The Rice-boat

I slept upon the Rice-boat     That, reef protected, lay     At anchor, where the palm-trees     Infringe upon the bay.     The windless air was heavy     With cinnamon and rose,     The midnight calm seemed waiting,     Too fateful for repose.     One joined me on the Rice-boat     With wild and waving hair,     Whose vivid words and laughter     Awoke the silent air.     Oh, beauty, bare and shining,     Fresh washen in the bay,     One well may love by moonlight     What one would not love by day!     Above among the cordage     The night wind hardly stirred,     The lapping of the ripples     Was all the sound we heard.     Love reigned upon the Rice-boat,     And Peace controlled the sea,     The spirit's consolation,     The senses' ecstasy.     Though many things and mighty     Are furthered in the West,     The ancient Peace has vanished     Before To-day's unrest.     For how among their striving,     Their gold, their lust, their drink,     Shall men find time for dreaming     Or any space to think?     Think not I scorn the Science     That lightens human pain;     Though man's reliance often     Is placed on it in vain.     Maybe the long endeavour,     The patience and the strife,     May some day solve the riddle,     The Mystery of Life.     Perchance I do not value     Things Western as I ought,     The trains, - that take us, whither?     The ships, - that reach, what port?     To me it seems but chaos     Of greed and haste and rage,     The endless, aimless, motion     Of squirrels in a cage.     Here, where some ruined temple     In solitude decays,     With carven walls still hallowed     With prayers of bygone days,     Here, where the coral outcrops     Make "flowers of the sea,"     The olden Peace yet lingers,     In hushed serenity.     Ah, silent, silver moonlight,     Whose charm impartial falls     On tanks of sacred water     And squalid city walls,     Whose mystic whiteness hallows     The lowest and the least,     To thee men owe the glamour     That draws them to the East.     And as this azure water,     Unflecked hy wave or foam,     Conceals in its tranquillity     The dreaded white shark's home,     So if love be illusion     I ask the dream to stay,     Content to love by moonlight     What I might not love by day.