University of Virginia Library

I

We used to think of him, as of a man
Nobler in stature than the sons of men,
When men were nobler; with a brow, between
His flowing hair, like morning from beneath
The unfolding clouds; we never dared to bring
Each holy feature into likeness clear
Of common visible humanity;
Or shape the foldings of his robe, or hear
Aught in his musical, imagined voice,
Aught more familiar than the mystic tones,
Heard amid the lone mountains, or along
The starlit seas. But here were those who shook
All fancies off before the very man;
So was he, of such aspect, with such eyes.
And, tho' long cycles lay 'twixt him and them,
The love, that fed upon his presence once,
Drew in all hearts such picture of his form
That they could paint it into other hearts,
A never-dying memory; tho' the isle,
What time he lived among them and was seen,
Was peopled with the many forms of one,
According as he came to him or her,
Diverse in lesser moods, the same in great.
But one great image haunted every eye,
And spoke in every tongue, his last great day
Of sorrow and of glory, when he left
All whom he had delighted, all on earth
That had delighted him, and fed his soul.
Long days I linger'd in the rocky isle,
Feeding my soul in silence; for it seem'd
The haunts of men were idle, and their ways
A weary waste of life, their pastimes vain;
Their passions, kindled at the passing hour,
But fires of straw; while I could fill the time,
They call'd the present, with the mighty past:
Make pictures under shadowy rocks, and near
The wayside fountain; underneath the pine,
Or figtree branching o'er the garden wall.
And hear a voice they heard not on the shore,
Speaking to me out of the sounding seas,
Whose music long ago had answer'd him,
The blind old man, led by the hand along
Familiar places, which he could have traced
Alone; so well was every winding path
Known to him in the days when light and life
Began together, and the love of all
Fair things, a vision once, a memory then.
And not in vain I wander'd here and there,
Hoping, as 'twere, to waken once again
An echo of that voice; to see pass by
A shadow of that form. And so it chanced
That, lost amid the windings of a vale,
Weary I enter'd by the garden gate
Of a fair countryhouse, and sued its lord
To suffer me a little to repose,
And gather strength—for the midsummer sun
Smote on me—and the knowledge of the way.
But he gave welcome with free heart and hand.
And not an hour, but many days, I pass'd
Under that roof, and listen'd to a man
Among the noblest of that place and time,
Who came from ancestors who number'd him
The bard of Ilion of their kin. He said,
‘One near to him, heir to his very soul,
A sister's son, who led him in his walks,
And drew in, as it were, the vital air,
The breaths he utter'd—one who lived not long—
So finely chorded was his tuneful frame,
That, like a harp clash'd rudely, 'twas unstrung
By the first onsets of the angry world—
And, as the music shaken from the strings
Vanishes in the aery void, his life
Fled after the flown soul, and yet he lived
Long enough in the light of it to learn
The love and secret of sweet Poesy,
How yearning passions shape themselves in song,
As smouldering ardours burst away in flame—
How the rapt soul, in vision spiritual,
Lights up the Past when all its days are gone,
And the dark Future ere its deeds are done—
He stood by when the giant took his flight,
And clothed the solemn, unforgotten hour
With his own melody.’ To my wondering eyes
My host unfolded the immortal scroll;
And in my memory, as in his, the tale
Burns like a picture, every tint aglow.
So, what I tell thee, Sappho, is as true
Now, as it was three hundred years ago.

II

These are the words the youthful minstrel sang,
In honour of the aged bard he loved.
I have transcribed them, but my memory bears
Each written word, as surely as the scroll.
‘In the cool twilight of a seaward cave,
That open'd on a floor of sunny sand,
Lapp'd by the silver waves, whose ripplets faint
Tinkled among the rocks and curved shells,
Some fishers linger'd in the drowsy noon,
Some slumbering in the shadows, their swart brows
Kiss'd by the golden stars, that glanced atween
The tangled leaves that curtain'd up the grot:
And some, their morning toil refresh'd with sleep,
Sat murmuring of old songs, and weaving tales,
The while their nets before them in the sun
Hung dangling and the wind. They sat together,
And gazed along the deep with purple laid,
And emerald, far into the misty clouds;
And saw the soft sky-tinted isles, the shores
Under the mighty hills crag-turreted;
And saw the sunlight fall upon the walls
And towers of a fair city by the sea.
And one was there, a deep-eyed man and old.
O'er his broad shoulders hung his ancient locks,
And touch'd the reverend beard upon his breast,
And stirr'd in the warm air; tall was his form
As of a warrior, tho' the storms of Time,
Much travel, and more thought, had stoop'd his brows
Earthward; but from the dark heaven of his eye
Soft lightnings glanced, and tender tears would fall
To hear a mournful tale, a lovesong sweet,
Or wreck, or feat of arms, or realm of wonder.
In youth he pass'd from land to land, and knew
All the blue inlets, and the stormy straits,
The rivers, and the mountains by their names;
The Egean isles, and the Egyptian seas;
And pluckt gold fruit from the Hesperides.
All cities fair, that shadow'd in the sea
Their marble columns, from Phœnician shores
To Gades west, he had beheld, and knew.
And North and South from the Great Pyramid
To breezy Mitylene; and he had look'd
On the red ruin of the Etnæan surge,
And heard Charybdis rage, and Scylla bark;
And he had talk'd with kings in carven chambers,
And with the beggar at the palace gate;
And in the rugged mountain shepherd's hut
Slept by the piny torrent, and had heard
The nightly lions roar on Afric's coast.
And he had spoken with dead chiefs, a boy,
Who, in their boyhood long ago, had touch'd
The armed hands of heroes, that had warr'd
Beneath Troywall, and saw the temples fall.
And trod among the dust of Ilion;
And in the courts of Hecatompylos;
And heard the whispers of the oracles.
So that his heart was as a holy tomb
Lit with a quenchless lamp, and in his brain,
Swathed with perennial fancies of his own,
Lived the dry bones of cycles; and he spake
Of ancient things as though he had been by.
And now that lordly man, so wise, was old
And blind; and all the beauty of the World
Brought him no more its gladness as before;
Tho' still he loved to sit upon the shore,
And quaff the breeze, and hear the waters roll.
And he would listen to the fishers' song,
And tell them marvels he had seen in youth,
And wonders he had heard; and they would lean,
Charm'd by his raptured eyes, and glorious voice,
All the hush'd noon to listen to his words.
Low at his feet there lay a bright-eyed boy,
The guardian of his steps; who, as he spoke,
Turn'd on him upward looks of awful love,
And lived within the shadow of his soul,
Whose steps he tended; and he raised his brows
With a sweet smile, as though he blest the day
He once had seen; ‘And thou,’ he said, ‘glad Light,
And ye blue Isles, and thou melodious Sea,
Mountains and shores that are so beautiful;
Ye marble cities gleaming by the waves;
Thou, Nature, that hast nurtured and attuned
My heart to thine; oh! would that I could see
Once, as of old, the blessed summer-day,
And feast once more my low-declining age
With sight of that which made my joy in youth.
Then would I yield my soul without repining,
With the rare memory of that parting look
Pictured upon it; and my harp should sound
To the sad ghosts the world they see no more.
O sunny islands of the ebbless waves!
It is so long since these dark eyes beheld
Your hills and valleys, thymy slopes, and bays,
That, out of memories, Phantasy hath wrought
A world of wonder all her own; O isles,
Bright isles, that once look'd on me from the blue
Untroubled sea, methinks I see ye now;
So blessed is the sight of these blind orbs,
Clad in such beauty as the soul alone
Delights to fashion smiling the mix'd light
Of all rare fruits and flowers that ever zoned
This earth of ours. I seem to see ye now,—
So marvellous the living light within,—
Fit home for Gods, or for immortal men,
Who have thrown by the sorrows of the world.
Ye cradle Summer all the year in vineyards,
Rose-vestured plain, perennial palmy bower,
In laughing hillside, and in fadeless garden.
I seem to see ye, not as once I saw,
Reckless of half the joy that met my eyes,
When first my boyhood wander'd in your ways,
Though all this world is hidden from me now;
And I see nought but gulphy Night; it seems
I look up at the azure deep above me
Through the translucent and ambrosial dome
Of blossoms, buds, and sprays that overspread me.
In your fair aspects I behold the soul
Of Nature's perfect beauty, and am happy.
In the warm air around I feel the spirit
Of an all-present love, so soft, so vital,
So plenteously outpour'd on all, infused
In all things; in its breath my heart goes forth,
Wing'd with the essences of all things glad,
Rapt from broad ocean, earth, and sky; your Sun
Seems as an holy universal Eye
Undimm'd, all-glorious, an Eternal Life.
I love to look upon ye, as ye lie
On the great deep like many crowns, and breathe
Upon the waters from your balmy shores;
And shed on them the colours of your flowers,
Your waving vines, your myrtled crags, and lawns
Of asphodel and amaranth; and with gold
And purple light illuminate the sea,
Till its unnumber'd gardens, link'd together
By their own lustrous images, shine like one
Perennial chain of garlands; like to gems
Set in a zone for Amphitrite's breast,
Or everlasting Iris in the waves.’

III

My mother and my sister stood apart
Some paces from him, marking every change,
That pass'd across his face, in silent fear.
Just then a blind man begg'd with piteous voice
And many a prayer; and, tho' that noble pair
Walk'd in the crowd as if unconscious of it,
The youthful daughter turn'd to that sad note,
And listening bad her mother drop an alms.
‘Mother, mother,’ she said, ‘if we forget
The woes of others we may not forgo
The memory of our own; and that might serve
To mind us of them’; ‘Daughter, I forget not.
But Truth is hard to find in this ill world,
As fountains in the desert; if it dwell not
With greatness and prosperity, no more
Does it inhabit lowly ones, and poor.
And thus the heart grows iron at the sight
Of falling tears, and customary sighs,
Hypocrisy, the serpent peeping out
From every bosom; so that love at last
Is curdled into doubt; and doubt is frozen
Into a wintry silence of despair
Of all good things.’ ‘But, oh! they bless us, mother,
Oh! they commend us to the blessed Gods,
And we have need of blessing:’ ‘But they curse us
As often. If their curses and their blessings
Bear answering fruit, then our calamities
Will have no end; their blessings are not hearted,
Their curses be; for there is pride too, pride
Ev'n in the humblest, that is none the less
For all its rags; and the proud heart records not
Good acts, though it resents an oversight;
And ofttimes in its secretest heart of all
Pays ill for good received. Alas! alas!
That it should be so. Such is man, my child;
But if it be so, what have we to hope
From poor men's prayers?’ ‘But he is blind, O mother,
Ev'n as my grandsire; he is in his prime
Of days, if misery hath its youth at all.
And to the lack of eyesight adds the void
Of all the good things of this evil world,
Knowledge, and power, and glory; think of that!
And through his senses he hath never drawn
That bitter food that strengthens the ill passion.
His days and nights are darkness; he sees not
The sun in heaven, the beauty of the earth;
Nor vain distinctions between man and man.
To him the hut and palace are the same,
And smiles and scorns. The chariots of our kings
Roll by him, and their horses fling their heads
I' the wind proudly, and pass us like the wind.
He sees it not, nor glittering arms, nor gold
Apparel, nor the vain magnificence
Of this world; all is empty nought to him,
As one day it shall be to us; meanwhile
His life is death, or worse; he envies not
Beauty or Strength; for Envy is a dwarf,
That cannot see but giants; Envy looks
Out of his watch-towers in the eyes of men.
He bears not Hate, he dreads not the cold eyes
Of Age; then tell me, wherefore should he strive
With his own soul, which, if unforced, will turn
With kindness to the hand that he may touch,
And to the heart, that stretches him that hand,
As freely as the butterfly comes forth
To spread his wings in sunshine, or the flower
Its morning bells?’ ‘And yet, my child, he hears;
And knowledge enters thro' that single gate
Faster than if he had another sense
Brought him from heaven by Hermes—to make good
The lack of vision,—and to him the sounds
Inaudible to us, are clear and loud.
He stirs in a new world; the whispering winds
Have voices for him, and he hears the wings
Of wild birds, and the feet of creeping things.
The gamut of man's voice hath notes for him,
As many as a lark's, which tell him all
The subtlest shades of feelings; and he knows
The heart thro' hearing. Will not wisdom then
By that one entrance pass as freely in,
As tho' it hurried in thro' many gates,
Like as at portals of a theatre
You see the ignoble jostle one another,
Tho' doors be open; so confusion grows.
Tho' if one narrow adit let them in
They must pass one by one, or not at all.
Hence if he catches an ill tone, with him
It dwells, and multiplies its evil echoes
Till he is ev'n as others—and at war
With all men.’ ‘Oh! but alms are given in silence,
And if he cannot see the frown that kills
The charity of many—neither sees he
The smile that makes it welcome. Shall I sing,
My mother, something that my grandsire loves;
And, while it trembles in the poet's soul,
May shed a moment's light into the heart
Of the lorn outcast, and may serve instead
Of gold pour'd on his hand? For, mother dear,
Methinks that one whose spirit only takes
The impress of sweet sounds, must needs draw in
Such blisses from sweet music, as belong
To them, who hear Apollo witching up
The sun with song, enchantment tenfold more
Than that they feel who pasture their delights
From all the springs of Day. To him a song
Breathing divinely, or a harp well struck,
Or flute, by cunning fingers touch'd with art,
May bring Elysian foretastes; his dark morn
Fill'd with such sounds may serve instead of sunrise,
And out of Nought bring new-created forms,
Fancies, and feelings, fresh, and magic worlds
Lit by another sun. I love to sit
Ofttimes in darkness, that I so may learn
Sweet music better.’ ‘Yet, my child, its spells
Work best, when they bring back remember'd acts.
Great landscapes we have seen, departed moments
Of loving, tender converse we have held,
Trances of glory, festal evens, dawns
Of bridal days; all things the memory holds
Take shape, and colour from sweet-flowing sounds
Of a diviner beauty, as stones and shells
That lie beneath a clear and rapid stream
Look clearer still, more beautiful than those
Scatter'd along the sands.’ She paused, and mused;
And said unto herself, ‘Ay, but this man,
Born blind, and poor, whose lifelong days have been
Darkness of body and of mind, hath not
So much, or aught that my blind father owns,
Sweet memories to be waken'd: blessed Gods
Avenge him not on me if I have spoken
Cold words and pitiless.’ And then she turn'd
Upon the loving girl her tearful eyes;
‘Bless thee, my child, thou art more wise than I.
I will be guided by thy liberal heart;
My heart shall follow thine, or it may drown
In darkness darker than the blind man's eyes.
The pity in thine eyes shall be my star
When I am like to wander; better die
Than like a frozen fountain issue nought,
Nor hues, nor motions, or the melody
Of pleasant sounds, till all things round it perish.’
She said and pour'd into the beggar's wallet
All that she had, so that he wonder'd more
Than if hard words had driven him from the place.

IV

Then spake the dying minstrel from his chair.
‘Daughter and daughter's child, while yet ye spake,
The lingering life within me ebb'd and flow'd;
And joy and pain have mingled in my heart;
But joy hath triumph'd in me, as I hear
That love hath won a victory over fear.
That the child's heart hath stirr'd the timeworn mind,
The daughter drawn the mother to her side.
Bring him to me, the blind man to the blind,
That I may bless him while I yet can bless,
That he may bless me, and remember, when
The gulph of darkness lies between us two,
For then perchance an everlasting chain
May bridge the interval; as when a voice
Comes back to us in echo from beyond
Some deep dark river we have never swam,
Or mountain summit we have never scaled.’
That poor man with blind eyes, who had no gold
To handle, and no wisdom in its stead,
Knelt down before the blind man who had both.
The one stretch'd forth his hand unto the other,
And laid it on his head; the other took
That hand in his and kiss'd it; while his voice
Utter'd his love, one treasure of his soul.
And so the first time, as twin majesties,
They met together in equality,
On this earth; and the love unfeignedly
Given and taken crown'd them both, and made
Their statures equal in the sight of Gods,
The lowly bramble lofty as the pine.
Then spake again my mother: ‘Sing, oh sing!
My daughter, for few voices are like thine
For power and sweetness; waken his sad soul,
Who hath no memories of the earth and Heaven,
Of summer trees that surge, and fling their blossoms,
No pleasant pictures of beloved ones,
No thoughts of the sun rising o'er the hills,
No glowing gorgeous evens in his heart,
No Mayday floors of emerald, nor starr'd nights
Stored in his fancy. What the Gods may yield him
In compensation for his grievous ill
We may not know at all: but who would change
The unexhausted treasurehouse of day,
Piled by the nimble hands of all the hours,
And ever furnish'd with freshgather'd spoil,
For all the glimmering shadows of a mine,
For all the wonders underneath the earth,
Or all the stars of midnight, couldst thou clutch them
And hold them in thy hand? Then sing, oh sing,
And let me hear thee, sweet one; for thy voice
Sounds as the voice of one whom I have lost
And ne'er shall see again; even myself,
When I was as thou art. The morn is fair,
The waves are running in, the fresh green hills
Breathe down ambrosial spirits to the deep,
And snatch up the wild freshness from the seas,
And all the soul of Nature is astir
With life as fresh as thine. Sing, let me dream.’

V

She spoke; and that fair girl began to sing
A weird, sweet song of Fate and Time; she sang
The dazzling daybreak of prosperity,
Of wealth and power, and praise; of mirth and joy;
Of moments fled like waters in the light.
She sang the past, a bright midsummer dawn,
The future nobler than the past, a sun
Soaring into the zenith; sang of youth,—
As full of golden promise, of sweet hopes,
Of ecstasies, as when a slumbering babe
Holds forth his palm, to catch a rain from heaven;
Of roses shed upon him from the hands
Of watchful, waking Gods, whose loving eyes
Sphere him like stars;—a time of day, that hears
Nothing but music, and the birds that sing
Are sinless thoughts and pure—not yet awhile
Waked by the troublous world—and if there be
Less welcome voices they are all unheard—
Her voice rose high, and changed. Again she sang
Of sudden tempest, sweeping down the white
Springblossoms; of the forward-stretching arms
Of sorrows, flying from the wrath to come,
And dread pursuing thunders; of the heavens
Sunder'd with fire, and the gigantic shape
Of Nemesis, her javelin poised to strike;
The laughter of avenging Gods; the fall
Of skyward towers amid the dust of doom;
Then lamentation like a weary wind,
Then silence, sadness, moonlight, and a calm.
Methought, oh! in that silver virgin voice,
On earth I heard the disembodied soul
Of mortal sorrow pleading to the Fates.
The old man bow'd his head on his white beard,
And tears fell slowly down his wither'd cheeks.
He too perchance had fallen from the peak
Of prosperous pride, or mourn'd for those who had.
His blind eyes glitter'd through his scatter'd locks,
So that he seem'd some noble forest tree
In latter Autumn, stript of half its leaves—
The stars of heaven shine through it, and the moon
Rises behind its dark majestic arms.

VI

Once more the young girl took up that sweet song
In minor mode. Now 'twas no more of hopes,
Like flashes of the dawn that kiss the hills,
Before the valleys and the woods between
Are lit with sunshine; but of quiet hours
After a tempest, when the evening beams
Tremble among the raindrops on the vines,
And the full roses droop their heads, and sway
Before the westwind. 'Twas of hearts resign'd,
And folded hands, and yearnings after peace,
Peace only, such as broken hearts may feel,
When the last lightnings of calamity
Are sunk to windward, and still death, like night,
Shall cast its shadows on the troubled life;
Sweet peace, more welcome than the noon of joy
Broken with storms that rend the leaves and flowers,
Broken with passionate griefs, that waste the soul,
And leave a silence after like despair;
Peace, as the low light of the setting sun
Which two long wanderers, weary of the world,
Look to with eyes that have shed all their tears,
And hands entwined, and hearts that beat together.
She finish'd—she had sung a song of his,
Mæonides the aged, writ in youth,
Well nigh forgotten.—Did he still remember
All those fond words, writ when the youthful fancy,
Weary with overgladness, turns at times
For pastime ev'n to sorrow, and delights
To picture that it never thinks to feel;
And in the mimic moods of boyhood mocks
The wakeful Fates, perchance provokes their wrath,
And is an oracle, but unawares?
Had he remember'd thro' his vexed years
Those early words? from that sweet tongue they flow'd
So vital with her melody divine,
That for each word he paused, like one entranced,
And strove not even to outrun in thought
The thoughts that were his own; so well they sprang
From those young lips, as sweet they seem'd as new.
‘There is yet one more verse,’ the maiden said;
‘But it hath 'scaped my memory:’ as she spake
The blind old man took up with his deep voice
The last link of the chain—so that I wonder'd—
‘Farewell to fortune, and farewell to fame.
Let Time sweep onward to the dark, dark sea,
Honour, and wealth, and glories of the world.
While there is one who loves me by my side,
Two tender eyes that answer unto mine,
For all the rest my spirit shall not pine.’
Then spake the dying bard: ‘Beloved one,
My words on thy sweet tongue have moved me so,
That I remember'd all thou hadst forgot;
For it was utter'd ere these eyes were dark.
Ofttimes I have repeated it with tears.
But now the pain is past, for ye are here,
Ye dear ones; if I cannot see ye now,
Ye see me, and I hear ye, and your words,
For many a year, have been as the kind rays
Breathed from the sun whose light I cannot see.’

VII

‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘bring me a cup of wine;
It is the last that I shall quaff on earth.’
Whereat she rain'd into a carven chalice,
Borne from some banquet-house, a kingly gift,
Rich amber drops, that glitter'd as they fell,
Like precious gems; and for a little space
The flickering life within him flash'd again.
Now there were many roundabout his chair,
Old men, their foreheads deeper delved by time,
Albeit their years were many less than his;
Young mothers with their infants in their arms
And parted lips; and men of war there were,
But now return'd from foughten fields, who leant
Silently on their shields, and look'd on him,
Unsceptred monarch of their very thoughts,
With awful reverence, such as Aias, nor
Pelides would have challenged, had they served
In days of which he sung. And now it seem'd
As though his lamp of thought, long burning low,
Was for a moment fed, as in his prime,
With the old loves, and raptures: Oh! he seem'd
That day, altho' the morn was night to him,
To see once more, as with some inner eye,
The ancient deeds that he had sung to men;
As though in his strong youth he stood and saw
The silent past, with all its sights and sounds
Awaken'd in a moment; and he rose
Half from his seat, as if he heard the cry
Of the great striving from within the walls
Of sacred Ilion fated to her fall;
And the proud voice of onward foes, and groans
Of Dardans trampled underfoot, and saw
The dust of tumbling towers, and smoke, and flame.
‘Hark! hark!’ he said, ‘I hear a piteous voice,
That pierces thro' the hosts of armed men
Sharper than the sharp arrows; spare that head
That towers above the rest, touch'd with the snows
Of many winters, as the cloudy crest
Of Ida o'er the lesser hills; oh! think
Of all the memory of so dire a deed.
Oh! think ye if it be a little thing
To slay an old man of an hundred years,
Who hath not wrong'd ye; leave him to that hand
That soon must gather him; else what shall hide
The dreadful image from ye here on earth,
Or underneath it?’ Then it pass'd away,
And still another phantom took its place.
And now 'twas the pale widow at the spring
In a far land and desolate; and tears
Fell from those blind eyes, and he stretch'd his hand,
As 'twere toward the unutterable woe
Of that forsaken captive; and he cried;—
‘Daughter of kings, bereaved one; am I
To sit by here regardless, while I see
The homely urn on that dishonour'd head?
Come, I will bear it for thee day by day.
Alas! she passes with the mute regard,
That shows how vain have been my pleading words;
Deaf are her ears save to the silent tongues;
Blind are her eyes save to the dread unseen.’
Again the dust of battle bears away
All other pictures, and he bends his head,
And seems to see a dead man on the ground,
His helm unfasten'd, and his youthful hair
Blown o'er the sands. ‘See,’ tenderly he says,
‘How the tall warrior, as an infant, sleeps,
No frowning brow, no anger on his lips!
He smiles, he smiles; I wonder what he sees.
Haply he sees thro' glooms of death, where they,
The unforgotten chiefs and ancient kings,
Take the sweet rest denied them in this world;
And the delightsome vision draws his soul
Beyond all shadows of mortality.
They stretch their arms unto him and he smiles!
But, if he sleeps in peace, another wakes
Tenfold his equal, as a giant strong,
And as a God in beauty! See he comes!
As one who is aroused from evil dreams,
And, though he breathes the morning from his tent,
Looks on two vaster evils, death and dole.’

VIII

Again a smile comes over his pale face,
Tearful and sweet, as though he saw a sight
That mingled tender things and terrible.
And then he sigh'd, and said: ‘Alas! alas!
For mortal man in this drear world, when all,
That stirs the heart most fondly, is a beam
Of wintry sunlight, which the gloomy clouds
Shed forth a moment, and then close again
In stormy darkness. Fear upon the face
Of the sweet child, that shrinks and hides its head,
Mix'd with the yearning love, that fain would fly
To the strong arms that are stretch'd out to him,
Is but a jocund thing, that wakens up
The last pale smile upon the parents' lips.
They gaze together on the little one
And that last tearful glance of their true love
Gives a fresh hope to her, fresh heart to him.
O Heaven! did he remember, as he fell,
That glimmering moment? did she dream of it
In the far land? And where was he, the boy,
The hope of both, whom loving arms infold
From no worse terror than a glittering helm?’

IX

All on a sudden his dilated eyes
Seem fix'd on something dreadful, and he gave
A cry that echoed mournfully, and raised
His palms as tho' to hide it from his sight.
And then he spoke out. ‘Ah me! is it thus
The mighty show their might, to spurn the weak?
Heap wrong on wrong, and send the troubled dead
To wait their advent in the realms unseen,
And give them ghastly welcome? Shall the first
Of men dishonour what can arm no more
A hand against him, and so wreak his strength
On nothing? Shall the kingly father bend
Earthward, and mix his waste tears with the dust,
That thou may'st do a deed to be abhorr'd,
That cannot harm the dead that was thy foe,
That cannot heal the dead who was thy friend?
Alas! how dismal is the rushing sound
Of brazen wheels; I hear it, oh! I hear,
As though I heard it on that very day!

X

And thou, O thou false woman, triple-crown'd
With beauty, and with glory, and with shame!
Whom brave men, fearing only the great Gods,
Saw and were vanquish'd; whom proud women pass'd
Without a frown, as one enthroned above
This world in majesty! What hast thou done?
Didst thou too see the widow in her woe?
And hide thy fair face in thy vesture, lest,
Ev'n in her deep humility, she should curse
With her wan lips the monarch of her woes?
Or didst thou scorn the captive, fallen lower,
For all her goodness, than thou in thy sin?
I know not; but this lamentable world
Seems to me, in my sore perplexity,
As though it took its fortunes, and its fates,
Dealt to it by blind eyes, and thriftless hands;
Else thy disastrous brows had never borne
A crown, or she her sad captivity.

XI

Oh! that my words, like drops that never cease,
Until the marble rock, as old as Time,
Yields to it, falling on the pride of man,
Thro' countless generations, might subdue
Ambition harder than the rock, and cool
That quenchless thirst of glory, which is hate
Hid in a painted mask! (Poor human life
Too brief for any good that it can do
Wasted in fever fires!) That the strong man,
Arming for victory, might hold back, and hark,
Amid the beating hoofs, and rushing wheels
Rolling to battle, the first trumpet-note
From ghostly Ilion far away behind
Millennial clouds; and think that what is done
Haply in lands remote, with other arms
And other races, hath been done before
In times, as dark and silent as the sky
Of the orient at midnight, and by hosts,
Whose arms and armour glitter'd as the waves
This summermorn, as these blind eyes have seen,
Whose very dust hath shrunk to lesser dust,
Whose very bones will be unsearchable
As leafless forests swept by hungry fire!
Then might he muse, and ask of his own soul,
‘Have wars brought peace, or hath the seed of blood,
Sown in the earth, for ever grown the crop
Of hatred and of sorrow? Will the spark,
Blown from thy burning ruins, city of woe,
Still burn into the future? Will the tears
Of weary captives toiling in the dust,
Of widows and of orphans, fail to quench
The flames of evil howling thro' the deeps
Of many thousand years? Or will the woes,
Begun with Time, stretch on for evermore?’
What matters it that these old eyes are blind,
If those, whose hearts are blind and not their eyes,
Shall feel them soften'd by the oldest tale
Of the old sorrows, and relent, and look
The first time on the madness of the world,
And listen to the whispers of the dead?
Pardon me, friends, if I have utter'd words
Less than heroic; scorn not what I say,
Tho' for the first time ye have heard my words.
For I must leave ye; for my thoughts have been
For many years companions of the dark;
And other voices than these busy times
Have call'd unto me, and breathed into me
Counsels unheard of in this armed age.
And pity for the pains I cannot heal
Hath shut my mind to deeds I cannot share,
And made me deaf to any sound but sighs.
I see no more Achilles, or the bulk
Of Aias, or Sarpedon; they grow dim
And dimmer; but I follow her in dreams
Whose doom was desolation, and I plead
Beside the ruin'd king on bended knees.’

XII

He sat awhile in silence, for no voice
Broke in upon it; so he heard the sea
Lapse mournfully along the shore, the wind
Sweep thro' the whispering caverns, like the hosts
Of Aïdoneus, and he seem'd to lean
His ear to listen. And so suddenly
The old harp, falling from his heedless hand,
Was shatter'd with a wailing sound; and when
He knew it lying on the rocky floor,
Its well-known melodies no more to ring
Again for evermore; oh! when he mark'd
The sudden omen—for his age was great—
He clasp'd his palms in silence, and he sigh'd.
And then he seem'd to wake up from a trance,
His voice was changed: ‘'Tis well,’ he said, ‘I come;
Thy tuneful strings were twined about my heart
So fondly, that the two, so link'd in one,
Must break together. Bear me out, O friends,
And set me in the sun upon the sands,
That the last murmur in mine ears may be
The song of the blue sea amid the isles:
And the soft wing of the sea air may stir
My hair, and kiss me on the brows. I come
To send forth to ye, liberal elements,
My own freed spirit, and to sweep with ye
On wings more swift than yours, the hills and isles,
The winding valleys, and the viny plains,
The sounding seabeach, and the rivershore;
To see, with other than these sunless eyes,
The world shut out from them this many a year.
For still I hope to visit oft again
The cities I have sung; to come with them,
Whose earthly ventures I have clothed in words,
And given immortal names; and if my thoughts
Be fancy wandering still in pleasant ways,
And only fancy, oh! let me rejoice,
Ev'n at these utmost moments, in such dreams
As flatter me with light, and rather feel
The sweetness of a vision than the truth—
If truth it be which all my heart denies,
Which hath no welcome from a living soul—
Than see no shapes beyond the shore of Time,
But joyless shadows; hear no utterance
But sighs, and vain repinings; when the heart
Hath not a hope to feed on; and the day
Is but a ghastly twilight, and no change,
But to behold fresh armies of pale ghosts
Come weeping to me, who can give them nought,
For consolation, but the tale of years
Remember'd, till at last the memory fails
Ev'n of that Past which is the All to them.
Still do I hope to be at hand when Pride
And Vengeance strive together on the earth;
And Patience battles with unequal arms;
And Pity is not heard amid the storms
Of struggling Hates. My pleadings, though unheard,
May still be felt about the hearts of men,
And touch the worst of evil with some good.’
Again he paused, and they bent over him,
My sister and my mother, not to lose
His last last breath. But, though all sounds were hush'd,
They scarce could hear his voice that even now
Spoke in its strength; it seem'd the utterance came
From deep within, as though a spirit sent,
Out of the Infinite, to mortal man
In winged words faint echoes of a world
Afar, first tidings of things heard and seen.
Tho' faint the voice, his words were fast; he said,
‘Hark! there is music; hear ye not the sound?
And, tho' mine eyes are blind, I see a light,
A light as from another sun; and lo!
The light is music, and the music light,
The one infolds the other; do I see
Great hosts descending, nearer, and more near?
Oh! now I see whence the glad music came.
And, in the centre of the brightness, ranged
A godlike company in festal robes,
And, throned above them, one who gives a sign;
And they rise up, and take their harps of gold,
And strike them suddenly; and sing a song
That once came to me sweetly in a dream,
And from behind innumerable flow
The mingled floods of voice and instrument,
As from a spanless and harmonious sea.
Apollo, King Apollo, is it thou
I see at length? Are these—?’ He spoke no more.
And, when the last tone of that golden tongue
Had died, and there was silence, all the crowd
Look'd on the old man; many eyes were dim
With unaccustom'd tears; and brave men sigh'd,
And women wail'd; and still his sightless orbs
Gazed upward; still his palms, as though in prayer,
Were clasp'd together, and his lips apart,
As though he would have spoken; and a smile,
As though his latest thought had been of joy,
Linger'd thereon, sweet as the last sunbeams
Upon the deep. But nevermore was heard
That voice that shook the nations, and would shake,
Ev'n with its echoes, when it was not heard,
The unborn ages; and there was no sound,
But the wind sighing, and the murmuring sea.’