 | East and west : the discovery of America and other poems |  |
EAST AND WEST
A POEM DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY JUNE 30, 1892
3
1. PART I.
The First Meeting of East and West.
Yet once again discordant trumpets blare
To mar the music of the hemispheres.
To mar the music of the hemispheres.
So heard the ancient world a cry of doom,
Of agony which blossomed into prayer,
And saw the laden treasuries of years
Spilled on the flaming altar of her tomb.
Of agony which blossomed into prayer,
And saw the laden treasuries of years
Spilled on the flaming altar of her tomb.
Fragrant the memory of Arcadian flutes,
And shepherds' dance in groves whose Orphic lutes
Flood space with tune; of Jove's Olympian plains
Where strive earth's naked gods; and gilded fanes
Carving warm outline from Corinthian skies;
Or cool Castalian depths where mystery lies;
Or the broad terraces of Parthenon
Crowned with the sunflash from the virgin's shield,
Whose proud chivalric bloom of Attic field
In dance of throbbing marbles surges on
As Phidias dreamed, that prince of centuries
On his immortal throne, Acropolis.
And shepherds' dance in groves whose Orphic lutes
Flood space with tune; of Jove's Olympian plains
Where strive earth's naked gods; and gilded fanes
Carving warm outline from Corinthian skies;
Or cool Castalian depths where mystery lies;
Or the broad terraces of Parthenon
Crowned with the sunflash from the virgin's shield,
Whose proud chivalric bloom of Attic field
In dance of throbbing marbles surges on
4
On his immortal throne, Acropolis.
And aromatic music yet distils
In languid drops through soil of Indian lore,
Echoes which cling like moss to temple floor:—
The tinkling bell of Aryan upland kine
Calling to prayer the herdsman, nature's priest;
And that great martial pageant of the East
Where Krishna preached of peace; and palaces
Of Sakyan kings upon a hundred hills
Fringing the skirts of Ganges—sacred foam
Wherein the Brahmin bathes—till Ocean's brine
Swallows her floods of prayer; the rock-hewn dome
Hung with blue veils of incense, and gray stones
Where weeping saints lay the last Buddha's bones.
In languid drops through soil of Indian lore,
Echoes which cling like moss to temple floor:—
The tinkling bell of Aryan upland kine
Calling to prayer the herdsman, nature's priest;
And that great martial pageant of the East
Where Krishna preached of peace; and palaces
Of Sakyan kings upon a hundred hills
Fringing the skirts of Ganges—sacred foam
Wherein the Brahmin bathes—till Ocean's brine
Swallows her floods of prayer; the rock-hewn dome
Hung with blue veils of incense, and gray stones
Where weeping saints lay the last Buddha's bones.
Perchance these two sweet songs took soul and shape
One evening when the low sun held his breath,
And Nature, pausing as at thought of death,
Played with her folded canopy of crêpe.
Then the delirious waves which flood the halls
Of Time subsided; and, with vision clear,
Floating as in a crystal atmosphere,
Two wingéd spirits spake at intervals:—
One evening when the low sun held his breath,
And Nature, pausing as at thought of death,
Played with her folded canopy of crêpe.
Then the delirious waves which flood the halls
Of Time subsided; and, with vision clear,
Floating as in a crystal atmosphere,
Two wingéd spirits spake at intervals:—
“Mark how the shuttles of the falling stars
Weave golden fabrics on the warp of earth!
How their soft patterns swing
Like birds upon the wing;—
Of our fair faces mirrors, as a brook
Wherein two lovers look!
How plastic universes wax and wane,
Tangles of Brahma's skein,
Where rainbow thoughts come flushing to the birth,
And the pale gold of Venus melts in the blaze of Mars!”
Weave golden fabrics on the warp of earth!
How their soft patterns swing
5
Of our fair faces mirrors, as a brook
Wherein two lovers look!
How plastic universes wax and wane,
Tangles of Brahma's skein,
Where rainbow thoughts come flushing to the birth,
And the pale gold of Venus melts in the blaze of Mars!”
“Spirit of Beauty, see
Thy crown transferred to me,
The heritage of Western orbs which sink
Beyond Olympus' brink;—
Through the long night which shuts upon the world
A downy seedling curled
In thy rich soil thick sown with shattered gods;
But as a pale white blossom
Nursed in the fragrant moisture of this bosom,
From which again shall start
The tender shoots of Art,
Fresh fronds of perfect curve like ends of tunes,
And groves of graceful palms to fleck our sods
With the long shadows of the Eastern moons.”
Thy crown transferred to me,
The heritage of Western orbs which sink
Beyond Olympus' brink;—
Through the long night which shuts upon the world
A downy seedling curled
In thy rich soil thick sown with shattered gods;
But as a pale white blossom
Nursed in the fragrant moisture of this bosom,
From which again shall start
The tender shoots of Art,
Fresh fronds of perfect curve like ends of tunes,
And groves of graceful palms to fleck our sods
With the long shadows of the Eastern moons.”
“Soul of the East, I kneel
Thine inmost mood to feel.
Heart, as of woman, wet
With the first dews of nature's morning dream,
Here on this cold hard brow in mercy set
Thy sacred touch, and break
This chain of sparkling jewels which I deem
A bond upon my soul; and in thy lake
Of childlike self-unfolding consciousness
Baptize my soul with floods of sweet distress.
Show me reflected shades of sacrifice,
And opal tints of pity, and cloud forms
Of unimagined aspiration piled
Against the enamelled blue of earthly aim,
And powers without a name
Which the calm pilot of the soul enjoys
When in salt wash of seething currents wild
He steers new worlds through elemental storms.”
Thine inmost mood to feel.
Heart, as of woman, wet
With the first dews of nature's morning dream,
Here on this cold hard brow in mercy set
Thy sacred touch, and break
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A bond upon my soul; and in thy lake
Of childlike self-unfolding consciousness
Baptize my soul with floods of sweet distress.
Show me reflected shades of sacrifice,
And opal tints of pity, and cloud forms
Of unimagined aspiration piled
Against the enamelled blue of earthly aim,
And powers without a name
Which the calm pilot of the soul enjoys
When in salt wash of seething currents wild
He steers new worlds through elemental storms.”
“So may our spirits for a moment float
As in a new-built boat;
Clasping each other
With the warm love of sister and of brother,
Breathing fresh life together
From every blast of Jove-distracted weather.
For now the future glows
With the rich promise of Aurora's bows.
Now we can see all sin
And pain but as the flesh we struggle in;
Let perish pleasure's sloth,
And cherish pangs of growth,
And folding hands in prayer
Welcome the futile tortures of despair:—
For the great plan of universal Law
We gaze upon with awe.
Yet is the moment done.
Black is the buried sun.
One kiss before we part,
And in the hurried mingling of our breath
Transmit the seed that shall not suffer death;
In tear-wet patience of a lonely heart
Each in his separate soil
To plant and water with long ages' toil;
Until again perhaps
Thousands of years shall lapse,
And in some second focus of God's will,
When the long night of cataclysm ceases
And worn-out worlds have torn themselves in pieces,
In some sweet dawn which dissipates that ill
We shall bring forth the pure and ripened flower
Conceived in this sweet hour.
As in a new-built boat;
Clasping each other
With the warm love of sister and of brother,
Breathing fresh life together
From every blast of Jove-distracted weather.
For now the future glows
With the rich promise of Aurora's bows.
Now we can see all sin
And pain but as the flesh we struggle in;
Let perish pleasure's sloth,
And cherish pangs of growth,
And folding hands in prayer
Welcome the futile tortures of despair:—
For the great plan of universal Law
We gaze upon with awe.
7
Black is the buried sun.
One kiss before we part,
And in the hurried mingling of our breath
Transmit the seed that shall not suffer death;
In tear-wet patience of a lonely heart
Each in his separate soil
To plant and water with long ages' toil;
Until again perhaps
Thousands of years shall lapse,
And in some second focus of God's will,
When the long night of cataclysm ceases
And worn-out worlds have torn themselves in pieces,
In some sweet dawn which dissipates that ill
We shall bring forth the pure and ripened flower
Conceived in this sweet hour.
“Yet now harsh horns begin
To rasp in din.
And all the world grows black
With gathering shadows of the coming wrack.
Away! Farewell!
And now unleash the murderous hounds of hell!”
To rasp in din.
And all the world grows black
With gathering shadows of the coming wrack.
Away! Farewell!
And now unleash the murderous hounds of hell!”
[OMITTED]
Reclining on his roof in Macedon,
The youthful Alexander
Heard a loud cry, and from the Eastern ocean
Saw cloud-shapes leap like warriors in commotion,
And lightning shafts hurled swift as bolts of battle,
And scouts of flying scud which hurried on
The rising tumult of the thunder's rattle.
And in the bosom of the young commander
A flame leaped up, as if a star had broken
And in a molten mass its contents poured
Through the dilating chambers of his heart;
While, Fate's grim message eager to impart,
Quick hissing in his ears Ambition roared:—
The youthful Alexander
Heard a loud cry, and from the Eastern ocean
Saw cloud-shapes leap like warriors in commotion,
8
And scouts of flying scud which hurried on
The rising tumult of the thunder's rattle.
And in the bosom of the young commander
A flame leaped up, as if a star had broken
And in a molten mass its contents poured
Through the dilating chambers of his heart;
While, Fate's grim message eager to impart,
Quick hissing in his ears Ambition roared:—
“Darling of destiny! prince of the ages!
Jove-dowered paragon! nursling of sages!
Sword of the universe! moulder of races!
Welder of hemispheres! forger of spaces!
Rise, O arise, for they fight in the skies,
And the chargers of demons have blood in their eyes,
And the captains of light, and the cohorts of shades
Are pricking the kings of the world with their blades
To yield thee the wealth of their crowns as a prize!”
Jove-dowered paragon! nursling of sages!
Sword of the universe! moulder of races!
Welder of hemispheres! forger of spaces!
Rise, O arise, for they fight in the skies,
And the chargers of demons have blood in their eyes,
And the captains of light, and the cohorts of shades
Are pricking the kings of the world with their blades
To yield thee the wealth of their crowns as a prize!”
Thus was the signal of the furies spoken.
[OMITTED]
At Issus, after fateful Granicus,
In rival lines paused Greek and Persian hosts.
But high in upper strata of the air,
Tossing in wild disorder, mutinous,
Like the torn fringes of a Typhon's hair,
Lay two o'ershadowing armaments of ghosts,
Mighty contingents from all unseen spheres.
In rival lines paused Greek and Persian hosts.
But high in upper strata of the air,
Tossing in wild disorder, mutinous,
Like the torn fringes of a Typhon's hair,
Lay two o'ershadowing armaments of ghosts,
Mighty contingents from all unseen spheres.
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The morning sun lit up their ranks of spears
With myriad flashes, like magnetic glances
Shot from arched forests of auroral lances.
But their tumultuous rings were held in curb
By two archangels, arrogant, superb,
Fierce spirits of the elemental fire
Who sped on eager wing at Jove's desire
Down from the parching dust of Martian fields
To plan fresh woes for this distracted ball;
Calm, cruel, dread with gorgon-headed shields
Forged in the sun, and fresh Hephaestian mail.
Waved each a falchion like a comet's tail
Threatening extinction to a million stars.
And now against the drum-head of the moon
Shivered a lightning bolt; and all hell shook,
While the supreme recorder in his book
A new page marred with blood; and like a wall
Smitten with earthquake fell the impatient bars,
Whence, snorting trumpet blasts, a mad platoon
Of rampant elephants rushed forth, and raged
Down that black plain of cloud like winds uncaged;—
As Alpine peaks had avalanches hurled
Down the besplintered pathway of their rock;—
With liquid leaps, as some great torrent runs
Bursting the futile barrier of its dam,
And oscillating like a drunken world.
With myriad flashes, like magnetic glances
Shot from arched forests of auroral lances.
But their tumultuous rings were held in curb
By two archangels, arrogant, superb,
Fierce spirits of the elemental fire
Who sped on eager wing at Jove's desire
Down from the parching dust of Martian fields
To plan fresh woes for this distracted ball;
Calm, cruel, dread with gorgon-headed shields
Forged in the sun, and fresh Hephaestian mail.
Waved each a falchion like a comet's tail
Threatening extinction to a million stars.
And now against the drum-head of the moon
Shivered a lightning bolt; and all hell shook,
While the supreme recorder in his book
A new page marred with blood; and like a wall
Smitten with earthquake fell the impatient bars,
Whence, snorting trumpet blasts, a mad platoon
Of rampant elephants rushed forth, and raged
Down that black plain of cloud like winds uncaged;—
As Alpine peaks had avalanches hurled
Down the besplintered pathway of their rock;—
With liquid leaps, as some great torrent runs
Bursting the futile barrier of its dam,
And oscillating like a drunken world.
But lined in solid ranks to meet the shock
Knelt calm ten thousand archers, who at once
Bent their great bows as bamboo forests bend
When off the Yellow Sea beats the simoom.
Earth heard their loosened cords like crack of doom,
Or the last crash of some mad orchestra.
And a low cloud of hissing serpents sped
Stinging like fire-fed eels from Surinam;
Till those great mammoths fell and writhed in pain,
Tearing each other's flesh, as tigers rend
The bones of sheep. And now the gilded car
Of each archangel moved; the ominous tread
Of myriad chargers sounded on their flanks;
And gathering lines of mounted furies whirled
Down either side, and tore through broken ranks
As spring-fed torrents tear through rock-choked passes,
Sweeping away, like cyclones, struggling masses;
Till in the centre of that blood-streaked plain
They met as mountains meet, when Titans cast
Pelion on Ossa, and their fragments spurt
Through startled space a jet of asteroids.
Knelt calm ten thousand archers, who at once
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When off the Yellow Sea beats the simoom.
Earth heard their loosened cords like crack of doom,
Or the last crash of some mad orchestra.
And a low cloud of hissing serpents sped
Stinging like fire-fed eels from Surinam;
Till those great mammoths fell and writhed in pain,
Tearing each other's flesh, as tigers rend
The bones of sheep. And now the gilded car
Of each archangel moved; the ominous tread
Of myriad chargers sounded on their flanks;
And gathering lines of mounted furies whirled
Down either side, and tore through broken ranks
As spring-fed torrents tear through rock-choked passes,
Sweeping away, like cyclones, struggling masses;
Till in the centre of that blood-streaked plain
They met as mountains meet, when Titans cast
Pelion on Ossa, and their fragments spurt
Through startled space a jet of asteroids.
And now the red demonic masses seething
In the wild vortex of those awful voids
Felt the strained strata of the atmospheres
Cracking beneath them; and, as polar bears
Slipping on toppling icebergs when the spring
Loosens the Greenland crust in Baffin's Bay,
They reeled, and through that crumbling crater passed
As towns melt up in earthquakes, like the spray
Of salt seas hissing through earth's molten heart.
Not like the falling Satan dazed, inert,
Impotent, cursing like a baffled king;
But as a blood-red dragon active, breathing
Mephitic tongues of flame, with teeth like swords
To reap glad harvests of barbarian hordes;—
So on the pygmy heads of Persian hosts
Thundered this dread Niagara of ghosts.
In the wild vortex of those awful voids
Felt the strained strata of the atmospheres
Cracking beneath them; and, as polar bears
Slipping on toppling icebergs when the spring
Loosens the Greenland crust in Baffin's Bay,
They reeled, and through that crumbling crater passed
As towns melt up in earthquakes, like the spray
Of salt seas hissing through earth's molten heart.
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Impotent, cursing like a baffled king;
But as a blood-red dragon active, breathing
Mephitic tongues of flame, with teeth like swords
To reap glad harvests of barbarian hordes;—
So on the pygmy heads of Persian hosts
Thundered this dread Niagara of ghosts.
But now the Greeks like a long fire-tipped dart
Burst frontward in. And Alexander shrieked
To frenzy wrought by hell's unclaimed alliance.
And the shrill whistle of his hot defiance
Pierced, with the meteor-flashing of his blade,
Straight to Darius' heart; who turned dismayed
Into the maddened flight of plunging horses
Trampling to crimson froth their slippery courses.
As some proud orb, meeting magnetic bars
Flashed from indomitable master stars,
Pauses a moment, hesitant and piqued,
Then with a shudder hurries retrograde
Down the long reaches of the zodiac;—
So did the Persian monarch on his track;
So swirled behind the spray of rout and wrack,
Like Tigris, flooding Babylonian plains
With wreckage of undreamed catastrophe.
Burst frontward in. And Alexander shrieked
To frenzy wrought by hell's unclaimed alliance.
And the shrill whistle of his hot defiance
Pierced, with the meteor-flashing of his blade,
Straight to Darius' heart; who turned dismayed
Into the maddened flight of plunging horses
Trampling to crimson froth their slippery courses.
As some proud orb, meeting magnetic bars
Flashed from indomitable master stars,
Pauses a moment, hesitant and piqued,
Then with a shudder hurries retrograde
Down the long reaches of the zodiac;—
So did the Persian monarch on his track;
So swirled behind the spray of rout and wrack,
Like Tigris, flooding Babylonian plains
With wreckage of undreamed catastrophe.
And now the world lay at his feet. But he,
Like some discarded engine of the gods,
Smitten by rash excess of his own Mars,
Fell on the pathway of the continents.
Not all the wingéd fates for which he fought,
Not all the gorgeous gates of ancient reigns
Submerged beneath his Macedonian sea
Could grant him shelter. Yet those peaceful waves,
Filling earth's golden cup from Chersonese
To the wide crystal of Himálya's rim,
Wearing strange channels for Ægean seas
Through Indus' mouth,—whence the returning tide
Sweeps the vast spoil of oriental thought,—
Lay on the pregnant bosom of those sods
Through the long evening mists of centuries,
The sunset chamber of the world's veiled bride;
Where dull Seleucid crimson afterglows,
Or the last purple arch of Parthian bows
Blended rich blooms from continental graves:
Lay in still depths of brooding elements
Like ferns in dark organic soil of tombs,
Whose slow gestating mystery of wombs
Silent, unheralded, in twilight dim
Moulded twin orbs for hovering cherubim.
Like some discarded engine of the gods,
Smitten by rash excess of his own Mars,
12
Not all the wingéd fates for which he fought,
Not all the gorgeous gates of ancient reigns
Submerged beneath his Macedonian sea
Could grant him shelter. Yet those peaceful waves,
Filling earth's golden cup from Chersonese
To the wide crystal of Himálya's rim,
Wearing strange channels for Ægean seas
Through Indus' mouth,—whence the returning tide
Sweeps the vast spoil of oriental thought,—
Lay on the pregnant bosom of those sods
Through the long evening mists of centuries,
The sunset chamber of the world's veiled bride;
Where dull Seleucid crimson afterglows,
Or the last purple arch of Parthian bows
Blended rich blooms from continental graves:
Lay in still depths of brooding elements
Like ferns in dark organic soil of tombs,
Whose slow gestating mystery of wombs
Silent, unheralded, in twilight dim
Moulded twin orbs for hovering cherubim.
So had the spirits of the hemispheres
Fore-planned the fruitful years,
Ere nature's cyclic chills
Should wrap their tender souls in separate ills.
Fore-planned the fruitful years,
Ere nature's cyclic chills
Should wrap their tender souls in separate ills.
So the pure germ of art
Washed from its native soil,
Warm with the last caress of Grecian toil,
Nestled against the oriental heart;
Mid the first kindling faith of Scythian plains
Found tender incarnation
In shoots of fresh creation
Creeping like frost-blown flowers o'er Buddhist fanes.
Washed from its native soil,
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Nestled against the oriental heart;
Mid the first kindling faith of Scythian plains
Found tender incarnation
In shoots of fresh creation
Creeping like frost-blown flowers o'er Buddhist fanes.
So, too, Imperial Rome,
Smitten with pangs of unsuspected birth,
By her new Eastern blade of conscience keen
Stabbed in the secret chamber of her heart,
Rent her gay robes of art,
Levelled the stately marbles of her home:
Then, with breast bared,
And gray head bent to earth
In the first ecstasy of suffering,
Rushed to the desert like a guilty thing,
And cast her weight of sin, so gladly shared,
Upon the Mercy of the Nazarene.
Smitten with pangs of unsuspected birth,
By her new Eastern blade of conscience keen
Stabbed in the secret chamber of her heart,
Rent her gay robes of art,
Levelled the stately marbles of her home:
Then, with breast bared,
And gray head bent to earth
In the first ecstasy of suffering,
Rushed to the desert like a guilty thing,
And cast her weight of sin, so gladly shared,
Upon the Mercy of the Nazarene.
So shall we leave them there,
Two worlds as if in prayer,
In consecration kneeling,
For one blest moment feeling
That strife
Is not true life,
That perfect rest
Is best.
Two worlds as if in prayer,
In consecration kneeling,
For one blest moment feeling
That strife
Is not true life,
That perfect rest
Is best.
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2. PART II.
The Separated East.
O sweet dead artist and seer,
O tender prophetic priest,
Draw me aside the curtain that veils the heart of your East.
Kano Hogai, into whose mouth I put the following summary of Eastern life, was the greatest Japanese painter of recent times, a genius whose penetration to the heart of early oriental ideals seemed like special inspiration. He was for years one of my dearest friends, and in Japanese art my most valued teacher. I have represented him as the re-incarnate spirit of oriental art. His death in 1888 was a national calamity.
Draw me aside the curtain that veils the heart of your East.
O wing of the Empress of mountains,
Brood white o'er a world of surprises;
And soar to thy Sun as she rises
From the mazarine arch of her fountains.
For thine islands she dropped in the reeds
As a girdle of emerald beads,
And her rainbow promise of genius spanned
As a bridge for the gods to their chosen land.
And her last pure poet shall sing
Like a farewell note
From a nightingale's throat
Of her peace, through thy roseate window of Spring.
Brood white o'er a world of surprises;
And soar to thy Sun as she rises
From the mazarine arch of her fountains.
For thine islands she dropped in the reeds
As a girdle of emerald beads,
And her rainbow promise of genius spanned
As a bridge for the gods to their chosen land.
And her last pure poet shall sing
Like a farewell note
From a nightingale's throat
Of her peace, through thy roseate window of Spring.
I saw him last in the solemn grove
Where the orange temples of Kásŭga shine,
Feeding the timorous deer that rove
Through her tall, dark, purple pillars of pine,
And marking the pattern of leaves
Which the golden mesh of the willow weaves
On the olive bed of her moss-grown eaves.
And I cried to my painter-sage,
“O spirit lone of a bygone age,
Smiling mid ruin and change,
With faith in the beautiful soul of things,
I would gaze on the jewels thy vision brings
From the calm interior depths of its range.
For I 've flown from my West
Like a desolate bird from a broken nest
To learn thy secret of joy and rest.
Quaff from thy fancy's chalice,
And build me anew the fairy palace
With arches gilded and ceiling pearled
Where dwells the soul of thine Asian world.”
Where the orange temples of Kásŭga shine,
The ancient city of Nara, the capital of Japan in the eighth century, still glories in a grove of mighty pines and cedars which sweep away for a mile to the Eastern mountains, sheltering the dainty buildings of the great Shinto temple, Kásŭga. Wild streams have torn narrow beds through it. Venerable Buddhist monasteries flank it on the north. Archæologically, Nara is the treasure-house of Japan. There in the spring and summer of 1886 I spent with Hogai many weeks in delightful study.
Feeding the timorous deer that rove
Through her tall, dark, purple pillars of pine,
And marking the pattern of leaves
15
On the olive bed of her moss-grown eaves.
And I cried to my painter-sage,
“O spirit lone of a bygone age,
Smiling mid ruin and change,
With faith in the beautiful soul of things,
I would gaze on the jewels thy vision brings
From the calm interior depths of its range.
For I 've flown from my West
Like a desolate bird from a broken nest
To learn thy secret of joy and rest.
Quaff from thy fancy's chalice,
And build me anew the fairy palace
With arches gilded and ceiling pearled
Where dwells the soul of thine Asian world.”
Then I thought that his smile grew finer,
As if touched with an insight diviner;
Dear Hogai, my master,
Perched on a wild wistaria stem.
And I marked the light on his mantle's hem
Of a halo pure as a purple aster.
And the cold green blades of a bamboo spear
Pierced to his hand through the atmosphere,
Like the note of a silver bell to the ear.
And his voice came soft as the hymn
Which the snow-clad virgins in cloister dim
Were chanting, with rhythmical sway of limb.
“The past is the seed in the heart of a rose
Whose petalled present shall fade as it blows.
The past is the seed in the soul of man,
The infinite Now of the spirit's span.
For flesh is a flower
That blooms for an hour;
And the soul is the seed
Which determines the breed,
The past in the present
For monarch or peasant.
Eye to eye
'T is ourselves we spy;
For doom or grace
One manifold face;
Life's triumphs and errors
In self-resurrections,
Like endless reflections
From parallel mirrors.
As if touched with an insight diviner;
Dear Hogai, my master,
Perched on a wild wistaria stem.
And I marked the light on his mantle's hem
Of a halo pure as a purple aster.
And the cold green blades of a bamboo spear
Pierced to his hand through the atmosphere,
Like the note of a silver bell to the ear.
And his voice came soft as the hymn
Which the snow-clad virgins in cloister dim
Were chanting, with rhythmical sway of limb.
16
Whose petalled present shall fade as it blows.
The past is the seed in the soul of man,
The infinite Now of the spirit's span.
For flesh is a flower
That blooms for an hour;
And the soul is the seed
Which determines the breed,
The past in the present
For monarch or peasant.
Eye to eye
'T is ourselves we spy;
For doom or grace
One manifold face;
Life's triumphs and errors
In self-resurrections,
Like endless reflections
From parallel mirrors.
“Now I speed on a charger of wind
To the snow-capped castles of Ind.
Mid statues of Buddha the meek,
Link between Mongol and Greek,
Kanishka haughty and lone
Here lolled on his sculptured throne,
The great Vasubandhu to mark,
Lion-faced patriarch.
Now moss like a pall
Shrouds the ruined wall;
Afar in the desert the tigers call.
One pilgrim alone
From its sandy bed
Is lifting a beautiful Buddha's head.
‘O take me, loved of the dragon throne,
Back to thy pious imperial prince;
For ages and ages since
'T was I who carved that form
From the limestone warm.
I'll show thee where germinate in the soil
A thousand truncated gods for thy spoil.
Gather these Bodhisats,
And battle-scarred features of grim Arhats,
And arrogant alabaster kings
With eyes of jacinth
Dethroned from their plinth,
And the masterful heads of Scythian knights
Scowling in mortal fights
With misshapen elemental things.
And hurry thy laden ship
On a heaven-blessed homeward trip;—
So shall the Northern and Eastern plains
Clap their hands at thy gains.
For the light of unborn states
From these things radiates;
Blood for solution
Of crystal worlds Confucian;
Stars for the final Asian man
Rising in far Japan.
I'll paint on the wall
Of thy Tartar capital
Blue gods unmoved in everlasting flame,
Vast planetary coils without a name,
Invigorating thrills
From unseen wills.
And spurred by these I shall cast
Black bronze in an infinite mould,
As high as a pine
And as fine
As the patient jeweller carves his gold;
Impersonal types which shall last
As the noblest ideals of the Past.’
To the snow-capped castles of Ind.
Mid statues of Buddha the meek,
Hogai first visits the North Indian capital of the Scythian king, Kanishka, who about the beginning of the Christian era held the first Council of Northern Buddhism, whence the canon was later disseminated to Central and Eastern Asia. At this Cashmerian centre, in an outburst of creative fervor, the new ideals of a rich and profound faith, large enough in its plan to satisfy the spiritual needs of continent, were first adequately externalized in forms of Hellenic derivation. Many fine relics of this so-called Greco-Buddhist sculpture, including a haughty portrait statue of the Tartar Constantine himself, have been excavated, and are mostly preserved in the museum at Lahore.
Link between Mongol and Greek,
Kanishka haughty and lone
Here lolled on his sculptured throne,
The great Vasubandhu to mark,
Vasubandhu, the greatest follower of Nagarjuna, and one of the most important patriarchs in the line of esoteric transmission, was a man whose extraordinary spiritual and intellectual endowments enabled him largely to mould the subsequent course of Northern Buddhism, much as St. Paul did that of Christianity. He is the author of numerous works which remain to-day a corner-stone of Japanese Buddhism. It is not certain whether in old age he was present at the Northern Synod; but his spirit was doubtless dominant in the person of its president, his disciple Vasumitra. A portrait statue of Vasubandhu, preserved in Nara, shows us a face of enormous power.
Lion-faced patriarch.
Now moss like a pall
When the Chinese pilgrim Hiouentsang visited these sacred seats in the seventh century, he found them already in pitiful ruin. The Greco-Buddhist relics which he brought to China became the germ of a lofty religious art throughout the Tang Dynasty, and in Corea and Japan during the eighth century. A trace of this Hellenic quality has never died out in the art of the latter country.
Shrouds the ruined wall;
17
One pilgrim alone
From its sandy bed
Is lifting a beautiful Buddha's head.
‘O take me, loved of the dragon throne,
Back to thy pious imperial prince;
For ages and ages since
'T was I who carved that form
From the limestone warm.
I'll show thee where germinate in the soil
A thousand truncated gods for thy spoil.
Gather these Bodhisats,
And battle-scarred features of grim Arhats,
These are the titles of two degrees in Buddhist saintship. The Arhat, in Northern Buddhism, is one who has attained only subjective purification by withdrawing from the world. He bears marks of the severity of his ascetic discipline. A Bodhisattwa is one who, through the passion of divine love for men, has mingled with the evil of the world and overcome it, thus winning a leadership in the overshadowing army of the good. He is represented as of beautiful face and heavenly mien.
And arrogant alabaster kings
With eyes of jacinth
Dethroned from their plinth,
And the masterful heads of Scythian knights
These are the four archangels militant, whose statues stand at the corner of every ancient altar. They are represented as stamping on evil in the form of a distorted imp. There can be little doubt that the military costume of these figures in early Chinese and Japanese examples is borrowed from the trappings of ancient Scythian generals. The finest specimens extant are at Kaidanin of Nara, modelled in clay, of life size, and dating from the commencement of the eighth century.
Scowling in mortal fights
With misshapen elemental things.
And hurry thy laden ship
On a heaven-blessed homeward trip;—
So shall the Northern and Eastern plains
Clap their hands at thy gains.
For the light of unborn states
From these things radiates;
Blood for solution
Of crystal worlds Confucian;
Stars for the final Asian man
Rising in far Japan.
18
Of thy Tartar capital
Blue gods unmoved in everlasting flame,
The art of the Tang Dynasty became strongest in religious painting. Symbolic figures of large size and mystic import were painted on the walls of temples in firm outline and rich color. Of these the Bodhisattwa Fudo, whose name signifies “The Unmoved,” was depicted as blue, and seated in the midst of orange flame. The colors, halos, flames, and clouds of such paintings, represent the spiritual aura, currents, and conditions generated by these lofty beings.
Vast planetary coils without a name,
Invigorating thrills
From unseen wills.
And spurred by these I shall cast
Black bronze in an infinite mould,
The highest creative power of Northern Buddhistic art was reached in early Japanese bronze sculpture, which clothes with the dignity and beauty of a Greek reminiscence the noblest suggestions of superhuman spiritual types. The finest remains are the colossal statues in the temple Yakushiji, near Nara, cast in the eighth century, of a metal which in color resembles polished ebony.
As high as a pine
And as fine
As the patient jeweller carves his gold;
Impersonal types which shall last
As the noblest ideals of the Past.’
[OMITTED]
“O crystalline flash at the bar of billows!
O amethyst gate of the Eastern seas!
O balmy bosom of soft spring willows!
O pearly vision of white plum trees!
Hogai now transfers the scene of his description to China. I have chosen from the several periods of Chinese culture that most typically artistic one of the later Sung Dynasty, whose idealistic outburst of Buddhist illumination in the twelfth century rendered its capital, Hangchow, a birthplace of inspired forms. Marco Polo describes the city as he saw it some years later, and we have minute contemporary records of it in Chinese poetry and painting. It lay a few miles inland, between the Sientang Estuary and the beautiful “Western Lake,” surrounded by groves and picturesque mountains, among whose nooks and crags grew mossy temples and secluded villas, where worked the artists, poets, statesmen, and philosophers of that golden age. The flavor of its intense life I have attempted to suggest in the following passage.
O amethyst gate of the Eastern seas!
O balmy bosom of soft spring willows!
O pearly vision of white plum trees!
“O blest Hangchow, I fly to thee now
As a fluttering dove to her leafy home;
As the seabirds sweep o'er the spray of the deep
To the reedy fringe of Sientang's foam.
As a fluttering dove to her leafy home;
As the seabirds sweep o'er the spray of the deep
To the reedy fringe of Sientang's foam.
“Now a mirror of pines thy soft lake shines
By the dewy breath of the morning kissed.
And the spouting rills like the blood of the hills
Are drunk by the passionate lips of the mist.
By the dewy breath of the morning kissed.
And the spouting rills like the blood of the hills
Are drunk by the passionate lips of the mist.
19
“In a tangle of leaves with silken sleeves
Thy poets sing on the terraced beach,
Where the blue-flagged taverns with mossy eaves
Are starred by the pink of the blossoming peach.
Thy poets sing on the terraced beach,
Where the blue-flagged taverns with mossy eaves
Are starred by the pink of the blossoming peach.
“Thy ramparts rise with roofs to the skies
Like a jewelled cluster of golden peaks.
'Neath the crystal ridge of the arching bridge
Is the dreamy shade which the boatman seeks.
Like a jewelled cluster of golden peaks.
'Neath the crystal ridge of the arching bridge
Is the dreamy shade which the boatman seeks.
“While sunbeams play on the rock-hewn way
To the dizzy heights of his temple's spire,
Like a spirit roves in mountain groves
The priestly painter with soul a-fire.
To the dizzy heights of his temple's spire,
Like a spirit roves in mountain groves
The priestly painter with soul a-fire.
“Nor frost of age shall the saintly sage
Restrain from the balm of his walk at noon;
Nor the hem of the night retard the flight
Of the maiden who bares her breast to the moon.
Restrain from the balm of his walk at noon;
Nor the hem of the night retard the flight
Of the maiden who bares her breast to the moon.
“In dainty dells where the silver bells
Of far-off temples caress the breeze,
Shall nature's child with her locks blown wild
Her herbs let fall as she falls on her knees.
Of far-off temples caress the breeze,
Shall nature's child with her locks blown wild
Her herbs let fall as she falls on her knees.
“For visions come on the noontide hum
Of soul in the infinite warmth of things,
The mirror of moods where spirit broods
With the glory of love on her half-grown wings.
Of soul in the infinite warmth of things,
The central mood of this Chinese idealism, drawn from the Zen (Dhyan), or contemplative sect of Buddhists, was the vital realization of nature as a storehouse of spiritual forms. Not by way of cold abstraction, or of a labored symbolism, but as seen in flashes of devout insight, did the world become to man a mirror of his own soul. Never elsewhere has the passion of faith inspired such a profound study of external beauties. It is the well of oriental landscape-art.
The mirror of moods where spirit broods
With the glory of love on her half-grown wings.
20
“There knotted pines with their storm-torn lines
Are stamped with the stress of a passion human;
And the willow swims on its current of limbs
Like the yielding heart of a queenly woman.
Are stamped with the stress of a passion human;
And the willow swims on its current of limbs
Like the yielding heart of a queenly woman.
“And mountains crossed by the track of the frost,
And rocks that harden with weight of woes,
And rivers that hide like a sweet, shy bride,
And thorns which sting in the kiss of a rose,
And rocks that harden with weight of woes,
And rivers that hide like a sweet, shy bride,
And thorns which sting in the kiss of a rose,
“And habits that twine in a clinging vine,
And innocent herons in lotus beds,
And water that showers the vernal flowers,
Are the patterns of soul with its rainbow threads.
And innocent herons in lotus beds,
And water that showers the vernal flowers,
Are the patterns of soul with its rainbow threads.
“And a song of pity is rife in the city;
And the marts of toil are a revel of mirth;
And the passion of labor is help to a neighbor
For the sake of the love God breathes on the earth.
And the marts of toil are a revel of mirth;
And the passion of labor is help to a neighbor
For the sake of the love God breathes on the earth.
“Let the painter paint a world for a saint!
Let the poet sing of the realm of the heart!
Where the spur of duty is the passion for beauty
There Love is a law, and the Law is an art.
Let the poet sing of the realm of the heart!
Where the spur of duty is the passion for beauty
There Love is a law, and the Law is an art.
“O crystalline flash at the bar of billows,
O tremulous secret the pine-trees hum!
There once was a life like the peace of thy willows,—
But night shuts down, and my voice is dumb.
O tremulous secret the pine-trees hum!
There once was a life like the peace of thy willows,—
But night shuts down, and my voice is dumb.
[OMITTED]
21
“Farewell to the dawn in the meadow!
Farewell to the glint on the dew!
All hail to the wing of the shadow,
And a kiss for the curse of the new!
'T is the flight of the wild goose graven
On the pale green gold of the West;
And I wake to the call of the raven.
Let me sing to the land of my rest!
Hogai now expressly transfers the picture to his native Japan in a lament for its vanishing glory and innocence. I have tried in the following pages to realize something of the delicate charm and significance of Japanese life and art at their best. Here is a flavor so subtle as to elude direct expression. It was the perfect striking of an extreme note in the scale of human culture.
Farewell to the glint on the dew!
All hail to the wing of the shadow,
And a kiss for the curse of the new!
'T is the flight of the wild goose graven
On the pale green gold of the West;
And I wake to the call of the raven.
Let me sing to the land of my rest!
“O land where the towns are like garden blooms!
O land where the maids are like peaches!
O gardens faint with their own perfumes!
O maidens like waves on the beaches!
O erratic child Japanese!
Heir of Mongolian peace,
Though we know not thy fate hereafter,
Thank God for thy genuine laughter.
Bathe in the passing mood of thy mirth
As in sunlit ether the earth;
Like the plunging bow of a ship
In the pools of thy faith still dip;
And freshen the Asian ideal
In the cooling floods of the real.
O land where the maids are like peaches!
O gardens faint with their own perfumes!
O maidens like waves on the beaches!
O erratic child Japanese!
Heir of Mongolian peace,
Though we know not thy fate hereafter,
Thank God for thy genuine laughter.
Bathe in the passing mood of thy mirth
As in sunlit ether the earth;
Like the plunging bow of a ship
In the pools of thy faith still dip;
And freshen the Asian ideal
In the cooling floods of the real.
“Not for sages only
Or hermits lonely
Blows the bud of truth;
But for innocent youth,
Hearts that smile
With no shadow of guile.
Let pink-veined pleasure bloom!
Bliss
Like the kiss
Of a summer air,
Roving it knows not where,
Blessing it cares not whom!
Words
Like the glad good morning of the birds;
Loves
Like the coo of doves;
Soft whispers
As of fair nuns at vespers;
Airs
Pure as a child's first prayers!
Let us dance
To the moon
In a ring of wild flowers!
In a trance
Let us swoon
On the lap of the hours!
Let us fly
Like a lark to the sky!
Let us graze
Like a dove-eyed fawn
On the purple pastures of haze!
Let us leap on the gem-starred lawn
Of the virginal dawn!
Let us gaze
In a pool
In the heart of a dell
Shady and cool;
On the film of that well
See unexpected
Beauty reflected,
The world of art
Like a thing apart;—
Ripples of notes
From wild birds throats,
Blurred outlines
Of the shimmer of pines,
Tangled masses
Of dew-soaked grasses,
Faint perfumes
From the mirrored blooms!
This is thy mission,
O child of transition,
To illumine the gloomy pages
Of later ages.
Retain simplicity
Even to eccentricity,
Prize individuality
As man's divinest quality,
The spontaneity
Of Deity!
Teach them the music fine
In the curve of a perfect line;
Teach them to water their art
With the blood of the heart!
Or hermits lonely
Blows the bud of truth;
But for innocent youth,
Hearts that smile
With no shadow of guile.
22
Bliss
Like the kiss
Of a summer air,
Roving it knows not where,
Blessing it cares not whom!
Words
Like the glad good morning of the birds;
Loves
Like the coo of doves;
Soft whispers
As of fair nuns at vespers;
Airs
Pure as a child's first prayers!
Let us dance
To the moon
In a ring of wild flowers!
In a trance
Let us swoon
On the lap of the hours!
Let us fly
Like a lark to the sky!
Let us graze
Like a dove-eyed fawn
On the purple pastures of haze!
Let us leap on the gem-starred lawn
Of the virginal dawn!
Let us gaze
In a pool
23
Shady and cool;
On the film of that well
See unexpected
Beauty reflected,
The world of art
Like a thing apart;—
Ripples of notes
From wild birds throats,
Blurred outlines
Of the shimmer of pines,
Tangled masses
Of dew-soaked grasses,
Faint perfumes
From the mirrored blooms!
This is thy mission,
O child of transition,
To illumine the gloomy pages
Of later ages.
Retain simplicity
Even to eccentricity,
Prize individuality
As man's divinest quality,
The spontaneity
Of Deity!
Teach them the music fine
In the curve of a perfect line;
Teach them to water their art
With the blood of the heart!
24
“O happy children of blest Japan,
Relics of elemental man
Before souls wilt
In the parching consciousness of guilt!
Dance to the tune of thy flutes,
Or weep at thy pathos of lutes;
Gather like laughing stars
Round the course of thy festal cars;
Light the smoking torch
O'er the flower-bed in thy porch;
Hang evergreen
On the gate at New Year's e'en;
Love storks and deer
And all things significant and queer;
Wine cups of buds like myrtles,
And the hairy tails of turtles,
Pigeons feasting on temple crumbs,
The explosive eloquence of plums;
Crowds picnicking merry
In snowy vistas of cherry,
Where perfumed avalanches
Slip from the laden branches;
Leap of the carp
To strike the wistaria's harp,
Garlands to deck the brow
Of the marble cow;
The pleasant croon
Of far secluded priests at noon
Gliding o'er lacquered floors,
Pacing long lines of orange corridors,
Where the dim gold Buddh of the altars
Nods to the hum of their psalters!
In the very incense smoke
Consecrate thy harmless joke;
Banter of paradoxes,
Folk-lore of badgers and foxes;
Fathers of families
Preaching droll homilies;
Children in merry hosts
Frightened by masks of ghosts,
Toasting rice-cakes on winter nights,
Battling with saw-stringed kites,
Sisters and brothers
Basking like kittens in the love of their mothers!
Relics of elemental man
Before souls wilt
In the parching consciousness of guilt!
Dance to the tune of thy flutes,
Or weep at thy pathos of lutes;
Gather like laughing stars
Round the course of thy festal cars;
Light the smoking torch
O'er the flower-bed in thy porch;
Hang evergreen
On the gate at New Year's e'en;
Love storks and deer
And all things significant and queer;
Wine cups of buds like myrtles,
And the hairy tails of turtles,
Pigeons feasting on temple crumbs,
The explosive eloquence of plums;
Crowds picnicking merry
In snowy vistas of cherry,
Where perfumed avalanches
Slip from the laden branches;
Leap of the carp
Well-known scenes of Japanese out-door life are referred to on this page. At the garden of Kameido, near Tokio, a wonderful trellis of low-hanging wistaria is thrown across a temple pool stocked with fish. The shrine is dedicated to the scholar Michizane, in whose worship the faithful cow has become a symbol.
To strike the wistaria's harp,
Garlands to deck the brow
Of the marble cow;
The pleasant croon
Of far secluded priests at noon
Gliding o'er lacquered floors,
25
Where the dim gold Buddh of the altars
Nods to the hum of their psalters!
In the very incense smoke
Consecrate thy harmless joke;
Banter of paradoxes,
Folk-lore of badgers and foxes;
Fathers of families
Preaching droll homilies;
Children in merry hosts
Frightened by masks of ghosts,
Toasting rice-cakes on winter nights,
Battling with saw-stringed kites,
Sisters and brothers
Basking like kittens in the love of their mothers!
“O mother heart, pierced with keen
Anxieties that banish sleep
For sons who rove on the deep,
Pray to the holy snow-white Queen,
Spirit of Providence,
Choosing her throne
On the cold gray stone,
In love intense
Sweeping with inner sense
O'er miles of watery waste,
Rushing in haste
Where cold billows lift monstrous lips
To suck in blasted hulls of ships!
Pray for the golden peace
Of the Buddha of Infinite Light!
Let the importunity cease
Of the Self who knocks in the night!
Make thy choice
Of the low inarticulate voice!
Save the man at thy breast
Who screams
At the sting of the gold in his dreams,
The unholy strife of the West!”
Anxieties that banish sleep
For sons who rove on the deep,
Pray to the holy snow-white Queen,
Spirit of Providence,
Choosing her throne
On the cold gray stone,
In love intense
Sweeping with inner sense
O'er miles of watery waste,
Rushing in haste
Where cold billows lift monstrous lips
To suck in blasted hulls of ships!
26
Of the Buddha of Infinite Light!
Let the importunity cease
Of the Self who knocks in the night!
Make thy choice
Of the low inarticulate voice!
Save the man at thy breast
Who screams
At the sting of the gold in his dreams,
The unholy strife of the West!”
[OMITTED]
O wing of the Empress of mountains!
So sang thy last poet at Kásŭga's fountains.
The chant of the vestals had ceased.
The moon was awake in the East.
The love-locked pine-branches o'er us
Tinkled their bells in sympathetic chorus;
And the willow wept
Where the violet smiled as she slept.
My heart too was swelling
With the tears of a love past telling.
But I said:—
“O blossom of life in a dew-starred bed,
Thou art too sweet for this earth,
Too exquisite to linger;
Like the peace of a blest babe who dies at birth,
Like the agony of tears
When the young mother robbed of its prayed-for years
Kisses the listless finger.
Say, on the feminine curves of thy plain
Rises no rock for a counter-strain?
Are there no trumpets to shriek
In the sleeping ear of the meek?
No comet to threaten the sun?”
Yes, there was one;—
One priest white-robed who seemed to glide
Like a ghost from the rock at my side,
With a smile that pierced like a sword
And a soul-compelling word.
And I heard him say,
As we fell on our knees to pray:—
So sang thy last poet at Kásŭga's fountains.
The chant of the vestals had ceased.
The moon was awake in the East.
The love-locked pine-branches o'er us
Tinkled their bells in sympathetic chorus;
And the willow wept
Where the violet smiled as she slept.
My heart too was swelling
With the tears of a love past telling.
But I said:—
“O blossom of life in a dew-starred bed,
Thou art too sweet for this earth,
Too exquisite to linger;
Like the peace of a blest babe who dies at birth,
Like the agony of tears
27
Kisses the listless finger.
Say, on the feminine curves of thy plain
Rises no rock for a counter-strain?
Are there no trumpets to shriek
In the sleeping ear of the meek?
No comet to threaten the sun?”
Yes, there was one;—
One priest white-robed who seemed to glide
His Reverence the Archbishop Keitoku, of the Tendai sect at Miidera temple on Lake Biwa, I still look up to as my most inspired and devoutly liberal teacher in matters religious. Precious were the days and nights I had the privilege of spending with him in the vicinities of Kioto, Nara, and Nikko. He was a lofty living exemplar of the spiritual knighthood. He passed from the visible form in 1889.
Like a ghost from the rock at my side,
With a smile that pierced like a sword
And a soul-compelling word.
And I heard him say,
As we fell on our knees to pray:—
“The fire of combat flashes
'Neath the grass-grown slopes of the ashes.
The planets are held in their places
By the struggles of mighty races.
Choice souls have forever come
To be trained for their martyrdom
Since the days when Kukai hurled
His dart from the Chinese world.
What can the dreaming people know
Of the tempest surging below,
Of the devils storming the very
Fort of the monastery?
He who would strangle an elf
Must first of all conquer himself;
The true knight
With his own heart fight,
Antagony
Of untold agony!
On no external god relying,
Self-armed, heaven and hell alike defying,
Lonely,
With bare will only,
Biting his bitter blood-stained sod;—
This for the world, as for Japan,
This is to be a man!
This is to be a god!”
'Neath the grass-grown slopes of the ashes.
The planets are held in their places
By the struggles of mighty races.
Choice souls have forever come
To be trained for their martyrdom
Since the days when Kukai hurled
His dart from the Chinese world.
Kukai, or Kobo Daishi, one of the three great founders of Esoteric Buddhism in Japan, spent many years of his youth in study at a famous Chinese monastery. About to return to his native country early in the ninth century, he meditated long concerning the site of his projected temple. Leaving the decision to the powers of heaven, he is said to have thrown his vagra, or metal mace, into the air in the direction of Japan, whither it was borne by divine means, and lodged in a tall tree on the top of Koya mountain. Here after his return it was found by the Daishi, and here he built the splendid monastery of Koyasan, which remains to this day the patriarchal seat of the Shingon sect in Japan.
What can the dreaming people know
Of the tempest surging below,
Of the devils storming the very
Fort of the monastery?
He who would strangle an elf
28
The true knight
With his own heart fight,
Antagony
Of untold agony!
On no external god relying,
Self-armed, heaven and hell alike defying,
Lonely,
With bare will only,
Biting his bitter blood-stained sod;—
This for the world, as for Japan,
This is to be a man!
This is to be a god!”
29
3. PART III.
The Separated West.
Soul of my inner face, face of my race,
Strong mask of self-assertion, positive,
Firm lip of competition, masculine,
Broad brow of Mercury, quick, cunning, keen,
Fierce eye of Mars with crest of sunlit fringe!
Through nights of Time I mark thy luminous course,
Furrowing rich worlds with prow piratical,
Grafting new shoots on broken racial stems,
Sowing old soils fresh fertilized with blood.
Thou art the sieve of men, whence weaker bulks
Slip through the meshes to oblivion.
Breathe through my blood once more thy feverish glow,
Long chilled by cooling crusts of compromise;
Thou, strong in reciprocity of needs,
Expansive self-willed personality!
Strong mask of self-assertion, positive,
Firm lip of competition, masculine,
Broad brow of Mercury, quick, cunning, keen,
Fierce eye of Mars with crest of sunlit fringe!
Through nights of Time I mark thy luminous course,
Furrowing rich worlds with prow piratical,
Grafting new shoots on broken racial stems,
Sowing old soils fresh fertilized with blood.
Thou art the sieve of men, whence weaker bulks
Slip through the meshes to oblivion.
Breathe through my blood once more thy feverish glow,
Long chilled by cooling crusts of compromise;
Thou, strong in reciprocity of needs,
Expansive self-willed personality!
It will be perceived that I oppose personality, the self-centred and self-originated will of an incarnate man, to individuality, the unconscious strength and freedom of an intelligence immersed in the divinity of its work. One is peculiar through the abstract isolation of subjectivity; the other is peculiar through the infinite fulness of the well of Spirit whence it flows.
Standing upon the vantage-ground of peaks
Kissed by the light of rising Easter dawns,
I mark long lines of shadows surge like ghosts
Waging with noiseless shout their mimic war.
Kissed by the light of rising Easter dawns,
I mark long lines of shadows surge like ghosts
Waging with noiseless shout their mimic war.
30
As some vast wave o'ertopping lunar tides,
Engendered at the bottom of the sea
By stifled monsters wrenched, whose fissured mouths
Feed on her protoplasmic gelatines,
Sweeps on with circling rim, like living discs
Of light from stars long centuries extinct,
Slipping from pole to pole as if a hand
Caressed the tiny surface of this ball;—
So from dark mouths of prehistoric woods
Which once had reared their gloomy palisades
To hail the slow retreat of baffled ice,
Issue chill floods of melting Northern snows,
A wild Teutonic wave of glacial steel
Submerging Roman worlds; with surge of spray
Mocking the lonely sentinels of Alps,
Cresting the faithful bar of Apennines,
Storming the portals of the Pyrenees,
Tainting the sunlit laughter of the Rhine
With eddying crimson shrieks of tortured hearts;—
A flood of human fiends, by furies driven
To quaff the wine of life from lipless skulls,
And doom for slaves fair weeping captive maids
In marts of their own marble palaces.
Engendered at the bottom of the sea
By stifled monsters wrenched, whose fissured mouths
Feed on her protoplasmic gelatines,
Sweeps on with circling rim, like living discs
Of light from stars long centuries extinct,
Slipping from pole to pole as if a hand
Caressed the tiny surface of this ball;—
So from dark mouths of prehistoric woods
Which once had reared their gloomy palisades
To hail the slow retreat of baffled ice,
Issue chill floods of melting Northern snows,
A wild Teutonic wave of glacial steel
Submerging Roman worlds; with surge of spray
Mocking the lonely sentinels of Alps,
Cresting the faithful bar of Apennines,
Storming the portals of the Pyrenees,
Tainting the sunlit laughter of the Rhine
With eddying crimson shrieks of tortured hearts;—
A flood of human fiends, by furies driven
To quaff the wine of life from lipless skulls,
And doom for slaves fair weeping captive maids
In marts of their own marble palaces.
Now shot from polar coasts see meteors flash,
Long lines of viking ships, with low black hulls
Like vultures, plunging through the Northern seas,
Hovering like gulls in track of channel storms,
Scouring for prey the long white sunlit cliffs;
Wailing their chant to Odin like wild winds
Surging through organ pipes of naked fiords,
Wooing Valhalla to Northumbrian hills
Or primrose-garnished banks of lovely Seine.
Now, drunk with richer wine of vanquished worlds,
Wielding the cross as once their bolt of Thor,
They skirt with gorgeous sweep Hispania's curves,
Through pillared gateway of the land-locked sea
Set in its rifted coasts of gilded cloud,
A blue enamelled dragon! Now they break,
Those strange Norse champions of a Hebrew god,
The threatening onsets of the Saracen,
Dispersed like storms which strew with wrecks thy coast,
Nurse of a hundred races, Sicily!
Long lines of viking ships, with low black hulls
Like vultures, plunging through the Northern seas,
Hovering like gulls in track of channel storms,
Scouring for prey the long white sunlit cliffs;
31
Surging through organ pipes of naked fiords,
Wooing Valhalla to Northumbrian hills
Or primrose-garnished banks of lovely Seine.
Now, drunk with richer wine of vanquished worlds,
Wielding the cross as once their bolt of Thor,
They skirt with gorgeous sweep Hispania's curves,
Through pillared gateway of the land-locked sea
Set in its rifted coasts of gilded cloud,
A blue enamelled dragon! Now they break,
Those strange Norse champions of a Hebrew god,
The threatening onsets of the Saracen,
Dispersed like storms which strew with wrecks thy coast,
Nurse of a hundred races, Sicily!
Whether in corpse-choked pass at Roncesvalles,
Second Thermopylæ of Paladins;
Or in the vortex of Valkyrian joy
Welcoming Hastings' maddest hail of spears;
Anon in flaming wrath of wild crusades
Storming the hoary walls of Constantine,
Laying a clanging wreath of naked swords
Upon the tombstone of the Prince of Peace;
Forging new thrones for kings pontifical,
Wresting dominion from the polar ice,
Filching the torrid spoil of Indian seas;
Columbus with his unaccustomed keels
Piercing the void to worlds antipodal:—
Whether it be, in song, Arthurian knights,
Or Siegfried battling with the wills of gods,
Or weird still voices of the steel-clad maid;
Now the atomic flash of feudal war,
Now the red arguments of Christian zeal;
Or where in gloomy dungeons of the soul
Shrieks the self-torture of inquisitors;
Or where in glow of young creative faith
Pure Gothic pinnacles like crystal darts
Precipitate on films of firmament,
Echoes of martial songs to melt in tears,
Passions of hearts to palpitate in flowers,
Fire-whorls to lap the altars of the moon:—
There I accept my dower of Western blood
Kneeling in sackcloth as a penitent
To consecrate such power for worthier aim.
Second Thermopylæ of Paladins;
Or in the vortex of Valkyrian joy
Welcoming Hastings' maddest hail of spears;
Anon in flaming wrath of wild crusades
Storming the hoary walls of Constantine,
Laying a clanging wreath of naked swords
Upon the tombstone of the Prince of Peace;
Forging new thrones for kings pontifical,
Wresting dominion from the polar ice,
Filching the torrid spoil of Indian seas;
Columbus with his unaccustomed keels
Piercing the void to worlds antipodal:—
Whether it be, in song, Arthurian knights,
32
Or weird still voices of the steel-clad maid;
Now the atomic flash of feudal war,
Now the red arguments of Christian zeal;
Or where in gloomy dungeons of the soul
Shrieks the self-torture of inquisitors;
Or where in glow of young creative faith
Pure Gothic pinnacles like crystal darts
Precipitate on films of firmament,
Echoes of martial songs to melt in tears,
Passions of hearts to palpitate in flowers,
Fire-whorls to lap the altars of the moon:—
There I accept my dower of Western blood
Kneeling in sackcloth as a penitent
To consecrate such power for worthier aim.
What gave this world of turbulence its strength?
What its cement of bonds centripetal?
Was it blind crash of molecules supreme
Compelling peace of equilibrium?
Tangles of selves in planetary coils
Won from vast voids of human nebulæ?
Force bearding force like John at Runnymede?
Rights torn like blasted profiles from the rock?
Self abdicating self for self's own aim?
Ah, Law, laugh loud at heaven's harmonic code,
Then kneel to naked negativity!
Cromwell and Luther hail as champions,
Not Him of Galilee thy guarantee!
What its cement of bonds centripetal?
Was it blind crash of molecules supreme
Compelling peace of equilibrium?
Tangles of selves in planetary coils
Won from vast voids of human nebulæ?
Force bearding force like John at Runnymede?
Rights torn like blasted profiles from the rock?
Self abdicating self for self's own aim?
Ah, Law, laugh loud at heaven's harmonic code,
Then kneel to naked negativity!
Cromwell and Luther hail as champions,
Not Him of Galilee thy guarantee!
33
O self-fed spring of thought,
O eager lip
Of scientific pride, thou too art stained
With the ancestral curse;—analysis
Splitting ideas in fine-spun silver threads
Like the cold drip from icicles, impelled
To wrest each numbered angle from the maze
Of cosmic synthesis, all faiths and loves
To solve in pools of fleshly impulses;
Sweeping the sky with rival telescopes
For paltry gold or crumbling stars of fame,
Yet in the blindness of self-centred zeal
Founding new plinths for shafts of spirit-worlds.
Whether in wars where words like bolts are hurled
From ramparts of scholastic fortresses,
Or systems crashing from their Titan suns
To fall in spray of blasted principle;
Or gnomes who dig dark secrets from the earth,
Or sylphs who mount the coursers of the clouds,
Ariels who hail the shadow of the moon
For cyclic chase of self-hid photospheres;
Bees bearing message from the bursting buds,
Adventurous birds, earth's floral pioneers,
Or boys who cast away the wanton stone
To marvel at the lithesome leap of life;
Whether the faultless search that stifles pain,
Or incarnating thought which lifts on high
Vast airy webs of steel to span the floods,
Rivets the ends of earth with breathing links,
And laughs at space in telepathic speed;
Or be it libraries of bygone deeds
Rescued from torch of time, or mysteries
Of interracial flux, or desert wastes
Of dry statistic covering fertile wells:—
These be thy choicest blooms for offering
Before the judges of Manwantaras,
Thou, thirst unslaked of curiosity!
Thou, prying, piercing pygmy, unappalled
Though hell launch forth anathemas, resolved
To conquer facts as thou destroyest worlds!
Thou dauntless Norseman steering fragile barks
Into the sunsets of Infinity!
Of scientific pride, thou too art stained
With the ancestral curse;—analysis
Splitting ideas in fine-spun silver threads
Like the cold drip from icicles, impelled
To wrest each numbered angle from the maze
Of cosmic synthesis, all faiths and loves
To solve in pools of fleshly impulses;
Sweeping the sky with rival telescopes
For paltry gold or crumbling stars of fame,
Yet in the blindness of self-centred zeal
Founding new plinths for shafts of spirit-worlds.
Whether in wars where words like bolts are hurled
From ramparts of scholastic fortresses,
Or systems crashing from their Titan suns
To fall in spray of blasted principle;
Or gnomes who dig dark secrets from the earth,
Or sylphs who mount the coursers of the clouds,
Ariels who hail the shadow of the moon
For cyclic chase of self-hid photospheres;
Bees bearing message from the bursting buds,
Adventurous birds, earth's floral pioneers,
Or boys who cast away the wanton stone
To marvel at the lithesome leap of life;
Whether the faultless search that stifles pain,
Or incarnating thought which lifts on high
Vast airy webs of steel to span the floods,
Rivets the ends of earth with breathing links,
And laughs at space in telepathic speed;
34
Rescued from torch of time, or mysteries
Of interracial flux, or desert wastes
Of dry statistic covering fertile wells:—
These be thy choicest blooms for offering
Before the judges of Manwantaras,
Thou, thirst unslaked of curiosity!
Thou, prying, piercing pygmy, unappalled
Though hell launch forth anathemas, resolved
To conquer facts as thou destroyest worlds!
Thou dauntless Norseman steering fragile barks
Into the sunsets of Infinity!
Now on high noon of hot commercial tides
See thy ripe products borne to Eastern spheres;
Threatening the world with thy belligerent types,
Threatening thyself with thine excess of zeal.
The very lust and greed by which is spun
The knitting tissue of these cruel wounds,
The very curse which whips our naked crews
To span the world with steel-bound leap of trade,
Poison the crimson life-tide of our veins,
Convene the dread tribunal of our doom.
The smoke of chimneys taints this verdant world.
The pests of crowded indigence and vice
Are nigh to eat the manhood of thy heart.
See'st thou the fuse of thine own dynamite?
Self-law, self-science, self-greed, self-wealth, self-sworn
To blast the stanchest stronghold of thy pride!
See thy ripe products borne to Eastern spheres;
Threatening the world with thy belligerent types,
Threatening thyself with thine excess of zeal.
The very lust and greed by which is spun
The knitting tissue of these cruel wounds,
The very curse which whips our naked crews
To span the world with steel-bound leap of trade,
Poison the crimson life-tide of our veins,
Convene the dread tribunal of our doom.
The smoke of chimneys taints this verdant world.
The pests of crowded indigence and vice
Are nigh to eat the manhood of thy heart.
See'st thou the fuse of thine own dynamite?
Self-law, self-science, self-greed, self-wealth, self-sworn
To blast the stanchest stronghold of thy pride!
35
The West provokes the East. The iron arm
Slips off the narrow edges of this world.
Flaxen-haired vandals hunt for zest of blood
The black striped tigers of the Bengalee,
Scaling the slippery crests of Himavats,
Holding the poisoned cup to Mongol lips.
See in last glimpse how unchecked years condense
The forces of destruction. —Miles of wall
Gemmed like enamelled rainbows, gleam of lakes
Shot through fair parks, whose lines of granite bridge
Sweep like the sculptured drapery of a god;
Cresting the hill a dream of jewelled tents
Caught from the mirror of the sunset skies,
Now crystallized in marble terraces,
And gilded pillars, and the arch of roofs
Bright with chromatic coronet of tiles,
And endless treasures of green-hearted bronze,
And blood-red urns, and rare canary sheens
Flashed from a whispering sea of draperies;—
The Summer Palace of the Dragon Throne
Unmatched by all the wonders of the world;—
Now lapped in flame, whose red remorseful lip
Shrinks from the dread repast, pillars of smoke
Bearing earth's funeral wail to weeping stars
For the lost marvel of the centuries;—
Like crumbling glow of Alexandria's tomes
Or shattered fragments of the Parthenon!
Slips off the narrow edges of this world.
Flaxen-haired vandals hunt for zest of blood
The black striped tigers of the Bengalee,
Scaling the slippery crests of Himavats,
Holding the poisoned cup to Mongol lips.
See in last glimpse how unchecked years condense
The forces of destruction. —Miles of wall
Gemmed like enamelled rainbows, gleam of lakes
Shot through fair parks, whose lines of granite bridge
Sweep like the sculptured drapery of a god;
Cresting the hill a dream of jewelled tents
Caught from the mirror of the sunset skies,
Now crystallized in marble terraces,
And gilded pillars, and the arch of roofs
Bright with chromatic coronet of tiles,
And endless treasures of green-hearted bronze,
And blood-red urns, and rare canary sheens
Flashed from a whispering sea of draperies;—
The Summer Palace of the Dragon Throne
Unmatched by all the wonders of the world;—
Now lapped in flame, whose red remorseful lip
Shrinks from the dread repast, pillars of smoke
Bearing earth's funeral wail to weeping stars
For the lost marvel of the centuries;—
Like crumbling glow of Alexandria's tomes
Or shattered fragments of the Parthenon!
36
Ah night that falls
In floods of twisted palls,
Blot out this culminating crime of men;
For far on high
In yon polluted sky
Meet the two spirits of the world again:
In floods of twisted palls,
Blot out this culminating crime of men;
For far on high
In yon polluted sky
Meet the two spirits of the world again:
“Brother, for this
Gave I my parting kiss?
Is this the flower
Nursed in thy bosom from that fateful hour?
Two thousand years
Wasted to drown the world in tears?
Where is the gem
Of broken-souled contrition,
The victory of submission,
I lent thee from my Eastern diadem?”
Gave I my parting kiss?
Is this the flower
Nursed in thy bosom from that fateful hour?
Two thousand years
Wasted to drown the world in tears?
Where is the gem
Of broken-souled contrition,
The victory of submission,
I lent thee from my Eastern diadem?”
Then spake the angel of the West,
With tear-wet wings folded upon his breast:—
“Sister, it is not lost,
That flame of Pentecost.
It burns
In the still spirits of my chosen urns.
What though through age-long nights of violence
The masculinity intense
Of races rude
May desecrate its mood?
I can reveal to thee another story
Of apostolic glory;—
Prayers that have curbed
The brutal passion of a world disturbed,
For wild despair the vent
Of pity's sacrament,
Love as a balm
For torn and bleeding souls,
As of a bell that tolls
Notes of eternal calm!
Canst thou not feel
The stricken millions kneel
Clasping the bloody cross whereon He dies?
Praying for torture keen,
The crown of sacrifice
Upon the cold brow of their Nazarene?
Hast thou not seen
The tenderest human loves which Raphael paints,
Transports of saints
The angelic brother limned
Kneeling in ecstasy with eyes tear-dimmed?
Tears for that stricken mother-soul's baptism,
Her coronation's chrism,
The intrinsic, fertile, pure divinity
Of Spirit-wrapped Virginity!”
With tear-wet wings folded upon his breast:—
“Sister, it is not lost,
That flame of Pentecost.
It burns
In the still spirits of my chosen urns.
What though through age-long nights of violence
The masculinity intense
Of races rude
May desecrate its mood?
I can reveal to thee another story
37
Prayers that have curbed
The brutal passion of a world disturbed,
For wild despair the vent
Of pity's sacrament,
Love as a balm
For torn and bleeding souls,
As of a bell that tolls
Notes of eternal calm!
Canst thou not feel
The stricken millions kneel
Clasping the bloody cross whereon He dies?
Praying for torture keen,
The crown of sacrifice
Upon the cold brow of their Nazarene?
Hast thou not seen
The tenderest human loves which Raphael paints,
Transports of saints
The angelic brother limned
Kneeling in ecstasy with eyes tear-dimmed?
Tears for that stricken mother-soul's baptism,
Her coronation's chrism,
The intrinsic, fertile, pure divinity
Of Spirit-wrapped Virginity!”
“Yea, brother, thine the pain
Of wounds not dealt in vain.
Again, O plighted heart,
We meet, no more to part.
For thee I 've kept
These tender buds of art,
For thee I 've wept
O'er worlds that smiled like maidens as they slept.
Now my reward supreme
The manhood of thy dream!
Of wounds not dealt in vain.
Again, O plighted heart,
We meet, no more to part.
38
These tender buds of art,
For thee I 've wept
O'er worlds that smiled like maidens as they slept.
Now my reward supreme
The manhood of thy dream!
“But there 's a deeper bliss
We must not miss.
Hear'st not the signal spreading
News of a second secret wedding?
Religious rites
Of holy nuptial nights?
Dost thou not hear it,
Virginal wife of my spirit?
I am indeed the spouse
Shall lead thee to my house.
O tender Christian love,
O tear-blest dove,
I am thy husband's eye,
Through which thou shalt descry
Planes of angelic power
Reserved for thy last dower!”
We must not miss.
Hear'st not the signal spreading
News of a second secret wedding?
Religious rites
Of holy nuptial nights?
Dost thou not hear it,
Virginal wife of my spirit?
I am indeed the spouse
Shall lead thee to my house.
O tender Christian love,
O tear-blest dove,
I am thy husband's eye,
Through which thou shalt descry
Planes of angelic power
Reserved for thy last dower!”
“Hear, earth, our song,
For thou art bidden
To double nuptials hidden!
And thy confusion shall not last for long.”
For thou art bidden
To double nuptials hidden!
And thy confusion shall not last for long.”
39
4. PART IV.
The Present Meeting of East and West.
Let us mount! let us mount! 'T is the spur of the horn!
Let us leap like a lark in the face of the morn!
Let us vault over hedges or rank river-edges,
And annihilate space in the rage of our race!
Come, prince, like a varlet bedeck thee in scarlet;
Come, ply the great trade of this mad masquerade,
Like a harlequin's prance or a dervish's dance!
For we hunt, for we grope for the phantoms of hope,
And we blow a wild kiss to the scoffing abyss;—
Not for gold;—for we 're told that 's the curse of the bold!
Not for love;—she 's a fool that we read of in school!
Then for fame?—Not a bit! It 's as hollow as wit!
But we hunt, and we hunt all the same. It 's a game!
It 's for madness of blood that we ride on the flood.
And we would, if we could, leap the girdle
Of the infinite sea like a hurdle!
Let us leap like a lark in the face of the morn!
Let us vault over hedges or rank river-edges,
And annihilate space in the rage of our race!
Come, prince, like a varlet bedeck thee in scarlet;
Come, ply the great trade of this mad masquerade,
Like a harlequin's prance or a dervish's dance!
For we hunt, for we grope for the phantoms of hope,
And we blow a wild kiss to the scoffing abyss;—
Not for gold;—for we 're told that 's the curse of the bold!
Not for love;—she 's a fool that we read of in school!
Then for fame?—Not a bit! It 's as hollow as wit!
But we hunt, and we hunt all the same. It 's a game!
It 's for madness of blood that we ride on the flood.
And we would, if we could, leap the girdle
Of the infinite sea like a hurdle!
O you West in the East like the slime of a beast,
Why must you devour that exquisite flower?
Why poison the peace of the far Japanese?
Is there no one to tell of the birthright they sell?
Must they sweat at machines like a slave to the means,
And murder the ends at the beck of false friends?
As the heart of a cloud shall the meadow of Asia be ploughed
By the curse of your fire, and the glare of your selfish desire!
A fig for their artists and scholars!
We crave the dry-rot of their dollars.
We teach them to live in dark palaces.
We lend them the sting of our malices.
We preach them the practical Buddha of Self,
And civilization the deification of pelf,
The infinite snarl of sectarian watch-dogs religious,
And spiteful revenge, and the sword of a spirit litigious,
And a taste for the gaudy grotesque and the pompous prodigious.
O spirit of Genghis Khan
Come, whirl through the circus of debt with your runaway span!
See Tamerlane,
He lies in the corner unhorsed by the lance of champagne!
Beware, the Centaurian daughters of Tartars
May trip in their garters!
New navies in armor
Are forged from the blood-weight of rice;
And the food of the farmer
Is sold at the throw of the dice.
And decent despair in black coat stalks abroad through the land.
The devil, he prays in good English, and swears like a gentleman grand.
And here come art-students with honors!
They graduate strictly in marble madonnas.
No more shall their panels be carved with a lily grotesque.
They swear by the natural Raphaelesque arabesque;
Cut anchors for stencils,
And round up a portrait with Christian lead-pencils,
Improving the mighty Napoleon
With phrenology slightly Mongolian.
Child of some blind bewildered bard
Learning Sunday-school tunes by the yard!
Sons of earth's supplest dancers
To graduate in the Lancers!
Friends of idolatrous priests
Converted in time for strawberry feasts!
Confucius indeed!
A dried-up old seed!
They know of the prigs and the canting professors who came of that breed!
And Roshi who looks at the cracks
On terrapins' backs!
Why, they blush as they think of the foxes they used to avoid in the stacks!
And Buddha, with baubles and bubbles of principles easily blowable?—
No, thank you! Philosophers rightly prefer the Unknowable!
Why must you devour that exquisite flower?
Why poison the peace of the far Japanese?
Is there no one to tell of the birthright they sell?
40
And murder the ends at the beck of false friends?
As the heart of a cloud shall the meadow of Asia be ploughed
By the curse of your fire, and the glare of your selfish desire!
A fig for their artists and scholars!
We crave the dry-rot of their dollars.
We teach them to live in dark palaces.
We lend them the sting of our malices.
We preach them the practical Buddha of Self,
And civilization the deification of pelf,
The infinite snarl of sectarian watch-dogs religious,
And spiteful revenge, and the sword of a spirit litigious,
And a taste for the gaudy grotesque and the pompous prodigious.
O spirit of Genghis Khan
It should be noted that the excesses of Western custom introduced into Tokio society previous to the year 1888 are now rapidly on the wane. The picture of contradictions which I witnessed is not overdrawn. We may be thankful that the era of confusion is already melting away into that of reconstruction.
Come, whirl through the circus of debt with your runaway span!
See Tamerlane,
He lies in the corner unhorsed by the lance of champagne!
Beware, the Centaurian daughters of Tartars
May trip in their garters!
New navies in armor
Are forged from the blood-weight of rice;
And the food of the farmer
Is sold at the throw of the dice.
And decent despair in black coat stalks abroad through the land.
41
And here come art-students with honors!
For years in a government university, Japanese artists were taught the technique of Western painting, sculpture, and architecture by European professors. For the time, native “barbarian” arts were despised and neglected. The absurdities of the hybrid system of teaching drawing in Japanese public schools cannot be exaggerated. But these are now things of the past.
They graduate strictly in marble madonnas.
No more shall their panels be carved with a lily grotesque.
They swear by the natural Raphaelesque arabesque;
Cut anchors for stencils,
And round up a portrait with Christian lead-pencils,
Improving the mighty Napoleon
With phrenology slightly Mongolian.
Child of some blind bewildered bard
Learning Sunday-school tunes by the yard!
Sons of earth's supplest dancers
To graduate in the Lancers!
Friends of idolatrous priests
Converted in time for strawberry feasts!
Confucius indeed!
A dried-up old seed!
They know of the prigs and the canting professors who came of that breed!
And Roshi who looks at the cracks
On terrapins' backs!
Why, they blush as they think of the foxes they used to avoid in the stacks!
And Buddha, with baubles and bubbles of principles easily blowable?—
No, thank you! Philosophers rightly prefer the Unknowable!
[OMITTED]
42
O you East in the West,
What is true? What is best?
You buzz with absurd speculation, and break up the pride of our rest.
We thought we had got to the bottom of evil, and sickness, and charity.
Don't speak of a Carpenter's Son! It reveals a too painful disparity!
What is true? What is best?
You buzz with absurd speculation, and break up the pride of our rest.
We thought we had got to the bottom of evil, and sickness, and charity.
Don't speak of a Carpenter's Son! It reveals a too painful disparity!
O civilization on the verge of salvation,
Exposed to perfection of nature's selection,
Let us thank men of money that the world is so funny!
Let us shout for the wings that are sprouting on kings!
Let us peep through the prism of their sly optimism,
Mark the self-evanescence of evil's excrescence,
Watch them feeding their mystics on juicy statistics,
Hear bliss roar through the craters of grain-elevators!
Exposed to perfection of nature's selection,
Let us thank men of money that the world is so funny!
Let us shout for the wings that are sprouting on kings!
Let us peep through the prism of their sly optimism,
Mark the self-evanescence of evil's excrescence,
Watch them feeding their mystics on juicy statistics,
Hear bliss roar through the craters of grain-elevators!
O this spirituality of pure externality!
Which can patch up disasters with arnica plasters,
Pipe the fountain of men's ills with cunning utensils,
Catch a shower of schisms in a cistern of isms!
Were the world one vast greenery of hot-house machinery,
Could you speed all creation with the spur of taxation,
Do you think that would muzzle the asp in the puzzle?
Would it snuff out the fire of the primal desire?
Which can patch up disasters with arnica plasters,
Pipe the fountain of men's ills with cunning utensils,
Catch a shower of schisms in a cistern of isms!
Were the world one vast greenery of hot-house machinery,
Could you speed all creation with the spur of taxation,
Do you think that would muzzle the asp in the puzzle?
Would it snuff out the fire of the primal desire?
O dance of the dishes! O pulse of the purses!
O whirlpool of wishes! O chaos of curses!
O hybrid hypocrisy of high-bred democracy!
O self-contradictions of pious convictions!
O mental congestions of insoluble questions!
Are there no panaceas for a glut of ideas?
Here 's a sweet little charmer who dotes upon karma!
Now why should it please her to worry and guess
Whether last she were Cæsar or merely Queen Bess?
We all came from Eve, and we 're bound to confess
That her first incarnation was not a success.
Or, horrible thought! 't was perhaps a baboon,
Or a small elemental who fell from the moon!
For you never can tell when your head starts to twitch
If it means a Mahatma, or only a witch:—
Which accounts for reliance on Psychical Science.
Nay, take the bread pills of your hypnotized wills,
Even antidotes sweeter than the Baghavad Gita!
You may ride upon tables that mount to the gables,
Or hum the doxology in terms of astrology,
Or prove a prime gabble-er concerning the Kabbala:—
You may play with the derrick of things esoteric,
Or hear from a ghost by a note through the post:—
But, you'll find slight relief in eschewing roast-beef,
Or the juice of the berry that sparkles in sherry;
For be sure that the devil can find out your level
Be you common-place people or a-perch on a steeple.
O whirlpool of wishes! O chaos of curses!
O hybrid hypocrisy of high-bred democracy!
43
O mental congestions of insoluble questions!
Are there no panaceas for a glut of ideas?
Here 's a sweet little charmer who dotes upon karma!
Now why should it please her to worry and guess
Whether last she were Cæsar or merely Queen Bess?
We all came from Eve, and we 're bound to confess
That her first incarnation was not a success.
Or, horrible thought! 't was perhaps a baboon,
Or a small elemental who fell from the moon!
For you never can tell when your head starts to twitch
If it means a Mahatma, or only a witch:—
Which accounts for reliance on Psychical Science.
Nay, take the bread pills of your hypnotized wills,
Even antidotes sweeter than the Baghavad Gita!
You may ride upon tables that mount to the gables,
Or hum the doxology in terms of astrology,
Or prove a prime gabble-er concerning the Kabbala:—
You may play with the derrick of things esoteric,
Or hear from a ghost by a note through the post:—
But, you'll find slight relief in eschewing roast-beef,
Or the juice of the berry that sparkles in sherry;
For be sure that the devil can find out your level
Be you common-place people or a-perch on a steeple.
O you West in the East, O you East in the West,
Were it best that you ceased, best at least for your rest?
For you 're lost in endeavor, and tossed in commotion,
As the blood of a river on the flood of an ocean.
And you laugh like a bride in the season of June;
And you dance like a tide at the kiss of the moon.
For you leap like a pard from the rock-hidden throne of your pride;
And you plunge like a gull in the storm-ridden plumes of the main;
And you flash like a star from the sun-bidden voids of the spheres.—
But your plunging is vain,
And your leaping is wide,
And your flashing a moment of years.
For though in a whirl you pass by us
Like the rout of some fleeing Darius,
At length as of old you shall come
Out of this second pandemonium,
And kneel with the mild
Faith of a little child:—
Untangle the snarls of your skein,
Assort them and weave them again,
Massing all the reds
With appropriate threads,
The blues and the greens
In harmonious sheens,
Purples and yellows
At peace with their fellows.
Were it best that you ceased, best at least for your rest?
For you 're lost in endeavor, and tossed in commotion,
As the blood of a river on the flood of an ocean.
44
And you dance like a tide at the kiss of the moon.
For you leap like a pard from the rock-hidden throne of your pride;
And you plunge like a gull in the storm-ridden plumes of the main;
And you flash like a star from the sun-bidden voids of the spheres.—
But your plunging is vain,
And your leaping is wide,
And your flashing a moment of years.
For though in a whirl you pass by us
Like the rout of some fleeing Darius,
At length as of old you shall come
Out of this second pandemonium,
And kneel with the mild
Faith of a little child:—
Untangle the snarls of your skein,
Assort them and weave them again,
Massing all the reds
With appropriate threads,
The blues and the greens
In harmonious sheens,
Purples and yellows
At peace with their fellows.
Yet such chromatic powers
E'en now are dimly ours;
Foretaste of human bliss
In tuneful synthesis!
Music, our fairest, latest daughter,
Diamond of perfect water,
Plead for the West before the throne of Truth,
Pledge of our unripe youth!
Who spaced the vibrant stars
Of self-taught orchestras,
Breath polyphonic
From heavens harmonic,
The sympathetic nodes
Of Orphic odes?
The spirit of Beethoven
With worlds of unseen spirit woven,
Melody white with glee
Like yachts upon a sea!
E'en now are dimly ours;
Foretaste of human bliss
45
Music, our fairest, latest daughter,
Diamond of perfect water,
Plead for the West before the throne of Truth,
Pledge of our unripe youth!
Who spaced the vibrant stars
Of self-taught orchestras,
Breath polyphonic
From heavens harmonic,
The sympathetic nodes
Of Orphic odes?
The spirit of Beethoven
With worlds of unseen spirit woven,
Melody white with glee
Like yachts upon a sea!
Gemmed white with glee
Like yachts on a sea
When the blue waves sparkle to breezes free;
Or a-cool in calms
Of a pool of palms
In the sunset seas of the master, Brahms.
Like yachts on a sea
When the blue waves sparkle to breezes free;
Or a-cool in calms
Of a pool of palms
In the sunset seas of the master, Brahms.
What shall we say
At dawn of day
To the lark that leaps from the lilac spray?
Would it not suit
The note of a flute
Afloat on the tremulous waves of a lute?
At dawn of day
To the lark that leaps from the lilac spray?
Would it not suit
The note of a flute
Afloat on the tremulous waves of a lute?
46
Or a murmur of breeze
Through the summering trees
Let the soft strings hum like the humming of bees;
Or a trumpet sweet,
Like a wing on the wheat,
As it flings ripe gold at the listener's feet.
Through the summering trees
Let the soft strings hum like the humming of bees;
Or a trumpet sweet,
Like a wing on the wheat,
As it flings ripe gold at the listener's feet.
In the first amaze
Of a West ablaze
The tone clouds glisten with scarlet rays,
While the inlaid whirls
Of roses and pearls
Are sweet as a chorus of laughing girls.
Of a West ablaze
The tone clouds glisten with scarlet rays,
While the inlaid whirls
Of roses and pearls
Are sweet as a chorus of laughing girls.
Like the crimson of plums
A long line comes
With the long-drawn sweep of the stirring drums,
And the answering rills
Of a thousand trills
Are filling the purple cups of the hills.
A long line comes
With the long-drawn sweep of the stirring drums,
And the answering rills
Of a thousand trills
Are filling the purple cups of the hills.
Now a rattle of hail
From the rising gale,
And the storm-clouds sweep like a world's torn sail!
And the piccolo's shriek
Is a lightning streak,
While the big bass booms as the thunders speak!
From the rising gale,
And the storm-clouds sweep like a world's torn sail!
And the piccolo's shriek
Is a lightning streak,
While the big bass booms as the thunders speak!
Now it sounds afar
Like the rush of a car,
And a moon caresses the evening star;
And a sweet smile lies
With a tear of surprise
On the quivering lash of the world's meek eyes.
Like the rush of a car,
And a moon caresses the evening star;
47
With a tear of surprise
On the quivering lash of the world's meek eyes.
Like spirits blown
From an astral zone
Are drifting the wonderful mists of tone.
And the moments seem
To drift with the stream
Till I know not whether I die or dream.
From an astral zone
Are drifting the wonderful mists of tone.
And the moments seem
To drift with the stream
Till I know not whether I die or dream.
[OMITTED]
“Let us mount! let us mount! 'T is the spur of the horn!”—
Let us stay! let us pray! 'T is the peace of the morn.
Let us stay! let us pray! 'T is the peace of the morn.
48
5. PART V.
The Future Union of East and West.
Yet once again discordant trumpets cease
To mar the music of the hemispheres.
So shall the future world a rose of peace
Blend with the tender lily of her prayers,
And music sweet shall float upon her airs
To melt all souls in floods of happy tears.
To mar the music of the hemispheres.
So shall the future world a rose of peace
Blend with the tender lily of her prayers,
And music sweet shall float upon her airs
To melt all souls in floods of happy tears.
O wing of the Empress of mountains,
What song shall we draw from thy fountains?
Shall it come with a flutter of doves?
Shall it foam with the nestling of loves?
Shall it soothe with the poison of sleep,
Or dance like a sun on the deep?
Nay, no prattle of children or elf,
But the self-hood unconscious of self!
What song shall we draw from thy fountains?
Shall it come with a flutter of doves?
Shall it foam with the nestling of loves?
Shall it soothe with the poison of sleep,
Or dance like a sun on the deep?
Nay, no prattle of children or elf,
But the self-hood unconscious of self!
Soul of my inner face, face of my race,
The play is o'er. Remove thy tragic mask,
And show that hidden feature which no god
Hath e'er divined; till she, thy counterpart,
Bent o'er thy heart when listening to thy sleep.
Then in thine own true dream she saw thee smile
With sunlike manhood; and she said, “'T is well.
The world has waited.
With my kiss he wakes!”
The play is o'er. Remove thy tragic mask,
And show that hidden feature which no god
Hath e'er divined; till she, thy counterpart,
49
Then in thine own true dream she saw thee smile
With sunlike manhood; and she said, “'T is well.
The world has waited.
With my kiss he wakes!”
[OMITTED]
Breathe thy kiss on the world's twin soul,
Mornings that sleep in a crystal vision!
Waft thy music from pole to pole,
Airs that sweep from the fields Elysian;
Star-planes lighted by Love's transition!
Mornings that sleep in a crystal vision!
Waft thy music from pole to pole,
Airs that sweep from the fields Elysian;
Star-planes lighted by Love's transition!
Gaze, O world, at the sleeping sea
Perched on thy castle in fond amazement.
Open thy spirit to breezes free,
Open to whisper of love thy casement:
Fling it open from roof to basement.
Perched on thy castle in fond amazement.
Open thy spirit to breezes free,
Open to whisper of love thy casement:
Fling it open from roof to basement.
Space is the kiss of the breeze's daughter;
Kiss her gently, and worlds are one.
Time but the flashing of restless water;
Ages are lost when the day is done
In the infinite now of the setting sun.
Kiss her gently, and worlds are one.
Time but the flashing of restless water;
Ages are lost when the day is done
In the infinite now of the setting sun.
Let us forget like a chanted tune
Shadowy types of the dying races.
History nods to her ancient rune.
Ages lapse with their tidal traces,
Blend in the vision of future faces.
Shadowy types of the dying races.
History nods to her ancient rune.
Ages lapse with their tidal traces,
Blend in the vision of future faces.
50
Fold like the wing of a new-born creature,
East and West in a Janus trance!
Tear off the mask of the twofold feature;
Kiss in the mirror with eyes askance,
Love, Narcissus, thine own sweet glance.
East and West in a Janus trance!
Tear off the mask of the twofold feature;
Kiss in the mirror with eyes askance,
Love, Narcissus, thine own sweet glance.
[OMITTED]
God hath willed this soul to be
Like twin branches of a tree,
Whose wet leaves the sunset weaves
In one choral crown of glee.
Like twin branches of a tree,
Whose wet leaves the sunset weaves
In one choral crown of glee.
Petals of infolded plan,
Model of millennial man,
Thine the vows of bride and spouse
Plighted since the world began.
Model of millennial man,
Thine the vows of bride and spouse
Plighted since the world began.
Life shall be a twofold game;—
Harmony thy primal aim;
Individuality
Twin-born guerdon of thy fame.
Harmony thy primal aim;
Individuality
Twin-born guerdon of thy fame.
What then shalt thou harmonize?
All that force the Westerns prize;—
Masculinity of measures,
Vigilance of Argus eyes.
All that force the Westerns prize;—
Masculinity of measures,
Vigilance of Argus eyes.
Whence shall spring harmonic norms?
From the sun the Eastern warms;—
Loving femininity,
Fertile flower-bed of forms.
From the sun the Eastern warms;—
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Fertile flower-bed of forms.
Then shall art with beauty rife
Melt into the Art of Life,
And the marts of industry
Win for starving sons of strife.
Melt into the Art of Life,
And the marts of industry
Win for starving sons of strife.
Stir of mill like hum of tabor
Singing of goodwill to neighbor,
Exaltation of creation,
Apotheosis of Labor!
Singing of goodwill to neighbor,
Exaltation of creation,
Apotheosis of Labor!
If true harmony is prized,
Man is self-decentralized;
Christ's impersonality
World-absorbed and emphasized!
Man is self-decentralized;
Christ's impersonality
World-absorbed and emphasized!
Not a crushing code of rules
For a paradise of fools;
But fresh joy of leaping fountains
Mid the broken shafts of schools.
For a paradise of fools;
But fresh joy of leaping fountains
Mid the broken shafts of schools.
Faith incredulous of creeds,
Love is full of bursting seeds;
Scatters showers of living flowers
Through a wilderness of weeds.
Love is full of bursting seeds;
Scatters showers of living flowers
Through a wilderness of weeds.
So may perfect Art and Prayer,
Life and Faith in union rare,
Build the soul new tabernacles,
World-encircling domes of air.
Life and Faith in union rare,
52
World-encircling domes of air.
Age of worship crowned with spires,
Flames of purified desires,
Consecrate thy knights for battle
With thy symphony of choirs.
Flames of purified desires,
Consecrate thy knights for battle
With thy symphony of choirs.
Who shall sing this song of spheres?
Whose the soul's baptismal tears?
Who anoint with tenderest touches
Christ's eternal wounds of spears?
Whose the soul's baptismal tears?
Who anoint with tenderest touches
Christ's eternal wounds of spears?
Thine, O thine, that martyred breast,
White-souled Virgin of the West,
Heaven-crowned sisterhood of sorrows,
Love's incarnate Alkahest!
White-souled Virgin of the West,
Heaven-crowned sisterhood of sorrows,
Love's incarnate Alkahest!
Who shall arm these knights with flame?
Who transmit the oath-bound aim?
Who shall crumble stars to powder
With the sceptre of God's name?
Who transmit the oath-bound aim?
Who shall crumble stars to powder
With the sceptre of God's name?
Thou, O selfless self-sworn priest,
Soul-wrapped manhood of the East!
Let thy heel with diamond lightning
Blast the eyelids of the Beast!
Soul-wrapped manhood of the East!
Let thy heel with diamond lightning
Blast the eyelids of the Beast!
Here I refer to the forms of the archangels mentioned in a previous note. The vagra, or mace, also spoken of, has its Chinese name sometimes translated by the word “diamond.” Here the diamond, in its hardness and concentration of ray, may symbolically express the spiritual potency of the instrument.
Fuse the worlds with inward light,
Faith-fed kingly anchorite!
Fire of Bodhisattwa Wisdom
With the Sun of Love unite!
Faith-fed kingly anchorite!
53
With the Sun of Love unite!
Thus may knighthood of defiance
Consecrate the arm of science;
Twin-joined vigor of the ages,
Corner-stone of God's reliance.
Consecrate the arm of science;
Twin-joined vigor of the ages,
Corner-stone of God's reliance.
Thus may Christlike Mercy render
Holiest warmth to Beauty tender;
Twin-joined womanhood of races,
Sunlike heart of God's own splendor.
Holiest warmth to Beauty tender;
Twin-joined womanhood of races,
Sunlike heart of God's own splendor.
Corner-stone and sunlike heart!
Strife in Wisdom, Love in Art!
Thou art joined in twofold marriage,
Links which Time can never part!
Strife in Wisdom, Love in Art!
Thou art joined in twofold marriage,
Links which Time can never part!
[OMITTED]
O unveiled bride,
Sweet other self at my side,
I ask no wedding bliss
Of passionate external kiss.
Let not the trembling pulse of lips
This purer ecstasy eclipse.
'T is not a palpitating form
I clasp to bosom warm.
I feel thee wrap my soul
As in the splendor of an aureole.
I breathe thy breath as through my spirit came
A tongue of Pentecostal flame.
No human spouse e'er felt
The culminating fire in which I melt.
Sweet other self at my side,
I ask no wedding bliss
Of passionate external kiss.
Let not the trembling pulse of lips
This purer ecstasy eclipse.
'T is not a palpitating form
I clasp to bosom warm.
I feel thee wrap my soul
As in the splendor of an aureole.
54
A tongue of Pentecostal flame.
No human spouse e'er felt
The culminating fire in which I melt.
There let it burn
Like clouded incense from a temple urn;
And in its fragrant steam
Thy thoughts unfold like angels in a dream,
Unutterable things,
The fluttering music of elusive wings,
Flashings of interspacial laws
Wafted like webs of gauze,
Bathing the room
In floods of opalescent bloom!
And, as the dead arise
In transformed drapery to open skies,
When wreaths of petalled trumpets wrap the stars
In last triumphal chords of orchestras,
And in the stern archangels' tracks
The skies dissolve like fields of smoking wax;—
So from my inmost core
Shrivelled like paper in a furnace roar,
Or rocks where lavas hiss
From Ætna's treacherous abyss,
Rises a bloom of heavenly asphodel;
Bursting its elemental shell
A song of wingéd bliss
As from Creation's chrysalis—
A dim uncertain form divine,
O love, thy soul and mine,
Draped in soft veils of holiness,
Shrouded in Deity's caress!
Slowly it floats like spirit mist
By forests of tall tapers kissed,
Slowly alone
Up to the gilded altar's throne,
Hovering there
Like a condensing universe of prayer;—
Girt with bright-haloed constellations,
Memories of incarnations
Glowing like fallen leaves
Upon fresh-garnered sheaves.
There for a moment brief
It sits like God upon a lotus leaf;
The still unspoken Word
Before Creation stirred,
Or the transcendant Dove
Fell like a ray of love;—
Then fades in formless light
Too exquisite for human sight;
As when some saint is lifted up and hurled
Out of this mortal world,
This temple transitory
For Nature's unemancipated priest,
Into the silence of Nirwana's glory,
Where there is no more West and no more East.
Like clouded incense from a temple urn;
And in its fragrant steam
Thy thoughts unfold like angels in a dream,
Unutterable things,
The fluttering music of elusive wings,
Flashings of interspacial laws
Wafted like webs of gauze,
Bathing the room
In floods of opalescent bloom!
And, as the dead arise
In transformed drapery to open skies,
When wreaths of petalled trumpets wrap the stars
In last triumphal chords of orchestras,
And in the stern archangels' tracks
The skies dissolve like fields of smoking wax;—
So from my inmost core
Shrivelled like paper in a furnace roar,
Or rocks where lavas hiss
From Ætna's treacherous abyss,
Rises a bloom of heavenly asphodel;
Bursting its elemental shell
A song of wingéd bliss
As from Creation's chrysalis—
55
O love, thy soul and mine,
Draped in soft veils of holiness,
Shrouded in Deity's caress!
Slowly it floats like spirit mist
By forests of tall tapers kissed,
Slowly alone
Up to the gilded altar's throne,
Hovering there
Like a condensing universe of prayer;—
Girt with bright-haloed constellations,
Memories of incarnations
Glowing like fallen leaves
Upon fresh-garnered sheaves.
There for a moment brief
It sits like God upon a lotus leaf;
The still unspoken Word
Before Creation stirred,
Or the transcendant Dove
Fell like a ray of love;—
Then fades in formless light
Too exquisite for human sight;
As when some saint is lifted up and hurled
Out of this mortal world,
This temple transitory
For Nature's unemancipated priest,
Into the silence of Nirwana's glory,
Where there is no more West and no more East.
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