[Scene, part of the island of Naxos. Enter, sundry Dryads, habited as fair young maidens adorned with flowers, and bearing in their hands branches of trees.]
Dryad: We shadowy Oceanides,
Jove's warders of the island trees,
The tufted pillars tall and stout,
And all the bosky camp about,
Maintain our lives in sounding shades
Of old æolian colonnades;
But post about the neighbor land
In woof of insubstantial wear:
Our ways are on the water sand,
Our joy is in the desert air.
The very best of our delights
Are by the moon of summer nights.
Darkness to us is holiday:
When winds and waves are up at play,
When, on the thunder-beaten shore,
The swinging breakers split and roar,
Then is the moment of our glory,
In shadow of a promontory,
To trip and skip it to and fro,
Even as the flashing bubbles go.
Or on the bleaker banks that lie,
For the salt seething wash, too high,
Where rushes grow so sparse and green,
With baked and barren floors between.
We glance about in mazy quire,
With much of coming and retire;
Nor let the limber measure fail,
Till, down behind the ocean bed,
The night dividing star is sped,
And Cynthia stoops the marish vale,
Wound in clouds and vigil pale,
Trailing the curtains of the west
About her ample couch of rest.
Thus, nightly on, we lead the year
Through all the constellated sphere.
But more obscure, in brakes and bowers,
During the sun-appointed hours,
We lodge, and are at rest, and see,
Dimly, the day's festivity,
Nor hail the spangled jewel set
Upon Aurora's coronet;
Nor trail in any morning dew;
Nor roam the park, nor tramp the pool
Of lucid waters pebble cool,
Nor list the satyr's far halloo.
Noon, and the glowing hours, seem
Mutations of a laboring dream.
Yet subject, still, to Jove's decree,
That governs, from the Olympian doors,
The populous and lonely shores,
We do a work of destiny;
When any mortal, sorely spent,
Girt with the thorns of discontent,
Or care, or hapless love, invades,
This ancient neighborhood of shades,
Our gracious leave is to dispense,
Of woods, the slumbrous influence;
The waverings and the murmurings
Of umber shades and leafy wings;
Through all the courts of sense applying,
With sights, and sounds, and odorous sighing,
To the world-wearied soul of man,
The gentle universal Pan—
As now we must: the roots around,
Of forests clutch a certain sound
Of weary feet; go, sisters, out:
Some one is pining, hereabout.
II.
[Another part of the Island. Enter Ariadne.]
Ariadne: Here, in the heart of this sea-moated isle,
Where we, but last night, made a summer's lodge
Of transient rest from many pendulous days
Of swinging on the sick unquiet deep,
Why left he me, so lone, so unattended?
What converse had he with felonious Night,
That underneath her dark consenting cloak,
He stole unchallenged from his Ariadne?
If, out of hope, I cannot answer that,
Slant-eyed Conjecture at my elbow stands,
To whisper me of things I would not hear.
Ah me, my Theseus, wherefore art thou gone!
Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone!
Oh how shall I, an unacquainted maid,
So uninformed of whereabout I am,
And in a wild completely solitary,
Hope to find out my strangely absent lord!
Sadness there is, and an unquiet fear,
Within my heart, to trace these hereabouts
Of idle woods, unthreaded labyrinths,
Rude mannered brooks, unpastured meadow sides,
All vagrant, voiceless, pathless, echoless,
Oh for the farthest breath of mortal sound!
From lacqueyed hall, or folded peasant hut,—
Some noontide echo sweetly voluble;
Some song of toil reclining from the heat,
Or low of kine, or neigh of tethered steeds,
Or honest clamor of some shepherd dog,
Laughter, or cries, or any living breath,
To make inroad upon this dreariness.
Methinks no shape of savage insolence,
No den unblest, nor hour inopportune,
Could daunt me now, nor warn my maiden feet
From friendly parle, that am distract of heart,
With doubt, desertion, utter loneliness.
Death would I seek to run from lonely fear,
And deem a hut a heaven, with company.
Yea, now to question of my true heart's lord,
And of the ports and alleys of this isle,
Which way they lead the clueless wanderer
To fields suburban, and the towers of men,
I would confront the strangest things that haunt
In horrid shades of brooding desolation:
Griffin, or satyr, sphinx, or sybil ape,
Or lop-eared demon from the dens of night,
Let loose to caper out of Acheron.
Ah me, my Theseus, wherefore art thou gone!
Who left that crock of water at my side?
Who stole my dog that loved no one but me?
Why was the tent unstruck, I unawaked,
I left, most loved, and last to be forgotten
By much obtaining, much indebted Theseus?
Left to sleep on, to dream and slumber on;
Nothing to know, save fancies of the air,
While he, so strangly covert in his thoughts,
Was softly stirring to be gone from me.
Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone!
Hast thou, in pleasant sport, deserted me?
Is it a whim, a jest, a trick of task,
To mesh me in another labyrinth?
Could Theseus so make mirth of Ariadne?
Unless he did, I would not think he could.
And yet I will believe he is in jest.
More false than that, he could not be to me,
Since false to me, to his own self were false.
Now do I hold in hope what I have heard,
That love will sometimes cunning masks put on,
Speak with strange tongues, and wear odd liveries,
Transform himself to seemings most unlike,
And still be love in fearful opposites.
So may it be, but my immediate fear
Jostles that hope aside, and I remember
Of what my tutor Ætion did forewarn me.
Oh fond old man! if thou didst know me here,
Thou wouldst move heaven and earth to have me home.
Much was his care of my uncaring youth,
And, with a reverend and considerate wit,
He curbed the frolic of my pupilage,
Less by the bridle, than the feeding it
With stories ending in moralities,
With applications and similitudes
Tacked to the merest leaf I looked upon,
Till, so it was, we two did love each other,
The sage and child, with mutual amity.
Oft, hand in hand, we passed my father's gate,
At evening, when the horizontal day
Chequered his farewell on the western wall;
Shying the court, where, for the frolic lords,
Under the profaned silence of the rose,
The syrinx, and the stringed sonorous shell,
Governed the twinkling heeled Terpischore.
We softly went and turned towards the bay,
And found another world, contemplative
Of shells and pebbles by the ocean shore.
I do remember, once, on such an eve,
Pacing the polished margin of the deep,
We found two weeds that had embraced each other,
And talked of friendship, love and sympathy.
My pupil sweet, said he, beware of Love:
For thou wilt shortly be besieged by him,
From the four winds of heaven, because thou art
Daughter of Minos, and already married
To expectation of a royal dower.
But O beware! for, listen what I say,
By strong presentments I have moved thy father
Bating a fair and well intending nay,
To leave thy love to thine unmuffled eye.
This is rare scope, my girl, O use it rarely,
Be slow and nice in thy sweet liberty,
And let discretion honor thee in choice.
For love is like a cup with dregs at bottom!
Hand it with care, and pleasant it shall be—
Snatch it, and thou may'st find its bitterness.
And now, my soon, my all sufficient lord,
How shall I answer old Sir Oracle?
It is too true that I have snatched my love,
And taste already of its bitterness.
But trifle not with love, my sportful Theseus.
Affection, when it bears an outward eye,
Be it of love, or social amity,
Or open-lidded general charity,
Becomes a holy universal thing—
The beauty of the soul, which, therein lodged,
Surpasses every outward comeliness—
Makes fanes of shaggy shapes, and, of the fair,
Such presences as fill the gates of heaven.
Why is the dog, that knows no stint of heart,
But roars a welcome like an untamed bear,
And leaps a dirty-footed fierce caress,
More valued than the sleek smooth mannered cat,
That will not out of doors, whoever comes,
But hugs the fire in graceful idleness?
Birds of a glittering gilt, that lack a tongue,
Are shamed to drooping with the euphony
Of fond expression, and the voice beneath
The russet jacket of the soul of song.
What is that girdle of the Queen of Love,
Wherewith, as with the shell of Orpheus,
Things high and humble, the enthroned gods,
And tenants of the far unvisited huts
Of wildernesses, she alike subdues
Unto the awe of perfect harmony?
What else but sweetness tempered all one way,
And looks of sociable benignity?
Which when she chooseth to be all herself,
She doth put on, and in the act thereof,
Such thousand graces lacquey her about,
And in her smile such plenitude of joy—
The extreme perfection of the divine gods—
Shines affable, as, to partake thereof,
Hath oftentimes set Heaven in uproar.
By these, and many special instances,
It doth appear, or may be plainly shown,
That, of all life, affection is the savor—
The soul of it—and beauty is but dross:
Being but the outer iris—film of love,
The fleeting shade of an eternal thing.
Beauty—the cloudy mock of Tantalus;
Daughter of Time, betrothèd unto Death,
Who, all so soon as the lank anarch old
Fingers her palm, and lips her for his bride,
Suffers collapse, and straightway doth become
A hideous comment of mortality.
Know this, my lord, while thou dost run from me,
The tide of true love hath its hours of ebb,
If the attendant orb withdraw his light;
And though there be a love as strong as death,
There is a pride stronger than death or love;
And whether 'tis that I am royal born,
Or kingly blooded, or that once I was
Sometimes a mistress in my father's court,
I have of patience much—not overmuch—
And thou hadst best beware the boundary.
Oh thou too cruel and injurious thorn!
What hast thou done to my poor innocent hand!
Thou art like Theseus, thou dost make me bleed;
Offenceless I, yet thou dost make me bleed.
This scratch I shall remember well, my lord!
Deceiver false! deserter! runaway!
My quick-heeled slave! my loose ungrateful bird!
Where'er thou art, or if thou hear or no,
Know that thou art from this time given o'er,
To tarry and return what time thou wilt.
It is most like that thou dost lurk not far,
In twilight of some envious cave or bower.
Well, if thou dost—why—lurk thy heart's content.
Poor rogue! thou art not worth this weariness.
I will not flutter more, nor cry to thee.
Since thou art fledged, and toppled from the nest,
Go—pick thy crumbs where thou canst find them best.
III.
Once more, once more, O yet again once more,
Spent is my breath with fear and weariness!
Vain toil it is to track this tangled wild—
This rank o'ergrown imprisoned solitude—
Whose very flowers are fetters in my way;
Where I am chained about with vines and briers,
Led blindfold on through mazes tenantless,
And not a friendly echo answers me.
Oh for a foot as airy as the wing
Of the young brooding dove, to overpass,
On swift commission of my true heart's love,
All metes and bournes of this lone wilderness:
So should I quickly find my truant lord.
But, as it is, I can no farther go.
What shall I do? despair? lie down and die?
If I give o'er my search I shall despair,
And if I do despair, I quickly die.
Avaunt Despair! I will not yet despair.
Begone, grim herald of oblivious Death!
Strong-pinioned Hope, embrace thy wings about me;
Shake not my fingers from thy golden chain.
Oh still bear up and pity Ariadne!
Alas! what hope have I but only Theseus,
And Theseus is not here to pity me.
Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone!
Thou dost forget that thou hast called me wife,
And with sweet influence of holy vows
Grappled and grafted me unto thyself.
Oh how shall I, not knowing where thou art,
Be all myself—thou dost dissever me.
Yonder I'll rest awhile, for now I see,
Through meshes of the internetted leaves,
A little plot, girt with a living wall;
A sylvan chamber, that the frolic Pan
Has built and bosomed with a leafy dome,
And windowed with a narrow glimpse of heaven.
Its floor, sky-litten with the noontide sun,
Shows garniture of many colored flowers,
More dainty than the broidered webs of Tyre;
And all about, from beeches, oaks and pines,
Recesses deep of vernal solitude,
Come sounds of calm that woo my ruffled spirits
To a resigned and quiet contemplation.
Yond brook, that, like a child, runs wide astray,
Sings and skips on, nor knows its loneliness;
A squirrel chatters at a doorless nut:
A hammer bird drums on his hollow bark;
And bits of winged life, with aëry voices,
Tinkle like fountains in a corridor.
Fair haunt of peace, ye quiet cadences,
Ye leafy caves of sadness and sweet sounds,
That have no feeling nor a fellowship
With the rash moods of terror and of pain,
I did not think ye could, in such an hour,
So steal from me, as in a sleep, a dream—
What is't that comes between me and the light?
Protect me, Jove! Lo, what untended flowers,
That all night long, like little wakeful babes,
Darkly repine, and weep themselves asleep,
In the orient morning lift their pretty eyes,
Tear smiling, to behold the sun their sire
Enter the gilded chambers of the east—
Strange droopingness! What quality of air?
[Ariadne falls asleep.—Enter, the Dryads, as before.]
1st Dryad: Sprinkle out of flower bells
Mortal sense entrapping spells;
Make no sound
On the ground;
Strew and lap and lay around.
Gnat nor snail
Here assail,
Beetle, slug, nor spider here,
Now descend,
Nor depend,
Off from any thorny spear.
2d Dryad: So conclude. Whatever seems,
We have her in a chain of dreams.