Part 3

Dion, of Syracuse (408-353 B.C.), philosopher, was a near relative, through his wife Arete, of the tyrant Dionysius the Second, by whom he was banished. He took up his residence at Athens, but on hearing that the tyrant had seized his son and given Arete in marriage to another, with a small and faithful force he returned to Syracuse, captured the place and drove Dionysius into Ortygia, a fortress within the city walls. As soon as their oppression was relieved, the suspicious Syracusans began to fear the power of Dion, although he had nobly refused to make concessions to Dionysius when urged thereto by the passionate appeals of Arete and her son, held captive in Ortygia. On hearing of a plot formed against him among the citizens, by Heracleides, without taking revenge on the thankless city, Dion withdrew to Leontini, but only to be speedily recalled to rescue the people a second time from the ravages of Dionysius, who had charged out upon the town as soon as Dion had withdrawn. Again Dion returned to Syracuse, and this time succeeded in routing the tyrant from his stronghold and restoring peace. With a magnanimity equal to his valour he pardoned Heracleides and his confreres. On breaking into the deserted fortress at the head of his troops, Dion, after years of separation, found his wife Arete. Dion naturally succeeded to the throne of the deposed monarch, but his reforms and the severity of his manners and rule rendered him unpopular with his fickle fellow-townsmen, and plots were formed for his assassination. He scorned to take precautions against attack, and so fell a victim to his valour. He was surrounded on the day of the festival of the Koreia, in his apartment in the palace, by a band of youths of distinguished muscular strength, who endeavoured to throw and strangle him. But the old warrior proving too strong for them, they were obliged to send out one of their number through a back door to procure a sword. With this, Dion, a man in many ways too great for his age and circumstances, was despatched.

Pray youths, what urgent business claims our ear On this high feast when all keep holiday? Already do the gay-decked barges move Across the harbour to the sacred grove, And shouts and music reach us even here, Where through the balustrades the dancing sea Marbles this chamber with reflected lights. What! Is it treason? Ye have come to slay, I read your purpose right. The palace guards Have been secured and all retreat cut off, And I am at your mercy. It is well. So often have I met death face to face, His eyes now wear the welcome of a friend’s. Is it for hate of Dion, or for gold, Ye come to stain your honour with my blood? And think ye I shall kneel and fawn on you, And cry for mercy with a woman’s shrieks? Though me, like some old lion in his den, Fate, stratagems, not ye, have tracked to death. The lion is old, but all his teeth are sound. What! Ye would seize me? There, I shake you off. Ye did not deem these withered arms so strong That ye five cubs could thus be kept at bay, Despite your claws, and fury, and fierce barks. But I am Dion--Dion, Plato’s friend, And I have faced the rain of human blood, The lightning of the sword-strokes on my helm, The thunder of on-rushing cavalry, When ye were sucking babies at the breast. And think ye I am one whom ye can slay By throttling, as an outcast slays her child, Pinching the life out of its tiny throat? Not this shall be my death, for I am royal, And I must royally die. Go fetch a sword And I shall wed it nobly like a king.

I brought you manhood with my conquering arm, I offered Syracuse a way to fame. I could have made our city reign as queen, With her dominion founded in the sea, Cemented with wise bands of equal laws, A constitution wrought by sober minds, Expanding with its growth, yet ye would not, But mewed and babbled, cried and sulked again, Like children that will quarrel for a coin And yet its value know not. I am king. Beyond this honour, if it honour be, To sit enthroned above so base a herd,-- A king of mine own self. My thoughts are matched With those of gods, I have no kin with you. Go publish my last words when I am dead, And sting the city’s heart with them. Say, “Thus, O men of Syracuse, thus Dion spake, Falling upon the threshold of his death, With face turned back, eyes fixed, and cheek unblanched, For one last moment, at the braying mob, Ere into dark he passed to meet his peers, The gods and heroes of the nether world.” Yea, tell the foolish rabble, “Dion sends His love and duty, as a warrior should, Unto the sweet earth of his native town, Soon to be watered with his warmest blood. He loved her pleasant streets, her golden air, The circle of her hills, her sapphire sea, And he loved once, and loved unto his death, The poor, half-brutal thing her mob became Under the heel of tyrants; had he not, He might have finished out his course of days And died among the pillows on his bed. But he so loved his Syracuse that she, Grown sick of his great heart, let out its red Upon the pebbles of her streets, and cried, ‘Mine own hands slew him, for he loved too much.’

“Too much, ay, at her piteous call he came And gripped the tyrant’s heel upon your neck, And overthrew him, bidding you uprise. And when your silly fathers feared his strength, And set their murderous snares around his path, The sword he drew for her, for her he sheathed, Disdaining as a warrior to be wroth At the snake’s use of its recovered power To sting the breast that warmed it back to life; And he whose word could then have crushed the town Into a shapeless ruin at his feet, Led off to Leontini all his men, Who, had ye slain him, would upon the ground Have heaped your bodies for his funeral pyre; And who, with eyes that cursed her very stones, Left Syracuse unharmed, at his command. Yet on the morrow in your new distress Ye were not loth to send with craven haste Your weeping envoys fawning at his feet And crying, ‘Come and save us; oh, forget, Great Dion, how we wronged thee, come again, Yet this once more, and save our Syracuse.’

“There are no depths in ocean, earth or sky So deep as Dion’s pride; there is no force Commensurate with the scorn which curled his lip In detestation of the fickle world, Before he plunged forever down death’s gulf. So proud was he, that he despised success, His manhood was the crown his spirit wore. His stern heart felt no pulse of arrogant joy When charging foremost on the routed ranks Of Dionysius in precipitous flight; Nor when, as conqueror, up the city’s hill The wild mob bore him with their loud acclaims, And women from the house-roofs hailed him king; And shrilled his praises out to the great deep. But he was proud, as might some god be proud, At his self-conquest, when for mercy sued False Heracleides, whose perfidious plot To overthrow him well-nigh wrought your doom. Ye saw the traitor kneel, ye heard his words, How his swift tongue did hide the poisoned fangs. But when all voices shouted, ‘Let him die,’ The one most wronged obeyed that inner voice Which bade him spare a fallen enemy, And stooping down, he raised and pardoned him, Well knowing as ye the baseness of the man, But being too great for meanness like revenge.

“Had Dion not been proud, O Syracuse, He might have told such tale of woes endured As would, like some moist south-wind after frost, Have made your very walls and porticos Run down with tears of silent sympathy. Ye thought that day he read to you unmoved The letter that his own son wrote to him In his young blood, sobbed out with broken cries, While Dionysius pressed the red-hot irons Close on his slim boy’s back, that he was stone, Inhuman, or if human, weak like you, And would with treason buy him from his chains. Nay, but ye knew not how his father’s heart Burnt with the fury of the molten sun, And how the ashes of his being choked The steadfast voice which cried, ‘I will not yield, I will not wrong my blood with treachery To what is right--the gods deliver him.’

“‘Twas well ye marked him not that other day When he broke first into the citadel Deserted by the tyrant, and there found, Whiter, more stone-like than the marble shaft ’Gainst which she crouched from him in speechless fear, His wife, his long-lost Arete, and went And drew her white hands from her face and said, ‘My wife, my own, thy Dion comes again, And his great love doth wash thy body clean From sins forced on thee, which were not thine own.’ For as she rose and clung about his neck, Panting and quivering like a hunted fawn, She downward bent her face in guileless shame And told him, with her cheek against his breast, How through those years of captive misery She, like a priestess, had in secret shrine Of wedded heart kept ever bright and pure The vestal flame of her great love for him. ’Twas well ye marked not, Syracusan men, How unlike stone was Dion then, how fell His woman’s tears upon her woman’s hair. ’Twas well ye heard not what his heart pulsed out, Without one word, into her tight-pressed ear, Else might ye and your wives have called him weak, When ye had seen that inner self laid bare Which he forsook to serve his native land.”

A strong tree which has braved a thousand storms May totter in the wind which brings its fall, So now methinks my pride is dying down When thus I talk before my funeral Of all the love, hate, duty, self-restraint, Ingratitude and anguish, which have graved And scarred old Dion as he is to-day, With all his years gone by and all his deeds.

And now, eternal gods, I come to you Through death, with calm, irrevocable tread. Farewell, life’s toilsome warfare. Like a king, Great gods, receive me into bliss or woe, Whiche’er your land affordeth; set my throne Among the company of those who strove To mount by inner conquest, not by blood; And who accept and quaff with equal mind Pleasure or pain, defeat or victory. I care not to be highest, only peer Of all the great who are in-gathered there; If needs my rank be blazoned on my throne, Inscribe it, “Dion, Tyrant of Himself.”

Ha! ye have found a sword; ’tis well, for now I shall lie down to sleep as soldier should, Wounded in front and by a soldier’s blade. O Syracuse, I thought to carve a rock Rough and unhewn into a perfect shape; But lo! ’twas only clay wherewith I wrought, And every wind and rain did melt you down Into the common mud which tyrants love To smooth into an easy path to power.

Here, youths, I do not flinch, behold my breast, Shaggy, like front of lion, streaked with grey. It is your glory to anticipate Time’s tardy slaughter. Come, which will be great And first to make himself a name and steep His weakling hands in Dion’s royal blood? Pray you be quick, I do not fear the pain, But would quit life. Here is my naked heart; It knocks against the edges of this rib, But yet not faster than its wont. Come, youths, Put the sword here and drive it quickly home, And fix your eyes upon me as I fall, And mark ye well the grandeur of my death. For nothing but the red flood bursting forth, No cry, no groan, no movement of the face, Shall tell you that ye have not slain a god. Then draw the blade out blunted where it met The tempered edge of my self-mastering will, And bear the crimsoned trophy through the streets, And show it to the wondering citizens; That men may know and tell in aftertimes How Dion lived and died for Syracuse.

_LOVE SLIGHTED._

Love built a chamber in my heart, A daintier ne’er was seen, ’Twas filled with books and gems of art, And all that makes a lover’s part True homage to his Queen.

The ceiling was of silver bright That showed the floor below; The walls were hung with silk so white That e’en the mirror was to sight A slope of driven snow.

Then Love threw open wide the door, And sang, as in a dream, A song as sweet as bird can pour Above the sunlight-marbled floor Of some clear forest stream.

He sang of youth that ne’er grows old, Of flowers that ne’er decay, Of wine whose sweetness is not told, Of honour bright, and courage bold, And faith more fair than they.

And many a maiden passed me by, Though some would hear and start, But thought the singing was so high, It came from somewhere in the sky, And not from my poor heart.

So years have come and years have flown Adown the sunset hill, But Love still sits and sings alone, And, though his voice has sweeter grown, My heart is empty still.

_ANDANTE._

The days and weeks are going, love, The years roll on apace, And the hand of time is showing, love, In the care lines on thy face;

But the tie that bound our hearts, love, In the morning’s golden haze, Is a tie that never parts, love, With the passing of the days.

For though Death’s arm be strong, love, Our love its light will shed, And like a glorious song, love, Will live when Death is dead.

_SORROW’S WAKING._

Once a maiden, Heavy-laden, Sought to borrow Sleep from sorrow.

Sweet the taking, But the waking In the numbness And the dumbness Of the day-dawn, With the grey lawn Softly plaining In the raining, And the meadows Hid in shadows, Was more dreary Than the weary Mounds which sever Hearts forever, Where Death’s reaping Leaves man sleeping In God’s keeping.

_ON AN OLD VENETIAN PORTRAIT._

The features loom out of the darkness As brown as an ancient scroll, But the eyes gleam on with the fire that shone In the dead man’s living soul.

He is clad in a cardinal’s mantle, And he wears the cap of state, But his lip is curled in a sneer at the world, And his glance is full of hate.

Old age has just touched with its winter The hair on his lip and chin, He stooped, no doubt, as he walked about, And the blood in his veins was thin.

His date and his title I know not, But I know that the man is there, As cruel and cold as in days of old, When he schemed for the Pontiff’s chair.

_He_ never could get into Heaven, Though his lands were all given to pay For prayers to be said on behalf of the dead From now till the judgment day.

His palace, his statues, and pictures Were Heaven, at least for a time, And now he is “Where?”--why an ornament there On my wall, and I think him sublime.

For the gold of another sunset Falls over him even now, And it deepens the red of the cap on his head, And it brings out the lines on his brow.

The ages have died into silence, And men have forgotten his tomb, But he still sits there in his cardinal’s chair, And he watches me now in the gloom.

_OLD LETTERS._

The house was silent, and the light Was fading from the western glow; I read, till tears had dimmed my sight, Some letters written long ago.

The voices that have passed away, The faces that have turned to mould, Were round me in the room to-day, And laughed and chatted as of old.

The thoughts that youth was wont to think, The hopes now dead for evermore, Came from the lines of faded ink, As sweet and earnest as of yore.

I laid the letters by and dreamed The dear dead past to life again; The present and its purpose seemed A fading vision full of pain.

Then, with a sudden shout of glee, The children burst into the room, Their little faces were to me As sunrise in the cloud of gloom.

The world was full of meaning still, For love will live though loved ones die; I turned upon life’s darkened hill And gloried in the morning sky.

_VAN ELSEN._

God spake three times and saved Van Elsen’s soul; He spake by sickness first and made him whole; Van Elsen heard Him not, Or soon forgot.

God spake to him by wealth, the world outpoured Its treasures at his feet, and called him Lord; Van Elsen’s heart grew fat And proud thereat.

God spake the third time when the great world smiled, And in the sunshine slew his little child; Van Elsen like a tree Fell hopelessly.

Then in the darkness came a voice which said, “As thy heart bleedeth, so my heart hath bled, As I have need of thee, Thou needest me.”

That night Van Elsen kissed the baby feet, And kneeling by the narrow winding sheet, Praised Him with fervent breath Who conquered death.

_IN MEMORIAM._

JAMES WILLIAM WILLIAMS, LORD BISHOP OF QUEBEC, DIED APRIL 20TH, 1892, AGED 66 YEARS.

To those found faithful, oft the call to rest Comes in the glory of the later noon, Ere evening falls and with declining day The mind has darkened and work lost its zest. So now, though first our sad hearts cried “Too soon,” We see God’s angel did in heavenly way His finished work and Master’s love attest. And now he wins, withdrawn from human eye, A good man’s two-fold immortality, To live forever near the Master’s throne, And here, in lives made better by his own.

_THE EVERLASTING FATHER._

Thou whose face is as the lightning and whose chariot as the sun, Unto whom a thousand ages in their passing are as one, All our worlds and mighty systems are but tiny grains of sand, Held above the gulfs of chaos in the hollow of Thy hand.

Yea, we see Thy power about us, and we feel its volumes roll Through the torrent of our passions and the stillness of the soul, Where its visions light the darkness till the dawn that is to be, Like the long auroral splendours on a silent polar sea.

Then uplift us, great Creator, to communion with Thy will, Crush our puny heart-rebellions, make our baser cravings still. Thou whose fingers through the ages wrought with fire the soul of man, Blend it more and more forever with the purpose of Thy plan.

Speak, O Lord, in voice of thunder, show Thy footsteps on the deep, Pour Thy sunshine from the heavens on the blinded eyes that weep, Till the harmonies of nature and exalted human love Make the universe a mirror of the glorious God above.

_THE STING OF DEATH._

“Is Sin, then, fair?” Nay, love, come now Put back the hair From his sunny brow; See, here, blood-red Across his head A brand is set, The word--“Regret.”

“Is Sin so fleet That while he stays Our hands and feet May go his ways?” Nay, love, his breath Clings round like death, He slakes desire With liquid fire.

“Is Sin Death’s sting?” Ay, sure he is, His golden wing Darkens man’s bliss; And when Death comes, Sin sits and hums A chaunt of fears Into man’s ears.

“How slayeth Sin?” First, God is hid, And the heart within By its own self chid; Then the maddened brain Is scourged by pain To sin as before And more and more, For evermore.

_TE JUDICE._

Dost thou deem that thyself Art as white from sin As a platter of delf,-- Outside and in? When thine eyes behold Christ’s kind face lean From His throne of gold To test what is told Of the life that hath been, Like a leper of old, Thou wilt cry, “Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!”

And thinkest thou this-- That thou judgest aright Thy heart as it is In God’s and man’s sight? Fool, take up thy light, And descend the stair steep To thy heart’s dungeons deep, And search them and sweep Till their ghosts are unmasked; Else when judgment is come Thou wilt stand stark and dumb At the first question asked.

_THE TWO MISTRESSES._

Ah, woe is me, my heart’s in sorry plight, Enamoured equally of Wrong and Right; Right hath the sweeter grace, But Wrong the prettier face: Ah, woe is me, my heart’s in sorry plight.

And Right is jealous that I let Wrong stay; Yet Wrong seems sweeter when I turn away. Right sober is, like Truth, But Wrong is in her youth; So Right is jealous that I let Wrong stay.

When I am happy, left alone with Right, Then Wrong flits by and puts her out of sight; I follow and I fret, And once again forget That I am happy, left alone with Right.

Ah, God! do Thou have pity on my heart! A puppet blind am I, take Thou my part! Chasten my wandering love, Set it on things above: Ah, God! do Thou take pity on my heart!

_IN THE WOODS._

This is God’s house--the blue sky is the ceiling, This wood the soft green carpet for His feet, Those hills His stairs, down which the brooks come stealing, With baby laughter making earth more sweet.

And here His friends come, clouds and soft winds sighing, And little birds whose throats pour forth their love, And spring and summer, and the white snow lying Pencilled with shadows of bare boughs above.

And here come sunbeams through the green leaves straying, And shadows from the storm-clouds overdrawn, And warm, hushed nights, when mother earth is praying So late that her moon-candle burns till dawn.

Sweet house of God, sweet earth so full of pleasure, I enter at thy gates in storm or calm; And every sunbeam is a joy and treasure, And every cloud a solace and a balm.

_CALVARY._

O sorrowful heart of humanity, foiled in thy fight for dominion, Bowed with the burden of emptiness, blackened with passion and woe; Here is a faith that will bear thee on waft of omnipotent pinion, Up to the heaven of victory, there to be known and to know.

Here is the vision of Calvary, crowned with the world’s revelation, Throned in the grandeur of gloom and the thunders that quicken the dead; A meteor of hope in the darkness shines forth like a new constellation, Dividing the night of our sorrow, revealing a path as we tread.

Now are the portals of death by the feet of the Conqueror entered; Flames of the sun in his setting roll over the city of doom, And robe in imperial purple the Body triumphantly centred, Naked and white between thieves and ’mid ghosts that have crept from the tomb.

O Soul, that art lost in immensity, craving for light and despairing, Here is the hand of the Crucified, pulses of love in its veins, Human as ours in its touch, with the sinews of Deity bearing The zones of the pendulous planets, the weight of the winds and the rains.

Here in the Heart of the Crucified, find thee a refuge and hiding, Love at the core of the universe, guidance and peace in the night; Centuries pass like a flood, but the Rock of our Strength is abiding, Grounded in depths of eternity, girt with a mantle of light.