Rongo told me how, when a boy, he lay In a pandanus thicket on the Night of the Stars, and saw The maidens of his tribe, with eloquent arms tossing, Dancing nude in the starlight the ancient rite of the stars; Heard, over the obligate of the tropic night, Old women chanting the ancient prayer to the stars . . . And how the spear of a sudden terror pierced him, So that he shrieked and fled, and came no more To the sacred hollow between mountain and sea. And I thought, in the Night of Stars if I could be A girl, brown and straight-limbed, flower-garlanded, Dancing in holy nakedness under the sky The ancient undecipherable rune of the stars; Or at the last an old woman, weary with wisdom, Chanting with hollow notes of gourd drums The old, obscure litany of the sky, I might be comforted, and dream no more of gardens Impossible and afar, or the cool silence Of moon-pools of forgetfulness, and the dim Intolerable vision of forbidden peace. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SNOW-SHOWER by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT WITH FLOWERS by EMILY DICKINSON MANHATTAN ARMING by WALT WHITMAN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD: TRANSLATION by CAIUS PEDO ALBINOVANUS THE COMING OF HIS FEET by LYMAN WHITNEY ALLEN MEMORY'S DOOR by MARY OTTO ASHER THE FAIRY FORT by ABBIE FARWELL BROWN TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. TO THE EVERLASTING NOW by EDWARD CARPENTER |