I Phaethon: dwelling in that golden house,
Which Hephaistos did build for my great sire,
Old Helios, king of glowing heaven and day;
Knowing this life but mortal in its span,
Hedged in by puling youth and palsied age,
Where poor men crawl like insects, knowing pain
And mighty sorrow to the gates of death;
Besought the god my father by his love,
To grant me that which I did long for most
Of all things great in earth and heaven and sea,
The which he granting in his mighty love,—
Of all things splendid under the splendid sky
Built of old by toil of ancient gods,
To me the dearest; for one round golden day,
To stand in his great chariot built of fire,
And chase the rosy hours from dawn to dusk,
Guiding his fleeting steeds o’er heaven’s floors.
He gave to me.—No god yet brake his word.—
Speaking to me in sorrow: “O my son,
Know what thy foolish pride hath made for thee.
That mortal life which is to men a span,
From childhood unto youth, and manhood’s prime,
Reaching on out to happy olden age,
For thee must shrink into one woeful day.
For, O my son, impetuous in thy pride,
Who would be as the gods and ape their ways,
And sacrilegious leave thy mortal bounds,—
Know thou must die upon that baleful day,
That terrible day of days thou mountest up
To ride that chariot never mortal rode,
And drive those steeds that never man hath driven.
Then I: “My father, know me, thine own son,
Better to me to live one day a god,
Going out in some great flame of death,
Than live this weary life of common men,
Misunderstood, misunderstanding still,
Half wakeful, moving dimly in a dream,
Confused, phantasmic, men call history;
Chasing the circles of the perishing suns,
The summers and dim winters, hating all,
Heart-eaten for a longing ne’er attained,
Despising all things named of earth or heaven,
Or mortal birth that they should ever be;
Knowing within this mystery of my being,
This curbed heredity, lies a latent dream
Of some old vanished, banished, lease of being,
When life was life and man’s soul lived its hour,
Uncurbed, uncabined, like the mighty gods,
Vast, splendid, capable, and heraclean,
To drain the golden beaker of his days.”
Thus I: “My father, I am over weary,
Chained in this summer-plot of circumstance,
Beaten by fearful custom, childish, chidden,
Hounded of cruel wolves of superstition,
And rounded by a petty wall of time,
Plodding the dreary years that wend their round,
Aping the sleeping sensual life of beasts,
Fearful of all things, dreading mostly death,
Past pain and age and all their miseried end,
Where all must rot, who smile and weep and sleep,
And be a part of all this grim corruption.
Nay, better to me than the long-measured draught,
Trickling out through many anxious years,
Iron-eaten, haggard, to the place of death—
To drain my flagon of life in one glad draught,—
To live, to love, aspire, and dare all things;
Be all I am and others ought to be,
Real man or demi-god, to blossom my rose,
To scale my heights, to live my vastest dream,
To climb, to be, and then, if chance my fate,
To greatly fall.”
Then my great father, laden
With woe divine: “My son, take thou thy way;
As thou hast chosen, thus ’t will be to thee;”
And passing, darkened down his godlike face,
And shadowed splendor thence forevermore.

’Twas night ambrosial down the orient meads,
With stars like winking pearls far-studding heaven,
And dews all glorious on the bending stem,
Odorous, passionate as the rose of sleep
Half-budded on the throbbing heart of night,
And in the east a glowing sapphire gloomed;
When I awoke and lifted up mine eyes,
And saw through rose and gold and vermeil dyes,
And splendid mists of azure hung with pearl,
Half-hid, half-seen, as life would apprehend,
As in a sleep, the presence of dim death
And fate and terrible gods, the car of day.

Like morn within the morning, glad, it hung,
Light hid in light, swift blinding all who saw,
Dazzled, its presence; motionless though vibrate,
Where it did swing athwart the deep-welled night,
The heart of morning in the folds of dark,
Pulsating sleep, and conquering death with life;
So glowed its glory, folded, cloud in cloud,
Gold within azure, purple shut in gold,
The bud of morning pulsing ere it break,
And spill its splendors many vermeil-dyed,
Reddening Ocean to his outmost rim.

Here charmÈd dreams and drowsÈd magic hung,
And wingÈd hopes and rosy joys afloat
Filled all the air, and I was quick aware
That this was life, and this mine hour supreme,
To seize and act and be one with the gods.
So dreamed I reckless when to think, to act,
And moved, elate, with swift life-flaming step
Athwart the meadow’s budding asphodels,
Song on my lip, and life at heart and eye,
Exultant, breathing flame of pride and power.

Joy rose and sang, a bird, across the fields,
Hope’s rosy wings shot trembling to the blue,
And Courage with dauntless steps before me went,
Brushing the veils of fierce cobwebby fires.
And there, before me, sprawled grim ancient Power,
A hideous ethiope, huge in sodden sleep,
The golden reins clutched

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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