University of Virginia Library

Hear me, thou mournful River of the Dead,
Dark-flowing Acheron; for thou, like me,
Hast known the sweetness of the upper air,
The joy and glory of the light. O hear!
For I am desolate and all alone,
Like thee;—a Shadow in a shadowy world,
Whom no blest dues of sepulture, no prayer
Of pious lips, no touch of kindred hands—
Nor oil, nor wine, nor purifying fire—
White robe, nor wreath, nor sprinkled earth have sped
Down the irremeable way, to the fair fields
And blissful fountains of oblivion,
Where dwell in peace eterne the happier dead,
Beyond thy darksome bourne. But here, transformed
To likeness of a brute, eternally
I bear unbearable anguish; by a troop
Of spectral hounds pursued, with vengeful yell
And fangs inexorable, through these blind wastes
And thick-breathed solitudes of awful night.
No hope—no rest—save when, a space, as now,
Worn out with toil and drunk with blood, they couch
Around, unseen but heard, in hideous sleep.

Hearken, thou joyless River of the Dead!
I was a prince of Thessaly—the child
Of heaven-sprung Aristæus and the fair
Autonoè. Nor shone the all-seeing sun
On fairer form, or goodlier strength than mine,
When, with my tough spear o'er the windy cliffs
Of broad-backed Pelion, right into the sea
I hurled the shrieking boar, and all the woods
Loud-echoing shrieked. Nor saw the watchful moon
A warier hunter, when, at dead of night,
I watched and slew the lion at the springs
Watching the antelopes, and bore his spoils
To Chiron, where, before his seaward cave,
Under the white gleam of the morning star,
The blameless Centaur to Actæan Zeus
Poured out libations. Not unknown my crest
Among the heroes, where, by land or wave,
Rang the fierce music of the fight, and spears
Grew red with slaughter. And, O sea! O sky!
O sun! and thou, sacred all-bearing earth
That I shall see no more! what am I now?
Monstrous, deform; from haunts of living men—
Even from the peaceful mansions of the dead
An outcast! . . . Yet I curse her not; nor curse
The doomful hour when, as a levin-bolt
Smites death through all the green boughs of an oak,
Her beauty smote and blasted me. For still—
Hearken, thou voiceless River!—even here,
In darkness, and in terror, and in woe—
As I have seen the warm full-orbèd moon
Burn through the triple night of ancient pines,
Till silvan creatures woke as if 'twere day—
The glory of that vision floods my soul
With light ineffable; and through my veins,
Chill with the breath of Hades, throbs and burns
Its unforgotten sweetness.—Hush! they stir,
The hell-dogs—hunting me even in their dreams!

O hear, dim River, for the time is brief!—
'Twas noon on high Cithæron. Over all
His flowery dells and pine-dark slopes, the breeze,
Heavy with odour, swooned to murmurous rest.
Above, the golden lizard basked; below,
Whirred the dry tettix in the thymy grass;
About the pendent flower-tufts of the lime
Hummed the innumerous bees; and far away,
Dim seen through sultry haze, betwixt the crags
And woody spurs to the west, without a breath
The deep Euripus gleamed like molten brass;
And, bright as flame on flame, against the sky
Eubœa lay athirst; and overhead
The immeasurable depths of summer heaven
Quivered with heat. Within the grateful gloom
Of a steep rock—crested and over-trailed
With greenest ivy, with fantastic growth
Of many-tinted moss and lichenous crust
Damasked, and flecked with tremulous light and shade—
Panting amidst my panting dogs I lay,
Hot from the chase. And, lying there, I heard,
In the deep noontide hush of earth and sky,
My loud heart beating; and, from scalp to heel,
Felt the blood pause and tingle, with a sweet
Mysterious languor—a divine unrest—
A supreme yearning, till that hour unknown.
While from the slumbrous whispering of the woods
That ridge o'er ridge up the aërial steeps,
Clomb vast and verdurous—from the honey-breath
Of the crushed wild-flowers where I lay—from hum
And whir of insects—from the silent gulfs
Of inaccessible ether—from the far
And many-peopled cities—from the sense
Of my own being, and my loneliness,
Upgrew within my soul, divine and strange—
Like echoes of some half-forgotten song
Heard in old summers, and in dream recalled—
Dim dreams of unimagined bliss to be:
Of love; and how in other years the gods—
For had not I within my mortal veins
The Olympian ichor!—from their sacred seats
Descended, and, 'mid earthly groves, by stream,
Mountain, and ocean marge, in equal bliss
Mingled with mortals. As I mused, a breeze
Passed sighing like a spirit through the boughs;
And with it came, blent with the muffled flow
Of streams in hollow rocks, the silvery tones
Of virgin laughter. Starting from my trance,
I held my breath to listen. Once more it came!
Sweeter than sweetest flute, or liquid thrill
Of harp-strings heard at evening from the white,
Far-glimmering temples of the gods, and wild
As Dithyrambic bells, when, by the moon,
Mœnad and Panisk, Faun and Bassarid,
Through the dim valley reel at vintage time
With torch and timbrel, round the panther-car.
Hear me, lone River of the Dead; O hear
And pity! from the flowery verge of life,
Love-blighted, like a leaf with honeydew—
While yet my lips, wet with youth's oinomel,
But touched the grape of promise—hurried down
To ever-during darkness, and the paths
Of loveless death! . . .

I listened, hunter-wise,
Against the wind; and softly to my feet
Uprising, drew the pleachèd boughs aside,
Forth peering, and with javelin in hand
Descended,—by the enchanted echoes led,
My stanch hounds following,—round me as I trod
Showering the wild-rose petals and rathe blooms
Of honey-bine, through bedded hyacinths
Knee-deep, and root-entangled undergrowth,
To where a laurel thicket overlooks
The lone Gargaphian fountain, deep embowered
Within the silence of the woods. And there,
O hearken, awful River of the Dead!
Disrobed, unbuskined—quiver and bow thrown by,
Under the emerald shade of vaulted boughs
And pensile trail of cistus and wild vine—
Breast-deep in the green wave; or stretched at rest,
Half hid in asphodels and melilote,
Beside their gleaming garments and their hounds,
I saw the nymphs of Artemis!—lithe-limbed,
Small-bosomed, rosy-brown with sylvan toil.
And, taller by the shoulders, in their midst,
White, slender, luminous as the crescent moon,
Seen in the purple depths of twilight air—
Lo! the incarnate Splendour, the divine,
Unsullied Presence of the Huntress Queen!
Upon the fountain-marge, straight as a spear,
She stood in lustrous shadow; but the light,—
Shot upwards from the water,—o'er her limbs,
O'er her ambrosial bosom, and o'er her hair,
That brightly veiled her, as a golden mist
Veils but not hides a star—rippled and played
In glimmering disks and wavering rings of gold.

Hearken, thou dolorous River of the Dead!
I gazed one moment, all my heart sent forth
In one low moan of passion: soul and sense
At stretch to grasp the visioned loveliness,
And so be blest for ever. But, the next,
A hound impatient from my nerveless grip
Sprang to the stream a-thirst. . . . One quick, shrill cry
Of many voices; one wild, fiery flash
Of wrathful eyes; pale faces turned in fear;
Commotion, as of browsing fawns that flee
When the keen hounds break cover; a swift rush
Of virginal fair limbs and sinuous forms
To veil with wreathèd arms and floating hair
The Inviolate Sweetness! She nor blushed nor stirred;
But drawn to all her godlike height, her eyes,
Intolerable, inevitable, fierce
As hate, and beautiful as heaven! she bent
Full upon mine. Blind frenzy stung my brain:
Swift agony, as of a thousand shafts
Of arrowy fire, maddened my hurrying blood.
I turned and fled; and as I fled my shape
Changed like a monstrous dream: my forehead felt
The antler's weight: each human lineament
Roughened into the brute: and the strong heart,
To which the name of fear had been unknown,
Melted within me, as upon my track,
Loud-throated, fell, they came; through foam-white jaws
Yelling implacable rage: the generous hounds
That I had reared, and with no loveless hands
Cherished and fed!—as now, as now, once more
The phantom hell-dogs, famished from their sleep,
Surround, pursue me! . . . O eternal Night,
Mother of Shadows, shield me!—Hide me, hide,
O sacred Darkness!—Woe, woe, woe is me!
Nor Night nor Darkness from those fiery fangs
Can shelter; nor from those unpitying eyes
Divine, that wheresoe'er I turn still dart
Their vengeful lightnings through me!—Woe, ah, woe!
No rest—no hope for ever! woe, ah, woe!