Travel and Horizons

This-is the land-the Sunset washes

266

This-is the land-the Sunset washesThese-
are the Banks of the Yellow Sea-
Where it rose-or whither it rushesThese-
are the Western Mystery!

Night after Night
Her purple traffic
Strews the landing with Opal BalesMerchantmen-
poise upon HorizonsDip-
and vanish like Orioles!

Many cross the Rhine

123

Many cross the Rhine
In this cup of mine.
Sip old Frankfort air
From my brown Cigar.

Exultation is the going

76

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses-past the headlands-
Into deep Eternity-


Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?

Away from Home are some and I—

821

Away from Home are some and I—
An Emigrant to be
In a Metropolis of Homes
Is easy, possibly—


The Habit of a Foreign Sky
We—difficult—acquire
As Children, who remain in Face
The more their Feet retire.

A Marine Etching

A yacht from its harbour ropes pulled free,

And leaped like a steed o’er the race track blue,
Then up behind her, the dust of the sea,

A gray fog, drifted, and hid her from view.

Questions of Travel

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.


Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?


But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear



and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:


"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?


Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"

Arrival At Santos

Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery:
impractically shaped and--who knows?--self-pitying mountains,
sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,


with a little church on top of one. And warehouses,
some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue,
and some tall, uncertain palms. Oh, tourist,
is this how this country is going to answer you


and your immodest demands for a different world,
and a better life, and complete comprehension
of both at last, and immediately,
after eighteen days of suspension?


Finish your breakfast. The tender is coming,
a strange and ancient craft, flying a strange and brilliant rag.
So that's the flag. I never saw it before.
I somehow never thought of there being a flag,


but of course there was, all along. And coins, I presume,
and paper money; they remain to be seen.
And gingerly now we climb down the ladder backward,
myself and a fellow passenger named Miss Breen,


descending into the midst of twenty-six freighters
waiting to be loaded with green coffee beaus.
Please, boy, do be more careful with that boat hook!
Watch out! Oh! It has caught Miss Breen's


skirt! There! Miss Breen is about seventy,
a retired police lieutenant, six feet tall,
with beautiful bright blue eyes and a kind expression.
Her home, when she is at home, is in Glens Fall


s, New York. There. We are settled.
The customs officials will speak English, we hope,
and leave us our bourbon and cigarettes.
Ports are necessities, like postage stamps, or soap,


but they seldom seem to care what impression they make,
or, like this, only attempt, since it does not matter,
the unassertive colors of soap, or postage stamps-wasting
away like the former, slipping the way the latter


do when we mail the letters we wrote on the boat,
either because the glue here is very inferior
or because of the heat. We leave Santos at once;
we are driving to the interior.

The Duck and the Kangaroo

Said the Duck to the Kangaroo,
'Good gracious! how you hop!
Over the fields and the water too,
As if you never would stop!
My life is a bore in this nasty pond,
And I long to go out in the world beyond!
I wish I could hop like you!'
Said the Duck to the Kangaroo.


'Please give me a ride on your back!'
Said the Duck to the Kangaroo.
'I would sit quite still, and say nothing but 'Quack',
The whole of the long day through!
And we'd go to the Dee, and the Jelly Bo Lee,
Over the land, and over the sea;
Please take me a ride! O do!'
Said the Duck to the Kangaroo.


Said the Kangaroo to the Duck,
'This requires some little reflection;
Perhaps on the whole it might bring me luck,
And there seems but one objection,
Which is, if you'll let me speak so bold,
Your feet are unpleasantly wet and cold,
And would probably give me the roo-
Matiz!' said the Kangaroo.


Said the Duck, 'As I sat on the rocks,
I have thought over that completely,
And I bought four pairs of worsted socks
Which fit my web-feet neatly.
And to keep out the cold I've bought a cloak,
And every day a cigar I'll smoke,
All to follow my own dear true
Love of a Kangaroo!'


Said the Kangaroo, 'I'm ready!
'All in the moonlight pale;
'But to balance me well, dear Duck, sit steady!
'And quite at the end of my tail!'
So away they went with a hop and a bound,
And they hopped the whole world three times round;
And who so happy - O who,
As the Duck and the Kangaroo?

all in green

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.


Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.


Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift red deer
the red rare deer.


Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.


Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.


Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.


Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.


Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.


Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.


Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.


Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.


Four tall stags at the green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.


All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.


Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

Hearthside


Half across the world from me
Lie the lands I'll never see-
I, whose longing lives and dies
Where a ship has sailed away;
I, that never close my eyes
But to look upon Cathay.


Things I may not know nor tell
Wait, where older waters swell;
Ways that flowered at Sappho's tread,
Winds that sighed in Homer's strings,
Vibrant with the singing dead,
Golden with the dust of wings.


Under deeper skies than mine,
Quiet valleys dip and shine.
Where their tender grasses heal
Ancient scars of trench and tomb
I shall never walk: nor kneel
Where the bones of poets bloom.


If I seek a lovelier part,
Where I travel goes my heart;
Where I stray my thought must go;
With me wanders my desire.
Best to sit and watch the snow,
Turn the lock, and poke the fire.

Ulysses' Last Voyage

I launched her with my small remaining band
and, putting out to sea, we set the main
on that lone ship and said farewell to land.

Far to starboard rose the coast of Spain,
astern was Sardi, Islas at our bow,
and soon we saw Morocco port abeam.

Though I and comrades now were old and slow,
we hauled till nightfall for the narrow sound
where Hercules had shown what not to do,

by setting marks for men to stay behind.
At dawn the starboard lookout made Seville,
and at the straits stood Ceuta t'other hand.

'Brothers,' I shouted, 'who have had the will
to come through danger, and have reached the west!
our time awake is brief from now until

the senses die, and so I say we test
the sun's own motion and do not forego
the worlds beyond, unknown and peopleless.

Think of the roots from which you sprang, and show
that you are human: not unconscious brutes
but made to follow virtue and to know.'

To One Coming North

At first you'll joy to see the playful snow,
Like white moths trembling on the tropic air,
Or waters of the hills that softly flow
Gracefully falling down a shining stair.


And when the fields and streets are covered white
And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw,
Or underneath a spell of heat and light
The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,


Like me you'll long for home, where birds' glad song
Means flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry,
And tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong,
Beneath a vivid silver-flecked blue sky.


But oh! more than the changeless southern isles,
When Spring has shed upon the earth her charm,
You'll love the Northland wreathed in golden smiles
By the miraculous sun turned glad and warm.

The Wood

BUT two miles more, and then we rest !
Well, there is still an hour of day,
And long the brightness of the West

Will light us on our devious way;
Sit then, awhile, here in this woodSo
total is the solitude,

We safely may delay.

These massive roots afford a seat,
Which seems for weary travellers made.
There rest. The air is soft and sweet

In this sequestered forest glade,
And there are scents of flowers around,
The evening dew draws from the ground;

How soothingly they spread !

Yes; I was tired, but not at heart;
Nothat
beats full of sweet content,
For now I have my natural part

Of action with adventure blent;
Cast forth on the wide vorld with thee,
And all my once waste energy

To weighty purpose bent.

Yetsay'st
thou, spies around us roam,
Our aims are termed conspiracy ?
Haply, no more our English home

An anchorage for us may be ?
That there is risk our mutual blood
May redden in some lonely wood

The knife of treachery ?

Say'st thouthat
where we lodge each night,
In each lone farm, or lonelier hall
Of Norman Peerere
morning light

Suspicion must as duly fall,
As day returnssuch
vigilance
Presides and watches over France,

Such rigour governs all ?

I fear not, William; dost thou fear ?
So that the knife does not divide,
It may be ever hovering near:

I could not tremble at thy side,
And strenuous lovelike
mine for theeIs
buckler strong, 'gainst treachery,

And turns its stab aside.

I am resolved that thou shalt learn
To trust my strength as I trust thine;
I am resolved our souls shall burn,
With equal, steady, mingling shine;


Part of the field is conquered now,
Our lives in the same channel flow,
Along the selfsame
line;

And while no groaning storm is heard,
Thou seem'st content it should be so,
But soon as comes a warning word

Of dangerstraight
thine anxious brow
Bends over me a mournful shade,
As doubting if my powers are made

To ford the floods of woe.

Know, then it is my spirit swells,
And drinks, with eager joy, the air
Of freedomwhere
at last it dwells,

Chartered, a common task to share
With thee, and then it stirs alert,
And pants to learn what menaced hurt

Demands for thee its care.

Remember, I have crossed the deep,
And stood with thee on deck, to gaze
On waves that rose in threatening heap,

While stagnant lay a heavy haze,
Dimly confusing sea with sky,
And baffling, even, the pilot's eye,

Intent to thread the maze


Of rocks, on Bretagne's dangerous coast,
And find a way to steer our band
To the one point obscure, which lost,

Flung us, as victims, on the strand;All,
elsewhere, gleamed the Gallic sword,
And not a wherry could be moored

Along the guarded land.

I feared not thenI
fear not now;
The interest of each stirring scene
Wakes a new sense, a welcome glow,

In every nerve and bounding vein;
Alike on turbid Channel sea,
Or in still wood of Normandy,

I feel as born again.

The rain descended that wild morn
When, anchoring in the cove at last,
Our band, all weary and forlorn,

Ashore, like waveworn
sailors, castSought
for a sheltering roof in vain,
And scarce could scanty food obtain

To break their morning fast.


Thou didst thy crust with me divide,
Thou didst thy cloak around me fold;
And, sitting silent by thy side,

I ate the bread in peace untold:
Given kindly from thy hand, 'twas sweet
As costly fare or princely treat

On royal plate of gold.

Sharp blew the sleet upon my face,
And, rising wild, the gusty wind
Drove on those thundering waves apace,

Our crew so late had left behind;
But, spite of frozen shower and storm,
So close to thee, my heart beat warm,

And tranquil slept my mind.

So nownor
footsore
nor opprest
With walking all this August day,
I taste a heaven in this brief rest,

This gipsyhalt
beside the way.
England's wild flowers are fair to view,
Like balm is England's summer dew,

Like gold her sunset ray.

But the white violets, growing here,
Are sweeter than I yet have seen,
And ne'er did dew so pure and clear


Distil on forest mosses green,
As now, called forth by summer heat,
Perfumes our cool and fresh retreat


These fragrant limes between.

That sunset ! Look beneath the boughs,
Over the copsebeyond
the hills;
How soft, yet deep and warm it glows,

And heaven with rich suffusion fills;
With hues where still the opal's tint,
Its gleam of poisoned fire is blent,

Where flame through azure thrills !

Depart we nowfor
fast will fade
That solemn splendour of decline,
And deep must be the aftershade


As stars alone tonight
will shine;
No moon is destinedpaleto
gaze
On such a day's vast Phoenix blaze,

A day in fires decayed !

Therehandinhand
we tread again
The mazes of this varying wood,
And soon, amid a cultured plain,
Girt in with fertile solitude,


We shall our restingplace
descry,
Marked by one rooftree,
towering high
Above a farmstead
rude.

Refreshed, erelong, with rustic fare,
We'll seek a couch of dreamless ease;
Courage will guard thy heart from fear,

And Love give mine divinest peace:
Tomorrow
brings more dangerous toil,
And through its conflict and turmoil

We'll pass, as God shall please.

Travelling Bohemians
The prophetic tribe of the ardent eyes
Yesterday they took the road, holding their babies
On their backs, delivering to fierce appetites
The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts.
The men stick their feet out, waving their guns
Alongside the caravan where they tremble together,
Scanning the sky their eyes are weighted down
In mourning for absent chimeras.
At the bottom of his sandy retreat, a cricket
Watched passing, redoubles his song,
Cybele, who loves, adds more flower,
Makes fountains out of rock and blossoms from desert
Opening up before these travelers in a yawn—
A familiar empire, the inscrutable future.
Translated by William A. Sigler
Submitted by Ryan McGuire

The Invitation to the Voyage
My sister, my child
imagine, exiled,
The sweetness, of being there, we two!
To live and to sigh,
to love and to die,
In the land that mirrors you!
The misted haze
of its clouded days
Has the same charm to my mind,
as mysterious,
as your traiterous
Eyes, behind glittering blinds.
There everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness, and luxury.
The surface gleams
are polished it seems,
Through the years, to grace our room.
The rarest flowers
mix, with fragrant showers,
The vague, amber perfume.
The dark, painted halls,
the deep mirrored walls,
With Eastern splendour hung,
all secretly speak,
To the soul, its discrete,
Sweet, native tongue.
There, everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness and luxury.
See, down the canals,
the sleeping vessels,
Those nomads, their white sails furled:
Now, to accomplish
your every wish,
They come from the ends of the world.
- The deep sunsets
surround the west,
The canals, the city, entire,
with blue-violet and gold;
And the Earth grows cold
In an incandescent fire.
There, everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness and luxury.

Her Hair
O fleece, that down the neck waves to the nape!
O curls! O perfume nonchalant and rare!
O ecstasy! To fill this alcove shape
With memories that in these tresses sleep,
I would shake them like penions in the air!
Languorous Asia, burning Africa,
And a far world, defunct almost, absent,
Within your aromatic forest stay!
As other souls on music drift away,
Mine, O my love! still floats upon your scent.
I shall go there where, full of sap, both tree
And man swoon in the heat of the southern climates;
Strong tresses be the swell that carries me!
I dream upon your sea of amber
Of dazzling sails, of oarsmen, masts, and flames:
A sun-drenched and reverberating port,
Where I imbibe colour and sound and scent;
Where vessels, gliding through the gold and moiré,
Open their vast arms as they leave the shore
To clasp the pure and shimmering firmament.
I'll plunge my head, enamored of its pleasure,
In this black ocean where the other hides;
My subtle spirit then will know a measure
Of fertile idleness and fragrant leisure,
Lulled by the infinite rhythm of its tides!
Pavilion, of autumn-shadowed tresses spun,
You give me back the azure from afar;
And where the twisted locks are fringed with down
Lurk mingled odors I grow drunk upon
Of oil of coconut, of musk, and tar.
A long time! always! my hand in your hair
Will sow the stars of sapphire, pearl, ruby,
That you be never deaf to my desire,
My oasis and my gourd whence I aspire
To drink deep of the wine of memory.

Waiting


Today I will let the old boat stand
Where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in
To the pulse of a far, deep-steady sway.
And I will rest and dream and sit on the deck

Watching the world go by
And take my pay for many hard days gone I remember.


I will choose what clouds I like
In the great white fleets that wander the blue
As I lie on my back or loaf at the rail.
And I will listen as the veering winds kiss me and fold me
And put on my brow the touch of the world's great will.


Daybreak will hear the heart of the boat beat,

Engine throb and piston play
In the quiver and leap at call of life.
To-morrow we move in the gaps and heights
On changing floors of unlevel seas
And no man shall stop us and no man follow
For ours is the quest of an unknown shore
And we are husky and lusty and shouting-gay.

Baby Toes

There is a blue star, Janet,
Fifteen years’ ride from us,
If we ride a hundred miles an hour.


There is a white star, Janet,
Forty years’ ride from us,
If we ride a hundred miles an hour.


Shall we ride
To the blue star
Or the white star?

The Steppe

How lovely those journeys into quiet!
Boundless the steppe, like a seascape,
ants rustle, and the feather-grass sighs,
mosquitoes go whining through space.


The hayricks line up with the clouds,
volcano after volcano, they fade.
Grown silent, damp, the boundless steppe,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.


The mist overtakes us, washes, a sea,
and burrs are clinging to stockings, today
it’s lovely to tramp the steppe’s shore,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.


Is that a rick in the mist? Who knows?
Is that one ours? Yes, it’s found.
There! Yes, that’s it all right, though.
The rick, and the mist, and the steppe all round.


And the Milky Way slants towards Kerch,
like a path that cattle have stamped on.
Go past the houses, you’ll lose your breath,
on every side, broad, broad horizons.


Shadowy midnight stands by the way,
strewn with stars, that touch every verst,
and you can’t cross it, beyond the fence,
without trampling the universe.


When did the stars sweep down so low,
midnight sink so deep in tall grass,
and drenched muslin, afraid, aglow,
long for a dénouement at last?


Let the steppe judge, and night decide.
When, if not in the Beginning,
did Mosquitoes whine, Ants ride,
and Burrs go clinging to stockings?


Close them, my darling! Or go blind!
The whole steppe’s as before the Fall:
All, drowned in peace, like a parachute,
like a heaving vision, All.

Railway Station

My dear railway station, my treasure
Of meetings and partings, my friend
In times of hard trials and pleasure,
Your favours have been without end.


My scarf would wrap up my whole being -
The train would pull up, with deep sighs,
The muzzles of brash harpies, leering,
Would puff wet white steam in our eyes.


I'd sit at your side for a moment -
A hug and a kiss, brief and rough.
Farewell then, my joy and my torment.
I'm going, conductor, I'm off!


And, shunting bad weather and sleepers,
The west would break open-I'd feel
It grab me with snowflakes to keep me
From falling down under the wheels.


A whistle dies down, echoed weakly,
Another flies from distant tracks.
A train comes past bare platforms sweeping -
A blizzard of many hunched backs.


And twilight is rearing to go,
And, lured by the smoke and the steam,
The wind and the field rush and now
I wish I could be one of them!

Stars were racing; waves were washing headlands.
Salt went blind, and tears were slowly drying.
Darkened were the bedrooms; thoughts were racing,
And the Sphinx was listening to the desert.


Candles swam. It seemed that the Colossus'
Blood grew cold; upon his lips was spreading
The blue shadow smile of the Sahara.
With the turning tide the night was waning.


Sea-breeze from Morocco touched the water.
Simooms blew. In snowdrifts snored Archangel.
Candles swam; the rough draft of 'The Prophet'
Slowly dried, and dawn broke on the Ganges


Мчались
звезды. В
море
мылись
мысы.
Слепла
соль. И
слезы
высыхали.
Были темны
спальни.
Мчались
мысли,
И
прислушивk
2;лся сфинкс
к Сахаре.

Плыли
свечи. И
казалось,
стынет
Кровь
колосса.
Заплывали
губы
Голубой
улыбкою
пустыни.
В час
отлива
ночь пошла
на убыль.

Море


тронул
ветерок с
Марокко.
Шел самум.
Храпел в
снегах
Архангельl
9;к.
Плыли
свечи.
Черновик
'Пророка'
Просыхал, и
брезжил
день на
Ганге.

Walking Across The Atlantic

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.


Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.


But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

Fishing On The Susquehanna In July

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure -- if it is a pleasure -of
fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one -a
painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table -trying
to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,

when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandana

sitting in a small, green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

By A Swimming Pool Outside Syracusa

All afternoon I have been struggling to communicate in Italian with Roberto and
Giuseppe, who have begun to resemble the two male characters in my Italian for
Beginners, the ones who are always shopping or inquiring about the times of trains,
and now I can hardly speak or write English.