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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 'W^^^^^
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 A TRILOGY OF THE LIFE-TO-COME, 
 
 and other Poems. 2s. 6d. 
 
 ' Extremely felicitous.' — Acadcjny. 
 
 ' Perhaps the best thing in the book is " Phase II." of the 
 Trilogy, some touches of which might almost have been given 
 by Shelley. . . . Hardly less successful in its way, is the 
 " County Member," which, besides showing Mr. Brown's 
 command over pathos and dialect, contains a useful lesson 
 for politicians.' — The Cotiri and Society Review. 
 
 ' Very ^ood..'— Spectator. 
 
 London : DAVID NUTT, 270 Strand. 
 
 THE PHAINOMENA, OR 'HEAVENLY 
 
 DISPLAY ' OF ARATOS. Done into English Verse. 
 With an Introduction, Notes, and Appendices, and 68 
 Engravings from rare Works, MSS., Euphratean 
 Boundary-stones,and other sources.of the Constellation- 
 figures and Mythological Personages mentioned in the 
 Poem ; together with a Folding Map showing in colours 
 the Constellations on the Equinoctial Circle with the 
 Stars adjacent, for the year B.C. 2084, in illustration of 
 the archaic statements preserved by Aratos, and 
 hitherto unexplained. 4to, los. 6d. 
 
 ' Mr. Brown's volume should commend itself to all for 
 whom the earliest record of our Constellations possesses any 
 interest.' — Knowledge. 
 
 ' An arduous task coidd scarcely be accomplished in more 
 scholarly or satisfactory fashion.' — Notes and Queries. 
 
 ' His translation, without sacrificing fidelity, has preserved 
 the spirit of the original. . . . The work is profusely adorned 
 with highly interesting illustrations.' — The Literary World. 
 Mr. Brown has published his neat and faithful transla- 
 tion in an attractive, not to say sumptuous form.' — Academy. 
 
 London : LONGMANS & CO., 39 Paternoster Row.
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT BROWN, JUN., F.S.A. 
 
 ' How small a part of time they share, 
 That are so wondrous sweet and fair ! ' 
 
 Waller. 
 
 LONDON 
 'DAVID NUTT, 270-271, STRAND 
 
 1895 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tellis and Klkobeia I 
 
 To Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone on their 
 
 Golden Wedding . . . . .113 
 In Memoriam : Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 
 
 Poet Laureate 114 
 
 New Year's Hopes . . . . . iig 
 
 Light at Eventide 120 
 
 The Death-stroke ..... 121 
 
 In Rosae Honorem . . . . .123 
 Time and Love ...... 125 
 
 824074
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA. 
 
 ' Welcome from Delphoi, my Deinomache, 
 And tell your Myro, who has stayed at home, 
 Though not forgetful of her comely Girl, 
 How thou hast sped, what seen, and if the god 
 Were gracious to thee.' 
 
 ' Yes, indeed, dear Myro ; 
 A time so sweet and so replete with peace, 
 So brightly grave, so joyously serene, 
 Lighted by thoughts whose ever sun-touched wings 
 Suggested gUmpses of the eternal gods ; 
 By fancies not all fancy, but, as 'twere. 
 Echoes from far-off heights where morning reigns ;- 
 By kindling aspirations that stretch forth 
 Their eager hands towards a hidden fount 
 Of beauty and of harmony ; — a time 
 Unruffled by the discord of the world. 
 Such was our stay at Delphoi. King Apollon, 
 Well may we reverence thee ! ' 
 
 A
 
 2 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 'You have learnt much : 
 And did you mount in body as in soul 
 Towards the Twy-topped, climb with rising day, 
 Look Morning in the eyes and drink her breath, 
 And feel the rush of youth intensified ? ' 
 
 * Ay, dearest Myro, when the Early Star 
 Paled in her place and fled to sacred Night, 
 We worshipped at the splendour of the Dawn ; 
 And, gazing on her rosy-fingered grace. 
 
 Felt light-struck to the soul ; the spirit of health. 
 The blood of freedom coursing through our veins.' 
 
 'The soul that's free is never far from heaven.' 
 
 * And we are free, dear. Myro. Athens, free, 
 Stands centre of the world. Wherever men 
 Are stirred by noble impulse to broad aims, 
 Which make for general good and brighten life, 
 They turn to Athens. All the Island-flowers, 
 Linked by our galleys in harmonious chain, 
 With holy Delos for its central point, — 
 
 Look to Athena's city. Spear and shield 
 Against all tyrants, beautiful she stands ! 
 For, Athens is Athena upon earth ; 
 And the high gods, who lend their store to man, 
 Grace her with gifts indeed. Supremest skill,
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEL-l 3 
 
 Arms without grimness, art that rivals heaven 
 In shrine and statue. And, around the whole, 
 A noble purpose brought to splendid close, — 
 The bulwarks of Themistokles. Yet, stay, — 
 Pardon me, Myro ; I had half forgot 
 You are not all Athenian.' 
 
 ' No. My mother 
 Came from the wall-less City. But, go on, — 
 Go on, my pretty patriot. This outburst 
 Shows well in you ; perchance, it is inspired 
 By Loxias, whom you spoke of.' 
 
 ' Well, my Myro, 
 See how the Delphian pours his sacred flame 
 Upon our Athens. When the spring comes round. 
 And earth bursts forth in her eternal life. 
 Triumphant over winter, can the world 
 Show such a sight ? The mighty City meets 
 Within the theatre-temple of the god, 
 To hear the latest message which unfolds 
 The past in words from heaven. O glorious souls 
 Who scatter through all hearts their glowing fires ! 
 Athenians, Strangers, and Barbarians hear. 
 And work the noble echoes into life. 
 Which thus must grow in grandeur.' 
 
 ' Are you sure ?
 
 4 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 ' Yes. Did not Athens like a phoenix rise 
 From out her ashes ? Let the Persian rest. 
 I thank him that he burnt her. Did not she 
 Stand in the van and roll the spoiler back, 
 Despite his giant bulk and monstrous fame, 
 And save the West from bondage ? If to-day 
 Throughout our Hellas man is truly man. 
 And not a dumb and burden-bearing beast 
 Crouching beneath the whip of some slave's slave, 
 Whose master's master is the Great King's slave, 
 Then thank our Athens.' 
 
 ' Yes, I thank her. Sweet ; 
 Leonidas thanks Athens.' 
 
 ' Oh, I know 
 The Spartan Lion was a glorious man, 
 And like a god he died ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, he died well. 
 Go on, dear Child, and tell your Myro more 
 Of Athens and her glories. Am not I 
 A daughter of the golden grasshopper ? ' 
 
 ' I thank the gods, my Myro, that you are ! 
 Oh, when I think there runs within our veins 
 Such blood as burned at Salamis, I feel 
 Athena beckons Athens, bids advance
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Towards the still more glorious. Distant lands 
 Shall feel her light and leading, bow the neck, 
 And Athens reign in splendour. E'en her girls 
 Are daughters of the men of Marathon, 
 And that should make us queens.' 
 
 ' Democracies 
 Should not be fond of queens, Deinomache.' 
 
 ' All of us queens, dear Myro, that is fair.' 
 
 ' Fair queens, I doubt not, and it may be fair ; 
 For your Athenian democrat would place 
 Athenians first, then Strangers, then the World, — 
 Barbarians, as we term them ; and, it seems, 
 Of all Athenians not the last himself : 
 So that the freedom which he thus proclaims. 
 Is that himself should take the foremost place, 
 As doubtless is most fitting. 'Tis a creed 
 I've heard in Lakedaimon. Let it pass.' 
 
 ' You seem to doubt of Athens. Is it so ? ' 
 
 ' I do not doubt her glory or her skill. 
 
 More than I doubt thy love. Her voice of song 
 
 Shall reach across the misty gulf of death, 
 
 Unsilenced by the ages. Marathon — 
 
 The very name is one with Glory's self,
 
 6 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 And breathes a deathless music. Centuries 
 Pass into shadow, yet her sacred plain 
 In echo all undying shall preserve 
 The thunder of that onset. It may be 
 That fragments of our sculpture will be prized 
 By mighty nations of the time to come, 
 As presents worthy of a king to kings ; 
 Whilst memories of our painters dominate 
 Their grandest efforts. An eternal fame 
 The gods bestow on Athens. Fear it not.' 
 
 'But, yet, you doubt of something?' 
 
 ' Yes, I doubt 
 
 Of human justice. Is it well that we 
 
 Should govern others only for ourselves ? 
 
 Blot out their power, and make them yield their 
 
 gold; 
 And, thus, instead of gaining true allies, 
 Devoted to our cause, because our cause 
 Is theirs and freedom's, we are ringed with slaves, 
 Greek though they be, who, if the push of war 
 Should thrust us backward, would at once fly off 
 And side with our opponents. Is it well 
 That every idle ranter bawl and mouth 
 In endless iteration, catching fools 
 E'en greater than himself? Or, is it well
 
 T ELLIS AND K LEO B EI A 
 
 That jealousy of merit and of wealth, 
 
 Of name, and fame, and station, spits its hate 
 
 With ever thickening venom ? That the tongue, 
 
 Brazen with lungs of leather, should roar down 
 
 Sense, knowledge, and experience ? That the man 
 
 Who flatters most profoundly all around 
 
 With lavish proffers of still easier ways 
 
 To wealth and pleasure, should be trusted most ? 
 
 That idleness should masquerade as toil ? 
 
 Word-mongering pass for wisdom ? Discontent 
 
 Pose as supremest virtue ? Whilst, alas ! 
 
 Old faith is passing, unreplaced by new, 
 
 And Zeus, some think, dismounted from his throne 
 
 By Dinos, or by atoms.' 
 
 ' Gods forbid.' 
 
 ' Yes, they forbid, and Dinos shall not reign. 
 But, mark, Deinomache, look round the world, 
 And tell me where can Athens find a friend, 
 Greek or Barbarian. Grim Lakonike 
 Waits till the time is ripe. Some popular fool 
 Shall act a madness 'mid immense applause ; 
 Fritter our strength in senseless enterprise, 
 Enrage with insolence a hostile world. 
 And then ' 
 
 ' Our fleet shall keep that world at bay.'
 
 8 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 * 'Tis bravely spoken. So, our one resource, 
 
 Our only shield and buckler is the fleet, 
 
 Which Unks a scattered empire, guards the bread 
 
 Sent us by distant lands, for Attike 
 
 Cannot feed Athens. Should it chance our fleets 
 
 Were storm-tossed, or defeated, or betrayed 
 
 By their commanders — and such things might be- 
 
 What could avail your walls impregnable ? 
 
 They need not be assailed ; they would but prove 
 
 A ghastly tomb of famine.' 
 
 ' Myro, Myro ! ' 
 'Well, my heart's love.' 
 
 ' It i.s impossible 
 That such a glorious empire, queen o' the seas, 
 Splendour of arts and arms, great roll of fame. 
 Vanguard of progress, strong in east and west, 
 Should stoop to ruin. Though the banded might 
 Of all our foemen thundered to the charge, 
 Persian, and Spartan, and Korinthian, 
 Boiotian, and Barbarian of the North — 
 Pallas the Stormer, Promachos, the First 
 In battle's tempest, she would smite them down 
 As erst she smote huge Ares.' 
 
 ' Did she save 
 The sacred towers of Ilion, though a queen.
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 And Troian matrons, wailing in her shrine, 
 Besought Athena's mercy with rich gift ? ' 
 
 ' Athens enslaved ! It is impossible ! 
 Firm-rooted earth would stagger, and the Powers 
 Of heaven be shaken. She shall stand and reign, 
 The guiding star of this majestic world : 
 Her gods, her men will save her.' 
 
 ' Did the gods 
 That ruled the destinies of Babylon, 
 Chaldaean Zeus upon his golden seat. 
 With all the armament of heaven, defend 
 From Mede or Persian ? When the time was ripe 
 And the State rotten, e'en Aigyptos fell. 
 And what availed her wisdom and her work. 
 Her pyramids and temples ? Did Osiris, 
 Isis, or Ammon bar the spoiler's way ? 
 Oh, there are gods and gods, as men and men. 
 Outworn and fallen as old Kronos fell ; 
 Or deaf, and dead, and angered. For when man 
 Casts the choice gifts of heaven beneath his feet, 
 Calls Ucence liberty, deems madness wise, 
 Builds temples but believes not, boasts of freedom 
 Whilst slave to myriad follies, scoffs at justice. 
 And worships but himself; then those high Powers 
 That sit serene in splendour, and direct 
 The onward of the world, from Erebos,
 
 lU TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Summon to sunlight that tremendous form, 
 Erinys, the Gloom-haunter, to avenge 
 Insulted goodness. So, Deinomache, 
 Doubting of human justice, I must fear 
 Justice divine, and all the chance of Time, 
 Which wears the marble, dries the fertile brain, 
 Eats the heart out of prudence, saps the strength 
 Of resolution, and makes man a child. 
 With no sweet promise of a youth to come.' 
 
 ' You make my heart bleed. Do you love our Athens ? ' 
 
 ' I love your Athens, she is also mine ; 
 
 I love her so, I would not live an hour 
 
 When she had spent her freedom ; yet I hold 
 
 T/ie dice of Zeus can never fall amiss : 
 
 He reigns, and he shall reign ; as erst they sang : 
 
 Zeus 7i>as, Zeus is, Zeus will be. O great Zeus ! 
 
 So, if our orb of glory, which aspires 
 
 To starry lustres, sink in western gloom 
 
 And depths Kimmerian ; if the hand of Time 
 
 Topple our Parthenon, and break the spear 
 
 Which flashes light to Sounion ; if we pass 
 
 Like Tiryns, or like Troia, pass to dream, — 
 
 A faded glory of the earlier time, 
 
 A quarry for the poet, an example 
 
 For grave philosophers to warn mankind
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 11 
 
 Against our faults and follies ; be it so. 
 
 Greatness is greater than the greatest man, 
 
 Beauty more beauteous ; the divine ideal, 
 
 Mirrored in depths of the pellucid soul. 
 
 Shall still in tranquil motion, whilst at rest, 
 
 Pass towards heights diviner. God will reign 
 
 ^Vithout our prayers and praise : we should not speak 
 
 As though He needed anything ; new babes 
 
 Sprung from our mother Earth shall lisp and play, 
 
 And grow towards the stature of a man, 
 
 Or even of a god. The final end 
 
 Does not depend on Athens, heaven forbid ! 
 
 For, even as man dies, but still the world 
 
 Glows in fresh beauty ; so, a tribe, a race, 
 
 A special force, singular excellence. 
 
 Great deeds achieving, wonders to themselves, 
 
 And e'en to others, must in tract of time 
 
 Sink like a stone in ocean. It may leave 
 
 Remembrance, influence, guiding, warning voice, 
 
 May help to shape the future ; but itself 
 
 Is gone, and that for ever. Only men 
 
 Deem themselves so important, stretch their necks 
 
 To touch that ceiling where the starry chiefs 
 
 Dart from their eyes the flaming rays of fire. 
 
 And almost think to reach it, that 'tis well 
 
 In sober sadness we should recollect 
 
 Our true position. Be we what we may,
 
 12 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 We can be cast aside and never missed 
 
 By that infinitude of force and thought, 
 
 Purpose, and progress, and material stuff 
 
 Which makes the world and gods. And, thus, although 
 
 If Athens perished, I would stretch mine arms 
 
 To Power diviner in the darkness veiled, 
 
 And say, O Father, take your child ; yet still, 
 
 Passing or tarrying, I should not despair 
 
 Of ultimate achievement. The same stars 
 
 Would smile upon the world ; the selfsame hope 
 
 That lights the soul, would hold her torch un- 
 
 dimmed ; 
 The same majestic Love whose silent voice 
 Soothes into- rest the myriad babes of Time, 
 And bids them sleep untroubled, still would end 
 The anguish of the moment, bid the storm 
 Pass, and be swallowed in divine repose.' 
 
 ' Yes, dearest Myro, but I cannot think 
 Of earth without our Athens.' 
 
 ' No, my Child, 
 Nor need you ; but to me the greatest joy, 
 The basis of all harmony is this, — 
 That, through the shocks and tossings of our life. 
 We can discern the workings of a Power 
 Making for good, with infinite resolve
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 13 
 
 And matchless steadfastness ; it labours not 
 
 As we would have it, because gods and men 
 
 Are different ; and, if it worked as we. 
 
 And we could trace such working, we should know. 
 
 To our immense confusion, that the course 
 
 Of nature and of period was arranged 
 
 By some poor mindj another of ourselves, 
 
 Weakling to breed confusion and dismay, 
 
 As Phaethon in the chariot of the sun. 
 
 Therefore, that all the glittering web of life 
 
 Is something tangled, does not seem to reach 
 
 A lucid end, and weave its pattern plain ; 
 
 But, like the garment of Penelope, 
 
 Begins anew, and puzzles us who wait 
 
 At threshold of the gods, dismays me not. 
 
 For, if Zeus reign, as reigns he, then I know 
 
 That Dinos, whom some vaunt of, cannot be. 
 
 Save as the phantom of a feeble brain. 
 
 And shadow of a shade. Therefore, Deinomache, 
 
 If we despond of Athens, we will strive. 
 
 However little we can say or do. 
 
 To help her in her need. If Athens fail. 
 
 There is the world, with all its hope and good. 
 
 And future of development. If that 
 
 Sink into chaos, yet, behind all strife. 
 
 Failure, pain, passion, punishment and loss. 
 
 There stands eternal God. But, tell me now
 
 14 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 01 what you saw at Dclphoi. Let us leave 
 These graver fancies, these Eumenides 
 That dog our fearful minds ; and, at the shrine 
 Of many garlands, where the healing Seer, 
 Loxias, the true diviner, will protect 
 All suppliants at his marble navel-stone. 
 Take refuge ; and prefer our prayer, and honour 
 The ancient custom of the tripod. Now 
 We will approach in spirit, cleanse our souls ; 
 For holy places of the blessed gods 
 Are open to the Good. A single drop 
 Of water is an ocean in their cause ; 
 But the whole sacred rivers and the seas 
 Will fail the Evil : as the Pythia asked, 
 Man shall a 7vetted body wash thy soul 1 
 Then tell me. Sweet, of Delphoi. We will sit 
 Beside the Priestess, hear her gracious words ; 
 And, if the days are somewhat dark and dim. 
 Heed her bold counsel, Counterstrike the coiti, 
 When flatterers and panders would debase 
 Image and superscription.' 
 
 ' Well, then, Myro, 
 On the eastern front of the temple I beheld. 
 Wrought into subtle semblance, two great deeds 
 Of superhuman daring. Herakles, 
 His vast frame strung in one immense resolve —
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 15 
 
 Hewed at the Hydra's horror. Every stroke 
 
 The golden falchion made lopped off a head, 
 
 Whilst lolaos, with his blazing brand, 
 
 Burnt the foul thing to an eternal death. 
 
 And so they conquered. Did they thus contend?' 
 
 ' What said your nurse ? ' 
 
 ' She told me that they did ; 
 And said that when the fight was at the worst, 
 A giant Crab, emerging from the lake, 
 Crawled to the fiend's assistance, bit the foot 
 Of Herakles, and added to his pains. 
 But do you think it ? ' 
 
 ' Have you never seen 
 That crab at night, Deinomache ? ' 
 
 ' Why, no ; 
 How should I see it ? ' 
 
 ' Then, look up on high. 
 When shines the Lion with his kingly star ; 
 And you shall see the memory of that fight 
 Emblazoned in the heavens. The Lion-heart 
 Wrapped in the lion-skin, falchion in hand — 
 Men call it now the Sickle — rushes on 
 Against the hostile, dark, opposing Crab, 
 And tramples Hydra underneath his feet.'
 
 16 T ELLIS AND KLEODEIA 
 
 ' Oh, now I know. Why, then, the tale is true ; 
 And Herakles slew Hydra, did he not ? ' 
 
 ' He may have done for aught thy Myro knows ; 
 
 Or there may lurk a meaning in the tale 
 
 Which Myro can but guess at. Well, then, 
 
 Sweet, 
 What saw you next ? ' 
 
 * Vaulting Bellerophon 
 
 On winged charger, slaying with his shafts 
 The Triple-creature, lion, snake, and goat. 
 Were there such monsters ? ' 
 
 ' Monsters were and are ; 
 
 And heroes must oppose them, ay, and will. 
 For king ApoUon, lord of light and law. 
 Whose shrine is that of Themis, undertakes 
 Through all the valliant brotherhood of man, 
 And through his own ineffable, divine 
 Enforcement of the will of highest Zeus, 
 This contest through the ages. The tried souls 
 That stand around his altar, must contend 
 With dread Chimairas in fire-breathing might. 
 And slay by shafts of splendour, soar to heaven, 
 Perchance to fall, though only for a time. 
 Bruised to the heart, it may be ; never again
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 1? 
 
 To rise triumphant in this lower world, 
 But limping on to Acheron.' 
 
 ' Then I saw 
 
 The War of Gods and Giants. Pallas, first, 
 Brandished her shield against Enkelados, 
 And tumbled him to ruin. O, I read 
 A meaning in the picture. Athens there 
 Rolled back the Mede to Hades.' 
 
 'So, you see, 
 These pictures and these stories may be true 
 In many variant ways ; may represent 
 The physical, the immaterial. 
 The contest of the soul, the shocks of time. 
 The passage of the ages, and unseen 
 Yet vast realities which ring us round. 
 What next beheld you ? ' 
 
 ' Why, our father Zeus 
 Blasting huge Mimas into ashes. Next, 
 Was Dionysos, with his thyrsos armed, 
 Smiting down Eurytos ; and all these forms 
 1-ived without motion and in silence spoke.' 
 
 ' How marvellous the link 'twixt shape and 
 soul '.
 
 18 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Form springing from the formless, chain which binds 
 Rapture with horror. And you passed within ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, and saw all the treasure ; the huge bowl 
 
 Of silver which the cunning Samian made ; 
 
 Homeros' statue, and an iron chair 
 
 Of Pindaros, wherein he hymned the god; 
 
 A triple-headed serpent that supports 
 
 The golden tripod by the altar ; this 
 
 Recording how our Hellas crushed the Mede ; 
 
 The gold and silver vases Kroisos sent ; 
 
 The statues of the dual Destinies, 
 
 With their great lord and leader, father Zeus, 
 
 And king ApoUon, who directs them too.' 
 
 * Yes, for ApoUon ever manifests 
 
 In harmony and light the mind of Zeus, 
 
 And spreads his message to the outmost world. 
 
 So, when our Hellenes drive their daring keels 
 
 Through seas unknown, seeking remotest shores, 
 
 ApoUon is the patron of their toil. 
 
 And guides and guards our colonists. The shrine 
 
 You misfht not enter.' 
 
 'to' 
 
 ' No. By special grace 
 I was allowed to question ; so I knelt 
 Without, and made my offering : and they said
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA ly 
 
 That the great Priestess, with her far-off eyes, 
 And laurel-crowned brows, upon the tripod, 
 Her throne majestic, filled with the divine. 
 Replied as one who echoes distant light : 
 
 Deinomachc, have a care. Thou art mortal to run 
 
 with iiiunortals : 
 Speed as a Penthesileia : Jio li?igering stoop. Ata- 
 
 lanta 
 Lost by a glitter of gold ; but, the Bride who would 
 
 mother a lion — 
 Rest at the last shall be hers, in the beautiful grove of 
 
 the poplar. 
 
 ' Thus spake she, and I trembled.' 
 
 ' Do not fear ; 
 Zeus and Apollon are the highest Fates ; 
 And all the seeming discord of the world 
 Is man's misreading of their melody. 
 In partial comprehension : bounded gaze 
 ^V^hich draws fresh errors from its ignorance, 
 And staggers through its strength ' 
 
 * Beside her stands 
 The statue of Apollon, all of gold. 
 Why prize we gold, my Myro ? '
 
 20 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 ' Has not he 
 Whose chair was shown you, told us ? Is not gold 
 A glory of the Sun-god ? Shining far 
 Above all ivealth, as through the dark of tiight 
 Shines blazing flame ; and, thus, Hyperion's bride, 
 Theia divine, the mother of the Sun, 
 Is golden Chryse; and, around the god, 
 In his own sacred seat, as risen light, 
 Are ringed the splendours which proclaim his 
 
 sway ; 
 Art earthly thus reflecting art divine.' 
 
 ' Then came I forth, and other things I saw ; 
 The grave of Neoptolemos, and, near. 
 The stone of ancient Kronos.' 
 
 ' Poor old god ! 
 Type of the rude and all-imperfect world. 
 Savage in its disorder; in unrest 
 Passed into darkness, and for ever bound 
 Beneath unvintaged ocean and the earth, 
 Thus making way for calm. And did you note 
 The pictures Thasian Polygnotos wrought ? ' 
 
 ' O, yes, my Myro, to the right and left 
 
 In majesty upon the Lesche's walls. 
 
 Above Kassotis' fountain. You have seen them? '
 
 T ELLIS AND KLE0BEL4 21 
 
 ' Yes, I have seen them. There stand life and death 
 And death in Hfe, and Hfe victorious, 
 Passing through death and shadow to the dawn 
 Of what is fadeless. Did you mark them well ? ' 
 
 ' I gazed upon them long ; but I am young, 
 With little knowledge of this boundless world, 
 Except its brightness ; yet, within mine eyes 
 Rose unsuspected tears, I know not why.' 
 
 ' Because, Deinomache, thou didst perceive. 
 However dimly, the vast war and wail 
 Of souls, or clothed or naked, as they pass 
 Through the great halls of the eternal shrine. 
 Sun-lighted or obscured. Didst mark the names ? ' 
 
 ' Some of the mourning Ilian sisterhood, 
 
 Andromache, with fatherless boy babe ; 
 
 Medesikaste and Polyxena, 
 
 Sad choir of beauty smitten into dust ; 
 
 Whilst Helene, triumphant through all change. 
 
 Is seated more than queen. And the great heroes — 
 
 Aias, Odysseus, Neoptolemos, 
 
 I noted these and others.' 
 
 ' You beheld 
 Not merely Troia's daughters and her sons, 
 Trampled by feet Hellenic, the vast prize
 
 •22 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Of an immortal contest ; but the dream 
 
 Which men call mortal life, depicted fair, 
 
 With but few colours : for, the chords which form 
 
 The staple of its song are ever few, 
 
 And yet their variant combinations reach 
 
 Towards infinity. O 'tis a harp 
 
 Of unexhausted powers, on which men play 
 
 With petty skill, and deem the strings out worn ; 
 
 Because their touch is dull, their fingers cramped 
 
 With narrowing imitation. So all greatness 
 
 Makes myriad puny prettinesses rise 
 
 And pipe but for a day. Patience and wait : 
 
 The hours roll by ; the subtly-working gods 
 
 Hear the hymn quavering into littleness ; 
 
 And, when the time is fully ripe, produce 
 
 Their hidden singer from the light of heaven : 
 
 Then every chord thrills music fresh and free, 
 
 Whilst the glad volume of exulting song 
 
 Soars starward, lighting up the azure steeps 
 
 With pure and fragrant fires.' 
 
 ' But life is sad, 
 My Myro.' 
 
 ' Yes, unutterably sad. 
 As Polygnotos shows us in his work, 
 By what he paints and paints not. Love makes grief !
 
 T ELLIS AND K LEO B EI A 23. 
 
 Hektor is dead, and sad Andromache, 
 Longing for death, is stayed by baby hands, 
 Whose gentle touch makes life so terrible 
 With vistas of fresh woes. Then you would turn, 
 From life to life, and scan the other side?' 
 
 ' Yes, and I love that painting on the left. 
 With its dim shadowy terrors, and its lights 
 Shining through darkness. But, come, tell me, 
 
 Myro, 
 F"or what I saw, I saw not as I ought, 
 About this mighty picture of the shades, 
 Its mystery and its meaning, you are wise.' 
 
 ' Wise am I, my Deinomache ? Alas ! 
 Before these tragic and triumphant depths. 
 With all their infinite suggestiveness 
 Of hope and fear, of past and of to come, 
 Thy Myro's wisdom shrivels to a speck. 
 She bows herself before the infinite pain 
 And pity of our being ; veils her face 
 Before its grandeur and colossal calm ; 
 And lowers her eyes, half blinded by its hope 5, 
 Sparkling in lightning glimpses through a veil, 
 The peplos of Harmonia. As a maid 
 Stands in the presence of some mighty king, 
 And feels his burning eyes devour her soul ;
 
 ■24 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 But, yet, through all her terror and her awe, 
 Is irresistibly drawn, as moth to flame, 
 W' ith rapture-tinted fear ; so, I behold 
 This work of Polygnotos, vaster far 
 Than Polygnotos dreamed of, when he clad 
 The sacred legends of the earlier time 
 In palpable form.' 
 
 ' And are these stories true ? ' 
 
 * The stories are most true, Deinomache ; 
 
 But Truth has many sides and many shapes. 
 
 With what can we compare it ? What is Truth ? 
 
 Suffice we know it somewhat : let it be 
 
 The harmony of Being and Belief. 
 
 And, as the Thasian painted, first of all, 
 
 The tale of Troia — tale of mortal life ; 
 
 So, now he limns the vaster scene beyond 
 
 With figures protagonistic, who unfold 
 
 A rhythmic progress of the eternal Soul, 
 
 Upward, some call it, downward, others : I 
 
 Shall name it onward. And, Deinomache, 
 
 Mark, the two pictures have a special link, 
 
 The much-achieving, much-enduring Man, 
 
 Who, having toiled through sunlight, dares the gloom 
 
 To seek a Soul more perfect, and to know 
 
 Of home and his return. Tell me, ye depths, 
 
 Rich with experience and diviner types
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 25 
 
 Of man and woman than the sun beholds ; 
 With prophet-kings, seers, in eye and mind, 
 Freed from their mortal darkness, and who move 
 Godlike 'mid ghosts ; tell me, great treasure-house 
 Of buried wisdom and of holy aims. 
 Stored with the loves of all the ages past, 
 Temple of pause, whose dimly-lighted halls 
 Encircle forms majestic ; crypt divine, 
 Rare casket, far more wondrous than the work 
 Wrought by Hephaistos, and replete with gems. 
 Whose lustre through their sombre setting gleams ; 
 Tomb of fled hope, which all the myriad souls 
 That Hermes leads adown the shadowed ways. 
 Can never fill ; tell me, dread Oracle, 
 Where is my home ? What ! Is Teiresias silent ? " 
 
 ' I am half frightened, Myro, at your look. 
 You gaze as if you saw the Theban stand, 
 And beckon with his sceptre.' 
 
 ' Pardon, Sweet ; 
 Recall me to the picture.' 
 
 ' Yes, I will. 
 I marked Odysseus kneeling with drawn sword 
 Over the trench, and near the Theban sage 
 Is Antikleia, seated on a stone, 
 Patiently waiting.'
 
 26 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 ' As Homeros tells : 
 Whe?t prince Teiresias passed within the house, 
 Odysseus still stood steadfast ; and the soul 
 0/ Antikleia drew nigh, and drank the blood : 
 And then she knew him, and she ivept aloud, 
 And said, My Child, that art a living man, 
 How earnest thoic ''neath the darkness and the shade ? 
 For dread is Hades to the living sight, 
 IVith mighty rivers, aye, and dreadful streams 
 Between our realm and man^s. And he replied, 
 
 mother, of necessity I came 
 
 To seek Teiresias. Tell me of my wife : 
 And then her spirit told him, and she said, 
 ' Tivas not the archer goddess of keen sight 
 Who sleiv me with her shafts ; wasting disease 
 Drew not the spirit from my limbs ; I died 
 Of my sore longing once to see thy face. 
 And hear again thy counsel and thy love! 
 Thus spake she. You remember he replied : 
 ' / stood and mused ; the purpose of my soul 
 Was to embrace my mother's spirit. Thrice 
 
 1 did attempt it : thrice bettvixt my hands 
 She flitted as a shadow or a dream. 
 And ever sharper heart-pang I endured. 
 
 My mother, tv ailed I, wherefore dost thou fly. 
 Thy son who fai?i would grasp thee ? That e^en 
 here
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 27 
 
 In Hades, we might cast our loving ar»ts 
 Each about each, and satiate our woe. 
 
 glorious scene of love ! Stronger than death, 
 Deeper than darkness, true as truth itself, 
 Spurning at peril, triumphing in pain, 
 
 And trampling into nothing mortal fears ! ' 
 
 ' I was but little when my mother died, 
 But 1 remember with how keen a pain 
 
 1 saw all life flow on ; suns rose and set. 
 
 And tiny children played and crowed, and girls 
 
 Rippled in laughter; whilst the whole hard world 
 
 Paused not an instant for a single prayer. 
 
 But rolled remorseless onwards ; and I felt 
 
 An anger and a hate against my kind, 
 
 Burning to break in torrent of wild speech. 
 
 Upbraiding and accusing. But it failed; 
 
 And, " Mother," " Mother ! " I could say no more.' 
 
 'So, then, I came, Deinomache.' 
 
 'You did; 
 And all my mother seemed seemed to live in you. 
 But, if I ever see her face again. 
 And clasp her to my soul, I'll tell her this : 
 That you have mothered her poor, desolate Girl 
 Made my life bright with perfume of sweet love,
 
 28 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Sheltered me in your bosom ; and, when she, 
 The mother I have lost, hears all my tale. 
 She will stretch forth fair hands of welcoming. 
 And take you to her heart, whilst all the place 
 Shall echo music. Oh, that I might know ! ' 
 
 ' Am I Teiresias to resolve your doubt ? 
 Ask not, dear child, let the bright Nymphs of Time 
 Chase through the zodiac. There will be a goal. 
 Now, tell me of some other forms you saw.' 
 
 ' Nigh the dim river, sitting on a skin 
 
 Of some foul bird, and gnashing hateful fangs, 
 
 With black-blue tint, like meat-infesting fly, 
 
 Crouches the fiend Eurynomos. He eats, 
 
 The Delphians told us, flesh from dead men's 
 
 bones. 
 Mysterious horror ! is there such a thing ? ' 
 
 ' Surely there is. The open maw of Death ; 
 Eurynomos, the Universal law — 
 Sarkophagos, corruption's hideous tooth, 
 Which fastens on these vestures of decay 
 That clothe our souls ; but nothing worse than 
 this.' 
 
 ' I thank the gods.'
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 29 
 
 'Sweet, fear no animate fiend. 
 No Kerberos has Polygnotos drawn, 
 And Kerberos is but Darkness — as a dog 
 That guards the house of Hades. Still, your eye 
 Would notice divers pain-tormented souls.' 
 
 ' There I beheld the shadow of a shade. 
 Dim in colossal bulk — huge Tityos, 
 Pain-shattered into weakness infinite, 
 Recumbent in a sleep, deeper than death.' 
 
 ' Awful offender ! Awful chastisement ! 
 Yet, even here, storm passes at the last. 
 And leaves behind a dull and dreamless peace 
 Freed from all pang, which haply pitying Time 
 May ripen into pardon.' 
 
 'There I saw 
 Sad Tantalos in grievous torment held ; 
 Standing in water nigh unto the chin, 
 In agony to drink. The treacherous wave 
 Illudes him ever. O'er his aged head 
 A huge stone threatens ; almost in his reach 
 Tall trees display their beauty with bright fruit. 
 Pears, apples, and pomegranates, olives, figs. 
 His eager hands would clutch them ; they are gone 
 As if wind-swept into the shadowy clouds ! 
 'Tis terribly depicted.'
 
 30 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 ' And most true.' 
 
 * Lived he not once in Asia?' 
 
 ' So they say ! 
 He also lives in Athens, or at Thebes, 
 And grasps at phantom pleasure. Youth grows 
 
 old. 
 Life stale, hope dead, and nature all out worn. 
 Yet still he gasps and clutches, thirsts again.' 
 
 ' There is a hill, and wretched Sisyphos 
 
 The huge stone gripping, in his vain attempt, 
 
 With dusty head, sweat pouring from his limbs.' 
 
 * And thus we learn, Deinomache, that they, 
 Who through this mortal circle of our life 
 Pursue the more ignoble, eat and drink, 
 
 As death-doomed on the morrow, may be cursed 
 In the hereafter with the dreadful fate 
 To seek this still, oblivious of aught else ; 
 Seek it, yet never find, unsatisfied 
 In horrible soul-hunger evermore.' 
 
 ' Then there is painted Oknos making rope, 
 Which a she-ass devours as soon as made ; 
 And the Guide said his wife consumed his 
 wealth,'
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 31 
 
 ' Let him not be thy guide. Such silly tales 
 Befit an empty showman. Oknos sits 
 All dull and sluggish, labouring blindly on 
 To find the truth of things; with method 
 
 none, 
 Nor aught of knowledge, or of holy fear ; 
 But, stung to morbid energy by dim 
 Dissatisfaction, which can see the worse, 
 The discord and the shadow, and no more. 
 Stupidity, with her triumphant bray, 
 Engulfs his effort perishing still-born.' 
 
 ' And then I saw the water-bearers toil, 
 Emptying their vessels in a mighty jar.' 
 
 * A task impossible. 'Tis Tantalos 
 In variant aspect ; uninitiate souls, 
 Danaides for ever, cannot fill 
 The wine-jar of their appetites, constrained 
 To use but broken pitchers for the task ; 
 And trickle tiny streams into a gulf 
 Insatiable as Hades. The wise man 
 Commends the middle. Nothing in excess.' 
 
 ' Then, Myro, it is good that we should know 
 The secrets of Eleusis ? '
 
 32 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 ' Truly, yes ; 
 For her high ritual doth as far surpass 
 All other forms of service, as the gods 
 Are more than heroes. What saith Pindaros ? 
 Happy is he zvho knows these sacred rites 
 Ere ^neath the earth he passes. Well he kens 
 Both of life's goal and of its source from heaven. 
 But what of all the heroes and the queens 
 Who dwell beyond the sun-gates and the flow 
 Of Ocean, in the mead of asphodel, 
 And whom our Thasian painter has portrayed ? 
 People of dreams, a galaxy of souls 
 Across that river which is full of reeds.' 
 
 ' There I marked Orpheus sitting on a hill ; 
 His left hand held the harp, and with his right 
 He touched the branches of a willow-tree ; 
 And I was glad to think not even Death 
 Can silence music' 
 
 ' No, indeed, dear Heart ; 
 The shadowy Hades has not lulled his lyre. 
 But, think not gloomily of Death. He comes, 
 And with him his twin brother Sleep. They bare 
 The mortal sufferer, seamed with many scars, 
 From out the dust nnd tumult of the world ; 
 Bathe him within the river, then anoint
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 3* 
 
 His head with sweet ambrosia, and clothe 
 His form in garments never growing old. 
 And as to this rare minstrel, you have seen 
 The zenith harp of Orpheus in the skies ; 
 And here in Hades his triumphant hand 
 Is laid upon the willows of the queen, 
 To show that Orpheus and Persephone 
 On earth, in heaven, and in the Underworld, 
 Make but one music in divine accord. 
 And light-revealing shadow. Melody, 
 Enchanting mirror of a world unseen. 
 Whispers and breathes of inconceivable 
 Supernal heights and splendours, till the soul 
 
 ■^ •■II 
 
 Views Eos rise on noon. It is not dumb 
 Within the mead of asphodel, which speaks 
 The coming of a spring, the dawn of hope. 
 The flight of winter, and a burst of song, 
 With harmony unchecked by mortal tears.' 
 
 ' Majestic forms are gathered round his harp ; 
 The sceptred Agamemnon, and by him, 
 Antilochos whom goodly Memnon slew, 
 Protesilaos gloriously loved, 
 Supreme Achilleus with his golden locks, 
 Patroklos standing by him. On the left 
 Leans Promedon against a willow tree. 
 The Phokian Schedios, king Pelias, 
 
 c
 
 34 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 The hoary-headed, gazing at the harp ; 
 And luckless Thamyris with broken lyre, 
 Dejected on the earth.' 
 
 ' When this poor world 
 Thinks its own music, wild and meaningless, 
 Degraded passion vaunting of itself, 
 Can match the rhythmic harmonies of heaven, 
 And dares to challenge gods, beneath the stress 
 And storm of such a contest the weak chords 
 Of mortal harps are sundered, and song dies 
 In darkness and confusion. Marsyas 
 Distorts the features with his double pipe, 
 Clouds the serene with fumes of earthliness, 
 And suffers for presumption. So, too, Dance, 
 Song's sister, which the race of mortals love, 
 Is seemly or unseemly, as the mind 
 Of him who dances. Foolish Hippokleides 
 Danced off his marriage : king Apollon leads 
 His choir with stately step, and thus preserves 
 All dignity and freedom. Lyre and voice 
 And form should blend together, three in one, 
 A triple harmony. Pythagoras 
 Taught music is the link which binds the 
 
 whole 
 Orderly unity, confusion's death ; 
 Not like that dance, The Burniijg of the World.'
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 35 
 
 ' By Thamyris sits Hektor, bowed with woe.' 
 
 ' Self-love, self-will, twin mothers of all pain. 
 The image of an unforgotten past, 
 Unseemly or rebelled against, 'tis this 
 Makes the true darkness. Noble Hektor wait 
 In patience till the ripple dies away. 
 And all of pain has faded into light.' 
 
 ' Then next was Memnon, seated on a stone, 
 Sarpedon with him ; and upon his cloak 
 Were seen those sacred birds, whose holy wings 
 Sprinkle with dew his Hellespontine tomb.' 
 
 ' Son of the Morning, fallen to the depths ! 
 But yet to rise immortal ; second he 
 To none except Peleides.' 
 
 ' Then the Maids, 
 Pandareos' daughters, whom the Harpies snatched 
 And bore to the Erinyes, crowned with flowers. 
 Sat playing with their dice. I deemed it strange.' 
 
 ' And it is strange, Deinomache ; and much 
 That mighty minds have wrought is passing strange ; 
 Because it is an outcome of that vast 
 Unknown of wonder and immortal thought
 
 86 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Which rings our souls. The fragments we behold 
 
 We cannot join together; nor restore 
 
 The pattern of the peplos of the world 
 
 From these rent pieces ; so the whole design 
 
 Outstrips intelligence. Give us the claw, 
 
 And we can form the lion ; but the course 
 
 Of Nature and of Destiny involves 
 
 An unimagined grandeur, speaks a depth 
 
 Abysmal, infinite in space and time, 
 
 Which all our puny plummets cannot sound. 
 
 And hence these flaming fragments, these bright 
 
 thoughts — 
 Cast from some central fire upon the earth 
 To burn in certain souls — detached from truths 
 We never heard of, seem, in severed form, 
 At times unworthy of their place ; at times 
 Obscure and doubtful, as the grey-eyed peep 
 Of a dim dawn. And every poet fails 
 To utter half his meaning, to convey 
 His broader purpose ; and beholds his work. 
 Picture, or song, or^statue, when complete. 
 Not as he dreamed it, but, as touched by earth ; 
 A faint impression of a thought divine 
 Which died 'neath human handling. Yonder scene 
 Is not what Polygnotos in his dreams 
 Saw with delight, but all that man could do 
 To make his dream apparent to the world.'
 
 T ELLIS AND K LEO B EI A 37 
 
 ' And yet it is most god-like.' 
 
 ' So it is, 
 Compared with other failures ; we will listen 
 To what he tells us as an oracle, 
 Cloudy, but splendour gleaming through the cloud. 
 And does not Palamedes play at dice ? ' 
 
 ' With Salaminian Aias and Thersites.' 
 
 ' I thought he was so painted. Thus we note 
 
 That the wise hero and the innocent maids 
 
 Alike are players, and alike would see 
 
 The hazard of the future. Dice are sacred 
 
 To Dionysos of the Underworld ; 
 
 Fall as they may, man's fate is sacred too, 
 
 And Klytie and Kamiro snatched away. 
 
 Or Palamedes drowned, or Aias spoiled 
 
 Of victory and glory, in their fates 
 
 And seeming failures, aye, and agonies, 
 
 Show certain numbers on the golden dice 
 
 Which fall from heaven upon the board o' the world : 
 
 For, as the wise have said, the whole profound 
 
 Is harmony and number intertwined ; 
 
 And number is the element of all 
 
 Diversity, which severs fate and fate ; 
 
 Yet every fate from heaven, fast sweeping on
 
 38 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 To infinite fulfilment, and a time 
 
 When the seven Wandering Stars shall meet in light. 
 
 So, when these numbers point to loss, the wise 
 
 Possess their souls in patience ; place the game 
 
 In the high gods' own hands. The baser sort 
 
 Pour vainly feverish vows ; and the dread dice 
 
 Whose counterparts the reckless gamester casts, 
 
 Gleaming and leaping, now above, below. 
 
 Fall on the board like fatal fires from heaven. 
 
 Handless they quell the strongest, cold they burn, 
 
 Pricking and paining with avenging goad ; 
 
 And oft, in dread deception, honey-tipped, 
 
 Allure by false success ; as Pentheus fell — 
 
 Polykrates, the victim of the Mede, 
 
 Shunned by the wise Amasis ; type of man 
 
 Led headlong by avenging destinies. 
 
 And you would mark the noble ladies there ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, Thyia, Chloris, Klymene, and more ; 
 
 Kallisto with her bearskin ; Nomia 
 
 And Pero, child of Neleus— group of flowers.' 
 
 'Ah, still they bloom, and winter fades in spring ! 
 
 Lily, and rose, and moist anemone. 
 
 Tender narcissus, purple hyacinth. 
 
 The crocus-flame, and violets white and blue, 
 
 With myrtle of our Kypris ; iris last,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 39 
 
 That links the earth with heaven. Plucked by stern 
 
 hand, 
 Like the dread Queen herself, they root again ; 
 And, with their fragrant splendours, shed perfume 
 Down the dim years of troublous aftertime. 
 And make all Hades smile.' 
 
 ' I noted, too, 
 Our father Theseus by Peirithoos 
 Seated on rock enchanted, with sad gaze 
 Upon their useless swords which Theseus holds.' 
 
 ' Ah, frantic love of Beauty ! Love's own death ! 
 
 Peirithoos, in counsel peer of gods. 
 
 His more than mortal wisdom valueless 
 
 Beneath the gust of passion, dared to raise 
 
 Wild, amorous eyes towards Persephone, 
 
 So, to his earthly spirit grew the earth, 
 
 And clasped resistless fetter. Herakles, 
 
 They say, released our Theseus, who had braved 
 
 In a sublime false friendship, endless wrath. 
 
 'Tis a dread tale ; I cannot read it plain. 
 
 Let such things be ; these riddles may be solved 
 
 By some Immortal when the years are passed. 
 
 And Time has sunk to Kronos. 
 
 But, tell me. Dearest, which of all the forms 
 
 Whose solemn splendours beckon to our gaze
 
 40 T ELLIS AND K LEO B EI A 
 
 Across the mist-enveloped gulf of death, 
 These poems of the past, whose souls intense 
 Have left deep tracks of grandeur, awful shades, 
 Or terrible, or beauteous, or instinct 
 With Melancholy's self; which most appealed 
 To your imagination or your heart ? ' 
 
 ■' I marvelled that through all the stately throng 
 Of those who did not suffer, man with man 
 Consorted, as did woman with her sex; 
 And man and woman did not seem to meet 
 But twice within the picture. It was strange.' 
 
 ' Why strange, Deinomache ? ' 
 
 ' Because, my Myro, 
 Does not their meeting strike the sweetest chords 
 That thrill our being ? Is the after life 
 Grander than this if Love be left behind ? ' 
 
 ' Who told thee Love was left ? But, is there room 
 For Love's bright wings in Charon's gloomy boat ? ' 
 
 * O, yes, my Myro, yes, indeed there was. 
 I marked Penthesileia with her bow, 
 A star of battle, how she stood and scorned 
 Effeminate Paris. All her dainty shape 
 Rich with the vigour of the tireless wind,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 41 
 
 And stormful independence ; then I turned 
 To the dim stream of Acheron, with its reeds 
 And gliding ghosts of fishes indistinct. 
 Lo, there, within the very boat itself. 
 The vessel of old Charon, gaunt and grim, 
 Sat peacefully unconquerable love ; 
 Tellis the youth, the virgin Kleobeia, 
 Demeter's sacred coffer on her knees. 
 But who they were I know not.' 
 
 * Did you ask ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, and our guide repeated what I saw. 
 
 That Tellis was a youth, and Kleobeia 
 
 A maiden who had lived and who had died.' 
 
 ' Brief summary of a sunbeam ! So it was. 
 Fair Morning star in this supernal world. 
 She shines the same, an evening star below.' 
 
 ' Well, but, dear Myro, tell me how they came 
 To gain a place in that tremendous scene. 
 Immortalised together. Were they lovers ? 
 I know they were, and when I saw that Death 
 Failed to divide their beauty and their love. 
 And Darkness smiled upon them, oh, I felt 
 Such strange, sad pleasure ! The heroic throng 
 Faded from sight, and all the shadowy scene
 
 42 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Passed into nothing ; river, reeds, and fish, 
 Became as though they were not, and I said : 
 Tel/is and Kkobeia happy siill I ' 
 
 ' Eros have mercy on Deinomache, 
 Already bound in fetters though so young. 
 Enamoured of no Tellis, but of Love, 
 The very god himself. Yet you are right 
 To fix upon this couple. Polygnotos, 
 A Thasian, honouring a Thasian youth, 
 And the bright maiden who enriched his Isle 
 With holiest worship, placed the innocent pair 
 By kings and queens in Hades.' 
 
 ' He did well." 
 
 * Yes, he did well ; and when the deathless gods 
 Permit the mortal poet — he who makes — 
 Apollon's workman — makes the unseen Good, 
 Give of its beauty, picture, verse or thought, 
 Thus to do well, the splendour of his work 
 Shines far beyond his ken ; his magic urn. 
 Dipped in eternal fountains, pours a stream 
 To brighten lands that he has never known. 
 For all true song has, twined around its soul. 
 Significances infinite to arouse 
 Still vaster echoes in the aftertimes
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 43 
 
 From mighty hearts that follow ; as a fire 
 Which from a hill-top speaks of coming war. 
 Sets twenty beacoris blazing through the night. 
 Therefore the stars are numberless, and song 
 Is chorus, and all solitude is loss. 
 And, as it chances, I have by me here 
 A scroll in which some bygone poet sings 
 Of Tellis and the Maiden of his soul. 
 And how they loved and died.' 
 
 ' Read it, my Myro ; 
 And let me nestle by you as you read : 
 So put your soft hand close around my neck. 
 Give me one kiss, and tell me all the tale.' 
 
 Then Myro, a fair smile of guardian love, 
 
 Stooped down and kissed her ; and in low, sweet 
 
 voice, 
 That caught the flying fragrance of the past, 
 Pierced to its inmost meanings, lent it strength. 
 And clothed it with new beauty, thus began : —
 
 44 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 At Thasos, where the Sun-god spreads his gold, 
 
 And Dionysos, lord of eastern lands, 
 
 Cheers mortals with the vine ; the Isle which shows 
 
 An ass's backbone overspread by wood, 
 
 So huge Ipsarion rises, crowned with firs — 
 
 Thasos of yore, haunt of Phoinikian men, 
 
 Who overturned a mountain in their greed — 
 
 Ringed by the blue Aigaion, Tellis dwelt. 
 
 On him our mother Nature had bestowed 
 
 A dower of potent beauty ; supple limb. 
 
 And form a balance of harmonious grace. 
 
 With nothing lacking, nothing in excess, 
 
 Compact in easy vigour ; such a man 
 
 As makes man know that he has sprung from gods, 
 
 And borrowed of their splendour : for, of a truth, 
 
 In intricate, mysterious unison, 
 
 The gleaming stairs that lead from heaven to earth 
 
 And downward to all depths, are marked by form 
 
 In variant divergence ; till at base 
 
 Light's shadow, mind's distortion, Nature's trick. 
 
 Sits grinning, on the skin of a foul bird. 
 
 In blue-black horror, phantom of the gloom, 
 
 Eurynomos, the fiend. Nor did a soul, 
 
 Unworthy of its stately dwelling-house, 
 
 Shine through the eyes of Tellis : gentle, pure, 
 
 Tender, and true, and trusting, yet, at times,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 45 
 
 Enwrapped with sadness, like a lonely star, 
 
 In melancholy of its sweetness bred. 
 
 For the gods' open hands that shake out good 
 
 O'er earth and sea, and fill the heart of man 
 
 With plen!y, and rejoice the patient beast, 
 
 And all innumerous life, drop into souls 
 
 Of rarest tissue, through their gifts a pain 
 
 Vague, and unformed, and indefinable, 
 
 Which still suggests, and spurs, and elevates. 
 
 And stimulates, and quickens, till it breeds 
 
 Divine dissatisfaction. Hence, in strain 
 
 And doubt and agony, wrestling with Fate, 
 
 But overcoming by unceasing toil. 
 
 Is formed the Hero, and heroic work 
 
 Which joins men with the gods. This golden 
 
 link 
 Assists to knit the crawling human heart. 
 That tends towards Hades in its impotence, 
 With the eternal centres of all light. 
 
 Such a pain 
 Slid through the soul of Tellis, undefined, 
 Yet palpable in its obscurity ; 
 Not common thought of shadowy life and death. 
 Not youth's spring yearning for a tender maid, 
 No zeal to rise and grasp the gauds of Time, 
 Nor carking care, pale child of penury ;
 
 46 T ELLIS AND K LEO B EI A 
 
 But a wish ever present in the soul, 
 
 At times a joy, at times an agony. 
 
 To penetrate into the heart o' the world ; 
 
 To spread immortal wings and soar towards Truth, 
 
 Latent within the infinite obscure ; 
 
 To touch the inner essence, find it heaven, 
 
 And gain its love for aye ; to see a dawn 
 
 Rise on the morning, showing day in day. 
 
 And light of light, and clasp it evermore. 
 
 From these dim soul-hopes to the outward world, 
 
 Orderly splendour in activity. 
 
 Whose progress is the choric song of the gods — 
 
 The deep-eyed Tellis turned. Can we by gaze, 
 
 Divine-illumined, search the very heart 
 
 Of Nature's mystery? Rise to the springs 
 
 Whence gush the vital forces of the Seen, 
 
 And fill our mortal urn till it o'erflow 
 
 With the pure wave of the unfailing stream 
 
 A 
 
 Eridanos, that rolls through Paradise ? 
 
 So the youth listened daily for a voice, 
 
 And sound, and teaching, words unspeakable 
 
 By mortal sage. He watched the Morning-star 
 
 Pale in the heaven ; he saw fair Eos glide. 
 
 Rising, like Aphrodite from the sea, 
 
 But all unsensuous ; her dim gleaming hands 
 
 Poured dewy waters from her pair of urns. 
 
 Then the great Sun, in amorous pursuit.
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 47 
 
 Flamed in the orient; toiled, and warred, and won, 
 
 And sank, high victim with a glorious doom. 
 
 Upon his western altar : whilst the Moon, 
 
 Walking in brightness, watched his passionate end, 
 
 And swept serene through restful realms of calm. 
 
 He marked the myriad train of Argos-eyes — 
 
 Orion, noted by the wary Bear, 
 
 Pleiads, and Hyads, and Bootes slow ; 
 
 And saw some kiss the wave ; anon, return, 
 
 And aye renew their fair and featly dance. 
 
 A labour that had nought laborious ; 
 
 An energy whose happy exercise 
 
 Brightened the glad attendants of the night. 
 
 And stimulated effort ; a high hymn 
 
 Pregnant with purpose dimly understood. 
 
 But felt to be all fitting and from gods ; 
 
 To breathe of worthy worship ; to imply 
 
 Melody undulating in the soul 
 
 Of earth and heaven, with vast capacity 
 
 For glorious overflowings. These, the clouds 
 
 In endless change of form, and tint, and mass. 
 
 Unbound and wandering, like our human thoughts, 
 
 And fading off in ever-foiled attempts 
 
 To pile up airy mountains in the void, 
 
 And scale the blue ; the storm, the bow of Zeus — 
 
 All he regarded with a passionate gaze, 
 
 Which darkened as he turned again from heaven
 
 48 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Unsatisfied, the soul of things unsolved : 
 The curtain was the picture. 
 
 Then Tellis bent his searching gaze on earth, 
 
 Listened to Nature in her lowlier ways. 
 
 And strove to read her hymn. The bee that hummed 
 
 Amid the bloom, attracted his regards ; 
 
 The butterfly that flitted joyously ; 
 
 The creeping-thing that knew his own abode. 
 
 And laboured by some law ; yet how and why, 
 
 Unto what end and with what slow result 
 
 Escaped him. On a rocky promontory 
 
 Facing the orient, he would love to sit. 
 
 So motionless and so enwrapped in dream 
 
 Indefinite, and yet both sad and sweet, 
 
 That all earth's lowlier children, bird and beast, 
 
 Ceased to regard his presence. The goat browsed 
 
 Close at his feet ; the sea-mew washed her wings, 
 
 And strutted by in happy vanity. 
 
 Forgetful of all fear. Then, in his soul 
 
 Spake Tellis silently : ' 
 
 ' Ye peaceful things, 
 That do pure service to the blessed gods 
 Unconsciously, or haply consciously, 
 Give me your calm, and take away my pain. 
 Yet, is it pain ? I gaze on the green earth,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 49 
 
 And the bright heaven with rapture ; but, my joy 
 Melts hke a northern snowflake in the sun, 
 Beneath the rays of a supreme desire 
 For a delight intenser. The ripe grape, 
 And all the lower cycle of delight 
 Beloved of man, seem somewhat base and poor ; 
 And but suggestive of immortal fruit, 
 Such as the Toiler won in the far West. 
 Therefore he sits at a high banquet-board ; 
 Crowned effort reaching to the height o' the gods, 
 Sphered evermore in splendour. These around 
 Seek nothing which they do not quickly find ; 
 So are they happy, aye, and innocent. 
 And, yet, my soul-want and unhappiness 
 Is sweeter than their joy. To seek, to strive 
 Age after age ; to see the constant stars 
 Return in marshalled order ; still to seek — - 
 Oh, this were better than to find at once 
 A narrow happiness, though glad and pure : 
 Whether in sunset or in orient clime, 
 A golden apple or a golden fleece — 
 All noble souls must ever have a quest. 
 Yet, what seek I ? No Troia's windy towers 
 Allure me o'er the deep. No battle-clash 
 Tempts my firm sinews to a fierce delight : 
 No solar boat-cup by the ocean-stream 
 Borne to my feet, invites me o'er the main 
 
 D
 
 50 TELLIS AND KLEODEIA 
 
 To a bright western grove. Can we but search 
 When wandering ? Surely not. I, motionless, 
 Gaze in the mirror of my human soul, 
 Then outward ; seeking for the golden link 
 That binds the gods to this daedalian world ; 
 And, yet, the sweet and subtle Unperceived 
 Escapes my spirit ; and I grope as one 
 Enwrapped with curious curtains in his dreams.' 
 Then before Tellis, as he lay and mused, 
 Flitted at times the damsels of the Isle — 
 Zenophila, lonis, Hermonassa, 
 lanthe, Heliodora, and the rest — 
 And cast on him sweet looks and more than kind. 
 But he, unwitting, scarcely saw them pass. 
 Nor noted rosy grace and snowy breast, 
 Light footstep, joyous laughter, and the smiles 
 Which gods have given to girls. His slumbering 
 
 soul. 
 Her wings unfolded and her sense inwrapt. 
 Viewed them, and saw them not ; and so remained 
 Untangled in their tresses, dark or fair. 
 Then the full lip was curled with some disdain 
 At Tellis, and the bright eye flashed contempt. 
 Tinged with vague bitterness for his neglect. 
 What seeks this dreamer with his distant gaze, 
 Narkissos at his fountain ? Vain self-love 
 Which mars a noble presence, or a mind
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBELi 51 
 
 Wayward, and wild, and all untunable 
 To the sweet music Aphrodite loves. 
 
 'Nay,' said Zenophila, 'perchance he aims 
 
 At some Kalypso hidden in the main, 
 
 Forgetful of us poor Penelopes, 
 
 That stay at home, and do as we are bid. 
 
 You are too sun-browned. Girls, not fair enough 
 
 For this nice Orpheus, though without a lyre. 
 
 Best leave him to the vengeance of our queen : 
 
 Hippolytos the second, lo, he seeks 
 
 The margin of the sea. ' I'is destiny ; 
 
 And old Poseidon may produce a bull 
 
 To fright him into fragments. Kypris knows 
 
 How to avenge our smiles on such as he, 
 
 Whilst Artemis is powerless in his cause.' 
 
 So, the fair train, half wrathful, half amused, 
 Trippingly in their pretty petulance, 
 Vanished ; and left grave Tellis to his dreams. 
 Then the youth turned his gaze upon the main, 
 Mother, and nurse, and tomb of mortal men — 
 And listened to the ever-rising hymn 
 Circling the Isle ! 
 
 ' O stormful, sorrowing Sea, 
 Now sullen, throbbing thunder ; now in dirge 
 Expression of all patience and despair ;
 
 52 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Now moaning in thy sleep ; unto what end 
 Wouldst thou attain, and why dost thou lament ? ' 
 
 Then changed his note, exclaiming : 
 
 "Tis not grief: 
 'Tis Doric music, stately, bold, and free, 
 Which varies to a lingering, Lydian lay, — 
 Soft, Seiren singing, sweetly slow and sad.' 
 
 And, then, with sudden bitterness, he cried : 
 
 ' The sea can never change : my changing moods 
 
 Of storm, of hope, of languor, or despair, 
 
 I read into its being. It knows nought. 
 
 Cares nought, feels nought, and echoes nought of 
 
 aught ; 
 And, thus, my soul, entangled in herself, 
 Misreads the world, and takes her vagrant dreams — 
 Her self-reflected phantasies for truth. 
 And Truth is sweetest, bitter though it be ; 
 If we could touch her robe, although the touch 
 Parted the soul to Hades, being too strong 
 For our humanity to grasp and live ; 
 Yet, even so, 'twere better than to dwell 
 Beneath the sway of some entangling lie. 
 But what is Truth ? Why muse upon the world. 
 Forgetful of the hour ? I may neglect
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEL-i 63 
 
 The honest purpose of a homely hfe, 
 Waiting and watching for I know not what. 
 Shall I descend ? Embrace the common fate ? 
 Seek a Zenophila, and rear my brood ? ' 
 
 Down from the rocky promontory, Tellis 
 
 Turned with slow foot ; when, suddenly, the Bird 
 
 That flies unflagging nigh the throne of Zeus, 
 
 Soared on his right ; thrice circled, paused, and then 
 
 Uttered a cry ; and, with aspiring wing. 
 
 Passed towards heaven, and vanished in the height. 
 
 Then, Tellis, to the nobler purpose strung. 
 
 Bent reverently his head, and prayed, and praised ; 
 
 And spake, as teaching his own doubtful soul. 
 
 ' See, how alone, speeds the gods' harbinger 
 
 With tireless flight, towards the lofty home, 
 
 Where, sheened in splendour the Immortals dwell. 
 
 Sail on, brave Bird ! Thy wing uplifts my heart : 
 
 Not purposeless, nor meaningless, nor vain 
 
 Spreads the bold course to shores unknown. For He 
 
 Who scatters through the boundless universe 
 
 His starry host, the moving gems of night, 
 
 And bids them smile and shine, and beacon man 
 
 To the annual changes of an ordered world — 
 
 That Zeus, of whom his off"spring stand in need, 
 
 Of whom all haunts of man are full, and full
 
 54 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 The sounding ocean, and to whom the hymn 
 Unpausing rises through the echoing years ; 
 He who with ease makes strong, and easily 
 Abases mortal might, brings low the great, 
 And with kind increase blesses the obscure ; — 
 This self-same Power shall surely chisel out 
 A harmony of perfect form and thought, 
 Unlabouring in effort, tireless force, 
 Self-sphered, unending, infinite in plan ; 
 Wherein head, heart, affections, will, and wing, 
 Mind's melody. Love's loveliness, and all 
 Which we can dream of fair and good, and more- 
 Shall meet, and that for ever. 'Tis a Power 
 Whose deathless energy will seek, and, finding. 
 Strike from the anvil of the earth and heaven. 
 The lightning sparks of splendours infinite ; 
 Whilst a great Choir peals a triumphant hymn, 
 And Silence is abashed.' 
 
 So, every morning, Tellis watched the east 
 In patient servitude. ' I stand and wait, 
 Wait for a message flung from the Unseen : 
 And, if an impulse bids me thus to stand, 
 An impulse irresistible, then I 
 Am a faint echo of some distant truth, 
 Moved by its sway and flowing with its tide, 
 Which shall unveil her meaning and herself,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 55 
 
 Here, now, or elsewhere in the dim To-come. 
 
 It recks not which, nor where ; for, these bright 
 
 torches, 
 Whose flaming motion cuts the ring of hours 
 From off the measureless azure, the vast soul 
 Of period and space enlinked in one, 
 Have time and times to spare. Soon, late — mere words 
 Whose meaning is so little or so false, 
 That hammers clanging on a bowl of bronze 
 Give out scarce less of reason.' 
 
 Thus he mused 
 And every day felt more of pure content, 
 And every day was more observed of men ; 
 His fellows of the Isle, who said : ' Some god 
 Enwraps his spirit ; let us wait and see.' 
 
 One morn, in summer, when short-swaying Night 
 Hasted betimes, and sped her to her place, 
 Rose Tellis as she set. His eastward gaze 
 Saw a faint streak of silver kiss the blue ; 
 The star of Aphrodite paled and set. 
 And purer, brighter, like Athena queen 
 When flashing light to Sounion, rose the dawn 
 In dewy robe ; behind her sped a wind. 
 Which with shrill voice her cloudy peplos blew. 
 And swept her up to heaven. Lo, from the south
 
 56 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 A galley hasting with a bellying sail, 
 
 Mere speck upon the wave. Tellis' keen sight 
 
 Was rivetted on it, as it grows apace, 
 
 Blown by the friendly gale. On, on it hastes 
 
 With Zeus-sent message from the outer world ; 
 
 And the youth, hearing nothing but his heart 
 
 In passionate throbbing, watched the vessel glide 
 
 Into the haven 'neath his rocky seat ; 
 
 A tiny bay where played the amorous sea, 
 
 And poured caresses on the yellow sands. 
 
 As the ship beached, he hastened from his post 
 
 Towards the place, and waited with bent head. 
 
 Like one who stands a suppliant to a god. 
 
 And then there lightly stepped upon the shore 
 
 A figure all compact of gracious lines ; 
 
 An undulating music, sphered in form, 
 
 Whose virginal presence, as she passed along. 
 
 Like sunbeam on a rich parterre of flowers, 
 
 Drew out from sea and shore their harmonies 
 
 And colour-splendours ; till she moved enshrined 
 
 A gem in Nature's setting, and advanced, 
 
 Glowing with radiance. The fair kosmic world 
 
 Blent with the fairer fountain of her soul 
 
 In joint outpouring ; an ethereal grace 
 
 Girt her with glory, like a shining robe 
 
 And every spot seemed hallowed by her feet.
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 57 
 
 Then Tellis, gazing on her from afar, 
 
 With impulse unimagined till that hour, 
 
 Felt his blood course like flame; his brightest thought 
 
 Of possible delight in all its forms, 
 
 Higher and higher to the height of heaven. 
 
 Outdone in actual being. His dim dreams 
 
 Of what is perfect, faded like a ghost. 
 
 And all his being thrilled with glorious pain. 
 
 What meant those legends of the earlier time, 
 
 How, in the holy watches of the night, 
 
 Selene kissed Endymion. Artemis 
 
 Filled her Orion with imperious love. 
 
 And slew him by her dart. 
 
 ' O happy fate ! 
 And if yon virgin drew a bow at me. 
 How gladly would I welcome the winged death 
 Illumined by her smile. I do forget 
 My steadfastness and purpose. She is come 
 As herald of the gods, with high commands 
 In some bright message. Let me hear and wait, 
 And serve as time may form it.' 
 
 Then he drew 
 Closer, as one who at a sacred fire 
 Warms his high heart to some supreme resolve. 
 Involving noble agony, which to escape,
 
 58 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Is to heroic mind intolerable, 
 
 And worse than lowest death. Meanwhile, the Maid 
 
 Crave a brief space to prayer. Her golden locks 
 
 Streamed like the glory of Chrysokomes, 
 
 As standing stately on the yellow sands, 
 
 She raised her eyes, spread her white arms to heaven, 
 
 And, bowing thrice to Powers unseen, exclaimed, 
 
 ^^'hilst all the morning rang within her voice : 
 
 ' Pervading father Zeus, and ye bright gods, 
 
 Heaven's conclave in the blue, I stand and raise 
 
 Glad hands of adoration, and invoke 
 
 \'our blessing on my purpose and my work. 
 
 And thou, Poseidon, of the steel-blue locks, 
 
 Zeus of the main, who linkest isle with isle, 
 
 Thanks for thy stout sea-horses' crests of foam 
 
 And tireless pace, which our endeavouring souls 
 
 ^^'ould vainly emulate. Then, next to you, 
 
 Gods of the Island, epichorial. 
 
 My suppliant spirit turns. Not in disdain 
 
 Or opposition to your ancient sway 
 
 Come I to Thasos ; but an ambassage 
 
 Sent by the queens of Eleusinian vales, 
 
 Demeter and her Daughter ; and I stand 
 
 Demeter's servitor for evermore. 
 
 So do ye now receive me, Kleobeia ; 
 
 And, lest we should offend, whate'er is meet,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 59 
 
 By hallowed custom duly sanctified, 
 
 It shall be paid. Then, bless me, oh, ye gods ! ' 
 
 They of the Isle 
 Had gathered round her as she stood and praised ; 
 And, by her blinding beauty, and her voice 
 Which played upon the keys of Music's self. 
 Were stricken with such wonder that they knelt. 
 Joined in the prayer, then rose with milder eyes, 
 And proffered service and their country's best ; 
 Whilst the priest bade her welcome in the name 
 Of all the Isle-gods — Tyrian Herakles, 
 Served by Phoinikian Thasos, who bestowed 
 His name upon the region ; Dionysos, 
 A joy to mortals from the glowing east ; 
 With old Seilenos and his Satyr train. 
 
 Then, after graceful thanks, said Kleobeia : 
 
 ' Marvel not that I come ; I spread the light 
 Of Eleusinian torches in the North 
 Not to o'erthrow ; for, as the Morning-star 
 Hinders no Dawn, nor hinders Dawn the Sun, 
 So every measure of eternal truth 
 Clasps its precursor in a close embrace, 
 And fits with perfect and daedalian links 
 To the elder gifts of Time. Not to destroy,
 
 60 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 But to fulfil the purpose of the gods, 
 The expanding story of true life and love, 
 Braided in subtle tissues on the world. 
 Seen by the wise in gleams, and felt by all 
 In variant degree of sympathy, 
 I, Kleobeia, led by holy Fate, 
 And with white sails from Paros speeded here, 
 Am come to dwell amongst ye ; and I stand, 
 Demeter's servitor for evermore.' 
 
 They of the Isle bent themselves reverently, 
 And cried : 
 
 ' Hail, Kleobeia ! Be thou blest ; 
 And whatsoever has been laid on thee, 
 May wind to haven bring it.' 
 
 But it chanced 
 Zenophila and her fair sisterhood 
 Had wandered to the shore, gazing unpleased 
 With curious eyes ; and when the maiden ceased, 
 And the throng answered, bidding her * All hail,' 
 Then the bright circle of the Island maids — 
 A bunch of flowers whose bloom their fragrance 
 
 marred — 
 Smiled each at each and pouted rosy lip. 
 And shot light darts, feathered with pretty scorn, 
 Half jest, half earnest ; for their arrows flew,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 61 
 
 Barbed with soul-venom ; rather pain to itself 
 Than poisonous to others. 
 
 ' See, she stands, 
 All eyes upon her, cynosure indeed ! 
 Methinks immodest somewhat.' 
 
 ' No, lonis ; 
 For do you not perceive she is a man, 
 Posing as goddess ; half or quite profane 
 I call it ; and, whatever we may be. 
 We are not disproportioned, nor desire. 
 Like impious Giants, to reach up to heaven.' 
 
 ' Step somewhat nearer. Do you mark her shoulders ? 
 By Aphrodite, of unequal height ! 
 Why comes she hither ? ' 
 
 ' Doubtless her own kin 
 Could answer that, an they would care to tell' 
 
 So they drew nigh, and strove to scorn, but she 
 Suddenly turned towards them with a smile, 
 And said : 
 
 ' Fair damsels of this kindly soil, 
 I bow myself before you. O, the gods, 
 I see, remember Thasos. Happy men, 
 That holy earth here nurtures ! Whilst I stay,
 
 62 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Enrol me in your joyous sisterhood ; 
 
 Give me your loves, and, Maidens, speed a Maid.' 
 
 Then, whilst they stood abashed, her mariners 
 From sea-chests, fastened by Sarranian cords, 
 Drew goodly raiment, bright with starry sheen ; 
 Embroidered robes Sidonian skill had wrought. 
 The fairest for adornment ; and, with these. 
 Necklace and earrings of the finest gold. 
 And gold and silver bracelets. Then she said : 
 
 ' This golden lion we give Herakles, 
 The common champion of the east and west : 
 This kanthar to your Bakchos, who is shrined 
 At Delphoi with ApoUon, and who stands 
 With Deo at Eleusis. Golden bee 
 And silver arrow are for Artemis : 
 Whilst I, Demeter's own Kistophoros, 
 Will bear her sacred chest.' 
 
 Then, with a smile, 
 She parted gifts amongst them ; and they stood 
 All rosy with confusion and surprise. 
 So, when her gracious courtesy had lent 
 To each new charm from out her ample store, 
 And made the bevy of fair maidens shine
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 63 
 
 With added lustre, like a gem displayed 
 In featlier settings, she rejoiced, and said : 
 
 ' There is no beauty but with beauty blends, 
 As truth Avith truth, and loving soul with soul.' 
 
 But they were tongue-tied, all abashed and sad, 
 
 Nor could find word to thank her. Then she looked 
 
 Upon them softly, with mild, questioning gaze, 
 
 Nor further spake ; until Zenophila, 
 
 A better nature melting through sad eyes, 
 
 Advanced, and kneeling, caught her robe, and cried : 
 
 ' Lady and queen, from some bright outer world. 
 Resume thy gifts. The daughters of the Isle 
 That petulant mocked, because in their lean hearts 
 Rose envy of thy beauty and thy grace. 
 Are all unworthy. Thou hast smitten us 
 With this thy biting kindness to the soul : 
 Pierced through the harness of our self-conceit 
 And shown us what we are.' 
 
 All bowed assent. 
 To whom K'eobeia, with a luminous smile, 
 And wave of her white hand : 
 
 ' O, heed not. Girls, 
 A breath upon the mirror of your love ; 
 It shows true depths to the gazer. I perceive
 
 64 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Hearts full to overflowing, which, when struck, 
 Vibrate responsive to the noblest tones. 
 As Memnon's image answers to the Sun. 
 I come to dwell amid your sisterhood, 
 A handmaid in all sweet and holy ways ; 
 And I, perchance, may teach you how to make 
 The high still higher and the fair more fair. 
 Ye do perceive I love you.' 
 
 Then they all 
 Fell on her neck and kissed her, and were glad, 
 And brightened into sunshine through their tears. 
 Meanwhile, afar, with eye that never strayed 
 From Kleobeia, Tellis stood enwrapt ; 
 And gazed with a dim love that lost itself 
 In boundless reverence. An awful hope 
 Too vast for his humanity to bear, 
 Shot through his soul like lightning, and was gone, 
 But left him trembling ; and he felt her glance. 
 Which rested on him, as she gazed around. 
 Shake, as Poseidon's trident shakes the earth. 
 Then spake the Maiden to her choir of friends : 
 
 ' And who and what is yonder comely youth ? 
 By Loxias, 'tis a man ! Yet, statue-like. 
 On whom our mother Nature has enwrought, 
 With cunning chisel, tumult that is still.'
 
 TELL IS AND KLEOBEIA 65 
 
 Then told they her of Tellis, and his life, 
 
 Lonely and silent, musing o'er the main ; 
 
 And whispered, smiling, of his disregard 
 
 Of the usual sweets of the world, the tricks of 
 
 time ;' 
 But without bitterness, for in their souls 
 The fountains of fresh water bubbling up. 
 Struck from the flint by Kleobeia's touch. 
 Washed bitterness away. The gentler mind 
 Can best discern a purpose of the gods, 
 And so they waited, watching. Kleobeia, 
 Gliding in stately beauty, like a star 
 That touches darkness with a golden smile, 
 And bids it waken, moved where Tellis stood. 
 
 ' Fair youth,' she cried, 'thy sisters of the Isle 
 
 Have dowered me with their love. A stranger I, 
 
 Not wandering purposeless, but hither blown 
 
 By the high mandate of all-holy Fate, 
 
 The breath that sweeps around the throne of Zeus, 
 
 Exciting infinite activities 
 
 That speed to noble goals. Hast thou no word 
 
 Of welcome for a stranger ? ' 
 
 TeUis strove 
 For utterance, but his passionate heart was dumb. 
 Whereat the maiden marvelled, and exclaimed : 
 
 £
 
 66 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 ' So noble, yet so speechless ! ' 
 
 ' O my queen,' 
 lonis whispered, 'thou must surely know 
 He is not an Ixion, who would dare 
 To clasp a goddess, but a mortal man. 
 Into whose vase of being thou hast poured 
 Draught far more potent than the Aiaian meed 
 Of form-destroying Kirke. Her fell cup 
 Struck human glory swineward ; thy bright gift 
 Might shatter such a goblet. Have a care.' 
 
 Then Kleobeia, seeing his great love, 
 Unfashioned in its purpose, vague and vast. 
 Felt her own soul responsive ; but rejoined, 
 With slow sweet speech of calm serenity : 
 
 ' Whether thou speak or no, I do not doubt 
 
 That thy soul answers. Yet is mortal life, 
 
 Whate'er it may be in the time to come. 
 
 Activity and effort ; if a dream 
 
 That leads the dreamer to eternity, 
 
 Still rn our dream we strive, or we should strive, 
 
 To add one note of music to the hymn 
 
 That rises from the world. Dost know, O Youth, 
 
 The present makes the future ? If we are fair. 
 
 Let worthy effort stamp us fairer still. 
 
 How do men call thee ? '
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 67 
 
 ' Tellis,' he replied. 
 
 Then, she, slow smiling with a lingering grace. 
 And dainty movement of her shapely neck, 
 Said, ' Tellis — Telos, dost thou know the end ? 
 Not yet, not here. Arise and follow me. 
 I, Kleobeia, from Eleusinian vales, 
 Come to proclaim the hidden and the goal, 
 And broaden hope and brighten smile ; to cast 
 Fresh sunlight o'er the shadow of the world. 
 And some strange power thou know'st not, may, 
 
 perchance, 
 Change thee, O Tellis, into Telites ; 
 Not silent, but, as musical as wave 
 Kissed by the flying breath of the west wind. 
 Come, then, ye votaries in the race of life. 
 Toss starry torches on from hand to hand, 
 And speed the song, and aid me, vfhilst I strive, 
 Demeter's servitor for evermore.' 
 
 Then many moons she tarried in the Isle, 
 
 And taught Demeter's sacred mysteries ; 
 
 A ritual pure, illumined with all hope. 
 
 She sang the story how the goddess Maid 
 
 In fields Nysaian playing, with her choir 
 
 Of bright-eyed nymphs, the splendours of the world. 
 
 Leukippe, rider of the snowy steed ;
 
 68 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Phaino, apparent loveliness ; Elektra, 
 The Beaming-one ; lanthe, violet-hued ; 
 Sweet Melite, lakche, Bakchos' mate ; 
 The rapid grace of fair Kalliroe, 
 Okyroe, swift-gliding in the dance ; 
 Golden Chryseis, and Ouranie, 
 Daughter of realms on high ; the tresses bright 
 Of Galaxure thrown across the heavens ; 
 And Tyche with her wheel of rolling hours ; 
 A harmony of colour, thought, and tone, 
 Of rippling melody and dainty grace, 
 Of waving arm, and liquid eyes, whose glance 
 Shot innocent lightnings ; suddenly was snatched 
 By the dark Power of sombre mightiness 
 Ruling in shadowed ways beneath the earth ; 
 He plucked her brightness to illume his crypt, 
 Yet all in awful love : and, how the Maid, 
 One smile incarnate, passing through the gloom, 
 Developed strength and majesty supreme. 
 Fitted to rule and reign ; to superintend 
 The patient purpose of slow winnowing pain ; 
 To check the nether turbulence ; to disarm 
 The deathless hate of inharmonious souls ; 
 And to control the ministers whose keen sight. 
 Like sleuth hound, tracks the guilty. Her white 
 
 hand 
 Can stay the pitiless Fury ; her firm voice
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 69 
 
 Bids Chastisement retire, its purpose past, 
 And whispers to the wearied soul of rest. 
 
 Then Kleobeia, traversing those keys 
 
 Of harmony, whose twisted undertones 
 
 Seem half-discordant to the shallower mind, 
 
 Sang how the awful Queen, enthroned, enringed 
 
 By all the guardian terrors of her realm. 
 
 Became the object of an impious hope — 
 
 The mad desire of two heroic souls. 
 
 These, daring all things, plunged to the abyss, 
 
 Blindly to beat their wings against her light. 
 
 And agonise before her. Mortals take 
 
 This greediness of Beauty for true love ; 
 
 And such unhallowed, self-regarding flame 
 
 Would soil the radiant garments of the gods. 
 
 And burn heaven's lights to blackness. Mercy's hand 
 
 Released the Athenian, but his hapless friend, 
 
 Clasped by the stony arms of the nether crag, 
 
 Sits and shall sit for ages. Undisturbed 
 
 Flows on the even purpose of the gods ; 
 
 The queen's untrembling sceptre sways her shades. 
 
 And the eternal chorus chaunts its hymn, 
 
 Through all the murmuring cadences of pain. 
 
 Her lyre struck brighter thoughts : how every loss 
 Is gain of something nobler. How the heart
 
 70 T ELLIS AND KLEOBELi 
 
 That loves, must suffer somewhat ; but will make 
 A covenant with eternal Power, and pray 
 Not all unanswered. How Persephone 
 Rose from the depths at dawn by Hermes led, 
 Poured out her heart upon her mother's breast. 
 Whilst sad Demeter, brightening into bliss, 
 Smiled on the earth, and clad its fertile plains 
 With her own golden robe. And thus the ring 
 Of darkness and of light, of heat and cold, 
 Of summer harvest and of winter snow, 
 Revolves harmonious. How the buried seed. 
 Perchance of wheat or of some other grain, 
 Bursts from its prison into broader life 
 And smiles at heaven. How changes of the form 
 Change not the subtle essence which we name 
 This Me, or Thee ; it springs intensified 
 Gladdening in nobler life. And how the strength 
 Which can be now so strong, the hope so high, 
 The love so lovely, and the soul so fair. 
 Form a sure pledge and promise, sworn by Zeus, 
 And graven high on tablets of the heaven, 
 That, through all ages of the vast To-come, 
 The fair shall grow more fair, the pure more pure. 
 The true more closely kiss the lips of Truth ; 
 The wise more deeply drink at starry rills ; 
 And every hope burst into deathless bloom. 
 A perfect future travels to the soul :
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 71 
 
 The Beautiful that passes with the hours, 
 Shall in its flying transit reproduce 
 In endless pattern the more Beautiful, 
 And that for ever ! 
 
 Then her spirit turned 
 To the dim past and proved her thesis there. 
 How from the depths of Chaos and of Night, 
 Rose form and order, and Titanic power 
 That spent itself in throes, and vanished, leaving 
 A calmer earth beneath the blessed sway 
 Of all the gods who dwell in the wide heaven. 
 She sang of man's first efforts ; of his quests, 
 And questionings, and babblings, vague and vain : 
 And how heroic, much-enduring souls 
 Wrung with slow toil its secrets from the world, 
 Sped east and west, and smote the sea with oars, 
 Rolled back the darkness, and lit dawn on dawn ; 
 And, clashing on the anvil of the earth, 
 Struck sparks of power, illumining the wise 
 To knowledge hidden by the deathless gods. 
 
 Then would she sing of realms beyond the sea, 
 And ancient heroes, whose well-labouring swords 
 Carved the world into kingdoms, crowned themselves, 
 And, diademed for ever, sit and wait 
 In shadowy Hades, whilst all aftertime
 
 72 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Salutes their dim and silent majesty. 
 How, in the misty morning of the world, 
 Rose Babylon in towers ; and every tower 
 An altar flaming to the answering stars ! 
 How far Aigyptos, with her sacred stream, 
 Zeus-born in hidden springs, thought out her 
 
 hopes, 
 And graved her mystic theory of the gods 
 On hardest granite ; energised, and built 
 For Cheops and for Chephren, ancient kings. 
 Her temple-tombs eternal as the world. 
 
 And next she spake of Hellas, and her voice 
 
 Rose in still sweeter music, as she told 
 
 Of our dim sires, half lost in morning light ; 
 
 Of Eastern Kadmos, speeding o'er the sea 
 
 From Sarra, where the riches of the world 
 
 Sparkle and centre ; of Bellerophon, 
 
 And how he fought ; and seemed at length to fail, 
 
 Steed-tossed, and wandering on the Aleian plain, 
 
 In melancholy exile from the gods. 
 
 Yet never can the soul heroic lose 
 
 The last prize of the contest. Far above 
 
 Domain of Tyche and her whirling wheel, 
 
 Justice, high virgin, who has left the world. 
 
 Crowns weary brows with an immortal wreath, 
 
 Where harmony rings full.
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 73 
 
 She sang of Thebes, a shrine of lurid Hght, 
 Whose gates are sacred to the Wandering 
 
 Stars ; 
 Of Oidipous, his wisdom and his woe — 
 And how the bhnd old phantom of a man, 
 Supported by his sweetest daughter's love, 
 Crawled to the grove where Night's fell children 
 
 dwelt. 
 And found no Furies, but Eumenides. 
 At eventide was light : Zeus' thunder rolled 
 All sorrow to oblivion. Theseus knelt 
 With shaded eyes, and saw his aged friend 
 Pass in strange glory to eternal peace ; 
 And offered adoration to the earth. 
 And to Olympos, seat of gods. One prayer 
 Included both for both are ringed by Zeus. 
 O conquered Darkness, where is now thy sway ? 
 Thy victory, Pain, is ended. The tried soul 
 War-worn with many conflicts, lays aside 
 The battered harness and the broken sword, 
 And rests for ever. A succeeding race 
 Untutored by experience, still produce 
 Fresh passion-nurtured pangs. The battle-storm 
 Thundered anew in Kleobeia's strain ; 
 When the fierce Seven, with dread emblazoned 
 
 shields, 
 Dashed to the onset, and the Brothers died
 
 74 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 In undivided hatred ; their sad race 
 Wind-drifted downward to Kokytos' wave. 
 
 Of the stern fortune which attends the Good 
 Entangled with the Evil, next she sang. 
 Amphiaraos, destined to the grave, 
 Foreknowing his own ruin, yet compelled 
 By Fate to dare the hopeless, and consort 
 With god-defying men. Yet, even here. 
 Heaven doth not leave its votaries. Father Zeus 
 Clove the deep-bosomed earth with burning bolt, 
 And hid the hero, and his flying steeds 
 Secured for ever ; whilst his deathless voice, 
 Oracular, still echoes from the shrine 
 Which man, and beast, and bird alike revere. 
 
 And, then, in low sweet music, she proclaimed 
 The story of Antigone ; her love 
 For sire, for brother, stronger far than death 
 And lawless law, and all the general voice 
 That twitters feebly on the tyrant's side. 
 How the fair maid, with bitter wail like bird 
 Lamenting its robbed nest and vanished brood — 
 Drew with white hands and all unused to toil, 
 The clammy Polyneikes, stark and cold ; 
 Gave him to holy earth, and from the urn 
 Thrice with libations crowned the luckless dead ;
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 75 
 
 Defiance to an edict not of Zeus, 
 
 Or Justice, dweller in the height and depth. 
 
 How, dragged before the judgment seat, she dared 
 
 The utmost fury of the perishing slave 
 
 Who thought by proclamation to repeal 
 
 Those laws of the Immortals which remain 
 
 Unwritten and immovable ; not now. 
 
 Nor yesterday, but endlessly they live. 
 
 Originating in a dateless past, 
 
 Beyond the flight of thought. How, led to death, 
 
 In swanlike dirges she outpoured her soul — 
 
 As bride of Acheron, unblessed, unloved. 
 
 With ears that never heard the marriage lay, 
 
 Husbandless, childless, left by fawning friends, 
 
 Her bridal chamber an unhallowed tomb — 
 
 And yet through all, unshaken, firm as Fate, 
 
 Deeming the Dwellers underneath the earth 
 
 Not hostile to her cause : that Mother, Sire, 
 
 And Brother could regard her still as dear ; 
 
 Whilst those great Powers who marshal mortal shades, 
 
 Would meet her with absolving eyes, and give 
 
 Eternal welcome, wondrous strange and sweet. 
 
 She paused, and then continued : ' Love is first, 
 Unconquered in the fight, couched in the cheek 
 Of youthful maiden,' — here lonis smiled — 
 ' Roamer beyond all seas : nor high, nor low.
 
 76 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Escape his sceptre. E'en the blessed gods 
 Are mystically lovers ; but, O Power, 
 Bestowing pain so glorious, purge my soul ; 
 Nor turn it on the common sweets of time. 
 Which burn themselves to ashes. No disdain 
 Of the vast impulse of our happy youth, 
 Be mine, be yours : no scoff at kiss or clasp ; 
 Pandemos may be holy. Yet upraise 
 Your true affections past these mortal ties, 
 And see Ouranie gleaming through the stars, 
 Unspeakable in loveliness ; espy 
 Eternal Beauty waiting to embrace 
 A soul that shall be ever young as she. 
 And they who grasp this guerdon, will not grieve 
 If, missing Kypris, they should find our earth 
 Cold ante-chamber of a glowing shrine.' 
 
 And then her voice rose like a trumpet blast. 
 Recalling Ilion — all its war and wail ; 
 The mighty Agamemnon, king of men, 
 The vainly-striving Hector and his foe, 
 A battle-storm incarnate ; with their trains 
 Achaian, Troian, roaring as the sea. 
 And, then she spake of labouring Herakles, 
 Hight Monooikos,* of the lonely house, 
 
 * Whence the modern ' Monaco.'
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 77 
 
 Which first he built to Hehos in the West, 
 When saiUng in the golden cup o' the Sun, 
 He dared the world's far edge, found light and 
 
 shade ; 
 Persephone's own poplars, and the shores 
 Of dim Kimmeria. * Yet even there 
 Is Leuke, where Achilleus dwells in light ; 
 And that immortal fruit which Herakles 
 Plucked from the jaws of Terror. Do we serve 
 Eurystheus? 'Tis but seeming; we serve Zeus. 
 The petty tyrant passes. The great will 
 That dowers us with this noble servitude, 
 Without which prize were valueless, flows on 
 In broader, brighter volume, and we win. 
 The choric dance, wherein all Nature joins, 
 Both starry ether, and the forms that float 
 Aerial, oceanic, or of earth, 
 A sacrifice and never-ending rite. 
 Wheels round the world with many twinkling feet, 
 In ordered strophe and antistrophe. 
 And those who hear the vast, innumerous tread. 
 Are filled with fire, and shaken to the soul, 
 As Dionysos shakes his native Thebes. 
 And, yet, this rhythmic movement infinite. 
 This glowing circle, this immense desire. 
 Throbs to one central purpose, seeks one goal. 
 Bathes in the crystal fountains of one will,
 
 78 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Sings but one song in ever variant tones, 
 
 Lights myriad torches to illume one truth, 
 
 And lives eterne for One. Then, through the 
 
 dance, 
 In all its mazy windings, fast and far, 
 Or sphered in splendour with the Aithiop queen, 
 Or shadowed by the ways beneath the earth, 
 Lead Kleobeia, Zeus and holy Fate.' 
 
 So many moons she tarried in the Isle, 
 And crept into all hearts. The common folk, 
 Who spent laborious days, and, toiling, reaped 
 The harvest of the sea, or from the earth 
 With patient hand drew simple livelihood, 
 Beheld her as a goddess. Aged priests, 
 Soul-hardened by the custom of their creed 
 Into slack service and mechanical. 
 Mere urns for holding ashes of the dead — 
 Regained lost heights, and felt the sacred fire 
 Rekindle in their hearts. For the great gods 
 Who hide themselves have lent us those they love, 
 To stimulate the earthward-turning mind. 
 Unworthy impulse, and our low regards. 
 Therefore a sweet and starry chain of souls, 
 Diviner texture, dawns upon the world ; 
 And, wound around the common clay of man, 
 Raises from sleep material, retransforms ;
 
 TELLIS AND RLEOBEIA 79 
 
 Then, startling him with his unconscious strength, 
 
 A possibiHty of infinite good — 
 
 Lifts him towards the gods. The children crept 
 
 On Kleobeia's knee, and stroked her locks, 
 
 And, with keen sense of beauty, murmured, ' Oh ! ' 
 
 P'or, they who dower the tiny hand with might, 
 
 To make it Love's own sceptre, have endowed 
 
 The little heart with skill intuitive 
 
 To recognise the Good. As one who knows 
 
 The sculptor's art perceives, amid a mass 
 
 Of carven failures which perpetuate 
 
 The common undertype, a chiselled thought. 
 
 Fragment of form divine, and instantly, 
 
 Joys in its power ; so, little guileless ones 
 
 That have not known world-baseness, recognise 
 
 Heaven's masterpieces, both of body and soul ; 
 
 And chirp and twitter, like a bird in spring. 
 
 Babbling their blessings. Overflowing love, 
 
 Whate'er it suffer, meets an answering stream, 
 
 And both rejoice together. Thus the Maid 
 
 Lived perfumed life. The Manhood of the Isle 
 
 Had died for one sweet look. The damsels saw 
 
 Themselves in Kleobeia glorified, 
 
 Their stature heightened, their true womanhood 
 
 Zoned with a sacred splendour ; like a shrine. 
 
 Which sparkles at the presence of a god. 
 
 While the warm loves that played across their souls,
 
 80 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Beamed from their eyes, and dimpled rosy cheek, 
 Were touched with something hoHer, and became 
 That composite of earth and starry heaven. 
 So high, and yet so human, which we hold 
 True mortal goddess of our vast desires, 
 Pandemos, yet Ouranie evermore. 
 
 Thus reigned and ruled Demeter's servitor : 
 
 But, whilst she gathered sweetness from all 
 
 hearts. 
 Each rosy nymph that sways the flying hours, 
 In passing, shook into the Maiden's soul, 
 A drop of dew from Kypris' myrtle branch. 
 And all for Tellis. At the first she smiled, 
 Deeming these touches sparks of wandering fire 
 Thrown by the hand of tricksy little Loves, 
 Harmless as summer lightning. Still, she saw 
 With ever more of interest, how the Youth, 
 In reverence and noble self-restraint. 
 Virtue and valour, was indeed a man 
 Worthy a heart's devotion. Such a soul, 
 So grandly shrined, so tender, yet so strong, 
 Might circle woman's weakness, aid her strength, 
 Support her footsteps on the rugged path 
 That leads to the seat of the gods. And then she 
 
 frowned 
 In scorn of her own tenderness.
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 81 
 
 Can I, 
 I, Kleobeia, Deo's votary, 
 Self-sphered within my service ; and myself 
 Raised, like the Pythia, from the crowd of maids 
 Whose fate and whose ambition is to serve 
 As wives for men, bear children, live and die — 
 Can I descend from these keen mountain heights 
 Nearer the gods, and nearer to that light 
 Which heaven reflects in some pellucid souls 
 Unstirred by earthly passion ? Can I yield 
 To Aphrodite ? Rather let me pass, 
 Like Pallas, Shaker of the shafts of light, 
 Unclaimed by Eros, to eternal Zeus.' 
 
 But, whilst her soul spoke bravely to itself. 
 Smiled at the touch of Kypris, scorned her swa}'. 
 Planned a bold flight with solitary wing — 
 Love's sweet, soft, baby fingers touched her heart. 
 And that was lost for ever. As the Dawn, 
 All cold, and clear, and virginal, uplifts 
 Calm eyes to heaven, yet, whilst she seems alone, 
 Is thrilling at the rising of the Sun ; 
 Changes her colour, throbs in rosy red, 
 And then, o'ermastered by his burning gaze. 
 Sinks in his arms and dies in ecstasy — 
 So Kleobeia, o'ercome by that great pain, 
 Devoid of which the splendour of our life 
 
 F
 
 82 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Is poor indeed, like flower surcharged with dew, 
 Bent her fair head, and murmured, ' Gods, I love.' 
 
 At length, her work accomplished, came the day 
 
 When she must leave the Island ; seek the shrine 
 
 Of Eleusinian Deo, and report 
 
 Her purpose ended with supreme success. 
 
 The fateful morning dawned ; the barque was 
 
 there. 
 Ready with oar and sail ; a favouring wind. 
 Offspring and gentle breath of the wide heaven, 
 Beckoned the Maiden southward to her goal : 
 And Kleobeia stood beside the sea. 
 Visible sunlight, undulating grace. 
 Awful in very sweetness, a bright link 
 Which joins the tear-stained record of mankind, 
 And binds its weakness and infirmity 
 To the very throne of Zeus. For these great souls 
 That reach heroic stature, live and breathe 
 The ordered strophe and antistrophe 
 Of the choric song of Time ; o'erpower the woe. 
 Beat down the inharmonious, scatter hope 
 Like golden drops of sunlight ; and tears cease, 
 And earthly wailing fades in melody. 
 
 Around her mourned the Isle. ' Oh, stay,' they cried, 
 ' Light, Healing, Helper, Virgin, half divine ! '
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 83 
 
 'Stay with us,' said the Priest; 'illume our shrines, 
 And bring us nearer to the blessed gods.' 
 
 ' Stay with us,' wailed the Old ; ' support our steps. 
 And tell us of that realm beyond the stream, 
 Guiding us to the boat.' 
 
 With agonised hearts, 
 'Stay with us,' groaned the Youths; and children 
 
 plucked 
 At Kleobeia's robe with tiny hands. 
 And wept and prayed her, full of sweet, strange 
 
 power, 
 Which is their gift from heaven, not to forsake 
 The little ones of the Isle who loved her so. 
 Then Kleobeia felt her passionate heart 
 Throb wildly, 'neath the rush of sympathy, 
 And tremble at the shock of human love 
 Outpoured in all profusion. But her soul. 
 Conscious, though dimly, of another fate. 
 Serenely true, drove backward gathering tears ; 
 And calm, and sweet, and steady rose her voice, 
 Amid a silence sad as Niobe's : 
 
 ' O Thasians, who have loved me, whom I love, 
 Who have received me as a messenger 
 From Zeus and from Demeter, never mourn
 
 84 TELLIS AND K LEO B EI A 
 
 The destiny of any. My glad toil 
 
 Here in your Isle, a joyous sacrifice, 
 
 Is over and for ever. Ye possess 
 
 The sacred ritual, with its deathless hopes 
 
 Of infinite advance. These gliding years. 
 
 That pluck our mortal beauty piece by piece, 
 
 With silent, subtle, and remorseless hands, 
 
 Add to the spirit every charm they strip 
 
 From its poor vesture, which we prize so much : 
 
 And, when their task is over, and the Soul, 
 
 A harmony of splendour, stands complete 
 
 In raiment worthy undecaying spheres. 
 
 They gently lead her thither. As for me, 
 
 I go to the appointed. Do not grieve : 
 
 Remember that I loved you ; for your love 
 
 Is as a necklet twined around my soul. 
 
 And resting on my heart. I do not think 
 
 Again on earth to see your kindly smiles ; 
 
 But, if we meet in that supernal world. 
 
 To which all sweetness tends, we shall be glad 
 
 As Love itself can make us.' 
 
 Here she paused 
 And Tellis, who was standing in the throng. 
 With downcast eyes, and silent as a grave, 
 Felt his soul darken. Suddenly there flashed 
 O'er the low brow of the hill, in gliding form
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEL-i 85 
 
 Of ordered strophe and antistrophe, 
 
 The maidens of the Isle — one sacred dance, 
 
 A noble Diple, joyous but serene ; 
 
 From east to west in circling gracefulness, 
 
 Swept the fair forms and sped the rapid feet — 
 
 Theonoe, Ereutho, Rhodokleia, 
 
 lanthe, Hermonassa, Heliodora, 
 
 Zenophila, lonis, and the rest — 
 
 And then from west to east, as the brave Sun 
 
 Ploughs through the Under-world, Orion-like, 
 
 And seeks the eastern wave to gain and give 
 
 Fresh sight to earth and heaven. Still, as they 
 
 danced, 
 Melodious ever rose the choric song, 
 Praising ApoUon and his Artemis, 
 And Hera, who the keys of marriage keeps. 
 And Hermes, and the gods and Nymphs of the Isle, 
 And last the great Demeter. Kleobeia 
 Smiled with delight to see them look so fair, 
 Brighter by their bright service ; the sad crowd 
 Parted before them, and the radiant baud 
 Glided to where the gracious Maiden stood, 
 ,And halted in her presence; whilst their chief, 
 Zenophila, the leader of the train, 
 Bent her fair head before Demeter's Maid, 
 And knelt as to a goddess. Raising then 
 Her dewy eyes towards the beautiful face :
 
 86 T ELLIS AND KLE0BEL4 
 
 * Lady and Queen,' she murmur(;d, ' ere you go, 
 
 The daughters of the Isle, whom you have dowered 
 
 Not merely from your store, but, oh, far more 
 
 From your great hive of sweetness, lacking which 
 
 How poor are mortal charms — pour out their hearts 
 
 Before the shrine of your supremest grace ; 
 
 And tell, as best we can, by these our tears, 
 
 How much we owe you, and how much we love. 
 
 For you have raised our feebler womanhood, 
 
 Taught us our stature, bid us stand upright. 
 
 Seen in the mirror of your glorious soul 
 
 And high revealings, we behold ourselves 
 
 Not merely children, playing with the world, 
 
 Nor yet the petted playthings of a man ; 
 
 But maids whose duty and whose privilege 
 
 It is to join the choric dance of Time 
 
 With sires, and brothers, and still sweeter mates ; 
 
 Work out a noble purpose, hand in hand. 
 
 Supply those strains of music which men lack, 
 
 Till harmony rings full ; and, when the time 
 
 Is ripe for Aphrodite, and the Queen 
 
 Who sits by Zeus pours blessing, change from maids 
 
 To matrons ; mothers of a noble race. 
 
 Worthy our Hellas' love. So, when we fade, 
 
 And pass into the shadow, no regret 
 
 F'or wasted purpose in the time gone by 
 
 May mar our ending. Thus we trust to stand
 
 1 ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 87 
 
 The not unworthy compeers of a man, 
 As Artemis by Apollon, Hera by Zeus', 
 And this we owe to thee. Therefore, O Queen, 
 As we are but poor maids of a distant Isle, 
 Far from those centres where Hellenic life 
 Throbs fullest, and has grander utterance, 
 Accept this tribute of our love ; and think 
 If we had aught more beautiful and fair, 
 It should be yours.' 
 
 She ceased ; the sisterhood 
 Murmured their sorrowing chorus of assent : 
 Then Kleobeia kissed them, and they wept. 
 There was a pause, whilst every heart stood still, 
 And Kleobeia, through all her stately strength 
 In settled purpose, a supreme resolve 
 Upheld by high belief that Fate is well. 
 And triumph certain in the years to come — 
 Beside the pang of pnrting from the Isle, 
 Felt something vague and vast tug at her heart ; 
 Till all her womanhood trembled, and her voice 
 Died into silence. Then, Zenophila, 
 Doubtless some god inspiring, slipt away. 
 Glided where Tellis stood, and took his hand, 
 And led him forward, moving as in dream ; 
 Like some most stately captive barbarous men 
 Are offering to Taurika ; so he
 
 «8 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Passed through the folk to Artemis indeed. 
 And, thus, whilst Kleobeia, one mute surprise 
 In wide-eyed beauty, like the Samian queen, 
 Stood motionless, the quick Zenophila 
 Laid Tellis' hand in hers, whilst all the crowd 
 With one vast heart of honest human love. 
 Broke forth in a great shout ; yet found their joy 
 Commingled strangely with a burst of tears. 
 Then said Zenophila, and as she spake. 
 Bewitching Kypris echoed in her voice. 
 And dimpled in her smile ! 
 
 ' Though poor, O Queen, 
 Thine handmaids can bestow a worthy gift ; 
 A worshipper whose vast and silent love 
 Perchance might move a goddess. It may be 
 The dreaming Tellis still has scorned us Girls ; 
 Yet we forgive him, knowing well the cause ; 
 No traitor he to Kypris, though he seem. 
 Therefore, as still the good must seek the good. 
 Beauty to beauty, and to dawn the sun, 
 Take thou our Tellis : first fruits of the Isle, 
 Thy servitor, and Deo's, evermore ! ' 
 
 She ceased, and all the throng thundered applause : 
 Then Kleobeia, through whose passionate heart 
 And swift intelligence, a storm of thought.
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 89 
 
 Whose rush was half the fuhiess of a Ufe, 
 Had swept as in an instant — her fair face 
 One glory of the rose — renerved her soul 
 With a vast effort, shook herself to calm, 
 And, smiling with Olympian majesty, 
 Still holding Tellis' hand. 
 
 ' O noble Youth, 
 Thy country's grace and strength personified, 
 An offering worthy of a king to the gods. 
 Art thou content to leave these Thasian shores, 
 That bright-eyed choir of beauty, thine old home, 
 And all the memories of love which cling 
 About the spot where first heaven's holy light 
 Dawned on our eyelids, climb the perilous wave, 
 Taking such chance as Time and Fate may bring ? ' 
 
 And Tellis answered with his steadfast eyes, 
 Earnest beyond all tears, and lit with light 
 From vaster possibilities of joy 
 Than earth's poor smiling. Then he bent his head. 
 And Kleobeia, who grasped that full assent, 
 Beholding in it purpose and resolve 
 Beyond all time-shocks, pointed to the ship, 
 Waved him on board, and, turning to the Girls, 
 Again she kissed them, and again they wept. 
 Sorrowing that they should see her face no more.
 
 90 T ELLIS AND K LEO B EI A 
 
 So now, all farewells ended, Kleobeia 
 
 Stretched her white hands in blessing from the deck ; 
 
 Then, as the stout oars smote the summer sea, 
 
 And Boreas, quickly speeding to the south. 
 
 Eager for Oreithyia, drave them fast. 
 
 Vanished the splendours of her gracious form, 
 
 Passed to the unapparent ; as the star 
 
 Of Aphrodite pales in morning heaven. 
 
 Soul-desolate and gazing o'er the sea, 
 
 Yet felt they, through the bitterness of Time, 
 
 A dew of holy influence, pure gift 
 
 Best unguent for the heart. The mournful crowd 
 
 Departed slowly ; last, the choir of Maids, 
 
 Each with the memory of Kleobeia 
 
 As jewel round her neck, resought their homes 
 
 With Sweet uplifted purpose, statelier tread, 
 
 And the great knowledge, born of holy fear. 
 
 That, where the gods have placed us, we should stand 
 
 And do our service ; seeing service true 
 
 Is done within a shrine, and links itself 
 
 To that eternal splendour of all good 
 
 ^^'hich dominates the world. So passed they thence ; 
 
 Blessing to others, they were blessed themselves : 
 
 And still the Thasians tell of Kleobeia. 
 
 Meanwhile, swift speeding, like the circling hawk,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 91 
 
 Her bold barque cleft the main ; the curling wave 
 
 Of the ungarnered, deeply-flowing sea 
 
 Rushed mightily behind. The white sails stretched, 
 
 Filled with the breath of heaven, a wafting wind, 
 
 Glided along the sea-path ; and the oars 
 
 Orderly smote the water, till the grey wave 
 
 Seethed as the strong blades tossed it. Thus they 
 
 sped; 
 Far on the left Saoke soared to heaven ; 
 And rugged Samos, where the Mighty dwell, 
 Frowned on them, guardian of a cult unknown ; 
 Whilst giant Athos, mount of Zeus divine, 
 Loomed on the right, seen dimly through a haze — 
 The veiling garment of the Nymphs of light — 
 Lampetie, clad in long and flowing robe, 
 And Phaethousa with her tresses fair. 
 Fast speeds the barque by Lemnos' smoking isle. 
 Where fell Hephaistos as a flame from heaven, 
 Rekindling earth in answer : and the hours 
 Glided towards the chambers of the West ; 
 And the sun set, and all the watery ways 
 Were darkened, and the Thrakian sea was passed. 
 
 Then the fair chorus of the nightly stars, 
 Bright potentates that seasons bear to men. 
 Flamed from the unapparent. Sank the wind 
 To softer whisper, and the oars were still ;
 
 92 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Whilst all the gods that high Olympos hold 
 
 Shed sleep upon the eyelids of the crew, 
 
 Saving the helmsman. Unsupported heaven, 
 
 The peplos of Harmonia, glowed with eyes 
 
 In Argos splendour. Kleobeia's soul 
 
 Soared through the ether to the lofty home 
 
 Whence Seirios and Orion dart their rays, 
 
 Noting how Night divine, expanded Night, 
 
 Night, daughter of the sky, who starts from heaven, 
 
 Gazes on many places, fills all space. 
 
 And darkness fights with lustre. Gravely glad 
 
 She, 'mid the solemn stillness, standing mute, 
 
 Gazed on the starry labyrinth ; and mused 
 
 If these encircling ever-burning lam.ps. 
 
 In pattern, or, to mortals, patternless. 
 
 Were seen enigma, aspect kosmical. 
 
 Of the eternal, all-pervading mind, 
 
 Root, summit, first, and latest of the gods ; 
 
 Whose operations, lost in shadowy heights 
 
 And depths abysmal, sparkle down the years 
 
 In order with a strange disorder linked, 
 
 Or so it seems to man. Her gladness waned. 
 
 And something of confusion and of doubt 
 
 Stole darkly through her soul ; when, turning round. 
 
 She saw, with sweet confusion, at her side, 
 
 The stately Tellis standing; heard his voice, 
 
 And listened, as we listen to the tones
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 93 
 
 Of one who speaks in a melodious dream 
 Which it were death to wake from. 
 
 ' Kleobeia ! 
 Divinest of earth's daughters, wliom my soul 
 Has mirrored and has imaged from the day 
 When first heaven's light was fair to me ; whom I 
 Have seen in fugitive dreams, whose beautiful form 
 Is Eos risen on noon, beacon and goal, 
 Star Priestess of eternal melody ! 
 Although thou standest, ringed with sacred light, 
 So fair, so pure, so distant from the world — 
 Yet even I, the Isle's unworthy gift, 
 Borne in thy barque, and linked in fate with thee, 
 Am bold through my great love, which dares to die 
 If need be, or to live, or any path 
 Which any mortal or immortal Power 
 Can portion me — to say I love thee, Sweet : 
 And I will love thee through all time. My star, 
 Upon the stars thou gazest : would I were heaven 
 To gaze on thee with all his myriad eyes ! ' 
 
 He paused, and at the passion of his soul 
 The Maiden trembled ; then stood statue-like 
 As Daphne 'neath ApoUon's burning love. 
 Whilst Tellis, like a noble stream that bursts 
 All obstacles, and rushes to its goal,
 
 94 T ELLIS AND KLEOBELi 
 
 Naught heeding, hurrying in impetuous might, 
 Flowed on with force resistless. 
 
 ' Kleobeia, 
 Thy greatness lifts me to the height o' the gods ! 
 My like-unlike, my glorious Oversoul ! 
 Whose sweet resembling difference clasps my heart 
 Subtly to thine, so rounds a perfect arc, 
 And adds to all the music of the world 
 Its choicest theme. Ah, how thy soft hand thrills ! 
 Let me but win thy love ; for, as thy smile 
 Cannot descend on one unworthy, I, 
 If thou wilt love me, shall win all with thee, 
 Who art my hopes personified. With thee 
 Comes every perfect gift ; the bloom of Time, 
 The starry possibilities beyond, 
 And all of sweetness hid in lap of heaven ; 
 Eternal light, and stateliest Truth, advance 
 Past mortal goals, passage of human greatness 
 To a diviner stature. Do I dare 
 Beyond all daring, hope beyond all hope } 
 The venture is too great for fear. Thy love 
 Sweeter than life, more precious than the spoils 
 Brought from the orient by Ketaian men. 
 It must be mine ! But, if I have it not, 
 Ingloriously I will not live. May Fate 
 Summon the deathful spirits of the storm,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 95 
 
 And blast me into chaos ! Speak, my Sweet, 
 Tell me I live, and link my soul with thine.' 
 
 And Kleobeia — she who knew so much, 
 Spake so profoundly, garnered up the past. 
 Queened it within the present, faced the Fates, 
 Mantled in robe of knowledge and of grace — 
 Found not a word to utter ; bent her head, 
 Clasped her white arms around his stately neck, 
 And answered with a burst of happy tears. 
 
 Then Tellis, drawing her beauty to himself. 
 And terror-shaken with excess of joy. 
 Murmured : 
 
 ' My Child, my Goddess, Kleoheia ! 
 Do not so much as whisper. I am glad 
 Beyond all utterance. If I die to-night 
 I shall have touched an agony of joy 
 Which links me with Immortals.' 
 
 Then their lips, 
 Their souls upon them, met ; and holy Night 
 Smiled from the zenith, the divine of heaven, 
 To see such love as this. O sacred hour. 
 When human heart speaks out to human heart. 
 Whilst the sweet wonder of our mortal love.
 
 96 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 So fair, so fragile, so enwrapped with tears, 
 Is echoed by a sweeter voice divine, 
 Promising auguster heights, and ultimate 
 Enthronement 'mid the ever-circling choir. 
 Then sped in silence a long, rapturous pause, 
 A coming, an Eleusis of the end : 
 The night wheeled high, and star and planet passed 
 On spotless paths accustomed. Kleobeia 
 Gently displacing his most gentle arm, 
 Rose to her height, and flashing towards heaven 
 Splendour of radiant eyes, the home of hope, 
 With grave, sweet utterance, raised her lyre and 
 sang : 
 
 ' Sing Kleobeia ! For holy Night on high, 
 The blessed Night that doth to gods belong —   
 
 Sits crowned and throned in starry majesty ; 
 And the full tide of Being, sweet and strong, 
 Welling from depths of everlasting song, 
 
 Pours clearer utterance, now that day is done. 
 
 Rich with the dying love of the expiring Sun. 
 
 ' Sing Kleobeia ! The fragrance of the world 
 Is wafted to the vault ; and the deep blue, 
 
 As speeds our barque with flying sail unfurled, 
 Stoops to embrace the sea's cerulean hue : 
 Noon's fleeting phantoms, faded from the view.
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 97 
 
 Leave the rapt soul to spread her folded wings, 
 And move towards the height of heaven's mysterious 
 things. 
 
 ' Thy voice shall join the never-tiring choir, 
 
 Which rolls throughout all space, towards the 
 shrine 
 
 Where Being's sentient source, ethereal fire 
 Exults in cloudless energy divine ; 
 And, showering on our nature infantine. 
 
 Gifts worthy love, unfolds the patient plan 
 
 By which to reach the goal of stately-statured man. 
 
 ' Sweet echoes call us from a distant place, 
 And spur us on to greet them : we behold 
 
 The flying Perfect, laughing at our chase, 
 
 With words unspoken and with thoughts untold ; 
 No mortal vase her burning wine can hold : 
 
 And, then, we pause with faint and trembling gaze, 
 
 That seeks yet shrinks at sight of unfrequented 
 ways. 
 
 ' The starry Lyre is strung to greet mine own : 
 I shall not sing unanswered, heaven is kind ; 
 
 Fear not, nor sink to querulous undertone ; 
 
 Faint not, but seek, and seeking, thou shalt find 
 The veiled truth. Eternal Mind to mind 
 
 G
 
 ■98 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Dim oracles revealing through all Time, 
 Which bid unceasing hope untiringly to climb. 
 
 ' What we are now is nothing : we shall be 
 
 A music and a memory of delight, 
 Passed through all portals, and allowed to see 
 
 Diviner splendours of the Infinite ; 
 
 Spirits eterne, in featly raiment dight ; 
 For, as Zeus liveth, nought shall ever roll 
 Twixt Kleobeia's love and Tellis' godlike soul 
 
 * Sing Kleobeia ! The moon must wane and pass : 
 Stars pale from heaven, friends leave us, suns 
 depart ; 
 Yet, when we fly, as shadow from the grass — 
 Still shall I know, my Tellis, that thou art 
 Unchanged in changing : and thy glorious heart 
 Is Kleobeia's for ever ! Thou and I, 
 Linked in immortal chain with heaven's high har- 
 mony ! ' 
 
 So, all too quickly the love-dropping hours — 
 Soft, shadowy sheen, with silvery sweetnesses 
 Above, beyond the pleasure of the last — 
 Sped to their place appointed. In the east 
 An impress faint of the undying light 
 Paled Darkness' robe ; and she, with all her train
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 99 
 
 Of adamants, drew back to furthest heaven ; 
 
 A 
 
 Fair Eos, rising, filled her dewy urns, 
 
 Whilst Phospheros returned her smile and died. 
 
 Faster the barque speeds on ; from out the wave 
 
 Apollon's fish in joyous circles leaps ; 
 
 As when the Master of all light and rhythm 
 
 First led his friends to Pytho. Thus they sailed 
 
 Past Skyros, where the bones of Theseus rest, 
 
 And where Achilleus dwelt amid the maids, 
 
 Until they sighted Andros, noted seat 
 
 Of the fair Wine-god, who, from Baktrian walls 
 
 Stormed westward in unconquerable might. 
 
 More pitiless than Ares, and enshrined 
 
 His worship in Kadmeian portals seven. 
 
 So swept they round Euboia with favouring wind. 
 
 Beheld the circlers of the sacred Isle, 
 
 Touched fertile Keos, rounded Sounion's steep, 
 
 And headed for Aigina, whose great king 
 
 Corruptless, with his copesmates rules below. 
 
 Then, as they drew to holy Salamis, 
 
 Spake Kleobeia : 
 
 'The annual time is nigh 
 When at Eleusis, her high sanctuary, 
 Fair-chapleted Demeter, holding state, 
 Reveals to favoured men, and gives to See. 
 Thou must behold, as I beheld, that both
 
 100 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 With knowledge equal and with equal eyes, 
 May stand together, meet the dim To-come, 
 And tread towards the gods. The steadfast soul 
 Should feel no fear of progress dark or bright, 
 Or chthonian, or supernal. Deo's rites 
 Are more than other rituals, as the gods 
 Are greater fhan the heroes. At the end 
 When thou hast passed all portals, and hast seen, 
 I will await thee on the terrace steps 
 That front the orient ; and, dear Love, may those 
 Immortal watchers over mortal men. 
 Who noiseless sweep o'er many-nurturing earth, 
 And scan just judgments and unholy acts. 
 Protect thee to the goal. When we are one 
 In knowledge and in faith, and time has filled 
 The waxing crescent, then — if these poor charms — 
 For body is a suffering of the soul, 
 Fate, burden of necessity, and chain — 
 Attract thee, Tellis, as perchance they may- 
 Si nee heaven has made me fair, they shall be 
 
 thine ; 
 The chaste Demeter's priestess can attest 
 Our plighted faith. I doubt not thine will stand ; 
 And Kleobeia shall bow before her lord. 
 Nay, do not vow, I trust thee to the end. 
 We soon shall reach Phaleron ; when you land 
 Pray in Demeter's temple ; leave me there.
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA lul 
 
 I shall not see thee till the holy night 
 When thou hast passed the portals.' 
 
 Then the Youth 
 Bent his bright head, and answered : 
 
 ' Be it so. 
 Thy soul is with me wheresoe'er I am ; 
 And, when the goddess has revealed her lore, 
 And I have passed the poitals, I will haste 
 To meet my goddess on the terrace steps. 
 
 So the swift ship, her prosperous course fulfilled, 
 Entered Phaleron, where the lovers prayed. 
 Silent in Deo's shrine. Then Tellis left. 
 Obedient to the word of Kleobeia, 
 And sought Eleusis as Elysion. 
 
 The Thasian, his probation passed, and all 
 
 The threshold ceremonial ended, stood 
 
 Without the Telesterion, as alone, 
 
 Enringed with holy Night. Fear not, ye Powers, 
 
 Who touch the humble of the human race 
 
 With healing edges of your starry robes, 
 
 Dmeteira, Kore, and the luminous train 
 
 Of incense-fraught Eleusis, sceptred Queens — 
 
 Fear not that I should raise, with hand profane,
 
 102 J ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 'Y\\ii veil upon your splendours. Zeus-sent dreams 
 
 Restrain the tongue, and sacred silence reigns. 
 
 What may be told of mystic rites we learn 
 
 From Saniian Arignote, whom the mild 
 
 Azesia honours as a Kleobeia, 
 
 Interpreter of light. The double torch 
 
 Beckons approach ; the softly-rising hymn 
 
 Breathes heavenly harmony, and the poor world 
 
 Of outer sense and stuff material fades ; 
 
 Whilst the true soul, whose finer instincts rise 
 
 Through the external up towards the seat 
 
 Of blessed Potencies, beholds their sphere 
 
 In one swift span from past to future. This, 
 
 Pregnant with promise; of diviner days 
 
 In brightening undulation. Yet he sees 
 
 Not actual reality, but the True, 
 
 The poem of existence, the high will 
 
 Of all-controlling, vast Benevolence, 
 
 In a dream aspect; partly born of earth, 
 
 And partly borrowed from the realm beyond, 
 
 Whence flash the apparitions of the gods. 
 
 And come these subtle utterances, high words 
 
 In meaning manifold, deep logogriphs. 
 
 Which He who wears the purple diadem. 
 
 And the supremest wreath of myrtle, scatters 
 
 Amid the light and glory of the scene. 
 
 Then, as the darkness died, and golden beams.
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 103. 
 
 Breathing of perfume, showed the mystic realm, 
 
 The drama flowed through all its sheeny links, 
 
 That flash forth Nature ; Nature, as it joins 
 
 With the high gods ; for all the mysteries 
 
 Have one intent — to knit us with the True ; 
 
 Which, being as it is, is free from change. 
 
 Yet grandly changing to the broader mind 
 
 From splendour unto splendour. He who sees- 
 
 The outward show, perceives to such extent 
 
 As his own likeness unto loveliness 
 
 Is strong to aid him ; for true vision lies 
 
 In real similarity betwixt 
 
 Perceiver and perceived. So the pure soul 
 
 Of Tellis drank with an immortal thirst 
 
 For highest beauty, at these sparkling springs ; 
 
 He pierced the luminous shadows, saw the Maid 
 
 Playing in Nysa, 'mid her gleaming choir. 
 
 Snatched to abysmal depths, to reappear 
 
 In splendour unapproachable ; the quest— 
 
 Dark-robed Achaia wandering o'er the earth. 
 
 Lifting in vain the ever-blazing torch, 
 
 Until she paused beneath the stately home 
 
 Of Eleusinian Kelios ; saw the Queens 
 
 In reunited ecstasy of love ; 
 
 The Mother press to her immortal heart 
 
 Her blossom of a Daughter, and high peace 
 
 Reign betwixt god and god ; then saw the cult
 
 104 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Taught by the goddess to the men of old — 
 
 Eumolpos' might, horse-pricking Diokles, 
 
 Triptolemos, the law-delivering king — 
 
 Whilst all the happy earth, weighed down with flowers, 
 
 Laughed in the sunshine, waved her golden hair, 
 
 And sang Demeter's praises. Blest is he 
 
 Of mortals who beholds the glorious truth : 
 
 A better fortune waits him 'neath the gloom ; 
 
 With open eyes he sees, and he attains. 
 
 The dog-shaped furies of terrestrial life 
 
 Pass into nothing, and the sleep of sense 
 
 Is lost in high awakenings. 
 
 Night rode high 
 When Tellis, all the portals past, and all 
 The ritual ended, dowered in soul with light. 
 One smile incarnate, sought the terrace steps 
 That front the orient. Did Perephoneia 
 Await his coming ? Surely one as fair. 
 Kore Soteira's self she seemed ; her brows 
 Bore diadem that flashed with starry light 
 Upon the sacred corn-wreath ; pendent gems 
 In either shapely ear, gave answering gleams 
 To lustre from a necklace, such as graced 
 Harmonia's charms in Thebes. Her luminous eyes 
 Shot summer lightnings through a flowing veil 
 Diaphanously delicate ; her white robes
 
 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 1()5 
 
 Shrouded a shrine indeed, the gate o' the gods, 
 The portal of all ecstasy, fair and pure 
 As the blue firmament, whose spotless sheen 
 Conceals divinest splendours ; whilst her voice, 
 Rich with the music wafted us in dreams 
 From regions with more melody, sighed : 
 
 ' Come, 
 O come, Beloved ! I await thee here, 
 My Lord and King, my Partner and mine Own 
 In knowledge and in faith. My utmost soul 
 Is thine in holy love, as thou art mine ; 
 And, when to-morrow's sun shall kiss the wave. 
 We two will stand together, thou and I, 
 Before Demeter's priestess, clasp our hands. 
 For Marriage is the end, and, with one soul. 
 Tread upwards to the gods. On this fair night. 
 Whilst the bright brotherhood of starry heaven 
 Smile on us from the vault, and the warm breath 
 Of the sweet, dying wind enwraps us, we — 
 A maiden and her lover — will be glad 
 In happy vigil never known before. 
 And never to return. I do not doubt 
 Of all the love and loveliness to come ; 
 But this one phase, this instant of our lives 
 Pure in its passion as can be the kiss 
 Of brother and of sister, yet a love
 
 106 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 
 
 Transcending theirs, as heaven is more than earth, 
 
 It is so sweet, my TeUis, I could kneel 
 
 And thank Eternal Goodness, with a heart 
 
 Stilled by intensest feeling into calm 
 
 More powerful than most passionate utterance 
 
 That ever burst from soul.' 
 
 To whom the Youth, 
 Tremulous with his weight of happiness. 
 Murmured : 
 
 ' If all the flaming wheels of Time 
 Stopped, and for ever, on this sacred night, 
 And made it an eternity ; the stars 
 Burning for aye above us, and thine eyes 
 Answering to all the tumult of my soul, 
 Tellis were well content. 'Twere heaven enough, 
 My Bride, for me.' 
 
 He took the soft, white hand. 
 And drew her beauty to him ; she upturned 
 Her yielding loveliness, and their two souls 
 Kissed like Immortals, then were still as death ; 
 Whilst those eternal beacons in the blue, 
 Love-lighted, lighted love. 
 
 Then, Kleobeia, playing with his hair, 
 Which blent with her own tresses :
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA lOT 
 
 ' See, mine Own, 
 Yon starry labyrinth, serene and high, 
 Whose gleaming mantle veils divinest Truth ; 
 From times Ogygian glowing still the same. 
 What is the pattern of immortal Mind 
 Which runs throughout its tissues ? Are there 
 
 depths 
 Far in the azure, eye has never seen ? 
 Infinite maze of beauty ! I aspire 
 To taste the chalice of that deathless life 
 That feeds thine energy. O flying Time, 
 Marked by the transit of yon flaming worlds ! 
 O space, the temple of eternal God, 
 The soul of Kleobeia bids ye hail ! 
 For I, and Love, and Tellis, we are one, 
 And lift one soul towards you ; whilst ye smile 
 Serenest benison, as on a shade 
 Led by our Hermes from the right hand o' the pyre 
 To Rhadamanthys ! Aye, and all things flow ; 
 The stormful, mortal race across the earth 
 Bursts passage, conquers, and is lost to sight 
 In sometime darkness : yet behind, beyond, 
 High Truth and Justice, Victory and Love, 
 Sit crowned and throned ! O hidden world of light, 
 Whose dimmest jewels, flung to mortal ken. 
 Shine like Arcturus yonder, we are thine ! 
 Thy votaries and aspirants we burn,
 
 108 T ELLIS AND KLEOBEL-1 
 
 And, when our mortal mantles fade and fall, 
 Receive thy Children ! ' 
 
 Tellis whispered : ' Pray, 
 My glorious Priestess, pray that holy Love, 
 As he has led us hither, step by step. 
 From far Odonis ; joined our hearts and lives 
 For some fair purpose, veiled in kindly light. 
 May grant us of his sweetest and his best, 
 Through all the blossoming years.' 
 
 Then Kleobeia : ' Give us of Thy best ! ' 
 
 ' Yea, of Thy best,' said Tellis. 
 
 One white arm 
 Was stretched towards the majesty of heaven, 
 Her other hand was locked in his ; her face 
 Fixed on the dwelling of the blessed gods. 
 Far above storm, and care, and canker, and the loss 
 Which we call change, was radiant with a hope 
 That raised her beauty to such loveliness 
 As cannot rest on earth. The temple-star 
 Ascendant in the orient's midnight blue, 
 Blazed on them like a sun. Their two young hearts 
 Beat with one note ; their twin and passionate souls, 
 Blent in desire stronger than time or death,
 
 TELL IS AND KLEOBEIA 109- 
 
 With tremblings born of rapture half perceived, 
 Unfolded wings immortal ; and upstood, 
 Poised on life's verge. Their quickened sense per- 
 ceived, 
 Though faint and far, that harmony of song 
 Which echoes through the spaces of the night 
 Up to the everlasting doors. And, thus. 
 The tide of music flowing ; on their eyes 
 Eternal splendour breaking ; hand in hand, 
 Robed in their love and in their loveliness, 
 Without the ripple of a passing pang — 
 One perfect passion of immortal prayer. 
 They died before the God ! 
 
 ' Oh, Myro, Myro 
 
 Myro's sweet voice was silent, and the scroll 
 Slid from her slender fingers to the ground. 
 But, young Deinomache— an April morn — 
 Burst into tears, and clasped the gentle hand. 
 Yet Myro answered not. Her far-off eyes 
 Gazed into distant mysteries, and sought 
 Vainly, it seemed, for answer ; and a storm 
 As if Athena shook her aigis-fringe — 
 Swept o'er her spirit, and cast sombreness
 
 110 TEL LIS AND KLEOBELi 
 
 Upon the solemn beauty of her face : 
 And the girl looked in wonder, mixed with dread, 
 To see it darken. Thus a moment passed 
 That seemed an aeon : then the conquering soul 
 Shook her wings free, and grasped the nobler hope- 
 That never-failing weapon, whose bright point 
 Carves out a passage to eternal God 
 Through doubt and darkness ; and, upon her face. 
 There broke the radiance of a glorious smile. 
 Such as lights heaven and earth. Deinomache 
 Gazed as upon a goddess. Then, once more 
 Spake Myro, and her utterance, grave and sweet. 
 Thrilled to the soul, serene as highest Fate ; 
 A splendid passion, whose supreme control 
 Was godlike in its strength ; instinct with love, 
 Yet love made perfect in diviner light. 
 The discord, born of seeming failure, fled ; 
 And the warm Eros, who, we dreamed, had died. 
 Stood smiling tendernesses infinite. 
 
 ' Yes, died before the God — the Power who reigns 
 And rules triumphant through all shocks of Time ; 
 The Master of Love's loveliness ; the One — 
 The God Unknown, whose offspring we must be. 
 Who speaks in silence clearer than in sound. 
 He says, I am ; and we — His thirsty babes — 
 Yearn for the river of eternal love,
 
 TELLIS AND KLEOBEIA 111 
 
 And feel towards the beauty that 'tis death 
 
 To gaze on. But, that phantom of the dark — 
 
 Most useful in his office — cannot scare 
 
 The true God-seeking Soul. The river, reeds, 
 
 And ferryman, and fish are nought. The Two, 
 
 TelHs and Kkobeia, happy still, 
 
 And ever brightening in a broader bliss, 
 
 Pass through all portals to unmeasured peace.' 
 
 ' Oh, it is sweet, but exquisitely sad ! ' 
 
 ' Aye, my Deinomache, I know thy thought. 
 
 Love and be loved, and let thy radiant eyes 
 
 Flash gleams like Aphrodite from the sea. 
 
 Be happy mother of a lion's whelp ; 
 
 Reign more than queen : but, know, my comely Girl, 
 
 That through the ages, dotted here and there. 
 
 Sweet stars that will not bide the heat of day — 
 
 There are some souls, some lamps of purest fire. 
 
 Whom the gods cull to grace that fairer world. 
 
 Ere Time and all Time's littleness have dashed 
 
 Their virginal freshness. They are Love's indeed : 
 
 His kiss awakes them to immortal life ; 
 
 They see his face, and they can ask no more. 
 
 He who has all is satisfied, and these 
 
 Nor marry, nor arc married. It is well' 
 
 1895-
 
 TO MR. AND MRS. GLADSTONE ON 
 THEIR GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 
 Time ruined Paphos, but his rolling years 
 Make love burn brighter ; fifty winters chill 
 And fifty summers, bringing good and ill, 
 
 Almost two generations' hopes and fears, 
 
 Pass into history ; and yet our ears 
 
 Receive the magic of thy voice, and thrill 
 The nation's hearts. Fortunate statesman still 
 
 Close at thy side the loving wife appears. 
 
 If love can bloom so fair and last so long, 
 Shall we not trust it on our future quest. 
 And deem the better can but bring the best ? 
 
 That lovely song must herald lovelier song ? 
 
 So linked in golden bands, serene and strong 
 Ye view the happy splendours of the West. 
 
 July, 1889. 
 
 H
 
 3n /Iftcmoriam 
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, 
 POET LAUREATE. 
 
 See, the stately poet-prophet, he whose voice for sixty 
 
 years, 
 Sweet, sonorous, patriotic, echoed through the nation's 
 
 ears ; 
 With his Hfe-work all accomplished, sung the song and 
 
 fought the fight, 
 Whilst the noblest souls attest him as a true and stain- 
 less knight, 
 Folds his warrior's mantle round him, yields at length, 
 
 as all must yield, 
 And, by death proclaimed immortal, lies triumphant 
 
 on his shield. 
 What a vista since the morning, since his earliest lays 
 
 were sung, 
 Novel melodies and magic, when the century was 
 
 young, 
 Vivid hope and faith of springtime ! Evermore will 
 
 men recall 
 How your rainbow hues and splendours scintillate 
 
 round Locksley Hall !
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 115 
 
 And, if years had chased some colour from the glory 
 
 of that sky, 
 If the world had grown more sombre to the more 
 
 experienced eye ; 
 Yet, remember that the Poet's faith in faith, and love, 
 
 and truth, 
 Did but deepen with the shadows, mightier even than 
 
 in youth ; 
 And, whilst wotting well the darkness which enwraps 
 
 the struggling soul, 
 Knew that everlasting splendour is triumphant at the 
 
 goal ! • 
 
 When his friend had passed the portal, how his spirit, 
 
 pure and strong, 
 Faced the myriad doubts of sorrow, vanquished in 
 
 melodious song : 
 Though the loved one died at sunrise, who a fairer 
 
 fate can find ? 
 Since, in sweetest aromatics, lies he evermore en- 
 shrined. 
 How our Poet loved his country ! How he drew the 
 
 perfect king, 
 Striving 'mid the world's wild winter to advance the 
 
 touch of spring ; 
 Scorned, betrayed, deceived, forsaken, yet forgiving, as 
 
 he goes 
 To that last stern sunset battle with his more than 
 
 mortal foes ;
 
 116 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 
 
 Call him Arthur — such a figure melancholy, sweet, 
 
 sublime, 
 Shows the hero's godlike struggle with the agonies of 
 
 time. 
 How our Poet bade us Britons, true to country and 
 
 to throne, 
 With a soul unscared by danger, evermore to hold 
 
 our own. 
 How he loved our English Harold, dauntless when 
 
 the Norman came ; 
 How- he loved our gentle Cranmer, more than victor 
 
 in the flame ! 
 How he viewed the shadowy ages with the poet's 
 
 mystic sight, 
 Caught the Mantuan's subtle fragrance, grasped old 
 
 Homer's ocean-might : 
 Every phase of life and being endless harmony im- 
 parts ; 
 Sought he Nature, till the goddess took him to her 
 
 heart of hearts, 
 Showed him secrets of her magic, taught him of her 
 
 inmost ways. 
 Twined around his lofty forehead coronet of deathless 
 
 bays. 
 Time was gentle — eighty winters could not tire his 
 
 soaring flight : 
 Still his bow shot shafts of splendour through the 
 
 darkness of the night.
 
 POET LAUREATE 117 
 
 But there comes a day when mortals from mortahty 
 
 must part ; 
 To the sacred Abbey bear him — lay him down on 
 
 England's heart — 
 There to rest amid her great ones, not a merely formal 
 
 fame, 
 But a memory that shall help us, and an everlasting 
 
 name. 
 Now, whilst Britain stands in sorrow, gazing on the 
 
 broken lyre, 
 Special joy and special sadness fit the Poet's native 
 
 shire ; 
 Well he knew us, well he drew us, never can our 
 
 hearts be cold, 
 We his humble kin who loved him, children of the 
 
 fen and wold : 
 . Dwellers where the fane of Lincoln high uplifts her 
 matchless crest. 
 Where the stately tower of Boston stands a beacon in 
 
 the west, 
 Where, beside the placid Welland, Stamford's ancient 
 
 buildings lie, 
 Where old Barton's hoary churches tell the tale of 
 
 long gone-by. 
 He shall stand in our Valhalla with our greatest past 
 
 and gone ; 
 Langton, who the Charta wrested from the tyrant 
 hand of John ;
 
 118 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 
 
 Newton, whom divinest wisdom folded in a grand 
 
 embrace, 
 Who revealed the mind Almighty to the furthest 
 
 depths of space ; 
 Souls made perfect, they for ever with immortni 
 
 beauty dwell, 
 Such as these, our county's heroes, such as these 
 
 shall greet him well. 
 See, the gentle moonbeams faUing, as he lies there, 
 
 calm and pale. 
 Wrap him in their silvery splendour, earnest of the 
 
 heavenly Grail ; 
 No unquiet bar was moaning when his Pilot, through 
 
 the night, 
 Led his soul across the waters to the everlasting light ; 
 Where the poet's song is perfect, where the poet's 
 
 hope is crowned. 
 Where the world's discordant echoes perish in melo- 
 dious sound ; 
 Thought is music, music rapture, rapture love, and 
 
 love divine : 
 And the harmonies eternal, deathless Singer, shall be 
 
 thine ! 
 
 October, 1892.
 
 NEW YEAR'S HOPES. 
 
 Annus the year is Annulus, 
 
 A ring of solar gold ; 
 Both joy and sorrow come to us 
 Entwined around its fold : 
 Heart sing free 
 On the land or the sea, 
 And the singers unseen shall respond to thee. 
 
 Two angels in the heavens' employ 
 
 Bore gifts, then passed again ; 
 And he was grave who left a joy. 
 He smiled who gave a pain : 
 Heart take these, 
 Whether bitter or ease, 
 And thy bark shall not sink in the stormiest seas. 
 
 The Inharmonious dies away, 
 
 The golden solar ring 
 Rolls onward to the perfect day 
 Where all the Muses sing : 
 Heart, no fear, 
 For the true and the dear 
 Shall be joyous at last in that glad New Year. 
 
 December, 1888.
 
 LIGHT AT EVENTIDE. 
 
 One more shadow on the dial, 
 One year less of storm and trial, 
 Patient hope and self-denial 
 
 For life's guest. 
 
 And the trusting soul unshrinking, 
 With submissiveness is thinking 
 Of the glory slowly sinking 
 
 In the west. 
 
 Still the sun in heaven is shining, 
 Yet his course may be declining. 
 And he leaves without repining 
 
 Earthly jars. 
 
 Though, the evening gateway nearing. 
 We may see a radiance cheering, 
 In the silent, sweet appearing 
 
 Of the stars. 
 
 Grant, life's path be somewhat shaded, 
 Grant, its brightest hues have faded, 
 There's a bloom dies not as they did 
 
 In the past.
 
 THE DEATH-STROKE 121 
 
 For love's Lord and high Defender, 
 Who preserves its blossom tender, 
 Shall reveal the flower in splendour, 
 
 At the last. 
 
 December 31, 1893. 
 
 THE DEATH-STROKE.* 
 
 'TwAS the sunny Syrian sea 
 Off the coast of Tripoli, 
 
 And the ironclads of England were at play 
 While their mimic thunder rent 
 With its roar the firmament, 
 
 As they formed and they manoeuvred in the bay 
 For our navy is the pride 
 Of that sea without a tide. 
 
 And our home is on the deep amid the spray. 
 
 Something terribly amiss 
 
 In a moment ! That or this, 
 
 Man or mechanism? Well, I do not know : 
 On the gallant flagship came. 
 Quick as stroke of lightning-flame 
 
 * Appeared in The Academy.
 
 122 THE DEATH-STROKE 
 
 Or the giant rush of tempest, such a blow 
 That, her harness rent, she liowed ; 
 And, a mighty iron shroud, 
 
 With her Admiral and crew she sank below ! 
 
 Do you deem they should have died 
 On a fierce and reddened tide, 
 
 In the fury and the glory of the fight? 
 With the ensign shot to rags. 
 And with striking of the flags 
 
 Of the foemen on the left and on the right ; 
 With brave rescue from the wreck. 
 And wild cheering on the deck. 
 
 That Britannia had not parted with her might ? 
 
 Be such glory what it may. 
 Yet I venture still to say 
 
 That these shall not lose their guerdon or their 
 fame, 
 Though they died without a blow : 
 \Vell, the Highest— died He so ; 
 
 And our land shall shrine their memory and their 
 name : 
 For the man who, in the host, 
 Is death-stricken at his post, 
 
 ' It is finished,' may triumphantly exclaim !
 
 IN ROSAE HONOREM 12:; 
 
 There is grief for me and you : 
 But for Tryon and his crew 
 
 Happy future, as was honour in the past'; 
 Though the Admiral no more 
 May hear wind or water roar, 
 
 Though his sailors cannot battle with the blast, 
 For, the Pilot of all seas. 
 He will welcome souls like these. 
 
 And shall guide them to fair haven — land at last \ 
 
 June. 1893. 
 
 IN ROSAE HONOREM.* 
 
 It was at Thebes, the wedding-day 
 
 Of Kadmos and Harmonia ; 
 
 And all the Gods were there to grace, 
 
 And all the Muses there to sing, 
 And all the little Loves that chase 
 
 The hidden sweetness of the Spring, 
 Hastened o'er earth and air and sea, 
 To join in praise of Harmony — 
 
 Divine, diviner Harmony. 
 
 * Appeared in The Academy.
 
 124 IN ROSAE HON REM 
 
 Her lord in golden vestment dight, 
 
 Her form the starry splendours deck ; 
 For necklace fair, the gift of Night, 
 
 Adorned the beauty of her neck. 
 I know this tale that men were telling, 
 
 Speaks of the world in ordered grace, 
 As acted song and stately dwelling. 
 
 Fit home for an immortal race ; 
 Where all the varied parts that be 
 Inspire a note of harmony — 
 
 Divine, diviner Harmony. 
 
 But yet, the basis of the whole 
 Is noble love of soul for soul ; 
 Beyond the sway of stormy weather, 
 
 Untouched by shock of mortal jars, 
 Where two clasp hands and stand together, 
 
 And conquer darkness like the stars ; 
 Whilst the sweet claims of me and thee 
 \\'ake myriad strains of harmony — 
 Divine, diviner Harmony, 
 
 So, Kadmos, take thy Theban bride, 
 Harmonia, ever fair and young ; 
 
 But us the Gods have not denied 
 
 The sweetness which their poets sung :
 
 TIME AND LOVE 12a 
 
 For, in our garden Love will stray 
 
 To waken from their calm repose 
 A thousand flowers, that make it gay. 
 
 And this fair morning culls a Rose ; 
 Bound in bright chain, yet ever free, 
 The two a Hnk in harmony — 
 
 Divine, divinest Harmony ! 
 
 October, 1894. 
 
 TIME AND LOVE.* 
 
 Sly old Time took little Cupid, 
 Tied a kerchief o'er his eyes ; 
 
 Turned him round, exclaiming, ' Stupid, 
 Tell me where your true love lies.' 
 
 Long as moons shall shine above, 
 
 Time will play his tricks on love. 
 
 Cupid, of his power reminded. 
 
 Showed old Time what he could do ; 
 
 And, that though his eyes were blinded,. 
 Yet his heart would guide him true. 
 
 Long as suns the heaven shall climb, 
 
 Love will foil the tricks of Time. 
 
 June, 1892. 
 
 * Appeared in The Academy.
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 
 London and Edinhtrs^h.
 
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