Page:Words for the Chisel (1926).pdf/22

She loved the mountains and the mountain stream:
She longed to smell the maile vine again
Spreading its odor with the drowsy rain.
—I hate the sea, she said—the smell of tar,
I want to go where pools and palm-trees are.

Men were afraid to speak to her. She dreamed
Like a young virgin tenderly, and more
Indifferent than aged women,—seemed
To be again as she had been before
She came to town a hula-girl and whore;
Only great Eric strode across her trance,
Laughed loud to see her shudder at his glance.

Late in the evenings came the sound of whips,
Hoof-beats and cries; the long banana-train
Came from the valleys to the riding ships;
Donkeys were loaded with ripe sugar-cane,
And wet banana-leaves gleaming with rain.
The mountain fastnesses she saw, the tall
Still palms, and heard the mountain water-fall.

The water-fall that poured, rushing in quiet,—
That seemed to fall and then to wane and hang;
And the pale tree that rose so lightly by it—
The maile vine that wound on the lang-lang.
This place was fixed: this picture was a pang.
She saw it with the shutting of an eye
White on the darkness of another sky.

Waves mocked her then, and the whispering hush
Spreading with sunset gave her heart small ease;
At night along the reefs, the unending rush—