Chapter 604

Thus their prayer was raved and ceased. Then had Vengeance of her feast Scent in their quick pang to smite Which they knew not, but huge pain Urged them for some victim slain Swift, and blotted from the sight. Each at each, a crouching beast, Glared, and quivered for the word. Each at each, and all on that, Humped and grinning like a cat, Head-bound with its bridal-wreath. Then the bitter chamber heard Vengeance in a cauldron seethe. Hurried counsel rage and craft Yelped to hungry men, whose teeth Hard the grey lip-ringlet gnawed, Gleaming till their fury laughed. With the steel-hilt in the clutch, Eyes were shot on her that froze In their blood-thirst overawed; Burned to rend, yet feared to touch. She that was his nuptial rose, She was of his heart's blood clad: Oh! the last of him she had! - Could a little fist as big As the southern summer fig, Push a dagger's point to pierce Ribs like those? Who else! They glared Each at each. Suspicion fierce Many a black remembrance bared. Attila, my Attila! Death, who dares deny her guilt! Death, who says his blood she spilt! Traitor he, who stands between! Swift to hell, who harms the Queen! She, the wild contention's cause, Combed her hair with quiet paws. Make the bed for Attila!

XXVI

Night was on the host in arms. Night, as never night before, Hearkened to an army's roar Breaking up in snaky swarms: Torch and steel and snorting steed, Hunted by the cry of blood, Cursed with blindness, mad for day. Where the torches ran a flood, Tales of him and of the deed Showered like a torrent spray. Fear of silence made them strive Loud in warrior-hymns that grew Hoarse for slaughter yet unwreaked. Ghostly Night across the hive, With a crimson finger drew Letters on her breast and shrieked. Night was on them like the mould On the buried half alive. Night, their bloody Queen, her fold Wound on them and struck them through. Make the bed for Attila!

XXVII

Earth has got him whom God gave, Earth may sing, and earth shall smart! None of earth shall know his grave. They that dig with Death depart. Attila, my Attila!

XXVIII

Thus their prayer was raved and passed: Passed in peace their red sunset: Hewn and earthed those men of sweat Who had housed him in the vast, Where no mortal might declare, There lies he--his end was there! Attila, my Attila!

XXIX

Kingless was the army left: Of its head the race bereft. Every fury of the pit Tortured and dismembered it. Lo, upon a silent hour, When the pitch of frost subsides, Danube with a shout of power Loosens his imprisoned tides: Wide around the frighted plains Shake to hear his riven chains, Dreadfuller than heaven in wrath, As he makes himself a path: High leap the ice-cracks, towering pile Floes to bergs, and giant peers Wrestle on a drifted isle; Island on ice-island rears; Dissolution battles fast: Big the senseless Titans loom, Through a mist of common doom Striving which shall die the last: Till a gentle-breathing morn Frees the stream from bank to bank. So the Empire built of scorn Agonized, dissolved and sank. Of the Queen no more was told Than of leaf on Danube rolled. Make the bed for Attila!

ANEURIN'S HARP

I

Prince of Bards was old Aneurin; He the grand Gododin sang; All his numbers threw such fire in, Struck his harp so wild a twang; - Still the wakeful Briton borrows Wisdom from its ancient heat: Still it haunts our source of sorrows, Deep excess of liquor sweet!

II

Here the Briton, there the Saxon, Face to face, three fields apart, Thirst for light to lay their thwacks on Each the other with good heart. Dry the Saxon sits, 'mid dinful Noise of iron knits his steel: Fresh and roaring with a skinful, Britons round the hirlas reel.

III

Yellow flamed the meady sunset; Red runs up the flag of morn. Signal for the British onset Hiccups through the British horn. Down these hillmen pour like cattle Sniffing pasture: grim below, Showing eager teeth of battle, In his spear-heads lies the foe.

IV

- Monster of the sea! we drive him Back into his hungry brine. - You shall lodge him, feed him, wive him, Look on us; we stand in line. - Pale sea-monster! foul the waters Cast him; foul he leaves our land. - You shall yield us land and daughters: Stay the tongue, and try the hand.

V

Swift as torrent-streams our warriors, Tossing torrent lights, find way; Burst the ridges, crowd the barriers, Pierce them where the spear-heads play; Turn them as the clods in furrow, Top them like the leaping foam; Sorrow to the mother, sorrow, Sorrow to the wife at home!

VI

Stags, they butted; bulls, they bellowed; Hounds, we baited them; oh, brave! Every second man, unfellowed, Took the strokes of two, and gave. Bare as hop-stakes in November's Mists they met our battle-flood: Hoary-red as Winter's embers Lay their dead lines done in blood.

VII

Thou, my Bard, didst hang thy lyre in Oak-leaves, and with crimson brand Rhythmic fury spent, Aneurin; Songs the churls could understand: Thrumming on their Saxon sconces Straight, the invariable blow, Till they snorted true responses. Ever thus the Bard they know!

VIII

But ere nightfall, harper lusty! When the sun was like a ball Dropping on the battle dusty, What was yon discordant call? Cambria's old metheglin demon Breathed against our rushing tide; Clove us midst the threshing seamen:- Gashed, we saw our ranks divide!

IX

Britain then with valedictory Shriek veiled off her face and knelt. Full of liquor, full of victory, Chief on chief old vengeance dealt. Backward swung their hurly-burly; None but dead men kept the fight. They that drink their cup too early, Darkness they shall see ere night.

X

Loud we heard the yellow rover Laugh to sleep, while we raged thick, Thick as ants the ant-hill over, Asking who has thrust the stick. Lo, as frogs that Winter cumbers Meet the Spring with stiffen'd yawn, We from our hard night of slumbers Marched into the bloody dawn.

XI

Day on day we fought, though shattered: Pushed and met repulses sharp, Till our Raven's plumes were scattered: All, save old Aneurin's harp. Hear it wailing like a mother O'er the strings of children slain! He in one tongue, in another, Alien, I; one blood, yet twain.

XII

Old Aneurin! droop no longer. That squat ocean-scum, we own, Had fine stoutness, made us stronger, Brought us much-required backbone: Claimed of Power their dues, and granted Dues to Power in turn, when rose Mightier rovers; they that planted Sovereign here the Norman nose.

XIII

Glorious men, with heads of eagles, Chopping arms, and cupboard lips; Warriors, hunters, keen as beagles, Mounted aye on horse or ships. Active, being hungry creatures; Silent, having nought to say: High they raised the lord of features, Saxon-worshipped to this day.

XIV

Hear its deeds, the great recital! Stout as bergs of Arctic ice Once it led, and lived; a title Now it is, and names its price. This our Saxon brothers cherish: This, when by the worth of wits Lands are reared aloft, or perish, Sole illumes their lucre-pits.

XV

Know we not our wrongs, unwritten Though they be, Aneurin? Sword, Song, and subtle mind, the Briton Brings to market, all ignored. 'Gainst the Saxon's bone impinging, Still is our Gododin played; Shamed we see him humbly cringing In a shadowy nose's shade.

XVI

Bitter is the weight that crushes Low, my Bard, thy race of fire. Here no fair young future blushes Bridal to a man's desire. Neither chief, nor aim, nor splendour Dressing distance, we perceive. Neither honour, nor the tender Bloom of promise, morn or eve.

XVII

Joined we are; a tide of races Rolled to meet a common fate; England clasps in her embraces Many: what is England's state? England her distended middle Thumps with pride as Mammon's wife; Says that thus she reads thy riddle, Heaven! 'tis heaven to plump her life.

XVIII

O my Bard! a yellow liquor, Like to that we drank of old - Gold is her metheglin beaker, She destruction drinks in gold. Warn her, Bard, that Power is pressing Hotly for his dues this hour; Tell her that no drunken blessing Stops the onward march of Power.

XIX

Has she ears to take forewarnings She will cleanse her of her stains, Feed and speed for braver mornings Valorously the growth of brains. Power, the hard man knit for action, Reads each nation on the brow. Cripple, fool, and petrifaction Fall to him--are falling now!

MEN AND MAN

I

Men the Angels eyed; And here they were wild waves, And there as marsh descried; Men the Angels eyed, And liked the picture best Where they were greenly dressed In brotherhood of graves.

II

Man the Angels marked: He led a host through murk, On fearful seas embarked; Man the Angels marked; To think without a nay, That he was good as they, And help him at his work.

III

Man and Angels, ye A sluggish fen shall drain, Shall quell a warring sea. Man and Angels, ye, Whom stain of strife befouls, A light to kindle souls Bear radiant in the stain.

THE LAST CONTENTION

I

Young captain of a crazy bark! O tameless heart in battered frame! Thy sailing orders have a mark, And hers is not the name.

II

For action all thine iron clanks In cravings for a splendid prize; Again to race or bump thy planks With any flag that flies.

III

Consult them; they are eloquent For senses not inebriate. They trust thee on the star intent, That leads to land their freight.

IV

And they have known thee high peruse The heavens, and deep the earth, till thou Didst into the flushed circle cruise Where reason quits the brow.

V

Thou animatest ancient tales, To prove our world of linear seed: Thy very virtue now assails, A tempter to mislead.

VI

But thou hast answer I am I; My passion hallows, bids command: And she is gracious, she is nigh: One motion of the hand!

VII

It will suffice; a whirly tune These winds will pipe, and thou perform The nodded part of pantaloon In thy created storm.

VIII

Admires thee Nature with much pride; She clasps thee for a gift of morn, Till thou art set against the tide, And then beware her scorn.

IX

Sad issue, should that strife befall Between thy mortal ship and thee! It writes the melancholy scrawl Of wreckage over sea.

X

This lady of the luting tongue, The flash in darkness, billow's grace, For thee the worship; for the young In muscle the embrace.

XI

Soar on thy manhood clear from those Whose toothless Winter claws at May, And take her as the vein of rose Athwart an evening grey.

PERIANDER

I

How died Melissa none dares shape in words. A woman who is wife despotic lords Count faggot at the question, Shall she live! Her son, because his brows were black of her, Runs barking for his bread, a fugitive, And Corinth frowns on them that feed the cur.

II

There is no Corinth save the whip and curb Of Corinth, high Periander; the superb In magnanimity, in rule severe. Up on his marble fortress-tower he sits, The city under him: a white yoked steer, That bears his heart for pulse, his head for wits.

III

Bloom of the generous fires of his fair Spring Still coloured him when men forbore to sting; Admiring meekly where the ordered seeds Of his good sovereignty showed gardens trim; And owning that the hoe he struck at weeds Was author of the flowers raised face to him.

IV

His Corinth, to each mood subservient In homage, made he as an instrument To yield him music with scarce touch of stops. He breathed, it piped; he moved, it rose to fly: At whiles a bloodhorse racing till it drops; At whiles a crouching dog, on him all eye.

V

His wisdom men acknowledged; only one, The creature, issue of him, Lycophron, That rebel with his mother in his brows, Contested: such an infamous would foul Pirene! Little heed where he might house The prince gave, hearing: so the fox, the owl!

VI

To prove the Gods benignant to his rule, The years, which fasten rigid whom they cool, Reviewing, saw him hold the seat of power. A grey one asked: Who next? nor answer had: One greyer pointed on the pallid hour To come: a river dried of waters glad.

VII

For which of his male issue promised grip To stride yon people, with the curb and whip? This Lycophron! he sole, the father like, Fired prospect of a line in one strong tide, By right of mastery; stern will to strike; Pride to support the stroke: yea, Godlike pride!

VIII

Himself the prince beheld a failing fount. His line stretched back unto its holy mount: The thirsty onward waved for him no sign. Then stood before his vision that hard son. The seizure of a passion for his line Impelled him to the path of Lycophron.

IX

The youth was tossing pebbles in the sea; A figure shunned along the busy quay, Perforce of the harsh edict for who dared Address him outcast. Naming it, he crossed His father's look with look that proved them paired For stiffness, and another pebble tossed.

X

An exile to the Island ere nightfall He passed from sight, from the hushed mouths of all. It had resemblance to a death: and on, Against a coast where sapphire shattered white, The seasons rolled like troops of billows blown To spraymist. The prince gazed on capping night.

XI

Deaf Age spake in his ear with shouts: Thy son! Deep from his heart Life raved of work not done. He heard historic echoes moan his name, As of the prince in whom the race had pause; Till Tyranny paternity became, And him he hated loved he for the cause.

XII

Not Lycophron the exile now appeared, But young Periander, from the shadow cleared, That haunted his rebellious brows. The prince Grew bright for him; saw youth, if seeming loth, Return: and of pure pardon to convince, Despatched the messenger most dear with both.

XIII

His daughter, from the exile's Island home, Wrote, as a flight of halcyons o'er the foam, Sweet words: her brother to his father bowed; Accepted his peace-offering, and rejoiced. To bring him back a prince the father vowed, Commanded man the oars, the white sails hoist.

XIV

He waved the fleet to strain its westward way On to the sea-hued hills that crown the bay: Soil of those hospitable islanders Whom now his heart, for honour to his blood, Thanked. They should learn what boons a prince confers When happiness enjoins him gratitude!

XV

In watch upon the offing, worn with haste To see his youth revived, and, close embraced, Pardon who had subdued him, who had gained Surely the stoutest battle between two Since Titan pierced by young Apollo stained Earth's breast, the prince looked forth, himself looked through.

XVI

Errors aforetime unperceived were bared, To be by his young masterful repaired: Renewed his great ideas gone to smoke; His policy confirmed amid the surge Of States and people fretting at his yoke. And lo, the fleet brown-flocked on the sea-verge!

XVII

Oars pulled: they streamed in harbour; without cheer For welcome shadowed round the heaving bier. They, whose approach in such rare pomp and stress Of numbers the free islanders dismayed At Tyranny come masking to oppress, Found Lycophron this breathless, this lone-laid.

XVIII

Who smote the man thrown open to young joy? The image of the mother of his boy Came forth from his unwary breast in wreaths, With eyes. And shall a woman, that extinct, Smite out of dust the Powerful who breathes? Her loved the son; her served; they lay close-linked!

XIX

Dead was he, and demanding earth. Demand Sharper for vengeance of an instant hand, The Tyrant in the father heard him cry, And raged a plague; to prove on free Hellenes How prompt the Tyrant for the Persian dye; How black his Gods behind their marble screens.

SOLON

I

The Tyrant passed, and friendlier was his eye On the great man of Athens, whom for foe He knew, than on the sycophantic fry That broke as waters round a galley's flow, Bubbles at prow and foam along the wake. Solidity the Thunderer could not shake, Beneath an adverse wind still stripping bare, His kinsman, of the light-in-cavern look, From thought drew, and a countenance could wear Not less at peace than fields in Attic air Shorn, and shown fruitful by the reaper's hook.

II

Most enviable so; yet much insane To deem of minds of men they grow! these sheep, By fits wild horses, need the crook and rein; Hot bulls by fits, pure wisdom hold they cheap, My Lawgiver, when fiery is the mood. For ones and twos and threes thy words are good; For thine own government are pillars: mine Stand acts to fit the herd; which has quick thirst, Rejecting elegiacs, though they shine On polished brass, and, worthy of the Nine, In showering columns from their fountain burst.

III

Thus museful rode the Tyrant, princely plumed, To his high seat upon the sacred rock: And Solon, blank beside his rule, resumed The meditation which that passing mock Had buffeted awhile to sallowness. He little loved the man, his office less, Yet owned him for a flower of his kind. Therefore the heavier curse on Athens he! The people grew not in themselves, but, blind, Accepted sight from him, to him resigned Their hopes of stature, rootless as at sea.

IV

As under sea lay Solon's work, or seemed By turbid shore-waves beaten day by day; Defaced, half formless, like an image dreamed, Or child that fashioned in another clay Appears, by strangers' hands to home returned. But shall the Present tyrannize us? earned It was in some way, justly says the sage. One sees not how, while husbanding regrets; While tossing scorn abroad from righteous rage, High vision is obscured; for this is age When robbed--more infant than the babe it frets!

V

Yet see Athenians treading the black path Laid by a prince's shadow! well content To wait his pleasure, shivering at his wrath: They bow to their accepted Orient With offer of the all that renders bright: Forgetful of the growth of men to light, As creatures reared on Persian milk they bow. Unripe! unripe! The times are overcast. But still may they who sowed behind the plough True seed fix in the mind an unborn NOW To make the plagues afflicting us things past.

BELLEROPHON

I

Maimed, beggared, grey; seeking an alms; with nod Of palsy doing task of thanks for bread; Upon the stature of a God, He whom the Gods have struck bends low his head.

II

Weak words he has, that slip the nerveless tongue Deformed, like his great frame: a broken arc: Once radiant as the javelin flung Right at the centre breastplate of his mark.

III

Oft pausing on his white-eyed inward look, Some undermountain narrative he tells, As gapped by Lykian heat the brook Cut from the source that in the upland swells.

IV

The cottagers who dole him fruit and crust With patient inattention hear him prate: And comes the snow, and comes the dust, Comes the old wanderer, more bent of late.

V

A crazy beggar grateful for a meal Has ever of himself a world to say. For them he is an ancient wheel Spinning a knotted thread the livelong day.

VI

He cannot, nor do they, the tale connect; For never singer in the land had been Who him for theme did not reject: Spurned of the hoof that sprang the Hippocrene.

VII

Albeit a theme of flame to bring them straight The snorting white-winged brother of the wave, They hear him as a thing by fate Cursed in unholy babble to his grave.

VIII

As men that spied the wings, that heard the snort, Their sires have told; and of a martial prince Bestriding him; and old report Speaks of a monster slain by one long since.

IX

There is that story of the golden bit By Goddess given to tame the lightning steed: A mortal who could mount, and sit Flying, and up Olympus midway speed.

X

He rose like the loosed fountain's utmost leap; He played the star at span of heaven right o'er Men's heads: they saw the snowy steep, Saw the winged shoulders: him they saw not more.

XI

He fell: and says the shattered man, I fell: And sweeps an arm the height an eagle wins; And in his breast a mouthless well Heaves the worn patches of his coat of skins.

XII

Lo, this is he in whom the surgent springs Of recollections richer than our skies To feed the flow of tuneful strings, Show but a pool of scum for shooting flies.

PHAETHON--ATTEMPTED IN THE GALLIAMBIC MEASURE