 | Senilia |  |
61
PINDAR'S LAST HYMN.
[_]
This story is told in Pausanias. He tells us that Persephone refused Pindar admittance to his place in Elysium, because she only among the divine ones had never been honoured by a hymn of his, and accordingly she sent him back to recite a hymn to his kinswoman, who used to perform the odes under his direction at the festivals. If this post-sepulchral poem were not a great deal better than Shelley's verses from the other world, it could not have been worth much. I have, therefore, the less scruple in reproducing it here. I have, moreover, endeavoured to engraft upon it some hints and ideas suggested by a most remarkable book which interested me very much, entitled ‘The Perfect Way.’ This book consists of revelations vouchsafed in a state of sleep or trance to Mrs. Anna Kingsford, M.D. These revelations, whether one believes in them or not, are, I am quite sure, honestly believed in by the authors of the book. The great change which is to take place under their auspices is the substitution of intuition instead of reasoning, and the consequent elevation of woman as the priestess of intuition above man, whose strength lies in reasoning alone. My object has been to make use of the somewhat wild imaginations with which the volume is filled to improve my poetry.
INTRODUCTORY VERSES.
A herald leaving Argos through the nightHurried along, to tell the men of Thebes
How, by a gentle message from great Zeus,
Pindar was summoned from their theatre
Into the rest of death. Through the world then
62
But over Hellas unto Egypt passing,
And Ammon's altars far beyond the Nile,
Was kindled, all men grieving for the dead.
Nor did this sorrow strike at man alone;
No, the undying Gods in Heaven itself
Mourned for their Poet-Priest; great Phoebus veiled
His shining rays, though he withdrew them not,
But through a soft grey cloud shed silently
A tender sadness on the plains below.
And Dirce, who had loved him as a child,
Who had stood smiling by to watch the bees
Drop lightly on his parted lips, and feed
His soul with honey by the Muses given,
Sent, as she past along despairingly,
A wailing thro' her waters, till it seemed
As if beneath the waves a woman wept.
Meanwhile, within the dim deserted house,
In brooding solitude uncomforted,
Sat Manto, Pindar's kinswoman beloved,
Queen of the harp, whose touch and voice divine
Kept answering like an echo, when he gave
His thoughts unto some proud old festival
In Hellas; for her soul was one with his.
She lived for Pindar, and the mighty flood
Of melody, which leaping through her breast
63
As to the moon belongs her vassal sea.
She, too, was dead, she felt. Yes, dead and gone
Like him, as if the inner spirit-stream,
With all its living cataracts of song,
Were choked with sudden frost. Just as on earth
The tossing of the ocean will congeal,
When God shall quench our over-wearied sun.
So she sat cold and pale and motionless,
Till the night came, but darkness did not last
For long. Lo, in the corner of the hall
A spark of fire, through strange vicissitudes
Of ebb and flow alternate, changed the gloom
To silver, spreading, strengthening, by degrees.
Then, in the middle of that phantom light,
Something took shape, and straight before her face
Stood Pindar, rising swiftly as a thought,
Stood as of old, save that within his eyes
Lay deep a yearning look, half love, half awe,
As if some God-born influence had poured
A strange new sense into his wondering soul,
Scarce understood, though not to be effaced.
His voice too, if it were a voice indeed,
And not a thrilling message from within
That glided on mute wings ineffable,
Was tremulous with tones unheard before;
And thus in accents, felt perchance, not heard,
The solemn aspect spake, or seemed to speak:
‘Manto, from regions wild and wonderful
64
The goddess queen, large-eyed Persephone,
Arrested at the adamantine gates
Of Hades, though the gates wide open seemed.
A viewless wall of air, at her command,
Rose, strong as steel, to bar my onward steps,
Then as I paused in blank astonishment
Under Hell's iron sky, the crash of wheels
And trampling hooves beat sharp upon mine ear,
And the great queen's far-shining chariot,
Drawn by her snow-white steeds, which evermore
Grew larger at each stride as on they came,
Flashed through the sullen darkness like a star;
She, on the other side of the impassable,
Serene in pensive beauty, with calm hand
Tightened her golden reins; a fragrant wreath
Of roses white and violets freshly blown
Lay intertangled in her golden hair,
And shed upon her unforgetting soul
A breath from Enna, filled with fled delights.
She paused, then spake, “Well hast thou said of yore,
O Pindar, that the word outlives the deed,
If that word flowers out of the poet's soul,
And the muse haply smiles upon its birth;
Not deeds alone that word outlives, but men,
Yea, and the gods themselves, alas, alas.
We too must wither, and sink down to death,
Under the touch of Time, unless the sons
Of song can keep us raised above the gulf
65
Now I alone among the heavenly ones
By thee am left unsung; this must not be.
Return to earth, and there let Manto's harp
Marry herself unto a noble hymn
In honour of thy queen Persephone;
Then shall the Elysian realms be thy abode,
So long as fate consenteth; thou shalt see
Great Thamyris and great Mæonides,
No longer blind, and live with them in love.
But there is something more for thee to learn
Ere thou returnest earthwards, Pindar. Know
There is a living spirit interfused
Over us, and around us, and below,
A boundless ocean of eternity,
Far more above proud Zeus than Zeus himself
Is greater than you children of an hour.
He is the soul of space, whose kingdom spreads
Beyond Olympus, and those ancient stars,
Orion, Vega, and that multitude
Of alien suns, of galaxies disrayed
By distance, and made one until they seem
Massed orbless, too remote for any name.
But though the world's great heart, the quickening pulse
That pours out life and hope, without a pause,
Through all his undivulged infinitudes
He rests or moves unknown. Zeus knows him not;
Only to me, I cannot tell you why,
66
And his breath whispers now that upon thee,
A poet, for whom all things that are seen
And felt become a part of his own soul,
I should impress the presence of his strength,
And place within thy hands, a trust for man,
The secret keys of Birth and Death and Time.
This vision, Pindar, is for thee alone,
For I am but his vassal instrument,
The faithful servant of his living love;
I know that he approaches, and I feel
His warmth, but do not see the light he brings.
Blindly I pass that on, for such his will,
To thee, that thou mayst teach the sons of men.
Perchance his burning radiance would alight
Too keenly upon human thought, unless
Some spirit, humbler far, but still a spirit,
Should temper it for mortals like thyself.
Only, remember that these hidden truths
Are not to be revealed except in song,
In sacred song, under the mystic touch
Of emanations felt to come from Heaven.
And now I know, though I know nothing more,
A veil is lifted from thine eyes; look round
And mark what fate prepares for the unborn.”
I looked and saw, and what I saw I tell,
In these last numbers. Now it is for thee
To listen, Manto, with heart, mind, and soul,
Then wed to sacred music, and reveal
67
For no light message to mankind it brings.’
He vanished, but the voice from him unseen
Flowed on, and filled the woman's heart with power.
Strophe I.
Not lightly hast thou summoned me,And here I answer to thy solemn call,
Queen of these phantom realms, Persephone.
Shame-stricken I confess that as a God
Thou wert not by me sung, whilst earth I trod;
But what is God? Why, surely all in all,
As truly thou
Hast said but now,
The sum of things, the immeasurable sea
Of life, whom none can ever reach or know,
But only feel, within, without, below,
Around, above, as through the hours we go—
Unfathomable, formless, infinite,
Voiceless and nameless.—Ye whom we adore,
Proud rulers of Olympus, are no more
Than glimpses lent us of that hidden light;
And though your wills we now obey,
Ye soon must darken in your place,
Doomed, when He turns elsewhere His ray,
Like sunset clouds to fade away
And vanish over silent space.
68
Antistrophe I.
Yes, for the rapturous inward thrillOf that immeasurable power unknown
That has moved on through thee, my heart to fill
With His own insight, arms me to behold
Worlds strange to Zeus himself, and Kronos old;
And coming times, until now never shown,
New even to thee,
Have dawned on me.
And gather, at His bidding, round me still,
Like some great Master's pictures, one by one,
With colours glowing from a spirit sun,
Before my soul uncounted eras run.
Faint and more faint through the Olympian hall
The splendours once reflected sink and wane,
At his chilled altar the priest kneels in vain,
Whilst from your nerveless hands the sceptres fall.
In the far East divinely bright
The Everlasting moves again,
Through a new orb sends down the light,
And pours on man, from His veiled height,
The wine of Heaven in golden rain.
Epode I.
The God of truth, the God of love,The God of grace and joy and peace,
69
‘Let sin and sorrow cease.’
Our world with sudden spring is filled,
With a swift rush of glorious dreams,
So that her sister stars are thrilled
With that which from her streams.
They whisper, as she passes on,
‘How can she fail a robe to wear
Of glory given as yet to none?
The Son of God is there.’
Alas, alas, pale shapes forlorn
Creep slowly round that deathless name,
The powers that watched when He was born
No longer seem the same.
The wars, that were to cease, return;
The thirst for blood, the lust of gold
Under that new Faith throb and burn
Scarce weaker than of old.
Much will be done, all ills to meet,
By Him who comes and dies for man,
But more is needed to complete
The task that He began.
Before mine eyes, made clear to see,
That new world is ascending,
And in it is a place for thee,
Revived, restored Persephone,
A triumph never-ending.
Oh that the blood within my life were young,
To sing thee as thou shouldest now be sung.
70
Of queenly powers whom God to rule ordains,
Whilst the pure Mother sits beside the Son,
And woman rising into glory reigns.
Strophe II.
The living star of womanhood divine,More near to Him afar, will rise and spread
To blend itself with those clear truths which shine
Still round that Sacred Head.
The Olympians, in their weakness, melt and wane
Like shadows from the dawning of His face,
Perchance to die, perchance once more to reign,
New named, in some new place.
For though the blood they drink up from the earth
Stains each proud heart and poisons every will,
Yet not unholy was their primal birth,
Nor their first work done ill.
Therefore, it well may be that, cleansed and white,
All grossness gathered here they will forget,
And carry the first seeds of sacred light
To worlds unshaped as yet;
But still, whate'er may be their future fate,
It is a fate not to be shared by thee,
For thou must pass into a nobler state
Among the women queens, Persephone.
71
Antistrophe II.
Oh daughter of the skies, thy native heavenThe good it holds has set before thine eyes;
But those Sicilian flowers to thee have given
Sweet earthborn sympathies.
And when from Enna hurried to thy throne,
Half human, though divine, thou camest here,
The soul that breathes through darkness was made known,
And the gloom grew more clear.
Heaven's light, earth's love, unfathomable thought
Which only yonder rayless depths can give,
Each from its home unto thy spirit brought,
Therein together live.
Thou hast been therefore chosen to fulfil,
Whilst thy Olympian sisters disappear,
For man, the everlasting Father's will,
As His great hour draws near.
Beneath a Virgin's sceptre thou art one
Of queenly powers whom God to rule ordains,
When the pure Mother sits beside the Son,
And woman rising into glory reigns.
Epode II.
I see, I see—taught from within—How, strengthened by that holier law,
Such golden years their course begin
As Kronos never saw.
72
His ill-spun webs of thought to reach,
Through vague distracted coils of doubt,
Some self-deceiving speech,
Gives way to that instructive power
Which, on the woman's soul bestowed,
Starts into blossom like a flower
Beneath a breath from God.
Time soon shall feel her gentle hand
Shedding on earth eternal spring,
And thou art one of that bright band
Between her and your king.
The Virgin Mother stands alone,
Unveiled and strong, in her new place,
Near to the everlasting throne
Whose light falls on her face.
That light she makes as soft as dew,
Though still its splendours live and shine,
To pour, O vassal queens, through you
Its influence divine.
Restored, revived Persephone,
Those rays I feel descending,
They come through them, they come through you,
On woman to set nature free
From ill, earth's sorrow ending;
And all the stars, by sin no more controlled,
Shall sing together, as they sang of old.
| Senilia | |