Centaur. Faun, Faun, art thou near?
Faun. Behold me stand, proud Centaur, here
Upon the bluff where 'neath me lies
The sunned pool of the precipice.
Of the Centaur's Ardour.
Centaur. Faun, in my veins the blood 'gins race,
The new sun sweats upon my face,
Dazzles my pupils, golden swims
Over my flushed and fervid limbs.
I feel in me my spirit rise
Griffon-like flogging up tall skies.
Now is the Morning of the World,
And through my heart a flood is hurled
Of onerous joyance, of desire
To clutch the sun and spill its fire
Down heaven's blue bulwarks! to snatch life
And drain its lusty full in strife
Of all my body with the bent
Wrestle of every element:
Close with the whirlwind, front the tide
And turn its moony press aside.
But in the world I cannot find
A match in strength, a foe in mind....
At dawn, at eve the waters burn;
All night the constellations turn
Round the dark pole, and none knows why....
None seeks to know save only I
And thou, O Faun. We are alone....
Yet sometimes, when the wind is gone
And all below shines sunned and still,
I feel depart from me the will
Merely to know, to know and wait:
I would do more: I would create.
Though what I know not; but I would
Spend this my mind and hardihood.
Yet find no means save physic force:—
Sing as a man, stride as a horse.
Then stride I? Swift I overcome
The fleetest. Sing I? All are dumb.
Natheless my heart demands in grief
Ardour, endurance and relief;
Asks, but receives not.
Faun. Shall not I
Echo thy pain, whom Fates deny
Answer to thought,—as they to thee
The lust-of-action's fill? But we
Accept too much, O Sire. 'Twere best,
Though idly, to fulfil our zest.
Of the Challenge.
Four leagues this canyon runs between
Us twain or ever there is seen
The arch of rock whose massy grace
Bridges yon gap of golden space.
Deignest thou, then, to race with me
From such tall eyries to the sea,
If even now I upward leap?
Centaur. Leap then! I catch thee e'er the steep
Subsides in woodland or in down.