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HYLETHEN AND OTHER POEMS 
 
Hylethen 
 
 and 
 
 Other Poems 
 
 By 
 
 Isaac Flagg 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 The Stratford Company 
 1919 
 

 Copyright 1919 
 
 The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 
 
 ICI.A5 15493 ii,/ 
 
 1^\ 
 
 f \ 
 
 \m i2ibiy 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hylethen, a Lyeical Missive^ 1896 . 1 
 
 Aftee Egypt, 1902 . . . .37 
 
 The Stae-Gazee, 1906 .... 47 
 
 The Isle of Ciece, 1907 ... 61 
 
 Ulysses' Convoy 77 
 
 (After Homer's Odyssey, Book Thirteen, 
 at the beginning, 1917) 
 
 Agamemnon's Ruth . . . .89 
 (Opening scene of Euripides' Iphigenia 
 at Aulis, 1898) 
 
 Temple Song 95 
 
 (From the Ion of Euripides, 1888) 
 
 Wings Teiumphant .... 103 
 
 (Programme for Scenes from the Birds 
 of Aristophanes, presented in Greek by 
 students of the University of California 
 at the dedication of the Greek Theatre, 
 Berkeley, 1903) 
 
 Ave Piscatoe Ill 
 
 (Reception to Dr. Henry Van Dyke by 
 the Faculty Club, Berkeley, 1905) 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pbologue and Epilogue . . . 116 
 
 (Written for Congreve's comedy Love for 
 Love, presented by students of the Uni- 
 versity of California, 1896) 
 
 Choeal Song 119 
 
 (First song and dance in Hesperides, 1916) 
 
 SCYROS 121 
 
 (First song of the chorus in Achilles in 
 Scyros, 1917) 
 
 Nephte's Song 122 
 
 (From the Third Act of The Sons of 
 Jacob, 1912) 
 
 Hymn 123 
 
 (Closing hymn in The Sons of Jacob) 
 
 The Athenian's Vision . . . 127 
 
 (Prologue to Greek Sacrificial Procession 
 at the opening exercises of the California 
 State Farmer's Institute in the Greek 
 Theatre, 1904) 
 
 Greeting 135 
 
 (Programme for the Eumenides of Aeschy- 
 lus, presented in Greek by students of the 
 University of California in the Greek 
 Theatre, 1907) 
 
 Symposium Metricum, 1878 . . 139 
 
 VI 
 
Hylethen 
 
 A LYRICAL MISSIVE 
 
 Scheme 
 
 PAOES 
 
 PROLOGUE 1-4 
 
 PAEAN 5-9 
 
 STEPHANE 10-23 
 
 STEMMA 24-31 
 
 EPILOGUE . . . .32,33 
 
To 
 
 H. H. C. 
 
 From the Forest, when we speak, 
 Sounds Hylethen in the Greek; 
 
 But the promptings fine, 
 That upon the soul (we know) 
 From the forest subtly flow. 
 
 No ancient might divine. 
 
Hylethen 
 
 4 LL too swiftly to its end 
 r\ That soft summer eve, sweet friend, 
 
 Sank behind us. We, 
 Half round in our saddles turn'd, 
 Where its dying splendors burn'd. 
 
 Gazed regretfully; 
 Half, adown the hedge-crown 'd hill. 
 Wistful, would press forward still — 
 
 But a warning star 
 Glimmer 'd in the deepening blue; 
 Quench 'd the changeful flush, that threw, 
 
 Feebly mirror 'd, far 
 Backward its faint borrow 'd glow. 
 Then we, silently and slow. 
 
 Took our backward way. 
 Toward night-woven leaf and limb, 
 Broider'd on the pale gold rim 
 
 Of the vanish 'd day. 
 Through moist fragrant air, we rode. 
 On the bridle-hand, now, flow'd 
 
 The dim-spreading stream; 
 Stole now, gently voiceful, o'er 
 Our grave silence. But, before. 
 
 When, in a sunny dream 
 
 [1] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Of young pleasure, we sprang forth, 
 Spurning the firm rain-wash 'd earth 
 
 Under iron-shod feet; 
 Then, our mutual voices drown 'd 
 That low lakeward-murmuring sound. 
 
 Then, the briar-rose sweet 
 Beckon 'd, with her winsome smile, 
 (Hid her treacherous thorn the while) ; 
 
 And the green roadway. 
 Each new darkling turn it took, 
 Show'd of fairy-land a nook 
 
 Wreathed in forest spray — 
 Tempting, part sun-pierced, part gloom. 
 Each emerging height we clomb. 
 
 Whence anew the fair 
 Afternoon horizon crept 
 (From the distance where it slept) 
 
 O'er the vision, there, 
 On its drowsy quivering line, 
 Cloud-indented, seem'd to shine 
 
 Spire and citadel 
 Of some blissful region, blent 
 In hues of eld and orient. — 
 
 [2] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Thus, till night dews fell 
 And the star its warning sped, 
 We, dear friend, unwearied 
 
 In sweet colloquy; 
 As the day, serene; its mood 
 Strong, our fancy to delude; 
 
 Would the thought put by 
 Of the parting that impended, 
 Of all, that with that last eve ended 
 
 [3] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Not by the sunlit hour 
 Be my farewell spoken! 
 
 Not, when on brake and bower 
 Day beams unbroken! 
 
 Not with the throstle 's glee ; 
 
 Not, while the brown wild-bee 
 In honey 'd ecstasy 
 
 Probes the unfolded flower! 
 
 But, when the lull'd redbreast 
 
 No more his serenading 
 Pipes to the crimson west, 
 
 Fast in sable fading; 
 After the pale primrose, 
 Her chalice fain to close. 
 Slumbers in chaste repose; 
 
 And the night wind, sighing 
 Like a wandering spirit lone. 
 In plaintive undertone 
 
 To leafy tongues replying 
 Some troubled tale would tell. 
 Then would I say farewell — 
 
 All its implying. 
 With weird re-whisper 'd spell : 
 Farewell — Farewell. 
 
 [4] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 BLEST be the years! — that, reaper-like, 
 sure-bladed, 
 Do store and make, the while they seem to 
 mar; 
 Veil'd messengers, whose tones, all sorrow- 
 shaded. 
 Yet, to console, divinely potent are. 
 
 Low-shorn the field, wilted the tassel'd flower, 
 Spill 'd the once brimming crystal vase may 
 lie: 
 But life and loss, time-wedded, hold their 
 dower 
 Of balm that heals, of beams that sanctify. 
 
 Soonest for him, who, of all breath and being, 
 Of all-in-all, but feels himself a part; 
 
 A.nd, from frail transient ties his pulses freeing, 
 Lies closest to the universal heart. 
 
 His, to inform, to inspire, a view outvying 
 The warm life-vision of the proud Hellene : 
 
 Not, with pure-human eye, self-deifying. 
 Nature through man, but man through 
 nature seen. 
 
 [5] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Cull we, from groves sublime, a rarer guerdon 
 Than on his brow the palm-crown 'd ancient 
 wore; 
 
 Chanting, with fuller heart, a deeper burden — 
 To find in man not less, in nature more. 
 
 As of a wider wisdom chasten 'd, humbly. 
 Yet with more ample and profounder voice, 
 
 To swell no hamlet-hymn 'd io triumphe, 
 But, to the nations, Xaigete, rejoice! 
 
 Rejoice to live, each spirit-sharing creature; 
 
 Make green the waste of intellect jejune; 
 Reflect Earth's every life-illumined feature; 
 
 To her pure symphony your chords attune. 
 
 So, with well-measuring hand, some compen- 
 sation 
 For that she takes shall Nature give again : 
 Prom the drain 'd chalice conjure reparation. 
 As looms the sun-limn 'd Iris through the 
 rain. 
 
 Who knows, when finding earliest forbidden 
 That which is sorest craved, what recom- 
 pense 
 May for the sear'd white-calcined flesh be 
 hidden 
 In the fell furnace of experience? 
 
 [6] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Answer the wind-swept seed, by millions 
 wasted, 
 To save one tender germ-uplifting leaf; 
 The brief -lived fly ; the myriad fruits untasted ; 
 The stalk flung to the fire, the garner 'd 
 sheaf. 
 
 There is no loss. The gentle child, untimely 
 Snatch 'd from sweet mirth, all spotless, to 
 the tomb. 
 Itself wept not ; the claims it touch 'd sublimely 
 Of those that stay or follow. So, from that 
 gloom, 
 
 For us, through storms of selfish thought com- 
 bated. 
 Shines a redeeming light, unseen before: 
 It, to the sun-ascending pile hath added 
 Of Peace, the many-mansion 'd, one stone 
 more. 
 
 On the slow way, where many a shadow hovers. 
 Darkening, deluding, deem him happy thrice 
 
 To whom, full soon, some heaven-sent hand dis- 
 covers 
 The late-learn'd benison of sacrifice. 
 
 [7] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 The woman to the man. Endued more gently; 
 
 Younger in years, yet surer of their worth ; 
 Whose firm maieutic touch beneficently 
 
 Guides the clogg'd spirit to its fairer birth. 
 
 Thus, the life-realm through, opposites in- 
 wreathing. 
 Then first springs an ensphered and perfect 
 whole. 
 When the sublime succumbs, intense and 
 seething, 
 To the calm beautiful, its antipole. 
 
 Ay, beautiful and faithful! Not with reasons, 
 Weigh 'd in cold thought: but with high 
 hopes, that lead 
 By beacon flames, straight-tending, as the 
 seasons, 
 One to another, immutable, succeed. 
 
 So, summer-wing 'd, to me, as, love-led, follow 
 (Truest of friends), sure-pinion 'd, to their 
 homes 
 Dove mothers, or the zephyr-mated swallow 
 Speeds to his clime, your fond true greeting 
 comes. 
 
 [8] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 A tress of fern, mid mindful words enfolded; 
 
 Pendants of unf orgotten columbine : 
 Frail earthly types, by loving fingers moulded 
 
 To emblems of a constancy divine. 
 
 Now, therefore, in due turn, while yet un- 
 broken 
 Hangs the link'd heart-chain these mute years 
 along, 
 Let this unprison'd voice their wealth be- 
 token — 
 My late thank-offering of sincerest song. 
 
 That, on a dream-sown, motley life-path weav- 
 ing, 
 
 I send you, like some dark-leaved coronal, 
 Starr 'd with pale blossoms. Even so believing. 
 
 Read mingled requiem and madrigal. 
 
 [9] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Ay, think anon 
 Of wreathed-laid tables at a bridal feast, 
 Under soft-glowing lamps: with smilax wind- 
 ing 
 Its waxen tracery hither and thither, between 
 Wine-cup and silver flagon ; fruits heap 'd high 
 In mellow pyramids; and many a vase 
 Clasping white lilies, or, with fresh-clipt stem, 
 Roses, deep-hued, that cannot choose but pour 
 Their rich defloured fragrance on the warm 
 Silk-shaded air. Forth are the banqueters, 
 Refresh 'd, in gay dance-measures to renew 
 The night-sped revelry. But a fair young 
 
 guest, 
 Lingering by chance there thoughtfully alone, 
 Would from the relinquish 'd board lift a green 
 
 spray 
 And pin to her bosom — when, through the 
 
 corridors, 
 Fine strains of dulcet strings came stealing, 
 
 and touch 'd 
 A vibrant chord in her pure heart. Spell- 
 bound 
 By that sweet marriage-music, thrill'd siie 
 
 stood, 
 With parted lips, one hand uplifted; and her 
 eyes 
 
 [10] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Seem'd not to see what met them, but through 
 
 all, 
 In dreamy thought, to gaze toward some far 
 
 land, 
 Unvisited, unknown. — Her then the poet 
 Marked, himself, too, midway tarrying, where 
 By the half-open door her white robe shone; 
 And, in his fancy, above the mirthful crowd 
 Soaring apart, with swift words did essay 
 To paint her reverie. 
 
 Ill 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 [ look'd on a brimming fountain, 
 With its waters upwelling for aye: 
 
 They were black in the shadow^ of even; 
 They were bright in the lustre of day. 
 
 Not a flower by its margent mirror 'd, 
 
 But with fairest petal smiled ; 
 Not a bird 'neath the verdure, but warbled 
 
 His fondest carol wild. 
 
 Each wind to his silent hollow 
 
 Had sped, with a murmur low ; 
 While the wrinkled hill-tops glimmer 'd 
 
 In the sleepy noonday glow. 
 
 A maiden knelt, with a ewer, 
 
 From the limpid source to fill, 
 And its depths they were strong to woo her. 
 
 That she gazed with a transport still. 
 
 From the thirsty forest-mazes 
 
 A chase-worn huntsman came; 
 But drank not — for the spell beguiled him. 
 
 Of a rapture he could not name. 
 
 And they seem'd to wait and to wonder 
 If their vision should vanish away, 
 
 As I look'd on the brimming fountain. 
 With its waters upwelling for aye. 
 
 [12] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 In such words did the poet 
 Portray the vision of the fair young guest — 
 Her vision and his own. For, from that hour, 
 Round her bright image his warm fancy moved, 
 As moves Orion round the Cynosure. 
 Not of the earth she seem'd: so radiant 
 Was her clear forehead; such ethereal glory 
 Streamed from the sunny halo of her hair. 
 Yet in her nature fain would he discern 
 Much, to his own congenial. Not, indeed, 
 The questioning intellect ; but a kindred soul, 
 Thrilling with pure emotions. Framed for love ; 
 Love tender, deep, and inexhaustible 
 As a perennial rivulet, that hides 
 Its source from the long sultry plains it waters, 
 In the cool shadow of eternal hills. 
 This the years show'd him. Now, he but 
 
 divined 
 Its subtile sympathies; and, by their breath 
 Inspired, in fervent choriambs gave voice 
 To his exalted mood. 
 
 [13] 
 
HYLETHBN 
 
 Child of the skies, 
 Maid, — as thou art; 
 
 Star of mine eyes, 
 Heaven of my heart : 
 
 Draw thou but near, 
 
 All, all is light ! 
 But disappear, — 
 
 Lo, it is night! 
 
 Day binds a gem 
 Over Night's brow 
 
 (My diadem. 
 Beauty, art thou) ; 
 
 And, when he hides 
 Love's sign away, 
 
 Twilight abides, 
 Saved of its ray. 
 
 So come thy smile 
 Oft, as my dawn: 
 
 Light me the while 
 
 Thoughts of thee gone. 
 
 Star of mine eyes, 
 Heaven of my heart : 
 
 Fair as the skies, 
 Maiden, thou art. 
 
 [14] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Celestial forms 
 Did to their mortal worshipers, of old, 
 Descend. As when, to Latmos' stilly slopes, 
 The pale moon-goddess, from her heavenly home. 
 En waves of rippling phosphor glided down 
 And kiss'd Endymion's slumber-shaded cheek. 
 With us abide, not differently (though them- 
 selves 
 Unknowing, and unknown, the while they 
 
 stay), 
 Spirits of light, sometime, along this wayfare, 
 That in abysmal mystery began. 
 And tends we know not whither. But, anon, 
 Their gracious mission once fulfill'd, they must 
 Return, to prove that they were lent, not given. 
 Thus was the poet taught (what he, ofttimes, 
 As of mere human texture, would forget), 
 When helpless on the farther verge he stood. — 
 Not till long after could he pen the scene, 
 That they might read and profit by its lore 
 Who need the lesson. 
 
 [15] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Watch and wait, with bated breath ; 
 'T is the border-land of death. 
 
 See, upon her upturn 'd eyes 
 
 A strange outward dimness lies; 
 
 For, within they seek a light 
 Hidden from our grosser sight. 
 
 Our hush'd voices she hears not: 
 Kapt is all her spirit-thought, 
 
 Harkening, how it may respond 
 To the summons from beyond. 
 
 ! if in other spheres there be 
 A supernal harmony, 
 
 Breathed to hovering souls, that list 
 Under skies of amethyst, 
 
 She but aspires now to turn 
 The terrestrial sojourn 
 
 Into something of the same 
 
 As with her life earthward came. — 
 
 Yes, the trembling breath has past: 
 That faint-drawn sigh was the last. — 
 
 [16] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Such release kind Nature brings 
 When the sun-born insect springs 
 
 To new, bright-wing 'd fields of bliss, 
 Fluttering from the chrysalis. 
 
 But, as in the wreathed sea-shell 
 A far echo seems to dwell. 
 
 Of some solemn wave-lapt shore. 
 Caught and held for evermore, 
 
 So I know that I shall hear 
 That sigh, in my mindful ear, 
 
 Till I, too, am call'd to stand 
 On the mystic border-land. 
 
 [17] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 First in after years, 
 When the long arrow-flight of time had 
 
 spann'd 
 The middle distance, found he a new strength, 
 The warning of those moments to record. 
 For then, when freshly that slight form was 
 
 laid, 
 To share the slumbers of the silent dead. 
 Under chill snow not whiter than her face, 
 Rose, mingled with the vacant agony 
 And pang of absence, a strange fear, lest he 
 Had not done well his part ; not at each time 
 Touch 'd the right chord. No thoughts, no 
 
 phantasies 
 Came at behest: but uninvoked, unbidden, 
 Sang the death-minstrel, with infernal choir, 
 Shrilling, as wolves howl by the wintry edge 
 Of Ural wildernesses. — 'T were enough 
 To bide, firm-lipp'd, till the fell pack, out- 
 wearied. 
 Slink into silence. — Comes the gray dawn first, 
 Haunted by lingering voices of the night; 
 Then, through its vapors, one warm beam, that 
 
 wakes 
 Old memories and new purpose. 
 
 [18] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Methought I stood by a mountain grand, 
 And the sea crept up to its flinty strand, 
 
 [ heard no sound in that region lone 
 
 But the waves and their weary monotone. 
 
 The mountain moved, as it were in sleep, 
 And stirr'd the waters of all the deep; 
 
 And a surge swang mightily to and fro, 
 And now rose louder, and now sank low. 
 
 Then floated the ringing tones between 
 Of a lyre, swept by a hand unseen. 
 
 Sweet and solemn they seem'd to glide 
 Prom caverns dark in the mountain-side. 
 
 Till the billows ceased to beat at the shore, 
 And wearily murmur 'd the waves, as before. 
 
 But long in my ear an echo rang 
 Of the throe, and the surge, and the lyre's 
 clang. 
 
 [19] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Immortal poesy! 
 The music of life's morning — when the child 
 
 seer 
 Stands by the shore, clear-eyed; and, gazing 
 
 toward 
 The sun-fed sources of his being, hearkens 
 To faint Aeolian melodies, that float 
 Over green waters from the gates of pearl. 
 All-searching language of the soul; to all 
 Tongues common; from all bosoms breathed, 
 
 that nigh 
 To the wellsprings of mystery have lain, 
 Nilus, Dodona, or Gethsemane. 
 Utter 'd, not to the sense-bound hearing, but. 
 Through avenues of the spirit, to that ear 
 Which, like the hermit's door, welcomes, un- 
 
 barr'd, 
 Herald or foot-worn pilgrim or scarr'd slave. 
 What else but the weird star-link 'd talisman 
 Of charity and beauty, heaven-born song, 
 Threading this clogg'd and travail-crusted so- 
 journ 
 Prom youth to age, as veins of purest gold 
 Thread the black earth, enloeks the charmed ring 
 Of many-hued experience — till the man, 
 [n all simplicity and meekness, stands 
 Where stood the child: over still waters hear- 
 ing 
 The zephyr-wafted curfew-tones of peace; 
 
 [20] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Seeing, direct, near, and immediate. 
 That truth which labor 'd learning only hides. 
 There, now once more, the slumbrous images 
 Of past and future, in one mirror merged. 
 On fancy's argent stream roll by. 
 Delighting, not deluding. 
 
 [21] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Out in the wild, witching forest 
 
 Lone and uncumber'd to lie, 
 Stretch 'd where the pines that are tallest 
 
 Stem the blue tide of the sky. 
 
 Fragrances rare, terebinthine. 
 
 Float o'er the cone-sprinkled sward, 
 
 Far through the vague labyrinthine 
 Mazes of memory pour'd. 
 
 Only the loon's ghostly laughter 
 
 Breaks from the forest-bound mere : 
 
 Chimes of some mystic hereafter. 
 Borne on the spell-haunted ear. 
 
 Wraiths of yon fathomless azure. 
 Cloud-rack to cloud-castle rear'd, 
 
 Bid these fond fancies soar, as your 
 Shapes evanescent and weird. 
 
 There, where the pine-tops are sailing, 
 Black-fringed, ethereal; hung 
 
 Mid fleecy filaments, veiling 
 Elfin forms, phantasy-sprung — 
 
 There, what bright visage, benignly 
 Sad, on my rapt vision beams? 
 
 Soul to soul, upborne divinely 
 Into the cloud-world of dreams ! 
 
 [22] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 What though with day-dream be blended 
 Bliss quench 'd in night long ago, 
 
 If, till the reverie 's ended, 
 Blithely the dream-measures flow! 
 
 Lone, without comrade to cumber, 
 
 In the wild forest to lie, 
 Where tall pines, tempting to slumber. 
 
 Stem the blue tide of the sky. 
 
 [23] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 TAKE, then, dear friend, your crown — 
 word-woven : not 
 Like Ariadna's, in the firmament 
 Of spacious heaven with starry gems en- 
 wrought ; 
 Once to her brow from fervid Orient 
 Divinely press 'd: but in plain token sent 
 Of kind remembrance, from the fruited 
 
 glades 
 Hemming a new, Hesperian continent, 
 Rock-ridged; whose morn the snow-clad 
 shoulder shades, 
 Whose eve o'er azure seas in golden pallor 
 fades. 
 
 [24] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Here, from hill caverns sweeping sands of 
 
 gold, 
 Wide flashing streams their westward 
 
 courses wind, 
 Profuser than to Lydian kings of old 
 The famed Pactolus bore : with margent 
 
 lined 
 By fields of bearded grain, whose reapers 
 
 bind 
 World-sheaves of plenty; or flowing, now 
 
 between 
 Fruit lands of shell or berry or citrus 
 
 kind. 
 Or the gray olive; now mid vine-slopes 
 
 seen, 
 Hiding pink clusters bathed in leafy rills of 
 
 green. 
 
 [25] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Full long the unfailing South her genial 
 
 rains 
 Pours over dale and upland, to renew, 
 For pastured flocks no brumal fold re- 
 strains. 
 Fresh sustenance the verdant winter 
 
 through ; 
 And, for delighted eyes, the varied hue 
 Of verdure-mingled bloom — white solo- 
 
 mon-seal, 
 Orange of poppy, and faint myrtle -blue: 
 Which fanning, through light and shade, 
 with sprite-like zeal. 
 Their soft invisible way the searching sea-winds 
 steal. 
 
 [26] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Sprite-like below: but, on each, ridgy 
 
 height, 
 The foam-born children of the giant West, 
 Rushing resistless in untrammel'd might 
 Of whistling glee! Down to her sheltered 
 
 nest 
 Flees the high-soaring hawk. Their toil- 
 some quest 
 Eager-eyed hunter and rude muleteer 
 Bend breathless down: behind the airy 
 
 crest 
 The steep, still trail pursuing, oak-edged — 
 near 
 Rattle of basking snake and plunge of startled 
 deer. 
 
 [27] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Mutters the black ravine with echoes 
 
 hoarse 
 And muffled, where dense-fallen boulders 
 
 meet 
 The hurrying stream, that, from its snow^ 
 
 source, 
 Descends persistent. Here, with shuffling 
 
 feet. 
 From ledge to ledge, moves Bruin, his grim 
 
 retreat 
 Wary to cover. Here, the mountain quail 
 Chants through the gloom. But one lone 
 
 sunbeam sweet 
 Glints on the darting salmon's rainbow 
 
 scale, 
 Where strives the crystal tide toward welkin 
 
 and toward vale. 
 
 [28J 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Strives nobly! What scenes for faltering 
 
 pen to trace, 
 In that Titanic valley, whose sheer sides 
 Drop from mid-heaven to the shadowy 
 
 base 
 Of Earth, low-rifted! There the Ice-king 
 
 bides 
 His thousand years of slumbering strength, 
 
 and hides 
 Under blue sheen the sure footfalls, that 
 
 merge 
 In Time's unswerving pathway; whilst his 
 
 guides. 
 Colossal peaks, in frowning silence, urge 
 The blind obedient waters, over the dizzy 
 
 verge, 
 
 [29] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 To their mad leap ! — Yet is there might to 
 
 save 
 That vapory ruin, with all-gathering hand, 
 In fresh, redoubled potency to lave 
 The temples of a wonder-teeming land. 
 Set on its brow, in serrate order grand, 
 Linking the present to a buried past 
 Of growths primeval, green and ageless, 
 
 stand 
 Redwood and huge sequoia. They, the 
 
 last 
 Of their majestic kind : and, with them, failing 
 
 fast, 
 
 [30] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Too many a source of balm. No longer toll 
 
 For holy men (who sought no golden 
 fleece, 
 
 But to sow wide their mission of the soul) 
 
 Anthem and angelus — where, in calm re- 
 lease 
 
 From fever 'd life, they till'd its rich sur- 
 cease. 
 
 Perchance, like theirs, might our free 
 fancy stray 
 
 O'er the far-arching ocean, named of 
 Peace, 
 
 Past yon white sea-bird rock'd in briny 
 spray, 
 On the swift wing of thought, to Nippon and 
 Cathay. 
 
 [31] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 FANCY free! — So deem the mind, 
 That no chains of memory bind 
 
 To some foreland fair 
 Of the dim receding shore ; 
 That no anchor flings before, 
 
 Caught with gossamer 
 To some hope, deep-glimmering through 
 Each wave-wrinkled roadstead new. 
 
 Who no melody 
 Of enchanted music hears, 
 Echoed down the steadying years; 
 
 Nor, of quick-stirr 'd heart, 
 Fresh enravishment can feel, 
 Let him rove, with veering keel : 
 
 Let him swing apart; 
 Drifting on a starless sea, 
 Calm-beholden, fancy free. 
 
 And who! — at the cost 
 Of a cold and blunted sense; 
 In a vague indifference 
 
 To that sadness lost 
 Which, by unrelenting laws. 
 Every thing of beauty draws 
 
 In its silken train, — 
 Who forsooth, would ask reprieve 1 — 
 
 [32] 
 
HYLETHEN 
 
 Or the mesh of fate unweave — 
 
 Not to stand again 
 Near the torrent-laved lake-side, 
 Watch the foam-fleck 'd water glide, 
 
 Hear the low refrain 
 Murmur 'd by the rumbling fall. 
 Feign not I now to recall. 
 
 Through a childish rhyme, 
 What, when little children, we 
 (Little knowing) thought to see 
 
 In very deed : a clime. 
 Where nor face nor flower should fade. 
 Nor fount that fed the everglade 
 
 (Save that of tears) run dry; 
 Nor loved voices fail, between 
 Pale dawn and the opaline 
 
 Of the sunset sky. — 
 So, lest sombre strains too long 
 Haunt the evening of my song 
 
 With remember 'd spell. 
 Sinking softly to its end : 
 Therefore, yet again, sweet friend. 
 
 Once again, farewell. 
 
 [33] 
 
I 
 
After Egypt 
 
Nile pater, quanam possim te dicere causa 
 Aut quihus in terris occuluisse caput? 
 
After Egypt 
 
 WHO, from Piraeus sailing, sees 
 The circlet of the Cyclades 
 Glide fast backward, till they shine 
 No more, for him the southward line. 
 Drawn where sky and water meet 
 Between Carpathos and Crete, 
 Points to Egypt. On a day 
 Of a bygone century 
 Thus from his native Attic shore 
 A far-speeding vessel bore 
 The good Aristo's son — the same 
 Who, through the ages, by the name 
 Of Plato should remember 'd be. 
 Young, then, and unrenown'd was he. 
 Nor himself knowing ; but possest 
 By that foreboding and unrest 
 Of mystic aspiration bred. 
 Wealth and fair ancestry had shed 
 On him their lustre; nature brought 
 Delight of sense and soaring thought. 
 Blent in such visions as inspire 
 The poet's fervor and desire. 
 Now, with a full, sore-troubled heart. 
 Fain would he spurn the seething mart, 
 
 [37] 
 
AFTER EGYPT 
 
 The civic clamor, the revelry, 
 Even the groves, the hills, the sky 
 Of haughty Athens. Who were they ! 
 Those flippant arbiters of wit 
 And song and eloquence, to sit 
 In judgment on a life sublime. 
 Which, round the peristyle of time, 
 Should waken echoes more profound 
 Than all their shallow arts could sound. 
 Nathless, perforce of their decrees. 
 The mortal voice of Socrates 
 Was hush'd — though in the charmed ear 
 Of each true friend and follower 
 Still did its golden accents seem 
 To ring, and, like a haunting dream, 
 Before each mindful eye the spell 
 Of the sad final scene to dwell: 
 The cot-bed in the prison, the chain. 
 The benign master — and the bane 
 Quaff 'd from the deadly chalice. — Now 
 On that blithe ship, whose eager prow 
 Churn 'd the blue waters, Plato stood. 
 Lost in the vague expectant mood 
 Of one, whom, for the ends of fate. 
 Fresh scenes and trials new await. 
 
 Peaceful and sweet it seem'd, to stand 
 In the quaint three-corner 'd land. 
 That the seven streams of Nile enfold ; 
 
 [38] 
 
AFTER EGYPT 
 
 Where the Argive maid, of old, 
 lo, poor wanderer from the West, 
 Bent her life-weary limbs to rest. 
 Sweet was it, when a cooling shade 
 The hand of welcome eve had laid 
 Over the river's bosom, to lie 
 Watching the fretted shore glide by; 
 Or some pale lotus-lily's face 
 Under the dim starlight to trace. 
 Whilst softly the Nile boatmen plied 
 Their blades athwart the placid tide. — 
 Soon Memphis, and the voiceful throng. 
 Swaying its temple courts along. 
 Of Apis-worshipers ; and, seen 
 Afar, the pyramids, whose mien 
 Divinely, to the musing Greek, 
 Of space and number seem'd to speak, 
 Problems Pythagorean. — Again 
 Away, past ibis-haunted fen. 
 On, on, still on, by wind and oar, 
 Stemming the soft, rich waves, that pour 
 Forth from perennial founts unseen 
 Sweet freshness o'er the margents green 
 'Twixt Araby's purple mountains and 
 Brown hills that bar the Libyan sand : 
 Up, up the immemorial stream. — 
 Now, on its shadowy surface beam 
 Gay colonnade and shimmering wall. 
 The hundred-gated capital, — 
 
 [39] 
 
AFTER EGYPT 
 
 And at each gate, to battle-rout, 
 Two-hundred chariots sally out, — 
 Thebes, ancient seat of warrior kings. 
 Here, where colossal Memnon flings 
 Weird music on the morning air. 
 Teeming with busy life ; but there. 
 Toward sunset and the nether gloom. 
 Dear to the dwellers of the tomb, 
 By their frail caskets tenanted. 
 Stretches the City of the Dead, 
 Sombre and silent — save what note 
 Of lamentation deep might float. 
 From mourners' voices wafted. There 
 Glides many a funeral bark, to bear. 
 Westward and earthward voyaging. 
 On the last voyage, the bodies of them 
 Whose souls, or must return and strive 
 Through more of mortal penance, or live. 
 In Osiris merged, the all- 
 Blissful existence, all-in-all. 
 
 Nigh to its end the sojourn drew, 
 As fast the wondering moments flew, 
 Which, by tradition's testament. 
 Young Plato in old Egypt spent. 
 To-morrow would he set his face 
 Northward, and the steps retrace, 
 That from known scenes had led him far. 
 
 [40] 
 
AFTER EGYPT 
 
 To-morrow, with the morning star, 
 
 Cyrene and fair Sicily 
 
 The traveler's cynosure should be; 
 
 Then great Hesperia, and anon 
 
 The harbors of his Attic home. — 
 
 That night, when sleep his lids had seal'd, 
 
 Unto the spirit was reveal 'd 
 
 The vision of a dream. Him thought, 
 
 By throes of anxious quest distraught. 
 
 To wander near the Nubian tract, 
 
 Above the second cataract. 
 
 Where the eternal waters cold 
 
 Down from the Bybline mountains roll'd; 
 
 And there, while thrill'd that region lone 
 
 With an unearthly monotone. 
 
 Forth, in ethereal hues, did gleam, 
 
 As through a halo of his stream, 
 
 The countenance of Father Nile. 
 
 No accident of frown or smile 
 
 Ruffled his features' calm. Nor youth, 
 
 Nor age was mirror 'd there; nor ruth, 
 
 Nor joy, nor sorrow, as of a sense 
 
 Of past or future, lower 'd thence. 
 
 'T was as the Sphinx re-voiced, or note 
 
 Breathed from a midnight Memnon's 
 
 throat. 
 When, through the gates of dreams, this 
 
 word, 
 Parting those lips sublime, was heard. 
 
 [41] 
 
AFTER EGYPT 
 
 " Ye search amain, to probe and win 
 My secret and my origin. 
 
 ' ' Caught in the mesh of time and space, 
 Ye pass me, and see not my face. 
 
 " To phantom shapes ye cleave, that range 
 Along the rifts of chance and change. 
 
 '' Ye feign, the signs to comprehend 
 Of a beginning and an end. 
 
 " Know, that each drop of crystal dew, 
 Which, to its mission born anew 
 
 " And from inept admixture freed, 
 My farthest fountains helps to feed, 
 
 ' ' The same once mantled in the grape, 
 Or swell'd the millet or the rape, 
 
 *' Or clove the Delta, and, wave-tost, 
 In gray infinitude was lost. 
 
 [42] 
 
AFTER EGYPT 
 
 *' Son of unworthy Athens, lo, 
 
 Thus, darkly, to thy thoughts I show 
 
 " What mysteries through thee, in turn. 
 Men of the Western world shall learn, 
 
 ' ' When, in thy magic name, they pledge 
 The wise soul's heavenly privilege, 
 
 " Turning from that which seems to be. 
 The fleeting show, the vanity, 
 
 '' To penetrate, clear-eyed, beneath 
 These cerements of life and death, 
 
 '' And the ideal truth compel 
 From its gross perishable shell." 
 
 [43] 
 
The Star-Gazer 
 
Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quern mihi, quern 
 
 tibi 
 Finem di dederint. 
 
The Star-Gazer 
 
 MARK yon pale segment of the sky 
 Where glows Aldebaran, 
 Dim starry myriads marshall'd nigh, 
 
 His Hyads in the van. 
 Their solemn arbiter of old, 
 Still from his beacon fall 
 The fateful ruddy fires that hold 
 A thousand worlds in thrall. 
 
 Nathless, no star nor satellite, 
 
 No galaxy of suns, 
 Strewing vague splendor o'er the night, 
 
 Where its weird circle runs. 
 Avails with changeful orb to move 
 
 One jot or tittle fine 
 Of aught, fair youth, that doth behoove 
 
 My destiny or thine. 
 
 Thy fortunes in their signs were writ, 
 
 Those signs are writ in thee, 
 As when some pharos-tower has lit 
 
 Its image in the sea. 
 Prefigured shone this bloodless hand, 
 
 This beard, these sunken eyes, 
 Ere yet Chaldean shepherds scann'd 
 
 The dial of the skies. 
 
 [47] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 Change, there is none. Thou wouldst achieve 
 
 The future — hold the clew, 
 Old threads unwinding, thence to weave 
 
 A fabric of the New. 
 Deem now the subtler wisdom his, 
 
 Who seeks not, falteringly. 
 What 'Svas" or 'Vill be," but what is 
 
 And shall forever be. 
 
 What though a fitful languor blears 
 
 Dread Algol's gleaming eye? 
 What though the pole-star reels and veers. 
 
 Bending in sure reply 
 To the slow-nodding Earth, ordain 'd 
 
 To touch and turn once more 
 The goal her slanted globe has gain'd 
 
 Ten-thousand times before. 
 
 Nay, ask me me not what issue waits 
 
 Thy venturous design. 
 Tempt not the silence of the Fates ; 
 
 Nor, vaunting to untwine 
 With hand untimely their coil'd skein, 
 
 The blameless stars belie, 
 Caird in the ambient sphere to reign 
 
 Thy natal hour foreby. 
 
 [48] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 But tarry rather, whilst I trace 
 
 The scant and simple lines 
 Of a life-picture, that with grace 
 
 Of no proud emblem shines ; 
 Not in vain lowliness conceived, 
 
 Nor lofty passion's glow, 
 But, like the inland mere, unheaved 
 
 By pangs of ebb and flow. 
 
 An only child was I; and one 
 
 Of lonely temper — prone 
 The boisterous merry throng to shun, 
 
 And ramble forth alone; 
 Sometime, high clambering to explore 
 
 Paths of the still, dark wood 
 That frown 'd down, where, hard by the shore, 
 
 My mother's cottage stood. 
 
 Yet, near the sea-bank's shelving sand. 
 
 By swallows thridded, best 
 I loved to linger, on the strand 
 
 Wave-wash 'd, in childish quest 
 Of shells and stones and seaweeds bright ; 
 
 Glancing, betimes, aw^ay 
 To watch some white-w^ng'd vessel's flight 
 
 Forth from the inner bay. 
 
 [48] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 Such eve as waits on brumal days 
 
 Whose calm no cloudlet mars 
 First won my rapt and curious gaze 
 
 To this black night of stars. 
 Sharp was their glitter; and methought 
 
 They pierced the frosty air 
 In stern, sad admonition, fraught 
 
 With penance or despair. 
 
 I learn 'd to know them. For there dwelt, 
 
 Yet farther from the town 
 Than we, beyond the brook and belt 
 
 Of pine-trees straggling down 
 Shoreward, with granite boulders lined, 
 
 A hermit old and gray, 
 By children dreaded. He divined, 
 
 When near his cell to stray 
 
 Chance wanderings led me, my grave mood 
 
 And meditative bent. — 
 Rare hours, as with a grandsire good, 
 
 By that rude hearth I spent. 
 Wise proverbs held he, in full store. 
 
 Tales and quaint histories; 
 And secrets of supernal lore. 
 
 Unshared of men, were his. 
 
 [50] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 What powers the fickle moon constrain, 
 
 The hermit show 'd me ; what 
 Portents to terrors dire pertain, 
 
 By pest or famine brought. 
 Much, so in pious order said, 
 
 I heard and ponder 'd well; 
 Yet, in his great black book I read 
 
 More than he wist to tell. 
 
 There, on its dingy pages wide, 
 
 Lay spread the astral sphere, 
 Which thrice-four ruling Signs divide, 
 
 Twelve Houses of the year; 
 While constellated figures strange 
 
 Haunt each his native zone. 
 Some toward the zenith wont to range, 
 
 Some to the nadir known. 
 
 And what I learn 'd I taught again. 
 Deem not, sir stranger, those 
 
 Who on still paths aloof from men 
 Seeming to wander, close 
 
 Their gates to the dull fatuous herd- 
 Deem not the anchoret 
 
 A pity-sever 'd soul, unstirr'd 
 By fondness and regret ; 
 
 [51] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 Nor that true thoughts, whose force hath swell'd 
 
 Springs of the pensive heart, 
 Till by rich overflow compell'd 
 
 Its burthen to impart. 
 Shall fail their blessing to convey. 
 
 With message vainly sped, 
 Though a child finger point the way. 
 
 And childish steps be led. 
 
 To a near neighbor's fostering care 
 
 A shipwreck 'd man consign 'd 
 (So his crush 'd fortunes to repair 
 
 And in due season find 
 The dear pledge biding its true claim) 
 
 A little daughter. She 
 Scarce eight years reckon 'd to her name, 
 
 Eleven were past for me. 
 
 Comrades we proved. No outer mark 
 
 Did of like mien appear. 
 To bind us. Her great eyes were dark, 
 
 Her brow shone swarthy-clear. 
 But a mysterious concord rare 
 
 Of query and reply — 
 Of mingled faith and wonder there ; 
 
 Here, of wise ministry. 
 
 [52] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 Oft, by the tide-worn marge, serene 
 
 Still afternoons, heart-free, 
 After the closed school, now between 
 
 Gray crag and whispering sea 
 We roved, now on the pebbly sand 
 
 At the wet edge stoop 'd; fain 
 The crab to capture, or lay quick hand 
 
 (Dash'd with the briny rain) 
 
 Upon small silvery fishes, flung 
 
 Danger 'd or past restore, 
 To gasp and leap and quiver among 
 
 Strange mates of the dry shore. 
 I told her how the frolic brood 
 
 Their fierce foe fail to heed, 
 Then in mad sudden flight pursued 
 
 To shallow refuge speed. 
 
 When autumn round the northern wave 
 
 Night's mantle earlier threw, 
 What time no gairish moonbeams drave 
 
 The weakling stars from view, 
 We, some hour (while below our feet 
 
 My nested swallows slept) , 
 From the tall sea-bank's beetling seat 
 
 Watch 'd the slow Wain, that swept 
 
 [53] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 Low-wheeling past the watery verge, 
 
 Cloud-blended, threatful; yet 
 Not once by that wild, darkling surge 
 
 Are its bright axles wet. 
 I show'd her there the pointers twain, 
 
 Which to the lodestar lead. 
 Whereof, her lost course to regain. 
 
 Each errant bark hath need. 
 
 Then, why the polar tract inclines 
 
 With tilted shaft, I tried 
 To show; and named the potent Signs, 
 
 Some here at harvest-tide, 
 Some missing. — She turn'd, wonderingly, 
 
 And faintly smiled, at tale 
 Of crabs and fishes in the sky. 
 
 I said: *'No ship shall sail 
 
 ''Your farthest ocean, nor even a bird 
 
 Skim the wide billowy waste. 
 But fateful planets erst concurr'd 
 
 Thereto, with sure stars placed 
 In dominant conjunction. So 
 
 'T is in wise books writ plain — 
 What ancient men, mindful to know, 
 
 Solved, searching. Look again, 
 
 [54] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 ''Where yonder huddling swarm, apart 
 From their star comrades flown, 
 
 Upward with light wings seems to dart- 
 As 'Seven Sisters' known. 
 
 Six only though we now behold. 
 Another in sooth there is, 
 
 Seen sometime, sometime gone. Of old, 
 Dove children, Pleiades, 
 
 "Men call'd them: which fond daughters true, 
 
 Once harvest-toils begun, 
 Straight with ungarner'd shreds upflew. 
 
 Their father's cheer. But one. 
 As oft betwixt white cliffs they sped, 
 
 Each time was sunder 'd far, — 
 That lost one." Myra laugh 'd and said, 
 
 "/am the seventh star." 
 
 Came winter; and, flowery spring withal 
 
 From Myra's sire had come 
 Tidings and token and the call 
 
 To her far foreign home. 
 All freighted the tall vessel lay. 
 
 And would, from the quay-side, 
 Drop seaward to the outer bay 
 
 With the late-ebbing tide. 
 
 [55] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 Then straight, as she her cable slipt 
 
 And the huge hull began 
 To move, I, where the hill-ridge dipt, 
 
 Back by the cross-path ran 
 Homeward, and with expectant gaze 
 
 Stood on our bank once more. 
 Soon her black mast-tips I saw graze 
 
 The sky-line, where the shore 
 
 Sloped to the harbor bar. And now 
 
 She glided forth full-seen ; 
 And the fresh breeze athwart her bow 
 
 Catching, I saw her lean 
 And shiver, with cross-haul'd topsails lit 
 
 By evening's roseate glow 
 Fading behind me. Bathed in it, 
 
 Through purple waters, slow 
 
 But steadily the good ship clove 
 
 A northward furrow, until. 
 Hid by the rocks at Hermit's Grove, 
 
 I lost her: — watching still; 
 For, tacking easterly, anon. 
 
 With her ship's light hove high. 
 In the wide offing, pale and wan, 
 
 Those sails I could descry. 
 
 [56] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 But to one formless spark they seem'd 
 
 To shrinkj which, with the sea 
 Commingling, fainter and fainter gleam 'd 
 
 Spread and swam mistily; 
 Then, like a firefly's baffling trace 
 
 That on some dewy lawn 
 At nightfall sportive children chase, 
 
 Glimmer 'd once — and was gone. 
 
 As in a dream I turn'd. Some tinge 
 Of the day's vanish 'd fire 
 
 Did the hill-edged horizon fringe 
 
 With dappled crests. And higher, 
 
 Yet sunward leaning, the soft-named 
 Planet, from heavenly seat 
 
 Her vesper sovereignty proclaim 'd 
 With silvery visage sweet. 
 
 So to their orbits true those spheres 
 
 Celestial meet and move ; 
 Which I, thenceforward, through the years 
 
 By comradeship should prove 
 Steadfast and guileless. For, all zest 
 
 Of boyish pastime stale. 
 And my good mother to her rest 
 
 Now taken, her pittance frail 
 
 [57] 
 
THE STAR-GAZER 
 
 Falling to me — enough for bread, — 
 
 What reck'd I, so, with men 
 To walk, if the weird paths to tread, 
 
 To know each denizen. 
 Of infinite heaven I might essay? 
 
 Nor hath slow age yet learn 'd. 
 Here in my silent tower (what way 
 
 Thy steps to-night have turn'd). 
 
 To cease or lose or spurn the lore 
 
 Through this true glass read clear. 
 Men say, forsooth. Who at my door 
 
 Enter eth and shall hear 
 Response of mine, he can assure 
 
 The hopes of his emprise. 
 Or, by sage prescience, work cure 
 
 Of treacherous maladies. 
 
 And they believe not, when I ask, 
 
 What profits it, at noon 
 To call night's revel and unmask 
 
 The spectral guests too soonf— 
 The ^'future" ye feign is — is now; 
 
 Nor, when in hour condign 
 Led forth as present, doth its brow 
 
 With borrow 'd graces shine. 
 
 [58] 
 
The Isle of Circe 
 
f\ ^eb^ f)8 YDvrj. 
 
The Isle of Circe 
 
 AY, well may moisten 'd eyes with pity 
 glisten, 
 Great king and gracious queen and feasters 
 all, 
 Whilst by the night-fed fagot-flame ye listen 
 To woes your sovereign pleasure would recall. 
 
 Weary our hands, as through slow hours they 
 wielded 
 The long tough oar-sweeps past gray rings of 
 foam; 
 Weary our hearts, whereto no beacon yielded 
 Or glimmering hope or semblance frail of 
 home. 
 
 Rather, full oft to mourn, while strange waves 
 cleaving. 
 True comrades by wild men and monsters 
 slain : 
 Their souls bespoke to peace; their poor bones 
 leaving 
 Blanch 'd on hot sands or rotting in the rain. 
 
 Remain 'd one ship, and shipmates fifty drove 
 her 
 Unrestingly, that day, till eventide, 
 [61] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 When, as the sudden moon's full beam broke 
 over 
 The sea's far edge, a shining shore I spied. 
 
 I prest the helm, sign 'd for smart stroke ; and, 
 swinging 
 Across low glittering surf-crests toward the 
 land. 
 She, like a straight-flung goat-spear, forward 
 springing 
 Leapt a half keel-length up the hard white 
 sand. 
 
 Silent we supp'd; yet could no caution banish 
 That slumber to limb-weary mortals due 
 
 When at the gates of dreams their sorrows 
 vanish 
 And with the wakening sun-god rise anew. 
 
 So, by the mottled dawn, ere the stern giver 
 Of light and labors the pale sleepers smote, 
 
 Myself stood up, and seizing bow and quiver 
 Clomb to a bare-peak 'd hillock, thence to note 
 
 What region haply held us. An island, lowly 
 Set in the azure waves, I saw: its rim 
 
 More bare, with woody folds upswelling slowly, 
 Like a boss'd shield, to a green centre dim. 
 
 [62] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 Whence, from that midway bower, ere yet I 
 tended 
 With the first sun-shaft downward, to relate 
 These prospects view'd, at once quick smoke 
 ascended 
 Coiling. Which thrill 'd me when I saw, and 
 straight 
 
 I thought to go and prove: stay'd then to pon- 
 der — 
 Might it not profit, rest or feast to-day, 
 To-morrow send some questioning band forth 
 yonder ? 
 And the Luck-bringer help 'd ; for in my way, 
 
 Soon half retraced, an antler 'd deer stoop 'd 
 drinking 
 Where a spring widen 'd. His bent neck, seen 
 true, 
 A hurtling arrow pierced. With hoarse moan 
 sinking 
 Limp at the weedy marge he lay. I drew 
 
 Quickly my blade, cut short his strife, firm 
 fastened 
 The hooves by withes together, my quarry 
 slung 
 
 [63] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIECE 
 
 Shoulderwise ; and, with steps by burthen 
 hastened, 
 Before my glad mates the huge prize I flung. 
 
 ' ' Courage ! " I cried ; ' ' not yet the Stygian ferry 
 ' ' Shall claim our crossing, sorrow-spent withal. 
 ' ' There 's drink aboard ; here 's other cheer ; wax 
 merry ; 
 **Be one day named Sea-wanderers' Fes- 
 tival!" 
 
 And, to obey not slow, in rightful order 
 All services they wrought ; the wine-jars tapt ; 
 
 And drank and ate and laugh 'd, till eve the 
 border 
 Of that round isle in drowsy slumber wrapt. 
 
 But at cool morn, in council call'd, discreetly 
 My thoughts I broach 'd: ''Comrades, shall 
 any try, 
 
 ''So by the belted sea begirt completely, 
 ' ' Or right or left to wend, or forth to hie ? 
 
 "Remains naught but the quest. O'er mid-isle 
 hovering 
 "Smoke yestermorn from high seat I could 
 see. 
 
 [64] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 ''One half shall go; one half bide its discover- 
 ing: 
 ' ' Eurylochus guiding those ; these led by me. " 
 
 So I said. But their hearts were crushed, and 
 grievous 
 Their cries, those horrid hosts remembering 
 well, 
 Eaters of men. Yet could no tears retrieve us. 
 Quickly the lots we cast; and it befell 
 
 Eurylochus he should go. Sad farewells spoken, 
 Weeping they went, weeping we watch 'd their 
 train 
 Wind hillward; wondering sore what might be- 
 token 
 That dwellers' sign, or benison or bane. — 
 
 Scarce was the sun to his mid-pathway risen, 
 
 When from the copse Eurylochus we saw 
 
 come. 
 
 Alone he crept; nor could his tongue unprison, 
 
 All grief -engross 'd and with pale horror 
 
 dumb. 
 
 Not till we, in amaze and hot desire 
 Of tidings, him did importune and pray, 
 
 [65] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 Found he a voice : ' ' Up through wild brake and 
 brier, 
 ^'As thou didst charge, Ulysses, we held way, 
 
 ''And to a mansion came, splendid and stately: 
 "Itself unthreatening ; but by the gateway . 
 
 glower 'd j I 
 
 "Tigers and grisly wolves. Some crouch 'd se- 
 dately ^ 
 "Chap-licking; some, wagging long tails, 
 sprang forward, 
 
 'And their huge paws on lap or shoulders 
 throwing, 
 "Fain upon us like petted dogs to fawn, 
 Seem'd with big eyes to beg and bar our going. 
 ' ' But we, these passing, cross 'd the court-yard 
 lawn; 
 
 "Then paused, as at the porch we stood, to 
 hearken 
 ' ' What throbbings fell of a great loom 's sharp 
 hum; 
 "While, where low pendent films of vine-leaf 
 darken 
 "Those fatal doors, sound of sweet song did 
 come, 
 
 [66] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 "Forth swelling — and the whole air moan'd; or 
 human 
 ' ' The voice, or of a goddess. Then of ns one, 
 " 'Hark! hark,' cried; 'some nymph divine or 
 woman 
 " 'Within doth weave and sing. Call we!' 
 " 'T was done: 
 
 ''They spoke and call'd. The tall doors swang 
 asunder ; 
 "She came; bade enter; and in mad folly aU 
 "(Save me who stopt suspicious) vanish 'd 
 under 
 "That roof of hell, past rescue or recall." 
 
 Eurylochus ceased. — My sword to shoulder 
 slinging, 
 Bright-bladed, keen, me straightway I bade 
 lead 
 By the same path. But at my feet, close cling- 
 ing. 
 Prone he lay, and in piteous tone did plead : 
 
 "Not thither, great Ulysses! take me not 
 thither ! 
 "Thyself will ne'er return. 'T were better, 
 die 
 
 [67] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 ''Than as charm 'd wolf or leopard pine and 
 wither. 
 ''Nay, these still live; with these to ship and 
 fly!" 
 
 "Eurylochus, thou," I said, "art free to tarry 
 "Eating and drinking by the beach 'd pin- 
 nace here. 
 
 ' ' But I some cure to my lost comrades carry : 
 " 'T is stern necessity ; my course lies clear. ' ' 
 
 So saying, with swift steps my way I winded 
 Upward, far spurning ship and sandy shore; 
 
 Darkly the while of ancient griefs reminded, 
 And o'er these fresher marvels brooding sore. 
 
 And as to the grove-cinctured summit nearer 
 I drew, and of that island-dome grew ware, 
 
 Which, where the slanting sunbeam pierced, 
 seen clearer. 
 Gave glimpse of its enchanted portals, there 
 
 Met me a princely youth, blooming and tender — 
 Such grace as briefest sits on mortal head; 
 
 And straight I knew again the weird Luck- 
 sender. 
 He, my hand pressing, in low accents said: 
 
 [68] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 ''Whither now, fate-worn wanderer, thicket- 
 threading, 
 * ' Tendest alone in guileful region strange ? 
 ''Thy comrades yonder in foul sties now bed- 
 ding 
 "The bristly penance pay of porcine change. 
 
 "Whom to redeem, forsooth, thou goest? Rather 
 "Thyself like them in swinish couch to lie! 
 
 "But lo, take thou the antidote, ere farther 
 "Thy rash steps mount, of Circe's sorcery. 
 
 "When she with gracious hand the poison 'd 
 chalice 
 "Proffers (which nathless quaff thou undis- 
 may'd), 
 "This potent herb in turn shall stay the malice 
 ' ' Of those black arts, and 'neath the threaten- 
 ing blade 
 
 "Of thy bare sword her proud soul quail and 
 cower. ' ' 
 So saying, a frail plant pulling from the 
 ground, 
 He show'd me. Black its root, milk-white the 
 flower. 
 Moly its name divine; of man, scarce found. 
 
 [69] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 The helping god was gone. Plain signs 1 
 
 follow 'd ; 
 
 And, as I pass'd the sad-eyed monsters tame, 
 
 Of the good drug I held some portion swallow 'd; 
 
 And on the moaning porch strong-hearted 
 
 came ; 
 
 Nor paused to hear, but with clear voice uplifted 
 I call'd. She came; beneath the slumbrous 
 vine 
 Led where dim sun, through flickering shadows 
 sifted, 
 And crimson glow of shimmering walls com- 
 bine, 
 
 Into the bright-hued banquet-hall. All gently 
 On ivory throne she made me sit; fiU'd high 
 
 The fragrant wine-cup (which malevolently 
 She had with bane infused) ; and her dark 
 eye 
 
 Beam'd with soft fervor, the fell draught com- 
 mending. 
 But when it (bane-bereft) had pass'd my 
 throat. 
 The sorceress then, the while she forward bend- 
 ing 
 With white arm raised and golden wand me 
 smote, 
 
 [70] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 Did by harsh word her bosom's guile discover: 
 ''Hence to the sty! Go join thy wallowing 
 mates ! ' ' 
 But like the cloud-spark my swift sword flash 'd 
 
 over 
 Her pale brow and pearl-twined luxuriant 
 
 plaits 
 
 Of ebon hair. With loud shriek she sped under 
 
 My sword-arm's menace, and close clasping 
 
 cried : 
 
 ''What man art thou^ What mortal hath such 
 
 wonder 
 
 "Unheard-of wrought, these potions to abide? 
 
 "For never, never did other lips unblighted 
 "Press the drugg'd bowl, save thine. Ah yes, 
 't was true ! 
 "Ulysses thou art, whose coming the sure- 
 sighted 
 "Wing'd Messenger oft warn'd me I should 
 
 rue, 
 
 "From Trojan field thy lone bark homeward 
 steering. — 
 "But sheathe, I pray, thy sword; and come 
 where rest 
 
 [71] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 ''The wanderer waits — ^with love thy sad heart 
 cheering 
 ''And couch of more than mortal charms pos- 
 ses!" 
 
 "Fair Circe, dread enchantress, darest thou 
 utter 
 "Love's name (I answered), whilst in noi- 
 some sty 
 ' ' My hapless comrades with brute voices mutter 
 "The anguish bred of thy fierce contumely? 
 
 " Think 'st thou this hilted blade hath foil'd all 
 vainly 
 "Those charms whose dart gods only may 
 repel 
 "(Or man with god), but to succumb insanely 
 "To the bland witchery of second spell?" 
 
 I spoke. And, with no word, her steps she 
 guided 
 
 Across the festal chamber's polish 'd floor 
 And the paved corridor whose length divided 
 
 The palace from the postern pens. Their door 
 
 Flung wide, forth rush'd the headlong swinish 
 rabble 
 
 (Sad souls in bristly skin and porcine mould) 
 Groaning and groveling with half -human babble 
 
 At the enchantress' feet. With wand of gold 
 
 [72] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 Poised in her firm soft hand, before them throw- 
 ing 
 A different drug — which they devour 'd, she 
 then 
 Touch 'd lightly each one. Straightway I saw 
 off flowing 
 Their brutal rough integuments. Again 
 
 My men they were and knew me; and each 
 portly 
 Embower 'd column re-murmur 'd our fond 
 cries, 
 As they clung to me and kiss'd my hands. Then 
 shortly 
 Spoke Circe : ' ' Cease ; no more of tearful eyes ; 
 
 '' 'T is well. Now by bright afternoon unbroken 
 *' Speed thy way downward to the wave- 
 fretted strand, 
 ''Wily Ulysses; and to thy mates take token 
 ''Of this our bounteous cheer and helpful 
 hand." 
 
 Nor tarried I ; but soon by that sore-hearted 
 Despairing company with glad mien I stood: 
 
 It was as if some father, long departed, 
 
 Had from the grave his whilom life renew 'd. 
 
 [73] 
 
THE ISLE OF CIRCE 
 
 "Refrain! refrain!" I cried; "kindles no longer 
 ' ' The sullen sea-god his belated ire : 
 
 "The potions brew'd at Circe's board flow 
 stronger 
 "Than Aeol's blasts or dull Cyclopean fire. 
 
 "Then follow, spell-inspired; seize chance and 
 follow, 
 "Ere yonder sun-god stoops to the sapphire 
 lake! 
 "Upward, with winged feet, o'er hill and hol- 
 low; 
 ' ' And in enchanted halls your wassail take ! ' ' 
 
 But, royal sire, the fagot-flame, to ember 
 
 Sinking apace, bids spare your patient ears. 
 
 The tale is long; nor boots it to remember 
 Too many woes at once of vanish 'd years. 
 
 Another eve, if suiteth so thy pleasure, 
 
 Thine and the noble queen's, I shall renew 
 
 These tasks begun: how the sure homeward 
 measure 
 Of our weird voyage immortal Circe drew; 
 
 How my ship 's crew, her warnings all unheeded. 
 Wander 'd to death without those mystic walls, 
 For that their souls a subtler knowledge needed 
 Of the charm 'd cup that heals while it en- 
 thralls. 
 
 [74] 
 
Ulysses' Convoy 
 
Finis et erroris miseri Phaeacia tellus. 
 
Ulysses' Convoy 
 
 HIS tale was ended. But the throng 
 Were hush'd in silence all: 
 Spell-bound their speechless thoughts were 
 held 
 Throughout the shadowy hall. 
 
 Then King Alcinoiis spoke and said: 
 
 ''Ulysses, since at last 
 ''Within my mansion's ample gates 
 
 "Thy wandering feet have pass'd, 
 
 "Therefore, methinks, no hopes deferr'd, 
 "No doubts or drif tings more 
 
 "Await thee, though full many and dire 
 "Thy sorrows heretofore. — 
 
 "But ye, my lieges, every one, 
 "Mark me — ye who each day 
 
 ' ' Sit by, the council wine to quaff 
 "And hear the minstrel's lay: 
 
 "Pack'd for our guest the strong chest holds 
 "The garments, gold fine-wrought, 
 
 "And other gifts, which to my hearth 
 "Phaeacian nobles brought. 
 
 [77] 
 
ULYSSES' CONVOY 
 
 ''But let us give him, man for man, 
 ''Tripod and bowl beside — 
 
 "By tithes collected we, in turn, 
 "Shall be indemnified." 
 
 Thus spoke Aleinoiis; and his words 
 
 Full approbation earn'd. 
 They then unto their several homes 
 
 For nightly rest return 'd. 
 
 But soon as rosy-finger 'd dawn 
 Her earliest beam display 'd, 
 
 Briskly they to the ship their gifts 
 Of shining bronze convey 'd. 
 
 These in her hold the king himself, 
 
 Aleinoiis, safe bestow 'd, 
 Where naught should hinder hand or arm 
 
 Of oarsmen, while they row'd. 
 
 Next, to their sovereign's house again, 
 
 A banquet to prepare. 
 A bullock to great Zeus he slew. 
 
 The cloud-wrapt Thunderer. 
 
 Choice parts in worship burn 'd, themselves 
 
 To glorious feasting fell. 
 For them, Demodocus plied his song. 
 
 The bard they honor 'd well. 
 
 [78] 
 
ULYSSES' CONVOY 
 
 So fared they. But Ulysses oft 
 
 Sunward his glances turn'd, 
 In haste its setting to behold, 
 
 So for the start he yearn 'd. 
 
 As when a man who all day long 
 
 Has plough 'd a field, behind 
 Two tawny oxen, holds no thought 
 
 But supper in his mind; 
 
 And glad he is, when the sun dips, 
 
 To plod his weary way 
 Homeward, so was Ulysses glad 
 
 To note its sinking ray. 
 
 Straightway to his Phaeacian hosts, 
 
 Those lovers of the oar, 
 He spoke ; but to the king his words 
 
 Their chiefest message bore. 
 
 ^'Alcinoiis, ruler of the land, 
 
 ''This people's glorious head, 
 ''Pour offerings and dismiss me now, 
 
 "By safe, sure convoy sped. 
 
 "And fare ye well. This hour brings true 
 
 "My dream of happiness: 
 "Convoy and gifts, all which I pray 
 
 "The gods of heaven may bless. 
 
 [79] 
 
ULYSSES' CONVOY 
 
 "May I, home reaching, scatheless find 
 ' ' True wife and all most dear ; 
 
 "As may yourselves make glad jovly wives 
 "And children, tarrying here. 
 
 "Every well-being 't is my prayer 
 "Be yours, by heaven's behest; 
 
 "And never may mischance or bane 
 "On this good people rest." 
 
 So said he; and applauding loud 
 
 They bade with one accord 
 To set the guest upon his way, 
 
 So righteous was his word. 
 
 Then to his herald spoke the king: 
 
 ' ' Pontonoiis, wine to hand ! 
 "That Father Zeus may speed our guest 
 
 "Forth to his native land." 
 
 So through the hall each f caster's cup 
 
 Fill'd high in solemn wise, 
 Libation to the gods, who hold 
 
 Blest mansions in the skies, 
 
 Right where they sat they pour'd. — Then rose 
 
 Ulysses, thus the last 
 Speaking, as to Arete 's hand 
 
 A brimming cup he pass'd. 
 
 [80] 
 
ULYSSES' CONVOY 
 
 "With my farewell, queen, abide 
 
 "Rejoicing to the end; 
 "Unto old age and death, whose fates 
 
 "O'er mortal men impend. 
 
 "I go; but dwell thou happy here 
 "In this house, gladdening 
 
 "Thy children and the people and 
 "Alcinoiis the king." 
 
 So saying, great Ulysses cross 'd 
 The threshold, while the way 
 
 Shoreward a royal herald led. 
 Where the swift vessel lay. 
 
 Also the queen sent maids. One bore 
 
 Mantle and tunic fine; 
 Another fetch 'd the well-lock 'd chest; 
 
 A third brought bread and wine. 
 
 By sea and ship arriving, straight 
 All these the gallant crew 
 
 Received and stored. Then, for his bed 
 On deck abaft they threw 
 
 Soft rugs and linen coverlet. 
 Suited to sleep profound. 
 
 Ulysses, next, himself on board 
 In silence laid him down; 
 
 [81] 
 
ULYSSES' CONVOY 
 
 Whilst they their seats took, each with all 
 
 Well order 'd to agree, 
 And from the punctured mooring-stone 
 
 Cast the stern-cable free. 
 
 As they, back leaning, spurn 'd the brine 
 
 Abaft with bending blade, 
 That moment on Ul jesses' eyes 
 
 The spell of sleep was laid; 
 
 Sleep of the sweetest, deathlike, deep. — 
 
 But she, as on footing dry 
 Four stallions, springing with one bound 
 
 Under the lash, fling high 
 
 Their heels, and swiftly scour the plain, 
 Even so the pinnace sprang 
 
 Stern high, and mightily behind 
 The purple billow sang. 
 
 Steady she ran, unswerving, sure ; 
 
 Nor with her fleet emprise 
 Might even the wheeling falcon vie, 
 
 The swiftest bird that flies.^ — 
 
 Thus the swift vessel plough 'd the waves, 
 
 Bearing a crafty man 
 Like the immortals in wise arts 
 
 Of shrewd, resourceful plan. 
 
 [82] 
 
ULYSSES' CONVOY 
 
 Unnumber'd woes his heart had known, 
 By wars and wanderings taught; 
 
 But now in peaceful sleep he lay, 
 Those sorrows all forgot. — 
 
 What hour uprose morn's herald star, 
 
 The brightest in the sky, 
 That hour unto Ulysses' isle 
 
 The speeding ship drew nigh. 
 
 A bay there is, of Phoreys named, 
 
 The old man of the sea. 
 In Ithaca, where two jutting crags 
 
 Slope inward crouchingly. 
 
 These fend the storm-roll'd billows off 
 
 Without; and, once inside, 
 Boats all unanchor'd and unmoor 'd 
 
 In waveless shelter ride. 
 
 There grows an olive, slender-leaved, 
 
 Hard by the harbor's head; 
 Near it a lovely grotto dim, 
 
 Divinely tenanted 
 
 By nymphs call'd naiads. Bowls and urns 
 
 Of native stone, descried 
 Dimly within. — Hither wild bees 
 
 Their fragrant treasure hide. — 
 
 [83] 
 
ULYSSES' CONVOY 
 
 Tall looms of stone within, whereon 
 Sea purple shot with gold 
 
 The naiads weave to filmy veils, 
 A wonder to behold! 
 
 Pure trickling Avater has the grot ; 
 
 And two doorways incline, 
 The one toward Boreas, trod by men 
 
 The other, more divine, 
 
 Faces the South Wind. To this door 
 No human step draws near: 
 
 Only immortal beings know 
 The way to enter here. — 
 
 Into the harbor, known of old. 
 
 They drove the convoy bark; 
 
 Beach 'd her a half-length on the sand 
 Above high-water mark. 
 
 [84] 
 
ULYSSES' CONVOY 
 
 Then, first, Ulysses from the ship 
 
 They lifted, bed and all, 
 And laid him on the sandy shore. 
 
 By slumber held in thrall. 
 
 His goods, next, which Athena moved 
 
 Phaeacians to bestow. 
 Beside the olive-tree they brought 
 
 And set them in a row, 
 
 Well from the trodden path apart, 
 
 Lest the wayfaring folk 
 Might have the pickix.^ of the pile 
 
 Before Ulysses woke. 
 
 [85] 
 
Agamemnon's Ruth 
 
.... nee siletur illud potentissimi regis ana- 
 paestum, qui laudat senem et fortunatum esse 
 dicii, quod inglorius sit atque ignoUlis ad supre- 
 mum diem perventurus. 
 
Agamemnon's Ruth 
 
 A GAM. Old man, to the front here ! 
 Come forth. 
 0. M. Forth I come. — 
 
 What new work, Agamemnon my lord? 
 Agam. Haste on. 
 O.M. Here I haste. 
 
 All sleepless mine age, right watchful 
 
 of eye, 
 to attend thy command. 
 Agam. What star plies its way yonder? 
 0. M. Sirius, 
 
 nigh to the seven-crown 'd Pleiad 
 onrolling, in mid-heaven yet. 
 Agam. Ay, true. Not a sound, — 
 nor of birds nor the sea. 
 Full silent, each wind 
 
 his peace o'er Euripus is holding. 
 0. M. But thou, 
 
 why without thy pavilion dost hie, 
 Agamemnon my lord? 
 Quiet reigns over Aulis. Not yet 
 stirs the watch on the wall. — 
 Go we in.- — 
 Agam. Aged man, 
 
 I envy thy lot. 
 
 [89] 
 
AGAMEMNON'S RUTH 
 
 That mortal I envy, 
 
 whose life-course, undanger'd, 
 
 hath sped to the end, unhonor'd, un- 
 known. — 
 
 But the great, 
 
 them I envy not so. 
 0. M. Yet there 
 
 lies the beauty of life. 
 Agam. But that beauty, how frail! 
 
 Sweet is honor; yet bitter, betimes, 
 
 when the times suit it not. — 
 
 Now, 't is heaven's behest, unfulfill'd, 
 
 makes havoc of life; 
 
 now, 't is man, 
 
 with his clashing opinions, works 
 ruin. 
 0. M. Nay, I cannot admire 
 
 such words spoke by one of thy lofty 
 estate. 
 
 Not the price 
 
 of unclouded good-cheer, 
 
 Agamemnon, paid'st thou 
 
 for Atreus as sire. 
 
 Joy is due thee — with pain, 
 
 since mortal thou art. 
 
 Though it be not thy choice, 
 
 yet the gods, in their pleasure, 
 
 shall order it thus. — 
 
 But now, 
 
 [90] 
 
AGAMEMNON'S EUTH 
 
 by the lamp's ample flame, 
 
 a letter thou writest, 
 
 the same 
 
 thou still hast in hand. 
 
 Writing first, then erasing; 
 
 sealing now, now unsealing; 
 
 the tablet anon 
 
 to the earth thou dost fling, 
 
 the big tear forth-welling meanwhile. 
 
 No sign of despair 
 
 is absent : of madness, no mark but thou 
 
 bearest. 
 What stirs thee ? What means 
 this strange trouble, my king? 
 Pray thy story impart. 
 To a good man and true 
 thou wilt breathe it. 
 Of old, 
 
 with thy consort I came 
 to thy mansion: even I, 
 by Tyndareus sent, one part of her 
 
 dower ; 
 
 to serve on the bride and be loyal. 
 Agam. Forth then, 
 unto Argos 
 
 this missive bear thou. — 
 And more, 
 in its folds 
 what the tablet conceals, 
 
 [91] 
 
AGAMEMNON'S RUTH 
 
 by word I will tell thee, 
 all that's writ here; for faithful indeed 
 art thou, to the queen, to us all. 
 0. M. Say on, make it known, 
 
 that my tongue with thy written decree 
 may accord. 
 Agam. [reads] 
 
 "To my first tidings now I send, 
 * ' child of Leda, this new word : 
 "not to guide our daughter forth, 
 "toward Euboea's bosomy wing, 
 "unto wave-spent Aulis. 
 "At some future hour will we 
 "spread the nuptial banquet." 
 O.M. But Achilles, thus baffled,— 
 how, pray, can he fail 
 his heart-swelling anger to visit amain 
 on thee and thy spouse? 
 Here is danger. Declare, 
 what say'st thou? 
 Agam. The name, not the blame, 
 is Achilles'. Of nuptials 
 naught knows he, knows naught of our 
 
 scheme : 
 how I solemnly sanction 'd 
 the gift to his arms 
 of our daughter as bride. 
 0. M. Ah ! fell was thy daring, 
 Agamemnon, my lord. 
 
 [92] 
 
AGAMEMNON'S KUTH 
 
 Agam. 
 
 O.M. 
 Agam. 
 
 O.M. 
 
 Agam. 
 
 Thy daughter, to wed the goddess-born 
 
 man, 
 thou didst promise : and then 
 for the Danaans' sake 
 wouldst lead her to death. 
 Woe is me ! my good spirit hath fail 'd 
 
 me. 
 Woe, woe ! to the curse I am fallen. — 
 But go ! ply thy foot, 
 not with step of old age. 
 'T is speedy, king. 
 Hearken now! 
 By the grove-border 'd fountains sit 
 
 not! 
 Let no slumber beguile thee ! 
 Forbear, say no more. 
 Each time, far or near, 
 some cross-road when passing, 
 spy about thee; beware, 
 lest thou mark not the flying of wheels 
 
 that roll past, 
 to the Danaan ships 
 hither bringing my child. 
 For if so the convoy thou do then en- 
 counter, 
 straight back turn the steeds, 
 swing the lash, 
 for the solemn Cyclopean homestead 
 
 straight aiming. 
 
 [93] 
 
AGAMEMNON'S RUTH 
 
 0. M. 'T shall be done. 
 Agam. Sally forth ! 
 0. M. But for these 
 
 my tidings, declare 
 what surety shall be, 
 to thy child, to thy queen? 
 Agam. The seal (guard it well) 
 
 on the missive thou bringest. — 
 
 Away! Pale already 
 
 yon day-beam (the sun-god, 
 
 his chariot of fire) 
 
 gleams out. Seize thy portion of toil. 
 
 Of mortals, not one 
 
 all-prosper 'd shall be, 
 
 consummately blest. 
 
 None is born but his birthright is 
 sorrow. 
 
 [94] 
 
Temple Song 
 
 Ion 
 (In front of the temple at daybreak) 
 
 MARK yon bright steeds and chariot of the 
 Sun ! 
 Now on the world below 
 He beams; and while each star, 
 Before that fiery ray, 
 Back into solemn night doth run, 
 Parnassus' pathless summits take the glow 
 Kindled for mortals by the orb of day. 
 
 Now, in Apollo's temple, roofward floats 
 Curling myrrh-incense; and the Pythian maid 
 Sits at her tripod shrine, 
 Chanting for Hellas the prophetic notes 
 Echoed from Phoebus' lips divine. 
 
 Then come, ye Delphian servitors of Him! 
 
 Approach Castalia's silver-eddying fount; 
 
 And at the dewy brim 
 
 Your hands with pure drops lave, 
 
 Ere to these sacred precincts ye may mount; 
 
 Guarding a hush'd and holy tongue; 
 
 [95] 
 
TEMPLE SONG 
 
 Letting no voice untoward thrill the ear 
 
 Of them who crave 
 
 Their dark oracular destinies to hear. 
 
 Whilst I the toil renew 
 
 That, from a child, hath ever claim 'd my care: 
 
 To sweep, with wreathed laurel-bough, each holy 
 
 avenue 
 Of Phoebus' halls; 
 
 His floor with freshest waters to bedew; 
 And with my bow and arrows put to flight 
 The wing'd intruders that would mar 
 The spotless statues white. 
 Fatherless, motherless I grew; 
 And so I render to these fostering walls 
 The grateful service to kind parents due. 
 
 [96] 
 
TEMPLE SONG 
 
 Ply, then, ply your frondage green. 
 Besom of fresh-blooming bay: 
 
 Over the pavement's marble sheen 
 So by His altar softly sway. 
 
 Scion of groves immortal, where 
 
 Quenchless waters round you play'd, 
 
 Leaping to bright ambrosial air; 
 Or in the sacred myrtle-shade: 
 
 Help me still my homage bring, 
 That to Apollo's fane I pay, 
 
 Soon as the day-star trims his wing. 
 All day long, and day by day. 
 
 lo Paean! io Paean! 
 
 Glory, glory be to thee, 
 
 child of Leto, through eternity. 
 
 [97] 
 
TEMPLE SONG 
 
 Sweet is the toil and beautiful, 
 
 Laid, Phoebus, on my hand 
 
 At thy radiant vestibule. 
 
 Prophet-portal of the land. 
 
 Honor the guerdon is of grace: 
 
 Heaven's illustrious servant I, 
 
 Bounden to no mortal race, 
 
 But to the gods, who never die. 
 
 Holy labor wearieth not; 
 
 Witness, in glad praise, I bear 
 Unto the giver of my lot, 
 
 Lord of the temple, great and fair. 
 
 lo Paean ! io Paean ! 
 
 Glory, glory be to thee, 
 
 child of Leto, through eternity. 
 
 But from the busy sheaf 
 
 Of trailing laurel-leaf 
 
 'T is time to turn; 
 
 And with my golden urn 
 
 Now will I sprinkle forth 
 
 The crystal streams of Earth, 
 
 That gush'd from bubbling Castaly, 
 
 And scatter 'd are by me 
 
 With holy hand and pure. 
 
 [98] 
 
TEMPLE SONG 
 
 0, that forevermore 
 
 My service may endure 
 
 To Phoebus, and cease not — 
 
 Save for some blissful happy lot. 
 
 Ha! ha! 
 There they begin their flight, 
 Leaving their aeries on Parnassus' height. — 
 I tell you, hold aloof 
 From the resplendent roof 
 And gilded cornice rare. 
 
 Eagle, beware! 
 Straightway an arrow from my bow. 
 Herald of Jove, shall lay thee low, 
 Tyrant of birds with crooked claws. 
 
 Ho! yonder another draws 
 Nigh to these altars, sailor of the sky. 
 A swan this time ! Pass by, pass by, 
 scarlet-footed traveler, ere I shoot. 
 Nay, not Apollo's lute. 
 Tuned to your trumpet voice. 
 Shall leave you choice ; 
 But to the Delian lake 
 Your winged passage take. 
 Mind ! or this folly thou wilt rue. 
 When blood shall trickle to a swan-song true. 
 
 [09] 
 
TEMPLE SONG 
 
 Aha! what 's here? 
 What stranger-bird, 
 Coming to frame some nest of leaves 
 Under the consecrated eaves 
 For his young brood ? This twanging string 
 Shall hurry hence your wing — 
 What ! mind 'st not ? Nay, go seek 
 Alpheus' eddies far; there multiply your race 
 To Phoebus' holy dwelling-place 
 Harm shall not come. — Yet am I loath to kill 
 You, winged harbingers of Heaven's will 
 To mortal men. 
 Only to Phoebus, then, 
 To whom this life I owe, 
 Let my fond service and my toil go on. 
 
 Honor the guerdon is of grace : 
 
 Heaven's illustrious servant I, 
 
 Bounden to no mortal race, 
 
 But to the gods, who never die. 
 
 lo Paean! io Paean! 
 
 Glory, glory be to thee, 
 
 child of Leto, through eternity. 
 
 [100] 
 
Wings Triumphant 
 
XaiQete a7ixr{veq. 
 
Wings Triumphant 
 
 INVITATION 
 
 TO a wonderful new sight 
 We, the birds, hereby invite 
 All you earthy creeping things, 
 Everybody without wings. 
 If you will behave, you may 
 Come into our nest to-day; 
 Sit around us in natty rows, 
 Wearing your best Sunday clothes; 
 Look as much like spick-and-span 
 Jugs and flower-pots as you can. 
 Welcome to the wingless. 
 
 How is this, old Walk-on-legs, 
 For a place to warm our eggs? 
 Something more than sticks and straw- 
 Finer than you ever saw ! 
 We drop down here from the air, 
 You may crawl in anywhere. 
 No, there is no need to rush, 
 And be sure you do not push 
 Into the wrong piece of pie 
 Just because you cannot fly! 
 Welcome to the wingless. 
 
 [103] 
 
WINGS TRIUMPHANT 
 
 0, you want to know, no doubt, 
 How birds ever did make out 
 To fence in the atmosphere 
 And fling up this aery here! 
 That can be learnt from no other 
 Than our little fairy mother; 
 You are here now, not to ask 
 Idle questions, but to bask- - 
 And be baked — a little while 
 In the sunshine of our smile. 
 Welcome to the wingless. 
 
 We think, when we bring our show 
 To an end and let you go. 
 After everyone has heard 
 The jokes of the Dicky bird 
 And has seen the winged man 
 Waltzing with a pelican. 
 You will be apt to remark, 
 There was never such a lark 
 As when Pop Chickwin was crown 'd 
 In the merry-go-half-round ! 
 Welcome to the wingless. 
 
 [104] 
 
WINGS TRIUMPHANT 
 
 GRAND FINALE 
 
 Messenger 
 
 OYE all-fortunate, more than tongue can 
 tell! 
 feather 'd tribes, thrice-blessed, welcome now 
 Your lord and master to his happy home. 
 How doth he come, more radiant than the beam 
 Of some effulgent star in house of gold ! 
 Not the ray'd brilliance of the far-flashing sun 
 Hath shone like him, who draws nigh with his 
 
 bride 
 Of beauty ineffable, whilst in his hand he wields 
 Zeus' weapon, the wing-tufted thunderbolt. 
 Unspeakable fragrance into the welkin's depth 
 Rises, a wondrous sight; and incense-coils 
 Float idly on the weird smoke-flapping breezes. — 
 But lo, behold himself ! 'T is time to ope 
 The Muse's holy all-propitious mouth. 
 
 Enter Chickwin, Easily^ and train. 
 Chorus 
 
 Fall in, fall out; fly right-about; 
 
 Waft wide the airy portal: 
 With whirring wings and feathery flings 
 
 Surround the happy mortal! 
 
 [105] 
 
WINGS TRIUMPHANT 
 
 ! ! ! what a beauteous bride 
 Is that disporting by his side! 
 
 Leader of Chorus 
 All hail, thou who blest 
 This city of a nest 
 
 With a divine alliance. — 
 
 Immense, immense the luck 
 The feather 'd tribes have struck, 
 Soaring by his science. 
 
 Greet now with hymeneal shout, 
 Chorals of the wedding-rout. 
 Him and his Easily. 
 
 Chorus 
 Once upon a time the Fates 
 
 Queenly Hera thus did bring 
 To the most august of mates. 
 
 The high-throned Olympian king; 
 Sounding their praise even so, 
 Hymen Hymenaeus ! 
 
 Gold- wing 'd Eros was best man, 
 
 Tight the cherub drew the reins, 
 
 Guiding an immortal span 
 Over the celestial plains. 
 
 [106] 
 
WINGS TRIUMPHANT 
 
 Happy Hera long ago! 
 Hymen Hymenaeus ! 
 
 Chick WIN 
 With your songs, with your hynms, 
 I'm delighted, I'm sure: 
 Many thanks for your words. — 
 
 Sing, now, straight on and glorify 
 Our red lightnings of the sky; 
 Our dread thunder-peals, that break 
 Till the black Earth seems to quake. 
 
 Chorus 
 How gorgeous the gleam of the gold-twisted 
 flashes I 
 How awful the flame of the fierce thunder- 
 bolt, 
 With its cracks and its crashes. 
 By Zeus brandish 'd of old. 
 
 ye rumbling thunders grand, 
 
 Cloudbursts of the mountain-brow, 
 
 This great conqueror puts his hand 
 To your fulminations now; 
 
 Easily ordains it so. 
 
 Hymen Hymenaeus ! 
 
 [107] 
 
WINGS TRIUMPHANT 
 
 Chick WIN 
 Follow all, birds of a feather, 
 
 Flock and follow, as you 're led, 
 To the realm of sunny weather, 
 
 Where the nuptial couch is spread.- 
 Give me your hand, Birdie: how I 
 
 Long to dance with you to-day! 
 Take hold of my wings, and now I 
 
 Whisk you clear up and away ! 
 
 Chorus 
 Huzza, huzza ! lo triumphe ! 
 Huzza, huzza! Thrum, thrum! 
 Thrum on a thousand strings! 
 Conqueror of Kings! 
 
 [Exeunt,] 
 
 [108] 
 
Ave Piscator 
 
Also ye shall not use this forsayd 
 crafty dysporte, for no couetysnes, 
 to the encreasynge and sparynge 
 of your money oonly; hut pryn- 
 cypally for your solace^ and to 
 cause the helthe of your body, 
 and specyally of your soule. 
 
Ave Piscator 
 
 There are three stages or degrees 
 Of piscatorial mysteries. 
 
 Unnumber'd accidents must meet 
 To show the angler forth complete; 
 
 Eke that which in the stars is writ, 
 Piscator nascitur non fit ; 
 
 Whilst he, on far perfection bent, 
 Through each successive element, 
 
 Mud, water, air, essays to climb. 
 Moulding his destiny sublime. 
 
 The novice, — those exist for him 
 Which nigh unto the hottom swim. 
 
 Thus, lowliest of the briny brood. 
 The flounder, famed for platitude; 
 
 In fresh, the bullhead or horn'd pout; 
 The eel, long-lived and long-drawn-out. 
 
 These teach, to hold with sandy grip 
 What chances through the fingers slip ; 
 
 [111] 
 
AVE PISCATOR 
 
 To brave the heads and horns of things 
 That clash with fond imaginings; 
 
 How to doze timely, yet be full 
 Of feeling for a welcome pull; 
 
 To learn what purposes of state 
 They serve who only sit and wait. 
 
 The second stage, by one degree 
 Above the bottom aims to be. 
 
 Here, through the middle waters gleam 
 Perch, shiner, chub, the plucky bream: 
 
 A scaly company, yet each 
 Blest with some faculty to teach. 
 
 It is the realm of doubt and fear. 
 Wild hopes and disappointments drear. 
 
 But in his soul who faltereth not 
 Celestial patience is begot; 
 
 His boyish fancy is imbued 
 With love of rain and solitude; 
 
 Round him a frivolous, inane. 
 Much-nibbling world will surge in vain. 
 
 [112] 
 
AVE PISCATOR 
 
 The third sphere is the top : and few, 
 To its high ordinances true, 
 
 Will for the last probation wait. 
 Which sifts the small fry from the great. 
 
 There is a finny vagabond, 
 Long-nosed marauder of the pond. 
 
 Whom nature suffereth to exist, 
 Expressly that he may assist 
 
 The callow neophyte to rise 
 
 Through spoon-lore to the Book of Flies. 
 
 Between the upper and mid way 
 The pickerel darts upon his prey. 
 
 Him you, when spoonless, can feel sure 
 Of taking with batrachian lure. 
 
 Draw froggy 's trousers off in haste, 
 Decapitate him at the waist; 
 
 The nether remnant then, hook'd fast, 
 Fantastically dangling, cast 
 
 Out where the lily-pads make way 
 There for the still, black water — hey! 
 
 A swell, a vortex, and a splash ! 
 A tug down on the supple ash ! 
 
 Leave him to mumble it a mite — 
 Now hoist him, higher than a kite ! 
 
 [113] 
 
AVE PISCATOR 
 
 [The couplets here omitted touch upon the 
 achievements of those to whom the sacred uten- 
 sils have heen shown hy the Hierophant, who 
 have answered the questions propounded hy him, 
 and have heen finally advanced from the Lesser 
 to the Greater mysteries of the Top.] 
 
 And yet no titles to his name, 
 Parchment prerequisites to fame; 
 
 No tassel'd cap and hooded gown 
 Invest the angler with renown. 
 
 A something in his eye, his walk, 
 Or in the flavor of his talk. 
 
 Something not on the prosaic plan 
 Stamps the inveterate fisherman. 
 
 His grammar is the cloud-fleck 'd dawn, 
 A forest path his lexicon, 
 
 His specialty the universe. 
 
 He can songs make. He doth converse 
 
 Familiarly with jay and wren, 
 Or dallies with the water-hen. 
 
 Oft with the chipmunk he breaks bread. — 
 At drowsy noon, where rests his head 
 
 Odors of terebinth and balm, 
 Exhaling slumber soft and calm, 
 
 [114] 
 
AVE PISCATOR 
 
 Wrap him in dreams. — Anon, awake — 
 What peals the sultry stillness break? 
 
 What shadow sweeps from ledge to ledge 
 Before the storm-cloud 's livid edge ? 
 
 Aeolian voices, piping shrill. 
 
 Wail from the pines that crown the hill. 
 
 " 'T is time," I hear Piscator say, 
 '' To unjoint and quit; no more to-day." 
 
 Behold him thread the oozy trail 
 Down the dark wood athwart the gale. 
 
 The swishing flood through holm and holt, 
 The crack and fizzle of the bolt 
 
 Cannot put out his pipe, nor dim 
 His vision. 'T is enough for him 
 
 Against his sturdy side to feel 
 The swaying burthen of his creel. 
 
 [115] 
 
Prologue and Epilogue 
 
 GOOD friends, who, while ye graciously 
 assist, 
 Do lend our cause some reason to exist: 
 Your selves to welcome, is my welcome task, 
 With cordial salutation; and to ask 
 Your kind attention, ere the curtain rise 
 On this bright circle of expectant eyes. 
 Know then, we youthful toilers love to go 
 Adown the fields of wisdom, gleaning slow 
 Some sheaves of knowledge from each bygone 
 
 age; 
 Whereof not least full-fruited is the stage. 
 A stage the whole world did to Shakespeare 
 
 seem: 
 And such, our little college-world we deem; 
 The students, players. Through these classic 
 
 shades 
 Full many a flippant trifler masquerades. 
 Acting, from day to day, a learned part. 
 With little love of learning in his heart. 
 Sincere, the most; and yet, alas! too few 
 Keen-eyed, the false to winnow from the true: 
 Content, with husks to fill the growing mind, 
 But to the precious golden kernel blind. 
 
 [116] 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 Wherefore we hold well worthy of our zeal 
 That ancient art, whose power to reveal 
 The truth of life and manners lives to-day. 
 As, by the magic of the "cathode ray," 
 Through some huge pachyderm's dense skull 
 
 we gain 
 A peep into his wondrous pygmy brain. 
 So the quick point, two-hundred years ago, 
 Of Master Congreve 's witty pen pierced through 
 The pedant's dulness; sketch 'd the madman's 
 
 air; 
 Laid the self-seeker's frail devices bare: 
 Yet swift to know true merit, and accord 
 To heavenly constancy its sweet reward. — 
 The Play sufficient persons offers. We 
 Essay to represent them. You shall see. 
 
 [117] 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 Not, when the curtain falls, I apprehend. 
 Are our fond efforts wholly at an end. 
 Still lingers something, at the drama's close. 
 Like the faint perfume of the folded rose. 
 Apparent still before the half-shut eye 
 Fair faces, graceful forms float dimly by ; 
 And voices to fresh voices answering, 
 Still through the corridors of memory ring. 
 Therefore, while yet my mates some thought 
 
 may claim, 
 For your applause I thank you, in their name. 
 May favoring Fortune on your steps attend. 
 As homeward soon your several ways ye wend; 
 Prosper your undertakings; and increase 
 Your substance, gather 'd in the lap of Peace. 
 Meantime, I charge both old and young, fail not 
 To store the truths our comedy has taught. 
 Predict the race not always of the swift; 
 A little foresight is a dangerous gift. 
 Not always falls the battle to the strong; 
 As Samson learn 'd, by living over long. 
 For man, the less to risk, the less to rue. 
 And, each young woman, live for wisdom too : 
 To be angelic, seem not all-divine. 
 But prove the madness of your valentine. 
 
 [118] 
 
Choral Song 
 
 Leader 
 
 BREAKING over Ocean's stream, 
 Hesperus, of all the sky 
 Best and brightest is thy beam; 
 To thy beam our songs reply. 
 
 Sunset rays our dresses wove, 
 Rainbow-hues without the rain. 
 
 Golden fruit in every grove, 
 Tinkling to our fond refrain. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Best and brightest in the sky. 
 To his beam our harps reply. 
 We his singing children are, 
 Daughters of the Evening Star. 
 (round dance) 
 
 [119] 
 
CHORAL SONG 
 
 Leader 
 
 Seven sisters born of mother Night, 
 
 Our father took us on his knees. 
 She faded when we saw the light, 
 
 And left us all Hesperides. 
 
 The Gardens of the Gods are here; 
 
 These founts, these flowers our emblems are. 
 Our father's eye is ever near, ' 
 
 Our mother's spirit never far. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Seven sisters born of mother Night, 
 She faded when we saw the light. 
 Our father took us on his knees 
 And christen 'd us Hesperides. 
 (round dance) 
 
 [120] 
 
Scyros 
 
 MY island in the blue sea swims, 
 The ceaseless ripple laps it round ; 
 Its frothy edge the petrel skims, 
 
 Her twitterings tuned to hoarser sound 
 That echoes where each tireless wave 
 Searches the bounds of cove and cave. 
 
 A mountain's head my island seems. 
 Of envious waters shaken free; 
 
 Neck-like, below, a green strip gleams. 
 And wrinkled brow bent on the sea. 
 
 From crag to crag my black goats spring 
 
 Whilst by the marge I dance and sing. 
 
 On this my mansion's pillar 'd walls. 
 Fair Asia's border fronting wide, 
 
 The earliest ray of morning falls, 
 The evening shadows soonest glide 
 
 When the spent day-beams have declined 
 
 To sombre lands that loom behind. 
 
 Thence on its vengeful errand sent. 
 Wafted by myriad sail and oar, 
 
 I saw that mighty armament 
 Speeding to seize the opposing shore — 
 
 Most sure, I heard my father say, 
 
 Their doom, to be slain and to slay. 
 
 [121] 
 
Nephte's Song 
 
 THE Nile is rising, rising; 
 All silently its tide 
 From sources past surmising 
 Steals on the country-side. 
 Full well I know what fountains 
 
 My bosom's sorrow swell, 
 Hid not shadowy mountains 
 Where frosts and vapors dwell. 
 
 The lotus-lily, sleeping, 
 
 Smiles in her watery dream. 
 One star her visage keeping 
 
 Beneath his steadfast beam. 
 0, would that heaven-lit slumber, 
 
 That wave-borne bed were mine, 
 Where trouble cannot cumber, 
 
 Nor lodestar cease to shine. 
 
 The Nile is falling, falling; 
 
 Its quickening rills subside, 
 To earth new life recalling 
 
 And joys of harvest-tide. 
 Mine eyes beheld the flower, 
 
 My hand reach 'd toward the tree. 
 There came no ripening hour; 
 
 No fruit, no fruit for me. 
 
 [122] 
 
Hymn 
 
 OUR God, thou Most High, how far 
 Thy benefits extended are, 
 Thy mercies how profound! 
 When from the lowest pit we cry 
 Thou hearest, though the floods be nigh 
 For to thy might nor sea, nor sky, 
 Nor desert setteth bound. 
 
 So may, Lord, thy fostering hand 
 Preserve and guide us, in the land 
 
 Of Goshen while we dwell. 
 Then shall a stronghold of thy praise 
 Be stablish'd, without end of days. 
 In Goshen when thy children raise 
 
 The tents of Israel. 
 
 Whose tribes, some time, led forth by thee, 
 Lord of hosts, once more shall see 
 
 The fields of Canaan. 
 The stem shall stretch its tendrils wide. 
 In fruitful branches multiplied, 
 From Jordan to the salt-sea side, 
 
 Beersheba to Dan. 
 
 [123] 
 
HYMN 
 
 Our story, in far countries heard, 
 
 Shall make each name a household word. 
 
 Each deed a memory, 
 Which in their troubled hearts will burn 
 When for a sign the people yearn. 
 To Zion still for refuge turn, 
 
 And to Jehovah cry. 
 
 Oft shall resound by many a shore 
 Some voice of Rachel weeping sore. 
 
 Nor will be comforted; 
 And for all languages the same. 
 The nations in thy holy name, 
 God of our fathers, shall proclaim 
 
 Their tribute to the dead. 
 
 So may, Lord, thy fostering hand 
 Preserve and guide us, in the land 
 
 Of Goshen while we dwell. 
 Then shall a stronghold of thy praise 
 Be stablish'd, without end of days, 
 In Goshen when thy children raise 
 
 The tents of Israel. 
 
 [124] 
 
The Athenian's Vision 
 
Ari!.iiiT8p f) dQ8\paoa tip h\xr\v qp^eva, 
 slvai ji8 x(bv ac5v agiov |.ivaTT]Qio)v. 
 
The Athenian's Vision 
 
 What land?— What sky?— What people?— 
 
 What thronging faces seem 
 To float before these waking eyes, still laden 
 
 with their dream? 
 ; Whither, whither have my thoughts, by dim 
 
 remembrance bound. 
 Been wafted from that slumber on Demeter's 
 
 holy ground? — 
 
 For I, amid the mystic rout, — it seems but yes- 
 terday, — 
 
 Forth through the Dipylon at eve, along the 
 Sacred Way, 
 
 From Athens moved : full voices round me wove 
 a solemn spell, 
 
 While on the olive groves each gleam of torch- 
 light weirdly fell. 
 
 And in Demeter's temple, at Eleusis, I had 
 view 'd 
 
 The symbols of her sorrow pledging our beati- 
 tude: 
 
 I had seen the gifts unspeakable ; the sweet hopes 
 I had heard, 
 
 Thrilling his soul whose silent lips the golden 
 key hath barr'd. 
 
 [127] 
 
THE ATHENIAN'S VISION 
 
 Then, wandering forth alone, where deep below 
 
 the moonlit fane 
 Shimmer 'd the wavelets that lap round the still 
 
 Thriasian Plain, 
 Mute revery compassing my heart, the inward 
 
 eye yet turn'd 
 Back to that mystic spectacle — the fruits, the 
 
 wise arts learn 'd 
 
 From the great bounteous Mother, from the lost 
 Daughter, who 
 
 From death was render 'd up to life : — thus rapt, 
 myself I threw 
 
 On earth's cool bosom down, and mused. — The 
 vague stars, one by one, 
 
 Darkling, grew faint and fainter; the night- 
 wind's voice was gone; 
 
 I slept. — Anon a vision, — ! listen to the tale,- — 
 
 Rending the sombre shroud of sleep, beam'd out, 
 upon the pale 
 
 Curtains of dreamland pictured, and, in accents 
 echoing still, 
 
 Utter 'd the grave monitions which my awe- 
 struck spirit fill. 
 
 I' 
 
 [128] 
 
THE ATHENIAN'S VISION 
 
 Me thought, in presence manifest the Earth- 
 Mother divine 
 
 Stood by my couch with gracious mien and coun- 
 tenance benign. 
 
 A myrtle crown she wore; one arm on a wheat- 
 sheaf did rest, 
 
 Pull-ear 'd; the right hand pointed far toward 
 sunset and the west. 
 
 A voice as when soft harvest-airs o'er rippling 
 corn-lands blow — 
 
 ''My true initiate," it said, ''scion of Athens, 
 know 
 
 "There are twin brothers. Sleep and Death: 
 mine eyes alone may see 
 
 "What their similitude portends to frail hu- 
 manity. 
 
 "Thy city, famed and beautiful, thou shalt be- 
 hold no more ; 
 
 "Through four and twenty centuries this slum- 
 ber shall endure, 
 
 "Till on a new, Hesperian shore thy wondering 
 lids unseal'd 
 
 "Swim with the radiance azure skies to lands 
 yet nameless yield. 
 
 [129] 
 
THE ATHENIAN'S VISION 
 
 ' ' A people, to whom the gifts of earth in ampler 
 store shall fall 
 
 ^'Than fell in that far Golden Age the minstrel 
 would recall. 
 
 ''Nor oil nor wine pour'd I of old so plentiful 
 and sweet 
 
 ' ' As shall for the fair clime be pour 'd thy wak- 
 ing eyes will greet. 
 
 ' ' Twixt serried hills and the blue waves a riband 
 of rich green, 
 
 " Border 'd with fruited gold; afar, the snow- 
 lined summits' sheen 
 
 "Gleams out, as from a spirit land; river with 
 forest blends, 
 
 "Where Ocean with his cooling breath Elysian 
 tribute sends. 
 
 "For them, those hallow 'd implements, Deme- 
 ter's gift to man, 
 
 ' ' Simple erstwhile and plain, the rake, the plow, 
 the winnowing-fan, 
 
 "Sickle and pruning-hook, — the same, at my be- 
 hest, shall change 
 
 "Into new things of mighty mould and figura- 
 tion strange. 
 
 [130] 
 
THE ATHENIAN'S VISION 
 
 '^So, when their teeming products, the gates 
 o'erflowing, speed 
 
 ''Far forth, by land or watery way, ten-million 
 mouths to feed; 
 
 ''When their white flocks, their kine adown ten- 
 thousand pastures graze, 
 
 "My name let them remember yet, let them 
 cease not to raise 
 
 "Songs of thanksgiving unto me, Demeter, 
 
 mother of arts, 
 "Parent of peace through all the years, whose 
 
 bounty bends men's hearts, 
 ' ' By the upsp ringing of the seed, its leafage, and 
 
 its bloom, 
 "Toward thoughts eternal and high hopes of a 
 
 new life to come." 
 
 [131] 
 
THE ATHENIAN'S VISION 
 
 Hail, then ; all hail ! ye people, whom now mine 
 
 eyes behold. 
 Even as mighty Pallas ' civic host they saw of old 
 In Dionysus' theatre, h^igh-seated — hail! and 
 
 wait 
 For that the goddess ushers in, through her 
 
 initiate. 
 
 Lo! where the sacrificial throng with solemn 
 step moves on, 
 
 Born of the marble forms that graced the sculp- 
 tured Parthenon. 
 
 Link ye a past age to your own, join ye in one 
 refrain 
 
 Athena's green-gray olive and Demeter's yellow 
 grain. 
 
 [132] 
 
Greeting 
 
Xaipet' datixog Xeox;, 
 ixtaQ fjjxevoi Aiog, 
 jtaQ^evou qpiXag qpiAoig 
 
 8l)q)QOVOijVT8g EV XQOVCJd. 
 
 UdlXaboq 6' vjio KXSQolg 
 ovrag a^etai jtaTr)Q. 
 
Greeting 
 
 HIGH-THRONED, expectant, gracious 
 throng. 
 Rejoice ! be glad whilst ye behold 
 What to your thoughts we would unfold 
 And teach through solemn scene and song: 
 Sweet Mercy bidding vengeance cease ; 
 Mad flight and horror crown 'd with peace. — 
 
 prayerful fugitive, faint not ! 
 
 A mother's life-blood stains that sword: 
 But with thy hand the Heavenly Word 
 Guided its edge ; and through thee wrought, 
 Thus to thy sire's requital bound, 
 A vengeance awful and profound. 
 
 Faint not ! Somewhere, solution true 
 
 The deep ensanguined problem waits : 
 No flout of harsh unpitying fates ; 
 Though the insatiate hell-born crew. 
 Waked by the phantom-mother pale, 
 Even to Parnassus scent thy trail. 
 
 Illustrious Athens! How that name 
 Doth on my listening spirit fall 
 Like a celestial trumpet-call 
 
 Sounding no transient earthly fame. 
 
 For what, that men to learning owe 
 
 Or speed or skill or wealth can show, 
 [135] 
 
GREETING 
 
 Shall with such benison compare 
 
 As in thy accents, Pallas, flow'd 
 When their rich harmony bestow 'd 
 
 On way-worn Oedipus a share 
 
 Of hallow 'd soil to be his grave, 
 
 And freedom to Orestes gave. 
 
 Hark! 't is a gentler, holier tone 
 Than even-handed justice dares 
 To breathe where seated wisdom wears 
 
 Pure-human symbols flung alone: 
 
 ''This vote my hand shall cast for thee; 
 
 ''So the tied ballot still sets free. 
 
 "Nor shall the sable-shrouded band 
 
 "Pass unappeased; but, minded well, I 
 
 "Near my august tribunal dwell, •] 
 
 "True-vengeful warders of the land: ! 
 
 "From wrath and ravin to refrain j 
 
 "And conjure blessing out of bane." — I 
 
 i 
 
 Rejoice ! and on your inmost hearts } ! 
 
 Be the immortal story writ. jj 
 
 For whoso hath been call'd to sit (: 
 
 Where Pallas of her charm imparts, ;| 
 
 And under its wing'd shelter sleeps, *' 
 
 The Father of all mercies keeps. i 
 
 [136] 
 
Symposium Metricum 
 
'Ev yiVQTOv xXabi to iicpog cpopriaco, 
 &on£Q ^AQ\x6biog xai 'AQiatoyeiTCOv, 
 6t8 tov TijQavvov yixavixr\v 
 ioov6\xovg t' 'A'&r|vag eji;oiT]odTTiv. 
 
Symposium Metricum 
 
 10, the lot and number mark 
 J Me to be symposiarch. 
 Of this banquet I am lord; 
 Hear me and obey my word. 
 
 Hear me, ye whose eye-light glows 
 Under wreaths of bay and rose; 
 Lips that curl at sound of mine, 
 Moisten 'd by the god-sent vine. 
 
 Clearest, sweetest chants the muse 
 When the arm of Bacchus wooes, 
 With ambrosial fingers prest 
 To a yet diviner breast. 
 
 Then the trembling passions start 
 From the barriers of the heart; 
 Then the thought leaps to the tongue, 
 And the hope dies not unsung. 
 
 Genius then flings out a beam 
 From his bright, ecstatic dream; 
 He whom fates have burthen 'd low 
 Drops one fragment of his woe. 
 
 [139] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 So be this Euterpe's hour. 
 
 Own ye, friend to friend, her power; 
 
 Till I last take up the strain. 
 
 And we crown our cups again. 
 
 Stiller! stiller — palm to brow. 
 As I let the myrtle-bough 
 Cross from hand to hand along, 
 And from voice to voice the song. 
 
 1140] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 WITH the bough methought a spark 
 Thrill'd me, symposiarch, 
 Of the soul that flashes yet 
 In the measures thou hast set. 
 
 Well the god deserves of youth, 
 If he drives the blade of truth 
 Through the sordid chains that bind 
 Or the body or the mind. 
 
 Freedom be to me the breath 
 Of the life I owe to death. 
 Freedom, won with groan and cheer 
 In the tempest of the spear. 
 
 Freedom's pledge of equal aims, 
 Equal hopes, and equal names. 
 Freedom's deep and deathless tone, 
 Echoing round each despot's throne. 
 
 Freedom, mixt with every thought 
 Art or phantasy has wrought 
 Into shapes which gave to see 
 Signs of greater shapes to be. 
 
 [141] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 Freedom, marching in the van 
 Of the proud advance of man, 
 All that peace and wisdom yield 
 Mirror 'd in her burnish 'd shield. — 
 
 Claims a free hand thus the right. 
 Leafy symbol of delight, 
 Thee thy tuneful way to send 
 At the hilted weapon's end. 
 
 [142] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 IS there aught in glittering steel 
 Moves an awe-struck heart to feel 
 "What the heights, the depths attained 
 By the will of man unchain 'd? 
 
 His all-reaching ken profound 
 Air nor sea avails to bound; 
 Cave nor wilderness, to rest 
 Trackless of his cunning quest. 
 
 From the wave he lifts the pearl, 
 O'er whose hinged casket whirl 
 Whelming eddies, through the dim 
 Grottoes of the trident-king. 
 
 Wide on billowy paths and far 
 Flies for him the sail-wing 'd ear; 
 Points him many a nameless strand, 
 Sunset-realms of wonder-land. 
 
 Earth her buried treasure-room 
 Opes to him, and, from the gloom 
 Of its niches dank and cold, 
 Beams the tempting blush of gold. 
 
 [143] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 In her vaults of marble-vein 
 Delves his hand, to rear the fane — 
 Saffron gleams of Eos lave 
 Peristyle and architrave ! 
 
 Now to evil, now to good 
 Tends the soul, with fitful mood: 
 Here, to dust low-fluttering — there. 
 To fair ether soaring fair. 
 
 [144] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 HAPPY they, whose acts fulfil 
 Not some earthly mistress' will: 
 Who but Wisdom's bidding hear, 
 Her immortal anger fear. 
 
 Them no longer, passion-rack 'd, 
 Fickle-witted whims distract: 
 Wisdom's nomes harmonious all 
 From her silver plectrum fall. 
 
 Me the piny wreath lures not, 
 Over Isthmian courses sought; 
 Not the loud Olympian meed, 
 Earn'd by fiery-footed steed. 
 
 Not the wrestler's firm renown 
 Sways my fealty to a crown 
 Wrung from pleasure, pride, and pelf 
 In the struggle of myself. 
 
 Stand not I to argue it 
 Where the gaping many sit : 
 Not with smooth, obsequious plea 
 Wise to seem, but wise to be. 
 
 [145] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 What the vain mob vaunts to know, 
 Wisdom proves, with question slow. 
 While the glib-tongued rhetor prates, 
 Wisdom ponders, wisdom waits. 
 
 While their factions rub and fret, 
 While their empires rise and set. 
 Wisdom fares her patient way 
 With the torch that shines for aye. 
 
 [146] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 BEST beyond a holier sphere 
 Loves my charmed eye to peer 
 Of the flight from age to age: 
 Rose the minstrel ere the sage. 
 
 Rose with sounding harp of praise, 
 Strang to themes of ancient days, 
 Deeds heroic to rehearse, 
 Roll'd in torrent-mocking verse. 
 
 Rose with lute, and faltering line 
 Of a threnody divine, 
 When new anguish, welling fast, 
 Dimm'd his vision of the past. 
 
 Rose with staid, majestic mien 
 On the throng-beholden scene, 
 There to teach what issues bide 
 Blood-besprinkled ways of pride. 
 
 All that drips from calm or care 
 Poesy in chalice rare 
 Pours, and blends the world of light 
 With the mystic world of night. 
 
 [147] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 Many a tranquil chord has rung 
 Through the Dirge of Ilium; 
 Many a paean, strong to save, 
 Echoed from Cocytus' wave. 
 
 When Death consecrates his own, 
 Poesy, with votive stone, 
 Still her gentle tribute brings, 
 Still the muse of memory sings. 
 
 [148] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 COMES to me the myrtle? Now 
 Softly be enshrined the bough: 
 Now Love's hymn let me attune, 
 Whom Love's emblem brings the boon. 
 
 Sweet may ring your gleeful rhyme, 
 High the chant of freedom chime. 
 But the songs that pierce the graves 
 Are the songs of Eros' slaves. 
 
 In their words a crisping flame, 
 In their tones a winsome shame, 
 In their cadences a sigh 
 As of leaves whose fall is nigh. 
 
 Dire, invincible the works 
 Of the potent god who lurks 
 By rude fold, or gilded hall, 
 On his hapless prey to fall; 
 
 Sudden-vengeful ire who wreaks 
 From his lair of virgin cheeks. 
 Haunts the curve of comely limbs, 
 'Neath the misty eyelid swims. 
 
 [149] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 Swift, his supplicants to spurn 
 Whilst at altar's marge they bum 
 Incense of regretful years, 
 With a litany of tears. 
 
 Eros' branch has done the round: 
 See! — to Eros' statue bound, 
 Droops its green — the while we hark 
 To thy lay, symposiarch. 
 
 [150 
 
SYMPOSIUM MBTRICUM 
 
 HELLAS, Hellas, lo ! I bring 
 Thee the lay I rise to sing. 
 Gods and heroes, lend my voice 
 Numbers worthy of the choice. 
 
 Hellas, first in name of thee 
 Brave men swore they would be free. 
 First, then, in thy cup be pour'd 
 Crimson glories of the sword. 
 
 In thy praise resounded high 
 Music, born of sea and sky : 
 Wreathe I, so, this rim along 
 Flowers of never-dying song. 
 
 Of the nations, Hellas, thine 
 Beauty chose, to hold her shrine: 
 Here in ruby waves I trace 
 Memories of the fairest face. 
 
 Pledge me now the triple-crown 'd. 
 If of love ye know the sound; 
 If the trumpet, if the lyre 
 Sets the heart of youth on fire. 
 
 [151] 
 
SYMPOSIUM METRICUM 
 
 Drink to Hellas, as she stands; 
 Hellas, Hellas, land of lands: 
 Drink to art and eloquence, 
 All that speaks to mind or sense ; 
 
 Drink to words of law and right, 
 Drink to liberty and light. 
 Drink to beauty, drink to fame. 
 Drink to an immortal name. 
 
 The End 
 
 [152] 
 
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