Collected Works (Vol. II)

AHAB AND OTHER POEMS DEDICACE. TO G. Cc. J. P1LGRIM of the sun, be this thy scrip! The severing lightnings of the mind Avail where soul and spirit slip, And the Eye is blind. Paris, December 9, 1902. RONDEL. By palm and pagoda enchaunted o’er- shadowed, [I lie in the light Of stars that are bright beyond suns that all poets have vaunted In the deep-breathing amorous bosom of forests of amazon might By palm and pagoda enchaunted. By spells that are murmured and rays of my soul strongly flung, never daunted ; By gesture of tracery traced with a wand dappled white ; I summon the spirits of earth from the gloom they for ages have haunted. O woman of deep-red skin! like the teak! O delight Of my soul in the hollows of earth—how my spirit hath taunted— Away ! I am here, I am laid to the breast of the earth in the dusk of the night, By palm and pagoda enchaunted. Carved hair AHAB: Part I, THE polished silver flings me back Dominant brows and eyes of bronze, A curling beard of vigorous black, And dusky red of desert suns Burnt in my cheeks. Who saith me Nay? Who reigns in Israel to-day? Samaria in well-ordered ranks Of houses stands in honoured peace: Sweet nourishment from Kenah’s banks Flows, and the corn and vine increase. In two pitched fields the Syrian hordes Fled broken from our stallion swords. Ay me! But that was life! I see Now, from that hill, the ordered plain ; The serried ranks like foam flung free, Long billows, flashing on the main. Past the eye’s grip their legions roll— Anguish of death upon my soul! For, sheltered by the guiet hill, Like two small flocks of kids that wait, Going to water, ere the chill Blow from the East’s forsaken gate, Lie my weak spears: O trembling tide Of fear false-faced and shifty-eyed ! God ! how we smote them in the morn! Their ravening tides rolled back anon, As if the cedared crest uptorn Roared from uprooted Lebanon Down to the sea, its billows hurled Back, past the pillars of the world! 121