Pantoum
(Song in the Malay manner.)
The wind brings up the hawthorn’s breath.
The sweet airs ripple up the lake:
My soul, my soul is sick to death,
My heart, my heart is like to break.
The sweet airs ripple up the lake,
I hear the thin woods’ fluttering:
My heart, my heart is like to break;
What part have I, alas! in spring?
I hear the thin woods’ fluttering;
The brake is brimmed with linnet-song:
What part have I, alas! in spring?
For me, heart’s winter is life-long.
The brake is brimmed with linnet song;
Clear carols flutter through the trees;
For me heart’s winter is life-long;
I cast my sighs on every breeze.
Clear carols flutter through the trees;
The new year hovers like a dove:
I cast my sighs on every breeze;
Spring is no spring, forlorn of love.
The new year hovers like a dove
Above the breast of the green earth:
Spring is no spring, forlorn of love;
Alike to me are death and birth.
Above the breast of the green earth
The soft sky flutters like a flower:
Alike to me are death and birth;
I dig Love’s grave in every hour.
The soft sky flutters like a flower
Along the glory of the hills:
I dig Love’s grave in every hour,
I hear Love’s dirge in all the rills.
Along the glory of the hills
Flowers slope into a rim of gold:
I hear Love’s dirge in all the rills;
Sad singings haunt me as of old.
Flowers slope into a rim of gold
Along the marges of the sky:
Sad singings haunt me as of old;
Shall Love come back to me to die?
Along the marges of the sky
The birds wing homeward from the East:
Shall Love come back to me to die?
Shall Hope relive, once having ceas’d?
The birds wing homeward from the East;
I smell spice-breaths upon the air:
Shall Hope relive, once having ceas’d?
It would lie black on my despair.
I smell spice-breaths upon the air;
The golden Orient savours pass:
Hope would lie black on my despair,
Like a moon-shadow on the grass.
The golden Orient savours pass:
The full spring throbs in all the shade:
Like a moon-shadow on the grass,
My hope into the dusk would fade.
The full spring throbs in all the shade;
We shall have roses soon, I trow;
My hope into the dusk would fade;
Bring lilies on Love’s grave to strow.
We shall have roses soon I trow;
Soon will the rich red poppies burn:
Bring lilies on Love’s grave to strow:
My hope is fled beyond return.
Soon will the rich red poppies burn;
Soon will blue iris star the stream:
My hope is fled beyond return;
Have my eyes tears for my waste dream?
Soon will blue iris star the stream;
Summer will turn the air to wine:
Have my eyes tears for my waste dream?
Can songs come from these lips of mine?
Summer will turn the air to wine,
So full and sweet the mid-spring flowers:
Can songs come from those lips of mine?
My thoughts are grey as winter hours.
So full and sweet the mid-spring flowers.
The wind brings up the hawthorn’s breath;
My thoughts are grey as winter hours;
My soul, my soul is sick to death.
John Payne.