Collected Works (Vol. III)

154 ORPHEUS Death is not at all! ’Tis a mask or a dream! The things that befall Only slumber or seem ! They fear; they appal— They are not as ye deem ! Death died when I dipped my lyre in the sweet Heliconian stream ! Give praise to your lord, All souls that draw breath, All flowers of the sward ! For the song of me saith: ‘¢ Sound the loud chord ! Let love be a wreath ! Death is not for ye any more, for I am the Master of Death!” PARABASIS.! As I sit in the sound Of the wash of the surf, On the long low ground, The trees and the turf; In front the profound, The warrior seas, Upstirred of the breeze, by the far reef bound— I know the low music of love, I feel the sweet murmur in me, My soul is in tune with the sea. The stars are above me, The rocks are below me, The sea is around! Great Gods that love me Lead me, and show me Their powers profound. Their lightnings move me To stir me, to throw me As into a swound, The song of the infinite surf that is beaten and bound As a fierce wolf-hound, The song that lures me, and lifts me, and mingles my soul into sound! 1 The bulk of this Book I. was written at Waikiki, which is described in this Parabasis. O Nature, my mother, Heart melted on heart At last! Not another, Not any shall part Thy soul from my art. How should it be otherwise, Sister divine, Lover, my mother wise, Wiser than wine? Seeing I linger Here on the beach— Let God’s own finger Here to me reach, Making me singer Each unto each— Nature and Man made one In the light and fire of the sun, And the sobbing tune Of the moon, Wedded in cyclic bonds, Where fall the zeon-fronds, Whose large bed bears a child (In its due period) Not merciful and not severe, Knowing nor love nor fear, But majesty most mild, Being indeed a God. Yea, let the very ray-hand of Apollo Lead me where none may follow Save in blind eagle-fury and full flight Pythian against the light, Writing in all the sea, the trees, the flowers, The many-fruited bowers, The lustred lilies and arboreal scent And fresh young element Of blood in every osseous vein of time, New senses more sublime ! Should it not be that the ill days are past And my soul lost at last, l.ost in thy bosom who art mother of all Ere the first was, to fall After the end. And then, O soul endued (In this my solitude) With all the thousand elements of life, Shall I not call thee wife? O Muse long wooed !