The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Hephestion, Arsinoe.
Ars.
Hephestion, well return'd! My mother sits
To-day recluse. She bade me show you flowers:
Here is a rose unblown. My mother thinks
God made the world for peace, not war, Hephestion,
Or he had never planted roses in it;
But what think you?

Heph.
Princess, the rose hath thorns:
'Tis sweetness mixed with sharpness: such is war.
I see your cousin walks beneath the palms.

Ars.
Is she not fair?

Heph.
None fairer. Three days since
Passing, she fix'd on us her great blue eyes,
That seem'd to shine through tears.

Ars.
They're tearful ever:
She is an orphan, nursed within our house:
She told you once that we were like two sisters;
But more she loves me far than sisters love.
Amastris reads—her wont—a book all gold:
'Tis full of songs: I fear they're chiefly war-songs.
Were there in all times wars?

Heph.
Princess, there were:
Our Homer sang of battles.

Ars.
Think you not
He sang of battles in his songs' behoof,
Lest, singing only little lays of love,
Strong hearts had scorn'd his music? This I know,
War is not hatred only; for our king,
Hearing of some great deed your king had wrought,
Some deed both just and brave, lifted his hands
And pray'd—“Preserve, Dread Power, this Persian crown!
Yet, if from us thou rend it, let it light
On Alexander's brows!”

Heph.
That was a prayer
Fit for a king!

Ars.
Your king in reverence greets
Our Sisygambis with a “mother's” name:
And yet, methinks, he neither loves nor hates.

Heph.
He loves not many, and himself the least:
His purposes to him are wife and child.
He couch'd on frosty rocks while huddled crowds
Shut out the watch fires. When the summer heat
More late had dried the marrow in our bones,
And now, a spring discover'd, crawling came
A soldier with a water-cup, one moment
He gazed into the eyes of those around,
Then pour'd that water on the sands. Alone
He would not drink it.

Ars.
Ask me not, Hephestion,
To love your king, or wish him what you wish:
That were, in me, disloyal, faithless, false;
I needs must wish him failure. Oh for the time
When all the good shall war on all things evil,
And none upon each other! It shall come!
The Light shall vanquish Dark. Who made mankind
Will tell us, one day, all we need to know.

Heph.
Then why so late?

Ars.
No doubt that man may learn
His need of light, and prize it well when granted;
For thus by question apt, and feign'd delay,
Parent in child quickens the appetite
For knowledge first, and after that rewards it;
And what are years—or ages—to a god?
Then wars shall cease.

Heph.
War is an instinct, princess;
The gods have given it, and the god-like praised:
It lifts us o'er the petty love of life,
The quest for pleasure, and the greed for gold;
It makes a nation's manhood; stifles factions;
Crowns the great head watching the whole night long
For them that sleep. War, like a healthful tempest,
Scatters the infection.

Ars.
Ah, the Greek is hard!
I guess'd it once; I know it now. Last year
I saw a palace fill'd with Grecian statues:
How beautiful they were; but yet how loveless!
Sweetness was theirs, and majesty, and grace;
Yet theirs, methought, a world that knew no pity:
A thing hard-hearted seem'd your Grecian Art.
Our art was rule: Persia held high her head;—
The Power Divine beheld, and brought it low:
What if the heart of Greece should turn to stone?
Shall she escape?

Heph.
I have had my boding thoughts:—
She's great in war.

Ars.
Praise not that murderer, War!
Persia had Empery; Greece hath Art and Science:
Why not content them, each, with what she hath?
Or as a youth in marriage takes a maid,

And of these twain a lovely race is born,
Why should not warring nations wed their gifts
And breed some god-like gain? What hope from war?
What fruit but breaking hearts?

Heph.
That shade comes o'er you
Which veil'd you when we met:—when, Issus won,
The king and I entered a wailing tent
With speed to tell you that your father lived.

Ars.
How gentle seem'd you then! He, too, was gentle:
We knelt to you, misdeeming you the king:
Your king but laugh'd. He lacked not royal face,
Albeit too eager-eyed.

Heph.
The other Greeks,
Of them what say you?

Ars.
They are light and boastful,
Save Ptolemy, upon whose grave, broad brow
Empire might sit: they spurn the earth, not tread it:
Here is the one I like the least. Abide
Till he is gone, Hephestion.

Phi.
(approaching).
Beam and breeze,
Maiden, to you, and these, the inferior flowers,
Are boon alike. Suspecting in that rose
Your beauty's future rival you were wise
To pluck it still unblown. You'll prove as kind
Bestowing it on me.

Ars.
The Royal House
Accords its gifts to those who claim them least:
I pluck'd it for Hephestion.

Phi.
He is happy:
The favourites of a prince are favourites still
With those around him—nobles, courtiers, captives—

Warriors alone, attent on graver cares,
Catch not the lesser whispers of a court:
Rustlings of silk for others, not for them,
Reveal their oracles.

Ars.
Hephestion—

Phi.
Lady,
Your mother, doubtless, would have news of friends
Housed in Damascus: I am lately thence.

Ars.
Her majesty sojourns with the palace:
It may be she will see you.

Phi.
Lady, farewell!
[Aside, departing.
One day Hephestion shall remember this.

Ars.
He's gone:—the day grows still. Hold you, Hephestion,
A favourite 'mid the flowers?

Heph.
Princess, in this
The oft-erring public vote I deem not erring.
You have heard the legend of the Flowers' Debate.
The Rose advanced her claim: “Love's flower am I!
The nightingale loves more my fragrant breast
Than his own feather'd mate.” The Lily next,
“The flower of Purity am I: young maids
Boast me their snowy standard.” At the word,
The Rose put forth her first white bud, and wears
Since then the double crown.

Ars.
I like that legend:
Who made it?

Heph.
I—unless you made it, princess:
My eyes were on you when the thought descended.

Ars.
Hephestion, I have not forgot my promise;
This rose-bud take; 'tis white. Could rose-buds live
As long as grateful thoughts, or were they loved

Their freshness past, 'twould help you to remember
In hours to come, what else you might forget,
Kindness in prison'd days to burthen'd hearts,
Kindness to helpless womanhood, sad old age,
Childhood—or what was childhood till our woes
Had changed young hearts to serious. I must go:
By this time our sweet mother will expect me.
For his sake whom you love, your king, your friend,
Jest not with dangers in the wars before you.

Heph.
Princess, for me this flower will keep its freshness.

University of Virginia Library

Scene V.—The Gardens of the Palace at Old Tyre.