Fables in Song :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Blind, blind is fate! unjust and hard my lot,
Who bear the burden of oblivious days
Unnoticed and uncheer'd from spot to spot
By dull and difficult ways!
How enviably doth the blissful bird
Bathe her free life in sunshine and sweet air,
Earth's lightest elements, and undeterr'd
Roam the wide welkin! There
Sublime she wanders with delighted mind
Thro' heaven's high glories—I but guess, debarr'd
From contemplation of them. Fate is blind,
Unjust my lot, and hard!”

2.

Thus, tired by slow and weary pilgrimage
Along a short, smooth, easy road, complain'd

143

A Tortoise; resting ere the last long stage
To his near goal was gain'd.
Head, feet, and tail i' the dust, he lay spread out
Self-crucified, a star that no light gave.
Deep-buried in himself, he bore about
His own life's living grave.
Yet dream'd he ever of a great existence,
Where, in lone lorddom over sea and land,
Sun-crown'd and girdled with the azure distance
The monarch mountains stand.

3.

Then suddenly the ambitious dreamer found
His sordid life uplifted. Like his mind
Sublime his body soar'd. His native ground
Sank as he rose i' the wind.
And underneath the wide world opens round him.
The silvery windings of the waters shine
Like little sinuous snakes. No limits bound him
Save the broad heavens divine.
The sprawling woods that seem'd immeasurable
Clump themselves into definite dark shapes.
The light green meadows lengthen. Skyward swell
Grey curves of mountain capes.
Deep in cold hollows of extinguisht fire
Sleep the intense blue tarns. Sharp points of snow
Glitter, and valleys green with ice-fields, higher
Than other green things grow.

144

The pure caress of airs, tho' keen not harsh,
Cool in the calm of that etherial height
Fan the delighted dweller of the marsh,
Thrill'd by unwonted flight.
A second Ganymede some second Jove,
Seeking for beauty here on earth misknown,
In him hath haply found, and borne above
To the Olympian Throne.
So deem'd the dupe of his own blind ambition,
And cried, “O my prophetic soul, at last
The Gods repent! Accepting Fate's contrition,
I do forgive the past.”

III. PART II.

1.

And tho', indeed, no Ganymede
The beast was, yet 'tis true
That Jove's own bird on him conferr'd
This god-like point of view.
For, as of old, some bandit bold,
Baulk'd of his promised prey
(The Bishop's self with bags of pelf)
Might grumbling bear away
The Bishop's Fool whose limping mule
Belated lags behind,
So, missing aim at nobler game,
An Eagle chanced to find

145

The torpid beast; unfit to feast
His Eaglet brood, but still
A trifling toy which they, for joy
And not for food, might kill.

2.

As in the Eagle's claw
The Tortoise upward sail'd,
His flight a Swallow saw,
And, “O beware!” she wail'd,
“Against thy nature's law
Why hast thou rashly rail'd?
Poor denizen of dust,
Confide not in the fate
Which doth exalt, and must
Destroy, thee soon or late.
Be warn'd in time: mistrust
The contact of the great.”
“Error!” that dupe replied.
“The patron who in me
My latent genius spied
Respects it, tho' it be
By unjust gods denied
What they bestow'd on thee.
Thanks to his recognition,
I lack no longer now
The long-desired condition
Which gives to such as thou

146

Their freedom, and position
Above the world. I know
That on the restoration
To me, and to my race,
Of that exalted station
Which we were born to grace,
Depends the whole creation.
Till then all's out of place.”

III. PART III.

1.

And, tho' his listener long ago was gone,
And to the empty air he spoke alone,
Still he continued, with important tone.

2.

“Scorn not the form by dædal ages made
For my adornment and the world's devotion,
In symbol of the fixt foundation laid
For the world's motion!
The first word of creation was Testudo,
And all was in the word. My sire grandæval
Bore on his back (as easily as you do
Chafer or weevil
In beak or claw) the elephant gigantic,
Who bore the whole world's weight upon his own.

147

Wild Change, the revolutionary antic,
Was then unknown;
Then, based on principle, the world stood fast;
And when the changing world to changeless me
Repentant turns, then all shall rest at last
Where all should be.
You others are as wanton as the weather,
Respecting naught. But truth survives neglect.
I wait, and hug myself, and keep together
My self-respect.
Who knows? The old Saturnian times return:
Order I bring, and peace, to earth again,
When tipsy Fortune from her tilted urn
Shakes down”....

Just then
His evil star, on which he had not reckon'd,
Wink'd, and a Hare into the open beckon'd.
The Eagle spied the tempting prey,
Unclasp'd his claws, and, well-a-day!
As swift as crash
Succeeds to flash,
When thunder-clouds together clash,
A swooning fall, a sounding smash!
And on the earth, it was his vain
Tho' brave ambition to sustain,
Shatter'd the Tortoise lay.

148

IV. PART IV.

The friend that warn'd him in his hour of pride
His downfall spied.
The modest bird, with fondly flutter'd breast,
Flew to the nest
Which she, who throws in sport o'er sea and land
(Beneath it spann'd)
The aëry bridge so exquisitely light
Of her bold flight,
Builds, safely shelter'd under low-thatch'd eaves,
Of clay and leaves.
There did she mourn, “Mistaken aspiration
Is self-damnation.
He who himself hath misappreciated,
Is twice ill-fated.
For what his nature never may attain
He pines in vain,
Whilst in his natural home, whate'er it be,
A stranger he!
Ah, hadst thou known the world as well as I,
Ne'er from on high
Wouldst thou have fallen, but hadst lived content
As nature meant.
Thee doth desire impel to thine unrest,
Me to my nest.”