Many Gods

Cale Young Rice

Many Gods

"ALL'S WELL"

IThe illimitable leaping of the sea,The mouthing of his madness to the moon,The seething of his endless sorcery,His prophecy no power can attune,Swept over me as, on the sounding prowOf a great ship that steered into the stars,I stood and felt the awe upon my browOf death and destiny and all that mars.IIThe wind that blew from Cassiopeia castWanly upon my ear a rune that rung;The sailor in his eyrie on the mastSang an "All's well," that to the spirit clungLike a lost voice from some aërial realmWhere ships sail on forever to no shore,Where Time gives Immortality the helm,And fades like a far phantom from life's door.III"And is all well, O Thou UnweariableLauncher of worlds upon bewildered space,"Rose in me, "All? or did thy hand grow dullBuilding this world that bears a piteous race?O was it launched too soon or launched too late?Or can it be a derelict that driftsBeyond thy ken toward some reef of FateOn which Oblivion's sand forever shifts?"IVThe sea grew softer as I questioned – calmWith mystery that like an answer moved,And from infinity there fell a balm,The old peace that God is, tho all unproved.The old faith that tho gulfs sidereal stunThe soul, and knowledge drown within their deep,There is no world that wanders, no not oneOf all the millions, that He does not keep.

THE PROSELYTE RECANTS

(In Japan)Where the fair golden idolsSit in darkness and in silenceWhile the temple drum beats solemnly and slow;Where the tall cryptomeriasSway in worship round aboutAnd the rain that is falling whispers low;I can hear strange voicesOf the dead and forgotten,On the dimly rising incense I can seeThe lives I have lived,And my lives unbegotten,Namu Amida Butsu pity me!I was born this karmaOf a mother in Chuzenji,Where Nantai-zan looks down into the lake;Where the white-thronged pilgrimsClimb to altars in the cloudsAnd behold the holy eastern dawn awake.It was there I wanderedTill a priest of the ChristiansWith the crucifix he wore compelled my gaze.In grief I had grown,So upon its grief I pondered.Namu Amida Butsu, keep my days!It was wrong, he told me,To pray Jiso for my children,And Binzuru for healing of my ills.And our gods so manyWere conceived, he said, in sin,From Lord Shaka to the least upon the hills.In despair I listenedFor my heart beat hopeless,Not a temple of my land had helped me live.But alas that dayWhen I let my soul be christened!Namu Amida Butsu, O forgive!For the Christ they gave meAs the only Law and Lotus,As the only way to Light that will not wane,May perchance have powerFor the people of the West,But to me he seemed the servitor of pain.For in pain he perishedAs one born to passion:In some other life no doubt his sin was great,Tho they told me no,Those who followed him and cherished.Namu Amida Butsu, such is fate.So again to idolsOf the Buddha who is boundless,While the temple drum is beating thro the rain,I have turned from treasonInto Meditation's truth,From the strife the Western god regards as gain.And if now I'm dyingAs the voices tell me,To the lives that I must live I'll meekly go;Till my long grief endsIn Nirvana, and my sighing.Namu Amida Butsu, be it so!

LOVE IN JAPAN

IDragon-fly lightingOn the temple-bell,Whose soul do you hearOn the Day of the Dead?The soul of my lover?Ah me, the plightingBetween two heartsThat were never wed!Dragon-fly, quickly,The priest is coming!Oh, the boomOf the bitter bell!Now you are goneAnd my tears fall thickly.How of HeavenDo the gods make Hell!IIThe sêmi is silent(Autumn rains!)The wind-bells tinkle(How chill it is!)The quick lights comeOn the shoji-panes.Come, O Baku,Eater of dreams!The maple darkens(Pale grow I!)The near night shivers(The temple fades.)Haunting loveWill not cease to cry!Come, O Baku,Eater of dreams!The wild mists gather(Ah, my tears!)The pane-lights vanish(For some there is rest.)But for me —The remembered years!Come, O Baku,Eater of dreams!

MAPLE LEAVES ON MIYAJIMA

The summer has come,The summer has gone,And the maple leaves lift fairy handsThat ripple upon the winds of dawnWhere the dim pagoda stands.They ripple and beckon yearninglyTo their sister fairies over the sea,But help comes not,So they fall and fleeFrom Autumn over the sands.And down the mountainAnd into the tide,Some are blown where the sampans glide,And some are strewn by the temple's side,And some by the torii.But Autumn everPursues them till,As ever before,She has her will,And leaves them desolate, dead and still,Ravished afar and wide;Leaves them desolate; crying shrill,"No beauty shall abide!"

TYPHOON

(At Hong-kong)I was weary and slept on the Peak;The air clung close like a shroud,And ever the blue-fly's buzz in my earHung haunting and hot and loud;I awoke and the sky was dunWith awe and a dread that soonWent shuddering thro my heart, for I knewThat it meant typhoon! typhoon!In the harbour below, far down,The junks like fowl in a flockWere tossing in wingless terror, or fledFluttering in from the shock.The city, a breathless bendOf roofs, by the water strewn,Lay silent and waiting, yet there was noneWithin it but said typhoon!Then it came, like a million windsGone mad immeasurably,A torrid and tortuous tempest stungBy rape of the fair South Sea.And it swept like a scud escapedFrom craters of sun or moon,And struck as no power of Heaven could,Or of Hell – typhoon! typhoon!And the junks were smitten and torn,The drowning struggled and cried,Or, dashed on the granite walls of the sea,In succourless hundreds died.Till I shut the sight from my eyesAnd prayed for my soul to swoon:If ever I see God's face, let itBe guiltless of that typhoon!

PENANG

I want to go back to SingaporeAnd ship along the Straits,To a bungalow I know beside Penang;Where cocoanut palms along the shoreAre waving, and the gatesOf Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore.I want to go back and hear the surfCome beating in at night,Like the washing of eternity over the dead.I want to see dawn fare up and dayGo down in golden light;I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!I want to go back to SingaporeAnd up along the StraitsTo the bungalow that waits me by the tide.Where the Tamil and Malay tell their loreAt evening – and the fatesHave set no soothless canker at life's core.I want to go back and mend my heartBeneath the tropic moon,While the tamarind-tree is whispering thoughts of sleep.I want to believe that Earth againWith Heaven is in tune.I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!I want to go back to SingaporeAnd ship along the StraitsTo the bungalow I left upon the strand.Where the foam of the world grows faint beforeIt enters, and abatesIn meaning as I hear the palm-wind pour.I want to go back and end my daysSome evening when the CrossOn the southern sky hangs heavily far and sad.I want to remember when I dieThat life elsewhere was loss.I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!

WHEN THE WIND IS LOW

(To A. H. R.)When the wind is low, and the sea is soft,And the far heat-lightning playsOn the rim of the West where dark clouds nestOn a darker bank of haze;When I lean o'er the rail with you that I loveAnd gaze to my heart's content;I know that the heavens are there above —But you are my firmament.When the phosphor-stars are thrown from the bowAnd the watch climbs up the shroud;When the dim mast dips as the vessel slipsThro the foam that seethes aloud;I know that the years of our life are few,And fain as a bird to flee,That time is as brief as a drop of dew —But you are Eternity.

THE PAGODA SLAVE

(At Shwe Dagohn, in old Rangoon)All night long the pagoda slaveHears the wind-bells high in the airTinkle with low sweet tongue and graveIn praise of Lord Gautama.All night long where the lone spire sendsIts golden height to the starry lightHe hears their tuneAnd watches the moonAnd fears he shall never reach Nirvana.Round and round by a hundred shrinesGlittering at the great Shwe's baseFalls the sound of his feet mid linesDroned from the sacred Wisdom.Round and round where the idols gazeSo pitiless on his pained distressHe passes on,Pale-eyed and wan —A pariah like the dogs behind him.Oh, what sin in a life begotThousands of lives ago did he sinThat he is now by all forgot,Even by Lord Gautama?Oh, what sin, that the lowest shunHis very name as a thing of shame —A sound to taintThe winds that faintFrom the high bells that hear it uttered!Midnight comes and the hours of morn,Tapers die and the flowers allFrom the most fêted altars: lornAnd desolate is their odour.Midnight goes, but he watches stillBy each cold spire the moon sets fire,By every palmWhose silvery calmPillar and jewelled porch pray under.Is it dawn that is breaking?.. No,Only a star that falls in the sea,Only a wind-bell's louder flowOf praise to Lord Gautama.Faithless dawn! with illusive feetIt comes too late to ease his fate.He sinks asleepA helpless heap,Tho for it he may never reach Nirvana.

THE SHIPS OF THE SEA

Into port when the sun was settingRode the ship that bore my love,Over the breakers wildly fretting,Under the skies that shone above.Down to the beach I ran to meet him;He would come as he had said:And he came – in a sailor's coffin,Dead!..O the ships of the sea! the womenThey from all hope but Heaven part!The tide has nothing now to tell me,The breakers only break my heart!

KINCHINJUNGA

(Which is the next highest of mountains)IO white Priest of Eternity, aroundWhose lofty summit veiling clouds ariseOf the earth's immemorial sacrificeTo Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies;O Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows,First-born of Asia whose maternal throesSeem changed now to a million human woes,Holy thou art and still! Be so, nor soundOne sigh of all the mystery in thee found.IIFor in this world too much is overclear,Immortal Ministrant to many lands,From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sandsRivers that each libation poured expands.Too much is known, O Ganges-giving sire;Thy people fathom life and find it dire,Thy people fathom death, and, in it, fireTo live again, tho in Illusion's sphere,Behold concealed as Grief is in a tear.IIIWherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites,Tho dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, fallsIn strange austerity, whose trance appals,Before thee, and a suppliant on thee calls.Continue still thy silence high and sure,That something beyond fleeting may endure —Something that shall forevermore allureImagination on to mystic flightsWherein alone no wing of Evil lights.IVYea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytesOf lifted granite round with reachless snows.Stand for Eternity while pilgrim rowsOf all the nations envy thy repose.Ensheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled.Be that alone on earth which has not failed.Be that which never yet has yearned or ailed,But since primeval Power upreared thy heightsHas stood above all deaths and all delights.VAnd tho thy loftier Brother shall be King,High-priest be thou to Brahma unrevealed,While thy white sanctity forever sealedIn icy silence leaves desire congealed.In ghostly ministrations to the sun,And to the mendicant stars and the moon-nun,Be holy still, till East to West has run,And till no sacrificial sufferingOn any shrine is left to tell life's sting.

THE BARREN WOMAN

(Benares)At the burning-ghat, O Kali,Mother divine and dread,See, I am waiting with open lipsOver the newly dead.I am childless and barren; pityAnd let me catch the soulOf him who here on the kindled bierPays to Existence toll.See, by his guileless bodyI cook the bread and eat.Give me the soul he does not needNow, for conception sweet.Hear, or my lord and husbandShall send me from his doorAnd take to his side a fairer brideWhose breast shall be less poor.Oft I have sought thy temples,By Ganges now I seek,Where ashes of all the dead are strewn,And is my prayer not meek?The ghats and the shrines and the peopleThat bathe in the holy StreamHave heard my cry, O goddess high,Shall I not have my dream?The women of Oudh and JaipurLook on my face with scorn.Children about their garments cling,To me shall none be born?The death-fires quiver faster,O hasten, goddess, a sign,That from this doom into my wombThy pledge has passed, divine.Woe! there is naught but ashes,Now, and the weepers go.Lone on the ghat they leave me, lone,With but the River's flow.Kali, I ask not jewelsNor justice, beauty nor shrift,But for the lowest woman's right,A child – tho I die of the gift!

BY THE TAJ MAHAL

Under the Indian stars,Mumtaz Mahal, I am sitting,Watching them wind their silent wayOver your wistful Tomb;Watching the crescent prowOf the moon among them flitting,Fair as the shallop that bore your soulTo Paradise's Room.Under the Indian stars,With palm and peepul about me,With dome and kiosk and minaretMounting against the sky,I seem to see your faceIn all the fairness without me;In all the sadness that fills my heartTo hear your lover's cry.Under the Indian starsI look for your Jasmine Tower,Along the River whose barren bedLies gray beneath the moon.And thro its magic doorsYou seem like a spirit flower,Wandering back from Allah's bourneTo seek for some lost boon.Under the Indian starsI see you softly moving,Among your jewel-lit maidens there,A sweet and ghostly queen,And the scent of attar flungIn your marble font seems provingThat passion never can die from love,If truly love has been.Under the Indian starsHe comes, "the Shadow of Allah,"Jehan, the lord of Magnificence,The liege who holds your heart.The silver doors swing backAnd alone with him you hallowThe amorous night – whose moon has madeSuch visions in me start.Under the Indian stars —But the end of all is moaning!I hear his dying breath that fromYour Tomb shall never die.For every jasper flowerHe set in its dream seems loaningTo Beauty a grief, Mumtaz Mahal,And unto Fate a sigh.

LOVE'S CYNIC

IO you poets, ever pretendingLove is immortal, pipe the truth!Empty your books of lies, the endingOf no passion can be – Youth."Heaven," you breathe, "will join the broken?"Come, was the Infinite e'er wed,That He must evermore be thinkingOf your wedding bed?IIPipe the truth! tho it clip the glamourOut of your rhymes and rip your dream.Do you believe words can enamourDeath and dry up Lethe's stream?Death? it is but a Sponge that passes,One the Appeaseless e'er will squeezeBack into Lethe's flood – whose lastingIs eternities.III"False!" cry you, "and an unbeseemingBlasphemy!" – Well, look around.Is it not only in blasphemingTruth is ever to be found?Whether it be, one thing I ask you,Lovers and poets, tell, I pray,Was there ever a love-oath endedEre the Judgment Day?IV"O," you answer, "ill is in all things."But in an ancient lie what's good?Is it not better just to call thingsWhat they are – not what we would?When you are clinging to your mistress,Love has the face of Eternity.Cling to her then, but know that WantingFools the best that be.V"Yet her brows and her eyes that murmurAll the music," you say, "of God!"Press her lips but a little firmer —You will feel that they are – sod."But there is living soul beyond them,And it is love's till all things end?"Children alone build ParadisesWith but pence to spend.VI"Ai-ho now! that is like the cynic,"Pitying runs your poet-smile,"He has sat at the Devil's clinicWith some dead love up the while."Dead or alive are one with passions,Under the potent knife of TruthThey will be seen composed of craving —And a little ruth.VII"Then the world on a lie is living?"Many a lie has filled its maw!"Better illusion tho than givingFaith to a fatal loveless Law?"There is a certain SocrateanSaying that swine of their ditch are sure;Yet do they prove by their contentmentThat it will endure?VIIIClasp her close! But the truth is in you,Tho you have rhymed and rammed it down,Hid it with honey-words that win youWreaths that you know bedeck the clown.Kings they will call you and upliftersOf your kind? Lord save the mark,That we are still for fire dependentOn so false a spark.IXAnd so fond! for you hold immortalWhat has been born a day or two!"But it was destined?" Ay, your portalOnly has God to heed – and you!He with his thrice three million thirstingWorlds in the throes of death and lifeSurely has time to spare for choosingYour behooven wife!XBy my faith, there is not a creatureMad as a poet, pants the breeze!Give him a mistress and he'll preach herAs creation's Masterpiece.Let him but lean for half an hourOver her lips and he will swearThat he would dive thro death unfathomedTo regain her there.XIAnd believe that his oath is able!That there is not in all the seaWater enough to quench the fableOf his soul's intensity.Yet there was never a rose that blossomedAnd endured beyond its day.There was never a fire enkindledBut the great Cold had its way.XII"Pessimist," is your mortal answer,"Wait till the love-wind pierces you!"Wait? I have been the veriest dancerTo it, and, dupe still, would doTruth to the death – shall I confess it? —For but a moment on one breast.Wherefore I add – and Adam bless it! —Who loves once is like the rest.

IN A TROPICAL GARDEN

(Peradeniya, Ceylon)IThe sun moves here as a master-mage of nature all day long,With fingers of heat and light that touch to a mystical growth all things.The spell of him puts pale Time to sleep, as an opiate strange and strong,And a waft of his wand, the wind, enchantment brings.IIThe python roots of the rubber-tree where the cobra slips in peaceAre wonders that he has waved from the earth as a presage of his power.And the giant stems of the bamboo-grass, the pool astounded, sees,Are a marvel to keep it still hour after hour.IIIThe long lianas that reach in dreamy rout from tree to treeAre dazed with the sense of sap that he calls to the tangle of their sprays.The scarlet-hearted hibiscus stands entranced and the torrid beeIs husht upon its rim, as in amazeIVAnd there the palms, the talipot with its lofty blossom-spire,The cocoanut and the slim areca listening awaitWhat sorceries of his trembling rays of equatorial fireWill next be laid upon some lesser mate.VThe river, too, that he winds as a magic circle round the wealthHe has here engendered, has the glide of a serpent lost in trance;And scents of clove and cinnamon that sip cool from it, in stealthPour it upon the air like necromance.VIAnd down where the rain-tree and the rife breadfruit together leanOver its flow, and the flying-foxes hanging head to earthSuddenly drop then flap aloft on large bat-wing, is seenMore of his mazing wizardry in birth.VIIAll day long it is so that his hot hypnotic eye commandsWith steady ray; and the earth obedient brings enchantment forth.All night long in the humid dark the high-voiced hyla-bandsChant of it in chill strain from South to North.VIIIA wondrous mage, in a land whose dreams are made realityAs swift as clouds are made when the young Monsoon is in the South.A land that is born of the sea and by it destined e'er to beBeyond all fear of famishing and drouth.

THE WIND'S WORD

A star that I love,The sea, and I,Spake together across the night."Have peace," said the star,"Have power," said the sea,"Yea!" I answered, "and Fame's delight!"The wind on his wayTo ArabyPaused and listened and sighed and said,"I passed on the sandsA Pharaoh's tomb:All these did he have – and he is dead."

THE SHRINE OF SHRINES

There is in Egypt by the ancient NileA temple of imperishable stone,Stupendous, columned, hieroglyphed, and knownTo all the world as Faith's supremest shrine.Half in debris it stands, a granite pileGigantic, stayed midway in resurrection,An awe, an inspiration, a dejectionTo all who would the cryptic past divine.The god of it was Ammon, and a throngOf worshippers from Thebes the royal-gatedForever at its fervid pylons waitedWhile priests poured ever a prophetic song.And yet this Ammon, who gave Egypt laws,Is not – and is forgot – and never was!

FROM A FELUCCA

A white tomb in the desert,An Arab at his prayersBeside the Nile's dark water,Where the lone camel fares.An ibis on the sunset,A slow shadouf at rest,And in the caravansaryLow music for the guest.Above the tawny cityA gleam of minarets,Resounding the muezzin'sClear call as the sun sets.A mystery, a silence,A breathing of strange balm,A peace from Allah on the windAnd on the sky his calm.

THE EGYPTIAN WAKES

I woke at night in my eternal tombThe desert sands had hid a thousand years,And heard the Nile-crier across the gloomCalling, "The flood has come! beseech the gods!"I rose in haste, as one who blindly hears,And sought the barterers of grain and wineCulled for the praise and service of divineGreat Isis, by the slave who for her plods.But as I passed along, woe! what was this,Strange faces and strange fashions and strange fanesStanding upon the midnight; Oh, the painsThat swept across my startled thought's abyss!I moaned. My body crumbled into dust.And then my soul fled Here – where all souls must.

THE IMAM'S PARABLE

Behold, the wind of the Desert rose,Khamsin, in a shroud of sand,And swept the Libyan waste, acrossTo far Somali-land.His voice was thick with the drouth of deathAnd smote the earth as a burning breath,Or as a curse which Allah saithUnto a demon-band.The caravan from the oasisOf palm-engirt KûrkûrShuddered and couched in shaken heaps,The horror to endure.Its mighty Sheik, like a soul in HellWho longs for the lute of Israfel,Longed for the trickle of Keneh's well,Imperishably pure!Three days he longed, and the wind three daysAbout him whirled the shroud.Then did a shrill dawn bring the sun —And a gaunt vulture-crowd.A few bleak bones on the Desert stillLie for the Judgment Day to thrillAgain into life – if Allah will:Let not your heart be proud.

SONGS OF A SEA-FARER

IMany are on the sea to-dayWith all sails set.The tide rolls in a restive gray,The wind blows wet.The gull is weary of his wings,And I am weary of all things.Heavy upon me longing lies,My sad eyes gazeAcross the leagues that sink and riseAnd sink always.My life has sunk and risen so,I'd have it cease awhile to flow.IIAll the winds of the sea weary,All the waves of the sea rest,All the wants of my heart settleSoftly now in my breast.All the stars that in heaven anchor,Golden buoys of Elysian light,Send me across the gulf promiseThat I am faring right.So while clouds that are left lonelyAt the gates of the far WestWait, so still, for the moon's stillerStealing from her nest,I am held by a low vesperHaunting afar the vague twilight,Then with my soul at peace whisperHallowedly good-night.

A SONG OF THE SECTS

(In a Jerusalem tavern)A Latin and Greek, praise God, are we, Armenian and Copt,And we're all drunk as drunk can be, for we've together sopped.Not one of us but spits at the creed the others mouth and purr,But we all believe, we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!The Armenian singsThe Copt comes out of Egypt-land and with a braggart faceHe'll tell you that his fathers piled the Pyramids in place.In his Monophysite Christ we set no faith, the blasphemer!But we all believe, we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!The Latin singsThe Greek will curse you if you call his Ikons images,And damns your soul to Hell – no purgatory, if you please!About Procession of the Ghost he's prickly as a burr,But he believes, as we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!The Copt singsOf heretics God leaves unburnt, Armenians are worst,They will not celebrate the Day, that was for Christ the first.No wine with water mixed for them, as well mix heathen myrrh —Or not believe, as we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!The Greek singsThe Latin swears his Roman Pope is judge infallible.Wherefore you may be very sure the Devil from his skullWill drink a toast unto all liars, who such a lie aver —Tho they believe, as we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!The Four againA Latin and Greek, praise God, are we, Armenian and Copt,And we're all drunk as drunk can be, for we've together sopped.Not one of us but hankers to hang all Jews on a Juniper,For we all believe, we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!

THE CITY

Soft and fair by the Desert's edge,And on the dim blue edge of the sea,Where white gulls wing all day and fledgeTheir young on the high cliff's sandy ledge,There is a city I have beheld,Sometime or where, by day or dream,I know not which, for it seems enspelledAs I am by its memory.Pale minarets of the Prophet pierceAbove it into the white of the skies,And sails enchanted a thousand yearsFlit at its feet while fancy steers.No face of all its faces to meIs known – no passion of it or pain.It is but a city by the sea,Enshrined forever beyond my eyes!