 | A Lost Epic and Other Poems |  |
14
THE DEATH OF ANAXAGORAS.
“Lampsacum postea profectus, illic diem suum obiit; ubi
rogantibus eum principibus civitatis, Numquid fieri mandaret,
jussisse ferunt ut pueri quotannis quo mense defecisset ludere
permitterentur, servarique et hodie consuetudinem.”—
Diog.
Laert. De Vita Philosoph.; Anaxagoras.
Cleon of Lampsacus to Pericles:—
Of him she banished now let Athens boast;
Let now th' Athenians raise to him they stoned
A statue;—Anaxagoras is dead!
To you who mourn the Master, called him friend,
Beat back th' Athenian wolves who fanged his throat,
And risked your own to save him,—Pericles—
I now unfold the manner of his end.
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The aged man, who found in sixty years
Scant cause for laughter, laughed before he died
And died still smiling:—Athens vexed him not!
Not he, but your Athenians, he would say,
Were banished in his exile!
Scant cause for laughter, laughed before he died
And died still smiling:—Athens vexed him not!
Not he, but your Athenians, he would say,
Were banished in his exile!
When the dawn
First glimmers white o'er Lesser Asia,
And little birds are twittering in the grass,
And all the sea lies hollow and grey with mist,
And in the streets the ancient watchmen doze,
The Master woke with cold. His feet were chill
And reft of sense; and we who watched him knew
The fever had not wholly left his brain,
For he was wandering, seeking nests of birds—
An urchin from the green Ionian town
Where he was born. We chafed his clay-cold limbs;
And so he dozed, nor dreamed, until the sun
Laughed out—broad day—and flushed the garden gods
Who bless our fruits and vines in Lampsacus.
Feeble, but sane and cheerful, he awoke
And took our hands and asked to feel the sun;
And where the ilex spreads a gracious shade
We placed him, wrapped and pillowed; and he heard
The charm of birds, the social whisper of vines,
The ripple of the blue Propontic sea.
Placid and pleased he lay;—but we were sad
To see the snowy hair and silver beard
Like withering mosses on a fallen oak,
And feel that he, whose vast philosophy
Had cast such sacred branches o'er the fields
Where Athens pastures her dull sheep, lay fallen
And never more should know the spring!
First glimmers white o'er Lesser Asia,
And little birds are twittering in the grass,
And all the sea lies hollow and grey with mist,
And in the streets the ancient watchmen doze,
The Master woke with cold. His feet were chill
And reft of sense; and we who watched him knew
The fever had not wholly left his brain,
For he was wandering, seeking nests of birds—
An urchin from the green Ionian town
Where he was born. We chafed his clay-cold limbs;
And so he dozed, nor dreamed, until the sun
Laughed out—broad day—and flushed the garden gods
Who bless our fruits and vines in Lampsacus.
Feeble, but sane and cheerful, he awoke
And took our hands and asked to feel the sun;
And where the ilex spreads a gracious shade
We placed him, wrapped and pillowed; and he heard
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The ripple of the blue Propontic sea.
Placid and pleased he lay;—but we were sad
To see the snowy hair and silver beard
Like withering mosses on a fallen oak,
And feel that he, whose vast philosophy
Had cast such sacred branches o'er the fields
Where Athens pastures her dull sheep, lay fallen
And never more should know the spring!
Confess,
You too had grieved to see it, Pericles!
But Anaxagoras owned no sense of wrong;
And when we called the plagues of all your gods
On your ungrateful city, he but smiled:
“Be patient, children! Where would be the gain
Of wisdom and divine astronomy,
Could we not school our fretful minds to bear
The ills all life inherits? I can smile
To think of Athens! Were they much to blame?
Had I not slain Apollo? Plucked the beard
Of Jove himself? Poor rabble, who have yet
Outgrown so little the green grasshoppers
From whom they boast descent,—are they to blame?
How could they dream,—or how believe when taught—
The sun a red-hot iron ball, in bulk
Not less than Peloponnesus? How believe
The moon, no silver goddess girt for chace,
But earth and stones, with caverns, hills, and vales?
Poor grasshoppers! who deem the gods absorbed
In all their babble, shrilling in the grass,
What wonder if they rage, should one but hint
That thunder and lightning, born of clashing clouds,
Might happen even with Jove in pleasant mood,—
Not thinking of Athenians at all!”
He paused; and blowing softly from the sea,
You too had grieved to see it, Pericles!
But Anaxagoras owned no sense of wrong;
And when we called the plagues of all your gods
On your ungrateful city, he but smiled:
“Be patient, children! Where would be the gain
Of wisdom and divine astronomy,
Could we not school our fretful minds to bear
The ills all life inherits? I can smile
To think of Athens! Were they much to blame?
Had I not slain Apollo? Plucked the beard
Of Jove himself? Poor rabble, who have yet
Outgrown so little the green grasshoppers
From whom they boast descent,—are they to blame?
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The sun a red-hot iron ball, in bulk
Not less than Peloponnesus? How believe
The moon, no silver goddess girt for chace,
But earth and stones, with caverns, hills, and vales?
Poor grasshoppers! who deem the gods absorbed
In all their babble, shrilling in the grass,
What wonder if they rage, should one but hint
That thunder and lightning, born of clashing clouds,
Might happen even with Jove in pleasant mood,—
Not thinking of Athenians at all!”
The fresh wind stirred the ilex, shaking down
Through chinks of sunny leaves blue gems of sky;
And lying in the shadow, all his mind
O'ershadowed by our grief, once more he spoke:—
“Let not your hearts be troubled! All my days
Hath all my care been fixed on this vast blue
So still above us; now my days are done,
Let it have care of me! Be patient; meek;
Not puffed with doctrine! Nothing can be known;
Nought grasped for certain; sense is circumscribed;
The intellect is weak; and life is short!”
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“And yet be nowise downcast; seek, pursue;
The lover's rapture and the sage's gain
Less in attainment lie than in approach.
Look forward to the time which is to come!
All things are mutable; and change alone
Unchangeable. But knowledge grows! The gods
Are drifting from the earth like morning mist;
The days are surely at the doors when men
Shall see but human actions in the world!
Yea, even these hills of Lampsacus shall be
The isles of some new sea, if time not fail!”
And now the reverend fathers of our town
Had heard the Master's end was very near,
And came to do him homage at the close,
And ask what wish of his they might fulfil.
But he, divining that they thought his heart
Might yearn to Athens for a resting-place,
Said gently: “Nay, from everywhere the way
To that dark land you wot of is the same.
I feel no care; I have no wish. The Greeks
Will never quite forget my Pericles,
And when they think of him will say of me,
'Twas Anaxagoras taught him!”
Had heard the Master's end was very near,
And came to do him homage at the close,
And ask what wish of his they might fulfil.
But he, divining that they thought his heart
Might yearn to Athens for a resting-place,
Said gently: “Nay, from everywhere the way
To that dark land you wot of is the same.
I feel no care; I have no wish. The Greeks
Will never quite forget my Pericles,
And when they think of him will say of me,
'Twas Anaxagoras taught him!”
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Loath to go,
No kindly office done, yet once again
The reverend fathers pressed him for a wish.
Then laughed the Master: “Nay, if still you urge,
And since 'twere churlish to reject goodwill,
I pray you, every year when time brings back
The month in which I left you, let the boys—
All boys and girls in this your happy town—
Be free of task and school for that one month.”
He lay back smiling, and the reverend men
No kindly office done, yet once again
The reverend fathers pressed him for a wish.
Then laughed the Master: “Nay, if still you urge,
And since 'twere churlish to reject goodwill,
I pray you, every year when time brings back
The month in which I left you, let the boys—
All boys and girls in this your happy town—
Be free of task and school for that one month.”
Departed, heavy at heart. He spoke no more,
But haply musing on his truant days,
Passed from us, and was smiling when he died.
Thus wrote to Pericles from Lampsacus
The poet Cleon; and the Master's words,
Wherein he spoke of change unchangeable,
Hold good for great things but hold ill for small;
For lo! six hundred fateful years have sped
And Greece is but a Roman province now,
Whereas through those six centuries, year by year
When summer and the sun brought back the time,
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Have held their revelry in Lampsacus,—
A fact so ripe with grave moralities,
That I, Diogenes, have deemed it fit
To note in my “De Vita et Moribus.”
| A Lost Epic and Other Poems | |