Part 3

Who brought thee forth, immortal vision, who In Phthia or in Tempe brought thee forth? Out of the sunlight and the sapful earth What god the simples of thy spirit drew? A goddess rose from the green waves, and threw Her arms about a king, to give thee birth; A centaur, patron of thy boyish mirth, Over the meadows in thy footsteps flew. Now Thessaly forgets thee, and the deep Thy keeled bark furrowed answers not thy prayer; But far away new generations keep Thy laurels fresh, where branching Isis hems The lawns of Oxford round about, or where Enchanted Eton sits by pleasant Thames.

III

I gaze on thee as Phidias of old Or Polyclitus gazed, when first he saw These hard and shining limbs, without a flaw, And cast his wonder in heroic mould. Unhappy me who only may behold, Nor make immutable and fix in awe A fair immortal form no worm shall gnaw, A tempered mind whose faith was never told! The godlike mien, the lion's lock and eye, The well-knit sinew, utter a brave heart Better than many words that part by part Spell in strange symbols what serene and whole In nature lives, nor can in marble die. The perfect body is itself the soul.

THE RUSTIC AT THE PLAY

Our youth is like a rustic at the play That cries aloud in simple-hearted fear, Curses the villain, shudders at the fray, And weeps before the maiden's wreathed bier. Yet once familiar with the changeful show, He starts no longer at a brandished knife, But, his heart chastened at the sight of woe, Ponders the mirrored sorrows of his life. So tutored too, I watch the moving art Of all this magic and impassioned pain That tells the story of the human heart In a false instance, such as poets feign; I smile, and keep within the parchment furled That prompts the passions of this strutting world.

ODES

I

What god will choose me from this labouring nation To worship him afar, with inward gladness, At sunset and at sunrise, in some Persian Garden of roses;

Or under the full moon, in rapturous silence, Charmed by the trickling fountain, and the moaning Of the death-hallowed cypress, and the myrtle Hallowed by Venus?

O for a chamber in an eastern tower, Spacious and empty, roofed in odorous cedar, A silken soft divan, a woven carpet Rich, many-coloured;

A jug that, poised on her firm head, a negress Fetched from the well; a window to the ocean, Lest of the stormy world too deep seclusion Make me forgetful!

Thence I might watch the vessel-bearing waters Beat the slow pulses of the life eternal, Bringing of nature's universal travail Infinite echoes;

And there at even I might stand and listen To thrum of distant lutes and dying voices Chanting the ditty an Arabian captive Sang to Darius.

So would I dream awhile, and ease a little The soul long stifled and the straitened spirit, Tasting new pleasures in a far-off country Sacred to beauty.

II

My heart rebels against my generation, That talks of freedom and is slave to riches, And, toiling 'neath each day's ignoble burden, Boasts of the morrow.

No space for noonday rest or midnight watches, No purest joy of breathing under heaven! Wretched themselves, they heap, to make them happy, Many possessions.

But thou, O silent Mother, wise, immortal, To whom our toil is laughter,--take, divine one, This vanity away, and to thy lover Give what is needful:--

A staunch heart, nobly calm, averse to evil, The windy sky for breath, the sea, the mountain, A well-born, gentle friend, his spirit's brother, Ever beside him.

What would you gain, ye seekers, with your striving, Or what vast Babel raise you on your shoulders? You multiply distresses, and your children Surely will curse you.

O leave them rather friendlier gods, and fairer Orchards and temples, and a freer bosom! What better comfort have we, or what other Profit in living,

Than to feed, sobered by the truth of Nature, Awhile upon her bounty and her beauty, And hand her torch of gladness to the ages Following after?

She hath not made us, like her other children, Merely for peopling of her spacious kingdoms, Beasts of the wild, or insects of the summer, Breeding and dying,

But also that we might, half knowing, worship The deathless beauty of her guiding vision, And learn to love, in all things mortal, only What is eternal.

III

Gathering the echoes of forgotten wisdom, And mastered by a proud, adventurous purpose, Columbus sought the golden shores of India Opposite Europe.

He gave the world another world, and ruin Brought upon blameless, river-loving nations, Cursed Spain with barren gold, and made the Andes Fiefs of Saint Peter;

While in the cheerless North the thrifty Saxon Planted his corn, and, narrowing his bosom, Made covenant with God, and by keen virtue Trebled his riches.

What venture hast thou left us, bold Columbus? What honour left thy brothers, brave Magellan? Daily the children of the rich for pastime Circle the planet.

And what good comes to us of all your dangers? A smaller earth and smaller hope of heaven. Ye have but cheapened gold, and, measuring ocean, Counted the islands.

No Ponce de Leon shall drink in fountains, On any flowering Easter, youth eternal; No Cortes look upon another ocean; No Alexander

Found in the Orient dim a boundless kingdom, And, clothing his Greek strength in barbarous splendour, Build by the sea his throne, while sacred Egypt Honours his godhead.

The earth, the mother once of godlike Theseus And mighty Heracles, at length is weary, And now brings forth a spawn of antlike creatures, Blackening her valleys,

Inglorious in their birth and in their living, Curious and querulous, afraid of battle, Rummaging earth for coals, in camps of hovels Crouching from winter,

As if grim fate, amid our boastful prating, Made us the image of our brutish fathers, When from their caves they issued, crazed with terror, Howling and hungry.

For all things come about in sacred cycles, And life brings death, and light eternal darkness, And now the world grows old apace; its glory Passes for ever.

Perchance the earth will yet for many ages Bear her dead child, her moon, around her orbit; Strange craft may tempt the ocean streams, new forests Cover the mountains.

If in those latter days men still remember Our wisdom and our travail and our sorrow, They never can be happy, with that burden Heavy upon them,

Knowing the hideous past, the blood, the famine, The ancestral hate, the eager faith's disaster, All ending in their little lives, and vulgar Circle of troubles.

But if they have forgot us, and the shifting Of sands has buried deep our thousand cities, Fell superstition then will seize upon them; Protean error,

Will fill their panting heart with sickly phantoms Of sudden blinding good and monstrous evil; There will be miracles again, and torment, Dungeon, and fagot,--

Until the patient earth, made dry and barren, Sheds all her herbage in a final winter, And the gods turn their eyes to some far distant Bright constellation.

IV

Slowly the black earth gains upon the yellow, And the caked hill-side is ribbed soft with furrows. Turn now again, with voice and staff, my ploughman, Guiding thy oxen.

Lift the great ploughshare, clear the stones and brambles, Plant it the deeper, with thy foot upon it, Uprooting all the flowering weeds that bring not Food to thy children.

Patience is good for man and beast, and labour Hardens to sorrow and the frost of winter. Turn then again, in the brave hope of harvest, Singing to heaven.

V

Of thee the Northman by his beached galley Dreamt, as he watched the never-setting Ursa And longed for summer and thy light, O sacred Mediterranean.

Unseen he loved thee; for the heart within him Knew earth had gardens where he might be blessed, Putting away long dreams and aimless, barbarous Hunger for battle.

The foretaste of thy languors thawed his bosom; A great need drove him to thy caverned islands From the gray, endless reaches of the outer Desert of ocean.

He saw thy pillars, saw thy sudden mountains Wrinkled and stark, and in their crooked gorges, 'Neath peeping pine and cypress, guessed the torrent Smothered in flowers.

Thine incense to the sun, thy gathered vapours, He saw suspended on the flanks of Taurus, Or veiling the snowed bosom of the virgin Sister of Atlas.

He saw the luminous top of wide Olympus, Fit for the happy gods; he saw the pilgrim River, with rains of Ethiopia flooding Populous Egypt.

And having seen, he loved thee. His racked spirit, By thy breath tempered and the light that clothes thee, Forgot the monstrous gods, and made of Nature Mistress and mother.

The more should I, O fatal sea, before thee Of alien words make echoes to thy music; For I was born where first the rills of Tagus Turn to the westward,

And wandering long, alas! have need of drinking Deep of the patience of thy perfect sadness, O thou that constant through the change of ages, Beautiful ever,

Never wast wholly young and void of sorrows, Nor ever canst be old, while yet the morning Kindles thy ripples, or the golden evening Dyes thee in purple.

Thee, willing to be tamed but still untamable, The Roman called his own until he perished, As now the busy English hover o'er thee, Stalwart and noble;

But all is naught to thee, while no harsh winter Congeals thy fountains, and the blown Sahara Chokes not with dreadful sand thy deep and placid Rock-guarded havens.

Thou carest not what men may tread thy margin; Nor I, while from some heather-scented headland I may behold thy beauty, the eternal Solace of mortals.

ATHLETIC ODE

I hear a rumour and a shout, A louder heart-throb pulses in the air. Fling, Muse, thy lattice open, and beware To keep the morning out. Beckon into the chamber of thy care The bird of healing wing That trilleth there, Blithe happy passion of the strong and fair. Their wild heart singeth. Do thou also sing. How vain, how vain The feeble croaking of a reasoning tongue That heals no pain And prompts no bright deed worthy to be sung Too soon cold earth Refuses flowers. Oh, greet their lovely birth! Too soon dull death Quiets the heaving of our doubtful breath. Deem not its worth Too high for honouring mirth; Sing while the lyre is strung, And let the heart beat, while the heart is young. When the dank earth begins to thaw and yield The early clover, didst thou never pass Some balmy noon from field to sunny field And press thy feet against the tufted grass? So hadst thou seen A spring palaestra on the tender green. Here a tall stripling, with a woman's face, Draws the spiked sandal on his upturned heel, Sure-footed for the race; Another hurls the quoit of heavy steel And glories to be strong; While yet another, lightest of the throng, Crouching on tiptoe for the sudden bound, Flies o'er the level race-course, like the hound, And soon is lost afar; Another jumps the bar, For some god taught him easily to spring, The legs drawn under, as a bird takes wing, Till, tempting fortune farther than is meet, At last he fails, and fails, and vainly tries, And blushing, and ashamed to lift his eyes, Shakes the light earth from his feet. Him friendly plaudits greet And pleasing to the unaccustomed ear. Come then afield, come with the sporting year And watch the youth at play, For gentle is the strengthening sun, and sweet The soul of boyhood and the breath of May.

And with the milder ray Of the declining sun, when sky and shore, In purple drest and misty silver-grey, Hang curtains round the day, Come list the beating of the plashing oar, For grief in rhythmic labour glides away. The glancing blades make circles where they dip,-- Now flash and drip Cool wind-blown drops into the glassy river, Now sink and cleave, While the lithe rowers heave And feel the boat beneath them leap and quiver. The supple oars in time, Shattering the mirror of the rippled water, Fly, fly as poets climb, Borne by the pliant promise of their rhyme, Or as bewitched by Nereus' loveliest daughter The painted dolphins, following along, Leap to the measure of her liquid song.

But the blasts of late October, Tempering summer's paling grief With a russet glow and sober, Bring of these sports the latest and the chief. Then bursts the flame from many a smouldering ember, And many an ardent boy Woos harsher pleasures sweeter to remember, Hugged with a sterner and a tenser joy. Look where the rivals come: Each little phalanx on its chosen ground Strains for the sudden shock, and all around The multitude is dumb. Come, watch the stubborn fight And doubtful, in the sight Of wide-eyed beauty and unstinted love, Ay, the wise gods above, Attentive to this hot and generous fray, Smile on its fortunes and its end prepare, For play is also life, and far from care Their own glad life is play.

Ye nymphs and fauns, to Bacchus dear, That woke Cithaeron with your midnight rout, Arise, arise and shout! Your day returns, your haunt is here. Shake off dull sleep and long despair; There is intoxication in this air, And frenzy in this yelping cheer. How oft of old the enraptured Muses sung Olympian victors' praise. Lo! even in these days The world is young. Life like a torrent flung For ever down For ever wears a rainbow for a crown. O idle sigh for loveliness outworn, When the red flush of each unfailing morn Floods every field and grove, And no moon wanes but some one is in love. O wasted tear, A new soul wakes with each awakened year. Beneath these rags, these blood-clots on the face, The valiant soul is still the same, the same The strength, the art, the inevitable grace, The thirst unquenched for fame Quenching base passion, the high will severe, The long obedience, and the knightly flame Of loyalty to honour and a name. Give o'er, ye chords, your music ere ye tire, Be sweetly mute, O lyre. Words soon are cold, and life is warm for ever. One half of honour is the strong endeavour, Success the other, but when both conspire Youth has her perfect crown, and age her old desire.

VARIOUS POEMS

CAPE COD

The low sandy beach and the thin scrub pine, The wide reach of bay and the long sky line,-- O, I am far from home!

The salt, salt smell of the thick sea air, And the smooth round stones that the ebbtides wear,-- When will the good ship come?

The wretched stumps all charred and burned, And the deep soft rut where the cartwheel turned,-- Why is the world so old?

The lapping wave, and the broad gray sky Where the cawing crows and the slow gulls fly,-- Where are the dead untold?

The thin, slant willows by the flooded bog, The huge stranded hulk and the floating log,-- Sorrow with life began!

And among the dark pines, and along the flat shore, O the wind, and the wind, for evermore! What will become of man?

A TOAST

See this bowl of purple wine, Life-blood of the lusty vine! All the warmth of summer suns In the vintage liquid runs, All the glow of winter nights Plays about its jewel lights, Thoughts of time when love was young Lurk its ruby drops among, And its deepest depths are dyed With delight of friendship tried. Worthy offering, I ween, For a god or for a queen, Is the draught I pour to thee,-- Comfort of all misery, Single friend of the forlorn, Haven of all beings born, Hope when trouble wakes at night, And when naught delights, delight. Holy Death, I drink to thee; Do not part my friends and me. Take this gift, which for a night Puts dull leaden care to flight, Thou who takest grief away For a night and for a day.

PREMONITION

The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

A hidden light illumines all our seeing, An unknown love enchants our solitude. We feel and know that from the depths of being Exhales an infinite, a perfect good.

Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrow And be not happy like a naked star, Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow, Some rapture from the rapture felt afar.

Our heart strings are too coarse for Nature's fingers Deftly to quicken as she pulses on, And the harsh tremor that among them lingers Will into sweeter silence die anon.

We catch the broken prelude and suggestion Of things unuttered, needing to be sung; We know the burden of them, and their question Lies heavy on the heart, nor finds a tongue.

Till haply, lightning through the storm of ages, Our sullen secret flash from sky to sky, Glowing in some diviner poet's pages And swelling into rapture from this sigh.

SOLIPSISM

I could believe that I am here alone, And all the world my dream; The passion of the scene is all my own, And things that seem but seem.

Perchance an exhalation of my sorrow Hath raised this vaporous show, For whence but from my soul should all things borrow So deep a tinge of woe?

I keep the secret doubt within my breast To be the gods' defence, To ease the heart by too much ruth oppressed And drive the horror hence.

O sorrow that the patient brute should cower And die, not having sinned! O pity that the wild and fragile flower Should shiver in the wind!

Then were I dreaming dreams I know not of, For that is part of me That feels the piercing pang of grief and love And doubts eternally.

But whether all to me the vision come Or break in many beams, The pageant ever shifts, and being's sum Is but the sum of dreams.

SYBARIS

Lap, ripple, lap, Icarian wave, the sand Along the ruins of this piteous land; Murmur the praises of a lost delight, And soothe the aching of my starved sight With sheen of mirrored beauties, caught aright.

Here stood enchanted palaces of old, All veined porphyry and burnished gold; Here matrons and slight maidens sat aloof Beneath cool porches, rich with Tyrian woof Hung from the carven rafters of the roof.

Here in a mart a swarthy turbaned brave Showed the wrought blade or praised the naked slave. "Touch with your finger-tips this edge of steel," Quoth he, "and see this lad, from head to heel Like a bronze Cupid. Feel, my masters, feel."

Here Aphrodite filled with frenzied love The dark recesses of her murmurous grove. The doves that haunted it, the winds that sighed, Were souls of youths that in her coverts died, And hopes of heroes strewed her garden wide.

Under her shades a narrow brazen gate Led to the courts of Ares and of Fate. Who entered breathed the unutterable prayer Of cruel hearts, and death was worshipped there, And men went thence enfranchised by despair.

Here the proud athlete in the baths delayed, While a cool fountain on his shoulders played, Then in fine linen swathed his breast and thighs, And silent, myrtle crowned, with serious eyes, Stepped forth to list the wranglings of the wise.

A sage stalked by, his ragged mantle bound About his brows; his eyes perused the ground; He conned the number of the cube and square Of the moon's orb; his horny feet and bare Trampled the lilies carpeting the stair.

A jasper terrace hung above the sea Where the King supped with his beloved three: The Libyan chanted of her native land In raucous melody, the Indian fanned, And the huge mastiff licked his master's hand.

Below, alone, despairing of the gale, A crouching sailor furled the saffron sail; Then rose, breathed deep, and plunged in the lagoon. A mermaid spied his glistening limbs: her croon Enticed him down; her cold arms choked him soon.

And the King laughed, filled full his jewelled bowl, And drinking mused: "What know we of the soul? What magic, perfecting her harmony, Have these red drops that so attune her key, Or those of brine that set the wretched free?

"If death should change me, as old fables feign, Into some slave or beast, to purge with pain My lordly pleasures, let my torment be Still to behold thee, Sybaris, and see The sacred horror of thy loves and thee.

"Be thou my hell, my dumb eternal grief, But spare thy King the madness of belief, The brutish faith of ignorant desire That strives and wanders. Let the visible fire Of beauty torture me. That doom is higher.

"I wear the crown of life. The rose and gem Twine with the pale gold of my diadem. Nature, long secret, hath unveiled to me And proved her vile. Her wanton bosoms be My pillow now. I know her, I am free."

He spoke, and smiling stretched a languid hand, And music burst in mighty chords and bland Of harp and flute and cymbal.--When between Two cypresses the large moon rose, her sheen Silvered the nymphs' feet, tripping o'er the green.

AVILA

Again my feet are on the fragrant moor Amid the purple uplands of Castile, Realm proudly desolate and nobly poor, Scorched by the sky's inexorable zeal.

Wide desert where a diadem of towers Above Adaja hems a silent town, And locks, unmindful of the mocking hours, Her twenty temples in a granite crown.

The shafts of fervid light are in the sky, And in my heart the mysteries of yore. Here the sad trophies of my spirit lie: These dead fulfilled my destiny before.

Like huge primeval stones that strew this plain, Their nameless sorrows sink upon my breast, And like this ardent sky their cancelled pain Smiles at my grief and quiets my unrest.

For here hath mortal life from age to age Endured the silent hand that makes and mars, And, sighing, taken up its heritage Beneath the smiling and inhuman stars.