VIRGIL

Orpheus and EurydiceP. Virgilii MaronisGeorgicon, Bk.IV.vv. 453-527This is the tale old Proteus by the seaErst told of Orpheus and Eurydice.Virgil at Parthenope overheard,And has resung it, if not word by word.

P. Virgilii MaronisGeorgicon, Bk.IV.vv. 453-527

This is the tale old Proteus by the seaErst told of Orpheus and Eurydice.Virgil at Parthenope overheard,And has resung it, if not word by word.

This is the tale old Proteus by the sea

Erst told of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Virgil at Parthenope overheard,

And has resung it, if not word by word.

Orpheus had been espoused but one short hour,And went to gather roses for the bower,When a rejected wooer, mad with love,Sprang upon the light-footed nymph, and stroveFor an embrace; she, heeding nought, alas!Trod on a serpent sleeping in the grass;And when on the instant, answering her cries,Her Bridegroom knelt there, kissing her closed eyes,Half fainting with the sense of all her charms,Sudden he woke, a dead Bride in his arms!Not his alone the woe and misery;Nor he sole mourner for Eurydice;From Rhodope to Pangæa’s peaks, aboveThe cave where Boreas hid his Attic love,Through the fierce realm of Rhesus, echo boreThe wail to the wild Getes, to the shoreOf Hebrus, while in forest, hill, and daleThe tuneful Dryads told the tearful tale.But how conjure by the best ordered showOf grief an irremediable woe!Orpheus fled Pity, and neighbourly Care;All human fellowship but his despair.With but that and his lyre communion stillHe held, from dawn to sunset, then untilThe planets rose and sank, banishing sleep,Keeping sad vigils by the moaning deep,Thinking each shadow on the desert shoreWas his lost Bride restored to life once more.And was it days, weeks, months, or years?—at lastFrom the ghost-haunted waters coastward passed—Whether Goddess, or Woman—a pale shape,That beckoned to the far Laconian CapeOf Tænarus, where the dread cavern drawsEach generation down its hungry jaws.At the first touch of his lyre opened wideThe lofty gates of Hell; he paced insideThe grove impenetrable by but him;A darkness that might be felt, stark, and grim,Where bide the awful ministers of Dis,With hearts that never beat at prayer but his.And still the notes rose bravely; and still heCame, calling on his lost Eurydice;On her, sole burden of his love-lorn cries—One theme informing countless melodies.At the sweet sorrowing, awhile a hush—Amazement—throughout Hades; then a rush—A quick rustling rather, as when a flightOf birds seeks where to sleep at fall of night,Or, cow’ring, courts, against an icy breeze,Multitudinous foliage of trees.Thus—for the jailers ceased from watch and ward,Witched themselves by the wailing, wandering bard—Flocked, from the unamiable swamp, which feedsNothing on its black slime but grisly reeds—Where steams and groans Cocytus, and Styx holdsPrisoners within its nine coils and folds—A legion of the newly dead, entombedIn Limbo, till ripe to be tried and doomed;A fearful gathering, bodies stripped of life,Yet moving; some in pairs, husband and wife,Girls who had virgins died, and beardless youths,With parents’ kisses warm upon their mouths;And some though freed from flesh ignorant whereTheir dwelling fixed, sad phantoms, thin as air.Each waiting judgment; now forgetting allGriefs in a greater, in the musicalChallenge to Dis to yield its prey; while, onAnd on, the chant rolled, till its way it wonPast the black realms of ancient Erebus,Past too the torture cells of Tartarus,Where cold-blue snakes, the Furies’ locks that tied,By the trespassing strain, charmed, stupefied,Drew in their fangs, Ixion’s wheel made pause,And, one shocked wide gape, stood Cerberus’s triple jaws.At last, at last! a Palace flaming highWith angry flashes from a mocking sky;And, seated on twin thrones, the King and Queen,Garbed in life-which-is-death’s Infernal sheen;Both silent; but, as whispered soft and lowThe lyre, stern Proserpine remembered howA girl plucked flowers. As nursery rhymesOn dying ears, returned old happy times,Sunshine, and the sweet thought, if mixed with pain,A mother’s toil to have her child again.Paradise for Hell’s Queen once more to knowThat She had heart to feel for others’ woe!—For her Lord to see, transfigured, ere a crownBurned on her brow, the maid he had brought downTo Hell; and she answering his eyes, cried:“Minstrel, depart in peace, and with thy Bride!”The Manes registered the high decree,Adding that, since no mortal eyes may seeSpirit take flesh, Orpheus must be resigned,Till Earth was reached, never to look behind.And as they wrote and sealed what their Queen spoke,From unseen instruments weird music broke,—An owlet’s hooting, a swan’s dying cry—A rapture near akin to agony.Orpheus turned, or was led; more felt than heard—Passing the gates—as when a babe has stirred,Dreaming—a sigh; but, venturing no glanceAnywhere, or speech, walked as in a trance.Save, as if strings snapt, the lyre stammered outA spasm of jarred notes wandering about,Nor glad nor sad; the harper scarce awareOf the music that he made; or how farHe had gone, through what scenes of bale or bliss,Since he quitted the royal halls of Dis;Trembling only lest the whole dream might takeFlight, like his rapt girl-Bride, and he awakeTo find himself, widowed, lost, as before,Companionless upon the wild sea-shore.And yet. Was it not breath, a woman’s breath,Fanning his cheeks? Could even unkind DeathHave the heart to cheat, with the goal so near?Was not the light he saw day’s, warm and clear?And, sure, the landscape spread before his viewWas of meadows and woods, all which he knew?Phantoms, begone! Here was his spring-tide come,And his Bride with him, out of Hades, home!Sudden, an avalanche—compound—Earth, Hell—Long chained—irresistible passion—fell,Defying thought, fear! his hand left the stringBut just caressed; his throat forbore to sing—That he might clasp and kiss;—one look behind!A world of travail scattered to the wind!Heav’n forgives seven sins if love the cause;The plea doubles guilt when Hell’s the brok’n laws.Hark how the grinning host of demons howls!And oh! the crash pealing over Hell’s pools!Naught heard he, but that cried Eurydice,—Regained, re-lost:“Alas! for Me and Thee!I feel hands, the inexorable Fates,Speeding back within the Infernal gates;My swimming eyes, just tasting of Earth’s light,I know are being sealed by a large Night.See! how I stretch vain arms around, and gropeFor thee in darkness, hoping without hope!E’en now how lightly should I life resign,Could I remember I had once been thine!”Silence! From sight, hearing, passed she apart,Leaving measureless void within his heart.He ran, striving to clutch a ghost in vain;Pursuing with vain words; never againLooked he upon her; nor could he prevailUpon Hell’s Ferryman to let him scaleThe walls, swimming the moat, and again win,By weeping, or by music, his way in,Then move or force its warders to restoreHis stolen Bride to his fond arms once more.Poor Ghost! No third time destined she to floatOver foul Styx in Charon’s crazy boat!But, hapless, doomed to swell the cavalcadesOf lifeless bodies, and of fleshless shades;Nor one, nor other she; just borne along,Drift on the tide—refrain to an old song—Yet, flickering, like shadows on a wall,Or rainbow gleaming from a water-fall,A throb, a thrill, a joy though set in dole—For Lethe could not wash away the whole—That she reward had been of each sharp pangBy Orpheus borne, theme of each song he sang.Conscious if voiceless, she. And he? The lyreWhich, while its master hoped, had quenched its fire,Was ever confidant of his despair,The instrument commissioned to declareHis wrongs. They tell who know, that in a caveHumid and bare, desolate as new grave,At the foot of a tall cliff, hung with ice,By Strymon’s gloomy waters, for full twiceA hundred days and nights, singing he wept;Like a nightingale cruelly bereftOf all her young ones in the poplar grove,With nothing for her any more to love,Or live for, but to gaze upon her nest,And mourn, the night through, all she once possessed,Till overflows the wood where she complains,With the sweet melancholy of her strains.So longed he, and so played; changing at timesTo lands yet lonelier, and harsher climes;Arctic ice-fields crossed, forded snowy Don,Camped on Scythian heaths, where yews keep-onEternal pall of frost;—always in questOf postern into Hell, whence he might wrestAudience of its Lords, and with his taleOf unreal gifts, all pre-ordained to fail,Oblige them to repeat for very shameA boon Hell granted only to reclaim.No more than this? This his one hope and theme?This, sum of his powers? And this a dream!A dream? And yet the key—magic of Art!—Which could unlock at will a tiger’s heart,And, as notes rose and fell in cadence, madeTriumphal arches of each sylvan glade;For true passion a hearing aye commands,And speaks a tongue all Nature understands.No more than that it had killed care to blessMore than one life, and left a wilderness!And that it fell on Virgil to recallA legend—would that it lied!—how, when allThe land’s women, Bacchus-fired, and distraughtBy hymns that Orpheus in glad days had taught,Had pressed him into the wild dance they ledNightly through torch-lit forests, and he fledIn horror, as at treason to his love,They, infuriate more the more he strove,Followed, reckless of all but the mad chase,Down to the Hebrus from the hills of Thrace,And tore him limb from limb: but still the tongue,As the wild current rolled the head along,Called on “Eurydice”; and till the seaReceived it, bank to bank returned “Eurydice”!Pardon, my Master, if I’ve dared re-thinkA thought, or, standing on the outer brinkOf a deep pool, would with a pebble thrownMeasure your depth of feeling by my own.But You the cause, the tempter;—who could readA tale like yours, and not pursue each deedFrom impulse to the act—complete a sceneWith such small details as there may have been?So cunningly you made romance to live—I trespassed on your stage; You must forgive!

Orpheus had been espoused but one short hour,

And went to gather roses for the bower,

When a rejected wooer, mad with love,

Sprang upon the light-footed nymph, and strove

For an embrace; she, heeding nought, alas!

Trod on a serpent sleeping in the grass;

And when on the instant, answering her cries,

Her Bridegroom knelt there, kissing her closed eyes,

Half fainting with the sense of all her charms,

Sudden he woke, a dead Bride in his arms!

Not his alone the woe and misery;

Nor he sole mourner for Eurydice;

From Rhodope to Pangæa’s peaks, above

The cave where Boreas hid his Attic love,

Through the fierce realm of Rhesus, echo bore

The wail to the wild Getes, to the shore

Of Hebrus, while in forest, hill, and dale

The tuneful Dryads told the tearful tale.

But how conjure by the best ordered show

Of grief an irremediable woe!

Orpheus fled Pity, and neighbourly Care;

All human fellowship but his despair.

With but that and his lyre communion still

He held, from dawn to sunset, then until

The planets rose and sank, banishing sleep,

Keeping sad vigils by the moaning deep,

Thinking each shadow on the desert shore

Was his lost Bride restored to life once more.

And was it days, weeks, months, or years?—at lastFrom the ghost-haunted waters coastward passed—Whether Goddess, or Woman—a pale shape,That beckoned to the far Laconian CapeOf Tænarus, where the dread cavern drawsEach generation down its hungry jaws.At the first touch of his lyre opened wideThe lofty gates of Hell; he paced insideThe grove impenetrable by but him;A darkness that might be felt, stark, and grim,Where bide the awful ministers of Dis,With hearts that never beat at prayer but his.And still the notes rose bravely; and still heCame, calling on his lost Eurydice;On her, sole burden of his love-lorn cries—One theme informing countless melodies.At the sweet sorrowing, awhile a hush—Amazement—throughout Hades; then a rush—A quick rustling rather, as when a flightOf birds seeks where to sleep at fall of night,Or, cow’ring, courts, against an icy breeze,Multitudinous foliage of trees.Thus—for the jailers ceased from watch and ward,Witched themselves by the wailing, wandering bard—Flocked, from the unamiable swamp, which feedsNothing on its black slime but grisly reeds—Where steams and groans Cocytus, and Styx holdsPrisoners within its nine coils and folds—A legion of the newly dead, entombedIn Limbo, till ripe to be tried and doomed;A fearful gathering, bodies stripped of life,Yet moving; some in pairs, husband and wife,Girls who had virgins died, and beardless youths,With parents’ kisses warm upon their mouths;And some though freed from flesh ignorant whereTheir dwelling fixed, sad phantoms, thin as air.Each waiting judgment; now forgetting allGriefs in a greater, in the musicalChallenge to Dis to yield its prey; while, onAnd on, the chant rolled, till its way it wonPast the black realms of ancient Erebus,Past too the torture cells of Tartarus,Where cold-blue snakes, the Furies’ locks that tied,By the trespassing strain, charmed, stupefied,Drew in their fangs, Ixion’s wheel made pause,And, one shocked wide gape, stood Cerberus’s triple jaws.

And was it days, weeks, months, or years?—at last

From the ghost-haunted waters coastward passed—

Whether Goddess, or Woman—a pale shape,

That beckoned to the far Laconian Cape

Of Tænarus, where the dread cavern draws

Each generation down its hungry jaws.

At the first touch of his lyre opened wide

The lofty gates of Hell; he paced inside

The grove impenetrable by but him;

A darkness that might be felt, stark, and grim,

Where bide the awful ministers of Dis,

With hearts that never beat at prayer but his.

And still the notes rose bravely; and still he

Came, calling on his lost Eurydice;

On her, sole burden of his love-lorn cries—

One theme informing countless melodies.

At the sweet sorrowing, awhile a hush—

Amazement—throughout Hades; then a rush—

A quick rustling rather, as when a flight

Of birds seeks where to sleep at fall of night,

Or, cow’ring, courts, against an icy breeze,

Multitudinous foliage of trees.

Thus—for the jailers ceased from watch and ward,

Witched themselves by the wailing, wandering bard—

Flocked, from the unamiable swamp, which feeds

Nothing on its black slime but grisly reeds—

Where steams and groans Cocytus, and Styx holds

Prisoners within its nine coils and folds—

A legion of the newly dead, entombed

In Limbo, till ripe to be tried and doomed;

A fearful gathering, bodies stripped of life,

Yet moving; some in pairs, husband and wife,

Girls who had virgins died, and beardless youths,

With parents’ kisses warm upon their mouths;

And some though freed from flesh ignorant where

Their dwelling fixed, sad phantoms, thin as air.

Each waiting judgment; now forgetting all

Griefs in a greater, in the musical

Challenge to Dis to yield its prey; while, on

And on, the chant rolled, till its way it won

Past the black realms of ancient Erebus,

Past too the torture cells of Tartarus,

Where cold-blue snakes, the Furies’ locks that tied,

By the trespassing strain, charmed, stupefied,

Drew in their fangs, Ixion’s wheel made pause,

And, one shocked wide gape, stood Cerberus’s triple jaws.

At last, at last! a Palace flaming highWith angry flashes from a mocking sky;And, seated on twin thrones, the King and Queen,Garbed in life-which-is-death’s Infernal sheen;Both silent; but, as whispered soft and lowThe lyre, stern Proserpine remembered howA girl plucked flowers. As nursery rhymesOn dying ears, returned old happy times,Sunshine, and the sweet thought, if mixed with pain,A mother’s toil to have her child again.Paradise for Hell’s Queen once more to knowThat She had heart to feel for others’ woe!—For her Lord to see, transfigured, ere a crownBurned on her brow, the maid he had brought downTo Hell; and she answering his eyes, cried:“Minstrel, depart in peace, and with thy Bride!”The Manes registered the high decree,Adding that, since no mortal eyes may seeSpirit take flesh, Orpheus must be resigned,Till Earth was reached, never to look behind.And as they wrote and sealed what their Queen spoke,From unseen instruments weird music broke,—An owlet’s hooting, a swan’s dying cry—A rapture near akin to agony.

At last, at last! a Palace flaming high

With angry flashes from a mocking sky;

And, seated on twin thrones, the King and Queen,

Garbed in life-which-is-death’s Infernal sheen;

Both silent; but, as whispered soft and low

The lyre, stern Proserpine remembered how

A girl plucked flowers. As nursery rhymes

On dying ears, returned old happy times,

Sunshine, and the sweet thought, if mixed with pain,

A mother’s toil to have her child again.

Paradise for Hell’s Queen once more to know

That She had heart to feel for others’ woe!—

For her Lord to see, transfigured, ere a crown

Burned on her brow, the maid he had brought down

To Hell; and she answering his eyes, cried:

“Minstrel, depart in peace, and with thy Bride!”

The Manes registered the high decree,

Adding that, since no mortal eyes may see

Spirit take flesh, Orpheus must be resigned,

Till Earth was reached, never to look behind.

And as they wrote and sealed what their Queen spoke,

From unseen instruments weird music broke,—

An owlet’s hooting, a swan’s dying cry—

A rapture near akin to agony.

Orpheus turned, or was led; more felt than heard—Passing the gates—as when a babe has stirred,Dreaming—a sigh; but, venturing no glanceAnywhere, or speech, walked as in a trance.Save, as if strings snapt, the lyre stammered outA spasm of jarred notes wandering about,Nor glad nor sad; the harper scarce awareOf the music that he made; or how farHe had gone, through what scenes of bale or bliss,Since he quitted the royal halls of Dis;Trembling only lest the whole dream might takeFlight, like his rapt girl-Bride, and he awakeTo find himself, widowed, lost, as before,Companionless upon the wild sea-shore.And yet. Was it not breath, a woman’s breath,Fanning his cheeks? Could even unkind DeathHave the heart to cheat, with the goal so near?Was not the light he saw day’s, warm and clear?And, sure, the landscape spread before his viewWas of meadows and woods, all which he knew?Phantoms, begone! Here was his spring-tide come,And his Bride with him, out of Hades, home!Sudden, an avalanche—compound—Earth, Hell—Long chained—irresistible passion—fell,Defying thought, fear! his hand left the stringBut just caressed; his throat forbore to sing—That he might clasp and kiss;—one look behind!A world of travail scattered to the wind!

Orpheus turned, or was led; more felt than heard—

Passing the gates—as when a babe has stirred,

Dreaming—a sigh; but, venturing no glance

Anywhere, or speech, walked as in a trance.

Save, as if strings snapt, the lyre stammered out

A spasm of jarred notes wandering about,

Nor glad nor sad; the harper scarce aware

Of the music that he made; or how far

He had gone, through what scenes of bale or bliss,

Since he quitted the royal halls of Dis;

Trembling only lest the whole dream might take

Flight, like his rapt girl-Bride, and he awake

To find himself, widowed, lost, as before,

Companionless upon the wild sea-shore.

And yet. Was it not breath, a woman’s breath,

Fanning his cheeks? Could even unkind Death

Have the heart to cheat, with the goal so near?

Was not the light he saw day’s, warm and clear?

And, sure, the landscape spread before his view

Was of meadows and woods, all which he knew?

Phantoms, begone! Here was his spring-tide come,

And his Bride with him, out of Hades, home!

Sudden, an avalanche—compound—Earth, Hell—

Long chained—irresistible passion—fell,

Defying thought, fear! his hand left the string

But just caressed; his throat forbore to sing—

That he might clasp and kiss;—one look behind!

A world of travail scattered to the wind!

Heav’n forgives seven sins if love the cause;The plea doubles guilt when Hell’s the brok’n laws.Hark how the grinning host of demons howls!And oh! the crash pealing over Hell’s pools!Naught heard he, but that cried Eurydice,—Regained, re-lost:“Alas! for Me and Thee!I feel hands, the inexorable Fates,Speeding back within the Infernal gates;My swimming eyes, just tasting of Earth’s light,I know are being sealed by a large Night.See! how I stretch vain arms around, and gropeFor thee in darkness, hoping without hope!E’en now how lightly should I life resign,Could I remember I had once been thine!”Silence! From sight, hearing, passed she apart,Leaving measureless void within his heart.He ran, striving to clutch a ghost in vain;Pursuing with vain words; never againLooked he upon her; nor could he prevailUpon Hell’s Ferryman to let him scaleThe walls, swimming the moat, and again win,By weeping, or by music, his way in,Then move or force its warders to restoreHis stolen Bride to his fond arms once more.Poor Ghost! No third time destined she to floatOver foul Styx in Charon’s crazy boat!But, hapless, doomed to swell the cavalcadesOf lifeless bodies, and of fleshless shades;Nor one, nor other she; just borne along,Drift on the tide—refrain to an old song—Yet, flickering, like shadows on a wall,Or rainbow gleaming from a water-fall,A throb, a thrill, a joy though set in dole—For Lethe could not wash away the whole—That she reward had been of each sharp pangBy Orpheus borne, theme of each song he sang.

Heav’n forgives seven sins if love the cause;

The plea doubles guilt when Hell’s the brok’n laws.

Hark how the grinning host of demons howls!

And oh! the crash pealing over Hell’s pools!

Naught heard he, but that cried Eurydice,—

Regained, re-lost:

“Alas! for Me and Thee!

I feel hands, the inexorable Fates,

Speeding back within the Infernal gates;

My swimming eyes, just tasting of Earth’s light,

I know are being sealed by a large Night.

See! how I stretch vain arms around, and grope

For thee in darkness, hoping without hope!

E’en now how lightly should I life resign,

Could I remember I had once been thine!”

Silence! From sight, hearing, passed she apart,

Leaving measureless void within his heart.

He ran, striving to clutch a ghost in vain;

Pursuing with vain words; never again

Looked he upon her; nor could he prevail

Upon Hell’s Ferryman to let him scale

The walls, swimming the moat, and again win,

By weeping, or by music, his way in,

Then move or force its warders to restore

His stolen Bride to his fond arms once more.

Poor Ghost! No third time destined she to float

Over foul Styx in Charon’s crazy boat!

But, hapless, doomed to swell the cavalcades

Of lifeless bodies, and of fleshless shades;

Nor one, nor other she; just borne along,

Drift on the tide—refrain to an old song—

Yet, flickering, like shadows on a wall,

Or rainbow gleaming from a water-fall,

A throb, a thrill, a joy though set in dole—

For Lethe could not wash away the whole—

That she reward had been of each sharp pang

By Orpheus borne, theme of each song he sang.

Conscious if voiceless, she. And he? The lyreWhich, while its master hoped, had quenched its fire,Was ever confidant of his despair,The instrument commissioned to declareHis wrongs. They tell who know, that in a caveHumid and bare, desolate as new grave,At the foot of a tall cliff, hung with ice,By Strymon’s gloomy waters, for full twiceA hundred days and nights, singing he wept;Like a nightingale cruelly bereftOf all her young ones in the poplar grove,With nothing for her any more to love,Or live for, but to gaze upon her nest,And mourn, the night through, all she once possessed,Till overflows the wood where she complains,With the sweet melancholy of her strains.So longed he, and so played; changing at timesTo lands yet lonelier, and harsher climes;Arctic ice-fields crossed, forded snowy Don,Camped on Scythian heaths, where yews keep-onEternal pall of frost;—always in questOf postern into Hell, whence he might wrestAudience of its Lords, and with his taleOf unreal gifts, all pre-ordained to fail,Oblige them to repeat for very shameA boon Hell granted only to reclaim.No more than this? This his one hope and theme?This, sum of his powers? And this a dream!A dream? And yet the key—magic of Art!—Which could unlock at will a tiger’s heart,And, as notes rose and fell in cadence, madeTriumphal arches of each sylvan glade;For true passion a hearing aye commands,And speaks a tongue all Nature understands.No more than that it had killed care to blessMore than one life, and left a wilderness!And that it fell on Virgil to recallA legend—would that it lied!—how, when allThe land’s women, Bacchus-fired, and distraughtBy hymns that Orpheus in glad days had taught,Had pressed him into the wild dance they ledNightly through torch-lit forests, and he fledIn horror, as at treason to his love,They, infuriate more the more he strove,Followed, reckless of all but the mad chase,Down to the Hebrus from the hills of Thrace,And tore him limb from limb: but still the tongue,As the wild current rolled the head along,Called on “Eurydice”; and till the seaReceived it, bank to bank returned “Eurydice”!

Conscious if voiceless, she. And he? The lyre

Which, while its master hoped, had quenched its fire,

Was ever confidant of his despair,

The instrument commissioned to declare

His wrongs. They tell who know, that in a cave

Humid and bare, desolate as new grave,

At the foot of a tall cliff, hung with ice,

By Strymon’s gloomy waters, for full twice

A hundred days and nights, singing he wept;

Like a nightingale cruelly bereft

Of all her young ones in the poplar grove,

With nothing for her any more to love,

Or live for, but to gaze upon her nest,

And mourn, the night through, all she once possessed,

Till overflows the wood where she complains,

With the sweet melancholy of her strains.

So longed he, and so played; changing at times

To lands yet lonelier, and harsher climes;

Arctic ice-fields crossed, forded snowy Don,

Camped on Scythian heaths, where yews keep-on

Eternal pall of frost;—always in quest

Of postern into Hell, whence he might wrest

Audience of its Lords, and with his tale

Of unreal gifts, all pre-ordained to fail,

Oblige them to repeat for very shame

A boon Hell granted only to reclaim.

No more than this? This his one hope and theme?

This, sum of his powers? And this a dream!

A dream? And yet the key—magic of Art!—

Which could unlock at will a tiger’s heart,

And, as notes rose and fell in cadence, made

Triumphal arches of each sylvan glade;

For true passion a hearing aye commands,

And speaks a tongue all Nature understands.

No more than that it had killed care to bless

More than one life, and left a wilderness!

And that it fell on Virgil to recall

A legend—would that it lied!—how, when all

The land’s women, Bacchus-fired, and distraught

By hymns that Orpheus in glad days had taught,

Had pressed him into the wild dance they led

Nightly through torch-lit forests, and he fled

In horror, as at treason to his love,

They, infuriate more the more he strove,

Followed, reckless of all but the mad chase,

Down to the Hebrus from the hills of Thrace,

And tore him limb from limb: but still the tongue,

As the wild current rolled the head along,

Called on “Eurydice”; and till the sea

Received it, bank to bank returned “Eurydice”!

Pardon, my Master, if I’ve dared re-thinkA thought, or, standing on the outer brinkOf a deep pool, would with a pebble thrownMeasure your depth of feeling by my own.But You the cause, the tempter;—who could readA tale like yours, and not pursue each deedFrom impulse to the act—complete a sceneWith such small details as there may have been?So cunningly you made romance to live—I trespassed on your stage; You must forgive!

Pardon, my Master, if I’ve dared re-think

A thought, or, standing on the outer brink

Of a deep pool, would with a pebble thrown

Measure your depth of feeling by my own.

But You the cause, the tempter;—who could read

A tale like yours, and not pursue each deed

From impulse to the act—complete a scene

With such small details as there may have been?

So cunningly you made romance to live—

I trespassed on your stage; You must forgive!

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