 | Gen. Albert Pike's poems |  |
No. 8. TO ARÉS.
I.
Great War-God! mighty Ares! Hear our hymn,Sung to thee in the wood-recesses dim
Of dusky Caria, near the Icarian wave!—
When war's red storms in lurid fury rave,
And the fierce billows of his hungry tide
Over the groaning land sweep far and wide;—
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And bristling thick with javelins, madly reel
In desperate conflict;—when the mighty roar
Peals upward, shaking heaven's great golden floor,
Even as the tumult of the maddened sea
Shakes granite towers;—when Fear, and Agony,
And Desperation, riot, hand-in-hand,
And Fire and Famine waste the lean, lank land:—
Then thou, rejoicing, ragest through the field;
Like mountain-thunder clangs thy brazen shield;
Thy falchion, like the lightning, flashes far;
The frightened Earth, under thy sounding car,
(Whirled swiftly by thy brazen-footed steeds,
Flight and mad Terror), shuddering, quakes and shivers;
And ever, as the war's red surge recedes,
Brooks swelled with blood run downward to red rivers.
II.
Turn thy wild coursers from our lovely land!Let not their hoofs trample our golden strand!
Shake not thy spear above our fruitful hills,
Nor turn to blood the waters of our rills!
Crush not our flowers with thy remorseless wheels,
Nor let our grain be trod with armed heels,
That the poor starve! Let not thy sister ride,
With Pestilence and Famine, by thy side;
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Enfolded, radiant with a thousand charms,—
Her lovely head held on thy massive chest,
Her sweet eyes soothing into placid rest
Thy fiery passions; while her doves glide through
The sparkling atmosphere. Bring with thee, too,
Thy lovely children, at their mother's side;—
Eros, whose form expands, and wings grow wide,
When his sweet brother, Anteros, is near,
The God of tenderest love, and faith sincere;—
With fair Harmonia clinging to thy neck,
And mingling music with her glad caresses;
While the young Charites flit round, and deck
With dew-enjewelled flowers thy loved one's golden tresses,
III.
Let thy harsh wheels roll through Abarimon,Where Mount Imaus glitters in the sun,
Throned like a king, in solitary state:
Make there more rugged and more desolate
The frozen Scythian wildernesses; grind
To dust the Indian rocks, and like the wind
Drive thy fleet coursers through the Median plains,
And over Bactria's barbarous domains;
But spare the isles of our beloved Greece,
And leave them sleeping tranquilly in peace.
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Thine altar sendeth to the clouds its smoke,
Whereon the wolf and hungry vulture bleed,
The magpie, and the bold and generous steed.
We bow in adoration at thy shrine,
Dark-bearded God, majestic and divine!
Our incense, burning, loads the eddying air,
And Kuthereia joins us in our prayer.
Wilt thou not listen kindly to the strain
Which now around our vine-clad hills is pealing?
For when did Beauty ever sue in vain,
Even in his sternest mood meekly to Valor kneeling?
1845.
| Gen. Albert Pike's poems | |