8

The lazy drones! The frogs! The locusts!
Big men! Politicians! Men who draw
Their learning from the thoughtless journals!

A crowd of stupid, haughty blockheads!
Unworthily, thy name is set
By each as target for blind blows;

But forward still thy steps thou leadest,
Up toward the high bell-tower above,
And climbest: Spaces spread about thee,

And at thy feet, a world of scorners.
Though thou rainest not the godsent manna,
A great Life-giver still, thou tollest

With a new bell a new-born creed.

9

Aye! Break the tyrant's hated chains!
But with their breaking go not drunk!
The world is always slaves and lords:

Though free, chain-bound your life must be;
Other kinds of chains are there
For you: Kneel down! For lo, I bring them!

They fit you, redeemers or redeemed!
Bind with these chains your golden youth;
I bring you cares and sacrifices.

And you shall call them Truth and Beauty,
Modesty, Knowledge, Discipline!
To one command obey last, first,

The world's great laws, and men, and nations.

One of his "Hundred Voices" has something of this satiric note. It is a blow against a worthless pretender of the art of verse, who courts popularity with strains not worthy of the sacred Muse. Palamas, acting with greater wisdom than Pope, does not give the name of this unknown pretender:

Bad? Would that thou wert bad; but something worse thou art:
Thou stretchedst an unworthy hand to the sacred lyre,
And the untaught mob took thy reeling in the dust
For the true song of golden wings; and thou didst take
Thy seat close by the poet's side so thoughtlessly,
And none dared rise and come to drag thee thence away.
And see, instead of scorning thee, the just was angry;
Yet, even his verse's arrow is for thee a glory!

The Grave

In tracing the great life influences of our poet, we must not pass over the loss of his third child, "the child without a peer," as he says in one of his poems addressed to his wife, "who changed the worldly air about us into divine nectar, a worthy offering to the spotless-white light of Olympus." To this loss, the poet has never reconciled himself. The sorrow finds expression in direct or covert strains in every work he has written. But its lasting monument was created soon after the child's death. A collection of poems, entitled The Grave, entirely devoted to his memory, is overflowing with an unique intensity of feeling. The poems are composed in short quatrains of a slowly moving rhythm restrained by frequent pauses and occasional metrical irregularities, and thus they reflect with faithfulness the paternal agony with which they are filled. They belong to the earlier works of the poet, but they disclose great lyric power and are the first deep notes of the poet's genius. A few lines from the dedication follow:

Neither with iron,
Nor with gold,
Nor with the colors
That the painters scatter,

Nor with marble
Carved with art,
Your little house I built
For you to dwell for ever;

With spirit charms alone
I raised it in a land
That knows no matter nor
The withering touch of Time.

With all my tears,
With all my blood,
I founded it
And built its vault....

In another poem, in similar strains, he paints the ominous tranquility with which the child's birth and parting were attended:

Tranquilly, silently,
Thirsting for our kisses,
Unknown you glided
Into our bosom;

Even the heavy winter
Suddenly smiled
Tranquilly, silently,
But to receive you;

Tranquilly, silently,
The breeze caressed you,
O Sunlight of Night
And Dream of the Day;

Tranquilly, silently,
Our home was gladdened
With sweetness of amber
With your grace magnetic;

Tranquilly, silently,
Our home beheld you,
Beauty of the morning star,
Light of the star of evening;

Tranquilly, silently,
Little moons, mouth and eyes,
One dawn you vanished
Upon a cruel deathbed;

Tranquilly, silently,
In spite of all our kisses,
Away you wandered
Torn from our bosom;

Tranquilly, silently,
O word, O verse, O rime,
Your witherless flowers
Sow on his grave faith-shaking.

In another poem reminiscent of Tibullean tenderness, the corners of the deserted home, in which the child, during his life, had lingered to play, laugh, or weep, converse with each other about their absent guest:

Things living weep for you,
And lifeless things are mourning;
The corners, too, forlorn,
Remember you with longing:

"One evening, angry here he sat,
And slept in bitterness."
"Here, often he sat listening
Enchanted to the tale."

"Here, I beheld with pride
The grace of Love half-naked;
An empty bed and stripped
Is all that now is left me."

"I always looked for him;
He held a book; how often
He sat by me to read
With singing tongue its pages!"

"What is this pile of toys?
Why are they piled before me
As if I were a grave?
Are they his little playthings?

"The little man comes not;
For death with early frost
Has nipped his little dreams
And chilled his little doings."

"His little sword is idle,
And here has come to rest."
"And here his little ship
Without its captain waits."

"To me, they brought him sick
And took him away extinguished."
"They watered me with tears
And perfumed me with incense."

"The dead child's taper burns
Consuming and consumed."
"The tempest wildly beats
Upon the doors and windows,
And deep into our breasts
The tempest's moan is echoed."

And all the house about
For thee, my child, is groaning ...