A WORD'S MAGIC

By Cale Young Rice

Do you remember Etajima,

And how, upon a moon-fogged sea,

As ghostly as ever a tide shall be,

We passed an island silently?

And how a low voice in the gloom

Of the temple pine-trees leaning there

Said sayonara to one somewhere

Unseen in the shadow-haunted air?

Just sayonara: but it seemed

The soul of all farewells that night,

The sigh of all withdrawn delight,

The sound of love's last rapture-rite.

And now, after long years, it comes

Again from isles of memory

To bring once more to birth in me

The breath of all lost witchery.

Yes, one low word of parting, now

Echoing, thro the fog of years,

Has touched my heart with beauty's tears,

And youth thro all things reappears.