University of Virginia Library

Then answer'd Antimenidas, and said—
“Thou wilt remember, when I parted hence,
'Twas for the wars nigh Babylon; the kings
Of Egypt and Assyria would meet,
And I would serve with Pharaoh in the East.
Thrice did the boatman shout in my deaf ears,
Ere I had turn'd from gazing on the shores,
Whence I was parting, dim as early dreams;
And in the shadow of the warship's hull
He rested on his oars; a few brief words—
A trumpet from the deck—and helmed heads
That gleam'd amid the twilight—and I saw
The swarthy captain of the Egyptian King;
Who to my queries moved his hand along
The cloudy orient, black with coming night;
And the long line of that heroic land,
The memorable plain, where Xanthus runs
And Ilion frown'd; whose giant ghosts I saw
Rise up that moment 'twixt the earth and heaven,
And heard the iron ring upon their shields
In dream more moving than the armed hosts
Of living men. ‘Young man, if there were light,’
He said, ‘ev'n now perchance I might show to thee
How the old fights, sung by your ancient bard,
Were lost and won.’ I answer'd not his words;
I thought in silence. On those very shores,
Where spectral twilights only flitted now,
An ancestor of mine had won renown,
Whose face and form may have prefigured mine;
And I was following after a strange host
While he had seen Achilles! I was born
Long ages after the heroic years,
Haply to fall untimely, and unknown
In some far wilderness. Methought I saw,
Shaped out of uncouth shadows dim and vast,
The two primeval armies camping there;
Methought their watchfires flushed the blowy night,
And show'd dark fragments of the ruin'd towers,
As two or three far fishers with their boys
Hung up the evening cauldron o'er the coals.
But Reason, swift as lightning, whisper'd me,
‘Patience, not Passion, builds up the great heart;
What hast thou done, or suffer'd?’ ‘Ah!’ I cried—
‘Will honour, or dishonour wait on me?
Glory, or shame, or a swift end of all?
Oh! Honour, like the diamond in the dark
Wrapt round by the unlovely rugged rock,
Is won by perils, to be broken through
Ere it can blaze out sunlike.’ Then I thought,
As the weak arm grows strong with daily toil,
My soul with custom of heroic thoughts
Will laugh at peril; and then hourly use,
By little and by little—as the growth
By silent atoms of the human frame
Till the poor infant is a mighty man—
Will make me first o'ercome the dread of death
And then forget the very thought, and then
To seek him out with mockery and disdain,
And catch his dart upon my very sword-point!
Yet though I long'd for it, this change was swift,
Ah! this was sudden as the rising sea,
That met me ofttimes in the straits at morn
Rolling from the Ægean, when my heart
Beat quicker to behold mine enemies;
And soon proud resolution, youth, and strength,
Made my arms iron, as I struck my way
Shoreward, with dark locks glittering in the foam.
And now the vision of a bloody time,
That shook me for a moment, made me soon
Strong as the thunder when it follows fast
The fiery zigzags cloven in the cloud.
And as I linger'd by the chieftain's side;
‘Young man,’ he said, ‘my luck among the isles
Is of the best; fifty from Tenedos,
A hundred men from Samos, and from Cos,
Sixty from Chios, out of Lesbos none,
Saving thyself: but thou, if I may guess,
Hast in thine eye the star that guideth men
And rules their fates; and, when my years were thine,
Long days of dusty march, and midnight watch,
My corselet dinted with an hundred fights,
My breast all wrinkled with my many wounds
On nightly trench, hillside, and battleplain,
Scarce won me notice from the Satrap vain,
Whose noble blood was not a drop the less
For all his boasted feats, and bellying words.
Circled by our good swords no harm could reach him;
And to the eye of the proud King our master
His brainless brows seem'd wreath'd with brave men's bays,
And piled with all the praise of our best deeds.
'Twas hard to bear; at length, when this old arm
Is shrunken with the fiery breath of War;
And life, so often perill'd, scarcely seems
My own possession; and my stormbeat Age
Hath shed away the last leaves of hope's flower—
Such as to dream at ease by my own hearth—
To wind mine arm about some loving heart—
To feel my little ones about my knees—
To see the fond looks of my countrymen
Turn'd on me; and to sit with faithful friends
And talk of my past cares at eventide—
Oh! just when Honour, tho' piled up to heaven,
Would scarce outweigh the lifelong load of ill,
Behold I am become a thing to fear.
And this old head, say they, might love to change
The heavy iron for the heavier gold,
And press its gray hairs with a circling crown.
And Pharaoh bids me, for my many years,
And services, take guerdon and repose
In far-off lands. Oh! if the blood of youth
Stirr'd in me now, the same ambitious motions,
Revenge would, like an unobserved spark,
Breed suddenly more tumult in the state
Than any hopes of empire; but the days
Are over when my spirit could take fire.
The peace, which is my punishment, I crave.
And I could sit, a solitary man
And listen to the murmurs of the Nile.
Perhaps 'tis best to die as I have lived,
The thunder and the shouting in mine ears,
As it may be to-morrow. I could have hoped,
If I should come out of the strife to be,
To watch the faint wind waft the fisher's sail
Down stream toward the great sea—as my breath
Shall waft the silent remnant of my days
Far as the Ocean of Oblivion—
I know, that, if I lose, or if I win,
This is my last great venture: if I return,
Methinks 'twould be a lovely thing to walk
At morn and even 'twixt my plots of flowers;
Nurse them as children; raise their drooping heads
And give them all my care—let it be so.
And, if they pay me with ingratitude,
They cannot quench in me the glorious thought,
Thought still in curved age to comfort me,
That I have served my country, which I loved,
Thro' good and ill, and met its ill with good.
I charge thee, hold before thine eyes for ever,
By night and day, in fiery letters scroll'd,
Not Glory—no! nor Honour—but this—Duty!
O word that all do utter, few can hear,
Fruit of sweet kernel, though of bitter rind!
O golden sunbeam wandering in the dark;
Goddess, who frownest with thine onward face,
And, when we look back to thee, smilest sweetly!
My star in youth thou wert, in age thou art:
Thy lamp shall light me down unto the tomb.
And so I charge thee, boy, fix not thy faith
On kingly promise; but be wise, and fill
Thy conscience with such memories, as will shine,
Like the sweet stars at midnight, in thine age.’”
I heard no more; although I yearn'd to hear
How Antimenidas had won that sword.
For hark! the sweet notes of a harp and flute
Struck in together; and two dancers sprang
Forward, lithe-limb'd as Hermes, or the Nymph
Who fled before Apollo; and all eyes
Turn'd to their subtle motions, made to yield
Harmonious utterance to the thoughts within;
As 'twere an unsung music, silently
Unfolding what the nimble melodies
Spake openly. And every footfall soft,
That touch'd the veined marble, straightway seem'd
Instinct with a wing'd spirit that again
Upbore it; every pace with beauty breathed
Fell on the eye, as on the charmed ear
The mingled magic of the harped strings
And breathed notes, running through every curve
With skill and lovely change; as from the heart
A rapt emotion pours into the mind
Fast following thoughts that melt into each other;
As sinuous currents join and flow together;
As the green woods wave in the morning wind;
As the blue waters surge along the shore;
So one smooth motion pass'd into another.
It seem'd a tale of many passions told
In inarticulate tongue, yet eloquent;
Life given not to one sculptured form alone
But many statues chasing one another
Thro' labyrinths of grace! Oh! there was love
Pleading in truthful sweet humility
To timorous simplicity; then the boy
And girl in their first trance of sympathy;
Then swifter motions, faith, hope, eager joy,
And triumph: then a pause, a shuddering pause
Of fear, no longer born of self-mistrust,
But fierce self-love, that sever'd them at once
With gestures of disdain; for she had seen
As 'twere the shadow of the sickly fiend
That turns love into hate. She flies away
In ever-widening circles; and he stands
Awhile, mute image of despair and woe.
And now the music deals fantastic airs
With a weird rhythm, and in a harsher key.
And, while he stands thus, in between the two
Starts forward, like the very imp of Ill,
A swart form, ragged-lock'd, and dwarfish mould,
And uncouth mien, yet sinewy in its strength
And lithe activity; and laughter curls
The parted lips, and mockery rules his limbs
To ribald motions, as he signs to them
With his dusk finger, and they hang their heads;
And bend their dull eyes sadly to the earth.
But, after a brief silence, once again
Low notes of still a sweeter melody
Rose slowly, through a still-ascending flood,
To a full swell of re-awakening hope,
Rebuoyant blissfulness, and perfect peace.
And, when the rude and sunburnt elf had ceased
His lawless paces, comes a winged child,
Light, as a linnet perching on a rose,
And bends to each in turn with perfect grace,
And a clear song, whose piercing lark-like thrills
Gush'd forth like a first sunbeam, that reveal'd
Love's fair new earth and heaven, yet old as Time,
Green earth of Nature, and blue heaven of Truth.
Again the music peals; again they raise
Their pensive brows; again they come together
With ever-narrowing circles, and again
They whirl the timbrels o'er their laughing heads.
They clasp their willing arms about each other,
Sunning each other with delighted eyes
Victoriously; for Love hath vanquish'd Fear!
When they had ceased there rose a shout from all
That soften'd into melody; and hark!
The golden voice of Sappho in a song.
For she was there in honour of the feast,
Although her lonely heart was far away.
It was that saddest season of her life,
That lamentable interval, ere yet
The shadow of great sorrow she had borne,
A soul-consuming sickness nigh to death,
Had pass'd away from her; I knew it not,
Till we were aged in far after years;
And then she told me all in calmest words,
With steadfast eye and unimpassion'd voice.
But now her best friend Anaktoria
Had join'd the guests; for she was come from far
To bear her off upon the breezy seas
Between the isles; and so the gentle Muse
Once more could raise her mournful head and smile:
And all her spirit woke up suddenly:
And with her spirit, like a searching fire,
She threads anew the windings of the dance,
Interpreting the whole with magic art;
And throwing over the dumb pageantry
The mantle of her fancy; till the ear
Marvell'd that out of such a thing should spring
Food for the heart as well—a tale of joy
And tears.—And as her wonder-weaving words
Were lifted on the flood-tide of her voice,
And waved along the armed walls, and beat
The tall roof, and went forth into the night,
Some eyes were lit with rapture, some with wrath,
Some rain'd warm drops of pity. I stood apart,
As one who nevermore might hear the like;
And down beneath the dust of death would bear
That voice away with me, that it might ring
Through the starless midnight of dread Nought
A peal to wake Oblivion, echoing on
For ever and for ever! And I bow'd
My head upon my hands as one afraid;
And closed mine eyes, that, shutting out the light,
I might not miss one note of that sweet song
That was divine, and mystically phrased
To them who love not, but an oracle
From heart to heart of lovers; closed mine eyes,
That their cross sense should not offend mine ears,
Thro' which such magic sank into my soul,
As made all aspects and all motions else
Pale and delightless. When I raised my head
She was not there; ah! was it she indeed?
Or some immortal in a mortal form
Seen for a moment? Then I saw her pass
With noiseless speed adown the garden walk
Beyond the fountain; and her moonlit robe
Vanishing through a bowery arch that led
To odorous gloom, like a sad Muse, that shuns
All mortal voices ev'n of praise, and loves
Better to hear the echoes of her soul
In the lone nightingale's ecstatic song
Beneath the stars. Softly I followed her,
Half fearful; there she sat; her upward eyes
Catching the quivering moonbeams, as tho' they
Were throbbing pulses of that lord of night
That kindled all the shadows overhead,
Transform'd to tender lightnings; and I said—