Part 3
The grass around my limbs is deep and sweet; Yonder the house has lost its shadow wholly, The blinds are dropped, and softly now and slowly The day flows in and floats; a calm retreat Of tempered light where fair things fair things meet; White busts and marble Dian make it holy, Within a niche hangs Dürer’s Melancholy Brooding; and, should you enter, there will greet Your sense with vague allurement effluence faint Of one magnolia bloom; fair fingers draw From the piano Chopin’s heart-complaint; Alone, white-robed she sits; a fierce macaw On the verandah, proud of plume and paint, Screams, insolent despot, showing beak and claw.
IV. THE SINGER
“That was the thrush’s last good-night,” I thought, And heard the soft descent of summer rain In the drooped garden leaves; but hush! again The perfect iterance,--freer than unsought Odours of violets dim in woodland ways, Deeper than coilèd waters laid a-dream Below mossed ledges of a shadowy stream, And faultless as blown roses in June days. Full-throated singer! art thou thus anew Voiceful to hear how round thyself alone The enrichèd silence drops for thy delight More soft than snow, more sweet than honey-dew? Now cease: the last faint western streak is gone, Stir not the blissful quiet of the night.
V. A SUMMER MOON
Queen-moon of this enchanted summer night, One virgin slave companioning thee,--I lie Vacant to thy possession as this sky Conquered and calmed by thy rejoicing might; Swim down through my heart’s deep, thou dewy bright Wanderer of heaven, till thought must faint and die, And I am made all thine inseparably, Resolved into the dream of thy delight. Ah no! the place is common for her feet, Not here, not here,--beyond the amber mist, And breadths of dusky pine, and shining lawn, And unstirred lake, and gleaming belts of wheat, She comes upon her Latmos, and has kissed The sidelong face of blind Endymion.
VI. A PEACH
If any sense in mortal dust remains When mine has been refined from flower to flower, Won from the sun all colours, drunk the shower And delicate winy dews, and gained the gains Which elves who sleep in airy bells, a-swing Through half a summer day, for love bestow, Then in some warm old garden let me grow To such a perfect, lush, ambrosian thing As this. Upon a southward-facing wall I bask, and feel my juices dimly fed And mellowing, while my bloom comes golden grey: Keep the wasps from me! but before I fall Pluck me, white fingers, and o’er two ripe-red Girl lips O let me richly swoon away!
VII. EARLY AUTUMN
If while I sit flatter’d by this warm sun Death came to me, and kissed my mouth and brow, And eyelids which the warm light hovers through, I should not count it strange. Being half won By hours that with a tender sadness run, Who would not softly lean to lips which woo In the Earth’s grave speech? Nor could it aught undo Of Nature’s calm observances begun Still to be here the idle autumn day. Pale leaves would circle down, and lie unstirr’d Where’er they fell; the tired wind hither call Her gentle fellows; shining beetles stray Up their green courts; and only yon shy bird A little bolder grow ere evenfall.
VIII. LATER AUTUMN
This is the year’s despair: some wind last night Utter’d too soon the irrevocable word, And the leaves heard it, and the low clouds heard; So a wan morning dawned of sterile light; Flowers drooped, or showed a startled face and white; The cattle cowered, and one disconsolate bird Chirped a weak note; last came this mist and blurred The hills, and fed upon the fields like blight. Ah, why so swift despair! There yet will be Warm noons, the honey’d leavings of the year, Hours of rich musing, ripest autumn’s core, And late-heaped fruit, and falling hedge-berry, Blossoms in cottage-crofts, and yet, once more, A song, not less than June’s, fervent and clear.
THE HEROINES
HELENA
(_Tenth year of Troy-Siege_)
She stood upon the wall of windy Troy, And lifted high both arms, and cried aloud With no man near:-- “Troy-town and glory of Greece Strive, let the flame aspire, and pride of life Glow to white heat! Great lords be strong, rejoice, Lament, know victory, know defeat--then die; Fair is the living many-coloured play Of hates and loves, and fair it is to cease, To cease from these and all Earth’s comely things. I, Helena, impatient of a couch Dim-scented, and dark eyes my face had fed, And soft captivity of circling arms, Come forth to shed my spirit on you, a wind And sunlight of commingling life and death. City and tented plain behold who stands Betwixt you! Seems she worth a play of swords, And glad expense of rival hopes and hates? Have the Gods given a prize which may content, Who set your games afoot,--no fictile vase, But a sufficient goblet of great gold, Embossed with heroes, filled with perfumed wine? How! doubt ye? Thus I draw the robe aside And bare the breasts of Helen.
Yesterday A mortal maiden I beheld, the light Tender within her eyes, laying white arms Around her sire’s mailed breast, and heard her chide Because his cheek was blood-splashed,--I beheld And did not wish me her. O, not for this A God’s blood thronged within my mother’s veins! For no such tender purpose rose the swan With ruffled plumes, and hissing in his joy Flashed up the stream, and held with heavy wings Leda, and curved the neck to reach her lips, And stayed, nor left her lightly. It is well To have quickened into glory one supreme, Swift hour, the century’s fiery-hearted bloom, Which falls,--to stand a splendour paramount, A beacon of high hearts and fates of men, A flame blown round by clear, contending winds, Which gladden in the contest and wax strong. Cities of Greece, fair islands, and Troy town, Accept a woman’s service; these my hands Hold not the distaff, ply not at the loom; I store from year to year no well-wrought web For daughter’s dowry; wide the web I make, Fine-tissued, costly as the Gods desire, Shot with a gleaming woof of lives and deaths, Inwrought with colours flowerlike, piteous, strange. Oblivion yields before me: ye winged years Which make escape from darkness, the red light Of a wild dawn upon your plumes, I stand The mother of the stars and winds of heaven, Your eastern Eos; cry across the storm! Through me man’s heart grows wider; little town Asleep in silent sunshine and smooth air, While babe grew man beneath your girdling towers, Wake, wonder, lift the eager head alert, Snake-like, and swift to strike, while altar-flame Rises for plighted faith with neighbour town That slept upon the mountain-shelf, and showed A small white temple in the morning sun. Oh, ever one way tending you keen prows Which shear the shadowy waves when stars are faint And break with emulous cries unto the dawn, I gaze and draw you onward; splendid names Lurk in you, and high deeds, and unachieved Virtues, and house-o’erwhelming crimes, while life Leaps in sharp flame ere all be ashes grey. Thus have I willed it ever since the hour When that great lord, the one man worshipful, Whose hands had haled the fierce Hippolyta Lightly from out her throng of martial maids, Would grace his triumph, strengthen his large joy With splendour of the swan-begotten child, Nor asked a ten years’ siege to make acquist Of all her virgin store. No dream that was,-- The moonlight in the woods, our singing stream, Eurotas, the sleek panther at my feet, And on my heart a hero’s strong right hand. O draught of love immortal! Dastard world Too poor for great exchange of soul, too poor For equal lives made glorious! O too poor For Theseus and for Helena!
Yet now It yields once more a brightness, if no love; Around me flash the tides, and in my ears A dangerous melody and piercing-clear Sing the twin siren-sisters, Death and Life; I rise and gird my spirit for the close.
Last night Cassandra cried ‘Ruin, ruin, and ruin!’ I mocked her not, nor disbelieved; the gloom Gathers, and twilight takes the unwary world. Hold me, ye Gods, a torch across the night, With one long flare blown back o’er tower and town, Till the last things of Troy complete themselves: --Then blackness, and the grey dust of a heart.”
ATALANTA
“Milanion, seven years ago this day You overcame me by a golden fraud, Traitor, and see I crown your cup with flowers, With violets and white sorrel from dim haunts,-- A fair libation--ask you to what God? To Artemis, to Artemis my Queen.
Not by my will did you escape the spear Though piteous I might be for your glad life, Husband, and for your foolish love: the Gods Who heard your vows had care of you: I stooped Half toward the beauty of the shining thing Through some blind motion of an instant joy,-- As when our babe reached arms to pluck the moon A great, round fruit between dark apple-boughs,-- And half, marking your wile, to fling away Needless advantage, conquer carelessly, And pass the goal with one light finger-touch Just while you leaned forth the bent body’s length To reach it. Could I guess I strove with three, With Aphrodite, Eros, and the third-- Milanion? There upon the maple-post Your right hand rested: the event had sprung Complete from darkness, and possessed the world Ere yet conceived: upon the edge of doom I stood with foot arrested and blind heart, Aware of nought save some unmastered fate And reddening neck and brow. I heard you cry ‘Judgment, both umpires!’ saw you stand erect, Panting, and with a face so glad, so great It shone through all my dull bewilderment A beautiful uncomprehended joy, One perfect thing and bright in a strange world. But when I looked to see my father shamed, A-choke with rage and words of proper scorn, He nodded, and the beard upon his breast Pulled twice or thrice, well-pleased, and laughed aloud, And while the wrinkles gathered round his eyes Cried ‘Girl, well done! My brother’s son retain Shrewd head upon your shoulders! Maidens ho! A veil for Atalanta, and a zone Male fingers may unclasp! Lead home the bride, Prepare the nuptial chamber!’ At his word My life turned round: too great the shame had grown With all men leagued to mock me. Could I stay, Confront the vulgar gladness of the world At high emprise defeated, a free life Tethered, light dimmed, a virtue singular Subdued to ways of common use and wont? Must I become the men’s familiar jest, The comment of the matron-guild? I turned, I sought the woods, sought silence, solitude, Green depths divine, where the soft-footed ounce Lurks, and the light deer comes and drinks and goes, Familiar paths in which the mind might gain Footing, and haply from a vantage-ground Drive this new fate an arm’s-length, hand’s-breadth off A little while, till certitude of sight And strength returned.
At evening I went back, Walked past the idle groups at gossipry, Sought you, and laid my hand upon your wrist, Drew you apart, and with no shaken voice Spoke, while the swift, hard strokes my heart out-beat Seemed growing audible, ‘Milanion, I am your wife for freedom and fair deeds: Choose: am I such an one a man could love? What need you? Some soft song to soothe your life, Or a clear cry at daybreak?’ And I ceased. How deemed you that first moment? That the Gods Had changed my heart? That I since morn had grown Haunter of Aphrodite’s golden shrine, Had kneeled before the victress, vowed my vow, Besought her pardon, ‘Aphrodite, grace! Accept the rueful Atalanta’s gifts, Rose wreaths and snow-white doves’?
In the dim woods There is a sacred place, a solitude Within their solitude, a heart of strength Within their strength. The rocks are heaped around A goblet of great waters ever fed By one swift stream which flings itself in air With all the madness, mirth and melody Of twenty rivulets gathered in the hills Where might escapes in gladness. Here the trees Strike deeper roots into the heart of earth, And hold more high communion with the heavens; Here in the hush of noon the silence broods More full of vague divinity; the light Slow-changing and the shadows as they shift Seem characters of some inscrutable law, And one who lingers long will almost hope The secret of the world may be surprised Ere he depart. It is a haunt beloved Of Artemis, the echoing rocks have heard Her laughter and her lore, and the brown stream Flashed, smitten by the splendour of her limbs. Hither I came; here turned, and dared confront Pursuing thoughts; here held my life at gaze, If ruined at least to clear loose wrack away, Study its lines of bare dismantlement, And shape a strict despair. With fixed hard lips, Dry-eyed, I set my face against the stream To deal with fate; the play of woven light Gleaming and glancing on the rippled flood Grew to a tyranny; and one visioned face Would glide into the circle of my sight, Would glide and pass away, so glad, so great The imminent joy it brought seemed charged with fear. I rose, and paced from trunk to trunk, brief track This way and that; at least my will maintained Her law upon my limbs; they needs must turn At the appointed limit. A keen cry Rose from my heart--‘Toils of the world grow strong, ‘Yield strength, yield strength to rend them to my hands; ‘Be thou apparent, Queen! in dubious ways ‘Lo my feet fail; cry down the forest glade, ‘Pierce with thy voice the tangle and dark boughs, ‘Call, and I follow thee.’
What things made up Memorial for the Presence of the place Thenceforth to hold? Only the torrent’s leap Endlessly vibrating, monotonous rhythm Of the swift footstep pacing to and fro, Only a soul’s reiterated cry Under the calm, controlling, ancient trees, And tutelary ward and watch of heaven Felt through steep inlets which the upper airs Blew wider.
On the grass at last I lay Seized by a peace divine, I know not how; Passive, yet never so possessed of power, Strong, yet content to feel not use my strength Sustained a babe upon the breasts of life Yet armed with adult will, a shining spear. O strong deliverance of the larger law Which strove not with the less! impetuous youth Caught up in ampler force of womanhood! Co-operant ardours of joined lives! the calls Of heart to heart in chase of strenuous deeds! Virgin and wedded freedom not disjoined, And loyal married service to my Queen!
Husband, have lesser gains these seven good years Been yours because you chose no gracious maid Whose hands had woven in the women’s room Many fair garments, while her dreaming heart Had prescience of the bridal; one whose claims, Tender exactions feminine, had pleased Fond husband, one whose gentle gifts had pleased, Soft playful touches, little amorous words, Untutored thoughts that widened up toward yours, With trustful homage of uplifted eyes, And sweetest sorrows lightly comforted? Have we two challenged each the other’s heart Too highly? Have our joys been all too large, No gleaming gems on finger or on neck A man may turn and touch caressingly, But ampler than this heaven we stand beneath-- Wide wings of Presences august? Our lives, Were it not better they had stood apart A little space, letting the sweet sense grow Of distance bridged by love? Had that full calm,-- I may not question since you call it true,-- Found in some rightness of a woman’s will, Been gladder through perturbing touch of doubt, By brief unrest made exquisitely aware Of all its dear possession? Have our eyes Met with too calm directness--soul to soul Turned with the unerroneous long regard, Until no stuff remains for dreams to weave, Nought but unmeasured faithfulness, clear depths Pierced by the sun, and yielding to the eye Which searches, yet not fathoms? Did my lips Lay on your lips too great a pledge of love With awe too rapturous? Teach me how I fail, Recount what things your life has missed through me, Appease me with new needs; my strength is weak Trembling toward perfect service.”
In her eyes Tears stood and utterance ceased. Wondering the boy Parthenopœus stopped his play and gazed.
EUROPA
“He stood with head erect fronting the herd; At the first sight of him I knew the God And had no fear. The grass is sweet and long Up the east land backed by a pale blue heaven: Grey, shining gravel shelves toward the sea Which sang and sparkled; between these he stood, Beautiful, with imperious head, firm foot, And eyes resolved on present victory, Which swerved not from the full acquist of joy, Calmly triumphant. Did I see at all The creamy hide, deep dewlap, little horns, Or hear the girls describe them? I beheld Zeus, and the law of my completed life. Therefore the ravishment of some great calm Possessed me, and I could not basely start Or scream; if there was terror in my breast It was to see the inevitable bliss In prone descent from heaven; apart I lived Held in some solitude, intense and clear, Even while amid the frolic girls I stooped And praised the flowers we gathered, they and I, Pink-streaked convolvulus the warm sand bears, Orchids, dark poppies with the crumpled leaf, And reeds and giant rushes from a pond Where the blue dragon-fly shimmers and shifts. All these were notes of music, harmonies Fashioned to underlie a resonant song, Which sang how no more days of flower-culling Little Europa must desire; henceforth The large needs of the world resumed her life, So her least joy must be no trivial thing, But ordered as the motion of the stars, Or grand incline of sun-flower to the sun.
By this the God was near; my soul waxed strong, And wider orbed the vision of the world As fate drew nigh. He stooped, all gentleness, Inviting touches of the tender hands, And wore the wreaths they twisted round his horns In lordly-playful wise, me all this while Summoning by great mandates at my heart, Which silenced every less authentic call, Away, away, from girlhood, home, sweet friends, The daily dictates of my mother’s will, Agenor’s cherishing hand, and all the ways Of the calm household. I would fain have felt Some ruth to part from these, the tender ties Severing with thrills of passion. Can I blame My heart for light surrender of things dear, And hardness of a little selfish soul? Nay: the decree of joy was over me, There was the altar, I, the sacrifice Foredoomed to life, not death; the victim bound Looked for the stroke, the world’s one fact for her, The blissful consummation: straight to this Her course had tended from the hour of birth. Even till this careless morn of maidenhood A sudden splendour changed to life’s high noon: For this my mother taught me gracious things, My father’s thoughts had dealt with me, for this The least flower blossomed, the least cloud went by, All things conspired for this; the glad event Summed my full past and held it, as the fruit Holds the fair sequence of the bud and flower In soft matureness.
Now he bent the knee; I never doubted of my part to do, Nor lingered idly, since to veil command In tender invitation pleased my lord; I sat, and round his neck one arm I laid Beyond all chance secure. Whether my weight Or the soft pressure of the encircling arm Quickened in him some unexpected bliss I know not, but his flight was one steep rush. O uncontrollable and joyous rage! O splendour of the multitudinous sea! Swift foam about my feet, the eager stroke Of the strong swimmer, new sea-creatures brave, And uproar of blown conch, and shouting lips Under the open heaven; till Crete rose fair With steadfast shining peak, and promontories.
Shed not a leaf, O plane-tree, not a leaf, Let sacred shadow, and slumbrous sound remain Alway, where Zeus looked down upon his bride.”
ANDROMEDA
“This is my joy--that when my soul had wrought Her single victory over fate and fear, He came, who was deliverance. At the first, Though the rough-bearded fellows bruised my wrists Holding them backwards while they drove the bolts, And stared around my body, workman-like, I did not argue nor bewail; but when The flash and dip of equal oars had passed, And I was left a thing for sky and sea To encircle, gaze on, wonder at, not save-- The clear resolve which I had grasped and held, Slipped as a dew-drop slips from some flower-cup O’erweighted, and I longed to cry aloud One sharp, great cry, and scatter the fixed will, In fond self-pity. Have you watched night-long, Above a face from which the life recedes, And seen death set his seal before the dawn? You do not shriek and clasp the hands, but just When morning finds the world once more all good And ready for wave’s leap and swallow’s flight, There comes a drift from undiscovered flowers, A drone of sailing bee, a dance of light Among the awakened leaves, a touch, a tang, A nameless nothing, and the world turns round, And the full soul runs over, and tears flow, And it is seen a piteous thing to die. So fared it there with me; the ripple ran Crisp to my feet; the tufted sea-pink bloomed From a cleft rock, I saw the insects drop From blossom into blossom; and the wide Intolerable splendour of the sea, Calm in a liquid hush of summer morn, Girdled me, and no cloud relieved the sky. I had refused to drink the proffered wine Before they bound me, and my strength was less Than needful: yet the cry escaped not, yet My purpose had not fallen abroad in ruin; Only the perfect knowledge I had won Of things which fate decreed deserted me, The vision I had held of life and death Was blurred by some vague mist of piteousness, Nor could I lean upon a steadfast will. Therefore I closed both eyes resolved to search Backwards across the abysm, and find Death there, And hold him with my hand, and scan his face By my own choice, and read his strict intent On lip and brow,--not hunted to his feet And cowering slavewise; ‘Death,’ I whispered, ‘Death,’ Calling him whom I needed: and he came.