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Title: The Epic of Hades, in Three Books

Author: Lewis Morris

Release date: November 14, 2011 [eBook #38011]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Paul Murray, Rory OConor and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EPIC OF HADES, IN THREE BOOKS ***

THE POETICAL WORKS OF

MR. LEWIS MORRIS.

I.

SONGS OF TWO WORLDS. With Portrait. Eleventh Edition, price 5s.

II.

THE EPIC OF HADES. With an Autotype Illustration, Nineteenth Edition, price 5s.

III.

GWEN and THE ODE OF LIFE. With Frontispiece. Sixth Edition, price 5s.

THE EPIC OF HADES. Third Illustrated Edition. With Sixteen Autotype Plates after the Drawings by the late GEORGE R. CHAPMAN, 4to, cloth extra, gilt edges, price 21s.

THE EPIC OF HADES. The Presentation Edition. 4to, cloth extra, price 10s. 6d.

SONGS UNSUNG. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 6s.

*** For Notices of the Press, see end of this Volume.

LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF

LEWIS MORRIS

VOLUME TWO

THE EPIC OF HADES

LONDON

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1885

Then with wings

Of gold we soared, I looking in his eyes

Over yon dark broad river, and this dim land.

Page 228.

THE EPIC OF HADES

IN THREE BOOKS

BY

LEWIS MORRIS

M.A.; HONORARY FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD

KNIGHT OF THE REDEEMER OF GREECE, ETC., ETC.

"DIFFICILE EST PROPRIE COMMUNIA DICERE"

NINETEENTH EDITION.

LONDON

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1885

"The three excellences of Poetry: simplicity of language, simplicity of subject, and simplicity of invention"—The Welsh Triads.

(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.)

TO ALL

WHO LOVE THE LITERATURE OF GREECE

THIS POEM IS DEDICATED

BY

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

TARTARUS.

PAGE

TANTALUS

7

PHÆDRA

23

SISYPHUS

40

CLYTÆMNESTRA

55

BOOK II.

HADES.

MARSYAS

82

ANDROMEDA

95

ACTÆON

110

HELEN

120

EURYDICE

145

ORPHEUS

150

DEIANEIRA

154

LAOCOON

166

NARCISSUS

175

MEDUSA

188

ADONIS

198

PERSEPHONE

202

ENDYMION

211

PSYCHE

219

BOOK III.

OLYMPUS.

ARTEMIS

237

HERAKLES

244

APHRODITÉ

248

ATHENÉ

255

HERÉ

261

APOLLO

267

ZEUS

273

BOOK I.

TARTARUS.

THE EPIC OF HADES.

In February, when the dawn was slow,

And winds lay still, I gazed upon the fields

Which stretched before me, lifeless, and the stream

Which laboured in the distance to the sea,

Sullen and cold. No force of fancy took

My thought to bloomy June, when all the land

Lay deep in crested grass, and through the dew

The landrail brushed, and the lush banks were set

With strawberries, and the hot noise of bees

Lulled the bright flowers. Rather I seemed to move

Thro' that weird land, Hellenic fancy feigned,

Beyond the fabled river and the bark

Of Charon; and forthwith on every side

Rose the thin throng of ghosts.

First thro' the gloom

Of a dark grove I strayed—a sluggish wood,

Where scarce the faint fires of the setting stars,

Or some cold gleam of half-discovered dawn,

Might pierce the darkling pines. A twilight drear

Brooded o'er all the depths, and filled the dank

And sunken hollows of the rocks with shapes

Of terror,—beckoning hands and noiseless feet

Flitting from shade to shade, wide eyes that stared

With horror, and dumb mouths which seemed to cry,

Yet cried not. An ineffable despair

Hung over them and that dark world and took

The gazer captive, and a mingled pang

Of grief and anger, grown to fierce revolt

And hatred of the Invisible Force which holds

The issue of our lives and binds us fast

Within the net of Fate; as the fisher takes

The little quivering sea-things from the sea

And flings them gasping on the beach to die

Then spreads his net for more. And then again

I knew myself and those, creatures who lie

Safe in the strong grasp of Unchanging Law,

Encompassed round by hands unseen, and chains

Which do support the feeble life that else

Were spent on barren space; and thus I came

To look with less of horror, more of thought,

And bore to see the sight of pain that yet

Should grow to healing, when the concrete stain

Of life and act were purged, and the cleansed soul,

Renewed by the slow wear and waste of time,

Soared after æons of days.

They seemed alone,

Those prisoners, thro' all time. Each soul shut fast

In its own jail of woe, apart, alone,

For evermore alone; no thought of kin,

Or kindly human glance, or fellowship

Of suffering or of sin, made light the load

Of solitary pain. Ay, though they walked

Together, or were prisoned in one cell

With the partners of their wrong, or with strange souls

Which the same Furies tore, they knew them not,

But suffered still alone; as in that shape

Of hell fools build on earth, where hopeless sin

Rots slow in solitude, nor sees the face

Of men, nor hears the sound of speech, nor feels

The touch of human hand, but broods a ghost,

Hating the bare blank cell—the other self,

Which brought it thither—hating man and God,

And all that is or has been.

A great fear

And pity froze my blood, who seemed to see

A half-remembered form.

An Eastern King

It was who lay in pain. He wore a crown

Upon his aching brow, and his white robe

Was jewelled with fair gems of price, the signs

Of pomp and honour and all luxury,

Which might prevent desire. But as I looked

There came a hunger in the gloating eyes,

A quenchless thirst upon the parching lips,

And such unsatisfied strainings in the hands

Stretched idly forth on what I could not see,

Some fatal food of fancy; that I knew

The undying worm of sense, which frets and gnaws

The unsatisfied stained soul.

Seeing me, he said:

"What? And art thou too damned as I? Dost know

This thirst as I, and see as I the cool

Lymph drawn from thee and mock thy lips; and parch

For ever in continual thirst; and mark

The fair fruit offered to thy hunger fade

Before thy longing eyes? I thought there was

No other as I thro' all the weary lengths

Of Time the gods have made, who pined so long

And found fruition mock him.

Long ago,

When I was young on earth, 'twas a sweet pain

To ride all day in the long chase, and feel

Toil and the summer fire my blood and parch

My lips, while in my father's halls I knew

The cool bath waited, with its marble floor;

And juices from the ripe fruits pressed, and chilled

With snows from far-off peaks; and troops of slaves;

And music and the dance; and fair young forms.

And dalliance, and every joy of sense,

That haunts the dreams of youth, which strength and ease

Corrupt, and vacant hours. Ay, it was sweet

For a while to plunge in these, as fair boys plunge

Naked in summer streams, all veil of shame

Laid by, only the young dear body bathed

And sunk in its delight, while the firm earth,

The soft green pastures gay with innocent flowers,

Or sober harvest fields, show like a dream;

And nought is left, but the young life which floats

Upon the depths of death, to sink, maybe,

And drown in pleasure, or rise at length grown wise

And gain the abandoned shore.

Ah, but at last

The swift desire waxed stronger and more strong,

And feeding on itself, grows tyrannous;

And the parched soul no longer finds delight

In the cool stream of old; nay, this itself,

Smitten by the fire of sense as by a flame,

Holds not its coolness more; and fevered limbs,

Seeking the fresh tides of their youth, may find

No more refreshment, but a cauldron fired

With the fires of nether hell; and a black rage

Usurps the soul, and drives it on to slake

Its thirst with crime and blood.

Longing Desire!

Unsatisfied, sick, impotent Desire!

Oh, I have known it ages long. I knew

Its pain on earth ere yet my life had grown

To its full stature, thro' the weary years

Of manhood, nay, in age itself; I knew

The quenchless weary thirst, unsatisfied

By all the charms of sense, by wealth and power

And homage; always craving, never quenched—

The undying curse of the soul! The ministers

And agents of my will drave far and wide

Through all the land for me, seeking to find

Fresh pleasures for me, who had spent my sum

Of pleasure, and had power, not even in thought,

Nor faculty to enjoy. They tore apart

The sacred claustral doors of home for me,

Defiled the inviolate hearth for me, laid waste

The flower of humble lives, in hope to heal

The sickly fancies of the king, till rose

A cry of pain from all the land; and I

Grew happier for it, since I held the power

To quench desire in blood.

But even thus

The old pain faded not, but swift again

Revived; and thro' the sensual dull lengths

Of my seraglios I stalked, and marked

The glitter of the gems, the precious webs

Plundered from every clime by cruel wars

That strewed the sands with corpses; lovely eyes

That looked no look of love, and fired no more

Thoughts of the flesh; rich meats, and fruits, and wines

Grown flat and savourless; and loathed them all,

And only cared for power; content to shed

Rivers of innocent blood, if only thus

I might appease my thirst. Until I grew

A monster gloating over blood and pain.

Ah, weary, weary days, when every sense

Was satisfied, and nothing left to slake

The parched unhappy soul, except to watch

The writhing limbs and mark the slow blood drip,

Drop after drop, as the life ebbed with it;

In a new thrill of lust, till blood itself

Palled on me, and I knew the fiend I was,

Yet cared not—I who was, brief years ago,

Only a careless boy lapt round with ease,

Stretched by the soft and stealing tide of sense

Which now grew red; nor ever dreamed at all

What Furies lurked beneath it, but had shrunk

In indolent horror from the sight of tears

And misery, and felt my inmost soul

Sicken with the thought of blood. There comes a time

When the insatiate brute within the man,

Weary with wallowing in the mire, leaps forth

Devouring, and the cloven satyr-hoof

Grows to the rending claw, and the lewd leer

To the horrible fanged snarl, and the soul sinks

And leaves the man a devil, all his sin

Grown savourless, and yet he longs to sin

And longs in vain for ever.

Yet, methinks,

It was not for the gods to leave me thus.

I stinted not their worship, building shrines

To all of them; the Goddess of Love I served

With hecatombs, letting the fragrant fumes

Of incense and the costly steam ascend

From victims year by year; nay, my own son

Pelops, my best beloved, I gave to them

Offering, as he must offer who would gain

The great gods' grace, my dearest.

I had gained

Through long and weary orgies that strange sense

Of nothingness and wasted days which blights

The exhausted life, bearing upon its front

Counterfeit knowledge, when the bitter ash

Of Evil, which the sick soul loathes, appears

Like the pure fruit of Wisdom. I had grown

As wizards seem, who mingle sensual rites

And forms impure with murderous spells and dark

Enchantments; till the simple people held

My very weakness wisdom, and believed

That in my blood-stained palace-halls, withdrawn,

I kept the inner mysteries of Zeus

And knew the secret of all Being; who was

A sick and impotent wretch, so sick, so tired,

That even bloodshed palled.

For my stained soul,

Knowing its sin, hastened to purge itself

With every rite and charm which the dark lore

Of priestcraft offered to it. Spells obscene,

The blood of innocent babes, sorceries foul

Muttered at midnight—these could occupy

My weary days; till all my people shrank

To see me, and the mother clasped her child

Who heard the monster pass.

They would not hear.

They listened not—the cold ungrateful gods—

For all my supplications; nay, the more

I sought them were they hidden.

At the last

A dark voice whispered nightly: 'Thou, poor wretch,

That art so sick and impotent, thyself

The source of all thy misery, the great gods

Ask a more precious gift and excellent

Than alien victims which thou prizest not

And givest without a pang. But shouldst thou take

Thy costliest and fairest offering,

'Twere otherwise. The life which thou hast given

Thou mayst recall. Go, offer at the shrine

Thy best belovèd Pelops, and appease

Zeus and the averted gods, and know again

The youth and joy of yore.'

Night after night,

While all the halls were still, and the cold stars

Were fading into dawn, I lay awake

Distraught with warring thoughts, my throbbing brain

Filled with that dreadful voice. I had not shrunk

From blood, but this, the strong son of my youth—

How should I dare this thing? And all day long

I would steal from sight of him and men, and fight

Against the dreadful thought, until the voice

Seared all my burning brain, and clamoured, 'Kill!

Zeus bids thee, and be happy.' Then I rose

At midnight, when the halls were still, and raised

The arras, and stole soft to where my son

Lay sleeping. For one moment on his face

And stalwart limbs I gazed, and marked the rise

And fall of his young breast, and the soft plume

Which drooped upon his brow, and felt a thrill

Of yearning; but the cold voice urging me

Burned me like fire. Three times I gazed and turned

Irresolute, till last it thundered at me,

'Strike, fool! thou art in hell; strike, fool! and lose

The burden of thy chains.' Then with slow step

I crept as creeps the tiger on the deer,

Raised high my arm, shut close my eyes, and plunged

My dagger in his heart.

And then, with a flash,

The veil fell downward from my life and left

Myself to me—the daily sum of sense—

The long continual trouble of desire—

The stain of blood blotting the stain of lust—

The weary foulness of my days, which wrecked

My heart and brain, and left me at the last

A madman and accursèd; and I knew,

Far higher than the sensual slope which held

The gods whom erst I worshipped, a white peak

Of Purity, and a stern voice pealing doom—

Not the mad voice of old—which pierced so deep

Within my life, that with the reeking blade

Wet with the heart's blood of my child I smote

My guilty heart in twain.

Ah! fool, to dream

That the long stain of time might fade and merge

In one poor chrism of blood. They taught of yore,

My priests who flattered me—nor knew at all

The greater God I know, who sits afar

Beyond those earthly shapes, passionless, pure,

And awful as the Dawn—that the gods cared

For costly victims, drinking in the steam

Of sacrifice when the choice hecatombs

Were offered for my wrong. Ah no! there is

No recompense in these, nor any charm

To cleanse the stain of sin, but the long wear

Of suffering, when the soul which seized too much

Of pleasure here, grows righteous by the pain

That doth redress its ill. For what is Right

But equipoise of Nature, alternating

The Too Much and Too Little? Not on earth

The salutary silent forces work

Their final victory, but year on year

Passes, and age on age, and leaves the debt

Unsatisfied, while the o'erburdened soul

Unloads itself in pain.

Therefore it is

I suffer as I suffered ere swift death

Set me not free, no otherwise; and yet

There comes a healing purpose in my pain

I never knew on earth; nor ever here

The once-loved evil grows, only the tale

Of penalties grown greater hourly dwarfs

The accomplished sum of wrong. And yet desire

Pursues me still—sick, impotent desire,

Fiercer than that of earth.

We are ourselves

Our heaven and hell, the joy, the penalty,

The yearning, the fruition. Earth is hell

Or heaven, and yet not only earth; but still,

After the swift soul leaves the gates of death,

The pain grows deeper and less mixed, the joy

Purer and less alloyed, and we are damned

Or blest, as we have lived."

He ceased, with a wail

Like some complaining wind among the pines

Or pent among the fretful ocean caves,

A sick, sad sound.

Then as I looked, I saw

His eyes glare horribly, his dry parched lips

Open, his weary hands stretch idly forth

As if to clutch the air—infinite pain

And mockery of hope. "Seest thou them now?"

He said. "I thirst, I parch, I famish, yet

They still elude me, fair and tempting fruit

And cooling waters. Now they come again.

See, they are in my grasp, they are at my lips,

Now I shall quench me. Nay, again they fly

And mock me. Seest thou them, or am I shut

From hope for ever, hungering, thirsting still,

A madman and in Hell?"

And as I passed

In horror, his large eyes and straining hands

Froze all my soul with pity.

Then it was

A woman whom I saw: a dark pale Queen,

With passion in her eyes, and fear and pain

Holding her steadfast gaze, like one who sees

Some dreadful deed of wrong worked out and knows

Himself the cause, yet now is powerless

To stay the wrong he would.

Seeing me gaze

In pity on her woe, she turned and spake

With a low wailing voice—

"Thou well mayst gaze

With horror on me, sir, for I am lost;

I have shed the innocent blood, long years ago,

Nay, centuries of pain. I have shed the blood

Of him I loved, and found for recompense

But self-inflicted death and age-long woe,

Which purges not my sin. And yet not I

It was who did it, but the gods, who took

A woman's loveless heart and tortured it

With love as with a fire. It was not I

Who slew my love, but Fate. Fate 'twas which brought

My love and me together, Fate which barred

The path of blameless love, yet set Love's flame

To burn and smoulder in a hopeless heart,

Where no relief might come.

The King was old,

And I a girl. 'Tis an old tale which runs

Thro' the sad ages, and 'twas mine. He had spent

His sum of love long since, and I—I knew not

A breath of Love as yet. Ah, it is strange

To lose the sense of maidenhood, drink deep

Of life to the very dregs, and yet not know

A flutter of Love's wing. Love takes no thought

For pomp, or palace, or respect of men;

Nor always in the stately marriage bed,

Closed round by silken curtains, laid on down,

Nestles a rosy form; but 'mid wild flowers

Or desert tents, or in the hind's low cot,

Beneath the aspect of the unconscious stars,

Dwells all night and is blest.

My love, my life!

He was the old man's son, a fair white soul—

Not like the others, whom the fire of youth

Burns like a flame and hurries unrestrained

Thro' riotous days and nights, but virginal

And pure as any maid. No wandering glance

He deigned for all the maidens young and fair

Who sought their Prince's eye. But evermore,

Upon the high lawns wandering alone,

He dwelt unwed; weaving to Artemis,

Fairest of all Olympian maids, a wreath

From the unpolluted meads, where never herd

Drives his white flock, nor ever scythe has come,

But the bee sails upon unfettered wing

Over the spring-like lawns, and Purity

Waters them with soft dews;[1] and yet he showed

Of all his peers most manly—heart and soul

A very man, tender and true, and strong

And pitiful, and in his limbs and mien

Fair as Apollo's self.

It was at first

In Trœzen that I saw him, when he came

To greet his sire. Amid the crowd of youths

He showed a Prince indeed; yet knew I not

Whom 'twas I saw, nor that I held the place

Which was his mother's, only from the throng

Love, with a barbed dart aiming, pierced my heart

Ere yet I knew what ailed me. Every glance

Fired me; the youthful grace, the tall straight limbs,

The swelling sinewy arms, the large dark eyes

Tender yet full of passion, the thick locks

Tossed from his brow, the lip and cheek which bore

The down of early manhood, seemed to feed

My heart with short-lived joy.

For when he stood

Forth from the throng and knelt before his sire,

Then raised his eyes to mine, I felt the curse

Of Aphrodité burn me, as it burned

My mother before me, and I dared not meet

His innocent, frank young eyes.

Said I then young?

Ay, but not young as mine. For I had known

The secret things of life, which age the soul

In a moment, writing on its front their mark

'Too early ripe;' and he was innocent,

My spouse in fitted years, within whose arms

I had defied the world.

I turned away

Like some white bird that leaves the flock, which sails

High in mid air above the haunts of men,

Feeling some little dart within her breast,

Not death, but like to death, and slowly sinks

Down to the earth alone, and bears her hurt

Unseen, by herbless sand and bitter pool,

And pines until the end.

Even from that day

I strove to gain his love. Nay, 'twas not I,

But the cruel gods who drove me. Day by day

We were together; for in days of old

Women were free, not pent in gilded jails

As afterwards, but free to walk alone,

For good or evil, free. I hardly took

Thought for my spouse, the King. For I had found

My love at last: what matter if it were

A guilty love? Yet love is love indeed,

Stronger than heaven or hell. Day after day

I set myself to tempt him from his proud

And innocent way, for I had spurned aside

Care for the gods or men—all but my love.

What need to tell the tale? Was it a sigh,

A blush, a momentary glance, which brought

Assurance of my triumph? It is long

Since I have lived, I cannot tell; I know

Only the penalty of death and hell

Which followed on my sin. I knew he loved.

It was not wonderful, seeing that we dwelt

A boy and girl together. I was fair,

And Eros fired my eyes and lent my voice

His own soft tremulous tones. But when our souls

Trembled upon the verge, and fancy feigned

His arms around me as we fled alone

To some free land of exile, lo! a scroll:

'Dearest, it may not be; I fear the Gods;

We dare not do this wrong. I go from hence

And see thy face no more. Farewell! Forget

The love we may not own; go, seek for both

Forgiveness from the gods.'

When I read the words,

The cruel words, methought my heart stood still,

And when the ebbing life returned I seemed

To have lost all thought of Love. Only Revenge

Dwelt with me still, the fiercer that I knew

My long-prized hope, which came so near success,

Snatched from me and for ever.

When I rose

From my deep swoon, I bade a messenger

Go, seek the King for me. He came and sate

Beside my couch, and all the doors were closed,

And all withdrawn. Then with the liar's art,

And hypocrite tears, and feigned reluctancy,

And all the subtle wiles a woman draws

From the armoury of hate, I did instil

The poison to his soul. Cunning devices,

Feigned sorrow, mention of his son, regrets,

And half confessions—these, with hateful skill

Confused together, drove the old man's soul

To frenzy; and I watched him, with a sneer,

Turn to a dotard thirsting for the life

Of his own child. But how to do the deed,

Yet shed no blood, nor know the people's hate,

Who loved the Prince, I knew not.

Till one day

The old man, looking out upon the sea,

Besought the dread Poseidon to avenge

The treachery of his son. Even as we stood

Gazing upon the breathless blue, a cloud

Rose from the deep, a little fleecy cloud,

Which sudden grew and grew, and turned the blue

To purple; and a swift wind rose and sang

Higher and higher, and the wine-dark sea

Grew ruffled, and within the circling bay

The tiny ripples, stealing up the sand,

Plunged loud with manes of foam, until they swelled

To misty surges thundering on the shore.

Then at the old man's elbow as I stood,

A deep dark thought, sent by the powers of ill,

Answering, as now I know, my own black hate

And not my poor dupe's anger, fired my soul

And bade me speak. 'The god has heard thy prayer,'

I whispered; 'See the surge which wakes and swells

To fury; well I know what things shall be.

It is Poseidon's voice sounds in the storm

And sends thy vengeance. Young Hippolytus

Loves, as thou knowest, on the yellow sand,

Hard by the rippled margin of the wave,

To urge his flying steeds. Bid him go forth—

He will obey—and see what recompense

The god will send his wrong.'

In the old man's eyes

A watery gleam of malice played awhile—

I hated him for it—and he bade his son

Drive forth his chariot on the sand, and yoke

His three young fiery steeds.

And still the storm

Blew fiercer and more fierce, and the white crests

Plunged on the strand, and the high promontories

Resounded counter-stricken, and a mist

Of foam, blown landward, hid the sounding shore.

Then saw I him come forth and bid them yoke

His untamed colts. I had not seen his face

Since that last day, but, seeing him, I felt

The old love spring anew, yet mixed with hate—

A storm of warring passions. Tho' I knew

What end should come, yet would I speak no word

That might avert it. The old man looked forth;

I think he had well-nigh forgotten all

The wrong he fancied and the doom he prayed,

All but the father's pride in the strong son,

Who was so young and bold. I saw a smile

Upon the dotard's face, when now the steeds

Were harnessed and the chariot, on the sand

Along the circling margin of the bay,

Flew, swift as light. A sudden gleam of sun

Flashed on the silver harness as it went,

Burned on the brazen axles of the wheels,

And on the golden fillets of the Prince

Doubled the gold. Sometimes a larger wave

Would dash in mist around him, and in fear

The rearing coursers plunged, and then again

The strong young arm constrained them, and they flashed

To where the wave-worn foreland ends the bay.

And then he turned his chariot, a bright speck

Now seen, now hidden, but always, tho' the surge

Broke round it, safe; emerging like a star

From the white clouds of foam. And as I watched,

Speaking no word, and breathing scarce a breath,

I saw the firm limbs strongly set apart

Upon the chariot, and the reins held high,

And the proud head bent forward, with long locks

Streaming behind, as nearer and more near

The swift team rushed—until, with a half joy,

It seemed as if my love might yet elude

The slow sure anger of the god, dull wrath

Swayed by a woman's lie.

But on the verge,

As I cast my eyes, a vast and purple wall

Swelled swiftly towards the land; the lesser waves

Sank as it came, and to its toppling crest

The spume-flecked waters, from the strand drawn back,

Left dry the yellow shore. Onward it came,

Hoarse, capped with breaking foam, lurid, immense,

Rearing its dreadful height. The chariot sped

Nearer and nearer. I could see my love

With the light of victory in his eyes, the smile

Of daring on his lips: so near he came

To where the marble palace-wall confined

The narrow strip of beach—his brave young eyes

Fixed steadfast on the goal, in the pride of life,

Without a thought of death. I strove to cry,

But terror choked my breath. Then, like a bull

Upon the windy level of the plain

Lashing himself to rage, the furious wave,

Poising itself a moment, tossing high

Its wind-vexed crest, dashed downward on the strand

With a stamp, with a rush, with a roar.

And when I looked,

The shore, the fields, the plain, were one white sea

Of churning, seething foam—chariot and steeds

Gone, and my darling on the wave's white crest

Tossed high, whirled down, beaten, and bruised, and flung,

Dying upon the marble.

My great love

Sprang up redoubled, and cast out my hate

And spurned all thought of fear; and down the stair

I hurried, and upon the bleeding form

I threw myself, and raised his head, and clasped

His body to mine, and kissed him on the lips,

And in his dying ear confessed my wrong,

And saw the horror in his dying eyes

And knew that I was damned. And when he breathed

His last pure breath, I rose and slowly spake—

Turned to a Fury now by love and pain—

To the old man who knelt, while all the throng

Could hear my secret: 'See, thou fool, I am

The murderess of thy son, and thou my dupe,

Thou and thy gods. See, he was innocent;

I murdered him for love. I scorn ye all,

Thee and thy gods together, who are deceived

By a woman's lying tongue! Oh, doting fool,

To hate thy own! And ye, false powers, which punish

The innocent, and let the guilty soul

Escape unscathed, I hate ye all—I curse,

I loathe you!'

Then I stooped and kissed my love,

And left them in amaze; and up the stair

Swept slowly to my chamber, and therein,

Hating my life and cursing men and gods,

I did myself to death.

But even here,

I find my punishment. Oh, dreadful doom

Of souls like mine! To see their evil done

Always before their eyes, the one dread scene

Of horror. See, the dark wave on the verge

Towers horrible, and he—— Oh, Love, my Love!

Safety is near! quick! quicker! urge them on!

Thou wilt 'scape it yet!—Nay, nay, it bursts on him!

I have shed the innocent blood! Oh, dreadful gaze

Within his glazing eyes! Hide them, ye gods!

Hide them! I cannot bear them. Quick! a dagger!

I will lose their glare in death. Nay, die I cannot;

I must endure and live—Death brings not peace

To the lost souls in Hell."

And her eyes stared,

Rounded with horror, and she stooped and gazed

So eagerly, and pressed her fevered hands

Upon her trembling forehead with such pain

As drives the gazer mad.

Then as I passed,

I marked against the hardly dawning sky

A toilsome figure standing, bent and strained,

Before a rocky mass, which with great pain

And agony of labour it would thrust

Up a steep hill. But when upon the crest

It poised a moment, then I held my breath

With dread, for, lo! the poor feet seemed to clutch

The hillside as in fear, and the poor hands

With hopeless fingers pressed into the stone

In agony, and the limbs stiffened, and a cry

Like some strong swimmer's, whom the mightier stream

Sweeps downward, and he sees his children's eyes

Upon the bank; broke from him; and at last,

After long struggles of despair, the limbs

Relaxed, and as I closed my fearful eyes,

Seeing the inevitable doom—a crash,

A horrible thunderous noise, as down the steep

The shameless fragment leapt. From crag to crag

It bounded ever swifter, striking fire

And wrapt in smoke, as to the lowest depths

Of the vale it tore, and seemed to take with it

The miserable form whose painful gaze

I caught, as with the great rock whirled and dashed

Downward, and marking every crag with gore

And long gray hairs, it plunged, yet living still,

To the black hollow; and then a silence came

More dreadful than the noise, and a low groan

Was all that I could hear.

When to the foot

Of the dark steep I hurried, half in hope

To find the victim dead—not recognizing

The undying life of Hell—I seemed to see

An aged man, bruised, bleeding, with gray hairs,

And eyes from which the cunning leer of greed

Was scarcely yet gone out.

A crafty voice

It was that answered me, the voice of guile

Part purified by pain:

"There comes not death

To those who live in Hell, nor hardly pause

Of suffering longer than may serve to make

The pain renewed, more piercing. Long ago,

I thought that I had cheated Death, and now

I seek him; but he comes not, nor know I

If ever he will hear me. Whence art thou?

Comest thou from earthly air, or whence? What power

Has brought thee hither? For I know indeed

Thou art not lost as I; for never here

I look upon a human face, nor see

The ghosts who doubtless here on every side

Suffer a common pain, only at times

I hear the echo of a shriek far off,

Like some faint ghost of woe which fills the pause

And interval of suffering; but from whom

The voice may come, or whence, I know not, only

The air teems with vague pain, which doth distract

The ear when for a moment comes surcease

Of agony, and the sense of effort spent

In vain and fruitless labour, and the pang

Of long-deferred defeat, which waits and takes

The world-worn heart, and maddens it when all—

Heaven, conscience, happiness, are staked and lost

For gains which still elude it.

Yet 'twas sweet,

A King in early youth, when pleasure is sweet,

To live the fair successful years, and know

The envy and respect of men. I cared

For none of youth's delights: the dance, the song,

Allured me not; the smooth soft ways of sense

Tempted me not at all. I could despise

The follies that I shared not, spending all

The long laborious days in toilsome schemes

To compass honour and wealth, and, as I grew

In name and fame, finding my hoarded gains

Transmuted into Power. The seas were white

With laden argosies, and all were mine.

The sheltering moles defied the wintry storms,

And all were mine. The marble aqueducts,

The costly bridges, all were mine. Fair roads

Wound round and round the hills—my work. The gods

Alone I heeded not, nor cared at all

For aught but that my eyes and ears might take,

Spurning invisible things, nor built I to them

Temple or shrine, wrapt up in life, set round

With earthly blessings like a god. I rose

To such excess of weal and fame and pride,

My people held me god-like. I grew drunk

With too great power, scoffing at men and gods,

Careless of both, but not averse to fling

To those too weak themselves, what benefits

My larger wisdom spurned.

Then suddenly

I knew the pain of failure. Summer storms

Sucked down my fleets even within sight of port.

A grievous blight wasted the harvest-fields,

Mocking my hopes of gain. Wars came and drained

My store, and I grew needy, knowing now

The hell of stronger souls, the loss of power

Wherein they exulted once. There comes no pain

Deeper than to have known delight of power,

And then to lose it all. But I, I would not

Sit tame beneath defeat, trimming my sails

To wait the breeze of Fortune—fickle breath

Which perhaps might breathe no more—but chose instead

By rash conceit and bolder enterprise

To win her aid again. I had no thought

Of selfish gain, only to be and act

As a god to those, feeding my sum of pride

With acted good.

But evermore defeat

Dogged me, and evermore my people grew

To doubt me, seeing no more the wealth, the force,

Which once they worshipped. Then the lust of power

Loved, not for sake of others, but itself,

Grew on me, and the pride which can dare all,

Save failure only, seized me. Evil finds

Its ready chance. There were rich argosies

Upon the seas: I sank them, ship and crew,

In the unbetraying ocean. Wayfarers

Crossing the passes with rich merchandise

My creatures, hid behind the crags, o'erwhelmed

With rocks hurled downward. Yet I spent my gains

For the public weal, not otherwise; and they,

The careless people, took the piteous spoils

Which cost the lives of many, and a man's soul,

And blessed the giver. Empty venal blessings,

Which sting more deep than curses!

For awhile

I was content with this, but at the last

A great contempt and hatred of them took me,

The base, vile churls! Why should I stain my soul

For such as those—dogs that would fawn and lick

The hand that fed them, but, if food should fail,

Would turn and rend me? I would none of them;

I would grow rich and happy, being indeed

Godlike in brain to such. So with all craft,

And guile, and violence I enriched me, loading

My treasuries with gold. My deep-laid schemes

Of gain engrossed the long laborious days,

Stretched far into the night. Enjoy, I might not,

Seeing it was all to do, and life so brief

That ere a man might gain the goal he would,

Lo! Age, and with it Death, and so an end!

For all the tales of the indignant gods,

What were they but the priests'? I had myself

Broken all oaths; long time deceived and ruined

With every phase of fraud the pious fools

Whom oath-sworn Justice bound; battened on blood

And what was I the worse? How should the gods

Bear rule if I were happy? Death alone

Was certain. Therefore must I haste to heap

Treasure sufficient for my need, and then

Enjoy the gathered good.

But gradually

There came—not great disasters which might crush

All hope, but petty checks which did decrease

My store, and left my labour vain, and me

Unwilling to enjoy; and gradually

I felt the chill approach of age, which stole

Higher and higher on me, till the life,

As in a paralytic, left my limbs

And heart, and mounted upwards to my brain,

Its last resort, and rested there awhile

Ere it should spread its wings. But even thus,

Tho' powerless to enjoy, the insatiate greed

And thirst of power sustained me, and supplied

Life's spark with some scant fuel, till it seemed,

Year after year, as if I could not die,

Holding so fast to life. I grew so old

That all the comrades of my youth, my prime,

My age, were gone, and I was left alone

With those who knew me not, bereft of all

Except my master passion—an old man

Forlorn, forgotten of the gods and Death.

So all the people, seeing me grow old

And prosperous, held me wise, and spread abroad

Strange fables, growing day by day more strange—

How I deceived the very gods. They thought

That I was blest, remembering not the wear

Of anxious thought, the growing sum of pain,

The failing ear and eye, the slower limbs,

Whose briefer name is Age: and yet I trow

I was not all unhappy, though I knew

It was too late to enjoy, and though my store

Increased not as my greed—nay, even sunk down

A little, year by year. Till, last of all,

When now my time was come and I had grown

A little tired of living, a trivial hurt

Laid me upon my bed; and as I mused

On my long life and all its villanies,

The wickedness I did, the blood I shed,

The guile, the frauds of years—they came with news,

One now, and now another; how my schemes

Were crushed, my enterprises lost, my toil

And labour all in vain. Day after day

They brought these tidings, while I longed to rise

And stay the tide of ill, and raved to know

I could not. At the last the added sum

Of evil, like yon great rock poised awhile

Uncertain, gathered into one, o'erwhelmed

My feeble strength, and left me ruined and lost,

And showed me all I was, and all the depth

And folly of my sin, and racked my brain,

And sank me in despair and misery,

And broke my heart and slew me.

Therefore 'tis

I spend the long, long centuries which have come

Between me and my sin, in such dread tasks

As that thou sawest. In the soul I sinned:

In body and soul I suffer. What I bade

My minions do to others, that of woe

I bear myself; and in the pause of ill,

As now, I know again the bitter pang

Of failure, which of old pierced thro' my soul

And left me to despair. The pain of mind

Is fiercer far than any bodily ill,

And both are mine—the pang of torture-pain

Always recurring; and, far worse, the pang

Of consciousness of black sins sinned in vain—

The doom of constant failure.

Will, fierce Will!

Thou parent of unrest and toil and woe,

Measureless effort! growing day by day

To force strong souls along the giddy steep

That slopes to the pit of Hell, where effort serves

Only to speed destruction! Yet I know

Thou art not, as some hold, the primal curse

Which doth condemn us; since thou bearest in thee

No power to satisfy thyself; but rather,

The spring of act, whereby in earth and heaven

Both men and gods do breathe and live and are,

Since Life is Act and not to Do is Death—

I do not blame thee: but to work in vain

Is bitterest penalty: to find at last

The soul all fouled with sin and stained with blood

In vain; ah, this is hell indeed—the hell

Of lost and striving souls!"

Then as I passed,

The halting figure bent itself again

To the old task, and up the rugged steep

Thrust the great rock with groanings. Horror chained

My parting footsteps, like a nightmare dream

Which holds us that we flee not, with wide eyes

That loathe to see, yet cannot choose but gaze

Till all be done. Slowly, with dreadful toil

And struggle and strain, and bleeding hands and knees,

And more than mortal strength, against the hill

He pressed, the wretched one! till with long pain

He trembled on the summit, a gaunt form,

With that great rock above him, poised and strained,

Now gaining, now receding, now in act

To win the summit, now borne down again,

And then the inevitable crash—the mass

Leaping from crag to crag. But ere it ceased

In dreadful silence, and the low groan came,

My limbs were loosed with one convulsive bound;

I hid my face within my hands, and fled,

Surfeit with horror.

Then it was again

A woman whom I saw, pitiless, stern,

Bearing the brand of blood—a lithe dark form,

And cruel eyes which glared beneath the gems

That argued her a Queen, and on her side

An ancient stain of gore, which did befoul

Her royal robe. A murderess in thought

And dreadful act, who took within the toils

Her kingly Lord, and slew him of old time

After burnt Troy. I had no time to speak

When she shrieked thus:

"It doth repent me not

I would 'twere yet to do, and I would do it

Again a thousand times, if the shed blood

Might for one hour restore me to the kisses

Of my Ægisthus. Oh, he was divine,

My hero, with the godlike locks and eyes

Of Eros' self! What boots it that they prate

Of wifely duty, love of spouse or child,

Honour or pity, when the swift fire takes

A woman's heart, and burns it out, and leaps

With fierce forked tongue around it, till it lies

In ashes, a dead heart, nor aught remains

Of old affections, naught but the new flame

Which is unquenched desire?

It did not come,

My blessing, all at once, but the slow fruit

Of solitude and midnight loneliness,

And weary waiting for the tardy news

Of taken Troy. Long years I sate alone,

Widowed, within my palace, while my Lord

Was over seas, waging the accursèd war,

First of the file of Kings. Year after year

Came false report, or harder, no report

Of the great fleet. The summers waxed and waned,

The wintry surges smote the sounding shores,

And yet there came no end of it. They brought

Now hopeless failure, now great victories;

And all alike were false, all but delay

And hope deferred, which cometh not, but breaks

The heart which suffering wrings not.

So I bore

Long time the solitary years, and sought

To solace the dull days with motherly cares

For those my Lord had left me. My firstborn,

Iphigeneia, sailed at first with him

Upon that fatal voyage, but the young

Orestes and Electra stayed with me—

Not dear as she was, for the firstborn takes

The mother's heart, and, with the milk it draws

From the mother's virgin breast, drains all the love

It bore, ay, even tho' the sire be dear;

Much more, then, when he is a King indeed,

Mighty in war and council, but too high

To stoop to a woman's love. But she was gone,

Nor heard I tidings of her, knowing not

If yet she walked the earth, nor if she bare

The load of children, even as I had borne

Her in my opening girlhood, when I leapt

From child to Queen, but never loved the King.

Thus the slow years rolled onward, till at last

There came a dreadful rumour—'She is dead,

Thy daughter, years ago. The cruel priests

Clamoured for blood; the stern cold Kings stood round

Without a tear, and he, her sire, with them,

To see a virgin bleed. They cut with knives

The taper girlish throat; they watched the blood

Drip slowly on the sand, and the young life

Meek as a lamb come to the sacrifice

To appease the angry gods.' And he, the King,

Her father, stood by too, and saw them do it,

The wickedness, breathing no word of wrath,

Till all was done! The cowards! the dull cowards!

I would some black storm, bursting suddenly,

Had whelmed them and their fleets, ere yet they dared

To waste an innocent life!

I had gone mad,

I know it, but for him, my love, my dear,

My fair sweet love. He came to comfort me

With words of friendship, holding that my Lord

Was bound, perhaps, to let her die—'The gods

Were ofttimes hard to appease—or was it indeed

The priests who asked it? Were there any gods?

Or only phantoms, creatures of the brain,

Born of the fears of men, the greed of priests,

Useful to govern women? Had he been

Lord of the fleet, not all the soothsayers

Who ever frighted cowards should have brought

His soul to such black depths.' I hearkening to him

As 'twere my own thought grown articulate,

Found my grief turn to hate, and hate to love—

Hate of my Lord, love of the voice which spoke

Such dear and comfortable words. And thus,

Love to a storm of passion growing, swept

My wounded soul and dried my tears, as dries

The hot sirocco all the bitter pools

Of salt among the sand. I never knew

True love before; I was a child, no more,

When the King cast his eyes on me. What is it

To have borne the weight of offspring 'neath the zone,

If Love be not their sire; or live long years

Of commerce, not of love? Better a day

Of Passion than the long unlovely years

Of wifely duty, when Love cometh not

To wake the barren days!

And yet at first

I hesitated long, nor would embrace

The blessing that was mine. We are hedged round,

We women, by such close-drawn ordinances,

Set round us by our tyrants, that we fear

To overstep a hand's breadth the dull bounds

Of custom; but at last Love, waking in me,

Burst all my chains asunder, and I lived

For naught but Love.

My son, the young Orestes,

I sent far off; my girl Electra only

Remained, too young to doubt me, and I knew

At last what 'twas to live.

So the swift years

Fleeted and found me happy, till the dark

Ill-omened day when Rumour, thousand-tongued,

Whispered of taken Troy; and from my dream

Of happiness, sudden I woke, and knew

The coming retribution. We had grown

Too loving for concealment, and our tale

Of mutual love was bruited far and wide

Through Argos. All the gossips bruited it,

And were all tongue to tell it to the King

When he should come. And should the cold proud Lord

I never loved, the murderer of my girl,

Come 'twixt my love and me? A swift resolve

Flashed through me pondering on it: Love for Love

And Blood for Blood—the simple golden rule

Taught by the elder gods.

When I had taken

My fixed resolve, I grew impatient for it,

Counting the laggard days. Oh, it was sweet

To simulate the yearning of a wife

Long parted from her Lord, and mock the fools

Who dogged each look and word, and but for fear

Had torn me from my throne—the pies, the jays,

The impotent chatterers, who thought by words

To stay me in the act! 'Twas sweet to mock them

And read distrust within their eyes, when I,

Knowing my purpose, bade them quick prepare

All fitting honours for the King, and knew

They dared not disobey—oh, 'twas enough

To wing the slow-paced hours.

But when at last

I saw his sails upon the verge, and then

The sea-worn ship, and marked his face grown old,

The body a little bent, which was so straight,

The thin gray hairs which were the raven locks

Of manhood when he went, I felt a moment

I could not do the deed. But when I saw

The beautiful sad woman come with him,

The future in her eyes, and her sad voice

Proclaimed the tale of doom, two thoughts at once

Assailed me, bidding me despatch with a blow

Him and his mistress, making sure the will

Of fate, and my revenge.

Oh, it was strange

To see all happen as we planned; as 'twere

Some drama oft rehearsed, wherein each step,

Each word, is so prepared, the poorest player

Knows his turn come to do—the solemn landing—

The ride to the palace gate—the courtesies

Of welcome—the mute crowds without—the bath

Prepared within—the precious circling folds

Of tissue stretched around him, shutting out

The gaze, and folding helpless like a net

The mighty limbs—the battle-axe laid down

Against the wall, and I, his wife and Queen,

Alone with him, waiting and watching still,

Till the woman shrieked without. Then with swift step

I seized the axe, and struck him as he lay

Helpless, once, twice, and thrice—once for my girl,

Once for my love, once for the woman, and all

For Fate and my Revenge!

He gave a groan,

Once only, as I thought he might; and then

No sound but the quick gurgling of the blood,

As it flowed from him in streams, and turned the pure

And limpid water of the bath to red—

I had not looked for that—it flowed and flowed,

And seemed to madden me to look on it,

Until my love with hands bloody as mine,

But with the woman's blood, rushed in, and eyes

Rounded with horror; and we turned to go,

And left the dead alone.

But happiness

Still mocked me, and a doubt unknown before

Came on me, and amid the silken shows

And luxury of power I seemed to see

Another answer to my riddle of life

Than that I gave myself, and it was 'murder;'

And in my people's sullen mien and eyes,

'Murder;' and in the mirror, when I looked,

'Murder' glared out, and terror lest my son

Returning, grown to manhood, should avenge

His father's blood. For somehow, as 'twould seem,

The gods, if gods there be, or the stern Fate

Which doth direct our little lives, do filch

Our happiness—though bright with Love's own ray,

There comes a cloud which veils it. Yet, indeed,

My days were happy. I repent me not;

I would wade through seas of blood to know again

Those fierce delights once more.

But my young girl

Electra, grown to woman, turned from me

Her modest maiden eyes, nor loved to set

Her kiss upon my cheek, but, all distraught

With secret care, hid her from all the pomps

And revelries which did befit her youth,

Walking alone; and often at the tomb

Of her lost sire they found her, pouring out

Libations to the dead. And evermore

I did bethink me of my son Orestes,

Who now should be a man; and yearned sometimes

To see his face, yet feared lest from his eyes

His father's soul should smite me.

So I lived

Happy and yet unquiet—a stern voice

Speaking of doom, which long time softer notes

Of careless weal, the music that doth spring

From the fair harmonies of life and love,

Would drown in their own concord. This at times

Nay, day by day, stronger and dreadfuller,

With dominant accent, marred the sounds of joy

By one prevailing discord. So at length

I came to lose the Present in the dread

Of what might come; the penalty that waits

Upon successful sin; who, having sinned,

Had missed my sin's reward.

Until one day

I, looking from my palace casement, saw

A humble suppliant, clad in pilgrim garb,

Approach the marble stair. A sudden throb

Thrilled thro' me, and the mother's heart went forth

Thro' all disguise of garb and rank and years,

Knowing my son. How fair he was, how tall

And vigorous, my boy! What strong straight limbs

And noble port! How beautiful the shade

Of manhood on his lip! I longed to burst

From my chamber down, yearning to throw myself

Upon his neck within the palace court,

Before the guards—spurning my queenly rank,

All but my motherhood. And then a chill

Of doubt o'erspread me, knowing what a gulf

Fate set between our lives, impassable

As that great gulf which yawns 'twixt life and death

And 'twixt this Hell and Heaven. I shrank back,

And turned to think a moment, half in fear,

And half in pain; dividing the swift mind,

Yet all in love.

Then came a cry, a groan,

From the inner court, the clash of swords, the fall

Of a body on the pavement; and one cried,

'The King is dead, slain by the young Orestes,

Who cometh hither.' With the word, the door

Flew open, and my son stood straight before me,

His drawn sword dripping blood. Oh, he was fair

And terrible to see, when from his limbs,

The suppliant's mantle fallen, left the mail

And arms of a young warrior. Love and Hate,

Which are the offspring of a common sire,

Strove for the mastery, till within his eyes

I saw his father's ghost glare unappeased

From out Love's casements.

Then I knew my fate

And his—mine to be slain by my son's hand,

And his to slay me, since the Furies drave

Our lives to one destruction; and I took

His point within my breast.

But I praise not

The selfish, careless gods who wrecked our lives,

Making the King the murderer of his girl,

And me his murderess; making my son

The murderer of his mother and her love—

A mystery of blood!—I curse them all,

The careless Forces, sitting far withdrawn

Upon the heights of Space, taking men's lives

For playthings, and deriding as in sport

Our happiness and woe—I curse them all.

We have a right to joy; we have a right,

I say, as they have. Let them stand confessed

The puppets that they are—too weak to give

The good they feign to love, since Fate, too strong

For them as us, beyond their painted sky,

Sits and derides them, too. I curse Fate too,

The deaf blind Fury, taking human souls

And crushing them, as a dull fretful child

Crushes its toys and knows not with what skill

Those feeble forms are feigned.

I curse, I loathe,

I spit on them. It doth repent me not.

I would 'twere yet to do. I have lived my life.

I have loved. See, there he lies within the bath,

And thus I smite him! thus! Didst hear him groan?

Oh, vengeance, thou art sweet! What, living still?

Ah me! we cannot die! Come, torture me,

Ye Furies—for I love not soothing words—

As once ye did my son. Ye miserable

Blind ministers of Hell, I do defy you;

Not all your torments can undo the Past

Of Passion and of Love!"

Even as she spake

There came a viewless trouble in the air,

Which took her, and a sweep of wings unseen,

And terrible sounds, which swooped on her and hushed

Her voice, and seemed to occupy her soul

With horror and despair; and as she passed

I marked her agonized eyes.

But as I went,

Full many a dreadful shape of lonely pain

I saw. What need to tell them? We are filled

Who live to-day with a more present sense

Of the great love of God, than those of old

Who, groping in the dawn of Knowledge, saw

Only dark shadows of the Unknown; or he,

First-born of modern singers, who swept deep

His awful lyre, and woke the voice of song,

Dumb for long centuries of pain. We dread

To dwell on those long agonies its sin

Brings on the offending soul; who hold a creed

Of deeper Pity, knowing what chains of ill

Bind round our petty lives. Each phase of woe,

Suffering, and torture which the gloomy thought

Of bigots feigns for others—all were there.

One there was stretched upon a rolling wheel,

Which was the barren round of sense, that still

Returned upon itself and broke the limbs

Bound to it day and night. Others I saw

Doomed, with unceasing toil, to fill the urns

Whose precious waters sank ere they could slake

Their burning thirst. Another shapeless soul,

Full of revolts and hates and tyrannous force,

The weight of earth, which was its earth-born taint,

Pressed groaning down, while with fierce beak and claw

The vulture of remorse, piercing his breast,

Preyed on his heart. For others, overhead,

Great crags of rock impending seemed to fall,

But fell not nor brought peace. I felt my soul

Blunted with horrors, yearning to escape

To where, upon the limits of the wood,

Some scanty twilight grew.

But ere I passed

From those grim shades a deep voice sounded near,

A voice without a form.

"There is an end

Of all things that thou seest! There is an end

Of Wrong and Death and Hell! When the long wear

Of Time and Suffering has effaced the stain

Ingrown upon the soul, and the cleansed spirit,

Long ages floating on the wandering winds

Or rolling deeps of Space, renews itself

And doth regain its dwelling, and, once more

Blent with the general order, floats anew

Upon the stream of Things,[2] and comes at length,

After new deaths, to that dim waiting-place

Thou next shalt see, and with the justified

White souls awaits the End; or, snatched at once,

If Fate so will, to the pure sphere itself,

Lives and is blest, and works the Eternal Work

Whose name and end is Love! There is an end

Of Wrong and Death and Hell!"

Even as I heard,

I passed from out the shadow of Death and Pain,

Crying, "There is an end!"

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

HADES.

Then from those dark

And dreadful precincts passing, ghostly fields

And voiceless took me. A faint twilight veiled

The leafless, shadowy trees and herbless plains.

There stirred no breath of air to wake to life

The slumbers of the world. The sky above

Was one gray, changeless cloud. There looked no eye

Of Life from the veiled heavens; but Sleep and Death

Were round me everywhere. And yet no fear

Nor horror took me here, where was no pain

Nor dread, save that strange tremor which assails

One who in life's hot noontide looks on death

And knows he too shall die. The ghosts which rose

From every darkling copse showed thin and pale—

Thinner and paler far than those I left

In agony; even as Pity seems to wear

A thinner form than Fear.

Not caged alone

Like those the avenging Furies purged were these,

Nor that dim land as those black cavernous depths

Where no hope comes. Fair souls were they and white

Whom there I saw, waiting as we shall wait,

The Beatific End, but thin and pale

As the young faith which made them; touched a little

By the sad memories of the earth; made glad

A little by past joys: no more; and wrapt

In musing on the brief play played by them

Upon the lively earth, yet ignorant

Of the long lapse of years, and what had been

Since they too breathed Life's air, or if they knew,

Keeping some echo only; but their pain

Was fainter than their joy, and a great hope

Like ours possessed them dimly.

First I saw

A youth who pensive leaned against the trunk

Of a dark cypress, and an idle flute

Hung at his side. A sorrowful sad soul,

Such as sometimes he knows, who meets the gaze,

Mute, uncomplaining yet most pitiful,

Of one whom nature, by some secret spite,

Has maimed and left imperfect; or the pain

Which fills a poet's eyes. Beneath his robe

I seemed to see the scar of cruel stripes,

Too hastily concealed. Yet was he not

Wholly unhappy, but from out the core

Of suffering flowed a secret spring of joy,

Which mocked the droughts of Fate, and left him glad

And glorying in his sorrow. As I gazed

He raised his silent flute, and, half ashamed,

Blew a soft note; and as I stayed awhile

I heard him thus discourse—

"The flute is sweet

To gods and men, but sweeter far the lyre

And voice of a true singer. Shall I fear

To tell of that great trial, when I strove

And Phœbus conquered? Nay, no shame it is

To bow to an immortal melody;

But glory.

Once among the Phrygian hills

I lay a-musing,—while the silly sheep

Wandered among the thyme—upon the bank

Of a clear mountain stream, beneath the pines,

Safe hidden from the noon. A dreamy haze

Played on the uplands, but the hills were clear

In sunlight, and no cloud was on the sky.

It was the time when a deep silence comes

Upon the summer earth, and all the birds

Have ceased from singing, and the world is still

As midnight, and if any live thing move—

Some fur-clad creature, or cool gliding snake—

Within the pipy overgrowth of weeds,

The ear can catch the rustle, and the trees

And earth and air are listening. As I lay,

Faintly, as in a dream, I seemed to hear

A tender music, like the Æolian chords,

Sound low within the woodland, whence the stream,

Flowed full, yet silent. Long, with ear to ground,

I hearkened; and the sweet strain, fuller grown,

Rounder and clearer came, and danced along

In mirthful measure now, and now grown grave

In dying falls, and sweeter and more clear,

Tripping at nuptials and high revelry,

Wailing at burials, rapt in soaring thoughts,

Chanting strange sea-tales full of mystery,

Touching all chords of being, and life and death,

Now rose, now sank, and always was divine,

So strange the music came.

Till, as I lay

Enraptured, swift a sudden discord rang,

And all the sound grew still. A sudden flash,

As from a sunlit jewel, fired the wood.

A noise of water smitten, and on the hills

A fair white fleece of cloud, which swiftly climbed

Into the farthest heaven. Then, as I mused,

Knowing a parting goddess, straight I saw

A sudden splendour float upon the stream,

And knew it for this jewelled flute, which paused

Before me on an eddy. It I snatched

Eager, and to my ardent lips I bore

The wonder, and behold, with the first breath—

The first warm human breath, the silent strains.

The half-drowned notes which late the goddess blew,

Revived, and sounded clearer, sweeter far

Than mortal skill could make. So with delight

I left my flocks to wander o'er the wastes

Untended, and the wolves and eagles seized

The tender lambs, but I was for my art—

Nought else; and though the high-pitched notes divine

Grew faint, yet something lingered, and at last

So sweet a note I sounded of my skill,

That all the Phrygian highlands, all the white

Hill villages, were fain to hear the strain,

Which the mad shepherd made.

So, overbold,

And rapt in my new art, at last I dared

To challenge Phœbus' self.

'Twas a fair day

When sudden, on the mountain side, I saw

A train of fleecy clouds in a white band

Descending. Down the gleaming pinnacles

And difficult crags they floated, and the arch,

Drawn with its thousand rays against the sun,

Hung like a glory o'er them. Midst the pines

They clothed themselves with form, and straight I knew

The immortals. Young Apollo, with his lyre,

Kissed by the sun, and all the Muses clad

In robes of gleaming white; then a great fear,

Yet mixed with joy, assailed me, for I knew

Myself a mortal equalled with the gods.

Ah me! how fair they were! how fair and dread

In face and form, they showed, when now they came

Upon the thymy slope, and the young god

Lay with his choir around him, beautiful

And bold as Youth and Dawn! There was no cloud

Upon the sky, nor any sound at all

When I began my strain. No coward fear

Of what might come restrained me; but an awe

Of those immortal eyes and ears divine

Looking and listening. All the earth seemed full

Of ears for me alone—the woods, the fields,

The hills, the skies were listening. Scarce a sound

My flute might make; such subtle harmonies

The silence seemed to weave round me and flout

The half unuttered thought. Till last I blew,

As now, a hesitating note, and lo!

The breath divine, lingering on mortal lips,

Hurried my soul along to such fair rhymes,

Sweeter than wont, that swift I knew my life

Rise up within me, and expand, and all

The human, which so nearly is divine,

Was glorified, and on the Muses' lips,

And in their lovely eyes, I saw a fair

Approval, and my soul in me was glad.

For all the strains I blew were strains of love—

Love striving, love triumphant, love that lies

Within belovèd arms, and wreathes his locks

With flowers, and lets the world go by and sings

Unheeding; and I saw a kindly gleam

Within the Muses' eyes, who were indeed,

Women, though god-like.

But upon the face

Of the young Sun-god only haughty scorn

Sate and he swiftly struck his golden lyre,

And played the Song of Life; and lo, I knew

My strain, how earthy! Oh, to hear the young

Apollo playing! and the hidden cells

And chambers of the universe displayed

Before the charmèd sound! I seemed to float

In some enchanted cave, where the wave dips

In from the sunlit sea, and floods its depths

With reflex hues of heaven. My soul was rapt

By that I heard, and dared to wish no more

For victory; and yet because the sound

Of music that is born of human breath

Comes straighter from the soul than any strain

The hand alone can make; therefore I knew,

With a mixed thrill of pity and delight,

The nine immortal Sisters hardly touched

By this fine strain of music, as by mine,

And when the high lay trembled to its close,

Still doubting.

Then upon the Sun-god's face

There passed a cold proud smile. He swept his lyre

Once more, then laid it down, and with clear voice,

The voice of godhead, sang. Oh, ecstasy,

Oh happiness of him who once has heard

Apollo singing! For his ears the sound

Of grosser music dies, and all the earth

Is full of subtle undertones, which change

The listener and transform him. As he sang—

Of what I know not, but the music touched

Each chord of being—I felt my secret life

Stand open to it, as the parched earth yawns

To drink the summer rain; and at the call

Of those refreshing waters, all my thought

Stir from its dark and secret depths, and burst

Into sweet, odorous flowers, and from their wells

Deep call to deep, and all the mystery

Of all that is, laid open. As he sang,

I saw the Nine, with lovely pitying eyes,

Sign 'He has conquered.' Yet I felt no pang

Of fear, only deep joy that I had heard

Such music while I lived, even though it brought

Torture and death. For what were it to lie

Sleek, crowned with roses, drinking vulgar praise,

And surfeited with offerings, the dull gift

Of ignorant hands—all which I might have known—

To this diviner failure? Godlike 'tis

To climb upon the icy ledge, and fall

Where other footsteps dare not. So I knew

My fate, and it was near.

For to a pine

They bound me willing, and with cruel stripes

Tore me, and took my life.

But from my blood

Was born the stream of song, and on its flow

My poor flute, to the cool swift river borne,

Floated, and thence adown a lordlier tide

Into the deep, wide sea. I do not blame

Phœbus, or Nature which has set this bar

Betwixt success and failure, for I know

How far high failure overleaps the bound

Of low successes. Only suffering draws

The inner heart of song and can elicit

The perfumes of the soul. 'Twere not enough

To fail, for that were happiness to him

Who ever upward looks with reverent eye

And seeks but to admire. So, since the race

Of bards soars highest; as who seek to show

Our lives as in a glass; therefore it comes

That suffering weds with song, from him of old,

Who solaced his blank darkness with his verse;

Through all the story of neglect and scorn,

Necessity, sheer hunger, early death,

Which smite the singer still. Not only those

Who keep clear accents of the voice divine

Are honourable—they are happy, indeed,

Whate'er the world has held—but those who hear

Some fair faint echoes, though the crowd be deaf,

And see the white gods' garments on the hills,

Which the crowd sees not, though they may not find

Fit music for their thought; they too are blest,

Not pitiable. Not from arrogant pride

Nor over-boldness fail they who have striven

To tell what they have heard, with voice too weak

For such high message. More it is than ease,

Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries,

To have seen white Presences upon the hills,

To have heard the voices of the Eternal Gods."

So spake he, and I seemed to look on him,

Whose sad young eyes grow on us from the page

Of his own verse: who did himself to death:

Or whom the dullard slew: or whom the sea

Rapt from us: and I passed without a word,

Slow, grave, with many musings.

Then I came

On one a maiden, meek with folded hands,

Seated against a rugged face of cliff,

In silent thought. Anon she raised her arms,

Her gleaming arms, above her on the rock,

With hands which clasped each other, till she showed

As in a statue, and her white robe fell

Down from her maiden shoulders, and I knew

The fair form as it seemed chained to the stone

By some invisible gyves, and named her name:

And then she raised her frightened eyes to mine

As one who, long expecting some great fear,

Scarce sees deliverance come. But when she saw

Only a kindly glance, a softer look

Came in them, and she answered to my thought

With a sweet voice and low.

"I did but muse

Upon the painful past, long dead and done,

Forgetting I was saved.

The angry clouds

Burst always on the low flat plains, and swept

The harvest to the ocean; all the land

Was wasted. A great serpent from the deep,

Lifting his horrible head above their homes,

Devoured the children. And the people prayed

In vain to careless gods.

On that dear land,

Which now was turned into a sullen sea,

Gazing in safety from the stately towers

Of my sire's palace, I, a princess, saw,

Lapt in soft luxury, within my bower

The wreck of humble homes come whirling by,

The drowning, bleating flocks, the bellowing herds,

The grain scarce husbanded by toiling hands

Upon the sunlit plain, rush to the sea,

With floating corpses. On the rain-swept hills

The remnant of the people huddled close,

Homeless and starving. All my being was filled

With pity for them, and I joyed to give

What food and shelter and compassionate hands

Of woman might. I took the little ones

And clasped them shivering to the virgin breast

Which knew no other touch but theirs, and gave

Raiment and food. My sire, not stern to me,

Smiled on me as he saw. My gentle mother,

Who loved me with a closer love than binds

A mother to her son; and sunned herself

In my fresh beauty, seeing in my young eyes

Her own fair vanished youth; doted on me,

And fain had kept my eyes from the sad sights

That pained them. But my heart was sad in me,

Seeing the ineffable miseries of life,

And that mysterious anger of the gods,

And helpless to allay them. All in vain

Were prayer and supplication, all in vain

The costly victims steamed. The vengeful clouds

Hid the fierce sky, and still the ruin came.

And wallowing his grim length within the flood,

Over the ravaged fields and homeless homes,

The fell sea-monster raged, sating his jaws

With blood and rapine.

Then to the dread shrine

Of Ammon went the priests, and reverend chiefs

Of all the nation. White robed, at their head,

Went slow my royal sire. The oracle

Spoke clear, not as ofttimes in words obscure,

Ambiguous. And as we stood to meet

The suppliants—she who bare me, with her head

Upon my neck—we cheerful and with song

Welcomed their swift return; auguring well

From such a quick-sped mission.

But my sire

Hid his face from me, and the crowd of priests

And nobles looked not at us. And no word

Was spoken till at last one drew a scroll

And gave it to the queen, who straightway swooned,

Having read it, on my breast, and then I saw,

I the young girl whose soft life scarcely knew

Shadow of sorrow, I whose heart was full

Of pity for the rest, what doom was mine.

I think I hardly knew in that dread hour

The fear that came anon; I was transformed

Into a champion of my race, made strong

With a new courage, glorying to meet,

In all the ecstasy of sacrifice,

Death face to face. Some god, I know not who,

O'erspread me, and despite my mother's tears

And my stern father's grief, I met my fate

Unshrinking.

When the moon rose clear from cloud

Once more again over the midnight sea,

And that vast watery plain, where were before

Hundreds of happy homes, and well-tilled fields,

And purple vineyards; from my father's towers

The white procession went along the paths,

The high cliff paths, which well I loved of old,

Among the myrtles. Priests with censers went

And offerings, robed in white, and round their brows

The sacred fillet. With his nobles walked

My sire with breaking heart. My mother clung

To me the victim, and the young girls went

With wailing and with tears. A solemn strain

The soft flutes sounded, as we went by night

To a wild headland, rock-based in the sea.

There on a sea-worn rock, upon the verge,

To some rude stanchions, high above my head,

They bound me. Out at sea, a black reef rose,

Washed by the constant surge, wherein a cave

Sheltered deep down the monster. The sad queen

Would scarcely leave me, though the priests shrunk back

In terror. Last, torn from my endless kiss,

Swooning they bore her upwards. All my robe

Fell from my lifted arms, and left displayed

The virgin treasure of my breasts; and then

The white procession through the moonlight streamed

Upwards, and soon their soft flutes sounded low

Upon the high lawns, leaving me alone.

There stood I in the moonlight, left alone

Against the sea-worn rock. Hardly I knew,

Seeing only the bright moon and summer sea,

Which gently heaved and surged, and kissed the ledge

With smooth warm tides, what fate was mine. I seemed,

Soothed by the quiet, to be resting still

Within my maiden chamber, and to watch

The moonlight thro' my lattice. Then again

Fear came, and then the pride of sacrifice

Filled me, as on the high cliff lawns I heard

The wailing cries, the chanted liturgies,

And knew me bound forsaken to the rock,

And saw the monster-haunted depths of sea.

So all night long upon the sandy shores

I heard the hollow murmur of the wave,

And all night long the hidden sea caves made

A ghostly echo; and the sea birds mewed

Around me; once I heard a mocking laugh,

As of some scornful Nereid; once the waters

Broke louder on the scarpèd reefs, and ebbed

As if the monster coming; but again

He came not, and the dead moon sank, and still

Only upon the cliffs the wails, the chants,

And I forsaken on my sea-worn rock,

And lo, the monster-haunted depths of sea.

Till at the dead dark hour before the dawn,

When sick men die, and scarcely fear itself

Bore up my weary eyelids, a great surge

Burst on the rock, and slowly, as it seemed,

The sea sucked downward to its depths, laid bare

The hidden reefs, and then before my eyes—

Oh, horrible! a huge and loathsome snake

Lifted his dreadful crest and scaly side

Above the wave, in bulk and length so large,

Coil after hideous coil, that scarce the eye

Could measure its full horror; the great jaws

Dropped as with gore; the large and furious eyes

Were fired with blood and lust. Nearer he came,

And slowly, with a devilish glare, more near,

Till his hot fœtor choked me, and his tongue,

Forked horribly within his poisonous jaws,

Played lightning-like around me. For awhile

I swooned, and when I knew my life again,

Death's bitterness was past.

Then with a bound

Leaped up the broad red sun above the sea,

And lit the horrid fulgour of his scales,

And struck upon the rock; and as I turned

My head in the last agony of death,

I knew a brilliant sunbeam swiftly leaping

Downward from crag to crag, and felt new hope

Where all was hopeless. On the hills a shout

Of joy, and on the rocks the ring of mail;

And while the hungry serpent's gloating eyes

Were fixed on me, a knight in casque of gold

And blazing shield, who with his flashing blade

Fell on the monster. Long the conflict raged,

Till all the rocks were red with blood and slime,

And yet my champion from those horrible jaws

And dreadful coils was scatheless. Zeus his sire

Protected, and the awful shield he bore

Withered the monster's life and left him cold,

Dragging his helpless length and grovelling crest:

And o'er his glaring eyes the films of death

Crept, and his writhing flank and hiss of hate

The great deep swallowed down, and blood and spume

Rose on the waves; and a strange wailing cry

Resounded o'er the waters, and the sea

Bellowed within its hollow-sounding caves.

Then knew I, I was saved, and with me all

The people. From my wrists he loosed the gyves,

My hero; and within his godlike arms

Bore me by slippery rock and difficult path,

To where my mother prayed. There was no need

To ask my love. Without a spoken word

Love lit his fires within me. My young heart

Went forth, Love calling, and I gave him all.

Dost thou then wonder that the memory

Of this supreme brief moment lingers still,

While all the happy uneventful years

Of wedded life, and all the fair young growth

Of offspring, and the tranquil later joys,

Nay, even the fierce eventful fight which raged

When we were wedded, fade and are deceased,

Lost in the irrecoverable past?

Nay, 'tis not strange. Always the memory

Of overwhelming perils or great joys,

Avoided or enjoyed, writes its own trace

With such deep characters upon our lives,

That all the rest are blotted. In this place,

Where is not action, thought, or count of time,

It is not weary as it were on earth,

To dwell on these old memories. Time is born

Of dawns and sunsets, days that wax and wane

And stamp themselves upon the yielding face

Of fleeting human life; but here there is

Morning nor evening, act nor suffering,

But only one unchanging Present holds

Our being suspended. One blest day indeed,

Or centuries ago or yesterday,

There came among us one who was Divine,

Not as our gods, joyous and breathing strength

And careless life, but crowned with a new crown

Of suffering, and a great light came with him,

And with him he brought Time and a new sense

Of dim, long-vanished years; and since he passed

I seem to see new meaning in my fate,

And all the deeds I tell of. Evermore

The young life comes, bound to the cruel rocks

Alone. Before it the unfathomed sea

Smiles, filled with monstrous growths that wait to take

Its innocence. Far off the voice and hand

Of love kneel by in agony, and entreat

The seeming careless gods. Still when the deep

Is smoothest, lo, the deadly fangs and coils

Lurk near, to smite with death. And o'er the crags

Of duty, like a sudden sunbeam, springs

Some golden soul half mortal, half divine,

Heaven-sent, and breaks the chain; and evermore

For sacrifice they die, through sacrifice

They live, and are for others, and no grief

Which smites the humblest but reverberates

Thro' all the close-set files of life, and takes

The princely soul that from its royal towers

Looks down and sees the sorrow.

Sir, farewell!

If thou shouldst meet my children on the earth

Or here, for maybe it is long ago

Since I and they were living, say to them

I only muse a little here, and wait

The waking."

And her lifted arms sank down

Upon her knees, and as I passed I saw her

Gazing with soft rapt eyes, and on her lips

A smile as of a saint.

And then I saw

A manly hunter pace along the lea,

His bow upon his shoulder, and his spear

Poised idly in his hand: the face and form

Of vigorous youth; but in the full brown eyes

A timorous gaze as of a hunted hart,

Brute-like, yet human still, even as the Faun

Of old, the dumb brute passing into man,

And dowered with double nature. As he came

I seemed to question of his fate, and he

Answered me thus:

"'Twas one hot afternoon

That I, a hunter, wearied with my day,

Heard my hounds baying fainter on the hills,

Led by the flying hart; and when the sound

Faded and all was still, I turned to seek,

O'ercome by heat and thirst, a little glade,

Beloved of old, where, in the shadowy wood,

The clear cold crystal of a mossy pool

Lipped the soft emerald marge, and gave again

The flower-starred lawn where ofttimes overspent

I lay upon the grass and careless bathed

My limbs in the sweet lymph.

But as I neared

The hollow, sudden through the leaves I saw

A throng of wood-nymphs fair, sporting undraped

Round one, a goddess. She with timid hand

Loosened her zone, and glancing round let fall

Her robe from neck and bosom, pure and bright,

(For it was Dian's self I saw, none else)

As when she frees her from a fleece of cloud

And swims along the deep blue sea of heaven

On sweet June nights. Silent awhile I stood,

Rooted with awe, and fain had turned to fly,

But feared by careless footstep to affright

Those chaste cold eyes. Great awe and reverence

Held me, and fear; then Love with passing wing

Fanned me, and held my eyes, and checked my breath,

Signing 'Beware!'

So for a time I watched,

Breathless as one a brooding nightmare holds,

Who fleeth some great fear, yet fleeth not;

Till the last flutter of lawn, and veil no more

Obscured, and all the beauty of my dreams

Assailed my sense. But ere I raised my eyes,

As one who fain would look and see the sun,

The first glance dazed my brain. Only I knew

The perfect outline flow in tender curves,

To break in doubled charms; only a haze

Of creamy white, dimple, and deep divine:

And then no more. For lo! a sudden chill,

And such thick mist as shuts the hills at eve,

Oppressed me gazing; and a heaven-sent shame,

An awe, a fear, a reverence for the unknown,

Froze all the springs of will and left me cold,

And blinded all the longings of my eyes,

Leaving such dim reflection still as mocks

Him who has looked on a great light, and keeps

On his closed eyes the image. Presently,

My fainting soul, safe hidden for awhile

Deep in Life's mystic shades, renewed herself,

And straight, the innocent brute within the man

Bore on me, and with half-averted eye

I gazed upon the secret.

As I looked,

A radiance, white as beamed the frosty moon

On the mad boy and slew him, beamed on me;

Made chill my pulses, checked my life and heat;

Transformed me, withered all my soul, and left

My being burnt out. For lo! the dreadful eyes

Of Godhead met my gaze, and through the mask

And thick disguise of sense, as through a wood,

Pierced to my life. Then suddenly I knew

An altered nature, touched by no desire

For that which showed so lovely, but declined

To lower levels. Nought of fear or awe,

Nothing of love was mine. Wide-eyed I gazed,

But saw no spiritual beam to blight

My brain with too much beauty, no undraped

And awful majesty; only a brute,

Dumb charm, like that which draws the brute to it,

Unknowing it is drawn. So gradually

I knew a dull content o'ercloud my sense,

And unabashed I gazed, like that dumb bird

Which thinks no thought and speaks no word, yet fronts

The sun that blinded Homer—all my fear

Sunk with my shame, in a base happiness.

But as I gazed, and careless turned and passed

Through the thick wood, forgetting what had been,

And thinking thoughts no longer, swift there came

A mortal terror: voices that I knew,

My own hounds' bayings that I loved before,

As with them often o'er the purple hills

I chased the flying hart from slope to slope,

Before the slow sun climbed the Eastern peaks,

Until the swift sun smote the Western plain;

Whom often I had cheered by voice and glance,

Whom often I had checked with hand and thong

Grim followers, like the passions, firing me,

True servants, like the strong nerves, urging me

On many a fruitless chase, to find and take

Some too swift-fleeting beauty; faithful feet

And tongues, obedient always: these I knew,

Clothed with a new-born force and vaster grown,

And stronger than their master; and I thought,

What if they tare me with their jaws, nor knew

That once I ruled them,—brute pursuing brute,

And I the quarry? Then I turned and fled,—

If it was I indeed that feared and fled—

Down the long glades, and through the tangled brakes,

Where scarce the sunlight pierced; fled on and on,

And panted, self-pursued. But evermore

The dissonant music which I knew so sweet,

When by the windy hills, the echoing vales,

And whispering pines it rang, now far, now near,

As from my rushing steed I leant and cheered

With voice and horn the chase—this brought to me

Fear of I knew not what, which bade me fly,

Fly always, fly; but when my heart stood still,

And all my limbs were stiffened as I fled,

Just as the white moon ghost-like climbed the sky,

Nearer they came and nearer, baying loud,

With bloodshot eyes and red jaws dripping foam;

And when I strove to check their savagery,

Speaking with words; no voice articulate came,

Only a dumb, low bleat. Then all the throng

Leapt swift on me, and tare me as I lay,

And left me man again.

Wherefore I walk

Along these dim fields peopled with the ghosts

Of heroes who have left the ways of earth

For this faint ghost of them. Sometimes I think,

Pondering on what has been, that all my days

Were shadows, all my life an allegory;

And, though I know sometimes some fainter gleam

Of the old beauty move me, and sometimes

Some beat of the old pulses; that my fate,

For ever hurrying on in hot pursuit,

To fall at length self-slain, was but a tale

Writ large by Zeus upon a mortal life,

Writ large, and yet a riddle. For sometimes

I read its meaning thus: Life is a chase,

And Man the hunter, always following on,

With hounds of rushing thought or fiery sense,

Some hidden truth or beauty, fleeting still

For ever through the thick-leaved coverts deep

And wind-worn wolds of time. And if he turn

A moment from the hot pursuit to seize

Some chance-brought sweetness, other than the search

To which his soul is set,—some dalliance,

Some outward shape of Art, some lower love,

Some charm of wealth and sleek content and home,—

Then, if he check an instant, the swift chase

Of fierce untempered energies which pursue,

With jaws unsated and a thirst for act,

Bears down on him with clanging shock, and whelms

His prize and him in ruin.

And sometimes

I seem to myself a thinker, who at last,

Amid the chase and capture of low ends,

Pausing by some cold well of hidden thought

Comes on some perfect truth, and looks and looks

Till the fair vision blinds him. And the sum

Of all his lower self pursuing him,

The strong brute forces, the unchecked desires,

Finding him bound and speechless, deem him now

No more their master, but some soulless thing;

And leap on him, and seize him, and possess

His life, till through death's gate he pass to life,

And, his own ghost, revives. But looks no more

Upon the truth unveiled, save through a cloud

Of creed and faith and longing, which shall change

One day to perfect knowledge.

But whoe'er

Shall read the riddle of my life, I walk

In this dim land amid dim ghosts of kings,

As one day thou shalt; meantime, fare thou well."

Then passed he; and I marked him slowly go

Along the winding ways of that weird land,

And vanish in a wood.

And next I knew

A woman perfect as a young man's dream,

And breathing as it seemed the old sweet air

Of the fair days of old, when man was young

And life an Epic. Round the lips a smile

Subtle and deep and sweet as hers who looks

From the old painter's canvas, and derides

Life and the riddle of things, the aimless strife,

The folly of Love, as who has proved it all,

Enjoyed and suffered. In the lovely eyes

A weary look, no other than the gaze

Which ofttimes as the rapid chariot whirls,

And ofttimes by the glaring midnight streets,

Gleams out and chills our thought. And yet not guilt

Nor sorrow was it; only weariness,

No more, and still most lovely. As I named

Her name in haste, she looked with half surprise,

And thus she seemed to speak:

"What? Dost thou know

Thou too, the fatal glances which beguiled

Those strong rude chiefs of old? Has not the gloom

Of this dim land withdrawn from out mine eyes

The glamour which once filled them? Does my cheek

Retain the round of youth and still defy

The wear of immemorial centuries?

And this low voice, long silent, keeps it still

The music of old time? Aye, in thine eyes

I read it, and within thine eyes I see

Thou knowest me, and the story of my life

Sung by the blind old bard when I was dead,

And all my lovers dust. I know thee not,

Thee nor thy gods, yet would I soothly swear

I was not all to blame for what has been,

The long fight, the swift death, the woes, the tears

The brave lives spent, the humble homes uptorn

To gain one poor fair face. It was not I

That curved these lips into this subtle smile,

Or gave these eyes their fire, nor yet made round

This supple frame. It was not I, but Love,

Love mirroring himself in all things fair,

Love that projects himself upon a life,

And dotes on his own image.

Ah! the days,

The weary years of Love and feasts and gold,

The hurried flights, the din of clattering hoofs

At midnight, when the heroes dared for me,

And bore me o'er the hills; the swift pursuits

Baffled and lost; or when from isle to isle

The high-oared galley spread its wings and rose

Over the swelling surges, and I saw,

Time after time, the scarce familiar town,

The sharp-cut hills, the well-loved palaces,

The gleaming temples fade, and all for me,

Me the dead prize, the shell, the soulless ghost,

The husk of a true woman; the fond words

Wasted on careless ears, that seemed to hear,

Of love to me unloving; the rich feasts,

The silken dalliance and soft luxury,

The fair observance and high reverence

For me who cared not, to whatever land

My kingly lover snatched me. I have known

How small a fence Love sets between the king

And the strong hind, who breeds his brood, and dies

Upon the field he tills. I have exchanged

People for people, crown for glittering crown,

Through every change a queen, and held my state

Hateful, and sickened in my soul to lie

Stretched on soft cushions to the lutes' low sound,

While on the wasted fields the clang of arms

Rang, and the foemen perished, and swift death,

Hunger, and plague, and every phase of woe

Vexed all the land for me. I have heard the curse

Unspoken, when the wife widowed for me

Clasped to her heart her orphans starved for me;

As I swept proudly by. I have prayed the gods,

Hating my own fair face which wrought such woe,

Some plague divine might light on it and leave

My curse a ruin. Yet I think indeed

They had not cursed but pitied, those true wives

Who mourned their humble lords, and straining felt

The innocent thrill which swells the mother's heart

Who clasps her growing boy; had they but known

The lifeless life, the pain of hypocrite smiles,

The dead load of caresses simulated,

When Love stands shuddering by to see his fires

Lit for the shrine of gold. What if they felt

The weariness of loveless love which grew

And through the jealous palace portals seized

The caged unloving woman, sick of toys,

Sick of her gilded chains, her ease, herself,

Till for sheer weariness she flew to meet

Some new unloved seducer? What if they knew

No childish loving hands, or worse than all,

Had borne them sullen to a sire unloved,

And left them without pain? I might have been,

I too, a loving mother and chaste wife,

Had Fate so willed.

For I remember well

How one day straying from my father's halls

Seeking anemones and violets,

A girl in Spring-time, when the heart makes Spring

Within the budding bosom, that I came

Of a sudden through a wood upon a bay,

A little sunny land-locked bay, whose banks

Sloped gently downward to the yellow sand,

Where the blue wave creamed soft with fairy foam,

And oft the Nereids sported. As I strayed

Singing, with fresh-pulled violets in my hair

And bosom, and my hands were full of flowers,

I came upon a little milk-white lamb,

And took it in my arms and fondled it,

And wreathed its neck with flowers, and sang to it

And kissed it, and the Spring was in my life,

And I was glad.

And when I raised my eyes

Behold, a youthful shepherd with his crook

Stood by me and regarded as I lay,

Tall, fair, with clustering curls, and front that wore

A budding manhood. As I looked a fear

Came o'er me, lest he were some youthful god

Disguised in shape of man, so fair he was;

But when he spoke, the kindly face was full

Of manhood, and the large eyes full of fire

Drew me without a word, and all the flowers

Fell from me, and the little milk-white lamb

Strayed through the brake, and took with it the white

Fair years of childhood. Time fulfilled my being

With passion like a cup, and with one kiss

Left me a woman.

Ah! the lovely days,

When on the warm bank crowned with flowers we sate

And thought no harm, and his thin reed pipe made

Low music, and no witness of our love

Intruded, but the tinkle of the flock

Came from the hill, and 'neath the odorous shade

We dreamed away the day, and watched the waves

Steal shoreward, and beyond the sylvan capes

The innumerable laughter of the sea!

Ah youth and love! So passed the happy days

Till twilight, and I stole as in a dream

Homeward, and lived as in a happy dream,

And when they spoke answered as in a dream,

And through the darkness saw, as in a glass,

The happy, happy day, and thrilled and glowed

And kept my love in sleep, and longed for dawn

And scarcely stayed for hunger, and with morn

Stole eager to the little wood, and fed

My life with kisses. Ah! the joyous days

Of innocence, when Love was Queen in heaven,

And nature unreproved! Break they then still,

Those azure circles, on a golden shore?

Smiles there no glade upon the older earth

Where spite of all, gray wisdom, and new gods,

Young lovers dream within each other's arms

Silent, by shadowy grove, or sunlit sea?

Ah days too fair to last! There came a night

When I lay longing for my love, and knew

Sudden the clang of hoofs, the broken doors.

The clash of swords, the shouts, the groans, the stain

Of red upon the marble, the fixed gaze

Of dead and dying eyes,—that was the time

When first I looked on death,—and when I woke

From my deep swoon, I felt the night air cool

Upon my brow, and the cold stars look down,

As swift we galloped o'er the darkling plain;

And saw the chill sea glimpses slowly wake,

With arms unknown around me. When the dawn

Broke swift, we panted on the pathless steeps,

And so by plain and mountain till we came

To Athens, where they kept me till I grew

Fairer with every year, and many wooed,

Heroes and chieftains, but I loved not one.

And then the avengers came and snatched me back

To Sparta. All the dark high-crested chiefs

Of Argos wooed me, striving king with king

For one fair foolish face, nor knew I kept

No heart to give them. Yet since I was grown

Weary of honeyed words and suit of love,

I wedded a brave chief, dauntless and true.

But what cared I? I could not prize at all

His honest service. I had grown so tired

Of loving and of love, that when they brought

News that the fairest shepherd on the hills,

Having done himself to death for his lost love,

Lay, like a lovely statue, cold and white

Upon the golden sand, I hardly knew

More than a passing pang. Love, like a flower,

Love, springing up too tall in a young breast,

The growth of morning, Life's too scorching sun

Had withered long ere noon. Love, like a flame

On his own altar offering up my heart,

Had burnt my being to ashes.

Was it love

That drew me then to Paris? He was fair,

I grant you, fairer than a summer morn,

Fair with a woman's fairness, yet in arms

A hero, but he never had my heart,

Not love for him allured me, but the thirst

For freedom, if in more than thought I erred,

And was not rapt but willing. For my child,

Born to an unloved father, loved me not,

The fresh sea called, the galleys plunged, and I

Fled willing from my prison and the pain

Of undesired caresses, and the wind

Was fair, and on the third day as we sailed,

My heart was glad within me when I saw

The towers of Ilium rise beyond the wave.

Ah, the long years, the melancholy years,

The miserable melancholy years!

For soon the new grew old, and then I grew

Weary of him, of all, of pomp and state

And novel splendour. Yet at times I knew

Some thrill of pride within me as I saw

From those high walls, a prisoner and a foe,

The swift ships flock at anchor in the bay,

The hasty landing and the flash of arms,

The lines of royal tents upon the plain,

The close-shut gates, the chivalry within

Issuing in all its pride to meet the shock

Of the bold chiefs without; so year by year

The haughty challenge from the warring hosts

Rang forth, and I with a divided heart

Saw victory incline, now here, now there,

And helpless marked the Argive chiefs I knew,

The spouse I left, the princely loves of old,

Now with each other strive, and now with Troy:

The brave pomp of the morn, the fair strong limbs,

The glittering panoply, the bold young hearts,

Athirst for fame of war, and with the night

The broken spear, the shattered helm, the plume

Dyed red with blood, the ghastly dying face,

And nerveless limbs laid lifeless. And I knew

The stainless Hector whom I could have loved,

But that a happy love made blind his eyes

To all my baleful beauty; fallen and dragged

His noble, manly head upon the sand

By young Achilles' chariot; him in turn

Fallen and slain; my fair false Paris slain;

Plague, famine, battle, raging now within,

And now without, for many a weary year,

Summer and winter, till I loathed to live,

Who was indeed, as well they said, the Hell

Of men, and fleets, and cities. As I stood

Upon the walls, ofttimes a longing came,

Looking on rage, and fight, and blood, and death,

To end it all, and dash me down and die;

But no god helped me. Nay, one day I mind

I would entreat them. 'Pray you, lords, be men.

What fatal charm is this which Até gives

To one poor foolish face? Be strong, and turn

In peace, forget this glamour, get you home

With all your fleets and armies, to the land

I love no longer, where your faithful wives

Pine widowed of their lords, and your young boys

Grow wild to manhood. I have nought to give,

No heart, nor prize of love for any man,

Nor recompense. I am the ghost alone

Of the fair girl ye knew; she still abides,

If she still lives and is not wholly dead,

Stretched on a flowery bank upon the sea

In fair heroic Argos. Leave this form

That is no other than the outward shell

Of a once loving woman.'

As I spake,

My pity fired my eyes and flushed my cheek

With some soft charm; and as I spread my hands,

The purple, glancing down a little, left

The marble of my breasts and one pink bud

Upon the gleaming snows. And as I looked

With a mixed pride and terror, I beheld

The brute rise up within them, and my words

Fall barren on them. So I sat apart,

Nor ever more looked forth, while every day

Brought its own woe.

The melancholy years,

The miserable melancholy years,

Crept onward till the midnight terror came,

And by the glare of burning streets I saw

Palace and temple reel in ruin and fall,

And the long-baffled legions, bursting in

By gate and bastion, blunted sword and spear

With unresisted slaughter. From my tower

I saw the good old king; his kindly eyes

In agony, and all his reverend hairs

Dabbled with blood, as the fierce foeman thrust

And stabbed him as he lay; the youths, the girls,

Whom day by day I knew, their silken ease

And royal luxury changed for blood and tears,

Haled forth to death or worse. Then a great hate

Of life and fate seized on me, and I rose

And rushed among them, crying, 'See, 'tis I,

I who have brought this evil! Kill me! kill

The fury that is I, yet is not I!

And let my soul go outward through the wound

Made clean by blood to Hades! Let me die,

Not these who did no wrong!' But not a hand

Was raised, and all shrank backward as afraid,

As from a goddess. Then I swooned and fell

And knew no more, and when I woke I felt

My husband's arms around me, and the wind

Blew fair for Greece, and the beaked galley plunged;

And where the towers of Ilium rose of old,

A pall of smoke above a glare of fire.

What then in the near future?

Ten long years

Bring youth and love to that deep summer-tide

When the full noisy current of our lives

Creeps dumb through wealth of flowers. I think I knew

Somewhat of peace at last, with my good Lord

Who loved too much, to palter with the past,

Flushed with the present. Young Hermione

Had grown from child to woman. She was wed;

And was not I her mother? At the pomp

Of solemn nuptials and requited love,

I prayed she might be happy, happier far

Than ever I was; so in tranquil ease

I lived a queen long time, and because wealth

And high observance can make sweet our days

When youth's swift joy is past, I did requite

With what I might, not love, the kindly care

Of him I loved not; pomps and robes of price

And chariots held me. But when Fate cut short

His life and love, his sons who were not mine

Reigned in his stead, and hated me and mine:

And knowing I was friendless, I sailed forth

Once more across the sea, seeking for rest

And shelter. Still I knew that in my eyes

Love dwelt, and all the baleful charm of old

Burned as of yore, scarce dimmed as yet by time:

I saw it in the mirror of the sea,

I saw it in the youthful seamen's eyes,

And was half proud again I had such power

Who now kept nothing else. So one calm eve,

Behold, a sweet fair isle blushed like a rose

Upon the summer sea: there my swift ship

Cast anchor, and they told me it was Rhodes.

There, in a little wood above the sea,

Like that dear wood of yore, I wandered forth

Forlorn, and all my seamen were apart,

And I, alone; when at the close of day

I knew myself surrounded by strange churls

With angry eyes, and one who ordered them,

A woman, whom I knew not, but who walked

In mien and garb a queen. She, with the fire

Of hate within her eyes, 'Quick, bind her, men!

I know her; bind her fast!' Then to the trunk

Of a tall plane they bound me with rude cords

That cut my arms. And meantime, far below,

The sun was gilding fair with dying rays

Isle after isle and purple wastes of sea.

And then she signed to them, and all withdrew

Among the woods and left us, face to face,

Two women. Ere I spoke, 'I know,' she said,

'I know that evil fairness. This it was,

Or ever he had come across my life,

That made him cold to me, who had my love

And left me half a heart. If all my life

Of wedlock was but half a life, what fiend

Came 'twixt my love and me, but that fair face?

What left his children orphans, but that face?

And me a widow? Fiend! I have thee now;

Thou hast not long to live. I will requite

Thy murders; yet, oh fiend! that art so fair,

Were it not haply better to deface

Thy fatal loveliness, and leave thee bare

Of all thy baleful power? And yet I doubt,

And looking on thy face I doubt the more,

Lest all thy dower of fairness be the gift

Of Aphrodité, and I fear to fight

Against the immortal Gods.'

Even with the word,

And she relenting, all the riddle of life

Flashed through me, and the inextricable coil

Of Being, and the immeasurable depths

And irony of Fate, burst on my thought

And left me smiling in the eyes of death,

With this deep smile thou seëst. Then with a shriek

The woman leapt on me, and with blind rage

Strangled my life. And when she had done the deed

She swooned, and those her followers hasting back

Fell prone upon their knees before the corpse

As to a goddess. Then one went and brought

A sculptor, and within a jewelled shrine

They set me in white marble, bound to a tree

Of marble. And they came and knelt to me,

Young men and maidens, through the secular years,

While the old gods bore sway, but I was here,

And now they kneel no longer, for the world

Has gone from beauty.

But I think, indeed,

They well might worship still, for never yet

Was any thought or thing of beauty born

Except with suffering. That poor wretch who thought

I injured her, stealing the foolish heart

Which she prized but I could not, what knew she

Of that I suffered? She had loved her love,

Though unrequited, and had borne to him

Children who loved her. What if she had been

Loved yet unloving: all the fire of love

Burnt out before love's time in one brief blaze

Of passion. Ah, poor fool! I pity her,

Being blest and yet unthankful, and forgive,

Now that she is a ghost as I, the hand

Which loosed my load of life. For scarce indeed

Could any god who cares for mortal men

Have ever kept me happy. I had tired

Of simple loving, doubtless, as I tired

Of splendour and being loved. There be some souls

For which love is enough, content to bear

From youth to age, from chesnut locks to gray,

The load of common, uneventful life

And penury. But I was not of these;

I know not now, if it were best indeed

That I had reared my simple shepherd brood,

And lived and died unknown in some poor hut

Among the Argive hills; or lived a queen

As I did, knowing every day that dawned

Some high emprise and glorious, and in death

To fill the world with song. Not the same meed

The gods mete out for all, or She, the dread

Necessity, who rules both gods and men,

Some to dishonour, some to honour moulds,

To happiness some, some to unhappiness.

We are what Zeus has made us, discords playing

In the great music, but the harmony

Is sweeter for them, and the great spheres ring

In one accordant hymn.

But thou, if e'er

There come a daughter of thy love, oh pray

To all thy gods, lest haply they should mar

Her life with too great beauty!"

So she ceased.

The fairest woman that the poet's dream

Or artist hand has fashioned. All the gloom

Seemed lightened round her, and I heard the sound

Of her melodious voice when all was still,

And the dim twilight took her.

Next there came

Two who together walked: one with a lyre

Of gold, which gave no sound; the other hung

Upon his breast, and closely clung to him,

Spent in a tender longing. As they came,

I heard her gentle voice recounting o'er

Some ancient tale, and these the words she said:

"Dear voice and lyre now silent, which I heard

Across yon sullen river, bringing to me

All my old life, and he, the ferryman,

Heard and obeyed, and the grim monster heard

And fawned on you. Joyous thou cam'st and free

Like a white sunbeam from the dear bright earth,

Where suns shone clear, and moons beamed bright, and streams

Laughed with a rippling music,—nor as here

The dumb stream stole, the veiled sky slept, the fields

Were lost in twilight. Like a morning breeze,

Which blows in summer from the gates of dawn

Across the fields of spice, and wakes to life

Their slumbering perfume, through this silent land

Of whispering voices and of half-closed eyes,

Where scarce a footstep sounds, nor any strain

Of earthly song, thou cam'st; and suddenly

The pale cheeks flushed a little, the murmured words

Rose to a faint, thin treble; the throng of ghosts

Pacing along the sunless ways and still,

Felt a new life. Thou camest, dear, and straight

The dull cold river broke in sparkling foam,

The pale and scentless flowers grew perfumed; last

To the dim chamber, where with the sad queen

I sat in gloom, and silently inwove

Dead wreaths of amaranths; thy music came

Laden with life, and I, who seemed to know

Not life's voice only, but my own, rose up,

Along the hollow pathways following

The sound which brought back earth and life and love,

And memory and longing. Yet I went

With half-reluctant footsteps, as of one

Whom passion draws, or some high fantasy,

Despite himself, because some subtle spell,

Part born of dread to cross that sullen stream

And its grim guardians, part of secret shame

Of the young airs and freshness of the earth,

Being that I was, enchained me.

Then at last,

From voice and lyre so high a strain arose

As trembled on the utter verge of being,

And thrilling, poured out life. Thus closelier drawn

I walked with thee, shut in by halcyon sound

And soft environments of harmony,

Beyond the ghostly gates, beyond the dim

Calm fields, where the beetle hummed and the pale owl

Stole noiseless from the copse, and the white blooms

Stretched thin for lack of sun: so fair a light

Born out of consonant sound environed me.

Nor looked I backward, as we seemed to move

To some high goal of thought and life and love,

Like twin birds flying fast with equal wing

Out of the night, to meet the coming sun

Above a sea. But on thy dear fair eyes,

The eyes that well I knew on the old earth,

I looked not, for with still averted gaze

Thou leddest, and I followed; for, indeed,

While that high strain was sounding, I was rapt

In faith and a high courage, driving out

All doubt and discontent and womanish fear,

Nay, even my love itself. But when awhile

It sank a little, or seemed to sink and fall

To lower levels, seeing that use makes blunt

The too accustomed ear, straightway, desire

To look once more on thy recovered eyes

Seized me, and oft I called with piteous voice,

Beseeching thee to turn. But thou long time

Wert even as one unmindful, with grave sign

And waving hand, denying. Finally,

When now we neared the stream, on whose far shore

Lay life, great terror took me, and I shrieked

Thy name, as in despair. Then thou, as one

Who knows him set in some great jeopardy,

A swift death fronting him on either hand,

Didst slowly turning gaze; and lo! I saw

Thine eyes grown awful, life that looked on death,

Clear purity on dark and cankered sin,

The immortal on corruption,—not the eyes

That erst I knew in life, but dreadfuller,

And stranger. As I looked, I seemed to swoon,

Some blind force whirled me back, and when I woke

I saw thee vanish in the middle stream,

A speck on the dull waters, taking with thee

My life, and leaving Love with me. But I

Not for myself bewail, but all for thee,

Who, but for me, wert now among the stars

With thy great Lord; I sitting at thy feet:

But now the fierce and unrestrainèd rout

Of passions woman-natured, finding thee

Scornful of love within thy lonely cell,

With blind rage falling on thee, tore thy limbs,

And left them to the Muses' sepulture,

While thy soul dwells in Hades. But I wail

My weakness always, who for Love destroyed

The life that was my Love. I prithee, dear,

Forgive me if thou canst, who hast lost heaven

To save a loving woman."

He with voice

Sweeter than any mortal melody,

And plaintive as the music that is made

By the Æolian strings, or the sad bird

That sings of summer nights:

"Eurydice,

Dear love, be comforted; not once alone

That which thou mournest is, but day by day

Some lonely soul, which walks apart and feeds

On high hill pastures, far from herds of men,

Comes to the low fat fields, and sunny vales

Joyous with fruits and flowers, and the white arms

Of laughing love; and there awhile he stays

Content, forgetting all the joys he knew,

When first the morning broke upon the hills,

And the keen air breathed from the Eastern gates

Like a pure draught of wine; forgetting all

The strains which float, as from a nearer heaven,

To him who treads at dawn the untrodden snows,

While all the warm world sleeps;—forgetting these

And all things that have been. And if he gain

To raise to his own heights the simpler souls

That dwell upon the plains, the untutored thought,

The museless lives, the unawakened brain

That yet might soar, then is he blest indeed.

But if he fail, then, leaving love behind,

The wider love of the race, the closer love

Of some congenial soul, he turns again

To the old difficult steeps, and there alone

Pines, till the widowed passions of his heart

Tear him and rend his soul, and drive him down

To the low plains he left. And there he dwells,

Missing the heavens, dear, and the white peaks,

And the light air of old; but in their stead

Finding the soft sweet sun of the vale, the clouds

Which veil the skies indeed, but give the rains

That feed the streams of life and make earth green,

And bring at last the harvest. So I walk

In this dim land content with thee, O Love,

Untouched by any yearning of regret

For those old days; nor that the lyre which made

Erewhile such potent music now is dumb;

Nor that the voice that once could move the earth

(Zeus speaking through it), speaks in household words

Of homely love: Love is enough for me

With thee, O dearest; and perchance at last,

Zeus willing, this dumb lyre and whispered voice

Shall wake, by Love inspired, to such clear note

As soars above the stars, and swelling, lifts

Our souls to highest heaven."

Then he stooped,

And, folded in one long embrace, they went

And faded. And I cried, "Oh, strong God, Love,

Mightier than Death and Hell!"

And then I chanced

On a fair woman, whose sad eyes were full

Of a fixed self-reproach, like his who knows

Himself the fountain of his grief, and pines

In self-inflicted sorrow. As I spake

Enquiring of her grief, she answered thus:

"Stranger, thou seest of all the shades below

The most unhappy. Others sought their love

In death, and found it, dying; but for me

The death that took me, took from me my love,

And left me comfortless. No load I bear

Like those dark wicked women, who have slain

Their Lords for lust or anger, whom the dread

Propitious Ones within the pit below

Punish and purge of sin; only unfaith,

If haply want of faith be not a crime

Blacker than murder, when we fail to trust

One worthy of all faith, and folly bring

No harder recompense than comes of scorn

And loathing of itself.

Ah, fool, fool, fool,

Who didst mistrust thy love, who was the best,

And truest, manliest soul with whom the gods

Have ever blest the earth; so brave, so strong,

Fired with such burning hate of powerful ill,

So loving of the race, so swift to raise

The fearless arm and mighty club, and smite

All monstrous growths with ruin—Zeus himself

Showed scarce more mighty—and yet was the while

A very man, not cast in mould too fine

For human love, but ofttimes snared and caught

By womanish wiles, fast held within the net

His passions wove. Oh, it was grand to hear

Of how he went, the champion of his race,

Mighty in war, mighty in love, now bent

To more than human tasks, now lapt in ease,

Now suffering, now enjoying. Strong, vast soul,

Tuned to heroic deeds, and set on high

Above the range of common petty sins—

Too high to mate with an unequal soul,

Too full of striving for contented days.

Ah me, how well I do recall the cause

Of all our ills! I was a happy bride

When that dark Até which pursues the steps

Of heroes—innocent blood-guiltiness—

Drove us to exile, and I joyed to be

His own, and share his pain. To a swift stream

Fleeing we came, where a rough ferryman

Waited, more brute than man. My hero plunged

In those fierce depths and battled with their flow,

And with great labour gained the strand, and bade

The monster row me to him. But with lust

And brutal cunning in his eyes, the thing

Seized me and turned to fly with me, when swift

An arrow hissed from the unerring bow,

Pierced him, and loosed his grasp. Then as his eyes

Grew glazed in death there came in them a gleam

Of what I know was hate, and he said, 'Take

This white robe. It is costly. See, my blood

Has stained it but a little. I did wrong:

I know it, and repent me. If there come

A time when he grows cold—for all the race

Of heroes wander, nor can any love

Fix theirs for long—take it and wrap him in it,

And he shall love again.' Then, from the strange

Deep look within his eyes I shrank in fear,

And left him half in pity, and I went

To meet my Lord, who rose from that fierce stream

Fair as a god.

Ah me, the weary days

We women live, spending our anxious souls,

Consumed with jealous fancies, hungering still

For the belovèd voice and ear and eye,

And hungering all in vain! For life is more

To youthful manhood than to sit at home

Before the hearth to watch the children's ways

And lead the life of petty household care

Which doth content us women. Day by day

I pined in Trachis for my love, while he,

Now in some warlike exploit busied, now

Fighting some monster, now at some fair court,

Resting awhile till some new enterprise

Called him, returned not. News of treacheries

Avenged, friends succoured, dreadful monsters slain,

Came from him: always triumph, always fame,

And honour, and success, and reverence,

And sometimes, words of love for me who pined

For more than words, and would have gone to him

But that the toils of such high errantry

Asked more than woman's strength.

So the slow years

Vexed me alone in Trachis, set forlorn

In solitude, nor hearing at the gate

The frank and cheering voice, nor on the stair

The heavy tread, nor feeling the strong arm

Around me in the darkling night, when all

My being ran slow. Last, subtle whispers came

Of womanish wiles which kept my Lord from me,

And one who, young and fair, a fresh-blown life

And virgin, younger, fairer far than I

When first he loved me, held him in the toils

Of scarce dissembled love. Not easily

Might I believe this evil, but at last

The oft-repeated malice finding me

Forlorn, and sitting imp-like at my ear,

Possessed me, and the fire of jealous love

Raged through my veins, not turned as yet to hate—

Too well I loved for that—but breeding in me

Unfaith in him. Love, setting him so high

And self so low, betrayed me, and I prayed,

Constrained to hold him false, the immortal gods

To make him love again.

But still he came not.

And still the maddening rumours worked, and still

'Fair, young, and a king's daughter,' the same words

Smote me and pierced me. Oh, there is no pain

In Hades—nay, nor deepest Hell itself,

Like that of jealous hearts, the torture-pain

Which racked my life so long.

Till one fair morn

There came a joyful message. 'He has come!

And at the shrine upon the promontory,

The fair white shrine upon the purple sea,

He waits to do his solemn sacrifice

To the immortal gods; and with him comes

A young maid beautiful as Dawn.'

Then I,

Mingling despair with love, rapt in deep joy

That he was come, plunged in the depths of hell

That she came too, bethought me of the robe

The Centaur gave me, and the words he spake,

Forgetting the deep hatred in his eyes,

And all but love, and sent a messenger

Bidding him wear it for the sacrifice

To the immortals, knowing not at all

Whom Fate decreed the victim.

Shall my soul

Forget the agonized message which he sent,

Bidding me come? For that accursèd robe,

Stained with the poisonous accursèd blood,

Even in the midmost flush of sacrifice

Clung to him a devouring fire, and ate

The piteous flesh from his dear limbs, and stung

His great soft soul to madness. When I came,

Knowing it was my work, he bent on me,

Wise as a god through suffering and the near

Inevitable Death, so that no word

Of mine was needed, such a tender look

Of mild reproach as smote me. 'Couldst not thou

Trust me, who never loved as I love thee?

What need was there of magical arts to draw

The love that never wavered? I have lived

As he lives who through perilous paths must pass,

And lifelong trials, striving to keep down

The brute within him, born of too much strength

And sloth and vacuous days; by difficult toils,

Labours endured, and hard-fought fights with ill,

Now vanquished, now triumphant; and sometimes,

In intervals of too long labour, finding

His nature grown too strong for him, falls prone

Awhile a helpless prey, then once again

Rises and spurns his chains, and fares anew

Along the perilous ways. Dearest, I would

That thou wert wedded to some knight who stayed

At home within thy gates, and were content

To see thee happy. But for me the fierce

Rude energies of life, the mighty thews,

The god-sent hate of Wrong, these drove me forth

To quench the thirst of battle. See, this maid,

This is the bride I destined for our son

Who grows to manhood. Do thou see to her

When I am dead, for soon I know again

The frenzy comes, and with it ceasing, death.

Go, therefore, ere I harm thee when my strength

Has lost its guidance. Thou wert rich in love,

Be now as rich in faith. Dear, for thy wrong

I do forgive thee.'

When I saw the glare

Of madness fire his eyes, and my ears heard

The groans the torture wrung from his great soul,

I fled with broken heart to the white shrine,

And knelt in prayer, but still my sad ear took

The agony of his cries.

Then I who knew

There was no hope in god or man for me

Who had destroyed my Love, and with him slain

The champion of the suffering race of men,

And knowing that my soul, though innocent

Of blood, was guilty of unfaith and vile

Mistrust, and wrapt in weakness like a cloak,

And made the innocent tool of hate and wrong,

Against all love and good; grown sick and filled

With hatred of myself, rose from my knees,

And went a little space apart, and found

A gnarled tree on the cliff, and with my scarf

Strangling myself, swung lifeless.

But in death

I found him not. For, building a vast pile

Of scented woods on Oeta, as they tell,

My hero with his own hand lighted it,

And when the mighty pyre flamed far and wide

Over all lands and seas, he climbed on it

And laid him down to die; but pitying Zeus,

Before the swift flames reached him, in a cloud

Descending, snatched the strong brave soul to heaven,

And set him mid the stars.

Wherefore am I

Of all the blameless shades within this place

The most unhappy, if of blame, indeed,

I bear no load. For what is Sin itself,

But Error when we miss the road which leads

Up to the gate of heaven? Ignorance!

What if we be the cause of ignorance?

Being blind who might have seen! Yet do I know

But self-inflicted pain, nor stain there is

Upon my soul such as they bear who know

The dreadful scourge with which the stern judge still

Lashes their sins. I am forgiven, I know,

Who loved so much, and one day, if Zeus will,

I shall go free from hence, and join my Lord,

And be with him again."

And straight I seemed,

Passing, to look upon some scarce-spent life,

Which knows to-day the irony of Fate

In self-inflicted pain.

Together clung

The ghosts whom next I saw, bound three in one

By some invisible bond. A sire of port

God-like as Zeus, to whom on either hand

A tender stripling clung. I knew them well,

As all men know them. One fair youth spake low:

"Father, it does not pain me now, to be

Drawn close to thee, and by a double bond,

With this my brother." And the other: "Nay,

Nor me, O father; but I bless the chain

Which binds our souls in union. If some trace

Of pain still linger, heed it not—'tis past:

Still let us cling to thee."

He with grave eyes

Full of great tenderness, upon his sons

Looked with the father's gaze, that is so far

More sweet, and sad, and tender, than the gaze

Of mothers,—now on this one, now on that,

Regarding them. "Dear sons, whom on the earth

I loved and cherished, it was hard to watch

Your pain; but now 'tis finished, and we stand

For ever, through all future days of time,

Symbols of patient suffering undeserved,

Endured and vanquished. Yet sad memory still

Brings back our time of trial.

For the day

Broke fair when I, the dread Poseidon's priest,

Joyous because the unholy strife was done,

And seeing the blue waters now left free

Of hostile keels—save where upon the verge

Far off the white sails faded—rose at dawn,

And white robed, and in garb of sacrifice,

And with the sacred fillet round my brows,

Stood at the altar; and behind, ye twain,

Decked by your mother's hand with new-cleansed robes,

And with fresh flower-wreathed chaplets on your curls,

Attended, and your clear young voices made

Music that touched your father's eyes with tears,

If not the careless gods. I seem to hear

Those high sweet accents mounting in the hymn

Which rose to all the blessed gods who dwelt

Upon the far Olympus—Zeus, the Lord,

And Sovereign Heré, and the immortal choir

Of Deities, but chiefly to the dread

Poseidon, him who sways the purple sea

As with a sceptre, shaking the fixed earth

With stress of thundering surges. By the shrine

The meek-eyed victim, for the sacrifice,

Stood with his gilded horns. The hymns were done,

And I in act to strike, when all the crowd

Who knelt behind us, with a common fear

Cried, with a cry that well might freeze the blood,

And then, with fearful glances towards the sea,

Fled, leaving us alone—me, the high priest,

And ye, the acolytes; forlorn of men,

Alone, but with our god.

But we stirred not:

We could not flee, who in the solemn act

Of worship, and the ecstasy which comes

To the believer's soul, saw heaven revealed,

The mysteries unveiled, the inner sky

Which meets the enraptured gaze. How should we fear

Who thus were god-encircled! So we stood

While the long ritual spent itself, nor cast

An eye upon the sea. Till as I came

To that great act which offers up a life

Before life's Lord, and the full mystery

Was trembling to completion, quick I heard

A stifled cry of agony, and knew

My children's voices. And the father's heart,

Which is far more than rite or service done

By man for god, seeing that it is divine

And comes from God to men—this rising in me,

Constrained me, and I ceased my prayer, and turned

To succour you, and lo! the awful coils

Which crushed your lives already, bound me round

And crushed me also, as you clung to me,

In common death. Some god had heard the prayer,

And lo! we were ourselves the sacrifice—

The priest, the victim, the accepted life,

The blood, the pain, the salutary loss.

Was it not better thus to cease and die

Together in one blest moment, mid the flush

And ecstasy of worship, and to know

Ourselves the victims? They were wrong who taught

That 'twas some jealous goddess who destroyed

Our lives, revengeful for discovered wiles,

Or hateful of our land. Not readily

Should such base passions sway the immortal gods;

But rather do I hold it sooth indeed

That Zeus himself it was, who pitying

The ruin he foreknew, yet might not stay,

Since mightier Fate decreed it, sent in haste

Those dreadful messengers, and bade them take

The pious lives he loved, before the din

Of midnight slaughter woke, and the fair town

Flamed pitifully to the skies, and all

Was blood and ruin. Surely it was best

To die as we did, and in death to live,

A vision for all ages of high pain

Which passes into beauty, and is merged

In one accordant whole, as discords merge

In that great Harmony which ceaseless rings

From the tense chords of life, than to have lived

Our separate lives, and died our separate deaths,

And left no greater mark than drops which rain

Upon the unbounded sea. Those hosts which fell

Before the Scæan gate upon the sand,

Nor found a bard to sing their fate, but left

Their bones to dogs and kites—were they more blest

Than we who, in the people's sight before

Ilium's unshattered towers, lay down to die

Our swift miraculous death? Dear sons, and good,

Dear children of my love, how doubly dear

For this our common sorrow; suffering weaves

Not only chains of darkness round, but binds

A golden glittering link, which though withdrawn

Or felt no longer, knits us soul to soul,

In indissoluble bonds, and draws our lives

So close, that though the individual life

Be merged, there springs a common life which grows

To such dread beauty, as has power to take

The sting from sorrow, and transform the pain

Into transcendent joy: as from the storm

The unearthly rainbow draws its myriad hues

And steeps the world in fairness. All our lives

Are notes that fade and sink, and so are merged

In the full harmony of Being. Dear sons,

Cling closer to me. Life nor Death has torn

Our lives asunder, as for some, but drawn

Their separate strands together in a knot

Closer than Life itself, stronger than Death,

Insoluble as Fate."

Then they three clung

Together—the strong father and young sons,

And in their loving eyes I saw the Pain

Fade into Joy, Suffering in Beauty lost,

And Death in Love!

By a still sullen pool,

Into its dark depths gazing, lay the ghost

Whom next I passed. In form, a lovely youth,

Scarce passed from boyhood. Golden curls were his,

And wide blue eyes. The semblance of a smile

Came on his lip—a girl's but for the down

Which hardly shaded it; but the pale cheek

Was soft as any maiden's, and his robe

Was virginal, and at his breast he bore

The perfumed amber cup which, when March comes

Gems the dry woods and windy wolds, and speaks

The resurrection.

Looking up, he said:

"Methought I saw her then, my love, my fair,

My beauty, my ideal; the dim clouds

Lifted, methought, a little—or was it

Fond Fancy only? For I know that here

No sunbeam cleaves the twilight, but a mist

Creeps over all the sky and fields and pools,

And blots them; and I know I seek in vain

My earth-sought beauty, nor can Fancy bring

An answer to my thought from these blind depths

And unawakened skies. Yet has use made

The quest so precious, that I keep it here,

Well knowing it is vain.

On the old earth

'Twas otherwise, when in fair Thessaly

I walked regardless of all nymphs who sought

My love, but sought in vain, whether it were

Dryad or Naiad from the woods or streams,

Or white-robed Oread fleeting on the side

Of fair Olympus, echoing back my sighs,

In vain, for through the mountains day by day

I wandered, and along the foaming brooks,

And by the pine-woods dry, and never took

A thought for love, nor ever 'mid the throng

Of loving nymphs who knew me beautiful

I dallied, unregarding; till they said

Some died for love of me, who loved not one.

And yet I cared not, wandering still alone

Amid the mountains by the scented pines.

Till one fair day, when all the hills were still,

Nor any breeze made murmur through the boughs,

Nor cloud was on the heavens, I wandered slow,

Leaving the nymphs who fain with dance and song

Had kept me 'midst the glades, and strayed away

Among the pines, enwrapt in fantasy,

And by the beechen dells which clothe the feet

Of fair Olympus, wrapt in fantasy,

Weaving the thin and unembodied shapes

Which Fancy loves to body forth, and leave

In marble or in song; and so strayed down

To a low sheltered vale above the plains,

Where the lush grass grew thick, and the stream stayed

Its garrulous tongue; and last upon the bank

Of a still pool I came, where was no flow

Of water, but the depths were clear as air,

And nothing but the silvery gleaming side

Of tiny fishes stirred. There lay I down

Upon the flowery bank, and scanned the deep,

Half in a waking dream.

Then swift there rose,

From those enchanted depths, a face more fair

Than ever I had dreamt of, and I knew

My sweet long-sought ideal: the thick curls,

Like these, were golden, and the white robe showed

Like this; but for the wondrous eyes and lips,

The tender loving glance, the sunny smile

Upon the rosy mouth, these knew I not,

Not even in dreams; and yet I seemed to trace

Myself within them too, as who should find

His former self expunged, and him transformed

To some high thin ideal, separate

From what he was, by some invisible bar,

And yet the same in difference. As I moved

My arms to clasp her to me, lo! she moved

Her eager arms to mine, smiled to my smile,

Looked love to love, and answered longing eyes

With longing. When my full heart burst in words,

'Dearest, I love thee,' lo! the lovely lips,

'Dearest, I love thee,' sighed, and through the air

The love-lorn echo rang. But when I longed

To answer kiss with kiss, and stooped my lips

To her sweet lips in that long thrill which strains

Soul unto soul, the cold lymph came between

And chilled our love, and kept us separate souls

Which fain would mingle, and the self-same heaven

Rose, a blue vault above us, and no shade

Of earthly thing obscured us, as we lay

Two reflex souls, one and yet different,

Two sundered souls longing to be at one.

There, all day long, until the light was gone

And took my love away, I lay and loved

The image, and when night was come, 'Farewell,'

I whispered, and she whispered back, 'Farewell,'

With oh, such yearning! Many a day we spent

By that clear pool together all day long.

And many a clouded hour on the wet grass

I lay beneath the rain, and saw her not,

And sickened for her; and sometimes the pool

Was thick with flood, and hid her; and sometimes

Some cold wind ruffled those clear wells, and left

But glimpses of her, and I rose at eve

Unsatisfied, a cold chill in my limbs

And fever at my heart: until, too soon!

The summer faded, and the skies were hid,

And my love came not, but a quenchless thirst

Wasted my life. And all the winter long

The bright sun shone not, or the thick ribbed ice

Obscured her, and I pined for her, and knew

My life ebb from me, till I grew too weak

To seek her, fearing I should see no more

My dear. And so the long dead winter waned

And the slow spring came back.

And one blithe day,

When life was in the woods, and the birds sang,

And soft airs fanned the hills, I knew again

Some gleam of hope within me, and again

With feeble limbs crawled forth, and felt the spring

Blossom within me; and the flower-starred glades,

The bursting trees, the building nests, the songs,

The hurry of life revived me; and I crept,

Ghost-like, amid the joy, until I flung

My panting frame, and weary nerveless limbs,

Down by the cold still pool.

And lo! I saw

My love once more, not beauteous as of old,

But oh, how changed! the fair young cheek grown pale,

The great eyes, larger than of yore, gaze forth

With a sad yearning look; and a great pain

And pity took me which were more than love,

And with a loud and wailing voice I cried,

'Dearest, I come again. I pine for thee,'

And swift she answered back, 'I pine for thee;'

'Come to me, oh, my own,' I cried, and she—

'Come to me, oh, my own.' Then with a cry

Of love I joined myself to her, and plunged

Beneath the icy surface with a kiss,

And fainted, and am here.

And now, indeed,

I know not if it was myself I sought,

As some tell, or another. For I hold

That what we seek is but our other self,

Other and higher, neither wholly like

Nor wholly different, the half-life the gods

Retained when half was given—one the man

And one the woman; and I longed to round

The imperfect essence by its complement,

For only thus the perfect life stands forth

Whole, self-sufficing. Worse it is to live

Ill-mated than imperfect, and to move

From a false centre, not a perfect sphere,

But with a crooked bias sent oblique

Athwart life's furrows. 'Twas myself, indeed,

Thus only that I sought, that lovers use

To see in that they love, not that which is,

But that their fancy feigns, and view themselves

Reflected in their love, yet glorified,

And finer and more pure.

Wherefore it is:

All love which finds its own ideal mate

Is happy—happy that which gives itself

Unto itself, and keeps, through long calm years,

The tranquil image in its eyes, and knows

Fulfilment and is blest, and day by day

Wears love like a white flower, nor holds it less

Though sharp winds bite, or hot suns fade, or age

Sully its perfect whiteness, but inhales

Its fragrance, and is glad. But happier still

He who long seeks a high goal unattained,

And wearies for it all his days, nor knows

Possession sate his thirst, but still pursues

The fleeting loveliness—now seen, now lost,

But evermore grown fairer, till at last

He stretches forth his arms and takes the fair

In one long rapture, and its name is Death."

Thus he; and seeing me stand grave: "Farewell.

If ever thou shouldst happen on a wood

In Thessaly, upon the plain-ward spurs

Of fair Olympus, take the path which winds

Through the close vale, and thou shalt see the pool

Where once I found my life. And if in Spring

Thou go there, round the margin thou shalt know

These amber blooms bend meekly, smiling down

Upon the crystal surface. Pluck them not.

But kneel a little while, and breathe a prayer

To the fair god of Love, and let them be.

For in those tender flowers is hid the life

That once was mine. All things are bound in one

In earth and heaven, nor is there any gulf

'Twixt things that live,—the flower that was a life,

The life that is a flower,—but one sure chain

Binds all, as now I know.

If there are still

Fair Oreads on the hills, say to them, sir,

They must no longer pine for me, but find

Some worthier lover, who can love again;

For I have found my love."

And to the pool

He turned, and gazed with lovely eyes, and showed

Fair as an angel.

Leaving him enwrapt

In musings, to a gloomy pass I came

Between dark rocks, where scarce a gleam of light,

Not even the niggard light of that dim land,

Might enter; and the soil was black and bare,

Nor even the thin growths which scarcely clothed

The higher fields might live. Hard by a cave

Which sloped down steeply to the lowest depths,

Whence dreadful sounds ascended, seated still,

Her head upon her hands, I saw a maid

With eyes fixed on the ground—not Tartarus

It was, but Hades; and she knew no pain,

Except her painful thought. Yet there it seemed,

As here, the unequal measure which awaits

The adjustment, and meanwhile, inspires the strife

Which rears life's palace walls; and fills the sail

Which bears our bark across unfathomed seas,

To its last harbour; this bore sway there too,

And 'twas a luckless shade which sat and wept

Amid the gloom, though blameless. Suddenly,

She raised her head, and lo! the long curls, writhed

Tangled, and snake-like—as the dripping hair

Of a dead girl who freed from life and shame,

From out the cruel wintry flow, is laid

Stark on the snow with dreadful staring eyes

Like hers. For when she raised her eyes to mine,

They chilled my blood, so great a woe they bore;

And as she gazed, wide-eyed, I knew my pulse

Beat slow, and my limbs stiffen. Then they wore,

At length, a softer look, and life revived

Within my breast as thus she softly spoke:

"Nay, friend, I would not harm thee. I have known

Great sorrow, and sometimes it racks me still,

And turns me into stone, and makes my eyes

As dreadful as of yore; and yet it comes

But seldom, as thou sawest, now, for Time

And Death have healing hands. Only I love

To sit within the darkness here, nor face

The throng of happier ghosts; if any ghost

Of happiness come here. For on the earth

They wronged me bitterly, and turned to stone

My heart, till scarce I knew if e'er I was

The happy girl of yore.

That youth who dreams

Up yonder by the margin of the lake,

Knew but a cold ideal love, but me

Love in unearthly guise, but bodily form,

Seized and betrayed.

I was a priestess once,

Of stern Athené, doing day by day

Due worship; raising, every dawn that came,

My cold pure hymns to take her virgin ear;

Nor sporting with the joyous company

Of youths and maids, who at the neighbouring shrine

Of Aphrodité served. Nor dance nor song

Allured me, nor the pleasant days of youth

And twilights 'mid the vines. They held me cold

Who were my friends in childhood. For my soul

Was virginal, and at the virgin shrine

I knelt, athirst for knowledge. Day by day

The long cold ritual sped, the liturgies

Were done, the barren hymns of praise went up

Before the goddess, and the ecstasy

Of faith possessed me wholly, till almost

I knew not I was woman. Yet I knew

That I was fair to see, and fit to share

Some natural honest love, and bear the load

Of children like the rest; only my soul

Was lost in higher yearnings.

Like a god,

He burst upon those pallid lifeless days,

Bringing fresh airs and salt, as from the sea,

And wrecked my life. How should a virgin know

Deceit, who never at the joyous shrine

Of Cypris knelt, but ever lived apart,

And so grew guilty? For if I had spent

My days among the throng, either my fault

Were blameless, or undone. For innocence

The tempter spreads his net. For innocence

The gods keep all their terrors. Innocence

It is that bears the burden, which for guilt

Is lightened, and the spoiler goes his way,

Uncaring, joyous, leaving her alone,

The victim and unfriended.

Was it just

In her, my mistress, who had had my youth,

To wreak such vengeance on me? I had erred,

It may be; but on him, whose was the guilt,

No heaven-sent vengeance lighted, but he sped

Away to other hearts across the deep,

Careless and free; but me, the cold stern eyes

Of the pure goddess withered; and the scorn

Of maids, despised before, and the great blank

Of love, whose love was gone—this wrung my heart,

And froze my blood; set on my brow despair,

And turned my gaze to stone, and filled my eyes

With horror, and stiffened the soft curls which once

Lay smooth and fair into such snake-like rings

As made my aspect fearful. All who saw,

Shrank from me and grew cold, and felt the warm,

Full tide of life freeze in them, seeing in me

Love's work, who sat wrapt up and lost in shame,

As in a cloak, consuming my own heart,

And was in hell already. As they gazed

Upon me, my despair looked forth so cold

From out my eyes, that if some spoiler came

Fresh from his wickedness, and looked on them,

Their glare would strike him dead; and those fair curls

Which once the accursèd toyed with, grew to be

The poisonous things thou seest; and so, with hate

Of man's injustice and the gods', who knew

Me blameless, and yet punished me; and sick

Of life and love, and loathing earth and sky,

And feeding on my sorrow, Hate at last

Left me a Fury.

Ah, the load of life

Which lives for hatred! We are made to love—

We women, and the injury which turns

The honey of our lives to gall, transforms

The angel to the fiend. For it is sweet

To know the dreadful sense of strength, and smite

And leave the tyrant dead with a glance; ay! sweet,

In that fierce lust of power, to slay the life

Which harmed not, when the suppliants' cry ascends

To ears which hate has deafened. So I lived

Long time in misery; to my sleepless eyes

No healing slumbers coming; but at length,

Zeus and the goddess pitying, I knew

Soft rest once more veiling my dreadful gaze

In peaceful slumbers. Then a blessed dream

I dreamt. For, lo! a god-like knight in mail

Of gold, who sheared with his keen flashing blade;

With scarce a pang of pain, the visage cold

Which too great sorrow left me; at one stroke

Clean from the trunk, and then o'er land and sea,

Invisible, sped with winged heels, to where,

Upon a sea-worn cape, a fair young maid,

More blameless even than I was, chained and bound,

Waited a monster from the deep and stood

In innocent nakedness. Then, as he rose,

Loathsome, from out the depths, a monstrous growth,

A creature wholly serpent, partly man,

The wrongs that I had known, stronger than death,

Rose up with such black hate in me again,

And wreathed such hissing poison through my hair,

And shot such deadly glances from my eyes,

That nought that saw might live. And the vile worm

Was slain, and she delivered. Then I dreamt

My mistress, whom I thought so stern to me,

Athené, set those dreadful staring eyes,

And that despairing visage, on her shield

Of chastity, and bears it evermore

To fright the waverer from the wrong he would,

And strike the unrepenting spoiler, dead."

Then for a little paused she, while I saw

Again her eyes grown dreadful, till once more,

And with a softer glance:

"From that blest dream

I woke not on the earth, but only here.

And now my pain is lightened since I know

My dream, which was a dream within the dream

Which is our life, fulfilled. And I have saved

Another through my suffering, and through her

A people. Oh, strange chain of sacrifice,

That binds an innocent life, and from its blood

And sorrow works out joy! Oh, mystery

Of pain and evil! wrong grown salutary,

And mighty to redeem! If thou shouldst see

A woman on the earth, who pays to-day

Like penalty of sin, and the new gods

(For after Saturn, Zeus ruled; after him

It may be there are others) love to take

The tender heart of girlhood, and to immure

Within a cold and cloistered cell the life

Which nature meant to bless, and if Love come

Hold her accursèd; or to some poor maid,

Forlorn and trusting, still the tempter comes

And works his wrong, and leaves her in despair

And shame and all abhorrence, while he goes

His way unpunished,—if thou know her eyes

Freeze thee like mine—oh! bid her lose her pain

In succouring others—say to her that Time

And Death have healing hands, and here there comes

To the forgiven transgressor only pain

Enough to chasten joy!"

And a soft tear

Trembled within her eyes, and her sweet gaze

Was as the Magdalen's, the horror gone

And a great radiance come.

Then as I passed

To upper air, I saw two figures rise

Together, one a woman with a grave

Fair face not all unhappy, and the robes

And presence of a queen; and with her walked

The fairest youth that ever maiden's dream

Conceived. And as they came, the throng of ghosts,

For these who were not wholly ghosts, arose,

And did them homage. Not the chain of love

Bound them, but such calm kinship as is bred

Of long and difficult pilgrimages borne

Through common perils by two souls which share

A common weary exile. Nor as ghosts

These showed, but rather like two lives which hung

Suspended in a trance. A halo of life

Played round them, and they brought a sweet brisk air

Tasting of earth and heaven, like sojourners

Who stayed but for awhile, and knew a swift

Release await them. First the youth it was

Who spake thus as they passed:

"Dread Queen, once more

I feel life stir within me, and my blood

Run faster, while a new strange cycle turns

And grows completed. Soon on the dear earth

Under the lively light of fuller day,

I shall revive me of my wound; and thou,

Passing with me yon cold and lifeless stream,

And the grim monster who will fawn on thee,

Shalt issue in royal pomp, and wreathed with flowers,

Upon the cheerful earth, leaving behind

A deeper winter for the ghosts who dwell

Within these sunless haunts; and I shall lie

Once more within loved arms, and thou shalt see

Thy early home, and kiss thy mother's cheek,

And be a girl again. But not for long;

For ere the bounteous Autumn spreads her hues

Of gold and purple, a cold voice will call

And bring us to these wintry lands once more,

As erst so often. Blest are we, indeed,

Above the rest, and yet I would I knew

The careless joys of old.

For in hot youth,

Oh, it was sweet to greet the balmy night

That was love's nurse, and feel the weary eyes

Closed by soft kisses,—sweet at early dawn

To wake refreshed and, scarce from loving arms

Leaping, to issue forth, with winding horn,

By dewy heath and brake, and taste the fair

Young breath of early morning; and 'twas sweet

To chase the bounding quarry all day long

With my true hounds and rapid steed, and gay

Companions of my youth, and with the eve

To turn home laden with the spoil, and take

The banquet which awaited, and sweet wine

Poured out, and kisses pressed on loving lips;

Circled by snowy arms. Oh, it was sweet

To be alive and young!

For sure it is

The gods gave not quick pulses and hot blood

And strength and beauty for no end, but would

That we should use them wisely; and the fair,

Sweet mistress of my service was, indeed,

Worthy of all observance. Oh, her eyes

When I lay bleeding! All day long we rode,

I and my youthful peers, with horse and hound,

And knew the joy of swift pursuit and toil

And peril. At the last, a fierce boar turned

At bay, and with his gleaming tusks o'erthrew

My steed, and as I fell upon the flowers,

Pierced me as with a sword. Then, as I lay,

I knew the strange slow chill which, stealing, tells

The young that it is death. Yet knew I not

Of pain or fear, only great pity, indeed,

That she should lose her love, who was so fond

And gracious. But when, lifting my dim gaze,

I saw her bend o'er me,—the lovely eyes

Suffused with tears, and her sweet smile replaced

By agonized sorrow,—for a while I stayed

Life's ebbing tide, and raised my cold, white lips,

With a faint smile, to hers. Then, with a kiss—

One long last kiss, we mingled, and I knew

No more.

But even in death, so strong is Love,

I could not wholly die; and year by year,

When the bright springtime comes, and the earth lives,

Love opens these dread gates, and calls me forth

Across the gulf. Not here, indeed, she comes,

Being a goddess and in heaven, but smooths

My path to the old earth, where still I know

Once more the sweet lost days, and once again

Blossom on that soft breast, and am again

A youth, and rapt in love; and yet not all

As careless as of yore; but seem to know

The early spring of passion, tamed by time

And suffering, to a calmer, fuller flow,

Less fitful, but more strong."

Then the sad Queen

"Fair youth, thy lot I know, for I am old

As the old earth and yet as young as is

The budding spring, and I was here a Queen,

When Love was not or Time, and to my arms

Thou camest as a little child, to dwell

Within the halls of Death, for without Death

There were nor Birth nor Love, nor would Life yearn

To lose itself within another life,

And dying, to be born. I, too, have died

For love in part, and live again through love;

For in the far-off years, when Time was young,

And Love unborn on earth, and Zeus in heaven

Ruled, a young sovereign; I, a maiden, dwelt

With dread Demeter on the lovely plains

Of sunny Sicily. There, day by day,

I sported with the maiden goddesses,

In virgin freedom. Budding age made gay

Our lightsome feet, and on the flowery slopes

We wandered daily, gathering flowers to weave

In careless garlands for our locks, and passed

The days in innocent gladness. Thought of Love

There came not to us, for as yet the earth

Was virginal, nor yet had Eros come

With his delicious pain.

And one fair morn—

Not all the ages blot it—on the side

Of Ætna we were straying. There was then

Summer nor winter, springtide nor the time

Of harvest, but the soft unfailing sun

Shone always, and the sowing time was one

With reaping; fruit and flower together sprung

Upon the trees; and blade and ripened ear

Together clothed the plains. There, as I strayed,

Sudden a black cloud down the rugged side

Of Ætna, mixed with fire and dreadful sound

Of thunder, rolled around me, and I heard

The maids who were my fellows turn and flee

With shrieks and cries for me.

But I, I knew

No terror while the god o'ershadowed me,

Hiding my life in his, nor when I wept

My flowers all withered, and my blood ran slow

Within a wintry land. Some voice there was

Which said, 'Fear not. Thou shalt return and see

Thy mother again, only a little while

Fate wills that thou shouldst tarry, and become

Queen of another world. Thou seest that all

Thy flowers are faded. They shall live again

On earth, as thou shalt, as thou livest now

The Life of Death—for what is Death but Life

Suspended as in sleep? The changeless rule

Where life was constant, and the sun o'erhead,

Blazed forth for ever, changes and is hidden

Awhile. This region which thou seest, where all

The trees are lifeless, and the flowers are dead,

Is but the self-same earth on which erewhile

Thou sportedst fancy free.'

So, without fear

I wandered on this bare land, seeing far

Upon the sky the peaks of my own hills

And crests of my own woods. Till, when I grew

Hungered, ere yet another form I saw;

Along the silent alleys journeying,

And leafless groves; a fair and mystic tree

Rose like a heart in shape, and 'mid its leaves

One golden mystic fruit with a fair seed

Hid in it. This, with childish hand, I took

And ate, and straight I knew the tree was Life,

And the fruit Death, and the hid seed was Love.

Ah, sweet strange fruit! the which if any taste

They may no longer keep their lives of old

Or their own selves unchanged, but some weird change

And subtle alchemy comes which can transmute

The blood, and mould the spirits of gods and men

In some new magical form. Not as before,

Our life comes to us, though the passion cools,

No, never as before. My mother came

Too late to seek me. She had power to raise

A life from out Death's grasp, but from the arms

Of Love she might not take me, nor undo

Love's past for all her strength. She came and sought

With fires her daughter over land and sea,

Beyond the paths of all the setting stars,

In vain, and over all the earth in vain,

Seeking whom love disguised. Then on all lands

She cast the spell of barrenness; the wheat

Was blighted in the ear, the purple grapes

Blushed no more on the vines, and all the gods

Were sorrowful, seeing the load of ill

My rape had laid on men. Last, Zeus himself,

Pitying the evil that was done, sent forth

His messenger beyond the western rim

To fetch me back to earth.

But not the same

He found me who had eaten of Love's seed,

But changed into another; nor could his power

Prevail to keep me wholly on the earth,

Or make me maid again. The wintry life

Is homelier often than the summer blaze

Of happiness unclouded; so, when Spring

Comes on the world, I, coming, cross with thee,

Year after year, the cruel icy stream;

And leave this anxious sceptre and the shades

Of those in hell, or those for whom, though blest,

No Spring comes, till the last great Spring which brings

New heavens and new earth; and lay my head

Upon my mother's bosom, and grow young,

And am a girl again.

A soft air breathes

Across the stream and fills these barren fields

With the sweet odours of the earth. I know

Again the perfume of the violets

Which bloom on Ætna's side. Soon we shall pass

Together to our home, while round our feet

The crocus flames like gold, the wind-flowers white

Wave their soft petals on the breeze, and all

The choir of flowers lift up their silent song

To the unclouded heavens. Thou, fair boy,

Shalt lie within thy love's white arms again,

And I within my mother's. Sweet is Love

In ceasing and renewal; nay, in these

It lives and has its being. Thou couldst not keep

Thy youth as now, if always on the breast

Of love too late a lingerer thou hadst known

Possession sate thee. Nor might I have kept

My mother's heart, if I had lived to ripe

And wither on the stalk. Time calls and Change

Commands both men and gods, and speeds us on

We know not whither; but the old earth smiles

Spring after Spring, and the seed bursts again

Out of its prison mould, and the dead lives

Renew themselves, and rise aloft and soar

And are transformed, clothing themselves with change

Till the last change be done."

As thus she spake,

I saw a gleam of light flash from the eyes

Of all the listening shades, and a great joy

Thrill through the realms of Death.

And then again

A youthful shade I saw, a comely boy,

With lip and cheek just touched with manly down,

And strong limbs wearing Spring; in mien and garb

A youthful chieftain, with a perfect face

Of fresh young beauty, clustered curls divine,

And chiselled features like a sculptured god,

But warm and breathing life; only the eyes,

The fair large eyes, were full of dreaming thought,

And seemed to gaze beyond the world of sight,

On a hid world of beauty. Him I stayed,

Accosting with soft words of courtesy;

And, on a bank of scentless flowers reclined,

He answered thus:

"Not for the garish sun

I long, nor for the splendours of high noon

In this dim land I languish; for of yore

Full often, when the swift chase swept along

Through the brisk morn, or when my comrades called

To wrestling, or the foot-race, or to cleave

The sunny stream, I loved to walk apart,

Self-centred, sole; and when the laughing girls

To some fair stripling's oaten melody

Made ready for the dance, I heeded not;

Nor when to the loud trumpet's blast and blare

My peers rode forth to battle. For, one eve,

In Latmos, after a long day in June,

I stayed to rest me on a sylvan hill,

Where often youth and maid were wont to meet

Towards moonrise; and deep slumber fell on me

Musing on Love, just as the ruddy orb

Rose on the lucid night, set in a frame

Of blooming myrtle and sharp tremulous plane;

Deep slumber fell, and loosed my limbs in rest.

Then, as the full orb poised upon the peak,

There came a lovely vision of a maid,

Who seemed to step as from a golden car

Out of the low-hung moon. No mortal form,

Such as ofttimes of yore I knew and clasped

At twilight 'mid the vines at the mad feast

Of Dionysus, or the fair maids cold

Who streamed in white processions to the shrine

Of the chaste Virgin Goddess; but a shape

Richer and yet more pure. No thinnest veil

Obscured her; but each exquisite limb revealed,

Gleamed like a golden statue subtly wrought

By a great sculptor on the architrave

Of some high temple-front—only in her

The form was soft and warm, and charged with life,

And breathing. As I seemed to gaze on her,

Nearer she drew and gazed; and as I lay

Supine, as in a spell, the radiance stooped

And kissed me on the lips, a chaste, sweet kiss,

Which drew my spirit with it. So I slept

Each night upon the hill, until the dawn

Came in her silver chariot from the East,

And chased my Love away. But ever thus

Dissolved in love as in a heaven-sent dream,

Whenever the bright circle of the moon

Climbed from the hills, whether in leafy June

Or harvest-tide, or when they leapt and pressed

Red-thighed the spouting must, I walked apart

From all, and took no thought for mortal maid,

Nor nimble joys of youth; but night by night

I stole, when all were sleeping, to the hill,

And slumbered and was blest; until I grew

Possest by love so deep, I seemed to live

In slumber only, while the waking day

Showed faint as any vision.

So I turned

Paler and paler with the months, and climbed

The steep with laboured steps and difficult breath,

But still I climbed. Ay, though the wintry frost

Chained fast the streams and whitened all the fields,

I sought my mistress through the leafless groves,

And slumbered and was happy, till the dawn

Returning found me stretched out, cold and stark,

With life's fire nigh burnt out. Till one clear night,

When the birds shivered in the pines, and all

The inner heavens stood open, lo! she came,

Brighter and kinder still, and kissed my eyes

And half-closed lips, and drew my soul through them,

And in one precious ecstasy dissolved

My life. And thenceforth, ever on the hill

I lie unseen of man; a cold, white form,

Still young, through all the ages; but my soul,

Clothed in this thin presentment of old days,

Walks this dim land, where never moonrise comes,

Nor day-break, but a twilight waiting-time,

No more; and, ah! how weary! Yet I judge

My lot a higher far than his who spends

His youth on swift hot pleasure, quickly past;

Or theirs, my equals', who through long calm years

Grew sleek in dull content of wedded lives

And fair-grown offspring. Many a day for them,

While I was wandering here, and my bones bleached

Upon the rocks, the sweet autumnal sun

Beamed, and the grapes grew purple. Many a day

They heaped up gold, they knelt at festivals,

They waxed in high report and fame of men,

They gave their girls in marriage; while for me

Upon the untrodden peaks, the cold, grey morn,

The snows, the rains, the winds, the untempered blaze,

Beat year by year, until I turned to stone,

And the great eagles shrieked at me, and wheeled

Affrighted. Yet I judge it better indeed

To seek in life, as now I know I sought,

Some fair impossible Love, which slays our life,

Some fair ideal raised too high for man;

And failing to grow mad, and cease to be,

Than to decline, as they do who have found

Broad-paunched content and weal and happiness:

And so an end. For one day, as I know,

The high aim unfulfilled fulfils itself;

The deep, unsatisfied thirst is satisfied;

And through this twilight, broken suddenly,

The inmost heaven, the lucent stars of God,

The Moon of Love, the Sun of Life; and I,

I who pine here—I on the Latmian hill

Shall soar aloft and find them."

With the word,

There beamed a shaft of dawn athwart the skies,

And straight the sentinel thrush within the yew

Sang out reveillé to the hosts of day,

Soldierly; and the pomp and rush of life

Began once more, and left me there alone

Amid the awaking world.

Nay, not alone.

One fair shade lingered in the fuller day,

The last to come, when now my dream had grown

Half mixed with waking thoughts, as grows a dream

In summer mornings when the broader light

Dazzles the sleeper's eyes; and is most fair

Of all and best remembered, and becomes

Part of our waking life, when older dreams

Grow fainter, and are fled. So this remained

The fairest of the visions that I knew,

Most precious and most dear.

The increasing light

Shone through her, finer than the thinnest shade,

And yet most full of beauty; golden wings,

From her fair shoulders springing, seemed to lift

Her stainless feet from the cold ground and snatch

Their wearer into air; and in her eyes

Was such fair glance as comes from virgin love,

Long chastened and triumphant. Every trace

Of earth had vanished from her, and she showed

As one who walks a saint already in life,

Virgin or mother. Immortality

Breathed from those radiant eyes which yet had passed

Between the gates of death. I seemed to hear

The Soul of mortals speaking:

"I was born

Of a great race and mighty, and was grown

Fair, as they said, and good, and kept a life

Pure from all stain of passion. Love I knew not,

Who was absorbed in duty; and the Mother

Of gods and men, seeing my life more calm

Than human, hating my impassive heart,

Sent down her perfect son in wrath to earth,

And bade him break me.

But when Eros came,

It did repent him of the task, for Love

Is kin to Duty.

And within my life

I knew miraculous change, and a soft flame

Wherefrom the snows of Duty flushed to rose,

And the chill icy flow of mind was turned

To a warm stream of passion. Long I lived

Not knowing what had been, nor recognized

A Presence walking with me through my life,

As if by night, his face and form concealed:

A gracious voice alone, which none but I

Might hear, sustained me, and its name was Love.

Not as the earthly loves which throb and flush

Round earthly shrines was mine, but a pure spirit,

Lovelier than all embodied love, more pure

And wonderful; but never on his eyes

I looked, which still were hidden, and I knew not

The fashion of his nature; for by night,

When visual eyes are blind, but the soul sees,

Came he, and bade me seek not to enquire

Or whence he came or wherefore. Nor knew I

His name. And always ere the coming day,

As if he were the Sun-god, lingering

With some too well-loved maiden, he would rise

And vanish until eve. But all my being

Thrilled with my fair unearthly visitant

To higher duty and more glorious meed

Of action than of old, for it was Love

That came to me, who might not know his name.

Thus, ever rapt by dreams divine, I knew

The scorn that comes from weaker souls, which miss,

Being too low of nature, the great joy

Revealed to others higher; nay, my sisters,

Who being of one blood with me, made choice

To tread the lower ways of daily life,

Grew jealous of me, bidding me take heed

Lest haply 'twas some monstrous fiend I loved,

Such as in fable ofttimes sought and won

The innocent hearts of maids. Long time I held

My love too dear for doubt, who was so sweet

And lovable. But at the last the sneers,

The mystery which hid him, the swift flight

Before the coming dawn, the shape concealed,

The curious girlish heart, these worked on me

With an unsatisfied thirst. Not his own words:

'Dear, I am with thee only while I keep

My visage hidden; and if thou once shouldst see

My face, I must forsake thee: the high gods

Link Love with Faith, and he withdraws himself

From the full gaze of Knowledge'—not even these

Could cure me of my longing, or the fear

Those mocking voices worked; who fain would learn

The worst that might befall.

And one sad night,

Just as the day leapt from the hills and brought

The hour when he should go: with tremulous hands,

Lighting my midnight lamp in fear, I stood

Long time uncertain, and at length turned round

And gazed upon my love. He lay asleep,

And oh, how fair he was! The flickering light

Fell on the fairest of the gods, stretched out

In happy slumber. Looking on his locks

Of gold, and faultless face and smile, and limbs

Made perfect, a great joy and trembling took me

Who was most blest of women, and in awe

And fear I stooped to kiss him. One warm drop—

From the full lamp within my trembling hand,

Or a glad tear from my too happy eyes,

Fell on his shoulder.

Then the god unclosed

His lovely eyes, and with great pity spake:

'Farewell! There is no Love except with Faith,

And thine is dead! Farewell! I come no more.'

And straightway from the hills the full red sun

Leapt up, and as I clasped my love again,

The lovely vision faded from his place,

And came no more.

Then I, with breaking heart,

Knowing my life laid waste by my own hand,

Went forth and would have sought to hide my life

Within the stream of Death; but Death came not

To aid me who not yet was meet for Death.

Then finding that Love came not back to me,

I thought that in the temples of the gods

Haply he dwelt, and so from fane to fane

I wandered over earth, and knelt in each,

Enquiring for my Love; and I would ask

The priests and worshippers, 'Is this Love's shrine?

Sirs, have you seen the god?' But never at all

I found him. For some answered, 'This is called

The Shrine of Knowledge;' and another, 'This,

The Shrine of Beauty;' and another, 'Strength;'

And yet another, 'Youth.' And I would kneel

And say a prayer to my Love, and rise

And seek another. Long, o'er land and sea,

I wandered, till I was not young or fair,

Grown wretched, seeking my lost Love; and last,

Came to the smiling, hateful shrine where ruled

The queen of earthly love and all delight,

Cypris, but knelt not there, but asked of one

Who seemed her priest, if Eros dwelt with her.

Then to the subtle-smiling goddess' self

They led me. She with hatred in her eyes:

'What! thou to seek for Love, who art grown thin

And pale with watching! He is not for thee.

What Love is left for such? Thou didst despise

Love, and didst dwell apart. Love sits within

The young maid's eyes, making them beautiful.

Love is for youth, and joy, and happiness;

And not for withered lives. Ho! bind her fast.

Take her and set her to the vilest tasks,

And bend her pride by solitude and tears,

Who will not kneel to me, but dares to seek

A disembodied love. My son has gone

And left thee for thy fault, and thou shalt know

The misery of my thralls.'

Then in her house

They bound me to hard tasks and vile, and kept

My life from honour, chained among her slaves

And lowest ministers, taking despite

And injury for food, and set to bind

Their wounds whom she had tortured, and to feed

The pitiful lives which in her prisons pent

Languished in hopeless pain. There is no sight

Of suffering but I saw it, and was set

To succour it; and all my woman's heart

Was torn with the ineffable miseries

Which love and life have worked; and dwelt long time

In groanings and in tears.

And then, oh joy!

Oh miracle! once more at length again

I felt Love's arms around me, and the kiss

Of Love upon my lips, and in the chill

Of deepest prison cells, 'mid vilest tasks,

The glow of his sweet breath, and the warm touch

Of his invisible hand, and his sweet voice,

Ay, sweeter than of old, and tenderer,

Speak to me, pierce me, hold me, fold me round

With arms Divine, till all the sordid earth

Was hued like heaven, and Life's dull prison-house

Turned to a golden palace, and those low tasks

Grew to be higher works and nobler gains

Than any gains of knowledge, and at last

He whispered softly, 'Dear, unclose thine eyes.

Thou mayst look on me now. I go no more,

But am thine own for ever.'

Then with wings

Of gold we soared, I looking in his eyes,

Over yon dark broad river, and this dim land,

Scarce for an instant staying till we reached

The inmost courts of heaven.

But sometimes still

I come here for a little, and speak a word

Of peace to those who wait. The slow wheel turns,

The cycles round themselves and grow complete,

The world's year whitens to the harvest-tide,

And one word only am I sent to say

To those dear souls, who wait here, or who now

Breathe earthly air—one universal word

To all things living, and the word is 'Love.'"

Then soared she visibly before my gaze,

And the heavens took her, and I knew my eyes

Had seen the soul of man, the deathless soul,

Defeated, struggling, purified, and blest.

Then all the choir of happy waiting shades,

Heroes and queens, fair maidens and brave youths,

Swept by me, rhythmic, slow, as if they trod

Some unheard measure, passing where I stood

In fair procession, each with a faint smile

Upon the lip, signing "Farewell, oh shade!

It shall be well with thee, as 'tis with us,

If only thou art true. The world of Life,

The world of Death, are but opposing sides

Of one great orb, and the Light shines on both.

Oh, happy happy shade! Farewell! Farewell!"

And so they passed away.

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK III.

OLYMPUS.

But I, my gaze

Following the soaring soul which now was lost

In the awakening skies, floated with her,

As in a trance, beyond the golden gates

Which separate Earth from Heaven; and to my thought

Gladdened by that broad effluence of light,

This old earth seemed transfigured, and the fields,

So dim and bare, grew green and clothed themselves

With lustrous hues. A fine ethereal air

Played round me as I mused, and filled the soul

With an ineffable content. What need

Of words to tell of things unreached by words?

Or seek to engrave upon the treacherous thought

The fair and fugitive fancies of a dream,

Which vanish ere we fix them?

But methinks

He knows the scene, who knows the one fair day,

One only and no more, which year by year

In springtime comes, when lingering winter flies,

And lo! the trees blossom in white and pink.

And golden clusters, and the glades are filled

With delicate primrose and deep odorous beds

Of violets, and on the tufted meads

With kingcups starred, and cowslip bells, and blue

Sweet hyacinths, and frail anemones,

The broad West wind breathes softly, and the air

Is tremulous with the lark, and thro' the woods

The soft full-throated thrushes all day long

Flood the green dells with joy, and thro' the dry

Brown fields the sower strides, sowing his seed,

And all is life and song. Or he who first,

Whether in fair free boyhood, when the world

Is his to choose, or when his fuller life

Beats to another life, or afterwards,

Keeping his youth within his children's eyes,

Looks on the snow-clad everlasting hills,

And marks the sunset smite them, and is glad

Of the beautiful fair world.

A springtide land

It seemed, where East winds came not. Sweetest song

Was everywhere, by glade or sunny plain;

And thro' the golden valleys winding streams

Rippled in glancing silver, and above,

The blue hills rose, and over all a peak,

White, awful, with a constant fleece of cloud

Veiling its summit, towered. Unfailing Day

Lighted it, for no turn of dawn and eve

Came there, nor changing seasons, but a broad

Fixed joy of Being, undisturbed by Time.

There, in a happy glade shut in by groves

Of laurel and sweet myrtle, on a green

And flower-lit lawn, I seemed to see the ghosts

Of the old gods. Upon the gentle slope

Of a fair hill, a joyous company,

The Immortals lay. Hard by, a murmurous stream

Fell through the flowers; below them, space on space,

Laughed the immeasurable plains; beyond,

The mystic mountain soared. Height after height

Of bare rock ledges left the climbing pines,

And reared their giddy, shining terraces

Into the ethereal air. Above, the snows

Of the white summit cleft the fleece of cloud

Which always clothed it round.

Ah, fail-and sweet,

Yet with a ghostly fairness, fine and thin,

Those godlike Presences. Not dreams indeed,

But something dream-like, were they. Blessed Shades

Heroic and Divine, as when, in days

When Man was young, and Time, the vivid thought

Translated into Form the unattained

Impossible Beauty of men's dreams, and fixed

The Loveliness in marble.

As with awe

Following my spotless guide, I stood apart,

Not daring to draw near; a shining form

Rose from the throng, and floated, light as air,

To where I trembled. And I knew the face

And form of Artemis, the fair, the pure,

The undefiled. A crescent silvery moon

Shone thro' her locks, and by her side she bore

A quiver of golden darts. At sight of whom

I felt a sudden chill, like his who once

Looked upon her and died; yet could not fear,

Seeing how fair she was. Her sweet voice rang

Clear as a bird's:

"Mortal, what fate hath brought

Thee hither, uncleansed by death? How canst thou breathe

Immortal air, being mortal? Yet fear not,

Since thou art come. For we too are of earth

Whom here thou seest: there were not a heaven

Were there no earth, nor gods, had men not been,

But each the complement of each and grown

The other's creature, is and has its being,

A double essence, Human and Divine.

So that the God is hidden in the man,

And something Human bounds and forms the God;

Which else had shown too great and undefined

For mortal sight, and having no human eye

To see it, were unknown. But we who bore

Sway of old time, we were but attributes

[3]Of the great God who is all Things that be—

The Pillar of the Earth and starry Sky,

The Depth of the great Deep; the Sun, the Moon,

The Word which Makes; the All-compelling Love—

For all Things lie within His Infinite Form."

Even as she spake, a throng of heavenly forms

Floated around me, filling all my soul

With fair unearthly beauty, and the air

With such ambrosial perfume as is born.

When morning bursts upon a tropic sea,

From boundless wastes of flowers; and as I knelt

In rapture, lo! the same clear voice again

From out the throng of gods:

"Those whom thou seest

Were even as I, embodiments of Him

Who is the Centre of all Life: myself

The Maiden-Queen of Purity; and Strength,

Divine when unabused; Love too, the Spring

And Cause of Things; and Knowledge, which lays bare

Their secret; and calm Duty, Queen of all,

And Motherhood in one; and Youth, which bears,

Beauty of Form and Life and Light, and breathes

The breath of Inspiration; and the Soul,

The particle of God, sent down to man,

Which doth in turn reveal the world and God.

Wherefore it is men called on Artemis,

The refuge of young souls; for still in age

They keep some dim reflection uneffaced

Of a Diviner Purity than comes

To the spring days of youth, when all the world

Smiles, and the rapid blood thro' the young veins

Courses, and all is glad; yet knowing too

That innocence is young—before the soil

And smirch of sadder knowledge, settling on it,

Sully its primal whiteness. So they knelt

At my white shrines, the eager vigorous youths,

To whom life's road showed like a dewy field

In early summer dawns, when to the sound

Of youth's clear voice, and to the cheerful rush

Of the tumultuous feet and clamorous tongues

Careering onwards, fair and dappled fawns,

Strange birds with jewelled plumes, fierce spotted pards,

Rise in the joyous chase, to be caught and bound

By the young conqueror; nor yet the charm

Of sensual ease allures. And they knelt too,

The pure sweet maidens fair and fancy-free,

Whose innocent virgin hearts shrank from the touch

Of passion as from wrong—sweet moonlit lives

Which fade, and pale, and vanish, in the glare

Of Love's hot noontide: these came robed in white,

With holy hymns and soaring liturgies:

And so men fabled me, a huntress now,

Borne thro' the flying woodlands, fair and free;

And now the pale cold Moon, Light without warmth,

Zeal without touch of passion, heavenly love

For human, and the altar for the home.

But oh, how sweet it was to take the love

And awe of my young worshippers; to watch

The pure young gaze and hear the pure young voice

Mount in the hymn, or see the gay troop come

With the first dawn of day, brushing the dew

From the unpolluted fields, and wake to song

The slumbering birds; strong in their innocence!

I did not envy any goddess of all

The Olympian company her votaries!

Ah, happy days of old which now are gone!

A memory and a dream! for now on earth

I rule no longer o'er young willing hearts

In voluntary fealty, which should cease

When Love, with fiery accents calling, woke

The slumbering soul; as now it should for those

Who kneel before the purer, sadder shrine

Which has replaced my own. But ah! too oft,

Not always, but too often, shut from life

Within pale life-long cloisters and the bars

Of deadly convent prisons, year by year,

Age after age, the white souls fade and pine

Which simulate the joyous service free

Of those young worshippers. I would that I

Might loose the captives' chain; or Herakles,

Who was a mortal once."

But he who stood

Colossal at my side:

"I toil no more

On earth, nor wield again the mighty strength

Which Zeus once gave me for the cure of ill.

I have run my race; I have done my work; I rest

For ever from the toilsome days I gave

To the suffering race of men. And yet, indeed,

Methinks they suffer still. Tyrannous growths

And monstrous vex them still. Pestilence lurks

And sweeps them down. Treacheries come, and wars,

And slay them still. Vaulting ambition leaps

And falls in bloodshed still. But I am here

At rest, and no man kneels to me, or keeps

Reverence for strength mighty yet unabused—

Strength which is Power, God's choicest gift, more rare

And precious than all Beauty, or the charm

Of Wisdom, since it is the instrument

Thro' which all Nature works. For now the earth

Is full of meekness, and a new God rules,

Teaching strange precepts of humility

And mercy and forgiveness. Yet I trow

There is no lack of bloodshed and deceit

And groanings, and the tyrant works his wrong

Even as of old; but now there is no arm

Like mine, made strong by Zeus, to beat him down,

Him and his wrong together. Yet I know

I am not all discrowned. The strong brave souls,

The manly tender hearts, whom tale of wrong

To woman or child, to all weak things and small,

Fires like a blow; calling the righteous flush

Of anger to the brow; knotting the cords

Of muscle on the arm; with one desire

To hew the spoiler down, and make an end,

And go their way for others; making light

Of toil and pain, and too laborious days,

And peril; beat unchanged, albeit they serve

A Lord of meekness. For the world still needs

Its champion as of old, and finds him still.

Not always now with mighty sinews and thews

Like mine, though still these profit, but keen brain

And voice to move men's souls to love the right

And hate the wrong; even tho' the bodily form

Be weak, of giant strength, strong to assail

The hydra heads of Evil, and to slay

The monsters that now waste them: Ignorance,

Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of Man,

Disguised as love of God. These there are still

With task as hard as mine. For what was it

To strive with bodily ills, and do great deeds

Of daring and of strength, and bear the crown,

To his who wages lifelong, doubtful strife

With an impalpable foe; conquering indeed,

But, ere he hears the pæan or sees the pomp

Laid low in the arms of Death? And tho' men cease

To worship at my shrine, yet not the less

I hold, it is the toils I knew, the pains

I bore for others, which have kept the heart

Of manhood undefiled, and nerved the arm

Of sacrifice, and made the martyr strong

To do and bear, and taught the race of men

How godlike 'tis to suffer thro' life, and die

At last for others' good!"

The strong god ceased,

And stood a little, musing; blest indeed,

But bearing, as it seemed, some faintest trace

Of earthly struggle still, not the gay ease

Of the elder heaven-born gods.

And then there came

Beauty and Joy in one, bearing the form

Of woman. How to reach with halting words

That infinite Perfection? All have known

The breathing marbles which the Greek has left

Who saw her near, and strove to fix her charms,

And exquisitely failed; or those fair forms

The Painter offered at a later shrine,

And failed. Nay, what are words?—he knows it well

Who loves, or who has loved.

She with a smile

Playing around her rosy lips; as plays

The sunbeam on a stream:

"Shall I complain

Men kneel to me no longer, taking to them

Some graver, sterner worship; grown too wise

For fleeting joys of Love? Nay, Love is Youth,

And still the world is young. Still shall I reign

Within the hearts of men, while Time shall last

And Life renews itself. All Life that is,

From the weak things of earth or sea or air,

Which creep or float for an hour; to godlike man—

All know me and are mine. I am the source

And mother of all, both gods and men; the spring

Of Force and Joy, which, penetrating all

Within the hidden depths of the Unknown,

Sets the blind seed of Being, and from the bond

Of incomplete and dual Essences

Evolves the harmony which is Life. The world

Were dead without my rays, who am the Light

Which vivifies the world. Nay, but for me,

The universal order which attracts

Sphere unto sphere, and keeps them in their paths

For ever, were no more. All things are bound

Within my golden chain, whose name is Love.

And if there be, indeed, some sterner souls

Or sunk in too much learning, or hedged round

By care and greed, or haply too much rapt

By pale ascetic fervours, to delight

To kneel to me, the universal voice

Scorns them as those who, missing willingly

The good that Nature offers, dwell unblest

Who might be blest, but would not. Every voice

Of bard in every age has hymned me. All

The breathing marbles, all the heavenly hues

Of painting, praise me. Even the loveless shades

Of dim monastic cloisters show some gleam,

Tho' faint, of me. Amid the busy throngs

Of cities reign I, and o'er lonely plains,

Beyond the ice-fields of the frozen North,

And the warm waves of undiscovered seas.

For I was born out of the sparkling foam

Which lights the crest of the blue mystic wave,

Stirred by the wandering breath of Life's pure dawn

From a young soul's calm depths. There, without voice,

Stretched on the breathing curve of a young breast,

Fluttering a little, fresh from the great deep

Of life, and creamy as the opening rose,

Naked I lie, naked yet unashamed,

While youth's warm tide steals round me with a kiss,

And floods each limb with fairness. Shame I know not—

Shame is for wrong, and not for innocence—

The veil which Error grasps to hide itself

From the awful Eye. But I, I lie unveiled

And unashamed—the livelong day I lie,

The warm wave murmuring to me; and, all night,

Hidden in the moonlit caves of happy Sleep,

I dream until the morning and am glad.

Why should I seek to clothe myself, and hide

The treasure of my Beauty? Shame may wait

On those for whom 'twas given. The sties of sense

Are none of mine; the brutish, loveless wrong,

The venal charm, the simulated flush

Of fleshly passion, they are none of mine,

Only corruptions of me. Yet I know

The counterfeit the stronger, since gross souls

And brutish sway the earth; and yet I hold

That sense itself is sacred, and I deem

'Twere better to grow soft and sink in sense

Than gloat o'er blood and wrong.

My kingdom is

Over infinite grades of being. All breathing things,

From the least crawling insect to the brute,

From brute to man, confess me. Yet in man

I find my worthiest worship. Where man is,

A youth and a maid, a youth and a maid, nought else

Is wanting for my temple. Every clime

Kneels to me—the long breaker swells and falls

Under the palms, mixed with the merry noise

Of savage bridals, and the straight brown limbs

Know me, and over all the endless plains

I reign, and by the tents on the hot sand

And sea-girt isles am queen, and on the side

Of silent mountains, where the white cots gleam

Upon the green hill pastures, and no sound

But the thunder of the avalanche is borne

To the listening rocks around; and in fair lands

Where all is peace; where thro' the happy hush

Of tranquil summer evenings, 'mid the corn,

Or thro' cool arches of the gadding vines,

The lovers stray together hand in hand,

Hymning my praise; and by the stately streets

Of echoing cities—over all the earth,

Palace and cot, mountain and plain and sea,

The burning South, the icy North, the old

And immemorial East, the unbounded West,

No new god comes to spoil me utterly—

All worship and are mine!"

With a sweet smile

Upon her rosy mouth, the goddess ceased;

And when she spake no more, the silence weighed

As heavy on my soul as when it takes

Some gracious melody, and leaves the ear

Unsatisfied and longing, till the fount

Of sweetness springs again.

But while I stood

Expectant, lo! a fair pale form drew near

With front severe, and wide blue eyes which bore

Mild wisdom in their gaze. Great purity

Shone from her—not the young-eyed innocence

Of her whom first I saw, but that which comes

From wider knowledge, which restrains the tide

Of passionate youth, and leads the musing soul

By the calm deeps of Wisdom. And I knew

My eyes had seen the fair, the virgin Queen,

Who once within her shining Parthenon

Beheld the sages kneel.

She with clear voice

And coldly sweet, yet with a softness too,

As doth befit a virgin:

"She does right

To boast her sway, my sister, seeing indeed

That all things are as by a double law,

And from a double root the tree of Life

Springs up to the face of heaven. Body and Soul,

Matter and Spirit, lower joys of Sense

And higher joys of Thought, I know that both

Build up the shrine of Being. The brute sense

Leaves man a brute; but, winged with soaring thought

Mounts to high heaven. The unembodied spirit,

Dwelling alone, unmated, void of sense,

Is impotent. And yet I hold there is,

Far off, but not too far for mortal reach,

A calmer height, where, nearer to the stars,

Thought sits alone and gazes with rapt gaze,

A large-eyed maiden in a robe of white.

Who brings the light of Knowledge down, and draws

To her pontifical eyes a bridge of gold,

Which spans from earth to heaven.

For what were life,

If things of sense were all, for those large souls

And high, which grudging Nature has shut fast

Within unlovely forms, or those from whom

The circuit of the rapid gliding years

Steals the brief gift of beauty? Shall we hold,

With idle singers, all the treasure of hope

Is lost with youth—swift-fleeting, treacherous youth,

Which fades and flies before the ripening brain

Crowns life with Wisdom's crown? Nay, even in youth,

Is it not more to walk upon the heights

Alone—the cold free heights—and mark the vale

Lie breathless in the glare, or hidden and blurred

By cloud and storm; or pestilence and war

Creep on with blood and death; while the soul dwells

Apart upon the peaks, outfronts the sun

As the eagle does, and takes the coming dawn

While all the vale is dark, and knows the springs

Of tiny rivulets hurrying from the snows,

Which soon shall swell to vast resistless floods,

And feed the Oceans which divide the World?

Oh, ecstasy! oh, wonder! oh, delight!

Which neither the slow-withering wear of Time,

That takes all else—the smooth and rounded cheek

Of youth; the lightsome step; the warm young heart

Which beats for love or friend; the treasure of hope

Immeasurable; the quick-coursing blood

Which makes it joy to be,—ay, takes them all

And leaves us naught—nor yet satiety

Born of too full possession, takes or mars!

Oh, fair delight of learning! which grows great

And stronger and more keen, for slower limbs,

And dimmer eyes and loneliness, and loss

Of lower good—wealth, friendship, ay, and Love—

When the swift soul, turning its weary gaze

From the old vanished joys, projects itself

Into the void and floats in empty space,

Striving to reach the mystic source of Things,

The secrets of the earth and sea and air,

The Law that holds the process of the suns,

The awful depths of Mind and Thought; the prime

Unfathomable mystery of God!

Is there, then, any who holds my worship cold

And lifeless? Nay, but 'tis the light which cheers

The waning life! Love thou thy love, brave youth!

Cleave to thy love, fair maid! it is the Law

Which dominates the world, that bids ye use

Your nature; but, when now the fuller tide

Slackens a little, turn your calmer eyes

To the fair page of Knowledge. It is power

I give, and power is precious. It is strength

To live four-square, careless of outward shows,

And self-sufficing. It is clearer sight

To know the rule of life, the Eternal scheme;

And, knowing it, to do and not to err,

And, doing, to be blest."

The calm voice soared

Higher and higher to the close; the cold

Clear accents, fired as by a hidden fire,

Glowed into life and tenderness, and throbbed

As with some spiritual ecstasy

Sweeter than that of Love.

But as they died,

I heard an ampler voice; and looking, marked

A fair and gracious form. She seemed a Queen

Who ruled o'er gods and men; the majesty

Of perfect womanhood. No opening bud

Of beauty, but the full consummate flower

Was hers; and from her mild large eyes looked forth

Gentle command, and motherhood, and home,

And pure affection. Awe and reverence

O'erspread me, as I knew my eyes had looked

On sovereign Heré, mother of the gods.

She, with clear, rounded utterance, sweet and calm

"I know Love's fruit is good and fair to see

And taste, if any gain it, and I know

How brief Life's Passion-tide, which when it ends

May change to thirst for Knowledge, and I know

How fair the realm of Mind, wherein the soul

Thirsting to know, wings its impetuous way

Beyond the bounds of Thought; and yet I hold

There is a higher bliss than these, which fits

A mortal life, compact of Body and Soul,

And therefore double-natured—a calm path

Which lies before the feet, thro' common ways

And undistinguished crowds of toiling men,

And yet is hard to tread, tho' seeming smooth,

And yet, tho' level, earns a worthier crown.

For Knowledge is a steep which few may climb,

While Duty is a path which all may tread.

And if the Soul of Life and Thought be this,

How best to speed the mighty scheme, which still

Fares onward day by day—the Life of the World,

Which is the sum of petty lives, that live

And die so this may live—how then shall each

Of that great multitude of faithful souls

Who walk not on the heights, fulfil himself,

But by the duteous Life which looks not forth

Beyond its narrow sphere, and finds its work,

And works it out; content, this done, to fall

And perish, if Fate will, so the great Scheme

Goes onward?

Wherefore am I Queen in Heaven

And Earth, whose realm is Duty, bearing rule

More constant and more wide than those whose words

Thou heardest last. Mine are the striving souls

Of fathers toiling day by day obscure

And unrewarded, save by their own hearts,

Mid wranglings of the Forum or the mart;

Who long for joys of Thought, and yet must toil

Unmurmuring thro' dull lives from youth to age;

Who haply might have worn instead the crown

Of Honour and of Fame: mine the fair mothers

Who, for the love of children and of home,

When passion dies, expend their toilful years

In loving labour sweetened by the sense

Of Duty: mine the statesman who toils on

Thro' vigilant nights and days, guiding his State.

Yet finds no gratitude; and those white souls

Who give themselves for others all their years

In trivial tasks of Pity. The fine growths

Of Man and Time are mine, and spend themselves

For me and for the mystical End which lies

Beyond their gaze and mine, and yet is good,

Tho' hidden from men and gods.

For as the flower

Of the tiger-lily bright with varied hues

Is for a day, then fades and leaves behind

Fairness nor fruit, while the green tiny tuft

Swells to the purple of the clustering grape

Or golden waves of wheat; so lives of men

Which show most splendid; fade and are deceased

And leave no trace; while those, unmarked, unseen,

Which no man recks of, rear the stately tree

Of Knowledge, not for itself sought out, but found

In the dusty ways of life—a fairer growth

Than springs in cloistered shades; and from the sum

Of Duty, blooms sweeter and more divine

The fair ideal of the Race, than comes

From glittering gains of Learning.

Life, full life,

Full-flowered, full-fruited, reared from homely earth,

Rooted in duty, and thro' long calm years

Bearing its load of healthful energies;

Stretching its arms on all sides; fed with dews

Of cheerful sacrifice, and clouds of care,

And rain of useful tears; warmed by the sun

Of calm affection, till it breathes itself

In perfume to the heavens—this is the prize

I hold most dear, more precious than the fruit

Of Knowledge or of Love."

The goddess ceased

As dies some gracious harmony, the child

Of wedded themes which single and alone

Were discords, but united breathe a sound

Sweet as the sounds of heaven.

And then stood forth

The last of the gods I saw, the first in rank

And dignity and beauty, the young god

Who grows not old, the Light of Heaven and Earth,

The Worker from afar, who sends the fire

Of inspiration to the bard and bathes

The world in hues of heaven—the golden link

Between High God and Man.

With a sweet voice

Whose every note was sweetest melody—

The melody has fled, the words remain—

Apollo sang:

"I know how fair the face

Of Purity; I know the treasure of Strength;

I know the charm of Love, the calmer grace

Of Wisdom and of Duteous well-spent lives:

And yet there is a loftier height than these.

There is a Height higher than mortal thought;

There is a Love warmer than mortal love;

There is a Life which taketh not its hues

From Earth or earthly things; and so grows pure

And higher than the petty cares of men,

And is a blessed life and glorified.

Oh, white young souls, strain upward, upward still,

Even to the heavenly source of Purity!

Brave hearts, bear on and suffer! Strike for right,

Strong arms, and hew down wrong! The world hath need

Of all of you—the sensual wrongful world!

Hath need of you, and of thee too, fair Love.

Oh, lovers, cling together! the old world

Is full of Hate. Sweeten it; draw in one

Two separate chords of Life; and from the bond

Of twin souls lost in Harmony create

A Fair God dwelling with you—Love, the Lord!

Waft yourselves, yearning souls, upon the stars;

Sow yourselves on the wandering winds of space;

Watch patient all your days, if your eyes take

Some dim, cold ray of Knowledge. The dull world

Hath need of you—the purblind, slothful world!

Live on, brave lives, chained to the narrow round

Of Duty; live, expend yourselves, and make

The orb of Being wheel onward steadfastly

Upon its path—the Lord of Life alone

Knows to what goal of Good; work on, live on:

And yet there is a higher work than yours.

To have looked upon the face of the Unknown

And Perfect Beauty. To have heard the voice

Of Godhead in the winds and in the seas.

To have known Him in the circling of the suns,

And in the changeful fates and lives of men.

To be fulfilled with Godhead as a cup

Filled with a precious essence, till the hand

On marble or on canvas falling, leaves

Celestial traces, or from reed or string

Draws out faint echoes of the voice Divine

That bring God nearer to a faithless world.

Or, higher still and fairer and more blest,

To be His seer, His prophet; to be the voice

Of the Ineffable Word; to be the glass

Of the Ineffable Light, and bring them down

To bless the earth, set in a shrine of Song.

For Knowledge is a barren tree and bare,

Bereft of God, and Duty but a word,

And Strength but Tyranny, and Love, Desire,

And Purity a folly; and the Soul,

Which brings down God to Man, the Light to the world;

He is the Maker, and is blest, is blest!"

He ended, and I felt my soul grow faint

With too much sweetness.

In a mist of grace

They faded, that bright company, and seemed

To melt into each other and shape themselves

Into new forms, and those fair goddesses

Blent in a perfect woman—all the calm

High motherhood of Heré, the sweet smile

Of Cypris, fair Athené's earnest eyes,

And the young purity of Artemis,

Blent in a perfect woman; and in her arms,

Fused by some cosmic interlacing curves

Of Beauty into a new Innocence,

A child with eyes divine, a little child,

A little child—no more.

And those great gods

Of Power and Beauty left a heavenly form

Strong not to act, but suffer; fair and meek,

Not proud and eager; with soft eyes of grace,

Not bold with joyous youth; and for the fire

Of song, and for the happy careless life,

A sorrowful pilgrimage—changed, yet the same

Only Diviner far; and keeping still

The Life God-lighted and the sacrifice.

And when these faded wholly, at my side,

Tho' hidden before by those too-radiant forms,

I was aware once more of her, my guide

Psyche, who had not left me, floating near

On golden wings; and all the plains of heaven

Were left to us, me and my soul alone.

Then when my thought revived again, I said

Whispering, "But Zeus I saw not, the prime Source

And Sire of all the gods."

And she, bent low

With downcast eyes: "Nay. Thou hast seen of Him

All that thine eyes can bear, in those fair forms

Which are but parts of Him and are indeed

Attributes of the Substance which supports

The Universe of Things—the Soul of the World,

The Stream which flows Eternal, from no Source

Into no Sea, His Purity, His Strength,

His Love, His Knowledge, His unchanging rule

Of Duty, thou hast seen, only a part

And not the whole, being a finite mind

Too weak for infinite thought; nor, couldst thou see

All of Him visible to mortal sight,

Wouldst thou see all His essence, since the gods—

Glorified essences of Human mould,

Who are but Zeus made visible to men—

See Him not wholly, only some thin edge

And halo of His glory; nor know they

What vast and unsuspected Universes

Lie beyond thought, where yet He rules, like those

Vast Suns we cannot see, round which our Sun

Moves with his system, or those darker still

Which not even thus we know, but yet exist

Tho' no eye marks, nor thought itself, and lurk

In the awful Depths of Space; or that which is

Not orbed as yet, but indiscrete, confused,

Sown thro' the void—the faintest gleam of light

Which sets itself to Be. And yet is He

There too, and rules, none seeing. But sometimes

To this our heaven, which is so like to earth

But nearer to Him, for awhile He shows

Some gleam of His own brightness, and methinks

It cometh soon; but thou, if thou shouldst gaze,

Thy Life will rush to His—the tiny spark

Absorbed in that full blaze—and what there is

Of mortal fall from thee."

But I: "Oh, soul,

What holdeth Life more precious than to know

The Giver and to die?"

Then she: "Behold!

Look upward and adore."

And with the word,

Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure,

The floating cloud which clothed the hidden peak

Rose slow in awful silence, laying bare

Spire after rocky spire, snow after snow,

Whiter and yet more dreadful, till at last

It left the summit clear.

Then with a bound,

In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash of a thought,

I knew an Awful Effluence of Light,

Formless, Ineffable, Perfect, burst on me

And flood my being round, and take my life

Into itself. I saw my guide bent down

Prostrate, her wings before her face; and then

No more.

But when I woke from my long trance

Behold, it was no longer Tartarus,

Nor Hades, nor Olympus, but the bare

And unideal aspect of the fields

Which Spring not yet had kissed—the strange old Earth

So far more fabulous now than in the days

When Man was young, nor yet the mystery

Of Time and Fate transformed it. From the hills,

The long night fled at last, the unclouded sun,

The dear, fair sun, leapt upward swift, and smote

My sight with rays of gold, and pierced my brain

With too much light ere my entrancèd eyes

Could hide themselves.

And I was on the Earth

Dreaming the dream of Life again, as late

I dreamed the dream of Death.

Another day

Dawned on the race of men; another world;

New heavens, and new earth.

And as I went

Across the lightening fields, upon a bank

I saw a single snowdrop glance, and bring

Promise of Spring; and keeping my old thought

In the old fair Hellenic vesture dressed,

I felt myself a ghost, and seemed to be

Now fair Adonis hasting to the arms

Of his lost love—now sad Persephone

Restored to mother earth—or that high shade

Orpheus, who gave up heaven to save his love,

And is rewarded—or young Marsyas,

Who spent his youth and life for song, and yet

Was happy though in torture—or the fair

And dreaming youth I saw, who still awaits,

Hopeful, the unveiling heaven, when he shall see

His fair ideal love. The birds sang blithe;

There came a tinkling from the waking fold;

And on the hillside from the cot a girl

Tripped singing with her pitcher. All the sounds

And thoughts which still are beautiful—Youth, Song,

Dawn, Spring, Renewal—and my soul was glad

Of all the freshness, and I felt again

The youth and spring-tide of the world, and thought,

Which feigned those fair and gracious fantasies.

For every dawn that breaks brings a new world,

And every budding bosom a new life;

These fair tales, which we know so beautiful,

Show only finer than our lives to-day

Because their voice was clearer, and they found

A sacred bard to sing them. We are pent,

Who sing to-day, by all the garnered wealth

Of ages of past song. We have no more

The world to choose from, who, where'er we turn,

Tread through old thoughts and fair. Yet must we sing—

We have no choice; and if more hard the toil

In noon, when all is clear, than in the fresh

White mists of early morn, yet do we find

Achievement its own guerdon, and at last

The rounder song of manhood grows more sweet

Than the high note of youth.

For Age, long Age!

Nought else divides us from the fresh young days

Which men call ancient; seeing that we in turn

Shall one day be Time's ancients, and inspire

The wiser, higher race, which yet shall sing

Because to sing is human, and high thought

Grows rhythmic ere its close. Nought else there is

But that weird beat of Time, which doth disjoin

To-day from Hellas.

How should any hold

Those precious scriptures only old-world tales

Of strange impossible torments and false gods;

Of men and monsters in some brainless dream,

Coherent, yet unmeaning, linked together

By some false skein of song?

Nay! evermore,

All things and thoughts, both new and old, are writ

Upon the unchanging human heart and soul.

Has Passion still no prisoners? Pine there now

No lives which fierce Love, sinking into Lust,

Has drowned at last in tears and blood—plunged down

To the lowest depths of Hell? Have not strong Will

And high Ambition rotted into Greed

And Wrong, for any, as of old, and whelmed

The struggling soul in ruin? Hell lies near

Around us as does Heaven, and in the World,

Which is our Hades, still the chequered souls

Compact of good and ill—not all accurst

Nor altogether blest—a few brief years

Travel the little journey of their lives,

They know not to what end. The weary woman

Sunk deep in ease and sated with her life,

Much loved and yet unloving, pines to-day

As Helen; still the poet strives and sings.

And hears Apollo's music, and grows dumb,

And suffers, yet is happy; still the young

Fond dreamer seeks his high ideal love,

And finds her name is Death; still doth the fair

And innocent life, bound naked to the rock,

Redeem the race; still the gay tempter goes

And leaves his victim, stone; still doth pain bind

Men's souls in closer links of lovingness,

Than Death itself can sever; still the sight

Of too great beauty blinds us, and we lose

The sense of earthly splendours, gaining Heaven.

And still the skies are opened as of old

To the entrancèd gaze, ay, nearer far

And brighter than of yore; and Might is there,

And Infinite Purity is there, and high

Eternal Wisdom, and the calm clear face

Of Duty, and a higher, stronger Love

And Light in one, and a new, reverend Name,

Greater than any and combining all;

And over all, veiled with a veil of cloud,

God set far off, too bright for mortal eyes.

And always, always, with each soul that comes

And goes, comes that fair form which was my guide,

Hovering, with golden wings and eyes divine,

Above the bed of birth, the bed of death,

Still breathing heavenly airs of deathless love.

For while a youth is lost in soaring thought,

And while a maid grows sweet and beautiful,

And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth,

And while a child, and while a flower is born,

And while one wrong cries for redress and finds

A soul to answer, still the world is young!

THE END.

Footnotes:

[1] Euripides, "Hippolytus," lines 70-78.

[2] Virgil, "Æneid," vi. 740.

[3] See the Orphic Hymns.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BECCLES.

Transcriber's Notes:

This text is hemistichia, in that the end of one stanza

is vertically aligned with the start of the next stanza.

The original font, possibly Caslon Old Face is similar

to Goudy Old Style and the text in this file has been

aligned for reading using Goudy Old style or a similar font.

Inconsistent Hyphenation and text retained.

Pg 168: (Sovereign Here) changed to (Sovereign Heré)

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Table of Contents

THE POETICAL WORKS OF LEWIS MORRIS

THE EPIC OF HADES

THE EPIC OF HADES

LEWIS MORRIS

CONTENTS.

BOOK I. TARTARUS.

BOOK II. HADES.

BOOK III. OLYMPUS.

BOOK I. TARTARUS.

THE EPIC OF HADES.

BOOK II. HADES.

BOOK III. OLYMPUS.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE