THE ODYSSEY.
As one that for a weary space has lain
Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
Where that Ææan isle forgets the main,
And only the low lutes of love complain,
And only shadows of wan lovers pine,
As such an one were glad to know the brine
Salt on his lips, and the large air again,—
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours,
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
TWO SONNETS OF THE SIRENS.
"Les Sirènes estoient tant intimes amies et fidelles
compagnes de Proserpine, qu'elles estoient toujours
ensemble. Esmues du juste deuil de la perte de leur
chère compagne, et enuyées jusques au desespoir,
elles s'arrestèrent à la mer Sicilienne, où par leurs
chants elles attiroient les navigans, mais l'unique
fin de la volupté de leur musique est la Mort."
—Pontus de Tyard—1570.
I.
The Sirens once were maidens innocent
That through the water-meads with Proserpine
Plucked no fire-hearted flowers, but were content
Cool fritillaries and flag-flowers to twine,
With lilies woven and with wet woodbine;
Till forth to seek Ætnæan buds they went,
And their kind lady from their choir was rent
By Hades, down the irremeable decline.
And they have sought her all the wide world through,
Till many years, and wisdom, and much wrong,
Have filled and changed their song, and o'er the blue
Rings deadly sweet the magic of the song,
And whoso hears must listen till he die
Far on the flowery shores of Sicily.
II.
So is it with this singing art of ours,
That once with maids went, maidenlike, and played
With woven dances in the poplar-shade,
And all her song was but of lady's bowers
And the returning swallows, and spring-flowers,
Till forth to seek a shadow-queen she strayed,
A shadowy land; and now hath overweighed
Her singing chaplet with the snow and showers.
And running rivers for the bitter brine
She left, and by the margin of life's sea
Sings, and her song is full of the sea's moan,
And wild with dread, and love of Proserpine;
And whoso once has listened to her, he
His whole life long is slave to her alone.
LOVE'S EASTER.
SONNET.
Love died here
Long ago;
O'er his bier,
Lying low,
Poppies throw;
Shed no tear;
Year by year,
Roses blow!
Year by year,
Adon—dear
To Love's Queen—
Does not die!
Wakes when green
May is nigh!
TWILIGHT.
SONNET.
(AFTER RICHEPIN.)
Light has flown!
Through the grey
The wind's way
The sea's moan
Sound alone!
For the day
These repay
And atone!
Scarce I know,
Listening so
To the streams
Of the sea,
If old dreams
Sing to me!
BION.
The wail of Moschus on the mountains crying
The Muses heard, and loved it long ago;
They heard the hollows of the hills replying,
They heard the weeping water's overflow;
They winged the sacred strain—the song undying,
The song that all about the world must go,—
When poets for a poet dead are sighing,
The minstrels for a minstrel friend laid low.
And dirge to dirge that answers, and the weeping
For Adonais by the summer sea,
The plaints for Lycidas, and Thyrsis (sleeping
Far from "the forest ground called Thessaly"),—
These hold thy memory, Bion, in their keeping,
And are but echoes of the moan for thee.
SAN TERENZO.
(The village in the bay of Spezia, near which Shelley was living before the
wreck of the Don Juan.)
Mid April seemed like some November day,
When through the glassy waters, dull as lead,
Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead,
Slipped down the curved shores of the Spezian bay,
Rounded a point,—and San Terenzo lay
Before us, that gay village, yellow and red,
With walls that covered Shelley's homeless head,—His
house, a place deserted, bleak and grey.
The waves broke on the door-step; fishermen
Cast their long nets, and drew, and cast again.
Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free,
When suddenly the forest glades were stirred
With waving pinions, and a great sea bird
Flew forth, like Shelley's spirit, to the sea!
NATURAL THEOLOGY.
ἐπει καὶ τοῡτον ὀΐομαι ἀθανατοισιν
ἔυχεσται· Πάντες δὲ θεῶν χατέουσ' ἄνθρωποι.
OD. III. 47.
"Once Cagn was like a father, kind and good,
But He was spoiled by fighting many things;
He wars upon the lions in the wood,
And breaks the Thunder-bird's tremendous wings;
But still we cry to Him,—We are thy brood—
O Cagn, be merciful! and us He brings
To herds of elands, and great store of food,
And in the desert opens water-springs."
So Qing, King Nqsha's Bushman hunter, spoke,
Beside the camp-fire, by the fountain fair,
When all were weary, and soft clouds of smoke
Were fading, fragrant, in the twilit air:
And suddenly in each man's heart there woke
A pang, a sacred memory of prayer.
HOMER.
Homer, thy song men liken to the sea,
With all the notes of music in its tone,
With tides that wash the dim dominion
Of Hades, and light waves that laugh in glee
Around the isles enchanted; nay, to me
Thy verse seems as the River of source unknown
That glasses Egypt's temples overthrown
In his sky-nurtured stream, eternally.
No wiser we than men of heretofore
To find thy sacred fountains guarded fast;
Enough, thy flood makes green our human shore,
As Nilus Egypt, rolling down his vast
His fertile flood, that murmurs evermore
Of gods dethroned, and empires in the past.
RONSARD.
Master, I see thee with the locks of grey,
Crowned by the Muses with the laurel-wreath;
I see the roses hiding underneath,
Cassandra's gift; she was less dear than they.
Thou, Master, first hast roused the lyric lay,
The sleeping song that the dead years bequeath,
Hast sung thine answer to the songs that breathe
Through ages, and through ages far away.
And thou hast heard the pulse of Pindar beat,
Known Horace by the fount Bardusian!
Their deathless line thy living strains repeat,
But ah, thy voice is sad, thy roses wan,
But ah, thy honey is not cloying sweet,
Thy bees have fed on yews Sardinian.