"Its beauty, and the way it makes you weep": yes—and the way it makes you thrill with love for Herakles, never before so god-like, because always before too much the apotheosis of mere physical power. But read of him in the Alkestis of Euripides, and you shall feel him indeed divine—"this grand benevolence." . . . We can hear the voice of Balaustion deepen, quiver, and grow grave with gladdened love, as Herakles is fashioned for us by these two men's noble minds.
When she had told the "perfect piece" to her girl-friends, a sudden inspiration came to her:
"I think I see how . . .
You, I, or anyone might mould a new
Admetos, new Alkestis";
and saying this, a flood of gratitude for the great gift of poetry comes full tide across her soul:
". . . Ah, that brave
Bounty of poets, the one royal race
That ever was, or will be, in this world!
They give no gift that bounds itself and ends
I' the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds
I' the heart and soul o' the taker, so transmutes
The man who only was a man before,
That he grows god-like in his turn, can give—
He also; share the poet's privilege,
Bring forth new good, new beauty from the old.
. . . So with me:
For I have drunk this poem, quenched my thirst,
Satisfied heart and soul—yet more remains!
Could we too make a poem? Try at least,
Inside the head, what shape the rose-mists take!"
And, trying thus, Balaustion, Feminist, portrays the perfect marriage.
Admetos, in Balaustion's and Browning's Alkestis, will not let his wife be sacrificed for him:
"Never, by that true word Apollon spoke!
All the unwise wish is unwished, oh wife!"
and he speaks, as in a vision, of the purpose of Zeus in himself.