Chapter 6

_THE graver by Apollo’s shrine_, _Before the Gods had fled_, _would stand_, _A shell or onyx in his hand_, _To copy there the face divine_, _Till earnest touches_, _line by line_, _Had wrought the wonder of the land_ _Within a beryl’s golden band_, _Or on some fiery opal fine_. _Ah_! _would that as some ancient ring_ _To us_, _on shell or stone_, _doth bring_, _Art’s marvels perished long ago_, _So I_, _within the sonnet’s space_, _The large Hellenic lines might trace_, _The statue in the cameo_!

HELEN ON THE WALLS.

(_Iliad_, iii. 146.)

FAIR Helen to the Scæan portals came, Where sat the elders, peers of Priamus, Thymoetas, Hiketaon, Panthöus, And many another of a noble name, Famed warriors, now in council more of fame. Always above the gates, in converse thus They chattered like cicalas garrulous; Who marking Helen, swore “it is no shame That armed Achæan knights, and Ilian men For such a woman’s sake should suffer long. Fair as a deathless goddess seemeth she. Nay, but aboard the red-prowed ships again Home let her pass in peace, not working wrong To us, and children’s children yet to be.”

THE ISLES OF THE BLESSED.

_Pindar_, _Fr._, 106, 107 (95): B. 4, 129–130, 109 (97): B. 4, 132.

NOW the light of the sun, in the night of the Earth, on the souls of the True Shines, and their city is girt with the meadow where reigneth the rose; And deep is the shade of the woods, and the wind that flits o’er them and through Sings of the sea, and is sweet from the isles where the frankincense blows: Green is their garden and orchard, with rare fruits golden it glows, And the souls of the Blessed are glad in the pleasures on Earth that they knew, And in chariots these have delight, and in dice and in minstrelsy those, And the savour of sacrifice clings to the altars and rises anew.

But the Souls that Persephone cleanses from ancient pollution and stain, These at the end of the age, be they prince, be they singer, or seer; These to the world shall be born as of old, shall be sages again; These of their hands shall be hardy, shall live, and shall die, and shall hear Thanks of the people, and songs of the minstrels that praise them amain, And their glory shall dwell in the land where they dwelt, while year calls unto year!

DEATH.

(_Æsch._, _Fr._, 156.)

OF all Gods Death alone Disdaineth sacrifice: No man hath found or shown The gift that Death would prize. In vain are songs or sighs, Pæan, or praise, or moan, Alone beneath the skies Hath Death no altar-stone!

There is no head so dear That men would grudge to Death; Let Death but ask, we give All gifts that we may live; But though Death dwells so near, We know not what he saith.

NYSA.

(_Soph._, _Fr._, 235; _Æsch._, _Fr._, 56.)

ON these Nysæan shores divine The clusters ripen in a day. At dawn the blossom shreds away; The berried grapes are green and fine And full by noon; in day’s decline They’re purple with a bloom of grey, And e’er the twilight plucked are they, And crushed, by nightfall, into wine.

But through the night with torch in hand Down the dusk hills the Mænads fare; The bull-voiced mummers roar and blare, The muffled timbrels swell and sound, And drown the clamour of the band Like thunder moaning underground.

COLONUS.

(_Œd. Col._, 667–705.)

I.

HERE be the fairest homes the land can show, The silvery-cliffed Colonus; always here The nightingale doth haunt and singeth clear, For well the deep green gardens doth she know. Groves of the God, where winds may never blow, Nor men may tread, nor noontide sun may peer Among the myriad-berried ivy dear, Where Dionysus wanders to and fro.

For here he loves to dwell, and here resort These Nymphs that are his nurses and his court, And golden eyed beneath the dewy boughs The crocus burns, and the narcissus fair Clusters his blooms to crown thy clustered hair, Demeter, and to wreathe the Maiden’s brows!

II.

YEA, here the dew of Heaven upon the grain Fails never, nor the ceaseless water-spring, Near neighbour of Cephisus wandering, That day by day revisiteth the plain. Nor do the Goddesses the grove disdain, But chiefly here the Muses quire and sing, And here they love to weave their dancing ring, With Aphrodite of the golden rein.

And here there springs a plant that knoweth not The Asian mead, nor that great Dorian isle, Unsown, untilled, within our garden plot It dwells, the grey-leaved olive; ne’er shall guile Nor force of foemen root it from the spot: Zeus and Athene guarding it the while!

THE PASSING OF ŒDIPOUS.

(_Œd. Col._, 1655–1666.)

HOW Œdipous departed, who may tell Save Theseus only? for there neither came The burning bolt of thunder, and the flame To blast him into nothing, nor the swell Of sea-tide spurred by tempest on him fell. But some diviner herald none may name Called him, or inmost Earth’s abyss became The painless place where such a soul might dwell.

Howe’er it chanced, untouched of malady, Unharmed by fear, unfollowed by lament, With comfort on the twilight way he went, Passing, if ever man did, wondrously; From this world’s death to life divinely rent, Unschooled in Time’s last lesson, how we die.

THE TAMING OF TYRO.

(_Soph._, _Fr._, 587.)

(Sidero, the stepmother of Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, cruelly entreated her in all things, and chiefly in this, that she let sheer her beautiful hair.)

AT fierce Sidero’s word the thralls drew near, And shore the locks of Tyro,—like ripe corn They fell in golden harvest,—but forlorn The maiden shuddered in her pain and fear, Like some wild mare that cruel grooms in scorn Hunt in the meadows, and her mane they sheer, And drive her where, within the waters clear, She spies her shadow, and her shame doth mourn.

Ah! hard were he and pitiless of heart Who marking that wild thing made weak and tame, Broken, and grieving for her glory gone, Could mock her grief; but scornfully apart Sidero stood, and watched a wind that came And tossed the curls like fire that flew and shone!

TO ARTEMIS.

(_Hippol._, _Eurip._, 73–87.)

FOR thee soft crowns in thine untrampled mead I wove, my lady, and to thee I bear; Thither no shepherd drives his flocks to feed, Nor scythe of steel has ever laboured there; Nay, through the spring among the blossoms fair The brown bee comes and goes, and with good heed Thy maiden, Reverence, sweet streams doth lead About the grassy close that is her care!

Souls only that are gracious and serene By gift of God, in human lore unread, May pluck these holy blooms and grasses green That now I wreathe for thine immortal head, I that may walk with thee, thyself unseen, And by thy whispered voice am comforted.

CRITICISM OF LIFE.

(_Hippol._, _Eurip._, 252–266.)

LONG life hath taught me many things, and shown That lukewarm loves for men who die are best, Weak wine of liking let them mix alone, Not Love, that stings the soul within the breast; Happy, who wears his love-bonds lightliest, Now cherished, now away at random thrown! Grievous it is for other’s grief to moan, Hard that my soul for thine should lose her rest!

Wise ruling this of life: but yet again Perchance too rigid diet is not well; He lives not best who dreads the coming pain And shunneth each delight desirable: _Flee thou extremes_, this word alone is plain, Of all that God hath given to Man to spell!

AMARYLLIS.

(Theocritus, Idyll, iii.)

FAIR Amaryllis, wilt thou never peep From forth the cave, and call me, and be mine? Lo, apples ten I bear thee from the steep, These didst thou long for, and all these are thine. Ah, would I were a honey-bee to sweep Through ivy, and the bracken, and woodbine; To watch thee waken, Love, and watch thee sleep, Within thy grot below the shadowy pine. Now know I Love, a cruel god is he, The wild beast bare him in the wild wood drear; And truly to the bone he burneth me. But, black-browed Amaryllis, ne’er a tear, Nor sigh, nor blush, nor aught have I from thee; Nay, nor a kiss, a little gift and dear.

THE CANNIBAL ZEUS.

A.D. 160.

Καὶ ἔθυσε τὸ βρέφος, καὶ ἔσπεισεν ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ τὸ αἶμα—έπὶ τούτου βωμοῦ τῷ Δὺ θύoυσιν ἐv ἀπoῤῥήτῳ.—_Paus._ viii. 38.

NONE elder city doth the Sun behold Than ancient Lycosura; ’twas begun Ere Zeus the meat of mortals learned to shun, And here hath he a grove whose haunted fold The driven deer seek and huntsmen dread: ’tis told That whoso fares within that forest dun Thenceforth shall cast no shadow in the Sun, Ay, and within the year his life is cold!

Hard by dwelt he {232} who, while the Gods deigned eat At good men’s tables, gave them dreadful meat, A child he slew:—his mountain altar green Here still hath Zeus, with rites untold of me, Piteous, but as they are let these things be, And as from the beginning they have been!

INVOCATION OF ISIS.

(_Apuleius_, _Metamorph. XI._)

THOU that art sandalled on immortal feet With leaves of palm, the prize of Victory; Thou that art crowned with snakes and blossoms sweet, Queen of the silver dews and shadowy sky, I pray thee by all names men name thee by! Demeter, come, and leave the yellow wheat! Or Aphrodite, let thy lovers sigh! Or Dian, from thine Asian temple fleet!

Or, yet more dread, divine Persephone From worlds of wailing spectres, ah, draw near; Approach, Selene, from thy subject sea; Come, Artemis, and this night spare the deer: By all thy names and rites I summon thee; By all thy rites and names, Our Lady, hear!

THE COMING OF ISIS.

SO Lucius prayed, and sudden, from afar, Floated the locks of Isis, shone the bright Crown that is tressed with berry, snake, and star; She came in deep blue raiment of the night, Above her robes that now were snowy white, Now golden as the moons of harvest are, Now red, now flecked with many a cloudy bar, Now stained with all the lustre of the light.

Then he who saw her knew her, and he knew The awful symbols borne in either hand; The golden urn that laves Demeter’s dew, The handles wreathed with asps, the mystic wand; The shaken seistron’s music, tinkling through The temples of that old Osirian land.

THE SPINET.

_MY heart’s an old Spinet with strings_ _To laughter chiefly tuned_, _but some_ _That Fate has practised hard on_, _dumb_, _They answer not whoever sings_. _The ghosts of half-forgotten things_ _Will touch the keys with fingers numb_, _The little mocking spirits come_ _And thrill it with their fairy wings_.

_A jingling harmony it makes_ _My heart_, _my lyre_, _my old Spinet_, _And now a memory it wakes_, _And now the music means_ “_forget_,” _And little heed the player takes_ _Howe’er the thoughtful critic fret_.

NOTES.

Page 127. _The Fortunate Islands_. This piece is a rhymed loose version of a passage in the _Vera Historia_ of Lucian. The humorist was unable to resist the temptation to introduce passages of mockery, which are here omitted. Part of his description of the Isles of the Blest has a close and singular resemblance to the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. The clear River of Life and the prodigality of gold and of precious stones may especially be noticed.

Page 133. _Whoso doth taste the Dead Men’s bread_, _&c._ This belief that the living may visit, on occasion, the dwellings of the dead, but can never return to earth if they taste the food of the departed, is expressed in myths of worldwide distribution. Because she ate the pomegranate seed, Persephone became subject to the spell of Hades. In Apuleius, Psyche, when she visits the place of souls, is advised to abstain from food. Kohl found the myth among the Ojibbeways, Mr. Codrington among the Solomon Islanders; it occurs in Samoa, in the Finnish Kalewala (where Wainamoinen, in Pohjola, refrains from touching meat or drink), and the belief has left its mark on the mediæval ballad of Thomas of Ercildoune. When he is in Fairy Land, the Fairy Queen supplies him with the bread and wine of earth, and will not suffer him to touch the fruits which grow “in this countrie.” See also “Wandering Willie” in _Redgauntlet_.

Page 152. _The latest minstrel_. “The sound of all others dearest to his ear, the gentle ripple of Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.”—Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_, vii., 394.

Page 161. _Ronsard’s Grave_. This version ventures to condense the original which, like most of the works of the Pleiad, is unnecessarily long.

Page 162. _The snow_, _and wind_, _and hail_. Ronsard’s rendering of the famous passage in Odyssey, vi., about the dwellings of the Olympians. The vision of a Paradise of learned lovers and poets constantly recurs in the poetry of Joachim du Bellay, and of Ronsard.

Page 166. _Romance_. Suggested by a passage in _La Faustin_, by M. E. de Goncourt, a curious moment of poetry in a repulsive piece of _naturalisme_.

Page 171. _M. Boulmier_, author of _Les Villanelles_, died shortly after this _villanelle_ was written; he had not published a larger collection on which he had been at work.

Page 177. _Edmund Gorliot_. The bibliophile will not easily procure Gorliot’s book, which is not in the catalogues. Throughout _The Last Maying_ there is reference to the _Pervigilium Veneris_.

Page 207. _Bird-Gods_. Apparently Aristophanes preserved, in a burlesque form, the remnants of a genuine myth. Almost all savage religions have their bird-gods, and it is probable that Aristophanes did not invent, but only used a surviving myth of which there are scarcely any other traces in Greek literature.

Page 236. _Spinet_. The accent is on the last foot, even when the word is written _spinnet_. Compare the remarkable Liberty which Pamela took with the 137th Psalm.

_My Joys and Hopes all overthrown_, _My Heartstrings almost broke_, _Unfit my Mind for Melody_, _Much more to bear a Joke_. _But yet_, _if from my Innocence_ _I_, _even in Thought_, _should slide_, _Then_, _let my fingers quite forget_ _The sweet Spinnet to guide_!

_Pamela_, _or Virtue Rewarded_, vol. i., p. 184., 1785.

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FOOTNOTES.

{35} Cf. “Suggestions for Academic Reorganization.”

{46} The last three stanzas are by an eminent Anthropologist.

{48} Thomas of Ercildoune.

{66} A knavish publisher.

{88} Vous y verrez, belle Julie, Que ce chapeau tout maltraité Fut, dans un instant de folie, Par les Grâces même inventé.

‘À Julie.’ _Essais en Prose et en Vers_, par Joseph Lisle; Paris. An. V. de la République.

{108} “I have broken many a pane of glass marked Cruel Parthenissa,” says the aunt of Sophia Western in _Tom Jones_.

{194} N.B. There is only one veracious statement in this ballade, which must not be accepted as autobiographical.

{196} These lines do _not_ apply to Miss Annie P. (or Daisy) Miller, and her delightful sisters, _Gades adituræ mecum_, in the pocket edition of Mr. James’s novels, if ever I go to Gades.

{207} Tonatiu, the Thunder Bird; well known to the Dacotahs and Zulus.

{208a} The Hawk, in the myth of the Galinameros of Central California, lit up the Sun.

{208b} Pundjel, the Eagle Hawk, is the demiurge and “culture-hero” of several Australian tribes.

{208c} The Creation of Man is thus described by the Australians.

{209a} In Andaman, Thlinkeet, Melanesian, and other myths, a Bird is the Prometheus Purphoros; in Normandy this part is played by the Wren.

{209b} Yehl: the Raven God of the Thlinkeets.

{210a} Indra stole Soma as a Hawk and as a Quail. For Odin’s feat as a Bird, see _Bragi’s Telling_ in the Younger Edda.

{210b} Pundjel, the Eagle Hawk, gave Australians their marriage laws.

{210c} _Lubra_, a woman; kobong, “totem;” or, to please Mr. Max Müller, “otem.”

{210d} The Crow was the Hawk’s rival.

{232} Lycaon, the first werewolf.