UC-NRLF f $B 111 flSL FROM THE ISLES A SERIES OF SONGS OUT OF GREECE BY ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE SAMURAI PRESS 1907 TO MAURICE BROWNE 38066 The Author wishes to thank the Editors of Scrtbner s Magazine and the Editors of the Smart Set for courteous permission to reprint three of the following poems. CONTENTS From the Isles Page The Dream Harbor . . 7 The Springs of Parnassus ... 8 Demeter 9 Dionysus ^ Cytherea < ~ . 13 The Elder Gods .... 14 The Ancient Legend .... 16 Lethe and Mnemosyne .... 17 Foam around Delos .... 17 From the Isles ..... 20 In Thessaly .... 22 Song Gods 9 .> &a The Ships of the Singers .... 24 The New Argo .... 25 The Death of Shelley ... 2 6 THE DREAM HARBOR INDS of the South from the sunny beaches Under the headland call to me ; And I am sick for the purple reaches, Olive-fringed, by an idle sea, Where low waves of the South are calling Out of the silent sapphire bay, And slow tides are rising, falling, Under the cliffs where the ripples play. Odours of vineyard and grove come thronging In through my casement open wide ; And I would follow the dull sweet longing Unto the slope of the warm hillside. And I would sit in the low-hung arbor, Letting the hours go drifting by, Watching the boats in the little harbor, Watching the changeless purple sky. And I would think of the happy chorus Sung by men in the ancient days, When they could muse" There is life before us, Love, and dreams, which the Gods may praise. " Aat tot raeh as his nearest duty Seek for the dream that shall be most sweet, Weaving it into a song of beauty, Lifting it up to the high Gods feet." THE SPRINGS OF PARNASSUS HROUGH cloven cliff and cold ravine, Through grasses, stealing on unseen, Beneath the olives silvery green Lightly they wander down From high Parnassus slopes of snow Unto the vineyard-vales below And sing strange music as they go Past many a hillside town. And might my dreams thus lightly run ! Through tarns of mist and fields of sun, Wandering free till their course be done And lightly straying down ; Lingering sweetly by the way, Wreathing each crag in silver spray, And loving with what love I may Each little hillside town. 8 DEMETER HAVE sought her in the starlight, In the sun and sobbing rain. Inland valleys, woodland covert, Ruined yellow harvest plain, Bleak shore-reaches, all are empty. And I turn to search again. She was more than light that kindles Morning flame on forest dun. At her tread the woodland flushes Into flower, and each one Of the little streams rejoices In the Spring that has begun. I have sought her where the swallow In its journeys never flies ; Wastes that touch the world s far ending Where the daylight palely dies. I have sought her for her kisses And the light that fills her eyes. I am old as are the Seasons That must follow at my call. Winter crowned with withered ivy, Crimson Summer, purple Fall, All are mine save one, one only, That is dearest of them all. 9 Wise am I in ancient magic, But I cannot lead the Spring, Bid the earth rise up in flowers, Call the nightingales to sing, Touch the secret living pulses That they wake in murmuring. Age is wise ; yet one thing passes When the years have sunk and set : Secrets burning in youth s bosom, Thoughts that make youth s eyelids wet, Greater stirrings, deeper longings, Things the old must needs forget. Them she knew as none has known them ; She was of them, they of her. Every light on moonlit water, Every murmurous forest stir Thrilled about her eyes and eyelids With the joy and love of her. I have sought her in the starlight, In the sun and sobbing rain. Inland valley, woodland covert, Ruined yellow harvest plain, Bleak shore-reaches, all are empty. And I turn to search again. 10 DIONYSUS IY are thy lips narcissus-pale? Why dost thou bend thy wreathed head ? Is it because thy nymphs have fled And thy processions left the vale? Hast thou forgot thine earlier days When thou didst play as on a lyre Music in men of heart s desire And led them up thy sacred ways? For thou hast left thine ancient field And the hill-vineyards of thy birth. The husbandman from his rocky earth Still coaxes the slow sparing yield ; But from the grape thy blood is gone And gone thy sunrise-breathing fire, As if, outworn with thy desire, Despairing thou hadst heavenward flown. Is it because thou hast been led Into the walled gates of the town, Where brawling revelers would drown Thy tears in wine . . . till thou hast fled Back to thy soil to come no more, And in the vine no more suspire That ecstasy of mounting fire That once thy singers foreheads wore? ii Once were thine eyes bright with the sun, Thy lips kissed rapture to the vine That bloomed therewith. Oh thou divine Light of the Gods, thy orison Men have forgot, and in their eyes Thou art become a common thing, Rudely to rout, or else to fling Into the street, as do the wise. Yea, they are wise. But as I drain The cup where sweetness lingers Jyet, I think that something they forget Who from thy solving touch refrain : Some song the Spring-pale vineleaves sung, Some faded pomp of Autumn fire That wakes the heart s low secret lyre, Remembering when the world was young. And here tonight, amid these flowers, Where in the moonlight no buds stir, I, thy lone lingering worshipper, Feel drifting past those faded hours When in the moonlit hills of Thrace Men knew thine ivy and thy fire, And lifted up by great desire Beh eld jthy? yearning summer face. 12 CYTHEREA A MELODY HE has gone and none may find Her, Her, who once was all our dreaming ; She is gone and none may find Her, Who has filled with light our days. Was the light too fair to westward ? Has She sped where rise the gleaming Sunset-mountains, fiery streaming? . . . She is gone ; we may not find Her In these ways. Three there are of the Immortals Who but touch with passing fingers ; One there is of the Immortals Who on earth is never seen. She was not of them ; among us She was one who dwells and lingers, Loved and lover of the singers. Must we give to the Immortals What has been ? Spring has oft the valleys brightened With a false and fleeting glimmer. Dreams have oft our bosoms lightened With a gladness too-soon flown. But when She goes, goes the sunlight, and the days of life are dimmer ; Every shadow couches grimmer. And what in the heart has brightened Then is gone. THE ELDER GODS HERE Peneus torrent flows Down past Tempe to the sea, From the great twelve-crested snows Of Olympus may there be Still some breath of Gods undying Following where the Spring is flying Flushed with white-foot bloom and crying To the^ hills to wake? May some godlike eyes be turning Down to where the world is burning Into blossom, glad and yearning For the Spring s sweet sake ? Byjthe leaping foamy river Which high lips have sung, Trailing plane trees bud and quiver As a lyre strung To the touch of music holy, Not quite freed from melancholy, And not heard of ear, but wholly Felt in breath and stir ; As on hills at night some feeling Of faint music lifts the wheeling Moon through heaven, and a stealing Dream drifts over her. Nay, upon their heights the Gods Shall not die till this is dead. Time ends not their periods While the yearly flush is shed Over Tempe s vine-grown places. Though they come with forms and faces Changed, yet never change erases Aught save fleeting name. Men may cease their ways to follow But the nightingale and swallow Singing, winging through green hollow Know them still the same. THE ANCIENT LEGEND KNOW it all is true ; for I have seen The light upon the Aegean s purple waves ; And I have heard the silence of the caves Where wreathed sarcophagi in darkness lean ; And I have smelt the breath that from the green Slopes of Hymettus all my sense enslaves ; And in Dodona s whispering forest-naves Felt the dim Presences that hold demesne. And now I know tis more than an old song Wrought by a poet of his sweet desire. For Pan still wanders the slow stream along ; Bacchantes leap round every midnight fire ; And from the hills where sunset shadows throng Steals the low music of a vanished lyre. 16 LETHE AND1MNEMOSYNE N the Theban plain they run Evenly side by side. But the space that stretches from moon to sun Is not so wide. He came on Lethe sleeping And a voice bade him drink And leave all outworn woe and weeping On the still brink. But from the slow stream turning A voice called longingly Out of his unstilled ancient yearning- Mnemosyne. FOAM AROUND DELOS MALL bitter islands set amid the seas ; Bare headlands hewn of granite harsh and gray Along whose rocky slopes the salt wind frees Its fury, and about whose feet the spray Stands white, and roars before each little bay ; And hills whose strength is as the strength of these ; Yea, it would seem, by some prodigious birth These isles were soul and body of the waves. Like billows turned to stone their lifted earth, Like hollows of the brine their salt sea-caves. And like the furious sea this front that braves The ocean s madness and the thunder s mirth. What iron laugh would echo in these isles If I should tell them poet s lips have sung Romance upon them of enchanting smiles, Corsairs and maidens, dauntless, fair and young ; And that their beauties once held place among The love-lute and the lover s tender wiles ! But I have come and loved for no false bloom Of sickly perfume that must clasp and twine. But rather that these empty seas give room For the wide clamor of the struggling brine, Where men have drunk its perils like a wine And wrought with strength against it and their doom. For here is waged the grim perpetual strife Against the sea, since first the Greeks of old Made servants of its passions fierce and rife, Using its very fury with the bold Resistance against mastery, where is told The tale of will and effort, which is life. 18 Untameable and fetterless and free Flash the dark waters still their storm-spires pale. As might has been, their might shall ever be; And the shore mourns her loss with many a wail. Yet trembling, and triumphant, shall avail Man s hand upon the fierce throat of the sea. What little foothold circled with the flood Has been his fortress ! In the white-walled town Stretched low along the harbor he has stood, Where hillside vineyards to the shore come down, Green vines, and olives, silver-gray and brown, Like blossoms of the island s meager blood ; And heard the calling wind sweep over him, And felt the intense strong sweetness of the foam ; And marveled where the sunset red and dim Burned low along the west, where waves that roam Lift here and there a sharp crest on the rim Of sea and sky ; and turned and sought his home ; Till when, at cold flush of the morning light, He loosens sail and sees the rent waves strain, Fulfilled with all their strength and their delight In struggle, though the guerdon shall be vain, Fares forth to seek, and in the end to gain, The final calm of stardrift and the night. . . . 19 FROM THE ISLES TO CHANDLER POST HEN days grow old I do not think, dreaming, we shall forget The sting of spray that made our foreheads wet, Nor quite lose memory of the strong sweet cold Kiss of the winds that through those islands fret With fume and fury, nor those nights that set Their stars upon the headlands gray or gold As day grew old. All else being past Save only dreaming of what once has been, We still shall see the fierce metallic sheen On strange Aegean seas where the waves drive fast And waters rise in whirling mounds of green, And o er the flying foam our eyes shall lean Out towards the iron clanging of the blast All else being past. Let the fires leap high Upon each cliff as the night claims its own. Like stars above the midnight waters sown Our hopes have known no limit save the sky. And even as then our mounting dreams have flown Past shore, past harbor, where wild spray was blown, So in the hour when hope and dream must die Let the fires leap high. 20 For what have we To do with old age drowsing by the fire? Our hearts were lit with the storm-light of desire And we have felt the passion of the sea Beat over us with pulse not born to tire. And after that, what flood shall lift us higher ? Nay, we would barter all the peace to be For what have we. Death s numbing power, How shall it bind the strong wings of the soul Which hath drunk life where Delos dark waves roll And seen the Aegean sea break forth in flower? The surge and beat of strength past all control, The windy sweep toward its own unwhispered goal Shall rise and rend in the ultimate dim hour Death s numbing power. And on the sea The passion of our spirits shall be poured. Yea, we shall mingle, we shall be as lord Over the whirling waves that break and flee. Mixed with the wind s will as we fain had soared, Filled with the tempest as when once it roared ; And on the land its thunder s might shall be And on the sea. 21 IN THESSALY ND Pan is gone ! Although we cry There is no piping voice to make Glad answer from the river-brake ; No thundering hoof-beats give reply To us who linger for his sake Along the vales of Thessaly. Gone, and he never may return, Strange, half-pathetic earlier god, Sprung from the mossy forest sod, Or from those earth-born dreams that burn In simple hearts on whom the rod Of life smote hard that they might learn The bitter struggle from the clay Up to some unguessed height of man. While love of free wild things that ran Glad in the woods at peep of day Yearned out, and made, and doomed thee, Pan, From thy very birth to fade away, And mingle with thy forest shades As men grew sadder and more wise. Forever gone from mortal eyes ; For as they look above thy glades To stars that hold their destinies The glamour fades, thy glamour fades. 22 SONG GODS are as old as the world That remembers not its birth. Our tears are the high gods weeping, Our songs are the great gods mirth. Our desire the desire of the foam flakes whirled, And our souls as the souls of earth. The gods and the earth and the foam Fulfilled of the world s dim powers Are stirred with a sweet unrest, That haunts through the woven hours Till at last they break into flowers blown, And of all, we are the flowers. And when the night shall come Endless on sea and land, We shall stand up from the ruined world, With the flower of god and man Upon our brow like the light of the sun, And their glory in our hand. THE SHIPS OP THE SINGERS jN no hill-circled drowsy bay Their tranquil sails are furled. Theirs is no calm and ordered day : Around their course is whirled The stress and fury of the spray . . . But they sing the songs of the world ! The harbor lights are soft with peace, The harbor waves are still. Shall not the far-sea toiling cease Beneath the harbor hill? Shall not the bondsmen find release And the worn heart gain its will? Yea, when the reddening sun-ball slips Out through the gates of air, Then the moon on the hills is like trembling lips On a pale beloved s hair, Then the ships shall linger ; but the ships Of the singers shall not be there. For no hill-circled peaceful bay May hold their pinions furled, Nor sleep of night, nor spells of day. Afar their barks are whirled In doom of the unpitying spray . . . But they sing the songs of the world. 24 THE NEW ARGO UNLIGHTED earth and warmth of pleasant places Set on green slopes touched with the lips of Spring ; Clinging of hands and pleading of sweet faces ; Memories of song dear voices used to sing : These fold us round with all-too-soft entreating To win us back among the happy days That spread about us till one dream came fleeting To lead us forth into untrodden ways. They fold us round, and yet they cannot stay us, For we are bound to lands beyond the stars. Nor circumstance nor pleasure shall delay us, Nor duty hold us with its stubborn bars. Where we are going duty fades, and pleasure ; Our course is set into strange lighted skies Above hope high, and holy beyond measure, Whose flaming beauty slays, or glorifies ! The sail is filling ! Past the well-known beaches, Out through the rocks and over the blue flow We turn toward unknown lands and barren reaches Of sea and sky where demon tempests blow. We turn, with hearts made firm to face the billow, To sail beyond the sunset s farthest gleams, Till in the end the stars shall be our pillow And our last sleep shall thrill with deathless dreams. 25 THE DEATH OF SHELLEY "Now let us together solve the great Mystery." SHELLEY. (SCBNE The deck of a small sailing vessel. Shelley and Williams sit near the bow, too far off for the sailor to hear what Shelley is reading from a manuscript which he holds.} SHELLEY (reading) I have not seen thee on a granary floor With wind-blown tresses mid the garnered sheaves. And yet I think my heart is with thee more Than his, who, singing thee, but half believes. I have drawn near to thee, who art so far, When golden-rod in faded pomp is spread, And when through dusk come rising star by star Orion and Aldebaran the Red. For I was born when Autumn s solemn spirit Held the earth rapt with magics like to these. And as my sacred birthright I inherit Aldebaran and the winged Pleiades, The flood of hazy sun, the wide chill night, The dusk where Ceres searched for Proserpine ; And all her woven legends of delight Are in my blood-beats, that I know them mine ! 26 And have I not drawn closer through the years To thee who wast the mother of my birth ? Are thy lone mists unlike my dimming tears, Or my sad heart unlike thy sedgy earth ? Ah, even in thy splendours am I thine ; For I, too, long to lift the heart that grieves Aloft in flame that on the hills may shine, And sink to rest in silence of dim leaves. (He is silent fora time, looking out over the water). Oh that the brain could rest a little while, That the swift mind could stop its mazy loom Only a little; and lay aside, one hour, The threads of amethyst and olive and silver. Have you not felt sometimes you would go mad Unless the weaving stopped ? WILLIAMS Never quite that. My brain is not so eager, so swift as yours, Which flames like a fire, and flashes into beauty. SHELLEY I think it is a curse ; I know it is. Hear this : for three nights it has never ceased. The brain works on when I am stretched in sleep Of utter weariness of the body ; still The phantoms of my thought find no repose By shore of any slow Lethean flood, But stir, leaping forever in wild flame. It almost frightens me, this quenchless fire ; And if the shapes turned grim, not beautiful, Madness would lie not very far away. Three nights ago mine own figure met me 27 Upon the terrace, and whispered Jiauntingly, " How long wilt thou be content ?"...! am not content . . . WILLIAMS Perhaps I am too sane, as you have told me Many a time. But you, you find too dear Those gloomy brinks that just divide the soul From its own chaos. Come, come, cease to read Or twine your thought around Medusa-heads. Let us for one day be but simple men, Fishermen, like this honest rascal here. SHELLEY (la ugh ing) Well, be an honest fisherman if you can But here, I give you test. What odour comes Unto your nostrils now? WILLIAMS I noticed it A half-hour since, and knew not how to name it. It seems some perfume from an ocean garden, So faint, so sweet it is not of the sense. SHELLEY (eagerly) Yea, that is it A breath from far away Out of the secret bourns of sea and wind : The West Wind and the Sea Wind twined in one, And the keen rapture of their swooned embrace Is borne to us, and makes us quiver and thrill Like far-off music touching a still lyre. . . . Ah friend, friend, you a fisherman ! Now hear Your honest counterpart. What is that breath Of perfume that comes down the waiting air? SAILOR That salty smell ? I think it is the spray Dashing around us or the wind from the sea. WILLIAMS Perhaps it calls a storm ? 28 SAILOR Pray heaven not. I left the nets all spread upon the beach, And if a storm comes, they will be washed off Or torn by the rocks. SHELLEY How prosper you this year ? SAILOR Oh, well enough. But it is a hard trade ; And fish bring not the prices they did once. SHELLEY How many fish do you get in a day s work? WILLIAMS Nay, Shelley, try not to find out the secrets Of this man s trade. I know you long to follow it ! SHELLEY Oh, mock not. For their lives are not so happy Their unrest must come too, and they have not Even the little light that bides in ours. I cannot think of them as more than a dream, Blind weary shadows groping in a dusk Of terrible caverns and Cyclopean rocks. Shadows that scarcely know themselves alive, That strain, and grope, and slumber and are gone. WILLIAMS Yet they have hours of peace that you have not. They drink a merry wine-cup in the sun, And rest from toil and know a depth of quiet That never can come near you. SHELLEY Ah, what worth Lies in this ease, save as the ease of cattle Within whose brain a dying ember smoulders? SAILOR Sir, there is a wind rising, and those clouds Droop lower. If it pleased you, it were well To turn toward land and wait upon their passing. SHELLEY Turn, if you think it best ; I care not. Friend, 29 What is their life worth if it see no gleam Of what we call reality ? If the flush Of something more than actual daily round Of earth s existence flicker not in their souls ? WILLIAMS God knows. And yet, even we who feel the leap, The splendid agony of the mounting flame, What have we won? What are our lives but wind That seeks oases in an empty waste? SHELLEY (abstractedly) Yea, seekers ; and we know not what we seek ; Unless it be to mingle our faint flames With some more bright effulgence. But the dark Is as a prison round each lonely fire. Ah, sometimes I would give the whole of life To touch, to mingle with another soul. . . . (Both are silent for a time). WILLIAMS See, how the wind grows fresher, and the spray Leaps up in front of us like fountain-drops. SHELLEY They leap as in an ecstasy of fear, Lashed by the mighty impulse of the wind. Even as we quiver and palpitate and start When over us the wind of thought moves strong, Until our spirits become the spirit of it, And we believe ourselves as free, as strong, And dash us skyward into rending foam ! WILLIAMS Aye, but why let it rack your thoughts so keenly? Forget yourself a little ; let your soul Sleep from these stirrings of a self-wrought pain. You do yourself an evil. Think, rather, 30 Of all the beauty you have wro aght; and all You yet shall work, things such as never man Has wrought before, or shall on earth again. (Shelley rises, and walks to the prow, where he stands feverishly aroused, and growing more and more impetuous throughout the following speech). SHELLEY I have wrought things no man has ever wrought, I have dreamed out into the Infinite, Untrod, inviolate, holy ; and brought to earth Gleams from that far-off world beyond the darkness. Vain, vain ! I could not enter, only see The meteor brightness plumed upon its gates, And o er its walls the arching blue of heaven. There is my home ! How have I wandered thence ? What woeful tide bore me to earth? Again I fail and sicken with yearning for its light. . . . Oh great West Wind, Oh Wind from out the seas, Thou callest me as one like unto thee. I have walked with thee in the flame-winged air, And heard thy secret whispers, till I rose Above thy flight, and knew myself undying, And felt the pulses of the universe Beat through my soul ; and the world sank away, And I alone remained in the vast void, A spirit of fire, an odour of creation, A singing voice through all eternity. Away, away, dim shadows clouding me ! Away dense earthy forms that block my sight ; And let me know the intenser soul of life, The light beyond the sunset, and the music With which the night is silent, and the beam Shooting across the worlds from him who now Communes with life. Keats, you yearn toward me Out of the darkness. On the great West Wind, Amid the far-world odours you are borne. And the flame folds us and the shadows die And life fulfils itself. I come ! I come ! . . . WILLIAMS Good God ! Turn, turn the helm ! SAILOR The waves ! The waves ! Butler & Tanner, Printers, Frome and London 32. 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