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107

Canto the Third. The Cicada.

1. The Lake-bower. The ‘Downy Ironheart’ Tree. 2. The hamper. Native fruits, etc. 3. ‘Eating the tables.’ 4. Dragon-flies. 5. The Cicada suggests old Athenians. 6. Insect-transformations: what by analogy deducible from them? 7. Cicada's joyous song. How Ranolf interprets it. As the blank beyond its comprehension is filled with the wonders of Science, etc., visionary to it; so something—and what but higher Spirit-Life?—must fill the blank beyond ours. Better than speculation the joyous trustfulness of its old friend Anacreon.

I.

'Tis burning Noon: from heat and glare
How sweet the bower the lovers share!
A Lakeside cleft—a rock-recess
Of soft sun-chequered quietness,
A nook for lovers made express.
Like birds in some umbrageous tree
Girt round with leaves they seemed to be,
A hollow globe of greenery:
For twisting, arching, overhead
Dark serpentining stems were spread;
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And arching, twisting, down below,
Stems serpentining seemed to grow;
While on a plane of light between,
Suspended lay those skiffs serene.
Sunbathed arose the dome-like roof
A strangely-splendid wondrous woof;
Whose dark-green glistening foliage seemed
Thick over-showered with shining snow,
Except where blood-red masses gleamed—
Such luminous crimson—all aglow!
White buds and opening leaves the first,
With silvery-sheening velvet lined;
The last, rich-tufted bloom that burst
Bright-bristling, with the sun behind;
As if whole trees, 'mid heaped snow-showers
Were turning into burning flowers!
Below, the pair as thus in air
Upbuoyed, a sight as fair enjoyed;
The hollow shadowy floor, o'erlaid,
Beneath the clear transparent void,
With silvery-crimson soft brocade,
To that above in shape and hue
So like, the seeming from the true
By its inversion best they knew.
It was the ‘downy ironheart’
That from the cliffs o'erhanging grew,
And o'er the alcove, every part,
Such beauteous leaves and blossoms threw,
And made this cool sequestered nest
For silent, lone and loving rest.
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II.

Then for refreshment in the noontide heat,
With mockery of much ado,
And lips comprest and pursed-up too,
And little nods of playful pride,
And self-complacent confidence to win
Applause at fine arrangements so complete—
As who should say: ‘Now open wide
Your eyes and see how I provide!’—
Fair Amo with arch mimic pomp outdrew
A platted basket hid in her canoe,
Cool-packed with leaves and lightly tied—
A flax-green basket autumn-piled; wherein
Date-like karakas made a golden show
Quince-coloured and quince-smelling; faintly sweet
Soft aromatic pepper-spikes were seen;
Potato-apples of the poro-poro tall
Rich-mellowing from their crude lip-burning green;
And, bounteous 'mid these wood-gifts wild and small,
Ripe, slippery-seeded and of juiciest flow,
Great water-melons melting crisp with crimson snow.
Nor was there lack of more substantial food,
Leaf-hidden in a smaller green flax-hamper;
Choice too, for appetites so young and good—
As roasted wild duck, red-grey parrot stewed,
And bread in its primeval form of ‘damper’—
Unleavened cakes of palatable maize
Well pounded by Te Manu, and well kneaded
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By Amo, and in hot wood-ashes clean
Well baked—or rather in oven of simpler sort
Than most remote ‘Stone-period’ could report—
Mere flagstones laid and heated without trouble
Upon a quenchless fountain's boiling bubble;
Flat cakes that dish and platter superseded;
And, used instead, recalled in this far scene
A moment's memory of old school-boy days
To Ranolf—that crab-apple-feasted crew
Of Ocean-wanderers, wearily reposing
In maple shadows on green sunny slopes,
And watching with dim eyes and fading hopes,
The sparkle of the sea-waves summer-beaded;
Then fair Ascanius luckily disclosing
The prophecy's fulfilment, else unheeded,
“What! must we eat our very tables too!”—
Nay, one more luxury swelled the savoury list—
That dainty by our daintiest humourist
So prized—roast sucking-pig! for two of these
Nimble Te Manu had contrived to seize,
Cut off by clever doubles yesternight
From a long train that scampered after
Their grunting dam, and, driven from her track
Could not escape the youngster's clutches, though
They dodged him, as disabled half by laughter,
He obstinately chased them to and fro
An hour at least, imprisoned as they were
Between a shrunken river, and cliff chalk-white
That wall-like rising at their back
From the clean speckless gravel-bed upright,
Without a blade of verdure, bright and bare,
Made the small runaways look doubly black,
Doubly conspicuous in the sunset's glare.
111

IV.

So each as in a floating nest,
Moored side by side the lovers rest,
And catch veiled glimpses as they lie
Of splendour-flooded azure sky.
The birds that sung those matins sweet
Are silent now in slumberous heat.
In dreamy-lighted luxury
Lies Ranolf musing—marking well
Each charm of water, rock and tree
About that shadowy glimmering cell;
The low grey cliffs with stains imbued
Of lichens white and saffron-hued,
Flat crumpled—or blue hairy moss;
All doubled in the shimmering gloss:
Sometimes a loose-furred hawkmoth, see!
At those rich blossoms restlessly
Fumbles to suck their anthers sweet:
Sometimes, invading that retreat
Great black white-banded dragon-flies—
With green and gold-shot globuled eyes
On either side projecting wide
Like swift coach-lamps—on quivering wings
Of glittering gauze dart all about;
With tinier ones of richer dyes,
That hover—dodge aside—and fix
Themselves with those bent-elbowed legs,
And heads so loose, endlong to sticks
And twigs, and hold as straight as pegs
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Their blue or scarlet bodies out;
Just as a tumbler, 'mid his tricks
Seizes an upright pole and flings
His particoloured legs in air,
And holds them horizontal there—
So proud to ape a finger-post.
“They were revolting, hideous things,”
Thought Ranolf, “but at least could boast
A faith that made them leave in time—
Come shouldering up through mud and slime
With horny eyes and dull surprise,
Out of the clogging element
Where their first grovelling life they spent!”—
—Meanwhile unseen cicadas fill
The air with obstinate rapture shrill—
A wide-fermenting restless hiss
Proclaiming their persistent bliss;
As if the very sunshine found
A joyous voice—and all around,
While woods and rocks and valleys rung,
In brilliant exultation sung.

V.

And Ranolf loved—could not but prize
That tiny classic Cymbalist,
So graced with old Greek memories;
The rapture-brimmed, rich-burnished one—
His bright green corselet streaked with jet,
His brow with ruby brilliants set—
That, undisturbed, would ne'er desist
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From clicking, clattering in the sun
His strident plates—at every trill
Jerking with stiffly quivering thrill
His glassy-roofing wings; as gay
As his precursor could have been
Two thousand faded years ago!—
See! through thin morning vapour gray,—
With snowy marble-gleams between
Blue-shadowy clefts of fragrant gloom
Melodious ever and alive
With immemorial bees that hive
In honied thickets, lilac-green
With sage and thyme in deathless bloom,—
Bare old Hymettus looks serene
O'er silvery glimpses far below
Of pure Ilyssus in swift flow
Through plains—one revel of renown!
And there, along the myrtle path,
As fond of sunshine, full of joy,
Fresh-glistening from gymnasium-bath,
The hyacinth-curled bronzed Attic Boy
Would steal—O trust his artless tale—
Just for one luscious blossom-crown,
Their pride and pet delight who hail
For home that marvel-minded Town—
To some hot mead where violets hid
Blue round the well's white timeworn trunk
Of hollow marble slightly sunk
In grass about the spring that slid
Slow-creeping crystal all the year:
And there would find one violet
More fragrant-hearted, richer yet,
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A lovelier-lowly dearer pride
Than any that the well beside
As gently shrink, as shyly peer:
For see! in crocus-coloured vest
And silver girdle—all her best—
Worn—to beguile that Boy-love?—Nay,
'Tis Queen Athene's festal-day!
With vase two-handled on her head
(Pale yellow spiral-striped with red)—
That slim slip of a Greek-limbed girl—
Who looks so sweetly grave upon
Sad news about their neighbour's son
Killed—since they met, at . . . Marathon!
—And there the Boy, as with a curl
Slipped from the shining coil he played,
In loitering chat beneath the shade
By glittering gray-leaved olives made,—
When War's mishaps had all been heard
Around that dear one's home incurred,
Vines—fruit-trees broken—fields untilled—
Pet-kids and lambs for forage killed,—
Would faltering tell—small need! how well
That bright procession-dress became
The radiant face! how sweet its smell
Of rosy apples redolent
Oft dropped inside its chest for scent;
And how she bore, in look and pace,
With what a proudly-pretty grace,
That vase—though brought with childish aim
To save her tripping there from blame!
And then would pause a little space,
Just in the act of sipping down
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The fig she gives him, bursting-ripe,
Plump, melting-skinned, and purple-brown,
To mark their little gay compeer,
As hand-in-hand they draw too near,
Abruptly stilling its sweet shrilling,
And edging round its olive-branch,
Backing and sidling out of sight
Of eyes that sparkle hazel-bright,
As one fond wish the Boy expresses,
That chirper were but turned to gold
To stick in Myrrhin's golden tresses!
While not his wildest dream had told
The lad, how many an age to come,
In what far regions all unknown,
His race's merry earthborn type
Would still be singing blithe and stanch,
After its own grand Muse was dumb,
Its noisy greeds and glories gone!

VI.

So Ranolf's musing fancy strung
Together olden scenes and new;
Or on more dubious ventures flew,
If e'er as to some bough it clung
The songster's pupa-case was seen,
Whence from his base life subterrene
He made escape in wingèd shape—
The bright transparent brittle sheath
Wherein he slept his life-in-death.
A suit of perfect armour, where
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He left it Ranolf notes it still;
An open crack across the back,
And lobster-claws thrown by because
Superfluous found, his labour crowned;
The forelegs raised—‘not as in prayer,’
Thinks he—“but work; for he too, mark!
Was forced to dig with strength and skill
His stout way from his dungeon dark
Up to his heaven of sunshine! Thus
From clogged and cramped existence fleeing,
He tries a second state of being
In the sphere that holds but one for us:
But both his lives to us seem one
Who see the changes undergone:
So this life and another too,
Nay, lives on lives, perhaps, of ours,
May seem but one to wider view
And keenlier-gifted loftier powers;
The subtle links we lose pursued,
The metamorphose understood.
But with what pitying smile must they
Look on, when with such sad array
The human insects hide away
Some care-worn soul-case out of sight;
And weep because they cannot stay
The freshwinged Soul's unfettered flight
To wider spheres and new delight!—
“That was the way those types to read—
A fine old cheery way indeed.
Will Science say remorseless?—‘Nay,
You must not read them so to-day.
The actual metamorphoses
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Foreshadowed by—akin to these,
Are antenatal in mankind,
Gone through already. One surmise
From lingering traces undesigned
Of transformations some low grade
Of life sustained, ere birth displayed
In nascent undeveloped Man,
Might be by strictest reasoning made:
That if organic Being rise
Elsewhere upon the self-same plan—
Continue so ascending—there
Some glorious creature might be found
Of frame more complex, powers more rare,
In whom Man's perfect mould would be
But one in its imperfect round
Of embryotic stages. Try
What help, what hope therein may lie!’—

VII.

“Well, then, methinks, that surging sea
Of resonant shrill melody
Rings out a thoughtless answer free,
Whence one may frame a thoughtful plea:
‘O human Insect! sad Truth-seeker—
Which of us two is wiser—weaker?
Your senses—those deep reasoning powers
You will within their bounds compress,
May take a wider range than ours,
How vastly wider! none the less
They both are dwarfed, unspeakably
Fall short of and are distanced by
The infinite Reality:
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And all beyond their feeble reach
Will doubtless seem and be for each
A blank—a void—mere nothingness!
O grand indeed the gains you boast,
The ever deepening, widening host
Of wonders Science as she presses
Into the Mystery's first recesses,
Works out, worms into, proves or guesses!—
—Creation, like a firework splendid
Ever exploding, unexpended;
As endlessly it whirls and flies
Still breaking into brilliancies
Of stranger gleam and lovelier guise:—
—Organic Nature, in its flow
By inorganic guided, so
Divinely from its hidden fount;
Germs, gemmules, cells; upstrivings shy;
And those consummate craftsmen—Chance!
Environment or Circumstance—
With aims so clear in harmony
Combining to evolve and mould
Such plastic structures manifold:
Their agents, climate, fire, and frost,
Food, famine, skilled to crush—uphold,
Choose what had best survive or perish,
The lower to check, the higher to cherish,
Make progress sure at any cost!
So force in falling stones, and heat
And cold, can make and mar and mount
From starred frost-flowers to crystalled rock,
Tree, insect, bird, beast, Man complete!
Though still outstands that stumbling-block
Of Science—Life! her pride to shock
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And Matter's despot-sway to mock!—
Well—as so brilliantly the blank
Beyond our powers perceptive teems
For you with wonders that would rank
With us as visionary dreams;
So surely is there something still
The blank beyond your own to fill;
Something unsoundable by Man,
If finite reason never can
The Infinite comprise or span;
Yet what (a point to raise no strife)
Within that blank so likely rife
As mightier facts of Spirit-Life?—
Dreams?—aye, but all you pray for—prize,
Within that realm of vague surmise
May well to loftier beings be
Demonstrable reality!—
O human Insect! wiser—weaker—
O suicidal secret-seeker,
What if you left your “proofs” alone
And joined our reckless rapturous Pæan
Of clear confiding trustfulness,
That once so charmed the jovial Teian,
Whose loves and lyre and brimming beaker
Were all o'erthrown by one grape-stone
That choked his life out, just as you
Your life of life by laying stress
On doubts perhaps as trivial too;
Wresting despair with so much pain
Out of a scheme not your poor brain
Nor ours can compass or contain,
Exhaust, unravel, or explain!’”—
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