M. El-
K.
When my parched lips upon thy princely brow,
Placid as tropic mead, as glacier cold,
Imprinted a last farewell, where wert thou—
Where didst thy soul its loveliness unfold?
Can’t be that in some undiscovered sphere
The Muses sing their souls to thine in bliss?
Can’t be that when I kiss thy forehead here
A thousand angels echo there my kiss?
What is this mask, where is the soul, O where.
And from these eyes, O God, where went the light?
My silence cries within me in despair,
My reason’s sinking in this sea of Night.
Esau, I am beside thee now alone,
I dare not weep, I dare not even breathe;
But through the stillness something hither blown
Makes of thine amber locks a golden wreath.
Life flutters in thy hair as in mine eyes;
Death can not choke the breeze that whispers there
A word of hope; beneath my breath will rise
A hair with God eternity to share
The noon and eve of Life thou didst not see,
But in its Dawn thou didst anticipate
What jealous Night would not permit to be,
What pain and suffering never could abate.
Shall I strew on thee faded blossoms, Brother,
Or fiery buds consumed by their own flame,
Or myrrh and myrtle from our Mountain-mother,
Or golden rods that whispered oft thy name?
Or, at the shrine of Liberty and Love,
Where thou didst worship ardently and die,
Shall I now join the gods come from above
With thy sweet songs this shrine to beautify?
Ye sapling-pines of star-kissed Lebanon,
Ye cedars laden with a wealth of years,
Send with the mist of dawn and the rising sun
Your garlands, and your incense, and your tears.
To Abu’l-Ala
In thy melancholy’s pensive Fancy
Wisdom rolled its beauteous stars and moons,
Just as in my riotings of pleasure
Thy lone midnights roll into my noons.
Abu’l-Ala, in thy glorious darkness
Didst thou not remember unborn me?
In thy journey to the farthest planets
Didst thou not a burdened shadow see?
Ay, behind the portals of Saturnus
Secretly the cup to thee I passed;
Long, long after this cup thou returnest
Filled with gems of fancy and recast.
In thy Prison a thousand Yamen weapons
Thou didst forge for the oppressed and weak:
In my attic a thousand Beauty roses
I pluck for thee from a Yankee cheek.
The Towers and the Night
Over the White Way’s flood of light,
Over its sea of fiery flowers,
Arose the voice of the ancient Night
And the youthful Towers:
“O Night of nations passed,” the Towers said,
“One day stood high your monuments, but now
Your highest pyramid must lift its head
To see the lights that crown our City’s brow.”
“But man,” replied the Night, “shall crown the stars
With flowers of thought divine,
And write his name upon a monument
Greater than yours and mine.”
The End and the Beginning
The deed is done, O Kings: the blood is shed:
The sword is broken:—broken, too, the Cross.
But she, the mother eternal of the dead,
Though sorrow-laden, smiles at the loss.
You go down grimed with the blood and smoke of wars;
Your armies scattered and your banners furled;
She comes down covered with the dust of stars,
And gives her life again to build the world.
The Cataclysm
Even through the City of the Dead she passed,
Her sack of Horror’s harvest to refill;
And lo, into the untilled world she cast,
With a million hands, the black seeds of her will.
But in the bone-strewn waste I saw a snail
Crawling out of the socket of a skull,
Exultant still:—
Rising from the universal bane
To thank the rain.
And in the thorny flanks of the river tomb,
Gorged yesteryear with the fruits of fear and doubt
The nations bear when their sinews run out,
I saw the crocus weave her tender bloom
Into the ivy’s tangled hair,
While struggling out of the gloom
To praise the air.
The Cataclysm, passing to her goal,
Turned inside out the pockets of the world,
Not sparing even the altar of the soul,
Which at the cradle of the soul she hurled.
But when at last she fell
Across the sill of hell,
I saw in her incalculable toll
A butterfly,
Winging out of the riddled emblem of God
Toward the sky;—
Rising with the Faith re-won
To serenade the sun.
Reflections
I walked along the countryside
At eventide,
And everywhere
The road was fair
With moons of water here and there,
Into whose heart the grasses spied.
And suddenly upon them shone
The light of the City’s eye,
Reflected from a bulb on high,
Which made them and their shadow one.
Nay, made each moon
A mirror seem
To serve the dream
Of tender blades in bending grace a-swoon.
I walked into the night,
And every abode
Beyond the dark, deserted road
Was a prattle of light.
And I thought of the Eye Unseen
Which sheds its charitable sheen,
Not on our goal,
But on the by-ways of the Soul.
The Song of Siva
’T is Night; all the Sirens are silent,
All the Vultures asleep;
And the horns of the Tempest are stirring
Under the Deep;
’T is Night; all the snow-burdened Mountains
Dream of the Sea,
And down in the Wadi the River
Is calling to me.
’T is Night; all the Caves of the Spirit
Shake with desire,
And the Orient Heaven ’s essaying
Its lances of fire;
They hear, in the stillness that covers
The land and the sea,
The River, in the heart of the Wadi,
Calling to me.
’T is night, but a night of great joyance,
A night of unrest;—
The night of the birth of the spirit
Of the East and the West;
And the Caves and the Mountains are dancing
On the Foam of the Sea,
For the River inundant is calling,
Calling to me.
The Fruits of Death
Said the folded Leaves upon the Heath
To the opening Leaves upon the Tree:
“Soon will the Warders of the Storm
Bring us to our Mother-Sea,
Even as they opened yesternight
Our prison doors of Destiny:
We envy not the Birds now nor the Dew;
To them we leave the Forest and to you.”
The infant Leaves thus made reply:
“But we rejoice that we are here;
We stand in the cerulean Gate
Of Life to crown the dying Year.
Him who emancipates we
