Cale Young Rice

“ I smote thro' his temple the nail, to the dust, a worm, did I bind him.
My heart was a-leap with rage and a-quiver with scorn.
And I danced with a holy delight before and behind him—
I that am called blessèd o'er all unto Judah born.
"Aye, come, I will show thee, O Barak, a woman is more than a warrior,"
I cried as I lifted the door wherein Sisera lay.
"To me did he fly and I shall be called his destroyer—
I, Jael, who am subtle to find for the Lord a way!"
"Above all the daughters of men be blest—of Gilead or Asshur,"
[Pg 19] Sang Deborah, prophetess, then, from her waving palm. ”

“ Autumn's near.
Yes, with her golden days—
Days
When hope and toil
Are at peace and rest—
Autumn is near, and the tired year 'mid praise
Lies down with leaf and blossom on his breast—
Autumn's near.
[Pg 149]
FULFILMENT
A-bask in the mellow beauty of the ripening sun,
Sad with the lingering sense of summer's purpose done,
The shorn and searing fields stretch from me one by one
Along the creek.
The corn-stalks drop their shadows down the fallow hill;
Wearing autumnal warmth the farm sleeps by the mill,
Around each heavy eave low smoke hangs blue and still—
Life's flow is weak. ”

“ The Heart which yearns behind the mock-world's Face?"
"Well, this I know; whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me, quite,
One flash of it within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright."
"In Temple or in Tavern 't may be lost.
And everywhere that Love hath any Cost
It may be found; the Wrath it seems is but
A Cloud whose Dew should make its power most."
[Pg 11]
"But see His Presence thro' Creation's veins
Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi; and
They change and perish all—but He remains." ”

“ Oh, how thou dost drive silence from the world,
With emerald overflowing, waste on waste
Of flashing susurration, dashed and swirled
O'er isles and continents that shrink abased!
Nay, frustrate Hope art thou, of the Unknown,
Gathered from primal mist and firmament;
A surging shape of Life's unfathomed moan,
Whelming humanity with fears unmeant.
Yet do I love thee, O, above all fear,
And loving thee unconquerably trust
The runes that from thy ageless surfing start
Would read, were they revealed, gust upon gust,
That Immortality is might of heart! ”

“ That day, can it fade?... ah, bob, bob-white,
Still calling—calling still?
We're coming—a-coming, bent and weighed,
But glad with the old love's thrill!
[Pg 70]
THE DYING POET
Swing in thy splendour, O silent sun,
Drawing my heart with thee over the west!
Done is its day as thy day is done,
Fallen its quest!
Swoon into purple and rose, then die:
Tho' to arise again out of the dawn:
Die as I praise thee, ere thro' the Dark Lie
Of death I am drawn!
Sunk? art thou sunken? how great was life! ”

“ The trees we pass, the summer brook,
The bird that o'er us darts—
We do not know 'tis they that thrill
Our childish hearts.
The earth-things have no name for us,
The ploughing means no more
Than that they like to walk the fields
Who plough them o'er.
[Pg 56]
The road, the wood, the heaven, the hills
Are not a World to-day—
But just a place God's made for us
In which to play.
[Pg 57]
AUTUMN
I know her not by fallen leaves
Or resting heaps of hay ”

“ As Spring on the world.
There were no need
To fling (forsooth) of you
Fancies that only lovers heed!
No, but unfurled,
The bloom, the sweet of you,
(As unto me they are opened oft)
Would with their beauty's breath repeat of you
All that my heart breathes loud or soft!
[Pg 99] V LOVE-WATCH
My love's a guardian-angel
Who camps about thy heart,
Never to See thine enemy,
Nor from thee turn apart.
Whatever dark may shroud thee
And hide thy stars away,
With vigil sweet his wings shall beat
About thee till the day.
VI AT AMALFI
Come to the window, you who are mine. ”

“ Winter has come in sackcloth and ashes
(Penance for Summer's enverdured sheaves) .
Bitterly, cruelly, bleakly he lashes
His limbs that are naked of grass and leaves.
He moans in the forest for sins unforgiven
(Sins of the revelous days of June) —
Moans while the sun drifts dull from the heaven,
Giftless of heat's beshriving boon.
Long must he mourn, and long be his scourging,
(Long will the day-god aloof frown cold) ,
Long will earth listen the rue of his dirging—
Till the dark beads of his days are told.
[Pg 104]
TO THE SPRING WIND
Ah, what a changeling! ”

“ Enmesh, and then impute my fall to sin."
"He will not. If one evil we endure
To ultimate Debasing, oh, be sure
'Tis not of Him predestined, and the sin
Not His nor ours—but Fate's He could not cure."
[Pg 14]
"Yet, ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that on the branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?"
"So does it seem—no other joys like these!
Yet Summer comes, and Autumn's honoured ease;
And wintry Age, is't ever whisperless
Of that Last Spring, whose Verdure may not cease?" ”

“ Then, again, o'er fence, thro' thicket,
To the mouth of the rough ravine,
Where the weird leaf-hidden cricket
Chirrs thro' the weirder green,
[Pg 106]
There's a way, o'er rocks—but quicker
Is the beat of heart and foot,
As the beams above us flicker
Sun upon moss and root!
And we leap—as wildness tingles
From the air into our blood—
With a cry thro' golden dingles
Hid in the heart of the wood. ”

“ Dreaming, God called me thro' the space-built sphere
[Pg 141] Of heaven and said, "Come, waiting one, and lay
Thine ear unto my Heart—there thou shalt hear
The secrets of this world where evils war." ”

“ The heart of Egypt from the God of gods:
[Pg 67]
"Aye, they! and these!" pointing to many wraiths
That stood around—Baal, Ormuzd, Indra, all
Whom frightened ignorance and sin's appall
Had given birth, close-huddled in despair.
Their eyes were fixed upon a cloven slope
Down whose descent still other forms a-fresh
From earth were drawn, by the unceasing mesh
Of Time to their irrevocable end.
"They are the gods," one said—"the gods whom men
Still taunt with wails for help."—Then a deep light
Upbore me from the Gulf, and thro' its might
I heard the worlds cry, "God alone is God!" ”

“ Nor Indian, with the silent stealth of Nature shod;
Deeps tense with the timelessness and solitude of God,
Who never sleeps.
And many times has Autumn, on her harvest way,
Gathered again into the earth leaf, fruit, and spray ”

“ To soothe some grief-wan soul with sin a-smart.
2
A votaress art thou of Simplicity,
Who hath one fane—the heaven above thy nest;
[Pg 80] One incense—love; one stealing litany
Of peace from rivered vale and upland crest.
Yea, thou art Hers, who makes prayer of the breeze,
Hope of the cool upwelling from sweet soils,
Faith of the darkening distance, charities
Of vesper scents, and of the glow-worm's throb
Joy whose first leaping rends the care-wound coils
That would earth of its heavenliness rob.
3
But few, how few her worshippers! ”

“ Though they lie deep, they are by Death deterred."
"Send then thy Soul through the Invisible
Some letter of the After-life to spell:
And by and by thy Soul returned to thee
But answers, 'I myself am Heaven and Hell.'"
"From the Invisible, he does. But sent
Thro' Earth, where living Goodness tho' 'tis blent
With Evil dures, may he not read the Voice,
'To make thee but for Death were toil ill spent'?"
[Pg 13]
"Well, when the Angel of the darker drink
At last shall find us by the river-brink
And offering his Cup invite our souls
Forth to our lips to quaff, we shall not shrink." ”

“ To the brooklet's song!
[Pg 97]
Oh, heart o' my heart, oh, heart o' my love,
(Oh soul o' my soul, haste unto me, haste!)
For spring is below and God is above—
But all is a waste
Without thee—haste!
III MATING
The bliss of the wind in the redbud ringing!
What shall we do with the April days!
Kingcups soon will be up and swinging—
What shall we do with May's!
The cardinal flings, "They are made for mating!"
Out on the bough he flutters, a flame.
Thrush-flutes echo, "For mating's elating!
Love is its other name!"
[Pg 98]
They know! know it! ”

“ SPIRIT OF RAIN (Miyanoshita, Japan, 1905)
Spirit of rain—
With all thy mountain mists that wander lonely
As a gray train
Of souls newly discarnate seeking new life only!
Spirit of rain!
Leading them thro' dim torii, up fane-ways onward
Till not in vain
They tremble upon the peaks and plunge rejoicing dawnward.
Spirit of rain!
So would I lead my dead thoughts high and higher,
Till they regain
Birth and the beauty of a new life's fire.
[Pg 130]
AUTUMN AT THE BRIDGE
Brown dropping of leaves,
Soft rush of the wind,
Slow searing of sheaves
On the hill ”

“ My feet grew quick with the gloating that beat in my breath.
At night I stole out where they cast him, a sop to the jackal and raven.
But his bones stood up in the moon and I shook with affright.
The strength shrank out of my limbs and I fell, a craven,
Before him—the nail in his temple gleamed bloodily bright.
Jehovah! Jehovah! art Thou not stronger than gods of the heathen?
I slew him, that Sisera, prince of the host Thou dost hate. ”

“ Of awe glide thro' entangled leagues of ooze,
To hoot thy watery omens evermore,
And evermore thy moanings interfuse
With seething necromancy and mad lore?
Or, dost thou labour with the drifting bones
Of countless dead, thou mighty Alchemist,
Within whose stormy crucible the stones
Of sunk primordial shores, granite and schist,
Are crumbled by thine all-abrasive beat?
[Pg 23] With immemorial chanting to the moon,
And cosmic incantation, dost thou crave
Rest to be found not till thy wild be strewn
Frigid and desert over earth's last grave? ”

“ And that wan, shrivelled sceptre in thy hand,
Why dost thou clasp it still? Cast it away,
For now it hath no virtue that can sway
Dull shades or drive the Furies to their spoil.
"Cast it away, and give thy palm to mine:
Perchance some unobliterated spark
Of memory shall warm this dismal Dark.
Perchance—Vain! vain! love could not light such gloom." ”

“ They see the Unseen as night falls stark and starker.
Like priests whose altar fires
Are spent, immovable
They stand, in awful ecstasy uplifted.
Zephyrs awake tree-lyres,
The starry deeps are full,
Earth with a mystic majesty is gifted. ”

“ Dropt in her lap from some once lovely Head."
"Then if, from the dull Clay thro' with Life's throes,
More beautiful spring Hyacinth and Rose,
Will the great Gardener for the uprooted soul
Find Use no sweeter than—useless Repose?"
[Pg 7]
"We cannot know—so fill the cup that clears
To-day of past regret and future fears:
To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow we may be
Ourselves with Yesterday's sev'n thousand Years."
"No Cup there is to bring oblivion
More during than Regret and Fear—no, none! ”

“ Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!"
"Into the Dust we shall descend—we must.
But can the soul not break the crumbling Crust
In which he is encaged? To hope or to
Despair he will—which is more wise or just?"
[Pg 5]
"The worldly hope men set their hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers: and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone."
"Like Snow it comes—to cool one burning Day ”

“ Autumn 57
Shinto 58
[Pg x] Maya 60
A Japanese Mother 62
The Dead Gods 64
Call to Your Mate, Bob-White 68
The Dying Poet 70
The Outcast 73
April 76
August Guests 78
To a Dove 79
At Tintern Abbey 81
Oh, Go Not Out 83
Human Love 85
Ashore 86
The Victory 88
At Winter's End 89
Mother-Love 91
To a Singing Warbler 93
Songs to A. H. R.:
I. The World's, and Mine 95
II. Love-Call in Spring 96
III. Mating 97
IV. Untold 98
V. Love-Watch 99
VI. At Amalfi 99
VII. On the Pacific 101 ”