 | Laurella and other poems |  |
1. PART FIRST.
[A woodland glade. Morning. A group of youths and maidens gathering flowers and twining garlands for a festival. Euphorion as Chorægus.]CHORAL HYMN.
I.
Ye bashful nymphs, coy-footed, that in woodsDo hide your sunny faces,
Sleeping long summer days in shady places,
Or laving your white limbs in secret floods!
Ye Dryads, which do nightly leave your bowers,
To foster the wild flowers,
And swell the myriad buds of pleasant June
Beneath the moon:
Suffer us that we sully once again,
With mortal steps profane,
Your verdurous wildernesses;
We come to twine once more our festal wreaths,
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Shaking the dew-drops from her starry tresses.
II.
O dainty-handed Dryads, be not charyOf any flowery treasure; grudge us not
Briar-roses pink, or freckled fritillary;
Or pale wood-lilies, filling many a plot
With innocence and light; shy violets,
Peeping about grey roots of agéd trees;
Or meshed in leafy nets,
The purple glory of great passion-flowers;
Ope the intricacies
Of tangled clematis and woodbine bowers:
Deny us no frail branch of eglantine;
No myrtle-rods, odorous with silver blooms;
No cassia-buds, nurturing in their white wombs
Unravished spice; no clump of columbine,
To grace the wreaths we twine!
Cease, gentle friends, your several industry,
Hot-handed day drives out the meek-eyed morn,
Whose dewy fingers touched the sleeping lawns
With freshness, and awoke each herb and flower,
In wold or lea, by lake or woodland stream,
To tell its dream of fragrance. Now all winds
Roused by the dawn, their wanton gambols done,
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The greeting of the woods; blithe-noted birds
Have sung their earliest anthem, and begin
Their foraging; through all their leaves the trees
Stir with the new life of the coming day.
Phœbus rides high, and sheds from sunny skies
Our noon of festival; the hour draws on
When, with deft rhythm of foot and cunning of voice,
We celebrate the beauteous majesty
Of fairest Psyche—many-altared Psyche—
That mortal goddess for whose maiden shrine
These garlands chaste we wreathe. Away, sweet friends,
And as we hasten on our path, bid stir
The mirth and melancholy of the strings,
And let our wedded voices tunefully
Vie with sky-searching pipe and amorous flute
In free lark-hearted music. Come, sweet friends!
CHORAL HYMN.
I.
For her! For her!The song, the dance, the pomp, the flower-decked shrine,
The Orphic and the Bacchic din, the stir
Of wind in sacred shells—our half-divine
Psyche—for her, to worship whom the stars
Pause in their golden cars!
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II.
Tell us, ye Muses, was there ever anyOf mortal strain before,
So proudly throned above the beauteous many
Whom Gods and men adore?
Stooping from out the silence where ye dwell,
Tell us, ye Muses, tell!
III.
None, none: not she, even sheWho glowed her life out in the Thunderer's arms,—
Great-hearted Semele;
Not she, to drain the ocean of whose charms
Three nights he held the sun at dreadful pause;
Not Delian Leto, rescued from the jaws
Of the pursuing Python; nor not any
Of all that beauteous many
Who stirred Apollo to celestial heat;
Nor she whom fear made fleet—
That coy Arcadian nymph beloved of Pan,
Transfigured as she ran:
None is her compeer, none,
Rivalling with her, durst face the eye of the sun!
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CHORUS OF SPIRITS.
(Rising and falling like gnats on the wing.)
Spirits of air!
Spirits of earth!
Spirits of water!
Spirits of fire!
Hither, hither,
We flock together,
Gathering, hovering everywhere.
Spirits of beauty, of death and birth,
Strengthening our adopted daughter
For the shock of her heart's desire.
Fondly above her
We gather and hover;
Sad thoughts that cling to her
Fly as we sing to her,
Murmuring cooingly,
Tenderly, wooingly—
Wake from thy dreaming!
Psyche, sweet Psyche, awake to reality,
Snatched from the mansions of yearning mortality,
Shows of false-seeming!
Pysche
(awaking)
—Wake I, or sleep? Or have the wings of Death
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My mother's tears undried upon my cheek,
My father's kiss warm on my lips, I stood
In victim splendour on the dreadful mount,
Alone with terror! Yet were Death my bridegroom,
These roses would have paled at his cold kiss,
These limbs chilled at his touch. This is the robe,
These are the very jewels I put on
To face the worshipping crowd who lackeyed me
To heaven-ordained abandonment. The pulse
Of comfortable life throbs in this frame,
Not unsubstantial like a meagre ghost's,
But warm with flesh and blood. O Love, Love, Love,
Why leaps thy name to my tongue? Delight and dread
Take each a hand, and lift me to my feet.
Trembling I breathe Elysian atmosphere,
Instinct with mystic odours, and alive
With tenderest-whispered sounds. What sings in my ear?
CHORUS OF INVISIBLE SPIRITS.
(Preceding Psyche as she moves.)
To the palace of our king
We welcome sing;
In these realms of light serene,
Hail Psyche! Thou art Queen!
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Thou shalt have thy hunger fed
With store of fruits of honied juices,
Riped for the immortals' uses;
They shall make thy languid flesh
Like Hera's fair, like Hebe's fresh.
Eat and fear not; only so
Thou shalt see, and thou shalt know!
(She plucks and eats of the enchanted fruit.)
Dost thou thirst as mortals thirst?
Lo! this fountain's vintage nursed
Infant Bacchus royally,
Skin-couched beneath a sunny sky,
Whoso drinketh straightway glows
With the rich life of the rose.
Drink, and thou shalt feel to-night,
As the immortals feel, delight!
(She drinks from a fountain.)
Wilt thou bathe thy wearied limbs?
See no speck of soilure dims
This laver's brink of amethyst.
Water not so pure hath kissed
The breasts of Dian timorously.
Fear not lest aught impure may spy
Thy maiden bosom's snowy charms,
When soft-dropping from thy arms
Falls thy vesture to thy feet,
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As a lily-bud new blown,
Shrinkingly on the glowing stone.
Bathe, and feel through every pore,
Love's radiance tingling more and more!
(She bathes, and is, after bathing, by invisible hands apparclled in white and glistering raiment. Then the heavy curtains of a sumptuous pavilion are drawn aside, disclosing the marriage-chamber; the mighty columns of the aisles exhaling a solemn music, sonorous and sweet.)
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS OF SPIRITS.
Now the vast of night grows warm
With the purposes of Fate!
SECOND SEMI-CHORUS.
Of the Essence and the Form
The marriage shall be consummate!
(Psyche enters the marriage-chamber.)
FULL CHORUS.
Hush! dare not to breathe his name,
Written first in tongues of flame
On the black Chaotic deep,
At which Earth's great heart did leap.
By the yearning that upsprings,
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By the bliss that swallows fear,
We own his presence! He is here!
(The whole place becomes suddenly darkened as Eros enters; a tempest of triumphal music shaking the adamantine walls at his approach. He embraces Psyche, who shrieks with mingled joy and terror at his touch.)
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