Oh, children of the village choir,Your carols on the midnight throw,Oh bright across the mist and mireYe ruddy hearths of Christmas glow!Beat back the dread, beat down the woe,Let’s cheerily descend the hill;Be welcome all, to come or go,The ghosts we all can raise at will!
Envoy.
Friend,sursum corda, soon or slowWe part, like guests who’ve joyed their fill;Forget them not, nor mourn them so,The ghosts we all can raise at will!
SONNET.
Lovedied hereLong ago;O’er his bier,Lying low,Poppies throw;Shed no tear;Year by year,Roses blow!
Year by year,Adon—dearTo Love’s Queen—Does not die!Wakes when greenMay is nigh!
Shehas just “put her gown on” at Girton,She is learned in Latin and Greek,But lawn tennis she plays with a skirt onThat the prudish remark with a shriek.In her accents, perhaps, she is weak(Ladiesare, one observes with a sigh),But in Algebra—thereshe’s unique,But her forte’s to evaluate π.
She can talk about putting a “spirt on”(I admit, an unmaidenly freak),And she dearly delighteth to flirt onA punt in some shadowy creek;Should her bark, by mischance, spring a leak,She can swim as a swallow can fly;She can fence, she can put with a cleek,But her forte’s to evaluate π.
She has lectured on Scopas and Myrton,Coins, vases, mosaics, the antique,Old tiles with the secular dirt on,Old marbles with noses to seek.And her Cobet she quotes by the week,And she’s written onκενand onκαὶ,And her service is swift and oblique,But her forte’s to evaluate π.
Envoy.
Princess, like a rose is her cheek,And her eyes are as blue as the sky,And I’d speak, had I courage to speak,But—her forte’s to evaluate π.
Yewells, ye founts that fallFrom the steep mountain wall,That fall, and flash, and fleetWith silver feet,
Ye woods, ye streams that laveThe meadows with your wave,Ye hills, and valley fair,Attend my prayer!
When Heaven and Fate decreeMy latest hour for me,When I must pass awayFrom pleasant day,
I ask that none may breakThe marble for my sake,Wishful to make more fairMy sepulchre.
Only a laurel treeShall shade the grave of me,Only Apollo’s boughShall guard me now!
Now shall I be at restAmong the spirits blest,The happy dead that dwell—Where,—who may tell?
The snow and wind and hailMay never there prevail,Nor ever thunder fallNor storm at all.
But always fadeless thereThe woods are green and fair,And faithful ever moreSpring to that shore!
There shall I ever hearAlcaeus’ music clear,And sweetest of all thingsThereSapphosings.
(The village in the bay of Spezia, near which Shelley was livingbefore the wreck of theDon Juan.)
MidApril seemed like some November day,When through the glassy waters, dull as leadOur boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead,Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay,Rounded a point,—and San Terenzo layBefore us, that gay village, yellow and red,The roof that covered Shelley’s homeless head,—His house, a place deserted, bleak and grey.
The waves broke on the door-step; fishermenCast their long nets, and drew, and cast again.Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free,When suddenly the forest glades were stirredWith waving pinions, and a great sea birdFlew forth, like Shelley’s spirit, to the sea!
1880.
MyLove dwelt in a Northern land.A grey tower in a forest greenWas hers, and far on either handThe long wash of the waves was seen,And leagues on leagues of yellow sand,The woven forest boughs between!
And through the silver Northern nightThe sunset slowly died away,And herds of strange deer, lily-white,Stole forth among the branches grey;About the coming of the light,They fled like ghosts before the day!
I know not if the forest greenStill girdles round that castle grey;I know not if the boughs betweenThe white deer vanish ere the day;Above my Love the grass is green,My heart is colder than the clay!
I scribbled on a fly-book’s leavesAmong the shining salmon-flies;A song for summer-time that grievesI scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves.Between grey sea and golden sheaves,Beneath the soft wet Morvern skies,I scribbled on a fly-book’s leavesAmong the shining salmon-flies.
TO C. H. ARKCOLL.
Letthem boast of Arabia, oppressedBy the odour of myrrh on the breeze;In the isles of the East and the WestThat are sweet with the cinnamon treesLet the sandal-wood perfume the seasGive the roses to Rhodes and to Crete,We are more than content, if you please,With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!
Though Dan Virgil enjoyed himself bestWith the scent of the limes, when the beesHummed low ’round the doves in their nest,While the vintagers lay at their ease,Had he sung in our northern degrees,He’d have sought a securer retreat,He’d have dwelt, where the heart of us flees,With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!
Oh, the broom has a chivalrous crestAnd the daffodil’s fair on the leas,And the soul of the Southron might rest,And be perfectly happy with these;Butwe, that were nursed on the kneesOf the hills of the North, we would fleetWhere our hearts might their longing appeaseWith the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!
Envoy.
Ah Constance, the land of our questIt is far from the sounds of the street,Where the Kingdom of Galloway’s blestWith the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!
(TO M. JOSEPH BOULMIER, AUTHOR OF “LES VILLANELLES.”)
Villanelle, why art thou mute?Hath the singer ceased to sing?Hath the Master lost his lute?
Many a pipe and scrannel fluteOn the breeze their discords fling;Villanelle, why artthoumute?
Sound of tumult and dispute,Noise of war the echoes bring;Hath the Master lost his lute?
Once he sang of bud and shootIn the season of the Spring;Villanelle, why art thou mute?
Fading leaf and falling fruitSay, “The year is on the wing,Hath the Master lost his lute?”
Ere the axe lie at the root,Ere the winter come as king,Villanelle, why art thou mute?Hath the Master lost his lute?
Αιαῖ ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωνταὕστερον αὖ ζώοντι καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντιἄμμες δ’ ὁι μεγάλοι καὶ καρτεροί, οἱ σοφοὶ ἄνδεςὁππότε πρᾶτα θάνωμες, ἀνάκοοι ἐν χθονὶ κοίλᾳ,εὕδομες εὖ μάλα μακρὸν ἀτέρμονα νήγρετον ὕπνον.
Alas, for us no second spring,Like mallows in the garden-bed,For these the grave has lost his sting,Alas, forusno second spring,Who sleep without awakening,And, dead, for ever more are dead,Alas, for us no second spring,Like mallows in the garden-bed!
Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave,That boast themselves the sons of men!Once they go down into the grave—Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave,—They perish and have none to save,They are sown, and are not raised again;Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave,That boast themselves the sons of men!
TO T. W. LANG.
Theburden of hard hitting: slog away!Here shalt thou make a “five” and there a “four,”And then upon thy bat shalt lean, and say,That thou art in for an uncommon score.Yea, the loud ring applauding thee shall roar,And thou to rivalThorntonshalt aspire,When lo, the Umpire gives thee “leg before,”—“This is the end of every man’s desire!”
The burden of much bowling, when the stayOf all thy team is “collared,” swift or slower,When “bailers” break not in their wonted way,And “yorkers” come not off as here-to-fore,When length balls shoot no more, ah never more,When all deliveries lose their former fire,When bats seem broader than the broad barn-door,—“This is the end of every man’s desire!”
The burden of long fielding, when the clayClings to thy shoon in sudden shower’s downpour,And running still thou stumblest, or the rayOf blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore,And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore,Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a “skyer,”And lose a match the Fates cannot restore,—“This is the end of every man’s desire!”
Envoy.
Alas, yet liefer on Youth’s hither shoreWould I be some poor Player on scant hire,Than King among the old, who play no more,—“Thisis the end of every man’s desire!”
“It is told of the last Lovers which watched May-night in theforest, before men brought the tidings of the Gospel to this land, thatthey beheld no Fairies, nor Dwarfs, nor no such Thing, but the veryVenus herself, who bade them ‘make such cheer as they might,for’ said she, ‘I shall live no more in these Woods, nor shall yeendure to see another May time.’”—Edmund Gorliot, “Of Phantasies and Omens,” p. 149. (1573.)
“It is told of the last Lovers which watched May-night in theforest, before men brought the tidings of the Gospel to this land, thatthey beheld no Fairies, nor Dwarfs, nor no such Thing, but the veryVenus herself, who bade them ‘make such cheer as they might,for’ said she, ‘I shall live no more in these Woods, nor shall yeendure to see another May time.’”—Edmund Gorliot, “Of Phantasies and Omens,” p. 149. (1573.)
“Whencedo ye come, with the dew on your hair?From what far land are the boughs ye bear,The blossoms and buds upon breasts and tresses,The light burned white in your faces fair?”
“In a falling fane have we built our house,With the dying Gods we have held carouse,And our lips are wan from their wild caresses,Our hands are filled with their holy boughs.
As we crossed the lawn in the dying dayNo fairy led us to meet the May,But the very Goddess loved by lovers,In mourning raiment of green and grey.
She was not decked as for glee and game,She was not veiled with the veil of flame,The saffron veil of the Bride that coversThe face that is flushed with her joy and shame.
On the laden branches the scent and dewMingled and met, and as snow to strewThe woodland rides and the fragrant grasses,White flowers fell as the night wind blew.
Tears and kisses on lips and eyesMingled and met amid laughter and sighsFor grief that abides, and joy that passes,For pain that tarries and mirth that flies.
It chanced as the dawning grew to greyPale and sad on our homeward way,With weary lips, and palled with pleasureThe Goddess met us, farewell to say.
“Ye have made your choice, and the better part,Ye chose” she said, “and the wiser art;In the wild May night drank all the measure,The perfect pleasure of heart and heart.
“Ye shall walk no more with the May,” she said,“Shall your love endure though the Gods be dead?Shall the flitting flocks, mine own, my chosen,Sing as of old, and be happy and wed?
“Yea, they are glad as of old; but you,Fair and fleet as the dawn or the dew,Abide no more, for the springs are frozen,And fled the Gods that ye loved and knew.
“Ye shall never know Summer again like this;Ye shall play no more with the Fauns, I wis,No more in the nymphs’ and dryads’ playtimeShall echo and answer kiss and kiss.
“Though the flowers in your golden hair be bright,Your golden hair shall be waste and whiteOn faded brows ere another May timeBring the spring, but no more delight.”
Thesacred keep of Ilion is rentBy shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slowThrough plains where Simois and Scamander wentTo war with Gods and heroes long ago.Not yet to tired Cassandra, lying lowIn rich Mycenæ, do the Fates relent:The bones of Agamemnon are a show,And ruined is his royal monument.
The dust and awful treasures of the Dead,Hath Learning scattered wide, but vainly thee,Homer, she meteth with her tool of lead,And strives to rend thy songs; too blind to seeThe crown that burns on thine immortal headOf indivisible supremacy!
LUI.
Ahlady, lady, leave the creeping mist,And leave the iron castle by the sea!
ELLE.
Nay, from the sea there came a ghost that kissedMy lips, and so I cannot come to thee!
LUI.
Ah lady, leave the cruel landward windThat crusts the blighted flowers with bitter foam!
ELLE.
Nay, for his arms are cold and strong to bind,And I must dwell with him and make my home!
LUI.
Come, for the Spring is fair in Joyous GuardAnd down deep alleys sweet birds sing again.
ELLE.
But I must tarry with the winter hard,And with the bitter memory of pain,Although the Spring be fair in Joyous Guard,And in the gardens glad birds sing again!
The incident is from the Love Stories of Parthenius, who preserved fragments of a lost epic on the expedition of Achilles against Lesbos, an island allied with Troy.
Thedaughter of the Lesbian kingWithin her bower she watched the war,Far off she heard the arrows ring,The smitten harness ring afar;And, fighting from the foremost car,Saw one that smote where all must flee;More fair than the Immortals areHe seemed to fair Pisidicê!
She saw, she loved him, and her heartBefore Achilles, Peleus’ son,Threw all its guarded gates apart,A maiden fortress lightly won!And, ere that day of fight was done,No more of land or faith recked she,But joyed in her new life begun,—Her life of love, Pisidicê!
She took a gift into her hand,As one that had a boon to crave;She stole across the ruined landWhere lay the dead without a grave,And to Achilles’ hand she gaveHer gift, the secret postern’s key.“To-morrow let me be thy slave!”Moaned to her love Pisidicê.
Ere dawn the Argives’ clarion callRang down Methymna’s burning street;They slew the sleeping warriors all,They drove the women to the fleet,Save one, that to Achilles’ feetClung, but, in sudden wrath, cried he:“For her no doom but death is meet,”And there men stoned Pisidicê.
In havens of that haunted coast,Amid the myrtles of the shore,The moon sees many a maiden ghostLove’s outcast now and evermore.The silence hears the shades deploreTheir hour of dear-bought love; buttheeThe waves lull, ’neath thine olives hoar,To dreamless rest, Pisidicê!
Returningfrom what other seasDost thou renew thy murmuring,Weak Tide, and hast thou aught of theseTo tell, the shores where float and clingMy love, my hope, my memories?
Say does my lady wake to noteThe gold light into silver die?Or do thy waves make lullaby,While dreams of hers, like angels, floatThrough star-sown spaces of the sky?
Ah, would such angels came to meThat dreams of mine might speak with hers,Nor wake the slumber of the seaWith words as low as winds that beAwake among the gossamers!
Ο ΕΡΩΤΑΣ ’Σ ΤΟΝ ΤΑΦΟ.
Thelevel sands and grey,Stretch leagues and leagues away,Down to the border line of sky and foam,A spark of sunset burns,The grey tide-water turns,Back, like a ghost from her forbidden home!
Here, without pyre or bier,Light Love was buried here,Alas, his grave was wide and deep enough,Thrice, with averted head,We cast dust on the dead,And left him to his rest. An end of Love.
“No stone to roll away,No seal of snow or clay,Only soft dust above his wearied eyes,But though the sudden soundOf Doom should shake the ground,And graves give up their ghosts, he will not rise!”
So each to each we said!Ah, but to either bedSet far apart in lands of North and South,Love as a Vampire cameWith haggard eyes aflame,And kissed us with the kisses of his mouth!
Thenceforth in dreams must weEach other’s shadow seeWand’ring unsatisfied in empty lands,Still the desirèd faceFleets from the vain embrace,And still the shape evades the longing hands.
Thereisa Heaven, or here, or there,—A Heaven there is, for me and you,Where bargains meet for purses spare,Like ours, are not so far and few.Thuanus’ bees go humming throughThe learned groves, ’neath rainless skies,O’er volumes old and volumes new,Within that Book-man’s Paradise!
There treasures bound for LongepierreKeep brilliant their morocco blue,There Hookes’Amandais not rare,Nor early tracts upon Peru!Racine is common as Rotrou,No Shakespeare Quarto search defies,And Caxtons grow as blossoms grew,Within that Book-man’s Paradise!
There’s Eve,—not our first mother fair,—But Clovis Eve, a binder true;Thither does Bauzonnet repair,Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup!But never come the cropping crewThat dock a volume’s honest size,Nor they that “letter” backs askew,Within that Book-man’s Paradise!
Envoy.
Friend, do not Heber and De Thou,And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise,La chasse au bouquinstill pursueWithin that Book-man’s Paradise?
(Clement Marot’sFrère Lubin, though translated by Longfellow and others, has not hitherto been rendered into the original measure ofballade à double refrain.)
Someten or twenty times a day,To bustle to the town with speed,To dabble in what dirt he may,—Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!But any sober life to leadUpon an exemplary plan,Requires a Christian indeed,—Le Frère Lubin isnotthe man!
Another’s wealth on his to lay,With all the craft of guile and greed,To leave you bare of pence or pay,—Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!But watch him with the closest heed,And dun him with what force you can,—He’ll not refund, howe’er you plead,—Le Frère Lubin isnotthe man!
An honest girl to lead astray,With subtle saw and promised meed,Requires no cunning crone and grey,—Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!He preaches an ascetic creed,But,—try him with the water can—A dog will drink, whate’er his breed,—Le Frère Lubin isnotthe man!
Envoy.
In good to fail, in ill succeed,Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!In honest works to lead the van,Le Frère Lubin isnotthe man!
Ihavescribbled in verse and in prose,I have painted “arrangements in greens,”And my name is familiar to thoseWho take in the high class magazines;I compose; I’ve invented machines;I have written an “Essay on Rhyme”;For my county I played, in my teens,But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”
I have lived, as a chief, with the Crows;I have “interviewed” Princes and Queens;I have climbed the Caucasian snows;I abstain, like the ancients, from beans,—I’ve a guess what Pythagoras meansWhen he says that to eat them’s a crime,—I have lectured upon the Essenes,But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”
I’ve a fancy as morbid as Poe’s,I can tell what is meant by “Shebeens,”I have breasted the river that flowsThrough the land of the wild Gadarenes;I can gossip with Burton onskenes,I can imitate Irving (the Mime),And my sketches are quainter than Keene’s,But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”
Envoy.
So the tower of mine eminence leansLike the Pisan, and mud is its lime;I’m acquainted with Dukes and with Deans,But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”
Letothers praise analysisAnd revel in a “cultured” style,And follow the subjective Miss[196]From Boston to the banks of Nile,Rejoice in anti-British bile,And weep for fickle hero’s woe,These twain have shortened many a mile,Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.
These damsels of “Democracy’s,”How long they stop at every stile!They smile, and we are told, I wis,Ten subtle reasonswhythey smile.Givemeyour villains deeply vile,Give me Lecoq, Jottrat, and Co.,Great artists of the ruse and wile,Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!
Oh, novel readers, tell me this,Can prose that’s polished by the file,Like great Boisgobey’s mysteries,Wet days and weary ways beguile,And man to living reconcile,Like these whose every trick we know?The agony how high they pile,Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!
Envoy.
Ah, friend, how many and many a whileThey’ve made the slow time fleetly flow,And solaced pain and charmed exile,Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.
(FROM ARISTOPHANES.)
Socrates speaks.
Hither, come hither, ye Clouds renowned, and unveil yourselves here;Come, though ye dwell on the sacred crests of Olympian snow,Or whether ye dance with the Nereid choir in the gardens clear,Or whether your golden urns are dipped in Nile’s overflow,Or whether you dwell by Mæotis mereOr the snows of Mimas, arise! appear!And hearken to us, and accept our gifts ere ye rise and go.
The Clouds sing.
Immortal Clouds from the echoing shoreOf the father of streams, from the sounding sea,Dewy and fleet, let us rise and soar.Dewy and gleaming, and fleet are we!Let us look on the tree-clad mountain crest,On the sacred earth where the fruits rejoice,On the waters that murmur east and westOn the tumbling sea with his moaning voice,For unwearied glitters the Eye of the Air,And the bright rays gleam;Then cast we our shadows of mist, and fareIn our deathless shapes to glance everywhereFrom the height of the heaven, on the land and air,And the Ocean stream.
Let us on, ye Maidens that bring the Rain,Let us gaze on Pallas’ citadel,In the country of Cecrops, fair and dearThe mystic land of the holy cell,Where the Rites unspoken securely dwell,And the gifts of the Gods that know not stainAnd a people of mortals that know not fear.For the temples tall, and the statues fair,And the feasts of the Gods are holiest there,The feasts of Immortals, the chaplets of flowersAnd the Bromian mirth at the coming of spring,And the musical voices that fill the hours,And the dancing feet of the Maids that sing!
“All these for Fourpence.”
Oh, where are the endless RomancesOur grandmothers used to adore?The Knights with their helms and their lances,Their shields and the favours they wore?And the Monks with their magical lore?They have passed to Oblivion andNox,They have fled to the shadowy shore,—They are all in the Fourpenny Box!
And where the poetical fanciesOur fathers rejoiced in, of yore?The lyric’s melodious expanses,The Epics in cantos a score?They have been and are not: no moreShall the shepherds drive silvery flocks,Nor the ladies their languors deplore,—They are all in the Fourpenny Box!
And the Music! The songs and the dances?The tunes that Time may not restore?And the tomes where Divinity prances?And the pamphlets where Heretics roar?They have ceased to be even a bore,—The Divine, and the Sceptic who mocks,—They are “cropped,” they are “foxed” to the core,—They are all in the Fourpenny Box!
Envoy.
Suns beat on them; tempests downpour,On the chest without cover or locks,Where they lie by the Bookseller’s door,—They areallin the Fourpenny Box!
Iwouldmy days had been in other times,A moment in the long unnumbered yearsThat knew the sway of Horus and of hawk,In peaceful lands that border on the Nile.
I would my days had been in other times,Lulled by the sacrifice and mumbled hymnBetween the Five great Rivers, or in shadeAnd shelter of the cool Himâlayan hills.
I would my days had been in other times,That I in some old abbey of TouraineHad watched the rounding grapes, and lived my life,Ere ever Luther came or Rabelais!
I would my days had been in other times,When quiet life to death not terribleDrifted, as ashes of the Santhal deadDrift down the sacred Rivers to the Sea!
In theAvesof Aristophanes, the Bird Chorus declare that they are older than the Gods, and greater benefactors of men. This idea recurs in almost all savage mythologies, and I have made the savage Bird-gods state their own case.
The Birds sing:
Wewould have you to wit, that on eggs though we sit, and are spiked on the spit, and are baked in the pan,Birds are older by far than your ancestors are, and made love and made war ere the making of Man!For when all things were dark, not a glimmer nor spark, and the world like a barque without rudder or sailFloated on through the night, ’twas a Bird struck a light, ’twas a flash from the bright feather’d Tonatiu’s[207]tail!Then the Hawk[208a]with some dry wood flew up in the sky, and afar, safe and high, the Hawk lit Sun and Moon,And the Birds of the air they rejoiced everywhere, and they recked not of care that should come on them soon.For the Hawk, so they tell, was then known as Pundjel,[208b]and a-musing he fell at the close of the day;Then he went on the quest, as we thought, of a nest, with some bark of the best, and a clawful of clay.[208c]And with these did he frame two birds lacking a name, without feathers (his game was a puzzle to all);Next around them he fluttered a-dancing, and muttered; and, lastly, he uttered a magical call:Then the figures of clay, as they featherless lay, they leaped up, who but they, and embracing they fell,Andthiswas the baking of Man, and his making; but now he’s forsaking his Father, Pundjel!Now these creatures of mire, they kept whining for fire, and to crown their desire who was found but the Wren?To the high heaven he came, from the Sun stole he flame, and for this has a name in the memory of men![209a]And in India who for the Soma juice flew, and to men brought it through without falter or fail?Why the Hawk ’twas again, and great Indra to men would appear, now and then, in the shape of a Quail,While the Thlinkeet’s delight is the Bird of the Night, the beak and the bright ebon plumage of Yehl.[209b]And who for man’s need brought the famed Suttung’s mead? why ’tis told in the creed of the Sagamen strong,’Twas the Eagle god who brought the drink from the blue, and gave mortals the brew that’s the fountain of song.[210a]Next, who gave men their laws? and what reason or cause the young brave overawes when in need of a squaw,Till he thinks it a shame to wed one of his name, and his conduct you blame if he thus breaks the law?For you still hold it wrong if alubra[210b]belong to the self-samekobong[210c]that is Father of you,To takeheras a bride to your ebony side; nay, you give her a wide berth; quite right of you, too.Forherfather, you know, isyourfather, the Crow, and no blessing but woe from the wedding would spring.Well, these rules they were made in the wattle-gum shade, and were strictly obeyed, when the Crow was the King.[210d]Thus on Earth’s little ball to the Birds you owe all, yet your gratitude’s small for the favours they’ve done,And their feathers you pill, and you eat them at will, yes, you plunder and kill the bright birds one by one;There’s a price on their head, and the Dodo is dead, and the Moa has fled from the sight of the sun!
A MORALITY.
“TheAncestor remote of Man,”Says Darwin, “is th’ Ascidian,”A scanty sort of water-beastThat, ninety million years at leastBefore Gorillas came to be,Went swimming up and down the sea.
Their ancestors the pious praise,And like to imitate their ways;How, then, does our first parent live,What lesson has his life to give?
Th’ Ascidian tadpole, young and gay,Doth Life with one bright eye survey,His consciousness has easy play.He’s sensitive to grief and pain,Has tail, and spine, and bears a brain,And everything that fits the stateOf creatures we call vertebrate.But age comes on; with sudden shockHe sticks his head against a rock!His tail drops off, his eye drops in,His brain’s absorbed into his skin;He does not move, nor feel, nor knowThe tidal water’s ebb and flow,But still abides, unstirred, alone,A sucker sticking to a stone.
And we, his children, truly weIn youth are, like the Tadpole, free.And where we would we blithely go,Have brains and hearts, and feel and know.Then Age comes on! To Habit weAffix ourselves and are not free;Th’ Ascidian’s rooted to a rock,And we are bond-slaves of the clock;Our rocks are Medicine—Letters—Law,From these our heads we cannot draw:Our loves drop off, our hearts drop in,And daily thicker grows our skin.
Ah, scarce we live, we scarcely knowThe wide world’s moving ebb and flow,The clanging currents ring and shock,But we are rooted to the rock.And thus at ending of his span,Blind, deaf, and indolent, does ManRevert to the Ascidian.
“What did the dark-haired Iberian laugh at before the tall blondeAryan drove him into the corners of Europe?”—Brander Matthews.
“What did the dark-haired Iberian laugh at before the tall blondeAryan drove him into the corners of Europe?”—Brander Matthews.
Iaman ancient Jest!Palæolithic manIn his arboreal nestThe sparks of fun would fan;My outline did he plan,And laughed like one possessed,’Twas thus my course began,I am a Merry Jest!
I am an early Jest!Man delved, and built, and span;Then wandered South and WestThe peoples Aryan,Ijourneyed in their van;The Semites, too, confessed,—From Beersheba to Dan,—I am a Merry Jest!
I am an ancient Jest,Through all the human clan,Red, black, white, free, oppressed,Hilarious I ran!I’m found in Lucian,In Poggio, and the rest,I’m dear to Moll and Nan!I am a Merry Jest!
Envoy.
Prince, you may storm and ban—Joe Millersarea pest,Suppress me if you can!I am a Merry Jest!
These versions from classical passages are pretty close to the original, except where compression was needed, as in the sonnets from Pausanias and Apuleius, or where, as in the case of fragments of Æschylus and Sophocles, a little expansion was required.
Thegraver by Apollo’s shrine,Before the Gods had fled,would stand,A shell or onyx in his hand,To copy there the face divine,Till earnest touches,line by line,Had wrought the wonder of the landWithin a beryl’s golden band,Or on some fiery opal fine.Ah!would that as some ancient ringTo us,on shell or stone,doth bring,Art’s marvels perished long ago,So I,within the sonnet’s space,The large Hellenic lines might trace,The statue in the cameo!
(Iliad, iii. 146.)
FairHelen to the Scæan portals came,Where sat the elders, peers of Priamus,Thymoetas, Hiketaon, Panthöus,And many another of a noble name,Famed warriors, now in council more of fame.Always above the gates, in converse thusThey chattered like cicalas garrulous;Who marking Helen, swore “it is no shameThat armed Achæan knights, and Ilian menFor such a woman’s sake should suffer long.Fair as a deathless goddess seemeth she.Nay, but aboard the red-prowed ships againHome let her pass in peace, not working wrongTo us, and children’s children yet to be.”
Pindar,Fr., 106, 107 (95): B. 4, 129–130, 109 (97): B. 4, 132.
Nowthe light of the sun, in the night of the Earth, on the souls of the TrueShines, and their city is girt with the meadow where reigneth the rose;And deep is the shade of the woods, and the wind that flits o’er them and throughSings of the sea, and is sweet from the isles where the frankincense blows:Green is their garden and orchard, with rare fruits golden it glows,And the souls of the Blessed are glad in the pleasures on Earth that they knew,And in chariots these have delight, and in dice and in minstrelsy those,And the savour of sacrifice clings to the altars and rises anew.
But the Souls that Persephone cleanses from ancient pollution and stain,These at the end of the age, be they prince, be they singer, or seer;These to the world shall be born as of old, shall be sages again;These of their hands shall be hardy, shall live, and shall die, and shall hearThanks of the people, and songs of the minstrels that praise them amain,And their glory shall dwell in the land where they dwelt, while year calls unto year!
(Æsch.,Fr., 156.)
Ofall Gods Death aloneDisdaineth sacrifice:No man hath found or shownThe gift that Death would prize.In vain are songs or sighs,Pæan, or praise, or moan,Alone beneath the skiesHath Death no altar-stone!
There is no head so dearThat men would grudge to Death;Let Death but ask, we giveAll gifts that we may live;But though Death dwells so near,We know not what he saith.
(Soph.,Fr., 235;Æsch.,Fr., 56.)
Onthese Nysæan shores divineThe clusters ripen in a day.At dawn the blossom shreds away;The berried grapes are green and fineAnd full by noon; in day’s declineThey’re purple with a bloom of grey,And e’er the twilight plucked are they,And crushed, by nightfall, into wine.
But through the night with torch in handDown the dusk hills the Mænads fare;The bull-voiced mummers roar and blare,The muffled timbrels swell and sound,And drown the clamour of the bandLike thunder moaning underground.
(Œd. Col., 667–705.)
I.
Herebe the fairest homes the land can show,The silvery-cliffed Colonus; always hereThe nightingale doth haunt and singeth clear,For well the deep green gardens doth she know.Groves of the God, where winds may never blow,Nor men may tread, nor noontide sun may peerAmong the myriad-berried ivy dear,Where Dionysus wanders to and fro.
For here he loves to dwell, and here resortThese Nymphs that are his nurses and his court,And golden eyed beneath the dewy boughsThe crocus burns, and the narcissus fairClusters his blooms to crown thy clustered hair,Demeter, and to wreathe the Maiden’s brows!
II.
Yea, here the dew of Heaven upon the grainFails never, nor the ceaseless water-spring,Near neighbour of Cephisus wandering,That day by day revisiteth the plain.Nor do the Goddesses the grove disdain,But chiefly here the Muses quire and sing,And here they love to weave their dancing ring,With Aphrodite of the golden rein.
And here there springs a plant that knoweth notThe Asian mead, nor that great Dorian isle,Unsown, untilled, within our garden plotIt dwells, the grey-leaved olive; ne’er shall guileNor force of foemen root it from the spot:Zeus and Athene guarding it the while!
(Œd. Col., 1655–1666.)
HowŒdipous departed, who may tellSave Theseus only? for there neither cameThe burning bolt of thunder, and the flameTo blast him into nothing, nor the swellOf sea-tide spurred by tempest on him fell.But some diviner herald none may nameCalled him, or inmost Earth’s abyss becameThe painless place where such a soul might dwell.
Howe’er it chanced, untouched of malady,Unharmed by fear, unfollowed by lament,With comfort on the twilight way he went,Passing, if ever man did, wondrously;From this world’s death to life divinely rent,Unschooled in Time’s last lesson, how we die.
(Soph.,Fr., 587.)
(Sidero, the stepmother of Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, cruelly entreated her in all things, and chiefly in this, that she let sheer her beautiful hair.)
Atfierce Sidero’s word the thralls drew near,And shore the locks of Tyro,—like ripe cornThey fell in golden harvest,—but forlornThe maiden shuddered in her pain and fear,Like some wild mare that cruel grooms in scornHunt in the meadows, and her mane they sheer,And drive her where, within the waters clear,She spies her shadow, and her shame doth mourn.
Ah! hard were he and pitiless of heartWho marking that wild thing made weak and tame,Broken, and grieving for her glory gone,Could mock her grief; but scornfully apartSidero stood, and watched a wind that cameAnd tossed the curls like fire that flew and shone!
(Hippol.,Eurip., 73–87.)
Forthee soft crowns in thine untrampled meadI wove, my lady, and to thee I bear;Thither no shepherd drives his flocks to feed,Nor scythe of steel has ever laboured there;Nay, through the spring among the blossoms fairThe brown bee comes and goes, and with good heedThy maiden, Reverence, sweet streams doth leadAbout the grassy close that is her care!
Souls only that are gracious and sereneBy gift of God, in human lore unread,May pluck these holy blooms and grasses greenThat now I wreathe for thine immortal head,I that may walk with thee, thyself unseen,And by thy whispered voice am comforted.
(Hippol.,Eurip., 252–266.)
Longlife hath taught me many things, and shownThat lukewarm loves for men who die are best,Weak wine of liking let them mix alone,Not Love, that stings the soul within the breast;Happy, who wears his love-bonds lightliest,Now cherished, now away at random thrown!Grievous it is for other’s grief to moan,Hard that my soul for thine should lose her rest!
Wise ruling this of life: but yet againPerchance too rigid diet is not well;He lives not best who dreads the coming painAnd shunneth each delight desirable:Flee thou extremes, this word alone is plain,Of all that God hath given to Man to spell!
(Theocritus, Idyll, iii.)
FairAmaryllis, wilt thou never peepFrom forth the cave, and call me, and be mine?Lo, apples ten I bear thee from the steep,These didst thou long for, and all these are thine.Ah, would I were a honey-bee to sweepThrough ivy, and the bracken, and woodbine;To watch thee waken, Love, and watch thee sleep,Within thy grot below the shadowy pine.Now know I Love, a cruel god is he,The wild beast bare him in the wild wood drear;And truly to the bone he burneth me.But, black-browed Amaryllis, ne’er a tear,Nor sigh, nor blush, nor aught have I from thee;Nay, nor a kiss, a little gift and dear.
A.D. 160.
Καὶ ἔθυσε τὸ βρέφος, καὶ ἔσπεισεν ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ τὸ αἶμα—έπὶ τούτου βωμοῦ τῷ Δὺ θύoυσιν ἐv ἀπoῤῥήτῳ.—Paus.viii. 38.
Καὶ ἔθυσε τὸ βρέφος, καὶ ἔσπεισεν ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ τὸ αἶμα—έπὶ τούτου βωμοῦ τῷ Δὺ θύoυσιν ἐv ἀπoῤῥήτῳ.—Paus.viii. 38.
Noneelder city doth the Sun beholdThan ancient Lycosura; ’twas begunEre Zeus the meat of mortals learned to shun,And here hath he a grove whose haunted foldThe driven deer seek and huntsmen dread: ’tis toldThat whoso fares within that forest dunThenceforth shall cast no shadow in the Sun,Ay, and within the year his life is cold!
Hard by dwelt he[232]who, while the Gods deigned eatAt good men’s tables, gave them dreadful meat,A child he slew:—his mountain altar greenHere still hath Zeus, with rites untold of me,Piteous, but as they are let these things be,And as from the beginning they have been!
(Apuleius,Metamorph. XI.)
Thouthat art sandalled on immortal feetWith leaves of palm, the prize of Victory;Thou that art crowned with snakes and blossoms sweet,Queen of the silver dews and shadowy sky,I pray thee by all names men name thee by!Demeter, come, and leave the yellow wheat!Or Aphrodite, let thy lovers sigh!Or Dian, from thine Asian temple fleet!
Or, yet more dread, divine PersephoneFrom worlds of wailing spectres, ah, draw near;Approach, Selene, from thy subject sea;Come, Artemis, and this night spare the deer:By all thy names and rites I summon thee;By all thy rites and names, Our Lady, hear!
SoLucius prayed, and sudden, from afar,Floated the locks of Isis, shone the brightCrown that is tressed with berry, snake, and star;She came in deep blue raiment of the night,Above her robes that now were snowy white,Now golden as the moons of harvest are,Now red, now flecked with many a cloudy bar,Now stained with all the lustre of the light.
Then he who saw her knew her, and he knewThe awful symbols borne in either hand;The golden urn that laves Demeter’s dew,The handles wreathed with asps, the mystic wand;The shaken seistron’s music, tinkling throughThe temples of that old Osirian land.
Myheart’s an old Spinet with stringsTo laughter chiefly tuned,but someThat Fate has practised hard on,dumb,They answer not whoever sings.The ghosts of half-forgotten thingsWill touch the keys with fingers numb,The little mocking spirits comeAnd thrill it with their fairy wings.
A jingling harmony it makesMy heart,my lyre,my old Spinet,And now a memory it wakes,And now the music means“forget,”And little heed the player takesHowe’er the thoughtful critic fret.
Page127.The Fortunate Islands. This piece is a rhymed loose version of a passage in theVera Historiaof Lucian. The humorist was unable to resist the temptation to introduce passages of mockery, which are here omitted. Part of his description of the Isles of the Blest has a close and singular resemblance to the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. The clear River of Life and the prodigality of gold and of precious stones may especially be noticed.
Page133.Whoso doth taste the Dead Men’s bread,&c.This belief that the living may visit, on occasion, the dwellings of the dead, but can never return to earth if they taste the food of the departed, is expressed in myths of worldwide distribution. Because she ate the pomegranate seed, Persephone became subject to the spell of Hades. In Apuleius, Psyche, when she visits the place of souls, is advised to abstain from food. Kohl found the myth among the Ojibbeways, Mr. Codrington among the Solomon Islanders; it occurs in Samoa, in the Finnish Kalewala (where Wainamoinen, in Pohjola, refrains from touching meat or drink), and the belief has left its mark on the mediæval ballad of Thomas of Ercildoune. Whenhe is in Fairy Land, the Fairy Queen supplies him with the bread and wine of earth, and will not suffer him to touch the fruits which grow “in this countrie.” See also “Wandering Willie” inRedgauntlet.
Page152.The latest minstrel. “The sound of all others dearest to his ear, the gentle ripple of Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.”—Lockhart’sLife of Scott, vii., 394.
Page161.Ronsard’s Grave. This version ventures to condense the original which, like most of the works of the Pleiad, is unnecessarily long.
Page162.The snow,and wind,and hail. Ronsard’s rendering of the famous passage in Odyssey, vi., about the dwellings of the Olympians. The vision of a Paradise of learned lovers and poets constantly recurs in the poetry of Joachim du Bellay, and of Ronsard.
Page166.Romance. Suggested by a passage inLa Faustin, by M. E. de Goncourt, a curious moment of poetry in a repulsive piece ofnaturalisme.
Page171.M. Boulmier, author ofLes Villanelles, died shortly after thisvillanellewas written; he had not published a larger collection on which he had been at work.
Page177.Edmund Gorliot. The bibliophile will not easily procure Gorliot’s book, which is not in the catalogues. ThroughoutThe Last Mayingthere is reference to thePervigilium Veneris.
Page207.Bird-Gods. Apparently Aristophanes preserved, in a burlesque form, the remnants of a genuine myth. Almost all savage religions have their bird-gods, and it is probable that Aristophanes did not invent, butonly used a surviving myth of which there are scarcely any other traces in Greek literature.
Page236.Spinet. The accent is on the last foot, even when the word is writtenspinnet. Compare the remarkable Liberty which Pamela took with the 137th Psalm.
My Joys and Hopes all overthrown,My Heartstrings almost broke,Unfit my Mind for Melody,Much more to bear a Joke.But yet,if from my InnocenceI,even in Thought,should slide,Then,let my fingers quite forgetThe sweet Spinnet to guide!
Pamela,or Virtue Rewarded, vol. i.,p. 184., 1785.