Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

From the Frail Sea

Genevieve Taggard

ONLY Ka-ne could do this

After the other gods failed:

Ka-ne, the careless creator

Who looked on

Indolently

While his industrious brothers, fretting over little tasks,

Wedged bones for the wings of birds

And carved mortals of coral.

Impatiently they looked up

From their litters of shells and feathers

When Ka-ne,

With the crash of fresh thunder,

Pro-created fire.

They knew he had made the sun

When they thought he was harmlessly playing.

Under the iridescence of stars

They had shielded their heads with their arms

When he wrung,

With a great laugh,

Day from the centre-knot of night.

Now in a moment of passion

Ka-ne, brooding and lusty,

Pro-created fire

In the dim womb of water.

Green and amber flooded,

The sea lay serene,

Warm to the brim of the tide,

Her full soft bosom blossoming

In vanishing flowers

On the sands.

Foam fronds

Too frail

To uncurl their hidden yellow stamens on the sands.

Frail,

A quiet cupful of water,

Untouched by the tangles of reefs

And untorn by the violences of surfs;

With no knowledge of iron islands, or the cold harsh hands of storms:

Serene and frail,

From the gold honey of her long undulations

To the milky tendrils

That curled and coiled and clung

Against the sands.

So brooding,

Ka-ne leaned down

And took the sea;

And drew it, shimmering, into a single wave,

Until it touched heaven

And him.

Then, sobbing,

The sea slipped back

And spread, and became still.

A slow wavering

Went like a light

From end to end of the sea.

The sea, not the sky,

Was about to bear fire:

And the light of a drowned sun

Pushed up ridges of crystal.

Terrible gauzes of foam

Broke to its surfaces;

And the slant of great shadows blotted its round tides.

Then in agony

The sea screamed;

And fire, her enemy,

Tore her, with a long sound of rending

Like a silk garment.

Fire jumped from the wet sea,

Nimble,

Youngest of the elements.

For, like horses, had reared up

Eight slim-necked volcanoes:

Horses, stamping underneath,

And tossing manes of fire to the sun.

Then did the sea begin to learn—

After bearing Ka-ne

These eight sons, these eight frightful volcanoes—

How to make surf, like whips;

How to beat after the manner of mothers,

How to build reefs for the safety of her sons;

And how, when they threw hot stones at her who bore them,

To fling the foam of madness at their feet.