University of Virginia Library

Ægle.—Philoctetes
PHILOCTETES
Thou comest to me like music, and my pain
Ebbs out before thee. Thou dost lay thy hand
In comfort on the throbbing and it dies.
Thou bringest about me thy light beautiful hair
And thy sweet serviceable hands and warm
Bendings beside me helpful, the live glance
Sweetening the tact of aidance. More than this
The very footstep smooths my soul, when I
Hardly endure the quick hot noise of the fly
Battering the edges of the leaves; and more
The pure and glistening pity on the threads
Of each unlifted eyelash, or the light
Beneath them softened and dissolved and changed
If my old pain is on me at the worst.
Or the soft folded lips at murmuring
Unworded consolation nearest sighs,
When speech, even thine, would jar upon the abyss
Of my worst hour: when poison feeds along
The chorded veins and everything is made
A black cloud and a sickness and a strife,
As tho' one flame strove with its brother fires
About my wasted flesh their wretched prey.
I have outpast all things but pity, sweet,
And men have cast me by the way to die,
Loathed, left, and done with as a noisome thing.
And yet these men were friends, as men account
Of friendship: and this pest dishonouring me
I in their cause encountered. I with these
Felt my new manhood round me, as with these
I once had felt my mother's cheek and breast,
And all their kindly ways, as mothers use,
That most their own may thrive and lay broad limbs
About the cradle, jealous tenderly
And in much love if haply they perceive
Another's child more lusty than their own.—
And I, the god-abhorred, was worthy once
To reap such nurture; I the tainted thing,
Was pleasure to a mother's lips: she made
Her still delight about me all day long.
To her the infant babblings were as sounds
Of music and all wisdom. She would pore
Upon the unformed features, tracing out
Her dream of all I should be great and fair.
And she would talk her hope to the dumb babe,
And feign its fancied answers manifold,
Out of much love: and call around in pride
Her sisters when it smiled upon a light
Or gaudy flower, and vainly towards them caught,
With tangled nerveless finger-buds. All these
Are made a silence. I shall never hear
The voice of children round me. Even she
That bare me coming to my sight would fall
Into one great and shuddering sigh, may be
Would leave me as god's curse, whom no man aids
Nor may for ever, fall'n and utterly done.
For who shall dare go fix his “nay” upon
What god hath said shall be, who with this done
Ever evaded yet unscathed to reap
The green earth at his quiet? Therefore well
They leave me and have left me. Therefore all
Earth and her joys, except a little rill
Of pity, are secluded utterly
From the maimed beast, that once was man; until
The pain abolish him that chains him down,
As with a fetter, to this island rock,
With the fair sound of battle in his ears,
The rumour wafted; that he champ and grind
His chain more fiercely, eating down his heart
In bitterness and anguish till the end.

ÆGLE
O hero, had I wisdom in my brain
As ample as the pity which dissolves
My very nature, seeing thee so great
Greatly afflicted, silent in the joy
Of time, a life secluded, an orphan soul—
Since it is given thee to endure these dregs
Of bitterness—I then might comfort thee.
But a mere maid most simple I can bring
Nothing to help thee save a few warm tears.
For thou art wise and I am no such thing:
And heroes speak thy name, but I am set
To graze my kids unnoticed in a small
Corner of this small island. So shall I
Meet at God's hand hereafter silent days,
And no man after I am dead shall say
She lived in any honour, no not one.
But the sea fed the labour of her sires
Ignoble, and the earth is on her breast,
Ay, and so sleep she.—But for thee remain,
My hero, excellent enduring days,
When thou hast trodden all this venom out
Of thy fair nature; and a king with kings,
With all that resonant glory in thy wake,
Thou standest twixt the sun and the firm soil
Leader of nations beautiful and strong:
Think, in that day of Ægle near her kids
Here in her narrow island. And she sings
Maybe some snatch about thee, as a bird
May sing about a star that long ago
Beamed right down on her nest, but now is moved
Out of her zenith on with other stars.
So let me lead to browse my meek crisp ewes;
So let me at our millet sheaving-in
Aid with my basket, or a little hymn
Heartening the reaper. This is mine and meet
For me hereafter: but I know this thing,
That then thy earnest painful eyes shall be
A memory and no presence, and I shall go
About my daily duties very still.

PHILOCTETES
Fairness is woman's fame, and to have lived fair
Is excellent. A merely beautiful thing
By life alone and moving so fulfils
Its nature. All that look thereon are brought
To bless it, and rich joy flows every way
To all within its influence, leaving them
Heartened by sympathy and beautified.
But noise becomes not any maiden's name.
Man beats about the world and shapes result
In what his brain and hand accomplishes,
Thus finding fame. But often like a fool
In seeking fame finds death. For this one thing
Is certain, that the strange and far-away
Is dearest to the spirit of a boy.
But those old common duties and desires,
Monotonies of home and kindred love,
He lays them by disdaining: in his hall
The bride may chaunt alone her cradle song.
Fortunate islands beckon him away:
And nobly fronted in the yellow dawn
Their cliffs are gleaming: night goes down behind:
And one by one the stars break from the grey.
Ye surely now find haven. Can ye hear
The boughs at music and the infinite voice
Of the sweet inland waters? Swallows cry
And flit between the aloes: the lark goes
Away in heaven: the almond orchards heave.
The harbour margin is one marble stair,
Copsed in with myrtle: and the maidens sing,
“The heroes come, they come,” and hold their arms
Seaward.—Ah, fools and blind, Charybdis churns
In all her caverns yonder and your keels
Are driving on her.

ÆGLE
Nay, my hero, nay,
I hunger not the ferment of such days.
I have not spoken like a vain weak girl,
Restless and shallow, whimpering after change,
Or wearing out a shallow trivial heart
In aspiration vague and vast. Shall I
Have envy if these others move in song
When earth has taken them a hundred years?
Is this their consolation to have made
Their life one long disaster? As for me
So I may stay and tend thee till I die
Here in my narrow island, I demand
Nothing beyond. My silly chiding means
My only fear lest any change should come
Between us. Selfish am I, and I think
Sometimes, that I would rather have thee here
Wounded and in thy sorrow, shame on me,
Than sound and whole away about the world
Every one's hero—jealous am I and base.
But somehow always in those after times
The old way of sitting here would come on me,
Maybe at spring the saddest, for they say
Old thoughts grow most unruly when the first
Bird calls out to the wood. I know not sure,
But when my brother left me this I know,
That tho' the day went well enough with me,
There came a vague trouble with the edge of dusk,
And then the loneness grew, ay me, with power.
But the old kind and motherly face of earth,
After a little, healed me to myself
With her old beauty, and the pleasure of trees
And all the quiet wonder of the flower.

CHORUS