The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley [i.e. J. B. L. Warren] |
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| II. |
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| V. |
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| VII. |
| VIII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
| XI. |
| XII. |
| XIII. |
| XIV. |
| XV. |
| XVI. |
| EUCRATES |
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 | The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley |  |
EUCRATES
“It seemeth to me that the young pagan, albeit in his pride of life
he was as an animal oftentimes perfect, yet failed in that he had no hope
beyond; old age being imminent when the flourish of these vanities
must be abolished.”—Wilson's Considerations of Religion, A.D. 1723.
I, Eucrates of Athens, athlete once,
Pancratist in the last Olympian games,
In my flush youth, with every sinew iron,
Living and loving life and all its flower—
I, Eucrates, shall answer this old man
And the low wail of his philosophies;
If this be deemed philosophy to weep
With trembling hands at fortune, and lament
Because one Death sits portress at the end
Of Life's best avenues, with equal hand
To quench the torch of every passenger.
This dim-eyed dotard with his woolly cheeks,
Due to the silence of the paths of sleep,
Must wail to leave what he cannot enjoy,
And call life nothing: “As the race of leaves
So men depart: in slumber they forget
Their deed and place as tho' they had not been.
And they have vainly seen a little light
In tasting treble evil all their days.”
Pancratist in the last Olympian games,
In my flush youth, with every sinew iron,
Living and loving life and all its flower—
I, Eucrates, shall answer this old man
And the low wail of his philosophies;
If this be deemed philosophy to weep
With trembling hands at fortune, and lament
Because one Death sits portress at the end
Of Life's best avenues, with equal hand
To quench the torch of every passenger.
This dim-eyed dotard with his woolly cheeks,
Due to the silence of the paths of sleep,
Must wail to leave what he cannot enjoy,
And call life nothing: “As the race of leaves
42
Their deed and place as tho' they had not been.
And they have vainly seen a little light
In tasting treble evil all their days.”
Old man, refrain to weep—shall tears put by
The Titan hand of silence? All is well.
No gods are we to mete our living hours
By æons, or carve out our destinies
Each rebel to his whim: since then the earth
Would wreck herself on inconsistencies,
And the whole scheme of nature start awry,
'Tis better that necessity should guide
Than dædal-hearted man. To each is laid
The measure of his days: shall we disdain
The sweet earth-honey, since our sullen lips
May not attain the God's ambrosial meal?
The Titan hand of silence? All is well.
No gods are we to mete our living hours
By æons, or carve out our destinies
Each rebel to his whim: since then the earth
Would wreck herself on inconsistencies,
And the whole scheme of nature start awry,
'Tis better that necessity should guide
Than dædal-hearted man. To each is laid
The measure of his days: shall we disdain
The sweet earth-honey, since our sullen lips
May not attain the God's ambrosial meal?
Nay, rather this intensity of youth
Bewilders us like wine: so much to learn,
Such large and ripe enjoyment every way
Environs it: wherein, with evident voice,
The God says, Take thy prime and use its flower:
The limbs and nerve of morning age are thine
To use them for a little. And I say,
God, thou hast given me much: not much in time
But in enjoyment much. It comes of thee
This luxurious fervour in the vein,
The sense of life like the deep air of spring,
The thrill at noble form or melody
In breathing words of song, the inordinate
Relish of action, and the low throb of love.
Surely it is enough to be alive,
And taste thy youth and its immensities
Of all endeavour, without ache or jar,
And its free pulse divinely arrogant
To drink the utter splendour of the earth.
Bewilders us like wine: so much to learn,
Such large and ripe enjoyment every way
Environs it: wherein, with evident voice,
The God says, Take thy prime and use its flower:
The limbs and nerve of morning age are thine
To use them for a little. And I say,
God, thou hast given me much: not much in time
But in enjoyment much. It comes of thee
This luxurious fervour in the vein,
The sense of life like the deep air of spring,
The thrill at noble form or melody
In breathing words of song, the inordinate
Relish of action, and the low throb of love.
Surely it is enough to be alive,
And taste thy youth and its immensities
Of all endeavour, without ache or jar,
And its free pulse divinely arrogant
To drink the utter splendour of the earth.
All things have process to their end, and these
Shall have their end: but they are beautiful
As if they lasted always. The iris glance
Zoning the crest of momentary waves
Is not less fair than Pallas' ivory blush
That Pheidias stampt for ages. I accept
The limit of my time without one tear:
And, till it come, I taste my honeycomb,
And pipe and love and thank the Gods, secure
And never fearing what I cannot change.
Shall have their end: but they are beautiful
As if they lasted always. The iris glance
Zoning the crest of momentary waves
Is not less fair than Pallas' ivory blush
That Pheidias stampt for ages. I accept
43
And, till it come, I taste my honeycomb,
And pipe and love and thank the Gods, secure
And never fearing what I cannot change.
Old man, earth's ways are many for delight:
Is love of country despicable joy?
Is not this legend of our Athens grand,
That, sprung of earth, and owning none supreme,
We teach the nations freedom? How divine
The echoes throng of beautiful old days,
As, after Dicast toil, in tremulous eve
Out-leaning on our old Acropolis,
We see the land of heroes all our own,
And Hellas crowded under in warm bays,
Hill-fort and pharos, shimmering arsenals,
Sea-mound and headland, violet-amber coil
Of waters, gray-green down, and inland knolls,
And rings and rim of austere eminence.
Or, faint in deeper midlands far away,
See mighty dells whence Cyclops hammered iron,
Or quarried arches of Tirynthian wall:
And solitary gorge, to whose bleached head
The still slow growth of centuries has given
Intensity and emphasis of calm.
See hoary chasms, the charnels of the prime,
Wherein the great hill-monster may have left
His skeleton, an Argus when the string
Of Hermes slew him; and the dragon coils
Wither in night for ever so, until
A new world wakes upon them, and men cry,
Behold a portent of ancestral days.
Is love of country despicable joy?
Is not this legend of our Athens grand,
That, sprung of earth, and owning none supreme,
We teach the nations freedom? How divine
The echoes throng of beautiful old days,
As, after Dicast toil, in tremulous eve
Out-leaning on our old Acropolis,
We see the land of heroes all our own,
And Hellas crowded under in warm bays,
Hill-fort and pharos, shimmering arsenals,
Sea-mound and headland, violet-amber coil
Of waters, gray-green down, and inland knolls,
And rings and rim of austere eminence.
Or, faint in deeper midlands far away,
See mighty dells whence Cyclops hammered iron,
Or quarried arches of Tirynthian wall:
And solitary gorge, to whose bleached head
The still slow growth of centuries has given
Intensity and emphasis of calm.
See hoary chasms, the charnels of the prime,
Wherein the great hill-monster may have left
His skeleton, an Argus when the string
Of Hermes slew him; and the dragon coils
Wither in night for ever so, until
A new world wakes upon them, and men cry,
Behold a portent of ancestral days.
This too is fair and nearest Gods' desire;
When all thy city musters civic war,
To feel the marching pæan lighten thro'
Thy soul, and teach it glorious to assume
The panting need of contest sweet as wine.
Man girds the ache of action on his soul,
And learns he must eternalize himself
By glory, when the bitter loamy mound
Has warpt his bones; or that last lustral flame
Has wrapt the noble motion and desire
Of life into an urn. Such meanings throng
The flutes of war; he thrills and on he drives
With searching eyes, until his dream is deed.
Lo, with a cry he wrestles into it all,
The trample and the shocks, the blind hot mist,
Visions of Ares, all the shielded jar,
The foamy contest and the smoking toil
Of steed and phalanx. So he shatters down
The hedge of level steel, invulnerable;
On crushes thro' the thunder and the blows
Emerging victor: to the Gods he bares
His reeking sword, and fording on with pride
Tares from the rampart altar to his brow
The olive leaf immortal, and so dies.
When all thy city musters civic war,
To feel the marching pæan lighten thro'
Thy soul, and teach it glorious to assume
The panting need of contest sweet as wine.
Man girds the ache of action on his soul,
And learns he must eternalize himself
By glory, when the bitter loamy mound
Has warpt his bones; or that last lustral flame
Has wrapt the noble motion and desire
Of life into an urn. Such meanings throng
The flutes of war; he thrills and on he drives
44
Lo, with a cry he wrestles into it all,
The trample and the shocks, the blind hot mist,
Visions of Ares, all the shielded jar,
The foamy contest and the smoking toil
Of steed and phalanx. So he shatters down
The hedge of level steel, invulnerable;
On crushes thro' the thunder and the blows
Emerging victor: to the Gods he bares
His reeking sword, and fording on with pride
Tares from the rampart altar to his brow
The olive leaf immortal, and so dies.
Or sweet is yet this softer scheme of days;
When rose-crowned in some marble portico,
We must away beyond the vineyard props,
Still as the green-eyed locust on their leaves—
On mirrored seas, twin tawny sails, a veil
Of saffron, which is sunset, where a horn
Of light just frays the corner gray of the cloud.
There listen to old tumult clothed in odes
By rosy lips and Orthian symphonies
And older legend of the giant wars;
Here on the branchy marble squares dispread
Fat icy gourds, and nard, and violet crowns;
And smooth white flute-girls at my feasting couch,
Chirping cicala-like, and petulant
To dabble ivory fingers in the spilth
Of wine-skins. Foremost she, whose bountiful hair
Out-curves the forehead fillet ripplingly
Above her eyes of sea-blue alkanet—
Who sings half-smiling thro' her choral ode
With hectic lips and regal languid eyes;
She, as the cadence deepens, shakes aside
Her shy luxurious indolence with joy,
Glows with the access of the music's mood:
Her arms are rhythmic: her full-fruited form
Swathed in delicious tremor: tosses back
Her fleece of richest hair, and readjusts
The sindon tunic edge against the bend
Of milky shoulder, and the curtain shades
Are restless at the little thrilling throat.
Then as one star scales amethystine waves,
In sweet new girlhood laughters fresh as brine
She sparkles and she ceases sudden-wise:
And comes to lean half over into my eyes,
The fair-limb'd girl lithe to the sandal heel,
Then slips me, like an eel, her arms about;
Sets at my chin her nestling face aglow
With music, “Love, I sang of, but my song
To this was merely shadow; as the glint
Of yonder Hesperus on intricate waves
Bemocks the intense Hesperus himself.”
When rose-crowned in some marble portico,
We must away beyond the vineyard props,
Still as the green-eyed locust on their leaves—
On mirrored seas, twin tawny sails, a veil
Of saffron, which is sunset, where a horn
Of light just frays the corner gray of the cloud.
There listen to old tumult clothed in odes
By rosy lips and Orthian symphonies
And older legend of the giant wars;
Here on the branchy marble squares dispread
Fat icy gourds, and nard, and violet crowns;
And smooth white flute-girls at my feasting couch,
Chirping cicala-like, and petulant
To dabble ivory fingers in the spilth
Of wine-skins. Foremost she, whose bountiful hair
Out-curves the forehead fillet ripplingly
Above her eyes of sea-blue alkanet—
Who sings half-smiling thro' her choral ode
With hectic lips and regal languid eyes;
She, as the cadence deepens, shakes aside
Her shy luxurious indolence with joy,
Glows with the access of the music's mood:
Her arms are rhythmic: her full-fruited form
Swathed in delicious tremor: tosses back
Her fleece of richest hair, and readjusts
The sindon tunic edge against the bend
Of milky shoulder, and the curtain shades
Are restless at the little thrilling throat.
Then as one star scales amethystine waves,
In sweet new girlhood laughters fresh as brine
She sparkles and she ceases sudden-wise:
45
The fair-limb'd girl lithe to the sandal heel,
Then slips me, like an eel, her arms about;
Sets at my chin her nestling face aglow
With music, “Love, I sang of, but my song
To this was merely shadow; as the glint
Of yonder Hesperus on intricate waves
Bemocks the intense Hesperus himself.”
Are these not worth the living? Canst thou make
Thy heart a lie, and say thou scornest all?
While, therefore, all is good and sound and fair,
I pour to Human Life this Myrrhine bowl,
And quaff libation to its dæmon guard.
I, raising towards the sunset my firm arm,
Crush in the rich blood-clusters of long rows
Of vineyards mellowed under full-eyed day;
So crown the cup: while thro' its amber rims
The slant lights twinkle, like a purple sea
Shot with sun-spangles. All the juice within
Smooth to the lip, sea-fragment, apple-sweet;
And brain and heart leap as I drain its joy.
Thy heart a lie, and say thou scornest all?
While, therefore, all is good and sound and fair,
I pour to Human Life this Myrrhine bowl,
And quaff libation to its dæmon guard.
I, raising towards the sunset my firm arm,
Crush in the rich blood-clusters of long rows
Of vineyards mellowed under full-eyed day;
So crown the cup: while thro' its amber rims
The slant lights twinkle, like a purple sea
Shot with sun-spangles. All the juice within
Smooth to the lip, sea-fragment, apple-sweet;
And brain and heart leap as I drain its joy.
Cease wailing then, dim-hearted Cynic, cease:
If Titian shine, unveil thy feeble eyes,
And learn God's utmost splendour. Light and life
And energy are ours: and, crowning all,
Are silence and not undelicious peace.
If Titian shine, unveil thy feeble eyes,
And learn God's utmost splendour. Light and life
And energy are ours: and, crowning all,
Are silence and not undelicious peace.
| The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley | |