Lewis Morris

Then from those dark
And dreadful precincts passing, ghostly fields
And voiceless took me. A faint twilight veiled
The leafless, shadowy trees and herbless plains.
There stirred no breath of air to wake to life
The slumbers of the world. The sky above
Was one gray, changeless cloud. There looked no eye
Of Life from the veiled heavens; but Sleep and Death
Were round me everywhere. And yet no fear
Nor horror took me here, where was no pain
Nor dread, save that strange tremor which assails
One who in life's hot noontide looks on death
And knows he too shall die. The ghosts which rose
From every darkling copse showed thin and pale—
Thinner and paler far than those I left
In agony; even as Pity seems to wear
A thinner form than Fear.

Not caged alone
Like those the avenging Furies purged were these,
Nor that dim land as those black cavernous depths
Where no hope comes. Fair souls were they and white
Whom there I saw, waiting as we shall wait,
The Beatific End, but thin and pale
As the young faith which made them; touched a little
By the sad memories of the earth; made glad
A little by past joys: no more; and wrapt
In musing on the brief play played by them
Upon the lively earth, yet ignorant
Of the long lapse of years, and what had been
Since they too breathed Life's air, or if they knew,
Keeping some echo only; but their pain
Was fainter than their joy, and a great hope
Like ours possessed them dimly.

First I saw
A youth who pensive leaned against the trunk
Of a dark cypress, and an idle flute
Hung at his side. A sorrowful sad soul,
Such as sometimes he knows, who meets the gaze,
Mute, uncomplaining yet most pitiful,
Of one whom nature, by some secret spite,
Has maimed and left imperfect; or the pain
Which fills a poet's eyes. Beneath his robe
I seemed to see the scar of cruel stripes,
Too hastily concealed. Yet was he not
Wholly unhappy, but from out the core
Of suffering flowed a secret spring of joy,
Which mocked the droughts of Fate, and left him glad
And glorying in his sorrow. As I gazed
He raised his silent flute, and, half ashamed,
Blew a soft note; and as I stayed awhile
I heard him thus discourse—

"The flute is sweet
To gods and men, but sweeter far the lyre
And voice of a true singer. Shall I fear
To tell of that great trial, when I strove
And Phoebus conquered? Nay, no shame it is
To bow to an immortal melody;
But glory.

Once among the Phrygian hills
I lay a-musing,—while the silly sheep
Wandered among the thyme—upon the bank
Of a clear mountain stream, beneath the pines,
Safe hidden from the noon. A dreamy haze
Played on the uplands, but the hills were clear
In sunlight, and no cloud was on the sky.
It was the time when a deep silence comes
Upon the summer earth, and all the birds
Have ceased from singing, and the world is still
As midnight, and if any live thing move—
Some fur-clad creature, or cool gliding snake—
Within the pipy overgrowth of weeds,
The ear can catch the rustle, and the trees
And earth and air are listening. As I lay,
Faintly, as in a dream, I seemed to hear
A tender music, like the Æolian chords,
Sound low within the woodland, whence the stream,
Flowed full, yet silent. Long, with ear to ground,
I hearkened; and the sweet strain, fuller grown,
Rounder and clearer came, and danced along
In mirthful measure now, and now grown grave
In dying falls, and sweeter and more clear,
Tripping at nuptials and high revelry,
Wailing at burials, rapt in soaring thoughts,
Chanting strange sea-tales full of mystery,
Touching all chords of being, and life and death,
Now rose, now sank, and always was divine,
So strange the music came.

Till, as I lay
Enraptured, swift a sudden discord rang,
And all the sound grew still. A sudden flash,
As from a sunlit jewel, fired the wood.
A noise of water smitten, and on the hills
A fair white fleece of cloud, which swiftly climbed
Into the farthest heaven. Then, as I mused,
Knowing a parting goddess, straight I saw
A sudden splendour float upon the stream,
And knew it for this jewelled flute, which paused
Before me on an eddy. It I snatched
Eager, and to my ardent lips I bore
The wonder, and behold, with the first breath—
The first warm human breath, the silent strains.
The half-drowned notes which late the goddess blew,
Revived, and sounded clearer, sweeter far
Than mortal skill could make. So with delight
I left my flocks to wander o'er the wastes
Untended, and the wolves and eagles seized
The tender lambs, but I was for my art—
Nought else; and though the high-pitched notes divine
Grew faint, yet something lingered, and at last
So sweet a note I sounded of my skill,
That all the Phrygian highlands, all the white
Hill villages, were fain to hear the strain,
Which the mad shepherd made.

So, overbold,
And rapt in my new art, at last I dared
To challenge Phoebus' self.

'Twas a fair day
When sudden, on the mountain side, I saw
A train of fleecy clouds in a white band
Descending. Down the gleaming pinnacles
And difficult crags they floated, and the arch,
Drawn with its thousand rays against the sun,
Hung like a glory o'er them. Midst the pines
They clothed themselves with form, and straight I knew
The immortals. Young Apollo, with his lyre,
Kissed by the sun, and all the Muses clad
In robes of gleaming white; then a great fear,
Yet mixed with joy, assailed me, for I knew
Myself a mortal equalled with the gods.

Ah me! how fair they were! how fair and dread
In face and form, they showed, when now they came
Upon the thymy slope, and the young god
Lay with his choir around him, beautiful
And bold as Youth and Dawn! There was no cloud
Upon the sky, nor any sound at all
When I began my strain. No coward fear
Of what might come restrained me; but an awe
Of those immortal eyes and ears divine
Looking and listening. All the earth seemed full
Of ears for me alone—the woods, the fields,
The hills, the skies were listening. Scarce a sound
My flute might make; such subtle harmonies
The silence seemed to weave round me and flout
The half unuttered thought. Till last I blew,
As now, a hesitating note, and lo!
The breath divine, lingering on mortal lips,
Hurried my soul along to such fair rhymes,
Sweeter than wont, that swift I knew my life
Rise up within me, and expand, and all
The human, which so nearly is divine,
Was glorified, and on the Muses' lips,
And in their lovely eyes, I saw a fair
Approval, and my soul in me was glad.

For all the strains I blew were strains of love—
Love striving, love triumphant, love that lies
Within belovÈd arms, and wreathes his locks
With flowers, and lets the world go by and sings
Unheeding; and I saw a kindly gleam
Within the Muses' eyes, who were indeed,
Women, though god-like.

But upon the face
Of the young Sun-god only haughty scorn
Sate and he swiftly struck his golden lyre,
And played the Song of Life; and lo, I knew
My strain, how earthy! Oh, to hear the young
Apollo playing! and the hidden cells
And chambers of the universe displayed
Before the charmÈd sound! I seemed to float
In some enchanted cave, where the wave dips
In from the sunlit sea, and floods its depths
With reflex hues of heaven. My soul was rapt
By that I heard, and dared to wish no more
For victory; and yet because the sound
Of music that is born of human breath
Comes straighter from the soul than any strain
The hand alone can make; therefore I knew,
With a mixed thrill of pity and delight,
The nine immortal Sisters hardly touched
By this fine strain of music, as by mine,
And when the high lay trembled to its close,
Still doubting.

Then upon the Sun-god's face
There passed a cold proud smile. He swept his lyre
Once more, then laid it down, and with clear voice,
The voice of godhead, sang. Oh, ecstasy,
Oh happiness of him who once has heard
Apollo singing! For his ears the sound
Of grosser music dies, and all the earth
Is full of subtle undertones, which change
The listener and transform him. As he sang—
Of what I know not, but the music touched
Each chord of being—I felt my secret life
Stand open to it, as the parched earth yawns
To drink the summer rain; and at the call
Of those refreshing waters, all my thought
Stir from its dark and secret depths, and burst
Into sweet, odorous flowers, and from their wells
Deep call to deep, and all the mystery
Of all that is, laid open. As he sang,
I saw the Nine, with lovely pitying eyes,
Sign 'He has conquered.' Yet I felt no pang
Of fear, only deep joy that I had heard
Such music while I lived, even though it brought
Torture and death. For what were it to lie
Sleek, crowned with roses, drinking vulgar praise,
And surfeited with offerings, the dull gift
Of ignorant hands—all which I might have known—
To this diviner failure? Godlike 'tis
To climb upon the icy ledge, and fall
Where other footsteps dare not. So I knew
My fate, and it was near.

For to a pine
They bound me willing, and with cruel stripes
Tore me, and took my life.

But from my blood
Was born the stream of song, and on its flow
My poor flute, to the cool swift river borne,
Floated, and thence adown a lordlier tide
Into the deep, wide sea. I do not blame
Phoebus, or Nature which has set this bar
Betwixt success and failure, for I know
How far high failure overleaps the bound
Of low successes. Only suffering draws
The inner heart of song and can elicit
The perfumes of the soul. 'Twere not enough
To fail, for that were happiness to him
Who ever upward looks with reverent eye
And seeks but to admire. So, since the race
Of bards soars highest; as who seek to show
Our lives as in a glass; therefore it comes
That suffering weds with song, from him of old,
Who solaced his blank darkness with his verse;
Through all the story of neglect and scorn,
Necessity, sheer hunger, early death,
Which smite the singer still. Not only those
Who keep clear accents of the voice divine
Are honourable—they are happy, indeed,
Whate'er the world has held—but those who hear
Some fair faint echoes, though the crowd be deaf,
And see the white gods' garments on the hills,
Which the crowd sees not, though they may not find
Fit music for their thought; they too are blest,
Not pitiable. Not from arrogant pride
Nor over-boldness fail they who have striven
To tell what they have heard, with voice too weak
For such high message. More it is than ease,
Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries,
To have seen white Presences upon the hills,
To have heard the voices of the Eternal Gods."

So spake he, and I seemed to look on him,
Whose sad young eyes grow on us from the page
Of his own verse: who did himself to death:
Or whom the dullard slew: or whom the sea
Rapt from us: and I passed without a word,
Slow, grave, with many musings.

Then I came
On one a maiden, meek with folded hands,
Seated against a rugged face of cliff,
In silent thought. Anon she raised her arms,
Her gleaming arms, above her on the rock,
With hands which clasped each other, till she showed
As in a statue, and her white robe fell
Down from her maiden shoulders, and I knew
The fair form as it seemed chained to the stone
By some invisible gyves, and named her name:
And then she raised her frightened eyes to mine
As one who, long expecting some great fear,
Scarce sees deliverance come. But when she saw
Only a kindly glance, a softer look
Came in them, and she answered to my thought
With a sweet voice and low.

"I did but muse
Upon the painful past, long dead and done,
Forgetting I was saved.

The angry clouds
Burst always on the low flat plains, and swept
The harvest to the ocean; all the land
Was wasted. A great serpent from the deep,
Lifting his horrible head above their homes,
Devoured the children. And the people prayed
In vain to careless gods.

On that dear land,
Which now was turned into a sullen sea,
Gazing in safety from the stately towers
Of my sire's palace, I, a princess, saw,
Lapt in soft luxury, within my bower
The wreck of humble homes come whirling by,
The drowning, bleating flocks, the bellowing herds,
The grain scarce husbanded by toiling hands
Upon the sunlit plain, rush to the sea,
With floating corpses. On the rain-swept hills
The remnant of the people huddled close,
Homeless and starving. All my being was filled
With pity for them, and I joyed to give
What food and shelter and compassionate hands
Of woman might. I took the little ones
And clasped them shivering to the virgin breast
Which knew no other touch but theirs, and gave
Raiment and food. My sire, not stern to me,
Smiled on me as he saw. My gentle mother,
Who loved me with a closer love than binds
A mother to her son; and sunned herself
In my fresh beauty, seeing in my young eyes
Her own fair vanished youth; doted on me,
And fain had kept my eyes from the sad sights
That pained them. But my heart was sad in me,
Seeing the ineffable miseries of life,
And that mysterious anger of the gods,
And helpless to allay them. All in vain
Were prayer and supplication, all in vain
The costly victims steamed. The vengeful clouds
Hid the fierce sky, and still the ruin came.
And wallowing his grim length within the flood,
Over the ravaged fields and homeless homes,
The fell sea-monster raged, sating his jaws
With blood and rapine.

Then to the dread shrine
Of Ammon went the priests, and reverend chiefs
Of all the nation. White robed, at their head,
Went slow my royal sire. The oracle
Spoke clear, not as ofttimes in words obscure,
Ambiguous. And as we stood to meet
The suppliants—she who bare me, with her head
Upon my neck—we cheerful and with song
Welcomed their swift return; auguring well
From such a quick-sped mission.

But my sire
Hid his face from me, and the crowd of priests
And nobles looked not at us. And no word
Was spoken till at last one drew a scroll
And gave it to the queen, who straightway swooned,
Having read it, on my breast, and then I saw,
I the young girl whose soft life scarcely knew
Shadow of sorrow, I whose heart was full
Of pity for the rest, what doom was mine.

I think I hardly knew in that dread hour
The fear that came anon; I was transformed
Into a champion of my race, made strong
With a new courage, glorying to meet,
In all the ecstasy of sacrifice,
Death face to face. Some god, I know not who,
O'erspread me, and despite my mother's tears
And my stern father's grief, I met my fate
Unshrinking.

When the moon rose clear from cloud
Once more again over the midnight sea,
And that vast watery plain, where were before
Hundreds of happy homes, and well-tilled fields,
And purple vineyards; from my father's towers
The white procession went along the paths,
The high cliff paths, which well I loved of old,
Among the myrtles. Priests with censers went
And offerings, robed in white, and round their brows
The sacred fillet. With his nobles walked
My sire with breaking heart. My mother clung
To me the victim, and the young girls went
With wailing and with tears. A solemn strain
The soft flutes sounded, as we went by night
To a wild headland, rock-based in the sea.

There on a sea-worn rock, upon the verge,
To some rude stanchions, high above my head,
They bound me. Out at sea, a black reef rose,
Washed by the constant surge, wherein a cave
Sheltered deep down the monster. The sad queen
Would scarcely leave me, though the priests shrunk back
In terror. Last, torn from my endless kiss,
Swooning they bore her upwards. All my robe
Fell from my lifted arms, and left displayed
The virgin treasure of my breasts; and then
The white procession through the moonlight streamed
Upwards, and soon their soft flutes sounded low
Upon the high lawns, leaving me alone.

There stood I in the moonlight, left alone
Against the sea-worn rock. Hardly I knew,
Seeing only the bright moon and summer sea,
Which gently heaved and surged, and kissed the ledge
With smooth warm tides, what fate was mine. I seemed,
Soothed by the quiet, to be resting still
Within my maiden chamber, and to watch
The moonlight thro' my lattice. Then again
Fear came, and then the pride of sacrifice
Filled me, as on the high cliff lawns I heard
The wailing cries, the chanted liturgies,
And knew me bound forsaken to the rock,
And saw the monster-haunted depths of sea.

So all night long upon the sandy shores
I heard the hollow murmur of the wave,
And all night long the hidden sea caves made
A ghostly echo; and the sea birds mewed
Around me; once I heard a mocking laugh,
As of some scornful Nereid; once the waters
Broke louder on the scarpÈd reefs, and ebbed
As if the monster coming; but again
He came not, and the dead moon sank, and still
Only upon the cliffs the wails, the chants,
And I forsaken on my sea-worn rock,
And lo, the monster-haunted depths of sea.

Till at the dead dark hour before the dawn,
When sick men die, and scarcely fear itself
Bore up my weary eyelids, a great surge
Burst on the rock, and slowly, as it seemed,
The sea sucked downward to its depths, laid bare
The hidden reefs, and then before my eyes—
Oh, horrible! a huge and loathsome snake
Lifted his dreadful crest and scaly side
Above the wave, in bulk and length so large,
Coil after hideous coil, that scarce the eye
Could measure its full horror; the great jaws
Dropped as with gore; the large and furious eyes
Were fired with blood and lust. Nearer he came,
And slowly, with a devilish glare, more near,
Till his hot foetor choked me, and his tongue,
Forked horribly within his poisonous jaws,
Played lightning-like around me. For awhile
I swooned, and when I knew my life again,
Death's bitterness was past.

Then with a bound
Leaped up the broad red sun above the sea,
And lit the horrid fulgour of his scales,
And struck upon the rock; and as I turned
My head in the last agony of death,
I knew a brilliant sunbeam swiftly leaping
Downward from crag to crag, and felt new hope
Where all was hopeless. On the hills a shout
Of joy, and on the rocks the ring of mail;
And while the hungry serpent's gloating eyes
Were fixed on me, a knight in casque of gold
And blazing shield, who with his flashing blade
Fell on the monster. Long the conflict raged,
Till all the rocks were red with blood and slime,
And yet my champion from those horrible jaws
And dreadful coils was scatheless. Zeus his sire
Protected, and the awful shield he bore
Withered the monster's life and left him cold,
Dragging his helpless length and grovelling crest:
And o'er his glaring eyes the films of death
Crept, and his writhing flank and hiss of hate
The great deep swallowed down, and blood and spume
Rose on the waves; and a strange wailing cry
Resounded o'er the waters, and the sea
Bellowed within its hollow-sounding caves.

Then knew I, I was saved, and with me all
The people. From my wrists he loosed the gyves,
My hero; and within his godlike arms
Bore me by slippery rock and difficult path,
To where my mother prayed. There was no need
To ask my love. Without a spoken word
Love lit his fires within me. My young heart
Went forth, Love calling, and I gave him all.

Dost thou then wonder that the memory
Of this supreme brief moment lingers still,
While all the happy uneventful years
Of wedded life, and all the fair young growth
Of offspring, and the tranquil later joys,
Nay, even the fierce eventful fight which raged
When we were wedded, fade and are deceased,
Lost in the irrecoverable past?
Nay, 'tis not strange. Always the memory
Of overwhelming perils or great joys,
Avoided or enjoyed, writes its own trace
With such deep characters upon our lives,
That all the rest are blotted. In this place,
Where is not action, thought, or count of time,
It is not weary as it were on earth,
To dwell on these old memories. Time is born
Of dawns and sunsets, days that wax and wane
And stamp themselves upon the yielding face
Of fleeting human life; but here there is
Morning nor evening, act nor suffering,
But only one unchanging Present holds
Our being suspended. One blest day indeed,
Or centuries ago or yesterday,
There came among us one who was Divine,
Not as our gods, joyous and breathing strength
And careless life, but crowned with a new crown
Of suffering, and a great light came with him,
And with him he brought Time and a new sense
Of dim, long-vanished years; and since he passed
I seem to see new meaning in my fate,
And all the deeds I tell of. Evermore
The young life comes, bound to the cruel rocks
Alone. Before it the unfathomed sea
Smiles, filled with monstrous growths that wait to take
Its innocence. Far off the voice and hand
Of love kneel by in agony, and entreat
The seeming careless gods. Still when the deep
Is smoothest, lo, the deadly fangs and coils
Lurk near, to smite with death. And o'er the crags
Of duty, like a sudden sunbeam, springs
Some golden soul half mortal, half divine,
Heaven-sent, and breaks the chain; and evermore
For sacrifice they die, through sacrifice
They live, and are for others, and no grief
Which smites the humblest but reverberates
Thro' all the close-set files of life, and takes
The princely soul that from its royal towers
Looks down and sees the sorrow.

Sir, farewell!
If thou shouldst meet my children on the earth
Or here, for maybe it is long ago
Since I and they were living, say to them
I only muse a little here, and wait
The waking."

And her lifted arms sank down
Upon her knees, and as I passed I saw her
Gazing with soft rapt eyes, and on her lips
A smile as of a saint.

And then I saw
A manly hunter pace along the lea,
His bow upon his shoulder, and his spear
Poised idly in his hand: the face and form
Of vigorous youth; but in the full brown eyes
A timorous gaze as of a hunted hart,
Brute-like, yet human still, even as the Faun
Of old, the dumb brute passing into man,
And dowered with double nature. As he came
I seemed to question of his fate, and he
Answered me thus:

"'Twas one hot afternoon
That I, a hunter, wearied with my day,
Heard my hounds baying fainter on the hills,
Led by the flying hart; and when the sound
Faded and all was still, I turned to seek,
O'ercome by heat and thirst, a little glade,
Beloved of old, where, in the shadowy wood,
The clear cold crystal of a mossy pool
Lipped the soft emerald marge, and gave again
The flower-starred lawn where ofttimes overspent
I lay upon the grass and careless bathed
My limbs in the sweet lymph.

But as I neared
The hollow, sudden through the leaves I saw
A throng of wood-nymphs fair, sporting undraped
Round one, a goddess. She with timid hand
Loosened her zone, and glancing round let fall
Her robe from neck and bosom, pure and bright,
(For it was Dian's self I saw, none else)
As when she frees her from a fleece of cloud
And swims along the deep blue sea of heaven
On sweet June nights. Silent awhile I stood,
Rooted with awe, and fain had turned to fly,
But feared by careless footstep to affright
Those chaste cold eyes. Great awe and reverence
Held me, and fear; then Love with passing wing
Fanned me, and held my eyes, and checked my breath,
Signing 'Beware!'

So for a time I watched,
Breathless as one a brooding nightmare holds,
Who fleeth some great fear, yet fleeth not;
Till the last flutter of lawn, and veil no more
Obscured, and all the beauty of my dreams
Assailed my sense. But ere I raised my eyes,
As one who fain would look and see the sun,
The first glance dazed my brain. Only I knew
The perfect outline flow in tender curves,
To break in doubled charms; only a haze
Of creamy white, dimple, and deep divine:
And then no more. For lo! a sudden chill,
And such thick mist as shuts the hills at eve,
Oppressed me gazing; and a heaven-sent shame,
An awe, a fear, a reverence for the unknown,
Froze all the springs of will and left me cold,
And blinded all the longings of my eyes,
Leaving such dim reflection still as mocks
Him who has looked on a great light, and keeps
On his closed eyes the image. Presently,
My fainting soul, safe hidden for awhile
Deep in Life's mystic shades, renewed herself,
And straight, the innocent brute within the man
Bore on me, and with half-averted eye
I gazed upon the secret.

As I looked,
A radiance, white as beamed the frosty moon
On the mad boy and slew him, beamed on me;
Made chill my pulses, checked my life and heat;
Transformed me, withered all my soul, and left
My being burnt out. For lo! the dreadful eyes
Of Godhead met my gaze, and through the mask
And thick disguise of sense, as through a wood,
Pierced to my life. Then suddenly I knew
An altered nature, touched by no desire
For that which showed so lovely, but declined
To lower levels. Nought of fear or awe,
Nothing of love was mine. Wide-eyed I gazed,
But saw no spiritual beam to blight
My brain with too much beauty, no undraped
And awful majesty; only a brute,
Dumb charm, like that which draws the brute to it,
Unknowing it is drawn. So gradually
I knew a dull content o'ercloud my sense,
And unabashed I gazed, like that dumb bird
Which thinks no thought and speaks no word, yet fronts
The sun that blinded Homer—all my fear
Sunk with my shame, in a base happiness.

But as I gazed, and careless turned and passed
Through the thick wood, forgetting what had been,
And thinking thoughts no longer, swift there came
A mortal terror: voices that I knew,
My own hounds' bayings that I loved before,
As with them often o'er the purple hills
I chased the flying hart from slope to slope,
Before the slow sun climbed the Eastern peaks,
Until the swift sun smote the Western plain;
Whom often I had cheered by voice and glance,
Whom often I had checked with hand and thong
Grim followers, like the passions, firing me,
True servants, like the strong nerves, urging me
On many a fruitless chase, to find and take
Some too swift-fleeting beauty; faithful feet
And tongues, obedient always: these I knew,
Clothed with a new-born force and vaster grown,
And stronger than their master; and I thought,
What if they tare me with their jaws, nor knew
That once I ruled them,—brute pursuing brute,
And I the quarry? Then I turned and fled,—
If it was I indeed that feared and fled—
Down the long glades, and through the tangled brakes,
Where scarce the sunlight pierced; fled on and on,
And panted, self-pursued. But evermore
The dissonant music which I knew so sweet,
When by the windy hills, the echoing vales,
And whispering pines it rang, now far, now near,
As from my rushing steed I leant and cheered
With voice and horn the chase—this brought to me
Fear of I knew not what, which bade me fly,
Fly always, fly; but when my heart stood still,
And all my limbs were stiffened as I fled,
Just as the white moon ghost-like climbed the sky,
Nearer they came and nearer, baying loud,
With bloodshot eyes and red jaws dripping foam;
And when I strove to check their savagery,
Speaking with words; no voice articulate came,
Only a dumb, low bleat. Then all the throng
Leapt swift on me, and tare me as I lay,
And left me man again.

Wherefore I walk
Along these dim fields peopled with the ghosts
Of heroes who have left the ways of earth
For this faint ghost of them. Sometimes I think,
Pondering on what has been, that all my days
Were shadows, all my life an allegory;
And, though I know sometimes some fainter gleam
Of the old beauty move me, and sometimes
Some beat of the old pulses; that my fate,
For ever hurrying on in hot pursuit,
To fall at length self-slain, was but a tale
Writ large by Zeus upon a mortal life,
Writ large, and yet a riddle. For sometimes
I read its meaning thus: Life is a chase,
And Man the hunter, always following on,
With hounds of rushing thought or fiery sense,
Some hidden truth or beauty, fleeting still
For ever through the thick-leaved coverts deep
And wind-worn wolds of time. And if he turn
A moment from the hot pursuit to seize
Some chance-brought sweetness, other than the search
To which his soul is set,—some dalliance,
Some outward shape of Art, some lower love,
Some charm of wealth and sleek content and home,—
Then, if he check an instant, the swift chase
Of fierce untempered energies which pursue,
With jaws unsated and a thirst for act,
Bears down on him with clanging shock, and whelms
His prize and him in ruin.

And sometimes
I seem to myself a thinker, who at last,
Amid the chase and capture of low ends,
Pausing by some cold well of hidden thought
Comes on some perfect truth, and looks and looks
Till the fair vision blinds him. And the sum
Of all his lower self pursuing him,
The strong brute forces, the unchecked desires,
Finding him bound and speechless, deem him now
No more their master, but some soulless thing;
And leap on him, and seize him, and possess
His life, till through death's gate he pass to life,
And, his own ghost, revives. But looks no more
Upon the truth unveiled, save through a cloud
Of creed and faith and longing, which shall change
One day to perfect knowledge.

But whoe'er
Shall read the riddle of my life, I walk
In this dim land amid dim ghosts of kings,
As one day thou shalt; meantime, fare thou well."

Then passed he; and I marked him slowly go
Along the winding ways of that weird land,
And vanish in a wood.

And next I knew
A woman perfect as a young man's dream,
And breathing as it seemed the old sweet air
Of the fair days of old, when man was young
And life an Epic. Round the lips a smile
Subtle and deep and sweet as hers who looks
From the old painter's canvas, and derides
Life and the riddle of things, the aimless strife,
The folly of Love, as who has proved it all,
Enjoyed and suffered. In the lovely eyes
A weary look, no other than the gaze
Which ofttimes as the rapid chariot whirls,
And ofttimes by the glaring midnight streets,
Gleams out and chills our thought. And yet not guilt
Nor sorrow was it; only weariness,
No more, and still most lovely. As I named
Her name in haste, she looked with half surprise,
And thus she seemed to speak:

"What? Dost thou know
Thou too, the fatal glances which beguiled
Those strong rude chiefs of old? Has not the gloom
Of this dim land withdrawn from out mine eyes
The glamour which once filled them? Does my cheek
Retain the round of youth and still defy
The wear of immemorial centuries?
And this low voice, long silent, keeps it still
The music of old time? Aye, in thine eyes
I read it, and within thine eyes I see
Thou knowest me, and the story of my life
Sung by the blind old bard when I was dead,
And all my lovers dust. I know thee not,
Thee nor thy gods, yet would I soothly swear
I was not all to blame for what has been,
The long fight, the swift death, the woes, the tears
The brave lives spent, the humble homes uptorn
To gain one poor fair face. It was not I
That curved these lips into this subtle smile,
Or gave these eyes their fire, nor yet made round
This supple frame. It was not I, but Love,
Love mirroring himself in all things fair,
Love that projects himself upon a life,
And dotes on his own image.

Ah! the days,
The weary years of Love and feasts and gold,
The hurried flights, the din of clattering hoofs
At midnight, when the heroes dared for me,
And bore me o'er the hills; the swift pursuits
Baffled and lost; or when from isle to isle
The high-oared galley spread its wings and rose
Over the swelling surges, and I saw,
Time after time, the scarce familiar town,
The sharp-cut hills, the well-loved palaces,
The gleaming temples fade, and all for me,
Me the dead prize, the shell, the soulless ghost,
The husk of a true woman; the fond words
Wasted on careless ears, that seemed to hear,
Of love to me unloving; the rich feasts,
The silken dalliance and soft luxury,
The fair observance and high reverence
For me who cared not, to whatever land
My kingly lover snatched me. I have known
How small a fence Love sets between the king
And the strong hind, who breeds his brood, and dies
Upon the field he tills. I have exchanged
People for people, crown for glittering crown,
Through every change a queen, and held my state
Hateful, and sickened in my soul to lie
Stretched on soft cushions to the lutes' low sound,
While on the wasted fields the clang of arms
Rang, and the foemen perished, and swift death,
Hunger, and plague, and every phase of woe
Vexed all the land for me. I have heard the curse
Unspoken, when the wife widowed for me
Clasped to her heart her orphans starved for me;
As I swept proudly by. I have prayed the gods,
Hating my own fair face which wrought such woe,
Some plague divine might light on it and leave
My curse a ruin. Yet I think indeed
They had not cursed but pitied, those true wives
Who mourned their humble lords, and straining felt
The innocent thrill which swells the mother's heart
Who clasps her growing boy; had they but known
The lifeless life, the pain of hypocrite smiles,
The dead load of caresses simulated,
When Love stands shuddering by to see his fires
Lit for the shrine of gold. What if they felt
The weariness of loveless love which grew
And through the jealous palace portals seized
The caged unloving woman, sick of toys,
Sick of her gilded chains, her ease, herself,
Till for sheer weariness she flew to meet
Some new unloved seducer? What if they knew
No childish loving hands, or worse than all,
Had borne them sullen to a sire unloved,
And left them without pain? I might have been,
I too, a loving mother and chaste wife,
Had Fate so willed.

For I remember well
How one day straying from my father's halls
Seeking anemones and violets,
A girl in Spring-time, when the heart makes Spring
Within the budding bosom, that I came
Of a sudden through a wood upon a bay,
A little sunny land-locked bay, whose banks
Sloped gently downward to the yellow sand,
Where the blue wave creamed soft with fairy foam,
And oft the Nereids sported. As I strayed
Singing, with fresh-pulled violets in my hair
And bosom, and my hands were full of flowers,
I came upon a little milk-white lamb,
And took it in my arms and fondled it,
And wreathed its neck with flowers, and sang to it
And kissed it, and the Spring was in my life,
And I was glad.

And when I raised my eyes
Behold, a youthful shepherd with his crook
Stood by me and regarded as I lay,
Tall, fair, with clustering curls, and front that wore
A budding manhood. As I looked a fear
Came o'er me, lest he were some youthful god
Disguised in shape of man, so fair he was;
But when he spoke, the kindly face was full
Of manhood, and the large eyes full of fire
Drew me without a word, and all the flowers
Fell from me, and the little milk-white lamb
Strayed through the brake, and took with it the white
Fair years of childhood. Time fulfilled my being
With passion like a cup, and with one kiss
Left me a woman.

Ah! the lovely days,
When on the warm bank crowned with flowers we sate
And thought no harm, and his thin reed pipe made
Low music, and no witness of our love
Intruded, but the tinkle of the flock
Came from the hill, and 'neath the odorous shade
We dreamed away the day, and watched the waves
Steal shoreward, and beyond the sylvan capes
The innumerable laughter of the sea!

Ah youth and love! So passed the happy days
Till twilight, and I stole as in a dream
Homeward, and lived as in a happy dream,
And when they spoke answered as in a dream,
And through the darkness saw, as in a glass,
The happy, happy day, and thrilled and glowed
And kept my love in sleep, and longed for dawn
And scarcely stayed for hunger, and with morn
Stole eager to the little wood, and fed
My life with kisses. Ah! the joyous days
Of innocence, when Love was Queen in heaven,
And nature unreproved! Break they then still,
Those azure circles, on a golden shore?
Smiles there no glade upon the older earth
Where spite of all, gray wisdom, and new gods,
Young lovers dream within each other's arms
Silent, by shadowy grove, or sunlit sea?

Ah days too fair to last! There came a night
When I lay longing for my love, and knew
Sudden the clang of hoofs, the broken doors.
The clash of swords, the shouts, the groans, the stain
Of red upon the marble, the fixed gaze
Of dead and dying eyes,—that was the time
When first I looked on death,—and when I woke
From my deep swoon, I felt the night air cool
Upon my brow, and the cold stars look down,
As swift we galloped o'er the darkling plain;
And saw the chill sea glimpses slowly wake,
With arms unknown around me. When the dawn
Broke swift, we panted on the pathless steeps,
And so by plain and mountain till we came
To Athens, where they kept me till I grew
Fairer with every year, and many wooed,
Heroes and chieftains, but I loved not one.

And then the avengers came and snatched me back
To Sparta. All the dark high-crested chiefs
Of Argos wooed me, striving king with king
For one fair foolish face, nor knew I kept
No heart to give them. Yet since I was grown
Weary of honeyed words and suit of love,
I wedded a brave chief, dauntless and true.
But what cared I? I could not prize at all
His honest service. I had grown so tired
Of loving and of love, that when they brought
News that the fairest shepherd on the hills,
Having done himself to death for his lost love,
Lay, like a lovely statue, cold and white
Upon the golden sand, I hardly knew
More than a passing pang. Love, like a flower,
Love, springing up too tall in a young breast,
The growth of morning, Life's too scorching sun
Had withered long ere noon. Love, like a flame
On his own altar offering up my heart,
Had burnt my being to ashes.

Was it love
That drew me then to Paris? He was fair,
I grant you, fairer than a summer morn,
Fair with a woman's fairness, yet in arms
A hero, but he never had my heart,
Not love for him allured me, but the thirst
For freedom, if in more than thought I erred,
And was not rapt but willing. For my child,
Born to an unloved father, loved me not,
The fresh sea called, the galleys plunged, and I
Fled willing from my prison and the pain
Of undesired caresses, and the wind
Was fair, and on the third day as we sailed,
My heart was glad within me when I saw
The towers of Ilium rise beyond the wave.

Ah, the long years, the melancholy years,
The miserable melancholy years!
For soon the new grew old, and then I grew
Weary of him, of all, of pomp and state
And novel splendour. Yet at times I knew
Some thrill of pride within me as I saw
From those high walls, a prisoner and a foe,
The swift ships flock at anchor in the bay,
The hasty landing and the flash of arms,
The lines of royal tents upon the plain,
The close-shut gates, the chivalry within
Issuing in all its pride to meet the shock
Of the bold chiefs without; so year by year
The haughty challenge from the warring hosts
Rang forth, and I with a divided heart
Saw victory incline, now here, now there,
And helpless marked the Argive chiefs I knew,
The spouse I left, the princely loves of old,
Now with each other strive, and now with Troy:
The brave pomp of the morn, the fair strong limbs,
The glittering panoply, the bold young hearts,
Athirst for fame of war, and with the night
The broken spear, the shattered helm, the plume
Dyed red with blood, the ghastly dying face,
And nerveless limbs laid lifeless. And I knew
The stainless Hector whom I could have loved,
But that a happy love made blind his eyes
To all my baleful beauty; fallen and dragged
His noble, manly head upon the sand
By young Achilles' chariot; him in turn
Fallen and slain; my fair false Paris slain;
Plague, famine, battle, raging now within,
And now without, for many a weary year,
Summer and winter, till I loathed to live,
Who was indeed, as well they said, the Hell
Of men, and fleets, and cities. As I stood
Upon the walls, ofttimes a longing came,
Looking on rage, and fight, and blood, and death,
To end it all, and dash me down and die;
But no god helped me. Nay, one day I mind
I would entreat them. 'Pray you, lords, be men.
What fatal charm is this which AtÉ gives
To one poor foolish face? Be strong, and turn
In peace, forget this glamour, get you home
With all your fleets and armies, to the land
I love no longer, where your faithful wives
Pine widowed of their lords, and your young boys
Grow wild to manhood. I have nought to give,
No heart, nor prize of love for any man,
Nor recompense. I am the ghost alone
Of the fair girl ye knew; she still abides,
If she still lives and is not wholly dead,
Stretched on a flowery bank upon the sea
In fair heroic Argos. Leave this form
That is no other than the outward shell
Of a once loving woman.'

As I spake,
My pity fired my eyes and flushed my cheek
With some soft charm; and as I spread my hands,
The purple, glancing down a little, left
The marble of my breasts and one pink bud
Upon the gleaming snows. And as I looked
With a mixed pride and terror, I beheld
The brute rise up within them, and my words
Fall barren on them. So I sat apart,
Nor ever more looked forth, while every day
Brought its own woe.

The melancholy years,
The miserable melancholy years,
Crept onward till the midnight terror came,
And by the glare of burning streets I saw
Palace and temple reel in ruin and fall,
And the long-baffled legions, bursting in
By gate and bastion, blunted sword and spear
With unresisted slaughter. From my tower
I saw the good old king; his kindly eyes
In agony, and all his reverend hairs
Dabbled with blood, as the fierce foeman thrust
And stabbed him as he lay; the youths, the girls,
Whom day by day I knew, their silken ease
And royal luxury changed for blood and tears,
Haled forth to death or worse. Then a great hate
Of life and fate seized on me, and I rose
And rushed among them, crying, 'See, 'tis I,
I who have brought this evil! Kill me! kill
The fury that is I, yet is not I!
And let my soul go outward through the wound
Made clean by blood to Hades! Let me die,
Not these who did no wrong!' But not a hand
Was raised, and all shrank backward as afraid,
As from a goddess. Then I swooned and fell
And knew no more, and when I woke I felt
My husband's arms around me, and the wind
Blew fair for Greece, and the beaked galley plunged;
And where the towers of Ilium rose of old,
A pall of smoke above a glare of fire.

What then in the near future?

Ten long years
Bring youth and love to that deep summer-tide
When the full noisy current of our lives
Creeps dumb through wealth of flowers. I think I knew
Somewhat of peace at last, with my good Lord
Who loved too much, to palter with the past,
Flushed with the present. Young Hermione
Had grown from child to woman. She was wed;
And was not I her mother? At the pomp
Of solemn nuptials and requited love,
I prayed she might be happy, happier far
Than ever I was; so in tranquil ease
I lived a queen long time, and because wealth
And high observance can make sweet our days
When youth's swift joy is past, I did requite
With what I might, not love, the kindly care
Of him I loved not; pomps and robes of price
And chariots held me. But when Fate cut short
His life and love, his sons who were not mine
Reigned in his stead, and hated me and mine:
And knowing I was friendless, I sailed forth
Once more across the sea, seeking for rest
And shelter. Still I knew that in my eyes
Love dwelt, and all the baleful charm of old
Burned as of yore, scarce dimmed as yet by time:
I saw it in the mirror of the sea,
I saw it in the youthful seamen's eyes,
And was half proud again I had such power
Who now kept nothing else. So one calm eve,
Behold, a sweet fair isle blushed like a rose
Upon the summer sea: there my swift ship
Cast anchor, and they told me it was Rhodes.

There, in a little wood above the sea,
Like that dear wood of yore, I wandered forth
Forlorn, and all my seamen were apart,
And I, alone; when at the close of day
I knew myself surrounded by strange churls
With angry eyes, and one who ordered them,
A woman, whom I knew not, but who walked
In mien and garb a queen. She, with the fire
Of hate within her eyes, 'Quick, bind her, men!
I know her; bind her fast!' Then to the trunk
Of a tall plane they bound me with rude cords
That cut my arms. And meantime, far below,
The sun was gilding fair with dying rays
Isle after isle and purple wastes of sea.

And then she signed to them, and all withdrew
Among the woods and left us, face to face,
Two women. Ere I spoke, 'I know,' she said,
'I know that evil fairness. This it was,
Or ever he had come across my life,
That made him cold to me, who had my love
And left me half a heart. If all my life
Of wedlock was but half a life, what fiend
Came 'twixt my love and me, but that fair face?
What left his children orphans, but that face?
And me a widow? Fiend! I have thee now;
Thou hast not long to live. I will requite
Thy murders; yet, oh fiend! that art so fair,
Were it not haply better to deface
Thy fatal loveliness, and leave thee bare
Of all thy baleful power? And yet I doubt,
And looking on thy face I doubt the more,
Lest all thy dower of fairness be the gift
Of AphroditÉ, and I fear to fight
Against the immortal Gods.'

Even with the word,
And she relenting, all the riddle of life
Flashed through me, and the inextricable coil
Of Being, and the immeasurable depths
And irony of Fate, burst on my thought
And left me smiling in the eyes of death,
With this deep smile thou seËst. Then with a shriek
The woman leapt on me, and with blind rage
Strangled my life. And when she had done the deed
She swooned, and those her followers hasting back
Fell prone upon their knees before the corpse
As to a goddess. Then one went and brought
A sculptor, and within a jewelled shrine
They set me in white marble, bound to a tree
Of marble. And they came and knelt to me,
Young men and maidens, through the secular years,
While the old gods bore sway, but I was here,
And now they kneel no longer, for the world
Has gone from beauty.

But I think, indeed,
They well might worship still, for never yet
Was any thought or thing of beauty born
Except with suffering. That poor wretch who thought
I injured her, stealing the foolish heart
Which she prized but I could not, what knew she
Of that I suffered? She had loved her love,
Though unrequited, and had borne to him
Children who loved her. What if she had been
Loved yet unloving: all the fire of love
Burnt out before love's time in one brief blaze
Of passion. Ah, poor fool! I pity her,
Being blest and yet unthankful, and forgive,
Now that she is a ghost as I, the hand
Which loosed my load of life. For scarce indeed
Could any god who cares for mortal men
Have ever kept me happy. I had tired
Of simple loving, doubtless, as I tired
Of splendour and being loved. There be some souls
For which love is enough, content to bear
From youth to age, from chesnut locks to gray,
The load of common, uneventful life
And penury. But I was not of these;
I know not now, if it were best indeed
That I had reared my simple shepherd brood,
And lived and died unknown in some poor hut
Among the Argive hills; or lived a queen
As I did, knowing every day that dawned
Some high emprise and glorious, and in death
To fill the world with song. Not the same meed
The gods mete out for all, or She, the dread
Necessity, who rules both gods and men,
Some to dishonour, some to honour moulds,
To happiness some, some to unhappiness.
We are what Zeus has made us, discords playing
In the great music, but the harmony
Is sweeter for them, and the great spheres ring
In one accordant hymn.

But thou, if e'er
There come a daughter of thy love, oh pray
To all thy gods, lest haply they should mar
Her life with too great beauty!"

So she ceased.
The fairest woman that the poet's dream
Or artist hand has fashioned. All the gloom
Seemed lightened round her, and I heard the sound
Of her melodious voice when all was still,
And the dim twilight took her.

Next there came
Two who together walked: one with a lyre
Of gold, which gave no sound; the other hung
Upon his breast, and closely clung to him,
Spent in a tender longing. As they came,
I heard her gentle voice recounting o'er
Some ancient tale, and these the words she said:

"Dear voice and lyre now silent, which I heard
Across yon sullen river, bringing to me
All my old life, and he, the ferryman,
Heard and obeyed, and the grim monster heard
And fawned on you. Joyous thou cam'st and free
Like a white sunbeam from the dear bright earth,
Where suns shone clear, and moons beamed bright, and streams
Laughed with a rippling music,—nor as here
The dumb stream stole, the veiled sky slept, the fields
Were lost in twilight. Like a morning breeze,
Which blows in summer from the gates of dawn
Across the fields of spice, and wakes to life
Their slumbering perfume, through this silent land
Of whispering voices and of half-closed eyes,
Where scarce a footstep sounds, nor any strain
Of earthly song, thou cam'st; and suddenly
The pale cheeks flushed a little, the murmured words
Rose to a faint, thin treble; the throng of ghosts
Pacing along the sunless ways and still,
Felt a new life. Thou camest, dear, and straight
The dull cold river broke in sparkling foam,
The pale and scentless flowers grew perfumed; last
To the dim chamber, where with the sad queen
I sat in gloom, and silently inwove
Dead wreaths of amaranths; thy music came
Laden with life, and I, who seemed to know
Not life's voice only, but my own, rose up,
Along the hollow pathways following
The sound which brought back earth and life and love,
And memory and longing. Yet I went
With half-reluctant footsteps, as of one
Whom passion draws, or some high fantasy,
Despite himself, because some subtle spell,
Part born of dread to cross that sullen stream
And its grim guardians, part of secret shame
Of the young airs and freshness of the earth,
Being that I was, enchained me.

Then at last,
From voice and lyre so high a strain arose
As trembled on the utter verge of being,
And thrilling, poured out life. Thus closelier drawn
I walked with thee, shut in by halcyon sound
And soft environments of harmony,
Beyond the ghostly gates, beyond the dim
Calm fields, where the beetle hummed and the pale owl
Stole noiseless from the copse, and the white blooms
Stretched thin for lack of sun: so fair a light
Born out of consonant sound environed me.
Nor looked I backward, as we seemed to move
To some high goal of thought and life and love,
Like twin birds flying fast with equal wing
Out of the night, to meet the coming sun
Above a sea. But on thy dear fair eyes,
The eyes that well I knew on the old earth,
I looked not, for with still averted gaze
Thou leddest, and I followed; for, indeed,
While that high strain was sounding, I was rapt
In faith and a high courage, driving out
All doubt and discontent and womanish fear,
Nay, even my love itself. But when awhile
It sank a little, or seemed to sink and fall
To lower levels, seeing that use makes blunt
The too accustomed ear, straightway, desire
To look once more on thy recovered eyes
Seized me, and oft I called with piteous voice,
Beseeching thee to turn. But thou long time
Wert even as one unmindful, with grave sign
And waving hand, denying. Finally,
When now we neared the stream, on whose far shore
Lay life, great terror took me, and I shrieked
Thy name, as in despair. Then thou, as one
Who knows him set in some great jeopardy,
A swift death fronting him on either hand,
Didst slowly turning gaze; and lo! I saw
Thine eyes grown awful, life that looked on death,
Clear purity on dark and cankered sin,
The immortal on corruption,—not the eyes
That erst I knew in life, but dreadfuller,
And stranger. As I looked, I seemed to swoon,
Some blind force whirled me back, and when I woke
I saw thee vanish in the middle stream,
A speck on the dull waters, taking with thee
My life, and leaving Love with me. But I
Not for myself bewail, but all for thee,
Who, but for me, wert now among the stars
With thy great Lord; I sitting at thy feet:
But now the fierce and unrestrainÈd rout
Of passions woman-natured, finding thee
Scornful of love within thy lonely cell,
With blind rage falling on thee, tore thy limbs,
And left them to the Muses' sepulture,
While thy soul dwells in Hades. But I wail
My weakness always, who for Love destroyed
The life that was my Love. I prithee, dear,
Forgive me if thou canst, who hast lost heaven
To save a loving woman."

He with voice
Sweeter than any mortal melody,
And plaintive as the music that is made
By the Æolian strings, or the sad bird
That sings of summer nights:

"Eurydice,
Dear love, be comforted; not once alone
That which thou mournest is, but day by day
Some lonely soul, which walks apart and feeds
On high hill pastures, far from herds of men,
Comes to the low fat fields, and sunny vales
Joyous with fruits and flowers, and the white arms
Of laughing love; and there awhile he stays
Content, forgetting all the joys he knew,
When first the morning broke upon the hills,
And the keen air breathed from the Eastern gates
Like a pure draught of wine; forgetting all
The strains which float, as from a nearer heaven,
To him who treads at dawn the untrodden snows,
While all the warm world sleeps;—forgetting these
And all things that have been. And if he gain
To raise to his own heights the simpler souls
That dwell upon the plains, the untutored thought,
The museless lives, the unawakened brain
That yet might soar, then is he blest indeed.
But if he fail, then, leaving love behind,
The wider love of the race, the closer love
Of some congenial soul, he turns again
To the old difficult steeps, and there alone
Pines, till the widowed passions of his heart
Tear him and rend his soul, and drive him down
To the low plains he left. And there he dwells,
Missing the heavens, dear, and the white peaks,
And the light air of old; but in their stead
Finding the soft sweet sun of the vale, the clouds
Which veil the skies indeed, but give the rains
That feed the streams of life and make earth green,
And bring at last the harvest. So I walk
In this dim land content with thee, O Love,
Untouched by any yearning of regret
For those old days; nor that the lyre which made
Erewhile such potent music now is dumb;
Nor that the voice that once could move the earth
(Zeus speaking through it), speaks in household words
Of homely love: Love is enough for me
With thee, O dearest; and perchance at last,
Zeus willing, this dumb lyre and whispered voice
Shall wake, by Love inspired, to such clear note
As soars above the stars, and swelling, lifts
Our souls to highest heaven."

Then he stooped,
And, folded in one long embrace, they went
And faded. And I cried, "Oh, strong God, Love,
Mightier than Death and Hell!"

And then I chanced
On a fair woman, whose sad eyes were full
Of a fixed self-reproach, like his who knows
Himself the fountain of his grief, and pines
In self-inflicted sorrow. As I spake
Enquiring of her grief, she answered thus:

"Stranger, thou seest of all the shades below
The most unhappy. Others sought their love
In death, and found it, dying; but for me
The death that took me, took from me my love,
And left me comfortless. No load I bear
Like those dark wicked women, who have slain
Their Lords for lust or anger, whom the dread
Propitious Ones within the pit below
Punish and purge of sin; only unfaith,
If haply want of faith be not a crime
Blacker than murder, when we fail to trust
One worthy of all faith, and folly bring
No harder recompense than comes of scorn
And loathing of itself.

Ah, fool, fool, fool,
Who didst mistrust thy love, who was the best,
And truest, manliest soul with whom the gods
Have ever blest the earth; so brave, so strong,
Fired with such burning hate of powerful ill,
So loving of the race, so swift to raise
The fearless arm and mighty club, and smite
All monstrous growths with ruin—Zeus himself
Showed scarce more mighty—and yet was the while
A very man, not cast in mould too fine
For human love, but ofttimes snared and caught
By womanish wiles, fast held within the net
His passions wove. Oh, it was grand to hear
Of how he went, the champion of his race,
Mighty in war, mighty in love, now bent
To more than human tasks, now lapt in ease,
Now suffering, now enjoying. Strong, vast soul,
Tuned to heroic deeds, and set on high
Above the range of common petty sins—
Too high to mate with an unequal soul,
Too full of striving for contented days.

Ah me, how well I do recall the cause
Of all our ills! I was a happy bride
When that dark AtÉ which pursues the steps
Of heroes—innocent blood-guiltiness—
Drove us to exile, and I joyed to be
His own, and share his pain. To a swift stream
Fleeing we came, where a rough ferryman
Waited, more brute than man. My hero plunged
In those fierce depths and battled with their flow,
And with great labour gained the strand, and bade
The monster row me to him. But with lust
And brutal cunning in his eyes, the thing
Seized me and turned to fly with me, when swift
An arrow hissed from the unerring bow,
Pierced him, and loosed his grasp. Then as his eyes
Grew glazed in death there came in them a gleam
Of what I know was hate, and he said, 'Take
This white robe. It is costly. See, my blood
Has stained it but a little. I did wrong:
I know it, and repent me. If there come
A time when he grows cold—for all the race
Of heroes wander, nor can any love
Fix theirs for long—take it and wrap him in it,
And he shall love again.' Then, from the strange
Deep look within his eyes I shrank in fear,
And left him half in pity, and I went
To meet my Lord, who rose from that fierce stream
Fair as a god.

Ah me, the weary days
We women live, spending our anxious souls,
Consumed with jealous fancies, hungering still
For the belovÈd voice and ear and eye,
And hungering all in vain! For life is more
To youthful manhood than to sit at home
Before the hearth to watch the children's ways
And lead the life of petty household care
Which doth content us women. Day by day
I pined in Trachis for my love, while he,
Now in some warlike exploit busied, now
Fighting some monster, now at some fair court,
Resting awhile till some new enterprise
Called him, returned not. News of treacheries
Avenged, friends succoured, dreadful monsters slain,
Came from him: always triumph, always fame,
And honour, and success, and reverence,
And sometimes, words of love for me who pined
For more than words, and would have gone to him
But that the toils of such high errantry
Asked more than woman's strength.

So the slow years
Vexed me alone in Trachis, set forlorn
In solitude, nor hearing at the gate
The frank and cheering voice, nor on the stair
The heavy tread, nor feeling the strong arm
Around me in the darkling night, when all
My being ran slow. Last, subtle whispers came
Of womanish wiles which kept my Lord from me,
And one who, young and fair, a fresh-blown life
And virgin, younger, fairer far than I
When first he loved me, held him in the toils
Of scarce dissembled love. Not easily
Might I believe this evil, but at last
The oft-repeated malice finding me
Forlorn, and sitting imp-like at my ear,
Possessed me, and the fire of jealous love
Raged through my veins, not turned as yet to hate—
Too well I loved for that—but breeding in me
Unfaith in him. Love, setting him so high
And self so low, betrayed me, and I prayed,
Constrained to hold him false, the immortal gods
To make him love again.

But still he came not.
And still the maddening rumours worked, and still
'Fair, young, and a king's daughter,' the same words
Smote me and pierced me. Oh, there is no pain
In Hades—nay, nor deepest Hell itself,
Like that of jealous hearts, the torture-pain
Which racked my life so long.

Till one fair morn
There came a joyful message. 'He has come!
And at the shrine upon the promontory,
The fair white shrine upon the purple sea,
He waits to do his solemn sacrifice
To the immortal gods; and with him comes
A young maid beautiful as Dawn.'

Then I,
Mingling despair with love, rapt in deep joy
That he was come, plunged in the depths of hell
That she came too, bethought me of the robe
The Centaur gave me, and the words he spake,
Forgetting the deep hatred in his eyes,
And all but love, and sent a messenger
Bidding him wear it for the sacrifice
To the immortals, knowing not at all
Whom Fate decreed the victim.

Shall my soul
Forget the agonized message which he sent,
Bidding me come? For that accursÈd robe,
Stained with the poisonous accursÈd blood,
Even in the midmost flush of sacrifice
Clung to him a devouring fire, and ate
The piteous flesh from his dear limbs, and stung
His great soft soul to madness. When I came,
Knowing it was my work, he bent on me,
Wise as a god through suffering and the near
Inevitable Death, so that no word
Of mine was needed, such a tender look
Of mild reproach as smote me. 'Couldst not thou
Trust me, who never loved as I love thee?
What need was there of magical arts to draw
The love that never wavered? I have lived
As he lives who through perilous paths must pass,
And lifelong trials, striving to keep down
The brute within him, born of too much strength
And sloth and vacuous days; by difficult toils,
Labours endured, and hard-fought fights with ill,
Now vanquished, now triumphant; and sometimes,
In intervals of too long labour, finding
His nature grown too strong for him, falls prone
Awhile a helpless prey, then once again
Rises and spurns his chains, and fares anew
Along the perilous ways. Dearest, I would
That thou wert wedded to some knight who stayed
At home within thy gates, and were content
To see thee happy. But for me the fierce
Rude energies of life, the mighty thews,
The god-sent hate of Wrong, these drove me forth
To quench the thirst of battle. See, this maid,
This is the bride I destined for our son
Who grows to manhood. Do thou see to her
When I am dead, for soon I know again
The frenzy comes, and with it ceasing, death.
Go, therefore, ere I harm thee when my strength
Has lost its guidance. Thou wert rich in love,
Be now as rich in faith. Dear, for thy wrong
I do forgive thee.'

When I saw the glare
Of madness fire his eyes, and my ears heard
The groans the torture wrung from his great soul,
I fled with broken heart to the white shrine,
And knelt in prayer, but still my sad ear took
The agony of his cries.

Then I who knew
There was no hope in god or man for me
Who had destroyed my Love, and with him slain
The champion of the suffering race of men,
And knowing that my soul, though innocent
Of blood, was guilty of unfaith and vile
Mistrust, and wrapt in weakness like a cloak,
And made the innocent tool of hate and wrong,
Against all love and good; grown sick and filled
With hatred of myself, rose from my knees,
And went a little space apart, and found
A gnarled tree on the cliff, and with my scarf
Strangling myself, swung lifeless.

But in death
I found him not. For, building a vast pile
Of scented woods on Oeta, as they tell,
My hero with his own hand lighted it,
And when the mighty pyre flamed far and wide
Over all lands and seas, he climbed on it
And laid him down to die; but pitying Zeus,
Before the swift flames reached him, in a cloud
Descending, snatched the strong brave soul to heaven,
And set him mid the stars.

Wherefore am I
Of all the blameless shades within this place
The most unhappy, if of blame, indeed,
I bear no load. For what is Sin itself,
But Error when we miss the road which leads
Up to the gate of heaven? Ignorance!
What if we be the cause of ignorance?
Being blind who might have seen! Yet do I know
But self-inflicted pain, nor stain there is
Upon my soul such as they bear who know
The dreadful scourge with which the stern judge still
Lashes their sins. I am forgiven, I know,
Who loved so much, and one day, if Zeus will,
I shall go free from hence, and join my Lord,
And be with him again."

And straight I seemed,
Passing, to look upon some scarce-spent life,
Which knows to-day the irony of Fate
In self-inflicted pain.

Together clung
The ghosts whom next I saw, bound three in one
By some invisible bond. A sire of port
God-like as Zeus, to whom on either hand
A tender stripling clung. I knew them well,
As all men know them. One fair youth spake low:
"Father, it does not pain me now, to be
Drawn close to thee, and by a double bond,
With this my brother." And the other: "Nay,
Nor me, O father; but I bless the chain
Which binds our souls in union. If some trace
Of pain still linger, heed it not—'tis past:
Still let us cling to thee."

He with grave eyes
Full of great tenderness, upon his sons
Looked with the father's gaze, that is so far
More sweet, and sad, and tender, than the gaze
Of mothers,—now on this one, now on that,
Regarding them. "Dear sons, whom on the earth
I loved and cherished, it was hard to watch
Your pain; but now 'tis finished, and we stand
For ever, through all future days of time,
Symbols of patient suffering undeserved,
Endured and vanquished. Yet sad memory still
Brings back our time of trial.

For the day
Broke fair when I, the dread Poseidon's priest,
Joyous because the unholy strife was done,
And seeing the blue waters now left free
Of hostile keels—save where upon the verge
Far off the white sails faded—rose at dawn,
And white robed, and in garb of sacrifice,
And with the sacred fillet round my brows,
Stood at the altar; and behind, ye twain,
Decked by your mother's hand with new-cleansed robes,
And with fresh flower-wreathed chaplets on your curls,
Attended, and your clear young voices made
Music that touched your father's eyes with tears,
If not the careless gods. I seem to hear
Those high sweet accents mounting in the hymn
Which rose to all the blessed gods who dwelt
Upon the far Olympus—Zeus, the Lord,
And Sovereign HerÉ, and the immortal choir
Of Deities, but chiefly to the dread
Poseidon, him who sways the purple sea
As with a sceptre, shaking the fixed earth
With stress of thundering surges. By the shrine
The meek-eyed victim, for the sacrifice,
Stood with his gilded horns. The hymns were done,
And I in act to strike, when all the crowd
Who knelt behind us, with a common fear
Cried, with a cry that well might freeze the blood,
And then, with fearful glances towards the sea,
Fled, leaving us alone—me, the high priest,
And ye, the acolytes; forlorn of men,
Alone, but with our god.

But we stirred not:
We could not flee, who in the solemn act
Of worship, and the ecstasy which comes
To the believer's soul, saw heaven revealed,
The mysteries unveiled, the inner sky
Which meets the enraptured gaze. How should we fear
Who thus were god-encircled! So we stood
While the long ritual spent itself, nor cast
An eye upon the sea. Till as I came
To that great act which offers up a life
Before life's Lord, and the full mystery
Was trembling to completion, quick I heard
A stifled cry of agony, and knew
My children's voices. And the father's heart,
Which is far more than rite or service done
By man for god, seeing that it is divine
And comes from God to men—this rising in me,
Constrained me, and I ceased my prayer, and turned
To succour you, and lo! the awful coils
Which crushed your lives already, bound me round
And crushed me also, as you clung to me,
In common death. Some god had heard the prayer,
And lo! we were ourselves the sacrifice—
The priest, the victim, the accepted life,
The blood, the pain, the salutary loss.

Was it not better thus to cease and die
Together in one blest moment, mid the flush
And ecstasy of worship, and to know
Ourselves the victims? They were wrong who taught
That 'twas some jealous goddess who destroyed
Our lives, revengeful for discovered wiles,
Or hateful of our land. Not readily
Should such base passions sway the immortal gods;
But rather do I hold it sooth indeed
That Zeus himself it was, who pitying
The ruin he foreknew, yet might not stay,
Since mightier Fate decreed it, sent in haste
Those dreadful messengers, and bade them take
The pious lives he loved, before the din
Of midnight slaughter woke, and the fair town
Flamed pitifully to the skies, and all
Was blood and ruin. Surely it was best
To die as we did, and in death to live,
A vision for all ages of high pain
Which passes into beauty, and is merged
In one accordant whole, as discords merge
In that great Harmony which ceaseless rings
From the tense chords of life, than to have lived
Our separate lives, and died our separate deaths,
And left no greater mark than drops which rain
Upon the unbounded sea. Those hosts which fell
Before the ScÆan gate upon the sand,
Nor found a bard to sing their fate, but left
Their bones to dogs and kites—were they more blest
Than we who, in the people's sight before
Ilium's unshattered towers, lay down to die
Our swift miraculous death? Dear sons, and good,
Dear children of my love, how doubly dear
For this our common sorrow; suffering weaves
Not only chains of darkness round, but binds
A golden glittering link, which though withdrawn
Or felt no longer, knits us soul to soul,
In indissoluble bonds, and draws our lives
So close, that though the individual life
Be merged, there springs a common life which grows
To such dread beauty, as has power to take
The sting from sorrow, and transform the pain
Into transcendent joy: as from the storm
The unearthly rainbow draws its myriad hues
And steeps the world in fairness. All our lives
Are notes that fade and sink, and so are merged
In the full harmony of Being. Dear sons,
Cling closer to me. Life nor Death has torn
Our lives asunder, as for some, but drawn
Their separate strands together in a knot
Closer than Life itself, stronger than Death,
Insoluble as Fate."

Then they three clung
Together—the strong father and young sons,
And in their loving eyes I saw the Pain
Fade into Joy, Suffering in Beauty lost,
And Death in Love!

By a still sullen pool,
Into its dark depths gazing, lay the ghost
Whom next I passed. In form, a lovely youth,
Scarce passed from boyhood. Golden curls were his,
And wide blue eyes. The semblance of a smile
Came on his lip—a girl's but for the down
Which hardly shaded it; but the pale cheek
Was soft as any maiden's, and his robe
Was virginal, and at his breast he bore
The perfumed amber cup which, when March comes
Gems the dry woods and windy wolds, and speaks
The resurrection.

Looking up, he said:
"Methought I saw her then, my love, my fair,
My beauty, my ideal; the dim clouds
Lifted, methought, a little—or was it
Fond Fancy only? For I know that here
No sunbeam cleaves the twilight, but a mist
Creeps over all the sky and fields and pools,
And blots them; and I know I seek in vain
My earth-sought beauty, nor can Fancy bring
An answer to my thought from these blind depths
And unawakened skies. Yet has use made
The quest so precious, that I keep it here,
Well knowing it is vain.

On the old earth
'Twas otherwise, when in fair Thessaly
I walked regardless of all nymphs who sought
My love, but sought in vain, whether it were
Dryad or Naiad from the woods or streams,
Or white-robed Oread fleeting on the side
Of fair Olympus, echoing back my sighs,
In vain, for through the mountains day by day
I wandered, and along the foaming brooks,
And by the pine-woods dry, and never took
A thought for love, nor ever 'mid the throng
Of loving nymphs who knew me beautiful
I dallied, unregarding; till they said
Some died for love of me, who loved not one.
And yet I cared not, wandering still alone
Amid the mountains by the scented pines.

Till one fair day, when all the hills were still,
Nor any breeze made murmur through the boughs,
Nor cloud was on the heavens, I wandered slow,
Leaving the nymphs who fain with dance and song
Had kept me 'midst the glades, and strayed away
Among the pines, enwrapt in fantasy,
And by the beechen dells which clothe the feet
Of fair Olympus, wrapt in fantasy,
Weaving the thin and unembodied shapes
Which Fancy loves to body forth, and leave
In marble or in song; and so strayed down
To a low sheltered vale above the plains,
Where the lush grass grew thick, and the stream stayed
Its garrulous tongue; and last upon the bank
Of a still pool I came, where was no flow
Of water, but the depths were clear as air,
And nothing but the silvery gleaming side
Of tiny fishes stirred. There lay I down
Upon the flowery bank, and scanned the deep,
Half in a waking dream.

Then swift there rose,
From those enchanted depths, a face more fair
Than ever I had dreamt of, and I knew
My sweet long-sought ideal: the thick curls,
Like these, were golden, and the white robe showed
Like this; but for the wondrous eyes and lips,
The tender loving glance, the sunny smile
Upon the rosy mouth, these knew I not,
Not even in dreams; and yet I seemed to trace
Myself within them too, as who should find
His former self expunged, and him transformed
To some high thin ideal, separate
From what he was, by some invisible bar,
And yet the same in difference. As I moved
My arms to clasp her to me, lo! she moved
Her eager arms to mine, smiled to my smile,
Looked love to love, and answered longing eyes
With longing. When my full heart burst in words,
'Dearest, I love thee,' lo! the lovely lips,
'Dearest, I love thee,' sighed, and through the air
The love-lorn echo rang. But when I longed
To answer kiss with kiss, and stooped my lips
To her sweet lips in that long thrill which strains
Soul unto soul, the cold lymph came between
And chilled our love, and kept us separate souls
Which fain would mingle, and the self-same heaven
Rose, a blue vault above us, and no shade
Of earthly thing obscured us, as we lay
Two reflex souls, one and yet different,
Two sundered souls longing to be at one.

There, all day long, until the light was gone
And took my love away, I lay and loved
The image, and when night was come, 'Farewell,'
I whispered, and she whispered back, 'Farewell,'
With oh, such yearning! Many a day we spent
By that clear pool together all day long.
And many a clouded hour on the wet grass
I lay beneath the rain, and saw her not,
And sickened for her; and sometimes the pool
Was thick with flood, and hid her; and sometimes
Some cold wind ruffled those clear wells, and left
But glimpses of her, and I rose at eve
Unsatisfied, a cold chill in my limbs
And fever at my heart: until, too soon!
The summer faded, and the skies were hid,
And my love came not, but a quenchless thirst
Wasted my life. And all the winter long
The bright sun shone not, or the thick ribbed ice
Obscured her, and I pined for her, and knew
My life ebb from me, till I grew too weak
To seek her, fearing I should see no more
My dear. And so the long dead winter waned
And the slow spring came back.

And one blithe day,
When life was in the woods, and the birds sang,
And soft airs fanned the hills, I knew again
Some gleam of hope within me, and again
With feeble limbs crawled forth, and felt the spring
Blossom within me; and the flower-starred glades,
The bursting trees, the building nests, the songs,
The hurry of life revived me; and I crept,
Ghost-like, amid the joy, until I flung
My panting frame, and weary nerveless limbs,
Down by the cold still pool.

And lo! I saw
My love once more, not beauteous as of old,
But oh, how changed! the fair young cheek grown pale,
The great eyes, larger than of yore, gaze forth
With a sad yearning look; and a great pain
And pity took me which were more than love,
And with a loud and wailing voice I cried,
'Dearest, I come again. I pine for thee,'
And swift she answered back, 'I pine for thee;'
'Come to me, oh, my own,' I cried, and she—
'Come to me, oh, my own.' Then with a cry
Of love I joined myself to her, and plunged
Beneath the icy surface with a kiss,
And fainted, and am here.

And now, indeed,
I know not if it was myself I sought,
As some tell, or another. For I hold
That what we seek is but our other self,
Other and higher, neither wholly like
Nor wholly different, the half-life the gods
Retained when half was given—one the man
And one the woman; and I longed to round
The imperfect essence by its complement,
For only thus the perfect life stands forth
Whole, self-sufficing. Worse it is to live
Ill-mated than imperfect, and to move
From a false centre, not a perfect sphere,
But with a crooked bias sent oblique
Athwart life's furrows. 'Twas myself, indeed,
Thus only that I sought, that lovers use
To see in that they love, not that which is,
But that their fancy feigns, and view themselves
Reflected in their love, yet glorified,
And finer and more pure.

Wherefore it is:
All love which finds its own ideal mate
Is happy—happy that which gives itself
Unto itself, and keeps, through long calm years,
The tranquil image in its eyes, and knows
Fulfilment and is blest, and day by day
Wears love like a white flower, nor holds it less
Though sharp winds bite, or hot suns fade, or age
Sully its perfect whiteness, but inhales
Its fragrance, and is glad. But happier still
He who long seeks a high goal unattained,
And wearies for it all his days, nor knows
Possession sate his thirst, but still pursues
The fleeting loveliness—now seen, now lost,
But evermore grown fairer, till at last
He stretches forth his arms and takes the fair
In one long rapture, and its name is Death."

Thus he; and seeing me stand grave: "Farewell.
If ever thou shouldst happen on a wood
In Thessaly, upon the plain-ward spurs
Of fair Olympus, take the path which winds
Through the close vale, and thou shalt see the pool
Where once I found my life. And if in Spring
Thou go there, round the margin thou shalt know
These amber blooms bend meekly, smiling down
Upon the crystal surface. Pluck them not.
But kneel a little while, and breathe a prayer
To the fair god of Love, and let them be.
For in those tender flowers is hid the life
That once was mine. All things are bound in one
In earth and heaven, nor is there any gulf
'Twixt things that live,—the flower that was a life,
The life that is a flower,—but one sure chain
Binds all, as now I know.

If there are still
Fair Oreads on the hills, say to them, sir,
They must no longer pine for me, but find
Some worthier lover, who can love again;
For I have found my love."

And to the pool
He turned, and gazed with lovely eyes, and showed
Fair as an angel.

Leaving him enwrapt
In musings, to a gloomy pass I came
Between dark rocks, where scarce a gleam of light,
Not even the niggard light of that dim land,
Might enter; and the soil was black and bare,
Nor even the thin growths which scarcely clothed
The higher fields might live. Hard by a cave
Which sloped down steeply to the lowest depths,
Whence dreadful sounds ascended, seated still,
Her head upon her hands, I saw a maid
With eyes fixed on the ground—not Tartarus
It was, but Hades; and she knew no pain,
Except her painful thought. Yet there it seemed,
As here, the unequal measure which awaits
The adjustment, and meanwhile, inspires the strife
Which rears life's palace walls; and fills the sail
Which bears our bark across unfathomed seas,
To its last harbour; this bore sway there too,
And 'twas a luckless shade which sat and wept
Amid the gloom, though blameless. Suddenly,
She raised her head, and lo! the long curls, writhed
Tangled, and snake-like—as the dripping hair
Of a dead girl who freed from life and shame,
From out the cruel wintry flow, is laid
Stark on the snow with dreadful staring eyes
Like hers. For when she raised her eyes to mine,
They chilled my blood, so great a woe they bore;
And as she gazed, wide-eyed, I knew my pulse
Beat slow, and my limbs stiffen. Then they wore,
At length, a softer look, and life revived
Within my breast as thus she softly spoke:

"Nay, friend, I would not harm thee. I have known
Great sorrow, and sometimes it racks me still,
And turns me into stone, and makes my eyes
As dreadful as of yore; and yet it comes
But seldom, as thou sawest, now, for Time
And Death have healing hands. Only I love
To sit within the darkness here, nor face
The throng of happier ghosts; if any ghost
Of happiness come here. For on the earth
They wronged me bitterly, and turned to stone
My heart, till scarce I knew if e'er I was
The happy girl of yore.

That youth who dreams
Up yonder by the margin of the lake,
Knew but a cold ideal love, but me
Love in unearthly guise, but bodily form,
Seized and betrayed.

I was a priestess once,
Of stern AthenÉ, doing day by day
Due worship; raising, every dawn that came,
My cold pure hymns to take her virgin ear;
Nor sporting with the joyous company
Of youths and maids, who at the neighbouring shrine
Of AphroditÉ served. Nor dance nor song
Allured me, nor the pleasant days of youth
And twilights 'mid the vines. They held me cold
Who were my friends in childhood. For my soul
Was virginal, and at the virgin shrine
I knelt, athirst for knowledge. Day by day
The long cold ritual sped, the liturgies
Were done, the barren hymns of praise went up
Before the goddess, and the ecstasy
Of faith possessed me wholly, till almost
I knew not I was woman. Yet I knew
That I was fair to see, and fit to share
Some natural honest love, and bear the load
Of children like the rest; only my soul
Was lost in higher yearnings.

Like a god,
He burst upon those pallid lifeless days,
Bringing fresh airs and salt, as from the sea,
And wrecked my life. How should a virgin know
Deceit, who never at the joyous shrine
Of Cypris knelt, but ever lived apart,
And so grew guilty? For if I had spent
My days among the throng, either my fault
Were blameless, or undone. For innocence
The tempter spreads his net. For innocence
The gods keep all their terrors. Innocence
It is that bears the burden, which for guilt
Is lightened, and the spoiler goes his way,
Uncaring, joyous, leaving her alone,
The victim and unfriended.

Was it just
In her, my mistress, who had had my youth,
To wreak such vengeance on me? I had erred,
It may be; but on him, whose was the guilt,
No heaven-sent vengeance lighted, but he sped
Away to other hearts across the deep,
Careless and free; but me, the cold stern eyes
Of the pure goddess withered; and the scorn
Of maids, despised before, and the great blank
Of love, whose love was gone—this wrung my heart,
And froze my blood; set on my brow despair,
And turned my gaze to stone, and filled my eyes
With horror, and stiffened the soft curls which once
Lay smooth and fair into such snake-like rings
As made my aspect fearful. All who saw,
Shrank from me and grew cold, and felt the warm,
Full tide of life freeze in them, seeing in me
Love's work, who sat wrapt up and lost in shame,
As in a cloak, consuming my own heart,
And was in hell already. As they gazed
Upon me, my despair looked forth so cold
From out my eyes, that if some spoiler came
Fresh from his wickedness, and looked on them,
Their glare would strike him dead; and those fair curls
Which once the accursÈd toyed with, grew to be
The poisonous things thou seest; and so, with hate
Of man's injustice and the gods', who knew
Me blameless, and yet punished me; and sick
Of life and love, and loathing earth and sky,
And feeding on my sorrow, Hate at last
Left me a Fury.

Ah, the load of life
Which lives for hatred! We are made to love—
We women, and the injury which turns
The honey of our lives to gall, transforms
The angel to the fiend. For it is sweet
To know the dreadful sense of strength, and smite
And leave the tyrant dead with a glance; ay! sweet,
In that fierce lust of power, to slay the life
Which harmed not, when the suppliants' cry ascends
To ears which hate has deafened. So I lived
Long time in misery; to my sleepless eyes
No healing slumbers coming; but at length,
Zeus and the goddess pitying, I knew
Soft rest once more veiling my dreadful gaze
In peaceful slumbers. Then a blessed dream
I dreamt. For, lo! a god-like knight in mail
Of gold, who sheared with his keen flashing blade;
With scarce a pang of pain, the visage cold
Which too great sorrow left me; at one stroke
Clean from the trunk, and then o'er land and sea,
Invisible, sped with winged heels, to where,
Upon a sea-worn cape, a fair young maid,
More blameless even than I was, chained and bound,
Waited a monster from the deep and stood
In innocent nakedness. Then, as he rose,
Loathsome, from out the depths, a monstrous growth,
A creature wholly serpent, partly man,
The wrongs that I had known, stronger than death,
Rose up with such black hate in me again,
And wreathed such hissing poison through my hair,
And shot such deadly glances from my eyes,
That nought that saw might live. And the vile worm
Was slain, and she delivered. Then I dreamt
My mistress, whom I thought so stern to me,
AthenÉ, set those dreadful staring eyes,
And that despairing visage, on her shield
Of chastity, and bears it evermore
To fright the waverer from the wrong he would,
And strike the unrepenting spoiler, dead."

Then for a little paused she, while I saw
Again her eyes grown dreadful, till once more,
And with a softer glance:

"From that blest dream
I woke not on the earth, but only here.
And now my pain is lightened since I know
My dream, which was a dream within the dream
Which is our life, fulfilled. And I have saved
Another through my suffering, and through her
A people. Oh, strange chain of sacrifice,
That binds an innocent life, and from its blood
And sorrow works out joy! Oh, mystery
Of pain and evil! wrong grown salutary,
And mighty to redeem! If thou shouldst see
A woman on the earth, who pays to-day
Like penalty of sin, and the new gods
(For after Saturn, Zeus ruled; after him
It may be there are others) love to take
The tender heart of girlhood, and to immure
Within a cold and cloistered cell the life
Which nature meant to bless, and if Love come
Hold her accursÈd; or to some poor maid,
Forlorn and trusting, still the tempter comes
And works his wrong, and leaves her in despair
And shame and all abhorrence, while he goes
His way unpunished,—if thou know her eyes
Freeze thee like mine—oh! bid her lose her pain
In succouring others—say to her that Time
And Death have healing hands, and here there comes
To the forgiven transgressor only pain
Enough to chasten joy!"

And a soft tear
Trembled within her eyes, and her sweet gaze
Was as the Magdalen's, the horror gone
And a great radiance come.

Then as I passed
To upper air, I saw two figures rise
Together, one a woman with a grave
Fair face not all unhappy, and the robes
And presence of a queen; and with her walked
The fairest youth that ever maiden's dream
Conceived. And as they came, the throng of ghosts,
For these who were not wholly ghosts, arose,
And did them homage. Not the chain of love
Bound them, but such calm kinship as is bred
Of long and difficult pilgrimages borne
Through common perils by two souls which share
A common weary exile. Nor as ghosts
These showed, but rather like two lives which hung
Suspended in a trance. A halo of life
Played round them, and they brought a sweet brisk air
Tasting of earth and heaven, like sojourners
Who stayed but for awhile, and knew a swift
Release await them. First the youth it was
Who spake thus as they passed:

"Dread Queen, once more
I feel life stir within me, and my blood
Run faster, while a new strange cycle turns
And grows completed. Soon on the dear earth
Under the lively light of fuller day,
I shall revive me of my wound; and thou,
Passing with me yon cold and lifeless stream,
And the grim monster who will fawn on thee,
Shalt issue in royal pomp, and wreathed with flowers,
Upon the cheerful earth, leaving behind
A deeper winter for the ghosts who dwell
Within these sunless haunts; and I shall lie
Once more within loved arms, and thou shalt see
Thy early home, and kiss thy mother's cheek,
And be a girl again. But not for long;
For ere the bounteous Autumn spreads her hues
Of gold and purple, a cold voice will call
And bring us to these wintry lands once more,
As erst so often. Blest are we, indeed,
Above the rest, and yet I would I knew
The careless joys of old.

For in hot youth,
Oh, it was sweet to greet the balmy night
That was love's nurse, and feel the weary eyes
Closed by soft kisses,—sweet at early dawn
To wake refreshed and, scarce from loving arms
Leaping, to issue forth, with winding horn,
By dewy heath and brake, and taste the fair
Young breath of early morning; and 'twas sweet
To chase the bounding quarry all day long
With my true hounds and rapid steed, and gay
Companions of my youth, and with the eve
To turn home laden with the spoil, and take
The banquet which awaited, and sweet wine
Poured out, and kisses pressed on loving lips;
Circled by snowy arms. Oh, it was sweet
To be alive and young!

For sure it is
The gods gave not quick pulses and hot blood
And strength and beauty for no end, but would
That we should use them wisely; and the fair,
Sweet mistress of my service was, indeed,
Worthy of all observance. Oh, her eyes
When I lay bleeding! All day long we rode,
I and my youthful peers, with horse and hound,
And knew the joy of swift pursuit and toil
And peril. At the last, a fierce boar turned
At bay, and with his gleaming tusks o'erthrew
My steed, and as I fell upon the flowers,
Pierced me as with a sword. Then, as I lay,
I knew the strange slow chill which, stealing, tells
The young that it is death. Yet knew I not
Of pain or fear, only great pity, indeed,
That she should lose her love, who was so fond
And gracious. But when, lifting my dim gaze,
I saw her bend o'er me,—the lovely eyes
Suffused with tears, and her sweet smile replaced
By agonized sorrow,—for a while I stayed
Life's ebbing tide, and raised my cold, white lips,
With a faint smile, to hers. Then, with a kiss—
One long last kiss, we mingled, and I knew
No more.

But even in death, so strong is Love,
I could not wholly die; and year by year,
When the bright springtime comes, and the earth lives,
Love opens these dread gates, and calls me forth
Across the gulf. Not here, indeed, she comes,
Being a goddess and in heaven, but smooths
My path to the old earth, where still I know
Once more the sweet lost days, and once again
Blossom on that soft breast, and am again
A youth, and rapt in love; and yet not all
As careless as of yore; but seem to know
The early spring of passion, tamed by time
And suffering, to a calmer, fuller flow,
Less fitful, but more strong."

Then the sad Queen
"Fair youth, thy lot I know, for I am old
As the old earth and yet as young as is
The budding spring, and I was here a Queen,
When Love was not or Time, and to my arms
Thou camest as a little child, to dwell
Within the halls of Death, for without Death
There were nor Birth nor Love, nor would Life yearn
To lose itself within another life,
And dying, to be born. I, too, have died
For love in part, and live again through love;
For in the far-off years, when Time was young,
And Love unborn on earth, and Zeus in heaven
Ruled, a young sovereign; I, a maiden, dwelt
With dread Demeter on the lovely plains
Of sunny Sicily. There, day by day,
I sported with the maiden goddesses,
In virgin freedom. Budding age made gay
Our lightsome feet, and on the flowery slopes
We wandered daily, gathering flowers to weave
In careless garlands for our locks, and passed
The days in innocent gladness. Thought of Love
There came not to us, for as yet the earth
Was virginal, nor yet had Eros come
With his delicious pain.

And one fair morn—
Not all the ages blot it—on the side
Of Ætna we were straying. There was then
Summer nor winter, springtide nor the time
Of harvest, but the soft unfailing sun
Shone always, and the sowing time was one
With reaping; fruit and flower together sprung
Upon the trees; and blade and ripened ear
Together clothed the plains. There, as I strayed,
Sudden a black cloud down the rugged side
Of Ætna, mixed with fire and dreadful sound
Of thunder, rolled around me, and I heard
The maids who were my fellows turn and flee
With shrieks and cries for me.

But I, I knew
No terror while the god o'ershadowed me,
Hiding my life in his, nor when I wept
My flowers all withered, and my blood ran slow
Within a wintry land. Some voice there was
Which said, 'Fear not. Thou shalt return and see
Thy mother again, only a little while
Fate wills that thou shouldst tarry, and become
Queen of another world. Thou seest that all
Thy flowers are faded. They shall live again
On earth, as thou shalt, as thou livest now
The Life of Death—for what is Death but Life
Suspended as in sleep? The changeless rule
Where life was constant, and the sun o'erhead,
Blazed forth for ever, changes and is hidden
Awhile. This region which thou seest, where all
The trees are lifeless, and the flowers are dead,
Is but the self-same earth on which erewhile
Thou sportedst fancy free.'

So, without fear
I wandered on this bare land, seeing far
Upon the sky the peaks of my own hills
And crests of my own woods. Till, when I grew
Hungered, ere yet another form I saw;
Along the silent alleys journeying,
And leafless groves; a fair and mystic tree
Rose like a heart in shape, and 'mid its leaves
One golden mystic fruit with a fair seed
Hid in it. This, with childish hand, I took
And ate, and straight I knew the tree was Life,
And the fruit Death, and the hid seed was Love.

Ah, sweet strange fruit! the which if any taste
They may no longer keep their lives of old
Or their own selves unchanged, but some weird change
And subtle alchemy comes which can transmute
The blood, and mould the spirits of gods and men
In some new magical form. Not as before,
Our life comes to us, though the passion cools,
No, never as before. My mother came
Too late to seek me. She had power to raise
A life from out Death's grasp, but from the arms
Of Love she might not take me, nor undo
Love's past for all her strength. She came and sought
With fires her daughter over land and sea,
Beyond the paths of all the setting stars,
In vain, and over all the earth in vain,
Seeking whom love disguised. Then on all lands
She cast the spell of barrenness; the wheat
Was blighted in the ear, the purple grapes
Blushed no more on the vines, and all the gods
Were sorrowful, seeing the load of ill
My rape had laid on men. Last, Zeus himself,
Pitying the evil that was done, sent forth
His messenger beyond the western rim
To fetch me back to earth.

But not the same
He found me who had eaten of Love's seed,
But changed into another; nor could his power
Prevail to keep me wholly on the earth,
Or make me maid again. The wintry life
Is homelier often than the summer blaze
Of happiness unclouded; so, when Spring
Comes on the world, I, coming, cross with thee,
Year after year, the cruel icy stream;
And leave this anxious sceptre and the shades
Of those in hell, or those for whom, though blest,
No Spring comes, till the last great Spring which brings
New heavens and new earth; and lay my head
Upon my mother's bosom, and grow young,
And am a girl again.

A soft air breathes
Across the stream and fills these barren fields
With the sweet odours of the earth. I know
Again the perfume of the violets
Which bloom on Ætna's side. Soon we shall pass
Together to our home, while round our feet
The crocus flames like gold, the wind-flowers white
Wave their soft petals on the breeze, and all
The choir of flowers lift up their silent song
To the unclouded heavens. Thou, fair boy,
Shalt lie within thy love's white arms again,
And I within my mother's. Sweet is Love
In ceasing and renewal; nay, in these
It lives and has its being. Thou couldst not keep
Thy youth as now, if always on the breast
Of love too late a lingerer thou hadst known
Possession sate thee. Nor might I have kept
My mother's heart, if I had lived to ripe
And wither on the stalk. Time calls and Change
Commands both men and gods, and speeds us on
We know not whither; but the old earth smiles
Spring after Spring, and the seed bursts again
Out of its prison mould, and the dead lives
Renew themselves, and rise aloft and soar
And are transformed, clothing themselves with change
Till the last change be done."

As thus she spake,
I saw a gleam of light flash from the eyes
Of all the listening shades, and a great joy
Thrill through the realms of Death.

And then again
A youthful shade I saw, a comely boy,
With lip and cheek just touched with manly down,
And strong limbs wearing Spring; in mien and garb
A youthful chieftain, with a perfect face
Of fresh young beauty, clustered curls divine,
And chiselled features like a sculptured god,
But warm and breathing life; only the eyes,
The fair large eyes, were full of dreaming thought,
And seemed to gaze beyond the world of sight,
On a hid world of beauty. Him I stayed,
Accosting with soft words of courtesy;
And, on a bank of scentless flowers reclined,
He answered thus:

"Not for the garish sun
I long, nor for the splendours of high noon
In this dim land I languish; for of yore
Full often, when the swift chase swept along
Through the brisk morn, or when my comrades called
To wrestling, or the foot-race, or to cleave
The sunny stream, I loved to walk apart,
Self-centred, sole; and when the laughing girls
To some fair stripling's oaten melody
Made ready for the dance, I heeded not;
Nor when to the loud trumpet's blast and blare
My peers rode forth to battle. For, one eve,
In Latmos, after a long day in June,
I stayed to rest me on a sylvan hill,
Where often youth and maid were wont to meet
Towards moonrise; and deep slumber fell on me
Musing on Love, just as the ruddy orb
Rose on the lucid night, set in a frame
Of blooming myrtle and sharp tremulous plane;
Deep slumber fell, and loosed my limbs in rest.

Then, as the full orb poised upon the peak,
There came a lovely vision of a maid,
Who seemed to step as from a golden car
Out of the low-hung moon. No mortal form,
Such as ofttimes of yore I knew and clasped
At twilight 'mid the vines at the mad feast
Of Dionysus, or the fair maids cold
Who streamed in white processions to the shrine
Of the chaste Virgin Goddess; but a shape
Richer and yet more pure. No thinnest veil
Obscured her; but each exquisite limb revealed,
Gleamed like a golden statue subtly wrought
By a great sculptor on the architrave
Of some high temple-front—only in her
The form was soft and warm, and charged with life,
And breathing. As I seemed to gaze on her,
Nearer she drew and gazed; and as I lay
Supine, as in a spell, the radiance stooped
And kissed me on the lips, a chaste, sweet kiss,
Which drew my spirit with it. So I slept
Each night upon the hill, until the dawn
Came in her silver chariot from the East,
And chased my Love away. But ever thus
Dissolved in love as in a heaven-sent dream,
Whenever the bright circle of the moon
Climbed from the hills, whether in leafy June
Or harvest-tide, or when they leapt and pressed
Red-thighed the spouting must, I walked apart
From all, and took no thought for mortal maid,
Nor nimble joys of youth; but night by night
I stole, when all were sleeping, to the hill,
And slumbered and was blest; until I grew
Possest by love so deep, I seemed to live
In slumber only, while the waking day
Showed faint as any vision.

So I turned
Paler and paler with the months, and climbed
The steep with laboured steps and difficult breath,
But still I climbed. Ay, though the wintry frost
Chained fast the streams and whitened all the fields,
I sought my mistress through the leafless groves,
And slumbered and was happy, till the dawn
Returning found me stretched out, cold and stark,
With life's fire nigh burnt out. Till one clear night,
When the birds shivered in the pines, and all
The inner heavens stood open, lo! she came,
Brighter and kinder still, and kissed my eyes
And half-closed lips, and drew my soul through them,
And in one precious ecstasy dissolved
My life. And thenceforth, ever on the hill
I lie unseen of man; a cold, white form,
Still young, through all the ages; but my soul,
Clothed in this thin presentment of old days,
Walks this dim land, where never moonrise comes,
Nor day-break, but a twilight waiting-time,
No more; and, ah! how weary! Yet I judge
My lot a higher far than his who spends
His youth on swift hot pleasure, quickly past;
Or theirs, my equals', who through long calm years
Grew sleek in dull content of wedded lives
And fair-grown offspring. Many a day for them,
While I was wandering here, and my bones bleached
Upon the rocks, the sweet autumnal sun
Beamed, and the grapes grew purple. Many a day
They heaped up gold, they knelt at festivals,
They waxed in high report and fame of men,
They gave their girls in marriage; while for me
Upon the untrodden peaks, the cold, grey morn,
The snows, the rains, the winds, the untempered blaze,
Beat year by year, until I turned to stone,
And the great eagles shrieked at me, and wheeled
Affrighted. Yet I judge it better indeed
To seek in life, as now I know I sought,
Some fair impossible Love, which slays our life,
Some fair ideal raised too high for man;
And failing to grow mad, and cease to be,
Than to decline, as they do who have found
Broad-paunched content and weal and happiness:
And so an end. For one day, as I know,
The high aim unfulfilled fulfils itself;
The deep, unsatisfied thirst is satisfied;
And through this twilight, broken suddenly,
The inmost heaven, the lucent stars of God,
The Moon of Love, the Sun of Life; and I,
I who pine here—I on the Latmian hill
Shall soar aloft and find them."

With the word,
There beamed a shaft of dawn athwart the skies,
And straight the sentinel thrush within the yew
Sang out reveillÉ to the hosts of day,
Soldierly; and the pomp and rush of life
Began once more, and left me there alone
Amid the awaking world.

Nay, not alone.
One fair shade lingered in the fuller day,
The last to come, when now my dream had grown
Half mixed with waking thoughts, as grows a dream
In summer mornings when the broader light
Dazzles the sleeper's eyes; and is most fair
Of all and best remembered, and becomes
Part of our waking life, when older dreams
Grow fainter, and are fled. So this remained
The fairest of the visions that I knew,
Most precious and most dear.

The increasing light
Shone through her, finer than the thinnest shade,
And yet most full of beauty; golden wings,
From her fair shoulders springing, seemed to lift
Her stainless feet from the cold ground and snatch
Their wearer into air; and in her eyes
Was such fair glance as comes from virgin love,
Long chastened and triumphant. Every trace
Of earth had vanished from her, and she showed
As one who walks a saint already in life,
Virgin or mother. Immortality
Breathed from those radiant eyes which yet had passed
Between the gates of death. I seemed to hear
The Soul of mortals speaking:

"I was born
Of a great race and mighty, and was grown
Fair, as they said, and good, and kept a life
Pure from all stain of passion. Love I knew not,
Who was absorbed in duty; and the Mother
Of gods and men, seeing my life more calm
Than human, hating my impassive heart,
Sent down her perfect son in wrath to earth,
And bade him break me.

But when Eros came,
It did repent him of the task, for Love
Is kin to Duty.

And within my life
I knew miraculous change, and a soft flame
Wherefrom the snows of Duty flushed to rose,
And the chill icy flow of mind was turned
To a warm stream of passion. Long I lived
Not knowing what had been, nor recognized
A Presence walking with me through my life,
As if by night, his face and form concealed:
A gracious voice alone, which none but I
Might hear, sustained me, and its name was Love.

Not as the earthly loves which throb and flush
Round earthly shrines was mine, but a pure spirit,
Lovelier than all embodied love, more pure
And wonderful; but never on his eyes
I looked, which still were hidden, and I knew not
The fashion of his nature; for by night,
When visual eyes are blind, but the soul sees,
Came he, and bade me seek not to enquire
Or whence he came or wherefore. Nor knew I
His name. And always ere the coming day,
As if he were the Sun-god, lingering
With some too well-loved maiden, he would rise
And vanish until eve. But all my being
Thrilled with my fair unearthly visitant
To higher duty and more glorious meed
Of action than of old, for it was Love
That came to me, who might not know his name.

Thus, ever rapt by dreams divine, I knew
The scorn that comes from weaker souls, which miss,
Being too low of nature, the great joy
Revealed to others higher; nay, my sisters,
Who being of one blood with me, made choice
To tread the lower ways of daily life,
Grew jealous of me, bidding me take heed
Lest haply 'twas some monstrous fiend I loved,
Such as in fable ofttimes sought and won
The innocent hearts of maids. Long time I held
My love too dear for doubt, who was so sweet
And lovable. But at the last the sneers,
The mystery which hid him, the swift flight
Before the coming dawn, the shape concealed,
The curious girlish heart, these worked on me
With an unsatisfied thirst. Not his own words:
'Dear, I am with thee only while I keep
My visage hidden; and if thou once shouldst see
My face, I must forsake thee: the high gods
Link Love with Faith, and he withdraws himself
From the full gaze of Knowledge'—not even these
Could cure me of my longing, or the fear
Those mocking voices worked; who fain would learn
The worst that might befall.

And one sad night,
Just as the day leapt from the hills and brought
The hour when he should go: with tremulous hands,
Lighting my midnight lamp in fear, I stood
Long time uncertain, and at length turned round
And gazed upon my love. He lay asleep,
And oh, how fair he was! The flickering light
Fell on the fairest of the gods, stretched out
In happy slumber. Looking on his locks
Of gold, and faultless face and smile, and limbs
Made perfect, a great joy and trembling took me
Who was most blest of women, and in awe
And fear I stooped to kiss him. One warm drop—
From the full lamp within my trembling hand,
Or a glad tear from my too happy eyes,
Fell on his shoulder.

Then the god unclosed
His lovely eyes, and with great pity spake:
'Farewell! There is no Love except with Faith,
And thine is dead! Farewell! I come no more.'
And straightway from the hills the full red sun
Leapt up, and as I clasped my love again,
The lovely vision faded from his place,
And came no more.

Then I, with breaking heart,
Knowing my life laid waste by my own hand,
Went forth and would have sought to hide my life
Within the stream of Death; but Death came not
To aid me who not yet was meet for Death.

Then finding that Love came not back to me,
I thought that in the temples of the gods
Haply he dwelt, and so from fane to fane
I wandered over earth, and knelt in each,
Enquiring for my Love; and I would ask
The priests and worshippers, 'Is this Love's shrine?
Sirs, have you seen the god?' But never at all
I found him. For some answered, 'This is called
The Shrine of Knowledge;' and another, 'This,
The Shrine of Beauty;' and another, 'Strength;'
And yet another, 'Youth.' And I would kneel
And say a prayer to my Love, and rise
And seek another. Long, o'er land and sea,
I wandered, till I was not young or fair,
Grown wretched, seeking my lost Love; and last,
Came to the smiling, hateful shrine where ruled
The queen of earthly love and all delight,
Cypris, but knelt not there, but asked of one
Who seemed her priest, if Eros dwelt with her.

Then to the subtle-smiling goddess' self
They led me. She with hatred in her eyes:
'What! thou to seek for Love, who art grown thin
And pale with watching! He is not for thee.
What Love is left for such? Thou didst despise
Love, and didst dwell apart. Love sits within
The young maid's eyes, making them beautiful.
Love is for youth, and joy, and happiness;
And not for withered lives. Ho! bind her fast.
Take her and set her to the vilest tasks,
And bend her pride by solitude and tears,
Who will not kneel to me, but dares to seek
A disembodied love. My son has gone
And left thee for thy fault, and thou shalt know
The misery of my thralls.'

Then in her house
They bound me to hard tasks and vile, and kept
My life from honour, chained among her slaves
And lowest ministers, taking despite
And injury for food, and set to bind
Their wounds whom she had tortured, and to feed
The pitiful lives which in her prisons pent
Languished in hopeless pain. There is no sight
Of suffering but I saw it, and was set
To succour it; and all my woman's heart
Was torn with the ineffable miseries
Which love and life have worked; and dwelt long time
In groanings and in tears.

And then, oh joy!
Oh miracle! once more at length again
I felt Love's arms around me, and the kiss
Of Love upon my lips, and in the chill
Of deepest prison cells, 'mid vilest tasks,
The glow of his sweet breath, and the warm touch
Of his invisible hand, and his sweet voice,
Ay, sweeter than of old, and tenderer,
Speak to me, pierce me, hold me, fold me round
With arms Divine, till all the sordid earth
Was hued like heaven, and Life's dull prison-house
Turned to a golden palace, and those low tasks
Grew to be higher works and nobler gains
Than any gains of knowledge, and at last
He whispered softly, 'Dear, unclose thine eyes.
Thou mayst look on me now. I go no more,
But am thine own for ever.'

Then with wings
Of gold we soared, I looking in his eyes,
Over yon dark broad river, and this dim land,
Scarce for an instant staying till we reached
The inmost courts of heaven.

But sometimes still
I come here for a little, and speak a word
Of peace to those who wait. The slow wheel turns,
The cycles round themselves and grow complete,
The world's year whitens to the harvest-tide,
And one word only am I sent to say
To those dear souls, who wait here, or who now
Breathe earthly air—one universal word
To all things living, and the word is 'Love.'"

Then soared she visibly before my gaze,
And the heavens took her, and I knew my eyes
Had seen the soul of man, the deathless soul,
Defeated, struggling, purified, and blest.

Then all the choir of happy waiting shades,
Heroes and queens, fair maidens and brave youths,
Swept by me, rhythmic, slow, as if they trod
Some unheard measure, passing where I stood
In fair procession, each with a faint smile
Upon the lip, signing "Farewell, oh shade!
It shall be well with thee, as 'tis with us,
If only thou art true. The world of Life,
The world of Death, are but opposing sides
Of one great orb, and the Light shines on both.
Oh, happy happy shade! Farewell! Farewell!"
And so they passed away.

END OF BOOK II.