The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas
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Title: The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas
Author: Robert Bridges
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Most recently updated: November 2, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BRIDGES, EXCLUDING THE EIGHT DRAMAS ***
POETICAL WORKS
OF
ROBERT BRIDGES
UNIFORM EDITION OF
ROBERT BRIDGES' POETICAL WORKS
_In Seven Volumes, Small Post 8vo, 6s. each._
_CONTENTS_
VOLUME I: Prometheus the Firegiver--Eros and Psyche--The Growth
of Love--Notes.
VOLUME II: Shorter Poems--New Poems--Notes.
VOLUME III: The First Part of Nero--Achilles in Scyros--Notes.
VOLUME IV: Palicio--The Return of Ulysses--Notes.
VOLUME V: The Christian Captives--Humours of the Court--Notes.
VOLUME VI: The Feast of Bacchus--Second Part of the History of
Nero--Notes.
VOLUME VII in preparation
*** This Volume completes the Uniform Edition of Mr. Robert
Bridges' Works.
LONDON: SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
[Illustration: Robert Bridges
Aug 1912]
POETICAL WORKS
OF
ROBERT BRIDGES
EXCLUDING
THE EIGHT DRAMAS
[Illustration: colophon]
HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
1912
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
NOTE
This book consists of the Poems and Masks (as apart
from the Dramas) contained in the collected editions of
the Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, together with two
groups of Later Poems and Poems in Classical Prosody
now published for the first time or now first collected.
A record of the previous publication of the poems will be
found in the bibliographical notes prefixed to the various
sections of the present book.
The spelling of certain words is not uniform throughout
the poems. This is due to observance of the text of the
earlier editions of different dates, in the notes to which the
author's justification of these peculiarities was given.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PROMETHEUS THE FIREGIVER. A Mask in the Greek
Manner 1
DEMETER. A Mask 49
EROS AND PSYCHE 87
THE GROWTH OF LOVE 185
SHORTER POEMS.
Book I 225
Book II 242
Book III 264
Book IV 281
Book V 301
NEW POEMS 321
LATER POEMS 365
POEMS IN CLASSICAL PROSODY 409
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 465
PROMETHEUS THE FIREGIVER
_A Mask
in the Greek Manner_
[Illustration: decoration]
_PREVIOUS EDITIONS_
1. _Private Press of H. Daniel. Oxford, 1883._
2. _Chiswick Press. G. Bell & Sons, 1884._
3. _Clarendon Press. Smith, Elder & Co. Vol. I, 1898._
ARGUMENT
_Prometheus coming on earth to give fire to men appears
before the palace of Inachus in Argos on a festival of Zeus.
He interrupts the ceremony by announcing fire and persuades
Inachus to dare the anger of Zeus and accept the gift. Inachus
fetching Argeia his wife from the palace has in turn to quiet
her fears. He asks a prophecy of Prometheus who foretells the
fate of Io their daughter. Prometheus then setting flame to the
altar and writing his own name thereon in the place of Zeus
disappears._
_The Chorus sing (1) a Hymn to Zeus with the stories of the
birth of Zeus and the marriage of Hera with the dances of the
Curetes and the Hesperides, (2) their anticipation of fire with
an Ode on Wonder, (3) a Tragic Hymn on the lot of man,
(4) a Fire-chorus, (5) a final Chorus in praise of Prometheus._
_All the characters are good. Prometheus prologizes. He
carries a long reed._
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
_PROMETHEUS._
_INACHUS._
_ARGEIA._
_SERVANT._
_IO_ (_persona muta_).
_CHORUS:_ _Youths and maidens of the house of Inachus._
_The SCENE is in ARGOS before the palace of Inachus.
An altar inscribed to Zeus is at the
centre of the stage._
PROMETHEUS
THE FIREGIVER
_PROMETHEUS._
From high Olympus and the ætherial courts,
Where mighty Zeus our angry king confirms
The Fates' decrees and bends the wills of the gods,
I come: and on the earth step with glad foot.
This variegated ocean-floor of the air,
The changeful circle of fair land, that lies
Heaven's dial, sisterly mirror of night and day:
The wide o'er-wandered plain, this nether world
My truant haunt is, when from jealous eyes
I steal, for hither 'tis I steal, and here 10
Unseen repair my joy: yet not unseen
Methinks, nor seen unguessed of him I seek.
Rather by swath or furrow, or where the path
Is walled with corn I am found, by trellised vine
Or olive set in banks or orchard trim:
I watch all toil and tilth, farm, field and fold,
And taste the mortal joy; since not in heaven
Among our easeful gods hath facile time
A touch so keen, to wake such love of life
As stirs the frail and careful being, who here, 20
The king of sorrows, melancholy man,
Bows at his labour, but in heart erect
A god stands, nor for any gift of god
Would barter his immortal-hearted prime.
Could I but win this world from Zeus for mine,
With not a god to vex my happy rule,
I would inhabit here and leave high heaven:
So much I love it and its race of men,
Even as he hates them, hates both them, and me
For loving what he hates, and would destroy me, 30
Outcast in the scorn of all his cringing crew,
For daring but to save what he would slay:
And me must first destroy. Thus he denieth
My heart's wish, thus my counsel sets at naught,
Which him saved once, when all at stake he stood
Uprisen in rebellion to overthrow
The elderseated Titans, for I that day
Gave him the counsels which his foes despised.
Unhappy they, who had still their blissful seats
Preserved and their Olympian majesty, 40
Had they been one with me. Alas, my kin!
But he, when he had taken the throne and chained
His foes in wasteful Tartarus, said no more
Where is Prometheus our wise counsellor?
What saith Prometheus? tell us, O Prometheus,
What Fate requires! but waxing confident
And wanton, as a youth first tasting power,
He wrecked the timeless monuments of heaven,
The witness of the wisdom of the gods,
And making all about him new, beyond 50
Determined to destroy the race of men,
And that create afresh or else have none.
Then his vain mind imagined a device,
And at his bidding all the opposèd winds
Blew, and the scattered clouds and furlèd snows,
From every part of heaven together flying,
He with brute hands in huge disorder heaped:
They with the winds' weight and his angry breath
Were thawed: in cataracts they fell, and earth
In darkness deep and whelmèd tempest lay, 60
Drowned 'neath the waters. Yet on the mountain-tops
Some few escaped, and some, thus warned by me,
Made shift to live in vessels which outrode
The season and the fury of the flood.
And when his rain was spent and from clear skies
Zeus looking down upon the watery world,
Beheld these few, the remnant of mankind,
Who yet stood up and breathed; he next withdrew
The seeds of fire, that else had still lain hid
In withered branch and the blue flakes of flint 70
For man to exact and use, but these withdrawn,
Man with the brutes degraded would be man
No more; and so the tyrant was content.
But I, despised again, again upheld
The weak, and pitying them sent sweet Hope,
Bearer of dreams, enchantress fond and kind,
From heaven descending on the unhindered rays
Of every star, to cheer with visions fair
Their unamending pains. And now this day
Behold I come bearing the seal of all 80
Which Hope had promised: for within this reed
A prisoner I bring them stolen from heaven,
The flash of mastering fire, and it have borne
So swift to earth, that when yon noontide sun
Rose from the sea at morning I was by,
And unperceived of Hêlios plunged the point
I' the burning axle, and withdrew a tongue
Of breathing flame, which lives to leap on earth
For man the father of all fire to come.
And hither have I brought it even to Argos 90
Unto king Inachus, him having chosen
Above all mortals to receive my gift:
For he is hopeful, careful, wise, and brave.
He first, when first the floods left bare the land,
Grew warm with enterprise, and gathered men
Together, and disposed their various tasks
For common weal combined; for soon were seen
The long straight channels dwindling on the plain,
Which slow from stagnant pool and wide morass
The pestilent waters to the rivers bore: 100
Then in the ruined dwellings and old tombs
He dug, unbedding from the wormèd ooze
Vessels and tools of trade and husbandry;
Wherewith, all seasonable works restored,
Oil made he and wine anew, and taught mankind
To live not brutally though without fire,
Tending their flocks and herds and weaving wool,
Living on fruit and milk and shepherds' fare,
Till time should bring back flame to smithy and hearth,
Or Zeus relent. Now at these gates I stand, 110
At this mid hour, when Inachus comes forth
To offer sacrifice unto his foe.
For never hath his faithful zeal forborne
To pay the power, though hard, that rules the world
The smokeless sacrifice; which first to-day
Shall smoke, and rise at heaven in flame to brave
The baffled god. See here a servant bears
For the cold altar ceremonial wood:
My shepherd's cloak will serve me for disguise.
_SERVANT._
With much toil have I hewn these sapless logs. 120
PR. But toil brings health, and health is happiness.
SERV. Here's one I know not--nay, how came he here
Unseen by me? I pray thee, stranger, tell me
What wouldst thou at the house of Inachus?
PR. Intruders, friend, and travellers have glib tongues,
Silence will question such.
SERV. If 'tis a message,
To-day is not thy day--who sent thee hither?
PR. The business of my leisure was well guessed:
But he that sent me hither is I that come.
SERV. I smell the matter--thou wouldst serve the house?
PR. 'Twas for that very cause I fled my own. 131
SERV. From cruelty or fear of punishment?
PR. Cruel was my master, for he slew his father.
His punishments thou speakest of are crimes.
SERV. Thou dost well flying one that slew his father.
PR. Thy lord, they say, is kind.
SERV. Well, thou wilt see
Thou may'st at once begin--come, give a hand.
PR. A day of freedom is a day of pleasure:
And what thou doest have I never done,
And understanding not might mar thy work. 140
SERV. Ay true--there is a right way and a wrong
In laying wood.
PR. Then let me see thee lay it:
The sight of a skill'd hand will teach an art.
SERV. Thou seest this faggot which I now unbind,
How it is packed within.
PR. I see the cones
And needles of the fir, which by the wind
In melancholy places ceaselessly
Sighing are strewn upon the tufted floor.
SERV. These took I from a sheltered bank, whereon
The sun looks down at noon; for there is need 150
The things be dry. These first I spread; and then
Small sticks that snap i' the hand.
PR. Such are enough
To burden the slow flight of labouring rooks,
When on the leafless tree-tops in young March
Their glossy herds assembling soothe the air
With cries of solemn joy and cawings loud.
And such the long-necked herons will bear to mend
Their airy platform, when the loving spring
Bids them take thought for their expected young.
SERV. See even so I cross them and cross them so: 160
Larger and by degrees a steady stack
Have built, whereon the heaviest logs may lie:
And all of sun-dried wood: and now 'tis done.
PR. And now 'tis done, what means it now 'tis done?
SERV. Well, thus 'tis rightly done: but why 'tis so
I cannot tell, nor any man here knows;
Save that our master when he sacrificeth,
As thou wilt hear anon, speaketh of fire;
And fire he saith is good for gods and men;
And the gods have it and men have it not: 170
And then he prays the gods to send us fire;
And we, against they send it, must have wood
Laid ready thus as I have shewn thee here.
PR. To-day he sacrificeth?
SERV. Ay, this noon.
Hark! hear'st thou not? they come. The solemn flutes
Warn us away; we must not here be seen
In these our soilèd habits, yet may stand
Where we may hear and see and not be seen.
[_Exeunt R._
_Enter_ CHORUS, _and from the palace_ INACHUS _bearing cakes: he
comes to stand behind the altar_.
_CHORUS._
God of Heaven!
We praise thee, Zeus most high, 180
To whom by eternal Fate was given
The range and rule of the sky;
When thy lot, first of three
Leapt out, as sages tell,
And won Olympus for thee,
Therein for ever to dwell:
But the next with the barren sea
To grave Poseidôn fell,
And left fierce Hades his doom, to be
The lord and terror of hell. 190
(2) Thou sittest for aye
Encircled in azure bright,
Regarding the path of the sun by day,
And the changeful moon by night:
Attending with tireless ears
To the song of adoring love,
With which the separate spheres
Are voicèd that turn above:
And all that is hidden under
The clouds thy footing has furl'd 200
Fears the hand that holdeth the thunder,
The eye that looks on the world.
_Semichorus of youths._
Of all the isles of the sea
Is Crete most famed in story:
Above all mountains famous to me
Is Ida and crowned with glory.
There guarded of Heaven and Earth
Came Rhea at fall of night
To hide a wondrous birth
From the Sire's unfathering sight. 210
The halls of Cronos rang
With omens of coming ill,
And the mad Curêtes danced and sang
Adown the slopes of the hill.
Then all the peaks of Gnossus kindled red
Beckoning afar unto the sinking sun,
he thro' the vaporous west plunged to his bed,
Sunk, and the day was done.
But they, though he was fled,
Such light still held, as oft 220
Hanging in air aloft,
At eve from shadowed ship
The Egyptian sailor sees:
Or like the twofold tip
That o'er the topmost trees
Flares on Parnassus, and the Theban dames
Quake at the ghostly flames.
Then friendly night arose
To succour Earth, and spread
Her mantle o'er the snows 230
And quenched their rosy red;
But in the east upsprings
Another light on them,
Selêné with white wings
And hueless diadem.
Little could she befriend
Her father's house and state,
Nor her weak beams defend
Hyperion from his fate.
Only where'er she shines, 240
In terror looking forth,
She sees the wailing pines
Stoop to the bitter North:
Or searching twice or thrice
Along the rocky walls,
She marks the columned ice
Of frozen waterfalls:
But still the darkened cave
Grew darker as she shone,
Wherein was Rhea gone 250
Her child to bear and save.
[_They dance._
Then danced the Dactyls and Curêtes wild,
And drowned with yells the cries of mother and child;
Big-armed Damnámeneus gan prance and shout:
And burly Acmon struck the echoes out:
And Kermis leaped and howled: and Titias pranced
And broad Cyllenus tore the air and danced:
While deep within the shadowed cave at rest
Lay Rhea, with her babe upon her breast.
_INACHUS._
If any here there be whose impure hands 260
Among pure hands, or guilty heart among
Our guiltless hearts be stained with blood or wrong,
Let him depart!
If there be any here in whom high Zeus
Seeing impiety might turn away,
Now from our sacrifice and from his sin
Let him depart!
_Semichorus of maidens._
I have chosen to praise
Hêra the wife, and bring
A hymn for the feast on marriage days 270
To the wife of the gods' king.
How on her festival
The gods had loving strife,
Which should give of them all
The fairest gift to the wife.
But Earth said, Fair to see
Is mine and yields to none,
I have grown for her joy a sacred tree,
With apples of gold thereon.
Then Hêra, when she heard what Earth had given, 280
Smiled for her joy, and longed and came to see:
On dovewings flying from the height of heaven,
Down to the golden tree:
As tired birds at even
Come flying straight to house
On their accustomed boughs.
'Twas where, on tortured hands
Bearing the mighty pole.
Devoted Atlas stands:
And round his bowed head roll 290
Day-light and night, and stars unmingled dance,
Nor can he raise his glance.
She saw the rocky coast
Whereon the azured waves
Are laced in foam, or lost
In water-lighted caves;
The olive island where,
Amid the purple seas,
Night unto Darkness bare
The four Hesperides: 300
And came into the shade
Of Atlas, where she found
The garden Earth had made
And fenced with groves around.
And in the midst it grew
Alone, the priceless stem,
As careful, clear and true
As graving on a gem.
Nature had kissèd Art
And borne a child to stir 310
With jealousy the heart
Of heaven's Artificer.
From crown to swelling root
It mocked the goddess' praise,
The green enamelled sprays,
The emblazoned golden fruit.
[_They dance_
And 'neath the tree, with hair and zone unbound,
The fair Hesperides aye danced around,
And Ægle danced and sang 'O welcome, Queen!'
And Erytheia sang 'The tree is green!' 320
And Hestia danced and sang 'The fruit is gold!'
And Arethusa sang 'Fair Queen, behold!'
And all joined hands and danced about the tree,
And sang 'O Queen, we dance and sing for thee!'
IN. If there be any here who has complaint
Against our rule or claim or supplication,
Now in the name of Zeus let it appear,
Now let him speak!
_Prometheus re-enters._
PR. All hail, most worthy king, such claim have I.
IN. May grace be with thee, stranger; speak thy mind.
PR. To Argos, king of Argos, at thy house 331
I bring long journeying to an end this hour,
Bearing no idle message for thine ears.
For know that far thy fame has reached, and men
That ne'er have seen thee tell that thou art set
Upon the throne of virtue, that goodwill
And love thy servants are, that in thy land
Joy, honour, trust and modesty abide
And drink the air of peace, that kings must see
Thy city, would they know their peoples' good 340
And stablish them therein by wholesome laws.
But one thing mars the tale, for o'er thy lands
Travelling I have not seen from morn till eve,
Either from house or farm or labourer's cot,
In any village, nor this town of Argos
A blue-wreathed smoke arise: the hearths are cold,
This altar cold: I see the wood and cakes
Unbaken--O king, where is the fire?
IN. If hither, stranger, thou wert come to find
That which thou findest wanting, join with us 350
Now in our sacrifice, take food within,
And having learnt our simple way of life
Return unto thy country whence thou camest.
But hast thou skill or knowledge of this thing,
How best it may be sought, or by what means
Hope to be reached, O speak! I wait to hear.
PR. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day.
IN. On earth there is fire thou sayest!
PR. There is fire.
IN. On earth this day!
PR. There is fire on earth this day.
IN. This is a sacred place, a solemn hour, 360
Thy speech is earnest: yet even if thou speak truth,
O welcome messenger of happy tidings,
And though I hear aright, yet to believe
Is hard: thou canst not know what words thou speakest
Into what ears: they never heard before
This sound but in old tales of happier times,
In sighs of prayer and faint unhearted hope:
Maybe they heard not rightly, speak again!
PR. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day.
IN. Yes, yes, again. Now let sweet Music blab 370
Her secret and give o'er; here is a trumpet
That mocks her method. Yet 'tis but the word.
Maybe thy fire is not the fire I seek;
Maybe though thou didst see it, now 'tis quenched,
Or guarded out of reach: speak yet again
And swear by heaven's truth is there fire or no;
And if there be, what means may make it mine.
PR. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day:
But not as thou dost seek it to be found.
IN. How seeking wrongly shall I seek aright? 380
PR. Thou prayest here to Zeus, and him thou callest
Almighty, knowing he could grant thy prayer:
That if 'twere but his will, the journeying sun
Might drop a spark into thine outstretched hand:
That at his breath the splashing mountain brooks
That fall from Orneæ, and cold Lernè's pool
Would change their element, and their chill streams
Bend in their burning banks a molten flood:
That at his word so many messengers
Would bring thee fire from heaven, that not a hearth 390
In all thy land but straight would have a god
To kneel and fan the flame: and yet to him,
It is to him thou prayest.
IN. Therefore to him.
PR. Is this thy wisdom, king, to sow thy seed
Year after year in this unsprouting soil?
Hast thou not proved and found the will of Zeus
A barren rock for man with prayer to plough?
IN. His anger be averted! we judge not god
Evil, because our wishes please him not.
Oft our shortsighted prayers to heaven ascending 400
Ask there our ruin, and are then denied
In kindness above granting: were 't not so,
Scarce could we pray for fear to pluck our doom
Out of the merciful withholding hands.
PR. Why then provokest thou such great goodwill
In long denial and kind silence shown?
IN. Fie, fie! Thou lackest piety: the god's denial
Being nought but kindness, there is hope that he
Will make that good which is not:--or if indeed
Good be withheld in punishment, 'tis well 410
Still to seek on and pray that god relent.
PR. O Sire of Argos, Zeus will not relent.
IN. Yet fire thou say'st is on the earth this day.
PR. Not of his knowledge nor his gift, O king.
IN. By kindness of what god then has man fire?
PR. I say but on the earth unknown to Zeus.
IN. How boastest thou to know, not of his knowledge?
PR. I boast not: he that knoweth not may boast.
IN. Thy daring words bewilder sense with sound.
PR. I thought to find thee ripe for daring deeds. 420
IN. And what the deed for which I prove unripe?
PR. To take of heaven's fire.
IN. And were I ripe,
What should I dare, beseech you?
PR. The wrath of Zeus.
IN. Madman, pretending in one hand to hold
The wrath of god and in the other fire.
PR. Thou meanest rather holding both in one.
IN. Both impious art thou and incredible.
PR. Yet impious only till thou dost believe.
IN. And what believe? Ah, if I could believe!
It was but now thou saidst that there was fire, 430
And I was near believing; I believed:
Now to believe were to be mad as thou.
CHORUS. He may be mad and yet say true--maybe
The heat of prophecy like a strong wine
Shameth his reason with exultant speech.
PR. Thou say'st I am mad, and of my sober words
Hast called those impious which thou fearest true,
Those which thou knowest good, incredible.
Consider ere thou judge: be first assured
All is not good for man that seems god's will. 440
See, on thy farming skill, thy country toil
Which bends to aid the willing fruits of earth,
And would promote the seasonable year,
The face of nature is not always kind:
And if thou search the sum of visible being
To find thy blessing featured, 'tis not there:
Her best gifts cannot brim the golden cup
Of expectation which thine eager arms
Lift to her mouthèd horn--what then is this
Whose wide capacity outbids the scale 450
Of prodigal beauty, so that the seeing eye
And hearing ear, retiring unamazed
Within their quiet chambers, sit to feast
With dear imagination, nor look forth
As once they did upon the varying air?
Whence is the fathering of this desire
Which mocks at fated circumstance? nay though
Obstruction lie as cumbrous as the mountains,
Nor thy particular hap hath armed desire
Against the brunt of evil,--yet not for this 460
Faints man's desire: it is the unquenchable
Original cause, the immortal breath of being:
Nor is there any spirit on Earth astir,
Nor 'neath the airy vault, nor yet beyond
In any dweller in far-reaching space,
Nobler or dearer than the spirit of man:
That spirit which lives in each and will not die,
That wooeth beauty, and for all good things
Urgeth a voice, or in still passion sigheth,
And where he loveth draweth the heart with him. 470
Hast thou not heard him speaking oft and oft,
Prompting thy secret musings and now shooting
His feathered fancies, or in cloudy sleep
Piling his painted dreams? O hark to him!
For else if folly shut his joyous strength
To mope in her dark prison without praise,
The hidden tears with which he wails his wrong
Will sour the fount of life. O hark to him!
Him may'st thou trust beyond the things thou seest.
For many things there be upon this earth 480
Unblest and fallen from beauty, to mislead
Man's mind, and in a shadow justify
The evil thoughts and deeds that work his ill;
Fear, hatred, lust and strife, which, if man question
The heavenborn spirit within him, are not there.
Yet are they bold of face, and Zeus himself,
Seeing that Mischief held her head on high,
Lest she should go beyond his power to quell
And draw the inevitable Fate that waits
On utmost ill, himself preventing Fate 490
Hasted to drown the world, and now would crush
Thy little remnant: but among the gods
Is one whose love and courage stir for thee;
Who being of manlike spirit, by many shifts
Has stayed the hand of the enemy, who crieth
Thy world is not destroyed, thy good shall live:
Thou hast more power for good than Zeus for ill,
More courage, justice, more abundant art,
More love, more joy, more reason: though around thee
Rank-rooting evil bloom with poisonous crown, 500
Though wan and dolorous and crooked things
Have made their home with thee, thy good shall live.
Know thy desire: and know that if thou seek it,
And seek, and seek, and fear not, thou shall find.
SEM. (_youths_). Is this a god that speaketh thus?
SEM. (_maidens_). He speaketh as a man
In love or great affliction yields his soul.
IN. Thou, whencesoe'er thou comest, whoe'er thou art,
Who breakest on our solemn sacrifice
With solemn words, I pray thee not depart 510
Till thou hast told me more. This fire I seek
Not for myself, whose thin and silvery hair
Tells that my toilsome age nears to its end,
But for my children and the aftertime,
For great the need thereof, wretched our state;
Nay, set by what has been, our happiness
Is very want, so that what now is not
Is but the measure of what yet may be.
And first are barest needs, which well I know
Fire would supply, but I have hope beyond, 520
That Nature in recovering her right
Would kinder prove to man who seeks to learn
Her secrets and unfold the cause of life.
So tell me, if thou knowest, what is fire?
Doth earth contain it? or, since from the sun
Fire reaches us, since in the glimmering stars
And pallid moon, in lightning, and the glance
Of tracking meteors that at nightfall show
How in the air a thousand sightless things
Travel, and ever on their windswift course 530
Flame when they list and into darkness go,--
Since in all these a fiery nature dwells,
Is fire an airy essence, a thing of heaven,
That, could we poise it, were an alien power
To make our wisdom less, our wonder more?
PR. Thy wish to know is good, and happy is he
Who thus from chance and change has launched his mind
To dwell for ever with undisturbèd truth.
This high ambition doth not prompt his hand
To crime, his right and pleasure are not wronged 540
By folly of his fellows, nor his eye
Dimmed by the griefs that move the tears of men.
Son of the earth, and citizen may be
Of Argos or of Athens and her laws,
But still the eternal nature, where he looks,
O'errules him with the laws which laws obey,
And in her heavenly city enrols his heart.
IN. Thus ever have I held of happiness,
The child of heavenly truth, and thus have found it
In prayer and meditation and still thought, 550
And thus my peace of mind based on a floor
That doth not quaver like the joys of sense:
Those I possess enough in seeing my slaves
And citizens enjoy, having myself
Tasted for once and put their sweets away.
But of that heavenly city, of which thou sayest
Her laws o'errule us, have I little learnt,
For when my wandering spirit hath dared alone
The unearthly terror of her voiceless halls,
She hath fallen from delight, and without guide 560
Turned back, and from her errand fled for fear.
PR. Think not that thou canst all things know, nor deem
Such knowledge happiness: the all-knowing Fates
No pleasure have, who sit eternally
Spinning the unnumbered threads that Time hath woven,
And weaves, upgathering in his furthest house
To store from sight; but what 'tis joy to learn
Or use to know, that may'st thou ask of right.
IN. Then tell me, for thou knowest, what is fire?
PR. Know then, O king, that this fair earth of men, 570
The Olympus of the gods, and all the heavens
Are lesser kingdoms of the boundless space
Wherein Fate rules; they have their several times,
Their seasons and the limit of their thrones,
And from the nature of eternal things
Springing, themselves are changed; even as the trees
Or birds or beasts of earth, which now arise
To being, now in turn decay and die.
The heaven and earth thou seest, for long were held
By Fire, a raging power, to whom the Fates 580
Decreed a slow diminishing old age,
But to his daughter, who is that gentle goddess,
Queen of the clear and azure firmament,
In heaven called Hygra, but by mortals Air,
To her, the child of his slow doting years,
Was given a beauteous youth, not long to outlast
His life, but be the pride of his decay,
And win to gentler sway his lost domains.
And when the day of time arrived, when Air
Took o'er from her decrepit sire the third 590
Of the Sun's kingdoms, the one-moonèd earth,
Straight came she down to her inheritance.
Gaze on the sun with thine unshaded eye
And shrink from what she saw. Forests of fire
Whose waving trunks, sucking their fuel, reared
In branched flame roaring, and their torrid shades
Aye underlit with fire. The mountains lifted
And fell and followed like a running sea,
And from their swelling flanks spumed froth of fire;
Or, like awakening monsters, mighty mounds 600
Rose on the plain awhile.
SEM. (_maidens_). He discovers a foe.
SEM. (_youths_). An enemy he paints.
PR. These all she quenched,
Or charmed their fury into the dens and bowels
Of earth to smoulder, there the vital heat
To hold for her creation, which then--to her aid
Summoning high Reason from his home in heaven,--
She wrought anew upon the temperate lands.
SEM. (_maidens_). 'Twas well Air won this kingdom of her sire.
SEM. (_youths_). Now say how made she green this home of fire.
PR. The waters first she brought, that in their streams
And pools and seas innumerable things 611
Brought forth, from whence she drew the fertile seeds
Of trees and plants, and last of footed life,
That wandered forth, and roaming to and fro,
The rejoicing earth peopled with living sound.
Reason advised, and Reason praised her toil;
Which when she had done she gave him thanks, and said,
'Fair comrade, since thou praisest what is done,
Grant me this favour ere thou part from me:
Make thou one fair thing for me, which shall suit 620
With what is made, and be the best of all.'
'Twas evening, and that night Reason made man.
SEM. (_maidens_). Children of Air are we, and live by fire.
SEM. (_youths_). The sons of Reason dwelling on the earth.
SEM. (_maidens_). Folk of a pleasant kingdom held between
Fire's reign of terror and the latter day
When dying, soon in turn his child must die.
SEM. (_youths_). Having a wise creator, above time
Or youth or change, from whom our kind inherit
The grace and pleasure of the eternal gods. 630
IN. But how came gods to rule this earth of Air?
PR. They also were her children who first ruled,
Cronos, Iapetus, Hypérion,
Theia and Rhea, and other mighty names
That are but names--whom Zeus drave out from heaven,
And with his tribe sits on their injured thrones.
IN. There is no greater god in heaven than he.
PR. Nor none more cruel nor more tyrannous.
IN. But what can man against the power of god?
PR. Doth not man strive with him? thyself dost pray.
IN. That he may pardon our contrarious deeds. 641
PR. Alas! Alas! what more contrarious deed,
What greater miracle of wrong than this,
That man should know his good and take it not?
To what god wilt thou pray to pardon this?
In vain was reason given, if man therewith
Shame truth, and name it wisdom to cry down
The unschooled promptings of his best desire.
The beasts that have no speech nor argument
Confute him, and the wild hog in the wood 650
That feels his longing, hurries straight thereto,
And will not turn his head.
IN. How mean'st thou this?
PR. Thou hast desired the good, and now canst feel
How hard it is to kill the heart's desire.
IN. Shall Inachus rise against Zeus, as he
Rose against Cronos and made war in heaven?
PR. I say not so, yet, if thou didst rebel,
The tongue that counselled Zeus should counsel thee.
SEM. (_maidens_). This is strange counsel.
SEM. (_youths_). He is not
A counsellor for gods or men. 660
IN. O that I knew where I might counsel find,
That one were sent, nay, were't the least of all
The myriad messengers of heaven, to me!
One that should say 'This morn I stood with Zeus,
He hath heard thy prayer and sent me: ask a boon,
What thing thou wilt, it shall be given thee.'
PR. What wouldst thou say to such a messenger?
IN. No need to ask then what I now might ask,
How 'tis the gods, if they have care for mortals,
Slubber our worst necessities--and the boon, 670
No need to tell him that.
PR. Now, king, thou seest
Zeus sends no messenger, but I am here.
IN. Thy speech is hard, and even thy kindest words
Unkind. If fire thou hast, in thee 'tis kind
To proffer it: but thou art more unkind
Yoking heaven's wrath therewith. Nay, and how knowest thou
Zeus will be angry if I take of it?
Thou art a prophet: ay, but of the prophets
Some have been taken in error, and honest time
Has honoured many with forgetfulness. 680
I'll make this proof of thee; Show me thy fire--
Nay, give't me now--if thou be true at all,
Be true so far: for the rest there's none will lose,
Nor blame thee being false--where is thy fire?
PR. O rather, had it thus been mine to give,
I would have given it thus: not adding aught
Of danger or diminishment or loss;
So strong is my goodwill; nor less than this
My knowledge, but in knowledge all my power.
Yet since wise guidance with a little means 690
Can more than force unminded, I have skill
To conjure evil and outcompass strength.
Now give I thee my best, a little gift
To work a world of wonder; 'tis thine own
Of long desire, and with it I will give
The cunning of invention and all arts
In which thy hand instructed may command,
Interpret, comfort, or ennoble nature;
With all provision that in wisdom is,
And what prevention in foreknowledge lies. 700
IN. Great is the gain.
PR. O king, the gain is thine,
The penalty I more than share.
IN. Enough,
I take thy gift; nor hast thou stood more firm
To every point of thy strange chequered tale,
Revealing, threatening, offering more and more,
And never all, than I to this resolve.
PR. I knew thy heart would fail not at the hour.
IN. Nay, failed I now, what were my years of toil
More than the endurance of a harnessed brute,
Flogged to his daily work, that cannot view 710
The high design to which his labour steps?
And I of all men were dishonoured most
Shrinking in fear, who never shrank from toil,
And found abjuring, thrusting stiffly back,
The very gift for which I stretched my hands.
What though I suffer? are these wintry years
Of growing desolation to be held
As cherishable as the suns of spring?
Nay, only joyful can they be in seeing
Long hopes accomplished, long desires fulfilled. 720
And since thou hast touched ambition on the side
Of nobleness, and stirred my proudest hope,
And wilt fulfil this, shall I count the cost?
Rather decay will triumph, and cold death
Be lapped in glory, seeing strength arise
From weakness, from the tomb go forth a flame.
PR. 'Tis well; thou art exalted now, the grace
Becomes thy valiant spirit.
IN. Lo! on this day
Which hope despaired to see, hope manifests
A vision bright as were the dreams of youth; 730
When life was easy as a sleeper's faith
Who swims in the air and dances on the sea;
When all the good that scarce by toil is won,
Or not at all is won, is as a flower
Growing in plenty to be plucked at will:
Is it a dream again or is it truth,
This vision fair of Greece inhabited?
A fairer sight than all fair Iris sees,
Footing her airy arch of colours spun
From Ida to Olympus, when she stays 740
To look on Greece and thinks the sight is fair;
Far fairer now, clothed with the works of men.
PR. Ay, fairer far: for nature's varied pleasaunce
Without man's life is but a desert wild,
Which most, where most she mocks him, needs his aid.
She knows her silence sweeter when it girds
His murmurous cities, her wide wasteful curves
Larger beside his economic line;
Or what can add a mystery to the dark,
As doth his measured music when it moves 750
With rhythmic sweetness through the void of night?
Nay, all her loveliest places are but grounds
Of vantage, where with geometric hand,
True square and careful compass he may come
To plan and plant and spread abroad his towers,
His gardens, temples, palaces and tombs.
And yet not all thou seest, with trancèd eye
Looking upon the beauty that shall be,
The temple-crownèd heights, the wallèd towns,
Farms and cool summer seats, nor the broad ways 760
That bridge the rivers and subdue the mountains,
Nor all that travels on them, pomp or war
Or needful merchandise, nor all the sails
Piloting over the wind-dappled blue
Of the summer-soothed Ægean, to thy mind
Can picture what shall be: these are the face
And form of beauty, but her heart and life
Shall they be who shall see it, born to shield
A happier birthright with intrepid arms,
To tread down tyranny and fashion forth 770
A virgin wisdom to subdue the world,
To build for passion an eternal song,
To shape her dreams in marble, and so sweet
Their speech, that envious Time hearkening shall stay
In fear to snatch, and hide his rugged hand.
Now is the birthday of thy conquering youth,
O man, and lo! Thy priest and prophet stand
Beside the altar and have blessed the day.
IN. Ay, blessed be this day. Where is thy fire?
Or is aught else to do, ere I may take? 780
PR. This was my message, speak and there is fire.
IN. There shall be fire. Await me here awhile.
I go to acquaint my house, and bring them forth.
[_Exit._
CHORUS.
Hearken, O Argos, hearken!
There will be fire.
And thou, O Earth, give ear!
There will be fire.
SEM. (_maidens_). Who shall be sent to fetch this fire for the king?
SEM. (_youths_). Shall we put forth in boats to reap,
And shall the waves for harvest yield 790
The rootless flames that nimbly leap
Upon their ever-shifting field?
SEM. (_maidens_). Or we in olive-groves go shake
And beat the fruiting sprays, till all
The silv'ry glitter which they make
Beneath into our baskets fall?
SEM. (_youths_). To bind in sheaves and bear away
The white unshafted darts of day?
SEM. (_maidens_). And from the shadow one by one
Pick up the playful oes of sun? 800
SEM. (_youths_). Or wouldst thou mine a passage deep
Until the darksome fire is found,
Which prisoned long in seething sleep
Vexes the caverns underground?
SEM. (_maidens_). Or bid us join our palms perchance,
To cup the slant and chinkèd beam,
Which mounting morn hath sent to dance
Across our chamber while we dream?
SEM. (_youths_). Say whence and how shall we fetch this fire for the king?
Our hope is impatient of vain debating. 810
SEM. (_maidens_). My heart is stirred at the name of the wondrous thing,
And trembles awaiting.
_ODE._
A coy inquisitive spirit, the spirit of wonder,
Possesses the child in his cradle, when mortal things
Are new, yet a varied surface and nothing under.
It busies the mind on trifles and toys and brings
Her grasp from nearer to further, from smaller to greater,
And slowly teaches flight to her fledgeling wings.
Where'er she flutters and falls surprises await her:
She soars, and beauty's miracles open in sight, 820
The flowers and trees and beasts of the earth ; and later
The skies of day, the moon and the stars of night;
'Neath which she scarcely venturing goes demurely,
With mystery clad, in the awe of depth and height.
O happy for still unconscious, for ah ! how surely,
How soon and surely will disenchantment come,
When first to herself she boasts to walk securely,
And drives the master spirit away from his home;
Seeing the marvellous things that make the morning
Are marvels of every-day, familiar, and some 830
Have lost with use, like earthly robes, their adorning,
As earthly joys the charm of a first delight,
And some are fallen from awe to neglect and scorning;
Until--
O tarry not long, dear needed sprite!
Till thou, though uninvited, with fancy returnest
To hallow beauty and make the dull heart bright:
To inhabit again thy gladdened kingdom in earnest;
Wherein--
from the smile of beauty afar forecasting
The pleasure of god, thou livest at peace and yearnest
With wonder everlasting. 840
SECOND PART
_Re-enter from the palace_ INACHUS, _with_ ARGEIA _and_ IO.
_INACHUS._
That but a small and easy thing now seems,
Which from my house when I came forth at noon
A dream was and beyond the reach of man.
'Tis now a fancy of the will, a word,
Liberty's lightest prize. Yet still as one
Who loiters on the threshold of delight,
Delaying pleasure for the love of pleasure,
I dally--Come, Argeia, and share my triumph!
And set our daughter by thee; though her eyes
Are young, there are no eyes this day so young 850
As shall forget this day--while one thing more
I ask of thee; this evil, will it light
On me or on my house or on mankind?
PR. Scarce on mankind, O Inachus, for Zeus
A second time failing will not again
Measure his spite against their better fate.
And now the terror, which awhile o'er Earth
Its black wings spread, shall up to Heaven ascend
And gnaw the tyrant's heart: for there is whispered
A word gone forth to scare the mighty gods; 860
How one must soon be born, and born of men,
Who shall drive out their impious host from heaven,
And from their skyey dwellings rule mankind
In truth and love. So scarce on man will fall
This evil, nay, nor on thyself, O king;
Thy name shall live an honoured name in Greece.
IN. Then on my house 'twill be. Know'st thou no more?
PR. Know I no more? Ay, if my purpose fail
'Tis not for lack of knowing: if I suffer,
'Tis not that poisonous fear hath slurred her task, 870
Or let brave resolution walk unarmed.
My ears are callous to the threats of Zeus,
The direful penalties his oath hath laid
On every good that I in heart and hand
Am sworn to accomplish, and for all his threats,
Lest their accomplishment should outrun mine,
Am bound the more. Nay, nor his evil minions,
Nor force, nor strength, shall bend me to his will.
_ARGEIA._
Alas, alas, what heavy words are these,
That in the place of joy forbid your tongue, 880
That cloud and change his face, while desperate sorrow
Sighs in his heart? I came to share a triumph:
All is dismay and terror. What is this?
IN. True, wife, I spake of triumph, and I told thee
The winter-withering hope of my whole life
Has flower'd to-day in amaranth: what the hope
Thou knowest, who hast shared; but the condition
I told thee not and thou hast heard: this prophet,
Who comes to bring us fire, hath said that Zeus
Wills not the gift he brings, and will be wroth 890
With us that take it.
AR. O doleful change, I came
In pious purpose, nay, I heard within
The hymn to glorious Zeus: I rose and said,
The mighty god now bends, he thrusts aside
His heavenly supplicants to hear the prayer
Of Inachus his servant; let him hear.
O let him turn away now lest he hear.
Nay, frown not on me; though a woman's voice
That counsels is but heard impatiently,
Yet by thy love, and by the sons I bare thee, 900
By this our daughter, our last ripening fruit,
By our long happiness and hope of more,
Hear me and let me speak.
IN. Well, wife, speak on.
AR. Thy voice forbids more than thy words invite:
Yet say whence comes this stranger. Know'st thou not?
Yet whencesoe'er, if he but wish us well,
He will not bound his kindness in a day.
Do nought in haste. Send now to Sicyon
And fetch thy son Phorôneus, for his stake
In this is more than thine, and he is wise. 910
'Twere well Phorôneus and Ægialeus
Were both here: maybe they would both refuse
The strange conditions which this stranger brings.
Were we not happy too before he came?
Doth he not offer us unhappiness?
Bid him depart, and at some other time,
When you have well considered, then return.
IN. 'Tis his conditions that we now shall hear.
AR. O hide them yet! Are there not tales enough
Of what the wrathful gods have wrought on men? 920
Nay, 'twas this very fire thou now wouldst take,
Which vain Salmoneus, son of Æolus,
Made boast to have, and from his rattling car
Threw up at heaven to mock the lightning. Him
The thunderer stayed not to deride, but sent
One blinding fork, that in the vacant sky
Shook like a serpent's tongue, which is but seen
In memory, and he was not, or for burial
Rode with the ashes of his royal city
Upon the whirlwind of the riven air. 930
And after him his brother Athamas,
King of Orchomenos, in frenzy fell
For Hera's wrath, and raving killed his son;
And would have killed fair Ino, but that she fled
Into the sea, preferring there to woo
The choking waters, rather than that the arm
Which had so oft embraced should do her wrong.
For which old crimes the gods yet unappeased
Demand a sacrifice, and the king's son
Dreads the priest's knife, and all the city mourns. 940
Or shall I say what shameful fury it was
With which Poseidon smote Pasiphaë,
But for neglect of a recorded vow:
Or how Actæon fared of Artemis
When he surprised her, most himself surprised:
And even while he looked his boasted bow
Fell from his hands, and through his veins there ran
A strange oblivious trouble, darkening sense
Till he knew nothing but a hideous fear
Which bade him fly, and faster, as behind 950
He heard his hounds give tongue, that through the wood
Were following, closing, caught him and tore him down.
And many more thus perished in their prime;
Lycaon and his fifty sons, whom Zeus
In their own house spied on, and unawares
Watching at hand, from his disguise arose.
And overset the table where they sat
Around their impious feast and slew them all:
Alcyonè and Ceyx, queen and king,
Who for their arrogance were changed to birds: 960
And Cadmus now a serpent, once a king:
And saddest Niobe, whom not the love
Of Leto aught availed, when once her boast
Went out, though all her crime was too much pride
Of heaven's most precious gift, her children fair.
Six daughters had she, and six stalwart sons;
But Leto bade her two destroy the twelve.
And somewhere now, among lone mountain rocks
On Sipylus, where couch the nymphs at night
Who dance all day by Achelous' stream, 970
The once proud mother lies, herself a rock,
And in cold breast broods o'er the goddess' wrong.
IN. Now hush thy fear. See how thou tremblest still.
Or if thou fear, fear passion; for the freshes
Of tenderness and motherly love will drown
The eye of judgment: yet, since even excess
Of the soft quality fits woman well,
I praise thee; nor would ask thee less to aid
With counsel, than in love to share my choice.
Tho' weak thy hands to poise, thine eye may mark 980
This balance, how the good of all outweighs
The good of one or two, though these be us.
Let not reluctance shame the sacrifice
Which in another thou wert first to praise.
AR. Alas for me, for thee and for our children,
Who, being our being, having all our having,
If they fare ill, our pride lies in the dust.
IN. O deem not a man's children are but those
Out of his loins engendered--our spirit's love
Hath such prolific consequence, that Virtue 990
Cometh of ancestry more pure than blood,
And counts her seed as sand upon the shore.
Happy is he whose body's sons proclaim
Their father's honour, but more blest to whom
The world is dutiful, whose children spring
Out of all nations, and whose pride the proud
Rise to regenerate when they call him sire.
AR. Thus, husband, ever have I bought and buy
Nobleness cheaply being linked with thee.
Forgive my weakness; see, I now am bold; 1000
Tell me the worst I'll hear and wish 'twere more.
IN. Retire--thy tears perchance may stir again.
AR. Nay, I am full of wonder and would hear.
PR. Bid me not tell if ye have fear to hear;
But have no fear. Knowledge of future things
Can nothing change man's spirit: and though he seem
To aim his passion darkly, like a shaft
Shot toward some fearful sound in thickest night,
He hath an owl's eye, and must blink at day.
The springs of memory, that feed alike 1010
His thought and action, draw from furthest time
Their constant source, and hardly brook constraint
Of actual circumstance, far less attend
On glassed futurity; nay, death itself,
His fate unquestioned, his foretasted pain,
The certainty foreknown of things unknown,
Cannot discourage his habitual being
In its appointed motions, to make waver
His eager hand, nor loosen the desire
Of the most feeble melancholy heart 1020
Even from the unhopefullest of all her dreams.
IN. Since then I long to know, now something say
Of what will come to mine when I am gone.
PR. And let the maid too hear, for 'tis of her
I speak, to tell her whither she should turn
The day ye drive her forth from hearth and home.
IN. What say'st thou? drive her out? and we? from home?
Banish the comfort of our eyes? Nay rather
Believe that these obedient hands will tear
The heart out of my breast, ere it do this. 1030
PR. When her wild cries arouse the house at night,
And, running to her bed, ye see her set
Upright in trancèd sleep, her starting hair
With deathly sweat bedewed, in horror shaking,
Her eyeballs fixed upon the unbodied dark,
Through which a draping mist of luminous gloom
Drifts from her couch away,--when, if asleep,
She walks as if awake, and if awake
Dreams, and as one who nothing hears or sees,
Lives in a sick and frantic mood, whose cause 1040
She understands not or is loth to tell--
AR. Ah, ah, my child, my child!--Dost thou feel aught?
Speak to me--nay, 'tis nothing--hearken not.
PR. Ye then distraught with sorrow, neither knowing
Whether to save were best or lose, will seek
Apollo's oracle.
IN. And what the answer?
Will it discover nought to avert this sorrow?
PR. Or else thy whole race perish root and branch.
IN. Alas! Alas!
PR. Yet shall she live though lost; from human form
Changed, that thou wilt not know thy daughter more. 1051
IN. Woe, woe! my thought was praying for her death.
PR. In Hera's temple shall her prison be
At high Mycenæ, till from heaven be sent
Hermes, with song to soothe and sword to slay
The beast whose hundred eyes devour the door.
IN. Enough, enough is told, unless indeed,
The beast once slain, thou canst restore our child.
PR. Nay, with her freedom will her wanderings
Begin. Come hither, child--nay, let her come: 1060
What words remain to speak will not offend her.
And shall in memory quicken, when she looks
To learn where she should go;--for go she must,
Stung by the venomous fly, whose angry flight
She still will hear about her, till she come
To lay her sevenfold-carried burden down
Upon the Æthiop shore where he shall reign.
IN. But say--say first, what form--
PR. In snow-white hide
Of those that feel the goad and wear the yoke. 1069
IN. Round-hoofed, or such as tread with cloven foot?
PR. Wide-horned, large-eyed, broad-fronted, and the feet
Cloven which carry her to her far goal.
IN. Will that of all these evils be the term?
PR. Ay, but the journey first which she must learn.
Hear now, my child; the day when thou art free,
Leaving the lion-gate, descend and strike
The Trêtan road to Nemea, skirting wide
The unhunted forest o'er the watered plain
To walled Cleônæ, whence the traversed stream
To Corinth guides: there enter not, but pass 1080
To narrow Isthmus, where Poseidon won
A country from Apollo, and through the town
Of Crommyon, till along the robber's road
Pacing, thy left eye meet the westering sun
O'er Geraneia, and thou reach the hill
Of Megara, where Car thy brother's babe
In time shall rule; next past Eleusis climb
Stony Panactum and the pine-clad slopes
Of Phyle; shun the left-hand way, and keep
The rocks; the second day thy feet shall tread 1090
The plains of Græa, whence the roadway serves
Aulis and Mycalessus to the point
Of vext Euripus: fear not then the stream,
Nor scenting think to taste, but plunging in
Breast its salt current to the further shore.
For on this island mayst thou lose awhile
Thy maddening pest, and rest and pasture find,
And from the heafs of bold Macistus see
The country left and sought: but when thou feel
Thy torment urge, move down, recross the flood, 1100
And west by Harma's fencèd gap arrive
At seven-gated Thebes: thy friendly goddess
Ongan Athenè has her seat without.
CHOR. Now if she may not stay thy toilsome destined steps,
I pray that she may slay for thee the maddening fly.
PR. Keep not her sanctuary long, but seek
Bœotian Ascra, where the Muses' fount,
Famed Aganippè, wells: Ocalea
Pass, and Tilphusa's northern steeps descend
By Alalcomenæ, the goddess' town. 1110
Guard now the lake's low shore, till thou have crossed
Hyrcana and Cephissus, the last streams
Which feed its reedy pools, when thou shalt come
Between two mountains that enclose the way
By peakèd Abæ to Hyampolis.
The right-hand path that thither parts the vale
Opes to Cyrtonè and the Locrian lands;
Toward Elateia thou, where o'er the marsh
A path with stones is laid; and thence beyond
To Thronium, Tarphè, and Thermopylæ, 1120
Where rocky Lamia views the Maliac gulf.
CHOR. If further she should go, will she not see
That other Argos, the Dodonian land?
PR. Crossing the Phthian hills thou next shall reach
Pharsalus, and Olympus' peakèd snows
Shall guide thee o'er the green Pelasgic plains
For many a day, but to Argissa come
Let old Peneius thy slow pilot be
Through Tempè, till they turn upon his left
Crowning the wooded slopes with splendours bare. 1130
Thence issuing forth on the Pierian shore
Northward of Ossa thou shalt touch the lands
Of Macedon.
CHOR. Alas, we wish thee speed,
But bid thee here farewell; for out of Greece
Thou goest 'mongst the folk whose chattering speech
Is like the voice of birds, nor home again
Wilt thou return.
PR. Thy way along the coast
Lies till it southward turn, when thou shalt seek
Where wide on Strymon's plain the hindered flood
Spreads like a lake; thy course to his oppose 1140
And face him to the mountain whence he comes:
Which doubled, Thrace receives thee: barbarous names
Of mountain, town and river, and a people
Strange to thine eyes and ears, the Agathyrsi,
Of pictured skins, who owe no marriage law,
And o'er whose gay-spun garments sprent with gold
Their hanging hair is blue. Their torrent swim
That measures Europe in two parts, and go
Eastward along the sea, to mount the lands
Beyond man's dwelling, and the rising steeps 1150
That face the sun untrodden and unnamed.--
Know to earth's verge remote thou then art come,
The Scythian tract and wilderness forlorn,
Through whose rude rocks and frosty silences
No path shall guide thee then, nor my words now.
There as thou toilest o'er the treacherous snows,
A sound then thou shall hear to stop thy breath,
And prick thy trembling ears; a far-off cry,
Whose throat seems the white mountain and its passion
The woe of earth. Flee not, nor turn not back: 1160
Let thine ears drink and guide thine eyes to see
That sight whose terrors shall assuage thy terror,
Whose pain shall kill thy pain. Stretched on the rock,
Naked to scorching sun, to pinching frost,
To wind and storm and beaks of wingèd fiends
From year to year he lies. Refrain to ask
His name and crime--nay, haply when thou see him
Thou wilt remember--'tis thy tyrant's foe,
Man's friend, who pays his chosen penalty.
Draw near, my child, for he will know thy need, 1170
And point from land to land thy further path.
CHORUS.
O miserable man, hear now the worst.
O weak and tearful race,
Born to unhappiness, see now thy cause
Doomed and accurst!
It surely were enough, the bad and good
Together mingled, against chance and ill
To strive, and prospering by turns,
Now these, now those, now folly and now skill,
Alike by means well understood 1180
Or 'gainst all likelihood;
Loveliness slaving to the unlovely will
That overrides the right and laughs at law.
But always all in awe
And imminent dread:
Because there is no mischief thought or said,
Imaginable or unguessed,
But it may come to be; nor home of rest,
Nor hour secure: but anywhere,
At any moment; in the air, 1190
Or on the earth or sea,
Or in the fair
And tender body itself it lurks, creeps in,
Or seizes suddenly,
Torturing, burning, withering, devouring,
Shaking, destroying; till tormented life
Sides with the slayer, not to be,
And from the cruel strife
Falls to fate overpowering.
Or if some patient heart, 1200
In toilsome steps of duty tread apart,
Thinking to win her peace within herself,
And thus awhile succeed:
She must see others bleed,
At others' misery moan,
And learn the common suffering is her own,
From which it is no freedom to be freed:
Nay, Nature, her best nurse,
Is tender but to breed a finer sense,
Which she may easier wound, with smart the worse 1210
And torture more intense.
And no strength for thee but the thought of duty,
Nor any solace but the love of beauty.
O Right's toil unrewarded!
O Love's prize unaccorded!
I say this might suffice,
O tearful and unstable
And miserable man,
Were't but from day to day
Thy miserable lot, 1220
This might suffice, I say,
To term thee miserable.
But thou of all thine ills too must take thought,
Must grow familiar till no curse astound thee,
With tears recall the past,
With tears the times forecast;
With tears, with tears thou hast
The scapeless net spread in thy sight around thee.
How then support thy fate,
O miserable man, if this befall, 1230
That he who loves thee and would aid thee, daring
To raise an arm for thy deliverance,
Must for his courage suffer worse than all?
IN. Bravest deliverer, for thy prophecy
Has torn the veil which hid thee from my eyes,
If thyself art that spirit, of whom some things
Were darkly spoken,--nor can I doubt thou art,
Being that the heaven its fire withholds not from thee
Nor time his secrets,--tell me now thy name,
That I may praise thee rightly; and my late 1240
Unwitting words pardon thou, and these who still
In blinded wonder kneel not to thy love.
PR. Speak not of love. See, I am moved with hate,
And fiercest anger, which will sometimes spur
The heart to extremity, till it forget
That there is any joy save furious war.
Nay, were there now another deed to do,
Which more could hurt our enemy than this,
Which here I stand to venture, here would I leave thee
Conspiring at his altar, and fly off 1250
To plunge the branding terror in his soul.
But now the rising passion of my will
Already jars his reaching sense, already
From heaven he bids his minion Hermes forth
To bring his only rebel to his feet.
Therefore no more delay, the time is short.
IN. I take, I take. 'Tis but for thee to give.
PR. O heavenly fire, life's life, the eye of day,
Whose nimble waves upon the starry night
Of boundless ether love to play, 1260
Carrying commands to every gliding sprite
To feed all things with colour, from the ray
Of thy bright-glancing, white
And silver-spinning light:
Unweaving its thin tissue for the bow
Of Iris, separating countless hues
Of various splendour for the grateful flowers
To crown the hasting hours,
Changing their special garlands as they choose.
O spirit of rage and might, 1270
Who canst unchain the links of winter stark,
And bid earth's stubborn metals flow like oil,
Her porphyrous heart-veins boil;
Whose arrows pierce the cloudy shields of dark;
Let now this flame, which did to life awaken
Beyond the cold dew-gathering veils of morn,
And thence by me was taken,
And in this reed was borne,
A smothered theft and gift to man below,
Here with my breath revive, 1280
Restore thy lapsèd realm, and be the sire
Of many an earthly fire.
O flame, flame bright and live,
Appear upon the altar as I blow.
CHOR. 'Twas in the marish reed.
See to his mouth he sets its hollow flute
And breathes therein with heed,
As one who from a pipe with breathings mute
Will music's voice evoke.--
See, the curl of a cloud. 1290
IN. The smoke, the smoke!
SEMICHORUS. Thin clouds mounting higher.
IN. 'Tis smoke, the smoke of fire.
SEMICHORUS. Thick they come and thicker,
Quick arise and quicker,
Higher still and higher.
Their wreaths the wood enfold.
--I see a spot of gold.
They spring from a spot of gold,
Red gold, deep among 1300
The leaves: a golden tongue.
O behold, behold,
Dancing tongues of gold,
That leaping aloft flicker,
Higher still and higher.
IN. 'Tis fire, the flame of fire!
SEMICHORUS. The blue smoke overhead
Is turned to angry red.
The fire, the fire, it stirs.
Hark, a crackling sound, 1310
As when all around
Ripened pods of furze
Split in the parching sun
Their dry caps one by one,
And shed their seeds on the ground.
--Ah! what clouds arise.
Away! O come away.
The wind-wafted smoke,
Blowing all astray,
Blinds and pricks my eyes.
[PROMETHEUS, _after writing his name on the altar, goes out unobserved_.]
Ah! I choke, I choke.
--All the midst is rent:
See, the twigs are all
By the flaming spent
White and gold, and fall.
How they writhe, resist,
Blacken, flake, and twist,
Snap in gold and fall.
--See the stars that mount,
Momentary bright 1330
Flitting specks of light
More than eye can count.
Insects of the air,
As in summer night
Show a fire in flying
Flickering here and there,
Waving past and dying.
--Look, a common cone
Of the mountain pine
Solid gold is grown; 1340
Till its scales outshine,
Standing each alone
In the spiral rows
Of their fair design,
All the brightest shows
Of the sun's decline.
--Hark, there came a hiss,
Like a startled snake
Sliding through the brake.
Oh, and what is this? 1350
Smaller flames that flee
Sidelong from the tree,
Hark, they hiss, they hiss.
--How the gay flames flicker,
Spurting, dancing, leaping
Quicker yet and quicker,
Higher yet and higher,
--Flaming, flaring, fuming,
Cracking, crackling, creeping,
Hissing and consuming: 1360
Mighty is the fire.
IN. Stay, stay, cease your rejoicings. Where is he,
The prophet,--nay, what say I,--the god, the giver?
CHOR. He is not here--he is gone.
IN. Search, search around.
Search all, search well.
CHOR. He is gone,--he is not here.
IN. The palace gate lies open: go, Argeia,
Maybe he went within: go seek him there.
[_Exit_ AR.
Look down the sea road, down the country road:
Follow him if ye see him.
CHOR. He is not there.
IN. Strain, strain your eyes: look well: search everywhere.
Look townwards--is he there?
_Part of_ CHORUS _returning_. He is not there.-- 1371
_Other part returning._ He is not there.
_Argeia re-entering._
AR. He is not there.
CHOR. O see!
CHOR. See where?
CHOR. See on the altar--see!
CHOR. What see ye on the altar?
CHOR. Here in front
Words newly writ.
CHOR. What words?
CHOR. A name--
IN. Ay true--
There is the name. How like a child was I,
That I must wait till these dumb letters gave
The shape and soul to knowledge: when the god
Stood here so self-revealed to ears and eyes
That, 'tis a god I said, yet wavering still, 1380
Doubting what god,--and now, who else but he?
I knew him, yet not well; I knew him not:
Prometheus--ay, Prometheus. Know ye, my children,
This name we see was writ by him we seek.
'Tis his own name, his own heart-stirring name,
Feared and revered among the immortal gods;
Divine Prometheus: see how here the large
Cadmeian characters run, scoring out
The hated title of his ancient foe,--
To Zeus 'twas made,--and now 'tis to Prometheus-- 1390
Writ with the charrèd reed--theft upon theft.
He hath stolen from Zeus his altar, and with his fire
Hath lit our sacrifice unto himself.
Ió Prometheus, friend and firegiver,
For good or ill thy thefts and gifts are ours.
We worshipped thee unknowing.
CHOR. But now where is he?
IN. No need to search--we shall not see him more.
We look in vain. The high gods when they choose
Put on and off the solid visible shape
Which more deceives our hasty sense, than when 1400
Seeing them not we judge they stand aloof.
And he, he now is gone; his work is done:
'Tis ours to see it be not done in vain.
CHOR. What is to do? speak, bid, command, we fly.
In. Go some and fetch more wood to feed the fire;
And some into the city to proclaim
That fire is ours: and send out messengers
To Corinth, Sicyon, Megara and Athens
And to Mycenæ, telling we have fire:
And bid that in the temples they prepare 1410
Their altars, and send hither careful men
To learn of me what things the time requires.
[_Exit part of_ CHORUS.
The rest remain to end our feast; and now
Seeing this altar is no more to Zeus,
But shall for ever be with smouldering heat
Fed for the god who first set fire thereon,
Change ye your hymns, which in the praise of Zeus
Ye came to sing, and change the prayer for fire
Which ye were wont to raise, to high thanksgiving,
Praising aloud the giver and his gift. 1420
_Part of_ CHORUS. Now our happy feast hath ending,
While the sun in heaven descending
Sees us gathered round a light
Born to cheer his vacant night.
Praising him to-day who came
Bearing far his heavenly flame:
Came to crown our king's desire
With his gift of golden fire.
SEMICHORUS. My heart, my heart is freed.
Now can I sing. I loose a shaft from my bow, 1430
A song from my heart to heaven, and watch it speed.
It revels in the air, and straight to its goal doth go.
I have no fear. I praise distinguishing duly:
I praise the love that I love and I worship truly.
Goodness I praise, not might,
Nor more will I speak of wrong,
But of lovingkindness and right;
And the god of my love shall rejoice at the sound of my song.
I praise him whom I have seen:
As a man he is beautiful, blending prime and youth, 1440
Of gentle and lovely mien,
With the step and the eyes of truth,
As a god,--O were I a god, but thus to be man!
As a god, I set him above
The rest of the gods; for his gifts are pledges of love,
The words of his mouth rare and precious,
His eyes' glance and the smile of his lips are love.
He is the one
Alone of all the gods,
Of righteous Themis the lofty-spirited son, 1450
Who hates the wrongs they have done.
He is the one I adore.
For if there be love in heaven with evil to cope,--
And he promised us more and more,--
For what may we not hope?
_ODE._
My soul is drunk with joy, her new desire
In far forbidden places wanders away.
Her hopes with free bright-coloured wings of fire
Upon the gloom of thought
Are sailing out. 1460
Awhile they rise, awhile to rest they softly fall,
Like butterflies, that flit
Across the mountains, or upon a wall
Winking their idle fans at pleasure sit.
O my vague desires!
Ye lambent flames of the soul, her offspring fires:
That are my soul herself in pangs sublime
Rising and flying to heaven before her time:
What doth tempt you forth
To melt in the south or shiver in the frosty north? 1470
What seek ye or find ye in your random flying,
For ever soaring aloft, soaring and dying?
Joy, the joy of flight;
They hide in the sun, they flare and dance in the night.
Gone up, gone out of sight--and ever again
Follow fresh tongues of fire, fresh pangs of pain.
Ah! could I control
These vague desires, these leaping flames of the soul:
Could I but quench the fire, ah! could I stay
My soul that flieth, alas, and dieth away! 1480
[_Enter other part of_ CHORUS.
_Part of_ CHOR. Here is wood to feed the fire--
Never let its flames expire.
Sing ye still while we advance
Round the fire in measured dance,
While the sun in heaven descending
Sees our happy feast have ending.
Weave ye still your joyous song,
While we bear the wood along.
SEMICHORUS. But O return,
Return, thou flower of the gods! 1490
Remember the limbs that toil and the hearts that yearn,
Remember, and soon return!
To prosper with peace and skill
Our hands in the works of pleasure, beauty and use.
Return, and be for us still
Our shield from the anger of Zeus.
And he, if he raise his arm in anger to smite thee,
And think for the good thou hast done with pain to requite thee,
Vengeance I heard thee tell,
And the curse I take for my own, 1500
That his place is prepared in hell,
And a greater than he shall hurl him down from his throne
Down, down from his throne!
For the god who shall rule mankind from the deathless skies
By mercy and truth shall be known,
In love and peace shall arise.
For him,--if again I hear him thunder above,
O then, if I crouch or start,
I will press thy lovingkindness more to my heart,
Remember the words of thy mouth rare and precious, 1510
Thy heart of hearts and gifts of divine love.
DEMETER
_A Mask_
"_Dreams & the light imaginings of men_"
[Illustration: decoration]
WRITTEN FOR THE LADIES AT
SOMERVILLE COLLEGE
& ACTED BY THEM
AT THE INAUGURATION OF THEIR NEW BUILDING
IN 1904
[Illustration: decoration]
_PREVIOUS EDITION_
_Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1905_
ARGUMENT OF THE PLAY
_The scene is in the flowery valley below Enna. Hades
prologizes, and tells how he has come with consent of Zeus to
carry off Persephone to be his queen. The Chorus of Ocean
nymphs entering praise Sicily and the spring. Persephone
enters with Athena and Artemis to gather flowers for the
festival of Zeus. Persephone being left alone is carried off by
Hades._
_In the second act, which is ten days later, the Chorus deplore
the loss of Persephone. Demeter entering upbraids them in
a choric scene and describes her search for Persephone until
she learnt her fate from Helios. Afterwards she describes her
plan for compelling Zeus to restore her. Hermes brings from
Zens a command to Demeter that she shall return to Olympus.
She sends defiance to Zeus, and the Chorus end the scene by
vowing to win Poseidon to aid Demeter._
_In the third act, which is a year later, the Chorus, who
have been summoned by Demeter to witness the restoration of
Persephone, lament Demeter's anger. Demeter narrates the
Eleusinian episode of her wanderings, until Hermes enters
leading Persephone. After their greeting Demeter hears from
Hermes the terms of Persephone's restoration; she is reconciled
thereto by Persephone, and invites her to Eleusis. The Chorus
sing and crown Persephone with flowers._
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
_HADES._ }
_DEMETER._ }
_PERSEPHONE._
_ATHENA._
_ARTEMIS._ }
_HERMES._ }
_Chorus of OCEANIDES._
DEMETER
_HADES._
I am the King of Hell, nor prone to vex
Eternal destiny with weak complaint;
Nor when I took my kingdom did I mourn
My lot, from heav'n expell'd, deny'd to enjoy
Its radiant revelry and ambrosial feast,
Nor blamed our mighty Sisters, that not one
Would share my empire in the shades of night.
But when a younger race of gods arose,
And Zeus set many sons on heav'nly seats,
And many daughters dower'd with new domain, 10
And year by year were multiply'd on earth
Their temples and their statu'd sanctities,
Mirrors of man's ideas that grow apace,
Yea, since man's mind was one with my desire
That Hell should have a queen,--for heav'n hath queens
Many, nor on all earth reigns any king
In unkind isolation like to me,--
I claimed from Zeus that of the fair immortals
One should be given to me to grace my throne.
Willing he was, and quick to praise my rule, 20
And of mere justice there had granted me
Whome'er I chose: but 'Brother mine,' he said,
'Great as my power among the gods, this thing
I cannot compass, that a child of mine,
Who once hath tasted of celestial life,
Should all forgo, and destitute of bliss
Descend into the shades, albeit to sit
An equal on thy throne. Take whom thou wilt;
But by triumphant force persuade, as erst
I conquer'd heav'n.' Said I 'My heart is set: 30
I take Demeter's child Persephone;
Dost thou consent?' Whereto he gave his nod.
And I am come to-day with hidden powers,
Ev'n unto Enna's fair Sicilian field,
To rob her from the earth. 'Tis here she wanders
With all her train: nor is this flow'ry vale
Fairer among the fairest vales of earth,
Nor any flower within this flow'ry vale
Fair above other flowers, as she is fairest
Among immortal goddesses, the daughter 40
Of gentle-eyed Demeter; and her passion
Is for the flowers, and every tenderness
That I have long'd for in my fierce abodes.
But she hath always in attendant guard
The dancing nymphs of Ocean, and to-day
The wise Athena and chaste Artemis
Indulge her girlish fancy, gathering flowers
To deck the banner of my golden brother,
Whose thought they guess not, tho' their presence here
Affront his will and mine. If once alone 50
I spy her, I can snatch her swiftly down:
And after shall find favour for my fault,
When I by gentle means have won her love.
I hear their music now. Hither they come:
I'll to my ambush in the rocky cave. [_Exit._
ACT I
_Enter Chorus of Oceanides, with baskets._
_OCEANIDES._
Gay and lovely is earth, man's decorate dwelling;
With fresh beauty ever varying hour to hour.
As now bathed in azure joy she awakeneth
With bright morn to the sun's life-giving effluence,
Or sunk into solemn darkness aneath the stars 60
In mysterious awe slumbereth out the night,
Then from darkness again plunging again to day;
Like dolphins in a swift herd that accompany
Poseidon's chariot when he rebukes the waves.
But no country to me 'neath the enarching air
Is fair as Sicily's flowery fruitful isle:
Always lovely, whether winter adorn the hills
With his silvery snow, or generous summer
Outpour her heavy gold on the river-valleys.
Her rare beauty giveth gaiety unto man, 70
A delite dear to immortals.
2
And one season of all chiefly deliteth us,
When fair Spring is afield. O happy is the Spring!
Now birds early arouse their pretty minstreling;
Now down its rocky hill murmureth ev'ry rill;
Now all bursteth anew, wantoning in the dew
Their bells of bonny blue, their chalices honey'd.
Unkind frost is away; now sunny is the day;
Now man thinketh aright, Life it is all delite.
Now maids playfully dance o'er enamel'd meadows, 80
And with goldy blossom deck forehead and bosom;
While old Pan rollicketh thro' the budding shadows,
Voicing his merry reed, laughing aloud to lead
The echoes madly rejoicing.
3
We be Oceanids, Persephone's lovers,
Who all came hurrying joyfully from the sea
Ere daybreak to obey her belovëd summons.
At her fancy to pluck these violets, lilies,
Windflow'rs and daffodils, all for a festival
Whereat shé will adorn Zeuses honour'd banner. 90
And with Persephone there cometh Artemis
And grave Pallas ... Hilloo! Already they approach!
Haste, haste! Stoop to gather! Seem busy ev'ryone!
Crowd all your wicker arcs with the meadow-lilies;
Lest our disreverenc'd deity should rebuke
The divine children of Ocean.
[_Enter_ ATHENA, PERSEPHONE, _and_ ARTEMIS. _Persephone has
a basket half fill'd with gather'd flowers._]
_ATHENA._
These then are Enna's flowery fields, and here
In midmost isle the garden of thy choice?
_PERSEPHONE._
Is not all as I promist? Feel ye not
Your earthborn ecstasy concenter'd here? 100
Tell me, Athena, of thy wisdom, whénce
Cometh this joy of earth, this penetrant
Palpitant exultation so unlike
The balanc't calm of high Olympian state?
Is't in the air, the tinted atmosphere
Whose gauzy veil, thrown on the hills, will paint
Their features, changing with the gradual day,
Rosy or azure, clouded now, and now
Again afire? Or is it that the sun's
Electric beams--which shot in circling fans 110
Whirl all things with them--as they strike the earth
Excite her yearning heart, till stir'd beneath
The rocks and silent plains, she cannot hold
Her fond desires, but sends them bursting forth
In scents and colour'd blossoms of the spring?--
Breathes it not in the flowers?
ATH. Fair are the flowers,
Dear child; and yet to me far lovelier
Than all their beauty is thy love for them.
Whate'er I love, I contemplate my love
More than the object, and am so rejoic'd. 120
For life is one, and like a level sea
Life's flood of joy. Thou wond'rest at the flowers,
But I would teach thee wonder of thy wonder;
Would shew thee beauty in the desert-sand,
The worth of things unreckt of, and the truth
That thy desire and love may spring of evil
And ugliness, and that Earth's ecstasy
May dwell in darkness also, in sorrow and tears.
PER. I'd not believe it: why then should we pluck
The flowers and not the stalks without the flowers? 130
Or do thy stones breathe scent? Would not men laugh
To see the banner of almighty Zeus
Adorn'd with ragged roots and straws?--Dear Artemis,
How lovest thou the flowers?
_ARTEMIS._
I'll love them better
Ever for thy sake, Cora; but for me
The joy of Earth is in the breath of life
And animal motions: nor are flowery sweets
Dear as the scent of life. His petal'd cup,
What is it by the wild fawn's liquid eye
Eloquent as love-music 'neath the moon? 140
Nay, not a flower in all thy garden here,
Nor wer't a thousand-thousand-fold enhanc't
In every charm, but thou wouldst turn from it
To view the antler'd stag, that in the glade
With the coy gaze of his majestic fear
Faced thee a moment ere he turn'd to fly.
PER. But why, then, hunt and kill what thou so lovest?
AR. Dost thou not pluck thy flowers?
PER. 'Tis not the same.
Thy victims fly for life: they pant, they scream.
AR. Were they not mortal, sweet, I coud not kill them.
They kill each other in their lust for life; 151
Nay, cruelly persecute their blemisht kin:
And they that thus are exiled from the herd
Slink heart-brok'n to sepulchral solitudes,
Defenceless and dishonour'd; there to fall
Prey to the hungry glutton of the cave,
Or stand in mute pain lingering, till they drop
In their last lair upon the ancestral bones.
PER. What is it that offends me?
ATH. 'Tis Pity, child,
The mortal thought that clouds the brow of man 160
With dark reserve, or poisoning all delite
Drives him upon his knees in tearful prayer
To avert his momentary qualms: till Zeus
At his reiterated plaint grows wrath,
And burdens with fresh curse the curse of care.
And they that haunt with men are apt to take
Infection of his mind: thy mighty mother
Leans to his tenderness.
PER. How should man, dwelling
On earth that is so gay, himself be sad?
Is not earth gay? Look on the sea, the sky, 170
The flowers!
ATH. 'Tis sad to him because 'tis gay.--
For whether he consider how the flowers,
--Thy miracles of beauty above praise,--
Are wither'd in the moment of their glory,
So that of all the mounting summer's wealth
The show is chang'd each day, and each day dies,
Of no more count in Nature's estimate
Than crowded bubbles of the fighting foam:
Or whether 'tis the sea, whose azure waves
Play'd in the same infinity of motion 180
Ages ere he beheld it, and will play
For ages after him;--alike 'tis sad
To read how beauty dies and he must die.
PER. Were I a man, I would not worship thee,
Thou cold essential wisdom. If, as thou say'st,
Thought makes men sorrowful, why help his thought
To quench enjoyment, who might else as I
Revel among bright things, and feast his sense
With beauty well-discern'd? Nay, why came ye
To share my pastime? Ye love not the flowers. 190
ATH. Indeed I love thee, child; and love thy flowers,--
Nor less for loving wisely. All emotions,
Whether of gods or men, all loves and passions,
Are of two kinds; they are either inform'd by wisdom,
To reason obedient,--or they are unconducted,
Flames of the burning life. The brutes of earth
And Pan their master know these last; the first
Are seen in me: betwixt the extremes there lie
Innumerable alloys and all of evil.
PER. Nay, and I guess your purpose with me well: 200
I am a child, and ye would nurse me up
A pupil in your school. I know ye twain
Of all the immortals are at one in this;
Ye wage of cold disdain a bitter feud
With Aphrodite, and ye fear for me,
Lest she should draw me to her wanton way.
Fear not: my party is taken. Hark! I'll tell
What I have chosen, what mankind shall hold
Devote and consecrate to me on earth:
It is the flowers: but only among the flowers 210
Those that men love for beauty, scent, or hue,
Having no other uses: I have found
Demeter, my good mother, heeds them not.--
She loves vines, olives, orchards, 'the rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas,[1]
But for the idle flowers she hath little care:
She will resign them willingly. And think not,
Thou wise Athena, I shall go unhonour'd,
Or rank a meaner goddess unto man.
His spirit setteth beauty before wisdom, 220
Pleasures above necessities, and thus
He ever adoreth flowers. Nor this I guess
Where rich men only and superfluous kings
Around their palaces reform the land
To terraces and level lawns, whereon
Appointed slaves are told, to tend and feed
Lilies and roses and all rarest plants
Fetch'd from all lands; that they--these lordly men--
'Twixt flaunting avenues and wafted odours
May pace in indolence: this is their bliss; 230
This first they do: and after, it may be,
Within their garden set their academe:--
But in the poorest villages, around
The meanest cottage, where no other solace
Comforts the eye, some simple gaiety
Of flowers in tended garden is seen; some pinks,
Tulips, or crocuses that edge the path;
Where oft at eve the grateful labourer
Sits in his jasmin'd porch, and takes the sun:
And even the children, that half-naked go, 240
Have posies in their hands, and of themselves
Will choose a queen in whom to honour Spring,
Dancing before her garlanded with may.
The cowslip makes them truant, they forget
The hour of hunger and their homely feast
So they may cull the delicate primrose,
Sealing their birthright with the touch of beauty;
With unconsider'd hecatombs assuring
Their dim sense of immortal mystery.--
Yea, rich and poor, from cradle unto grave 250
All men shall love me, shall adore my name,
And heap my everlasting shrine with flowers.
ATH. Thou sayest rightly thou art a child. May Zeus
Give thee a better province than thy thought.
[_Music heard._
AR. Listen! The nymphs are dancing. Let us go!
[_They move off._
Come, Cora; wilt thou learn a hunting dance?
I'll teach thee.
PER. Can I learn thy hunter-step
Without thy bare legs and well-buskin'd feet?
AR. Give me thy hand.
PER. Stay! stay! I have left my flowers.
I follow. [_Exeunt Athena and Artemis._
[_Persephone returning to right slowly._
They understand not--Now, praise be to Zeus, 261
That, tho' I sprang not from his head, I know
Something that Pallas knows not.
[_She has come to where her basket lies. In stooping towards it she kneels
to pluck a flower: and then comes to sit on a bank with the basket
in hand on her knees, facing the audience._]
Thou tiny flower!
Art thou not wise?
Who taught thee else, thou frail anemone,
Thy starry notion, thy wind-wavering motion,
Thy complex of chaste beauty, unimagin'd
Till thou art seen?--And how so wisely, thou,
Indifferent to the number of thy rays, 270
While others are so strict? This six-leaved tulip,
--He would not risk a seventh for all his worth,--
He thought to attain unique magnificence
By sheer simplicity--a pointed oval
Bare on a stalk erect: and yet, grown old
He will his young idea quite abandon,
In his dishevel'd fury wantoning
Beyond belief.... Some are four-leaved: this poppy
Will have but four. He, like a hurried thief,
Stuffs his rich silks into too small a bag-- 280
I think he watch'd a summer-butterfly
Creep out all crumpled from his winter-case,
Trusting the sun to smooth his tender tissue
And sleek the velvet of his painted wings:--
And so doth he.--Between such different schemes,
Such widely varied loveliness, how choose?
Yet loving all, one should be most belov'd,
Most intimately mine; to mortal men
My emblem: tho' I never find in one
The sum of all distinctions.--Rose were best: 290
But she is passion's darling, and unkind
To handle--set her by.--Choosing for odour,
The violet were mine--men call her modest,
Because she hides, and when in company
Lacks manner and the assertive style of worth:--
While this narcissus here scorns modesty,
Will stand up what she is, tho' something prim:
Her scent, a saturation of one tone,
Like her plain symmetry, leaves nought to fancy:--
Whereas this iris,--she outvieth man's 300
Excellent artistry; elaboration
Confounded with simplicity, till none
Can tell which sprang of which. Coud I but find
A scented iris, I should be content:
Yet men would call me proud: Iris is Pride.--
To-day I'll favour thee, sweet violet;
Thou canst live in my bosom. I'll not wrong thee
Wearing thee in Olympus.--Help! help! Ay me!
[_Persephone rises to her feet, and amidst a contrivance of confused
darkness Hades is seen rushing from behind. He seizes her and
drags her backward. Her basket is thrown up and the flowers
scattered._]
ACT II
_CHORUS._
I (α)
Bright day succeedeth unto day--
Night to pensive night-- 310
With his towering ray
Of all-fathering light--
With the solemn trance
Of her starry dance.--
Nought is new or strange
In the eternal change.--
As the light clouds fly
O'er the tree-tops high,
So the days go by.--
Ripples that arrive 320
On the sunny shore,
Dying to their live
Music evermore.--
Like pearls on a thread,--
Like notes of a song,--
Like the measur'd tread
Of a dancing throng.--
(β)
Ocëanides are we,
Nereids of the foam,
But we left the sea 330
On the earth to roam
With the fairest Queen
That the world hath seen.--
Why amidst our play
Was she sped away?--
Over hill and plain
We have sought in vain;
She comes not again.--
Not the Naiads knew
On their dewy lawns:-- 340
Not the laughing crew
Of the leaping Fauns.--
Now, since she is gone,
All our dance is slow,
All our joy is done,
And our song is woe.--
II
Saw ye the mighty Mother, where she went
Searching the land?
Nor night nor day resting from her lament,
With smoky torch in hand. 350
Her godhead in the passion of a sorrow spent
Which not her mind coud suffer, nor heart withstand?--
2
Enlanguor'd like a fasting lioness,
That prowls around
Robb'd of her whelps, in fury comfortless
Until her lost be found:
Implacable and terrible in her wild distress;
And thro' the affrighted country her roars resound.--
3
But lo! what form is there? Thine eyes awaken!
See! see! O say, 360
Is not that she, the furious, the forsaken?
She cometh, lo! this way;
Her golden-rippling hair upon her shoulders shaken,
And all her visage troubled with deep dismay.
_DEMETER_ (_entering_).
Here is the hateful spot, the hollow rock
Whence the fierce ravisher sprang forth--
(_seeing the nymphs_) Ah! Ye!
I know you well: ye are the nymphs of Ocean.
Ye, graceful as your watery names
And idle as the mimic flames
That skip upon his briny floor, 370
When the hot sun smiteth thereo'er;
Why did ye leave your native waves?
Did false Poseidon, to my hurt
Leagued with my foe, bid you desert
Your opalescent pearly caves,
Your dances on the shelly strand?
CH. Poseidon gave us no command,
Lady; it was thy child Persephone,
Whose beauty drew us from the sea.
DEM. Ill company ye lent, ill-fated guards! 380
How was she stolen from your distracted eyes?
CH. There, where thou standest now, stood she companion'd
By wise Athena and bright Artemis.
We in flower-gathering dance and idle song
Were wander'd off apart; we fear'd no wrong.
DEM. In heav'n I heard her cry: ye nothing heard?
CH. We heard no cry--How coudst thou hear in heaven?
Ask us not óf her:--we have nought to tell.--
DEM. I seek not knowledge óf you, for I know.
CH. Thou knowest? Ah, mighty Queen, deign then to tell
If thou hast found her. Tell us--tell us--tell! 391
DEM. Oh, there are calls that love can hear,
That strike not on the outward ear.
None heard save I: but with a dart
Of lightning-pain it pierc'd my heart,
That call for aid, that cry of fear.
It echo'd from the mountain-steeps
Down to the dark of Ocean-deeps;
O'er all the isle, from ev'ry hill
It pierc'd my heart and echoes still, 400
Ay me! Ay me!
CH. Where is she, O mighty Queen?--Tell us--O tell!--
DEM. Swift unto earth, in frenzy led
By Cora's cry, from heav'n I sped.
Immortal terror froze my mind:
I fear'd, ev'n as I yearn'd to find
My child, my joy, faln from my care
Wrong'd or distresst, I knew not where,
Cora, my Cora!
Nor thought I whither first to fly, 410
Answ'ring the appeal of that wild cry:
But still it drew me till I came
To Enna, calling still her name,
Cora, my Cora!
CH. If thou hast found her, tell us, Queen, O tell!
DEM. Nine days I wander'd o'er the land.
From Enna to the eastern strand
I sought, and when the first night came
I lit my torch in Etna's flame.
But neither 'mid the chestnut woods 420
That rustle o'er his stony floods;
Nor yet at daybreak on the meads
Where bountiful Symaethus leads
His chaunting boatmen to the main;
Nor where the road on Hybla's plain
Is skirted by the spacious corn;
Nor where embattled Syracuse
With lustrous temple fronts the morn;
Nor yet by dolphin'd Arethuse;
Nor when I crossed Anapus wide, 430
Where Cyane, his reedy bride,
Uprushing from her crystal well,
Doth not his cold embrace repel;
Nor yet by western Eryx, where
Gay Aphrodite high in air
Beams gladness from her marble chair;
Nor 'mong the mountains that enfold
Panormos in her shell of gold,
Found I my Cora: no reply
Came to my call, my helpless cry, 440
Cora, my Cora!
CH. Hast thou not found her, then? Tell us--O tell!
DEM. What wonder that I never found
Her whom I sought on mortal ground,
When she--(now will ye understand?)--
Dwelt in the land that is no land,
The fruitless and unseason'd plain
Where all lost things are found again;
Where man's distract imaginings
Head-downward hang on bat-like wings, 450
'Mid mummied hopes, sleep-walking cares,
Crest-faln illusions and despairs,
The tortur'd memories of crime,
The outcasts of forgotten time?
CH. Where is she, Queen?--where?--where?
DEM. Nor had I known,
Had not himself high Helios seen and told me.
CH. Alas! Alas! We cannot understand--
We pray, dear Queen, may great Zeus comfort thee.
DEM. Yea, pray to Zeus; but pray ye for yourselves,
That he have pity on you, for there is need. 460
Or let Zeus hear a strange, unwonted prayer
That in his peril he will aid himself;
For I have said, nor coud his Stygian oath
Add any sanction to a mother's word,
That, if he give not back my daughter to me,
Him will I slay, and lock his pining ghost
In sleepy prisons of unhallowing hell.
CH. (_aside_). Alas! alas! she is distraught with grief.--
What comfort can we make?-- How reason with her?-- 469
(_to_ D.) This coud not be, great Queen. How coud it be
That Zeus should be destroy'd, or thou destroy him?
DEM. Yea, and you too: so make your prayer betimes.
CH. We pray thee, Lady, sit thou on this bank
And we will bring thee food; or if thou thirst,
Water. We know too in what cooling caves
The sly Fauns have bestow'd their skins of wine.
DEM. Ye simple creatures, I need not these things,
And stand above your pity. Think ye me
A woman of the earth derang'd with grief?
Nay, nay: but I have pity on your pity, 480
And for your kindness I will ease the trouble
Wherewith it wounds your gentleness: attend!
Ye see this jewel here, that from my neck
Hangs by this golden chain.
[_They crowd near to see._
Look, 'tis a picture,
'Tis of Persephone.
CH. How?--Is that she?--
A crown she weareth.--She was never wont
Thus ...--nor her robe thus--and her countenance
Hath not the smile which drew us from the sea.
DEM. Daedalus cut it, in the year he made
The Zibian Aphrodite, and Hephaestus 490
O'erlookt and praised the work. I treasure it
Beyond all other jewels that I have,
And on this chain I guard it. Say now: think ye
It cannot fall loose until every link
Of all the chain be broken, or if one
Break, will it fall?
CH. Surely if one break, Lady,
The chain is broken and the jewel falls.
DEM. 'Tis so. Now hearken diligently. All life
Is as this chain, and Zeus is as the jewel.
The universal life dwells first in the Earth, 500
The stones and soil; therefrom the plants and trees
Exhale their being; and on them the brutes
Feeding elaborate their sentient life,
And from these twain mankind; and in mankind
A spirit lastly is form'd of subtler sort
Whereon the high gods live, sustain'd thereby,
And feeding on it, as plants on the soil,
Or animals on plants. Now see! I hold,
As well ye know, one whole link of this chain:
If I should kill the plants, must not man perish? 510
And if he perish, then the gods must die.
CH. If this were so, thou wouldst destroy thyself.
DEM. And therefore Zeus will not believe my word.
CH. Nor we believe thee, Lady: it cannot be
That thou shouldst seek to mend a private fortune
By universal ruin, and restore
Thy daughter by destruction of thyself.
DEM. Ye are not mothers, or ye would not wonder.
In me, who hold from great all-mother Rhea
Heritage of essential motherhood, 520
Ye would look rather for unbounded passion.
Coud I, the tenderness of Nature's heart,
Exist, were I unheedful to protect
From wrong and ill the being that I gave,
The unweeting passions that I fondly nurtured
To hopes of glory, the young confidence
In growing happiness? Shall I throw by
As self-delusion the supreme ambition,
Which I encourag'd till parental fondness
Bore the prophetic blessing, on whose truth 530
My spirit throve? Oh never! nay, nay, nay!
That were the one disaster, and if aid
I cannot, I can mightily avenge.
On irremediable wrong I shrink not
To pile immortal ruin, there to lie
As trophies on a carven tomb: nor less
For that no memory of my deed survive,
Nor any eye to see, nor tongue to tell.
CH. So vast injustice, Lady, were not good.
DEM. To you I seem unjust involving man. 540
CH. Why should man suffer in thy feud with Zeus?
DEM. Let Zeus relent. There is no other way.
I will destroy the seeds of plant and tree:
Vineyard and orchard, oliveyard and cornland
Shall all withhold their fruits, and in their stead
Shall flourish the gay blooms that Cora loved.
There shall be dearth, and yet so gay the dearth
That all the land shall look in holiday
With mockery of foison; every field
With splendour aflame. For wheat the useless poppy 550
In sheeted scarlet; and for barley and oats
The blue and yellow weeds that mock men's toil,
Centaury and marigold in chequer'd plots:
Where seed is sown, or none, shall dandelions
And wretched ragwort vie, orchis and iris
And garish daisy, and for every flower
That in this vale she pluckt, shall spring a thousand.
Where'er she slept anemones shall crowd,
And the sweet violet. These things shall ye see.
--But I behold him whom I came to meet, 560
Hermes:--he, be he laden howsoe'er,
Will heavier-laden to his lord return.
_HERMES_ (_entering_).
Mighty Demeter, Mother of the seasons,
Bountiful all-sustainer, fairest daughter
Of arch-ancestral Rhea,--to thee Zeus sendeth
Kindly message. He grieves seeing thy godhead
Offended wrongly at eternal justice,
'Gainst destiny ordain'd idly revolting.
Ever will he, thy brother, honour thee
And willingly aid thee: but since now thy daughter 570
Is raised to a place on the tripartite throne,
He finds thee honour'd duly and not injur'd.
Wherefore he bids thee now lament no more,
But with thy presence grace the courts of heav'n.
DEM. Bright Hermes, Argus-slayer, born of Maia,
Who bearest empty words, the mask of war,
To Zeus make thine own words, that thou hast found me
Offended,--that I still lament my daughter,
Nor heed his summons to the courts of heav'n.
HER. Giv'st thou me nought but these relentless words?
DEM. I send not words, nor dost thou carry deeds. 581
But know, since heav'n denies my claim, I take
Earth for my battle-field. Curse and defiance
Shall shake his throne, and, readier then for justice,
Zeus will enquire my terms: thou, on that day,
Remember them; that he shall bid thee lead
Persephone from Hades by the hand,
And on this spot, whence she was stol'n, restore her
Into mine arms. Execute that; and praise
Shall rise from earth and peace return to heav'n. 590
HER. How dare I carry unto Zeus thy threats?
DEM. Approach him with a gift: this little wallet.
[_Giving a little bag of seeds._
I will not see thee again until the day
Thou lead my daughter hither thro' the gates of Hell. [_Going._
HER. Ah! mighty Queen, the lightness of thy gift
Is greater burden than thy weighty words.
[_Exeunt severally r. and l._
_CHORUS._
(1) Sisters! what have we heard!
Our fair Persephone, the flower of the earth,
By Hades stolen away, his queen to be.
(_others_) Alas!--alas!--ay me! 600
(2) And great Demeter's bold relentless word
To Hermes given,
Threatening mankind with dearth.
(_others_) Ay me! alas! alas!--
(3 _or_ 1) She in her sorrow strong
Fears not to impeach the King of Heaven,
And combat wrong with wrong.--
(_others confusedly_) What can we do?--Alas!--
Back to our ocean-haunts return
To weep and mourn.-- 610
What use to mourn?--
Nay, nay!--Away with sorrow:
Let us forget to-day
And look for joy to-morrow:--
[(1) Nay, nay! hearken to me!]
Nay, how forget that on us too,--
Yea, on us all
The curse will fall.--
[(1) Hearken! I say!]
What can we do? Alas! alas! 620
(1) Hearken! There's nought so light,
Nothing of weight so small,
But that in even balance 'twill avail
Wholly to turn the scale.
Let us our feeble force unite,
And giving voice to tears,
Assail Poseidon's ears;
Rob pleasure from his days,
Darken with sorrow all his ways,
Until his shifty mind 630
Become to pity inclined,
And 'gainst his brother turn.
(_others_) 'Tis well, thou sayest well.
(2) Yea; for if Zeus should learn
That earth and sea were both combined
Against his cruel intent,
Sooner will he relent.
(_others_) 'Tis well--we do it--'tis well.--
(1) Come let us vow. Vow all with one accord
To harden every heart 640
Till we have won Poseidon to our part.
(_all_) We vow--we do it--we vow.
(1) Till we have conquer'd heav'n's almighty lord
And seen Persephone restored.
(_all_) We vow--we vow.
(1) Come then all; and, as ye go,
Begin the song of woe.
_Song._
Close up, bright flow'rs, and hang the head,
Ye beauties of the plain,
The Queen of Spring is with the dead, 650
Ye deck the earth in vain.
From your deserted vale we fly,
And where the salt waves mourn
Our song shall swell their burd'ning sigh
Until sweet joy return.
ACT III
_CHORUS._
_Song._
Lo where the virgin veilëd in airy beams,
All-holy Morn, in splendor awakening,
Heav'n's gate hath unbarrèd, the golden
Aerial lattices set open.
With music endeth night's prisoning terror, 660
With flow'ry incense: Haste to salute the sun,
That for the day's chase, like a huntsman,
With flashing arms cometh o'er the mountain.
_Inter se._ That were a song for Artemis--I have heard
Men thus salute the rising sun in spring--
--See, we have wreaths enough and garlands plenty
To hide our lov'd Persephone from sight
If she should come.--But think you she will come?--
If one might trust the heavens, it is a morn
Promising happiness--'Tis like the day 670
That brought us all our grief a year ago.--
_ODE._
O that the earth, or only this fair isle wer' ours
Amid the ocean's blue billows,
With flow'ry woodland, stately mountain and valley,
Cascading and lilied river;
Nor ever a mortal envious, laborious,
By anguish or dull care opprest,
Should come polluting with remorseful countenance
Our haunt of easy gaiety.
For us the grassy slopes, the country's airiness, 680
The lofty whispering forest,
Where rapturously Philomel invoketh the night
And million eager throats the morn;
With doves at evening softly cooing, and mellow
Cadences of the dewy thrush.
We love the gentle deer, the nimble antelope;
Mice love we and springing squirrels;
To watch the gaudy flies visit the blooms, to hear
On ev'ry mead the grasshopper.
All thro' the spring-tide, thro' the indolent summer, 690
(If only this fair isle wer' ours)
Here might we dwell, forgetful of the weedy caves
Beneath the ocean's blue billows.
_Enter Demeter._
CH. Hail, mighty Mother!--Welcome, great Demeter!--
(1) This day bring joy to thee, and peace to man!
DEM. I welcome you, my loving true allies,
And thank you, who for me your gentle tempers
Have stiffen'd in rebellion, and so long
Harass'd the foe. Here on this field of flowers
I have bid you share my victory or defeat. 700
For Hermes hath this day command from Zeus
To lead our lost Persephone from Hell,
Hither whence she was stolen.--And yet, alas!
Tho' Zeus is won, some secret power thwarts me;
All is not won: a cloud is o'er my spirit.
Wherefore not yet I boast, nor will rejoice
Till mine eyes see her, and my arms enfold her,
And breast to breast we meet in fond embrace.
CH. Well hast thou fought, great goddess, so to wrest
Zeus from his word. We thank thee, call'd to share 710
Thy triumph, and rejoice. Yet O, we pray,
Make thou this day a day of peace for man!
Even if Persephone be not restored,
Whether Aidoneus hold her or release,
Relent thou.--Stay thine anger, mighty goddess;
Nor with thy hateful famine slay mankind.
DEM. Say not that word 'relent' lest Hades hear!
CH. Consider rather if mankind should hear.
DEM. Do ye love man?
CH. We have seen his sorrows, Lady ...
DEM. And what can ye have seen that I know not?--
His sorrow?--Ah my sorrow!--and ye bid 721
Me to relent; whose deeds of fond compassion
Have in this year of agony built up
A story for all time that shall go wand'ring
Further than I have wander'd;--whereto all ears
Shall hearken ever, as ye will hearken now.
CH. Happy are we, who first shall hear the tale
From thine own lips, and tell it to the sea.
DEM. Attend then while I tell.--
--Parting from Hermes hence, anger'd at heart, 730
Self-exiled from the heav'ns, forgone, alone,
My anguish fasten'd on me, as I went
Wandering an alien in the haunts of men.
To screen my woe I put my godhead off,
Taking the likeness of a worthy dame,
A woman of the people well in years;
Till going unobserv'd, it irked me soon
To be unoccupy'd save by my grief,
While men might find distraction for their sorrows
In useful toil. Then, of my pity rather 740
Than hope to find their simple cure my own,
I took resolve to share and serve their needs,
And be as one of them.
CH. Ah, mighty goddess,
Coudst thou so put thy dignities away,
And suffer the familiar brunt of men?
DEM. In all things even as they.--And sitting down
One evening at Eleusis, by the well
Under an olive-tree, likening myself
Outwardly to some kindly-hearted matron,
Whose wisdom and experience are of worth 750
Either where childhood clamorously speaks
The engrossing charge of Aphrodite's gifts,
Or merry maidens in wide-echoing halls
Want sober governance;--to me, as there
I sat, the daughters of King Keleos came,
Tall noble damsels, as kings' daughters are,
And, marking me a stranger, they drew from me
A tale told so engagingly, that they
Grew fain to find employment for my skill;
--As men devise in mutual recompense, 760
Hoping the main advantage for themselves;--
And so they bad me follow, and I enter'd
The palace of King Keleos, and received
There on my knees the youngest of the house,
A babe, to nurse him as a mother would:
And in that menial service I was proud
To outrun duty and trust: and there I liv'd
Disguised among the maidens many months.
CH. Often as have our guesses aim'd, dear Lady,
Where thou didst hide thyself, oft as we wonder'd 770
What chosen work was thine, none ever thought
That thou didst deign to tend a mortal babe.
DEM. What life I led shall be for men to tell.
But for this babe, the nursling of my sorrow,
Whose peevish cry was my consoling care,
How much I came to love him ye shall hear.
CH. What was he named, Lady?
DEM. Demophoön.
Yea, ye shall hear how much I came to love him.
For in his small epitome I read
The trouble of mankind; in him I saw 780
The hero's helplessness, the countless perils
In ambush of life's promise, the desire
Blind and instinctive, and the will perverse.
His petty needs were man's necessities;
In him I nurst all mortal natur', embrac'd
With whole affection to my breast, and lull'd
Wailing humanity upon my knee.
CH. We see thou wilt not now destroy mankind.
DEM. What I coud do to save man was my thought.
And, since my love was center'd in the boy, 790
My thought was first for him, to rescue him;
That, thro' my providence, he ne'er should know
Suffering, nor disease, nor fear of death.
Therefore I fed him on immortal food,
And should have gain'd my wish, so well he throve,
But by ill-chance it hapt, once, as I held him
Bathed in the fire at midnight (as was my wont),--
His mother stole upon us, and ascare
At the strange sight, screaming in loud dismay
Compel'd me to unmask, and leave for ever 800
The halls of Keleos, and my work undone.
CH. 'Twas pity that she came!--Didst thou not grieve to lose
The small Demophoön?--Coudst thou not save him?
DEM. I had been blinded. Think ye for yourselves ...
What vantage were it to mankind at large
That one should be immortal,--if all beside
Must die and suffer misery as before?
CH. Nay, truly. And great envy borne to one
So favour'd might have more embitter'd all.
DEM. I had been foolish. My sojourn with men 810
Had warpt my mind with mortal tenderness.
So, questioning myself what real gift
I might bestow on man to help his state,
I saw that sorrow was his life-companion,
To be embrac't bravely, not weakly shun'd:
That as by toil man winneth happiness,
Thro' tribulation he must come to peace.
How to make sorrow his friend then,--this my task.
Here was a mystery ... and how persuade
This thorny truth?... Ye do not hearken me. 820
CH. Yea, honour'd goddess, yea, we hearken still:
Stint not thy tale.
DEM. Ye might not understand.
My tale to you must be a tale of deeds--
How first I bade King Keleos build for me
A temple in Eleusis, and ordain'd
My worship, and the mysteries of my thought;
Where in the sorrow that I underwent
Man's state is pattern'd; and in picture shewn
The way of his salvation.... Now with me
--Here is a matter grateful to your ears-- 830
Your lov'd Persephone hath equal honour,
And in the spring her festival of flowers:
And if she should return ... [_Listening._
Ah! hark! what hear I?
CH. We hear no sound.
DEM. Hush ye! Hermes: he comes.
CH. What hearest thou?
DEM. Hermes; and not alone.
She is there. 'Tis she: I have won.
CH. Where? where?
DEM. (_aside_). Ah! can it be that out of sorrow's night,
From tears, from yearning pain, from long despair,
Into joy's sunlight I shall come again?--
Aside! stand ye aside! 840
_Enter Hermes leading Persephone._
HER. Mighty Demeter, lo! I execute
The will of Zeus and here restore thy daughter.
DEM. I have won.
PER. Sweet Mother, thy embrace is as the welcome
Of all the earth, thy kiss the breath of life.
DEM. Ah! but to me, Cora! Thy voice again...
My tongue is trammel'd with excess of joy.
PER. Arise, my nymphs, my Oceanides!
My Nereids all, arise! and welcome me!
Put off your strange solemnity! arise! 850
CH. Welcome! all welcome, fair Persephone!
(1) We came to welcome thee, but fell abash'd
Seeing thy purple robe and crystal crown.
PER. Arise and serve my pleasure as of yore.
DEM. And thou too doff thy strange solemnity,
That all may see thee as thou art, my Cora,
Restor'd and ever mine. Put off thy crown!
PER. Awhile! dear Mother--what thou say'st is true;
I am restor'd to thee, and evermore
Shall be restor'd. Yet am I none the less 860
Evermore Queen of Hades: and 'tis meet
I wear the crown, the symbol of my reign.
DEM. What words are these, my Cora! Evermore
Restor'd to me thou say'st ... 'tis well--but then
Evermore Queen of Hades ... what is this?
I had a dark foreboding till I saw thee:
Alas, alas! it lives again: destroy it!
Solve me this riddle quickly, if thou mayest.
PER. Let Hermes speak, nor fear thou. All is well.
HER. Divine Demeter, thou hast won thy will, 870
And the command of Zeus have I obey'd.
Thy daughter is restor'd, and evermore
Shall be restor'd to thee as on this day.
But Hades holding to his bride, the Fates
Were kind also to him, that she should be
His queen in Hades as thy child on earth.
Yearly, as spring-tide cometh, she is thine
While flowers bloom and all the land is gay;
But when thy corn is gather'd, and the fields
Are bare, and earth withdraws her budding life 880
From the sharp bite of winter's angry fang,
Yearly will she return and hold her throne
With great Aidoneus and the living dead:
And she hath eaten with him of such fruit
As holds her his true bride for evermore.
DEM. Alas! alas!
PER. Rejoice, dear Mother. Let not vain lament
Trouble our joy this day, nor idle tears.
DEM. Alas! from my own deed my trouble comes:
He gave thee of the fruit which I had curs'd: 890
I made the poison that enchanted thee.
PER. Repent not in thy triumph, but rejoice,
Who hast thy will in all, as I have mine.
DEM. I have but half my will, how hast thou more?
PER. It was my childish fancy (thou rememb'rest),
I would be goddess of the flowers: I thought
That men should innocently honour me
With bloodless sacrifice and spring-tide joy.
Now Fate, that look'd contrary, hath fulfill'd
My project with mysterious efficacy: 900
And as a plant that yearly dieth down
When summer is o'er, and hideth in the earth,
Nor showeth promise in its wither'd leaves
That it shall reawaken and put forth
Its blossoms any more to deck the spring;
So I, the mutual symbol of my choice,
Shall die with winter, and with spring revive.
How without winter coud I have my spring?
How come to resurrection without death?
Lo thus our joyful meeting of to-day, 910
Born of our separation, shall renew
Its annual ecstasy, by grief refresht:
And no more pall than doth the joy of spring
Yearly returning to the hearts of men.
See then the accomplishment of all my hope:
Rejoice, and think not to put off my crown.
DEM. What hast thou seen below to reconcile thee
To the dark moiety of thy strange fate?
PER. Where have I been, mother? what have I seen?
The downward pathway to the gates of death: 920
The skeleton of earthly being, stript
Of all disguise: the sudden void of night:
The spectral records of unwholesome fear:--
Why was it given to me to see these things?
The ruin'd godheads, disesteem'd, condemn'd
To toil of deathless mockery: conquerors
In the reverse of glory, doom'd to rule
The multitudinous army of their crimes:
The naked retribution of all wrong:--
Why was it given to me to see such things? 930
DEM. Not without terror, as I think, thou speakest,
Nor as one reconcil'd to brook return.
PER. But since I have seen these things, with salt and fire
My spirit is purged, and by this crystal crown
Terror is tamed within me. If my words
Seem'd to be tinged with terror, 'twas because
I knew one hour of terror (on the day
That took me hence) and with that memory
Colour'd my speech, using the terms which paint
The blindfold fears of men, who little reckon 940
How they by holy innocence and love,
By reverence and gentle lives may win
A title to the fair Elysian fields,
Where the good spirits dwell in ease and light
And entertainment of those fair desires
That made earth beautiful ... brave souls that spent
Their lives for liberty and truth, grave seers
Whose vision conquer'd darkness, pious poets
Whose words have won Apollo's deathless praise,
Who all escape Hell's mysteries, nor come nigh 950
The Cave of Cacophysia.
DEM. Mysteries!
What mysteries are these? and what the Cave?
PER. The mysteries of evil, and the cave
Of blackness that obscures them. Even in hell
The worst is hidden, and unfructuous night
Stifles her essence in her truthless heart.
DEM. What is the arch-falsity? I seek to know
The mystery of evil. Hast thou seen it?
PER. I have seen it. Coud I truly rule my kingdom
Not having seen it?
DEM. Tell me what it is. 960
PER. 'Tis not that I forget it; tho' the thought
Is banisht from me. But 'tis like a dream
Whose sense is an impression lacking words.
DEM. If it would pain thee telling ...
PER. Nay, but surely
The words of gods and men are names of things
And thoughts accustom'd: but of things unknown
And unimagin'd are no words at all.
DEM. And yet will words sometimes outrun the thought.
PER. What can be spoken is nothing: 'twere a path
That leading t'ward some prospect ne'er arrived. 970
DEM. The more thou holdest back, the more I long.
PER. The outward aspect only mocks my words.
DEM. Yet what is outward easy is to tell.
PER. Something is possible. This cavern lies
In very midmost of deep-hollow'd hell.
O'er its torn mouth the black Plutonic rock
Is split in sharp disorder'd pinnacles
And broken ledges, whereon sit, like apes
Upon a wither'd tree, the hideous sins
Of all the world: once having seen within 980
The magnetism is heavy on them, and they crawl
Palsied with filthy thought upon the peaks;
Or, squatting thro' long ages, have become
Rooted like plants into the griping clefts:
And there they pullulate, and moan, and strew
The rock with fragments of their mildew'd growth.
DEM. Cora, my child! and hast thou seen these things!
PER. Nay but the outward aspect, figur'd thus
In mere material loathsomeness, is nought
Beside the mystery that is hid within. 990
DEM. Search thou for words, I pray, somewhat to tell.
PER. Are there not matters past the thought of men
Or gods to know?
DEM. Thou meanest wherefore things
Should be at all? Or, if they be, why thus,
As hot, cold, hard and soft: and wherefore Zeus
Had but two brothers; why the stars of heaven
Are so innumerable, constellated
Just as they are; or why this Sicily
Should be three-corner'd? Yes, thou sayest well,
Why things are as they are, nor gods nor men 1000
Can know. We say that Fate appointed thus,
And are content.--
PER. Suppose, dear Mother, there wer' a temple in heaven,
Which, dedicated to the unknown Cause
And worship of the unseen, had power to draw
All that was worthy and good within its gate:
And that the spirits who enter'd there became
Not only purified and comforted,
But that the mysteries of the shrine were such,
That the initiated bathed in light 1010
Of infinite intelligence, and saw
The meaning and the reason of all things,
All at a glance distinctly, and perceived
The origin of all things to be good,
And the énd good, and that what appears as evil
Is as a film of dust, that faln thereon,
May,--at one stroke of the hand,--
Be brush'd away, and show the good beneath,
Solid and fair and shining: If moreover
This blessëd vision were of so great power 1020
That none coud e'er forget it or relapse
To doubtful ignorance:--I say, dear Mother,
Suppose that there were such a temple in heaven.
DEM. O child, my child! that were a temple indeed.
'Tis such a temple as man needs on earth;
A holy shrine that makes no pact with sin,
A worthy shrine to draw the worthy and good,
A shrine of wisdom trifling not with folly,
A shrine of beauty, where the initiated
Drank love and light.... Strange thou shouldst speak of it.
I have inaugurated such a temple 1031
These last days in Eleusis, have ordain'd
These very mysteries!--Strange thou speakest of it.
But by what path return we to the Cave
Of Cacophysia?
PER. By this path, dear Mother.
The Cave of Cacophysia is in all things
T'ward evil, as that temple were t'ward good.
I enter'd in. Outside the darkness was
But as accumulated sunlessness;
Within 'twas positive as light itself, 1040
A blackness that extinguished: Yet I knew,
For Hades told me, that I was to see;
And so I waited, till a forking flash
Of sudden lightning dazzlingly reveal'd
All at a glance. As on a pitchy night
The warder of some high acropolis
Looks down into the dark, and suddenly
Sees all the city with its roofs and streets,
Houses and walls, clear as in summer noon,
And ere he think of it, 'tis dark again,-- 1050
So I saw all within the Cave, and held
The vision, 'twas so burnt upon my sense.
DEM. What saw'st thou, child? what saw'st thou?
PER. Nay, the things
Not to be told, because there are no words
Of gods or men to paint the inscrutable
And full initiation of hell.--I saw
The meaning and the reason of all things,
All at a glance, and in that glance perceiv'd
The origin of all things to be evil,
And the énd evil: that what seems as good 1060
Is as a bloom of gold that spread thereo'er
May, by one stroke of the hand,
Be brush'd away, and leave the ill beneath
Solid and foul and black....
DEM. Now tell me, child,
If Hades love thee, that he sent thee thither.
PER. He said it coud not harm me: and I think
It hath not. [_Going up to Demeter, who kisses her._
DEM. Nay it hath not, ... and I know
The power of evil is no power at all
Against eternal good. 'Tis fire on water,
As darkness against sunlight, like a dream 1070
To waken'd will. Foolish was I to fear
That aught coud hurt thee, Cora. But to-day
Speak we no more.... This mystery of Hell
Will do me service: I'll not tell thee now:
But sure it is that Fate o'erruleth all
For good or ill: and we (no more than men)
Have power to oppose, nor any will nor choice
Beyond such wisdom as a fisher hath
Who driven by sudden gale far out to sea
Handles his fragile boat safe thro' the waves, 1080
Making what harbour the wild storm allows.
To-day hard-featured and inscrutable Fate
Stands to mine eyes reveal'd, nor frowns upon me.
I thought to find thee as I knew thee, and fear'd
Only to find thee sorrowful: I find thee
Far other than thou wert, nor hurt by Hell.
I thought I must console thee, but 'tis thou
Playest the comforter: I thought to teach thee,
And had prepared my lesson, word by word;
But thou art still beyond me. One thing only 1090
Of all my predetermin'd plan endures:
My purpose was to bid thee to Eleusis
For thy spring festival, which three days hence
Inaugurates my temple. Thou wilt come?
PER. I come. And art thou reconcil'd, dear Mother?
DEM. Joy and surprise make tempest in my mind;
When their bright stir is o'er, there will be peace.
But ere we leave this flowery field, the scene
Of strange and beauteous memories evermore,
I thank thee, Hermes, for thy willing service. 1100
PER. I thank thee, son of Maia, and bid farewell.
HER. Have thy joy now, great Mother; and have thou joy,
Fairest Persephone, Queen of the Spring.
_CHORUS._
Fair Persephone, garlands we bring thee,
Flow'rs and spring-tide welcome sing thee.
Hades held thee not,
Darkness quell'd thee not.
Gay and joyful welcome!
Welcome, Queen, evermore.
Earth shall own thee, 1110
Thy nymphs crown thee,
Garland thee and crown thee,
Crown thee Queen evermore.
EROS & PSYCHE
_A narrative Poem
in twelve measures_
[Illustration: decoration]
THE STORY DONE INTO ENGLISH
FROM THE LATIN
OF
APULEIUS
[Illustration: decoration]
_L'anima semplicetta che sa nulla._
_O latest born, O loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy._
_PREVIOUS EDITIONS_
1. _Chiswick Press for Bell & Sons._ 1885.
2. _Do. do. revised._ 1894.
3. _Smith, Elder & Co. Vol. I_. 1898.
FIRST QUARTER
SPRING
PSYCHE'S EARTHLY PARENTAGE · WORSHIPPED BY
MEN · & PERSECUTED BY APHRODITE · SHE IS
LOVED & CARRIED OFF BY EROS
MARCH
1
In midmost length of hundred-citied Crete,
The land that cradl'd Zeus, of old renown,
Where grave Demeter nurseried her wheat,
And Minos fashion'd law, ere he went down
To judge the quaking hordes of Hell's domain,
There dwelt a King on the Omphalian plain
Eastward of Ida, in a little town.
2
Three daughters had this King, of whom my tale
Time hath preserved, that loveth to despise
The wealth which men misdeem of much avail,
Their glories for themselves that they devise;
For clerkly is he, old hard-featured Time,
And poets' fabl'd song and lovers' rhyme
He storeth on his shelves to please his eyes.
3
These three princesses all were fairest fair;
And of the elder twain 'tis truth to say
That if they stood not high above compare,
Yet in their prime they bore the palm away;
Outwards of loveliness; but Nature's mood,
Gracious to make, had grudgingly endued
And marr'd by gifting ill the beauteous clay.
4
And being in honour they were well content
To feed on lovers' looks and courtly smiles,
To hang their necks with jewel'd ornament,
And gold, that vanity in vain beguiles,
And live in gaze, and take their praise for due,
To be the fairest maidens then to view
Within the shores of Greece and all her isles.
5
But of that youngest one, the third princess,
There is no likeness; since she was as far
From pictured beauty as is ugliness,
Though on the side where heavenly wonders are,
Ideals out of being and above,
Which music worshippeth, but if love love,
'Tis, as the poet saith, to love a star.
6
Her vision rather drave from passion's heart
What earthly soil it had afore possest;
Since to man's purer unsubstantial part
The brightness of her presence was addrest:
And such as mock'd at God, when once they saw
Her heavenly glance, were humbl'd, and in awe
Of things unseen, return'd to praise the Best.
7
And so before her, wheresoe'er she went,
Hushing the crowd a thrilling whisper ran,
And silent heads were reverently bent;
Till from the people the belief began
That Love's own mother had come down on earth,
Sweet Cytherea, or of mortal birth
A greater Goddess was vouchsaf't to man.
8
Then Aphrodite's statue in its place
Stood without worshippers; if Cretans pray'd
For beauty or for children, love or grace,
The prayer and vow were offer'd to the maid;
Unto the maid their hymns of praise were sung,
Their victims bled for her, for her they hung
Garland and golden gift, and none forbade.
9
And thence opinion spread beyond the shores,
From isle to isle the wonder flew, it came
Across the Ægæan on a thousand oars,
Athens and Smyrna caught the virgin's fame;
And East or West, where'er the tale had been,
The adoration of the foam-born queen
Fell to neglect, and men forgot her name.
10
No longer to high Paphos now 'twas sail'd;
The fragrant altar by the Graces served
At Cnidus was forsaken; pilgrims fail'd
The rocky island to her name reserved,
Proud Ephyra, and Meropis renown'd;
'Twas all for Crete her votaries were bound,
And to the Cretan maid her worship swerved.
11
Which when in heaven great Aphrodite saw,
Who is the breather of the year's bright morn,
Fount of desire and beauty without flaw,
Herself the life that doth the world adorn;
Seeing that without her generative might
Nothing can spring upon the shores of light,
Nor any bud of joy or love be born;
12
She, when she saw the insult, did not hide
Her indignation, that a mortal frail
With her eterne divinity had vied,
Her fair Hellenic empire to assail,
For which she had fled the doom of Ninus old,
And left her wanton images unsoul'd
In Babylon and Zidon soon to fail.
13
'Not long,' she cried, 'shall that poor girl of Crete
God it in my despite; for I will bring
Such mischief on the sickly counterfeit
As soon shall cure her tribe of worshipping:
Her beauty will I mock with loathèd lust,
Bow down her dainty spirit to the dust,
And leave her long alive to feel the sting.'
14
With that she calls to her her comely boy,
The limber scion of the God of War,
The fruit adulterous, which for man's annoy
To that fierce partner Cytherea bore,
Eros, the ever young, who only grew
In mischief, and was Cupid named anew
In westering aftertime of latin lore.
15
What the first dawn of manhood is, the hour
When beauty, from its fleshy bud unpent,
Flaunts like the corol of a summer flower,
As if all life were for that ornament,
Such Eros seemed in years, a trifler gay,
The prodigal of an immortal day
For ever spending, and yet never spent.
16
His skin is brilliant with the nimble flood
Of ichor, that comes dancing from his heart,
Lively as fire, and redder than the blood,
And maketh in his eyes small flashes dart,
And curleth his hair golden, and distilleth
Honey on his tongue, and all his body filleth
With wanton lightsomeness in every part.
17
Naked he goeth, but with sprightly wings
Red, iridescent, are his shoulders fledged.
A bow his weapon, which he deftly strings,
And little arrows barb'd and keenly edged;
And these he shooteth true; but else the youth
For all his seeming recketh naught of truth,
But most deceiveth where he most is pledged.
18
'Tis he that maketh in men's heart a strife
Between remorseful reason and desire,
Till with life lost they lose the love of life,
And by their own hands wretchedly expire;
Or slain in bloody rivalries they miss
Even the short embracement of their bliss,
His smile of fury and his kiss of fire.
19
He makes the strong man weak, the weak man wild;
Ruins great business and purpose high;
Brings down the wise to folly reconciled,
And martial captains on their knees to sigh:
He changeth dynasties, and on the head
Of duteous heroes, who for honour bled,
Smircheth the laurel that can never die.
20
Him then she call'd, and gravely kissing told
The great dishonour to her godhead done;
And how, if he from that in heaven would hold,
On earth he must maintain it as her son;
The rather that his weapons were most fit,
As was his skill ordain'd to champion it;
And flattering thus his ready zeal she won.
21
Whereon she quickly led him down on earth,
And show'd him PSYCHE, thus the maid was named;
Whom when she show'd, but coud not hide her worth,
She grew with envy tenfold more enflamed.
'But if,' she cried, 'thou smite her as I bid,
Soon shall our glory of this affront be rid,
And she and all her likes for ever shamed.
22
'Make her to love the loathliest, basest wretch,
Deform'd in body, and of moonstruck mind,
A hideous brute and vicious, born to fetch
Anger from dogs and cursing from the blind.
And let her passion for the monster be
As shameless and detestable as he
Is most extreme and vile of humankind.'
23
Which said, when he agreed, she spake no more,
But left him to his task, and took her way
Beside the ripples of the shell-strewn shore,
The southward stretching margin of a bay,
Whose sandy curves she pass'd, and taking stand
Upon its taper horn of furthest land,
Lookt left and right to rise and set of day.
24
Fair was the sight; for now, though full an hour
The sun had sunk, she saw the evening light
In shifting colour to the zenith tower,
And grow more gorgeous ever and more bright.
Bathed in the warm and comfortable glow,
The fair delighted queen forgot her woe,
And watch'd the unwonted pageant of the night.
25
Broad and low down, where late the sun had been
A wealth of orange-gold was thickly shed,
Fading above into a field of green,
Like apples ere they ripen into red;
Then to the height a variable hue
Of rose and pink and crimson freak'd with blue,
And olive-border'd clouds o'er lilac led.
26
High in the opposèd west the wondering moon
All silvery green in flying green was fleec't;
And round the blazing South the splendour soon
Caught all the heaven, and ran to North and East;
And Aphrodite knew the thing was wrought
By cunning of Poseidon, and she thought
She would go see with whom he kept his feast.
27
Swift to her wish came swimming on the waves
His lovely ocean nymphs, her guides to be,
The Nereids all, who live among the caves
And valleys of the deep, Cymodocè,
Agavè, blue-eyed Hallia and Nesæa,
Speio, and Thoë, Glaucè and Actæa,
Iaira, Melitè and Amphinomè,
28
Apseudès and Nemertès, Callianassa,
Cymothoë, Thaleia, Limnorrhea,
Clymenè, Ianeira and Ianassa,
Doris and Panopè and Galatea,
Dynamenè, Dexamenè and Maira,
Ferusa, Doto, Proto, Callianeira,
Amphithoë, Oreithuia and Amathea.
29
And after them sad Melicertes drave
His chariot, that with swift unfellied wheel,
By his two dolphins drawn along the wave,
Flew as they plunged, yet did not dip nor reel,
But like a plough that shears the heavy land
Stood on the flood, and back on either hand
O'erturn'd the briny furrow with its keel.
30
Behind came Tritons, that their conches blew,
Greenbearded, tail'd like fish, all sleek and stark;
And hippocampi tamed, a bristly crew,
The browzers of old Proteus' weedy park,
Whose chiefer Mermen brought a shell for boat,
And balancing its hollow fan afloat,
Push'd it to shore and bade the queen embark:
31
And then the goddess stept upon the shell
Which took her weight; and others threw a train
Of soft silk o'er her, that unfurl'd to swell
In sails, at breath of flying Zephyrs twain;
And all her way with foam in laughter strewn,
With stir of music and of conches blown,
Was Aphrodite launch'd upon the main.
APRIL
1
But fairest Psyche still in favour rose,
Nor knew the jealous power against her sworn;
And more her beauty now surpass't her foe's,
Since 'twas transfigured by the spirit forlorn,
That writeth, to the perfecting of grace,
Immortal question in a mortal face,
The vague desire whereunto man is born.
2
Already in good time her sisters both,
Whose honest charms were never famed as hers,
With princes of the isle had plighted troth,
And gone to rule their foreign courtiers;
But she, exalted evermore beyond
Their loveliness, made yet no lover fond,
And gain'd but number to her worshippers.
3
To joy in others' joy had been her lot,
And now that that was gone she wept to see
How her transcendent beauty overshot
The common aim of all felicity.
For love she sigh'd; and had some peasant rude
For true love's sake in simple passion woo'd,
Then Psyche had not scorn'd his wife to be.
4
For what is Beauty, if it doth not fire
The loving answer of an eager soul?
Since 'tis the native food of man's desire,
And doth to good our varying world control;
Which, when it was not, was for Beauty's sake
Desired and made by Love, who still doth make
A beauteous path thereon to Beauty's goal.
5
Should all men by some hateful venom die,
The pity were that o'er the unpeopl'd sphere
The sun would still bedeck the evening sky
And the unimaginable hues appear,
With none to mark the rose and gold and green;
That Spring should walk the earth, and nothing seen
Of her fresh delicacy year by year.
6
And if some beauteous things,--whose heavenly worth
And function overpass our mortal sense,--
Lie waste and unregarded on the earth
By reason of our gross intelligence,
These are not vain, because in nature's scheme
It lives that we shall grow from dream to dream
In time to gather an enchantment thence.
7
Even as we see the fairest works of men
Awhile neglected, and the makers die;
But Truth comes weeping to their graves, and then
Their fames victoriously mounting high
Do battle with the regnant names of eld,
To win their seats; as when the Gods rebel'd
Against their sires and drave them from the sky.
8
But to be praised for beauty and denied
The meed of beauty, this was yet unknown:
The best and bravest men have ever vied
To win the fairest women for their own.
Thus Psyche spake, or reason'd in her mind,
Disconsolate; and with self-pity pined,
In the deserted halls wandering alone.
9
And grievèd grew the King to see her woe:
And blaming first the gods for her disease,
He purposed to their oracle to go
To question how he might their wrath appease,
Or, if that might not be, the worst to hear,--
Which is the last poor hope of them that fear.--
So he took his ship upon the northern seas,
10
And journeying to the shrine of Delphi went,
The temple of Apollo Pythian,
Where when the god he question'd if 'twas meant
That Psyche should be wed, and to what man,
The tripod shook, and o'er the vaporous well
The chanting Pythoness gave oracle,
And thus in priestly verse the sentence ran:
11
_High on the topmost rock with funeral feast
Convey and leave the maid, nor look to find
A mortal husband, but a savage beast,
The viperous scourge of gods and humankind;
Who shames and vexes all, and as he flies
With sword and fire, Zeus trembles in the skies,
And groans arise from souls to hell consigned._
12
With which reply the King return'd full sad:
For though he nothing more might understand,
Yet in the bitter bidding that he had
No man made question of the plain command,
That he must sacrifice the tender flower
Of his own blood to a demonian power,
Upon the rocky mount with his own hand.
13
Some said that she to Talos was devote,
The metal giant, who with mile-long stride
Cover'd the isle, walking around by rote
Thrice every day at his appointed tide;
Who shepherded the sea-goats on the coast,
And, as he past, caught up and live would roast,
Pressing them to his burning ribs and side:
14
Whose head was made of fine gold-beaten work
Of silver pure his arms and gleaming chest,
Thence of green-bloomèd bronze far as the fork,
Of iron weather-rusted all the rest.
One single vein he had, which running down
From head to foot was open in his crown,
And closèd by a nail; such was this pest.
15
A little while they spent in sad delay,
Then order'd, as the oracle had said,
The cold feast and funereal display
Wherewith the fated bridal should be sped:
And their black pageantry and vain despairing
When Psyche saw, and for herself preparing
The hopeless ceremonial of the dead,
16
Then spake she to the King and said 'O Sire,
Why wilt thou veil those venerable eyes
With piteous tears, which must of me require
More tears again than for myself arise?
Then, on the day my beauty first o'erstept
Its mortal place it had been well to have wept;
But now the fault beyond our ruing lies.
17
'As to be worship'd was my whole undoing,
So my submission must the forfeit pay:
And welcome were the morning of my wooing,
Tho' after it should dawn no other day.
Up to the mountain! for I hear the voice
Of my belovèd on the winds, _Rejoice,
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away_!'
18
With such distemper'd speech, that little cheer'd
Her mourning house, she went to choose with care
The raiment for her day of wedlock weird,
Her body as for burial to prepare;
But laved with bridal water, from the stream
Where Hera bathed; for still her fate supreme
Was doubtful, whether Love or Death it were:
19
Love that is made of joy, and Death of fear:
Nay, but not these held Psyche in suspense;
Hers was the hope that following by the bier
Boweth its head beneath the dark immense:
Her fear the dread of life that turns to hide
Its tragic tears, what hour the happy bride
Ventures for love her maiden innocence.
20
They set on high upon the bridal wain
Her bed for bier, and yet no corpse thereon;
But like as when unto a warrior slain
And not brought home the ceremonies done
Are empty, for afar his body brave
Lies lost, deep buried by the wandering wave
Or 'neath the foes his fury fell upon,--
21
So was her hearse: and with it went afore,
Singing the solemn dirge that moves to tears,
The singers; and behind, clad as for war,
The King uncrown'd among his mournful peers,
All 'neath their armour robed in linen white;
And in their left were shields, and in their right
Torches they bore aloft instead of spears.
22
And next the virgin tribe in white forth sail'd,
With wreaths of dittany; and 'midst them there
Went Psyche, all in lily-whiteness veil'd,
The white Quince-blossom chapleting her hair:
And last the common folk, a weeping crowd,
Far as the city-gates with wailings loud
Follow'd the sad procession in despair.
23
Thus forth and up the mount they went, until
The funeral chariot must be left behind,
Since road was none for steepness of the hill;
And slowly by the narrow path they wind:
All afternoon their white and scatter'd file
Toil'd on distinct, ascending many a mile
Over the long brown slopes and crags unkind.
24
But ere unto the snowy peak they came
Of that stormshapen pyramid so high,
'Twas evening, and with footsteps slow and lame
They gather'd up their lagging company:
And then her sire, even as Apollo bade,
Set on the topmost rock the hapless maid,
With trembling hands and melancholy cry.
25
And now the sun was sunk; only the peak
Flash'd like a jewel in the deepening blue:
And from the shade beneath none dared to speak,
But all look'd up, where glorified anew
Psyche sat islanded in living day.
Breathless they watcht her, till the last red ray
Fled from her lifted arm that waved adieu.
26
There left they her, turning with sad farewells
To haste their homeward course, as best they might:
But night was crowding up the barren fells,
And hid full soon their rocky path from sight;
And each unto his stumbling foot to hold
His torch was fain, for o'er the moon was roll'd
A mighty cloud from heaven, to blot her light.
27
And thro' the darkness for long while was seen
That armour'd train with waving fires to thread
Downwards, by pass, defile, and black ravine,
Each leading on the way that he was led.
Slowly they gain'd the plain, and one by one
Into the shadows of the woods were gone,
Or in the clinging mists were quench'd and fled.
28
But unto Psyche, pondering o'er her doom
In tearful silence on her stony chair,
A Zephyr straying out of heaven's wide room
Rush'd down, and gathering round her unaware
Fill'd with his breath her vesture and her veil;
And like a ship, that crowding all her sail
Leans to accompany the tranquil air,
29
She yielded, and was borne with swimming brain
And airy joy, along the mountain side,
Till, hid from earth by ridging summits twain,
They came upon a valley deep and wide;
Where the strong Zephyr with his burden sank,
And laid her down upon a grassy bank,
'Mong thyme and violets and daisies pied.
30
And straight upon the touch of that sweet bed
Both woe and wonder melted fast away:
And sleep with gentle stress her sense o'erspread,
Gathering as darkness doth on drooping day:
And nestling to the ground, she slowly drew
Her wearied limbs together, and, ere she knew,
Wrapt in forgetfulness and slumber lay.
MAY
1
After long sleep when Psyche first awoke
Among the grasses 'neath the open skies,
And heard the mounting larks, whose carol spoke
Delighted invitation to arise,
She lay as one who after many a league
Hath slept off memory with his long fatigue,
And waking knows not in what place he lies:
2
Anon her quickening thought took up its task,
And all came back as it had happ'd o'ernight;
The sad procession of the wedding mask,
The melancholy toiling up the height,
The solitary rock where she was left;
And thence in dark and airy waftage reft,
How on the flowers she had been disburden'd light.
3
Thereafter she would rise and see what place
That voyage had its haven in, and found
She stood upon a little hill, whose base
Shelved off into the valley all around;
And all round that the steep cliffs rose away,
Save on one side where to the break of day
The widening dale withdrew in falling ground.
4
There, out from over sea, and scarce so high
As she, the sun above his watery blaze
Upbroke the grey dome of the morning sky,
And struck the island with his level rays;
Sifting his gold thro' lazy mists, that still
Climb'd on the shadowy roots of every hill,
And in the tree-tops breathed their silvery haze.
5
At hand on either side there was a wood;
And on the upward lawn, that sloped between,
Not many paces back a temple stood,
By even steps ascending from the green;
With shaft and pediment of marble made,
It fill'd the passage of the rising glade,
And there withstay'd the sun in dazzling sheen.
6
Too fair for human art, so Psyche thought,
It might the fancy of some god rejoice;
Like to those halls which lame Hephæstos wrought,
Original, for each god to his choice,
In high Olympus; where his matchless lyre
Apollo wakes, and the responsive choir
Of Muses sing alternate with sweet voice.
7
Wondering she drew anigh, and in a while
Went up the steps as she would entrance win,
And faced her shadow 'neath the peristyle
Upon the golden gate, whose flanges twin--
As there she stood, irresolute at heart
To try--swung to her of themselves apart;
Whereat she past between and stood within.
8
A foursquare court it was with marble floor'd,
Embay'd about with pillar'd porticoes,
That echo'd in a somnolent accord
The music of a fountain, which arose
Sparkling in air, and splashing in its tank;
Whose wanton babble, as it swell'd or sank,
Gave idle voice to silence and repose.
9
Thro' doors beneath the further colonnade,
Like a deep cup's reflected glooms of gold,
The inner rooms glow'd with inviting shade:
And, standing in the court, she might behold
Cedar, and silk, and silver; and that all
The pargeting of ceiling and of wall
Was fresco'd o'er with figures manifold.
10
Then making bold to go within, she heard
Murmur of gentle welcome in her ear;
And seeing none that coud have spoken word,
She waited: when again Lady, draw near;
Enter! was cried; and now more voices came
From all the air around calling her name,
And bidding her rejoice and have no fear.
11
And one, if she would rest, would show her bed,
Pillow'd for sleep, with fragrant linen fine;
One, were she hungry, had a table spread
Like as the high gods have it when they dine:
Or, would she bathe, were those would heat the bath;
The joyous cries contending in her path,
Psyche, they said, What wilt thou? all is thine.
12
Then Psyche would have thank'd their service true,
But that she fear'd her echoing words might scare
Those sightless tongues; and well by dream she knew
The voices of the messengers of prayer,
Which fly upon the gods' commandment, when
They answer the supreme desires of men,
Or for a while in pity hush their care.
13
'Twas fancy's consummation, and because
She would do joy no curious despite,
She made no wonder how the wonder was;
Only concern'd to take her full delight.
So to the bath,--what luxury could be
Better enhanced by eyeless ministry?--
She follows with the voices that invite.
14
There being deliciously refresht, from soil
Of earth made pure by water, fire, and air,
They clad her in soft robes of Asian toil,
Scented, that in her queenly wardrobe were;
And led her forth to dine, and all around
Sang as they served, the while a choral sound
Of strings unseen and reeds the burden bare.
15
P athetic strains and passionate they wove,
U rgent in ecstasies of heavenly sense;
R esponsive rivalries, that, while they strove
C ombined in full harmonious suspense,
E ntrancing wild desire, then fell at last
L ull'd in soft closes, and with gay contrast
L aunch'd forth their fresh unwearied excellence.
16
Now Psyche, when her twofold feast was o'er,
Would feed her eye; and choosing for her guide
A low-voiced singer, bade her come explore
The wondrous house; until on every side
As surfeited with beauty, and seeing nought
But what was rich and fair beyond her thought,
And all her own, thus to the voice she cried:
17
'Am I indeed a goddess, or is this
But to be dead: and through the gates of death
Passing unwittingly doth man not miss
Body nor memory nor living breath;
Nor by demerits of his deeds is cast,
But, paid with the desire he holdeth fast,
Is holp with all his heart imagineth?'
18
But her for all reply the wandering tongue
Call'd to the chamber where her bed was laid
With flower'd broideries of linen hung:
And round the walls in painting were portray'd
Love's victories over the gods renown'd.
Ares and Aphrodite here lay bound
In the fine net that dark Hephæstus made:
19
Here Zeus, in likeness of a tawny bull,
Stoop'd on the Cretan shore his mighty knee,
While off his back Europa beautiful
Stept pale against the blue Carpathian sea;
And here Apollo, as he caught amazed
Daphne, for lo! her hands shot forth upraised
In leaves, her feet were rooted like a tree:
20
Here Dionysos, springing from his car
At sight of Ariadne; here uplept
Adonis to the chase, breaking the bar
Of Aphrodite's arm for love who wept:
He spear in hand, with leashèd dogs at strain;
A marvellous work. But Psyche soon grown fain
Of rest, betook her to her bed and slept.
21
Nor long had slept, when at a sudden stir
She woke; and one, that thro' the dark made way,
Drew near, and stood beside; and over her
The curtain rustl'd. Trembling now she lay,
Fainting with terror: till upon her face
A kiss, and with two gentle arms' embrace,
A voice that call'd her name in loving play.
22
Though for the darkness she coud nothing see,
She wish'd not then for what the night denied:
This was the lover she had lack'd, and she,
Loving his loving, was his willing bride.
O'erjoy'd she slept again, o'erjoy'd awoke
At break of morn upon her love to look;
When lo! his empty place lay by her side.
23
So all that day she spent in company
Of the soft voices; and Of right, they said,
Art thou our Lady now. Be happily
Thy bridal morrow by thy servants sped.
But she but long'd for night, if that might bring
Her lover back; and he on secret wing
Came with the dark, and in the darkness fled.
24
And this was all her life; for every night
He came, and though his name she never learn'd,
Nor was his image yielded to her sight
At morn or eve, she neither look'd nor yearn'd
Beyond her happiness: and custom brought
An ease to pleasure; nor would Psyche's thought
Have ever to her earthly home return'd,
25
But that one night he said 'Psyche, my soul,
Sad danger threatens us: thy sisters twain
Come to the mountain top, whence I thee stole,
And thou wilt hear their voices thence complain.
Answer them not: for it must end our love
If they should hear or spy thee from above.'
And Psyche said 'Their cry shall be in vain.'
26
But being again alone, she thought 'twas hard
On her own blood; and blamed her joy as thief
Of theirs, her comfort which their comfort barr'd;
When she their care might be their care's relief.
All day she brooded on her father's woe,
And when at night her lover kisst her, lo!
Her tender face was wet with tears of grief.
27
Then question'd why she wept, she all confest;
And begg'd of him she might but once go nigh
To set her sire's and sisters' fears at rest;
Till he for pity coud not but comply:
'Only if they should ask thee of thy love
Discover nothing to their ears above.'
And Psyche said 'In vain shall be their cry.'
28
And yet with day no sooner was alone,
Than she for loneliness her promise rued:
That having so much pleasure for her own,
'Twas all unshared and spent in solitude.
And when at night her love flew to his place,
More than afore she shamed his fond embrace,
And piteously with tears her plaint renew'd.
29
The more he now denied, the more she wept;
Nor would in anywise be comforted,
Unless her sisters, on the Zephyr swept,
Should in those halls be one day bathed and fed,
And see themselves the palace where she reign'd.
And he, by force of tears at last constrain'd,
Granted her wish unwillingly, and said:
30
'Much to our peril hast thou won thy will;
Thy sisters' love, seeing thee honour'd so,
Will sour to envy, and with jealous skill
Will pry to learn the thing that none may know.
Answer not, nor inquire; for know that I
The day thou seest my face far hence shall fly,
And thou anew to bitterest fate must go.'
31
But Psyche said, 'Thy love is more than life;
To have thee leaveth nothing to be won:
For should the noonday prove me to be wife
Even of the beauteous Eros, who is son
Of Cypris, I coud never love thee more.'
Whereat he fondly kisst her o'er and o'er,
And peace was 'twixt them till the night was done.
SECOND QUARTER
SUMMER
PSYCHE'S SISTERS · SNARING HER TO DESTRUCTION ·
ARE THEMSELVES DESTROYED
JUNE
1
And truly need there was to the old King
For consolation: since the mournful day
Of Psyche's fate he took no comforting,
But only for a speedy death would pray;
And on his head his hair grew silver-white.
--Such on life's topmost bough is sorrow's blight,
When the stout heart is cankering to decay.
2
Which when his daughters learnt, they both were quick
Comfort and solace to their sire to lend.
But as not seldom they who nurse the sick
Will take the malady from them they tend,
So happ'd it now; for they who fail'd to cheer
Grew sad themselves, and in that palace drear
Increased the evil that they came to mend.
3
And them the unhappy father sent to seek
Where Psyche had been left, if they might find
What monster held her on the savage peak;
Or if she there had died of hunger pined,
And, by wild eagles stript, her scatter'd bones
Might still be gather'd from the barren stones;
Or if her fate had left no trace behind.
4
So just upon this time her sisters both
Climb'd on the cliff that hung o'er Psyche's vale;
And finding there no sign, to leave were loth
Ere well assured she lurk'd not within hail.
So calling loud her name, 'Psyche!' they cried,
'Psyche, O Psyche!' and when none replied
They sank upon the rocks to weep and wail.
5
But Psyche heard their voices where she sat,
And summoning the Zephyr bade him fleet
Those mourners down unto the grassy plat
'Midst of her garden, where she had her seat.
Then from the dizzy steep the wondering pair
Came swiftly sinking on his buoyant air,
And stood upon the terrace at her feet.
6
Upsprang she then, and kiss'd them and embraced,
And said 'Lo, here am I, I whom ye mourn.
I am not dead, nor tortured, nor disgraced,
But blest above all days since I was born:
Wherefore be glad. Enter my home and see
How little cause has been to grieve for me,
And my desertion on the rocks forlorn.'
7
So entering by the golden gate, or e'er
The marvel of their hither flight had waned,
Fresh wonder took them now, for everywhere
Their eyes that lit on beauty were enchain'd;
And Psyche's airy service, as she bade,
Perform'd its magic office, and display'd
The riches of the palace where she reign'd.
8
And through the perfumed chambers they were led,
And bathed therein; and after, set to sup,
Were upon dreamlike delicacies fed,
And wine more precious than its golden cup.
Till seeing nothing lack'd and naught was theirs,
Their happiness fell from them unawares,
And bitter envy in their hearts sprang up.
9
At last one said 'Psyche, since not alone
Thou livest here in joy, as well we wot,
Who is the man who should these wonders own,
Or god, I say, and still appeareth not?
What is his name? What rank and guise hath he,
Whom winds and spirits serve, who honoureth thee
Above all others in thy blissful lot?'
10
But Psyche when that wistful speech she heard
Was ware of all her spouse had warn'd her of:
And uttering a disingenuous word,
Said 'A youth yet unbearded is my love;
He goeth hunting on the plains to-day,
And with his dogs hath wander'd far away;
And not till eve can he return above.'
11
Then fearing to be nearer plied, she rose
And brought her richest jewels one by one,
Bidding them choose and take whate'er they chose;
And beckoning the Zephyr spake anon
That he should waft her sisters to the peak;
The which he did, and, ere they more coud speak,
They rose on high, and in the wind were gone.
12
Nor till again they came upon the road,
Which from the mountain shoulder o'er the plain
Led to the city of their sire's abode,
Found they their tongues, though full of high disdain
Their hearts were, but kept silence, till the strength
Of pride and envious hatred burst at length
In voice, and thus the elder gan complain:
13
'Cruel and unjust fortune! that of three
Sisters, whose being from one fountain well'd,
Exalts the last so high from her degree,
And leaves the first to be so far excel'd.
My husband is a poor and niggard churl
To him, whoe'er he be, that loves the girl.
Oh! in what godlike state her house is held!'
14
'Ay,' said the other, 'to a gouty loon
Am I not wedded? Lo! thy hurt is mine:
But never call me woman more, if soon
I cannot lure her from her height divine.
Nay, she shall need her cunning wit to save
The wealth of which so grudgingly she gave;
Wherefore thy hand and heart with me combine.
15
'She but received us out of pride, to show
Her state, well deeming that her happiness
Was little worth while there was none to know;
So is our lot uninjured if none guess.
Reveal we nothing therefore, but the while
Together scheme this wanton to beguile,
And bring her boasting godhead to distress.'
16
So fresh disordering their dress and hair,
With loud lament they to their sire return,
Telling they found not Psyche anywhere,
And of her sure mischance could nothing learn:
And with that lie the wounded man they slew,
Hiding the saving truth which well they knew;
Nor did his piteous grief their heart concern.
17
Meanwhile her unknown lover did not cease
To warn poor Psyche how her sisters plan'd
To undermine her love and joy and peace;
And urged how well she might their wiles withstand,
By keeping them from her delight aloof:
For better is security than proof,
And malice held afar than near at hand.
18
'And, dearest wife,' he said, 'since 'tis not long
Ere one will come to share thy secrecy,
And be thy babe and mine; let nothing wrong
The happy months of thy maternity.
If thou keep trust, then shalt thou see thy child
A god; but if to pry thou be beguiled,
The lot of both is death and misery.'
19
Then Psyche's simple heart was fill'd with joy,
And counting to herself the months and days,
Look'd for the time, when she should bear a boy
To be her growing stay and godlike praise.
And 'O be sure,' she said, 'be sure, my pride
Having so rich a promise cannot slide,
Even if my love coud fail which thee obeys.'
20
And so most happily her life went by,
In thoughts of love dear to her new estate;
Until at length the evil day drew nigh,
When now her sisters, joined in jealous hate,
Set forth again, and plotted by the way
How they might best allure her to betray
Her secret; with what he their angle bait.
21
That night her husband spake to her, and said
'Psyche, thy sisters come: and when they climb
The peak they will not tarry to be sped
Down by the Zephyr, as that other time,
But winging to the wind will cast themselves
Out in the air, and on the rocky shelves
Be dasht, and pay the penalty of crime.
22
'So let it be, and so shall we be saved.'
Which meditated vengeance of his fear
When Psyche heard, now for their life she craved,
Whose mere distress erewhile had toucht her near.
Around her lover's neck her arms she threw,
And pleaded for them by her faith so true,
Although they went on doom in judgment clear.
23
In terror of bloodguiltiness she now
Forgot all other danger; she adjured,
Or using playfulness deep sobs would plow
Her soft entreaties, not to be endured:
Till he at last was fain once more to grant
The service of the Zephyr, to enchant
That wicked couple from their fate assured.
24
So ere 'twas noon were noises at the door
Of knocking loud and voices high in glee;
Such as within that vale never before
Had been, and now seem'd most unmeet to be.
And Psyche blush'd, though being alone, and rose
To meet her sisters and herself unclose
The gate that made them of her palace free.
25
Fondly she kiss'd them, and with kindly cheer
Sought to amuse; and they with outward smile
O'ermask'd their hate, and called her sweet and dear,
Finding affection easy to beguile:
And all was smooth, until at last one said
'Tell us, I pray, to whom 'tis thou art wed;
'Mong gods or men, what is his rank and style?
26
'Thou canst not think to hide the truth from us,
Who knew thy peevish sorrows when a maid,
And see thee now so glad and rapturous,
As changed from what thou wert as light from shade;
Thy jewels, too, the palace of a king,
Nor least the serviceable spiriting,
By everything thy secret is betray'd:
27
'And yet thou talkest of thy wondrous man
No more than if his face thou didst not know.'
At which incontinently she began,
Forgetful of her word a month ago,
Answering 'A merchant rich, of middle age,
My husband is; and o'er his features sage
His temples are already touch'd with snow.
28
'But 'gainst his wish since hither ye were brought
'Twere best depart.' Then her accustom'd spell
Sped them upon the summit quick as thought;
And being alone her doing pleased her well:
So was she vext to find her love at night
More sad than ever, of her sisters' spite
Speaking as one that coud the end foretell.
29
'And ere long,' said he, 'they will spy again:
Let them be dash'd upon the rocks and die;
'Tis they must come to death or thou to pain,
To separation, Psyche, thou and I;
Nay, and our babe to ill. I therefore crave
Thou wilt not even once more these vipers save,
Nor to thy love his only boon deny.'
30
But Psyche would not think her sisters' crime
So gross and strange, nor coud her danger see;
Since 'twere so easy, if at any time
They show'd the venom of their hearts, that she
Should fan them off upon the willing gust.
So she refused, and claiming truer trust,
Would in no wise unto their death agree.
JULY
1
'What think you, sister:' thus one envious fiend
To other spake upon their homeward route,
'What of the story that our wit hath glean'd
Of this mysterious lover, who can shoot
In thirty days from beardless youth to prime,
With wisdom in his face before his time,
And snowy locks upon his head to boot?
2
'Ay,' said the other, 'true, she lied not well;
And thence I gather knows no more than we:
For surely 'tis a spirit insensible
To whom she is wedded, one she cannot see.
'Tis that I fear; for if 'tis so, her child
Will be a god, and she a goddess styled,
Which, though I die to let it, shall not be.
3
'Lament we thus no longer. Come, consult
What may be done.' And home they came at night,
Yet not to rest, but of their plots occult
Sat whispering on their beds; and ere 'twas light
Resolving on the deed coud not defer;
But roused the sleeping house with sudden stir,
And sallied forth alone to work their spite.
4
And with the noon were climb'd upon the peak,
And swam down on the Zephyr as before;
But now with piercing cry and doleful shriek
They force their entrance through the golden door,
Feigning the urgency of bitter truth;
Such as deforms a friendly face with ruth,
When kindness may not hide ill tidings more.
5
Then Psyche when she heard their wailful din,
And saw their countenances wan and worn
With travel, vigil, and disfiguring sin,
Their hair dishevel'd and their habits torn,
For trembling scarce coud ask what ill had hapt;
And they alert with joy to see her trapt,
Launch'd forth amain, and on their drift were borne.
6
'O Psyche, happiest certainly and blest
Up to this hour,' they said, 'thou surely wert,
Being of thy fearful peril unpossest;
Which now we would not tell but to avert.
But we in solemn truth thy spouse have found
To be the dragon of this mountain ground,
Who holds thee here to work thy shame and hurt.
7
'As yesternight we rode upon the wind
He issued to pursue us from the wood;
We saw his back, that through the tree-tops finn'd,
His fiery eyes glared from their wrinkl'd hood.
Lo, now betimes the oracle, which said
How to the savage beast thou shouldst be wed,
Is plainly for thy safety understood.
8
'Long time hath he been known to all that dwell
Upon the plain; but now his secret lair
Have we discover'd, which none else coud tell:
Though many women fallen in his snare
Hath he enchanted; who, tradition saith,
Taste love awhile, ere to their cruel death
They pass in turn upon the summits bare.
9
Renounce the spells of this accursed vale.
We come to save thee, but we dare not stay;
Among these sightless spirits our senses quail.
Fly with us, fly!' Then Psyche, for her soul
Was soft and simple, lost her self-control,
And, thinking only of the horrid tale,
10
'Dear sisters,' said she, and her sobbing speech
Was broken by her terror, 'it is true
That much hath hapt to stablish what ye teach;
For ne'er hath it been granted me to view
My husband; and, for aught I know, he may
Be even that cruel dragon, which ye say
Peer'd at you from the forest to pursue.
11
''Tis sure that scarcely can I win his grace
To see you here; and still he mischief vows
If ever I should ask to see his face,
Which, coming in the dark, he ne'er allows.
Therefore, if ye can help, of pity show,
Since doubt I must, how I may come to know
What kind of spirit it is that is my spouse.'
12
Then to her cue the younger was afore:
'Hide thou a razor,' cried she, 'near thy bed;
And have a lamp prepared, but whelm thereo'er
Some cover, that no light be from it shed.
And when securely in first sleep he lies,
Look on him well, and ere he can arise,
Gashing his throat, cut off his hideous head.'
13
Which both persuading, off they flew content,
Divining that whate'er she was forbid
Was by her lover for her safety meant,
Which only coud be sure while he was hid.
But Psyche, to that miserable deed
Being now already in her mind agreed,
Wander'd alone, and knew not what she did.
14
Now she would trust her lover, now in turn
Made question of his bidding as unjust;
But thirsting curiosity to learn
His secret overcame her simple trust,
O'ercame her spoken troth, o'ercame her fear;
And she prepared, as now the hour drew near,
The mean contrivances, nor felt disgust.
15
She set the lamp beneath a chair, and cloked
Thickly its rebel lustre from the eye:
And laid the knife, to mortal keenness stroked,
Within her reach, where she was wont to lie:
And took her place full early; but her heart
Beat fast, and stay'd her breath with sudden start,
Feeling her lover's arm laid fond thereby.
16
But when at last he slept, then she arose,
All faint and tremulous: and though it be
That wrong betrayeth innocence with shews
Of novelty, its guilt from shame to free,
Yet 'twas for shame her hand so strangely shook
That held the steel, and from the cloke that took
The lamp, and raised it o'er the bed to see.
17
She had some fear she might not well discern
By that small flame a monster in the gloom;
When lo! the air about her seem'd to burn,
And bright celestial radiance fill'd the room.
Too plainly O she saw, O fair to see!
Eros, 'twas Eros' self, her lover, he,
The God of love, reveal'd in deathless bloom.
18
Her fainting strength forsook her; on her knees
Down by the bed she sank; the shameless knife
Fell flashing, and her heart took thought to seize
Its desperate haft, and end her wicked life.
Yet coud she not her loving eyes withdraw
From her fair sleeping lover, whom she saw
Only to know she was no more his wife.
19
O treasure of all treasures, late her own!
O loss above all losses, lost for aye!
Since there was no repentance coud atone
For her dishonour, nor her fate withstay.
But yet 'twas joy to have her love in sight;
And, to the rapture yielding while she might,
She gazed upon his body where he lay.
20
Above all mortal beauty, as was hers,
She saw a rival; but if passion's heart
Be rightly read by subtle questioners,
It owns a wanton and a gentler part.
And Psyche wonder'd, noting every sign
By which the immortal God, her spouse divine,
Betray'd the image of our earthly art;
21
His thickly curling hair, his ruddy cheeks,
And pouting lips, his soft and dimpl'd chin,
The full and cushion'd eye, that idly speaks
Of self-content and vanity within,
The forward, froward ear, and smooth to touch
His body sleek, but rounded overmuch
For dignity of mind and pride akin.
22
She noted that the small irradiant wings,
That from his shoulders lay along at rest,
Were yet disturb'd with airy quiverings,
As if some wakeful spirit his blood possest;
She feared he was awaking, but they kept
Their sweet commotion still, and still he slept,
And still she gazed with never-tiring zest.
23
And now the colour of her pride and joy
Outflush'd the hue of Eros; she, so cold,
To have fired the passion of the heartless boy,
Whom none in heaven or earth were found to hold!
Psyche, the earthborn, to be prized above
The heavenly Graces by the God of love,
And worshipt by his wantonness untold!
24
Nay, for that very thing she loved him more,
More than herself her sweet self's complement:
Until the sight of him again upbore
Her courage, and renew'd her vigour spent.
And looking now around, she first espied
Where at the bed's foot, cast in haste aside,
Lay his full quiver, and his bow unbent.
25
One of those darts, of which she had heard so oft,
She took to try if 'twas so very keen;
And held its point against her finger soft
So gently, that to touch it scarce was seen;
Yet was she sharply prickt, and felt the fire
Run through her veins; and now a strange desire
Troubl'd her heart, which ne'er before had been:
26
Straight sprang she to her lover on the bed,
And kisst his cheek, and was not satisfied:
When, O the lamp, held ill-balanced o'erhead,
One drop of burning oil spill'd from its side
On Eros' naked shoulder as he slept,
Who waken'd by the sudden smart uplept
Upon the floor, and all the mischief eyed.
27
With nervous speed he seized his bow, and past
Out of the guilty chamber at a bound;
But Psyche, following his flight as fast,
Caught him, and crying threw her arms around:
Till coming to the court he rose in air;
And she, close clinging in her last despair,
Was dragg'd, and then lost hold and fell to ground.
28
Wailing she fell; but he, upon the roof
Staying his feet, awhile his flight delay'd:
And turning to her as he stood aloof
Beside a cypress, whose profoundest shade
Drank the reflections of the dreamy night
In its stiff pinnacle, the nimble light
Of million stars upon his body play'd:
29
'O simple-hearted Psyche,' thus he spake,
And she upraised her piteous eyes and hands,
'O simple-hearted Psyche, for thy sake
I dared to break my mother's stern commands;
And gave thee godlike marriage in the place
Of vilest shame; and, not to hurt thy grace,
Spared thee my arrows, which no heart withstands.
30
'But thou, for doubt I was some evil beast,
Hast mock'd the warnings of my love, to spy
Upon my secret, which concern'd thee least,
Seeing that thy joy was never touch'd thereby.
By faithless prying thou hast work'd thy fall,
And, even as I foretold thee, losest all
For looking on thy happiness too nigh:
31
'Which loss may be thine ample punishment.
But to those fiends, by whom thou wert misled,
Go tell each one in turn that I have sent
This message, that I love her in thy stead;
And bid them by their love haste hither soon.'
Whereat he fled; and Psyche in a swoon
Fell back upon the marble floor as dead.
AUGUST
1
When from the lowest ebbing of her blood
The fluttering pulses thrill'd and swell'd again,
Her stricken heart recovering force to flood
With life the sunken conduits of her brain,
Then Psyche, where she had fallen, numb and cold
Arose, but scarce her quaking sense control'd,
Seeing the couch where she that night had lain.
2
The level sunbeams search'd the grassy ground
For diamond dewdrops. Ah! was this the place?
Where was the court, her home? she look'd around
And question'd with her memory for a space.
There was the cypress, there the well-known wood,
That wall'd the spot: 'twas here her palace stood,
As surely as 'twas vanish'd without trace.
3
Was all a dream? To think that all was dreamt
Were now the happier thought; but arguing o'er
That dream it was, she fell from her attempt,
Feeling the wifely burden that she bore.
Nay, true, 'twas true. She had had all and lost;
The joy, the reckless wrong, the heavy cost
Were hers, the dead end now, and woe in store.
4
What to be done? Fainting and shelterless
Upon the mountain it were death to bide:
And harbour knew she none, where her distress
Might comfort find, or love's dishonour hide;
Nor felt she any dread like that of home:
Yet forth she must, albeit to rove and roam
An outcast o'er the country far and wide.
5
Anon she marvel'd noting from the vale
A path lead downward to the plain below,
Crossing the very site, whereon the pale
Of all her joy had stood few hours ago;
A run of mountain beasts, that keep their track
Through generations, and for ages back
Had trod the self-same footing to and fro.
6
That would she try: so forth she took her way,
Turning her face from the dishonour'd dell,
Adown the broadening eastward lawns, which lay
In gentle slant, till suddenly they fell
In sheer cliff: whence the path that went around,
Clomb by the bluffs, or e'er it downward wound
Beneath that precipice impassable.
7
There once she turn'd, and gazing up the slope
She bid the scene of all her joy adieu;
'Ay, and farewell,' she cried, 'farewell to hope,
Since there is none will rescue me anew,
Who have kill'd God's perfection with a doubt.'
Which said, she took the path that led about,
And hid the upland pleasance from her view.
8
But soon it left her, entering 'neath the shade
Of cedar old and russeted tall pine,
Whose mighty tops, seen from the thorny glade,
Belted the hills about; and now no sign
Had she to guide her, save the slow descent.
But swiftly o'er the springy floor she went,
And drew the odorous air like draughts of wine.
9
Then next she past a forest thick and dark
With heavy ilexes and platanes high,
And came to long lush grass; and now coud mark
By many a token that the plain was nigh.
When lo! a river: to whose brink at last
Being come, upon the bank her limbs she cast,
And through her sad tears watch'd the stream go by.
10
And now the thought came o'er her that in death
There was a cure for sorrow, that before
Her eyes ran Lethe, she might take one breath
Of water and be freed for evermore.
Leaning to look into her tomb, thereon
She saw the horror of her image wan,
And up she rose at height to leap from shore.
11
When suddenly a mighty voice, that fell
With fury on her ears, their sense to scare,
That bounding from the tree trunks like the yell
Of hundred brazen trumpets, cried 'Forbear!
Forbear, fond maid, that froward step to take,
For life can cure the ills that love may make;
But for the harm of death is no repair.'
12
Then looking up she saw an uncouth form
Perch'd on the further bank, whose parted lips
Volley'd their friendly warning in a storm:
A man he might have been, but for the tips
Of horns appearing from his shaggy head,
For o'er his matted beard his face was red,
And all his shape was manlike to the hips.
13
In forehead low, keen eye, and nostril flat
He bore the human grace in mean degree,
But, set beneath his body squat and fat,
Legs like a goat's, and from the hairy knee
The shank fell spare; and, though crosswise he put
His limbs in easeful posture, for the foot
The beast's divided hoof was plain to see.
14
Him then she knew the mighty choric God,
The great hill-haunting and tree-loving Pan;
Whom Zeus had laught to see when first he trod
Olympus, neither god nor beast nor man:
Who every rocky peak and snowy crest
Of the Aspran mountains for his own possest,
And all their alps with bacchic rout o'erran:
15
Whom, when his pipe he plays on loud and sweet,
And o'er the fitted reeds his moist lip flees,
Around in measured step with nimble feet
Water-nymphs dance and Hamadryades:
And all the woodland's airy folk, who shun
Man's presence, to his frolic pastime run
From their perennial wells and sacred trees.
16
Now on his knee his pipe laid by, he spoke
With flippant tongue, wounding unwittingly
The heart he sought to cheer with jest and joke.
'And what hast thou to do with misery,'
He said, 'who hast such beauty as might gain
The love of Eros? Cast away thy pain,
And give thy soul to mirth and jollity.
17
'Thy mortal life is but a brittle vase,
But as thee list with wine or tears to fill;
For all the drops therein are Ohs and Ahs
Of joy or grief according to thy will;
And wouldst thou learn of me my merry way,
I'd teach thee change thy lover every day,
And prize the cup that thou wert fain to spill.
18
'Nay, if thou plunge thou shalt not drown nor sink,
For I will to thee o'er the stream afloat,
And bear thee safe; and O I know a drink
For care, that makes sweet music in the throat.
Come live with me, my love; I'll cure thy chance:
For I can laugh and quaff, and pipe and dance,
Swim like a fish, and caper like a goat.'
19
Speaking, his brute divinity explored
The secret of her silence; and old Pan
Grew kind and told her of a shallow ford
Where lower down the stream o'er pebbles ran,
And one might pass at ease with ankles dry:
Whither she went, and crossing o'er thereby,
Her lonely wanderings through the isle began.
20
But none coud tell, no, nor herself had told
Where food she found, or shelter through the land
By day or night; until by fate control'd
She came by steep ways to the southern strand,
Where, sacred to the Twins and Britomart,
Pent in its rocky theatre apart,
A little town stood on the level sand.
21
'Twas where her younger sister's husband reign'd:
And Psyche to the palace gate drew near,
Helplessly still by Eros' hest constrain'd,
And knocking begg'd to see her sister dear;
But when in state stepp'd down that haughty queen,
And saw the wan face spent with tears and teen,
She smiled, and said 'Psyche, what dost thou here?'
22
Then Psyche told how, having well employ'd
Their means, and done their bidding not amiss,
Looking on him her hand would have
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