Power

(From a Play)

Power! to be able! to have all things come
Curtseying' to my feet, saying, Good lady,
Eat me, and use me, and recline on me!
To feel myself the mistress of the wind
That scarcely breathes below; ride on a bow
About the moon, and toss the falling stars.
Unto kings' palaces! to creep above
With the sou'wester clutching at my hair,
And, hardly able, draw myself about
The carved bosses of their golden frames.
Wind's eyes they call them—ay, there's the strange word.
Windows—(we never see them here below,
But use a glow stolen from the serpent's jaw
That guards the witch's cauldron in our midst).
But back—to sit i' the eye o' the wind, and gaze
And gloom on kingly riches, gorge the sight
With satins, diamonds and diadems,
And know they do not know who casts an awo
Upon their banquet—then below, and dive
Down amongst scaly splendours, glorious cools,
Drink deep the frozen waters of lost wastes
So far, so far, ships iron-freighted sink
Not to a tithe their measure from the sun—
To do this have I lost long years in toil
To learn the magic of the inner seas,
Put on the mysteries of Sargasso, clutch
The immeasurable measure of lost lore
Of seaward-sunken cities, and where rolls
A giant current the dismembered spires
Of old Atlantis, and what of twilit Greece
Jove tumbled with the Cyclops from the steeps.
As I have this, ev'n so shall I have all.
Neptune, beware! Morgerde and twilight pall
Thine ancient empires; with loud ruin fall
Thy derelict treasures into deeper seas,
And thou shall sit uncrowned where Silence shouts
Shuttling her endless loom.

—E.L.P.

Victoria University College Graduates, 1923.