II—THE GREEKS

Dawn on Crotona, dawn without a cloud.In the still garden that Pythagoras made,The Temple of the Muses, firm as truth,Lucid as beauty, the white marriage-songMade visible, of beauty and truth in one,Flushed with the deepening East.It was no dream.The thrush that with his long beak shook and beatThe dark striped snail-shell on the marble flagsBetween the cool white columns told me this.The birds among the silvery olives pealedSo many jargoning rivulet-throated bellsThat in their golden clashings discord drowned,And one wild harmony closed and crowned them allAnd yet, as if the spread wings of a hawkFroze in the sky above them, every noteDied on an instant.Over the sparkling grassThe long dark shadows of ash and pine beganTo shrink, as though the rising of the sunMenaced, not only shadows, but the world.A frightened bird flew, crying, and scattering dewBlindly away; though, on this dawn of dawns,Nothing had changed. The Golden Brotherhood stoleUp through the drifts of wet rose-laurel bloomAs on so many a dawn for many a year,To make their morning vows.They thronged the porch,The lean athletes of truth, trained body and mind,For their immortal trial. Among them toweredMilon, the soldier-wrestler. His brown limbsMoved with the panther’s grace, the warrior’s pride;Milon, who in the Olympic contests wonCrown after crown, but wore them on broad browsCut like fine steel for thought; and, in his eyes,Carried the light of those deep distancesThat challenge the spirit of man.They entered in;And, like the very Muses following them,Theano, and her Golden Sisterhood,First of that chosen womanhood, by the graceOf whose heaven-walking souls the race ascends,Passed through the shining porch.It was no dream.In the bright marble, under the sandalled feet,And in the glimmering columns as they passed,The reflex of their flowing vestments glowedWhite, violet, saffron, like another dawn....Before them, through the temple’s fragrant gloom,The Muses, in their dim half-circle, towered;And, in the midst, over the smouldering myrrh,The form of Hestia.In her mighty shadow,Pythagoras, with a scroll in his right hand,Arose and spoke.“Our work is well-nigh done.Our enemies are closing round us now.I have given the sacred scrolls into the handsOf Lysis; and, though all else be destroyed,If but a Golden Verse or two live onIn other lands, and kindle other soulsTo seek the law, our work is not in vain.If it be death that comes to us, we shall loseNothing that could endure. It was not chanceThat sent us on this pilgrimage through time,But that which lives within us, the desireOf gods, to know what once was dark in heaven.Gods were not gods who, in eternal bliss,Had never known this wonder—the deep joyOf coming home. But we have purchased it,And now return, enriched with memoriesOf mortal love, terrestrial grief and pain,Into our own lost realm.”His dark eyes flashed.He lifted his proud head as one who heardStrains of immortal music even now.He towered among the Muses in the dusk,And then, as though he, too, were carved in stone,And all their voices breathed through his own voice,“Fear nothing now,” he said. “Our foes can stealThe burdens we lay down, but nothing more.All that we are we keep. They strike at shadowsAnd cannot hurt us. Little as we may know,We have learned at least to know the abiding PowerFrom these poor masks of clay. This dust, this flesh,All that we see and touch, are shadows of it,And hourly change and perish. Have we not seenCities and nations, all that is built of earth,Fleeting into the darkness, like grey clouds,And only one thing constant—the great law,The eternal order of their march to death?Have we not seen it written upon the hills?The continents and seas do not endure.They change their borders. Where the seas are nowMountains will rise; and, where the land was, once,The dark Atlantic ends the world for man.But all these changes are not wrought by chance.They follow a great order. It may beThat all things are repeated and reborn;And, in their mighty periods, men returnAnd pass through their forgotten lives anew.It may be; for, at times, the mind recalls—Or half recalls—the turning of a road,A statue on a hill, a passing face....It may be; for our universe is boundIn rhythm; and the setting star will rise.This many a cunning ballad-singer knowsWho haunts the mind of man with dark refrains;Or those deep poets who foretell in verseThe restoration of the world’s great Year.Time never fails. Not Tanais, or the NileCan flow for ever. They spring up and perish;But, after many changes, it may beThese, too, return, with Egypt and her kings.”He paused a moment; then compassion, grief,Wonder and triumph, like one music, spokeFarewell to shadows, from his own deep soulRapt, in pure vision, above the vanishing world:“The torrents drag the rocks into the sea.The great sea smiles, and overflows the land.It hollows out the valleys and returns.The sea has washed the shining rocks awayAnd cleft the headland with its golden fieldsThat once bound Sicily to her mother’s breast.Pharos, that was an island, far from shoreWhen Homer sang, is wedded now and oneWith Egypt. The wild height where Sappho stood,The beautiful, white, immortal promontory,Crowned with Apollo’s temple, long agoThe struggling seas have severed from the land.And those fair Grecian cities, HeliceAnd Buris, wondering fishermen see, far down,With snowy walls and columns all aslant,Trembling under the unremembering wave.The waters of Anigris, that were sweetAs love, are bitter as death. There was a timeWhen Etna did not burn. A time will comeWhen it will cease to burn; for all things change;And mightier things by far have changed than theseIn the slow lapse of never-ending time.I have seen an anchor on the naked hills,And ocean-shells among the mountain-tops.Continents, oceans, all things pass away;But One, One only; for the Eternal MindEnfolds all changes, and can never change.”

Dawn on Crotona, dawn without a cloud.

In the still garden that Pythagoras made,The Temple of the Muses, firm as truth,Lucid as beauty, the white marriage-songMade visible, of beauty and truth in one,Flushed with the deepening East.It was no dream.The thrush that with his long beak shook and beatThe dark striped snail-shell on the marble flagsBetween the cool white columns told me this.The birds among the silvery olives pealedSo many jargoning rivulet-throated bellsThat in their golden clashings discord drowned,And one wild harmony closed and crowned them allAnd yet, as if the spread wings of a hawkFroze in the sky above them, every noteDied on an instant.Over the sparkling grassThe long dark shadows of ash and pine beganTo shrink, as though the rising of the sunMenaced, not only shadows, but the world.

In the still garden that Pythagoras made,

The Temple of the Muses, firm as truth,

Lucid as beauty, the white marriage-song

Made visible, of beauty and truth in one,

Flushed with the deepening East.

It was no dream.

The thrush that with his long beak shook and beat

The dark striped snail-shell on the marble flags

Between the cool white columns told me this.

The birds among the silvery olives pealed

So many jargoning rivulet-throated bells

That in their golden clashings discord drowned,

And one wild harmony closed and crowned them all

And yet, as if the spread wings of a hawk

Froze in the sky above them, every note

Died on an instant.

Over the sparkling grass

The long dark shadows of ash and pine began

To shrink, as though the rising of the sun

Menaced, not only shadows, but the world.

A frightened bird flew, crying, and scattering dewBlindly away; though, on this dawn of dawns,Nothing had changed. The Golden Brotherhood stoleUp through the drifts of wet rose-laurel bloomAs on so many a dawn for many a year,To make their morning vows.They thronged the porch,The lean athletes of truth, trained body and mind,For their immortal trial. Among them toweredMilon, the soldier-wrestler. His brown limbsMoved with the panther’s grace, the warrior’s pride;Milon, who in the Olympic contests wonCrown after crown, but wore them on broad browsCut like fine steel for thought; and, in his eyes,Carried the light of those deep distancesThat challenge the spirit of man.They entered in;And, like the very Muses following them,Theano, and her Golden Sisterhood,First of that chosen womanhood, by the graceOf whose heaven-walking souls the race ascends,Passed through the shining porch.It was no dream.In the bright marble, under the sandalled feet,And in the glimmering columns as they passed,The reflex of their flowing vestments glowedWhite, violet, saffron, like another dawn.

A frightened bird flew, crying, and scattering dew

Blindly away; though, on this dawn of dawns,

Nothing had changed. The Golden Brotherhood stole

Up through the drifts of wet rose-laurel bloom

As on so many a dawn for many a year,

To make their morning vows.

They thronged the porch,

The lean athletes of truth, trained body and mind,

For their immortal trial. Among them towered

Milon, the soldier-wrestler. His brown limbs

Moved with the panther’s grace, the warrior’s pride;

Milon, who in the Olympic contests won

Crown after crown, but wore them on broad brows

Cut like fine steel for thought; and, in his eyes,

Carried the light of those deep distances

That challenge the spirit of man.

They entered in;

And, like the very Muses following them,

Theano, and her Golden Sisterhood,

First of that chosen womanhood, by the grace

Of whose heaven-walking souls the race ascends,

Passed through the shining porch.

It was no dream.

In the bright marble, under the sandalled feet,

And in the glimmering columns as they passed,

The reflex of their flowing vestments glowed

White, violet, saffron, like another dawn.

...

Before them, through the temple’s fragrant gloom,The Muses, in their dim half-circle, towered;And, in the midst, over the smouldering myrrh,The form of Hestia.In her mighty shadow,Pythagoras, with a scroll in his right hand,Arose and spoke.“Our work is well-nigh done.Our enemies are closing round us now.I have given the sacred scrolls into the handsOf Lysis; and, though all else be destroyed,If but a Golden Verse or two live onIn other lands, and kindle other soulsTo seek the law, our work is not in vain.If it be death that comes to us, we shall loseNothing that could endure. It was not chanceThat sent us on this pilgrimage through time,But that which lives within us, the desireOf gods, to know what once was dark in heaven.Gods were not gods who, in eternal bliss,Had never known this wonder—the deep joyOf coming home. But we have purchased it,And now return, enriched with memoriesOf mortal love, terrestrial grief and pain,Into our own lost realm.”His dark eyes flashed.He lifted his proud head as one who heardStrains of immortal music even now.He towered among the Muses in the dusk,And then, as though he, too, were carved in stone,And all their voices breathed through his own voice,“Fear nothing now,” he said. “Our foes can stealThe burdens we lay down, but nothing more.All that we are we keep. They strike at shadowsAnd cannot hurt us. Little as we may know,We have learned at least to know the abiding PowerFrom these poor masks of clay. This dust, this flesh,All that we see and touch, are shadows of it,And hourly change and perish. Have we not seenCities and nations, all that is built of earth,Fleeting into the darkness, like grey clouds,And only one thing constant—the great law,The eternal order of their march to death?Have we not seen it written upon the hills?The continents and seas do not endure.They change their borders. Where the seas are nowMountains will rise; and, where the land was, once,The dark Atlantic ends the world for man.But all these changes are not wrought by chance.They follow a great order. It may beThat all things are repeated and reborn;And, in their mighty periods, men returnAnd pass through their forgotten lives anew.It may be; for, at times, the mind recalls—Or half recalls—the turning of a road,A statue on a hill, a passing face....It may be; for our universe is boundIn rhythm; and the setting star will rise.This many a cunning ballad-singer knowsWho haunts the mind of man with dark refrains;Or those deep poets who foretell in verseThe restoration of the world’s great Year.Time never fails. Not Tanais, or the NileCan flow for ever. They spring up and perish;But, after many changes, it may beThese, too, return, with Egypt and her kings.”

Before them, through the temple’s fragrant gloom,

The Muses, in their dim half-circle, towered;

And, in the midst, over the smouldering myrrh,

The form of Hestia.

In her mighty shadow,

Pythagoras, with a scroll in his right hand,

Arose and spoke.

“Our work is well-nigh done.

Our enemies are closing round us now.

I have given the sacred scrolls into the hands

Of Lysis; and, though all else be destroyed,

If but a Golden Verse or two live on

In other lands, and kindle other souls

To seek the law, our work is not in vain.

If it be death that comes to us, we shall lose

Nothing that could endure. It was not chance

That sent us on this pilgrimage through time,

But that which lives within us, the desire

Of gods, to know what once was dark in heaven.

Gods were not gods who, in eternal bliss,

Had never known this wonder—the deep joy

Of coming home. But we have purchased it,

And now return, enriched with memories

Of mortal love, terrestrial grief and pain,

Into our own lost realm.”

His dark eyes flashed.

He lifted his proud head as one who heard

Strains of immortal music even now.

He towered among the Muses in the dusk,

And then, as though he, too, were carved in stone,

And all their voices breathed through his own voice,

“Fear nothing now,” he said. “Our foes can steal

The burdens we lay down, but nothing more.

All that we are we keep. They strike at shadows

And cannot hurt us. Little as we may know,

We have learned at least to know the abiding Power

From these poor masks of clay. This dust, this flesh,

All that we see and touch, are shadows of it,

And hourly change and perish. Have we not seen

Cities and nations, all that is built of earth,

Fleeting into the darkness, like grey clouds,

And only one thing constant—the great law,

The eternal order of their march to death?

Have we not seen it written upon the hills?

The continents and seas do not endure.

They change their borders. Where the seas are now

Mountains will rise; and, where the land was, once,

The dark Atlantic ends the world for man.

But all these changes are not wrought by chance.

They follow a great order. It may be

That all things are repeated and reborn;

And, in their mighty periods, men return

And pass through their forgotten lives anew.

It may be; for, at times, the mind recalls—

Or half recalls—the turning of a road,

A statue on a hill, a passing face....

It may be; for our universe is bound

In rhythm; and the setting star will rise.

This many a cunning ballad-singer knows

Who haunts the mind of man with dark refrains;

Or those deep poets who foretell in verse

The restoration of the world’s great Year.

Time never fails. Not Tanais, or the Nile

Can flow for ever. They spring up and perish;

But, after many changes, it may be

These, too, return, with Egypt and her kings.”

He paused a moment; then compassion, grief,Wonder and triumph, like one music, spokeFarewell to shadows, from his own deep soulRapt, in pure vision, above the vanishing world:“The torrents drag the rocks into the sea.The great sea smiles, and overflows the land.It hollows out the valleys and returns.The sea has washed the shining rocks awayAnd cleft the headland with its golden fieldsThat once bound Sicily to her mother’s breast.Pharos, that was an island, far from shoreWhen Homer sang, is wedded now and oneWith Egypt. The wild height where Sappho stood,The beautiful, white, immortal promontory,Crowned with Apollo’s temple, long agoThe struggling seas have severed from the land.And those fair Grecian cities, HeliceAnd Buris, wondering fishermen see, far down,With snowy walls and columns all aslant,Trembling under the unremembering wave.The waters of Anigris, that were sweetAs love, are bitter as death. There was a timeWhen Etna did not burn. A time will comeWhen it will cease to burn; for all things change;And mightier things by far have changed than theseIn the slow lapse of never-ending time.I have seen an anchor on the naked hills,And ocean-shells among the mountain-tops.Continents, oceans, all things pass away;But One, One only; for the Eternal MindEnfolds all changes, and can never change.”

He paused a moment; then compassion, grief,

Wonder and triumph, like one music, spoke

Farewell to shadows, from his own deep soul

Rapt, in pure vision, above the vanishing world:

“The torrents drag the rocks into the sea.

The great sea smiles, and overflows the land.

It hollows out the valleys and returns.

The sea has washed the shining rocks away

And cleft the headland with its golden fields

That once bound Sicily to her mother’s breast.

Pharos, that was an island, far from shore

When Homer sang, is wedded now and one

With Egypt. The wild height where Sappho stood,

The beautiful, white, immortal promontory,

Crowned with Apollo’s temple, long ago

The struggling seas have severed from the land.

And those fair Grecian cities, Helice

And Buris, wondering fishermen see, far down,

With snowy walls and columns all aslant,

Trembling under the unremembering wave.

The waters of Anigris, that were sweet

As love, are bitter as death. There was a time

When Etna did not burn. A time will come

When it will cease to burn; for all things change;

And mightier things by far have changed than these

In the slow lapse of never-ending time.

I have seen an anchor on the naked hills,

And ocean-shells among the mountain-tops.

Continents, oceans, all things pass away;

But One, One only; for the Eternal Mind

Enfolds all changes, and can never change.”

Night on Crotona, night without a star.I heard the mob, outside the Temple, roaringDeath to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!Before the flushed white columns, in the glareOf all those angry torches, Cylon stoodWickedly smiling. “They have barred the doors.Pythagoras and his forty chosen soulsAre all within. They are trapped, and they shall die.It will be best to whet the people’s rageBefore we lay the axe, or set the torchAgainst the Muses’ temple. One wild howlOf ‘sacrilege’ may defeat us.”—This he called“Faith in the people.”He moistened his dry lips,And raised his hand. The savage clamouring ceased.One breathless moment, ere he spoke, he paused,Gathering his thoughts. His thin white weasel faceNarrowed, his eyes contracted. In their pain—Pain pitiable, a torment of the mind—A bitter memory burned, of how he suedTo join that golden brotherhood in vain.For when the Master saw him, he discernedA spirit in darkness, violent, empty of thought,But full of shallow vanity, cunning lies,Intense ambition.All now was turned to hate;Hate the destroyer of men, the wrecker of cities,The last disease of nations; hate, the fireThat eats away the heart; hate, the lean ratThat gnaws the brain, till even reason glaresLike madness through blind eyes; hate, the thin snakeThat coils like whip-cord round the victim’s soulAnd strangles it; hate, that slides up through his throat,And with its flat and quivering head usurpsThe function of his tongue,—to sting and sting,Till all that poison which is now his lifeIs drained, and he lies dead; hate, that still lives,And for the power to strike and sting again,May yet destroy this world.So Cylon stood,Quivering a moment, in the fiery glare,Over the multitude.Then, in his right hand,He shook a roll of parchment over his head,Crying,The Master said it!At that word,A snarl, as of a myriad-throated beast,Broke out again, and deepened into a roar—Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!Cylon upheld his hand, as if to blessA stormy sea with calm. The howling diedInto a deadly hush. With twisted lipsHe spoke.“This is their Scroll, the Sacred Word,The Secret Doctrine of their Golden Order!Hear it!”Then, interweaving truth with lies,Till even the truth struck like a venomed dartInto his hearers’ minds, he read aloudHis cunningly chosen fragments.At the end,He tore the scroll, and trampled it underfoot.“Ye have heard,” he said. “Ye are kin to all the beasts!And, when ye die, your souls again inhabitBodies of beasts, wild beasts, and beasts of burden.Even yet more loathsome—he that will not starveHis flesh, and tame himself and all mankindTo bear this golden yoke shall, after death,Dwell in the flesh of swine. He that rejectsThis wisdom shall, hereafter, seek the lightThrough endless years, with toads, asps, creeping things.Thus would they exile all our happier gods!Away with Bacchus and his feasts of joy!Back, Aphrodite, to your shameful foam!Men must be tamed, like beasts.The Master said it!And wherefore? There are certain lordly soulsWho rise above the beasts, and talk with gods.These are his Golden Brotherhood; these must rule!Ye heard that verse from Homer—whom he loves—Homer, the sycophant, who could call a prince‘The shepherd of his people.’ What are ye,Even in this life, then, but their bleating flocks?The Master said it!Homer—his demi-god,Ye know his kind; ye know whence Homer sprang;An old blind beggarman, singing for his food,Through every city in Greece”—(This Cylon calledHonouring the people)—“already he is outworn,Forgotten, without a word for this young age;And great Pythagoras crowns him!When they chooseTheir Golden Brotherhood, they lay down their laws,Declaring none may rule until he learn,Prostrate himself in reverence to the dead,And pass, through golden discipline, to powerOver himself and you; but—mark this well—Under Pythagoras! Discipline! Ah, that pathIs narrow and difficult. Only three hundred souls,Aristocrats of knowledge, have attainedThis glory. It is against the people’s willTo know, or to acknowledge those that know,Or let their knowledge lead them for one hour.For see—see how the gods have driven them mad,Even in their knowledge! In their own Sacred Scroll,Pythagoras, who derives you from the beasts,Affirms that earth, this earth beneath our feet,Spins like a little planet round the sun!”A brutal bellowing, as of Asian bulls,Boomed from a thousand mouths. (This Cylon calledThe laughter of the people and their gods.)He raised his hand. It ceased.“Thisis their knowledge,Andthis,” he cried, “their charter to obscureWhat all men know, the natural face of things.Thisproves their right to rule us from above.They meet here nightly. Nightly they conspireAgainst your rights, your liberties, and mine.Was it not they who, when the people roseIn Sybaris, housed her noble fugitives here?And was it not Pythagoras who refusedTo send them back to Sybaris and their death?Was it not this that plunged us into warWith Sybaris; and, when victory crowned our arms,Who but Pythagoras robbed us of its fruits?We gathered booty, and he called it theft.We burned their palaces, and he called it hate.We avenged our sons. He called it butchery,And said the wild beast wakes again in man.What have we gained, then? Nothing but the prideOf saving those Pythagoras wished to save;Counting gold dross, and serving his pure gods.The Master said it.What is your judgment, then?”He stretched one hand, appealing to the crowd,And one to the white still Temple.“Death! Death! Death!”Under the flaring torches, the long wavesOf tense hot faces opened a thousand mouths,Little blue pits of shadow that raced along them,And shook the red smoke with one volleying roar,—Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!...But, in the Temple, through those massive walls,While Cylon spoke, no whisper had been heard;Only, at times, a murmur, when he paused,As of a ninth wave breaking, far away.The half-moon of the Muses, crowned with calm,Towered through the dimness. Under their giant knees,In their immortal shadow, those who knewHow little was their knowledge waited deathProudly, around their Master. Robed in white,Beautiful as Apollo in old age,He stood amongst them, laying a gentle hand,One last caress, upon that dearest headBowed there before him, his own daughter’s hair.Then, tenderly, the god within him movedHis mortal lips; and, in the darkness there,He spoke, as though the music of the spheresWelled from his heart, to ease the hurts of death.“Not tears, belovèd. Give it welcome, rather!Soon, though they spared us, this blind flesh would fail.They are saving us the weary mile or twoThat end a dusty journey. The dull stainsOf travel; the soiled vesture; the sick heartThat hoped at every turning of the roadTo see the Perfect City, and hoped in vain,Shall grieve us now no more. Now, at the last,After a stern novitiate, iron test,And grinding failures, the great light draws near,And we shall pass together, through the Veil.”He bowed his head. It was their hour of prayer;And, from among the Muses in the dark,A woman’s voice, a voice in ecstasy,As if a wound should bless the sword that made it,Breathed through the night the music of their law:Close not thine eyes in sleepTill thou hast searched thy memories of the day,Graved in thy heart the vow thou didst not keep,And called each wandering thought back to the way.Pray to the gods! Their aid,Their aid alone can crown thy work aright;Teach thee that song whereof all worlds were made;Rend the last veil, and feed thine eyes with light.Naught shall deceive thee, then.All creatures of the sea and earth and air,The circling stars, the warring tribes of menShall make one harmony, and thy soul shall hear.Out of this prison of clayWith lifted face, a mask of struggling fire,With arms of flesh and bone stretched up to pray,Dumb, thou shalt hear that Voice of thy desire.Thou that wast brought so low;And through those lower lives hast risen again,Kin to the beasts, with power at last to knowThine own proud banishment and diviner pain;Courage, O conquering soul!For all the boundless night that whelms thee now,Though worlds on worlds into that darkness roll,The gods abide; and of their race art thou!There was a thunder of axes at the doors;A glare as of a furnace; and the cry,Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!Then, over the streaming smoke and the wild lightThat like a stormy sunset sank awayInto a darker night, the deeper mistRolled down, and of that death I knew no more.

Night on Crotona, night without a star.I heard the mob, outside the Temple, roaringDeath to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!

Night on Crotona, night without a star.

I heard the mob, outside the Temple, roaring

Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!

Before the flushed white columns, in the glareOf all those angry torches, Cylon stoodWickedly smiling. “They have barred the doors.Pythagoras and his forty chosen soulsAre all within. They are trapped, and they shall die.It will be best to whet the people’s rageBefore we lay the axe, or set the torchAgainst the Muses’ temple. One wild howlOf ‘sacrilege’ may defeat us.”—This he called“Faith in the people.”He moistened his dry lips,And raised his hand. The savage clamouring ceased.One breathless moment, ere he spoke, he paused,Gathering his thoughts. His thin white weasel faceNarrowed, his eyes contracted. In their pain—Pain pitiable, a torment of the mind—A bitter memory burned, of how he suedTo join that golden brotherhood in vain.For when the Master saw him, he discernedA spirit in darkness, violent, empty of thought,But full of shallow vanity, cunning lies,Intense ambition.All now was turned to hate;Hate the destroyer of men, the wrecker of cities,The last disease of nations; hate, the fireThat eats away the heart; hate, the lean ratThat gnaws the brain, till even reason glaresLike madness through blind eyes; hate, the thin snakeThat coils like whip-cord round the victim’s soulAnd strangles it; hate, that slides up through his throat,And with its flat and quivering head usurpsThe function of his tongue,—to sting and sting,Till all that poison which is now his lifeIs drained, and he lies dead; hate, that still lives,And for the power to strike and sting again,May yet destroy this world.So Cylon stood,Quivering a moment, in the fiery glare,Over the multitude.Then, in his right hand,He shook a roll of parchment over his head,Crying,The Master said it!At that word,A snarl, as of a myriad-throated beast,Broke out again, and deepened into a roar—Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!

Before the flushed white columns, in the glare

Of all those angry torches, Cylon stood

Wickedly smiling. “They have barred the doors.

Pythagoras and his forty chosen souls

Are all within. They are trapped, and they shall die.

It will be best to whet the people’s rage

Before we lay the axe, or set the torch

Against the Muses’ temple. One wild howl

Of ‘sacrilege’ may defeat us.”—This he called

“Faith in the people.”

He moistened his dry lips,

And raised his hand. The savage clamouring ceased.

One breathless moment, ere he spoke, he paused,

Gathering his thoughts. His thin white weasel face

Narrowed, his eyes contracted. In their pain

—Pain pitiable, a torment of the mind—

A bitter memory burned, of how he sued

To join that golden brotherhood in vain.

For when the Master saw him, he discerned

A spirit in darkness, violent, empty of thought,

But full of shallow vanity, cunning lies,

Intense ambition.

All now was turned to hate;

Hate the destroyer of men, the wrecker of cities,

The last disease of nations; hate, the fire

That eats away the heart; hate, the lean rat

That gnaws the brain, till even reason glares

Like madness through blind eyes; hate, the thin snake

That coils like whip-cord round the victim’s soul

And strangles it; hate, that slides up through his throat,

And with its flat and quivering head usurps

The function of his tongue,—to sting and sting,

Till all that poison which is now his life

Is drained, and he lies dead; hate, that still lives,

And for the power to strike and sting again,

May yet destroy this world.

So Cylon stood,

Quivering a moment, in the fiery glare,

Over the multitude.

Then, in his right hand,

He shook a roll of parchment over his head,

Crying,The Master said it!

At that word,

A snarl, as of a myriad-throated beast,

Broke out again, and deepened into a roar—

Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!

Cylon upheld his hand, as if to blessA stormy sea with calm. The howling diedInto a deadly hush. With twisted lipsHe spoke.

Cylon upheld his hand, as if to bless

A stormy sea with calm. The howling died

Into a deadly hush. With twisted lips

He spoke.

“This is their Scroll, the Sacred Word,The Secret Doctrine of their Golden Order!Hear it!”Then, interweaving truth with lies,Till even the truth struck like a venomed dartInto his hearers’ minds, he read aloudHis cunningly chosen fragments.At the end,He tore the scroll, and trampled it underfoot.“Ye have heard,” he said. “Ye are kin to all the beasts!And, when ye die, your souls again inhabitBodies of beasts, wild beasts, and beasts of burden.Even yet more loathsome—he that will not starveHis flesh, and tame himself and all mankindTo bear this golden yoke shall, after death,Dwell in the flesh of swine. He that rejectsThis wisdom shall, hereafter, seek the lightThrough endless years, with toads, asps, creeping things.Thus would they exile all our happier gods!Away with Bacchus and his feasts of joy!Back, Aphrodite, to your shameful foam!Men must be tamed, like beasts.The Master said it!And wherefore? There are certain lordly soulsWho rise above the beasts, and talk with gods.These are his Golden Brotherhood; these must rule!Ye heard that verse from Homer—whom he loves—Homer, the sycophant, who could call a prince‘The shepherd of his people.’ What are ye,Even in this life, then, but their bleating flocks?The Master said it!Homer—his demi-god,Ye know his kind; ye know whence Homer sprang;An old blind beggarman, singing for his food,Through every city in Greece”—(This Cylon calledHonouring the people)—“already he is outworn,Forgotten, without a word for this young age;And great Pythagoras crowns him!When they chooseTheir Golden Brotherhood, they lay down their laws,Declaring none may rule until he learn,Prostrate himself in reverence to the dead,And pass, through golden discipline, to powerOver himself and you; but—mark this well—Under Pythagoras! Discipline! Ah, that pathIs narrow and difficult. Only three hundred souls,Aristocrats of knowledge, have attainedThis glory. It is against the people’s willTo know, or to acknowledge those that know,Or let their knowledge lead them for one hour.For see—see how the gods have driven them mad,Even in their knowledge! In their own Sacred Scroll,Pythagoras, who derives you from the beasts,Affirms that earth, this earth beneath our feet,Spins like a little planet round the sun!”

“This is their Scroll, the Sacred Word,

The Secret Doctrine of their Golden Order!

Hear it!”

Then, interweaving truth with lies,

Till even the truth struck like a venomed dart

Into his hearers’ minds, he read aloud

His cunningly chosen fragments.

At the end,

He tore the scroll, and trampled it underfoot.

“Ye have heard,” he said. “Ye are kin to all the beasts!

And, when ye die, your souls again inhabit

Bodies of beasts, wild beasts, and beasts of burden.

Even yet more loathsome—he that will not starve

His flesh, and tame himself and all mankind

To bear this golden yoke shall, after death,

Dwell in the flesh of swine. He that rejects

This wisdom shall, hereafter, seek the light

Through endless years, with toads, asps, creeping things.

Thus would they exile all our happier gods!

Away with Bacchus and his feasts of joy!

Back, Aphrodite, to your shameful foam!

Men must be tamed, like beasts.

The Master said it!

And wherefore? There are certain lordly souls

Who rise above the beasts, and talk with gods.

These are his Golden Brotherhood; these must rule!

Ye heard that verse from Homer—whom he loves—

Homer, the sycophant, who could call a prince

‘The shepherd of his people.’ What are ye,

Even in this life, then, but their bleating flocks?

The Master said it!

Homer—his demi-god,

Ye know his kind; ye know whence Homer sprang;

An old blind beggarman, singing for his food,

Through every city in Greece”—(This Cylon called

Honouring the people)—“already he is outworn,

Forgotten, without a word for this young age;

And great Pythagoras crowns him!

When they choose

Their Golden Brotherhood, they lay down their laws,

Declaring none may rule until he learn,

Prostrate himself in reverence to the dead,

And pass, through golden discipline, to power

Over himself and you; but—mark this well—

Under Pythagoras! Discipline! Ah, that path

Is narrow and difficult. Only three hundred souls,

Aristocrats of knowledge, have attained

This glory. It is against the people’s will

To know, or to acknowledge those that know,

Or let their knowledge lead them for one hour.

For see—see how the gods have driven them mad,

Even in their knowledge! In their own Sacred Scroll,

Pythagoras, who derives you from the beasts,

Affirms that earth, this earth beneath our feet,

Spins like a little planet round the sun!”

A brutal bellowing, as of Asian bulls,Boomed from a thousand mouths. (This Cylon calledThe laughter of the people and their gods.)He raised his hand. It ceased.“Thisis their knowledge,Andthis,” he cried, “their charter to obscureWhat all men know, the natural face of things.Thisproves their right to rule us from above.They meet here nightly. Nightly they conspireAgainst your rights, your liberties, and mine.Was it not they who, when the people roseIn Sybaris, housed her noble fugitives here?And was it not Pythagoras who refusedTo send them back to Sybaris and their death?Was it not this that plunged us into warWith Sybaris; and, when victory crowned our arms,Who but Pythagoras robbed us of its fruits?We gathered booty, and he called it theft.We burned their palaces, and he called it hate.We avenged our sons. He called it butchery,And said the wild beast wakes again in man.What have we gained, then? Nothing but the prideOf saving those Pythagoras wished to save;Counting gold dross, and serving his pure gods.The Master said it.What is your judgment, then?”He stretched one hand, appealing to the crowd,And one to the white still Temple.“Death! Death! Death!”Under the flaring torches, the long wavesOf tense hot faces opened a thousand mouths,Little blue pits of shadow that raced along them,And shook the red smoke with one volleying roar,—Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!

A brutal bellowing, as of Asian bulls,

Boomed from a thousand mouths. (This Cylon called

The laughter of the people and their gods.)

He raised his hand. It ceased.

“Thisis their knowledge,

Andthis,” he cried, “their charter to obscure

What all men know, the natural face of things.

Thisproves their right to rule us from above.

They meet here nightly. Nightly they conspire

Against your rights, your liberties, and mine.

Was it not they who, when the people rose

In Sybaris, housed her noble fugitives here?

And was it not Pythagoras who refused

To send them back to Sybaris and their death?

Was it not this that plunged us into war

With Sybaris; and, when victory crowned our arms,

Who but Pythagoras robbed us of its fruits?

We gathered booty, and he called it theft.

We burned their palaces, and he called it hate.

We avenged our sons. He called it butchery,

And said the wild beast wakes again in man.

What have we gained, then? Nothing but the pride

Of saving those Pythagoras wished to save;

Counting gold dross, and serving his pure gods.

The Master said it.What is your judgment, then?”

He stretched one hand, appealing to the crowd,

And one to the white still Temple.

“Death! Death! Death!”

Under the flaring torches, the long waves

Of tense hot faces opened a thousand mouths,

Little blue pits of shadow that raced along them,

And shook the red smoke with one volleying roar,—

Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!

...

But, in the Temple, through those massive walls,While Cylon spoke, no whisper had been heard;Only, at times, a murmur, when he paused,As of a ninth wave breaking, far away.

But, in the Temple, through those massive walls,

While Cylon spoke, no whisper had been heard;

Only, at times, a murmur, when he paused,

As of a ninth wave breaking, far away.

The half-moon of the Muses, crowned with calm,Towered through the dimness. Under their giant knees,In their immortal shadow, those who knewHow little was their knowledge waited deathProudly, around their Master. Robed in white,Beautiful as Apollo in old age,He stood amongst them, laying a gentle hand,One last caress, upon that dearest headBowed there before him, his own daughter’s hair.Then, tenderly, the god within him movedHis mortal lips; and, in the darkness there,He spoke, as though the music of the spheresWelled from his heart, to ease the hurts of death.

The half-moon of the Muses, crowned with calm,

Towered through the dimness. Under their giant knees,

In their immortal shadow, those who knew

How little was their knowledge waited death

Proudly, around their Master. Robed in white,

Beautiful as Apollo in old age,

He stood amongst them, laying a gentle hand,

One last caress, upon that dearest head

Bowed there before him, his own daughter’s hair.

Then, tenderly, the god within him moved

His mortal lips; and, in the darkness there,

He spoke, as though the music of the spheres

Welled from his heart, to ease the hurts of death.

“Not tears, belovèd. Give it welcome, rather!Soon, though they spared us, this blind flesh would fail.They are saving us the weary mile or twoThat end a dusty journey. The dull stainsOf travel; the soiled vesture; the sick heartThat hoped at every turning of the roadTo see the Perfect City, and hoped in vain,Shall grieve us now no more. Now, at the last,After a stern novitiate, iron test,And grinding failures, the great light draws near,And we shall pass together, through the Veil.”

“Not tears, belovèd. Give it welcome, rather!

Soon, though they spared us, this blind flesh would fail.

They are saving us the weary mile or two

That end a dusty journey. The dull stains

Of travel; the soiled vesture; the sick heart

That hoped at every turning of the road

To see the Perfect City, and hoped in vain,

Shall grieve us now no more. Now, at the last,

After a stern novitiate, iron test,

And grinding failures, the great light draws near,

And we shall pass together, through the Veil.”

He bowed his head. It was their hour of prayer;And, from among the Muses in the dark,A woman’s voice, a voice in ecstasy,As if a wound should bless the sword that made it,Breathed through the night the music of their law:

He bowed his head. It was their hour of prayer;

And, from among the Muses in the dark,

A woman’s voice, a voice in ecstasy,

As if a wound should bless the sword that made it,

Breathed through the night the music of their law:

Close not thine eyes in sleepTill thou hast searched thy memories of the day,Graved in thy heart the vow thou didst not keep,And called each wandering thought back to the way.

Close not thine eyes in sleep

Till thou hast searched thy memories of the day,

Graved in thy heart the vow thou didst not keep,

And called each wandering thought back to the way.

Pray to the gods! Their aid,Their aid alone can crown thy work aright;Teach thee that song whereof all worlds were made;Rend the last veil, and feed thine eyes with light.

Pray to the gods! Their aid,

Their aid alone can crown thy work aright;

Teach thee that song whereof all worlds were made;

Rend the last veil, and feed thine eyes with light.

Naught shall deceive thee, then.All creatures of the sea and earth and air,The circling stars, the warring tribes of menShall make one harmony, and thy soul shall hear.

Naught shall deceive thee, then.

All creatures of the sea and earth and air,

The circling stars, the warring tribes of men

Shall make one harmony, and thy soul shall hear.

Out of this prison of clayWith lifted face, a mask of struggling fire,With arms of flesh and bone stretched up to pray,Dumb, thou shalt hear that Voice of thy desire.

Out of this prison of clay

With lifted face, a mask of struggling fire,

With arms of flesh and bone stretched up to pray,

Dumb, thou shalt hear that Voice of thy desire.

Thou that wast brought so low;And through those lower lives hast risen again,Kin to the beasts, with power at last to knowThine own proud banishment and diviner pain;

Thou that wast brought so low;

And through those lower lives hast risen again,

Kin to the beasts, with power at last to know

Thine own proud banishment and diviner pain;

Courage, O conquering soul!For all the boundless night that whelms thee now,Though worlds on worlds into that darkness roll,The gods abide; and of their race art thou!

Courage, O conquering soul!

For all the boundless night that whelms thee now,

Though worlds on worlds into that darkness roll,

The gods abide; and of their race art thou!

There was a thunder of axes at the doors;A glare as of a furnace; and the cry,Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!

There was a thunder of axes at the doors;

A glare as of a furnace; and the cry,

Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!

Then, over the streaming smoke and the wild lightThat like a stormy sunset sank awayInto a darker night, the deeper mistRolled down, and of that death I knew no more.

Then, over the streaming smoke and the wild light

That like a stormy sunset sank away

Into a darker night, the deeper mist

Rolled down, and of that death I knew no more.

The mists unfolded on a sparkling coastWashed by a violet sea.It was no dream.The clustering irised bubbles in the foam,The grinding stir as through the shining pebblesThe wave ran back; the little drifts of smokeWhere wet black rocks dried grey in the hot sun;The pods of sea-weed, crackling underfoot,All told me this.My comrade at my side,Moved like a shadow. I turned a promontory,And like a memory of my own lost youth,Shining and far, across the gulf I sawStagira, like a little city of snow,Under the Thracian hills.Nothing had changed.I saw the City where that Greek was bornWho ranged all art, all life, and lit a fireThat shines yet, after twice a thousand years;And strange, but strange as truth, it was to hearNo slightest change in that old rhythmic soundOf waves against the shore.Then, at my side,My soul’s companion whispered, all unseen,‘Two thousand years have hidden him from the world,Robed him in grey and bearded him with eld,Untrue to his warm life. There was a timeWhen he was young as truth is; and the sunBrowned his young body, danced in his young grey eyes;And look—the time is now.’There, as he spoke,I saw among the rocks on my right hand,Lying, face downward, over a deep rock-pool,A youth, so still that, till a herring-gull swoopedAnd sheered away from him with a startled cryAnd a wild flutter of its brown mottled wings,I had not seen him.Quietly we drew near,As shadows may, unseen.He pored intentUpon a sea-anemone, like a flowerOpening its disk of blue and crimson raysUnder the lucid water.He stretched his hand,And with a sea-gull’s feather, touched its heart.The bright disk shrank, and closed, as though a flowerTurned instantly to fruit, ripe, soft, and roundAs the pursed lips of a sea-god hiding there.They fastened, sucking, on the quill and held it.Young Aristotle laughed. He rose to his feet.“Come and see this!” he called.Under the cliffNicomachus arose, and drawing his robeMore closely round him, crossed the slippery rocksTo join his son.There, side by side, they crouchedOver the limpid pool,—the grey physicianAnd eager boy.“See, how it grips the feather!And grips the rock, too. Yet it has no roots.Your sea-flowers turn to animals with mouths.Take out the quill. Now it turns back againInto a flower; look—look—what lovely colours,What marvellous artistry.This never was formedBy chance. It has an aim beyond this pool.What does it mean? This unity of design?This delicate scale of life that seems to ascendWithout a break, through all the forms of earthFrom plants to men? The sea-sponge that I foundGrew like a blind rock-rooted clump of mossDilating in water, shrinking in the sun;I know it for a strange sea-animal now,Shaped like the brain of a man. Can it be trueThat, as the poets fable in their songsOf Aphrodite, life itself was bornHere, in the sea?”Nicomachus looked at him.“That’s a dark riddle, my son. You will not hearAn answer in the groves of Academe,Not even from Plato. When you go to AthensNext year, remember, among the loftiest flightsOf their philosophy, that the living truthIs here on earth if we could only see it.This, this at least, all true Asclepiads know.Remember, always, in that battle of words,The truth that father handed down to sonThrough the long line of men that served their kindFrom Æsculapius, father of us all,To you his own descendant:—naught availsIn science, till the light you seize from heavenShines through the clear sharp fact beneath your feet.This is the test of both—that, in their wedding,The light that was a disembodied dreamBurns through the fact, and makes a lanthorn of it,Transfigures it, confirms it, gives it newAnd deeper meanings; and itself, in turn,Is thereby seen more truly.Use your eyes;And you, or those that follow you, will outsoarPythagoras.He believed the soul descendsFrom the pure realm of gods; is clothed with clay;And, struggling upward through a myriad forms,After a myriad lives and deaths, returnsEnriched with all those memories, lord of allThat knowledge, master of all those griefs and painsAs else it could not be, home to the gods,Itself a god, prepared for the full bliss,The living consummation of the whole.Earth must be old, if all these things are true.But take this tale and read it. If it seemOnly a tale, the light in it has turnedDark facts to lanthorns for me. There are talesMore true than any fragment of the truth.One of his homeless clan (who came to meDying), his last disciple’s wandering son,Gave me the scroll. I give it now to you,—The young swift-footed runner with the fire.You’ll find strange thoughts; and, woven into the close,His Golden Verses, with a thought more strange.”Then, from his breast, the Asclepiad drew a scroll,Smooth as old ivory, honey-stained by time,A wand of whispering magic; and the boySeized it with brown young hands.His father smiledAnd turned away, between the shining poolsTo seek Stagira. Under his sandalled feetThe sea-weeds crackled. His footsteps crunched awayAlong the beach.Upon a sun-warmed rockThe boy outspread the curled papyrus-roll,Keeping each corner in place with a small grey stone.There, while the white robe drifting down the coastGrew smaller and smaller, till at last it seemedA flake of vanishing foam, he lay full length,Reading the tale.The salt on his brown skinDried to a faint white powder in the sun.Over him, growing bold, the peering gullsWheeled closer, as he lay there, tranced and still;Till, through the tale, the golden verses breathedLike a returning music, rhythmic tonesChanged by new voices, coloured by new minds,Yet speaking still for one time-conquering soul,As on the shore the wandering ripples changedAnd tossed new spray-drops into the sparkling air,Yet pulsed with the ancient breathing of the sea:Guard the immortal fire.Honour the glorious line of the great dead.To the new height let all thy soul aspire;But let those memories be thy wine and bread.Quench not in any shrineThe smouldering storax. In no human heartQuench what love kindled. Faintly though it shine,Not till it wholly dies the gods depart.Truth has remembering eyes.The wind-blown throng will clamour at Falsehood’s gate.Has Falsehood triumphed? Let the world despiseThy constant mind. Stand thou aside, and wait.Write not thy thoughts on snow.Grave them in rock to front the thundering sky.From Time’s proud feast, when it is time to go,Take the dark road; bid one more world good-bye.The lie may steal an hour.The truth has living roots, and they strike deep.A moment’s glory kills the rootless flower,While the true stem is gathering strength in sleep.Out of this earth, this dust,Out of this flesh, this blood, this living tomb;Out of these cosmic throes of wrath, and lust,Breaks the lost splendour from the world’s blind womb.Courage, O conquering soul!For all the boundless night that whelms thee now,Though suns and stars into oblivion roll,The gods abide, and of their race art thou.

The mists unfolded on a sparkling coast

Washed by a violet sea.

It was no dream.

The clustering irised bubbles in the foam,

The grinding stir as through the shining pebbles

The wave ran back; the little drifts of smoke

Where wet black rocks dried grey in the hot sun;

The pods of sea-weed, crackling underfoot,

All told me this.

My comrade at my side,

Moved like a shadow. I turned a promontory,

And like a memory of my own lost youth,

Shining and far, across the gulf I saw

Stagira, like a little city of snow,

Under the Thracian hills.

Nothing had changed.

I saw the City where that Greek was born

Who ranged all art, all life, and lit a fire

That shines yet, after twice a thousand years;

And strange, but strange as truth, it was to hear

No slightest change in that old rhythmic sound

Of waves against the shore.

Then, at my side,

My soul’s companion whispered, all unseen,

‘Two thousand years have hidden him from the world,

Robed him in grey and bearded him with eld,

Untrue to his warm life. There was a time

When he was young as truth is; and the sun

Browned his young body, danced in his young grey eyes;

And look—the time is now.’

There, as he spoke,

I saw among the rocks on my right hand,

Lying, face downward, over a deep rock-pool,

A youth, so still that, till a herring-gull swooped

And sheered away from him with a startled cry

And a wild flutter of its brown mottled wings,

I had not seen him.

Quietly we drew near,

As shadows may, unseen.

He pored intent

Upon a sea-anemone, like a flower

Opening its disk of blue and crimson rays

Under the lucid water.

He stretched his hand,

And with a sea-gull’s feather, touched its heart.

The bright disk shrank, and closed, as though a flower

Turned instantly to fruit, ripe, soft, and round

As the pursed lips of a sea-god hiding there.

They fastened, sucking, on the quill and held it.

Young Aristotle laughed. He rose to his feet.

“Come and see this!” he called.

Under the cliff

Nicomachus arose, and drawing his robe

More closely round him, crossed the slippery rocks

To join his son.

There, side by side, they crouched

Over the limpid pool,—the grey physician

And eager boy.

“See, how it grips the feather!

And grips the rock, too. Yet it has no roots.

Your sea-flowers turn to animals with mouths.

Take out the quill. Now it turns back again

Into a flower; look—look—what lovely colours,

What marvellous artistry.

This never was formed

By chance. It has an aim beyond this pool.

What does it mean? This unity of design?

This delicate scale of life that seems to ascend

Without a break, through all the forms of earth

From plants to men? The sea-sponge that I found

Grew like a blind rock-rooted clump of moss

Dilating in water, shrinking in the sun;

I know it for a strange sea-animal now,

Shaped like the brain of a man. Can it be true

That, as the poets fable in their songs

Of Aphrodite, life itself was born

Here, in the sea?”

Nicomachus looked at him.

“That’s a dark riddle, my son. You will not hear

An answer in the groves of Academe,

Not even from Plato. When you go to Athens

Next year, remember, among the loftiest flights

Of their philosophy, that the living truth

Is here on earth if we could only see it.

This, this at least, all true Asclepiads know.

Remember, always, in that battle of words,

The truth that father handed down to son

Through the long line of men that served their kind

From Æsculapius, father of us all,

To you his own descendant:—naught avails

In science, till the light you seize from heaven

Shines through the clear sharp fact beneath your feet.

This is the test of both—that, in their wedding,

The light that was a disembodied dream

Burns through the fact, and makes a lanthorn of it,

Transfigures it, confirms it, gives it new

And deeper meanings; and itself, in turn,

Is thereby seen more truly.

Use your eyes;

And you, or those that follow you, will outsoar

Pythagoras.

He believed the soul descends

From the pure realm of gods; is clothed with clay;

And, struggling upward through a myriad forms,

After a myriad lives and deaths, returns

Enriched with all those memories, lord of all

That knowledge, master of all those griefs and pains

As else it could not be, home to the gods,

Itself a god, prepared for the full bliss,

The living consummation of the whole.

Earth must be old, if all these things are true.

But take this tale and read it. If it seem

Only a tale, the light in it has turned

Dark facts to lanthorns for me. There are tales

More true than any fragment of the truth.

One of his homeless clan (who came to meDying), his last disciple’s wandering son,Gave me the scroll. I give it now to you,—The young swift-footed runner with the fire.You’ll find strange thoughts; and, woven into the close,His Golden Verses, with a thought more strange.”

One of his homeless clan (who came to me

Dying), his last disciple’s wandering son,

Gave me the scroll. I give it now to you,—

The young swift-footed runner with the fire.

You’ll find strange thoughts; and, woven into the close,

His Golden Verses, with a thought more strange.”

Then, from his breast, the Asclepiad drew a scroll,Smooth as old ivory, honey-stained by time,A wand of whispering magic; and the boySeized it with brown young hands.His father smiledAnd turned away, between the shining poolsTo seek Stagira. Under his sandalled feetThe sea-weeds crackled. His footsteps crunched awayAlong the beach.Upon a sun-warmed rockThe boy outspread the curled papyrus-roll,Keeping each corner in place with a small grey stone.There, while the white robe drifting down the coastGrew smaller and smaller, till at last it seemedA flake of vanishing foam, he lay full length,Reading the tale.The salt on his brown skinDried to a faint white powder in the sun.Over him, growing bold, the peering gullsWheeled closer, as he lay there, tranced and still;Till, through the tale, the golden verses breathedLike a returning music, rhythmic tonesChanged by new voices, coloured by new minds,Yet speaking still for one time-conquering soul,As on the shore the wandering ripples changedAnd tossed new spray-drops into the sparkling air,Yet pulsed with the ancient breathing of the sea:

Then, from his breast, the Asclepiad drew a scroll,

Smooth as old ivory, honey-stained by time,

A wand of whispering magic; and the boy

Seized it with brown young hands.

His father smiled

And turned away, between the shining pools

To seek Stagira. Under his sandalled feet

The sea-weeds crackled. His footsteps crunched away

Along the beach.

Upon a sun-warmed rock

The boy outspread the curled papyrus-roll,

Keeping each corner in place with a small grey stone.

There, while the white robe drifting down the coast

Grew smaller and smaller, till at last it seemed

A flake of vanishing foam, he lay full length,

Reading the tale.

The salt on his brown skin

Dried to a faint white powder in the sun.

Over him, growing bold, the peering gulls

Wheeled closer, as he lay there, tranced and still;

Till, through the tale, the golden verses breathed

Like a returning music, rhythmic tones

Changed by new voices, coloured by new minds,

Yet speaking still for one time-conquering soul,

As on the shore the wandering ripples changed

And tossed new spray-drops into the sparkling air,

Yet pulsed with the ancient breathing of the sea:

Guard the immortal fire.Honour the glorious line of the great dead.To the new height let all thy soul aspire;But let those memories be thy wine and bread.

Guard the immortal fire.

Honour the glorious line of the great dead.

To the new height let all thy soul aspire;

But let those memories be thy wine and bread.

Quench not in any shrineThe smouldering storax. In no human heartQuench what love kindled. Faintly though it shine,Not till it wholly dies the gods depart.

Quench not in any shrine

The smouldering storax. In no human heart

Quench what love kindled. Faintly though it shine,

Not till it wholly dies the gods depart.

Truth has remembering eyes.The wind-blown throng will clamour at Falsehood’s gate.Has Falsehood triumphed? Let the world despiseThy constant mind. Stand thou aside, and wait.

Truth has remembering eyes.

The wind-blown throng will clamour at Falsehood’s gate.

Has Falsehood triumphed? Let the world despise

Thy constant mind. Stand thou aside, and wait.

Write not thy thoughts on snow.Grave them in rock to front the thundering sky.From Time’s proud feast, when it is time to go,Take the dark road; bid one more world good-bye.

Write not thy thoughts on snow.

Grave them in rock to front the thundering sky.

From Time’s proud feast, when it is time to go,

Take the dark road; bid one more world good-bye.

The lie may steal an hour.The truth has living roots, and they strike deep.A moment’s glory kills the rootless flower,While the true stem is gathering strength in sleep.

The lie may steal an hour.

The truth has living roots, and they strike deep.

A moment’s glory kills the rootless flower,

While the true stem is gathering strength in sleep.

Out of this earth, this dust,Out of this flesh, this blood, this living tomb;Out of these cosmic throes of wrath, and lust,Breaks the lost splendour from the world’s blind womb.

Out of this earth, this dust,

Out of this flesh, this blood, this living tomb;

Out of these cosmic throes of wrath, and lust,

Breaks the lost splendour from the world’s blind womb.

Courage, O conquering soul!For all the boundless night that whelms thee now,Though suns and stars into oblivion roll,The gods abide, and of their race art thou.

Courage, O conquering soul!

For all the boundless night that whelms thee now,

Though suns and stars into oblivion roll,

The gods abide, and of their race art thou.

Time dwindled to a shadow. The grey mist,Wreathed with old legends, drifted slowly awayFrom the clear hill-top, where the invisible wingsHad brought me through the years.It was no dream,Clearly, as in a picture, at my feet,Among dark groves, the columned temples gleamed,And I saw Athens, in the sunset, dying.Dying; for though her shrines had not yet lostOne radiant grain of what lies crumbling nowLike a god’s bones upon the naked hills;Though the whole city wound through gate on gateOf visionary splendour to one heightWhere, throned above this world, the ParthenonSmiled at the thought of Time, her violet crownWas woven of shadows from a darker realm,And I saw Athens, dying.From that hill—The hill of Lycabettus—on our rightEridanus flowed, Ilissus on the left,Girdling the City like two coils of fire.Then, as a spirit sees, I saw, unseen,One standing near me on the bare hillside,Still as a statue, gazing to the west;So still that, till his lengthening shadow creptUp to my feet, the wonder of the CityWithheld my gaze from something more augustIn that one lonely presence.Earth and sun,On their great way, revealed him, with the touchOf his long stealing shadow; yet it seemedThe power that cast it was no mortal power.Fie towered against the dying gleams belowLike Truth in exile.On him, too, at lastThe doom had fallen. Clasping his grey robeMore closely round him, Aristotle lookedLong, long, at his proud City. She had lostMore glories in that sunset than she knew;For, though the sun went down in kingly goldTo westward, on that darkening eastern hill,The bearer of a more celestial fireNow looked his last on Athens.Changed, how changed,Was this grey form from that immortal youthWho read the Golden Verses by the sea.His brow was furrowed now; and, on his face,Life, with her sharp-edged tools of joy and pain,Had deeply engraved a legend of her own.There, as his lengthening shadow had drawn my gaze,He seemed himself a shadow of vaster things,A still dark portent of those moving worldsWhose huge events, unseen and far away,Had led him thither; and, as he once had shapedTheir course, now shaped his destiny and doom.He had ranged all art, all science. He had shapedKingdoms and kings, by virtue of his partIn the one all-shaping Mind. Had he not lived,The world that never knows its noblest powersHad moved, with half mankind, another way.There, looking backward, through his life, he knewThat, though the gods conceal their ways from men,Yet in their great conjunctures there are gleamsThat show them at their work. Theirs was the word,Twenty years back, when Philip of MacedonSummoned him, as the uncrowned king of thought,To teach his eaglet how to use his wings.For, by that thought, and by the disciplined power,The sovran power of judgment, swift to seizeCauses, effects, and laws, and wield the blindUnreasoning mass, he had wellnigh brought to birthWhat Plato saw in vision—a State enthronedAbove the flux of time, Hellas at one,A harmony of cities, each a chordIn an immortal song of Beauty and Truth,Freedom and Law. His was the moving power,Not wholly aware, that strove to an end unseen;And in that power had Alexander reigned.Autocrator of the Greek hegemony,He had rolled all Asia back into the night.Satraps of Persia, the proud kings of Tyre,Nineveh, Babylon, Egypt, all bowed down;And Alexander shaped the conquered world,But Aristotle shaped the conqueror’s mind.He had shaped that mind to ends not all its own.His was the well-thumbed Odyssey that reposedUnder the conqueror’s pillow; his the love,Fragrant with memories of the hills and sea,That had rebuilt Stagira; his the voiceIn the night-watches; his the harnessed thoughtsThat, like immortal sentries, mounted guardIn the dark gates of that world-quelling mind.His was the whisper, the dark vanishing hint,The clue to the riddle of slowly emerging lifeThat, imaged in Egyptian granite, roseBefore the silent conqueror when he staredAt that strange shape, half human and half brute,The Sphinx, who knew the secret of the worldAnd smiled at him, and all his victories,Under the desert stars, while the deep nightSilently deepened round him.Far away,In Athens, towered the bearer of the fire.His was the secret harmony of lawThat, while the squadrons wheeled in ordered ranks,Each finding its full life only in the whole,Flashed light upon the cosmos; his the questThat taught the conqueror how to honour truthAnd led him, while he watered his proud steedsIn all the streams from Danube to the Nile,To send another army through the wilds,Ten thousand huntsmen, ranging hills and woodsAt Aristotle’s hest, for birds and beasts;So that the master-intellect might lay holdUpon the ladder of life that mounts through Time,From plants to beasts, and up, through man, to God.So all the might of Macedon had been turnedTo serve the truth, and to complete his workAt Athens, for the conquering age to come;When Athens, like the very City of Truth,Might shine upon all nations, and might wear,On her clear brows, his glory as her own.Then came a flying rumour through the night.Earth’s overlord, the autocrator, his friend,Alexander the Great had fallen in Babylon.A little cup of poison, subtle dropsOf Lethe—in a cup of delicate gold,—And the world’s victor slept, an iron sleep;The conqueror, stricken in his conquered city,Cold, in the purple of Babylon, lay dead:And the slow tread of his armies as they passed,Soldier by soldier, through that chamber of death,To look their last upon his marble face,Pulsed like a muffled drum across the world.Had Aristotle’s cunning mixed the draughtThat murdered tyranny? Let that whispered lieEstrange the heart of Macedon.There, in Athens,It was enough, now that his friend lay dead,To know that, as the body is rent awayFrom the immortal soul, his greatness nowHad lost its earthly stay. His mighty mindWalked like a ghost in Athens. It was enoughTo hint that he had taught his king too well;Served him too well; and played the spy for him;While, for main charge, since he had greatly lovedThe mother who had borne him, since he had pouredHis love out on her tomb, it would sufficeTo snarl that rites like these were meant for godsAnd that this man who had seen behind the worldThe Mover of all things, the eternal God,The supreme Good, by these fond rites of love,Too simple and too great, too clear, too deep,Had robbed the little sophists of their duesAnd so blasphemed against their gods of clay....Hurrying footsteps neared. He turned and sawHis young adopted son and Tyrtamus.“Nicanor! Theophrastus!—nay, lift upYour heads. You cannot bring me bitterer newsThan I foresaw. I must be brought to judgment.But on what grounds?”—“Dear father of us all——”The youth, Nicanor, answered, “When the crowdGrins in the very face of those who ask,Or think, or dream that truth should be their guide;Nay, grins at truth itself, as at a foolTricked in his grandsire’s rags, a rustic oaf,A blundering country simpleton who gapesAt the great city’s reeling dance of lies,How can the grounds be wanting?”“The true grounds,”His ‘Theophrastus’ muttered, “we know too well.Eurymedon, and the rest, those gnat-like clans,The sophists’ buzzing swarms, desire a change.They hold with Heraclitus—all things change.”His irony stung the youth. His grey eyes gleamed.His voice grew harsh with anger. “Ay, all things change!So justice and injustice, right and wrong,Evil and good, must wear each other’s cloaks;And, in that chaos, when all excellenceAnd honour are plucked down, and the clear truthTrampled into the dirt, themselves may rise.Athens is dying.”“They speak truly enoughOf all that they can know,” the Master said.“Change is the rhythm that draws this world along.They see the change. Its law they cannot see.But man who is mortal in this body of earthHas also a part, by virtue of his reason,In an enduring realm. Their prophet knewAnd heard what sophists have no souls to hear,—The Harmony that includes the pulse of change;The divine Reason, past the flux of things;The eternal Logos, ordering the whole world.”And, as he spoke, I heard, through his own words,Tones that were now a part of his own mind,The murmur of that old legend which he readSo long ago, in boyhood, by the sea.Time never fails. Not Tanais or the NileCan flow for ever. All things pass awayBut One, One only; for the eternal MindEnfolds all changes, and can never change.Tyrtamus touched his arm. “Time presses now.Come with us. All is ready. On the coast,In a lonely creek, the quiet keel is rocking.Three trusty sailors wait us, and at dawnWe, too, shall find new life in a new worldWith all that could endure. The voyager knowsThe blindness of the cities. Each believesIts narrow wall the boundary of the world;And when he puts to sea, their buzzing criesFade out behind him like a wrangle of bees.”—“If I remain, what then?”—The hill-top shoneIn the last rays. Athens was growing dark.Tyrtamus answered him. “A colder cupOf hemlock, and the fate of Socrates.”The Master looked at Athens. Far awayHe traced the glimmering aisle of olive-treesWhere, for so long, with many a youthful friendHe had walked, and taught, and striven himself to learn.Southward, below the Acropolis, he could seeThe shadowy precincts of the Asclepiads,Guarding their sacred spring, the natural fount,Loved for his father’s memory.Close beside,The Dionysiac theatre, like a moonHewn from the marble of Hymettus, gleamed,A silvery crescent, dying into a cloud.There, though the shade of Sophocles had fled,Long since, he heard even now in his deep soulThe stately chorus on a ghostly stageChanting the praise of thought that builds the city,Hoists the strong sail to cross the hoary sea,Ploughs the unwearied earth, yokes the wild steedAnd the untamed mountain-bull; thought that contrivesDevices that can cure all ills but death:Of all strong things none is more strong than man;Man that has learned to shield himself from coldAnd the sharp rain; and turns his marvellous artsAwhile to evil; and yet again, to good;Man that is made all-glorious with his cityWhen he obeys the inviolable lawsOf earth and heaven; but when, in subtle pride,He makes a friend of wrong, is driven astrayAnd broken apart, like dust before the wind.All now, except the heights, had died awayInto the dark. Only the Parthenon raisedA brow like drifted snow against the west.He watched it, melting into the flood of nightWith all those memories.Then he turned and said,“If in a moment’s thoughtless greed I graspedThe prize that Athens offers me to-night,She is not so rich but this might make her poor.Death wears a gentle smile when we grow old;And I could welcome it. But she shall not stainHer hands a second time. Let Athens knowThat Aristotle left her, not to saveHis last few lingering days of life on earthBut to save Athens.I have truly loved her,Next to the sea-washed town where I was born,Best of all cities built by men on earth.But there’s another Athens, pure and white,Where Plato walks, a City invisible,Whereof this Athens is only a dim shadow;And I shall not be exiled from that City.”The hilltop darkened. The blind mist rolled down;The voices died. I saw and heard no more.

Time dwindled to a shadow. The grey mist,

Wreathed with old legends, drifted slowly away

From the clear hill-top, where the invisible wings

Had brought me through the years.

It was no dream,

Clearly, as in a picture, at my feet,

Among dark groves, the columned temples gleamed,

And I saw Athens, in the sunset, dying.

Dying; for though her shrines had not yet lostOne radiant grain of what lies crumbling nowLike a god’s bones upon the naked hills;Though the whole city wound through gate on gateOf visionary splendour to one heightWhere, throned above this world, the ParthenonSmiled at the thought of Time, her violet crownWas woven of shadows from a darker realm,And I saw Athens, dying.From that hill—The hill of Lycabettus—on our rightEridanus flowed, Ilissus on the left,Girdling the City like two coils of fire.Then, as a spirit sees, I saw, unseen,One standing near me on the bare hillside,Still as a statue, gazing to the west;So still that, till his lengthening shadow creptUp to my feet, the wonder of the CityWithheld my gaze from something more augustIn that one lonely presence.Earth and sun,On their great way, revealed him, with the touchOf his long stealing shadow; yet it seemedThe power that cast it was no mortal power.Fie towered against the dying gleams belowLike Truth in exile.On him, too, at lastThe doom had fallen. Clasping his grey robeMore closely round him, Aristotle lookedLong, long, at his proud City. She had lostMore glories in that sunset than she knew;For, though the sun went down in kingly goldTo westward, on that darkening eastern hill,The bearer of a more celestial fireNow looked his last on Athens.Changed, how changed,Was this grey form from that immortal youthWho read the Golden Verses by the sea.His brow was furrowed now; and, on his face,Life, with her sharp-edged tools of joy and pain,Had deeply engraved a legend of her own.

Dying; for though her shrines had not yet lost

One radiant grain of what lies crumbling now

Like a god’s bones upon the naked hills;

Though the whole city wound through gate on gate

Of visionary splendour to one height

Where, throned above this world, the Parthenon

Smiled at the thought of Time, her violet crown

Was woven of shadows from a darker realm,

And I saw Athens, dying.

From that hill—

The hill of Lycabettus—on our right

Eridanus flowed, Ilissus on the left,

Girdling the City like two coils of fire.

Then, as a spirit sees, I saw, unseen,

One standing near me on the bare hillside,

Still as a statue, gazing to the west;

So still that, till his lengthening shadow crept

Up to my feet, the wonder of the City

Withheld my gaze from something more august

In that one lonely presence.

Earth and sun,

On their great way, revealed him, with the touch

Of his long stealing shadow; yet it seemed

The power that cast it was no mortal power.

Fie towered against the dying gleams below

Like Truth in exile.

On him, too, at last

The doom had fallen. Clasping his grey robe

More closely round him, Aristotle looked

Long, long, at his proud City. She had lost

More glories in that sunset than she knew;

For, though the sun went down in kingly gold

To westward, on that darkening eastern hill,

The bearer of a more celestial fire

Now looked his last on Athens.

Changed, how changed,

Was this grey form from that immortal youth

Who read the Golden Verses by the sea.

His brow was furrowed now; and, on his face,

Life, with her sharp-edged tools of joy and pain,

Had deeply engraved a legend of her own.

There, as his lengthening shadow had drawn my gaze,He seemed himself a shadow of vaster things,A still dark portent of those moving worldsWhose huge events, unseen and far away,Had led him thither; and, as he once had shapedTheir course, now shaped his destiny and doom.

There, as his lengthening shadow had drawn my gaze,

He seemed himself a shadow of vaster things,

A still dark portent of those moving worlds

Whose huge events, unseen and far away,

Had led him thither; and, as he once had shaped

Their course, now shaped his destiny and doom.

He had ranged all art, all science. He had shapedKingdoms and kings, by virtue of his partIn the one all-shaping Mind. Had he not lived,The world that never knows its noblest powersHad moved, with half mankind, another way.There, looking backward, through his life, he knewThat, though the gods conceal their ways from men,Yet in their great conjunctures there are gleamsThat show them at their work. Theirs was the word,Twenty years back, when Philip of MacedonSummoned him, as the uncrowned king of thought,To teach his eaglet how to use his wings.For, by that thought, and by the disciplined power,The sovran power of judgment, swift to seizeCauses, effects, and laws, and wield the blindUnreasoning mass, he had wellnigh brought to birthWhat Plato saw in vision—a State enthronedAbove the flux of time, Hellas at one,A harmony of cities, each a chordIn an immortal song of Beauty and Truth,Freedom and Law. His was the moving power,Not wholly aware, that strove to an end unseen;And in that power had Alexander reigned.Autocrator of the Greek hegemony,He had rolled all Asia back into the night.Satraps of Persia, the proud kings of Tyre,Nineveh, Babylon, Egypt, all bowed down;And Alexander shaped the conquered world,But Aristotle shaped the conqueror’s mind.He had shaped that mind to ends not all its own.His was the well-thumbed Odyssey that reposedUnder the conqueror’s pillow; his the love,Fragrant with memories of the hills and sea,That had rebuilt Stagira; his the voiceIn the night-watches; his the harnessed thoughtsThat, like immortal sentries, mounted guardIn the dark gates of that world-quelling mind.His was the whisper, the dark vanishing hint,The clue to the riddle of slowly emerging lifeThat, imaged in Egyptian granite, roseBefore the silent conqueror when he staredAt that strange shape, half human and half brute,The Sphinx, who knew the secret of the worldAnd smiled at him, and all his victories,Under the desert stars, while the deep nightSilently deepened round him.Far away,In Athens, towered the bearer of the fire.His was the secret harmony of lawThat, while the squadrons wheeled in ordered ranks,Each finding its full life only in the whole,Flashed light upon the cosmos; his the questThat taught the conqueror how to honour truthAnd led him, while he watered his proud steedsIn all the streams from Danube to the Nile,To send another army through the wilds,Ten thousand huntsmen, ranging hills and woodsAt Aristotle’s hest, for birds and beasts;So that the master-intellect might lay holdUpon the ladder of life that mounts through Time,From plants to beasts, and up, through man, to God.So all the might of Macedon had been turnedTo serve the truth, and to complete his workAt Athens, for the conquering age to come;When Athens, like the very City of Truth,Might shine upon all nations, and might wear,On her clear brows, his glory as her own.

He had ranged all art, all science. He had shaped

Kingdoms and kings, by virtue of his part

In the one all-shaping Mind. Had he not lived,

The world that never knows its noblest powers

Had moved, with half mankind, another way.

There, looking backward, through his life, he knew

That, though the gods conceal their ways from men,

Yet in their great conjunctures there are gleams

That show them at their work. Theirs was the word,

Twenty years back, when Philip of Macedon

Summoned him, as the uncrowned king of thought,

To teach his eaglet how to use his wings.

For, by that thought, and by the disciplined power,

The sovran power of judgment, swift to seize

Causes, effects, and laws, and wield the blind

Unreasoning mass, he had wellnigh brought to birth

What Plato saw in vision—a State enthroned

Above the flux of time, Hellas at one,

A harmony of cities, each a chord

In an immortal song of Beauty and Truth,

Freedom and Law. His was the moving power,

Not wholly aware, that strove to an end unseen;

And in that power had Alexander reigned.

Autocrator of the Greek hegemony,

He had rolled all Asia back into the night.

Satraps of Persia, the proud kings of Tyre,

Nineveh, Babylon, Egypt, all bowed down;

And Alexander shaped the conquered world,

But Aristotle shaped the conqueror’s mind.

He had shaped that mind to ends not all its own.

His was the well-thumbed Odyssey that reposed

Under the conqueror’s pillow; his the love,

Fragrant with memories of the hills and sea,

That had rebuilt Stagira; his the voice

In the night-watches; his the harnessed thoughts

That, like immortal sentries, mounted guard

In the dark gates of that world-quelling mind.

His was the whisper, the dark vanishing hint,

The clue to the riddle of slowly emerging life

That, imaged in Egyptian granite, rose

Before the silent conqueror when he stared

At that strange shape, half human and half brute,

The Sphinx, who knew the secret of the world

And smiled at him, and all his victories,

Under the desert stars, while the deep night

Silently deepened round him.

Far away,

In Athens, towered the bearer of the fire.

His was the secret harmony of law

That, while the squadrons wheeled in ordered ranks,

Each finding its full life only in the whole,

Flashed light upon the cosmos; his the quest

That taught the conqueror how to honour truth

And led him, while he watered his proud steeds

In all the streams from Danube to the Nile,

To send another army through the wilds,

Ten thousand huntsmen, ranging hills and woods

At Aristotle’s hest, for birds and beasts;

So that the master-intellect might lay hold

Upon the ladder of life that mounts through Time,

From plants to beasts, and up, through man, to God.

So all the might of Macedon had been turned

To serve the truth, and to complete his work

At Athens, for the conquering age to come;

When Athens, like the very City of Truth,

Might shine upon all nations, and might wear,

On her clear brows, his glory as her own.

Then came a flying rumour through the night.Earth’s overlord, the autocrator, his friend,Alexander the Great had fallen in Babylon.A little cup of poison, subtle dropsOf Lethe—in a cup of delicate gold,—And the world’s victor slept, an iron sleep;The conqueror, stricken in his conquered city,Cold, in the purple of Babylon, lay dead:And the slow tread of his armies as they passed,Soldier by soldier, through that chamber of death,To look their last upon his marble face,Pulsed like a muffled drum across the world.Had Aristotle’s cunning mixed the draughtThat murdered tyranny? Let that whispered lieEstrange the heart of Macedon.There, in Athens,It was enough, now that his friend lay dead,To know that, as the body is rent awayFrom the immortal soul, his greatness nowHad lost its earthly stay. His mighty mindWalked like a ghost in Athens. It was enoughTo hint that he had taught his king too well;Served him too well; and played the spy for him;While, for main charge, since he had greatly lovedThe mother who had borne him, since he had pouredHis love out on her tomb, it would sufficeTo snarl that rites like these were meant for godsAnd that this man who had seen behind the worldThe Mover of all things, the eternal God,The supreme Good, by these fond rites of love,Too simple and too great, too clear, too deep,Had robbed the little sophists of their duesAnd so blasphemed against their gods of clay.

Then came a flying rumour through the night.

Earth’s overlord, the autocrator, his friend,

Alexander the Great had fallen in Babylon.

A little cup of poison, subtle drops

Of Lethe—in a cup of delicate gold,—

And the world’s victor slept, an iron sleep;

The conqueror, stricken in his conquered city,

Cold, in the purple of Babylon, lay dead:

And the slow tread of his armies as they passed,

Soldier by soldier, through that chamber of death,

To look their last upon his marble face,

Pulsed like a muffled drum across the world.

Had Aristotle’s cunning mixed the draught

That murdered tyranny? Let that whispered lie

Estrange the heart of Macedon.

There, in Athens,

It was enough, now that his friend lay dead,

To know that, as the body is rent away

From the immortal soul, his greatness now

Had lost its earthly stay. His mighty mind

Walked like a ghost in Athens. It was enough

To hint that he had taught his king too well;

Served him too well; and played the spy for him;

While, for main charge, since he had greatly loved

The mother who had borne him, since he had poured

His love out on her tomb, it would suffice

To snarl that rites like these were meant for gods

And that this man who had seen behind the world

The Mover of all things, the eternal God,

The supreme Good, by these fond rites of love,

Too simple and too great, too clear, too deep,

Had robbed the little sophists of their dues

And so blasphemed against their gods of clay.

...

Hurrying footsteps neared. He turned and sawHis young adopted son and Tyrtamus.“Nicanor! Theophrastus!—nay, lift upYour heads. You cannot bring me bitterer newsThan I foresaw. I must be brought to judgment.But on what grounds?”—“Dear father of us all——”The youth, Nicanor, answered, “When the crowdGrins in the very face of those who ask,Or think, or dream that truth should be their guide;Nay, grins at truth itself, as at a foolTricked in his grandsire’s rags, a rustic oaf,A blundering country simpleton who gapesAt the great city’s reeling dance of lies,How can the grounds be wanting?”“The true grounds,”His ‘Theophrastus’ muttered, “we know too well.Eurymedon, and the rest, those gnat-like clans,The sophists’ buzzing swarms, desire a change.They hold with Heraclitus—all things change.”His irony stung the youth. His grey eyes gleamed.His voice grew harsh with anger. “Ay, all things change!So justice and injustice, right and wrong,Evil and good, must wear each other’s cloaks;And, in that chaos, when all excellenceAnd honour are plucked down, and the clear truthTrampled into the dirt, themselves may rise.Athens is dying.”“They speak truly enoughOf all that they can know,” the Master said.“Change is the rhythm that draws this world along.They see the change. Its law they cannot see.But man who is mortal in this body of earthHas also a part, by virtue of his reason,In an enduring realm. Their prophet knewAnd heard what sophists have no souls to hear,—The Harmony that includes the pulse of change;The divine Reason, past the flux of things;The eternal Logos, ordering the whole world.”And, as he spoke, I heard, through his own words,Tones that were now a part of his own mind,The murmur of that old legend which he readSo long ago, in boyhood, by the sea.Time never fails. Not Tanais or the NileCan flow for ever. All things pass awayBut One, One only; for the eternal MindEnfolds all changes, and can never change.Tyrtamus touched his arm. “Time presses now.Come with us. All is ready. On the coast,In a lonely creek, the quiet keel is rocking.Three trusty sailors wait us, and at dawnWe, too, shall find new life in a new worldWith all that could endure. The voyager knowsThe blindness of the cities. Each believesIts narrow wall the boundary of the world;And when he puts to sea, their buzzing criesFade out behind him like a wrangle of bees.”—

Hurrying footsteps neared. He turned and saw

His young adopted son and Tyrtamus.

“Nicanor! Theophrastus!—nay, lift up

Your heads. You cannot bring me bitterer news

Than I foresaw. I must be brought to judgment.

But on what grounds?”—

“Dear father of us all——”

The youth, Nicanor, answered, “When the crowd

Grins in the very face of those who ask,

Or think, or dream that truth should be their guide;

Nay, grins at truth itself, as at a fool

Tricked in his grandsire’s rags, a rustic oaf,

A blundering country simpleton who gapes

At the great city’s reeling dance of lies,

How can the grounds be wanting?”

“The true grounds,”

His ‘Theophrastus’ muttered, “we know too well.

Eurymedon, and the rest, those gnat-like clans,

The sophists’ buzzing swarms, desire a change.

They hold with Heraclitus—all things change.”

His irony stung the youth. His grey eyes gleamed.

His voice grew harsh with anger. “Ay, all things change!

So justice and injustice, right and wrong,

Evil and good, must wear each other’s cloaks;

And, in that chaos, when all excellence

And honour are plucked down, and the clear truth

Trampled into the dirt, themselves may rise.

Athens is dying.”

“They speak truly enough

Of all that they can know,” the Master said.

“Change is the rhythm that draws this world along.

They see the change. Its law they cannot see.

But man who is mortal in this body of earth

Has also a part, by virtue of his reason,

In an enduring realm. Their prophet knew

And heard what sophists have no souls to hear,—

The Harmony that includes the pulse of change;

The divine Reason, past the flux of things;

The eternal Logos, ordering the whole world.”

And, as he spoke, I heard, through his own words,

Tones that were now a part of his own mind,

The murmur of that old legend which he read

So long ago, in boyhood, by the sea.

Time never fails. Not Tanais or the Nile

Can flow for ever. All things pass away

But One, One only; for the eternal Mind

Enfolds all changes, and can never change.

Tyrtamus touched his arm. “Time presses now.

Come with us. All is ready. On the coast,

In a lonely creek, the quiet keel is rocking.

Three trusty sailors wait us, and at dawn

We, too, shall find new life in a new world

With all that could endure. The voyager knows

The blindness of the cities. Each believes

Its narrow wall the boundary of the world;

And when he puts to sea, their buzzing cries

Fade out behind him like a wrangle of bees.”—

“If I remain, what then?”—The hill-top shoneIn the last rays. Athens was growing dark.Tyrtamus answered him. “A colder cupOf hemlock, and the fate of Socrates.”The Master looked at Athens. Far awayHe traced the glimmering aisle of olive-treesWhere, for so long, with many a youthful friendHe had walked, and taught, and striven himself to learn.Southward, below the Acropolis, he could seeThe shadowy precincts of the Asclepiads,Guarding their sacred spring, the natural fount,Loved for his father’s memory.Close beside,The Dionysiac theatre, like a moonHewn from the marble of Hymettus, gleamed,A silvery crescent, dying into a cloud.There, though the shade of Sophocles had fled,Long since, he heard even now in his deep soulThe stately chorus on a ghostly stageChanting the praise of thought that builds the city,Hoists the strong sail to cross the hoary sea,Ploughs the unwearied earth, yokes the wild steedAnd the untamed mountain-bull; thought that contrivesDevices that can cure all ills but death:

“If I remain, what then?”—

The hill-top shone

In the last rays. Athens was growing dark.

Tyrtamus answered him. “A colder cup

Of hemlock, and the fate of Socrates.”

The Master looked at Athens. Far away

He traced the glimmering aisle of olive-trees

Where, for so long, with many a youthful friend

He had walked, and taught, and striven himself to learn.

Southward, below the Acropolis, he could see

The shadowy precincts of the Asclepiads,

Guarding their sacred spring, the natural fount,

Loved for his father’s memory.

Close beside,

The Dionysiac theatre, like a moon

Hewn from the marble of Hymettus, gleamed,

A silvery crescent, dying into a cloud.

There, though the shade of Sophocles had fled,

Long since, he heard even now in his deep soul

The stately chorus on a ghostly stage

Chanting the praise of thought that builds the city,

Hoists the strong sail to cross the hoary sea,

Ploughs the unwearied earth, yokes the wild steed

And the untamed mountain-bull; thought that contrives

Devices that can cure all ills but death:

Of all strong things none is more strong than man;Man that has learned to shield himself from coldAnd the sharp rain; and turns his marvellous artsAwhile to evil; and yet again, to good;Man that is made all-glorious with his cityWhen he obeys the inviolable lawsOf earth and heaven; but when, in subtle pride,He makes a friend of wrong, is driven astrayAnd broken apart, like dust before the wind.

Of all strong things none is more strong than man;

Man that has learned to shield himself from cold

And the sharp rain; and turns his marvellous arts

Awhile to evil; and yet again, to good;

Man that is made all-glorious with his city

When he obeys the inviolable laws

Of earth and heaven; but when, in subtle pride,

He makes a friend of wrong, is driven astray

And broken apart, like dust before the wind.

All now, except the heights, had died awayInto the dark. Only the Parthenon raisedA brow like drifted snow against the west.He watched it, melting into the flood of nightWith all those memories.Then he turned and said,“If in a moment’s thoughtless greed I graspedThe prize that Athens offers me to-night,She is not so rich but this might make her poor.Death wears a gentle smile when we grow old;And I could welcome it. But she shall not stainHer hands a second time. Let Athens knowThat Aristotle left her, not to saveHis last few lingering days of life on earthBut to save Athens.I have truly loved her,Next to the sea-washed town where I was born,Best of all cities built by men on earth.But there’s another Athens, pure and white,Where Plato walks, a City invisible,Whereof this Athens is only a dim shadow;And I shall not be exiled from that City.”

All now, except the heights, had died away

Into the dark. Only the Parthenon raised

A brow like drifted snow against the west.

He watched it, melting into the flood of night

With all those memories.

Then he turned and said,

“If in a moment’s thoughtless greed I grasped

The prize that Athens offers me to-night,

She is not so rich but this might make her poor.

Death wears a gentle smile when we grow old;

And I could welcome it. But she shall not stain

Her hands a second time. Let Athens know

That Aristotle left her, not to save

His last few lingering days of life on earth

But to save Athens.

I have truly loved her,

Next to the sea-washed town where I was born,

Best of all cities built by men on earth.

But there’s another Athens, pure and white,

Where Plato walks, a City invisible,

Whereof this Athens is only a dim shadow;

And I shall not be exiled from that City.”

The hilltop darkened. The blind mist rolled down;The voices died. I saw and heard no more.

The hilltop darkened. The blind mist rolled down;

The voices died. I saw and heard no more.

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