 | The Poetical Works of Andrew Lang |  |
The Fortunate Islands
A Dream in June
I lingered over Lucian,
Till ere the dawn a dreamy way
My spirit found, untrod of man,
Between the green sky and the gray.
More light than air I seemed to sail
Afloat upon the ocean sky;
While through the faint blue, clear and pale,
I saw the mountain clouds go by:
My barque had thought for helm and sail,
And one mist wreath for canopy.
Reflected, so the wild stars shone
Within the abysmal hyaline;
Till the day widened more and more,
And sank to sunset, and was gone;
And then, as burning beacons shine
On summits of a mountain isle,
A light to folk on sea that fare;
So the sky's beacons for a while
Burned in these islands of the air.
Where one swift tide of wind there flows,
Came scent of lily and violet,
Narcissus, hyacinth, and rose,
Laurel, and myrtle buds, and vine—
So delicate is the air and fine:
And forests of all fragrant trees
Sloped seaward from the central hill,
And ever clamorous were these
With singing of glad birds; and still
Such music came as in the woods
Most lonely, consecrate to Pan,
The wind makes, in his many moods,
Upon the pipes some shepherd man,
Hangs up, in thanks for victory!
But the wind doth touch them, over and o'er,
And the wind's breath in the reeds will sigh.
That island lies in silver air;
And suddenly my magic barque
Wheeled, and ran in and grounded there;
And by me stood the sentinel
Of them who in the island dwell.
All smiling did he bind my hands,
With rushes green and rosy bands;
They have no harsher bonds than these,
The people of the pleasant lands
Within the wash of the airy seas!
Now all of ivory and gold
The great walls were that garlanded
The temples in their shining fold—
Each fane of beryl built, and each
Girt with its grove of shadowy beech;
And all about the town, and through,
There flowed a river fed with dew,
As sweet as roses, and as clear
As mountain crystals pure and cold;
And with his waves that water kissed
That smoke with victims all the year,
And sacred are to the gods of old.
And I was led before the Three;
And they but looked on me, and straight
The rosy bonds fell down from me
Who, being innocent, was free;
And I might wander at my will
About that city on the hill,
Among the happy people clad
In purple weeds of woven air,
Hued like the webs that twilight weaves
At shut of languid summer eves;
So light their raiment seemed; and glad
Was every face I looked on there!
The dwellers there wax never old,
Nor wither with the waning time;
But each man keeps that age he had
When first he won the fairy clime.
The night falls never from on high,
Nor ever burns the heat of noon;
But such soft light eternally
Shines, as in silver dawns of June
Before the sun hath climbed the sky!
The souls of heroes go and come,
Even they that fell on either side
Beneath the walls of Ilium;
And sunlike in that shadowy isle
The face of Helen and her smile
Makes glad the souls of them that knew
Grief for her sake a little while!
And all true Greeks and wise are there;
And with his hand upon the hair
Of Phaedo, saw I Socrates;
About him many youths and fair,
Hylas, Narcissus, and with these
Him whom the quoit of Phœbus slew
By fleet Eurotas, unaware!
Within the plain Elysian,
The fairest meadow that may be,
With all green fragrant trees for shade
And every scented wind to fan,
And sweetest flowers to strew the lea.
The soft winds are their servants fleet
To fetch them every fruit at will
And water from the river chill;
And every bird that singeth sweet,
Brings blossoms from the dewy vale—
Lily, and rose, and asphodel—
With these doth each guest twine his crown
And wreathe his cup, and lay him down
Beside some friend he loveth well.
When, lo, a voice that seemed to say,
In far-off haunts of memory,
Whoso doth taste the dead men's bread
Shall dwell for ever with these dead;
Nor ever shall his body lie
Beside his friends, on the gray hill
Where rains weep, and the curlews shrill
And the brown water wanders by!
The dead men's bread I feared to break,
Their fruit I would not taste indeed
Were it but a pomegranate seed.
Nay, not with these I made my choice
To dwell for ever and rejoice;
For otherwhere the river rolls
That girds the home of Christian souls,
And these my whole heart seeks are found
On otherwise enchanted ground.
The vision wavered, dimmed, and broke;
And, nowise sorrowing, I woke;
While, gray among the ruins gray,
Chill through the dwellings of the dead,
The dawn crept o'er the northern sea.
Then, in a moment, flushed to red,
Flushed all the broken minster old,
And turned the shattered stones to gold,
And wakened half the world with me!
The Fortunate Islands. This piece is a rhymed loose version of a passage in the Vera Historia of Lucian. The humorist was unable to resist the temptation to introduce passages of mockery, which are here omitted. Part of his description of the Isles of the Blest has a close and singular resemblance to the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. The clear River of Life and the prodigality of gold and of precious stones may especially be noticed.
Whoso doth taste the dead men's bread, &c. This belief that the living may visit, on occasion, the dwellings of the dead, but can never return to earth if they taste the food of the departed, is expressed in myths of worldwide distribution. Because she ate the pomegranate seed, Persephone became subject to the spell of Hades. In Apuleius, Psyche, when she visits the place of souls, is advised to abstain from food. Kohl found the myth among the Ojibbeways, Mr. Codrington among the Solomon Islanders; it occurs in Samoa, in the Finnish Kalewala (where Wainamoinen, in Pohjola, refrains from touching meat or drink), and the belief has left its mark on the mediaeval ballad of Thomas of Ercildoune. When he is in Fairy Land, the Fairy Queen supplies him with the bread and wine of earth, and will not suffer him to touch the fruits which grow ‘in this countrie’. See also ‘Wandering Willie’ in Redgauntlet.
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