The Judgment of Prometheus And Other Poems: By Ernest Myers |
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| HERMES WITH THE CHILD BACCHUS. |
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| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
 | The Judgment of Prometheus |  |
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HERMES WITH THE CHILD BACCHUS.
From the dim North, from Danube's stream unknown,
Behind the blast of winter, where abide
The Hyperborean folk, a mystic land,
Came Heracles, and bare the silvery bough
To shade the plain beside Alpheus' bed,
And be a crown of valiance evermore.
Behind the blast of winter, where abide
The Hyperborean folk, a mystic land,
Came Heracles, and bare the silvery bough
To shade the plain beside Alpheus' bed,
And be a crown of valiance evermore.
Therefore through all the golden prime of Earth,
When her best race was glad beneath the day,
Endured that praise; and as of stars the Sun
Is first, and Gold of metals, as of all
Earth's primal gifts to man is Water best,
So he who spake for understanding ears
Words of divine assignment, crowns of song,
Of all fair feasts the Olympic deemed most fair.
When her best race was glad beneath the day,
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Is first, and Gold of metals, as of all
Earth's primal gifts to man is Water best,
So he who spake for understanding ears
Words of divine assignment, crowns of song,
Of all fair feasts the Olympic deemed most fair.
Here was the home of Zeus, the shrines were here
Of Gods and sons of Gods, his lineage high,
So many ages worshipt where they dwelt,
So many ages after, all forgot;
Whether their carven forms by robber hands
Were rapt beyond the sea, or ground to dust,
Or whether in the kindly breast of Earth
Patient they slept, even as dead bones of men.
Sleeping or dead alike they sank from sight,
And through the ages no man recked to mourn
For their mild brows and presence tutelar,
Similitude divine, divinely wrought.
But now once more with keen remorseful eyes,
And hunger of the heart for beauty dead,
Men seek them sorrowing, and with painful hands
Upturn the sacred soil till, maimed and rare,
Strange clouded fragments of the ancient glory,
Late lingerers of the company divine,
Arise, like glimmering phantoms of a dream.
Yet even in ruin of their marble limbs
They breathe of that far world wherefrom they came,
Of liquid light and harmonies serene,
Lost halls of Heaven and large Olympian air.
Thus slept He long, thus hath He risen so late,
Of Gods and sons of Gods, his lineage high,
So many ages worshipt where they dwelt,
So many ages after, all forgot;
Whether their carven forms by robber hands
Were rapt beyond the sea, or ground to dust,
Or whether in the kindly breast of Earth
Patient they slept, even as dead bones of men.
Sleeping or dead alike they sank from sight,
And through the ages no man recked to mourn
For their mild brows and presence tutelar,
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But now once more with keen remorseful eyes,
And hunger of the heart for beauty dead,
Men seek them sorrowing, and with painful hands
Upturn the sacred soil till, maimed and rare,
Strange clouded fragments of the ancient glory,
Late lingerers of the company divine,
Arise, like glimmering phantoms of a dream.
Yet even in ruin of their marble limbs
They breathe of that far world wherefrom they came,
Of liquid light and harmonies serene,
Lost halls of Heaven and large Olympian air.
The Son of Maia: that the earth no more
Holds him in night sepulcral, this to him
Is nought, or eyes of gazers; his own world
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Yet haply if thou gaze upon the God
In reverent silence, even to thee shall flow
From that high presence of the unconscious form
Some effluent spell, whereby thy calmëd soul
Shall be indrawn to that diviner world
Wherein his soul hath being, fair and free.
Unharmed of chance and ruin, lo, his head
Bends with half-smile benign above his charge,
The little child, the son of Semele,
Snatched from the fierce tongues of celestial fire,
The insupportable blaze of very Zeus,
His mother's doom; but from his baby soul
The terror of that night hath passed away,
And left him blithe on his mild brother's arm,
His tender hand on that strong shoulder prest.
Hermes, was this thy gift? Yet well thou knewest
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The God of frenzied brain and blood afire,
Fired howsoe'er divinely: yea, but thou
Could'st turn these too to glory and delight,
Spirit more pure and loftier life of man.
For thou into man's teeming thoughts pent up,
And inarticulate fancies, didst inbreathe
Voice like thine own; and passion's tuneless storm
Sweeping therethrough made sudden melodies,
The sweeter for its frenzy, for from thee
Came spells of song and speech, from thee the lyre.
And where the pillared city's festal folk
In sunny mart or shadowed portico
Were met for converse, or where athlete youth
In emulous games honoured the all-giving Gods,
And native Earth, and immemorial power
Of quickening Rivers that right well had reared
Their growing manhood, thy grave smile was there.
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Not all thy gifts, though plenteous; nay, though these
Be very good, yet one, the best, remains.
For thou, fair lord, thou also, having filled
Man's little life so full with act and thought,
Leadest him lastly down the darkling road
To that dim realm where griefs and gains are dead,
Or live as dreams dreamed by a dream-like shade.
Were they indeed aught more beneath the noon
Of this brave Sun that must himself wax cold?
Who knoweth? Come, dear Guardian, Guide divine;
For this thou art arisen out of earth
That held thee there in Elis sleeping well.
Give thou the babe to Rhea; she no less,
Mysterious Mother of an elder Heaven,
Hath store of spells to heal the coming gust
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And gather to thee those thy subject souls
Born out of due time in an alien world,
To whom are given, in toil or in repose,
So rare, so faint, thine advent and thine aid.
They shall not shrink or flutter, as the ghosts
Of those impure the avenging arrows slew,
But follow firmly on, until they come
To some fair congress of the noble dead,
Set free from flying pain and flying joy,
There find their home, and rest for ever there.
| The Judgment of Prometheus | |