_Once in a garden about a palm tree's shade, some blue flowers, here
very dark and there very light, talked with each other. A poet who now
is dead, passed by; and he put their talk into these rhythms:_
O Palm Tree, someone's hand has cast us here;
Was it the hand led by a cursed Fate,
Or moved by mind of good intent? Who knows?
What impulse seized us from the cave of sleep
Below to bring us to the surface here?
Is it a savior's or destroyer's power
That sets us motionless beneath thy shade?
And is thy shade the shade of life or death?
* * * * *
The glare of the hot sun drowned everything;
Gluttonous locusts groped for food about;
And then, a rain. The flowers, that had drooped
To sleep, awake to drink the drops of dew.
And then, the clear sky's festival begins
More azure than before to spread above thee.
Only thy trembling crest drops here and there
Some large and shining rain-pearls on the earth.
* * * * *
The garden glitters with a new-born life;
And each bird dreams it is a nightingale;
Only from thy lone heights like bullets fall
Thy pearl-clear drops, and oh, the pain thereof!
The dew drops make a crown for everything;
The gurgling waters are a balm to all;
Why should this god-sent goodness of all things
Be blow for us and suffering and flame?
* * * * *
How cruelly thy bullets fall and smite!
No ear above and not an eye before us!
Beneath thy shade we live; thy trunk is world
To us; thy crown, a star-spun sky, our sky!
If thou art a god merciless, reveal
Thyself! If not, but nod and give us calm!
Either cease slaying us one by one, or pour
On us at once a flood to drown us all!
Our pain is as reward and treasure found!
The golden seal of harmony has stamped us,
And while Death touches us, we glory, victors!
We tremble; hail O rhythm's thrice-sacred tremor!
A worm may live sunless beneath the earth
That a new butterfly of silken wings
May live an hour of perfect life and die.
The wound's gash turns into a living fountain!
* * * * *
Things gray, things crystal, myriad hues of green,
Gushings of fountains clear, and caterpillars,
Earth's things immovable, air-sailing ships,
And little worms, and bees, and butterflies,
Sweet flower-grails and censers, fondling grass,
The moss-down's countless kisses, echoes from
Below, and mandolins ethereal,
Leaves quivering and lilies languor-bringing!
* * * * *
The turtle-doves know not what you know, blossoms,
The chosen things of beautiful loves, you!
Kisses and starts and wooings of the boughs!
The birth of each of you is a world's dawn!
You know, O little tearful short-lived things,
You know pleasure's and joy's eternities!
We, the gold garlands wreathed about thy root,
Are like celestial and thoughtful eyes!
* * * * *
Blithe flowers, boughs that hang with blossoms full,
From dandelions to the chamaemele,
You may be like the glowing coals or gems,
Or like a maiden's rosy cheeks and lips.
Though you, like hands, may open full or empty,
And though you be dawn's smiles or evening's candles,
Or the fair palaces of Fairy Dew,
The gazing eyes are we! We are the eyes!
* * * * *
Though small we are, a great world hides in us;
And in us clouds of care and dales of grief
You may descry; the sky's tranquility;
The heaving of the sea about the ships
At evenings; tears that roll not down the cheeks;
And something else inexplicable. Oh,
What prison's kin are we? Who would believe it?
One, damnèd, and godlike, dwells in us; and she is Thought!
* * * * *
Frolick, and form, and wanton playfulness,
And some unspoken radiant vanity,
And some enrapturing bewitching charm,
And perfect virgin beauty are your own!
Fading like gods' pale images, you seem!
Even the bird sometimes bows to your grace!
And Nereids wind-footed fan your faces,
O roses with a thousand smiles divine!
* * * * *
A god commanded it, the flower-haired April!
"O flowing fragrance, change to brilliancy!"
Thus you are scentless, roses of Bengal;
All others' perfume is bright light in you.
And thou, O lily, king among the flowers,
From what far world hast thou been led astray?
Was it from fragrance's own womb, or from
The whitest star? And we, O Palm? Who knows!
River ethereal of fragrance, stay!
Thou hast not flowed nor watered us at birth.
We said to fragrance: "Cease thy flowing course;
Well not from us; nor be our breath! Sink deep
Into our heart's recesses; close thyself
Regardless of thy perfume in our soul!
Then seek to find our thought and live with it
And flow from it as honey from the bee!"
* * * * *
"Bring forth from the rich treasures of the sun
All colors, flowers, and deck yourselves with them!"
We said unto our little brothers: "Make
Robes of the heaven's rainbow for your raiment!"
And to ourselves we said: "Soul, I
Shall let aside all brilliance! I need not
Sunset or dawn; enough would be something
Of the great sea and of the heaven's smile!"
* * * * *
Become a cloud, O great Desire, and speak
With lightnings and with thunders! Rise, a lark,
And sing and soar towards a new starry garden!
Turn all thy flooding music into love,
Mingle with it all children's innocence
And all the beauty that is thine; still thou
Wilt have love's shadow only but not love.
For love shines, burns, illumines quenchlessly!
* * * * *
The garden draws life from a triple soul,
A soul that spreads creeping upon the earth
With roots beneath and wings above. A city,
The caterpillar builds in its great depths;
The bird builds love towards heights ethereal!
About all green things live to be thy slaves
And trimming ornaments, O palm! How high
Skyward thou raisest thy grace-moulded body!
* * * * *
No ivy limits and no offshoot mars
Thy trunk's unchained and chiseled nakedness;
And yet, though naked, with a charm dream-wrought
Thou coverest the alleys of the garden.
And as an emblem of thy reign, a crown
Of beams pearl-born and silver-born shines bright
As it hangs trembling from thy top, O palm.
Oh what a rhythm governs thy form divine!
* * * * *
So beautiful is not the cypress young
As it waves towards the sky, moved by the breeze!
So beautiful is not the mossy fountain
That sings like bard and nourishes like mother!
So beautiful is not sunrise or sunset!
Another world's day hangs from thy high crest!
So beautiful is not the tranquil lake!
Gods and their hymns god-sung are at thy feet!
* * * * *
Neither an angel's shade in a hermit's cave,
Nor harmony's voice in Night's deep silence,
Nor the great maker's thought just as it dawns
In his wide-fronted heaven, and is still
A maiden dream unyoked before it finds
A dwelling in the form of word or music,
Color or marble! None of these is like
Thine image caught and mirrored in our thought!
Is it transparent and immortal blood
That flows in thee, or sap too weak to wake thee
From thy long spell of blind and voiceless sleep
Into a crystal life's fair revelry?
Is thy head's crown another's counterfeit,
Or thine own locks that smitten by the wind
Become stringed lyres to sing in murmurs sweet
Of the world's symphony and of thy beauty?
* * * * *
Neither thy boughs nor locks they are, but wings
That thou wouldst ply with gentle flutterings!
Wings? They are not, though they become; and ever
A hunger tortures thee, and ever thou
Strugglest to enter a sublimer world!
Right, left, high, far, thou seekest a fair city,
Some sunlit Athens, and standest bent on flying
With swans and cranes towards the azure heavens.
* * * * *
Art thou a relic of a dead age and great,
Or the first dew of a becoming life?
Now some Wood Nymph bound within thee peeps out
Struggling to flow into the light about;
And now thou risest like the column last
Of an old temple that once stood in Hellas.
Evening or morning, end or a beginning,
Something binds thee to skies beyond all sight.
* * * * *
Hosannas from thy boughs and palm leaves flow,
Hosannas from thy royal height, as prayer
To some unknown god's charms, who passes by
Revealing his fair godhead first to thee.
And lo, the hillsides answer thine hosannas!
Oh, what thy visions, what thy secrets are?
Some tremor, from new heavens wafted, makes
The supple flowers and green leaves quiver.
* * * * *
And we? The migrant bird did come to us;
The passing wind did touch us with its wing;
The restless brook did check its rapid course;
The child did cast on us his guileless glance;
The jonquil proud did greet us with a nod;
And the moon did look down to see us here;
And all beheld our surface; none our depths!
Thus the world glided over us and vanished!
* * * * *
Sweet orange blossoms, what asked the nightingales?
What would the dry cicala know of noontide?
All things that groan from the great depths of earth,
All songs that mount exultant to the stars,
The eating moth's faint voice, the restless cricket's,
Perfumes and breezes, creatures lone and mated,
All things that fly and creep and bend and stoop,
Something they know of thee and hide it from us.
* * * * *
Within our breasts, a soul of storm and pitch
Puts into our minds evil thoughts of thee.
The magpie chatters long to the night bat
Of thee; the locust boasts she is like thee;
The wasp draws ample pleasure in thy shelter;
And the night raven finds delight in thee.
A world of evil and of scorn lies wait
For thee who mountest tranquil to the stars.
O Health blown from the heart of the pure pine!
Where thy feet tread, fruits grow 'midst thorns and clover;
If with the streams thou flowest, the elements
Shine; for pure wine, thou reapest the fair clusters;
And where thou lingerest, a city rises!
Thy breasts flow ever with milk; thy lips with dew!
O mother fruitful, strong, and whole, some ill
Rots us and we are pale like death's faint tapers!
* * * * *
Boughs, tresses, wings; shadows whose grace divine
Frolics and spreads as bough or tress or wing;
Another night, you took another form
In the enchanted pitiless moonlight,
A form that was neither bough, tress, nor wing:
Swords you seemed, ready to descend and smite!
Night's roaming butterfly, be merciful!
Lift us upon thy wings and fly away!
* * * * *
Illness and wakefulness have tortured us,
O palm, and we saw thee bend secretly!
The dragon's heads and dogwoods were awake;
We saw thee leading a strange dance with them
At night; and in our first sleep, we beheld thee
A heavy dream roaming with mulleins and
Chameleons; about thee closed whole gardens
Of thistles, aloes hard, and hosts of briars!
* * * * *
We dreamed and lo, thou wert demanding tribute
Of life, blood-drenched; and in thy being raged
A savage hunger; and some beast flesh-eating
Nestled in thee and gnawed a hole through thee;
And thy winged body turned into a cave;
A vulture perched as crown upon thy head;
And like fire-flames, and sea-waves, and sword-blades,
From root to top, fierce snakes crept up and coiled!
* * * * *
Who ever thought of it? What Fate has ruled
That from ill-smelling things and worthless stuff
Should rise things of resplendent green? and from
Deforming filth, the thrice-pure miracle
Of May and April? Hence things blue and black
Mingle in us; and in our souls, spread oceans
And narrow paths; and while our minds converse
With things sublime, something thrice-base defiles us!
* * * * *
O Sun, assail and strangle all black dreams,
Our life's dim vapors and ill-working demons!
But nourish all things good and beautiful
Like sunbeams playing and like nightingales!
And thou, O moon, spread over savage Night
A veil translucent of heart-felt sympathy!
Wave everywhere, O Beauty's purple robe!
Let the great world be love and love's sweet lyre!
* * * * *
Day comes! Light scatters a thousand eyes on thee
So that thou mayest greet the woods and mountains,
The nests upon the trees, the palaces
Of cities, and the ships on open seas
Or ports. At nights, mounted on steeds of light
Beautiful Fairies come from high to serve thee;
The poplar lifts its many hands to thee;
And the dark cypresses lull thee to sleep.
With pelicans and eagles thou conversest,
And drop by drop thou drinkest the world's music;
Thou seest things far, things near, and things above;
Things infinite, intangible, and great;
And thou communest with air-sailing ships,
Light-rays, and wings, and the world-mounting ladder;
While we, bent low, and lashed by sorrow's whip,
Listen to the great throbbing of Earth's heart!
* * * * *
We heard it, the great throbbing of Earth's heart,
The new song inconceivable, unheard,
Of consummate and perfect sound!
Through it, some thunder-stricken angel groans;
All April's gardens breathe in fragrant balms;
Some unfulfilled and secret longings weep;
And a fire crackles that will ruin worlds!
Something that passes by, an endless riddle!
* * * * *
Tell thou the sunlit story of the air;
We shall unroll to you the tale of blackness.
Come, let us mingle the two elements,
Thy mighty power with our own winning grace!
In unseen places, small and cold and sunless,
A world of workers and of corsairs dwell;
And there are paths and deeds of theirs, and days,
And what the infinite air-spheres have not!
* * * * *
A swarm of bees has told us of their life,
And a new youth and wise shone unto us!
The grass hides unsuspected miracles;
Beside us, the ant opens a deep path;
A lizard, slowly creeping from below,
Brought us here news of countries, nations, arts;
A butterfly on her swift flight to wed
The little flowers broadened our world of thought!
* * * * *
Unwedded, fruitless Palm, fair mystery!
Strange was the hour--who will believe it now?--
The divine world willed to become a thought,
And thought revealed itself unto our mind!
Now, unto darkness and to riddles new,
Our little life is ready to depart!
O Palm, make answer; lo, before thou speakest
Thy word sublime, a hand lays wait to smite!
* * * * *
O Palm, a hand did spread to sow us here;
That hand will spread again to root us out,
And we shall die! The billow and the wind
And the still waters will sweep us away
Mercilessly! The flowery spring will not
Lament us! The wide world will never know
We perished! And beneath thy shadow's charms,
Another fragrant race will rise to life.
* * * * *
Nor will there be a monument for us
That might retain the phantom of our passing!
Only about thee will a robe of light
Adorn thee with a new and deathless gleam:
And it shall be our thought, and word, and rime!
And in the eyes of an astonished world,
Thou wilt appear like a gold-green new star;
Yet neither thou nor others will know of us!