 | As it Was in The Beginning |  |
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CANTO IV.
I
How passing fair, how wondrous fairThis daughter of the yellow sun!
Her sunlit length and strength of hair
Seemed sun and gold inwound as one.
How strangely silent, unaware,
Unconscious quite of strength or grace
Or peril of her beauteous face,
She stood, the first-born of a race,
A proud, new race, scarce yet begun.
How tall she stood, how debonair,
To comb her mighty Titian hair!
II
So beautiful she was, as oneFrom out some priceless picture-book,
You could but love, you had no choice
But love and turn again to look.
How young she was, and yet how old!
Red orange ripened in the sun
Where never hand had reached as yet.
The calm strength of her lifted face,
The low notes of her tuneful voice
Were mint-marks of that wondrous race
But scarcely born nor known as yet
Beyond yon yellow hills that fret
Warm sea-winds with their waving pine;
A princess of that royal line
Of kings who came and silent passed,
Yet, passing, set bold, royal hand
And mighty signet on the land,
And set it there to last and last,
As if in bronzen copper cast.
III
He, too, was born of giant men,Of men who knew not tears or fears,
Of men full-sexed, yet men who knew
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Men 'gat great men who dared to do;
'Gat men of heart who dwelt apart,
As Adam dwelt, when giants grew
And men as gods drew ample breath—
Tall Adams with their thousand years,
Ere drunkenness of sex had done
The silly world to willing death;
Of royal parentage, of true
Nobility, of those who knew
The light, who chased the yellow sun
From sea to sea triumphantly,
And westward fought and westward won,
As never daring man had done.
IV
They housed with God upon the height,Companioned with the peak, the pine,
They led the red lit firing line.
Walled 'round by room and room and room,
They read God's open book at night,
And drank His star-distilled perfume.
By day they dared their trackless west
And chased the battling sun to rest.
V
Such sad, mad marches to the sea,Such silent sacrifice, such trust!
Such months of battle, misery,
Such mountains heaped with heroes' dust!
Yet what stout thews the peerless few
Who won the sea at last, who knew
The cleansing fire and laid hold
To hammer out God's house of gold!
VI
Their cities zone the sea of seas,Their white tents top the mountain's crest.
The coward? He trenched not with these.
The weakling? He was laid to rest.
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As God wrought not since time began,
Each man a hero, lion each.
Behold what length of limb, what length
Of life, of love, what daring reach
To deep-hived honeycomb! What strength
This out-door Adam! He is clean,
As virile nature's vernal green;
He stands so tall, so clean, he hears
The morning music of the spheres.
VII
He loved her, feared her, far apart,He kept his ways and dreamed his dreams;
He sang strange songs, he tuned his heart
To music of the pines that preach
Such sermons on such holy themes
As only he who climbs can reach
Or comprehend, heart laid to heart;
For art is heart, as heart is art.
VIII
He would not selfish pluck one roseTo wear upon his breast a day
And let its perfume pass away
With any wind that comes or goes,
Why, he might walk God's garden through
Nor touch a bud nor fright a bird.
The music of the spheres he heard,
The harmony he breathed, he knew.
He never marred God's harmony
With one harsh thought. The favored few
Who cared to live above the sod
And lift glad faces up to God
He knew loved all as well as he,
Had equal rights to rose or tree.
IX
And he must spare all to the dayTheir willing feet should pass the way
God in his garden walked at eve.
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Would jest or jeer, he could but grieve,
And pity all and silent say,
“Let us lead forth, make fair the way,
By time and stress they, too, will learn
Which way to walk, to love, to turn.”
X
The long, lean Polar bear uprose,Outreached a claw and bare, black sole
Above his battlement of snows
And showed his yellow teeth in vain,
Then 'round about his bleak North Pole
He dragged and clanked his icy chain.
And he who dared not pluck a rose,
As if in chorus with his pine,
Must up and lead the battle line,
Dare pluck the grizzled beard of Death,
Dare laugh at Death with joyous breath.
XI
No idle talk, no idle tears,No airy sighs, no tales to tell;
He knew God is, that all is well,
That faith is death to idle fears;
That death is but a name, a date,
A milestone by the stormy road,
Where you may lay aside your load
And bow your face and rest and wait.
XII
Huge ships. black-bellied, lay below,Broad, yellow flags from silken Chind,
Round, blood-red banners of Nippon,
Like to their Orient sun at dawn—
Brave battle-ships as white as snow,
With bannered stars tossed to the wind,
Warm as a kiss when love is kind.
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XIII
'Twas night, such soft, sweet, maiden nightAs only Californians know,
When nightingales are forth, and when
The Bay lies bathed in mellow light
Blown far from Honolulu's seas—
From sundown seas in afterglow,
When Song sits at the feet of men
And pipes, low-voiced as mated dove,
For love to measure step with love.
XIV
And yet, for all the perfumed seas,The peace, the silent harmonies,
The two stood mute, estranged before
Her high-built, stately, opened door
High up the terraced, plunging hill
As hushed as death, as white and still.
XV
The moon, amid her yellow fleet,With full, white sail, moved on and on,
And drew, as loving hearts are drawn,
All seas of earth fast following,
As slow she sailed her sapphire seas.
Then as if pausing, pitying,
She poured down at their very feet
Broad silver ways to walk upon
Which way they would, or east or west,
Which way they would, or worst or best.
XVI
Her voice was low, low leaned her head,Her two white hands the instant pressed
As if to hush her aching breast,
As if to bind her breaking heart
To silent bear its bitter part,
The while she choking, sobbing, said:
“Then here, for all our poppy days,
Here, here, the parting of the ways?”
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XVII
“Aye, so you will it. Here divideThe ways, forever and a day.
You, you—you women lead the way,
You lead where loving men have died,
You women lead to hollow lands,
Of bloodless hearts and nerveless hands.
I will not rival, look on such,
Save but with pity and disgust,
Because, because I loved so much—
Because, because I love you still.
You women lead because you will,
Men follow you because they must;
Because they love as lovers when
Sierra States were born of men;
When giants knew the land and came
With nerves of steel and souls of flame—
Could you not wait within your Gate,
As their loves dared to wait and wait?”
XVIII
Her head sank lower still; her hair,Her heavy hair, great bars of gold,
Hung loosened, heedless, fold on fold,
As if she knew not, could not care;
She tried to speak but nothing said;
She could but press her aching heart,
Step back a pace and shudder, start,
The while she slowly moved her head,
As if to say, but nothing said.
XIX
His tongue was sudden loose with rage,He strode before her, forth and back,
A lion strident in his cage,
Hard bound within his narrow track.
“My father, yours, each Argonaut
An Alexander, to this sea
Came forth and conquered mightily.
An hundred thousand Didoes sat
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But patient sat as Dido when
She waved her Eneas back again.
Yet you, you cannot, will not wait
My coming back through yonder Gate!
XX
“Hear me! All Europe, rind to coreIs rotting, crumbling, base to top.
Withhold the gold and silver prop
Our dauntless fathers hewed of yore
From yonder seamed Sierra's core
And such a toppling you may hear
As never fell on mortal ear.
XXI
“What's London town but sorrow's townAnd sins, such as I dare not name?
Such thousands creeping up and down
Its dirty streets in draggled shame!
What's London but a market pen—
Its hundred thousand hungry men?
What's London but a town of stone,
Its thousand thousand women prone?
XXII
“What's Paris but a painted screen,A gaudy gauze that scant conceals
The sensuous nakedness between
The folds that but the more reveals?
What's Paris but a circus, fair,
To tempt this west world's open purse
With tawdry trinkets, toys bizarre?
Ah, would that she were nothing worse!
What's Paris but a piteous mart
For west world mothers crazed to trade
Some silly, novel-reading maid
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To outworn, weak degenerate,
Whose bank is but the faro bank;
Whose grave, his only real estate;
Whose boast, whose only stock in trade—
A duel and a ruined maid.
XXIII
“What's Berlin, Dresden, sorry Rome,But traps that take you unaware?
Behold those paintings, right at home,
Where nature paints with patient care
Such splendid pictures, sea and shore,
As all the world should bow before:
Such pictures hanging to the skies
Against the walls of Paradise,
From base to bastion, as should wake
Piave's painter from the dust:
Such walls of color crowned in snow,
Such steeps, such deeps, profoundly vast,
As old-time Art had died to know,
And knowing, died content, as he
Who looked from Nimo's steep to see,
Just once, the Promised Land, and passed!
And yet, for all you scene, this sea,
You will not bide, Penelope?
XXIV
“Then go, since you so will it, go!My way lies yonder, forth and far
Beneath yon gleaming northmost star,
O'er silent lands of trackless snow.
Lo, there leads duty, hope, as when
This westmost world demanded men;
Such men as led the firing line
When blood ran free as festal wine;
Such men as when, fast side by side,
Our fathers fought and fighting died.
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XXV
“But go—Good bye! Go see againThe noisy circus, since you must;
Its painted women that disgust,
Its nauseating monkey men;
But mark you, Miriam, the moth
That loves that luring, passing light—
Nay, hear! I am not wilful, wroth;
I love with such exceeding might,
My Miriam, my all, my life,
I would not, could not take to wife
My lily tainted by the touch,
The breath, the willing sight of such.
XXVI
“Shall I see leprous apes lean o'erMy rose, touch, breathe it if they may
With breath that is a very stench,
The while they bow and bend before,
Familiar, as with some weak wench,
And smirk in double-meaning French?
XXVII
“You shrink back angered? Well, adieu!What, not a hand? What, not a touch?
My crime is that I love too much,
My crime is that I love too true,
Love you, love you, not part of you—
Yea, how much less the rose that droops
In fevered halls where folly stoops!
XXVIII
“Yon splendid, tripple, midnight starIs mine, I follow fast and sure,
Because it guides so far, so far
From fevered follies that allure
Your soul, your splendid, spotless soul,
To wreck where syren billows roll—
Good night! What, turn aside your face
That I might never see again
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As some brave beacon light to men?—
Ha, ha! Let's laugh lest one may weep—
How steep your hill seems, steeps how steep!
How deep down seems the silent town,
How lone, how dark, how distant down!
The moon, too, turns her face, her light,
As you have turned your face tonight,
As you have turned your face from me,
My heartless, lost Penelope.”
XXIX
She heard and yet she did not hear;All seemed as some mad, midnight dream,
A far sea sound was in her ear;
Her eyes seemed hurt as by a beam
Of light that fell too bright to last
And left her blinded as it passed.
XXX
Then sudden up she tossed her head.She strode her porch and striding said:
“Penelope! To wait and weave!
Penelope! To wait and wait
As waits a dog within his gate,
To weave and unweave, grieve and grieve,
As some weak harem favorite
Tight fenced from love and life and light!
XXXI
“Why, I should not have sat one dayTo that dull thud and thudding loom,
With cowards crowding fast for room
To say what brave men dared not say!
Why, I had snatched down from the wall
His second sword that sad first day
And set its edge to end it all!—
Had hewn that loom to splinters, yea,
Had slashed the warp, enmeshed the woof,
And called that dog and put to proof
Each silly suitor hounding me
Then hoisted sail and bent to sea!”
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XXXII
“Penelope! Penelope!Of all fool tales in historie
I think this thing the foolishest!
Why, I, the favored of that land,
Had such fools come to seek my hand,
Had ranged in line the sexless list
And frankly answered with my fist!”
XXXIII
She instant paused. Each helpless handFell down, fell heavy down as lead;
She tried but could not understand.
At last she raised once more her head,
Set firm her lips, stepped forth a pace,
Looked long his far star in the face,
Stood stately, still, as fixed as fate,
Till all the east flushed sudden red.
Then as she turned within she said,
Said sad as night, yet glad as day,
Said firm, yet soft as love could say,
With one last word across the gate:
“I cannot and I will not wait.”
| As it Was in The Beginning | |