The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley :: :: University of Virginia Library

Orestes
ORESTES
And I believe that some one man or two,
Some poor or ignorant man about this land
May envy me, Orestes, as I stand
Here at my palace-gate, broad plains beyond,
Under a quiet sky, and at my feet
The mad glad year flushing in myriad blooms
Why are things happy? Wherefore with such care
Dost thou trim out thy little bell, road-weed?
Nothing shall heed, if thou art beautiful,
Or the first foot should crush thee; as I would,
But do not, being a tender milky fool,
Hating myself, and losing the pith of time
Upon thine insignificance. To act
And to act merely, cleansing from my brain
These weak irresolute fumes of thought, that hold
My hand suspended from the vital sword,
That sets me with this Simus throat, to throat,
And thrusts these boasters with defiance home.
Ah, to have done with thought and see my way,
Then were I man. Or, would that God had sown

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That blind bull-instinct in my soul, which drives
Sheer at the end, and counts not. And I stand
And tell myself, fool, thou must act and now,
The very edge of time and of thy fate;
Let this dial creep an inch of shadow, and lose
All—What is all? Life I suppose: not much.
The curse of all my nature, self-mistrust,
Makes me still palter here.

CHORUS

Who hath revealed his name,
Father of clouds, eternal as death is,
Who, ere the mountains came,
Sat in the morning light and had no care,
Great and austerely fair?
Under his feet the dew and spice of dawn
And little wells arose:
Murmur and supplication, laugh and prayer,
Came up like vapour to his footstool there:
And the faint pulse of distant throbbing woe
Rose as an echo very far below,
A moan the wind beats back, a sound that cannot grow.

He will not comfort any in his bliss,
To whom the treasures of the isles belong;
Wilt thou draw down his feet with sacrifice,
Or lure his meteor presence with a song?
Put by thy hymn and weep thy weeping, he is strong.
He is so strong, desire of him no aid.
Melt out the rocks with weeping at thy harm,
Thou shalt not make him as a man afraid,
Or overcome the shadow of his calm.
His brother gods that feast up there with him
Are bowed before him ere they touch the cup.
His presence makes their lesser glories dim,
And underneath his throne earth's wail comes up.
And now men praise him that he is so great,
And now they curse him that he lets them die,
And now some blessing feign, dissembling hate.
But one and all he lets their wail go by.
And now he slumbers on the tinted cloud,
While sick on earth the feeble nations fear
With eyes that fail and forehead earthward bowed,
“Zeus, if thy name be Zeus, waken and hear.”

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Descend and break the mountains, if thou hearest,
Awake, arise, and smite the secret seas.
Put on that strength of panoply thou wearest
When thou dost rise to prosper thy decrees.
Say to the deep, “refrain thy ocean roaring;”
Command the darkened places of the wind.
Bid thou the cloud dissolve her stately soaring;
Speak to the tempest, “flee thou like a hind:”
Bind up in vapour thy strong golden light.
Make pale the mild uprisings of the stars.
Scatter in weeping the broad earth's delight;
Assume thy vengeance, thou of many wars.
O tried and terrible, resume thy sword,
Mighty in visitation, prove thy spear,
Lay to thine hand to justify thy word,
Zeus, if thy name be Zeus, waken and hear.

Ah lord, ah strong and sudden god, whose feet
Rest on the throb of all created pain,
Thou feelest thy dominion is so sweet,
Thou wilt not loose one rivet of our chain:
Thou wilt not say, “Arise, and taste again
Love and the genial hour,
Where no cloud came:
Clothe back upon my darling's cheek its flower,
And fear no blame.
Was she not wholly sweet and bound to thee
With innocent joy?
But this I did destroy
By the great might and scathe of my decree;
Worm, what is this to me,
If time flowed sweetly once and now is ended?
Before thou knewest I was great,
Thy lips my ways commended,
When thou in old estate
Wentest so light of dream,
With love that nature gave,
To find a sister in each wave,
A brother in the flower,
And some old blind mild god thy father of the hour.”

Thou art not mild, mysterious! and thine eyes
Reach as the lightning reaches, and thy hands
Smite down the old perfections of the earth
That came with blind old Saturn's dead commands,

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And totter with his fall. The new god stands
Supreme, altho' his royal robe is wet
With his sire's blood; and in his ears as yet
There waileth on a father's agony,
And yet he falters nothing: and shall we,
Seeing he has no mercy, have any fears?
Nay, rather crave his thunder, if he hears
And is not drowsy with his long revenge.

Who shall ascend unto thine iron eyes,
Who shall make moan or prayer that may prevail?
For thou art satiate with so many sighs
I do not think, O Zeus, thou wilt arise,
Fed with delight and all sweet dream and thought,
Thou wilt not rise supreme
In thy beatitude;
For fleeting love is nought,
And human gratitude
In thy cold splendid cloud, must tremble to intrude.

Let us go up and look him in the face,
We are but as he made us; the disgrace
Of this, our imperfection, is his own.
And unabashed in that fierce glare and blaze,
Front him and say,
“We come not to atone
To cringe and moan:
God, vindicate thy way.
Erase the staining sorrow we have known,
Thou, whom ill things obey;
And give our clay
Some master bliss imperial as thine own:
Or wipe us quite away,
Far from the ray of thine eternal throne.
Dream not, we love this sorrow of our breath,
Hope not, we wince or palpitate at death;
Slay us, for thine is nature and thy slave:
Draw down her clouds to be our sacrifice,
And heap unmeasured mountain for our grave.
Flicker one cord of lightning north to south,
And mix in awful glories wood and cloud;
We shall have rest, and find
Illimitable darkness for our shroud;
We shall have peace then, surely, when thy mouth
Breathes us away into that darkness blind,
Then only kind.”