University of Virginia Library

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:
We quench the beam of the great white star;
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?

PYRRHA.
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.

GÆA.

EOS.
Another must fulfil:
I am the promise, not the will.
Men dimly guess, through me,
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.

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!

PRINCE DEUKALION.

CHORUS.
(From the valleys.)
We hear thee and know thee, Father!
As a flock the Shepherd leads,
We follow to thy pastures
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.
For Life, whose source not here began,
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.