i'^03!!95^^fB;n^*-|5f??'f^ 
 
 The Epic
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES.
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES 
 
 IN THREE BOOKS 
 
 BY 
 
 LEWIS MORRIS 
 
 "DIFFICILE EST PROPRIE COMMUXIA DICERE 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER <S- CO., LTD. 
 
 MDCCCXCI!
 
 "The three excellences of Poetry : simplicity of language, 
 simplicity of subject, and simplicity of invention."— T/if? iVehk 
 Triads. 
 
 ( TI:e n'shts of translaticn and of reproduction are reserved.)
 
 PR 
 
 TO ALL 
 
 WHO LOVE THE LITERATURE OF GREECE 
 
 THIS POEM IS DEDICATED 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 

 
 V
 
 CONTENTS. 
 Book I. 
 
 TARTARUS. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 Tantalus 7 
 
 Ph--j-:dra ... 21 
 
 Sisyphus 36 
 
 Clyt.^mnestra 49 
 
 Marsyas . 
 Andromeda 
 
 ACTiEON 
 
 Helen 
 EXjrydice . 
 Orpheus . 
 Deianeika 
 Laocoon . 
 Narcissus . 
 Medusa . 
 
 Book II. 
 
 HADES. 
 
 73 
 
 84 
 
 97 
 106 
 127 
 132 
 
 13s 
 146 
 
 153 
 163
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Adonis 173 
 
 Persephone 178 
 
 Endymion 184 
 
 Psyche 191 
 
 Aktemis . 
 
 Herakles 
 
 Aphrodite 
 
 Athene 
 
 Her^ . 
 
 Apollo 
 
 Zeus , 
 
 Book III. 
 
 OLYMPUS. 
 
 208 
 
 215 
 219 
 225 
 230 
 
 235 
 240
 
 BOOK I. 
 TARTARUS.
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 In February, when the dawn was slow, 
 
 And winds lay still, I gazed upon the fields 
 
 Which stretched before me, lifeless, and the stream 
 
 Which laboured in the distance to the sea. 
 
 Sullen and cold. No force of fancy took 
 
 My thought to bloomy June, when all the land 
 
 Lay deep in crested grass, and through the dew 
 
 The landrail brushed, and the lush banks were set 
 
 With strawberries, and the hot noise of bees 
 
 Lulled the bright flowers. Rather I seemed to move 
 
 Thro' that weird land, Hellenic fancy feigned. 
 
 Beyond the fabled river and the bark 
 
 Of Charon ; and forthv.iili on every side
 
 4 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Kose the thin throng of ghosts. 
 
 First thro' the gloom 
 Of a dark grove I strayed — a sUiggish wood, 
 Where scarce the faint fires of the setting stars, 
 Or some cold gleam of half-discovered dawn, 
 Might pierce the darkling pines. A twilight drear 
 Urooded o'er all the depths, and filled the dank 
 And sunken hollows of the rocks with shapes 
 Of terror, — beckoning hands and noiseless feet 
 Flitting from shade to shade, wide eyes that stared 
 With horror, and dumb mouths which seemed to cry 
 Vet cried not. An ineffable despair 
 Hung over them and that dark world and took 
 The gazer captive, and a mingled pang 
 Of grief and anger, grown to fierce revolt 
 And hatred of the Invisible Force which holds 
 The issue of our lives and binds us fast 
 Within the net of Fate ; as the fisher takes 
 The little quivering sea-things from the sea 
 And flings them gasping on the beach to die 
 Thep spreads his net for more. And then again
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 5 
 
 I knew myself and those, creatures who lie 
 Safe in the strong grasp of Unchanging Law, 
 Encompassed round by hands unseen, and chains 
 Wliich do support the feeble life that else 
 ^\'ere spent on barren space ; and thus I came 
 To look with less of horror, more of thought, 
 And bore to see the sight of pain that yet 
 Should grow to healing, when the concrete stain 
 Of life and act were purged, and the cleansed soul, 
 Renewed by the slow wear and waste of time. 
 Soared after jeons of days. 
 
 They seemed alone. 
 Those prisoners, thro' all time. Each soul shut fast 
 In its own jail of woe, apart, alone. 
 For evermore alone ; no thought of kin. 
 Or kindly human glance, or fellowship 
 Of suffering or of sin, made light the load 
 Of solitary pain. Ay, though they walked 
 Together, or were prisoned in one cell 
 AVith the partners of their wrong, or with strange souls 
 Which the same Furies tore, they knew them not,
 
 6 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 I'.ut suffered still alone ; as In that shape 
 
 Of hell fools build on earth, where hopeless sin 
 
 Rots slow in solitude, nor sees the face 
 
 Of men, nor hears the sound of speech, nor feels 
 
 The touch of human hand, but broods a ghost, 
 
 Hating the bare blank cell — the other self. 
 
 Which brought it thither — hating man and God 
 
 And all that is or has been.
 
 TANTALUS. 
 
 A great fear 
 And pity froze my blood, who seemed to see 
 A half-remembered form. 
 
 An Eastern King 
 It was who lay in pain. lie wore a crown 
 Upon his aching brow, and his white robe 
 Was jewelled with fair gems of price, the signs 
 Of pomp and honour and all luxurj'. 
 Which might prevent desire. But as I looked 
 There came a hunger in the gloating eyes, 
 A quenchless thirst upon the parching lips. 
 And such unsatisfied strainings in the hands 
 
 Stretched idly forth on what I could not see, 
 
 Some fatal food of fancy ; that I knew 
 
 The undying worm of sense, which frets and gnawa 
 
 The unsatisfied stained soul. 
 
 Seeing me, he said : 
 
 " What? And art thou too damned as I? Dost know
 
 8 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 This thirst as I, and see as I the cool 
 
 Lymph drawn from thee and mock thy lips ; and parch 
 
 For ever in continual thirst ; and mark 
 
 The fair fruit offered to thy hunger fade 
 
 Before thy longing eyes ? I thought there was 
 
 No other as I thro' all the weary lengths 
 
 Of Time the gods have made, who pined so long 
 
 And found fruition mock him. 
 
 Long ago, 
 When I was young on earth, 'twas a sweet pain 
 To ride all day in the long chase, and feel 
 Toil and the summer fire my blood and parch 
 My lips, while in my father's halls I knew 
 The cool bath waited, with its marble floor ; 
 And juices from the ripe fruits pressed, and chilled 
 With snows from far-off peaks ; and troops of slaves ; 
 And nuisic and the dance ; and fair young forms, 
 And dalliance, and every joy of sense. 
 That haunts the dreams of youth, which strength and 
 
 ease 
 Corrupt, and vacant hours. Ay, it was sweet
 
 TANTALUS. 
 
 For a while to plunge in these, as fair boys plunge 
 
 Naked in summer streams, all veil of shame 
 
 Laid by, only the young dear body bathed 
 
 And sunk in its delight, while the firm earth, 
 
 The soft green pastures gay with innocent flowers, 
 
 Or sober harvest fields, show like a dream ; 
 
 And nought is left, but the young life which floats 
 
 Upon the depths of death, to sink, maybe. 
 
 And drown in pleasure, or rise at length grown wis 
 
 And gain the abandoned shore. 
 
 Ah, but at last 
 The swift desire waxed stronger and more strong, 
 And feeding on itself, grows tyrannous ; 
 And the parched soul no longer finds delight 
 In tlie cool stream of old ; nay, this itself, 
 Smitten by the fire of sense as by a flame, 
 Holds not its coolness more ; and fevered limbs, 
 Seeking the fresh tides of their youth, may find 
 No more refreshment, but a cauldron fired 
 With the fires of nether hell ; and a black rage 
 Usurps the soul, and drives it on to slake
 
 lo THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Its thirst with crime and blood. 
 
 Longing Desire ! 
 Unsatisfied, sick, impotent Desire ! 
 Oh, I have known it ages long. I knew 
 Its pain on earth ere yet my life had grown 
 To its full stature, thro' the weary years 
 Of manhood, nay, in age itself; I knew 
 The quenchless weary thirst, unsatisfied 
 By all the charms of sense, by wealth and power 
 And homage ; always craving, never quenched — 
 The undying curse of the soul ! The ministers 
 And agents of my will drave far and wide 
 Through all the land for me, seeking to find 
 Fresh pleasures for me, who had spent my sum 
 Of pleasure, and had power, not even in thought, 
 Nor faculty to enjoy. They tore apart 
 The sacred claustral doors of home for me, 
 Defiled the inviolate hearth for me, laid waste 
 The fiower of humble lives, in hope to heal 
 The sickly fancies of the king, till rose 
 A cry of pain from all the land ; and I
 
 TANTALUS. II 
 
 Grew happier for it, since I held the power 
 To quench desire in blood. 
 
 But even thus 
 The old pain faded not, but swift again 
 Revived ; and thro' the sensual dull lengths 
 Of my seraglios I stalked, and marked 
 The glitter of the gems, the precious webs 
 Plundered from every clime by cruel wars 
 That strewed the sands with corpses ; lovely eyes 
 That looked no look of love, and fired no more 
 Thoughts of the flesh ; rich meats, and fruits, and wines 
 Grown flat and savourless ; and loathed them all, 
 And only cared for power ; content to shed 
 Rivers of innocent blood, if only thus 
 I might appease my thirst. Until I grew 
 A monster gloating over blood and pain. 
 
 Ah, weary, weary days, when every sense 
 Was satisfied, and nothing left to slake 
 The parched unhappy soul, except to v.atch 
 The writhing limbs and mark the slow blood drip,
 
 12 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Drop after drop, as the life ebbed with it ; 
 
 In a new thrill of lust, till blood itself 
 
 Palled on me, and I knew the fiend I was, 
 
 Yet cared not — I who was, brief 3'ears ago, 
 
 Only a careless boy lapt round with ease, 
 
 Stretched by the soft and stealing tide of sense 
 
 Which now grew red ; nor ever dreamed at all 
 
 What Furies lurked beneath it, but had shrunk 
 
 In indolent horror from the sight of tears 
 
 And misery, and felt my inmost soul 
 
 Sicken with the thought of blood. There comes a 
 
 time 
 When the insatiate brute within the man. 
 Weary with wallowing in the mire, leaps forth 
 Devouring, and tlie cloven satyr-hoof 
 Grows to the rending claw, and the lewd leer 
 To the horrible fanged snarl, and the soul sinks 
 And leaves the man a devil, all his sin 
 Grown savourless, and yet he longs to sin 
 And longs in vain for ever. 
 
 Yet, methinks.
 
 TANTALUS. 13 
 
 It was not for the gods to leave me thus. 
 I stinted not their worship, building shrines 
 To all of them ; the Goddess of Love I served 
 With hecatombs, letting the fragrant fumes 
 Of incense and the costly steam ascend 
 From victims year by year ; nay, my own son 
 Pelops, my best beloved, I gave to them 
 Offering, as he must offer who would gain 
 The great gods' grace, my dearest. 
 
 I had gained 
 Through long and weary orgies that strange sense 
 Of nothingness and wasted days which blights 
 The exhausted life, bearing upon its front 
 Counterfeit knowledge, when the bitter ash 
 Of Evil, which the sick soul loathes, appears 
 Like the pure fruit of Wisdom. I had grown 
 As wizards seem, who mingle sensual rites 
 And forms impure with murderous spells and dark 
 Enchantments ; till the simple people held 
 My very weakness wisdom, and believed 
 That in my blood-stained palace-halls, withdrawn;
 
 14 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 I kept the inner mysteries of Zeus 
 And knew the secret of all Being ; who was 
 A sick and impotent wretch, so sick, so tired, 
 That even bloodshed palled. 
 
 For my stained soul, 
 Knowing its sin, hastened to purge itself 
 With every rite and charm which the dark lore 
 Of priestcraft offered to it. Spells obscene, 
 The blood of innocent babes, sorceries foul 
 Muttered at midnight — these could occupy 
 My weary days ; till all my people shrank 
 To see me, and the mother clasped her child 
 Who heard the monster pass. 
 
 They would not hear, 
 They listened not — the cold ungrateful gods — 
 For all my supplications ; nay, the more 
 I sought them were they hidden. 
 
 At the last 
 A dark voice whispered nightly : ' Thou, poor wretch, 
 That art so sick and impotent, thyself 
 The source of all thy misery, tlic great gods
 
 TANTALUS. 15 
 
 Ask a more precious gift and excellent 
 
 Than alien victims which thou prizest not 
 
 And givest without a pang. But shouldst thou take 
 
 Thy costliest and fairest offering, 
 
 'Twere otherwise. The life which thou hast given 
 
 Thou mayst recall. Go, offer at the shrine 
 
 Thy best beloved Pelops, and appease 
 Zeus and the averted gods, and know again 
 
 The youth and joy of yore.' 
 
 Night after night. 
 
 While all the halls were still, and the cold stars 
 
 Were fading into dawn, I lay awake 
 
 Distraught with warring thoughts, my throbbing brain 
 
 Filled with that dreadful voice. I had not shrunk 
 
 From blood, but this, the strong son of my youth — 
 
 How should I dare this thing ? And all day long 
 
 I would steal from sight of him and men, and fight 
 
 Against the dreadful thought, until the voice 
 
 Seared all my burning brain, and clamoured, ' Kill ! 
 
 Zeus bids thee, and be happy.' Then I rose 
 
 At midnight, when the halls were still, and raised
 
 i6 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 The arras, and stole soft to where my son 
 
 Lay sleeping. For one moment on his face 
 
 And stalwart limbs I gazed, and marked the rise 
 
 And fall of his young breast, and the soft plume 
 
 Which drooped upon his brow, and felt a thrill 
 
 Of yearning ; but the cold voice urging me 
 
 Burned me like fire. Three times I gazed and turned 
 
 Irresolute, till last it thundered at me, 
 
 ' Strike, fool ! thou art in hell ; strike, fool ! and lose 
 
 The burden of thy chains.' Then with slow step 
 
 I crept as creeps the tiger on the deer. 
 
 Raised high my arm, shut close my eyes, and plunged 
 
 My dagger in his heart. 
 
 And then, with a flash, 
 The veil fell downward from my life and left 
 Myself to me — the daily sum of sense — 
 The long continual trouble of desire — 
 The stain of blood blotting the stain of lust — 
 The weary foulness of my days, which wrecked 
 My heart and brain, and left me at the last 
 A madman and accursed ; and I knew.
 
 TANTALUS. 17 
 
 Far higher than the sensual slope which held 
 The gods whom erst I worshipped, a white peak 
 Of Purity, and a stern voice pealing doom — ■ 
 Not the mad voice of old — which pierced so deep 
 Within my life, that with the reeking blade 
 Wet with the heart's blood of my child I smote 
 My guilty heart in twain. 
 
 Ah ! fool, to dream 
 That the long stain of time might fade and merge 
 In one poor chrism of blood. They taught of yore, 
 My priests who flattered me — nor knew at all 
 The greater God I know, who sits afar 
 Beyond those earthly shapes, passionless, pure, 
 And awful as the Dawn — that the gods cared 
 For costly victims, drinking in the steam 
 Of sacrifice when the choice hecatombs 
 Were offered for my wrong. Ah no ! there is 
 No recompense in these, nor any charm 
 To cleanse the stain of sin, but the long wear 
 Of suffering, when the soul which seized too much 
 Of pleasure here, grows righteous l)y the pain 
 
 c
 
 1 8 THE EPIC OF HADES 
 
 That doth redress its ill. For what is Right 
 But equipoise of Nature, alternating 
 The Too Much and Too Little ? Xot on earth 
 The salutary silent forces w ork 
 Their final victory, but year on year 
 Passes, and age on age, and leaves the debt 
 Unsatisfied, while the o'erburdened soul 
 Unloads itself in pain. 
 
 Therefore it is 
 I suffer as I suffered ere swift death 
 Set me not free, no otherwise ; and yet 
 There comes a healing purpose in my pain 
 I never knew on earth ; nor ever here 
 The once-loved evil grows, only the tale 
 Of penalties grown greater hourly dwarfs 
 The accomplished sum of wrong. And yet desire 
 Pursues me still— sick, impotent desire, 
 Fiercer than that of earth. 
 
 We are ourselves 
 Our heaven and hell, the joy, the penalty, 
 The yearning, the fruition. Earth is hell
 
 TANTALUS. 19 
 
 Or heaven, and yet not only earth ; but still, 
 After the swift soul leaves the gates of death, 
 The pain grows deeper and less mixed, the joy 
 Purer and less alloyed, and we are damned 
 Or blest, as we have lived." 
 
 He ceased, with a wail 
 Like some complaining wind among the pines 
 Or pent among the fretful ocean caves, 
 A sick, sad sound. 
 
 Then as I looked, I saw 
 His eyes glare horribly, his dry parched lips. 
 Open, his weary hands stretch idly forth 
 As if to clutch the air — infinite pain 
 And mockery of hope. " Seest thou them now ? " 
 He said. " I thirst, I parch, I famish, yet 
 They still elude me, fair and tempting fruit 
 And cooling waters. Now they come again. 
 See, they are in my grasp, they are at my lips 
 Now I shall quench me. Nay, again they fly 
 And mock me. Seest thou them, or am I shut 
 From hope for ever, hungering, thirsting still.
 
 20 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 A madman and in Hell ? " 
 
 And as I passed 
 In horror, his large eyes and straining hands 
 Froze all my soul with pity.
 
 PHMDRA. 
 
 Then it was 
 A woman whom I saw : a dark pale Queen, 
 With passion in her eyes, and fear and pain 
 Holding her steadfast gaze, like one who sees : 
 
 Some dreadful deed of wrong worked out and knows 
 Himself the cause, yet now is powerless 
 To stay the wrong he would. 
 
 Seeing me gaze 
 In pity on her woe, she turned and spake 
 With a low wailing voice — 
 
 ' ' Thou well mayst gaze 
 With horror on me, sir, for I am lost ; 
 I have shed the innocent blood, long years ago, 
 Nay, centuries of pain. I have shed the blood 
 Of him I loved, and found for recompense 
 But self-inflicted death and age-long woe, 
 Which purges not my sin. And yet not I 
 It was who did it, but the gods, who took
 
 21 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 A woman's loveless heart and tortured it 
 
 With love as with a fire. It was not I 
 
 Who slew my love, but Fate. Fate 'twas which 
 
 brought 
 My love and me together, Fate which barred 
 The path of blameless love, yet set Love's flame 
 To l)urn and smoulder in a hopeless heart. 
 Where no relief might come. 
 
 The King was old, 
 And I a girl. 'Tis an old tale which runs 
 Thro' the sad ages, and 'twas mine. He had spent 
 His sum of love long since, and I — I knew not 
 A breath of Love as yet. Ah, it is strange 
 To lose the sense of maidenhood, drink deep 
 Of life to the veiy dregs, and yet not know 
 A flutter of Love's wing. Love takes no thought 
 I'^or pomp, or palace, or respect of men ; 
 Nor always in the stately marriage bed, 
 Closed round by silken curtains, laid on down, 
 Nestles a rosy form ; but 'mid wild flowers 
 Or desert tents, or in the hind's low cot,
 
 PHAlDRA. 23 
 
 Beneath the aspect of the unconscious stars, 
 Dwells all night and is blest. 
 
 My love, my life '. 
 He was the old man's son, a fair white soul — 
 Not like the others, whom the fire of youth 
 Burns like a flame and hurries unrestrained 
 Thro' riotous days and nights, but virginal 
 And pure as any maid. No wandering glance 
 He deigned for all the maidens young and fair . 
 Who sought their Prince's eye. But evermore. 
 On the high pastures wandering alone, 
 He dwelt unwed ; weaving to Artemis, 
 Fairest of all Olympian maids, a wreath 
 From the unpolluted meads, where never herd 
 Drives his white flock, nor ever scythe has come, 
 But the bee sails upon unfettered wing 
 Over the spring-like lawns, and Purity 
 Waters them with soft dews.'' And yet he showed 
 Of all his peers most manly — heart and soul 
 
 J Euripide's, " Hippolytus," lines 70-78.
 
 24 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 A very irican, tender and true, and strong 
 And pitiful, and in his limbs and mien 
 Fair as Apollo's self. 
 
 It was at first 
 In Trcezen that I saw him, when he came 
 To greet his sire. Amid the crowd of youths 
 lie showed a Prince indeed ; yet knew I not 
 ■\Vhom 'twas I saw, nor that I held the place 
 WTiich was his mother's, only from the throng 
 Love, with a barbed dart aiming, pierced my heart 
 Ere yet I knew what ailed me. Ever}' glance 
 Fired me ; the youthful grace, the tall straight limbs, 
 The swelling sinewy arms, the large dark eyes 
 Tender yet full of passion, the thick locks 
 Tossed from his brow, the lip and cheek which bore 
 The down of early manhood, seemed to feed 
 My heart with short-lived joy. 
 
 For when he stood 
 Forth from the throng and knelt before his sire. 
 Then raised his eyes to mine, I felt the curse 
 Of Aphrodite bum me, as it burned
 
 PHjEDRA. 85 
 
 My mother before me, and I dared not meet 
 His innocent, frank young eyes. 
 
 Said I then young ? 
 Ay, but not young as mine. For I had known 
 The secret things of life, which age the soul 
 In a moment, writing on its front their marlc 
 ' Too early ripe ; ' and he was innocent, 
 My spouse in fitted years, within whose arms 
 I had defied the world. 
 
 I turned away 
 Like some white bird that leaves the flock, which sails 
 High in mid air above the haunts of men. 
 Feeling some little dart within her breast, 
 Not death, but like to death, and slowly sinks 
 Down to the earth alone, and bears her hurt 
 Unseen, by herbless sand and bitter pool, 
 And pines until the end. 
 
 Even from that day 
 I strove to gain his love. Nay, 'twas not I, 
 But the cruel gods who drove me. Day by day 
 We were together ; for in days of old
 
 26 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Women were free, not pent in gilded jails 
 
 As afterwards, but free to walk alone, 
 
 For good or evil, free. I hardly took 
 
 Thought for my spouse, the King. For I had found 
 
 My love at last : what matter if it were 
 
 A guilty love ? Yet love is love indeed, 
 
 Stronger than heaven or hell. Day after day 
 
 I set myself to tempt him from his proud 
 
 And innocent way, for I had spurned aside 
 
 Care for the gods or men — all but my love. 
 
 What need to tell the tale ? Was it a sigh, 
 A blush, a momentary glance, which brought 
 Assurance of my triumph ? It is long 
 .Since I have lived, I cannot tell ; I know 
 Only the penalty of death and hell 
 Wliich followed on my sin. I Icnew he loved. 
 It was not wonderful, seeing that we dwelt 
 A boy and girl together. I was fair, 
 And Eros fired my eyes and lent my voice 
 His own soft tremulous tones. I5ut when our souls
 
 PH^DRA. 27 
 
 Trembled upon the verge, and fancy feigned 
 His arms around me as we fled alone 
 To some free land of exile, came a scroll ; 
 ' Dearest, it may not be ; I fear the Clods ; 
 We dare not do this wrong. I go from hence 
 And see thy face no more. Farewell ! Forget 
 The love we may not own ; go, seek for both 
 Forgiveness from the gods.' 
 
 When I read the words, 
 The cruel words, methought my heart stood still. 
 And when the ebbing life returned I seemed 
 To have lost all thought of Love, Only Revenge 
 Dwelt with me still, the fiercer that I knew 
 My long-prized hope, which came so near success. 
 Snatched from me and for ever. 
 
 WTien I rose 
 From my deep swoon, I bade a messenger 
 Go, seek the King for me. lie came and sate 
 Beside my couch, and all the doors were closed, 
 And all withdrawn. Then with the liar's art. 
 And hypocrite tears, and feigned reluctancy.
 
 33 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And all the subtle wiles a woman draws 
 From the armoury of hate, I did instil 
 The poison to his soul. Cunning devices. 
 Feigned grief, false anger with his son, regrets, 
 And half confessions — these, with hateful skill 
 Confiised together, drove the old man's soul 
 To frenzy ; and I watched him, with a sneer, 
 Turn to a dotard thirsting for the life 
 Of his own child. But how to do the deed. 
 Yet shed no blood, nor know the people's hate. 
 Who loved the Prince, I knew not. 
 
 Till one day 
 The old man, looking out upon the sea. 
 Besought the dread Poseidon to avenge 
 The treachery- of his son. And as we stood 
 Gazing upon the breathless blue, a cloud 
 Rose from the deep, a little fleecy cloud, 
 Which sudden grew and grew, and turned the blue 
 To purple ; and a keen wind rose and sang 
 Higher and higher, and the wine-dark sea 
 Grew ruffled, and within the circling bay
 
 PHAEDRA. 39 
 
 The tiny ripples, stealing up the sand, 
 
 Plunged loud with manes of foam, until they swelled 
 
 To misty surges thundering on the shore. 
 
 Then at the old man's elbow as I stood, 
 A deep dark thought, sent by the powers of ill, 
 Answering, as now I know, my own black hate 
 And not my poor dupe's anger, fired my soul 
 And bade me speak. ' The god has heard thy prayer,' 
 I whispered ; ' See the surge which wakes and swells 
 To fury ; well I know what things shall be. 
 It is Poseidon's voice sounds in the storm 
 And sends thy vengeance. Young Hippolytus 
 Loves, as thou knowest, on the yellow sand. 
 Hard by the rippled margin of the wave, 
 To urge his flying steeds. Bid him go forth — 
 He will obey — and see what recompense 
 The god will send his wrong.' 
 
 In the old man's eyes 
 A watery gleam of malice played awhile — 
 I hate him for it — and he bade his son,
 
 30 THE EFIC OF HADES. 
 
 Yoking his three young fieiy colts, drive forth 
 ilis chariot on the sand. 
 
 And still the storm 
 Blew fiercer and more fierce, and the white crests 
 Plunged on the strand, and the loud promontories 
 Thundered back repercussive, and a mist 
 Of foam, torn landward, hid the sounding shore. 
 
 Then saw I him come forth and bid them yoke 
 His untamed colts. I had not seen his face 
 .Since that last day, but, seeing him, I felt 
 The old love spring anew, yet mixed with hate — 
 A storm of warring passions. Tho' I knew 
 What end should come, yet would I speak no word 
 That might avert it. The old man looked forth ; 
 I think he had well-nigh forgotten all 
 The wrong he fancied and the doom he prayed, 
 All but the father's pride in the strong son, 
 Who was so young and bold. I saw a smile 
 Upon the dotard's face, when now the steeds 
 ^\'erc harnessed and the chariot, on the sand
 
 PHMDRA. 31 
 
 Along the circling margin of the ba)', 
 
 Flew, swift as light. A sudden gleam of sun 
 
 Flashed on the silver harness as it went, 
 
 Burned on the brazen axles of the wheels, 
 
 And on the golden fillets of the Prince 
 
 Doubled the gold. Sometimes a larger wave 
 
 Would dash in mist around him, and in fear 
 
 The rearing coursers plunged, and then again 
 
 The strong young arm constrained them, and they 
 
 flashed 
 To where the wave-worn foreland ends the bay. 
 
 And then he turned his chariot, a bright speck 
 Now seen, now hidden, but always, tho" the surge 
 Broke round it, safe ; emerging like a star 
 From the while clouds of foam. And as I watched, 
 Speaking no word, and breathing scarce a breath, 
 I saw the firm limbs strongly set apart 
 Upon the chariot, and the reins held high. 
 And the proud head bent forward, with long locks 
 Streaming behind, as nearer and more near
 
 32 THE Eric OF HADES. 
 
 The swift team rushed — until, with a half joy, 
 It seemed as if my love might yet elude 
 The slow sure anger of the god, dull wrath 
 Swayed by a woman's lie. 
 
 But on the verge, 
 As I cast my eyes, a vast and purple wall 
 Swelled swiftly towards the land ; the lesser waves 
 Sank as it came, and to its toppling crest 
 The spume-flecked waters, from the strand drawn 
 
 back. 
 Left dry the yellow shore. Onward it came, 
 Hoarse, capped with breaking foam, lurid, immense, 
 Rearing its dreadful height. The chariot sped 
 Nearer and nearer. I could see my love 
 With the light of victory in his eyes, the smile 
 Of daring on his lips : so near he came 
 To where the marble palace-wall confined 
 The narrow strip of beach— his brave young eyes 
 Fixed steadfast on the goal, in the pride of life, 
 Without a thought of death. I strove to crj'. 
 But terror choked my breath. Then, like a bull
 
 PHMDRA. 33 
 
 Upon the windy level of the plain 
 
 Lashing himself to rage, the furious wave, 
 
 Poising itself a moment, tossing high 
 
 Its bristling crest dashed downward on the strand, 
 
 With a stamp, with a rush, with a roar. 
 
 And when I looked. 
 The shore, the fields, the plain, were one white sea 
 Of churning, seething foam — chariot and steeds 
 Gone, and my darling on the wild mad surge 
 Tossed high, whirled down, l^eaten, and bruised, and 
 
 flung, 
 Dying upon the marble. 
 
 My great love 
 Sprang up redoubled, and cast out my hate 
 And spurned all thought of fear ; and down the stair 
 I hurried, and upon the bleeding form 
 I threw myself, and raised his head, and clasped 
 His body to mine, and kissed him on the lips. 
 And in his dying ear confessed my wrong. 
 And saw the horror in his dying eyes 
 
 D
 
 34 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And knew that I was damned. And when he breathed 
 
 His last pure breath, I rose and slowly spake — 
 
 Turned to a Fury now by love and pain — 
 
 To the old man who knelt, while all the throng 
 
 Could hear my secret : ' See, thou fool, I am 
 
 The murderess of thy son, and thou my dupe, 
 
 Thou and thy gods. See, he was innocent ; 
 
 I murdered him for love. I scorn ye all, 
 
 Thee and thy gods together, who are deceived 
 
 By a woman's lying tongue ! Oh, doting fool, 
 
 To hate thy own ! And ye, false powers, which punish 
 
 The innocent, and let the guilty soul 
 
 Escape unscathed, I hale ye all — I curse, 
 
 I loathe you ! ' 
 
 Then I stooped and kissed my love. 
 And left them in amaze ; and up the stair 
 Swept slowly to my chamber, and therein. 
 Hating my life and cursing men and gods, 
 I did myself to death. 
 
 But even here, 
 I find my punishment. Oh, terrible doom
 
 PH/EDRA. 35 j 
 
 Of souls like mine ! To see their evil done 
 Always before their eyes, the one dread scene 
 Of horror. See, the wild wa\e on the verge 
 
 Towers horrible, and he Oh, Love, my Love ! 
 
 Safety is near ! quick ! quicker ! urge them on ! 
 Thou wilt 'scape it yet ! — Nay, nay, it bursts on h.hn ! 
 I have shed the innocent blood ! Oh, dreadful gaze 
 Within his glazing eyes ! Hide them, ye gods ! 
 Hide them ! I cannot bear them. Quick ! a dagger I 
 I will lose their glare in death. Nay, die I cannot ; 
 I must endure and live — Death brings not peace 
 To the lost souls in Hell." 
 
 And her eyes stared, 
 Rounded with horror, and she stooped and gazed 
 So eagerly, and pressed her fevered hands 
 Upon her trembling forehead with such pain 
 As drives the gazer mad.
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Then as I passed, 
 I marked against the hardly dawning sky 
 A toilsome figure standing, bent and strained. 
 Before a rocky mass, which with great pain 
 And agony of labour it would thrust 
 Up a steep hill. But when upon the crest 
 It poised a moment, then I held my breath 
 With dread, for, lo ! the poor feet seemed to clutch 
 The hillside as in fear, and the poor hands 
 \S'ith hopeless fingers pressed into the stone 
 In agony, and the limbs stiffened, and a cr)' 
 Like some strong swimmer's, whom the mightier 
 
 stream 
 Sweeps downward, and he sees his children's eyes 
 Upon the bank ; broke firom him ; and at last, 
 After long struggles of despair, the limbs 
 Relaxed, and as I closed my fearful eyes, 
 Seeing the inevitable doom — a crash,
 
 STSVPHUS. 37 
 
 A horrible thunderous noise, as down the steep 
 The shameless fragment leapt. From crag to crag 
 It bounded ever swifter, striking fire 
 And wrapt in smoke, as to the lowest depths 
 Of the vale it tore, and seemed to take with it 
 The miserable form whose painful gaze 
 I caught, as with the great rock whirled and dashe^l 
 Downward, and marking every crag with gore 
 And long gray hairs, it plunged, yet living still, 
 To the black hollow ; and then a silence came 
 More dreadful than the noise, and a low groan 
 Was all that I could hear. 
 
 \Vlien to the foot 
 Of the dark steep I hurried, half in hope 
 To find the victim dead — not recognizing 
 The undying life of Hell — I seemed to see 
 An aged man, Ijruised, bleeding, with gray hairs. 
 And eyes from which the cunning leer of greed 
 Was scarcely yet gone out. 
 
 A crafty voice 
 It was that answered me, the voice of guile
 
 38 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 I'ait purified by pain : 
 
 " There comes not death 
 To those who live in Hell, nor hardly pause 
 Of suffering longer than may serve to make 
 The pain renewed, more piercing. Long ago, 
 I thought that I had cheated Death, and now 
 I seek him ; but he comes not, nor know I 
 If ever he will hear me. ^Vhence art thou ? 
 Comest thou from earthly air, or whence ? What 
 
 power 
 Has brought thee hither ? For I know indeed 
 Tliou art not lost as I ; for never here 
 I look upon a human face, nor see 
 The ghosts who doubtless here on every side 
 Suffer a common pain, only at times 
 I hear the echo of a shriek far off, 
 Like some faint ghost of woe which fills the pause 
 .\nd interval of suffering ; but from whom 
 The voice may come, or whence, I know not, only 
 The air teems with vague pain, which doth distract 
 The ear when for a moment comes surcease
 
 SISYPHUS. 39 
 
 Of agony, and the sense of effort spent 
 
 In vain and fruitless labour, and the pang 
 
 Of long-deferred defeat, which waits and takes 
 
 The world-worn heart, and maddens it when all — 
 
 Heaven, conscience, happiness, are staked and lost 
 
 Vox gains which still elude it. 
 
 Yet 'twas sweet, 
 A King in early youth, when pleasure is sweet, 
 To live the fair successful years, and know 
 The envy and respect of men. I cared 
 For none of youth's delights : the dance, the song, 
 Allured me not ; the smooth soft ways of sense 
 Tempted me not at all. I could despise 
 The follies that I shared not, spending all 
 The long laborious days in toilsome schemes 
 To compass honour and wealth, and, as I grew 
 In name and fame, finding my hoarded gains 
 Transmuted into Power. The seas were white 
 With laden argosies, and all were mine. 
 The sheltering moles defied the wintry storms, 
 And all were mine. The marble aqueducts,
 
 40 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 . The cosily bridges, all were mine. Fair roads 
 
 Wound round and round the hills — my work. The 
 
 gods 
 Alone I heeded not, nor cared at all 
 For aught but that my eyes and ears might take, 
 Spurning invisible things, nor built I to them 
 Temple or shrine, wrapt up in life, set round 
 With earthly blessings like a god. I rose 
 To such excess of weal and fame and pride, 
 My people held me god-like. I grew drunk 
 With too great power, scoffing at men and gods, 
 Careless of both, but not averse to fling 
 To those too weak themselves, what benefits 
 My larger wisdom spurned. 
 
 Then suddenly 
 I knew the pain of failure. Summer storms 
 Sucked down my fleets even within sight of port. 
 A grievous blight wasted the harvest-fields. 
 Mocking my hopes of gain. Wars came and drained 
 My store, and I grew needy, knowing now 
 The liell of stronger souls, the loss of power
 
 SISYPHUS. 41 
 
 Wherein they exulted once. There comes no pain 
 
 Deeper than to have known delight of power, 
 
 And then to lose it all. But I, I would not 
 
 Sit tame beneath defeat, trimming my sails 
 
 To wait the breeze of Fortune — fickle breath 
 
 Wliich perhaps might breathe no more — but chose 
 
 instead 
 By rash conceit and bolder enterprise 
 To win her aid again. I had no thought 
 Of selfish gain, only to be and act 
 As a god to those, feeding my sum of pride 
 With acted good. 
 
 But evermore defeat 
 Dogged me, and evermore my people grew 
 To doubt me, seeing no more the wealth, the force. 
 Which once they worshipped. Then the lust of power 
 Loved, not for sake of others, but itself, 
 Grew on me, and the pride which can dare all, 
 Save failure only, seized me. Evil finds 
 Its ready chance. There were rich argosies 
 Upon the seas : I sank them, ship and crew,
 
 42 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 In the unbetraying ocean. Waj-farers 
 Crossing the passes with rich merchandise 
 My creatures, hid behind the crags, overwhelmed 
 With rocks hurled downward. Yet I spent my gains 
 For the public weal, not otherwise ; and they, 
 The careless people, took the piteous spoils 
 Which cost the lives of many, and a man's soul, 
 And blessed the giver. Empty venal blessings, 
 ^^^lich sting more deep than curses ! 
 
 For awhile 
 I was content with this, but at the last 
 A great contempt and hatred of them took me. 
 The base, vile churls I Why should I stain my soul 
 For such as those — dogs that would fawn and lick 
 The hand that fed them, but, if food should fail, 
 Would turn and rend me ? I would none of them ; 
 I would grow rich and happy, being indeed 
 Godlike in brain to such. So with all craft, 
 And guile, and violence I enriched me, loading 
 My treasuries with gold. My deep-laid schemes 
 Of gain engrossed the long laborious days,
 
 SISYPHUS. 43 
 
 Stretched far into the night. Enjoy, I might not, 
 
 Seeing it was all to do, and life so brief 
 
 That ere a man might gain the goal he would, 
 
 Lo ! Age, and with it Death, and so an end 1 
 
 For all the tales of the indignant gods, 
 
 What were they but the priests' ? I had myself 
 
 Broken all oaths ; long time deceived and ruined 
 
 With every phase of fraud the pious fools 
 
 Whom oath-sworn Justice bound ; battened on blood ; 
 
 And what was I the worse ? How should the gods 
 
 Bear rule if I were happy ? Death alone 
 
 Was certain. Therefore must I haste to heap 
 
 Treasure sufficient for my need, and then 
 
 Enjoy the gathered good. 
 
 But gradually 
 There came — not great disasters which might ciiish 
 All hope, but petty checks which did decrease 
 My store, and left my labour vain, and me 
 Unwilling to enjoy ; and gradually 
 I felt the chill approach of age, which stole 
 Higher and higher on me, till the life,
 
 44 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 As in a paralytic, left my limbs 
 
 And heart, and mounted upwards to my brain, 
 
 Its last resort, and rested there awhile 
 
 Ere it should spread its wings. But even thus, 
 
 Tho' powerless to enjoy, the insatiate greed 
 
 And thirst of power sustained me, and supplied 
 
 Life's spark with some scant fuel, till it seemed, 
 
 Year after year, as if I could not die. 
 
 Holding so fast to life. I grew so old 
 
 That all the comrades of my youth, my prime. 
 
 My age, were gone, and I was left alone 
 
 With those who knew me not, bereft of all 
 
 Except my master passion — an old man 
 
 Forlorn, forgotten of the gods and Death. 
 
 So all the people, seeing me grow old 
 And prosperous, held me wise, and spread abroad 
 Strange fables, growing day by day more strange — 
 How I deceived the very gods. They thought 
 Tliat I was blest, remembering not the wear 
 Of anxious thought, the growing sum of pain,
 
 S/Si-PNi/S. 45 
 
 The failing ear and eye, the slower limbs, 
 
 Whose briefer name is Age : and yet I trow 
 
 I was not all unhappy, though I knew 
 
 It was too late to enjoy, and though my store 
 
 Increased not as my greed — nay, even sunk down 
 
 A little, year by year. Till, last of all, 
 
 When now my time was come and I had grown 
 
 A little tired of living, a trivial hurt 
 
 Laid me upon my bed ; and as I mused 
 
 On my long life and all its villanies, 
 
 The wickedness I did, the blood I shed, 
 
 The guile, the frauds of years- — they came with news, 
 
 One now, and now another ; how my schemes 
 
 Were crushed, my enterprises lost, my toil 
 
 And labour all in vain. Day after day 
 
 They brought these tidings, while I longed to rise 
 
 And stay the tide of ill, and raved to know 
 
 I could not. At the last the added sum 
 
 Of evil, like yon great rock poised awhile 
 
 Uncertain, gathered into one, o'erwhelmed 
 
 My feeble strength, and left me ruined and lost,
 
 46 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And showed me all I was, and a!I the depth 
 And folly of my sin, and racked my brain, 
 And sank me in despair and misery, 
 And broke my heart and slew me. 
 
 Therefore 'tis 
 I spend the long, long centuries which have come 
 Between me and my sin, in such dread tasks 
 As that thou sawest. In the soul I sinned : 
 In body and soul I suffer. What I bade 
 My minions do to others, that of woe 
 I bear myself; and in the pause of ill. 
 As now, I know again the bitter pang 
 Of failure, which of old pierced thro' my soul 
 And left me to despair. The pain of mind 
 Is fiercer far than any bodily ill, 
 And both are mine — the pang of torture-pain 
 Always recurring ; and, far worse, the pang 
 Of consciousness of black sins sinned in vain — 
 'i"he doom of constant failure. 
 
 Will, fierce Will ! 
 Thou parent of unrest and toil and woe,
 
 s/sypNrs. 47 
 
 Measureless effort ! growing day by day 
 
 To force strong souls along the giddy steep 
 
 That slopes to the pit of Hell, where effort serves 
 
 Only to speed destruction ! Yet I know 
 
 Thou art not, as some hold, the primal curse 
 
 Wliich doth condemn us ; since thou bearest in thee 
 
 No power to satisfy thyself ; but rather. 
 
 The spring of act, whereby in earth and heaven 
 
 Both men and gods do breathe and live and are, 
 
 Since Life is Act and not to Do is Death— 
 
 I do not blame thee : but to work in vain 
 
 Is bitterest penalty : to find at last 
 
 The soul all fouled with sin and stained with blood 
 
 In vain ; ah, this is hell indeed — the hell 
 
 Of lost and striving souls ! " 
 
 Then as I passed, 
 The halting figure bent itself again 
 To the old task, and up the rugged steep 
 Thrust the great rock with groanings. Horror chained 
 My parting footsteps, like a nightmare dream 
 Which holds us that we flee not, with wide eyes
 
 48 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 That loathe to see, yet cannot choose but gaze 
 
 Till all be clone. Slowly, with dreadful toil 
 
 And struggle and strain, and bleeding hands and 
 
 knees, 
 And more than mortal strength, against the hill 
 He pressed, the wretched one ! till with long pain 
 He trembled on the summit, a gaunt form, 
 With that great rock above him, poised and strained. 
 Now gaining, now receding, now in act 
 To win the summit, now borne down again, 
 And then the inevitable crash — the mass 
 Leaping from crag to crag. But ere it ceased 
 In dreadful silence, and the low groan came, 
 My limbs were loosed with one convulsive bound ; 
 I hid my face within my hands, and fled. 
 Surfeit with horror.
 
 CLYTMMNESTRA. 49 
 
 Then it was again 
 A woman whom I saw, pitiless, stern, 
 Bearing the brand of blood— a lithe dark form, 
 And cruel eyes which glared beneath the gems 
 That argued her a Queen, and on her side 
 An ancient stain of gore, which did befoul 
 Her royal robe. A murderess in thought 
 And dreadful act, who took within the toils 
 Her kingly Lord, and slew him of old time 
 After burnt Troy. I had no time to speak 
 \\Tien she shrieked thus : 
 
 " It doth repent me not, 
 I would 'twere yet to do, and I would do it 
 Again a thousand times, if the shed blood 
 Might for one hour restore to me the kisses 
 Of my ^gisthus. Oh, he was divine. 
 My hero, with the godlike locks and eyes 
 Of Eros' self ! AMiat boots it that they prate 
 Of v^ifely duty, love of spouse or child, 
 
 E
 
 so THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Honour or pity, when the swift fire takes 
 A woman's heart, and burns it out, and leaps 
 With fierce forked tongue around it, till it lies 
 In ashes, a dead heart, nor aught remains 
 Of old affections, naught but the new flame 
 Which is unquenched desire ? 
 
 It did not come. 
 My blessing, all at once, but the slow fruit 
 Of solitude and midnight loneliness, 
 And weary waiting for the tardy news 
 Of taken Troy. Long years I sate alone, 
 Widowed, within my palace, while my Lord 
 Was over seas, waging the accursed war. 
 First of the file of Kings. Year after year 
 Came false report, or harder, no report 
 Of the great fleet. The summers waxed and waned, 
 The wintry surges smote the sounding shores. 
 And yet there came no end of it. They brought 
 Now hopeless failure, now great victories ; 
 And all alike were false, all but delay 
 And hope deferred, which coming not, can break
 
 CL YT^MNESTRA . 51 
 
 The strong heart suffering wrings not. 
 
 So I bore 
 Long time the solitary years, and sought 
 To solace the dull days with motherly cares 
 For those my Lord had left me. My firstborn, 
 Iphigeneia, sailed at first with him 
 Upon that fatal voyage, but the young 
 Orestes and Electra stayed with me — 
 Not dear as she was, for the firstborn takes 
 The mother's heart, and, with the milk it draws 
 From the mother's virgin breast, drains all the love 
 It bore, ay, even tho' the sire be dear ; 
 Much more, then, when he is a King indeed, 
 Mighty in war and council, but too high 
 To stoop to a woman's love. But she was gone, 
 Nor heard I tidings of her, knowing not 
 If yet she walked the earth, nor if she bare 
 The load of children, even as I had borne 
 Her in my opening girlhood, when I leapt 
 From child to Queen, but never loved the King.
 
 S2 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Thus the slow years rolled onward, till at last 
 There came a dreadful rumour — ' She is dead, 
 Thy daughter, years ago. The cruel priests 
 Clamoured for blood ; the stern cold Kings stood 
 
 round 
 Without a tear, and he, her sire, with them. 
 To see a virgin bleed. They cut with knives 
 The tender girlish throat ; they watclied the blood 
 Drip slowly on the sand, and the young life 
 Meek as a lamb come to the sacrifice 
 To appease the angry gods.' And he, the King, 
 Her father, stood by too, and saw them do it. 
 The wickedness, breathing no word of wrath, 
 Till all was done ! The cowards ! the dull cowards ! 
 I would some black storm, bursting suddenly. 
 Had whelmed them and their fleets, ere yet they dared 
 To waste an innocent life ! 
 
 I had gone mad, 
 I know it, but for him, my love, my dear, 
 My fair sweet love. ■ He came to comfort mc
 
 CLYTyEMNESTRA. S3 
 
 With words of friendship, holding that my Lord 
 
 Was bound, perhaps, to let her die — ' The gods 
 
 Were ofttimes hard to appease — or was it indeed 
 
 The priests who asked it ? Were there any gods ? 
 
 Or only phantoms, creatures of the brain. 
 
 Bom of the fears of men, the greed of priests, 
 
 Useful to govern women ? Had he been ' 
 
 Lord of the fleet, not all the soothsayers 
 
 Who ever frighted cowards should have brought 
 
 His soul to such black depths. ' I hearkening to him 
 
 As 'twere my own thought grown articulate. 
 
 Found my grief turn to hate, and hate to love — 
 
 Hate of my Lord, love of the voice which spoke 
 
 Such dear and comfortable words. And thus. 
 
 Love to a storm of passion growing, swept 
 
 My wounded soul and dried my tears, as dries 
 
 The hot sirocco all the bitter pools 
 
 Of salt among the sand. I never knew 
 
 True love before ; I was a child, no more, 
 
 \Mien the King cast his eyes on me. WTiat is it 
 
 To have borne the weight of offspring 'neath the zone
 
 54 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 If Love be not their sire ; or live long years 
 Of commerce, not of love ? Better a day 
 Of Passion than the long unlovely years 
 Of wifely duty, when Love cometh not 
 To wake the barren days ! 
 
 And yet at first 
 I hesitated long, nor would embrace 
 The blessing that was mine. We are hedged round. 
 We women, by such close-drawn ordinances. 
 Set round us by our tyrants, that we fear 
 To overstep a hand's breadth the dull bounds 
 Of custom ; but at last Love, waking in me. 
 Burst all my chains asunder, and I lived 
 For naught but Love. 
 
 My son, the young Orestes, 
 I sent far off; my girl Electra only 
 Remained, too young to doubt me, and I knew 
 At last what 'twas to live. 
 
 So the swift years 
 Fleeted and found me happy, till the dark 
 Ill-omened day when Rumour, thousand-tongued,
 
 CLYTMMNESTRA. 55 
 
 Whispered of taken Troy ; and from my dream 
 
 Of happiness, sudden I woke, and knew 
 
 The coming retribution. We had grown 
 
 Too loving for concealment, and our tale 
 
 Of mutual love was bruited far and wide 
 
 Through Argos. All the gossips bruited it, 
 
 And were all tongue to tell it to the King 
 
 When he should come. And should the cold proud 
 
 Lord 
 I never loved, the murderer of my girl, 
 Come 'twixt my love and me ? A swift resolve 
 Flashed through me pondering on it : Love for Love 
 And Blood for Blood — the simple golden rule 
 Taught by the elder gods. 
 
 When I had taken 
 My fixed resolve, I grew impatient for it. 
 Counting the laggard days. Oh, it was sweet 
 To simulate the yearning of a wife 
 Long parted from her Lord, and mock the fools 
 Who dogged each look and word, and but for fear 
 Had torn me from my throne — the pies, the jays,
 
 56 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 The impotent chatterers, who thought by words 
 To stay me in the act ! 'Twas sweet to mock them 
 And read distrust within their eyes, when I, 
 Knowing my purpose, bade them quick prepare 
 All fitting honours for the King, and knew 
 They dared not disobey— oh, 'twas enough 
 To wing the slow-paced hours. 
 
 But when at last 
 I saw his sails upon the verge, and then 
 The sea-worn ship, and marked his face grown 
 
 old, 
 The body a little bent, which was so straight, 
 The thin gray hairs which were the raven locks 
 Of manhood when he went, I felt a moment 
 I could not do the deed. But when I saw 
 The beautiful sad woman come with him, 
 The future in her eyes, and her pale lips 
 Silent, but charged with doom, two thoughts at once 
 Assailed me, bidding me despatch with a blow 
 Him and his mistress, making sure the will 
 Of fate, and my revenge.
 
 CLYT/EMNESTRA. S7 
 
 Oh, it was strange 
 To see all happen as we planned ; as 'twere 
 Some drama oft rehearsed, wherein each step, 
 Each word, is so prepared, the poorest player 
 Knows his turn come to do — the solemn landing — 
 The ride to the palace gate — the courtesies 
 Of welcome — the mute crowds without — the bath 
 Prepared within — the precious circling folds 
 Of tissue stretched around him, shutting out 
 The gaze, and folding helpless like a net 
 The mighty limbs— the battle-axe laid down 
 Against the wall, and I, his wife and Queen, 
 Alone with him, waiting and watching still. 
 Till the woman shrieked without. Then with swift step 
 I seized the axe, and struck him as he lay 
 Helpless, once, twice, and thrice — once for m.y girl. 
 Once for my love, once for the woman, and all 
 For Fate and my Revenge ! 
 
 He gave a groan. 
 Once only, as I thought he might ; and then 
 No sound but the quick gurgling of the blood,
 
 58 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 As it flowed from him in streams, and turned the pure 
 
 And limpid water of the bath to red — 
 
 I had not looked for that— it flowed and flowed, 
 
 And seemed to madden me to look on it, 
 
 Until my love with hands bloody as mine, 
 
 But with the woman's blood, rushed in, and eyes 
 
 Rounded with horror ; and we turned to go. 
 
 And left the dead alone. 
 
 But happiness 
 Still mocked me, and a doubt unknown before 
 Came on me, and amid the silken shows 
 And luxury of power I seemed to see 
 Another answer to my riddle of life 
 Than that I gave myself, and it was ' murder ; ' 
 And in my people's sullen mien and eyes, 
 ' Murder ; ' and in the mirror, when I looked, 
 ' Murder ' glared out, and terror lest my son 
 Returning, grown to manhood, should avenge 
 His father's blood. For somehow, as 'twould scorn. 
 The gods, if gods there be, or the stern Fate 
 WTiich doth direct our little lives, do filch
 
 CL YT.^MNES TRA. 59 
 
 Our happiness — though bright with Love's own ray, 
 There comes a cloud which veils it. Yet, indeed, 
 INIy days were happy. I repent me not ; 
 I would wade through seas of blood to know again 
 Those fierce delights once more. 
 
 But my young girl 
 Electra, grown to woman, turned from me 
 Her modest maiden eyes, nor loved to set 
 Her kiss upon my cheek, but, all distraught 
 With secret care, hid her from all the pomps 
 And revelries which did befit her youth. 
 Walking alone ; and often at the tomb 
 Of her lost sire they found her, pouring out 
 Libations to the dead. And evermore 
 I did bethink me of my son Orestes, 
 \\Tio now should be a man ; and yearned sometimes 
 To see his face, yet feared lest from his eyes^ 
 His father's soul should smite mc. 
 
 So I lived 
 Happy and yet imquiet — a stern voice 
 Speaking of doom, which long time softer notes
 
 6o THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Of careless weal, the music that doth spring 
 
 From the fair harmonies of life and love, 
 
 Would drown in their own concord. This at times. 
 
 Nay, day by day, stronger and dreadfuller, 
 
 With dominant accent, marred the sounds of joy 
 
 By one prevailing discord. So at length 
 
 I came to lose the Present in the dread 
 
 Of what might come ; the penalty that waits 
 
 Upon successful sin ; who, having sinned, 
 
 Had missed my sin's reward. 
 
 Until one day 
 I, looking from my palace casement, saw 
 A humble suppliant, clad in pilgrim garb. 
 Approach the marble stair. A sudden throb 
 Thrilled thro' me, and the mother's heart went forth 
 Thro' all disguise of garb and rank and years, 
 Knowing my son. How fair he was, how tall 
 And vigorous, my boy ! What strong straight limbs 
 And noble port ! How beautiful the shade 
 Of manhood on his lip ! I longed to burst 
 From my chamber down, yearning to throw myself
 
 CLVr.^MNESTRA. 6i 
 
 Upon his neck within the palace court, 
 
 Before the guards — spurning my queenly rank, 
 
 All but my motherhood. And then a chill 
 
 Of doubt o'erspread me, knowing what a gulf 
 
 Fate set between our lives, impassable 
 
 As that great gulf which yawns 'twixt life and death 
 
 And 'twixt this Hell and Heaven. I shrank back, 
 
 And turned to think a moment, half in fear, 
 
 And half in pain ; dividing the swift mind, 
 
 Yet all in love. 
 
 Then came a cry, a groan. 
 From the inner court, the clash of swords, the fall 
 Of a body on the pavement ; and one cried, 
 ' The King is dead, slain by the young Orestes, 
 ^\^lo cometh hither.' With the word, the door 
 Flew open, and my son stood straight before me. 
 His drawn sword dripping blood. Oh, he was fair 
 And terrible to see, when from his limbs, 
 The suppliant's mantle fallen, left the mail 
 And arms of a young warrior. Love and Hate, 
 Which are the offspring of a common sire.
 
 62 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Strove for the mastery, till within his eyes 
 I saw his father's ghost glare unappeased 
 From out Love's casements. 
 
 Then I knew my fate 
 And his — mine to be slain by my son's hand, 
 And his to slay me, since the Furies drave 
 Our lives to one destruction ; and I took 
 His point within my breast. 
 
 But I praise not 
 The selfish, careless gods who wrecked our lives, 
 Making the King the murderer of his girl. 
 And me his murderess ; making my son 
 The murderer of his mother and her love — 
 A mystery of blood ! — I curse them all. 
 The careless Forces, sitting far withdrawn 
 Upon the heights of Space, taking men's lives 
 For playthings, and deriding as in sport 
 Our happiness and woe — I curse them all. 
 We have a right to joy ; we have a right, 
 I say, as they have. Let them stand confessed 
 The puppets that they are — too weak to give
 
 CLVTyEMXESTRA. 63 
 
 The good they feign to love, since Fate, too strong 
 For them as us, beyond their painted sky, 
 Sits and derides them, too. I curse Fate too. 
 The deaf blind Fury, taking human souls 
 And crushing them, as a dull fretful child 
 Crushes its toys and knows not with what skill 
 Those feeble forms are feigned. 
 
 I curse, I loathe, 
 I spit on them. It doth repent me not. 
 I would 'twere yet to do. I have lived my life. 
 I have loved. See, there he lies within the bath. 
 And thus I smite him ! thus ! Didst hear him groan ? 
 Oh, vengeance, thou art sweet ! "\Miat, living still ? 
 Ah me ! we cannot die ! Come, torture me. 
 Ye Furies — for I love not soothing words — 
 As once ye did my son. Ye miserable 
 Blind ministers of Hell, I do defy you ; 
 Not all your torments can undo the Past 
 Of Passion and of Love ! " 
 
 Even as she spake
 
 64 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 There came a viewless trouble in the air. 
 
 Which took her, and a sweep of wings unseen, 
 
 And terrible sounds, which swooped on her and hushed 
 
 Her voice, and seemed to occupy her soul 
 
 With horror and despair ; and as she passed 
 
 I marked her agonized eyes.
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 65 
 
 But as I went, 
 Full many a dreadful shape of lonely pain 
 I saw. WTiat need to tell them ? We are filled 
 WTio live to-day with a more present sense 
 Of the great love of God, than those of old 
 WTio, groping in the dawn of Knowledge, saw 
 Only dark shadows of the Unknown ; or he. 
 First-bom of later singers, who swept deep 
 His awful lyre, and woke the voice of song, 
 Dumb thro' the age-long night. We dread to-day 
 To dwell on those long agonies its sin 
 Brings on the offending soul ; who hold a creed 
 Of deeper Pity, knowing what chains of ill 
 Bind round our petty lives. Each phase of woe, 
 Suffering, and torture which the gloomy thought 
 Of bigots feigns for others — all were there. 
 One there was stretched upon a rolling wheel, 
 Which was the barren round of sense, that still 
 Returned upon itself and broke the limbs 
 
 F
 
 66 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Bound to it day and night. Others I saw 
 Doomed, with unceasing toil, to fill the urns 
 Whose precious waters sank ere they could slake 
 Their burning thirst. Another shapeless sou!, 
 Full of revolts and hates and tyrannous force. 
 The weight of earth, which was its earth-born taint, 
 Pressed groaning down, while with fierce beak and 
 
 claw 
 The vulture of remorse, piercing his breast, 
 Preyed on his heart. For others, overherd. 
 Great crags of rock impending seemed to fall. 
 But fell not nor brought peace. I felt my soul 
 Blunted with horrors, yearning to escape 
 To where, upon the limits of the wood, 
 Some scanty twilight grew. 
 
 But ere I passed 
 From those grim shades a deep voice sounded near, 
 A voice without a form. 
 
 " There is an end 
 Of all things that thou seest ! There is an end 
 Of Wrong and Death and IIcll, when the long wear
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 67 
 
 Of Time and Suftering has effaced the stain 
 
 Ingrown upon the soul, and the cleansed spirit, 
 
 Long ages floating on the wandering winds 
 
 Or rolling deeps of Space, renews itself 
 
 And doth regain its dwelling, and, once more 
 
 Blent with the general order, floats anew 
 
 Upon the stream of Things,^ and comes at length. 
 
 After new deaths, to that dim waiting-place 
 
 Thou next shalt see, and with the justified 
 
 White souls awaits the End ; or, snatched at once. 
 
 If Fate so will, to the pure sphere itself, 
 
 Lives and is blest, and works the Eternal Work 
 
 Whose name and end is Love ! There is an end 
 
 Of Wrong and Death and Hell ! " 
 
 Even as I heard, 
 I passed from out the shadow of Death and Pain, 
 Crying, " There is an end ! " 
 
 1 Virgil, "^Eneid," vi. 740. 
 END OF BOOK I.
 
 BOOK ir. 
 HADES.
 
 Then from those dark 
 
 And dreadful precincts passing, ghostly fields 
 
 And voiceless took me. A faint twilight veiled 
 
 The leafless, shadowy trees and herbless plains. 
 
 There stirred no breath of air to wake to life 
 
 The slumbers of the world. The sky above 
 
 Was one gray, changeless cloud. Tlrere looked no eye 
 
 Of Life from the veiled heavens ; but Sleep and Death 
 
 Were round me everywhere. And yet no fear 
 
 Nor horror took me here, where was no pain 
 
 Nor dread, save that strange tremor which assails 
 
 One who in life's hot noontide looks on death 
 
 And knows he too shall die. The ghosts which rose 
 
 From every darkling copse showed thin and pale — 
 
 Thinner and paler far than those I left 
 
 In agony ; even as Pity seems to wear 
 
 A thinner form than Fear. 
 
 Not cac'cd alone
 
 72 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Like those the avenging Furies purged were these, 
 Nor that dim land as those black cavernous depths 
 Where no hope comes. Fair souls were they and 
 
 white 
 Whom there I saw, waiting as we shall wait. 
 The Beatific End, but thin and pale 
 As the young faith which made them ; touched a little 
 By the sad memories of the earth ; made glad 
 A little by past joys : no more ; and wrapt 
 In musing on the brief play played by them 
 Upon the lively earth, yet ignorant 
 Of the long lapse of years, and what had been 
 Since they too breathed Life's air, or if they knew 
 Keeping some echo only ; but their pain 
 Was fainter than their joy, and a great hope 
 Like ours possessed them dimly.
 
 MARSYAS. 
 
 73 
 
 First I saw 
 A youth who pensive leaned against the trunk 
 Of a dark cypress, and an idle flute 
 Hung at his side, A sorrowful sad soul, 
 Such as sometimes he knows, who meets the gaze, 
 Mute, uncomplaining yet most pitiful. 
 Of one whom nature, by some secret spite, 
 Has maimed and left imperfect ; or the pain 
 WTiich fills a poet's eyes. Beneath his robe 
 I seemed to see the scar of cruel stripes. 
 Too hastily concealed. Yet was he not 
 \\Tiolly unhappy, but from out the core 
 Of suffering flowed a secret spring of joy, 
 WTiich mocked the droughts of Fate, and left him glad 
 And glorying in his sorrow. As I gazed 
 He raised his silent flute, and, half ashamed. 
 Blew a soft note ; and as I stayed awhile 
 I heard him thus discourse — 
 
 "The flute is sweet
 
 74 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 To gods and men, but sweeter far the lyre 
 And voice of a true singer. Shall I fear 
 To tell of that great trial, when I strove 
 And Phoebus conquered ? Nay, no shame it is 
 To bow to an immortal melody ; 
 But glory. 
 
 Once among the Phrygian hills 
 I lay a-musing, — while the silly sheep 
 ^Vandered among the thpne— upon the bank 
 Of a clear mountain stream, beneath the pines, 
 Safe hidden from the noon. A dreamy haze 
 Played on the uplands, but the hills were clear 
 In sunlight, and no cloud was on the sky. 
 It was the time when a deep silence comes 
 Upon the summer earth, and all the birds 
 Have ceased from singing, and the world is still 
 As midnight, and if any live thing move- 
 Some fur-clad creature, or cool gliding snake— 
 Within the pipy overgrowth of weeds, 
 The ear can catch the rustle, and the trees 
 And earth and air are listening. As I lay,
 
 MAKSl'AS. 75 
 
 Faintly, as in a dream, I seemed to hear 
 A tender music, like the /Eolian chords, 
 Sound low within the woodland, whence the stream. 
 Flowed full, yet silent. Long, with ear to ground, 
 I hearkened ; and the sweet strain, fuller grown. 
 Rounder and clearer came, and danced along 
 In mirthful measure now, and now grown grave 
 In dying falls, and sweeter and more clear, 
 Tripping at nuptials and high revelr}-, 
 Wailing at burials, rapt in soaring thoughts, 
 Chanting strange sea-tales full of mysterj-. 
 Touching all chords of being, and life and death. 
 Now rose, now sank, and always was divine. 
 So strange the music came. 
 
 Til], as I lay 
 Enraptured, swift a sudden discord rang. 
 And all the sound grew still. A sudden flash. 
 As from a sunlit jewel, fired the wood, 
 A noise of water smitten, and on the hills 
 A fair white fleece of cloud, which swiftly climbed 
 Into the farthest heaven. Then, as I mused.
 
 76 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Knowing a parting goddess, straight I saw 
 
 A sudden splendour float upon the stream, 
 
 And knew it for this jewelled flute, which paused 
 
 Before me on an eddy. It I snatched 
 
 Eager, and to my ardent lips I bore 
 
 The wonder, and behold, with the first breath — 
 
 The first warm human breath, the silent strains, 
 
 The half-drowned notes which late the goddess blew, 
 
 Revived, and sounded clearer, sweeter far 
 
 Than mortal skill could make. So with delight 
 
 I left my flocks to wander o'er the wastes 
 
 Untended, and the wolves and eagles seized 
 
 The tender lambs, but I was for my art — 
 
 Nought else ; and though the high-pitched notes divine 
 
 Grew faint, yet something lingered, and at last 
 
 So sweet a note I sounded of my skill, 
 
 That all the Phrygian highlands, all the far 
 
 Hill villages, were fain to hear the strain, 
 
 Which the mad shepherd made. 
 
 So, overbold, 
 And rapt in my new art, at last I dared
 
 MARSVAS. 77 
 
 To challenge Phoebus' self. 
 
 'Twr.s a fair day 
 When sudden, on the mountain side, I saw 
 A train of fleecy clouds in a white band 
 Descending. Down the gleaming pinnacles 
 And difficult crags they floated, and the arch, 
 Drawn with its thousand rays against the sun. 
 Hung like a glory o'er them. Midst the pines 
 They clothed themselves with form, and straight I 
 
 knew 
 The immortals. Young Apollo, with his lyre, 
 Kissed by the sun, and all the Muses clad 
 In robes of gleaming white ; then a great fear, 
 \"et mixed with joy, assailed me, for I knew 
 Myself a mortal equalled with the gods. 
 
 Ah me ! how fair they were ! how fair and dread 
 In face and form, they showed, when now they came 
 Upon the thymy slope, and the young god 
 Lay with his choir around him, beautiful 
 And bold as Youth and Dawn ! There was no cloud
 
 73 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Upon the sky, nor any sound at all 
 
 When I began my strain. No coward fear 
 
 Of what might come restrained me ; but an awe 
 
 Of those immortal eyes and ears divine 
 
 Looking and listening. All the earth seemed full 
 
 Of ears for me alone — the woods, the fields, 
 
 The hills, the skies were listening. Scarce a sound 
 
 My flute might make ; such subtle harmonies 
 
 The silence seemed to weave round me and flout 
 
 The half unuttered thought. Till last I blew, 
 
 As now, a hesitating note, and lo ! 
 
 The breath divine, lingering on mortal lips, 
 
 Hurried my soul along to such fair rhymes, 
 
 Sweeter than wont, that swift I knew my life 
 
 Rise up within me, and expand, and all 
 
 The human, which so nearly is divine, 
 
 Was glorified, and on the Muses' lips, 
 
 And in their lovely eyes, I saw a fair 
 
 Approval, and my soul in me was glad. 
 
 For all the strains I blew were strains of love —
 
 MAKSVAS. 79 
 
 Love striving, love triumphant, love that lies 
 Within beloved arms, and wreathes his locks 
 With flowers, and lets the world go by and sings 
 Unheeding ; and I saw a kindly gleam 
 Within the Muses' eyes, who were indeed. 
 Women, though god like. 
 
 But upon the face 
 Of the young Sun-god only haughty scorn 
 Sate, and he swiftly struck his golden lyre, 
 And played the Song of Life ; and lo, I knew 
 My strain, how earthy ! Oh, to hear the young 
 Apollo playing ! and the hidden cells 
 And chambers of the universe displayed 
 Before the charmed sound ! I seemed to float 
 In some enchanted cave, where the wave dips 
 In from the sunlit sea, and floods its depths 
 With reflex hues of heaven. My soul was rapt 
 By that I heard, and dared to wish no more 
 For victory ; and yet because the sound 
 Of music that is born of human breath 
 Comes straighter from the soul tlian any strain
 
 8o THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 The hand alone can make ; therefore I knew, 
 With a mixed thrill of pity and delight, 
 The nine immortal Sisters hardly touched 
 By this fine strain of music, as by mine, 
 And when the high lay trembled to its close. 
 Still doubting. 
 
 Then upon the Sun-god's face 
 There passed a cold proud smile. He swept his lyre 
 Once more, then laid it down, and with clear voice. 
 The voice of godhead, sang. Oh, ecstasy, 
 Oh happiness of him who once has heard 
 Apollo singing ! For his ears the sound 
 Of grosser music dies, and all the earth 
 Is full of subtle undertones, which change 
 The listener and transform him. As he sang — 
 Of what I know not, but the music touched 
 Each chord of being — I felt my secret life 
 Stand open to it, as the parched earth yawns 
 To drink the summer rain ; and at the call 
 Of those refreshing waters, all my thought 
 Stir from its dark and secret depths, and burst
 
 MAKSl'AS. Si 
 
 Into sweet, odorous flowers, and from their wells 
 
 Deep call to deep, and all the mystery 
 
 Of all that is, laid oi^en. As he sang, 
 
 I saw the Nine, with lovely pitying eyes, 
 
 Sign ' He has conquered.' Yet I felt no pang 
 
 Of fear, only deep joy that I had heard 
 
 Such music while I lived, even though it brought 
 
 Torture and death. For what were it to lie 
 
 Sleek, crowned with roses, drinking vulgar praise. 
 
 And surfeited with offerings, the dull gift 
 
 Of ignorant hands — all which I might have known — 
 
 To this diviner failure ? Godlike 'tis 
 
 To climb upon the icy ledge, and fall 
 
 Where other footsteps dare not. So I knew 
 
 My fate, and it was near. 
 
 For to a pine 
 They bound me willing, and with cruel stripes 
 Tore me, and took my life, * 
 
 But from my blood 
 Was born the stream of song, and on its flow 
 My poor flute, to the clear sv/ift river borne, 
 
 G
 
 £2 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Floated, and thence adown a lordlier tide 
 Into the deep, wide sea. I do not blame 
 Phoebus, or Nature which has set this bar 
 Betwixt success and failure, for I know 
 How far high failure overleaps the bound 
 Of low successes. Only suffering draws 
 The inner heart of song and can elicit 
 The perfumes of the soul. 'Twere not enough 
 To fail, for that were happiness to him 
 WTio ever upward looks with reverent eye 
 And seeks but to admire. So, since the race 
 Of bards soars highest ; as who seek to show 
 Our lives as in a glass ; therefore it comes 
 That suffering weds with song, from him of old, 
 Who solaced his blank darkness with his verse ; 
 Through all the story of neglect and scorn. 
 Necessity, sheer hunger, early death, 
 Which smite the singer still. Not only those 
 Wlio keep clear accents of the voice divine 
 Are honourable — they are happy, indeed, 
 Whate'er the world has held — but those who hear
 
 MAKSVAS. ts 
 
 Some fair faint echoes, though the crowd be deaf, 
 
 And see the white gods' garments on the hills, 
 
 Vi'hich the crowd sees not, though they may not find 
 
 Ht music for their thought ; they too are blest, 
 
 Not pitiable. Not from arrogant pride 
 
 Nor over-boldness fail they who have striven 
 
 To tell what they have heard, with voice too weak 
 
 For such high message. More it is than ease. 
 
 Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries. 
 
 To have seen white Presences upon the hills, 
 
 To have heard the voices of the Eternal Gods." 
 
 So spake he, and I seemed to look on him, 
 Whose sad young eyes grow on us from the page 
 Of his own verse : who did himself to death : 
 Or whom the dullard slew : or whom the sea 
 Rapt from us : and I passed without a word. 
 Slow, grave, with many musings.
 
 84 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Then I came 
 On one a maiden, meek with folded hands, 
 Seated against a rugged face of cliff, 
 In silent thought. Anon she raised her arms. 
 Her gleaming arms, above her on the rock. 
 With hands which clasped each other, till she showed 
 As in a statue, and her white robe fell 
 Down from her maiden shoulders, and I knew 
 The fair form as it seemed chained to the stone 
 By some invisible gyves, and named her name : 
 And then she raised her frightened eyes to mine 
 As one who, long expecting some great fear, 
 Scarce sees deliverance come. But when she saw 
 Only a kindly glance, a softer look 
 Came in them, and she answered to my thought 
 With a sweet voice and low. 
 
 " I did but muse 
 Upon the painful past, long dead and done,
 
 ANDROMEDA. 8$ 
 
 Forgetting I was saved. 
 
 The angr}' clouds 
 Burst always on the low flat plains, and swept 
 The harvest to the ocean ; all the land 
 Was wasted. A great serpent from the deep, 
 Lifting his horrible head above their homes, 
 I^evoured the children. And the people prayed 
 In vain to careless gods. 
 
 On that dear land, 
 \\Tiich now was turned into a sullen sea. 
 Gazing in safety from the stately towers 
 Of my sire's palace, I, a princess, saw, 
 Lapt in soft luxury, within my bower 
 The wreck of humble homes come whirling by, 
 The drowning, bleating flocks, the bellowing herds, 
 The grain scarce husbanded by toiling hands 
 Upon the sunlit plain, rush to the sea. 
 With floating corpses. On the rain-swept hills 
 The remnant of the people huddled close. 
 Homeless and starving. All my being was filled 
 With pity for them, and I joyed to give
 
 86 THE EPIC OF HADES 
 
 What food and shelter and compassionate hands 
 Of woman might. I took the little ones 
 And clasped them shivering to the virgin breast 
 Which knew no other touch but theirs, and gave 
 Raiment and food. My sire, not stern to me, 
 Smiled on me as he saw. My gentle mother, 
 Who loved me with a closer love than binds 
 A mother to her son ; and sunned herself 
 In my fresh beauty, seeing in my young eyes 
 Her own fair vanished youth ; doted on me, 
 And fain had kept my eyes from the sad sights 
 That pained them. But my heart was sad in me. 
 Seeing the ineffable miseries of life, 
 And that mysterious anger of the gods, 
 And helpless to allay them. All in vain 
 Were prayer and supplication, all in vain 
 The cosily victims steamed. The vengeful clouds 
 Tlid the fierce sky, and still the ruin came. 
 And wallowing his grim length within the flood. 
 Over the ravaged fields and homeless homes, 
 The fell sea-monster raged, sating his jaws
 
 ANDROMEDA. 87 
 
 With blood and rapine. 
 
 Then to the dread shrine 
 Of Ammon went the priests, and reverend chiefs 
 Of all the nation. White robed, at their head. 
 Went slow my royal sire. The oracle 
 Spoke clear, not as ofttimes in words obscure. 
 Ambiguous. And as we stood to meet 
 The suppliants — she who bare me, with her head 
 Upon my neck — we cheerful and with song 
 Welcomed their swift return ; auguring well 
 From such a quick-sped mission. 
 
 But my sire 
 Hid his face from me, and the crowd of priests 
 And nobles looked not at us. And no word 
 Was spoken till at last one drew a scroll 
 And gave it to the queen, who straightway swooned, 
 Having read it, on my breast, and then I saw, 
 I the young girl whose soft life scarcely knew 
 Shadow of sorrow, I whose heart was full 
 Of pity for the rest, what doom was mine.
 
 £3 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 I think I hardly knew in that dread hour 
 The fear that came anon ; I was transformed 
 Into a champion of my race, made strong 
 With a new courage, glorying to meet, 
 In all the ecstasy of sacrifice, 
 Death face to face. Some god, I know not who, 
 O'erspread me, and despite my mother's tears 
 And my stern father's grief, I met my fate 
 Unshrinking. 
 
 ^^^len the moon rose clear from cloud 
 Once more again over the midnight sea, 
 And that vast watery plain, where were before 
 Hundreds of happy homes, and well-tilled fields, 
 And purple vineyards ; from my father's towers 
 The white procession went along the paths. 
 The high cliff paths, which well I loved of old, 
 Among the myrtles. Priests with censers went 
 And offerings, robed in white, and round their brows 
 The sacred fillet. With his nobles walked 
 My sire with breaking heart. My mother clung
 
 ANDROMEDA. 89 
 
 To me the victim, and the young girls went 
 With wailing and with tears. A solemn strain 
 The soft flutes sounded, as we went by night 
 To a wild headland, rock-based in the sea. 
 
 There on a sea- worn rock, upon the verge, 
 To some rude stanchions, high above my head, 
 They bound me. Out at sea, a black reef rose. 
 Washed by the constant surge, wherein a cave 
 Sheltered deep down the monster. The sad queen 
 Would scarcely leave me, though the priests shrunk 
 
 back 
 In terror. Last, torn from my endless kiss, 
 Swooning they bore her upwards. All my robe 
 Fell from my lifted arms, and left displayed 
 The virgin treasure of my breasts ; and then 
 The white procession through the moonlight streamed 
 Upwards, and soon their soft flutes sounded low 
 Upon the high lawns, leaving me alone. 
 
 There stood I in the moonlight, left alone
 
 go THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Against the sea-worn rock. JIardly I knew, 
 Seeing only the bright moon and summer sea, 
 Which gently heaved and surged, and kissed the ledge 
 ^^'ith smooth warm tides, what fate was mine. I 
 
 seemed. 
 Soothed by the quiet, to be resting still 
 Within my maiden chamber, and to watch 
 The moonlight thro' my lattice. Then again 
 Fear came, and then the pride of sacrifice 
 Filled me, as on the high cliff lawns I heard 
 The wailing cries, the chanted liturgies, 
 And knew me bound forsaken to the rock. 
 And saw the monster-haunted depths of sea. 
 
 So all night long upon the sandy shores 
 I heard the hollow murmur of the wave, 
 And all night long the hidden sea caves made 
 A ghostly echo ; and the sea birds mewed 
 Around me ; once I heard a mocking laugh, 
 As of some scornful Nereid ; once the waters 
 Broke louder on the scarped reefs, and ebbed
 
 ANDROMEDA. 91 
 
 As if the monster coming ; but again 
 
 lie came not, and the dead moon sank, and still 
 
 Only upon the cliffs the wails, the chants, 
 
 And I forsaken on my sea-worn rock. 
 
 And lo, the monster-haunted depths of sea. 
 
 Till at the dead dark hour before the dawn, 
 When sick men die, and scarcely fear itself 
 Bore up my wear}- eyelids, a great surge 
 Burst on the rock, and slowly, as it seemed, 
 The sea sucked downward to its depths, laid bare 
 The hidden reefs, and then before my eyes — 
 Oh, terrible ! a huge and loathsome snake 
 Lifted his dreadful crest and scaly side 
 Above the wave, in bulk and length so large, 
 Coil after hideous coil, that scarce the eye 
 Could measure its full horror ; the great jaws 
 Dropped as w ith gore ; the large and furious eyes 
 Were fired with blood and lust. Nearer he came, 
 And slowly, with a devilish glare, more near, 
 Till his hot fcclor choked me, and his tongue,
 
 92 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Forked horribly from out his poisonous jaws, 
 Played lightning-like around me. For awhile 
 I swooned, and when I knew my life again. 
 Death's bitterness was past. 
 
 Then with a bound 
 Leaped up the broad red sun above the sea, 
 And lit the horrid fulgour of his scales, 
 And struck upon the rock ; and as I turned 
 My head in the last agony of death, 
 I knew a brilliant sunbeam swiftly leaping 
 Downward from crag to crag, and felt new hope 
 Where all was hopeless. On the hills a shout 
 Of joy, and on the rocks the ring of mail ; 
 And while the hungrj' serpent's gloating eyes 
 Were fixed on me, a knight in casque of gold 
 And blazing shield, who with his flashing blade 
 Fell on the monster. Long the conflict raged, 
 Till all the rocks were red with blood and slime, 
 And yet my champion from those horrible jaws 
 And dreadful coils was scatheless. Zeus his sire 
 Protected, and the awful shield he bore
 
 ANDROMEDA. 93 
 
 Withered the monster's life and left him cold, 
 Dragging his helpless length and grovelling crest : 
 And o'er his glaring eyes the films of death 
 Crept, and his writhing flank and hiss of hate 
 The great deep swallowed down, and blood and spume 
 Rose on the waves ; and a strange wailing cry 
 Resounded o'er the waters, and the sea 
 Bellowed within its hollow-sounding caves. 
 
 Then knew I, I was saved, and with me all 
 The people. From my wrists he loosed the g>"ves, 
 My hero ; and within his godlike arms 
 Bore me by slipper)' rock and difficult path, 
 To where my mother prayed. There was no need 
 To ask my love. Without a spoken word 
 Love lit his fires within me. My young heart 
 Went forth, Love calling, and I gave him all. 
 
 Dost thou then wonder that the memory 
 Of this supreme brief moment lingers still, 
 Wliile all tlie happy uneventful years
 
 94 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Of wedded life, and all the fair j-oung growth 
 
 Of offspring, and the tranquil later joys, 
 
 Nay, even the fierce eventful fight which raged 
 
 When we were wedded, fade and are deceased, 
 
 Lost in the irrecoverable past ? 
 
 Nay, 'tis not strange. Always the memory 
 
 Of overwhelming perils or great joys, 
 
 Avoided or enjoyed, writes its own trace 
 
 With such deep characters upon our lives, 
 
 That all the rest are blotted. In this place. 
 
 Where is not action, thought, or count of time. 
 
 It is not weary as it were on earth, 
 
 To dwell on these old memories. Time is born 
 
 Of dawns and sunsets, days that wax and wane 
 
 And stamp themselves upon the yielding face 
 
 Of fleeting human life ; but here there is 
 
 Morning nor evening, act nor suffering. 
 
 But only one unchanging Present holds 
 
 Our being suspended. One blest day indeed. 
 
 Or centuries ago or yesterday, 
 
 There came among us one vi'lio was Divine,
 
 ANDROMEDA. 95 
 
 Not as our gods, joyous and breathing strength 
 
 And careless life, but crowned with a new crown 
 
 Of suffering, and a great light came with him, 
 
 And with him he brought Time and a new sense 
 
 Of dim, long-vanished years ; and since he passed 
 
 I seem to see new meaning in my fate, 
 
 And all the deeds I tell of. Evermore 
 
 The young life comes, bound to the cruel rocks 
 
 Alone. Before it the unfathomed sea 
 
 Smiles, filled with monstrous growths that wait to take 
 
 Its innocence. Far off the voice and hand 
 
 Of love kneel by in agony, and entreat 
 
 The seeming careless gods. Still when the deep 
 
 Is smoothest, lo, the deadly fangs and coils 
 
 Lurk near, to smite with death. And o'er the crags 
 
 Of duty, like a sudden sunbeam, springs 
 
 Some golden soul half mortal, half divine. 
 
 Heaven-sent, and breaks the chain ; and evermore 
 
 For sacrifice they die, through sacrifice 
 
 They live, and are for others, and no grief 
 
 Which smites the humblest but reverberates
 
 §6 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Thro' all the close-set files of life, and takes 
 The princely soul that from its royal towers 
 Looks down and sees the sorrow. 
 
 Sir, farewell ! 
 If thou shouldst meet my children on the earth 
 Or here, for maybe it is long ago 
 Since 1 and they were living, say to them 
 I only muse a little here, and wait 
 The waking." 
 
 And her lifted arms sank down 
 Upon her knees, and as I passed I saw her 
 Gazing with soft rapt eyes, and on her lips 
 A smile as of a saint.
 
 ACTy-EON. 97 
 
 And then I saw 
 A manly hunter pace along the lea, 
 His bow upon his shoulder, and his spear 
 Poised idly in his hand : the face and form 
 Of vigorous youth ; but in the full brown eyes 
 A timorous gaze as of a hunted hart, 
 Brute-like, yet human still, even as the Faun 
 Of old, the dumb brute passing into man, 
 And dowered with double nature. As he came 
 I seemed to question of his fate, and he 
 Answered me thus : 
 
 " 'Twas one hot afternoon 
 That I, a hunter, wearied with my day, 
 Heard my hounds baying fainter on the hills, 
 Led by the flying hart ; and when the sound 
 Faded and all was still, I turned to seek, 
 O'ercome by heat and thirst, a little glade, 
 Beloved of old, where, in the shadowy wood, 
 
 II
 
 98 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 The clear cold crystal of a mossy poo! 
 
 Lipped the soft emerald marge, and gave again 
 
 The flower-starred lawn where ofttimes overspent 
 
 I lay upon the grass and careless bathed 
 
 My limbs in the sweet lymph. 
 
 But as I neared 
 
 The hollow, sudden through the leaves I saw 
 
 A throng of wood-nymphs fair, sporting undraped 
 
 Round one, a goddess. She with timid hand 
 
 Loosened her zone, and glancing round let fall 
 
 Her robe from neck and bosom, pure and bright, 
 
 (For it was Dian's self I saw, none else) 
 
 As when she frees her from a fleece of cloud 
 
 And swims along the deep blue sea of heaven 
 
 On sweet June nights. Silent awhile I stood, 
 
 Rooted with awe, and fain had turned to fly, 
 
 But feared by careless footstep to affright 
 
 Those chaste cold eyes. Great awe and reverence 
 
 Held me, and fear ; then Love with passing wing 
 
 Fanned me, and held my eyes, and checked my breath, 
 
 Signing ' Beware I '
 
 ACT.^ON. 99- 
 
 So for a time I watched, 
 Breathless as one a brooding nightmare holds, 
 Who fleeth some great fear, yet fleeth not ; 
 Till the last flutter of lawn, and veil no more 
 Obscured, and all the beauty of my dreams 
 Assailed my sense. But ere I raised my eyes, 
 As one who fain would look and see the sun, 
 The first glance dazed my brain . Only I knew 
 The perfect outline flow in tender curves. 
 To break in doubled charms ; only a haze 
 Of creamy white, and dimpled depths divine : 
 And then no more. For lo ! a sudden chill 
 And such thick mist as shuts the hills at eve, 
 Oppressed me gazing ; and a heaven-sent shame, 
 An awe, a fear, a reverence for the unknown. 
 Froze all the springs of will and left me cold, 
 And blinded all the longings of my eyes, 
 Leaving such dim reflection still as mocks 
 Him who has looked on a great light, and keeps 
 On his closed eyes the image. Presently, 
 My fainting soul, safe hidden for awhile
 
 loo THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Deep in Life's mystic shades, renewed herself, 
 And straight, the innocent brute within the man 
 Bore on mc, and with half-averted eye 
 I gazed upon the secret. 
 
 As I looked, 
 A radiance, white as beamed the frosty moon 
 On the mad boy and slew him, beamed on me ; 
 Made chill my pulses, checked my life and heat ; 
 Transformed me, withered all my soul, and left 
 My being burnt out. For lo ! the dreadful eyes 
 Of Godhead met my gaze, and through the mask 
 And thick disguise of sense, as through a wood. 
 Pierced to my life. Then suddenly I knew 
 An altered nature, touched by no desire 
 For that which showed so lovely, but declined 
 To lower levels. Nought of fear or awe, 
 Nothing of love was mine. Wide-eyed I gazed, 
 But saw no spiritual beam to blight 
 My brain with too much beauty, no undraped 
 And awful majesty ; only a brute, 
 Dumb charm, like that which draws the brute to it.
 
 ACT.'EOM. loi 
 
 Unknowing it is drawn. So gradually 
 
 I knew a dull content o'ercloud my sense, 
 
 And unabashed I gazed, like that dumb bird 
 
 WTiich thinks no thought and speaks no word, yet 
 
 fronts 
 The sun that blinded Homer— all my fear 
 Sunk with my shame, in a base happiness. 
 
 But as I gazed, and careless turned and passed 
 Through the thick wood, forgetting what had been, 
 And thinking thoughts no longer, swift there came 
 A mortal terror : voices that I knew, 
 My own hounds' hayings that I loved before, 
 As with them often o'er the purple hills 
 I chased the flying hart from slope to slope, 
 Before the slow sun climbed the Eastern peaks. 
 Until the swift sun smote the Western plain ; 
 \\Tiom often I had cheered by voice and glance, 
 Whom often I had checked with hand and thong, 
 Grim followers, like the passions, firing me ; 
 True servants, like the strong nerves, urging me
 
 102 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 On many a fruitless chase, to find and take 
 
 Some too swift-fleeting beauty ; faithful feet 
 
 And tongues, obedient always : these I knew, 
 
 Clothed with a new-born force and vaster grown, 
 
 And stronger than their master ; and I thought, 
 
 What if they tare me with their jaws, nor knew 
 
 That once I ruled them, — brute pursuing brute, 
 
 And I the quarry? Then I turned and fled, — 
 
 If it was I indeed that feared and fled — 
 
 Down the long glades, and through the tangled brakes, 
 
 Where scarce the sunlight pierced ; fled on and on, 
 
 And panted, self-pursued. But evermore 
 
 The dissonant music which I knew so sweet, 
 
 Wlien by the windy hills, the echoing vales, 
 
 And whispering pines it rang, now far, now near. 
 
 As from my rushing steed I leant and cheered 
 
 With voice and horn the chase — this brought to me 
 
 Fear of I knew not what, which bade me fly, 
 
 Fly always, fly; but when my heart stood still, 
 
 And all my limbs were stiffened as I fleil, 
 
 just as the white moon ghost-like climbed the sky,
 
 ACTMON. 103 
 
 Nearer they came and nearer, baying loud, 
 With bloodshot eyes and red jaws dripping foam ; 
 And when I strove to check their savagery. 
 Speaking with words ; no voice articulate came, 
 Only a dumb, low bleat. Then all the throng 
 Leapt swift on me, and tare me as I lay. 
 And left me man again. 
 
 Wherefore I walk 
 Along these dim fields peopled with the ghosts 
 Of heroes who have left the ways of earth 
 For this faint ghost of them. Sometimes I think, 
 Pondering on what has been, that all my days 
 Were shadows, all my life an allegory ; 
 And, though I know sometimes some fainter gleraii 
 Of the old beauty move me, and sometimes 
 Some beat of the old pulses ; that my fate, 
 For ever hurrying on in hot pursuit, 
 To fall at length self-slain, was but a tale 
 Writ large by Zeus upon a mortal life, 
 Writ large, and yet a riddle. For sometimes 
 I read its meaning thus : Life is a chase.
 
 i3t THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And Man the hiinler, always following on, 
 
 With hounds of rushing thought or fiery sense, 
 
 Some hidden truth or beauty, fleeting still 
 
 For ever through the thick-leaved coverts deep 
 
 And wind-worn wolds of time. And if he turn 
 
 A moment from the hot pursuit to seize 
 
 Some chance-brought sweetness, other than the search 
 
 To which his soul is set, — some dalliance, 
 
 Some outward shape of Art, some lower love, 
 
 Some charm of wealth and sleek content and home, — 
 
 Then, if he check an instant, the swift chase 
 
 Of fierce untempered energies which pursue, 
 
 With jaws unsated and a thirst for act, 
 
 JJears down on him with clanging shock, and vvlichns 
 
 His prize and him in ruin. 
 
 And sometimes 
 I seem to myself a thinker, who at last, 
 Amid the chase and capture of low ends, 
 Pausing by some cold well of hidden thought 
 Comes on some perfect truth, and looks and looks 
 Till the fair vision blinds him. And the sum
 
 ACT^'EON. 105 
 
 Of all his lower self pursuing him, 
 The strong brute forces, the unchecked desires, 
 Finding him bound and speechless, deem him now 
 No more their master, but some soulless thing ; 
 And leap on him, and seize him, and possess 
 His life, till through death's gate he pass to life, 
 And, his own ghost, revives. But looks no more 
 Upon the truth unveiled, save through a cloud 
 Of creed and faith and longing, which shall change 
 One day to perfect knowledge. 
 
 But whoe'er 
 Shall read the riddle of my life, I walk 
 In this dim land amid dim ghosts of kings, 
 As one day thou shalt ; meantime, fare thou well." 
 
 Then passed he ; and I marked him slowly go 
 Along the winding ways of that weird land. 
 And vanish in a wood.
 
 to6 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And next I knew 
 A woman perfect as a young man's dream, 
 And breathing as it seemed the old sweet air 
 Of the fair days of old, v.'hen man was young 
 And life an Epic. Round the lips a smile 
 Subtle and deep and sweet as hers who looks 
 From the old painter's canvas, and derides 
 Life and the riddle of things, the aimless strife, 
 The folly of Love, as who has jiroved it all, 
 Enjoyed and suffered. In the lovely eyes 
 A weary look, no other than the gaze 
 Which ofttimcs as the rapid chariot whirls. 
 And ofttimes by the glaring midnight streets. 
 Gleams out and chills our thought. And yet not guilt 
 Nor sorrow was it ; only weariness, 
 No more, and still most lovely. As I named 
 Her name in haste, she looked with half surprise. 
 And thus she seemed to speak :
 
 HELEN. 107 
 
 " \Vliat ? Dost thou know, 
 Thou too, the fatal glances which beguiled 
 Those strong rude chiefs of old ? Has not the gloom 
 Of this dim land withdrawn from out mine eyes 
 The glamour which once filled them ? Does my check 
 Retain the round of youth and still defy 
 The wear of immemorial centuries? 
 And this low voice, long silent, keeps it still 
 The music of old time ? Aye, in thine eyes 
 I read it, and within thine eyes I see 
 Thou knowest me, and the story of my life 
 Sung by the blind old bard when I was dead. 
 And all my lovers dust. I know thee not, 
 Thee nor thy gods, yet would I soothly swear 
 I was not all to blame for what has been, 
 The long fight, the swift death, the woes, the tears, 
 The brave lives spent, the humble homes uptorn 
 To gain one poor fair face. It was not I 
 That curved these lips into this subtle smile, 
 Or gave these eyes their fire, nor yet made round 
 This supple frame. It was not I, but Love,
 
 io8 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Love mirroring himself in all things fair, 
 Love that projects himself upon a life, 
 And dotes on his ov.n image. 
 
 Ah I the days, 
 The weary years of Love and feasts and gold, 
 The hurried flights, the din of clattering hoofs 
 At midnight, when the heroes dared for me. 
 And bore me o'er the hills ; the swift pursuits 
 Baffled and lost ; or when from isle to isle 
 The high -oared galley spread its wings and rose 
 Over the swelling surges, and I saw, 
 Time after time, the scarce familiar town. 
 The sharp-cut hills, the well-loved palaces, 
 The gleaming temples fade, and all for me, 
 Me the dead prize, the shell, the soulless ghost. 
 The husk of a true woman ; the fond words 
 Wasted on careless ears, that feigned to hear, 
 Of love to me unloving ; the rich feasts, 
 The silken dalliance and soft luxur}-, 
 The fair observance and high reverence 
 For me who cared not, to whatever land
 
 UELEX. 109 
 
 My kingly lover snatched me. I have known 
 How small a fence Love sets between the king 
 And the strong hind, who breeds his brood, and dies 
 Upon the field he tills. I have exchange . 
 People for people, crown for gUttering crown, 
 Through eveiy change a queen, and held my state 
 Hateful, and sickened in my soul to lie 
 Stretched on soft cushions to the lutes" low sound, 
 AVhile on the wasted fields the clang of arms 
 tlang, and the foemen perished, and swift death, 
 Hunger, and plague, and every phase of woe 
 Vexed all the land for me. I have heard the cur-.o 
 Unspoken, when the w ifc widi)weJ for me 
 Clasped to her heart her orphans starved for me : 
 As I swept proudly by. I have prayed the gods, 
 Hating my own fair face which v.rought such woe, 
 Some plague divine might light on it and leave 
 My curse a ruin. Yet I think indeed 
 They had not cursed but pitied, those true wives 
 Who mourned their humble lords, and straining felt 
 The innocent thrill which swells the mother's heart
 
 no THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Who clcisps her growing boy ; had they but known 
 
 The lifeless life, the pain of hypocrite smiles, 
 
 The dead load of caresses simulated, 
 
 ^Vhen Love stands shuddering by to see his fires 
 
 Lit for the shrine of gold. What if they felt 
 
 The weariness of loveless love which grev.' 
 
 And through the jealous palace portals seized 
 
 The caged unloving woman, sick of toys, 
 
 Sick of her gilded chains, her ease, herself. 
 
 Till for sheer weariness she flew to meet 
 
 Some new unloved seducer? \\Tiat if they knew 
 
 No childish loving hands, or worse than all, 
 
 Had borne them sullen to a sire unloved. 
 
 And left them without pain ? I might have been, 
 
 I too, a loving mother and chaste wife. 
 
 Had Fate so willed. 
 
 For I remember well 
 How one day straying from my fathers halls 
 Seeking anemones and violets, 
 
 A girl in Spring-time, when the heart makes Spring 
 Within the bud;'ing bosom, that I came
 
 HELEN. I 
 
 Of a sudden through a wood upon a bay, 
 A little sunny land-locked bay, whose banks 
 Sloped gently downward to the yellow sand, 
 Where the blue wave creamed soft with fairy foam, 
 And oft the Nereids sported. As I strayed 
 Singing, with fresh-pulled violets in my hair 
 And bosom, and my hands were full of flowers, 
 I came upon a little milk-white lamb, 
 And took it in my arms and fondled it. 
 And wreathed its neck with flowers, and sang to it 
 And kissed it, and the Spring was in my life, 
 And I was glad. 
 
 And when I raised my eyes, 
 Behold, a youthful shepherd with his crook 
 Stood by me and regarded as I lay, 
 Tall, fair, with clustering curls, and front that wore 
 A budding manhood. As I looked a fear 
 Came o'er me, lest he were some youthful god 
 Disguised in shape of man, so fair he was ; 
 But when he spoke, the kindly fiice was full 
 Of manhood, and the large eyes full of Are
 
 112 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Drew me without a word, and all the flowers 
 Fell from me, and the little milk-white lamb 
 Strayed through the brake, and took with it the white 
 Fair years of childhood. Time fulfilled my being 
 With passion like a cup, and with one kiss 
 Left me a woman. 
 
 Ah ! the lovely days, 
 When on the v^arm bank crowned with flowers we sate 
 And thought no harm, and his thin reed pipe made 
 Low music, and no witness of our love 
 Intruded, but the tinkle of the flock 
 Came from the hill, and "neath the odorous shade 
 Yv'e dreamed away the day, and watched the waves 
 Steal siioreward, and beyond the sylvan capes 
 The innuinerable laughter of the sea ! 
 
 Ah youth and love ! So passed the happy days 
 Till twilight, and I stole as in a dream 
 Homeward, and lived as in a happy dream, 
 And when they spoke answered as in a dream, 
 And through the darkness saw, as in a glass,
 
 HELEN. 113 
 
 The happy, happy day, and thrilled and glowed 
 And kept my love in sleep, and longed for dawn 
 And scarcely stayed for hunger, and with mora 
 Stole eager to the little wood, and fed 
 My life with kisses. Ah ! the joyous days 
 Of innocence, when Love was Queen in heaven, 
 And nature unreproved ! Break tliey then still, 
 Those azure circles, on a golden sliore ? 
 Smiles there no gla.de upon the older earth 
 Where spite of all, gray wisdom, and new gods, 
 Young lovers dream within each other's arms 
 Silent, by shadowy grove, or sunlit sea ? 
 
 Ah days too fair to last ! There came a night 
 When I lay longing for my love, and knew 
 Sudden the clang of hoofs, ihe broken doors, 
 Theclash of swords, the shouts, the groans, the stain 
 Of red upon the marble, the fixed gaze 
 Of dead and dying eyes, — that was the time 
 When iirst I looked on death, — and when I woke 
 From my deep swoon, I felt the night air cool 
 
 I
 
 114 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Upon my brow, and the cold stars look down, 
 As swift we galloped o'er the darkling plain ; 
 And saw the chill sea glimpses slowly wake, 
 With arms unknown around me. When the dawn 
 Broke swift, we panted on the pathless steeps, 
 And so by plain and mountain till we came 
 To Athens, where they kept me till I grew 
 Fairer with every year, and many wooed, 
 Heroes and chieftains, but I loved not one. 
 
 And then the avengers came and snatched me l)ack 
 To Sparta. All the dark high-crested chiefs 
 Of Argos wooed me, striving king with king 
 For one fair foolish face, nor knew I kept 
 No heart to give them. Yet since I was grown 
 Weary of honeyed words and suit of love, 
 I wedded a brave chief, dauntless and true. 
 But what cared I ? I could not prize at all 
 His honest service. I had grown so tired 
 Of loving and of love, that when they brought 
 News that the fairest shepherd on the hills,
 
 HELEN. 115 
 
 Having done himself to death for his lost love, 
 Lay, like a lovely statue, cold and white 
 Upon the golden sand, I hardly knew 
 More than a passing pang. Love, like a flower, 
 Love, springing up too tall in a young breast. 
 The growth of morning, Life's too scorching sun 
 Had withered long ere noon. Love, like a flame 
 On his own altar offering up my heart, 
 Had burnt my being to ashes. 
 
 Was it love 
 That drew me then to Paris ? He was fair, 
 I grant you, fairer than a summer morn, 
 Fair with a woman's fairness, yet in arms 
 A hero, but he never had my heart. 
 Not love for him allured me, but the thirst 
 For freedom, if in more than thought I erred, 
 And was not rapt but willing. For my child. 
 Born to an unloved father, loved me not, 
 The fresh sea called, the galleys plunged, and I 
 Fled willing from my prison and the pain 
 Of undesired caresses, and the wind
 
 n5 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Was fair, and on the third day as we sailed, 
 My heart was glad within me vshen I saw 
 The towers of Ilium rise beyond the wave. 
 
 Ah, the long years, the melancholy years. 
 The miserable melancholy years ! 
 For soon the new grew old, and then I grew 
 AVeary of him, of all, of pomp and state 
 And novel splendour. Yet at times I knew 
 Some thrill of pride within me as I saw 
 From these high walls, a prisoner and a foe, 
 Tl;e swift ships flock at anchor in the bay. 
 The hasty landing and the flash of arms 
 The lines of royal tents upon the plain, 
 The close-shut gates, the chivalry within 
 Issuing in all its pride to meet the shock 
 Of the bold chiefs without ; so year by year 
 The haughty challenge from tiie warring hosts 
 Rang forth, and I with a divided heart 
 Saw victory incline, now here, now there. 
 And helpless marked the Arglve chiefs I knew,
 
 HELEN. IT7 
 
 The spouse I left, the princely loves of old, 
 Now with each other strive, and now with Troy : 
 The brave pomp of the morn, the fair strong limbs, 
 The glittering panoply, the bold young hearts, 
 Athirst for fame of war, and with the night 
 The broken spear, the shattered helm, the plume 
 Dyed red with blood, the ghastly dying face, 
 And nerveless limbs laid lifeless. And I knew 
 The stainless Hector whom I could have loved. 
 But that a happy love made blind his eyes 
 To all my baleful beauty ; fallen and dragged 
 His noble, godlike head upon the sand 
 By young Achilles' chariot ; him in turn 
 Fallen and slain ; my fair false Paris slain ; 
 Plague, famine, battle, raging now within. 
 And now without, for many a weary year. 
 Summer and winter, till I loathed to live, 
 Who was indeed, as well they said, the Hell 
 Of men, and fleets, and cities. As I stood 
 Upon the walls, ofttimes a longing came. 
 Looking on rage, and fight, and blood, and death,
 
 ii8 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 To end it all, and dash me down and die ; 
 
 But no god helped me. Nay, one day I mind 
 
 I would entreat them. ' Pray you, lords, be men. 
 
 What fatal charm is this which Ate gives 
 
 To one poor foolish face ? Be strong, and turn 
 
 In peace, forget this glamour, get you home 
 
 Willi all your fleets and armies, to the land 
 
 I love no longer, where your faithful wives 
 
 Pme widowed of their lords, and your young boys 
 
 Grow wild to manhood. I have nought to give, 
 
 No heart, nor prize of love for any man, 
 
 Nor recompense. I am the ghost alone 
 
 Of the fair girl ye knev." ; she still abides. 
 
 If she still lives and is not wholly dead, 
 
 Stretched on a flowery bank upon tlie sea 
 
 In fair heroic iVrgos. Leave this form 
 
 That is no other than the outward shell 
 
 Of a once loving vi'oman.' 
 
 As I spake. 
 My pity fired my eyes and flushed my cheek 
 Willi some soft charm ; and as I spread my hands,
 
 HELEN. 119 
 
 The purple, glancing down a little, left 
 The marble of my breasts and one pink bud 
 Upon the gleaming snows. And as I looked 
 With a mixed pride and terror, I beheld 
 The brute rise up within them, and my words 
 Fall barren on them. So I sat apart. 
 Nor ever more looked forth, while every day 
 Brought its own woe. 
 
 The melancholy years, 
 The miserable melancholy years, 
 Crept onward till the midnight terror came, 
 And by the glare of burning streets I saw 
 Palace and temple reel in ruin and fall. 
 And the long-baffled legions, bursting in 
 By gate and bastion, blunted sword and spear 
 With unresisted slaughter. From my tower 
 I saw the good old king ; his kindly eyes 
 In agony, and all his reverend hairs 
 Dabbled with blood, as the fierce foeman thrust 
 And stabbed him as he lay ; the youths, the girls, 
 Whom day by day I knew, their silken ease
 
 I20 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And royal luxury changed for blood and tears, 
 
 Haled forth to death or worse. Then a great hate 
 
 Of life and fate seized on me, and I rose 
 
 And rushed among them, crying, ' See, 'tis I, 
 
 I who have brought this evil ! Kill me ! kill 
 
 The fury tliat is I, yet is not I ! 
 
 And let my soul go outward through the wound 
 
 Made clean by blood to Hades ! Let me die, 
 
 Not these who did no wrong ! ' But not a hand 
 
 Was raised, and all shrank backward as afraid. 
 
 As from a goddess. Then I swooned and fell 
 
 And knew no more, and when I woke I felt 
 
 My husband's arms around me, and the wind 
 
 Blew fair for Greece, and the beaked galley plunge-.l ; 
 
 And where the towers of Ilium rose of old, 
 
 A pall of smoke above a glare of fire. 
 
 What then in the near future? 
 
 Ten long years 
 Bring youth and love to that deep summer-tide 
 When the full noisy current of our lives
 
 HELEN. 121 
 
 Creeps dumb through wealth of flowers. I think I 
 
 knew 
 Somewhat of peace at last, with my good Lord 
 Who loved too much, to palter with the past, 
 Flushed with the present. Young Hermione 
 Had grown from cliild to woman. She was wed ; 
 And was not I her mother ? At the pomp 
 Of solemn nuptials and requited love, 
 I prayed she might be happy, happier far 
 Than ever I was ; so in tranquil ease 
 I lived a queen long time, and because wealth 
 And high observance can make sweet our days 
 When youth's swift joy is past, I did requite 
 With what I niiglit, not love, the kindly care 
 Of him I loved not ; pomps and robes of price 
 And chariots held me. But v.hen Fate cut short 
 His life and love, his sons who were not mine 
 Reigned in his stead, and hated me and mine : 
 And knowing I was friendless, I sailed forth 
 Once more across the sea, seeking for rest 
 And shelter. Still I knew that in my eyes
 
 182 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Love dwelt, and all the baleful charm of old 
 Burned as of yore, scarce dimmed as yet by time : 
 I saw it in the mirror of the sea, 
 I saw it in the youthful seamen's eyes, 
 And was half proud again I had such power 
 Who now kept nothing else. So one calm eve, 
 Behold, a sweet fair isle blushed like a rose 
 Upon the summer sea : there my swift ship 
 Cast anchor, and they told me it was Rhodes. 
 
 There, in a little wood above the sea, 
 Like that dear wood of yore, I wandered forth 
 Forlorn, and all my seamen were apart, 
 And I, alone ; when at the close of day 
 I knew myself surrounded by strange churls 
 With angry eyes, and one who ordered them, 
 A woman, whom I knew not, but who walked 
 In mien and garb a queen. She, with the fire 
 Of hate withirrher eyes, 'Quick, bind her, men ! 
 I know her ; bind her fast ! ' Then to the trunk 
 Of a tall plane they bound me with rui^c cords
 
 HELEN. 
 
 That cut my arms. And meantime, far below, 
 The sun was gilding fair with dying rays 
 Isle after isle and purple wastes of sea. 
 
 And then she signed to them, and all withdrew 
 Among the woods and left us, face to face, 
 Two women. Ere I spoke, ' I know,' she said, 
 ' I know that evil fairness. This it was, 
 Or ever he had come across my life. 
 That made him cold to me, who had my love 
 And left me half a heart. If all my life 
 Of wedlock was but half a life, what fiend 
 Came 'twixt my love and me, but that fair face ? 
 What left his children orphans, but that face? 
 And me a widow ? Fiend ! I have thee now ; 
 Thou hast not long to live. I will requite 
 Thy murders; yet, oh fiend ! that art so fair, 
 Were it not haply better to deface 
 Thy fatal loveliness, and leave thee bare 
 Of all thy baleful power? And yet I douljt, 
 And looking on thy face I doubt the more.
 
 124 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Lest all thy dower of fairness be the gift 
 Of Aphrodite, and I fear to figlit 
 Against the immortal Gods.' 
 
 Even with the word, 
 And she relenting, all the riddle of life 
 Flashed through me, and the inextricable coil 
 Of Being, and the immeasurable depths 
 And irony of Fate, burst on my thought 
 And left me smiling in the eyes of death, 
 With this deep smile thou seest. Then with a shriek 
 The woman leapt on me, and with blind rage 
 Strangled my life. And when she had done the deed 
 She swooned, and those her followers hasting back 
 Fell prone upon their knees before the corpse 
 As to a goddess. Then one went and brought 
 A sculptor, and within a jewelled shrine 
 They set me in white marble, bound to a tree 
 Of marble. And they came and knelt to me. 
 Young men and maidens, through the secular years. 
 While the old gods bore sway, but I was here.
 
 HELEN. 125 
 
 And now they kneel no longer, for the world 
 Has gone from beauty. 
 
 But I think, indeed. 
 They well might worship still, for never yet 
 Was any thought or thing of beauty born 
 Except with suffering. That poor wretch who th^aight 
 I injured her, stealing the foolish heart 
 \\'hich she prized but I could not, what knew she 
 Of that I suffered ? She had loved her love, 
 Though unrequited, and had borne to him 
 Children v.-ho loved her. What if she had been 
 Loved yet unlo\'ing : all the fire of love 
 Burnt out before love's time in one l)rief blaze 
 Of passion. Ah, poor fool ! I pity her, 
 Being blest and yet unthankful, and forgive. 
 Now that she is a ghost as I, the hand 
 Which loosed my load of life. For scarce indeed 
 Could any god who cares for mortal men 
 Have ever kept me happy. I had tired 
 Of simple loving, doubtless, as I tired 
 Of splendour and being loved. There be some souls
 
 125 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 For which love is enough, content to bear 
 
 From youth to age, from chestnut locks to gray, 
 
 The load of common, uneventful life 
 
 And penury. But I was not of these ; 
 
 I know not now, if it were best indeed 
 
 That I had reared my simple shepherd brood. 
 
 And lived and died unknown in some poor hut 
 
 Among the Argive hills ; or lived a queen 
 
 As I did, knowing every day that dawned 
 
 Some high emprise and glorious, and in death 
 
 To fill the world with song. Not the same meed 
 
 The gods mete out for all, or She, the dread 
 
 Necessity, who rules both gods and men. 
 
 Some to dishonour, some to honour moulds, 
 
 To happiness some, some to unhappiness. 
 
 We are what Zeus has made us, discords playing 
 
 In the great music, but the harmony 
 
 Is sweeter for them, and the great spheres ring 
 
 In one accordant hymn. 
 
 But thou, if e'er 
 There come a daughter of thy love, oh pray
 
 EURYDICE. 127 
 
 To all thy gods, lest haply they should mar 
 Her life with too great beauty ! " 
 
 So she ceased, 
 The fairest woman that the poet's dream 
 Or artist hand has fashioned. All the gloom 
 Seemed lightened round her, and I heard the sound 
 Of her melodious voice when all was still, 
 An 1 the dim twilicilit took her. 
 
 Next there came 
 Two who together walked : one with a lyre 
 Of gold, which gave no sound ; the other hung 
 Upon his breast, and closely clung to him, 
 Spent in a tender longing. As they came, 
 I heard her gentle voice recounting o'er 
 Some ancient tale, and these the words she said : 
 
 "Dear voice and lyre now silent, Vv-hich I heard 
 Across yon sullen river, bringing to me
 
 128 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 All my old life, while he, the ferryman, 
 Heard and obeyed, and the grim monster heard 
 And fawned on you. Joyous thou cam'st and free. 
 Like a white sunbeam from the dear bright earth. 
 Where suns shone clear, anu moons beamed bright, and 
 
 streams 
 Laughed with a rippling music, — nor as here 
 The dumb stream stole, the veiled sky slept, the fields 
 Were lost in twilight. Like a morning breeze, 
 Which blows in summer from the gates of dawn 
 Across the fields of spice, and wakes to life 
 Their slumbering perfume, through this silent land 
 Of whispering voices and of half-closed eyes. 
 Where scarce a footstep sounds, nor any strain 
 Of earthly song, thou cam'st ; and suddenly 
 The pale cheeks flushed a little, the nuirnuired words 
 Rose to a faint, thin treble ; the throng of ghosts 
 Pacing along the sunless ways ami still. 
 Felt a new life. Thou camest, dear, and straight 
 The dull cold river broke in sparkling foam. 
 The pale and scentless flowers grew perfumed ; last
 
 EURYDICE. 129 
 
 To the dim chamber, where with the sad queen 
 
 I sat in gloom, and silently inwove 
 
 Dead wreaths of amaranths ; thy music came 
 
 Laden with life, and I, who seemed to know 
 
 Not life's voice only, but my own, rose up, 
 
 Along the hollow pathways following 
 
 The sound which brought back earth and life and love, 
 
 And memory and longing. Vet I went 
 
 With half-reluctant footsteps, as of one 
 
 Whom passion draws, or some high fantasy. 
 
 Despite himself, because some subtle spell. 
 
 Part born of dread to cross that sullen stream 
 
 And its grim guardians, part of secret shame 
 
 Of the young airs and freshness of the earth, 
 
 Being that I was, enchained me. 
 
 Then at last, 
 From voice and lyre so high a strain arose 
 As trembled on the utter verge of being, 
 And thrilling, poured out life. Thus closelier drawn 
 I walked with thee, shut in by honeyed sound 
 And soft environments of harmony, 
 
 K
 
 I30 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Beyond the ghostly gates, beyond the dim 
 
 Calm fields, where the beetle hummed and the pale 
 
 owl 
 Stole noiseless from the copse, and the white blooms 
 Stretched thin for lack of sun : so fair a light 
 Offspring of consonant airs environed me. 
 Nor looked I backward, as we seemed to move 
 To some high goal of thought and life and love. 
 Like twin birds flying fast with equal wing 
 Out of the night, to meet the coming sun 
 Above a sea. IJut on thy dear lliir eyes, 
 The eyes that well 1 knew on the old earth, 
 I looked not, for with still averted gaze 
 Thou leddest, and I followed ; for, indeed. 
 While that high strain was sounding, I was rapt 
 In faith and a high ccnirage, driving out 
 All doubt and discontent and womanish fear. 
 Nay, even my love itself. But when awhile 
 It sank a little, or seemed to sink and fall 
 To lower levels, seeing that use makes blunt 
 The too accustomed car, straightway, desire
 
 EUR VOICE, 131 
 
 To look once more on thy recovered eyes 
 
 Seized me, and oft I called with piteous voice, 
 
 Beseeching thee to turn. But thou long time 
 
 Wert even as one unmindful, with grave sign 
 
 And waving hand, denying. Finally, 
 
 When now we neared the stream, on whose far 
 
 shore 
 Lay life, great terror took me, and I shrieked 
 Thy name, as in despair. Then thou, as one 
 Who knows him set in some great jeopardy, 
 A swift death fronting him on either hand, 
 Didst slowly turning gaze ; and lo ! I saw 
 Thine eyes grown awful, life that looked on death, 
 Clear purity on dark and cankered sin. 
 The immortal on corruption, — not the eyes 
 That erst I knew in life, but dreadfuller, 
 •Vnd stranger. As I looked, I seemed to swoon, 
 Some blind force whirled me back, and when I wuke 
 I saw thee vanish in the middle stream, 
 .\ speck on the dull waters, taking with thee 
 My life, and leaving Love with me. But I
 
 IJ2 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Not for myself bewail, but all for thee, 
 Who, but for me, wert now among the stars 
 With thy great Lord ; I sitting at thy feet : 
 But now the fierce and imrestrained rout 
 Of passions woman-natured, finding thee 
 Scornful of love within thy lonely cell, 
 With blind rage falling on thee, tore thy limbs, 
 And left them to the Muses' sepulture, 
 While thy soul dwells in Hades. But I wail 
 My weakness always, who for Love destroyed 
 The life that was my Love. I prithee, dear, 
 P'orgive me if thou canst, who hast lost heaven 
 To save a loving woman." 
 
 He with voice 
 Sweeter than any mortal melody, 
 And plaintive as the music that is made 
 By the /Eolian strings, or the sad bird 
 That sings of summer nights : 
 
 " Eur}-dice, 
 Dear love, be comforted ; not once alone 
 That which thou mournest is, but day by day
 
 ORPHEUS. J33 
 
 Some lonely soul, which walks apart and feeds 
 On high hill pastures, far from herds of men, 
 Comes to the low fat fields, and sunny vales 
 Joyous with fruits and flowers, and the while arms 
 Of laughing love ; and there awhile he stays 
 Content, forgetting all the joys he knew. 
 When first the morning broke upon the hills. 
 And the keen air breathed from the Eastern gates 
 Like a pure draught of wine ; forgetting all 
 The strains which float, as from a nearer heaven. 
 To him who treads at dawn the untrodden snows, 
 While all the warm world sleeps ; — forgetting these 
 And all things that have been. And if he gain 
 To raise to his own heights the simpler souls 
 That dwell upon the plains, the untutored tho-.ight, 
 The museless lives, the unawakened brain 
 That yet might soar, then is he blest indeed. 
 But if he fail, then, leaving love behind. 
 The wider love of the race, the closer love > 
 
 Of some congenial soul, he turns again 
 To the old diiificult steeps, and there alone
 
 134 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Pines, till the widowed passions of Iiis heart 
 Tear him and rend his soul, and drive him down 
 To the low plains he left. And there he dwells, 
 Missing the nearer skies, and the white peaks, 
 And the keen air of old ; but in their stead 
 rinding the soft sweet sun of the vale, the clouds 
 ^^'hich veil the heavens indeed, but give the rains 
 That feed the streams of life and make earth green, 
 And bring at last the harvest. So I walk 
 In this dim land content with thee, O Love, 
 Untouched by any yearning of regret 
 For those old days ; nor that the lyre which made 
 Erewhile such potent music now is dumb ; 
 Nor that the voice that once could move th.e earth 
 (Zeus speaking through it), speaks in household words 
 Of homely love : Love is enough for me 
 With thee, O dearest ; and perchance at last, 
 Zeus willing, this dumb lyre and whispered voice 
 Shall wake, by I^ove inspired, to such clear note 
 As soars above the stars, and swelling, lifts 
 Our souls to highest heaven."
 
 DEIAXEIRA. 135 
 
 Then he stoored, 
 And, folded in fne long embrace, they went 
 And faded. And I cried, "Oh, strong God, Love, 
 Mightier than Ber.th and Hell ! " 
 
 And then I chanced 
 On a fair wonian, whose sad eyes were full 
 Of a fixed self-reproach, like his who knows 
 Himself the fountain of his grief, and pines 
 In self-inflicted sorrow. As I spake 
 Enquiring of her grief, she answered thus : 
 
 "Stranger, thou seest of all the shades be lew 
 The most unhappy. Others sought their love 
 In death, and found it, dying ; but for me 
 The death that took me, took from me my love, 
 And left me comfortless. No load I bear 
 Like those dark wicked women, v;ho have slain 
 Their Lords for lust or anger, whom the dread
 
 136 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Propitious Ones within the pit below 
 Punish and purge of sin ; only unfaith, 
 If haply want of faith be not a crime 
 Blacker than murder, when we fail to trust 
 One worthy of all faith, and folly bring 
 Xo harder recompense than comes of scorn 
 And loathing of itself. 
 
 » Ah, fool, fool, fool, 
 
 Who didst mistrust thy love, who was the best, 
 And truest, manliest soul with whom the gods 
 Have ever blest the earth ; so brave, so strong, 
 Fired with such burning hate of powerful ill, 
 So loving of the race, so swift to raise 
 The fearless arm and mighty club, and smite 
 All monstrous growths with ruin — Zeus himself 
 Showed scarce more mighty — and yet was the while 
 A very man, not cast in mould too fine 
 For human love, but ofttimes snared and caught 
 By womanish wiles, fast held within the net 
 His passions wove. Oh, it was grand to hear 
 (3f how he went, the champion of his race,
 
 DEIANEIRA. i37 
 
 Mighty in war, mighty in love, now bent 
 To more than human tasks, now lapt in ease, 
 Now suffering, now enjoying. Strong, vast soul, 
 Tuned to heroic deeds, and set on high 
 Above the range of common petty sins — 
 Too high to mate with an unequal soul, 
 Too full of striving for contented days. 
 
 Ah me, how well I do recall the cause 
 Of all our ills ! I was a happy bride 
 When that dark Ate which pursues the steps 
 Of heroes— innocent blood-guiltiness— 
 Drove us to exile, and I joyed to be 
 His own, and share his pain. To a swift stream 
 Fleeing we came, where a rough ferryman 
 Waited, more brute than man. My hero plunged 
 In those fierce depths and battled with their flow. 
 And with great labour gained the strand, and bade 
 The monster row me to him. But with lust 
 And brutal cunning in his eyes, the thing 
 Seized me and turned to fly with me, when swift
 
 :33 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 An arrow hissed from the unerring bow, 
 
 Pierced him, and loosed his grasp. Then as his eyes 
 
 Grew glazed in death there came in them a gleam 
 
 Of what I know was hate, and he said, ' Talce 
 
 Tlus white robe. It is costly. See, my blood 
 
 Has stained it but a little. I did wrong : 
 
 I know it, and repent me. If there come 
 
 A time when he grows cold — for all the race 
 
 Of heroes wander, nor can any love 
 
 Fix theirs for long — take it and wrap him. in it, 
 
 And he shall love again.' Then, from tlie strange 
 
 Deep look within his eyes I shrank in fear, 
 
 And left him half in pity, and I went 
 
 To meet my Lord, who rose from that fierce stream 
 
 Fair as a god. 
 
 Ah me, the weary days 
 We women live, spending our anxious souls. 
 Consumed with jealous fancies, hungering still 
 For the beloved voice and ear and eye, 
 And hungering all in vain ! For life is more 
 T(.) youthful manhood than to sit at home
 
 DEIAXEIRA. 139 
 
 Before t!;e her.rth to watch the children's ways 
 
 And lead the life of petty household care 
 
 Which doth content us women. Day by day 
 
 I pined in Trachis for my love, while he, 
 
 Now in some warlike exploit busied, now 
 
 Fighting some monster, now at some fair court, 
 
 Resting awhile till some new enterprise 
 
 Called him, returned not. News of treacheries 
 
 Avenged, friends succoured, dreadful monsters slain, 
 
 Came from him : always triumph, always fame. 
 
 And honour, and success, and reverence, 
 
 And sometimes, words of love for me who pined 
 
 For more than words, and would have gone to him 
 
 But that the toils of such high errantry 
 
 Asked more than woman's strength. 
 
 So the slow years 
 Vexed me alone in Trachis, set forlorn 
 In solitude, nor hearing at the gate 
 The frank and cheering voice, nor on the stair 
 The heavy tread, nor feeling the strong arm 
 Around me in the darkling nifjht, when all
 
 140 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 My being ran slow. Last, subtle whispers came 
 
 Of womanish wiles which kept my Lord from me, 
 
 And one who, young and fair, a fresh-blown life 
 
 And virgin, younger, fairer far than I 
 
 When first he loved me, held him in the toils 
 
 Of scarce dissembled love. Not easily 
 
 Might I believe this evil, but at last 
 
 The oft -repeated malice finding me 
 
 Forlorn, and sitting imp-like at my ear, 
 
 Possessed me, and the fire of jealous love 
 
 Raged through my veins, not turned as yet to hale — 
 
 Too well I loved for that — but breeding in me 
 
 Unfaith in him. Love, setting him so high 
 
 And self so low, betrayed me, and I prayed, 
 
 Constrained to hold him false, the immortal gods 
 
 To make him love again. 
 
 But still he came not. 
 And still the maddening rumours worked, and still 
 • Fair, young, and a king's daughter,' the same words 
 Smote me and pierced mc. Oh, there is no pain 
 In Hades — nay, nor decj^est Hell itself,
 
 DEIANE!RA. 141 
 
 Like that of jealous hearts, the torture-pain 
 Which racked my life so long. 
 
 Till one fair morn 
 There came a joyful message. ' He has come ! 
 And at the shrine upon the promontory. 
 The fair white shrine upon the purple sea 
 He waits to do his solemn sacrifice 
 To the immortal gods ; and with him comes 
 A young maid beautiful as Dawn.' 
 
 Then I, 
 
 Mingling despair with love, rapt in deep joy 
 
 That he was come, plunged in the depths of hell 
 
 That she came too, bethought me of the robe 
 
 The Centaur gave me, and the words he spake, 
 
 Forgetting the deep hatred in his eyes, 
 
 And all but love, and sent a messenger 
 
 Bidding him wear it for the sacrifice 
 
 To the immortals, knowing not at all 
 
 Whom Fate decreed the victim. 
 
 Shall my soul 
 
 Forget the agonized message which he sent,
 
 1)2 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Bidding me come ? For tha.t accursed robe, 
 
 Stained with the poisonous accursed blood, 
 
 Even in the midmost flush of sacrifice 
 
 Chmg to him a devouring fire, and ate 
 
 The piteous flesh from his dear limbs, and stung 
 
 His great soft soul to madness. When I came, 
 
 Knowing it was my work, he bent on me. 
 
 Wise as a god through suffering and the near 
 
 Inevitable Death, so that no word 
 
 Of mine was needed, such a tender look 
 
 Of mild reproach as smote me. ' Couldst not ihou 
 
 Trust me, who never loved as I love thee ? 
 
 \Miat need was there of magical arts to draw 
 
 The love that never wavered ? I have lived 
 
 As he lives who through perilous paths must pass, 
 
 And lifelong trials, striving to keep down 
 
 The brute within him, born of too much strength 
 
 And sloth and vacuous days ; by diflicult toils. 
 
 Labours endured, and hard-fought fights with ill, 
 
 Now vanquished, now triumphant ; and sometime 
 
 In intervals of too long labour, finding
 
 DEIANEIRA. 143 
 
 Hij nature grown too strong for him, falls pron > 
 
 Awhile a helpless prey, then once again 
 
 Rises and spurns his chains, and fares anew 
 
 Along the perilous ways. Dearest, I would 
 
 That thou wert weJded to some knight who stayed 
 
 At home within thy gates, and were content 
 
 To see thee happy. But for me the fierce 
 
 Rude energies of life, the mighty thews. 
 
 The god-sent hate of Wrong, these drove me forth 
 
 To quench the thirst of battle. See, this maid, 
 
 This is the bride I destined for our son 
 
 \Vho grows to manhood. Do thou see to her 
 
 When I am dead, for soon I know again 
 
 The frenzy comes, and with it ceasing, death. 
 
 Go, therefore, ere I harm thee when my strength 
 
 lias lost its guidance. Thou v/ert rich in love, 
 
 Be now as rich in faith. Dear, for thy wrong 
 
 I do forgive thee.' 
 
 When I saw the glare 
 Of madness fire his eyes, and my ears heard 
 The groans the torture wrung from his great soul,
 
 144 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 I Hed with broken heart to the white shrine, 
 And knelt in prayer, but still my sad ear took 
 The agony of his cries. 
 
 Then I who knew 
 There was no hope in god or man for me 
 Who had destroyed my Love, and w ith him slain 
 The champion of the suffering race of men, 
 And that my jealous soul, though innocent 
 Of blood, was guilty of unfaith and vile 
 Mistrust, and wrapt in weakness like a cloak, 
 And made the innocent tool of hate and wrong. 
 Against all love and good ; grown sick and filled 
 With hatred of myself, rose from my knees. 
 And went a little space apart, and found 
 A gnarled tree on the cliff, and with my scarf 
 Strangling myself, swung lifeless. 
 
 But in death 
 I found him not. For, building a vast pile 
 Of scented woods on Oeta, as they tell. 
 My hero with his own hand lighted it, 
 And when the mighty pyre flamed far and wide
 
 DEIANEIRA. 145 
 
 Over all lands and seas, he climbed on it 
 And laid him down to die ; but pitying Zeus, 
 Before the swift flames reached him, in a cloud 
 Descending, snatched the strong brave soul to heaven, 
 And set him mid the stars. 
 
 Wherefore am I 
 Of all the blameless shades within this place 
 The most unhappy, if of blame, indeed, 
 I bear no load. For what is Sin itself, 
 But Error when we miss the road which leads 
 Up to the gate of heaven ? Ignorance ! 
 What if we be the cause of ignorance ? 
 Being blind who might have seen ! Yet do I know- 
 But self-inflicted pain, nor stain there is 
 Upon my soul such as they bear who know 
 The dreadful scourge with which the stern judge still 
 Lashes their sins. I am forgiven, I know. 
 Who loved so much, and one day, if Zeus will, 
 I shall go free from hence, and join my Lord, 
 And be with him again." 
 
 And straight I seemed,
 
 146 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Passing, to look on some tormented life, 
 Which knows to-day the irony of Fate 
 In self-inflicted pain. 
 
 Together clung 
 The ghosts whom next I saw, bound three in one 
 By some invisible bond. A sire, of port 
 God-like as Zeus, to whom on either hand 
 A tender stripling clung. I knew them well, 
 As all men know them. One fair youth spake low 
 " Father, it does not pain me now, to be 
 Drawn close to thee, and by a double bond. 
 With this my brother." And the other : "Nay, 
 Nor me, O father ; but I bless the chain 
 Which binds our souls in union. If some trace 
 Of pain still linger, heed it not — 'tis past : 
 Still let us cling to thee." 
 
 He with grave eyes 
 Full of great tenderness, upon his sons
 
 LAOCOON. 147 
 
 Looked with the father's gaze, that is so far 
 More sweet, and sad, and tender, than the gaze 
 Of mothers, — now on this one, now on that, 
 Regarding them. *' Dear sons, whom on the earih 
 I loved and cherished, it was hard to watch 
 Your pain; but now 'tis finished, and we stand 
 For ever, through all future days of time. 
 Symbols of patient suffering undeserved, 
 Endured and vanquished. Yet sad memory still 
 Brings back our time of trial. 
 
 The young day 
 Broke fair when I, the dread Poseidon's priest, 
 Joyous because the unholy strife was done. 
 And seeing the blue waters now left free 
 
 Of hostile keels — save where upon the verge 
 Far off the white sails faded — rose at dawn, 
 And white robed, and in garb of sacrifice. 
 And with the sacred fillet round my brows. 
 Stood at the altar ; and behind, ye twain. 
 Decked by your mother's hand with new -cleansed 
 robes,
 
 148 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And with fresh flower-wreathed chaplets on your curls, 
 
 Attended, and your clear young voices made 
 
 Music that touched your father's eyes with tears, 
 
 If not the careless gods. I seem to hear 
 
 Those high sweet accents mounting in the hymn 
 
 Which rose to all the blessed gods who dwelt 
 
 Upon the far Olympus — Zeus, the Lord, 
 
 And Sovereign Here, and the immortal choir 
 
 Of Deities, but chiefly to the dread 
 
 Poseidon, him who sways the purple sea 
 
 As with a sceptre, shaking the fixed earth 
 
 ■With stress of thundering surges. By the shrine 
 
 The meek-eyed victim, for the sacrifice. 
 
 Stood with his gilded horns. The hymns were done, 
 
 And I in act to strike, when all the crowd 
 
 Who knelt behind us, with a common fear 
 
 Cried, with a cry that well might freeze the blood, 
 
 And then, with fearful glances towards the sea, 
 
 Fled, leaving us alone — me, the high priest. 
 
 And ye, the acolytes ; forlorn of men. 
 
 Alone, but with our god.
 
 LAOCOON. 149 
 
 But we stirred not : 
 We dared not fly, who in the solemn act 
 Of worship, and the ecstasy which comes 
 To the believer's soul, saw heaven revealed, 
 The mysteries unveiled, the inner sky 
 Which meets the enraptured gaze. How should we 
 
 fear 
 Who thus were god-encircled ! So we stood 
 ^^'hile the long ritual spent itself, nor cast 
 An eye upon the sea. Till as I came 
 To that great act which offers up a life 
 Before life's Lord, and the full mystery * 
 
 Was trembling to completion, quick I heard 
 A stifled cry of agony, and knew 
 My children's voices. And the father's heart. 
 Which is far more than rite or service done 
 By man for god, seeing that it is divine 
 And comes from God to men — this rising in me. 
 Constrained me, and I ceased my jirayer, and turned 
 To succour you, and lo ! the awful coils 
 Which crushed your lives already, bound mc round
 
 150 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And crushed me also, as you clung to me, 
 
 In common death. Some god had heard the prayer, 
 
 And lo ! we were ourselves the sacrifice — 
 
 The priest, the victim, the accepted life, 
 
 The blood, the pain, the salutary loss. 
 
 Was it not better thus to cease and die 
 Together in one blest moment, mid the flush 
 And ecstasy of worship, and to know 
 Ourselves the victims ? They were wrong who taught 
 That 'twas some jealous goddess who destroyed 
 Our lives, revengeful for discovered wiles, 
 Or hateful of our land. Not readily 
 Should such base passions sway the immortal gods ; 
 But rather do I hold it sooth indeed 
 That Zeus himself it was, who pitying 
 The ruin he foreknew, yet might not stay, 
 Since mightier Fate decreed it, sent in haste 
 Those dreadful messengers, and bade them take 
 The pious lives he loved, before the din 
 Of midnight slaughter woke, and the fair town
 
 LAOCOON. 151 
 
 Flamed pitifully to the skies, and all 
 
 Was blood and ruin. Surely it was best 
 
 To die as we did, and in death to live, 
 
 A vision for all ages of high pain 
 
 Which passes into beauty, and is merged 
 
 In one accordant whole, as discords merge 
 
 In that great Harmony which ceaseless rings 
 
 From the tense chords of life, than to ha\ie lived 
 
 Our separate lives, and died our separate deaths, 
 
 And left no greater mark than drops which rain 
 
 Upon the unbounded sea. Those hosts which fell 
 
 Before the Scsean gate upon the sand. 
 
 Nor found a bard to sing their fate, but left 
 
 Their bones to dogs and kites — were they more blest 
 
 Than we who, in the people's sight before 
 
 Ilium's unshattered towers, lay down to die 
 
 Our swift miraculous death ? Dear sons, and good, 
 
 Dear children of my love, now doubly dear 
 
 For this our common sorrow ; suffering binds 
 
 Not gyves of pain alone, but fashions for us 
 
 A chain of purest gold, which though withdrawn
 
 152 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Or felt no longer, knits 'tween soul and soul, 
 
 Indissoluble bonds, and draws our lives 
 
 So close, that though the individual life 
 
 Be merged, there springs a common life which grows 
 
 To such dread beauty, as has power to take 
 
 The sting from sorrow, and transform the pain 
 
 Into transcendent joy : as from the storm 
 
 The unearthly rainbow draws its myriad hues 
 
 And steeps the world in fairness. All our lives 
 
 Are notes that fade and sink, and so are merged 
 
 In the full harmony of Being. Dear sons. 
 
 Cling closer to me. Life nor Death has torn 
 
 Our lives asunder, as for some, but drawn 
 
 Their separate strands together in a knot 
 
 Closer than Life itself, stronger than Death, 
 
 Insoluble as Fate." 
 
 Then they three clung 
 Together — the strong father and young sons. 
 And in their loving eyes I saw the Pain 
 Fade into Joy, Suffering in Beauty lost, 
 And Death in Love !
 
 NARCISSUS. XS3 
 
 By a still sullen pool, 
 Into its dark depths gazing, lay the ghost 
 Whom next I passed. In form, a lovely youth, 
 Scarce passed from boyhood. Golden curls were his, 
 And wide blue eyes. The semblance of a smile 
 Came on his lip — a girl's but for the down 
 Which hardly shaded it ; but the pale cheek 
 Was soft as any maiden's, and his robe 
 Was virginal, and at his breast he bore 
 The perfumed amber cup which, when March comes, 
 Gems the dry woods and windy wolds, and speaks 
 The resurrection. 
 
 Looking up, he said : 
 " Methought I saw her then, my love, my fair, 
 My beauty, my ideal ; the dim clouds 
 Lifted, methought, a little — or was it 
 Fond Fancy only ? For I know that here 
 No sunbeam cleaves the twilight, Ixit a mist
 
 154 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Creeps over all the sky and fields and pools, 
 And blots them ; and I know I seek in vain 
 My earth-sought beauty, nor can Fancy bring 
 An answer to my thought from these blind depths 
 And unawakened skies. Yet has use made 
 The quest so precious, that I keep it here. 
 Well knowing it is vain. 
 
 On the old earth 
 'Twas otherwise, when in fair Thessaly 
 I walked regardless of all nymphs who sought 
 My love, but sought in vain, whether it were 
 Dryad or Naiad from the woods or streams, 
 Or white-robed Oread fleeting on the side 
 Of fair Olympus, echoing back my sighs. 
 In vain, for through the mountains day by day 
 I wandered, and along the foaming brooks. 
 And by the pine-woods dry, and never took 
 A thought for love, nor ever 'mid the throng 
 Of loving nymphs who knew me beautiful 
 I dallied, unregarding ; till they said 
 Some died for love of me, who loved not one.
 
 NARCISSUS. 155 
 
 And yet I cared not, wandering still alone 
 Amid the mountains by the scented pines. 
 
 Till one fair day, when all the hills were still, 
 Nor any breeze made murmur through the boughs, 
 Nor cloud was on the heavens, I wandered slow, 
 Leaving the nymphs who fain with dance and song 
 Had kept me 'midst the glades, and strayed away 
 Among the pines, enwrapt in fantasy. 
 And by the beechen dells which clothe the feet 
 Of fair Olympus, wrapt in fantasy. 
 Weaving the thin and unembodied shapes 
 Which Fancy loves to body forth, and leave 
 In marble or in song ; and so strayed down 
 To a low sheltered vale above the plains, 
 Where the lush grass grew thick, and the stream stayed 
 Its garrulous tongue ; and last upon the bank 
 Of a still pool I came, where was no flow 
 Of water, but the depths were clear as air, 
 And nothing but the silvery gleaming side 
 Of tiny fishes stirred. There lay I down
 
 156 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Upon the flowery bank, and scanned the deep, 
 Half in a waking dream. 
 
 Then swift there rose. 
 From those enchanted depths, a face more fair 
 Than ever I had dreamt of, and I knew 
 My sweet long-sought ideal : the thick curls, 
 Like these, were golden, and the white robe showed 
 Like this ; but for the wondrous eyes and lips, 
 The tender loving glance, the sunny smile 
 Upon the rosy mouth, these knew I not, 
 Not even in dreams ; and yet I seemed to trace 
 Myself within them too, as who should find 
 His former self expunged, and him transformed 
 To some high thin ideal, separate 
 From what he was, by some invisible bar. 
 And yet the same in difference. As I moved 
 My anns to clasp her to me, lo ! she moved 
 Her eager arms to mine, smiled to my smile, 
 Looked love to love, and answered longing eyes 
 With longing. When my full heart burst in words, 
 ' Dearest, I love thee,' lo ! the lovely lips,
 
 NARCISSUS. IS7 
 
 ' Dearest, I love thee,' sighed, and through the air 
 The love-lorn echo rang. But when I longed 
 To answer kiss with kiss, and stooped my lips 
 To her sweet lips in that long thrill which strains 
 Soul unto soul, the cold lymph came between 
 And chilled our love, and kept us separate souls 
 Which fain would mingle, and the self-same heaven 
 Rose, a blue vault above us, and no shade 
 Of earthly thing obscured us, as we lay 
 Two reflex souls, one and yet different, 
 Two sundered souls longing to be at one. 
 
 There, all day long, until the light was gone 
 And took my love away, I lay and loved 
 The image, and when night was come, ' Farewell,' 
 I whispered, and she whispered back, ' Farewell,' 
 With oh, such yearning ! Many a day we spent 
 By that clear pool together all day long. 
 And many a clouded hour on the wet grass 
 I lay beneath the rain, and saw her not. 
 And sickened for her ; and sometimes the pool
 
 153 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Was thick with flood, and hid her ; and sometimes 
 Some cold wind ruffled those clear wells, and left 
 But glimpses of her, and I rose at eve 
 Unsatisfied, a cold chill in my limbs 
 And fever at my heart : until, too soon ! 
 The summer faded, and the skies were hid, 
 And my love came not, but a quenchless thirst 
 Wasted my life. And all the winter long 
 The bright sun shone not, or the thick ribbed ice 
 Obscured her, and I pined for her, and knew 
 My life ebb from me, till I grew too weak 
 To seek her, fearing I should see no more 
 My dear. And so the long dead winter waned 
 And the slow spring came back. 
 
 And one blithe day. 
 When life was in the woods, and the birds sang, 
 And soft airs fanned the hills, I knew again 
 Some gleam of hope within me, and again 
 With feeble limbs crawled forth, and felt the spring 
 Blossom within me ; and the flower-starred glades, 
 The bursting trees, the building nests, the songs,
 
 NARCISSUS. 159 
 
 The hurry of life revived me ; and I crept, 
 
 Ghost-like, amid the joy, until I flung 
 
 My panting frame, and weary nerveless limbs, 
 
 Down by the cold still pool. 
 
 And lo ! I saw 
 
 My love once more, not beauteous as of old, 
 
 But oh, how changed ! the fair young cheek grown 
 
 pale. 
 The great eyes, larger than of yore, gaze forth 
 With a sad yearning look ; and a great pain 
 And pity took me which were more than love. 
 And with a loud and wailing voice I cried, 
 * Dearest, I come again. I pine for thee,' 
 And swift she answered back, ' I pine for thee ; ' 
 ' Come to me, oh, my own,' I cried, and she — 
 ' Come to me, oh, my own.' Then with a cry 
 Of love I joined myself to her, and plunged 
 Beneath the icy surface with a kiss, 
 And fainted, and am here. 
 
 And now, indeed, 
 I know not if it was myself I sought.
 
 i6o THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 As some tell, or another. For I hold 
 That what we seek is but our other self. 
 Other and higher, neither wholly like 
 Nor wholly different, the half-life the gods 
 Retained when half was given — one the man 
 And one the woman ; and I longed to round 
 ■The imperfect essence by its complement. 
 For only thus the perfect life stands forth 
 Whoie, self-sufficing. Worse it is to live 
 Ill-mated than imperfect, and to move 
 From a false centre, not a perfect sphere, 
 But with a crooked bias sent oblique 
 Athwart life's furrows. 'Twas myself, indeed. 
 Thus only that I sought, that lovers use 
 To see in that they love, not that which is, 
 But that their fancy feigns, and view themselves 
 Reflected in their love, yet glorified. 
 And finer and more pure. 
 
 Wherefore it is : 
 All love which finds its own ideal mate 
 Is happy — happy that which gives itself
 
 NARCISSUS. lO] 
 
 Unto itself, and keeps, through long calm years, 
 
 The tranquil image in its eyes, and knows 
 
 Fulfilment and is blest, and day by day 
 
 Wears love like a white flower, nor holds it less 
 
 Though sharp winds bite, or hot suns fade, or age 
 
 Sully its perfect whiteness, but inhales 
 
 Its fragrance, and is glad. But happier still 
 
 lie who long seeks a high goal unattained. 
 
 And wearies for it all his days, nor knows 
 
 Possession sate his thirst, but still pursues 
 
 The fleeting loveliness — now seen, now lost, 
 
 But evermore grown fairer, till at last 
 
 He stretches forth his arms and takes the fair 
 
 In one long rapture, and its name is Death." 
 
 Thus he ; and seeing me stand grave : " Farewell. 
 If ever thou shouldst happen on a wood 
 In Thessaly, upon the plain-ward spurs 
 Of fair Olympus, take the path which winds 
 Through the close vale, and thou shalt see the pool 
 Where once I found my life. And if in Spring 
 
 M -
 
 i62 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Thou go there, round the margin thou shalt know 
 
 These amber blooms bend meekly, smiling down 
 
 Upon the crj'stal surface. Pluck them not. 
 
 But kneel a little while, and breathe a prayer 
 
 To the fair god of Love, and let them be. 
 
 For in those tender flowers is hid the life 
 
 That once was mine. All things are bound in one 
 
 In earth and heaven, nor is there any gulf 
 
 'Twixt things that live, — the flower that was a life. 
 
 The life that is a flower, — but one sure chain 
 
 Binds all, as now I know. 
 
 If there are still 
 Fair Oreads on the hills, say to them, sir, 
 They must no longer pine for me, but find 
 Some worthier lover, who can love again ; 
 For I have found my love." 
 
 And to the pool 
 He turned, and gazed with lovely eyes, and showed 
 Fair as an angel.
 
 MEDUSA. 163 
 
 Leaving him enwrapt 
 In musings, to a gloomy pass I came 
 Between dark rocks, where scarce a gleam of 
 
 light, 
 Not even the niggard light of that dim land. 
 Might enter ; and the soil was black and bare. 
 Nor even the thin growths which scarcely clothed 
 The higher fields might live. Hard by a cave 
 Which sloped down steeply to the lowest depths, 
 ■\Vhence dreadful sounds ascended, seated still, 
 Her head upon her hands, I saw a maid 
 With eyes fixed on the ground — not Tartarus 
 It was, but Hades ; and she knew no pain. 
 Except her painful thought. Yet there it seemed, 
 As here, the unequal measure which awaits 
 The adjustment, and meanwhile, inspires the strife 
 Which rears life's palace walls ; and fills the sail 
 Which bears our bark across unfathomed seas,
 
 i64 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 To its last harbour ; this bore sway there too, 
 And 'twas a kickless shade which sat and wept 
 Amid the gloom, though blameless. Suddenly, 
 She raised her head, and lo ! the long curls, writh.ed, 
 Tangled, and snake-like — as the dripping hair 
 Of a dead girl who freed from life and shame, 
 From out the cruel wintry flow, is laid 
 Stark on the snow with dreadful staring eyes 
 Like hers. For when she raised her eyes to mine. 
 They chilled my blood, so great a woe they bore ; 
 And as she gazed, wide-eyed, I knew my pulse 
 Beat slow, and my limbs stiffen. Then they wore, 
 At length, a softer look, and life revived 
 Within my breast as thus she softly spoke : 
 
 " Nay, friend, I would not harm thee. I have 
 known 
 Great sorrow, and sometimes it racks me still, 
 And turns me into stone, and makes my eyes 
 As dreadful as of yore ; and yet it comes 
 But seldom, as thou sawcst, now, for Time
 
 MEDUSA. i6s 
 
 And Death have healing hands. Only I love 
 To sit within the darkness here, nor face 
 The throng of happier ghosts ; if any ghost 
 Of happiness come here. For on the earth 
 They wronged me bitterly, and turned to stone 
 My heart, till scarce I knev,' if e'er I v/as 
 The happy girl of yore. 
 
 That youth v/ho dreams 
 Up yonder by the margin of the lake, 
 Knew but a cold ideal love, but me 
 Love in unearthly guise, but bodily form, 
 Seized and betrayed. 
 
 I was a priestess once, 
 Of stern Athene, doing day by day 
 Due worship ; raising, every dawn that came. 
 My cold pure hymns to take her virgin ear ; 
 Nor sporting with the joyous company 
 Of youths and maids, who at the neighbouring shrine 
 Of Aphrodite served. Nor dance nor song 
 Allured me, nor the pleasant days of youth 
 And twilights 'mid the vines. They held me cold
 
 i66 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Who were my friends in childhood. Yoi my soul 
 
 Was virginal, and at the virgin shrine 
 
 I knelt, athirst for knowledge. Day by day 
 
 The long cold ritual sped, the liturgies 
 
 Were done, the barren hymns of praise went up 
 
 Before the goddess, and the ecstasy 
 
 Of faith possessed me wholly, till almost 
 
 I knew not I was woman. Yet I knew 
 
 That I was fair to see, and fit to share 
 
 Some natural honest love, and bear the load 
 
 Of children like the rest ; only my soul 
 
 Was lost in higher yearnings. 
 
 Like a god, 
 He burst upon those pallid lifeless days. 
 Bringing fresh airs and salt, as from the sea, 
 And wrecked my life. How should a virgin know 
 Deceit, who never at the joyous shrine 
 Of Cypris knelt, but ever lived apart. 
 And so grew guilty ? For if I had spent 
 My days among the throng, either my fault 
 Were blameless, or undone. For innocence
 
 MEDUSA. 167 
 
 The tempter spreads his net. For innocence 
 The gods keep all their terrors. Innocence 
 It is that bears the burden, which for guilt 
 Is lightened, and the spoiler goes his way, 
 Uncaring, joyous, leaving her alone. 
 The victim and unfriended. 
 
 Was it just 
 In her, my mistress, who had had my youth. 
 To wreak such vengeance on me ? I had erred, 
 It may be ; but on him, whose was the guilt, 
 No heaven-sent vengeance lighted, but he sped 
 Away to other hearts across the deep. 
 Careless and free ; but me, the cold stern eyes 
 Of the pure goddess withered ; and the scorn 
 Of maids, despised before, and the great blank 
 Of love, this wrung my heart, whose love was gone, 
 And froze my blood ; set on my brow despair. 
 And turned my gaze to stone, and filled my eyes 
 With horror, and stiffened the soft curls which once 
 Lay smooth and fair into such snake-like rings 
 As made my aspect fearful. All who saw.
 
 i63 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Shrank from me and grew cold, and felt the warm, 
 Full tide of life freeze in them, seeing in me 
 Love's work, who sat WTapt up and lost in shame, 
 As in a cloak, consuming my own heart, 
 And was in hell already. As they gazed 
 Upon me, my despair looked forth so cold 
 From out my eyes, that if some spoiler came 
 Fresh from his mckedness, and looked on them. 
 Their glare would strike him dead ; and those fair curls, 
 "Which once the accursed toyed with, grew to be 
 The poisonous things thou seest ; and so, with hate 
 Of man's injustice and the gods', who knew 
 Me blameless, and yet punished me ; and sick 
 Of life and love, and loathing earth and sky, 
 And feeding on my sorrow. Hate at last 
 Left me a Fur}'. 
 
 Ah, the load of life 
 ^\^lich lives for hatred ! We are made to love — 
 We women, and the injury which turns 
 The honey of our lives to gall, transforms 
 The angel to the fiend. For it is sweet
 
 MEDUSA. 169 
 
 To know the dreadful sense of strength, and smite 
 
 And leave the tyrant dead with a glance ; ay ! sweet, 
 
 In that fierce lust of power, to slay the life 
 
 Which harmed not, when the suppliants' cry ascends 
 
 To ears which hate has deafened. So I lived 
 
 Long time in miser}' ; to my sleepless eyes 
 
 No healing slumbers coming ; but at length, 
 
 Zeus and the goddess pitying, I knew 
 
 Soft rest once more veiling my dreadful gaze 
 
 In peaceful slumbers. Then a blessed dream 
 
 I dreamt. For, lo ! a god-like knight in mail 
 
 Of gold, who sheared with his keen flashing blade ; 
 
 With scarce a pang of pain, the visage cold 
 
 ^^^^ich too great sorrow left me ; at one stroke 
 
 Clean from the trunk, and then o'er land and sea, 
 
 Invisible, sped with winged heels, to v/here, 
 
 Upon a sea-worn cape, a fair young maid, 
 
 More blameless even than I was, chained and bound. 
 
 Waited a monster from the deep and stood 
 
 In innocent nakedness. Then, as he rose, 
 
 Loathsome, from out the depths, a monstrous growth,
 
 I70 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 A creature v/holly serpent, partly man, 
 
 The wrongs that I had known, stronger than death. 
 
 Rose up with such black hate in me again, 
 
 And wreathed such hissing poison through my hair, 
 
 And shot such deadly glances from my eyes, 
 
 That nought that saw might live. And the vile worm 
 
 Was slain, and she delivered. Then I dreamt 
 
 INIy mistress, whom I thought so stern to me, 
 
 Athene, set those dreadful staring eyes, 
 
 And that despairing visage, on her shield 
 
 Of chastity, and bears it evermore 
 
 To fright the waverer from the wrong he would. 
 
 And strike the unrepenting spoiler, dead." 
 
 Then for a little paused she, while I saw 
 Again her eyes grown dreadful, till once more, 
 And with a softer glance : 
 
 " From that blest dream 
 I woke not on the earth, but only here. 
 And now my pain is lightened since I know 
 My dream, which was a dream within the dream
 
 MEDUSA. 171 
 
 Which is our life, fulfilled. And I have saved 
 Another through my suffering, and through her 
 A people. Oh, strange chain of sacrifice, 
 That binds an innocent life, and from its blood 
 And sorrow works out joy ! Oh, mystery 
 Of pain and evil ! wrong grown salutary, 
 And mighty to redeem ! If thou shouldst see 
 A woman on the earth, v/ho pays to-day 
 Like penalty of sin, and the new gods 
 (For after Saturn, Zeus ruled ; after him 
 It may be there are others) love to take 
 The tender heart of girlhood, and to immure 
 Vt'ithin a cold and cloistered cell the life 
 Which nature meant to bless, and if Love come 
 Hold her accursed ; or to some poor maid, 
 Forlorn and trusting, still the tempter comes 
 And works his wrong, and leaves her in despair 
 And shame and all abhorrence, while he goes 
 His way unpunished, — if thou know her eyes 
 Freeze thee like mine — oh ! bid her lose her pain 
 In succouring others— say to her that Time
 
 172 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And De.ith have healing hands, and here there comes 
 To the forgiven transgressor only pain 
 Enough to chasten joy ! " 
 
 And a soft tear 
 Trembled v/ithin her eyes, and her sweet gaze 
 Was as the Magdalen's, the horror gone 
 And a great radiance come.
 
 A DO XI S. 173 
 
 Then as I passed 
 To upper air, I saw two figures rise 
 Together, one a woman witli a grave 
 Fair face not all unhappy, and the robes 
 And presence of a queen ; and with her walked 
 The fairest youth that ever maiden's dream 
 Conceived. And as they came, the throng of ghosts, 
 For these who were not wholly ghosts, arose, 
 And did them homage. Not the chain of love 
 Bound them, but such calm kinship as is bred 
 Of long and difficult pilgrimages borne 
 Through common perils by two souls which share 
 A common weary exile. Nor as ghosts 
 These showed, but rather like two lives which hung 
 Suspended in a trance. A halo of life 
 Played round them, and they brought a sweet brisk air 
 Tasting of earth and heaven, like sojourners 
 Who stayed but for awhile, and knew a swift 
 Release await them. First the youth it was
 
 174 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Who spake thus as they passed : 
 
 ' ' Dread Queen, once more 
 I feel life stir within me, and my blood 
 Run faster, v/hile a new strange cycle turns 
 And grows completed. Soon on the dear earth, 
 Under the lively light of fuller day, 
 I shall revive me of my wound ; and thou, 
 Passing with me yon cold and lifeless stream, 
 And the grim monster who will fawn on thee, 
 Shalt issue in royal pomp, and wreathed with flowers, 
 Upon the cheerful earth, leaving behind 
 A deeper winter for the ghosts who dwell 
 V/ithin these sunless haunts ; and I shall lie 
 Once more within loved arms, and thou shalt see 
 Thy early home, and kiss thy mother's cheek, 
 And be a girl again. But not for long ; 
 For ere the bounteous Autumn spreads her hues 
 Of gold and purple, a cold voice will call 
 And bring us to these wintry lands once more. 
 As erst so often. Blest are we, indeed, 
 Aljove the rest, and yet I would I knew
 
 ADONIS. I7S 
 
 The careless joys of old. 
 
 For in hot youth, 
 Oh, it was sweet to greet the balmy night 
 That was love's nurse, and feel the weary eyes 
 Closed by soft kisses, — sweet at early dawn 
 To wake refreshed and, scarce from loving arms 
 'Scaping, to ride afield, with winding horn, 
 By dewy heath and brake, and taste the fair 
 Young breath of early morning ; and 'twas sweet 
 To chase the bounding quarry all day long 
 With my good hounds and trusty steed, and gay 
 Young comrades of my youth, and with the eve 
 To turn home laden with the spoil, and take 
 The banquet which awaited, and sweet wine 
 Poured out, and kisses pressed on loving lips ; 
 Circled by snowy arms. Oh, it was sweet 
 To be alive and young ! 
 
 For sure it is 
 The gods gave not quick pulses and hot blood 
 And strength and beauty for no end, but would 
 That we should use them wisely ; and the fair,
 
 176 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Sweet mistress of my service was, indeed, 
 Worthy of all observance. Oh, her eyes 
 When I lay bleeding ! All day long v.'e rode, 
 I and my youthful peers, with horse and hound, 
 And knew the joy of swift pursuit and toil 
 And peril. At the last, a fierce boar turned 
 At bay, and with his gleaming tusks o'erthrew 
 My steed, and as I fell upon the flowers, 
 Pierced me as with a sword. Then, as I lay, 
 I knew the strange slow chill which, stealing, tells 
 The young that it is death. Yet knew I not 
 Or pain or fear, only great pity, indeed, 
 That she should lose her love, who was so fond 
 And gracious. But when, lifting my dim gaze, 
 I saw her bend o'er me, — the lovely eyes 
 Suffused with tears, and her sweet smile replaced 
 By sweeter sorrow, — for a while I stayed 
 Life's ebbing tide, and raised my cold, white lips. 
 With a faint smile, to hers. Then, with a kiss- 
 One long last kiss, we mingled, and I knew 
 No more.
 
 ADOyiS. 177 
 
 But even in death, so strong is Love, 
 I could not wholly die ; and year by year, 
 When the flowered Spring returns, and the earth lives, 
 Love opens these dread gates, and calls me forth 
 Across the gulf. Not here, indeed, she comes, 
 Being a goddess and in heaven, but smooths 
 My path to the old earth, where still I know 
 Once more the dear lost days, and once again 
 Blossom on that soft breast, and am again 
 A youth, and rapt in love ; and yet not all 
 As careless as of yore ; but seem to know 
 The early spring of passion, tamed by time 
 And suffering to a calmer, fuller flow, 
 Less fitful, but more strong." 
 
 Then the sad Queen : 
 " Fair youth, thy lot I know, for I am old 
 As the old earth and yet as young as is 
 The budding spring, and I was here a Queen, 
 When Love was not or Time, and to my arms 
 Thou camest as a little child, to dwell 
 Within the halls of Death, for without Death 
 
 N -- 
 
 L
 
 178 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 There were nor Birth nor Love, nor would Life yearn 
 
 To lose itself within another life, 
 
 And dying, to be born. I, too, have died 
 
 For love in part, and live again through love ; 
 
 For in the far-off years, when Time was young. 
 
 And Love unborn on earth, and Zeus in heaven 
 
 Ruled, a young sovereign ; I, a maiden, dwelt 
 
 With loved Demeter on the sunny plains 
 
 Of our ovni Sicily. There, day by day, 
 
 I sported with my playmate goddesses. 
 
 In virgin freedom. Budding age made gay 
 
 Our lightsome feet, and on the flowery slopes 
 
 We wandered daily, gathering flowers to weave 
 
 In careless garlands for our locks, and passed 
 
 The days in innocent gladness. Thought of Love 
 
 There came not to us, for as yet the earth 
 
 Was virginal, nor yet had Eros come 
 
 With his delicious pain. 
 
 And one fair morn — 
 Not all the ages blot it — on the side 
 Of /Etna we were straying. There was then
 
 PERSEPHONE. 179 
 
 Summer nor winter, springtide nor tlie time 
 Of liarvest, but tlie soft unfailing sun 
 Shone always, and the sowing time was one 
 With reaping ; fruit and flower together sprung 
 Upon the trees ; and blade and ripened ear 
 Together clothed the plains. There, as I strayed, 
 Sudden a black cloud down the rugged side 
 Of i^tna, mixed with fire and dreadful sound 
 Of thunder, rolled around me, and I heard 
 The maids who were my fellows turn and flee 
 With shrieks and cries for me. 
 
 But I, I knew 
 No terror while the god o'ershadowed me. 
 Hiding my life in his, nor when I wept 
 My flowers all withered, and my blood ran slow 
 Within a wintry land. Some voice there was 
 Which said, ' Fear not. Thou shalt return and see 
 Thy mother again, only a little while 
 Fate wills that thou shouldst tarry, and become 
 Queen of another world. Thou seest that all 
 Thy flowers are faded. They shall live again
 
 i8o THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 On earth, as thou shalt, as thou livest now 
 The Life of Death — for what is Death but Life 
 Suspended as in sleep ? The primal rule 
 Wiiere life was constant, and the sun o'erhead. 
 Blazed forth unchanging, changes and is hidden 
 Awhile. This region which thou seest, where all 
 The trees are lifeless, and the flowers are dead, 
 Is but the self-same earth on which erewhile 
 Thou sportedst fancy free. ' 
 
 So, without fear 
 I wandered on this bare land, seeing far 
 Upon the sky the peaks of my own hills 
 And crests of my own woods. Till, when I grew 
 Hungered, ere yet another form I saw ; 
 Along the silent alleys journeying, 
 And leafless groves ; a fair and mystic tree 
 Rose like a heart in shape, and 'mid its leaves 
 One golden mystic fruit with a fair seed 
 Hid in it. This, with childish hand, I took 
 And ate, and straight I knew the tree was Life, 
 And the fruit Death, and the hid seed was Love.
 
 PERSEPHONE. i8i 
 
 Ah, sweet strange fruit ! the which if any taste 
 They may no longer keep their lives of old 
 Or their own selves unchanged, but some weird 
 
 change 
 And subtle alchemy comes which can transmute 
 The blood, and mould the spirits of gods and men 
 In some new magical form. Not as before, 
 Our life comes to us, though the passion cools. 
 No, never as before. My mother came 
 Too late to seek me. She had power to raise 
 A life from out Death's grasp, but from the arms 
 Of Love she might not take me, nor undo 
 Love's past for all her strength. She came and sought 
 With fires her daughter over land and sea. 
 Beyond the paths of all the setting stars, 
 In vain, and over all the earth in vain. 
 Seeking whom love disguised. Then on all lands 
 She cast the spell of barrenness ; the wheat 
 Was blighted in the ear, the purple grapes 
 Blushed no more on the vines, and all the gods
 
 1 82 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Were sorrowful, seeing the load of ill 
 
 My rape had laid on men. Last, Zeus himself, 
 
 Pitying the evil that was done, sent forth 
 
 His messenger beyond the western rim 
 
 To fetch me back to earth. 
 
 But not the same 
 He found me who had eaten of Love's seed. 
 But changed into another ; nor could his power 
 Prevail to keep me wholly on the earth. 
 Or make me maid again. The wintry life 
 Is homelier often than the summer blaze 
 Of happiness unclouded ; so, when Spring 
 Comes on the world, I, coming, cross with thee, 
 Year after year, the cruel icy stream ; 
 And leave this anxious sceptre and the shades 
 Of those in hell, or those for whom, though blest. 
 No Spring comes, till the last great Spring which 
 
 brings 
 New heavens and new earth ; and lay my head 
 Upon my mother's bosom, and grow young, 
 And am a girl again.
 
 PERSEPHONE. 183 
 
 A soft air breathes 
 Across the stream and fills these barren fields 
 With the sweet odours of the earth. I know 
 Again the perfume of the violets 
 WTiich bloom on Etna's side. Soon we shall pass 
 Together to our home, while round our feet 
 The crocus flames like gold, the wind-flowers white 
 Wave their soft petals on the breeze, and all 
 The choir of flowers lift up their silent song 
 To the unclouded heavens. Thou, fair boy, 
 Shalt lie within thy love's white arms again. 
 And I within my mother's. Sweet is Love 
 In ceasing and renewal ; nay, in these 
 It lives and has its being. Thou couldst not keep 
 Thy youth as now, if always on the breast 
 Of love too late a lingerer thou hadst known 
 Possession sate thee. Nor might I have kept 
 My mother's heart, if I had lived to ripe 
 And wither on the stalk. Time calls and Change 
 Commands both men and gods, and speeds us on 
 We know not whither ; but the old earth smiles
 
 1 84 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Spring after Spring, and the seed bursts again 
 Out of its prison mould, and the dead lives 
 Renew themselves, and rise aloft and soar 
 And are transformed, clothing themselves with change 
 Till the last change be done. " 
 
 As thus she spake, 
 I saw a gleam of light flash from the eyes 
 Of all the listening shades, and a great joy 
 Thrill through the realms of Death. 
 
 And then again 
 A youthful shade I saw, a comely boy, 
 \Viih lip and cheek just touched with manly down. 
 And strong limbs wearing Spring ; in mien and garb 
 A youthful chieftain, with a perfect face 
 Of fresh young beauty, clustered curls divine, 
 And chiselled features like a sculptured god. 
 But warm and breathing life ; only the eyes, 
 The fair large eyes, were full of dreaming thought,
 
 ENDYMION. 185 
 
 And seemed to gaze beyond the world of sight, 
 On a hid world of beauty. Him I stayed, 
 Accosting with soft words of courtesy ; 
 And, on a bank of scentless flowers reclined. 
 He answered thus : 
 
 " Not for the garish sun 
 I long, nor for the splendours of high noon 
 In this dim land I languish ; for of yore 
 Full often, when the swift chase swept along 
 Through the brisk morn, or when my comrades called 
 To wrestling, or the foot-race, or to cleave 
 The sunny stream, I loved to walk apart, 
 Self-centred, sole ; and when the laughing girls 
 To some fair stripling's oaten melody 
 Made ready for the dance, I heeded not ; 
 Nor when to the loud trumpet's blast and blare 
 j\Iy peers rode forth to battle. For, one eve, 
 In Latmos, after a long day in June, 
 I stayed to rest me on a sylvan hill. 
 Where often youth and maid were wont to meet 
 Towards moonrise ; and deep slumber fell on me
 
 1 86 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Musing on Love, just as the ruddy orb 
 
 Rose on the lucid night, set in a frame 
 
 Of blooming myrtle and sharp tremulous plane ; 
 
 Deep slumber fell, and loosed my limbs in rest. 
 
 Then, as the full orb poised upon the peak, 
 There came a lovely vision of a maid, 
 WTio seemed to step as from a golden car 
 Out of the low-hung moon. No mortal form, 
 Such as ofttimes of yore I knew and clasped 
 At twilight 'mid the vines at the mad feast 
 Of Dionysus, or the fair maids cold 
 Who streamed in white processions to the shrine 
 Of the chaste Virgin Goddess ; but a shape 
 Richer and yet more pure. No thinnest veil 
 Obscured her ; but each exquisite limb revealed, 
 Gleamed like a golden statue subtly wrought 
 By a great sculptor on the architrave 
 Of some high temple-front— only in her 
 The form was soft and warm, and charged with life, 
 And breathing. As I seenied to gaze on her.
 
 ENDYMION. 187 
 
 Nearer she drew and gazed ; and as I lay 
 Supine, as in a spell, the radiance stooped 
 And kissed me on the lips, a chaste, sweet kiss, 
 Which drew my spirit with it. So I slept 
 Each night upon the hill, until the dawn 
 Came in her silver chariot from the East, 
 And chased my Love away. But ever thus 
 Dissolved in love as in a heaven-sent dream, 
 Whenever the bright circle of the moon 
 Climbed from the hills, whether in leafy June 
 Or harvest-tide, or when they leapt and pressed 
 Red-thighed the spouting must, I walked apart 
 From all, and took no thought for mortal maid, 
 Nor nimble joys of youth ; but night by night 
 I stole, when all were sleeping, to the hill. 
 And slumbered and was blest ; until I grew 
 Possest by love so deep, I seemed to live 
 In slumber only, while the waking day 
 Showed faint as any vision. 
 
 So I turned 
 Paler and paler with the months, and climbed
 
 i88 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 The steep with laboured steps and difficult breath, 
 
 But still I climbed. Ay, though the wintry frost 
 
 Chained fast the streams and whitened all the fields, 
 
 I sought my mistress through the leafless groves. 
 
 And slumbered and was happy, till the dawn 
 
 Returning found me stretched out, cold and stark. 
 
 With life's fire nigh burnt out. Till one clear night. 
 
 When the birds shivered in the pines, and all 
 
 The inner heavens stood open, lo ! she came. 
 
 Brighter and kinder still, and kissed my eyes 
 
 And half-closed lips, and drew my soul through them. 
 
 And in one precious ecstasy dissolved 
 
 iSIy life. And thenceforth, ever on the hill 
 
 I lie unseen of man ; a cold, white form. 
 
 Still young, through all the ages ; but my soul. 
 
 Clothed in this thin presentment of old days, 
 
 Walks this dim land, where never moonrise comes, 
 
 Nor day-break, but a twilight waiting-time. 
 
 No more ; and, ah ! how weary ! Yet I judge 
 
 My lot a higher far than his who spends 
 
 His youth on swift hot pleasure, quickly past ;
 
 ENDYMION. 189 
 
 Or theirs, my equals', who through long calm years 
 
 Grew sleek in dull content of wedded lives 
 
 And fair-grown offspring. Many a day for them. 
 
 While I was wandering here, and my bones bleached 
 
 Upon the rocks, the sweet autumnal sun 
 
 Beamed, and the grapes grew purple. Many a day 
 
 They heaped up gold, they knelt at festivals. 
 
 They waxed in high report and fame of men. 
 
 They gave their girls in marriage ; while for me 
 
 Upon the untrodden peaks, the cold, grey morn. 
 
 The snows, the rains, the winds, the untempered 
 
 blaze. 
 Beat year by year, until I turned to stone, 
 And the great eagles shrieked at me, and wheeled 
 Affrighted. Yet I judge it better indeed 
 To seek in life, as now I know I sought. 
 Some fair impossible Love, which slays our life, 
 Some fair ideal raised too high for man ; 
 And failing to grow mad, and cease to be. 
 Than to decline, as they do who have found 
 Broad-paunched content and weal and happiness :
 
 igo THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And so an end. For one day, as I know, 
 The high aim unfulfilled fulfils itself ; 
 The deep, unsatisfied thirst is satisfied ; 
 And through this twilight, broken suddenly. 
 The inmost heaven, the lucent stars of God, 
 The Moon of Love, the Sun of Life ; and I, 
 I who pine here — I on the Latmian hill 
 Shall soar aloft and find them." 
 
 With the word. 
 There beamed a shaft of dawn athwart the skies, 
 And straight the sentinel thrush within the yew 
 Sang out reveille to the hosts of day. 
 Soldierly ; and the pomp and rush of life 
 Began once more, and left me there alone 
 Amid the awaking world.
 
 PSYCHE. 191 
 
 Nay, not alone. 
 One fair shade lingered in the fuller day, 
 The last to come, when now my dream had grown 
 I lalf mixed with waking thoughts, as grows a dream 
 In summer mornings when the broader light 
 1 )azzles the sleeper's eyes ; and is most fair 
 Of all and best remembered, and becomes 
 Part of our waking life, when older dreams 
 Grow fainter, and are fled. So this remained 
 The fairest of the visions that I knew, 
 Most precious and most dear. 
 
 The increasing light 
 Shone through her, finer than the thinnest shade. 
 And yet most full of beauty ; golden wings. 
 From her fair shoulders springing, seemed to lift 
 Her stainless feet from the cold ground and snatch 
 Their wearer into air ; and in her eyes 
 Was such fair glance as comes from virgin love.
 
 192 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Long chastened and triumphant. Every trace 
 
 Of earth had vanished from her, and she showed 
 
 As one who walks a saint ah-eady in life, 
 
 Virgin or mother. Immortality 
 
 Breathed from those radiant eyes which yet had passed 
 
 Between the gates of death. I seemed to hear 
 
 The Soul of mortals speaking : 
 
 " I was born 
 Of a great race and mighty, and was grown 
 Fair, as they said, and good, and kept a life 
 Pure from all stain of passion. Love I knev/ not, 
 Who was absorbed in duty ; and the Queen 
 Of gods and men, seeing my life more calm 
 Than human, hating my impassive heart. 
 Sent down her perfect son in wrath to earth. 
 And bade him break me. 
 
 But when Eros came, 
 It did repent him of the task, for Love 
 Is kin to Duty. 
 
 And within my life 
 I knew miraculous change, and a soft flame
 
 PSYCHE. 193 
 
 Wherefrom the snows of Duty flushed to rose, 
 And the chill icy flow of mind was turned 
 To a warm stream of passion. Long I lived 
 Not knowing what had been, nor recognized 
 A Presence walking with me through my life, 
 As if by night, his face and form concealed : 
 A gracious voice alone, which none but I 
 Might hear, sustained me, and its name was Love. 
 
 Not as the earthly loves which throb and flush 
 Round earthly shrines was mine, but a pure spirit, • 
 Lovelier than all embodied love, more pure 
 And wonderful ; but never on his eyes 
 I looked, which still were hidden, and I knew not 
 The fashion of his nature ; for by night, 
 When visual eyes are blind, but the soul sees. 
 Came he, and bade me seek not to enquire 
 Or whence he came or wherefore. Nor knew I 
 His name. And always ere the coming day. 
 As if he were the Sun-god, lingering 
 With some too well-loved maiden, he would rise 
 
 O .
 
 194 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And vanish until eve. But all my being 
 
 Thrilled with my fair unearthly visitant 
 
 To higher duty and more glorious meed 
 
 Of action than of old, for it was Love 
 
 That came to me, who might not know his name. 
 
 Thus, ever rapt by dreams divine, I knew 
 The scorn that comes from weaker souls, which miss, 
 Being too low of nature, the great joy 
 Revealed to others higher ; nay, my sisters, 
 Who being of one blood with me, made choice 
 To tread the lower ways of daily life. 
 Grew jealous of me, bidding me take heed 
 Lest haply 'twas some monstrous fiend I loved. 
 Such as in fable ofttimes sought and won 
 The innocent hearts of maids. Long time I held 
 My love too dear for doubt, who was so sweet 
 And lovable. But at the last the sneers. 
 The mystery which hid him, the swift flight 
 Before the coming dawn, the shape concealed. 
 The curious girlish heart, these worked on me
 
 PSYCHE. 195 
 
 With an unsatisfied thirst. Not his own words : 
 
 ' Dear, I am with thee only while I keep 
 
 I\Iy visage hidden ; and if thou once shouldst see 
 
 My face, I must forsake thee : the high gods 
 
 Link Love with Faith, and he withdraws himself 
 
 P>om the full gaze of Knowledge ' — not even these 
 
 Could cure me of my longing, or the fear 
 
 Those mocking voices worked ; who fain would learn 
 
 The worst that might befall. 
 
 And one sad night, 
 Just ere the day leapt from the hills and brought 
 The hour when he should go : with tremulous hands, 
 Lighting my midnight lamp in fear, I stood 
 Long time uncertain, and at length turned round 
 And gazed upon my love. He lay asleep. 
 And oh, how fair he was ! Tiie flickering light 
 Fell on the fairest of the gods, stretched out 
 In happy slumber. Looking on his locks 
 Of gold, and faultless face and smile, and limbs 
 Made perfect, a great joy and trembling took me 
 Who was most blest of women, and in awe
 
 196 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And fear I stooped to kiss him. One warm drop — 
 From the full lamp within my trembling hand. 
 Or a glad tear from my too happy eyes, 
 Fell on his shoulder. 
 
 Then the god unclosed 
 His lovely eyes, and with great pity spake : 
 ' Farewell ! There is no Love except with Faith, 
 And thine is dead ! Farewell ! I come no more.' 
 And straightway from the hills the full red sun 
 Leapt up, and as I clasped my love again, 
 The lovely vision faded from his place, 
 And came no more. 
 
 Then I, with breaking heart, 
 Knowing my life laid waste by my own hand. 
 Went forth and would have sought to hide my life 
 Within the stream of Death ; but Death came not 
 To aid me who not yet was meet for Death. 
 
 Then finding that Love came not back to me, 
 I thought that in the temples of the gods 
 Haply he dwelt, and so from fane to fane
 
 PSYCHE. 197 
 
 I wandered over earth, and knelt in each, 
 Enquiring for my Love ; and I would ask 
 The priests and worshippers, ' Is this Love's shrine ? 
 Sirs, have you seen the god ? ' But never at all 
 I found him. For some answered, ' This is called 
 The Shrine of Knowledge ; ' and another, * This, 
 The Shrine of Beauty ; ' and another, ' Strength ; ' 
 And yet another 'Youth.' And I would kneel 
 And say a prayer to my Love, and rise 
 And seek another. Long, o'er land and sea, 
 I wandered, till I was not young or fair, 
 Grown wretched, seeking my lost Love ; and last. 
 Came to the smiling, hateful shrine where ruled 
 The queen of earthly love and all delight, 
 Cypris, but knelt not there, but asked of one 
 Who seemed her priest, if Eros dwelt with her. : 
 
 Then to the subtle-smiling goddess' self 
 They led me. She with hatred in her eyes : 
 * What ! thou to seek for Love, who art grown thin 
 And pale with watching ! He is not for thee.
 
 igS THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 What Love is left for such ? Thou didst despise 
 Love, and didst dwell apart. Love sits within 
 The young maid's eyes, making them beautiful. 
 Love is for youth, and joy, and happiness ; 
 And not for withered lives. Ho ! bind her fast. 
 Take her and set her to the vilest tasks, 
 And bend her pride by solitude and tears, 
 Who will not kneel to me, but dares to seek 
 A disembodied love. My son has gone 
 And left thee for thy fault, and thou shall know 
 The misery of my thralls. ' 
 
 Then in her house 
 They bound me to hard tasks and vile, and kept 
 My life from honour, chained among her slaves 
 And lowest ministers, taking despite 
 And injury for food, and set to bind 
 Their wounds whom she had tortured, and to feed 
 The pitiful lives which in her prisons pent 
 Languished in hopeless pain. There is no sight 
 Of suffering but I saw it, and was set 
 To succour it ; and all my woman's heart
 
 PSYCHE. 199 
 
 Was torn with the ineffable miseries 
 
 Which love and life have worked ; and dwelt long time 
 
 In groanings and in tears. 
 
 And then, oh joy ! 
 Oh miracle ! once more at length again 
 I felt Love's arms around me, and the kiss 
 Of Love upon my lips, and in the chill 
 Of deepest prison cells, 'mid vilest tasks, 
 The glow of his sweet breath, and the warm touch 
 Of his invisible hand, and his sweet voice, 
 Ay, sweeter than of old, and tenderer. 
 Speak to me, pierce me, hold me, fold me round 
 With arms Divine, till all the sordid earth 
 Was hued like heaven, and Life's dull prison-house 
 Turned to a golden palace, and those low tasks 
 Grew to be higher works and nobler gains 
 Than any gains of knowledge, and at last 
 He whispered softly, * Dear, unclose thine eyes. 
 Thou mayst look on me now. I go no more, 
 But am thine own for ever. ' 
 
 Then with wings
 
 200 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Of gold we soared, I looking in his eyes, 
 Over yon dark broad river, and this dim land, 
 Scarce for an instant staying till we reached 
 The inmost courts of heaven. 
 
 But sometimes still 
 I come here for a little, and speak a word 
 Of peace to those who wait. The slow wheel turns. 
 The cycles round themselves and grow complete, 
 The world's year whitens to the harvest-tide. 
 And one word only am I sent to say 
 To those dear souls, who wait here, or who now 
 Breathe earthly air — one universal word 
 To all things living, and the word is ' Love.' " 
 
 Then soared she visibly before my gaze. 
 And the heavens took her, and I knew my eyes 
 Had seen the soul of man, the deathless soul, 
 Defeated, struggling, purified, and blest.
 
 PSYCHE. 
 
 Then all the choir of happy waiting shades, 
 Heroes and queens, fair maidens and brave youths, 
 Swept by me, rhythmic, slow, as if they trod 
 Some unheard measure, passing where I stood 
 In fair procession, each with a faint smile 
 Upon the lip, signing "Farewell, oh shade '. 
 It shall be well with thee, as 'tis with us, 
 If only thou art true. The world of Life, 
 The world of Death, are but opposing sides 
 Of one great orb, and the Light shines on both. 
 Oh, happy happy shade ! Farewell ! Farewell ! " 
 And so they passed away. 
 
 EXD OF BOOK II.
 
 BOOK III. 
 OLYMPUS.
 
 But I, my gaze 
 Following the soaring soul which now was lost 
 In the awakening skies, floated with her, 
 As in a trance, beyond the golden gates 
 Which separate Earth fromHeaven ; and to my thought 
 Gladdened by that broad effluence of light, 
 This old earth seemed transfigured, and the fields, 
 So dim and bare, grew green and clothed themselves 
 With lustrous hues. A fine ethereal air 
 Played round me as I mused, and filled the soul 
 V>'ith an ineffable content. \Miat help 
 In words to tell of things unreached by words ? 
 Or how to engrave upon the treacherous thought 
 The fair and fugitive fancies of a dream. 
 Which vanish ere we fix them ? 
 
 But methinks 
 He knows the scene, who knows the one fair day, 
 One only and no more, which year by year
 
 2o6 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 In springtime comes, when lingering winter flies, 
 And lo ! the boughs are clothed with white and pink 
 And golden clusters, and the glades are starred 
 With delicate primrose and deep odorous beds 
 Of violets, and on the tufted meads 
 With kingcups lit, and cowslip bells, and blue 
 Sweet hyacinths, and frail anemones, 
 The broad West wind breathes softly, and the air 
 Is tremulous with the lark, and thro' the woods 
 The soft full-throated thrushes all day long 
 Flood the green dells with joy, and thro' the dry 
 Brown fields the sower strides, sowing his seed, 
 And all is life and song. Or he who first, 
 WTiether in fair free boyhood, when the world 
 Is his to choose, or when his fuller life 
 Beats to another life, or afterwards. 
 Keeping his youch within his children's eyes. 
 Looks on the snow-clad everlasting hills, 
 And marks the sunset smite them, and is glad 
 Of the beautiful fair world. 
 
 A springtide land
 
 OLYMPUS. 207 
 
 It seemed, where East winds came not. Sweetest song 
 Was everywhere, by glade or sunny plain ; 
 And thro' the golden valleys winding streams 
 Rippled in glancing silver, and above. 
 The blue hills rose, and over all a peak, 
 White, awful, with a constant fleece of cloud 
 Veiling its summit, towered. Unfailing Day 
 Lighted it, for no turn of dawn and eve 
 Came there, nor changing seasons, but a broad 
 Fixed joy of Being, undisturbed by Time. 
 
 There, in a happy glade shut in by groves 
 Of laurel and sweet myrtle, on a gieen 
 And flower-lit lawn, I seemed to see the ghosts 
 Of the old gods. Upon the gentle slope 
 Of a fair hill, a joyous company. 
 The Immortals lay. Hard by, a murmurous stream 
 Fell through the flowers ; below them, space on space, 
 Laughed the immeasurable plains ; beyond, 
 The mystic mountain soared. Height after height 
 Of bare rock ledges left the climbing pines,
 
 2o8 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And reared their giddy, shining terraces 
 Into the ethereal air. Above, the snows 
 Of the white summit cleft the fleece of cloud 
 Which always clothed it round. 
 
 Ah, fair and sweet, 
 Yet with a ghostly fairness, fine and thin, 
 Those godlike Presences. Not dreams indeed, 
 But something dream-like, were they. Blessed Shades 
 Heroic and Divine, as when, in days 
 When Man was young, and Time, the vivid thought 
 Translated into Form the unattained 
 Impossible Beauty of men's dreams, and fixed 
 The Loveliness in marble. 
 
 As with av.e 
 Following my spotless guide, I stood apart. 
 Not daring to draw near ; a shining form 
 Rose from the throng, and floated, light as air, 
 To where I trembled. And I knew the face 
 And form of Artemis, the fair, the pure. 
 The undefiled. A crescent silvery moon 
 Shone thro' her locks, and by her side she bore
 
 ARTEMIS. 209 
 
 A quiver of golden darts. At sight of whom 
 I felt a sudden chill, like his who once 
 Looked upon her and died ; yet could not fear, 
 Seeing how fair she was. Her sweet voice rang 
 Clear as a bird's : 
 
 " Mortal, what fate hath brought 
 Thee hither, uncleansed by death ? How canst thou 
 
 breathe 
 Immortal air, being mortal ? Yet fear not. 
 Since thou art come. For we too are of earth 
 \\Tiom here thou seest : there were not a heaven 
 Were there no earth, nor gods, had men not been. 
 But each the complement of each and grown 
 The other's creature, is and has its being, 
 A double essence. Human and Divine. 
 So that the God is hidden in the man. 
 And something Human bounds and forms the God ; 
 Which else had shown too great and undefined 
 For mortal sight, and having no human eye 
 To see it, were unknown. But we who bore 
 Sway of old time, we were but attributes
 
 2IO THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 * Of the great God who is all Things that be — 
 The Pillar of the Earth and starry Sky, 
 The Depth of the great Deep ; the Sun, the Moon, 
 The Word which Makes ; the All-compelling Love— 
 For all Things lie within His Infinite Form." 
 
 Even as she spake, a throng of heavenly forms 
 Floated around me, filling all my soul 
 With fair unearthly beauty, and the air 
 With such ambrosial perfume as is born, 
 When morning bursts upon a tropic sea, 
 From boundless wastes of flowers ; and as I knelt 
 In rapture, lo ! the same clear voice again 
 Yxoxi\ out the throng of gods : 
 
 "Those whom thou seest 
 Were even as I, embodiments of Him 
 Who is the Centre of all Life : myself 
 The Maiden-Queen of Purity ; and Strength, 
 Divine when unabused ; Love too, the Spring 
 
 * See the Orphic Hymns.
 
 ARTEMIS. 211 
 
 And Cause of Things ; and Knowledge, which lays 
 
 bare 
 Their secret ; and calm Duty, Queen of all, 
 And Molherhood in one ; and Youth, which bears. 
 Beauty of Form and Life and Light, and breathes 
 The breath of Inspiration ; and the Soul, 
 The particle of God, sent down to man. 
 Which doth in turn reveal the world and God. 
 
 Wherefore it is men called on Artemis, 
 The refuge of young souls ; for still in age 
 They keep some dim reflection uneffaced 
 Of a Diviner Purity than comes 
 To the spring days of youth, when all the world 
 Smiles, and the rapid blood thro' the young veins 
 Courses, and all is glad ; yet knowing too 
 That innocence is young — before the soil 
 And smirch of sadder knowledge, settling on it, 
 Sully its primal whiteness. So they knelt 
 At my white shrines, the eager vigorous youths, 
 To whom life's road showed like a dewy field
 
 212 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 In early summer dawns, when to the sound 
 Of youth's clear voice, and to the cheerful rush 
 Of the tumultuous feet and clamorous tongues 
 Careering onwards, fair and dappled fawns, 
 Strange birds with jewelled plumes, fierce spotted 
 
 pards, 
 Rise in the joyous chase, to be caught and bound 
 By the young conqueror ; nor yet the charm 
 Of sensual ease allures. And they knelt too, 
 The pure sweet maidens fair and fancy-free. 
 Whose innocent virgin hearts shrank from the touch 
 Of passion as from wrong — sweet moonlit lives 
 WTiich fade, and pale, and vanish, in the glare 
 Of Love's hot noontide : these came robed in white. 
 With holy hymns and soaring liturgies : 
 And so men fabled me, a huntress now. 
 Borne thro' the flying woodlands, fair and free ; 
 And now the pale cold Moon, Light without warmth. 
 Zeal without touch of passion, heavenly love 
 For human, and the altar for the home.
 
 ARTEMIS. 213 
 
 But oh, how sweet it was to take the love 
 And awe of my young worshippers ; to watch 
 The pure j'oung gaze and hear the pure young voice 
 Mount in the hymn, or see the gay troop come 
 With the first dawn of day, brushing the dew 
 From the unpolluted fields, and wake to song 
 The slumbering birds ; strong in their innocence ! 
 I did not en\'y any goddess of all 
 The Olympian company her votaries ! 
 Ah, happy days of old which now are gone ! 
 A memory and a dream ! for now on earth 
 I rule no longer o'er young willing hearts 
 In voluntary fealty, which should cease 
 When Love, with fiery accents calling, woke 
 The slumbering soul ; as now it should for those 
 Who kneel before the purer, sadder shrine 
 Which has replaced my own. But ah ! too oft. 
 Not always, but too often, shut from life 
 Within pale life-long cloisters and the bars 
 Of deadly convent prisons, year by year, 
 Age after age, the white souls fade and pine
 
 214 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 WTiich simulate the joyous service free 
 Of those young worshippers. I would that I 
 Might loose the captives' chain j or Herakles, 
 Who was a mortal once."
 
 HERAKLES. 215 
 
 But he who stood 
 Colossal at my side : 
 
 " I toil no more 
 On earth, nor wield again the mighty strength 
 Which Zeus once gave me for the cure of ill. 
 I have run my race ; I have done my work ; I rest 
 For ever from the toilsome days I gave 
 To the suffering race of men. And yet, indeed, 
 Methinks they suffer still. Tyrannous growths 
 And monstrous vex them still. Pestilence lurks 
 And sweeps them down. Treacheries come, and wars. 
 And slay them still. Vaulting ambition leaps 
 And falls in bloodshed still. But I am here 
 At rest, and no man kneels to me, or keeps 
 Reverence for strength mighty yet unabused — 
 Strength which is Power, God's choicest gift, more rare 
 And precious than all Beauty, or the charm 
 Of Wisdom, since it is the instrument
 
 2i6 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Thro' which all Nature works. For now the earth 
 
 Is full of meekness, and a new God rules, 
 
 Teaching strange precepts of humility 
 
 And mercy and forgiveness. Yet I trow 
 
 There is no lack of bloodshed and deceit 
 
 And groanings, and the tyrant works his wrong 
 
 Even as of old ; but now there is no arm 
 
 Like mine, made strong by Zeus, to beat him down. 
 
 Him and his WTong together. Yet I know 
 
 I am not all discrowned. The strong brave souls, 
 
 The manly tender hearts, whom tale of wrong 
 
 To woman or child, to all weak things and small, 
 
 Fires like a blow ; calling the righteous flush 
 
 Of anger to the brow ; knotting the cords 
 
 Of muscle on the arm ; with one desire 
 
 To hew the spoiler down, and make an end. 
 
 And go their way for others ; making light 
 
 Of toil and pain, and too laborious days, 
 
 And peril ; beat unchanged, albeit they serve 
 
 A Lord of meekness. For the world still needs 
 
 Its champion as of old, and finds him still.
 
 HERAKLES. 217 
 
 Not always now v/ith mighty sinews and thews 
 
 Like mine, though still these profit, but keen brain 
 
 And voice to move men's souls to love t];ie right 
 
 And hate the wrong ; even tho' the bodily form 
 
 Be weak, of giant strength, strong to assail 
 
 The hydra heads of Evil, and to slay 
 
 The monsters that now waste them : Ignorance, 
 
 Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of Man, 
 
 Disgnised as love of God. These there are still. 
 
 With task as hard as mine. For what was it 
 
 To strive with bodily ills, and do great deeds 
 
 Of daring and of strength, and bear the crown. 
 
 To his who wages lifelong, doubtful strife 
 
 With an impalpable foe ; conquering indeed, 
 
 But, ere he hears the poean or sees the pomp 
 
 Laid low in the arms of Death ? And tho' me n cease 
 
 To worship at my shrine, yet not the less 
 
 It is the toils I knew, the pains I bore 
 
 For others, which have kept the steadfast heart 
 
 Of manhood undefiled, and nerved the arm 
 
 Of sacrifice, and made the martyr strong
 
 2i8 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 To do and bear, and taught the race of men 
 How godlike 'tis to suffer thro' life, and die 
 At last for others' good ! " 
 
 The strong god ceased 
 And stood a little, musing ; blest indeed, 
 But bearing, as it seemed, some faintest trace 
 Of earthly struggle still, not the gay ease 
 Of the elder heaven-born gods.
 
 APHRODITE. 219 
 
 And then there came 
 Beauty and Joy in one, bearing the fomi 
 Of woman. How to reach with halting words 
 That infinite Perfection ? All have known 
 The breathing marbles which the Greek has left 
 Who saw her near, and strove to fix her charms, 
 And exquisitely failed ; or those fair forms 
 The Painter offered at a later shrine, 
 And failed. Nay, what are words?— he knows it 
 
 well 
 \Vho loves, or who has loved. 
 
 She with a smile 
 Playing around her rosy lips ; as plays 
 The sunbeam on a stream : 
 
 " Shall I complain 
 
 Men kneel to me no longer, taking to them 
 Some graver, sterner worship ; grown too wise 
 For fleeting joys of Love ? Nay, Love is Youth,
 
 aao THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And still the world is young. Still shall I reign 
 Within the hearts of men, while Time shall last 
 And Life renews itself. All Life that is, 
 From the weak things of earth or sea or air, 
 \Miich creep or float for an hour ; to godlike man — 
 All know me and are mine. I am the source 
 And mother of all, both gods and men ; the spring 
 Of Force and Joy, which, penetrating all 
 Within the hidden depths of the Unknown, 
 Sets the blind seed of Being, and from the bond 
 Of incomplete and dual Essences 
 Evolves the harmony which is Life. The world 
 Were dead without my rays, who am the Light 
 \Vliich vivifies the world. Nay, but for me, 
 The universal order which attracts 
 Sphere unto sphere, and keeps them in their paths 
 For ever, were no more. All things are bound 
 Within my golden chain, whose name is Love. 
 
 And if there be, indeed, some sterner souls 
 Or sunk in too much learning, or hedged round
 
 APHRODITE. 
 
 By care and greed, or haply too much rapt 
 
 By pale ascetic fervours, to delight 
 
 To kneel to me, the universal voice 
 
 Scorns them as those who, missing willingly 
 
 The good that Nature offers, dwell unblest 
 
 Who might be blest, but would not. Every voice 
 
 Of bard in every age has hymned me. All 
 
 The breathing marbles, all the heavenly hues 
 
 Of painting, praise me. Even the loveless shades 
 
 Of dim monastic cloisters show some gleam, 
 
 Tho' fault, of me. Amid the busy throngs 
 
 Of cities reign I, and o'er lonely plains, 
 
 Beyond the ice-fields of the frozen North, 
 
 And the warm waves of undiscovered seas. 
 
 For I was born out of the sparkling foam 
 Which lights the crest of the blue mystic wave, 
 Stirred by the wandering breath of Life's pure dawn 
 From a young soul's clear depths. There, without 
 
 voice. 
 Stretched on the breathing curve of a young breast,
 
 222 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Fluttering a little, fresh from the great deep 
 
 Of life, and creamy as the opening rose, 
 
 Naked I lie, naked yet unashamed, 
 
 While youth's warm tide steals round me with a kiss, 
 
 And floods each limb with fairness. Shame I know 
 
 not — 
 Shame is for wrong, and not for innocence — 
 The veil which Error grasps to hide itself 
 From the awful Eye. But I, I lie unveiled 
 And unashamed — the livelong day I lie, 
 The warm wave murmuring to me ; and, all night, 
 Hidden in the moonlit caves of happy Sleep, 
 I dream until the morning and am glad. 
 
 Why should I seek to clothe myself, and hide 
 The treasure of my Beauty ? Shame may wait 
 On those for whom 'twas given. The sties of sense 
 Are none of mine ; the brutish, loveless wrong. 
 The venal charm, the simulated flush 
 Of fleshly passion, they are none of mine, 
 Only corruptions of me. Well I know
 
 APHRODITE. 223 
 
 The counterfeit the stronger, since gross souls 
 And brutish sway the earth ; yet not the less 
 All sense is consecrated, and I deem 
 'Twere better to grow soft and sink in sense 
 Than gloat o'er blood and wrong. 
 
 My kingdom is 
 O'er infinite grades of life. All breathing things. 
 From the scarce visible insect to the brute, 
 From brute to man, confess me. Yet in man 
 I find my worthiest worship. Where man is, 
 A youth and a maid, a youth and a maid, nought else 
 Is wanting for my temple. Every clime 
 Kneels to me— the long breaker swells and falls 
 Under the palms, mixed with the merry noise 
 Of savage bridals, and the straight brown limbs 
 Know me, and over all the endless plains 
 I reign, and by the tents on the hot sand 
 And sea-girt isles am queen, and on the side 
 Of silent mountains, where the white cots gleam 
 Upon the green hill pastures, and no sound 
 But the thunder of tlic avalanche is borne
 
 224 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 To the listening rocks around ; and in fair lands 
 Where all is peace ; where thro' the happy hush 
 Of tranquil summer evenings, 'mid the corn, 
 Or thro' cool arches of the gadding vines. 
 The lovers stray together hand in hand, 
 I lymning my praise ; and by the stately streets 
 Of echoing cities — over all the earth, 
 Palace and cot, mountain and plain and sea, 
 The burning South, the icy North, the old 
 And immemorial East, the unbounded West, 
 No new god comes to spoil me utterly — 
 All worship and are mine ! " 
 
 With a sweet smile 
 Upon her rosy mouth, the goddess ceased ; 
 And when she spake no more, the silence weighed 
 As hea%-y on my soul as when it takes 
 Some gracious melody, and leaves the ear 
 Unsatisfied and longing, till the fount 
 Of sweetness springs again.
 
 A THENE. 225 
 
 But while I stood 
 Expectant, lo ! a fair pale form drew near 
 With front severe, and wide blue eyes which bore 
 Mild wisdom in their gaze. Clear purity 
 Shone from her — not the young-eyed innocence 
 Of her whom first I saw, but that which comes 
 From wider knowledge, which restrains the tide 
 Of passionate youth, and leads the musing soul 
 By the calm deeps of Wisdom. And I knew 
 My eyes had seen the fair, the virgin Queen, 
 Who once within her shining Parthenon 
 Beheld the sages kneel. 
 
 She with clear voice 
 And coldly sweet, yet with a softness too. 
 Such as befits a virgin : 
 
 " She does right 
 To boast her sway, my sister, seeing indeed 
 That all things are as by a double law, 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And from a double root the tree of Life 
 
 Springs up to the face of heaven. Body and Soul, 
 
 Matter and Spirit, lower joys of vSense 
 
 And higher joys of Thought, I know that both 
 
 Build up the shrine of Being. The brute sense 
 
 Leaves man a brute ; but, winged with soaring thought. 
 
 Mounts to high heaven. The unembodied spirit. 
 
 Dwelling alone, unmated, void of sense, 
 
 Shows impotent. And yet I know there is, 
 
 Far off, but not too far for mortal reach, 
 
 A calmer height, where, nearer to the stars, 
 
 Thought sits alone and gazes with rapt gaze, 
 
 A large eyed maiden in a robe of white. 
 
 Who brings the light of Knowledge down, and draws 
 
 To her pontifical eyes a bridge of gold, 
 
 Which spans from earth to heaven. 
 
 For what were life, 
 
 If things of sense were all, ft)r those large souls 
 
 And high, whom grudging Nature has shut fast 
 
 Within unlovely forms, or from whose life 
 
 The circuit of the rapid gliding years
 
 ATHENE. 227 
 
 Steals the brief gift of beauty ? Shall men hold 
 With idle singers, all the treasure of hope 
 Is lost with youth — swift-fleeting, treacherous youth, 
 Which fades and files before the ripening brain 
 Crowns life with Wisdom's crown? Nay, even in 
 
 youth, 
 Is it not more to tread the difficult heights 
 Alone — the cold free heights^and mark the va'e 
 Lie breathless in the glare, or hidden and blurred 
 By cloud and storm ; or pestilence and war 
 Creep on with blood and death ; while the soul dwells" 
 Apart upon the peaks, outfronts the sun 
 As the eagle does, or takes the coming dawn 
 While all the vale is dark, and knows the springs 
 Of tiny ri\-ulets hurrying from the snows, 
 Which soon shall swell to vast resistless floods, 
 And feed the Oceans which divide the World ? 
 
 Oh, ecstasy ! oh, wonder I oh, delight ! 
 WTiich neither the slow withering wear of Time, 
 That takes all else — the smooth and rounded cheek
 
 228 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Of youth ; the lightsome step ; the warm young heart 
 
 ^^^^ich beats for love or friend ; the treasure of hope 
 
 Immeasurable ; the quick-coursing blood 
 
 Which makes it joy to be, — ay, takes them all 
 
 Or makes them naught— nor yet satiety 
 
 Born of loo full possession, takes or mars ! 
 
 Oh, fair delight of learning ! which grows great 
 
 And stronger and more keen, for slower limbs, 
 
 And dimmer eyes and loneliness, and loss 
 
 Of lower good — wealth, friendship, ay, and Love — 
 
 When the swift soul, turning its weary gaze 
 
 From the old vanished joys, projects itself 
 
 Into the void and floats in empty space, 
 
 Striving to reach the mystic source of Things, 
 
 The secrets of the earth and sea and air. 
 
 The Law that holds the process of the suns, 
 
 The awful depths of Mind and Thought ; the prime 
 
 Unfathomable mystery of God ! 
 
 Is there, then, any who holds my worship cold 
 And lifeless? Nay, but 'tis the light which cheers
 
 A THENE. 229 
 
 The waning life ! Love thou thy love, brave youth ! 
 
 Cleave to thy love, fair maid ! it is the Law 
 
 Which dominates the world, that liids ye use 
 
 Your nature ; but, when now the fuller tide 
 
 Slackens a little, turn your calmer eyes 
 
 To the fair page of Knowledge. It is power 
 
 I give, and power is precious. It is strength 
 
 To live four-square, careless of outward shows. 
 
 And self-sufhcing. It is clearer sight 
 
 To know the rule of life, the Eternal scheme 
 
 And, knowing it, to do and not to err, 
 
 And, doing, to be blest." 
 
 The calm voice soared 
 
 Higher and higher to the close ; the cold 
 
 Clear accents, fired as by a hidden fire. 
 
 Glowed into life and tenderness, and throbbed 
 
 As with some spiritual ecstasy 
 
 Sweeter than that of Love.
 
 230 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 But as they died, 
 I heard an ampler voice ; and looking, marked 
 A fair and gracious form. She seemed a Queen 
 Who ruled o'er gods and men ; the majesty 
 Of perfect womanhood. No opening bud 
 Of beauty, but the full consummate flower 
 Was hers ; and from her mild large eyes looked forth 
 Oentle command, and motherhood, and home, 
 And pure affection. Awe and reverence 
 O'erspread me, as I knew my eyes had looked 
 On sovereign Here, mother of the gods. 
 
 She, with clear, rounded utterance, sweet and calm : 
 " I know Love's fruit is good and fair to see 
 And taste, if any gain it, and I know 
 How brief Life's Passion-tide, which when it ends 
 May change to thirst for Knowledge, aiul I know 
 How fair the realm of Mind, wherein the soul
 
 HERE. 2 
 
 Thirsting to know, wings its impetuous way 
 Beyond the bounds of Thought ; and yet there is 
 A higher bliss than these, which closer fits 
 A mortal life, compact of Body and Soul, 
 And therefore double-natured — a calm path 
 Which lies before the feet, thro' common ways 
 And undistinguished crowds of toiling men, 
 And yet is hard to tread, tho' seeming smooth. 
 And yet, the' level, earns a worthier crown. 
 
 For Knowledge is a sleep which few may climb, 
 While Duty is a path which all may tread. 
 And if the Soul of Life and Thought be this, 
 How best to speed the mighty scheme, which still 
 Fares onward day by day — the Life of the World, 
 Which is the sum of petty lives, that live 
 And die so this may live — how then shall each 
 Of that great multitude of faithful souls 
 Who walk not on the heights, fulfil himself, 
 But by the duteous Life which looks not forth 
 Beyond its narrow sphere, and finds its work.
 
 232 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 And works it out ; content, this done, to fall 
 And perish, if Fate will, so the great Scheme 
 Goes onward ? 
 
 ^Vherefore am I, Queen in Heaven 
 And Earth, whose realm is Duty, bearing rule 
 More constant and more wide than those whose words 
 Thou heardest last. JNIine are the striving souls 
 Of fathers toiling day by day obscure 
 And unrewarded, save by their own hearts, 
 Mid wranglings of the Forum or the mart ; 
 Wio long for joys of Thought, and yet must toil 
 Unmurmuring thro' dull lives from youth to age ; 
 \Vho haply might have worn instead the crown 
 Of Honour and of Fame : mine the fair mothers 
 ^\^lo, for the love of children and of home, 
 When passion dies, expend their toilful years 
 In loving labour sweetened by the sense 
 Of Duty : mine the statesman who toils on 
 Thro' vigilant nights and days, guiding his State, 
 Vet finds no gratitude ; and these white souls 
 Who give themselves for others all their years
 
 HERE. 233 
 
 In trivial tasks of Pity. The fine growths 
 Of Man and Time are mine, and spend themselves 
 For me and for the mystical End which lies 
 Beyond their gaze and mine, and yet is good, 
 Tho' hidden from men and gods. 
 
 For as the flower 
 Of the tiger-lily bright with varied hues 
 Is for a day, then fades and leaves behind 
 Fairness nor fruit, while the green tiny tuft 
 Swells to the purple of the clustering grape 
 Or golden waves of wheat ; so lives of men 
 Which show most splendid, fade and are deceased 
 And leave no trace ; while those, unmarked, unseen, 
 Which no man recks of, rear the stately tree 
 Of Knowledge, not for itself sought out, but found 
 In the dusty ways of life— a fairer growth 
 Than springs in cloistered shades ; and from the sum 
 Of Duty, blooms sweeter and more divine 
 The fair ideal of the Race, than comes 
 From glittering gains of Learning. 
 
 Life, full life,
 
 234 7-//ir EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Full-flowered, full-fruited, reared from homely earth, 
 
 Rooted in duty, and thro' long calm years 
 
 Bearing its load of healthful energies ; 
 
 Stretching its arms on all sides ; fed with dews 
 
 Of cheerful sacrifice, and clouds of care. 
 
 And rain of useful tears ; warmed by the sun 
 
 Of calm affection, till it breathes itself 
 
 In perfume to tlie heavens — this is the prize 
 
 I hold most dear, more precious than the fruit 
 
 Of Knowledge or of Love." 
 
 The goddess ceased 
 As dies some gracious harmony, the child 
 Of wedded themes which single and alone 
 Were discords, but united breathe a sound 
 Sweet as the sounds of heaven.
 
 APOLLO. 235 
 
 And then stood forth 
 T\\t last of the gods I saw, the first in rank 
 And dignity and beauty, the young god 
 Who grows not old, the Light of Heaven and Earth, 
 The Worker from afar, who sends the fire 
 Of inspiration to the bard and bathes 
 The world in hues of heaven— the golden link 
 Between High God and Man. 
 
 With a sweet voice 
 
 Whose every note was sweetest melody — 
 The melody has fled, the words remain — 
 Apollo sang : 
 
 " I know how fair the face 
 Of Purity ; I know the treasure of Strength ; 
 I know the charm of Love, the calmer grace 
 Of Wisdom and of Duteous well-spent lives : 
 And yet there is a loftier height than these.
 
 236 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 There is a Height higher than mortal thought ; 
 There is a Love warmer than mortal love ; 
 There is a Life which, taking not its hues 
 From Earth or earthly things, grows white and pure 
 And higher than the petty cares of men, 
 And is a blessed life and glorified. 
 
 Oh, fair young souls, strain upward, upward still, 
 Even to the heavenly source of Purity ! 
 Brave hearts, bear on and suffer ! Strike for right, 
 Strong arms, and hew down wrong ! The world hath 
 
 need 
 Of all of you — the sensual, wrongful world ! 
 
 Hath need of you, and of thee too, fair Love. 
 Oh, lovers, cling together ! the old world 
 Is full of Hate. Sweeten it ; draw in one 
 Two separate chords of Life ; and from the bond 
 Of twin souls lost in Harmony create 
 A Fair God dwelling with you— Love, the Lord !
 
 APOLLO. 237 
 
 Waft yourselves, yearning souls, upon the stars ; 
 Sow yourselves on the wandering winds of space ; 
 Watch patient all your days, if your eyes take 
 Some dim, cold ray of Knowledge. The dull world 
 Hath need of you— the purblind, slothful world ! 
 
 Live on, brave lives, chained to the narrow round 
 Of Duty ; live, expend yourselves, and make 
 The orb of Being wheel onward steadfastly 
 Upon its path— the Lord of Life alone 
 Knows to what goal of Good ; work on, live on : 
 And yet there is a higher work than yours. 
 
 To have looked upon the face of the Unknown 
 And Perfect Beauty. To have heard the voice 
 Of Godhead in the winds and in the seas. 
 To have known Him in the circling of the suns, 
 And in the changeful fates and lives of men. 
 
 To be fulfilled with Godhead as a cup
 
 238 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Filled with a precious essence, till the hand 
 On marble or on canvas falling, leaves 
 Celestial traces, or from reed or string 
 Draws out faint echoes of the voice Divine 
 That bring God nearer to a faithless world. 
 
 Or, higher still and fairer and more blest, 
 To be His seer. His prophet ; to be the voice 
 Of the Ineffable Word ; to be the glass 
 Of the Ineffable Light, and bring them down 
 To bless the earth, set in a shrine of Song. 
 
 For Knowledge is a bairen tree and bare, 
 Bereft of God, and Duty but a word. 
 And Strength but Tyranny, and Love, Desire, 
 And Turity a folly ; and the Soul, 
 \Yhich brings down God to Man, tin; Light to the 
 
 world ; 
 lie is the Maker, and is blest, is blest ! " 
 
 He ended, and I felt my soul grow faint 
 With too much sweetness.
 
 APOLLO. 239 
 
 In .1 mist of grace 
 They faded, that bright company, and seemed 
 To melt into each other and shape themselves 
 Into new forms, and those fair goddesses 
 Blent in a perfect woman — all the calm 
 High motherhood of Here, the sweet smile 
 Of Cypris, fair Athene's earnest eyes. 
 And the young purity of Artemis, 
 Blent in a perfect woman ; and in her arms. 
 Fused by some cosmic interlacing curves 
 Of Beauty into a new Innocence, 
 A child with eyes divine, a little child, 
 A little child — no more. 
 
 And those great go<ls 
 Of Power and Beauty left a heavenly form 
 Strong both to act and suffer ; fair and meek, 
 Not proud and eager ; with soft eyes of grace. 
 Not bold with joyous youth ; and for the fire 
 Of song, and for the happy careless life, 
 A sorrowful pilgrimage — changed, yet the same 
 Only Diviner far ; and keeping still
 
 240 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 The Life God-lighted and the sacrifice. 
 
 And when these faded wholly, at my side, 
 Tho' hidden before by those too-radiant forms, 
 I was aware once more of her, my guide 
 Psyche, who had not left me, floating near 
 On golden wings ; and all the plains of heaven 
 Were left to us, me and my soul alone. 
 
 Then when my thought revived again, I said 
 Whispering, " But Zeus I saw not, the prime Source 
 And Sire of all the gods." 
 
 And she, bent low 
 With downcast eyes : " Nay. Thou hast seen of Ilim 
 All that thine eyes can bear, in those fair forms 
 Which are but parts of Ilim and are indeed 
 Attributes of the Substance which supports 
 The Universe of Things— the Soul of the World, 
 The Stream which flows Eternal, from no Source 
 Into no Sea. His Purity, His Strength, 
 His Love, His Knowledge, His unchanging rule
 
 ZEUS. 241 
 
 Of Duty, thou hast seen, only a part 
 
 And not the whole, being a finite mind 
 
 Too weak for infinite thought ; nor, couldst thou see 
 
 All of Him visible to mortal sight, 
 
 Wouldst thou see all His essence, since the gods — 
 
 Glorified essences of Human mould, 
 
 \Mio are but Zeus made visible to men — 
 
 See Him not wholly, only some thin edge 
 
 And halo of His glory ; nor know they 
 
 What vast and unsuspected Universes 
 
 Lie beyond thought, where yet He rules, like those 
 
 Vast Suns we cannot see, round which our Sun 
 
 Moves with his system, or those darker still 
 
 Which not even thus we know, but yet exist 
 
 The' no eye marks, nor thought itself, and lurk 
 
 In the awful Depths of Space ; or that which is 
 
 Not orbed as yet, but indiscrete, confused, 
 
 Sown thro' the void — the faintest gleam of light 
 
 Which sets itself to Be. And yet is He 
 
 There too, and rules, none seeing. But sometimes 
 
 To this our heaven, which is so like to earth 
 
 R
 
 242 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 But nearer to Him, for awhile He shows 
 Some gleam of His own brightness, and methinks 
 It Cometh soon ; but thou, if thou shouldst gaze, 
 Thy Life will rush to His — the tiny spark 
 Absorbed in that full blaze — and what there is 
 Of mortal fall from thee." 
 
 But I : "Oh, soul, 
 What holdeth Life more precious than to know 
 The Giver and to die ? " 
 
 Then she: "Behold ! 
 Look upward and adore." 
 
 And with the word, 
 Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure, 
 The floating cloud which clothed the hidden peak 
 Rose slow in awful silence, laying bare 
 Spire after rocky spire, snow after snow. 
 Whither and yet more dreadful, till at last 
 It left the summit clear. 
 
 Then with a bound, 
 In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash of a thought, 
 I knew an Awful Effluence of Light,
 
 ZEUS. 243 
 
 Formless, Ineffable, Perfect, burst on me 
 And flood my being round, and take my life 
 Into itself. I saw my guide bent down 
 Prostrate, her wings before her face ; and then 
 No more. 
 
 But when I woke from my long trance, 
 Behold, it was no longer Tartarus, 
 Nor Hades, nor Olympus, but the bare 
 And unideal aspect of the fields 
 Which Spring not yet had kissed— the strange old 
 
 Earth 
 So far more fabulous now than in the days 
 When Man was young, nor yet the mystery 
 Of Time and Fate transformed it. From the hills. 
 The long night fled at last, the unclouded sun, 
 The dear, fair sun, leapt upward swift, and smote 
 My sight with rays of gold, and pierced my brain 
 With too much light ere my entranced eyes
 
 244 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Could hide themselves. 
 
 And I was on the Earth 
 Dreaming the dream of Life again, as late 
 I dreamed the dream of Death, 
 
 Another day 
 Dawned on the race of men ; another world ; 
 New heavens, and new earth.
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 245 
 
 And as I went 
 Across the lightening fields, upon a bank 
 I saw a single snowdrop glance, and bring 
 Promise of Spring ; and keeping my old thought 
 In the old fair Hellenic vesture dressed, 
 I felt myself a ghost, and seemed to be 
 Now fair Adonis hasting to the arms 
 Of his lost love — now sad Persephone 
 Restored to mother earth— or that high shade 
 Orpheus, who gave up heaven to save his love, 
 And is rewarded — or young Marsyas, 
 Who spent his youth and life for song, and yet 
 Was happy though in torture — or the fair 
 And dreaming youth I saw, who still awaits, 
 Hopeful, the unveiling heaven, when he shall see 
 His fair ideal love. The birds sang blithe ; 
 There came a tinkling from the waking fold ; 
 And on the hillside from the cot a girl 
 
 R2
 
 246 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Tripped singing with her pitcher. All the sounds 
 And thoughts which still are beautiful — Youth, Song, 
 Dawn, Spring, Renewal — and my soul was glad 
 Of all the freshness, and I felt again 
 The youth and spring-tide of the world, and thought. 
 Which feigned those fair and gracious fantasies. 
 
 For every dawn that breaks brings a new world, 
 And every budding bosom a new life ; 
 These fair tales, which we know so beautiful, 
 Show only finer than our lives to-day 
 Because their voice was clearer, and they found 
 A sacred bard to sing them. We are pent. 
 Who sing to-day, by all the garnered wealth 
 Of ages of past song. We have no more 
 The world to choose from, who, where'er we turn, 
 Tread through old thoughts and fair. Vet must we 
 
 sing— 
 We have no choice ; and if more hard the toil 
 In noon, when all is clear, than in the fresh 
 White mists of early moin, yet do we find
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 247 
 
 Achievement its own guerdon, and at last 
 
 The rounder song of manhood grows more sweet 
 
 Than the high note of youth. 
 
 For Age, long Age ! 
 Nought else divides us from the fresh young days 
 Which men call ancient ; seeing that we in turn 
 Shall one day be Time's ancients, and inspire 
 The wiser, higher race, which yet shall sing 
 Because to sing is human, and high thought 
 Grows rhythmic ere its close. Nought else there is 
 But that weird beat of Time, which doth disjoin 
 To-day from Hellas. 
 
 How should any hold 
 Those precious scriptures only old-world tales 
 Of strange impossible torments and false gods ; 
 Of men and monsters in some brainless dream, 
 Coherent, yet unmeaning, linked together 
 By some false skein of song ? 
 
 Nay ! evermore, 
 All things and thoughts, both new and old, are writ 
 Upon the unchanging human heart and soul.
 
 348 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Has Passion still no prisoners ? Pine there now 
 
 No lives which fierce Love, sinking into Lust, 
 
 Has drowned at last in tears and blood — plunged down 
 
 To the blackest depths of Hell ? Have not strong Will 
 
 And high Ambition rotted into Greed 
 
 And Wrong, for any, as of old, and whelmed 
 
 The struggling soul in ruin ? Hell lies near 
 
 Around us as does Heaven, and in the World, 
 
 Which is our Hades, still the chequered souls 
 
 Compact of good and ill — not all accurst 
 
 Nor altogether blest — a few brief years 
 
 Travel the little journey of their lives, 
 
 They know not to what end. The weary woman 
 
 Sunk deep in ease and sated with her life, 
 
 Much loved and yet unloving, pines to-day 
 
 As Helen ; still the poet strives and sings. 
 
 And hears Apollo's music, and grows dumb, 
 
 And suffers, yet is happy ; still the young 
 
 Fond dreamer seeks his high ideal love, 
 
 And finds her name is Death ; still doth the fair 
 
 And innocent life, bound naked to the rock,
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 249 
 
 Redeem the race ; still the gay tempter goes 
 And leaves his victim, stone ; still doth pain bind 
 Men's souls in closer links of lovingness, 
 Than Death itself can sever ; still the sight 
 Of too great beauty blinds us, and we lose 
 The sense of earthly splendours, gaining Heaven. 
 
 And still the skies are opened as of old 
 To the entranced gaze, ay, nearer far 
 And brighter than of yore ; and Might is there, 
 And Infinite Purity is there, and high 
 Eternal Wisdom, and the calm clear face 
 Of Duty, and a higher, stronger Love 
 And Light in one, and a new, reverend Name, 
 Greater than any and combining all ; 
 And over all, veiled with a veil of cloud, 
 God set far off, too bright for mortal eyes. 
 
 And always, always, with each soul that comes 
 And goes, comes that fair form which was my guide, 
 Hovering, with golden wings and eyes divine.
 
 250 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 Above the bed of birth, the bed of death, 
 Still breathing heavenly airs of deathless love. 
 
 For while a youth is lost in soaring thought, 
 And while a maid grows sweet and beautiful, 
 And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth, 
 And while a child, and while a flower is born, 
 And while one wrong cries for redress and finds 
 A soul to answer, still the world is young ! 
 
 THE END.
 
 CHISWICK TKESS : — C. WIIITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS 
 COURT, CHANCEKY LANE.
 
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