The Golden Threshold [7]
Your birds of peace white-pinioned float O'er ruined fort and storied plain, Your faithful stewards sleepless guard The harvests of your gold and grain.
God give you joy, God give you grace To shield the truth and smite the wrong, To honour Virtue, Valour, Worth. To cherish faith and foster song. So may the lustre of your days Outshine the deeds Firdusi sung, Your name within a nation's prayer, Your music on a nation's tongue.
LEILI
The serpents are asleep among the poppies, The fireflies light the soundless panther's way To tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying, And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day. O soft! the lotus-buds upon the stream Are stirring like sweet maidens when they dream.
A caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven, The golden moon burns sacred, solemn, bright The winds are dancing in the forest-temple, And swooning at the holy feet of Night. Hush! in the silence mystic voices sing And make the gods their incense-offering.
IN THE FOREST
Here, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead, Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red, Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.
We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest, Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn; We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.
But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng; Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain, We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.
PAST AND FUTURE
THE NEW HATH COME AND NOW THE OLD RETIRES: And so the past becomes a mountain-cell, Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell In consecrated calm, forgotten yet Of the keen heart that hastens to forget Old longings in fulfilling new desires.
And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense Expectancy and anguish of suspense, On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he sees Like a strange, fated bride as yet unknown, His timid future shrinking there alone, Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.
LIFE
Children, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst.
Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your hearts to wake and hunger after love, And thirst with passionate longing for the things That burn your brows with blood-red sufferings.
Till ye have battled with great grief and fears, And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years, Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife, Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.
THE POET'S LOVE-SONG
In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong, I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind The world to my desire, and hold the wind A voiceless captive to my conquering song. I need thee not, I am content with these: Keep silence in thy soul, beyond the seas!
But in the desolate hour of midnight, when An ecstasy of starry silence sleeps On the still mountains and the soundless deeps, And my soul hungers for thy voice, O then, Love, like the magic of wild melodies, Let thy soul answer mine across the seas.
TO THE GOD OF PAIN
Unwilling priestess in thy cruel fane, Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain, Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows, My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows Anointed with perpetual weariness. Long have I borne thy service, through the stress Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights, Performing thine inexorable rites.
For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice, But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice: All the rich honey of my youth's desire, And all the sweet oils from my crushed life drawn, And all my flower-like dreams and gem-like fire Of hopes up-leaping like the
God give you joy, God give you grace To shield the truth and smite the wrong, To honour Virtue, Valour, Worth. To cherish faith and foster song. So may the lustre of your days Outshine the deeds Firdusi sung, Your name within a nation's prayer, Your music on a nation's tongue.
LEILI
The serpents are asleep among the poppies, The fireflies light the soundless panther's way To tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying, And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day. O soft! the lotus-buds upon the stream Are stirring like sweet maidens when they dream.
A caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven, The golden moon burns sacred, solemn, bright The winds are dancing in the forest-temple, And swooning at the holy feet of Night. Hush! in the silence mystic voices sing And make the gods their incense-offering.
IN THE FOREST
Here, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead, Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red, Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.
We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest, Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn; We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.
But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng; Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain, We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.
PAST AND FUTURE
THE NEW HATH COME AND NOW THE OLD RETIRES: And so the past becomes a mountain-cell, Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell In consecrated calm, forgotten yet Of the keen heart that hastens to forget Old longings in fulfilling new desires.
And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense Expectancy and anguish of suspense, On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he sees Like a strange, fated bride as yet unknown, His timid future shrinking there alone, Beneath her marriage-veil of mysteries.
LIFE
Children, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst.
Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your hearts to wake and hunger after love, And thirst with passionate longing for the things That burn your brows with blood-red sufferings.
Till ye have battled with great grief and fears, And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years, Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife, Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.
THE POET'S LOVE-SONG
In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong, I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind The world to my desire, and hold the wind A voiceless captive to my conquering song. I need thee not, I am content with these: Keep silence in thy soul, beyond the seas!
But in the desolate hour of midnight, when An ecstasy of starry silence sleeps On the still mountains and the soundless deeps, And my soul hungers for thy voice, O then, Love, like the magic of wild melodies, Let thy soul answer mine across the seas.
TO THE GOD OF PAIN
Unwilling priestess in thy cruel fane, Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain, Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows, My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows Anointed with perpetual weariness. Long have I borne thy service, through the stress Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights, Performing thine inexorable rites.
For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice, But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice: All the rich honey of my youth's desire, And all the sweet oils from my crushed life drawn, And all my flower-like dreams and gem-like fire Of hopes up-leaping like the