“I heara cry from the Sansard cave,O mother, will no one hearken?A cry of the lost, will no one save?A cry of the dead, though the oceans rave,And the scream of a gull as he wheels o’er a grave,While the shadows darken and darken.”“Oh, hush thee, child, for the night is wet,And the cloud-caves split asunder,With lightning in a jagged fret,Like the gleam of a salmon in the net,When the rocks are rich in the red sunset,And the stream rolls down in thunder.”“Mother, O mother, a pain at my heart,A pang like the pang of dying.”“Oh, hush thee, child, for the wild birds dartUp and down, and close and part,Wheeling round where the black cliffs start,And the foam at their feet is flying.”“O mother, a strife like the black clouds’ strife,And a peace that cometh after.”“Hush, child, for peace is the end of life,And the heart of a maiden finds peace as a wife,But the sky and the cliffs and the ocean are rifeWith the storm and thunder’s laughter.”“Come in, my sons, come in and rest,For the shadows darken and darken,And your sister is pale as the white swan’s breast,And her eyes are fixed and her lips are pressedIn the death of a name ye might have guessed,Had ye twain been here to hearken.”“Hush, mother, a corpse lies on the sand,And the spray is round it driven,It lies on its face, and one white handPoints through the mist on the belt of strandTo where the cliffs of Sansard stand,And the ocean’s strength is riven.”“Was it God, my sons, who laid him there?Or the sea that left him sleeping?”“Nay, mother, our dirks where his heart was bare,As swift as the rain through the teeth of the air;And the foam-fingers play in the Saxon’s hair,While the tides are round him creeping.”“Oh, curses on you hand and head,Like the rains in this wild weather,The guilt of blood is swift and dread,Your sister’s face is cold and dead,Ye may not part whom God would wedAnd love hath knit together.”
“I heara cry from the Sansard cave,O mother, will no one hearken?A cry of the lost, will no one save?A cry of the dead, though the oceans rave,And the scream of a gull as he wheels o’er a grave,While the shadows darken and darken.”“Oh, hush thee, child, for the night is wet,And the cloud-caves split asunder,With lightning in a jagged fret,Like the gleam of a salmon in the net,When the rocks are rich in the red sunset,And the stream rolls down in thunder.”“Mother, O mother, a pain at my heart,A pang like the pang of dying.”“Oh, hush thee, child, for the wild birds dartUp and down, and close and part,Wheeling round where the black cliffs start,And the foam at their feet is flying.”“O mother, a strife like the black clouds’ strife,And a peace that cometh after.”“Hush, child, for peace is the end of life,And the heart of a maiden finds peace as a wife,But the sky and the cliffs and the ocean are rifeWith the storm and thunder’s laughter.”“Come in, my sons, come in and rest,For the shadows darken and darken,And your sister is pale as the white swan’s breast,And her eyes are fixed and her lips are pressedIn the death of a name ye might have guessed,Had ye twain been here to hearken.”“Hush, mother, a corpse lies on the sand,And the spray is round it driven,It lies on its face, and one white handPoints through the mist on the belt of strandTo where the cliffs of Sansard stand,And the ocean’s strength is riven.”“Was it God, my sons, who laid him there?Or the sea that left him sleeping?”“Nay, mother, our dirks where his heart was bare,As swift as the rain through the teeth of the air;And the foam-fingers play in the Saxon’s hair,While the tides are round him creeping.”“Oh, curses on you hand and head,Like the rains in this wild weather,The guilt of blood is swift and dread,Your sister’s face is cold and dead,Ye may not part whom God would wedAnd love hath knit together.”
“I heara cry from the Sansard cave,O mother, will no one hearken?A cry of the lost, will no one save?A cry of the dead, though the oceans rave,And the scream of a gull as he wheels o’er a grave,While the shadows darken and darken.”
“Oh, hush thee, child, for the night is wet,And the cloud-caves split asunder,With lightning in a jagged fret,Like the gleam of a salmon in the net,When the rocks are rich in the red sunset,And the stream rolls down in thunder.”
“Mother, O mother, a pain at my heart,A pang like the pang of dying.”“Oh, hush thee, child, for the wild birds dartUp and down, and close and part,Wheeling round where the black cliffs start,And the foam at their feet is flying.”
“O mother, a strife like the black clouds’ strife,And a peace that cometh after.”“Hush, child, for peace is the end of life,And the heart of a maiden finds peace as a wife,But the sky and the cliffs and the ocean are rifeWith the storm and thunder’s laughter.”
“Come in, my sons, come in and rest,For the shadows darken and darken,And your sister is pale as the white swan’s breast,And her eyes are fixed and her lips are pressedIn the death of a name ye might have guessed,Had ye twain been here to hearken.”
“Hush, mother, a corpse lies on the sand,And the spray is round it driven,It lies on its face, and one white handPoints through the mist on the belt of strandTo where the cliffs of Sansard stand,And the ocean’s strength is riven.”
“Was it God, my sons, who laid him there?Or the sea that left him sleeping?”“Nay, mother, our dirks where his heart was bare,As swift as the rain through the teeth of the air;And the foam-fingers play in the Saxon’s hair,While the tides are round him creeping.”
“Oh, curses on you hand and head,Like the rains in this wild weather,The guilt of blood is swift and dread,Your sister’s face is cold and dead,Ye may not part whom God would wedAnd love hath knit together.”
Theocean beats its noontide harmoniesUpon the sunlit lines of cragged coast,And a wild rhythm pulses through my brainWith pauses and responsive melodies;And sky and ocean, air and day and nightTopple and reel upon my burning blood,Run to and fro, whirl round and round and round,Till, lo! the cosmic madness breathes a strainOf perfect music through the universe.I hear it with my ears, eyes, hands and feet,I drink it with my breath, my skin sucks inAt every fevered pore fine threads of sound,Which plunge vibrations of the wind-swept harpOf earth and heaven deep into my soul,Till each sense kindles with a freshened life,And thoughts arise which bring me ease from pain.O peace, sweet peace! I melt and ebb away,On softened rocks outstretch relaxèd limbs,With half-shut eyes deliciously enthralled.What passion, what delight, what ecstasies!Joy fills my veins with rivers of excess;I rave, I quiver, as with languid eyesI see the hot air dance upon the rocks,And sky, sea, headlands blend in murmurous haze.Now grander, with the organ’s bass that rollsThe under-world in darkness through despairOf any day-dawn on its inky skies,The music rolls around me, and aboveFrom shattered cliffs, from booming caverns’ mouths,Pierced by the arrow-screams of frightened gulls.Now strength, subdued, but waxing more and more,Reanimates my limbs; I feel my powerFull as the flooding ocean, or the forceWhich grinds the glaciers on their boulder feet.My hands could pluck up mountains by the roots,My arm could hurl back ocean from the shoreTo wallow in his frothy bed. What hate! what scornWhat limitless imaginations stretchAnd burst my mind immense; I stand apart,I am alone, all-glorious, supreme;My huge form like a shadow sits and broodsUpon the globe, gigantic, like the shadeEclipsing moons. With bowed head on my handIn gloom excessive, now, behold, I seeBeneath my feet the stream of human life,The sad procession of humanity.They come, the sons of Hellas, beautiful,Swift-minded, lithe, with luscious, laughing lips,That suck delight from every tree of life;Born of the sunshine, winds and sounding sea.They pass, and, lo, a mightier nation movesIn stern battalions trampling forests down,Cleaving the mountains, paving desert landsWith bones that e’en when bleaching face the foe,Welding soft outskirt nations into iron,An iron hand to grasp and hold the world.Now dust, like smoke, from Asia’s central steppes,Darkens the rigid white of mountain peaks,And the plains bristle with the Tartar hordes,Suckled of mares, flat-faced, implacable,Deadly in war, revengeful, treacherous,Brown as the craggy glens of Caucasus.They pass, and nations pass, and like a dreamA throne emerges from the western sea,The latest empire of a dying world.E’en as I look its splendour melts away,And round me, gathering volume, music rolls,Till sinews crack and eyes are blind with power,Till struggles, battles mixed with smoke and blood,Men, nations, life and death, and desolate cries,Melt in the inner pulses in my earsAnd a wild tempest blows the daylight out.And now I am alone beneath the stars,Alone, in infinite silence. Am I God,That I am so supreme? Whence is this power?Cannot my will repeople these waste lands?I cry aloud, the vault of space resounds,And hollow-sounding echoes, from the starsRebounding, shake the earth and crinkle upThe sea in million furrows. Lo, the starsNow fade, the sun arises, it is day,Half day, half night; the sun hath lost his strength,I am his equal, nay I am his king!I rise and move across the earth, the seasHave vanished, and I tread their empty beds,And crush down continents of powdered bones.O great light, late supreme, what need of thee?For all are dead, men, nations, life and death,And God is dead and here alone am I—I, with strong hands to pluck thee from thy course,Boundless in passions, will, omnipotent.The impulses concentre in my heartWhich erstwhile shook the universe. O Sun,Acknowledge now thy king, put down thy headBeneath my feet, and lift me higher stillTo regions that out-top the adoring spheres,And bask in primal thought, too vast to shapeInto similitude of earthly things.I would have all, know all. I thirst and pantAnd hunger for the universe. Now from the earth,Beneath thy rays, O Sun, the steams arise,Sheeting the world’s dead face in film of cloud,The voices of the dead. Peace, let me be.Go on thy way, spent power, leave me hereTo reign in silence, rave and scorn and hate,To glory in my strength, tear down the skies,Trample the crumbling mountains under foot,Laugh at the tingling stars, burn with desireUnconquerable, till the universeIs shattered at the core, its splinters flungBy force centrifugal beyond the light,Until the spent stars from their orbits reel,And, hissing down the flaming steeps of space,With voice of fire proclaim me God alone.
Theocean beats its noontide harmoniesUpon the sunlit lines of cragged coast,And a wild rhythm pulses through my brainWith pauses and responsive melodies;And sky and ocean, air and day and nightTopple and reel upon my burning blood,Run to and fro, whirl round and round and round,Till, lo! the cosmic madness breathes a strainOf perfect music through the universe.I hear it with my ears, eyes, hands and feet,I drink it with my breath, my skin sucks inAt every fevered pore fine threads of sound,Which plunge vibrations of the wind-swept harpOf earth and heaven deep into my soul,Till each sense kindles with a freshened life,And thoughts arise which bring me ease from pain.O peace, sweet peace! I melt and ebb away,On softened rocks outstretch relaxèd limbs,With half-shut eyes deliciously enthralled.What passion, what delight, what ecstasies!Joy fills my veins with rivers of excess;I rave, I quiver, as with languid eyesI see the hot air dance upon the rocks,And sky, sea, headlands blend in murmurous haze.Now grander, with the organ’s bass that rollsThe under-world in darkness through despairOf any day-dawn on its inky skies,The music rolls around me, and aboveFrom shattered cliffs, from booming caverns’ mouths,Pierced by the arrow-screams of frightened gulls.Now strength, subdued, but waxing more and more,Reanimates my limbs; I feel my powerFull as the flooding ocean, or the forceWhich grinds the glaciers on their boulder feet.My hands could pluck up mountains by the roots,My arm could hurl back ocean from the shoreTo wallow in his frothy bed. What hate! what scornWhat limitless imaginations stretchAnd burst my mind immense; I stand apart,I am alone, all-glorious, supreme;My huge form like a shadow sits and broodsUpon the globe, gigantic, like the shadeEclipsing moons. With bowed head on my handIn gloom excessive, now, behold, I seeBeneath my feet the stream of human life,The sad procession of humanity.They come, the sons of Hellas, beautiful,Swift-minded, lithe, with luscious, laughing lips,That suck delight from every tree of life;Born of the sunshine, winds and sounding sea.They pass, and, lo, a mightier nation movesIn stern battalions trampling forests down,Cleaving the mountains, paving desert landsWith bones that e’en when bleaching face the foe,Welding soft outskirt nations into iron,An iron hand to grasp and hold the world.Now dust, like smoke, from Asia’s central steppes,Darkens the rigid white of mountain peaks,And the plains bristle with the Tartar hordes,Suckled of mares, flat-faced, implacable,Deadly in war, revengeful, treacherous,Brown as the craggy glens of Caucasus.They pass, and nations pass, and like a dreamA throne emerges from the western sea,The latest empire of a dying world.E’en as I look its splendour melts away,And round me, gathering volume, music rolls,Till sinews crack and eyes are blind with power,Till struggles, battles mixed with smoke and blood,Men, nations, life and death, and desolate cries,Melt in the inner pulses in my earsAnd a wild tempest blows the daylight out.And now I am alone beneath the stars,Alone, in infinite silence. Am I God,That I am so supreme? Whence is this power?Cannot my will repeople these waste lands?I cry aloud, the vault of space resounds,And hollow-sounding echoes, from the starsRebounding, shake the earth and crinkle upThe sea in million furrows. Lo, the starsNow fade, the sun arises, it is day,Half day, half night; the sun hath lost his strength,I am his equal, nay I am his king!I rise and move across the earth, the seasHave vanished, and I tread their empty beds,And crush down continents of powdered bones.O great light, late supreme, what need of thee?For all are dead, men, nations, life and death,And God is dead and here alone am I—I, with strong hands to pluck thee from thy course,Boundless in passions, will, omnipotent.The impulses concentre in my heartWhich erstwhile shook the universe. O Sun,Acknowledge now thy king, put down thy headBeneath my feet, and lift me higher stillTo regions that out-top the adoring spheres,And bask in primal thought, too vast to shapeInto similitude of earthly things.I would have all, know all. I thirst and pantAnd hunger for the universe. Now from the earth,Beneath thy rays, O Sun, the steams arise,Sheeting the world’s dead face in film of cloud,The voices of the dead. Peace, let me be.Go on thy way, spent power, leave me hereTo reign in silence, rave and scorn and hate,To glory in my strength, tear down the skies,Trample the crumbling mountains under foot,Laugh at the tingling stars, burn with desireUnconquerable, till the universeIs shattered at the core, its splinters flungBy force centrifugal beyond the light,Until the spent stars from their orbits reel,And, hissing down the flaming steeps of space,With voice of fire proclaim me God alone.
Theocean beats its noontide harmoniesUpon the sunlit lines of cragged coast,And a wild rhythm pulses through my brainWith pauses and responsive melodies;And sky and ocean, air and day and nightTopple and reel upon my burning blood,Run to and fro, whirl round and round and round,Till, lo! the cosmic madness breathes a strainOf perfect music through the universe.I hear it with my ears, eyes, hands and feet,I drink it with my breath, my skin sucks inAt every fevered pore fine threads of sound,Which plunge vibrations of the wind-swept harpOf earth and heaven deep into my soul,Till each sense kindles with a freshened life,And thoughts arise which bring me ease from pain.
O peace, sweet peace! I melt and ebb away,On softened rocks outstretch relaxèd limbs,With half-shut eyes deliciously enthralled.What passion, what delight, what ecstasies!Joy fills my veins with rivers of excess;I rave, I quiver, as with languid eyesI see the hot air dance upon the rocks,And sky, sea, headlands blend in murmurous haze.
Now grander, with the organ’s bass that rollsThe under-world in darkness through despairOf any day-dawn on its inky skies,The music rolls around me, and aboveFrom shattered cliffs, from booming caverns’ mouths,Pierced by the arrow-screams of frightened gulls.Now strength, subdued, but waxing more and more,Reanimates my limbs; I feel my powerFull as the flooding ocean, or the forceWhich grinds the glaciers on their boulder feet.My hands could pluck up mountains by the roots,My arm could hurl back ocean from the shoreTo wallow in his frothy bed. What hate! what scornWhat limitless imaginations stretchAnd burst my mind immense; I stand apart,I am alone, all-glorious, supreme;My huge form like a shadow sits and broodsUpon the globe, gigantic, like the shadeEclipsing moons. With bowed head on my handIn gloom excessive, now, behold, I seeBeneath my feet the stream of human life,The sad procession of humanity.
They come, the sons of Hellas, beautiful,Swift-minded, lithe, with luscious, laughing lips,That suck delight from every tree of life;Born of the sunshine, winds and sounding sea.They pass, and, lo, a mightier nation movesIn stern battalions trampling forests down,Cleaving the mountains, paving desert landsWith bones that e’en when bleaching face the foe,Welding soft outskirt nations into iron,An iron hand to grasp and hold the world.
Now dust, like smoke, from Asia’s central steppes,Darkens the rigid white of mountain peaks,And the plains bristle with the Tartar hordes,Suckled of mares, flat-faced, implacable,Deadly in war, revengeful, treacherous,Brown as the craggy glens of Caucasus.They pass, and nations pass, and like a dreamA throne emerges from the western sea,The latest empire of a dying world.E’en as I look its splendour melts away,And round me, gathering volume, music rolls,Till sinews crack and eyes are blind with power,Till struggles, battles mixed with smoke and blood,Men, nations, life and death, and desolate cries,Melt in the inner pulses in my earsAnd a wild tempest blows the daylight out.
And now I am alone beneath the stars,Alone, in infinite silence. Am I God,That I am so supreme? Whence is this power?Cannot my will repeople these waste lands?I cry aloud, the vault of space resounds,And hollow-sounding echoes, from the starsRebounding, shake the earth and crinkle upThe sea in million furrows. Lo, the starsNow fade, the sun arises, it is day,Half day, half night; the sun hath lost his strength,I am his equal, nay I am his king!I rise and move across the earth, the seasHave vanished, and I tread their empty beds,And crush down continents of powdered bones.
O great light, late supreme, what need of thee?For all are dead, men, nations, life and death,And God is dead and here alone am I—I, with strong hands to pluck thee from thy course,Boundless in passions, will, omnipotent.The impulses concentre in my heartWhich erstwhile shook the universe. O Sun,Acknowledge now thy king, put down thy headBeneath my feet, and lift me higher stillTo regions that out-top the adoring spheres,And bask in primal thought, too vast to shapeInto similitude of earthly things.
I would have all, know all. I thirst and pantAnd hunger for the universe. Now from the earth,Beneath thy rays, O Sun, the steams arise,Sheeting the world’s dead face in film of cloud,The voices of the dead. Peace, let me be.Go on thy way, spent power, leave me hereTo reign in silence, rave and scorn and hate,To glory in my strength, tear down the skies,Trample the crumbling mountains under foot,Laugh at the tingling stars, burn with desireUnconquerable, till the universeIs shattered at the core, its splinters flungBy force centrifugal beyond the light,Until the spent stars from their orbits reel,And, hissing down the flaming steeps of space,With voice of fire proclaim me God alone.
Onthe crag I sat in wonder,Stars above me, forests under;Through the valleys came and wentTempest forces never spent,And the gorge sent up the thunderOf the stream within it pent.Round me with majestic bearingStood the giant mountains, wearingHelmets of eternal snows,Cleft by nature’s labour throes—Monster faces mutely staringUpward into God’s repose.At my feet in desolationSwayed the pines, a shadowy nation,Round the woodlake deep and dread,Round the river glacier-fed,Where a ghostly undulationShakes its subterranean bed.And I cried, “O wildernesses!Mountains! which the wind caresses,In a savage love sublime,Through the bounds of space and time,All your moods and deep distressesRoll around me like a chime.“Lo, I hear the mighty chorusOf the elements that bore usDown the course of nature’s stream,Onward in a haunted dreamTowards the darkness, where before usTime and death forgotten seem.“Now behold the links of lightningRound the neck of storm-god tightening,Madden him with rage and shameTill he smites the earth with flame,In the darkening and the brighteningOf the clouds on which he came.“Nature! at whose will are drivenTides of ocean, winds of heaven,Thou who rulest near and farForces grappling sun and star,Is to thee the knowledge givenWhence these came and what they are?“Is thy calm the calm of knowingWhence the force is, whither going?Is it but the blank despairOf the wrecked, who does not careOut at sea what wind is blowingTo the death that waits him there?“Mother Nature, stern aggressor,Of thy child the mind-possessor,Thou art in us like a flood,Welling through our thought and blood—Force evolving great from lesser,As the blossom from the bud.“Yea, I love thy fixed, enduringTimes and seasons, life procuringFrom abysmal heart of thine;And my spirit would resignAll its dreams and hopes alluringWith thy spirit to combine.“Would that I, amid the splendourOf the thunder-blasts, could renderBack the dismal dole of birth,Fusing soul-clouds in the girthOf thy rock breasts, or the tenderGreen of everlasting earth.“Haply, when the scud was flyingAnd the lurid daylight dyingThrough the rain-smoke on the sea,Thoughtless, painless, one with thee,I, in perfect bondage lying,Should forever thus be free.“Mighty spirits, who have strivenUp life’s ladder-rounds to heaven,Or ye freighted ones who fellOn the poppy slopes of hell,When the soul was led or driven,Knew ye not who wrought the spell?“Understood not each his brotherFrom the features of our motherStamped on every human face?Did not earth, man’s dwelling place,Draw ye to her as no other,With a stronger bond than grace?“Tempest hands the forests rending,Placid stars the night attending,Mountains, storm-clouds, land and sea,Nature!—make me one with thee;From my soul its pinions rending,Chain me to thy liberty.“Hark! the foot of death is nearing,And my spirit aches with fearing,Hear me, mother, hear my cry,Merge me in the harmonyOf thy voice which stars are hearingWonder-stricken in the sky.“Mother, will no sorrow move thee?Does the silence heartless prove thee?Thou who from the rocks and rainMad’st this soul, take back againWhat thy fingers wrought to love theeThrough the furnace of its pain.“Giant boulders, roll beside me,Tangled ferns, bow down and hide me,Hide me from the face of death;Or, great Nature, on thy breathSend some mighty words to guide me,Till the demon vanisheth.”Then as sweet as organ playing,Came a voice, my fears allaying,From the mountains and the sea,“Wouldst thou, soul, be one with me,In thy might the slayer slaying?Wrestle not with what must be.”Heart and spirit in devotion,Vibrant with divine emotion,Bowed before that mighty sound,And amid the dark aroundQuaffed the strength of land and oceanIn a sacrament profound.Then I burst my bonds asunder,And my voice rose in the thunderWith a full and powerful breath,Strong for what great nature saith,And I bade the stars in wonderSee me slay the slayer—death.
Onthe crag I sat in wonder,Stars above me, forests under;Through the valleys came and wentTempest forces never spent,And the gorge sent up the thunderOf the stream within it pent.Round me with majestic bearingStood the giant mountains, wearingHelmets of eternal snows,Cleft by nature’s labour throes—Monster faces mutely staringUpward into God’s repose.At my feet in desolationSwayed the pines, a shadowy nation,Round the woodlake deep and dread,Round the river glacier-fed,Where a ghostly undulationShakes its subterranean bed.And I cried, “O wildernesses!Mountains! which the wind caresses,In a savage love sublime,Through the bounds of space and time,All your moods and deep distressesRoll around me like a chime.“Lo, I hear the mighty chorusOf the elements that bore usDown the course of nature’s stream,Onward in a haunted dreamTowards the darkness, where before usTime and death forgotten seem.“Now behold the links of lightningRound the neck of storm-god tightening,Madden him with rage and shameTill he smites the earth with flame,In the darkening and the brighteningOf the clouds on which he came.“Nature! at whose will are drivenTides of ocean, winds of heaven,Thou who rulest near and farForces grappling sun and star,Is to thee the knowledge givenWhence these came and what they are?“Is thy calm the calm of knowingWhence the force is, whither going?Is it but the blank despairOf the wrecked, who does not careOut at sea what wind is blowingTo the death that waits him there?“Mother Nature, stern aggressor,Of thy child the mind-possessor,Thou art in us like a flood,Welling through our thought and blood—Force evolving great from lesser,As the blossom from the bud.“Yea, I love thy fixed, enduringTimes and seasons, life procuringFrom abysmal heart of thine;And my spirit would resignAll its dreams and hopes alluringWith thy spirit to combine.“Would that I, amid the splendourOf the thunder-blasts, could renderBack the dismal dole of birth,Fusing soul-clouds in the girthOf thy rock breasts, or the tenderGreen of everlasting earth.“Haply, when the scud was flyingAnd the lurid daylight dyingThrough the rain-smoke on the sea,Thoughtless, painless, one with thee,I, in perfect bondage lying,Should forever thus be free.“Mighty spirits, who have strivenUp life’s ladder-rounds to heaven,Or ye freighted ones who fellOn the poppy slopes of hell,When the soul was led or driven,Knew ye not who wrought the spell?“Understood not each his brotherFrom the features of our motherStamped on every human face?Did not earth, man’s dwelling place,Draw ye to her as no other,With a stronger bond than grace?“Tempest hands the forests rending,Placid stars the night attending,Mountains, storm-clouds, land and sea,Nature!—make me one with thee;From my soul its pinions rending,Chain me to thy liberty.“Hark! the foot of death is nearing,And my spirit aches with fearing,Hear me, mother, hear my cry,Merge me in the harmonyOf thy voice which stars are hearingWonder-stricken in the sky.“Mother, will no sorrow move thee?Does the silence heartless prove thee?Thou who from the rocks and rainMad’st this soul, take back againWhat thy fingers wrought to love theeThrough the furnace of its pain.“Giant boulders, roll beside me,Tangled ferns, bow down and hide me,Hide me from the face of death;Or, great Nature, on thy breathSend some mighty words to guide me,Till the demon vanisheth.”Then as sweet as organ playing,Came a voice, my fears allaying,From the mountains and the sea,“Wouldst thou, soul, be one with me,In thy might the slayer slaying?Wrestle not with what must be.”Heart and spirit in devotion,Vibrant with divine emotion,Bowed before that mighty sound,And amid the dark aroundQuaffed the strength of land and oceanIn a sacrament profound.Then I burst my bonds asunder,And my voice rose in the thunderWith a full and powerful breath,Strong for what great nature saith,And I bade the stars in wonderSee me slay the slayer—death.
Onthe crag I sat in wonder,Stars above me, forests under;Through the valleys came and wentTempest forces never spent,And the gorge sent up the thunderOf the stream within it pent.
Round me with majestic bearingStood the giant mountains, wearingHelmets of eternal snows,Cleft by nature’s labour throes—Monster faces mutely staringUpward into God’s repose.
At my feet in desolationSwayed the pines, a shadowy nation,Round the woodlake deep and dread,Round the river glacier-fed,Where a ghostly undulationShakes its subterranean bed.
And I cried, “O wildernesses!Mountains! which the wind caresses,In a savage love sublime,Through the bounds of space and time,All your moods and deep distressesRoll around me like a chime.
“Lo, I hear the mighty chorusOf the elements that bore usDown the course of nature’s stream,Onward in a haunted dreamTowards the darkness, where before usTime and death forgotten seem.
“Now behold the links of lightningRound the neck of storm-god tightening,Madden him with rage and shameTill he smites the earth with flame,In the darkening and the brighteningOf the clouds on which he came.
“Nature! at whose will are drivenTides of ocean, winds of heaven,Thou who rulest near and farForces grappling sun and star,Is to thee the knowledge givenWhence these came and what they are?
“Is thy calm the calm of knowingWhence the force is, whither going?Is it but the blank despairOf the wrecked, who does not careOut at sea what wind is blowingTo the death that waits him there?
“Mother Nature, stern aggressor,Of thy child the mind-possessor,Thou art in us like a flood,Welling through our thought and blood—Force evolving great from lesser,As the blossom from the bud.
“Yea, I love thy fixed, enduringTimes and seasons, life procuringFrom abysmal heart of thine;And my spirit would resignAll its dreams and hopes alluringWith thy spirit to combine.
“Would that I, amid the splendourOf the thunder-blasts, could renderBack the dismal dole of birth,Fusing soul-clouds in the girthOf thy rock breasts, or the tenderGreen of everlasting earth.
“Haply, when the scud was flyingAnd the lurid daylight dyingThrough the rain-smoke on the sea,Thoughtless, painless, one with thee,I, in perfect bondage lying,Should forever thus be free.
“Mighty spirits, who have strivenUp life’s ladder-rounds to heaven,Or ye freighted ones who fellOn the poppy slopes of hell,When the soul was led or driven,Knew ye not who wrought the spell?
“Understood not each his brotherFrom the features of our motherStamped on every human face?Did not earth, man’s dwelling place,Draw ye to her as no other,With a stronger bond than grace?
“Tempest hands the forests rending,Placid stars the night attending,Mountains, storm-clouds, land and sea,Nature!—make me one with thee;From my soul its pinions rending,Chain me to thy liberty.
“Hark! the foot of death is nearing,And my spirit aches with fearing,Hear me, mother, hear my cry,Merge me in the harmonyOf thy voice which stars are hearingWonder-stricken in the sky.
“Mother, will no sorrow move thee?Does the silence heartless prove thee?Thou who from the rocks and rainMad’st this soul, take back againWhat thy fingers wrought to love theeThrough the furnace of its pain.
“Giant boulders, roll beside me,Tangled ferns, bow down and hide me,Hide me from the face of death;Or, great Nature, on thy breathSend some mighty words to guide me,Till the demon vanisheth.”
Then as sweet as organ playing,Came a voice, my fears allaying,From the mountains and the sea,“Wouldst thou, soul, be one with me,In thy might the slayer slaying?Wrestle not with what must be.”
Heart and spirit in devotion,Vibrant with divine emotion,Bowed before that mighty sound,And amid the dark aroundQuaffed the strength of land and oceanIn a sacrament profound.
Then I burst my bonds asunder,And my voice rose in the thunderWith a full and powerful breath,Strong for what great nature saith,And I bade the stars in wonderSee me slay the slayer—death.
A waningmoon was in the skyAnd many a still cloud floated by,With outline dark the abbey stoodFronting a line of wood.With bowed head on the chapel stoneThe Abbot knelt for hours alone,While round him coloured moonbeams threwRose-work of richest hue.A tiny altar-lamp burnt dim,And lit the sculptured seraphimWhich fringed the choir with faces bentBefore the Sacrament.The place was still as in a dream,So very still, the ear did seemTo catch the voice of years gone by,And long dead harmony.The abbey clock above struck three,The Abbot rose from bended knee,His face was greyer than the stone,His eyes were woe-begone.He passed into the cloister dim,The night-air brought no balm to him,What anguish made his senses reel,Christ could not heal?He entered at an iron grate,The halls within were desolate;Like one who waketh from a spell,He halted at a cell.Therein upon a pallet bed,With bars of moonlight on his head,While winds through ivied mullions creep,A fair-haired boy did sleep.Outside an owl did hoot and callAnd drown the Abbot’s light foot-fall,But rustle of those garments cereIn dreams the boy did hear.“Hush, boy, ’tis I,” the Abbot said,“Thy pure soul to the rescued deadShall bear my message; life is past,Hell’s meshes hold me fast.“Was thy sleep sweet? my sleep is o’er,One speaks to thee who never moreShall look on man (God send us grace),Nor ever see God’s face.”The boy through fear sat bolt uprightIn tongueless terror, for moonlightSmote slanting on the face and eye,Which worked convulsively.“One burden, boy, a weight of years,Full to the brim of hopeless tears,Hath crushed me, bearing round my brainThe double brand of Cain.“Thy life and hopes are all before,And mine are passed for evermore;My secret in the years to comeRemember, but be dumb.“O God, my heart beats loud within,I slew my brother in mortal sin,I stabbed him twice, not knowing, to freeA maiden’s chastity.”The Abbot stood erect and tall,His shadow fell along the wall,—God save him, as if seeking grace,He hid his cowlèd face.“A black snake slipt across my feet,Above bare boughs did part and meet,There was a motion in the airAnd eyes watched everywhere.“The deed was done in distant lands,But his blood dabbled these same hands,And under trees where pale stars shineHis eyes looked into mine.“One look from those dead eyes of his,And love rushed back to him; was thisThe climax of his life who seemedThe king my boyhood dreamed?“Shall sin and shall not love endure?—Love grounded in the past and pure,Man’s love for man, for angels fit,Could one act shatter it?”The boy sat upright, pale as death,A numbness stole away his breath,The fascination of the eye,Which moved convulsively.“I fled at sunrise down the bayTo where a mystic island lay,Dazed with the cloudless arch of skyAnd waves’ monotony.“And here a convent open stood,Where monks sought peace in solitude;I entered with the rest to hideWithin the Crucified.“I told my woe to one; he said,—‘Under thy feet, and overhead,And all around is God. To-night,Keep vigil, pray for light.’“That night in cave-shrine, visions threeGod and the Virgin sent to me;Four angels fenced the cavern’s mouthWith locked wings, north and south.“Thrice darkness fell, and thrice I layLow-poised above a sea, no dayLit up its shoreless waves, no nightShut distance from the sight.“No fish leaped up, no God looked down,No sound there was, I strove to drown,—Ere waves were touched a wind did spring,And bore me on its wing.“My blood stood still and thick as ice,And thought held thought, as in a vice,The ages died, no death did blessThe death of nothingness.“Each time the soul did undergoThe torture of a separate woe,The demon fangs insatiate,Of doubt, despair and hate.“I woke and told the monk my dreams;His voice was sad, he said, ‘MeseemsNo part one slain in his soul’s bloodShall have in Holy Rood.“‘But brother,’ said the agèd man,‘God works by many a diverse plan,And once vicarious agonySaved souls on Calvary.“‘I know not but, with God in heaven,Some grace to lost souls may be given;By fasts and scourgings, prayers and pains,Loose thou thy brother’s chains.’“Yea, boy, have I not prayed to Heaven?Has not life spoilt with bitter leavenAnd fasts and scourgings, night and day,The blood-guilt burnt away?“But ever from the throat of hellThere booms a fearful passing bellOf one, once slain in his soul’s blood,Cast out from Holy Rood.“The passions of the full-grown manConcentre where his life began;The boy’s love is not manifold,It grips with single hold.“The boyhood’s love is part of us,No power can wrench it out, and thusLove chained me to him in the gloom,And I had wrought his doom.“The thing was with me day by day,And all my thinking underlay;And even through hours when I forgot,Ached as a canker spot.“My food was ashes in my mouth,My very soul was seared with drouth,I banished thought, the struggle vainBrought back the thought again.“The saints and angels held aloof,My prayers fell back from chapel roof,They had no lightness to ascendWhere earth and heaven blend.“The stars did mock me with their peace,The seasons brought me no release,Despair and anguish like a seaAnd pain were under me.“And year by year more pains I gave,Till life became a living grave,Till, like the lost behind hell’s gate,My soul was desolate.”Outside, an owl did hoot and call,But in the abbey silence all;The Abbot’s voice had hollow sound,As if from underground.“Hush, boy, the fiend came yesternight.”The Abbot smiled—a gruesome sight,That smiling face in moonlight wan,With eyes so woe-begone—“The fiend came yesternight to askThe utmost deed that life can task,A soul by self-death given to winAnother’s soul from sin.”So fearful was the story told,The boy’s teeth chattered as with cold,He saw no leaf-shapes on the floor,He heard no bell ring four.“To-night with head on chapel stone,I prayed to Him who did atone,Till blood-sweat ran, as down His faceIt ran in garden-place.“’Tis done, the earthly fight is o’er,My soul is dark for evermore,I am the fiend’s, hark! hear him call—He holds a soul in thrall.“I know not if the spirit breath,Meets spirit on the road of death,Or falleth like a thin, white threadAmong the under dead.“I know not whether, passing by,One rapid moment, he and I,His face upturned to coming crown,Mine anguished, bending down,“Shall then know all; but boy, when nearThy feet approach where tier on tier,God’s minstrels face the Trinity,In that place made for me,“But mine no longer, seek thou thereOne with thine eyes and golden hair,Gold as his broidered vesture is,And say whose soul won his.“Perchance, though there no sorrow dims,The tears will mount to his eyes’ brims,And I shall live, his sweetest thought,For what my love hath wrought.“Again the demon calls, I come.See, pure boy, let thy lips be dumb,One last atonement lifts to-nightA lost soul into light.”He kissed the boy upon the brow:“Yea, very like to him art thou,When we sat pure on mother’s knee,Farewell, eternally.”The Abbot passed into the gloom,The moonlight flooded all the room,The boy sat stark from hour to hour,Chained by unearthly power.But lo, when, in the matin time,The bells rang out the hour of prime,From cloistered aisle and chapel stairA wild cry rent the air.Not yet quite cold, dead in his blood,With face averted from the Rood,The Abbot lay on chapel stone,His eyes still woe-begone.No bell was rung, no mass was said,They buried the dishonoured deadOut in the road which crossed the wood,In dark and solitude.They marked the spot with never a stone,Tree-shadows fell on it alone,And moss and vines and thin wood grassGrew where no feet would pass.Nathless, it seemed to one fair boy,The birds did sing with fuller joy,And angels swung wood incense faint,As round the grave of saint.The tiny altar-lamp burnt dim,And lit the sculptured seraphim,And tombs where monks in garments cereWere gathered year by year.But when an old monk came to die,He spake thus to those standing by:“Out in that spot my grave be set,Marked by wood violet.“No man can judge another’s sin,God only sees without and in,Wherefore, my brethren, be ye kind,That was our Master’s mind.“For many are crowned as saints by GodWhose graves unheeding feet have trod;Man judges by the outer life,God by the inner strife.“Out there the forest tree-roots creepRound one sad heart’s forgotten sleep,A heart which broke in giving allTo save a soul from thrall.”
A waningmoon was in the skyAnd many a still cloud floated by,With outline dark the abbey stoodFronting a line of wood.With bowed head on the chapel stoneThe Abbot knelt for hours alone,While round him coloured moonbeams threwRose-work of richest hue.A tiny altar-lamp burnt dim,And lit the sculptured seraphimWhich fringed the choir with faces bentBefore the Sacrament.The place was still as in a dream,So very still, the ear did seemTo catch the voice of years gone by,And long dead harmony.The abbey clock above struck three,The Abbot rose from bended knee,His face was greyer than the stone,His eyes were woe-begone.He passed into the cloister dim,The night-air brought no balm to him,What anguish made his senses reel,Christ could not heal?He entered at an iron grate,The halls within were desolate;Like one who waketh from a spell,He halted at a cell.Therein upon a pallet bed,With bars of moonlight on his head,While winds through ivied mullions creep,A fair-haired boy did sleep.Outside an owl did hoot and callAnd drown the Abbot’s light foot-fall,But rustle of those garments cereIn dreams the boy did hear.“Hush, boy, ’tis I,” the Abbot said,“Thy pure soul to the rescued deadShall bear my message; life is past,Hell’s meshes hold me fast.“Was thy sleep sweet? my sleep is o’er,One speaks to thee who never moreShall look on man (God send us grace),Nor ever see God’s face.”The boy through fear sat bolt uprightIn tongueless terror, for moonlightSmote slanting on the face and eye,Which worked convulsively.“One burden, boy, a weight of years,Full to the brim of hopeless tears,Hath crushed me, bearing round my brainThe double brand of Cain.“Thy life and hopes are all before,And mine are passed for evermore;My secret in the years to comeRemember, but be dumb.“O God, my heart beats loud within,I slew my brother in mortal sin,I stabbed him twice, not knowing, to freeA maiden’s chastity.”The Abbot stood erect and tall,His shadow fell along the wall,—God save him, as if seeking grace,He hid his cowlèd face.“A black snake slipt across my feet,Above bare boughs did part and meet,There was a motion in the airAnd eyes watched everywhere.“The deed was done in distant lands,But his blood dabbled these same hands,And under trees where pale stars shineHis eyes looked into mine.“One look from those dead eyes of his,And love rushed back to him; was thisThe climax of his life who seemedThe king my boyhood dreamed?“Shall sin and shall not love endure?—Love grounded in the past and pure,Man’s love for man, for angels fit,Could one act shatter it?”The boy sat upright, pale as death,A numbness stole away his breath,The fascination of the eye,Which moved convulsively.“I fled at sunrise down the bayTo where a mystic island lay,Dazed with the cloudless arch of skyAnd waves’ monotony.“And here a convent open stood,Where monks sought peace in solitude;I entered with the rest to hideWithin the Crucified.“I told my woe to one; he said,—‘Under thy feet, and overhead,And all around is God. To-night,Keep vigil, pray for light.’“That night in cave-shrine, visions threeGod and the Virgin sent to me;Four angels fenced the cavern’s mouthWith locked wings, north and south.“Thrice darkness fell, and thrice I layLow-poised above a sea, no dayLit up its shoreless waves, no nightShut distance from the sight.“No fish leaped up, no God looked down,No sound there was, I strove to drown,—Ere waves were touched a wind did spring,And bore me on its wing.“My blood stood still and thick as ice,And thought held thought, as in a vice,The ages died, no death did blessThe death of nothingness.“Each time the soul did undergoThe torture of a separate woe,The demon fangs insatiate,Of doubt, despair and hate.“I woke and told the monk my dreams;His voice was sad, he said, ‘MeseemsNo part one slain in his soul’s bloodShall have in Holy Rood.“‘But brother,’ said the agèd man,‘God works by many a diverse plan,And once vicarious agonySaved souls on Calvary.“‘I know not but, with God in heaven,Some grace to lost souls may be given;By fasts and scourgings, prayers and pains,Loose thou thy brother’s chains.’“Yea, boy, have I not prayed to Heaven?Has not life spoilt with bitter leavenAnd fasts and scourgings, night and day,The blood-guilt burnt away?“But ever from the throat of hellThere booms a fearful passing bellOf one, once slain in his soul’s blood,Cast out from Holy Rood.“The passions of the full-grown manConcentre where his life began;The boy’s love is not manifold,It grips with single hold.“The boyhood’s love is part of us,No power can wrench it out, and thusLove chained me to him in the gloom,And I had wrought his doom.“The thing was with me day by day,And all my thinking underlay;And even through hours when I forgot,Ached as a canker spot.“My food was ashes in my mouth,My very soul was seared with drouth,I banished thought, the struggle vainBrought back the thought again.“The saints and angels held aloof,My prayers fell back from chapel roof,They had no lightness to ascendWhere earth and heaven blend.“The stars did mock me with their peace,The seasons brought me no release,Despair and anguish like a seaAnd pain were under me.“And year by year more pains I gave,Till life became a living grave,Till, like the lost behind hell’s gate,My soul was desolate.”Outside, an owl did hoot and call,But in the abbey silence all;The Abbot’s voice had hollow sound,As if from underground.“Hush, boy, the fiend came yesternight.”The Abbot smiled—a gruesome sight,That smiling face in moonlight wan,With eyes so woe-begone—“The fiend came yesternight to askThe utmost deed that life can task,A soul by self-death given to winAnother’s soul from sin.”So fearful was the story told,The boy’s teeth chattered as with cold,He saw no leaf-shapes on the floor,He heard no bell ring four.“To-night with head on chapel stone,I prayed to Him who did atone,Till blood-sweat ran, as down His faceIt ran in garden-place.“’Tis done, the earthly fight is o’er,My soul is dark for evermore,I am the fiend’s, hark! hear him call—He holds a soul in thrall.“I know not if the spirit breath,Meets spirit on the road of death,Or falleth like a thin, white threadAmong the under dead.“I know not whether, passing by,One rapid moment, he and I,His face upturned to coming crown,Mine anguished, bending down,“Shall then know all; but boy, when nearThy feet approach where tier on tier,God’s minstrels face the Trinity,In that place made for me,“But mine no longer, seek thou thereOne with thine eyes and golden hair,Gold as his broidered vesture is,And say whose soul won his.“Perchance, though there no sorrow dims,The tears will mount to his eyes’ brims,And I shall live, his sweetest thought,For what my love hath wrought.“Again the demon calls, I come.See, pure boy, let thy lips be dumb,One last atonement lifts to-nightA lost soul into light.”He kissed the boy upon the brow:“Yea, very like to him art thou,When we sat pure on mother’s knee,Farewell, eternally.”The Abbot passed into the gloom,The moonlight flooded all the room,The boy sat stark from hour to hour,Chained by unearthly power.But lo, when, in the matin time,The bells rang out the hour of prime,From cloistered aisle and chapel stairA wild cry rent the air.Not yet quite cold, dead in his blood,With face averted from the Rood,The Abbot lay on chapel stone,His eyes still woe-begone.No bell was rung, no mass was said,They buried the dishonoured deadOut in the road which crossed the wood,In dark and solitude.They marked the spot with never a stone,Tree-shadows fell on it alone,And moss and vines and thin wood grassGrew where no feet would pass.Nathless, it seemed to one fair boy,The birds did sing with fuller joy,And angels swung wood incense faint,As round the grave of saint.The tiny altar-lamp burnt dim,And lit the sculptured seraphim,And tombs where monks in garments cereWere gathered year by year.But when an old monk came to die,He spake thus to those standing by:“Out in that spot my grave be set,Marked by wood violet.“No man can judge another’s sin,God only sees without and in,Wherefore, my brethren, be ye kind,That was our Master’s mind.“For many are crowned as saints by GodWhose graves unheeding feet have trod;Man judges by the outer life,God by the inner strife.“Out there the forest tree-roots creepRound one sad heart’s forgotten sleep,A heart which broke in giving allTo save a soul from thrall.”
A waningmoon was in the skyAnd many a still cloud floated by,With outline dark the abbey stoodFronting a line of wood.
With bowed head on the chapel stoneThe Abbot knelt for hours alone,While round him coloured moonbeams threwRose-work of richest hue.
A tiny altar-lamp burnt dim,And lit the sculptured seraphimWhich fringed the choir with faces bentBefore the Sacrament.
The place was still as in a dream,So very still, the ear did seemTo catch the voice of years gone by,And long dead harmony.
The abbey clock above struck three,The Abbot rose from bended knee,His face was greyer than the stone,His eyes were woe-begone.
He passed into the cloister dim,The night-air brought no balm to him,What anguish made his senses reel,Christ could not heal?
He entered at an iron grate,The halls within were desolate;Like one who waketh from a spell,He halted at a cell.
Therein upon a pallet bed,With bars of moonlight on his head,While winds through ivied mullions creep,A fair-haired boy did sleep.
Outside an owl did hoot and callAnd drown the Abbot’s light foot-fall,But rustle of those garments cereIn dreams the boy did hear.
“Hush, boy, ’tis I,” the Abbot said,“Thy pure soul to the rescued deadShall bear my message; life is past,Hell’s meshes hold me fast.
“Was thy sleep sweet? my sleep is o’er,One speaks to thee who never moreShall look on man (God send us grace),Nor ever see God’s face.”
The boy through fear sat bolt uprightIn tongueless terror, for moonlightSmote slanting on the face and eye,Which worked convulsively.
“One burden, boy, a weight of years,Full to the brim of hopeless tears,Hath crushed me, bearing round my brainThe double brand of Cain.
“Thy life and hopes are all before,And mine are passed for evermore;My secret in the years to comeRemember, but be dumb.
“O God, my heart beats loud within,I slew my brother in mortal sin,I stabbed him twice, not knowing, to freeA maiden’s chastity.”
The Abbot stood erect and tall,His shadow fell along the wall,—God save him, as if seeking grace,He hid his cowlèd face.
“A black snake slipt across my feet,Above bare boughs did part and meet,There was a motion in the airAnd eyes watched everywhere.
“The deed was done in distant lands,But his blood dabbled these same hands,And under trees where pale stars shineHis eyes looked into mine.
“One look from those dead eyes of his,And love rushed back to him; was thisThe climax of his life who seemedThe king my boyhood dreamed?
“Shall sin and shall not love endure?—Love grounded in the past and pure,Man’s love for man, for angels fit,Could one act shatter it?”
The boy sat upright, pale as death,A numbness stole away his breath,The fascination of the eye,Which moved convulsively.
“I fled at sunrise down the bayTo where a mystic island lay,Dazed with the cloudless arch of skyAnd waves’ monotony.
“And here a convent open stood,Where monks sought peace in solitude;I entered with the rest to hideWithin the Crucified.
“I told my woe to one; he said,—‘Under thy feet, and overhead,And all around is God. To-night,Keep vigil, pray for light.’
“That night in cave-shrine, visions threeGod and the Virgin sent to me;Four angels fenced the cavern’s mouthWith locked wings, north and south.
“Thrice darkness fell, and thrice I layLow-poised above a sea, no dayLit up its shoreless waves, no nightShut distance from the sight.
“No fish leaped up, no God looked down,No sound there was, I strove to drown,—Ere waves were touched a wind did spring,And bore me on its wing.
“My blood stood still and thick as ice,And thought held thought, as in a vice,The ages died, no death did blessThe death of nothingness.
“Each time the soul did undergoThe torture of a separate woe,The demon fangs insatiate,Of doubt, despair and hate.
“I woke and told the monk my dreams;His voice was sad, he said, ‘MeseemsNo part one slain in his soul’s bloodShall have in Holy Rood.
“‘But brother,’ said the agèd man,‘God works by many a diverse plan,And once vicarious agonySaved souls on Calvary.
“‘I know not but, with God in heaven,Some grace to lost souls may be given;By fasts and scourgings, prayers and pains,Loose thou thy brother’s chains.’
“Yea, boy, have I not prayed to Heaven?Has not life spoilt with bitter leavenAnd fasts and scourgings, night and day,The blood-guilt burnt away?
“But ever from the throat of hellThere booms a fearful passing bellOf one, once slain in his soul’s blood,Cast out from Holy Rood.
“The passions of the full-grown manConcentre where his life began;The boy’s love is not manifold,It grips with single hold.
“The boyhood’s love is part of us,No power can wrench it out, and thusLove chained me to him in the gloom,And I had wrought his doom.
“The thing was with me day by day,And all my thinking underlay;And even through hours when I forgot,Ached as a canker spot.
“My food was ashes in my mouth,My very soul was seared with drouth,I banished thought, the struggle vainBrought back the thought again.
“The saints and angels held aloof,My prayers fell back from chapel roof,They had no lightness to ascendWhere earth and heaven blend.
“The stars did mock me with their peace,The seasons brought me no release,Despair and anguish like a seaAnd pain were under me.
“And year by year more pains I gave,Till life became a living grave,Till, like the lost behind hell’s gate,My soul was desolate.”
Outside, an owl did hoot and call,But in the abbey silence all;The Abbot’s voice had hollow sound,As if from underground.
“Hush, boy, the fiend came yesternight.”The Abbot smiled—a gruesome sight,That smiling face in moonlight wan,With eyes so woe-begone—
“The fiend came yesternight to askThe utmost deed that life can task,A soul by self-death given to winAnother’s soul from sin.”
So fearful was the story told,The boy’s teeth chattered as with cold,He saw no leaf-shapes on the floor,He heard no bell ring four.
“To-night with head on chapel stone,I prayed to Him who did atone,Till blood-sweat ran, as down His faceIt ran in garden-place.
“’Tis done, the earthly fight is o’er,My soul is dark for evermore,I am the fiend’s, hark! hear him call—He holds a soul in thrall.
“I know not if the spirit breath,Meets spirit on the road of death,Or falleth like a thin, white threadAmong the under dead.
“I know not whether, passing by,One rapid moment, he and I,His face upturned to coming crown,Mine anguished, bending down,“Shall then know all; but boy, when nearThy feet approach where tier on tier,God’s minstrels face the Trinity,In that place made for me,
“But mine no longer, seek thou thereOne with thine eyes and golden hair,Gold as his broidered vesture is,And say whose soul won his.
“Perchance, though there no sorrow dims,The tears will mount to his eyes’ brims,And I shall live, his sweetest thought,For what my love hath wrought.
“Again the demon calls, I come.See, pure boy, let thy lips be dumb,One last atonement lifts to-nightA lost soul into light.”
He kissed the boy upon the brow:“Yea, very like to him art thou,When we sat pure on mother’s knee,Farewell, eternally.”
The Abbot passed into the gloom,The moonlight flooded all the room,The boy sat stark from hour to hour,Chained by unearthly power.
But lo, when, in the matin time,The bells rang out the hour of prime,From cloistered aisle and chapel stairA wild cry rent the air.
Not yet quite cold, dead in his blood,With face averted from the Rood,The Abbot lay on chapel stone,His eyes still woe-begone.
No bell was rung, no mass was said,They buried the dishonoured deadOut in the road which crossed the wood,In dark and solitude.
They marked the spot with never a stone,Tree-shadows fell on it alone,And moss and vines and thin wood grassGrew where no feet would pass.
Nathless, it seemed to one fair boy,The birds did sing with fuller joy,And angels swung wood incense faint,As round the grave of saint.
The tiny altar-lamp burnt dim,And lit the sculptured seraphim,And tombs where monks in garments cereWere gathered year by year.
But when an old monk came to die,He spake thus to those standing by:“Out in that spot my grave be set,Marked by wood violet.
“No man can judge another’s sin,God only sees without and in,Wherefore, my brethren, be ye kind,That was our Master’s mind.
“For many are crowned as saints by GodWhose graves unheeding feet have trod;Man judges by the outer life,God by the inner strife.
“Out there the forest tree-roots creepRound one sad heart’s forgotten sleep,A heart which broke in giving allTo save a soul from thrall.”
Dion, of Syracuse (408-353 B.C.), philosopher, was a near relative, through his wife Arete, of the tyrant Dionysius the Second, by whom he was banished. He took up his residence at Athens, but on hearing that the tyrant had seized his son and given Arete in marriage to another, with a small and faithful force he returned to Syracuse, captured the place and drove Dionysius into Ortygia, a fortress within the city walls. As soon as their oppression was relieved, the suspicious Syracusans began to fear the power of Dion, although he had nobly refused to make concessions to Dionysius when urged thereto by the passionate appeals of Arete and her son, held captive in Ortygia. On hearing of a plot formed against him among the citizens, by Heracleides, without taking revenge on the thankless city, Dion withdrew to Leontini, but only to be speedily recalled to rescue the people a second time from the ravages of Dionysius, who had charged out upon the town as soon as Dion had withdrawn. Again Dion returned to Syracuse, and this time succeeded in routing the tyrant from his stronghold and restoring peace. Witha magnanimity equal to his valour he pardoned Heracleides and his confreres. On breaking into the deserted fortress at the head of his troops, Dion, after years of separation, found his wife Arete. Dion naturally succeeded to the throne of the deposed monarch, but his reforms and the severity of his manners and rule rendered him unpopular with his fickle fellow-townsmen, and plots were formed for his assassination. He scorned to take precautions against attack, and so fell a victim to his valour. He was surrounded on the day of the festival of the Koreia, in his apartment in the palace, by a band of youths of distinguished muscular strength, who endeavoured to throw and strangle him. But the old warrior proving too strong for them, they were obliged to send out one of their number through a back door to procure a sword. With this, Dion, a man in many ways too great for his age and circumstances, was despatched.
Prayyouths, what urgent business claims our earOn this high feast when all keep holiday?Already do the gay-decked barges moveAcross the harbour to the sacred grove,And shouts and music reach us even here,Where through the balustrades the dancing seaMarbles this chamber with reflected lights.What! Is it treason? Ye have come to slay,I read your purpose right. The palace guardsHave been secured and all retreat cut off,And I am at your mercy. It is well.So often have I met death face to face,His eyes now wear the welcome of a friend’s.Is it for hate of Dion, or for gold,Ye come to stain your honour with my blood?And think ye I shall kneel and fawn on you,And cry for mercy with a woman’s shrieks?Though me, like some old lion in his den,Fate, stratagems, not ye, have tracked to death.The lion is old, but all his teeth are sound.What! Ye would seize me? There, I shake you off.Ye did not deem these withered arms so strongThat ye five cubs could thus be kept at bay,Despite your claws, and fury, and fierce barks.But I am Dion—Dion, Plato’s friend,And I have faced the rain of human blood,The lightning of the sword-strokes on my helm,The thunder of on-rushing cavalry,When ye were sucking babies at the breast.And think ye I am one whom ye can slayBy throttling, as an outcast slays her child,Pinching the life out of its tiny throat?Not this shall be my death, for I am royal,And I must royally die. Go fetch a swordAnd I shall wed it nobly like a king.I brought you manhood with my conquering arm,I offered Syracuse a way to fame.I could have made our city reign as queen,With her dominion founded in the sea,Cemented with wise bands of equal laws,A constitution wrought by sober minds,Expanding with its growth, yet ye would not,But mewed and babbled, cried and sulked again,Like children that will quarrel for a coinAnd yet its value know not. I am king.Beyond this honour, if it honour be,To sit enthroned above so base a herd,—A king of mine own self. My thoughts are matchedWith those of gods, I have no kin with you.Go publish my last words when I am dead,And sting the city’s heart with them. Say, “Thus,O men of Syracuse, thus Dion spake,Falling upon the threshold of his death,With face turned back, eyes fixed, and cheek unblanched,For one last moment, at the braying mob,Ere into dark he passed to meet his peers,The gods and heroes of the nether world.”Yea, tell the foolish rabble, “Dion sendsHis love and duty, as a warrior should,Unto the sweet earth of his native town,Soon to be watered with his warmest blood.He loved her pleasant streets, her golden air,The circle of her hills, her sapphire sea,And he loved once, and loved unto his death,The poor, half-brutal thing her mob becameUnder the heel of tyrants; had he not,He might have finished out his course of daysAnd died among the pillows on his bed.But he so loved his Syracuse that she,Grown sick of his great heart, let out its redUpon the pebbles of her streets, and cried,‘Mine own hands slew him, for he loved too much.’“Too much, ay, at her piteous call he cameAnd gripped the tyrant’s heel upon your neck,And overthrew him, bidding you uprise.And when your silly fathers feared his strength,And set their murderous snares around his path,The sword he drew for her, for her he sheathed,Disdaining as a warrior to be wrothAt the snake’s use of its recovered powerTo sting the breast that warmed it back to life;And he whose word could then have crushed the townInto a shapeless ruin at his feet,Led off to Leontini all his men,Who, had ye slain him, would upon the groundHave heaped your bodies for his funeral pyre;And who, with eyes that cursed her very stones,Left Syracuse unharmed, at his command.Yet on the morrow in your new distressYe were not loth to send with craven hasteYour weeping envoys fawning at his feetAnd crying, ‘Come and save us; oh, forget,Great Dion, how we wronged thee, come again,Yet this once more, and save our Syracuse.’“There are no depths in ocean, earth or skySo deep as Dion’s pride; there is no forceCommensurate with the scorn which curled his lipIn detestation of the fickle world,Before he plunged forever down death’s gulf.So proud was he, that he despised success,His manhood was the crown his spirit wore.His stern heart felt no pulse of arrogant joyWhen charging foremost on the routed ranksOf Dionysius in precipitous flight;Nor when, as conqueror, up the city’s hillThe wild mob bore him with their loud acclaims,And women from the house-roofs hailed him king;And shrilled his praises out to the great deep.But he was proud, as might some god be proud,At his self-conquest, when for mercy suedFalse Heracleides, whose perfidious plotTo overthrow him well-nigh wrought your doom.Ye saw the traitor kneel, ye heard his words,How his swift tongue did hide the poisoned fangs.But when all voices shouted, ‘Let him die,’The one most wronged obeyed that inner voiceWhich bade him spare a fallen enemy,And stooping down, he raised and pardoned him,Well knowing as ye the baseness of the man,But being too great for meanness like revenge.“Had Dion not been proud, O Syracuse,He might have told such tale of woes enduredAs would, like some moist south-wind after frost,Have made your very walls and porticosRun down with tears of silent sympathy.Ye thought that day he read to you unmovedThe letter that his own son wrote to himIn his young blood, sobbed out with broken cries,While Dionysius pressed the red-hot ironsClose on his slim boy’s back, that he was stone,Inhuman, or if human, weak like you,And would with treason buy him from his chains.Nay, but ye knew not how his father’s heartBurnt with the fury of the molten sun,And how the ashes of his being chokedThe steadfast voice which cried, ‘I will not yield,I will not wrong my blood with treacheryTo what is right—the gods deliver him.’“’Twas well ye marked him not that other dayWhen he broke first into the citadelDeserted by the tyrant, and there found,Whiter, more stone-like than the marble shaft’Gainst which she crouched from him in speechless fear,His wife, his long-lost Arete, and wentAnd drew her white hands from her face and said,‘My wife, my own, thy Dion comes again,And his great love doth wash thy body cleanFrom sins forced on thee, which were not thine own.’For as she rose and clung about his neck,Panting and quivering like a hunted fawn,She downward bent her face in guileless shameAnd told him, with her cheek against his breast,How through those years of captive miseryShe, like a priestess, had in secret shrineOf wedded heart kept ever bright and pureThe vestal flame of her great love for him.’Twas well ye marked not, Syracusan men,How unlike stone was Dion then, how fellHis woman’s tears upon her woman’s hair.’Twas well ye heard not what his heart pulsed out,Without one word, into her tight-pressed ear,Else might ye and your wives have called him weak,When ye had seen that inner self laid bareWhich he forsook to serve his native land.”A strong tree which has braved a thousand stormsMay totter in the wind which brings its fall,So now methinks my pride is dying downWhen thus I talk before my funeralOf all the love, hate, duty, self-restraint,Ingratitude and anguish, which have gravedAnd scarred old Dion as he is to-day,With all his years gone by and all his deeds.And now, eternal gods, I come to youThrough death, with calm, irrevocable tread.Farewell, life’s toilsome warfare. Like a king,Great gods, receive me into bliss or woe,Whiche’er your land affordeth; set my throneAmong the company of those who stroveTo mount by inner conquest, not by blood;And who accept and quaff with equal mindPleasure or pain, defeat or victory.I care not to be highest, only peerOf all the great who are in-gathered there;If needs my rank be blazoned on my throne,Inscribe it, “Dion, Tyrant of Himself.”Ha! ye have found a sword; ’tis well, for nowI shall lie down to sleep as soldier should,Wounded in front and by a soldier’s blade.O Syracuse, I thought to carve a rockRough and unhewn into a perfect shape;But lo! ’twas only clay wherewith I wrought,And every wind and rain did melt you downInto the common mud which tyrants loveTo smooth into an easy path to power.Here, youths, I do not flinch, behold my breast,Shaggy, like front of lion, streaked with grey.It is your glory to anticipateTime’s tardy slaughter. Come, which will be greatAnd first to make himself a name and steepHis weakling hands in Dion’s royal blood?Pray you be quick, I do not fear the pain,But would quit life. Here is my naked heart;It knocks against the edges of this rib,But yet not faster than its wont. Come, youths,Put the sword here and drive it quickly home,And fix your eyes upon me as I fall,And mark ye well the grandeur of my death.For nothing but the red flood bursting forth,No cry, no groan, no movement of the face,Shall tell you that ye have not slain a god.Then draw the blade out blunted where it metThe tempered edge of my self-mastering will,And bear the crimsoned trophy through the streets,And show it to the wondering citizens;That men may know and tell in aftertimesHow Dion lived and died for Syracuse.
Prayyouths, what urgent business claims our earOn this high feast when all keep holiday?Already do the gay-decked barges moveAcross the harbour to the sacred grove,And shouts and music reach us even here,Where through the balustrades the dancing seaMarbles this chamber with reflected lights.What! Is it treason? Ye have come to slay,I read your purpose right. The palace guardsHave been secured and all retreat cut off,And I am at your mercy. It is well.So often have I met death face to face,His eyes now wear the welcome of a friend’s.Is it for hate of Dion, or for gold,Ye come to stain your honour with my blood?And think ye I shall kneel and fawn on you,And cry for mercy with a woman’s shrieks?Though me, like some old lion in his den,Fate, stratagems, not ye, have tracked to death.The lion is old, but all his teeth are sound.What! Ye would seize me? There, I shake you off.Ye did not deem these withered arms so strongThat ye five cubs could thus be kept at bay,Despite your claws, and fury, and fierce barks.But I am Dion—Dion, Plato’s friend,And I have faced the rain of human blood,The lightning of the sword-strokes on my helm,The thunder of on-rushing cavalry,When ye were sucking babies at the breast.And think ye I am one whom ye can slayBy throttling, as an outcast slays her child,Pinching the life out of its tiny throat?Not this shall be my death, for I am royal,And I must royally die. Go fetch a swordAnd I shall wed it nobly like a king.I brought you manhood with my conquering arm,I offered Syracuse a way to fame.I could have made our city reign as queen,With her dominion founded in the sea,Cemented with wise bands of equal laws,A constitution wrought by sober minds,Expanding with its growth, yet ye would not,But mewed and babbled, cried and sulked again,Like children that will quarrel for a coinAnd yet its value know not. I am king.Beyond this honour, if it honour be,To sit enthroned above so base a herd,—A king of mine own self. My thoughts are matchedWith those of gods, I have no kin with you.Go publish my last words when I am dead,And sting the city’s heart with them. Say, “Thus,O men of Syracuse, thus Dion spake,Falling upon the threshold of his death,With face turned back, eyes fixed, and cheek unblanched,For one last moment, at the braying mob,Ere into dark he passed to meet his peers,The gods and heroes of the nether world.”Yea, tell the foolish rabble, “Dion sendsHis love and duty, as a warrior should,Unto the sweet earth of his native town,Soon to be watered with his warmest blood.He loved her pleasant streets, her golden air,The circle of her hills, her sapphire sea,And he loved once, and loved unto his death,The poor, half-brutal thing her mob becameUnder the heel of tyrants; had he not,He might have finished out his course of daysAnd died among the pillows on his bed.But he so loved his Syracuse that she,Grown sick of his great heart, let out its redUpon the pebbles of her streets, and cried,‘Mine own hands slew him, for he loved too much.’“Too much, ay, at her piteous call he cameAnd gripped the tyrant’s heel upon your neck,And overthrew him, bidding you uprise.And when your silly fathers feared his strength,And set their murderous snares around his path,The sword he drew for her, for her he sheathed,Disdaining as a warrior to be wrothAt the snake’s use of its recovered powerTo sting the breast that warmed it back to life;And he whose word could then have crushed the townInto a shapeless ruin at his feet,Led off to Leontini all his men,Who, had ye slain him, would upon the groundHave heaped your bodies for his funeral pyre;And who, with eyes that cursed her very stones,Left Syracuse unharmed, at his command.Yet on the morrow in your new distressYe were not loth to send with craven hasteYour weeping envoys fawning at his feetAnd crying, ‘Come and save us; oh, forget,Great Dion, how we wronged thee, come again,Yet this once more, and save our Syracuse.’“There are no depths in ocean, earth or skySo deep as Dion’s pride; there is no forceCommensurate with the scorn which curled his lipIn detestation of the fickle world,Before he plunged forever down death’s gulf.So proud was he, that he despised success,His manhood was the crown his spirit wore.His stern heart felt no pulse of arrogant joyWhen charging foremost on the routed ranksOf Dionysius in precipitous flight;Nor when, as conqueror, up the city’s hillThe wild mob bore him with their loud acclaims,And women from the house-roofs hailed him king;And shrilled his praises out to the great deep.But he was proud, as might some god be proud,At his self-conquest, when for mercy suedFalse Heracleides, whose perfidious plotTo overthrow him well-nigh wrought your doom.Ye saw the traitor kneel, ye heard his words,How his swift tongue did hide the poisoned fangs.But when all voices shouted, ‘Let him die,’The one most wronged obeyed that inner voiceWhich bade him spare a fallen enemy,And stooping down, he raised and pardoned him,Well knowing as ye the baseness of the man,But being too great for meanness like revenge.“Had Dion not been proud, O Syracuse,He might have told such tale of woes enduredAs would, like some moist south-wind after frost,Have made your very walls and porticosRun down with tears of silent sympathy.Ye thought that day he read to you unmovedThe letter that his own son wrote to himIn his young blood, sobbed out with broken cries,While Dionysius pressed the red-hot ironsClose on his slim boy’s back, that he was stone,Inhuman, or if human, weak like you,And would with treason buy him from his chains.Nay, but ye knew not how his father’s heartBurnt with the fury of the molten sun,And how the ashes of his being chokedThe steadfast voice which cried, ‘I will not yield,I will not wrong my blood with treacheryTo what is right—the gods deliver him.’“’Twas well ye marked him not that other dayWhen he broke first into the citadelDeserted by the tyrant, and there found,Whiter, more stone-like than the marble shaft’Gainst which she crouched from him in speechless fear,His wife, his long-lost Arete, and wentAnd drew her white hands from her face and said,‘My wife, my own, thy Dion comes again,And his great love doth wash thy body cleanFrom sins forced on thee, which were not thine own.’For as she rose and clung about his neck,Panting and quivering like a hunted fawn,She downward bent her face in guileless shameAnd told him, with her cheek against his breast,How through those years of captive miseryShe, like a priestess, had in secret shrineOf wedded heart kept ever bright and pureThe vestal flame of her great love for him.’Twas well ye marked not, Syracusan men,How unlike stone was Dion then, how fellHis woman’s tears upon her woman’s hair.’Twas well ye heard not what his heart pulsed out,Without one word, into her tight-pressed ear,Else might ye and your wives have called him weak,When ye had seen that inner self laid bareWhich he forsook to serve his native land.”A strong tree which has braved a thousand stormsMay totter in the wind which brings its fall,So now methinks my pride is dying downWhen thus I talk before my funeralOf all the love, hate, duty, self-restraint,Ingratitude and anguish, which have gravedAnd scarred old Dion as he is to-day,With all his years gone by and all his deeds.And now, eternal gods, I come to youThrough death, with calm, irrevocable tread.Farewell, life’s toilsome warfare. Like a king,Great gods, receive me into bliss or woe,Whiche’er your land affordeth; set my throneAmong the company of those who stroveTo mount by inner conquest, not by blood;And who accept and quaff with equal mindPleasure or pain, defeat or victory.I care not to be highest, only peerOf all the great who are in-gathered there;If needs my rank be blazoned on my throne,Inscribe it, “Dion, Tyrant of Himself.”Ha! ye have found a sword; ’tis well, for nowI shall lie down to sleep as soldier should,Wounded in front and by a soldier’s blade.O Syracuse, I thought to carve a rockRough and unhewn into a perfect shape;But lo! ’twas only clay wherewith I wrought,And every wind and rain did melt you downInto the common mud which tyrants loveTo smooth into an easy path to power.Here, youths, I do not flinch, behold my breast,Shaggy, like front of lion, streaked with grey.It is your glory to anticipateTime’s tardy slaughter. Come, which will be greatAnd first to make himself a name and steepHis weakling hands in Dion’s royal blood?Pray you be quick, I do not fear the pain,But would quit life. Here is my naked heart;It knocks against the edges of this rib,But yet not faster than its wont. Come, youths,Put the sword here and drive it quickly home,And fix your eyes upon me as I fall,And mark ye well the grandeur of my death.For nothing but the red flood bursting forth,No cry, no groan, no movement of the face,Shall tell you that ye have not slain a god.Then draw the blade out blunted where it metThe tempered edge of my self-mastering will,And bear the crimsoned trophy through the streets,And show it to the wondering citizens;That men may know and tell in aftertimesHow Dion lived and died for Syracuse.
Prayyouths, what urgent business claims our earOn this high feast when all keep holiday?Already do the gay-decked barges moveAcross the harbour to the sacred grove,And shouts and music reach us even here,Where through the balustrades the dancing seaMarbles this chamber with reflected lights.What! Is it treason? Ye have come to slay,I read your purpose right. The palace guardsHave been secured and all retreat cut off,And I am at your mercy. It is well.So often have I met death face to face,His eyes now wear the welcome of a friend’s.Is it for hate of Dion, or for gold,Ye come to stain your honour with my blood?And think ye I shall kneel and fawn on you,And cry for mercy with a woman’s shrieks?Though me, like some old lion in his den,Fate, stratagems, not ye, have tracked to death.The lion is old, but all his teeth are sound.What! Ye would seize me? There, I shake you off.Ye did not deem these withered arms so strongThat ye five cubs could thus be kept at bay,Despite your claws, and fury, and fierce barks.But I am Dion—Dion, Plato’s friend,And I have faced the rain of human blood,The lightning of the sword-strokes on my helm,The thunder of on-rushing cavalry,When ye were sucking babies at the breast.And think ye I am one whom ye can slayBy throttling, as an outcast slays her child,Pinching the life out of its tiny throat?Not this shall be my death, for I am royal,And I must royally die. Go fetch a swordAnd I shall wed it nobly like a king.
I brought you manhood with my conquering arm,I offered Syracuse a way to fame.I could have made our city reign as queen,With her dominion founded in the sea,Cemented with wise bands of equal laws,A constitution wrought by sober minds,Expanding with its growth, yet ye would not,But mewed and babbled, cried and sulked again,Like children that will quarrel for a coinAnd yet its value know not. I am king.Beyond this honour, if it honour be,To sit enthroned above so base a herd,—A king of mine own self. My thoughts are matchedWith those of gods, I have no kin with you.Go publish my last words when I am dead,And sting the city’s heart with them. Say, “Thus,O men of Syracuse, thus Dion spake,Falling upon the threshold of his death,With face turned back, eyes fixed, and cheek unblanched,For one last moment, at the braying mob,Ere into dark he passed to meet his peers,The gods and heroes of the nether world.”Yea, tell the foolish rabble, “Dion sendsHis love and duty, as a warrior should,Unto the sweet earth of his native town,Soon to be watered with his warmest blood.He loved her pleasant streets, her golden air,The circle of her hills, her sapphire sea,And he loved once, and loved unto his death,The poor, half-brutal thing her mob becameUnder the heel of tyrants; had he not,He might have finished out his course of daysAnd died among the pillows on his bed.But he so loved his Syracuse that she,Grown sick of his great heart, let out its redUpon the pebbles of her streets, and cried,‘Mine own hands slew him, for he loved too much.’
“Too much, ay, at her piteous call he cameAnd gripped the tyrant’s heel upon your neck,And overthrew him, bidding you uprise.And when your silly fathers feared his strength,And set their murderous snares around his path,The sword he drew for her, for her he sheathed,Disdaining as a warrior to be wrothAt the snake’s use of its recovered powerTo sting the breast that warmed it back to life;And he whose word could then have crushed the townInto a shapeless ruin at his feet,Led off to Leontini all his men,Who, had ye slain him, would upon the groundHave heaped your bodies for his funeral pyre;And who, with eyes that cursed her very stones,Left Syracuse unharmed, at his command.Yet on the morrow in your new distressYe were not loth to send with craven hasteYour weeping envoys fawning at his feetAnd crying, ‘Come and save us; oh, forget,Great Dion, how we wronged thee, come again,Yet this once more, and save our Syracuse.’
“There are no depths in ocean, earth or skySo deep as Dion’s pride; there is no forceCommensurate with the scorn which curled his lipIn detestation of the fickle world,Before he plunged forever down death’s gulf.So proud was he, that he despised success,His manhood was the crown his spirit wore.His stern heart felt no pulse of arrogant joyWhen charging foremost on the routed ranksOf Dionysius in precipitous flight;Nor when, as conqueror, up the city’s hillThe wild mob bore him with their loud acclaims,And women from the house-roofs hailed him king;And shrilled his praises out to the great deep.But he was proud, as might some god be proud,At his self-conquest, when for mercy suedFalse Heracleides, whose perfidious plotTo overthrow him well-nigh wrought your doom.Ye saw the traitor kneel, ye heard his words,How his swift tongue did hide the poisoned fangs.But when all voices shouted, ‘Let him die,’The one most wronged obeyed that inner voiceWhich bade him spare a fallen enemy,And stooping down, he raised and pardoned him,Well knowing as ye the baseness of the man,But being too great for meanness like revenge.
“Had Dion not been proud, O Syracuse,He might have told such tale of woes enduredAs would, like some moist south-wind after frost,Have made your very walls and porticosRun down with tears of silent sympathy.Ye thought that day he read to you unmovedThe letter that his own son wrote to himIn his young blood, sobbed out with broken cries,While Dionysius pressed the red-hot ironsClose on his slim boy’s back, that he was stone,Inhuman, or if human, weak like you,And would with treason buy him from his chains.Nay, but ye knew not how his father’s heartBurnt with the fury of the molten sun,And how the ashes of his being chokedThe steadfast voice which cried, ‘I will not yield,I will not wrong my blood with treacheryTo what is right—the gods deliver him.’
“’Twas well ye marked him not that other dayWhen he broke first into the citadelDeserted by the tyrant, and there found,Whiter, more stone-like than the marble shaft’Gainst which she crouched from him in speechless fear,His wife, his long-lost Arete, and wentAnd drew her white hands from her face and said,‘My wife, my own, thy Dion comes again,And his great love doth wash thy body cleanFrom sins forced on thee, which were not thine own.’For as she rose and clung about his neck,Panting and quivering like a hunted fawn,She downward bent her face in guileless shameAnd told him, with her cheek against his breast,How through those years of captive miseryShe, like a priestess, had in secret shrineOf wedded heart kept ever bright and pureThe vestal flame of her great love for him.’Twas well ye marked not, Syracusan men,How unlike stone was Dion then, how fellHis woman’s tears upon her woman’s hair.’Twas well ye heard not what his heart pulsed out,Without one word, into her tight-pressed ear,Else might ye and your wives have called him weak,When ye had seen that inner self laid bareWhich he forsook to serve his native land.”
A strong tree which has braved a thousand stormsMay totter in the wind which brings its fall,So now methinks my pride is dying downWhen thus I talk before my funeralOf all the love, hate, duty, self-restraint,Ingratitude and anguish, which have gravedAnd scarred old Dion as he is to-day,With all his years gone by and all his deeds.
And now, eternal gods, I come to youThrough death, with calm, irrevocable tread.Farewell, life’s toilsome warfare. Like a king,Great gods, receive me into bliss or woe,Whiche’er your land affordeth; set my throneAmong the company of those who stroveTo mount by inner conquest, not by blood;And who accept and quaff with equal mindPleasure or pain, defeat or victory.I care not to be highest, only peerOf all the great who are in-gathered there;If needs my rank be blazoned on my throne,Inscribe it, “Dion, Tyrant of Himself.”
Ha! ye have found a sword; ’tis well, for nowI shall lie down to sleep as soldier should,Wounded in front and by a soldier’s blade.O Syracuse, I thought to carve a rockRough and unhewn into a perfect shape;But lo! ’twas only clay wherewith I wrought,And every wind and rain did melt you downInto the common mud which tyrants loveTo smooth into an easy path to power.
Here, youths, I do not flinch, behold my breast,Shaggy, like front of lion, streaked with grey.It is your glory to anticipateTime’s tardy slaughter. Come, which will be greatAnd first to make himself a name and steepHis weakling hands in Dion’s royal blood?Pray you be quick, I do not fear the pain,But would quit life. Here is my naked heart;It knocks against the edges of this rib,But yet not faster than its wont. Come, youths,Put the sword here and drive it quickly home,And fix your eyes upon me as I fall,And mark ye well the grandeur of my death.For nothing but the red flood bursting forth,No cry, no groan, no movement of the face,Shall tell you that ye have not slain a god.Then draw the blade out blunted where it metThe tempered edge of my self-mastering will,And bear the crimsoned trophy through the streets,And show it to the wondering citizens;That men may know and tell in aftertimesHow Dion lived and died for Syracuse.