Songs of the Mexican Seas Part 2

How large and liberal her soul, How confident, how purely chare, How trusting; how untried the whole Great heart, grand faith, that blossomed there!

XVI.

Ay, she was as Madonna to The tawny, lawless, faithful few Who touched her hand and knew her soul: She drew them, drew them as the pole Points all things to itself.

She drew Men upward as a moon of spring, High wheeling, vast and bosom-full, Half clad in clouds and white as wool, Draws all the strong seas following.

Yet still she moved as sad, as lone As that same moon that leans above, And seems to search high heaven through For some strong, all-sufficient love, For one brave love to be her own, To lean upon, to love, to woo, To lord her high white world, to yield His clas.h.i.+ng sword against her s.h.i.+eld.

Oh, I once knew a sad, white dove That died for such sufficient love, Such high-born soul with wings to soar: That stood up equal in its place, That looked love level in the face, Nor wearied love with leaning o'er To lift love level where she trod In sad delight the hills of G.o.d.

XVII.

How slow before the sleeping breeze, That stranger s.h.i.+p from under seas!

How like to Dido by her sea, When reaching arms imploringly,-- Her large, round, rich, impa.s.sioned arms, Tossed forth from all her storied charms,-- This one lone maiden leaning stood Above that sea, beside the wood!

The s.h.i.+p crept strangely up the seas; Her shrouds seemed shreds, her masts seemed trees,-- Strange tattered trees of toughest bough That knew no cease of storm till now.

The maiden pitied her; she prayed Her crew might come, nor feel afraid; She prayed the winds might come,--they came, As birds that answer to a name.

The maiden held her blowing hair That bound her beauteous self about; The sea-winds housed within her hair: She let it go, it blew in rout About her bosom full and bare.

Her round, full arms were free as air, Her high hands clasped, as clasped in prayer.

XVIII.

The breeze grew bold, the battered s.h.i.+p Began to flap her weary wings; The tall, torn masts began to dip And walk the wave like living things.

She rounded in, she struck the stream, She moved like some majestic dream.

The captain kept her deck. He stood A Hercules among his men; And now he watched the sea, and then He peered as if to pierce the wood.

He now looked back, as if pursued, Now swept the sea with gla.s.s, as though He fled or feared some hidden foe.

Swift sailing up the river's mouth, Swift tacking north, swift tacking south, He touched the overhanging wood; He tacked his s.h.i.+p; his tall black mast Touched tree-top mosses as he pa.s.sed; He touched the steep sh.o.r.e where she stood.

XIX.

Her hands still clasped as if in prayer, Sweet prayer set to silentness; Her sun-browned throat uplifted, bare And beautiful.

Her eager face Illumed with love and tenderness, And all her presence gave such grace, Dark shadowed in her cloud of hair, That she seemed more than mortal fair.

XX.

He saw. He could not speak. No more With lifted gla.s.s he sought the sea; No more he watched the wild new sh.o.r.e.

Now foes might come, now friends might flee; He could not speak, he would not stir,-- He saw but her, he feared but her.

The black s.h.i.+p ground against the sh.o.r.e, She ground against the bank as one With long and weary journeys done, That would not rise to journey more.

Yet still this Jason silent stood And gazed against that sun-lit wood, As one whose soul is anywhere.

All seemed so fair, so wondrous fair!

At last aroused, he stepped to land Like some Columbus. They laid hand On lands and fruits, and rested there.

XXI.

He found all fairer than fair morn In sylvan land, where waters run With downward leap against the sun, And full-grown sudden May is born.

He found her taller than tall corn Tiptoe in ta.s.sel; found her sweet As vale where bees of Hybla meet.

An unblown rose, an unread book; A wonder in her wondrous eyes; A large, religious, steadfast look Of faith, of trust,--the look of one New welcomed in her Paradise.

He read this book,--read on and on From t.i.tlepage to colophon: As in cool woods, some summer day, You find delight in some sweet lay, And so entranced read on and on From t.i.tlepage to colophon.

XXII.

And who was he that rested there,-- This Hercules, so huge, so rare, This giant of a grander day, This Theseus of a n.o.bler Greece, This Jason of the golden fleece?

And who was he? And who were they That came to seek the hidden gold Long hallowed from the pirate's hold?

I do not know. You need not care.

They loved, this maiden and this man, And that is all I surely know,-- The rest is as the winds that blow.

He bowed as brave men bow to fate, Yet proud and resolute and bold; She, coy at first, and mute and cold, Held back and seemed to hesitate,-- Half frightened at this love that ran Hard gallop till her hot heart beat Like sounding of swift courser's feet.

XXIII.

Two strong streams of a land must run Together surely as the sun Succeeds the moon. Who shall gainsay The fates that reign, that wisely reign?

Love is, love was, shall be again.

Like death, inevitable it is; Perchance, like death, the dawn of bliss.

Let us, then, love the perfect day, The twelve o'clock of life, and stop The two hands pointing to the top, And hold them tightly while we may.

XXIV.

How piteous strange is love! The walks By wooded ways; the silent talks Beneath the broad and fragrant bough.

The dark deep wood, the dense black dell, Where scarce a single gold beam fell From out the sun.

They rested now On mossy trunk. They wandered then Where never fell the feet of men.

Then longer walks, then deeper woods, Then sweeter talks, sufficient sweet, In denser, deeper solitudes,-- Dear careless ways for careless feet; Sweet talks of paradise for two, And only two, to watch or woo.

She rarely spake. All seemed a dream She would not waken from. She lay All night but waiting for the day, When she might see his face, and deem This man, with all his perils pa.s.sed, Had found the Lotus-land at last.

XXV.

The year waxed fervid, and the sun Fell central down. The forest lay A-quiver in the heat. The sea Below the steep bank seemed to run A molten sea of gold.

Away Against the gray and rock-built isles That broke the molten watery miles Where lonesome sea-cows called all day, The sudden sun smote angrily.