^ PS '5^09 IT555" itf^'is^:^^:,/^ w. m: C5J'iiif! wmtK' Class _PMS^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSm The Shadowed Hour By John Erskine NEW YORK THE LYRIC PUBLISHING CO. 1917 \^^ Copyright, 1917. by John Erskine Published July, igi? V The Trow Press, New York JUL 30 1917 ©GLA471362 r To Pauline When imperturbable the gentle moon Glides above war and onslaught through the night, When the sun burns magnificent at noon On hate contriving horror by its light, When man, for whom the stars were and the skies, Turns beast to rend his fellow, fang and hoof — Shall we not think, with what ironic eyes Nature must look on us and stand aloof? But not alone the sun, the moon, the stars. Shining unharmed above man's folly move; For us three beacons kindle one another Which waver not with any wind of wars — We love our children still, still them we love Who gave us birth, and still we love each other. Note Of the following poems, Youth Dying was read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Columbia University on June 5, 191 7. Satan and Ash- Wednesday are reprinted, with the editor's permis- sion, from The Yale Review; The Sons of Meta- meira is reprinted, with the editor's permission, from The Lyric, I am glad to acknowledge a debt to Frederick Erastus Pierce, whose fine poem Armistice sug- gested my Satan. Mr. Pierce imagined a meeting between Michael and Lucifer, in which the rival angels laid aside their warfare for the moment, and recalled former eternities in the unspoiled heaven. I thought of a scene in which Satan should still challenge the Almighty, though the universe had long since gone to wrack. J. E. CONTENTS Youth Dying 1 1 Satan i8 Ash-Wednesday 25 The Sons of Metaneira 37 YOUTH DYING 1 E who love youth, bring tears and aching hearts; For now the dark hour calls, and youth departs, Where the red scythe swings close o'er crowded fields, And stroke by stroke the vivid moment yields Our bravest, our most beautiful, our most loved. Against such loveliness Time would have moved Gently, to do his work with gradual grace. Marking with all but unseen lines the face, Whitening the hair and making dim the eye. Love, feeling the slow change, "Can beauty die?" Would ask, and mourn in poet-strain youth's dying. But now the bullet's speed outwings Time's flying; The bursting shell makes haste; the poisoned air Brings darkness, though the wild eyes start and stare : II And song is stilled, so close the horrors break, Only youth's name repeating, for love's sake. Over wide seas and far away youth dies, Yet here on us the growing shadow lies; First the brown khaki spreading through the room. As one by one death brings his hopes to bloom; Then vacant seats, and thoughts of youth at drill. And sense of near disaster mounting still. And wonder if these rooms again shall fill With boys young-hearted — or only phantom men To their accustomed seats shall come again. Haunting young hearts to follow where they led. Ye that love youth, come ere their hour be sped, And gazing in their eyes, behold if hate Drive them, or reckless pride bring on their fate; No hatred dwells in them, but quietness. Slow hearts to curse, and ready hands to bless. Slowness to cruelty, slowness to shame. And readiness to die. The dark hour came 12 Thwarting with malice their supreme desires, To kindle the ancient torch with clearer fires, More poignant music, the new world set to song, And art with modern pulses beating strong, Knowledge and justice free at every door, No more disease, and poverty no more. And man, their brother, by their aid to rise; Such dreams, not hatred, smoulder in their eyes. Such hopes the kindred stars above them rouse. Such starlike loves — true lips and happy vows. Their hearts are like the hearts of those with whom They share youth's dying; only a swifter doom At Antwerp, at Liege, ended such dreams; Such marching youth as theirs from London streams, From Sydney, from Cape Town, from Montreal, From Edinburgh, most beautiful of all — Such hearts, whom death called from their hopes away ; Paris, twice great in trial, more brave and gay 13 The darker grew the danger, in the wrack Gave up her youth and turned the peril back; Florence and Rome, firm in accomplished glory. Cities eternal, set it) timeless story. And many a hamlet on far Russian slopes That dreamed of forward time and new-born hopes — Death called to them, to us: "Now come away; When Youth is ready, why should Age delay? Mourn not for these; why grieve, when all must go!" Ye that love youth, ah, what of youth the foe! Alas, man's folly, and the mindless sin That bade this strife of youth with youth begin ! They, too, imagined a new world; they, too. Had dreams to brood on, and their work to do; Hate came not easy to them, nor their flesh Yearned to be dust again; only the mesh Of ancient lies ensnared them — die they must. And their true empire withers in their dust. 14 Ye that love youth, ah, not alone they perish Whom the sword covets and the ravens cherish; We who remain to win the towers of truth, How fares our battle, with no aid from youth — Our battle with the darkness evermore? Age yields the torch and follows, youth before Lifts it — but in what hands now shall it rise? The world grows old, time darkens, and youth dies. Ye that love youth, mourn not with tears, but pray Curses on the black hearts who willed this day, Who willed that youth should die, or, being blind, Pulled down pillars of wrath on lost mankind. May they know the last foulness they have wrought ; May their huge guilt come to them thought by thought, Like water dropping on the shaven skull ; May their racked conscience, quickened to the full, 15 Build a new hell for their new depths of crime, Till, thinking of themselves throughout all time, Their plea shall reach up to the Crucified To die by their own poison, as youth died. Nay, let them die and pass and be forgot, Our grief die, and our wrath, but perish not The justice-loving, the crusading heart. This will of youth to take the righteous part. So youth shall pass through death and still live on; Youth dies not — 'tis the shadowed hour is gone; To these rooms shall the springing steps return, And radiant the familiar eyes shall burn, New beauty gathering round us, and new truth. New wisdom, and new kindness — yea, new youth! Then not alone the supreme soul of France Shall light new paths for the new world's advance; Beethoven then shall stir with tragic power The children of men dying at this hour; Goethe shall speak to them — and they shall hear Their youth true-mirrored by the poet-seer; i6 And smile a little at the note of strife In Heine, who made such hard work of life. Yea, let us pass with the dark hour of hate, So wisdom come at last — though late — how late! And youth be free to follow deathless wars, Ardent for love, still striving for the stars. 17 SATAN In the last hour, the utter lapse of time, Shrill from the vast the voice of Satan cried — "Hail, Lord of Heaven, Almighty Loneliness, World-maker! thou who not in love but wrath Didst shape this plot of sham infinitudes — ' Earth, the day-fire, stars and the useless moon, And man and creatures meaner, and called them good ! Good for how long? Lord, Lord, shall goodness end? Where shines the light that healed thy want of me, Light-bearer once, thy shadow-bringer now? Behold, the unsteady sun, now glow, now gloom, Like a spent coal blown on by wind and sand, Is quenched with sifting dust of the dead stars. i8 Where is that world for which the heavens were made, That globe unquiet of the lava-spume Which from thine anger dript and cooled itself, That world whereon thy breath malign, thy vast, Ponderous loom of motion, force, and rhythm Stroking the planet-paths, at length begot Man in thy image, infinitely small, To squirm, and breed, and marvel at his race — Even of us, much more of things much less. To take the measure and impose the name, And fear us, or desire us, or forget? WTiere is that world by thee for man designed? See where yon little whiteness near the sun Walks virginal, a moon of innocence. That hell reformed, which of our deathless war Remembers nothing, nor of man's debauch In futile lusts he never learned from me, His godlike wallowings in the slough of love And fattenings of his purposeless desire; 19 Nor of man's end remembers, nor Its own Foresees, but coldly haunts the dying sun, Thy little world, which, being dead, is pure." So at the vaulted shell of utmost heaven Challenging toward the impenetrable beyond, The eternal questioner waited upon God. Merely to stand in that great light he strove; Even as a bird in a strong wind pendulous With league-long flight only his station holds, So beating up into the sight of God Satan no headway made, but with fierce wing Pushing from darkness, the orbed vacancy Retraced of an annihilated star. Soon, unrebuked, he shouted up through space — "Thou who didst build this crumbling universe, O Boaster, who wouldst bruise me with the heel Of man, but first wouldst play me for his soul, Alas, the pieces and the board wear out Ere the game quite begins! Omnipotence, 20 Did prudence whisper thee to this shrewd end, Or thy weak will that could not well create, Or hast thou played, Gambler Divine, as one Who sits no longer at a losing game, But sweeps the board away?" Still unperturbed The blessed silence of the face of God Came luminous against Satan as he strove. He then with moderated insolence — ''Forgive, Almighty God ; for well I know Not from thy weakness flows this huge decay, But from thy central virtue, Change. Forgive One like me steadfast, who from star to star Tracked in exile my yearnings and my faith, The azure promise of my heart of light. Eternity, that only in me was; Whereon man gazing fed his want therewith. Like the cool stars to endure perpetually. 21 How should he dream of goodness but from thee? And this desire was good; who then but thou Should be his everlasting, his length of days? Thou knowest, who knowest all, in honorable Intent the least advantage to abjure, Though my own nature bred it, I drove out This strong delusion fromi man's clinging soul; Me only eternal, me the evil one He by my aid beheld; and worshipt thee The various, the time-server, the manifold death. Though I have helped man to a little truth. Lord, blame not me that his excited mind Hath thrown thee in these meshes of thyself. Thinking, since all things alter, God must change; Seasons of climax limit even the arc Of godhood, flowering ever from age to age, Full blown, then fading, then in bud again. But why, O Prudence, who alone art wise. Didst thou proclaim thyself Absolute Good? Man with his maggot reason sapped thy boast: 22 The perfect evil must at last be good, The perfect good be evil, for all evolve. Lo, man hath reconciled us, who before Diluted never our happiness of hate — Yea, in a twilight kinship hath confused What in our will were strange as night and day; Evil unprooted from me I have felt, With alien pang some graft of goodness known, And, though I look not on thy holy face, Wearest thou not some scars that once were mine?" On venom more sinister meditative Circlewise through wide heaven the Serpent swayed Cobra-headed, darting his vibrant tongue — "The secret of thy treacherous plan for him Did man not solve, the terminus foresee Of breath-departed dust and cooling earth — Unfathomable emptiness at the last? 23 Yea, did he not forestall thy trick, O God, And ere his end, annihilate thee first? For him were not all causes but deceits Raised by mirage in his hot, barren soul, Thou the mere shadow of his little self Cast large in front by me, his following light?" Wrath-wearied, yet defiant, Satan abode; Then baffled from the eyes inscrutable Of the First Patience and the Ultimate Gooxl, Into profounder hate the fiend withdrew. 24 ASH-WEDNESDAY (After hearing a lecture on the origins of religion.) JTIere In the lonely chapel I will wait, Here will I rest, if any rest may be; So fair the day Is, and the hour so late, I shall have few to share the blessed calm; with me. Calm and soft light, sweet Inarticulate calls! One shallow dish of eerie golden fire By molten chains above the altar swinging, Draws my eyes up from the shadowed stalls To the warm chancel-dome; Crag-like the clustered organs loom, Yet from their thunder-threatening choir Flows but a ghostly singing — Half-human voices reaching home In Infinite, tremulous surge and falls. 25 Light on his stops and keys, And pallor on the player's face, Who, listening rapt, with finger-skill to seize The pattern of a mood's elusive grace, Captures his spirit in an airy lace Of fading, fading harmonies. Oh, let your coolness soothe My weariness, frail music, where you keep Tryst with the even-fall ; Where tone by tone you find a pathway smooth To yonder gleaming cross, or nearer creep Along the bronzed wall, Where shade by shade through deeps of brown Comes the still twilight down. Wilt thou not rest, my thought? Wouldst thou go back to that pain-breeding room Whence only by strong wrenchings thou wert brought ? 26 O weary, weary questionings, Will ye pursue me to the altar rail Where my old faith for sanctuary clings. And back again my heart reluctant hale Yonder, where crushed against the cheerless wall Tiptoe I glimpsed the tier on tier Of faces unserene and startled eyes — Such eyes as on grim surgeon-work are set, On desperate out-maneuverings of doom? Still must I hear The boding voice with cautious rise and fall Tracking relentless to its lair Each fever-bred progenitor of faith, Each fugitive ancestral fear? Still must I follow, as the wraith Of antique awe toward a wreck-making beach Drives derelict? Nay, rest, rest, my thought. Where long-loved sound and shadow teach Quietness to conscience overwrought. 27 ( Hearken! The choristers, the white-robed priest, Move through the chapel dim Sounding of warfare and the victor's palm, Of valiant marchings, of the feast Spread for the pilgrim In a haven'd calm. How on the first lips of my steadfast race Sounded that battle hymn, Quaint heaven-vauntlngs, with God's gauntlet flung, To me bequeathed, from age to age, My challenge and my heritage; "The Lord Is In His holy place" — How In their ears the herald voice has rung! Now will I make bright their sword, Will pilgrim in their ancient path, Will haunt the temple of their Lord ; Truth that Is neither variable nor hath Shadow of turning, I will find In the wise ploddlngs of their faithful mind; Or finding not, as in this frustrate hour 28 By questions hounded, waylaid by despair, Yet in these uses shall I know His power, As the warm flesh by breathing knows the air. futile comfort! My faith-hungry heart Still in your sweetness tastes a poisonous sour; Far-off, far-off I quiver 'neath the smart Of old indignities and obscure scorn Indelibly on man's proud spirit laid, That now in time's ironic masquerade Minister healing to the hurt and worn! What are those streams that from the altar pour Where goat and ox and human captive bled To feed the blood-lust of the murderous priest? 1 cannot see where Christ's dear love is shed, So deep the insatiate horror w^ashes red Flesh-stains and frenzy-sears and gore. Beneath that Cross, whereon His hands outspread, What forest shades behold what shameful rites Of maidenhood surrendered to the beast 29 In obscene worship on midsummer nights! What imperturbable disguise Enwraps these organs with a chaste restraint To chant innocuous hymns and litanies For sinner and adoring saint, Which yet inherit like an old blood-taint Some naked caperings in the godliest tune, — Goat-songs and jests strong with the breath of Pan, That charmed the easy cow-girl and her man In uncouth tryst beneath a scandalous moon! Ah, could I hearken with their trust. Or see with their pure-seeing eyes Who of the frame of these dear mysteries Were not too wise! Why cannot I, as in a stronger hour, Outface the horror that defeats me now? Have I not reaped complacent the rich power That harvests from this praise and bowing low? On this strong music I have mounted up, 30 At yonder rail broke bread, and shared the holy cup, And on that cross have hung, and felt God's pain Sorrowing, sorrowing, till the world shall end. Not from these forms my questionings come That serving truth are purified, But from the truth itself, the way, the goal, One challenge vast that strikes faith dumb — If truth be fickle, who shall be our guide? "Truth that is neither variable, nor hath Shadow of turning?" Ah, where turns she not! Where yesterday she stood, Now the horizon empties — lo, her steps Where yonder scholar woos, are hardly cold, Yet shall he find her never, but the thought Mantling within him like her blood Shall from his eloquence fade, and leave his words Flavor'd with vacant quaintness for his son. What crafty patience, scholar, hast thou used, 31 Useless ere it was begun — What headless waste of wing, Beating vainly round and round ! In no one Babel were the tongues confused, But they who handle truth, from sound to sound Master another speech continuously. Deaf to familiar words, our callous ear Will quiver to the edge of utterance strange; When truth to God's truth-weary sight draws near, Cannot God see her till she suffer change? Must ye then change, my vanished youth. Home customs of my dreams? Change and farewell! Farewell, your lost phantasmic truth That will not constant dwell. But flees the passion of our eyes And leaves no bint behind her Whence she dawns or whither dies. Or if she live at all, or only for a moment seems. 32 Here though I only dream I find her, Here will I watch the twilight darken. Yonder the scholar's voice spins on Mesh upon mesh of loveless fate; Here will I rest while truth deserts him still. What hath she left thee, Brother, but thy voice? After her, have thy will, And happy be thy choice! Here rather will I rest, and hearken Voices longer dead but longer loved than thine. Yet still my most of peace is more unrest, As one who plods a summer road Feels the coolness his own motion stirs, But when he stops the dead heat smothers him. Here in this calm my soul is weariest. Each question with malicious goad Pressing the choice that still my soul defers To visioned hours not thus eclipsed and dim, Lest in my haste I deem 33 That truth's invariable part Is her eluding of man's heart. Farewell, calm priest who pacest slow After the stalwart-marching choir! Have men through thee taught God their dear desire ? Hath God through thee absolved sin? What is thy benediction, if I go Sore perplexed and wrought within? Open the chapel doors, and let Boisterous music play us out Toward the flaring molten west Whither the nerve-racked day is set; Let the loud world, flooding back, Gulf us in its hungry rout; Rest? What part have we In rest? Boy with the happy face and hurrying feet, Who with thy friendy cap's salute Sendest bright hail across the college street, 34 If thou couldst see my answering lips, how mute, How loth to take thy student courtesy! What truth have I for thee? Rather thy wisdom, lad, Impart, Share thy gift of strength with me, Still with the past I wrestle, but the future girds thy heart. Clutter of stubborn yesterdays that clothe us like a shell, Thy spirit sloughs their bondage off, to walk new- born and free. All things the human heart hath learned — God, heaven, earth and hell — Thou weighest not for what they were, but what they still may be. Whether the scholar delve and mine for faith- wreck buied deep, Or the priest his rules and holy rites, letter and spirit, keep. Toil or trust In breathless dust, they shall starve at last for truth; 35 Scholar and priest shall live from thee, who art eternal youth. Holier If thou dost tread it, every path the prophets trod ; Clearer vrhere thou dost w^orshlp, rise the ancient hymns to God ; Not by the priest but by thy prayers are altars sanctified ; Strong with new love where thou dost kneel, the cross whereon Christ died. 36 THE SONS OF METANEIRA I JJarkening the open door, In thought he gazed On his ripe meadows, on the mountain road, On the still trees above the shaded well; Then inward to the twilight room he turned Where Metaneira sat — "Strange that a woman Who fears not child-bearing, neither the pain Nor peril, cannot face, save panic-pale. The bringing up of children day by day. With danger courage comes, and with thine hour Com^s on brave yearnings for this child unborn, But no heart comes for the safe homely years — Small fingers at thy bosom, growing hands That cling to thine, and running feet beside thee. And face upturned to love thee with quick smiles. 37 The boy we have, what dread was thine to rear! Yet he takes life as one who loves to live; Joy is the breath of him. This other child As fair, I think, befalls, if but thy fear Cloud not its spirit." Leaning from the low couch She answered — "I feared no danger, nor shunned pain; I thought only of what a man may share With woman, the precious burden of childhood — Not the nine months, the birth more exquisite" Of the young soul slowly finding the world. Celeus, when I brood on the frail bark We dare be pilot far, and blindly grope With clumsy guesses toward the eternal shore, 1 think how reckless in the eyes of gods Human desire must seem, and human love. So thinking, I feel terror and loneliness; Then I reach out for help to thee, but thou Answerest as though these were but simple things, 38 And life simple, and children in the world No care." "The gods who send desire," he said, "Fear not to trust us with the incarnate dream. But art thou lonely, Metaneira — thou Who wouldst not keep handmaid, nor slave nor free, Near, if thy child need rearing? Lonely art thou? Nay, jealous as the wuld deer for thy young! So fearful when the boy was born, and now Thou hast sent thy woman away, even ere the birth. Do I not know?" "Celeus," she cried, "wherefore Chide me for what is love? To thee the day Brings a plain round, things simply to be done. What happens, happens, and so to dreamless rest. But I see what might happen, and the hours Come fateful with hard choices, good and ill, And the day's labor is, by taking thought, To seize the good. Therefore with all my love 39 I watch the lightest breath the infant draws; The ill that might molest himi comes on me, I feel the blow that falls not. What hireling Cares for another's child so? Bruise and tumble Are natural luck, they say; and the child's soul Takes its luck too. I have sent them all away. Nay, but the loneliness I feel is more — A mystery that lifts me from' the world, A strangeness as if earth were not my home. And our love but a visitant from afar." Celeus with earnest eyes looked from the door, And saw Eleusis under summer skies. The meadows and the mountain road — the world Wherein he native was, and she was strange. Then turning toward her — "Thou art a wistful woman; Dreams and weird thoughts are more to thee than breath, And the unsecret earth before thee, thou Veilest with phantoms, with imagined clouds. 40 Wherefore dost thou reach ever out from life With eyes for what cannot be seen, with hearing For whispers and echoes where none else hears sound ? Our loves, that made us one, in this alone. Drive our two hearts asunder. Sorrow I see, And mischief, yet the common fate is plain; Nothing waylays nor haunts us; life, in itself Clear, would ask but courage to be lived. Earth is our brother, and light over all Draws from our dust the destined fruit and bloom — Dreams, fears and hopes, rooted in what we are. So I have thought, and the one child we have Through his seven years confirms me. Hast thou seen How humanly he learns the arts whereby Man and the gods within him build his world? His hopes are better than the things he has, And what he has, helps him to reach his hopes. Nothing will harm him, no shadow threaten, 41 Save his own errors; nothing this child unborn Will harm, if but the darkness of thy mood Blight not its soul. Fate is man's handiwork, I believe, whereon the gods look, and forgive, And a dark fancy prophesying ill Is but a true suspicion of ourselves; The gods, whose eyes are clear, clearly behold The seeds w^ithin us of our cherished doom; They with immortal sorrow watch us all Thwarting the good they will us; and most they grieve When love like thine, exquisitely alert, Brings headlong on its danger, fancy- framed." She answered sadly — "Celeus, the boy and thou Feel not the mystery that oppresses me; Would that I had thy nature, the sunshine. The faith opening like earth after fresh rain; But my love reaches, and I feel thy hand Helping, but cannot find thy heart." His hand 42 Reached out. "I would a woman were here," he said, "To share thy loneliness; I would the gods Would send, however humble, a comrade for thee, Comrade for thee, and helper for the child." With large eyes she questioned him — "A stranger?" 43 II All glamour, golden beauty arched with blue, Eleusis, vale of peace, enchanted lay — Meadows, and by the mountain road one house, Dark trees, beneath their shadow a clear well. And far away the Immeasurable sea Falnt-sounding ; drunk with autumn savors, earth Rich harvest-scent was breathing, and burnt leaves — When down the road a lonely wanderer came. An aged form, that step by step between Some place far back and some place far beyond Measured the weariness. Grey was her hair. Here eyes were grieving, her firm lips were proud; Her body, tall and stately, mantle-wrapped. Majestic swayed like wheat In summer wind, As slowly to the wellslde she drew near^ — 44 There darkly paused, with folded patient hands, Fixed as a carven stone. Over the world The magic gleam shone brighter, the low sun, Slanting, reached to the grass beneath the trees And robbed the well of shadow, save where still The woman stood. Suddenly from the house A radiant boy came running with light foot, Balancing on his shoulder a water-jar — Then at the shadow waiting unawares. Marble-like, with bowed and grieving head, He curbed his dancing mood and walked sedate. Shamefaced before a stranger. While he drew. She watched in silence till the jar was full, Then in low tones that thrilled with pleasure-pain Like the delirious chill from autumn fields Swift after sunset — "Doth thy mother live, A rich woman, that without envy looks On strangers' children? Who of yon wide house 45 Is master?" Brimming with joy to share, "Celeus, Whose son I am, Triptolemus," he cried. "Hark, dost thou hear my one brother weeping, born This very day?" He paused for sheer delight. And she, kindling with sudden hope — ''What woman Ministers to thy mother and the child? Where is thy father? Run to him — bid hi«i say If there be timely service I can do, Service that wisdom asks and practised hands; Tell him, brief is the shelter age desires. But long the recompense of pity endures." Eagerly on his errand sped the boy. Tasting a new adventure; soon he brought His father, walking slow, whose earnest words Challenged her — "Woman, what thing of grief art thou. Shadowing these waters with unbidden gloom? 46 What thing of grief and age, that dost desire To handle joy newborn?" Her quiet voice Like a soft rainfall sang — "Bitter the bread The stranger eats and earns not; gods nor men Who suffer alms are free ; let me but serve. Only to abide a little, to be still. To seek for nothing, to buy with quiet hands A quiet heart" — "Quietness and to spare," Celeus broke in, "room by the hearth enough, And work enough ; abide here, since thou wilt." When he had spoke, the boy, as if to unfold Kindness out of the scant and measured words, Reached for her hand and slowly toward the home, Silently to the doorway, brought her. There With lifted arms of prophecy she prayed — "To all this house the immortal gods be friends, And chiefly to this lad, who gave me rest. 47 Master of field and meadow shall he be, To plow, to plant, to reap — him and his sons The earth obey forever!" His boyhood felt Exquisite shadowed beauty, earth under stars; Her words startled like bird-notes in the dawn; Suddenly for her presence the house seemed small. 48 Ill Autumn to winter, winter drew to spring, And comfortable became her ways, like all Love-service wrought by customary hands. Sap in the vein, soft-stirring with the year, And kindling at her presence, human love; Strange wants unrealized, hungers of heart. Mystical poverties of soul, she filled ; Even as common field-flowers casually Borrow the sun and use the earth and sky, The household without reckoning dwelt with her. But when to autumn the year turned again And the old poignant beauty filled the world, The mother Metaneira, spirit-quick. Felt the home troubled with awe wonderful. She pondered long these motions of vague fear, Still troubled more, till in a twilight mood 49 She broke them to her husband and the boy, Under the spell of her strange insight rising Maenad-mad, — wild eyes and haunted face; With the intense flame of passionate thought Her fragile body quivered as she spoke — "Who is this phantom, this weird wayfarer. Ye two brought in to aid me? Know ye not The Shining Ones oft hide in human forms, And darker spirits, brooding mischief, oft Resemble to betray us?" Celeus frowned ; "She is a quiet phantom, grant her that! All that haunt us, the gods make old like her. So quiet and so wise! Summer and winter Has not her faithful toil prospered the year? What strangeness has she done?" Poised among fears, Perplexed to choose, the mother hesitated. Then answered not his question but her own thoughts — 50 "She loves the child, she loves, but not as we Love it, not with a simple heart; secrets We cannot guess at, her deep manner hides; Her service steals upon us like a spell, Yet something fugitive in all she does, Some touch of marvel, some too perfect skill, Makes helpless those she helps. Oft she escapes. As though her mood were hampered by our eyes. And strangely broods or dreams or works alone. Now for two nights, with the first dusk, I saw her Stealthily watch me, — then the cradled babe She lifted to her breast and made pretense To soothe, though it slept sound, — then to the hall Yonder carried the child, and slyly drew The bolts, I heard them creak, in the closed door." Celeus, still unpersuaded, comforted her — "The skill of old hands is another youth; Youth is the earliest magic, and the last Is practice, nothing more; this woman's skill Came with her years, but sorrow makes her strange." 51 Instant upon the word, as at the return Of half-forgotten fear, the mother cried — "What is this sorrow, then, that shadows her? A human grief with time unfolds to love, And tears that are not shame are shared at last, But all the kindness of our house melts not The silence from her lips; — she may not will Mischief, but power she has, she pilots fate — Were not her words prophetic for the boy That named him master of meadows and of fields, Whom the earth should obey? Did not the grain Ripen miraculous where she bade him sow? Did not the grove she planted, the young trees. Thrive beyond hope? Weird blessings fall on us. Yet rather would I lose the alien gift Than dread the lurking debt still to be paid." Wondering at his mother, the young boy Pleaded, suddenly eloquent out of love — "All that she taught me, of earth and sun and showers, 52 Of seed and tilth and gathering of the grain, To others I could teach — no weird secret, But simple knowledge waiting to be used. The things that beauty touches become strange, I heard her say; the strangeness thou dost fear, Is it not beauty?" The mother, following her dread, Hearing him not — "'Only a little while, A little while ago I found her gazing On the bare fields as one looks on the dead. And from her moving lips came soft, wild words: 'O loveliness (she whispered) rapt away! Who now, thy face beholding, gathers joy? Ay me, the joy that from eternal love Up from my bosom flowing bloomed in thee! The wheat, the poppy languish meadow-shorn, The summer dies. O thou that canst not lan- guish. Maiden lost, Immortal One ! ' " — The voice 53 Of Metanelra faltered and grew faint, Uttering the remembered cry; but Celeus With deeper pity reproved her perverse mood — "Hast thou not heard of lost loves in the world, Of hearths vacant, of hopes precious but vain? She in her years is wounded with old sorrows; This babe of ours, soft-breathing on her breast, Brings back through tears the frail unburied ghost. Some girl long dead, whom grief hath made di- vine. Ah, Metaneira, that having lost no child Knowest not the faithful pain, the abiding grief!" "And wouldst thou lose him," Metaneira cried, "The babe that helpless lies on her strange heart? Have I not said, when the day ends she carries To yonder room the sleeping child away. Stealing with furtive glances, and with guile Barring the door? Now hearken! Underneath And over, by the hinges, through the latch, Sharp gleams shoot out, long blades of eerie light, 54 That all but pierce the nailed and paneled wood. After a space the light fades, stealthily The latch withdraws, and with too perfect care She enters crooning slumber-songs — O clear The triumph in her face, the evil shining! And when I take the child, dim meadow-scent, Damp odors, flood etherial o'er my brain. And the child's eyes, on more than infant depths Brooding, grow wonderful with calm — Celeus! See now," she cried, "the light streams through the door!" Flinging her fragile body, she burst the latch, And frenzied saw the woman holding outstretched The child, and waves of weird light washing it, Fire that from the hearth seemed not to flame, But like a rolling sea filled the whole room. One glimpse — and Metaneira, crazed with love, Tore fiercely from those hands the flame-wrapped babe. Then from the earth the woman rose, a queen 55 Celestial, young and fair; the glowing sea Ebbed from the room into her burning heart, As to its source, and beautiful was her wrath, Light-giving. And Metaneira stood aghast. 56 IV Slowly a sad, majestic voice began, "Blind, like all mortals! Ye withhold the gods From their unfinished blessings. Know ye me? Demeter; from vain walking in this world To find the lost Persephone, Pluto's bride, Hither I came, and here for a little rest, A little quietness to sorrow in, I laid my godhood by, and hid myself In human poverty and mortal years. Could ye not guess, such blessings as I brought Come only from the gods? First I bestowed On yonder lad the mastery of earth. The labors that men do beneath the sun Shall be for him no burden but sheer joy; He shall have knowledge of this world as it is, He shall love what is kindred to his fate, 57 He shall know men, and he shall know his gods. But for this other child, this dreaming babe That stirred the memory of my ancient heart, I would have furnished immortality. So frail he seemed, so pitiful, so pure. And time so stern a teacher, and the path So rough, where he must stumble, fall by fall Painfully fashioning his eternal soul — To spare him, I desired, — to make his days All of such moments as the happiest men Dream only at their best. Here by the fire I washed in deathless love the mortal mind, And fast the god grew in him, till your fear Ruined the heavenly will. Now he shall be Master of nothing, but dreams shall master him. A pilgrim of confusion shall he be; Two worlds alternate shall be his, but rest In neither; painfully shall his hand, his eye, On the obdurate face of things lay hold, The while his dreams look on what never was; 58 And for he cannot tell the twain apart, Madness and ecstasy shall envelop him, Out of the world he finds but will not see. Building a world he sees but cannot find. Yea, from his love the things he loves shall come, And from his fear shall come the things he fears. Nothing that is shall teach him what it is — Pain of this world, still knocking at the door, Nor grief that stabs, nor joy that comforts him; He shall be strange to thee, for all thy love. And for thy sake, for him all things be strange; Whate'er he loves shall whisper him farewell, And waft him on the exile of his dream — A human face, a shining on the sea. The cold moon, or the still march of stars, If but the inexorable beauty call, Eternity, rising in him like a tide. Shall from their bases lift and set afloat The stranded accidents of time." She ceased, 59 The light died from the room, and she was gone. But Metaneira heard, far-off, the voice Of Celeus, like a sound breaking on sleep — "The woman is not here. Thy fears were vain." 60 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS iiliiiililllilliilillllilii 015 906 802 A