hair

1

Senlin sits before us, and we see him.
He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him.
Is he small, with reddish hair,
Does he light his pipe with meditative stare,
And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes?
Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise?
Did no one see him enter the doors of the city,
Looking above him at the roofs and trees and skies?
'I stepped from a cloud', he says, 'as evening fell;
I walked on the sound of a bell;
I ran with winged heels along a gust;

Senlin sat before us and we heard him.
He smoked his pipe before us and we saw him.
Was he small, with reddish hair,
Did he light his pipe with a meditative stare
And a twinkling flame reflected in blue eyes?
'I am alone': said Senlin; 'in a forest of leaves
The single leaf that creeps and falls.
The single blade of grass in a desert of grass
That none foresaw and none recalls.
The single shell that a green wave shatters
In tiny specks of whiteness on brown sands . . .
How shall you understand me with your hearts,

Some deem I'm gentle, some I'm kind:
It may be so,--I cannot say.
I know I have a simple mind
And see things in a simple way;
And like a child I love to play.

I love to toy with pretty words
And syllable them into rhyme;
To make them sing like sunny birds
In happy droves with silver chime,
In dulcet groves in summer time.

I pray, with hair more white than grey,
And second childhood coming on,
That yet with wonderment I may
See life as in its lucent dawn,
And be by beauty so beguiled

The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time --
They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime.
The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned,
And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife's back was turned.

A year went past and another. There were calls from the firing-line;
They heard the boy had enlisted, but the old man made no sign.
His name must never be mentioned on the farm by Gundagai --
They were Scots of the Riverina with ever the kirk hard by.

O for a sculptor's hand,
That thou might'st take thy stand,
Thy wild hair floating on the eastern breeze,
Thy tranced yet open gaze
Fixed on the desert haze,
As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant sees.

In outline dim and vast
Their fearful shadows cast
This giant forms of empires on their way
To ruin: one by one
They tower and they are gone,
Yet in the Prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.

No sun or star so bright
In all the world of light

Could I reveal the secret joy
Thy presence always with it brings,
The memories so strangely waked
Of long forgotten things,

The love, the hope, the fear, the grief,
Which with that voice come back to me, --
Thou wouldst forgive the impassioned gaze
So often turned on thee.

It was, indeed, that early love,
But foretaste of this second one, --
The soft light of the morning star
Before the morning sun.

The same dark beauty in her eyes,
The same blonde hair and placid brow,

"Oh, dear, with the just unfolded tender leaflets of Mango trees as his incisive arrows, and with shining strings of honeybees as his bowstring, the assailant named Vasanta came very nigh, to afflict the hearts of those that are fully engaged in affairs of lovemaking...

"Oh, dear with best thighs, heart-stealing is this environ with abundantly grown stacks of rice and their cobs, or with sugarcane, and it is reverberated with the screeches of ruddy gees that abide hither and thither... now heightened will be passion, thereby this season will be gladdening for lusty womenfolk, hence listen of this season, called Shishira, the Winter...

"Delightful are trees and fields with the outgrowth of new tender-leaves and crops, Lodhra trees are with their blossomy flowers, crops of rice are completely ripened, but now lotuses are on their surcease by far, for the dewdrops are falling... hence, this is the time of pre-winter that drew nigh...

"Oh, dear, this utterly sweltering season of the highly rampant sun is drawing nigh, and it will always be good enough to go on taking daytime baths, as the lakes and rivers will still be with plenteous waters, and at the end of the day, nightfall will be pleasant with fascinating moon, and in such nights Love-god can somehow be almost mollified...[who tortured us in the previous vernal season... but now without His sweltering us, we can happily enjoy the nights devouring cool soft drinks and dancing and merrymaking in outfields...]