f 
 
 POEMS BY 
 
 T. STURGE MOORE 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
. r i ^ 
 
THE CENTAUR'S BOOTY 
 
All rights reserved 
 
THE CENTAUR'S BOOTY 
 BY T. STURGE MOORE 
 
 DUCKWORTH AND CO. 
 LONDON -MDCCCCIII 
 
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 TO C. S. R. 
 
 
THE CENTAUR'S BOOTY 
 
 [On one that stands out above a waste of boulders, the 
 
 old Centaur, PHOLUS, lies gazing forth into the deepening 
 
 twilight ; at last, having sighed, he speaks :] 
 
 Black my thoughts are, black the hills and mountains, 
 
 Ocean a sombre grey, 
 
 And the sky darkens. 
 
 There ! lights are there ; yea, torch-light flashes, 
 
 Travelling the wide way 
 
 Forth from yon city : 
 
 Men shake them, ah ! the crowd pursues him : 
 
 Wildly they glance and flare 
 
 By mob rage shaken ; 
 
 They stop, collect ah, ah, an hundred ! 
 
 Two! out-numbered, there, 
 
 He must be taken. 
 
 They slay him, slay my friend, my brother ; 
 
 He bleeds there faints there dies 
 
 Even now his throes are bitter. 
 
 I of centaurs am the last then ; 
 
 Why should I longer live ? 
 
 To die were fitter ; 
 
 Never shall mine eyes behold 
 
 What soothed my father's gaze when his grew old ; 
 
 Never watch young bodies that renew 
 
 The pleasant memories of mine early years 
 
 vii. 
 
Doing now all that I then would do ; 
 With what zest such youth careers 
 Merely for the sake of speed ! 
 They wrestle being more and other 
 Than noblest man, than grandest steed- 
 Each one with his twofold brother. 
 Ah, to be last of centaurs living ! 
 No young ones gallop on the hills ; 
 Nor can I bring, in hopes of giving 
 Due chastisement to yonder town, 
 With noise as when a torrent fills, 
 A tide of hooves that thunder down, 
 Wrath from the Thracian hills. 
 Avert thy death I cannot, 
 Medon, my friend ; 
 Helpless, I even plan not 
 Thy foes to end ; 
 Nor will I shed a tear, 
 Who still have known 
 How vain hope would appear 
 When truth was known ; 
 We were not born to grow 
 And gather sway 
 But to a weakling foe 
 To yield each day ; 
 Since numbers and not worth 
 viii. 
 
The Gods decree 
 
 Shall rule and foul the earth, 
 
 What is, must be. 
 
 [He remains silent, gazing forth into the deep night 
 
 until the sound of hooves is heard in the distance, when 
 
 he raises his head and moans.] 
 
 Oh, that mine ears had lost their hearing ! 
 
 Or that my heart were strong enough 
 
 To ban new hopes ! yea, they are nearing ; 
 
 It cannot be a mere wild horse, 
 
 They are too steady in their fall ; 
 
 A man might scarcely ride at all 
 
 On such a night, not hold his course 
 
 With constant careful purposed speed ; 
 
 It is, oh ! it must be, of need, 
 
 Medon, my only friend and brother. 
 
 [A VOICE rises some distance away.] 
 
 Medon am I, and no other. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Hail ! art thou wounded ? stay thou there, I come : 
 
 Oh, clamber not upon these boulders, friend, 
 
 To jar thy wound ! I shall soon be with thee. 
 
 That burden in thine arms can be no girl ; 
 
 It is too small. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 No wound have I, nor have 
 B ix 
 
I rapt a woman hither ; 'tis a child, 
 A boy. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Of what use to us is a child ? 
 
 MEDON 
 
 He sleeps ; he struggled, bit, roared, howled, at length 
 
 He wept himself to sleep : behold these limbs, 
 
 Sturdy, well-knit ! . . . Would that there were more light 
 
 And thou should'st see a child as brave for health 
 
 And strength, as violent and full of passion. . . . 
 
 Despite his two legs, 'tis a centaur nature. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Women sometimes bear better than they would. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 When the moon rises, those thy words will seem 
 
 Far truer than thou thinkest yet ; O Pholus, 
 
 All that thou said'st before I left thee, worked 
 
 And struggled in my brain, and when I came 
 
 Among the farms, and saw them as thou said'st. . . . 
 
 The first I saw was like a singing flower ; 
 
 As though a tall pale blossom had a voice 
 
 She in a little coppice stood for shade, 
 
 Her distaff in one hand, while with the other 
 
 She twirled the spindle slowly towards the ground 
 
 And looked up singing, like an open flower : 
 
 x. 
 
I saw her weakness in her beauty strong ; 
 And knew she loved herself, frail though she was ; 
 And felt she must be worse than wine to me ; 
 Then, far within, I heard thy words like stones 
 That drop down through an empty quarry's womb 
 Slow ring " For vain it is that they pretend 
 That either gods have joy or fate ensures 
 To crown this virtue born of women's dreams, 
 This worship of the weak which they call pity : 
 Nothing is pitied of the gods and fate." 
 Oh ! as when one has swum too wide a lake 
 And faint, exhausted, strikes the beach at last, 
 With hooves that scarce may stead him so, to me 
 Who had been battling with a subtler flood, 
 Came, like a fresh breeze to a poppied dell 
 41 Nothing is pitied of the gods and fate." 
 Could I have dreamed Apollo might be kind, 
 Or Zeus think of me, or Fate hear my prayer ; 
 I had not turned and fled her as I did, 
 I had not felt so young and glad as that. 
 PHOLUS 
 
 I was concerned thou shouldst so dream of women 
 Since that thy fair Hipponoe was dead ; 
 Thou leftst me very heavy when thou wentest 
 To snatch a woman from the lowlands yonder, 
 And mock thy widowed heart with human love. 
 
 xi. 
 
MEDON 
 
 All thou hadst said went with me and was strong : 
 
 Besides, I always carry in my mind 
 
 My dead Hipponoe ; 
 
 The place I found her in, 
 
 An arrow through her neck, 
 
 Another lodged deep in her ripening womb ; 
 
 I found her, where they left her, in her blood ; 
 
 I laid the mountain goat's kid I had brought 
 
 Upon her hair ; upon her raven hair 
 
 The white new-strangled kid we should have dressed 
 
 And eaten of together ; 
 
 Both were dead ; 
 
 I buried both within a single grave : 
 
 Besides thy words, her brown arms, the white kid 
 
 Between them laid upon her thick black hair ; 
 
 The patch of blood-stained grass 
 
 Mid the bright grass still green that grew all round :- 
 
 Besides thy words I had this vision with me, 
 
 So felt we were the last of all our race ; 
 
 If one of the two last became the slave 
 
 Of a slight blossom with a female voice, 
 
 Which by some witch-craft Circe bade to grow 
 
 In a sun-chequered woodland coppice, there 
 
 To sing until a centaur came that way 
 
 And knelt him down to worship day and night, 
 
 xii. 
 
Letting his strength leak out at eyes and ears, 
 
 While only Pholus, saddened with old age, 
 
 Lived as the noble centaurs lived of old 
 
 And made the hills redound unto his praise ! 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 I can remember still an ancient centaur 
 
 Who by a nymph was won away from us 
 
 Though he had had a wife, would he have fought ; 
 
 For then were many females of our race 
 
 And none, who owned his strength, need have lived lone : 
 
 But a white nymph there dwelt among the ro'cks, 
 
 And, while she lay before him, he would kneel 
 
 And pore upon her eyes ; 
 
 She was not as a woman who grows old, 
 
 Loses her charm and frees those whom she snared : 
 
 Nay, till he died her beauty held him fast ; 
 
 No joy he knew, no change, but, in a trance 
 
 He gazed upon her snowy languid form, 
 
 And sought he knew not what within her eyes. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 I thought of him ; for thou, long years ago, 
 
 Hadst spoken sadly of his wasted life, 
 
 And how his death was like a blasted tree's 
 
 Ragged with dead moss, whitened with crumbling tinder, 
 
 Gnarled, writhen, old, patient and desolate. 
 
 For she, she left him as the white owl quits 
 
 xiii. 
 
The old stump ere it falls ; she left him young, 
 
 Dreamy and calm as she had been before 
 
 He found her like a sleeping water there, 
 
 A mirror visited by all the stars 
 
 And which at noon-day seems a golden shield 
 
 Dropped by a Titan mid the rocks he hurled, 
 
 Or which, hurled at him, drove him wounded thence. 
 
 Some say the nymphs are women whom the gods 
 
 Have loved and given life to, ageless life, 
 
 And left each in the place where she was loved, 
 
 A memory to which they may return 
 
 And find a joy long past yet look like joy ; 
 
 Each lovely spot still cradle of the form 
 
 Whose youth and beauty caused their sojourn in it ; 
 
 The virgin they deflowered, virgin still ; 
 
 Ah ! fatal is that youth that is not young, 
 
 That purity that is no longer pure 
 
 But seems so ; ah ! how kind can beauty seem ! 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 'Tis like enough the gods are pleased with evil, 
 
 And thus pollute the beauty of the earth, 
 
 Hiding their wantonness as spring cloaks winter, 
 
 Who false proclaims that death, decay and ruin 
 
 Exist not, while she really battens on them 
 
 In rash, triumphant lust and carelessness, 
 
 As women heed not what courageous life 
 
 xiv. 
 
They draw man from ; the better, the more homage 
 
 They sip, the richer flavour soaks their dream ! 
 
 MEDON 
 
 It may be so with some. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 With most it is. 
 MEDON 
 
 Not many have such beauty ; if the Gods 
 Take some to make them nymphs, but few are left. 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Enough ; for it goes hard if once in life 
 A woman have not her brief hour of charm, 
 And find not some man weaker than her spell. 
 MEDON 
 
 The next I saw were not so fair as flowers ; 
 The thought of her I left within the wood 
 Made them seem noteless, common as their tasks ; 
 And then I found the mother of this child : 
 She might have been a centauress half hid 
 By plants of broom ; for shoulders, arms, and breasts 
 Were bare and brown ; the head was crowned with hair 
 As with the symbol of a mighty realm ; 
 All else was hidden in a yellow robe : 
 There sate she, doing nothing with her hands, 
 But quiet as Demeter in her cave ; 
 I moved me round till I could watch her eyes, 
 
 XV, 
 
And then I felt my strength was like a dream, 
 
 And as a vision foreign seemed my shape, 
 
 And all that I have done like misty tales ; 
 
 Silence fell round me such as made the noon 
 
 As proper for the advent of a god 
 
 As midnight is for sudden Artemis ; 
 
 -Then were thy words found voiceless, as when trees 
 
 On a still night seem hardly to be there : 
 
 Hast thought on sleep at all ? 
 
 On dreamless slumber pondered ever ? 
 
 What are we when we do not know ourselves ? 
 
 Where are we ? Is 
 
 The world about us still ? 
 
 We count it certain that the world is there ; 
 
 For we see others sleep, 
 
 And wake in the same place ; 
 
 But, oh ! how heavy on the mind it lies, 
 
 The thought of dreamless sleep ! 
 
 If we will think of it, 
 
 We find no help at all, 
 
 Nor can we say one word ; 
 
 All of me slept except what gazed on her 
 
 And even so she was not like a dream. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Ah! Medon, Medon, how didst thou escape? 
 For every woman is a thing of pity, 
 . xvi. 
 
That teaches love of weakness to the strong ; 
 
 They dream of pity when their hands do naught, 
 
 And, if they smile, have thought on tenderness. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Nay, not this woman : hers were dreamless eyes. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Fool, Medon, she will lure thee back to her ; 
 
 For 'tis the nursing of a tender dream 
 
 That gives such power to a woman's glance, 
 
 Troubling so the hearts of centaurs even ; 
 
 Those girls that had this novelty of gaze, 
 
 They spread this madness through the race of men ; 
 
 For men were once as centaurs, proud of strength, 
 
 And scorned to win by numbers men were once 
 
 Our equals and their wives wholesome as ours, 
 
 Obedient to the male and calm with health ! 
 
 MEDON 
 
 This woman was as calm sea is, and hale. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Ah ! Medon, strong men lied first to defend 
 Base weakness ; yea, for women's sake they lied ; 
 Their words were as our own when I was young. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 I speak as centaurs speak and not as men. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Fondly thou spak'st ; thus men have come to speak : 
 
 c xvil 
 
Yet always had man half a mind to this ; 
 
 Loving beyond the circle of his peers, 
 
 And pleased to talk, 
 
 Nay, happy even to laugh 
 
 With weaklings and with slaves ; 
 
 Prizing his woman not for wholesome soundness 
 
 And power to bear him sturdy little ones, 
 
 But for a sickly grace, a languid air, 
 
 And instant exhibition of vile fear ; 
 
 Because she hath the coward's knees at once, 
 
 When even a stoat bolts in and out the hedge. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Nay, hear me speak, good Pholus, and believe 
 
 You are too quick to find me like a man ; 
 
 I have not brought the woman back with me, 
 
 Yet, had I wished to bring her, she were here. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Speak, Medon : thou wast ever amorous, 
 
 And wentest forth to rape a woman hither ; 
 
 Therefore forgive my no way groundless doubt. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 There sate the woman by her husband's door, 
 
 And I was in an orchard screened by trees. 
 
 Within the house there came a sudden cry ; 
 
 This child had hurt himself and forth he came, 
 
 The little storm, weeping and howling too, 
 
 XVlll. 
 
And flung his naked body 'gainst the knees, 
 
 Ruddy and brown, against the yellow skirt 
 
 Of his calm mother ; who looked down on him ; 
 
 He stopped his howling, held pinched fingers up ; 
 
 She took and kissed them, spoke low words to him, 
 
 And soon he smiled, stood up and rubbed his eyes, 
 
 Then gazed all round. His black and curly head, 
 
 The steadiness he had upon his legs, 
 
 His pouts that came to nothing in a smile, 
 
 And every part of him already male, 
 
 Forceful and eager, filled my mind with ease. 
 
 The centaur colt is beautiful and strange 
 
 Beside its mother, gazing from a cave ; 
 
 Wondering that earth so fair is ; 
 
 Asking the name of trees, 
 
 Of sun and moon and hill ; 
 
 Hearing to-day, as for the first time still, 
 
 The answer that she made him yesterday : 
 
 To see him stand admiring width of space 
 
 And its soft-filling bath of light and air, 
 
 Smiling at evening's silence or the noon's, 
 
 Then, thinking that he hears a distant bird, 
 
 Half reeling with delight, 
 
 Impassioned for that voice of simple joy 
 
 Whose easy triumph over sweetest words 
 
 xix. 
 
Makes him afraid his mother hears it not, 
 
 (Although he sees she hears) 
 
 Because she is less shaken than himself, 
 
 Less new to pleasure, 
 
 Less ignorant of pain ; 
 
 To see him fills pubescent youth with glee 
 
 Almost as uncontainable as his, 
 
 Almost as novel, as ignorant almost, 
 
 Which makes him seek the youthful virgin out ; 
 
 Which, when he finds her, makes her meek to him, 
 
 Not as before, suspicious and aloof. 
 
 O Pholus, thus I found Hipponoe ; 
 
 Yet every promise that had filled my mind 
 
 Was butchered when she met her cruel death. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 If weakness always had 
 
 The promise of a colt, 
 
 Then, then, indeed, 
 
 Man's worship of it were not quite insane. 
 
 But this, oh, this ! is truth, 
 
 That nowhere else it seems to promise even, 
 
 And only seems in youth ; 
 
 The promise of a colt lies in his strength, 
 
 So of a virgin in her strength it lies, 
 
 Though both indeed are weak ; 
 
 Yea, man's thought is confused 
 
 XX. 
 
And not our thought, who see 
 
 Thus much alone of good ; 
 
 Betwixt a vile beginning and vile end, 
 
 Welcome to contemplation of the mind, 
 
 We, centaurs, clearly see a few years' span 
 
 Wherein thought may be pleased, 
 
 Purpose effective more or less, 
 
 Our bodies strong, our enemies afraid 
 
 A few years thus we see, but even they 
 
 Do dodge calamities and end 
 
 In loss of strength ; and worse, 
 
 More bitter yet than loss of strength, in loss 
 
 Of all significance. 
 
 It is not good that, though the earth be fair, 
 
 Our strength is so entangled and hemmed in ; 
 
 Gratitude is not due 
 
 For gifts so given that they mock themselves : 
 
 Wisely we judge of gods, 
 
 Wisely we judge of fate, 
 
 Who look for nothing that we cannot take, 
 
 Expecting loss of all we cannot keep, 
 
 And know our strength will often not suffice, 
 
 And know that we shall end in wretchedness ; 
 
 Yet, while strength lasts, on what it may acquire 
 
 Expend it, and rejoice that so much is 
 
 As we would have it be. 
 
 xxi. 
 
MEDON 
 
 How this child sleeps ! 
 
 In silence like the future's where our dreams 
 
 Wander and yet find naught but what they bring ! 
 
 The room of all expectancy is here ! 
 
 Thus spread the landscape in the happy eyes 
 
 Of loved Hipponoe ! 
 
 Ah! here, 
 
 As in an eagle's egg, 
 
 Enjoyment of the empire of the air, 
 
 Is lodged a prophecy, a thing to be : 
 
 Behold, the moon doth rise ; 
 
 Her light, see, steals 
 
 Across the lichened surface of this slab ; 
 
 It reaches now his little foot, behold ! 
 
 What roads, what sea-shores, and what craggy heights, 
 
 Softly and firmly planted, shall this tread 
 
 And carry with it all our will's success ; 
 
 Or else, the mere frustration of our love 
 
 It shall proceed with over marble floors, 
 
 Or where those women with the crafty eyes, 
 
 Pacing soft carpets in their curtained bowers, 
 
 Bewitch the strength that might have made a man 
 
 The centaur's brother. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 O Medon, what is in this child that you 
 
 xxii. 
 
Without replying to my words of weight, 
 
 Dote so upon its feebleness ? 
 
 We cannot rear it, 
 
 There is no hope we could ; 
 
 Any of all the puking evils that beset 
 
 A weanling must suffice 
 
 To quite frustrate our best of care. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Ah ! Pholus, thou art old and slow to hope ; 
 
 Yet hope, while we have strength for it, is good. 
 
 What though the day draw near 
 
 When I shall be as tardy as thyself 
 
 To please my mind with happiness not felt, 
 
 But fancied on the wing and longed for, longed for ! 
 
 This night is now all lovely with the moon, 
 
 And, must to-morrow night be drenche'd in rain, 
 
 Yet we indulge our eyes with this delight 
 
 And so far banish every thought of storm 
 
 That tempest seems a thing impossible, 
 
 And even the clouds which erewhile clad the earth 
 
 Are hard to think of; hard to think of, Pholus, 
 
 While moonlight softens all the stars 
 
 And drapes the innocent and delicate charm 
 
 Of sleeping infancy o'er rough stern hills 
 
 And lights the salt sea up with such a smile 
 
 As comes upon the features of a child 
 
 xxiii. 
 
When in his dreams he sees a butterfly 
 Float gorgeous down and nearly within reach. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Ah ! yes ; 
 
 The bitterest thought that we are doomed to think 
 
 Is that our joys were always groundless, always ! 
 
 And more of wisdom, more of knowledge, more 
 
 Of self-control, of power would have turned 
 
 Those hours, the only sweet ones we have known, 
 
 To indignation or perhaps despair. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Oh ! then, I thank my weakness ; even I 
 
 Find weakness helpful as a woman does : 
 
 Yet think that I am stronger than thyself. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Ah ! for the moment stronger ; but such strength 
 
 Carries within it such a grief as mine, 
 
 And thou dost know it surely even as I. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Hug thy wisdom, but hark : the child is here 
 And I who love him stronger am than thou : 
 Proud of the hope that's mine, I say, do this, 
 Help me rear up the child and oh ! assume, 
 Even if thou canst not feel, some cheerfulness, 
 Or I will leave thee and, with the babe alone, 
 Live out my active term how brief soe'er. 
 xxiv. 
 
PHOLUS 
 
 Yea, be a fool while thou hast strength for folly 
 
 And force my wisdom serve thy wantonness, 
 
 Thou wilt but prove my bitterest thought most true. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Enough, old grumbler ; ha ! thou mak'st me feel 
 
 Almost as I felt towards this youngster's dam, 
 
 When he did clamber on her knee and tried 
 
 To seize her breast with hungry eagerness : 
 
 She pushed him so that he slipped from her lap 
 
 And, when he climbed again, she pushed again ; 
 
 At first, he only laughed at each rebuff, 
 
 But soon vexation changed the note of it ; 
 
 Ere long like crested wave he raged and mounted ; 
 
 She, with provoking strength, lazy contempt, 
 
 Baffled his wrath as easily as when 
 
 His first assaults had been half sapped by laughing. 
 
 It was her will to wean him, doubtless ; yea, 
 
 As it is thine to minish now my joy, 
 
 Because it doth surpass the bounds prescribed 
 
 To thine old age. Her breast was rich enough ; 
 
 And thou hast strength sufficient for much joy, 
 
 Though not such great joys as are mine, may be. 
 
 Why did she envy him the milk he craved ? 
 
 She knew no more than all thy wisdom knows 
 
 Why thou dost strive to check and thwart my hopes 
 
 D XXV. 
 
Since thou admitt'st them necessary, ha ? 
 
 Nay, she had more of reason, since, ere long 
 
 She would have had, or may be had, another 
 
 \Yhose need of milk was greater than his was : 
 
 Though for her sleek contempt of his fine rage 
 
 There can be no excuse. He left her there, 
 
 As I will leave thee if thou so persist, 
 
 And with his little arms before his eyes, 
 
 And shaken with the fury he was in, 
 
 Staggered towards the orchard and towards me 
 
 Who guessed her will, as cold to my desire 
 
 As unto his ; content too ripe in her 
 
 To let her feel for those the edge of nature 
 
 Makes wild with hunger, angry with desire. 
 
 I seized the child ; perchance 
 
 She fathoms want by now ; 
 
 By now she paces bleak desire's den. 
 
 The music of her first alarum shrieks 
 
 Inspirited my career ; 
 
 It made me blind ; I took the wrong highway ; 
 
 And well-nigh was I in the town before 
 
 I knew the road mistaken, nor could re-find, 
 
 But made bad worse ; for soon the hunt was up ; 
 
 Thou sawest their torches as the evening fell ; 
 
 I think thou must have seen them even from here. 
 
PHOLUS 
 
 I did, and will be pleasant to thee, Medon, 
 
 And nurse thy joys ; for thou didst very well : 
 
 That women should be proud, who reign by pity, 
 
 To the sole beings they have the power to scorn 
 
 Their children and their lovers that they should 
 
 Makes ail my blood boil in me ; let them learn 
 
 To acquiesce in all things to the male. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Ha, ha ! the centaur glee shall rouse the hills 
 
 And turn their echoes giddy yet awhile, 
 
 Since Pholus joins with me and shares my joy 
 
 And is a centaur still, despite old age ! 
 
 Come, revel in thy strength ; adore that fleetness, 
 
 Made musical with hooves, that leaves the man 
 
 Even the man on horseback as a wave 
 
 Is left all angry, toiling after blasts 
 
 That sweep the ocean with tremendous glee i 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 I will ; I will ! my youth resurges now, 
 And shall employ unto the latest pulse 
 Life as the centaurs have determined wise ; 
 Not in a vain regret that things are ill, 
 But exultation that good strength is mine, 
 
 MEDON 
 
 The nights are short, and, hard upon the moon, 
 
The sun will rise ; yea, half the light in heaven 
 
 Is his already. 
 
 Ha ! the youngster wakes 
 
 Ho ! you rogue, my booty ; 
 
 Laugh, little giant ! 
 
 Shake thou thy stout limbs 
 
 Like a god's baby ; 
 
 Be careless and laugh ! 
 
 [The CHILD, whom he has tickled, crows.] 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Ha, ha! 
 
 Crow thou thy heartful ! 
 
 Catch him, old Pholus. 
 
 Safe as a bird has he flown to thine arms. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Ho ! he's so warm and so soft ; 
 
 He clings to my beard like an ant ; 
 
 His eyes are like birds 
 
 Quick peeping betwixt the tall stalks of the corn ; 
 
 He shakes with delight ; 
 
 He loves me already. 
 
 Come, call me grand-daddy, come call me grand-dad. 
 
 CHILD 
 
 Grand-daddy and dad. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 He has called me his dad ; 
 
 xxviii. 
 
Toss him back to these arms. 
 
 Like a bird through the air, he is caught ! 
 
 Oh ! he shall run naked 
 
 Till hairs on him grow, 
 
 And he shall climb mountains 
 
 And trample their snow 
 
 Till hooves on him grow ! 
 
 Till hooves on him grow ! 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Back with him ! back to the arms 
 
 Of grand-daddy ! the rogue, 
 
 He has come ; has he come to his nest? 
 
 He shall feed on the best; 
 
 Here are berries, blue berries as soft 
 
 As the nipple that nourished him erst. 
 
 I squeeze the soft pulp through his lips ; 
 
 He has eaten from my hand the first ; 
 
 And therefore I hold him aloft ; 
 
 Both my hands make a chair for his hips ; 
 
 Such a chair, in the prow of men's ships, 
 
 Carries rovers above the loud billows ; 
 
 So, through this copse of stunt willows, 
 
 My furrow I cleave with my lord. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Nay, Pholus, to me give him now ; 
 
 For I can go faster than thou ; 
 
 xxix. 
 
And he should be borne in the van ; 
 
 Make a throne for his hips with my one hand I can ! 
 
 See, now, he sits on the palm and the while 
 
 My fingers support him behind, and my thumb 
 
 He grasps with his left hand. Yea, smile ; 
 
 For the sun, from his bed that doth come, 
 
 Makes thee golden of all things the first. 
 
 Above the hill's top I lift thee so high 
 
 That I make thee the one golden cloud in the sky ! 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Shake thou thy little right fist at Apollo, 
 
 The God that is proud to be flattered by man ; 
 
 For thou art the first that shall say : 
 
 " Though thou give me the day 
 
 Not to thee will I bow, no, nor can 
 
 Thine anger turn fate from the path she doth follow ; 
 
 'Tis thy function to shine, 
 
 'Tis thy life, as to revel is mine ! " 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Yea, he shall have sons 
 
 And make much of his life ; 
 
 The hills shall be his. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Down like a torrent he runs 
 
 And bears off a wife ; 
 
 His hands shall she kiss 
 
 XXX. 
 
And be humble to him 
 
 And humour his whim ; 
 
 She shall grow healthy and strong, 
 
 And her hair shall be long ; 
 
 He shall strip from her all other dress, 
 
 Then the ease of her nakedness 
 
 She shall learn from her lord : 
 
 And her daughters, no more than wild mares, 
 
 Dream their beauty a thing they may hoard, 
 
 Nor consider their bodies as snares 
 
 Engines baited with shame and with pleasure 
 
 In equal measure. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 No, no, for they shall be glad 
 
 With simplicity clad, 
 
 Not conceiving that woven a cloth is 
 
 More fine or more soft than their skin ! 
 
 Or that tint on the pinion of moth is 
 
 Which they could look lovelier in 
 
 Than the brown and the flush of their health ! 
 
 Or that any other wealth 
 
 Could honour them more than children glowing ; 
 
 The red delight within them flowing ! 
 
 PHOLUS (holding up the child towards the sun) 
 
 See, see, thou king of the year ! 
 
 Look ! what a father is here 
 
 zxxi. 
 
For the years to come ! 
 
 This child is a male, dost thou see ? 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Apollo, hast thou no fear 
 
 That thine oracle might be dumb 
 
 For all the use it will be, 
 
 When a race from this child sprung, 
 
 Has conquered and cleansed all lands, 
 
 So that nowhere a temple stands 
 
 And to pray there is no skilled tongue ? 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Give, give him to me once more ; 
 
 For here I have found a comb, 
 
 Its juice has so sweetened my thumb 
 
 That naught he has sucked at before 
 
 Was ever so much to his mind, 
 
 Nor any one else so kind 
 
 As Pholus, his gnarled grandsire. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 Come, climb with him higher and higher ! 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 I will wrap the whole comb in green leaves ; 
 
 For I have nursed children before 
 
 And remember how hungry they were. 
 
 Ah ! my heart is still angry and grieves 
 
 For the colts that Bremoosa bore, 
 
 xxxii. 
 
That were slain while they clung to her. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 He shall avenge them, and thee 
 
 That wouldst not have been barren to me 
 
 My espoused, my Hipponoe. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 Yea, he shall avenge all our race ; 
 
 The grandchildren of those who slew them 
 
 His children shall slay ; 
 
 Though for pity they seek in his face, 
 
 His arrows shall drive right through them 
 
 And he not know why they pray. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 He shall milk the wild goats on the mountains ; 
 
 His feet shall grow sure as their feet ; 
 
 He shall bathe in the clear rock fountains, 
 
 Till so clear is his mind and so deep ; 
 
 And his joy shall be high as the snow-line 
 
 And embrace a vast plain with delight ; 
 
 His laugh shall twang true as a bow-line, 
 
 Like arrows his songs take their flight. 
 
 PHOLUS 
 
 And none who were pupils of Cheiron 
 
 Were ever so strong or so wise, 
 
 Nor ever their eyes glowed with fire on 
 
 Battle's eve as our rage in his eyes 
 
 E xxxiii. 
 
Shall glow without hindrance of pity, 
 
 Shall burn without let from remorse, 
 
 As havoc from city to city 
 
 He hounds on his destinied course. 
 
 MEDON 
 
 But first, in high valleys, 
 
 When June is in blow, 
 
 He shall sleep and run naked 
 
 Till hairs on him grow ! 
 
 Or in the hale winter 
 
 Shall powder their snow 
 
 Till hooves on him grow ! 
 
 Till hooves on him grow ! 
 
 [Winding up the valleys and across the ridges, ever 
 
 deeper and higher they travel into the heart of the range, 
 
 by turns carrying the child and arousing the echoes.] 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
HERE ENDS THE CENTAUR'S BOOTY. PRINTED BY R. FOL 
 KARD AND SON, XXII DEVONSHIRE STREET, QUEEN 
 SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY, FOR DUCKWORTH AND CO., Ill 
 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C. 
 MDCCCCIII. 
 
THE ROUT OF THE AMAZONS 
 
All rights reserved 
 
THE ROUT OF THE AMAZONS 
 BY T. STURGE MOORE 
 
 DUCKWORTH AND CO. 
 LONDON -MDCCCCIII 
 
TO MY MOTHER 
 
THE ROUT OF THE AMAZONS 
 
 [At Laomedon's Upper Fold.] 
 
 FAUN [afar off] 
 
 Ahi, ahi, ahi, Laomedon! 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 It is the faun : he is in sore dismay : 
 
 That shrewd " Ah ee " denoteth grief or pain. 
 
 FAUN [nearing] 
 
 Ahi, ahi, ahi ! 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Ah ! there he comes ! 
 
 What bounds ! O Hermes, how he bounds along ! 
 Like to a frog which boys do pelt with stones, 
 But straighter, without pause : and every leap 
 Cleareth a rood or more ! He's o'er the stream, 
 And takes the hurdles of the fold with ease, 
 And comes, and comes. . . . 
 FAUN 
 
 Ahi, ahi, ahi ! 
 LAOMEDON 
 Heyday, heyday ! what fills thee with alarm ? 
 
 FAUN 
 
 Ahi! 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Take breath, O aegipan, take breath. 
 
 vii. 
 
FAUN 
 
 Ahi ! Laomedon, art thou alone ? 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Yea, yea; see, here's a bowl ; I'll pour thee out 
 
 A draught of milk. 
 
 FAUN 
 
 Nay, stay ; thou art alone ? 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Alone I am, and shall be yet awhile : 
 My wife and daughters have gone off to bathe ; 
 The heat had wearied them, and, ere sun-down, 
 They wended slowly by yon zig-zag path, 
 So through the valley wood, on by the stream, 
 To gain the shore, where, floored with sand, a trough 
 Between flat shelves of rock doth form a bath 
 Convenient for their youth and timid hearts ; 
 Yon sail, that twinkles on the far sea marge, 
 My boys have hoisted ; having rowed out thither, 
 They now await the freshening breeze of night, 
 Behold, its first flaw travels the calm bay. 
 
 FAUN 
 
 You love a sober speech and call it best ; 
 
 Grave rounded syllables ; but oh, give ear ! 
 
 Ahi, ahi ! my tale will not support 
 
 A measured speech ; 
 
 It must come like the wind, 
 
 viii. 
 
Gust upon gust, 
 
 With rapid sweeping, 
 
 Curve following curve, 
 
 Until the waves are tossing and can roar. 
 
 Oh, has the zephyr won thy heart to love, 
 
 With beauty daring all the other winds 
 
 To give him chase ? or has 
 
 A child armed with a branch 
 
 Of silver-willow catkins, 
 
 Who dances round the men at work and laughs 
 
 His merry gibes ? 
 
 Oh ! it is worse 
 
 Than when it falls and hurts itself and weeps, 
 
 More suddenly ended and more utterly, 
 
 When the fair youthful woman, 
 
 Brandishing her spear, 
 
 Flaunting her cape of spotted leopard skin, 
 
 Prancing a white unsaddled horse 
 
 As full of bounding mettle as her glance is, 
 
 Gashed shrieks and wounded topples to the ground ! 
 
 Ah ! it is worse than when a lovely day is 
 
 In rushing storm englutted, 
 
 To see her dragged by one foot from the fight, 
 
 Amid the hooves whirled by a frantic steed, 
 
 Her head trailed through the dust, her poor bruised face 
 
 B ix. 
 
Like a down-beaten muddied flower, fainted, 
 
 Her white hands trodden upon, 
 
 Her white hands trodden upon. 
 
 What pain ! alas, what pain ! 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 What hast thou seen, ah me ! that makes thee weep 
 
 That art not wont to weep ? Thou cam'st so straight, 
 
 That com'st at other times so waywardly ; 
 
 Seeking the ferret's hole beneath the hedge, 
 
 Chasing the rabbit with a merry whoop, 
 
 Mocking the blue-tit swinging upside-down 
 
 With his ' chin chin/ thy fingers in thy teeth, 
 
 From lichened bowl picking the mealy moth, 
 
 And prying into all creation's hopes. 
 
 What ails thee ? hast thou seen a goddess fight ? 
 
 For goddesses do fight among the gods, 
 
 Though men with women fight not on the earth. 
 
 FAUN 
 
 Ahi, ahi, ahi ! if they did not 
 
 I should be as I always am to-day, 
 
 But they put on short tunics 
 
 Scarce covering half their thighs ; 
 
 The baldrick o'er their shoulders 
 
 And quivers they put on ; 
 
 To the bow set foot and knee, 
 
 String it with twanging cord 
 
And fit the notched shaft ; 
 
 Javelin and spear take up ; 
 
 And mount the steed and spur him, wearing straps 
 
 Wound round the heel and ankle, tightly wound ; 
 
 They wheel and prance and canter, 
 
 And make him arch his neck, 
 
 Rear, and with delicate knees 
 
 Cling to his moistening flanks. 
 
 A thousand rode together, poising darts, 
 
 Behind them those with other arms came on ; 
 
 All flaunting down a green-sward valley came 
 
 Between Arcadia's gentle holted hills. 
 
 It was for beauty like a fleet at sea, 
 
 Or like an hundred swans 
 
 Sailing before the breeze across a lake ! 
 
 Their vests of daffodil, or pallid pink 
 
 Or milky violet ! their saffron caps 
 
 And hoods like birds for sudden wing-like flaps ! 
 
 Their white and piebald mounts ! the rich green sward, 
 
 The morning light, the blossoming hawthorn trees ! 
 
 The zephyr's music in the holts that crown 
 
 With delicate fern-like trees, each soft knoll's top ! 
 
 I thought the night had borne me heavenward 
 
 And in Olympus I had waked from sleep ; 
 
 And when their war-song rose 
 
 Long tears of rapture ran across my face : 
 
 xi. 
 
Apollo made it, or, if 'twas not he, 
 Why, Marsyas died for nought. 
 
 Then heard I shouts, male voices, 
 
 And turning round I saw them come, 
 
 The men of Attica ; 
 
 With archers on the hills 
 
 In bands of twenty strong, 
 
 And horsemen in the plain, 
 
 And infantry drawn up in branching glens 
 
 Which sloped from either side down to the meads ; 
 
 I knew their stations had been ta'en with care ; 
 
 And soon the women would have turned the range, 
 
 And both those armies in each other's view 
 
 Must stand opposed. 
 
 In the boughs of an oak I have quaked, where four roads 
 
 met, 
 
 To watch upon either hand draw near to the cross 
 A boy and a girl both lovely and light of foot, 
 With life escaping out of unhindering eyes ; 
 My heart has ached for fear that they should not laugh, 
 Not utter the kindly word when they met, but withstand 
 The power of cither's beauty, and shamefac'd pass, 
 Fighting desire in their breasts for lack of a heart 
 Gallant with daring and sense ; my pulse has stood still, 
 xii. 
 
But, for fearing the thingthatthosenearingarmies mightdo, 
 When they met in the widening meads at the foot of the 
 
 hills, 
 
 My blood it grew cold, so long a time it stood still. 
 For now a silence settled on both their hosts, 
 As a wistness fell on those children, when they heard, 
 Each unseen, the other's approaching step on the road ; 
 For scouts had sighted and made to both sides report. 
 Ah, that hush was like a December night in my soul, 
 And dull the sound of the hooves as the dismal sound 
 In the winter forest that wakes one upon a thaw. 
 
 Ahi, ahi, ahi, it was shrewd pain ! 
 
 And not with a radiant welcome and hearty laugh 
 
 Each fronted each ; but with a shout like a curse, 
 
 With a yell that had stricken the lion's heart with fear, 
 
 They on to each other rushed. 
 
 Ah ! the eyes, that saw it, bleed ; 
 
 And my ear is a wounded sense ! 
 
 These were men, that their terrible spears 
 
 Hurled at the female breast : 
 
 These were men, who the well-aimed arrow 
 
 Let fly in the eyes of a girl. 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Faun, thou hast dreamed, this cannot be, is not ; 
 
 I think I know enough this to deny. 
 
 xiii. 
 
Some bitter herb hast eaten and slept ill ; 
 
 This has been born from fumes ; some weed's rank sap 
 
 Deludes thee, Faun ; there's wolf's-bane in thy blood ! 
 
 Thou hast seen perchance in wild October night, 
 
 After the vintage, some the coarser hinds 
 
 Fight with their callets, and hast seen may be 
 
 Both wounds and blood dealt upon womankind ; 
 
 Their clothes rent then, they by the hair were dragged : 
 
 They shrieked, they yelled, they tore with nails and teeth. 
 
 This in the fair spring night returned to thee, 
 
 The drunken riot, the hideous lustful rage 
 
 Transformed and tuned by trees above thy sleep. 
 
 There, with life-giving scent of May-time turf 
 
 And blossom's bounty floating the air of night, 
 
 Thy nostrils dilating, coloured thy dream has been 
 
 With delicate clarity ; while agile forms, 
 
 Such as the Spring befit, rehearsed those crimes 
 
 With which the Autumn rude thy soul had laden : 
 
 For know, the gently reared have gentle hearts. 
 
 FAUN 
 
 Nay, this was no dream ; not at all ! 
 
 Oh, believe me ! for I have plucked no berries, 
 
 Have eaten no spotted leaf nor any tongue-shaped, 
 
 Like the adder's tongue, so shaped, so venomed, 
 
 Nor none with prickles touched ; the wholesome alone 
 
 Have made my salads, and I am not deceived ; 
 
 xiv. 
 
It was there, I can show thee the place, and lead thee 
 
 thither : 
 
 Nor these were not country wenches, 
 Nor did them resemble as dreams resemble 
 The world and men and gods ; 
 
 These were the make of princesses, as thou hast told me : 
 And tended flowers that stand thy house before 
 Over the weed in the ditch bear not the palm 
 So far as these o'er some rich herdsman's child, 
 When, beauty ripe, she wears her very best ; 
 For splendid purposes had these been trained, 
 And had the aspect of untiared queens ; 
 Were like the tears of the morning for freshness ; 
 Like the arms of the evening thrown up for weariness 
 Such was the radiance of their arms ; but thrown up, 
 Oh ! thrown up in fright, in terror thrown up, 
 Those lovely and blood-splashed arms ! 
 
 I was not on fire for them ; think it not of me ! 
 
 I viewed them not as our wild faunesses ; no, 
 
 Though I have chased a nymph, 
 
 It was not so to-day ; 
 
 I was sadder than a man to-day. 
 
 I will pray Pan fervently 
 That he may inspire me 
 
 KV. 
 
With a ditty expressive of that mood 
 
 Whose sorrow was richer than joy. 
 
 He will do it, 
 
 For he is a sad god at his hours ; 
 
 In the evening he is sad : 
 
 Very often. 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 The men fought them, thou sayest? lanced them with 
 
 spears ? 
 
 Had they no pity then, seeing them bleed ? 
 Surely their hearts were touched then, they stayed then ? 
 The dreadful and upraised sword 
 Was stayed then, was dropped then ? and they 
 Ran to those they had wounded, lifted them, helped them, 
 And were at once most gentle with their hands ? 
 FAUN 
 
 No ! nothing of that ; for these, 
 Though they were hurt, were terrible ; 
 Though they bled, they hated ; 
 Though they died, they did not shed tears : 
 Their knees and arms were unstrung, 
 But their hearts were not. 
 Overthrown and puddled round with blood, 
 They struck at those who approached ; 
 It was not safe to be merciful : 
 Though of those men some felt pity, 
 xvi. 
 
None showed it and lived. 
 
 It were better to have been a horse in that battle ; 
 
 The strong steed knew not 
 
 Where he planted his hoof ; 
 
 He ruined bosoms 
 
 That should have suckled heroes, 
 
 The children of a god ; 
 
 But he knew it not. 
 
 If he broke the thigh of beauty, 
 
 Or crushed the loins 
 
 That had sate him so firmly, 
 
 With such elegance as the moon has 
 
 The moon that rides white clouds 
 
 Or the sea-nymph whom a dolphin 
 
 Bears with pride as with pride he bare her. 
 
 This the dumb steed knew not ; 
 
 But they, the men, 
 
 Knew what they did. 
 
 Look you, 
 
 To destroy beauty 
 
 Is what the year doth ; the flower 
 
 Springs up in tenderness, 
 
 Is reared in elegance, 
 
 Sometimes to majesty, 
 
 But withered it giveth no more delight to the eye 
 
 c xvii. 
 
Than an old creased ragged dusty kerchief! 
 
 Behold, 
 
 The storm it ravageth the sweet season ; 
 
 Is it not then the fairest trees that suffer most ? 
 
 What is the sea when tempest belloweth ? 
 
 Not that wooer which erewhile 
 
 The youth, nay even 
 
 The maiden could not withstand ; 
 
 But must be naked 
 
 And, bathing, intimately know 
 
 The caress of living waters ? 
 
 A horse is very much as a wind 
 
 It raceth, it is spurred, it becometh wild, 
 
 And in madness it rageth ; 
 
 It hath the form of speed as wind hath the sound ; 
 
 It forgetteth itself in everything it doth. 
 
 Needs must be that beauty perish, 
 
 A brief thing everywhere beneath the stars ; 
 
 If it be otherwise among them, 
 
 None will wonder when it is known : 
 
 But here we see it short-lived ; 
 
 Yet is Spring as constant as the fall, 
 
 The bud as seer'd petal sure 
 
 Despite both storm and frost, 
 
 And in despite 
 
 xviii. 
 
Of the terrible hooves of the horse, 
 
 The female child 
 
 Shall be born and reared in beauty, 
 
 And ride and curb the steed 
 
 With the grace of those ; 
 
 But the men who saw them 
 
 Shall not see these, 
 
 Or if they see them 
 
 Be old and chill, 
 
 Dull, and of no mettle to enjoy : 
 
 And this those men, 
 
 Destroying that beauty, knew. 
 
 Ah, and they know 
 
 More clearly yet by now ! 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Indeed, indeed, O Faun, thy words are wise ; 
 
 Such truth as ne'er before sits on thy lips : 
 
 This is the pain of thought, and our soul's goad, 
 
 This is the spur of man, and sad he is ; 
 
 To the child alone Spring comes with capturing glee ; 
 
 Only to youth with sweet co-ordinate soul, 
 
 And powers akin to theirs, will like their own ; 
 
 The man mature is braced to undertake 
 
 What, the last Autumn, had been judged too hard ; 
 
 For him the Spring has come like self restored. 
 
 To age but as reprieve from pain it comes : 
 
 xU. 
 
The laughing face throws on them some faint smile, 
 
 As from a shield the pale round lights a wall 
 
 Shed by its brilliant blaze ; but oftenest, ah ! 
 
 The envy of sour impotence is theirs, 
 
 Or dull regret, for they cannot be cheered, 
 
 Nor can they bless the kindness that would cheer ; 
 
 Then o'er the grave Spring treads unheeded quite. 
 
 FAUN 
 
 Give me the milk, Laomedon ; I thirst. 
 
 Thanks. Ah ! the milk is good, 
 
 As sweet it seems to me 
 
 As in those lovely bosoms there was stored 
 
 For infants that shall never wail for it. 
 
 They broke, they broke, and scattered far and wide, 
 
 Even so suddenly as I have seen 
 
 The cherry tree almost to one sole gust 
 
 Give up its bloom. 
 
 Like petals in the breeze, like butterflies, 
 
 They headed for the hills, 
 
 For shelter with loose rein 
 
 On all sides fleeing ! 
 
 As when among the sheep 
 
 A young dog wantonly that has not learned 
 
 To gather in the flock on Helicon, 
 
 And make a white drift like late-lingering snows 
 
 Among the rocks and cactus of a glen 
 
 XX. 
 
As when such young cur wantonly will bark 
 
 And run and worry ; as then fly the sheep 
 
 In headlong terror, so those fair queens fled. 
 
 But no Apollo from the clear sweet sky 
 
 Hastened, as then sore-vexed the shepherd hastes 
 
 To stay the cur with swift correcting stone, 
 
 And gather-to the sheep with sager dogs, 
 
 Ah no, ah no, Apollo ! 
 
 Apollo, where wast thou? 
 
 Afar on white Olympus' brow ? 
 
 Or didst thou some fair Daphne follow ? 
 
 Or wast thou minding sheep 
 
 For some boy shepherd's love 
 
 Upon Thessalian steep ? 
 
 While in thy car above 
 
 A Phaeton, a mortal's child, 
 
 The reins had from thy hand beguiled, 
 
 With silly pride to drive his father's team, 
 
 Heedless of evils, flush-faced, in a dream : 
 
 Cheeks flushed, curls streaming, 
 
 Rapt standing in thy car, 
 
 In daylight dreaming ; 
 
 Blissful as sleepers are, 
 
 Heedless of evils be they near or far, 
 
 Of evils heedless be they near or far. 
 
 XXI. 
 
But close, close, close to me 
 
 A feminine splendour on a whirlwind steed 
 
 Rushed up, flashed forth, passed by, 
 
 Plunging through the crashing brakes 
 
 Deep between trees, on, on : 
 
 And others I could hear them broach the wood 
 
 At diverse distances ; 
 
 Some with shrewd wails of pain 
 
 For jolted wound, or blow from low-hung bough : 
 
 So turned and hastened towards the wooded hills, 
 
 Leaving the open valley and the meads 
 
 And the harsh voices of victorious men ; 
 
 And, following tracks some hour, came upon 
 
 A stream, and, by the stream 
 
 One crouched, half stripped, wiping a wounded foot. 
 
 Her bare arms, shaped as dreams of courage are 
 
 In some young lover's mind, 
 
 Glowed bright with strength, efficiency, and grace : 
 
 The woundless foot bespoke a power to dance, 
 
 To race, to wheel, and leap, 
 
 As tunny's tail expresseth subtler force 
 
 And water-quelling feats of deftness rare. 
 
 Behind, into an oak bush leaned her shield 
 
 And her long spear : her face 
 
 Was strange and sweet as when the spell of thought 
 
 Lays hold upon a child, 
 
 xxii. 
 
Who feels no captive yet, 
 
 And, when he shall, that instant will escape : 
 
 Her hair, a nut-red, hung 
 
 Unnetted down her back ; 
 
 Some vests on which she sate dipped in the stream, 
 
 And in the water dipped 
 
 One of her silvery greaves 
 
 Shapely and curved ; 
 
 Not far away her horse, 
 
 Where the bank widened and the sunshine fell, 
 
 Lay panting with green branches strewn o'er him, 
 
 Green branches she had first drenched in the stream. 
 
 Then, as she staunched her wound, 
 
 Her shift fell open and I saw her breast 
 
 Quick heaving still : 
 
 The flowers that grow upon that lush stream-bank, 
 
 Fed with green half- veiled light 
 
 Or short half-hours of sun, 
 
 Deep in the wood, 
 
 No wind could reach to stir ; but like some belled 
 
 Faint-flushed anemone 
 
 Wherein a bee is hid 
 
 Her bosom shook. 
 
 I shall not speak about her loveliness 
 
 Beyond what now is said : 
 
 She never saw me and I left her there. 
 
 xxiii. 
 
Soon I on traces came of wildest flight : 
 The white and spunky end of some dead branch 
 Snapt on the ground the wounded toadstool clump 
 Scattered in chips of sulphur or shrewd red 
 Rent and dragged tangle, briar, clematis, 
 Or woodbine clotted leaves scooped up, turned over ; 
 Black, moist, and glistening on the dusty mats, 
 They form where'er the gloom forbiddeth weeds ; 
 Last, ploughed up dints in ruddier needles led me 
 On to a hill-side plateau : mid the pines 
 Through which a glade was opened o'er the land, 
 A shred of silk there fluttered 'gainst the sky. 
 
 At foot of tall and grandly-towering pines 
 
 Was where she fell ; for there she dead lay fallen, 
 
 Between two groves of grandly-towering pines. 
 
 Yea, here she fell ; for here she dead lay fallen 
 
 With both arms stretched beyond her upturned face, 
 
 Pointing the way her steed had madly fled ; 
 
 Her feet, where their wake ended in dank grass 
 
 Through which they had been trailed some thirty yards, 
 
 Lying wound in their straps and scored with scratches ; 
 
 A spotted skin belting the tattered vests 
 
 That chilly shook upon her loins, or framing 
 
 A globed discovered breast and firm full throat : 
 
 Perfectly still : and in her raven hair 
 
 xxiv. 
 
Nested her face like snow on Cyprus cradled, 
 
 While near one hand a yellow daffodil 
 
 With unbruised stalk flaunted its winsome head. 
 
 There, while I gazed upon her, I could see 
 
 The quiet country melt in haze away 
 
 Miles beyond miles. There beautiful she lay, 
 
 The tall pines barely murmuring far aloft, 
 
 Not stooping and not conscious she was there : 
 
 Yet once I saw the ripe and rustling corn 
 
 Arch down above a baby sleeping naked ; 
 
 Tender and careful as Demeter was 
 
 Of her Persephone at eighteen months, 
 
 So fond the wheat bowed o'er that baby lying 
 
 Not far from where men reaped between two fields 
 
 Upon a patch of close-grown clover leaves. 
 
 A pitcher in a wattled jacket cased, 
 
 And food tied with a napkin, stood beside 
 
 Its curly flaxen poll ; the patterned shawl, 
 
 Which once had wrapped it, 'neath its legs lay crumpled, 
 
 For great the warmth and sturdy those fine limbs. 
 
 There, under curving heavy-fruited stalks, 
 
 And nodding ears of dry and rustling corn, 
 
 Between those fields outspread like oceans rolling, 
 
 The two-years-old slept sound; and I, who heard 
 
 The reapers sing the contest and defeat 
 
 Of Linus, to give time to their hard toil, 
 
 D XXV. 
 
Might watch her grace in slumber half an hour, 
 
 And wonder whether she had dreams or no. 
 
 It was a child, whose prettiness in play 
 
 Might well have charmed the bird down from the tree : 
 
 I, gazing on that dead form, thought of her, 
 
 And felt as then I felt, and stole away, 
 
 As though a-feared lest she might wake, and scream 
 
 To see my horns, brown visage, and white teeth. 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Meseems that these must have been amazons, 
 
 Beyond the isles that live, beyond the isles ; 
 
 I have heard tell (but ne'er did credit much) 
 
 Of their strange way of life and warlike strength : 
 
 And yet, since that thy tongue seems new-endowed, 
 
 Perchance thou art inspired of a god 
 
 And speakest things that are not, to win love 
 
 To win love hinting grandeurs not contained 
 
 In what contains us, air and sight and sound ; 
 
 For that they should invade our Hellas seems 
 
 In very sooth a dream. 
 
 FAUN 
 
 No, no ! no dream ! 
 
 Not far from where that lovely warrior lay 
 I sate me down in deep and solemn mood, 
 Then came a bird and sang, 
 Sang and flew off once more ; 
 xxvi. 
 
A squirrel came and wondered what it meant ; 
 
 The nimble rogue had hoped I'd give him chase. 
 
 He knew not she lay there in middle glade 
 
 Dead, yet as beautiful as hope of health 
 
 After one has been sick. And it grew cold, 
 
 And the damp spring-tide evening settled in ; 
 
 Between the tall sad trunks the light grew grey, 
 
 And green gave place to blackness in the grass : 
 
 With strident cries at times, but ne'er a song, 
 
 The birds had gone to roost ; and silence reigned 
 
 Like the great future, absolute control 
 
 Exerting without any sensible sign ; 
 
 Lord of an hour, as that great realm of hope 
 
 Imposeth all life long. Mutely I prayed 
 
 That she to joy might even yet return, 
 
 Then looked and saw the stars shine through the boughs, 
 
 And far away I heard a silver sound. 
 
 At first methought it was the rising moon 
 
 Did make a music pure and clear as dew ; 
 
 But, lo ! 'twas answered from the west, and soon 
 
 Out of the south was gently born again. 
 
 I did not move, but mine eyes filled with tears ; 
 
 And now from many quarters all at once, 
 
 And then again in silver dialogue, 
 
 Across the inlets of the sea, 
 
 Across the plains, 
 
 xxvii. 
 
Across successive ranges of the hills, 
 
 Fainter than music, more magical than harps, 
 
 It rose and was approaching from all sides ; 
 
 I rocked myself for bliss, a hallali, 
 
 A hallali on horns of crystal sounded. 
 
 The nymphs of Artemis they blew those horns 
 
 On all the hills, in every forest's heart, 
 
 And down the valleys, and across the plains, 
 
 And near the distant inlets of the sea, 
 
 Where'er a woman's body they had found. 
 
 Now close behind me, twenty paces back, 
 
 It sounded : and I, turning, saw one stand 
 
 With all the dignity and charm of night, 
 
 In a white tunic with a grey-green cloak, 
 
 Beside that prostrate sister of like grace. 
 
 Then knelt she and laid both the arms to rest, 
 
 Next straightened both the knees, and closed the shift 
 
 Above the breast, ordered the dew-damp hair, 
 
 And kissed the eyelids, having lowered them ; 
 
 Went then and gathered young ferns not far off; 
 
 With these she covered up that lovely corse, 
 
 Then drew a circle round it with an arrow, 
 
 Saying some words of heaven, some rare spell, 
 
 Doubtless of might to stay 
 
 The onward rushing wolf, and yet so fine 
 
 That it could hold the spider and the ant, 
 
 xxviii. 
 
Forbid their entrance like a crystal wall, 
 
 And owl or chough or vulture on the wing 
 
 Suddenly turn to folly, and their instinct, 
 
 Never at fault before, lead far astray, 
 
 As though their hearts felt love, and they were gone 
 
 To vainly haunt round some fair rock-nymph's lodge, 
 
 Or to persuade the moon with lover's sighs. 
 
 Sounding again that glory on her horn, 
 
 She turned and passed away among the trees. 
 
 Soon I arose and sought the freer air 
 
 And gazed out o'er the night ; and here and there, 
 
 Lo ! a white tunic and a green-grey cloak 
 
 Of fainter than a phosphor radiance, gleamed 
 
 Upon the plain, or on the sides of hills. 
 
 Ere long I knew they gathered toward that place, 
 
 Winding their horns at times, the while they went, 
 
 Where the main battle raged ; and I made thither. 
 
 But, when I saw 
 
 How many queens were busy on that field, 
 
 And with what rapid gliding steps they moved, 
 
 Fear fell upon me lest I were surprised, 
 
 Actaeon-like, and changed to more a beast, 
 
 Losing both speech and laughter : so I fled 
 
 Just as the morning was about to break. 
 
 An hundred miles have I come straight to thee, 
 
 Mine only friend, Laomedon ; and now 
 
 xxix. 
 
Haste thee, O shepherd, to return with me ; 
 For though they doubtless buried some last night, 
 And will to-night inter yet more, I deem 
 It shall be full a week ere that they quit 
 Their travail o'er Arcadian hills and dales : 
 So come, for we may see them at their work 
 And in our hearts put by so pure a vision, 
 That though old age and blindness fall on us, 
 We shall know hours of rapture to the end. 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Faun, I do believe thee, and will come ; 
 For what thou tell'st is worthy of the gods, 
 And holy Artemis would act e'en so. 
 First let me say farewell unto my wife 
 
 And daughters, for I hear them at the house. 
 They have returned and shall provide a scrip 
 With cates and meat, figs and good flask of wine ; 
 For thou hast fasted long, and several days 
 Must pass before I can be here once more. 
 
 FAUN 
 
 Laomedon, I will await thee ; haste ! 
 
 So good a man both gods and nymphs respect ; 
 
 1 shall be safe with him. The poor wild faun, 
 With that kind shepherd who once saved his life, 
 Shall look upon the holy Artemis 
 
 And all her stately and white-tunic'd nymphs. 
 
 XXX. 
 
A man walks slow, our journey will take time. 
 
 But, see, he doth return ; his wife and girls, 
 
 Who take their leave, come with him ; I will hide. 
 
 DAUGHTER 
 
 O father, wilt thou go an hundred miles ? 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Eudora, yea ; an hundred miles, my girl. 
 
 HIS WIFE 
 
 Laomedon, be heedful and not rash ; 
 
 Anger no nymph, intrude not on their rites. 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Dear, fear me not ; farewell. 
 
 LITTLE DAUGHTER 
 
 An hundred miles is further than the caves ? 
 
 ELDEST DAUGHTER 
 
 Yes, Doto, for the caves are scarce ten miles. 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Farewell, my sweetest little one, farewell ; 
 
 Oh, I could kiss you all away to-night ! 
 
 ANOTHER DAUGHTER 
 
 There is the faun ; I saw him ; mother, mother ! 
 
 THE WIFE 
 
 He will not hurt you, dear ; 'tis a kind faun. 
 
 EUDORA 
 
 Father, I cannot think an hundred miles : 
 
 xxxi. 
 
It is beyond, beyond, too far, and like 
 
 The moon and stars ; or are they nearer us ? 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Further, I think, but ask the reremice that ; 
 
 Farewell, be good. Dear wife, one last farewell ! 
 
 ALL 
 
 Farewell, farewell, farewell ; good-bye, good-bye ! 
 
 FAUN 
 
 Hist! 
 
 I to the hay rick on yon ridge will pass 
 
 And there await thee ; I cannot walk slow. 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Good, good ; agreed! Ha, ha! see, he is off; 
 
 My best strides are no match for bounds like that ;- 
 
 Didst thou see, Doto, how he leaped i' the dark ? 
 
 DOTO 
 
 Ha, ha, the funny faun ! 
 
 LAOMEDON 
 
 Good-bye, sweet one. 
 
 ALL 
 
 Father, good-bye ! 
 
 EUDORA 
 
 The darkness down the hill 
 
 Hides him so fast, he seems a shadow now 
 
 That waves its hand upon a dark grey wall. 
 
 xxxii. 
 
THE MOTHER 
 
 There, let us all go home and get to bed ; 
 
 The boys will not be back till near on dawn ; 
 
 I hope they will bring fish, for all the meat 
 
 Did I thrust in his wallet, wrapped in leaves. 
 
 If it be wise to try and see the gods 
 
 I know not ; but your father is a man, 
 
 And men will not be cautious in such things ; 
 
 So let us get to bed and pray for him. 
 
 XXXlll. 
 
HERE ENDS THE ROUT OF THE AMAZONS. PRINTED 
 BY R. FOLKARD AND SON, XXII DEVONSHIRE STREET, 
 QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY, FOR DUCKWORTH AND 
 CO., Ill HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, 
 W.C. MDCCCCIII. 
 
THE GAZELLES AND OTHER POEMS 
 
All rights reserved 
 
THE GAZELLES AND OTHER POEMS 
 BY T. STURGE MOORE 
 
 DUCKWORTH AND CO. 
 LONDON MDCCCC1 V 
 
TO HETTIE 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 The Gazelles ....... page 9 
 
 A Spanish Picture . . . . . 16 
 
 Lines on Titian's ' Bacchanal/ in the Prado . ,, 19 
 
 Love's First Communion . . . . 21 
 
 Desire Muses. . . . . . ,, 23 
 
 Desire Sings .......,, 24 
 
 Desire Pleads. . . . . . ,, 25 
 
 Let Love Suffice . . . . . ,, 26 
 
 The Convent Threshold 27 
 
 To Idleness . . . . . . ,, 28 
 
 Renaissance . . . . . . ,, 30 
 
 The author wishes to thank the editors of " The 
 Speaker" and "The Saturday Review" for their kind 
 permission to reprint "A Spanish Picture" and "To 
 Idleness." 
 
THE GAZELLES 
 
 When the sheen on tall summer grass is pale, 
 Across blue skies white clouds float on 
 In shoals, or disperse and singly sail, 
 Till, the sun being set, they all are gone : 
 
 Yet, as long as they may shine bright in the sun, 
 They flock or stray through the daylight bland, 
 While their stealthy shadows like foxes run 
 Beneath where the grass is dry and tanned : 
 
 And the waste, in hills that swell and fall, 
 Goes heaving into yet dreamier haze ; 
 And a wonder of silence is over all 
 Where the eye feeds long like a lover's gaze : 
 
 Then, cleaving the grass, gazelles appear 
 (The gentler dolphins of kindlier waves) 
 With sensitive heads alert of ear ; 
 Frail crowds that a delicate hearing saves, 
 
 That rely on the nostrils' keenest power, 
 
 And are governed from trance-like distances 
 
 By hopes and fears, and, hour by hour, 
 
 Sagacious of safety, snuff the breeze. 
 
 B ix, 
 
They keep together, the timid hearts ; 
 And each one's fear with a panic thrill 
 Is passed to an hundred ; and if one starts 
 In three seconds all are over the hill. 
 
 A Nimrod might watch, in his hall's wan space, 
 
 After the feast, on the moonlit floor, 
 
 The timorous mice that troop and race, 
 
 As tranced o'er those herds the sun doth pour ; 
 
 Like a wearied tyrant sated with food 
 Who envies each tiniest thief that steals 
 Its hour from his abstracted mood, 
 For it living zest and beauty reveals. 
 
 He alone, save the quite dispassionate moon, 
 Sees them ; she stares at the prowling pard 
 Who surprises their sleep and, ah ! how soon 
 Is riding the weakest or sleepiest hard ! 
 
 Let an agony's nightmare course begin, 
 Four feet with five spurs a piece control, 
 Like a horse thief reduced to save his skin 
 Or a devil that rides a human soul ! 
 
 The race is as long as recorded time, 
 Yet brief as the flash of assassin's knife ; 
 For 'tis crammed as history is with crime 
 'Twixt the throbs at taking and losing life ; 
 x. 
 
Then the warm wet clutch on the nape of the neck, 
 Through which the keen incisors drive ; 
 Then the fleet knees give, down drops the wreck 
 Of yesterday's pet that was so alive. 
 
 Yet the moon is naught concerned, ah no ! 
 
 She shines as on a drifting plank 
 
 Far in some northern sea-stream's flow 
 
 From which two numbed hands loosened and sank. 
 
 Such thinning their number must suffer ; and worse 
 When hither at times the Shah's children roam, 
 Their infant listlessness to immerse 
 In energy's ancient upland home : 
 
 For here the shepherd in years of old 
 Was taught by the stars, and bred a race 
 That welling forth from these highlands rolled 
 In tides of conquest o'er earth's face : 
 
 On piebald ponies or else milk-white, 
 
 Here, with green bridles in silver bound, 
 
 A crescent moon on the violet night 
 
 Of their saddle cloths, or a sun rayed round, 
 
 With tiny bells on their harness ringing, 
 And voices that laugh and are shrill by starts, 
 Prancing, curvetting, and with them bringing 
 Swift chetahs cooped up in light-wheeled carts, 
 
 xi. 
 
They come, and their dainty pavilions pitch 
 In some valley, beside a sinuous pool, 
 Where a grove of cedars towers in which 
 Herons have built, where the shade is cool ; 
 
 Where they tether their ponies to low hung boughs, 
 Where long through the night their red fires gleam, 
 Where the morning's stir doth them arouse 
 To their bath in the lake, as from dreams to a dream. 
 
 And thence in an hour their hunt rides forth, 
 And the chetahs course the shy gazelle 
 To the east or west or south or north, 
 And every eve in a distant vale 
 
 A hetacomb of the slaughtered beasts 
 Is piled ; tongues loll from breathless throats ; 
 Round large jet eyes the horsefly feasts 
 Jet eyes, which now a blue film coats : 
 
 Dead there they bleed, and each prince there 
 Is met by his sister, wife, or bride- 
 Delicious ladies with long dark hair, 
 And soft dark eyes, and brows arched wide, 
 
 In quilted jacket, embroidered sash, 
 And tent-like skirts of pleated lawn ; 
 While their silk-lined jewelled slippers flash 
 Round bare feet bedded like pools at dawn : 
 xii. 
 
So choicefully prepared to please, 
 Young, female, royal of race and mood, 
 In indolent compassion these 
 O'er those dead beauteous creatures brood : 
 
 They lean some minutes against their friend, 
 A lad not slow to praise himself, 
 Who tells how this one met his end 
 Out-raced, or trapped by leopard stealth, 
 
 And boasts his chetahs fleetest are ; 
 Through his advice the chance occurred, 
 That leeward vale by which the car 
 Was well brought round to head the herd. 
 
 Seeing him bronzed by sun and wind, 
 She feels his power and owns him lord, 
 Then, that his courage may please her mind, 
 With a soft coy hand half draws his sword, 
 
 Just shudders to see the cold steel gleam, 
 And drops it back in the long curved sheath ; 
 She will make his evening meal a dream 
 And surround his sleep like some rich wreath 
 
 Of heavy-lidded flowers bewitched 
 
 To speak soft words of ecstasy 
 
 To wizard king old, wise, and enriched 
 
 With all save youth's and love's sweet glee. 
 
 xiii. 
 
But, while they sleep, the orphaned herd 
 And wounded stragglers, through the night 
 Wander in pain, and wail unheard 
 To the moon and the stars so cruelly bright : 
 
 Why are they born ? ah ! why beget 
 
 They in the long November gloom 
 
 Heirs of their beauty, their fleetness, yet 
 
 Heirs of their panics, their pangs, their doom ? 
 
 That to princely spouses children are born 
 To be daintily bred and taught to please, 
 Has a fitness like the return of morn : 
 But why perpetuate lives like these ? 
 
 Why, with horns that jar and with fiery eyes, 
 Should the male stags fight for the shuddering does 
 Through the drear dark nights, with frequent cries 
 From tyrant lust or outlawed woes ? 
 
 Doth the meaningless beauty of their lives 
 
 Rave in the spring, when they course afar 
 
 Like the shadows of birds, and the young fawn strives 
 
 Till its parents no longer the fleetest are ? 
 
 Like the shadows of flames which the sun's rays throw 
 
 On a kiln's blank wall, where glaziers dwell, 
 
 Pale shadows as those from glasses they blow, 
 
 Yet that lap at the blank wall and rebel, 
 
 xiv. 
 
Even so to my curious trance-like thought 
 Those herds move over those pallid hills, 
 With fever as of a frail life caught 
 In circumstance o'er-charged with ills ; 
 
 More like the shadow of lives than life, 
 
 Or most like the life that is never born 
 
 From baffled purpose and foredoomed strife, 
 
 That in each man's heart must be hidden from scorn 
 
 Yet with something of beauty very rare 
 Unseizable, fugitive, half discerned ; 
 The trace of intentions that might have been fair 
 In action, left on a face that yearned 
 
 But long has ceased to yearn, alas ! 
 So faint a trace do they leave on the slopes 
 Of hills as sleek as their coats with grass ; 
 So faint may the trace be of noblest hopes. 
 
 Yet why are they born to roam and die ? 
 Can their beauty answer thy query, O soul ? 
 Nay, nor that of hopes which were born to fly, 
 But whose pinions the common and coarse day stole. 
 
 Like that region of grassy hills outspread, 
 A realm of our thought knows days and nights 
 And summers and winters, and has fed 
 Ineffectual herds of vanished delights. 
 
 xv. 
 
A SPANISH PICTURE 
 
 Thy life is over now, Don Juan : 
 
 Thy fingers are so shrunk 
 
 That all their rings from off their cold tips crowd, 
 
 Where limp thy hand hath sunk ; 
 
 On a trestle-table laid, Don Juan, 
 
 A half-mask near thine ear, 
 
 A visor black in which void gape two gaps 
 
 Where through thou oft didst leer. 
 
 Thou waitest for the priests, Don Juan, 
 
 To bear thee to thy grave ; 
 
 Thou'rt theirs at length beyond all doubt, but ha ! 
 
 Hast now no soul to save. 
 
 Thou wast brought home last night, Don Juan, 
 Upon a stable door ; 
 
 Beneath a young nun's casement, found dropped dead, 
 Where thou hadst wooed of yore : 
 
 To pay their trouble then, Don Juan, 
 
 Those base grooms took thy sword ; 
 
 A rapier to fetch gold, with shagreened sheath, 
 
 Wrought hand-grip, and silk cord ; 
 
 xvi. 
 
Which, with thy fame enhanced, Don Juan, 
 Were worth hidalgo's rent ; 
 Yet on which now, at most, some few moidore 
 May by some fop be spent. 
 
 Dull brown a cloak enwraps, Don Juan, 
 
 Both thy lean shanks, one arm, 
 
 That old bird-cage thy breast, where like magpie 
 
 Thy heart hopped on alarm. 
 
 Yet out beyond thy cloak, Don Juan, 
 Thrust prim white-stocking'd feet 
 Silk-stocking'd feet that in quadrille pranced round 
 Slippers high-heeled and neat ; 
 
 Thy silver-buckled shoes, Don Juan, 
 No more shall tread a floor, 
 Beside their heels upon the board lies now 
 A half-peeled onion's core : 
 
 Munching, a crone, that knew, Don Juan, 
 Thy best contrived plots, 
 
 Hobbles about the room, whose gaunt stone walls 
 Drear echo as she trots ; 
 
 She makes her bundle up, Don Juan ; 
 
 She'll not forget thy rings, 
 
 Thy buckles, nor silk stockings ; nay, not she ! 
 
 They'll go with her few things. 
 
 c xvii. 
 
Those lids she hath pulled down, Don Juan, 
 That lowered ne'er for shame ; 
 No spark from beauty more in thy brain pan, 
 Shall make its tinder flame : 
 
 Thou hast enjoyed all that, Don Juan, 
 Which good resolves doth daunt, 
 Which hypocrites doth tempt to stake vile souls, 
 Which cowards crave and want ; 
 
 Thou wast an envied man, Don Juan, 
 Long shalt be envied still ; 
 Thou hadst thy beauty as the proud pard hath, 
 And instinct trained to skill. 
 
 xvin. 
 
LINES ON TITIAN'S 'BACCHANAL' IN THE PRADO AT 
 MADRID 
 
 She naked lies asleep beside the wine 
 That in a rill wanders through moss and flowers ; 
 Her head thrown, and her hair, back o'er an urn 
 Whose metal glints from under crimpled gold 
 Of lately bound-up locks ; while her flushed face 
 Breathes up toward open sky with fast-closed lids, 
 As though, half-conscious, her complexion knew 
 Where stirred the tree-tops, where the blue was vast. 
 One arm, wrapped in a soft white crumpled vest, 
 An empty wine-dish guards ; her breasts are young ; 
 Young, although massive, torso, loins and thighs, 
 All hued as clouds are that the morning face. 
 Beside her foot three shadowed blue flowers glow, 
 Speedwell, or gentian, or some now lost gem 
 That then was found in Crete ; some gem now lost, 
 Some precious flower, that then endeared the isles 
 To hearts of travelling gods and sailor princes. 
 Though friends of such an one here revel now, 
 And laugh, carouse, and dance, she hears them not ; 
 Brown satyrs, maenads, men, these sing ; and hark ! 
 Birds sing, the sea is sighing, and the woods 
 Do sound as lovers love to hear them : Sleep, 
 Sleep, oh, and wake no more ; Bacchus has kissed 
 Thy lips, thine eyes, thy brow ; thy joy and his 
 But lately were as one, therefore sleep on : 
 
 XIX. 
 
Be all past woes forgotten in thy dream ! 
 
 This noisy crew still haunts thee ; but unheard 
 
 They sing, and birds are singing ; thou dost sleep : 
 
 These dance, carouse, and pledge each other's joy ; 
 
 Slowly the tree-tops in the wind's embrace, 
 
 Dance too ; lush branches and gay vestures float, 
 
 Float, wave and rustle, sighing to the wind ; 
 
 But thou art still ; thou sleepest, art divine. 
 
 Upon the purple clusters, in his drowse, 
 
 The vast Silenus rolls ; and through the grass 
 
 The red juice trickles, forming rills and streams ; 
 
 Comes down cascading, prattles past thy couch, 
 
 And winds on sea-ward ; thou remainest, thou, 
 
 Perfectly still remainest and dost sleep. 
 
 These soon will leave thee, satyr, maenad, faun, 
 
 Light-hearted young folk, these will never stay 
 
 Past sundown nor out-watch the pale long eve, 
 
 But troop afar with fainter riot and song . 
 
 Then, when thou art alone and the wind dropped, 
 
 When the night finds thee, mayst thou still be sleeping ! 
 
 She then, for ever and for aye, will take thee 
 
 To her deep dwelling and unechoing halls ; 
 
 How could she leave thee ? she who owns them all 
 
 Owns all the stars, whose beauty is complete, 
 
 Whose joy is perfect, and whose home is peace ; 
 
 While all their duty is to shine for love. 
 
 XX. 
 
LOVE'S FIRST COMMUNION 
 
 4 Hear me ! answer ! Thou so sweet, 
 
 Speak, ah speak, May Evening, where 
 
 I with love with love may meet ? 
 
 Or on land, or far seas over, 
 
 Near me, now, or soon, or ne'er ? 
 
 Whisper ! am I born a lover 
 
 As were in the days of yore 
 
 Pelleas and Pellenore ? 
 
 Or is early death for me 
 
 Born to prowess on the sea ? ' 
 
 * Listen, ponder, understand! 
 Love lies ambushed in each bud 
 Like a lady's maiden hand 
 Stowed in warm and scented glove, 
 And as through her veins the blood 
 Circling sweetens, so flows love 
 Like ripe syrup through a fruit, 
 Secret tingling rich and mute, 
 Like, ah ! like on midnight hush 
 Tears that under eyelids gush.' 
 
 ' Ardent softly-breathing Even, 
 What thou whisperest that is truth ; 
 Through and through me throbs belief : 
 By thy star, the first in heaven 
 
 xxi. 
 
Hesperus the early bright, 
 
 Tell me, shall I love ? " For brief, 
 
 Brief thy days ! " 
 
 Song there is thus wails on youth, 
 
 " For the May time, no time stays," 
 
 So it says ; 
 
 Speak, then speak, ere thou be night 
 
 Dread with stars and extreme height.' 
 
 XXll. 
 
DESIRE MUSES 
 To braid a crown of daisies 
 Meet for your dusky hair 
 To lead you through mountain places 
 Suiting your solemn air 
 Hear your laughter, buoyant thunder 
 Like the torrent's tunnelling under 
 Coloured rocks to issue glancing 
 In a thousand small jets dancing- 
 Down a stair of rinsed stones 
 To heap your lap with scented cones, 
 Fir cones ! would make a giant of joy 
 Out of a timid and awkward boy. 
 
 1X111. 
 
DESIRE SINGS 
 
 If only I were the sky, 
 
 What days would be thine ! 
 
 No more than thou would'st of a kind, 
 
 Whether sunshine, or shower, or wind ! 
 
 If the heavens above thee were I, 
 
 How the stars would shine ! 
 
 What a friend the moon would be 
 
 To guard or companion thee ! 
 
 Thy days thou should'st fill like a rill 
 That has found the best 
 Of seaward paths, and gay 
 Takes bedded in flowers its way, 
 Were mine but the life of a hill : 
 But, were I the west, 
 Thou would'st sink all beauty and light 
 Home to my heart every night. 
 
 xxiv. 
 
DESIRE PLEADS 
 
 Time flits away, time flits away, Lady ; 
 
 Alas, not time, but we 
 
 Whose childish limbs once skipped so fairily, 
 
 And still to dance are free. 
 
 Things are forgot, things are forgot, Lady ; 
 Alas, not things alone, 
 
 But Dames whose sweet, sweet names chimed airily 
 Are no more loved or known. 
 
 How bright those stars! and think, each bright star stays, 
 
 Though all else fair be brief; 
 
 Leisure have they and peace and length of days 
 
 And love, 'tis my belief. 
 
 For Love gives light, Love vows his light will last. 
 And Love desireth peace. 
 
 Then bind those eyes through which tears rise so fast 
 And see as blind Love sees. 
 
 XXV. 
 
LET LOVE SUFFICE 
 The lily yearns to leave her stem, 
 And sail forth on the moonlit stream ; 
 Yon small cloud petal-white above, 
 Floats by in envied ecstasies : 
 There are who only long for love, 
 O'er whom we raptured soar serene ; 
 For all that ere this night hath been 
 We can forget. 
 
 There are who kneel on aching knees, 
 They fain would hear the morning breeze 
 That blows not yet. 
 
 There are who hate us what of them ? 
 
 Mere motes, without the warm live beam 
 
 Up which we soar to Love's far throne, 
 
 Invisible and cold, they drift 
 
 Through regions where we are not known. 
 
 Since rapture tides two hearts between, 
 
 All that before this night hath been 
 
 Forget, forget! 
 
 Ask not who gave ; enjoy the gift ! 
 
 Not yet is day ; fears are too swift. 
 
 Not yet, not yet ! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
THE CONVENT THRESHOLD 
 Farewell, farewell, too fixed to answer love 
 That was not to the ' when ' and ' how ' exact 
 Of thy brave dreams, or failed to counteract 
 The soaring of thy fresh young hopes above ! 
 
 Too eager to be happy, and with hope 
 
 Too blinded to foresee the Future's force 
 
 Which needs must hound thee onward toward remorse, 
 
 Proving, if Love, nought else with Time may cope ! 
 
 Then wilt thou weep and be all, all alone ; 
 More lonely than the cavern hearts of hills 
 Which from the stalactite the slow drop fills, 
 In falling, with weak sound a tear's on stone. 
 
 XXV1L 
 
TO IDLENESS 
 
 Idleness, too fond of me. 
 Begone, I know and hate thee ! 
 Nothing canst thou of pleasure see 
 In one that so doth rate thee ; 
 
 For empty are both mind and heart 
 While thou with me dost linger ; 
 More profit would to thee impart 
 A babe that sucks its finger. 
 
 1 know thou hast a better way 
 
 To spend these hours thou squand'rest ; 
 Some lad toils in the trough to-day 
 Who groans because thou wand'rest ; 
 
 A bleating sheep he dowses now 
 Or wrestles with ram's terror ; 
 Ah, 'mid the washing's hubbub, how 
 His sighs reproach thine error! 
 
 He knows and loves thee, Idleness ; 
 For when his sheep are browsing, 
 His open eyes enchant and bless 
 A mind divinely drowsing ; 
 xxviii. 
 
No slave to sleep, he wills and sees 
 From hill-lawns the brown tillage ; 
 Green winding lanes and clumps of trees, 
 Far town or nearer village, 
 
 The sea itself; the fishing fleet 
 Where more, thine idle lovers, 
 Heark'ning to sea-mews find thee sweet 
 Like him who hears the plovers. 
 
 Begone ; those haul their ropes at sea, 
 These plunge sheep in yon river : 
 Free, free from toil thy friends, and me 
 From Idleness deliver ! 
 
 XXIX. 
 
RENAISSANCE 
 
 O happy soul, forget thy self! 
 
 This that has haunted all the past, 
 
 That conjured disappointments fast, 
 
 That never could let well alone ; 
 
 That, climbing to achievement's throne, 
 
 Slipped on the last step ; this that wove 
 
 Dissatisfaction's clinging net, 
 
 And ran through life like squandered pelf :- 
 
 This that till now has been thyself 
 
 Forget, O happy soul, forget. 
 
 If ever thou didst aught commence, 
 Set'st forth in spring-tide woods to rove, 
 Or, when the sun in July throve, 
 Didst plunge into calm bay of ocean 
 With fine felicity in motion, 
 Or, having climbed some high hill's brow, 
 Thy toil behind thee like the night, 
 Stoodst in the chill dawn's air intense ; 
 Commence thus now, thus recommence : 
 Take to the future as to light. 
 
 Not as a bather on the shore 
 Strips of his clothes, glad soul, strip thou : 
 He throws them off, but folds them now ; 
 Although he for the billows yearns, 
 
 XXX. 
 
To weight them down with stones he turns ; 
 To mark the spot he scans the shore ; 
 Of his return he thinks before. 
 Do thou forget 
 
 All that, until this joy franchised thee, 
 Tainted thee, stained thee, or disguised thee ; 
 For gladness, henceforth without let, 
 Be thou a body, naked, fair ; 
 And be thy kingdom all the air 
 Which the noon fills with light ; 
 And be thine actions every one, 
 Like to a dawn or set of sun, 
 Robed in an ample glory's peace ; 
 Since thou hast tasted this great glee 
 Whose virtue prophesies in thee 
 
 That wrong is wholly doomed, is doomed and bound to 
 cease. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
HERE ENDS THE GAZELLES AND OTHER POEMS. PRINTED 
 BY R. FOLKARD AND SON, XXII DEVONSHIRE STREET, 
 QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY, FOR DUCKWORTH AND 
 CO., Ill HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, 
 W.C. MDCCCCIV. 
 
PAN'S PROPHECY 
 
All rights reserved 
 
PAN'S PROPHECY 
 BY T. STURGE MOORE 
 
 DUCKWORTH AND CO. 
 LONDON MDCCCCIV 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
THE OCCASION 
 
 Needless it is, or should be, to tell how Psyche grew 
 up more beautiful than Aphrodite ; who, being wrought 
 to jealousy, sent forth her son, Love, that he might kindle 
 the girl's heart with unnatural passion for some base 
 object : and how he himself was smitten, and in order to 
 fulfil his desire delivered deceitful oracles to the king, her 
 father ; so that he had her exposed upon a funeral pile in 
 a desert mountain place, there to await fire from heaven. 
 Yet thence she was by Zephyr conveyed to Love's own 
 Palace, where for a time she dwelt ignorantly happy ; 
 since Love availed himself of the night that she might 
 not know her lord, and bade invisible ministrants attend on 
 her by day. Nathless erelong her elder sisters discovered 
 her retreat and, moved by envy, poisoned her mind with 
 monstrous suspicion, so that she thought it possible that 
 not a god but a frightful dragon frequented her bed. 
 Then, disobeying her lord's most express injunction, she, 
 when he was asleep, took a lamp, viewed him and, trying 
 his arrows' sharpness on her thumb, started to see blood ; 
 when burning oil from the shaken lamp was spilled upon 
 the delicious and slumbering divinity which but three 
 seconds before had been revealed to her eyes. He, 
 waking, with the intolerant severity of young and ardent 
 natures, reproved her fault and quitted her ; flying up, 
 though she clung to his legs, though her weak arms 
 vi. 
 
yielded, though she fell; flying always higher, he preached 
 to her of disobedience from a tall tree's top, and then 
 betook himself to heaven. She, humbled, with a heart 
 more broken than her body, sought a stream and cast 
 herself therein. 
 
 These things the old tale telleth : but after this, 
 though it may have recounted nothing false, it surely 
 hath not remembered the whole truth. Not for love of 
 Love that water saved her ; nor was her encounter with 
 Pan so meagre. No ; for when the time was fully come, 
 the memory of these things and the full significance of 
 her after wanderings was rekindled. Yet if so much 
 escaped the puissant art of days which gave birth to that 
 old tale, how shall it be told to-day? Though it have 
 again burdened a man's mind, how shall it be delivered ? 
 Help, O patient Reader ; and, though the attention called 
 for be strained and painful, out of pity and to nourish a 
 hope all-orphaned in this adverse age, listen and pardon, 
 listen and help the straitened verse for that old tale's 
 sake. 
 
 Vll. 
 
PAN'S PROPHECY 
 
 I am old and wise and strong, 
 
 Hale, and still inclined to song ; 
 
 And the morning I salute 
 
 Loud upon my oaten flute ; 
 
 Then, ardent o'er my ranked pipes bending, 
 
 Match the sky-lark's song ascending ; 
 
 With pursed lips hovering o'er each reed, 
 
 From deep to treble on I speed, 
 
 And surprise him in the blue 
 
 With earth-born echo clear and true. 
 
 And sometimes, when the rustling breeze 
 
 Draws hints of music from the trees, 
 
 I nurse and fondle their beginning, 
 
 Chord to mate with chord still winning, 
 
 Rearing the infant tune to express 
 
 All a dryad's happiness. 
 
 Next bend mine eyes to worship flowers ; 
 
 This tip-toe on a slim stalk towers, 
 
 Pride at one with innocence 
 
 Like a child in a new wimple ; 
 
 This other, under leafage dense, 
 
 Sure of being searched for, simple 
 
 Yet counting upon beauty's power, 
 
 Content to wait its triumph's hour. 
 
 How the gracious ferns expand 
 
 Herein Pan, 
 singing to him- 
 self, useth the 
 speech of men to 
 delight his heart. 
 
 Hereafter he 
 toucheth upon 
 several springs of 
 joy and showeth 
 how they are 
 welcome to 
 favourite moods. 
 
 IX. 
 
Like a sleeping infant's hand ! 
 And their growth acquires greatness 
 As a boy-king's soul sedateness. 
 For them, belike, the trees are gods, 
 Whom they wonder of and trust, 
 And augur from their drowsy nods 
 Till the autumn, when they rust ; 
 Their glades then gorgeous to behold, 
 Complain they that their age grows cold ? 
 Sometimes, forgetful of the world, 
 At eve o'er inward fragrance curled, 
 Rapt, as night-long the primrose is, 
 
 To brood apart 
 
 [Suddenly he breaketh off, his attention being called 
 
 away to something that is passing at a short distance 
 
 from where he is. He proceedeth to describe what 
 
 taketh place, asking his heart to assure him if he 
 
 divineth of the occurrence aright] 
 
 Ha ! is this 
 
 A naiad, my heart ? 
 
 As beautiful ! as naked ! 
 
 Divine from the stream's 
 
 Deep pools she wades through pebbled shallows, 
 
 And holds her brow as though it ached, 
 
 And half asleep, still seems 
 
 As one from dread dreams waked ? 
 
And, clutching stalks of stalwart mallows, 
 Climbs now the thymy bank, and sitting, 
 Her feet among forget-me-nots, 
 Weeps into both her hands, my heart ? 
 [His heart respondeth.] 
 
 Pan, why has she left her silvern grots ? 
 Being both wise and old, it seems but fitting 
 Thou didst approach and ask whereof her moan. 
 
 Thy youth, at times, found words strike hard as stone ; 
 
 Thy age to comfort maidens thence hath art : 
 
 For safely age sets free a tangled dove ; SS 
 
 Which youth attempting round himself soon knots StSjrS**** 1 
 
 *-PI i i 111* ft father of luckless 
 
 1 he thousand-meshed calamity of love. iov e in youthful 
 
 hearts, though 
 
 [He rejoineth.] g*wo 
 
 Steal we then gently through the king-cup plots 
 
 And down the cressed margent of the stream, 
 
 Silently helped by the slant willow stumps, 
 
 Leaning on mossed stools of root and stone 
 
 And planting hoofs in thick of lush-grown clumps ; 
 
 Ask her, unscared, whereof is her sad moan, 
 
 And whether she has dreamt the drowner's dream 
 
 Under cold waters cruel to her brows 
 
 With all the shrewdness of their icy clearness, 
 
 Or whether she hath to his wattled house 
 
 Followed young Daphnis, weighed his Chloe's dearness, 
 
 And all forlorn re-sought the waterfall, 
 
 xi. 
 
constancy and 
 
 Porch-curtain to her aching silver hall. 
 [Thus communing with his heart as with a friend, he hath 
 drawn near, and now silently approacheth close to the 
 poor half-drowned and weeping girl.] 
 Sob, sob no more ; confide thy sorrow, maiden, 
 To one whose wise and age"d heart is laden 
 With echoes of all griefs that country folk 
 Have felt and shuddered under, wailed and fallen, 
 Then from my quiet learned to bear the yoke, 
 ?e r c^enc v e e of the And once more risen. Ofttimes nymph or faun 
 win\ e , r da n y and To tell of their heart-breaking disappointments 
 
 night, yielding -11 i r 
 
 an inspiration to beeketh me in the lone mid-forest lawn ; 
 
 Or with torn flesh, sprained joints, requiring ointments, 
 
 Fainting, will reach my hill-crest cave at dawn. 
 
 [The girl, who was shaken on first hearing the voice of 
 
 Pan, without looking up or giving respite to her tears, 
 
 now sobbeth :] 
 
 What voice did start me thus with sudden nearness ? 
 
 Ah, who is this doth question of my woe ? 
 
 PAN 
 
 In kind tones questions with a cordial will : 
 
 Hast thou been saved, while drowning in the clearness 
 
 Of some cold silent pool, but saved so late 
 
 That all the painful crowded vision still, 
 
 And recent horror of the all-sundering throe, 
 
 Oppresseth nigh to bursting thy sick brain ? 
 
 xii. 
 
 Herein he sup- 
 
 oseth that she 
 
Ah, speech may give relief to such a pain ; 
 
 And converse will that agony abate. 
 
 THE GIRL 
 
 Kind tones and gentle words I thank thee for : 
 
 Thy guess is naught to that which I deplore. 
 
 PAN 
 
 If it do vex thee hearing wrong surmise, 
 
 Remove thy hands, let gaze into thine eyes 
 
 Mine, now so aged and wise that they can read 
 
 Clear in another's, why her heart doth bleed. 
 
 THE GIRL 
 
 This might be of such griefs as oft are borne, 
 
 But mine has never been before this morn ; 
 
 Yesterday knew it not, no previous day 
 
 Shed light on things like those mine eyes have seen, 
 
 Or mocked as this day mocks it hath not been ! 
 
 PAN 
 
 My wisdom was not gathered in men's homes, 
 
 And is not based on what they do or say 
 
 With greatest frequency or likelihood : 
 
 Bees are wise too, behold their honeycombs ; 
 
 And gods so wise they grant what good men pray : 
 
 Man's learning did not make the sky props good : 
 
 And mine was gleaned from many a summer's mood ; 
 
 Sad evening taught me, and the drear wet day, 
 
 And pining winter's sudden radiancy, 
 
 She denieth 
 knowledge of 
 those extremities; 
 
 He will have it 
 that though he 
 may have read 
 exterior signs 
 amiss, the heart is 
 an open book to 
 him. 
 
 The woe inscri- 
 bed on her heart 
 is too little com- 
 mon to be deci- 
 phered by ex- 
 perience. 
 
 He hath not 
 learned alone 
 from man but 
 likewise from 
 nature. 
 
 Mil. 
 
After the snow fall, hath shown truth to me. 
 THE GIRL 
 Sught> h com. I cannot think, the evening or the snow 
 
 mon with the T T 1 J >.1_ f 
 
 nightfall and the Have e er revealed the secrets of my woe. 
 
 year's close. 
 
 PAN 
 
 H protesteth a Nay, but the power to read, the power to heal, 
 
 richness in his J ' 
 
 Mtrt7n n of acquir- These are not learned or fostered ; these reveal 
 
 ed, but given by /> i j .1 
 
 an unknown A donor unsuspected ; these may gauge 
 The rarest sorrow, and thy grief assuage. 
 THE GIRL 
 
 she however Ah, if thou deem'st thy dower to be divine, 
 
 hath experienced i 
 
 thdk^he'g'ods Know that that fond vain dream has once been mine ! 
 is^ot^nyou'rs" Who dreamed the gods had crowned with happiness 
 
 O l L 
 
 Her days forever witness my distress ! 
 
 PAN 
 
 Sore^Vwin Look, oh, for comfort, look into mine eyes ! 
 Si7nd Though hopeless, look ! for in an effort lies 
 * Healing ; adventure to the soul means strength 
 
 Renewed ; and woe that would be of a length 
 
 With endless time is pride in black disguise. 
 
 THE GIRL 
 I am not pride ; that piteous earth am I 
 
 Spurned by his feet, when last he leaped the clouds. 
 
 PAN 
 
 S^'tSe'oftfet Hark, with soft strains of music let me try 
 mo^rpr'oTeed- To raise that pall despair, wherein woe shrouds 
 
 eth to music. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 
Her shrinking, tender as an infant's eye. 
 
 [He playeth, and slowly she raiseth her eyes to fix 
 
 them on his ; he ceaseth to play and after a pause, 
 
 behold ! he prophesieth :] 
 
 Thou, thou art Psyche, chosen spouse of Love ! rS^noUT" 
 
 A perfect beauty, yet unfortunate bride! perfects P i- 
 
 T* T Ml f 11 1 11 1 eth a seed of 
 
 For I will not, for all his yellow curls, misfortune in the 
 
 * seeming perfec- 
 
 Or what, like music, through the eye doth glide, * 
 
 His presence, which in golden vans he furls, 
 
 Sleek as a roosting dove, 
 
 To rest upon some bastion of white cloud 
 
 No, not for these will I his faults condone : 
 
 Feverish and rash he is, and not alone 
 
 Blinded by mad desire, but far too proud. 
 
 Lorn, lorn, that lovely palace ! lorn its courts "piS^for- 10 
 
 Deserted by thy joys! that knolle"d park had been C tV e at 
 
 With clumps of summer trees and browsing deer: happiness. 6 
 
 Its calm bright lakes, where downward thread the dark 
 
 Mute fish in golden shoals deep waters clear, 
 
 Whose surface smooth reports 
 
 The viewless Zephyr as he comes and goes ! 
 
 And, then, those jasmine arches overhead, 
 
 Where, underfoot, small curious shells are spread 
 
 Or lanes of herbs whence sweet aromas rose ! 
 
 XV. 
 
Were all these wanton ? Was that house a toy ? 
 Mysterious with its unseen service rare, 
 Both prompt and exquisite to allay desire ; 
 Its pure bath welled within a circular stair ; 
 Those pillared sound-homes ; the invisible choir, 
 That uttered a god's joy ; 
 Were these but a caprice, a season's whim ? 
 And tangible, viewless, warm-vowed, secret, fond, 
 When to thy kiss Night rapturous did respond, 
 That jealous coaxing husband ? what of him ? 
 
 A shame ! fix shame upon him ! let it burn ! 
 entrusted a hi s not He trusted not a beauty like his own ! 
 
 spous_e with the - _ - . - . 
 
 full significance j\j o better than a mortal, wast thou not ? 
 
 of their bliss, but 
 
 hL'dmnhy held By gods to mortals little trust is shown ; 
 
 They hide the more part, and most closely what 
 
 Doth mortals most concern. 
 
 Thou wast but a mere woman and thy grief 
 
 A woman's, not a nymph's e'en ; for their tears 
 
 Are diamonds dissolved : salt-water clears 
 
 Worthless though lavished clears an amorous thief 
 
 He would possess thee all in all ; but thou 
 His lighter hour and converse half asleep 
 Must make thy fortune, win thy gratitude ! 
 xvi. 
 
Why, many an upland boor that tendeth sheep man"howeth rds " 
 
 Is kindlier-hearted and hath grown more shrewd Sn^wTth" 
 
 T r l . .. . , woman than this 
 
 In following his plough, young g od. 
 
 Than to expect the comforts of his house, 
 
 Or his wife's patience, for a lazy kiss ; 
 
 But hearkeneth to her thought and shows her his : 
 
 Yet Love himself deceived his chosen spouse. 
 
 PSYCHE 
 
 Ah. now indeed I feel that thou art wise, she is persuaded 
 
 of his wisdom 
 
 For other hearts thou readest as thine own. STSSuSSi 
 
 That house, my heart could paint e'en as thou didst, 
 
 With its fair bath of circling steps of stone 
 
 Deep'ning till, for a round yard in the midst, 
 
 A tip-toe effort tries 
 
 In vain to keep nostril and mouth in air, 
 
 Till I perforce did make some feint to swim : 
 
 And Love, most just is all thou saidst of him ; 
 
 Laughing, he starved mine eyes and mocked my prayer ! 
 
 PAN 
 
 Ah ! but take heed ; too little trust was thine, ,sbanWu e t r she 
 
 Unlovely sisters crediting, who told bfa^fo/beiiev- 
 
 Such hideous lies. Was this a fault so small, s^rs'toidVafher 
 
 than the mid- 
 
 Them to believe before Love's voice of gold, night whisper* of 
 
 Whose sound might prove its truth, most musical, 
 
 Most winsome, most divine? 
 
 Thou, Psyche, thou art also much to blame. 
 
 c xvii. 
 
exact return. 
 
 Was, then, the essence of thy joy so slight ? 
 Naught written on thy heart as gods may write, 
 In large events, their purpose and their aim ? 
 
 e - th Weep, weep ; it is the poorness of the soul 
 s^u 1 ^ an Wiis That causeth heart-crossed and love-cankered fates. 
 
 sprung from -.17.11 , i , t r i i 
 
 wounded hearts, vV ill one beg alms, because he friendship oaves ? 
 
 and asks whether r & 
 
 mer e ckndSh r at Demand return for love ? When the soul mates 
 Is't but as when a merchant hopes he lives 
 
 -_ 111 
 
 JNot worse, upon the whole, 
 
 Than those who have reaped honour from their pelf? 
 
 Is it but so ? No deep intent to serve 
 
 Love-worthiness life-long, with every nerve ? 
 
 Can love-struck heart belittle thus itself? 
 
 Action should Why could he not so trust thee as he should ? 
 
 proceed from the 
 
 And tnou wnat didst thou hope for afterward, 
 With proof the best known to thee did proceed 
 
 tempted in order _, M-\I-^I-II i 
 
 to prove that f rom monster vile : Deeds with hoped good accord : 
 
 what seemed the 
 
 w^lnltfan ^ ut wnat was there to follow from thy deed 
 
 overwhelming ^ 
 
 What dreary future, with a past assured 
 That it had revelled being poison-fed ? 
 What Psyche gazing on a dragon dead, 
 Remembering bliss in Love's own arms secured ? 
 
 XVlll. 
 
Ah, was it life, or vengeance, prompted thee 
 
 To change such ecstasy for certain woe ? 
 
 Know this, thou never shalt more sureness find 
 
 That aught which seemeth good is really so, 
 
 Than just that which exclaimeth in thy mind 
 
 " Good," feeling it to be ; 
 
 No thought, no reason, and no evidence 
 
 Can ere avail to 'stablish thy delight ; 
 
 If wrong, that canst thou not foresee ; if right, 
 
 'Tis but thy rapture's lasting to thy sense. 
 
 Though upon false occasion thou art pleased, 
 
 Thy pleasure ne'er to falsehood had recourse ; 
 
 For visions, joy-inspiring, though revealed 
 
 By our mistaking, are our rapture's source. 
 
 In tasteless ambergris there lies concealed 
 
 Virtue, by which released 
 
 The savours of all other meats appear 
 
 Three times as strong, ten times as exquisite : 
 
 So souls to love befooled, strengthened by it, 
 
 Should grow elate, as good dreams good men cheer. 
 
 When love has moved us, how we taste our life 
 And relish ten times more each common day ! 
 A dream may feed the mind, delight the soul, 
 More than fair weather can, a friendlier way, 
 
 He showeth that 
 there can be no 
 knowledge of 
 good except the 
 experience of joy 
 in possessing it. 
 
 Illusion itself 
 may be the source 
 of real good and 
 blessed memories 
 be the heirs 
 thereto. 
 
 Good sprung 
 from illusion is 
 effective and inajr 
 remain active 
 after the illusion 
 has been dis- 
 persed. 
 
 XIX. 
 
And, surely as a lover doth console, 
 
 Remove the effects of strife ; 
 
 For even a dream has lent us what we sought : 
 
 Which when the world presents and then withdraws, 
 
 The world, like a good dream, has given us cause 
 
 For thankfulness days, weeks, with rapture fraught ! 
 
 w'S Yea, ^ et men P ra i se the gods and be rejoiced 
 no u t d d s u a e r from re To feast upon rich memories of worth ! 
 
 Psyche ? As, -ITT 1 1 i T 
 
 after she had Wrought inly to activity by Love, 
 
 been led by an ,11,1 , , , , 
 
 invisible herald j n thee all excellence had conscious birth. 
 
 down lanes of 
 
 ih1 n b g at h hTn K s haii And earlier days and hopes how far above 
 pL^a^t'here Had raised thee, gentle voiced ; 
 
 floated entranced ... 
 
 as in a dream, j\ summoner divine : who led thy soul, 
 
 should she not J 
 
 r h Soft treading on live herbs which breathed forth scent, 
 hen Unto that bath, wherein thy pure form leant 
 
 from the bath, 1111 n 
 
 not letting pre- Tranc d like cut rose afloat in crystal bowl. 
 
 sent crosses over- J 
 
 whelm so glorious 
 a past ? For 
 
 g?or^fbe n wTth^ And, from the revelation made to thee, 
 
 orawn, should it irliliii ri MI 
 
 not sun yield her T n y soul refreshed should have come forth still tranced : 
 
 both comfort and J 
 
 courage? What though the clumsy and fast-changing world 
 Withdrew its help ? no longer seemed enhanced, 
 A parent of thy bliss, but onward hurled 
 Into fresh crudity? 
 
 Must the soul's joy fade severed from its root 
 In this gross-seeming moil of grief and mirth? 
 
 XX. 
 
Had not thine innermost conceived all worth 
 But idly flowered without the strength for fruit ? 
 
 Alas, alas, the search for love and friends 
 
 Is malady ! for, if we are to cease, 
 
 No joint asseveration can avail : 
 
 Cry we ' forever ' loud as heart may please, 
 
 The shade in hell is yet more thin and pale : 
 
 Nay, we know naught of ends ; 
 
 But beauty, when we know, we love, and when 
 
 We love we hope : the thing revealed, and not 
 
 That form or face that did reveal, is what 
 
 The heart serves, though nine know it not in ten. 
 
 When I was young, the laughter of the gods 
 
 Woke me to loneliness ; they at their feast 
 
 Mocked at mine infant shape, so unlike theirs, 
 
 So unlike man's, and yet not like the beast 
 
 That thinks not on itself : as when wind stirs, 
 
 And this tree shakes, that nods, 
 
 So foreign seemed their laughter in mine ear. 
 
 Madness might seek for pity from such folk ; 
 
 I sought not, ne'er have sought, but borne my yoke 
 
 And known myself, known them, without a fear. 
 
 I learned no language, felt no need to learn, 
 
 Cross circum- 
 stances should 
 not be permitted 
 to impose, since 
 the soul serveth a 
 conception which 
 the world is 
 powerless to take 
 away. 
 
 His own bastard 
 divinity, the 
 laughing stock of 
 the gods from the 
 cradle, is cited; 
 if any ever lacked 
 love and sym- 
 pathy surely it 
 was he. 
 
 Yet had he in 
 silence and 
 patience discovered the soul in all things and become the universal friend. 
 
 xxi. 
 
No more than thou to guess that of the birds ; 
 
 Slowly my thought was born, yet proved exact ; 
 
 Betrayed by the conveniency of words 
 
 Are gods and men : when the mind grasps the fact, 
 
 Then, then the lips will burn ; 
 
 And languages of trees, of gods, of men, 
 
 Are born at need. I can converse with all ; 
 
 Scanning their nature's depths, what sounds will call 
 
 Things righted to each soul, I utter then. 
 
 hTd e r d s herTonfy By words which had no touch with truth thy soul 
 SceivedTy 6 ^ Has been led far astray. Think now and know ! 
 
 soul is of account. ... . , , .. . . 
 
 For, though those l hough, worthy love, we live unrecognised, 
 
 deserving love 
 
 SEcSS'thi' Contemned ; yet what we are is loved ; and, though 
 t W ruiyVre e u most Much we be loved, that heart which holds us prized 
 
 adored ; and, on T . . 
 
 the other hand, Is not in our control, 
 
 souls unworthy 
 
 of K 0ve> J hough if ur desert be less, but rather serves, 
 
 embraced rap- 
 
 rte'the n reai All unbeknown, far-distant though it be, 
 
 objects of adora- TTTI 111 rl 
 
 tion which ano- Whatever soul doth answer perfectly 
 
 ther is more . ' 
 
 worthy of. Unto its love, and vows we hear deserves. 
 
 PSYCHE 
 
 Psyd!efu?poseth Ah, was mine error then to hold him close ? 
 lalnln'tha? fond c - 1 thought thou thought's! he had been in the wrong, 
 
 ness which con- ' .1 ir 1-1 
 
 ceiyed of Love as But now, like mm, thou set st thyself to chide, 
 
 loving one so J 
 
 withies* as Justly, my wretched deeds : but not for long 
 
 Does the snapt stalk support the blossom's pride ; 
 xxii. 
 
No long time, when it snows, 
 
 The broom-brush fair endures to bow his head, 
 
 But crashes and falls down ; no long time I 
 
 Will mock this beauty, having cause to die, 
 
 But in the stream lie down till I am dead. 
 
 PAN 
 
 Stay, stay ! sun-dried thy locks crimple and twine ; 
 
 The golden light has lured his rosy friend 
 
 From chilly ambush, and, were Eros here, 
 
 Suddenly in his arms thy woes would end : 
 
 Who is more worthy love than thou art, dear? 
 
 Then be sure love is thine. 
 
 If thy soul half surmise her beauty's worth, 
 
 Thou'lt listen while what new has dawned on me 
 
 I do relate ; thou'lt flush with ecstasy 
 
 When I unfold the secret of thy birth. 
 
 Thou art not mortal ; in the summer's dawn, 
 Thy mother plucking cowslips in the grass, 
 The thyme and grass of Enna blessed her feet ; 
 Scarlet she wore, that ne'er from sight she pass 
 Of fond Demeter from her threshold seat, 
 E'en when on some far lawn ; 
 And to the farthest had she strayed that day, 
 When she beheld the magic crocus spring, 
 And wild with joy could note no other thing ; 
 
 Pan insisteth that 
 such beauty as 
 hers is ever 
 worthy of love, 
 and proceedeth 
 to a new revela- 
 tion. 
 
 She is the 
 daughter of Per- 
 sephone : this the 
 old tale had let 
 slip, and even the 
 present poem 
 cannot recount 
 all ; for much will 
 remain which 
 must indeed some 
 day be told about 
 what was said 
 when she at last 
 found her way 
 down to the 
 under-world 
 where her mother 
 reigneth queen. 
 
 XX111. 
 
So Hades seized and bore her fast away, 
 
 Down through the chasm'd rock, to his stern home : 
 
 And there she learned to love him, there she bore 
 
 A daughter violet-eyed ; then to her thought 
 
 Returned her childhood, and the days before 
 
 She first trod asphodel days when she sought 
 
 The lark's nest, or did roam 
 
 For flowers on the wide bush-studded hills ; 
 
 She pitied then thy honey-coloured curls, 
 
 And deemed her present home no place for girls ; 
 
 And musing by the Styx heard Enna's rills. 
 
 Thou, changeling, in a palace cradle laid, 
 A mortal nurse hath lulled thee with her song ; 
 And thou hast been of many tears beguiled, 
 Seen death and kissed it, when they died who long 
 Had loved thee and had called thee their grandchild ; 
 And thou hast been afraid, 
 
 And hast despaired, and sought death ; but the tide 
 Treasured thee carefully unto this place, 
 Though, dazzled by the beauty of thy face, 
 Thy nature was by Eros undescried. 
 PSYCHE 
 she rejoiceth in Ah, am I then as he is? Doth my flesh 
 
 immortality. / 
 
 Not need that change he said his heart once meant, 
 xxiv. 
 
But, since I disobeyed, meant not to give ? 
 
 Ah, as the sun, and moon, and stars, unspent 
 
 While girls grow up and wither, shall I live 
 
 With beauty all as fresh 
 
 As Love's, whose eyes first waked on that grim earth 
 
 Before man yet had fire, or yet had felt 
 
 Kind joy ; for, while upon the beach they knelt 
 
 To see his wave-borne mother, he had birth : 
 
 And even then he was as now a youth 
 
 Of ardent soul, loose curls, and radiant form ; 
 
 And as his scorn half-pitying on me turned 
 
 E'en thus he gazed upon that umber swarm 
 
 Of cave-dwellers, who, sordid, naked, yearned 
 
 Among the rocks uncouth, 
 
 On unploughed heaths, an early world's bleak shore. 
 
 Persephone ? My mother ? Love was blind ! 
 
 How shall I find her? Him, how shall I find? 
 
 Seek him I will, and found leave him no more ! 
 
 PAN 
 
 Go forth ; but know thy triple fate is this, 
 
 To be, as hell is, shunned and held in hate ; 
 
 And to be weak, as mortals are, and weep ; 
 
 And yet be loved, as heaven, as heaven, elate. 
 
 Thy mourning shall run out in joy as deep 
 
 As any ocean is. 
 
 This young god, 
 her husband, 
 hath always been 
 the same in rash- 
 ness, despising 
 mere human life. 
 
 He wameth her 
 that not only joy 
 but pains and 
 weakness are to 
 come. Love is 
 also being taught 
 by suffering to 
 discern more 
 truly the nature 
 of that which he 
 desire th. 
 
 XXV. 
 
That heavenly husband suffers pain for thee ; 
 
 While heady rashness from his brilliant gifts 
 
 Now in his heart stern passion fans and sifts. 
 
 His true child Joy born of thy womb shall be. 
 
 PSYCHE 
 
 I thank thee for thy gentle wisdom, Pan ; 
 
 And for thy kindliness divine, how much 
 
 I thank thee ! and no more will seek cold death ; 
 
 For I perceive the stream's pure soul was such 
 
 As truly knew the nature of my breath, 
 
 And loved me better than 
 
 I hitherto have loved myself ; but now, 
 
 Looking far forward toward those joys divine, 
 
 I seek my bridegroom, and no more repine, 
 
 Through rustling corn lands on where drear woods sough. 
 
 PAN 
 
 Hark, up by yonder copse thou'lt see a hut : 
 
 Within there hangs an ample cloak fur-lined ; 
 
 Clothe there thy naked beauty : by the door 
 
 Tall buskins of a shepherdess thou'lt find : 
 
 Take thou her scrip and cates ; she is not poor. 
 
 And leaves her door unshut. 
 
 At dawn I watched her hie o'er yon hill-crest. 
 
 Her flocks I'll bless, beyond what thou dost take. 
 
 Thou'lt see the road below thee skirt a lake ; 
 
 Strike down the path, and joining it, turn west. 
 
 xxvi. 
 
PSYCHE 
 
 Farewell ; when Love's kiss doth my fortunes heal 
 
 I will remember thee, and we'll devise 
 
 Some good gift for kind Pan. Sweet chance ! behold ! 
 
 A brooch still fastened to my hair ; I twice 
 
 Or thrice have felt it pull or touch me cold ; 
 
 'Twill pay for all I steal. 
 
 PAN 
 
 Farewell ; if I know Phyllis, she will prize 
 
 Thy jewel o'er her cloak of rabbit-fur, 
 
 And all possessions else that 'long to her ; 
 
 Its presence in her hair will light her eyes. 
 
 [Psyche wadeth across the stream and full oft she turneth 
 
 to wave her hand toward Pan, both then and while 
 
 climbing the grassy hill, and he as oft returneth her kind 
 
 signal, though pursuing, in subdued tones, his own sad 
 
 thoughts, which to behold so much beauty leaving him 
 
 had naturally raised.] 
 
 Oh, easy to the mind 
 
 Of god and man! easy, and fraught with bliss tfaetmkST 
 
 f , J needeth to re- 
 
 And energy, is this main with him in 
 
 o J ' order to make its 
 
 To perceive the truth and be no longer blind ! SSSuS Bl 
 
 11TVU -I catcheth sight of 
 
 With spnng-inor step, elate truth u ever thus 
 
 impatient to set 
 
 As hers, they hasten, as she hastes away, **&- = nfi d cn t 
 
 / J ' in its present re- 
 
 And have no care to stay SBt"r?of 
 
 Anear the living source that their late gloom nt*JE!*t 
 
 .. frequented. 
 XXV1L 
 
Dispelled ; so, from the tomb, 
 
 Souls fleet down the return-forbidding strait. 
 
 Yet, thou, O liberating Truth, 
 
 Art e'en as the fine bloom of youth, 
 
 Or waters of pellucid springs 
 
 On which the attempt to hoard them brings 
 
 A change ; for in the earthen jar, 
 
 After a week, how dull they are ! 
 
 Tainted, and shunable as those 
 
 Who seek to arrest youth's happy rose, 
 
 Beyond its season's kindly hour ! 
 
 Ay ! thus from truths reveal'd the power 
 
 Which once we thought forever ours, 
 
 Lies at length, like some spent flower's 
 
 Seared petals choking its green leaves, 
 
 About the heart that, stifling, heaves. 
 
 Yea, kiss thy hand, sweet soul and good, 
 Then turn the corner of the wood : 
 'Tis done, and thou art hid from view. 
 
 StSSii Who knoweth all that once they knew ? 
 
 rommon n cou e rse To suffer loss e'en while we gain, 
 
 While hope's proud wings beat down our pain, 
 
 Then all at once to find them fail 
 
 And, pitying, o'er our past to quail, 
 
 Stands in the record of the mind 
 
 xxviii. 
 
A fate as common as unkind ! 
 
 Thou wilt I know ere long forget fSKSSS 
 
 __ , ........ i doubt what she 
 
 My words, and wilt their import let nowcaiieth 
 
 Slip in the tumult of thy hope ; SJChSF 
 
 Nor can our tortured spirits cope, 5taTb, 
 
 Under the stress of bliss deferred, 
 And tantalized by things unheard 
 Which are unto our ardours dearer 
 Than the, albeit surer, nearer 
 Events, in which they do not live, 
 But like one drowning struggle with. 
 
 Ignorance will succeed to doubt, 
 
 As thy unrest doth go about 
 
 To prove what once seemed clear, a dream ; 
 
 And fear's white ash o'er every gleam 
 
 Of the live coal will softly flake 
 
 Till all thy being cold doth ache ; 
 
 Thy mother then thou'lt seek in dread fediLo*r 
 
 . 1 1 J when looking 
 
 As one but anxious to be dead. ni y for death. 
 
 Yet I, who know thy crowning bliss, joke in n knp n w- e " 
 
 ii- ledge and in the 
 
 Will not be overcast by this ; friendship of such 
 
 But to my wonted haunts repair Sh a Sf 
 
 And drink the wild-rose-perfum'd air, 
 
 in appropriate activity the renewal of their beauty and happiness. 
 
 xxix. 
 
Or climb yon ridge to taste the breeze 
 
 Still faintly salt from far-off seas ; 
 
 Then gather fir-cones in the wood 
 
 To make my cavern hearth smell good, 
 
 That those far-sighted nymphs who climb 
 
 The mountains, in the winter time, 
 
 When long night through the rough winds blow, 
 
 May come to warm them at its glow, 
 
 And tell what eyes so blue and keen 
 
 Upon the distant roads have seen, 
 
 And how belike two neighbouring kings 
 
 Will wage a war, with other things 
 
 Which they have learned from birds that go 
 
 From land to land and on the snow 
 
 Fall o'er-wearied and a-cold ; 
 
 These to their bosoms they will hold 
 
 Until revived the songster sings 
 
 Of far-off lands, then spreads his wings 
 
 And leaves them happier than they were, 
 
 And even as happier yet more fair. 
 
 XXX. 
 
HERE ENDS PAN'S PROPHECY. PRINTED BY R. FOLKARD 
 AND SON, XXII DEVONSHIRE STREET, QUEEN SQUARE, 
 BLOOMSBURY, FOR DUCKWORTH AND CO., Ill HENRIETTA 
 STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C. MDCCCCIV. 
 
TO LEDA AND OTHER ODES 
 
All rights reserved 
 
TO LEDA AND OTHER ODES 
 BY T. STURGE MOORE 
 
 DUCKWORTH AND CO. 
 LONDON MDCCCCIV 
 
TO MICHAEL FIELD 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 To Leda ....... page 9 
 
 On a Grecian Amphora . . . . . ,,13 
 
 A Lament for Orpheus . . . . . 18 
 
 A Lament Re-echoed . . . . ,, 23 
 
 On Death ,27 
 
 To Loki ,,33 
 
 For Dark Days , 37 
 
TO LEDA 
 
 Wiseliest confirmed of river bathers, thou, 
 
 Most nobly wooed of any god-loved queen, 
 
 That oft didst swimming, like a snow-white plough, 
 
 The swiftest crystal furrow, then didst lean, 
 
 A panting majesty, on willow arms 
 
 Which, yielding, cradled thee, while all thy charms 
 
 Lay, open-bloomed, beneath the eye of heaven ; 
 
 Thus lapped serene, through many a summer even, 
 
 Consenting to the silence, thou wast seen 
 
 Not only of white swans and cygnets gray, 
 Dove-coloured cygnets, swans of arching pride 
 That passed thee in abstraction ; clouds of day 
 Sail azure as such birds o'er waters glide, 
 And clouds will no more pause near kings' fair homes, 
 Though queens watch at the casements while their combs 
 Gleam indolently drawn through perfumed tresses 
 Than those swans loitered ; tell me ! had thy guesses 
 Soared trembling towards Olympus, wonder-eyed ? 
 
 Frail though the empyrean, hadst thou sent 
 
 Some fond surmise ? 
 
 Or had conjecture, with mere swans content, 
 
 In fowler wise 
 
 Stolen on islet lone 
 
 B ix. 
 
Girt with its bullrush zone ? 
 
 Watched some proud mother warm her nest, 
 
 Or strike her tardy eggs ? 
 
 Watched the soft cygnets quaintly test 
 
 Freedom on doubtful legs ? 
 
 Watched, by an odd bright notion madly caught, 
 
 Stout babies break from shells, 
 
 And, hooded under fragile domes, make sport, 
 
 Like bees from flower bells ? 
 
 Not virtues, that the sweetest sins forego, 
 Envy thee sadly ; nay, thou dost not blanch 
 Their cheeks with base regret ; for they can glow 
 With joy, to watch thee, on rose-laurel branch, 
 Hang thy gold belt of weight to stoop pink blooms 
 And make them kiss themselves in water glooms ; 
 Thy royal robe against the trunk suspended, 
 Loose then thy locks and vests ; for, these descended, 
 Thy beauty all the joy of light assumes : 
 
 Thou being hence, here, with enquiring hops 
 The robin ventures, perks with knowing look 
 His shrewd small eye, still draweth nigh, still stops ; 
 Thy picture-broidered train might be a book, 
 And he a child enacting someone wise ; 
 Soon hither, too, the bright kingfisher flies ; 
 
His glance demands how gemmy-gauds are fashioned ; 
 On thy return both vanished ; then, impassioned, 
 Burst in the imperial swan with ardent eyes : 
 
 O beautiful white woman, that white bird, 
 
 Embraced ere long, 
 
 Made rapturous music and was nobly stirred 
 
 To wondrous song ; 
 
 Note surging through his throat 
 
 On modulated note, 
 
 Sounds unsealing worlds of bliss, 
 
 Dream-hallowed, sunset-flushed, 
 
 Sounds more melting than a kiss 
 
 Received on midnight hushed, 
 
 Sounds that made thee know, Troy must be burned, 
 
 Helen be loved and blamed ; 
 
 Ay, distant, 'neath thy closed lids, were discerned 
 
 Those shriek-pulsed towers that flamed : 
 
 Yet never, never, if the pain waxed shrewd 
 (Though in a vaster pleasure wholly merged) 
 Would thy great lover let remorse intrude 
 Upon that bliss, that like an anguish surged 
 Beneath his ardour, as beneath the blast 
 Swoll'n ocean in tall waves runs high and fast ; 
 Oh, never had a pale regret permission 
 
 xi. 
 
To slow interpret to thy soul each vision 
 
 That flashed like summer lightning, flashed and past ! 
 
 Forbidden loves are sweet to human hearts, 
 And, would but spare Necessity consent, 
 They might ennoble ; sanction she imparts 
 Was ne'er to any other woman lent : 
 Thy heart alone felt shame dissolve away 
 In pleasure limpid as the dawn of day ; 
 Beauty, unhumbled by the cold next morning, 
 Rash impulse thou createdst brought adorning 
 And like a bridegroom wrapped thee from dismay : 
 
 Delicious down of pulsing throat and breast 
 
 Thine arms have known ; 
 
 Thy fanned heart all the power of wings confessed, 
 
 Wings that had flown 
 
 Where thy dazed thoughts ne'er dared ; 
 
 In bliss then thine, hath shared 
 
 Strength, that had churned the river white 
 
 Behind the mightiest swan ; 
 
 Strength, that was sudden like the light 
 
 That reddens day-break wan ; 
 
 Strength thou couldst no more question or forbid, 
 
 Than struggle of thine might check 
 
 When, round thy shoulders, through thy tresses, glid 
 
 That amorous god-like neck. 
 
 xii. 
 
SUGGESTED BY THE REPRESENTATION ON A GRECIAN 
 AMPHORA OF A WINGED AND ADOLESCENT EROS 
 SEEKING TO CATCH A RABBIT IN A SCARF 
 
 Whirr ! and the dread wings flap ; 
 
 Scamper ! the rabbit flies 
 
 Down the branched lanes like a streak ! 
 
 Eyes he but the prickly hoops, 
 
 In covert furze some tunnelled gap, 
 
 He hears those pinions flap 
 
 As they poise that trenchant beak ; 
 
 In his heart the venture dies. 
 
 And headlong on he flies, 
 
 Bolts, and the buzzard stoops, 
 
 Swerves, and the buzzard swoops, 
 
 Checks, and those dark wings flap. 
 
 Swift in the liquid light, 
 
 Steering between the furze, 
 
 Down the rough and hummocked slopes, 
 
 Skirting briery clumps of fern, 
 
 Brown and red-brown and jetty bright, 
 
 With dire reserve of might 
 
 Tracking those panic hopes, 
 
 Forward the buzzard skirrs, 
 
 Intently threads the furze, 
 
 Veers with the rabbit's turn, 
 
 xiii. 
 
Dogs, and keeps close astern, 
 Cheered by that reckless flight. 
 
 Love, on like wings, in chase 
 
 Held a like timid harmless prey ; 
 
 Young, in his teens, with beardless face, 
 
 His body lithe, direct and slant 
 
 And smooth as the glossy rich display 
 
 On arrowy buzzard's form ; but Love, 
 
 Sailing the warren close above, 
 
 The white-tailed scurryer all apant 
 
 Sought not with talon or with beak 
 
 To strike, but in a scarf did seek 
 
 To trap his timid quarry ; 
 
 And after helter-skelter race, 
 
 In victory did close the chase, 
 
 And caught his panting quarry. 
 
 Not as when plunged beak joys 
 Eyeless the rabbit bleeds, 
 While his quivering ends in death ; 
 When detaches here and there 
 The handsome bird a morsel choice ; 
 When a strange proud noise 
 Making, at times he heeds 
 
 The distance, where the breath 
 xiv. 
 
Of August stirs the heath ; 
 Dreams, and is keen and fair, 
 And as that desert air 
 Seems staidly to rejoice : 
 
 Love with soft silk doth blind 
 His prey, and thus transports 
 Far to hutch of white pine wood 
 Closed by latch of orichalch, 
 A hutch where he shall to his mind 
 Straw, oats, and parsley find 
 And gaze o'er templed courts 
 Round which doves coo and brood, 
 Where in their tender mood 
 White-handed Graces walk, 
 Pause, stroke his fur and talk 
 To him with voices kind. 
 
 Soul, thou art caught by Love 
 After such chase, such pangs ; so blind 
 With darkness round, beneath, above, 
 Transported to like quiet shrine ; 
 Which far more wondrous thou shalt find 
 Than freedom's rugged wilderness. 
 There thou may'st watch in dainty dress 
 Virtues and Graces that combine, 
 
 XV. 
 
Not only with soft-sounding word, 
 But converse understood when heard, 
 To raise thee up to glory ; 
 And, if thou follow as they lead, 
 Their patience will ere long indeed 
 Have raised thee nigh to glory. 
 
 Taught are the wild and free, 
 The warren is their school ; 
 Hazard, fate, the hawk, mishap 
 Teach them, bringing home the truth ; 
 Death at their doors they daily see, 
 They learn or cease to be : 
 Such as do never nap 
 Grow old and strong and rule : 
 They dub who is caught a fool, 
 Age and forget their youth, 
 Hold, though with scanty proof, 
 Their life the best that may be. 
 
 Love, and they see thee too ! 
 Flee from thee, crouch or hide ! 
 Beauty, youth and power and joy, 
 Golden curls that please the winds, 
 Naked perfection, wings that outdo 
 In power the kite's, in hue 
 xvi. 
 
The Halcyon's ! Their minds 
 Are Fears, not theirs they hide 
 From eyes, in which to confide 
 Meaneth life shall be joy ! 
 They see thee, half man, half boy, 
 Unbewitched they thy beauty view 
 
 Thy house they have never seen : 
 Its covered courts are paved with tiles, 
 The open ones with grass are green ; 
 While, indoor water's channell'd speech 
 The music-loving ear beguiles. 
 Psyche, thy bride, thy sisters three, 
 The Graces and that mother of thee, 
 Beauty divine, these all and each, 
 With the seven kirtled Virtues, tell 
 (Holding the rapt soul in a spell) 
 Thy captives many a story 
 Of great example and great grace 
 Of lovers, who all fear did face, 
 And died, but live in story. 
 
 xvii. 
 
A LAMENT FOR ORPHEUS 
 
 This is his head, O women ; see these lips 
 
 Still now for ever, 
 
 Lips, that persistently were dumb so long, 
 
 And, pinched together, 
 
 Refused our supplication that sweet song, 
 
 Which, in days never to return, did charm 
 
 Gaunt oaks of stubborn growth, stooping to hearken ; 
 
 And pines, whose tall throngs earnest broodings darken, 
 
 Of their austere aloofness did disarm ; 
 
 While every savage dweller in the forest, 
 
 (Like moon-struck lovers when their pain is sorest) 
 
 Followed him gentle, followed him in tears ; 
 
 Lions with shaggy mane brushed past his knees ; 
 
 And leopards silent paced with spell-bound ears, 
 
 And eyes that could not from fond worship cease ; 
 
 With honey-loving tongue huge bears caressed 
 
 His white unsandalled feet, 
 
 Which trod those paths our childhood followed in, 
 
 Drawn on by reverence meet. 
 
 So well the aim of living he expressed, 
 
 His lute such escort everywhere could win. 
 
 O women, look ; I part these heavy curls, 
 
 To show ye those fair portals where our prayers 
 
 Clamoured in vain ; these blood-damped heavy curls, 
 
 xviii. 
 
To show ye shell-like mouldings, where, fond girls, 
 
 Your love was foiled and fainted ; 
 
 Oh, with his soon-to-wither beauty, now 
 
 Be thoroughly acquainted 
 
 While yet Death opportunity allow ! 
 
 Brief, brief, the stay of sweet looks after death ! 
 
 See, see, how thickly 
 
 The blood drops from the severed neck beneath, 
 
 While cheeks, waned sickly, 
 
 Foretell a ghastness which we dare not face. 
 
 Fast closes in our fortune's narrow space ; 
 
 Yea, all our fortune rests with this pale mien, 
 
 Austere no longer, 
 
 Where sorrow fenced herself, and brooding teen 
 
 Than life's hope stronger : 
 
 As rock, ringed by fair flowers, harsh and stern, 
 
 Such marble grief dismayed our blushful leaguer 
 
 Who camped about his feet, frail, wistful, eager, 
 
 And, hearkening, mute like flowers, could discern 
 
 A sound of tears within his riven frame. 
 
 He inly wept and heeded not our woe ; 
 
 His heart was weeping : 
 
 Like shadows of swift birds that passed above, 
 
 Or thoughts expressed from under features sleeping, 
 
 His sighs across our smiling patience came, 
 
 xix. 
 
Or, traversing our hearts, confused our lips ; 
 
 Meanwhile, from all and each youth's glory slips, 
 
 Unheeded melts, as from bloom's petalled head 
 
 Its diadem of dew ; or idly drips, 
 
 Spilled out from languid chalices of gold. 
 
 Was his heart cold ? 
 
 We never dreamed it : no, he loved the dead, 
 
 Preferred her to the living ; and was live 
 
 As is the ash-heap's treasured core of red, 
 
 Which waits all day the wood-cutter's return 
 
 Within his hut, and, when he fans, will burn 
 
 And make his cabin glow, his comfort thrive ; 
 
 So shall, life's day once closed, that long-mourned love 
 
 Find her lost comfort cheer the night below : 
 
 " Eurydice" we heard him sigh her name ; 
 
 It sought the soft vast dome of blue above 
 
 Dove-winged, but shadowed us with raven woe. 
 
 Then from our smouldering hearts leaped forth the flame ; 
 
 Who knows what far-off echoes heard our cries, 
 
 And mocked them round their lonesome upland glen, 
 
 Repeating yells of frenzy, thinned in tone, 
 
 From passive wall to passive wall of stone ? 
 
 Who knows what leisured eagles, through the skies, 
 
 In idle wonder, quit rock perches then ? 
 
 O Zeus, that madest, hast thou seen thy work 
 
 XX. 
 
Mar its own beauty, ignorantly, blindly, 
 Untaught, unwarned, unreasoned with, unkindly 
 Dowered with liberty ? or dost thou shirk 
 All care and thy deed's outcome leave to fate ? 
 Or is our weakness tortured by thy hate ? 
 
 As the wind takes the forest, passion took 
 
 Our arms and hair, and all our being shook : 
 
 Like ships that, at the flood-tide, from their ranks 
 
 A tempest launches off steep shingle banks, 
 
 Sails drenched and water-logged, 
 
 We heaved upon the swell of black emotion, 
 
 At mercy of a rude remorseless ocean. 
 
 Like swimmers, seaweed-clogged, 
 
 Then felt our beauty fail and overstrain ; 
 
 Our grace and our resistance were annulled : 
 
 Our souls like bind-weed bells, draggled with rain, 
 
 Swung to the blast, 
 
 The glory of white youth completely dulled, 
 
 Forever past. 
 
 This river seeks eternally the sea, 
 
 As youth unwitting to salt sorrow flows. 
 
 Bright waves, whose keen pursuit of destiny 
 
 Draws all our bloodstained thoughts the way it goes, 
 
 Accept of what bereaves us, this fair head : 
 
 We overdrove our hopes and weep them dead. 
 
 xxi. 
 
We murdered him, O women, and our guilt 
 
 Is, as the ravenous sea, insatiate ; 
 
 All our good will to come, all thoughts elate 
 
 Shall be as jars of honey vainly spilt, 
 
 To sweeten that salt main. 
 
 Down, down this stream, speed on, thou fair head, floating 
 
 Past iris beds and king-cups less worth noting 
 
 Than were our smiles ; retain 
 
 That cold indifferent aspect, those drooped lids 
 
 Where'er thou wendest ; whether Nereus bids 
 
 Thee welcome, o'er some jasper threshold borne ; 
 
 Or lank and shipwrecked sailors, under crags 
 
 Crouched round their drift-wood blaze, behold 
 
 Thy beauty up-turned in the surf forlorn ; 
 
 Or, thou (where, fishing over billows grey, 
 
 On pinion slow, some lonely seamew lags 
 
 Till the moon rise) athwart the wan ray rolled, 
 
 To feast on thee, her weary wings upfold ; 
 
 Nay, rather, to brown-footed fisher maiden 
 
 Shall soft foam sweep up whispering, with thee laden, 
 
 And thy face meet with innocent tears at last. 
 
 Our part with thee is played and of the past ; 
 
 Nor is there rugged darkness deep in caves, 
 
 Wherein the life of youth-resembling waves 
 
 Is broken, half so cruel as the thought 
 
 That our hearts loathe the deed our hands have wrought. 
 
 xxii. 
 
A LAMENT RE-ECHOED 
 
 That noble stag, the leader of the herd, 
 
 Lies pierced upon the heights : 
 
 Who, then, can say a word ? 
 
 Let dumb does cry, let frail fawns bleat, since night's 
 
 Un-eared, responseless silence wounds them not : 
 
 Have they conceived of Pity to improve their lot ? 
 
 How are the mighty fallen? by what chance? 
 
 Where now is honour gone ? 
 
 O tell it not in Gath ! Publish it not 
 
 In streets of Askelon ! 
 
 Lest daughters of the Philistine rejoice, 
 
 Lest they for gladness dance 
 
 (The daughters of uncircumcised men), 
 
 And give their triumph voice : 
 
 Who could bear comfort then ? 
 
 O let there not on you be dew again, 
 
 Ye mountains of Gilboa. No ; 
 
 Never let there be rain 
 
 Upon your lofty fields, where yearly go 
 
 Tribes purified, and there a clamour raise 
 
 Around the sacrifice, undaunted praise 
 
 That need not stint to shout : it shall be so 
 
 No more ; for there 
 
 The mighty left their shields for there, alas, 
 
 xxiii. 
 
The shield of Saul was vilely cast away, 
 
 As though he ne'er 
 
 Had been with oil anointed : nay, 
 
 Let spring there no more grass ; 
 
 Suffer not there to fall 
 
 By night the dew, nor any rain by day ; 
 
 There let no flocks or shepherds henceforth stray : 
 
 But be they barren all, 
 
 Thy tops, Gilboa, mournful and not gay : 
 
 Who shall praise beauty now, since this has come to pass ? 
 
 Never the bow of Jonathan grew slack, 
 
 Never the sword of Saul was carried back 
 
 Save crimsoned with the blood of foes left dead, 
 
 Save on the flesh of warriors fully fed : 
 
 Yet, in one day, both son and father perished ! 
 
 Saul was, of Jonathan, beloved and cherished ; 
 
 Division had no portion in their lives 
 
 And found none in their death : less honour strives, 
 
 Less honour : both were lovely, both are dead. 
 
 Oh pleasant in their lives, lovely were they ! 
 More rapid were they than grown eagles yea, 
 Stronger were they than lions ! Maidens all. 
 Daughters of Israel, weep ye for Saul ! 
 For he it was who clothed you, from of old, 
 xxiv. 
 
In scarlet with other delights. 
 
 Had your apparel ornaments of gold ? 
 
 They were won from armed Canaanites. 
 
 Lament ye, weep, and wail ; 
 
 What sweet word addeth comfort to a tale 
 
 Which speechlessly tears can tell : 
 
 Though the shedding of tears it is well, 
 
 Yet, O ye maidens, let it not be all ; 
 
 Sing with your loftiest passion songs for Saul. 
 
 How have the mighty fallen ! At what place 
 Did they from out the battle drop ? Tell me, 
 Doth Jonathan lie pierced upon the hills? 
 Come, lead me thither, I would see his face, 
 E'en add one other evil to my ills. 
 
 Ah ! this indeed is he ! 
 
 I am distressed for thy sake, O my brother ; 
 
 Thou, Jonathan, hast more than any other 
 
 Been pleasant unto me : 
 
 What is left to me then ? 
 
 Wonderful love was thine, 
 
 Passing that of women even, 
 
 And all that love was mine. 
 
 Who loving after this shall deem he doeth well ? 
 
 D XXV. 
 
Who knoweth who rejoiced when my love stricken fell 
 
 How are the mighty fallen ! How are they broken, 
 Those swords of the battle ! Rend we for a token 
 Our garments, cast dust on each head for a sign 
 That they are dead, that even those have perished 
 Whom most our hearts had cherished. 
 Ah God, whose god seems strongest to the Philistine ? 
 
 xxvi. 
 
ON DEATH 
 
 Why question what my thoughts of death may be ? 
 
 Behold 'tis Autumn in yon poplar mass, 
 
 Whose green ripples to silver breezily, 
 
 Dangle pale yellow leaves like lemons large ; 
 
 And lo ! beyond there ! what has come to pass ? 
 
 Suave haze and sunshine from its utmost marge 
 
 Have taken London to their mighty keeping, 
 
 Which, self-forgetful, smiles in glory sleeping : 
 
 And here hath she flown down whom children charge 
 
 " Fly away home " and busily is creeping 
 
 A scurrying carnelian on my sleeve. 
 
 O Lady-bird, begone ; 
 
 We men forebode ; stay, thou wilt ne'er believe, 
 
 Nor spoil glad hours whilst yet their sands run on. 
 
 Self-questioned ignorance yields no reply ; 
 
 And thus there grows an aching in our ear 
 
 Which stir of insect wings can magnify 
 
 And hear whole flights of angels oar their vans 
 
 Nothing is silent when the heart will hear ; 
 
 All echoes, answers ; yet the thought is man's, 
 
 Not a new thought, brings not new knowledge, never 
 
 Breaks on the silence where his brain dwells ever, 
 
 Nor peoples that vast night the mind's eye scans, 
 
 Nor can prized beauties from what pains love sever. 
 
 xxvii. 
 
Wise, heartless, Lady Bird, hear thou, thy home 
 
 Is burnt, thy children flown ; 
 
 Yet be not less industrious to roam 
 
 The infant's hand, who makes such harsh things known. 
 
 When to the mightiest man death did draw near, 
 
 He shut himself within his bathing hall 
 
 And lent to his great admiral his ear ; 
 
 Who told of voyage on the Indian main, 
 
 The first by Grecian captains dared that all 
 
 The glamour of unconquered seas might reign 
 
 Over the greatest conqueror's spirit failing. 
 
 By the bath-side, he, picturing them sailing, 
 
 Was as he had been in his youth again, 
 
 Conversed of conquest nigh as when unailing, 
 
 And pleased his captains ; yet grew worse once more, 
 
 Soon in a deep trance sank ; 
 
 His anxious Macedonians at the door, 
 
 Then would not be gainsaid, but, rank by rank, 
 
 In single file, were ushered past his bed. 
 
 His Indian and Egyptian veterans 
 
 Passed mute, were satisfied he was not dead ; 
 
 Unarmed they passed and many a tear let fall ; 
 
 Man, he had won more than had erst been man's 
 
 Till each owned him the embodied soul of all : 
 
 xxviii. 
 
And lo ! they saw him vanquished, helpless, dying ; 
 So childishly their hearts were in them crying. 
 He no more moved, nor for one friend did call, 
 Yet two days lay, as all had seen him lying ; 
 Then on the tenth day of his fever, on 
 The twenty-eighth of June, 
 
 Died ; and from what vast schemes the life was gone, 
 Which up and down far lands like wrecks lay strewn ! 
 
 His end was beautiful, though from vile cause 
 
 A surfeit at a feast his fever came. 
 
 Alaric's grave likewise commands applause 
 
 Though he sacked Rome and Italy trod under : 
 
 His captives, by those careful of his fame, 
 
 Were forced to turn Calabrian torrent's thunder 
 
 And in the dry bed delve a sepulchre, 
 
 And house his trophies and his ashes there : 
 
 But when the stream, which their hard toil did sunder, 
 
 Resumed his haughty course, then all they were 
 
 Slaughtered in thousands on his rocky shores, 
 
 That what they knew might be 
 
 Kept by their lips, as by his thund'rous roar's 
 
 Blank bellow, secret to eternity. 
 
 "The morning after Goethe's death I yearned 
 To look upon his well-known form once more." 
 
 XXIX. 
 
So writes that friend who to his house returned. 
 
 " Stretched on his back he seemed to sleep, while, fraught 
 
 With peace, profound security reigned o'er 
 
 His mien : that grand brow still might harbour thought ! 
 
 By one white sheet the naked form was hidden : 
 
 Large lumps of ice lay round it ; then, unbidden, 
 
 His man the linen from the body caught, 
 
 And laid bare what since eighty years was hidden ; 
 
 I was astounded so magnificent 
 
 The limbs, the breast's broad slant 
 
 Was arched and powerful, the arms and thighs unspent 
 
 And muscular, the feet were elegant ! 
 
 Nowhere was any trace of fat, and none 
 
 Of leanness or decay ; a perfect man 
 
 In all his beauty lay before me ; one 
 
 Moment, enraptured at the sight, might I 
 
 Forget that blood therein no longer ran : 
 
 And on his breast my thoughtless hand might lie 
 
 Ere me to horror stillness could awaken ; 
 
 But then I turned away, by sobs rude-shaken, 
 
 And gave free course to tears." Ah, wrought so high, 
 
 We, our revered or cherished from us taken, 
 
 By eloquent grief's passion rapt, may deem 
 
 That beauty finds in death 
 
 Merest defeat ; yet sometimes tombs will seem 
 
 XXX. 
 
To echo angel voices, hoard swung-censer's breath. 
 
 'Tis known how on her bridal morn one died ; 
 
 Greatly beloved, most beautiful and young, 
 
 She lay there ; on the white quilt in their pride 
 
 Flowers were strewn, fresh opened, scented, glowing ! 
 
 Purple anemones together flung 
 
 With crimson pheasant-eyes ; one hand unknowing 
 
 Oppressed green mignonette ; the other fern 
 
 Embowered ; near, forget-me-nots did yearn 
 
 Neath poppies crushed ; like mimic sconces blowing, 
 
 Orange set her brow round with lamps to burn. 
 
 While, stricken, her poor bridegroom, hour by hour, 
 
 Tear-blind, stared at her face. 
 
 Yet calmed by beauty, awed by sovran power, 
 
 One could have thanked death, though one dared not praise. 
 
 Such scenes concern but us who linger here ; 
 
 What their own death was to themselves none knows. 
 
 Heard they our wailing, as the insect's ear 
 
 Lists to the children's chaunt, a mere vague sound, 
 
 While calmly she, since life within her glows, 
 
 Is on her present occupation bound? 
 
 Though all death's dreaded pain and hoped-for glory 
 
 Be nursed of us as children hug a story, 
 
 E'en croon one o'er the beetle they have found, 
 
 xxxi 
 
(Fair lie old snows upon the mountains hoary) 
 
 Imagination must teach us to die, 
 
 Must age and death enhance 
 
 And give to both a value clear and high : 
 
 Or fail and leave us to blank ignorance. 
 
 o 
 
 XXX11. 
 
TO LOKI 
 
 Cease, thou art terrible ! Cease, thou tireless god ; 
 No purpose doth thy crude, brief laugh declare ; 
 Thy beauty charms the less, for being odd ; 
 Thy skin is bronzed, like red flame flaps thy hair : 
 Shalt thou attract the would-be-self-possessed ? 
 Oh, thou art young forever, there it lies ; 
 Bewilder me forever with thy mocking eyes ! 
 
 Thrall me ! what though thy laugh ring hollow ? Stay 
 
 Those limbs from dancing! Hover lower, 
 
 From off those sulphurous rocks thy feet leave grey 
 
 In spots like aged lichen patches ! Slower ; 
 
 Mine eyes ache following thy yellow vest 
 
 Which crisps and curdles round hips, neck and shoulder 
 
 While, lightning-like, it streams from bouldertopto boulder! 
 
 Leaps as, from desert snow, 
 
 That ice-plough cleaves beneath the spangled night, 
 
 When clearest wind doth blow, 
 
 Flash and fly up those brandished spears of light, 
 
 They hopping twang or crack with zest, 
 
 While the white bear facing north, 
 
 The silken blue-fox stealing forth, 
 
 Blinking seal in furry vest, 
 
 And the thick muffled Laplander, 
 
 Gaze and wonder at the stir ! 
 
 i xxxiii. 
 
Is it happy warriors dancing, 
 
 Fire-light on their gay spears glancing ? 
 
 Is it gods, or demon sprites, 
 
 Or shooting thoughts of summer nights, 
 
 Like pangs that torpid flesh contains, 
 
 Thrilling Winter's ice-locked brains ? 
 
 No, for it is thee and thine, 
 
 Who plans of men and gods do plot to countermine. 
 
 Volcanic nature, passionless desire, 
 
 Divine mobility, intuitive 
 
 Touchstone of qualities, enter, thou Fire, 
 
 Enter our life once more, force us to live ! 
 
 May I encounter thee in some long lane, 
 
 A gipsy with stained garments on thy back, 
 
 With toys and charms, and songs bedizening thy pack I 
 
 Let weeds with wicked smells, as fumitory, 
 
 Make smart the shattered ruin of thy hat ; 
 
 And, volubly persistent with thy story, 
 
 Trap me with hints, and like a wary cat 
 
 Let me believe escape were not in vain ; 
 
 Then make me feel, how fond man's thought to rest 
 
 When none but active thought fulfils the soul's behest ; 
 
 And of that ship tell me 
 
 Which storms, which fogs, which calms, which bergs of ice r 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
No danger of the sea, 
 
 Can wholly wreck ; that still its voyage plies, 
 Righted, after each mischance, 
 By an old but nimble crew, 
 Lovers of green, salt, and blue, 
 That have oft, with fiery glance, 
 Watched the ice-floe's closing jars, 
 And have steered by astral stars, 
 Known Newfoundland's milk-white gloom, 
 Mirage through hot hazes loom, 
 Noontide darked by clouds of birds 
 And large fishes utter words. 
 Garbs of many climes they wear, 
 Hoary unkempt beards and hair, 
 Wiry comrades proved of thine 
 
 Dauntless like thee, though old, they have like eyes that 
 shine. 
 
 Life is not vain, I know it ; I am thine, 
 O Loki, thine to teach or to betray ; 
 Thy treacheries are punishments condign : 
 Cheat me, and laugh ; be cruel the god's way ; 
 Get hungry lips with vivid truth-like lies, 
 Then grant them speech with lords and harlots grand ; 
 Whose hearts shall faint and leap like birds held in the 
 hand ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
Than pity more sensitive to bridle thought ! 
 
 No eyes, like thine, foresee the course of Change, 
 
 As, step by step, with Time, followed by nought, 
 
 She passes, and still is : endlessly strange, 
 
 Enamouring speech until with thee it vies, 
 
 Thou patronizest thieves who keep their bad lives jolly. 
 
 And wags who pilfer seers, in wisdom to deck folly. 
 
 Content thou dost abhor : 
 
 The gods were happy once, and joyed their fill ; 
 
 Those days on thee lay sore ; 
 
 Thou lovely Balder by their hands didst kill. 
 
 Beauty to win back from Death, 
 
 Sadly turned they then to toil, 
 
 Labourers in obdurate soil ; 
 
 But more freely came thy breath, 
 
 And more nimbly worked thy wit ; 
 
 Oftener then, thy travel kit 
 
 Donned, thou wentest singing forth, 
 
 East, or west, or south, or north ; 
 
 Every homestead knew thee then, 
 
 Humoured, railed upon, by men, 
 
 Mischievous Lob, or Ian thorn Jack, 
 
 Fiend upon the grumbler's back, 
 
 Thou wast ours ; but we are thine 
 
 By halves at most, ha ha ! Thou art but half divine f 
 
 xxxvi. 
 
FOR DARK DAYS 
 
 Ah, when a fair day finds me cold to it 
 Who should be friendlier far, 
 Or when the night seems too august, so lit 
 With tranquil star on star ; 
 
 They ban unworthy every thought of mine, 
 That once seemed symbols meant 
 To help my sense express my soul and shine 
 Equal to that event 
 
 Which any hour creation thrusts on man, 
 
 Who inattentive, weak, 
 
 Feels the vast spectacle surpass his will 
 
 Which would respond to it, and sometimes can 
 
 Find thoughts as grand, as beautiful, and fill 
 
 As though a voice did speak 
 
 Ocean, sky, cloud-land, valley, plain and hill ; 
 
 Then, then, abhorrent, wasted human life, 
 All life of beast and pest 
 Maintained by rapine, lust, and strife, 
 I hate and would arrest : 
 
 Stay thou to multiply thy cruel wealth ; 
 And cease thou to cajole, 
 
 xxxvii. 
 
Stealing from that young girl her thoughtless health, 
 Her joy and self-control ; 
 
 Thou tiger, leave defenceless herds alone i 
 
 Thou shark, submit to law ; 
 
 'Tis your example circumscribes my thought. 
 
 Collusion with your ruthless greed has thrown 
 
 So strong a spell that now my mind is brought 
 
 To horror down from awe, 
 
 And all I find doth mock all I have sought. 
 
 Oh, it is nothing that a day is fair, 
 If life cannot be sweet ! 
 If souls cannot be lovers, and if care 
 School not desire's feet ! 
 
 If always generations generations breed, 
 And race give place to race 
 Sapped by inadequacy, doomed to bleed 
 And, dying, pine for grace ! 
 
 Only if fact can answer reason's prayer 
 
 Both in one life and all, 
 
 And in resultant beauty souls be good ; 
 
 Only if towards that goal each day we fare, 
 
 And never stand below where we have stood 
 
 xxxviii. 
 
Answer I to your call, 
 
 Ye stars, or yours, ye flowers of field and wood. 
 
 Yet is all vain ? vain then this sad surmise ; 
 For still unknown our doom ; 
 Yet we have fancies, can enchant our eyes, 
 Paint bliss upon the gloom ; 
 
 We have some strength, though it be not enough 
 The vast whole to transform ; 
 It can spread lawns where yet the waste is rough, 
 Some blossom shield from storm ; 
 
 Our strength can make fair skies its harvest fields, 
 
 And glean from cloud and star ; 
 
 The grace of trees, the calm of distant hills 
 
 o 
 
 Garner, and add what every flower yields 
 To feed a beauty and a light that fills 
 Our eyes, when those eyes are 
 Glad to see other eyes forget life's ills. 
 
HERE ENDS TO LEDA AND OTHER ODES. PRINTED 
 BY R. FOLKARD AND SON, XXII DEVONSHIRE STREET, 
 QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY, FOR DUCKWORTH AND 
 CO., Ill HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, 
 W.C. MDCCCCIV. 
 
THESEUS MEDEA AND LYRICS 
 
All rights reserved 
 
THESEUS MEDEA AND LYRICS 
 BY T. STURGE - MOORE 
 
 DUCKWORTH AND CO. 
 LONDON MDCCCCIV 
 
TO ANNIE 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Theseus ........ page 9 
 
 Medea 18 
 
 Love's Faintness Defied . . . . . ,, 26 
 
 Love's Faintness Accepted . . . . ,, 27 
 
 Love's Loss Lamented . . . . . ,, 28 
 
 A Second Lament for Love's Loss . . 30 
 
 That Land . . . . . . . 32 
 
 Kindness .......,, 34 
 
THESEUS 
 
 " What am I ? O thou sea, with all thy noise, 
 
 Thou tell'st me not : and thou great sun, that leavest 
 
 Once more thy ruby red on little clouds 
 
 Where thou hast dived from sight, art mute and art 
 
 No parent of an answer to my prayer, 
 
 My daily prayer to thee. Those clouds, are they 
 
 As I am? and shall I, as they will, lose 
 
 What fastens now the eyes of men on me ? 
 
 Youth, as they say, is that but as yon red 
 
 Which dims while I gaze on it, dims and fails 
 
 Before the breath of all-disabling night ? 
 
 It makes me shudder : is there such a breath 
 
 To conquer youth and make men lose their glow ? 
 
 A gulf to swallow youth as night those tints ? 
 
 And shall I scurry as the storm-chased cloud, 
 
 Darkling and teased to tears, and torn with groans ? 
 
 Ah, must it come upon me to be spent 
 
 And no more heard of? Is there a gulf like that ? 
 
 The men I meet, have they been once like me, 
 And has a tyrant force so bowed their backs, 
 Browbeaten them and taught them furtive haste, 
 Made all their actions relish of escape 
 From Fate, that only baffler of the gods ? 
 For even the old man, who has lived well 
 
 B IX. 
 
Whose smile of fortitude has blessed and blessed, 
 
 Day after day, his friends through fifty years, 
 
 When his knees totter and his arm grows weak, 
 
 Though the gods love him, yet, to please Fate, he 
 
 Must be content to palter and lose all ; 
 
 'Neath cover of a smile, be quite undone, 
 
 Yea, steal away, stand by, and let the grand 
 
 Converging circumstances tempt in vain 
 
 To some exploit worthy his life laid down, 
 
 Needed by all the world, but which weak hands 
 
 And knees that shake can now forbid him bring 
 
 To masterful fruition. Yea, Fate's fool, 
 
 Amidst the dearth of younger men endowed 
 
 With spirit and resources like his own, 
 
 He must sit down, give counsel, then unsay ; 
 
 Even as I have had to fume 'mid men 
 
 Who lacked my heart, yet own'd the strength I lacked, 
 
 And watch the chance go by feeling it fleet, 
 
 The unseized moment when a god cried ' Dare ! ' 
 
 'Tis sullen Fate thus thwarts the hopeful god, 
 
 Thus ends the good man, thus begins with me ; 
 
 Who oftenest, ah ! cloudeth the whole life's course, 
 
 Who treads close at the heel, breathes in the neck, 
 
 Yet drives no sharp spear crashing through the breast, 
 
 Plunges no knife sideways between the ribs, 
 
 And cracks the skull beneath no knotty club, 
 
Nor throws a noose about the craning neck, 
 
 But fouls the action in the doing, mars 
 
 The work between the hands, and wries the thought 
 
 Before the lips have shaped it ; mocks all hope 
 
 With wretched failure, and forbids to mend, 
 
 Spurring us ever to disaster new : 
 
 It is so, comes upon me, I shall fail ; 
 
 For I have failed before ; each year have failed 
 
 To roll this stone aside, which hides the proof, 
 
 The sign of whether I am no man's son, 
 
 Begotten of a man who wore a sword, 
 
 Or of some rascal whose long tongue deceived 
 
 A woman's heart. Shame hounds me when I think 
 
 That I have cheeks which flush to hear men's praise, 
 
 Who cannot say that I am such an one, 
 
 And add thereto ' my father sails afar ' 
 
 Or ' fetcheth golden apples from the tree 
 
 That the sweet women sit beneath and sing,' 
 
 Or ' is in Cyprus, where he works a mine,' 
 
 Or ' folio weth wars in Thrace,' or ' seeks a cure 
 
 At Delphi for some strange unkind disease.' 
 
 Thus other lads can vaunt and need not come, 
 
 What day the sun behind yon little isle, 
 
 Each autumn sets for one who standeth here, 
 
 They need not come down to this lonely beach 
 
 And tug at this dull stone, till they are faint ; 
 
 xi. 
 
Nor as their limbs grow cold ache with despair, 
 To hope and craven fear not slaves by turns ; 
 And, if they oftener bear defeat in speed 
 Or when we wrestle, fence, or hurl the quoit, 
 A father teacheth what there lacked, and how 
 With greatest likelihood to compass it. 
 While I 
 
 Visit my mother where she sits and works, 
 As women work, weaving in wall-cloths wide 
 Figures of men and gods, and hear her talk 
 As women talk, with smiles and hopeful words. 
 Oft will she bid me stand in such a way 
 As Heracles or Jason rightly stand, 
 Then silently doth bend her to her task, 
 That she may fill their pictures out from mine ; 
 While I forget her and that busy room, 
 Watching those heroes lay the red fir poles 
 Before the prow of Argo on the grass, 
 High up some glade, high in the forest hills, 
 Whence the vast Ister and Absyrtus draw 
 Their waters, and where stags, of huger build 
 Than horses, stand forth on the brows of cliffs 
 And bell at man's intrusion, ere they turn 
 With long quick strides to seek yet virgin wilds. 
 From morn to eve, before the Argo there, 
 They laid the poles, then dragged her over them ; 
 xii. 
 
And on they toiled, week after week, right up ; 
 Then rigged as 'twere a second keel of plank, 
 And sledded her across the fields of snow, 
 And to encircling ocean brought her down. 
 They did this : I, who helped them in my thought, 
 Have heard my mother laugh, and waked to know 
 She could not tell me who my father was." 
 
 Thus far the lad with many a heart-drawn sigh ; 
 Then eased his shoulders of their short grey cloak, 
 And tossed his hat of straw upon the ground. 
 Firm in vague twilight, naked, fleckless, blond- 
 Save that a sandal strap still laced each foot 
 And that his head was dark with clustered curls- 
 He stood as those whose prayer bestirs mute lips ; 
 Then gravely did approach a sea-worn rock 
 Half buried in the shingle, wan ; for sand, 
 With which the scouring wind its slatey hue 
 Had scored, was lodged in all its hollows, wan 
 With livid marblings, lonely, rounded, smooth, 
 Planted as for a bourne unto that sea 
 Whose hoarse waves gnawed the grating beach hard by. 
 While, back from there, in dry and yellow reeds 
 Which belted the cove round, wind rattled bleak. 
 Beyond, dark hills rose, tranquil as the sky. 
 Suddenly his curls shook, he felt both arms, 
 
 xiii. 
 
Searched with his feet for purchase, then bent down 
 And digging with both hands in the loose beach 
 Obtained a thorough grip. His foothold gave 
 And gave beneath each crooked and straddled leg ; 
 Their knees touched to the beach, pressed in, dug down, 
 While sinews on broad thighs, his hollowed loins, 
 And curved back hardened, knotted, and showed up : 
 Sweat, from a streaming forehead, dripped into 
 Those dangling curls which bounced before his eyes 
 And teased that burning furnace of his face : 
 But the stone gave, and his subsiding effort 
 Sank down upon it shifted in its bed. 
 Some time he sobbed, then knelt and sucked his hands 
 Bleeding and numb, and pinched between salt stones : 
 Rose then ; his knees were raw ; his chin was rasped, 
 For he had ground it on that sullen block ; 
 With deep-drawn breaths he poised his limbs in the air, 
 Relaxed their o'er-strained joints, and chafed their thews ; 
 And, having mopped his hot brow with his cloak, 
 Sat down and smiled because the stone had moved. 
 
 Ah ! who shall say how his heart's throbs died down, 
 
 As war-noise in beleaguered town subsides 
 
 At night-fall ; for the sentries clearly see 
 
 The foemen building fires to cook their meal. 
 
 For then, as women creep out to the walls 
 
 xiv. 
 
To find their wounded husband or dead son, 
 
 His fears came out to rummage likelihoods 
 
 Disturb the calculating eye that broods 
 
 O'er the main chance, and, as a hapless girl 
 
 That, having sought and sought and nowhere found, 
 
 Not even a lover's corse to lave and tend, 
 
 But knows he has been butchered, or else shipped 
 
 Afar in noisome mine to feel the lash, 
 
 Goes frantic and runs screaming through the night, 
 
 So one fear did bedin his brain the most, 
 
 And made all life seem madness, and the gods 
 
 Unhearing scorns at distances extreme. 
 
 If he should roll the stone back from a blank, 
 
 An empty bed ! His heart stood still ! There was 
 
 No future ; such a moment ought to be 
 
 The last ! yet, as the old gnarled warrior stands 
 
 Hearing that girl run mad, so still, within, 
 
 There stood a knowledge that foresaw the morn 
 
 And the spent tatters of that storm of grief 
 
 Subdued, ungoverned, drifting through the streets, 
 
 Drift on through wildered prattle, sometimes laugh, 
 
 But never know itself and hopes again ; 
 
 So, far within, he saw all time succeed, 
 
 No consonancy in it with the days 
 
 Those days of sterling effort, gone before. 
 
 XV. 
 
He thought it best almost to now give up. 
 
 But then the all-conquering hope to find a god, 
 
 A hero at the least, had been his sire, 
 
 Brought him upon his feet and cleared his mind : 
 
 That which was raised from good must go to good ; 
 
 But from a lie the fair thing sprung at first 
 
 Would be reduced and end in utter waste. 
 
 Choosing such larger stones as gave foothold, 
 
 He banked them up where he his feet would rest ; 
 
 And, having scooped quite clear sufficient grip 
 
 For his sore-smarting hands, a second time 
 
 He bowed his back and worked down with his knees, 
 
 And heeded not annoy from clammy curls, 
 
 But put his soul into his boyish arms, 
 
 And hugged and raised the stone, then rolled it over, 
 
 Dragged by sheer weight himself, dragged sideways down ;- 
 
 Not lonor to lie, for he had seen ! now saw ! 
 
 o 
 
 For into heaven, lo ! the moon had glid, 
 Between their woods the dewy hills were grey, 
 And 'mid the reeds lagoons were path'd with light, 
 While countless silver patines danced at sea, 
 Saw ! saw ! in sheath of inlay capped with gold 
 A sword, its baldrick, and beneath, a shield 
 Cased in a leathern bag, but printed through, 
 xvi. 
 
And on the bag large words, " My son, my Theseus, 
 
 That worthy of thy sire now hast proved, 
 
 Come to me, come to Attica, in Athens, 
 
 Ask for King >geus, and bring with thee these." 
 
 xviu 
 
MEDEA 
 
 Much am I wronged, and Colchis far away 
 
 I curse ; for there this tortured heart first beat 
 
 Ah, gently as the summer aspen's leaves 
 
 Then beat ! but now, I know not if it beat, 
 
 Or hath but recollection of loud thuds, 
 
 That drearily echo through its stony wards. 
 
 Severe Orthia, mistress of my youth, 
 
 Thwart Hecate, that scowledst on my choice 
 
 When I was even so foolish as to love, 
 
 Artemis, that repairest the youth of trees 
 
 And yearly fledgest woodland glades with fern, 
 
 This have I woven, this my needle wrought 
 
 Slowly to beauty, as thy Spring adorns, 
 
 Fold after fold, a rich and worthy land 
 
 With leaves of varied shapes, with tints of green 
 
 More subtly diverse than the lyre's notes, 
 
 With blossoms of a flute-like rapturous hue, 
 
 Sheer bliss in blue, in pink or purple sobs, 
 
 Deep drone of reds and saffrons, shouts of gold : 
 
 And not content with this, but, god-like still, 
 
 Since through the dusky inwards of the wood, 
 
 Between the branches, wings the feathered life 
 
 Whose rapid pulse astonishes the hand 
 
 Of ill-shod mortals trudging after joy, 
 
 I have portrayed tit, finch, or crested wren, 
 
 xviiu 
 
Flashing athwart each sombre interspace 
 
 My broidered wreaths encircled ; but the snake, 
 
 The silent pole-cat, fierce red ant, the wasp, 
 
 These, though my thoughts were like them, are not here. 
 
 Yet here is what might make the forest groan, 
 
 To think its wizard influence had failed 
 
 Impress on any life a character 
 
 So secretly dread, though framed to almost please, 
 
 This brown, not, like that of dead leaves, inert, 
 
 This brown rich like the burnt cheek of a stone 
 
 Squared to be plinth unto some column grand ; 
 
 Near which the masons light a little fire, 
 
 Whereat to broil their salt-dried fish in lard, 
 
 When o'er the cockling scales and stiff-ribbed fins, 
 
 Again, such browns mingled with golds, blue dusk, 
 
 And silver scorched, increase beneath the heat ; 
 
 While sometimes, in the afternoon, a storm, 
 
 Parting his heavy indigo palls of rain, 
 
 Will show such browns above the sulphurous west ; 
 
 This brown, the dye in which I soused my web, 
 
 Is colour of poison ; and for this is veiled 
 
 The light which else would make my chamber bland 
 
 As those which women love, or wives or maids, 
 
 To have for toilet, sleep, close thought, and prayer. 
 
 But I to Hecate have prayed alone, 
 
 And have foregone sweet aspect of white sheets 
 
 xix. 
 
Which only where the light abounds seem pure ; 
 
 And, for two months, have laboured without air, 
 
 Till I am livid, and this silver disk 
 
 Changes not hue to tell me I am sick, 
 
 But gives back eyes alone that look like life, 
 
 And all the rest like death, like Jason's love ! 
 
 For I was married and ravished from afar, 
 
 And, for some gentle words and easy smiles, 
 
 Pretence of heat, effected, for that man, 
 
 All he had failed in else to plough with bulls, 
 
 And sow the dragon's teeth, and those to slay 
 
 Who, fully-armed, sprang like a field of corn 
 
 Not through three months, but in three minutes, ripe ; 
 
 These I enabled him to reap, and seize 
 
 The sacred serpent-guarded fleece of gold : 
 
 For, like a girl, I thought love was a god, 
 
 And I had lived in boundless hopes of love ; 
 
 Nor wearied reading scrolls of crabbed signs, 
 
 Nor ceased from skilful practice of my hands, 
 
 Whether I sprinkled sweet herbs over meats, 
 
 Or did distil tart syrups from rank canes, 
 
 Or ground to powder dried and pregnant roots, 
 
 Or with precisest measure mingled draughts 
 
 Compelling slumber or restoring health : 
 
 And, with a pride beyond my little size, 
 
 xx. 
 
Scorned brawny suitors for their ignorance, 
 
 And gazed across the thrilling sea with hope, 
 
 Or kept my wakeful eyes upon the stars, 
 
 Whose millions intimate a prodigal power 
 
 Which, then, my eager thought assigned to love. 
 
 This fervency I, with myself, bestowed 
 
 On Jason for lip music and a smile. 
 
 And not this only, for a perjured man 
 
 I brought to childhood back, thine aged foe, 
 
 Aeson, my courteous bridegroom's palsied sire, 
 
 The soiled and blunted weapon doubled up, 
 
 Which oft thee wounded deep, Virginity ; 
 
 For many wives his lust had gloried in, 
 
 And crowds of children from his veins had drained, 
 
 In petty and diluted measures, blood 
 
 That once was opulent, almost divine : 
 
 I, having drawn that weakness from his limbs 
 
 Which torpid now and chilly there abode, 
 
 Through every vacant artery did force 
 
 The green and joyous sap of thriving plants, 
 
 Juice of crushed stalks mixed with their ropy gums, 
 
 And purpled bright with strength from berry and grape, 
 
 Full of a stinging, swift, and masterful 
 
 Vivacity ; his heart beat fast once more ; 
 
 The man, remade, well-nigh resembled fauns 
 
 Who, houseless, worship trees, a white-haired child 
 
 Ml 
 
That, henceforth, sang himself to death in woods, 
 
 And bathed for very rapture in tall corn 
 
 And, silver-maned, by night the hill-brows haunted 
 
 His eyes, the wonder and envy of younger men, 
 
 Beaming with joyance far surpassing theirs. 
 
 But in return for this, my husband wooes 
 
 Ripe Glauce, Corinth's daughter, and would bring 
 
 A second victim home unto his bed. 
 
 Therefore, I know that love is but a dream ; 
 
 And with this toil have wholly purged my mind, 
 
 The while my pauseless needle stitched and stitched ; 
 
 Setting my thought on baneful Hecate, 
 
 To rid myself of hope that dupeth all. 
 
 And energy in me has so increased, 
 
 That now I feel, my thought doth correspond 
 
 With that which wields the empire of the stars, 
 
 And fills sheer darkness with a smell of blood, 
 
 And sends the green growth forth from gloomy earth 
 
 With gifts, some good, the more part charged with harm, 
 
 But all disguised to attract, and those the most, 
 
 The deadliest, or least helpful. Thine I am, 
 
 Mother of Wolves delighting in the blood 
 
 Of dogs whom men have tamed, with pains and skill, 
 
 To guard their homes : thou Queen of Fears, whose lair 
 
 Is reached through endless caves, whose silver lamp, 
 
 Changeful and cold, distresseth female sleep, 
 
 xxii. 
 
Driving for them all comfort from the night, 
 With counsel to fond ruin from despair ; 
 Urging them no more battle with their fate, 
 Not choose like thee virginity, but hope 
 Beyond themselves and eye the virile youth ; 
 Yet only in our hearts do those goods dwell, 
 Which we so fondly seek in lustful man. 
 
 For one who eyed no youth, a man mature 
 
 For Glauce, apt to love, have I prepared 
 
 This gown, so fit to fascinate the eye 
 
 Of a fond vanity-indulging bride. 
 
 Behold how it designedly is cut ; 
 
 Look, goddess, am I careful to succeed, 
 
 With open slashes left along the sleeve, 
 
 Where the white radiancy of arms shall shine ? 
 
 See, see, the bosom is, between the breasts, 
 
 To tempt her not to wear an undervest, 
 
 Pinked with sweet open-work, which creamy tints 
 
 Become far better than a cold white smock ! 
 
 And I, indeed, do send the like advice 
 
 With this, my wedding gift, which now I crease 
 
 In strictly even folds upon the floor, 
 
 And thus incase, first with a veil of lawn, 
 
 Then matted yew sprigs packed in layers deep 
 
 Both against light and chemic influence 
 
 xxiii. 
 
Of Helios proof, in double thickness, last, 
 
 Of this new canvas bag, and cord it, so, 
 
 With scarlet ; and my seeming kindly words, 
 
 Such as an aged wife might give to one 
 
 Whose youthful warmth shall solace her ag'd lord, 
 
 Here I insert beneath the knot, inscribed 
 
 On ivory tablets with style dipped in red. 
 
 As though I ne'er had married, Hecate, 
 Thine am I ; and oh, shortly, when this robe 
 So gaily bloomed, so leafy, and so fair, 
 Draped on his second dupe, shall proudly meet 
 The warmth of nuptial altar-fires and sun, 
 At first with pleasant tingling, but soon, soon, 
 From smart increasing fast to blister and burn, 
 And scald, and seethe, and gnaw upon the flesh 
 It ever closer clings to, in his sight, 
 Devouring those soft charms, the hope to enjoy 
 Had tempted him to call a second " Bride." 
 Soon, soon when I for thee, in utter dark, 
 Have put away my nearest, most real, hopes, 
 With a keen knife producing savour of blood 
 To fill thy tingling dark ; Orthia dread, 
 My motherhood undone, returned to thee 
 With, for peace-offering dire, my murdered boy 
 Who, if they lived, must live to be, or soon 
 xxiv. 
 
Or late, supplanted by another's births 
 
 (Ah, thirty years envies their five and six, 
 
 Life's sweetest, closed at once, exempt from worse !) 
 
 Thou, who art cruel too, but to be kind, 
 
 Propitiated by infanticide, 
 
 O give me part in life the self-complete ! 
 
 Like to a shooting star, direct and swift, 
 
 In dragon-harnessed chariot, dip, dip down, 
 
 Glide near the earth, when, from it passing, thou 
 
 Shalt, out from blinding silver reaching forth, 
 
 Lift me beside thee, Virgin pure and strong ; 
 
 And I will never more consider love, 
 
 Nor stoop to hope, but spend my days as thine 
 
 In governance of herbs, and caves, and tides, 
 
 Stars, and frail strays of virgin life, are spent. 
 
 XXV. 
 
LOVE'S FAINTNESS DEFIED 
 
 Kiss me ! 
 
 Are we not farther from to-day 
 
 Than is to-morrow? 
 
 Steeped in reality, what love possesses, 
 
 Time doth but borrow ; 
 
 Kiss met 
 
 Canst fear what any voice may say, 
 
 When all man's knowledge clearly must be guesses ? 
 
 Whilst joy is ours, like dogs to gain a bone 
 
 They'll fawn on us for what we leave alone. 
 
 Clasp me ! 
 
 Like sand the falling moments close, 
 
 Stifling the weary : 
 
 To-morrow from to-day no force can sever, 
 
 Keepst thou but near me. 
 
 Clasp me ! 
 
 Canst shudder at a falling rose, 
 
 When folly's proof must be, to prate of " ever " ? 
 
 Whilst joy is ours, they'll seek us out to learn : 
 
 Those only died, who, loved, made faint return ! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
LOVE'S FAINTNESS ACCEPTED 
 
 Ah, love, love is not what 
 
 We hope, we dream it is ; 
 
 Not sure of victory. 
 
 'Tis hot, but pain is hot ; 
 
 Swords wound, so may a kiss. 
 
 Though love be energy, 
 
 Should flow a current in a sea, 
 
 A passing-by of life by life, 
 
 Of force by force, fire by lightning, strife 
 
 By battle, eclipse of zest by zeal ; 
 
 Yet slowly love's inevitable seal 
 
 At times informeth the half-molten, malleable, 
 
 Stiff hours of life whose surfaces congeal 
 
 Before the lordly signet hath repeal : 
 
 Even then 'tis stamped so plain, so strangely well, 
 
 That the impression may be traced by all, 
 
 Blind fate, sceptre, crown, and golden ball. 
 
 XXVtL, 
 
LOVE'S LOSS LAMENTED 
 
 Birds sing but never speak ; 
 
 Music is in the woods but not a word ; 
 
 Nothing from flowers hath been heard ; 
 
 Lips have sea-shells, no tongue ; 
 
 And, though one through far caverns seek, 
 
 And though the silence there seem wrung, 
 
 No suffering hath the earth confessed ; 
 
 In utterance for grief 
 
 No weeping cloud e'er sought relief; 
 
 And dumb woe heaves the ocean's breast 
 
 O Mocked Heart, chant or brood ! 
 
 Sob as trees leafy sough in rain ! 
 
 That lily on thy brow explain 
 
 Never ! Voice thou no tale ! 
 
 An incommunicable mood 
 
 Be theirs who suffer wrong and fail 
 
 Not in themselves but through their love. 
 
 Why should such passion be confessed ? 
 
 Entomb it ever in a breast 
 
 The wan flower grief may droop above. 
 
 The nightingales despair ; 
 
 The woods are great with woe as they ; 
 
 Even spring is very briefly gay ; 
 
 xxviii. 
 
Like waves the sad shells rave ; 
 
 Each cavern echoes like prison stair, 
 
 By which but sighs escape the brave, 
 
 Those wisest men, of the wisest lands, 
 
 Who failed to cure the wrong 
 
 That afflicts creation, time as long 
 
 As tides have worn the sands, 
 
 That after bliss on the heart lays hands 
 
 But breaks it not, Mocked Heart, still strong ! 
 
 But breaks it not, Mocked Heart, too strong ! 
 
 xxix. 
 
A SECOND LAMENT FOR LOVE'S LOSS 
 
 O swift, O proud, O brave, O beautiful, 
 
 Thou steed, thou charger for a god, 
 
 What orient plateau hast thou trod ? 
 
 Or, coursing steppes of heaven, didst thou pull 
 
 The Lord of Song 
 
 In gold car, full of joy, of rapture full? 
 
 For thou wast strong. 
 
 Oh pain ! Oh wrong ! Oh shame ! Oh misery ! 
 
 For now a groom, a base-born slave, 
 
 Has lashed thee ; curbed thee, once so brave ; 
 
 Thou to be noosed by cunning ! furiously 
 
 To plunge, to fall, 
 
 Get up, rear, stumble, snort, foam, bleed, and be 
 
 Cowed after all ! 
 
 Ah ! favourite stallion of the sun, 
 
 When " Morning's Wonder " was thy name, 
 
 Effortless, dauntless wouldst thou run. 
 
 So noble once, art thou so tame ? 
 
 Once swift, once proud, once brave, once beautiful, 
 
 What pain, what wrong, what shame, what misery 
 
 Has thine been that thou art not free ? 
 
 That at this bridle thou shouldst pull ? 
 
 O rash Desire, whose untaught eyes knew love, 
 
 XXX. 
 
Those tears are hot : 
 
 True love has ceased, has ceased to be true love ; 
 
 What was is not. 
 
 XXXI* 
 
THAT LAND 
 
 Oh, would that I might live for ever 
 Where those who make me happy dwell ! 
 Because she other place names never 
 Desire doeth excellently well, 
 Now, wooing me ; 
 There ease weds grace ; 
 There thought is free, 
 Born like a smile upon a face, 
 Expressed as simply as a child 
 Kisseth its playmate, laughing gaily ; 
 There, there, the courteous, joyous, mild 
 Train life to beauty daily, 
 
 There thought is free ; for life is bound 
 
 Religiously, and sings while serving ; 
 
 No hungry loneliness is found 
 
 Where beauty's law admits no swerving 
 
 But strengthens life ; 
 
 Could I dwell there, 
 
 To me a wife 
 
 Were given wise and free and fair, 
 
 Not fettered with dead thoughts, not fainting 
 
 Because the night-mare world has lain 
 
 Athwart her hopes, but love acquainting 
 
 With beauty ever again. 
 
 xxxii. 
 
Ever again and again 
 
 Filling the eyes of our child 
 
 With the milk of paradise, 
 
 Of which the soul is fain, 
 
 For which the heart is wild, 
 
 And tears are in the eyes : 
 
 Ah ! that milk of paradise 
 
 Is happiness, 
 
 Is power to bless ; 
 
 What balmy air to halcyon's wing 
 
 That power to those who make me glad is ; 
 
 To bind my life, in bonds to sing, 
 
 The way such freedom may be had is ; 
 
 The way to gain the power to bless, 
 
 The one way to win happiness. 
 
 xxxiil 
 
KINDNESS 
 
 Of the beauty of kindness I speak, 
 
 Of a smile, of a charm 
 
 On the face it is pleasure to meet, 
 
 That gives no alarm ! 
 
 Of the soul that absorbeth itself 
 In discovering good, 
 Of that power which outlasts health, 
 As the spell of a wood 
 
 Outlasts the sad fall of the leaves, 
 And in winter is fine, 
 And from snow and from frost receives 
 A garment divine. 
 
 Oh ! well may the lark sing of this, 
 As through rents of huge cloud, 
 It breaks on blue gulfs that are bliss, 
 For they make its heart proud 
 
 With the power of wings deployed 
 In delightfullest air. 
 Yea, thus among things enjoyed 
 Is kindness rare. 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
For even the weak with surprise 
 
 Spread wings, utter song, 
 
 They can launch in this blue they can rise, 
 
 In this kindness are strong, 
 
 They can launch like a ship into calm, 
 Which was penn'd up by storm, 
 Which sails for the islands of balm 
 Luxuriant and warm. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
HERE ENDS THESEUS MEDEA AND LYRICS WHICH 
 COMPLETES THE PRESENT SERIES. PRINTED BY R. 
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 SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY, FOR DUCKWORTH AND CO., 
 Ill HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C. 
 MDCCCCIV. 
 
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