Evening. The Summit of Etna.
Evening. The Summit of Etna.
EmpedoclesAlone!—On this charr'd, blacken'd, melancholy waste,Crown'd by the awful peak, Etna's great mouth.Round which the sullen vapour rolls—alone!Pausanias is far hence, and that is well,For I must henceforth speak no more with manHe hath his lesson too, and that debt's paid;And the good, learned, friendly, quiet man,May bravelier front his life, and in himselfFind henceforth energy and heart. But I—The weary man, the banish'd citizen,Whose banishment is not his greatest ill,Whose weariness no energy can reach,And for whose hurt courage is not the cure—What should I do with life and living more?No, thou art come too late, Empedocles!And the world hath the day, and must break thee,Not thou the world. With men thou canst not live,Their thoughts, their ways, their wishes, are not thine;And being lonely thou art miserable,For something has impair'd thy spirit's strength,And dried its self-sufficing fount of joy.Thou canst not live with men nor with thyself—O sage! O sage!—Take then the one way left;And turn thee to the elements, thy friends,Thy well-tried friends, thy willing ministers,And say: Ye helpers, hear Empedocles,Who asks this final service at your hands!Before the sophist-brood hath overlaidThe last spark of man's consciousness with words—Ere quite the being of man, ere quite the worldBe disarray'd of their divinity—Before the soul lose all her solemn joys,And awe be dead, and hope impossible,And the soul's deep eternal night come on—Receive me, hide me, quench me, take me home!He advances to the edge of the crater. Smokeand fire break forth with a loud noise, andCalliclesis heard below singing:—The lyre's voice is lovely everywhere;In the court of Gods, in the city of men,And in the lonely rock-strewn mountain-glen,In the still mountain air.Only to Typho it sounds hatefully;To Typho only, the rebel o'erthrown,Through whose heart Etna drives her roots of stoneTo imbed them in the sea.Wherefore dost thou groan so loud?Wherefore do thy nostrils flash,Through the dark night, suddenly,Typho, such red jets of flame?—Is thy tortured heart still proud?Is thy fire-scathed arm still rash?Still alert thy stone-crush'd frame?Doth thy fierce soul still deploreThine ancient rout by the Cilician hills,And that curst treachery on the Mount of Gore?[31]Do thy bloodshot eyes still weepThe fight which crown'd thine ills,Thy last mischance on this Sicilian deep?Hast thou sworn, in thy sad lair,Where erst the strong sea-currents suck'd thee down,Never to cease to writhe, and try to rest,Letting the sea-stream wander through thy hair?That thy groans, like thunder prest,Begin to roll, and almost drownThe sweet notes whose lulling spellGods and the race of mortals love so well,When through thy caves thou hearest music swell?But an awful pleasure blandSpreading o'er the Thunderer's face,When the sound climbs near his seat,The Olympian council sees;As he lets his lax right hand,Which the lightnings doth embrace,Sink upon his mighty knees.And the eagle, at the beckOf the appeasing, gracious harmony,Droops all his sheeny, brown, deep-feather'd neck,Nestling nearer to Jove's feet;While o'er his sovran eyeThe curtains of the blue films slowly meetAnd the white Olympus-peaksRosily brighten, and the soothed Gods smileAt one another from their golden chairs,And no one round the charmed circle speaks.Only the loved Hebe bearsThe cup about, whose draughts beguilePain and care, with a dark storeOf fresh-pull'd violets wreathed and nodding o'er;And her flush'd feet glow on the marble floor.EmpedoclesHe fables, yet speaks truth!The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhereTo the subtle, contriving head;Great qualities are trodden down,And littleness unitedIs become invincible.These rumblings are not Typho's groans, I know!These angry smoke-burstsAre not the passionate breathOf the mountain-crush'd, tortured, intractable Titan king—But over all the worldWhat suffering is there not seenOf plainness oppress'd by cunning,As the well-counsell'd Zeus oppress'dThat self-helping son of earth!What anguish of greatness,Rail'd and hunted from the world,Because its simplicity rebukesThis envious, miserable age!I am weary of it.—Lie there, ye ensignsOf my unloved preëminenceIn an age like this!Among a people of children,Who throng'd me in their cities,Who worshipp'd me in their houses,And ask'd, not wisdom,But drugs to charm with,But spells to mutter—All the fool's-armoury of magic!—Lie there,My golden circlet,My purple robe!Callicles(from below)As the sky-brightening south-wind clears the day,And makes the mass'd clouds roll,The music of the lyre blows awayThe clouds which wrap the soul.Oh! that Fate had let me seeThat triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre,That famous, final victory,When jealous Pan with Marsyas did conspire;When, from far Parnassus' side,Young Apollo, all the prideOf the Phrygian flutes to tame,To the Phrygian highlands came;Where the long green reed-beds swayIn the rippled waters greyOf that solitary lakeWhere Mæander's springs are born;Whence the ridged pine-wooded rootsOf Messogis westward break,Mounting westward, high and higher.There was held the famous strife;There the Phrygian brought his flutes,And Apollo brought his lyre;And, when now the westering sunTouch'd the hills, the strife was done,And the attentive Muses said:"Marsyas, thou art vanquished!"Then Apollo's ministerHang'd upon a branching firMarsyas, that unhappy Faun,And began to whet his knife.But the Mænads, who were there,Left their friend, and with robes flowingIn the wind, and loose dark hairO'er their polish'd bosoms blowing,Each her ribbon'd tambourineFlinging on the mountain-sod,With a lovely frighten'd mienCame about the youthful God.But he turn'd his beauteous faceHaughtily another way,From the grassy sun-warm'd placeWhere in proud repose he lay,With one arm over his head,Watching how the whetting sped.But aloof, on the lake-strand,Did the young Olympus stand,Weeping at his master's end;For the Faun had been his friend.For he taught him how to sing,And he taught him flute-playing.Many a morning had they goneTo the glimmering mountain-lakes,And had torn up by the rootsThe tall crested water-reedsWith long plumes and soft brown seeds,And had carved them into flutes,Sitting on a tabled stoneWhere the shoreward ripple breaks.And he taught him how to pleaseThe red-snooded Phrygian girls,Whom the summer evening seesFlashing in the dance's whirlsUnderneath the starlit treesIn the mountain-villages.Therefore now Olympus stands,At his master's piteous criesPressing fast with both his handsHis white garment to his eyes,Not to see Apollo's scorn;—Ah, poor Faun, poor Faun! ah, poor Faun!EmpedoclesAnd lie thou there,My laurel bough!Scornful Apollo's ensign, lie thou there!Though thou hast been my shade in the world's heat—Though I have loved thee, lived in honouring thee—Yet lie thou there,My laurel bough!I am weary of thee.I am weary of the solitudeWhere he who bears thee must abide—Of the rocks of Parnassus,Of the rocks of Delphi,Of the moonlit peaks, and the caves.Thou guardest them, Apollo!Over the grave of the slain Pytho,Though young, intolerably severe!Thou keepest aloof the profane,But the solitude oppresses thy votary!The jars of men reach him not in thy valley—But can life reach him?Thou fencest him from the multitude—Who will fence him from himself?He hears nothing but the cry of the torrents,And the beating of his own heart.The air is thin, the veins swell,The temples tighten and throb there—Air! air!Take thy bough, set me free from my solitude;I have been enough alone!Where shall thy votary fly then? back to men?—But they will gladly welcome him once more,And help him to unbend his too tense thought,And rid him of the presence of himself,And keep their friendly chatter at his ear,And haunt him, till the absence from himself,That other torment, grow unbearable;And he will fly to solitude again,And he will find its air too keen for him,And so change back; and many thousand timesBe miserably bandied to and froLike a sea-wave, betwixt the world and thee,Thou young, implacable God! and only deathCan cut his oscillations short, and soBring him to poise. There is no other way.And yet what days were those, Parmenides!When we were young, when we could number friendsIn all the Italian cities like ourselves,When with elated hearts we join'd your train.Ye Sun-born Virgins! on the road of truth.[32]Then we could still enjoy, then neither thoughtNor outward things were closed and dead to us;But we received the shock of mighty thoughtsOn simple minds with a pure natural joy;And if the sacred load oppress'd our brain,We had the power to feel the pressure eased,The brow unbound, the thoughts flow free again,In the delightful commerce of the world.We had not lost our balance then, nor grownThought's slaves, and dead to every natural joy.The smallest thing could give us pleasure then—The sports of the country-people,A flute-note from the woods,Sunset over the sea;Seed-time and harvest,The reapers in the corn,The vinedresser in his vineyard,The village-girl at her wheel.Fulness of life and power of feeling, yeAre for the happy, for the souls at ease,Who dwell on a firm basis of content!But he, who has outlived his prosperous days—But he, whose youth fell on a different worldFrom that on which his exiled age is thrown—Whose mind was fed on other food, was train'dBy other rules than are in vogue to-day—Whose habit of thought is fix'd, who will not change,But, in a world he loves not, must subsistIn ceaseless opposition, be the guardOf his own breast, fetter'd to what he guards,That the world win no mastery over him—Who has no friend, no fellow left, not one;Who has no minute's breathing space allow'dTo nurse his dwindling faculty of joy——Joy and the outward world must die to him,As they are dead to me.A long pause, during whichEmpedoclesremainsmotionless, plunged in thought. The night deepens.He moves forward and gazes round him, andproceeds:—And you, ye stars,Who slowly begin to marshal,As of old, in the fields of heaven,Your distant, melancholy lines!Have you, too, survived yourselves?Are you, too, what I fear to become?You, too, once lived;You too moved joyfullyAmong august companions,In an older world, peopled by Gods,In a mightier order,The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven.But now, ye kindleYour lonely, cold-shining lights,Unwilling lingerersIn the heavenly wilderness,For a younger, ignoble world;And renew, by necessity,Night after night your courses,In echoing, unnear'd silence,Above a race you know not—Uncaring and undelighted,Without friend and without home;Weary like us, though notWeary with our weariness.No, no, ye stars! there is no death with you,No languor, no decay! languor and death,They are with me, not you! ye are alive—Ye, and the pure dark ether where ye rideBrilliant above me! And thou, fiery world,That sapp'st the vitals of this terrible mountUpon whose charr'd and quaking crust I stand—Thou, too, brimmest with life!—the sea of cloud,That heaves its white and billowy vapours upTo moat this isle of ashes from the world,Lives; and that other fainter sea, far down,O'er whose lit floor a road of moonbeams leadsTo Etna's Liparëan sister-firesAnd the long dusky line of Italy—That mild and luminous floor of waters lives,With held-in joy swelling its heart; I only,Whose spring of hope is dried, whose spirit has fail'd,I, who have not, like these, in solitudeMaintain'd courage and force, and in myselfNursed an immortal vigour—I aloneAm dead to life and joy, therefore I readIn all things my own deadness.A long silence. He continues:—Oh, that I could glow like this mountain!Oh, that my heart bounded with the swell of the sea!Oh, that my soul were full of light as the stars!Oh, that it brooded over the world like the air!But no, this heart will glow no more; thou artA living man no more, Empedocles!Nothing but a devouring flame of thought—But a naked, eternally restless mind!After a pause:—To the elements it came fromEverything will return—Our bodies to earth,Our blood to water,Heat to fire,Breath to air.They were well born, they will be well entomb'd—But mind?...And we might gladly share the fruitful stirDown in our mother earth's miraculous womb;Well would it beWith what roll'd of us in the stormy main;We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air,Or with the nimble, radiant life of fire.But mind, but thought—If these have been the master part of us—Where willtheyfind their parent element?What will receivethem, who will callthemhome?But we shall still be in them, and they in us,And we shall be the strangers of the world,And they will be our lords, as they are now;And keep us prisoners of our consciousness,And never let us clasp and feel the AllBut through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils.And we shall be unsatisfied as now;And we shall feel the agony of thirst,The ineffable longing for the life of lifeBaffled for ever; and still thought and mindWill hurry us with them on their homeless march,Over the unallied unopening earth,Over the unrecognising sea; while airWill blow us fiercely back to sea and earth,And fire repel us from its living waves.And then we shall unwillingly returnBack to this meadow of calamity,This uncongenial place, this human life;And in our individual human stateGo through the sad probation all again,To see if we will poise our life at last,To see if we will now at last be trueTo our own only true, deep-buried selves,Being one with which we are one with the whole world;Or whether we will once more fall awayInto some bondage of the flesh or mind,Some slough of sense, or some fantastic mazeForged by the imperious lonely thinking-power.And each succeeding age in which we are bornWill have more peril for us than the last;Will goad our senses with a sharper spur,Will fret our minds to an intenser play,Will make ourselves harder to be discern'd.And we shall struggle awhile, gasp and rebel—And we shall fly for refuge to past times,Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of greatness;And the reality will pluck us back,Knead us in its hot hand, and change our natureAnd we shall feel our powers of effort flag,And rally them for one last fight—and fail;And we shall sink in the impossible strife,And be astray for ever.Slave of senseI have in no wise been;—but slave of thought?...And who can say: I have been always free,Lived ever in the light of my own soul?—I cannot; I have lived in wrath and gloom,Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man,Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light.But I have not grown easy in these bonds—But I have not denied what bonds these were.Yea, I take myself to witness,That I have loved no darkness,Sophisticated no truth,Nursed no delusion,Allow'd no fear!And therefore, O ye elements! I know—Ye know it too—it hath been granted meNot to die wholly, not to be all enslaved.I feel it in this hour. The numbing cloudMounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free.Is it but for a moment?—Ah, boil up, ye vapours!Leap and roar, thou sea of fire!My soul glows to meet you.Ere it flag, ere the mistsOf despondency and gloomRush over it again,Receive me, save me![He plunges into the crater.Callicles(from below)Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,Thick breaks the red flame;All Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee.But, where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea,Where the moon-silver'd inletsSend far their light voiceUp the still vale of Thisbe,O speed, and rejoice!On the sward at the cliff-topLie strewn the white flocks,On the cliff-side the pigeonsRoost deep in the rocks.In the moonlight the shepherds,Soft lull'd by the rills,Lie wrapt in their blanketsAsleep on the hills.—What forms are these comingSo white through the gloom?What garments out-glisteningThe gold-flower'd broom?What sweet-breathing presenceOut-perfumes the thyme?What voices enraptureThe night's balmy prime?—'Tis Apollo comes leadingHis choir, the Nine.—The leader is fairest,But all are divine.They are lost in the hollows!They stream up again!What seeks on this mountainThe glorified train?—They bathe on this mountain,In the spring by their road;Then on to Olympus,Their endless abode.—Whose praise do they mention?Of what is it told?—What will be for ever;What was from of old.First hymn they the FatherOf all things; and then,The rest of immortals,The action of men.The day in his hotness,The strife with the palm;The night in her silence,The stars in their calm.
Empedocles
Alone!—On this charr'd, blacken'd, melancholy waste,Crown'd by the awful peak, Etna's great mouth.Round which the sullen vapour rolls—alone!Pausanias is far hence, and that is well,For I must henceforth speak no more with manHe hath his lesson too, and that debt's paid;And the good, learned, friendly, quiet man,May bravelier front his life, and in himselfFind henceforth energy and heart. But I—The weary man, the banish'd citizen,Whose banishment is not his greatest ill,Whose weariness no energy can reach,And for whose hurt courage is not the cure—What should I do with life and living more?
No, thou art come too late, Empedocles!And the world hath the day, and must break thee,Not thou the world. With men thou canst not live,Their thoughts, their ways, their wishes, are not thine;And being lonely thou art miserable,For something has impair'd thy spirit's strength,And dried its self-sufficing fount of joy.Thou canst not live with men nor with thyself—O sage! O sage!—Take then the one way left;And turn thee to the elements, thy friends,Thy well-tried friends, thy willing ministers,And say: Ye helpers, hear Empedocles,Who asks this final service at your hands!Before the sophist-brood hath overlaidThe last spark of man's consciousness with words—Ere quite the being of man, ere quite the worldBe disarray'd of their divinity—Before the soul lose all her solemn joys,And awe be dead, and hope impossible,And the soul's deep eternal night come on—Receive me, hide me, quench me, take me home!
He advances to the edge of the crater. Smokeand fire break forth with a loud noise, andCalliclesis heard below singing:—
The lyre's voice is lovely everywhere;In the court of Gods, in the city of men,And in the lonely rock-strewn mountain-glen,In the still mountain air.
Only to Typho it sounds hatefully;To Typho only, the rebel o'erthrown,Through whose heart Etna drives her roots of stoneTo imbed them in the sea.
Wherefore dost thou groan so loud?Wherefore do thy nostrils flash,Through the dark night, suddenly,Typho, such red jets of flame?—Is thy tortured heart still proud?Is thy fire-scathed arm still rash?Still alert thy stone-crush'd frame?Doth thy fierce soul still deploreThine ancient rout by the Cilician hills,And that curst treachery on the Mount of Gore?[31]Do thy bloodshot eyes still weepThe fight which crown'd thine ills,Thy last mischance on this Sicilian deep?Hast thou sworn, in thy sad lair,Where erst the strong sea-currents suck'd thee down,Never to cease to writhe, and try to rest,Letting the sea-stream wander through thy hair?That thy groans, like thunder prest,Begin to roll, and almost drownThe sweet notes whose lulling spellGods and the race of mortals love so well,When through thy caves thou hearest music swell?
But an awful pleasure blandSpreading o'er the Thunderer's face,When the sound climbs near his seat,The Olympian council sees;As he lets his lax right hand,Which the lightnings doth embrace,Sink upon his mighty knees.And the eagle, at the beckOf the appeasing, gracious harmony,Droops all his sheeny, brown, deep-feather'd neck,Nestling nearer to Jove's feet;While o'er his sovran eyeThe curtains of the blue films slowly meetAnd the white Olympus-peaksRosily brighten, and the soothed Gods smileAt one another from their golden chairs,And no one round the charmed circle speaks.Only the loved Hebe bearsThe cup about, whose draughts beguilePain and care, with a dark storeOf fresh-pull'd violets wreathed and nodding o'er;And her flush'd feet glow on the marble floor.
Empedocles
He fables, yet speaks truth!The brave, impetuous heart yields everywhereTo the subtle, contriving head;Great qualities are trodden down,And littleness unitedIs become invincible.
These rumblings are not Typho's groans, I know!These angry smoke-burstsAre not the passionate breathOf the mountain-crush'd, tortured, intractable Titan king—But over all the worldWhat suffering is there not seenOf plainness oppress'd by cunning,As the well-counsell'd Zeus oppress'dThat self-helping son of earth!What anguish of greatness,Rail'd and hunted from the world,Because its simplicity rebukesThis envious, miserable age!
I am weary of it.—Lie there, ye ensignsOf my unloved preëminenceIn an age like this!Among a people of children,Who throng'd me in their cities,Who worshipp'd me in their houses,And ask'd, not wisdom,But drugs to charm with,But spells to mutter—All the fool's-armoury of magic!—Lie there,My golden circlet,My purple robe!
Callicles(from below)
As the sky-brightening south-wind clears the day,And makes the mass'd clouds roll,The music of the lyre blows awayThe clouds which wrap the soul.
Oh! that Fate had let me seeThat triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre,That famous, final victory,When jealous Pan with Marsyas did conspire;
When, from far Parnassus' side,Young Apollo, all the prideOf the Phrygian flutes to tame,To the Phrygian highlands came;Where the long green reed-beds swayIn the rippled waters greyOf that solitary lakeWhere Mæander's springs are born;Whence the ridged pine-wooded rootsOf Messogis westward break,Mounting westward, high and higher.There was held the famous strife;There the Phrygian brought his flutes,And Apollo brought his lyre;And, when now the westering sunTouch'd the hills, the strife was done,And the attentive Muses said:"Marsyas, thou art vanquished!"Then Apollo's ministerHang'd upon a branching firMarsyas, that unhappy Faun,And began to whet his knife.But the Mænads, who were there,Left their friend, and with robes flowingIn the wind, and loose dark hairO'er their polish'd bosoms blowing,Each her ribbon'd tambourineFlinging on the mountain-sod,With a lovely frighten'd mienCame about the youthful God.But he turn'd his beauteous faceHaughtily another way,From the grassy sun-warm'd placeWhere in proud repose he lay,With one arm over his head,Watching how the whetting sped.
But aloof, on the lake-strand,Did the young Olympus stand,Weeping at his master's end;For the Faun had been his friend.For he taught him how to sing,And he taught him flute-playing.Many a morning had they goneTo the glimmering mountain-lakes,And had torn up by the rootsThe tall crested water-reedsWith long plumes and soft brown seeds,And had carved them into flutes,Sitting on a tabled stoneWhere the shoreward ripple breaks.And he taught him how to pleaseThe red-snooded Phrygian girls,Whom the summer evening seesFlashing in the dance's whirlsUnderneath the starlit treesIn the mountain-villages.Therefore now Olympus stands,At his master's piteous criesPressing fast with both his handsHis white garment to his eyes,Not to see Apollo's scorn;—Ah, poor Faun, poor Faun! ah, poor Faun!
Empedocles
And lie thou there,My laurel bough!Scornful Apollo's ensign, lie thou there!Though thou hast been my shade in the world's heat—Though I have loved thee, lived in honouring thee—Yet lie thou there,My laurel bough!
I am weary of thee.I am weary of the solitudeWhere he who bears thee must abide—Of the rocks of Parnassus,Of the rocks of Delphi,Of the moonlit peaks, and the caves.Thou guardest them, Apollo!Over the grave of the slain Pytho,Though young, intolerably severe!Thou keepest aloof the profane,But the solitude oppresses thy votary!The jars of men reach him not in thy valley—But can life reach him?Thou fencest him from the multitude—Who will fence him from himself?He hears nothing but the cry of the torrents,And the beating of his own heart.The air is thin, the veins swell,The temples tighten and throb there—Air! air!
Take thy bough, set me free from my solitude;I have been enough alone!
Where shall thy votary fly then? back to men?—But they will gladly welcome him once more,And help him to unbend his too tense thought,And rid him of the presence of himself,And keep their friendly chatter at his ear,And haunt him, till the absence from himself,That other torment, grow unbearable;And he will fly to solitude again,And he will find its air too keen for him,And so change back; and many thousand timesBe miserably bandied to and froLike a sea-wave, betwixt the world and thee,Thou young, implacable God! and only deathCan cut his oscillations short, and soBring him to poise. There is no other way.And yet what days were those, Parmenides!When we were young, when we could number friendsIn all the Italian cities like ourselves,When with elated hearts we join'd your train.Ye Sun-born Virgins! on the road of truth.[32]Then we could still enjoy, then neither thoughtNor outward things were closed and dead to us;But we received the shock of mighty thoughtsOn simple minds with a pure natural joy;And if the sacred load oppress'd our brain,We had the power to feel the pressure eased,The brow unbound, the thoughts flow free again,In the delightful commerce of the world.We had not lost our balance then, nor grownThought's slaves, and dead to every natural joy.The smallest thing could give us pleasure then—The sports of the country-people,A flute-note from the woods,Sunset over the sea;Seed-time and harvest,The reapers in the corn,The vinedresser in his vineyard,The village-girl at her wheel.
Fulness of life and power of feeling, yeAre for the happy, for the souls at ease,Who dwell on a firm basis of content!But he, who has outlived his prosperous days—But he, whose youth fell on a different worldFrom that on which his exiled age is thrown—Whose mind was fed on other food, was train'dBy other rules than are in vogue to-day—Whose habit of thought is fix'd, who will not change,But, in a world he loves not, must subsistIn ceaseless opposition, be the guardOf his own breast, fetter'd to what he guards,That the world win no mastery over him—Who has no friend, no fellow left, not one;Who has no minute's breathing space allow'dTo nurse his dwindling faculty of joy——Joy and the outward world must die to him,As they are dead to me.
A long pause, during whichEmpedoclesremainsmotionless, plunged in thought. The night deepens.He moves forward and gazes round him, andproceeds:—
And you, ye stars,Who slowly begin to marshal,As of old, in the fields of heaven,Your distant, melancholy lines!Have you, too, survived yourselves?Are you, too, what I fear to become?You, too, once lived;You too moved joyfullyAmong august companions,In an older world, peopled by Gods,In a mightier order,The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven.But now, ye kindleYour lonely, cold-shining lights,Unwilling lingerersIn the heavenly wilderness,For a younger, ignoble world;And renew, by necessity,Night after night your courses,In echoing, unnear'd silence,Above a race you know not—Uncaring and undelighted,Without friend and without home;Weary like us, though notWeary with our weariness.
No, no, ye stars! there is no death with you,No languor, no decay! languor and death,They are with me, not you! ye are alive—Ye, and the pure dark ether where ye rideBrilliant above me! And thou, fiery world,That sapp'st the vitals of this terrible mountUpon whose charr'd and quaking crust I stand—Thou, too, brimmest with life!—the sea of cloud,That heaves its white and billowy vapours upTo moat this isle of ashes from the world,Lives; and that other fainter sea, far down,O'er whose lit floor a road of moonbeams leadsTo Etna's Liparëan sister-firesAnd the long dusky line of Italy—That mild and luminous floor of waters lives,With held-in joy swelling its heart; I only,Whose spring of hope is dried, whose spirit has fail'd,I, who have not, like these, in solitudeMaintain'd courage and force, and in myselfNursed an immortal vigour—I aloneAm dead to life and joy, therefore I readIn all things my own deadness.
A long silence. He continues:—
Oh, that I could glow like this mountain!Oh, that my heart bounded with the swell of the sea!Oh, that my soul were full of light as the stars!Oh, that it brooded over the world like the air!
But no, this heart will glow no more; thou artA living man no more, Empedocles!Nothing but a devouring flame of thought—But a naked, eternally restless mind!
After a pause:—
To the elements it came fromEverything will return—Our bodies to earth,Our blood to water,Heat to fire,Breath to air.They were well born, they will be well entomb'd—But mind?...
And we might gladly share the fruitful stirDown in our mother earth's miraculous womb;Well would it beWith what roll'd of us in the stormy main;We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air,Or with the nimble, radiant life of fire.
But mind, but thought—If these have been the master part of us—Where willtheyfind their parent element?What will receivethem, who will callthemhome?But we shall still be in them, and they in us,And we shall be the strangers of the world,And they will be our lords, as they are now;And keep us prisoners of our consciousness,And never let us clasp and feel the AllBut through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils.And we shall be unsatisfied as now;And we shall feel the agony of thirst,The ineffable longing for the life of lifeBaffled for ever; and still thought and mindWill hurry us with them on their homeless march,Over the unallied unopening earth,Over the unrecognising sea; while airWill blow us fiercely back to sea and earth,And fire repel us from its living waves.And then we shall unwillingly returnBack to this meadow of calamity,This uncongenial place, this human life;And in our individual human stateGo through the sad probation all again,To see if we will poise our life at last,To see if we will now at last be trueTo our own only true, deep-buried selves,Being one with which we are one with the whole world;Or whether we will once more fall awayInto some bondage of the flesh or mind,Some slough of sense, or some fantastic mazeForged by the imperious lonely thinking-power.And each succeeding age in which we are bornWill have more peril for us than the last;Will goad our senses with a sharper spur,Will fret our minds to an intenser play,Will make ourselves harder to be discern'd.And we shall struggle awhile, gasp and rebel—And we shall fly for refuge to past times,Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of greatness;And the reality will pluck us back,Knead us in its hot hand, and change our natureAnd we shall feel our powers of effort flag,And rally them for one last fight—and fail;And we shall sink in the impossible strife,And be astray for ever.
Slave of senseI have in no wise been;—but slave of thought?...And who can say: I have been always free,Lived ever in the light of my own soul?—I cannot; I have lived in wrath and gloom,Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man,Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light.But I have not grown easy in these bonds—But I have not denied what bonds these were.Yea, I take myself to witness,That I have loved no darkness,Sophisticated no truth,Nursed no delusion,Allow'd no fear!
And therefore, O ye elements! I know—Ye know it too—it hath been granted meNot to die wholly, not to be all enslaved.I feel it in this hour. The numbing cloudMounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free.
Is it but for a moment?—Ah, boil up, ye vapours!Leap and roar, thou sea of fire!My soul glows to meet you.Ere it flag, ere the mistsOf despondency and gloomRush over it again,Receive me, save me!
[He plunges into the crater.
Callicles
(from below)
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,Thick breaks the red flame;All Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee.But, where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea,
Where the moon-silver'd inletsSend far their light voiceUp the still vale of Thisbe,O speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-topLie strewn the white flocks,On the cliff-side the pigeonsRoost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,Soft lull'd by the rills,Lie wrapt in their blanketsAsleep on the hills.
—What forms are these comingSo white through the gloom?What garments out-glisteningThe gold-flower'd broom?
What sweet-breathing presenceOut-perfumes the thyme?What voices enraptureThe night's balmy prime?—
'Tis Apollo comes leadingHis choir, the Nine.—The leader is fairest,But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollows!They stream up again!What seeks on this mountainThe glorified train?—
They bathe on this mountain,In the spring by their road;Then on to Olympus,Their endless abode.
—Whose praise do they mention?Of what is it told?—What will be for ever;What was from of old.
First hymn they the FatherOf all things; and then,The rest of immortals,The action of men.
The day in his hotness,The strife with the palm;The night in her silence,The stars in their calm.
What! for a term so scantOur shining visitantCheer'd us, and now is pass'd into the night?Couldst thou no better keep, O Abbey old,The boon thy dedication-sign foretold,[33]The presence of that gracious inmate, light?—A child of light appear'd;Hither he came, late-born and long-desired,And to men's hearts this ancient place endear'd;What, is the happy glow so soon expired?—Rough was the winter eve;Their craft the fishers leave,And down over the Thames the darkness drew.One still lags last, and turns, and eyes the PileHuge in the gloom, across in Thorney Isle,King Sebert's work, the wondrous Minster new.—'Tis Lambeth now, where thenThey moor'd their boats among the bulrush stems;And that new Minster in the matted fenThe world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames.His mates are gone, and heFor mist can scarcely seeA strange wayfarer coming to his side—Who bade him loose his boat, and fix his oar,And row him straightway to the further shore,And wait while he did there a space abide.The fisher awed obeys,That voice had note so clear of sweet command;Through pouring tide he pulls, and drizzling haze,And sets his freight ashore on Thorney strand.The Minster's outlined massRose dim from the morass,And thitherward the stranger took his way.Lo, on a sudden all the Pile is bright!Nave, choir and transept glorified with light,While tongues of fire on coign and carving play!And heavenly odours fairCome streaming with the floods of glory in,And carols float along the happy air,As if the reign of joy did now begin.Then all again is dark;And by the fisher's barkThe unknown passenger returning stands.O Saxon fisher! thou hast had with theeThe fisher from the Lake of Galilee—So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands;Then fades, but speaks the while:At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relateHow his St. Peter's Church in Thorney IslePeter, his friend, with light did consecrate.Twelve hundred years and moreAlong the holy floorPageants have pass'd, and tombs of mighty kingsEfface the humbler graves of Sebert's line,And, as years sped, the minster-aisles divineGrew used to the approach of Glory's wings.Arts came, and arms, and law,And majesty, and sacred form and fear;Only that primal guest the fisher saw,Light, only light, was slow to reappear.The Saviour's happy light,Wherein at first was dightHis boon of life and immortality,In desert ice of subtleties was spentOr drown'd in mists of childish wonderment,Fond fancies here, there false philosophy!And harsh the temper grewOf men with mind thus darken'd and astray;And scarce the boon of life could struggle through,For want of light which should the boon convey.Yet in this latter timeThe promise of the primeSeem'd to come true at last, O Abbey old!It seem'd, a child of light did bring the dowerForeshown thee in thy consecration-hour,And in thy courts his shining freight unroll'd:Bright wits, and instincts sure,And goodness warm, and truth without alloy,And temper sweet, and love of all things pure,And joy in light, and power to spread the joy.And on that countenance brightShone oft so high a light,That to my mind there came how, long ago,Lay on the hearth, amid a fiery ring,The charm'd babe of the Eleusinian king—[34]His nurse, the Mighty Mother, will'd it so.Warm in her breast, by day,He slumber'd, and ambrosia balm'd the child;But all night long amid the flames he lay,Upon the hearth, and play'd with them, and smiled.But once, at midnight deep,His mother woke from sleep,And saw her babe amidst the fire, and scream'd.A sigh the Goddess gave, and with a frownPluck'd from the fire the child, and laid him down;Then raised her face, and glory round her stream'd.The mourning-stole no moreMantled her form, no more her head was bow'd;But raiment of celestial sheen she wore,And beauty fill'd her, and she spake aloud:—"O ignorant race of man!Achieve your good who can,If your own hands the good begun undo?Had human cry not marr'd the work divine,Immortal had I made this boy of mine;But now his head to death again is dueAnd I have now no powerUnto this pious household to repayTheir kindness shown me in my wandering hour."—She spake, and from the portal pass'd away.The Boy his nurse forgot,And bore a mortal lot.Long since, his name is heard on earth no more.In some chance battle on Cithæron-sideThe nursling of the Mighty Mother died,And went where all his fathers went before.—On thee too, in thy dayOf childhood, Arthur! did some check have power,That, radiant though thou wert, thou couldst but stay,Bringer of heavenly light, a human hour?Therefore our happy guestKnew care, and knew unrest,And weakness warn'd him, and he fear'd decline.And in the grave he laid a cherish'd wife,And men ignoble harass'd him with strife,And deadly airs his strength did undermine.Then from his Abbey fadesThe sound beloved of his victorious breath;And light's fair nursling stupor first invades,And next the crowning impotence of death.But hush! This mournful strain,Which would of death complain,The oracle forbade, not ill-inspired.—That Pair, whose head did plan, whose hands did forgeThe Temple in the pure Parnassian gorge,[35]Finish'd their work, and then a meed required."Seven days," the God replied,"Live happy, then expect your perfect meed!"Quiet in sleep, the seventh night, they died.Death, death was judged the boon supreme indeed.And truly he who hereHath run his bright career,And served men nobly, and acceptance found,And borne to light and right his witness high,What could he better wish than then to die,And wait the issue, sleeping underground?Why should he pray to rangeDown the long age of truth that ripens slow;And break his heart with all the baffling change,And all the tedious tossing to and fro?For this and that way swingsThe flux of mortal things,Though moving inly to one far-set goal.—What had our Arthur gain'd, to stop and see,After light's term, a term of cecity,A Church once large and then grown strait in soul?To live, and see arise,Alternating with wisdom's too short reign,Folly revived, re-furbish'd sophistries,And pullulating rites externe and vain?Ay me! 'Tis deaf, that earWhich joy'd my voice to hear;Yet would I not disturb thee from thy tomb,Thus sleeping in thine Abbey's friendly shade,And the rough waves of life for ever laid!I would not break thy rest, nor change thy doom.Even as my father, thou—Even as that loved, that well-recorded friend—Hast thy commission done; ye both may nowWait for the leaven to work, the let to end.And thou, O Abbey grey!Predestined to the rayBy this dear guest over thy precinct shed—Fear not but that thy light once more shall burn,Once more thine immemorial gleam return,Though sunk be now this bright, this gracious head!Let but the light appearAnd thy transfigured walls be touch'd with flame—Our Arthur will again be present here,Again from lip to lip will pass his name.
What! for a term so scantOur shining visitantCheer'd us, and now is pass'd into the night?Couldst thou no better keep, O Abbey old,The boon thy dedication-sign foretold,[33]The presence of that gracious inmate, light?—A child of light appear'd;Hither he came, late-born and long-desired,And to men's hearts this ancient place endear'd;What, is the happy glow so soon expired?
—Rough was the winter eve;Their craft the fishers leave,And down over the Thames the darkness drew.One still lags last, and turns, and eyes the PileHuge in the gloom, across in Thorney Isle,King Sebert's work, the wondrous Minster new.—'Tis Lambeth now, where thenThey moor'd their boats among the bulrush stems;And that new Minster in the matted fenThe world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames.
His mates are gone, and heFor mist can scarcely seeA strange wayfarer coming to his side—Who bade him loose his boat, and fix his oar,And row him straightway to the further shore,And wait while he did there a space abide.The fisher awed obeys,That voice had note so clear of sweet command;Through pouring tide he pulls, and drizzling haze,And sets his freight ashore on Thorney strand.
The Minster's outlined massRose dim from the morass,And thitherward the stranger took his way.Lo, on a sudden all the Pile is bright!Nave, choir and transept glorified with light,While tongues of fire on coign and carving play!And heavenly odours fairCome streaming with the floods of glory in,And carols float along the happy air,As if the reign of joy did now begin.
Then all again is dark;And by the fisher's barkThe unknown passenger returning stands.O Saxon fisher! thou hast had with theeThe fisher from the Lake of Galilee—So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands;Then fades, but speaks the while:At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relateHow his St. Peter's Church in Thorney IslePeter, his friend, with light did consecrate.
Twelve hundred years and moreAlong the holy floorPageants have pass'd, and tombs of mighty kingsEfface the humbler graves of Sebert's line,And, as years sped, the minster-aisles divineGrew used to the approach of Glory's wings.Arts came, and arms, and law,And majesty, and sacred form and fear;Only that primal guest the fisher saw,Light, only light, was slow to reappear.
The Saviour's happy light,Wherein at first was dightHis boon of life and immortality,In desert ice of subtleties was spentOr drown'd in mists of childish wonderment,Fond fancies here, there false philosophy!And harsh the temper grewOf men with mind thus darken'd and astray;And scarce the boon of life could struggle through,For want of light which should the boon convey.
Yet in this latter timeThe promise of the primeSeem'd to come true at last, O Abbey old!It seem'd, a child of light did bring the dowerForeshown thee in thy consecration-hour,And in thy courts his shining freight unroll'd:Bright wits, and instincts sure,And goodness warm, and truth without alloy,And temper sweet, and love of all things pure,And joy in light, and power to spread the joy.
And on that countenance brightShone oft so high a light,That to my mind there came how, long ago,Lay on the hearth, amid a fiery ring,The charm'd babe of the Eleusinian king—[34]His nurse, the Mighty Mother, will'd it so.Warm in her breast, by day,He slumber'd, and ambrosia balm'd the child;But all night long amid the flames he lay,Upon the hearth, and play'd with them, and smiled.
But once, at midnight deep,His mother woke from sleep,And saw her babe amidst the fire, and scream'd.A sigh the Goddess gave, and with a frownPluck'd from the fire the child, and laid him down;Then raised her face, and glory round her stream'd.The mourning-stole no moreMantled her form, no more her head was bow'd;But raiment of celestial sheen she wore,And beauty fill'd her, and she spake aloud:—
"O ignorant race of man!Achieve your good who can,If your own hands the good begun undo?Had human cry not marr'd the work divine,Immortal had I made this boy of mine;But now his head to death again is dueAnd I have now no powerUnto this pious household to repayTheir kindness shown me in my wandering hour."—She spake, and from the portal pass'd away.
The Boy his nurse forgot,And bore a mortal lot.Long since, his name is heard on earth no more.In some chance battle on Cithæron-sideThe nursling of the Mighty Mother died,And went where all his fathers went before.—On thee too, in thy dayOf childhood, Arthur! did some check have power,That, radiant though thou wert, thou couldst but stay,Bringer of heavenly light, a human hour?
Therefore our happy guestKnew care, and knew unrest,And weakness warn'd him, and he fear'd decline.And in the grave he laid a cherish'd wife,And men ignoble harass'd him with strife,And deadly airs his strength did undermine.Then from his Abbey fadesThe sound beloved of his victorious breath;And light's fair nursling stupor first invades,And next the crowning impotence of death.
But hush! This mournful strain,Which would of death complain,The oracle forbade, not ill-inspired.—That Pair, whose head did plan, whose hands did forgeThe Temple in the pure Parnassian gorge,[35]Finish'd their work, and then a meed required."Seven days," the God replied,"Live happy, then expect your perfect meed!"Quiet in sleep, the seventh night, they died.Death, death was judged the boon supreme indeed.
And truly he who hereHath run his bright career,And served men nobly, and acceptance found,And borne to light and right his witness high,What could he better wish than then to die,And wait the issue, sleeping underground?Why should he pray to rangeDown the long age of truth that ripens slow;And break his heart with all the baffling change,And all the tedious tossing to and fro?
For this and that way swingsThe flux of mortal things,Though moving inly to one far-set goal.—What had our Arthur gain'd, to stop and see,After light's term, a term of cecity,A Church once large and then grown strait in soul?To live, and see arise,Alternating with wisdom's too short reign,Folly revived, re-furbish'd sophistries,And pullulating rites externe and vain?
Ay me! 'Tis deaf, that earWhich joy'd my voice to hear;Yet would I not disturb thee from thy tomb,Thus sleeping in thine Abbey's friendly shade,And the rough waves of life for ever laid!I would not break thy rest, nor change thy doom.Even as my father, thou—Even as that loved, that well-recorded friend—Hast thy commission done; ye both may nowWait for the leaven to work, the let to end.
And thou, O Abbey grey!Predestined to the rayBy this dear guest over thy precinct shed—Fear not but that thy light once more shall burn,Once more thine immemorial gleam return,Though sunk be now this bright, this gracious head!Let but the light appearAnd thy transfigured walls be touch'd with flame—Our Arthur will again be present here,Again from lip to lip will pass his name.
Four years!—and didst thou stay aboveThe ground, which hides thee now, but four?And all that life, and all that love,Were crowded, Geist! into no more?Only four years those winning ways,Which make me for thy presence yearn,Call'd us to pet thee or to praise,Dear little friend! at every turn?That loving heart, that patient soul,Had they indeed no longer span,To run their course, and reach their goal,And read their homily to man?That liquid, melancholy eye,From whose pathetic, soul-fed springsSeem'd surging the Virgilian cry,[B]The sense of tears in mortal things—That steadfast, mournful strain, consoledBy spirits gloriously gay,And temper of heroic mould—What, was four years their whole short day?Yes, only four!—and not the courseOf all the centuries yet to come,And not the infinite resourceOf Nature, with her countless sumOf figures, with her fulness vastOf new creation evermore,Can ever quite repeat the past,Or just thy little self restore.Stern law of every mortal lot!Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,And builds himself I know not whatOf second life I know not where.But thou, when struck thine hour to go,On us, who stood despondent by,A meek last glance of love didst throw,And humbly lay thee down to die.Yet would we keep thee in our heart—Would fix our favourite on the scene,Nor let thee utterly departAnd be as if thou ne'er hadst been.And so there rise these lines of verseOn lips that rarely form them now;While to each other we rehearse:Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!We stroke thy broad brown paws again,We bid thee to thy vacant chair,We greet thee by the window-pane,We hear thy scuffle on the stair.We see the flaps of thy large earsQuick raised to ask which way we go;Crossing the frozen lake, appearsThy small black figure on the snow!Nor to us only art thou dearWho mourn thee in thine English home;Thou hast thine absent master's tear,Dropt by the far Australian foam.Thy memory lasts both here and there,And thou shall live as long as we.And after that—thou dost not care!In us was all the world to thee.Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame,Even to a date beyond our ownWe strive to carry down thy name,By mounded turf, and graven stone.We lay thee, close within our reach,Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,Between the holly and the beech,Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form,Asleep, yet lending half an earTo travellers on the Portsmouth road;—There build we thee, O guardian dear,Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode!Then some, who through this garden pass,When we too, like thyself, are clay,Shall see thy grave upon the grass,And stop before the stone, and say:People who lived here long agoDid by this stone, it seems, intendTo name for future times to knowThe dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.
Four years!—and didst thou stay aboveThe ground, which hides thee now, but four?And all that life, and all that love,Were crowded, Geist! into no more?
Only four years those winning ways,Which make me for thy presence yearn,Call'd us to pet thee or to praise,Dear little friend! at every turn?
That loving heart, that patient soul,Had they indeed no longer span,To run their course, and reach their goal,And read their homily to man?
That liquid, melancholy eye,From whose pathetic, soul-fed springsSeem'd surging the Virgilian cry,[B]The sense of tears in mortal things—
That steadfast, mournful strain, consoledBy spirits gloriously gay,And temper of heroic mould—What, was four years their whole short day?
Yes, only four!—and not the courseOf all the centuries yet to come,And not the infinite resourceOf Nature, with her countless sum
Of figures, with her fulness vastOf new creation evermore,Can ever quite repeat the past,Or just thy little self restore.
Stern law of every mortal lot!Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,And builds himself I know not whatOf second life I know not where.
But thou, when struck thine hour to go,On us, who stood despondent by,A meek last glance of love didst throw,And humbly lay thee down to die.
Yet would we keep thee in our heart—Would fix our favourite on the scene,Nor let thee utterly departAnd be as if thou ne'er hadst been.
And so there rise these lines of verseOn lips that rarely form them now;While to each other we rehearse:Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!
We stroke thy broad brown paws again,We bid thee to thy vacant chair,We greet thee by the window-pane,We hear thy scuffle on the stair.
We see the flaps of thy large earsQuick raised to ask which way we go;Crossing the frozen lake, appearsThy small black figure on the snow!
Nor to us only art thou dearWho mourn thee in thine English home;Thou hast thine absent master's tear,Dropt by the far Australian foam.
Thy memory lasts both here and there,And thou shall live as long as we.And after that—thou dost not care!In us was all the world to thee.
Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame,Even to a date beyond our ownWe strive to carry down thy name,By mounded turf, and graven stone.
We lay thee, close within our reach,Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,Between the holly and the beech,Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form,
Asleep, yet lending half an earTo travellers on the Portsmouth road;—There build we thee, O guardian dear,Mark'd with a stone, thy last abode!
Then some, who through this garden pass,When we too, like thyself, are clay,Shall see thy grave upon the grass,And stop before the stone, and say:
People who lived here long agoDid by this stone, it seems, intendTo name for future times to knowThe dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.