The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems Part 2

The Tale of the Tiger Tree

A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old.

The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages.

It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemies of the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peace is unconquerable and eternal.

I

Peace-of-the-Heart, my own for long, Whose shining hair the May-winds fan, Making it tangled as they can, A mystery still, star-shining yet, Through ancient ages known to me And now once more reborn with me:--

This is the tale of the Tiger Tree A hundred times the height of a man, Lord of the race since the world began.

This is my city Springfield, My home on the breast of the plain.

The state house towers to heaven, By an a.r.s.enal gray as the rain ...

And suddenly all is mist, And I walk in a world apart, In the forest-age when I first knelt down At your feet, O Peace-of-the-Heart.

This is the wonder of twilight: Three times as high as the dome Tiger-striped trees encircle the town, Golden geysers of foam.

While giant white parrots sail past in their pride.

The roofs now are clouds and storms that they ride.

And there with the huntsmen of mound-builder days Through jungle and meadow I stride.

And the Tiger Tree leaf is falling around As it fell when the world began: Like a monstrous tiger-skin, stretched on the ground, Or the cloak of a medicine man.

A deep-crumpled gossamer web, Fringed with the fangs of a snake.

The wind swirls it down from the leperous boughs.

It shimmers on clay-hill and lake, With the gleam of great bubbles of blood, Or coiled like a rainbow sh.e.l.l....

I feast on the stem of the Leaf as I march.

I am burning with Heaven and h.e.l.l.

II

The gray king died in his hour.

Then we crowned you, the prophetess wise: Peace-of-the-Heart we deeply adored For the witchcraft hid in your eyes.

Gift from the sky, overmastering all, You sent forth your magical parrots to call The plot-hatching prince of the tigers, To your throne by the red-clay wall.

Thus came that genius insane: Spitting and slinking, Sneering and vain, He sprawled to your gra.s.sy throne, drunk on The Leaf, The drug that was cunning and splendor and grief.

He had fled from the mammoth by day, He had blasted the mammoth by night, War was his drunkenness, War was his dreaming, War was his love and his play.

And he hissed at your heavenly glory While his councillors snarled in delight, Asking in irony: "What shall we learn From this whisperer, fragile and white?"

And had you not been an enchantress They would not have loitered to mock Nor spared your white parrots who walked by their paws With bantering venturesome talk.

You made a white fire of The Leaf.

You sang while the tiger-chiefs hissed.

You chanted of "Peace to the wonderful world."

And they saw you in dazzling mist.

And their steps were no longer insane, Kindness came down like the rain, They dreamed that like fleet young ponies they feasted On succulent gra.s.ses and grain.

Then came the black-mammoth chief: Long-haired and s.h.a.ggy and great, Proud and sagacious he marshalled his court: (You had sent him your parrots of state.) His trunk in rebellion upcurled, A curse at the tiger he hurled.

Huge elephants trumpeted there by his side, And mastodon-chiefs of the world.

But higher magic began.

For the turbulent va.s.sals of man.

You harnessed their fever, you conquered their ire, Their hearts turned to flowers through holy desire, For their darling and star you were crowned, And their raging demons were bound.

You rode on the back of the yellow-streaked king, His loose neck was wreathed with a mistletoe ring.

Primordial elephants loomed by your side, And our clay-painted children danced by your path, Chanting the death of the kingdoms of wrath.

You wrought until night with us all.

The fierce brutes fawned at your call, Then slipped to their lairs, song-chained.

And thus you sang sweetly, and reigned: "Immortal is the inner peace, free to beasts and men.

Beginning in the darkness, the mystery will conquer, And now it comforts every heart that seeks for love again.

And now the mammoth bows the knee, We hew down every Tiger Tree, We send each tiger bound in love and glory to his den, Bound in love ... and wisdom ... and glory, ... to his den."

III

"Beware of the trumpeting swine,"

Came the howl from the northward that night.

Twice-rebel tigers warning was still If we held not beside them it boded us ill.

From the parrots translating the cry, And the apes in the trees came the whine: "Beware of the trumpeting swine.

Beware of the faith of a mammoth."

"Beware of the faith of a tiger,"

Came the roar from the southward that night.

Trumpeting mammoths warning us still If we held not beside them it boded us ill.

The frail apes wailed to us all, The parrots reechoed the call: "Beware of the faith of a tiger."

From the heights of the forest the watchers could see The tiger-cats crunching the Leaf of the Tree Lashing themselves, and scattering foam, Killing our huntsmen, hurrying home.

The chiefs of the mammoths our mastery spurned, And eastward restlessly fumed and burned.

The peac.o.c.ks squalled out the news of their drilling And told how they trampled, maneuvered, and turned.

Ten thousand man-hating tigers Whirling down from the north, like a flood!

Ten thousand mammoths oncoming From the south as avengers of blood!

Our child-queen was mourning, her magic was dead, The roots of the Tiger Tree reeking with red.

IV

This is the tale of the Tiger Tree A hundred times the height of a man, Lord of the race since the world began.

We marched to the mammoths, We pledged them our steel, And scorning you, sang:-- "We are men, We are men."

We mounted their necks, And they stamped a wide reel.

We sang: "We are fighting the h.e.l.l-cats again, We are mound-builder men, We are elephant men."

We left you there, lonely, Beauty your power, Wisdom your watchman, To hold the clay tower.

While the black-mammoths boomed-- "You are elephant men, Men, Men, Elephant men."

The dawn-winds prophesied battles untold.

While the Tiger Trees roared of the glories of old, Of the masterful spirits and hard.

The drunken cats came in their joy In the sunrise, a glittering wave.

"We are tigers, are tigers," they yowled.

"Down, Down, Go the swine to the grave."

But we tramp Tramp Trampled them there, Then charged with our sabres and spears.