Poems Lyrical and Dramatic :: :: University of Virginia Library

With voices high and sound of harp,
With bended brow and bended knee,
And agonising sighs more sharp
Than all the sighs of all the sea,
Bringing the grape-bunch and the peach,
Bringing the olive and the corn,
And apples blooming out of reach,
From tossing bough by tempest torn,
Bringing the lily and the rose,
We sing to thee, Eros! Eros!

With armfuls of the golden sheaves
We come before thee and adore,

With scattering of laurel leaves
And myrtle in a twinkling store;
With roses red we wreathe our brows,
And press red poppies on our lips,
And pour red wine with whispered vows,
And ooze with honeyed finger-tips,
In honour of thy fruitful snows,
And suns, and showers, Eros! Eros!

We bring thee torches sputtering flame
Fashioned of boughs of resinous pine,
Dipped in the bitter blood of shame
From maiden hearts and sorrow's brine;
We bring thee supple bows and strong
Of ram's-horn linked with silver joints,
Gold-cued and strung with golden thong,
And arrows tipped with agate points;
We bring thee serpents for thy foes,
Adders and asps, Eros! Eros!

With dancing and the shriek of flutes,
Of pipes and flutes, we come to thee,
And with the softer sound of lutes
And every kind of minstrelsy,
Leading along the lowing herds
That ramp with thine awakened stings,

All cooing doves and singing birds,
All life that walks or flies with wings;
Of all the gifts thy power bestows
A tithe to thee, Eros! Eros!

We bring the pards of Bacchus' team
Festooned with ivy and with wine;
Our hair reeks with the wine-vat's steam,
Our mouths drip with the lees of wine;
We stagger with uncertain foot,
We reel about thy shadowy glades,
Chewing the bay and opiate root,
Sleeping below the Upas shades;
Thee too we call with loud Evoes!
To thee we quaff, Eros! Eros!

The Fauns with nether limbs like goats,
The Satyrs bushed with shaggy breast,
The Mænads with back-bended throats,
And Bacchus, sovereign of the rest,
The Bassarids with bosoms soft,
Silenus on his wine-skin throne,
All waving with loud screams aloft
The Thyrsus topped with pine-tree cone,
Lead us to thee: the grape's blood glows
To warm the breast with thee, Eros!

Earth steams and smokes with noon-tide heat,
And ocean pants with basking wave:
Red fires of summer burn and beat
Through leafy arch and architrave;
Exhausting drought lays waste the plain
And yellows every growing thing;
Heaven palpitates with burning pain;
The rain is dried up at the spring;
By thee compelled, the panting does
Flock to the water-brooks, Eros!

By thee compelled, they quit the brink,
And wet their hoofs in stream and lake;
Thine, thine the voice that bids them drink,
Thine the strong thirst they seek to slake;
Thy goad sends forth the herd to browse
Upon the life-sustaining blade;
With thee their swooning senses drowse
In bosky nook of forest glade:
All sweet desire from thee outflows,
Hunger, and thirst, and swoon, Eros!

By thy device the virgin field
Falls pregnant by the scattered grain;

By thy device the furrows yield
A tenfold plenty back again,
And all the hill-sides bend and surge
With shadowy golden waves of wealth,
And winds from Heaven's every verge
Feed the unopened hulls with health:
In trust to thee man plants and sows,
And thy creative force, Eros!

And every art which man creates
To multiply earth's bounteous stores
From thy sweet influence emanates
And quickens with thy quickening spores;
From thee first flew the inspiring shaft
That stings to birth the fertile brain;
Thy work the fruit-tree, thine the graft,
And thine the marriage of the twain;
Man joins but cannot wed, and owes
Their bridal-kiss to thee, Eros!

For barren else the vine would be,
And sweep the ground with trailing boughs,
Hadst thou not made the strong elm-tree
To shelter and support his spouse:

No pulpy figs the trees would load,
The date-palm shed no harvest shower,
Did not the gall-fly feel thy goad,
And so put forth his fruitful power;
And many a maiden flower that grows
Wild birds infuse with thee, Eros!

Thou makest all the sea to teem
With crawling shape and glancing fin,
And populous winds to smoke and steam
With swarms that raise a murmurous din;
Thou makest wintry trees to bloom
And burgeon in the clear spring air;
Thou raisest out of mouldering tomb
In purple flowers the life laid there:
Of Death and Birth the marriage shows
Thy power supreme, Eros! Eros!

For thee the wild horse shakes his mane
And snuffs the wind with back-laid ears,
Or over swelling waves of plain,
Spying the mares afar, careers;
For thee the lion roars all night,
The wolf about the sheepfold prowls;

For thee fierce stags join jealous fight,
And to the moon the wild dog howls;
For thee and thine the squirrel stows
His winter hoard, Eros! Eros!

For thee the Orient's wonder bears
His gorgeous plumage starred with eyes;
For thee the luring blossom wears
Its velvet coat and violet dyes;
For thee amid the coppice throbs
The piping of the feathered throng;
For thee the inspirèd poet sobs
His praise and passion into song;
All Nature chants, and pipes, and lows,
For thee, for thee, Eros! Eros!

Across high peaks red tempests pant,
And gusty torrents storm and sweep;
By rift, and ridge, athwart, aslant,
Where moonbeams in mute hollows sleep,
The surf seethes upward to the shore
And whispers through the shifting shells,
And far at sea white surges roar
Round islands where the cormorant dwells,

And fresh along the wet waste blows
Thy briny breath, Eros! Eros!

In showers like drifting snow it shakes
The apple-bloom that promised fruit;
It blows the roses into flakes
And sifts them round the rose-tree root;
It sports among the clammy leaves
Where ringdoves brood and build and pair;
In labyrinths of gold it weaves
The ravelled threads of Phædra's hair,
And o'er her face the tangle strows
Wet with sad dreams of thee, Eros!

She pants, she wanders in her speech,
And raves of fields and quiet brooks,
And sands the winds of ocean bleach,
And blue waves lapped in rocky nooks,
And fountains cradled in green grass
Or bubbling up through sands of gold,
Cool waters twinkling in the brass
And marble slabs that drip with cold,
And keener ice than ever froze
Blood burning with thy blaze, Eros!

“Ah! would that I were free!” she cries,
“A white wing of the flying flocks,
To bathe in sunset-coloured skies
And hover round the foam-ringed rocks,
To skim the tops of forest pines
And revel over weltering waves,
To hide where daylight never shines,
In deep recess of frozen caves,
To purge me of thy cruel woes,
Crime-loving, tyrant-god, Eros!”

And Hæmon o'er the living grave
That holds his love pours forth in blood
To thee the soul thy blessing gave;
And by the crag-bound swart sea-flood
That washes Æthiopia
Bright Perseus quells the fiery pest
And looses chained Andromeda,
And crowns with her his dangerous quest,
The end of toil, the journey's close,
A gift of thine, Eros! Eros!

And Theseus with thy silken clue
Threads the intricate Cretan maze,

And slays the beast that gored and slew
Fair youths brought far o'er watery ways;
And Jason plucks his brand from sheath,
Reliant on thy charms to tame
The offspring of the dragon's teeth
And yoke the oxen breathing flame:
He cleaves a way through mailèd rows,
Nor feels the fire for thee, Eros!

And river-gods with maidens link
Who tarry talking with the stars;
In sirens' arms o'erpowered sink
Wrecked souls cast up on reefs and bars;
Zeus falls in rain through brazen tower,
His Danaë's white breast upon;
And Dian in a moonbeam shower
Descends to sweet Endymion:
The gods, the gods too feel thy throes,
And bow to thee, Eros! Eros!

Olympian bosoms inly bleed
For hate of earth-born rivalry,
The ravished joys of Ganymede,
The pregnant womb of Semele;

And Leda wedded with a swan,
Europa with a monster shy,
And hornèd Io goaded on
From land to land by stinging fly,
Whom Argus watches, as she goes,
With eyes less blind than thine, Eros!

And lo! to Freedom closely sealed
Thou walkest crowned in later days!
Shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield,
Fair comrades feel your double blaze:
The city of the violet crown
At tyrant's word no more shall blanch:
Lo! life for equal laws laid down,
The sword wreathed in the myrtle-branch!
The proud breast bleeds with many blows
That violence planned to thee, Eros!

And Wisdom too, divinest maid,
Bides at thy feet for wings and fire;
By thee alone and thy sweet aid
She mounts on plumes that never tire;
And he, the old, the Attic sage,
Walks with thy glory unreproved,

And steeps with thee his glowing page,
Nor blushes to confess he loved;
For he that loves and he that knows
Are made as one in thee, Eros!

Thou breakest through the sleep, the sloth,
Thou touchest with thy fire the tongue,
And toils the arm to labour loth
By thy divine contrition stung;
And sings the dull of brain and heart
Once in his life a poet's note;
The coward lays his fears apart
To smite as heroes never smote.
Praised be thine arrows and thy bows,
That make weak men as gods, Eros!

Bereft of thee, how dumb the voice!
How stateliest music faints and fails!
The flute refuses to rejoice,
The pipe withholds her plaintive wails;
The Phrygian note awakes no throb,
The Doric march no silent rage;
Desire forgets to swoon and sob
In Lydia's vocal vassalage;

In more than marble's mute repose
The statue waits thy touch, Eros!

Thou slayest and thou makest whole,
Thou castest down and settest high,
A smiling god with starry stole,
A Fury wreathed with serpentry.
In one thy barb a poison breeds,
In one lights up dead Virtue's flame;
But every breast with thee that bleeds
Knows thee the cause, the one, the same,
And on thy mighty shoulder throws
His glory or his shame, Eros!

And so with voice and sound of harp,
With bended brow and bended knee,
And agonising sighs more sharp
Than all the sighs of all the sea,
Bringing the grape-bunch and the peach,
Bringing the olive and the corn,
And apples blooming out of reach,
From tossing bough by tempest torn,
We bless, we curse the hour when rose
Thy sea-born Source, Eros! Eros!