Many Gods

Cale Young Rice

Many Gods

"ALL'S WELL"

IThe illimitable leaping of the sea,The mouthing of his madness to the moon,The seething of his endless sorcery,His prophecy no power can attune,Swept over me as, on the sounding prowOf a great ship that steered into the stars,I stood and felt the awe upon my browOf death and destiny and all that mars.IIThe wind that blew from Cassiopeia castWanly upon my ear a rune that rung;The sailor in his eyrie on the mastSang an "All's well," that to the spirit clungLike a lost voice from some aërial realmWhere 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 UnweariableLauncher of worlds upon bewildered space,"Rose in me, "All? or did thy hand grow dullBuilding this world that bears a piteous race?O was it launched too soon or launched too late?Or can it be a derelict that driftsBeyond thy ken toward some reef of FateOn which Oblivion's sand forever shifts?"IVThe sea grew softer as I questioned – calmWith 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 stunThe soul, and knowledge drown within their deep,There is no world that wanders, no not oneOf all the millions, that He does not keep.

THE PROSELYTE RECANTS

(In Japan)Where the fair golden idolsSit in darkness and in silenceWhile the temple drum beats solemnly and slow;Where the tall cryptomeriasSway in worship round aboutAnd the rain that is falling whispers low;I can hear strange voicesOf the dead and forgotten,On the dimly rising incense I can seeThe lives I have lived,And my lives unbegotten,Namu Amida Butsu pity me!I was born this karmaOf a mother in Chuzenji,Where Nantai-zan looks down into the lake;Where the white-thronged pilgrimsClimb to altars in the cloudsAnd behold the holy eastern dawn awake.It was there I wanderedTill a priest of the ChristiansWith the crucifix he wore compelled my gaze.In grief I had grown,So upon its grief I pondered.Namu Amida Butsu, keep my days!It was wrong, he told me,To pray Jiso for my children,And Binzuru for healing of my ills.And our gods so manyWere conceived, he said, in sin,From Lord Shaka to the least upon the hills.In despair I listenedFor my heart beat hopeless,Not a temple of my land had helped me live.But alas that dayWhen I let my soul be christened!Namu Amida Butsu, O forgive!For the Christ they gave meAs the only Law and Lotus,As the only way to Light that will not wane,May perchance have powerFor the people of the West,But to me he seemed the servitor of pain.For in pain he perishedAs one born to passion:In some other life no doubt his sin was great,Tho they told me no,Those who followed him and cherished.Namu Amida Butsu, such is fate.So again to idolsOf the Buddha who is boundless,While the temple drum is beating thro the rain,I have turned from treasonInto Meditation's truth,From the strife the Western god regards as gain.And if now I'm dyingAs the voices tell me,To the lives that I must live I'll meekly go;Till my long grief endsIn Nirvana, and my sighing.Namu Amida Butsu, be it so!

LOVE IN JAPAN

IDragon-fly lightingOn the temple-bell,Whose soul do you hearOn the Day of the Dead?The soul of my lover?Ah me, the plightingBetween two heartsThat were never wed!Dragon-fly, quickly,The priest is coming!Oh, the boomOf the bitter bell!Now you are goneAnd my tears fall thickly.How of HeavenDo the gods make Hell!IIThe sêmi is silent(Autumn rains!)The wind-bells tinkle(How chill it is!)The quick lights comeOn the shoji-panes.Come, O Baku,Eater of dreams!The maple darkens(Pale grow I!)The near night shivers(The temple fades.)Haunting loveWill not cease to cry!Come, O Baku,Eater of dreams!The wild mists gather(Ah, my tears!)The pane-lights vanish(For some there is rest.)But for me —The remembered years!Come, O Baku,Eater of dreams!

MAPLE LEAVES ON MIYAJIMA

The summer has come,The summer has gone,And the maple leaves lift fairy handsThat ripple upon the winds of dawnWhere the dim pagoda stands.They ripple and beckon yearninglyTo their sister fairies over the sea,But help comes not,So they fall and fleeFrom Autumn over the sands.And down the mountainAnd into the tide,Some are blown where the sampans glide,And some are strewn by the temple's side,And some by the torii.But Autumn everPursues them till,As ever before,She has her will,And leaves them desolate, dead and still,Ravished afar and wide;Leaves them desolate; crying shrill,"No beauty shall abide!"

TYPHOON

(At Hong-kong)I was weary and slept on the Peak;The air clung close like a shroud,And ever the blue-fly's buzz in my earHung haunting and hot and loud;I awoke and the sky was dunWith awe and a dread that soonWent shuddering thro my heart, for I knewThat it meant typhoon! typhoon!In the harbour below, far down,The junks like fowl in a flockWere tossing in wingless terror, or fledFluttering in from the shock.The city, a breathless bendOf roofs, by the water strewn,Lay silent and waiting, yet there was noneWithin it but said typhoon!Then it came, like a million windsGone mad immeasurably,A torrid and tortuous tempest stungBy rape of the fair South Sea.And it swept like a scud escapedFrom craters 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 eyesAnd prayed for my soul to swoon:If ever I see God's face, let itBe guiltless of that typhoon!

PENANG

I want to go back to SingaporeAnd ship along the Straits,To a bungalow I know beside Penang;Where cocoanut palms along the shoreAre waving, and the gatesOf Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore.I want to go back and hear the surfCome beating in at night,Like the washing of eternity over the dead.I want to see dawn fare up and dayGo down in golden light;I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!I want to go back to SingaporeAnd up along the StraitsTo the bungalow that waits me by the tide.Where the Tamil and Malay tell their loreAt evening – and the fatesHave set no soothless canker at life's core.I want to go back and mend my heartBeneath the tropic moon,While the tamarind-tree is whispering thoughts of sleep.I want to believe that Earth againWith Heaven is in tune.I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!I want to go back to SingaporeAnd ship along the StraitsTo the bungalow I left upon the strand.Where the foam of the world grows faint beforeIt enters, and abatesIn meaning as I hear the palm-wind pour.I want to go back and end my daysSome evening when the CrossOn the southern sky hangs heavily far and sad.I want to remember when I dieThat life elsewhere was loss.I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back!

WHEN THE WIND IS LOW

(To A. H. R.)When the wind is low, and the sea is soft,And the far heat-lightning playsOn the rim of the West where dark clouds nestOn a darker bank of haze;When I lean o'er the rail with you that I loveAnd gaze to my heart's content;I know that the heavens are there above —But you are my firmament.When the phosphor-stars are thrown from the bowAnd the watch climbs up the shroud;When the dim mast dips as the vessel slipsThro the foam that seethes aloud;I know that the years of our life are few,And fain as a bird to flee,That time is as brief as a drop of dew —But you are Eternity.

THE PAGODA SLAVE

(At Shwe Dagohn, in old Rangoon)All night long the pagoda slaveHears the wind-bells high in the airTinkle with low sweet tongue and graveIn praise of Lord Gautama.All night long where the lone spire sendsIts golden height to the starry lightHe hears their tuneAnd watches the moonAnd fears he shall never reach Nirvana.Round and round by a hundred shrinesGlittering at the great Shwe's baseFalls the sound of his feet mid linesDroned from the sacred Wisdom.Round and round where the idols gazeSo pitiless on his pained distressHe passes on,Pale-eyed and wan —A pariah like the dogs behind him.Oh, what sin in a life begotThousands of lives ago did he sinThat he is now by all forgot,Even by Lord Gautama?Oh, what sin, that the lowest shunHis very name as a thing of shame —A sound to taintThe winds that faintFrom the high bells that hear it uttered!Midnight comes and the hours of morn,Tapers die and the flowers allFrom the most fêted altars: lornAnd desolate is their odour.Midnight goes, but he watches stillBy each cold spire the moon sets fire,By every palmWhose silvery calmPillar and jewelled porch pray under.Is it dawn that is breaking?.. No,Only a star that falls in the sea,Only a wind-bell's louder flowOf praise to Lord Gautama.Faithless dawn! with illusive feetIt comes too late to ease his fate.He sinks asleepA helpless heap,Tho for it he may never reach Nirvana.

THE SHIPS OF THE SEA

Into port when the sun was settingRode the ship that bore my love,Over the breakers wildly fretting,Under the skies that shone above.Down to the beach I ran to meet him;He would come as he had said:And he came – in a sailor's coffin,Dead!..O the ships of the sea! the womenThey from all hope but Heaven part!The tide has nothing now to tell me,The breakers only break my heart!

KINCHINJUNGA

(Which is the next highest of mountains)IO white Priest of Eternity, aroundWhose lofty summit veiling clouds ariseOf the earth's immemorial sacrificeTo Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies;O Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows,First-born of Asia whose maternal throesSeem changed now to a million human woes,Holy thou art and still! Be so, nor soundOne sigh of all the mystery in thee found.IIFor in this world too much is overclear,Immortal Ministrant to many lands,From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sandsRivers that each libation poured expands.Too much is known, O Ganges-giving sire;Thy people fathom life and find it dire,Thy people fathom death, and, in it, fireTo live again, tho in Illusion's sphere,Behold concealed as Grief is in a tear.IIIWherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites,Tho dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, fallsIn strange austerity, whose trance appals,Before thee, and a suppliant on thee calls.Continue still thy silence high and sure,That something beyond fleeting may endure —Something that shall forevermore allureImagination on to mystic flightsWherein alone no wing of Evil lights.IVYea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytesOf lifted granite round with reachless snows.Stand for Eternity while pilgrim rowsOf all the nations envy thy repose.Ensheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled.Be that alone on earth which has not failed.Be that which never yet has yearned or ailed,But since primeval Power upreared thy heightsHas stood above all deaths and all delights.VAnd tho thy loftier Brother shall be King,High-priest be thou to Brahma unrevealed,While thy white sanctity forever sealedIn icy silence leaves desire congealed.In ghostly ministrations to the sun,And to the mendicant stars and the moon-nun,Be holy still, till East to West has run,And till no sacrificial sufferingOn any shrine is left to tell life's sting.

THE BARREN WOMAN

(Benares)At the burning-ghat, O Kali,Mother divine and dread,See, I am waiting with open lipsOver the newly dead.I am childless and barren; pityAnd let me catch the soulOf him who here on the kindled bierPays to Existence toll.See, by his guileless bodyI cook the bread and eat.Give me the soul he does not needNow, for conception sweet.Hear, or my lord and husbandShall send me from his doorAnd take to his side a fairer brideWhose breast shall be less poor.Oft I have sought thy temples,By Ganges now I seek,Where ashes of all the dead are strewn,

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