SONGS OF A PAGAN

Of This Book

Close as the in-drawn and out-going breath are these songs
Woven of far-away mountains ,,, and the planes of the sea ...
Gleaned from the heights and the depths that a human must know
As the glories of rainbows are spun from the tears of the storm.

SONGS OF A PAGAN

The Gods

They are not dead... the Radiant Gods...

On these wild mountain heights

The glorious Nike moves within the forms of eerie trees

Upon whose breasts the storms of centuries have raged

And here great Jove with growling thunders

Hurls dazzling shafts of flame

Across the midnight sky

Where venus walks in splendor on the waters of the dawn.

Deep in ravines where silence broods

With sounds of waterfalls ...

Pan flutes among the pine and cedar groves

With hermit thrush and flame-winged tanagers ...

And whispering dryads ... floating with the evening wind

Sway to the naiads of the icy brooks

And laugh with them

The silvery laughter of the ouzel's call...

They are not dead... the Lovely Gods...

—Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE6 6

Elf-World

Deep in the heart of silences it lies ...
A little lake below dark, towering peak
And whispering trees where myriad, wild things seek
A sanctuary under gracious skies.

Fierce thunders roll above its crystal deep
And song of hail and wind and lightnings flare
Stoop to its beauty ... and the flooding air
Shimmers its surface out of dreaming sleep.

Perhaps my feet shall never tread again
Beloved trails marked high against the sun ...
Nor this wild, pagan heart will miss a beat
At cry of bird or sound of sudden rain ...
Or watch long shadows trailing tree and stone
Into the cool of night ... after the heat.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 7

The Chase

The galloping hooves of the centaurs ring
Striking fire from the beetling crags
As they bellow and shout in their hard-run chase
To capture the little white nymphs of the stream...
Fragile as mist ... eyes agleam ...
To hold them close in a wild, strange dream
And bear them away in their fierce mebrace
Over the ocean ... over the waves
Over the canons ... the cliffs ... the peaks
And in through the stars to their hidden caves...

—Anne Brigman

Page 11
of index
to SONGS OF
A PAGAN.

The Limpid Pool

Tryst With The Wind

Soft, cool wind from the desert peaks ...
Fragrance of sage and musk ...
Shrill of a nighthawk's sharp-winged flight
And a great white star in the dusk.

Around my feet, small, dry leaves whirl
In a dusty dance with the whispering trees ...
And it's glad I am of the wind in my hair
And glad of it's kiss on my breast and face,
And it's lift and swirl as I stand here bare
For my tryst with the wind
In the night
With a star.

Hume Brigman

To replace the poem
SIERRA NIGHT

SONGS OF A PAGAN

Wild Trees That Stand Apart

I love wild trees that stand apart and stark ...
Beaten by wind and rain and stinging hail ...
Nurtured by centuries of sun ... and dark
Of countless nights. Trees that withstand the flail
Of lightnings and the bellowing thunder's roar ...
Aloof ... supreme ... unmindful of the storms.
Instead, the rhythms of their lines, pour
Like flowing sap within their valiant forms
Until, like flames against the wind, they sway
In upward thrusts and convoluting sweeps
Breasting the tempest ... peaceful in the day
Of breeze and the immeasurable deeps.

For grace and courage in this human life...
Grant us the beauty of trees have found through strife.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 13

Echo

One silent dusk in the long, gone years

Close by the camp-fire's ruddy glow

With only the muffled flute of an owl

And the quick, wide sweep of a whispering bat...

I called a wild, chromatic scale

Into the dark...

Called to the sky...

Called in a voice full-pitched and keen

To waken an echo for comradeship ...

A miracle sang in the crystal night...

Seven echoes answered my call...

The first came back from across the gorge...

Rang from a peak with its crown of stars

Then tossed it into a steep ravine

Where it laughed again from another crest,

The two calls blending as ripples melt

To each other in widening rings

On the limpid surface of quiet pools

When raindrops fall.

Then another canon vaught the sound

To share again the joyous song

With the summits and valleys down the range

Till the vibrance was like a seraph choir

Of delicate music floating away.

(next page)

S OF A PAGAN

2nd PAGE
OF ECHO.

I wonder how far my small voice sang

On the wings of the echoes that mountain night..?

I wonder whether the canons rang

On another star in the fading light..?

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 14

Am I a Harp of The Winds?

Am I an aeolian harp that the winds play at odds?

Singing high, singing low, singing laughter and bitterest tears ...

Singing hope and despair, singing grief linked with joy for the years

That are gone ... and to come...? May the glittering, pittying gods
On Olympus judge what I am in my outpouring song

As the clouds that pass over the earth ... some atately and slow...
Some fleeting and light as the sparkling, rippling flow
Of a wild, mountain brook as it angles and dashes along.

If I am a harp of the winds ... I pray from my heart

That my songs, like a sandalwood incense, rise lovely and clean
In spirals that shimmer and lift from earth into air

And splore it its spiced fragrance ... or simple and true as the art
Of the Greeks ... who, out of the elements, knew how to glean
The Good and the Beautiful ... rounded and perfect and rare.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 15

Toccata

Can I believe that I saw a tree quiver
And out of its heart step a radiant Thing
With slim, golden body, translucent and shining
To dance with light tread in a green, fairy ring

It floated in rhythms of delicate cadence
Hummed by the wind in the tall pine's crest ...
Floated in spirals and swift-whirling rondos
Dipping and swaying, nor pausing for rest.

Tremulous laughter came drifting from no where ...
The forest sighed softly ... the low branches stirred ...
And myriad Beauty came weaving and bending
To rhapsodies chanted by flower and bird ...
While slender young fauns and bronzed satyrs flourished
Their horns and their hooves in the dance of the breeze ...
And then ... they were vanished ...! the wild, lovely Beings
And all that I saw were the glimmering trees ...!

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 16

Earth-Lover

Quivering with wordless need I come
Topillow my head on your quiet breast...
What Lover can ever ask less or more
Than that his woman shall give him rest...
Dear Earth...!

rest

My body longs for the touch of you...
Longs for your power and tender grace...
Thirsts for the kiss that a man can know
From the lips of the well-beloved one.

Than that his woman shall give him rest...
Or lift him to heights that the sun-gods know...
On the deep-laid sacrament of her breast...
Dear Earth..!

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 17

Defense

They who have veiled the hurt, bruised places
Of their hearts with strange beauty
Are as the blossoming thistles
Thrusting wide their slender, lance-like thorns
Against the onslaught of the wandering greed
Of curious minds and idle touch.

They who have grown the keen, bright points
Of parrying wit and quiet, smiling silences
Are guarded in a spell of unguessed power ...
Even as thistle-blooms
Within their diadems
Of shining thorns.

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 18

Invocation

When I am very ancient

God give me wits that I shall not be garrulous...

But like the high-crest junipers

On storm-worn peaks...

Whisper with deep-laid wuiet in my self

Of the gone years... nor tell a racing world, gone mad.

That having lived a short eternity

Bound in this human form

That I have found that Love is good

And Work and Play ... and Grief.

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 19

Cry

Beloved Earth ... I am weary of your mighty clasp.
Life crowds... I am exhausted with the stern decree
Of your relentless, ageing, binding, bending grasp ...
Beloved Earth.

Yet ... where shall I go? ... have but glimmering memories
Of lives before. This carapace begins to rasp
My spirit and there seems no light ahead for me
Beyond these fleshly eyes. I grope but cannot see
The path. The rusting lock of life holds fast the hasp
Against my tired, struggling heart... I would go free ...
Beloved Earth ...

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 30

Perihelion

Across the long, long years ... you have returned
To take me in your arms against your breast
And press your lips upon my own in quest
Of nameless harmonies we had learned
Yet could not know the throbbing under-deep
That drew us. Chill winds blew and darkness came
We wandered far and lost. There was no Name
To whisper, hand to touch ... We turned to weep
Our separate ways alone ... too blind to know
That Fate ... the Subtle One ... holding the draught
Of bitterness would make us drink to the last
Dread drop of grief we had to taste ... but lo!
A miracle ... for we have touched and laughed ...
Brave laughter ... softening the past.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 22

Travail

The dulling silences that hurt the heart
Grow tender with the passing of the years ...
And though their memories make my wild blood start
There is but love where once flowed bitter tears.

Sad mortal clinging to a dream
Of evanescent stuff as frail as mist ...
As transient as the last, white, lingering beam
That holds the first star in the quiet west.

There are no trails to those far, shining days ...
Fruit cannot turn and be a bud again ...
The resurrection of the dreaming seed
Shall come ... out of the dark and rain.

—Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 24

Hymn Of Thanks

For long, black, windswept wings of winter clouds,

For glittering light upon the ocean's breast

For hurrying waves of steely gray ... and crowds

Of dark gulls drifting toward the sullen west...

For bitter storms that tear the lonely shore...

For heaps of amber kelp that lie forlorn

For fluted shells that sing of ocean's lore

And sea-pools when the tide is low at morn...

Here are the sacraments of earth and sky...

Here are the long, pale, planes of sandy waste

Where never-ending, cleansing winds pass by

That know no rest nor laggard times nor haste.

For these I lift my heart, Thou Radiant Power

And worship undisturbed ... in this still hour.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 27

Memoria

We found the beauty of the sea and sky
Down through the valleys where the wild sage grows
And lark and blackbird wing, where the salt wind blows
The flowers and tall cliffs stand ... and stars wheel by.

We found the primal joy of drifted wood
Flung on the beach from ocean's restless hands
And builded fire ... and knew no other lands

In those bright hours when comradeship was food
And drink to our starved need ... and Earth was kind
And nourished us from her sweet, mother-breast
And Time was glorified ... and cankering hates
Were slowly blotted from the heart and mind.

Dear, vanished days of hungering, grooping quest
When Lovers cling and part ... and Blind Fate ... waits.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

Anodyne

Now, though I have not you, I have the sea
With its strange beauty and its lonely wastes ...
Yet, when the moonrise and the sunsets come
I long to share ... like sacramental bread and wine ...
The living wonder spread before my hungry heart and eyes.

Could I but know that somewhere...
Far beyond the curve of shore and curving tide...
You turn to evening star

Remembering we shared its glory once
When shadows crept across the darkening hills
And mists came drifting from the ocean's rim
And startled birds rose in the last, dim light.

Remembrance, now, is gentle sacrament ...
And though I have not you ... I have the sea.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 29

Pendulum

The high noons of summer are waining
For the sun ... like a golden pendulum ...
Swings to the south
And winter draws on ...
Even as waves rise to high peaks ...
Foam and crash
And speed to dim shores/ ...
So does my heart
In its quest for Wisdom and Beauty
Rise to far heights ...
Careless the struggle ...
Careless ... even of failure.

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 30

The Tides of March

The breakers are white hounds racing, racing...
Chasing invisible rabbits in from the sea ...
Chasing their swift-footed quarry before them
Who run to the long, swaying, whispering, grass on the lea.

And the long grass shelters the trembling creatures ...
While the white hounds snarl as they claw at the baffling shore ...
Leaping and fighting and buffeting wildly,
Mad at their loss of thousands of times before.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 32

Shining Raiment

Sweet wind from the sea
Brooding over ... around ...
Sun-warmed wind
Drifting, caressing ...
Wind from the sea
Floating like delicate, gossamer threads
Spun from a fairy loom.

I dimly dream of the time to come
When I shall stand free
In a world of forgotten glories ...
Enfolded in garments

As soft as the breath of the wind from the south
Woven of light and of mist ...
And lovely in line as a broken wave's smooth flow.

A.B.

SONGS OF A PAGAN

Elegie

Out of the south wet mists are trailing
Their weeping-rain on the ocean's face
And the wind and the little, gray waves are wailing
With the cry of the gulls and the daylight failing.

My heart is weary with too much crying...
I stand alone ... there is no trace
Of those I loved ... the day is dying ...
Gray birds in the dusk are flying, flying.

—Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

PAGE 34

Full Moon

The pale moon moves above the ocean's breast
And draws the tides with faithful, lifting hands
From dreaming shores to shores in other lands
In endless, steady toil from east to west.

The pale moon moves alone ... nor knows of rest ...
No starry host around her presence swing
As whirl the suns round Jupiter who sing
The triumph of their heavenly zest.

The pale moon moves in steady silence ... lest
Her tyrant, Earth ... become aware that she
But seeks the sight of ONE ... her god ... and he
The Sun ... fulfills ... one night ... her endless quest.

Anne Brigman

SONGS OF A PAGAN

The Gull

I watched a white gull light upon the sand...
A morsel that another gull had found

Attracted him. He swung a lovely curve

Spiraling down... and without effort... swerved

To left... to right... and lit upon the ground

As drifting thistledown might touch the strand.

A.B.