Many Gods
Cale Rice




Cale Young Rice

Many Gods





"ALL'S WELL"



I

		The 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 prow
		Of a great ship that steered into the stars,
		I stood and felt the awe upon my brow
		Of death and destiny and all that mars.


II

		The wind that blew from Cassiopeia cast
		Wanly upon my ear a rune that rung;
		The sailor in his eyrie on the mast
		Sang an "All's well," that to the spirit clung
		Like a lost voice from some aërial realm
		Where 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 Unweariable
		Launcher of worlds upon bewildered space,"
		Rose in me, "All? or did thy hand grow dull
		Building this world that bears a piteous race?
		O was it launched too soon or launched too late?
		Or can it be a derelict that drifts
		Beyond thy ken toward some reef of Fate
		On which Oblivion's sand forever shifts?"


IV

		The sea grew softer as I questioned – calm
		With 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 stun
		The soul, and knowledge drown within their deep,
		There is no world that wanders, no not one
		Of all the millions, that He does not keep.




THE PROSELYTE RECANTS



(In Japan)

		Where the fair golden idols
		Sit in darkness and in silence
		While the temple drum beats solemnly and slow;
		Where the tall cryptomerias
		Sway in worship round about
		And the rain that is falling whispers low;
		I can hear strange voices
		Of the dead and forgotten,
		On the dimly rising incense I can see
		The lives I have lived,
		And my lives unbegotten,
		Namu Amida Butsu pity me!

		I was born this karma
		Of a mother in Chuzenji,
		Where Nantai-zan looks down into the lake;
		Where the white-thronged pilgrims
		Climb to altars in the clouds
		And behold the holy eastern dawn awake.
		It was there I wandered
		Till a priest of the Christians
		With 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 many
		Were conceived, he said, in sin,
		From Lord Shaka to the least upon the hills.
		In despair I listened
		For my heart beat hopeless,
		Not a temple of my land had helped me live.
		But alas that day
		When I let my soul be christened!
		Namu Amida Butsu, O forgive!

		For the Christ they gave me
		As the only Law and Lotus,
		As the only way to Light that will not wane,
		May perchance have power
		For the people of the West,
		But to me he seemed the servitor of pain.
		For in pain he perished
		As 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 idols
		Of the Buddha who is boundless,
		While the temple drum is beating thro the rain,
		I have turned from treason
		Into Meditation's truth,
		From the strife the Western god regards as gain.
		And if now I'm dying
		As the voices tell me,
		To the lives that I must live I'll meekly go;
		Till my long grief ends
		In Nirvana, and my sighing.
		Namu Amida Butsu, be it so!




LOVE IN JAPAN



I

		Dragon-fly lighting
		On the temple-bell,
		Whose soul do you hear
		On the Day of the Dead?
		The soul of my lover?
		Ah me, the plighting
		Between two hearts
		That were never wed!

		Dragon-fly, quickly,
		The priest is coming!
		Oh, the boom
		Of the bitter bell!
		Now you are gone
		And my tears fall thickly.
		How of Heaven
		Do the gods make Hell!


II

		The sêmi is silent
		(Autumn rains!)
		The wind-bells tinkle
		(How chill it is!)
		The quick lights come
		On the shoji-panes.
		Come, O Baku,
		Eater of dreams!

		The maple darkens
		(Pale grow I!)
		The near night shivers
		(The temple fades.)

		Haunting love
		Will 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 hands
		That ripple upon the winds of dawn
		Where the dim pagoda stands.
		They ripple and beckon yearningly
		To their sister fairies over the sea,
		But help comes not,
		So they fall and flee
		From Autumn over the sands.

		And down the mountain
		And 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 ever
		Pursues 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 ear
		Hung haunting and hot and loud;
		I awoke and the sky was dun
		With awe and a dread that soon
		Went shuddering thro my heart, for I knew
		That it meant typhoon! typhoon!

		In the harbour below, far down,
		The junks like fowl in a flock
		Were tossing in wingless terror, or fled
		Fluttering in from the shock.
		The city, a breathless bend
		Of roofs, by the water strewn,
		Lay silent and waiting, yet there was none
		Within it but said typhoon!

		Then it came, like a million winds
		Gone mad immeasurably,
		A torrid and tortuous tempest stung
		By rape of the fair South Sea.
		And it swept like a scud escaped
		From 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 eyes
		And prayed for my soul to swoon:
		If ever I see God's face, let it
		Be guiltless of that typhoon!




PENANG


		I want to go back to Singapore
		And ship along the Straits,
		To a bungalow I know beside Penang;
		Where cocoanut palms along the shore
		Are waving, and the gates
		Of Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore.
		I want to go back and hear the surf
		Come beating in at night,
		Like the washing of eternity over the dead.
		I want to see dawn fare up and day
		Go down in golden light;
		I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!

		I want to go back to Singapore
		And up along the Straits
		To the bungalow that waits me by the tide.
		Where the Tamil and Malay tell their lore
		At evening – and the fates
		Have set no soothless canker at life's core.
		I want to go back and mend my heart
		Beneath the tropic moon,
		While the tamarind-tree is whispering thoughts of sleep.
		I want to believe that Earth again
		With Heaven is in tune.
		I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!

		I want to go back to Singapore
		And ship along the Straits
		To the bungalow I left upon the strand.
		Where the foam of the world grows faint before
		It enters, and abates
		In meaning as I hear the palm-wind pour.
		I want to go back and end my days
		Some evening when the Cross
		On the southern sky hangs heavily far and sad.
		I want to remember when I die
		That 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 plays
		On the rim of the West where dark clouds nest
		On a darker bank of haze;
		When I lean o'er the rail with you that I love
		And 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 bow
		And the watch climbs up the shroud;
		When the dim mast dips as the vessel slips
		Thro 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 slave
		Hears the wind-bells high in the air
		Tinkle with low sweet tongue and grave
		In praise of Lord Gautama.
		All night long where the lone spire sends
		Its golden height to the starry light
		He hears their tune
		And watches the moon
		And fears he shall never reach Nirvana.

		Round and round by a hundred shrines
		Glittering at the great Shwe's base
		Falls the sound of his feet mid lines
		Droned from the sacred Wisdom.
		Round and round where the idols gaze
		So pitiless on his pained distress
		He passes on,
		Pale-eyed and wan —
		A pariah like the dogs behind him.

		Oh, what sin in a life begot
		Thousands of lives ago did he sin
		That he is now by all forgot,
		Even by Lord Gautama?
		Oh, what sin, that the lowest shun
		His very name as a thing of shame —
		A sound to taint
		The winds that faint
		From the high bells that hear it uttered!

		Midnight comes and the hours of morn,
		Tapers die and the flowers all
		From the most fêted altars: lorn
		And desolate is their odour.
		Midnight goes, but he watches still
		By each cold spire the moon sets fire,
		By every palm
		Whose silvery calm
		Pillar 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 flow
		Of praise to Lord Gautama.
		Faithless dawn! with illusive feet
		It comes too late to ease his fate.
		He sinks asleep
		A helpless heap,
		Tho for it he may never reach Nirvana.




THE SHIPS OF THE SEA


		Into port when the sun was setting
		Rode 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 women
		They 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)


I

		O white Priest of Eternity, around
		Whose lofty summit veiling clouds arise
		Of the earth's immemorial sacrifice
		To Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies;
		O Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows,
		First-born of Asia whose maternal throes
		Seem changed now to a million human woes,
		Holy thou art and still! Be so, nor sound
		One sigh of all the mystery in thee found.


II

		For in this world too much is overclear,
		Immortal Ministrant to many lands,
		From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sands
		Rivers 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, fire
		To live again, tho in Illusion's sphere,
		Behold concealed as Grief is in a tear.


III

		Wherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites,
		Tho dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, falls
		In 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 allure
		Imagination on to mystic flights
		Wherein alone no wing of Evil lights.


IV

		Yea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytes
		Of lifted granite round with reachless snows.
		Stand for Eternity while pilgrim rows
		Of 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 heights
		Has stood above all deaths and all delights.


V

		And tho thy loftier Brother shall be King,
		High-priest be thou to Brahma unrevealed,
		While thy white sanctity forever sealed
		In 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 suffering
		On 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 lips
		Over the newly dead.
		I am childless and barren; pity
		And let me catch the soul
		Of him who here on the kindled bier
		Pays to Existence toll.

		See, by his guileless body
		I cook the bread and eat.
		Give me the soul he does not need
		Now, for conception sweet.
		Hear, or my lord and husband
		Shall send me from his door
		And take to his side a fairer bride
		Whose breast shall be less poor.

		Oft I have sought thy temples,
		By Ganges now I seek,
		Where ashes of all the dead are strewn,




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