PROMETHEUS.One after one the stars have risen and set,Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain:The Bear, that prowled all night about the foldOf the North-star, hath shrunk into his den,Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn,Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient;And now bright Lucifer grows less and less,Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-withdrawn.Sunless and starless all, the desert skyArches above me, empty as this heartFor ages hath been empty of all joy,Except to brood upon its silent hope,As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now.All night have I heard voices: deeper yetThe deep low breathing of the silence grew,While all about, muffled in awe, there stoodShadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart,But, when I turned to front them, far alongOnly a shudder through the midnight ran,And the dense stillness walled me closer round.But still I heard them wander up and downThat solitude, and flappings of dusk wingsDid mingle with them, whether of those hagsLet slip upon me once from Hades deep,Or of yet direr torments, if such be,I could but guess; and then toward me cameA shape as of a woman: very paleIt was, and calm; its cold eyes did not move,And mine moved not, but only stared on them.Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice,A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart,And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fogSuddenly closed me in, was all I felt:And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh,A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lipsStiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thoughtSome doom was close upon me, and I lookedAnd saw the red moon through the heavy mist,Just setting, and it seemed as if it were falling,Or reeling to its fall, so dim and deadAnd palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds mergedInto the rising surges of the pines,Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loinsOf ancient Caucasus with hairy strength,Sent up a murmur in the morning wind,Sad as the wail that from the populous earthAll day and night to high Olympus soars,Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove!Thy hated name is tossed once more in scornFrom off my lips, for I will tell thy doom.And are these tears? Nay, do not triumph, Jove,They are wrung from me but by the agoniesOf prophecy, like those sparse drops which fallFrom clouds in travail of the lightning, whenThe great wave of the storm high-curled and blackRolls steadily onward to its thunderous break.Why art thou made a god of, thou poor typeOf anger, and revenge, and cunning force?True Power was never born of brutish Strength,Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugsOf that old she-wolf. Are thy thunderbolts,That quell the darkness for a space, so strongAs the prevailing patience of meek Light,Who, with the invincible tenderness of peace,Wins it to be a portion of herself?Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hastThe never-sleeping terror at thy heart,That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bearThan this thy ravening bird on which I smile?Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfoldWhat kind of doom it is whose omen flitsAcross thy heart, as o'er a troop of dovesThe fearful shadow of the kite. What needTo know that truth whose knowledge cannot save?Evil its errand hath, as well as Good;When thine is finished, thou art known no more:There is a higher purity than thou,And higher purity is greater strength;Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heartTrembles behind the thick wall of thy might.Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilledWith thought of that drear silence and deep nightWhich, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine:Let man but will, and thou art god no more,More capable of ruin than the goldAnd ivory that image thee on earth.He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-broodBlinded with lightnings, with rough thunders stunned,Is weaker than a simple human thought.My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze,That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair,Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole:For I am still Prometheus, and foreknowIn my wise heart the end and doom of all.Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grownBy years of solitude,—that holds apartThe past and future, giving the soul roomTo search into itself,—and long communeWith this eternal silence;—more a god,In my long-suffering and strength to meetWith equal front the direst shafts of fate,Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism,Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath.Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought downThe light to man, which thou, in selfish fear,Hadst to thyself usurped,—his by sole right,For Man hath right to all save Tyranny,—And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne.Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance,Begotten by the slaves they trample on,Who, could they win a glimmer of the light,And see that Tyranny is always weakness,Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease,Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chainWhich their own blindness feigned for adamant.Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the RightTo the firm centre lays its moveless base.The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirsThe innocent ringlets of a child's free hair,And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit,With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale,Over men's hearts, as over standing corn,Rushes, and bends them to its own strong will.So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth,And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove!And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revengePoor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart,Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are,Listen! and tell me if this bitter peak,This never-glutted vulture, and these chainsShrink not before it; for it shall befitA sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart.Men, when their death is on them, seem to standOn a precipitous crag that overhangsThe abyss of doom, and in that depth to see,As in a glass, the features dim and vastOf things to come, the shadows, as it seems,Of what have been. Death ever fronts the wise;Not fearfully, but with clear promisesOf larger life, on whose broad vans upborne,Their out-look widens, and they see beyondThe horizon of the Present and the Past,Even to the very source and end of things.Such am I now: immortal woe hath madeMy heart a seer, and my soul a judgeBetween the substance and the shadow of Truth.The sure supremeness of the Beautiful,By all the martyrdoms made doubly sureOf such as I am, this is my revenge,Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch,Through which I see a sceptre and a throne.The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills,Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee,—The songs of maidens pressing with white feetThe vintage on thine altars poured no more,—The murmurous bliss of lovers, underneathDim grape-vine bowers, whose rosy bunches pressNot half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaledBy thoughts of thy brute lust,—the hive-like humOf peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt ToilReaps for itself the rich earth made its ownBy its own labor, lightened with glad hymnsTo an omnipotence which thy mad boltsWould cope with as a spark with the vast sea,—Even the spirit of free love and peace,Duty's sure recompense through life and death,—These are such harvests as all master-spiritsReap, haply not on earth, but reap no lessBecause the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs;These are the bloodless daggers wherewithalThey stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge:For their best part of life on earth is when,Long after death, prisoned and pent no more,Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have becomePart of the necessary air men breathe;When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud,They shed down light before us on life's sea,That cheers us to steer onward still in hope.Earth with her twining memories ivies o'erTheir holy sepulchres; the chainless sea,In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts;The lightning and the thunder, all free things,Have legends of them for the ears of men.All other glories are as falling stars,But universal Nature watches theirs:Such strength is won by love of human kind.Not that I feel that hunger after fame,Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with;But that the memory of noble deedsCries, shame upon the idle and the vile,And keeps the heart of Man forever upTo the heroic level of old time.To be forgot at first is little painTo a heart conscious of such high intentAs must be deathless on the lips of men;But, having been a name, to sink and beA something which the world can do without,Which, having been or not, would never changeThe lightest pulse of fate,—this is indeedA cup of bitterness the worst to taste,And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs.Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus,And memory thy vulture; thou wilt findOblivion far lonelier than this peak,—Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it muchThat I should brave thee, miserable god!But I have braved a mightier than thou,Even the tempting of this soaring heart,Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou,A god among my brethren weak and blind,—Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thingTo be down-trodden into darkness soon.But now I am above thee, for thou artThe bungling workmanship of fear, the blockThat awes the swart Barbarian; but IAm what myself have made,—a nature wiseWith finding in itself the types of all,—With watching from the dim verge of the timeWhat things to be are visible in the gleamsThrown forward on them from the luminous past,—Wise with the history of its own frail heart,With reverence and sorrow, and with love,Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love,By whom and for whose glory, ye shall cease:And, when thou art but a dim moaning heardFrom out the pitiless glooms of Chaos, IShall be a power and a memory,A name to fright all tyrants with, a lightUnsetting as the pole-star, a great voiceHeard in the breathless pauses of the fightBy truth and freedom ever waged with wrong,Clear as a silver trumpet, to awakeHuge echoes that from age to age live onIn kindred spirits, giving them a senseOf boundless power from boundless suffering wrung:And many a glazing eye shall smile to seeThe memory of my triumph, (for to meetWrong with endurance, and to overcomeThe present with a heart that looks beyond,Are triumph,) like a prophet eagle, perchUpon the sacred banner of the Right.Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed,And feeds the green earth with its swift decay,Leaving it richer for the growth of truth;But Good, once put in action or in thought,Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed downThe ripe germs of a forest. Thou; weak god,Shalt fade and be forgotten! but this soul,Fresh-living still in the serene abyss,In every heaving shall partake, that growsFrom heart to heart among the sons of men,—As the ominous hum before the earthquake runsFar through the Ægean from roused isle to isle,—Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines,And mighty rents in many a cavernous errorThat darkens the free light to man:—This heart,Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truthGrows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and clawsOf Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shallIn all the throbbing exultations shareThat wait on freedom's triumphs, and in allThe glorious agonies of martyr-spirits,—Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged cloudsThat veil the future, showing them the end,—Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth,Girding the temples like a wreath of stars.This is a thought, that, like a fabled laurel,Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread boltsFall on me like the silent flakes of snowOn the hoar brows of aged Caucasus:But, O thought far more blissful, they can rendThis cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star!Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove!Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long,Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still,In its invincible manhood, overtopsThy puny godship, as this mountain dothThe pines that moss its roots. O, even now,While from my peak of suffering I look down,Beholding with a far-spread gush of hopeThe sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face,Shone all around with love, no man shall lookBut straightway like a god he is upliftUnto the throne long empty for his sake,And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide dreamsBy his free inward nature, which nor thou,Nor any anarch after thee, can bindFrom working its great doom,—now, now set freeThis essence, not to die, but to becomePart of that awful Presence which doth hauntThe palaces of tyrants, to hunt off,With its grim eyes and fearful whisperingsAnd hideous sense of utter loneliness,All hope of safety, all desire of peace,All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death,—Part of that spirit which doth ever broodIn patient calm on the unpilfered nestOf man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledgedTo sail with darkening shadow o'er the world,Filling with dread such souls as dare not trustIn the unfailing energy of Good,Until they swoop, and their pale quarry makeOf some o'erbloated wrong,—that spirit whichScatters great hopes in the seed-field of man,Like acorns among grain, to grow and beA roof for freedom in all coming time!But no, this cannot be; for ages yet,In solitude unbroken, shall I hearThe angry Caspian to the Euxine shout,And Euxine answer with a muffled roar,On either side storming the giant wallsOf Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam,(Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow,)That draw back baffled but to hurl again,Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil,Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst,My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove,Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders broadIn vain emprise. The moon will come and goWith her monotonous vicissitude;Once beautiful, when I was free to walkAmong my fellows, and to interchangeThe influence benign of loving eyes,But now by aged use grown wearisome;—False thought! most false! for how could I endureThese crawling centuries of lonely woeUnshamed by weak complaining, but for thee,Loneliest, save me, of all created things,Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter,With thy pale smile of sad benignity?Year after year will pass away and seemTo me, in mine eternal agony,But as the shadows of dumb summer clouds,Which I have watched so often darkening o'erThe vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first,But, with still swiftness lessening on and onTill cloud and shadow meet and mingle whereThe gray horizon fades into the sky,Far, far to the northward. Yes, for ages yetMust I lie here upon my altar huge,A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be,As it hath been, his portion; endless doom,While the immortal with the mortal linkedDreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams,With upward yearn unceasing. Better so:For wisdom is meek sorrow's patient child,And empire over self, and all the deepStrong charities that make men seem like gods;And love, that makes them be gods, from her breastsSucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood.Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems,Having two faces, as some imagesAre carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill;But one heart lies beneath, and that is good,As are all hearts, when we explore their depths.Therefore, great heart, bear up! thou art but typeOf what all lofty spirits endure, that fainWould win men back to strength and peace through love:Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heartEnvy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelongWith vulture beak; yet the high soul is left;And faith, which is but hope grown wise; and loveAnd patience, which at last shall overcome.1843.
SONG.Violet! sweet violet!Thine eyes are full of tears;Are they wetEven yetWith the thought of other years?Or with gladness are they full,For the night so beautiful,And longing for those far-off spheres?Loved-one of my youth thou wast,Of my merry youth,And I see,Tearfully,All the fair and sunny past,All its openness and truth,Ever fresh and green in theeAs the moss is in the sea.Thy little heart, that hath with loveGrown colored like the sky above,On which thou lookest ever,Can it knowAll the woeOf hope for what returneth never,All the sorrow and the longingTo these hearts of ours belonging?Out on it! no foolish piningFor the skyDims thine eye,Or for the stars so calmly shining;Like thee let this soul of mineTake hue from that wherefor I long,Self-stayed and high, serene and strong,Not satisfied with hoping—but divine.Violet! dear violet!Thy blue eyes are only wetWith joy and love of him who sent thee,And for the fulfilling senseOf that glad obedienceWhich made thee all that Nature meant thee!1841.
ROSALINE.Thou look'dst on me all yesternight,Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was brightAs when we murmured our troth-plightBeneath the thick stars, Rosaline!Thy hair was braided on thy head,As on the day we two were wed,Mine eyes scarce knew if thou wert dead,But my shrunk heart knew, Rosaline!The death-watch ticked behind the wall,The blackness rustled like a pall,The moaning wind did rise and fallAmong the bleak pines, Rosaline!My heart beat thickly in mine ears;The lids may shut out fleshly fears,But still the spirit sees and hears,—Its eyes are lidless, Rosaline!A wildness rushing suddenly,A knowing some ill-shape is nigh,A wish for death, a fear to die,—Is not this vengeance, Rosaline?A loneliness that is not lone,A love quite withered up and gone,A strong soul trampled from its throne,—What wouldst thou further, Rosaline?'Tis drear such moonless nights as these,Strange sounds are out upon the breeze,And the leaves shiver in the trees,And then thou comest, Rosaline!I seem to hear the mourners go,With long black garments trailing slow,And plumes anodding to and fro,As once I heard them, Rosaline!Thy shroud is all of snowy white,And, in the middle of the night,Thou standest moveless and upright,Gazing upon me, Rosaline!There is no sorrow in thine eyes,But evermore that meek surprise,—O, God! thy gentle spirit triesTo deem me guiltless, Rosaline!Above thy grave the robin sings,And swarms of bright and happy thingsFlit all about with sunlit wings,—But I am cheerless, Rosaline!The violets on the hillock toss,The gravestone is o'ergrown with moss;For nature feels not any loss,—But I am cheerless, Rosaline!I did not know when thou wast dead;A blackbird whistling overheadThrilled through my brain; I would have fled,But dared not leave thee, Rosaline!The sun rolled down, and very soon,Like a great fire, the awful moonRose, stained with blood, and then a swoonCrept chilly o'er me, Rosaline!The stars came out; and, one by one,Each angel from his silver throneLooked down and saw what I had done;I dared not hide me, Rosaline!I crouched; I feared thy corpse would cryAgainst me to God's quiet sky,I thought I saw the blue lips tryTo utter something, Rosaline!I waited with a maddened grinTo hear that voice all icy thinSlide forth and tell my deadly sinTo hell and heaven, Rosaline!But no voice came, and then it seemedThat, if the very corpse had screamed,The sound like sunshine glad had streamedThrough that dark stillness, Rosaline!And then, amid the silent night,I screamed with horrible delight,And in my brain an awful lightDid seem to crackle, Rosaline!It is my curse! sweet memories fallFrom me like snow,—and only allOf that one night, like cold worms crawlMy doomed heart over, Rosaline!Why wilt thou haunt me with thine eyes,Wherein such blessed memories,Such pitying forgiveness lies,Than hate more bitter, Rosaline?Woe's me! I know that love so highAs thine, true soul, could never die,And with mean clay in churchyard lie,—Would it might be so, Rosaline!1841.
THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS.There came a youth upon the earth,Some thousand years ago,Whose slender hands were nothing worth,Whether to plough, or reap, or sow.Upon an empty tortoise-shellHe stretched some chords, and drewMusic that made men's bosoms swellFearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.Then King Admetus, one who hadPure taste by right divine,Decreed his singing not too badTo hear between the cups of wine:And so, well-pleased with being soothedInto a sweet half-sleep,Three times his kingly beard he smoothed,And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.His words were simple words enough,And yet he used them so,That what in other mouths was roughIn his seemed musical and low.Men called him but a shiftless youth,In whom no good they saw;And yet, unwittingly, in truth,They made his careless words their law.They knew not how he learned at all,For idly, hour by hour,He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,Or mused upon a common flower.It seemed the loveliness of thingsDid teach him all their use,For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,He found a healing power profuse.Men granted that his speech was wise,But, when a glance they caughtOf his slim grace and woman's eyes,They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.Yet after he was dead and gone,And e'en his memory dim,Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,More full of love, because of him.And day by day more holy grewEach spot where he had trod,Till after-poets only knewTheir first-born brother as a god.1842.
THE TOKEN.It is a mere wild rosebud,Quite sallow now, and dry,Yet there 's something wondrous in it,—Some gleams of days gone by,—Dear sights and sounds that are to meThe very moons of memory,And stir my heart's blood far belowIts short-lived waves of joy and woe.Lips must fade and roses wither,All sweet times be o'er,—They only smile, and, murmuring "Thither!"Stay with us no more:And yet ofttimes a look or smile,Forgotten in a kiss's while,Years after from the dark will start,And flash across the trembling heart.Thou hast given me many roses,But never one, like this,O'erfloods both sense and spiritWith such a deep, wild bliss;We must have instincts that glean upSparse drops of this life in the cup,Whose taste shall give us all that weCan prove of immortality.Earth's stablest things are shadows,And, in the life to come,Haply some chance-saved trifleMay tell of this old home:As now sometimes we seem to find,In a dark crevice of the mind,Some relic, which, long pondered o'er,Hints faintly at a life before.
AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR.He spoke of Burns: men rude and roughPressed round to hear the praise of oneWhose heart was made of manly, simple stuff,As homespun as their own.And, when he read, they forward leaned,Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears,His brook-like songs whom glory never weanedFrom humble smiles and tears.Slowly there grew a tender awe,Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard,As if in him who read they felt and sawSome presence of the bard.It was a sight for sin and wrongAnd slavish tyranny to see,A sight to make our faith more pure and strongIn high humanity.I thought, these men will carry hencePromptings their former life above,And something of a finer reverenceFor beauty, truth, and love.God scatters love on every side,Freely among his children all,And always hearts are lying open wide,Wherein some grains may fall.There is no wind but soweth seedsOf a more true and open life,Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-souled deeds,With wayside beauty rife.We find within these souls of oursSome wild germs of a higher birth,Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowersWhose fragrance fills the earth.Within the hearts of all men lieThese promises of wider bliss,Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,In sunny hours like this.All that hath been majesticalIn life or death, since time began,Is native in the simple heart of all,The angel heart of man.And thus, among the untaught poor,Great deeds and feelings find a home,That cast in shadow all the golden loreOf classic Greece and Rome.O, mighty brother-soul of man,Where'er thou art, in low or high,Thy skiey arches with exulting spanO'er-roof infinity!All thoughts that mould the age beginDeep down within the primitive soul,And from the many slowly upward winTo one who grasps the whole:In his wide brain the feeling deepThat struggled on the many's tongueSwells to a tide of thought, whose surges leapO'er the weak thrones of wrong.All thought begins in feeling,—wideIn the great mass its base is hid,And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,A moveless pyramid.Nor is he far astray who deemsThat every hope, which rises and grows broadIn the world's heart, by ordered impulse streamsFrom the great heart of God.God wills, man hopes: in common soulsHope is but vague and undefined,Till from the poet's tongue the message rollsA blessing to his kind.Never did Poesy appearSo full of heaven to me, as whenI saw how it would pierce through pride and fearTo the lives of coarsest men.It may be glorious to writeThoughts that shall glad the two or threeHigh souls, like those far stars that come in sightOnce in a century;—But better far it is to speakOne simple word, which now and thenShall waken their free nature in the weakAnd friendless sons of men;To write some earnest verse or line,Which, seeking not the praise of art,Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shineIn the untutored heart.He who doth this, in verse or prose,May be forgotten in his day,But surely shall be crowned at last with thoseWho live and speak for aye.1842.
RHŒCUS.God sends his teachers unto every age,To every clime, and every race of men,With revelations fitted to their growthAnd shape of mind, nor gives the realm of TruthInto the selfish rule of one sole race:Therefore each form of worship that hath swayedThe life of man, and given it to graspThe master-key of knowledge, reverence,Enfolds some germs of goodness and of right;Else never had the eager soul, which loathesThe slothful down of pampered ignorance,Found in it even a moment's fitful rest.There is an instinct in the human heartWhich makes that all the fables it hath coined,To justify the reign of its beliefAnd strengthen it by beauty's right divine,Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift,Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands,Points surely to the hidden springs of truth.For, as in nature naught is made in vain,But all things have within their hull of useA wisdom and a meaning which may speakOf spiritual secrets to the earOf spirit; so, in whatsoe'er the heartHath fashioned for a solace to itself,To make its inspirations suit its creed,And from the niggard hands of falsehood wringIts needful food of truth, there ever isA sympathy with Nature, which reveals,Not less than her own works, pure gleams of lightAnd earnest parables of inward lore.Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece,As full of freedom, youth, and beauty stillAs the immortal freshness of that graceCarved for all ages on some Attic frieze.A youth named Rhœcus, wandering in the wood,Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall,And, feeling pity of so fair a tree,He propped its gray trunk with admiring care,And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on.But, as he turned, he heard a voice behindThat murmured "Rhœcus!" 'Twas as if the leaves,Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it,And, while he paused bewildered, yet againIt murmured "Rhœcus!" softer than a breeze.He started and beheld with dizzy eyesWhat seemed the substance of a happy dreamStand there before him, spreading a warm glowWithin the green glooms of the shadowy oak.It seemed a woman's shape, yet all too fairTo be a woman, and with eyes too meekFor any that were wont to mate with gods.All naked like a goddess stood she there,And like a goddess all too beautifulTo feel the guilt-born earthliness of shame."Rhœcus, I am the Dryad of this tree,"Thus she began, dropping her low-toned wordsSerene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew,"And with it I am doomed to live and die;The rain and sunshine are my caterers,Nor have I other bliss than simple life;Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give,And with a thankful joy it shall be thine."Then Rhœcus, with a flutter at the heart,Yet, by the prompting of such beauty, bold,Answered: "What is there that can satisfyThe endless craving of the soul but love?Give me thy love, or but the hope of thatWhich must be evermore my spirit's goal."After a little pause she said again,But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone,"I give it, Rhœcus, though a perilous gift;An hour before the sunset meet me here."And straightway there was nothing he could seeBut the green glooms beneath the shadowy oak,And not a sound came to his straining earsBut the low trickling rustle of the leaves,And far away upon an emerald slopeThe falter of an idle shepherd's pipe.Now, in those days of simpleness and faith,Men did not think that happy things were dreamsBecause they overstepped the narrow bourneOf likelihood, but reverently deemedNothing too wondrous or too beautifulTo be the guerdon of a daring heart.So Rhœcus made no doubt that he was blest,And all along unto the city's gateEarth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked,The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont,And he could scarce believe he had not wingsSuch sunshine seemed to glitter through his veinsInstead of blood, so light he felt and strange.Young Rhœcus had a faithful heart enough,But one that in the present dwelt too much,And, taking with blithe welcome whatsoe'erChance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that,Like the contented peasant of a vale,Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond.So, haply meeting in the afternoonSome comrades who were playing at the diceHe joined them and forgot all else beside.The dice were rattling at the merriest,And Rhœcus, who had met but sorry luck,Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw,When through the room there hummed a yellow beeThat buzzed about his ear with down-dropped legsAs if to light. And Rhœcus laughed and said,Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss,"By Venus! does he take me for a rose?"And brushed him off with rough, impatient hand.But still the bee came back, and thrice againRhœcus did beat him off with growing wrath.Then through the window flew the wounded bee,And Rhœcus, tracking him with angry eyes,Saw a sharp mountain-peak of ThessalyAgainst the red disc of the setting sun,—And instantly the blood sank from his heart,As if its very walls had caved away.Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth,Ran madly through the city and the gate,And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade,By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim,Darkened wellnigh unto the city's wall.Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree,And, listening fearfully, he heard once moreThe low voice murmur "Rhœcus!" close at hand:Whereat he looked around him, but could seeNaught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak.Then sighed the voice, "Oh, Rhœcus! nevermoreShalt thou behold me or by day or night,Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a loveMore ripe and bounteous than ever yetFilled up with nectar any mortal heart:But thou didst scorn my humble messenger,And sent'st him back to me with bruisèd wings.We spirits only show to gentle eyes.We ever ask an undivided love,And he who scorns the least of Nature's worksIs thenceforth exiled and shut out from all.Farewell! for thou canst never see me more."Then Rhœcus beat his breast, and groaned aloudAnd cried, "Be pitiful! forgive me yetThis once, and I shall never need it more!""Alas!" the voice returned, "'tis thou art blind,Not I unmerciful; I can forgive,But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes;Only the soul hath power o'er itself."With that again there murmured "Nevermore!"And Rhœcus after heard no other sound,Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves,Like the long surf upon a distant shore,Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down.The night had gathered round him: o'er the plainThe city sparkled with its thousand lights,And sounds of revel fell upon his earHarshly and like a curse; above, the sky,With all its bright sublimity of stars,Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze;Beauty was all around him and delight,But from that eve he was alone on earth.