How the returning days, one after one,Come ever in their rhythmic round, unchanged,Yet from each loopèd robe for every manSome new thing falls. Happy is heWho fronts them without fear, and like the godsLooks out unanxiously on each day's giftWith calmly curious eye. How many thingsEven in a little space, both good and ill,Have fallen on me, and yet in all of themThe keen experience or the smooth remembranceHath found some sweet. It scarcely seems a monthSince we saw Crete; so swiftly sped the days,Borne onward with how many changing scenes,Filled with how many crowding memories.Not soon shall I forget them, the stout ship,All the tense labour with the windy sea,The cloud-wrapped heights of Crete, beheld far off,And white Cytæon with its stormy pier,The fruitful valleys, the wild mountain road,And those long days of ever-vigilant toil,Scarcely with sleepless craft and unmoved frontEscaping robbers, that quiet restful eveAt rich Gortyna, where we lay and watchedThe dripping foliage, and the darkening fields,And over all huge-browed above the nightIda's great summit with it's fiery crown;And then once more the stormy treacherous sea,The noisy ship, the seamen's vehement cries,That battled with the whistling wind, the feetReeling upon the swaying deck, and eyesStrained anxiously toward land; ah, with what joyAt last the busy pier at Nauplia,Rest and firm shelter for our racking brains:Most sweet of all, most dear to memoryThat journey with Euktemon through the hillsBy fair Cleonæ and the lofty pass;Then Corinth with its riotous jollity,Remembered like a reeling dream; and hereGood Theron's wedding, and this festal day;And I, chief helper in its various rites,Not least, commissioned through these wakeful hoursTo dream before the quiet thalamos,Unsleeping, like some full-grown bearded Eros,The guardian of love's sweetest mysteries.To-morrow I shall hear again the dinOf the loosed cables, and the rowers' chaunt,The rattled cordage and the plunging oars.Once more the bending sail shall bear us onAcross the level of the laughing sea.Ere mid-day we shall see far off behind us,Faint as the summit of a sultry cloud,The white Acropolis. Past SuniumWith rushing keel, the long Eubœan strand,Hymettus and the pine-dark hills shall fadeInto the dusk: at Andros we shall water,And ere another starlight hush the shoresFrom seaward valleys catch upon the windThe fragrance of old Chian vintages.At Chios many things shall fall, but noneCan trace the future; rather let me dreamOf what is now, and what hath been, for bothAre fraught with life.Here the unbroken silenceAwakens thought and makes remembrance sweet.How solidly the brilliant moonlight shinesInto the courts; beneath the colonnadesHow dense the shadows. I can scarcely seeYon painted Dian on the darkened wall;Yet how the gloom hath made her real. What sound,Piercing the leafy covert of her couch,Hath startled her. Perchance some prowling wolf,Or luckless footsteps of the stealthy Pan,Creeping at night among the noiseless steepsAnd hollows of the Erymanthian woods,Roused her from sleep. With listening head,Snatched bow, and quiver lightly slung, she stands,And peers across that dim and motionless glade,Beckoning about her heels the wakeful dogs;Yet Dian, thus alert, is but a dream,Making more real this brooding quietness.How strong and wonderful is night! MankindHas yielded all to one sweet helplessness:Thought, labour, strife and all activitiesHave ebbed like fever. The smooth tide of sleep,Rolling across the fields of Attica,Hath covered all the labouring villages.Even great Athens with her busy handsAnd busier tongues lies quiet beneath it's waves.Only a steady murmur seems to comeUp from her silentness, as if the landWere breathing heavily in dreams. AbroadNo creature stirs, not even the reveller,Staggering, unlanterned, from the cool Piræus,With drunken shout. The remnants of the feast,The crumpled cushions and the broken wreathes,Lie scattered in yon shadowy court, whose stonesThrough the warm hours drink up the staining wine.The bridal oxen in their well-filled stallsSleep, mindless of the happy weight they drew.The torch is charred; the garlands at the door,So gay at morning with their bright festoons,Hang limp and withered; and the joyous flutesAre empty of all sound. Only my brainHolds now in it's remote unsleeping depthsThe echo of the tender hymenæosAnd memory of the modest lips that sang it.Within the silent thalamos the queen,The sea-sprung radiant Cytherean reigns,And with her smiling lips and fathomless eyesRegards the lovers, knowing that this hourIs theirs once only. Earth and thought and timeLie far beyond them, a great gulf of joy,Absorbing fear, regret and every grief,A warm eternity: or now perchanceNight and the very weight of happiness,Unsought, have turned upon their tremulous eyesThe mindless stream of sleep; nor do they careIf dawn should never come.How joyouslyThese hours have gone with all their pictured scenes,A string of golden beads for memoryTo finger over in her moods, or stayThe hunger of some wakeful hour like this,The flowers, the myrtles, the gay bridal train,The flutes and pensive voices, the white robes,The shower of sweet-meats, and the jovial feast,The bride cakes, and the teeming merriment,Most beautiful of all, most sweet to name,The good Lysippe with her down-cast eyes,Touched with soft fear, half scared at all the noise,Whose tears were ready as her laughter, fresh,And modest as some pink anemone.How young she looked, and how her smiling lipsBetrayed her happiness. Ah, who can tell,How often, when no watchful eye was near,Her eager fingers, trembling and ashamed,Essayed the apple-pips, or strewed the floorWith broken poppy petals. Next to her,Theron himself the gladest goodliest figure,His honest face ruddy with health and joy,And smiling like the Ægean, when the sunHangs high in heaven, and the freshening windComes in from Melos, rippling all its floor:And there was Manto too, the good old crone,So dear to children with her store of tales,Warmed with new life: how to her old grey faceAnd withered limbs the very dance of youthSeemed to return, and in her aged eyesThe waning fire rekindled: little Mæon,That mischievous satyr with his tipsy wreath,Who kept us laughing at his pranks, and madeOld Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath boundUpon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong,Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes.Even in sleep his little limbs, I think,Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes onWith inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Mæon!And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreamsOf darkly-moving chaos and slow shapesOf things that creep encumbered with huge burdensGloom and infest her through these dragging hours,Haunting the wavering soul, so near the grave?But all things journey to the same quiet endAt last, life, joy and every form of motion.Nothing stands still. Not least inevitable,The sad recession of this passionate love,Whose panting fires, so soon and with such grief,Burn down to ash.Ai! Ai! 'tis a strange madnessTo give up thought, ambition, liberty,And all the rooted custom of our days,Even life itself for one all pampering dream,That withers like those garlands at the door;And yet I have seen many excellent menBesotted thus, and some that bore till death,In the crook'd vision and embittered tongue,The effect of this strange poison, like a scar,An ineradicable hurt; but Fate,Who deals more wondrously in this diseaseEven than in others, yet doth sometimes willTo make the same thing unto different menEvil or good. Was not Demetrios happy,Who wore his fetters with such grace, and spentOn Chione, the Naxian, that shrewd girl,His fortune and his youth, yet, while she lived,Enjoyed the rich reward? He seemed like one,That trod on wind, and I remember well,How when she died in that remorseless plague,And I alone stood with him at the pyre,He shook me with his helpless passionate grief.And honest Agathon, the married man,Whose boyish fondness for his pretty wifeWe smiled at, and yet envied; at the closeOf each day's labour how he posted home,And thence no bait, however plumed, could draw him.We laughed, but envied him. How sweet she lookedThat morning at the Dyonisia,With her rare eyes and modest girlish grace,Leading her two small children by the palm.I too might marry, if the faithful godsWould promise me such joy as Agathon's.Perhaps some day—but no, I am not oneTo clip my wings, and wind about my feetA net, whose self-made meshes are as sternAs they are soft. To me is ever presentThe outer world with its untravelled paths,The wanderer's dream, the itch to see new things.A single tie could never bind me fast,For life, this joyous, busy, ever-changing life,Is only dear to me with liberty,With space of earth for feet to travel inAnd space of mind for thought.Not so for all;To most men life is but a common thing,The hours a sort of coin to barter with,Whose worth is reckoned by the sum they buyIn gold, or power, or pleasure; each short dayThat brings not these deemed fruitless as dry sand.Their lives are but a blind activity,And death to them is but the end of motion,Grey children who have madly eat and drunk,Won the high seats or filled their chests with gold.And yet for all their years have never seenThe picture of their lives, or how life looksTo him who hath the deep uneager eye,How sweet and large and beautiful it was,How strange the part they played. Like him who sitsBeneath some mighty tree, with half-closed eyes,At ease rejoicing in its murmurous shade,Yet never once awakes from his dull dreamTo mark with curious joy the kingly trunk,The sweeping boughs and tower of leaves that gave it,Even so the most of men; they take the gift,And care not for the giver. Strange indeedAre they, and pitiable beyond measure,Who, thus unmindful of their wretchedness,Crowd at life's bountiful gates, like fattening beggars,Greedy and blind. For see how rich a thingLife is to him who sees, to whom each hourBrings some fresh wonder to be brooded on,Adds some new group or studied historyTo that wrought sculpture, that our watchful dreamsCast up upon the broad expanse of time,As in a never-finished frieze, not lessThe little things that most men pass unmarkedThan those that shake mankind. Happy is he,Who, as a watcher, stands apart from life,From all life and his own, and thus from all,Each thought, each deed, and each hour's brief event,Draws the full beauty, sucks its meaning dry.For him this life shall be a tranquil joy.He shall be quiet and free. To him shall comeNo gnawing hunger for the coarser touch,No mad ambition with its fateful grasp;Sorrow itself shall sway him like a dream.How full life is; how many memoriesFlash, and shine out, when thought is sharply stirred;How the mind works, when once the wheels are loosed,How nimbly, with what swift activity.I think, 'tis strange that men should ever sleep,There are so many things to think upon,So many deeds, so many thoughts to weigh,To pierce, and plumb them to the silent depth.Yet in that thought I do rebuke myself,Too little given to probe the inner heart,But rather wont, with the luxurious eye,To catch from life it's outer loveliness,Such things as do but store the joyous memoryWith food for solace rather than for thought,Like light-lined figures on a painted jar.I wonder where Euktemon is to-night,Euktemon with his rough and fitful talk,His moody gesture and defiant stride;How strange, how bleak and unapproachable;And yet I liked him from the first. How soonWe know our friends, through all disguise of mood,Discerning by a subtle touch of spiritThe honest heart within. Euktemon's glanceBetrayed him with it's gusty friendliness,Flashing at moments from the clouded brow,Like brave warm sunshine, and his laughter too,So rare, so sudden, so contagious,How at some merry scene, some well-told tale,Or swift invention of the wingèd wit,It broke like thunderous water, rolling outIn shaken peals on the delighted ear.Yet no man would have dreamed, who saw us twoThat first grey morning on the pier at Crete,That friendship could have forged thus easilyA bond so subtle and so sure between us;He, gloomy and austere; I, full of thoughtAs he, yet in an adverse mood, at ease,Lifting with lighter hands the lids of life,Untortured by its riddles; he, whose smilesWere rare and sudden as the autumn sun;I, to whom smiles are ever near the lip.And yet I think he loved me too; my moodWas not unpleasant to him, though I knowAt times I teased him with my flickering talk.How self-immured he was; for all our converseI gathered little, little, of his life,A bitter trial to me, who love to learnThe changes of men's outer circumstance,The strokes that fate has shaped them with, and so,Fitting to these their present speech and favour,Discern the thought within. From him I gleanedNothing. At the least word, however guarded,That sought to try the fastenings of his lifeWith prying hands, how mute and dark he grew,And like the cautious tortoise at a touchDrew in beneath his shell.But ah, how sweetThe memory of that long untroubled day,To me so joyous, and so free from care,Spent as I love on foot, our first together,When fate and the reluctant sea at lastHad given us safely to dry land; the trampFrom grey Mycenæ by the pass to Corinth,The smooth white road, the soft caressing air,Full of the scent of blossoms, the clear sky,Strewn lightly with the little tardy clouds,Old Helios' scattered flock, the low-branched oaksAnd fountained resting-places, the cool nooks,Where eyes less darkened with life's use than minePerchance had caught the Naiads in their dreams,Or won white glimpses of their flying heels.How light our feet were: with what rhythmic stridesWe left the long blue gulf behind us, sownFar out with snowy sails; and how our heartsRose with the growth of morning, till we reachedThat moss-hung fountain on the hillside nearCleonæ, where the dark anemonesCover the ground, and make it red like fire.Could ever grief, I wonder, or fixed care,Or even the lingering twilight of old age,Divest for me such memories of their sweet?Even Euktemon's obdurate mood broke down.The odorous stillness, the serene bright air,The leafy shadows, the warm blossoming earth,Drew near with their voluptuous eloquence,And melted him. Ah, what a talk we had!How eagerly our nimble tongues ran on,With linkèd wit, in joyous sympathy.Such hours, I think, are better than long yearsOf brooding loneliness, mind touching mindTo leaping life, and thought sustaining thought,Till even the darkest chambers of grey time,His ancient seats, and bolted mysteries,Open their hoary doors, and at a lookLay all their treasures bare. How, when our thoughtWheeling on ever bolder wings at lastGrew as it seemed too large for utterance,We both fell silent, striving to recallAnd grasp such things as in our daring moodWe had but glimpsed and leaped at; yet how longWe studied thus with absent eyes, I know not;Our thought died slowly out; the busy road,The voices of the passers-by, the changeOf garb and feature, and the various tonguesAbsorbed us. Ah, how clearly I recall them!For in these silent wakeful hours the mindIs strangely swift. With what sharp linesThe shapes of things that even years have buriedShine out upon the rapid memory,Moving and warm like life. I can see nowThe form of that tall peddler, whose strange wares,Outlandish dialect and impudent gaitAwoke Euktemon's laughter. In mine earIs echoing still the cracking string of gibes,They flung at one another. I remember tooThe grey-haired merchant with his bold black eyesAnd brace of slaves, the old ship captain tannedWith sweeping sea-winds and the pitiless sun,But best of all that dainty amorous pair,Whose youthful spirit neither heat nor toilCould conquer. What a charming group they made?The creaking litter and the long brown poles,The sinewy bearers with their cat-like stride,Dripping with sweat, that merry dark-eyed girl,Whose sudden beauty shook us from our dreams,And chained our eyes. How beautiful she was?Half-hid among the gay Miletian cushions,The lovely laughing face, the gracious form,The fragrant lightly-knotted hair, and eyesFull of the dancing fire of wanton Corinth.That happy stripling, whose delighted feetSwung at her side, whose tongue ran on so gaily,Is it for him alone she wreathes those smiles,And tunes so musically that flexile voice,Soft as the Lydian flute? Surely his gaitProclaimed the lover, and his well-filled girdleNot less the lover's strength. How joyouslyHe strode, unmindful of his ruffled curls,Whose perfumes still went wide upon the wind,His dust-stained robe unheeded, and the stonesWhose ragged edges frayed his delicate shoes.How radiant, how full of hope he was!What pleasant memories, how many thingsRose up again before me, as I layHalf-stretched among the crushed anemones,And watched them, till a far off jutting ledgePrecluded sight, still listening till mine earsCaught the last vanishing murmur of their talk.Only a little longer; then we roseWith limbs refreshed, and kept a swinging paceToward Corinth; but our talk, I know not why,Fell for that day. I wonder what there wasAbout those dainty lovers or their speech,That changed Euktemon's mood; for all the wayFrom high Cleonæ to the city gates,Till sunset found us loitering without aim,Half lost among the dusky-moving crowds,I could get nothing from him but dark looks,Short answers and the old defiant stride.Some memory pricked him. It may be, perchance,A woman's treachery, some luckless passion,In former days endured, hath seared his blood,And dowered him with that cureless bitter humour.To him solitude and the wanderer's lifeAlone are sweet, the tumults of this worldA thing unworthy of the wise man's touch,Its joys and sorrows to be met alikeWith broad-browed scorn. One quality at leastWe have in common; we are idlers both,Shifters and wanderers through this sleepless world,Albeit in different moods. 'Tis that, I think,That knit us, and the universal needFor near companionship. Howe'er it be,There is no hand that I would gladlier grasp,Either on earth or in the nether gloom,When the grey keel shall grind the Stygian strand,Than stern Euktemon's.
How the returning days, one after one,Come ever in their rhythmic round, unchanged,Yet from each loopèd robe for every manSome new thing falls. Happy is heWho fronts them without fear, and like the godsLooks out unanxiously on each day's giftWith calmly curious eye. How many thingsEven in a little space, both good and ill,Have fallen on me, and yet in all of themThe keen experience or the smooth remembranceHath found some sweet. It scarcely seems a monthSince we saw Crete; so swiftly sped the days,Borne onward with how many changing scenes,Filled with how many crowding memories.Not soon shall I forget them, the stout ship,All the tense labour with the windy sea,The cloud-wrapped heights of Crete, beheld far off,And white Cytæon with its stormy pier,The fruitful valleys, the wild mountain road,And those long days of ever-vigilant toil,Scarcely with sleepless craft and unmoved frontEscaping robbers, that quiet restful eveAt rich Gortyna, where we lay and watchedThe dripping foliage, and the darkening fields,And over all huge-browed above the nightIda's great summit with it's fiery crown;And then once more the stormy treacherous sea,The noisy ship, the seamen's vehement cries,That battled with the whistling wind, the feetReeling upon the swaying deck, and eyesStrained anxiously toward land; ah, with what joyAt last the busy pier at Nauplia,Rest and firm shelter for our racking brains:Most sweet of all, most dear to memoryThat journey with Euktemon through the hillsBy fair Cleonæ and the lofty pass;Then Corinth with its riotous jollity,Remembered like a reeling dream; and hereGood Theron's wedding, and this festal day;And I, chief helper in its various rites,Not least, commissioned through these wakeful hoursTo dream before the quiet thalamos,Unsleeping, like some full-grown bearded Eros,The guardian of love's sweetest mysteries.To-morrow I shall hear again the dinOf the loosed cables, and the rowers' chaunt,The rattled cordage and the plunging oars.Once more the bending sail shall bear us onAcross the level of the laughing sea.Ere mid-day we shall see far off behind us,Faint as the summit of a sultry cloud,The white Acropolis. Past SuniumWith rushing keel, the long Eubœan strand,Hymettus and the pine-dark hills shall fadeInto the dusk: at Andros we shall water,And ere another starlight hush the shoresFrom seaward valleys catch upon the windThe fragrance of old Chian vintages.At Chios many things shall fall, but noneCan trace the future; rather let me dreamOf what is now, and what hath been, for bothAre fraught with life.
Here the unbroken silenceAwakens thought and makes remembrance sweet.How solidly the brilliant moonlight shinesInto the courts; beneath the colonnadesHow dense the shadows. I can scarcely seeYon painted Dian on the darkened wall;Yet how the gloom hath made her real. What sound,Piercing the leafy covert of her couch,Hath startled her. Perchance some prowling wolf,Or luckless footsteps of the stealthy Pan,Creeping at night among the noiseless steepsAnd hollows of the Erymanthian woods,Roused her from sleep. With listening head,Snatched bow, and quiver lightly slung, she stands,And peers across that dim and motionless glade,Beckoning about her heels the wakeful dogs;Yet Dian, thus alert, is but a dream,Making more real this brooding quietness.How strong and wonderful is night! MankindHas yielded all to one sweet helplessness:Thought, labour, strife and all activitiesHave ebbed like fever. The smooth tide of sleep,Rolling across the fields of Attica,Hath covered all the labouring villages.Even great Athens with her busy handsAnd busier tongues lies quiet beneath it's waves.Only a steady murmur seems to comeUp from her silentness, as if the landWere breathing heavily in dreams. AbroadNo creature stirs, not even the reveller,Staggering, unlanterned, from the cool Piræus,With drunken shout. The remnants of the feast,The crumpled cushions and the broken wreathes,Lie scattered in yon shadowy court, whose stonesThrough the warm hours drink up the staining wine.The bridal oxen in their well-filled stallsSleep, mindless of the happy weight they drew.The torch is charred; the garlands at the door,So gay at morning with their bright festoons,Hang limp and withered; and the joyous flutesAre empty of all sound. Only my brainHolds now in it's remote unsleeping depthsThe echo of the tender hymenæosAnd memory of the modest lips that sang it.Within the silent thalamos the queen,The sea-sprung radiant Cytherean reigns,And with her smiling lips and fathomless eyesRegards the lovers, knowing that this hourIs theirs once only. Earth and thought and timeLie far beyond them, a great gulf of joy,Absorbing fear, regret and every grief,A warm eternity: or now perchanceNight and the very weight of happiness,Unsought, have turned upon their tremulous eyesThe mindless stream of sleep; nor do they careIf dawn should never come.
How joyouslyThese hours have gone with all their pictured scenes,A string of golden beads for memoryTo finger over in her moods, or stayThe hunger of some wakeful hour like this,The flowers, the myrtles, the gay bridal train,The flutes and pensive voices, the white robes,The shower of sweet-meats, and the jovial feast,The bride cakes, and the teeming merriment,Most beautiful of all, most sweet to name,The good Lysippe with her down-cast eyes,Touched with soft fear, half scared at all the noise,Whose tears were ready as her laughter, fresh,And modest as some pink anemone.How young she looked, and how her smiling lipsBetrayed her happiness. Ah, who can tell,How often, when no watchful eye was near,Her eager fingers, trembling and ashamed,Essayed the apple-pips, or strewed the floorWith broken poppy petals. Next to her,Theron himself the gladest goodliest figure,His honest face ruddy with health and joy,And smiling like the Ægean, when the sunHangs high in heaven, and the freshening windComes in from Melos, rippling all its floor:And there was Manto too, the good old crone,So dear to children with her store of tales,Warmed with new life: how to her old grey faceAnd withered limbs the very dance of youthSeemed to return, and in her aged eyesThe waning fire rekindled: little Mæon,That mischievous satyr with his tipsy wreath,Who kept us laughing at his pranks, and madeOld Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath boundUpon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong,Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes.Even in sleep his little limbs, I think,Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes onWith inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Mæon!And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreamsOf darkly-moving chaos and slow shapesOf things that creep encumbered with huge burdensGloom and infest her through these dragging hours,Haunting the wavering soul, so near the grave?But all things journey to the same quiet endAt last, life, joy and every form of motion.Nothing stands still. Not least inevitable,The sad recession of this passionate love,Whose panting fires, so soon and with such grief,Burn down to ash.
Ai! Ai! 'tis a strange madnessTo give up thought, ambition, liberty,And all the rooted custom of our days,Even life itself for one all pampering dream,That withers like those garlands at the door;And yet I have seen many excellent menBesotted thus, and some that bore till death,In the crook'd vision and embittered tongue,The effect of this strange poison, like a scar,An ineradicable hurt; but Fate,Who deals more wondrously in this diseaseEven than in others, yet doth sometimes willTo make the same thing unto different menEvil or good. Was not Demetrios happy,Who wore his fetters with such grace, and spentOn Chione, the Naxian, that shrewd girl,His fortune and his youth, yet, while she lived,Enjoyed the rich reward? He seemed like one,That trod on wind, and I remember well,How when she died in that remorseless plague,And I alone stood with him at the pyre,He shook me with his helpless passionate grief.And honest Agathon, the married man,Whose boyish fondness for his pretty wifeWe smiled at, and yet envied; at the closeOf each day's labour how he posted home,And thence no bait, however plumed, could draw him.We laughed, but envied him. How sweet she lookedThat morning at the Dyonisia,With her rare eyes and modest girlish grace,Leading her two small children by the palm.I too might marry, if the faithful godsWould promise me such joy as Agathon's.Perhaps some day—but no, I am not oneTo clip my wings, and wind about my feetA net, whose self-made meshes are as sternAs they are soft. To me is ever presentThe outer world with its untravelled paths,The wanderer's dream, the itch to see new things.A single tie could never bind me fast,For life, this joyous, busy, ever-changing life,Is only dear to me with liberty,With space of earth for feet to travel inAnd space of mind for thought.
Not so for all;To most men life is but a common thing,The hours a sort of coin to barter with,Whose worth is reckoned by the sum they buyIn gold, or power, or pleasure; each short dayThat brings not these deemed fruitless as dry sand.Their lives are but a blind activity,And death to them is but the end of motion,Grey children who have madly eat and drunk,Won the high seats or filled their chests with gold.And yet for all their years have never seenThe picture of their lives, or how life looksTo him who hath the deep uneager eye,How sweet and large and beautiful it was,How strange the part they played. Like him who sitsBeneath some mighty tree, with half-closed eyes,At ease rejoicing in its murmurous shade,Yet never once awakes from his dull dreamTo mark with curious joy the kingly trunk,The sweeping boughs and tower of leaves that gave it,Even so the most of men; they take the gift,And care not for the giver. Strange indeedAre they, and pitiable beyond measure,Who, thus unmindful of their wretchedness,Crowd at life's bountiful gates, like fattening beggars,Greedy and blind. For see how rich a thingLife is to him who sees, to whom each hourBrings some fresh wonder to be brooded on,Adds some new group or studied historyTo that wrought sculpture, that our watchful dreamsCast up upon the broad expanse of time,As in a never-finished frieze, not lessThe little things that most men pass unmarkedThan those that shake mankind. Happy is he,Who, as a watcher, stands apart from life,From all life and his own, and thus from all,Each thought, each deed, and each hour's brief event,Draws the full beauty, sucks its meaning dry.For him this life shall be a tranquil joy.He shall be quiet and free. To him shall comeNo gnawing hunger for the coarser touch,No mad ambition with its fateful grasp;Sorrow itself shall sway him like a dream.
How full life is; how many memoriesFlash, and shine out, when thought is sharply stirred;How the mind works, when once the wheels are loosed,How nimbly, with what swift activity.I think, 'tis strange that men should ever sleep,There are so many things to think upon,So many deeds, so many thoughts to weigh,To pierce, and plumb them to the silent depth.Yet in that thought I do rebuke myself,Too little given to probe the inner heart,But rather wont, with the luxurious eye,To catch from life it's outer loveliness,Such things as do but store the joyous memoryWith food for solace rather than for thought,Like light-lined figures on a painted jar.I wonder where Euktemon is to-night,Euktemon with his rough and fitful talk,His moody gesture and defiant stride;How strange, how bleak and unapproachable;And yet I liked him from the first. How soonWe know our friends, through all disguise of mood,Discerning by a subtle touch of spiritThe honest heart within. Euktemon's glanceBetrayed him with it's gusty friendliness,Flashing at moments from the clouded brow,Like brave warm sunshine, and his laughter too,So rare, so sudden, so contagious,How at some merry scene, some well-told tale,Or swift invention of the wingèd wit,It broke like thunderous water, rolling outIn shaken peals on the delighted ear.Yet no man would have dreamed, who saw us twoThat first grey morning on the pier at Crete,That friendship could have forged thus easilyA bond so subtle and so sure between us;He, gloomy and austere; I, full of thoughtAs he, yet in an adverse mood, at ease,Lifting with lighter hands the lids of life,Untortured by its riddles; he, whose smilesWere rare and sudden as the autumn sun;I, to whom smiles are ever near the lip.And yet I think he loved me too; my moodWas not unpleasant to him, though I knowAt times I teased him with my flickering talk.How self-immured he was; for all our converseI gathered little, little, of his life,A bitter trial to me, who love to learnThe changes of men's outer circumstance,The strokes that fate has shaped them with, and so,Fitting to these their present speech and favour,Discern the thought within. From him I gleanedNothing. At the least word, however guarded,That sought to try the fastenings of his lifeWith prying hands, how mute and dark he grew,And like the cautious tortoise at a touchDrew in beneath his shell.
But ah, how sweetThe memory of that long untroubled day,To me so joyous, and so free from care,Spent as I love on foot, our first together,When fate and the reluctant sea at lastHad given us safely to dry land; the trampFrom grey Mycenæ by the pass to Corinth,The smooth white road, the soft caressing air,Full of the scent of blossoms, the clear sky,Strewn lightly with the little tardy clouds,Old Helios' scattered flock, the low-branched oaksAnd fountained resting-places, the cool nooks,Where eyes less darkened with life's use than minePerchance had caught the Naiads in their dreams,Or won white glimpses of their flying heels.How light our feet were: with what rhythmic stridesWe left the long blue gulf behind us, sownFar out with snowy sails; and how our heartsRose with the growth of morning, till we reachedThat moss-hung fountain on the hillside nearCleonæ, where the dark anemonesCover the ground, and make it red like fire.Could ever grief, I wonder, or fixed care,Or even the lingering twilight of old age,Divest for me such memories of their sweet?Even Euktemon's obdurate mood broke down.The odorous stillness, the serene bright air,The leafy shadows, the warm blossoming earth,Drew near with their voluptuous eloquence,And melted him. Ah, what a talk we had!How eagerly our nimble tongues ran on,With linkèd wit, in joyous sympathy.Such hours, I think, are better than long yearsOf brooding loneliness, mind touching mindTo leaping life, and thought sustaining thought,Till even the darkest chambers of grey time,His ancient seats, and bolted mysteries,Open their hoary doors, and at a lookLay all their treasures bare. How, when our thoughtWheeling on ever bolder wings at lastGrew as it seemed too large for utterance,We both fell silent, striving to recallAnd grasp such things as in our daring moodWe had but glimpsed and leaped at; yet how longWe studied thus with absent eyes, I know not;Our thought died slowly out; the busy road,The voices of the passers-by, the changeOf garb and feature, and the various tonguesAbsorbed us. Ah, how clearly I recall them!For in these silent wakeful hours the mindIs strangely swift. With what sharp linesThe shapes of things that even years have buriedShine out upon the rapid memory,Moving and warm like life. I can see nowThe form of that tall peddler, whose strange wares,Outlandish dialect and impudent gaitAwoke Euktemon's laughter. In mine earIs echoing still the cracking string of gibes,They flung at one another. I remember tooThe grey-haired merchant with his bold black eyesAnd brace of slaves, the old ship captain tannedWith sweeping sea-winds and the pitiless sun,But best of all that dainty amorous pair,Whose youthful spirit neither heat nor toilCould conquer. What a charming group they made?The creaking litter and the long brown poles,The sinewy bearers with their cat-like stride,Dripping with sweat, that merry dark-eyed girl,Whose sudden beauty shook us from our dreams,And chained our eyes. How beautiful she was?Half-hid among the gay Miletian cushions,The lovely laughing face, the gracious form,The fragrant lightly-knotted hair, and eyesFull of the dancing fire of wanton Corinth.That happy stripling, whose delighted feetSwung at her side, whose tongue ran on so gaily,Is it for him alone she wreathes those smiles,And tunes so musically that flexile voice,Soft as the Lydian flute? Surely his gaitProclaimed the lover, and his well-filled girdleNot less the lover's strength. How joyouslyHe strode, unmindful of his ruffled curls,Whose perfumes still went wide upon the wind,His dust-stained robe unheeded, and the stonesWhose ragged edges frayed his delicate shoes.How radiant, how full of hope he was!What pleasant memories, how many thingsRose up again before me, as I layHalf-stretched among the crushed anemones,And watched them, till a far off jutting ledgePrecluded sight, still listening till mine earsCaught the last vanishing murmur of their talk.
Only a little longer; then we roseWith limbs refreshed, and kept a swinging paceToward Corinth; but our talk, I know not why,Fell for that day. I wonder what there wasAbout those dainty lovers or their speech,That changed Euktemon's mood; for all the wayFrom high Cleonæ to the city gates,Till sunset found us loitering without aim,Half lost among the dusky-moving crowds,I could get nothing from him but dark looks,Short answers and the old defiant stride.Some memory pricked him. It may be, perchance,A woman's treachery, some luckless passion,In former days endured, hath seared his blood,And dowered him with that cureless bitter humour.To him solitude and the wanderer's lifeAlone are sweet, the tumults of this worldA thing unworthy of the wise man's touch,Its joys and sorrows to be met alikeWith broad-browed scorn. One quality at leastWe have in common; we are idlers both,Shifters and wanderers through this sleepless world,Albeit in different moods. 'Tis that, I think,That knit us, and the universal needFor near companionship. Howe'er it be,There is no hand that I would gladlier grasp,Either on earth or in the nether gloom,When the grey keel shall grind the Stygian strand,Than stern Euktemon's.
Yearning upon the faint rose-curves that flitAbout her child-sweet mouth and innocent cheek,And in her eyes watching with eyes all meekThe light and shadow of laughter, I would sitMute, knowing our two souls might never knit;As if a pale proud lily-flower should seekThe love of some red rose, but could not speakOne word of her blithe tongue to tell of it.For oh, my Love was sunny-lipped and stirredWith all swift light and sound and gloom not longRetained; I, with dreams weighed, that ever heardSad burdens echoing through the loudest throngShe, the wild song of some May-merry bird;I, but the listening maker of a song.
Yearning upon the faint rose-curves that flitAbout her child-sweet mouth and innocent cheek,And in her eyes watching with eyes all meekThe light and shadow of laughter, I would sitMute, knowing our two souls might never knit;As if a pale proud lily-flower should seekThe love of some red rose, but could not speakOne word of her blithe tongue to tell of it.
For oh, my Love was sunny-lipped and stirredWith all swift light and sound and gloom not longRetained; I, with dreams weighed, that ever heardSad burdens echoing through the loudest throngShe, the wild song of some May-merry bird;I, but the listening maker of a song.
Beloved, those who moan of love's brief dayShall find but little grace with me, I guess,Who know too well this passion's tendernessTo deem that it shall lightly pass away,A moment's interlude in life's dull play;Though many loves have lingered to distress,So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'ertheless,But deepen with us till both heads be grey.For perfect love is like a fair green plant,That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on,And gentle lovers shall not come to want,Though fancy with its first mad dream be gone;Sweet is the flower, whose radiant glory flies,But sweeter still the green that never dies.
Beloved, those who moan of love's brief dayShall find but little grace with me, I guess,Who know too well this passion's tendernessTo deem that it shall lightly pass away,A moment's interlude in life's dull play;Though many loves have lingered to distress,So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'ertheless,But deepen with us till both heads be grey.
For perfect love is like a fair green plant,That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on,And gentle lovers shall not come to want,Though fancy with its first mad dream be gone;Sweet is the flower, whose radiant glory flies,But sweeter still the green that never dies.
Or whether sad or joyous be her hours,Yet ever is she good and ever fair.If she be glad, 'tis like a child's wild air,Who claps her hands above a heap of flowers;And if she's sad, it is no cloud that lowers,Rather a saint's pale grace, whose golden hairGleams like a crown, whose eyes are like a prayerFrom some quiet window under minster towers.But ah, Beloved, how shall I be taughtTo tell this truth in any rhymed line?For words and woven phrases fall to naught,Lost in the silence of one dream divine,Wrapped in the beating wonder of this thought:Even thou, who art so precious, thou art mine!
Or whether sad or joyous be her hours,Yet ever is she good and ever fair.If she be glad, 'tis like a child's wild air,Who claps her hands above a heap of flowers;And if she's sad, it is no cloud that lowers,Rather a saint's pale grace, whose golden hairGleams like a crown, whose eyes are like a prayerFrom some quiet window under minster towers.
But ah, Beloved, how shall I be taughtTo tell this truth in any rhymed line?For words and woven phrases fall to naught,Lost in the silence of one dream divine,Wrapped in the beating wonder of this thought:Even thou, who art so precious, thou art mine!
Comfort the sorrowful with watchful eyesIn silence, for the tongue cannot avail.Vex not his wounds with rhetoric, nor the staleWorn truths, that are but maddening mockeriesTo him whose grief outmasters all replies.Only watch near him gently; do but bringThe piteous help of silent ministering,Watchful and tender. This alone is wise.So shall thy presence and thine every motion,The grateful knowledge of thy sad devotionMelt out the passionate hardness of his grief,And break the flood-gates of the pent-up soul.He shall bow down beneath thy mute control,And take thine hands, and weep, and find relief.
Comfort the sorrowful with watchful eyesIn silence, for the tongue cannot avail.Vex not his wounds with rhetoric, nor the staleWorn truths, that are but maddening mockeriesTo him whose grief outmasters all replies.Only watch near him gently; do but bringThe piteous help of silent ministering,Watchful and tender. This alone is wise.
So shall thy presence and thine every motion,The grateful knowledge of thy sad devotionMelt out the passionate hardness of his grief,And break the flood-gates of the pent-up soul.He shall bow down beneath thy mute control,And take thine hands, and weep, and find relief.
Slow figures in some live remorseless frieze,The approaching days escapeless and unguessed,With mask and shroud impenetrably dressed;Time, whose inexorable destiniesBear down upon us like impending seas;And the huge presence of this world, at bestA sightless giant wandering without rest,Agèd and mad with many miseries.The weight and measure of these things who knows?Resting at times beside life's thought-swept stream,Sobered and stunned with unexpected blows,We scarcely hear the uproar; life doth seem,Save for the certain nearness of its woes,Vain and phantasmal as a sick man's dream.
Slow figures in some live remorseless frieze,The approaching days escapeless and unguessed,With mask and shroud impenetrably dressed;Time, whose inexorable destiniesBear down upon us like impending seas;And the huge presence of this world, at bestA sightless giant wandering without rest,Agèd and mad with many miseries.
The weight and measure of these things who knows?Resting at times beside life's thought-swept stream,Sobered and stunned with unexpected blows,We scarcely hear the uproar; life doth seem,Save for the certain nearness of its woes,Vain and phantasmal as a sick man's dream.
Not to be conquered by these headlong days,But to stand free: to keep the mind at broodOn life's deep meaning, nature's altitudeOf loveliness, and time's mysterious ways;At every thought and deed to clear the hazeOut of our eyes, considering only this,What man, what life, what love, what beauty is,This is to live, and win the final praise.Though strife, ill fortune and harsh human needBeat down the soul, at moments blind and dumbWith agony; yet, patience—there shall comeMany great voices from life's outer sea,Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed,Murmurs and glimpses of eternity.
Not to be conquered by these headlong days,But to stand free: to keep the mind at broodOn life's deep meaning, nature's altitudeOf loveliness, and time's mysterious ways;At every thought and deed to clear the hazeOut of our eyes, considering only this,What man, what life, what love, what beauty is,This is to live, and win the final praise.
Though strife, ill fortune and harsh human needBeat down the soul, at moments blind and dumbWith agony; yet, patience—there shall comeMany great voices from life's outer sea,Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed,Murmurs and glimpses of eternity.
Blind multitudes that jar confusedlyAt strife, earth's children, will ye never restFrom toils made hateful here, and dawns distressedWith ravelling self-engendered misery?And will ye never know, till sleep shall seeYour graves, how dreadful and how dark indeedAre pride, self-will, and blind-voiced anger, greed,And malice with its subtle cruelty?How beautiful is gentleness, whose faceLike April sunshine, or the summer rain,Swells everywhere the buds of generous thought?So easy, and so sweet it is; its graceSmoothes out so soon the tangled knots of pain.Can ye not learn it? will ye not be taught?
Blind multitudes that jar confusedlyAt strife, earth's children, will ye never restFrom toils made hateful here, and dawns distressedWith ravelling self-engendered misery?And will ye never know, till sleep shall seeYour graves, how dreadful and how dark indeedAre pride, self-will, and blind-voiced anger, greed,And malice with its subtle cruelty?
How beautiful is gentleness, whose faceLike April sunshine, or the summer rain,Swells everywhere the buds of generous thought?So easy, and so sweet it is; its graceSmoothes out so soon the tangled knots of pain.Can ye not learn it? will ye not be taught?
Oh earth, oh dewy mother, breathe on usSomething of all thy beauty and thy might,Us that are part of day, but most of night,Not strong like thee, but ever burdened thusWith glooms and cares, things pale and dolorousWhose gladest moments are not wholly bright;Something of all thy freshness and thy light,Oh earth, oh mighty mother, breathe on us.Oh mother, who wast long before our day,And after us full many an age shalt be.Careworn and blind, we wander from thy way:Born of thy strength, yet weak and halt are weGrant us, oh mother, therefore, us who pray,Some little of thy light and majesty.
Oh earth, oh dewy mother, breathe on usSomething of all thy beauty and thy might,Us that are part of day, but most of night,Not strong like thee, but ever burdened thusWith glooms and cares, things pale and dolorousWhose gladest moments are not wholly bright;Something of all thy freshness and thy light,Oh earth, oh mighty mother, breathe on us.
Oh mother, who wast long before our day,And after us full many an age shalt be.Careworn and blind, we wander from thy way:Born of thy strength, yet weak and halt are weGrant us, oh mother, therefore, us who pray,Some little of thy light and majesty.
Move on, light hands, so strongly tenderly,Now with dropped calm and yearning undersong,Now swift and loud, tumultuously strong,And I in darkness, sitting near to thee,Shall only hear, and feel, but shall not see,One hour made passionately bright with dreams,Keen glimpses of life's splendour, dashing gleamsOf what we would, and what we cannot be.Surely not painful ever, yet not glad,Shall such hours be to me, but blindly sweet,Sharp with all yearning and all fact at strife,Dreams that shine by with unremembered feet,And tones that like far distance make this lifeSpectral and wonderful and strangely sad.
Move on, light hands, so strongly tenderly,Now with dropped calm and yearning undersong,Now swift and loud, tumultuously strong,And I in darkness, sitting near to thee,Shall only hear, and feel, but shall not see,One hour made passionately bright with dreams,Keen glimpses of life's splendour, dashing gleamsOf what we would, and what we cannot be.
Surely not painful ever, yet not glad,Shall such hours be to me, but blindly sweet,Sharp with all yearning and all fact at strife,Dreams that shine by with unremembered feet,And tones that like far distance make this lifeSpectral and wonderful and strangely sad.
What is more large than knowledge and more sweet;Knowledge of thoughts and deeds, of rights and wrongs,Of passions and of beauties and of songs;Knowledge of life; to feel its great heart beatThrough all the soul upon her crystal seat;To see, to feel, and evermore to know;To till the old world's wisdom till it growA garden for the wandering of our feet.Oh for a life of leisure and broad hours,To think and dream, to put away small things,This world's perpetual leaguer of dull naughts;To wander like the bee among the flowersTill old age find us weary, feet and wingsGrown heavy with the gold of many thoughts.
What is more large than knowledge and more sweet;Knowledge of thoughts and deeds, of rights and wrongs,Of passions and of beauties and of songs;Knowledge of life; to feel its great heart beatThrough all the soul upon her crystal seat;To see, to feel, and evermore to know;To till the old world's wisdom till it growA garden for the wandering of our feet.
Oh for a life of leisure and broad hours,To think and dream, to put away small things,This world's perpetual leaguer of dull naughts;To wander like the bee among the flowersTill old age find us weary, feet and wingsGrown heavy with the gold of many thoughts.
The world is bright with beauty, and its daysAre filled with music; could we only knowTrue ends from false, and lofty things from low;Could we but tear away the walls that grazeOur very elbows in life's frosty ways;Behold the width beyond us with its flow,Its knowledge and its murmur and its glow,Where doubt itself is but a golden haze.Ah brothers, still upon our pathway liesThe shadow of dim weariness and fear,Yet if we could but lift our earthward eyesTo see, and open our dull ears to hear,Then should the wonder of this world draw nearAnd life's innumerable harmonies.
The world is bright with beauty, and its daysAre filled with music; could we only knowTrue ends from false, and lofty things from low;Could we but tear away the walls that grazeOur very elbows in life's frosty ways;Behold the width beyond us with its flow,Its knowledge and its murmur and its glow,Where doubt itself is but a golden haze.
Ah brothers, still upon our pathway liesThe shadow of dim weariness and fear,Yet if we could but lift our earthward eyesTo see, and open our dull ears to hear,Then should the wonder of this world draw nearAnd life's innumerable harmonies.
Even as I watched the daylight how it spedFrom noon till eve, and saw the light wind passIn long pale waves across the flashing grass,And heard through all my dreams, wherever led,The thin cicada singing overhead,I felt what joyance all this nature has,And saw myself made clear as in a glass,How that my soul was for the most part dead.Oh, light, I cried, and, heaven, with all your blue,Oh, earth, with all your sunny fruitfulness,And ye, tall lilies, of the wind-vexed field,What power and beauty life indeed might yield,Could we but cast away its conscious stress,Simple of heart, becoming even as you.
Even as I watched the daylight how it spedFrom noon till eve, and saw the light wind passIn long pale waves across the flashing grass,And heard through all my dreams, wherever led,The thin cicada singing overhead,I felt what joyance all this nature has,And saw myself made clear as in a glass,How that my soul was for the most part dead.
Oh, light, I cried, and, heaven, with all your blue,Oh, earth, with all your sunny fruitfulness,And ye, tall lilies, of the wind-vexed field,What power and beauty life indeed might yield,Could we but cast away its conscious stress,Simple of heart, becoming even as you.