Song-Surf Part 5

The South Wind is a Troubadour; The Spring 's his serenade.

Over the mountain, over the moor, He blows to bloom from the winter's tomb Blossom and leaf and blade.

He ripples the throat Of the lark with a note Of lilting love and bliss, And the sun and the moon, the night and the noon, Are a-swoon-- When he woos them with his kiss.

TRANSCENDED

I who was learned in death's lore Oft held her to my heart And spoke of days when we should love no more-- In the long dust, apart.

"Immortal?" No--it could not be, Spirit with flesh must die.

Tho' heart should pray and hope make endless plea, Reason would still outcry.

She died. They wrapped her in the dust-- I heard the dull clod's dole, And then I knew she lived--that death's dark l.u.s.t Could never touch her soul!

LOVE'S WAY TO CHILDHOOD

We are not lovers, you and I, Upon this sunny lane, But children who have never known Love's joy or pain.

The trees we pa.s.s, the summer brook, The bird that o'er us darts-- We do not know 'tis they that thrill Our childish hearts.

The earth-things have no name for us, The ploughing means no more Than that they like to walk the fields Who plough them o'er.

The road, the wood, the heaven, the hills Are not a World to-day-- But just a place G.o.d's made for us In which to play.

AUTUMN

I know her not by fallen leaves Or resting heaps of hay; Or by the sheathing mists of mauve That soothe the fiery day.

I know her not by plumping nuts, By redded hips and haws, Or by the silence hanging sad Under the wind's sere pause.

But by her sighs I know her well-- They are like Sorrow's breath; And by this longing, strangely still, For something after death.

s.h.i.+NTO

(MIYAJIMA, j.a.pAN, 1905)

Lowly temple and torii, Shrine where the spirits of wind and wave Find the wors.h.i.+p and glory we Give to the one G.o.d great and grave--

Lowly temple and torii, Shrine of the dead, I hang my prayer Here on your gates--the story see And answer out of the earth and air.

For I am Nature's child, and you Were by the children of Nature built.

Ages have on you smiled--and dew On you for ages has been spilt--

Till you are beautiful as Time Mossy and mellowing ever makes: Wrapped as you are in lull--or rhyme Of sounding drum that sudden breaks.

This is my prayer then, this: that I Too may reverence all of life, Lose no power and miss no high Awe, of a world with wonder rife!

That I may build in spirit fair Temples and torii on each place That I have loved--Oh, hear it, Air, Ocean and Earth, and grant your grace!

MAYA

(HIROs.h.i.+MA, j.a.pAN, 1905)

Pale sampans up the river glide, With set sails vanis.h.i.+ng and slow; In the blue west the mountains hide, As visions that too soon will go.

Across the rice-lands, flooded deep, The peasant peacefully wades on-- As, in unfurrowed vales of sleep, A phantom out of voidness drawn.

Over the temple cawing flies The crow with carrion in his beak.

Buddha within lifts not his eyes In pity or reproval meek;

Nor, in the bamboos, where they bow A respite from the blinding sun, The old priest--dreaming painless how Nirvana's calm will come when won.

"All is illusion, _Maya_, all The world of will," the spent East seems Whispering in me; "and the call Of Life is but a call of dreams."

A j.a.pANESE MOTHER

(IN TIME OF WAR)

The young stork sleeps in the pine-tree tops, Down on the brink of the river.

My baby sleeps by the bamboo copse-- The bamboo copse where the rice field stops: The bamboos sigh and s.h.i.+ver.

The white fox creeps from his hole in the hill; I must pray to Inari.

I hear her calling me low and chill-- Low and chill when the wind is still At night and the skies hang starry.

And ever she says, "He's dead! he's dead!

Your lord who went to battle.

How shall your baby now be fed, Ukibo fed, with rice and bread-- What if I hush his prattle?"