YALE UNIVERSITY PRIZE POEM 
 
 1901
 
 1901 
 
 IXION 
 
 BY 
 
 WIUJAM BRIAN HOOKER 
 
 NEW HAVEN 
 
 THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE, & TAYLOR Co. 
 1901
 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 This poem received the fourth award of the prize 
 offered by Professor Albert S. Cook to Yale Uni- 
 versity for the best unpublished verse, the committee 
 of award consisting of Professor Henry A. Beers, 
 Professor Lewis E. Gates, and Mr. Robert U. Johnson.
 
 IXION 
 
 My wheel turns and I turn unendingly 
 
 Amid the wreck of souls to whom remain 
 
 No hope, no wish but one the wish to die, 
 
 The longing of the dead to die again. 
 
 The sights I see would blast an earthly eye, 
 
 The horrors I hear no tongue may put in words ; 
 
 And all around me roars the rage of gods 
 
 Turning eternally in endless pain. 
 
 Above me a great blackness, like a cloud 
 
 At midnight, swaying and breaking into bulks 
 
 That hurl across each other as a wind 
 
 Drives mass on mass against the thunder-storm. 
 
 Anon it opens cavern-deep, and shows 
 
 Behind, dim gulfs of greater dark ; anon 
 
 It closes inward, smoothly domed no sound 
 
 But never still. Under me lies the floor 
 
 Of Hades, ribbed and ridged and chiseled out 
 
 In curious figures, like the sand of the sea.
 
 And now and then it breaks, and Tartarus 
 
 Flares forth in flashes of pale flame, and screams 
 
 Come from beneath, and crowds of shuddering sparks 
 
 Rush upward as in terror ; then a surge 
 
 Of billowy smoke, tinged red with fires below, 
 
 Floats up and merges in the gloom above, 
 
 And the crack bites its lip, and the wails are hushed, 
 
 And Hades turns to its own toil. 
 
 I look 
 
 Upward, and wonder where our old earth lies, 
 How far beyond that veil of angry dark 
 Farther I know than heaven above the earth ! 
 Yet I am linked, bound by some deathless chain 
 To earth and life. The long full summer-time 
 Faints into autumn, and the wintry blast 
 Howls down the wold, but wakes no answering sign 
 In these grim skies and yet I feel that frost 
 Deep down within myself. I feel the spring 
 Steal onward with warm winds and blossoming smells, 
 Pale baby-leaves and breaths of hidden bloom. 
 Somewhere far, far above me, violets
 
 Grope down their roots in the soft earth, and turn 
 
 Their tiny faces to the sun, and smile 
 
 Through tears of dew I trod on violets once ! 
 
 Somewhere a wind stirs in the cypresses, 
 
 And the owl hoots and the moon pales I once 
 
 Held death in scorn, a thing too far to fear. 
 
 Somewhere broad roses open wide at eve, 
 
 Bare their rich bosoms to the breeze that faints 
 
 Caressing them, and shake their leaves and laugh, 
 
 And all the dimness maddens like new wine, 
 
 And nymphs peep out between the boughs, and songs 
 
 Come faint across dark water oh, to be 
 
 One moment what I once was ! Oh, to hear 
 
 The whisper of the woods, and see the thorn 
 
 Snow down her sweetness on the green, and feel 
 
 The music of the spring beat in my blood, 
 
 And the fresh odors leap into my brain, 
 
 And know naught ill, a child with a child's eyes 
 
 One moment ! Once I deemed myself a god, 
 
 And now my wheel turns on unendingly 
 
 Amid the wreck of souls to whom remain
 
 Nor life nor death nor death nor life have I, 
 The very spouse and paramour of pain ! 
 
 The rage of gods ! What are the gods to me ? 
 I have moved among the gods a mortal man, 
 Dwelt with them on Olympus, felt the clouds 
 Bend to my footstep, seen the sun flash by, 
 A blinding car with Helios at the reins. 
 I have seen the moon close by me in the night, 
 And heard the singing of the stars at dawn, 
 I half awake among the slumbering gods. 
 Do I not know them wholly ? Ah, my Queen 
 Of Heaven, one deathless moment mine in spite 
 Of law and gods and Fate have I not known ? 
 How amber-bright shine all those distant days 
 Even to my dizzy thought ! I seem to see 
 Amid that eddying blackness overhead 
 Olympus with its floors of gold, its walls 
 Of amethyst and opal, shining clear 
 In the sweet light that floats above the world ; 
 And round the board the faces of the gods
 
 Glad with dark wine, as I beheld them first 
 
 New raised among them. Zeus dome-browed, serene 
 
 With unresisted empire, hugely calm 
 
 Like Ocean yet I noted even then 
 
 The subtle brands of fear, the drooping lip 
 
 Behind his beard, the spectre in his look, 
 
 That marked him more than god but less than man, 
 
 Coward omnipotence ; Athena, bright 
 
 With panoply, the gorgon Aegis hung 
 
 Before the frory splendor of her breast ; 
 
 Artemis, white, shadow-eyed, tremulous ; 
 
 And Aphrodite born of sun and foam, 
 
 That bride-face dewy-dim with tenderness, 
 
 That softly-yearning ecstasy of form, 
 
 So beautiful her beauty made me faint, 
 
 So sweet her sweetness almost bent my will 
 
 And shamed me downward to humanity, 
 
 Until I thought of Smyrna's son and laughed ; 
 
 And turned to where She sat, my goddess-queen, 
 
 My full-blown Hera, blooming a red rose 
 
 Amid the Olympian lilies, richly dark
 
 With congregated sweet and saw the day 
 Turn summer moonlight in her dusk of hair, 
 And all the feverish south pant on her lip 
 Thereafter gods and men I held in scorn, 
 Accepting all my fate. I know the gods, 
 Not as pale priests and raving oracles, 
 Not as weak women, dazzled, worshiping, 
 But as a strong man knows a stronger man, 
 Nor fears nor worships him stronger than I 
 Or else I were not here ; unearthly fair 
 Or I had not gone mad. Why was I born 
 A spirit greater than my strength, a soul 
 That could love utterly but could not fear ? 
 
 Then passed long days of calm divinity, 
 
 I moving on unfaltering in my will 
 
 Void of all fear how could I fear ? I loved 
 
 Setting against the wisdom of the gods 
 
 My human craft, against their watchful sight 
 
 The flame of my desire. The eye of Zeus 
 
 Ranged over earth and heaven, and read the hearts
 
 Of men, followed the courses of the stars, 
 
 And bared the secrets of the scheming gods, 
 
 But saw me not. And at the last we met, 
 
 Hera and I night on the Sacred Mount 
 
 Deep with the stillness of eternity, 
 
 The stars above us, and beneath our feet 
 
 A great storm roaring out across the sea, 
 
 A pregnant hush all round us face to face 
 
 We stood, and all my soul rushed out in speech. 
 
 I know not what I said. I scarcely knew 
 
 I spoke, but vaguely wondered at the sound 
 
 Of my own voice. I ceased. And then and then 
 
 My goddess melted into womanhood, 
 
 My Queen bent down from deity to me, 
 
 Clung in my arms with her great eyes on fire 
 
 A moment then our lips closed, and my heart 
 
 Staggered into my ears, and the stars went out, 
 
 And the heavens rocked around us, and the dark 
 
 Grew gleaming green, and for one breath we hung 
 
 Poised in the soul of a great emerald 
 
 Shot through and through with lightnings. Then a voice
 
 Amid the throbbing blindness of my brain, 
 Calm, small, and cold, and seeming far away 
 The voice of Zeus. 
 
 And then I feared him not 
 I cursed his calm face while they bound me here. 
 Lord Zeus, the jealous husband ! Is it his, 
 His all the empire of the spaces, his 
 The joys, the woes of worlds? I know you, gods 
 Thieves, perjurers, adulterers are ye all. 
 Hark to my supplication, blessed ones ! 
 I would stretch forth my hands, but they are bound- 
 Hear my repentance in thy teeth, O Zeus, 
 The scorn of him thou hatest ! 
 
 Was it my sin, 
 
 Beautiful gods, to know you overwell? 
 What have I done that others have not done 
 As ill or worse Sisyphus the arch-thief 
 Heaving his stone with groanings up the height 
 Endlessly, foiled and mocked at the very goal 
 What is the labor of men but such as his? 
 
 8
 
 Tantalus the god-soiler, grasping at 
 
 The vain fruit, stooping to the falling wave, 
 
 Teased into madness, laughing hideously 
 
 What is the pleasure of men but such as his ? 
 
 They but relive their lives. I turn and yearn 
 
 Bound, futile, helpless body and brain no task 
 
 However vain, no joy in sight to seek 
 
 However vainly only round and round, 
 
 And every passive limb is strained and stung ; 
 
 Still round and round ; and all my thought grows drunk 
 
 With motion never ending, and the dark 
 
 Is full of horrid eyes that whirl like wheels, 
 
 And whirling wheels that glare like horrid eyes, 
 
 On every wheel a dumb Ixion, bound 
 
 And bleeding, longing for the lashing flames 
 
 Of Tartarus that smother sense in shrieks. 
 
 And all the wild wheels whisper as they whirl, 
 
 A sound like kisses and the whisper grows ; 
 
 And Hades rocks and totters to the sound, 
 
 And swells and orbs, a globe of tremulous gloom, 
 
 And shatters into whirling nothingness.
 
 My wheel turns and I turn unendingly 
 Amid the wreck of souls to whom remain 
 No hope, no wish but one the wish to die, 
 The longing of the dead to die again. 
 The sights I see would blast an earthly eye, 
 The horrors I hear no tongue may put in words ; 
 And all around me roars the rage of gods 
 Turning eternally in endless pain.
 
 UCLA-Young Research Library 
 
 PS536 .Y12p 1901 
 yr 
 
 L 009 539 198 3
 
 of CALIFORNIA 
 AT 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY