III.
Sprung from the blood of Israel’s scattered race, At a mean inn in German Aarau born, To forms from antique Greece and Rome uptorn, Tricked out with a Parisian speech and face,
Imparting life renewed, old classic grace; Then soothing with thy Christian strain forlorn, A-Kempis! her departing soul outworn, While by her bedside Hebrew rites have place,--
Ah! not the radiant spirit of Greece alone She had--one power, which made her breast its home. In her, like us, there clashed, contending powers,
Germany, France, Christ, Moses, Athens, Rome. The strife, the mixture in her soul, are ours; Her genius and her glory are her own.
_WORLDLY PLACE._
_Even in a palace, life may be led well!_ So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,
Our freedom for a little bread we sell, And drudge under some foolish master’s ken Who rates us if we peer outside our pen,-- Matched with a palace, is not this a hell?
_Even in a palace!_ On his truth sincere, Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; And when my ill-schooled spirit is aflame
Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, I’ll stop, and say, “There were no succor here! The aids to noble life are all within.”
_EAST LONDON._
’Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, And the pale weaver, through his windows seen In Spitalfields, looked thrice dispirited.
I met a preacher there I knew, and said,-- “Ill and o’erworked, how fare you in this scene?” “Bravely!” said he; “for I of late have been Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread_.”
O human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light, Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow,
To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam,-- Not with lost toil thou laborest through the night! Thou mak’st the heaven thou hop’st indeed thy home.
_WEST LONDON._
Crouched on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square, A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.
Some laboring-men, whose work lay somewhere there, Passed opposite; she touched her girl, who hied Across, and begged, and came back satisfied. The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.
Thought I, “Above her state this spirit towers; She will not ask of aliens, but of friends, Of sharers in a common human fate.
She turns from that cold succor, which attends The unknown little from the unknowing great, And points us to a better time than ours.”
_EAST AND WEST._
In the bare midst of Anglesey they show Two springs which close by one another play; And, “Thirteen hundred years agone,” they say, “Two saints met often where those waters flow.
One came from Penmon westward, and a glow Whitened his face from the sun’s fronting ray; Eastward the other, from the dying day, And he with unsunned face did always go.”
_Seiriol the Bright, Kybi the Dark!_ men said. The seer from the East was then in light, The seer from the West was then in shade. Ah! now ’tis changed. In conquering sunshine bright The man of the bold West now comes arrayed: He of the mystic East is touched with night.
_THE BETTER PART._
Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, How angrily thou spurn’st all simpler fare! “Christ,” some one says, “was human as we are; No judge eyes us from heaven, our sin to scan;
We live no more, when we have done our span.” “Well, then, for Christ,” thou answerest, “who can care? From sin which Heaven records not, why forbear? Live we like brutes our life without a plan!”
So answerest thou; but why not rather say,-- “Hath man no second life? _Pitch this one high!_ Sits there no judge in heaven, our sin to see?
_More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!_ Was Christ a man like us? _Ah! let us try_ _If we then, too, can be such men as he!_”
THE DIVINITY.
“Yes, write it in the rock,” Saint Bernard said, “Grave it on brass with adamantine pen! ’Tis God himself becomes apparent, when God’s wisdom and God’s goodness are displayed;
For God of these his attributes is made.”-- Well spake the impetuous saint, and bore of men The suffrage captive: now not one in ten Recalls the obscure opposer he outweighed.[9]
_God’s wisdom and God’s goodness!_ Ay, but fools Mis-define these till God knows them no more. _Wisdom and goodness, they are God!_--what schools
Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore? This no saint preaches, and this no Church rules; ’Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.
_IMMORTALITY._
Foiled by our fellow-men, depressed, outworn, We leave the brutal world to take its way, And, _Patience! in another life_, we say, _The world shall be thrust down, and we upborne_.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn The world’s poor, routed leavings? or will they Who failed under the heat of this life’s day Support the fervors of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun; And he who flagged not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing,--only he, His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
_THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID._
_He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save._ So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried,[10] “Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave.” So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, The infant Church! of love she felt the tide Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave.
And then she smiled; and in the Catacombs, With eye suffused but heart inspired true, On those walls subterranean, where she hid
Her head ’mid ignominy, death, and tombs, She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew-- And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.
_MONICA’S LAST PRAYER._[11]
“Ah! could thy grave at home, at Carthage, be!” _Care not for that, and lay me where I fall! Everywhere heard will be the judgment-call; But at God’s altar, oh! remember me._
Thus Monica, and died in Italy. Yet fervent had her longing been, through all Her course, for home at last, and burial With her own husband, by the Libyan sea.
Had been! but at the end, to her pure soul All tie with all beside seemed vain and cheap, And union before God the only care.
Creeds pass, rites change, no altar standeth whole. Yet we her memory, as she prayed, will keep, Keep by this: _Life in God, and union there!_
LYRIC AND DRAMATIC POEMS.
_SWITZERLAND._
I. MEETING.
Again I see my bliss at hand, The town, the lake, are here; My Marguerite smiles upon the strand,[12] Unaltered with the year.
I know that graceful figure fair, That cheek of languid hue; I know that soft, enkerchiefed hair, And those sweet eyes of blue.
Again I spring to make my choice; Again in tones of ire I hear a God’s tremendous voice,-- “Be counselled, and retire.”
Ye guiding Powers who join and part, What would ye have with me? Ah, warn some more ambitious heart, And let the peaceful be!
II. PARTING.
Ye storm-winds of autumn! Who rush by, who shake The window, and ruffle The gleam-lighted lake; Who cross to the hillside Thin-sprinkled with farms, Where the high woods strip sadly Their yellowing arms,-- Ye are bound for the mountains! Ah! with you let me go Where your cold, distant barrier, The vast range of snow, Through the loose clouds lifts dimly Its white peaks in air. How deep is their stillness! Ah! would I were there!
But on the stairs what voice is this I hear, Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear? Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn Lent it the music of its trees at dawn? Or was it from some sun-flecked mountain brook That the sweet voice its upland clearness took? Ah! it comes nearer-- Sweet notes, this way!
Hark! fast by the window The rushing winds go, To the ice-cumbered gorges, The vast seas of snow! There the torrents drive upward Their rock-strangled hum; There the avalanche thunders The hoarse torrent dumb. --I come, O ye mountains! Ye torrents, I come!
But who is this, by the half-opened door, Whose figure casts a shadow on the floor? The sweet blue eyes--the soft, ash-colored hair-- The cheeks that still their gentle paleness wear-- The lovely lips, with their arched smile that tells The unconquered joy in which her spirit dwells-- Ah! they bend nearer-- Sweet lips, this way!
Hark! the wind rushes past us! Ah! with that let me go To the clear, waning hill-side, Unspotted by snow, There to watch, o’er the sunk vale, The frore mountain wall, Where the niched snow-bed sprays down Its powdery fall. There its dusky blue clusters The aconite spreads; There the pines slope, the cloud-strips Hung soft in their heads. No life but, at moments, The mountain bee’s hum. --I come, O ye mountains! Ye pine-woods, I come!
Forgive me! forgive me! Ah, Marguerite, fain Would these arms reach to clasp thee! But see! ’tis in vain.
In the void air, towards thee, My stretched arms are cast; But a sea rolls between us,-- Our different past!
To the lips, ah! of others Those lips have been prest, And others, ere I was, Were strained to that breast.
Far, far from each other Our spirits have grown. And what heart knows another? Ah! who knows his own?
Blow, ye winds! lift me with you! I come to the wild. Fold closely, O Nature! Thine arms round thy child.
To thee only God granted A heart ever new,-- To all always open, To all always true.
Ah! calm me, restore me; And dry up my tears On thy high mountain platforms, Where morn first appears;
Where the white mists, forever, Are spread and upfurled,-- In the stir of the forces Whence issued the world.
III. A FAREWELL.
My horse’s feet beside the lake, Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay, Sent echoes through the night to wake Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay.
The poplar avenue was passed, And the roofed bridge that spans the stream; Up the steep street I hurried fast, Led by thy taper’s starlike beam.
I came! I saw thee rise! the blood Poured flushing to thy languid cheek. Locked in each other’s arms we stood, In tears, with hearts too full to speak.
Days flew; ah, soon I could discern A trouble in thine altered air! Thy hand lay languidly in mine, Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.
I blame thee not! This heart, I know, To be long loved was never framed; For something in its depths doth glow Too strange, too restless, too untamed.
And women,--things that live and move Mined by the fever of the soul,-- They seek to find in those they love Stern strength, and promise of control.
They ask not kindness, gentle ways; These they themselves have tried and known: They ask a soul which never sways With the blind gusts that shake their own.
I too have felt the load I bore In a too strong emotion’s sway; I too have wished, no woman more, This starting, feverish heart away.
I too have longed for trenchant force, And will like a dividing spear; Have praised the keen, unscrupulous course, Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear.
But in the world I learnt, what there Thou too wilt surely one day prove,-- That will, that energy, though rare, Are yet far, far less rare than love.
Go, then! till time and fate impress This truth on thee, be mine no more! They will! for thou, I feel, not less Than I, wast destined to this lore.
We school our manners, act our parts; But He, who sees us through and through, Knows that the bent of both our hearts Was to be gentle, tranquil, true.
And though we wear out life, alas! Distracted as a homeless wind, In beating where we must not pass, In seeking what we shall not find;
Yet we shall one day gain, life past, Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole; Shall see ourselves, and learn at last Our true affinities of soul.
We shall not then deny a course To every thought the mass ignore; We shall not then call hardness force, Nor lightness wisdom any more.
Then, in the eternal Father’s smile, Our soothed, encouraged souls will dare To seem as free from pride and guile, As good, as generous, as they are.
Then we shall know our friends! Though much Will have been lost,--the help in strife, The thousand sweet, still joys of such As hand in hand face earthly life,--
Though these be lost, there will be yet A sympathy august and pure; Ennobled by a vast regret, And by contrition sealed thrice sure.
And we, whose ways were unlike here, May then more neighboring courses ply; May to each other be brought near, And greet across infinity.
How sweet, unreached by earthly jars, My sister! to maintain with thee The hush among the shining stars, The calm upon the moonlit sea!
How sweet to feel, on the boon air, All our unquiet pulses cease! To feel that nothing can impair The gentleness, the thirst for peace,--
The gentleness too rudely hurled On this wild earth of hate and fear; The thirst for peace, a raving world Would never let us satiate here.
IV. ISOLATION. TO MARGUERITE.
We were apart: yet, day by day, I bade my heart more constant be. I bade it keep the world away, And grow a home for only thee; Nor feared but thy love likewise grew, Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.
The fault was grave! I might have known, What far too soon, alas! I learned,-- The heart can bind itself alone, And faith may oft be unreturned. Self-swayed our feelings ebb and swell. Thou lov’st no more. Farewell! Farewell!
Farewell!--And thou, thou lonely heart, Which never yet without remorse Even for a moment didst depart From thy remote and spherèd course To haunt the place where passions reign,-- Back to thy solitude again!
Back! with the conscious thrill of shame Which Luna felt, that summer-night, Flash through her pure immortal frame, When she forsook the starry height To hang o’er Endymion’s sleep Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep.
Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved How vain a thing is mortal love, Wandering in heaven, far removed; But thou hast long had place to prove This truth,--to prove, and make thine own: “Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.”
Or, if not quite alone, yet they Which touch thee are unmating things,-- Ocean and clouds and night and day; Lorn autumns and triumphant springs; And life, and others’ joy and pain, And love, if love, of happier men.
Of happier men; for they, at least, Have _dreamed_ two human hearts might blend In one, and were through faith released From isolation without end Prolonged; nor knew, although not less Alone than thou, their loneliness.
V. TO MARGUERITE. CONTINUED.
Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live _alone_. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know.
But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour,--
Oh! then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent; For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent! Now round us spreads the watery plain: Oh, might our marges meet again!
Who ordered that their longing’s fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled? Who renders vain their deep desire?-- A God, a God their severance ruled! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.
VI. ABSENCE.
In this fair stranger’s eyes of gray, Thine eyes, my love! I see. I shiver; for the passing day Had borne me far from thee.
This is the curse of life! that not A nobler, calmer train Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot Our passions from our brain;
But each day brings its petty dust, Our soon-choked souls to fill; And we forget because we must, And not because we will.
I struggle towards the light; and ye, Once-longed-for storms of love! If with the light ye cannot be, I bear that ye remove.
I struggle towards the light; but oh, While yet the night is chill, Upon time’s barren, stormy flow, Stay with me, Marguerite, still!
VII. THE TERRACE AT BERNE.
(COMPOSED TEN YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.)
Ten years! and to my waking eye Once more the roofs of Berne appear; The rocky banks, the terrace high, The stream! and do I linger here?
The clouds are on the Oberland, The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; But bright are those green fields at hand, And through those fields comes down the Aar,
And from the blue twin-lakes it comes, Flows by the town, the churchyard fair; And ’neath the garden-walk it hums, The house! and is my Marguerite there
Ah! shall I see thee, while a flush Of startled pleasure floods thy brow, Quick through the oleanders brush, And clap thy hands, and cry, _’Tis thou!_
Or hast thou long since wandered back, Daughter of France! to France, thy home; And flitted down the flowery track Where feet like thine too lightly come?
Doth riotous laughter now replace Thy smile, and rouge, with stony glare, Thy cheek’s soft hue, and fluttering lace The kerchief that inwound thy hair?
Or is it over? art thou dead?-- Dead!--and no warning shiver ran Across my heart, to say thy thread Of life was cut, and closed thy span!
Could from earth’s ways that figure slight Be lost, and I not feel ’twas so? Of that fresh voice the gay delight Fail from earth’s air, and I not know?
Or shall I find thee still, but changed, But not the Marguerite of thy prime? With all thy being re-arranged,-- Passed through the crucible of time;
With spirit vanished, beauty waned, And hardly yet a glance, a tone, A gesture--any thing--retained Of all that was my Marguerite’s own?
I will not know! For wherefore try, To things by mortal course that live, A shadowy durability, For which they were not meant, to give?
Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain, So on the sea of life, alas! Man meets man,--meets, and quits again.
I knew it when my life was young; I feel it still now youth is o’er. --The mists are on the mountain hung, And Marguerite I shall see no more.
_THE STRAYED REVELLER._
_THE PORTICO OF CIRCE’S PALACE. EVENING._
A YOUTH.
CIRCE.
THE YOUTH.
Faster, faster, O Circe, goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul!
Thou standest, smiling Down on me! thy right arm, Leaned up against the column there, Props thy soft cheek; Thy left holds, hanging loosely, The deep cup, ivy-cinctured, I held but now.
Is it then evening So soon? I see, the night-dews, Clustered in thick beads, dim The agate brooch-stones On thy white shoulder; The cool night-wind, too, Blows through the portico, Stirs thy hair, goddess, Waves thy white robe!
CIRCE.
Whence art thou, sleeper?
THE YOUTH.
When the white dawn first Through the rough fir-planks Of my hut, by the chestnuts, Up at the valley-head, Came breaking, goddess! I sprang up, I threw round me My dappled fawn-skin; Passing out, from the wet turf, Where they lay, by the hut door, I snatched up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, All drenched in dew,-- Came swift down to join The rout early gathered In the town, round the temple, Iacchus’ white fane On yonder hill.
Quick I passed, following The woodcutters’ cart-track Down the dark valley. I saw On my left, through the beeches, Thy palace, goddess, Smokeless, empty! Trembling, I entered; beheld The court all silent, The lions sleeping, On the altar this bowl. I drank, goddess! And sank down here, sleeping, On the steps of thy portico.
CIRCE.
Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou? Thou lovest it, then, my wine? Wouldst more of it? See how glows, Through the delicate, flushed marble, The red creaming liquor, Strewn with dark seeds! Drink, then! I chide thee not, Deny thee not my bowl. Come, stretch forth thy hand, then--so! Drink--drink again!
THE YOUTH.
Thanks, gracious one! Ah, the sweet fumes again! More soft, ah me! More subtle-winding, Than Pan’s flute-music! Faint--faint! Ah me, Again the sweet sleep!
CIRCE.
Hist! Thou--within there! Come forth, Ulysses! Art tired with hunting? While we range the woodland, See what the day brings.
ULYSSES.
Ever new magic! Hast thou then lured hither, Wonderful goddess, by thy art, The young, languid-eyed Ampelus, Iacchus’ darling, Or some youth beloved of Pan, Of Pan and the nymphs; That he sits, bending downward His white, delicate neck To the ivy-wreathed marge Of thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leaves That crown his hair, Falling forward, mingling With the dark ivy-plants; His fawn-skin, half untied, Smeared with red wine-stains? Who is he, That he sits, overweighed By fumes of wine and sleep, So late, in thy portico? What youth, goddess,--what guest Of gods or mortals?
CIRCE.
Hist! he wakes! I lured him not hither, Ulysses. Nay, ask him!
THE YOUTH.
Who speaks? Ah! who comes forth To thy side, goddess, from within? How shall I name him,-- This spare, dark-featured, Quick-eyed stranger? Ah! and I see too His sailor’s bonnet, His short coat, travel-tarnished, With one arm bare!-- Art thou not he, whom fame This long time rumors The favored guest of Circe, brought by the waves? Art thou he, stranger,-- The wise Ulysses, Laertes’ son?
ULYSSES.
I am Ulysses. And thou too, sleeper? Thy voice is sweet. It may be thou hast followed Through the islands some divine bard, By age taught many things,-- Age, and the Muses; And heard him delighting The chiefs and people In the banquet, and learned his songs, Of gods and heroes, Of war and arts, And peopled cities, Inland, or built By the gray sea. If so, then hail! I honor and welcome thee.
THE YOUTH.
The gods are happy. They turn on all sides Their shining eyes, And see below them The earth and men.
They see Tiresias Sitting, staff in hand, On the warm, grassy Asopus bank, His robe drawn over His old sightless head, Revolving inly The doom of Thebes.
They see the centaurs In the upper glens Of Pelion, in the streams Where red-berried ashes fringe The clear-brown shallow pools, With streaming flanks, and heads Reared proudly, snuffing The mountain wind.
They see the Indian Drifting, knife in hand, His frail boat moored to A floating isle thick-matted With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants, And the dark cucumber. He reaps and stows them, Drifting--drifting; round him, Round his green harvest-plot, Flow the cool lake-waves, The mountains ring them.
They see the Scythian On the wide steppe, unharnessing His wheeled house at noon. He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal,-- Mares’ milk, and bread Baked on the embers. All around, The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starred With saffron and the yellow hollyhock And flag-leaved iris-flowers. Sitting in his cart He makes his meal; before him, for long miles, Alive with bright green lizards, And the springing bustard-fowl, The track, a straight black line, Furrows the rich soil; here and there Clusters of lonely mounds Topped with rough-hewn, Gray, rain-bleared statues, overpeer The sunny waste.
They see the ferry On the broad, clay-laden Lone Chorasmian stream; thereon, With snort and strain, Two horses, strongly swimming, tow The ferry-boat, with woven ropes To either bow Firm-harnessed by the mane; a chief, With shout and shaken spear, Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern The cowering merchants in long robes Sit pale beside their wealth Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, Of gold and ivory, Of turquoise-earth, and amethyst, Jasper and chalcedony, And milk-barred onyx-stones. The loaded boat swings groaning In the yellow eddies; The gods behold them.
They see the heroes Sitting in the dark ship On the foamless, long-heaving, Violet sea, At sunset nearing The Happy Islands.
These things, Ulysses, The wise bards also Behold, and sing. But oh, what labor! O prince, what pain!
They too can see Tiresias; but the gods, Who gave them vision, Added this law: That they should bear too His groping blindness, His dark foreboding, His scorned white hairs; Bear Hera’s anger Through a life lengthened To seven ages.
They see the centaurs On Pelion: then they feel, They too, the maddening wine Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain They feel the biting spears Of the grim Lapithæ, and Theseus, drive, Drive crashing through their bones; they feel, High on a jutting rock in the red stream, Alcmena’s dreadful son Ply his bow. Such a price The gods exact for song: To become what we sing.
They see the Indian On his mountain lake; but squalls Make their skiff reel, and worms In the unkind spring have gnawn Their melon-harvest to the heart. They see The Scythian; but long frosts Parch them in winter-time on the bare steppe, Till they too fade like grass; they crawl Like shadows forth in spring.
They see the merchants On the Oxus-stream; but care Must visit first them too, and make them pale: Whether, through whirling sand, A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst Upon their caravan; or greedy kings, In the walled cities the way passes through, Crushed them with tolls; or fever-airs, On some great river’s marge, Mown them down, far from home.
They see the heroes Near harbor; but they share Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,-- Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy; Or where the echoing oars Of Argo first Startled the unknown sea.
The old Silenus Came, lolling in the sunshine, From the dewy forest-coverts, This way, at noon. Sitting by me, while his fauns Down at the water-side Sprinkled and smoothed His drooping garland, He told me these things.
But I, Ulysses, Sitting on the warm steps, Looking over the valley, All day long, have seen, Without pain, without labor, Sometimes a wild-haired mænad, Sometimes a faun with torches, And sometimes, for a moment, Passing through the dark stems Flowing-robed, the beloved, The desired, the divine, Beloved Iacchus.
Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars! Ah, glimmering water, Fitful earth-murmur, Dreaming woods! Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling goddess, And thou, proved, much-enduring, Wave-tossed wanderer! Who can stand still? Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me-- The cup again!
Faster, faster, O Circe, goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul!
_FRAGMENT OF AN “ANTIGONE.”_
THE CHORUS.
Well hath he done who hath seized happiness! For little do the all-containing hours, Though opulent, freely give,-- Who, weighing that life well Fortune presents unprayed, Declines her ministry, and carves his own; And, justice not infringed, Makes his own welfare his unswerved-from law.
He does well too, who keeps that clew the mild Birth-goddess and the austere Fates first gave. For, from the day when these Bring him, a weeping child, First to the light, and mark A country for him, kinsfolk, and a home, Unguided he remains, Till the Fates come again, this time with death.
In little companies, And, our own place once left, Ignorant where to stand, or whom to avoid, By city and household grouped, we live; and many shocks Our order heaven-ordained Must every day endure,-- Voyages, exiles, hates, dissensions, wars. Besides what waste _he_ makes, The all-hated, order-breaking, Without friend, city, or home,-- Death, who dissevers all.
Him then I praise, who dares To self-selected good Prefer obedience to the primal law Which consecrates the ties of blood; for these, indeed, Are to the gods a care: That touches but himself. For every day man may be linked and loosed With strangers; but the bond Original, deep-inwound, Of blood, can he not bind, Nor, if fate binds, not bear.
But hush! Hæmon, whom Antigone, Robbing herself of life in burying, Against Creon’s law, Polynices, Robs of a loved bride,--pale, imploring, Waiting her passage, Forth from the palace hitherward comes.
HÆMON.
No, no, old men, Creon I curse not! I weep, Thebans, One than Creon crueller far! For he, he, at least, by slaying her, August laws doth mightily vindicate; But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless!-- Ah me!--honorest more than thy lover, O Antigone! A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.
THE CHORUS.
Nor was the love untrue Which the Dawn-Goddess bore To that fair youth she erst, Leaving the salt sea-beds, And coming flushed over the stormy frith Of loud Euripus, saw,-- Saw and snatched, wild with love, From the pine-dotted spurs Of Parnes, where thy waves, Asopus! gleam rock-hemmed,-- The Hunter of the Tanagræan Field.[13]
But him, in his sweet prime, By severance immature, By Artemis’ soft shafts, She, though a goddess born, Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die. Such end o’ertook that love. For she desired to make Immortal mortal man, And blend his happy life, Far from the gods, with hers; To him postponing an eternal law.
HÆMON.
But like me, she, wroth, complaining, Succumbed to the envy of unkind gods; And, her beautiful arms unclasping, Her fair youth unwillingly gave.
THE CHORUS.
Nor, though enthroned too high To fear assault of envious gods, His beloved Argive seer would Zeus retain From his appointed end
In this our Thebes; but when His flying steeds came near To cross the steep Ismenian glen, The broad earth opened, and whelmed them and him, And through the void air sang At large his enemy’s spear.
And fain would Zeus have saved his tired son, Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand O’er the sun-reddened western straits,[14] Or at his work in that dim lower world. Fain would he have recalled The fraudulent oath which bound To a much feebler wight the heroic man.
But he preferred fate to his strong desire. Nor did there need less than the burning pile Under the towering Trachis crags, And the Spercheios vale, shaken with groans, And the roused Maliac gulf, And scared Œtæan snows, To achieve his son’s deliverance, O my child!
_FRAGMENT OF CHORUS OF A “DEJANEIRA.”_
O frivolous mind of man, Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts! Though man bewails you not, How _I_ bewail you!
Little in your prosperity Do you seek counsel of the gods. Proud, ignorant, self-adored, you live alone. In profound silence stern, Among their savage gorges and cold springs, Unvisited remain The great oracular shrines.
Thither in your adversity Do you betake yourselves for light, But strangely misinterpret all you hear. For you will not put on New hearts with the inquirer’s holy robe, And purged, considerate minds.
And him on whom, at the end Of toil and dolour untold, The gods have said that repose At last shall descend undisturbed,-- Him you expect to behold In an easy old age, in a happy home: No end but this you praise.
But him on whom, in the prime Of life, with vigor undimmed, With unspent mind, and a soul Unworn, undebased, undecayed, Mournfully grating, the gates Of the city of death have forever closed,-- _Him_, I count _him_, well-starred.
_EARLY DEATH AND FAME._
For him who must see many years, I praise the life which slips away Out of the light, and mutely; which avoids Fame, and her less fair followers, envy, strife, Stupid detraction, jealousy, cabal, Insincere praises; which descends The quiet mossy track to age.
But when immature death Beckons too early the guest From the half-tried banquet of life, Young, in the bloom of his days; Leaves no leisure to press, Slow and surely, the sweets Of a tranquil life in the shade,-- Fuller for him be the hours! Give him emotion, though pain! Let him live, let him feel, _I have lived_. Heap up his moments with life! Triple his pulses with fame!
_PHILOMELA._
Hark! ah, the nightingale-- The tawny-throated! Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark! what pain!
O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain, Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy racked heart and brain Afford no balm?
Dost thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and seared eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb sister’s shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change. Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? Listen, Eugenia,-- How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again--thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!
_URANIA._
She smiles and smiles, and will not sigh, While we for hopeless passion die; Yet she could love, those eyes declare, Were but men nobler than they are.
Eagerly once her gracious ken Was turned upon the sons of men; But light the serious visage grew grew-- She looked, and smiled, and saw them through.
Our petty souls, our strutting wits, Our labored, puny passion-fits,-- Ah, may she scorn them still, till we Scorn them as bitterly as she!
Yet show her once, ye heavenly Powers, One of some worthier race than ours! One for whose sake she once might prove How deeply she who scorns can love.
His eyes be like the starry lights, His voice like sounds of summer nights; In all his lovely mien let pierce The magic of the universe!
And she to him will reach her hand, And gazing in his eyes will stand, And know her friend, and weep for glee, And cry, _Long, long I’ve looked for thee_.
Then will she weep: with smiles, till then, Coldly she mocks the sons of men; Till then, her lovely eyes maintain Their pure, unwavering, deep disdain.
_EUPHROSYNE._
I must not say that she was true, Yet let me say that she was fair; And they, that lovely face who view, They should not ask if truth be there.
Truth--what is truth? Two bleeding hearts, Wounded by men, by fortune tried, Outwearied with their lonely parts, Vow to beat henceforth side by side.
The world to them was stern and drear, Their lot was but to weep and moan; Ah! let them keep their faith sincere, For neither could subsist alone.
But souls whom some benignant breath Hath charmed at birth from gloom and care,-- These ask no love, these plight no faith, For they are happy as they are.
The world to them may homage make, And garlands for their forehead weave; And what the world can give, they take-- But they bring more than they receive.
They shine upon the world; their ears To one demand alone are coy: They will not give us love and tears, They bring us light and warmth and joy.
On one she smiled, and he was blest; She smiles elsewhere--we make a din! But ’twas not love which heaved her breast, Fair child! it was the bliss within.
_CALAIS SANDS._
A thousand knights have reined their steeds To watch this line of sand-hills run, Along the never-silent strait, To Calais glittering in the sun;
To look toward Ardres’ Golden Field Across this wide aërial plain, Which glows as if the Middle Age Were gorgeous upon earth again.
Oh, that to share this famous scene, I saw, upon the open sand, Thy lovely presence at my side,-- Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand!
How exquisite thy voice would come, My darling, on this lonely air! How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze Shake loose some band of soft brown hair!
Yet now my glance but once hath roved O’er Calais and its famous plain; To England’s cliffs my gaze is turned, O’er the blue strait mine eyes I strain.
Thou comest! Yes! the vessel’s cloud Hangs dark upon the rolling sea. Oh that yon sea-bird’s wings were mine, To win one instant’s glimpse of thee!
I must not spring to grasp thy hand, To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye; But I may stand far off, and gaze, And watch thee pass unconscious by,--
And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts, Mixed with the idlers on the pier. Ah! might I always rest unseen, So I might have thee always near!
To-morrow hurry through the fields Of Flanders to the storied Rhine! To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close Beneath one roof, my queen! with mine.
_FADED LEAVES._
I. THE RIVER.
Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat Under the rustling poplars’ shade; Silent the swans beside us float: None speaks, none heeds; ah, turn thy head!
Let those arch eyes now softly shine, That mocking mouth grow sweetly bland; Ah! let them rest, those eyes, on mine! On mine let rest that lovely hand!
My pent-up tears oppress my brain, My heart is swoln with love unsaid. Ah! let me weep, and tell my pain, And on thy shoulder rest my head!
Before I die,--before the soul, Which now is mine, must re-attain Immunity from my control, And wander round the world again; Before this teased, o’er-labored heart Forever leaves its vain employ, Dead to its deep habitual smart, And dead to hopes of future joy.
II. TOO LATE.
Each on his own strict line we move, And some find death ere they find love; So far apart their lives are thrown From the twin soul that halves their own.
And sometimes, by still harder fate, The lovers meet, but meet too late. --Thy heart is mine! _True, true! ah, true!_ --Then, love, thy hand! _Ah, no! adieu!_
III. SEPARATION.
Stop! not to me, at this bitter departing, Speak of the sure consolations of time! Fresh be the wound, still-renewed be its smarting, So but thy image endure in its prime!
But if the steadfast commandment of Nature Wills that remembrance should always decay; If the loved form and the deep-cherished feature Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away,--
Me let no half-effaced memories cumber; Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee! Deep be the darkness, and still be the slumber; Dead be the past and its phantoms to me!
Then, when we meet, and thy look strays toward me, Scanning my face and the changes wrought there; _Who_, let me say, _is this stranger regards me, With the gray eyes, and the lovely brown hair_?
IV. ON THE RHINE.
Vain is the effort to forget. Some day I shall be cold, I know, As is the eternal moon-lit snow Of the high Alps, to which I go; But ah! not yet, not yet!
Vain is the agony of grief. ’Tis true, indeed, an iron knot Ties straitly up from mine thy lot; And, were it snapped--thou lov’st me not! But is despair relief?
A while let me with thought have done. And as this brimmed unwrinkled Rhine, And that far purple mountain line, Lie sweetly in the look divine Of the slow-sinking sun;
So let me lie, and, calm as they, Let beam upon my inward view Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue,-- Eyes too expressive to be blue, Too lovely to be gray.
Ah, quiet, all things feel thy balm! Those blue hills too, this river’s flow, Were restless once, but long ago. Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow; Their joy is in their calm.
V. LONGING.
Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.
Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes, And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to me!
Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth, Come now, and let me dream it truth; And part my hair, and kiss my brow, And say, _My love! why sufferest thou?_
Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.
_DESPONDENCY._
The thoughts that rain their steady glow Like stars on life’s cold sea, Which others know, or say they know,-- They never shone for me.
Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky, But they will not remain. They light me once, they hurry by, And never come again.
_SELF-DECEPTION._
Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory Of possessing powers not our share? --Since man woke on earth, he knows his story; But, before we woke on earth, we were.
Long, long since, undowered yet, our spirit Roamed, ere birth, the treasuries of God; Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit, Asked an outfit for its earthly road.
Then, as now, this tremulous, eager being Strained and longed, and grasped each gift it saw; Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing Staved us back, and gave our choice the law.
Ah! whose hand that day through heaven guided Man’s new spirit, since it was not we? Ah! who swayed our choice, and who decided What our gifts and what our wants should be?
For, alas! he left us each retaining Shreds of gifts which he refused in full; Still these waste us with their hopeless straining, Still the attempt to use them proves them null.
And on earth we wander, groping, reeling; Powers stir in us, stir and disappear. Ah! and he, who placed our master-feeling, Failed to place that master-feeling clear.
We but dream we have our wished-for powers; Ends we seek, we never shall attain. Ah! _some_ power exists there, which is ours? _Some_ end is there, we indeed may gain?
_DOVER BEACH._
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched sand, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery: we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
_GROWING OLD._
What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? --Yes, but not this alone.
Is it to feel our strength-- Not our bloom only, but our strength--decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung?
Yes, this, and more; but not, Ah! ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould be. ’Tis not to have our life Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,-- A golden day’s decline.
’Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirred; And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, The years that are no more.
It is to spend long days, And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain.
It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion,--none.
It is--last stage of all-- When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost, Which blamed the living man.
_THE PROGRESS OF POESY._
A VARIATION.
Youth rambles on life’s arid mount, And strikes the rock, and finds the vein, And brings the water from the fount,-- The fount which shall not flow again.
The man mature with labor chops For the bright stream a channel grand, And sees not that the sacred drops Ran off and vanished out of hand.
And then the old man totters nigh, And feebly rakes among the stones. The mount is mute, the channel dry; And down he lays his weary bones.
_PIS ALLER._
“Man is blind because of sin; Revelation makes him sure: Without that, who looks within Looks in vain, for all’s obscure.”
Nay, look closer into man! Tell me, can you find indeed Nothing sure, no moral plan Clear prescribed, without your creed?
“No, I nothing can perceive! Without that, all’s dark for men. That, or nothing, I believe.”-- For God’s sake, believe it, then!
_THE LAST WORD._
Creep into thy narrow bed,-- Creep, and let no more be said. Vain thy onset! all stands fast. Thou thyself must break at last.
Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired: best be still.
They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee? Better men fared thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot, and passed, Hotly charged--and sank at last.
Charge once more, then, and be dumb! Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall!
_A NAMELESS EPITAPH._
Ask not my name, O friend! That Being only, which hath known each man From the beginning, can Remember each unto the end.
_EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA._
A DRAMATIC POEM.
PERSONS.
EMPEDOCLES. PAUSANIAS, _a Physician_. CALLICLES, _a young Harp-player_.
_The Scene of the Poem is on Mount Etna; at first in the forest region, afterwards on the summit of the mountain._
## ACT I.
## SCENE I.--_Morning. A Pass in the forest region of Etna._
CALLICLES (_alone, resting on a rock by the path_).
The mules, I think, will not be here this hour: They feel the cool wet turf under their feet By the stream-side, after the dusty lanes In which they have toiled all night from Catana, And scarcely will they budge a yard. O Pan, How gracious is the mountain at this hour! A thousand times have I been here alone, Or with the revellers from the mountain towns, But never on so fair a morn. The sun Is shining on the brilliant mountain crests, And on the highest pines; but farther down, Here in the valley, is in shade; the sward Is dark, and on the stream the mist still hangs; One sees one’s footprints crushed in the wet grass, One’s breath curls in the air; and on these pines That climb from the stream’s edge, the long gray tufts, Which the goats love, are jewelled thick with dew. Here will I stay till the slow litter comes. I have my harp too: that is well.--Apollo! What mortal could be sick or sorry here? I know not in what mind Empedocles, Whose mules I followed, may be coming up; But if, as most men say, he is half mad With exile, and with brooding on his wrongs, Pausanias, his sage friend, who mounts with him, Could scarce have lighted on a lovelier cure. The mules must be below, far down. I hear Their tinkling bells, mixed with the song of birds, Rise faintly to me: now it stops!--Who’s here? Pausanias! and on foot? alone?
PAUSANIAS.
And thou, then? I left thee supping with Peisianax, With thy head full of wine, and thy hair crowned, Touching thy harp as the whim came on thee, And praised and spoiled by master and by guests Almost as much as the new dancing-girl. Why hast thou followed us?
CALLICLES.
The night was hot, And the feast past its prime: so we slipped out, Some of us, to the portico to breathe,-- Peisianax, thou know’st, drinks late,--and then, As I was lifting my soiled garland off, I saw the mules and litter in the court, And in the litter sate Empedocles; Thou too wast with him. Straightway I sped home; I saddled my white mule, and all night long Through the cool lovely country followed you, Passed you a little since as morning dawned, And have this hour sate by the torrent here, Till the slow mules should climb in sight again. And now?
PAUSANIAS.
And now, back to the town with speed! Crouch in the wood first, till the mules have passed; They do but halt, they will be here anon. Thou must be viewless to Empedocles; Save mine, he must not meet a human eye. One of his moods is on him that thou know’st; I think, thou wouldst not vex him.
CALLICLES.
No; and yet I would fain stay, and help thee tend him. Once He knew me well, and would oft notice me; And still, I know not how, he draws me to him, And I could watch him with his proud sad face, His flowing locks and gold-encircled brow And kingly gait, forever; such a spell In his severe looks, such a majesty As drew of old the people after him, In Agrigentum and Olympia, When his star reigned, before his banishment, Is potent still on me in his decline. But, O Pausanias, he is changed of late: There is a settled trouble in his air Admits no momentary brightening now; And when he comes among his friends at feasts, ’Tis as an orphan among prosperous boys. Thou know’st of old he loved this harp of mine, When first he sojourned with Peisianax; He is now always moody, and I fear him; But I would serve him, soothe him, if I could, Dared one but try.
PAUSANIAS.
Thou wast a kind child ever. He loves thee, but he must not see thee now. Thou hast indeed a rare touch on thy harp; He loves that in thee, too; there was a time (But that is past), he would have paid thy strain With music to have drawn the stars from heaven. He has his harp and laurel with him still; But he has laid the use of music by, And all which might relax his settled gloom. Yet thou may’st try thy playing, if thou wilt, But thou must keep unseen: follow us on, But at a distance! in these solitudes, In this clear mountain air, a voice will rise, Though from afar, distinctly; it may soothe him. Play when we halt; and when the evening comes, And I must leave him (for his pleasure is To be left musing these soft nights alone In the high unfrequented mountain spots), Then watch him, for he ranges swift and far, Sometimes to Etna’s top, and to the cone; But hide thee in the rocks a great way down, And try thy noblest strains, my Callicles, With the sweet night to help thy harmony! Thou wilt earn my thanks sure, and perhaps his.
CALLICLES.
More than a day and night, Pausanias, Of this fair summer-weather, on these hills, Would I bestow to help Empedocles. That needs no thanks: one is far better here Than in the broiling city in these heats. But tell me, how hast thou persuaded him In this his present fierce, man-hating mood, To bring thee out with him alone on Etna?
PAUSANIAS.
Thou hast heard all men speaking of Pantheia, The woman who at Agrigentum lay Thirty long days in a cold trance of death, And whom Empedocles called back to life. Thou art too young to note it, but his power Swells with the swelling evil of this time, And holds men mute to see where it will rise. He could stay swift diseases in old days, Chain madmen by the music of his lyre, Cleanse to sweet airs the breath of poisonous streams, And in the mountain chinks inter the winds. This he could do of old; but now, since all Clouds and grows daily worse in Sicily, Since broils tear us in twain, since this new swarm Of sophists has got empire in our schools Where he was paramount, since he is banished, And lives a lonely man in triple gloom,-- He grasps the very reins of life and death. I asked him of Pantheia yesterday, When we were gathered with Peisianax; And he made answer, I should come at night On Etna here, and be alone with him, And he would tell me, as his old, tried friend, Who still was faithful, what might profit me,-- That is, the secret of this miracle.
CALLICLES.
Bah! Thou a doctor! Thou art superstitious. Simple Pausanias, ’twas no miracle! Pantheia, for I know her kinsmen well, Was subject to these trances from a girl. Empedocles would say so, did he deign; But he still lets the people, whom he scorns, Gape and cry _wizard_ at him, if they list. But thou, thou art no company for him: Thou art as cross, as soured as himself. Thou hast some wrong from thine own citizens, And then thy friend is banished; and on that, Straightway thou fallest to arraign the times, As if the sky was impious not to fall. The sophists are no enemies of his; I hear, Gorgias, their chief, speaks nobly of him, As of his gifted master, and once friend. He is too scornful, too high-wrought, too bitter. ’Tis not the times, ’tis not the sophists, vex him: There is some root of suffering in himself, Some secret and unfollowed vein of woe, Which makes the time look black and sad to him. Pester him not, in this his sombre mood, With questionings about an idle tale, But lead him through the lovely mountain paths, And keep his mind from preying on itself, And talk to him of things at hand and common, Not miracles! thou art a learned man, But credulous of fables as a girl.
PAUSANIAS.
And thou, a boy whose tongue outruns his knowledge, And on whose lightness blame is thrown away. Enough of this! I see the litter wind Up by the torrent-side, under the pines. I must rejoin Empedocles. Do thou Crouch in the brushwood till the mules have passed; Then play thy kind part well. Farewell till night!
## SCENE II.--_Noon. A Glen on the highest skirts of the woody region of
Etna._
EMPEDOCLES. PAUSANIAS.
PAUSANIAS.
The noon is hot. When we have crossed the stream, We shall have left the woody tract, and come Upon the open shoulder of the hill. See how the giant spires of yellow bloom Of the sun-loving gentian, in the heat,[15] Are shining on those naked slopes like flame! Let us rest here; and now, Empedocles, Pantheia’s history!
[_A harp-note below is heard._
EMPEDOCLES.
Hark! what sound was that Rose from below? If it were possible, And we were not so far from human haunt, I should have said that some one touched a harp. Hark! there again!
PAUSANIAS.
’Tis the boy Callicles, The sweetest harp-player in Catana. He is forever coming on these hills, In summer, to all country-festivals, With a gay revelling band; he breaks from them Sometimes, and wanders far among the glens. But heed him not, he will not mount to us; I spoke with him this morning. Once more, therefore, Instruct me of Pantheia’s story, master, As I have prayed thee.
EMPEDOCLES.
That? and to what end?
PAUSANIAS.
It is enough that all men speak of it. But I will also say, that when the gods Visit us as they do with sign and plague, To know those spells of thine which stay their hand Were to live free from terror.
EMPEDOCLES.
Spells? Mistrust them! Mind is the spell which governs earth and heaven; Man has a mind with which to plan his safety,-- Know that, and help thyself!
PAUSANIAS.
But thine own words? “The wit and counsel of man was never clear; Troubles confound the little wit he has.” Mind is a light which the gods mock us with, To lead those false who trust it.
[_The harp sounds again._
EMPEDOCLES.
Hist! once more! Listen, Pausanias!--Ay, ’tis Callicles; I know those notes among a thousand. Hark!
CALLICLES (_sings unseen, from below_).
The track winds down to the clear stream, To cross the sparkling shallows; there The cattle love to gather, on their way To the high mountain pastures, and to stay, Till the rough cow-herds drive them past, Knee-deep in the cool ford; for ’tis the last Of all the woody, high, well-watered dells On Etna; and the beam Of noon is broken there by chestnut-boughs Down its steep verdant sides; the air Is freshened by the leaping stream, which throws Eternal showers of spray on the mossed roots Of trees, and veins of turf, and long dark shoots Of ivy-plants, and fragrant hanging bells Of hyacinths, and on late anemones, That muffle its wet banks; but glade, And stream, and sward, and chestnut-trees, End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare Of the hot noon, without a shade, Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies bare,-- The peak, round which the white clouds play.
In such a glen, on such a day, On Pelion, on the grassy ground Chiron, the aged Centaur, lay, The young Achilles standing by. The Centaur taught him to explore The mountains; where the glens are dry, And the tired Centaurs come to rest, And where the soaking springs abound, And the straight ashes grow for spears, And where the hill-goats come to feed, And the sea-eagles build their nest. He showed him Phthia far away, And said, “O boy, I taught this lore To Peleus, in long-distant years!” He told him of the gods, the stars, The tides; and then of mortal wars, And of the life which heroes lead Before they reach the Elysian place, And rest in the immortal mead; And all the wisdom of his race.
_The music below ceases, and EMPEDOCLES speaks, accompanying himself in a solemn manner on his harp._
The out-spread world to span, A cord the gods first slung, And then the soul of man There, like a mirror, hung, And bade the winds through space impel the gusty toy.
Hither and thither spins The wind-borne, mirroring soul; A thousand glimpses wins, And never sees a whole; Looks once, and drives elsewhere, and leaves its last employ.
The gods laugh in their sleeve To watch man doubt and fear, Who knows not what to believe Since he sees nothing clear, And dares stamp nothing false where he finds nothing sure.
Is this, Pausanias, so? And can our souls not strive, But with the winds must go, And hurry where they drive? Is Fate indeed so strong, man’s strength indeed so poor?
I will not judge. That man, Howbeit, I judge as lost, Whose mind allows a plan, Which would degrade it most; And he treats doubt the best who tries to see least ill.
Be not, then, fear’s blind slave! Thou art my friend; to thee, All knowledge that I have, All skill I wield, are free. Ask not the latest news of the last miracle,--
Ask not what days and nights In trance Pantheia lay, But ask how thou such sights May’st see without dismay; Ask what most helps when known, thou son of Anchitus!
What! hate, and awe, and shame Fill thee to see our time; Thou feelest thy soul’s frame Shaken and out of chime? What! life and chance go hard with thee too, as with us;
Thy citizens, ’tis said, Envy thee and oppress, Thy goodness no men aid, All strive to make it less; Tyranny, pride, and lust fill Sicily’s abodes;
Heaven is with earth at strife; Signs make thy soul afraid,-- The dead return to life, Rivers are dried, winds stayed; Scarce can one think in calm, so threatening are the gods; And we feel, day and night, The burden of ourselves: Well, then, the wiser wight In his own bosom delves, And asks what ails him so, and gets what cure he can.
The sophist sneers, “Fool, take Thy pleasure, right or wrong.” The pious wail, “Forsake A world these sophists throng.” Be neither saint-nor sophist-led, but be a man!
These hundred doctors try To preach thee to their school. “We have the truth!” they cry; And yet their oracle, Trumpet it as they will, is but the same as thine.
Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears; Man gets no other light, Search he a thousand years. Sink in thyself! there ask what ails thee, at that shrine.
What makes thee struggle and rave? Why are men ill at ease? ’Tis that the lot they have Fails their own will to please; For man would make no murmuring, were his will obeyed.
And why is it, that still Man with his lot thus fights? ’Tis that he makes this _will_ The measure of his _rights_, And believes nature outraged if his will’s gainsaid.
Couldst thou, Pausanias, learn How deep a fault is this; Couldst thou but once discern Thou hast no _right_ to bliss, No title from the gods to welfare and repose,--
Then thou wouldst look less mazed Whene’er of bliss debarred, Nor think the gods were crazed When thy own lot went hard. But we are all the same,--the fools of our own woes!
For, from the first faint morn Of life, the thirst for bliss Deep in man’s heart is born; And, sceptic as he is, He fails not to judge clear if this be quenched or no.
Nor is that thirst to blame. Man errs not that he deems His welfare his true aim: He errs because he dreams The world does but exist that welfare to bestow.
We mortals are no kings For each of whom to sway A new-made world upsprings, Meant merely for his play: No, we are strangers here; the world is from of old.
In vain our pent wills fret, And would the world subdue. Limits we did not set Condition all we do; Born into life we are, and life must be our mould.
Born into life! man grows Forth from his parents’ stem, And blends their bloods, as those Of theirs are blent in them; So each new man strikes root into a far fore-time.
Born into life! we bring A bias with us here, And, when here, each new thing Affects us we come near; To tunes we did not call, our being must keep chime.
Born into life! in vain, Opinions, those or these, Unaltered to retain, The obstinate mind decrees: Experience, like a sea, soaks all-effacing in.
Born into life! who lists May what is false hold dear, And for himself make mists Through which to see less clear: The world is what it is, for all our dust and din.
Born into life! ’tis we, And not the world, are new; Our cry for bliss, our plea, Others have urged it too: Our wants have all been felt, our errors made before.
No eye could be too sound To observe a world so vast, No patience too profound To sort what’s here amassed; How man may here best live, no care too great to explore.
But we,--as some rude guest Would change, where’er he roam, The manners there professed To those he brings from home,-- We mark not the world’s course, but would have _it_ take _ours_.
The world’s course proves the terms On which man wins content; Reason the proof confirms: We spurn it, and invent A false course for the world, and for ourselves false powers.
Riches we wish to get, Yet remain spendthrifts still; We would have health, and yet Still use our bodies ill; Bafflers of our own prayers, from youth to life’s last scenes.
We would have inward peace, Yet will not look within; We would have misery cease, Yet will not cease from sin; We want all pleasant ends, but will use no harsh means;
We do not what we ought; What we ought not, we do; And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through: But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.
Yet even when man forsakes All sin,--is just, is pure, Abandons all which makes His welfare insecure,-- Other existences there are, that clash with ours.
Like us, the lightning-fires Love to have scope and play; The stream, like us, desires An unimpeded way; Like us, the Libyan wind delights to roam at large.
Streams will not curb their pride The just man not to entomb, Nor lightnings go aside To give his virtues room; Nor is that wind less rough which blows a good man’s barge.
Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play; Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away; Allows the proudly riding and the foundering bark.
And, lastly, though of ours No weakness spoil our lot, Though the non-human powers Of nature harm us not, The ill deeds of other men make often _our_ life dark.
What were the wise man’s plan? Through this sharp, toil-set life, To fight as best he can, And win what’s won by strife. But we an easier way to cheat our pains have found.
Scratched by a fall, with moans As children of weak age Lend life to the dumb stones Whereon to vent their rage, And bend their little fists, and rate the senseless ground; So, loath to suffer mute, We, peopling the void air, Make gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear; With God and fate to rail at, suffering easily.
Yet grant,--as sense long missed Things that are now perceived, And much may still exist Which is not yet believed,-- Grant that the world were full of gods we cannot see;
All things the world which fill Of but one stuff are spun, That we who rail are still, With what we rail at, one; One with the o’er-labored Power that through the breadth and length
Of earth, and air, and sea, In men, and plants, and stones, Hath toil perpetually, And travails, pants, and moans; Fain would do all things well, but sometimes fails in strength.
And patiently exact This universal God Alike to any act Proceeds at any nod, And quietly declaims the cursings of himself.
This is not what man hates, Yet he can curse but this. Harsh gods and hostile fates Are dreams! this only _is_,-- Is everywhere; sustains the wise, the foolish elf.
Nor only, in the intent To attach blame elsewhere, Do we at will invent Stern powers who make their care To imbitter human life, malignant deities;
But, next, we would reverse The scheme ourselves have spun, And what we made to curse We now would lean upon, And feign kind gods who perfect what man vainly tries.
Look, the world tempts our eye, And we would know it all! We map the starry sky, We mine this earthen ball, We measure the sea-tides, we number the sea-sands;
We scrutinize the dates Of long-past human things, The bounds of effaced states, The lines of deceased kings; We search out dead men’s words, and works of dead men’s hands;
We shut our eyes, and muse How our own minds are made, What springs of thought they use, How rightened, how betrayed,-- And spend our wit to name what most employ unnamed.
But still, as we proceed, The mass swells more and more Of volumes yet to read, Of secrets yet to explore. Our hair grows gray, our eyes are dimmed, our heat is tamed; We rest our faculties, And thus address the gods: “True science if there is, It stays in your abodes! Man’s measures cannot mete the immeasurable all.
“You only can take in The world’s immense design; Our desperate search was sin, Which henceforth we resign, Sure only that your mind sees all things which befall.”
Fools! That in man’s brief term He cannot all things view, Affords no ground to affirm That there are gods who do; Nor does being weary prove that he has where to rest.
Again: Our youthful blood Claims rapture as its right; The world, a rolling flood Of newness and delight, Draws in the enamoured gazer to its shining breast;
Pleasure, to our hot grasp, Gives flowers after flowers; With passionate warmth we clasp Hand after hand in ours; Now do we soon perceive how fast our youth is spent.
At once our eyes grow clear! We see, in blank dismay, Year posting after year, Sense after sense decay; Our shivering heart is mined by secret discontent.
Yet still, in spite of truth, In spite of hopes entombed, That longing of our youth Burns ever unconsumed, Still hungrier for delight as delights grow more rare.
We pause; we hush our heart, And thus address the gods:-- “The world hath failed to impart The joy our youth forebodes, Failed to fill up the void which in our breasts we bear.
“Changeful till now, we still Looked on to something new; Let us, with changeless will, Henceforth look on to you, To find with you the joy we in vain here require!”
Fools! That so often here Happiness mocked our prayer, I think, might make us fear A like event elsewhere; Make us not fly to dreams, but moderate desire.
And yet, for those who know Themselves, who wisely take Their way through life, and bow To what they cannot break, Why should I say that life need yield but _moderate_ bliss?
Shall we, with temper spoiled, Health sapped by living ill, And judgment all embroiled By sadness and self-will,-- Shall we judge what for man is not true bliss or is?
Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes,--
That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And, while we dream on this, Lose all our present state, And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?
Not much, I know, you prize What pleasures may be had, Who look on life with eyes Estranged, like mine, and sad; And yet the village-churl feels the truth more than you;
Who’s loath to leave this life Which to him little yields,-- His hard-tasked sunburnt wife, His often-labored fields, The boors with whom he talked, the country-spots he knew.
But thou, because thou hear’st Men scoff at heaven and fate, Because the gods thou fear’st Fail to make blest thy state, Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are!
I say: Fear not! Life still Leaves human effort scope. But, since life teems with ill, Nurse no extravagant hope; Because thou must not dream, thou need’st not then despair!
_A long pause._ _At the end of it the notes of a harp below are again heard, and_ CALLICLES _sings_:--
Far, far from here, The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay Among the green Illyrian hills; and there The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, And by the sea, and in the brakes. The grass is cool, the sea-side air Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers More virginal and sweet than ours. And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes, Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia, Bask in the glens or on the warm seashore, In breathless quiet, after all their ills; Nor do they see their country, nor the place Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills, Nor the unhappy palace of their race, Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more.
There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes! They had stayed long enough to see, In Thebes, the billow of calamity Over their own dear children rolled, Curse upon curse, pang upon pang, For years, they sitting helpless in their home, A gray old man and woman; yet of old The gods had to their marriage come, And at the banquet all the Muses sang.
Therefore they did not end their days In sight of blood; but were rapt, far away, To where the west-wind plays, And murmurs of the Adriatic come To those untrodden mountain lawns; and there Placed safely in changed forms, the pair Wholly forget their first sad life, and home, And all that Theban woe, and stray Forever through the glens, placid and dumb.
EMPEDOCLES.
That was my harp-player again! Where is he? Down by the stream?
PAUSANIAS.
Yes, master, in the wood.
EMPEDOCLES.
He ever loved the Theban story well! But the day wears. Go now, Pausanias, For I must be alone. Leave me one mule; Take down with thee the rest to Catana. And for young Callicles, thank him from me; Tell him, I never failed to love his lyre; But he must follow me no more to-night.
PAUSANIAS.
Thou wilt return to-morrow to the city?
EMPEDOCLES.
Either to-morrow or some other day, In the sure revolutions of the world, Good friend, I shall revisit Catana. I have seen many cities in my time, Till mine eyes ache with the long spectacle, And I shall doubtless see them all again; Thou know’st me for a wanderer from of old. Meanwhile, stay me not now. Farewell, Pausanias!
_He departs on his way up the mountain._
PAUSANIAS (_alone_).
I dare not urge him further--he must go; But he is strangely wrought! I will speed back, And bring Peisianax to him from the city; His counsel could once soothe him. But, Apollo! How his brow lightened as the music rose! Callicles must wait here, and play to him; I saw him through the chestnuts far below, Just since, down at the stream.--Ho! Callicles!
_He descends, calling._
## ACT II.
_Evening._ _The Summit of Etna._
EMPEDOCLES.
Alone! On this charred, blackened, melancholy waste, Crowned by the awful peak, Etna’s great mouth, Round which the sullen vapor rolls,--alone! Pausanias is far hence, and that is well, For I must henceforth speak no more with man. He has his lesson too, and that debt’s paid; And the good, learned, friendly, quiet man, May bravelier front his life, and in himself Find henceforth energy and heart. But I,-- The weary man, the banished citizen, Whose banishment is not his greatest ill, Whose weariness no energy can reach, And for whose hurt courage is not the cure,-- What should I do with life and living more?
No, thou art come too late, Empedocles! And the world hath the day, and must break thee, Not thou the world. With men thou canst not live: Their thoughts, their ways, their wishes, are not thine. And being lonely thou art miserable; For something has impaired thy spirit’s strength, And dried its self-sufficing fount of joy. Thou canst not live with men nor with thyself, O sage! O sage! Take, then, the one way left; And turn thee to the elements, thy friends, Thy well-tried friends, thy willing ministers, And say: Ye servants, hear Empedocles, Who asks this final service at your hands! Before the sophist-brood hath overlaid The last spark of man’s consciousness with words; Ere quite the being of man, ere quite the world, Be disarrayed of their divinity; Before the soul lose all her solemn joys, And awe be dead, and hope impossible, And the soul’s deep eternal night come on,-- Receive me, hide me, quench me, take me home!
_He advances to the edge of the crater. Smoke and fire break forth with a loud noise, and CALLICLES is heard below singing_:--
The lyre’s voice is lovely everywhere; In the court of gods, in the city of men, And in the lonely rock-strewn mountain-glen, In the still mountain air.
Only to Typho it sounds hatefully,-- To Typho only, the rebel o’erthrown, Through whose heart Etna drives her roots of stone, To embed them in the sea. Wherefore dost thou groan so loud? Wherefore do thy nostrils flash, Through the dark night, suddenly, Typho, such red jets of flame? Is thy tortured heart still proud? Is thy fire-scathed arm still rash? Still alert thy stone-crushed frame? Doth thy fierce soul still deplore Thine ancient rout by the Cilician hills, And that curst treachery on the Mount of Gore? Do thy bloodshot eyes still weep The fight which crowned thine ills, Thy last mischance on this Sicilian deep? Hast thou sworn, in thy sad lair, Where erst the strong sea-currents sucked thee down, Never to cease to writhe, and try to rest, Letting the sea-stream wander through thy hair? That thy groans, like thunder prest, Begin to roll, and almost drown The sweet notes whose lulling spell Gods and the race of mortals love so well, When through thy caves thou hearest music swell?
But an awful pleasure bland Spreading o’er the Thunderer’s face, When the sound climbs near his seat, The Olympian council sees; As he lets his lax right hand, Which the lightnings doth embrace, Sink upon his mighty knees. And the eagle, at the beck Of the appeasing, gracious harmony, Droops all his sheeny, brown, deep-feathered neck, Nestling nearer to Jove’s feet; While o’er his sovran eye The curtains of the blue films slowly meet. And the white Olympus-peaks Rosily brighten, and the soothed gods smile At one another from their golden chairs, And no one round the charmed circle speaks. Only the loved Hebe bears The cup about, whose draughts beguile Pain and care, with a dark store Of fresh-pulled violets wreathed and nodding o’er; And her flushed feet glow on the marble floor.
EMPEDOCLES.
He fables, yet speaks truth! The brave impetuous heart yields everywhere To the subtle, contriving head; Great qualities are trodden down, And littleness united Is become invincible.
These rumblings are not Typho’s groans, I know! These angry smoke-bursts Are not the passionate breath Of the mountain-crushed, tortured, intractable Titan king; But over all the world What suffering is there not seen Of plainness oppressed by cunning, As the well-counselled Zeus oppressed That self-helping son of earth! What anguish of greatness, Railed and hunted from the world, Because its simplicity rebukes This envious, miserable age!
I am weary of it. --Lie there, ye ensigns Of my unloved pre-eminence In an age like this! Among a people of children, Who thronged me in their cities, Who worshipped me in their houses, And asked, not wisdom, But drugs to charm with, But spells to mutter All the fool’s-armory of magic! Lie there, My golden circlet, My purple robe!
CALLICLES (_from below_).
As the sky-brightening south-wind clears the day, And makes the massed clouds roll, The music of the lyre blows away The clouds which wrap the soul.
Oh that fate had let me see That triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre, That famous, final victory When jealous Pan with Marsyas did conspire!
When, from far Parnassus’ side, Young Apollo, all the pride Of the Phrygian flutes to tame, To the Phrygian highlands came; Where the long green reed-beds sway In the rippled waters gray Of that solitary lake Where Mæander’s springs are born; Where the ridged pine-wooded roots Of Messogis westward break, Mounting westward, high and higher. There was held the famous strife; There the Phrygian brought his flutes, And Apollo brought his lyre; And, when now the westering sun Touched the hills, the strife was done, And the attentive muses said,-- “Marsyas, thou art vanquishèd!” Then Apollo’s minister Hanged upon a branching fir Marsyas, that unhappy Faun, And began to whet his knife. But the Mænads, who were there, Left their friend, and with robes flowing In the wind, and loose dark hair O’er their polished bosoms blowing, Each her ribboned tambourine Flinging on the mountain-sod, With a lovely frightened mien Came about the youthful god. But he turned his beauteous face Haughtily another way, From the grassy sun-warmed place Where in proud repose he lay, With one arm over his head, Watching how the whetting sped.
But aloof, on the lake-strand, Did the young Olympus stand, Weeping at his master’s end; For the Faun had been his friend. For he taught him how to sing, And he taught him flute-playing. Many a morning had they gone To the glimmering mountain lakes, And had torn up by the roots The tall crested water-reeds With long plumes and soft brown seeds, And had carved them into flutes, Sitting on a tabled stone Where the shoreward ripple breaks. And he taught him how to please The red-snooded Phrygian girls, Whom the summer evening sees Flashing in the dance’s whirls Underneath the starlit trees In the mountain villages. Therefore now Olympus stands, At his master’s piteous cries Pressing fast with both his hands His white garment to his eyes, Not to see Apollo’s scorn.-- Ah, poor Faun, poor Faun! ah, poor Faun!
EMPEDOCLES.
And lie thou there, My laurel bough! Scornful Apollo’s ensign, lie thou there! Though thou hast been my shade in the world’s heat, Though I have loved thee, lived in honoring thee, Yet lie thou there, My laurel bough!
I am weary of thee. I am weary of the solitude Where he who bears thee must abide,-- Of the rocks of Parnassus, Of the gorge of Delphi, Of the moonlight peaks, and the caves. Thou guardest them, Apollo! Over the grave of the slain Pytho, Though young, intolerably severe! Thou keepest aloof the profane, But the solitude oppresses thy votary. The jars of men reach him not in thy valley, But can life reach him? Thou fencest him from the multitude: Who will fence him from himself? He hears nothing but the cry of the torrents, And the beating of his own heart; The air is thin, the veins swell, The temples tighten and throb there-- Air! air!
Take thy bough, set me free from my solitude; I have been enough alone!
Where shall thy votary fly, then? back to men? But they will gladly welcome him once more, And help him to unbend his too tense thought, And rid him of the presence of himself, And keep their friendly chatter at his ear, And haunt him, till the absence from himself, That other torment, grow unbearable; And he will fly to solitude again, And he will find its air too keen for him, And so change back; and many thousand times Be miserably bandied to and fro Like a sea-wave, betwixt the world and thee, Thou young, implacable god! and only death Shall cut his oscillations short, and so Bring him to poise. There is no other way.
And yet what days were those, Parmenides! When we were young, when we could number friends In all the Italian cities like ourselves; When with elated hearts we joined your train, Ye Sun-born Virgins! on the road of truth.[16] Then we could still enjoy, then neither thought Nor outward things were closed and dead to us; But we received the shock of mighty thoughts On simple minds with a pure natural joy; And if the sacred load oppressed our brain, We had the power to feel the pressure eased, The brow unbound, the thoughts flow free again, In the delightful commerce of the world. We had not lost our balance then, nor grown Thought’s slaves, and dead to every natural joy. The smallest thing could give us pleasure then,-- The sports of the country-people, A flute-note from the woods, Sunset over the sea; Seed-time and harvest, The reapers in the corn, The vinedresser in his vineyard, The village-girl at her wheel.
Fulness of life and power of feeling, ye Are for the happy, for the souls at ease, Who dwell on a firm basis of content! But he who has outlived his prosperous days; But he whose youth fell on a different world From that on which his exiled age is thrown,-- Whose mind was fed on other food, was trained By other rules than are in vogue to-day; Whose habit of thought is fixed, who will not change, But, in a world he loves not, must subsist In ceaseless opposition, be the guard Of his own breast, fettered to what he guards, That the world win no mastery over him; Who has no friend, no fellow left, not one; Who has no minute’s breathing-space allowed To nurse his dwindling faculty of joy,-- Joy and the outward world must die to him, As they are dead to me.
_A long pause, during which EMPEDOCLES remains motionless, plunged in thought. The night deepens. He moves forward, and gazes around him, and proceeds_:--
And yon, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal, As of old, in the fields of heaven, Your distant, melancholy lines! Have you, too, survived yourselves? Are you, too, what I fear to become? You too once lived; You too moved joyfully, Among august companions, In an older world, peopled by gods, In a mightier order, The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent sons of heaven. But now ye kindle Your lonely, cold-shining lights, Unwilling lingerers In the heavenly wilderness, For a younger, ignoble world; And renew, by necessity, Night after night your courses, In echoing, unneared silence, Above a race you know not, Uncaring and undelighted, Without friend and without home; Weary like us, though not Weary with our weariness.
No, no, ye stars! there is no death with you, No languor, no decay! languor and death, They are with me, not you! ye are alive,-- Ye, and the pure dark ether where ye ride Brilliant above me! And thou, fiery world, That sapp’st the vitals of this terrible mount Upon whose charred and quaking crust I stand,-- Thou, too, brimmest with life! the sea of cloud, That heaves its white and billowy vapors up To moat this isle of ashes from the world, Lives; and that other fainter sea, far down, O’er whose lit floor a road of moonbeams leads To Etna’s Lipareän sister-fires And the long dusky line of Italy,-- That mild and luminous floor of waters lives, With held-in joy swelling its heart: I only, Whose spring of hope is dried, whose spirit has failed, I, who have not, like these, in solitude Maintained courage and force, and in myself Nursed an immortal vigor,--I alone Am dead to life and joy, therefore I read In all things my own deadness.
_A long silence. He continues_:--
Oh that I could glow like this mountain! Oh that my heart bounded with the swell of the sea! Oh that my soul were full of light as the stars! Oh that it brooded over the world like the air!
But no, this heart will glow no more; thou art A living man no more, Empedocles! Nothing but a devouring flame of thought,-- But a naked, eternally restless mind!
_After a pause_:--
To the elements it came from, Every thing will return,-- Our bodies to earth, Our blood to water, Heat to fire, Breath to air: They were well born, they will be well entombed. But mind?...
And we might gladly share the fruitful stir Down in our mother earth’s miraculous womb; Well would it be With what rolled of us in the stormy main; We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air, Or with the nimble, radiant life of fire.
But mind, but thought, If these have been the master part of us,-- Where will _they_ find their parent element? What will receive _them_, who will call _them_ home? But we shall still be in them, and they in us; And we shall be the strangers of the world; And they will be our lords, as they are now, And keep us prisoners of our consciousness, And never let us clasp and feel the All But through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils. And we shall be unsatisfied as now; And we shall feel the agony of thirst, The ineffable longing for the life of life Baffled forever; and still thought and mind Will hurry us with them on their homeless march Over the unallied unopening earth, Over the unrecognizing sea; while air Will blow us fiercely back to sea and earth, And fire repel us from its living waves. And then we shall unwillingly return Back to this meadow of calamity, This uncongenial place, this human life: And in our individual human state Go through the sad probation all again, To see if we will poise our life at last, To see if we will now at last be true To our own only true, deep-buried selves, Being one with which, we are one with the whole world; Or whether we will once more fall away Into the bondage of the flesh or mind, Some slough of sense, or some fantastic maze Forged by the imperious lonely thinking-power. And each succeeding age in which we are born Will have more peril for us than the last; Will goad our senses with a sharper spur, Will fret our minds to an intenser play, Will make ourselves harder to be discerned. And we shall struggle a while, gasp and rebel; And we shall fly for refuge to past times, Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of greatness; And the reality will pluck us back, Knead us in its hot hand, and change our nature. And we shall feel our powers of effort flag, And rally them for one last fight--and fail; And we shall sink in the impossible strife, And be astray forever. Slave of sense I have in no wise been; but slave of thought? And who can say: I have been always free, Lived ever in the light of my own soul? I cannot; I have lived in wrath and gloom, Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man, Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light; But I have not grown easy in these bonds, But I have not denied what bonds these were. Yea, I take myself to witness, That I have loved no darkness, Sophisticated no truth, Nursed no dlusion, Allowed no fear!
And therefore, O ye elements! I know know-- Ye know it too--it hath been granted me Not to die wholly, not to be all enslaved. I feel it in this hour. The numbing cloud Mounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free.
Is it but for a moment? --Ah, boil up, ye vapors! Leap and roar, thou sea of fire! My soul glows to meet you. Ere it flag, ere the mists Of despondency and gloom Rush over it again, Receive me, save me!
[_He plunges into the crater._
CALLICLES (_from below_).
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, Thick breaks the red flame; All Etna heaves fiercely Her forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo! Are haunts meet for thee; But where Helicon breaks down In cliff to the sea,--
Where the moon-silvered inlets Send far their light voice Up the still vale of Thisbe,-- Oh, speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top Lie strewn the white flocks: On the cliff-side the pigeons Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds, Soft lulled by the rills, Lie wrapped in their blankets Asleep on the hills.
--What forms are these coming So white through the gloom? What garments out-glistening The gold-flowered broom?
What sweet-breathing presence Out-perfumes the thyme? What voices enrapture The night’s balmy prime?
’Tis Apollo comes leading His choir, the Nine. The leader is fairest, But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollows! They stream up again! What seeks on this mountain The glorified train?
They bathe on this mountain, In the spring by their road; Then on to Olympus, Their endless abode.
--Whose praise do they mention? Of what is it told? What will be forever, What was from of old.
First hymn they the Father Of all things; and then, The rest of immortals, The action of men.
The day in his hotness, The strife with the palm; The night in her silence, The stars in their calm.
_BACCHANALIA; OR, THE NEW AGE._