Song of palms

Mighty, luminous, and calm

Is the country of the palm,

Crowned with sunset and sunrise,

Under blue unbroken skies,

Waving from green zone to zone,

Over wonders of its own;

Trackless, untraversed, unknown,

Changeless through the centuries.

Who can say what thing it bears?

Blazing bird and blooming flower,

Dwelling there for years and years,

Hold the enchanted secret theirs:

Life and death and dream have made

Mysteries in many a shade,

Hollow haunt and hidden bower

Closed alike to sun and shower.

Who is ruler of each race

Living in each boundless place,

Growing, flowering, and flying,

Glowing, revelling, and dying?

Wave-like, palm by palm is stirred,

And the bird sings to the bird,

And the day sings one rich word,

And the great night comes replying.

Long red reaches of the cane,

Yellow winding water-lane,

Verdant isle and amber river,

Lisp and murmur back again,

And ripe under-worlds deliver

Rapturous souls of perfume, hurled

Up to where green oceans quiver

In the wide leaves' restless world.

Like a giant led astray

Seemeth each effulgent day,

Wandering amazed and lonely

Up and down each forest way,

Lured by bird and charmed by bloom,

Lulled to sleep by great perfume,

Knowing, marvelling, and only

Bearing some rich dream away.

Many thousand years have been,

And the sun alone hath seen,

Like a high and radiant ocean,

All the fair palm world in motion;

But the crimson bird hath fed

With its mate of equal red,

And the flower in soft explosion

With the flower hath been wed.

And its long luxuriant thought

Lofty palm to palm hath taught,

While a single vast liana

All one brotherhood hath wrought,

Crossing forest and savannah,

Binding fern and coco-tree,

Fig-tree, buttress-tree, banana,

Dwarf cane and tall marití.

And no sun hath reached the rock

Shaken by loud water shock,

Where with flame-like plumage flutter

Golden birds in glaring flock,

Bright against the darkness utter,

Lighting up the solitude,

Where dim cascades roar and mutter

Through the river's foaming feud.

And beyond the trees are scant,

And a hidden lake is lying

Under wide-leaved water-plant,

Blossom with white blossom vying.

Who shall say what thing is heard,

Who shall say what liquid word,

Caught by the bentivi bird,

Over lake and blossom flying?

All around and overhead,

Spells of splendid change are shed;

Who shall tell enchanted stories

Of the forests that are dead?

Lo! the soul shall grow immense,

Looking on strange hues intense,

Gazing at the flaunted glories

Of the hundred-coloured lories.