PS 2359 M645 P5 1894 MAIN UC-NRLF B M PLATO. A Poem BY THF LATE SIR HENRY JAMES SUMNER MAINE. PRIVATELY PRINTED, PREFATORY NOTE. In 1843, the late Sir Henry James Sumner Maine, then an undergraduate at Pembroke College in his third year, was a candidate for the Chancellor s English Medal, which he had won in the previous year with a poem on The Birth of the Prince of Wales. The subject proposed was Plato. Maine was unsuccessful, and his poem might have been irretrievably lost, had it not fortunately been printed, either for the use of the examiners, or to be given away to the author s friends. The number printed was probably very small, for I have never seen but two copies. From one of these, in the possession of Lady Maine, the poem has been reprinted. J. W. CLARK. CAMBRIDGE, 2 February, 1894. PLATO. Divine philosophy, Not harsh and crabbed, as some dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo s lute. Cornu*. To words they twain did speak beneath this tree Of things that are and things that ought to be This place a is consecrated : here the song Of summer-drunken cicales all day long Sounds in the plane-tree boughs that shadow wide The sparkling cleft where emerald waters slide ; Here all the winds breathe gently, for of yore Their ruder brother from the meadow bore A maiden, gathering these same flowers that still Creep down in fragrant network to the rill And therefore in this place tis meet we set His cradle, where the greensward dewy-wet Sends up the crocus and the violet. There came a dying cadence ! Sure a swell Of interrupted music rose and fell, In deeper murmur mingling with the strain Of those shrill insect singers in the plane ! It is the bee : aye nestling in the bloom Of flowers upon his way, I see him come, I see the long grass gleaming, as he flings The dropping sunlight from his golden wings ; And lo ! the leaves hang whispering with the din Of cluster upon cluster floating in To where the scented winds that steal across Have lulled a child to sleep upon the moss. "The celebrated scene of the dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus. The legend of Boreas and Orithyia is mentioned by riato as adhering to the same spot. 381 Then stayed the murmurous hum : and then methought Aerial gifts of crystal dew they brought, The honey of Mount Parues, spoiled b at will From velvet bells that shiver on the hill. And, when in small white globes I saw them drip The clear distilment on his crimson lip, It seem d, but nothing more perchance I heard Save sudden music from some lurking bird, That all the languid wind around did bear The sound of voices speaking in the air. Then long I mused of tales by poets sung, How, when the ancient world was very young, An infant god in Cretan cave lay sleeping, And, where the long green swathes of ivy creeping Muffled its mouth, the nursing bees slid through To feed the mighty child with honey- dew. But, ere the curtains of the purple Even Were drawn in shadow over all the heaven, A mortal mother, who the livelong day Had sought in sorrow, bore the boy away, Kissing the curled forehead, till the night Descending closed them wholly from my sight. Again the shadow left my eyes, and lo ! The white Cecropian city shone below, With long walls creeping to her curving bay, And ships, and shrines, and humming streets she lay : Within I saw the heaving crowd, and then I saw one c teaching in the throngs of men, Old and unlovely for the spark divine Lay in a chrysalis, that gave no sign How there was cabin d in a cell so dull The bright embodying of the Beautiful- He spake, methought, and in mid-speaking smil d In gentle kindness on an earnest child, b Shakespeare, King Henrj V. Act. 1. Scene 2. c Socrates. Who listen d wistfully; and they did pass Out of the city gates upon the grass, And talked among the olives : so there fell The first dew on the flower that grew so well ; The finger on the key-note ; and ere long There rose a burst of such majestic song, That, flowing from those ages to our own, The mighty music still comes ebbing down In faint low measure and strong organ tone. Green vines, in golden glows of autumn bathed, By gentle hands in winter-time were swathed, And knotted to the elm, till, when the Hour Came dancing in with dew, and sun, and shower, They clomb, and leaving bough on bough behind, Shook violet-coloured clusters to the wind. So changed the boy to man, and day by day More closely clung to his peculiar stay The sheltering tree of Knowledge, leaving on The gnarled trunk a beauty of his own : And soon, where er the bark had shown before, His genius, breathing on it, clothed it o er With long and lovely tendrils, peeping thro Perfumed fruits of delicatest blue. With him that Truth, which still, and cold, and white, Burns like a star-disk in surrounding night, Seem d deftly changed by some mysterious spell, For on his mind as on a prism it fell, And glinted off in colour, lovelier yet Made by the agency that worked on it. He sought, and seeking, found ; but aye there stole The shadowing of his spirit o er the whole, The effluence of that Poetry which ran In subtlest currents thro the inner man : So haply that which in itself was clear, Seen through a many-tinted atmosphere, Prank in these fairy hues which make it seem Half real, and half the rival mv of a dream. But the same mind, that would oil all things throw A falling flush that made them seem like snow Trembling in roses from the sunset caught, Yet bore him upward on the wings of thought Until as from a signal- tower he saw The poised earth sleeping in harmonious law, Beneath him Morning pass d, and Evening pale, And Night came by, and dropp d her jewell d veil: The moons, the slow successive suns that flee Across the heaven to the western sea, And Man, and Man s existence, circling through A thousand different shades of change 1 , he knew, And all the power of number 6 , and the sound Of linked language f to the root unwound, And the quick spells of music ; and he wove A shadow of himself, and called it Loves. He look d : and it was even as the birth Of the sweet morn that stealeth on the earth, For all the darkness parted, and between The inner movements of all things were seen, And thin imiumerous lines before him were Distinct as threads of sun-lit gossamer, The subtle chains that to one centre run, And link the order d universe in one. But with iiitensest strain of mind and eye He probed the soul h of Man that cannot die, And show d the delicate essence, how that blent And mingled with a grosser element It droops and mourns : but should one glimmer come From that which was and shall be soon its home, Like night-shut flowers that open to the morn, * Alluding to the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, adopted by Plato from Pythagoras. * See the Theatetus and Eepublic. f See the Cratvlus. * See the Phaedrus and Symposium, k Crito, Phaedo, et passim. It \\orks and similes toward the far-seen bourne, The Heaven, still glass d within it ; not to all Tis given to break the fetters of their thrall, For some are blind with sin, and some are cold And bound too closely to the enwrapping mould, And will not dream the dark horizon bars A world of breaking lights and dropping stars, A land 1 of large-cupped flowers divine, a land By wandering perfumes played upon, and fann d By keen etherial breezes, scattering round A summer shower of fruits upon the ground ; A land of airy waves, that curling o er The golden sapphires strewn upon the shore Strike yellow sparkles ceaselessly ; the while The mild-eyed gods from ivory temples smile, And ever and anon their voices come Whirled in soft echoes round the hollow dome, And drop in music downwards, till they steal Along the pavement where the suppliants kneel ; And these in such communion rapt, are they, Who, like the boyJ that listened as he lay Couched underneath that most melodious tree, So in the long shades of the Academic Drank in their Master s teaching, when he spent The crystal-pointed shafts of argument, And moulded them to Virtue, thus to wend Their way of life serenely to the end, And then, beyond the sun and starry shine, Sphered in the dark blue depths to sleep a sleep divine. While all things else are mouldering, yet to some There clings the freshness of their earliest bloom. And thus he painted ; and the outlines stay, The light and shadow seems of yesterday, 1 Locus Platonis (Phaedon 110, D.C. $v 8e rainy ofay Toiavrr) . . dio-flVejj TUV 0ei/) totidem fere verbis descriptus. J Phaedrus, in the scene above mentioned. On his invinhit.- p n tuivs; In ! on out- 1 f l li mellow colouring lies in lighter ton. , A chamber cresset-lit with cool soft fiiv Shed o er the wine-cups and each thread-like wire Of vouder sleeping lute, that erst was play d Bv rose-crown d men on fringed cushions laid ; And wit, and mirth, and wisdom seem from cadi To flow in action clearer than the speech Which ever conies, but comes not : dark, I ween, The pencilling blackens on the sister scene 1 , A calm and aged man, discoursing well Of life and death within a prison cell, And, looking up into his eyes, a band Of still disciples sit on either hand ; He speaks, and they are weeping sore, and one Leans by the window gazing at the sun, And, where the long perspective darkens up, There stands, half-seen, a pale man with a cup. The least of things, like little tunes which stir A thousand memories in a traveller, Waken d his spirit s sleeping ; and anon His thought, deserting that he looked upon, Slid to the land of dream, and wove around A various fabric on the narrow ground. And yet he dream d not : we, who every hour Build grain by grain the mass of human power, Must bow before our Master, who but stood And nurs d the juices working in the bud And might not tend the flowering, who but fed The stream of Science at its fountain-head. Now spreads the flower: now roars the stream: and we See but his hope become reality. k The Symposium. 1 Tho death of Socrates. RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT rvuiw" o/^o ^A^.I l -l I ihrnrv 202 Main Librar LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS ALL IHJ<Ji\3 ""^ -" , . j 4 le newa.s and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405 ATAMPED BELOW FORM NO. 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