'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition

What is that solemn sound, which makes
Strange music in the hearts it wakes,
And wins to nobler choice?
It murmurs from the gates of morn,
And is with evening echoes borne—
It is the Sibyl's voice.

Through all the common cries of earth,
The wails of weakness and of dearth,
Above the victor shout;
O hear her message sad and sage,
The sum of every clime and age,
The key to every doubt.

She comes, she comes, superb and strong,
All higher wishes round her throng,
All hearts are to her drawn;
And on her pure prophetic lips,
Speaking in earthquake and eclipse,
Lo the red rose of dawn!

Her foot is on the pathless air,
The lightning licks her streaming hair,
She stands in stormy skies;
As one who in the future looks,
And reads its fate as writ in books,
With dark, deliberate eyes.

She is not dead, she cannot die,
Though nations prone in dotage lie,
There is no death for her;
We hear her when the night wind calls,
We see her when the darkness falls
On mighty souls that err.

Behold her brow in surges bright,
That break on broader lands of light,
When prostrate peoples rise;
When kindled by one common flame,
They burst the shadow of their shame,
And waken calm and wise.

She has put on a thousand masks,
The cowls of monks and warriors' casques,
A god-like place to fill;
And though the lands have wooed her long,
With bribes of gold and battle song,
She is a Virgin still.

Though moving with the march of Time,
The toil, the tumult, and the crime,
No mortal was her mate;
Unstained by all the lures of lust,
The crash of chaos and its dust,
Unvexed, inviolate.

She stood above the flux and strife,
None mingled with her maiden life,
And she was mixed with none;
She went on her majestic way,
Still without haste but without stay,
Unbending and unwon.

She heard the statesman's studied plea,
Who offered her the world for fee,
If she his counsel blest;
But from her purpose fixed and wide,
She never swerved one jot aside,
Nor let its justice rest.

Throned in the ruddy dawn of Change,
She whispers words of omen strange,
And shakes her lance of light;
Behind her leaps the laughing day,
With larger revelation's ray,
Before her flies the night.

She yokes the thunders as her steeds,
And tames the tempest for her needs,
The clouds her chariots are;

Her wings are the unresisting winds,
She walks upon the waves she binds,
And holds the morning star.

An ancient augur hath she been,
Who wore a gray and withered mien,
When youth was at her heart;
But yet her acts in history's page
Have never felt the blight of age,
And play a deathless part.

She bowed but not with blasting fears,
Waxed pale but not with snows of years,
Halted but not to rest;
Her nature changed not with her name,
And with a fierce unwaning flame
A fire burned in her breast.

And when she draws the robes away,
That light ineffable allay,
She seems immortal youth;
Her front is innocence, her mouth
Is the sweet music of the South,
Her every tone is truth.

Too tender for the sword that slays,
Too beautiful for bloody ways,
Too frail for aught but love;
And yet her look is more than law,
It hath a mighty charm to draw
The loftiest from above.

Young as the hours that blossoms bring,
Her face is fresher than the Spring
That trembles in the trees;
And yet her gaze is dim and cold,
Deep as eternity, and old
As everlasting seas.

Unfaltering is her step and true,
Her robes are heaven's own azure hue,
The twilight halls her home;
Her voice as soft as summer airs,
Sad as with universal cares,
Strong as the hates of Rome.

And all the varied notes of Time,
Summed in its subtle compass, chime
Each instant hour of change;
While up and down the scale complete,
With conquest now and now defeat,
The awful numbers range.

She talked with seers on solemn mounts,
She stood at Fame's primeval founts,
And cradles of great kings;
Mohammed, Attila, were stirred
By her intoxicating word,
To work such wondrous things.

Thus Alexander, Hannibal,
Found in the fight a festival,
Because they felt that flame;
The ravening Cæsars that unrest
Owned and obeyed, as slaves possest
By hopes they could not name.

Prophets and poets knew her well,
And stooped to her tremendous spell,
She fired their splendid speech;
And when the light of Learning died,
Save where in cloistered souls it sighed,
Yet she remained to teach.

Grand cities yielded to her yoke,
And sped to battle when she spoke,
With victory in their van;
She fashioned history as she chose,
And framed from Revolution's throes
Each universal man.

She sang afar the sack of Troy,
Untouched by human grief or joy,
Untroubled by its doom;
She sang how Hellas had its hour,
And then with broken pride and power
The coming judgment gloom.

She made eternal Athens, Rome,
Venice like Venus raised from foam
To wed the boundless sea;
Fair Florence felt her waving hands,
And rose ennobled through all lands
With an immortal plea.

For nations trained in war's wild shock,
Whose hearts were hewn of rugged rock,
She filled a larger space;
She drew more near to ancient creeds,
When words were few—colossal deeds,
And on them flashed her face.

The nurse of heroes, and the guide
Of freedom's flowing ebbing tide,
She broke the prison bars;

When evil gained its monstrous will,
Then, in the night of ruin, still
She pointed to the stars.

We see her, as they saw her then,
A mighty mistress among men,
With eyes serene and gray;
Beyond the present and its tears,
Above our paltry hopes and fears,
In visions rapt away.

Yea, she was known ere history's birth,
And gently rocked the infant earth
To her enchanting strain;
It was her touch that made it roll
For ever, to that glorious goal
Which is the death of pain.

The proudest tyrants were her tools,
War and religion formed the schools,
By which she held her sway;
She deals with empires as with toys,
She makes and breaks what she employs,
And casts the wrecks away.

And when rebellion rears its crest,
Swooping as eagles from their nest,
She steers its stormy flight;
And forth she pours her prophet tones,
Mid crumbling walls and tumbling thrones,
Till day is born of night.

When slaves are waking from their sleep,
Her gleaming paces swiftly sweep
The tempest-ridden skies;
Firm is the triumph in her glance,
And dark as destiny the trance
Of her untroubled eyes.

Before her mighty pageants pass,
Mirrored as in a magic glass,
In solemn scenes and sure;
With parted lips and floating locks,
She marks unmoved a thousand shocks,
All passionless and pure.

Forward she leans upon the gale,
Beholding still the Future's tale,
Even as a flower unfold;
She heard, as from the dawn of things,
Nor stays creation's perishings,
Could she the doom withhold.

When trampled races wreak her will,
Against the iron bonds of Ill,
And crush its grinding wrong;
O then across the chasm of Time,
We hear with thoughts and throes sublime
The Sibyl and her song.

It is not love, it is not hate,
It is the measured voice of Fate,
Divinely calm and clear;
It has no part in human lot,
And yet it touches every spot,
It knows not mortal fear.

It is not pleasure, nor is pain,
It never reckons loss or gain,
Nor stoops to earthly bounds;
And still it numbers all our bliss,
Desires we reap, delights we miss,
With sad and mystic sounds.

Each fortune of each path it proves,
And echoes every note that moves
The solemn harp of life;
It thrills with every passing wind,
But leaves our longest storms behind,
And bodes unceasing strife.

'Tis deep as hell, and high as heaven,
And big with all the wants that leaven
Man's broadest, wildest will;
It chants of madness, chants of mirth,
And blessing strangled ere its birth,
In accents stern and still.

And when the tempest muttering sends
Dire tumult in the breasts it bends,
With promise it has brought;
Then, in the agony of hope,
It scatters, thunders in the scope
Of some world-shaking thought.

If threatening fears be on the wing,
And passions from their primal spring
Fierce inspiration drain;
Then in the seething, social air,
In new resolve and purer prayer,
We catch her song again.

It calls above the cries of ire,
And shouts of spirits that aspire
Upon it idly fall;

It mingles every craving deep,
Each impulse in its mighty sweep,
And is apart from all.

Though their vain fellows were so blind,
Yet many a leader of mankind,
Its claim has clearly seen;
And left upon an early tomb
The living dream, that was his doom
Of that which should have been.

And now the Sibyl comes once more,
Wise with her old, unearthly lore,
Her awful book she brings;
And though the nations heed her not,
Though kingdoms rise and kingdoms rot,
Her song again she sings.

We pipe of tuneless touch or plan,
We babble feebly what we can,
She speaks because she must;
And while she speaks our splendours fly,
Our loftiest dreams are born and die,
Our temples turn to dust.

Onward, yet onward doth she speed,
Through every dim heroic deed,
Earth's slowly-dawning tracts;
Before she sends her voice, and still
She works her world-transforming will,
And fancies lead to facts.

Yea, to the present is she blind,
She never casts one glance behind,
But looks serenely on;
The streams of Time may ebb and flow,
And lay our golden cities low,
Yet when will she be gone?

We cannot hate her if we dread,
And though she dwells among the dead,
She is so wondrous fair;
She breathes the beauty of the earth,
The vastness of the desert dearth,
The ocean and the air.

We cannot love her if we would,
Nor has she portion in our good,
She is too cold and calm;

For Fate in all her features lies,
In the deep gulfs of her great eyes,
And in each waving palm.

Fate is the legend of her brow,
To which once seen the peoples bow,
It rustles in her robes;
Fate calls from every look and line,
In symbols dreadful and Divine,
As mapped on starry globes.

Why do we fear her, if we know
Her march must ever onward go,
Her empire never wane?
Ah, why not welcome her, and be
A link of high necessity,
And triumph in her train?

What if the clouds her curtains make,
And wild war trumpets round her shake
Earth's calmest field and flood?
Clouds are the cradle of the light,
While sweet are feastings after fight,
And creeds baptized in blood.

When suns go down in seas of gore,
Where peace and pleasure smiled before,
And moons go up in fire;
Lo, then she rides upon the gale,
Awful, inscrutable, and pale
With infinite desire.

Whoe'er has caught her kindling glance,
Is dashed into the fateful dance,
In which she gathers all;
Her presence sore mutation brings,
And mighty men and meaner things
Before her onset fall.

She catches fortune at its ebb,
And weaves each colour in her web,
The threads of rest and rage;
Mingled with mystical intents,
As swaddling-clothes and cerements
For infancy and age.

Her footstep sounds along the years,
When monarchs laid on stately biers
Are carried to their doom;

Her hand lets fall the sacred leaves,
When earth decaying greatness grieves—
Her seat is on the tomb.

And nearer still her shadow draws,
In shifting creeds and shattered laws,
When class makes war with class;
Yet when destruction, like the wind,
Old codes and customs casts behind,
Her skirts it cannot pass.

She seizes of all glories flown,
And with their spoils adorns her throne,
While death her pathway paves;
And round her roll the wrecks of man,
Frustrated force and blighted plan,
With ever-widening waves.

Before her winter blasts its way,
Behind sweet summer blossoms play,
That bloom when lands are free;
About her moves a murmur strange,
The prophecy of inward change,
Of fairer shapes to be.

There is a grandeur in her gaze
That soars above the human haze,
A vastness in her strain;
High thought, in her unfathomed soul,
That grasps the world in its control,
Broods with sore travail pain.

Ah, now we hear her garments glide,
Across that dim and formless tide,
Where fierce disunion strains;
And by her lips is shaped the spell,
That splits the darkest dungeon cell,
The direst despot chains.

Her song is on the evening borne,
And mingles with the breath of morn
Its incense old and sweet;
Her song is in the awful hush,
When warriors pause before they rush
In mortal grip to meet.

And in the arméd peace, that holds
The countries in its quivering folds,
O hear her warning word;
She comes, and though no wisdom heeds,
Opens each ancient wound and bleeds;
She speaks, and shall be heard.

University of Virginia Library

THE SONG OF THE SIBYL.