Three Japanese Paintings

Mists are rolling Over the grey mountains, Over the quiet waters And marshy shores— Rolling up into valleys Where pagodas rise,— Rolling over slopes Along whose crests Monasteries dream. Wild geese soar Above the marshes In downward flight— In flight from unknown shore To unknown shore. Over all Mists are swaying. The shadowy bridge And wandering roadway, The dark gnarled tree by the road And the pale tree afar, Are touched with doubtful mists Or emergent from lifting mists,— Trembling in mist; born of mist; shadows.... O mountains, shores, and streams! Beautiful transient illusion! Mortal world, dream world, Vanishing into mist, into mist only!

Across quiet waters, far off, Faint, misty mountains unfold in limitless ranges, Guarding some dream-world,— Some dim and tranquil world of golden pagodas, Lawns and pools, terraces and deep groves, Vermilion palaces, and peacock-haunted gardens. But that is afar; And the quiet waters lie between. Here at our feet Rises out of the quiet water Stormily, ridge by ridge, Buttress by buttress, Cliff beyond cliff beyond cliff, The jagged headland. Here, Gigantic, primeval, Juts the grey promontory. It is bleaker than death, though temples deck it; Starker than ice, though pines bestrew it; Inhuman, though the village at its base Humanly nestles. With writhing turrets, With dizzy gulfs, With winding abysses And cloven brinks, The rock rises In ripples, in waves, in spires— It rises fiercely, with an appalling passion,— An apparition of dark monstrous life,— And foaming up at last to its highest crest Stands frozen To freeze the blood of generations.

Golden clouds, and a golden bridge Lifting in a great arc, swinging in a high arc, Under clouds of gold, over clouds of gold,— From the long slow curve of a golden shore Across wide spaces of dark river!... And behold! a drifting miracle— Behold the long steady advancing prow Of a golden boat, heavier than the sun, Quiet upon the dark river; bearing two lovers In robes of state, intricate, luminous, Upon this dim river—where the great arc Of the bridge from clouds into clouds Swings, from golden shore to golden shore, From the gold earth to the gold heaven.