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158

APOLLO'S WRITTEN GRIEF.

“------ The blue bells
Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief.”
Prometheus Unbound, Act ii. Scene I.

I

Is it what men call darkness that is heaving
On me its blinding surge? Darkness is lack
Of all I am,—how should I know its track,
Who leave it rearward as the swift keels cleaving
The sea-lands leave behind the severing mark?
Is it what men call death,—that deeper dark
Enwombing earth's frail offspring, that defies,
Faces, and thralls me? Are these tears that rain
Hot torturing dews upon a cheek from stain
As clear, as from the deluge-bearing skies
Scorched Afric's golden plain?

II

Yea, they are tears, hot tears that love hath taught me,
Tears passionate as Cytherea's breath,
And I, like her, for dead love's sake, with Death
Will strive; the pale narcissus he hath brought me
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Weave in a crown, and his fell kingdom claim;
And it shall be my wrong this bitter shame
Wrought on the rosy sculpture of the gods
Bright manhood's marbled limbs,—wrought on the face
Olumpos matched not.—Thou fair fallen Grace,
Say, what of thee amid the crumbling clods
Still pines for my embrace?

III

Frail aureate opening flower, thou liest faded!
Men dream that thou wert smitten by the glow
Of my too perilous love, not by the blow
Of him who rivalled me, and oft upbraided
The fair boy only proud when I caressed;
My Hyakinthos of the ivory breast,
Meet offering for the sun-god the white shrine
Of thy young spirit panting for the light!
My worshipper, my lover, not too bright
Seemed I to thee; thou sufferedst the divine,
Daring the dread delight.

IV

Can none recover thee? Father of healing
Was my wise child, and wellnigh conquered Fate,
Till Zeus, in fear of hell depopulate,
Murdered my boy, and bade me, ill concealing
My rebel rage, in servitude fulfil
Seven years, till I could bow me to the will
Of him who watched stark Moira's weaving thread
Awful, and trembled at man's impious hand:—
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Yea, death must be, death and the shadow-land,
For mortals; unassuagèd, by my dead,
I, an immortal, stand.

V

More to me than my son, or bond-slave brother,
Great Heraklês, who as the swelling vine
Ripened to godhead; meet for love divine!
Well was it I beheld thee and no other,
On thee heaven's mightiest had swooped in greed,
Thou lovely boy, thou bright-cheeked Ganymede,
Had he beheld thee; but thou wert mine own,
Nor did thy young faith falter from its clear
And passionate devotion. Thy Great Seer
Sovereigned thy life, and thou didst need alone
That he should hold thee dear.

VI

I have been with my worshippers, and often,
When with gay pieties the air was blithe,
With the sweet clustered girls, clear-voiced and lithe,
Mingling unseen, have felt my spirit soften:
When from their weary lips the paian fell,
The music of their motions kept the swell
And rhythmic rise of high choralic seas;
And the soothed ear was of rich sound bereft
As rose of rose-leaves, when her heart is cleft
By gentlest gale; and on the feathered breeze
The rosy scent is left.
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VII

Amid the gleaming, lovely group I lingered,
Yearning to make the graces sybilline,
Yearning in maiden stronghold to enshrine
My deep prophetic life; and deftly fingered
Their fallen lutes;—with Syrinx for his reed
Pan breathed not more melodious pain, a need
More piteous,—yet I found not one of these
Whose spirit I could mould, a cup to fill
With my majestic joys, or who could still
Cravings that only utmost faith can ease,
Of meek surrendered will.

VIII

Wooer of mortal girlhood, none would wed me,
Yea, by a goddess I have been denied.
Veiled Hestia, when I spake of love, replied
By the great virgin oath; frail Daphnê fled me;
The false Korônis to avenging flame
I gave; her pyre waxed pale beside the shame
Of her, my sacred godhead's sole desire,
Who passioned me to bride her with the wild
Fire of my burning lips;—recreant, reviled,
Mourned still in secret pulses of my lyre,
Lost Ilium's museful child.

IX

I saw her first, laid in my shrine for sleeping,
The arched lids open in divinest dream,
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With cheek swept by bright flushes, as the theme
Ruffled her pulses! Subtle serpents creeping
Probed the ears' portals; as their sapient guile
Traversed her spirit's inner haunts, a smile
Owned my gift's potency; so strangely kissed
Procnê's thrill-noted pang, the ecstasy
Of jubilant cicalas, even the sigh
Of tremulous low grasses she could list,
Silence' most dainty cry!

X

So grew she wise through years of happy listening,
Still-lipped, and loving, and serenely gay,
And once again in womanhood she lay
Athwart my temple-steps; the noon was glistening,
But like a flower she drank the light; her vest
Left bare the pure young limbs, the brighter breast
Than my swans' plumes at sun-kiss, and the glow
Of the grand, restful arms—one drawn to serve
As pillow; arching with superber swerve
One, backward flung, fell o'er the hair, and low
Drooped to the finger-curve.

XI

My priestess! not like Pythia when I tore her
With devastating blast, and left her dead,
Warm from my lips the breeze prophetic spread,
Warm from my wooing lips it stole to store her
With the wide world's futurity: she woke;
Slowly the blue eyes opened, and there broke
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'Thwart the great globing iris' thunder fire,
Immitigable splendours! Quivering light
Leapt from the spirit's sluices, till its might
Swelled, like the gathering music of the lyre
To the full paian's height.

XII

Meek as a mortal suppliant I besought her,
Gave her sweet vows, and made myself a child,
Lest the frail-fashioned girl should swoon 'neath wild
Ardours of burning godhead, and I brought her
To bow her burdened spirit to my will
In absolute surrender; to fulfil
My bidding, as a wavering ship her helm.
On my restraining strength her heart she stayed:
A nation's doom on her young lips I laid;
But I had given her soul too vast a realm,—
She trembled, disobeyed.

XIII

Then how I mocked and mightily derided,
And vexed her ears with a world's maniac scorn,
Leaving her wise, prophetic, and forlorn,
Still to make plain the path and none be guided,
To warn her Ilium till its walls should ring
With groaning of the brazen horse, to cling
To cold Athênê, ravished from her feet
By impious Oileus; then to satisfy
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Atreides' lust, goad Klutaimnêstra, cry
On the foul stench of blood; and last—oh, sweet!—
Sing her own dirge, and die.

XIV

I as an athlete mightily have broken
All wrestling will, and given worse than blows
To all who traitored their high selves; when rose
Oriôn from the wave, with lover's token
Flushing the white thoughts of high Artemis,
I swore the floating thing her shaft would miss
And roused her to unerring aim. Beneath
My feet I trampled all infirming power,
Sickness, and hampering pain! Nurse-fed an hour
Childhood's soft swathes I burst, as from its sheath
Bursts the exultant flower!

XV

If aught rose emulously fair I slew it;
When Lêtô passioned that her twain should be
Peered with the clustered wealth of Niobê,
Straightway I swore the impious one should rue it
And bent my bow; no arrow sped in vain!
With satiate wrath by the fair heap of slain
I paused; they were a lovely wreath of dead;—
Sweet-bosomed girls, and boys of snowy limb,
Still as the dawnlight, in the dawnlight dim,
While o'er their ruined forms her sorrow spread
As streams that overbrim.
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XVI

Did I not sway all heaven with my lyreing,
And set high sunlight on the Father's brow?
Harmonia smiled; Arês, forgetful how
His white queen fondled him with love-desiring,
Glowed in the mighty music; Hêrê's pride
Flashed not from the great softened orbs; with wide
Rose-lips child Hêbê listened; the clear eyes
Of dread Athênê kept their dawn, then slow
The plumed helm o'er the aigis drooped; and lo,
Me, a mere Breath, a wanton boy defies,
Dealing the guileful blow!

XVII

Weak-armed and envious dare he so dissemble,
Speeding my quoit with an impetuous breeze?
Did I not use him serf-wise, over-seas
To sweep, his swift subservient wings a-tremble,
The men I plucked from Pylos to my shrine?
Driven by his pressing plumes to be divine
Priests peopled my Parnassian clefts, the bleat
Rose of ungrazing flocks. This violet stain
Dims a world's worship; and it were but vain,
For my lost love, he was so mortal sweet,
A god's fair life to gain.

XVIII

Lost! and I lost him, I, Divine Defender
Of my most sacred things, whose wrath one day
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Persia's wide host in impotence shall lay
By my unguarded shrine. Priests shall surrender
My fame, give room for victory to be won
In the stilled laurels, 'neath the blazing sun,
My ungripped weapons on the temple-stair,
Within, the throne of Midas, Kroisos' bowl,
The glittering lion; ere the thunder roll
Silence shall muster fearfully,—the air
Leashed to my vengeful soul.

XIX

Then, as the ravening hand is stretched for gaining
Of my fair gifts, rises the sudden shock
Of winds, loosed forests, my rent Delphian rock
Dumbing the thunder-roar with chasm-straining,
Ere it can hurl its cloven crests as snow
On the pale host. No Persian bends his bow;
But all as sacrificial sheep shall die
Quivering and quiet. Then an evening breeze
Shall clear the heavens and sway the laurel trees
To swell through murmuring grove the lyric cry
Of choral minstrelsies.

XX

Nay, but mine ears are by the praise upbraided
Of Delphian throng faming my guardian might;
For him I shielded not, my sole Delight,
His dimmed blue eyes groped piteous, ere they faded,
Found me, and flashed the memory-branding fire
Of wrathful love.—It was a holy ire!—
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I kept him not; and the sweet blooms that rise
About my feet, bearing the purple dye
Of his dropt blood, shall bear the charact'ry
Of my vast woe; and I will print my cries
On the dark leaves—Αιαι..

XXI

And I for him, when the young earth doth cast her
Frail flowers, low-drooping in the summer glow,
Three days will consecrate to my great woe;
Yea, and for him, I, of men's lips the master,
Will teach them the corpse-stiffness; there shall come
A day ungarlanded, unfeasting, dumb,
On either side the feast's mid-day, the chief,
When men shall think of death, that mighty wrong
To youth, to sunshine, cithara, and song,
And learn how the great sun-god in his grief
Stooped the still shades among.

XXII

Shall I not gain all soul-realm, sorrow-gaining?
Full near to tears must lie the heart whose reach,
Seer, sybil, sacred threnodist shall teach,
Thrilling each Muse's trembling child and paining
To speech, or mightening into prophecy,
Or melting into love. Must I not die,
Who heal, deliver, ransom, and appal?
Me, Themis-nurtured, men must own in fear,
Plague, and destruction; yet feel ever near
A god, whose lips have made the bitter call
To one who cannot hear.
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XXIII

He hears not, he is gone, gone past returning,
Him on no broidered pasture I shall meet,
Yet the rich purple fragrances my feet
Of flowers that are his life blood. Ne'er did yearning
Of the deep heart die victorless.—The field
Dêmêtêr cursed, starving great Zeus to yield
To her own terms;—the child, the gracious child,
For whom her breasts grew milky, proper food
For the maternal heart-fast. Her fell mood
Moved heaven, and Hadês of his bride beguiled
By the winged herald wooed.

XXIV

Oh, bitter pain that all men cherish passes!
They chafe, nor the gods' kindly thought discern
Through transitory things to bring return.
With the fine green of the year's tender grasses
Hope comes, because they withered in the heat;
But can he come again, my mortal-sweet,
To his immortal lover? Lo, mine eyes
Have gotten tears for him, and through their gloom
Can see but dimly how the belled flowers bloom
Even where he faded:—a blue heaven lies
O'er my beloved's tomb.

XXV

For ever and for ever are they token
Of Love immortal, wed to mortal woe;
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Lord of the lyre-strings, I have learnt to know
In my god's breast, how human hearts are broken,
And from unfathomable pain can feed
Men's lips with eloquence, till every need,
Passion, despair, its imaged voice shall gain;
Then will I compass them with dream, and teach
That which will ravage inwardly, till speech,
Passing through strong child-labour, shall attain
To the prophetic reach.

XXVI

And I will guide men's thoughts, and bid them stumble,
Build the fair tower, with earthquake rent appal,
Train the dull ear to music's ordered fall,
Then awe with surge of chaos, and make humble,
That men may learn to listen deep what breath
May never utter. Consecrate to Death
Is light, and life, and lyre, for thou didst die,
O Hyakinthos, and thy sun-god doom!
Apollo's children now must seek the tomb
To do him service, and his dark Αιαι,
Sad the sweet spring-flowers' bloom.

XXVII

Can the dark conquer thus? By the day's lifting
Of cumbrous cloud; the orient crystal clear,—
By the lute's call that even the dead must hear
And wander lifewards; by the arrows, rifting
The thunder-rocks of heaven, it cannot be!
This hindering of the eyes, obscurity
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Of dust that fades the rose-leaf flesh to gray,
Gives the chill odour, and the corpse-scent sweet,
Has yet his waiting conqueror to meet:
The aureate brow burns for the lustrous bay,
Blazoning dull Death's defeat.

XXVIII

The coilèd dark shall feel the unravelling splendour:—
Did not a quickened slime-bed's loathly den
Foul my Parnassian clefts, and ravin men,
Ere my loosed shaft, in impotent surrender
Laid him, the master-victim of my bow?
The vile thing rotted in the scorching glow;
And men breathed freely.—My belovèd Land,
Land I have lorded with delivering might,
And compassed with divineness, as with light,
One foe remains. Your victor god shall stand
Fronting the great slain night.
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