the Mad is over the sky.
Life sits in the chariot crowned by Death.
Bring out your tribute to him of all that you have.
Do not hug your savings to your heart, do not look behind,
Bend your head at his feet, trailing your hair in the dust.
Take to the road from this moment.
For the lamp is blown out and the house is desolate.
The storm winds scream through your doors, the walls are rocking, and the call comes from the land of dimness beyond your ken.
Hide not your face in terror; tears are in vain; your door chains have snapped.
Run out for your voyage to the end of all joys and sorrows.
Let your steps be the steps of a desperate dance. Sing “Victory to Life in Death.’*
Accept your destiny, 0 Bride!
Put on your red robe to follow through the darkness the torchlight of the Bridegroom!
23
I came nearest to you, though I did not know it,—when I came to hurt you.
I owned you at last as my master when I fought against you to be defeated.
I merely made my debt to you burdensome when I robbed you in secret.
I struggled in my pride against your current only to feel all your force in my breast.
Rebelliously I put out the light in my house and your sky surprised me with its stars.
24
Have you come to me as my sorrow? All the more I must cling to you.
Your face is veiled in the dark, all the more I must see you.
At the blow of death from your hand let my life leap up in a flame.
Tears flow from my eyes,—let them flow round your feet in worship.
And let the pain in my breast speak to me that you are still mine.
25
I hid myself to evade you.
Now that I am caught at last, strike me, see if I flinch.
Finish the game for good.
If you win in the end, strip me of all that I have.
I have had my laughter and songs in wayside booths and stately halls,—now that you have come into my life, make me weep, see if you can break my heart.
26
When I awake in thy love my night of ease will be ended.
Thy sunrise will touch my heart with its touchstone of fire, and my voyage will begin in its orbit of triumphant suffering.
I shall dare to take up death’s challenge and carry thy voice in the heart of mockery and menace.
I shall bare my breast against the wrongs hurled at thy children, and take the risk of standing by thy side where none but thee remains.
27
I am the weary earth of summer bare of life and parched.
I wait for thy shower to come down in the night when I open my breast and receive it in silence.
I long to give thee in return my songs and flowers.
But empty is my store, and only the deep sigh rises from my heart through the withered grass.
But I know that thou wilt wait for the morning when my hours will brim with their riches.
28
Come to me like summer cloud, spreading thy showers from sky to sky.
Deepen the purple of the hills with thy majestic shadows, quicken the languid forests into flowers, and awaken in the hill-streams the fervour of the far-away quest.
Come to me like summer cloud, stirring my heart with the promise of hidden life, and the gladness of the green.
29
I have met thee where the night touches the edge of the day; where the light startles the darkness into dawn, and the waves carry the kiss of the one shore to the other.
From the heart of the fathomless blue comes one golden call, and across the dusk of tears I try to gaze at thy face and know not for certain if thou art seen.
30
If love be denied me then why does the morning break its heart in songs, and why are these whispers that the south wind scatters among the new-born leaves?
If love be denied me then why does the midnight bear in yearning silence the pain of the stars?
And why does this foolish heart recklessly launch its hope on the sea whose end it does not know?
31
Only a portion of my gift is in this world, the rest of it is in niv dreams.
You, who ever elude my touch, come there in secret silence, hiding your lamp.
I shall know you by the thrill in the darkness, by the whisper of the unseen worlds, by the breath of the unknown shore;—
I shall know you by the sudden delight of my heart melting into sadness of tears.
32
I know you will win my heart some day, my lover.
Through your stars you gaze deep into my dreams;
You send your secrets in your moonbeams to me, and I muse and my eyes dim with tears.
Your wooing is in the sunny sky thrilling in the tremulous leaves, in the idle hours overflowing with shepherds’ piping, in the raindimmed dusk when the heart aches with its loneliness.
33
Some one has secretly left in my hand a flower of love.
Some one has stolen my heart and scattered it abroad in the sky.
I know not if I have found him or I am seeking him everywhere, if it is a pang of bliss or of pain.
34
The rains sweep the sky from end to end.
In the wild wet wind the jasmines revel in their own perfume.
There is a secret joy in the bosom of the night, it is the joy of the veiled sky in its hidden stars,
