Chapter 4

In lustful growth and endless mirth With leafy slopes and forests glistening.

At the sight of such splendor, the poet lies palsy-stricken on this bank of the river, the "graceless, barren, and desert bank" unable to rise and sing. Then Life, like a merciful Fairy, takes him into the humble hut of the present and makes him forget the other bank and nourishes him until, at last, waking into the new world, he weaves the whole day long with master hand all kinds of laurel crowns and pours into the unaccustomed air a flute's soft-flown complaint. But again from his bed he raises his eyes and sees once more the world beyond the river, nodding luringly at him; and even there, in the midst of the new life, he falls palsy-stricken, "the paralytic of the river bank."

This note of hopelessness is immediately counteracted by the "Simple Song," in which Life opens again her gorgeous gardens of the past to pluck the fairest of flowers; and when he weeps over the newly reaped blossoms that fill his basket, Life rebukes him by facing them unmoved "a life agleam!" With like wholesomeness he greets the early dawn that brings him "thought, light, and sound, his sacred Trinity," and enters the chapel's garden

To see the children beautiful, Children that make the grassy beds a heaven And rise like miracles among the flowers.

But on the whole, man, the wedding guest, must travel on while the winds of uncertainty blow about him. Riddles face him everywhere; questions stern and unanswerable spring before him; and the life of the whole human race seems to be that of Thought likened to "an angel ever wrestling with a strong giant flinging his hundred hands about the angel's neck to strangle him." For who knows if a good act unknown shines more than the most splendid monuments of marble or verse? Who knows if vice is wiser than virtue? Is Fair Art, War's Triumphs, and great Thoughts expressed costlier in the Temple of the Universe than the mute Thought and Glory of the flower,

... at whose birth The dawn rejoices and whose early death The saddened evening silently laments?

The thoughtful sage high-rising smites the gates Of the Infinite and questions every Sphinx; Yet who knows if the soldier with no will, Obeying blindly, is not nearer Truth?

O struggle vast! Who knows what power measures The measureless and creates the great? Is it the matchless thought of the endowed, Or the dim soul of the multitude that bursts, Thoughtless of reason, into life? Who knows?

We know not "whether the holy man's blessing" is the best, nor whether there is more light of Truth in the Law, "that is all eyes," or in some blind love. Thus entangled in the meshes of life's sphinx-like wonders, we spend our day, little particles of the great world-struggle, wedding guests at Life's strange festival!

5. THE PALM TREE

In tenderness and delicacy of thought and expression, no part of _Life Immovable_ can be compared with the smoothly flowing stanzas of "The Palm Tree." There is no ruggedness in the meter, no violence in the stream of images. We are led without knowing it into a modest garden. A few flowers, a palm tree, some bushes, and the sky make our world, a world, it seems, of things small and common and trivial. But the poet passes by, listens to the humble flowers of dark and light blue, and puts their talk into rhythms.

At once, the flowers become a world of beauty, life, and thought. They are our kin, sons of the same parent Earth, and dreamers of strangely similar dreams. The Palm tree over them becomes a great mystery of power and grace lifting it to the realm of gods. The flowers, like little mortals, wonder at the things they see about them. Their own existence beneath the palm tree's shade is full of riddles, and they face the world with questionings. In the very midst of a clear sky's festival that succeeds a rain, the little flowers suffer the first blows of pain, dealt by the last drops that fall from the palm leaves, and they feel the agony of sorrow until they come to realize that even pain brings its reward, knowledge, which makes them glory, like victors, over death. Their being expands and they sing a song which is the essence of the world's humanity:

Though small we are, a great world hides in us; And in us clouds of care and dales of grief You may descry: the sky's tranquility; The heaving of the sea about the ships At evenings; tears that roll not down the cheeks; And something else inexplicable. Oh, What prison's kin are we? Who would believe it? One, damned and godlike, dwells in us; and she is Thought!

Thus their song continues carrying them from thought to thought, from dream to dream, from joy to joy, and from sorrow to sorrow. Swept away by the charms of life, they raise to their strange god a hymn of exultation. At the sight of the thrice-fair rose, they sing a song of love and admiration. Their experiences stimulate their minds, and they seek to solve the dark problems that teem about them. With the eagerness of living beings they listen to the tales of new worlds and miracles brought to them by bees and lizards. Illness and night frighten them with fearful images; and, at last, they pass away with a song of hope and regret:

We shall die, Nor will there be a monument for us That might retain the phantom of our passing! Only about thee will a robe of light Adorn thee with a new and deathless gleam: And it shall be our thought, and word, and rime! And in the eyes of an astonished world, Thou wilt appear like a gold-green new star; Yet neither thou nor others will know of us!

HARVARD UNIVERSITY, June 3, 1917.

TRANSLATIONS

LIFE IMMOVABLE

INTRODUCTORY POEM

_And now the columns stand a forest speechless And motionless; and among them, the rhythms And thoughts move in slow measures constantly; And in their depths, light-written images Show Love that leads and Soul that follows him._

From the "Thoughts of Early Dawn."

_I labored long to create the statue for the Temple On stone that I had found And set it up in nakedness; and then to pass; To pass but not to die.

And I created it. But narrow men who bow To worship shapeless wooden images, ill-clad, With hostile glances and with shudderings of fear, Looked down upon us, work and worker, angrily.

My statue in the rubbish thrown! And I, an exile! To foreign lands, I led my restless wanderings. But ere I left, a sacrifice unheard I offered: I dug a pit; and in the pit I laid my statue.

And then I whispered: "Here lie low unseen and live With things deep-rooted and among the ancient ruins Until thine hour comes. Immortal flower thou art! A Temple waits to clothe thy nakedness divine!"

And with a mouth thrice-wide, and with the voice of prophets, The pit spoke: "Temple, none! Nor pedestal! Nor light! In vain! For nowhere is thy flower fit, O Maker! Better forever lost in the unlighted depths!

"Its hour may never come! and if it come, and if Thy work be raised, the Temple will be radiant With a great host of statues, statues of no blemish, And works of thrice-great makers unapproachable!

"Today, was soon for thee; tomorrow will be late! Thy dream is vain! The dawn thou longest will not dawn; Thus burning for eternities thou mayest not reach, Remain cloud-hunter and Praxiteles of shadows!

"Tomorrow and today for thee are snares and seas! All are but traps for drowning thee and visions false! Longer than thy glory is the violet's in thy garden! And thou shalt pass away--hear this!--and thou shalt die!"

And then I answered: "Let me pass away and die! Creator am I, too, with all my heart and mind! Let pits devour my work! Of all eternal things, My restless wandering may have the greatest worth!"_

FATHERLANDS

_To the blessed shade of Tigrane Yergate who loved my Fatherlands._

FATHERLANDS

I[5]

Where with its many ships the harbor moans, The land spreads beaten by the billows wild, Remembering not even as a dream Her ancient silkworks, carriers of wealth.

The vineyards, filled with fruit, now make her rich; And on her brow, an aged crown she wears, A castle that the strangers, Franks or Turks, Thirst for, since Venice founded it with might.

O'er her a mountain stands, a sleepless watch; And white like dawn, Parnassus shimmers far Aloft with midland Zygos at his side.

Here I first opened to the day mine eyes; And here my memory weaves a dream dream-born, An image faint, half-vanished, fair--a mother.

II[6]

Upon the lake, the island-studded, where The breeze of May, grown strong with sea-brine, stirs The seashore strewn with seaweed far away, The Fates cast me a little child thrice orphan.

'Tis there the northwind battles mightily Upon the southwind; and the high tide on The low; and far into the main's abyss The dazzling coral of the sun is sinking.

There stands Varassova, the triple-headed; And from her heights, a lady from her tower, The moon bends o'er the waters lying still.

But innocent peace, the peace that is a child's, Not even there I knew; but only sorrow And, what is now a fire, the spirit's spark.

III

Sky everywhere; and sunbeams on all sides; Something about like honey from Hymettus; The lilies grow of marble witherless; Pentele shines, birthgiver of Olympus.

The digging pick on Beauty stumbles still; Cybele's womb bears gods instead of mortals; And Athens bleeds with violet blood abundant Each time the Afternoon's arrows pour on her.

The sacred olive keeps its shrines and fields; And in the midst of crowds that slowly move Like caterpillars on a flower white,

The people of the relics lives and reigns Myriad-souled; and in the dust, the spirit Glitters; I feel it battling in me with Darkness.

IV[7]

Where the Homeric dwellers of Phaeacia Still live, and with a kiss meet East and West; Where with the olive tree the cypress blooms, A dark robe in the azure infinite,

E'en there my soul has longed to dwell in peace With towering visions of the land of Pyrrhus; There dream-born beauties pour their flood, Dawn's mother Lighting the fountain of sweet Harmony.

The rhapsodies of the Immortal Blind In the new voice of Greece are echoed there;[8] The shade of Solomos[9] in fields Elysian

Breathes rose-born fragrance; and master of the lyre, A new bard sings,[10] like old Demodocus, The glories of the Fatherland and Crete.

V[11]

Lo, dreams strange-born among my dreams are mingling; A lake, the ancient Mareotis, where The Goddess spreads with ever hidden face Her wedding couch to greet Osiris Lord.

As if from graves, from laughless depths, before me Life brightly glitters with her gentle smile; A Libyan thirst burns in my heart; and Ra, The fiery archer, battles everywhere.

Something sow-like before me gnashed its teeth, The slavish soul and savage of the Arab; World-nourishing the Nile rolled on its waters;

And lotus-crowned, in the cool shade of palms, I loved as beasts that dwell in wilderness A Fellah lass full-breasted and sphinx-faced.

VI[12]

A sinner hermit on the Holy Mountain, I burn in Satan's fire and pine in hell; My soul is ruins and woe; and in a stream Deep-flowing, I sink, a traveller beguiled.

The blue Aegean spreads a sapphire treasure; Like Daphnis and his Chloe stand sky and earth; Quivering, lo, the seed of life blooms forth; In swarms, the living beings suck the sap

Of all. Olympus, Ossa, Pelion, And every lap of sea, and every tongue Of land, lake-like Cassandra, Thrace's shores

Are clad in wedding garb; and I? "O Lord, Be my Redeemer!" and with floods of tears I bathe the god-child Panselenus[13] wrought.

VII[14]

Rumele is a royal crown of ruby; Moreas is a glow of emerald; The Seven Isles,[15] a jasmine sevenfold; And every Cyclad, a Nereid sea-born.

Even the chains of rugged Epirus laugh; And Thessaly spreads far her golden charms. Hidden beneath her present waves of woe, Methinks I look on Hellas, Queen of lands.

For still the ancient fir of valor blooms; And from the pangs and sighs of ages risen, The breath of Digenes[16] fills all the land

Breeding a race of heroes strong and new; And in the depths of green and golden Night Sings on Colonus Hill the nightingale.

VIII

From Danube to the cape of Taenaron, From Thunder Mountain's End to Chalcedon, Thou passest now a mermaid of the sea And now a statue of marble Parian.

Now with the laurel bough from Helicon And now with sword barbarian, thou sweepest; And on the fields of thy great labarum, I see a double headed image drawn.

The sacred Rock gleams like a topaz here; And virgins basket-bearing, clad in white, March in a dance and shake Athena's veil;

But far the sapphires shine of Bosporus; And through the Golden Gate exulting pass Victors Imperial triumphantly.

IX

Like the Phaeacians' ship, Imagination Without the help of sail or mariner Rolls on; in my soul's depths loom many lands: Thrice-ancient, motionless like Asia,

And others five-minded and bold like Europe's realms; Despair like Africa's black earth holds me; Within me a savage Polynesia spreads; And always I trail some path Columbian.

All monstrous things of life, the fields aflame Under a tropic sun, I knew; I wore The shrouds of the poles; and on a thousand paths,

I saw the world unfurled before my eyes. And what am I? Grass on a clod of earth Scorned even by the passing reaper's scythe.

X

A traveller, I found in waveless seas Calypso and Helena thrice-beautiful; And on the Lotus Eaters' shores, I drank The blissful waters of oblivion.

In the sun-flooded land, I stood by him, The god of the Hyperborean race; One night--in strange and peerless radiance-- The Magi showed to me the mystic star.

I saw the Queen of Sheba on her throne, O Soul, light flowing from her fingers' touch; My eyes beheld Atlantis Isle, that seemed

An Ocean flower beyond a mortal's dreams; And now the care and memory of all These things are rhythm to me and verse and song.

XI

About the chariot of the Seven Stars, Sky-racers numberless, whole worlds of giants And beasts: Ocean of suns, the Milky Way, Orion, and the monsters of the spheres--

The fearful Zodiac. The Lion roars Amidst the wilderness ethereal; The Lyre plays; and trophy-like, the Lock Of Berenice gleams; and rhythms and laws

Fade in the space of mysteries. Sun, Cronus, Mars, Earth, and Venus sweep in swift pursuit Towards the world magnet of great Hercules.

Only my soul like polar star awaits Immovable, yet filled with dreamful longings; And knows not whence it comes nor where it goes.

XII

Fatherlands! Air and earth and fire and water! Elements indestructible, beginning And end of life, first joy and last of mine! You I shall find again when I pass on

To the graves' calm. The people of the dreams Within me, airlike, unto air shall pass; My reason, fire-like, unto lasting fire; My passions' craze unto the billows' madness;

Even my dust-born body, unto dust; And I shall be again air, earth, fire, water; And from the air of dreams, and from the flames

Of thought, and from the flesh that shall be dust, And from the passions' sea, ever shall rise A breath of sound like a soft lyre's complaint.

THE SONNETS

From their foreign land and precious, From their nest in green, I took Red-plumed birds; and then I closed them In a cage of woven gold.

And the cage of woven gold Then became a second nest; On our shores the birds have found A new, precious fatherland.

Softly here they shake their feathers; Swiftly sing of worlds and souls Deep and spacious; or they mingle

Lightning-like their tears and smiles. And though small and as of coral, Yet they sing with accents loud.

_1896._

EPIPHANY

With chariot drawn by star-plumed peacocks, lo, The goddess of desires before her people Is revealed! She passes on, youth's joyful shout And torture, dragging my eighteen years behind.

Snowflakes became a world; and, taking life As substance, made her body and her thought. Upon her royal brow, birds strange and wild, Scorn's breed, have built their nest and there abide.

Upon her path, in vain I build the palace Of virgin dreams with virgin gold for her, Raising a throne of diamonds in its midst.

She passes on her starlit chariot; And as if filled with golden dreams divine, She does not even look upon my palace!

_1895._

MAKARIA[17]

To you, who dawned before me, offspring of The great abyss and flower of foaming billows! To you, whom with their love all things embrace, And who stir tempests in a statue's depths!

To you, O woman and O virgin, myrrhs, Fruit, frankincense, I offer recklessly! To you, the music of the world! To you, My songs' pure foam, songs that your vision fills!

For you can love, remember, understand. Before I saw you in the world's great night, You shone upon my mother's lighted face.

Your worshipper into the world I came; Your name I knew not, and in love's sweet font I called you with the name _Makaria_!

_1895._

THE MARKET PLACE

Just as dry summers pant for the first rain, So thou art thirsty for a happy home And for a life remote, like hermit's prayer, A corner of forgetting and of love.

And thirsty for the ship upon the sea That ever onward sails with birds and sea-things, Filling its life with our great planet's light. But unto thee both ship and home said: "No!

"Look neither for the happiness remote That never moves, nor for the life that ever finds In each new land and harbor a new soul!

"Only the panting of a toiling slave For thee! Drag in the market place thy body's Nakedness, strange to the strangers and thine own!"

_1896._

LOVES

Some people love things modest and things small, And like to feed in cages little birds; They deck themselves with garden violets And drink the singing waters of the brooks.

Others delight in tales told by the embers Of the home hearth or listen to the songs Of the nightbirds with rapture; others, slaves Of a great pain, burn incense to the stars

Of beauty. And some thirst for the forest shades And for a nacreous dawn, and for a sunset Dipped in red blood, a barren wilderness

Light-burned. But thee no love with nature binds; And where the heavens mingle with the sea, A path thou seekest for a sphere beyond.

_1896._

WHEN POLYLAS DIED[18]

With wings and hands ethereal, rhythms and thoughts Lifted thy soul, redeemed from its dust frame, And led it straightway to the stars; and there The sacred escort halts and ends its journey.

In summers paradisiac beyond, Where on the Lyre's star the bards and makers, Like doves with breath immortal, dwell in gleams, The shade of Solomos like magnet draws thee,

And leading thee before a double Tabor, Thus speaks to thee: "Here is thy glory! Here Dwell and behold the giant pair that stand

Before thee never setting, with diamonds dark; And like a breath of worship pass, embracing Thy Homer and thy Shakespeare, blessed One!"

_1896._

TO PETROS BASILIKOS[19]

O bard, whose songs unto the vernal god Of idyls rang from the same gladsome flute, April's sweet-breathing air is mingled now With martial sounds of savage trumpetings.

A crown is woven for our motherland: Is it life's laurels or the martyr's thorns? Oh see beyond: the wild vine's flowers now Are shaken on a lake of blood and tears!

Has the war phantom blown upon thee too? Or hast thou with the force of lightning winds Flown where for ages sacred hatreds burn

In flames? Or has an evil wound thrown thee Upon the earth where now in vain the god Of idyls tries to raise thee with his kisses?

_1897._

SOLDIER AND MAKER

Soldier and maker swiftly I Seized with my hand the spear and spoke: "Fall on the beast of the world beyond And strike the eagle-wingèd lion!"

Before me with God's grace, I saw Soulless the griffin seven-souled, Blood spurting from a hole hell-like And scorching with its heat the grass!

And then restored with calm, I saw The savage strife like a day's dawn; And the destroyer, I, became

A maker; and with this same hand, I carve on ivory the man Who slew the beast and make him deathless.

_1896._

THE ATHENA RELIEF

Why leanest thou on idle spear? Why is thy dreadful helmet bent Heavy upon thy breast, O virgin? What sorrow is so great, O thought,

As to touch thee? Are there no more Of thunder-bearing enemies To yield thee trophies new? No pomp Athenian to guide thy ship

On to the sacred Rock? I see Some pain holds Pallas fixed upon A gravestone. Some great blow moves her:

Is it thy sacred city's loss, Or seest thou all Greece--alas-- Of now and yesterday entombed?

_1896._

THE HUNTRESS RELIEF

Whither so light of garb and swift of foot, O Huntress? Is it the sacred gifts of pure Hippolytus That make thee leave Arcadia's forest land behind, O shelter of the pure, and slayer of the wild?

Wild lily of virginity raised on the fields Olympian, O mountain Queen of gleaming bow, I envy him who in a careless hour did face Thy beauty's lightning with thy heartless vengefulness.

And yet white like the morn, thou openest in secret Thy lips thrice fragrant with divine ambrosia And sayest: "Latona's deathless grace has moulded me

Under the sacred tree upon Ortygia; But now once more upon the noble stone, the new Maker has moulded me with a new deathlessness."

_1895._

A FATHER'S SONG

O first-born pride and joy of my own home, I still remember thy coming's sacred day: The early dawn was breaking as from pearls, Whitening the sky that spread star-spangled still;

Thou wert not like the fresh and budding rose In its green mother's clasp before it opens; Thou camest like a victim pitiful And feeble cast by a rude hand among us.

And as if thou wert seeking help, thy wail Rose sadder than the sound of a death knell; And thus the last of thy own mother's groans

Was mingled with thy first lament. Life's great Drama began. I watch it, and I feel Within me Fear's and Pity's mystic wail!

_1894._

TO THE POET L. MAVILES[20]

Thy soul is seeking tranquil paths Alone; thou hatest barking mouths; And yet thy country's love enflames thee, O maker of the noble sonnet.

In the white alabaster vase Filled with pure native earth, a flower Of dream that only few can see Trembles and scatters fragrances.

Thy verse, the vase; thy mind, the flower. But a hand broke the vase, and now The azure beauty of the flower

Has found a mate in the powder's smoke Upon Crete's Isle, the blue sea's crown, Mother of bards and tyrant slayers.

_1896._

IMAGINATION

Time's spider lurks and lies in wait; And on its poisoned claws, the beast All watchful glides, assails, and grasps The ruin. O thrice-holy beauties!

In vain all props and wisdom's arts! In vain a tribe of sages seek To save it! Time's remaining crumbs Are scattered far and melt like frost.

Then from the lofty land of Thought, Imagination came, a goddess Among the gods, and made again,

Even where until now the ruin Crumbled, what only its hands can make-- Deathless the first-born Parthenon.

_1896._

MAKARIA'S DEATH

_To die for these, my brothers, and myself; For by not loving my own life too much, I found the best of finds, a glorious death._

EURIPIDES, _Herakleidae_, 532-534.

On Athens' earth, Zeus of the Market place Sees Hercules's children kneeling down On his pure altar, strange, forlorn, thrice-orphan. Fearful the Argive sweeps on; duty's hand

Is weak. The king of Athens pities them, But cruel oracles vex him with fear: "Lo, from thy blood, thrice-noble virgin, shall The conquerless new enemy be conquered."

None stirs, alas! Orphanhood is forsaken By all. Then, filled with pride of heroes, thou, Redeemer of a land and race, divine

Daughter thrice-worthy of the great Alcides, Plungest into thy breast the victim's sword And diest a thrice-free death, Makaria.

_1896._

TO PALLIS[21] FOR HIS "ILIAD"

From cups that are both ours and strange, Enameled, and adorned with leaves Of laurel and of ivy green, We quaff the wine both pure and mixed.