery streak, 
 A flush, a blush on heaven s cheek! 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 The dogs sat down, men sat the sled 
 
 And watched the flush, the blush of red. 
 
 The little woolly dogs they knew, 
 
 Yet scarce knew what they were about. 
 
 They thrust their noses up and out, 
 
 They drank the Light, what else to do? 
 
 Their little feet, so worn, so true, 
 
 Could scare keep quiet for delight. 
 
 They knew, they knew, how much they knew, 
 
 The mighty breaking up of night! 
 
 Their bright eyes sparkled with such joy 
 
 That they at last should see loved Light! 
 
 The tandem sudden broke all rule, 
 
 Swung back, each leaping like a boy 
 
 Let loose from some dark, ugly school 
 
 Leaped up and tried to lick his hand 
 
 Stood up as happy children stand. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 How tenderly God s finger set 
 His crimson flower on that height 
 Above the battered walls of night! 
 A little space it flourished yet, 
 And then His angel, His first-born, 
 Burst through, as on that primal morn! 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 His right hand held a sword of flame, 
 His left hand javelins of light, 
 And swift down, down, right down he came! 
 His bright wings wide as the wide sky, 
 And right and left, and hip and thigh, 
 He smote the marshaled hosts of night 
 With all his majesty and might. 
 
 XL 
 
 The scared moon paled and she forgot 
 
 Her pomp and pride and turned to fly. 
 
 The ice-heaved palisades, the high 
 
 Heaved peaks that propped God s house, the stars 
 
 That flamed above the prison bars, 
 
 As battle stars with fury fraught, 
 
 Were burned to ruin and were not. 
 
 73 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XLI 
 
 Then glad earth shook her raiment wide, 
 And free and far, and stood up tall, 
 As some proud woman, satisfied, 
 Forgets, and yet remembers all. 
 She stood exultant, till her form, 
 A queen above some battle storm, 
 Blazed with the glory, the delight 
 Of battle with the hosts of night. 
 And night was broken. Light at last 
 Lay on the Yukon. Night had passed. 
 
 CANTO III 
 
 T^HE days grew longer, stronger, yet 
 
 The strong man grew then as a child. 
 Too hard the tension and too wild 
 The terror; he could not forget. 
 And now at last when Light was, now 
 He could not see nor lift his eyes, 
 Nor lift a hand in any wise. 
 It was as when a race is won 
 By some strong favorite athlete, 
 Then sinks down dying at your feet. 
 
 74 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The red chief led him on and on 
 To his high lodge by gorged Yukon 
 And housed him kindly as his own, 
 Blind, broken, dazed, and so alone! 
 
 in 
 
 The low bark lodge was desolate, 
 
 And deathly cold by night, by day. 
 
 Poor, hungered children of the snows, 
 
 They heaped the fire as he froze, 
 
 Did all they could, yet what could they 
 
 But pity his most piteous fate 
 
 And pitying, silent, watch and wait? 
 
 IV 
 
 His face was ever to the wall 
 
 Or buried in his skins; the light 
 
 He could not bear the light of day 
 
 Nor bear the heaped-up flame at night 
 
 Not bear one touch of light at all. 
 
 There are no pains, no sharp death throes, 
 
 So dread as blindness of the snows. 
 
 He thought of home, he thought of her, 
 Thought most of her, and pictured how 
 75 
 
LIGHT 
 
 She walked in springtime splendor where 
 Warm sea winds twined her heavy hair 
 In great Greek braids piled fold on fold, 
 Or loosely blown, as poppy s gold. 
 
 VI 
 
 And then he thought of her afar 
 Mid follies, and his soul at war 
 With self, self will, and iron fate 
 Grew as a blackened thing of hate! 
 And then he prayed forgiveness, prayed 
 As one in sin and sore afraid. 
 
 VII 
 
 And praying so he dreamed, he dreamed 
 She sat there looking in his face, 
 Sat silent by in that dread place, 
 Sat silent weeping, so it seemed, 
 Sat still, sat weeping silently. 
 He saw her tears and yet he knew, 
 The blind man knew he could not see, 
 Scarce hope to see for years and years. 
 And then he seemed to hear her tears, 
 To hear them steal her loose hair through 
 And gently fall, as falls the dew 
 And still, small rain of summer morn, 
 That makes for harvests, yellow corn. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 VIII 
 
 He raised his hand, he touched her hair; 
 He did not start, he did not say; 
 It seemed that she was surely there; 
 He only questioned would she stay. 
 How glad he was! Why, now, what care 
 For hunger, blindness, blinding pain, 
 Could he but touch her hair again? 
 
 IX 
 
 He heard her rise, give quick command 
 To patient, skin-clad, savage man 
 To heap the wood, come, go, and then 
 Go feed their woolly friends at hand, 
 To bring fresh stores, still heap fresh flame, 
 Then go, then come, as morning came. 
 
 x 
 
 All seemed so real! He dared not stir, 
 Lest he might break this dream of her. 
 How holy, holy sweet her voice, 
 Like benediction o er the dead! 
 So glad he was, so grateful he, 
 And thanking God most fervently, 
 Forgot his plight, forgot his pain, 
 And deep at heart did he rejoice; 
 77 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Yet prayed he might not wake again 
 To peril, blindness, piteous pain, 
 
 XI 
 
 Then, as he hid his face, she came 
 
 And leaned quite near and took his hand. 
 
 Twas cold, twas very cold, twas thin 
 
 And bony, black, just skin and bone, 
 
 Just bone and wrinkled mummy-skin. 
 
 She held it out against the flame, 
 
 Then pressed it with her two warm hands. 
 
 It seemed as she could feel the sands 
 
 Of life slow sift to shadow land. 
 
 Close on his hurt eyes she laid hand, 
 
 The while she, wearied, nodded, slept. 
 
 The flame burned low, the wind s wild moan 
 
 Awakened her. Cold as a stone 
 
 His starved form, shrunken to a shade, 
 
 Stretched in the darkness, and, dismayed, 
 
 She put the robes back and she crept 
 
 Close down beside and softly laid 
 
 Her warm, strong form to his and slept, 
 
 The while her dusk men vigil kept. 
 
 XII 
 
 That long, long night, that needed rest! 
 Then flames at morn; her precious store 
 78 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Heaped hard by on the earthen floor 
 
 While mute brown men, starved men, stood by 
 
 To wait the slightest breath or sigh 
 
 Or sign of wakening request 
 
 What silence, patience, trust! What rest! 
 
 Of all good things, I say the best 
 
 Beneath God s sun is rest, and rest. 
 
 XIII 
 
 She slowly wakened from her sleep 
 To find him sleeping, silent, deep! 
 What food for all, what feast for all, 
 To chief or slave, or great or small, 
 Ranged round the flaming, glowing heap 
 Such lank, lean flank, such hungry zest! 
 Such reach of limb, such rest, such rest! 
 
 XIV 
 
 Why, he had gone, had gladly gone 
 In quest of his eternal Light, 
 Beyond all dolours, that dread night, 
 Had she not reached her hand and drawn, 
 Hard drawn him back and held him so, 
 Held him so hard he could not go. 
 And yet he lingered by the brink, 
 As dulled and dazed as you can think 
 Long, long he lingered, helpless lay, 
 A babe, a broken pot of clay. 
 79 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XV 
 
 She made a broader couch, she sat 
 All day beside and held his hand 
 Lest he might sudden slip away. 
 And she all night beside him lay, 
 Lest these last grains of sinking sand 
 Might in the still night slip and pass, 
 With none at hand to turn the glass. 
 
 XVI 
 
 And did the red men prate thereat? 
 Why, they had laid them down and died 
 For her, those simple dusky sons 
 Of nature, children of the snows, 
 Born where the ice-bound river runs, 
 Born where the Arctic torrent flows. 
 Look you for evil? Look for ill 
 Or good, you find just what you will. 
 
 XVII 
 
 He spake no more than babe might speak: 
 His eyes were as the kitten s eyes 
 That open slowly with surprise 
 Then close as if to sleep a week; 
 But still he held, as if he knew, 
 The warm, strong hand, the healthful hand, 
 The dauntless, daring hand and true, 
 80 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Nor, while he waked, would his unfold, 
 But held, as drowning man might hold 
 Who hopes no more of life or land, 
 But, as from habit, clutches hand. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Once, as she thought he surely slept, 
 She slowly drew herself aside, 
 He thrust his hand as terrified, 
 Caught back her hand, kissed it and wept. 
 Then she, too, wept, wept tears like rain, 
 Her first warm, welcome happy tears, 
 Drew in her breath, put by her fears 
 And knew she had not dared in vain. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Yet day by day, hard on the brink 
 He hung with half-averted head, 
 As silent, listless, as the dead, 
 As sad to see as you can think. 
 Their lorn lodge sat the terraced steep 
 Above the wide, wild, groaning stream 
 That, like some monster in a dream, 
 Cried out in broken, breathless sleep; 
 And looking down, night after night, 
 She saw leap forth that sword of Light. 
 
 81 
 
LIGHT 
 XX 
 
 She guessed, she knew the flaming sword 
 
 That turned which way to watch and ward 
 
 ^nd guard the wall and ever guard 
 
 The Tree of Life, as it is writ. 
 
 The hand, the hilt, she could not see, 
 
 Nor yet the true, life-giving tree, 
 
 Nor cherubim that cherished it, 
 
 But yet she saw the flaming sword, 
 
 As written in the Book, the Word. 
 
 XXI 
 
 She held his hand, he did not stir, 
 And as she nightly sat and sat, 
 She silent gazed and guessed thereat. 
 His fancies seemed to come to her; 
 She could not see the Tree of Life, 
 How fair it grew or where it grew, 
 But this she knew and surely knew, 
 That gleaming sword meant holy strife 
 To keep and guard the Tree of Life. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Oh, flaming sword, rest not nor rust! 
 The Tree of Life is hewn and torn, 
 The Tree of Life is bowed and worn, 
 The Tree of Life is in the dust. 
 82 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Hew brute man down, hew branch and root, 
 Till he may spare the Tree of Life, 
 The pale, the piteous woman, wife 
 Till he shall learn, as learn he must, 
 To lift her fair face from the dust. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 She watched the wabbly moose at morn 
 Climb steeply up the further steep, 
 Huge, solitary and forlorn. 
 She saw him climb, turn, look and keep 
 Scared watch, this wild, ungainly beast, 
 This mateless, lost thing and the last 
 That roamed before and since the flood 
 That climbed and climbed the topmost hill 
 As if he heard the deluge still. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The sparse, brown children of the snow 
 Began to stir, as sap is stirred 
 In springtime by the song of bird, 
 And trudge by, wearily and slow, 
 Beneath their load of dappled skins 
 That weighed them down as weighty sins. 
 
 XXV 
 
 And oft they paused, turned and looked back 
 Along their desolate white track, 
 
 83 
 
LIGHT 
 
 With arched hand raised to shield their eyes 
 Looked back as if for something lost 
 Or left behind, of precious cost, 
 Sad-eyed and silent, mutely wise, 
 As just expelled from Paradise. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 How sad their dark, fixed faces seemed, 
 
 As if of long-remembered sins! 
 
 They listless moved, as if they dreamed, 
 
 As if they knew not where to go 
 
 In all their wide, white world of snow. 
 
 She could but think upon the day 
 
 God made them garments from the skins 
 
 Of beasts, then turned and bade them go, 
 
 Go forth as willed they, to and fro. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Between the cloud-capt walls of snow 
 A wide-winged raven, croaking low, 
 Passed and repassed, each weary day, 
 And would not rest, not go, not stay, 
 But ever, ever to and fro, 
 As when forth from the ark of old; 
 And ever as he passed, each day 
 Let fall one croak, so cold, so cold 
 It seemed to strike the ice below 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And break in fragments hard as fate; 
 It fell so cold, so desolate. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 At last the sun hung hot and high, 
 
 Hung where that heartless moon had hung. 
 
 A dove-hued moose bird sudden sung 
 
 And had glad answerings hard by; 
 
 The icy steeps began to pour 
 
 Mad tumult down the rock-built steep. 
 
 The great Yukon began to roar, 
 
 As if with pain in broken sleep. 
 
 The breaking ice began to groan, 
 
 The very mountains seemed to moan. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Then, bursting like a cannon s boom, 
 The great stream broke its icy bands, 
 And rushed and ran with outstretched hands 
 That laid hard hold the willow lands, 
 Rent wide the somber, gopher gloom 
 And roared for room, for room, for room! 
 
 XXX 
 
 The stalwart moose climbed hard his steep, 
 Climbed till he wallowed, brisket deep, 
 In soft ning, sinking steeps of snow, 
 Then raging, turned to look below. 
 
 85 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXXI 
 
 He tossed, shook high his antlered head, 
 Blew blast on blast through his huge nose, 
 Then, wild with savage rage and fright, 
 He climbed, climbed to the highest height, 
 As if he felt the flood once more 
 Had come to swallow sea and shore. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 The waters sank, the man uprose, 
 
 A boat of skins, his Eskimo, 
 
 Then down from out the world of snow 
 
 They passed to seas of calm repose 
 
 Where wide sails waited, warm sea wind, 
 
 For mango isles and tamarind. 
 
 86 
 
BOOK THIRD 
 
CANTO I 
 
 F all fair trees to look upon, 
 Of all trees "pleasant to the sight," 
 Give me the Poet s tree of white 
 Pink cherry trees of blest Nippon 
 With lovers passing to and fro 
 Pink cherry lanes of Tokio: 
 Ten thousand cherry trees and each 
 Hung white with Poet s plaint and speech. 
 
 Of all fair lands to look upon, 
 To feel, to breathe, at Orient dawn, 
 I count this baby land the best, 
 Because here all things rest and rest 
 And all men love all things most fair 
 And beautiful and rich and rare; 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And women are as cherry trees 
 
 With treasures laden, brown with bees. 
 
 HI 
 
 Of all loved lands to look upon, 
 
 Give me this love land of Nippon, 
 
 Its bright, brave men, its maids at prayer, 
 
 Its peace, its carelessness of care. 
 
 IV 
 
 A mobile sea of silver mist 
 Sweeps up for morn to mount upon : 
 Then yellow, saffron, amethyst 
 Such changeful hues has blest Nippon! 
 See but this sunrise, then forget 
 All scenes, all suns, all lands save one, 
 Just matin sun and vesper sun; 
 This land of inland seas of light; 
 This land that hardly recks of night. 
 
 The vesper sun of blest Nippon 
 Sinks crimson in the Yellow Sea: 
 The purple butterfly is gone, 
 The rainbow bird housed in his tree 
 Hushed, as the last loved, trembling note 
 Still thrills his tuneful Orient throat 
 90 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Hushed, as the harper s weary hand 
 Waits morn to waken and command. 
 
 VI 
 
 Fast homeward bound, brown, busy feet 
 In wooden shoon clang up the street; 
 But not through all the thousand year 
 In Buddha s temple may you hear 
 One step, see hue of sun or sea, 
 Though wait you through eternity: 
 All is so still, so soft, subdued 
 The very walls are hueless hued. 
 
 VII 
 
 Behold brown, kneeling penitents! 
 What perfumed place of silent prayer! 
 Burned Senko-ho, sweet frankincense! 
 And hear what silence everywhere! 
 Pale, pensive priests pass here and there 
 And silent lisp with bended head 
 The Golden Rule on scrolls of gold 
 As gentle, ancient Buddhists read 
 These precepts sacred unto them, 
 And watched the world grow old, so old, 
 Ere yet the Babe of Bethelehem. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 VIII 
 
 How leaps the altar s forky flame! 
 How dreamful, dense, the sweet incense, 
 As pale priests burn, in Buddha s name, 
 Red-written sins of penitents 
 Mute penitents with bended head 
 And unsaid sins writ deep in red. 
 
 IX 
 
 Now slow a priest with staff and scroll, 
 Barefoot, as mendicant, and old 
 You sudden start, you lift your head, 
 You hear and yet you do not hear, 
 A sound, a song, so sweet, so dear 
 It well might waken yonder dead. 
 His staff has touched the sacred bowl 
 Of copper, silver, shot with gold 
 And wrought so magic-like of old 
 That all sweet sounds, or east or west, 
 Sought this still hollow where to rest. 
 Hear, hear the voice of Buddha s bell, 
 Bonsho-no-oto! All is well! 
 
 x 
 
 And you, you, lean, lean low to hear: 
 You doubt your ears, you doubt your eyes, 
 Your hand is lifted to your ear, 
 92 
 
LIGHT 
 
 You fear, how cruelly you fear 
 The melody may die it dies 
 Dies as the swan dies, as the sun 
 Dies, bathed in dewy benison. 
 
 XI 
 
 It lives again; you breathe again! 
 
 What cadences that speak, that stir, 
 
 Take form and presence, as of her 
 
 Whom first you loved, ere yet of men. 
 
 It utters essence as a sound; 
 
 As Santalum sends from the ground 
 
 For devotee and worshipper 
 
 Where saints lie buried, balm and myrrh. 
 
 XII 
 
 But now so low, so faint, so low 
 You lean to hear yet hardly hear. 
 Again your hand is to your ear, 
 Your lips are parted, leaning so, 
 And now again you catch your breath! 
 Such breath as when you lie becalmed 
 At sea, and sudden start to feel 
 A cooling wave and quickened keel 
 And see your tall sail court the shore. 
 You hear, you more than hear, you feel, 
 As when the white wave shimmereth. 
 93 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Your love is at your side once more, 
 An essence of some song embalmed, 
 Long hidden in the house of death 
 You breathe it, as your Lady s breath! 
 
 XIII 
 
 Now low, so low, so soft, so still, 
 
 As when a single leaf is stirred, 
 
 As when some doubtful matin bird 
 
 Dreams russet morning decks his hill 
 
 Then nearer, clearer, lilts each note 
 
 And longer, stronger, swells each wave 
 
 Ten thousand dead have burst the grave, 
 
 An angel s song in every throat! 
 
 The forky flame turns and returns 
 
 To burn and burn red sins away; 
 
 Such incense on the altar burns 
 
 As some may breathe but none may say, 
 
 Though cherished to their dying day. 
 
 XIV 
 
 And now the sandaled pilgrims fall 
 With faces to the jeweled floor 
 The incense darkens as a pall, 
 As clouds that darken more and more. 
 You dare not lift your bended head 
 The silence is as if the dead 
 94 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Alone had passed the temple door. 
 And now the Bonsho notes, the song! 
 So stronger now, so strong, so strong! 
 
 xv 
 
 The black smokes of the ashen urn 
 
 Where brown priests burn red sins away 
 
 Begin to stir, to start, to turn, 
 
 To seek the huge, bossed copper door 
 
 As evil things that dare not stay. 
 
 The while the rich notes roll and roar 
 
 To drive dread, burned sin out before 
 
 Calm Dia-busta, the adored, 
 
 As cherubim with flaming sword. 
 
 XVI 
 
 And far, so far, such rich notes roll 
 That barefoot fishers far at sea 
 Fall prone and pray all silently 
 For wife and babes that wait the strand, 
 The tugging net clutched tight in hand, 
 The while they bow a space to pray; 
 For every asking, eager soul 
 Knows well the time and patiently 
 It lists, an hundred Ri away. 
 
 95 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XVII 
 
 The thousand pilgrims girt in straw 
 That press Fujame s holy peak, 
 Prone, fasting, penitent and meek, 
 Hear notes as from the stars and pray, 
 As we who know and keep the Law 
 As we who walk Jerusalem 
 With pilgrim step and pallid cheek. 
 How earnestly they silent pray 
 To keep their Golden Rule alway, 
 To do no thing, or night or day, 
 Though tempted by a diadem, 
 They would not others do to them ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 And wee, brown wives, on high, wild steeps 
 Of terraced rice or bamboo patch 
 Where toil, hard toil incessant, keeps 
 Sweet virtue, sweet sleep, and a thatch, 
 They hear and hold, with closer fold, 
 Their bare, brown babes against the cold. 
 They croon and croon, with soothing care, 
 To babes meshed in their mighty hair, 
 And loving, crooning, breathe a prayer. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XIX 
 
 The great notes pass, pass on and on, 
 As light sweeps up the doors of dawn, 
 And now the strong notes are no more, 
 But feebler tones wail out and cry, 
 As sad things that have lost their way 
 At night and dare not bide the day 
 But turn back to the shrine to die, 
 And steal in softly through the door 
 And gently fade along the floor. 
 
 xx 
 
 The barefoot priest slow fades from sight, 
 Faint and more faint the last notes fall; 
 You hear them now, then not at all, 
 And now the last note of the night 
 Wails out, as when a lover cries 
 At night, and at the altar dies. 
 
 XXI 
 
 How sweet, how sad, how piteous sweet 
 This last note at the bowed monk s feet 
 That dies as dies some saintly light 
 That dies so like the sweet swan dies 
 So loving sad, so tearful sweet, 
 This last, lost note Good night, good night. 
 Good night to holy Buddha s bell 
 97 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Bonsho-no-oto! All is well 
 A mist is rising to the eyes! 
 
 CANTO II 
 
 water town of Tokio 
 Is as a church with priests at prayer, 
 With restful silence everywhere, 
 Or night or day, or high or low. 
 You sometimes hear a turtle dove, 
 A locust trilling from his tree 
 In chorus with his mated love, 
 May see a raven in the air, 
 Wide-winged and high, but even he 
 Is as a shadow in the stream, 
 As dreamful, silent as a dream. 
 
 They could but note the silent maids 
 That carried, with a mother s care, 
 The silent baby, ofttimes bare 
 As birthtime through their Caran shades. 
 Ten thousand babies, everywhere, 
 But not one wail, or day or night, 
 To put the locust s love to flight, 
 Or mar the chorus of the dove. 
 98 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And why? Why, they were born of love: 
 Born soberly, born sanely, clean, 
 As Indian babes of old were born 
 Ere yet the white man s face was seen, 
 Ere yet the sensuous white man came; 
 Born clean as love, of lovelight born 
 Some long lost Rocky Mountain morn 
 Where snow-topt turrets first took flame 
 And flashed God s image in God s name! 
 
 in 
 
 Tell me, my flint-scarred pioneer, 
 My skin-clad Carson, mountaineer, 
 Who met red Sioux, met dusk Modoc, 
 Red hand to hand in battle shock 
 Where men but met to dare and die, 
 Did ever you once see or hear 
 One poor brown Indian baby cry? 
 
 IV 
 
 The long, hot march by ashen plain, 
 The burning trail by lava bed, 
 Babes lashed to back in corded pain 
 Until the swollen bare legs bled, 
 But on and on their mothers led, 
 If but to find a place to die. 
 Yet who, of all men that pursued 
 99 
 
LIGHT 
 
 This dying race, year after year, 
 By burning plain or beetling wood, 
 Did ever see, did ever hear, 
 One bleeding Indian baby cry? 
 
 The starving mother s breasts were dry, 
 There scarce was time to stop and drink, 
 The swollen legs grew black as ink 
 There was not even time to die. 
 And yet, through all this fifty year, 
 What hounding man did ever hear 
 One piteous Indian baby cry? 
 
 VI 
 
 Nay, they were born as men were born 
 Far back in Jacob s Bible morn; 
 Were born of love, born lovingly, 
 Unlike the fretful child of lust, 
 When love gat love and trust gat trust 
 And trusting, dared to silent die 
 In torture and disdain a tear, 
 If mother willed, nor question why. 
 Yea, I have seen so many die, 
 This cruel, hard, half-hundred year, 
 And I have cried, to see, to hear 
 But never heard one baby cry. 
 100 
 
LIGHT 
 
 VII 
 
 Shot down in Castle Rocks I lay 
 One midnight, lay as one shot dead, 
 A lad, and lone, years, years of yore. 
 I heard deep Sacramento roar, 
 Saw Shasta glitter far away 
 I never saw such moon before 
 And yet I could not turn my head, 
 Nor move my lips to cry or say. 
 Red arrows in both form and face 
 Held form and face tight pinned in place 
 Against the gnarled, black chaparral, 
 As one fast nailed against a wall 
 With scant half room to wholly fall 
 The hot, thick, gurgling, gasping breath, 
 The thirst, the thirsting unto death! 
 
 VIII 
 
 And then a child against my feet 
 Crawled feebly and crept close to die; 
 I moaned, "Oh baby, won t you cry? 
 Twould be as music piteous sweet 
 To hear in this dread place of death 
 Just one lorn cry, just one sweet breath 
 Of life, here mid the moonlit dead, 
 The mingled dead, white men and red. 
 101 
 
LIGHT 
 
 IX 
 
 "Oh bleeding, blood-red baby, cry 
 Just once before I, choking, die! 
 And maybe some white man will hear 
 In yonder fortressed camp anear 
 And bring blest drink for you and I 
 Oh, baby, please, please, baby, cry!" 
 
 x 
 
 A crackling in the chaparral 
 
 And then a lion in the clear 
 
 From which the dying babe had crept, 
 
 Swift as a yellow sunbeam, leapt 
 
 And stood so tall, so near, so near! 
 
 So cruel near, sc sinuous, tall 
 
 Some Landseer s picture on a wall. 
 
 XI 
 
 I never saw such length of limb, 
 Such arm as God had given him! 
 His paws, they swallowed up the earth, 
 His midnight eyes shot arrows out 
 The while his tail whipped swift about 
 His tail was surely twice his girth! 
 
 XII 
 
 His nostrils wide with smell of blood 
 Reached out above us where he stood 
 102 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And snuffed the dank, death-laden air [ 
 
 Till half his yellow teeth were bare. 
 
 His yellow length was bare and lank \* c OF 
 
 I never saw such hollow flank; 
 
 Twas as a grave is, as a pall, 
 
 A flabby black flank scarce at all! 
 
 XIII 
 
 He sudden quivered, tail to jaws, 
 Crouched low, unsheathed his shining claws 
 "Oh, baby, baby, won t you cry, 
 Just once before we two must die?" 
 I felt him spring, clutch up, then leap 
 Swift down the rock-built, broken steep; 
 I heard a crunch of bones, but I 
 I did not hear that baby cry! 
 
 CANTO III 
 
 T WOULD forget help me forget, 
 
 The while we fondly linger yet 
 The flower-field so sweet, so sweet, 
 With Buddha at fair Fuji s feet. 
 Fair Fuji-san, throned Queen of air! 
 Fair woman pure as maiden s prayer; 
 As pure as prayer to the throne 
 Of God, as lone as God, as lone 
 103 
 
LIGHT 
 
 As Buddha at her feet in prayer 
 Fair Fuji-san, so more than fair! 
 
 Fair Fuji-san, Kamkura, and 
 Reposeful, calm Buddha the blest, 
 With folded hands that rest and rest 
 On eld Kamkura s blood-soaked sand. 
 Here russet apples hang at hand 
 So russet rich that when they fall 
 Tis as if some gold-bounden ball 
 Sank in the loamy, warm, wet sand 
 Where hana, kusa, carpet earth 
 That never knows one day of dearth. 
 
 in 
 
 Kamkura, where Samurai bled, 
 Where Buddha sits to rest and rest! 
 Was ever spot so beauteous, blest? 
 Was ever red rose quite so red? 
 
 IV 
 
 Fair Fuji from her mountain chine 
 Above her curtained courts of pine 
 Looks down on calm Kamkura s sea 
 So tranquil, dreamful, restfully 
 You fold your arms across your breast 
 104 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And rest with her, with Buddha rest, 
 While silence musks the warm sea air 
 Just silence, silence everywhere. 
 
 Here midst this rest, this pure repose, 
 This benediction, peace, and prayer, 
 That as religion was, and where 
 A breath of senko blessed the air, 
 The erstwhile children of the snows 
 Came silently and sat them down 
 Within a Kusa coigne that lay 
 Above the buried Bushi town, 
 Above the dimpled, beauteous Bay 
 Of sun and shadow, gold and brown, 
 And Care blew by the other way 
 A breath, a butterfly, a fay. 
 
 VI 
 
 And one was as fair Fuji, fair, 
 True, trusting as some maid at prayer, 
 Aye, one as Buddha was, but one 
 Was turbulent of blood and was 
 An instant of the earth and sun; 
 As when the ice-tied torrent thaws 
 And sudden leaps from frost and snow 
 Headlong and lawless, far below 
 105 
 
LIGHT 
 
 As when the sap flows suddenly 
 And warms the wind-tost mango tree. 
 
 VII 
 
 He caught her hand, he pressed her side, 
 
 He pressed her close and very close, 
 
 He breathed her as you breathe a rose, 
 
 Nor was in any wise denied. 
 
 Her comely, shapely limbs pushed out 
 
 As elden on her golden shore; 
 
 Her long, strong arms reached round about 
 
 And bent along the flowered floor, 
 
 While full length on her back she lay 
 
 Like some wild, beauteous beast at play. 
 
 VIII 
 
 He thrust him forward, caught her, caught 
 
 Her form as if she were of naught. 
 
 His outstretched face was as a flame, 
 
 His breath was as a furnace is, 
 
 He kissed her mouth with such mad kiss 
 
 Her rich, full lips shut tight with shame. 
 
 IX 
 
 As one of old who tilled the mould, 
 Took triple strength from earth and thrust 
 His burly foeman to the dust, 
 She sprang straight up, and springing threw 
 1 06 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Him from her with such voltage he 
 
 Knew not how he might, writhing, rise, 
 
 Or dare to meet again those eyes 
 
 That seemed to burn him through and through; 
 
 Or daring, how could he undo 
 
 His coward, selfish deed of shame 
 
 Enforced as in religion s name? 
 
 And she so trustful, so alone! 
 
 Twas as if some sweet, sacred nun 
 
 Had opened wide her door to one 
 
 Who slew her on her altar stone. 
 
 She passed and silent passed and slow. 
 
 What strength, what length of limb, what eyes! 
 
 She left him lying low, so low, 
 
 So crested and so surely slain 
 
 He deemed he never more might rise, 
 
 Or rising, see her face again. 
 
 And yet, her look was not of hate, 
 
 But pity, as akin to pain; 
 
 And when she touched the temple gate 
 
 She paused, turned, beckoned he should go, 
 
 Go wash his hands of carnal clay 
 
 And go alone his selfish way 
 
 Forever, ever and a day! 
 
 107 
 
LIGHT 
 
 CANTO IV 
 
 i 
 
 TLJTOW cold she grew, how chilled, how changed, 
 Since that loathed scene by Nippon s sea! 
 No longer flexile, trustful, she 
 Held him aloof, hushed and estranged, 
 A fallen star, yet still her star, 
 And she his heaven, earth, his all, 
 To follow, worship, near or far, 
 Let good befall or ill befall. 
 But he was silent. He had sold 
 His birthright, sold for even less 
 Than any poor, cheap pottage mess, 
 His right to speak forth, warm and bold, 
 And look her unshamed in the face. 
 Mute, penitent, he kept his place, 
 As silent as that Nippon saint 
 That knew not prayer, praise, or plaint. 
 
 ii 
 
 Saint Silence seems some maid of prayer, 
 God s arm about her when she prays 
 And where she prays and everywhere, 
 Or storm-strewn or sun-down days. 
 What ill to Silence can befall, 
 Since Silence knows no ill at all? 
 108 
 
L I G H T 
 
 III 
 
 Saint Silence seems some twilight sky 
 That leans as with her weight of stars 
 To rest, to rest, no more to roam, 
 But rest and rest eternally. 
 She loosens and lets down the bars, 
 She brings the kind-eyed cattle home, 
 She breathes the fragrant field of hay 
 And heaven is not far away. 
 
 IV 
 
 The deeps of soul are still the deeps 
 Where stately Silence ever keeps 
 High court with calm Nirvana, where 
 No shallows break the noisy shore 
 Or beat, with sad, incessant roar, 
 The fettered, fevered world of care 
 As noisome vultures fret the air. 
 
 The star-sown seas of thought are still, 
 As when God s plowmen plant their corn 
 Along the mellow grooves at morn 
 In patient trust to wait His will. 
 The star-sown seas of thought are wide, 
 But voiceless, noiseless, deep as night; 
 Disturb not these, the silent seas 
 109 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Are sacred unto souls allied, 
 
 As golden poppies unto bees. 
 
 Here, from the first, rude giants wrought, 
 
 Here delved, here scattered stars of thought 
 
 To grow, to bloom in years unborn, 
 
 As grows the gold-horned yellow corn. 
 
 VI 
 
 They lay low-bosomed on the bay 
 Of Honolulu, soft the breeze 
 And soft the dreamful light that lay 
 On Honolulu s Sabbath seas 
 The ghost of sunshine gone away 
 Red roses on the dust of day, 
 Pale, pink, red roses in the west 
 Where lay in state dead Day at rest. 
 
 VII 
 
 Their dusky boatman set his face 
 
 From out the argent, opal sea 
 
 Tow rd where his once proud, warlike race 
 
 Lay housed in everlasting dust. 
 
 He sang low- voiced, sad, silently, 
 
 In listless chorus with the tide, 
 
 Because his race was not, because 
 
 His sun-born race had dared, defied 
 
 The highest, holiest of His laws 
 
 I 10 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And so fell stricken and so died 
 Died stricken of dread leprosy 
 Begot of lust prone in the dust 
 Degenerating love to lust. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Sweet sandal-wood burned bow and stern 
 In colored, shapely crates of clay; 
 Sweet sandal-wood long laid away, 
 Long caverned with dead battle kings 
 Whose dim ghosts rise betimes and burn 
 The torch and touch sweet taro strings 
 Such giant, stalwart, stately kings! 
 
 IX 
 
 Sweet sandal-wood, long ages torn 
 From cloud-capt steeps where thunders slept, 
 Then hidden where dead giants kept 
 Their sealed Walhalla, waiting morn 
 Deep-hidden, till such sweet perfume 
 Betrayed their long-forgotten tomb. 
 
 The sea s perfume and incense lay 
 About, above, lay everywhere; 
 The sea swung incense through the air 
 The censer, Honolulu s Bay. 
 in 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And then the song, the soft, low rune, 
 As sad, as if dead kings kept tune. 
 
 XI 
 
 The moon hung twilight from each horn, 
 
 Soft, silken twilight, soft to touch 
 
 As baby lips and over much 
 
 Like to the baby breath of morn. 
 
 Huge, five-horned stars swung left and right 
 
 O er argent, opal, amber night. 
 
 XII 
 
 What changeful, dreamful, ardent light, 
 When Mauna Loa, far afield, 
 Uprose and shook his yellow shield 
 Below the battlements of night; 
 Below the Southern Cross, o er seas 
 That sang such silent symphonies! 
 
 XIII 
 
 Far lava peaks still lit the night, 
 Like holy candles foot and head, 
 That dimly burned above the dead, 
 Above the dead and buried Light. 
 There rose such perfume of the sea, 
 Such Sabbath breath, soft, silently, 
 As when some burning censer swings, 
 As when some surpliced choir sings. 
 
 I 12 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XIV 
 
 He scarce had lived save in such fear, 
 But now yon mitered tongues of flame 
 That tipped the star-lit lava peak 
 Brought back some fervor to his cheek 
 And made him half forget his shame. 
 He could but heed, he could but hear 
 That call across the walls of night 
 From triple mitered tongues of Light, 
 That soulful, silent, perfumed night. 
 He said and yet he said no word; 
 No word he said, yet all she heard, 
 So close their souls lay, in such Light, 
 That holy Honolulu night. 
 
 xv 
 
 "Lies yonder Nebo s mount, my Soul? 
 The Promised Land beyond, beyond 
 The grave of rest, the broken bond, 
 Where manly force must lose control, 
 Must press the grapes and fill the bowl, 
 Go round and round, rest, rise up, eat, 
 Tread grapes, then wash the wearied feet? 
 
 XVI 
 
 " I know I have enough of bliss, 
 I know full well I should not dare 
 "3 
 
LIGHT 
 
 To ask a deeper joy than this, 
 This scene, your presence, this soft air, 
 This incense, this deep sense of rest 
 Where long-sought, sweet Arcadia lies 
 Against these gates of Paradise. 
 
 XVII 
 
 "And yet, hear me, I dare ask more. 
 
 Lone Adam had all Paradise 
 
 And still how poor he was, how poor, 
 
 With all things his beneath the skies! 
 
 Aye, sweet it were to roam or rest, 
 
 To ever rest and ever roam 
 
 As you might reck and reckon best; 
 
 But still there comes a sense of home, 
 
 Of hearthstone, happy babes at play, 
 
 And you and I not far away. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 "Nay, do not turn aside your face 
 Be fruitful ye and multiply 
 Meant all; it meant the human race, 
 And he or she shall surely die 
 Despised and pass to nothingness 
 Who does not love the little dress, 
 The heaven in the mother s eyes, 
 The holy, sacred, sweet surprise 
 114 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The time she tells how truly blest, 
 With face laid blushing to his breast. 
 
 XIX 
 
 " How flower-like the little frock 
 The daffodil forerunning spring 
 The doll-like shoes, socks, everything, 
 And each a secret, secret stored! 
 And yet each day the little hoard, 
 As careful merchants note their stock, 
 Is noted with such happy care 
 As only angel mothers share. 
 
 xx 
 
 "At last to hear her rock and rock 
 
 Behold her bowed Madonna face! 
 
 She lifts her baby from its place, 
 
 Pulls down the crumpled, dampened frock, 
 
 And never Cleopatra guessed 
 
 The queenliness, the joy, the pride, 
 
 She knows with baby to her breast 
 
 His chub fists churning either sides! 
 
 XXI 
 
 "The bravest breast faith ever bared 
 For brother, country, creed or friend, 
 However high the aim or end, 
 Was that brave breast a baby shared 
 
LIGHT 
 
 With kicking, fat legs half unfrocked, 
 
 The while sweet mother rocked and rocked." 
 
 CANTO V 
 
 \ S when first blossoms feel first bees, 
 ^"*- As when the squirrel hoists full sail 
 And leaps his world of maple trees 
 And quirks his saucy, tossy tail; 
 As when Vermont s tall sugar trees 
 First feel sweet sap, then don their leaves 
 In haste a million Mother Eves; 
 As when strange winds stir strong-built ships 
 Long ice-bound fast in Arctic seas, 
 So she, the strong, full woman now, 
 Felt new life thrilling breast and brow 
 And tingled to her finger tips. 
 Her limbs pushed out, outreached her head 
 As if to say she nothing said. 
 But something of the tender light 
 That lit her girl face that first night, 
 The time she pulling poppies sat 
 The sod and saw the golden sheep 
 Safe housed within the hollowed deep, 
 Was hers; and how she blushed thereat! 
 Yet blushing so, still silent sat. 
 116 
 
LIGHT 
 
 She would forget his weakness, yet 
 
 Try as she would, could not forget. 
 
 He knew her thought. She raised her head 
 
 And searched his soul, and searching said: 
 
 "He who would save the world must stand 
 
 Hard by the world with steel-mailed hand 
 
 And save by smiting hip and thigh. 
 
 The world needs truth, tall truth and grand, 
 
 And keen sword-cuts that thrust to kill. 
 
 The man who climbed the windy hill 
 
 To talk, is talking, climbing still, 
 
 And could not help or hurt a fly. 
 
 The stoutest swimmer and most wise 
 
 Swims somewhat with the sweeping stream, 
 
 Yet leads, leads unseen as a dream. 
 
 The strong fool breasts the flood and dies, 
 
 The weak fool turns his back and flies." 
 
 in 
 
 He did not answer, could not dare 
 Lift his shamed eyes to her fair face, 
 But looked right, left, looked anywhere, 
 And mused, mused mutely out of place: 
 "If yonder creedists may not teach, 
 For all their books, and bravely preach 
 117 
 
LIGHT 
 
 That here, right here, the womb of night 
 Gave us God s first-born, holy Light, 
 Why, pity, nor yet blame them quite; 
 Because they know not, cannot read, 
 Save as commanded by some creed. 
 What eons they may have to wait 
 Within their wall, without the gate, 
 Nor once dare lift their eyes to look 
 Beyond their blinding creed and book, 
 We know not, but we surely know 
 Yon lava-lifted, star-tipt height 
 Is bannered still by that first Light. 
 We know this phosphorescent glow, 
 At every dip of dripping oar, 
 Is but lost bits of Light below, 
 Where moves God s spirit as of yore. 
 Aye, here, right here, from out the night, 
 God spake and said: "Let there be light!" 
 
 IV 
 
 "And dare ask doubting, creed-made men 
 Why we so surely know and how? 
 Why here the waters/ now as then? 
 Why here the waters, then as now? 
 We know because we read, yet read 
 So little that we much must heed. 
 We read: God s spirit moved upon 
 118 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The waters ere that burst of dawn. 
 What waters? Why, The Waters, these, 
 These soundless, silent, sundown seas. 
 
 v 
 
 "The morning of the world was here, 
 Twas here He made dry land appear, 
 Here Darkness lay upon the deep. 
 What deep? This deep, the deepest deep 
 That ever rolled beneath the sun 
 When night and day were then as one 
 And dreamless day lay fast asleep, 
 Rocked in this cradle of the deep." 
 
 VI 
 
 She would not, could not be denied 
 Her thought, her theme but turned once more, 
 As turns the all-devouring tide 
 Against a stubborn unclean shore, 
 With lifted face and soul aflame, 
 And spake as speaking in God s name 
 With face raised to the living God: 
 " Hear me! How pitiful the plea 
 Of men who plead their temperance, 
 Of men who know not one first sense 
 Of self-control, yet, fire-shod, 
 Storm forth and rage intemperately 
 119 
 
LIGHT 
 
 At sins that are but as a breath, 
 Compared with their low lives of death! 
 
 VII 
 
 "And oh, for prophet s tongue or pen 
 To scourge, not only, and accuse 
 The childless mother, but such men 
 As know their loves but to abuse! 
 Give me the brave, child-loving Jew, 
 The full-sexed Jew of either sex, 
 Who loves, brings forth and nothing recks 
 Of care or cost, as Christians do 
 Dulled souls who will not hear or see 
 How Christ once raised his lowly head 
 And, all rebuking, gently said, 
 The while he took them tenderly, 
 Let little ones come unto me. 
 
 VIII 
 
 "The true Jew lover keeps the Way. 
 For clean, serene, and contrite heart 
 The bride and bridegroom kneel apart 
 Before the bridal bed and pray. 
 
 IX 
 
 "Behold how great the bride s estate! 
 Behold how holy, pure the thought 
 That high Jehovah welcomes her 
 120 
 
LIGHT 
 
 In partnership, to coin, create 
 
 The fairest form He yet has wrought 
 
 Since Adam s clay knew breath and stir: 
 
 To glory in her daughters, sons; 
 
 To be God s tabernacle, tent, 
 
 The keeper of the covenant, 
 
 The mother of His little ones! 
 
 "Go forth among this homeless race, 
 This landless race that knows no place 
 Or name or nation quite its own, 
 And see their happy babes at play, 
 Or palace, Ghetto, rich or poor, 
 As thick as birds about the door 
 At morn, some sunny Vermont May, 
 Then think of Christ and these alone. 
 Yet ye deride, ye jeer, ye jibe, 
 To see their plenteous babes; ye say 
 Behold the Jew and all his tribe! 
 
 XI 
 
 "Yet Solomon upon his throne 
 
 Was not more kingly crowned than they 
 
 These Jews, these jeered Jews of to-day - 
 
 More surely born to lord, to lead, 
 
 To sow the land with Abram s seed; 
 
 121 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Because their babes are healthful born 
 And welcomed as the welcome morn. 
 
 XII 
 
 "Hear me this prophecy and heed! 
 
 Except we cleanse us, kirk and creed, 
 
 Except we wash us, word and deed, 
 
 The Jew shall rule us, reign the Jew. 
 
 And just because the Jew is true, 
 
 Is true to nature, true to truth, 
 
 Is clean, is chaste, as trustful Ruth 
 
 Who stood amid the alien corn 
 
 In tears that far, dim, doubtful morn 
 
 Who bore us David, Solomon 
 
 The Babe, that far, first Christmas dawn. 
 
 XIII 
 
 " You shrink, are angered at my speech? 
 You dare avert your doubtful face 
 Because I name this chaste, strange race? 
 So be it then; there lies the beach, 
 And up the beach the ways divide. 
 I would not leave the truth untold 
 To win the whole world to my side, 
 Nor would I spare your selfish pride, 
 Your carnal coarseness, lustful lie, 
 For that would be to let you die. 
 122 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Come! yonder lifts the clear, white Light 
 For seamen, souls sea-tost at night. 
 
 XIV 
 
 " I see the spiked Agave s plume, 
 
 The pepsin s plum, acacia s bloom 
 
 Far up beyond tall cocoa trees, 
 
 Tall tamarind and mango brown, 
 
 That gird the pretty, peaceful town. 
 
 That lane leads up, the church looks down - 
 
 There lie the ways, now which of these? 
 
 Bear with me, I must dare be true. 
 
 The nation, aye, the Christian race, 
 
 Now fronts its stern Sphynx, face to face, 
 
 And I must say, say here to you, 
 
 What e er the cost of love, of fame, 
 
 The Christian is a thing of shame 
 
 Must say because you prove it true, 
 
 The better Christian is the Jew. 
 
 xv 
 
 " I know you scorn the narrow deeds 
 Of men who make their god of creeds 
 Yon men as narrow as the miles 
 That bank their rare, sweet flower-fed isles, 
 But come, my Lost Star, come with me 
 To yon fond church, high-built and fair, 
 123 
 
LIGHT 
 
 For God is there, as everywhere, 
 Or Arctic snow or argent sea." 
 
 XVI 
 
 He looked far up the mango lane 
 Below the wide-boughed banyan tree; 
 He looked to her, then looked again, 
 As one who tries yet could not see 
 But one steep, narrow, upward way: 
 " You said two ways, here seems but one, 
 Or set of moon or rise of sun, 
 But one way to the perfect day, 
 And I will go. And you must stay?" 
 She looked far up the steep of stone 
 And said: "Aye, go, but not alone." 
 
 XVII 
 
 The boat s prow pushed the cocoa shore, 
 The man spake not, but, leaning o er, 
 Strong-armed, he drew her to his side 
 And was not anywise denied. 
 He pointed to the failing fire, 
 That still tipt lava peak and spire, 
 While stars pinned round the robe of night; 
 Twas here God said, "Let there be Light!" 
 
 124 
 
LIGHT 
 XVJII 
 
 A little church, a lava wall, 
 
 A soft light looking gently down, 
 
 The Light of Christ, the second light, 
 
 Where two as one passed up the town. 
 
 She gave her hand, she gave her all, 
 
 And said, as such brave women might, 
 
 With ample right, in hallowed cause: 
 
 "As it in the beginning was, 
 
 So let the man-child be full born 
 
 Of Love, of Light, the Light of Morn ! 
 
 125 
 
BOOK FOURTH 
 
CANTO I 
 
 i 
 
 AND which of all Hawaii s isles 
 -*** Of sandal wood and singing wilds 
 Received and housed this maiden rare- 
 This bravest, best, since Eve s despair? 
 It matters not; enough to know 
 Night-blooming trumpets ever blow 
 Love s tuneful banner to the breeze 
 In chorus with the ardent seas; 
 That Juno walks her mountain wall 
 In peacock plumes the whole year through. 
 You hear her gaudy lover call 
 From dawn till dusk, then see them fall 
 From out the clouds far, far below, 
 And droop and drift slow to and fro 
 Dusk rainbows blending with the dew. 
 
 129 
 
LIGHT 
 
 II 
 
 And had he won her? He had wed, 
 But now it was that he most woo, 
 Must keep alone his widowed bed 
 Or sit and woo the whole night through. 
 He plead. He could not touch her hand; 
 Her eyes held anger and command 
 And memories of a trustful time 
 He would have made her muck and slime. 
 
 in 
 
 He plead his perfect life, still plead; 
 But spurning him she mocking said : 
 "You would have trailed me in the dust 
 In very drunkenness of lust 
 And now you dare to meekly plead 
 Your love of Light, your studious youth, 
 Your strenuous toil, your quest of truth, 
 Your perfect life! Indeed! Indeed! 
 
 IV 
 
 " Behold the pale, wan, outworn wife 
 Of him who pleads his perfect life! 
 Her step is slow, she waits for death; 
 Hear, hear her wan babe s hollow cry! 
 He scarce can cry above a breath. 
 Poor babe ! begotten but to die, 
 130 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Or, harder fate, live feebly on, 
 The shame of mother, curse of state 
 Half-witted, worthless, jest of fate. 
 
 "Behold God s image, fashioned tall 
 As heaven, stooping down to crawl 
 Upon his belly as a snake, 
 Ere yet his sense is well awake, 
 Ere yet his force has come, ere yet 
 The child-wife knows but to regret. 
 And lo! the greatest is the least; 
 For man lies lower than the beast. 
 
 VI 
 
 "Such pity that sweet love should lie 
 
 Prone, strangled in its bed of shame, 
 
 And no man dare to publish why! 
 
 Such pity that in slain Love s name 
 
 The weak bring forth the weaker, bring 
 
 The leper, idiot, anything 
 
 That lawless passion can beget! 
 
 Sweet pity, pity for them all 
 
 The child that cries, child-wife that dies, 
 
 The weakling that may linger yet 
 
 A feeble day to feebly fall - 
 
 As food for sword or cannon ball, 
 
LIGHT 
 
 For prison wall or charity 
 
 Or fruit of gruesome gallows tree! 
 
 VII 
 
 " But pity most poor man, blind man, 
 Whose passions stoop him to a span. 
 Why, man, each well-born man was born 
 To dwell in everlasting morn, 
 To top the mountain as a tower, 
 A thousand years of pride and power; 
 To face the four winds with the face 
 Of youth until full length he lies 
 Still God-like, even as he dies. 
 
 VIII 
 
 "Could I but teach lorn man to live, 
 But teach low man to truly love, 
 Could I but teach blind man to see, 
 How gladly he would turn to me 
 And give great thanks, and ever give 
 Glad heed, as to some soft-voiced dove. 
 
 IX 
 
 "The burning cities of the plain, 
 The high-built harlot, Babylon, 
 The bannered mur ls of Rome undone, 
 That rose again and fell again 
 To ashes and to heaps of dust, 
 132 
 
LIGHT 
 
 All died because man lived in vain; 
 Because man sold his soul to lust. 
 
 x 
 
 "And count what crimes have come of it! 
 
 I say all sins, or said or writ, 
 
 Lie gathered here in this dark pit 
 
 Of man s licentious, mad desire, 
 
 Where woman s form is ruthless thrown, 
 
 As on some sacrificial stone, 
 
 And burned as in a living fire, 
 
 To leave but ashes, rue, and ire. 
 
 XI 
 
 "Aye, even crimes as yet unnamed 
 Are born of man s degrading lust. 
 The wildest beast man ever tamed, 
 Or ever yet has come to know 
 The vilest beast would feel disgust 
 Could it but know how low, how low 
 God s image sinks in muck and slime, 
 In crimes so deeper than all crime, 
 In slime that hath not yet a name, 
 And yet man knows no whit of shame! 
 
 XII 
 
 "Poor, weak, mad man, so halt, so blind! 
 Poor, weak, mad man that must carouse 
 133 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And prostitute what he should house 
 And husband for his coming kind! 
 Behold the dumb beasts at glad morn, 
 Clean beasts that hold them well in hand! 
 How nobler thus to lord the land, 
 How nobler thus to love your race, 
 To house its health and strength and grace, 
 Than rob the races yet unborn 
 And build new Babylons to scorn! 
 
 XIII 
 
 " I say that each man has a right, 
 The right the beast has to be born 
 Full-flowered, beauteous, free and fair 
 As wide-winged bird that rides the air; 
 Not as a babe that cries all night, 
 Cries, cries in darkness for such Light 
 As man should give it at its birth. 
 I say that poor babe has a right, 
 The right, at least, of each wild beast 
 Aye, red babe, black, white, west or east, 
 To rise at birth and lord the earth, 
 Strong-limbed, long-limbed, robust and free 
 As supple beast or towering tree. 
 
 134 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XIV 
 
 "God s pity for the breasts that bear 
 
 A little babe, then banish it 
 
 To stranger hands, to alien care, 
 
 To live or die as chance sees fit. 
 
 Poor, helpless hands, reached anywhere, 
 
 As God gave them to reach and reach, 
 
 With only helplessness in each! 
 
 Poor little hands, pushed here, pushed there, 
 
 And all night long for mother s breast: 
 
 Poor, restless hands that will not rest 
 
 And gather strength to reach out strong 
 
 To mother in the rosy morn! 
 
 Nay, nay, they gather scorn for scorn 
 
 And hate for hate the lorn night long 
 
 Poor, dying babe! to reach about 
 
 In blackness, as a thing cast out! 
 
 xv 
 
 "God s pity for the thing of lust 
 Who bears a frail babe to be thrust 
 Forth from her arms to alien thrall, 
 As shutting out the light of day, 
 As shutting off God s very breath! 
 But thrice God s pity, let us pray, 
 For her who bears no babe at all, 
 135 
 
LIGHT 
 
 But, grinning, leads the dance of death. 
 That sexless, steel-braced breast of bone 
 Is like to some assassin cell, 
 A whited sepulcher of stone, 
 A graveyard at the gates of hell, 
 A mart where motherhood is sold, 
 A house of murders manifold!" 
 
 CANTO II 
 
 i 
 
 TTE heard; he could but bow his head 
 
 * In silence, penitence, and shame, 
 
 Confess the truth of all she said 
 
 Of crimes committed in Love s name, 
 
 Nor beg the sacred seal of red 
 
 To marriage bond and marriage bed. 
 
 And that was all, aye, that was all 
 For days, for days that seemed as years. 
 He still must woo, put by her fears, 
 Make her his friend, let what befall; 
 Bide her sweet will and, loving, bide 
 Meek dalliance with his maiden bride. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 III 
 
 One night in May, such soulful night 
 Of cherry blossoms, birds, such birds 
 As burst with song, that sing outright 
 Because so glad they cannot keep 
 Their song, but sing out in their sleep! 
 Such noisy night, a cricket s night, 
 A night of Katydids, of dogs 
 That bayed and bayed the vast, full moon 
 In chorus with glad, tuneful frogs 
 With May s head in the lap of June. 
 How hot, how sultry hot the room! 
 Their garden tree in perfect bloom 
 Gave out fair Nippon s full perfume 
 The night grew warm and very warm, 
 And warm her warm, full-bosomed form! 
 
 IV 
 
 How vital, virile, strong with life, 
 The world without, the maiden wife! 
 How wondrous fair the world, how fair 
 The maid meshed in her mighty hair! 
 The man uprose, caught close a skin, 
 A lion s skin, threw this about 
 His great, Herculean, pent-up form, 
 Thrust feet into his slippered shoes, 
 37 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Then, with a lion s force and frown 
 He strode the wide room up and down, 
 The skin s claws flapping at his thews. 
 He turned, he caught her suddenly 
 And instant wrapped her close within; 
 Then down the stairs and back and out 
 Beneath the blossomed Nippon tree 
 Against the tree he pressed her form, 
 He was so warm, so very warm 
 He held her close as close could be 
 Against the blossomed cherry tree. 
 
 v 
 
 He held with all his might and main 
 Held her so hard he shook the tree, 
 Because he trembled mightily 
 And shook in his hard, happy pain 
 Because he quivered as a pine 
 When tropic storm sweeps up the line, 
 As when some swift horse, harnessed low, 
 Frets hard and bites the bit to go. 
 She laughed such low, sweet laugh, and said, 
 The while she raised her pretty head, 
 "Please, please, be gentle good to me, 
 And please don t hurt the cherry tree." 
 
LIGHT 
 
 VI 
 
 The warm land lay as in a swoon, 
 Full length, the happy lap of June 
 A fair bride fainting with delight 
 And fond forgetfulness with night. 
 How warm the world was and how wise 
 The world is in its love of life, 
 Its hate of harshness, hate of strife, 
 Its love of Eden, peace that lies 
 In love-set, leaf-sown Paradise! 
 
 VII 
 
 How generous, how good is night 
 To give its length to man s delight 
 To give its strength from dusk till morn 
 To push the planted yellow corn! 
 How warm this garden was, how warm 
 With life, with love in any form ! 
 Two lowly crickets, clad in black, 
 Came shyly forth, shrank sudden back 
 Then chirped in chorus, side by side; 
 And oh, their narrow world was wide 
 As oceans, light their hearts as air, 
 And oh, their little world was fair, 
 And oh, their little world was warm 
 Because each had a lover there, 
 Because they loved and didn t care. 
 139 
 
LIGHT 
 
 VIII 
 
 How languid all things with delight, 
 With sensuous longings, sweet desire 
 That burned as with immortal fire, 
 Immortal love that burns to live 
 And, lives to burn, to take, to give, 
 Create, bring forth, and loving share 
 With God the fruitage, flesh or flower - 
 Just loving, loving, bud or bower, 
 Or bee or birdling, small or great, 
 Just loving, loving to create, 
 With just one caution, just one care 
 That all creation shall be fair. 
 
 IX 
 
 The very garden wall was warm 
 With gorgeous sunshine gone away; 
 Each vine, with eager, reaching arm, 
 Clung amorous, tiptoed to kiss, 
 With eager lips, the ardent clay 
 That held her to its breast of bliss. 
 
 x 
 
 Blown cherry blossoms basking lay, 
 A perfect pathway of perfume; 
 The tiger lily scarce had room 
 For roses bending in a storm 
 140 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Of laden sweetness more than sweet. 
 The moon leaned o er the garden wall, 
 Then, smiling, tiptoed up her way, 
 The while she let one full beam fall, 
 Love-laden in the sensuous heat, 
 So sweet, so warm, so still withal, 
 Love heard pink cherry blossoms fall. 
 
 XI 
 
 A Katydid laid his green thigh 
 
 Against another leaf-green form 
 
 And so began to sing and sigh, 
 
 As if it were his time to die 
 
 From stress and strain of passion s storm 
 
 He, too, was warm and very warm. 
 
 XII 
 
 A tasseled hammock, silken red, 
 Swung, hung hard by, and foot and head, 
 A blossom-laden cherry tree. 
 This famed tree of the Japanese, 
 Whatever other trees may be, 
 Is held most sacred of all trees: 
 Not quite because of its perfume, 
 Not all because of rich pink bloom, 
 But much because its blossomed boughs 
 Not only list to lover s vows, 
 141 
 
LIGHT 
 
 But true to lovers, ever true, 
 
 Refuse to let one moonbeam through. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Here, close beneath this Nippon tree, 
 
 The sweetest tree this side Cathay, 
 
 The lover s tree of mystery, 
 
 Where not a thread of moonlight lay, 
 
 While waves of moonlight laughed and played 
 
 At hide and seek the other way, 
 
 He threw her, full length, from his arm; 
 
 Full length, then raised her drooping head, 
 
 Threw back the skin and, blushing red, 
 
 He sought to say He nothing said! 
 
 He nothing did but blush and blush 
 
 And feel his hot blood rush and rush 
 
 The very hammock s fringe was warm 
 
 The while he leaned low from his place 
 
 And felt her warm breath in his face. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Then, all abashed, he trembled so 
 He clutched the hammock hard and fast, 
 He held so hard it came, at last, 
 To swing, to swing fast to and fro. 
 Such awkwardness! He clutched, let go, 
 Then clutched so hard he shook each tree 
 142 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Till perfumed silence came to see 
 Till fragrance fell upon her hair, 
 Such hair, a storm of pink and snow. 
 How fair, how fair, how sensuous fair, 
 Half hidden in a pink snow-storm; 
 And yet how warm, how more than warm! 
 
 xv 
 
 How shamed he was! His great heart beat 
 As beats some signal for retreat. 
 This stupid, bravest of brave men, 
 Confused, dismayed, hung down his head, 
 Then turned and helplessly had fled, 
 Had she not reached a timid hand 
 And, half as pleading, half command 
 And half-way laughing, shyly said, 
 From out her snood of snow and rain, 
 "Please shake the Nippon trees again!" 
 
 XVI 
 
 He shook the trees; a fragrant shower 
 On laughing face and loosened hair 
 A flash of perfume and of flower 
 Oh, she was fair and very fair! 
 Then with a sudden strength he plucked 
 His red-ripe cherry from the tree, 
 Wound round the skin and loosely tucked 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The folds about her modestly, 
 
 Then on and up with giant stride 
 
 He bore his blushing maiden bride, 
 
 So cherry ripe, so cherry red, 
 
 And laid her in her bridal bed 
 
 Laid perfumed bride, laid flesh and flower, 
 
 Half drowning from the fragrant shower. 
 
 What snows strewn in her ample hair, 
 
 What low, light laughter everywhere, 
 
 Or cherry tree, or step or stair! 
 
 Just low, soft laughter, cherry bloom, 
 
 Just love and love s unnamed perfume. 
 
 XVII 
 
 He tossed the lion s skin aside, 
 With folded arms leaned o er his bride, 
 Turned low the light, then stood full length, 
 Then strode in all his supple strength 
 The room a time, tossed back his hair, 
 Then to his bride, swift bent to her, 
 And kneeled, as lowliest worshiper. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 And then he threw him by her side, 
 His long, strong limbs thrown out full length, 
 His two fists full of housed-up strength. 
 What pride, what manly, kingly pride 
 144 
 
LIGHT 
 
 That he had conquered, bravely slain 
 His baser self, was self again! 
 
 XIX 
 
 He held a hand, exceeding small, 
 
 He breathed her perfume, threw her hair 
 
 Across her breast with such sweet care 
 
 He scarce did touch her form at all. 
 
 Again he rose, strode to and fro, 
 
 Came back and turned the light quite low. 
 
 xx 
 
 He bowed his face close to her feet; 
 Now he would rise, then would not rise; 
 He bent, blushed to his very eyes, 
 Then sudden pushed aside the sheet 
 And kissed her pink and pearly toes. 
 Their perfume was the perfect rose 
 When perfect summer, passion, heat, 
 Points both hands of the clock straight up, 
 As when we lift and drain the cup, 
 As when we lift two hands and pray 
 When we have lived our bravest day, 
 The horologe of life may stop 
 With both hands pointing to the top. 
 
LIGHT 
 XXI 
 
 Then suddenly, in strength and pride, 
 
 Full length he threw him at her side 
 
 And caught again her timid hand, 
 
 A bird that had escaped his snare. 
 
 He caught it hard, he held it there, 
 
 He begged her pardon, begged and prayed 
 
 She would forgive him, then he laid 
 
 His face to her face and the land 
 
 Was like a fairy land. They lay 
 
 As children well outworn at play. 
 
 XXII 
 
 As children bounding from their bed, 
 So rested, radiant, satisfied 
 With self and selfishness denied, 
 Life seemed some merry roundelay. 
 They laughed with early morn, they led, 
 So full of soul, of strength were they, 
 The laughing dance of love all day. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 All day? A month of days, and each 
 A song, a sermon, but to teach, 
 A holy book to teach the truth 
 Of endless, laughing, joyous youth. 
 He stood so tall, he stood so strong 
 146 
 
LIGHT 
 
 As one who holds the keys yet keeps 
 His treasure housed in shining heaps, 
 Until all life was as a song. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 At last, one warmest morning, she 
 Held close his hand, held hard the door, 
 Would scarce let go, said o er and o er, 
 "Good-by! Come early back to me!" 
 And then, close up beside, as one 
 Might eager seek some stout oak tree 
 When storm is sudden threatened, she 
 Put up her pretty, pouting mouth, 
 Half closed her laughing, saucy eyes 
 Such lips, such roses from the south, 
 The warm, south side of Paradise! 
 
 XXV 
 
 "Good-by! Come early back to me!" 
 Why, he heard nothing else all day, 
 Saw nothing else, knew naught but this, 
 Their fond, fond, first full-flowered kiss, 
 Wherein she led the rosy way, 
 As is her right, as it should be. 
 He looked his watch hard in its face 
 A hundred times, he blushed, he smiled, 
 Did leave his friends and lightly pace 
 147 
 
LIGHT 
 
 The street, half laughing, as a child. 
 A million kisses! He d had one 
 Scant one, his joy had just begun! 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Come early? He was at the gate 
 And through the door ere yet the day 
 Had kneeled down in the west to pray 
 Its vesper prayer, all brimming o er 
 And blushing that he could not wait 
 To kiss her just once more, once more; 
 Take breath then kiss her o er and o er. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 By some sweet chance he found her there, 
 Close fenced against the winding stair, 
 With no escape, behind, before. 
 She put her lips up as to plead 
 She might be spared a little space; 
 But there was mischief in her face, 
 A world of frolic and of fun, 
 And he could run as he could read, 
 Aye, he could read as he could run. 
 And then she pushed her full lips out: 
 "You are so strong, you hold so fast! 
 You know I tried to guard the door." 
 And then she frowned, began to pout 
 
 148 
 
LIGHT 
 
 And sighed, "Dear, dear, tis not well done! 
 And then he caught her close, and then 
 He kissed her, once, twice, thrice again. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Then days and many days of this 
 Ah! man, make merry and carouse 
 Upon your way, within your house, 
 Hold right there in your manly hand, 
 Your happy maid who waits your kiss; 
 Carouse on kisses and carouse 
 In soul, the livelong, thronging day 
 When duty tears you well away, 
 To know what waits you at the gate, 
 And waiting loves and loves to wait. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 And how to kiss? A thousand ways, 
 And each way new and each way true, 
 And each way true and each way new 
 Each day for thrice ten thousand days. 
 
 XXX 
 
 How loyal he who loves, how grand! 
 He does not tell her overmuch, 
 He does not sigh or seek to touch 
 Her garments s hem or lily hand; 
 149 
 
LIGHT 
 
 She is his soul, his life, his light, 
 His saint by day, his shrine by night. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 True love leads home his maiden bride 
 Low- voiced and tender, soft and true: 
 He leans to her, to woo, to woo, 
 As if she still turned and denied 
 No selfish touch, no sated kiss 
 To kill and dig the grave of bliss. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 True love will hold his maiden bride 
 As nobles hold inheritance; 
 He will not part with one small pence 
 Of her fair strength and stately pride, 
 But wait serenely at her side, 
 Supremely proud, full satisfied. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Why, what a glorious thing to view! 
 Each morn a maiden at your side, 
 The one fair woman, maid and bride, 
 With all her sweetness waiting you! 
 How wise the miser, more than wise, 
 Who knows to count and keep such prize! 
 150 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 How glad the coming home of him 
 Who knows a maiden waits and waits, 
 All pulsing, still, within his gates, 
 To kiss his goblet s golden brim; 
 How joyous still to woo and woo, 
 To read the old new story through! 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Ah me, behold what heritage! 
 What light by which to walk, to live 
 This age when lights resplendent burn, 
 This glorious, shining, new-born age, 
 When love can bravely give and give 
 And get thrice tenfold in return, 
 If man will only love and learn! 
 
 xxxvi 
 
 And now soft colors through the house 
 Began to surely bud and bloom; 
 The wise, the fair, far-seeing spouse 
 Began to deck the bridal room; 
 Began to build, as builds a bird, 
 When first footfalls of spring are heard. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Some warm-toned colors on the wall, 
 Then gorgeous, grass-like carpetings 
 
LIGHT 
 
 Strown, sown with lily, pink and all 
 That nature in sweet springtime brings; 
 Then curtains from the Orient, 
 The silken couch, soft as a kiss, 
 The music born of love and blent 
 But rarely with such loves as this; 
 Mute music, where not hand of man 
 Or foot of man is seen or heard, 
 Such soft, sweet sound as only can 
 In happy blossom time he heard 
 Be heard from happy, nested bird. 
 
 xxxvm 
 
 And now full twelve o clock, the noon 
 Of faithful, trustful, wedded love, 
 The two hands pointing straight above, 
 This vast midnight, this argent June! 
 Their noon was midnight and the moon 
 Came through the silken sheen and laid 
 A sword of silver at her side. 
 And peace, sweet, perfect peace was hers, 
 As when nor bird nor blossom stirs, 
 And she was now no more afraid; 
 The moon surrendered to the maid, 
 Drew back and softly turned aside, 
 As bridesmaid turning from the bride. 
 
 152 
 
LIGHT 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 All voiceless, noiseless, tenderly 
 He pressed beside her, took her hand 
 He took her from the leaning moon, 
 And far beyond the amber sea, 
 They sailed the seas of afternoon 
 The far, still seas, so grandly grand, 
 Until they came to babyland. 
 
 SIT LUX. 
 
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 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. I 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
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 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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