An Old Battle-field

Vast, vast -- an endless wilderness of sand;A stream crawls through its tawny banks; the hillsEncompass it; where in the dismal duskMoan the last sighs of sunset. Shrubs are gone,Withered the grass; all chill as the white rimeOf early morn. The birds go soaring past,The beasts avoid it; for the legend runs --Told by the crook'd custodian of the place --Of some old battle-field. "Here many a time,"He quavered, "armies have been overwhelmed,And the faint voices of the unresting deadOften upon the darkness of the nightGo wailing by."O sorrow! O ye Ch`ins!Ye Hans! ye dynasties for ever flown!Ye empires of the dust! for I have heardHow, when the Ch`is and Weis embattled roseAlong the frontier, when the Chings and HansGathered their multitudes, a myriad leaguesOf utter weariness they trod. By dayGrazing their jaded steeds, by night they fordThe hostile stream. The endless earth below,The boundless sky above, they know no dayOf their return. Their breasts are ever baredTo the pitiless steel and all the wounds of warUnspeakable.Methinks I see them now,Dust-mantled in the bitter wind, a hostOf Tartar warriors in ambuscade.Our leader scorns the foe. He would give battleUpon the threshold of the camp. The streamBesets a grim array where order reigns,Though many hearts may beat, where disciplineIs all, and life of no account.The spearNow works its iron will, the startled sandBlinding the combatants together lockedIn the death-grip; while hill and vale and streamGlow with the flash and crash of arms. Then coldThe shades of night o'erwhelm them; to the kneeIn snow, beards stiff with ice. The carrion birdHath sought its nest. The war-horse in its strengthIs broken. Clothes avail not. Hands are dead,Flesh to the frost succumbs. Nature herselfDoth aid the Tartar with a deadly blastFollowing the wild onslaught. Wagons blockThe way. Our men, beset with flank attacks,Surrender with their officers. Their chiefIs slain. The river to its topmost banksSwollen with death; the dykes of the Great WallBrimming with blood. Nation and rank are lostIn that vast-heaped corruption.Faintly now,And fainter beats the drum; for strength is shorn,And arrows spent, and bow-strings snapped, and swordsShattered. The legions fall on one anotherIn the last surge of life and death. To yieldIs to become a slave; to fight is butTo mingle with the desert sands.. . . . . . . No soundOf bird now flutters from the hushed hillside;All, all is still, save for the wind that wailsAnd whistles through the long night where the ghostsHither and thither in the gloom go by,And spirits from the nether world ariseUnder the ominous clouds. The sunlight palesAthwart the trampled grass; the fading moonStill twinkles on the frost-flakes scattered round.

Freighted with eternal principlesAthwart the night's void,Where cloud masses darken,And the wind blows ceaseless around,Beyond the range of conceptionsLet us gain the Centre,And there hold fast without violence,Fed from an inexhaustible supply.*

With such a philosophy there are infinite possibilities.The poet is an occultist in the truest sense of the word.For him, Time and Space no longer exist, and by "concentration"he is able to communicate with the beloved, and

Sweet words falter to and fro --Though the great River rolls between.

And Nature, ever prodigal to her lovers, repays their favours in full measure.To this old artist-lover she grants no petty details, no chance revelationsof this or that sweetness and quality but her whole pure self.Yet such a gift is illimitable; he may only win from secret to secretand die unsatisfied.