Part 2

My helm points landwards; and yet would I fain Re-commission my Muse, and sail again. The breezes, as I coast by Pæstum, bring Its twice-blowing rosebeds’ scent; I would sing, But for emulous themes, how to inlay A garden’s borders with a rich array Of rainbow-hued gems that a loving care Joys to persuade them in due course to wear. Use and delight will play an equal part, Where’er the garden’s master has a heart. How fresh the curly endive there! how green The parsley on the bank! Almost is seen A melon swell, as with good cheer it fills Itself ’mid the grass from glistening rills! Everywhere a hand and head that know, To harvest in its season, we must sow, And from a sense no less of order, will Take heed that the late-blooming daffodil, Pliant acanthus, myrtles from sea-wave Drawing the pungent fragrance that they have, And grey-green ivies, form each its own zone In one plot—many gardens out of one. For I have marked what wonders may be wrought By gardeners mixing seeds and roots with thought.— In shadows craggy Tarentum’s tow’rs throw, An old Cilician, cast up, who knows how, By war, or vagrant mood, had grant, or none— Some waste acres—to live or starve upon. Though black Galeso waters a wide space Of yellow cornfields, and rich gardens grace Villas hard by, the scrub of this poor Stray Would, it might seem, have not sufficed to pay, As rough ploughland, a yoke of oxen’s keep, Or meanly pastured half a dozen sheep. As for potherbs, its thorns as likely would Have brought forth grapes as a man’s simplest food. Yet somehow sprang, to share with them the ground, Colewort, vervain, with, here and there, around, Lilies, and poppies—scant crop; but not great The Stranger’s hopes. At night returning late To the cheerless hut his own hands had raised, Laden with unbought dainties these, he praised His happy fortune from a more grateful breast Than a king seated at his unearned feast!

I marked how he began; when next I came, Transformed the garden! Gardener the same. His the first roses, though an unkind spring, And ripe apples ere leaves were yellowing. While frost splintered the rocks, and ice and snow— Winter fighting March—bridled Galeso’s flow, He plucked Iris tresses, in mock distress At missing Zephyrs, Summer’s tardiness! Not his hives to fail in queen bees; no swarm Of his was ever known to come to harm; Earliest the honey from his combs pressed; For who judged like him which flow’rs bees love best? Master the old man in tree-craft as well; His, choicest stone-pines, limes; for he could tell By instinct where to plant; and as for yield Of fruit, spring’s promise autumn aye fulfilled! He planted, and transplanted, as he chose Full-grown elms, hardwood pears, plum-grafted sloes; Even a leafy plane he dared to move— Nor hurt—to a fresh home within the grove.

Two thousand years ago the old man died; And Nature that, with some laws, he defied, Will, patient, not forgetful, at his death Have returned arcades, flow’r beds, to waste heath. Tradition shadows not their place.— His name? The Bard has not handed it down to fame. A sudden vision of his youth, no more Than a parenthesis of lines, some score. In words how little we are told;—and yet How impossible for us to forget That haunting figure, in his parterres made Out of the wild with his own brain for spade! For not in Virgil’s verse alone he lives; In all Earth’s gardens the “Corycian” survives!

A Golden Age

Bucolica, Ecl. IV. Pollio vv. 1-63

Muses of Sicily, if I rehearse Our peasants’ pleasures, toils, in Latin verse, I owe your idylls that my heart beats true To the kind honest lot that once I knew; And frames visions I have seen, Still, in woods and pastures green.

Nature, changed, lives. Ages-leaves in a blast— Flutter away, in dreams, all dead and past;— Fleeting, alike ease that pays righteous toll, And triumphs won from agonies of soul. For when Fancy plays at Thought In Dreamland, Time, Space are nought.

Slumber I, or wake? Is it that the long Iron Age dies, as in the Sibyl’s song? Does Justice return? Saturn wear his crown? From high Heaven does a God-child come down? Does Pollio’s Consulate The Golden Age reinstate?

Reconciler of old friends! Yours the care To efface bloodstains of the past, prepare For the advent of a Peace-maker, heal Aches—foreboding fresh horrors—that we feel. He comes! be a path paved, meet To be trod by Holy feet!

A noble task to clear and keep a space Where you shall model a heroic race On yourself—fit, if few, companions made For their future Chief, nor without the aid Of Gods visible, as he In his Paradise shall be.

In the womb now! and in their charge the Birth, Sun’s, Moon’s, of the most precious Thing on Earth! Not for ten full months must the Babe see light! Keep watch and ward, Day’s Lord, Lady of Night! Be Peace throughout! hold your breath, Thunders above, fires beneath!

Born! you lie, Babe, lapped in the calm, warm air; Earth laughs with blissfulness to see you there. Goats fain would suckle you; while you are near, They feel they have nought from wild beasts to fear. Snakes die; nightshade bids its root Nurture no fair traitor fruit.

Touch the ground; flowers of all hues will spring; Of sweetest scent, and with no thorns to sting; Such as the common wayside thickets know, Or nowhere but in palace gardens blow. Ivy, Assyrian nard Sue alike for your regard;

And grateful you for each; the mean, the rare To your frank childishness as welcome are. Tossing your naked limbs on the glad sod You know not you will be—perhaps are—a God! Yea, Child, who, than you all love, More Divine in Heav’n above!

Ev’n when babyhood becomes boyhood, still Nature spreads her bounty in sheer good-will. Honey from the sturdy oak, like dew, drips; Briers press purple grapes on thirsting lips; And from unploughed fields are borne Yellow sheaves of beardless corn.

But stifle human wants with plenty, lust Of unneighbourliness creeps from the dust. Merchants here and there about ocean roam, Snatching subsistence given free at home; Robbers build forts whence to spoil; Shares rend the protesting soil.

Germs, mixed—crude, human restlessness—its need For peril and adventure—or rank greed, That had hid underground, from shame to break “God’s Truce,” and keep the wondrous Babe awake, Had been struggling to survive; The spell is lifted; they live.

A fresh Argo will seek another Fleece; Sin of a second Paris murder peace; A new Achilles set streams in wroth flood Rushing to the sea red with Trojan blood. No more, Boy, know ye of it Than in brave tales poets writ.

Of Earth, not of it, you move to and fro, A mystery; wherever you may go, Carrying a blessing! Your one main care To learn what Heroes, like your Father, are; What, Virtue;—revealed to them Who prize it ere priced a gem.

Then, your eyes, a boy’s, that had closed at night On a garden-land bathed in crimson light, Open to find yourself of man’s estate, Named Dictator of a mad world by Fate;— Grasping no steel sword in hand; With no Armies to command.

My vision is blurred. As from graves, a host, Chaos, rose, went back at dawn a ghost. But mortal may not, ev’n in sleep, behold Heaven at work Man’s being to remould. Enough to witness when Earth Has undergone its new birth;

How without pruning hook, or drudging bull, The press ran wine, the granaries were full; And traders finding wares from foreign lands They had risked life to store, left on their hands, Gave up voyaging abroad; Let alone the Ocean road.

Ah! Joy, the world ’twas given me to view! All that’s fair in the Old, kind in the New! How Nature, impelled by but one desire To grant her loved children all they require, Never tires to please them; still Paints the lily at their will,

Varies the rainbow’s order, gilds the gold On Ebro’s banks, dyes the wool in the fold, Wooes by soft stratagems her nursling, Man, To feel motherliness in all her plan Of change for him, while she shows Her own bliss in a dog-rose!

Fate has decreed; the Destinies obey Eternal laws, and bid their spindles play: “March, Ages, without break!” Time presses on! You, of race Divine, Jove’s adopted Son, High honours, great tasks await; Swerve not at the call of Fate!

The arched world bows; the sea’s long currents raise Glad crests; Heaven’s blue depths chant hymns of praise For the good days coming. With one consent The Universe prepares for merriment. Winter was it? Now, ’tis Spring; Hark! the woods are carolling!

“May it be given me to outstay death— If I but keep so much of life as breath To tell, my Prince, your deeds! My theme, not I, Will Orpheus and Linus in song defy, Though Muse-Mother, and God-Sire Stand by, and their sons inspire.

Nay, I range in Arcady; and should Pan Grace by a challenge on the pipe a man, I must take up the glove—the meanest clod, On equal terms competing with a God— And win! for I you acclaim; Then, what can he but the same?”

A smile! and, Babe, I would that I could deem You meant it for pleasure at my Day-dream. I know ’tis a return for those on you; And that you can ne’er repay debts thus due. Blest you so to have learned, while In your cradle, how to smile!

Alas for the child who, by guilt, or guile, Lives disinherited of parents’ smile. For whom no fellowship of Gods or grace, From birth condemned, an outcast of his race! In your Palace, at your call Shall not welcome be for all?

Æneas in Hades

P. VIRGILII MARONIS, Æneidos, Bk. V. vv. 721-754 and 835-871; Bk. VI. vv. 1-19 and 41-636

LIMBO AND TARTARUS

Sad with thoughts of Carthage, its Lady fair, Weary and worn with wanderings and care, Mourning his father still, Æneas lay Sleepless, when lo! visible as in day, Though up the heavens drove her car black Night, Anchises, lit with an unearthly light: “My Son,” he said, “here am I by Jove’s grace; He pities, late, the sorrows of our race, And has sent me to comfort and advise. Let a new Troy in Sicily arise, Peopled by many who would stay behind. With the young and bravest, sail thou, and find A realm in Latium; make its rude tribes feel The temper of their Trojan Master’s steel. But, first, thou to the Nether World descend, And traverse from the threshold to the end In search of me; not that I dwell in Dis, With the curst, but the pleasant fields of bliss. Thither, with, for thy guide, the Sibyl, come To learn thy sons’ deeds in their destined home. But past midnight; the horses of the Sun Pant to speed on their course;—I must be gone!” Full well were Jove’s commands he brought obeyed, And the foundations of the city laid— “Acesta”—as its lord, Acestes hailed; And, wept now by those it left, the fleet sailed.— For Italy sailed; there arrived; and moored Off Cumæ;— but with Pilot none on board. Whether marine God, jealous of a skill In seamanship like his, or, spite of will, Worn out with toil, he failed at last to keep His eyelids from the poppy dew of sleep; Who knows? but he woke, rudder in his hand, Drifting, shouts unheard, to an unknown strand.

Vain to trace Palinurus and his fate! But all knew where the Sibyl kept her state. In a shrine that Latona’s Children hold, Their joint domain, and Dædalus of old Adorned with various art, a huge cliff-wall Recedes into a cavern; and thence call, Rushing tumultuous through a hundred doors, As many voices. One roar, the whole, pours. Æneas touched the threshold, when a cry Came from within: “Ask, and I will reply! Hear! the God!”— And the Sibyl herself there; She, yet not herself; breathing not our air; No mortal accents from a mortal tongue; Visage, complexion changed, fillet unstrung; Breast stormily heaving; heart all but broke In yet untamed resistance to the yoke The God would fix, to break mind—human birth— To bind his messenger from Heav’n to Earth; While She, though pure, adoring, how not repine, Identity lost, e’en to be Divine! ’Twas instinct in her that rebelled; not she, The Prophetess, the Sibyl; for now see Her wrathful for her master’s honour:— “Thou, Trojan at His altar, and not a vow! Deemest mighty mouth of His awful shrine Will open but to answer prayer from thine?” Æneas had kept silence, not from fear, Or shame, but reverence; now he drew near, Entreating from the bottom of his heart: “Phœbus, Troy’s champion, when few took our part; Through whom Achilles died—whose kindly hands Led us o’er false seas, past perilous lands— O turn the shores where we have anchor cast, From the mirage they were to homes at last. And adverse Gods and Goddesses, to all, I pray, if e’er Troy’s glory stirred your gall, Does not down-fallen Pergamus atone— Is Envy not content with heaps of stone— With Priam’s House uprooted? What are we, Mere remnant tossed till now on every sea? Thee also, holy Prophetess, I ask; Free thy God’s cloudy riddles from their mask; In pity for me, who already know I am to rule Ausonia, unveil how, Where, and when, to found my City, replace Troy’s exiled Gods, Genii of our race; Nor trust thy renderings of what Fate weaves To the chance flutterings of autumn leaves; Chant; and be all transcribed; then, when, in pure Marble fanes, thy God is worshipped, be sure Kings after me shall treasure what is writ, And train up scholars to interpret it.” God and Prophetess listened no more;— will Was wrestling to be its own mistress still. A woman with a God! In vain she raves; Subduing lips that foam, breast swollen, waves Of inspiration stamp, rolling along, Apollo’s dictates on the Sibyl’s tongue, Till—again the hundred doors open wide— Phœbus to Æneas by her replied: “Think not thy work is done because at length Ocean’s dangers are escaped. All thy strength Will be tasked on land; though Latium’s lord Prepares to hail the offer of thy sword, Thou’llt wish thyself soon afar! Look! a flood— Tiber foaming to the sea—of men’s blood. Horrors Simois, Xanthus showed might seem Repeated by thy loath fancy in a dream. Nor even wanting to this war—fell war— An Achilles, Goddess born; Troy’s ill star, Queen Juno; and, of worse augury yet For Trojans, or, of snares that Fate has set For thy feet a surer than all beside— A foreign hostess, and a foreign bride. Face trials; turn thy back upon no foe; By paths, however strait, Chance-opened, go. Where wilt thou not in Italy beg aid? If to no purpose, be not thou dismayed. Fortune loves strange means; how but for me have known Thy dawn would break first from forth a Greek town?” Æneas spoke not; for again the jar, Bellowing, shrieking, roaring—civil war Between Spirit, Divine, and human—This, In last contest to stand by what it is; Planning passages that lead nowhere, in or out, Darkening truths, perversities of doubt; Phœbus, if thundering, resolved and cold, Certain of victory, ne’er quitting hold; The other, a wild mare on a wild plain. You heard the cold calm trainer shake the rein, Tear mutinous mouth with the cruel bit, Mock at the passion that resented it. Then quiet; Æneas once more began: “Speak not of risks endurable by man; None daunt me; long since I foresaw the whole, Rehearsed what worst could happen in my soul. I fear no ordeal; if Hell’s gate be here, As they say, and it front the darksome mere— Acheron’s wash—I crave it of thy grace, Holy One, to meet my sire face to face. Never had I been parted from his side Till in an evil hour for me he died. Not in the agony of that dread night, Troy’s ruin, did I lose him from my sight; On these shoulders bore I him ’mid the wreck, Though all Hell’s hounds were barking at my back. On my voyagings best of comrades he, In mortal terrors, on every sea; Minding nothing how elements might rage— A heart that defied weaknesses of age! Tell me the foemen that I would not dare To see him once more, pain I would not bear. In the dead watches of the night he came, And bade me supplicate Thee in his name To unbar Hell’s gates, and to be my Guide. Oh think that he is kneeling by my side! Thy will is law; whate’er Thou wilt is done; Mercy we pray; rejoin us, Father, Son. Others have been to whom was given the right, Living, to travel through the world of night. Its doors, as Orpheus sounded lute and song, Opened to let the minstrel pass along; Fraternal tenderness has paved a way To and from twilight to radiant day; Alcides—did not friendship bring him down? Theseus also—if but that!— Me, love’s crown, The noblest, filial piety, draws, Though into Tartarus’s very jaws! By no bare title holdest thou in fee Avernus by gift from great Hecate; Thine leave to grant, with me the right of love To visit Hell—and I too count from Jove!” “Easy,” replied the Sibyl, “the descent To Avernus; welcome all thither bent; Dis shuts none out; the task is, when the taste For sunshine revives, measure back the waste Wooded wilderness that Cocytus holds In its innumerable black-slime folds. What hope for mortals flesh-clogged to retrace Their way! A few by Jupiter’s good grace, Or saints on earth, with blood Divine to aid, Of brief sojourn there stepping-stones have made To the skies.— But enough! Well that the sight Of thy Sire is a passionate delight; That thy fond heart’s self-satisfying sense Of duty done is a full recompense For risking the mad liberty to float Twice across noisome Styx in Charon’s boat; And twice view Tartarus,— Yet first receive The terms on which alone Thou hast thy leave; In a nest of dells retired is a grove, Darkened by shadows of the hills above; And a tree, sun-proof, whose dense branches hold Ever among them one of purest gold; Gold leafage, gold saplings supple, yet tough; Vain for any, though brave, and fond enough, To plunge in the Underworld; unless he Have tracked and plucked the Gold Bough off the Tree. The Queen of Hades, Proserpine the Fair, Chooses offerings thence for her to wear, Never loses the tree glory; instead Of branch plucked a second straightway is bred, Thou, high and low, explore; and, if Thou find, Lay hold on it; should Fate have Thee designed, It will yield with ease, even joy; if not, Nor strength, nor steel could tear it from the spot. And ’tis not all; another duty still Rests on thee, and a sadder, to fulfil. While thou would’st learn the future in my cave, A friend has been lying dead, with no grave— To the entire Fleet a reproach, a shame. First give his relics tomb, and rites, they claim. So, may’st thou with clean hands thy way pursue; And realms forbid shall open to thy view.” A tangled maze! With a past bleak and bare, A future of dim hopes, and certain care;— A corse blurring the foreground! And of whom?

Then, as Æneas paced the shore in gloom, Achates with him, see! a Body there! Misenus, trumpeter, charioteer! He drowned, and how? that horseman tried and good, Hard and intrepid spearman, who had stood The brunt of battle, as of rough sea-wave, Of Hector and Æneas comrade brave— There, like worthless seaweed, see! Misenus dead! In eyes stark staring might almost be read An appeal as if to Heaven, and Fate, Against false friends who left him desolate! And, true, ’twas pity touching on remorse, Which swept through the armament, when the corse Was drawn to the encampment on the shore. The first thought, the Prince led, was to deplore A comrade; the next, the pyre, to proceed To raise, as to One who could intercede In Heaven, what an altar might have been. A primeval forest that had never seen Woodman, or, profaning its silence, heard The horn of huntsman chasing beast or bird, Suddenly awoke to the frequent crash Of pitch-pine, ilex, and the mountain-ash, While heart of oak had to admit a wedge, And giants rolled down many a hill ledge. In all the toil none bore sturdier part Than Æneas; for he, and with full heart, Grieved for a loyal ally; but his brain, With that central thought, took a wider train: “Forests as this,” he mused, “the whole land through! How to track to one tree a single bough! Yet”—as of Misenus—“could the Maid tell Ill news so truly, why not good as well?” And ah! that instant, in his joyful sight, Alighting from blue sky, in soft, smooth flight, On the green turf a pair of milk-white doves Such as flit where his Mother, Venus, moves. “After them! Oh! to guess whither they make, And match their speed whatever course they take!” Fain would he think the rate was, as they flew, Ruled for pursuit to keep them just in view, To the dark arbour where a yellow glow Should flicker on the verdant turf below. Hope not in vain; the pair, after brief pause For circling Avernus, and its death-jaws, Tower swiftly aloft; next, in straight line Glide to a tree, settle as by design. The Hero arrives, and with heart aflame Marks, checkering green shadows, a gold gleam. Upon a foreign stem the mistletoe Will in the woods a cluster of sprays grow, With berries saffron-hued in winter’s cold. Thus, on the holm-oak swayed the Branch of Gold, Rustling its slight leafage in the soft wind; Coy—rather than resisting, disinclined— As Æneas plucked, in hot haste to bear His prize, and trust it to the Sibyl’s care. Meanwhile, the Trojans thronged, the Dead to mourn With rites for which no thanks could it return. First, they build, a marvel for bulk, the pyre— Pitch-pine for flame, split oak to feed the fire, Cypress, Death’s tribute, armour to remind Of the warrior, twigs the logs to bind. Vast the heap; but, with oil and incense, soon Fire had done its work; and when it died down, All being gone that of the mass could burn, They closed the ashes, wine-washed, in the urn. Then Chorinœus sprinkled thrice the ring Of mourners with pure water from the spring, And bade the Shade, leaving the world above, Last farewell words of sorrowing and love. Yet was the debt the Prince was proud to owe But half-paid to a friend in weal and woe, Till rose a sepulchre, stately and high, For th’ honoured dust enshrined therein to lie. Topped by oar and horn, sword, and spear, and shield, To proclaim the champion of sea and field, It crowns the airy Cape that boasts the name, And through the ages seals a Trojan’s fame. So, drowned Misenus need not wander more Between two worlds on Styx’s groaning shore, Dragging soulless flesh—choke in a foul fen, Companionless for Shadows, and for Men. No more an unburied suppliant this, But Hero, Pilot trumpeting in bliss! And, their consciences purged, with duties done, All turned to fresh cares, leaving Misenus alone.