Odes and Eclogves :: :: University of Virginia Library

Odes and Eclogves

By Richard Watson Dixon

Dixon, Richard Watson (1833-1900)

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ODE ON CONFLICTING CLAIMS

Hast thou no right to joy,
Oh youth grown old, who palest with the thought
Of the measureless annoy,
The pain and havoc wrought
By Fate on man: and of the many men,
The unfed, the untaught,
Who groan beneath that adamantine chain
Whose tightness kills, whose slackness whips the flow
Of waves of futile woe:
Hast thou no right to joy?

Thou thinkest in thy mind
In thee it were unkind
To revel in the liquid Hyblian store,
While more and more the horror and the shame,
The pity and the woe grow more and more,
Persistent still to claim
The filling of thy mind.

Thou thinkest that if none in all the rout
Who compass thee about
Turn full their soul to that which thou desirest,
Nor seek to gain thy goal,
Beauty, the heart of beauty,
The sweetness, yea, the thoughtful sweetness,
The one right way in each, the best,
Which satisfies the soul,

The firmness lost in softness, the touch of typical meetness,
Which lets the soul have rest;
Those things to which thyself aspirest:—
That they, though born to quaff the bowl divine,
As thou art, yield to the strict law of duty;
And thou from them must thine example take,
Leave the amaranthine vine,
And the prized joy forsake.

Oh thou, foregone in this,
Long struggling with a world that is amiss,
Reach some old volume down,
Some poet's book, which in thy bygone years
Thou hast consumed with joys as keen as fears,
When o'er it thou wouldst hang with rapturous frown,
Admiring with sweet envy all

The exquisite of words, the lance-like fall
Of mighty verses, each on each,
The sweetness which did never cloy,
(So wrought of thought ere touched with speech),
And ask again, Hast thou no right to joy.
Take the most precious tones that thunder-struck thine ears
In gentler days gone by:
And if they yield no more the old ecstasy,
Then give thyself to tears.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF

Rise in their place the woods: the trees have cast,
Like earth to earth, their children: now they stand
Above the graves where lie their very last:
Each pointing with her empty hand
And mourning o'er the russet floor,
Naked and dispossessed:
The queenly sycamore,
The linden, and the aspen, and the rest.

But thou, fair birch, doubtful to laugh or weep,

Who timorously dost keep
From the sad fallen ring thy face away;
Wouldst thou look to the heavens which wander grey,
The unstilled clouds, slow mounting on their way?
They not regard thee, neither do they send
One breath to wake thy sighs, nor gently tend
Thy sorrow or thy smile to passion's end.

Lo, there on high the unlighted moon is hung,
A cloud among the clouds: she giveth pledge,
Which none from hope debars,
Of hours that shall the naked boughs re-fledge
In seasons high: her drifted train among
Musing she leads the silent song,
Grave mistress of white clouds, as lucid queen of stars.

TO A BRAMBLE IN WINTER

Oh thou that sinkest lower, changing now
Into a vermeil russet thy green brow,
Is then the youth, that once shone clear and bright,
Within thee still? Need I but think aright,
And in thy weak leaves, bibulous of rain,
And flaccid stem, I shall behold again
The trim, thorn-guarded vigour of thy prime,
And the green boldness of thy summer time,
Which dashed Jove's shower from thine unaltered face,
And still maintained thy reappearing grace,

When the winds shook, but could not rifle thee?

Oh, still would I believe thee blithe and free,
See thy flowers still, and then thy cherished germ
Nodding to ripeness all the summer's term,
And richly deepening: still would I confess
In later months thy freshness not the less
When all were trembling, when the beech turned brown,
And life's last relics sought the foxglove's crown,
As sunk the year. But now, alas, behold
How droop thy fans! Some secret touch of cold
Trails thy rings lower, and relaxes all
The brave-spread stiffness of thy banners tall.
The bird that on thy shaken coil may light
Trusts not his little weight to thy weak might,
But beats his wings till he may spring from thee.
Playfellow of the winds no more, thy glee

Invites them not: the dark heaven-wandering rain
Or smites or spares thee with the like disdain.

CEPHALVS AND PROCRIS

Dead ferns were on the hill: a hunter there
Stood in bright garments and with shining hair,
Wistfully looking on the wood below:
The wood, which o'er the slopes went rolling slow,
And stretched at large along the mighty plain.
There was a river wandering to the main,
Seeking his way by many a laggard twist,
And still companioned by the grey-winged mist.
The pale sea lay beyond, and had gone back
O'er many a fathom of his daily track,

And still was ebbing; when a touch of flame
From the sun-shrouding cloud escaped and came,
And raised that watcher's face to the mild sky.
But back upon the wood he turned his eye;
And presently, as one forgetting hope,
Turned nightwards down Hymettus' eastern slope.

It was unhappy Cephalus, who slew
His jealous Procris, when he seemed to woo
Another mistress, as the poets tell.
“Come, gentle gale,” he cried in forest dell,
“Come Aura,” when with toils foredone he sank
After the chase upon yon forest bank.
And she, who loved him best, crept nigh to see
What mortal maid or forest deity
He called to him by name; and this the more
Because Aurora stole his love before:

And, when she heard him, with great eagerness
Forth through the rustling branches she did press;
And the next moment came the crushing spear,
And pinned her down: and after it anear
Leaped Cephalus, who had cast it at the sound,
Deeming a wild beast there: alas, he found
No forest creature, but his dying love.
Whom then he left at last, and went above,
Mounting the Attic hill in agony:
And thenceforth wandered over land and sea.

But in the wood lay Procris slain: her breast
Transfixed, and her half-naked limbs at rest.
And first there stole a little satyr out,
Aware of death and beauty, who about
Limped on his elvish hooves: anon, anon
Behold another, who came creeping on

With doggish look: but when each saw his mate,
At distance from the beauteous corpse they sate,
And waited quivering: then was begun
A talk betwixt that and the other one.

Said First, “Go thou, and tell old Erechtheus
That in the wood his daughter lieth thus.”
Said Second, “Go thou, tell her sister dear,
Orithyia, that Procris lieth here.”
Said First, “One messenger may both achieve.”
Said Second, “Go thou, and on guard me leave.”
Said First, “Orithyia since Boreas sped,
She and her father stay not in one sted.”
Said Second, “One child fled, and one now slain,
Shall I bid that old king have double pain?”

And they had wrangled more: but with a blaze
Came Artemis from out the cloud-spread rays

Sudden upon the green: great Artemis,
Who gave at first the spear that could not miss,
And by her gift had wrought this piteous deed.
Then ran they fast away, and leaped with speed
Into the bush: but to the body straight
In her brave buskins walked the goddess great:
And with her bugle called her nymphs; who came
By the wood paths, and stood around the dame.

Then Artemis: “Girls, her who here lies slain
Oft have ye seen on mountain and on plain
At mortal huntings bear away the spoils.
Such gifts I gave: a dog, into the toils
Who still for her should drive the herding deer:
And none escaped my other gift, the spear.
I gave them that she might her love reclaim
From false Aurora: but she thought no shame

Perversely with a a man my gifts to part,
And from his arm received the deadly dart.
Take warning hence: with lovers never share
The dreadful arms which by my gift ye bear.
Oft false Aurora tempted Cephalus,
Saying that his poor wife was traitorous,
That she might win him to herself: and he
At last to make this trial did agree—
He went away long time: and came at last
Disguised like one by tempest thither cast:
Aod tempted her with gold and vestures rare
To make her to himself her faith forswear.
Fool! She despite his vestures and his gold
Faith to his present absence long did hold:
Yet lastly, so like Cephalus he seemed,
So bright of cheer, that sin she scarce it deemed,

Since Cephalus must sure be dead, to yield.
Then, in her yielding hour, he stood revealed,
And shame thence drove her into woody Crete.
Now, next in turn, she used the same deceit:
For, giving her my dog and spear, I laid
A charm on her to seem a stranger maid,
And bore her back to the Athenian shore.
There at the hunts the prize she ever bore:
Till Cephalus, (whom now Aurora held,)
Begged for the dog and spear: which she withheld,
Vnless he promised love to her alone:
Which promised, in that moment she was known,
And Cephalus ashamed—But now ye see
The sad conclusion of this history.
Wherefore take up the body: and our care
Shall bury her: nor need we to prepare

The pourings which the mortal give the dead:
Nor after burning shall there need be shed
The honied milk, nor purple froth of wine,
Nor first-cut hair: for she shall be divine,
Not sinking to the weary ghosts beneath:
Because that by my gifts she met her death.”

She said, and from a cloud which swept the ground
Her chariot half appeared; whose back was bound
With studs of brass: the mighty wheels appeared:
And from within the large white cloud was heard
The neighing of the horses. The soft weight
Of Procris to the car was lifted straight,
And all passed thence, ascending heavenward,
Leaving the trees, which eyed the blood-bent sward.

Thenceforth sad Cephalus in many lands
Won fame enough: for still fell to his hands

The monsters, by the heroes hunted then,
Which devastated the fair works of men.
But joyless was his might: and still he mourned
The gift by which, wherever he sojourned,
Glory was won, the never-erring spear.
At length in his long travel he drew near
The shrine of Loxias, the Delphic rock:
Where, while a sleep divine his sense did lock,
The Brother of great Artemis stood plain,
Bidding him go far as the western main
To find deliverance: and he rose, and bent
His steps across the boundless continent
O'er the Etolian hills: until he stood
On the Leucadian cliff above the flood.
But the great Bather in the sea was there

Before him: all the west was in a flare
Of liquid fire from the down-rushing day:
A hasty joy of death upon him lay;
And, even whenas the sun first touched the sea,
He went to Procris, fading utterly.

APOLLO PYTHIVS

The limbless one, the swimmer of dry ground,
His mighty track amid the forest wound:
And with advanced head dividing still
The bowing trees moved over vale and hill.

When the strong mowers wade through deepest meads,
When the sharp keel beneath the pressed sail speeds,
Scythes leave their swathe, and ships their watery wake:
But shattered oaks confessed the earth-born snake.
Amid his path of ruin he full oft
Raised his imperious crest, and bore aloft

High o'er the topmost shoots his baleful eyes,
Searching the wood-walks and tree-galleries.

In the deep groves all things that make their haunt,
And prey on others, through the stress of gaunt
Necessity, armed with their single skill
One creature of the rest to choose and kill,
Owned the more monstrous scourge, which bore the power
Nought to discriminate, but all devour.
They ministered their tremblings to his might
In fascination: yea, as in delight
The stealthy wild cat and the pard would run
Frankly before the watchful head: nor shun
Their destined death, more than the innocents,
The fatted mouse, the hare in withered bents.

Then trembled Nature in her various kinds
New-sprung to life from the ooze that parching winds

Turned to dry land again, what time the flood,
Deucalion's deluge, was from earth subdued.

But who watched there the terror of the slime?
What lucent brow, appearing in what time
Above the rocky slopes, with mastering rays
Drew those brute orbs attent to answering gaze?
Apollo 'tis, from Delos island, lo,
New-born, but perfect, come with golden bow!
New-born, or ere upon the soaked plain
The scattered seeds of men were risen again,
Yet perfect in the manhood of a god,
The only human shape on earth that trod.
He, mighty one, the golden bow that bare,
Fair-limbed as man, of gods the god most fair,
In the first wonder of his glorious birth
With fear and horror viewed the plague of earth,

And righteous anger seized him. Had he been
Briareus, he in vain had watched the scene.
His hundred hands of fury in the hold
Of that unmeasured trunk laid fold on fold
Had fainted into one: fell Typhon's breath,
Cast from a hundred mouths, had gasped in death.

But his two hands upraised the chorded bow
Deliberately: his eyes upon the foe
Sped their clear hostile gleam: then hummed the string
As sweet to hear, as when the copses ring
To the peaceful lyre that by his quiver hung.
The sound far off around the valleys clung,
Speaking deliverance; and the mountains high
Sent it unscattered to the listening sky.
But the dread shaft, winged with immortal strength
Rushed on the snake: fathoms of sinewy length

The dreadful head was cast against the god,
Then fell back, dragged in rage along the sod:
And spasms uphurled the soil: the mass convulsed
Subsided; and as still the strong pains pulsed
Through the opening wound to death, a dark pool stood
Where Python left on earth his dragon blood.

POLYPHEMVS

Rvde rocks o'erhung the shore: as rude as they
The mighty shepherd wandered round the bay.
The tumbled uplands, all his mountain home,
In his distempered woe had seen him roam.
The single eye amid his forehead placed,
The cause of dread, that from him all things chased,
Suffused with fury now, and swollen with pain,
Shewed red, the fleck of madness in each vein.

Alas for him! how monstrously did peer,
Crowning his front, that uncouth sign of fear!
His narrow forehead, splayed on either side,
To mould that middle feature high did ride;
And large the fleecy beard, beneath his face
Which spread, and seemed of that strange tower the base.
So, meteor-like, o'er combing waves hath stood
With turning lamp the tower that lights the flood;
The combing waves, far as the light had power,
Have spread, a tossing fleece, beneath the tower.
Alas for him! never might he divine
That but one orb did in his forehead shine:
For when across his brow his hand he drew
The touch deceptive told that there were two:
So that he deemed himself like others made,
Although his form an ampler grace displayed:

Nor therefore knew the cause that everywhere,
Go where he might, he woke the excess of fear.
First when mid fauns, dryads and satyrs strong
He would have danced, ere he could join their throng,
Their ring they broke, and leaped into the glades,
And quaked long time beneath their closest shades.
Next with mankind he would consorted be:
But whether he drew near a company,
Or strode toward some lone shepherd on the hills,
The hardiest bosom shook with coward chills.
No man encountered once but feared again
To view that portent rising o'er the plain:
None turned the summits in those regions high,
But hung in doubt, and instantly would fly,
If in the opening valley he descried
That blick tremendous borne with rood-long stride.

So that at length amid his flocks alone
He thought to live: and other friends had none
Than the mild host that to his pipes obeyed:
Which, mild as they, he tuned for them, and played.
Pleased with himself, he led them day by day
To the uncropt wilds that by high freshes lay;
Nor in his deep contentment felt despite
That gods and men fell from him: this the right
Which his vast force compelled he deemed to be,
And the due homage of his sovereignty.
And so he fared till lastly frustrate love
Did from the shepherd e'en his flock remove:
And of that fatal hour 'tis now to tell
When on his head the last amazement fell,
Adding such terrors to his visage grim,
That even the beasts the monster knew in him.

That day he led them far among the hills,
By folded gorges, the high birth of rills,
O'er shadowy wastes, pale quags, morasses grey,
Vnto a level stretched, where herbage lay
Full green: they plucked with joyous snatch the grass;
He, leaving them, with peaceful pace did pass
To view what height beyond their field might be;
When lo, oh, lo!

A brake of reed and tree
Thickly enwrapped a tarn of water clear,
Which faint of colour seemed, and far, though near,
In the breathless highland air: beside whose pool
A nymph, new risen whence she had sought to cool
Her beauty, stood upon the further shore.
'Twas she whom Doris to mild Nereus bore,
Whom not far-haunted Ocean would suffice

To bathe: but secret springs her beauty nice
Often beheld, earth's fountains and sweet springs,
Which she ascended from sea-openings.
'Twas she who one fair youth loved secretly
Of all who roved through high-hilled Sicily,
The nymph-born Acis; whom she wont to meet
In shoreward caverns mossed for gentle feet.

Whom when he saw, the giant through the brake
Crashed, and cried loud along the shuddering lake,
“Ah, fairest! then these ready arms behold!”
But not more swiftly from the cloud's dark fold
The hissing bolt doth bending zodiacs smite:
Not shrieking swifts more sudden dash from sight
In autumn eves, than she, but seen, was gone.
Her shriek of fear rang on his ears alone,
Her white limbs mixed with leaping waves were seen:

Down sank her fount, and left the sallow green.

Astonishment the shepherd seized, who stood
Twixt the protesting trees and bubbling flood.
And blankness, poured on expectation new,
Begat that rage which soon to madness grew.
He started, peered, drew backward, laughed, and leapt
Into the ooze which late the waters swept.
And as a worm, unearthed, that round and round
In anguish flings, but cannot quit the ground,
He searched the reedy fen: alas, no more
Beauty's perfection blessed the settling shore:
Nor aught remained of all the wonder there,
And wild fen rushes glanced in sunny air.
Then lifted he his hands (it is love's cross
To make unadded gain seem perfect loss);
Fury! he raged (it is love's wont to give

All ills in this, one good to not receive):
And seeking thence his flock with footsteps fleet,
Ere he came nigh, the dams began to bleat;
Him come more near his sheep no longer knew,
But crowding eyed; and thence in terror flew
With countless rustling feet: he scarce pursued
Them lessening o'er the slopes, but in wild mood
One lamb he caught, the which in two he plucked
With mighty wrench, and the sweet bowels sucked:
Then, issuing shoreward from the mountain land,
At length amid the pumice rocks did stand.

Alone, but more consoled, and softer now
He weeps: the tears drop from beneath his brow
Singly, but diversely their channels make,
Alas for him! and separate courses take:
Out of the fount suffused roll heavily,

And break in two, each half a flashing sea.
So oft the arrived wave, that falters o'er
The cataract's verge, a double stream doth pour,
Split by some midway rock: still fall below
The jetted waters with divided flow.

Anon he stints the flood: and, sorrow past,
Sets to a smile superb his features vast:
For other thoughts, restoring equal mind,
Return in wandering flaws, and entrance find.
He thinks upon his pipes, whose compact row
Of whistling sweetness part was broken now
Through his first rage: this marking not, he lays
The organ to his mighty mouth and plays.
Then, in some way conceiving it not kind,
Into one hole alone he blows his wind,
Breath after breath, long time: until no more

Patient, he slings the tubes upon the shore.
His voice alone could reach the tone of love,
And accents speak the mind that in him strove.
Sounds like to bleatings round the copses rang,
And thus the enamoured Polyphemus sang.

“Oh fair and timid as the trembling lymph,
Soon shalt thou bid me soothe thee, sweetest nymph,
Whom wherefore should I fray? The fairest fair
Can with the strongest strong alone compare:
And I acknowledge thee. If others flee,
No cause hast thou, be sure, to shrink from me.
When I am near, the boldest satyrs run;
The fairest dryads my approaches shun:
My force to try if still no satyr dare,
Yet thee I call beyond the dryads fair.

“Oh, what befel, when I thy form beheld,

By that fair fount that in the mountains welled?
Pale trees around the margin hung their screen,
And lovely lake-birds flew about, between
The reeds and tree tops: but my eyes were bent
On thee alone, thou dainty ravishment.
The Acidalian fountain, in whose wave
Their unimagined sweets the Graces lave,
Is not so fair as thy demure retreat:
Nor that, whereby the Muses have their seat:
And thou than they art fairer: it is said
That oft beside their sacred fountain's head
Mighty Apollo (I am mighty too)
Is wont to dance, to please those maidens due
To science most and wisdom: to his lyre
He dances, and his rapid feet do twire.
Oh, bid me dance, and half the rocks shall fall,

The trees bow down, my notes resound o'er all.
Fairer art thou than the Pierian choir,
And I Apollo's rapid feet could tire.

“Whiter than wool, sweeter than milk, more mild
Than suckling lambs! I, swift as storms and wild,
Owning thy beauty, lo, will kiss thy feet.
Wildness in thee with sweetness well may meet.
But fly not still, when thy fair eyes shall see
To answer thee not one like me to be
In all the land. Ah, if I ever thought
That by another thy embrace were sought,
These hands should rend the quaking wretch from thee,
And strew his empty body o'er the sea.”

Thus he began those cantilenes, which soon
More desperate grew, when moon succeeding moon
No answer brought from hill or grottoed shore,

Or billow falling white: and he no more
The perfect form beheld that caused his woe.
Yet not unheard were they: and now, even now
Fair Galatea fled beneath the wave,
And Acis issued trembling from their cave.