University of Virginia Library

BOOK III. TIRESIAS.

O Mother, careless ears can never learn
Nor rightly ponder words of mighty Gods!
His watch must constant be, his spirit meek
Whose will with Their's unflagging would keep pace.
Weak dalliance shuns he, and the lavish grape,
And dares not spur dark passion to attain
The reigning heights few clamber but to fall;
For unto him pursuits of fretful men,
Unconsecrated by divine intent,
Shall seem a dance of folly, or a chase
That finds disaster, or the quarry fled.
To these blank eyes the outer world is blank;
The pale blue hills afar, beneath my feet,
The happy flowers alike are blank to me.
But pastures ever rich in flowers divine,
Unfading, lustrous, of ethereal hue,
Are mine, and cheer the margin where a stream,
Brimmed with celestial light, for ever flows
Toward some great ocean washing nameless shores.
Throughout that troubled province yet again
Ramp dock and thistle where they choke the corn;
Stray torrents rut the road; the watercourse,
Checked by accumulated tangle, spreads,
And overflowing meadows soak to swamp;
Men frown and leave their useful husbandry,
The silent plough, the music of the flail;
Dark herds that teem increasing opulence,
The bleating cries from fields and pasture lands,
They leave and swelter in the fields of war;
Where they, instead of sweet productive showers,
Meet showers that carry grisly wounds and death;
Instead of milk, that quenches thirsting toil,
Comes the fell thirst is only quenched in blood.
He, my Pylaon, gentle, learned, wise;
Whose dearest pastime was the work ordained;
Who lived to shape, augment, and purify;
By clamour driven from his usefulness
Into an empty name! Ingratitude
From those he served had chilled the hero's soul,
And curdled thro' his frame the generous blood,
Beating no more attuned to high resolve,
But shrunken as a brook, when after drought
No longer singing on its wonted way.
He left us while that furious tempest raged,
“Killed by the sudden cold,” the mourners said:
But he was slain by shameful cowardice,
And broken-hearted our Pylaon died.
Wretches are honoured now, and heroes slain.
Is there then no appeal, O Chariclo?
Can crime thus vault and yet the race endure?
These sons of glory, favoured of the Gods,
Thus slain and unavenged!
From age to age
Run stories of a mighty day when Greeks
Were God-directed, and when men obeyed.
But when I strive to pierce the black abyss
Of unborn time I see but shameful shades!
O, sight of horror; rent that blank abyss!
Where, thunder-armed, the great Olympian Gods
All breathe indignant vengeance as one face,
And storm their chariots over thundering plains;
Forth stream their hissing bolts, speed swift their shafts;
In lines of lightning sing their angry spears!
And flanking hard move strange stupendous Shapes
Who, plucking splintered rocks, and forest trees,
Dash cities out of being at a blow;
And monstrous creatures leap whose caverned jaws
Crash and make havoc on distracted flocks.
Last famine stalks close linked with pestilence;
And blight that chars the traversed space like flame.
The Gods have gone and left the smitten land,
Where lies their anger black in ghastly heaps;
All left of Greeks and their intolerant pride;
Their haughty sages and heroic chiefs;
Their beauty fairer than sweet flowers in bloom;
Their Temples, where the only sacrifice
Was flesh of beast and gold-bought offering;
Their palaces, where dwelt unkingly kings
Who throve in costly state, and could not rule;
Now all have vanished like a waking dream
That leaves a growing taint of certainty
Its visions but foreshadowed danger near.
Uprising slowly in that wasted scene
Crawl dwindled forms in search for something hid,
That keeps their faces spell-bound near the soil;
Anon, in mockery of ancient deeds
They seem a world of phantoms lacking life.
My gift of gazing thus on pictured doom,
Is but a doubtful boon, O Chariclo!
However crime corrupt our rulers' blood,
However basely are their wills obeyed,
However dire the vengeance justly due,
Alas, the speeding thunderbolts, that burst
Among the guilty, likewise overwhelm
With woe, or crush the guiltless into ruin!
Stern, unrelenting are the Gods, and mark
That man accursed; mark him for ever cursed
Who lifts a knave to high authority,
And drives the hero from his sacred trust.
And ever must our mortal race endure
The chastisement Fate wills, and angry Gods
Ordain for men unfaithful to their charge.
Abject and haughty, both alike as one
Swept unappealably to nothingness.
Heedless of frowning Doom's unfaltering eye,
Lightly they laugh; they wave their arms abroad
And cry, “This good old earth and all her fruit
Are ours of right; then let us every one
Enjoy the fragrant juices of the vine;
Clasping fair woman let us round the dance,
And dance together until sunken day
Leaves us a safe example, where the stars
Still burn in glory and rejoice the night!
For now, the waves away, sand smooth and dry,
The beaming Hours will not our arms escape
Till taxed of rosy smile and sweeter kiss,
And lips made redder with the crimson draught.
Thus, fondling beauty, her new-quickened breath
Runs thro' our veins in swift delicious fire;
Until our rapture slacken in repose,
And languor lapt by music softly sleep.”
On the warmed beach they breathe the summer wind,
And wear a transient pallor of the moon,
Where sprinkled snug, like sheep ere breaking dawn,
They rest in dreams of never-ending bliss.
And meanwhile rising clear from ocean gloom,
Creeps, white-lipped, hissing, the returning tide.