Lyrical Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lyrical Poems

By Francis Turner Palgrave

Palgrave, Francis Turner (1824-1897)

LYRICAL POEMS

TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF FREE ATHENS

Book First

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

Book First

MELUSINE

1

Here, as one sits on the sand,
So brimming and smooth comes the sea,
That 'tis almost the same to be here,
And within its bosom to be;—
Glassily lisping, lisping low, lisping amorously:—
A wash of crystal runs up
And freshens the pebbled shore,
And can hardly float the drift,
Or turn the light sea-weed o'er.
The Sun, like an aged king,—
Aged, yet still in his might,—
Has one more half hour of glory
His wealth on the world to fling,
A golden path to the west and the lands beyond the night.

2

The wild sharp rocks around
Grow wilder against the sky,
As the fisherman sees at his feet
A film of green go by;
Fringed, as the work of a girl, and folded curiously.
Careless, he picks from the brine;
Careless, he drops from his sight;
When lo! between him and the sun,
What flashes as light in light?
What maiden, what gray-green eyes,
Pale gleam of golden hair,
Pale as gold pure from the mine,
Lips eager with fear and surprise;—
What deep-sea maiden, what pearl and wonder of Ocean, is there?

3

His heart leapt high as he look'd;
For oft had he heard men say
How the royal girls of the deep
Beneath their green heaven play,
Fairer than any we see in the sun-light of common day.

And the love of Kathleen in her pride,
And the smile of Kathleen in her glee,
Faded and fell from his heart
As he looked on the maid of the sea:
‘'Tis not I have a crown of gold,
Nor a palace on earth for my Love;
But I clasp her with human love;
With a man's blood my heart is bold;
The sun of the sea-world is dim to the merest star-light above.’

4

With tears, large tears, she pray'd him
The green-fringed fillet restore,
That she might go under the seas
To her home and her girlhood once more,
The central calm of the deep, however earth's tempests roar.
But the blood was strong at his heart,
And he ask'd and denied so long,
That, whether o'ermaster'd by love
Or sense of incurable wrong,
She bent to the passionate prayer,
She gave ear to the name of wife;

Within his cottage to dwell,
Having part in human care,
And changing for earthly things her birthright of Ocean life.

From the happy kingdom
Without sun or snow,
Frost or rain or tempest,
Melusine must go.

There no night comes near them,
Nor the gloom of storms;
But their emerald heaven
Glows with blazing forms.

There the gray sea-serpent
From the liquid skies
Leans his hairy forehead
And his searching eyes.

There the forest corals
Stretching thousand hands,
Burn with flowers of ruby
On the silver sands.

O'er the windless level
Purple shadows flow
Where, in their dim heaven,
Monsters flash and go.

Souls of wave-whelm'd seamen
There white arms caress;
Whilst their friends bemoan them,
Lapt in happiness.

Day runs into day, as
One who draws no breath
Through a year of visions;
Neither life nor death:—

As when storms are silent
In their summer cave,
All the plains of Ocean
Are one single wave:—

Neither life nor death, but
Deeper calm between,
Deeper peace than Eden's:—
Ah! for Melusine!

1

The happy days go by;
The life of earth is bless'd, where, by the mere,
The cottage sees its second self below
So still, so clear,
That calm itself has no more to bestow.

2

Gray mountains all around
Immoveable; green meadows bosom'd high,
Haunted with solitude; the clinking bell
Far off, yet nigh,
Where the still herds like spots of shadow dwell:—

3

Lush aspens by the lake;
Lake-level pastures; and the hidden nook
Where, o'er worn boulders arrowy breaking by,
The clear brown brook
Makes stillness stiller with its one sweet cry:—

4

Gray mountains all around;
Above, the crystal azure, perfect, pale;

As if a skirt of Eden's heaven forgot
Arch'd o'er the vale,
Guarding a peace beyond earth's common lot.

5

All these things, day by day,
So wrought on her, though fairy-born and wild,
—As the soft handling of the mother steals
Into the child,
Till it becomes the gentleness it feels,—

6

That from the seas her heart
Turn'd landward to that cottage-life:—the kine,
The garden, the low bee-hive bench, the trough
Of hustling swine,
The colt that neigh'd beholding her far off.

7

Rarely her steps were set
To that small village by the bay, where he
Follow'd his craft, and with some inborn sense
Of courtesy
Kept from her eyes the nets and cordage, whence

8

He drew their food. But she,
When heat of summer spoil'd the chase afloat,
Would lead him to the lake, and grasp the oar
Of some small boat
That lay there, and push merrily from the shore.

9

But in the midmost mere's
Deep crystal, pure, invisible, where the keel
Hung like a bird o'er some sheer mountain glen,
A light would steal
Into her eyes, a passionate tone:—and then

10

Quick tears: till now she seized
Her oar, and breathless made the land, and wild
Ran in, and leant above her firstborn's cot,
And slowly smiled,
As when one sees a face too long forgot.

Queen of the crystalline lake,
Lift thy lilied head on high;
Lift thy pearl-wreathed arms, and take
One who weeps, and knows not why:
To her home 'neath Ocean green
Bear the long-sought Melusine.

Where thy silver palace shines,
Where the secret caverns be,
Spar-wall'd labyrinthine mines
Winding to the central sea;
Where the waves await their Queen,
Carry thou fair Melusine.

All our merry maids are dumb,
All our grottoes gloom'd with night;
Coral groves of crimson bloom,
Missing her, are bare and white;
All our pearls have lost their sheen,
Changed to tears for Melusine.

Queen of the crystalline lake,
Lift thy lilied head on high!

All beneath the seas awake
Wild lament, and tear, and sigh,
As soft snows with rain between,
For the love of Melusine.

1

O Man, who, in the foolish heart of pride,
Holds himself born of the superior kind,
And boasts his crude half-knowledge, coarse and blind,
Scorning the smaller footsteps at his side,
And narrower scale of less-experienced mind:—

2

While Nature, working in her unspoil'd child,
Oft gives an insight better than the lore
That he attains, plying the plough and oar,
Or 'mong the blunted souls by lust defiled,
Or smooth-worn by the world, and rounded o'er.

3

For She, foreseeing what we lose by life,
Is born afresh in every babe, and new:—

And most men raze her stamp, and prove untrue;
But the girl's heart is less with self at strife,
And keeps till night some drops of dawning's dew.

4

So Melusine, when again she saw the cot,
And touch'd her babe, and lull'd its yearning cries,
Felt all the mother at her bosom rise,
And took the colour of her earthly lot,
And that wild music faded from her eyes.

5

Then pass'd forth on the common household ways;
Making base things by her sweet service sweet,
Letting the year in one long present fleet,
As though the past at will she could efface,
And all to-morrows would to-day repeat.

6

And all things round unchanged, unchangeable
Appear'd: the mountains; the green slopes on high;
The trees; the sunny pastures of the kye;
The lake that kept its crystal secrets well;
And the clear streamlet with its long sweet cry.

7

Only the babe grew, lovelier in his growth;
Pacing the earthen floor with solemn feet;
Then, with quick turns, and cries of laughter sweet;
Then, the loud, sturdy steps of sunburnt youth,
Till her brave fisher-boy stood forth complete.

8

Also a gray-eyed girl, who smiled and went
Just as the little words that Melusine
Alone could follow, came her lips between;
O'er whom, with folded hands, the mother bent
Weekly; one small green mound in churchyard green.

9

Thus fared she many years: and though by right
Born Queen beneath the waves, so graciously
She set herself to all, whate'er might be,
Of duty, that no maid through Erin bright
Was wifelier in her low estate than she.

10

One morn the boy, now capable and strong,
Cried, ‘Mother, I would with my father go:

Why warn me from the waves, and speak of woe
And perils that to seamen's toil belong?
I am a man; and a man's life must know.’

11

—Once more she stroked the hair, so often stroked
In golden childhood, kiss'd so often then,—
And said, ‘Go forth, my child, now man 'mongst men;
Go, prosper:’—then 'neath smiles her fear she cloak'd,
Sighing ‘'Tis Nature's cry: I strove in vain.’

12

So they went forth, the seaman and his son.
She sate, and pray'd a prayer, and took her wheel;
And though to the green grave half bent to steal,
Thought ‘'Twill but make me feel the more alone;’
And with soft fingers fed the flying reel.

13

Higher the sun went up in windless blue,
Such calm as almost is akin to fear;
A blaze shot skyward from the crystal mere;
The very gnat that humm'd her chamber through
Was comfort,—solitude press'd in so near.

14

Through the small open casement stream'd the noise
Of utter silence, audible, intense.
She rose and look'd out on the lake; and thence
The cry as of a child came; a child's voice;
Once heard:—then, utter silence, blank, intense.

15

And all things round unchanged, unchangeable,
Appear'd: the lone gray hills; the perfect sky;
The trees; the sunny pastures of the kye;
The lake in sapphire beauty mirror-still;
And the clear streamlet with its long sweet cry.

16

To the small churchyard and the mound of green
She look'd; and a white flame above it burn'd,
That went before her eyes, where'er she turn'd.
And then a change fell on sweet Melusine,
And her whole heart toward the lost infant yearn'd.

17

And that fair landscape round, so still, so fair,
Was hateful in its fairness:—the pure sky,

The mountains in their gray unsympathy,
The presences within the silent air,
Mock'd her. And, as one who himself must fly,

18

She turn'd, and 'gainst the wall she set her eyes,
Crying ‘My baby’!: nor spoke other word;
Nor could she pray, nor look around; nor heard
The sudden roar and menace of the skies,
Nor how the lake through its dim depths was stirr'd:—

19

Nor how the seas were calling to the shore
With outstretch'd angry arms and thunder voice,
Wracking whole fleets in pride like riven toys;
And deep beneath the riot and uproar,
The flute-clear paean of a wild Rejoice!

20

But she lay long; and all those vanish'd days
Of the lost treasure came within her breast:
The throes, the glory when her girl she press'd;
The smile that first broke o'er the passive face;
The gracious limbs, the warm, the oft-caress'd:

21

The little hands that hid the face in play;
The shout of pride, half cry, half triumph sweet,
When first alone upon the trembling feet;
The lisp, that makes the mother's heart so gay,
When once the doubtful lips her name repeat:—

22

The flower, the lamb, the baby Melusine:—
And then she knew not what she was, nor where:
But struck blind hands out in her blind despair,
Pierced by that saddest, last, Such things have been—;
And where beside the cradle, stripp'd and bare,

23

An old sea-basket lay, her fingers sought
Some faded thing, some relic torn and small,
Dear though long hid from touch and sight of all,
Which for the little one those hands had wrought
In days that God himself could not recall.

24

—Ah, Melusine! ah mother now no more!
For what she sought, her passion seeks in vain:

Another relic 'tis she sees again,—
The amulet which her youthful forehead bore
When at her will she clove the vassal main.

25

There, since that sunset hour when in the bay
She bade farewell to all she once had been,
Had slept the magic of the fillet green;
As dormant till some city's destined day,
The earthquake lurks within its cave unseen.

26

With that, upon her all her youth rush'd in
As the great wave when Etna heaves the sea;
The long long years on earth pass'd utterly,
As night's sad dreams, at first awakening,
Break up to shreds, and fade, and we are free.

27

So, long pent Nature had at last her way!
And Melusine leapt back to her early lot,
Seeking the bay, since youth unseen, forgot,
And headlong plunged,—where in the surf they lay,
A seaman and his son,—and knew them not.

28

—Then Nature, like the deep sea, closed o'er all,—
Souls, passions, little lives: no bead of air,
No ripple:—as yestreen, the vale was fair
Next day, next century: nor does aught recall
What in old time was loved and suffer'd there.

29

Her's was the last word; and the landscape took
The impassive shadow of her quiet sway.
Still round the vale the mountains keep their gray
Long watch, above the mere and arrowy brook,
And the free herds in their lone pastures stray.

30

She has resumed her own; and there is rest.
All trace of what was once has now gone by;
Save where the cottage-gable, bare and high,
Poor forlorn mimic of the mountain crest,
Cuts its gray slope against the calm clear sky.

ALCESTIS

ARGUMENT

Admetus, son of Pherés and Clymené, and King of Pherae in Thessaly, has married Alcestis, daughter to Pelias and Anaxibia of Iolkos, a city on the stream Anauros under Mount Pelion, at the head of the gulf of Pagasa. Admetus is claimed by the Fates for early death, unless one of his family will die for him, according to the terms obtained at his marriage by Apollo. His parents refuse; whereupon Alcestis dies for him. But Persephoné-Kora, Queen of the world below, moved by the self-sacrifice of Alcestis, restores her to life.

Another version describes her as recovered from Death by Herakles. The intervention of Persephoné appearing to be the older and nobler form of the myth (although against the authority of Euripides), has been here preferred. It is not known how this point was dealt with in the Admetus of Sophocles.

1

‘Twelve years have gone, twelve happy, happy years,
Since I, the Queen, on lion-harness'd car,
From Pelias' house was by Admetus brought;
Who with his wife so graciously has wrought
That my own girlhood seems already far:

2

‘But comes again in this my maiden child,
And this bright son, high Pherae's future king.

Why then, when all things are of gladsomeness,
Crouch ye with ashes crown'd and ashy dress?
What weight of silent sadness do ye bring?

3

‘We have been happy: but the gods, I know,
Love in their might to stain man's happiness,
Clouding with wormwood drops the wine of life.
With what dumb message then your lips are rife
Speak; Joy, not pain, is by delay made less.’

4

To whom the spokesman of the household throng:—
‘O Queen, O worship of Thessalian eyes
Since, clothed in morning's gifts,

Ηους εχουσα δωρα.—Euripides; Alcestis, 1. 289.

divinely fair,
Thou cam'st; we know how thou wilt greatly bear
What thou wilt greatly hear without disguise.

5

‘Men bid some drape themselves before they fall;
But thou art ever equal to thy fate,
Robed in all seemliness, lady complete.
So thus our woe we lay before thy feet,
And how thou may'st redeem the ruin'd state.

6

‘Against thy lord the blue-eyed lord of Death
His glance has set: nor is there any aid
By which the head of Thessaly should live
Save this; that of the household one should give
A life for his, unbought and unafraid.

7

‘For when Admetus from Iolkos fair
In that strange car, across the meadows green,
First brought thee, in thy wedding-rites the name
Of Artemis, forgotten, wrought her shame;
And by the genial couch the indignant Queen

8

‘Coil'd a foul ring of snakes, and on his head
Sign'd a prophetic sign of early death.
But, for the love he bore Admetus young,
Apollo from the Fates this promise wrung,
That they would take such ransom for his breath.

9

‘Now, therefore, think what may be done.’
Thus they:
But she bow'd down her head, and spoke no word,

Drawing her children closer to the knee;
Nor check'd the silver current of their glee,
Nor by their hands' petitioning was stirr'd.

10

And as the waters o'er some drowning head
Close, in green mist, and press upon the life,
And in one flash all that the man has been
Starts out, as mountain-tracts by lightning seen,
And he sinks flat, and quits an idle strife:—

11

So her young days upon her soul came back:—
Iolkos: the white walls: the purple crest
Of Pelion hung above them, whence a cry
Of clanging eagles vex'd the summer sky,
And loosen'd crags scarr'd the dark mountain breast:—

12

And how Apollo o'er the purple crest
Came with the morn, and sent his golden beam
Slant on the dancing waves: and how she fear'd,
That day, when by the eclipse his locks were shear'd,
Until the God shot forth a sword-like gleam:—

13

She heard the crystal ripplings of the brook
That first allured her baby feet to try
Its mountain coolness, till she reach'd the sea,
And the warm waves came laughing o'er her knee,
Kissing the fair child oft and amorously:—

14

And how o'er all that inland ocean,

The Gulf of Pagasa, nearly closed towards the south by the singular isthmus which stretches between the old towns Olizon and Aphetae.

barr'd
From Aphetae to Olízon, the great hill
Flung his green shadow, and the sea-nymphs play'd,
And call'd her to their revel, undismay'd:—
Then, with what subterfuge of maiden skill

15

When first Admetus to Iolkos came,
She veil'd the traitor trembling, that proclaim'd
Love and Love's lord; and how she look'd her heart,
And Anaxibia took her daughter's part,
And the strange chariot bore her, unashamed,

16

Over the meadows green, by Pagasae,
And the corn reddening on the Dotian plain,

And the blue cornflowers loose amid the corn,
And the lark scattering in the crystal morn
His unremittent gush of silver rain:

17

And how the watchful eyes of her young lord
Flash'd, when at hand the tall white towers they know
Of Pherae: and the sweetness of the way:
And how great Ossa north in shadow lay
Like the foreboding of a coming woe,

18

But distant: and, ‘O Gods, avert it now
From him and these,’ she cried, ‘if not from me;
Through love of whom, forgetful, on his head
He brought this summons to the youthful dead.’
—Then a touch woke her from that reverie,

19

And the King stood at height and fronted her:
And the sad secret of each other's eyes
Each read, and in the breathing of a breath
Each heart devour'd the bitterness of death,
And knew itself and saw without disguise.

20

Then she, the last faint hope to end at once,—
For life is sweet, and little faces plead
For mother's love, and anchor her to life,—
‘Pherés or Clymené,’ whisper'd, ‘or thy wife’?
But he, her latter accents without heed

21

Hearing, and hearing not, in deaf despair,
Cried ‘O my father and my mother! old
In years, but not in honour, who could choose
Their dregs of life, the days that none can use
Nor glory in, nor aught of joy behold,

22

‘Before the younger life, that they had borne:
And hand their son to death before his due,
And lay the head of Thessaly in dust,
And leave these, orphans, with a dull we must;
Life is so sweet; the grave so near in view!

23

‘Parents! Not parents! I abjure the name:
Those ne'er begot, or they had loved me more,

Me, and the land, and gods of Thessaly,
And Hellen our first ancestor, and thee,
And those whom in the couch thy peril bore.

24

‘They should have ta'en the tatter of their days
And with it pieced my purple robe of youth;
Keeping for me the word Apollo gave,
When in my house he earn'd his bread, a slave,
Won from the stern Fates by celestial ruth.

25

‘As the young larch-plant upon Pelion's side
Lifts his green spire and goes on high with joy,
They should have let me live the life of man:
But now to the dark house and shadows wan,
Where wit is vain and strength has no employ,

26

‘(Save through one sacrifice that may not be) I go.’
Then she, with prayerful earnest eyes,
Her incense offering on the altar threw;
Which hiss'd into white wreaths, and pass'd from view.
‘And such,’ she said, ‘the law of sacrifice.

27

‘We do not what we see, but what we know:
Whither ascend our prayer and gift, is hid:
And who his life lays down at their command,
Following the motion of a hidden hand,
Him the just gods to their high banquet bid.

28

‘Yet life is sweet, and sweet to see the sun,
And love is sweet, and sight of these, and thee:
To clasp the little limbs, the pure, the fine,
To kiss them o'er and o'er and call them mine,
And dress and dance the darlings on the knee:

29

‘To scan the blue depth of the stainless eyes;
The wonder of the waxing frame to see;
To watch the unconscious words take form and life;
The wayward fancies of the future wife,
The young assertion of the man to be.

30

‘Ah, yet it must be! Love! and I submit.
Which is more precious, few or many years?

For what is most so, to the gods we give.
And few the hours thy parents have to live:
Their thread already straight between the shears.

31

So let them move the last faint steps in peace
Down the long avenue of well-spent days.
But thou—it must not be that thou should'st die!
Thessalia's shining head; the people's eye;
'Twixt gods and men throned in a middle place.

32

‘He too will need the pillar of the house,
This gallant boy, high Pherae's future king;
And this fair girl, whom one I ne'er shall see
Will come with gifts and prayers to claim of thee,
And in her eyes a daughter's tears will spring:

33

‘And she will think of one who is no more,
Nor thinks of her nor thee nor anything,
Going with downcast eyes and captive tread
Through the dim garden of the happy dead,
Where summer never comes, nor voice of spring,

34

‘Nor frost nor sun; but the dim rose-red glow
Of autumn dyes the insuperable hill:
Nor past nor future are, nor wish nor vow;
But the white silence of the eternal Now
Wipes out the thought of joy, and fear of ill:

35

‘The realm of the dread Maid, Deméter's child,
Who gathers all, and gives none back again:
—And she is here! and I am not!—farewell’:—
Then on the altar steps gently she fell;
And, as a snow-wreath touch'd by April's rain,

36

The pure into the unseen, death-dissolved,
Melted inaudibly.
Then Admetus knelt,
And kiss'd the hands, first chill'd in ebbing life,
And veil'd his eyes before the vanish'd wife:—
And through the land the shock of sorrow felt

37

Trembled in one long groan and Titan cry:
And the Sun cloak'd himself in wan eclipse

And through the streets they ran with flying hair,
Disfeatured in their grief: but she lay there,
Nor changed the beauty of the perfect lips.

38

Then her son came, and look'd upon her face
Crying ‘O Queen, thrice-honour'd in thy fate!
Thou hast done well, mother, in dying thus;
Thou hast done well: but who will comfort us?
O mother, thou hast left us desolate!

39

‘Ay me, for golden hours with thee have fled:
What summer converse by the fragrant pine;
What evening silences of mere delight,
While zenith moonbeams bathed the terrace white;
What ruby sunsets 'neath the jocund vine!’

40

Also her daughter, from the altar-top
Strewing her golden hair with ashes hoar,
‘Fair in thy life, and fairer in thy death!
But who will stay me when Love takes my breath,
Or give me courage in my child-bed sore?

Ου γαρ σε μητηρ ουτε νυμφευσει ποτε Ουτ' εν τοκοισι σοισι θαρσυνει, τεκνον.—Alcestis, 1. 317-8.

41

‘And how, my father, will it be with thee,
When on the throne thou art in golden state,
And hast not her who at thy side did stand,
Missing the accustom'd voice and smile and hand:—
O mother, thou hast left us desolate!’

42

But the King veil'd his face, and knelt apart,
Being weigh'd down with thought of what had been;
The wedding chamber and the serpents' hiss;
The genial hour that made Alcestis his;
The gleaming ocean and the meadows green:

43

And the first smile, the oft rememberéd,
When to Iolkos in bright youth he came,
And she behind a column of the hall
Blush'd like the full-ripe apple ere it fall,
And bow'd her face ashamed for that sweet shame.

44

—O Life, ill-balanced in its restlèssness!
That from the days of youth looks on to age,

And from the hoary years thinks boyhood bliss,
Nor learns that only when it is, it is,
Nor in the present finds its heritage!

45

O prized so little when with us thou wast,
What golden haze breathes out from thee afar,
What spell transfiguring the lost hours of youth?
What gracious glamour hides the better truth,
As the heart wills, not as the blood, we are?

46

—As he who whilst the side-long vase ran clear,
Dream'd down whole years in fancy: so the King
From manhood to old age went in one day
Immeasurably long, as there he lay,
And knew each several moment by its sting.

47

But when the people round him murmur'd, Time!
‘Time is enough,’ he cried, ‘if Time mean Death.’
Then a far voice came on his inward ear,
‘Thou hast thy wish, Admetus: I am here’:—
And he look'd up, and drew a passionate breath:

48

And at his side, lo! the dread Maid, divine
Persephoné, crown'd with harvest's golden ear,
And eyes too dreadful to be look'd upon.
And by her stands the gracious form of one
Only the less divine, as less austere,

49

Clad in bright bridal robe, and bridal veil:
And, as the presence of the Gods divine
Opens the eye of man and sharpens, he
Knew her at once, though veil'd, crying ‘'Tis she!’
And clasp'd her hand, and once again said ‘Mine,

50

‘My one of all the world! my all in one!
Whence art thou come and how deliver'd, say,
Alcestis . . . if my own Alcestis . . . tell!’
—But she stood silent:—and a terror fell,
As when a sudden spectre at mid-day

51

Meets us, and we at first have thought it man.
—Then, last, the maiden Queen, Persephoné:

‘I, it was, I, quelling the lord of death,
Restored Alcestis to warm human breath:
I only: doubt not: touch her: it is she.

52

‘She, the young worship of thy youthful days,
The changeless pole-star of thy shifting life;
She, who was all, and gave up all to thee;
Honour'd above all women that shall be;
'Mongst all perfections the most perfect wife.

53

A wealth of gifts God grants the race of man,
And each gift has its own peculiar price;
Strength, courage, wisdom, love, and loveliness:
Yet one the smiles of God supremely bless;—
The heroic beauty of self-sacrifice.

54

‘O weak who stand in fancied strength alone!
Strong but when brothers' hands are held in brothers'!
The Fates at Fame's far-shining trophies laugh:—
What glories equal that plain epitaph
Not for himself was his first thought, but others?

55

‘To lose oneself for one more dear than self!
For others' love one's own love to lay down!
O privilege that the Gods might envy men,
As o'er the flawless walls of heaven they lean,
And watch a mortal win a nobler crown!

56

‘Look on her! touch her! hold thy very own!
As the new life its red rose o'er her flings;
Yet life not wholly what she knew before:
These tender feet have tried the further shore,
These lips the savour of celestial things.

57

‘Henceforth, live worthy of one such as this!
But now, three mornings' sacrifice prepare,
Ere she resumes her gracious human ways:—
To walk together many perfect days,
Until together my repose ye share.’

A MAIDEN'S PRAYERS

I

Leave the flower alone,
In the maidens' place
From her childhood grown!
Leave the flower alone
In her maiden grace.

She is but a child
With a childish smile;
Meadow-sweet and wild;
She is but a child!
Leave her yet awhile.

Artemis my Queen
Guard and grace thy flower;
Bend with arrows keen
O'er the maidens' bower,
Artemis my Queen!

II

Aphrodité Queen
Take thy suppliant's part
In the lonesome hour;
With thy hand of power
Staunch the bleeding heart,
Aphrodité Queen.

Come as once thou cam'st
To the Lesbian maid;
Quit thy daedal throne,
Clasp thy wonder-zone,
In thy smile array'd
Come as once thou cam'st.

Aphrodité, Queen
Of the tell-tale eye,
Of the brimming heart,
Take thy votary's part,
Take me, or I die,
Aphrodité Queen!

A STORY OF NAPLES:

ANCIEN RÉGIME

1

Against the long quays of Naples
The long waves heave and sink,
And blaze in emerald showers,
And melt in pearls on the brink.

2

But as towards Pausilippo
By Margellina we go,
The crimson breath of the mountain
Makes blood in the ripples below.

3

A stone lies there in the pavement,
With a square cut into the stone;
And our feet will carelessly cross it
Like a thousand more, and pass on.

4

But one clothed in widow's clothing
Like a veil'd Vestal stands,
And from that slab in the pavement
Warns with imperious hands.

5

Smiling the sentinels watch us;
A smile and a sneer in one;
And that lordly woman bends her,
And wipes the dust from the stone.

6

‘What secret is in that service
Which she does like a thing divine?
Why guards she the stone from footsteps,
Like a priestess guarding a shrine?’

7

As a wild thing stabb'd by the hunters
She turn'd on us quickly and rose;
`O ye who pass and behold me,
Why ask ye my grief of foes?

8

‘It is enough to have borne them:
It is enough to have lost:
My sons! My fair fair children!
Silence beseemeth most.

9

‘Nor any woe like my woe
Since the Just One was crucified,
And his Mother stood and beheld him,
And could not die when he died.’

10

With that again she bow'd her,
And levell'd her head with the stone.
And in the high noon silence
We heard the mountain groan.

11

As whom a magic circle
Traced round holds prisoner,
We stood and watch'd her kneeling,
And could not speak nor stir.

12

Then from her feet unbended
She slowly rose to her height,
Through the worn robe appearing
Like a queen in her own despite.

13

She knotted her hands behind her
In a knot of bloodless gray,
As if so her lips unaided
Alone her story should say.

14

Like the keen thrilling music
Blown from a tongue of flame,
Through her lips that whisper'd story
With a thin clear calmness came.

15

‘In this square of dust-choked socket
A beam was set last year;
And the scaffold shot forth above it
The gliding axe to rear.

16

‘With gaunt grim poles in order,
As when men a palace build:—
'Tis the house of King Death, this palace!
With headsmen for courtiers fill'd.

17

‘I come at day-break often,
And call it up in my brain:
I see the steel uplifted;
I see it fall again.

18

‘Sirs, 'twas a morn like this morn,
So white and lucid and still;
Only the scowl of thunder
Sat on the face of the hill.

19

‘The steel like the star of morning
Hung silver-glittering on high:—
It fell like the star of morning
By God's hand struck from the sky.

20

‘It rose with a gleam of crimson,
And sank again as it rose:—
And I stood here as one standing
To watch the death of his foes.

21

‘And your eyes may well look wonder
That mine look'd on that thing of hell!
And unask'd ye know already
Who died when lead-like it fell.

22

‘Yes! They were fair as the morning,
Those two young sons of my youth;
Stamp'd with the stamp of Nature
From boyhood soldiers of truth.

23

‘Soldiers of truth and of Italy;
Her blood was quick in their veins,
As they writhed 'neath the lies that bound them,
The canker-poisonous chains.

24

‘The coarse-lipp'd Austrian tyrant
Our serf-kings holding in pay,
Keeps Italy weak and sunder'd,
For the greater ease of his sway.

25

‘In the farce they name our country
A boot towards Africa thrust:
'Tis a boot with an iron heel, then,
To tread her own self in the dust.

26

‘The priest-king haunts in the centre
The eternal ruin of Rome;
The German tramples the Lombard;
And here,—is the Bourbon home.

27

‘They saw these things, my fair ones!
The beauty, the curse, and the woe:
The beauty that seems of heaven;
The curse, pit-black from below.

28

‘O Italy, mother of nations
Like her own fair sea-nymph's brood,
Who turn and rend their mother,—
Children by name, not blood!

29

‘A dubious intricate quarrel
Broke from the court of the North;
And on some mission of order
From Trent the columns push'd forth.

30

‘They came down by Garigliano;
At Teano their halt they call'd,
When the pomegranates were as carbuncles,
And the stream-pools as emerald.

31

‘A cry went up from our people,
Volunteering by fifties to go;
And the king must come forth and lead them
Against his ally the foe.

32

‘E'en in the palace recesses
The gold-laced conscience was stirr'd;—
But the calmer confessor-wisdom
In season whisper'd a word.

33

‘Sirs, from your land of freedom
Ye cannot fathom our land!
—They march out by Pausilippo
That flame-faced patriot band.

34

‘The second son of a second
Cousin of the blood at their head;
—Our gay volunteers to conquest
O! they were right royally led!

35

‘But what, think you, was the conquest
To which they were march'd along,
And the deep rich oily Te Deum
By the barytone canon sung?

36

‘—Where the road turns under Teano,
Half behind the pomegranate close,
Red faced and stalwart-fashion'd,
Point-blank they came on their foes.

37

‘Who should hold back the lions
When the prey to their hands is given?
Each poised his musket and shouted
As if at the sight of Heaven.

38

‘And when that royal field-marshal
With a Halt! fell back to the rear,
Who could rein-in their onset,
Or sever prudence from fear?

39

‘Or care how the royal columns
Ebb'd slowly behind away,
While the best young blood of the city
Unaided rush'd to the fray?

40

‘Ah! thrice-bless'd who fell forward
Before the Tyrolean gun,
And gasp'd out their life in crimson,
Beneath the crimson sun!

41

‘O that I must live to say it,
And live to say it in vain—
My sons! My own two fair ones!
Better had ye been slain.

42

‘I saw them go forth at morning;
I saw them not at night:
And yet they return'd to the city
As captives captured in flight.

43

‘Sirs, the gold-laced thing in the palace
With a bestial instinct dim
Knew that the soldiers of freedom
Must be foes in heart to him.

44

‘I said, the ways of the Bourbon
Ye could not understand!
—They were carted hither as rebels
For a broken word of command.

45

‘They had gone onward as lions
When Royalty mutter'd Withdraw:
And their lives at once lay forfeit
At the lawless feet of the law.

46

‘In the black Castel del Uovo
They lodged them side by side;
And between them,—a Tyrolese soldier
For order and peace to provide.

47

‘That square above is the window,
Notch'd on the white wall stone;’—
We look'd; and again in the silence
We heard the mountain groan.

48

‘Sirs, for this king my husband
In youth laid his own life down!
And I prayed their lives might be spared me,
Their palace pass to the crown.

49

‘How should I do but ask it?
—Yet better not to have ask'd,
Had I seen 'neath a face of mercy
Hell's particular malice mask'd.

50

‘Ye have heard how between two mothers
King Solomon judged of old:—
But how between her two children
Could a mother such judgment hold?

51

‘One life, they said, was given me;
And I was to choose the one:
—The message came at even,
And I sat till the night was done:—

52

‘And I know not how they went by me,
The long long day and the night;
Only within my forehead
Was a burning spot of light:—

53

‘And a cry My brother! my brother!
Why art thou taken from me?
O choice unjust and cruel!
Would that I had died for thee!

54

‘I could not answer the message;
I could not think nor pray:
Only I saw within me
That burning spot alway.

55

‘Poison and glare together,
Like the wormwood star of Saint John,
It sat within my temples,
Throbbing and smouldering on.

56

‘Then once with odour and freshness
As of fields in summer rain,
The vision of their sweet childhood
Was borne on my aching brain.

57

‘Bent over one book together
I saw the fair heads of the twain;
And they read how in Roman battle
Brother by brother was slain.

58

‘And their heads are closer together,
Their hands clasp o'er and o'er,
As they swear that death the divider
Shall only unite them more.

59

‘—Toll! toll! and again!
A bell broke forth in the air:
And I look'd out on the morning;
And the morning was still and fair.

60

‘A black flag hung from the castle,
Where the thin bare flagstaff stands.
And I thought to go up to the castle,
With that bitter choice in my hands.

61

‘A timid crowd was pressing
And bore me along the street;
And I saw the tall scaffold standing
Upon these flags at our feet.

62

‘I saw the steel descending
As a star runs down from the sky:—
—Why should I tell the story?
Ye know it as well as I!

63

‘—The axe took both as I waver'd
Upon that choice accursed!
Now am I wholly childless—
I know not which is worst.

64

‘My sons! My fair fair children!
I know not where they lie:—
Only I know that together
They died,—and I could not die.’

65

—A fork of flame from Vesuvius
Through his black cone went on high;
And a cloud branch'd out like a pine-tree
With thunders throned in the sky.

66

The crimson breath of the mountain
Made blood in the ripples below:—
But she stood gray as marble,
In Niobean woe:—

67

And like a Roman matron
O'er her face she folded the veil,
With a more fix'd composure
Than we who heard her tale.