Part 5 (1/2)

”Allah il Allah,” rings it; O my heart, Fall prostrate, for to Mecca we are near, That flas.h.i.+ng light is but a sign sent clear From her, your houri, as her curtains part!

Soon she will lean out from her lattice, soon, And bid you climb up to your Paradise, Which is her panting lips and pa.s.sion eyes Under the drunken sweetness of the moon!

O heart, my heart, drink deeply ere they die, The sunset dome, the minaret, the dreams Flas.h.i.+ng afar from youth's returnless streams: For we, my heart, must grow old, you and I!

”ALL'S WELL”

I

The illimitable leaping of the sea, The mouthing of its madness to the moon, The seething of its endless sorcery, Its prophecy no power can attune, Swept over me as, on the sounding prow Of a great s.h.i.+p that steered into the stars, I stood and felt the awe upon my brow Of death and destiny and all that mars.

II

The wind that blew from Ca.s.siopeia cast Wanly upon my ear a rune that rung; The sailor in his eyrie on the mast Sang an ”All's well,” that to the spirit clung Like a lost voice from some aerial realm Where s.h.i.+ps sail on forever to no sh.o.r.e, Where Time gives Immortality the helm, And fades like a far phantom from life's door.

III

”And is all well, O Thou Unweariable, Who launchest worlds upon bewildered s.p.a.ce,”

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 s.h.i.+fts?”

IV

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 G.o.d _is_, tho all unproved.

The old faith that tho 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.

SOMNAMBULISM

I

Night is above me, And Night is above the night.

The sea is beside me soughing, or is still.

The earth as a somnambulist moves on In a strange sleep ...

A sea-bird cries.

And the cry wakes in me Dim, dead sea-folk, my sires-- Who more than myself are me.

Who sat on their beach long nights ago and saw The sea in its silence; And cursed it or implored; Or with the Cross defied; Then on the morrow in their boats went down.

II

Night is above me ...

And Night is above the night.