END OF BOOK II.
END OF BOOK II.
BOOK III.OLYMPUS.
But I, my gazeFollowing the soaring soul which now was lostIn the awakening skies, floated with her,As in a trance, beyond the golden gatesWhich separate Earth from Heaven; and to my thoughtGladdened by that broad effluence of light,This old earth seemed transfigured, and the fields,So dim and bare, grew green and clothed themselvesWith lustrous hues. A fine ethereal airPlayed round me as I mused, and filled the soulWith an ineffable content. What needOf words to tell of things unreached by words?Or seek to engrave upon the treacherous thoughtThe fair and fugitive fancies of a dream,Which vanish ere we fix them?
But methinksHe knows the scene, who knows the one fair day,One only and no more, which year by yearIn springtime comes, when lingering winter flies,And lo! the trees blossom in white and pink.And golden clusters, and the glades are filledWith delicate primrose and deep odorous bedsOf violets, and on the tufted meadsWith kingcups starred, and cowslip bells, and blueSweet hyacinths, and frail anemones,The broad West wind breathes softly, and the airIs tremulous with the lark, and thro' the woodsThe soft full-throated thrushes all day longFlood the green dells with joy, and thro' the dryBrown fields the sower strides, sowing his seed,And all is life and song. Or he who first,Whether in fair free boyhood, when the worldIs his to choose, or when his fuller lifeBeats to another life, or afterwards,Keeping his youth within his children's eyes,Looks on the snow-clad everlasting hills,And marks the sunset smite them, and is gladOf the beautiful fair world.
A springtide landIt seemed, where East winds came not. Sweetest songWas everywhere, by glade or sunny plain;And thro' the golden valleys winding streamsRippled in glancing silver, and above,The blue hills rose, and over all a peak,White, awful, with a constant fleece of cloudVeiling its summit, towered. Unfailing DayLighted it, for no turn of dawn and eveCame there, nor changing seasons, but a broadFixed joy of Being, undisturbed by Time.
There, in a happy glade shut in by grovesOf laurel and sweet myrtle, on a greenAnd flower-lit lawn, I seemed to see the ghostsOf the old gods. Upon the gentle slopeOf a fair hill, a joyous company,The Immortals lay. Hard by, a murmurous streamFell through the flowers; below them, space on space,Laughed the immeasurable plains; beyond,The mystic mountain soared. Height after heightOf bare rock ledges left the climbing pines,And reared their giddy, shining terracesInto the ethereal air. Above, the snowsOf the white summit cleft the fleece of cloudWhich always clothed it round.
Ah, fail-and sweet,Yet with a ghostly fairness, fine and thin,Those godlike Presences. Not dreams indeed,But something dream-like, were they. Blessed ShadesHeroic and Divine, as when, in daysWhen Man was young, and Time, the vivid thoughtTranslated into Form the unattainedImpossible Beauty of men's dreams, and fixedThe Loveliness in marble.
As with aweFollowing my spotless guide, I stood apart,Not daring to draw near; a shining formRose from the throng, and floated, light as air,To where I trembled. And I knew the faceAnd form of Artemis, the fair, the pure,The undefiled. A crescent silvery moonShone thro' her locks, and by her side she boreA quiver of golden darts. At sight of whomI felt a sudden chill, like his who onceLooked upon her and died; yet could not fear,Seeing how fair she was. Her sweet voice rangClear as a bird's:
"Mortal, what fate hath broughtThee hither, uncleansed by death? How canst thou breatheImmortal air, being mortal? Yet fear not,Since thou art come. For we too are of earthWhom here thou seest: there were not a heavenWere there no earth, nor gods, had men not been,But each the complement of each and grownThe other's creature, is and has its being,A double essence, Human and Divine.So that the God is hidden in the man,And something Human bounds and forms the God;Which else had shown too great and undefinedFor mortal sight, and having no human eyeTo see it, were unknown. But we who boreSway of old time, we were but attributes[3]Of the great God who is all Things that be—The Pillar of the Earth and starry Sky,The Depth of the great Deep; the Sun, the Moon,The Word which Makes; the All-compelling Love—For all Things lie within His Infinite Form."
Even as she spake, a throng of heavenly formsFloated around me, filling all my soulWith fair unearthly beauty, and the airWith such ambrosial perfume as is born.When morning bursts upon a tropic sea,From boundless wastes of flowers; and as I kneltIn rapture, lo! the same clear voice againFrom out the throng of gods:
"Those whom thou seestWere even as I, embodiments of HimWho is the Centre of all Life: myselfThe Maiden-Queen of Purity; and Strength,Divine when unabused; Love too, the SpringAnd Cause of Things; and Knowledge, which lays bareTheir secret; and calm Duty, Queen of all,And Motherhood in one; and Youth, which bears,Beauty of Form and Life and Light, and breathesThe breath of Inspiration; and the Soul,The particle of God, sent down to man,Which doth in turn reveal the world and God.
Wherefore it is men called on Artemis,The refuge of young souls; for still in ageThey keep some dim reflection uneffacedOf a Diviner Purity than comesTo the spring days of youth, when all the worldSmiles, and the rapid blood thro' the young veinsCourses, and all is glad; yet knowing tooThat innocence is young—before the soilAnd smirch of sadder knowledge, settling on it,Sully its primal whiteness. So they kneltAt my white shrines, the eager vigorous youths,To whom life's road showed like a dewy fieldIn early summer dawns, when to the soundOf youth's clear voice, and to the cheerful rushOf the tumultuous feet and clamorous tonguesCareering onwards, fair and dappled fawns,Strange birds with jewelled plumes, fierce spotted pards,Rise in the joyous chase, to be caught and boundBy the young conqueror; nor yet the charmOf sensual ease allures. And they knelt too,The pure sweet maidens fair and fancy-free,Whose innocent virgin hearts shrank from the touchOf passion as from wrong—sweet moonlit livesWhich fade, and pale, and vanish, in the glareOf Love's hot noontide: these came robed in white,With holy hymns and soaring liturgies:And so men fabled me, a huntress now,Borne thro' the flying woodlands, fair and free;And now the pale cold Moon, Light without warmth,Zeal without touch of passion, heavenly loveFor human, and the altar for the home.
But oh, how sweet it was to take the loveAnd awe of my young worshippers; to watchThe pure young gaze and hear the pure young voiceMount in the hymn, or see the gay troop comeWith the first dawn of day, brushing the dewFrom the unpolluted fields, and wake to songThe slumbering birds; strong in their innocence!I did not envy any goddess of allThe Olympian company her votaries!Ah, happy days of old which now are gone!A memory and a dream! for now on earthI rule no longer o'er young willing heartsIn voluntary fealty, which should ceaseWhen Love, with fiery accents calling, wokeThe slumbering soul; as now it should for thoseWho kneel before the purer, sadder shrineWhich has replaced my own. But ah! too oft,Not always, but too often, shut from lifeWithin pale life-long cloisters and the barsOf deadly convent prisons, year by year,Age after age, the white souls fade and pineWhich simulate the joyous service freeOf those young worshippers. I would that IMight loose the captives' chain; or Herakles,Who was a mortal once."
But he who stoodColossal at my side:
"I toil no moreOn earth, nor wield again the mighty strengthWhich Zeus once gave me for the cure of ill.I have run my race; I have done my work; I restFor ever from the toilsome days I gaveTo the suffering race of men. And yet, indeed,Methinks they suffer still. Tyrannous growthsAnd monstrous vex them still. Pestilence lurksAnd sweeps them down. Treacheries come, and wars,And slay them still. Vaulting ambition leapsAnd falls in bloodshed still. But I am hereAt rest, and no man kneels to me, or keepsReverence for strength mighty yet unabused—Strength which is Power, God's choicest gift, more rareAnd precious than all Beauty, or the charmOf Wisdom, since it is the instrumentThro' which all Nature works. For now the earthIs full of meekness, and a new God rules,Teaching strange precepts of humilityAnd mercy and forgiveness. Yet I trowThere is no lack of bloodshed and deceitAnd groanings, and the tyrant works his wrongEven as of old; but now there is no armLike mine, made strong by Zeus, to beat him down,Him and his wrong together. Yet I knowI am not all discrowned. The strong brave souls,The manly tender hearts, whom tale of wrongTo woman or child, to all weak things and small,Fires like a blow; calling the righteous flushOf anger to the brow; knotting the cordsOf muscle on the arm; with one desireTo hew the spoiler down, and make an end,And go their way for others; making lightOf toil and pain, and too laborious days,And peril; beat unchanged, albeit they serveA Lord of meekness. For the world still needsIts champion as of old, and finds him still.Not always now with mighty sinews and thewsLike mine, though still these profit, but keen brainAnd voice to move men's souls to love the rightAnd hate the wrong; even tho' the bodily formBe weak, of giant strength, strong to assailThe hydra heads of Evil, and to slayThe monsters that now waste them: Ignorance,Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of Man,Disguised as love of God. These there are stillWith task as hard as mine. For what was itTo strive with bodily ills, and do great deedsOf daring and of strength, and bear the crown,To his who wages lifelong, doubtful strifeWith an impalpable foe; conquering indeed,But, ere he hears the pæan or sees the pompLaid low in the arms of Death? And tho' men ceaseTo worship at my shrine, yet not the lessI hold, it is the toils I knew, the painsI bore for others, which have kept the heartOf manhood undefiled, and nerved the armOf sacrifice, and made the martyr strongTo do and bear, and taught the race of menHow godlike 'tis to suffer thro' life, and dieAt last for others' good!"
The strong god ceased,And stood a little, musing; blest indeed,But bearing, as it seemed, some faintest traceOf earthly struggle still, not the gay easeOf the elder heaven-born gods.
And then there cameBeauty and Joy in one, bearing the formOf woman. How to reach with halting wordsThat infinite Perfection? All have knownThe breathing marbles which the Greek has leftWho saw her near, and strove to fix her charms,And exquisitely failed; or those fair formsThe Painter offered at a later shrine,And failed. Nay, what are words?—he knows it wellWho loves, or who has loved.
She with a smilePlaying around her rosy lips; as playsThe sunbeam on a stream:
"Shall I complainMen kneel to me no longer, taking to themSome graver, sterner worship; grown too wiseFor fleeting joys of Love? Nay, Love is Youth,And still the world is young. Still shall I reignWithin the hearts of men, while Time shall lastAnd Life renews itself. All Life that is,From the weak things of earth or sea or air,Which creep or float for an hour; to godlike man—All know me and are mine. I am the sourceAnd mother of all, both gods and men; the springOf Force and Joy, which, penetrating allWithin the hidden depths of the Unknown,Sets the blind seed of Being, and from the bondOf incomplete and dual EssencesEvolves the harmony which is Life. The worldWere dead without my rays, who am the LightWhich vivifies the world. Nay, but for me,The universal order which attractsSphere unto sphere, and keeps them in their pathsFor ever, were no more. All things are boundWithin my golden chain, whose name is Love.
And if there be, indeed, some sterner soulsOr sunk in too much learning, or hedged roundBy care and greed, or haply too much raptBy pale ascetic fervours, to delightTo kneel to me, the universal voiceScorns them as those who, missing willinglyThe good that Nature offers, dwell unblestWho might be blest, but would not. Every voiceOf bard in every age has hymned me. AllThe breathing marbles, all the heavenly huesOf painting, praise me. Even the loveless shadesOf dim monastic cloisters show some gleam,Tho' faint, of me. Amid the busy throngsOf cities reign I, and o'er lonely plains,Beyond the ice-fields of the frozen North,And the warm waves of undiscovered seas.
For I was born out of the sparkling foamWhich lights the crest of the blue mystic wave,Stirred by the wandering breath of Life's pure dawnFrom a young soul's calm depths. There, without voice,Stretched on the breathing curve of a young breast,Fluttering a little, fresh from the great deepOf life, and creamy as the opening rose,Naked I lie, naked yet unashamed,While youth's warm tide steals round me with a kiss,And floods each limb with fairness. Shame I know not—Shame is for wrong, and not for innocence—The veil which Error grasps to hide itselfFrom the awful Eye. But I, I lie unveiledAnd unashamed—the livelong day I lie,The warm wave murmuring to me; and, all night,Hidden in the moonlit caves of happy Sleep,I dream until the morning and am glad.
Why should I seek to clothe myself, and hideThe treasure of my Beauty? Shame may waitOn those for whom 'twas given. The sties of senseAre none of mine; the brutish, loveless wrong,The venal charm, the simulated flushOf fleshly passion, they are none of mine,Only corruptions of me. Yet I knowThe counterfeit the stronger, since gross soulsAnd brutish sway the earth; and yet I holdThat sense itself is sacred, and I deem'Twere better to grow soft and sink in senseThan gloat o'er blood and wrong.
My kingdom isOver infinite grades of being. All breathing things,From the least crawling insect to the brute,From brute to man, confess me. Yet in manI find my worthiest worship. Where man is,A youth and a maid, a youth and a maid, nought elseIs wanting for my temple. Every climeKneels to me—the long breaker swells and fallsUnder the palms, mixed with the merry noiseOf savage bridals, and the straight brown limbsKnow me, and over all the endless plainsI reign, and by the tents on the hot sandAnd sea-girt isles am queen, and on the sideOf silent mountains, where the white cots gleamUpon the green hill pastures, and no soundBut the thunder of the avalanche is borneTo the listening rocks around; and in fair landsWhere all is peace; where thro' the happy hushOf tranquil summer evenings, 'mid the corn,Or thro' cool arches of the gadding vines,The lovers stray together hand in hand,Hymning my praise; and by the stately streetsOf echoing cities—over all the earth,Palace and cot, mountain and plain and sea,The burning South, the icy North, the oldAnd immemorial East, the unbounded West,No new god comes to spoil me utterly—All worship and are mine!"
With a sweet smileUpon her rosy mouth, the goddess ceased;And when she spake no more, the silence weighedAs heavy on my soul as when it takesSome gracious melody, and leaves the earUnsatisfied and longing, till the fountOf sweetness springs again.
But while I stoodExpectant, lo! a fair pale form drew nearWith front severe, and wide blue eyes which boreMild wisdom in their gaze. Great purityShone from her—not the young-eyed innocenceOf her whom first I saw, but that which comesFrom wider knowledge, which restrains the tideOf passionate youth, and leads the musing soulBy the calm deeps of Wisdom. And I knewMy eyes had seen the fair, the virgin Queen,Who once within her shining ParthenonBeheld the sages kneel.
She with clear voiceAnd coldly sweet, yet with a softness too,As doth befit a virgin:
"She does rightTo boast her sway, my sister, seeing indeedThat all things are as by a double law,And from a double root the tree of LifeSprings up to the face of heaven. Body and Soul,Matter and Spirit, lower joys of SenseAnd higher joys of Thought, I know that bothBuild up the shrine of Being. The brute senseLeaves man a brute; but, winged with soaring thoughtMounts to high heaven. The unembodied spirit,Dwelling alone, unmated, void of sense,Is impotent. And yet I hold there is,Far off, but not too far for mortal reach,A calmer height, where, nearer to the stars,Thought sits alone and gazes with rapt gaze,A large-eyed maiden in a robe of white.Who brings the light of Knowledge down, and drawsTo her pontifical eyes a bridge of gold,Which spans from earth to heaven.
For what were life,If things of sense were all, for those large soulsAnd high, which grudging Nature has shut fastWithin unlovely forms, or those from whomThe circuit of the rapid gliding yearsSteals the brief gift of beauty? Shall we hold,With idle singers, all the treasure of hopeIs lost with youth—swift-fleeting, treacherous youth,Which fades and flies before the ripening brainCrowns life with Wisdom's crown? Nay, even in youth,Is it not more to walk upon the heightsAlone—the cold free heights—and mark the valeLie breathless in the glare, or hidden and blurredBy cloud and storm; or pestilence and warCreep on with blood and death; while the soul dwellsApart upon the peaks, outfronts the sunAs the eagle does, and takes the coming dawnWhile all the vale is dark, and knows the springsOf tiny rivulets hurrying from the snows,Which soon shall swell to vast resistless floods,And feed the Oceans which divide the World?
Oh, ecstasy! oh, wonder! oh, delight!Which neither the slow-withering wear of Time,That takes all else—the smooth and rounded cheekOf youth; the lightsome step; the warm young heartWhich beats for love or friend; the treasure of hopeImmeasurable; the quick-coursing bloodWhich makes it joy to be,—ay, takes them allAnd leaves us naught—nor yet satietyBorn of too full possession, takes or mars!Oh, fair delight of learning! which grows greatAnd stronger and more keen, for slower limbs,And dimmer eyes and loneliness, and lossOf lower good—wealth, friendship, ay, and Love—When the swift soul, turning its weary gazeFrom the old vanished joys, projects itselfInto the void and floats in empty space,Striving to reach the mystic source of Things,The secrets of the earth and sea and air,The Law that holds the process of the suns,The awful depths of Mind and Thought; the primeUnfathomable mystery of God!
Is there, then, any who holds my worship coldAnd lifeless? Nay, but 'tis the light which cheersThe waning life! Love thou thy love, brave youth!Cleave to thy love, fair maid! it is the LawWhich dominates the world, that bids ye useYour nature; but, when now the fuller tideSlackens a little, turn your calmer eyesTo the fair page of Knowledge. It is powerI give, and power is precious. It is strengthTo live four-square, careless of outward shows,And self-sufficing. It is clearer sightTo know the rule of life, the Eternal scheme;And, knowing it, to do and not to err,And, doing, to be blest."
The calm voice soaredHigher and higher to the close; the coldClear accents, fired as by a hidden fire,Glowed into life and tenderness, and throbbedAs with some spiritual ecstasySweeter than that of Love.
But as they died,I heard an ampler voice; and looking, markedA fair and gracious form. She seemed a QueenWho ruled o'er gods and men; the majestyOf perfect womanhood. No opening budOf beauty, but the full consummate flowerWas hers; and from her mild large eyes looked forthGentle command, and motherhood, and home,And pure affection. Awe and reverenceO'erspread me, as I knew my eyes had lookedOn sovereign Heré, mother of the gods.
She, with clear, rounded utterance, sweet and calm"I know Love's fruit is good and fair to seeAnd taste, if any gain it, and I knowHow brief Life's Passion-tide, which when it endsMay change to thirst for Knowledge, and I knowHow fair the realm of Mind, wherein the soulThirsting to know, wings its impetuous wayBeyond the bounds of Thought; and yet I holdThere is a higher bliss than these, which fitsA mortal life, compact of Body and Soul,And therefore double-natured—a calm pathWhich lies before the feet, thro' common waysAnd undistinguished crowds of toiling men,And yet is hard to tread, tho' seeming smooth,And yet, tho' level, earns a worthier crown.
For Knowledge is a steep which few may climb,While Duty is a path which all may tread.And if the Soul of Life and Thought be this,How best to speed the mighty scheme, which stillFares onward day by day—the Life of the World,Which is the sum of petty lives, that liveAnd die so this may live—how then shall eachOf that great multitude of faithful soulsWho walk not on the heights, fulfil himself,But by the duteous Life which looks not forthBeyond its narrow sphere, and finds its work,And works it out; content, this done, to fallAnd perish, if Fate will, so the great SchemeGoes onward?
Wherefore am I Queen in HeavenAnd Earth, whose realm is Duty, bearing ruleMore constant and more wide than those whose wordsThou heardest last. Mine are the striving soulsOf fathers toiling day by day obscureAnd unrewarded, save by their own hearts,Mid wranglings of the Forum or the mart;Who long for joys of Thought, and yet must toilUnmurmuring thro' dull lives from youth to age;Who haply might have worn instead the crownOf Honour and of Fame: mine the fair mothersWho, for the love of children and of home,When passion dies, expend their toilful yearsIn loving labour sweetened by the senseOf Duty: mine the statesman who toils onThro' vigilant nights and days, guiding his State.Yet finds no gratitude; and those white soulsWho give themselves for others all their yearsIn trivial tasks of Pity. The fine growthsOf Man and Time are mine, and spend themselvesFor me and for the mystical End which liesBeyond their gaze and mine, and yet is good,Tho' hidden from men and gods.
For as the flowerOf the tiger-lily bright with varied huesIs for a day, then fades and leaves behindFairness nor fruit, while the green tiny tuftSwells to the purple of the clustering grapeOr golden waves of wheat; so lives of menWhich show most splendid; fade and are deceasedAnd leave no trace; while those, unmarked, unseen,Which no man recks of, rear the stately treeOf Knowledge, not for itself sought out, but foundIn the dusty ways of life—a fairer growthThan springs in cloistered shades; and from the sumOf Duty, blooms sweeter and more divineThe fair ideal of the Race, than comesFrom glittering gains of Learning.
Life, full life,Full-flowered, full-fruited, reared from homely earth,Rooted in duty, and thro' long calm yearsBearing its load of healthful energies;Stretching its arms on all sides; fed with dewsOf cheerful sacrifice, and clouds of care,And rain of useful tears; warmed by the sunOf calm affection, till it breathes itselfIn perfume to the heavens—this is the prizeI hold most dear, more precious than the fruitOf Knowledge or of Love."
The goddess ceasedAs dies some gracious harmony, the childOf wedded themes which single and aloneWere discords, but united breathe a soundSweet as the sounds of heaven.
And then stood forthThe last of the gods I saw, the first in rankAnd dignity and beauty, the young godWho grows not old, the Light of Heaven and Earth,The Worker from afar, who sends the fireOf inspiration to the bard and bathesThe world in hues of heaven—the golden linkBetween High God and Man.
With a sweet voiceWhose every note was sweetest melody—The melody has fled, the words remain—Apollo sang:
"I know how fair the faceOf Purity; I know the treasure of Strength;I know the charm of Love, the calmer graceOf Wisdom and of Duteous well-spent lives:And yet there is a loftier height than these.
There is a Height higher than mortal thought;There is a Love warmer than mortal love;There is a Life which taketh not its huesFrom Earth or earthly things; and so grows pureAnd higher than the petty cares of men,And is a blessed life and glorified.
Oh, white young souls, strain upward, upward still,Even to the heavenly source of Purity!Brave hearts, bear on and suffer! Strike for right,Strong arms, and hew down wrong! The world hath needOf all of you—the sensual wrongful world!
Hath need of you, and of thee too, fair Love.Oh, lovers, cling together! the old worldIs full of Hate. Sweeten it; draw in oneTwo separate chords of Life; and from the bondOf twin souls lost in Harmony createA Fair God dwelling with you—Love, the Lord!
Waft yourselves, yearning souls, upon the stars;Sow yourselves on the wandering winds of space;Watch patient all your days, if your eyes takeSome dim, cold ray of Knowledge. The dull worldHath need of you—the purblind, slothful world!
Live on, brave lives, chained to the narrow roundOf Duty; live, expend yourselves, and makeThe orb of Being wheel onward steadfastlyUpon its path—the Lord of Life aloneKnows to what goal of Good; work on, live on:And yet there is a higher work than yours.
To have looked upon the face of the UnknownAnd Perfect Beauty. To have heard the voiceOf Godhead in the winds and in the seas.To have known Him in the circling of the suns,And in the changeful fates and lives of men.
To be fulfilled with Godhead as a cupFilled with a precious essence, till the handOn marble or on canvas falling, leavesCelestial traces, or from reed or stringDraws out faint echoes of the voice DivineThat bring God nearer to a faithless world.
Or, higher still and fairer and more blest,To be His seer, His prophet; to be the voiceOf the Ineffable Word; to be the glassOf the Ineffable Light, and bring them downTo bless the earth, set in a shrine of Song.
For Knowledge is a barren tree and bare,Bereft of God, and Duty but a word,And Strength but Tyranny, and Love, Desire,And Purity a folly; and the Soul,Which brings down God to Man, the Light to the world;He is the Maker, and is blest, is blest!"
He ended, and I felt my soul grow faintWith too much sweetness.
In a mist of graceThey faded, that bright company, and seemedTo melt into each other and shape themselvesInto new forms, and those fair goddessesBlent in a perfect woman—all the calmHigh motherhood of Heré, the sweet smileOf Cypris, fair Athené's earnest eyes,And the young purity of Artemis,Blent in a perfect woman; and in her arms,Fused by some cosmic interlacing curvesOf Beauty into a new Innocence,A child with eyes divine, a little child,A little child—no more.
And those great godsOf Power and Beauty left a heavenly formStrong not to act, but suffer; fair and meek,Not proud and eager; with soft eyes of grace,Not bold with joyous youth; and for the fireOf song, and for the happy careless life,A sorrowful pilgrimage—changed, yet the sameOnly Diviner far; and keeping stillThe Life God-lighted and the sacrifice.
And when these faded wholly, at my side,Tho' hidden before by those too-radiant forms,I was aware once more of her, my guidePsyche, who had not left me, floating nearOn golden wings; and all the plains of heavenWere left to us, me and my soul alone.
Then when my thought revived again, I saidWhispering, "But Zeus I saw not, the prime SourceAnd Sire of all the gods."
And she, bent lowWith downcast eyes: "Nay. Thou hast seen of HimAll that thine eyes can bear, in those fair formsWhich are but parts of Him and are indeedAttributes of the Substance which supportsThe Universe of Things—the Soul of the World,The Stream which flows Eternal, from no SourceInto no Sea, His Purity, His Strength,His Love, His Knowledge, His unchanging ruleOf Duty, thou hast seen, only a partAnd not the whole, being a finite mindToo weak for infinite thought; nor, couldst thou seeAll of Him visible to mortal sight,Wouldst thou see all His essence, since the gods—Glorified essences of Human mould,Who are but Zeus made visible to men—See Him not wholly, only some thin edgeAnd halo of His glory; nor know theyWhat vast and unsuspected UniversesLie beyond thought, where yet He rules, like thoseVast Suns we cannot see, round which our SunMoves with his system, or those darker stillWhich not even thus we know, but yet existTho' no eye marks, nor thought itself, and lurkIn the awful Depths of Space; or that which isNot orbed as yet, but indiscrete, confused,Sown thro' the void—the faintest gleam of lightWhich sets itself to Be. And yet is HeThere too, and rules, none seeing. But sometimesTo this our heaven, which is so like to earthBut nearer to Him, for awhile He showsSome gleam of His own brightness, and methinksIt cometh soon; but thou, if thou shouldst gaze,Thy Life will rush to His—the tiny sparkAbsorbed in that full blaze—and what there isOf mortal fall from thee."
But I: "Oh, soul,What holdeth Life more precious than to knowThe Giver and to die?"
Then she: "Behold!Look upward and adore."
And with the word,Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure,The floating cloud which clothed the hidden peakRose slow in awful silence, laying bareSpire after rocky spire, snow after snow,Whiter and yet more dreadful, till at lastIt left the summit clear.
Then with a bound,In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash of a thought,I knew an Awful Effluence of Light,Formless, Ineffable, Perfect, burst on meAnd flood my being round, and take my lifeInto itself. I saw my guide bent downProstrate, her wings before her face; and thenNo more.
But when I woke from my long tranceBehold, it was no longer Tartarus,Nor Hades, nor Olympus, but the bareAnd unideal aspect of the fieldsWhich Spring not yet had kissed—the strange old EarthSo far more fabulous now than in the daysWhen Man was young, nor yet the mysteryOf Time and Fate transformed it. From the hills,The long night fled at last, the unclouded sun,The dear, fair sun, leapt upward swift, and smoteMy sight with rays of gold, and pierced my brainWith too much light ere my entrancèd eyesCould hide themselves.
And I was on the EarthDreaming the dream of Life again, as lateI dreamed the dream of Death.
Another dayDawned on the race of men; another world;New heavens, and new earth.
And as I wentAcross the lightening fields, upon a bankI saw a single snowdrop glance, and bringPromise of Spring; and keeping my old thoughtIn the old fair Hellenic vesture dressed,I felt myself a ghost, and seemed to beNow fair Adonis hasting to the armsOf his lost love—now sad PersephoneRestored to mother earth—or that high shadeOrpheus, who gave up heaven to save his love,And is rewarded—or young Marsyas,Who spent his youth and life for song, and yetWas happy though in torture—or the fairAnd dreaming youth I saw, who still awaits,Hopeful, the unveiling heaven, when he shall seeHis fair ideal love. The birds sang blithe;There came a tinkling from the waking fold;And on the hillside from the cot a girlTripped singing with her pitcher. All the soundsAnd thoughts which still are beautiful—Youth, Song,Dawn, Spring, Renewal—and my soul was gladOf all the freshness, and I felt againThe youth and spring-tide of the world, and thought,Which feigned those fair and gracious fantasies.
For every dawn that breaks brings a new world,And every budding bosom a new life;These fair tales, which we know so beautiful,Show only finer than our lives to-dayBecause their voice was clearer, and they foundA sacred bard to sing them. We are pent,Who sing to-day, by all the garnered wealthOf ages of past song. We have no moreThe world to choose from, who, where'er we turn,Tread through old thoughts and fair. Yet must we sing—We have no choice; and if more hard the toilIn noon, when all is clear, than in the freshWhite mists of early morn, yet do we findAchievement its own guerdon, and at lastThe rounder song of manhood grows more sweetThan the high note of youth.
For Age, long Age!Nought else divides us from the fresh young daysWhich men call ancient; seeing that we in turnShall one day be Time's ancients, and inspireThe wiser, higher race, which yet shall singBecause to sing is human, and high thoughtGrows rhythmic ere its close. Nought else there isBut that weird beat of Time, which doth disjoinTo-day from Hellas.
How should any holdThose precious scriptures only old-world talesOf strange impossible torments and false gods;Of men and monsters in some brainless dream,Coherent, yet unmeaning, linked togetherBy some false skein of song?
Nay! evermore,All things and thoughts, both new and old, are writUpon the unchanging human heart and soul.Has Passion still no prisoners? Pine there nowNo lives which fierce Love, sinking into Lust,Has drowned at last in tears and blood—plunged downTo the lowest depths of Hell? Have not strong WillAnd high Ambition rotted into GreedAnd Wrong, for any, as of old, and whelmedThe struggling soul in ruin? Hell lies nearAround us as does Heaven, and in the World,Which is our Hades, still the chequered soulsCompact of good and ill—not all accurstNor altogether blest—a few brief yearsTravel the little journey of their lives,They know not to what end. The weary womanSunk deep in ease and sated with her life,Much loved and yet unloving, pines to-dayAs Helen; still the poet strives and sings.And hears Apollo's music, and grows dumb,And suffers, yet is happy; still the youngFond dreamer seeks his high ideal love,And finds her name is Death; still doth the fairAnd innocent life, bound naked to the rock,Redeem the race; still the gay tempter goesAnd leaves his victim, stone; still doth pain bindMen's souls in closer links of lovingness,Than Death itself can sever; still the sightOf too great beauty blinds us, and we loseThe sense of earthly splendours, gaining Heaven.
And still the skies are opened as of oldTo the entrancèd gaze, ay, nearer farAnd brighter than of yore; and Might is there,And Infinite Purity is there, and highEternal Wisdom, and the calm clear faceOf Duty, and a higher, stronger LoveAnd Light in one, and a new, reverend Name,Greater than any and combining all;And over all, veiled with a veil of cloud,God set far off, too bright for mortal eyes.
And always, always, with each soul that comesAnd goes, comes that fair form which was my guide,Hovering, with golden wings and eyes divine,Above the bed of birth, the bed of death,Still breathing heavenly airs of deathless love.
For while a youth is lost in soaring thought,And while a maid grows sweet and beautiful,And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth,And while a child, and while a flower is born,And while one wrong cries for redress and findsA soul to answer, still the world is young!
THE END.
THE END.
Footnotes:[1]Euripides, "Hippolytus," lines 70-78.[2]Virgil, "Æneid," vi. 740.[3]See the Orphic Hymns.
Footnotes:
[1]Euripides, "Hippolytus," lines 70-78.
[1]Euripides, "Hippolytus," lines 70-78.
[2]Virgil, "Æneid," vi. 740.
[2]Virgil, "Æneid," vi. 740.
[3]See the Orphic Hymns.
[3]See the Orphic Hymns.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,LONDON AND BECCLES.
Transcriber's Notes:This text is hemistichia, in that the end of one stanzais vertically aligned with the start of the next stanza.The original font, possibly Caslon Old Face is similarto Goudy Old Style and the text in this file has beenaligned for reading using Goudy Old style or a similar font.Inconsistent Hyphenation and text retained.Pg 168: (Sovereign Here) changed to (Sovereign Heré)