Come over the tide, Come over the foam, Dance on the hurricane, leap its waves, Dream not of the calm sea-caves Nor of content in them and home. For that is the reason the hearts of men Are ever weary – they would abide Somewhere out of the spumy stride Of the world's spindrift – a want denied. That is the reason: tho they know That the restive years have no true home, But only a Whence, Whither, and When — Whence and Whither, for hearts to roam. So who would tarry and rest the while, Not dance as we, and sing on the wind, Against the whole flow of the world has sinned, And soon is weary and cannot smile. Dance then, dance, on the fleeting spray! None can gather eternity Into his heart and bid it stay, Swiftly again it slips away. Dance, and know that the will of Life Is the wind's will and the will of the tide, And who finds not a home in its strife Shall find no home on any side!
THE GREAT SEDUCER
Who looks too long from his window At the gray, wide, cold sea, Where breakers scour the beaches With fingers of sharp foam; Who looks too long thro the gray pane At the mad, wild, bold sea, Shall sell his hearth to a stranger And turn his back on home.
Who looks too long from his window — Tho his wife waits by the fireside — At a ship's wings in the offing, At a gull's wings on air, Shall latch his gate behind him, Tho his cattle call from the byre-side, And kiss his wife – and leave her — And wander everywhere.
Who looks too long in the twilight, Or the dawn-light, or the noon-light, Who sees an anchor lifted And hungers past content, Shall pack his chest for the world's end, For alien sun – or moonlight, And follow the wind, sateless, To Disillusionment!
K'U-KIANG
Because the sun like a Chinese lantern Set in a temple of clouds tonight, I was back in K'u-Kiang!
Because in a temple of dragon clouds, As if with incense misty red, It hung there over the rim of the sea, I was back in a narrow street, Where amber faces pass all day, Going to pay, going to pray, Going the same old human way They have gone for a thousand years, men say, In K'u-Kiang.
And I heard the coolie cry for his fare, I heard the merchant praise his ware Of bronze and porcelain set to snare, In K'u-Kiang! I saw strange streaming signs in black With gold and crimson on their back — Opiate signs in an opiate street; Where the slip and patter of felt-shod feet Is old as the sun; And the temple door As cool and dark as the night.
And where dim lanterns, swinging there, As a lure to human grief and care, Half reveal and half conceal The ancestral gloom of the gods.
I saw all this with sudden pang, As if by hashish swept or bhang, Because the sun, like a Chinese lantern, Set in a temple of clouds!
TYPHOON
(At Hong-kong)
I was weary and slept on the Peak; The air clung close like a shroud, And ever the blue-fly at my ear Buzzed haunting, hot and loud; I awoke and the sky was dun With awe and a dread that soon Went shuddering thro my heart, for I knew That it meant typhoon! typhoon!
In the harbour below, far down, The junks like fowl in a flock Were tossing in wingless terror, or fled Fluttering in from the shock. The city, a breathless bend Of roofs, by the water strewn, Lay silent and waiting, yet there was none Within it but said typhoon!
Then it came, like a million winds Gone mad immeasurably, A torrid and tortuous tempest stung By rape of the fair South Sea. And it swept like a scud escaped From crater of sun or moon, And struck as no power of Heaven could, Or of Hell – typhoon! typhoon!
And the junks were smitten and torn, The drowning struggled and cried, Or, dashed on the granite walls of the sea, In succourless hundreds died. Till I shut the sight from my eyes And prayed for my soul to swoon: If ever I see God's face, let it Be guiltless of that typhoon!
PENANG
I want to go back to Singapore And ship along the Straits, To a bungalow I know beside Penang; Where cocoanut palms along the shore Are waving, and the gates Of Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore. I want to go back and hear the surf Come beating in at night, Like the washing of eternity over the dead. I want to see dawn fare up and day Go down in golden light; I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!
I want to go back to Singapore And up along the Straits To the bungalow that waits me by the tide. Where the Tamil and Malay tell their lore At evening – and the fates Have set no soothless canker at life's core. I want to go back and mend my heart Beneath the tropic moon, While the tamarind-tree is whispering thoughts of sleep. I want to believe that Earth again With Heaven is in tune. I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!
I want to go back to Singapore And ship along the Straits To the bungalow I left upon the strand. Where the foam of the world grows faint before It enters, and abates In meaning as I hear the palm-wind pour. I want to go back and end my days Some evening when the Cross On the southern sky hangs heavily far and sad. I want to remember when I die That life elsewhere was loss. I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!
NIGHTS ON THE INDIAN OCEAN
Nights on the Indian Ocean, Long nights of moon and foam, When silvery Venus low in the sky Follows the sun home. Long nights when the mild monsoon Is breaking south-by-west, And when soft clouds and the singing shrouds Make all that is seem best.
Nights on the Indian Ocean, Long nights of space and dream, When silent Sirius round the Pole Swings on, with steady gleam; When oft the pushing prow Seems pressing where before No prow has ever pressed – or shall From hence forevermore.
Nights on the Indian Ocean, Long nights – with land at last, Dim land, dissolving the long sea-spell Into a sudden past — That seems as far away As this our life shall seem When under the shadow of death's shore We drop its ended dream.
SIGHTING ARABIA
My heart, that is Arabia, O see! That talismanic sweep of sunset coast, Which lies like richly wrought enchantment's ghost Before us, bringing back youth's witchery!
"Arabian Nights!" At last to us one comes, The crescent moon upon its purple brow. Will not Haroun and Bagdad rise up now There on the shore, to beating of his drums?
Is not that gull a roc? That sail Sindbad's? That rocky pinnacle a minaret? Does the wind call to prayer from it? O yet I hear the fancy, fervid as a lad's!
"Allah il Allah," rings it; O my heart, Fall prostrate, for to Mecca we are near, That flashing light is but a sign sent clear From her, your houri, as her curtains part!
Soon she will lean out from her lattice, soon, And bid you climb up to your Paradise, Which is her panting lips and passion eyes Under the drunken sweetness of the moon!
O heart, my heart, drink deeply ere they die, The sunset dome, the minaret, the dreams Flashing afar from youth's returnless streams: For we, my heart, must grow old, you and I!
"ALL'S WELL"
I
The illimitable leaping of the sea, The mouthing of its madness to the moon, The seething of its endless sorcery, Its prophecy no power can attune, Swept over me as, on the sounding prow Of a great ship that steered into the stars, I stood and felt the awe upon my brow Of death and destiny and all that mars.
II
The wind that blew from Cassiopeia cast Wanly upon my ear a rune that rung; The sailor in his eyrie on the mast Sang an "All's well," that to the spirit clung Like a lost voice from some aërial realm Where ships sail on forever to no shore, Where Time gives Immortality the helm, And fades like a far phantom from life's door.
III
"And is all well, O Thou Unweariable, Who launchest worlds upon bewildered space," Rose in me, "All? or did thy hand grow dull Building this world that bears a piteous race? O was it launched too soon or launched too late? Or can it be a derelict that drifts Beyond thy ken toward some reef of Fate On which Oblivion's sand forever shifts?"
IV
The sea grew softer as I questioned – calm With mystery that like an answer moved, And from infinity there fell a balm, The old peace that God is, tho all unproved. The old faith that tho gulfs sidereal stun The soul, and knowledge drown within their deep, There is no world that wanders, no not one Of all the millions, that He does not keep.
SOMNAMBULISM
I
Night is above me, And Night is above the night. The sea is beside me soughing, or is still. The earth as a somnambulist moves on In a strange sleep … A sea-bird cries. And the cry wakes in me Dim, dead sea-folk, my sires — Who more than myself are me. Who sat on their beach long nights ago and saw The sea in its silence; And cursed it or implored; Or with the Cross defied; Then on the morrow in their boats went down.
II
Night is above me … And Night is above the night. Rocks are about me, and, beyond, the sand … And the low reluctant tide, That rushes back to ebb a last farewell To the flotsam borne so long upon its breast. Rocks … But the tide is out, And the slime lies naked, like a thing ashamed That has no hiding-place. And the sea-bird hushes — The bird and all far cries within my blood — And earth as a somnambulist moves on.
CHARTINGS
There is no moon, only the sea and stars; There is no land, only the vessel's bow On which I stand alone and wonder how Men ever dream of ports beyond the bars Of Finitude that fix the Here and Now. A meteor falls, and foam beneath me breaks; Dim phosphor fires within it faintly die. So soft the sea is that it seems a sky On which eternity to life awakes.
The universe is spread before my face, Worlds where perchance a million seas like this Are flowing and where tides of pain and bliss Find, as on earth, so prevalent a place That nothing of their wont we there should miss. The Universe, that man has dared to say Is but one Being – ah, courageous thought! Which is so vast that hope itself is fraught With shame, while saying it, and shrinks away.
Shrinks, even as now! For clouds sweep up the skies And darken the wide waters circling round, From out whose deep arises the old sound Of Terror unto which no tongue replies But Faith – that nothing ever shall confound. Not only pagan Perseus but the Cross Is shrouded – with wild wind and wilder rain, That on me beat until my soul again Sings unsurrendering to fears of Loss.
For this I know, – yea, tho all else lie hid Uncharted on the waters of our fate, All lands of Whence or Whither, whose estate In vain imagination seeks to thrid, Yet cannot, for the fog within Death's gate, — This thing I know, that life, whatever its Source Or Destiny, comes with an upward urge, And that we cannot thwart its mighty surge, But with a joy in strife must keep the course.