For to a pine
They bound me willing, and with cruel stripes
Tore me, and took my life.
But from my blood
Was born the stream of song, and on its flow
My poor flute, to the cool swift river borne,
Floated, and thence adown a lordlier tide
Into the deep, wide sea. I do not blame
Phœbus, or Nature which has set this bar
Betwixt success and failure, for I know
How far high failure overleaps the bound
Of low successes. Only suffering draws
The inner heart of song and can elicit
The perfumes of the soul. 'Twere not enough
To fail, for that were happiness to him
Who ever upward looks with reverent eye
And seeks but to admire. So, since the race
Of bards soars highest; as who seek to show
Our lives as in a glass; therefore it comes
That suffering weds with song, from him of old,
Who solaced his blank darkness with his verse;
Through all the story of neglect and scorn,
Necessity, sheer hunger, early death,
Which smite the singer still. Not only those
Who keep clear accents of the voice divine
Are honourable—they are happy, indeed,
Whate'er the world has held—but those who hear
Some fair faint echoes, though the crowd be deaf,
And see the white gods' garments on the hills,
Which the crowd sees not, though they may not find
Fit music for their thought; they too are blest,
Not pitiable. Not from arrogant pride
Nor over-boldness fail they who have striven
To tell what they have heard, with voice too weak
For such high message. More it is than ease,
Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries,
To have seen white Presences upon the hills,
To have heard the voices of the Eternal Gods."
So spake he, and I seemed to look on him,
Whose sad young eyes grow on us from the page
Of his own verse: who did himself to death:
Or whom the dullard slew: or whom the sea
Rapt from us: and I passed without a word,
Slow, grave, with many musings.
Then I came
On one a maiden, meek with folded hands,
Seated against a rugged face of cliff,
In silent thought. Anon she raised her arms,
Her gleaming arms, above her on the rock,
With hands which clasped each other, till she showed
As in a statue, and her white robe fell
Down from her maiden shoulders, and I knew
The fair form as it seemed chained to the stone
By some invisible gyves, and named her name:
And then she raised her frightened eyes to mine
As one who, long expecting some great fear,
Scarce sees deliverance come. But when she saw
Only a kindly glance, a softer look
Came in them, and she answered to my thought
With a sweet voice and low.
"I did but muse
Upon the painful past, long dead and done,
Forgetting I was saved.
The angry clouds
Burst always on the low flat plains, and swept
The harvest to the ocean; all the land
Was wasted. A great serpent from the deep,
Lifting his horrible head above their homes,
Devoured the children. And the people prayed
In vain to careless gods.
On that dear land,
Which now was turned into a sullen sea,
Gazing in safety from the stately towers
Of my sire's palace, I, a princess, saw,
Lapt in soft luxury, within my bower
The wreck of humble homes come whirling by,
The drowning, bleating flocks, the bellowing herds,
The grain scarce husbanded by toiling hands
Upon the sunlit plain, rush to the sea,
With floating corpses. On the rain-swept hills
The remnant of the people huddled close,
Homeless and starving. All my being was filled
With pity for them, and I joyed to give
What food and shelter and compassionate hands
Of woman might. I took the little ones
And clasped them shivering to the virgin breast
Which knew no other touch but theirs, and gave
Raiment and food. My sire, not stern to me,
Smiled on me as he saw. My gentle mother,
Who loved me with a closer love than binds
A mother to her son; and sunned herself
In my fresh beauty, seeing in my young eyes
Her own fair vanished youth; doted on me,
And fain had kept my eyes from the sad sights
That pained them. But my heart was sad in me,
Seeing the ineffable miseries of life,
And that mysterious anger of the gods,
And helpless to allay them. All in vain
Were prayer and supplication, all in vain
The costly victims steamed. The vengeful clouds
Hid the fierce sky, and still the ruin came.
And wallowing his grim length within the flood,
Over the ravaged fields and homeless homes,
The fell sea-monster raged, sating his jaws
With blood and rapine.
Then to the dread shrine
Of Ammon went the priests, and reverend chiefs
Of all the nation. White robed, at their head,
Went slow my royal sire. The oracle
Spoke clear, not as ofttimes in words obscure,
Ambiguous. And as we stood to meet
The suppliants—she who bare me, with her head
Upon my neck—we cheerful and with song
Welcomed their swift return; auguring well
From such a quick-sped mission.
But my sire
Hid his face from me, and the crowd of priests
And nobles looked not at us. And no word
Was spoken till at last one drew a scroll
And gave it to the queen, who straightway swooned,
Having read it, on my breast, and then I saw,
I the young girl whose soft life scarcely knew
Shadow of sorrow, I whose heart was full
Of pity for the rest, what doom was mine.
I think I hardly knew in that dread hour
The fear that came anon; I was transformed
Into a champion of my race, made strong
With a new courage, glorying to meet,
In all the ecstasy of sacrifice,
Death face to face. Some god, I know not who,
O'erspread me, and despite my mother's tears
And my stern father's grief, I met my fate
Unshrinking.