Laurella and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ye bashful nymphs, coy-footed, that in woods
Do hide your sunny faces,
Sleeping long summer days in shady places,
Or laving your white limbs in secret floods!
Ye Dryads, which do nightly leave your bowers,
To foster the wild flowers,
And swell the myriad buds of pleasant June
Beneath the moon:
Suffer us that we sully once again,
With mortal steps profane,
Your verdurous wildernesses;
We come to twine once more our festal wreaths,

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Here where dim jasmine breathes,
Shaking the dew-drops from her starry tresses.

II.

O dainty-handed Dryads, be not chary
Of any flowery treasure; grudge us not
Briar-roses pink, or freckled fritillary;
Or pale wood-lilies, filling many a plot
With innocence and light; shy violets,
Peeping about grey roots of agéd trees;
Or meshed in leafy nets,
The purple glory of great passion-flowers;
Ope the intricacies
Of tangled clematis and woodbine bowers:
Deny us no frail branch of eglantine;
No myrtle-rods, odorous with silver blooms;
No cassia-buds, nurturing in their white wombs
Unravished spice; no clump of columbine,
To grace the wreaths we twine!

Euphorion.—
Cease, gentle friends, your several industry,
Hot-handed day drives out the meek-eyed morn,
Whose dewy fingers touched the sleeping lawns
With freshness, and awoke each herb and flower,
In wold or lea, by lake or woodland stream,
To tell its dream of fragrance. Now all winds
Roused by the dawn, their wanton gambols done,

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Fly forth to bear into the haunts of men
The greeting of the woods; blithe-noted birds
Have sung their earliest anthem, and begin
Their foraging; through all their leaves the trees
Stir with the new life of the coming day.
Phœbus rides high, and sheds from sunny skies
Our noon of festival; the hour draws on
When, with deft rhythm of foot and cunning of voice,
We celebrate the beauteous majesty
Of fairest Psyche—many-altared Psyche—
That mortal goddess for whose maiden shrine
These garlands chaste we wreathe. Away, sweet friends,
And as we hasten on our path, bid stir
The mirth and melancholy of the strings,
And let our wedded voices tunefully
Vie with sky-searching pipe and amorous flute
In free lark-hearted music. Come, sweet friends!

CHORAL HYMN.

I.

For her! For her!
The song, the dance, the pomp, the flower-decked shrine,
The Orphic and the Bacchic din, the stir
Of wind in sacred shells—our half-divine
Psyche—for her, to worship whom the stars
Pause in their golden cars!

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II.

Tell us, ye Muses, was there ever any
Of mortal strain before,
So proudly throned above the beauteous many
Whom Gods and men adore?
Stooping from out the silence where ye dwell,
Tell us, ye Muses, tell!

III.

None, none: not she, even she
Who glowed her life out in the Thunderer's arms,—
Great-hearted Semele;
Not she, to drain the ocean of whose charms
Three nights he held the sun at dreadful pause;
Not Delian Leto, rescued from the jaws
Of the pursuing Python; nor not any
Of all that beauteous many
Who stirred Apollo to celestial heat;
Nor she whom fear made fleet—
That coy Arcadian nymph beloved of Pan,
Transfigured as she ran:
None is her compeer, none,
Rivalling with her, durst face the eye of the sun!

[Exeunt.]

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[An enchanted Palace full of all manner of deliciousness. Psyche asleep. Voices of invisible spirits.]
CHORUS OF SPIRITS.
(Rising and falling like gnats on the wing.)
Spirits of air!
Spirits of earth!
Spirits of water!
Spirits of fire!
Hither, hither,
We flock together,
Gathering, hovering everywhere.
Spirits of beauty, of death and birth,
Strengthening our adopted daughter
For the shock of her heart's desire.
Fondly above her
We gather and hover;
Sad thoughts that cling to her
Fly as we sing to her,
Murmuring cooingly,
Tenderly, wooingly—
Wake from thy dreaming!
Psyche, sweet Psyche, awake to reality,
Snatched from the mansions of yearning mortality,
Shows of false-seeming!

Pysche
(awaking)
—Wake I, or sleep? Or have the wings of Death

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Ravished me hither? O, methought but now,
My mother's tears undried upon my cheek,
My father's kiss warm on my lips, I stood
In victim splendour on the dreadful mount,
Alone with terror! Yet were Death my bridegroom,
These roses would have paled at his cold kiss,
These limbs chilled at his touch. This is the robe,
These are the very jewels I put on
To face the worshipping crowd who lackeyed me
To heaven-ordained abandonment. The pulse
Of comfortable life throbs in this frame,
Not unsubstantial like a meagre ghost's,
But warm with flesh and blood. O Love, Love, Love,
Why leaps thy name to my tongue? Delight and dread
Take each a hand, and lift me to my feet.
Trembling I breathe Elysian atmosphere,
Instinct with mystic odours, and alive
With tenderest-whispered sounds. What sings in my ear?

CHORUS OF INVISIBLE SPIRITS.
(Preceding Psyche as she moves.)
To the palace of our king
We welcome sing;
In these realms of light serene,
Hail Psyche! Thou art Queen!

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Hungerest thou for mortal bread?
Thou shalt have thy hunger fed
With store of fruits of honied juices,
Riped for the immortals' uses;
They shall make thy languid flesh
Like Hera's fair, like Hebe's fresh.
Eat and fear not; only so
Thou shalt see, and thou shalt know!
(She plucks and eats of the enchanted fruit.)
Dost thou thirst as mortals thirst?
Lo! this fountain's vintage nursed
Infant Bacchus royally,
Skin-couched beneath a sunny sky,
Whoso drinketh straightway glows
With the rich life of the rose.
Drink, and thou shalt feel to-night,
As the immortals feel, delight!
(She drinks from a fountain.)
Wilt thou bathe thy wearied limbs?
See no speck of soilure dims
This laver's brink of amethyst.
Water not so pure hath kissed
The breasts of Dian timorously.
Fear not lest aught impure may spy
Thy maiden bosom's snowy charms,
When soft-dropping from thy arms
Falls thy vesture to thy feet,

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And revealed thou standest, sweet
As a lily-bud new blown,
Shrinkingly on the glowing stone.
Bathe, and feel through every pore,
Love's radiance tingling more and more!

(She bathes, and is, after bathing, by invisible hands apparclled in white and glistering raiment. Then the heavy curtains of a sumptuous pavilion are drawn aside, disclosing the marriage-chamber; the mighty columns of the aisles exhaling a solemn music, sonorous and sweet.)
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS OF SPIRITS.
Now the vast of night grows warm
With the purposes of Fate!

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS.
Of the Essence and the Form
The marriage shall be consummate!

(Psyche enters the marriage-chamber.)
FULL CHORUS.
Hush! dare not to breathe his name,
Written first in tongues of flame
On the black Chaotic deep,
At which Earth's great heart did leap.
By the yearning that upsprings,

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By the fear this yearning brings,
By the bliss that swallows fear,
We own his presence! He is here!

(The whole place becomes suddenly darkened as Eros enters; a tempest of triumphal music shaking the adamantine walls at his approach. He embraces Psyche, who shrieks with mingled joy and terror at his touch.)

2. PART SECOND.

[Paphos—the Bower of Aphrodeite.]
Aphrodeite
(entering)
—Deceived! betrayed! O vengeance, vengeance, vengeance!
Who is this mortal whose accurséd charms
Have robbed my altars of their worshippers,
Me of my son's allegiance? ‘Let but Psyche
Be true to me, and, by the waves of Styx,
She may defy the thunderbolts of Zeus!’
He takes the style of a primæval God,
So bold he grows! I tremble at his frown.
Speaks he the truth, as partly I conceive
That truth it is, this wayward son of mine
Is of the mighty race who lorded it
Before the birth of Chronos. Be it so!
‘Let her be true!’ But how if she be false?—

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As false she shall be, if my tongue can teach
Her siren sisters aptly how to sing:
Already she begins to pine for them,
To awe them with the splendour of her state.
They are my votaries—they shall snare me yet
Her unweaned soul, half-trustful of her lord,
Unseen of her in those sweet hours of love
Stolen in the secret midnight. They shall-move
To dark suspicion her still mortal heart,
Till, fearful of some monster in her bed,
She seek to gaze upon the naked limbs
Of Eros as he sleeps, and, prying fool,
Perish in fact of sacrilege. Away!
Swift to my brooded vengeance, ere her womb,
Quickening with fruit celestial, may atone
The trespass of her eyes. Thus sealed her fate,
Eros shines self-revealed—I strike too late!

[Exit.]
[The enchanted Palace of Eros, before the closed curtains of the Pavilion. Midnight. Enter Psyche with a torch. She pauses before the curtain.]
Psyche.—

One moment let me check my venturous hand,
Trembling upon the deed, to still this heart
Which makes a coward of me. Dost thou beat
Thus audibly to warn me of some ill,

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In whose black train the Stygian multitude
Of vampyre woes throng to lay waste the world?
Is this the burden of thy fluttering song?

(She draws a dagger.)

Let me be firm. Thou deathful instrument,
Gift of my sister's counsel—ah!

(She lets it fall.)

My bosom
Is not so barren-grown of tenderness
As to achieve my sad deliverance
From this too sweet enchantment murderously.
Can happiness, with evil mated, live
In such unhallowed bridal? Do they know
That I am thus most monstrously abused,
Clasping some loathéd nightmare to my breast
In foulest love embraces nightly? Nay—
They mock me in their envy—they have lied!
Yet, O just Gods, how can I face their tongues,
And say: Ye lie! What proven mail of truth
Have I to fence me from their poisonous words?
Doubt, like a hag, in her accurséd stream
Has dipt my love and made it vulnerable.
Then knowledge be my aid—for thus I solve,
Daring the worst, all grim uncertainties,
With eyes, not hands.

(She draws the curtain, and discovers Eros asleep.)

O Zeus! I faint for bliss!

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(She bends over him in a rapture. A spark falls on his limbs. He starts up and rises into the air, casting Psyche from him as he rises. She screams and extends her arms towards him imploringly. He pauses for a moment in his flight, and speaks.)
Eros.—
Traitress! but one sweet night of trial more,
And I was thine for ever—thou hadst soared,
Twinned with me in one fiery cloud of love,
Straight to the empyrean. O farewell!
Eros has lost his bride. Ah! Psyche, Psyche!
Farewell, farewell!

(He disappears. Psyche falls senseless. The whole palace dissolves into black clouds, which overwhelm her.)
[Sunset. An open country. Enter Psyche with an ebon box containing the Beauty of Persephone.]
Psyche.—
Once more the gladness of the open heaven,
And the soft fragrance of the evening breeze!
How beautiful is this world! There Hesperus
Looks from his lucid eyes tranquillity,
Charming the plains to silence. All is peace—
I breathe but peace; and yet how keenly all things
Invade each delicate sense with a delight
I never felt before. So breathed, so felt,
Upon the bounds of day, Eurydice,
And cried too soon: ‘I live again!’ Ye gods,

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Who have bid gape the adamantine doors
Of Dis's realm to my weak siege, and led me—
A new Eurydice—with trembling feet,
From the sad Stygian coast; making my wreck
My triumph, take, in this deep ecstasy,
My thanks for all! Here, here, I have the casket,
Fetched through the groaning labyrinths of hell,
Through the Cimmerian darkness. I have stood
By hell's all-dreaded Queen, even as a child
Beside its mother; I have dared to gaze
Into her awful eyes; and here I bring
Her beauty for my dower, bestowed as freely
As mothers give the jewels of their prime
To a dear daughter! Cruel Aphrodeite!
Thy hate drove me to seek a precious pearl
In a most dangerous sea. From such a plunge
Few divers have come back. I rise at last;
But, tyrant Queen, thou shalt not have my pearl:
Mine was the toil—be mine the gain. O Eros!
Wilt thou not love me now, made beautiful
With such tremendous charms?

(She opens the casket; a vapour rises from it. She swoons. Enter Aphrodeite.)
Aphrodeite.—
Lie there for ever,
Alive in loveless, hopeless death for ever!
Is this the goddess that insulted me?
This the great bride of Eros? Here, thou clod,

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Be this thy dower—thus, thus, I trample thee!

(Spurns her with her foot. Enter Eros.)
Eros.—
Away, tempt not my wrath! Off instantly,
Killer of love, joy-hating Aphrodeite!
Away, I scorn thee to the depths of hell!

Aph.—
Eros!

(She has vanished.)
Eros.—
Awake! arise! Now dawns our Spring of love,
The crocus flowers of joy break out like fire
O'er the fresh fields of life. My love, my bride;
Much-suffering Psyche, wake! I breathe on thee.

(She rises.)
Psyche.—
Eros!—'Tis thou?

Eros.—
'Tis I—thine, thine forever—
Forever I am thine, and thou art mine!
O, we will fly through all the realms of space,
Blessing and blest; each moment of our flight
Fraught with its new eternity of love!

Psyche.—
O make me strong to bear this transport!

Eros.—

Come,
Enter the seven-fold citadel of my love,
In which I close thee—thus!

(She throws herself into his arms.)

My long-tried Pysche!
Not all the treacheries of old Night again
Shall tear thee from me!

Psyche.—
Utter rest of bliss!

Eros.—
All is accomplished.

(They ascend.)