Chapter 4
A noise of the hollow ground Turned the eye to the ear in debate: Not the soft overflowing of sound Of the pines, ranked, lofty, straight, Barely swayed to some whispers remote, Some swarming whispers above: Not the pines with the faint airs afloat, Hush-hushing the nested dove: It was not the pines, or the rout Oft heard from mid-forest in chase, But the long muffled roar of a shout Subterranean. Sharp grew her face. She rose, yet not moved by affright; ’Twas rather good haste to use Her holiday of delight In the beams of the God of the Muse. And the steeps of the forest she crossed, On its dry red sheddings and cones Up the paths by roots green-mossed, Spotted amber, and old mossed stones. Then out where the brook-torrent starts To her leap, and from bend to curve A hurrying elbow darts For the instant-glancing swerve, Decisive, with violent will In the action formed, like hers, The maiden’s, ascending; and still Ascending, the bud of the furze, The broom, and all blue-berried shoots Of stubborn and prickly kind, The juniper flat on its roots, The dwarf rhododaphne, behind She left, and the mountain sheep Far behind, goat, herbage and flower. The island was hers, and the deep, All heaven, a golden hour. Then with wonderful voice, that rang Through air as the swan’s nigh death, Of the glory of Light she sang, She sang of the rapture of Breath. Nor ever, says he who heard, Heard Earth in her boundaries broad, From bosom of singer or bird A sweetness thus rich of the God Whose harmonies always are sane. She sang of furrow and seed, The burial, birth of the grain, The growth, and the showers that feed, And the green blades waxing mature For the husbandman’s armful brown. O, the song in its burden ran pure, And burden to song was a crown. Callistes, a singer, skilled In the gift he could measure and praise, By a rival’s art was thrilled, Though she sang but a Song of Days, Where the husbandman’s toil and strife Little varies to strife and toil: But the milky kernel of life, With her numbered: corn, wine, fruit, oil The song did give him to eat: Gave the first rapt vision of Good, And the fresh young sense of Sweet The grace of the battle for food, With the issue Earth cannot refuse When men to their labour are sworn. ’Twas a song of the God of the Muse To the forehead of Morn.
IX
Him loved she. Lo, now was he veiled: Over sea stood a swelled cloud-rack: The fishing-boat heavenward sailed, Bent abeam, with a whitened track, Surprised, fast hauling the net, As it flew: sea dashed, earth shook. She said: Is it night? O not yet! With a travail of thoughts in her look. The mountain heaved up to its peak: Sea darkened: earth gathered her fowl; Of bird or of branch rose the shriek. Night? but never so fell a scowl Wore night, nor the sky since then When ocean ran swallowing shore, And the Gods looked down for men. Broke tempest with that stern roar Never yet, save when black on the whirl Rode wrath of a sovereign Power. Then the youth and the shuddering girl, Dim as shades in the angry shower, Joined hands and descended a maze Of the paths that were racing alive Round boulder and bush, cleaving ways, Incessant, with sound of a hive. The height was a fountain-urn Pouring streams, and the whole solid height Leaped, chasing at every turn The pair in one spirit of flight To the folding pineforest. Yet here, Like the pause to things hunted, in doubt, The stillness bred spectral fear Of the awfulness ranging without, And imminent. Downward they fled, From under the haunted roof, To the valley aquake with the tread Of an iron-resounding hoof, As of legions of thunderful horse Broken loose and in line tramping hard. For the rage of a hungry force Roamed blind of its mark over sward: They saw it rush dense in the cloak Of its travelling swathe of steam; All the vale through a thin thread-smoke Was thrown back to distance extreme: And dull the full breast of it blinked, Like a buckler of steel breathed o’er, Diminished, in strangeness distinct, Glowing cold, unearthly, hoar: An Enna of fields beyond sun, Out of light, in a lurid web; And the traversing fury spun Up and down with a wave’s flow and ebb; As the wave breaks to grasp and to spurn, Retire, and in ravenous greed, Inveterate, swell its return. Up and down, as if wringing from speed Sights that made the unsighted appear, Delude and dissolve, on it scoured. Lo, a sea upon land held career Through the plain of the vale half-devoured. Callistes of home and escape Muttered swiftly, unwitting of speech. She gazed at the Void of shape, She put her white hand to his reach, Saying: Now have we looked on the Three. And divided from day, from night, From air that is breath, stood she, Like the vale, out of light.
X
Then again in disorderly words He muttered of home, and was mute, With the heart of the cowering birds Ere they burst off the fowler’s foot. He gave her some redness that streamed Through her limbs in a flitting glow. The sigh of our life she seemed, The bliss of it clothing in woe. Frailer than flower when the round Of the sickle encircles it: strong To tell of the things profound, Our inmost uttering song, Unspoken. So stood she awhile In the gloom of the terror afield, And the silence about her smile Said more than of tongue is revealed. I have breathed: I have gazed: I have been: It said: and not joylessly shone The remembrance of light through the screen Of a face that seemed shadow and stone. She led the youth trembling, appalled, To the lake-banks he saw sink and rise Like a panic-struck breast. Then she called, And the hurricane blackness had eyes. It launched like the Thunderer’s bolt. Pale she drooped, and the youth by her side Would have clasped her and dared a revolt Sacrilegious as ever defied High Olympus, but vainly for strength His compassionate heart shook a frame Stricken rigid to ice all its length. On amain the black traveller came. Lo, a chariot, cleaving the storm, Clove the fountaining lake with a plough, And the lord of the steeds was in form He, the God of implacable brow, Darkness: he: he in person: he raged Through the wave like a boar of the wilds From the hunters and hounds disengaged, And a name shouted hoarsely: his child’s. Horror melted in anguish to hear. Lo, the wave hissed apart for the path Of the terrible Charioteer, With the foam and torn features of wrath, Hurled aloft on each arm in a sheet; And the steeds clove it, rushing at land Like the teeth of the famished at meat. Then he swept out his hand.
XI
This, no more, doth Callistes recall: He saw, ere he dropped in swoon, On the maiden the chariot fall, As a thundercloud swings on the moon. Forth, free of the deluge, one cry From the vanishing gallop rose clear: And: Skiágeneia! the sky Rang; Skiágeneia! the sphere. And she left him therewith, to rejoice, Repine, yearn, and know not his aim, The life of their day in her voice, Left her life in her name.
XII
Now the valley in ruin of fields And fair meadowland, showing at eve Like the spear-pitted warrior’s shields After battle, bade men believe That no other than wrathfullest God Had been loose on her beautiful breast, Where the flowery grass was clod, Wheat and vine as a trailing nest. The valley, discreet in grief, Disclosed but the open truth, And Enna had hope of the sheaf: There was none for the desolate youth Devoted to mourn and to crave. Of the secret he had divined Of his friend of a day would he rave: How for light of our earth she pined: For the olive, the vine and the wheat, Burning through with inherited fire: And when Mother went Mother to meet, She was prompted by simple desire In the day-destined car to have place At the skirts of the Goddess, unseen, And be drawn to the dear earth’s face. She was fire for the blue and the green Of our earth, dark fire; athirst As a seed of her bosom for dawn, White air that had robed and nursed Her mother. Now was she gone With the Silent, the God without tear, Like a bud peeping out of its sheath To be sundered and stamped with the sere. And Callistes to her beneath, As she to our beams, extinct, Strained arms: he was shade of her shade. In division so were they linked. But the song which had betrayed Her flight to the cavernous ear For its own keenly wakeful: that song Of the sowing and reaping, and cheer Of the husbandman’s heart made strong Through droughts and deluging rains With his faith in the Great Mother’s love: O the joy of the breath she sustains, And the lyre of the light above, And the first rapt vision of Good, And the fresh young sense of Sweet: That song the youth ever pursued In the track of her footing fleet. For men to be profited much By her day upon earth did he sing: Of her voice, and her steps, and her touch On the blossoms of tender Spring, Immortal: and how in her soul She is with them, and tearless abides, Folding grain of a love for one goal In patience, past flowing of tides. And if unto him she was tears, He wept not: he wasted within: Seeming sane in the song, to his peers, Only crazed where the cravings begin. Our Lady of Gifts prized he less Than her issue in darkness: the dim Lost Skiágencia’s caress Of our earth made it richest for him. And for that was a curse on him raised, And he withered rathe, dry to his prime, Though the bounteous Giver be praised Through the island with rites of old time Exceedingly fervent, and reaped Veneration for teachings devout, Pious hymns when the corn-sheaves are heaped And the wine-presses ruddily spout, And the olive and apple are juice At a touch light as hers lost below. Whatsoever to men is of use Sprang his worship of them who bestow, In a measure of songs unexcelled: But that soul loving earth and the sun From her home of the shadows he held For his beacon where beam there is none: And to join her, or have her brought back, In his frenzy the singer would call, Till he followed where never was track, On the path trod of all.
THE LARK ASCENDING
HE rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound, Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake, All intervolved and spreading wide, Like water-dimples down a tide Where ripple ripple overcurls And eddy into eddy whirls; A press of hurried notes that run So fleet they scarce are more than one, Yet changeingly the trills repeat And linger ringing while they fleet, Sweet to the quick o’ the ear, and dear To her beyond the handmaid ear, Who sits beside our inner springs, Too often dry for this he brings, Which seems the very jet of earth At sight of sun, her music’s mirth, As up he wings the spiral stair, A song of light, and pierces air With fountain ardour, fountain play, To reach the shining tops of day, And drink in everything discerned An ecstasy to music turned, Impelled by what his happy bill Disperses; drinking, showering still, Unthinking save that he may give His voice the outlet, there to live Renewed in endless notes of glee, So thirsty of his voice is he, For all to hear and all to know That he is joy, awake, aglow; The tumult of the heart to hear Through pureness filtered crystal-clear, And know the pleasure sprinkled bright By simple singing of delight; Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained, Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained Without a break, without a fall, Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical, Perennial, quavering up the chord Like myriad dews of sunny sward That trembling into fulness shine, And sparkle dropping argentine; Such wooing as the ear receives From zephyr caught in choric leaves Of aspens when their chattering net Is flushed to white with shivers wet; And such the water-spirit’s chime On mountain heights in morning’s prime, Too freshly sweet to seem excess, Too animate to need a stress; But wider over many heads The starry voice ascending spreads, Awakening, as it waxes thin, The best in us to him akin; And every face to watch him raised, Puts on the light of children praised; So rich our human pleasure ripes When sweetness on sincereness pipes, Though nought be promised from the seas, But only a soft-ruffling breeze Sweep glittering on a still content, Serenity in ravishment For singing till his heaven fills, ’Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup, And he the wine which overflows To lift us with him as he goes: The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine, He is, the hills, the human line, The meadows green, the fallows brown, The dreams of labour in the town; He sings the sap, the quickened veins; The wedding song of sun and rains He is, the dance of children, thanks Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks, And eye of violets while they breathe; All these the circling song will wreathe, And you shall hear the herb and tree, The better heart of men shall see, Shall feel celestially, as long As you crave nothing save the song.
Was never voice of ours could say Our inmost in the sweetest way, Like yonder voice aloft, and link All hearers in the song they drink. Our wisdom speaks from failing blood, Our passion is too full in flood, We want the key of his wild note Of truthful in a tuneful throat; The song seraphically free Of taint of personality, So pure that it salutes the suns The voice of one for millions, In whom the millions rejoice For giving their one spirit voice. Yet men have we, whom we revere, Now names, and men still housing here, Whose lives, by many a battle-dint Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint, Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet For song our highest heaven to greet: Whom heavenly singing gives us new, Enspheres them brilliant in our blue, From firmest base to farthest leap, Because their love of Earth is deep, And they are warriors in accord With life to serve, and, pass reward, So touching purest and so heard In the brain’s reflex of yon bird: Wherefore their soul in me, or mine, Through self-forgetfulness divine, In them, that song aloft maintains, To fill the sky and thrill the plains With showerings drawn from human stores, As he to silence nearer soars, Extends the world at wings and dome, More spacious making more our home, Till lost on his aërial rings In light, and then the fancy sings.
PHOEBUS WITH ADMETUS
I
WHEN by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked, Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God, Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked, Who: and what a track showed the upturned sod! Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severe Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide, How the rustic flute drew the silver to the sphere, Sister of his own, till her rays fell wide. God! of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darkened That had thee here obscure.
II
Chirping none, the scarlet cicadas crouched in ranks: Slack the thistle-head piled its down-silk grey: Scarce the stony lizard sucked hollows in his flanks: Thick on spots of umbrage our drowsed flocks lay. Sudden bowed the chestnuts beneath a wind unheard, Lengthened ran the grasses, the sky grew slate: Then amid a swift flight of winged seed white as curd, Clear of limb a Youth smote the master’s gate. God! of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darkened That had thee here obscure.
III
Water, first of singers, o’er rocky mount and mead, First of earthly singers, the sun-loved rill, Sang of him, and flooded the ripples on the reed, Seeking whom to waken and what ear fill. Water, sweetest soother to kiss a wound and cool, Sweetest and divinest, the sky-born brook, Chuckled, with a whimper, and made a mirror-pool Round the guest we welcomed, the strange hand shook. God! of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darkened That had thee here obscure.
IV
Many swarms of wild bees descended on our fields: Stately stood the wheatstalk with head bent high: Big of heart we laboured at storing mighty yields, Wool and corn, and clusters to make men cry! Hand-like rushed the vintage; we strung the bellied skins Plump, and at the sealing the Youth’s voice rose: Maidens clung in circle, on little fists their chins; Gentle beasties through pushed a cold long nose. God! of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darkened That had thee here obscure.
V
Foot to fire in snowtime we trimmed the slender shaft: Often down the pit spied the lean wolf’s teeth Grin against his will, trapped by masterstrokes of craft; Helpless in his froth-wrath as green logs seethe! Safe the tender lambs tugged the teats, and winter sped Whirled before the crocus, the year’s new gold. Hung the hooky beak up aloft, the arrowhead Reddened through his feathers for our dear fold. God! of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darkened That had thee here obscure.
VI
Tales we drank of giants at war with Gods above: Rocks were they to look on, and earth climbed air! Tales of search for simples, and those who sought of love Ease because the creature was all too fair. Pleasant ran our thinking that while our work was good, Sure as fruits for sweat would the praise come fast. He that wrestled stoutest and tamed the billow-brood Danced in rings with girls, like a sail-flapped mast. God! of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darkened That had thee here obscure.
VII
Lo, the herb of healing, when once the herb is known, Shines in shady woods bright as new-sprung flame. Ere the string was tightened we heard the mellow tone, After he had taught how the sweet sounds came Stretched about his feet, labour done, ’twas as you see Red pomegranates tumble and burst hard rind. So began contention to give delight and be Excellent in things aimed to make life kind. God! of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darkened That had thee here obscure.
VIII
You with shelly horns, rams! and, promontory goats, You whose browsing beards dip in coldest dew! Bulls, that walk the pastures in kingly-flashing coats! Laurel, ivy, vine, wreathed for feasts not few! You that build the shade-roof, and you that court the rays, You that leap besprinkling the rock stream-rent: He has been our fellow, the morning of our days! Us he chose for housemates, and this way went. God! of whom music And song and blood are pure, The day is never darkened That had thee here obscure.
MELAMPUS
I
WITH love exceeding a simple love of the things That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck; Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck; Or, bristled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball; Or cast their web between bramble and thorny hook; The good physician Melampus, loving them all, Among them walked, as a scholar who reads a book.
II
For him the woods were a home and gave him the key Of knowledge, thirst for their treasures in herbs and flowers. The secrets held by the creatures nearer than we To earth he sought, and the link of their life with ours: And where alike we are, unlike where, and the veined Division, veined parallel, of a blood that flows In them, in us, from the source by man unattained Save marks he well what the mystical woods disclose.
III
And this he deemed might be boon of love to a breast Embracing tenderly each little motive shape, The prone, the flitting, who seek their food whither best Their wits direct, whither best from their foes escape. For closer drawn to our mother’s natural milk, As babes they learn where her motherly help is great: They know the juice for the honey, juice for the silk, And need they medical antidotes, find them straight.
IV
Of earth and sun they are wise, they nourish their broods, Weave, build, hive, burrow and battle, take joy and pain Like swimmers varying billows: never in woods Runs white insanity fleeing itself: all sane The woods revolve: as the tree its shadowing limns To some resemblance in motion, the rooted life Restrains disorder: you hear the primitive hymns Of earth in woods issue wild of the web of strife.
V
Now sleeping once on a day of marvellous fire, A brood of snakes he had cherished in grave regret That death his people had dealt their dam and their sire, Through savage dread of them, crept to his neck, and set Their tongues to lick him: the swift affectionate tongue Of each ran licking the slumberer: then his ears A forked red tongue tickled shrewdly: sudden upsprung, He heard a voice piping: Ay, for he has no fears!
VI
A bird said that, in the notes of birds, and the speech Of men, it seemed: and another renewed: He moves To learn and not to pursue, he gathers to teach; He feeds his young as do we, and as we love loves. No fears have I of a man who goes with his head To earth, chance looking aloft at us, kind of hand: I feel to him as to earth of whom we are fed; I pipe him much for his good could he understand.
VII
Melampus touched at his ears, laid finger on wrist He was not dreaming, he sensibly felt and heard. Above, through leaves, where the tree-twigs inter-twist, He spied the birds and the bill of the speaking bird. His cushion mosses in shades of various green, The lumped, the antlered, he pressed, while the sunny snake Slipped under: draughts he had drunk of clear Hippocrene, It seemed, and sat with a gift of the Gods awake.
VIII
Divinely thrilled was the man, exultingly full, As quick well-waters that come of the heart of earth, Ere yet they dart in a brook are one bubble-pool To light and sound, wedding both at the leap of birth. The soul of light vivid shone, a stream within stream; The soul of sound from a musical shell outflew; Where others hear but a hum and see but a beam, The tongue and eye of the fountain of life he knew.
IX