Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A SONG OF CREATION: BOOK 3, CANTO 1, by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SONG OF CREATION: BOOK 3, CANTO 1, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Of all fair trees to look upon
Last Line: A mist is rising to the eyes!
Alternate Author Name(s): Miller, Joaquin
Subject(s): Creation


I

Of all fair trees to look upon,
Of all trees "pleasant to the sight,"
Give me the Poet's tree of white --
Pink cherry trees of blest Nippon
With lovers passing to and fro --
Pink cherry lanes of Tokio:
Ten thousand cherry trees and each
Hung white with Poet's plaint and speech.

II

Of all fair lands to look upon,
To feel, to breathe, at Orient dawn,
I count this baby land the best,
Because here all things rest and rest
And all men love all things most fair
And beautiful and rich and rare;
And women are as cherry trees
With treasures laden, brown with bees.

III

Of all loved lands to look upon,
Give me this love land of Nippon,
Its bright, brave men, its maids at prayer,
Its peace, its carelessness of care.

IV

A mobile sea of silver mist
Sweeps up for morn to mount upon:
Then yellow, saffron, amethyst --
Such changeful hues has blest Nippon!
See but this sunrise, then forget
All scenes, all suns, all lands save one,
Just matin sun and vesper sun;
This land of inland seas of light;
This land that hardly recks of night.

V

The vesper sun of blest Nippon
Sinks crimson in the Yellow Sea:
The purple butterfly is gone,
The rainbow bird housed in his tree --
Hushed, as the last loved, trembling note
Still thrills his tuneful Orient throat --
Hushed, as the harper's weary hand
Waits morn to waken and command.

VI

Fast homeward bound, brown, busy feet
In wooden shoon clang up the street;
But not through all the thousand year
In Buddha's temple may you hear
One step, see hue of sun or sea,
Though wait you through eternity:
All is so still, so soft, subdued --
The very walls are hueless hued.

VII

Behold brown, kneeling penitents!
What perfumed place of silent prayer!
Burned Senko-ho, sweet frankincense!
And hear what silence everywhere!
Pale, pensive priests pass here and there
And silent lisp with bended head
The Golden Rule on scrolls of gold
As gentle, ancient Buddhists read
These precepts sacred unto them,
And watched the world grow old, so old,
Ere yet the Babe of Bethlehem.

VIII

How leaps the altar's forky flame!
How dreamful, dense, the sweet incense,
As pale priests burn, in Buddha's name,
Red-written sins of penitents --
Mute penitents with bended head
And unsaid sins writ deep in red.

IX

Now slow a priest with staff and scroll,
Barefoot, as mendicant, and old --
You sudden start, you lift your head,
You hear and yet you do not hear,
A sound, a song, so sweet, so dear
It well might waken yonder dead.
His staff has touched the sacred bowl
Of copper, silver, shot with gold
And wrought so magic-like of old
That all sweet sounds, or east or west,
Sought this still hollow where to rest.
Hear, hear the voice of Buddha's bell,
Bonsho-no-oto! All is well!

X

And you, you, lean, lean low to hear:
You doubt your ears, you doubt your eyes,
Your hand is lifted to your ear,
You fear, how cruelly you fear
The melody may die -- it dies --
Dies as the swan dies, as the sun
Dies, bathed in dewy benison.

XI

It lives again; you breathe again!
What cadences that speak, that stir,
Take form and presence, as of her
Whom first you loved, ere yet of men.
It utters essence as a sound;
As Santalum sends from the ground
For devotee and worshipper
Where saints lie buried, balm and myrrh.

XII

But now so low, so faint, so low
You lean to hear yet hardly hear.
Again your hand is to your ear,
Your lips are parted, leaning so,
And now again you catch your breath
Such breath as when you lie becalmed
At sea, and sudden start to feel
A cooling wave and quickened keel
And see your tall sail court the shore.
You hear, you more than hear, you feel,
As when the white wave shimmereth.
Your love is at your side once more,
An essence of some song embalmed,
Long hidden in the house of death --
You breathe it, as your Lady's breath!

XIII

Now low, so low, so soft, so still,
As when a single leaf is stirred,
As when some doubtful matin bird
Dreams russet morning decks his hill --
Then nearer, clearer, lilts each note
And longer, stronger, swells each wave --
Ten thousand dead have burst the grave,
An angel's song in every throat!
The forky flame turns and returns
To burn and burn red sins away;
Such incense on the altar burns
As some may breathe but none may say,
Though cherished to their dying day.

XIV

And now the sandaled pilgrims fall
With faces to the jeweled floor --
The incense darkens as a pall,
As clouds that darken more and more.
You dare not lift your bended head --
The silence is as if the dead
Alone had passed the temple door.
And now the Bonsho notes, the song!
So stronger now, so strong, so strong!

XV

The black smokes of the ashen urn
Where brown priests burn red sins away
Begin to stir, to start, to turn,
To seek the huge, bossed copper door --
As evil things that dare not stay.
The while the rich notes roll and roar
To drive dread, burned sin out before
Calm Dia-busta, the adored,
As cherubim with flaming sword.

XVI

And far, so far, such rich notes roll
That barefoot fishers far at sea
Fall prone and pray all silently
For wife and babes that wait the strand,
The tugging net clutched tight in hand,
The while they bow a space to pray;
For every asking, eager soul
Knows well the time and patiently
It lists an hundred Ri away.

XVII

The thousand pilgrims girt in straw
That press Fujame's holy peak,
Prone, fasting, penitent and meek,
Hear notes as from the stars and pray,
As we who know and keep the Law --
As we who walk Jerusalem
With pilgrim step and pallid cheek.
How earnestly they silent pray
To keep their Golden Rule alway,
To do no thing, or night or day,
Though tempted by a diadem,
They would not others do to them!

XVIII

And wee, brown wives, on high, wild steeps
Of terraced rice or bamboo patch
Where toil, hard toil incessant, keeps
Sweet virtue, sweet sleep, and a thatch,
They hear and hold, with closer fold,
Their bare, brown babes against the cold.
They croon and croon, with soothing care,
To babes meshed in their mighty hair,
And loving, crooning, breathe a prayer.

XIX

The great notes pass, pass on and on,
As light sweeps up the doors of dawn,
And now the strong notes are no more,
But feebler tones wail out and cry,
As sad things that have lost their way
At night and dare not bide the day
But turn back to the shrine to die,
And steal in softly through the door
And gently fade along the floor.

XX

The barefoot priest slow fades from sight,
Faint and more faint the last notes fall;
You hear them now, then not at all,
And now the last note of the night
Wails out, as when a lover cries
At night, and at the altar dies.

XXI

How sweet, how sad, how piteous sweet
This last note at the bowed monk's feet
That dies as dies some saintly light --
That dies so like the sweet swan dies --
So loving sad, so tearful sweet,
This last, lost note -- Good night, good night.
Good night to holy Buddha's bell --
Bonsho-no-oto! All is well --
A mist is rising to the eyes!





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