Chapters 51
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1 01 - 'All's Well' 2:22
All's Well by Kale Young Rice. Read for LibriVox. Org by Larry Wilson.
One. The 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 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. Two. The wind that blew from Cassiopeia cast wanly upon my ear a rune that rung. The sailor in his eyrie on the mast sang in all's well that to the spirit clung like a lost voice from some aerial 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. 3. And is all well, O thou unwearable launcher of 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? Four. 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, though all unproved, The old faith that though 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.
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2 02 - The Proselyte Recants 2:57
By Larry Wilson. In Japan.
Where the fair golden idols sit in darkness and in silence, while the temple drums beat solemnly and slow, where the tall Kytomerias sway in worship around about, and the rain that is falling whispers low, I can hear strange voices of the dead and forgotten. On the dimly rising incense I can see the lives I have lived, and my lives unbegotten. Namu Amida Butsu, pity me.
I was born this karma of a mother of Chuzhenji, where Nantai Zan looks down into the lake, Where the white-thronged pilgrims climb to altars in the clouds, and behold the holy eastern dawn awake. It was there I wandered till a priest of the Christians with the crucifix he wore compelled my gaze. In grief I had groaned, 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 many were conceived, he said, in sin, from Lord Shaka to the least upon the hills. In despair I listened, for my heart beat hopeless. Not a temple of my land had helped me live. But alas, that day, when I let my soul be christened, Nammu Amidabutsu, O forgive.
For the Christ they gave me, and the only law and lotus, as the only way to light that will not wane, may perchance have power for the people of the West. But to me he seemed the servitor of pain, for in pain he perished as one born to passion. In some other life no doubt his sin was great, though they told me no. Those who followed him and cherished Namu Amidabutsu, such is fate. So again to idols. Of the Buddha who is boundless, while the temple drum is beating through the rain, I have turned from treason into meditation's truth. From the strife the Western gods regard as gain, and if now I'm dying, as the voices tell me, to the lives that I must live, I'll meekly go. Till my long grief ends in nirvana and my sign.
Namu Amida Butsu, be it so.
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3 03 - Love in Japan 1:22
Love in Japan by K. O. Young Rice.
Dragonfly lighting on the temple bell, whose soul do you hear on the day of the dead? The soul of my lover? Ah, me, the plightning between two hearts that were never wed. Dragonfly, quickly, the priest is coming. Oh, the boom of the bitter bell, now you're gone. And my tears fall thickly. How of heaven do the gods make hell? The semi is silent. Autumn rains. The wind-bells tinkle. How chill it is! The quick lights come on the shoji panes. Come, Obaku, eater of dreams. The maple darkens. Pale-girl eye. The nearer night shivers. The temple fades. Haunting love will not cease to cry. Come, o baku, eater of dreams. The wild mists gather. Ah, my tears. The paying lights vanish. For some there is rest.
But for me, the remembered years. Come, o baku, eater of dreams.
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4 04 - Maple Leaves on Miyajima 1:20
And the maple leaves lift fairy hands That ripple upon the winds of dawn Where the dim pagoda stands. They ripple and beckon yearningly To their sister fairies over the sea, But help comes not, so they fall and flee from autumn over the sands. And down the mountain and into the tide, some are blown where the sampans lied, and some are strewn by the temple side, and some by the tori. But autumn ever pursues them, till as ever before she has her will, and leaves them. Desolate, dead, and still. Ravish the far and wide. Leaves them desolate, crying shrill. No beauty shall abide.
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5 05 - Typhoon 2:15
I was weary and slept on the peak. The air clung close like a shroud, and ever the blue flies buzz in my ear, hung haunting and hot and loud. I awoke and the sky was done with awe. And a dread that soon went shuddering through my heart, for I knew that it meant Typhoon, Typhoon. In the harbor 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 at the fair South Sea. And it swept like a scud escaped from 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 succorless hundreds died. Till I shut the sight from my eyes, and prayed for my soul to swoon. If I ever see God's face, let it be guiltless of that typhoon.
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6 06 - Penang 2:27
I want to go back to Singapore and ship along the straits to a bungalow I know beside Penang, where coconut 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 fair 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 toothless 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.
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7 07 - When the Wind is Low 1:19
When the Wind is Low by Cael Young Rice. Read for LibriVox.org by Conor Eustace. To A.H.O.R. When the wind is low and the sea is soft, and the far heat lightning plays, on the rim of the west where dark clouds nest, on a darker bank of haze. When I lean o'er the rail with you that I love, and 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 bow, and the watch climbs up the shroud, when the dim mass dips as the vessel slips through the foam that seeds allowed, 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.
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8 08 - The Pagoda Slave 2:43
The Pagoda Slave by K.L. Young Rice, read for LibriVox.org by Caroline. The Pagoda Slave, at Shwedagon in Old Rangoon.
All night long the Pagoda Slave hears the wind-bells high in the air tinkle with low sweet tongue and grave in praise of Lord Gautama. All night long where the Lone Spire sends its golden height to the starry light, he hears their tune and watches the moon, and fears he shall never reach Nirvana. Round and round by a hundred shrines, glittering at the great Shwe's bays, falls the sound of his feet mid-lines, droned from the sacred wisdom. Round and round where the idols gaze, so pitiless on his pained distress, he passes on, pale-eyed and wan, eparia like the dogs behind him. Oh, what sin in a life begot! Thousands of lives ago did he sin, that he is now by all forgot, even by Lord Gautama. Oh, what sin that the lowest shun, his very name as a thing of shame, a sound to taint the winds that faint from the high bells that hear it uttered.
Midnight comes, and the hours of morn, tapers die, and the flowers all, from the most fetid altars lorn and desolate in their odor. Midnight goes, but he watches still. By each cold spire the moon sets fire, by every palm whose silvery calm, pillar and jeweled porch, pray under. Is it dawn that is breaking? No, only a star that falls in the sea, only a wind-bell's louder flow, of praise to Lord Gautama. Faithless dawn with elusive feet, it comes too late to ease his fate. He sinks asleep, a helpless heap, though for it he may never reach nirvana.
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9 09 - The Ships of the Sea 0:50
Or by Larry Wilson.
Into the port, when the sun was setting, rode 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 women they from all hope but heaven part. The tide has nothing now to tell me. The breakers only break my heart.
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10 10 - Kinchinjunga 3:38
Kanchan-janga, which is the next highest of mountains.
I. O white priest of eternity, around whose lofty summit, veiling clouds arise, of the earth's immemorial sacrifice to Brahma, in whose breath All lives and dies. O Hierarche, enrobed in timeless snows, First-born of Asia, whose maternal throes Seem changed now to a million human woes, Holy thou art, and still, be so, nor sound One sigh of all the mystery in thee found. 2. For in this world, Too much is over-clear, Immortal ministrant to many lands, From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sands, Rivers 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 fire, To live again, though in illusion's sphere Behold concealed as grief is in a tear.
Three. Wherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites, though dark Tibet, that dread ascetic falls in strange austerity, whose trance appalls 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 allure imagination onto mystic flights wherein alone no wing of evil lights.
Four.
Yea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytes of lifted granite round with reachless nose. Stand for eternity, while pilgrim rose of all the nations, envy thy repose. And sheath thy sword 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 heights, has stood above all debts and all delights.
V. And though thy loftier brother shall be king, High-priest be thou to Brahma unrevealed, While thy white sanctity, forever sealed, In icy silence leaves desire congealed. In ghostly ministrations to the sun, And to the mendicant stars, and the moon none, Be holy still, till east to west has run. Until no sacrificial suffering on any shrine is left to tell life's sting.
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11 11 - The Barren Woman 2:21
O Kali, Mother divine and dread, See, I am waiting with open lips over the newly dead. I am childless and barren. Pity, and let me catch the soul of him who here on the kindled bier pays to existence toll. See, by his guileless body I cook the bread and eat. Give me the soul he does not need now, for conception sweet. Here, O my lord and husband, shall send me from his door, and take to his side a fairer bride, whose breast shall be less poor. Oft I have sought thy temples. By Ganges now I seek, where ashes of all the dead are strewn. And is my prayer not meek? The ghats and the shrines and the people that bathe in the holy stream have heard my cry, O Goddess High. Shall I not have my dream? The women of Aud and Jaipur look on my face with scorn.
Children about their garments cling. To me shall none be born. The death-fires quiver faster. O hasten, goddess, a sign that from this doom into my womb thy pledge has passed divine.
Woe! there is naught but ashes now, and the weepers go. Lone on the ghat they leave me, lone, with but the rivers flow. Kali, I ask not jewels nor justice. Beauty nor shift, but for the lowest woman's right. A child, though I die of the gift.
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12 12 - By the Taj Mahal 2:28
By the Taj Mahal by Kale Young Rice. Read for LibriVox.org by Anusha Ayer. By the Taj Mahal. Under the Indian stars, Mumtaz Mahal, I'm sitting. Watching them wind their silent way over your wistful tomb. Watching the crescent prow of the moon among them flitting. Fair as the shallop that bore your soul to paradise's room. Under the Indian stars, with palm and people about me, with dome and kiosk and minaret mounting against the sky, I seem to see your face in all the fairness without me, in all the sadness that fills my heart to hear your lover's cry. Under the Indian stars, I look for your jasmine tower, Along the river whose barren bed lies grey beneath the moon, And through its magic doors you seem like a spirit flower, Wandering back from Allah's born to seek for some lost boon.
Under the Indian stars, I see you softly moving. Among your jewel-lit maidens there, A sweet and ghostly queen, and the scent of Attar flung in your marble font seems proving that passion never can die from love, if truly love has been. Under the Indian stars, he comes, the shadow of Allah, Jahan, the Lord of Magnificence, the liege who holds your heart. The silver doors swing back, and alone with him you hallow, the amorous night, whose moon has made such visions in me start. Under the Indian stars, but the end of all is moaning, I hear his dying breath that from your tomb shall never die. For every jasper flower he set in its dream seems loaning to beauty a grief, Mumtaz Mahal, and unto fate a sigh.
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13 13 - Love's Cynic 4:51
Love's Cynic. 1. O you poets, ever pretending, Love is immortal, pipe the truth. Empty your books of lies, The ending of no passion can be youth. Heaven, you breathe, Will join the broken. Come, was the infinite ever wed, That he must evermore be thinking of your wedding bed. Two. Pipe the truth, though it clip the glamour, Out of your rhymes and rip your dream. Do you believe words can enamour, Death and dry up Lethe's stream? Death, it is but a sponge that passes, One the appeaseless ever will squeeze, Back into Lethe's flood, whose lasting is eternity's. Three. False, cry you, and an unbeseeming blasphemy. Well, look around. Is it not only in blaspheming truth is ever to be found? Whether it be one thing, I ask you, lovers and poets, tell, I pray.
Was there ever a love oath ended, ere the judgment day? Four. Oh, you answer, ill is in all things, but in an ancient lie, what's good? Is it not better just to call things what they are, not what we would? When you are clinging to your mistress, love has the phase of eternity. Cling to her then, but know that wanting fools the best that be. Five. Yet her brows and her eyes that murmur all the music, you say, of God. Press her lips, but a little firmer, you will feel that they are sod. But there is living soul beyond them. And it is love's till all things end. Children alone build paradises, with but pence to spend. 6. Eho now, that is like the cynic, pitying runs your poet's smile. He has sat at the devil's clinic with some dead love up the vile.
Dead or alive are one with passions under the potent knife of truth. They will be seen composed of craving and a little ruth.
Seven. Then the world on a lie is living. Many a lie has filled its maw. Better illusion, though, than giving faith to a fatal loveless law. There is a certain Socrates saying that swine of the ditch are sure. Yet do they prove by their contentment that it will endure? Eight. Clasp her close, but the truth is in you, though you have rhymed and rammed it down. Hid it with honey-words that win you, wreaths that you know bedeck the clown. Kings, they will call you an uplifters of your kind. Lord, save the mark, that we are still for fire dependent on so false a spark. Nine. And so fond for you, whole immortal, what has been born a day or two? But it was destined, aye, your portal, only has God to heed, and you.
He with his thrice three million thirsting whirls in the throes of death and life, surely has time to spare for choosing your behoven wife.
Ten. By my faith, there is not a creature mad as a poet pans the breeze. Give him a mistress, and he'll preach her as creation's masterpiece. Let him but lean for half an hour over her lips, and he will swear. That he would dive through death unfathomed to regain her there. 11. And believe that his oath is able, that there is not in all the sea water enough to quench the fable of his soul's intensity. Yet there was never a rose that blossomed and endured beyond its day. There was never a fire enkindled, but the great cold had its way. 12. Pessimist is your mortal answer. Wait till the love-wind pierces you. Wait, I've been the veriest dancer to it, and dupe still would do. Truth to the death, shall I confess it?
For but a moment on one breast, wherefore I add an Adam blessed, who loves once is like the rest.
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14 14 - In a Tropical Garden 3:14
The sun moves here as a master mage of nature all day long, with fingers of heat and light that touch to a mystical growth all things. The spell of him puts pale time to sleep as an opiate, strange and strong. And a waft of his wand the wind enchantment brings. The python roots of the rubber tree, where the cobra slips in peace, are wonders that he has waved from the earth as a presage of his power. And the giant stems of the bamboo grass, the Paul-astounded seas, are a marvel to keep it still hour after hour. The long lianas that reach in dreamy roots from tree to tree are dazed with the sense of sap that he calls to the tangle of their sprays. The scarlet-hearted hibiscus stands entranced, and the torrid bee is hushed upon its rim as in a maze.
And there the palms, the tallipot with its lofty blossom spire. The coconut and the slim Arica, listening, await what sorceries of his trembling rays of equatorial fire will next be laid upon some lesser mate. The river, too, that he winds as a magic circle round the wealth he is here engendered, has the glide of a serpent lost in trance, and scents of clove and cinnamon That sip cool from it in stealth, pour it upon the air like necromanths. And down where the rain-tree and the rife breadfruit together lean over its flow, and the flying foxes, hanging head to earth, suddenly drop, then flap aloft on large bat-wing, is seen more of his mazing wizardry in birth. All day long it is so that his hot hypnotic eye commands with steady ray, and the earth, obedient, brings enchantment forth.
All night long, in the humid dark, the high-voiced hylopans chant of it, in chill strain, from south to north. A wondrous mage, in a land whose dreams are made reality, as swift as clouds are made. When the young monsoon is in the south, a land that is born of the sea, and by it destined air to be beyond all fear of famishing and drought.
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15 15 - The Wind's Word 0:52
The Wind's Word by K. Leung Rice, read for LibriVox.org by Ian King. A star that I love, the sea and I, spake together across the night. Have peace, said the star. Have power, said the sea. Yea, I answered, and fame's delight. The wind, on his way to Araby, paused and listened. And sighed and said, I passed on the sands a pharaoh's tomb. All these did he have, and he is dead.
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16 16 - The Shrine of Shrines 1:11
The Shrine of Shrines by K. Leong Rice. Read for LibriVox.org.
The Shrine of Shrines There is an Egypt by the ancient Nile, a temple of imperassable stone, stupendous column, hieroglyph, and known to all the world as Faith's supremest shrine. Half in the breeze it stands, a granite pile gigantic stayed midway in resurrection. An awe, an inspiration, a dejection to all who hold the cryptic past divine. The god of it was Ammon, and the throng of worshippers from Thebes the royal gated forever at its fervent pylons waited, while priests poured ever a prophetic song. And yet this Ammon, who gave Egypt laws, is not, and is forgot, and never was.
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17 17 - From a Felucca 1:00
From a Feluca, a white tomb in the desert, an Arab had his prayers beside the Nile's dark water, where the lone camel fares an ibis on the sunset, a slow shadow of at rest, and in the caravansory, low music for the guests.
Above the tiny city, a gleam of minarets resounding the muezzin's clear call as the sun sets. A mystery, a silence, a breathing of strange balm, a peace from Allah on the wind and on the sky, his calm.
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18 18 - The Egyptian Wakes 1:23
The Egyptian Wakes by Kael Young Rice. Read for LibriVox.org. The Egyptian Wakes I woke at night in my eternal tomb. The desert sun had hid a thousand yeasts, and heard the Nile crier across the gloom calling, The flood has come! Besiege the gods!
I rose in haste, as one who blindly hears and sought the barters of grain and wine called for the praise and service of divine great Isis by the slave who fought her plots. But as I passed along, oh, what was this? Strange faces, and strange visions, and strange veins standing upon the midnight. Oh, the pains that swept across my startled thoughts abyss. I moaned. My body crumbled into dust. And then... And then my soul fled here, where all souls must.
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19 19 - The Imam's Parable 1:22
The Imam's Parable Behold the wind of the desert rose, comes in in a shroud of sand, and swept the Libyan waste across to far Somaliland. His voice was thick with the drought of death, and smote the earth as a burning breath, or as a curse which Allah saith, Unto a demon band. The caravan from the oasis of Palm and Gert-Kurkar shuddered and couched in shaken heaps the horror to endure. Its mighty shake, like a soul in hell, who longs for the loot of Israfel, longed for the trickle of Kene's well, imperishably pure. Three days he longed, and the wind three days, about him whirled the shroud. Then did a shrill dawn bring the sun, and a gaunt vulture crowd. A few bleak bones, on the desert still, lie for the judgment day to thrill.
Again into life, if Allah will, let not your heart be proud.
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20 20 - Songs of a Sea-farer 1:30
Songs of a Seafarer by K. Lyung-Rise. Read for LibriVox.org by S.K. Songs of a Seafarer. One. Many are on the sea today, with all sails set. The tide rolls in a restive grey, the wind blows wet. The gull is weary of his wings, and I am weary of all things. Heavy upon me, longing lies, my sad eyes gaze, across the leagues that sink and rise, and sink always. My life has sunk and risen so, I'd have it cease a while to flow. Two. All the winds of the sea weary, all the waves of the sea rest, all the wounds of my heart settle softly now in my breast, all the stars that in heaven anchor Golden boys of elusional light Send me across the gulf promise That I'm faring right. So while clouds that are left lonely At the gates of the far west Wait so still for the moon's stiller Stealing from her nest, I'm held by a low whisper Haunting afar the vague twilight Then with my soul at peace Whisper, hallowedly, good night.
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21 21 - A Song of the Sects 2:16
A Song of the Sects by K. Lyung-Brice, read for LibriVox.org by S. K. A Song of the Sects in a Jerusalem Tavern. A Latin and Greek, Praise God are we, Arminian and Copte, And we're all drunk as drunk can be, For we have together sopped. Not one of us but spits of the creed, The others' mouth and purr, But we all believe, we all believe in the Holy Sepulchre. The Armenian sings, The Copte comes out of Egypt land, and with a braggart face, he'll tell you that his fathers piled the pyramids in place. In his monophysite Christ we set no faith, the blasphemer. But we all believe, we all believe in the Holy Sepulchre. The Latin sings, The Greek will curse you if you call his icons mages. And damns your soul to hell, no purgatory, if you please.
About procession of the ghost, he is prickly as a burr, but he believes, as we all believe, in the holy sepulchre. The cop sings, Of heretics God leaves unburned, Arminians averse'd. They will not celebrate the day that was for Christ the first. No wine with water mixed for them as well mix heathen myrrh.
The Greek sings, The Latin swears his Roman Pope is judge infallible, wherefore you may be very sure the devil from his skull will drink a toast unto all liars who such a lie aver, though they believe as we all believe in the Holy Sepulchre. The Four again. A Latin and Greek praise God are we, Arminian and Copte, and we are all drunk as drunk can be, for we have together sopped, not one of us but hankers to hang our juice on a juniper, for we all believe, we all believe in the Holy Sepulchre.
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22 22 - The City 1:13
Soft and fair by the desert's edge, and on the dim blue edge of the sea, where white gulls wing all day and fledge, they're young on the high cliff's sandy ledge. There is a city I have beheld, some time or where, by day or dream, I know not which, for it seems inspelled. As I am by its memory. Pale minarets of the prophet pierce above it into the white of the skies, and sails enchanted a thousand years flit at its feet while fancy steers. No face of all its faces to me is known, no passion of it or pain. It is but a city by the sea, enshrined for ever. Beyond my eyes.
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23 23 - Via Amorosa 1:58
To A.H.R. When we too walk, my love, On the path the moon makes over the sea, To the end of the world where sorrow hath An end that is ecstasy, Should we not think of the other road, Of wearying dust and stone, Our feet would fare, did each but care. To follow the way alone.
When we too slip at night to the skies, And find one star that we keep as a trysting place To which our eyes may lead our souls ere sleep, Should we not pause for a little space, And think how many must sigh Because they gaze over starry ways With no heart comrade by. When we too then lie down to our dreams, that deepen still the delight of our wandering where stars and streams stray in immortal light, should we not grieve with the myriads from east of earth to west, who lay them down at night but to drown the longing for some loved breast? Ah yes, for life has a thousand gifts. But love it is gives life. Who walks through his world alone, E'er lifts a soul that is sorrow-ripe? But they to whom it is given to tread, The moon-path and not sink, Can ever say the unhappiest way Earth has, is fair to the brink.
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24 24 - Dusk at Hiroshima 0:55
Dusk at Hiroshima. Softly the bamboo bends as the sun sinks down unglowing. Softer the willow ends aside to the dusk around. Quickly the brief bat wins his flittering way through flowing fields of autumn air that are hushed of the city sound. Temple and thatch and stream are forgetting the light that lingers. Mountain and mist in dream already are lost afar. Faintingly comes the beam of the moon, then viewless fingers tinkle Esamisen, and astir on the east is a star.
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25 25 - The Wanderer 2:04
The Wonder by K. L. Young Rice, read for LibriVox's work. When moonlight on the face of the great Buddha falls as he sits in Navarra on the shores of Kamakura, when the pines about him place soft shadows at his feet, like offerings of penitence and tears, I hear in the grace of the wind's low susurra, a voice that calls me still to my home within the west. But I've lingered overlong in the east strange arcana, and no more is their desire within my breast.
I left it when a boy, that far home and alas, twas so fair that my dreaming earth had fair, was a madness. I left it for the joy of wandering the world, and heathen-hearted lands have I beheld. But when at last cloy of delight brought sadness like lotus to my veins, and forgetfulness seemed fate, I had fared unto this shrine, and the moon as now was beaming, and here have I awaited, and await. But not for any gift of its god or any grace that in living or in dying men in texts or sutras sigh for.
And not for any shrift Navarra has, or skies where paradise imperishably smiles, but only for the sift of the wind that seems to die for my soul's enduring peace in the dwelling of the tomb. And only for the drift of the moon that comes denying eternity to everything but doom.
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26 26 - In a Shinto Temple Garden 0:51
In a Shinto Temple Garden Under the torte, robed in green, the old priest creeps to the shrine. Over the bridge the steel stork stands, the crow calls, not in the pine. Far in the distance, bugles blow. Wars, Bloody memory wakes. The priest prays on for his sons that are dead, and the heart within him breaks.
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27 27 - Far Fujiyama 1:11
Far Fujiyama by K. O. Young Rice. Read for LibriVox Alorgue. Against the phantom gold of failing skies, I see the ghost of Fujiyama rise, and think of the innumerable eyes that have beheld its vision, sunset-crowned. The peasant in his field of rice or tea, the prince in gardens dreaming by the sea, the priest to whom the semi in the tree was but some shrilling soul's incarnate sound. And as I think upon them, lo, the trance of backward time and distant circumstance, of karma's all-remembering necromancy, lies suddenly before my boundless sight. It is as if, O movement, Buddhahood were given to me, as if understood, alas, or vague Nirvana's vaguer good. As if time were dissolved in living light.
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28 28 - On Miyajima Mountain 1:21
On Miyajima Mountain, by K. O. Y. Rice, read for LibriVox.org. Out on the sea the sandpans ride, and the mountains brim with mist and sun. Oh, we are in Japan again, and the spell is about us spawn, the spell of the old enchanted east, of Buddha and many a blissful priest, the spell that has never, never ceased to haunt us. Glad we behold the temple tops and the lanterns in religious roll, standing like acolytes of stone, where the pines and camphor grow. And o'er them the old pagoda prays, blessing upon their dreaming days, and upon the eightfold sacred ways from sorrow. Ah, and the Toritou is there, where the tranced sea enters to his shrine. Daily, with title, misery, and majesty divine. He enters now, as the nuptial sea of love first entered our hearts, to be lord of their tithes eternally, and master.
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29 29 - Old Age 0:50
Old Age by Kale Young Rice.
I have heard the wild geese. I have seen the leaves fall. There, as frost last night on the garden wall, it is gone to-day. And I hear the wind call. The wind? That is all. If the swallow will light when evening is near, If the crane will not scream like a soul in fear, I will think no more of the dying year, and the wind its seer.
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30 30 - On the Yang-tse-kiang 1:34
On the Yangtze-Kyang. Down the Yangtze bat-wing junk and taterdemalion sampan glide, sails of brown and black and yellow swinging, Down the Yangtze batwing junks, fish-eyed and gaudy, take the tide, forth to the sea in sloth they ride, the coolies singing. Off in the field the peasant toils, and along the canal the load-house slip, fruit of the red persimmon piled upon them. Off in the field the peasant toils, With lip and brow the dull years strip, Bare of the dreams of life, whose grip Has grimly drawn them. High on the hill the Yaman rests, And the temple beside it sleeps in sun, Far in the distance faints the city dreary, High on the hill the Yaman rests, and dun-dead shadows o'er it run.
This is the land where time begun, and now grows weary.
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31 31 - The Sea-armies 1:42
The Sea Armies. The wild sea armies led by the wind are following in our wake, white-crested, shouting millions moving on. They have broken their camp of calm and o'er the world's rebellion make, with banner of cloud and mist above them drawn. They have heard the call of infinite death, the ordering of his word, Arise, go forth and conquer where ye can, for that is the only law ye know. Its mandate men have heard, let them beware when they your path would span. Let them beware, for I am Lord of all that on earth has name, and unto you is given most my might. Ride on, ye have many a ship to rend, and many a mast to maim, and many a land to lash, and soul to fright. So on they ride, a ravaging horde, from shore to shuddering shore, beyond us in the bleak star-buried dawn, nor know that, when they have camped again and sleep, life will restore unto her world the hope they have withdrawn.
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32 32 - The Christian in Exile 1:37
The Christian in exile by Cale Young Rice. Read for LibriVox. Or by Larry Wilson. Mandalay. The palms along the old port wall are paling, the mountains in the evening light are red. The moon has dropped into the moat from heaven, a spell barbaric over all is spread. But what is that to him, a stranger lonely, in a land strange to all his faith in him? He cares not for old splendors. He would only hear on the air a simple Sabbath hymn. The paddy birds their snowy flight are taking from the tall tamarind unto their nest. The bullock carts along the road are creaking. The bugles o'er the wall are sounding rest. On a calm jetty, looking off to Mecca, sons of Mohammed, watch the low day's rim. He, too, is waiting for it with an echo upon his lips of a believer's hymn.
The red gate-towers rise against the twilight. The palace of the heathen king is hid. The white bridge, bent across the moat beside it, seems now of all unholiness rid. He wishes it were so with all this city, whose Buddha-built pagodas skyward swim, but he can only gaze on them in pity. And sing within his heart a Christian hymn.
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33 33 - The Parsee Woman 1:51
The Parsi Woman at Bombay Cast me out from among you. I will not see my child laid aloft where the vultures may clamour for him wild. The earth, you say, is holy, not to be soiled by death. And a Parsi still should hold divine what Zoroastr saith. Ay, and so I will hold it, but see his pale sweet face, as pure as the palest flower left dead in spring's embrace. The sun we worship daily shrined it for seven years. Then shall it go to cruel beaks. There, where the sea wind veers. No, no, no. Though you send me a beggar from your door, you, my lord, whom I honour, and you, his sisters, four, to whom there have come no children to make your bosoms feel, how even a thought so full of throw can make my sick brain real.
Ah, you are deaf. You scorn me and loathe, as a thing defiled. My lord, I am but a woman who longs to see her child laid in a tomb and treasured under the shrouding sod. Or would I had never given birth, or that earth had no god?
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34 34 - Shah Jehan To Mumtaz Mahal 1:27
Shah Jahan to Mumtaz Mahal I see as in a pale mirage The palm that o'er you sways The waters of the jamna wan are beating One pearl-cloud like a far-off A dome of grief betrays. Its beauty, as was yours, will be too fleeting. The world is wider than I knew, now that your face is gone. While you were here, no destiny seemed boundless. So I am lost, and find no clue to any dusk or dawn. Life has become a quest, decayed and groundless. Come back, come back, or let me find The jungle leads at last unto your lips and bosom recreated. Or somewhere I again must wind My arms about you, cast into one word My love all unabated.
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35 35 - Princess Jehanara 1:17
Princess Jahanara Princess Jahanara Where the road leads from Delhi to the south, And dingy camel trains creep in the dust Past ruin heaps of old Firozabad And Indropath unpitied of the drought By a lone tree above a pool Whose sad prayer water all the turban people trust, is a heat-hidden tomb, and on it just a few faint blades of bent and grieving grass. Jahanara's it is. With ready mouth, a Muslim tells the stranger. Once she said, the covering of the poor is only grass, let it be mine alone when I am dead. And who has stood there, whereabout her rest, rise high, imperial tombs, knows hers is the best.
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36 36 - A Singhalese Love Lament 1:46
A CINGLEASE LOVE LAMENT As the coconut palm that pines my love away from the sound of the planter's voice, am I, for I hear no more resound your song by the pearl-strewn sea. The sun may come, and the moon wax round, and in its beam my mates may rejoice, but I feast not, and my heart is dumb, as I long, O long for thee. In the jungle deeps where the cobra creeps, the leopard lies in wait for me, but, O my love, when the daylight dies, there's more to my dread than he. Harsh, lonely tears that assail my eyes are worse to bear, for the misery that makes them well is the long, long years that I moan away from thee. Oh, again, again, in my catamaran, a keel would I push to your pomidor, again would I hear the heave and hush of your song by the plantain tree, but far away do I toil and crush the hopes that arise at my sick heart's core, for never near does it come the day that draws me again to thee.
End of A Cinghalese Love Lament.
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37 37 - Meredith 1:56
What am I reading? He is dead? He the great interpreter and seer, England's noblest head? What am I reading? It is hushed, the deepest voice that life had found, to read a century profound. With all time's seethe and stir? Why, it is but a scanty score of days since at his side, clasping his hand with more than pride. I felt that the immortal tide of his great mind with long great war, the cold command of death. Still in my ear is echoing the serpent's strong words. And still, against the wild trees on the hill, his cottage sheltered under, I see the toss of his gray locks, like Lear's, for he had felt the sting of all too greatly given, the kingdom of his mind to those who for it held him fast.
O England, guard thy living, like him from a like fate. For not the mighty thunder of thy proud name from all the rocks of all the world can compensate a nation whom no song makes glad, and whom no seer makes great.
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38 38 - On the Arabian Gulf 1:04
On the Arabian Gulf From a far minaret of faithful cloud A wraith muezzin of the sunset cried Over the sea that swung with sultan pride Allah's beauty, there's none beside, Allah's beauty not to be denied by death or any infidel dark brow. And every wave that worshipped, every one under the mosque of heaven arching high, lifted a white crest with a scenting sigh, and answered, Let all gods but Allah die, yeah, let all gods, until the world shall cry, beauty alone is left under the sun.
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39 39 - The Ramessid 1:09
The Ramesit Upon an image of a mortal stone, seated and vast, the moon of Luxor falls, lending to it a stillness that appalls a mystery Osirian and strange. The hands outplaced upon the knees in lone, and placid majesty reveal the power of Egypt in her most triumphal hour, the comb of tyranny that cannot change. It is of that great king who heard the cries of millions toil to lift him to the skies, who saw them perish at their task like flies, yet let no eye of pity o'er them range. What rue, then, if his desecrated face rots now at Cairo in a mummy-case?
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40 40 - Immortal Foes 1:25
Immortal Vos by Kel Young Rice.
At Bedrashin, between the pyramids, I saw the loomed sun fold up his paintings, and sink into the nether worlds of the dimming ones. For Set sent ill on the Egyptian dead, I saw the ancient desert that outbids. Denial for the day-landed between them spread. Fleeing over Memphis, that is vanished. Another sound of sand then bit his minions. The winds lie down upon their boundless bed. I saw where temples vowed to Serapis, and granite splendors, men named Aronic, are kept by time in silence and sardonic, conceal men mummied in deep mystic tombs. And when stars came out in quiet bliss, I heard eternity with all its dooms. Past and to come, sound softly the minimum. Of death who wants all worlds, that life enwarns.
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41 41 - The Conscript 1:32
The camel at the old Sakene toils around and round, aware is he of the Nile and of the welling sound. Of the slow will he turns all day to lift the water on its way over the fields of Ahmed Bay. That with green grain abound. A weary he is, too, of the Falahin, who compel him on, with thick-voiced chanting till the day, over the west has gone. For the bold desert was he made, the Bedouin his lord to aid. Not for this peasant will of trade, that ever must be drawn. But on he toils. While Dahabieh in dark Walukaglide will hold him on the glassy flow of the gray river's tide. Then when the night has come lies down and sleep a servile day to drown. Like all whom life turns with a frown from their true fate aside.
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42 42 - Navis Ignota 1:45
Navi Signota by K. L. Young Rice. Read for LibriVox.org by Carolyn. Navi Signota. Lord, what ship goes forth to-day? I see her setting west. Shall she have thy winds aright? Stars to guide her with their light. Shall she sweep the seas to-night? Of land and harbour rest. Awful is thy ocean wrath, and none can chart thy shawls, when storm unassuaging hath blotted sun and planet path. Shall she, Lord, escape the scath, and live with all her souls? For it is a beauteous thing that ships should sail the sea. Splendid is their plunge and swing into waves that foam and fling, maelstroms at their bows to bring them down to destiny. And she, too, courageous rides away into the gloom. Now her lights are lost in tides of the windy spray that glides.
Through the darkness, Lord, abides thy dove with her, or doom. I shall know, perhaps, some day, or knowing not, recall how my heart was fain to pray for a ship that bravely lay. To her task, O Lord, so may each vessel offer us all.
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43 43 - The Cross of the Sepulchre 1:17
The Cross of the Sepulchre. By Kel Young Rice. By Joshua Uvianza. Within the holy sepulchre, breast high, there is a cross uncounted lips have kissed. Millions the world to dust has longed a mist. Millions that now hope of it but to die. Pilgrims, I saw, from out far fervid lands of superstition. North and West and South. Bend to it, each a-trembling, reverent mouth. The nail where Christ was said to loose death's bands. And then I wondered if he who believed in the one God were wounded sore by this. Whether he shrinks at each ecstatic kiss, or knowing how humanity is grieved, knows, too, It is better to give hope than truth. If only one is in man's scope.
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44 44 - The Nun 1:27
The Nun by Kale Young Rice. Read for LibbyFox.org.
The Nun A lone palm leans in the moonlight over a convent wall. The sea below is waking and breaking with quiet heave and fall. A young nun sits at the window, for heaven sees to fear, yet Even the dove of God might nest in her bosom between there.
A lone sheep sails from the harbor. Whom does it bear away? Her lover who sin-hearted has parted and left her boat to pray?
She has no lover, nor ever has heard of our love's sigh. Only the convent, Vesper Fowl, has ever dimmed her eye. For not know she of her beauty more than the palm of its peace, and who beyond Christ's portal to mortal desires would bend her knees. The ways of the world have flowers, and any who will pluck those. But let there ever be a place where none may pluck God's rose.
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45 45 - Alpine Chant 1:41
Alpine Chant I'm tramping through the mountains, they are rising white around me, Snow peaks like patriarchs that winter has enthroned. I'm tramping up the valleys where the cataracts sound me, Thunders they have shrilly from eternity intoned. I'm tramping through the mountains with the clouds for my companions, soft clouds that float and cling from crag to cloven crag. I'm passing by the chalets that o'erhang the high canyons, passing where the shepherds and the flock they pipe to lag. I'm tramping through the mountains, where the pines in proud procession climb like a hardy host to halo heights of sun. I'm listening for the sallies of the avalanche's hessian hurl of ice and granite into gulf's Avernian.
I'm tramping through the mountains, and the wind is yodeling to me, yearnings of the glaciers To flow to summer lands. I'm treading up the valleys, with no wanting to undo me, for today I'm goalless, and the great God understands.
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46 46 - The Man of Might 0:35
The Man of Might by Cale Young Rice. Read for LibriVox.org.
No moment drooped between his thought and action. No morrow died between his dream and deed. Within his soul there was no fatal faction that could betray him in his hour of need.
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47 47 - In Time of Awe 1:43
In Times of Awe The fierce sea-sunset over the world springs like a wounded spirit. The waves all day have hissed and hurled, Their fangs and their spray have swept and swirled, And ships in the gray gale's lair have furled, Their sails, well, may they fear it. The night will be but a monstrous seethe of terrace elemental. The clouds will wrap in a ghastly wreath, of gloom the wings that in them breathe, and all that lives in the sea beneath by fear shall be made gentle. And sink down, down to the nether deeps, below the foam and fretting, down where the sullen water sleeps, away and the slow sand coldly creeps, O'er the lone rack, which death keeps to guard him against forgetting. And there, in the ominous, vast calm, they'll harbor, like enchanted chill shapes he has strangely conjured from, the silence of his masterdom.
There float till again they feel the qualm of hunger through them panted, and then once more, far up will they spring, to drift and sport and plunder. Shark-eel and whale and devil-thing, with tooth to rend and tail to sting. To the sea, O God, does horror clean, and haunting past all wonder.
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48 48 - Sunrise in Utah 1:05
The dawn's sand cliffs that break the desert sea rose suddenly upon my sight at dawn, and, terrible in an eternity of death, took silently the sunrise on. Purple funeral from rifted skies swept down across their proud sterility, only to die as here all glory dies, unbarrenness I did not dream could be. O God, for a bird's song, or opening lips of but one flower upon the fatal air, for but a voice of water as it drips, or stir of leaves the day wind makes aware. O God, for these for life, or from the face of the world, wipe so irreparable a place.
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49 49 - Consolation 1:05
Consolation. Come to me, shadows, down the hill. Lie softly at my feet. The sun has worked his will, and the day is done. Come to me softly and distill your dews and dreams that heat and hours of heartless glare have overrun. Come to me, shadows, down the hill, and bring with you the night. Fireflies and the Whippoorwill, and ah the moon, whose soft interpretings can still the tangled tongues of right and wrong, and hope and fear that haunt the noon. Come to me, shadows down the hill, and let there follow sleep, which is God's tidal will that overflows the world, obliterating ill, and in its soothing sweep, murmuring more of mercy than man knows.
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50 50 - Waves 0:55
The evening sails come home with twilight in their wings. The harbor light across the gloam springs. The wind sings. The waves begin to tell the sea's night sorrow o'er, weaving within their ancient spell more than earth's lore. The rising moon wafts strange low lures across the tide, on which my dim thoughts seem to range stride upon stride, until with flooding thrill they seem at last to blend with waves from that eternal will, wind without end.
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51 51 - Vis Ultima 1:09
Fizz Ultima by Kale Young Rice. Read for LibriVox.org.
Fizz Ultima There is no day but leads me to a peak impossible to scale, A task at which my hands must fail, As sea I cannot swim or sail. There is no night I suffer through, But destiny rules turn and pale. And yet, what I am meant to do, I will do. Ere death drop his veil, and it shall be no little thing, though to oblivion it fall, for I shall strive to it throw all that can imperil or appall. So at each morning's trumpet ring, I mount again, let's leave and throw, and at the barriers gladly fling a fortitude that scorns to crawl.