"Those whom thou seest
Were even as I, embodiments of Him
Who is the Centre of all Life: myself
The Maiden-Queen of Purity; and Strength,
Divine when unabused; Love too, the Spring
And Cause of Things; and Knowledge, which lays bare
Their secret; and calm Duty, Queen of all,
And Motherhood in one; and Youth, which bears,
Beauty of Form and Life and Light, and breathes
The breath of Inspiration; and the Soul,
The particle of God, sent down to man,
Which doth in turn reveal the world and God.
Wherefore it is men called on Artemis,
The refuge of young souls; for still in age
They keep some dim reflection uneffaced
Of a Diviner Purity than comes
To the spring days of youth, when all the world
Smiles, and the rapid blood thro' the young veins
Courses, and all is glad; yet knowing too
That innocence is young—before the soil
And smirch of sadder knowledge, settling on it,
Sully its primal whiteness. So they knelt
At my white shrines, the eager vigorous youths,
To whom life's road showed like a dewy field
In early summer dawns, when to the sound
Of youth's clear voice, and to the cheerful rush
Of the tumultuous feet and clamorous tongues
Careering onwards, fair and dappled fawns,
Strange birds with jewelled plumes, fierce spotted pards,
Rise in the joyous chase, to be caught and bound
By the young conqueror; nor yet the charm
Of sensual ease allures. And they knelt too,
The pure sweet maidens fair and fancy-free,
Whose innocent virgin hearts shrank from the touch
Of passion as from wrong—sweet moonlit lives
Which fade, and pale, and vanish, in the glare
Of Love's hot noontide: these came robed in white,
With holy hymns and soaring liturgies:
And so men fabled me, a huntress now,
Borne thro' the flying woodlands, fair and free;
And now the pale cold Moon, Light without warmth,
Zeal without touch of passion, heavenly love
For human, and the altar for the home.
But oh, how sweet it was to take the love
And awe of my young worshippers; to watch
The pure young gaze and hear the pure young voice
Mount in the hymn, or see the gay troop come
With the first dawn of day, brushing the dew
From the unpolluted fields, and wake to song
The slumbering birds; strong in their innocence!
I did not envy any goddess of all
The Olympian company her votaries!
Ah, happy days of old which now are gone!
A memory and a dream! for now on earth
I rule no longer o'er young willing hearts
In voluntary fealty, which should cease
When Love, with fiery accents calling, woke
The slumbering soul; as now it should for those
Who kneel before the purer, sadder shrine
Which has replaced my own. But ah! too oft,
Not always, but too often, shut from life
Within pale life-long cloisters and the bars
Of deadly convent prisons, year by year,
Age after age, the white souls fade and pine
Which simulate the joyous service free
Of those young worshippers. I would that I
Might loose the captives' chain; or Herakles,
Who was a mortal once."
But he who stood
Colossal at my side:
"I toil no more
On earth, nor wield again the mighty strength
Which Zeus once gave me for the cure of ill.
I have run my race; I have done my work; I rest
For ever from the toilsome days I gave
To the suffering race of men. And yet, indeed,
Methinks they suffer still. Tyrannous growths
And monstrous vex them still. Pestilence lurks
And sweeps them down. Treacheries come, and wars,
And slay them still. Vaulting ambition leaps
And falls in bloodshed still. But I am here
At rest, and no man kneels to me, or keeps
Reverence for strength mighty yet unabused—
Strength which is Power, God's choicest gift, more rare
And precious than all Beauty, or the charm
Of Wisdom, since it is the instrument
Thro' which all Nature works. For now the earth
Is full of meekness, and a new God rules,
Teaching strange precepts of humility
And mercy and forgiveness. Yet I trow
There is no lack of bloodshed and deceit
And groanings, and the tyrant works his wrong
Even as of old; but now there is no arm
Like mine, made strong by Zeus, to beat him down,
Him and his wrong together. Yet I know
I am not all discrowned. The strong brave souls,
The manly tender hearts, whom tale of wrong
To woman or child, to all weak things and small,
Fires like a blow; calling the righteous flush
Of anger to the brow; knotting the cords
Of muscle on the arm; with one desire
To hew the spoiler down, and make an end,
And go their way for others; making light
Of toil and pain, and too laborious days,
And peril; beat unchanged, albeit they serve
A Lord of meekness. For the world still needs
Its champion as of old, and finds him still.
Not always now with mighty sinews and thews
Like mine, though still these profit, but keen brain
And voice to move men's souls to love the right
And hate the wrong; even tho' the bodily form
Be weak, of giant strength, strong to assail
The hydra heads of Evil, and to slay
The monsters that now waste them: Ignorance,
Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of Man,
Disguised as love of God. These there are still
With task as hard as mine. For what was it
To strive with bodily ills, and do great deeds
Of daring and of strength, and bear the crown,
To his who wages lifelong, doubtful strife
With an impalpable foe; conquering indeed,
But, ere he hears the pæan or sees the pomp
Laid low in the arms of Death? And tho' men cease
To worship at my shrine, yet not the less
I hold, it is the toils I knew, the pains
I bore for others, which have kept the heart
Of manhood undefiled, and nerved the arm
Of sacrifice, and made the martyr strong
To do and bear, and taught the race of men
How godlike 'tis to suffer thro' life, and die
At last for others' good!"
The strong god ceased,
And stood a little, musing; blest indeed,
But bearing, as it seemed, some faintest trace
Of earthly struggle still, not the gay ease
Of the elder heaven-born gods.
And then there came
Beauty and Joy in one, bearing the form
Of woman. How to reach with halting words
That infinite Perfection? All have known
The breathing marbles which the Greek has left
Who saw her near, and strove to fix her charms,
And exquisitely failed; or those fair forms
The Painter offered at a later shrine,
And failed. Nay, what are words?—he knows it well
Who loves, or who has loved.
She with a smile
Playing around her rosy lips; as plays
The sunbeam on a stream:
"Shall I complain
Men kneel to me no longer, taking to them
Some graver, sterner worship; grown too wise
For fleeting joys of Love? Nay, Love is Youth,
And still the world is young. Still shall I reign
Within the hearts of men, while Time shall last
And Life renews itself. All Life that is,
From the weak things of earth or sea or air,
Which creep or float for an hour; to godlike man—
All know me and are mine. I am the source
And mother of all, both gods and men; the spring
Of Force and Joy, which, penetrating all
Within the hidden depths of the Unknown,
Sets the blind seed of Being, and from the bond
Of incomplete and dual Essences
Evolves the harmony which is Life. The world
Were dead without my rays, who am the Light
Which vivifies the world. Nay, but for me,
The universal order which attracts
Sphere unto sphere, and keeps them in their paths
For ever, were no more. All things are bound
Within my golden chain, whose name is Love.
And if there be, indeed, some sterner souls
Or sunk in too much learning, or hedged round
By care and greed, or haply too much rapt
By pale ascetic fervours, to delight
To kneel to me, the universal voice
Scorns them as those who, missing willingly
The good that Nature offers, dwell unblest
Who might be blest, but would not. Every voice
Of bard in every age has hymned me. All
The breathing marbles, all the heavenly hues
Of painting, praise me. Even the loveless shades
Of dim monastic cloisters show some gleam,
Tho' faint, of me. Amid the busy throngs
Of cities reign I, and o'er lonely plains,
Beyond the ice-fields of the frozen North,
And the warm waves of undiscovered seas.