II. THE VENUS OF MELOS

Radianceinvincible! Is that the browWhich gleamed on Python while thy arrow sped?Are those the lips for Hyacinthus deadThat grieved? Wherefore a God indeed art thou:For all we toil with ill, and the hours bowAnd break us, and at best when we have bled,And are much marred, perchance propitiatedA little doubtful victory they allow:We sorrow, and thenceforth the lip retainsA shade, and the eyes shine and wonder less.O joyous Slayer of evil things! O greatAnd splendid Victor! God, whom no soil stainsOf passion or doubt, of grief or languidness,—Even to worship thee I come too late.

Goddess, or woman nobler than the God,No eyes a-gaze upon Ægean seasShifting and circling past their CycladesSaw thee. The Earth, the gracious Earth, wastrodFirst by thy feet, while round thee lay her broadCalm harvests, and great kine, and shadowing trees,And flowers like queens, and a full year’s increase,Clusters, ripe berry, and the bursting pod.So thy victorious fairness, unalliedTo bitter things or barren, doth bestowAnd not exact; so thou art calm and wise;Thy large allurement saves; a man may growLike Plutarch’s men by standing at thy side,And walk thenceforward with clear-visioned eyes!

(In the British Museum)

Whocrowned thy forehead with the ivy wreathAnd clustered berries burdening the hair?Who gave thee godhood, and dim rites? BewareO beautiful, who breathest mortal breath,Thou delicate flame great gloom environeth!The gods are free, and drink a stainless air,And lightly on calm shoulders they upbearA weight of joy eternal, nor can DeathCast o’er their sleep the shadow of her shrine.O thou confessed too mortal by the o’er-fraughtCrowned forehead, must thy drooped eyes ever seeThe glut of pleasure, those pale lips of thineStill suck a bitter-sweet satiety,Thy soul descend through cloudy realms of thought?

Makethyself known, Sibyl, or let despairOf knowing thee be absolute; I waitHour-long and waste a soul. What word of fateHides ’twixt the lips which smile and still forbear?Secret perfection! Mystery too fair!Tangle the sense no more lest I should hateThy delicate tyranny, the inviolatePoise of thy folded hands, thy fallen hair.Nay, nay,—I wrong thee with rough words; still beSerene, victorious, inaccessible;Still smile but speak not; lightest ironyLurk ever ’neath thine eyelids’ shadow; stillO’ertop our knowledge; Sphinx of ItalyAllure us and reject us at thy will!

(By Van der Weyden)

Itwas Luke’s will; and she, the mother-maid,Would not gainsay; to please him pleased her best;See, here she sits with dovelike heart at restBrooding, and smoothest brow; the babe is laidOn lap and arm, glad for the unarrayedAnd swatheless limbs he stretches; lightly pressedBy soft maternal fingers the full breastSeeks him, while half a sidelong glance is stayedBy her own bosom and half passes downTo reach the boy. Through doors and window-frameBright airs flow in; a river tranquillyWashes the small, glad Netherlandish town.Innocent calm! no token here of shame,A pierced heart, sunless heaven, and Calvary.

Hereare the needs of manhood satisfied!Sane breath, an amplitude for soul and sense,The noonday silence of the summer hills,And this embracing solitude; o’er allThe sky unsearchable, which lays its claim,—A large redemption not to be annulled,—Upon the heart; and far below, the seaBreaking and breaking, smoothly, silently.What need I any further? Now once moreMy arrested life begins, and I am manComplete with eye, heart, brain, and that withinWhich is the centre and the light of being;O dull! who morning after morning choseNever to climb these gorse and heather slopesCairn-crowned, but last within one seaward nookWasted my soul on the ambiguous speechAnd slow eye-mesmerism of rolling waves,Courting oblivion of the heart. True lifeThat was not which possessed me while I layProne on the perilous edge, mere eye and ear,Staring upon the bright monotony,Having let slide all force from me, each thoughtYield to the vision of the gleaming blank,Each nerve of motion and of sense grow numb,Till to the bland persuasion of some breeze,Which played across my forehead and my hair,The lost volition would efface itself,And I was mingled wholly in the soundOf tumbling billow and upjetting surge,Long reluctation, welter and refluent moan,And the reverberating tumultuousness’Mid shelf and hollow and angle black with spray.Yet under all oblivion there remainedA sense of some frustration, a pale dreamOf Nature mocking man, and drawing down,As streams draw down the dust of gold, his will,His thought and passion to enrich herselfThe insatiable devourer.Welcome earth,My natural heritage! and this soft turf,These rocks which no insidious ocean saps,But the wide air flows over, and the sunIllumines. Take me, Mother, to thy breast,Gather me close in tender, sustinent arms,Lay bare thy bosom’s sweetness and its strengthThat I may drink vigour and joy and love.Oh, infinite composure of the hills!Thou large simplicity of this fair world,Candour and calmness, with no mockery,No soft frustration, flattering sigh or smileWhich masks a tyrannous purpose; and ye PowersOf these sky-circled heights, and PresencesAwful and strict, I find you favourable,Who seek not to exclude me or to slay,Rather accept my being, take me upInto your silence and your peace. ThereforeBy him whom ye reject not, gracious Ones,Pure vows are made that haply he will beNot all unworthy of the world; he castsForth from him, never to resume again,Veiled nameless things, frauds of the unfilled heart,Fantastic pleasures, delicate sadnesses,The lurid, and the curious, and the occult,Coward sleights and shifts, the manners of the slave,And long unnatural uses of dim life.Hence with you! Robes of angels touch these heightsBlown by pure winds and I lay hold upon them.Here is a perfect bell of purple heath,Made for the sky to gaze at reverently,As faultless as itself, and holding light,Glad air and silence in its slender dome;Small, but a needful moment in the sumOf God’s full joy—the abyss of ecstasyO’er which we hang as the bright bow of foamAbove the never-filled receptacleHangs seven-hued where the endless cataract leaps.O now I guess why you have summoned me,Headlands and heights, to your companionship;Confess that I this day am needful to you!The heavens were loaded with great light, the windsBrought you calm summer from a hundred fields,All night the stars had pricked you to desire,The imminent joy at its full season flowered,There was a consummation, the broad waveToppled and fell. And had ye voice for this?Sufficient song to unburden the urged breast?A pastoral pipe to play? a lyre to touch?The brightening glory of the heath and gorseCould not appease your passion, nor the cryOf this wild bird that flits from bush to bush.Me therefore you required, a voice for song,A pastoral pipe to play, a lyre to touch,I recognize your bliss to find me here;The sky at morning when the sun upleapsDemands her atom of intense melody,Her point of quivering passion and delight,And will not let the lark’s heart be at ease.Take me, the brain with various, subtile fold,The breast that knows swift joy, the vocal lips;I yield you here the cunning instrumentBetween your knees; now let the plectrum fall!

Welcome earth,My natural heritage! and this soft turf,These rocks which no insidious ocean saps,But the wide air flows over, and the sunIllumines. Take me, Mother, to thy breast,Gather me close in tender, sustinent arms,Lay bare thy bosom’s sweetness and its strengthThat I may drink vigour and joy and love.Oh, infinite composure of the hills!Thou large simplicity of this fair world,Candour and calmness, with no mockery,No soft frustration, flattering sigh or smileWhich masks a tyrannous purpose; and ye PowersOf these sky-circled heights, and PresencesAwful and strict, I find you favourable,Who seek not to exclude me or to slay,Rather accept my being, take me upInto your silence and your peace. ThereforeBy him whom ye reject not, gracious Ones,Pure vows are made that haply he will beNot all unworthy of the world; he castsForth from him, never to resume again,Veiled nameless things, frauds of the unfilled heart,Fantastic pleasures, delicate sadnesses,The lurid, and the curious, and the occult,Coward sleights and shifts, the manners of the slave,And long unnatural uses of dim life.Hence with you! Robes of angels touch these heightsBlown by pure winds and I lay hold upon them.

Here is a perfect bell of purple heath,Made for the sky to gaze at reverently,As faultless as itself, and holding light,Glad air and silence in its slender dome;Small, but a needful moment in the sumOf God’s full joy—the abyss of ecstasyO’er which we hang as the bright bow of foamAbove the never-filled receptacleHangs seven-hued where the endless cataract leaps.

O now I guess why you have summoned me,Headlands and heights, to your companionship;Confess that I this day am needful to you!The heavens were loaded with great light, the windsBrought you calm summer from a hundred fields,All night the stars had pricked you to desire,The imminent joy at its full season flowered,There was a consummation, the broad waveToppled and fell. And had ye voice for this?Sufficient song to unburden the urged breast?A pastoral pipe to play? a lyre to touch?The brightening glory of the heath and gorseCould not appease your passion, nor the cryOf this wild bird that flits from bush to bush.Me therefore you required, a voice for song,A pastoral pipe to play, a lyre to touch,I recognize your bliss to find me here;The sky at morning when the sun upleapsDemands her atom of intense melody,Her point of quivering passion and delight,And will not let the lark’s heart be at ease.Take me, the brain with various, subtile fold,The breast that knows swift joy, the vocal lips;I yield you here the cunning instrumentBetween your knees; now let the plectrum fall!

“Toujours le désert se montre à l’horizon, quand vous prononcez le nom de Jéhovah.”Edgar Quinet.

Beyondthe places haunted by the feetOf thoughts and swift desires, and where the eyesOf wing’d imaginings are wild, and dreamsGlide by on noiseless plumes, beyond the dimVeiled sisterhood of ever-circling mists,Who dip their urns in those enchanted meresWhere all thought fails, and every ardour dies,And through the vapour dead looms a low moon,Beyond the fountains of the dawn, beyondThe white home of the morning star, lies spreadA desert lifeless, bright, illimitable,The world’s confine, o’er which no sighing goesFrom weary winds of Time.I sat me downUpon a red stone flung on the red sand,In length as great as some sarcophagusWhich holds a king, but scribbled with no runes,Bald, and unstained by lichen or grey moss.Save me no living thing in that red landShowed under heaven; no furtive lizard slipped,No desert weed pushed upward the tough spineOr hairy lump, no slow bird was a spotOf moving black on the deserted air,Or stationary shrilled his tuneless cry;No shadow stirr’d, nor luminous haze uprose,Quivering against the blanched blue of the marge.I sat unbonneted, and my throat baked,And my tongue loll’d dogwise. Red sand below,And one unlidded eye above—mere GodBlazing from marge to marge. I did not pray,My heart was as a cinder in my breast,And with both hands I held my head which throbbed.I, who had sought for God, had followed GodThrough the fair world which stings with sharp desireFor him of whom its hints and whisperings are,Its gleams and tingling moments of the night,I, who in flower, and wave, and mountain-wind,And song of bird, and man’s diviner heartHad owned the present Deity, yet stroveFor naked access to his inmost shrine,—Now found God doubtless, for he filled the heavenLike brass, he breathed upon the air like fire.But I, a speck ’twixt the strown sand and sky,Being yet an atom of pure and living will,And perdurable as any God of brass,With all my soul, with all my mind and strengthHated this God. O, for a little cloudNo bigger than a man’s hand on the rim,To rise with rain and thunder in its womb,And blot God out! But no such cloud would come.I felt my brain on fire, heard each pulse tick;It was a God to make a man stark mad;I rose with neck out-thrust, and nodding head,While with dry chaps I could not choose but laugh;Ha,ha,ha,ha, across the air it rang,No sweeter than the barking of a dog,Hard as the echo from an iron cliff;It must have buffeted the heaven; I ceased,I looked to see from the mid sky an arm,And one sweep of the scimitar; I stood;And when the minute passed with no event,No doomsman’s stroke, no sundering soul and flesh,When silence dropt its heavy fold on fold,And God lay yet inert in heaven, or scorn’dHis rebel antic-sized, grotesque,—I swooned.Now when the sense returned my lips were wet,And cheeks and chin were wet, with a dank dew,Acrid and icy, and one shadow hugeHung over me blue-black, while all aroundThe fierce light glared. O joy, a living thing,Emperor of this red domain of sand,A giant snake! One fold, one massy wreathArched over me; a man’s expanded armsCould not embrace the girth of this great lordIn his least part, and low upon the sandHis small head lay, wrinkled, a flaccid bag,Set with two jewels of green fire, the eyesThat had not slept since making of the world.Whence grew I bold to gaze into such eyes?Thus gazing each conceived the other’s thought,Aware how each read each; the Serpent mused,“Are all the giants dead, a long time dead,Born of the broad-hipped women, grave and tall,In whom God’s sons poured a celestial seed?A long time dead, whose great deeds filled the earthWith clamour as of beaten shields, all dead,And Cush and Canaan, Mizraim and Phut,And the boy Nimrod storming through large landsLike earthquake through tower’d cities, these depart,And what remains? Behold, the elvish thingWe raised from out his swoon, this now is man.The pretty vermin! helpless to conceiveOf great, pure, simple sin, and vast revolt;The world escapes from deluge these new days,We build no Babels with the Shinar slime;What would this thin-legged grasshopper with us,The Dread Ones? Rather let him skip, and chirpHymns in his smooth grass to his novel God,‘The Father’; here no bland paternityHe meets, but visible Might blocks the broad sky,My great Co-mate, the Ancient. Hence! avoid!What wouldst thou prying on our solitude?For thee my sly small cousin may suffice,And sly small bites about the heart and groin;Hence to his haunt! Yet ere thou dost departI mark thee with my sign.”A vibrant tongueHad in a moment pricked upon my browThe mystic mark of brotherhood, Cain’s brand,But when I read within his eyes the words“Hence” and “avoid,” dim horror seized on me,And rising, with both arms stretched forth, and headBowed earthward, and not turning once I ran;And what things saw me as I raced by them,What hands plucked at my dress, what light wings brushedMy face, what waters in my hearing seethed,I know not, till I reached familiar lands,And saw grey clouds slow gathering for the night,Above sweet fields, whence the June mowers strolledHomewards with girls who chatted down the lane.Is this the secret lying round the world?A Dread One watching with unlidded eyeSlow century after century from his heaven,And that great lord, the worm of the red plain,Cold in mid sun, strenuous, untameable,Coiling his solitary strength alongSlow century after century, conscious eachHow in the life of his Arch-enemyHe lives, how ruin of one confounds the pair,—Is this the eternal dual mystery?One Source of being, Light, or Love, or Lord,Whose shadow is the brightness of the world,Still let thy dawns and twilights glimmer pureIn flow perpetual from hill to hill,Still bathe us in thy tides of day and night;Wash me at will a weed in thy free wave,Drenched in the sun and air and surge of Thee.

I sat me downUpon a red stone flung on the red sand,In length as great as some sarcophagusWhich holds a king, but scribbled with no runes,Bald, and unstained by lichen or grey moss.Save me no living thing in that red landShowed under heaven; no furtive lizard slipped,No desert weed pushed upward the tough spineOr hairy lump, no slow bird was a spotOf moving black on the deserted air,Or stationary shrilled his tuneless cry;No shadow stirr’d, nor luminous haze uprose,Quivering against the blanched blue of the marge.I sat unbonneted, and my throat baked,And my tongue loll’d dogwise. Red sand below,And one unlidded eye above—mere GodBlazing from marge to marge. I did not pray,My heart was as a cinder in my breast,And with both hands I held my head which throbbed.I, who had sought for God, had followed GodThrough the fair world which stings with sharp desireFor him of whom its hints and whisperings are,Its gleams and tingling moments of the night,I, who in flower, and wave, and mountain-wind,And song of bird, and man’s diviner heartHad owned the present Deity, yet stroveFor naked access to his inmost shrine,—Now found God doubtless, for he filled the heavenLike brass, he breathed upon the air like fire.But I, a speck ’twixt the strown sand and sky,Being yet an atom of pure and living will,And perdurable as any God of brass,With all my soul, with all my mind and strengthHated this God. O, for a little cloudNo bigger than a man’s hand on the rim,To rise with rain and thunder in its womb,And blot God out! But no such cloud would come.I felt my brain on fire, heard each pulse tick;It was a God to make a man stark mad;I rose with neck out-thrust, and nodding head,While with dry chaps I could not choose but laugh;Ha,ha,ha,ha, across the air it rang,No sweeter than the barking of a dog,Hard as the echo from an iron cliff;It must have buffeted the heaven; I ceased,I looked to see from the mid sky an arm,And one sweep of the scimitar; I stood;And when the minute passed with no event,No doomsman’s stroke, no sundering soul and flesh,When silence dropt its heavy fold on fold,And God lay yet inert in heaven, or scorn’dHis rebel antic-sized, grotesque,—I swooned.

Now when the sense returned my lips were wet,And cheeks and chin were wet, with a dank dew,Acrid and icy, and one shadow hugeHung over me blue-black, while all aroundThe fierce light glared. O joy, a living thing,Emperor of this red domain of sand,A giant snake! One fold, one massy wreathArched over me; a man’s expanded armsCould not embrace the girth of this great lordIn his least part, and low upon the sandHis small head lay, wrinkled, a flaccid bag,Set with two jewels of green fire, the eyesThat had not slept since making of the world.Whence grew I bold to gaze into such eyes?Thus gazing each conceived the other’s thought,Aware how each read each; the Serpent mused,“Are all the giants dead, a long time dead,Born of the broad-hipped women, grave and tall,In whom God’s sons poured a celestial seed?A long time dead, whose great deeds filled the earthWith clamour as of beaten shields, all dead,And Cush and Canaan, Mizraim and Phut,And the boy Nimrod storming through large landsLike earthquake through tower’d cities, these depart,And what remains? Behold, the elvish thingWe raised from out his swoon, this now is man.The pretty vermin! helpless to conceiveOf great, pure, simple sin, and vast revolt;The world escapes from deluge these new days,We build no Babels with the Shinar slime;What would this thin-legged grasshopper with us,The Dread Ones? Rather let him skip, and chirpHymns in his smooth grass to his novel God,‘The Father’; here no bland paternityHe meets, but visible Might blocks the broad sky,My great Co-mate, the Ancient. Hence! avoid!What wouldst thou prying on our solitude?For thee my sly small cousin may suffice,And sly small bites about the heart and groin;Hence to his haunt! Yet ere thou dost departI mark thee with my sign.”

A vibrant tongueHad in a moment pricked upon my browThe mystic mark of brotherhood, Cain’s brand,But when I read within his eyes the words“Hence” and “avoid,” dim horror seized on me,And rising, with both arms stretched forth, and headBowed earthward, and not turning once I ran;And what things saw me as I raced by them,What hands plucked at my dress, what light wings brushedMy face, what waters in my hearing seethed,I know not, till I reached familiar lands,And saw grey clouds slow gathering for the night,Above sweet fields, whence the June mowers strolledHomewards with girls who chatted down the lane.

Is this the secret lying round the world?A Dread One watching with unlidded eyeSlow century after century from his heaven,And that great lord, the worm of the red plain,Cold in mid sun, strenuous, untameable,Coiling his solitary strength alongSlow century after century, conscious eachHow in the life of his Arch-enemyHe lives, how ruin of one confounds the pair,—Is this the eternal dual mystery?One Source of being, Light, or Love, or Lord,Whose shadow is the brightness of the world,Still let thy dawns and twilights glimmer pureIn flow perpetual from hill to hill,Still bathe us in thy tides of day and night;Wash me at will a weed in thy free wave,Drenched in the sun and air and surge of Thee.

Backwardbetwixt the gates of steepest heaven,Faint from the insupportable advanceOf light confederate in the East, is drivenThe starry chivalry, and helm and lance,Which held keen ward upon the shadowy plain,Yield to the stress and stern predominanceOf Day; no wanderer morning-moon awaneFloats through dishevelled clouds, exanimate,In disarray, with gaze of weariest pain;O thou, sole Splendour, sprung to vindicateNight’s ancient fame, thou in dread strife serene,With back-blown locks, joyous yet desperateFlamest; from whose pure ardour Earth doth winHigh passionate pangs, thou radiant paladin.

Backwardbetwixt the gates of steepest heaven,Faint from the insupportable advanceOf light confederate in the East, is driven

The starry chivalry, and helm and lance,Which held keen ward upon the shadowy plain,Yield to the stress and stern predominance

Of Day; no wanderer morning-moon awaneFloats through dishevelled clouds, exanimate,In disarray, with gaze of weariest pain;

O thou, sole Splendour, sprung to vindicateNight’s ancient fame, thou in dread strife serene,With back-blown locks, joyous yet desperate

Flamest; from whose pure ardour Earth doth winHigh passionate pangs, thou radiant paladin.

Nay; strife must cease in song: far-sent and clearPiercing the silence of this summer mornI hear thy swan-song rapturous; I hearLife’s ecstasy; sharp cries of flames which burnWith palpitating joy, intense and pure,From altars of the universe, and yearnIn eager spires; and under these the sureStrong ecstasy of Death, in phrase too deepFor thought, too bright for dim investiture.Of mortal words, and sinking more than sleepDown holier places of the soul’s delight;Cry, through the quickening dawn, to us who creep’Mid dreams and dews of the dividing night,Thou searcher of the darkness and the light.

Nay; strife must cease in song: far-sent and clearPiercing the silence of this summer mornI hear thy swan-song rapturous; I hear

Life’s ecstasy; sharp cries of flames which burnWith palpitating joy, intense and pure,From altars of the universe, and yearn

In eager spires; and under these the sureStrong ecstasy of Death, in phrase too deepFor thought, too bright for dim investiture.

Of mortal words, and sinking more than sleepDown holier places of the soul’s delight;Cry, through the quickening dawn, to us who creep

’Mid dreams and dews of the dividing night,Thou searcher of the darkness and the light.

I seekthee, and thou art not; for the skyHas drawn thee in upon her breast to beA hidden talisman, while light soars high,Virtuous to make wide heaven’s tranquillityMore tranquil, and her steadfast truth more true,Yea even her overbowed infinity.Of tenderness, when o’er wet woods the blueShows past white edges of a sundering cloud,More infinitely tender. Day is new,Night ended; how the hills are overflowedWith spaciousness of splendour, and each treeIs touched; only not yet the lark is loud,Since viewless still o’er city and plain and seaVibrates thy spirit-wingèd ecstasy.

I seekthee, and thou art not; for the skyHas drawn thee in upon her breast to beA hidden talisman, while light soars high,

Virtuous to make wide heaven’s tranquillityMore tranquil, and her steadfast truth more true,Yea even her overbowed infinity.

Of tenderness, when o’er wet woods the blueShows past white edges of a sundering cloud,More infinitely tender. Day is new,

Night ended; how the hills are overflowedWith spaciousness of splendour, and each treeIs touched; only not yet the lark is loud,

Since viewless still o’er city and plain and seaVibrates thy spirit-wingèd ecstasy.

Becauseyou sleep, my child, with breathing lightAs heave of the June sea,Because your lips soft petals dewy-brightDispart so tenderly;Because the slumbrous warmth is on your cheekUp from the hushed heart sent,And in this midmost noon when winds are weakNo cloud lies more content;Because nor song of bird, nor lamb’s keen callMay reach you sunken deep,Because your lifted arm I thus let fallHeavy with perfect sleep;Because all will is drawn from you, all power,And Nature through dark rootsWill hold and nourish you for one sweet hourAmid her flowers and fruits;Therefore though tempests gather, and the galeThrough autumn skies will roar,Though Earth send up to heaven the ancient wailHeard by dead Gods of yore;Though spectral faiths contend, and for her courseThe soul confused must try,While through the whirl of atoms and of forceLooms an abandoned sky;Yet, know I, Peace abides, of earth’s wild thingsCentre, and ruling thence;Behold, a spirit folds her budded wingsIn confident innocence.

Becauseyou sleep, my child, with breathing lightAs heave of the June sea,Because your lips soft petals dewy-brightDispart so tenderly;

Because the slumbrous warmth is on your cheekUp from the hushed heart sent,And in this midmost noon when winds are weakNo cloud lies more content;

Because nor song of bird, nor lamb’s keen callMay reach you sunken deep,Because your lifted arm I thus let fallHeavy with perfect sleep;

Because all will is drawn from you, all power,And Nature through dark rootsWill hold and nourish you for one sweet hourAmid her flowers and fruits;

Therefore though tempests gather, and the galeThrough autumn skies will roar,Though Earth send up to heaven the ancient wailHeard by dead Gods of yore;

Though spectral faiths contend, and for her courseThe soul confused must try,While through the whirl of atoms and of forceLooms an abandoned sky;

Yet, know I, Peace abides, of earth’s wild thingsCentre, and ruling thence;Behold, a spirit folds her budded wingsIn confident innocence.

Pastthe town’s clamour is a garden fullOf loneness and old greenery; at noonWhen birds are hushed, save one dim cushat’s croon,A ripen’d silence hangs beneath the coolGreat branches; basking roses dream and dropA petal, and dream still; and summer’s boonOf mellow grasses, to be levelled soonBy a dew-drenchèd scythe, will hardly stopAt the uprunning mounds of chestnut trees.Still let me muse in this rich haunt by day,And know all night in dusky placidnessIt lies beneath the summer, while great easeBroods in the leaves, and every light wind’s stressLifts a faint odour down the verdurous way.

HereI am slave of visions. When noon heatStrikes the red walls, and their environ’d airLies steep’d in sun; when not a creature dareAffront the fervour, from my dim retreatWhere woof of leaves embowers a beechen seat,With chin on palm, and wide-set eyes I stare,Beyond the liquid quiver and the glare,Upon fair shapes that move on silent feet.Those Three strait-robed, and speechless as they pass,Come often, touch the lute, nor heed me moreThan birds or shadows heed; that naked childIs dove-like Psyche slumbering in deep grass;Sleep, sleep,—he heeds thee not, you Sylvan wildMunching the russet apple to its core.

Thegrass around my limbs is deep and sweet;Yonder the house has lost its shadow wholly,The blinds are dropped, and softly now and slowlyThe day flows in and floats; a calm retreatOf tempered light where fair things fair things meet;White busts and marble Dian make it holy,Within a niche hangs Dürer’s MelancholyBrooding; and, should you enter, there will greetYour sense with vague allurement effluence faintOf one magnolia bloom; fair fingers drawFrom the piano Chopin’s heart-complaint;Alone, white-robed she sits; a fierce macawOn the verandah, proud of plume and paint,Screams, insolent despot, showing beak and claw.

“That was the thrush’s last good-night,” I thought,And heard the soft descent of summer rainIn the drooped garden leaves; but hush! againThe perfect iterance,—freer than unsoughtOdours of violets dim in woodland ways,Deeper than coilèd waters laid a-dreamBelow mossed ledges of a shadowy stream,And faultless as blown roses in June days.Full-throated singer! art thou thus anewVoiceful to hear how round thyself aloneThe enrichèd silence drops for thy delightMore soft than snow, more sweet than honey-dew?Now cease: the last faint western streak is gone,Stir not the blissful quiet of the night.

Queen-moon of this enchanted summer night,One virgin slave companioning thee,—I lieVacant to thy possession as this skyConquered and calmed by thy rejoicing might;Swim down through my heart’s deep, thou dewy brightWanderer of heaven, till thought must faint and die,And I am made all thine inseparably,Resolved into the dream of thy delight.Ah no! the place is common for her feet,Not here, not here,—beyond the amber mist,And breadths of dusky pine, and shining lawn,And unstirred lake, and gleaming belts of wheat,She comes upon her Latmos, and has kissedThe sidelong face of blind Endymion.

Ifany sense in mortal dust remainsWhen mine has been refined from flower to flower,Won from the sun all colours, drunk the showerAnd delicate winy dews, and gained the gainsWhich elves who sleep in airy bells, a-swingThrough half a summer day, for love bestow,Then in some warm old garden let me growTo such a perfect, lush, ambrosian thingAs this. Upon a southward-facing wallI bask, and feel my juices dimly fedAnd mellowing, while my bloom comes golden grey:Keep the wasps from me! but before I fallPluck me, white fingers, and o’er two ripe-redGirl lips O let me richly swoon away!

Ifwhile I sit flatter’d by this warm sunDeath came to me, and kissed my mouth and brow,And eyelids which the warm light hovers through,I should not count it strange. Being half wonBy hours that with a tender sadness run,Who would not softly lean to lips which wooIn the Earth’s grave speech? Nor could it aught undoOf Nature’s calm observances begunStill to be here the idle autumn day.Pale leaves would circle down, and lie unstirr’dWhere’er they fell; the tired wind hither callHer gentle fellows; shining beetles strayUp their green courts; and only yon shy birdA little bolder grow ere evenfall.

Thisis the year’s despair: some wind last nightUtter’d too soon the irrevocable word,And the leaves heard it, and the low clouds heard;So a wan morning dawned of sterile light;Flowers drooped, or showed a startled face and white;The cattle cowered, and one disconsolate birdChirped a weak note; last came this mist and blurredThe hills, and fed upon the fields like blight.Ah, why so swift despair! There yet will beWarm noons, the honey’d leavings of the year,Hours of rich musing, ripest autumn’s core,And late-heaped fruit, and falling hedge-berry,Blossoms in cottage-crofts, and yet, once more,A song, not less than June’s, fervent and clear.

Shestood upon the wall of windy Troy,And lifted high both arms, and cried aloudWith no man near:—“Troy-town and glory of GreeceStrive, let the flame aspire, and pride of lifeGlow to white heat! Great lords be strong, rejoice,Lament, know victory, know defeat—then die;Fair is the living many-coloured playOf hates and loves, and fair it is to cease,To cease from these and all Earth’s comely things.I, Helena, impatient of a couchDim-scented, and dark eyes my face had fed,And soft captivity of circling arms,Come forth to shed my spirit on you, a windAnd sunlight of commingling life and death.City and tented plain behold who standsBetwixt you! Seems she worth a play of swords,And glad expense of rival hopes and hates?Have the Gods given a prize which may content,Who set your games afoot,—no fictile vase,But a sufficient goblet of great gold,Embossed with heroes, filled with perfumed wine?How! doubt ye? Thus I draw the robe asideAnd bare the breasts of Helen.YesterdayA mortal maiden I beheld, the lightTender within her eyes, laying white armsAround her sire’s mailed breast, and heard her chideBecause his cheek was blood-splashed,—I beheldAnd did not wish me her. O, not for thisA God’s blood thronged within my mother’s veins!For no such tender purpose rose the swanWith ruffled plumes, and hissing in his joyFlashed up the stream, and held with heavy wingsLeda, and curved the neck to reach her lips,And stayed, nor left her lightly. It is wellTo have quickened into glory one supreme,Swift hour, the century’s fiery-hearted bloom,Which falls,—to stand a splendour paramount,A beacon of high hearts and fates of men,A flame blown round by clear, contending winds,Which gladden in the contest and wax strong.Cities of Greece, fair islands, and Troy town,Accept a woman’s service; these my handsHold not the distaff, ply not at the loom;I store from year to year no well-wrought webFor daughter’s dowry; wide the web I make,Fine-tissued, costly as the Gods desire,Shot with a gleaming woof of lives and deaths,Inwrought with colours flowerlike, piteous, strange.Oblivion yields before me: ye winged yearsWhich make escape from darkness, the red lightOf a wild dawn upon your plumes, I standThe mother of the stars and winds of heaven,Your eastern Eos; cry across the storm!Through me man’s heart grows wider; little townAsleep in silent sunshine and smooth air,While babe grew man beneath your girdling towers,Wake, wonder, lift the eager head alert,Snake-like, and swift to strike, while altar-flameRises for plighted faith with neighbour townThat slept upon the mountain-shelf, and showedA small white temple in the morning sun.Oh, ever one way tending you keen prowsWhich shear the shadowy waves when stars are faintAnd break with emulous cries unto the dawn,I gaze and draw you onward; splendid namesLurk in you, and high deeds, and unachievedVirtues, and house-o’erwhelming crimes, while lifeLeaps in sharp flame ere all be ashes grey.Thus have I willed it ever since the hourWhen that great lord, the one man worshipful,Whose hands had haled the fierce HippolytaLightly from out her throng of martial maids,Would grace his triumph, strengthen his large joyWith splendour of the swan-begotten child,Nor asked a ten years’ siege to make acquistOf all her virgin store. No dream that was,—The moonlight in the woods, our singing stream,Eurotas, the sleek panther at my feet,And on my heart a hero’s strong right hand.O draught of love immortal! Dastard worldToo poor for great exchange of soul, too poorFor equal lives made glorious! O too poorFor Theseus and for Helena!Yet nowIt yields once more a brightness, if no love;Around me flash the tides, and in my earsA dangerous melody and piercing-clearSing the twin siren-sisters, Death and Life;I rise and gird my spirit for the close.Last night Cassandra cried ‘Ruin, ruin, and ruin!’I mocked her not, nor disbelieved; the gloomGathers, and twilight takes the unwary world.Hold me, ye Gods, a torch across the night,With one long flare blown back o’er tower and town,Till the last things of Troy complete themselves:—Then blackness, and the grey dust of a heart.”

YesterdayA mortal maiden I beheld, the lightTender within her eyes, laying white armsAround her sire’s mailed breast, and heard her chideBecause his cheek was blood-splashed,—I beheldAnd did not wish me her. O, not for thisA God’s blood thronged within my mother’s veins!For no such tender purpose rose the swanWith ruffled plumes, and hissing in his joyFlashed up the stream, and held with heavy wingsLeda, and curved the neck to reach her lips,And stayed, nor left her lightly. It is wellTo have quickened into glory one supreme,Swift hour, the century’s fiery-hearted bloom,Which falls,—to stand a splendour paramount,A beacon of high hearts and fates of men,A flame blown round by clear, contending winds,Which gladden in the contest and wax strong.Cities of Greece, fair islands, and Troy town,Accept a woman’s service; these my handsHold not the distaff, ply not at the loom;I store from year to year no well-wrought webFor daughter’s dowry; wide the web I make,Fine-tissued, costly as the Gods desire,Shot with a gleaming woof of lives and deaths,Inwrought with colours flowerlike, piteous, strange.Oblivion yields before me: ye winged yearsWhich make escape from darkness, the red lightOf a wild dawn upon your plumes, I standThe mother of the stars and winds of heaven,Your eastern Eos; cry across the storm!Through me man’s heart grows wider; little townAsleep in silent sunshine and smooth air,While babe grew man beneath your girdling towers,Wake, wonder, lift the eager head alert,Snake-like, and swift to strike, while altar-flameRises for plighted faith with neighbour townThat slept upon the mountain-shelf, and showedA small white temple in the morning sun.Oh, ever one way tending you keen prowsWhich shear the shadowy waves when stars are faintAnd break with emulous cries unto the dawn,I gaze and draw you onward; splendid namesLurk in you, and high deeds, and unachievedVirtues, and house-o’erwhelming crimes, while lifeLeaps in sharp flame ere all be ashes grey.Thus have I willed it ever since the hourWhen that great lord, the one man worshipful,Whose hands had haled the fierce HippolytaLightly from out her throng of martial maids,Would grace his triumph, strengthen his large joyWith splendour of the swan-begotten child,Nor asked a ten years’ siege to make acquistOf all her virgin store. No dream that was,—The moonlight in the woods, our singing stream,Eurotas, the sleek panther at my feet,And on my heart a hero’s strong right hand.O draught of love immortal! Dastard worldToo poor for great exchange of soul, too poorFor equal lives made glorious! O too poorFor Theseus and for Helena!

Yet nowIt yields once more a brightness, if no love;Around me flash the tides, and in my earsA dangerous melody and piercing-clearSing the twin siren-sisters, Death and Life;I rise and gird my spirit for the close.

Last night Cassandra cried ‘Ruin, ruin, and ruin!’I mocked her not, nor disbelieved; the gloomGathers, and twilight takes the unwary world.Hold me, ye Gods, a torch across the night,With one long flare blown back o’er tower and town,Till the last things of Troy complete themselves:—Then blackness, and the grey dust of a heart.”

Back to Index Next