Chapter 5
The liquid that within us burns, Or poured in cups about us gleams And bird-like sings, brings us away To the far Isle of dreams. But thou
Enviest not the path of dreams, Nor sharest in our drunken revel; For with our fathers' spacious cup,
The strong and simple, thou hast brought Immortal water from the spring Of Homer, thou O traveller!
_1903._
HAIL TO THE RIME
Cyprus's shores have not beheld thee born of foam; A foreign Vulcan forged thee on a diamond anvil With a gold hammer; and the bard who touches thee, Bound with thy magic beauty's charms, remains thy thrall.
The yearning prayers of a lover fondly loved Cannot accomplish what thou canst, strange nightingale! Thy song wafts me upon the tranquil fields of calm When jackals born of woeful cares within me howl.
Thy might gives even sin a garment beautiful; And thought divine before thee bows in reverence. Imagination's ship sails with thy help straight on
Where Solomon and Croesus have their treasuries. To thee I pray! Answer my greeting lovingly, Thou new tenth Muse among the nine of old, O Rime!
_1896._
THE RETURN 1897
(1897 is the year of the Greco-Turkish war which ended disastrously for Greece. See Introduction, page 58.)
_DEDICATION_
_Mother thrice reverend, O widowed saint, Upon thy shattered throne I come to place The crowns of Art, dream-made and dream-engraved. With war storms desolate, my native land, Trod by the Turk and by strangers scorned thou wert; Even thy child beholding thee in ruins, As if the waters of Oblivion In dark Oblivion's Dale had touched his lips, Left thee; and thou didst writhe like a whole world Engulfed in sounds of woe: Hair-tearings and Breast-beatings, groans of sad despair, night-bats Wandering restlessly, unheeded prayers Of souls condemned, loud thunder peals, fierce glares Of lightnings, and the laughter of the fiends!
But lo, unknown and humble I, with calm Upon my countenance and storm in mind, Far from the panic-stricken market place, Beneath the plane trees' shade, and far away By the blood-tinctured settings of the suns, Unruffled, in another land I travelled, And deep I dug in distant treasure mines. And with my hand, that knows no rifle's touch, Slowly I hammered on the crowns of art; And if thou findest nowhere on their gleam Thine image painted, or thy blessed name Written, thou knowest still, O motherland, Though in thy woe's abyss they seem unlike, And though a strange and careless glimmer shines On them, they were created out of thee; For thee I made them; and for thee I raised them.
Perhaps, when in the midst of wilderness And ruins thou first openest thine eyes, O hapless One, my humble offerings Will not appear like thy wrath's threats, nor like The joyful trumpetings of thy reveille, Nor like an image of thy passion's cross, Nor like thy sorrow's dirge, nor like glad hymns; But like soft songs and trembling lights and fondlings Of lily hands, black birds, and stars unknown.
Thus when, smitten with Charon's knife and sunk In death's dark swoon, a hapless mother feels Life's tide return, she hears again, like first Life-summons, the anxious voice of her fond child, A voice that comforts her and tenderly Tells of a thousand tales of love his fancy Weaves or his memory recalls, and drowns His faintest sigh not to remind his mother Of the unerring blow of Charon's knife.
Mother thrice-reverend, O widowed saint, Upon thy shattered throne I come to place The crowns of Art dream-made and dream-engraved. Though they will echo not thy sorrow's groans, A child of thine has bound them on thine earth With gold; upon their circles thine own speech Is shown with master tongue; their light is drawn From thy sun's gleaming fountain; seek no more!
Only with harmony sublime and pure, Which, though it rises over time and space, Turns the world's ears to his native land, The poet is the greatest patriot._
THE TEMPLE
My knees, bent on thy marble pavement, bleed, O Temple built apart in wilderness For an unseen divinity, a goddess Who from her being's deep abyss reveals Only a statue wrought by human hand And even covered with a veil opaque.
Methinks I see among thy sculptured columns, Among thy secret treasures and thine altars, Ion, the Delphic priest, who lays aside The snow-white raiment of the sacrifice And takes up the wayfarer's knotty staff. I am no ministrant, nor have I held The dreadful mystic key, nor have I touched Boldly or timidly the sacred gate That leads to Life's deep-hidden mysteries. One sinner more, O Temple, in the midst Of sinful multitudes, I come to worship.
My knees, bent on thy marble pavement, bleed; I feel the chill of night or of the tomb Creeping upon me slowly, stealthily. But lo, I struggle to shake off the evil That creeps on me so cold; with longing heart, I drag my bleeding knees beyond thy walls, Out of thy columns--forests stifling me-- Into the sunlight and the moon's soft glimmer.
Away with prayer's burning frankincense! Away with the gold knife of the sacrifice! Away with choirs loud-voiced and clad in white, Singing their hymns about the flaming altars! Abandoning thee, O Temple, I return To the small hut of the first bloom of time.
THE HUT
O humble hut of the first bloom of time, Neither the noisy city's mingled Babel, Nor the most tranquil soul of the great plain, Nor the gold cloud of dust on the wide road, Nor the brook's course that sings like nightingales, Nothing of these is either shown to thee Or speaks before thy bare and flowerless window, O humble hut of the first bloom of time.
Only the neighbor's step now echoes on From the rough pavement built in Turkish times; The black wall's shadow, on the narrow street; And on the lonely ruins lightning-struck Ere they became the glory of a house, The nettles revel lustful and unreaped. Beneath the bare and flowerless window's sill, A nest of greenish black, like a small heart, Hangs tenantless and waits and waits and waits In vain for the return of the first swallow That has gone forth, its first and last of dwellers.
O thirsty eyes that linger magnet-bound On the nest's orphanhood of greenish black! O ears filled with the terror of the tune That travels to the bare and flowerless window High from thy roof moss-covered with neglect, O humble hut of the first bloom of time! It is the tune the lone-owl always plays Blowing upon the cursèd flute of night Its lingering shrill notes of mournful measure, Herald of woe and prophet of all ill.
THE RING
_The ring is lost! The wedding ring is gone!_
A folk song.
My mother planned a wedding feast for me And chose me for a wife a Nereid, A tender flower of beauty and of faith. My mother wished to wed me with thy charms, O Fairy Life, thou first of Nereids!
And hastily she goes to seek advice, Begging for gold from every sorceress And powerful witch, and gold from forty brides Whose wedding crowns are fresh upon their brows; And making with the gold a ring enchanted, She puts it on my finger and she binds With golden bond my youthful human flesh To the strange Fairy--how strange a wedding ring!--
I was the boy that always older grew With the transporting passion of a pair Bethrothed who, lured by longing, countenance Their wedding moment as an endless feast Upon a bridal bed of lily white.
The boy I was that always older grew Gold-bound with Life, the Fairy conqueress; The boy I was that always older grew With love and thirst unquenchable for Life; The boy I was that always older grew Destined to tread upon a path untrod Amidst the light, illumined. I was he Whose brow like an Olympian victor's shone And like the man's who tamed Bucephalus. I was the nimble dolphin with gold wings, Arion's watchful and quick deliverer.
But then, one day,--I know not whence and how-- Upon a shore of sunburned sands, the hour Of early evening saddened with dark clouds, I wrestled with a strange black boy new-come, Risen to life from the great sea's abyss; And in the savage spite of that long struggle, The ring fell from my finger and was gone!
Did the great earth engulf it? Did the wave Swallow it? I know not. But this I know: For ever since, the binding spell is rent! And Fairy Life, the first of Nereids, My own bethrothed, that was my slave and queen, Vanished away like a fleet cloud of smoke!
And ever since, from my first-blooming youth To the first flakes of silver that now fall On the black forest of my hair, since then, Some power dumb and dreadful holds me bound With a mere shadow fleeting and unknown That seems not to exist, yet ever longs And vainly strives to enter into being.
And now I am Life's widowed mate and hapless, Life's great and careless patient! Woe is me! And I am like the fair Alcithoe, Daughter of the ancient king, who changed her form And as a sign of the gods' vengeful wrath Is now instead of princess a night-bat!
THE CORD GRASS FESTIVAL
See far away, what a glad festival The golden grasses on the meadow weave! A festival thrice-fragrant with blond flowers! With the sweet sunrise sweetly wakening, I also wish to join the festival And, like a treasure reaper, to embrace Masses of flowers blond and fresh with dew, And then to squander all my flower treasure At my love's feet, for my heart's ruling queen.
But the gold-spangled meadow spreads too deep; And, just as mourning for some dead deprives A life rejoicing with its twenty years Of its light raiments of a lily-white, So is my swift and merry way cut short By a bad way that lies between, without An end, beset with brambles and with marshes!
The thorny plants tear like an enemy's claws; And like bird-lime the bad plain's mire ensnares My feet among the brambles and the marshes, Where, in the parching sun's enflaming shafts, The brine, like silver lightning, strikes my eyes!
Where is the coolness of a breath? Where is The covering shadow of a leafy tree? I faint! My frame is bent! My way is lost! I droop exhausted on the briny earth, And in my lethargy I feel the thorns Upon my brow; the bitter brine upon My lips; the sultriness of the south wind Upon my hands; the kisses of the marsh Upon my feet; the rushes' fondling on My breast; and the hard fate and impotence Of this bare world within me. Where art thou, My love? See far, in depths of purple sunsets Gorgeously painted, the glad festival That golden grasses on the meadow weave, The festival thrice-fragrant with blond flowers, Sees me, and calls me still, and waits for me!
THE FAIRY
When in the evening on my hut the moon Spreads her soft silver nets that dreams have wrought, The hut is caught, and, by the net bewitched, It changes and becomes a lofty tower.
And then, unseen by the Day's Sun, the father Of Health, the rosy-cheeked, who always sees All things with careless and short-sighted eyes, A monstrous vision lo, the Fairy Illness, Stripped in the silver glimmer of the moon, Herself of moonlight born, looms into sight Slowly in the enchanted tower's midst!
In whitening shimmers, she, like sea at night, Advances with the step of sleeping men; Death's pallor is her own, though not Death's chill; Her ivory skeleton is mantled by A fleshy cover made of fiery air; The uncouth flowers on her dragging veil Seem, like the poppies, crimson red and black; And still more uncouth look the countless things Wrought on its folds: dragons and ogresses, Fevers and lethargies and pains of heart, Nightmares and storms and earthquakes, breaking nerves.
Delirium flies from her burning lips, A language made of odd, discordant rhythms. To nothing, either hers or strange, her eyes Are like; deep, as abyss untrod, they yawn, And seem as if they gaze immovable On empty space. Yet shouldst thou stoop with thirst To mirror on her staring eyes thine own, Then wouldst thou see worlds buried in their caves, Like ruined cities of whole centuries, Sunk in the fairy-spangled oceans' depths!
OUT IN THE OPEN LIGHT
Out in the open light, the Sun is shining, Father of Health, Health rosy cheeked, whose breasts Are full, and yield their milk abundantly; She only sees those things of flesh about Which her divine sun-father shows to her; And her unconquerable iron hands Are matched with careless and short-sighted eyes.
Out in the open light, even the moon, The Sibyl, clothed in white, appears, with glance Lyncean, piercing deep and bringing forth From the world's ends great hosts of monstrous things, The monsters born of shadows and of dreams.
FIRST LOVE
When in my breast I felt my first-born love, Thrice-noble maiden of compliant heart, I was possessed with the strange fear that filled The youthful princess of the ancient tale At sight of the black man's enchanted rod.
O mate, who madest first my early years Blossom, too soon thou fleddest far from me Nor sawest me again! Wild Fairies took My speech, and evil demons seized my all; Yet soul and body, my whole being shivers From that awakening thou sangest me, Eternal Woman! Thou wert what far Mecca Is for the faithful's prayer to his prophet. O far off Mecca! O eternal Fear Of white Desire upon the shining wings Of a black sinner! O king Love, chased like Orestes, by a Fury serpent-haired!
THE MADMAN
A madman chased my early childhood years Thrice-sweet and blossoming, and seizing them-- Alas!--he crushed them in his reckless fury Like twigs of purple-colored pomegranate!
He scattered them in pieces everywhere: Into the joyless house and in the yard, On narrow streets, and paths, and pathless haunts, Where persecution raves, and menace dumb Chills all away from the pure light and air. The madman's cursed hands hold everything With snares and claws and stones and knives; they fall On loneliness and on embracings, night Or day, on sleep or wake, and everywhere!
And yonder on the streets and in the houses, Children like me in age, whose years were filled With bloom and sweetness, freely ran and laughed And played. Behind me, close, the madman's snares I heard; and then, the deadened sound of feet! I breathed his flaming breath! And if his steps Were slow, still wilder did his laughter hunt me!
Oh, for my life's cold quiverings of pain! Oh, for the goading--not like the divine Goading that drove the maid of Inachus, Io, to wander on and on in frenzy;-- But like the sudden goading that smites down The little bird when first it tries its wings! And lo, blood of my blood the madman was! A past, ancestral, long forgotten sin, That, bursting forth upon me vampire-like, Snatched from my head the dewy crown of joy!
OUR HOME
Our home has not the ugly clamoring Nor the dumb stillness of the other homes About and opposite. For in our home Rare birds sing forth uncommon melodies; And in our home-yard a young offshoot grows, Sprung from Dodona's tree oracular! And in the garden of our home, full thick, The ironworts and snakeroots blossom on; And in our home the magic mirror shines Reflecting always in its gleaming glass The visage of the world thrice-wonderful!
The silence of our home is full of moans, Moans vague and muffled from a distant world Of bygone ages and of times unborn; And in our home souls come to life and die. Blossom from blossom blossoms forth and fades! Old men have the white, rich, Levitic beard, The foreheads wide of solemn contemplation, The wrath of prophets, and the fleeting calm And chilling threatfulness of the gray shadows.
Glowing with love-heat like resistless Satyrs, The young men in the mind's most shady glades Hunt ardently the bride that is pure thought. The children drop their playthings carelessly, And, standing in a corner motionless, Open their eyes in thought like men full-grown. And all, ancestors and descendants, young Or old, have ways that challenge ridicule And have the word that bursting forth makes slaves!
But still more beautiful and pure than these, An harmony fit for the chosen few Fills with its ringing sounds our dwelling place, A lightning sent from Sinai and a gleam From great Olympus, like the mingling sounds Of David's harp and Pindar's lyre conversing In the star-spangled darkness of the night.
THE DEAD
Within this place, I breathe a dead man's soul; And the dead man, a blond and beardless youth! A youthful light and blond stirs in our home; And moments fly, and days and years and ages. The dead man's soul is in this lonely house Like bitter quiet about a calm-bound ship That longs for the sea-paths, and dreams of storms.
All faces, smoked with the faint smoke that glides From candles lighting death! All eyes, still fixed On a sad coffin! And the mute lips, tinged With the last kiss's bitterness, still tremble. As for a prayer, hands are raised, and feet Move quietly as behind a funeral. The snow-white nakedness of the cold walls And black luxuriance of the mourning robes Are like discordant music of two tunes.
The children's step is light in thoughtful care Lest they disturb the slumber of the dead. The old men, bent as at a pit's dark end, Lean on the virgins' shoulders, virgins fair Like fates benevolent and comforting. The young men seek on endless paths to find In Wisdom's hands the weed Oblivion. And on the window shutters that are closed, The clay pots with their flowers seem to be A dead man's wreath; and the lone ray that glides Through the small fissure is transformed within Into a taper's light on All Souls' Day.
The candle burning at the sacred image Is flickering and snaps as if it wrestled With death. At moments, led astray, comes here A butterfly of varied wings and brings In airy flesh the _Ave_ of the soul That did enchant the house, the house that seems Glad for its dead yet loves and longs for him, The dead blond youth, and claims him as its own! And luring him, that it might hold for ever Its chosen love relentlessly, it has Now changed its form and turned from house to grave!
THE COMRADE
O boy of the glad school of seven years, With thy tall form, a shadow of all thou wert. Thy voice had sweetness never heard before, A font of holy water of which all Partook with fear and longing! We forgot With thee the book and laughed thy merry laughter; Thou didst tear lifeless readings from our minds Together with the pedant's torpid mullen, And didst sow deep into our hearts the seed Of the gold tree that dazzles with its light, And charms, and is a tale most wonderful!
The princesses, with valiant heroes mated, Shone in the hauntless palace of our thought, First-born; and on imagination's meadow, Another April bloomed. We saw Saint George, The rider, slay the dragon and redeem The maiden. They were not letters that thy hand's White clay did write, but like the mystic seal Of Solomon, it scratched a magic knot; And thy forefinger moved within thy hand Like fair Dionysus' thyrsus blossoming!
Amidst the restless swarm of humming children, We had the clamor; and thou hadst the honey, Turning attention to a prayer, thou, O comrade of the early years that bloomed, O chosen being, unforgettable, Worthy of everlasting memory! Wherever thou still art or wanderest; Whomever thou hast followed of the two Women, who, in the past, did stir Alcmena's Great son, after thou camest upon them On some crosspath; whether thou blossomest Like the pure lily, or tower-like thou risest; Whether thou art neglected like a crumb, Shinest as thy country's pride, or art alone, A stranger among strangers wandering; Whether life's riddle or the grave's holds thee; Whatever and wherever thou now art, O brother mine and mate, from my lips here Accept my distant kiss with godlike grace!
RHAPSODY
Homer divine! Joy of all time and glory! When in the coldness of a frigid school, Upon the barrenness of a hard bench, My teacher's graceless hands placed thee before me, O peerless book, what I had thought would be A lesson, proved a mighty miracle!
The heavens opened wide and clear in me; The sea, a sapphire sown with emerald; The bench became a throne palatial; The school, a world; the teacher, a great bard!
It was not reading nor the fruit of thought: A vision it was that shone most wonderful, A melody my ears had never heard.
In the great cavern that a forest deep Of poplars and of cypresses encircles, In the great fragrant cavern that the glow Of burning cedar beats with pleasant warmth, Calypso of the shining hair spins not Her web with golden shuttle; nor sings she With limpid voice. But lifting up her hands, She pours her curses from her flaming heart Against the jealous gods: "O mortal men Adored by the immortal goddesses, Who on Olympus shared with you their love's Ambrosia, and mortals crushed to dust By jealous gods!..." The goddess's awful curse Makes the fresh celeries and violets fade, And, like the hail sent by the heaven's wrath, It burns the clusters on the fruitful vines!
The hero far renowned of Ithaca Alone heeds not the flaming curse, that he, A wanderer, in the Nymph's heart did light Unwittingly. But sea-wrecked and sea-beaten, He sits without, immovable, with eyes Fixed far away; and thus remembering His native island's shores, for ever weeps Upon the coast and near the sea thrice-deep. The white sea-gull that often in its flight Plunges its wings into the brine to catch The fish, and the lone falcon perched afar In the deep forest, lonely and remote, Listen and answer to the hero's wail.
Oh, for my phantasy's revealed first vision! Oh, for the baring of the beautiful Before me! Lo, the dusty, dark-brown land Changes into a Nymph's isle lily-white! The humble fisher lass upon the rock, Into Calypso of the shining hair, love-born! My heart, a traveller into a thousand Lands, thirsting for one country, which is love!
And lo, my soul is, ever since, a lyre Of double strings that echoes with its sound The harmony thrice ancient, curse or wail! Joy of all time and glory, godlike Homer!
IDYL
Now when the tide has covered all the land, Making the pier a sea, the street a strand, And the boat casts anchor at my threshold; Now when I see, wherever I may glance, The water's victory, the billow's glory, And see the rising tide a ruling empress; Now when a playful and good-minded flood Closes about the houses, plants, and men Fondly, in a soft-flowing, sweet embrace; Now when the air, the planter of the tree Of Health, raised by the great sea's breath, digs deep Into the open breasts of living things;
Now, I remember her, the little lass Who had the sea's pure dew, and, like a wave Resistless, surpassed the tide in vehemence. Now I recall the little nimble lass, Life's victory, blossoming youth's proud glory, And joy's own throne. Now I remember her.
Her face was like a cloudless early dawn; Her hair like moonlight shimmering upon The restless wave; her passing, like the flash Of a swift fish that in the night swims by Upon its silver path; her eyes were tinged With the deep color of the sea beneath Black clouds; her voice, the sound of a calm night Upon the beach; her chiseled dimples twin Upon her cheeks were overfilled with smiles That Loves might drink from them to slake their thirst.
Boy-like, she stepped on nimble foot and free, Boldly and daringly with fearless look, A child's soul dwelling in a woman's flesh.
And when the high tide covered all the land, Making the pier a sea, the street a strand, And when the boat cast anchor at my threshold, Then from her home the little girl came forth Half bare, half clad, robed in the robe of light In a swift dancing flood that revelled full Of water-lust and crowns of seething foam.
She gave her orders to the sea; she ruled The tide and forward drove the foaming waves, Just as a shepherd lass, her white-clad sheep. Her native country, first and last, the sea! And whenever she passed, a Venus new Seemed rising from the shining water's depths.