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She bade me follow to her garden whereThe mellow sunlight stood as in a cupBetween the old grey walls; I did not dareTo raise my face, I did not dare look upLest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly inMy windows of discovery and shrill 'Sin!'So with a downcast mien and laughing voiceI followed, followed the swing of her white dressThat rocked in a lilt along: I watched the poiseOf her feet as they flew for a space, then paused to pressThe grass deep down with the royal burden of her:And gladly I'd offered my breast to the tread of her.'I like to see,' she said, and she crouched her down,She sunk into my sight like a settling bird;And her bosom couched in the confines of her gownLike heavy birds at rest there, softly stirredBy her measured breaths: 'I like to see,' said she,'The snap-dragon put out his tongue at me.'She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flowerClosing its crimson throat: my own throat in her powerStrangled, my heart swelled up so fullAs if it would burst its wineskin in my throat,Choke me in my own crimson; I watched her pullThe gorge of the gaping flower, till the blood did floatOver my eyes and I was blind —Her large brown hand stretched overThe windows of my mind,And in the dark I did discoverThings I was out to find:My grail, a brown bowl twinedWith swollen veins that met in the wrist,Under whose brown the amethystI longed to taste: and I longed to turnMy heart's red measure in her cup,I longed to feel my hot blood burnWith the lambent amethyst in her cup.Then suddenly she looked upAnd I was blind in a tawny-gold dayTill she took her eyes away.So she came down from aboveAnd emptied my heart of love ...So I held my heart aloftTo the cuckoo that fluttered above,And she settled soft.It seemed that I and the morning worldWere pressed cup-shape to take this reiverBird who was weary to have furledHer wings on us,As we were weary to receive her:This bird, this richSumptuous central grain,This mutable witch,This one refrain.This laugh in the fight,This clot of light,This core of night.She spoke, and I closed my eyesTo shut hallucinations out.I echoed with surpriseHearing my mere lips shoutThe answer they did devise.Again, I saw a brown bird hoverOver the flowers at my feet;I felt a brown bird hoverOver my heart, and sweetIts shadow lay on my heart.I thought I saw on the cloverA brown bee pulling apartThe closed flesh of the cloverAnd burrowing in its heart.She moved her hand, and againI felt the brown bird hoverOver my heart ... and thenThe bird came down on my heart,As on a nest the roverCuckoo comes, and shoves overThe brim each careful partOf love, takes possession and settles her down,With her wings and her feathers does drownThe nest in a heat of love.She turned her flushed face to me for the glintOf a moment. 'See,' she laughed, 'if you alsoCan make them yawn.' I put my hand to the dintIn the flower's throat, and the flower gaped wide with woe.She watched, she went of a sudden intensely still,She watched my hand, and I let her watch her fill.I pressed the wretched, throttled flower betweenMy fingers, till its head lay back, its fangsPoised at her: like a weapon my hand stood white and keen,And I held the choked flower-serpent in its pangsOf mordant anguish till she ceased to laugh,Until her pride's flag, smitten, cleaved down to the staff.She hid her face, she murmured between her lipsThe low word 'Don't!' I let the flower fall,But held my hand afloat still towards the slipsOf blossom she fingered, and my crisp fingers allPut forth to her: she did not move, nor I,For my hand like a snake watched hers that could not fly.Then I laughed in the dark of my heart, I did exultLike a sudden chuckling of music: I bade her eyesMeet mine, I opened her helpless eyes to consultTheir fear, their shame, their joy that underliesDefeat in such a battle: in the dark of her eyesMy heart was fierce to make her laughter rise ...Till her dark deeps shook with convulsive thrills, and the darkOf her spirit wavered like water thrilled with light,And my heart leaped up in longing to plunge its starkFervour within the pool of her twilight:Within her spacious gloom, in the mysteryOf her barbarous soul, to grope with ecstasy ...And I do not care though the large hands of revengeShall get my throat at last — shall get it soon,If the joy that they are lifted to avengeHave risen red on my night as a harvest moon,Which even Death can only put out for me,And death I know is better than not-to-be.
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When I am buried, all my thoughts and actsWill be reduced to lists of dates and facts,And long before this wandering flesh is rottenThe dates which made me will be all forgotten;And none will know the gleam there used to beAbout the feast days freshly kept by me,But men will call the golden hour of bliss'About this time,' or 'shortly after this.'Men do not heed the rungs by which men climbThose glittering steps, those milestones upon time,Those tombstones of dead selves, those hours of birth,Those moments of the soul in years of earth.They mark the height achieved, the main result,The power of freedom in the perished cult,The power of boredom in the dead man's deedsNot the bright moments of the sprinkled seeds.By many waters and on many waysI have known golden instants and bright days;The day on which, beneath an arching sail,I saw the Cordilleras and gave hail;The summer day on which in heart's delightI saw the Swansea Mumbles bursting white,The glittering day when all the waves wore flagsAnd the ship Wanderer came with sails in rags;That curlew-calling time in Irish duskWhen life became more splendid than its husk,When the rent chapel on the brae at SlainsShone with a doorway opening beyond brains;The dawn when, with a brace-block's creaking cry,Out of the mist a little barque slipped by,Spilling the mist with changing gleams of red,Then gone, with one raised hand and one turned head;The howling evening when the spindrift's mistsBroke to display the four Evangelists,Snow-capped, divinely granite, lashed by breakers,Wind-beaten bones of long-since-buried acres;The night alone near water when I heardAll the sea's spirit spoken by a bird;The English dusk when I beheld once more(With eyes so changed) the ship, the citied shore,The lines of masts, the streets so cheerly trodIn happier seasons, and gave thanks to God.All had their beauty, their bright moments' gift,Their something caught from Time, the ever-swift.All of those gleams were golden; but life's handsHave given more constant gifts in changing lands;And when I count those gifts, I think them suchAs no man's bounty could have bettered much:The gift of country life, near hills and woodsWhere happy waters sing in solitudes,The gift of being near ships, of seeing each dayA city of ships with great ships under weigh,The great street paved with water, filled with shipping,And all the world's flags flying and seagulls dipping.Yet when I am dust my penman may not knowThose water-trampling ships which made me glow,But think my wonder mad and fail to find,Their glory, even dimly, from my mind,And yet they made me:not alone the shipsBut men hard-palmed from tallying-on to whips,The two close friends of nearly twenty yearsSea-followers both, sea-wrestlers and sea-peers,Whose feet with mine wore many a bolthead brightTreading the decks beneath the riding light.Yet death will make that warmth of friendship cold,And who'll know what one said and what one told,Our hearts' communion, and the broken spellsWhen the loud call blew at the strike of bells?No one, I know, yet let me be believed —A soul entirely known is life achieved.Years blank with hardship never speak a wordLive in the soul to make the being stirred;Towns can be prisons where the spirit dullsAway from mates and ocean-wandering hulls,Away from all bright water and great hillsAnd sheep-walks where the curlews cry their fills;Away in towns, where eyes have nought to seeBut dead museums and miles of miseryAnd floating life un-rooted from man's needAnd miles of fish-hooks baited to catch greedAnd life made wretched out of human kenAnd miles of shopping women served by men.So, if the penman sums my London days,Let him but say that there were holy ways,Dull Bloomsbury streets of dull brick mansions oldWith stinking doors where women stood to scoldAnd drunken waits at Christmas with their hornDroning the news, in snow, that Christ was born;And windy gas lamps and the wet roads shiningAnd that old carol of the midnight whining,And that old room above the noisy slumWhere there was wine and fire and talk with someUnder strange pictures of the wakened soulTo whom this earth was but a burnt-out coal.O Time, bring back those midnights and those friends,Those glittering moments that a spirit lends,That all may be imagined from the flash,The cloud-hid god-game through the lightning gash;Those hours of stricken sparks from which men tookLight to send out to men in song or book;Those friends who heard St. Pancras' bells strike two,Yet stayed until the barber's cockerel crew,Talking of noble styles, the Frenchman's best,The thought beyond great poets not expressed,The glory of mood where human frailty failed,The forts of human light not yet assailed,Till the dim room had mind and seemed to brood,Binding our wills to mental brotherhood;Till we became a college, and each nightWas discipline and manhood and delight;Till our farewells and winding down the stairsAt each gray dawn had meaning that Time sparesThat we, so linked, should roam the whole world roundTeaching the ways our brooding minds had found,Making that room our Chapter, our one mindWhere all that this world soiled should be refined.Often at night I tread those streets againAnd see the alleys glimmering in the rain,Yet now I miss that sign of earlier tramps,A house with shadows of plane-boughs under lamps,The secret house where once a beggar stood,Trembling and blind, to show his woe for food.And now I miss that friend who used to walkHome to my lodgings with me, deep in talk,Wearing the last of night out in still streetsTrodden by us and policemen on their beatsAnd cats, but else deserted; now I missThat lively mind and guttural laugh of hisAnd that strange way he had of making gleam,Like something real, the art we used to dream.London has been my prison; but my booksHills and great waters, labouring men and brooks,Ships and deep friendships and remembered daysWhich even now set all my mind ablaze —As that June day when, in the red bricks' chinksI saw the old Roman ruins white with pinksAnd felt the hillside haunted even thenBy not dead memory of the Roman men;And felt the hillside thronged by souls unseenWho knew the interest in me, and were keenThat man alive should understand man deadSo many centuries since the blood was shed,And quickened with strange hush because this comerSensed a strange soul alive behind the summer.That other day on Ercall when the stonesWere sunbleached white, like long unburied bones,While the bees droned and all the air was sweetFrom honey buried underneath my feet,Honey of purple heather and white cloverSealed in its gummy bags till summer's over.Then other days by water, by bright sea,Clear as clean glass, and my bright friend with me;The cove clean bottomed where we saw the brownRed spotted plaice go skimming six feet down,And saw the long fronds waving, white with shells,Waving, unfolding, drooping, to the swells;That sadder day when we beheld the greatAnd terrible beauty of a Lammas spateRoaring white-mouthed in all the great cliff's gaps,Headlong, tree-tumbling fury of collapse,While drenching clouds drove by and every senseWas water roaring or rushing or in offence,And mountain sheep stood huddled and blown gaps gleamedWhere torn white hair of torrents shook and streamed.That sadder day when we beheld againA spate going down in sunshine after rainWhen the blue reach of water leaping brightWas one long ripple and clatter, flecked with white.And that far day, that never blotted pageWhen youth was bright like flowers about old age,Fair generations bringing thanks for lifeTo that old kindly man and trembling wifeAfter their sixty years: Time never madeA better beauty since the Earth was laid,Than that thanksgiving given to grey hairFor the great gift of life which brought them there.Days of endeavour have been good: the daysRacing in cutters for the comrade's praise.The day they led my cutter at the turn,Yet could not keep the lead, and dropped astern;The moment in the spurt when both boats' oarsDipped in each other's wash, and throats grew hoarse,And teeth ground into teeth, and both strokes quickenedLashing the sea, and gasps came, and hearts sickened,And coxswains damned us, dancing, banking stroke,To put our weights on, though our hearts were broke,And both boats seemed to stick and sea seemed glue,The tide a mill race we were struggling through;And every quick recover gave us squintsOf them still there, and oar-tossed water-glints,And cheering came, our friends, our foemen cheering,A long, wild, rallying murmur on the hearing,'Port Fore!' and 'Starboard Fore!' 'Port Fore' 'Port Fore,''Up with her,' 'Starboard'; and at that each oarLightened, though arms were bursting, and eyes shut,And the oak stretchers grunted in the strut,And the curse quickened from the cox, our bowsCrashed, and drove talking water, we made vows,Chastity vows and temperance; in our painWe numbered things we'd never eat againIf we could only win; then came the yell'Starboard,' 'Port Fore,' and then a beaten bellRung as for fire to cheer us. 'Now.' Oars bent,Soul took the looms now body's bolt was spent,'Damn it, come on now.' 'On now,' 'On now,' 'Starboard.''Port Fore,' 'Up with her, Port'; each cutter harbouredTen eye-shut painsick strugglers, 'Heave, oh heave,'Catcalls waked echoes like a shrieking sheave.'Heave,' and I saw a back, then two. 'Port Fore,''Starboard,' 'Come on'; I saw the midship oar,And knew we had done them. 'Port Fore,' 'Starboard,' 'Now.'I saw bright water spurting at their bow,Their cox' full face an instant. They were done.The watchers' cheering almost drowned the gun.We had hardly strength to toss our oars; our cryCheering the losing cutter was a sigh.Other bright days of action have seemed great:Wild days in a pampero off the Plate;Good swimming days, at Hog Back or the CovesWhich the young gannet and the corbie loves;Surf-swimming between rollers, catching breathBetween the advancing grave and breaking death,Then shooting up into the sunbright smoothTo watch the advancing roller bare her tooth;And days of labour also, loading, hauling;Long days at winch or capstan, heaving, pawling;The days with oxen, dragging stone from blasting,And dusty days in mills, and hot days masting.Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like ice,And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice;Mornings with buckwheat when the fields did blanchWith White Leghorns come from the chicken ranch;Days near the spring upon the sunburnt hill,Plying the maul or gripping tight the drill;Delights of work most real, delights that changeThe headache life of towns to rapture strangeNot known by townsmen, nor imagined; healthThat puts new glory upon mental wealthAnd makes the poor man rich.But that ends, too.Health, with its thoughts of life; and that bright view,That sunny landscape from life's peak, that glory,And all a glad man's comments on life's story,And thoughts of marvellous towns and living men,And what pens tell, and all beyond the pen,End, and are summed in words so truly deadThey raise no image of the heart and head,The life, the man alive, the friend we knew,The minds ours argued with or listened to,None; but are dead, and all life's keenness, all,Is dead as print before the funeral;Even deader after, when the dates are sought,And cold minds disagree with what we thought.This many-pictured world of many passionsWears out the nations as a woman fashions,And what life is is much to very few;Men being so strange, so mad, and what men doSo good to watch or share; but when men countThose hours of life that were a bursting fountSparkling the dusty heart with living springs,There seems a world, beyond our earthly things,Gated by golden moments, each bright timeOpening to show the city white like lime,High-towered and many-peopled. This made sure,Work that obscures those moments seems impure,Making our not-returning time of breathDull with the ritual and records of death,That frost of fact by which our wisdom givesCorrectly stated death to all that lives.Best trust the happy moments. What they gaveMakes man less fearful of the certain grave,And gives his work compassion and new eyes.The days that make us happy make us wise.
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O gentle vision in the dawn:My spirit over faint cool water glides.Child of the day,To thee;And thou art drawnBy kindred impulse over silver tidesThe dreamy wayTo me.I need thy hands, O gentle wonder-child,For they are moulded unto all repose;Thy lips are frail,And thou art cooler than an April rose;White are thy words and mild:Child of the morning, hail!Breathe thus upon mine eyelids — that we twainMay build the day together out of dreams.Life, with thy breath upon my eyelids, seemsExquisite to the utmost bounds of pain.I cannot live, except as I may beCompelled for love of thee.O let us drift,Frail as the floating silver of a star,Or like the summer humming of a bee,Or stream-reflected sunlight through a rift.I will not hope, because I know, alas,Morning will glide, and noon, and then the nightWill take thee from me. Everything must passSwiftly — but nought so swift as dawn-delight.If I could hold thee till the day,Is broad on sea and hill,Child of repose,What god can say,What god or mortal knows,What dream thou mightest not in me fulfil?O gentle vision in the dawn:My spirit over faint cool water glides,Child of the day,To thee;And thou art drawnBy kindred impulse over silver tidesThe dreamy wayTo me.
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It is the sacred hour: above the farLow emerald hills that northward fold,Calmly, upon the blue the evening starFloats, wreathed in dusky gold.The winds have sung all day; but now they lieFaint, sleeping; and the evening sounds awake.The slow bell tolls across the water: IAm haunted by the spirit of the lake.It seems as though the sounding of the bellIntoned the low song of the water-soul,And at some moments I can hardly tellThe long-resounding echo from the toll.O thou mysterious lake, thy spellHolds all who round thy fruitful margin dwell.Oft have I seen home-going peasants' eyesLit with the peace that emanates from thee.Those who among thy waters plunge, ariseFilled with new wisdom and serenity.Thy veins are in the mountains. I have heard,Down-stretched beside thee at the silent noon,With leaning head attentive to thy word,A secret and delicious mountain-tune,Proceeding as from many shadowed hoursIn ancient forests carpeted with flowers,Or far, where hidden waters, wanderingThrough banks of snow, trickle, and meet, and sing.Ah, what repose at noon to go,Lean on thy bosom, hold thee with wide hands,And listen for the music of the snow!But most, as now,When harvest covers thy surrounding lands,I love thee, with a coronal of sheavesCrowned regent of the day;And on the air thy placid breathing leavesA scent of corn and hay.For thou hast gathered (as a mother willThe sayings of her children in her heart)The harvest-thoughts of reapers on the hill,When the cool rose and honeysuckle fillThe air, and fruit is laden on the cart.Thou breathest the delightOf summer evening at the deep-roofed farm,And meditation of the summer night,When the enravished earth is lying warmFrom recent kisses of the conquering sun.Dwell as a spirit in me, O thou oneSweet natural presence. In the years to beWhen all the mortal loves perchance are done,Them I will bid farewell, but, oh, not thee.I love thee. When the youthful visions fade,Fade thou not also in the hopeless past.Be constant and delightful, as a maidSought over all the world, and found at last.
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First Scene
Damon:
I thank thee, no;Already have I drunk a bowl of wine ...Nay, nay, why wouldst thou rise?There rolls thy ball of worsted! Sit thee down;Come, sit thee down, Cydilla,And let me fetch thy ball, rewind the wool,And tell thee all that happened yesterday.
Cydilla:
Thanks, Damon; now, by Zeus, thou art so brisk,It shames me that to stoop should try my bones.
Damon:
We both are old,And if we may have peaceful days are blessed;Few hours of buoyancy will come to breakThe sure withdrawal from us of life's flood.
Cydilla:
True, true, youth looks a great way off! To thinkIt once was age did lie quite out of sight!
Damon:
Not many days have been so beautifulAs yesterday, Cydilla; yet one was;And I with thee broke tranced on its fine spell;Thou dost remember? yes? but not with tears,Ah, not with tears, Cydilla, pray, oh, pray!
Cydilla:
Pardon me, Damon,'Tis many years since thou hast touched thereon;And something stirs about thee —Such air of eagerness as was thine whenI was more foolish than in my life, I hopeTo ever have been at another time.
Damon:
Pooh! foolish? — thou wast then so very wiseThat, often having seen thee foolish since,Wonder has made me faint that thou shouldst err.
Cydilla:
Nay, then I erred, dear Damon; and remorseWas not so slow to find me as thou deemst.
Damon:
There, mop those dear wet eyes, or thou'lt ne'er hearWhat it was filled my heart full yesterday.
Cydilla:
Tell, Damon; since I well know that regretsHang like dull gossips round another's ear.
Damon:
First, thou must know that oftentimes I rise, —Not heeding or not finding sleep, of watchingAfraid no longer to be prodigal, —And gaze upon the beauty of the night.Quiet hours, while dawn absorbs the waning stars,Are like cold water sipped between our cupsWashing the jaded palate till it tasteThe wine again. Ere the sun rose, I satWithin my garden porch; my lamp was leftBurning beside my bed, though it would beBroad day before I should return upstairs.I let it burn, willing to waste some oilRather than to disturb my tranquil mood;But, as the Fates determined, it was seen. —Suddenly, running round the dovecote, cameA young man naked, breathless, through the dawn,Florid with haste and wine; it was Hipparchus.Yes, there he stood before me panting, rubbingHis heated flesh which felt the cold at once.When he had breath enough he begged me straightTo put the lamp out; and himself had done itEre I was on the stair.Flung all along my bed, his gasping shook itWhen I at length could sit down by his side:'What cause, young sir, brings you here in this plightAt such an hour?' He shuddered, sighed and rolledMy blanket round him; then came a gush of words:'The first of causes, Damon, namely Love,Eldest and least resigned and most unblushingOf all the turbulent impulsive gods.A quarter of an hour scarce has flownSince lovely arms clung round me, and my headAsleep lay nested in a woman's hair;My cheek still bears print of its ample coils.'Athwart its burning flush he drew my fingersAnd their tips felt it might be as he said.'Oh I have had a night, a night, a night!Had Paris so much bliss?And oh! was Helen's kissTo be compared with those I tasted?Which but for me had all been wastedOn a bald man, a fat man, a gross man, a beastTo scare the best guest from the very best feast!'Cydilla need not hear half that he said,For he was mad awhile.But having given rein to hot caprice,And satyr jest, and the distempered male,At length, I heard his story.At sun-down certain miles without the town.He'd chanced upon a light-wheeled litter-car,And in it there stood oneYet more a woman than her garb was rich,With more of youth and health than elegance.'The mules,' he said, 'were beauties: she was one,And cried directions to the neighbour field:"O catch that big bough! Fool, not that, the next!Clumsy, you've let it go! O stop it swaying,The eggs will jolt out!" From the road,' said he,'I could not see who thus was rated; soSprang up beside her and beheld her husband,Lover or keeper, what you like to call him; —A middle-aged stout man upon whose shouldersKneeled up a scraggy mule-boy slave, who wasThe fool that could not reach a thrush's nestWhich they, while plucking almond, had revealed.Before she knew who it could be, I said"Why yes, he is a fool, but we, fair friend,Were we not foolish waiting for such fools?Let us be off!" I stooped, took, shook the reinsWith one hand, while the other clasped her waist."Ah, who?" she turned; I smiled like amorous Zeus;A certain vagueness clouded her wild eyesAs though she saw a swan, a bull, a showerOf hurried flames, and felt divinely pleased.I cracked the whip and we were jolted down;A kiss was snatched getting the ribbons straight;We hardly heard them first begin to bawl,So great our expedition towards the town:We flew. I pulled up at an inn, then bid themStable my mules and chariot and prepareA meal for Dives; meanwhile we would strollDown to the market. Took her arm in mine,And, out of sight, hurried her through cross-lanes,Bade her choose, now at a fruit, now pastry booth.Until we gained my lodging she spoke littleBut often laughed, tittering from time to time,"O Bacchus, what a prank! — Just think of Cymon,So stout as he is, at least five miles to walkWithout a carriage! — well you take things coolly" —Or such appreciation nice of giftsI need not boast of, since I had them gratis.When my stiff door creaked open grudginglyHer face first fell; the room looked bare enough.Still we brought with us food and cakes; I ownedA little cellar of delicious wine;An unasked neighbour's garden furnished flowers;Jests helped me nimbly, I surpassed myself;So we were friends and, having laughed, we drank,Ate, sang, danced, grew wild. Soon both had oneDesire, effort, goal,One bed, one sleep, one dream ...O Damon, Damon, both had one alarm,When woken by the door forced rudely open,Lit from the stair, bedazzled, glowered at, hated!She clung to me; her master, husband, uncle(I know not which or what he was) stood there;It crossed my mind he might have been her father.Naked, unarmed, I rose, and did assumeWhat dignity is not derived from clothes,Bid them to quit my room, my private dwelling.It was no use, for that gross beast was rich;Had his been neither legal right nor moral,My natural right was nought, for his she wasIn eyes of those bribed catchpolls. Brute revengeSeethed in his pimpled face: "To gaol with him!"He shouted huskily. I wrapped some clothesAbout my shuddering bed-fellow, a sheetFlung round myself; ere she was led away,Had whispered to her "Shriek, faint on the stairs!"Then I was seized by two dog officers.That girl was worth her keep, for, going down,She suddenly writhed, gasped, and had a fit.My chance occurred, and I whipped through the casement;All they could do was catch away the sheet;I dropped a dozen feet into a bush,Soon found my heels and plied them; here I am.'
Cydilla:
A strange tale, Damon, this to tell to meAnd introduce as thou at first began.
Damon:
Thy life, Cydilla, has at all times beenA ceremony: this young man'sDiscovered by free impulse, not couched in formsWorn and made smooth by prudent folk long dead.I love Hipparchus for his wave-like brightness;He wastes himself, but till his flash is goneI shall be ever glad to hear him laugh:Nor could one make a Spartan of him evenWere one the Spartan with a will to do it.Yet had there been no more than what is told,Thou wouldst not now be lending ear to me.
Cydilla:
Hearing such things, I think of my poor son,Which makes me far too sad to smile at folly.
Damon:
There, let me tell thee all just as it happened,And of thy son I shall be speaking soon.
Cydilla:
Delphis! Alas, are his companions stillNo better than such ne'er-do-wells? I thoughtHis life was sager now, though he has killedMy hopes of seeing him a councillor.
Damon:
How thou art quick to lay claim to a sorrow!Should I have come so eagerly to theeIf all there was to tell thee were such poor news?
Cydilla:
Forgive me; well know I there is no endTo Damon's kindness; my poor boy has proved it;Could but his father so have understood him!
Damon:
Let lie the sad contents of vanished years;Why with complaints reproach the helpless dead?Thy husband ne'er will cross thy hopes again.Come, think of what a sky made yesterdayThe worthy dream of thrice divine Apollo!Hipparchus' plan was, we should take the road(As, when such mornings tempt me, is my wont)And cross the hills, along the coast, toward Mylae.He in disguise, a younger handier Chloe,Would lead my mule; must brown his face and arms:And thereon straight to wake her he was gone.Their voices from her cabin crossed the yard;He swears those parts of her are still well madeWhich she keeps too well hidden when about; —And she, no little pleased; that interlards,Between her exclamations at his figure,Reproof of gallantries half-laughed at hers.Anon she titters as he dons her dressDoubtless with pantomime —Head-carriage and hip-swagger.A wench, more conscious of her sex than grace,He then rejoined me, changed beyond belief,Roguish as vintage makes them; bustling helpsOr hinders Chloe harness to the mule; —In fine bewitching both her age and mine.The life that in such fellows runs to wasteIs like a gust that pulls about spring treesAnd spoils your hope of fruit, while it delightsThe sense with bloom and odour scattered, mingledWith salt spume savours from a crested offing.The sun was not long up when we set forthAnd, coming to the deeply shadowed gate,Found catchpolls lurked there, true to his surmise.Them he, his beard disguised like face-ache, sauced;(Too gaily for that bandaged cheek, thought I);But they, whose business was to think,Were quite contented, let the hussy pass,Returned her kisses blown back down the road,And crowned the mirth of their outwitter's heart.As the steep road wound clear above the town,Fewer became those little comediesTo which encounters roused him: till, at last,He scarcely knew we passed some vine-dressers:And I could see the sun's heat, lack of sleep,And his late orgy would defeat his powers.So, where the road grows level and must soonDescend, I bade him climb into the car;On which the mule went slower still and slower.This creature who, upon occasions, showsTaste very like her master's, left the highwayAnd took a grass-grown wheel-track that led downZigzag athwart the broad curved banks of lawnCoating a valley between rounded hillsWhich faced the sea abruptly in huge crags.Each slope grew steeper till I left my seatAnd led the mule; for now Hipparchus' snoreTuned with the crooning waves heard from below.We passed two narrow belts of wood and thenThe sea, that first showed blue above their tops,Was spread before us chequered with white wavesBreaking beneath on boulders which choked upThe narrowed issue seawards of the glen.The steep path would no more admit of wheels:I took the beast and tethered her to grazeWithin the shade of a stunt ilex clump, —Returned to find a vacant car; Hipparchus,Uneasy on my tilting down the shafts,And heated with strange clothes, had roused himselfAnd lay asleep upon his late disguise,Naked 'neath the cool eaves of one huge rockThat stood alone, much higher up than thoseOver, and through, and under which, the wavesMade music or forced milk-white floods of foam.There I reclined, while vision, sound and scentWon on my willing soul like sleep on joy,Till all accustomed thoughts were far awayAs from a happy child the cares of men.The hour was sacred to those earlier godsWho are not active, but divinely waitThe consummation of their first great deeds,Unfolding still and blessing hours serene.Presently I was gazing on a boy,(Though whence he came my mind had not perceived).Twelve or thirteen he seemed, with clinging feetPoised on a boulder, and against the seaSet off. His wide-brimmed hat of straw was archedOver his massed black and abundant curlsBy orange ribbon tied beneath his chin;Around his arms and shoulders his sole dress,A cloak, was all bunched up. He leapt, and lightedUpon the boulder just beneath; there swayed,Re-poised,And perked his head like an inquisitive bird,As gravely happy; of all unconscious saveHis body's aptness for its then employment;His eyes intent on shells in some clear poolOr choosing where he next will plant his feet.Again he leaps, his curls against his hatBounce up behind. The daintiest thing alive,He rocks awhile, turned from me towards the sea;Unseen I might devour him with my eyes.At last he stood upon a ledge each waveSpread with a sheet of foam four inches deep;He gazing at them saw them disappearAnd reappear all shining and refreshed:Then raised his head, beheld the ocean stretchedAlive before him in its magnitude.None but a child could have been so absorbedAs to escape its spell till then, none elseCould so have voiced glad wonder in a song: —All the waves of the sea are there!In at my eyes they crush.Till my head holds as fair a sea:Though I shut my eyes, they are there!Now towards my lids they rush,Mad to burst forth from meBack to the open air! —To follow them my heart needs,O white-maned steeds, to ride you;Lithe-shouldered steeds,To the western isles astride youAmyntas speeds!''Damon!' said a voice quite close to meAnd looking up ... as might have stood ApolloIn one vast garment such as shepherds wearAnd leaning on such tall staff stood ... Thou guessest,Whose majesty as vainly was disguisedAs must have been Apollo's minding sheep.
Cydilla:
Delphis! I know, dear Damon, it was Delphis!Healthy life in the country having chasedHis haggard looks; his speech is not wild now,Nor wicked with exceptions to things honest:Thy face a kindlier way than speech tells this.
Damon:
Yea, dear Cydilla, he was altogetherWhat mountaineers might dream of for a king.
Cydilla:
But tell me, is he tutor to that boy?
Damon:
He is an elder brother to the lad.
Cydilla:
Nay, nay, hide nothing, speak the worst at once.
Damon:
I meant no hint of ill;A god in love with young Amyntas mightLook as he did; fathers alone feel like him:Could I convey his calm and happy speechThy last suspicion would be laid to rest.
Cydilla:
Damon, see, my glad tears have drowned all fear;Think'st thou he may come back and win renown,And fill his father's place?Not as his father filled it,But with an inward spirit correspondentTo that contained and high imposing mienWhich made his father honoured before menOf greater wisdom, more integrity.
Damon:
And loved before men of more kindliness!
Cydilla:
O Damon, far too happy am I nowTo grace thy naughtiness by showing pain.My Delphis 'owns the brains and presence tooThat make a Pericles!' ... (the words are thine)Had he but the will; and has he now?Good Damon, tell me quick?