The Flower of Old Japan, and Other Poems

by Alfred Noyes

Song

Hold by right and rule by fear
Till the slowly broadening sphere
Melting through the skies above
Merge into the sphere of love.

Hold by might until you find
Might is powerless o’er the mind:
Hold by Truth until you see,
Though they bow before the wind,
Its towers can mock at liberty.

Time, the seneschal, is blind;
Time is blind: and what are we?
Captives of Infinity,
Claiming through Truth’s prison bars
Kinship with the wandering stars.
O, who could tell the wild weird sights
We saw in all the days and nights
We travelled through those forests old.
We saw the griffons on white cliffs,
Among fantastic hieroglyphs,
Guarding enormous heaps of gold:
We saw the Ghastroi—curious men
Who dwell, like tigers, in a den,
And howl whene’er the moon is cold;
They stripe themselves with red and black
And ride upon the yellow Yak.

Their dens are always ankle-deep
With twisted knives, and in their sleep
They often cut themselves; they say
That if you wish to live in peace
The surest way is not to cease
Collecting knives; and never a day
Can pass, unless they buy a few;
And as their enemies buy them too
They all avert the impending fray,
And starve their children and their wives
To buy the necessary knives.
* * * * *
The forest leapt with shadowy shapes
As we came to the great black Tower of Apes:
But we gave them purple figs and grapes
In alabaster amphoras:
We gave them curious kinds of fruit
With betel nuts and orris-root,
And then they let us pass:
And when we reached the Tower of Snakes
We gave them soft white honey-cakes,
And warm sweet milk in bowls of brass:
And on the hundredth eve we found
The City of the Secret Wound.

We saw the mystic blossoms blow
Round the City, far below;
Faintly in the sunset glow
We saw the soft blue glory flow
O’er many a golden garden gate:
And o’er the tiny dark green seas
Of tamarisks and tulip-trees,
Domes like golden oranges
Dream aloft elate.

And clearer, clearer as we went,
We heard from tower and battlement
A whisper, like a warning, sent
From watchers out of sight;
And clearer, brighter, as we drew
Close to the walls, we saw the blue
Flashing of plumes where peacocks flew
Thro’ zones of pearly light.

On either side, a fat black bonze
Guarded the gates of red-wrought bronze,
Blazoned with blue sea-dragons
And mouths of yawning flame;
Down the road of dusty red,
Though their brown feet ached and bled,
Our coolies went with joyful tread:
Like living fans the gates outspread
And opened as we came.

PART III
THE MYSTIC RUBY

The white moon dawned; the sunset died;
And stars were trembling when we spied
The rose-red temple of our dreams:
Its lamp-lit gardens glimmered cool
With many an onyx-paven pool,
Amid soft sounds of flowing streams;
Where star-shine shimmered through the white
Tall fountain-shafts of crystal light
In ever changing rainbow-gleams.

Priests in flowing yellow robes
Glided under rosy globes;
Through the green pomegranate boughs
Moonbeams poured their coloured rain;
Roofs of sea-green porcelain
Jutted o’er the rose-red house;
Bells were hung beneath its eaves;
Every wind that stirred the leaves
Tinkled as tired water does.

The temple had a low broad base
Of black bright marble; all its face
Was marble bright in rosy bloom;
And where two sea-green pillars rose
Deep in the flower-soft eave-shadows
We saw, thro’ richly sparkling gloom,
Wrought in marvellous years of old
With bulls and peacocks bossed in gold,
The doors of powdered lacquer loom.

Quietly then the tall thin man,
Holding his turquoise-tinted fan,
Alighted from the palanquin;
We followed: never painter dreamed
Of how that dark rich temple gleamed
With gules of jewelled gloom within;
And as we wondered near the door
A priest came o’er the polished floor
In sandals of soft serpent-skin;
His mitre shimmered bright and blue
With pigeon’s breast-plumes. When he knew
Our quest he stroked his broad white chin,
And looked at us with slanting eyes
And smiled; then through his deep disguise
We knew him! It was Creeping Sin!

But cunningly he bowed his head
Down on his gilded breast and said
Come: and he led us through the dusk
Of passages whose painted walls
Gleamed with dark old festivals;
Till where the gloom grew sweet with musk
And incense, through a door of amber
We came into a high-arched chamber.

There on a throne of jasper sat
A monstrous idol, black and fat;
Thick rose-oil dropped upon its head:
Drop by drop, heavy and sweet,
Trickled down to its ebon feet
Whereon the blood of goats was shed,
And smeared around its perfumed knees
In savage midnight mysteries.

It wore about its bulging waist
A belt of dark green bronze enchased
With big, soft, cloudy pearls; its wrists
Were clasped about with moony gems
Gathered from dead kings’ diadems;
Its throat was ringed with amethysts,
And in its awful hand it held
A softly smouldering emerald.

Silkily murmured Creeping Sin,
“This is the stone you wished to win!”
“White Snake,” replied the tall thin man,
“Show us the Ruby Stone, or I
Will slay thee with my hands.” The sly
Long eyelids of the priest began
To slant aside; and then once more
He led us through the fragrant door.

And now along the passage walls
Were painted hideous animals,
With hooded eyes and cloven stings:
In the incense that like shadowy hair
Streamed over them they seemed to stir
Their craggy claws and crooked wings.
At last we saw strange moon-wreaths curl
Around a deep, soft porch of pearl.

O, what enchanter wove in dreams
That chapel wild with shadowy gleams
And prismy colours of the moon?
Shrined like a rainbow in a mist
Of flowers, the fretted amethyst
Arches rose to a mystic tune;
And never mortal art inlaid
Those cloudy floors of sea-soft jade.

There, in the midst, an idol rose
White as the silent starlit snows
On lonely Himalayan heights:
Over its head the spikenard spilled
Down to its feet, with myrrh distilled
In distant, odorous Indian nights:
It held before its ivory face
A flaming yellow chrysoprase.

O, silkily murmured Creeping Sin,
“This is the stone you wished to win.”
But in his ear the tall thin man
Whispered with slow, strange lips—we knew
Not what, but Creeping Sin went blue
With fear; again his eyes began
To slant aside; then through the porch
He passed, and lit a tall, brown torch.

Down a corridor dark as death,
With beating hearts and bated breath
We hurried; far away we heard
A dreadful hissing, fierce as fire
When rain begins to quench a pyre;
And where the smoky torch-light flared
Strange vermin beat their bat-like wings,
And the wet walls dropped with slimy things.

And darker, darker, wound the way,
Beyond all gleams of night and day,
And still that hideous hissing grew
Louder and louder on our ears,
And tortured us with eyeless fears;
Then suddenly the gloom turned blue,
And, in the wall, a rough rock cave
Gaped, like a phosphorescent grave.

And from the purple mist within
There came a wild tumultuous din
Of snakes that reared their heads and
hissed
As if a witch’s cauldron boiled;
All round the door great serpents coiled,
With eyes of glowing amethyst,
Whose fierce blue flames began to slide
Like shooting stars from side to side.

Ah! with a sickly gasping grin
And quivering eyelids, Creeping Sin
Stole to the cave; but, suddenly,
As through its glimmering mouth he passed,
The serpents flashed and gripped him fast:
He wriggled and gave one awful cry,
Then all at once the cave was cleared;
The snakes with their victim had disappeared.

And fearlessly the tall thin man
Opened his turquoise-tinted fan
And entered; and the mists grew bright,
And we saw that the cave was a diamond hall
Lit with lamps for a festival.
A myriad globes of coloured light
Went gliding deep in its massy sides,
Like the shimmering moons in the glassy tides
Where a sea-king’s palace enchants the night.

Gliding and flowing, a glory and wonder,
Through each other, and over, and under,
The lucent orbs of green and gold,
Bright with sorrow or soft with sleep,
In music through the glimmering deep,
Over their secret axles rolled,
And circled by the murmuring spheres
We saw in a frame of frozen tears
A mirror that made the blood run cold.

For, when we came to it, we found
It imaged everything around
Except the face that gazed in it;
And where the mirrored face should be
A heart-shaped Ruby fierily
Smouldered; and round the frame was writ,
Mystery: Time and Tide shall pass,
I am the Wisdom Looking-Glass.
This is the Ruby none can touch:
Many have loved it overmuch;
Its fathomless fires flutter and sigh,
Being as images of the flame
That shall make earth and heaven the same
When the fire of the end reddens the sky,
And the world consumes like a burning pall,
Till where there is nothing, there is all.

So we looked up at the tall thin man
And we saw that his face grew sad and wan:
Tears were glistening in his eyes:
At last, with a breaking sob, he bent
His head upon his breast and went
Swiftly away! With dreadful cries
We rushed to the softly glimmering door
And stared at the hideous corridor
But his robe was gone as a dream that flies:
Back to the glass in terror we came,
And stared at the writing round the frame.

We could not understand one word:
And suddenly we thought we heard
The hissing of the snakes again:
How could we front them all alone?
O, madly we clutched at the mirrored stone
And wished we were back on the flowery plain:
And swifter than thought and swift as fear
The whole world flashed, and behold we were there.

Yes; there was the port of Old Japan,
With its twisted patterns, white and wan,
Shining like a mottled fan
Spread by the blue sea, faint and far;
And far away we heard once more
A sound of singing on the shore,
Where boys in blue kimonos bore
Roses in a golden jar:
And we heard, where the cherry orchards blow,
The serpent-charmers fluting low,
And the song of the maidens of Miyako.

And at our feet unbroken lay
The glass that had whirled us thither away:
And in the grass, among the flowers
We sat and wished all sorts of things:
O, we were wealthier than kings!
We ruled the world for several hours!
And then, it seemed, we knew not why,
All the daisies began to die.

We wished them alive again; but soon
The trees all fled up towards the moon
Like peacocks through the sunlit air:
And the butterflies flapped into silver fish;
And each wish spoiled another wish;
Till we threw the glass down in despair;
For, getting whatever you want to get,
Is like drinking tea from a fishing net.

At last we thought we’d wish once more
That all should be as it was before;
And then we’d shatter the glass, if we could;
But just as the world grew right again,
We heard a wanderer out on the plain
Singing what none of us understood;
Yet we thought that the world grew thrice more sweet
And the meadows were blossoming under his feet.

And we felt a grand and beautiful fear,
For we knew that a marvellous thought drew near;
So we kept the glass for a little while:
And the skies grew deeper and twice as bright,
And the seas grew soft as a flower of light,
And the meadows rippled from stile to stile;
And memories danced in a musical throng
Thro’ the blossom that scented the wonderful song.