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78
Tithonus
[_]
(Aurora, the Goddess of Morning, fell in love with Tithonus, a beautiful youth, and craved for him from the gods the gift of eternal life; which gift they bestowed; but not that of eternal youth.)
How slowly wane the weary hours away!
The tree is dry, the sap has ceased to flow;
And yet it stands unshattered by the storm,
Unwounded by the sharpest axe of Fate!
Nor can it die, although it would not live.
They say that death and life are mingled wine,
The bitter and the sweet; but who hath seen
Such intertwined confusion as in me?
I might be death himself, who ever lives.
My blood is curdled and my bones are dust;
My eyes are dim, but not with tears; the power
To weep has left me, with my youth and hope;
For youthful tears are sweet and hopeful pain.
I live in self-embodied death, and die
In mock similitude of life; but death
Would be a better life to me than all.
The tree is dry, the sap has ceased to flow;
And yet it stands unshattered by the storm,
Unwounded by the sharpest axe of Fate!
Nor can it die, although it would not live.
They say that death and life are mingled wine,
The bitter and the sweet; but who hath seen
Such intertwined confusion as in me?
I might be death himself, who ever lives.
My blood is curdled and my bones are dust;
My eyes are dim, but not with tears; the power
To weep has left me, with my youth and hope;
For youthful tears are sweet and hopeful pain.
I live in self-embodied death, and die
In mock similitude of life; but death
Would be a better life to me than all.
How slowly wane the weary hours away!
Ah! how in those old days, when first the love
Of my bright goddess flooded through my soul,
I felt the warm blood beat about my heart,
At tender tone or blush of hers, for me,
When sitting on the hill in vine-leaf shade
We watched the mid-day heat steal o'er the hills,
The lazy lizard sleep along the wall,
The bird drop silent to his inmost bower;
Till the black bat athwart the sunset wheeled,
And cooler night bedewed the frog's harsh throat.
Then had I life before me, and to die
A death as peaceful as the balmy air
That floated round us in that quiet hour;
Then, like a happy bee,—from flower to flower
Flashing his banded colours in the sun,
Sipping his store from thyme and asphodel
In earliest morning, ere the pastures drowse,
Lulled by the poppy-scented heat to calm,—
I sucked from day to day the present sweet.
Of my bright goddess flooded through my soul,
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At tender tone or blush of hers, for me,
When sitting on the hill in vine-leaf shade
We watched the mid-day heat steal o'er the hills,
The lazy lizard sleep along the wall,
The bird drop silent to his inmost bower;
Till the black bat athwart the sunset wheeled,
And cooler night bedewed the frog's harsh throat.
Then had I life before me, and to die
A death as peaceful as the balmy air
That floated round us in that quiet hour;
Then, like a happy bee,—from flower to flower
Flashing his banded colours in the sun,
Sipping his store from thyme and asphodel
In earliest morning, ere the pastures drowse,
Lulled by the poppy-scented heat to calm,—
I sucked from day to day the present sweet.
Ah Morning!—Ah dear Night! that used to bring
In Hesperus' car mine own imperial bride,
Who loved me first with more than mortal love,
With golden locks and breath like incense-wind
From iris arches of the Southern rain,
How often in the noiseless halls of heaven,
Sating our souls with silent songs of love,
We watched at eve thy bright inquisitive stars,
Watching in turn, with many shimmering eyes;
Till in their prairies and untraversed bowers
Blossomed the moon, and every fleecy cloud
Unfolded petals, pearled with silvery sheen!
Then to our inmost chamber passed, to sleep
A charmèd sleep, as innocent as babes,
Of all this misery and life so lost.
O loitering, long, intolerable hours!
In Hesperus' car mine own imperial bride,
Who loved me first with more than mortal love,
With golden locks and breath like incense-wind
From iris arches of the Southern rain,
How often in the noiseless halls of heaven,
Sating our souls with silent songs of love,
We watched at eve thy bright inquisitive stars,
Watching in turn, with many shimmering eyes;
Till in their prairies and untraversed bowers
Blossomed the moon, and every fleecy cloud
Unfolded petals, pearled with silvery sheen!
Then to our inmost chamber passed, to sleep
A charmèd sleep, as innocent as babes,
Of all this misery and life so lost.
80
Ungiving gift! unbenefiting good!
Never to know that imperceptibly
My youth was vanishing, like sliding sand;
That, grain by grain, records the sliding hour!
Never to feel the palsy touch of age
Steal on my limbs and stagnate in my veins!
But to live on, the very sport of fate,
The puppet of an empty-handed hope;
Till a cloud gathered on my loved one's face
And men said “Lo, a stormy cloud-girt morn!”
For year by year I failed; with locks more grey,
More feeble fingers, and more hollow cheeks;
And so at last an agony of thought
Swept o'er her mind, and passing, left the truth!
Never to know that imperceptibly
My youth was vanishing, like sliding sand;
That, grain by grain, records the sliding hour!
Never to feel the palsy touch of age
Steal on my limbs and stagnate in my veins!
But to live on, the very sport of fate,
The puppet of an empty-handed hope;
Till a cloud gathered on my loved one's face
And men said “Lo, a stormy cloud-girt morn!”
For year by year I failed; with locks more grey,
More feeble fingers, and more hollow cheeks;
And so at last an agony of thought
Swept o'er her mind, and passing, left the truth!
Our lives diverge; no yoke of love can bridge
The gulf between them; mortal recompense,—
The consolation of a wedded fate,
The journey step by step, and hand in hand,
The tasting of the bitterness of death
Together,—is denied us; and I fail.
The gulf between them; mortal recompense,—
The consolation of a wedded fate,
The journey step by step, and hand in hand,
The tasting of the bitterness of death
Together,—is denied us; and I fail.
O loitering, long, intolerable hours!
O soft-robed spouse, pray that I too may die;
For all the seasons tread with weighted heels,
And all thy beauty makes my misery more!
Pray that I too may die, like other men,
And leave my burden in a clod of clay!
The peace of death is peace inviolate,
His realm a placid place from age to age.
So when again, from these thine ivory gates,
Thy chariot bears thee to the wistful earth,—
Where sedges rustle to thine herald wind,
And rivers creep through many a length of land,
Where shepherds pipe upon the pasture hills
Of rich Arcadia, or the purple peaks
Of fair Aegina and the Cyclades,—
Mark! when the bee has sealed her amber cells,
The swallow laced the air with weaving wings,
The lark achieved the summit of his song,
And every creature lived his life, they drop
Like thunder-bolt from heaven upon the deep,
In one short moment into endless rest!
But when the swarthy Evening clasps the beads
Of topaz on her brow, return! And there,
On thy dear bosom, will I lay my head,
To hear thy whispered tidings; that my soul
May shed itself, in memory of these things,
In one great burst of tears, and I may die!
For all the seasons tread with weighted heels,
And all thy beauty makes my misery more!
Pray that I too may die, like other men,
And leave my burden in a clod of clay!
The peace of death is peace inviolate,
His realm a placid place from age to age.
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Thy chariot bears thee to the wistful earth,—
Where sedges rustle to thine herald wind,
And rivers creep through many a length of land,
Where shepherds pipe upon the pasture hills
Of rich Arcadia, or the purple peaks
Of fair Aegina and the Cyclades,—
Mark! when the bee has sealed her amber cells,
The swallow laced the air with weaving wings,
The lark achieved the summit of his song,
And every creature lived his life, they drop
Like thunder-bolt from heaven upon the deep,
In one short moment into endless rest!
But when the swarthy Evening clasps the beads
Of topaz on her brow, return! And there,
On thy dear bosom, will I lay my head,
To hear thy whispered tidings; that my soul
May shed itself, in memory of these things,
In one great burst of tears, and I may die!
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