Must venom rob the future day The ultimate world-man Of rare Bushido, code of codes, The fair heart of Japan?
"Go, be the guest of Avalon.
Believe me, it lies there Behind the mighty gray sea-wall Where heathen bend in prayer:
Where peasants lift adoring eyes To Fuji's crown of snow.
King Arthur's knights will be your hosts, So cleanse your heart, and go.
"And you will find but gardens sweet Prepared beyond the seas, And you will find but gentlefolk Beneath the cherry-trees.
So walk you worthy of your Christ Tho church bells do not sound, And weave the bands of brotherhood On Jimmu Tenno's ground."I Heard Immanuel Singing(The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)This poem is intended to be half said, half sung, very softly, to the well-known tune: --"Last night I lay a-sleeping, There came a dream so fair, I stood in Old Jerusalem Beside the temple there, --" etc.
Yet this tune is not to be fitted on, arbitrarily.It is here given to suggest the manner of handling rather than determine it.
# To be sung.#
I heard Immanuel singing Within his own good lands, I saw him bend above his harp.
I watched his wandering hands Lost amid the harp-strings;Sweet, sweet I heard him play.
His wounds were altogether healed.
Old things had passed away.
All things were new, but music.
The blood of David ran Within the Son of David, Our God, the Son of Man.
He was ruddy like a shepherd.
His bold young face, how fair.
Apollo of the silver bow Had not such flowing hair.
# To be read very softly, but in spirited response.#I saw Immanuel singing On a tree-girdled hill.
The glad remembering branches Dimly echoed still The grand new song proclaiming The Lamb that had been slain.
New-built, the Holy City Gleamed in the murmuring plain.
The crowning hours were over.
The pageants all were past.
Within the many mansions The hosts, grown still at last, In homes of holy mystery Slept long by crooning springs Or waked to peaceful glory, A universe of Kings.
# To be sung.#
He left his people happy.
He wandered free to sigh Alone in lowly friendship With the green grass and the sky.
He murmured ancient music His red heart burned to sing Because his perfect conquest Had grown a weary thing.
No chant of gilded triumph --
His lonely song was made Of Art's deliberate freedom;Of minor chords arrayed In soft and shadowy colors That once were radiant flowers: --The Rose of Sharon, bleeding In Olive-shadowed bowers: --And all the other roses In the songs of East and West Of love and war and worshipping, And every shield and crest Of thistle or of lotus Or sacred lily wrought In creeds and psalms and palaces And temples of white thought: --# To be read very softly, yet in spirited response.#All these he sang, half-smiling And weeping as he smiled, Laughing, talking to his harp As to a new-born child: --As though the arts forgotten But bloomed to prophecy These careless, fearless harp-strings, New-crying in the sky.
# To be sung.#
"When this his hour of sorrow For flowers and Arts of men Has passed in ghostly music,"I asked my wild heart then --
What will he sing to-morrow, What wonder, all his own Alone, set free, rejoicing, With a green hill for his throne?
What will he sing to-morrow What wonder all his own Alone, set free, rejoicing, With a green hill for his throne?
Second SectionIncenseAn ArgumentI.The Voice of the Man Impatient with Visions and UtopiasWe find your soft Utopias as white As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells, O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are How human breasts adore alarum bells.
You house us in a hive of prigs and saints Communal, frugal, clean and chaste by law.
I'd rather brood in bloody Elsinore Or be Lear's fool, straw-crowned amid the straw.
Promise us all our share in Agincourt Say that our clerks shall venture scorns and death, That future ant-hills will not be too good For Henry Fifth, or Hotspur, or Macbeth.
Promise that through to-morrow's spirit-war Man's deathless soul will hack and hew its way, Each flaunting Caesar climbing to his fate Scorning the utmost steps of yesterday.
Never a shallow jester any more!
Let not Jack Falstaff spill the ale in vain.
Let Touchstone set the fashions for the wise And Ariel wreak his fancies through the rain.
II.The Rhymer's Reply.Incense and SplendorIncense and Splendor haunt me as I go.
Though my good works have been, alas, too few, Though I do naught, High Heaven comes down to me, And future ages pass in tall review.
I see the years to come as armies vast, Stalking tremendous through the fields of time.
MAN is unborn.To-morrow he is born, Flame-like to hover o'er the moil and grime, Striving, aspiring till the shame is gone, Sowing a million flowers, where now we mourn --Laying new, precious pavements with a song, Founding new shrines, the good streets to adorn.
I have seen lovers by those new-built walls Clothed like the dawn in orange, gold and red.
Eyes flashing forth the glory-light of love Under the wreaths that crowned each royal head.
Life was made greater by their sweetheart prayers.
Passion was turned to civic strength that day --Piling the marbles, making fairer domes With zeal that else had burned bright youth away.
I have seen priestesses of life go by Gliding in samite through the incense-sea --Innocent children marching with them there, Singing in flowered robes, "THE EARTH IS FREE":
While on the fair, deep-carved unfinished towers Sentinels watched in armor, night and day --Guarding the brazier-fires of hope and dream --Wild was their peace, and dawn-bright their array!
A Rhyme about an Electrical Advertising SignI look on the specious electrical light Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white, Wickedly red or malignantly green Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen.
