Sea Poems Part 4

THE GREAT SEDUCER

Who looks too long from his window At the gray, wide, cold sea, Where breakers scour the beaches With fingers of sharp foam; Who looks too long thro the gray pane At the mad, wild, bold sea, Shall sell his hearth to a stranger And turn his back on home.

Who looks too long from his window-- Tho his wife waits by the fireside-- At a ship's wings in the offing, At a gull's wings on air, Shall latch his gate behind him, Tho his cattle call from the byre-side, And kiss his wife--and leave her-- And wander everywhere.

Who looks too long in the twilight, Or the dawn-light, or the noon-light, Who sees an anchor lifted And hungers past content, Shall pack his chest for the world's end, For alien sun--or moonlight, And follow the wind, sateless, To Disillusionment!

K'U-KIANG

Because the sun like a Chinese lantern Set in a temple of clouds tonight, I was back in K'u-Kiang!

Because in a temple of dragon clouds, As if with incense misty red, It hung there over the rim of the sea, I was back in a narrow street, Where amber faces pa.s.s all day, Going to pay, going to pray, Going the same old human way They have gone for a thousand years, men say, In K'u-Kiang.

And I heard the coolie cry for his fare, I heard the merchant praise his ware Of bronze and porcelain set to snare, In K'u-Kiang!

I saw strange streaming signs in black With gold and crimson on their back-- Opiate signs in an opiate street; Where the slip and patter of felt-shod feet Is old as the sun; And the temple door As cool and dark as the night.

And where dim lanterns, swinging there, As a lure to human grief and care, Half reveal and half conceal The ancestral gloom of the G.o.ds.

I saw all this with sudden pang, As if by hashish swept or bhang, Because the sun, like a Chinese lantern, Set in a temple of clouds!

TYPHOON

(_At Hong-kong_)

I was weary and slept on the Peak; The air clung close like a shroud, And ever the blue-fly at my ear Buzzed haunting, hot and loud; I awoke and the sky was dun With awe and a dread that soon Went shuddering thro my heart, for I knew That it meant typhoon! typhoon!

In the harbour 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 of the fair South Sea.

And it swept like a scud escaped From crater of sun or moon, And struck as no power of Heaven could, Or of h.e.l.l--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 eyes And prayed for my soul to swoon: If ever I see G.o.d's face, let it Be guiltless of that typhoon!

PENANG

I want to go back to Singapore And ship along the Straits, To a bungalow I know beside Penang; Where cocoanut palms along the sh.o.r.e 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 fare 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 soothless 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!

NIGHTS ON THE INDIAN OCEAN

Nights on the Indian Ocean, Long nights of moon and foam, When silvery Venus low in the sky Follows the sun home.

Long nights when the mild monsoon Is breaking south-by-west, And when soft clouds and the singing shrouds Make all that is seem best.

Nights on the Indian Ocean, Long nights of s.p.a.ce and dream, When silent Sirius round the Pole Swings on, with steady gleam; When oft the pushing prow Seems pressing where before No prow has ever pressed--or shall From hence forevermore.

Nights on the Indian Ocean, Long nights--with land at last, Dim land, dissolving the long sea-spell Into a sudden past-- That seems as far away As this our life shall seem When under the shadow of death's sh.o.r.e We drop its ended dream.

SIGHTING ARABIA

My heart, that is Arabia, O see!

That talismanic sweep of sunset coast, Which lies like richly wrought enchantment's ghost Before us, bringing back youth's witchery!

"Arabian Nights!" At last to us one comes, The crescent moon upon its purple brow.

Will not Haroun and Bagdad rise up now There on the sh.o.r.e, to beating of his drums?

Is not that gull a roc? That sail Sindbad's?

That rocky pinnacle a minaret?

Does the wind call to prayer from it? O yet I hear the fancy, fervid as a lad's!