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第4章

songs of travel-第4章

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Shall mourn their Kaiulani gone;

And I; in her dear banyan shade;

Look vainly for my little maid。



But our Scots islands far away

Shall glitter with unwonted day;

And cast for once their tempests by

To smile in Kaiulani's eye。





Honolulu。





XXXI … TO MOTHER MARYANNE





To see the infinite pity of this place;

The mangled limb; the devastated face;

The innocent sufferer smiling at the rod …

A fool were tempted to deny his God。

He sees; he shrinks。  But if he gaze again;

Lo; beauty springing from the breast of pain!

He marks the sisters on the mournful shores;

And even a fool is silent and adores。





Guest House; Kalawao; Molokai。





XXXII … IN MEMORIAM E。 H。





I KNEW a silver head was bright beyond compare;

I knew a queen of toil with a crown of silver hair。

Garland of valour and sorrow; of beauty and renown;

Life; that honours the brave; crowned her himself with the crown。



The beauties of youth are frail; but this was a jewel of age。

Life; that delights in the brave; gave it himself for a gage。

Fair was the crown to behold; and beauty its poorest part …

At once the scar of the wound and the order pinned on the heart。



The beauties of man are frail; and the silver lies in the dust;

And the queen that we call to mind sleeps with the brave and the just;

Sleeps with the weary at length; but; honoured and ever fair;

Shines in the eye of the mind the crown of the silver hair。





Honolulu。





XXXIII … TO MY WIFE (A Fragment)





LONG must elapse ere you behold again

Green forest frame the entry of the lane …

The wild lane with the bramble and the brier;

The year…old cart…tracks perfect in the mire;

The wayside smoke; perchance; the dwarfish huts;

And ramblers' donkey drinking from the ruts: …

Long ere you trace how deviously it leads;

Back from man's chimneys and the bleating meads

To the woodland shadow; to the sylvan hush;

When but the brooklet chuckles in the brush …

Back from the sun and bustle of the vale

To where the great voice of the nightingale

Fills all the forest like a single room;

And all the banks smell of the golden broom;

So wander on until the eve descends。

And back returning to your firelit friends;

You see the rosy sun; despoiled of light;

Hung; caught in thickets; like a schoolboy's kite。



Here from the sea the unfruitful sun shall rise;

Bathe the bare deck and blind the unshielded eyes;

The allotted hours aloft shall wheel in vain

And in the unpregnant ocean plunge again。

Assault of squalls that mock the watchful guard;

And pluck the bursting canvas from the yard;

And senseless clamour of the calm; at night

Must mar your slumbers。  By the plunging light;

In beetle…haunted; most unwomanly bower

Of the wild…swerving cabin; hour by hour 。 。 。





Schooner 'Equator。'





XXXIV … TO MY OLD FAMILIARS





DO you remember … can we e'er forget? …

How; in the coiled…perplexities of youth;

In our wild climate; in our scowling town;

We gloomed and shivered; sorrowed; sobbed and feared?

The belching winter wind; the missile rain;

The rare and welcome silence of the snows;

The laggard morn; the haggard day; the night;

The grimy spell of the nocturnal town;

Do you remember? … Ah; could one forget!



As when the fevered sick that all night long

Listed the wind intone; and hear at last

The ever…welcome voice of chanticleer

Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn; …

With sudden ardour; these desire the day:

So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope;

So we; exulting; hearkened and desired。

For lo! as in the palace porch of life

We huddled with chimeras; from within …

How sweet to hear! … the music swelled and fell;

And through the breach of the revolving doors

What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled!



I have since then contended and rejoiced;

Amid the glories of the house of life

Profoundly entered; and the shrine beheld:

Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes

Shall dwindle and recede; the voice of love

Fall insignificant on my closing ears;

What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind

In our inclement city? what return

But the image of the emptiness of youth;

Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice

Of discontent and rapture and despair?

So; as in darkness; from the magic lamp;

The momentary pictures gleam and fade

And perish; and the night resurges … these

Shall I remember; and then all forget。





Apemama。





XXXV





THE tropics vanish; and meseems that I;

From Halkerside; from topmost Allermuir;

Or steep Caerketton; dreaming gaze again。

Far set in fields and woods; the town I see

Spring gallant from the shallows of her smoke;

Cragged; spired; and turreted; her virgin fort

Beflagged。  About; on seaward…drooping hills;

New folds of city glitter。  Last; the Forth

Wheels ample waters set with sacred isles;

And populous Fife smokes with a score of towns。



There; on the sunny frontage of a hill;

Hard by the house of kings; repose the dead;

My dead; the ready and the strong of word。

Their works; the salt…encrusted; still survive;

The sea bombards their founded towers; the night

Thrills pierced with their strong lamps。  The artificers;

One after one; here in this grated cell;

Where the rain erases; and the rust consumes;

Fell upon lasting silence。  Continents

And continental oceans intervene;

A sea uncharted; on a lampless isle;

Environs and confines their wandering child

In vain。  The voice of generations dead

Summons me; sitting distant; to arise;

My numerous footsteps nimbly to retrace;

And; all mutation over; stretch me down

In that denoted city of the dead。





Apemama。





XXXVI … TO S。 C。





I HEARD the pulse of the besieging sea

Throb far away all night。  I heard the wind

Fly crying and convulse tumultuous palms。

I rose and strolled。  The isle was all bright sand;

And flailing fans and shadows of the palm;

The heaven all moon and wind and the blind vault;

The keenest planet slain; for Venus slept。



The king; my neighbour; with his host of wives;

Slept in the precinct of the palisade;

Where single; in the wind; under the moon;

Among the slumbering cabins; blazed a fire;

Sole street…lamp and the only sentinel。



To other lands and nights my fancy turned …

To London first; and chiefly to your house;

The many…pillared and the well…beloved。

There yearning fancy lighted; there again

In the upper room I lay; and heard far off

The unsleeping city murmur like a shell;

The muffled tramp of the Museum guard

Once more went by me; I beheld again

Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street;

Again I longed for the returning morn;

The awaking traffic; the bestirring birds;

The consentaneous trill of tiny song

That weaves round monumental cornices

A passing charm of beauty。  Most of all;

For your light foot I wearied; and your knock

That was the glad reveille of my day。



Lo; now; when to your task in the great house

At morning through the portico you pass;

One moment glance; where by the pillared wall

Far…voyaging island gods; begrimed with smoke;

Sit now unworshipped; the rude monument

Of faiths forgot and races undivined:

Sit now disconsolate; remembering well

The priest; the victim; and the songful crowd;

The blaze of the blue noon; and that huge voice;

Incessant; of the breakers on the shore。

As far as these from their ancestral shrine;

So far; so foreign; your divided friends

Wander; estranged in body; not in mind。





Apemama。





XXXVII … THE HOUSE OF TEMBINOKA





'At my departure from the island of Apemama; for which you will 

look in vain in most atlases; the King and I agreed; since we both 

set up to be in the poetical way; that we should celebrate our 

separation in verse。  Whether or not his Majesty has been true to his 

bargain; the laggard posts of the Pacific may p

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