Lewis Morris

But I, my gaze
Following the soaring soul which now was lost
In the awakening skies, floated with her,
As in a trance, beyond the golden gates
Which separate Earth from Heaven; and to my thought
Gladdened by that broad effluence of light,
This old earth seemed transfigured, and the fields,
So dim and bare, grew green and clothed themselves
With lustrous hues. A fine ethereal air
Played round me as I mused, and filled the soul
With an ineffable content. What need
Of words to tell of things unreached by words?
Or seek to engrave upon the treacherous thought
The fair and fugitive fancies of a dream,
Which vanish ere we fix them?

But methinks
He knows the scene, who knows the one fair day,
One only and no more, which year by year
In springtime comes, when lingering winter flies,
And lo! the trees blossom in white and pink.
And golden clusters, and the glades are filled
With delicate primrose and deep odorous beds
Of violets, and on the tufted meads
With kingcups starred, and cowslip bells, and blue
Sweet hyacinths, and frail anemones,
The broad West wind breathes softly, and the air
Is tremulous with the lark, and thro' the woods
The soft full-throated thrushes all day long
Flood the green dells with joy, and thro' the dry
Brown fields the sower strides, sowing his seed,
And all is life and song. Or he who first,
Whether in fair free boyhood, when the world
Is his to choose, or when his fuller life
Beats to another life, or afterwards,
Keeping his youth within his children's eyes,
Looks on the snow-clad everlasting hills,
And marks the sunset smite them, and is glad
Of the beautiful fair world.

A springtide land
It seemed, where East winds came not. Sweetest song
Was everywhere, by glade or sunny plain;
And thro' the golden valleys winding streams
Rippled in glancing silver, and above,
The blue hills rose, and over all a peak,
White, awful, with a constant fleece of cloud
Veiling its summit, towered. Unfailing Day
Lighted it, for no turn of dawn and eve
Came there, nor changing seasons, but a broad
Fixed joy of Being, undisturbed by Time.

There, in a happy glade shut in by groves
Of laurel and sweet myrtle, on a green
And flower-lit lawn, I seemed to see the ghosts
Of the old gods. Upon the gentle slope
Of a fair hill, a joyous company,
The Immortals lay. Hard by, a murmurous stream
Fell through the flowers; below them, space on space,
Laughed the immeasurable plains; beyond,
The mystic mountain soared. Height after height
Of bare rock ledges left the climbing pines,
And reared their giddy, shining terraces
Into the ethereal air. Above, the snows
Of the white summit cleft the fleece of cloud
Which always clothed it round.

Ah, fail-and sweet,
Yet with a ghostly fairness, fine and thin,
Those godlike Presences. Not dreams indeed,
But something dream-like, were they. Blessed Shades
Heroic and Divine, as when, in days
When Man was young, and Time, the vivid thought
Translated into Form the unattained
Impossible Beauty of men's dreams, and fixed
The Loveliness in marble.

As with awe
Following my spotless guide, I stood apart,
Not daring to draw near; a shining form
Rose from the throng, and floated, light as air,
To where I trembled. And I knew the face
And form of Artemis, the fair, the pure,
The undefiled. A crescent silvery moon
Shone thro' her locks, and by her side she bore
A quiver of golden darts. At sight of whom
I felt a sudden chill, like his who once
Looked upon her and died; yet could not fear,
Seeing how fair she was. Her sweet voice rang
Clear as a bird's:

"Mortal, what fate hath brought
Thee hither, uncleansed by death? How canst thou breathe
Immortal air, being mortal? Yet fear not,
Since thou art come. For we too are of earth
Whom here thou seest: there were not a heaven
Were there no earth, nor gods, had men not been,
But each the complement of each and grown
The other's creature, is and has its being,
A double essence, Human and Divine.
So that the God is hidden in the man,
And something Human bounds and forms the God;
Which else had shown too great and undefined
For mortal sight, and having no human eye
To see it, were unknown. But we who bore
Sway of old time, we were but attributes
[3]Of the great God who is all Things that be—
The Pillar of the Earth and starry Sky,
The Depth of the great Deep; the Sun, the Moon,
The Word which Makes; the All-compelling Love—
For all Things lie within His Infinite Form."

Even as she spake, a throng of heavenly forms
Floated around me, filling all my soul
With fair unearthly beauty, and the air
With such ambrosial perfume as is born.
When morning bursts upon a tropic sea,
From boundless wastes of flowers; and as I knelt
In rapture, lo! the same clear voice again
From out the throng of gods:

"Those whom thou seest
Were even as I, embodiments of Him
Who is the Centre of all Life: myself
The Maiden-Queen of Purity; and Strength,
Divine when unabused; Love too, the Spring
And Cause of Things; and Knowledge, which lays bare
Their secret; and calm Duty, Queen of all,
And Motherhood in one; and Youth, which bears,
Beauty of Form and Life and Light, and breathes
The breath of Inspiration; and the Soul,
The particle of God, sent down to man,
Which doth in turn reveal the world and God.

Wherefore it is men called on Artemis,
The refuge of young souls; for still in age
They keep some dim reflection uneffaced
Of a Diviner Purity than comes
To the spring days of youth, when all the world
Smiles, and the rapid blood thro' the young veins
Courses, and all is glad; yet knowing too
That innocence is young—before the soil
And smirch of sadder knowledge, settling on it,
Sully its primal whiteness. So they knelt
At my white shrines, the eager vigorous youths,
To whom life's road showed like a dewy field
In early summer dawns, when to the sound
Of youth's clear voice, and to the cheerful rush
Of the tumultuous feet and clamorous tongues
Careering onwards, fair and dappled fawns,
Strange birds with jewelled plumes, fierce spotted pards,
Rise in the joyous chase, to be caught and bound
By the young conqueror; nor yet the charm
Of sensual ease allures. And they knelt too,
The pure sweet maidens fair and fancy-free,
Whose innocent virgin hearts shrank from the touch
Of passion as from wrong—sweet moonlit lives
Which fade, and pale, and vanish, in the glare
Of Love's hot noontide: these came robed in white,
With holy hymns and soaring liturgies:
And so men fabled me, a huntress now,
Borne thro' the flying woodlands, fair and free;
And now the pale cold Moon, Light without warmth,
Zeal without touch of passion, heavenly love
For human, and the altar for the home.

But oh, how sweet it was to take the love
And awe of my young worshippers; to watch
The pure young gaze and hear the pure young voice
Mount in the hymn, or see the gay troop come
With the first dawn of day, brushing the dew
From the unpolluted fields, and wake to song
The slumbering birds; strong in their innocence!
I did not envy any goddess of all
The Olympian company her votaries!
Ah, happy days of old which now are gone!
A memory and a dream! for now on earth
I rule no longer o'er young willing hearts
In voluntary fealty, which should cease
When Love, with fiery accents calling, woke
The slumbering soul; as now it should for those
Who kneel before the purer, sadder shrine
Which has replaced my own. But ah! too oft,
Not always, but too often, shut from life
Within pale life-long cloisters and the bars
Of deadly convent prisons, year by year,
Age after age, the white souls fade and pine
Which simulate the joyous service free
Of those young worshippers. I would that I
Might loose the captives' chain; or Herakles,
Who was a mortal once."

But he who stood
Colossal at my side:

"I toil no more
On earth, nor wield again the mighty strength
Which Zeus once gave me for the cure of ill.
I have run my race; I have done my work; I rest
For ever from the toilsome days I gave
To the suffering race of men. And yet, indeed,
Methinks they suffer still. Tyrannous growths
And monstrous vex them still. Pestilence lurks
And sweeps them down. Treacheries come, and wars,
And slay them still. Vaulting ambition leaps
And falls in bloodshed still. But I am here
At rest, and no man kneels to me, or keeps
Reverence for strength mighty yet unabused—
Strength which is Power, God's choicest gift, more rare
And precious than all Beauty, or the charm
Of Wisdom, since it is the instrument
Thro' which all Nature works. For now the earth
Is full of meekness, and a new God rules,
Teaching strange precepts of humility
And mercy and forgiveness. Yet I trow
There is no lack of bloodshed and deceit
And groanings, and the tyrant works his wrong
Even as of old; but now there is no arm
Like mine, made strong by Zeus, to beat him down,
Him and his wrong together. Yet I know
I am not all discrowned. The strong brave souls,
The manly tender hearts, whom tale of wrong
To woman or child, to all weak things and small,
Fires like a blow; calling the righteous flush
Of anger to the brow; knotting the cords
Of muscle on the arm; with one desire
To hew the spoiler down, and make an end,
And go their way for others; making light
Of toil and pain, and too laborious days,
And peril; beat unchanged, albeit they serve
A Lord of meekness. For the world still needs
Its champion as of old, and finds him still.
Not always now with mighty sinews and thews
Like mine, though still these profit, but keen brain
And voice to move men's souls to love the right
And hate the wrong; even tho' the bodily form
Be weak, of giant strength, strong to assail
The hydra heads of Evil, and to slay
The monsters that now waste them: Ignorance,
Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of Man,
Disguised as love of God. These there are still
With task as hard as mine. For what was it
To strive with bodily ills, and do great deeds
Of daring and of strength, and bear the crown,
To his who wages lifelong, doubtful strife
With an impalpable foe; conquering indeed,
But, ere he hears the pÆan or sees the pomp
Laid low in the arms of Death? And tho' men cease
To worship at my shrine, yet not the less
I hold, it is the toils I knew, the pains
I bore for others, which have kept the heart
Of manhood undefiled, and nerved the arm
Of sacrifice, and made the martyr strong
To do and bear, and taught the race of men
How godlike 'tis to suffer thro' life, and die
At last for others' good!"

The strong god ceased,
And stood a little, musing; blest indeed,
But bearing, as it seemed, some faintest trace
Of earthly struggle still, not the gay ease
Of the elder heaven-born gods.

And then there came
Beauty and Joy in one, bearing the form
Of woman. How to reach with halting words
That infinite Perfection? All have known
The breathing marbles which the Greek has left
Who saw her near, and strove to fix her charms,
And exquisitely failed; or those fair forms
The Painter offered at a later shrine,
And failed. Nay, what are words?—he knows it well
Who loves, or who has loved.

She with a smile
Playing around her rosy lips; as plays
The sunbeam on a stream:

"Shall I complain
Men kneel to me no longer, taking to them
Some graver, sterner worship; grown too wise
For fleeting joys of Love? Nay, Love is Youth,
And still the world is young. Still shall I reign
Within the hearts of men, while Time shall last
And Life renews itself. All Life that is,
From the weak things of earth or sea or air,
Which creep or float for an hour; to godlike man—
All know me and are mine. I am the source
And mother of all, both gods and men; the spring
Of Force and Joy, which, penetrating all
Within the hidden depths of the Unknown,
Sets the blind seed of Being, and from the bond
Of incomplete and dual Essences
Evolves the harmony which is Life. The world
Were dead without my rays, who am the Light
Which vivifies the world. Nay, but for me,
The universal order which attracts
Sphere unto sphere, and keeps them in their paths
For ever, were no more. All things are bound
Within my golden chain, whose name is Love.

And if there be, indeed, some sterner souls
Or sunk in too much learning, or hedged round
By care and greed, or haply too much rapt
By pale ascetic fervours, to delight
To kneel to me, the universal voice
Scorns them as those who, missing willingly
The good that Nature offers, dwell unblest
Who might be blest, but would not. Every voice
Of bard in every age has hymned me. All
The breathing marbles, all the heavenly hues
Of painting, praise me. Even the loveless shades
Of dim monastic cloisters show some gleam,
Tho' faint, of me. Amid the busy throngs
Of cities reign I, and o'er lonely plains,
Beyond the ice-fields of the frozen North,
And the warm waves of undiscovered seas.

For I was born out of the sparkling foam
Which lights the crest of the blue mystic wave,
Stirred by the wandering breath of Life's pure dawn
From a young soul's calm depths. There, without voice,
Stretched on the breathing curve of a young breast,
Fluttering a little, fresh from the great deep
Of life, and creamy as the opening rose,
Naked I lie, naked yet unashamed,
While youth's warm tide steals round me with a kiss,
And floods each limb with fairness. Shame I know not—
Shame is for wrong, and not for innocence—
The veil which Error grasps to hide itself
From the awful Eye. But I, I lie unveiled
And unashamed—the livelong day I lie,
The warm wave murmuring to me; and, all night,
Hidden in the moonlit caves of happy Sleep,
I dream until the morning and am glad.

Why should I seek to clothe myself, and hide
The treasure of my Beauty? Shame may wait
On those for whom 'twas given. The sties of sense
Are none of mine; the brutish, loveless wrong,
The venal charm, the simulated flush
Of fleshly passion, they are none of mine,
Only corruptions of me. Yet I know
The counterfeit the stronger, since gross souls
And brutish sway the earth; and yet I hold
That sense itself is sacred, and I deem
'Twere better to grow soft and sink in sense
Than gloat o'er blood and wrong.

My kingdom is
Over infinite grades of being. All breathing things,
From the least crawling insect to the brute,
From brute to man, confess me. Yet in man
I find my worthiest worship. Where man is,
A youth and a maid, a youth and a maid, nought else
Is wanting for my temple. Every clime
Kneels to me—the long breaker swells and falls
Under the palms, mixed with the merry noise
Of savage bridals, and the straight brown limbs
Know me, and over all the endless plains
I reign, and by the tents on the hot sand
And sea-girt isles am queen, and on the side
Of silent mountains, where the white cots gleam
Upon the green hill pastures, and no sound
But the thunder of the avalanche is borne
To the listening rocks around; and in fair lands
Where all is peace; where thro' the happy hush
Of tranquil summer evenings, 'mid the corn,
Or thro' cool arches of the gadding vines,
The lovers stray together hand in hand,
Hymning my praise; and by the stately streets
Of echoing cities—over all the earth,
Palace and cot, mountain and plain and sea,
The burning South, the icy North, the old
And immemorial East, the unbounded West,
No new god comes to spoil me utterly—
All worship and are mine!"

With a sweet smile
Upon her rosy mouth, the goddess ceased;
And when she spake no more, the silence weighed
As heavy on my soul as when it takes
Some gracious melody, and leaves the ear
Unsatisfied and longing, till the fount
Of sweetness springs again.

But while I stood
Expectant, lo! a fair pale form drew near
With front severe, and wide blue eyes which bore
Mild wisdom in their gaze. Great purity
Shone from her—not the young-eyed innocence
Of her whom first I saw, but that which comes
From wider knowledge, which restrains the tide
Of passionate youth, and leads the musing soul
By the calm deeps of Wisdom. And I knew
My eyes had seen the fair, the virgin Queen,
Who once within her shining Parthenon
Beheld the sages kneel.

She with clear voice
And coldly sweet, yet with a softness too,
As doth befit a virgin:

"She does right
To boast her sway, my sister, seeing indeed
That all things are as by a double law,
And from a double root the tree of Life
Springs up to the face of heaven. Body and Soul,
Matter and Spirit, lower joys of Sense
And higher joys of Thought, I know that both
Build up the shrine of Being. The brute sense
Leaves man a brute; but, winged with soaring thought
Mounts to high heaven. The unembodied spirit,
Dwelling alone, unmated, void of sense,
Is impotent. And yet I hold there is,
Far off, but not too far for mortal reach,
A calmer height, where, nearer to the stars,
Thought sits alone and gazes with rapt gaze,
A large-eyed maiden in a robe of white.
Who brings the light of Knowledge down, and draws
To her pontifical eyes a bridge of gold,
Which spans from earth to heaven.

For what were life,
If things of sense were all, for those large souls
And high, which grudging Nature has shut fast
Within unlovely forms, or those from whom
The circuit of the rapid gliding years
Steals the brief gift of beauty? Shall we hold,
With idle singers, all the treasure of hope
Is lost with youth—swift-fleeting, treacherous youth,
Which fades and flies before the ripening brain
Crowns life with Wisdom's crown? Nay, even in youth,
Is it not more to walk upon the heights
Alone—the cold free heights—and mark the vale
Lie breathless in the glare, or hidden and blurred
By cloud and storm; or pestilence and war
Creep on with blood and death; while the soul dwells
Apart upon the peaks, outfronts the sun
As the eagle does, and takes the coming dawn
While all the vale is dark, and knows the springs
Of tiny rivulets hurrying from the snows,
Which soon shall swell to vast resistless floods,
And feed the Oceans which divide the World?

Oh, ecstasy! oh, wonder! oh, delight!
Which neither the slow-withering wear of Time,
That takes all else—the smooth and rounded cheek
Of youth; the lightsome step; the warm young heart
Which beats for love or friend; the treasure of hope
Immeasurable; the quick-coursing blood
Which makes it joy to be,—ay, takes them all
And leaves us naught—nor yet satiety
Born of too full possession, takes or mars!
Oh, fair delight of learning! which grows great
And stronger and more keen, for slower limbs,
And dimmer eyes and loneliness, and loss
Of lower good—wealth, friendship, ay, and Love—
When the swift soul, turning its weary gaze
From the old vanished joys, projects itself
Into the void and floats in empty space,
Striving to reach the mystic source of Things,
The secrets of the earth and sea and air,
The Law that holds the process of the suns,
The awful depths of Mind and Thought; the prime
Unfathomable mystery of God!

Is there, then, any who holds my worship cold
And lifeless? Nay, but 'tis the light which cheers
The waning life! Love thou thy love, brave youth!
Cleave to thy love, fair maid! it is the Law
Which dominates the world, that bids ye use
Your nature; but, when now the fuller tide
Slackens a little, turn your calmer eyes
To the fair page of Knowledge. It is power
I give, and power is precious. It is strength
To live four-square, careless of outward shows,
And self-sufficing. It is clearer sight
To know the rule of life, the Eternal scheme;
And, knowing it, to do and not to err,
And, doing, to be blest."

The calm voice soared
Higher and higher to the close; the cold
Clear accents, fired as by a hidden fire,
Glowed into life and tenderness, and throbbed
As with some spiritual ecstasy
Sweeter than that of Love.

But as they died,
I heard an ampler voice; and looking, marked
A fair and gracious form. She seemed a Queen
Who ruled o'er gods and men; the majesty
Of perfect womanhood. No opening bud
Of beauty, but the full consummate flower
Was hers; and from her mild large eyes looked forth
Gentle command, and motherhood, and home,
And pure affection. Awe and reverence
O'erspread me, as I knew my eyes had looked
On sovereign HerÉ, mother of the gods.

She, with clear, rounded utterance, sweet and calm
"I know Love's fruit is good and fair to see
And taste, if any gain it, and I know
How brief Life's Passion-tide, which when it ends
May change to thirst for Knowledge, and I know
How fair the realm of Mind, wherein the soul
Thirsting to know, wings its impetuous way
Beyond the bounds of Thought; and yet I hold
There is a higher bliss than these, which fits
A mortal life, compact of Body and Soul,
And therefore double-natured—a calm path
Which lies before the feet, thro' common ways
And undistinguished crowds of toiling men,
And yet is hard to tread, tho' seeming smooth,
And yet, tho' level, earns a worthier crown.

For Knowledge is a steep which few may climb,
While Duty is a path which all may tread.
And if the Soul of Life and Thought be this,
How best to speed the mighty scheme, which still
Fares onward day by day—the Life of the World,
Which is the sum of petty lives, that live
And die so this may live—how then shall each
Of that great multitude of faithful souls
Who walk not on the heights, fulfil himself,
But by the duteous Life which looks not forth
Beyond its narrow sphere, and finds its work,
And works it out; content, this done, to fall
And perish, if Fate will, so the great Scheme
Goes onward?

Wherefore am I Queen in Heaven
And Earth, whose realm is Duty, bearing rule
More constant and more wide than those whose words
Thou heardest last. Mine are the striving souls
Of fathers toiling day by day obscure
And unrewarded, save by their own hearts,
Mid wranglings of the Forum or the mart;
Who long for joys of Thought, and yet must toil
Unmurmuring thro' dull lives from youth to age;
Who haply might have worn instead the crown
Of Honour and of Fame: mine the fair mothers
Who, for the love of children and of home,
When passion dies, expend their toilful years
In loving labour sweetened by the sense
Of Duty: mine the statesman who toils on
Thro' vigilant nights and days, guiding his State.
Yet finds no gratitude; and those white souls
Who give themselves for others all their years
In trivial tasks of Pity. The fine growths
Of Man and Time are mine, and spend themselves
For me and for the mystical End which lies
Beyond their gaze and mine, and yet is good,
Tho' hidden from men and gods.

For as the flower
Of the tiger-lily bright with varied hues
Is for a day, then fades and leaves behind
Fairness nor fruit, while the green tiny tuft
Swells to the purple of the clustering grape
Or golden waves of wheat; so lives of men
Which show most splendid; fade and are deceased
And leave no trace; while those, unmarked, unseen,
Which no man recks of, rear the stately tree
Of Knowledge, not for itself sought out, but found
In the dusty ways of life—a fairer growth
Than springs in cloistered shades; and from the sum
Of Duty, blooms sweeter and more divine
The fair ideal of the Race, than comes
From glittering gains of Learning.

Life, full life,
Full-flowered, full-fruited, reared from homely earth,
Rooted in duty, and thro' long calm years
Bearing its load of healthful energies;
Stretching its arms on all sides; fed with dews
Of cheerful sacrifice, and clouds of care,
And rain of useful tears; warmed by the sun
Of calm affection, till it breathes itself
In perfume to the heavens—this is the prize
I hold most dear, more precious than the fruit
Of Knowledge or of Love."

The goddess ceased
As dies some gracious harmony, the child
Of wedded themes which single and alone
Were discords, but united breathe a sound
Sweet as the sounds of heaven.

And then stood forth
The last of the gods I saw, the first in rank
And dignity and beauty, the young god
Who grows not old, the Light of Heaven and Earth,
The Worker from afar, who sends the fire
Of inspiration to the bard and bathes
The world in hues of heaven—the golden link
Between High God and Man.

With a sweet voice
Whose every note was sweetest melody—
The melody has fled, the words remain—
Apollo sang:

"I know how fair the face
Of Purity; I know the treasure of Strength;
I know the charm of Love, the calmer grace
Of Wisdom and of Duteous well-spent lives:
And yet there is a loftier height than these.

There is a Height higher than mortal thought;
There is a Love warmer than mortal love;
There is a Life which taketh not its hues
From Earth or earthly things; and so grows pure
And higher than the petty cares of men,
And is a blessed life and glorified.

Oh, white young souls, strain upward, upward still,
Even to the heavenly source of Purity!
Brave hearts, bear on and suffer! Strike for right,
Strong arms, and hew down wrong! The world hath need
Of all of you—the sensual wrongful world!

Hath need of you, and of thee too, fair Love.
Oh, lovers, cling together! the old world
Is full of Hate. Sweeten it; draw in one
Two separate chords of Life; and from the bond
Of twin souls lost in Harmony create
A Fair God dwelling with you—Love, the Lord!

Waft yourselves, yearning souls, upon the stars;
Sow yourselves on the wandering winds of space;
Watch patient all your days, if your eyes take
Some dim, cold ray of Knowledge. The dull world
Hath need of you—the purblind, slothful world!

Live on, brave lives, chained to the narrow round
Of Duty; live, expend yourselves, and make
The orb of Being wheel onward steadfastly
Upon its path—the Lord of Life alone
Knows to what goal of Good; work on, live on:
And yet there is a higher work than yours.

To have looked upon the face of the Unknown
And Perfect Beauty. To have heard the voice
Of Godhead in the winds and in the seas.
To have known Him in the circling of the suns,
And in the changeful fates and lives of men.

To be fulfilled with Godhead as a cup
Filled with a precious essence, till the hand
On marble or on canvas falling, leaves
Celestial traces, or from reed or string
Draws out faint echoes of the voice Divine
That bring God nearer to a faithless world.

Or, higher still and fairer and more blest,
To be His seer, His prophet; to be the voice
Of the Ineffable Word; to be the glass
Of the Ineffable Light, and bring them down
To bless the earth, set in a shrine of Song.

For Knowledge is a barren tree and bare,
Bereft of God, and Duty but a word,
And Strength but Tyranny, and Love, Desire,
And Purity a folly; and the Soul,
Which brings down God to Man, the Light to the world;
He is the Maker, and is blest, is blest!"

He ended, and I felt my soul grow faint
With too much sweetness.

In a mist of grace
They faded, that bright company, and seemed
To melt into each other and shape themselves
Into new forms, and those fair goddesses
Blent in a perfect woman—all the calm
High motherhood of HerÉ, the sweet smile
Of Cypris, fair AthenÉ's earnest eyes,
And the young purity of Artemis,
Blent in a perfect woman; and in her arms,
Fused by some cosmic interlacing curves
Of Beauty into a new Innocence,
A child with eyes divine, a little child,
A little child—no more.

And those great gods
Of Power and Beauty left a heavenly form
Strong not to act, but suffer; fair and meek,
Not proud and eager; with soft eyes of grace,
Not bold with joyous youth; and for the fire
Of song, and for the happy careless life,
A sorrowful pilgrimage—changed, yet the same
Only Diviner far; and keeping still
The Life God-lighted and the sacrifice.

And when these faded wholly, at my side,
Tho' hidden before by those too-radiant forms,
I was aware once more of her, my guide
Psyche, who had not left me, floating near
On golden wings; and all the plains of heaven
Were left to us, me and my soul alone.

Then when my thought revived again, I said
Whispering, "But Zeus I saw not, the prime Source
And Sire of all the gods."

And she, bent low
With downcast eyes: "Nay. Thou hast seen of Him
All that thine eyes can bear, in those fair forms
Which are but parts of Him and are indeed
Attributes of the Substance which supports
The Universe of Things—the Soul of the World,
The Stream which flows Eternal, from no Source
Into no Sea, His Purity, His Strength,
His Love, His Knowledge, His unchanging rule
Of Duty, thou hast seen, only a part
And not the whole, being a finite mind
Too weak for infinite thought; nor, couldst thou see
All of Him visible to mortal sight,
Wouldst thou see all His essence, since the gods—
Glorified essences of Human mould,
Who are but Zeus made visible to men—
See Him not wholly, only some thin edge
And halo of His glory; nor know they
What vast and unsuspected Universes
Lie beyond thought, where yet He rules, like those
Vast Suns we cannot see, round which our Sun
Moves with his system, or those darker still
Which not even thus we know, but yet exist
Tho' no eye marks, nor thought itself, and lurk
In the awful Depths of Space; or that which is
Not orbed as yet, but indiscrete, confused,
Sown thro' the void—the faintest gleam of light
Which sets itself to Be. And yet is He
There too, and rules, none seeing. But sometimes
To this our heaven, which is so like to earth
But nearer to Him, for awhile He shows
Some gleam of His own brightness, and methinks
It cometh soon; but thou, if thou shouldst gaze,
Thy Life will rush to His—the tiny spark
Absorbed in that full blaze—and what there is
Of mortal fall from thee."

But I: "Oh, soul,
What holdeth Life more precious than to know
The Giver and to die?"

Then she: "Behold!
Look upward and adore."

And with the word,
Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure,
The floating cloud which clothed the hidden peak
Rose slow in awful silence, laying bare
Spire after rocky spire, snow after snow,
Whiter and yet more dreadful, till at last
It left the summit clear.

Then with a bound,
In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash of a thought,
I knew an Awful Effluence of Light,
Formless, Ineffable, Perfect, burst on me
And flood my being round, and take my life
Into itself. I saw my guide bent down
Prostrate, her wings before her face; and then
No more.

But when I woke from my long trance
Behold, it was no longer Tartarus,
Nor Hades, nor Olympus, but the bare
And unideal aspect of the fields
Which Spring not yet had kissed—the strange old Earth
So far more fabulous now than in the days
When Man was young, nor yet the mystery
Of Time and Fate transformed it. From the hills,
The long night fled at last, the unclouded sun,
The dear, fair sun, leapt upward swift, and smote
My sight with rays of gold, and pierced my brain
With too much light ere my entrancÈd eyes
Could hide themselves.

And I was on the Earth
Dreaming the dream of Life again, as late
I dreamed the dream of Death.

Another day
Dawned on the race of men; another world;
New heavens, and new earth.

And as I went
Across the lightening fields, upon a bank
I saw a single snowdrop glance, and bring
Promise of Spring; and keeping my old thought
In the old fair Hellenic vesture dressed,
I felt myself a ghost, and seemed to be
Now fair Adonis hasting to the arms
Of his lost love—now sad Persephone
Restored to mother earth—or that high shade
Orpheus, who gave up heaven to save his love,
And is rewarded—or young Marsyas,
Who spent his youth and life for song, and yet
Was happy though in torture—or the fair
And dreaming youth I saw, who still awaits,
Hopeful, the unveiling heaven, when he shall see
His fair ideal love. The birds sang blithe;
There came a tinkling from the waking fold;
And on the hillside from the cot a girl
Tripped singing with her pitcher. All the sounds
And thoughts which still are beautiful—Youth, Song,
Dawn, Spring, Renewal—and my soul was glad
Of all the freshness, and I felt again
The youth and spring-tide of the world, and thought,
Which feigned those fair and gracious fantasies.

For every dawn that breaks brings a new world,
And every budding bosom a new life;
These fair tales, which we know so beautiful,
Show only finer than our lives to-day
Because their voice was clearer, and they found
A sacred bard to sing them. We are pent,
Who sing to-day, by all the garnered wealth
Of ages of past song. We have no more
The world to choose from, who, where'er we turn,
Tread through old thoughts and fair. Yet must we sing—
We have no choice; and if more hard the toil
In noon, when all is clear, than in the fresh
White mists of early morn, yet do we find
Achievement its own guerdon, and at last
The rounder song of manhood grows more sweet
Than the high note of youth.

For Age, long Age!
Nought else divides us from the fresh young days
Which men call ancient; seeing that we in turn
Shall one day be Time's ancients, and inspire
The wiser, higher race, which yet shall sing
Because to sing is human, and high thought
Grows rhythmic ere its close. Nought else there is
But that weird beat of Time, which doth disjoin
To-day from Hellas.

How should any hold
Those precious scriptures only old-world tales
Of strange impossible torments and false gods;
Of men and monsters in some brainless dream,
Coherent, yet unmeaning, linked together
By some false skein of song?

Nay! evermore,
All things and thoughts, both new and old, are writ
Upon the unchanging human heart and soul.
Has Passion still no prisoners? Pine there now
No lives which fierce Love, sinking into Lust,
Has drowned at last in tears and blood—plunged down
To the lowest depths of Hell? Have not strong Will
And high Ambition rotted into Greed
And Wrong, for any, as of old, and whelmed
The struggling soul in ruin? Hell lies near
Around us as does Heaven, and in the World,
Which is our Hades, still the chequered souls
Compact of good and ill—not all accurst
Nor altogether blest—a few brief years
Travel the little journey of their lives,
They know not to what end. The weary woman
Sunk deep in ease and sated with her life,
Much loved and yet unloving, pines to-day
As Helen; still the poet strives and sings.
And hears Apollo's music, and grows dumb,
And suffers, yet is happy; still the young
Fond dreamer seeks his high ideal love,
And finds her name is Death; still doth the fair
And innocent life, bound naked to the rock,
Redeem the race; still the gay tempter goes
And leaves his victim, stone; still doth pain bind
Men's souls in closer links of lovingness,
Than Death itself can sever; still the sight
Of too great beauty blinds us, and we lose
The sense of earthly splendours, gaining Heaven.

And still the skies are opened as of old
To the entrancÈd gaze, ay, nearer far
And brighter than of yore; and Might is there,
And Infinite Purity is there, and high
Eternal Wisdom, and the calm clear face
Of Duty, and a higher, stronger Love
And Light in one, and a new, reverend Name,
Greater than any and combining all;
And over all, veiled with a veil of cloud,
God set far off, too bright for mortal eyes.

And always, always, with each soul that comes
And goes, comes that fair form which was my guide,
Hovering, with golden wings and eyes divine,
Above the bed of birth, the bed of death,
Still breathing heavenly airs of deathless love.

For while a youth is lost in soaring thought,
And while a maid grows sweet and beautiful,
And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth,
And while a child, and while a flower is born,
And while one wrong cries for redress and finds
A soul to answer, still the world is young!

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.

Transcriber's Notes:
This text is hemistichia, in that the end of one stanza
is vertically aligned with the start of the next stanza.
The original font, possibly Caslon Old Face is similar
to Goudy Old Style and the text in this file has been
aligned for reading using Goudy Old style or a similar font.
Inconsistent Hyphenation and text retained.
Pg 168: (Sovereign Here) changed to (Sovereign HerÉ)