 | Prince Deukalion |  |
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ACT IV.
SCENE I.
[A vast flowery meadow: the sea, cities and mountains in the distance.]AGATHON
(a child).
(Solus.)
Souls know their errands,—yet must live,
Ere speaking, all the truth they give.
Sad must their brooding childhood be
Who teach the old captivity,
And ah! how sad, perplexed and strange
Is theirs who see, but cannot change;
How dark who build not, yet destroy,—
But mine, at last, but mine is joy!
Ere speaking, all the truth they give.
Sad must their brooding childhood be
Who teach the old captivity,
And ah! how sad, perplexed and strange
Is theirs who see, but cannot change;
How dark who build not, yet destroy,—
But mine, at last, but mine is joy!
No herald star announced my birth;
Men know not that I tread the earth;
I fashion not the doves of clay
That, when I bid them, soar away;
Nor twine the rose, in sportive need
To make prophetic temples bleed;
Nor look, from eyes of early woe,
The agony I shall not know!
O Purest, Holiest!—not thy path
'Twixt tortured love and ancient wrath
Is mine to follow: none again
Wins thy beatitude of pain:
But all the glory of the Day,
All beauty near or far away,
All bliss of life that, born within,
Makes quick forgetfulness of sin,
Attend me, and through me express
The meaning of their loveliness.
Men know not that I tread the earth;
I fashion not the doves of clay
That, when I bid them, soar away;
Nor twine the rose, in sportive need
To make prophetic temples bleed;
Nor look, from eyes of early woe,
The agony I shall not know!
O Purest, Holiest!—not thy path
'Twixt tortured love and ancient wrath
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Wins thy beatitude of pain:
But all the glory of the Day,
All beauty near or far away,
All bliss of life that, born within,
Makes quick forgetfulness of sin,
Attend me, and through me express
The meaning of their loveliness.
Yonder, the weary, longing race
Conjecture my maturer face,
Nor dream the child's—when they behold
Beneath its locks of sunburnt gold—
That only says: “My life is sweet;
The crisp, cool grasses love my feet;
The lulling air my body takes
To slumber, and the wave awakes;
And pleasure comes from soil and flower,
And out of lightning falls a power,
And from the breath of ancient trees
The vigor that enriches ease,
And from the mountain-haunted skies
The will that ruins, save it rise!”
Be the white wings of Duty furled
To-day, and let me own the world!—
The azure flag-flower basks in heat,
Yet cools, below, her plashy feet;
The footsteps of the breezes pass
In shadow-ripples down the grass,
And glimmers, where the pool is thin,
The slide of many a silver fin.
Beam on my bosom, warmth divine,
Until its pulsing currents shine
Like yonder river's!—pour the flame
Of supple life through all my frame,
Till consciousness of beauty there
Gives me the glory I should wear!
My limbs shall float, my motions be
Each a new change of ecstasy,
Nor shall I breathe except to know
What savors the swift airs bestow,
While pure, as when its beats began,
The heart to music builds the man!
Conjecture my maturer face,
Nor dream the child's—when they behold
Beneath its locks of sunburnt gold—
That only says: “My life is sweet;
The crisp, cool grasses love my feet;
The lulling air my body takes
To slumber, and the wave awakes;
And pleasure comes from soil and flower,
And out of lightning falls a power,
And from the breath of ancient trees
The vigor that enriches ease,
And from the mountain-haunted skies
The will that ruins, save it rise!”
Be the white wings of Duty furled
To-day, and let me own the world!—
The azure flag-flower basks in heat,
Yet cools, below, her plashy feet;
The footsteps of the breezes pass
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And glimmers, where the pool is thin,
The slide of many a silver fin.
Beam on my bosom, warmth divine,
Until its pulsing currents shine
Like yonder river's!—pour the flame
Of supple life through all my frame,
Till consciousness of beauty there
Gives me the glory I should wear!
My limbs shall float, my motions be
Each a new change of ecstasy,
Nor shall I breathe except to know
What savors the swift airs bestow,
While pure, as when its beats began,
The heart to music builds the man!
I know I AM,—that simplest bliss
The millions of my brothers miss.
I know the fortune to be born,
Even to the meanest wretch they scorn;
What mingled seeds of life are sown
Broadcast, as by a hand unknown,
(A Demon's or a child-god's way
To scatter fates in wilful play!)—
What need of suffering precedes
All deeper wisdom, nobler deeds;
And how man's soul may only rise
By something stern that purifies.
But here I gather, ere my hour
Shall call, the fresh, untainted power
Of Nature, half our mother yet,
And angry when her sons forget.
Far as the living ether bends
My being through her own extends;
Free as a bird's to sink and soar
O'er meadow, mountain, sea and shore;
One with the happy lives that breed
Their like in spawn, and egg, and seed;
One with the careless motes that stray
To gather gold for dying day,
And with the dainty sorcery
Of odors blown far out to sea,
That say to mariners on the wing:
The unseen earth is blossoming!
But farther, finer, airier yet
A soul may spin its mystic net,
And, with unconscious heart-beat sped
Vibrating on each gossamer thread,
Declare itself and all it gives,
Though, speaking not, it simply lives!
The millions of my brothers miss.
I know the fortune to be born,
Even to the meanest wretch they scorn;
What mingled seeds of life are sown
Broadcast, as by a hand unknown,
(A Demon's or a child-god's way
To scatter fates in wilful play!)—
What need of suffering precedes
All deeper wisdom, nobler deeds;
And how man's soul may only rise
By something stern that purifies.
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Shall call, the fresh, untainted power
Of Nature, half our mother yet,
And angry when her sons forget.
Far as the living ether bends
My being through her own extends;
Free as a bird's to sink and soar
O'er meadow, mountain, sea and shore;
One with the happy lives that breed
Their like in spawn, and egg, and seed;
One with the careless motes that stray
To gather gold for dying day,
And with the dainty sorcery
Of odors blown far out to sea,
That say to mariners on the wing:
The unseen earth is blossoming!
But farther, finer, airier yet
A soul may spin its mystic net,
And, with unconscious heart-beat sped
Vibrating on each gossamer thread,
Declare itself and all it gives,
Though, speaking not, it simply lives!
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SCENE II.
[The interior of a spacious church, as in Act III., Scene III. Noon: the windows are open, and the nave is filled with sunshine. Urania, slowly pacing down the main aisle.]URANIA.
An added step, and these groined arches fall!
The mine beneath the fortress of my foe
Is dug, the fuse is laid, and only fails
One spark of fire, but such as must be stolen
Elsewhere than from mine atoms. How, save I,
Myself, create, shall I creation solve?
Exalted thus, and throned on rigid Law,
That bids a million universes whirl
In the inconceivable Immensity,—
Earth but a mote, and all humanity
Its faint result,—shall I admit desire
As cause, not sequence, fondest dreams as fact,
And vast inflation of the vapory Self
Beyond all spheres of sense? With my large scheme
This last breathes interference: unto me
Myself suffices: no fond paramour
Shall woo me for my beauty, save as truth
Makes beautiful, or knowledge stands for love.
Men's minds grow wider: my serener light
Probes the dark closets of the mystic Past,
And many a bat-like phantom, blinded, shrieks
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The final one, awaits me.
AGATHON.
(Appearing from behind the altar.)
Yea, and that
Thou canst not take.
URANIA.
What hinders me?—speak on!
AGATHON.
Then thou wert God!
URANIA.
The Cause? the first impelling Force?
The Ages yet may make me so.
AGATHON.
And Man,
Who, knowing thee, is everything thou art,
Shall find himself created by his will,
And all his faith in one advancing life
Through fairer spheres is thine in being his!
Almighty Love, lord of intelligence,
Anointed Prophet of Eternity,
Lives, even as thou.
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And dies, when thwarted law
Prohibits.
AGATHON.
Nay!—not dies, howe'er obscured
Or mutilate,—not dies, in that dense dark
Where thou art impotent, but is the ray
That guides men to thy feet and far beyond!
URANIA.
I know thou canst not be mine enemy;
Yet why, to flatter life, wilt thou repeat
The unproven solace?
AGATHON.
Proven by its need!—
By fates so large no fortune can fulfil;
By wrong no earthly justice can atone;
By promises of love that keep love pure;
And all rich instincts, powerless of aim,
Save chance, and time, and aspiration wed
To freer forces, follow! By the trust
Of the chilled Good that at life's very end
Puts forth a root, and feels its blossom sure!
Yea, by thy law!—since every being holds
Its final purpose in the primal cell,
And here the radiant destiny o'erflows
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From sources past discovery, and predicts
No end, or, if an end, the end of all!
URANIA.
I know this dialect, so many strive
To make it mine, or bend my tongue thereto.
Let there be truce while perfect knowledge waits!
Here cometh one whom I must serve,—and thou,
If thou wouldst live.
[Enter Prince Deukalion.]
AGATHON.
My father!
PRINCE DEUKALION.
Have I, then,
In some exalted trance begotten thee?—
Ah, not from her who only should have nursed
Thy babyhood,—our race is yet to come.
Thou hast my features, and from heart and lip,
As thus I hold them swiftly unto mine,
Flow sweetness; and the light in thy young eyes
Is as a hope within me.
AGATHON.
And my work
Shall bring me nearer, since, if thou wert not,
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My feet too lightly borne, my soul alive
With too much joy: I feel, but cannot teach,
And wander, guided by a shaft of light
That shall illumine knowledge as I need.
Whither, I question not: I only know
It touches thee, or thy far phantasm set
Where fades from earth the beam, so linking us
In one design. The first art thou to know,
The first to love me,—and wouldst first command!
PRINCE DEUKALION.
I have awaited thee a thousand years.
AGATHON.
I waited for my time.
PRINCE DEUKALION.
Our blood thou hast:
So might Prometheus speak. But wilt thou, here
Where gray Tradition hews each separate stone,
And vainly gropes decrepit Faith to clutch
The outflown Deity, transform the shrine
Where He, so starved by penance, comes no more
But elsewhere stays until His feast be spread?
Some natural odor of the happy earth
Breaks in with thee: the arches clasp above
With leafy lightness of the summer boughs:
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Bubbling and brightening with an inward life,
Spins up in silver, tinkling as it falls.
What hast thou done?
AGATHON.
At first I took away
The High-Priest's mitre, long since threadbare grown,
Eaten by moths, dust-soiled and shapeless. He,
As one forgetful, sought, then seemed to wear,
And with a customed hand to set aright,—
Then missed, forgot again. His ephod, next,
Of fine-twined linen, scarlet, blue and gold,
The girdle and the breast-plate of the tribes,
I hid from further use,—a sorer loss,
Awhile in his bewildered looks betrayed
And halting speech; but now he scarce recalls
That such things were nor could be otherwise.
PRINCE DEUKALION.
What next?
AGATHON.
What still remains; and—now—I do!
[Agathon removes the tablet with the rayed triangle, takes the Ark of the Covenant from the top of the altar, and conceals them.
PRINCE DEUKALION.
The Cross endures.
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Till some diviner type
Of man that loves and gives himself for men,
Shall plant his emblem!
PRINCE DEUKALION.
O'er it, set a star,—
Beneath, a sphere!
AGATHON.
Man must invent his own;
And this, that his far memory antedates,—
Descended with him from the world's cold roof,
Where, past the Indian peaks, on high Pamere
His race was cradled,—from a single death
Took sanctity forever! Whether mine
Be star or sphere, it is not mine to choose;
For I must pass ere I am known of men,
Who seeing, hearing, loving me, perchance,
Behold the brother, not the future god!
[Exeunt.
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SCENE III.
[The court of a grand, dusky temple, with beams as of cedar-wood. supported by gilded pillars. At the further end, a veil, through which sculptured cherubim are indistinctly seen. On each side are thrones, overlaid with gold, set in the interspaces of the colonnades.]PROMETHEUS
(solus).
The sportive genii of illusive form,
Of hidden color and divided ray,
Have built me this, the ampler counterfeit
Of thine, O Solomon! that lifted up
Moriah into flashing pinnacles,
And spoiled umbrageous Lebanon to roof
Its courts with cedar! Less than air is mine,
The ghost of thy barbaric fane, yet meet
To hold the ghosts that deem themselves alive,
As in a truce of spirit, when the Dead
Float gray and moth-like through their wonted rooms,
Are shaped in dusky nooks to living eyes,
And send the hollow semblance of a voice
To living ears,—the law that parts them both
Being all inviolate. Such unconscious truce
I now proclaim, as ever in large minds
Holds back the narrower passion, and decides.
The conflicts of the earth must sometimes pause,
Breathless: some hour of weariness must come
When each fierce Power inspects its battered mail,
The old blade reforges, or picks out a new,
While measuring with a dim and desperate eye
The limbs of Man's new champion. Agathon!
Thy soul is yet outside the fiery lists:
The trumpet hath not called thee: as a child
Thou waitest, but the wisdom of a child
Must first be spoken. From their seats of rule
I summon them whom thou shalt meet,—and thee!
Of hidden color and divided ray,
Have built me this, the ampler counterfeit
Of thine, O Solomon! that lifted up
Moriah into flashing pinnacles,
And spoiled umbrageous Lebanon to roof
Its courts with cedar! Less than air is mine,
The ghost of thy barbaric fane, yet meet
To hold the ghosts that deem themselves alive,
As in a truce of spirit, when the Dead
Float gray and moth-like through their wonted rooms,
Are shaped in dusky nooks to living eyes,
And send the hollow semblance of a voice
To living ears,—the law that parts them both
Being all inviolate. Such unconscious truce
I now proclaim, as ever in large minds
Holds back the narrower passion, and decides.
The conflicts of the earth must sometimes pause,
Breathless: some hour of weariness must come
When each fierce Power inspects its battered mail,
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While measuring with a dim and desperate eye
The limbs of Man's new champion. Agathon!
Thy soul is yet outside the fiery lists:
The trumpet hath not called thee: as a child
Thou waitest, but the wisdom of a child
Must first be spoken. From their seats of rule
I summon them whom thou shalt meet,—and thee!
King of the glorious reign,
To whom thy glory slain
Returned for all men's gain,—
Queen of the triple crown,
Whose haughty eyes look down
From heights of old renown,—
Priest, that wast sent to be
Deliverer, but mak'st free
Only who follow thee,—
Muse, that hast grown so high
Through the unmeasured sky,
Man knows thee but to die,—
Come, or the phantom send,
Commissioned to defend!
To whom thy glory slain
Returned for all men's gain,—
Queen of the triple crown,
Whose haughty eyes look down
From heights of old renown,—
Priest, that wast sent to be
Deliverer, but mak'st free
Only who follow thee,—
Muse, that hast grown so high
Through the unmeasured sky,
Man knows thee but to die,—
Come, or the phantom send,
Commissioned to defend!
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BUDDHA
(dreamily).
Across my bliss of Self absorbed in All,
And only conscious as a speck of dust
Is of its Earth, there creeps such faintest thrill
As to the lotus-bulb or rose's root
Strikes downward from the sweetness of the flower,—
The sign that somewhere in the outlived world
A God-selected soul is ripe to ask
A question that compels reply. I wake,
As one that, hammock-cradled under palms
Beside a tropic river, drinks the breath
Of clove and cinnamon orchards, seaward blown,
And through the half-transparence of his lids
Sees from the golden-gray of afternoon
The sunset's amber flush, but never fade.
Art thou, fair Boy, the questioner? Thine eyes
Demand Life's secret: learn thou to renounce,
And grow, renouncing, sure of Deity!
AGATHON.
But I accept,—even all this conscious life
Gives in its fullest measure,—gladness, health,
Clean appetite, and wholeness of my claim
To knowledge, beauty, aspiration, power!
Joy follows action, here; and action bliss,
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Mine, God-aroused, shall wake to wander on
Through spheres thy slumbrous essence never dreamed.
Thy highest is my lowest!
MEDUSA.
So speaks Youth,
That fans a calenture in spirits light:
With such I deal not, but its answering chill.
What refuge hast thou for the weary soul
That says: “My feet are bleeding; carry me,
And I will serve thee”? Fretful is the race,
And breaks its playthings like a petted child.
But, looking backward o'er the heritage
That makes me holy, thee nor like of thee
Do I perceive: whose warrant sent thee here?
If Man's half-lost and consecrated Past
Thou canst restore, be welcome!—otherwise
New heresy and hate are born of thee.
Lo! my commands are heard; I do not change;
Nay, though the headlong world transform itself
And speak strange tongues, in me all truth begins,
In me is finished!
AGATHON.
(Advancing to the foot of Medusa's throne.)
Wake, O Sorceress,
Caught fast in thine own toils! Wash thy filmed eyes
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Terror is gone from men, and Ignorance
Girds his weak loins, and all usurping hands
Of mediation grope for lost appeals,
Since that dread simulacrum thou didst frame
From breath of prayer, and altar-smoke, and gold,
Falls, and is God no more! A thousand years
Have passed since thou, in plenitude of power,
Didst set thy house in order, smile well-pleased,
And softly say: “Now may I sleep awhile!”
Yea, though the night-lamp bearing, thou hast walked
The chambers to and fro, 't was still in sleep,
And drowsed from changes of the sunlit life
Outside, till all thy Past slid down, and drifts
Where now it harms not: waken, if thou canst!
MEDUSA
(starting).
What place is this? Who else is throned, where I
Alone am crowned?
AGATHON.
Let them declare!
CALCHAS.
(Lifting his hand mechanically to his brow, then suddenly recollecting.)
No crown
He needs to wear whom happy followers love;
And unto these have I enlarged my gifts
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I hold them not from seeking, but above
High wills and actions set the highest Good,
His gift, not mine. I war but with their pride
That, looking inward, finds too clear a light,
Too large a license,—looking upward, sees
A Deity too dim for mortal sense.
AGATHON.
Nay, Priest!—thou warrest with pure intelligence
That rays allwhither from its central flame,
And reaches God on Power's or Beauty's side,
As on Devotion's! Since thou wast content
With One whose human spite and jealousy,
Though veiled by later love, still shows the badge
Of clanship, men have passed thy visible fanes
To kneel in that invisible, whose wide walls
Surround all tribes, all upward-lifted lives,
All downward driven by ignorance and wrong.
Who reigns there sits above thy reach of soul:
Denial cannot 'scape Him, sacrilege stray
Beyond His pity, nor by any path
The seeking spirit miss!
URANIA.
Save, indeed,
He be not else than universal Force,
And all His worship out of fibres born,
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What eye hath known Him? What fine instrument
Hath found, as 't were a planet yet unseen,
His place among the balance of the stars?
But selfish fancy and insatiate love,
Chilled by almighty Law, demand to feel
A human heart-beat somewhere in the void,
And rescue their imagined essences,
Distinct and conscious, from eternal dust!
AGATHON.
That selfish fancy and insatiate love
Are thine, not knowing! Thou, without thy will,
Art the most glorious of the hosts that serve,
Proclaimer of the measureless scheme divine
That makes men tremble! In that universe
Thy lore hath found for His activity
Earth's petty creeds fall off as wintered leaves,
When April swells the bud of new. Men grow,
But not beyond their hearts,—possess, enjoy,
Yet, being dependent, ever must believe;
So with thy knowledge rises Him believed,
Shakes off as rags what once were holy names,
Treads under foot as crackling potsherds all
The symbols of old races, with one breath
Puffs into air defilement of their hates,
And stands alone, too awful to be named!
This is thy service.
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Hast thou aught to ask?
AGATHON.
Verily, one seed is Truth's; but they who clip
The sprouting plant to hedge their close domains,
How should they know its grace of natural boughs
And blossoms bursting to the startled sun?
I ask them naught, fore-hearing their replies.
PROMETHEUS.
Forces that work, or dream;
Shadows that are, or seem;
Whether your spell sublime
Fades at the touch of Time,
Or from the ages ye
Take loftier destiny,—
I, of the primal date
As of the final fate,
Having compelled, release:
Depart, but not in peace!
[The four figures disappear from the thrones. Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha enter the court of the temple.]
PYRRHA.
O Son, thou last and sweetest hope for us,
Since men shall clasp thy truth in loving thee;
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Above thy meadows, knowing thee no more,
Is emptied of delight: the scattered homes,
Wherein thy face was precious, yearn and wait:
The cities and the highways of the earth
That know thee not, yet having seen thee, miss,
Are calling on thy name. Lo! we have sought,—
I and thy father,—sorrowing, for thee.
AGATHON.
How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not
That I must be about my Father's work?
SCENE IV.
[A vast, natural platform, thrust forward from the extremity of a mountain-chain. Upon it rise the unfinished walls of an edifice, only half the pillars of the façade being lifted into place; yet every block suggests the harmony of the complete design. Beyond it the height falls away into broad terraces, the first dotted with woods of oak and chestnut trees, those below with fig, olive and fields of vine, and finally sinking through orange groves to the palms and tamarinds of a great plain, divided by an inlet of the sea. Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, on the marble steps leading to the portal.]EPIMETHEUS.
We know ourselves.
PANDORA.
And love!
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And work as one!
Divided by the Gods that portioned out
Parts of a single destiny to each,—
Divided by the darkness of the race
That sees in fragments, and by highest Will,
Forerunning Time so far with prophecy
That even hope grows faint, and faith benumbed,
We stand united now!
PRINCE DEUKALION.
Thou in design,
We in fulfilment; what is Time, henceforth?
I know thee as the Titan who defied
Man's violent Gods, defending Man's own right,
And who, foreseeing triumph in the end,
Hast never made surrender. What I am
Is thine: I am thy form of victory,
First kindled with the stolen fire of heaven,
To make all wisdom, worship, power, faith, joy,
And beauty, one!
PANDORA.
And thou, my daughter pure,
My Pyrrha, fear not thou that this shall be,
Till Woman owns her equal half of life,
And, following some supernal instinct, finds
Her half of Godhead!
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'T is not hers to doubt.
PROMETHEUS.
Once did we walk the earth unseen; but now
Men pause, and with a holy, sweet surmise
Behold us dimly: Pyrrha, Deukalion
Grow dear to many an eye that looks afar,
And vanish in the nearness. Brother, thou,
Whose mind reversed interprets all the Past
And so o'erlooks the Future, even as one
That scales a mount between two mighty vales,—
Who readest thus Faith's awful secrets,—thou
Art loved, and feared; but still our perfect day
Sleeps in the womb of an unrisen morn.
SHEPHERD.
(On the terrace below, singing.)
Where the arch of the rock is bended,
Warm, and hid from the dew,
Slumber the sheep I tended,
All the sweet night through.
Never a wolf affrights them
Here, in the pasture's peace,
But the tender grass delights them,
And the shadows cool their fleece.
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The sleep on my eyelids laid,
And rise in the twilight weather,
Between the glow and the shade.
Too blest the hour has made me
For a speech the tongue may know,
But my happy flute shall aid me,
And speak to my love below!
PROMETHEUS.
These simple lives may own contentment now,
Unscared; for happiness it is that gives
Sweet savor unto worship. Men, as trees,
Take from the elements their separate food
And grow in concord with the season's will,—
Exempt not yet, unsheltered even as these
From fated evils, gnawing drouth at root,
Bough-shattering winds, the lightning's sudden spear,
And blackest ruin, when the forest's heart
Breaks in the vortex of the hurricane!
But each discerns his place, or, failing it,
Is gently guided,—honors, in himself,
Symmetric health and noble appetites
He once insulted,—hears the choric chant,
Unenvious of the singer's golden throat,
And smiles when Genius speaks, as who should say:
“He knows me, and his mighty words are mine.”
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(Singing in the valley.)
Uncover the embers!
With pine-cone and myrtle
My breath shall enkindle
The sacred Fire!
Arise through the stillness
My shepherd's blue signal,
And bear to his mountain
The valley's desire!
The olive-tree bendeth;
The grapes gather purple;
The garden in sunshine
Is ripe to the core:
Then smile as thou sleepest,
His fruit and my blossom;
There 's peace in the chamber,
And song at the door!
PROMETHEUS.
The suns of milder centuries must gild
The snow of this young marble, ere one block
Shall cap the pediment, and flash to heaven
Its finished glory! Oft the laborers
Shall pause, grown weary of the vast design;
Oft shall old apathy return, old strife
Shake like a chained volcano 'neath the sea:
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To adamant, or rise by hands of air!
As from the evangels of all races God
Begins to be, the tongues of every race,
Quiring a strain that silences the stars,
Alone can worship Him! Not yet Earth hears
More than the quarriers' and the builders' hymns.
CHANT.
(From the opposite side.)
Fashion your chisels well
With the steel from a hero's hand,
Who conquered, as he fell,
The freedom of a land!
Forge, out of chains that break,
Hammers and clamps alone;
And cut from a martyr's stake
A wand to mete the stone!
But sing, as ye work, a strain
Of joy and of triumph pure,
Of deeds that were not in vain,
And blessings that most endure,—
As a hope and a happier grace
Round the lives of duty poured;
And the stone shall find its place
In the Temple of the Lord!
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Quick, fiery thrills, which only are not pangs
Because so warm and welcome, pierce my frame,
As were its airy substance suddenly
Clothed on with flesh; the ichor in my veins
Begins to redden with the pulse of blood,
And, from the recognition of the eyes
That now behold me, something I receive
Of Man's incarnate beauty. Thou, as well,
Confessest this bright change: across thy cheeks
A faintest wild-rose color comes and goes,
And, on thy proud lips, Pyrrha, sits a flame!
Oh, we are nearer!—not suffice me now
The touch of marble hands, reliance cold,
And Destiny's pale promises of love;
But, clasping thee as mortal passion clasps
Bosom to bosom, let my being thus
Assure itself, and thine!
PYRRHA.
Thine eyes compel;
Thy words are as a wind that bends me down,
And thou art beautiful as I to thee.
What holds me back? Is it that I perceive,
O Titan Mother, thy reproving face,
Immortal patience consecrates, and haste,
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Must ever trouble? Aid me with thy words!
PANDORA.
Take counsel of thy heart! The Gods themselves
Have seasons to rejoice; when happier eyes
Illume their ether, and unwonted lips
Meet, and their large refreshment falls on men.
Think what thou art, then follow thy desire!
[Pyrrha muses a moment, then turns towards Prince Deukalion. He clasps her to his breast, and they kiss each other.
SCENE V.
[The Same.]SPIRITS OF DAWN.
Hark! has the Sun-god's Hour
Smitten her cymbals, dreaming him nigh?
We are called by a sound, and sped by a power,
To break the sleep of the sky!
Æolian echoes blow
From the fourfold realms of the air,
And a torch, not ours, with a mightier glow
Burns where the East is bare!
We hasten, we scatter the cloud:
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But the pæan is over-loud,
And the splendor comes from afar!
It flushes our halls of rest,
As the sun were a rose in hue,
And it paints the Earth, as she bares her breast
To the emptied urns of the dew!
[Sound of Æolian harps; the face of Eos appears.]
EOS.
Is this mine Earth?
The many-headlanded, the temple-crowned,
Which the great purple sea so whispered round,
When earlier Gods had birth?
Mine Earth, I loved so well,
Rejoiced in, as it welcomed me,
And fed with unexhausted hydromel,
While the young race was free!
I know its curving strands,
Its dimpling hollows, bosom-budding hills;
I scent large fragrance of the life that fills
The joined or parted lands.
Old hopes, and sweetest, burn again;
Old words are stammering on my tongue:
Was it your lips that kissed, Immortal Twain,
Or is Tithonus young?
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As a gift unsought;
As a joy unbought;
As a fair hope fed
From a hope that is dead;
As a diadem set
When the brows forget,—
Thou, the dearest,
Uncalled, appearest!
PRINCE DEUKALION.
Eyes of hope, and promise-laden
Lips, that smile before they speak,
Are they thine, divinest Maiden,
Blushing morning from thy cheek?
Unto prayer thy face denying,
Unto deed at last replying,
Linger near, and turn not from us
Present bliss and holier promise!
Lips, that smile before they speak,
Are they thine, divinest Maiden,
Blushing morning from thy cheek?
Unto prayer thy face denying,
Unto deed at last replying,
Linger near, and turn not from us
Present bliss and holier promise!
In the glory thou unfoldest,
Tranced with music of thy tongue,
Young is all that once was oldest,
Love and Faith and Will are young!
Stay with us!—thy smile assuages
Pangs bequeathed by weary ages,
And thine eyes are sweet forewarning
Of the world's eternal morning!
Tranced with music of thy tongue,
Young is all that once was oldest,
Love and Faith and Will are young!
Stay with us!—thy smile assuages
Pangs bequeathed by weary ages,
And thine eyes are sweet forewarning
Of the world's eternal morning!
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The blushes of thy cheeks descend on me,
Thy glance is glorious upon my mountains:
I breathe in ampler wind and prouder sea,
And beat, strong-pulsed, thro' mine unnumbered fountains.
Though filled with seeds of unimagined powers,
I cannot spare my beauty: now, from thee
Fresh silver stars the dewy-beaded flowers,
And rosy mists the fading forelands cover,
Until, far northward, thou dost pour
The rainbow's dust on every ice-built shore,
To make even sun-forgetting Death thy lover!
Thy glance is glorious upon my mountains:
I breathe in ampler wind and prouder sea,
And beat, strong-pulsed, thro' mine unnumbered fountains.
Though filled with seeds of unimagined powers,
I cannot spare my beauty: now, from thee
Fresh silver stars the dewy-beaded flowers,
And rosy mists the fading forelands cover,
Until, far northward, thou dost pour
The rainbow's dust on every ice-built shore,
To make even sun-forgetting Death thy lover!
Am I not fair?—yea, though thy face should bow
Thus near and fond, and find no child that knew thee:
But, having nursed Humanity as thou,
I feel what pure, prophetic rapture drew thee.
Stay thou with men; take not away thy hope,
The endless answer to an endless vow:
Touch only, here the risen Temple's cope,
And every glen and darksome lowland alley
Shall hail it as a herald ray,
And wait in happier patience for the day
When morning's mountain-gold shall flood the valley!
Thus near and fond, and find no child that knew thee:
But, having nursed Humanity as thou,
I feel what pure, prophetic rapture drew thee.
Stay thou with men; take not away thy hope,
The endless answer to an endless vow:
Touch only, here the risen Temple's cope,
And every glen and darksome lowland alley
Shall hail it as a herald ray,
And wait in happier patience for the day
When morning's mountain-gold shall flood the valley!
EOS.
Another must fulfil:
I am the promise, not the will.
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The distant glories that may be,
Renewed, as each grows pale
In coming, through my roseate veil.
But, seeming o'erpowered
When sunrise is strong,
Faith, Courage, Devotion,
My being prolong!
I fade, for the coward;
I flame, for the bold;
And noble emotion
My face shall behold.
I grow from their yearning
As they from my vision,—
No longer the Eos
Of spaces Elysian,
But ever returning
With promise sublime,—
First victor o'er Chaos,
And last over Time!
PYRRHA.
To the gracious heart of Woman and the love that fondly bends,
Thou hast given the juster manhood that shelters it and defends:
For the Man's immortal ardor and the breadth of his soul's demand,
Thou hast set the woman beside him, and weaponed her equal hand;
Thou hast given the juster manhood that shelters it and defends:
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Thou hast set the woman beside him, and weaponed her equal hand;
As the palm by the palm in beauty, the female and the male,
When the south-winds mix their blossoms, and the date-sheaf cannot fail;
For one is the glory of either, since the primal Fate began
To guide to a single Future Earth's double-natured Man!
When the south-winds mix their blossoms, and the date-sheaf cannot fail;
For one is the glory of either, since the primal Fate began
To guide to a single Future Earth's double-natured Man!
CHORUS.
(From the valleys.)
Mother, thy work hath blessed us!
Honored, we wear thy cestus;
Honored, we lay it aside,
Crowned with the bliss of the bride;
Honored, we loose from eclipse,
Unto the sweetness of lips
Sweeter for innocent need,
Moons of the bosoms that feed!
Tender, for difference' sake,
Serve us man's haughtier powers;
Strength from his being we take.
But to restore it from ours!
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In the kiss of our lips that reddened
With a perfect passion's dawn,
Met the bliss pure women yearn for,
And the noble truth men burn for,
When the youthful fancy is deadened,
But the human heart beats on!
With a perfect passion's dawn,
Met the bliss pure women yearn for,
And the noble truth men burn for,
When the youthful fancy is deadened,
But the human heart beats on!
By the light of the dawn within them
Their weakness my children see,
And Self and its greeds are broken
By the longing that dares be spoken,
And the warmth of the deeds that win them
The courage to be free!
Their weakness my children see,
And Self and its greeds are broken
By the longing that dares be spoken,
And the warmth of the deeds that win them
The courage to be free!
Still shy is the best endeavor
That hath set its goal so high;
But Good, when the heart betrays it,
And Love, by the lives that praise it,
Shall cradle the earth forever
In the arms of a happier sky!
That hath set its goal so high;
But Good, when the heart betrays it,
And Love, by the lives that praise it,
Shall cradle the earth forever
In the arms of a happier sky!
CHORUS.
(From the valleys.)
We hear thee and know thee, Father!
As a flock the Shepherd leads,
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Of great and generous deeds.
Though suns to come may brand us
And sudden frosts may blight;
And Crime, the prowling were-wolf,
Steal on us in the night;
Though Self, that builds unwearied,
May stain the purer will,
Or Apathy, slowly dying
Of his own mortal chill;
Yet thou hast healing fountains
Replenished from above,
In heart, brain, soul, renewing
The triple strength of love!
Planted through all the ages
Thy trees shall yield us food,
And goldening for our harvest
Shall grow the natural Good!
PROMETHEUS.
Retrieve perverted destiny!
'T is this shall set your children free,
The forces of your race employ
To make sure heritage of joy;
Yet feed, with every earthly sense,
Its heavenly coincidence,—
That, as the garment of an hour;
This, as an everlasting power.
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Must fill the utmost sphere of Man.
And, so expanding, lifted be
Along the line of God's decree,
To find in endless growth all good,—
In endless toil, beatitude.
Seek not to know Him; yet aspire
As atoms toward the central fire!
Not lord of race is He, afar,—
Of Man, or Earth, or any star,
But of the inconceivable All;
Whence nothing that there is can fall
Beyond Him,—but may nearer rise,
Slow-circling through eternal skies.
His larger life ye cannot miss,
In gladly, nobly using this.
Now, as a child in April hours
Clasps tight its handful of first flowers,
Homeward, to meet His purpose, go!—
These things are all ye need to know.
THE END.
| Prince Deukalion | |