Wagner

Creeps in half wanton, half asleep,
 One with a fat wide hairless face.
He likes love-music that is cheap;
 Likes women in a crowded place;
  And wants to hear the noise they're making.

His heavy eyelids droop half-over,
 Great pouches swing beneath his eyes.
He listens, thinks himself the lover,
 Heaves from his stomach wheezy sighs;
  He likes to feel his heart's a-breaking.

The music swells.  His gross legs quiver.
 His little lips are bright with slime.
The music swells.  The women shiver.
 And all the while, in perfect time,
  His pendulous stomach hangs a-shaking.

The Vision of the Archangels

Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,
 Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,
 A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,
It was so tiny.  (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
 Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever
 Into the emptiness and silence, into the night. . . .)

They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,
 Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin -- and therein
 God's little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,
And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal --
Till it was no more visible; then turned again
With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.

Seaside

Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band,
 The crowd's good laughter, the loved eyes of men,
 I am drawn nightward; I must turn again
Where, down beyond the low untrodden strand,
There curves and glimmers outward to the unknown
 The old unquiet ocean.  All the shade
Is rife with magic and movement.  I stray alone
 Here on the edge of silence, half afraid,

Waiting a sign.  In the deep heart of me
The sullen waters swell towards the moon,
And all my tides set seaward.
                               From inland
Leaps a gay fragment of some mocking tune,
That tinkles and laughs and fades along the sand,
And dies between the seawall and the sea.

On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess

Song of a tribe of the ancient Egyptians

     (The Priests within the Temple)
She was wrinkled and huge and hideous?  She was our Mother.
She was lustful and lewd? -- but a God; we had none other.
In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade;
We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid.

     (The People without)
          She sent us pain,
           And we bowed before Her;
          She smiled again
           And bade us adore Her.
          She solaced our woe
           And soothed our sighing;
          And what shall we do
           Now God is dying?

     (The Priests within)
She was hungry and ate our children; -- how should we stay Her?
She took our young men and our maidens; -- ours to obey Her.
We were loathed and mocked and reviled of all nations; that was our pride.
She fed us, protected us, loved us, and killed us; now She has died.

     (The People without)
          She was so strong;
           But death is stronger.
          She ruled us long;
           But Time is longer.
          She solaced our woe
           And soothed our sighing;
          And what shall we do
           Now God is dying?

The Song of the Pilgrims

     (Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set,
     they sing this beneath the trees.)

What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless than desire. . . .
                                 Far God,
Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills
The soul with longing for dim hills
And faint horizons!  For there come
Grey moments of the antient dumb
Sickness of travel, when no song
Can cheer us; but the way seems long;
And one remembers. . . .
                          Ah! the beat
Of weary unreturning feet,
And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
The fires we left are always burning
On the old shrines of home.  Our kin
Have built them temples, and therein
Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell
In little houses lovable,
Being happy (we remember how!)
And peaceful even to death. . . .
                                   O Thou,
God of all long desirous roaming,
Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,
And crying after lost desire.
Hearten us onward! as with fire
Consuming dreams of other bliss.
The best Thou givest, giving this
Sufficient thing -- to travel still
Over the plain, beyond the hill,
Unhesitating through the shade,
Amid the silence unafraid,
Till, at some sudden turn, one sees
Against the black and muttering trees
Thine altar, wonderfully white,
Among the Forests of the Night.

The Song of the Beasts

     (Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.)