Ceres Break hands, the lady wakes apace.
[Ceres and the Dryads loose hands and disappear.]
IV.
Ariadne: I dreamed a dream of sadness and the sea,
And I will turn again, if yet I may,
To where the rolling rondure of the deep
Broadly affront the sky's infinity.
Sleeping or waking, knew I naught but this;
Sorrow and Love, above a desolate main,
From the sheer battlements of opposite clouds,
Kissed, and embraced, and parted company....
This is the self-same bay where we put in,
Yonder the restless keel did gore the sand.
There was the sailor's fire, and up and down,
Are scattered mangled ropes, splinters, and spars,
Fragments and shreds—but ship and all are gone.
Here is my wreath. How brief, since yester eve,
Then, when the sun, like an o'erthirsty god,
Had stooped his brows behind the ocean brim,
And the west wind, bearing his martial word,
The limber-footed and the courier west,
Went smoothly whist over the furrowed floor,
To bid the night, then gazing up the sphere,
Advance his constellated banners there,
I leaned above the vessel's whispering prow,
With an unusual joy, and drink, from out
The heaven of those true repeated depths,
Infinite calm, as though I did commune
With the still spirit of the universe.
So leaning, from my hair did I unwind
This chain of flowers, and dropped it in the sea;
Blessing that twilight hour, the port, the bay,
The deep dim isle of interlunar woods,
My love, and all the world, and naming them
Waters of rest—now lies my garland here.
What words are these thus furrowed on the shore?
These are the very turns of Theseus' hand:
If from thy hook the fish to water fall,
Think not to catch that fish again at all.
Too well my thought unlocks these cruel lines.
Oh drench of grief! I thank ye, piteous powers,
Who sent not this without forewarning drops.
Oh miserable me! distressful me!
Despised, disdained, deserted, desolate:
Oh world of dew! Oh morning water drops!
Lack-lustre, irksome, dull mortality!
Oh now, oh now, that heaven all is black,
Wherein the rainbow of my joy did stand!
Oh love! oh life! oh life entire in love!
All lost, all gone, or just so little left
As is not worth the care to throw away!
All lost, all gone, wrecked, rifted, sunk, devoured:
Wrecked with false lights on Theseus' rocky heart!
Oh man, perverse, dry-eyed, untender man,
Enchanting man, so sleek so serpent-cold!
Was it for this that thou didst swear to me,
By all the gods in the three worlds at once,
That thou didst love distractedly, and I,
With certain tender and ingenuous tears,
Did presently confess to thee as much?
Was it for this, that I, who had a home,
Like an Elysium in the lap of Crete,
Did beckon buffets, and, for thee, did dare
The rough unknown and outside of the world?
Was it for this that thou didst hither bring me,
Unto this isle of thorny loneliness,
And, in the night, without foreargued cause,
Any aggrievance, any allegation,
Didst, like a coward traitor, run from me?
Thou man of snow! thou art assailed by this—
Be sure of it—thou art begrimed as black
As if thou hadst been hanged a thousand years
Under the murky cope of Pluto's den.
Oh agony! but thou shalt know my soul,
Which gropes for daggers at the thought of this.
Yea, from the day-beams of adoring love,
Goes headlong to as vast a reprobation.
Thou, Theseus, wast a cloud, and I a cloud,
Quickened from thee with such pervading flame,
As that thou canst not now so part from me
Without the fiery iterance of my heart.
Hear, hear me, love, who on the swathèd tops
Of ribbed Olympus, and thy steadfast throne,
Dost sit the sùpreme judge of gods and men,
And bear within thy palm the living bolt,
High o'er the soilèd air of this wan world;
Look on yon helot wretch, and, wheresoe'er,
Coursing what sea, or cabled in what port,
The greatness of thine eye may light on him,
Crush him with thunder!
Thou, too, great Neptune of the lower deeps,
Heave thy wet head up from the monstrous sea;
Advance thy trident high as to the clouds,
And with a not to be repeated blow,
Dash the sin-freighted ship of that rash man!
And thou, old iron-sceptred Eolus,
Shatter the bars of thine enclosed winds;
Unhinge the doors of thy great kennel house,
And 'twixt the azure and the roaring deep
Cry out thy whole inflated Strongyle—
Cry ruin on that man!
But wherefore, thus,
Do I invoke the speedy desolation
Of any mighty magisterial soul,
Whose will is weaponed with the elements!
For oh—
Let the great spies of Jove, the sun and moon,
The stars, and all the expeditious orbs
That in their motions are retributive,
Look blindly on, and seem to take no note
Of any deep and deadly stab of sin—
Let vengeance gorge a gross Cerberean sop,
Grovel and snore in swinish sluggardness,
Yea, quite forget his dagger and his cup—
It is enough, for any retribution,
That guilt retain remembrance of itself.
Guilt is a thing, however bolstered up,
That the great scale-adjusting Nemesis,
And Furies iron-eyed, will not let sleep.
Sail on unscarred—thou canst not sail so far,
But that the gorgon lash of vipers fanged
Shall scourge this howler home to thee again.
Yes, yes, rash man, Jove and myself do know
That from this wrong shall rouse an Anteros,
Fierce as an Atë, with a hot right hand,
That shall afflict thee with the touch of fire,
Till, scorpion-like, thou turn and sting thyself.
What dost thou think—that I shall perish here,
Gnawed by the tooth of hungry savageness?
Think what thou list, and go what way thou wilt.
I, that have truth and heaven on my side,
Though but a weak and solitary woman,
Forecast no fear of any violence—
But thou, false hound! thou would'st not dare come back,
Thou would'st not like to feel my eyes again.
Go get thee on, to Argos get thee on;
And let thy ransomed Athens run to thee,
With portal arms, wide open to her heart—
To stifling hug thee with triumphant joy.
Thou canst not wear such bays, thou canst not so
O'erpeer the ancient and bald heads of honor,
That I would have the back or follow thee.
Let nothing but thy shadow follow thee;
Thy shadow is to thee a curse enough;
For thou hast done a murder on thyself.
Thou hast put on the Nessus' fiery hide.
Thou hast stepped in the labyrinths of woe,
And in thy fingers caught the clue to Death.
What solace have the gods for such as thou,
That is not stabbed by this one thrust through me?
From this black hour, this curse anointing hour,
The currents of thy heart are all corrupt;
The motions of thy thoughts are serpentine;
And thy death-doing and bedabbled soul
Is maculate with spots of Erebus.
Aye me!—and yet—Oh that I should say so!
Thou wast a noble scroll of Beauty's pen,
Where every turn was grandly charactered.
Hadst thou a heart—but thou hadst no such thing—
And having none, it was not thee I loved;
Only my maiden thoughts were perfect, Theseus.
O no, no, no, I never did love thee,
Thou outside shell and carcase of a man.
And I—what was it thou didst take me for?
A paroquet of painted shallowness?
A silly thing to whistle to and fro,
And peck at plums, and then be whistled off?
Oh, Theseus, Theseus, thou didst never know me—
In this unworthy clasp of woman's mould,
This poor outside of pliant prettiness,
There was a heart and in that heart a love,
And in that love there was an affluence
Full as the ocean, infinite as time,
Deep as the spring that never knew an ebb.
Too truly feeling what I left for thee,
And with what joy I left it all for thee,
And how I would have only followed thee,
With soul, mind, purpose, to the far world's end,
I cannot think on thee as thou deservest,
But scorn is drownéd in a well of tears;
I will go sit and weep.—
Note.—Theseus, a Grecian hero, according to ancient fable, made an expedition into Crete for the purpose of destroying the Minotaur, a monster which infested that island. While there he made love to Ariadne, (daughter of Minos the king of Crete) who returned his affection, assisted him in accomplishing the object of his expedition, and sailed with him on his return to Athens. She was, however, abandoned by Theseus at Naxos, an island in the Ægean sea held sacred to Bacchus. Bacchus received Ariadne hospitably, but afterwards he too ran away from her. We suspect (as perhaps our poem sufficiently indicates) that the root of Ariadne's misfortunes lay in certain infirmities of temper, which rendered her at times an uncomfortable companion.