The Ivory Trail

Noah was our godfather, and he pitched and caulked a ship 'With stable-room for two of each and fodder for the trip, Lest when the Flood made sea of earth the animals should die...

When Kenia's peak glows gold and rose A dawn breeze whispers to the plain With breath cooled sweet by mountain snows-- "The darkness soon shall come again!" Stirs then the sleep...

Green, ah greener than emeralds are, tree-tops beckon the dhows to land, White, oh whiter than diamonds are, blue waves burst on the amber sand, And nothing is fairer than Zanzi...

Be glad if ye know the accursed thing And know it accurst, for the Gift is yours Of Sight where the prophets of blindness sing By the brink of death. And the Gift endures; Ye sh...

Ok Thou, who gavest English speech To both our Anglo-Saxon breeds, And didst adown all ages teach That Art of crowning words with deeds, May we, who use the speech, be blest Wit...

Our fathers praised the old accustomed things, The privilege of chiefs, the village wall Within whose circling dark Monumme* sings O' nights of belly-full and ease and all They...

I was old when the clamor o' Babel's end (All seas were chartless then!) Drove forth the brood, and Solitude Was the newest quest of men. I lay like a gem in a silken sea Unseen...

Lean, loveless, hungry lanes are these! The longest has an end. Ill luck tasted to the bitter lees Soonest shall mend. From out the foe's ranks if Heaven please Shall come your...

When the last of the luck has deserted and the least of the chances has waned, When there's nowhere to run to and even the pluck in the smile that you carry is feigned; When gri...

Delights--ah, Ten are the dear delights (and the Book forbids them, one by one)-- The broad old roads of a thousand loves--back turned to the Law--the lawless fun-- Old Arts for...

Gleam, oh brighter than jewels! gleam my swinging stars in the opal dark, Mirrored along wi' the fire-fly dance of 'longshore light and off-shore mark, The roof-lamps and the ri...

Turn in! Turn in! The jungle lords come forth Cat-footed, blazing-eyed--the owners of the dark, What though ye steal the day! We know the worth Of vain tubes spitting at a phant...

Ten were the plagues that Israel fled, and leaving left no cure, Whose progeny self-multiplied a million-fold remain, The cloak of each one ignorance, idolatry its lure, And dea...

We were an ignorant people. Out of a gloom we came Hungering, striving, feasting--vanishing into the same. Came to us your foreloopers, told us the gloom was bad, Spoke of the L...

Who is as heavy as we, or as strong? Ho! but we trample the shambas down! Saw ye a swath where the trash lay long And tall trees flat like a harvest mown? That was the path we s...

Now for opulence and place And the increment unearned We will thieve and stab and cover it with perjury, Contemptuous of grace And the lesson never learned That the Rules are no...

'When the devil's at bay Ye may kneel down and pray For a year and a day To be spared the distress of dispatching him, But the longer ye kneel The more squeamish ye'll feel 'Cau...

The dry death-rattle of the streets Asserts a joyless goal-- Re-echoed clang where traffic meets, And drab monotony repeats The hour-encumbered role. Tinsel and glare, twin tawd...