Cale Young Rice

“ 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. ”

“ Within his soul there was no fatal faction
That could betray him in his hour of need.
[Pg 97]
IN TIME OF AWE
The fierce sea-sunset over the world
Springs like a wounded spirit,
The waves all day have hissed and hurled
Their fangs and the spray has swept and swirled,
And ships in the gray gale's lair have furled
Their sails—well may they fear it!
The night will be but a monstrous seethe
Of terrors elemental.
The clouds will wrap in a ghastly wreath
Of gloom the winds that in them breathe,
And all that lives in the sea beneath
By fear shall be made gentle ”

“ The world is wider than I knew
Now that your face is gone!
While you were here no destiny seemed boundless.
So I am lost and find no clue
To any dusk or dawn!
Life has become a quest decayed and groundless. ”

“ With steady ray; and the earth obedient brings enchantment forth.
All night long in the humid dark the high-voiced hyla-bands
Chant of it in chill strain from South to North.
VIII
A wondrous mage, in a land whose dreams are made reality
As swift as clouds are made when the young Monsoon is in the South. ”

“ The Latin sings
The Greek will curse you if you call his Ikons images,
And damns your soul to Hell—no purgatory, if you please!
About Procession of the Ghost he's prickly as a burr,
But he believes, as we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!
The Copt sings
Of heretics God leaves unburnt, Armenians are worst,
They will not celebrate the Day, that was for Christ the first.
No wine with water mixed for them, as well mix heathen myrrh—
Or not believe, as we all believe, in the Holy Sepulchre!
[Pg 56]
The Greek sings
The Latin swears his Roman Pope is judge infallible. ”

“ The old peace that God is, tho all unproved. [Pg 5]
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. ”

“ Of love first entered our hearts, to be
Lord of their tides eternally,
And Master!
[Pg 68]
OLD AGE
I have heard the wild geese,
I have seen the leaves fall,
There was frost last night
On the garden wall.
It is gone to-day
And I hear the wind call.
The wind?... that is all.
If the swallow will light
When evening is near;
If the crane will not scream
Like a soul in fear;
I will think no more
Of the dying year,
And the wind, its seer.
[Pg 69]
ON THE YANG-TSE-KIANG
Down the Yang-tse bat-wing junk
And tatterdemalion sampan glide,
Sails of brown and black and yellow swinging. ”

“ You will feel that they are—sod.
"But there is living soul beyond them,
And it is love's till all things end?"
Children alone build Paradises
With but pence to spend.
VI
"Ai-ho now! that is like the cynic,"
Pitying runs your poet-smile,
"He has sat at the Devil's clinic
With some dead love up the while."
[Pg 38] Dead or alive are one with passions,
Under the potent knife of Truth
They will be seen composed of craving—
And a little ruth.
VII
"Then the world on a lie is living?" ”

“ And a waft of his wand, the wind, enchantment brings.
II
The python roots of the rubber-tree where the cobra slips in peace
Are wonders that he has waved from the earth as a presage of his power.
[Pg 43] And the giant stems of the bamboo-grass, the pool astounded, sees,
Are a marvel to keep it still hour after hour.
III
The long lianas that reach in dreamy rout from tree to tree
Are dazed with the sense of sap that he calls to the tangle of their sprays.
The scarlet-hearted hibiscus stands entranced and the torrid bee
Is husht upon its rim, as in amaze ”

“ Some are blown where the sampans glide,
And some are strewn by the temple's side,
[Pg 14] And some by the torii.
But Autumn ever
Pursues them till,
As ever before,
She has her will,
And leaves them desolate, dead and still,
Ravished afar and wide;
Leaves them desolate; crying shrill,
"No beauty shall abide!"
[Pg 15]
TYPHOON (At Hong-kong)
I was weary and slept on the Peak ”