ON WAIKIKI BEACH
33
Now over all that scythe of sleep impending
Mows the pale flowers of vision following ;
Dryad and bird and fount and valley blending
Into one dreamy consciousness of spring ;
And all the night and all the world is ending,
And all the souls that weep and hearts
that sing!
So, as the dew hides in the lotus blossom,
Sleep draws me with her kiss into her bridal
bosom.
METEMPSYCHOSIS.
Written at Vera Crus.
Dim goes the sun down there behind the tall
And mighty crest of Orizaba’s snow:
Here, gathering at the nightfall, to and fro,
Fat vultures, foul and carrion, flap, and call
Their ghastly comrades to the doméd wall
That crowns the grey cathedral. There they
goO—
The parasites of death, decay and woe,
Gorged with the day's indecent festival.
I think these birds were once the souls of
priests.
They haunt by ancient habit the old home
Wherein they held high mass in days of old.
But now they soar above it—for behold !
God hath looked mercifully down on Rome,
Promoting thus her children to be beasts.
ADVICE OF A LETTER!
THE Wingéd Bull that dwelled in the north
Hath flown into the West, and uttered forth
His thunders in the Mountains. He shall
come
Where blooms the sempiterne chrysanthe-
mum.
The wingéd Lion, that wrought dire amaze
In the Dark Place, where Light was, did his
ways
1 With a letter to Ceylon, sent from Mexico
in duplicate for certainty by way both of Eng-
land and Japan. The allusions are Hermetic
or Alchemical.
VOL. IT.
Take fiery to enkindle a new flame:
The Eagle of the High Lands yet that came
By the red sunset to an eastern sky
Shall plume himself and gather him and
fly
Even as a Man that rideth on a Beast
Trained, to the Golden Dawn-sky of the
Kast.
Therefore his word shall seek the Ivory
Isle
By double winds and by the double Style,
Twin doorways of the Sunset and the Dawn.
And thou who tak’st it, shalt be subtly drawn
Into strange vigils, and shalt surely see
The ancient form and memory of me,
Nor me distinct, but shining with that Light
Wherein the Sphinx and Pyramid unite.
ON WAIKIKI BEACH.!
UPHEAVED from Chaos, through the dark
sea hurled,
Through the cleft heart of the amazéd sea,
Sprang, ’mid deep thunderous throats of
majesty,
Titanic, in the waking of the world;
Sprang, one vast-mass of spume and
molten fire,
Lava, tremendous waves of earth; sprang
higher
Than the sea’s crest volcano-torn, to be
Written in Cyclopean charactery,
Hawaii. Here she stands
Queen of all laughter’s lands
That dance for dawn, lie tranced in
leisured noon,
Dreaming through day towards
night,
Craving the perfumed light
Of the stars lustrous, and the gem-born
moon,
Dewy with clustered diamond,
The long land swoons to sleep; the sea
sleeps and yet wakes beyond.
1 Near Honolulu.