■Ijii'r.'.'ij, '., ; • 1 « 1 J * ill w mm flliiliij!?)!!;?!' ' ^ * -^ I :^^::;4s%'"*^'/„<° :""^\*^\.-., "-C *^- V* \ e .\^- ,x\^ «. -^^ vV '^ %^^ V ^ ^ " '> ^ " . \'- . V * o . ';> ^% ^ ' '''' .^^ .^ o. ""ri. .' x'\ Q. / ., \ 1 8 ^ ,.-^-. / : ■'^. ' \' ^ ^ , ;- '^ . >■ ^ \^^^ .0 '' ^^-^"*. .j^S^i. '' ./.^ V ■ 0' ,s -r. :^^\0 DRAMATIC VERSES i DRAMATIC VERSES BY TRUMBULL S T I C K N E Y CHARLES E GOODSPEED BOSTON MDCCCCII COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY TRUMBULL STICK.NEY PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1902 7^3 ^31 ^ «^0 i> a^ % n ^1 THE IJBFfAffY OF CONGRESS, Two C0PIL8 REUfei-zen OCT. 24 %m'-i C!.;JiSS Ck XXc No. H-Z \ oz COIf*V t^ * >•• • « • € : c r c < D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRY MOUNT PRESS, BOSTON X MY DEAR BAY: THIS IS FOR BESSIE AND YOU, IF YOU WILL FIND ROOM FOR IT AMONG BETTER THINGS PARIS, 1902 A TABLE OF CONTENTS Yialypsoy i ; Once^ 5 ; In the Fast, 6 ; Oneiro- po/oSy 8 ; Lucretiusy 14 ; Age in Youthy 16 ; I« Summery 19 ; I« Kmpe'z.'z.Oy 22 ; Mnemosyney 25 ; hodovico Mart e Hi y 26 ; DolorosGy 32 ; P/Zy, 33 ; S^«^, 34 5 Ra /stony 35 ; Dri/twoody 37 ; Requies- camy 39; EnV^, 43 ; Sonnety 71 ; Sonnety 72 ; Sonnety 73; Sonnet: On Rodin* s ^^Vlllusiony Sceur d'Icarey' 74 ; Sonnety 75 ; Sonnet: In a Churchyardy jj ; Sonnet, 78 ; Sonnety 79; S^«- «^/: 0« S^/«^ Shells found Inland, 80 ; Sonnety 81 ; Sonnety 82 ; Sonnety 83 ; Sonnet: On the Concerty 84 ; S^ww^/, 85 ; Sonnety 86 ; SonnetySy ; Lake war dy 89 ; Vrometheus YyrphoroSy 95. KALYPSO 1 hen sang Kalypso yet another song. A nd it was waxen late, beyond her isky B eyond the sea and world hung drearily A full moon. Quiet was, except the wind L ifting the water's murmur as a girl ^ay lift the fold of some sad "Eastern silk, O ne cloudy a presage^ loitered. All the air W as marvellous and sorrowful^ as of J asmine sea-touched and roses pale with spray^ Of fading oleander ^ clematis G rown weary on the garden wall. Anon T he cold salt wind did rise and scatter all Odours: a little chilly then quietude. \%o here did mix the land\ breath and the sea^Sr A nd still she paused. Her solemn lipSy possessed Bj; that shy thought that comes before a songy W ere silent. And he raised his languid arm. C lasping it all she turned on him then The earnest heaven of her desirous eyes; Drew him about her feet y against her kneeSy {Closer; and rested in his hair one hand. ' T he other aloncy moving so musical That her low notes were not more song than ity p escribed the region of the sinking moony ' W hile soft and even a most unhappy strainy The modulation of an endless grief \^ lowed from her lips. And tiredly she sang: ! ^ S he says : * follow my steps and take my hand r where the shoreward sea falls colourless A nd light is growing lesSy grows ever less Y et quencheth never; where the seas expand A nd shrink, where nothing alter eth, I stand Upon that melancholy marge of sand, "*T^^ Earth was made; yet then was I alone, ^ a Iking this skyey meadow's nodding gold, I ^ve seen her freshest garden turnM old And men grow mortal in her beds of stone, B w/ I am still alone, and near the sun Sometimes I think my heart is waxen cold For having been so very long a lone, ^^^ H er voice was richer with the widening song, L ight came and went, colour reposed and fed About her face. There in the swarty night She shone like opal, flickering weird flame A nd crossed with splendour. On his neck her hand Quivered; he felt her blood throb; languidly Thro* closing eyelids of the soul he saw The world dissolve in rosiness. She sang: ^^^Comef so long have I looked on thee, so long That my gold lids are heavy with desire; Mjy arms for waiting here in heaven tire; M j; throat is tuneless with unceased song, 'W here nothing is and day and night prolong E ach other in the sober twilight fire. Give me thy soul for having looked so long, " * I ^^ below. Follow thou in my trace A nd taste my solitude. There all the air Becomes a lover feeling love so rare, 2 T he chilly wave walks nearer yet to share T he rhythm and ecstasy of our embrace^ And evening jealous of our flushed face Goes out in sad retire and pale despair. "*A W while upon that solitary sand The ripples burn away their fringe of light A nd after me drawn down the heavenly night Vnnumbered stars fall throbbing to the landy L et all the glamour of my courses waned Vossess thy soul in lingering delight^ — het me in darkness feel thy failing handy^ \ O ver his head she stooped. Her odorous hair Fell thickly o\r his face, ^he kissed him \With all the sleepy honeys of her soul. Her arms did slip along his necky his breast; 3 he kissed him lazily upon the lids A nd languorously on the broWy she kissed him Trembling and fiery on the opened mouth. \knd slowly — j W ind rose. Rustles crept to 'j ear, ^hro* meshes of her hair he saw gray-blown \Vhe thick tumultuous cloud blotted and streaked \Nith witchery of dead moon. The midnight whirred, iparsely the windy stars and feebly hung. |V little withered leaf blew by; it scratched \\im with its frittered edge. For it was autumn. \ utumn it was. Then did he know. No more Xhat year would he return^ that year no more; ; i ather^ locked by the vastly circular ^^ alls 0* the sea^ the quashing roof of heaven^ 3 S till suffocated in the changeless air^ S //'// vexed by incessant memory and recall^ W ould stand in pain desirous of that dear F ireside and her more dear and beautiful — O curse to exile! Horrid ire shook him. Yle started from her embrace^ muttered^ struggled^ — Then sudden came into dominion Of his great self Yie stood and said to her^ *'*'T hou art more masterful than death. The life That spurred me thro* the waters of the world VJ as spent indeed^ — and claimed again^ O love^ Upon thy souPs warm shore." And amorously^ she though H e neared her^ lifted her. They drew toward Her dwelling. To herself she seemed queen Over his love^ and on the forward heaven Of her retreating hope she lit the stars Of happy hours^ of happy days^ — the crown Of long desire; and drank of his embrace A dear oblivion of sad doubt: the while H e plotted to beguile this woman here^ G aoler of Fate, to drug her love asleep^ T hat ere his death tho* waxen old he V see W ere^t but the smoke of tree-clad Ithaca. ONCE 1 hat day her eyes were deep as night. She had the motion of the rose^ T he bird that veers across the lighty T he waterfall that leaps and throws I ts irised spindrift to the sun. S he seemed a wind of music passing on. Alone I saw her that one day S tand in the window of my life. Her sudden hand melted away U nder my lipSy and without strife I held her in my arms awhile And drew into my lips her living smile^ — N<7Zf many a day ago and year I S ince when I dream and lie awake In summer nights to feel her near^ And from the heavy darkness break G litter Sy till all my spirit swims A nd her hand hovers on my shaking limbs. If once again before I die I drank the laughter of her mouth A nd quenched my fever utter ly^ I say^ and should it cost my youth^ 'Twere well I for I no more should wait Hammering midnight on the doors of fate. IN THE PAST 1 here lies a somnolent lake U nder a noiseless sky^ W here never the mornings break Nor the evenings die. Mad flakes of colour W hirl on its even face Iridescent and streaked with pa Hour ^ Knd^ warding the silent place^ T he rocks rise sheer and gray Yrom the sedgeless brink to the sky "Dull-lit with the light of pale half day Thro^ a void space and dry. And the hours lag dead in the air With a sense of coming eternity To the heart of the lonely boatman there. That boatman am I, I, in my lonely boat^ A waif on the somnolent lake^ VJ atching the colours creep and float ■W ith the sinuous track of a snake. Now I lean o'er the side And lazy shades in the water see^ happed in the sweep of a sluggish tide C rawled in from the living sea ,• A nd next I fix mine eyeSy So long that the heart declines^ 6 On the change/ess face of the open skies W here no star shines; A nd now to the rocks I turn^ To the rocks^ around That lie like walls of a circling urn W herein lie bound The waters that feel my powerless strength And meet my homeless oar L ahouring over their ashen length N ever to find a shore, B ut the gleam still skims At times on the somnolent lake^ And a light there is that swims W ith the whirl of a snake; A nd tho" dead be the hours /' the airy A nd day less the sky, T he heart is alive of the boatman there: That boatman am I. ONEIROPOLOS i^omey Sakhi, Here within this edge of shade W e ^11 stand against the house-wall shadow-cooled, T here 'i no one left at noon in the Agora To quib their fortune of my dozen birds. The town — the worldy these poor Athenians think- Goes home and half asleep. Their prattling stops. A nd burned by sunlight thro' the stifling hours, T emple and house, statue and wall and road Glow as hot copper. But here shadow dwells; A nd here by the sun-stricken afternoon I stand leaning my head, and close my eyes. A red light swims my brain awhile, then goes; A nd unto memory I surrender me Of all my master Brihadashua said. My blessed master pure and charitable W ho dwelt in Kashi by the holy stream, Happy indeed was I, happy to count A wizard in my kindred such as he, "W hose lips were wholly dedicate to truth, W hose hand dispensed serene and wonderful Veace to the spirit as a tree his shade. T him, as one who rushes head aflame, K indled and dry with fever, toward shore, I went; and most divinely pitiful He taught me wisdom. To his voice I turned As turns a lotus to the rosy dawn, F illing with light, gathering treasure thence To keep within its heart all the day long. Sometime he spake, and all were blest; sometime 8 S ilent we sat within the pale and help Of all his thought. Continually did fall The pleasant dew of patience from his eye^ Which looking ever beyond world and star W as large as upper heaven. They were the days W hen I had laid the world to rest within me And^ tho* with childish lips^ did after him S>ay as in dream the holy syllables. He diedy — rather y I heard him never more, H is final earthly errand^ whilst his mind^ Quitting our vain and pitiable scene, D issolvedy he gave me in trust, I quit the shore Of holy Ganga^s healing water-wave, hong travelled, breathed of many airs, reviewed Forests of sandal, where the Spring wind blew. And tender-petalled lily-beds, whereo\r The gray crane spanned his gracious, level flight. W estward I followed, following every day In quest of that he bade me. At the last C beheld Sindhus, and my errand '.f done, I \H.ear, Sakhi, yet awhile my destiny. The burning season shone, I stayed — too late. The people'' s rumour told of a great host, ^Yavanas named, from the utter unknown lands, 1 3 ener ailed by a god and more innumerable \Vhan drops in rainy season; giants all, [That tramped about the edges of the world And rose like a live night of crying birds Across and thro' high heaven, then fell to earth — ■ \^ hat needs the many words f The Greeks were on, j 3 ne midday hour the world did leap apart, I 9 A nd thence a thirsty multitude in riot^ With womeriy gold ^ flocks^ armour^ came Is y coins; Maddened with hunger for another world; Each vagabond upon his empty heart A n empire's jewel scattering the light. They sacked the land^ then weary sat them downy A nd with a million mouths and voices cried They V walk the wide and feeble earth no more, S^ spake the children and the world obeyed. Oceanwardy between patient ^indhus shores^ T he locusts movedy leaving a piteous landy With goods and gold and men, whereof was I. ver a milky ocean torn with fiame And faced with greenish current^ Uong a shore C rusted with yellow sandy beneath a sky Of endless sun, they lived and sailed and died, T hen for a little year the millions tramped Thro* deserts flat as sea ^nd gray as cloudy T ill they saw finally a shore. And ships B ore them ^twixt isle and islcy after the 5w«, 1 nto the port yonder y Feiraios calledy To rest, 'T was homey they said; and all men wept. I found their painted fanes and naked gods A nd all these children babbling in the sun. First did I hunger y knowing no trick or tradey K nowing nothing that sold brings money in, I talked noty nor could understand at all This Grecian race of laughter y pleasurey song, Vityy nor giving almsy nor anything That makes the spirit purey is here. They livCy And suffer the for get fulness of life, 10 T his is my tale : One night I walked abroad Ere dawn a dreary hour^ the market-place M ore dark than any jungle. Cold it was, I walked^ when five culd fingers touched my army — B eside^ a Phrygian slave. Often I V seen Him and his fortune~table''s dozen birds, — ^* O neiropolos" called, ^^ seller of dreams," H e looked me in the eyes and took my arm And led me here; awhile rehearsed his tricks: Teased with his forefinger a bird^s soft throat, — Which leapt on V, pecked and picked one single card, S^ did the Phrygian seven times, and went, ver Kkropolis was golden dawn, Their naked gods all bloomed with light. The dark 1 n violet veils dissolved down the steep heaven. And I stood here, selling to Athens dreams. A dying town filled of a feeble race, ^ mall gossips of their all-expressing tongue. Dancers and frolickers, philosophers D runken and sense-tied to the trembling world, ^^ither from fifty climes men come and come, \W omen and children come to see — ^t is strange! — V his city of the old and marble things, \Twas miracle, say they, what sights were seen Here, Sakhi, one great hundred years agone — ^ or they count Time upon their nervous hand. \'3 alleys and chariots, beauty, viSfory, gold, I \ nd gods they had, whose fair procession walked N ith maidens, cattle, priests and horse ; whereof \'Jp in the shadows of the fane, yonder. 1 5 marble piSiure by a studied hand. So at their pretty game the children played Building and singing on, — But all is gone, *Tis vision^ tale of poets ^ memory^ nothing; N ow there is void shadow^ blown by windy And the unstoried year is rolled away, H ere in the dying town I sell them dr earns ^ Here where the Phrygian stood. At evening I knock at yonder gate in the High Wall, A nd enter. Courteously a gentle man heads me within^ to shade. Upon his lips Their chattering Greek is low and lovelier. I sit me down, My supper bowl of rice He gives, saying, ^^ My friend, rejoice in peace. ''^ "Down thro* his olive orchard, shadowy And still and secret as the things of \nd, T he lily-like soft evening gathers dark. - Blest is his pious deed; for many hear The spoken solace of his quietude. To him what little coin I gather here. Not in exchange or manner of the West, I bring. For Epicurus aids the poor, Veace! My words are many, Now peace to thee! For yonder comes as ever at this time Vhryne, the rose and glory of their world. Her veil is wove of sunrise, and her face The white moon set between two clouds of black, H er eye '5 a firefly and her voice a viol. She walks as when a bird follows the sea, 12 Here daily falls her piece of gold ^ — she'^s rich And timid as the shining meteor^ And hovers mothlike round her destiny; For all her wings and beauty are for sale. 13 LUCRETIUS SPERATA VOLUPTAS SUAVIS AMICITIAE olow Spring that, slipping thro' the silver lighty hike some young wanderer now returnest home After strange years, Yiow like to me! to mine thy timorous plight ! W ho quietly near my friendship's altar come W here yet no God appears, ^y many a deed I sought to win his love. Made him a wreath of all my songs and hours, — Most vain, most fair ! '^ow falls about the shroud my years have wove; My evening drops her large, slow purple flowers T hro' gardens of gold air. To him this verse, to him this crown of leaves. My supreme piety shall I commend: This is my last, W reathed of what Youth endows and Age bereaves, Bound by the fingers of a lover and friend^ Green with the vital past. We sunder, he my Truth, I the desire. I spread my wooing fingers, I would earn Hz5 least address: But parcels of the heaven-dispersM fire, Sky-severed exiles, we divinely learn To sufil'er loneliness. My life was little in joy, little in pain-. Mine were the wise denials, with none I coped 14 To win the sky; A nd when I surely saw my love was vain — The joy of his sweet friendship I had hoped — I stilled. Now let me die, — N ow that the endless wind is growing warm, Richer the star, and flowers on many a slope Undo their sheath; O let us yield to lifers divinest charm That lured us thro* the blasted field of hope. Let us return to death. 15 AGE IN YOUTH From far she^s come^ and very old^ A nd very soiled with wandering. The dust of seasons she has brought Unbidden to this field of spring, She^s halted at the log-barred gate. T he May-day waitSy a tangled spill Of light that weaves and moves along T he daisied margin of the hilly Where Mature bares her bridal heart j A nd on her snowy soul the sun L anguors desirously and dully An amorous pale vermilion. She^s haltedy propped her rigid armSy W ith dead big eyes she drinks the west; T he brown rags hang like clotted dust About hery save her withered breast. A very soilure of a dream Runs in the furrows of her broWy A nd with a craxy voice she croons An ugly catch of long ago, I ts broken rhythm is hard and hoarsey I ts sunken soul of music toils I n precious ashesy dust of youth And lovely faces sorrow soils, B ut look ! Along the molten sky T here runs strange havoc of the sun. i6 ^^^ hat a strange sight this isy" she says^ 'Til cross the field, V II follow onr l^he bars are falling from the gate. The meshes of the meadow yield; And trudging sunsetward she draws A journey thro' the daisy field. The daisies shudder at her hem. Her dry face laughs with flowery light; An aureole lifts her soiled gray hair: ^^Vll on" she says, ^^to see this sight.'' In the rude math her torn shoe mows Juices of trod grass and crushed stalk M ix with a soiled and earthy dew, W ith smear of petals gray as chalk. The Spring grows sour along her track; The winy airs of amethyst Turn acid. ^^]ust beyond the ledge" She says, ^^ I'll see the sun at rest." A nd to the tremor of her croon, H er old, old catch of long ago, T he newest daisies of the grass She shreds and passes on below. . . . T he sun is gone where nothing is A nd the black-bladed shadows war. She came and passed, she passed along That wet, black curve of scimitar. 17 In vain the flower-lifting morn W ith golden fingers to uprear The weak Spring here shall pause awhile. T his is a scar upon the year. i8 IN SUMMER Lt^s growing evening in my soul^ 1 1 darkens in. A / the gray window now and then I hear them toll T he hour-and-day-long chimes of S/. Etienne. I ndeed I V not have lived elsewhere Nor otherwise, N or as the dreary saying is Been happier. To wear the love of life within my eyes. My hearths desolate meadow waySy A II wet and green, Opened for her to wander in A little space, I V have it even so as it has been, Vve lived the days that fly away^ I have a tale To tell when age has made me pale A nd hair of gray Excuse the fancy shaking out her sail, N^ one shall know what I intend. Even as I feel T he aching voices make appeal A nd swell and blend, It seems to me I might stoop down to kneel I n memory of that day in June 19 When, all the land Lying out in lazy summer fanned Now and anon B j; dying breezes from the Channel strand^ With nothing in our lives behind^ N othing before^ I n sunlight rich as melting ore A nd wide as wind We clomb the donjon tower of old Gisors Thro* the portcullis botched in wood A nd upy in fear^ A laddered darkness of a stair y XJp to the good Sun-stricken prosper and the dazzling air, — E ven now I shade my breaking eyes. —■- A nd by her side Surely she saw my heart divide L ike paradise For her to walk abroad in at noon-tide. I / swims about my memory. I feel around T he country steeped in summer swound; I feel the sigh That all these years within her breast was bouna H er fingers in my hand are laid. I seem to gaze Into the colours of her face^ And there is made A quiver in my knees like meadow-grass^ . T hat time I lived the life I have : A certain flower B looms in a hundred years one hour^ A nd what it gave I s richer^ no, nor more, but all its power. The chimes have ended for to-day. After midnight Solitude blows her candle out; D reams go away, And memory falls from the mast of thought. IN AMPEZZO KJn/y once more and not again — the larches S hake to the wind their echo^ " ^ot again^^ — W^ see^ below the sky that over-arches H eavy and hlue^ the plain B etween Tofana lying and Crista llo I n meadowy earths above the ringing stream : W hence interchangeably desire may follow^ Hesitant as in dream^ A / sunsety southy by lilac promontories Under green skies to Italy y or forth By calms of morning beyond Lavinores Tyrolward and to north : As noWy this last of latter daySy when over T he brownish field by peasants are undone Siome widths of grasSy some plots of mountain clover U nder the autumn suny With honey-warm perfume that risen lingers In mazes of low heaty or takes the airy Vassing delicious as a woman^s fingers Massing amid the hair-, When scythes are swishing and the mower* s muscle Spans a repeated crescent to and frOy Or in dry stalks of corn the sickles rustle^ Tanglcy detach and gOy Far thro* the wide blue day and greening meadow Whose blots of amber beaded are with sheave Sy 22 ^ hereover pallidly a doud-shadozv D eadens the earth and leaves : Whilst high around and near^ their heads of iron Siunken in sky whose azure overlights Ravine and edgeSy stand the gray and mar on "Desolate Dolomites^ — And older than decay from the small summit U nfolds a stream of pebbly wreckage down Under the suns of midday ^ like some comet S truck into gravel stone. Faintly across this gold and amethystine September y images of summer fade ; knd gentle dreams now freshen on the pristine Violsy awhile unplayed^ Of many a place where lovingly we wander^ More dearly held that quickly we forsake^ — A pine by sullen coasts^ an oleander Reddening on the lake, Knd there^ each year with more familiar motion^ Yrom many a bird and windy forestries ^ Or along shaking fringes of the ocean W apours of music rise. From many easts the morning gives her splendour; The shadows fill with colours we forget; Remembered tints at evening grow tender.. Tarnished with violet. Let us away! soon sheets of winter metal On this discoloured mountain-land will close ^ 23 While elsewhere Spring-time weaves a crimson peta Guilds and perfumes a rose. Away! for here the mountain sinks in gravel. Let us forget the unhappy site with change^ And go^ if only happiness be travel After the new and strange : — U nless '/ were better to be very single^ To follow some diviner monotone^ A nd in all beauties^ where ourselves commingle^ Love but a love, but one^ Across this shadowy minute of our living , W hat time our hearts so magically sing, To meditate our fever, si?nply giving All in a little thing? J ust as here, past yon dumb and melancholy Sameness of ruin, while the mountains ail, S ummer and sunset-coloured autumn slowly 'Dissipate down the vale; A nd all these lines along the sky that measure^ S or apis and the rocks ofMezzodt Crumble by foamy miles into the azure Mediterranean sea: Whereas to-day at sunrise, under brambles^ A league above the moss and dying pines I picked this little — in my hand that trembles — P arcel of columbines. H MNEMOSYNE 1/V autumn in the country I remember, Itlow warm a wind blew here about the ways! And shadows on the hillside lay to dumber D uring the long sun-sweetened summer-days, It'^s cold abroad the country I remember, T he swallows veering skimmed the golden grain At midday with a wing aslant and limber; And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain, I/V empty down the country I remember, I had a sister lovely in my sight : Her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre; We sang together in the woods at night, I/'i lonely in the country I remember. The babble of our children fills my ears^ And on our hearth I stare the perished ember Tojlames that show all starry thro* my tears. It^s dark about the country I remember, T here are the mountains where I lived. The path Is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber^ The stumps are twisted by the tempests' wrath, B ut that I knew these places are my own, I V ask how came such wretchedness to cumber The earth, and I to people it alone, I I rains across the country I remember, 25 LODOVICO MARTELLI O Gaddiy ope the casement^ open wide A nd prop my pillow. But the window square Of light y of sky ! tho* skies of Sicily Are not Firenze^s. Ah, Firenze mine! "Darkly I feel how ^s wasting all my life A nd dulls my brain ; Death 'j guessing at my name. But utter strange it is to die. The word " hife " to my ear rings mournful-rich and stings The sleepy nerve of longing. This is pain — To stifle far from home, the heart suppressed By a handful of such years as other men Make nought of, Mercy of God, what mother e'er Fashioned a heart so brittle, a head and brain ^ hereof the tissues crack with fever? ^hy Live? to have tasted life? — and die oft! aye, ^Twas little more. The silly, silly tears. But Qaddi, look, my head, my arm! Indeed Think you that I revive? Meseemeth now T'he Spring should soften Fiesole to flower And Colli meadows show to every wind "^ew petals of anemony. How often By the divine immemorable days. By sober afterlight when marvel is A nd all Firenze turns a smouldering gold — How oft upon the hillside have we heard T he melancholy ritornello! Ah What Springs were they! Tell me if ever, sincCy T he night was moonful, or a woman's eye Tearfully asked a softer question? 26 H ow waved the paling heaven's embroidery^ ^ hat wonder woke the odour ed bloom of earthy W hat music had the tongue of Tuscany^ What rhymes! How large a burial is the Vast! A nd thence away to Rome, to sovran Rome. What were the sickly earth without its Rome^ I ts gorgeous city where the revels are^ D ice and cards and the old ecstatic wine T hat glints dark ruby, and superbly eyed T he rich and unimpassioned courtesans^ And LeOy Vope — Yes, listen. One great once I saw the heavenly Householder, but far From^s home. Come nearer, Gaddi, hist! Ye know The Morosina who has Italians hair, W hose eye is somewhat strangely more than blue. Who laughs like beech-leaves ringing in the light; Her kisses indolent as a warm rain. . . . I dream. The Vope said I ? 'T was winter night. T he wind fell edged and pointed down the lane B eneath the casement many have looked to, where Stood I, whistling a feverish tune. And straight 'Twas oped. I entered. All about mine ear I heard "M_y hodovico,^^ — such a sound B ecame the long and melancholy name ! I drew my mask, and darkly there I saw — Nothing, but felt and breathed veriest Heaven. A bout our kiss did move her tender hair. Her breast to mine, her living arms, her brow — The memory aches me that it is so dead. S he led me with a touch like melody *7 That being fore' er more forward in the air S //// guides. The cold and arched corridor We traversed^ I a dreamer sunsetwards A nd she the moving beauty of the day. We climbed the stair ^ a sick moon-gazer I B eneath her white and spirit-winged moon : T ill in her chamber with our eyes we lit T he owlish gloom about her tapestry. Upon his horse the hunter moved asleep And every falcon turned owl. Alone The cresset flickered on the fragrant oily S hedding an old small light. And she and I W^ sung the night with kisses low a dream. She said the wonder things in olden words; She made a music languorous as Time And rich as Summer^ whilst her endless hair S eemed Aphrodite* s o^er the shallow wave T hin-spread at midday. Odour never rose Sweet as her breasts\ and musically she D id often turn her golden head away T hat gazing I might weave and weave my soul Into a necklace stringed of sleepy pearl Without a clasp. — B ut then befell the thing, M ethought I heard^ I heard indeed a door Noising — and near. I threw ''r aside. "B^ Christy A snare! now bless me — where'' s my sword? my maskf*^ «I love thy soui;' she sang. "li V BemboF'' «N^." ^^The whorish trade/** Her shaking hand she put I n mine. The step grew living near, I drew. Then most superbly on the threshold poised An all-black cavalier ^ save in the mask 28 Two fires. "By YenuSy^ quoth^ "^ lady's h&e That loves too widely to love well. Good sir. Suppose — " "A sword's enough for courtesy,** H e drew a wonder of Toledo blade I That rang like music. Masterly we fenced j A nd plied our gallant art Italian^ Till on a sudden her most delirious form Kushed with a cry betwixt us. But she fell H alf-sensed. We moved. Then with an elfish pass I pierced his hand. The weapon fell to ground^ — And he was flyings — but next about his waist Her tender arms imploring pardon clung. H^ struggled^ stumbled^ fell; the mask removed; By ]esu God in Heaven, verily I Then saw great Leo's face, the Vope's ofV^ome, \ shuddered as a reed, my brain rocked, all W ithered together crumbling in my soul: \ fled, yet with a backward look to see The mistress of the gods make of her hair^ H.er golden hair a Pontiff's chasuble, — Oost thou believe Vm dying of darkish things^ Of poison — P Ah, my hearths a crust of ash, \ nd glowing chains are piled about my head. \aving? Not I. Give me no drugs. The world charioted have left in dust behind. ^or I was ?oet, — They said, they said "A soft *oet, who stole Vetr area's melodies \nd spoiled his robbery.'' Soft in verse I was, k master had I like, forsooth, the rest, , . . 29 But nothing timeless said! Full well I know V, The shaft is on my hearts boWy poised^ unloosed! V^hile Raphael delves a ceiling into skies "Peopling his coloured thought y and hgnolo Makes the fresh-quarried adamant to sweat Ferocious agony y or in peace reclined T look long looks abroad the shifting world. If why, I V sing for them^ I hodovico Martelli, I would send my songs full-sailed ver the waves and waters of the years, L et them be painter ^ sculptor : poet^ I, For your unquiet thoughts^ the horrid strong^ 1 have them, — writ? not yet! but here^s my heart, F eel it! so tramped the innumerable host W hen Rome was burned. And very vast a tale W ere half its history. Often have I stood On hills high up, by sorry coasts, alone Vassing my vision angrily, I thought T have plucked the yellow comets by their hair. To have braided meteors, and from ^hind the moon Robbed her society of chanting tides, I V stand, my back to the seaward cliffs, at bay And fight the wave. Completed earth 'i a leaf T urning in space along with the other dust That blinds the eye of God, Away, away! Canst see the waters from the window? Help, Help, sir, I ^ve clomb Vesuvius of old, Tasting its breath — ^twas half so steep. Behold, Yon rolls in wide and worldly rhythm the sea, G reatest and eldest poet. Yonder chants The epic wave in rich monotony, 30 M ine eye seems big as heaven. And far abroad ¥rom Even's distaff floats the purple wool, W et-eyed she sits; the light for love of her 'becomes a moon but to behold her die — The moon — Yirenze! Is Firenze near? Methinks *twere half a journey, A /?, but were we there ! How fresh her lip is graven on my heart. I see her, palely. But — tell me^ who knows — \s she not waxen^ like me^ somewhat old? Y or something long has happened. AlPs ago. I was ages ago, and in the world W e were together young, S^j;, am I dead That Vm so far? Yerhaps shall I return. Bid Laura wait for April; I return, I that so endless loved her, love her. Say: ^^ Within the colour-cupped anemonies L ieth his heart, and all the leaves are he. The gentle ecstasy of earth, the wind T hat lifts so happily thy hair is he, A nd he the Spring that holds thee all about,"** 3 Gaddi, I shall not return. My mood [s his who sits upon a farther shore, W aiting and sick, It^s night and strangely cold, Vo bed! *tis bitter cold. My very breast 2tiivers, Hold me, good Gaddi, — or I shake Vo death. My body^s dry. Christ, what a world! N ater, good soul, water ! Hold thou the cup. 31 DOLOROSA 1 hou hadst thy wilL How weary sounds the rain! T he firelight wanders in the window-pane. Thou art still Let me a space^ Now that the daylight dieSy L ie back against thee and with upward eyes hove thy face. Forgive my /ear, But — darling — hold me fast ! A little while the heartache will be past, VatiencCy dear. Give me thy hands A nd bending closely o'er hay thy two lips to mine for evermore. Death commands. 32 PITY A« old light smoulders in her eye. T here ! she looks up. They grow and glow hike mad laughs of a rhapsody T hat flickers out in woe, A n old charm slips into her sighsy A n old grace sings about her hand, S he bends : it *s musically wise, I cannot understand. Tder voice is strident; but a spell Of fluted whisper stlkens in — The lost heart in a moss-grown belly Y aded — but sweet — but thin, She bows like waves — waves near the shore. Her hair is in a vulgar knot — hovelyy dark hair, whose curves deplore Something she*s well forgot, S he must have known the sun^ the moon^ On heaverCs warm throat star-jewels strung- \t''s late. The gas-lights flicker on, Y oungy only in yearsy but young! ne might remind hery say the street 1 s dark and vile now day is done, hut would she carey she fear to meet — B ut there she goes— is gone. 33 SONG A bud has burst on the upper bough (T he linnet sang in my heart to-day) ; I know where the pale green grasses show Bj a tiny runnel^ off the way^ A nd the earth is wet. (A cuckoo said in my brain: ^^Not yet.^') I nabbed the fly in a briar rose [T he linnet to-day in my heart did sing); hast nighty my head tucked under my wingy I dreamed of a green moon-moth that glows T hro* ferns of]une. (A cuckoo said in my brain : " So soon f ") G ood-bye^ for the pretty leaves are down (T he linnet sang in my heart to-day) ; T he last gold bit of upland '5 mown^ And most of summer has blown away T hro^ the garden gate, (A cuckoo said in my brain : " Too lateT) 34 RALSTON 1 thee^ that all this wretchedness be ended And I become in my disaster free^ I bring my broken life to be amended, T ake me^ O sea^ sea of California^ thou Vacific^ For which the multitude of mortals bound Go trembling headlong down and zvith terrific Outcry are drowned. Take me out of the earth that I remain not T tell to gossips in a hovel tales Of what I was. I who have squandered cannot V lay with the scales. 1 who with power and riches stood surrounded A nd gave as princes^ and without a throne W as King the greater that for name I sounded Only my own: I must have gone away^ not die nor wither B ut vanish like a rolling sound of brass^ A comet burst which — without whence or whither Or wherefore — was. ¥or men born out of yesterday are yestern^ Y or men to-day are of to-day. And we^ W^ need only ourselves we men of Western D emocracy, Bj> my own sinews and own brain^ unweakened ^y lineage and generations^ I D id what I did^ and with the wide world reckoned T live and die. 35 I gave and had no memory of measure. Others can tell who rollicked at my feast ; A nd in my palace there was greater pleasure Than in the East, I did enjoy and drank the beaker frothing; I have kindled the splendours every one, Tho* my magnificence to-day be nothings I sayy I won^ — I won. And fortune cast me her dismissal! Of traps and treasures whereof 1 could say 'T is mine ! there ^s not so much as rubbish. This all W as yesterday, S qua lid and sad where I before did conquer ^ D oubtless again I could have vi^ory^ Again lie in the golden gates at anchor — deceive me^ sea! There sinks the sun in dusts of sulphur glowing Gibbous and red; and flaking toward the shore hike hosts of scarlet willow-leaves bestrewing The sapphire floor, A nd from the country evening scarce arisen Out of the flowering oranges the breeze^ — The breeze will carry me to the horizon^ To silences Of sky and wave^ the dark^ the swirling eddy^ T he sinking down out of the vital air, A nd down out of myself down from the giddy Glories that were, 36 DRIFTWOOD Heaven is lovelier than the starSy The sea is fairer than the shore; Vve seen beyond the sunset bars A colour more, A thought is floating round my mindy A nd there are words that will not come, D you believe^ as I, the wind Somewhere goes home? I n grassy paths my spirit walks, The earth I travel speaks me fair And still thro* many voices talks Of that deep oneness which we are, I love to see the rolling sod M ixing and changing ever grow To other formSy — and this is God A nd all of God and all we know. I love to feel the dead dust whirled About my face y to touch the dust ; And this large muteness of the world Gives me vitality of trust, H ere on the earth I lie a space^ The quiet earth that knows no strife. I mix with her and take my place I n the dark matter that is life, 37 I saw the moon and heard her singy I saw her sing and heard the moon. F or light and song went wing and wing. So many a ship and many a star A broad the sky and sea are two, W^ know it not for being far. So two fair fowers make a whole I n corner meadows of the spring. I / takes two hearts to make a soul; A nd down the cloudy days they fare M arried in Beauty, as of old T he lovers thro* the infernal air. IV B etween the sun and moon A voice now vague now clear — Y>o you hear? — Says ^''Wander on."** A nd on the hearthstone black T he embers poignantly — 'Do you see? — SpeW Come back:' 38 R E QJJ I E S C A M \jome to the window ! You ^re the painter used To shadow-in pools of light far out to sea^ O r fix it where the solitary wave Rears with a shimmering scoop before the shore^ — A glorious wave I But now look out awhile And love my vieWy from our suburban height T he squalid champaign zigzagged by the Seine, Vm old, most of my labour done. Mj; chisel One of these days among the pellets of dry clay W /// lie and rust. I have immensely worked^ And hitherto seen nothing but the Form S taring upon my eyeballs. Years and yearSy W hether alone along the shining streets O' the city or in companionship, I ^ve looked S long and seen away so fixedly That space scrolled up, I seeing none the less: Except some shape, some woman lightning-blenched, Vinned to the ground, lay dreadful in my road. O Labour, everlasting vanity, That fills her cracking pitcher and falls down Face to the earth, the water in her hair I Into a bole of clay all my life long Vve stared my visions in, and, thumbing, seen lM.aterialize obscurely to a line The long desire of^ature turning home. ^0 strains itself out of the sea a shape With loads of weedy tide up to the land, 5 training to touch and taste, to lose and die, 39 S> training for e'er miserably unsatisfied, between the toad and lyre-bird^ Uwixt the snail And greyhound all is struggle : the which is vain. For by our bases we We firm sunken-down I n the element : and whenever a little while ^ earning Illusion flutters up the sky^ S he presently swings to the gasping pitchy T fall bolt-like, I say^ all my life long close to I ''ve stared Into the clayy have with my chisel rasped T he marble off and stroked the lovely limbsy The breasts of women and the lips of boys I n stone. Again^ into the mould I ^ve poured T he wretched desolation of my dreams A nd bruised here and there the bronze. All this I have done my life longy and not so much As lifted up my eyes, B«/ now at last I pleasurably look to either side. Y or \ would paint some landscapes ere I die^ O ne or two landscapes of the view you see^ T he squalid plain meandered by the Seine. T here, when there^s moon, thro^ fumes of gray and T he silver river curls away ; beyond lt'*s night and vapid darkness infinite. A nd sitting at this window, I suppose A pallet on my thumb, and brushes and T he colours gently mixing with their oil: — L eaving my marbles in imagination ¥ or final solace in a softer art. 40 Y oUy painter^ have enjoyed with all your self; Y ou ^ve little looked into the dark. But I Forged in the night. I/'j resting-time^ Vm old. Landscape will ease me somewhat toward the end. 41 ERIDE Dull words that swim upon the page T hro* filmy tears of joy and pain I P oor silly words^ my only gage ! M ere words^ recurrent as refrain I Y e prove me language less than nought And all the loss of utterance. Y e give me scraps of withered thought A nd sounds that meet as by a chance. If I should find ye once again. If you should come again to me, D ull words about my joy and pain. Mere words, what would ye signify? 45 ERIDE LjovCy I marvel what you are / Heaven in a pearl of dew ^ Lilies hearted ivith a star — All are you. Spring along your forehead shines A nd the summer blooms your breast. Graces of autumnal vines Kound you rest. B irds about a limpid rose Making song and light of wing While the warm wind sunny blows. So you sing. Darlingy if the little dust^ That I know is merely I, Have availed to win your trusty Let me die. B rown eyes I say^ yet say I blue. I think her mouth is a melody y Her bosom a petal sunned and new; Her hand is a passing sigh. Blue eyes I say^ yet somehow brown. Her mouth is the verge of all repose; Her breast a smoothed-out viol tone; Her hand is an early rose. 47 Be her eyes of blue or brown indeed^ Be colour or music what she is, I nothing know. But my lifers own need Is the fancy of her kiss. Clouds thro* the heaven flit Aprilward. There's the bud of a violet n the sward. B ranch and breeze sympathize E re they play^ — 1 know that it's Spring to-day By your eyes. How shall I hold you fast N ow you are here P A tremor y and you have passed, A nd this year Only of all is ours Only is mine! — I see in your blue eyes shine All the year's flowers, H ereafter 1 7/ call you Springy hit tie girl! A nd christen each clustering Delicate curl Some' lovely meadow's name In the South, W here they say that music and youth S tay the same. 48 I held these tulips first^ before bringing you them. I passed the love I bear you o'er F lower and stem. And I would leave them at your door^ — \f at your hearths door they might stand! K eeping awhile T he world behind their petals and Crimson smile^ — L ike seas hid by a meadow-land. A trill of leaves is in the wold; I feel the wings of summer pasSy And sunlight in big drops of gold Falls on the seedy feathered grass. Some tiny cuckoo never seen B lows his own echo mild as mist. A deer there, stirring in the green I A squirrel, where the branches kissed. Far through, a sweep of aspen-boughs A nd birches whitening toward the crest Reclines, like river-grass, and flows A long the summer to the V^est, Farther away, till last of all In milky hazes lying furled Is — nothing more. ^T is we recall I njinity back to the world. 49 I n the bow-window that looks out O ver the sunset-coloured bay W e sat one evening, wondering and in doubt, T he water plashing on the quay Roused the warm air, and half-awake O ne hill we knew was changing golden-gray. We strained our sight upon the lake; We dared not anything to say. For fear your heart and mine might haply break. O ur tired eyes soon filled with tears, A nd we said nothing. But your hand Was like a heart that understands and hears. We missed the sunset, love, to-night — T he sunset on the sea that sings. Folding about its heart of light T he large and melancholy wings. A snowy gull may *ve moved along T he rose and gray and violet bands, Serene as thought and pure as song, Beyond our line of open sands; A moonbeam on the fisher net, A sail that lay upon the sea, A rim of pebbles darkly wet: 1 1 all was not for you and me, A sunset lost, a life foregone I B eauty that asked our heart and died! 50 W hat said we? did we match the Sun W ith aught of Hearty my love? — IsAy bride y ne look you gave was twice a sky. 1 kissed your handy you said a word That greater is for melody T han all the tides a coast-land heard. O ne sunset losty one look the more I — T he night is quieting the foam, ¥i ear you? ^'Qome^^ says the endless shore^ A nd all the waves in murmur ^ " QomeT H e rests upon her knee his tired head; H/5 eyey long worriedy sleeps; A nd shey whose perfeSf love has nothing said. Her hand upon his forehead keeps. Thro* darkening windows blows the ancient spring; A planet trembleSy kind. Her large wet eyes are vastly wondering^ Her happy love resembles wind. The breeze about her finger stirs his hairy A nd her breath riseSy falls. Sopale their shadow blows along the breeze^ To read on polished graves the little cry Of this delirious immortality ! Well was it said for ally for each of these ^^The poor in heart,'' who still in death displease T he flowers and wind and youth that passes by. How but for them the children of the earth Here, where the grass is fresh and glittering, Would share with herb and beast the common birth! And when they'd played away this day of Spring How sweetly would they fold at evening Their petals, hands, and wings at nature's hearth. 77 W hen I hereafter shall recover thee And^ on the further margin fugitive silently bringing upy if aught survive T he raging wind and old disastrous seOy I disembark^ O darlings verily To hold thee to my hearty to feel alive T he tremor of thy lipSy thy bosom^ — /'/ will drive The dark in shreds out of eternity, S ometimes I ask me why the morning sun Returns or later ^ when the day is done^ I let the dreams about my pillow strain ; B ut then it sounds across my dying brain Like torrents in the moonlight foaming on B etween enormous mountains to the plain. 78 Lho* inland far with mountains prisoned round, Oppressed beneath a space of heavy skies, Y et hear I oft the far-off water-cries A nd vague vast voices which the winds confound. W hile as a harp I sing, touched with the sound M ost secret to its soul, the visions rise I n stately dream, and lifting up my eyes I see the naked mountains beacon-crowned. Far in the heaven the golden moon illumes, T he crowded stars toil in the webs of night A nd the sharp meteors seam the higher glooms. Then shifts my dream: the mellow evening falls ; Alone upon the shore in the wet light I stand, and hear the infinite sea that calls. 79 ON SOME SHELLS FOUND INLAND 1 hese are my murmur-laden shells that keep Afresh voice tho* the years be very gray, T he wave that washed their lips and tuned their lay Is gone, gone with the faded ocean sweep, The royal tide, gray ebb and sunken neap And purple midday, — gone! To this hot clay M ust sing my shells, where yet the primal day, I ts roar and rhythm and splendour will not sleep, W hat hand shall join them to their proper sea If all be gone? Shall they forever feel Glories undone and worlds that cannot be? — 'T were mercy to stamp out this agld wrong, D ash them to earth and crunch them with the heel A nd make a dust of their seraphic song. 80 i ho* lack of laurels and of wreaths not one P rove you our lives abortive^ shall we yet V aunt us our single aim^ our hearts full set T win the guerdon which is never won. Witness^ a purpose never is undone. And tho' fate drain our seas of violet To gather round our lives her wide-hung nety Memories of hopes that are not shall atone. N ot wholly starless is the ill-starred life^ Not all is night in failure y and the shield S ometimes well grasped^ tho^ shattered in the strife. And here while all the lowering heaven is ringed With our loud death-shouts echoed^ on the field Stands forth our l^ike^ proudy tho* broken-winged. 8i Liive blindly and upon the hour. The hordy W ho was the Future^ died full long ago. Knowledge which is the "Past is folly, G<7, Voor childy and be not to thyself abhorred. Around thine earth sun-winged winds do blow And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword; The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord A nd the long strips of river-silver flow : Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours, D r inking their lipSy catch thou the dream inflight About their fragile hairs'* aerial gold. Thou art divine^ thou livest^ — as of old Apollo springing naked to the light. And all his island shivered into flowers. 82 De still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream That over Persian roses flew to kiss T he curUd lashes of Semiramis, T roy never was^ nor green S>kamander stream. Vrovence and Troubadour are merest lies. The glorious hair of Venice was a beam M ade within Titian^ s eye. The sunsets seem^ T he world is very old and nothing is. Be still. Thou foolish thing, thou canst not wake, N or thy tears wedge thy soldered lids apart, B ut patter in the darkness of thy heart. Thy brain is plagued. Thou art a frighted owl Blind with the light of life thou^ldst not forsake. And 'Error loves and nourishes thy soul. 83 ON THE CONCERT yy hen first this canvas felt Qiorgione^s hand^ ¥rom out his souPs intensity he drew In lines most acrid yet superbly few A many — a soul^ whose water at command Of pain had stiffened to ice, whom grief had banned, T /// music even and harmonfs rich dew ¥ ell fruitless, Foisedy defiant and cahn he threw To the earth that wronged him his lifers reprimand. Y ety as he dreWy a wind mellow with dole Of past life as of sea-coast pine did rise And warm the rigour of the painter's soul. For his tear-moistened fingers warmed the fr ore Hard colours of the cheeky and in the eyes Set the large stare of Sorrow's Nevermore. 84 1 he melancholy year is dead with rain, D rop after drop on every branch pursues, Yrom far away beyond the drizzled flues A twilight saddens to the window pane. And dimly thro* the chambers of the brain^ F rom place to place and gently touching^ moves "My one and irrecoverable love*s D ear and lost shape one other time again, So in the last of autumn for a day S ummer or summer^ s memory returns, So in a mountain desolation burns S ome rich belated flower^ and with the gray Sick weather y in the world of rotting ferns F rom out the dreadful stones it dies away. 85 As a sad man^ when evenings grayer groWy D esires his violin^ and call to call Tunes with unhappy heart the interval; T hen after prelude^ suffering his bow. Along the crying strings his fingers fall To some persuasion born of long ago, "W hile mixed in higher melodies the low "Dull song of his lifers heard no more at all: S with thy picture I alone devise^ Massing on thy unco loured face the tone Of memory* s autumnal paradise ; A nd all myself for yearning weary lies ¥ alien to but thy shadow^ near upon The void motion of eternities. 86 He said: "!/*/« his image I was made, I am his equal and across the land W e two should make our journey hand in hand L ike brothers dignified and unafraid.^"* A nd God that day was walking in the shade. To whom he said: ^^The world is idly plannedy We cross each other y let us understand Thou who thou arty I who I am,^ he said. D arkness came down. And all that night was heard T remendous clamour and the broken roar Of things in turmoil driven down before. T hen silence. Morning broke, and sang a bird. He lay upon the earthy his bosom stirred; B ut God was seen no longer any more. 87 LAKEWARD LAKEWARD 1 will soon be sunrise. 'Down the valley waiting ¥ar over slope and mountain-height the firs \] ndulate dull and furry under the beating Heaven of autumn stars, T westward yet the summits hang in slumber hike frozen smoke; there ^ growing wheel on wheel^ As "'twere an upward wind of rose and amber Goes up the sky of steel; A nd indistinguishable thro* the valley An endless murmur freshens as ofbeeSy — The stream that gathering torrents frantically Churns away thro* the trees, — yiountainSy farewell! Into your crystal winter To linger on unworlded and alone A nd feel the glaciers of your bosom enter O ne and another my own^ And on the snow that falling edges nearer To lose my very shade^ — ^twere well^ ^twere done Had I not in me the soul of a wayfarer! N^, let me wander down T he road that, as the boulders higher and higher G narrower each to each and hold the gloom^ Y allows like me the water ^ loud desire Of a sun-sweetened home. 91 And as I pass^ methinks once more the Titan from in the bosom of the humid rocks^ Where yet his aged eyes grow vague and whiten W eary and wet his locksy Gazes away upon this brightened weather As asking it in reason and in rhyme How long shall mountain iron and ice together Hold against summer-time. Long, surely/ long, perhaps/ but not for ever, "^ow here across the buried road and field, Torn from the dizzy flanks up there that quiver, D own to the plain and spilled I n sand and wreckage lies the avalanche's 'Dead mass under the sun, and not a sound/ — T he morning grows and from the rich pine-branches S hadows make blue the ground. T wander south / Already here the grasses F eather and glint across the sunny air, It^s warmer. Up the road a peasant passes "^r own-skinned and dark of hair, Some of an autumn glamour on the highway Softens the dust, and yonder I have seen Catching the sunlight something in the byway Else than an evergreen, 92 And weeds along the ditch are parching. — Sudden Once more from either side the ranges draw -^ear each to each; beneath struggle and ?nadden Down in the foamy flaw The waters, and, a span across, the boulders Stand to the burning heaven upright and cold. Then drawing lengthily along their shoulders Vapours of white and gold -& low from the lowland upward; all the gloaming (Quivers with violet; here in the wedge The tunnelled road goes narrow and outcoming S tealthily on the edge hies free. The outlines have a gentle meaning. W illows and clematis, foliage and grain ! And the last mountain falls in terraces to the greening I nfinite autumn plain. O further southward, down the brooks and valley, on And past the lazy farms and orchards, on! It smells of hay, and thro' the long Italian F lowerful afternoon Sodden with sunlight, green and gold, the country Suspends her fruit and stretches ripe and still Between the clumsy fig and silver plane-tree Circled, from hill to hill 93 And down the vale along the running river: The vale^ the river and the hi lis ^ that take The perfea south and here at last for ever Merge into thee^ O Lakel Sunset-enamoured in the autumnal hours! y^hen large and westering his heavy rays "^ all from the^ vineyards and the garden-flowers Hazily o'er thy face ^ And colouring thy bosom with a lover's ^arm and quick lips and hesitating hand, Yie murmurs to thee while the twilight hovers L ilac about the strand^ Thou, mid the grape-hung terraces low-levelled, Lookest into the green and crimson sky ^ith swimming eyes and auburn hair dishevelled Radiant in ecstasy ' 'Tis evening. In the open blueness stretches A feathery lawn of light from moon to shore And a boat-load of labourers homeward plashes Ringing ''Amor, Amor.'' ' 94 PROMETHEUS PYRPHOROS TO E. F. DRAMATIS PERSONJE PANDORA. PYRRHA. PROMETHEUS. EPIMETHEUS. DEUKALION. THE VOICES OF ZEUS, DEU. PYR. DEU, PROMETHEUS PYRPHOROS bcENE. The plain ofHaimonia, In the centre, a rude stone dwelling^ in the door of which stands prometheus. The voice of PANDOKA always as from within. Total obscurity, nothing on the scene being distinguishable, [crawling in], H ow dark it is, how dark and miserable ! IjV thou, DeukalionP Ahy thy voice! It's I. Mj; moment's journey seems a dreadful year, I see nothing — Where? where? is home here? PYR. Y es. Thou soundest surely nearer, Yivw — DEU. A/ last. woman, what is this that makes us be. Threading like worms the cavern where before — PYR. Shows there as yet no daylight? DEU. N^, nowhere, T his dark can never lift, this heavy night W hich lies and stagnates infinitely. N(7, It cannot lift, I know not when it fell; S carce I remember how seemed the white sunlight, S debile is my memory and the brain C lean hollowed out, PYR. All round me and within It is like pools of cold. But frewood — say. Bring' St thou any? DEU. Aye, but prithee to what end? 1 crawled abroad the fields there picking up S ome herbs to eat, and fuel; but this I know. The tinder holds no longer any spark 97 And fire is vanished irrecoverably, PYR. Nd'j', try once more, D E u . T ry once again forsooth ! I care notyfor the trial ^s vain. Once more! 1 7/ rub the sticks again together, N<7, They breed no heat, PYR. 17/ pile the firestuff — wait — hest the one spark be lost, D E u . The spark is deady I say^ the light has ended^ and henceforth M isery and blackness unendurable S t and in the eyes that saWy the hearth that burned. — I draw no fire, PYR. W here art thou? FlintSy here — strike again. D E u . So did I a thousand times and nothing leapt, Alas! PYR. Ah mcy how dark it is and cold. PRO. [aside], I / bursts the heart to see them suffer thus, DEU. Strange^ strange how since the fatal evening all This mound of darkness fell. Father "Prometheus T hen cheated God and offered him in guile W ind-eggs and unsubstantial things : wherefor W e people pay the wrath that never endsy hife in the dark and obscure loneliness^ — K nowing nor when to sleep nor when to wake^ E ating what herbs we gather here, abroad T he plain grazed by the kine we cannot find, I hear them in the dark : they toss their headsy H aving slept much too longy and wander on A nd trampky or halting with outstretched neck Low stubborn none knows whereyfar thro* the night, 98 [The cattle low,] Hear them! PAN. [singing]. As a poplar feels the sun's enfolding kiss, A nd softly alone on the quiet plain Y ields to him all her silver trellises^ A ghost of green in the golden rain, And trembles lightly thro' the shining air N early unseen and melting in sky %ave for a shadow on the grasses there: S(9 over the earth and world am I. T he lips of Gods and mortals in a dream Have lain on my lips of a sumfner night: They fade like images down-stream, Bm/ I have remained behind the light. I give the giver more than that he sought, And more than I give am I, much more: As words are to an everlasting thought, S less than the mother the child she bore. p Y R . W hat says she? D E u . A time ago, the God of Gods Z eus came to adore her, and the immortal arms C losing about her gave her travailing, PYR. Did he so? D E u . Aye, like a master so he did. S he knows perchance then something, knows perhaps If we're thus brutishly to suffer always and Yorever gaze upon this frozen void. — K now' St thou our fate, Vandora ? Tell me, mother ! — ^he has not heard. Or sorrow blocks her ears. For ever since God approached her, on the ground, 99 C. PYR DEU H er silence threaded by dull murmurs^ lone She sits up stonelike Against the rude house-wall, n hand and knee some while ago I crawled Up to her^ and^ saying our heavy troubles^ passed Over her cool immobile face my hand', 1 kissed her eyes^ I touched and held her chin : B ut all that while she said nothing to me^ R emaining passive^ silent, pitiless. Albeit her eyes were very wide awake, p Y R . ^he pensive cannot sleep, DEU. O misery, W ould that I were asleep a long long time, beyond to-morrow and the summer'* s end! N^j, sometimes down my dark bewildered brain Stumble fantastic hopes that — like the birds Vve found afield dismembered and undone, L ike beasts that shut their swimming eyes, and leaves That eddy dixzily down the nervous wind — So we may fail and fall, be swept away Yrom what we are, PYR. I too, T>eukalion. Labour at last is shame within the soul. Have I not faithfully day after day Vptorn the crusty earth and smashed the clots. Scattering with thee the everlasting seeds? H ave I not homeward carried every day Upon my head pitchers of spring-water A nd packs of straw for bedding; and arranged This place we live in cleanly and cheeringlyP Yes, here have I within thy warm embrace S eason on season, long with agony, yiy brain sunstricken and my body sick 100 W ith travelling the dreadful acres^ borne ^Daughters and sons and sons and daughters; whom A / midnight then^ against their crying^ alone I rocked in my exhausted arms, I suckled And bending watched^ till, as between my brows It hammered thuds of slumber, very late ^ A little thin gray morning thro* the chinks T old the disaster of another day. And I have reared them and pitifully taught them, My hand upon their hair, my broken truths, — S laboured in their welfare I and in pain S^ scourged their weakness! ^oe is me, alas! T hey never gave me thanks, no, nor so much As looked a little in my hungry eyes, Rather, against the time of strength, rebellious They fret their freedom out, and last of all Abandoning me for another world G down the sunset, beiyig seen no more. D E u . Y es, over fields we sowed they went away, T rampling our harvest down. And here we lie A II hedgld in with hoar and darkness, old F or staring on the sodden vacancy. I would I knew what thing is in my heart To stamp away so hardly! but for it, I 'w that much tired and aching-desolate I V pass away in earth, PRO. [ aside ] . How horrible Is now become their life! P Y R . I / wearies me To think of further being, against the time N ot yet bygone. Yor then it needs must be yiy breasts will shrivel up, my faded flesh lOI DEU. S tarve on the joints^ and all the bloom I was^ T he rose and perfume of their pleasure^ shrink Into a thing of shame, beyond recall The labour of our lives now desiccates, O ur sweat was poured for nothing; we have bled W ounded with ignorance in such a task As irks one in the very memory oft, PRO. \_coming forward']. T hen let us now remember nothing more^ Bw/ blindly hope in spite of all, And I W ho once defied the Godsy again to-day Stand and demand our dignities of them. We will not suffer thuSy we will not go D arkly and despicably tumbling down The road of life. For we be something more; Nor quite in vain infinite earth obeys T he plough we fashioned. All indeed is ours! W e are the crown of nature and her lord. DEU. O hold thy peace^ desperate man I The GodSy T hy littleness to shoWy have now been pleased Th takcyfor matter of their anger y us W ho serviceably did our common task. Thou piFst our suffering up, What is thy heart T bring curse after curse upon thy children, all For idle show in the face of destiny? PRO. 'T is time we stood up as beforey and looked, 'R rushing the meshes from our for eheady forth Upon the sunshine and the rolling corn, DEU. To bring upon this woman and me, upon A // generationsy vanity and a life F atal and stupid as the stones, I02 PRO. E noughy T hou art mine enemy ! For a little pain »T hou givest justice to the dogs. Aside ! Hinder my thoughts no more. Alone to-day I shall restore the light, PYR. O father mine, I nothing say who love thee evermore. Give us the light and life, give us the hope. That lue may never question but abide U nthinkingly by what is set before, L ay thy two hands upon my brow, and smile Tho' the night hide thy sweetness, ^ay the word, Give us the promise. We believe thy strength, I ¥or see, we suffer and so scarcely endure I T hat nothingness were better far, and ev'n T he being unborn a wholly happy thing. PRO. Y es, woman, word and promise hold: I swear '/ BjF me and thee who hearest in the world T he sweeter burden and the sharper pain. T his night is not forever nor long, and soon between the cliffs of darkness issuing shall T he day its thousand arrows pour abroad Here where we lived — and shall in other years hive and increase, our children's children, on T generations jealous as the Gods, T his will I do, and if they stood in rank, Y et will I storm them, winning back the fire And scattering the hope that cannot die. D E u . W hat misery will be ours ! PYR. Sipeak to the end. 'T is sweet to dream on what not yet has been, PRO. 'T were sure a shame to grovel at the doors 103 hnd ask a pittance ^ when the hord is I. ■ DEU. 'Necessity/ \ PRO. W ^ change and pass away, B ut so in changing have some mastery , we R evolving make progression, we endure In virtue of desire and hope dissatisfied. And, thro* disaster struggling, at the last Fetch in salvation and the human end. This for now! nay, only a little space Of twilight is before, a dubious interval After the night, this side of day, as tho* W e stood upon the threshold momently W here morning meets with evening passing by. Therefore in tears no longer dreaming, now T urn, tho* your hearts be broken, turn your eyes D ayward, and quelling all lament with hope ^ ait for my coming homeward, I declare I will go bring the sunlight in my hands B ack from God's citadel and home to us. \}^e goes away.] PAN. [singing]. Before my eyes they come and go; The shadows on my dreaming face M ove to and fro, Y et I look further over larger ways. For pity is not of that nor this, A nd kindness stretches out her arm O n all that is. To keep the grass-blade and the star from harm. She kisses every dying wave Into the sweetness of her trust, A nd stoops to save 104 The bird that sank from heaven into dust, — The battle hurtles long and loud between the mountains and the sea; T he yellow cloud Crashes the woods in sunder tree by tree^ And struggling over land and main T he generations masterful W ith greed and pain Scatter upon the turf a brother"* s skull: I walk the places where they drove A nd sing my song where all is cursed, Then^for my love^ The child will play again, the flower burst, DEU. ^hat a strange mournful voice is hers! PYR. ^o^no! \ feel a happiness bringing leaves Upon the branches, and the night is less Between now and to-morrow! Oh, to-morrow DEU. Thine, woman, is a silly heart, and trust I s in thy being like a malady. Father ?rometheus, greatest of us all, Avails not with his majestic arrogance To wrench from God the blessing he denies. And we be cursed! I know not wherefore, no. I cannot say what mischief, thine or mine, Merited punishment: but we be cursed Beyond our father's valour to revoke, — And I believe, to pay his awful deed, H e will hang out in anguish crucified Upon the giddy ramparts of the world ^ W hile we mysteriously damned shall hide Here at night's bottom to the last of time. 105 . EP DE EPI D eukalion I D E u . H ere^ father ^ this way home. EPI. D eukalion ! D E u . H ere^ here ! Thou seekest us ? What is'tf EPI. l^ve journeyed hopeless and too long, N othing before but darkness and behind This endless shadow of my memory. . p Y R . ?oor heart ! thou lovest overmuch the past. B ut happiness is toward, the night will end. D E u . Heed her not, Epimetheus ! Thy brother H as spoiled her brain with promises and words EPI. W here is he? D E u . C ome to fetch the fire again^ T kindle back the world to what it was. EPI. T he fool I He struggles forward evermore, hike one who stumbles; but the sadder thought Never constrains him, that futurity Is dead with phantoms of the things bygone, D E u . Aye, and alive with sufferings that are. He's wild and rolls like whirlwind up a steep, L eaving but ruin. ^P^- W hen I consider time, Remembering all my pastimes and the haunts W here clustered flowers erewhile that one by ^ Shone either side the path of what I was. My bosom fills more than to hold with pain. And yearning, like a swallow in the void, S trains aching, dropping down, down endlessly PYR. Come nearer that I rest thee in my arms. PAN. [singing']. Many who have only dreamed of me 1 06 one Have grown unhappy and lost their years. They gather the daisies thoughtfully^ T hen throw them away and burst in tears. Their eyes are filled — for they looked so long — With the sunset-light of my aureole-, T heir lips will quiver to utter song^ A nd the spring lies swelling under their soul. For their hand in a woman's hand is laid A nd between a woman's breasts their brow. For a while they feel no longer afraid W ith the sky above and the earth below: But never the whole and the fulness come. Their eyes are blind with another light. They walk through echoes and have no home^ L ike shadows waving upon the night, Fandora's voice. Obscure and pitiful, W hat sawest thou on thy travel? N(7 daylight. Nor anything on before; but at my back F^emembrance made a weary song^ chanting T he mellow seasons that have gone away. D E u . hnd bringest nothing ? E P I . N ^. D E u . Fiow profitless^ T hou and thy brother^ elders tho* ye be^ W orry the time out and defeat yourselves. One storms gigantic up the heavens; thou Triest to die with thine own memory, p Y R . L eave him^ Deukalion^ for he is so sad. DEU. Aye^ *tis we suffer their temerities^ 107 A nd back and forth ^ to ends we know not of^ yiadden between to-morrow and yesterday. PYR. Father y be comforted! And if it please thee^ Accordittg to thy fancy ^ nothing forced^ Sing us meanwhile a rune here in the night. For song is very like a summer fern Sweeter for dark; and we sad winter birds W /// dream a little while more pleasantly, E p I . [chanting']. The noise in the eternal heart abates. T he valley of the world is blotted out^ And either end the boulders on the gates A re pushed across and shut. T he moutitains in the dark are growing small. N wind is any more upon the lea. The stone has frittered from the waterfall Down rivers to the sea. T he uttermost is swelling out in voidy I n total nighty more cold and emptier A round the ghost of that which is destroyed^ The breath of things that were. [A long silence.} p Y R . H ushy for I hear him. D E u . Say! PYR. P rometheus Is coming. All thro* my blood the pulses knocky I see the flames — they crackle, D E u . Yier brain is wild. I feel like echoes of the lost daylight — Fie comesy he comes. N*?^, look how fast the light R oils gaining on the dark and urges back hike windy boulders of obscurity. io8 EPI. PYR His step! I hear htm^ I see him — Vrometheus ! \_shouting from far\ This torch will light our lives. Rejoice/ up, up! I say we have the sunlight back again. Kow sharp a dazzle races the empty air! I see nothing. I / reddens in my two eyes^ M^ brain is needled thro* with pain, [rushing in with a torch^ lights the pyre]. R ejoice^ The lost is won! Our dignities once more R esume their proper thrones^ and we are men. T hy forehead shines Me morning! on thy neck I lay my arms — but the light kills — N<9, come A nd gladden ! Logs here and pitch and all that burns ^ T hat kindlesy flames. Bring, pile it high as heaven, A long like rivers and across like fields ! 'T has dawned at last, such dawn as ne'er before T ore the wide sky. From out bottomless chasms Fountains jet glittering up into the sky A nd hailstone sparks descend, tumbling like sand Over the mountains swollen in conflagration. Stay, Father, hear me! I have it from the Gods. Aye, from the hearthstone of the Gods I caught This fire and hope and knowledge won to us — My torch be brandished in the face ofXeus! Brother, be softer in triumph or we die. S till was it night, thick night, when I at the base Of their enormous mountain stood, around me A blacker gloom, foliage and bearded firs, 109 All of a fores fs heaviness: thro* which "D own from the summit wanderingly quired Amaxing echoes of a festival^ Of instruments and choral song. Below Soundedy like vast itinerant herds afield U nder the nighty the torrents rumbling on. There I began. Sheer up the nighty alone And without fear ^ catching ahold of pines To swing me higher or stay me from recoil^ I climbed. Beneath my trample brushwood crashed I n the spongy soily and snapped the twigs short-off. Behind^ dislodged^ stone after stone bounded Down thumping to the depths. But straightaway I groped thro* snarls of ragged boughs that scratched My visage blind^ and tore the weedy shrubs W hich like fine cordage knotted my feet back : So foundered up the dumb dead humid night, Soon thinned the forestry. Yrom tree to tree Y^spacedy the ground lay tamer ^ — moss and herbs^ A softness underfoot. Then, not a pine, But blind and weary slopes of shale that passed Upward in the deserted gloom. I gasped — 'T was icy still and thin, and very sweet W ith unseen fiowersy the last of earthly things Carelessly blooming in immensity, W here still I mounted like an arrow shot Up with revenge and scorn to the midnight clouds. Sudden the windier air froze and my feet C runched snow which even in such a dark as was S hone bluely with a smothered light away T the summit. At my throat I felt the void; I / stung my sweated face. I stamped the crust, no A nd step by step ascending wilfully L adder ed the cold up skyward to the end. just then that musicy which half heard before A nd undistinguished down the steeps unfurled, S truck quicker rhythm ; and looking up I saw Mid draperies of darkness hanging vague A halo shining downwards, in the ice M irrored like vapour mazed with meteors. In a last hurry I climbed. The freezing dark Was all a tremor of song, and finally A dim design of snowy mansion grew Ghostly and lucid, carved of summer cloud, A white fame tapering at the core of space. And then methought the appalling night and gloom "Drew like an ocean's ebb sinkingly down, I swimming out. The floor lay luminous. As when by pale gray weather and no wind A glossy lake at morning falls asleep : W hence grading to the citadel for steps An hundred plinths of crystal led. They cut T he mild light slant along their silver edge, D escribing circles and diminishing Toward certain Columns roundly poised atop. Up to that place of supreme glory, I Man of the niggard earth and god at heart Mounted out of disaster to my place. I / seemed daylight growing and diffused, splendid, melodious, and of such perfume As warms upon a meadow at afternoon Of cloudless summer 'y and another light, Neither of sun nor moon, awaked the air To radiance wreathing on the point of all. in T his was his palace, vastly and circulary Bui/ded of lucent marhUy with a film Hung in its height , erratic, shadowing-in U nlikely plants and wondrous ocean-flowers, A nd placed about stood pillars very firm, Where top to bottom slender fiutings ran; A nd around every pillar drew a belt Mid-high, that brake the rods of light in twain; A nd there, clamped in a sconce of gold each one A nd cin£f with silver snakes, the torches burned 15 pholding flames of the everlasting fire, T he sacred fire that having once been ours He stole again who names his own self God, E p I . Alas! thy scorn will drag his vengeance down, PRO. Veace, man! He wronged me, and the day is mine. One of those torches is this in my hand, \t flamed to right where the entrance is, two bright \r on-swung sheets of brass, firm-barred across A nd bolted Against the fearful universe : W hile inside cried aloud perennial choirs To a single note so puissant and superb I / seemed an ocean singing to the sun. - I heard, and seized the torch. In challenge too W renching the clasp, I hurled it formless down B efore their gates and turned my feet away, [It thunders."] PYR. Father, be calm, D E u . O desolation and despair ! T hou, wretched man, shalt be our ruin. PYR. Hush! The winds are up — EPi. It had to be — 112 > Y R . Like streams S wirling before they burst, 5EU. A thunder-cloud U nravels down out of the burning sky. PRO. I say^ whatever* s achieved^ once and for all S tands in defiance^ and we at Nature^ s heart Register signs of our nobility. This is the symbol I have had my will, W hich down the crystal stairs into the depth I bore, a little fame thro^ darkness, won From summits which henceforth are counted ours, W ith it I ^ve lit the world. — hook forth, my children I A // the unfolded earth, mountain and vale Holding their fruits aloft, the knotty crags Scattering colour, and the prairies green W ith tuft and billow of infinite grass : Of all their life your life is nourished. Follow the rivers further to the sea A nd launch your enterprise I The wilful soul G oes forward to possess, and vindicates From strength to strength the majesty of life. E p I . Alas! 'Nothing will teach thee infelicity. The sunrise is not all: who shall forget For stubbornness or greed the yesterdays W hich rivet us to the soil we come of? See, T he woman weeps, PYR. \^to Prometheus]. V II follow on — heednothim — Despite exhaustion for the hope — EPi. The hope? W hat says she? PRO. More of truth than e*er thou knew*st. 113 D E u . O A, this it is that whets the rusty scythe ! A nd notwithstanding certainly we believe It nothing profits so throughout the year T<3 strain^ yet strain all the year thro* we musty Knd for a hope! l^hou mad^st it so! The worm W hich bores the parchM glebe is happier ^ The goaded oxen plodding for a bread Not their Sy more calm — thou mad^st it so! A curse Upon thee! May thy tortures pay our own^ O ur stupid agonies that in the daylight now B egin afresh ! — I will not struggle more, PRO. Hf whines. A pity ^tis the world consists Of such: who using nature and themselves^ S uffer their task and clog with lamentation The rush and furtherance of human things. For hopey being hady suffices; in so much W e prosper y and the Gods are idle dreams Strung in the void of our uncertain thoughts. [It thunders.] E p I . A not her day has been, D E u . T hunder again ! T he eternal reason will be justifiedy A nd truth descends against the haughty brain. p Y R . How^t darkens ! PRO. [soliloquising]. She too loses heart. At lasty ^ hat ever be done of large and generous y Howe^r one^s life be giveny and freely all T>elighty affeSfiony quiet sacrificed For something bolder to the good of many — Y et at the last he will prefer disgrace A nd hug his slavery y leaving him that strove To fight damnation and despair alone. 114 p Y R . Ah me^ the daylight vanishes in death, [A cloud gradually falls through the scene, and all fades in gray obscurity,^ PAN. [singing]. As an immortal nightingale I sing behind the summer sky Thro' leaves of starlight gold and pale T hat shiver with my melody. Along the wake of the full-moon Far on to oceans, and beyond Where the horizons vanish down I n darkness clear as diamond, EPi. On wings of memory the night returns. T he great bird gires before he drop again. — S unlight and country that I knew ! O sky I Y e furl yourselves and wander shadowily I nto the endless backward of the heart, PYR. 1/ blows and darkens in, Where is he? [It thunders,] THE VOICES OF ZEUS. M an, come with us, come with us, come away ! PRO. [aside], H is voice ! THE VOICES. C ome to receive thy certain pain. PRO. Justice of God, malignant destiny. Delirious curse/ how it confounds the brain To see thee blast our strength, and day by day With all thy crooked fingers here rip up T he patient fabric of our energy. Over the endless harvest, o^er the home We builded with great pain, for pastime thou "5 SpilPst putrefaSfion^ and upon thy palm T he world shakes like an egg, to shut and crush, THE VOIC ES. Be ready, for the time is "Now/ We^ve come To lead thee to the edge of wilderness, PRO. We* II die in battle. Come near, THEVoicEs. T hou canst not die, 'T/j thine to struggle everlastingly. hook o'er the world, unhappy wretch, and come! PAN. \_singing\ My dew is everywhere W here things are; I fall and flutter and fare, L eaving a star By the roads of earth, in the far Vaths of the air, M ine is the milk to charm In a mother'* s breast, S weet with her pain and warm W ith her rest. The life that asks for a nest In her arm; A nd mine is the violet T hat so lies I n the evening of her wet S orrowful eyes. For another thing may rise, B ut her youth has set, N othing is less with me, Nothing is lost. u6 For I smile on the earth and sea^ On the infinite host Of the dead and the livings and most On the yet-to-be, PRO. Vandoray how thou singest o^er my pain Y et of my humiliation nothing! Ah^ Yarewelly and let thy voice for evermore Sweeten the dreary acres of mankind, THE VOICES. Thy day is at an end. PRO. But not my deed/ The light is theirs and I the giver thereof L ong as blood beats within the human heart, — Unhand me! Ah! THE VOICES. W ear now thy chains, p YR. W ho ts't that chains f Where is he nowF PRO. A lone^ Beyond thy armsy in other hands than thine. THE VOICES. D rag him on ! for he balks the will of God, PRO. Y et does my work outstrip the penalty, Nothing may die or live infru^uous^ And Vm immortal: for 1 join with Beings A nd nothing in the universal sphere B ut is, *Twas with me for a while as with the sun Upon the ocean : writing out in gold The moving chara^ers of highest day^ W hich to dull creatures of the depth appeared F antastic and divine and possible. 117 THE VOIC ES. Drag him away! The stubborn mind has burst, PRO. M any times I have died and yet shall die. For Nature rolls on^ while across the chasms F rom hill to hill and round from east to west V oices pass on the echo to the stars, ^0 forms are laid aside^ and if I livedy I was the cresting of the tide wherein An endless motion rose exemplified, THE VOICES. 'Qear him away ^ for evening falleth in, [T he cloud lifts^ prometheus has dis- appeared. A great sunset fills the scene. '\ PAN. [singing]. My soul of sunset every human day I n long sad colours on the evening dwells And gives her solemn violet away Over the quiet endlessness of hills. Mild and gold burns from cloud to cloudy above The obscurer fields^ my pity for an hour; A nd then life goes to sleep within my love^ T he world is drawn together as a flower, L abour at last within the soul is peace^ And faithful pain after a certain while L ike other things will strengthen and increase A nd colour at the last into a smile, — R^5/ in my bosom till thy day be due^ U ntil my day be finished at sunrise^ And I behold thee glittering thro* the blue And playing in the sunset of my eyes, ii8 The sunset comes to die now as ofyore^ — T he sad recurrence of remembered things, H^'j gone to suffer^ gone whither? Alas! Would I knew where his bleeding head will lie To give my breast for pillow and avert T he dreadful vengeance feeding on his soul! — H ow crimsonly the day declines ! Come sleepy D eukalion^ for to-morrow brings again The sun he gave us^ and the hope — the life. 119 A LIMITED EDITION OF THREE HUNDRED & FIFTY-TWO COPIES OF THIS BOOK, OF WHICH THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE COPIES ARE FOR SALE, WAS PRINTED BY D. B. UPDIKE THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON, IN OCTO- BER, MDCCCCU. OF THE EDITION THIS COPY IS NUMBER itffeOi d^ ■\ -^^ v^^ ^#-^: !^' '^ ^^^v- * S*-^", .^-^ ■% ■' ,A^' o^' ^' r %^^ t/> .'v^ '^'^ " .-',''%, vV ^0 V*, -' * 4 '^ -S^ 0' N : ^^A v-^ ' ^, ■"^•H "^^ ' ^> '^^i^ 0^^ .0^ .^• •^x^ .SJ>' '<■ s ^ ^O <-• •s c*^'- -OO'' •^ A^' C** -^ .'J N O ^ ^ o \^ - - './', - -.c.^-^. ^ ^./.V..*:-- .. \^' '-^^ o. 'C' ^.'-To :-:r^' .^ •^oo^ *>^^^ ^f^ "%, '-> 1^ I: %^ •: V.<' V^^-'.o^^ >^ -%. "^A V^' > .\ O.*?* "bo^ <^^ .<<> ^ ^^^^' ^\\^' ^.f^, ,<^ %.'" "■^^ ^^ II 018 360 331 :'/m'