 | The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley |  |
Ulysses—Pyrrhus
ULYSSES
Persuasion, Pyrrhus, is a difficult thing,
And very intricate the toil of words
Whereby to smoothe away the spiteful past
From a proud heart on edge with long disease.
For round the sick man, like a poison'd mist,
His wrongs are ever brooding. He cannot shake
These insects of the shadow from his brow
In the free bountiful air of enterprise.
Therefore expect reproaches of this man
And bitter spurts of anger; for much pain
Hath nothing healed his wound these many years.
And only Hellas in her needy hour
Could so abase me that I come to-day
To crave of such a mean dishonoured head
These arrows and her safety. Let this be;
If Hellas thrive, my glory let it go.
And yet past doubt we wronged him in that day.
We wronged him not indeed so much in this,
That then we cropped away this limb diseased
Out of our enterprise and cast it by
As carrion—for expedience is the bond
And crowning rule of conquest.—But in this
He may and will find wrong; for having said
“Begone, thou art useless,” now we gather up
The thing neglected from our rubbish heap
With “Thou alone canst save us.” I contrived
The advice to leave him here, and counselled well
As time was then, since wrongly. Gods confound
The wisest chiefly, making witless brains
Stumble on right, that in mean instruments
Their power may tread more strongly through the world
And own no rival in the brain of man.
PYRRHUS
But when a man has trick of words as thou,
He cares not on which side he bears his tongue,
Rejoicing rather in the weak and worse
So that his art shine chief. But common lips
Stumble unless emotion bear the rein.
Words hurry down in anger; and sense of wrong
Is voluble and there is little craft
To speak well, feeling strongly. But with thee
These natural helps are nothing, eloquent
In any cause so Hellas speed thereby.
Yet would I rather steal, as Diomede once,
The steeds of Rhesus, than encounter here
With a smooth lying face this sick weak hound,
To cheat him back with words whom ye have left
So many years, a proverb in our camp
Of what may well be spared our kingly eyes.
And yet necessity is king and more
Than Zeus, and therefore speak and I will aid:
For here behold him trailing at his cave
Sick limbs, and now be chiefly orator,
Knowing all Hellas leans upon thy tongue.
ULYSSES
Persuasion, Pyrrhus, is a difficult thing,
And very intricate the toil of words
Whereby to smoothe away the spiteful past
From a proud heart on edge with long disease.
For round the sick man, like a poison'd mist,
His wrongs are ever brooding. He cannot shake
These insects of the shadow from his brow
In the free bountiful air of enterprise.
Therefore expect reproaches of this man
And bitter spurts of anger; for much pain
Hath nothing healed his wound these many years.
181
Could so abase me that I come to-day
To crave of such a mean dishonoured head
These arrows and her safety. Let this be;
If Hellas thrive, my glory let it go.
And yet past doubt we wronged him in that day.
We wronged him not indeed so much in this,
That then we cropped away this limb diseased
Out of our enterprise and cast it by
As carrion—for expedience is the bond
And crowning rule of conquest.—But in this
He may and will find wrong; for having said
“Begone, thou art useless,” now we gather up
The thing neglected from our rubbish heap
With “Thou alone canst save us.” I contrived
The advice to leave him here, and counselled well
As time was then, since wrongly. Gods confound
The wisest chiefly, making witless brains
Stumble on right, that in mean instruments
Their power may tread more strongly through the world
And own no rival in the brain of man.
PYRRHUS
But when a man has trick of words as thou,
He cares not on which side he bears his tongue,
Rejoicing rather in the weak and worse
So that his art shine chief. But common lips
Stumble unless emotion bear the rein.
Words hurry down in anger; and sense of wrong
Is voluble and there is little craft
To speak well, feeling strongly. But with thee
These natural helps are nothing, eloquent
In any cause so Hellas speed thereby.
Yet would I rather steal, as Diomede once,
The steeds of Rhesus, than encounter here
With a smooth lying face this sick weak hound,
To cheat him back with words whom ye have left
So many years, a proverb in our camp
Of what may well be spared our kingly eyes.
And yet necessity is king and more
Than Zeus, and therefore speak and I will aid:
For here behold him trailing at his cave
Sick limbs, and now be chiefly orator,
Knowing all Hellas leans upon thy tongue.
| The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley | |