Life Immovable Part 8

VIII

From Danube to the cape of Taenaron, From Thunder Mountain's End to Chalcedon, Thou pa.s.sest now a mermaid of the sea And now a statue of marble Parian.

Now with the laurel bough from Helicon And now with sword barbarian, thou sweepest; And on the fields of thy great labarum, I see a double headed image drawn.

The sacred Rock gleams like a topaz here; And virgins basket-bearing, clad in white, March in a dance and shake Athena's veil;

But far the sapphires s.h.i.+ne of Bosporus; And through the Golden Gate exulting pa.s.s Victors Imperial triumphantly.

IX

Like the Phaeacians' s.h.i.+p, Imagination Without the help of sail or mariner Rolls on; in my soul's depths loom many lands: Thrice-ancient, motionless like Asia,

And others five-minded and bold like Europe's realms; Despair like Africa's black earth holds me; Within me a savage Polynesia spreads; And always I trail some path Columbian.

All monstrous things of life, the fields aflame Under a tropic sun, I knew; I wore The shrouds of the poles; and on a thousand paths,

I saw the world unfurled before my eyes.

And what am I? Gra.s.s on a clod of earth Scorned even by the pa.s.sing reaper's scythe.

X

A traveller, I found in waveless seas Calypso and Helena thrice-beautiful; And on the Lotus Eaters' sh.o.r.es, I drank The blissful waters of oblivion.

In the sun-flooded land, I stood by him, The G.o.d of the Hyperborean race; One night--in strange and peerless radiance-- The Magi showed to me the mystic star.

I saw the Queen of Sheba on her throne, O Soul, light flowing from her fingers' touch; My eyes beheld Atlantis Isle, that seemed

An Ocean flower beyond a mortal's dreams; And now the care and memory of all These things are rhythm to me and verse and song.

XI

About the chariot of the Seven Stars, Sky-racers numberless, whole worlds of giants And beasts: Ocean of suns, the Milky Way, Orion, and the monsters of the spheres--

The fearful Zodiac. The Lion roars Amidst the wilderness ethereal; The Lyre plays; and trophy-like, the Lock Of Berenice gleams; and rhythms and laws

Fade in the s.p.a.ce of mysteries. Sun, Cronus, Mars, Earth, and Venus sweep in swift pursuit Towards the world magnet of great Hercules.

Only my soul like polar star awaits Immovable, yet filled with dreamful longings; And knows not whence it comes nor where it goes.

XII

Fatherlands! Air and earth and fire and water!

Elements indestructible, beginning And end of life, first joy and last of mine!

You I shall find again when I pa.s.s on

To the graves' calm. The people of the dreams Within me, airlike, unto air shall pa.s.s; My reason, fire-like, unto lasting fire; My pa.s.sions' craze unto the billows' madness;

Even my dust-born body, unto dust; And I shall be again air, earth, fire, water; And from the air of dreams, and from the flames

Of thought, and from the flesh that shall be dust, And from the pa.s.sions' sea, ever shall rise A breath of sound like a soft lyre's complaint.

THE SONNETS

From their foreign land and precious, From their nest in green, I took Red-plumed birds; and then I closed them In a cage of woven gold.

And the cage of woven gold Then became a second nest; On our sh.o.r.es the birds have found A new, precious fatherland.

Softly here they shake their feathers; Swiftly sing of worlds and souls Deep and s.p.a.cious; or they mingle

Lightning-like their tears and smiles.

And though small and as of coral, Yet they sing with accents loud.

_1896._

EPIPHANY

With chariot drawn by star-plumed peac.o.c.ks, lo, The G.o.ddess of desires before her people Is revealed! She pa.s.ses on, youth's joyful shout And torture, dragging my eighteen years behind.

Snowflakes became a world; and, taking life As substance, made her body and her thought.

Upon her royal brow, birds strange and wild, Scorn's breed, have built their nest and there abide.

Upon her path, in vain I build the palace Of virgin dreams with virgin gold for her, Raising a throne of diamonds in its midst.

She pa.s.ses on her starlit chariot; And as if filled with golden dreams divine, She does not even look upon my palace!

_1895._

MAKARIA[17]

To you, who dawned before me, offspring of The great abyss and flower of foaming billows!

To you, whom with their love all things embrace, And who stir tempests in a statue's depths!