Chapter 7
How he watched me near the zenith? Three years back That dream pounced on me and began to soar; Having been sick, my heart had found new lies; The only thoughts I then had ears for were Healthy, virtuous, sweet; Jaded town-wastrel, A country setting was the sole could take me Three years back. Damon might have guessed From such a dizzy height What fall was coming.
Cydilla:
Ah my boy, my boy!
Damon:
Sit down, be patient, let us hear and aid;-- Has aught befallen Amyntas?
Delphis:
Would he were dead! Would that I had been brute enough to slay him!-- Great Zeus, Hipparchus had so turned his head, His every smile and word As we sat by our fire, stung my fool's heart.-- How we laughed to see him curtsey, Fidget strings about his waist,-- Giggle, his beard caught in the chlamys' hem Drawing it tight about his neck, 'just like Our Baucis.' Could not sleep For thinking of the life they lead in towns; He said so: when, at last, He sighed from dreamland, thoughts I had been day-long brooding Broke into vision.
A child, a girl, Beautiful, nay more than others beautiful, Not meant for marriage, not for one man meant, You know what she will be; At six years old or seven her life is round her; A company, all ages, old men, young men, Whose vices she must prey on. And the bent crone she will be is there too, Patting her head and chuckling prophecies.-- O cherry lips, O wild bird eyes, O gay invulnerable setter-at-nought Of will, of virtue-- Thou art as constant a cause as is the sea, As is the sun, as are the winds, as night, Of opportunities not only but events;-- The unalterable past Is full of thy contrivance, Aphrodite, Goddess of ruin!
No girl; nay, nay, Amyntas is young, Is gay, Has beauty and health--and yet In his sleep I have seen him smile And known that his dream was vile; Those eyes which brimmed over with glee Till my life flowed as fresh as the sea-- Those eyes, gloved each in a warm live lid, May be glad that their visions are hid.
I taught myself to rhyme; the trick will cling. Ah, Damon, day-lit vision is more dread Than those which suddenly replace the dark! When the dawn filtered through our tent of boughs I saw him closely wrapped in his grey cloak, His head upon a pile of caked thin leaves Whose life had dried up full two years ago. Their flakes shook in the breath from those moist lips; The vow his kiss would seal must prove, I knew As friable as that pale ashen fritter; It had more body than reason dare expect From that so beautiful creature's best intent. He waking found me no more there; and wanders Through Ætna's woods to-day Calling at times, or questioning charcoal burners, Till he shall strike a road shall lead him home; Yet all his life must be spent as he spends This day in whistling, wondering, singing, chatting, In the great wood, vacant and amiable.
Damon:
Can it be possible that thou desertest Thy love, thy ward, the work of three long years, Because chance, on an April holiday Has filled this boy's talk with another man, And wonder at another way of life? Worse than a woman's is such jealousy; The lad must live!
Delphis:
Live, live! to be sure, he must live! I have lived, am a fool for my pains! And yet, and yet, This heart has ached to play the god for him:-- Mine eyes for his had sifted visible things; Speech had been filtered ere it reached his ear; Not in the world should he have lived, but breathed Humanity's distilled quintessences; The indiscriminate multitude sorted should yield him Acquaintance and friend discerned, chosen by me:-- By me, who failed, wrecked my youth's prime, and dragged More wonderful than his gifts in the mire!
Damon:
Yet if experience could not teach and save Others from ignorance, why, towns would be Ruins, and civil men like outlaws thieve, Stab, riot, ere two generations passed.
Delphis:
Where is the Athens that Pericles loved? Where are the youths that were Socrates' friends? There was a town where all learnt What the wisest had taught! Why had crude Sparta such treasonous force? Could Philip of Macedon Breed a true Greek of his son? What honour to conquer a world Where Alcibiades failed, Lead half-drilled highland hordes Whose lust would inherit the wise? There is nothing art's industry shaped But their idleness praising it mocked. Thus Fate re-assumed her command And laughed at experienced law. What ails man to love with such pains? Why toil to create in the mind Of those who shall close in his grave The best that he is and has hoped? The longer permission he has, The nobler the structure so raised, The greater its downfall. Fools, fools, Where is a town such as Pericles ruled? Where youths to replace those whom Socrates loved?
Wise Damon, thou art silent;--Mother, thou Hast only arms to cling about thy son.-- Who can descry the purpose of a god With eyes wide-open? shut them, every fool Can conjure up a world arriving somewhere, Resulting in what he may call perfection. Evil must soon or late succeed to good. There well may once have been a golden age: Why should we treat it as a poet's tale? Yet, in those hills that hung o'er Arcady, Some roving inebriate Daimon Begat him fair children On nymphs of the vineyard, On nymphs of the rock:-- And in the heart of the forest Lay bound in white arms, In action creative a father Without a thought for his child:-- A purposeless god, The forbear of men To corrupt, ape, inherit and spoil That fine race beforehand with doom!
No, Damon, what's an answer worth to one Whose mind has been flung open? Only last night, The gates of my spirit gave entrance Unto the great light; And I saw how virtue seduceth, Not ended today or tomorrow Like the passion for love, Like the passion for life-- But perennial pain And age-long effort. Dead deeds are the teeth that shine In the mouth that repeateth praise, That spurs men to do high things Since their fathers did higher before-- To give more than they hope to receive, To slave and to die in a secular cause! The mouth that smiles over-praise Eats out the heart of each fool To feed the great dream of a race.
Yet wearied peoples each in turn awake From virtue, as a man from his brief love, And, roughly shaken, face the useless truth; No answer to brute fact has e'er been found. Slaves of your slaves, caged in your furnished rooms, Ushered to meals when reft of appetite-- Though hungry, bound to wait a stated hour-- Your dearest contemplation broken off By the appointed summons to your bath; Racked with more thought for those whom you may flog Than for those dear; obsessed by your possessions With a dull round of stale anxieties;-- Soon maintenance grows the extreme reach of hope For those held in respect, as in a vice, By citizens of whom they are the pick. Of men the least bond is the roving seaman Who hires himself to merchantman or pirate For single voyages, stays where he may please, Lives his purse empty in a dozen ports, And ne'er obeys the ghost of what once was! His laugh chimes readily; his kiss, no symbol Of aught to come, but cordial, eager, hot, Leaves his tomorrow free. With him for comrade Each day shall be enough, and what is good Enjoyed, and what is evil borne or cursed. I go, because I will not have a home, Or here prefer to there, or near to far. I go, because I will not have a friend Lay claim upon my leisure this day week. I will be melted by each smile that takes me; What though a hundred lips should meet with mine! A vagabond I shall be as the moon is. The sun, the waves, the winds, all birds, all beasts, Are ever on the move, and take what comes; They are not parasites like plants and men Rooted in that which fed them yesterday. Not even Memory shall follow Delphis, For I will yield to all impulse save hers, Therein alone subject to prescient rigour; Lest she should lure me back among the dying-- Pilfer the present for the beggar past. Free minds must bargain with each greedy moment And seize the most that lies to hand at once. Ye are too old to understand my words; I yet have youth enough, and can escape From that which sucks each individual man Into the common dream.
Cydilla:
Stay, Delphis, hear what Damon has to say! He is mad!
Damon:
Mad--yes--mad as cruelty! * * * * * Poor, poor Cydilla! was it then to this That all my tale was prologue? Think of Amyntas, think of that poor boy, Bereaved as we are both bereaved! Come, come, Find him, and say that Love himself has sent us To offer our poor service in his stead.
Cydilla:
Good Damon, help me find my wool; my eyes Are blind with tears; then I will come at once! We must be doing something, for I feel We both shall drown our hearts with time to spare.
* * * * *
RONALD ROSS
HESPERUS
Ah whither dost thou float, sweet silent star, In yonder floods of evening's dying light? Before the fanning wings of rising night, Methinks thy silvery bark is driven far To some lone isle or calmly havened shore, Where the lorn eye of man can follow thee no more.
How many a one hath watched thee even as I, And unto thee and thy receding ray Poured forth his thoughts with many a treasured sigh Too sweet and strange for the remorseless day; But thou hast gone and left unto their sight Too great a host of stars, and yet too black a night.
E'en as I gaze upon thee, thy bright form Doth sail away among the cloudy isles Around whose shores the sea of sunlight smiles. On thee may break no black and boisterous storm To turn the tenour of thy calm career. As thou wert long ago so now thou dost appear.
Art thou a tear left by the exiled day Upon the dusky cheek of drowsy night? Or dost thou as a lark carol alway Full in the liquid glow of heavenly light? Or, bent on discord and angelic wars, As some bright spirit tread before the trooping stars?
The disenchanted vapours hide thee fast; The watery twilight fades and night comes on; One lingering moment more and thou art gone, Lost in the rising sea of clouds that cast Their inundations o'er the darkening air; And wild the night wind wails the lightless world's despair.
* * * * *
EDMUND BEALE SARGANT
THE CUCKOO WOOD
Cuckoo, are you calling me, Or is it a voice of wizardry? In these woodlands I am lost, From glade to glade of flowers tost. Seven times I held my way, And seven times the voice did say, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could Issue from this underwood, Half of green and half of brown, Unless he laid his senses down. Only let him chance to see The snows of the anemone Heaped above its greenery; Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could Issue from the master wood.
Magic paths there are that cross; Some beset with jewelled moss And boughs all bare; where others run, Bluebells bathe in mist and sun Past a clearing filled with clumps Of primrose round the nutwood stumps; All as gay as gay can be, And bordered with dog-mercury, The wizard flower, the wizard green, Like a Persian carpet seen. Brown, dead bracken lies between, And wrinkled leaves, whence fronds of fern Still untwist and upward turn. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could Issue from this wizard wood, Half of green, and half of brown, Unless he laid his senses down.
Seven times I held my way Where new heaps of brushwood lay, All with withies loosely bound, And never heard a human sound. Yet men have toiled and men have rested By yon hurdles darkly-breasted, Woven in and woven out, Piled four-square, and turned about To show their white and sharpened stakes Like teeth of hounds or fangs of snakes. The men are homeward sped, for none Loves silence and a sinking sun. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Woodmen know Souls are lost that hear it so, Seven times upon the wind, To lull the watch-dogs of the mind.
A stranger wood you shall not find! Beech and birch and oak agree Here to dwell in company. Hazel, elder, few men could Name the kinds of underwood. Summer and winter haunt together, And golden light with misty weather. 'Tis summer where this beech is seen Defenceless in its virgin green; All its leaves are smooth and thin, And the sunlight passes in, Passes in and filters through To a green heaven below the blue. Low the branches fall and trace A circle round that mystic place, Guarded on its outward side By hyacinths in all their pride; And within dim moons appear, Wax and wane--I go not near! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! How we fear Sights and sounds that come and go Without a cause for men to know!
Why for a whispered doubt should I Shun that other beech-tree high, Red and watchful, still and bare, With a thousand spears in air, Guarding yet its treasured leaf From storm and hail and winter's grief? Unregarded on the ground Leaves of yester-year abound, For what is autumn's gold to one That hoards a life scarce yet begun? Let me so renew my youth, I defend it, nail and tooth, Rooting deep and lifting high. For this my dead leaves hiss and sigh And glow as on the downward road To the dog-snake's dread abode. Noxious things of earth and air, Get you hence, for I prepare To flaunt my beauty in the sun When all beside me are undone. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Pan shall see The surge of my virginity Overtop the sobered glade. Luminous and unafraid Near his sacred oak I'll spread Lures to tempt him from his bed: His couch, his lair his form shall be By none but by the fair beech-tree.
O cunning Oak! What is your skill To hold the god against my will? Keep your favours back like me, With disfavour he shall see Orange hues of jealousy: Show your leaf in early prime, It shall be dark before its time: Me you shall not rival ever. Silver Birch, would you endeavour, Trembling in your bridal dress, To win at last a dog's caress? Through your twigs so thin and dark Shows the black and ashen bark, Like a face that underneath Tightened eyebrows looks on death. Think not, dwarf, that Pan shall find Aught about you to his mind. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! All shall try To win him. But the beech and I, Man and tree made one at last, Alone have power to hold him fast.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Forth I creep, When the flowers fall asleep, And upgather odours rare Floating on the misty air, All to be imprisoned where My sap is rising till they reach The swelling twigs, and thence shall each Separate scent be shaken free As my flowers and leaves agree. Rare in sooth those flowers shall be: Cunningly will I devise Colours to delight the eyes, Slipping from my fissured stem To get by stealth or stratagem The glory of the morning petal. Where the bees at noontide settle, Mine to rifle all their sweets: Honey and bee-bread on the teats Of my blossoms shall be spread, Till the lime-trees shake with dread Of the marvels still to come When their bees about me hum.
Welcome, welcome, cloudless night, Is our labour ended quite? Are the mortal and the tree Now made one in ecstasy, One in foretaste of the dawn? Crescent moon, sink, sink outworn! Stars be buried, stars be born, Mount and dip to tell aright The doings of the morrow's light! Mists, assemble, hide me quite, Till the sun with growing strength Grips your veils, and length by length Tears them down from head to foot; Then to the challenge I am put!
Tell me busy, busy glade, Half in light and half in shade, Is your world of wood-folk there? All are come but the mole and hare; One is blind, and underground Of that tumult hears no sound; The other Pan has crept within, To bask afield in the hare-skin. All are come of woodland fowl But the cuckoo and the owl; The owl's asleep, and the cuckoo-bird Nowhere seen is eachwhere heard. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Those that see The leafing of this great beech-tree, And its flowers of every kind, Woodland lovers have in mind; Those that breathe the scented wind Or touch this bark of satin, could Never issue from our wood.
Tell me, busy, busy glade, Are little flying things afraid? All are come of aery folk, Gnats that hover like a smoke, Butterflies and humble-bees, Insects winged in all degrees, Honey-toilers, pleasure-makers, Of labours and of joys forsakers, Round these boughs to live and die. Only the moth and the dragon-fly Keep their haunts and come not nigh: The moth is moonstruck, she must creep With twitching wings, and half-asleep, Through folds of darkness; and that other, The dragon-fly, Narcissus' brother, Flashes all his burnished mail In a still pool adown the dale.
Tell me, busy, busy glade, Shifting aye in light and shade, Are the dryads peeping forth, More in wonder than in wrath, Each beneath her own dear tree Parting her hair that she may see How queens put on their sovereignty? All are come of Pan's own race, Nymphs and satyrs fill the place, Necks outstretched and ears a-twitching, That Pan may know of all this witching. Heedless stumble the goatfeet Till four-footed things retreat. Cries of Ah! and Ay! and Eh! Scare the forest birds away, And their notes that rang so clear At dawn, you now shall rarely hear: Only a robin here and there Pitches high his trembling voice In a challenge to rejoice.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! How two notes Stolen from all woodland throats Make the satyrs stand like stone, Waiting for Pan to call his own! How the couching dryads seem To root themselves as in a dream, And the naiads, wan and whist, To melt into an evening mist!
Tell me, silent, silent glade, All in light that once was shade, All in shade that once was light, How went the creatures from my sight? Where are the shapes that turned to stone, And my tree that reigned alone? Red and watchful, still and bare, With a thousand spears in air, Stands the beech that you would bind Unlawfully to human mind. Gone is every woodland elf To the mighty god himself. Mortal! You yourself are fast! Doubt not Pan shall come at last To put a leer within your eyes That pry into his mysteries. He shall touch the busy brain Lest it ever teem again; Point the ears and twist the feet, Till by day you dare not meet Men, or in the failing light Mutter more than, Friend, good-night!
Tell me, whispering, whispering glade, Am I eager or afraid? Do I wish the god to come? What shall I say if he be dumb? Tell me, wherefore hiss and sigh Those shrivelled leaves? Has Pan gone by? Why do your thousand pools of light Gaze like eyes that fade at night? Pan has but twain, Pan's eyes are bright! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! See, yon stakes Gape and grin like fangs of snakes; Not snakes nor hounds are mouthing thus; Pan himself is watching us. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Now The god is breasting the hill-brow. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Pan is near: Joy runs trembling back to fear. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! All my blood Knocks through the heart whose every thud Chokes me, blinds me, drains my madness. As one half-drowned, I feel life's gladness Ooze from each pore. Towards the sun Downhill I reel that fain would run. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Thornless seem Briars that part as in a dream. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Hazel-boughs Hurt not though they blood the brows.
Cuckoo! In a meadow prone At last I lie, my wits my own; And in my hand I clasp the flower To counteract that magic power; The cuckoo-flower, in a lilac sheet Under body, head and feet. Above me apple-blossoms fleck The cloudless sky, a neighbouring beck With many a happy gurgle goes Down to the farm through alder-rows. Strange it is, and it is sweet, To hear the distant mill-wheel beat, And the kindly cries of men Turning the cattle home again, The clank of pails and all the shades Of laughter of the busy maids. Now is come the evening star, And my limbs new-blooded are. So beside the stream I choose A path that patient anglers use, Which with many twists and turns Brings me where a candle burns, A lowly light, through cottage pane Seen and hid and seen again. Cuckoo! Now you call in vain. I am far and I am free From all woodland wizardry!
* * * * *
JAMES STEPHENS
IN THE POPPY FIELD
Mad Patsy said, he said to me, That every morning he could see An angel walking on the sky; Across the sunny skies of morn He threw great handfuls far and nigh Of poppy seed among the corn; And then, he said, the angels run To see the poppies in the sun.
A poppy is a devil weed, I said to him--he disagreed; He said the devil had no hand In spreading flowers tall and fair Through corn and rye and meadow land, By garth and barrow everywhere: The devil has not any flower, But only money in his power.
And then he stretched out in the sun And rolled upon his back for fun: He kicked his legs and roared for joy Because the sun was shining down, He said he was a little boy And would not work for any clown: He ran and laughed behind a bee, And danced for very ecstasy.
IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING
I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear A sound, a little sound? My curious ear Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree Goes--whisper, whisper, whisper silently Till all its whispers spread into the sound Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground, The shade is deep and He may pass us by. We are so very small, and His great eye, Customed to starry majesties, may gaze Too wide to spy us hiding in the maze; Ah, misery! the sun has not yet gone And we are naked: He will look upon Our crouching shame, may make us stand upright Burning in terror--O that it were night! He may not come ... what? listen, listen, now-- He is here! lie closer ... 'Adam, where art thou?'
THE LONELY GOD
So Eden was deserted, and at eve Into the quiet place God came to grieve. His face was sad, His hands hung slackly down Along his robe; too sorrowful to frown He paced along the grassy paths and through The silent trees, and where the flowers grew Tended by Adam. All the birds had gone Out to the world, and singing was not one To cheer the lonely God out of His grief-- The silence broken only when a leaf Tapt lightly on a leaf, or when the wind, Slow-handed, swayed the bushes to its mind.
And so along the base of a round hill, Rolling in fern, He bent His way until He neared the little hut which Adam made, And saw its dusky rooftree overlaid With greenest leaves. Here Adam and his spouse Were wont to nestle in their little house Snug at the dew-time: here He, standing sad, Sighed with the wind, nor any pleasure had In heavenly knowledge, for His darlings twain Had gone from Him to learn the feel of pain, And what was meant by sorrow and despair,-- Drear knowledge for a Father to prepare.
There he looked sadly on the little place; A beehive round it was, without a trace Of occupant or owner; standing dim Among the gloomy trees it seemed to Him A final desolation, the last word Wherewith the lips of silence had been stirred. Chaste and remote, so tiny and so shy, So new withal, so lost to any eye, So pac't of memories all innocent Of days and nights that in it had been spent In blithe communion, Adam, Eve, and He, Afar from Heaven and its gaudery; And now no more! He still must be the God But not the friend; a Father with a rod Whose voice was fear, whose countenance a threat, Whose coming terror, and whose going wet With penitential tears; not evermore Would they run forth to meet Him as before With careless laughter, striving each to be First to His hand and dancing in their glee To see Him coming--they would hide instead At His approach, or stand and hang the head, Speaking in whispers, and would learn to pray Instead of asking, 'Father, if we may.'
Never again to Eden would He haste At cool of evening, when the sun had paced Back from the tree-tops, slanting from the rim Of a low cloud, what time the twilight dim Knit tree to tree in shadow, gathering slow Till all had met and vanished in the flow Of dusky silence, and a brooding star Stared at the growing darkness from afar, While haply now and then some nested bird Would lift upon the air a sleepy word Most musical, or swing its airy bed To the high moon that drifted overhead.