University of Virginia Library

TIRESIAS

TO EMILY KEY.

Will you grace by your acceptance this story of Tiresias?

In our “age of mechanical arts and merchandize,” your love of verse is grateful as a garden in a populous city, where the flowers yet blossom and the birds sing.

1. PART FIRST

BOOK I. TIRESIAS.

BOOK II. CHARICLO.

Thou art Tiresias, my hapless son,
Tho' sad indeed, yet more than others blessed.
Thy guides for ever gone from this dark life
Wherein we stumble, tho' our sight be keen;
A need the poorest creeping things enjoy,
And Gods themselves cannot restore when lost.
Great Pallas, wise Athena heard my prayer,
And granted that which makes thee more than man:
Yea, made thee as the Gods with power to see
Determined courses rule far times to come;
But made thee not as Gods with power to aid
The due fulfilment of Their wills divine.
Tho' thus denied; and men seem unto thee
As fevered victims in their chase for power;
Yet happily their tumult canst thou shun
For blossoming sweets that breathe around thine home,
Within whose shadow, smiling, dwells content.
Thy fateful glimpse of Wisdom left thee dazed
And listless from thy terrible delight:
Regardful, I discerned thine eyes were clear,
Without a wound or scar to mark their scath,
But taking shapes as mirrors void of life.
Ah, could I brook thee mine, but one of those
Who eat and sleep, and only sleep and eat!
Faith fired the hope my Goddess might incline
To hear the prayer of suffering Chariclo;
And, strong in resolution, timidly
Her temple steps ascending, bent I down
Before Athena's statue, where I wept.
The lifelong issue or of joy or woe,
Awe weighted me to silence while I kissed
The ground made sacred by Her sandalled feet.
I strove to make each sentence close and true
To urge my supplication piercingly,
Lest its defect should cause thy suit to fail
And leave thee hapless.

BOOK III. TIRESIAS.

O Mother, careless ears can never learn
Nor rightly ponder words of mighty Gods!
His watch must constant be, his spirit meek
Whose will with Their's unflagging would keep pace.
Weak dalliance shuns he, and the lavish grape,
And dares not spur dark passion to attain
The reigning heights few clamber but to fall;
For unto him pursuits of fretful men,
Unconsecrated by divine intent,
Shall seem a dance of folly, or a chase
That finds disaster, or the quarry fled.
To these blank eyes the outer world is blank;
The pale blue hills afar, beneath my feet,
The happy flowers alike are blank to me.
But pastures ever rich in flowers divine,
Unfading, lustrous, of ethereal hue,
Are mine, and cheer the margin where a stream,
Brimmed with celestial light, for ever flows
Toward some great ocean washing nameless shores.
Throughout that troubled province yet again
Ramp dock and thistle where they choke the corn;
Stray torrents rut the road; the watercourse,
Checked by accumulated tangle, spreads,
And overflowing meadows soak to swamp;
Men frown and leave their useful husbandry,
The silent plough, the music of the flail;
Dark herds that teem increasing opulence,
The bleating cries from fields and pasture lands,
They leave and swelter in the fields of war;
Where they, instead of sweet productive showers,
Meet showers that carry grisly wounds and death;
Instead of milk, that quenches thirsting toil,
Comes the fell thirst is only quenched in blood.
He, my Pylaon, gentle, learned, wise;
Whose dearest pastime was the work ordained;
Who lived to shape, augment, and purify;
By clamour driven from his usefulness
Into an empty name! Ingratitude
From those he served had chilled the hero's soul,
And curdled thro' his frame the generous blood,
Beating no more attuned to high resolve,
But shrunken as a brook, when after drought
No longer singing on its wonted way.
He left us while that furious tempest raged,
“Killed by the sudden cold,” the mourners said:
But he was slain by shameful cowardice,
And broken-hearted our Pylaon died.
Wretches are honoured now, and heroes slain.
Is there then no appeal, O Chariclo?
Can crime thus vault and yet the race endure?
These sons of glory, favoured of the Gods,
Thus slain and unavenged!
From age to age
Run stories of a mighty day when Greeks
Were God-directed, and when men obeyed.
But when I strive to pierce the black abyss
Of unborn time I see but shameful shades!
O, sight of horror; rent that blank abyss!
Where, thunder-armed, the great Olympian Gods
All breathe indignant vengeance as one face,
And storm their chariots over thundering plains;
Forth stream their hissing bolts, speed swift their shafts;
In lines of lightning sing their angry spears!
And flanking hard move strange stupendous Shapes
Who, plucking splintered rocks, and forest trees,
Dash cities out of being at a blow;
And monstrous creatures leap whose caverned jaws
Crash and make havoc on distracted flocks.
Last famine stalks close linked with pestilence;
And blight that chars the traversed space like flame.
The Gods have gone and left the smitten land,
Where lies their anger black in ghastly heaps;
All left of Greeks and their intolerant pride;
Their haughty sages and heroic chiefs;
Their beauty fairer than sweet flowers in bloom;
Their Temples, where the only sacrifice
Was flesh of beast and gold-bought offering;
Their palaces, where dwelt unkingly kings
Who throve in costly state, and could not rule;
Now all have vanished like a waking dream
That leaves a growing taint of certainty
Its visions but foreshadowed danger near.
Uprising slowly in that wasted scene
Crawl dwindled forms in search for something hid,
That keeps their faces spell-bound near the soil;
Anon, in mockery of ancient deeds
They seem a world of phantoms lacking life.
My gift of gazing thus on pictured doom,
Is but a doubtful boon, O Chariclo!
However crime corrupt our rulers' blood,
However basely are their wills obeyed,
However dire the vengeance justly due,
Alas, the speeding thunderbolts, that burst
Among the guilty, likewise overwhelm
With woe, or crush the guiltless into ruin!
Stern, unrelenting are the Gods, and mark
That man accursed; mark him for ever cursed
Who lifts a knave to high authority,
And drives the hero from his sacred trust.
And ever must our mortal race endure
The chastisement Fate wills, and angry Gods
Ordain for men unfaithful to their charge.
Abject and haughty, both alike as one
Swept unappealably to nothingness.
Heedless of frowning Doom's unfaltering eye,
Lightly they laugh; they wave their arms abroad
And cry, “This good old earth and all her fruit
Are ours of right; then let us every one
Enjoy the fragrant juices of the vine;
Clasping fair woman let us round the dance,
And dance together until sunken day
Leaves us a safe example, where the stars
Still burn in glory and rejoice the night!
For now, the waves away, sand smooth and dry,
The beaming Hours will not our arms escape
Till taxed of rosy smile and sweeter kiss,
And lips made redder with the crimson draught.
Thus, fondling beauty, her new-quickened breath
Runs thro' our veins in swift delicious fire;
Until our rapture slacken in repose,
And languor lapt by music softly sleep.”
On the warmed beach they breathe the summer wind,
And wear a transient pallor of the moon,
Where sprinkled snug, like sheep ere breaking dawn,
They rest in dreams of never-ending bliss.
And meanwhile rising clear from ocean gloom,
Creeps, white-lipped, hissing, the returning tide.

BOOK IV. CHARICLO AND TIRESIAS.

“When preening downy breasts the waterfowl
Quiver, ere spreading timorous wings to rise
From water freshened with the breath of morn,
And span the dazzled distance into space;
So freshly wing our lives Tiresias,
So bright with promise are the days to come.”
“Thy words ring true
And tuned on tender chords, Tiresias!
But the dread Goddess, is Her charge forgot?
Not lightly will She pardon shouldst thou fail
In reverent concord with Her will divine.
Thine own bow in obedience, nor allow
Winged hopes to hover where they may not rest;
For Gods despise the foolish tears of men
Born of unchecked desire. No, let the vain
Hither and thither gad a senseless dance,
Their course of no more count than wind-borne leaves.
Exalted, thou shalt know the living truth
Athena signified, and sun thy soul
In ever-varying beauty born of law
That love, wing-folded from pursuit, adores.
It is not thine to toil and herd with men,
Who fondly trust they track their purposes,
But are blind shuttles in the loom of Fate,
Each working out his doom. Thy deathless glance
Of Pallas great Athena's very self,
Enwrapt thee Her's in worship evermore:
For having seen perfection in pure light,
No earthly memory can seem to thee
Other than darkness shown by glimmering rays,
Or form unfashioned yet to comely shape.
Thy mortal loss being thus immortal gain,
Saved art thou now the dolour and despair
Of seeing wounds thou lackest skill to heal;
Or tottering blindness that will not be led;
And, breathing air attempered to response,
The voices of the high Olympian Gods
Shall sanction thine in music with Their own.”
“Take, take, O Mother, take my trembling thanks!
As beat his heart who clomb to weary heights
When blew the gracious zephyrs round his brow;
So braced by loving words, my life rebounds
Within obedient range, and gathers strength
To pace the lonely path prescribed by Fate,
Athena's self disclosed.
“Once on a day,
Upon the ledge of rock that overhangs
Where one huge torrent thrills the mountaincleft,
I lay and listened to the constant roar
Of leaves and water musically mixed,
And heard high voices of the earth and air,
Discourse of stars, and whisper of the force
That vomits blocks of fire, or by a smile
Clusters the primroses to living light.
Rapt thus lay I and wondered.
As they kiss,
Are tempests fired with transport mortals feel
When eager lips unite? Or, is it hate,
When in mad thunder rushing they expire!
“While thus by strangeness lured, or beauty caught;
Where secrets opened to my will, or closed
For future pondering in some happy hour;
More purely blew the wind; a glory smote
These sightless balls as on that day of doom
When I beheld Her silent on the grass
And clad in light alone. But now Her voice
Pierced me with music, such as wildest love
Could never hope for utterance, tho' his fate
Hung in the balance of a blissful word.

2. PART SECOND

BOOK I. CHARICLO AND TIRESIAS. THE BIRDS.

“Describe, Tiresias, tho' in halting speech,
This linnet's rapturous trilling overhead;
His throbbing throat just seen among the leaves.”
“To his blithe mate, shaking her feathers free,
After a lengthened sitting on her nest,
He tells the fury of the storm, and sings,

[I saw thee, as the storm grew nigh]

“The fretful creature, jealous of the moon,
Could never understand, Tiresias,
That in no terror for herself she clung,
But over-anxious for the babes unhatched!”
“The other eagle snapped her angry beak,
‘I grieve these sheepclad know the use of bows,
Or we might rule them as befits their worth!’
Scoffed she, and flapped her widespread wings. I heard
Both then wing inland to the mountains far.”
“Now tell me what the rival sang, who ceased
Long ere the loudest plained his final notes.”
“He sang of boundless food at his command,
That he would barter in exchange for love;
And sang of freshets overhung with boughs
So dense in leaves they offered safe retreat
When danger down in drenching torrents fell.
To keep her fledgelings plump and satisfied,
He promised labour while the day endured,
When fondness kept her prisoner on the nest!”
“Thus sings no slender graceful nightingale,
But some wag bullfinch, in a stolen disguise,
Fat, plain, and round, and justly prosperous!”
“Birds varying, O Mother, each from each,
As other two-legged beings of this world,
The poet nightingales are not exempt.
One sings the nuptials of the earth and air;
The other praises forage without stint:
Proving an old saw, ‘Many make a world’;
And most are busiest in their own concerns,
As this near wren now twittering in the twigs.

[In and out the boughs about]

“The wren is saved by insignificance,
And safe as humble-bees from stoop of kite.
Tell me, Tiresias, what yon throstle sings;
Whose rich, soft-throated notes are pacifying,
And reach us thro' the stillness winged with peace!”
“He cheers his sitting partner with a tale
Of how her thrushlets will, when dauntless grown,
Outsing their rivals in the strife of song!”
“‘I laud, I laud my speckle-bosomed Love!
O tawny-tinted, swart, and bounteous breast
Sheltering our blue delights! In their warm nest
Unbroken, pure; fair as the noon above
The world of shadowy leaves that whisper and play,
Where I, beside her sitting, sing alway;
A heart unburthening that never tires
In grateful utterance of fulfilled desires;
And passionate longing not to be betrayed,
Onwardly urged, enjoyably delayed!
“‘I laud, I laud in tenderest strain, and trill
The rapture in thy rounded eyes, that fill
My fond heart full, such lustrous orbs are thine
To beam upon me with their love divine!
Divinest love: in silent transport there
Patiently brooding on thy treasured care;
Each warmly cherished fivefold counterpart
Concentred safe beneath thy happy heart,
That soon astir, will feel the throbbing beat
Thro' broken walls, responsive and complete!
“O bliss to eager breasts! The bliss, when first
From riven and shattered azure mansions burst
Our long-loved hoped-for joys! Starkly in view
Pale-pink, and shuddering 'mid the fragments blue!
How brief the yearning glance thou wilt allow,
In thy fluff-feathered, fostering zeal, I know
Truly, O Love! But when thy callow brood
Stretch wide their yellow mouths agape for food,
My fondness then will overhanging doat
While filling wistfully each tittering throat.
“‘When flush and fashioned they have outgrown home;
And duly feathered fit for enterprise;
Luring them craftily with thrilling cries
To trial of their timorous wings, we roam
Hushed unfrequented hollows, hour by hour;
Then, as their little limbs wax lithe in power,
Thro' dewy grass we follow shining trails,
And finding, pounce upon the wanderer snails,
Then crush their spiral palaces, and slay
The rich inhabitants, our unctuous prey.
“When strong and capable, they seek to dare
Whatever chances fly 'twixt dawn and night,
We drive them from our haunts to forage, where
Conquering the risks of danger with delight,
They shape to comely creatures. When wild spring
Bursts into bright innumerable green,
Thro' silvery showers and sunshine widening
On wood and copse throughout the boundless scene;
Impassioned then clear from the gathered crowd
Of flitting wings, shall rise their voices loud!
“Apart on loftiest boughs we'll hear them sing,
Pouring their rivalries from dulcet throats,
Sustained in long successive throbbing notes,
Liquid and flashing; while the woodlands ring
With flattered leaves playing choral minstrelsy;
When many a sidelong ear, a glancing eye
Will scan the singers while they list their lays;
And then, in prompt unhesitating praise,
Fluttering around they all alight anear
For sweet selection of the mates most dear.
“As both, O Darling, in the days agone,
Were pleased and fluttered, when, becoming one,
The sun for us threw wonder in the leaves;
And winds blew sweeter thro' the swifter day.
My heart then filled with love, on summer eves,
Thy charms in music running thro' my lay,
Feeling far lovelier things than I could say,
I sang no rising sun could ever see
In tangled greenwood or on noblest tree
A bird so beautiful to rival thee!’”
“His lay confined to praises of his dame,
And what she loves: what fitter theme for song!
With what high argument, Tiresias,
Rend they the air, yon cloud of heavy rooks,
Now holding troubled session in the sky?”
“Driven by mischance from wonted feeding-ground,
They shout and boast their prudent management
And rearrange some disconcerted plans.
“'Tis clear to man they pay scant reverence,
Tho' round his homes they ever congregate.”
“Yes, they despise but never scorn to use
The toil of men, born but to turn the soil
And lay exposed the luscious worms for them!
Strange notionsmove them: singly, each conceives
Himself a cypher; but the commonwealth,
Ardent and daring, will they all uphold,
And their awakened anger in assault.
As they have boasted, even eagles flee!”
“These shrewd substantial feeders will we leave:
A more engaging life, Tiresias,
Yon lark, whose shrill rejoicing in the sky
Flatters attention with attuned reproach,
Singing in ears dulled by continual care:
The purport of his warbling would I know!”
“As you may well divine, O Chariclo,
Few are the cares lodged in that buoyant breast:
His mate, the sunshine, and his little ones;
His transport in the light when ether-poised,
The cadences that alternate his song!

BOOK II. TIRESIAS. SONG OF IMAGINATION