Simple you were, and good. No kindlier heart Beat than the heart within your gentle breast. Labour you had, and happiness, and rest, And were the maid of nations. Now you start To feverish life, feeling the poisonous smart Upon your lips of harlot lips close-pressed, The lips of her who stands among the rest With greasy righteous soul and rotten heart. O sunrise land, O land of gentleness, What madness drives you to lust’s dreadful bed? O thrice accursèd England, wretchedness For ever be on you, of whom ’tis said, Prostitute plague-struck, that you catch and kiss Innocent lives to make them foully dead! DAI BUTSU. {70} (_Kama Kura_.) He sits. Upon the kingly head doth rest The round-balled wimple, and the heavy rings Touch on the shoulders where the shadow clings. The downward garment shows the ambiguous breast; The face—that face one scarce can look on lest One learn the secret of unspeakable things; But the dread gaze descends with shudderings, To the veiled couched knees, the hands and thumbs close-pressed. O lidded, downcast eyes that bear the weight Of all our woes and terrible wrong’s increase: Proud nostrils, lips proud-perfecter than these, With what a soul within you do you wait! Disdain and pity, love late-born of hate, Passion eternal, patience, pain and peace! “ENGLAND.” Where’er I go in this dense East, In sunshine or shade, I retch at the villainous feast That England has made. And my shame cannot understand, As scorn springs elate, How I ever loved that land That now I hate! THE FISHERMAN. (_Mindanao_, _Philippines_.) In the dark waveless sea, Deep blue under deep blue, The fisher drifts by on the tide In his small pole-balanced canoe. Above him the cloud-clapped hills Crown the dense jungly sweeps; The cocoa-nut groves hedge round The hut where the beach-wave sleeps. Is it not better so To be as this savage is, Than to live the wage-slave’s life Of hopeless agonies? A SOUTH-SEA ISLANDER. Aloll in the warm clear water, On her back with languorous limbs, She lies. The baby upon her breasts Paddles and falls and swims. With half-closed eyes she smiles, Guarding it with her hands; And the sob swells up in my heart— In my heart that understands. _Dear_, _in the English country_, _The hatefullest land on earth_, _The mothers are starved and the children die_, _And death is better than birth_! NEW GUINEA “CONVERTS.” I saw them as they were born, Erect and fearless and free, Facing the sun and the wind Of the hills and the sea. I saw them naked, superb, Like the Greeks long ago, With shield and spear and arrow Ready to strike and throw.