LIFE

As far as I’m concerned
You’re a player on a harp,
With hands that are brutal
And beautiful and sharp,

That never cease from playing

Though I cry to you for peace,
Nor even hear the sighing
Of my strings for your release.

Oh, tell me, when my being
By drifting dark is stayed,

Shall I still contain the tumult
Your fingers have made! [page 19]

ETERNAL MOMENT

Here through our little world of outward sense,
Moves a batik of bright objective things,
A figured curtain that forever swings
Before the dark abyss that beckons hence.
And, whirling in a mechanistic dance,

Are flying figures that some power flings
To rotate as they may to snarl of strings
Or the uncertain, faulty flutes of chance.
But just suppose that once, before the end,
Amid the blinding whirl we sudden find

Enfolding beauty and the answering mind,
The quivering lover and the blessèd friend—
Can we be sure that such a deathless kiss
Holds nothing from beyond the dark abyss! [page 20]

FOURTH DIMENSIONAL

This flimsy tent
On the dark forest’s edge
Faces such cold blue water,
And length of russet sedge.

Open to night

A tree holds out the rain,
Or melts in wavering shadow
Upon our roof again.

Within the tent,
All heaven for you and me:

From violent root to blossoming flower
The whole ecstatic tree.

Oh, as we lay
Deep in the stillness there
Knowing that we should sink

Out of all mortal air
Down into that sweet death,
I quite believed, you know,
That a fourth door might open
Or a torn fold would show

Trace of the long-lost passage—
And yet, it was not so! [page 21]

THROUGH STORM

How the snow beat on the window pane!
It had long ago frosted the windshield over,
Then marked the glass with the mark of a clover;
Slender, articulate, it would seem,
To the scything cleaner with dwarfish scream

That felled it each moment low.
An utterly unreal world of snow,
Like the crazy sky from which it sprang,
That suddenly swarmed with unreal armies
Crossing their swords in a soundless clang.

We, in a weather beaten car,
Lurched through the vast portentous night:
You said: ‘Darling, are you all right?’
I answered: ‘How can you see to drive!’
You opened your window, the storm roared in,

You, half in the storm and half inside,
Ploughing, ploughing over the drifts,
In and out of the blustering rifts,
Twisting the wheel while answering power
Gave being to yet another mile.

Danger, unreality, beauty,
Remoteness and solitude shutting us down,
Sudden nearness, all enfolding,
Brittle machinery, a far-off town.
And like a ship on a sea of wonder

Waiting for some precise command,
In conscious reply I felt your hand,
Cool and sure as a hand of steel
Laid on mine for a lightning instant,
Raised for one moment from the wheel. [page 22]

LOST GARDEN

So many evenings, on the red-tiled terrace,
We used to sit and plan to make a pool
Under the tall pine trees,
Just at their very feet,
In that soft hollow of the garden’s curve

Where sunlight seldom falls.

It is a place intended for a pool
Sunk deep within a basin of grey rock.
We’d grow no flowers there,
But let the pool take colour

From gorgeous vagabonds with flaming wings,
And emerald-waving boughs.

Perhaps we were not faithful to our trees;
We laid no water-shadows at their feet
In pledge of our delight . . .

And all the lovely place
Has vanished now into a city street—
Only these lines remain! [page 23]

APPLE TREE

It stands, as common as can be,
The ancient, wind-blown apple tree:
Segregate from its mortal kind
And robbed by every pirate wind:
Fruitless, by living valiantly,

And every spring a sight to see.

In summer to the passer by
Its crooked shade invites to lie
And picture joy, as it should be
Beneath the shade of a dark tree,

When two who love this world together
Are utterly content with weather.

But most I prize its happy state
When death has rendered it elate;
Bridal again with snow and frost,

Always alone but never lost
In glittering answer to the sky
This trancèd soul declines to die. [page 24]

NEARING QUEBEC

Grey line of ocean that our sharp bow severs,
Do remember those tiny dipping sails
Venturing the unknown!
Then the free wind was an uncertain guide,
Criss-crossing the grey line,

Breaking the problematic course,
Enlarging, moving, changing
Opening the vast abyss.
Remember the huddled women
In question of this mystery,

The climbing, peering men,
The strain of tense expectancy,
And the doubt of arrival.

But the trembling line is controlled,
And the wayward guide dismissed.

What is the wind to us,
A beaten and frustrate force!
Did it once intimidate men,
Who used to measure and peer
At navies of storm in the sky?

First-rate machinery casts out fear,
And now we know what we know!
London, New York, it is all the same,
The ocean track is clear and tame,
We shall without doubt arrive.

Yet I return to you,
As though to a new land,
A woman on a sailing ship
Still huddled in a mystery.
Shall I touch your shores,

Past all these shimmering capes, [page 25]
Prefacing cliffs and legends,
Witch-music, song of sirens,
Hymns of safety and the rest?
I mean your actual shores;

Earth of your very being,
The innermost of you:
The straight cliffs of your mind,
The mountains of your will,
The secret passes,

The deep and lovely fountains of your joy.
Are you to be my country,
My fathomless resource,
And my enduring song?
I, too, sail trembling

Into the unknown. [page 26]

DANCER AND THE DUST

Siva—Lord of Dancers:
Creates a universe:
Preserves, sustains it:
Destroys all worlds:
Reincarnates them through Illusion

Draws all to him—
The Perpetual Dancer.

He throws a crystal ball
And it is lost among the tinted smoke—
A world destroyed!
When he builds up again . . .
That is a striking curtain,

Blue as the deepest sky.
See the great Wheel,
The cosmic wheel of life
Rising from out the smoke!

Smoke through this trap-door
Full of choking motes.
One-and-two, one-and-two,
Ah, my left leg’s cramping!

One-and-two, one-and-two,
What a dust I’m raising! [page 27]
I can scarcely see the crystal,
Almost missed the trick then,
Felt the curtain tremble.

Softly—softly—
Circle—narrow—narrow—
Will my leg last!
There’s the wheel behind me,
One-and-two, one-and-two,

I am almost stifled,
What a welcome curtain!

(Such a heavenly color)
Tossing worlds about,
Making, re-creating,
And at last returning
To the Wheel of Being. . .

Let us see the Programme:
               .   .   .   .   .   .
Siva, Lord of Dancers,
Creates a Universe,
Preserves, sustains it,
Destroys all worlds,

Reincarnates them through Illusion
Draws all to him—
The Perpetual Dancer.
               .   .   .   .   .   .
It’s a jolly good turn!
Better than most jugglers,

Siva, Lord of Dancers . . .
Do let us encore him! [page 28]

WINTER MORNING

I had to leave town at six in the morning,
A February morning, when dawn and darkness meet,
The taxi went fumbling
Through ruts of dusty ice-cakes,
A half-moon was loitering above the dark street.

Queer people walked through the green, green gloaming;
Old men and women, shivering as they went,
And young men peering,
Yawning, stumbling,
Shaking off gloomily a night that was spent.

I had breakfast in a creaking diner,
Breaking my fast in lonely state,
And read the news idly,
And watched the town fading,
And envied the people who get up late.

We had come to a dreary little station
When the paper in my hand was dyed into a sudden glow;
The dark sky lifted—
And there was morning,
Waving like a colored fan upon the fields of snow.

Soft unrealities, furtive and misty,
Drifted through a frost-fog, luminous and cold;
Blue flying shadows,
Clouds of vapour,
Tinted smoke floating from chimneys made of gold.

A sound might have shattered so delicate a country,
Slippery and glittering, built of painted ice, [page 29]
Woven of crystal grasses,
Formed of white fire,
And odds and ends of silver veils, fashioned to entice.

I saw a woodsman vanish into that country,
He waved his frozen arms in homage to the sun,
And standing on his bob-sleigh,
Slowly, mysteriously,
Went silent through the frost-fog, till the trees and he were one.

No one else was watching—no one else was watching,
They did not see a strange man enchanted by the trees;
They went on breakfasting,
Hurrying the waiter,
Dabbling in their fingerbowls—they think the world of these.

For it takes more than a sunrise
Most travelers to please;
And the hour of magic faded,
Like a dream on phantom seas. [page 30]

NEGRO CHURCH BAZAAR IN TORONTO

A wavering paper jungle
Hung from the chandelier
In violent greens and reds,
Outrageous colors that a hot sun sheds
Through jungle roofs in Africa.

And Africa was here,
Sitting behind bright-colored booths
Beneath the chandelier,
Crowned with a paper cap,
Selling piano lamps and bric-a-brac.

Porters and porters’ wives,
And elevator boys,
And young quadroons
With swaying hips and undulating grace,
Civilized children of a lawless race,

A race that only lately beat their drums
Against the jungle walls,
Done up in coats and shawls.

But this one, older than the rest,
Wore her gay cap with such a solemn zest

I felt the feathers quiver.
As the scratch orchestra played on
I watched the paper jungle
Move in the heated air
And undulate and part,

I heard the Congo voice of an old river
Calling up native drums that beat together,
And husky voices, throaty with emotion,
In ecstacy of song. [page 31]

I watched her grave, black face,

An ebbing passion, but a panther grace.
I saw her young again, and whole and free,
Meeting her lover by some lonely tree,
Drums dying down, and fires burning low,
And dances that initiates only know

And endless forest sleep.

Still the scratch orchestra played on,
From Swanee River to the latest tune—
Then from her booth we bought a bag of sweets
And straight emerged into the wintry streets. [page 32]

IMPRISONMENT

To one in the Tropics, who said to me of its beauty:
“Once I tried to escape!”

We talked of North and South,
Of officers and balls,
Of quasi-revolutionists, packed off to Spain,
And how, in all this winter nearly gone,
There had not been a single day of rain.

Her fading beauty mingled
With the palm trees rustling fronds,
And with hazy magic of the sea.
Then, as the gorgeous afternoon wore on,
She tinkled a small bell, made from a gourd,

And a fantastic Negro brought the tea.

Her garden on the beach
Is bordered by blue waves
That change and curl and turn in sun and foam.
‘Always a summer sea!’

She smiled, and languidly went on:
‘How you recall the ancient days at hoe
And things I long to know!’ . . .
‘They write me of persistent cold this year—
Heavens, that long, long cold!’

And thinking of the cold, she turned as though in fear,
To the warm, laughing sea.

Then in a night too luminous for sleeping,
Awake to far-off sound,
I heard soft waves, before the sudden dawning,

Go swishing, swishing, swishing,
Like whispering silk curtains
On doors far underground. [page 33]

There was a curious note within the ebb tide
That did not rise or fall,

Steady and unimpassioned as cool metal
It moved with a persistent gentle grating,
A kindly metal voice, as of a door-key
Turned in some mellow wall.

I saw a bronze-gold moon

Drop like a broken lantern to its death.
And in the amber light
I felt the sea returning,
Hurriedly returning, almost out of breath,
But quietly, possessively, as it neared the land,

From its green skirts dangling
The key that had aroused me,
And other keys, many keys, jangling from its hand.
They sang as they jangled from its rosy hand:
Keys of old magic, hardly ever dreamed of,

Keys of kingdoms buried long ago,
Keys of deep-sea treasures,
Rusty keys of pleasures,
Gold keys of languors, exquisite and slow.

It was a pleasant jailor, salty and brisk and bland,

Who strolled up the terrace,
The nightly-washed, bright terrace,
That is made of shining sand:
A well-conditioned jailor,
Returning through the dawning,

With the keys that lock his inmates
Into a magic land.

At the early coffee
Out on the verandah,
A scarlet bougainvillea blazing overhead, [page 34]

The sea-line had retreated to a far horizon,
We saw a stretch of empty beach instead.
‘Something in the trade wind,
This perpetual trade wind
Stirring in the night.

Made me dream of snowstorms in the North!’ she said.
‘I hate to dream of snowstorms
And those skies as black as lead!’

Every key was quite now—as quiet as the dead. [page 35]

TROPIC HEAT

The Spaniards chattered shrilly
In a village fire-fanned;
Locusts hammered, hammered
Their brazen, metal band;
Wind blew out of a furnace

Over the parching land.

Above the whispering village,
Above the locusts’ song,
We felt a far hot thunder
Beat like a muffled gong;

And darkness, like our exile,
Holding us fast and long. [page 36]

HOSPITAL CORRIDOR

Here are walls of calcimine,
Ferns and pale green curtains,
Here is gleaming rubber
Like a red-brown road;
On the road its workers,

Cleaners and polishers,
On the benches visitors
Bearing bright bouquets.

Laughing and loitering,
Interns and messengers

Pass piquant young nurses
In sharp blue and white;
And the kings of the roadway,
Its rules and potentates,
The surgeons and the doctors

Stroll grandly about.

Not a sigh anywhere
Mars the cheerful traffic
That surges by the doorways
Of the spent dwellers here;

Those aloof employers
Of the cheerful traffic—
God, how grim and sinister
Their soundless doorways are! [page 37]

TWO DAYS IN DIFFERENT KEYS

One died softly
Heavy with summer,
Murmurous, languid,
Hearing birds call:
Like a dark woman

With drowsy eyelids
Full of fruition
Fading with the Fall.

Then the wind lifted,
It was still Autumn,

But frost-keen the air
And sharper skied:
Mounting, mounting
Cycle on cycle,
Higher and higher

This one died. [page 38]

SALUTATION

How do you do, angels?
Beautiful, peaceful angels,
I am glad to meet you,
You bring me news from God.
Come quickly to me, angels,

I am waiting, waiting—
All the sky is silver with your light.

Good-bye, angels!
Take my best regards,
Wing them into the blue sky

To my dear friend, God.
I am waiting for his wishes,
Bring them back to me. . . .
Good-bye—good-bye—
Now the sky is dark without your light. [page 39]

BEDS

When I was four years old
I played beneath a tree
Where ferns grew deep with grass
In tangled mystery—
And there I often fell asleep

In childish ecstasy.

But when I came to youth
They made for me a bed
Out of a lordlier tree
Strong-panelled, foot and head—

And there I lay alone with love
Until my love was fled.

But ghostly grew the bed
That I had thought so strong,
And I had a new one woven me

Out of a shining song—
Yet it was neither earth nor air
And could not last for long.

Now I am four-score years,
And may no longer see

The comfort of much carpentry
Or poet’s glamourie—
And I turn back to my first bed
In childish ecstasy. [page 40]

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