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Kowhai Gold

[Marna Service]

page 101

Blue Magic
Temple of Twilight on a lonely hilltop,
Towers of pale opal leaning on the sky…
Take my soul, lying in the blue-black grasses,
Burn it with blue flame, for to-day I die.

Here in the deep'ning drift of many petals,
Here where the shadows pass with noiseless tread,
Blue phantoms stealing down the silent pine-ways,
Tenderly lay me when my life is fled.

Let only young priests bear my withered body—
Eyes filled with wonder 'neath their azure hoods—
Let only maidens, dancing in their frailness,
Chant the Blue Magic of the sacred woods.

Pass by and leave me to the peace of silence
Here in the forest, and the night's dim blue.…
Soon will the flame of the up-burning incense
Throw its last flicker on the ghostly dew.

Only the darkness and the burnt-out torches—
Only the blue pall of the lonely sky—
Only the sighing round the shrouded figure—
Only the wraiths of starlight drifting by.

Death, and a sleeping in the long blue grasses.…
Into the Twilight Temple—hush! he passes.

page 102

The Fairy Horse
O Manikin! Let me away, away!
Take off my bridle of magic thread
Made from the hair of a witch's head;
Take off my saddle of acorn leaves,
For the moon has come up and I cannot stay.

O the moon has come up o'er the stable door,
And keen as the golden whip when you ride,
She lashes her moonbeams upon my side,
Pokes in the bundles of thistle hay,
Silvers the cobbles upon the floor.

And my shoes were made from the moon's gold rind
Forged in a restless fairy fire,
And they burn on my feet—O my elfin sire,
I must break at the fetters which keep me back,
I must fly with the red, red mane behind,

Till I drop exhausted at break of day
In some garden of flowers, on the foam of some wave,
On the top of some hill, at the mouth of some cave.…
How the crescent-shaped shoes dance on my feet!
O Manikin, let me away, away!

Song
I have kissed the moonlight—
No kiss of mortal flame
Could touch my lips so softly,
And make them burn the same.

page 103

The moon is on the white tree,
And the white tree's by the wall,
And I leaned and kissed a blossom…
So softly did it fall,

So softly and with fluttering
Like a petal butterfly
With ghostly wings a-tremble,
That I, mortal-like, did cry

And press my two hands swiftly
To cover up my kiss—
How can I sleep, O moonlight,
With a wakefulness like this?