  [This poem commemorates an event of some years ago, when a young Englishman—still remembered by many of his contemporaries at Oxford—went up into Mount Ida and was never seen again.] I Not cypress, but this warm pine-plumage now Fragrant with sap, I pluck; nor bid you weep, Ye Muses that still haunt the heavenly brow Of Ida, though the ascent is hard and steep: Weep not for him who left us wrapped in sleep At dawn beneath the holy mountain's breast And all alone from Ilion's gleaming shore Clomb the high sea-ward glens, fain to drink deep Of earth's old glory from your silent crest, Take the cloud-conquering throne Of gods, and gaze alone Thro' heaven. Darkling we slept who saw his face no more. II Ah yet, in him hath Lycidas a brother, And AdonaÏs will not say him nay, And Thyrsis to the breast of one sweet Mother Welcomes him, climbing by the self-same way: Quietly as a cloud at break of day Up the long glens of golden dew he stole (And surely Bion called to him afar!) The tearful hyacinths and the greenwood spray Clinging to keep him from the sapphire goal, Kept of his path no trace! Upward the yearning face Clomb the ethereal height, calm as the morning star. III Ah yet, incline, dear Sisters, or my song That with the light wings of the skimming swallow Must range the reedy slopes, will work him wrong! And with some golden shaft do thou, Apollo, Show the pine-shadowed path that none may follow; Round him closed Ida's cloudy woods and rills! Day-long, night-long, by echoing height and hollow, We called him, but our tumult died unheard: Down from the scornful sky Our faint wing-broken cry Fluttered and perished among the many-folded hills. IV Ay, though we clomb each faint-flushed peak of vision, Nought but our own sad faces we divined: Thy radiant way still laughed us to derision, And still revengeful Echo proved unkind; And oft our faithless hearts half feared to find Thy cold corse in some dark mist-drenched ravine Where the white foam flashed headlong to the sea: How should we find thee, spirits deaf and blind Even to the things which we had heard and seen? Eyes that could see no more The old light on sea and shore, What should they hope or fear to find? They found not thee; V For thou wast ever alien to our skies, A wistful stray of radiance on this earth, A changeling with deep memories in thine eyes Mistily gazing thro' our loud-voiced mirth To some fair land beyond the gates of birth; Yet as a star thro' clouds, thou still didst shed Through our dark world thy lovelier, rarer glow; Time, like a picture of but little worth, Before thy young hand lifelessly outspread, At one light stroke from thee Gleamed with Eternity; Thou gav'st the master's touch, and we—we did not know. VI Not though we gazed from heaven o'er Ilion Dreaming on earth below, mistily crowned With towering memories, and beyond her shone The wine-dark seas Achilles heard resound! Only, and after many days, we found Dabbled with dew, at border of a wood Bedded in hyacinths, open and a-glow Thy Homer's Iliad.... Dryad tears had drowned The rough Greek type and, as with honey or blood, One crocus with crushed gold Stained the great page that told Of gods that sighed their loves on Ida, long ago. VII See—for a couch to their ambrosial limbs Even as their golden load of splendour presses The fragrant thyme, a billowing cloud up-swims Of springing flowers beneath their deep caresses, Hyacinth, lotus, crocus, wildernesses Of bloom ... but clouds of sunlight and of dew Dropping rich balm, round the dark pine-woods curled That the warm wonder of their in-woven tresses, And all the secret blisses that they knew, Where beauty kisses truth In heaven's deep heart of youth, Might still be hidden, as thou art, from the heartless world. VIII Even as we found thy book, below these rocks Perchance that strange great eagle's feather lay, When Ganymede, from feeding of his flocks On Ida, vanished thro' the morning grey: Stranger it seemed, if thou couldst cast away A dream for which no longer thou hadst need! Ah, was it here then that the break of day Brought thee the substance for the shadow, taught Thy soul a swifter road To ease it of its load And watch this world of shadows as a dream recede? IX We slept! Darkling we slept! Our busy schemes, Our cold mechanic world awhile was still; But O, their eyes are blinded even in dreams Who from the heavenlier Powers withdraw their will: Here did the dawn with purer light fulfil Thy happier eyes than ours, here didst thou see The quivering wonder-light in flower and dew, The quickening glory of the haunted hill, The Hamadryad beckoning from the tree. The Naiad from the stream; While from her long dark dream Earth woke, trembling with life, light, beauty, through and through. X And the everlasting miracle of things Flowed round thee, and this dark earth opposed no bar, And radiant faces from the flowers and springs Dawned on thee, whispering, Knowest thou whence we are? Faintly thou heardst us calling thee afar As Hylas heard, swooning beneath the wave, Girdled with glowing arms, while wood and glen Echoed his name beneath that rosy star; And thy farewell came faint as from the grave For very bliss; but we Could neither hear nor see; And all the hill with Hylas! Hylas! rang again. XI But there were deeper love-tales for thine ears Than mellow-tongued Theocritus could tell: Over him like a sea two thousand years Had swept. They solemnized his music well! Farewell! What word could answer but farewell, From thee, O happy spirit, that couldst steal So quietly from this world at break of day? What voice of ours could break the silent spell Beauty had cast upon thee, or reveal The gates of sun and dew Which oped and let thee through And led thee heavenward by that deep enchanted way? XII Yet here thou mad'st thy choice: Love, Wisdom, Power, As once before young Paris, they stood here! Beneath them Ida, like one full-blown flower, Shed her bloom earthward thro' the radiant air Leaving her rounded fruit, their beauty, bare To the everlasting dawn; and, in thy palm The golden apple of the Hesperian isle Which thou must only yield to the Most Fair; But not to Juno's great luxurious calm, Nor Dian's curved white moon, Gav'st thou the sunset's boon, Nor to foam-bosomed Aphrodite's rose-lipped smile. XIII Here didst thou make the eternal choice aright, Here, in this hallowed haunt of nymph and faun, They stood before thee in that great new light, The three great splendours of the immortal dawn, With all the cloudy veils of Time withdrawn Of their pure beauty like the golden dew Brushed from the feathery ferns below the lawn; But not to cold Diana's morning rose, Nor to great Juno's frown Cast thou the apple down, And, when the Paphian raised her lustrous eyes anew, XIV Thou from thy soul didst whisper—in that heaven Which yearns beyond us! Lead me up the height! How should the golden fruit to one be given Till your three splendours in that Sun unite Where each in each ye move like light in light? How should I judge the rapture till I know The pain? And like three waves of music there They closed thee round, blinding thy blissful sight With beauty and, like one roseate orb a-glow, They bore thee on their breasts Up the sun-smitten crests And melted with thee smiling into the Most Fair. XV Upward and onward, ever as ye went The cities of the world nestled beneath Closer, as if in love, round Ida, blent With alien hills in one great bridal-wreath Of dawn-flushed clouds; while, breathing with your breath New heavens mixed with your mounting bliss. Deep eyes, Beautiful eyes, imbrued with the world's tears Dawned on you, beautiful gleams of Love and Death Flowed thro' your questioning with divine replies From that ineffable height Dark with excess of light Where the Ever-living dies and the All-loving hears. XVI For thou hadst seen what tears upon man's face Bled from the heart or burned from out the brain, And not denied or cursed, but couldst embrace Infinite sweetness in the heart of pain, And heardst those universal choirs again Wherein like waves of one harmonious sea All our slight dreams of heaven are singing still, And still the throned Olympians swell the strain, And, hark, the burden, of all—Come unto Me! Sky into deepening sky Melts with that one great cry; And the lost doves of Ida moan on Siloa's hill. XVII I gather all the ages in my song And send them singing up the heights to thee! Chord by Æonian chord the stars prolong Their passionate echoes to Eternity: Earth wakes, and one orchestral symphony Sweeps o'er the quivering harp-strings of mankind; Grief modulates into heaven, hate drowns in love, No strife now but of love in that great sea Of song! I dream! I dream! Mine eyes grow blind: Chords that I not command Escape the fainting hand; Tears fall. Thou canst not hear. Thou'rt still too far above. XVIII Farewell! What word should answer but farewell From thee, O happy spirit, whose clear gaze Discerned the path—clear, but unsearchable— Where Olivet sweetens, deepens, Ida's praise, The path that strikes as thro' a sunlit haze Where our commingling gleams of godhead dwell; Strikes thro' the turmoil of our darkling days To that great harmony where, like light in light, Wisdom and Beauty still Haunt the thrice-holy hill, And Love, immortal Love ... what answer but farewell? |
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