1
 
 ^
 
 THE 
 
 TEMPLE 
 
 CLASSICS 
 
 DRAMATIC 
 
 & EARLY POEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD
 
 y
 
 DRAMATIC 
 
 AND 10^ 
 EARLY^ 
 
 POEMS 
 
 MATTHEW 
 ARNOLD 
 
 ^v^
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 DRAMATIC POEMS— 
 Merope : A Tragedy — 
 Author's Preface 
 Historical Introduction . 
 Persons of the Drama 
 Merope .... 
 Empedocles on Etna — 
 Persons .... 
 
 Act I 
 
 Act II. . 
 EARLY POEMS— 
 Alaric at RoMt 
 Cromwell 
 Sonnets — 
 
 1. Quiet VVor'c . 
 II. To a Friend . 
 
 5 
 42 
 48 
 
 48 
 
 130 
 130 
 154- 
 
 173 
 182 
 
 190 
 191
 
 8 CONTENTS 
 
 Sonnets — continued. 
 
 III. Shakspeare 
 
 IV. Written in Emerson's Essays 
 V. Written in Butler's Sermons 
 
 VI. To the Duke of Wellington 
 VII. "In Harmony with Nature" 
 viir. To George Cruikshank . 
 IX. To a Republican Friend, 184.8 
 X. Continued 
 XI. Religious Isolarion 
 Xii. To the Hungarian Nation 
 
 XIII. Youth's Agitations 
 
 XIV. The World's Triumphs 
 Mycerinus 
 The Church of Brou — 
 
 I. The Castle 
 
 II. The Church 
 
 m. The Tomb 
 
 A Modern Sappho 
 
 Reouiescat 
 
 Youth and Calm, 
 
 To MY Friends, who ridiculed a 
 
 Tender Leave-Taking (A Memory 
 
 Picture) .-..••
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 A Dream 
 
 The New Sirens .... 
 The Voice 
 
 Stagirius ..... 
 
 Human Life ..... 
 To A Gipsy Child by the Sea-shore 
 The Hayswater Boat . 
 A Question: to Fausta . • 
 In Utrumque Paratus . . , 
 The World and the Quietist . 
 The Second Best .... 
 
 Consolation 
 
 Resignation: To Fausta 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE . 
 
 NOTES 
 
 INDEX TO FIRST LINES 
 
 PACK 
 217 
 
 2lg 
 
 227 
 229 
 
 232 
 234 
 236 
 
 237 
 238 
 239 
 240 
 243 
 
 253 
 265 
 273
 
 DRAMATIC AND EARLY POEMS 
 MEROPE— A TRAGEDY 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 I AM not about to defend myseli for having taken a plea for 
 
 the story of the following tragedy from classical Greek form 
 •' o o J And spirit 
 
 antiquity. On this subject I have already said all 
 
 which appears to me to be necessary. For those 
 readers to whom my tragedy will give pleasure, no 
 argument on such a matter is required : one critic, 
 whose fine intelligence it would have been an 
 honour to convince, lives, alas ! no longer : there 
 are others, upon whom no arguments which I 
 could possibly use would produce any impression. 
 The Athenians fined Phrynichus for representing 
 to them their own sufferings : there are critics 
 who would fine us for representing to them any- 
 thing else. 
 
 But, as often as it has happened to me to be 
 blamed or praised for my supposed addiction to the 
 classical school in poetry, I have thought, with 
 real humiliation, how little any works of mine 
 were entitled to rank among the genuine works of 
 that school ; how little they were calculated to 
 1 give, to readers unacquainted with the great crea- 
 tions of clasbical antiquity, any adequate impression 
 
 b
 
 6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Advantage of their form or of their spirit. And yet, what- 
 language ^^^^ ^^^ critics may say, there exists, I am 
 conyinced, even in England, even in this strong- 
 hold of the romantic school, a wide though an 
 ill-informed curiosity on the subject of the so-called 
 classical school, meriting a more complete satis- 
 faction than it has hitherto obtained. Greek art 
 — the antique — classical beauty — a nameless hope 
 and interest attaches, I can often see, to these 
 words, even in the minds of those who have been 
 brought up among the productions of the romantic 
 school ; of those who have been taught to con- 
 sider classicalism as inseparable from coldness, and 
 the antique as another phrase for the unreal. So 
 immortal, so indestructible is the power of true 
 beauty, of consummate form : it may be submerged, 
 but the tradition of it survives : nations arise which 
 know it not, which hardly believe in the report ot 
 it ; but they, too, are haunted with an indefinable 
 interest in its name, with an inexplicable curiosity 
 as to its nature. 
 
 But however the case may be with regard to 
 the curiosity of the public, I have long had the 
 strongest desire to attempt, for my own satisfaction, 
 to come to closer quarters with the form which 
 produces such grand effects in the hands of the 
 Greek masters ; to try to obtain, through the 
 medium of a living, familiar language, a fuller and 
 / more intense feeling of that beauty, which, even 
 when apprehended through the medium of a dead 
 language, so powerfully affected me. In his 
 delightful Life of Goethe, Mr. Lewes has most 
 truly observed that Goethe's Iphigetiela enjoys an
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 7 
 
 inestimable advantage in being written in a language Origination 
 which, being a modern language, is in some sort trans^latton 
 our own. Not only is it vain to expect that the 
 vast majority of mankind will ever undertake the 
 toil of mastering a dead language, above all, a dead 
 language so difficult as the Greek ; but it may be 
 doubted whether even those, whose enthusiasm 
 shrinks from no toil, can ever so thoroughly press 
 into the intimate feeling of works composed in a 
 dead language as their enthusiasm would desire. 
 
 I desired to try, therefore, how much of the effec- 
 tiveness of the Greek poetical forms I could retain 
 in an English poem constructed under the conditions 
 of those forms ; of those forms, too, in their 
 severest and most definite expression, in their 
 application to dramatic poetry. 
 
 I thought at first that I might accomplish my 
 object by a translation of one of the great works of 
 iEschylus or Sophocles. But a translation is a 
 work not only inferior to the original by the whole 
 difference of talent between the first composer and 
 his translator : it is even inferior to the best which 
 the translator could do under more inspiring cir- 
 cumstances. No man can do his best with a 
 subject which does not penetrate him : no man can 
 be penetrated by a subject which he does not 
 conceive independently. 
 
 Should I take some subject on which we have 
 an extant work by one of the great Greek poets, 
 and treat it independently ? Something was to be 
 said for such a course : in antiquity, the same 
 tragic stories were handled by all the tragic poets : 
 Voltaire says truly that to see the same materials 
 differently treated by different poets is most
 
 8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Choice of interesting ; accordingly we have an CEd'ipus of 
 a su ject QQi-neille, an QLd'ipus of Voltaire : innumerable are 
 the Agamemnons, the Electras, the Anttgones, of the 
 French and Italian poets from the sixteenth to 
 the nineteenth century. But the same disadvan- 
 tage which we have in translating clings to us in 
 our attempt to treat these subjects independently : 
 their tieatment by the ancient masters is so over- 
 whelmingly great and powerful that we can 
 henceforth conceive them only as they are there 
 treated : an independent conception of them has 
 become impossible for us : in working upon them 
 we are still, therefore, subject to conditions under 
 which no man can do his best. 
 
 It remained to select a subject from among 
 those which had been considered to possess the 
 true requisites of good tragic subjects ; on which 
 great works had been composed, but had not 
 survived to chill emulation by their grandeur. Of 
 such subjects there is, fortunately, no lack. In 
 the writings of Hyginus, a Latin mythographer of 
 uncertain date, we possess a large stock of them. 
 The heroic stories in Hyginus, Maffei, the reformer 
 of the Italian theatre, imagined rightly or wrongly 
 to be the actual summaries of lost Greek dramas : 
 they are, at any rate, subjects on which lost dramas 
 were founded. Maffei counsels the poets of his 
 nation to turn from the inferior subjects on which 
 they were employing themselves, to this " mimera 
 di tragici argoment'i,''^ this rich mine of subjects for 
 tragedy. Lessing, the great German critic, echoes 
 Maffei's counsel, but adds a warning. " Yes," he 
 cries, " the great subjects are there, but they await 
 an intelligent eye to regard them : they can be
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 9 
 
 handled, not by the great majority of poets, but The 
 only by the small minority," phontes^of 
 
 Among these subjects presented in the collection Euripides 
 of Hyginus, there is one which has long attracted 
 my interest, from the testimony of the ancients to 
 its excellence, and from the results which that 
 testimony has called forth from the emulation of 
 the moderns. That subject is the story of Merope. 
 To the effectiveness of the situations which this 
 story offered, Aristotle and Plutarch have borne 
 witness : a celebrated tragedy upon it, probably by 
 Euripides, existed in antiquity. "The Cresphontes 
 of Euripides is lost," exclaims the reviewer of 
 Voltaire's Merope, a Jesuit, and not unwilling to 
 conciliate the terrible pupil of his order ; " the 
 Cresphontes of Euripides is lost : M. de Voltaire 
 has restored it to us." " Aristotle," says Voltaire, 
 " Aristotle, in his immortal work on Poetry, does 
 not hesitate to affirm that the recognition between 
 Merope and her son was the most interesting 
 moment of the Greek stage." Aristotle affirms 
 no such thing ; but he does say that the story of 
 Merope, like the stories of Iphigeneia and Antiopc, 
 supplies an example of a recognition of the most 
 affecting kind. And Plutarch says; "Look at 
 Merope in the tragedy, lifting up the axe against 
 her own son as being the murderer of her own son, 
 and crying — 
 
 oaicurepav bi] Trjvd' eyw Si'Sco/^i aoi 
 ■rT\r]yr]v 
 
 A more just stroke than that thou gav'st my son. 
 Take 
 
 What an agitation she makes in the theatre ! iiow
 
 lo AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The she fills the spectators with terror lest she should 
 Merope— ^^ ^0° quick for the old man who is trying to stop 
 Hyginus her, and should strike the lad ! " 
 
 It is singular that neither Aristotle nor Plutarch 
 names the author of the tragedy : scholiasts and 
 other late writers quote from it as from a work of 
 Euripides ; but the only writer of authority who 
 names him as its author is Cicero. About fifty 
 lines of it have come down to us : the most 
 important of these remains are the passage just 
 quoted, and a choral address to Peace ; of these I 
 have made use in my tragedy, translating the 
 former, and of the latter adopting the general 
 thought, that of rejoicing at the return of peace : 
 the other fragments consist chiefly of detached 
 moral sentences, of which I have not made any 
 use. 
 
 It may be interesting to give some account of 
 the more celebrated of those modern works which 
 have been founded upon this subject. But before 
 I proceed to do this, I will state what accounts we 
 have of the story itself. 
 
 These proceed from three sources — Apollodorus, 
 Pausanias, and Hyginus. Of their accounts that 
 of Apollodorus is the most ancient, that of 
 Pausanias the most historically valuable, and that 
 of Hyginus the fullest. I will begin with the 
 last-named writer. 
 
 Hyginus says : — 
 
 " Merope sent away and concealed her infant 
 son. Polyphontes sought for him everywhere, 
 and promised gold to whoever should slay him. 
 He, when he grew up, laid a plan to avenge the 
 murder of his father and brothers. In pursuance
 
 dorus and 
 Pausanias 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE ii 
 
 of this plan he came to king Polyphontes and Apollo 
 asked for the promised gold, saying that he had 
 slain the son of Cresphontes and Merope. The 
 king ordered him to be hospitably entertained, 
 intending to inquire further of him. He, being 
 very tired, went to slee]), and an old man, who 
 was the channel through whom the mother and 
 son used to communicate, arrives at this moment 
 in tears, bringing word to Merope that her son 
 had disappeared from his protector's house. 
 Merope, believing that the sleeping stranger is 
 the murderer of her son, comes into the guest- 
 chamber with an axe, not knowing that he whom 
 she would slay was her son : the old man re- 
 cognised him, and withheld Merope from slaying 
 him. After the recognition had taken place, 
 Merope, to prejiare the way for her vengeance, 
 affected to be reconciled with Polyphontes. The 
 king, overjoyed, celebrated a sacrifice : his guest, 
 pretending to strike the sacrificial victim, slew the 
 king, and so got back his father's kingdom." 
 
 Apollodorus says : — 
 
 " Cresjihontes had not reigned long in Messenia 
 when he was murdered together with two of his 
 sons. And Polyphontes reigned in his stead, he, 
 too, being of the family of Hercules ; and he had 
 for his wife, against her will, Merope, the widow 
 of the murdered king. But Merope had borne to 
 Cresphontes a third son, called ^pytus : him she 
 gave to her own father to bring up. He, when 
 he came to man's estate, returned secretly to 
 Messenia, and slew Polyphontes and the other 
 murderers of his father." 
 
 Pausanias adds nothing to the facts told by
 
 12 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The Apollodorus, except that he records the proceed- 
 
 'of the* ings of Cresphontes which had provoked the 
 
 moderns resentment of his Dorian nobles, and led to his 
 
 murder. His statements on this point will be 
 
 found in the Historical Introduction which follows 
 
 this Preface. 
 
 The account of the modern fortunes of the story 
 of Merope is a curious chapter in literary history. 
 In the early age of the French theatre this subject 
 attracted the notice of a great man, if not a great 
 poet, the cardinal Richelieu. At his theatre, in 
 the Palais Royal, was brought out, in 1641, a 
 tragedy under the title of Telephonte, the name 
 given by Hyginus to the surviving son of Merope. 
 This piece is said by Voltaire to have contained 
 about a hundred lines by the great cardinal, who 
 had, as is well known, more bent than genius for 
 dramatic composition. There his vein appears to 
 have dried up, and the rest is by an undistinguished 
 hand. This tragedy was followed by another on 
 the same subject from the resident minister, at 
 Paris, of the celebrated Christina of Sweden. 
 Two pieces with the title of Merope, besides others 
 on the same story, but with different names, were 
 brought out at Paris before the Merope of Voltaire 
 appeared. It seems that none of them created any 
 memorable impression. 
 
 The first eminent success was in Italy. There 
 too, as in France, more than one Merope was early 
 produced : one of them in the sixteenth centurj^, 
 by a Count Torelli, composed with choruses : but 
 the first success was achieved by Matfei. Scipio 
 Maffei, called by Voltaire the Sophocles and Varro 
 of Verona, was a noble and cultivated person. He
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 13 
 
 became in middle life the historian of his native Scipio 
 place, Verona ; and may claim the honour of ^3"^*'* 
 having partly anticipated Niebuhr in his famous 
 discovery, in the Capitular library of that city, 
 of the lost works of Gaius, the Roman lawyer. 
 He visited France and England, and received an 
 honorary degree at Oxford. But in earlier life 
 he signalised himself as the reviver of the study 
 of Greek literature in Italy ; and with the aim to 
 promote that study, and to rescue the Italian 
 theatre from the debasement into which it had 
 fallen, he brought out at Modena, in 17 13, his 
 tragedy of Merope. 
 
 The effect was immense. " Let the Greek and 
 Roman writers give place : here is a greater pro- 
 duction than the (EdlpusV^ wrote, in Latin verse, 
 an enthusiastic admirer. In the winter following 
 its appearance, the tragedy kept constant possession 
 of the stage in Italy ; and its reputation travelled 
 into France and England. In England a play 
 was produced in 1731, by a writer called Jeffreys, 
 professedly taken from the Merope of Maffei. But 
 at this period a love-intrigue was considered indis- 
 pensable in a tragedy : Voltaire was even compelled 
 by the actors to introduce one in his (Edipus : and 
 although in Maffei's work there is no love-intrigue, 
 the English adapter felt himself bound to supply 
 the deficiency. Accordingly he makes, if we may 
 trust Voltaire, the unknown son of Merope in love 
 with one of her maids of honour : he is brought 
 before his mother as his own supposed murderer : 
 she gives him the choice of death by the dagger 
 or by poison : he chooses the latter, drinks off the 
 poison and falls insensible : but reappears at the
 
 U AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The end of the tragedy safe and sound, a friend of 
 *'j^^^*^*'' the maid of honour having substituted a sleep ng- 
 draught for the poison. Such is Voltaire's account 
 of this English Merope, of which I have not been 
 able to obtain sight. Voltaire is apt to exaggerate : 
 but the work was, without doubt, sufficiently ib- 
 surd. A better English translation, by A re, 
 appeared in 1740. I have taken from Matfei a 
 line in my tragedy — 
 
 " Tyrants think, him they murder not, they spare." 
 MafFei has — 
 
 " Ecco il don del tiranni : a lor rassembra, 
 Morte non dando altnii, di dar la vita." 
 
 MafFei makes some important changes in the 
 story as told by its ancient relaters. In his 
 tragedy the unknown prince, Merope's son, is 
 called Egisto : Merope herself is not, as the 
 ancients represented her, at the time of her son's 
 return the wife of Polyphontes, but is repelling 
 the importunate offer of his hand by her husband's 
 murderer : Egisto does not, like Orestes, know 
 his own parentage, and return secretly to his own 
 home in order to wreak vengeance, in concert with 
 his mother, upon his father's murderer : he imagines 
 himself the son of Messenian parents, but of a rank 
 not royal, intrusted to an old man, Polidoro, to 
 be brought up ; and is driven by curiosity to quit 
 his protector and visit his native land. He enters 
 Messenia, and is attacked by a robber, whom he 
 kills. The blood upon his dress attracts the notice 
 of some soldiers of Polyphontes whom he falls in 
 with ; he is seized and brought to the royal palace.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 15 
 
 On hearing his story, a suspicion seizes Merope, Voltaire's 
 who has heard from Polidoro that her son has ^«=''°P* 
 quitted him, that the slain person must have been 
 her own son. The suspicion is confirmed by the 
 sight of a ring on the finger of Egisto, which had 
 belonged to Cresphontes, and which Merope sup- 
 poses the unknown stranger to have taken from 
 her murdered son : she twice attempts his life : the 
 arrival of Polidoro at last clears up the mystery 
 for her ; but at the very moment when she recog- 
 nises Egisto, they are separated, and no interview 
 of recognition takes place between the mother and 
 son. Finally, the prince is made acquainted with 
 hie origin, and kills Polyphontes in the manner 
 df scribed by Hyglnus. 
 
 This is an outline of the story as arranged by 
 Matfei. This arrangement has been followed, in 
 the main, by all his successors. His treatment of 
 the subject has, I think, some grave defects, which 
 I shall presently notice : but his work has much 
 nobleness and feeling ; it seems to me to possess, 
 or tlie whole, more merit of a strictly poetical kind 
 than any of the subsequent works upon the same 
 subject. 
 
 Voltaire's curiosity, which never slumbered, was 
 attracted by the success of Maffei. It was not 
 until 1736, however, when his interest in MafFei's 
 tragedy had been increased by a personal acquaint- 
 ance with its author, that his own Merope was 
 composed. It was not brought out upon the stage 
 unci! 1743. It was received, like its Italian pre- 
 decessor, with an enthusiasm which, assuredly, the 
 English Merope will not excite. From its exhibi- 
 tion dates the practice of calling for a successful
 
 i6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Voltaire author to appear at the close of his piece : the 
 to^"ffei audience were so much enchanted with Voltaire's 
 tragedy, that they insisted on seeing the man who 
 had given them such deHght. To Corneille had 
 been paid the honour of reserving for him the 
 same seat in the theatre at all representations ; but 
 neither he nor Racine were ever " called for." 
 
 Voltaire, in a long complimentary letter, dedi- 
 cated his tragedy to Maffei. He had at first in- 
 tended, he says, merely to translate the Merope of 
 his predecessor, which he so greatly admired : he 
 still admired it ; above all, he admired it because 
 it possessed simplicity ; that simplicity which is, he 
 says, his own idol. But he has to deal with a 
 Parisian audience, with an audience who have 
 been glutted with masterpieces until their delicacy 
 has become excessive ; until they can no longer 
 support the simple and rustic air, the details of 
 country life, which Maffei had imitated from the 
 Greek theatre. The audience of Paris, of that 
 city in which some thirty thousand spectators daily 
 witnessed theatrical performances, and thus ac- 
 quired, by constant practice, a severity of taste, to 
 which the ten thousand Athenians who saw tragedies 
 but four times a year could not pretend — of that 
 terrible city, in which 
 
 " Et pueri nasum rhinocerotis habent : " 
 
 this audience loved simplicity, indeed, but not the 
 same simplicity which was loved at Athens and 
 imitated by Maffei. " I regret this," says Voltaire, 
 " for how fond I am of simple nature ! but, ilfaut 
 se plier au gout d'une nation, one must accommodate 
 oneself to the taste of one's countrymen."
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 17 
 
 He does himself less than justice. When he Voltaire 
 objects, indeed, to that in Maffei's work which is ^^ '^"*'*^ 
 truly " naif et rustique," to that which is truly in a 
 Greek spirit, he is wrong. His objection, for 
 instance, to the passage in which the old retainer 
 of Cresphontes describes, in the language of a man 
 of his class, the rejoicings which celebrated his/ 
 master's accession, is, in my opinion, perfectly 
 groundless. But the wonderful penetration and 
 clear sense of Voltaire seizes, in general, upon 
 really weak points in Maffei's work : upon points 
 which, to an Athenian, would have seemed as 
 weak as they seemed to Voltaire. A French 
 audience, he says, would not have borne to witness 
 Polyphonies making love to Merope, whose husband 
 he had murdered : neither would an Athenian 
 audience have borne it. To hear Polyphontes say 
 to Merope " lo t^amo,^' even though he is but feign- 
 ing, for state purposes, a love which he has not 
 really, shocks the natural feeling of mankind. Our 
 usages, says Voltaire, would not permit that Merope 
 should twice rush upon her son to slay him, once 
 with a javelin, the next time with an axe. The 
 French dramatic usages, then, would on this point 
 have perfectly agreed with the laws of reason and 
 good taste : this repetition of the same incident is 
 tasteless and unmeaning. It is a grave fault of art, 
 says Voltaire, that, at the critical moment of re- 
 cognition, not a word passes between Merope and 
 her son. He is right ; a noble opportunity is thus 
 thrown away. He objects to Maffei's excessive 
 introduction of conversations between subaltern 
 personages : these conversations are, no doubt, 
 tiresome. Other points there are, with respect to 
 
 B
 
 l8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Voltaire— wliich we may say that Voltaire's objections would 
 
 LindelU have been perfectly sound had Maffei really done 
 
 what is imputed to him : but he has not. Voltaire 
 
 has a talent for misrepresentation, and he often 
 
 uses it unscrupulously. 
 
 He never used it more unscrupulously than on 
 this occasion. The French public, it appears, took 
 Voltaire's expressions of obligation to Maffei some- 
 what more literally than Voltaire liked : they 
 imagined that the French Merope was rather a 
 successful adaptation of the Italian Merope than an 
 original work. It was necessary to undeceive 
 them. A letter appeared, addressed by a M. de 
 La Lindelle to Voltaire, in which Voltaire is 
 reproached for his excessive praises of Maifei's 
 tragedy, in which that work is rigorously analysed, 
 its faults remorselessly displayed. No merit is 
 allowed to it : it is a thoroughly bad piece on a 
 thoroughly good subject. Lessing, who, in 1768, 
 in his Hamhurgische Dramaturg'te, reviewed Vol- 
 taire's Merope at great length, evidently has 
 divined, what is the truth, that M. de La Lindelle 
 and Voltaire are one and the same person. It 
 required indeed but little of the great Lessing's 
 sagacity to divine that. An unknown M. de La 
 Lindelle does not write one letter in that style of 
 unmatched incisiveness and animation, that style 
 compared to which the style of Lord Macaulay is 
 tame, and the style of Isocrates is obscure, and 
 then pass for ever from the human stage. M. de 
 La Lindelle is Voltaire; but that does not hinder 
 Voltaire from replying to him with perfect gravity. 
 " You terrify me ! " he exclaims to his corre- 
 spondent — that is, to himself: "you terrify me!
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 19 
 
 you are as hypercritical as Scaliger. Why not fix Voltaire's 
 your attention rather on the beauties of M. Maffei's '^"Pii"ty 
 work, than on its undoubted defects ? It is my 
 sincere opinion that, in some points, M. Maffei's 
 Merope is superior to my ov/n." The transaction 
 is one of the most signal instances of literary sharp 
 practice on record. To this day, in the ordinary 
 editions of Voltaire, M. de La Lindelle's letter 
 figures, in the correspondence prefixed to the 
 tragedy of Merope, as the letter of an authentic 
 person ; although the true history of the proceeding 
 has long been well known, and Voltaire's conduct 
 in it was severely blamed by La Harpe. 
 
 Voltaire had said that his Merope was occasioned 
 by that of MafFei. " Occasioned," says Lessing, " is 
 too weak a word : M. de Voltaire's tragedy owes 
 everything to that of M. Maffei." This is not just. 
 I We have seen the faults in Maffei's work pointed 
 ; out by Voltaire. Some of these faults he avoids : 
 I at the same time he discerns, with masterly clear- 
 ness, the true difficulties of the subject. " Comment 
 se prendre," he says, "pour faire penser a Merope 
 que son fils est I'assassin de son fils meme ? " 
 That is one problem ; here is another : " Comment 
 trouver des motifs necessaires pour que Polyphonte 
 veuille epouser Merope ? " Let us see which of 
 Maffei's faults Voltaire avoids : let us see how far 
 ihe solves the problems which he himself has 
 enunciated. 
 
 The story, in its main outline, is the same with 
 Voltaire as with Maffei ; but in some particulars it 
 is altered, so as to have more probability. Like 
 Maffei's Egisto, Voltaire's Egisthe does not know 
 his own origin : like him, youthful curiosity drives
 
 20 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Maffei and him to quit his aged protector, and to re-enter 
 analysed Messenia. Like him he has an encounter with a 
 stranger, whom he slays, and whose blood, staining 
 his clothes, leads to his apprehension. But this 
 stranger is an emissary of Polyphonies, sent to 
 effect the young prince's murder. This is an 
 improvement upon the robber of Maffei, who has 
 no connexion whatever with the action of the 
 piece. Suspicion falls upon Egisthe on the same 
 grounds as those on which it fell upon Egisto. 
 The suspicion is confirmed in Egisthe's case by 
 the appearance of a coat of armour, as, in Egisto's 
 case, it was confirmed by the appearance of a ring. 
 In neither case does Merope seem to have sufficient 
 cause to believe the unknown youth to be her son's 
 murderer. In Voltaire's tragedy, Merope is igno- 
 rant until the end of the third act that Polyphontes 
 is her husband's murderer ; nay, she believes that 
 Cresphontes, murdered by the brigands of Pylos, 
 has been avenged by Polyphontes, who claims her 
 gratitude on that ground. He desires to marry 
 her in order to strengthen his position. " Of in- 
 terests in the state," he says, 
 
 " II ne reste aujourd'hui que le votre et le mien : 
 Nous devons Tun a Tautre un mutuel soutien." 
 
 Voltaire thus departs widely from the tradition ; but 
 he can represent Merope as entertaining and dis- 
 cussing the tyrant's offer of marriage without shock- 
 ing our feelings. The style, however, in which 
 Voltaire makes Polyphontes urge his addresses, 
 would sometimes, I think, have wounded a Greek's 
 taste as much as Maffei' s lo i'amo —
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 21 
 
 " Je sais que vos appas, encore dans le printemps, Theit 
 Poiirraient s'efFaroucher de I'hiver de mes ans." faults 
 
 What an address from a stern, care-haunted ruler 
 to a widowed queen, the mother of a grown-up 
 son ! The tragedy proceeds ; and Merope is about 
 to slay her son, when his aged guardian arrives and 
 makes known to her who the youth is. This is as 
 in MafFei's piece ; but Voltaire avoids the absurdity 
 of the double attempt by Merope on her son's life. 
 Yet he, too, permits Egisthe to leave the stage 
 without exchanging a word with his mother : the 
 very fault which he justly censures in Maffei. 
 Egisthe, indeed, does not even learn, on this 
 occasion, that Merope is his mother : the recog- 
 nition is thus cut in half. The second half of it 
 comes afterwards, in the presence of Polyphontes ; 
 and his presence imposes, of course, a restraint 
 upon the mother and son. Merope is driven, by 
 fear for her son's safety, to consent to marry Poly- 
 phontes, although his full guilt is now revealed to 
 her ; but she is saved by her son, who slays the 
 tyrant in the manner told in the tradition and 
 followed by MafFei. 
 
 What is the real merit of Voltaire's tragedy ? 
 We must forget the rhymed Alexandrines ; that 
 metre, faulty not so much because it is disagreeable 
 in itself, as because it has in it something which is 
 essentially unsuitcd to perfect tragedy ; that metre 
 which is so indefensible, and which Voltaire has 
 so ingeniously laboured to defend. He takes a 
 noble passage from Racine's Phedre, alters words 
 I so as to remove the rhyme, and asks if the passage 
 \ now produces as good an effect as before. But a
 
 92 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Voltaire's fine passage which we are used to we like in the 
 "**" form in which we are used to it, with all its faults. 
 Prose is, undoubtedly, a less noble vehicle for 
 tragedy than verse ; yet we should not like the 
 fine passages in Goethe's prose tragedy oi Egmont 
 the better for having them turned into verse. Be- 
 sides, it is not clear that the unrhymed Alexandrine 
 is a better tragic metre than the rhymed. Voltaire 
 says that usage has now established the metre in 
 Franct; :;nd that the dramatic poet has no escape 
 from it. For him and his contemporaries this is 
 a valid plea ; but how much one regrets that the 
 poetical feeling of the French nation did not, at a 
 period when such an alteration was still possible, 
 change for a better this unsuitable tragic metre, as 
 the Greeks, in the early period of their tragic art, 
 changed for the more fitting iambus their trochaic 
 tetrameter. 
 
 To return to Voltaire's Merope. It is admirably 
 constructed, and must have been most effective on 
 the stage. One feels, as one reads it, that a poet 
 gains something by living amongst a population 
 who have the nose of the rhinoceros : his ingenuity 
 becomes sharpened. This work has, besides, that 
 stamp of a prodigious talent which none of Voltaire's 
 works are without ; it has vigour, clearness, rapid 
 movement ; it has lines which are models of terse 
 observation — 
 
 "Le premier qui fut rol fut un soldat heureux: 
 Qui sert blen son pays n'a pas besoin d'aieux." 
 
 It has lines which are models of powerful, animated, 
 rhetoric —
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 23 
 
 M^ROPE. Aaron 
 
 "Courons a Polyphonte — implorons son appul." adaotatlon 
 
 NARBAS. 
 
 " N'implorez que les dieux, et ne craignez que lui." 
 
 What it wants is a charm of poetical feeling, which 
 Racine's tragedies possess, and which has given to 
 them the decisive superiority over those of Voltaire. 
 He has managed his story with great adroitness ; 
 but he has departed from the original tradition yet 
 further than Maffei. He has avoided several of 
 Maffei's faults : why has he not avoided his fault 
 of omitting to introduce, at the moment of recog- 
 nition, a scene between the mother and son ? 
 Lessing thinks that he wanted the double recog- 
 nition in order to enable him to fill his prescribed 
 space, that terrible " carriere de cinq actes " of 
 which he so grievously complains. I believe, 
 rather, that he cut the recognition in two, in order 
 to produce for his audience two distinct shocks of 
 surprise : for to inspire surprise, Voltaire con- 
 sidered the dramatic poet's true aim ; an opinion 
 which, as we shall hereafter see, sometimes led 
 him astray. 
 
 Voltaire's Merope was adapted for the English 
 1 stage by Aaron Hill, a singular man ; by turns, 
 : poet, soldier, tlieatrical manager, and Lord Peter - 
 \ borough's private secretary ; but always, and above 
 I all, an indefatigable projector. He originated a 
 I beech oil company, a Scotch timber company, and. 
 a plan to colonise Florida. He published Essays 
 I on Reducing the Price of Coals, on Repairing 
 I' Dagenham Breach, and on English Grape Wines; 
 I, an epic poem on Gideon, a tragedy called The
 
 24 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Alfieri's Fatal Vision, or Fall of Siam, and a translation 
 Merope ^^ Voltaire's Zdire. His Merope was his last 
 work. It appeared in 1749 with a dedication to 
 Lord Bolingbroke ; it was brought on the stage 
 with great success, Garrick acting in it ; and 
 Hill, who was at this time in poverty, and who 
 died soon after, received a considerable sum from 
 his benefit nights. I have not seen this work, 
 which is not included in the Inchbald collection 
 of acted plays. Warton calls Aaron Hill an 
 affected and fustian writer, and this seems to have 
 been his reputation among his contemporaries. 
 His Zara, which I have seen, has the fault of so 
 much of English literature of the second class — 
 an incurable defect oi style. 
 
 One other Merope remains to be noticed — the 
 Merope of Alfieri. In this tragedy, which appeared 
 in 1783, A-lfieri has entirely followed Maffei and 
 Voltaire. He seems to have followed Maffei in 
 the first half of it ; Voltaire in the second. His 
 Polyphontes, however, does not make love to 
 Merope : desiring to obtain her hand, in order by 
 this marriage to make the Messenians forget their 
 attachment to Cresphontes, he appeals to her self- 
 interest. " You are miserable," he says ; " but a 
 throne is a great consolation. A throne is — 
 
 la sola 
 Non vile ammenda, che al fallir mio resti." 
 
 Egisto, in Alfieri's piece, falls under suspicion from 
 the blood left on his clothes in a struggle with a 
 stranger, whom he kills and throws into the river 
 Pamisus. The suspicion is confirmed by the 
 appearance of a girdle recognised by Merope as
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 25 
 
 having belonged to her son ; as it was confirmed The 
 in Maffei's piece by the appearance of a ring ; in "qu^t"^ 
 Voltaire's, by that of a coat of armour. The tradition 
 rest is, in the main, as with Voltaire, except that 
 Alfieri makes Polyphontes perish upon the stage, 
 under circumstances of considerable improbability. 
 
 This work of Alfieri has the characteristic merit, 
 and the characteristic fault, of Alfieri's tragedies : 
 it has the merit of elevation, and the fault of 
 narrowness. Narroiv elevation ; that seems to me 
 exactly to express the quality of Alfieri's poetry : 
 he is a noble-minded, deeply interesting man, but a 
 monotonous poet. 
 
 A mistake, a grave mistake it seems to me, in 
 the treatment of their subject, is common to Maifei, 
 Voltaire, and Alfieri. They have abandoned the 
 tradition where they h.,,d better have followed it; 
 they have followed it, where they had better have 
 abandoned it. 
 
 The tradition is a great matter to a poet ; it is 
 an unspeakable support ; it gives him the feeling 
 that he is treading on solid ground. Aristotle 
 tells the tragic poet that he must not destroy the 
 received stories. A noble and accomplished living 
 poet, M. Manzoni, has, in an admirable disserta- 
 tion, developed this thesis of the importance to the 
 poet of a basis of tradition. Its importance I feel 
 so strongly, that, where driven to invent in the 
 false story told by Merope's son, as by Orestes in 
 the Electra, of his own death, I could not satisfy 
 myself until I discovered in Pausanias a tradition, 
 which I took for my basis, of an Arcadian hunter 
 drowned in the lake Stymphalus, down one of 
 those singular Katabothra, or chasms in the lime-
 
 26 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Tradition's stone rock, SO well known in Greece, in a manner 
 ights an ' 
 wrongs 
 
 ng ts an similar to that in which ^pytus is represented to 
 
 have perished. 
 
 MafFei did right, T think, in altering the ancient 
 tradition where it represents Merope as actually the 
 wife of Polyphontes. It revolts our feeling to con- 
 sider her as married to her husband's murderer ; 
 and it is no great departure from the tradition to 
 represent her as sought in marriage by him, but 
 not yet obtained. But why did Maffei (for he, it 
 will be remembered, gave the story its modern 
 arrangement, which Voltaire and Alfieri have, in 
 all its leading points, followed), why did Maffei 
 abandon that part of the tradition which represents 
 ^pytus, the Messenian prince, as acquainted v/ith 
 his own origin ? Why did he and his followers 
 prefer to attribute to curiorlty a return which the 
 tradition attributed to a far more tragic motive ? 
 Why did they compel themselves to invent a 
 machinery of robbers, assassins, guards, rings, 
 girdles, and I know not what, to effect that which 
 the tradition effects in a far simpler manner — to 
 place ^pytus before his mother as his own 
 murderer? Lessing imagines that Maffei, who 
 wished to depict, above all, the maternal anxiety of 
 Merope, conceived that this anxiety would be more 
 naturally and powerfully a.vakened by the thought 
 of her child reared in hardship and obscurity as a 
 poor man's son, then by the thought of him reared 
 in splendour as a prince in the palace of her own 
 father. But what a conception of the sorrow of 
 a queen, whose husband has been murdered, and 
 whose son is an exile from his inheritance, to suppose 
 that such a sorrow is enhanced by the thought
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 27 
 
 that her child is rudely housed and plainly fed ; Tragfic 
 to assume that it would take a less tragic com- ^^Jjy. 
 plexion if she knew that he lived in luxury ! No ; phontes 
 the true tragic motive of Merope's sorrow is else- 
 where : the tradition amply supplied it. 
 
 Here, then, the moderns have invented amiss, 
 because they have invented needlessly ; because, 
 on this point, the tradition, as it stood, afforded 
 perfect materials to the tragic poet : and, by 
 Maffei's change, not a higher tragic complication, 
 but merely a greater puzzle and intricacy is pro- 
 duced. 1 come now to a point on which the 
 tradition might with advantage, as I think, have been 
 set aside ; and that is, the character of Polyphontes. 
 
 Yet, on this point, to speak of setting aside the 
 tradition is to speak too strongly ; tor the tradition 
 is here not complete. Neither Pausanias nor 
 Apollodorus mention circumstances which definitely 
 fix the character of Polyphontes ; Hyginus, no 
 doubt, represents him as a villain, and, if Hyginus 
 follows Euripides, Euripides also thus represented 
 him. Euripides may possibly have done so : yet 
 a purer tragic feeling, it seems to me, is produced, 
 if Polyphontes is represented as not wholly black 
 and inexcusable, than if he is represented as a 
 mere monster of cruelty and hypocrisy. Aris- 
 totle's profound remark is well known, that the 
 tragic personage whose ruin is represented, should 
 be a personage neither eminently good, nor yet one 
 brought to ruin by sheer iniquity: nay, that his 
 character should incline rather to good than to 
 bad, but that he should have some fault which 
 impels him to his fall. For, as he explains, the 
 two grand tragic feelings, pity and terror, which it
 
 28 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The main is the business of tragedy to excite, will not be 
 d[fficuUy excited by the spectacle of the ruin of a mere 
 villain ; since pity is for those who suffer un- 
 deservedly : and such a man suffers deservedly : 
 terror is excited by the fall of one of like 
 nature with ourselves, and we feel that the 
 mere villain is not as ourselves. Aristotle, no 
 doubt, is here speaking, above all, of the Prot- 
 agonist, or principal personage of the drama ; but 
 the noblest tragic poets of Greece rightly ex- 
 tended their application of the truth on which his 
 remark is based to all the personages of the drama : 
 neither the Creon of Sophocles, nor the Clytem- 
 nestra of ^schylus, are wholly inexcusable ; in 
 none of the extant dramas of .^schylus or Sophocles 
 is there a character which is entirely bad. For 
 such a character we must go to Euripides : we 
 must go to an art — wonderful indeed, for I entirely 
 dissent from the unreserved disparagers of this 
 great poet — but an art of less moral significance 
 than the art of Sophocles and ^schylus ; we must 
 go to tragedies like the Hecuba., for villains like 
 Polymestor. 
 
 What is the main dramatic difficulty of the story 
 of Merope, as usually treated ? It is, as Alfieri 
 rightly saw, that the interest naturally declines 
 from the moment of Merope's recognition of her 
 son ; that the destruction of the tyrant is not, after 
 this, matter of interest enough to affect us deeply. 
 This is true, if Polyphontes is a mere villain. It 
 is not true, if he is one for the ruin of whom we 
 may, in spite of his crime, feel a profound com- 
 passion. Then our interest in the story lasts to 
 the end : for to the very end we are inspired
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 29 
 
 with the powerful tragic emotions of commisera- The base 
 tion and awe. Pausanias states circumstances "p'^'iy!!" 
 which suggest the possibiHty of representing Poly- phontes 
 phontes, not as a mere cruel and selfish tyrant, but 
 as a man whose crime was a truly tragic fault, the 
 error of a noble nature. Assume such a nature in 
 him, and the turn of circumstances in the drama 
 takes a new aspect : Merope and her son triumph, 
 but the fall of their foe leaves us awestruck and 
 compassionate : the story issues tragically, as Aris- 
 totle has truly said that the best tragic stories 
 ought to issue. 
 
 Neither Maffei, nor Voltaire, nor Alfieri have 
 drawn Polyphontes with a character to inspire any 
 feeling but aversion, with any traits of nobleness 
 to mitigate our satisfaction at his death. His 
 character being such, it is difficult to render his 
 anxiety to obtain Merope's hand intelligible, for 
 Merope's situation is not such as to make her 
 enmity really dangerous to Polyphontes ; he has, 
 therefore, no sufficient motive of self-interest, and 
 the nobler motives of reparation and pacification 
 could have exercised, on such a character, no 
 force. Voltaire accordingly, whose keen eye no 
 weak place of this kind escaped, felt his difficulty. 
 "Neither M. Maffei nor I," he confesses, "have 
 assigned any sufficient motives for the desire of 
 Polyphontes to marry Merope." 
 
 To criticise is easier than to create ; and if I 
 have been led, in this review of the fortunes of 
 my story, to find fault with the work of others, I 
 do not on that account assume that I have myself 
 produced a work which is not a thousand times 
 more faulty.
 
 30 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Greek It remains to say something, for those who are 
 ^iorm^'^ not familiar with the Greek dramatic forms, of the 
 form in which this traj^edy is cast. Greek tragedy, 
 as is well known, took its origin from the songs of 
 a chorus, and the stamp of its origin remained for 
 ever impressed upon it. A chorus, or band of 
 dancers, moving around the altar of Bacchus, sang 
 the adventures of the god. To this band Thespis 
 joined an actor, who held dialogue with the chorus, 
 and who was called uttokpitt)?, f/je answerer, because 
 he answered the songs of the chorus. The drama 
 thus commenced ; for the dialogue of this actor 
 with the chorus brought before the audience some 
 action of Bacchus, or of one of the heroes ; this 
 action, narrated by the actor, was commented on 
 in song, at certain intervals, by the chorus alone. 
 iEschylus added a second actor, thus making the 
 character of the representation more dramatic, for 
 the chorus was never itself so much an actor as a 
 hearer and observer of the actor ; Sophocles added 
 a third. These three actors might successively 
 personate several characters in the same piece ; 
 but to three actors and a chorus the dramatic poet 
 limited himself : only in a single piece of Sophocles, 
 not brought out until after his death, was the em- 
 ployment of a fourth actor, it appears, necessary. 
 
 The chorus consisted, in the time of Sophocles, 
 of fifteen persons. After their first entrance they 
 remained before the spectators, without withdrawing, 
 until the end of the piece. Their place was in the 
 orchestra ; that of the actors was upon the stage. 
 The orchestra was a circular space, like the pit of 
 our theatres : the chorus arrived in it by side- 
 entrances, and not by the stage. In the centre of
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 31 
 
 the orchestra was the altar of Bacchus, around Greek 
 
 which the chorus orieinally danced ; but in dramatic theatrical 
 , .^ , ■' , , . , arrange- 
 
 representations their place was between this altar ment 
 and the stage : here they stood, a little lower than 
 the persons on the stage, but looking towards them, 
 and holding, through their leaders, conversation 
 with them : then, at pauses in the action, the 
 united chorus sang songs expressing their feelings 
 at what was happening upon the stage, making, 
 as they sang, certain measured stately movements 
 between the stage and the altar, and occasionally 
 standing still. Steps led from the orchestra to the 
 stage, and the chorus, or some members of it, 
 might thus, if necessary, join the actors on the 
 stage ; but this seldom happened, the proper place 
 for the chorus was the orchestra. The dialogue 
 of the chorus with the actors on the stage passed 
 generally in the ordinary form of dramatic dialogue; 
 but, on occasions where strong feeling was excited, 
 the dialogue took a lyrical form. Long dialogues 
 of this kind sometimes took place between the 
 leaders of the chorus and one of the actors upon 
 the stage, their burden being a lamentation for the 
 dead. 
 
 The Greek theatres were vast, and open to the 
 sky ; the actors, masked, and in a somewhat stiff 
 tragic costume, were to be regarded from a con- 
 siderable distance: a solemn, clearly marked style 
 of gesture, a sustained tone of declamation, were 
 thus rendered necessary. Under these conditions, 
 intricate by-play, rapid variations in the action, 
 requiring great mobility, ever-changing shades of 
 jtone and gesture in the actor, were impossible. 
 .Broad and simple effects were, under these con-
 
 32 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Simplicity, ditions, above all to be aimed at ; a profound and 
 
 clearness ^'^'"" J'np''^^^'^" ^^^ ^° ^^ effected. Unity of 
 plan in the action, and symmetry in the treatment 
 of it, weie indispensable. The action represented, 
 therefore, was to be a single, rigorously developed 
 action ; the masses of the composition were to be 
 balanced, each bringing out the other into stronger 
 and distincter relief. In the best tragedies, not 
 only do the divisions of the full choral songs 
 accurately correspond to one another, but the 
 divisions of the lyrical dialogue, nay, even the 
 divisions of the regular dramatic dialogue, form 
 corresponding members, of which one member 
 is the answer, the counter-stroke to the other ; 
 and an indescribable sense of distinctness and 
 depth of impression is thus produced. 
 
 From what has been said, the reader will see 
 that the Greek tragic forms were not chosen as 
 being, in the nature of things, the best tragic 
 forms ; such would be a wholly false conception 
 of them. They are an adaptation to dramatic 
 purposes, under certain theatrical conditions, of 
 forms previously existing for other purposes ; that 
 adaptation at which the Greeks, after several 
 stages of improvement, finally rested. The laws 
 of Greek tragic art, therefore, are not exclusive ; 
 they are for Greek dramatic art itself, but they 
 do not pronounce other modes of dramatic art 
 unlawful ; they are, at most, prophecies of the 
 improbability of dramatic success under other condi- 
 tions. " Tragedy," says Aristotle, in a remarkable 
 passage, " after going through many changes, got 
 the nature which suited it, and there it stopped. 
 Whether or no the kinds of tragedy are yet 
 
 I
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 33 
 
 exhausted," he presently adds, " tragedy being Effective 
 considered either in itself, or in respect to the ^^'^^'''^y 
 stage, I shall not now inquire." Travelling in a 
 certain path, the spirit of man arrived at Greek 
 tragedy ; travelling in other paths, it may arrive 
 at other kinds of tragedy. 
 
 But it cannot be denied that the Greek tragic 
 forms, although not the only possible tragic forms, 
 satisfy, in the most perfect manner, some of the 
 most urgent demands of the human spirit. If, on 
 the one hand, the human spirit demands variety 
 and the widest possible range, it equally demands, 
 on the other hand, depth and concentration in its 
 impressions. Powerful thought and emotion, 
 flowing in strongly marked channels, make a 
 stronger impression : this is the main reason why 
 a metrical form is a more effective vehicle for 
 them than prose : in prose there is more freedom, 
 but, in the metrical form, the very limit gives a 
 sense [of] precision and emphasis. This sense of 
 emphatic distinctness in our impressions rises, as 
 the thought and emotion swell higher and higher 
 without overflowing their boundaries, to a lofty 
 [sense of the mastery of the human spirit over its 
 [awn stormiest agitations; and this, again, conducts 
 18 to a state of feeling which it is the highest aim 
 )f tragedy to produce, to a sentiment of sublime 
 icqu'tescence in the course of fate, and in the dispensa- 
 ions of human life. 
 
 What has been said exj)lains, I think, the 
 eason of the effectiveness of the severe forms of 
 Jreek tragedy, with its strongly marked boundaries, 
 ^ith its recurrence, even in the most agitating 
 ituations, of mutually replying masses of metrical 
 c
 
 34 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Repose— arrangement. Sometimes the agitation becomes 
 heres'^'in overwhelming, and the correspondence is for a 
 practice time lost, the torrent of feeling flows for a space 
 without check : this disorder amid the general 
 order produces a powerful effect; but the balance 
 is restored before the tragedy closes : the final 
 sentiment in the mind must be one not of trouble, 
 but of acquiescence. 
 
 This sentiment of acquiescence is, no doubt, a 
 sentiment of repose ; and, therefore, I cannot agree 
 with Mr. Lewes when he says, in his remarks on 
 Goethe's Iphigeneia, that " the Greek Drama is 
 distinguished by its absence of repose ; by the 
 currents of passion being for ever kept in agita- 
 tion." I entirely agree, however, in his criticism 
 of Goethe's tragedy ; of that noble poem which 
 Schiller so exactly characterised when he said 
 that it was " full of soul : " I entirely agree v.'ith 
 him when he says that " the tragic situation in the 
 story of Iphegeneia is not touched by Goethe ; 
 that his tragedy addresses the conscience rather 
 than the emotions." But Goethe does not err 
 from Greek ideas when he thinks that there is 
 repose in tragedy : he errs from Greek practice 
 in the mode in which he strives to produce that 
 repose. Sophocles does not produce the sentiment 
 of repose, of acquiescence, by inculcating it, by 
 avoiding agitating circumstances : he produces it 
 by exhibiting to us the most agitating matter under 
 the conditions of the severest form. Goethe has 
 truly recognised that this sentiment is the grand 
 final effect of Greek tragedy : but he produces it, , 
 not in the manner of Sophocles, but, as Mr. , 
 Lewes has most ably pointed out, in a manner of ,
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 35 
 
 his own ; he produces it by inculcating it ; by Johnstone 
 avoiding agitating matter ; by keeping himself in ^^'^ *^* 
 the domain of the soul and conscience, not in that encum- 
 of the passions. ^''^"^ 
 
 I have now to speak of the chorus ; for of this, 
 as of the other forms of Greek tragedy, it is not 
 enough, considering how Greek tragedy arose, to 
 show that the Greeks used it ; it is necessary to 
 show that it is effective. Johnson says, that " it 
 could only be by long prejudice and the bigotry 
 of learning that Milton could prefer the ancient 
 tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to 
 the exhibitions of the French and English stages : " 
 and his tragedy of Irene sufficiently proves that he 
 himself, in his practice, adopted Greek art as 
 arranged at Paris, by those 
 
 " Juges plus eclaires que ceux qui dans Athene 
 Firent naitre et fleurir les lois de Melpomene ; " 
 
 as Voltaire calls them in the prologue to his 
 Eryphile. Johnson merely calls the chorus an 
 encumbrance. Voltaire, who, in his CEdipus, had 
 made use of the chorus in a singular manner, 
 argued, at a later period, against its introduction. 
 Voltaire is always worth listening to, because his 
 keenness of remark is always suggestive. " In an 
 interesting piece the intrigue generally requires," 
 says Voltaire, " that the principal actors should 
 have secrets to tell one another — Eh ! le moyen de 
 dire son secret a tout un peuple. And, if the songs 
 of the chorus allude to what has already happened, 
 they must," he says, " be tiresome ; if they allude 
 to what is about to happen, their effect will be to 
 derober le plais'ir de la surprise." How ingenious,
 
 spectator 
 
 36 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The chorus and how entirely in Voltaire's manner ! The 
 soectator scnsc to be appealed to in tragedy is curiosity ; the 
 impression to be awakened in us is surprise. But 
 the Greeks thought differently. For them, the 
 aim of tragedy was profound moral Impression : and 
 the ideal spectator, as Schlegel and MLiller have 
 called the chorus, was designed to enable the 
 actual spectator to feel his own impressions more 
 distinctly and more deeply. The chorus was, at 
 each stage in the action, to collect and weigh the 
 impressions which the action would at that stage 
 naturally make on a pious and thoughtful mind ; 
 and was at last, at the end of the tragedy, when 
 the issue of the action appeared, to strike the iinal 
 balance. If the feeling with which the actual 
 spectator regarded the course of the tragedy could 
 be deepened by reminding him of what was past, 
 or by indicating to him what was to come, it was 
 the province of the ideal spectator so to deepen 
 it. To combine, to harmonise, to deepen for the 
 spectator the feelings naturally excited in him by 
 the sight of what was passing upon the stage — 
 this is one grand effect produced by the chorus in 
 Greek tragedy. 
 
 There is another. Coleridge observes that 
 Shakspeare, after one of his grandest scenes, often 
 plunges, as if to relax and relieve himself, into a 
 scene of buffoonery. After tragic situations of 
 the greatest intensity, a desire for relief and re- 
 laxation is no doubt natural, both to the poet and 
 to the spectator ; but the finer feeling of the 
 Greeks found this relief, not in buffoonery, but 
 in lyrical song. The noble and natural relief 
 from the emotion produced by tragic events is in 
 
 J
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 37 
 
 the transition to the emotion produced by lyric Lyric 
 poetry, not in the contrast and shock of a totally MiTton 
 opposite order of feelings. The relief afforded 
 to excited feeling by lyrical song every one has 
 experienced at the opera : the delight and facility 
 of this relief renders so universal the popularity of 
 the opera, of this ^^ beau monstre" which still, as 
 in Voltaire's time, " etouffe Melpomene." But in 
 the opera, the lyrical element, the element of 
 feeling and relaxation, is in excess : the dramatic 
 element, the element of intellect and labour, is in 
 defect. In the best Greek tragedy, the lyrical 
 element occupies its true place ; it is the relief 
 and solace in the stress and conflict of the action ; 
 it is not the substantive business. 
 
 Few can have read the Samson ulgon'tstes of 
 Milton without feeling that the chorus imparts a 
 peculiar and noble effect to that poem ; but I 
 regret that Milton determined, induced probably 
 by his preference for Euripides, to adopt, in the 
 songs of the chorus, " the measure," as he himself 
 says, " called by the Greeks Monostrophic, or 
 rather Apolelymenon, without regard had to 
 Strophe, Antistrophe, or Epode." In this re- 
 laxed form of the later Greek tragedy, the means 
 are sacrificed by which the chorus could produce, 
 within the limits of a single choric song, the same 
 effect which it was their business, as we have seen, 
 to produce in the tragedy as a whole. The regular 
 correspondence of part with part, the antithesis, in 
 answering stanzas, of thought to thought, feeling 
 to feeling, with the balance of the whole struck 
 in one independent final stanza or epode, is lost ; 
 something of the peculiar distinctness and symmetry,
 
 38 AUTHORS PREFACE 
 
 Oratorical which constitute the vital force of the Greek tragic 
 sl°m'son ^'Ji'T's, is thus forfeited. The story of Samson, 
 
 Agonistes aUhough it has no mystery or complication, to 
 inspire, like tragic stories of the most perfect 
 kind, a foreboding and anxious gloom in the mind 
 of him who hears it, is yet a truly dramatic and 
 noble one ; but the forms of Greek tragedy, which 
 are founded on Greek manners, on the practice 
 of chorus-dancing, and on the ancient habitual 
 transaction of affairs in the open air in front of 
 the dwellings of kings, are better adapted to 
 Greek stories than to Hebrew or any other. 
 These reserves being made, it is impossible to 
 praise the Samson ^gonisies too highly : it is great 
 with all the greatness of Milton. Goethe might 
 well say to Eckermann, after re-reading it, that 
 hardly any work had been composed so entirely 
 in the spirit of the ancients. 
 
 Milton's drama has the true oratorical flow of 
 ancient tragedy, produced mainly, I think, by his 
 making it, as the Greeks made it, the rule, not 
 the exception, to put the pause at the end of the 
 line, not in the middle. Shakspeare has some 
 noble passages, particularly in his Richard the 
 Third, constructed with this, the true oratorical 
 rhythm ; indeed, that wonderful poet, who has so 
 much besides rhetoric, is also the greatest poetical 
 rhetorician since Euripides ; still, it is to the 
 Elizabethan poets that we owe the bad habit, in 
 dramatic poetry, of perpetually dividing the line 
 in the middle. Italian tragedy has the same 
 habit : in Alfieri's plays it is intolerable. The con- 
 stant occurrence of such lines produces, not a sense 
 of vuiiety, but a sense of perpetual interruption.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 39 
 
 Some of the measures used in the choric songs Choric 
 of my tragedy are ordinary measures of English ™D^ry"/en~ 
 verse : others are not so ; but it must not be and Pope 
 supposed that these last are the reproduction of 
 any Greek choric measures. So to adapt Greek 
 measures to English verse is impossible : what T 
 have done is to try to follow rhythms which 
 produced on my own feeling a similar impression 
 to that produced on it by the rhythms of Greek 
 choric poetry. In such an endeavour, when the 
 ear is guided solely by its own feeling, there is, 
 I know, a continual risk of failure and of offence. 
 I believe, however, that there are no existing 
 English measures which produce the same effect 
 on the ear, and therefore on the mind, as that 
 produced by many measures indispensable to the 
 nature of Greek lyric poetry. He, therefore, 
 who would obtain certain effects obtained by that 
 poetry, is driven to invent new measures, whether 
 he will or no. 
 
 Pope and Dryden felt this. Pope composed 
 two choruses for the Duke of Buckingham's 
 Brulus, a tragedy altered from Shakspeare, and 
 performed at Buckingham-house. A short specimen 
 will show what these choruses were — 
 
 "Love's purer frames the Gods approve: 
 The Gods and Brutus bend to love : 
 Brutus for absent Portia sighs, 
 And sterner Cassius melts at Junia's eyes." 
 
 In this style he proceeds for eight lines more, and 
 then the antistrophe duly follows. Pope felt that 
 the peculiar effects of Greek lyric poetry were 
 here missed ; the measure in itself makes them
 
 40 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Johnson impossible : in his ode on St. Cecilia's day, 
 
 st°" .^ciHa -iccordingly, he tries to come nearer to the Greeks. 
 
 ' Ode Here is a portion of his fourth stanza ; of one of 
 
 those stanzas in which Johnson thinks that " we 
 
 have all that can be performed by sweetness of 
 
 diction, or elegance of versification : " — 
 
 " Dreadful gleams, 
 Dismal screams, 
 Fires that glow, 
 Shrieks of woe, 
 Sullen moans. 
 Hollow groans, 
 And cries of tortured ghosts." 
 
 Horrible ! yet how dire must have been the 
 necessity, how strong the feeling of the inadequacy 
 of existing metres to produce effects demanded, 
 which could drive a man of Pope's taste to such 
 prodigies of invention! Dryden in his Alexander s 
 Feast deviates less from ordinary English measures ; 
 but to deviate from them in some degree he was 
 compelled. My admiration for Dryden's genius 
 is warm : my delight in this incomparable ode, 
 the mighty son of his old age, is unbounded : but 
 it seems to me that in only one stanza and chorus 
 of the Alexander's Feast, the fourth, does the 
 rhythm from first to last completely satisfy the 
 ear. 
 
 I must have wearied my reader's patience : 
 but 1 was desirous, in laying before him my 
 tragedy, that it should not lose what benefit it 
 can derive from the foregoing explanations. To 
 his favourable reception of it there will still be 
 obstacles enough, in its unfamiliar form, and in 
 the incapacity of its author.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 41 
 
 How much do I regret that the many poets of Apologia 
 the present day who possess that capacity which t^°^^^ 
 I have not, should not have forestalled me in an 
 endeavour far beyond my powers ! How gladly 
 should I have applauded their better success in 
 the attempt to enrich with what, in the forms of 
 the most perfectly-formed literature in the world, 
 is most perfect, our noble English literature ; to 
 extend its boundaries in the one direction, in 
 which, with all its force and variety, it has not 
 yet advanced ! They would have lost nothing by 
 such an attempt, and English literature would have 
 gained much. 
 
 Only their silence could have emboldened to 
 undertake it one with inadequate time, inadequate 
 knowledge, and a talent, alas! still more in- 
 adequate : one who brings to the task none of 
 the requisite qualifications of genius or learning : 
 nothing but a passion for the great Masters, and 
 an effort to study them without fancifulness. 
 
 London : December^ 1857.
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 Hercules Im the foicgoing Preface the story of Merope is 
 ai^estor detailed : what is here added may serve to explain 
 
 of iEpytus . ■' c t J 
 
 allusions which occur in the course or the tragedy, 
 and to illustrate the situation of its chief personages 
 at the moment when it commences. 
 
 The events on which the action turns belong to 
 the period of transition from the heroic and 
 fabulous to the human and historic age of Greece. 
 The hero Hercules, the ancestor of the Mes- 
 senian ^pytus, belongs to fable : but the invasion 
 of Peloponnesus by the Dorians under chiefs 
 claiming to be descended from Hercules, and 
 their settlement in Argos, Lacedasmon, and Mes- 
 senia, belong to history, ^pytus is descended on 
 the father's side from Hercules, Perseus, and the 
 kings of Argos : on the mother's side from 
 Pelasgus, and the aboriginal kings of Arcadia. 
 Callisto, the daughter of the wicked Lycaon, and 
 the mother, by Zeus, of Areas, from whom the 
 Arcadians took their name, was the grand-daughter 
 of Pelasgus. The birth of Areas brought upon 
 Callisto the anger of the virgin-Goddess Artemis, 
 whose service she followed : she was changed 
 into a she-bear, and in this form was chased by 
 her own son, grown to manhood. At the critical 
 moment Zeus interposed, and the mother and son 
 were removed from the earth, and placed among
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 43 
 
 the stars : Callisto became the famous constellation Death of 
 of the Great Bear ; her son became Arcturus, "^'■'^"'^s 
 Arctophylax, or Bootes. From him, Cypselus, 
 the maternal grandfather of ^pytus, and the 
 children of Cypselus, Laias and Merope, were 
 lineally descended. 
 
 The events of the life of Hercules, the paternal 
 ancestor of ^pytus, are so well known that it is 
 hardly necessary to record them. It is sufficient 
 to remind the reader, that, although entitled to the 
 throne of Argos by right of descent from Perseus 
 and Danaus, and to the thrones of Sparta and 
 Messenia by right of conquest, he yet passed his 
 life in labours and wanderings, subjected by the 
 decree of fate to the commands of his far inferior 
 kinsman, the feeble and malignant Eurystheus. 
 Hercules, who is represented with the violence as 
 well as the virtues of an adventurous ever-warring 
 hero, attacked and slew Eurytus, an Eubcean king, 
 with whom he had a quarrel, and carried off the 
 daughter of Eurytus, the beautiful lole. The 
 wife of Hercules, Deianeira, seized with jealous 
 anxiety, remembered that long ago the centaur 
 Nessus, dying by the poisoned arrows of Hercules, 
 had assured her that the blood flowing from his 
 mortal wound would prove an infallible love-charm 
 to win back the affections of her husband, if she 
 bhould ever lose them. With this philtre 
 Deianeira now anointed a robe of triumph, which 
 she sent to her victorious husband : he received it 
 when about to offer public sacrifice, and immedi- 
 ately put it on : but the sun's rays called into 
 activity the poisoned blood with which the robe 
 was smeared ; it clung to the flesh of the hero
 
 44 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 The and consumed it. In dreadful agonies Hercules 
 delda caused himself to be transported from Eubcea to 
 Mount CEta : there, under the crags of Trachis, 
 an immense funeral pile was constructed. Re- 
 cognising the divine will in the fate which had 
 overtaken him, the hero ascended the pile, and 
 called on his children and followers to set it on 
 fire. They refused ; but the office was performed 
 by Poeas, the father of Philoctetes, who, passing 
 near, was attracted by the concourse round the 
 pile, and who received the bow and arrows of 
 Hercules for his reward. The flames arose, and 
 the apotheosis of Hercules was consummated. 
 
 He bequeathed to his offspring, the Heracleidse, 
 his own claims to the kingdoms of Peloponnesus, 
 and to the persecution of Eurystheus. They at 
 first sought shelter with Ceyx, king of Trachis : 
 he was too weak to protect them ; and they then 
 took refuge at Athens. The Athenians refused 
 to deliver them up at the demand of Eurystheus : 
 he invaded Attica, and a battle was fought near 
 Marathon, in which, after Macaria, a daughter of 
 Hercules, had devoted herself for the preservation 
 of her house, Eurystheus fell, and the Heracleidae 
 and their Athenian protectors were victorious. 
 The memory of Macaria's self-sacrifice was 
 perpetuated by the name of a spring of water on 
 the plain of Marathon, the spring Macaria. The 
 Heracleidas then endeavoured to effect their 
 return to Peloponnesus. Hyllus, the eldest of 
 them, inquired of the oracle at Delphi respecting 
 their return ; he was told to return by the narroiv 
 passage^ and in the third harvest. Accordingly, 
 in the third year from that time, Hyllus led an
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 45 
 
 army to the Isthmus of Corinth ; but there he Dorian 
 was encountered by an army of Achaians and o'f^pljo" 
 Arcadians, and fell in single combat with Echemus, ponnesus 
 king of Tegea. Upon this defeat the Heracleidse 
 retired to Northern Greece : there, after much 
 wandering, they finally took refuge with TEgimius, 
 king of the Dorians, who appears to have been the 
 fastest friend of their house, and whose Dorian 
 warriors formed the army which at last achieved 
 their return. But, for a hundred years from the date 
 of their first attempt, the Heracleidre were defeated 
 in their successive invasions of Peloponnesus, 
 Cleolaus and Aristomachus, the son and grandson 
 of Hyllus, fell in unsuccessful expeditions. At 
 length the sons of Aristomachus, Temcnus, 
 Cresphontes, and Aristodemus, when grown up, 
 repaired to Delphi and taxed the oracle with th« 
 non-fulfilment of the promise made to theif 
 ancestor Hyllus. But Apollo replied that his 
 oracle had been misunderstood ; for that by the 
 tJArd harvest he had meant the third generation, 
 and by the narroiv passage he had meant the 
 straits of the Corinthian Gulf. After thit 
 explanation the sons of Aristomachus built a fleet 
 at Naupactus ; and finally, in the hundredth year 
 from the death of Hyllus, and the eightieth from 
 the fall of Troy, the invasion was again attempted, 
 and was this time successful. The son of Orestes, 
 Tisamenus, who ruled both Argos and Lacedgemon, 
 fell in battle ; many of his vanquished subjects 
 left their homes and retired to Achaia. 
 
 The spoil was now to be divided among the 
 conquerors. Aristodemus, the youngest of the 
 sons of Aristomachus, did not survive to enjoy his
 
 46 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 Aga- share. He was slain at Delphi by the sons of 
 memnon's Pyjajes and Electra, the kinsmen of the house of 
 
 house dis- j i • i i tt i "j 
 
 possessed Agamemnon, that house which the rleracleidae 
 with their Dorian army dispossessed. The claims 
 of Aristodemus descended to his two sons, Procles 
 and Eurysthenes, children under the guardianship 
 of their maternal uncle, Theras. Temenus, the 
 eldest of the sons of Aristomachus, took the 
 kingdom of Argos ; for the two remaining 
 kingdoms, that of Sparta and that of Messenia, 
 his two nephews, who were to rule jointly, and 
 their uncle Cresphontes, were to cast lots. 
 Cresphontes wished to have the fertile Messenia, 
 and induced his brother to acquiesce in a trick 
 which secured it to him. The lot of Cresphontes 
 and that of his two nephews were to be placed in 
 a water-jar, and thrown out. Messenia was to 
 belong to him whose lot came out first. With 
 the connivance of Temenus, Cresphontes marked 
 as his own lot a pellet composed of baked clay ; 
 as the lot of his nephews, a pellet of unbaked clay : 
 the unbaked pellet was of course dissolved in the 
 water, while the brick pellet fell out alone. 
 Messenia, therefore, was assigned to Crespliontes. 
 
 Messenia was at this time ruled by Melanthus, 
 a descendant of Neleus. This ancestor, a prince 
 of the great house of ^olus, had come from 
 Thessaly, and succeeded to the Messenian throne 
 on the failure of the previous dynasty. Melanthus 
 and his race were thus foreigners in Messenia, 
 and were unpopular. His subjects offered little or 
 no opposition to the invading Dorians : Melanthus 
 abandoned his kingdom to Cresphontes, and retired 
 to Athens.
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 47 
 
 Cresphontes married Merope, whose native Success of 
 country, Arcadia, was not afFected by the Dorian ^ph^ntes' 
 invasion. This marriage, the issue of which was 
 three sons, connected him with the native 
 population of Peloponnesus. He built a new 
 capital of Messenia, Stenyclaros, and transferred 
 thither, from Pylos, the seat of government : he 
 at first proposed, it is said by Pausanias, to divide 
 Messenia into five states, and to confer on the 
 native Messenians equal privileges with their 
 Dorian conquerors. The Dorians complained 
 that his administration unduly favoured the 
 vanquished people : his chief magnates, headed 
 by Polyphontes, himself a descendant of Hercules, 
 formed a cabal against him, in which he was slain 
 with his two eldest sons. The youngest son of 
 Cresphontes, iEpytus, then an infant, was saved 
 by his mother, who sent him to her father, 
 Cypselus, the king of Arcadia, under whose 
 protection he was brought up. 
 
 The drama begins at the moment when ^pytus, 
 grown to manhood, returns secretly to Messenia 
 to take vengeance on his father's murderers. At 
 this period Temenus was no longer reigning at 
 Argos : he had been murdered by his sons, jealous 
 of their brother-in-law, Deiphontes : the sons of 
 Aristodemus, Procles and Eurysthenes, at variance 
 with their guardian, were reigning at Sparta.
 
 MEROPE 
 
 PERSONS OF THE DRAMA 
 
 Daybreak LaIAS, utick of JEpytVS, brother o/'Merope. 
 at steny- ^pYTUs, son o/'Merope and Cresphontes, 
 
 claros PoLYPHONTES, king o/'MeSSENIA. 
 
 Merope, 'ivido'w of Cresphontes, the murdered king 
 
 o/'Messenia. 
 The Chorus, ij/'Messenian maidens. 
 Arc AS, an old man o/Merope's household. 
 Messenger. 
 Guards, Attendants, etc. 
 
 The Scene is before the royal palace in Stenyclaros, 
 the capital of Messenia. In the foreground is the 
 tomb of Cresphontes. The action commences at 
 daybreak. 
 
 LAIAS. yEPYTUS 
 
 Son of Cresphontes, we have reached the goal 
 Of our night- journey, and thou see'st thy home. 
 Behold thy heritage, thy father's realm ! 
 This is that fruitful, famed Messenian land, 
 Wealthy in corn and flocks, which, when at last 
 The late-relenting Gods with victory brought 
 The Heracleidas back to Pelops' isle, 
 Fell to thy father's lot, the second prize. 
 Before thy feet this recent city spreads 
 
 48
 
 MEROPE 49 
 
 Of Stenyclaros, which he built, and made lo ^pytus 
 
 Of his fresh-conquered realm the royal seat, ^" pk)t'" 
 
 Degrading Pylos from its ancient rule. 
 
 There stands the temple of thine ancestor. 
 
 Great Hercules ; and, in that public place, 
 
 Zeus hath his altar, where thy father fell. 
 
 Thence to the south, behold those snowy peaks, 
 
 Taygetus, Laconia's border-wall : 
 
 And, on this side, those confluent streams which 
 
 make 
 Pamisus watering the Messenian plain : 
 Then to the north, Lycaeus and the hills 20 
 
 Of pastoral Arcadia, where, a babe 
 Snatched from the slaughter of thy father's house, 
 Thy mother's kin received thee, and rear'd up. — 
 Our journey is well made, the work remains 
 Which to perform we made it ; means for that 
 Let us consult, before this palace sends 
 Its inmates on their daily tasks abroad. 
 Haste and advise, for day comes on apace. 
 
 «PYTUS 
 
 O brother of my mother, guardian true, 
 
 And second father from that hour when first 30 
 
 My mother's faithful servant laid me down, 
 
 An infant, at the hearth of Cypselus, 
 
 My grandfather, the good Arcadian king — 
 
 Thy part it were to advise, and mine to obey. 
 
 But let us keep that purpose, which, at home. 
 
 We judged the best ; chance finds no better way. 
 
 Go thou into the city, and seek out 
 
 Whate'er in the Messenian city stirs 
 
 Of faithful fondness towards their former king 
 
 Or hatred to their present ; in this last 40
 
 50 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Enter Will lie, my grandsire said, our fairest chance. 
 Me°ope', ^^'" tyrants make man good beyond himself; 
 Poly- Hate to their rule, which else would die away, 
 p on es 'pi^pjj. daily-practised chafings keep alive. 
 Seek this ; revive, unite it, give it hope ; 
 Bid it rise boldly at the signal given. 
 Meanwhile within my father's palace I, 
 An unknown guest, will enter, bringing word 
 Of my own death ; but Laias, well I hope 
 Through that pretended death to live and reign, 50 
 [The Chorus comes forth. 
 Softly, stand back ! — see, toward the palace gates 
 What black procession slowly makes approach ? — 
 Sad-chanting maidens clad in mourning robes. 
 With pitchers in their hands, and fresh-pulled 
 
 flowers : 
 Doubtless, they bear them to my father's tomb. — 
 
 []Merope comes forth. 
 And see, to meet them, that one, grief-plunged 
 
 Form, 
 Severer, paler, statelier than they all, 
 A golden circlet on her queenly brow. — 
 O Laias, Laias, let the heart speak here! 
 Shall I not greet her ? shall I not leap forth ? 60 
 [PoLYPHONTES comes forth, folloiv'ing Merope. 
 
 LAIAS 
 
 Not so : thy heart would pay its moment's speech 
 
 By silence ever after ; for, behold ! 
 
 The King (I know him, even through many years) 
 
 Follows the issuing Queen, who stops, as cali'd. 
 
 No lingering now ! straight to the city I : 
 
 Do thou, till for thine entrance to this house 
 
 The happy moment comes, lurk here unseen
 
 MEROPE 51 
 
 Behind the shelter of thy father's tomb : At Cres- 
 
 Remove yet further off, if aught comes near. ^tomb^ 
 
 But, here while harbouring, on its margin lay, 70 
 Sole offering that thou hast, locks from thy head : 
 And fill thy leisure with an earnest prayer 
 To his avenging Shade, and to the Gods 
 Who under earth watch guilty deeds of men, 
 To guide our effort to a prosperous close. 
 
 I^Laias goes out. Polyphontes, Merope, and 
 The Chorus come forward. As they advance, 
 ^PYTUs, ivho at Jirst conceals himself behind 
 the tombf moves off the stage. 
 
 polyphontes. {To The Chorus.) 
 
 Set down your pitchers, maidens ! and fall back ; 
 
 Suspend your melancholy rites a while : 
 
 Shortly ye shall resume them with your Queen. — 
 
 {To Merope.) 
 I sought thee, Merope ; I find thee thus, 
 As I have ever found thee ; bent to keep, 80 
 
 By sad observances and public grief, 
 A mournful feud alive, which else would die. 
 I blame thee not, I do thy heart no wrong : 
 Thy deep seclusion, thine unyielding gloom, 
 Thine attitude of cold, estranged reproach, 
 These punctual funeral honours, year by year 
 Repeated, are in thee, I well believe. 
 Courageous, faithful actions, nobly dared. 
 But, Merope, the eyes of other men 
 Read in these actions, innocent in thee, 90 
 
 Perpetual promptings to rebellious hope. 
 War-cries to faction, year by year renew'd, 
 Beacons of vengeance, not to be let die. 
 And me, believe it, wise men gravely blame.
 
 52 MEROPE 
 
 The plea And ignorant men despise me, that I stand 
 °hontes l^^ssive, permitting thee what course thou wilt. 
 Yes, the crowd mutters that remorseful fear 
 And paralysing conscience stop my arm, 
 When it should pluck thee from thy hostile way. 
 All this I bear, for, what I seek, I know ; loc 
 Peace, peace is what I seek, and public calm ; 
 Endless extinction of unhappy hates : 
 Union cemented for this nation's weal. 
 And even now, if to behold me here. 
 This day, amid these rites, this black-robed train, 
 Wakens, O Queen ! remembrance in thy heart 
 Too wide at variance with the peace I seek — 
 I will not violate thy noble grief, 
 The prayer I came to urge I will defer. 
 
 This day, to-morrow, yesterday, alike no 
 
 I am, I shall be, have been, in my mind 
 Tow'rds thee ; towards thy silence as thy speech. 
 Speak, therefore, or keep silence, which thou wilt. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Hear me, then, speak ; and let this mournful day, 
 
 The twentieth anniversary of strife. 
 
 Henceforth be honoured as the date of peace. 
 
 Yes, twenty years ago this day beheld 
 
 The king Cresphontes, thy great husband, fall : 
 
 It needs no yearly offerings at his tomb 
 
 To keep alive that memory in my heart ; 120 
 
 It lives, and, while I see the light, \vi\\ live. 
 
 For we were kinsmen — more than kinsmen — 
 
 friends : 
 Together we had sprung, together lived ;
 
 MEROPE 53 
 
 Together to this isle of Pelops came Hopes of 
 
 To take the inheritance of Hercules ; phontes' ' 
 
 Together won this fair Messenian land — followers 
 
 Alas, that how to rule it, was our broil ! 
 
 He had his counsel, party, friends — I mine ; 
 
 He stood by what he wished for — I the same ; 
 
 I smote him, when our wishes clashed in arms; 130 
 
 He had smit me, had he been swift as I. 
 
 But while I smote him. Queen, I honoured him ; 
 
 Me, too, had he prevailed, he had not scorn'd. 
 
 Enough of this! — since then, I have maintain'd 
 
 The sceptre — not remissly let it fall — 
 
 And I am seated on a prosperous throne : 
 
 Yet still, for I conceal it not, ferments 
 
 In the Messenian people what remains 
 
 Of thy dead husband's faction ; vigorous once. 
 
 Now crush'd but not quite lifeless by his fall. 140 
 
 And these men look to thee, and from thy grief — 
 
 Something too studiously, forgive me, shown — 
 
 Infer thee their accomplice ; and they say 
 
 That thou in secret nurturest up thy son. 
 
 Him whom thou hiddest when thy husband fell. 
 
 To avenge that fall, and bring them back to power, 
 
 Such are their hopes — I ask not if by thee 
 
 Willingly fed or no — their most vain hopes ; 
 
 For I have kept conspiracy fast-chained 
 
 Till now, and I have strength to chain it still. 150 
 
 But, Merope, the years advance ; — I stand 
 
 Upon the threshold of old age, alone, 
 
 Always in arms, always in face of foes. 
 
 The long repressive attitude of rule 
 
 Leaves me austerer, sterner, than I would; 
 
 Old age is more suspicious than the free 
 
 And valiant heart of youth, or manhood's firm.
 
 54 MEROPE 
 
 Poly- Unclouded reason ; I would not decline 
 ''wooV^ Into a jealous tyrant, scourged with fears, 
 Merope Closing, in blood and gloom, his sullen reign. i6o 
 The cares which might in me with time, I feel, 
 Beget a cruel temper, help me quell ; 
 The breach between our parties help me close ; 
 Assist me to rule mildly : let us join 
 Our hands in solemn union, making friends 
 Our factions with the friendship of their chiefs. 
 Let us in marriage, King and Queen, unite 
 Claims ever hostile else ; and set thy son — 
 No more an exile fed on empty hopes. 
 And to an unsubstantial title heir, 170 
 
 But prince adopted, by the will of power. 
 And future king — before this people's eyes. 
 Consider him ; consider not old hates : 
 Consider, too, this people, who were dear 
 To their dead king, thy husband — yea, too dear. 
 For that destroyed him. Give them peace ; thou 
 
 canst. 
 O Merope, how many noble thoughts, 
 How many precious feelings of man's heart. 
 How many loves, how many gratitudes. 
 Do twenty years wear out, and see expire ! iSo 
 Shall they not wear one hatred out as well ? 
 
 Thou hast forgot, then, who I am who hear. 
 And who thou art who speakest to me ? I 
 Am Merope, thy murdered master's wife . . . 
 And thou art Polyphontes, first his friend. 
 And then ... his murderer. These offending tears 
 That murder draws . . . this breach that thou 
 wouldst close
 
 MEROPE 55 
 
 Was by that murder opened . . . that one child Merope's 
 (If still, indeed, he lives) whom thou wouldst seat '^°"°'" 
 Upon a throne not thine to give, is heir 190 
 
 Because thou slew'st his brothers with their 
 
 father . . . 
 Who can patch union here ? . . . What can 
 
 there be 
 But everlasting horror 'twixt us two, 
 Gulfs of estranging blood ? . . . Across that chasm 
 Who can extend their hands ? . . . Maidens, take 
 
 back 
 These offerings home ! our rites are spoiled to-day. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Not so : let these Messenian maidens mark 
 The fear'd and blacken'd ruler of their race. 
 Albeit with lips unapt to self-excuse. 
 Blow off the spot of murder from his name. — 200 
 Murder ! — -but what is murder ! When a wretch 
 For private gain or hatred takes a life. 
 We call it murder, crush him, brand his name : 
 But when, for some great public cause, an arm 
 Is, without love or hate, austerely raised 
 Against a Power exempt from common checks. 
 Dangerous to all, to be but thus annulled — 
 Ranks any man with murder such an act ? 
 With grievous deeds, perhaps ; with murder — no ! 
 Find then such cause, the charge of murder falls: 
 Be judge thyself if it abound not here. — 211 
 
 All know how weak the Eagle, Hercules, 
 Soaring from his death-pile on CEta, left 
 His puny, callow Eaglets ; and what trials — 
 Infirm protectors, dubious oracles 
 Construed awry, misplann'd invasions — used
 
 56 MEROPE 
 
 Defence Two generations of his offspring up; 
 
 phontes Hardly the third, with grievous loss, regain'd 
 
 Their fathers' realm, this isle, from Pelops nam'd.— 
 
 Who made that triumph, though deferr'd, secure ? 
 
 Who, but the kinsmen of the royal brood 221 
 
 Of Hercules, scarce Heracleidae less 
 
 Than they ? these, and the Dorian lords, whose king 
 
 jEgimius gave our outcast house a home 
 
 When Thebes, when Athens dared not ; who in 
 
 arms 
 Thrice issued with us from their pastoral vales, 
 And shed their blood like water in our cause ? — 
 Such were the dispossessors : of what stamp 
 Were they we dispossessed ? — of us I speak. 
 Who to Messenia with thy husband came — 230 
 I speak not now of Argos, where his brother, 
 Not now of Sparta, where his nephews reign'd : — 
 What we found here were tribes of fame obscure. 
 Much turbulence, and little constancy, 
 Precariously mled by foreign lords 
 From the ^olian stock of Neleus sprung, 
 A house once great, now dwindling in its sons. 
 Such were the conquer'd, such the conquerors: who 
 Had most thy husband's confidence ? Consult 
 His acts ; the wife he chose was — full of virtues — 
 But an Arcadian princess, more akin 241 
 
 To his new subjects than to us ; his friends 
 Were the Messenian chiefs ; the laws he framed 
 Were aim'd at their promotion, our decline ; 
 And, finally, this land, then half-subdued. 
 Which from one central city's guarded seat 
 As from a fastness in the rocks our scant 
 Handful of Dorian conquerors might have curbed. 
 He parcelled out in five confederate states,
 
 MEROPE 57 
 
 Sowing his victors thinly through them all, 250 " Right- 
 Mere prisoners, meant or not, among our foes. ecutto"" 
 If this was fear of them, it shamed the king : ~15* 
 If jealousy of us, it shamed the man. — 
 Long we refrained ourselves, submitted long. 
 Construed his acts indulgently, revered. 
 Though found perverse, the blood of Hercules : 
 Reluctantly the rest ; but, against all, 
 One voice preached patience, and that voice was 
 
 mine. 
 At last it reached us, that he, still mistrustful, 
 Deeming, as tyrants deem, our silence hate, 260 
 Unadulating grief conspiracy, 
 Had to this city, Stenyclaros, call'd 
 A general assemblage of the realm. 
 With compact in that concourse to deliver. 
 For death, his ancient to his new-made friends. 
 Patience was thenceforth self-destruction. I, 
 I his chief kinsman, I his pioneer 
 And champion to the throne, I honouring most 
 Of men the line of Hercules, preferr'd 
 The many of that lineage to the one : 270 
 
 What his foes dared not, I, his lover, dared : 
 I, at that altar, where 'mid shouting crowds 
 He sacrificed, our ruin in his heart, 
 To Zeus, before he struck his blow, struck mine : 
 Struck once, and awed his mob, and saved this 
 
 realm. 
 Murder let others call this, if they will ; 
 I, self-defence and righteous execution. 
 
 Alas, how fair a colour can his tongue, 
 Who self-exculpates, lend to foulest deeds.
 
 58 MEROPE 
 
 Cres- Thy trusting lord didst thou, his servant, slay ; 28c 
 poiicy*of Kinsman, thou slew'st thy kinsman ; friend, thy 
 concilia- friend : 
 
 This were enough ; but let me tell thee, too, 
 
 Thou hadst no cause, as feign'd, in his misrule. 
 
 For ask at Argos, ask in Lacedaemon, 
 
 Whose people, when the Heracleidas came, 
 
 Were hunted out, and to Achaia fled. 
 
 Whether is better, to abide alone, 
 
 A wolfish band, in a dispeopled realm. 
 
 Or conquerors with conquer'd to unite 
 
 Into one puissant folk, as he design'd ? 290 
 
 These sturdy and unworn Messenian tribes. 
 
 Who shook the fierce Neleidas on their throne, 
 
 Who to the invading Dorians stretch'd a hand, 
 
 And half bestow'd half yielded up their soil — 
 
 He would not let his savage chiefs alight, 
 
 A cloud of vultures, on this vigorous race ; 
 
 Ravin a little while in spoil and blood. 
 
 Then, gorged and helpless, be assail'd and slain. 
 
 He would have saved you from your furious selves, 
 
 Not in abhorr'd estrangement let you stand ; 300 
 
 He would have mix'd you with your friendly foes, 
 
 Foes dazzled with your prowess, well inclined 
 
 To reverence your lineage, more, to obey : 
 
 So would have built you, in a few short years, 
 
 A just, therefore a safe, supremacy. 
 
 For well he knew, what you, his chiefs, did not — ■ 
 
 How of all human rules the over-tense 
 
 Are apt to snap ; the easy-stretch'd endure. — 
 
 O gentle wisdom, little understood ! 
 
 O arts, above the vulgar tyrant's reach ! 310 
 
 O policy too subtle far for sense 
 
 Of heady, masterful, injurious men!
 
 I MEROPE 59 
 
 ■ This good he meant you, and for this he died. Th» offer 
 i Yet not for this — else might thy crime in part rejected 
 
 Be error deem'd — but that pretence is vain. 
 I For, if ye slew him for supposed misrule, 
 
 Injustice to his kin and Dorian friends. 
 
 Why with the offending father did ye slay 
 
 Two unoffending babes, his innocent sons ? 
 
 Why not on them have placed the forfeit crown, 320 
 
 Ruled in their name, and train'd them to your will ? 
 
 Had they misruled ? had they forgot their friends ? 
 
 Forsworn their blood ? ungratefully had they 
 
 Preferred Messenian serfs to Dorian lords ? 
 
 No : but to thy ambition their poor lives 
 
 Were bar ; and this, too, was their father's crime. 
 
 That thou might'st reign he died, not for his fault 
 
 Even fancied ; and his death thou wroughtest chief 
 
 For, if the other lords desired his fall 
 
 Hotlier than thou, and were by thee kept back, 330 
 
 Why dost thou only profit by his death ? 
 
 Thy crown condemns thee, while thy tongue 
 absolves. 
 
 And now to me thou tenderest friendly league. 
 
 And to my son reversion to thy throne : 
 
 Short answer is sufficient ; league with thee, 
 
 For me I deem such impious ; and for him, 
 
 Exile abroad more safe than heirship here. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 I ask thee not to approve thy husband's death, 
 No, nor expect thee to admit the grounds. 
 In reason good, which justified my deed : 340 
 
 With women the heart argues, not the mind. 
 i But, for thy children's death, I stand assoil'd : 
 I saved them, meant them honour : but thy frienda
 
 6o MEROPE 
 
 The slain Rose, and with fire and sword assailed my house 
 By night ; in that blind tumult they were slain. 
 To chance impute their deaths, then, not to me. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Such chance as kill'd the father, kill'd the sons. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 One son at least I spared, for still he lives. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Tyrants think him they murder not they spare. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Not much a tyrant thy free speech displays me. 350 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Thy shame secures my freedom, not thy will. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Shame rarely checks the genuine tyrant's v/ill. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 One merit, then, thou hast : exult in that. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Thou standest out, I see, repellest peace. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Thy sword repelled it long ago, not I. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Doubtless thou reckonest on the hope of friends.
 
 MEROPE 6i 
 
 MEROPE Beware ! 
 
 Not help of men, although, perhaps, of Gods. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 What Gods ? the Gods of concord, civil weal ? 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 No : the avenging Gods, who punish crime. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Beware ! from thee upbraidings I receive 360 
 
 With pity, nay, with reverence ; yet, beware ! 
 I know, I know how hard it is to think 
 That right, that conscience pointed to a deed, 
 Where mterest seems to have enjoin'd it too. 
 Most men are led by interest ; and the few 
 Who are not, expiate the general sin, 
 Involved in one suspicion with the base. 
 Dizzy the path and perilous the way 
 Which in a deed like mine a just man treads, 
 But it is sometimes trodden, oh ! believe it. 370 
 Yet how canst thou believe it ? therefore thou 
 Hast all impunity. Yet, lest thy friends, 
 Embolden'd by my lenience, think it fear. 
 And count on like impunity, and rise. 
 And have to thank thee for a fall, beware ! 
 To rule this kingdom I intend : with sway 
 Clement, if may be, but to rule it : there 
 Expect no wavering, no retreat, no change.— 
 And now I leave thee to these rites, esteem'd 
 Pious, but impious, surely, if their scope 380 
 
 Be to foment old memories of wrath. 
 Pray, as thou pour'st libations on this tomb,
 
 62 MEROPE 
 
 The rite To be delivered from thy foster'd hate, 
 tomlf Unjust suspicion, and erroneous fear. 
 
 [PoLYPHONTES gocs ttito the pahce. The Chorus 
 and Merope approach the tomh ivith their 
 offerings. 
 
 THE CHOPvUS 
 
 Draw, draw near to the tomb. strophe 
 
 Lay honey-cakes on its marge, 
 
 Pour the libation of milk, 
 
 Deck it with garlands of flowers. 
 
 Tears fall thickly the while ! 
 
 Behold, O King, from the dark 390 
 
 House of the grave, what we do. 
 
 O Arcadian hills, antistrophe 
 
 Send us the Youth whom ye hide, 
 Girt with his coat for the chase. 
 With the low broad hat of the tann'd 
 Hunter o'ershadowing his brow : 
 Grasping firm, in his hand 
 Advanc'd, two javelins, not now 
 Dangerous alone to the deer. 399 
 
 What shall I bear, O lost str. i 
 
 Husband and King, to thy grave ? — 
 
 Pure libations, and fresh 
 
 Flowers ? But thou, in the gloom, 
 
 Discontented, perhaps, 
 
 Demandest vengeance, not grief? 
 
 Sternly requirest a man. 
 
 Light to spring up to thy race ?
 
 MEROPE 63 
 
 THE CHORUS Vengeance 
 
 Vengeance, O Queen, is his due, str. 2 
 
 His most just prayer : yet his race — 
 If that might soothe him belov/ — 410 
 
 Prosperous, mighty, came back 
 In the third generation, the way 
 Order'd by Fate, to their home. 
 And now, glorious, secure, 
 Fill the wealth-giving thrones 
 Of their heritage, Felops' isle. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Suffering sent them. Death ant. 1 
 
 March'd with them, Hatred and Strife 
 
 Met them entering their halls. 
 
 For from the day when the first 420 
 
 Heracleidas received 
 
 That Delphic hest to return. 
 
 What hath involved them but blind 
 
 Error on error, and blood ? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Truly I hear of a Maid ant. 2 
 
 Of that stock born, who bestow'd 
 
 Her blood that so she might make 
 
 Victory sure to her race. 
 
 When the fight hung in doubt ; but she now, 
 
 Honour'd and sung of by all, 430 
 
 Far on Marathon plain 
 
 Gives her name to the spring 
 
 Macaria, blessed Child. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 She led the way of death. str. 3 
 
 And the plain of Tegea,
 
 64 MEROPE 
 
 What hope And the grave of Orestes — ' 
 
 ° an'cel'^' Where, in secret seclusion j 
 
 Of his unreveal'd tomb, ] 
 
 Sleeps Agamemnon's unhappy, 
 Matricidal, world-famed, 440 
 
 Seven-cubit-statured son — j 
 
 Sent forth Echemus, the victor, the king, ' 
 
 By whose hand, at the Isthmus, 
 At the Fate-denied Straits, 
 Fell the eldest of the sons of Hercules 
 Hyllus, the chief of his house. — 
 Brother follow'd sister 
 The all-wept way. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Yes ; but his son's seed, wiser-counsell'd, 
 
 Sail'd by the Fate-meant Gulf to their conquest ; 
 Slew their enemies' king, Tisamenus. 451 
 
 Wherefore accept that happier omen ! 
 Yet shall restorers appear to the race. 
 
 Three brothers won the field, ant. 3 
 
 And to two did Destiny 
 
 Give the thrones that they conquer'd. 
 
 But the third, what delays him 
 
 From his unattain'd crown ? . , , 
 
 Ah Pylades and Electra, 
 
 Ever faithful, untired, 450 
 
 Jealous, blood-exacting friends ! 
 
 Ye lie watching for the foe of your kin, 
 
 In the passes of Delphi, 
 
 In the temple-built gorge. — 
 
 There the youngest of the band of conquerors
 
 MEROPE 6s 
 
 Perish'd, in sight of the goal. The 
 
 Grandsire follow'd sire miirder 
 
 The all-wept way. phontes 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Thou tellest the fate of the last sir. 4 
 
 Of the three Heracleidas. 471 
 
 Not of him, of Cresphontes thou sharedst the lot. 
 A king, a king was he while he lived, 
 Swaying the sceptre with predestined hand. 
 And now, minister loved, 
 Holds rule 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Ah me ... Ah .. . 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 For the awful Monarchs below. 
 
 Thou touchest the worst of my ills. str. 5 
 
 Oh had he fallen of old 
 
 At the Isthmus, in fight with his foes, 4S0 
 
 By Achaian, Arcadian spear ! 
 
 Then had his sepulchre risen 
 
 On the high sea-bank, in the sight 
 
 Of either Gulf, and remain'd 
 
 All-regarded afar. 
 
 Noble memorial of worth 
 
 Of a valiant Chief, to his own. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 There rose up a cry in the streets ani. 4 
 
 From the terrified people.
 
 66 MEROPE 
 
 The From the altar of Zeus, from the crowd, came 
 
 Mero''e°s^ a wail. 490 
 
 Yo°ils A blow, a blow was struck, and he fell. 
 
 Sullying his garment with dark-streaming blood : 
 While s'ood o'er him a Form — 
 Some Porm 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Ah me ... Ah .. . 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Of a dreadful Presence of fear. 
 
 More piercing the second cry rang, ant. 5 
 
 Wail'd from the palace within. 
 
 From the Children . . . The Fury to them, 
 
 Fresh from their father, draws near. 
 
 Ah bloody axe ! dizzy blows ! 5co 
 
 In these ears, they thunder, they ring, 
 
 These poor ears, still : — and these eyes 
 
 ^'iL-ht and day see them fall. 
 
 Fiery phantoms of death. 
 
 On the fair, curl'd heads of my sons. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Not to thee only hath come str. 6 
 
 Sorrow, O Queen, of mankind. 
 
 Had not Electra to haunt 
 
 A palace defiled by a death unavenged. 
 
 For years, in silence, devouring her heart ? 510 
 
 But her nursling, her hope, came at last. 
 
 Thou, too, rearest in joy, 
 
 Far 'mid Arcadian hills.
 
 MEROPE 67 
 
 Somewhere, in safety, a nursling, a light. Hope in 
 
 Yet, yet shall Zeus bring him home ! ^Epytus 
 
 Yet shall he dawn on this land ! 
 
 Him in secret, in tears, str. 7 
 
 Month after month, through the slow-dragging year, 
 
 Longing, listening, I wait, I implore. 
 
 But he comes not. What dell, 520 
 
 O Erymanthus ! from sight 
 
 Of his mother, which of thy glades, 
 
 O Lycseus ! conceals 
 
 The happy hunter ? He basks 
 
 In youth's pure morning, nor thinks 
 
 On the blood-stained home of his birth. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Give not thy heart to despair. ant. 6 
 
 No lamentation can loose 
 
 Prisoners of death from the grave : 
 
 But Zeus, who accounteth thy quarrel his own, 530 
 
 Still rules, still watches, and numbers the hours 
 
 Till the sinnei', the vengeance, be ripe. 
 
 Still, by Acheron sLrcam, 
 
 Terrible Deities throned 
 
 Sit, and make ready the serpent, the scourge. 
 
 Still, still th/,- Dorian boy. 
 
 Exiled, remembers his home. 
 
 Him if high-ruling Zeus ant.'] 
 
 Bring to his mother, the rest I commit, 
 Willinj.',, patient, to Zeus, to his care. 5^0 
 
 Blood 1 ask not. Enough
 
 68 MEROPE 
 
 May Sated, and more than enough, 
 iEpytus ^j.g n^^ne eyes with blood. But if this, 
 
 return ^ f. , 
 
 O my comroiters 1 strays 
 
 Amiss from Justice, the Gods 
 
 Forgive my folly, and worl; 
 
 What they will ! — but to me give my son ! 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Hear us and help us, Shade of our King ! str. 8 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 A return, O Father ! give to thy boy ! str. g 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Send an avenger, Gods of the dead ! a/it. 8 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 An avenger 1 ask not : send me my son ! anf. g 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 O Queen, for an avenger to appear, 552 
 
 Thinking that so I pray'd aright, I pray'd : 
 If I pray'd wrongly, I revoke the prayer. 
 
 Forgive me, maidens, if I seem too slack 
 In calling vengeance on a murderer's head. 
 Impious I deem the alliance which he asks ; 
 Requite him words severe, for seeming kind ; 
 And righteous, if he falls, I count his fall. 
 With this, to those unbribed inquisitors, 560 
 
 Who in man's inmost bosom sit and judge, 
 The true avengers these, I leave his deed, 
 By him shown fair, but, I believe, most foul.
 
 MEROPE 69 
 
 If these condemn him, let them pass his doom ! Merope 
 That doom obtain effect, from Gods or men ! prays 
 
 So be it ! yet will that more solace bring 
 To the chafed heart of Justice than to mine. — 
 To hear another tumult in these streets, 
 To have another murder in these halls, 
 To see another mighty victim bleed — 570 
 
 There is small comfort for a woman here. 
 A woman, O my friends, has one desire — 
 To see secure, to live with, those she loves. 
 Can Vengeance give me back the murdered ? no ! 
 Can it bring home my child ? Ah, if it can, 
 I pray the Furies' ever-restless band. 
 And pray the Gods, and pray the all-seeing Sun — 
 " Sun, who careerest through the height of Heaven, 
 When o'er the Arcadian forests thou art come. 
 And seest my stripling hunter there afield, 580 
 
 Put tightness in thy gold-embossed rein, 
 And check thy fiery steeds, and, leaning back, 
 Throw him a pealing word of summons down, 
 To come, a late avenger, to the aid 
 Of this poor soul who bore him, and his sire." 
 If this will bring him back, be this my prayer ! — 
 But Vengeance travels in a dangerous way, 
 Double of issue, full of pits and snares 
 For all who pass, pursuers and pursued — 
 That way is dubious for a mother's prayer. 590 
 Rather on thee I call. Husband beloved ! — 
 May Hermes, herald of the dead, convey 
 My words below to thee, and make thee hear. — 
 Bring back our son ! if may be, without blood ! 
 Install him in thy throne, still without blood ! 
 Grant him to reign there wise and just like thee, 
 ; More fortunate than thee, more fairly judged !
 
 70 MEROPE 
 
 Libation This for our son : and for myself I pray, 
 *de*ad Soon, having once beheld him, to descend 
 
 Into the quiet gloom, where thou art now. 600 
 
 These words to thine indulgent ear, thy wife, 
 I send, and these libations pour the while. 
 
 [I'hey make their offerings at the tomb. Merope 
 then goes towards the palace. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 The dead hath now his offerings duly paid. 
 But whither goest thou hence, O Queen, away ? 
 
 To receive Areas, who to-day should come, 
 Bringing me of my boy the annual news. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 No certain news if like the rest it run, 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Certain in this, that 'tis uncertain still. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 What keeps him in Arcadia from return ? 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 His grandsire and his uncles fear the risk. 610 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Of what ? it lies with them to make risk none. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Discovery of a visit made by stealth.
 
 MEROPE 71 
 
 THt CHORUS Areas 
 
 With arms then they should send him, not by 
 stealth. 
 
 With arms they dare not, and by stealth they fear. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 I doubt their caution little suits their ward. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 The heart of youth I know ; that most I fear. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 I augur thou wilt hear some bold resolve. 
 
 I dare not wish it ; but, at least, to hear 
 
 That my son still survives, in health, in bloom ; 
 
 To hear that still he loves, still longs for, me ; 620 
 
 Yet, with a light uncareworn spirit, turns 
 
 Quick from distressful thought, and floats in joy — 
 
 Thus much from Areas, my old servant true, 
 
 Who saved him from these murderous halls a babe, 
 
 And since has fondly watch'd him night and day 
 
 Save for this annual charge, I hope to hear. 
 
 If this be all, I know not ; but I know, 
 
 These many years I live for this alone. 
 
 [Merope goes in, 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Much is there which the Sea str. 1 
 
 Conceals from man, who cannot plumb its depths. 
 Air to his unwing'd form denies a way, 631
 
 72 MEROPE 
 
 The secret And keeps its liquid solitudes unscal'd. 
 
 heart of gyg^ Earth, whereon he treads, 
 man ' . 
 
 So feeble is his march, so slow. 
 
 Holds countless tracts untrod. 
 
 But, more than all unplumb'd, ant. i 
 
 TJnscaled, untrodden, is the heart of Man. 
 
 More than all secrets hid, the way it keeps. 
 
 Nor any of our organs so obtuse, 
 
 Inaccurate, and frail, 640 
 
 As those with which we try to test 
 
 Feelings and motives there. 
 
 Yea, and not only have we not explored str. 2 
 That wide and various world, the heart of others, 
 But even our own heart, that narrow world 
 Bounded in our own breast, we hardly know. 
 Of our own actions dimly trace the causes. 
 Whether a natural obscureness, hiding 
 That region in perpetual cloud. 
 Or our own want of effort, be the bar. 650 
 
 Therefore — while acts are from their motives 
 judged, ant. 2 
 
 And to one act many most unlike motives, 
 This pure, that guilty, may have each impell'd — 
 Power fails us to try clearly if that cause 
 Assign'd us by the actor be the true one : 
 Power fails the man himself to fix distinctly 
 The cause which drew him to his deed, 
 And stamp himself, thereafter, bad or good. 
 
 The most are bad, wise men have said. str. 3 
 
 Let the best rule, they say again. 65o
 
 MEROPE 73 
 
 The best, then, to dominion have the right. The best 
 
 Rights unconceded and denied, %eign 
 
 Surely, if rights, may be by force asserted — 
 
 May be, nay should, if for the general wea!. 
 
 The best, then, to the throne may carve his way, 
 
 And hew opposers down, 
 
 Free from all guilt of lawlessness, 
 
 Or selfish lust of personal power : 
 
 Bent only to serve Virtue, 
 
 Bent to diminish wrong. 670 
 
 And truly, in this ill-ruled world, ant. 3 
 
 Well sometimes may the good desire 
 
 To give to Virtue her dominion due. 
 
 Well may they long to interrupt 
 
 The reign of Folly, usurpation ever, 
 
 Though fenced by sanction of a thousand years. 
 
 Well thirst to drag the wrongful ruler down. 
 
 Well purpose to pen back 
 
 Into the narrow path of right, 
 
 The ignorant, headlong multitude, 680 
 
 Who blindly follow ever 
 
 Blind leaders, to their bane. 
 
 But who can say, without a fear, sir. 4 
 
 That best, ivho ought to rule, am I ; 
 
 1 he mob, ivho ought to obey, are these ; 
 
 I the one righteous, they the many bad ? — 
 
 Who, without check of conscience, can aver 
 
 That he to power makes way by arms. 
 
 Sheds blood, imprisons, banishes, attaints. 
 
 Commits all deeds the guilty oftenest do, 690 
 
 Without a single guilty thought, 
 
 Arm'd for right only, and the general good ?
 
 74 MEROPE 
 
 iEpytus Therefore, with censure unallay'd, ant. 4 
 
 comes 
 incognito 
 
 comes Therefore, with unexcepting ban, 
 
 Zeus and pure-though^ed Justice brand 
 
 Imperious self-asserting Violence. 
 
 Sternly condemn the too bold man, who dares 
 
 Elect himself Heaven's destined arm. 
 
 And, knowing well man's inmost heart infirm. 
 
 However noble the committer be, 700 
 
 His grounds however specious shown, 
 
 Turn with averted eyes from deeds of blood. 
 
 Thus, though a woman, I was school'd epode 
 
 By those whom I revere. 
 
 Whether I learnt their lessons well, 
 
 Or, having learnt them, well apply 
 
 To what hath in this house befall'n, 
 
 If in the event be any proof, 
 
 The event will quickly show. 
 
 [jEpytus cotues in. 
 
 iEPYTUS 
 
 Maidens, assure me if they told me true 710 
 
 Who told me that the royal house was here. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Rightly they told thee, and thou art arrived. 
 
 i?;PYTUS 
 
 Here, then, it is, where Polyphontes dwells ? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 He doth : thou hast both house and master right. 
 
 itPYTUS 
 
 Might some one straight inform him he is sought ?
 
 MEROPE 75 
 
 THE CHORUS Fictitious 
 
 . ir - account of 
 
 Inform him that thyself, tor here he comes. his death 
 
 [PoLYPHONTES comes forth, nvith Attendants and 
 Guards. 
 
 O King, all hail ! I come with weighty news : 
 r^Iost likely, grateful ; but, in all case, sure. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Speak them, that I may judge their kind myself. 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 Accept them in one word, for good or bad : 720 
 -/Epytus, the Messenian prince, is dead ! 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Dead ! — and when died he ? where ? and by what 
 
 hand ? 
 And who art thou, who bringest me such news ? 
 
 itPYTUS 
 
 He perish'd in Arcadia, where he lived 
 With Cypselus ; and two days since he died. 
 One of the train of Cypselus am I. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Instruct me of the manner of his death. 
 
 jEPYTUS 
 
 That will I do, and to this end I came. 
 
 For, being of like age, of birth not mean, 
 
 The son of an Arcadian noble, I 730 
 
 Was chosen his comj)anion from a boy ;
 
 excursion 
 
 76 MEROPE 
 
 A hunting And on the hunting-rambles which his heart, 
 l^nquiet, drove him ever to pursue, 
 Tiirough all the lordsliips of the Arcadian dales, 
 From chief to chief, I wander'd at his side, 
 The captain of his squires, and his guard. 
 On such a hunting-journey, three morns since. 
 With beaters, hounds, and huntsmen, he and I 
 Set forth from Tegea, the royal town. 
 The prince at start seem'd sad, but his regard 740 
 Clear'd with blithe travel and the morning air. 
 We rode from Tegea, through the woods of oaks. 
 Past Arne spring, where Rhea gave the babe 
 Poseidon to the shepherd-boys to hide 
 From Saturn's search among the new-yean'd lambs. 
 To Mantinea, with its unbaked walls ; 
 Thence, by the Sea-God's Sanctuary, and the 
 
 tomb 
 Whither from wintry Masnalus were brought 
 The bones of Areas, whence our race is named, 
 On, to the marshy Orchomenian plain, 750 
 
 And the Stone Coffins ; — then, by Caphyae Cliffs, 
 To Pheneos with its craggy citadel. 
 There, with the chief of that hill-town, we lodged 
 One night ; and the next day, at dawn, fared on 
 By the Three Fountains and the Adder's Hill 
 To the Stymphalian Lake, our journey's end. 
 To draw the coverts on Cyllene's side. 
 There, on a grassy spur which bathes its root 
 Far in the liquid lake, we sate, and drew 
 Cates from our hunters' pouch, Arcadian fare, 760 
 Sweet chestnuts, barley-cakes, and boar's flesh 
 
 dried : 
 And as we ate, and rested there, we talk'd 
 Of places we had pass'd, sport we had had, 
 
 1
 
 MEROPE n 
 
 Of beasts of chase that haunt the Arcadian hills, The 
 
 Wild hog, and bear, and mountain-deer, and roe : ^p^u°J^ 
 
 Last, of our quarters with the Arcadian chiefs. 
 
 For courteous entertainment, welcome warm, 
 
 Sad, reverential homage, had our prince 
 
 From all, for his great lineage and his woes : 
 
 All which he own'd, and praised with grateful 
 
 mind. 770 
 
 But still over his speech a gloom there hung. 
 As of one shadow'd by impending death ; 
 And strangely, as we talk'd, he would apply 
 The story of spots mention'd to his own : 
 Telling us, Arne minded him, he too 
 Was saved a babe, but to a life obscure. 
 Which he, the seed of Hercules, dragg'd on 
 Inglorious, and should drop at last unknown. 
 Even as those dead unepitaph'd, who lie 
 In the stone cofTins at Orchomenus. 7S0 
 
 And, then, he bade remember how we pass'd 
 The Mantinean Sanctuary, forbid 
 To foot of mortal, where his ancestor. 
 Named ^pytus like him, having gone in. 
 Was blinded by the outgushing springs of brine. 
 Then, turning westward to the Adder's Hill — 
 Another ancestor, named, too, I'lhe me. 
 Died of a snalt'-lite, said he, on that brow : 
 Still at his mountain tomb men marvel, built 
 Where, as life ebFd, his bearers laid him doivn. 790 
 So he play'd on ; then ended, with a smile — 
 This region is not happy for my race. 
 We cheer'd him ; but, that moment, from tl.e 
 
 copse 
 By the lake-edge, broke the sharp cry of hounds ; 
 The prickers shouted that the stag was gone :
 
 78 MEROPE 
 
 Full cry" We sprang upon our feet, we snatch'd our spears, 
 We bounded down the swarded slope, we plunged 
 Through the dense ilex-thickets to the dogs. 
 Far in the woods ahead their music raag ; 
 And many times that morn we coursed in ring 8&o 
 The forests round which belt CyUene's side ; 
 Till I, thrown out and tired, came to halt 
 On the same spur where we had sate at morn. 
 And resting there to breathe, I saw below 
 Rare, straggling hunters, foil'd by brake and crag, 
 And the prince, single, pressing on the rear 
 Of that unflagging quarry and the hounds. 
 Now, in the woods far down, I saw them cross 
 An open glade ; now he was high aloft 
 On some tall scar fringed with dark feathery pines, 
 Peering to spy a goat-track down the cliff, 81 1 
 
 Cheering with hand, and voice, and horn his dogs. 
 At last the cry drew to the water's edge — 
 And through the brushwood, to the pebbly strand, 
 Broke, black with sweat, the antler'd mountain 
 
 stag, 
 And took the lake : two hounds alone pursued ; 
 Then came the prince — he shouted and plunged 
 
 in. — 
 There is a chasm rifted in the base 
 Of that unfooted precipice, whose rock 
 Walls on one side the deep Styniplialian Lake: 820 
 There the lake-waters, which in ages gone 
 Wash'd, as the marks upon the hills stiil show. 
 All the Stymphalian plain, are now suck'd down. 
 A headland, v/ith one aged plane-tree crown'd. 
 Parts from the cave-pierced cliff the shelving bav 
 Where first the chase plunged in : the bay is 
 
 smooth,
 
 MEROPE 79 
 
 But round the headland's point a current sets, End of 
 
 Strong, black, tempestuous, to the cavern-mouth, '^taie*' 
 Stoutly, under the headland's lee, they swam : 
 But when they came abreast the point, the race 830 
 Caught them, as wind takes feathers, whirl'd them 
 
 round 
 Struggling in vain to cross it, swept them on, 
 Stag, dogs, and hunter, to the yawning gulph. 
 All this, O King, not piecemeal, as to thee 
 Now told, but in one flashing instant pa^s'd : 
 While from the turf whereon I lay I sprang, 
 And took three strides, quarry and dogs were gone; 
 A moment more — I saw the prince turn round 
 Once in the black and arrowy race, and cast 
 One arm aloft for help ; then sweep beneath 840 
 The low-brow'd cavern-arch, and disaj^pear. 
 And \vl;at I could, I did — to call by cries 
 Some straggling hunters to my aid, to rouse 
 Fishers who live on the lake-side, to launch 
 Boats, and approach, near as we dared, the chasm. 
 But of the prince nothing remain'd, save this. 
 His boar-spear's broken shaft, back on the lake 
 Cast by the rumbling subterranean stream ; 
 And this, at landing spied by us and saved, 
 His broad-brimm'd hunter's hat, which, in the bay, 
 Where first the stag took water, floated still. 851 
 And I across the mountains brought with haste 
 To Cypselus, at Basilis, this news : 
 Basilis, his new city, which he now 
 Near Lycosura builds, Lycaon's town. 
 First city founded on the earth by men. 
 He to thee sends me on, in one thing glad 
 While all else grieves him, that his grandchild's 
 
 death
 
 go MEROPE 
 
 iEpytus Fxtinguishes distrust 'twixt him and thee, 
 hospitabfy ^^^ ^ ^rom our deplored mischance learn this — 860 
 The man who to untimely death is doom'd, 
 Vainly you hedge him from the assault of harm ; 
 He bears the seed of ruin in himself. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 So dies the last shoot of our royal tree ! 
 Who shall tell Merope this heavy news ? 
 
 POLYP HONTES 
 
 Stranger, the news thou bringest is too great 
 For instant comment, having many sides 
 Of import, and in silence best received, 
 Whether it turn at last to joy or woe. 
 But thou, the zealous bearer, hast no part 870 
 
 In what it has of painful, whether now. 
 First heard, or in its future issue shown. 
 Thou for thy labour hast deserved our best 
 Refreshment needed by thee, as I judge, 
 With mountain-travel and night-watching spent. — 
 To the guest-chamber lead him, some one ! give 
 All entertainment which a traveller needs, 
 And such as fits a royal house to show : 
 To friends, still more, and labourers in our cause. 
 [Attendants conduct ^pytus ivithhi the palace. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 The youth is gone within ; alas ! he bears 880 
 
 A presence sad for some one through those doors. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Admire then, maidens, how in one short hour 
 The schemes pursued in vain for twenty years
 
 MEROPE 8i 
 
 Are by a stroke, though undesired, complete, Poly- 
 
 Crown'd with success, not in my way, but exuitalft 
 
 Heaven's ! 
 This at a moment, too, when I had urged 
 A last, long-cherish'd project, in my aim 
 Of concord, and been baffled with disdain. 
 Fair terms of reconcilement, equal rule, 
 I offer'd to my foes, and they refused : 890 
 
 Worse terms than mine they have obtain'd from 
 
 Heaven. 
 Dire is this blow for Merope ; and I 
 Wish'd, truly wish'd, solution to our broil 
 Other than by this death : but it hath come ! 
 I speak no word of boast, but this I say, 
 A private loss here founds a nation's peace. 
 
 [POLYPHONTES gOes OUt. 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Peace, who tarriest too long : str. 5 
 
 Peace, with Delight in thy train; 
 
 Come, come back to our prayer ! 
 
 Then shall the revel again 900 
 
 Visit our streets, and the sound 
 
 Of the harp be heard with the pipe, 
 
 When the flashing torches appear 
 
 In fhe marriage-train coming on, 
 
 With dancing maidens and boys : 
 
 While the matrons come to the doors, 
 
 «And the old men rise from their bench, 
 
 When the youtlis bring home the bride. 
 
 Not decried by my voice ant. 
 
 He who restores thee shall be, 910 
 
 Not unfavour'd by Heaven.
 
 82 MEROPE 
 
 Let Surely no sinner the man, 
 Mm" I^read though his acts, to whose hand 
 Such a boon to bring hath been given. 
 Let her come, fair Peace ! let her come ! 
 But the demons long nourish'd here, 
 Murder, Discord, and Hate, 
 In the stormy desolate waves 
 Of the Thracian Sea let her leave. 
 Or the howling outermost Main. 920 
 
 [Merope comes fcrth. 
 
 A whisper through the palace flies of one 
 
 Arrived from Tegea with weighty news ; 
 
 And I came, thinking to find Areas here. 
 
 Ye have not left this gate, which he must pass : 
 
 Tell me — hath one not come ? or, worse mischance, 
 
 Come, but been intercepted by the King ? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 A messenger, sent from Arcadia here, 
 Arrived, and of the King had speech but now. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Ah me ! the wrong expectant got his news. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 The message brought was for the King design'd. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 How so ? was Areas not the messenger ? 931 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 A younger man, and of a different name.
 
 MEROPE 83 
 
 MEROPE Areas 
 
 And what Arcadian news had he to tell ? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Learn that from other lips, O Queen, than mine. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 He kept his tale, then, for the King alone ? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 His tale was meeter for that ear than thine. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Why dost thou falter, and make half reply ? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 O thrice unhappy, how I groan thy fate ! 
 
 Thou frightenest and confound'st me by thy word. 
 O were but Areas come, all would be well ! 940 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 If 80, all 's well : for look, the old man speeds 
 Up from the city tow'rds this gated hill. 
 
 [Arcas comes in. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Not with the failing breath and foot of age 
 
 My faithful follower comes. Welcome, old friend ! 
 
 Faithful, not welcome, when my tale is told. 
 O that my over-speed and bursting grief
 
 84 MEROPE 
 
 A talc of Hal on the journey choked my labouring breath, 
 disaster ^Yi^j lock'd my speech for ever in my breast ! 
 
 Yet then another man would bring this news. — 
 O honour'd Queen, thy son, my charge, is gone. 950 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Too suddenly thou tellest such a loss. 
 
 Look up, O Queen ! look up, O mistress dea ! 
 
 Look up, and see thy friends who comfort the , 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Ah .. Ah ... Ah me ! 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 And I, too, say, ah me! 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 Forgive, forgive the bringer of such news ! 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Better from thine than from an enemy's tongu::. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 And yet no enemy did this, O Queen : 
 
 But the wit-baffling will and hand of Heaven. 
 
 No enemy ! and what hast thou, then, heard ? 
 Swift as I came, hath Falsehood been before ? 960 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 A youth arrived but now, the son, he said, 
 Of an Arcadian lord, our prince's friend, 
 Jaded with travel, clad in hunter's garb.
 
 MEROPE 85 
 
 He brought report that his own eyes had seen The 
 
 The prince, in chase after a swimming stag, '[^^ ^ 
 
 Swept down a chasm broken in the cliff 
 Which hangs o'er the Stymphalian Lake, and 
 drown'd. 
 
 Ah me ! with what a foot doth Treason post, 
 While Loyalty, with all her speed, is slow! 
 Another tale, I trow, thy messenger 970 
 
 F07 the King's private ear reserves, like this 
 In one thing only, that the prince is dead. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 And how then runs this true and private tale ? 
 
 As much to the King's wish, more to his shame. 
 This young Arcadian noble, guard and mate 
 To jEpytus, the king seduced with gold, 
 And had him at the prince's side in leash, 
 Ready to slip on his unconscious prey. 
 He on a hunting party three days since, 
 I Among the forests on Cyllene's side, 98 
 
 I Perform'd good service for his bloody wa[;e ; 
 1' The prince, his uncle Laias, whom his ward 
 
 II Had in a father's place, he basely murder'd. 
 
 ' Take this for true, the other tale for feign'd. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 And this perfidious murder who reveal'd ? 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 The faithless murderer's own, no other tongue.
 
 86 MEROPE 
 
 The THE CHORUS 
 
 supposed Did conscience goad him to denounce himself? 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 To Cypselus at Basilis he brought 
 
 This strange unlikely tale, the prince was drown'd. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 But not a word appears of murder here. 990 
 
 Examin'd close, he own'd this story false. 
 Then evidence came — his comrades of the hunt, 
 Who saw the prince and Laias last with him, 
 Never again in life — next, agents, fee'd 
 To ply 'twixt the Messenian king and him. 
 Spoke, and revealed that traffic, and the traitor. 
 So charged, he stood dumbfounder'd : Cypselus, 
 On this suspicion, cast him into chains. 
 Thence he escaped — and next I find him here. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 His presence with the King, thou mean'st, 
 implies 1000 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 He comes to tell his prompter he hath sped. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Still he repeats the drowning story here. 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 To thee — that needs no (Edipus to explain.
 
 MEROPE 87 
 
 THE CHORUS Merope's 
 
 Interpret, then ; for we, it seems, are dull. kindled 
 
 Your King desired the profit of his death. 
 Not the black credit of his murderer. 
 That stern word ' murder ' had too dread a sound 
 For the Me'ssenian hearts, who loved the prince. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Suspicion grave I see, but no clear proof. 
 
 Peace ! peace ! all 's clear. — The wicked watch 
 and work loio 
 
 While the good sleep : the workers have the day. 
 He who was sent hath sped, and now comes back, 
 To chuckle with his sender o'er the game 
 Which foolish innocence plays with subtle guilt. 
 Ah ! now I comprehend the liberal grace 
 Of this far-scheming tyrant, and his boon 
 Of heirship to his kingdom for my son : 
 He had his murderer ready, and the sword 
 Lifted, and that unwish'd-for heirship void — 
 A tale, meanwhile, forged for his subjects' ears : 
 And me, henceforth sole rival with himself 1020 
 In their allegiance, me, in my son's death-hour. 
 When all turn'd tow'rds me, me he would have 
 
 shown 
 
 To my Messenians, duped, disarni'd, despised, 
 The willing sharer of his guilty rule. 
 All claim to succour forfeit, to myself 
 Hateful, by each Messenian heart abhorred. — 
 His offers I repelled — but what of that ?
 
 88 MEROPE 
 
 She nerves If with no rage, no fire of righteous hate, 
 herseii for g^,)^ ^g g[.g ^^^ j-j^^lj spurr'd to fearful deeds 1030 
 Weak women with a thousandth part my wrongs. 
 But calm, but unresentful, I endured 
 His offers, coldly heard them, cold repell'd ? 
 While all this time I bear to linger on 
 In this blood-deluged palace, in whose halls 
 Either a vengeful Fury I should stalk, 
 Or else not live at all — but here I haunt, 
 A pale, unmeaning ghost, powerless to fright 
 Or harm, and nurse my longing for my son, 
 A helpless one, I know it: — but the Gods 1040 
 Have temper'd me e'en thus ; and, in some souls, 
 Misery, which rouses others, breaks the spring. 
 And even now, my son, ah me ! my son, 
 Fain would I fade away, as I have lived. 
 Without a cry, a struggle, or a blow, 
 All vengeance unattempted, and descend 
 To the invisible plains, to roam with thee. 
 
 Fit denizen, the lampless under-world 
 
 But with what eyes should I encounter there 
 My husband, wandering with his stern compeers, 
 Amphiaraos, or Mycense's king, 1051 
 
 Who led the Greeks to Ilium, Agamemnon, 
 Betray'd like him, but, not like him, avenged ? 
 Or with what voice shall I the questions meet 
 Of my two elder sons, slain long ago. 
 Who sadly ask me, what, if not revenge. 
 Kept me, their mother, from their side so long ? 
 Or how reply to thee, my child, last-born, 
 Last murder'd, who reproachfully wilt say — 
 Mother, I ivell helmed thou livedst on io5c 
 
 In the detested palace of thy foe. 
 With patience on thy face, death in thy hearty
 
 MEROPE 89 
 
 Counting, till I greiv up, the laggard years, a fearful 
 
 That our joint hinds might then together pay ^^ 
 
 To one unhappy house the < bt ive oive. 
 
 My death makes my debt void, and doubles thine — 
 
 But do-wn thoujleest here, and leav'st our scourge 
 
 Triumphant, and condemnest all our race 
 
 To lie in gloom for ever unappeased. 
 
 What shall I have to answer to such words ? — 1070 
 
 No, something must be dared ; and, great as erst 
 
 Our dastard patience, be our daring now ! 
 
 Come, ye swift Furies, who to him ye haunt 
 
 Permit no peace till your behests are done ; 
 
 Come Hermes, who dost watch the unjustly kill'd, 
 
 And canst teach simple ones to plot and feign ; 
 
 Come, lightning Passion, that with foot of fire 
 
 Advancest to the middle of a deed 
 
 Almost before 'tis plann'd ; come, glowing Hate ; 
 
 Come, baneful Mischief, from thy murky den 1080 
 
 Under the dripping black Tartarean cliff 
 
 Which Styx's awful waters trickle down — 
 
 Inspire this coward heart, this flagging arm ! 
 
 How say ye, maidens, do ye know these prayers ? 
 
 Are these words Merope's — is this voice mine ? 
 
 Old man, old man, thou hadst my boy in charge, 
 
 Anc he is lost, and thou hast that to atone. 
 
 Fly, find me on the instant where confer 
 
 The murderer and his impious setter-on : 
 
 And ye, keep faithful silence, friends, and mark 
 
 Whar one weak woman can achieve alone. 1091 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 O mistress, by the Gods, do nothing rash ! 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Unfaithful servant, dost thou, too, desert me?
 
 90 MEROPE 
 
 Hope 
 suggested 
 
 I go ! I go ! — yet, Queen, take this one word : 
 Attempting deeds beyond thy power to do. 
 Thou nothing profitest thy friends, but mak'st 
 Our misery more, and thine own ruin sure. 
 
 [Arcas goes out. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 I have heard, O Queen, how a prince, str. i 
 
 Agamemnon's son, in Mycenae, 
 Orestes, died but in name, iioo 
 
 Lived for the death of his foes. 
 
 Peace 1 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 What is it ? 
 
 Thou destroyest me ! 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Alas, 
 
 H( 
 
 Whispering hope of a life 
 Which no stranger unknown, 
 But the faithful servant and guard, 
 Whose tears warrant his truth, 
 Bears sad witness is lost. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Whereso'er men are, there is grief. ant. I ] 
 
 In a thousand countries, a thousand iixo
 
 MEROPE 91 
 
 Homes, e'en now is there wail ; Npne is 
 
 Mothers lamenting their sons. fn clTamlrj! 
 
 Yes- 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Thou knowest it ? 
 
 This, 
 Mho lives, witnesses. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 True. 
 
 But, is it only a fate 
 
 Sure, all-common, to lose 
 
 In a land of friends, by a friend, 
 
 One last, murder-saved child ? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 All me ! str. 2 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Thou confessest the prize 1120 
 
 In the rushing, thundering, mad. 
 Cloud-enveloped, obscure, 
 Unapplauded, unsung 
 Race of calamity, mine? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 None can truly claim that 
 Miurnful preeminence, not 
 
 Thou.
 
 92 MEROPE 
 
 The MEROPE 
 
 Arcadian • • l i 
 
 within ? r ate gives it, ah me ! 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Not, above all, in the doubts, 
 
 Double and clashing, that hang 1129 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 What then ? ant. 2 
 
 Seems it lighter, my loss, 
 
 If, perhaps, unpierced by the sword, 
 
 My child lies in a jagg'd 
 
 Sunless prison of rocks, 
 
 On the black, wave borne to and fro ? 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Worse, far worse, if his friend, 
 If the Arcadian within. 
 If 
 
 MEROPE {^ivith a start) 
 How say'st thou ? within ? . . . 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 He in the guest-chamber now. 
 
 Faithlessly murder'd his friend. 1140 
 
 Ye, too, ye, too, join to betray, then, 
 Your Queen ! 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 What is this I
 
 MEROPE 93 
 
 MEROPE The 
 
 ■.,- , sacrifice- 
 
 Ye knew, axe 
 
 O false friends ! into what 
 
 Haven the murderer had dropp'd ? 
 
 Ye kept silence i 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 In fear, 
 
 loved mistress ! in fear, 
 Dreading thine over-wrought mood. 
 What I knew, I conceal'd. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Swear by the Gods henceforth to obey me ! 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Unhappy one, what deed 1150 
 
 ; Purposes thy despair ? 
 
 1 promise ; but I fear. 
 
 From the altar, the unavenged tomb, 
 
 Fetch me the sacrifice-axe ! 
 
 [The Chorus goes towards the tomb of Cres- 
 PHONTES, and their leader brings hack the axe. 
 O Husband, O clothed 
 With the grave's everlasting. 
 All-covering darkness ! O King, 
 Well mourn'd, but ill-avenged ! 
 
 Approv'st thou thy wife now ? 
 
 The axe ! — who brings it ? 
 
 THE chorus 
 
 'Tis here! ii6o
 
 94 MEROPE 
 
 Merope But thy gesture, thy look, 
 ""^n'"^ Appals me, shakes me with awe. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Thrust back now the bolt of that door ! 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Alas ! alas ! — 
 
 Behold the fastenings withdrawn 
 
 Of the guest-chamber door ! — 
 
 Ah ! I beseech thee — with tears 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Throw the door open ! 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 'Tis done ! . . . 
 [The door of the house is throivn open : the 
 ititer'tor of the guest-chamber is discovered^ with 
 -^PYTUS asleep on a couch. 
 
 He sleeps — sleeps calm. O ye all-seeing Gods ! 
 Thus peacefully do ye let sinners sleep, 1170 
 
 While troubled innocents toss, and lie awake ? 
 What sweeter sleep than this could I desire 
 For thee, my child, if thou wert yet alive ? 
 How often have I dream'd of thee like this, 
 With thy soil'd hunting-coat, and sandals torn, 
 Asleep in the Arcadian glens at noon, 
 Thy head droop'd softly, and the golden curls 
 Clustering o'er thy white forehead, like a girl's ; 
 The short proud lip showing thy race, thy cheeks 
 Brown'd with thine open-air, free, hunter's life. 1180 
 Ah me ! . . .
 
 ^pytus 
 
 MEROPE 95 
 
 And where dost thou sleep now, my innocent slay 
 
 boy ? » ^^ ^°" 
 
 In some dark fir-tree's shadow, amid rocks 
 Untrodden, on Cyllene's desolate side ; 
 Where travellers never pass, where only come 
 Y^ild beasts, and vultures sailing overhead. 
 There, there thou liest now, my hapless child ! 
 Stretched among briars and stones, the slow, black 
 
 gore 
 Oozing through thy soak'd hunting-shirt, with limbs 
 Yet stark from the death-struggle, tight-clench'd 
 
 hands, 1190 
 
 And eyeballs staring for revenge in vain. 
 Ah miserable ! . . . 
 
 And thou, thou fair-skinned Serpent ! thou art laid 
 In a rich chamber, on a happy bed, 
 In a king's house, thy victim's heritage ; 
 And drink'st untroubled slumber, to sleep off 
 The toils of thy foul service, till thou wake 
 Refresh'd, and claim thy master's thanks and 
 
 gold.— 
 Wake up in hell from thine unhallow'd sleep, 1199 
 Thou smiling Fiend, and claim thy guerdon there! 
 Wake amid gloom, and howling, and the noise 
 Of sinners pinion'd on the torturing wheel. 
 And the stanch Furies' never-silent scourge. 
 And bid the chief-tormentors there provide 
 For a grand culprit shortly coming down. 
 Go thou the first, and usher in thy lord ! 
 A more just stroke than that thou gav'st my son, 
 
 Take 
 
 [Merope advances towards the sleeping ^pvtus, 
 
 iv'ith the axe uplifted. At the same moment 
 
 Arcas returns.
 
 96 MEROPE 
 
 Areas ARCAS (io the Chorus^ 
 
 inter- 
 venes Not with him to council did the King 
 
 Carry his messenger, but left him here. 
 
 \Sees Merope and ^pytus. 
 
 O Gods! . . . 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Foolish old man, thou spoil'st my blow ! 1210 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 What do I see ? . . . 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 A murderer at death's door. 
 Therefore no words ! 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 A murderer ? , . . 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 And a captive 
 To the dear next-of-kin of him he murder'd. 
 Stand, and let vengeance pass ! 
 
 Hold, O Queen, hold ! 
 Thou know'st not whom thou strik'st . . . 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 I know his crime. 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 Unhappy one ! thou strik'st 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 A most just blow,
 
 MEROPE 97 
 
 ARCAS iEpytus 
 
 No, by the Gods, thou slay'st known 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Stand off! 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 Thy son ! 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Ah ! . . . ^She lets the axe drop, and falls insensible. 
 iCPYTUS {^aiualiing) 
 
 Who are these ? What shrill, eai-piercing 
 scream 
 Wakes me thus kindly from the perilous sleep 
 Wherewith fatigue and youth had bound mine 
 
 eyes, 1220 
 
 Even in the deadly palace of my foe ? — 
 Areas ! Thou here ? 
 
 ARCAS {^embracing him") 
 
 O my dear master ! O 
 My child, my charge beloved, welcome to life! 
 As dead we held thee, mourn'd for thee as dead. 
 
 In word I died, that I in deed might live. 
 But who are these ? 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 Messenian maidens, friends. 
 
 iCPYTUS 
 
 And, Areas ! — but I tremble ! 
 G
 
 98 MEROPE 
 
 The axe ARCAS 
 
 *w*y' Boldly ask. 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 That black-robed, swooning figure ? . . . 
 
 ARCAS 
 
 Merope. 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 O mother ! mother ! 
 
 Who upbraids me ? Ah ! . . . 
 ^seeing the axe. 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 Upbraids thee ? no one. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Thou dost well : but take ... 123a 
 
 itPYTUS 
 
 What wav'st thou off? 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 That murderous axe away ! 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 Thy son is here. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 One said so, sure, but now. 
 
 yEPYTUS 
 
 Here, here thou hast him !
 
 MEROPE 99 
 
 Mother 
 MEROPE and son 
 
 Slaughter'd by this hand! . . . 
 
 itPYTUS 
 
 No, by the Gods, alive and like to live ! 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 What, thou ? — I dream 
 
 iEPYTUS 
 
 May'st thou dream ever so ! 
 
 MEROPE [advancing towards him) 
 My child ? unhurt ? . . . 
 
 iT.PYTUS 
 
 Only by over joy. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Art thou, then, come ? . . . 
 
 itPYTUS 
 
 Never to part again. 
 [They fa// into one another's arms. Then Merope, 
 ho/ding jEpytus by the hand, turns to The 
 Chorus. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 O kind Messenian maidens, O my friends. 
 Bear witness, see, mark well, on what a head 
 My first stroke of revenge had nearly fallen ! 1240 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 We see, dear mistress : and we say, the Gods, 
 As hitherto they kept him, keep him now.
 
 lOO MEROPE 
 
 Vengeance MEROPE 
 
 again 
 
 my son ! 
 
 1 have, I have thee .... the years 
 Fly back, my child ! and thou seem'st 
 Ne'er to have gone from these eyes, 
 Never been torn from this breast. 
 
 iEPYTUS 
 
 Mother, my heart runs over : but the time 
 Presses me, chides me, will not let me weep. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Fearest thou now ? 125c 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 I fear not, but I think on my design. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 At the undried fount of this breast, 
 A babe, thou smilest again. 
 Thy brothers play at my feet. 
 Early-slain innocents ! near, 
 Thy kind-speaking father stands. 
 
 jiEPYTUS 
 
 Remember, to revenge his death I come I 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Ah . . . revenge ! anf. 
 
 That word ! it kills me ! I see 
 
 Once more roll back on my house, 1260 
 
 Never to ebb, the accurs'd 
 
 All-flooding ocean of blood.
 
 MEROPE 
 
 ^PYTUS What 
 
 help ? 
 Mother, sometimes the justice of the Gods 
 
 Appoints the way to peace through shedding blood. 
 
 Sorrowful peace ! 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 And yet the only peace to us allow'd. 
 
 From the first-wrought vengeance is born 
 
 A long succession of crimes. 
 
 Fresh blood flows, calling for blood : 
 
 Fathers, sons, grandsons, are all 1270 
 
 One death-dealing vengeful train. 
 
 Mother, thy fears are idle : for I come 
 
 To close an old wound, not to open new. 
 
 In all else willing to be taught, in this 
 
 Instruct me not ; I have my lesson clear. — 
 
 Areas, seek out my uncle Laias, now 
 
 Concerting in the city with our friends ; 
 
 Here bring him, ere the king come back from 
 
 council : 
 That, how to accomplish what the Gods enjoin, 
 And the slow-ripening time at last prepares, laSo 
 We two with thee, my mother, may consult : 
 For whose help dare I count on if not thine ? 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Approves my brother Laias this design ?
 
 I02 MEROPE 
 
 Laias in >tPYTUS 
 
 Yes, and alone is with me here to share. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 And what of thine Arcadian mate, who bears 
 Suspicion from thy grandsire of thy death. 
 For whom, as I suppose, thou passest here ? 
 
 Sworn to our plot he is : but, that surmise 
 Fix'd him the author of my death, I knew not. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Proof, not surmise, shows him in commerce close — 
 
 -SPYTUS 
 
 With this Messenian tyrant — that I know. 1291 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 And entertain'st thou, child, such dangerous friends ? 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 This commerce for my best behoof he plies. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 That thou may'st read thine enemy's counsel plain ? 
 
 .EPYTUS 
 
 Too dear his secret wiles have cost our house. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 And of his unsure agent what demands he ? 
 
 JETYTVS 
 
 News of my business, pastime, temper, friends.
 
 MEROPE 
 
 103 
 
 MEROPE [Merope 
 
 counsels 
 His messages, then, point not to thy murder : delay 
 
 /EPYTUS 
 
 Not yet ; though such, no doubt, his final aim. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 And what Arcadian helpers bring'st thou here ? 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 Laias alone; no errand mine for crowds. 1301 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 On what relying, to crush such a foe ? 
 
 JE?YTVS 
 
 One sudden stroke, and the Messenians' love. 
 
 O thou long-lost, long seen in dreams alone, 
 But now seen face to face, my only child ! 
 Why wilt thou fly to lose as soon as found 
 My new-won treasure, thy beloved life? 
 Or how expectest not to lose, who comest 
 With such slight means to cope with such a foe? 
 Thine enemy thou know'st not, nor his strength. 
 The stroke thou purposest is desperate, rash — 1311 
 Yet grant that it succeeds; — thou hast behind 
 The stricken king a second enemy 
 Scarce dangerous less than him, the Dorian lords. 
 These are not now the savage band who erst 
 Follow'd thy father from their northern hills, 
 Mere ruthless and uncounsell'd tools of war. 
 Good to obey, without a leader nought.
 
 I04 MEROPE 
 
 "Saije Their chief hath train'd them, made them like 
 
 "tfcV" himseif, 
 
 Sagacious, men of iron, watchful, firm, 1320 
 
 Against surprise and sudden panic proof: 
 
 Their master fall'n, these will not flinch, but band 
 
 To keep their master's power : thou wilt find 
 
 Behind his corpse their hedge of serried spears. 
 
 But, to match these, thou hast the people's love ? 
 
 On what a reed, my child, thou leanest there ! 
 
 Knowest thou not how timorous, how unsure, 
 
 How useless an ally a people is 
 
 Against the one and certain arm of power ? 
 
 Thy father perish'd in this people's cause, 1330 
 
 Perish'd before their eyes, yet no man stirr'd : 
 
 For years, his widow, in their sight I stand, 
 
 A never-changing index to revenge — 
 
 What help, what vengeance, at their hands 
 
 have I ? — 
 At least, if thou wilt trust them, try them first : 
 Against the King himself array the host 
 Thou countest on to back thee 'gainst his lords : 
 First rally the Messenians to thy cause. 
 Give them cohesion, purpose, and resolve, 
 Marshal them to an army— then advance, 1340 
 
 Then try the issue ; and not, rushing on 
 Single and friendless, throw to certain death 
 That dear-belov'd, that young, that gracious head. 
 Be guided, O my son ! spurn counsel not : 
 For know thou this, a violent heart hath been 
 Fatal to all the race of Hercules. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 With sage experience she speaks ; and thou, 
 O ^pytus, weigh well her counsel given.
 
 MEROPE 105 
 
 .EPYTUS ^fend".' 
 
 Ill counsel, in my judgment, gives she here. 
 
 Maidens, and reads experience much amiss ; 1350 
 
 Discrediting the succour which our cause 
 
 Might from the people draw, if rightly used : 
 
 Advising us a course which would, indeed, - , i 
 
 If followed, make their succour slack and null. : :l 
 
 A people is no army, train'd to iight, , 1 ' 
 
 A passive engine, at their general's will ; 
 
 And, if so used, proves, as thou say'st, unsure. 
 
 A people, like a common man, is dull, 
 
 Is lifeless, while its heart remains untouch'd ; 
 
 A fool can drive it, and a fly may scare : 1360 
 
 When it admires and loves, its heart awakes ; 
 
 Then irresistibly it lives, it works : 
 
 A people, then, is an ally indeed ; 
 
 It is ten thousand fiery wills in one. 
 
 Now I, if I invite them to run risk 
 
 Of life for my advantage, and myself, 
 
 Who chiefly profit, run no more than iliey — 
 
 How shall I rouse their love, their ardour so ? 
 
 But, if some signal, unassisted stroke, 
 
 Dealt at my own sole risk, before their eyes, 1370 
 
 Announces me their rightful prince return'd — 
 
 The undegenerate blood of Hercules — 
 
 The daring claimant of a perilous throne — 
 
 How might not such a sight as this revive 
 
 Their loyal passion tow'rd my father's house ? 
 
 Electrify their hearts ? make them no more 
 
 A craven mob, but a devouring fire ? 
 
 Then might I use them, then, for one who thus 
 
 Spares not himself, themselves they will not spare. 
 
 Haply, had but one daring soul stood forth 1380
 
 To6 MEROPE 
 
 JBpytus To rally them and lead them to revenge, 
 resolved When my great father fell, they had replied : — 
 Alas ! our foe alone stood forward then. 
 And thou, my mother, hadst thou made a sign — 
 Hadst thou, from thy forlorn and captive state 
 Of widowhood in these polluted halls, 
 Thy prison-house, raised one imploring cry — 
 Who knows but that avengers thou hadst found ? 
 But mute thou sat'st, and each Messenian heart 
 In thy despondency desponded too. 1390 
 
 Enough of this ! — though not a finger stir 
 To succour me in my extremest need ; 
 Though all free spirits in this land be dead, 
 And only slaves and tyrants left alive — 
 Yet for me, mother, I had liefer die 
 On native ground, than drag the tedious hours 
 Of a protected exile any more. 
 Hate, duty, interest, passion call one way : 
 Here stand I now, and the attempt shall be. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Prudence is on the other side ; but deeds 1400 
 
 Condemned by prudence have sometimes gone 
 well. 
 
 Not till the ways of prudence all are tried. 
 And tried in vain, the turn of rashness comes. 
 Thou leapest to thy deed, and hast not ask'd 
 Thy kinsfolk and thy father's friends for aid. 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 And to what friends should I for aid apply ?
 
 MEROPE to7 
 
 MEROPE Friends 
 
 discussed 
 
 The royal race of Temenus, in Argos 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 That house like ours, intestine murder maims. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Thy Spartan cousins, Procles and his brother 
 
 ;epytus 
 Love a won cause, but not a cause to win. 1410 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 My father, then, and his Arcadian chiefs 
 
 itPYTUS 
 
 Mean still to keep aloof from Dorian broil. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Wait, then, until sufficient help appears. 
 
 iEPYTUS 
 
 Orestes in Mycenix; had no more. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 He to fulfd an order raised his hand. 
 
 ^PYTUS 
 
 What order more precise had he than I ? 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Apollo peal'd it from his Delphian cave. 
 
 itPVTUS 
 
 A mother's murder needed best divine.
 
 io8 MEROPE 
 
 The MEROPE 
 
 precedent 
 
 of Orestes He had a best, at least, and thou hast none. 
 
 /EPYTUS 
 
 The Gods command not where the heart speaks 
 clear. 1420 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Thou wilt destroy, I see, thyself and us. 
 
 O sufFering ! O calamity ! how ten, 
 
 How twentyfold worse are ye, when your blows 
 
 Not only wound the sense, but kill the soul, 
 
 The noble thought, which is alone the man ! 
 
 That I, to-day returning, find myself 
 
 Orphan'd of both my parents — by his foes 
 
 My father, by your strokes my mother slain ! — 
 
 For this is not my mother, who dissuades. 
 
 At the dread altar of her husband's tomb, 1430 
 
 His son from vengeance on his murderer ; 
 
 And not alone dissuades him, but compares 
 
 His just revenge to an unnatural deed, 
 
 A deed so awful, that the general tongue 
 
 Fluent of horrors, falters to relate it — 
 
 Of darkness so tremendous, that its author, 
 
 Though to his act empower'd, nay, impell'd, 
 
 By the oracular sentence of the Gods, 
 
 Fled, for years after, o'er the face of earth, 
 
 A frenzied wanderer, a God-driven man, 1440 
 
 And hardly yet, some say, hath found a grave — 
 
 With such a deed as this thou matchest mine, 
 
 Which Nature sanctions, which the innocent blood 
 
 Clamours to find fulfill'd, which jjood men praise,
 
 MEROPE 109 
 
 And only bad men joy to see undone ? Laias 
 
 O honour'd father ! hide thee in thy grave comes 
 
 Deep as thou canst, for hence no succour comes ; 
 Since from thy faithful subjects what revenge 
 Canst thou expect, when thus thy widow fails ? 
 Alas! an adamantine strength indeed, 1450 
 
 Past expectation, hath thy murderer built : 
 For this is the true strength of guilty kings. 
 When they corrupt the souls of those they rule. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Zeal makes him most unjust : but, in good time, 
 Here, as I guess, the noble Laias comes. 
 
 LAIAS , , , 
 
 Break off, break off your talking, and depart 
 Each to his post, where the occasion calls ; 
 Lest from the council-chamber presently 
 The King return, and find you prating here. 
 A time will come for greetings ; but to-day 1460 
 The hour for words is gone, is come for deeds. 
 
 princely Laias ! to what purpose calls 
 The occasion, if our chief confederate fails ? 
 My mother stands aloof, and blames our deed. 
 
 LAIAS 
 
 My royal sister ? . . . but, without some caupc, 
 
 1 know, she honours not the dead so ill. 
 
 Brother, it seems thy sister must present, 
 At this first meeting after absence long,
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Merope Not welcome, exculpation to her kin : 
 uncon- 
 vinced 
 
 uncon- Yet exculpation needs it, if I seek, 1470 
 
 A woman and a mother, to avert 
 
 Risk from my new-restored, my only son ? — 
 
 Sometimes, when he was gone, I wished him back, 
 
 Risk what he might ; now that I have him here, 
 
 Now that I feed mine eyes on that young face. 
 
 Hear that fresh voice, and clasp that gold-lock'd head, 
 
 I shudder, Laias, to commit my child 
 
 To Murder's dread arena, where I saw 
 
 His father and his ill-starr'd brethren fall ; 
 
 I loathe for him the slippery way of blood ; 1480 
 
 I ask if bloodless means may gain his end. 
 
 In me the fever of revengeful hate. 
 
 Passion's first furious longing to imbrue 
 
 Our own right hand in the detested blood 
 
 Of enemies, and count their dying groans — 
 
 If in this feeble bosom such a fire 
 
 Did ever burn — is long by time allay'd. 
 
 And I would now have Justice strike, not me. 
 
 Besides — for from my brother and my son 
 
 I hide not even this — the reverence deep, 1490 
 
 Remorseful, tow'rd my hostile solitude. 
 
 By Polyphontes never fail'd-in once 
 
 Through twenty years ; his mournful anxious zea! 
 
 To efface in me the memory of his crime — 
 
 Though it efface not that, yet makes me wish 
 
 His death a public, not a personal act, 
 
 Treacherously plotted 'twixt my son and me ; 
 
 To whom this day he came to proffer peace. 
 
 Treaty, and to this kingdom for my son 
 
 Heirship, with fair intent, as I believe : — 1500 
 
 For that he plots thy death, account it false ; 
 
 [/O iEpYTUS,
 
 MEROPE in 
 
 Number it with the thousand rumours vain, Trust 
 
 Figments of plots, wherewith intriguers fill the Gods! 
 
 The enforced leisure of an exile's ear : — 
 
 Immersed in serious state-craft is the King, 
 
 Bent above all to pacify, to rule. 
 
 Rigidly, yet in settled calm, this realm ; 
 
 Not prone, all say, to useless bloodshed now. — 
 
 So much is due to truth, even tow'rds our foe. 
 
 [to Laias. 
 Do I, then, give to usurpation grace, 1510 
 
 And from his natural rights my son debar ? 
 Not so : let him — and none shall be more prompt 
 Than I to help — raise his Messenian friends ; 
 Let him fetch succours from Arcadia, gain 
 His Argive or his Spartan cousins' aid ; 
 Let him do this, do aught but recommence 
 Murder's uncertain, secret, perilous game — 
 And I, when to his righteous standard down 
 Flies Victory wing'd, and Justice raises then 
 Her sword, will be the first to bid it fall. 1520 
 
 If, haply, at this moment, such attempt 
 Promise not fair, let him a little while 
 Have faith, and trust the future and the Gods. 
 He may — for never did the Gods allow 
 Fast permanence to an ill-gotten throne. — 
 These are but woman's words ; — yet, Laias, thoQ' 
 Despise them not ! for, brother, thou, like me, 
 Wert not among the feuds of warrior-chiefs. 
 Each sovereign for his dear-bought hour, born; 
 But in the pastoral Arcadia rear'd, 1530 
 
 With Cypselus our father, where we saw 
 The simple patriarchal state of kings, 
 Where sire to son transmits the anquestion'd 
 ciown,
 
 112 MEROPE 
 
 Laias Unhack'd, uusmirch'd, unbloodied, and hast learnt 
 action That spotless hands unshaken sceptres hold. 
 
 Having learnt this, then, use thy, knowledge now. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Which way to lean I know not : bloody stroke* si 
 Are never free from doubt, though sometimes due. 
 
 O Merope, the common heart of man 
 
 Agrees to deem some deeds so horrible, 1540 
 
 That neither gratitude, nor tie of race, 
 
 Womanly pity, nor maternal fear. 
 
 Nor any pleader else, shall be indulged 
 
 To breathe a syllable to bar revenge. 
 
 All this, no doubt, thou to thyself hast urged — 
 
 Time presses, so that theme forbear I now ; 
 
 Direct to thy dissuasions I reply. 
 
 Blood-founded thrones, thou say'st, are insecure; 
 
 Our father's kingdom, because pure, is safe. 
 
 True ; but what cause to our Arcadia gives 1550 
 
 Its privileged immunity from blood. 
 
 But that, since first the black and fruitful Earth 
 
 In the primeval mountain-forests bore 
 
 Pelasgus, our forefather and mankind's, 
 
 Legitimately sire to son, with us. 
 
 Bequeaths the allegiance of our shepherd-tribes. 
 
 More loyal, as our line continues more ? — 
 
 How can your Heracleidan chiefs inspire 
 
 This awe which guards our earth-spmng, lineal 
 
 kings ? 
 What permanence, what stability like ours, is&o 
 Whether blood flows or no, can yet invest 
 The broken order of your Dorian throne^,
 
 MEROPE 113 
 
 Fix d yesterday, and ten times changed since then ? — Now 
 
 ■ - is the 
 
 moment 
 
 Two brothers, and their orphan nephews, strove >sthe 
 
 For the three conquer'd kingdoms of this isle : 
 The eldest, mightiest brother, Temenus, took 
 Argos : a juggle to Cresphontes gave 
 Messenia : to those helpless Boys, the lot 
 Worst of the three, the stony Sparta, fell. 
 August, indeed, was the foundation here ! 1570 
 
 What followed? — His most trusted kinsman slew 
 Cresphontes in Messenia ; Temenus 
 Perish'd in Argos by his jealous sons ; 
 The Spartan Brothers with their guardian strive : — 
 Can houses thus ill-seated— thus embroil'd — 
 Thus little founded in their subjects' love, 
 Practise the indulgent, bloodless policy 
 Of dynasties long-fix'd, and honour'd long? 
 No : Vigour and severity must chain 
 Popular reverence to these recent lines ; 1580 
 
 If their first-founded order be maintain'd — 
 Their murder'd rulers terribly avenged — 
 Ruthlessly their rebellious subjects crush'd. — 
 Since policy bids thus, what fouler death 
 Than thine illustrious husband's to avenge 
 Shall we select ? — than Polyphontes, what 
 More daring and more grand offender find ? 
 Justice, my sister, long demands this blow, 
 And Wisdom, now thou seest, demands it too : 
 To strike it, then, dissuade thy son no more ; 1590 
 For to live disobedient to these two, 
 Justice and Wisdom, is no life at all. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 The Gods, O mistress dear ! the hard-aoul'd man, 
 Who spared not others, bid not us to spare. 
 
 H
 
 114 MEROPE 
 
 Merope MEROPE 
 
 way Alas ! against my brother, son, and friends, 
 One, and a woman, how can I prevail ? — 
 O brother ! thou hast conquer'd ; yet, I fear. 
 Son ! with a doubting heart thy mother yields 
 May it turn happier than my doubts portend ! 
 
 Meantime on thee the task of silence onlv 1600 
 
 Shall be imposed ; to us shall be the deed. 
 
 Now, not another word, but to our act ! 
 
 Nephew ! thy friends are sounded, and prove true • 
 
 Thy father's murderer, in the public place. 
 
 Performs, this noon, a solemn sacrifice : 
 
 Go with him — choose the moment — strike thy 
 
 blow ! 
 If prudence counsels thee to go unarm'd, 
 The sacrificer's axe will serve thy turn. 
 To me and the Messenians leave the rest. 
 With the Gods' aid — and, if they give but aid 
 As our just cause deserves, I do not fear. 161 1 
 
 [^PYTUs, Laias, and Arcas, go out. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 O Son and Mother, str. i 
 
 Whom the Gods o'ershadow, 
 
 In dangerous trial, 
 
 With certainty of favour ! 
 
 As erst they shadow'd 
 
 Your race's founders 
 
 From irretrievable woe: 
 
 When the seed of Lycaon 
 
 Lay forlorn, lay outcast, 1620 
 
 Callisto and her Boy.
 
 MEROPE 115 
 
 What deep-grass'd meadow ant, i The 
 
 At the meeting valleys— ^%°l^ 
 
 Where clear-flowing Ladon, 
 
 Most beautiful of waters, 
 
 Receives the river 
 
 Whose trout are vocal, 
 
 The Aroanian stream — 
 
 Without home, without mother, 
 
 Hid the babe, hid Areas, 1630 
 
 The nursling of the dells ? 
 
 But the sweet-smelling myrtle, str. 2 
 
 And the pink-flower'd oleander, 
 
 And the green agnus-castus. 
 
 To the West- Wind's murmur. 
 
 Rustled round his cradle ; 
 
 And Maia rear'd him. 
 
 Then, a boy, he startled 
 
 In the snow-fill'd hollows 
 
 Of high Cyllene 1640 
 
 The white mountain-birds ; 
 
 Or surprised, in the glens. 
 
 The basking tortoises. 
 
 Whose striped shell founded 
 
 In the hand of Hermes 
 
 The glory of the lyre. 
 
 But his mother, Callisto, ant. 2 
 
 In her hiding-place of the thickets 
 
 Of the lentisk and ilex. 
 
 In her rough form, fearing 1650 
 
 The hunter on the outlook. 
 
 Poor changeling ! trembled. 
 
 Or the children, plucking
 
 Ti6 MEROPE 
 
 Callisto In the thorn-choked gullies 
 
 changeling ^^^^^ gooseberries, scared her. 
 
 The shy mountain-bear. 
 Or the shepherds, on slopes 
 With pale-spiked lavender 
 And crisp thyme tufted, 
 
 Came upon her, stealing 1660 
 
 At day-break through the dew. 
 
 Once, 'mid the gorges, str. 3 
 
 Spray-drizzled, lonely, 
 
 Unclimb'd by man — 
 
 O'er whose cliffs the townsmen 
 
 Of crag-perch'd Nonacris 
 
 Behold in summer 
 
 The slender torrent 
 
 Of Styx come dancing, 
 
 A wind-blown thread — 1670 
 
 By the precipices of Khelmos, 
 
 The fleet, desperate hunter, 
 
 The youthful Areas, born of Zeus, 
 
 His fleeing mother, 
 
 Transform'd Callisto, 
 
 Unwitting follow'd — 
 
 And raised his spear. 
 
 Turning, with piteous ant. 3 
 
 Distressful longing. 
 
 Sad, eager eyes, 1680 
 
 Mutely she regarded 
 
 Her well-known enemy. 
 
 Low moans half utter'd 
 
 What speech refused her ; 
 
 Tears coursed, tears human.
 
 MEFiOPE 117 
 
 Down those disfigured Arcturus 
 
 Once human cheeks. *Bear* 
 
 With unutterable foreboding 
 
 Her son, heart-stricken, eyed her. 
 
 The Gods had pity, made them Stars. 1690 
 
 Stars now they sparkle 
 
 In the northern Heaven ; 
 
 The guard Arcturus, 
 
 The guard-watch'd Bear. 
 
 So, o'er thee and thy child, epode. 
 
 Some God, Merope, now, 
 
 In dangerous hour, stretches his hand. 
 
 So, like a star, dawns thy son. 
 
 Radiant with fortune and joy. 
 
 [PoLYPHONTES comcs in. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 O Merope, the trouble on thy face 1700 
 
 Tells me enough thou know'st the news which all 
 
 Messenia speaks : the prince, thy son, is dead. 
 
 Not from my lips should consolation fall : 
 
 To offer that I came not ; but to urge, 
 
 Even after news of this sad death, our league. 
 
 Yes, once again I come ; I will not take 
 
 This morning's angry answer for thy last : 
 
 To the Messenian kingdom thou and I 
 
 Are the sole claimants left ; what cause of strife 
 
 Lay in thy son is buried in his grave. 1710 
 
 Most honourably I meant, I call the Gods 
 
 To witness, offering him return and power : 
 
 Yet, had he lived, suspicion, jealousy, 
 
 Inevitably had surged up, perhaps, 
 
 'Twixt thee and me ; suspicion, that I nursed
 
 ii8 MEROPE 
 
 ^ Poly-. Some ill design against him ; jealousy, 
 renews That he enjoyed but part, being heir to all. 
 his suit And he himself, with the impetuous heart, 
 Of youth, 'tis like, had never quite foregone 
 The thought of vengeance on me, never quite 1720 
 Unclosed his itching fingers from his sword. 
 But thou, O Merope, though deeply wrong'd, 
 Though injured past forgiveness, as men deem, 
 Yet hast been long at school with thoughtful Time, 
 And from that teacher mayst have learn'd, like me, 
 That all may be endured, and all forgiven ; 
 Have learn'd that we must sacrifice the thirst 
 Of personal vengeance to the public weal ; 
 Have learn'd, that there are guilty deeds, which 
 
 leave 
 The hand that does them guiltless ; in a word, 1730 
 That kings live for their peoples, not themselves. 
 This having learn'd, let us a union found 
 (For the last time I ask, ask earnestly) 
 Based on pure public welfare ; let us be — 
 Not Merope and Polyphontes, foes 
 Blood-sever'd — but Messenia's King and Queen : 
 Let us forget ourselves for those we rule. 
 Speak : I go hence to offer sacrifice 
 To the Preserver Zeus ; let me return 
 Thanks to him for our amity as well. 1740 
 
 Oh hadst thou, Polyphontes, still but kept 
 The silence thou hast kept for twenty years ! 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Henceforth, if what I urge displease, I may : 
 But fair proposal merits fair reply.
 
 MEROPE 119 
 
 MEROPE "nd is 
 
 And thou shalt have it ! Yes, because thou hast to fly 
 For twenty years forborne to interrupt 
 The soHtude of her whom thou hast wrong'd — 
 That scanty grace shall earn thee this reply. — 
 First, for our union. Trust me, 'twixt us two 
 The brazen-footed Fury ever stalks, 1750 
 
 Waving her hundred hands, a torch in each, 
 Aglow with angry fire, to keep us twain. 
 Now, for thyself. Thou com'st with well-cloak'd 
 
 joy, 
 
 To announce the ruin of my husband's house, 
 To sound thy triumph in his widow's ears. 
 To bid her share thine unendanger'd throne : — 
 To this thou would'st have answer. — Take it: Fly! 
 Cut short thy triumph, seeming at its height ; 
 Fling off thy crown, supposed at last secure ; 
 Forsake this ample, proud Messenian realm : 1760 
 To some small, humble, and unnoted strand. 
 Some rock more lonely than that Lemnian isle 
 Where Philoctetes pined, take ship and flee : 
 Some solitude more inaccessible 
 Than the ice-bastion'd Caucasean Mount, 
 Chosen a prison for Prometheus, climb : 
 There in unvoiced oblivion hide thy name. 
 And bid the sun, thine only visitant. 
 Divulge not to the far-off world of men 1769 
 
 What once-famed wretch he hath seen lurking there. 
 There nurse a late remorse, and thank the Gods, 
 And thank thy bitterest foe, that, having lost 
 All things but life, thou lose not life as well. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 What mad bewilderment of grief is this ?
 
 I20 MEROPE 
 
 Atonement MEROPE 
 
 Thou art bewilder'd : the sane head is mine. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 I pity thee, and wish thee calmer mind. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Pity thyself; none needs compassion more. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Yet, oh ! could'st thou but act as reason bids ! 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 And in my turn I wish the same for thee. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 All I could do to soothe thee has been tried. 1780 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 For that, in this my warning, thoa art paid. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Know' St thou then aught, that thus thou sound'st 
 the alarm : 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Thy crime : that were enough to make one fear. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 My deed is of old date, and long atoned. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Atoned this very day, perhaps, it is.
 
 MEROPE 121 
 
 [ 
 
 t POLYP HON TES "The 
 
 Gods 
 My final victory proves the Gods appeared. appeased' 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 O victor, victor, trip not at the goal ! 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Hatred and passionate Envy blind thine eyes. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Heaven-abandon'd wretch, that envies thee! 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Thou hold'st SO cheap, then, the Messenian crown ? 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 1 think on what the future hath in store. 1791 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 To-day I reign : the rest I leave to Fate. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 For Fate thou wait'st not long ; since, in this 
 hour 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Wliat ? for so far she hath not jiroved my foe — 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Fate seals my lips, and drags to ruin thee. 
 
 POLYPHONTES 
 
 Enough! enough! I will no longer hear 
 The ill-boding note which frantic Envy sounds 
 To affright a fortune which the Gods secure.
 
 i2a MEROPE 
 
 Pely- Once more my friendship thou rejectest : well ! 
 
 ^"es'to^ More for this land's sake grieve I, than mine own. 
 
 sacrifice I chafe not with thee, that thy hate endures, 1801 
 Nor bend myself too low, to make it yield. 
 What I have done is done ; by my own deed. 
 Neither exulting nor ashamed, I stand. 
 Why should this heart of mine set mighty store 
 By the construction and report of men ? 
 Not men's good-word hath made me what I am. 
 Alone I master'd power ; and alone. 
 Since so thou wilt, I will maintain it still. 1809 
 
 [PoLYPHONTES gOes OUt. 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Did I then waver str. i 
 
 (O woman's judgment!) 
 
 Misled by seeming 
 
 Success of crime ? 
 
 And ask, if sometimes 
 
 The Gods, perhaps, allow'd you, 
 
 O lawless daring of the strong, 
 
 O self-will recklessly indulged ? 
 
 Not time, not lightning, ant. i j 
 
 Not rain, not thunder, 
 
 Efface the endless 1820 
 
 Decrees of Heaven. 
 
 Make Justice alter, 
 
 Revoke, assuage her sentence. 
 
 Which dooms dread ends to dreadful deeds, 
 
 And violent deaths to violent men. 
 
 But the signal example ttr, 2 
 
 Of invariableness of justice 
 Our glorious founder
 
 MEROPE 123 
 
 Hercules gave us, Error and 
 
 Son loved of Zeus his father : for he err'd. 1830 of Ifercules 
 
 And the strand of Euboea, ant. 2 
 
 And the promontory of Cenaeum, 
 
 His painful, solemn 
 
 Punishment witness'd, 
 
 Beheld his expiation : for he died. 
 
 O villages of CEta str. 3 
 
 With hedges of the wild rose ! 
 
 O pastures of the mountain, 
 
 Of short grass, beaded with dew, 
 
 Between the pine-woods and the cliffs ! 1840 
 
 O cliffs, left by the eagles, 
 
 On that morn, when the smoke-cloud 
 
 From the oak-built, fiercely-burning pyre, 
 
 Up the precipices of Trachis, 
 
 Drove them screaming from their eyries ! 
 
 A willing, a willing sacrifice on that day 
 
 Ye witness'd, ye mountain lawns. 
 
 When the shirt-wrapt, poison-blister'd Hero 
 
 Ascended, with undaunted heart, 
 
 Living, his own funeral-pile, 1850 
 
 lAnd stood, shouting for a fiery torch ; 
 
 And the kind, chance-arrived Wanderer, 
 
 [The inheritor of the bow, 
 
 [Coming swiftly through the sad Trachinians, 
 
 |Put the torch to the pile : 
 
 iThat the flame towcr'd on high to the Heaven ; 
 
 Bearing with it, to Olympus, 
 
 jTo the side of Hebe, 
 
 jTo immortal delight. 
 
 The labour-released Hero. i86o
 
 124 MEROPE 
 
 The new O heritage of Neleus, ant. 3 
 
 expiation ^.^^p^ by his infirm heirs! 
 
 O kingdom of Messene, 
 
 Of rich soil, chosen by craft, 
 
 Possess'd in hatred, lost in blood ! 
 
 O town, high Stenyclaros, 
 
 With new walls, which the victors 
 
 From the four-town'd, mountain-shadow'd Doris, 
 
 For their Hercules-issued princes 
 
 Built in strength against the vanquish'd ! 1870 
 
 Another, another sacrifice on this day 
 
 Ye witness, ye new-built towers I 
 
 When the white-robed, garland-crowned Monarch 
 
 Approaches, with undoubting heart. 
 
 Living, his own sacrifice-block. 
 
 And stands, shouting for a slaughterous axe ; 
 
 And the stern. Destiny-brought Stranger, 
 
 The inheritor of the realm, 
 
 Coming swiftly through the jocund Dorians, 
 
 Drives the axe to its goal : 1880 
 
 That the blood rushes in streams to the dust ; 
 
 Bearing with it, to Erinnys, 
 
 To the Gods of Hades, 
 
 To the dead unavenged. 
 
 The fiercely-required Victim. 
 
 Knowing he did it, unknowing pays for it, epode 
 
 Unknowing, unknowing. 
 
 Thinking atoned-for 
 
 Deeds unatonable, 
 
 Thinking appeas'd 1890 
 
 Gods unappeasable, 
 
 Lo, the Ill-fated One, 
 
 Standing for harbour,
 
 MEROPE 125 
 
 Right at the harhour-mouth, "Poly- 
 
 Strikes, with all sail set, Somore" 
 
 Full on the sharp-pointed 
 Needle of ruin ! [y4 Messenger comes in. 
 
 MESSENGER 
 
 O lionour'd Queen, O faithful followers 
 
 Of your dead master's line, I bring you news 
 
 To make the gates of this long-mourntul house 1900 
 
 Leap, and fly open of themselves for joy ! 
 
 ^nolsc' and shouting heard. 
 Hark how the shouting crowds tramp hitherward 
 With glad acclaim ! Ere they forestall my news, 
 Accept it : — Polyphontes is no more. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 Is my son safe? that question bounds my care. 
 
 MESSENGER. 
 
 He is, and by the people hail'd for king. 
 
 MEROPE 
 
 \ The rest to me is little : yet, since that 
 
 \ Must from some mouth be heard, relate it thou. 
 
 MESSENGER 
 
 Not little, if thou saw'st what love, what zeal, 
 At thy dead husband's name the people show. 1910 
 I' or when this morning in the public square 
 I took my stand, and saw the unarm'd crowds 
 Of citizens in holiday attire, 
 Women and children intermix'd ; and then, 
 Group'd around Zeus's altar, all in arms. 
 Serried and grim, the ring of Dorian lords — 
 I trembled for our prince and his attempt. 
 Silence and expectation held us all :
 
 126 MEROPE 
 
 The Till presently the King came forth, in robe 
 ^f Po'i"^ Of sacrifice, his guards clearing the way 1920 
 
 phontes Before him — at his side, the prince, thy son, 
 
 *" Unarm'd and travel-soil'd, just as he was : 
 
 With him conferring the King slowly reach'd 
 The altar in the middle of the square, 
 Where, by the sacrificing minister, 
 The flower-dress'd victim stood, a milk-white bull. 
 Swaying from side to side his massy head 
 With short impatient lowings : there he stopp'd, 
 And seem'd to muse a while, then raised his eyes 
 To Heaven, and laid his hand upon the steer, 1930 
 And cried —0 Zeus, let ivhat hlood-gu'ilt'mess 
 Yet stains our land be by this blood 'washed out, 
 And grant henceforth to the Messenians peace ! 
 That moment, while with upturn'd eyes he pray'd, 
 The prince snatched from the sacrificer's hand 
 The axe, and on the forehead of the King, 
 Where twines the chaplet, dealt a mighty blow 
 Which fell'd him to the earth, and o'er him stood, 
 And shouted — Since by thee dejilement came. 
 What blood so meet as thine to nvash it out ? 1940 
 
 What hand to strike thee meet as mine, the hand 
 Of JEpytus, thy murder d master s son P — 
 But, gazing at him from the ground, the King . . . 
 Is it, then, thou ? he murmur'd ; and with that. 
 He bow'd his head, and deeply groan'd, and died. 
 Till then we all seem'd stone : but then a cry 
 Broke from the Dorian lords : forward they rush'd 
 To circle the prince round : when suddenly 
 l.aias in arms sprang to his nephew's side. 
 Crying — ye Messenians, ivill ye leave 1950 
 
 The son to perish as ye left the sire ? 
 And from that moment I saw nothing clear :
 
 MEROPE 127 
 
 For from all sides a deluge, as it seem'd, of the 
 
 Burst o'er the altar and the Dorian lords, ^o°blea^ 
 
 Of holiday-clad citizens transform'd 
 To armed warriors : I heard vengeful cries ; 
 I heard the clash of weapons ; then I saw 
 The Dorians lying dead, thy son hail'd king. 
 And, truly, one who sees, what seem'd so strong, 
 The power of this tyrant and his lords, 1960 
 
 Melt like a passing smoke, a nightly dream. 
 At one bold word, one enterprising blow- 
 Might ask, why we endured their yoke so long : 
 But that we know how every perilous feat 
 Of daring, easy as it seems when done, 
 Is easy at no moment but the right. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Thou speakest well ; but here, to give our eyes 
 Authentic proof of what thou tell'st our ears. 
 The conquerors, with the King's dead body, come. 
 [^PYTUS, Laias, and Arcas come in luith the 
 
 dead body of Polyphontes, followed by a 
 
 croivd of the Messenians. 
 
 laias 
 Sister, from this day forth thou art no more 1970 
 The widow of a husband unavenged, 
 The anxious mother of an exiled son. 
 iThine enemy is slain, thy son is king ! 
 'Rejoice with us ! and trust me, he who wish'd 
 Welfare to the Messenian state, and calm. 
 Could find no way to found them sure as this. 
 
 iEPYTUS 
 
 Mother, all these approve me : but if thou 
 Approve not too, T have but half my joy.
 
 12S MEROPE 
 
 Poly- ^'E'^OP^ 
 
 phontes Q ^pytus, my son, behold, behold 
 a nddle „, . f-' -^ j , • 
 
 1 his iron man, my enemy and thine, 1980 
 
 This politic sovereign, lying at our feet. 
 
 With blood-bespatter'd robes, and chaplet shorn ! 
 
 Inscrutable as ever, see, it keeps 
 
 Its sombre aspect of majestic care. 
 
 Of solitary thought, unshared resolve, 
 
 Even in death, that countenance austere. 
 
 So look'd he, when to Stenyclaros first, 
 
 A new-made wife, I from Arcadia came. 
 
 And found him at my husband's side, his friend, 
 
 His kinsman, his right hand in peace and war ; 1990 
 
 Unsparing in his service of his toil. 
 
 His blood ; to me, for I confess it, kind : 
 
 So look'd he in that dreadful day of death : 
 
 So, when he pleaded for our league but now. 
 
 What meantest thou, O Polyphonies, what 
 
 Desired'st thou, what truly spurr'd thee on ? 
 
 Was policy of state, the ascendency 
 
 Of the Heracleidan conquerors, as thou said'st, 
 
 Indeed thy lifelong passion and sole aim ? 
 
 Or did'st thou but, as cautious schemers use, 2000 
 
 Cloak thine ambition with these specious words ? 
 
 I know not ; just, in either case, the stroke 
 
 Which laid thee low, for blood requireth blood : 
 
 But yet, not knowing this, I triumph not 
 
 Over thy corpse, triumph not, neither mourn ; 
 
 For I find worth in thee, and badness too. 
 
 What mood of spirit, therefore, shall we call 
 
 The true one of a man — what way of life 
 
 His fix'd condition and perpetual walk ? 
 
 None, since a twofold colour reigns in all. 2010 
 
 But thou, my son, study to make prevail
 
 MEROPE 129 
 
 One colour in thy life, the hue of truth : The task of 
 
 That Justice, that sage Order, not alone i^pytus 
 
 Natural Vengeance, may maintain thine act, 
 
 And make it stand indeed the will of Heaven. 
 
 Thy father's passion was this people's ease. 
 
 This people's anarchy, thy foe's pretence ; 
 
 As the chiefs rule, indeed, the people are : 
 
 Unhappy people, where the chiefs themselves 
 
 Are, like the mob, vicious and ignorant ! 2010 
 
 So rule, that even thine enemies may fail 
 
 To find in thee a fault whereon to found, 
 
 Of tyrannous harshness, or remissness weak : 
 
 So rule, that as thy father thou be loved ; 
 
 So rule, that as thy foe thou be obey'd. 
 
 Take these, my son, over thine enemy's corpse 
 
 Thy mother's prayers : and this prayer last of all, 
 
 That even in thy victory thou shov.'. 
 
 Mortal, the moderation of a man. 
 
 O mother, my best diligence shall be 2020 
 
 In all by thy experience to be ruled 
 
 Where my own youth falls short. But, Laias, nov/. 
 
 First work after such victory, let us go 
 
 To render to my true Messenians thanks, 
 
 To the Gods grateful sacrifice ; and then. 
 
 Assume the eooigns of my father's power. 
 
 THE CHORUS 
 
 Son of Cresphontes, past what perils 
 
 Com'st thou, guided safe, to thy home ! 
 
 What things daring ! what enduring ! 
 
 And all this by the will of the Gods. 2030 
 
 THE END 
 
 i
 
 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM 
 PERSONS 
 
 Empedocles. 
 Pausanias, a Physician. 
 Callicles, a young Harp-player. 
 
 The Scene of the Poem is on Mount Etna ; at fast in 
 the forest region, afterxvards on the summit of the 
 mountain. 
 
 Morning in FiRST AcT : FiRST ScENE 
 
 the woods i r, ■ i r ■ r r' ti/t • 
 
 of Etna y? Pass in the forest region of Ltna. Morning. 
 
 Callicles, alone, resting on a rock by the path. 
 
 CALLICLES 
 
 The mules, I think, will not be here this hour. 
 
 They feel the cool wet turf under their feet 
 
 By the stream side, after the dusty lanes 
 
 In which they have toil'd all night from Catana, 
 
 And scarcely will they budge a yard. O Pan ! 
 
 How gracious is the mountain at this hour ! 
 
 A thousand times have I been here alone 
 
 Or v/ith the revellers from the mountain towns, 
 
 But never on so fair a morn : — the sun 
 
 Is shining on the brilliant mountain crests, i 
 
 And on the highest pines : but further down 
 
 Here in the valley is in shade ; the sward 
 
 Is dark, and on the stream the mist still hangs : 
 
 130
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 131 
 
 One sees one's foot-prints crush'd in the wet grass, Harp- 
 One's breath curls in the air ; and on these pines p'hysjcfan 
 That climb from the stream's edge, the long grey 
 
 tufts, 
 Which the goats love, are jewell'd thick with dew. 
 Here will I stay till the slow litter comes. 
 I have my harp too — that is well. — Apollo ! 
 What mortal could be sick or sorry here ? 20 
 
 I know not in what mind Empedocles, 
 Whose mules I follow'd, may be coming up, 
 But if, as most men say, he is half mad 
 With exile, and with brooding on his wrongs, 
 Pausanias, his sage friend, who mounts with him, 
 Could scarce have lighted on a lovelier cure. 
 The mules must be below, far down : I hear 
 Their tinkling bells, mix'd with the song of birds, 
 Rise faintly to me — now it stops ! — Who 's here ? 
 Pausanias ! and on foot ? alone ? 
 
 Pausanias 
 
 And thou, then ? 30 
 I left thee supping with Pisianax, 
 With thy head full of wine, and thy hair crown'd, 
 Touching thy harp as the whim came on thee, 
 And prais'd and spoil'd by master and by guests 
 Almost as much as the new dancing girl. 
 Why hast thou follow'd us ? 
 
 The night was hot, 
 And the feast past its prime : so we slipp'd out. 
 Some of us, to the portico to breathe : 
 Pisianax, thou know'st, drinks late : and then, 
 As I was lifting my soil'd garland off, 40
 
 132 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Caiiicies I saw the mules and litter in the court, 
 'Tmpe^'^ And in the litter sate Empedocles ; 
 docles Thou, too, wert with him. Straightway I sped 
 home ; 
 I saddled my white mule, and all night long 
 Through the cool lovely country follow'd you, 
 Pass'd you a little since as morning dawn'd. 
 And have this hour sate by the torrent here. 
 Till the slow mules should climb in sight again. 
 And now ? 
 
 PAUSANIAS 
 
 And now, back to the town with speed. 
 Crouch in the wood iirst, till the mules have pass'd : 
 They do but halt, they will be here anon. 51 
 
 Thou must be viewless to Empedocles ; 
 Save mine, he must not meet a human eye. 
 One of his moods is on him that thou know'st : 
 I think, thou would' st not vex him. 
 
 CALLICLES 
 
 No — and yet 
 1 would fain stay and help thee tend him : once 
 He knew me well, and would oft notice me. 
 And still, I know not how, he draws me to him, 
 And I could watch him with his proud sad face, 
 . His flowing locks and gold-encircled brow 60 
 
 And kingly gait, for ever : such a spell 
 In his severe looks, such a majesty 
 As drew of ola the people after him, 
 In Agrigentum and Olympia, 
 When his star reign'd, before his banishment. 
 Is potent still on me in his decline. 
 But oh, Pausanias, he is changed of late : 
 There is a settled trouble in his air
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 133 
 
 Admits no momentary brightening now ; Caiiicles 
 
 And when he comes among his friends at feasts, 70 ^^unseen^ 
 'Tis as an orphan among prosperous boys. 
 Thou know'st of old he loved this harp of mine, 
 When iirst he sojourn 'd with Pisianax : 
 He is now always moody, and I fear him ; 
 But I would serve him, soothe him, if I could, 
 Dar'd one but try. 
 
 PAUSANIAS 
 
 Thou wert a kind child ever 
 He loves thee, but he must not see thee now. 
 Thou hast indeed a rare touch on thy harp, 
 He loves that in thee too : there was a time 79 
 (But that is pass'd) he would have paid thy strain 
 With music to have drawn the stars from heaven. 
 He has his harp and laurel with him still, 
 But he has laid the use of music by. 
 And all which might relax his settled gloom. 
 Yet thou mayst try thy playing if thou wilt. 
 But thou must keep unseen : follow us on, 
 But at a distance ; in these solitudes, 
 In this clear mountain air, a voice will rise. 
 Though from afar, distinctly : it may soothe him. 
 Play when we halt, and when the evening comes, 90 
 And I must leave him, (for his pleasure is 
 To be left musing these soft nights alone 
 In the high unfrequented mountain spots,) 
 Then watch him, for he ranges swift and far, 
 Sometimes to Etna's top, and to the cone ; 
 But hide thee in the rocks a great way down, 
 And try thy noblest strains, my Caiiicles, 
 With the sweet night to help thy harmony. 
 Thou wilt earn my thanks sure, and perhaps his.
 
 134 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 CALLICLES 
 
 More than a day and night, Pausanias, loo 
 
 Of this fair summer weather, on these hills. 
 
 Would I bestow to help Empedocles. 
 
 That needs no thanks : one is far better here 
 
 Than in the broiling city in these heats. 
 
 But tell me, how hast thou persuaded him 
 
 In this his present fierce, man-hating mood 
 
 To bring thee out with him alone on Etna ? 
 
 PAUSANIAS. 
 
 Thou hast heard all men speaking of Panthea, 
 
 The woman who at Agrigentum lay 
 
 Thirty long days in a cold trance of death, no 
 
 And whom Empedocles call'd back to life. 
 
 Thou art too young to note it, but his power 
 
 Swells with the swelling evil of this time, 
 
 And holds men mute to see where it will rise. 
 
 He could stay swift diseases in old days, 
 
 Chain madmen by the music of his lyre, 
 
 Cleanse to sweet airs the breath of poisonous 
 
 streams, 
 And in the mountain chinks inter the winds. 
 This he could do of old, but now, since all 
 Clouds and grows daily worse in Sicily, 120 
 
 Since broils tear us in twain, since this new swarm 
 Of Sophists has got empire in our schools, 
 Where he was paramount, since he is banish'd. 
 And lives a lonely man in triple gloom. 
 He grasps the very reins of life and death. 
 I asked him of Panthea yesterday, 
 When we were gathered with Pisianax, 
 And he made answer, I should come at night 
 On Etna here, and be alone with him.
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 135 
 
 And he would tell me, as his old, tried friend, 130 Pausanias 
 Who still was faithful, what might profit me ; stitilw 
 
 That is, the secret of this miracle. 
 
 CALLICLES. 
 
 Bah ! Thou a doctor ? Thou art superstitious. 
 
 Simple Piusanias, 'twas no miracle. 
 
 Panthea, for I know her kinsmen well, 
 
 Was subject to these trances from a girl. 
 
 Empedocles would say so, did he deign : 
 
 But he still lets the people, whom he scorns, 
 
 Gape and cry wizard at him, if they list. 
 
 But thou, thou art no company for him, 140 
 
 Thou art as cross, as sour'd as himself. 
 
 Thou hast some wrong from thine own citizens. 
 
 And then thy friend is banished, and on that 
 
 Straightway thou fallest to arraign the times. 
 
 As if the sky was impious not to fall. 
 
 The Sophists are no enemies of his ; 
 
 I hear, Gorgias, their chief, speaks nobly of him, 
 
 As of liis gifted master and once friend. 
 
 He is too scornful, too high-wrought, too bitter. 
 
 'Tis not the times, 'tis not the Sophists vex him : 
 
 There is some root of suffering in himself, 151 
 
 Some secret and unfollow'd vein of woe. 
 
 Which makes the times look black and sad to him. 
 
 Pester him not in this his sombre mood 
 
 With questionings about an idle tale. 
 
 But lead him through the lovely mountain paths, 
 
 And keep his mind from preying on itself. 
 
 And talk to him of things at hand, and common, 
 
 Not miracles : thou art a learned man, 
 
 But credulous of fables as a girl. 160
 
 136 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 In the PAUSANIAS 
 
 highest 1 • 1 
 
 glen And thou, a boy whose tongue outruns his know- 
 ledge, 
 And on whose lightness blame is throv.n away. 
 Enough of this : I see the litter wind 
 Up by the torrent side, under the pines. 
 I must rejoin Empedocles. Do thou 
 Crouch in the brush-wood till the mules have 
 
 passed, 
 Then play thy kind part well. Farewell till night. 
 
 Scene Second 
 
 Noon. A Glen on the highest skirts of the ivoody 
 regions of Etna. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES. PAUSANIAS 
 PAUSANIAS 
 
 The noon is hot : when we have crossed the stream 
 
 We shall have left the woody tract, and come 
 
 Upon the open shoulder of the hill. 
 
 See how the giant spires of yellow bloom 
 
 Of the sun-loving gentian, in the heat, 
 
 Are shining on those naked slopes like flame. 
 
 Let us rest here : and now, Empedocles, 
 
 Panthea's history. 
 
 [y^ harp note belozu is heard. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 Elark ! what sound was that 
 Rose from below r If it were possible. 
 And we were not so far from human haunt, k 
 
 I should have said that some one touched a harp. 
 Hark ! there again !
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 137 
 
 PAUSANIAS Philo- 
 
 sopher anc! 
 'Tis the boy Callicles, Physician 
 
 The sweetest harp player in Catana. 
 
 He is for ever coming on these hills, 
 
 In summer, to all country festivals, 
 
 With a gay revelling band : he breaks from them 
 
 Sometimes, and wanders far among the glens. 
 
 But heed him not, he will not mount to us ; 
 
 I spoke with him this morning. Once more, 
 
 therefore. 
 Instruct me of Panthea's story. Master, 20 
 
 As I have prayed thee. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 That ? and to what end ? 
 
 PAUSANIAS 
 
 It is enough thai all men speak of it. 
 
 But I will also say, that, when the Gods 
 
 Visit us as they do with sign and plague, 
 
 To know those spells of time that stay their hand 
 
 Were to live freed from terror. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 Spells ? Mistrust them. 
 Mind is the spell which governs earth and heaven. 
 Man has a mind with which to plan his safety. 
 Know that, and help thyself. 
 
 PAUSANIAS 
 
 But thy own words ? 
 " The wit and counsel of man was never clear, 30 
 Troubles confuse the little wit he has."
 
 138 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 The harp Mind 18 a light which the Gods mock us with, 
 once more! -p^ j^^^ ^^^^^ f^j^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ j^^ 
 
 \The harp sounds again. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 Hist ! once more ! 
 Listen, Pausanias ! — Ay, 'tis Callicles : 
 I know those notes among a thousand. Hark ! 
 
 CALLICLES sings UTiscen, from beloiv. 
 
 The track winds down to the clear stream, 
 
 To cross the sparkling shallows : there 
 
 The cattle love to gather, on their way 
 
 To the high mountain pastures, and to stay. 
 
 Till the rough cow-herds drive them past, 40 
 
 Knee-deep in the cool ford: for 'tis the last 
 
 Of all the woody, high, well-water'd dells 
 
 Of Etna ; and the beam 
 
 Of noon is broken there by chestnut boughs 
 
 Down its steep verdant sides : the air 
 
 Is freshen'd by the leaping stream, which throws 
 
 Eternal showers of spray on the moss'd roots 
 
 Of trees, and veins of turf, and long dark shoots 
 
 Of ivy-plants, and fragrant hanging bells 
 
 Of hyacinths, and on late anemones, 50 
 
 That muffle its wet banks : but glade, 
 
 And stream, and sward, and chestnut trees. 
 
 End here : Etna beyond, in the broad glare 
 
 Of the hot noon, without a shade, 
 
 Slope behind slope, up" to the peak, lies bare ; 
 
 The peak, round which the white clouds play. 
 
 In such a glen, on such a day, 
 On Pelion, on the grassy ground,
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 139 
 
 Chiron, the aged Centaur, lay; Of Chiron 
 
 The young Achilles standing by. 60 ^cliiiles 
 
 The Centaur taught him to explore 
 The mountains : where the glens are dry, 
 And the tired Centaurs come to rest, 
 And where the soaking springs abound, 
 And the straight ashes grow for spears, 
 And where the hill-goats come to feed. 
 And the sea-eagles build their nest. 
 He show'd him Phthia far away, 
 And said — O Boy, I taught this lore 
 To Peleus, in long distant years. — 70 
 
 He told him of the Gods, the stars, 
 The tides: — and then of mortal wars, 
 And of the life that Heroes lead 
 Before they reach the Elysian place 
 And rest in the immortal mead : 
 And all the wisdom of his race. 
 [The music beloiv ceases y and Empedocles speaks, 
 accompanying himself in a solemn manner on his 
 harp. 
 
 The howling void to span 
 A cord the Gods first slung. 
 And then the Soul of Man 
 There, like a mirror, hung, 80 
 
 And bade the winds through space impel the gusty 
 toy. 
 
 Hither and thither spins 
 The wind-borne mirroring Soul : 
 A thousand glimpses wins. 
 And never sees a whole : 
 Looks once, and drives elsewhere, and leaves its 
 last employ.
 
 140 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 The Philo- The Gods laugh in their sleeve 
 
 talks and '^° watch man doubt and fear, 
 
 harps Who knows not what to believe 
 
 Where he sees nothing clear, 90 
 
 And dares stamp nothing false where he finds 
 nothing sure. 
 
 Is this, Pausanias, so? 
 And can our souls not strive, 
 But with the winds must go 
 And hurry where they drive ? 
 Is Fate indeed so strong, man's strength indeed so 
 poor? 
 
 I will not judge : that man, 
 Howbeit, I judge as lost. 
 Whose mind allows a plan 
 Which would degrade it most : loo 
 
 And he treats doubt the best who tries to see least 
 ill. 
 
 Be not, then. Fear's blind slave. 
 Thou art my friend ; to thee. 
 All knowledge that I have. 
 All skill I wield, are free. 
 Ask not the latest news of the last miracle; 
 
 Ask not what days and nights 
 In trance Panthea lay. 
 But ask how thou such sights 
 Mayst see without dismay. no 
 
 Ask what most helps when known, thou son ot 
 Anchitus.
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 141 
 
 What ? hate, and awe, and shame Be Man- 
 
 Fill thee to see our day ; o?'so^Wstl 
 
 Thou feelest thy Soul's frame 
 Shaken and in dismay : 
 What ? life and time go hard with thee too, as 
 with us ; 
 
 Thy citizens, 'tis said, 
 Envy thee and oppress, 
 Thy goodness no men aid, 
 All strive to make it less : 120 
 
 Tyranny, pride, and lust fill Sicily's abodes : 
 
 Heaven is with earth at strife, 
 Signs make thy soul afraid. 
 The dead return to hfe. 
 Rivers are dried, winds stay'd : 
 Scarce can one think in cahii, so threatening are 
 the Gods : 
 
 And we fee!, day and night, 
 The burden ot ourselves ? — 
 Well, then, the wiser wight 
 In his own bosom delves, 130 
 
 And asks what ails him so, and gets what cure he 
 can. 
 
 The Sophist sneers — Fool, take 
 Thy pleasure, right or wrong. — 
 The pious wail — Forsake 
 A world those Sophists throng. — 
 Be neither Saint nor Sophist led, but be a man. 
 
 These hundred doctors try 
 To preach thee to their school.
 
 U2 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Man has We have the truth, they cry. 
 
 no rights js^^^ ygj ^hgjj. oracle, 140 
 
 Trumpet it as they will, is but the same as thine. 
 
 Once read thy own breast right, 
 And thou hast done with fears. 
 Man gets no other light, 
 Search he a thousand years. 
 Sink in thyself: there ask what ails thee, at that 
 shrine. 
 
 What makes thee struggle and rave ? 
 Why are men ill at ease ? 
 'Tis that the lot they have 
 Fails their own will to please. 150 
 
 For man would make no murmuring, were his will 
 obeyed. 
 
 And why is it that still 
 Man with his lot thus fights ? 
 'Tis that he makes this tuili 
 The measure of his rights, 
 And believes Nature outraged if his will's gainsaid. 
 
 Couldst thou, Pausanias, learn 
 How deep a fault is this ; 
 Couldst thou but once discern 
 Thou hast no right to bliss, 160 
 
 No title from the Gods to welfare and repose ; 
 
 Then, thou wouldst look less mazed 
 Whene'er from bliss debarr'd. 
 Nor think the Gods were crazed 
 When thy ov/n lot went hard. 
 But we are all the same — the fools of our own woes.
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 143 
 
 For, from the first faint morn Man's aim 
 
 Of life, the thirst for bliss 
 Deep in Man's heart is born, 
 And, sceptic as he is, 170 
 
 He fails not to judge clear if this is quench'd or no. 
 
 Nor is that thirst to blame. 
 Man errs not that he deems 
 His welfare his true aim. 
 He errs because he dreams 
 The world does but exist that welfare to bestow. 
 
 We mortals are no kings 
 For each of whom to sway 
 A new-made world up-springs 
 Meant merely for his play. 180 
 
 No, we are strangers here : the world is from of 
 old. 
 
 In vain our pent wills fret 
 And would the world subdue, 
 Limits we did not set 
 Condition all we do. 
 Eoi n into life we are, and life must be our mould. 
 
 Born into life : who lists 
 May what is false maintain. 
 And for himselt make mists 
 Through v/hich to see less plain : 190 
 
 The world is what it is, for all our dust and din. 
 
 Born into life : in vain. 
 Opinions, those or these, 
 Unaltered to retain 
 The obstinate mind decrees. 
 Experif'nce, like a sea, soaks all-elfacing in
 
 144 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Man Born into life : 'tis we, 
 
 himself And not the world, are new. 
 
 Our cry tor bliss, our plea. 
 Others have urged it too. 200 
 
 Our wants have all been felt, our errors made 
 before. 
 
 No eye could be too sound 
 To observe a world so vast : 
 No patience too profound 
 To sort what 's here amassed. 
 How man may here best live no care too great to 
 explore. 
 
 But we, — as some rude guest 
 Would change, where'er he roam, 
 The manners there profess'd 
 To those he brings from home ; — 210 
 
 We mark not the world's ways, but would have i/ 
 learn ours. 
 
 The world proclaims the terms 
 On which man wins content. 
 Reason its voice confirms. 
 We spurn them : and invent 
 False weakness in the world, and in ourselves 
 false powers. 
 
 Riches we wish to get. 
 Yet remain spendthrifts still ; 
 We would have health, and yet 
 Still use our bodies ill : 220 
 
 Bafflers of our own prayers from youth to life's 
 last scenes.
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 145 
 
 We would have inward peace, The 
 
 Yet will not look within : ^o?Emjfe" 
 
 We would have misery' cease, docles 
 
 Yet will not cease from sin : 
 We want all pleasant ends, but v. ill use no harsh 
 means ; 
 
 We do not what we ought ; 
 What we ought not, we do ; 
 And lean upon the thought 
 That Chance will bring us through. 230 
 
 But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier 
 powers. 
 
 Yet, even when man forsakes 
 
 All sin, — is just, is pure ; 
 Abandons all that makes 
 His welfare insecure ; 
 Other existences there are, which clash with ours. 
 
 Like us the lightning fires 
 Love to have scope and play. 
 The stream, like us, desires 
 An unimpeded way. 240 
 
 Like us, the Libyan wind delights to roam at 
 large. 
 
 Streams will not curb their pride 
 The just man not to entomb. 
 Nor lightnings go aside 
 To leave his virtues room, 
 Nor is the wind less rough that blows a good 
 man's barge. 
 
 K
 
 146 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Darker and Nature, with equal mind, 
 
 darker g^^g ^|j ]^^j. ^^^^g ^j. pj^^^^ 
 
 Sees man control the wind. 
 The wind sweep man away ; 250 
 
 Allows the proudly-riding and the foundered bark. 
 
 And, lastly, though of ours 
 No weakness spoil our lot ; 
 Through the non-human powers 
 Of Nature harm us not ; 
 The ill-deeds of other men make often our life dark. 
 
 What were the wise man's plan ? 
 Through this sharp, toil-set life 
 To fight as best he can, 
 
 And win what 's won by strife ; 260 
 
 But we an easier way to cheat our pains have found. 
 
 Scratched by a fall, with moans, 
 As children of weak age 
 Lend life to the dumb stones 
 Whereon to vent their rage. 
 And bend their little fists, and rate the senseless 
 ground ; 
 
 So, loath to suffer mute. 
 We, peopling the void air, 
 Make Gods to whom to impute 
 The ills we ought to bear ; 270 
 
 With God and Fate to rail at, suffering easily. 
 
 Yet grant — as sense long miss'd 
 Things that are now perceived,
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 147 
 
 And much may still exist Man's vai; 
 
 Which is not yet believed— dreams 
 
 Grant that the world were full of Gods we canuot 
 
 Ail things the world that fill 
 Of but one stuff are spun, 
 That we who rail are still 
 With what we rail at one : 280 
 
 One with the o'er-labour'd Power that through 
 the breadth and length 
 
 Of Earth, and Air, and Sea, 
 In men, and plants, and stones. 
 Has toil perpetually. 
 And struggles, pants, and moans ; 
 Fain would do all things well, but sometimes fails 
 in strength. 
 
 And, punctually exact, 
 This universal God 
 Alike to any act 
 
 Proceeds at any nod, 290 
 
 And patiently declaims the cursings of himself. 
 
 This is not what Man hates, 
 Yet he can curse but this. 
 Harsh Gods and hostile Fates 
 Are dreams : this only is : 
 Is everywhere : sustains the wise, the foolish elf. 
 
 Nor only, in the intent 
 To attach blame elsewhere. 
 Do we at will invent 
 
 Stern Powers who make their care, 300 
 
 To embitter huuiuii liie, malignant Deities;
 
 148 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 All is But, next, we would reverse 
 
 vanity --pj^g sclieme ourselves have spun, 
 
 And what we made to curse 
 We now would lean upon, 
 And feign kind Gods who perfect what man vainly 
 tries. 
 
 Look, the world tempts our eye. 
 And we would know it all. 
 We map the starry sky. 
 
 We mind this earthen ball, 310 
 
 We measure the sea-tides, we number the sea- 
 sands : 
 
 We scrutinize the dates 
 Of long-past human things, 
 The bounds of effaced states, 
 The lines of deceas'd kings : 
 We search out dead men's words, and works of 
 dead men's hands : 
 
 We shut our eyes, and muse 
 How our own minds are made ; 
 What springs of thought they use, 
 How righten'd, how betray'd ; 320 
 
 And spend our wit to name what most employ 
 unnamed : 
 
 But still, as we proceed, 
 The mass swells more and more 
 Of volumes yet to read. 
 Of secrets yet to explore. 
 O'lr hair grows grey, our eyes are dimmed, our 
 heat is tamed —
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 149 
 
 We rest our faculties, Man's 
 
 And thus address the Gods :— f°"*^^ 
 
 " True Science if there is, 
 It stays in your abodes. 330 
 
 Man's measures cannot span the illimitable All : 
 
 " You only can take in 
 The world's immense design. 
 Our desperate search was sin. 
 Which henceforth we resign : 
 Sure only that your mind sees all things which 
 befall." 
 
 Fools ! that in man's brief term 
 He cannot all things view. 
 Affords no ground to affirm 
 That there are Gods who do : 340 
 
 Nor does being weary prove that he has where to 
 rest. 
 
 Again : our youthful blood 
 Claims rapture as its right. 
 The world, a rolling flood 
 Of newness and delight, 
 Draws in the enamour'd gazer to its shining breast ; 
 
 Pleasure to our hot grasp 
 Gives flowers after flowers ; 
 With passionate warmth we clasp 
 Hand after hand in ours : 350 
 
 Nor do we soon perceive how fast our youth is 
 spent. 
 
 At once our eyes grow clear : 
 We see in blank dismay
 
 150 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Man's lack Year posting after year, 
 
 of reason Sense after sense decay; 
 
 Our shivering heart is mined by secret discontent : 
 
 Yet still, in spite of truth. 
 In spite of hopes entombed 
 That longing of our youth 
 Burns ever unconsumed : 360 
 
 Still hungrier for delight, as delights grow more 
 rare. 
 
 We pause ; we hush our heart, 
 And then address the Gods : — 
 " The world hath fail'd to impart 
 The joy our youth forbodes, 
 Fail'd to fill up the void which in our breasts we 
 bear. 
 
 " Changeful till now, we still 
 Looked on to something new : 
 Let us, with changeless will. 
 Henceforth look on to you ; 370 
 
 To find with you the joy we in vain here require." 
 
 Fools ! that so often here 
 Happiness mock'd our prayer, 
 I think, might make us fear 
 A like event elsewhere : 
 Make us not fly to dreams, but moderate desire. 
 
 And yet, for those who know 
 Themselves, who wisely take 
 Their way through life, and bow 
 To what they cannot break, — 380 
 
 Why should I say that life need yield but moderate 
 bliss ?
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 151 
 
 Shall we, with tempers spoil'd, His warped 
 
 Health sapped by living ill, judgment 
 
 And judgments all embroiled 
 By sadness and self-will, 
 Shall we judge what for man is not high bliss or is ? 
 
 Is it so small a thing 
 
 To have enjoy'd the sun. 
 
 To have lived light in the spring. 
 
 To have loved, to have thought, to have 
 
 done ; 390 
 
 To have advanced true friends, and beat down 
 
 baffling foes ; 
 
 That we must feign a bliss 
 Of doubtful future date. 
 And while we dream on this 
 Lose all our present state, 
 And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose ? 
 
 Not much, I know, you prize 
 What pleasures may be had, 
 Who look on life with eyes 
 Estranged, like mine, and sad : 400 
 
 And yet the village churl feels the truth more 
 than vou. 
 
 Who's loth to leave this life 
 Which to him little yields : 
 His hard-task'd sunburnt wife, 
 His often-laboured fields ; 
 The boors with whom he talk'd, the country spots 
 he knew.
 
 152 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Caiiicies But thou, because thou hear'st 
 
 sings again ^^^ ^^^ff 3^ Heaven and Fate ; 
 
 Because the Gods thou fear'st 
 Fail to make blest thy state, 410 
 
 Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys 
 there are. 
 
 I say, Fear not ! life still 
 
 Leaves human effort scope. 
 
 But, since life teems with ill, 
 
 Nurse no extravagant hope. 
 Because thou must not dream, thou need'st not 
 then despair, 
 [y/ long pause. At the end of it the notes of a 
 
 harp beloiv are again heard, and Callicles 
 
 sings : — ■ 
 
 Far, far from here. 
 The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay 
 Among the green Illyrian hills ; and there 
 The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, 420 
 
 And by the sea, and in the brakes. 
 The grass is cool, the sea-side air 
 Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers 
 More virginal and sweet than ours. 
 And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes. 
 Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia, 
 Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore, 
 In breathless quiet, after all their ills. 
 Nor do thev see their country, nor the place 
 Where the Sphinx liv'd among the frowning hills, 
 Nor the unhappy palace of their race, 431 
 
 Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more. 
 
 There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes, 
 Thev had staid long enough to see,
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 153 
 
 In Thebes, the billow of calamity Of Cadmus 
 
 Over their own dear children roll'd, Harmonia 
 
 Curse upon curse, pang upon pang. 
 
 For years, they sitting helpless in their home, 
 
 A grey old man and woman : yet of old 
 
 The Gods had to their marriage come, 440 
 
 And at the banquet all the Muses sang. 
 
 Therefore they did not end their days 
 
 In sight of blood ; but were rapt, far away. 
 
 To where the west wind plays. 
 
 And murmurs of the Adriatic come 
 
 To those untrodden mountain lawns : and there 
 
 Placed safely in changed forms, the Pair 
 
 Wholly forget their first sad life, and home. 
 
 And all that Theban woe, and stray 
 
 For ever through the glens, placid and dumb. 450 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 That was my harp-player again — where is he ? 
 Down by the stream : 
 
 PAUSANIAS 
 
 Yes, Master, in the wood. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 He ever loved the Theban story well. 
 But the day wears. Go now, Pausanias, 
 For I must be alone. Leave me one mule ; 
 Take down with thee the rest to Catana. 
 And for young Callicles, thank him from me ; 
 Tell him I never fail'd to love his lyre : 
 But he must follow me no more to night.
 
 154 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Empe- PAUSANIAS 
 
 docles r, 1 • \ 
 
 ascends Fhou Wilt return to-morrow to the city ! 460 
 
 Etna 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 Either to-morrow or some other day, 
 In the sure revolutions of the world, 
 Good friend, I shall revisit Catana. 
 I have seen many cities in my time 
 Till my eyes ache with the long spectacle, 
 And I shall doubtless see them all again : 
 Thou know'st me for a wanderer from of old. 
 Meanwhile, stay me not now. Farewell, Pausanias ! 
 [He departs on his ivay up the mountain. 
 
 PAUSANIAS [alone) 
 
 1 dare not urge him further ; he must go : 
 But he is strangely wrought ; — I will speed 
 back 470 
 
 And bring Pisianax to him from the city : 
 His counsel could once soothe him. But, Apollo ! 
 How his brow lighten'd as the music rose ! 
 Callicles must wait here, and play to him : 
 I saw him through the chestnuts far below. 
 Just since, down at the stream. — Ho ! Callicles '. 
 
 \He descends, calling 
 
 Act Second 
 Evening. The Summit of Etna. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 Alone — 
 On this charr'd, blacken'd, melancholy waste, 
 Crown'd by the awful peak, Etna's great mouth, 
 
 I
 
 ACT II. ISS 
 
 Round which the sullen vapour rolls — alone. Lonely 
 
 Pausanias is far hence, and that is well, miserable 
 
 For I must henceforth speak no more with mai.. 
 
 He has his lesson too, and that debt's paid : 
 
 And the good, learned, friendly, quiet man. 
 
 May bravelier front his life, and in himself 
 
 Find henceforth energy and heart: — but I, lo 
 
 The weary man, the banish'd citizen, 
 
 Whose banishment is not his greatest ill, 
 
 Whose weariness no energy can reach. 
 
 And for whose hurt courage is not the cure — 
 
 What should I do with life and living more ? 
 
 No, thou art come too late, Empedocles ! 
 
 And the world hath the day, and must break thee, 
 
 Not thou the world. With men thou canst not 
 
 live ; 
 Their thoughts, their ways, their wishes, are not 
 
 thine : 
 And being lonely thou art miserable, 20 
 
 For something has impair'd thy spirit's strength, 
 And dried its self-sufficing fount of joy. 
 Thou canst not live with men nor with thyself — 
 Oh sage ! oh sage ! — Take then the one way left, 
 And turn thee to the Elements, thy friends. 
 Thy well-tried friends, thy willing ministers, 
 And say, — Ye servants, hear Empedocles, 
 Who asks this final service at your hands. 
 Before the Sophist brood hath overlaid 
 The last spark of man's consciousness with 
 
 words — 30 
 
 Ere quite the being of man, ere quite the world 
 Be disarrayed of their divinity — 
 Before the soul lose all her solemn joys.
 
 156 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Callicles And awe be dead, and hope impossible, 
 ^Typ^ho* ■^^'^ ^^^ soul's deep eternal night come on. 
 
 Receive me, hide me, quench me, take me home ! 
 [^He advances to the edge of the crater. Smoke 
 and jire break forth nv'ith a loud noise, and 
 Callicles is heard be/oiVy singing : — 
 
 The lyre's voice is lovely everywhere. 
 
 In the courts of Gods, in the city of men, 
 
 And in the lonely rock-strev/n mountain glen. 
 
 In the still mountain air. 40 
 
 Only to Typho it sounds hatefully. 
 Only to Typho, the rebel o'erthrown. 
 Through whose heart Etna drives her roots ot stone, 
 To imbed them in the sea. 
 
 Wherefore dost thou groan so loud ? 
 
 Wherefore do thy nostrils flash. 
 
 Through the dark night, suddenly, 
 
 Typho, such red jets of flame ? 
 
 Is thy tortured heart still proud ? 
 
 Is thy fire-scath'd arm still rash ? 50 
 
 Still alert thy stone-crush'd frame ? 
 
 Does thy fierce soul still deplore 
 
 Thy ancient rout in the Cilician hills. 
 
 And that curst treachery on the Mount of Gore ? 
 
 Do thy bloodshot eyes still see 
 
 The fight that crown'd thy ills. 
 
 Thy last defeat in this Sicilian sea ? 
 
 Hast thou sworn, in thy sad lair, 
 
 Where erst the strong sea-currents suck'd thee dov^'n. 
 
 Never to cease to writhe, and try to sleep, 60 
 
 Letting the sea-stream wander through thy hair i
 
 ACT II. 157 
 
 That thy groans, hke thunder deep, The 
 
 Begin to roll, and almost drown Thunderer 
 
 The sweet notes, whose lulling spell 
 
 Gods and the race of mortals love so well, 
 
 AVhen through thy caves thou hearest music swell? 
 
 But an awful pleasure bland 
 Spreading o'er the Thunderer's face, 
 When the sound climbs near his seat, 70 
 
 The Olympian Council sees ; 
 As he lets his lax right hand. 
 Which the lightnings doth embrace, 
 Sink, upon his mighty knees. 
 And the Eagle, at the beck 
 Of the appeasing gracious harmony. 
 Droops all his sheeny, brown, deep-feather'd neck. 
 Nestling nearer to Jove's feet : 
 While o'er his sovereign eye 
 The curtains of the blue films slowly meet. 
 And the white Olympus peaks 80 
 
 Rosily brighten, and the sooth'd Gods smile 
 At one another from their golden chairs ; 
 And no one round the charmed circle speaks. 
 Only the lov'd Hebe bears 
 The cup about, whose draughts beguile 
 Pain and care, with a dark store 
 Of fresh-pull'd violets wreathed and nodding o'er ; 
 And her flush'd feet glow on the marble floor. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 He fables, yet speaks truth. 
 
 The brave impetuous hand yields everywhere 90 
 
 To the subtle, contriving head. 
 
 Great qualities are trodden down.
 
 158 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 ivieanin? of And littleness united 
 ^'"faW^" ^s become invincible. 
 
 These rumblings are not Typho's groans, I know 
 
 These angry smoke-bursts 
 
 Are not the passionate breath 
 
 Of the mountain-crush'd, tortur'd, intractable 
 
 Titan king. 
 But over all the world 
 
 What suffering is there not seen loo 
 
 Of plainness oppressed by cunning, 
 As the well-counsell'd Zeus oppress'd 
 The self-helping son of Earth ? 
 What anguish of greatness 
 Rail'd and hunted from the world 
 Because its simplicity rebukes 
 This envious, miserable age ! 
 I am weary of it ! 
 Lie there, ye ensigns 
 
 Of my unloved pre-eminence no 
 
 In an age like this ! 
 Among a people of children, 
 Who throng'd me in their cities, 
 Who worshipp'd me in their houses, 
 And ask'd, not wisdom, 
 But drugs to charm with, 
 But spells to mutter — 
 
 All the fool's armoury of magic — Lie there. 
 My golden circlet! 
 My purple robe ! 120 
 
 Callicles {from below). 
 
 As the sky-brightening south wind clears the day. 
 And makes the mass'd clouds roll,
 
 ACT II. 159 
 
 The music of the lyre blows away Triumph of 
 
 The clouds that wrap the soul. *^^ ^^'^^ 
 
 Oh, that Fate had let me see 
 
 That triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre, 
 
 That famous, final victory 
 
 When jealous Pan with Marsyas did conspire ; 
 
 When, from far Parnassus' side, 
 
 Young Apollo, all the pride 130 
 
 Of the Phrygian flutes to tame, 
 
 To the Phrygian highlands came : 
 
 Where the long green reed-beds sway 
 
 In the rippled waters grey 
 
 Of that solitary lake 
 
 Where Maeander's springs are born : 
 
 Where the ridged pine-muffled roots 
 
 Of Messogis westward break, 
 
 Mounting westward, high and higher : 
 
 There was held the famous strife ; 140 
 
 There the Phrygian brought his flutes, 
 
 And Apollo brought his lyre, 
 
 And, when now the westering sun 
 
 Touch'd the hills, the strife was done, 
 
 And the attentive Muses said, 
 
 Marsyas ! thou art vanquishM. 
 
 Then Apollo's minister 
 
 Hang'd upon a branching fir 
 
 Marsyas, that unhappy Faun, 
 
 And began to whet his knife. 150 
 
 But the Mssnads, who were there, 
 
 Left their friend, and with robes flowing 
 
 In the wind, and loose dark hair 
 
 O'er their polish'd bosoms blowing,
 
 i6o EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 The Fate Each her ribbon'd tambourine 
 
 ,, °^ Flinping on the mountain sod, 
 
 Marsyas & 6 i r • i , > j • 
 
 With a lovely rrighten d mien 
 
 Came about the youthful God. 
 
 But he turned his beauteous face 
 
 Haughtily another way, i6o 
 
 From the grassy sun-warmed place. 
 
 Where in proud repose he lay, 
 
 With one arm over his head, 
 
 Watching how the whetting sped. 
 
 But aloof, on the lake strand, 
 
 Did the young Olympus stand. 
 
 Weeping at his master's end ; 
 
 For the Faun had been his friend. 
 
 For he taught him how to sing, 
 
 And he taught him flute-playing. 170 
 
 Many a morning had they gone 
 
 To the glimmering mountain lakes, 
 
 And had torn up by the roots 
 
 The tall crested water reeds 
 
 With long plumes and soft brown seeds, 
 
 And had carved them into flutes, 
 
 Sitting on a tabled stone 
 
 Where the shoreward ripple breaks. 
 
 And he taught him how to please 
 
 The red-snooded Phrygian girls, 180 
 
 Whom the summer evening sees 
 
 Flashing in the dance's whirls 
 
 Underneath the starlit trees 
 
 In the mountain villages. 
 
 Therefore now Olympus stands, 
 
 At his master's piteous cries. 
 
 Pressing fast with both his hands
 
 ACT II. i6i 
 
 His white garment to his eyes, Apollo a 
 
 Not to see Apollo's scorn ; — defence 
 
 Ah, poor Faun, poor Faun! ah, poor Faun! 190 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 And lie thou there. 
 
 My laurel bough ! 
 
 Though thou hast been my shade in the world's 
 
 heat — 
 Though I have loved thee, lived in honouring 
 
 thee — 
 Yet lie thou there, 
 My laurel bough ! 
 
 I am weary of thee. 
 
 I am weary of the solitude 
 
 Where he who bears thee must abide. 
 
 Of the rocks of Parnassus, 200 
 
 Of the gorge of Delphi, 
 
 Of the moonlit peaks, and the caves, 
 
 Thou guardest them, Apollo ! 
 
 Over the grave of the slain Pytho, 
 
 Though young, intolerably severe. 
 
 Thou keepest aloof the profane, 
 
 But the solitude oppresses thy votary. 
 
 The jars of men reach him not in thy valley — 
 
 But can life reach him ? 
 
 Thou fencest him from the multitude — 210 
 
 Who will fence him from himself? 
 
 He hears nothing but the cry of the torrents 
 
 And the beating of his own heart. 
 
 The air is thin, the veins swell — 
 
 The temples tighten and throb there — 
 
 Air! air!
 
 i62 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Thoughts Take thy bough ; set me free from my solitude ! 
 
 ""^yluth"*^ I have been enough alone. 
 
 Where shall thy votary fly then ? back to men ? 
 But they will gladly welcome him once more, 230 
 And help him to unbend his too tense thought, 
 And rid him of the presence of himself, 
 And keep their friendly chatter at his ear, 
 And haunt him, till the absence from himself, 
 That other torment, grow unbearable : 
 And he will fly to solitude again. 
 And he will find its air too keen for him, 
 And so change back : and many thousand times 
 Be miserably bandied to and fro 
 Like a sea wave, betwixt the world and thee, 230 
 Thou young, implacable God ! and only death 
 Shall cut his oscillations short, and so 
 Bring him to poise. There is no other way. 
 
 And yet what days were those, Parmenides ! 
 When we were young, when we could number 
 
 friends 
 In all the Italian cities like ourselves, 
 When with elated hearts we join'd your train. 
 Ye Sun-born virgins ! on the road of Truth. 
 Then we could still enjoy, then neither thought 
 Nor outward things were clos'd and dead to us, 240 
 But we received the shock of mighty thoughts 
 On simple minds with a pure natural joy ; 
 And if the sacred load oppress'd our brain. 
 We had the power to feel the pressure eas'd. 
 The brow unbound, the thought flow free again, 
 In the delightful commerce of the world. 
 We had not lost our balance then, nor grown 
 Thought's slaves, and dead to every natural joy.
 
 ACT 11. 163 
 
 The smallest thing could give us pleasure then — No friend, 
 
 The sports of the country people; 250 ""'•''owl 
 
 A flute note from the woods ; 
 
 Sunset over the sea ; 
 
 Seed-time and harvest ; 
 
 The reapers in the corn ; 
 
 The vinedresser in his vineyard ; 
 
 The village girl at her wheel. 
 
 Fulness of life and power of feeling, ye 
 
 Are for the happy, for the souls at ease. 
 
 Who dwell on a firm basis of content. 
 
 But he who has outliv'd his prosperous days, 260 
 
 But he, whose youth fell on a different world 
 
 From that on which his exil'd age is thrown ; 
 
 Whose mind was fed on other food, was traln'd 
 
 By other rules than are in vogue to-day ; 
 
 Whose habit of thought is fix'd, who will not 
 
 change. 
 But in a world he loves not must subsist 
 In ceaseless opposition, be the guard 
 Of his own breast, fetter'd to what he guards. 
 That the world win no mastery over him ; 
 Who has no friend, no fellow left, not one ; 270 
 Who has no minute's breathing space allow'd 
 To nurse his dwindling faculty of joy ; — 
 Joy and the outward world must die to him 
 As they are dead to me. 
 
 [^ long pause, during ivhich Empedocles remains 
 
 motionless, plunged in thought. . The /light 
 
 deepens. He moves forward and gazes round 
 
 him, and proceeds : — 
 
 And you, ye Stars ! 
 
 Who slowly begin to marshal,
 
 i64 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Niffht As of old, in the fields of heaven, 
 deepens Your distant, melancholy lines — 
 
 Have you, too, survived yourselves ? 
 
 Are you, too, what I fear to become ? 280 
 
 You too once lived — 
 
 You too moved joyfully 
 
 Among august companions 
 
 In an older world, peopled by Gods, 
 
 In a mightier order, 
 
 The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven ! 
 
 But now, you kindle 
 
 Your lonely, cold-shining lights, 
 
 Unwilling lingerers 
 
 In the heavenly wilderness, 290 
 
 For a younger, ignoble world. 
 
 And renew, by necessity, 
 
 Night after night your courses, 
 
 In echoing unnear'd silence. 
 
 Above a race you know not. 
 
 Uncaring and undelighted. 
 
 Without friend and without home. 
 
 Weary like us, though not 
 
 Weary with our weariness. 
 
 No, no, ye Stars ! there is no death with you, 300 
 No languor, no decay ! Languor and death, 
 They are with me, not you ! ye are alive ! 
 Ye and the pure dark ether where ye ride 
 Brilliant above me ! And thou, fiery world ! 
 That sapp'st the vitals of this terrible mount 
 Upon whose charr'd and quaking crust I stand, 
 Thou, too, brimmest with life ; — the sea of cloud 
 That heaves its white and billowy vapours up 
 To moat this isle of ashes from the world,
 
 ACT II. i6s 
 
 Lives ; — and that other fainter sea, far down, 310 Empe- 
 
 O'er whose lit floor a road of moonbeam leads to life 
 
 To Etna's Liparean sister fires 
 
 And the long dusky line of Italy — 
 
 That mild and luminous floor of waters lives, 
 
 With held-in joy swelling its heart : — I only, 
 
 Whose spring of hope is dried, whose spirit has 
 
 fail'd— 
 I, who have not, like these, in solitude 
 Maintain'd courage and force, and in myself, 
 Nursed an immortal vigour — I alone 
 Am dead to life and joy ; therefore I read 320 
 In all things my own deadness. 
 
 [y/ long silence. He continues : 
 
 Oh, that I could glow like this mountain! 
 
 Oh, that my heart bounded with the swell of the 
 
 sea ! 
 Oh, that my soul were full of light as the stars ! 
 Oh, that it brooded over the world like the air 1 
 
 But no, this heart will glow no more : thou art 
 A living man no more, Empedocles ! 
 Nothing but a devouring flame of thought — 
 But a naked, eternally restless mind. 
 
 \_After a pause : — 
 To the elements it came from 330 
 
 Everything will return. 
 Our bodies to Earth ; 
 Our blood to Water ; 
 Heat to Fire ; 
 Breath to Air. 
 
 They were well born, they will be well entomb'd. 
 But mind ! —
 
 i66 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Mind and And we might gladly share the fruitful stir 
 onyiorSs Down on our mother Earth's miraculous womb. 
 
 Well would it be 340 
 
 With what roll'd of us in the stormy deep. 
 
 We should have joy, blent with the all-bathing 
 Air. 
 
 Or with the active radiant life of Fire. 
 
 But Mind — but Thought — 
 
 If these have been the master part of us — 
 
 Where will tkey find their parent element ? 
 
 What will receive them, who will call ihem home ? 
 
 But we shall still be in them, and they in us. 
 
 And we shall be the strangers of the world, 
 
 And they will be our lords, as they are now ; 350 
 
 And keep us prisoners of our consciousness. 
 
 And never let us clasp and feel the All 
 
 But through their forms, and mode*, and stifling 
 
 veils. 
 And we shall be unsatisfied as now. 
 And we shall feel the agony of thirst, 
 The ineffable longing for the life of life 
 Baffled for ever : and still Thought and Mind 
 Will hurry us with them on their homeless march, 
 Over the unallied unopening Earth, 
 Over the unrecognising Sea : while Air 360 
 
 Will blow us fiercely back to Sea and Earth, 
 And Fire repel us from its living waves. 
 And then we shall unwillingly return 
 Back to this meadow of calamity. 
 This uncongenial place, this human life. 
 And in our individual human state 
 Go through the sad probation all again, 
 To see if v/e will poise our life at last,
 
 ACT II. 167 
 
 To see if we will now at last be true Metem- 
 
 To our own only true deep-buried selves, 370 Psychosis 
 
 Being one with which we are one with the whole 
 
 world ; 
 Or whether we will once more fall away 
 Into some bondage of the flesh or mind, 
 Some slough of sense, or some fantastic maze 
 Forged by the imperious lonely Thinking-Power. 
 And each succeeding age in which we are born 
 Will have more peril for us than the last ; 
 Will goad our senses with a sharper spur, 
 Will fret our minds to an intenser play. 
 Will make ourselves harder to be discern'd, 380 
 And we shall struggle a while, gasp and rebel : 
 And we shall fly for refuge to past times. 
 Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of 
 
 greatness : 
 And the reality will pluck us back. 
 Knead us in its hot hand, and change our nature. 
 And we shall feel our powers of effort flag. 
 And rally them for one last fight — and fail. 
 And we shall sink in the impossible strife, 
 And be astray for ever. 
 
 Slave of Sense 389 
 
 I have in no wise been : but slave of Thought ? — 
 
 And who can say, — I have been always free, 
 Lived ever in the light of my own soul ? — 
 I cannot : I have lived in wrath and gloom. 
 Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man. 
 Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light. 
 But I have not grown easy in these bonds — 
 But I have not denied what bonds these were. 
 Yea, I take myself to witness, 
 That I have loved no darkneis,
 
 i68 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 Fire! Re- Sophisticated no truth, 400 
 
 SaveSe! Nursed no delusion, 
 Allow'd no fear. 
 
 And therefore, O ye Elements, I know — 
 Ye know it too — it hath been granted me 
 Not to die wholly, not to be all enslaved. 
 I feel it in this hour. The numbing cloud 
 Mounts off my soul : I feel it, I breathe free. 
 
 Is it but for a moment ? 
 
 Ah ! boil up, ye vapours ! 
 
 Leap and roar, thou Sea of Fire ! 410 
 
 My soul glows to meet you. 
 
 Ere it flag, ere the mists 
 
 Of despondency and gloom 
 
 Rush over it again, 
 
 Receive me ! save me ! 
 
 \He plunges into the crater, 
 
 Callicles i^from be/o'w). 
 
 Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, 
 Quick breaks the red flame. 
 AH Etna heaves fiercely 
 Her forest-clothed frame. 
 
 Not here, O Apollo ! 420 
 
 Are haunts meet for thee. 
 
 But, where Helicon breaks down 
 
 In cliff to the sea. 
 
 Where the moon-silver'd inlets 
 Send far their light voice 
 Up the still vale of Thisbe, 
 O speed, and rejoice !
 
 ACT 11. 169 
 
 On the sward, at the cUfF-top, Not here. 
 
 Lie strewn the white flocks ; ° ^P""** ' 
 
 On the cliff-side, the pigeons 
 Roost deep in the rocks. 430 
 
 In the moonlight the shepherds, 
 Soft lull'd by the rills. 
 Lie wrapt in their blankets, 
 Asleep on the hills. 
 
 — What Forms are these coming 
 So white through the gloom ? 
 What garments out-glistening 
 The gold flower'd broom ? 
 
 What sweet-breathing Presence 
 Out-perfumes the thyme : 440 
 
 What voices enrapture 
 The night's balmy prime ? — 
 
 'Tis Apollo comes leading 
 His choir, The Nine. 
 — The Leader is fairest, 
 But all are divine. 
 
 They are lost in the hollows, 
 
 They stream up again. 
 
 What seeks on this mountain 
 
 The glorified train ? — 450 
 
 They bathe on this mountain. 
 In the spring by their road. 
 Then on to Olympus, 
 Their endless abode.
 
 170 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA 
 
 — Whose praise do they mention, 
 Of what is it told ? — 
 What will be for ever, 
 What was from of old. 
 
 First hymn they the Father 
 
 Of all things : and then 460 
 
 The rest of Immortals, 
 
 The action of men. 
 
 The Day in its hotness, 
 The strife with the palm ; 
 The Night in its silence. 
 The Stars in their calm.
 
 EARLIER POEMS
 
 ALARIC AT ROME 
 
 * Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here 
 There is such matter for all feeling.' 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead, Where is 
 
 Oblivion's dreary fountain, where art thou : Oblivion? 
 
 Why speed'st thou not thy deathlike wave to 
 
 shed 
 O'er humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe : 
 Or time's stern hand, why blots it not away 
 The saddening tale that tells of sorrow and decay ? 
 
 There are, whose glory passeth not away — 
 Even in the grave their fragrance cannot fade : 
 Others there are as deathless full as they, 
 Who for themselves a monument have made lo 
 By their own crimes — a lesson to all eyes — 
 Of wonder to the fool — of warning to the wise. 
 
 Yes, there are stories registered on high, 
 Yes, there are stains time's fingers cannot blot. 
 Deeds that shall live when they who did them, 
 
 die ; 
 Things that may cease, but never be forgot : 
 Yet some there are, their very lives would give 
 To be remember'd thus, and yet they cannot live, 
 
 173
 
 174 ALARIC AT ROME 
 
 The But thou, imperial City ! that hast stood 
 
 ^*Rome*^ In greatness once, in sackcloth now and tears, 20 
 A mighty name, for evil or for good. 
 Even in the loneness of thy widow'd years : 
 Thou that hast gazed, as the world hurried by, 
 Upon its headlong course with sad prophetic eye. 
 
 Is thine the laurel-crown that greatness wreathes 
 Round the wan temples of the hallow'd dead ? 
 Is it the blighting taint dishonour breathes 
 In fires undying o'er the guilty head, 
 Or the brief splendour of that meteor light 29 
 That for a moment gleams, and all again is night ? 
 
 Fain would we deem that thou hast risen so high 
 Thy dazzling light an eagle's gaze should tire ; 
 No meteor brightness to be seen and die. 
 No passing pageant, born but to expire, 
 But full and deathless as the deep dark hue 
 Of ocean's sleeping face, or heaven's unbroken 
 blue. 
 
 Yet stains there are to blot thy brightest page, 
 And wither half the laurels on thy tomb ; 
 A glorious manhood, yet a dim old age, 39 
 
 And years of crime, and nothingness, and gloom : 
 And then that mightiest crash, that giant fall. 
 Ambition's boldest dream might sober and appal. 
 
 Thou wondrous chaos, v/here together dwell 
 Present and past, the living and the dead, 
 Thou shatter'd mass, whose glorious ruins tell 
 The vanish'd might of that discrowned head : 
 Where all we see, or do, or hear, or say. 
 Seems strangely echoed back by tones of yesterday:
 
 ALARIC AT ROME 175 
 
 Thou solemn grave, where every step we tread Rome 
 Treads on the shmbering dust of other years ; 50 °"fane"* 
 The while there sleeps within thy precincts dread 
 What once had human passions, hopes, and fears; 
 And memory's gushing tide swells deep and full 
 And makes thy very ruin fresh and beautiful. 
 
 Alas, no common sepulchre art thou, 
 No habitation for the nameless dead, 
 Green turf above, and crumbling dust below, 
 Perchance some mute memorial at their head. 
 But one vast fane where all unconscious sleep 59 
 Earth's old heroic forms in peaceful slumbers deep. 
 
 Thy dead are kings, thy dust are palaces, 
 Relics of nations thy memorial-stones : 
 And the dim glories of departed days 
 Fold like a shroud around thy wither'd bones : 
 And o'er thy towers the wind's half utter'd sigh 
 Whispers, in mournful tones, thy silent elegy. 
 
 Yes, in such eloquent silence didst thou lie 
 When the Goth stooped upoa his stricken prey, 
 And the deep hues of an Italian sky 
 Flash'd on the rude barbarian's wild array : 70 
 While full and ceaseless as the ocean roll, 
 Horde after horde stream'd up thy frowning Capitol. 
 
 Twice, ere that day of shame, the embattled foe 
 Had gazed in wonder on that glorious sight ; 
 Twice had the eternal city bow'd her low 
 In sullen homage to the invader's might : 
 Twice had the pageant of that vast array 
 Swept, from thy walls, O Rome, on its triumphant 
 way.
 
 176 ALARIC AT ROME 
 
 The third Twice, from without thy bulwarks, hath the din 
 attempt q£ Qglhic clarion smote thy startled ear ; 60 
 Anger, and strife, and sickness are within, 
 Famine and sorrow are no strangers here : 
 Twice hath the cloud hung o'er thee, twice 
 been stay'd 
 Even in the act to burst, twice threaten'd, twice 
 delay'd. 
 
 Yet once again, stern Chief, yet once again, 
 Pour forth the foaming vials of thy wrath : 
 There lies thy goal, to miss or to attain, 
 Gird thee, and on upon thy fateful path, 
 The world hath bow'd to Rome, oh ! cold were 
 
 he 
 Who would not burst his bonds, and in his turn 
 
 be free. 90 
 
 Therefore arise and arm thee 1 lo, the world 
 Lodks on in fear ! and when the seal is set. 
 The doom pronounced, the battle-flag unfurl'd, 
 Scourge of the nations, wouldst thou linger yet ? 
 Arise and arm thee ! spread thy banners forth, 
 Pour from a thousand hills thy warriors of the 
 north ! 
 
 Hast thou not mark'd on a wild autumn day 
 When the wind slumbereth in a sudden lull. 
 What deathlike stillness o'er the landscape lay. 
 How calmly sad, how sadly beautiful ; ico 
 
 How each bright tint of tree, and flower, and 
 
 heath 
 Were mingling with the sere and wither'd hues of 
 
 death.
 
 ALARIC AT ROME 177 
 
 And thus, beneath the clear, calm vault of heaven Rome's 
 
 In mournful loveliness that city lay, loveliness 
 
 And thus, amid the glorious hues of even 
 
 That city told of languor and decay : 
 
 Till what at morning's hour look'd warm and 
 
 bright 
 Was cold and sad beneath that breathless, voiceless 
 
 night. 
 
 Soon was that stillness broken : like the cry 
 Of the hoarse onset of the surging wave, no 
 Or louder rush of whirlwinds sweeping by 
 Was the wild shout those Gothic myriads gave, 
 As tower'd on high, above their moonlit road, 
 Scenes where a Csesar triumph'd, or a Scipio trod. 
 
 Think ye it strikes too slow, the sword of fate. 
 Think ye the avenger loiters on his way, 
 That your own hands must open wide the gate, 
 And your own voices guide him to his prey ? 
 Alas, it needs not ; is it hard to know 
 Fate's threat'nings are not vain, the spoiler comes 
 not slow. 120 
 
 And were there none, to stand and weep alone, 
 And as the pageant swept before their eyes 
 To hear a dim and long forgotten tone 
 Tell of old times, and holiest memories, 
 Till fanciful regret and dreamy woe 
 Peopled night's voiceless shades with forms of long 
 Ago. 
 
 Oh yes ! if fancy feels, beyond to-day. 
 Thoughts of the past and of the future time.
 
 178 ALARIC AT ROME 
 
 Conquered How should that mightiest city pass away 
 Rome ^j^ J j^Qj. bethink her of her glorious prime, 130 
 
 Whilst every chord that thrills at thoughts oi 
 home 
 Jarr'd with the bursting shout, " They come, the 
 Goth, they come ! " 
 
 The trumpet swells yet louder : they are here ! 
 Yea, on your fathers' bones the avengers tread, 
 Not this the time to weep upon the bier 
 That holds the ashes of your hero-dead. 
 If wreaths may twine for you, or laurels wave, 
 They shall not deck your life, but sanctify your 
 grave. 
 
 Alas ! no wreaths are here. Despair may teach 
 Cowards to conquer and the weak to die ; 140 
 Nor tongue of man, nor fear, nor shame can 
 
 preach 
 So stern a lesson as necessity, 
 Yet here it speaks not. Yea, though all around 
 Unhallow'd feet are trampling on this haunted 
 
 ground. 
 
 Though every holiest feeling, every tie 
 
 That binds the heart of man with mightiest 
 
 power. 
 All natural love, all human sympathy 
 Be crush'd, and outraged in this bitter hour, 
 Here is no echo to the sound of home, 
 No shame that suns should rise to light a conquer'd 
 Rome. 150 
 
 That troublous night is over : on the brow 
 Of thy stern hill, thou mighty Capitol,
 
 ALARIC AT ROME 179 
 
 One form stands gazing : silently below Alaric 
 
 The morning mists from tower and temple roll, caphol 
 And lol the eternal city, as they rise, 
 Bursts, in majestic beauty, on her conqueror's eyes. 
 
 Yes, there he stood, upon that silent hill. 
 And there beneath his feet his conquest lay : 
 Unlike her ocean-Sister, gazing still 
 Smilingly forth upon her sunny bay, 160 
 
 But o'er her vanish'd might and humbled pride 
 Mourning, as widow'd Venice o'er her Adrian tide. 
 
 Breathe there not spirits on the peopled air ? 
 Float there not voices on the murmuring wind ? 
 Oh ! sound there not some strains of sadness there. 
 To touch with sorrow even a victor's mind. 
 And wrest one tear from joy 1 Oh ! who shall pen 
 The thoughts that touch'd thy breast, thou lonely 
 conqueror, then ? 
 
 Perchance his wandering heart was far away 
 Lost in dim memories of his early home, 170 
 And his young dreams of conquest ; how to-day 
 Beheld him master of Imperial Rome, 
 Crowning his wildest hopes ; perchance his eyes 
 As they look'd sternly on, beheld new victories, 
 
 New dreams of wide dominion, mightier, higher, 
 Come floating up from the abyss of years ; 
 Perchance that solemn sight might quench the 
 
 fire 
 Even of that ardent spirit ; hopes and fears 
 Might well be mingling at that murmur'd sigh. 
 Whispering from all around, "All earthly thin;;s 
 
 must die." i8o
 
 rSo ALARIC AT ROME 
 
 A year Perchance that wondrous city was to him 
 ''^death '^ But as one voiceless blank : a place of graves, 
 And recollections indistinct and dim, 
 Wliose sons were conquerors once, and now were 
 
 slaves : 
 It may be in that desolate sight his eye 
 Saw but another step to climb to victory ! 
 
 Alas ! that fiery spirit little knew 
 
 The change of life, the nothingness of power, 
 
 How both were hastening, as they flow'red and 
 
 grew. 
 Nearer and nearer to their closing hour : 190 
 
 How every birth of time's miraculous womb 
 Swept off the wither'd leaves that hide the naked 
 
 tomb. 
 
 One little year ; that restless soul shall rest 
 That frame of vigour shall be crumbling clay, 
 And tranquilly, above that troubled breast. 
 The sunny waters hold their joyous way : 
 And gently shall the murmuring ripples flow. 
 Nor wake the weary soul that slumbers on below. 
 
 Alas ! far other thoughts might well be ours 
 And dash our holiest raptures while we gaze : 
 Energies wasted, unimproved hours, 201 
 
 The saddening visions of departed days : 
 And while they rise here might we stand alone, 
 And mingle with thy ruins somewhat of our own. 
 
 Beautiful city ! If departed things 
 Ever again put earthly likeness on,
 
 ALARIC AT ROME i8i 
 
 Here should a thousand forms on fancy's wings Rome's 
 Float up to tell of ages that are gone : requiem 
 
 Yea though hand touch thee not, nor eye should 
 
 see, 
 Still should the Spirit hold communion, Rome, with 
 
 thee ! 210 
 
 Oh ! it is bitter, that each fairest dream 
 Should fleet before us but to melt away ; 
 That wildest visions still should loveliest seem 
 And soonest fade in the broad glare of day : 
 That while we feel the world is dull and low. 
 Gazing on thee, we wake to find it is not so. 
 
 A little while, alas ! a little while. 
 
 And the same world has tongue, and ear, and 
 
 eye, 
 The careless glance, the cold unmeaning smile, 
 The thoughtless word, the lack of sympathy ! 220 
 Who would not turn him from the barren sea 
 And rest his weary eyes on the green land and 
 thee! 
 
 So pass we on. But oh ! to harp aright 
 The vanish'd glories of thine early day, 
 There needs a minstrel of diviner might, 
 A holier incense than this feeble lay ; 
 To chant thy requiem with more passionate 
 breath, 
 And twine with bolder hand thy last memorial 
 wreath !
 
 i82 CROMWELL 
 
 CROMWELL 
 
 Schrecklich ist e», deiner Wahrheit 
 Sterbliches Gefass zu seyn. 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 SYNOPSIS 
 
 The Introduction— The mountains and the sea the cradles 
 author's of Freedom — contrasted with the birth-place of 
 
 synopsis Cromwell— His childhood and youth— The germs 
 
 of his future character probably formed during his 
 life of Inaction — Cromwell at the moment of his 
 intended embarkation — Retrospect of his past life 
 and profligate youth — Temptations held out by 
 the prospect of a life of rest in America — How 
 far such rest was allowable — Vision of his future 
 life — Different persons represented in it — Charles 
 the First — Cromwell himself — His victories and 
 maritime glory — Pym — Strafford — Laud — Hamp- 
 den — Falkland — Milton — Charles the First — 
 Cromwell on his death-bed — His character — Dis- 
 persion of the vision — Conclusion. 
 
 High fate is theirs, ye sleepless waves, whose ear 
 Learns Freedom's lesson from your voice of fear; 
 Whose spell-bound sense from childhood's hour hath 
 
 known 
 Familiar meanings in your mystic tone : 
 Sounds of deep import- — voices that beguile 
 Age of its tears and childhood of its smile. 
 To yearn with speechless impulse to the free 
 And gladsome greetings of the buoyant sea ! 
 High fate is theirs, who where the silent sky 
 Stoops to the soaring mountains, live and die ; lo
 
 and sea 
 
 CROMWELL 183 
 
 Who scale the cloud- capp'd height, or sink to rest Cromwell 
 In the deep stillness of its shelt'ring breast ; — ''from^'^ 
 
 Around whose feet the exulting waves have sung, mountains 
 The eternal hills their giant shadows flung. 
 
 No wonders nursed thy childhood ; not for thee 
 Did the waves chant their song of liberty ! 
 Thine was no mountain home, where Freedom's 
 
 form 
 Abides enthroned amid the mist and storm, 
 And whispers to the listening winds, that swell 
 With solemn cadence round her citadel ! 20 
 
 These had no sound for thee : that cold calm eye 
 Lit with no rapture as the storm swept by. 
 To mark with shiver'd crest the reeling wave 
 Hide his torn head beneath his sunless cave ; 
 Or hear 'mid circling crags, the impatient cry 
 Of the pent winds, that scream in agony ! 
 Yet all high sounds that mountain children hear 
 Flash'd from thy soul upon thine inv/ard ear ; 
 All Freedom's mystic language — storms that roar 
 By hill or wave, the mountain or the shore, — 30 
 All these had stirr'd thy spirit, and thine eye 
 In common sights read secret sympathy ; 
 Till all bright thoughts that hills or waves can yield 
 Deck'd the dull waste, and the familiar field ; 
 Or wondrous sounds from tranquil skies were borne 
 Far o'er the glistening sheets of windy corn : 
 Skies — that, unbound by clasp of mountain chain, 
 Slope stately down, and melt into the plain ; 
 Sounds — such as erst the lone wayfaring man 
 Caught, as he journey'd, from the lips of Pan ; 4c 
 Or that mysterious cry, that smote with fear, 
 Like sounds from other worlds, the Spartan's ear.
 
 i84 CROMWELL 
 
 High While o'er the dusty plain, the murmurous throng 
 thoughts Qj.- Heaven's embattled myriads swept along. 
 
 Say not such dreams are idle : for the man 
 Still toils to perfect what the child began ; 
 And thoughts, that were but outlines, time engraves 
 Deep on his life ; and childhood's baby waves, 
 Made rough with care, become the changeful sea, 
 Stemm'd by the strength of manhood fearlessly ; 50 
 And fleeting thoughts, that on the lonely wild 
 Swept o'er the fancy of that heedless child. 
 Perchance had quicken'd with a living truth 
 The cold dull soil of his unfruitful youth ; 
 Till with his daily life, a life that threw 
 Its shadows o'er the future flower'd and grew. 
 With common cares unmingling, and apart, 
 Haunting the shrouded chambers of his heart ; 
 Till life unstirr'd by action, life became 
 Threaded and lighten'd by a track of flame ; 60 
 An inward light, that, with its streaming ray 
 On the dark current of his changeless day, 
 Bound all his being with a silver chain — 
 Like a swift river through a silent plain ! 
 
 High thoughts were his, when by the gleaming 
 
 flood, 
 With heart new strung, and stern resolve, he stood ; 
 Where rode the tall dark ships, whose loosen'd sail 
 All idly flutter'd in the eastern gale ; 
 High thoughts were his ; but Memory's glance the 
 
 while 
 Fell on the cheerful past with tearful smile ; 70 
 And peaceful joys and gentler thoughts swept by, 
 Like summer lightnings o'er a darken'd sky.
 
 CROMWELL i8s 
 
 The peace of childhood, and the thoughts that roam, Rerollec- 
 
 Like loving shadows, round that childhood's home ; *visfons 
 
 Joys that had come and vanish'd, half unknown, 
 
 Then slowly brighten'd, as the days had flown ; 
 
 Years that were sweet or sad, becalm'd or tossed 
 
 On life's wild waves — the living and the lost. 
 
 Youth stain'd with follies : and the thoughts of ill 
 
 Crush'd, as they rose, by manhood's sterner will. 80 
 
 Repentant prayers, that had been strong to save ; 
 
 And the first sorrow, which is childhood's grave ! 
 
 All shapes that haunt remembrance — soft and fair, 
 
 Like a green land at sunset, all were there ! 
 
 Eyes that he knew, old faces un forgot. 
 
 Gazed sadly down on his unrestful lot. 
 
 And Memory's calm clear voice, and mournful eye, 
 
 Chill'd every buoyant hope that floated by; 
 
 Like frozen winds on southern vales that blow 
 
 From a far land — the children of the snow — 90 
 
 O'er flowering plain and blossom'd meadow fling 
 
 The cold dull shadow of their icy wing. 
 
 Then Fancy's roving visions, bold and free, 
 A moment dispossess'd reality. 
 All airy hopes that idle hearts can frame. 
 Like dreams between two sorrows, went and came : 
 Fond hearts that fain would clothe the unwelcome 
 
 truth 
 Of toilsome manhood in the dreams of youth, 
 To bend in rapture at some idle throne. 
 Some lifeless soulless phantom of their own ; 100 
 Some shadowy vision of a tranquil life. 
 Of joys unclouded, years unstirr'd by strife; 
 Of sleep unshadow'd by a dream of woe ; 
 Of many a lawny hill, and streams with silver flow j
 
 iS6 CROMWELL 
 
 Thoughts Of giant mountains by the western main, 
 America T'he sunless forest, and the sealiice plain ; 
 
 Those lingering hopes of coward hearts, that still 
 
 Would play the traitor to the steadfast will. 
 
 One moment's space, perchance, might charm his 
 
 eye 
 From the stern future, and the years gone by. no 
 One moment's space might waft him far away 
 To western shores — the death-place of the day ! 
 Might paint the calm, sweet peace — the rest of 
 
 home, 
 Far o'er the pathless waste of labouring foam — 
 Peace, that recall'd his childish hours anew, 
 More calm, more deep, than childhood ever knew ! 
 Green happy places, like a flowery lea 
 Between the barren mountains and the stormy sea. 
 
 O pleasant rest, if once the race were run ! 
 O happy slumber, if the day were done ! 120 
 
 Dreams that were sweet at eve, at morn were sin ; 
 With cares to conquer, and a goal to win ! 
 His were no tranquil years — no languid sleep — 
 No life of dreams — no home beyond the deep — 
 No softening ray — no visions false and wild — 
 No glittering hopes on life's grey distance smiled — 
 Like isles of sunlight on a mountain's brow. 
 Lit by a wandering gleam, we know not how. 
 Far on the dim horizon, when the sky 
 With glooming clouds broods dark and heavily. 130 
 
 Then his eye slumber'd, and the chain was broke 
 That bound his spirit, and his heart awoke ; 
 Then, like a kingly river, swift and strong, 
 The future roll'd its frathering tides along !
 
 CROMWELL 187 
 
 The shout of onset and the shriek, of fear Visions 
 
 Smote, like the rush of waters, on his ear ; l^j, ^ture 
 
 And his eye kindled with the kindling fray, 
 
 The surging battle and the inail'd array ! 
 
 All wondrous deeds the coming days should see, 
 
 And the long Vision of the years to be. 140 
 
 Pale phantom hosts, like shadows, faint and far, 
 
 Councils, and armies, and the pomp of war ! 
 
 And one sway'd all, who wore a kingly crown. 
 
 Until another rose and smote him down : 
 
 A form that tower'd above his brother men ; 
 
 A form he knew — but it was shrouded then ! 
 
 With stern, slow steps, unseen yet still the same. 
 
 By leaguer'd tower and tented field it came ; 
 
 By Naseby's hill, o'er Marston's heathy waste. 
 
 By Worcester's field, the warrior-vision pass'd ! 150 
 
 From their deep base, thy beetling cliff's, Dunbar,' 
 
 Rang, as he trode them, with the voice of war ! 
 
 The soldier kindled at his words of fire ; 
 
 The statesmen quail'd before his glance of ire ! 
 
 Worn was his brow with cares no thought could 
 
 scan 
 His step was loftier than the steps of man ; 
 And the winds told his glory, and the wave 
 Sonorous witness to his empire gave ! 
 
 What forms are these, that with complaining 
 
 sound, 
 And slow reluctant steps are gathering round ? 160 
 Forms that with him shall tread life's changing 
 
 stage. 
 Cross his lone path, or share his pilgrimage. 
 There, as he gazed, a wondrous band — they came 
 Pym's look of hate, and Strafford's glance of flame:
 
 i88 CROMWELL 
 
 His There Laud, with noiseless steps and glittering eye, 
 coevals ^^ priestly garb, a frail old man, went by ; 
 
 His drooping head bow'd meekly on his breast ; 
 His hands were folded, like a saint at rest ! 
 There Hampden bent him o'er his saddle bow, 
 And death's cold dews bedimm'd his earnest 
 
 brow ; 170 
 
 Still turn'd to watch the battle — still forgot j 
 
 Himself, his sufferings, in his country's lot ! 1 
 
 There Falkland eyed the strife that would not cease. 
 Shook back his tangled locks, and murmured 
 
 "Peace! " 
 With feet that spurn'd the ground, lo ! Milton 
 
 there 
 Stood like a statue ; and his face was fair — 
 Fair beyond human beauty ; and his eye, 
 That knew not earth, soared upwards to the sky ! 
 
 He, too, was there — it was the princely boy. 
 The child-companion of his childish joy ! 180 
 
 But oh ! how changed ! those deathlike features 
 
 wore 
 Childhood's bright glance and sunny smile no 
 
 more ! 
 That brow so sad, so pale, so full of care — 
 What trace of careless childhood lingered there ? 
 What spring of youth in that majestic mien, 
 So sadly calm, so kingly, so serene ? 
 No — all was changed ! the monarch wept alone, 
 Between a ruin'd church and shatter'd throne ! 
 Friendless and hopeless — like a lonely tree, 
 On some bare headland straining mournfully, 190 
 That all night long its weary moan doth make 
 To the vex'd waters of a mountain lake !
 
 CROMWELL 189 
 
 kill, as he gazed, the phantom's mournful glance Troubled 
 >hook the deep slumber of his deathlike trance ; dreams 
 -,ike some forgotten strain that haunts us still, 
 'Fhat calm eye followed, turn him where he will ; 
 [Fill the pale monarch, and the long array, 
 Pass'd like a morning mist, in tears away ! 
 
 Then all his dream was troubled, and his soul 
 Thrill'd with a dread no slumber could control ; 
 On that dark form his eyes had gazed before, 201 
 Nor known it then ; — but it was veiled no more ! 
 In broad clear light the ghastly vision shone, — 
 That form was his, — those features were his own ! 
 The night of terrors, and the day of care. 
 The years of toil — all, all were written there ! 
 Sad faces watched around him, and his breath 
 Came faint and feeble in the embrace of death. 
 The gathering tempest, with its voice of fear, 
 His latest loftiest music, smote his ear ! aio 
 
 That day of boundless hope and promise high. 
 That day that hailed his triumphs, saw him die ! 
 Then from those whitening lips, as death drew near, 
 The imprisoning chains fell off, and all was clear ! 
 Like lowering clouds, that at the close of day, 
 Bathed in a blaze of sunset, melt away ; 
 And with its clear calm tones, that dying prayer 
 Cheered all the failing hearts that sorrowed there ! 
 
 A life — whose ways no human thought could 
 scan ; 
 A life — that was not as the life of man ; 220 
 
 A life — that wrote its purpose with a sword, 
 Moulding itself in action, not in word !
 
 19(5 CROMWELL 
 
 The vision Rent With tumultuous thoughts, whose conflict run] 
 fades ]3eep through his soul, and choked his falterin; 
 
 tongue ; 
 A heart that reck'd not of the countless dead, 
 That strewed the bloo .i-stained path where Empir 
 
 led; 
 A daring hand, that shrunk not to fulfil 
 The thought that spurr'd it ; and a dauntless will. 
 Bold action's parent ; and a piercing ken 225 
 
 Through the dark chambers of the hearts of men, 
 To read each thought, and teach that master-mind 
 The fears and hopes and passions of mankind ; 
 All these were thine — oh thought of fear ! — and 
 
 thou. 
 Stretched on that bed of death, art nothing now. 
 
 Then all his vision faded, and his soul 
 Sprang from its sleep ! and lo ! the waters roll ' 
 Once more beneath him ; and the fluttering sail, 
 Where the dark ships rode proudly, wooed the gale ; 
 And the wind murmured round him, and he stood 
 Once more alone beside the gleaming flood. 240 
 
 SONNETS 
 
 I.— QUIET WORK 
 
 One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee — 
 One lesson that in every wind is blown, 
 One lesson of two duties served in one, 
 Though the loud world proclaim their enmity- 
 Of Toil unserer'd from Tranquillity :
 
 SONNETS t^T 
 
 Of Labour, that in still advance outgrows Lesson 
 
 Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in Repose, Nature 
 
 Too great for haste, too high for rivalry. 
 Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring, 
 Man's senseless uproar mingling with his toil, 
 Still do thy sleepless ministers move on. 
 Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting ; 
 Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil ; 
 Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone. 
 
 II.— TO A FRIEND 
 
 V/ho prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind ? 
 He much, the old man, who, clearest-soul'd of men, 
 Saw The Wide Prospect,^ and the Asian Fen, 
 And Tmolus' hill, and Smyrna's bay, though blind. 
 Much he, whose friendship I not long since won, 
 That halting slave, who in Nicopolis 
 Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son 
 Clear'd Rome of what most shamed him. But be his 
 My special thanks, whose even-balanc'd soul. 
 From first youth tested up to extreme old age. 
 Business could not make dull, nor Passion wild : 
 Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole : 
 The mellow glory of the Attic stage ; 
 Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child. 
 
 III.— SHAKSPEARE 
 
 Others abide our question. Thou art free. 
 We ask and ask : Thou smilest and art still, 
 Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill 
 That to the stars uncrowns his majesty.
 
 192 SONNETS 
 
 Shakspeare Planting his stedf'st footsteps in the sea, 
 ^B ^ti^°" ^^''*king the Heaven of Heavens his dwelling-place, 
 Spares but the cloudy border of his base 
 To the foil'd searching of mortality : 
 And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, 
 Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self- 
 secure. 
 Didst walk, on Earth unguess'd at. Better so ! 
 All pains the immortal spirit must endure, 
 All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow, 
 Find their sole voice in that victorious brow. 
 
 IV.— WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S ESSAYS 
 
 "O MONSTROUS, dead, unprofitable world, 
 
 That thou canst hear, and hearing, hold thy way. 
 
 A voice oracular hath peal'd to-day. 
 
 To-day a hero's banner is unfurl'd. 
 
 Hast thou no lip for welcome ? " So I said. 
 
 Man after man, the world smiled and pass'd by : 
 
 A smile of wistful incredulity 
 
 As though one spake of noise unto the dead : 
 
 Scornful, and strange, and sorrowful ; and full 
 
 Of bitter knowledge. Yet the will is free : 
 
 Strong is the Soul, and wise, and beautiful : 
 
 The seeds of godlike power are in us still : 
 
 Gods are we. Bards, Saints, Heroes, if we will. — 
 
 Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery ? 
 
 v.— WRITTEN IN BUTLER'S SERMONS 
 
 Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers, 
 Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control —
 
 SONNETS ««i 
 
 S' men, unravelling God's harmonious whole, The 
 
 Re id in a thousand shreds this life of ours. etcrmtj? 
 
 Vain labour ! Deep and broad, where none may 
 
 see, 
 Spring the foundations of the shadowy throne 
 Where man's one Nature, queen-like, sits alone. 
 Centred in a majestic unity. 
 And rays her powers, like sister islands, seen 
 Linking their coral arms under the sea : 
 O: cluster 'd peaks, with plunging gulfs between 
 Spann'd by aerial arches, all of gold; 
 Whereo'er the chariot wheels of Life are rolled 
 In cloudy circles, to eternity. 
 
 VI.— TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 
 
 ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED 
 
 Because thou hast believed, the wheels of life 
 
 Stand never idle, but go always round : 
 
 Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground, 
 
 Moved only ; but by genius, in the strife 
 
 Of all its chafing torrents after thaw. 
 
 Urged ; and to feed whose movement, spinning sand, 
 
 The feeble sons of pleasure set their hand : 
 
 And, in this vision of the general law. 
 
 Ha: t laboured with the foremost, hast become 
 
 Laborious, persevering, serious, firm ; 
 
 For this, thy track, across the fretful foam 
 
 Of vehement actions without scope or term. 
 
 Called History, keeps a splendour : due to wit, 
 
 Which saw one clue to life, and follow'd it.
 
 194 SONNETS 
 
 Foolish 
 
 heat VII.— IN HARMONY WITH NATURE 
 
 rebuked 
 
 TO A PREACHER 
 
 "In harmony with Nature ? " Restless fool, 
 Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee, 
 When true, the last impossibility ; 
 To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool : — 
 Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, 
 And in that more lie all his hopes of good. 
 Nature is cruel ; man is sick of blood : 
 Nature is stubborn ; man would fain adore : 
 Nature is fickle ; man hath need of rest : 
 Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave : 
 Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest. 
 Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends ; 
 Nature and man can never be fast friends. 
 Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave ! 
 
 VIII.— TO GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 
 
 ON SEEING, IN THE COUNTRY, HIS PICTURE OF 
 " THE BOTTLE " 
 
 Artist, whose hand, with horror wing'd, hath torn 
 
 From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung 
 
 The prodigy of full-blown crime among 
 
 Valleys and men to middle fortune born. 
 
 Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn : 
 
 Say, what shall calm us, when such guests Intrude, 
 
 Like comets on the heavenly solitude? 
 
 Shall breathless glades, cheered by shy Dian's horn,
 
 SONNETS 195 
 
 Cold-bubbling springs, or caves ? Not so 1 The Cruik- 
 
 Q„„i shank 
 
 ^0"1 shows the 
 
 Breasts her own griefs : and, urged too fiercely, worst 
 
 says : 
 " Why tremble ? True, the nobleness of man 
 May be by man effaced : man can controul 
 To pain, to death, the bent of his own days. 
 Know thou the worst. So much, not more, he ran." 
 
 IX.— TO A REPUBLICAN FRIEND, 1848 
 
 God knows it, I am with you. If to prize 
 Those virtues, prized and practised by too few, 
 But prized, but loved, but eminent in you, 
 Man's fundamental life : if to despise 
 The barren optimistic sophistries 
 Of comfortable moles, whom what they do 
 Teaches the limit of the just and true — 
 And for such doing have no need of eyes : 
 If sadness at the long heart-wasting show 
 Wherein earth's great ones are disquieted : 
 If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow 
 The armies of the homeless and unfed : — 
 If these are yours, if this is what you are. 
 Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share. 
 
 X.— CONTINUED 
 
 Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem 
 Rather to patience prompted, than that proud 
 Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud. 
 France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme.
 
 196 SONNETS 
 
 Republic- Seeing this Vale, this Earth, whereon we dream, 
 RcT/kIous Is on all sides o'ershadowed by the high 
 isolation Uno'erleap'd Mountains of Necessity, 
 
 Sparing us narrower margin than we deem. 
 
 Nor will that day dawn at a human nod, 
 
 When, bursting through the network superposed 
 
 By selfish occupation — plot and plan. 
 
 Lust, avarice, envy — liberated man, 
 
 All difference with his fellow-man composed. 
 
 Shall be left standing face to face with God. 
 
 XL— RELIGIOUS ISOLATION 
 
 TO THE SAME FRIEND 
 
 Children (as such forgive them) have I known, 
 Ever in their own eager pastime bent 
 To make the incurious bystander, intent 
 On his own swarming thoughts, an interest own ; 
 Too fearful or too fond to play alone. 
 Do thou, whom light in thine own inmost soul 
 (Not less thy boast) illuminates, controul 
 Wishes unworthy of a man full-grown. 
 What though the holy secret which moulds thee 
 Moulds not the solid Earth ? though never Winds 
 Have whisper'd it to the complaining Sea, 
 Nature's great law, and law of all men's minds ? 
 To its own impulse every creature stirs : 
 Live by thy light, and Earth will live by hers. 
 
 XXL— TO THE HUNGARIAN NATION. 
 
 Not in sunk Spain's prolong'd death agony ; 
 Not in rich England, bent but to make pour
 
 SONNETS 197 
 
 The flood of the world's commerce on her shore ; The 
 Not in that madhouse, France, from whence the ^^^i"' 
 cry invoked 
 
 Afflicts grave Heaven with its long senseless roar ; 
 Not in American vulgarity, 
 Nor wordy German imbecility — 
 Lies any hope of heroism more. 
 Hungarians ! Save the world ! Renew the stories 
 Ot men who against hope repell'd the chain. 
 And make the world's dead spirit leap again ! 
 On land renew that Greek exploit, whose glories 
 Hallow the Salaminian promontories, 
 And the Armada flung to the fierce main. 
 
 XIII.— YOUTH'S AGITATIONS 
 
 When I shall be divorced some ten years hence, 
 From this poor present self which I am now; 
 When youth has done its tedious vain expense 
 Of passions that for ever ebb and flow ; 
 Shall I not joy youth's heats are left behind, 
 And breathe more happy in an even clime ? 
 Ah no, for then I shall begin to find 
 A thousand virtues in this hated time. 
 Then I shall wish its agitations back, 
 And all its thwarting currents of desire ; 
 Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack, 
 And call this hurrying fever, generous fire, 
 And sigh that one thing only has been lent 
 To youth and age in common — discontent.
 
 198 SONNET 
 
 The 
 rebuke XIV.— THE WORLD'S TRIUMPHS 
 
 So far as I conceive the World's rebuke 
 To him address'd who would recast her new, 
 Not from herself her fame of strength she took, 
 But from their weakness, who would work her rue. 
 " Behold, she cries, so many rages lull'd, 
 So many fiery spirits quite cool'd down : 
 Look how so many valours, long unduU'd, 
 After short commerce with me, fear my frown. 
 Thou too, when thou against my crimes wouldst 
 
 cry, 
 Let thy foreboded homage check thy tongue." — 
 The World speaks well : yet might her foe reply — 
 "Are wills so weak? then let not mine wait long. 
 Hast thou so rare a poison ? let me be 
 Keener to slay thee, lest thou poison me." 
 
 MYCERINUSi 
 
 ** Not by the justice that my father spurn'd. 
 Not for the thousands whom my father slew. 
 Altars unfed and temples overturn'd, 
 Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks 
 
 were due ; 
 Fell this late voice from lips that cannot lie. 
 Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny. 
 
 * Herodotus, ii. 133.
 
 MYCERINUS 199 
 
 I will unfold my sentence and my crime. Injustice 
 
 My crime, that, rapt in reverential awe, "byth^e* 
 
 I sate obedient, in the fiery prime Gods 
 
 Of youth, self-governed, at the feet of Law ; 10 
 Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings, 
 By contemplation of diviner things. 
 
 My father lov'd injustice, and liv'd long ; 
 Crowned with grey hairs he died, and full of sway. 
 I loved the good he scorn'd, and hated wrong : 
 The Gods declare my recompense to-day. 
 T looked for life more lasting, rule more high ; 
 And when six years are measur'd, lo, I die ! 
 
 Yet surely, O my people, did 1 deem 
 Man's justice from the all-just Gods was given : 30 
 A light that from some upper fount did beam. 
 Some better archetype, whose seat was heaven ; 
 A light that, shining from the blest abodes, 
 Did shadow somewhat of the life of Gods. 
 
 Mere phantoms of man's self-tormenting heart, 
 Which on the sweets that woo it dares not feed : 
 Vain dreams, that quench our pleasures, then depart. 
 When the duped soul, self-mastered, claims its 
 
 meed : 
 When, on the strenuous just man. Heaven bestows. 
 Crown of his struggling life, an unjust close. 30 
 
 Seems it so light a thing then, austere Powers, 
 To spurn man's common lure, life's pleasant things? 
 Seems there no joy in dances crown'd with flowers. 
 Love, free to range, and regal banquetings ? 
 Bend ye on these, indeed, an unmoved eye, 
 Not Gods but ghosts, in frozen apathy ?
 
 200 MYCERINUS 
 
 Six years Or is it that 8ome Power, too wise, too strong, 
 toTioy gygjj fQj. yourselves to conquer or beguile. 
 
 Whirls earth, and heaven, and men, and gods along, 
 Like the broad rushing of the column'd Nile ? 40 
 And the great powers we serve, themselves may be 
 Slaves of a tyrannous Necessity ? 
 
 Or in mid-heaven, perhaps, your golden cars. 
 Where earthly voice climbs never, wing their flight, 
 And in wild hunt, through mazy tracts of stars, 
 Sweep in the sounding stillness of the night ? 
 Or in deaf ease, on thrones of dazzling sheen, 
 Drinking deep draughts of joy, ye dwell serene . 
 
 Oh wherefore cheat our youth, if thus it be. 
 
 Of one short joy, one lust, one pleasant dream ? 50 
 
 Stringing vain words of powers we cannot see. 
 
 Blind divinations of a will supreme ; 
 
 Lost labour: when the circumambient gloom 
 
 But hides, if Gods, Gods careless of our doom ? 
 
 The rest I give to joy. Even while I speak 
 My sand runs short ; and as yon star-shot ray. 
 Hemmed by two banks of cloud, peers pale and 
 
 weak. 
 Now, as the barrier closes, dies away; 
 Even so do past and future intertwine. 
 Blotting this six years' space, which yet is mine. 60 
 
 Six years — six little years — six drops of time — 
 Yet suns shall rise, and many moons shall wane, 
 And old men die, and young men pass their prime, 
 And languid Pleasure fade and flower again ; 
 And the dull Gods behold, ere these are flown. 
 Revels more deep, joy keener than their own.
 
 MYCERINUS 261 
 
 Into the silence of the groves and woods From 
 
 I will go forth ; but something would I say — ^grove° 
 Something — yet what I know not : for the Gods 
 The doom they pass revoke not, nor delay ; 70 
 And prayers, and gifts, and tears, are fruitless all. 
 And the night waxes, and the shadows fall. ;"' 
 
 Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king. 
 I go, and I return not. But the will 
 Of the great Gods is plain ; and ye must bring '■' 
 III deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil 
 Their pleasure, to their feet ; and reap their praise. 
 The praise of Gods, rich boon 1 and length of 
 days." 
 
 — So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn ; 
 And one loud cry of grief and of amaze 80 
 
 Broke from his sorrowing people : so he spake ; 
 And turning, left them there ; and with brief pause, 
 Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his way 
 To the cool region of the groves he loved. 
 
 There by the river banks he wander'd on, 
 From palm-grove on to palm-grove, happy trees, 
 Their smooth tops shining sunwards, and beneath 
 Burying their unsunn'd stems in grass and flowers : 
 Where in one dream the feverish time of Youth 
 Might fade in slumber, and the feet of Joy go 
 
 Might wander all day long and never tire : 
 Here came the king, holding high feast, at morn 
 Rose-crown'd ; and ever, when the sun went down» 
 A hundred lamps beam'd in the tranquil gloom. 
 From tree to tree, all through the twinkling grove, 
 Revealing all the tumult of the feast,
 
 202 MYCERINUS 
 
 Revels Flush'd guests, and golden goblets, foam'd with 
 night and ^j^e ; 
 
 While the deep-burnish'd foliage overhead 
 Splinter'd the silver arrows of the moon. 
 
 It may be that sometimes his wondering soul loo 
 From the loud joyful laughter of his lips 
 Might shrink half startled, like a guilty man 
 Who wrestles with his dream ; as some pale Shape, 
 Gliding half hidden through the dusky stems. 
 Would thrust a hand before the lifted bowl. 
 Whispering, " A little space, and thou art mine." 
 It may be on that joyless feast his eye 
 Dwelt with mere outward seeming ; he, within, 
 Took measure of his soul, and knew its strength, 
 And by that silent knowledge, day by day, no 
 Was calmed, ennobled, comforted, sustain'd. 
 It may be; but not less his brow was smooth, 
 And his clear laugh fled ringing through the gloom, 
 And his mirth quail'd not at the mild reproof 
 Sigh'd out by Winter's sad tranquillity ; 
 Nor, pall'd with its own fulness, ebb'd and died 
 In the rich languor of long summer days ; 
 Nor wither'd, when the palm-tree plumes that 
 
 roof'd 
 With their mild dark his grassy banquet-hall, 
 Bent to the cold winds of the showerless Spring ; 120 
 No, nor grew dark when Autumn brought the 
 clouds. 
 
 So six long years he revell'd, night and day ; 
 And when the mirth wax'd loudest, with dull sound 
 Sometimes from the grove's centre echoes came, 
 To tell his wondering people of their king ; 
 In the still night, across the streaming flats, 
 Mix'd with the murmur of tlie moving Nile.
 
 THE CHURCH OF BROU 203 
 
 THE CHURCH OF BROU 
 
 I.— THE CASTLE 
 
 Down the Savoy valleys sounding, 
 
 Echoing round this castle old, 
 'Mid the distant mountain chalets 
 
 Hark ! what bell for church is toU'd ? 
 
 In the bright October morning 
 Savoy's Duke had left his bride. 
 
 From the Castle, past the drawbridge, 
 Flow'd the hunters' merry tide. 
 
 Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering. 
 
 Gay, her smiling lord to greet, k 
 
 From her muUioned chamber casement 
 
 Smiles the Duchess Marguerite. 
 
 From Vienna by the Danube 
 
 Here she came, a bride, in spring. 
 
 Now the autumn crisps the forest ; 
 Hunters gather, bugles ring. 
 
 Hounds are pulling, prickers swearing, 
 Horses fret, and boar-spears glance : 
 
 Off! — they sweep the marshy forests. 
 
 Westward, on the side of France. 2( 
 
 Hark ! the game 's on foot ; they scatter — 
 
 Down the forest ridings lone, 
 Furious, single horsemen gallop. 
 
 Hark ! a shout — a crash — a groan ! 
 
 To the 
 boar-hunt I
 
 aa4 THE CHURCH OF BROU 
 
 The dead Pale and breathless, came the hunters. 
 
 " * On the turf dead lies the boar. 
 
 God ! the Duke lies stretch'd beside him- 
 Senseless, weltering in his gore. 
 
 In the dull October evening, 
 
 Down the leaf-strewn forest road, 30 
 
 To the Castle, past the drawbridge, 
 
 Came the hunters with their load. 
 
 In the hall, with sconces blazing, 
 
 Ladies waiting round her seat. 
 Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais, 
 
 Sate the Duchess Marguerite. 
 
 Hark ! below the gates unbarring ! 
 
 Tramp of men and quick commands ! 
 ** — 'Tis my lord come back from hunting,"— 
 
 And the Duchess claps her hands. 40 
 
 Slow and tired came the hunters ; 
 
 Stopp'd in darkness in the court. 
 *♦ — Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters ! 
 
 To the hall ! What sport, what sport ? " — 
 
 Slow they enter'd with their Master ; 
 
 In the hall they laid him down. 
 On his coat were leaves and bloodstains : 
 
 On his brow an angry frown. 
 
 Dead her princely youthful husband 
 
 Lay before his youthful wife ; 50 
 
 Bloody, 'neath the flaring sconces : 
 And the sight froze all her life.
 
 I. THE CASTLE 205 
 
 * * * * Finishing 
 
 In Vienna by the Danube Church 
 
 Kings hold revel, gallants meet. 
 Gay of old amid the gayest 
 
 Was the Duchess Marguerite. 
 
 In Vienna by the Danube 
 
 Feast and dance her youth beguiled. 
 Till that hour she never sorrow'd ; 
 
 But from then she never smiled. 60 
 
 'Mid the Savoy mountain valleys 
 
 Far from town or haunt of man, 
 Stands a lonely Church, unfinished, 
 
 Which the Duchess Maud began : 
 
 Old, that Duchess stern began it ; 
 
 In grey age, with palsied hands, 
 But she died as it was building. 
 
 And the Church unfinish'd stands ; 
 
 Stands as erst the builders left it, 
 
 When she sunk into her grave. 70 
 
 Mountain greensward paves the chancel ; 
 Harebells flower in the nave. 
 
 " In my Castle all is sorrow," — 
 
 Said the Duchess Marguerite then. 
 " Guide me, vassals, to the mountains ! 
 
 We will build the Church again." — 
 
 Sandalled palmers, faring homeward, 
 
 Austrian knights from Syria came. 
 " Austrian wanderers bring, O warders. 
 
 Homage to your Austrian dame." — go
 
 2o6 THE CHURCH OF BROU 
 
 The From the gate the warders answered ; 
 
 Vhe'tomb" " ^°"^» ^ knights, is she you knew. 
 
 Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess. 
 Seek her at the Church of Brou." — 
 
 Austrian knights and march-worn palmers 
 Climb the winding mountain way. 
 
 Reach the valley, where the Fabric 
 Rises higher day by day. 
 
 Stones are sawing, hammers ringing ; 
 
 On the work the bright sun shines : 90 
 
 In the Savoy mountain meadows, 
 
 By the stream, below the pines. 
 
 On her palfrey white the Duchess 
 Sate and watch'd her working train ; 
 
 Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders, 
 German masons, smiths from Spain. 
 
 Clad in black, on her white palfrey ; 
 
 Her oM architect beside — 
 There they found her in the mountains. 
 
 Morn and noon and eventide. loo 
 
 There she sate, and watch'd the builders, 
 Till the Church was rooPd and done. 
 
 Last of all, the builders rear'd her 
 In the nave a tomb of stone. 
 
 On the tomb two Forms they sculptured. 
 
 Lifelike in the marble pale. 
 One, the Duke in helm and armour ; 
 
 One, the Duchess in her veil.
 
 II. THE CHURCH 207 
 
 Round the tomb the carved stone fretwork The 
 Was at Easter tide put on. no '^^'Im'* 
 
 Then the Duchess closed her labours ; 
 And she died at the St. John. 
 
 II.— THE CHURCH 
 
 Upon the glistening leaden roof 
 
 Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines 
 The streams go leaping by. 
 The hills are clothed with pines sun-proof. 
 Mid bright green fields, below the pines, 
 Stands the Church on high. 
 What Church is this, from men aloof? 
 'Tis the Church of Brou. 
 
 At sunrise, from their dewy lair 
 
 Crossing the stream, the kine are seen 
 Round the wall to stray ; 
 The churchyard wall that clips the square 
 Of shaven hill-sward trim and green 
 Where last year they lay. 
 But all things now are order'd fair 
 Round the Church of Brou. 
 
 On Sundays, at the matin chime, 
 The Alpine peasants, two and three, 
 Climb up here to pray. 
 Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, ; 
 Ride out to church from Chambery, 
 Dight with mantles gay. 
 But else it is a lonely time 
 Round the Church of Brou.
 
 2o8 THE CHURCH OF BROU 
 
 Duke aad On Sundays too, a priest doth come 
 
 °aion"' From the wall'd town beyond the pass, 
 
 Down the mountain way. 
 And then you hear the organ's hum, 
 
 You hear the white-rob'd priest say mass, 
 And the people pray. 30 
 
 But else the woods and fields are dumb 
 Round the Church of Brou. 
 
 And after church, when mass is done, 
 The people to the nave repair 
 Round the Tomb to stray. 
 And marvel at the Forms of stone. 
 
 And praise the chisell'd broideries rare. 
 Then they drop away. 
 The Princely Pair are left alone 
 In the Church of Brou. 40 
 
 III.— THE TOMB 
 
 So rest, for ever rest, O Princely Pair ! 
 In your high Church, 'mid the still mountain air. 
 Where horn, and hound, and vassals, never come. 
 Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb 
 From the rich painted windows of the nave 
 On aisle, and transept, and your marble grave : 
 Where thou, young Prince, shah never more arise 
 From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies, 
 On autumn mornings, when the bugle sounds, 
 And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds 
 To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve. 11 
 And thou, O Princess, shalt no more receive. 
 Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state. 
 The jaded hunters with their bloody freight, 
 Coming benighted to the castle gate.
 
 III. THE TOMB 209 
 
 So sleep, for ever sleep, O Marble Pair ! Heaven 
 
 Or if ye wake, let it be then, when fair """^ ^°^' 
 
 On the carved Western Front a flood of light 
 Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright 
 Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave, 
 In the vast western window of the nave ; 21 
 
 And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints 
 A chequer-work of glowing sapphire tints, 
 And amethyst, and ruby ; — then unclose 
 Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose. 
 And from your broider'd pillows lift your heads, 
 And rise upon your cold white marble beds. 
 And looking down on the warm rosy tints 
 That chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints, 
 Say — " What is this? nve are in bliss — -forgiven — 30 
 Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven 1 " — 
 Or let it be on autumn nights, when rain 
 Doth rustlingly above your heads complain 
 On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls 
 Shedding her pensive light at intervals 
 The Moon through the clere-story windows shines. 
 And the wind wails among the mountain pines. 
 Then, gazing up through the dim pillars high, 
 The foliaged marble forest where ye lie, 
 " Hush " — ye will say — " it is eternity. 40 
 
 This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these 
 The columns of the Heavenly Palaces." — 
 And in the sweeping of the wind your ear 
 The passage of the Angels' wings will hear. 
 And on the lichen-crusted leads above 
 The rustle of the eternal lain of Love.
 
 2IO A MODERN SAPPHO 
 
 Rivals 
 
 A MODERN SAPPHO 
 
 They are gone : all is still : Foolish heart, dost 
 thou quiver ? 
 Nothing moves on the lawn but the quick lilac 
 shade. 
 Far up gleams the house, and beneath flows the 
 river. 
 Here lean, my head, on this cool balustrade. 
 
 Ere he come : ere the boat, by the shining-branch'd 
 border 
 Of dark elms come round, dropping down the 
 proud stream ; 
 Let me pause, let me strive, in myself find some 
 order, 
 Ere their boat-music sound, ere their broider'd 
 flags gleam. 
 
 Is it hope makes me linger ? the dim thought, that 
 
 sorrow 
 
 Means parting ? that only in absence lies pain ? lo 
 
 It was well with me once if I saw him : to-morrow 
 
 May bring one of the old happy moments 
 
 again. 
 
 Last night we stood earnestly talking together — 
 She enter'd — that moment his eyes turn'd from 
 me. 
 Fasten'd on her dark hair and her wreath of white 
 heather — 
 As yesterday was, so to-morrow will be.
 
 A MODERN SAPPHO 211 
 
 Their love, let me know, must grow strong and The 
 yet stronger, *^"^"" 
 
 Their passion burn more, ere it ceases to burn : 
 They must love — while they must : But the 
 hearts that love longer 
 Are rare : ah ! most loves but flow once, and 
 return. 20 
 
 I shall suffer ; but they will outlive their affection 
 I shall weep ; but their love will be cooling : 
 and he, 
 As he drifts to fatigue, discontent, and dejection, 
 Will be brought, thou poor heart ! how much 
 nearer to thee ! 
 
 For cold is his eye to mere beauty, who, breaking 
 The strong band which beauty around him hath 
 furl'd. 
 
 Disenchanted by habit, and newly awaking. 
 
 Looks languidly round on a gloom-buried world. 
 
 Through that gloom he will see but a shadow 
 appearing. 
 Perceive but a voice as I come to his side ; 30 
 But deeper their voice grows, and nobler their 
 bearing. 
 Whose youth in the fires of anguish hath died. 
 
 Then — to wait. But what notes down the wind, 
 hark ! are driving ? 
 'Tis he ! 'tis the boat, shooting round by the 
 trees ! 
 Let my turn, if it will come, be swift in arriving ! 
 Ah ! hope cannot long lighten torments like these.
 
 212 REQUIESCAT 
 
 "Strew Hast thou yet dealt him, O Life, thy full measure? 
 
 roses" World, have thy children yet bow'd at his knee? 
 
 Hast thou with myrtle-leaf crown'd him, O 
 
 Pleasure ? 
 
 Crown, crown him quickly, and leave him for 
 
 me. 40 
 
 REQUIESCAT 
 
 Strew on her roses, roses, 
 And never a spray of yew. 
 
 In quiet she reposes : 
 
 Ah ! would that I did too. 
 
 Her mirth the world required : 
 She bathed it in smiles of glee. 
 
 But her heart was tired, tired, 
 And now they let her be. 
 
 Her life was turning, turning, 
 In mazes of heat and sound. 
 
 But for peace her soul was yearning. 
 And now peace laps her round. 
 
 Her cabin'd, ample Spirit, 
 
 It flutter'd and fail'd for breath. 
 
 To-night it doth inherit 
 The vasty Hall of Death.
 
 LINES WRITTEN BY A DEATH-BED 213 
 
 A healing 
 
 LINES WRITTEN BY A DEATH- i»'«* 
 BED 
 
 Yes, now the longing is o'erpast. 
 
 Which, dogg'd by fear and fought by shame. 
 
 Shook her weak bosom day and night, 
 
 Consumed her beauty like a flame, 
 
 And dimm'd it like the desert blast. 
 
 And though the curtains hide her face. 
 
 Yet were it lifted to the light 
 
 The sweet expression of her brow 
 
 Would charm the gazer, till his thought 
 
 Erased the ravages of time, lo 
 
 Fill'd up the hollow cheek, and brought 
 
 A freshness back as of her prime — 
 
 So healing is her quiet now. 
 
 So perfectly the lines express 
 
 A placid, settled loveliness ; 
 
 Her youngest rival's freshest grace. 
 
 But ah, though peace indeed is here. 
 
 And ease from shame, and rest from fear ; 
 
 Though nothing can dismarble now 
 
 The smoothness of that limpid brow ; 20 
 
 Yet is a calm like this, in truth. 
 
 The crowning end of life and youth ? 
 
 And when this boon rewards the dead. 
 
 Are all debts paid, has all been said ? 
 
 And is the heart of youth so light, 
 
 Its step so firm, its eye so bright. 
 
 Because on its hot brow there blows 
 
 A wind of promise and repose 
 
 From the far grave, to which it goes ?
 
 life's 
 crown 
 
 214 LINES WRITTEN BY A DEATH-BED 
 
 Calm not Because it has the hope to come, 30 
 
 One day, to harbour in the tomb ? 
 Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one 
 For daylight, for the cheerful sun, 
 For feeling nerves and living breath — 
 Youth dreams a bliss on this side death. 
 It dreams a rest, if not more deep. 
 More grateful than this marble sleep. 
 It hears a voice within it tell — 
 " Calm 's not life's crown, though calm is well." 
 'Tis all perhaps which man acquires : 40 
 
 But 'tis not what our youth desires. 
 
 A MEMORY PICTURE 
 
 TO MY FRIENDS, WHO RIDICULED A TENDER LEAVE- 
 TAKING 
 
 Laugh, my Friends, and without blame 
 Lightly quit what lightly came : 
 Rich to-morrow as to-day 
 Spend as madly as you may. 
 I, with little land to stir. 
 Am the exacter labourer. 
 
 Ere the parting hour go by. 
 
 Quick, thy tablets. Memory ! 
 
 But my youth reminds me — " Thou 
 
 Hast lived light as these live now : 10 
 
 As these are, thou too wert such ; 
 
 Much hast had, hast squander'd much." 
 
 Fortune's now less frequent heir. 
 
 Ah ! I husband what *s grown rare.
 
 A MEMORY PICTURE 215 
 
 Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, 
 
 Quick, thy tablets, Memory ! ^M^mol??' 
 
 Young, I said : " A face is gone 
 
 If too hotly mused upon : 
 
 And our best impressions are 
 
 Those that do themselves repair." 20 
 
 Many a face I then let by. 
 
 Ah ! is faded utterly. 
 
 Ere the parting hour go by, 
 
 Quick, thy tablets, Memory ! 
 
 Marguerite says : " As last year went, 
 
 So the coming year '11 be spent : 
 
 Some day next year, I shall be. 
 
 Entering heedless, kiss'd by thee.'* 
 
 Ah ! I hope — yet, once away. 
 
 What may chain us, who can say ? 30 
 
 Ere the parting hour go by, 
 
 Quick, thy tablets. Memory! 
 
 Paint that lilac kerchief, bound 
 Her soft face, her hair around : 
 Tied under the archest chin 
 Mockery ever ambush'd in. 
 Let the fluttering fringes streak 
 All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek. 
 
 Ere the parting hour go by. 
 
 Quick, thy tablets. Memory ! 40 
 
 Paint that figure's pliant grace 
 As she towards me lean'd her face. 
 Half-refused and half resign'd, 
 Murmuring, " Art thou still unkind i "
 
 2i6 A MEMORY PICTURE 
 
 Many a broken promise then 
 Was new made — to break again. 
 
 Ere the parting hour go by, 
 
 Quick, thy tablets, Memory ! 
 
 Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind. 
 
 Eager tell-tales of her mind : 50 
 
 Paint, with their impetuous stress 
 
 Of inquiring tenderness, 
 
 Those frank eyes, where deep doth lie 
 
 An angelic gravity. 
 
 Ere the parting hour go by. 
 
 Quick, thy tablets. Memory ! 
 
 What, my Friends, these feeble lines 
 
 Show, you say, my love declines? 
 
 To paint ill as I have done, 
 
 Proves forgetfulness begun ? 
 
 Time's gay minions, pleased you see, 60 
 
 Time, your master, governs me. 
 Pleased, you mock the fruitless cry 
 "Quick, thy tablets. Memory! " 
 
 Ah! too true. Time's current strong 
 
 Leaves us true to nothing long. 
 
 Yet, if little stays with man. 
 
 Ah ! retain we all we can ! 
 
 If the clear impression dies, 
 
 Ah I the dim remembrance prize ! 70 
 
 Ere the parting hour go by. 
 
 Quick, thy tablets. Memory !
 
 A DREAM 217 
 
 Olivia and 
 
 Marguerite 
 
 A DREAM 
 
 Was it a dream ? We saii'd, I thought we sail'd, 
 Martin and I, down a green Alpine stream, 
 Under o'erhanging pines ; the morning sun, 
 On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops. 
 On the red pinings of their forest floor, 
 Drew a warm scent abroad ; behind the pines 
 The mountain skirts, with all their sylvan change 
 Of bright-leaPd chestnuts, and moss'd walnut-trees, 
 And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began. 
 Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes, 10 
 
 And from some swarded shelf high up, there came 
 Notes of wild pastoral music : over all 
 Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow. 
 Upon the mossy rocks at the stream's edge, 
 Back'd by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood. 
 Bright in the sun ; the climbing gourd-plant's leaves 
 Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof 
 Lay the warm golden gourds ; golden, within, 
 Under the eaves, peer'd rows of Indian corn. 
 We shot beneath the cottage with the stream. 20 
 On the brown rude-carved balcony two Forms 
 Came forth — Olivia's, Marguerite ! and thine. 
 Clad were they both in white, flowers in their 
 
 breasts ; 
 Straw hats bedeck'd their heads, with ribbons blue 
 Which waved, and on their shoulders fluttering 
 
 play'd. 
 They saw us, they conferr'd ; their bosoms heaved, 
 And more than mortal impulse fill'd their eyes. 
 Their lips mov'd ; their white arms, waved eagerly,
 
 2i8 A DREAM 
 
 The River Flash'd once, like falling streams : — we rose, we 
 °^^'^* gazed: 
 
 One moment, on the rapid's top, our boat 30 
 
 Hung poised — and then the darting River of Life, 
 Loud thundering, bore us by : swift, swift it 
 
 foam'd ; 
 Black under cliffs it raced, round headlands shone. 
 Soon the plank'd cottage 'mid the sun-warm'd pines 
 Faded, the moss, the rocks ; us burning Plains 
 Bristled with cities, us the Sea received. 
 
 THE NEW SIRENS 
 
 A PALINODE 
 
 In the cedar shadow sleeping, 
 Where cool grass and fragrant glooms 
 Oft at noon have lured me, creeping 
 From your darken'd palace rooms : 
 I, who in your train at morning 
 StroU'd and sang with joyful mind. 
 Heard, at evening, sounds of warning ; 
 Heard the hoarse boughs labour in the wind. 
 
 Who are they, O pensive Graces, 
 — For I dream'd they wore your forms — 10 
 Who on shores and sea-wash'd places 
 Scoop the shelves and fret the storms ? 
 Who, when ships are that way tending, 
 Troop across the flushing sands, 
 To all reefs and narrows wending, 
 ^ With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands i
 
 THE NEW SIRENS 219 
 
 Yet I see, the howling levels Poet-exiles 
 
 Of the deep are not your lair ; 
 And your tragic-vaunted revels 
 Are less lonely than they were. 20 
 
 In a Tyrian galley steering 
 From the golden springs of dawn, 
 Troops, like Eastern kings, appearing, 
 Stream all day through your enchanted lawn. 
 
 And we too, from upland valleys. 
 Where some Muse, with half-curved frown, 
 Leans her ear to your mad sallies 
 Which the charm'd winds never drown ; 
 By faint music guided, ranging 
 The scared glens, we wander'd on : 30 
 
 Left our awful laurels hanging. 
 And came heap'd with myrtles to your throne. 
 
 From the dragon-warder'd fountains 
 Where the springs of knowledge are : 
 From the watchers on the mountains, 
 And the bright and morning star : 
 We are exiles, we are falling. 
 We have lost them at your call — 
 O ye false ones, at your calling 
 Seeking ceiled chambers and a palace hall. 40 
 
 Are the accents of your luring 
 More melodious than of yore ? 
 Are those frail forms more enduring 
 Than the charms Ulysses bore ? 
 That we sought you with rejoicings 
 Till at evening we descry 
 At a pause of Siren voicings 
 These vext branches and this howling sky ? . . «
 
 Pleasure 
 versus 
 Pain 
 
 THE NEW SIRENS 
 
 Oh ! your pardon. The uncouthness 
 Of that primal age is gone : 50 
 
 And the skin of dazzhng smoothness 
 Screens not now a heart of stone. 
 Love has flush'd those cruel faces ; 
 And your slacken'd arms forego 
 The delight of fierce embraces : 
 And those whitening bone-mounds do not grow. 
 
 " Come," you say ; " the large appearance 
 Of man's labour is but vain : 
 And we plead as firm adherence 
 Due to pleasure as to pain." 60 
 
 Pointing to some world-worn creatures, 
 " Come," you murmur with a sigh : 
 " Ah ! we own diviner features, 
 Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye. 
 
 "Come," you say, " the hours are dreary : 
 Life is long, and will not fade : 
 Time is lame, and we grow weary 
 In this slumbrous cedarn shade, 
 Round our hearts, with long caresses, 
 With low sighs hath Silence stole ; 70 
 
 And her load of steaming tresses 
 Weighs, like Ossa, on the aery soul. 
 
 ** Come," you say, " the Soul is fainting 
 Till she search, and learn her own : 
 And the wisdom of man's painting 
 Leaves her riddle half unknown. 
 Come," you say, " the brain is seeking. 
 When the princely heart is dead :
 
 THE NEW SIRENS 221 
 
 Yet this glean'd, when Gods were speaking, Thoughts 
 Rarer secrets than the toiling head. 80 °f sunns. 
 
 "Come," you say, "opinion trembles, 
 Judgment shifts, convictions go : 
 Life dries up, the heart dissembles : 
 Only, what we feel, we know. 
 Hath your wisdom known emotions ? 
 Will it weep our burning tears ? 
 Hath it drunk of our love-potions 
 Crowning moments with the weight of years ? ** 
 
 I am dumb. Alas ! too soon, all 
 Man's grave reasons disappear : 90 
 
 Yet, I think, at God's tribunal 
 Some large answer you shall hear. 
 But for me, my thoughts are straying 
 Where at sunrise, through the vines, 
 On these lawns I saw you playing, 
 Hanging garlands on the odorous pines. 
 
 When your showering locks enwound you, 
 And your heavenly eyes shone through : 
 When the pine-boughs yielded round you. 
 And your brows were starr'd with dew. 100 
 And immortal forms to meet you 
 Down the statued alleys came : 
 And through golden horns, to greet you, 
 Blew such music as a God may frame. 
 
 Yes — I muse : — And, if the dawning 
 Into daylight never grew — 
 If the glistering wings of morning 
 On the dry noon shook their dew—
 
 222 THE NEW SIRENS 
 
 Calms If the fits of joy were longer — 
 
 rapuires ^'^ '■^^ ^^J ^^^^ sooner done — 
 
 Or, perhaps, if Hope were stronger — 
 No weak nursling of an earthly sun . . . 
 Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens, 
 Dusk the hall with yew ! 
 
 But a bound was set to meetings, 
 And the sombre day dragg'd on : 
 And the burst of joyful greetings. 
 And the joyful dawn, were gone : 
 For the eye was fill'd with gazing. 
 And on raptures follow calms : — 120 
 
 And those warm locks men were praising 
 Droop'd, unbraided, on your listless arms. 
 
 Storms unsmooth'd your folded valleys, 
 And made all your cedars frown. 
 Leaves are whirling in the alleys 
 Which your lovers wander'd down. 
 — Sitting cheerless in your bowers, 
 The hands propping the sunk head. 
 Do they gall you, the long hours ? 
 And the hungry thought, that must be fed ? 130 
 
 Is the pleasure that is tasted 
 Patient of a long review ? 
 Will the fire joy hath wasted, 
 Mus'd on, warm the heart anew ? 
 — Or, are those old thoughts returning. 
 Guests the dull sense never knew. 
 Stars, set deep, yet inly burning. 
 Germs, your untrimm'd Passion overgrew ?
 
 THE NEW SIRENS 223 
 
 Once, like me, you took your station Watching 
 
 Watchers for a purer fire : 140 pJrJr^fire 
 
 But you droop'd in expectation, 
 And you wearied in desire. 
 When the first rose flush was steeping 
 All the frore peak's awful crown, 
 Shepherds say, they found you sleeping 
 In a windless valley, further down. 
 
 Then you wept, and slowly raising 
 Your dozed eyelids, sought again, 
 Half in doubt, they say, and gazing 
 Sadly back, the seats of men. 150 
 
 Snatch'd an earthly inspiration 
 From some transient human Sun, 
 And proclaim'd your vain ovation 
 For the mimic raptures you had won. 
 
 Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens, 
 Dusk the hall with yew ! 
 
 With a sad, majestic motion — 
 With a stately, slow surprise — 
 From their earthward-bound devotion 
 Lifting up your languid eyes : 160 
 
 Would you freeze my louder boldness 
 Dumbly smiling as you go ? 
 One faint frown of distant coldness 
 Flitting fast across each marble brow ? 
 
 Do I brighten at your sorrow 
 O sweet Pleaders ? doth my lot 
 Find assurance in to-morrow 
 Of one joy, which you have not ?
 
 224 THE NEW SIRENS 
 
 This O speak once ! and let my sadness, 
 
 Phr''e?an -^^^ '•^"^ sobbing Phrygian strain, 170 
 
 strain Sham'd and baffled by your gladness, 
 
 Blame the music of your feasts in vain. 
 
 Scent, and song, and light, and flowers — 
 Gust on gust, the hoarse winds blow. 
 Come, bind up those ringlet showers ! 
 Roses for that dreaming brow ! 
 Come, once more that ancient lightness, 
 Glancing feet, and eager eyes ! 
 Let your broad lamps flash the brightness 
 Which the sorrow-stricken day denies ! 183 
 
 Through black depths of serried shadows. 
 Up cold aisles of buried glade ; 
 In the mist of river meadows 
 Where the looming kine are laid ; 
 From your dazzled windows streaming. 
 From the humming festal room. 
 Deep and far, a broken gleaming 
 Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom. 
 
 Where I stand, the grass is glowing : 
 Doubtless, you are passing fair : 190 
 
 But I hear the north wind blowing ; 
 And I feel the cold night-air. 
 Can I look on your sweet faces. 
 And your proud heads backward thrown, 
 From this dusk of leaf strewn places 
 With the dumb woods and the night alone ? 
 
 But, indeed, this flux of guesses — 
 Mad delight, and frozen calms —
 
 THE NEW SIRENS 225 
 
 Mirth to-day and vine-bound tresses, a dreary 
 
 And to-morrow — folded palms — 200 ''^^* 
 
 Is this all ? this balanc'd measure ? 
 Could life run no easier way ? 
 Happy at the noon of pleasure, 
 Passive, at the midnight of dismay? 
 
 But, indeed, this proud possession — 
 This far-reaching magic chain. 
 Linking in a mad succession 
 Fits of joy and fits of pain : 
 Have you seen it at the closing ? 
 Have you track'd its clouded ways ? 210 
 
 Can your eyes, while fools are dozing. 
 Drop, with mine, adown life's latter days? 
 
 When a dreary light is wading 
 Through this waste of sunless greens — 
 When the flashing lights are fading 
 On the peerless cht'ek of queens — 
 When the mean shall no more sorrow, 
 And the proudest no more smile — 
 While the dawning of the morrow 
 Widens slowly westward all that while? 220 
 
 Then, when change itself is over. 
 When the slow tide sets one way, 
 Shall you find the radiant lover, 
 Even by moments, of to-day ? 
 The eye wanders, faith is failing : 
 O, loose hands, and let it be ! 
 Proudly, like a king bewailing, 
 O, let fall one tear, and set us free ! 
 p
 
 226 
 
 THE NEW SIRENS 
 
 All true speech and large avowal 
 Which the jealous soul concedes : 230 
 
 All man's heart — which brooks bestowal : 
 All frank faith — which passion breeds : 
 These we had, and we gave truly : 
 Doubt not, what we had, we gave: 
 False we were not, nor unruly : 
 Lodgers in the forest and the cave. 
 
 Long we wander'd with you, feeding 
 Our sad souls on your replies : 
 In a wistful silence reading 
 All the meaning of your eyes : 240 
 
 By moss-border'd statues sitting, 
 By well-heads, in summer days. 
 But we turn, our eyes are flitting. 
 See, the white east, and the morning rays ! 
 
 And you too, O weeping graces, 
 Sylvan Gods of this fair shade ! 
 Is there doubt on divine faces ? 
 Are the happy Gods dismay'd ? 
 Can men worship the wan features, 
 The sunk eyes, the wailing tone, 250 
 
 Of unsphered discrowned creatures, 
 Souls as little godlike as their own ? 
 
 Come, loose hands ! The winged fleetness 
 Of immortal feet is gone. 
 And your scents have shed their sweetness. 
 And your flowers are overblown. 
 And your jewell'd gauds surrender 
 Half their glories to the day : 
 Freely did they flash their splendour. 
 Freely gave it — but it dies away. 260
 
 THE NEW SIRENS 227 
 
 In the pines the thrush is waking — Cypress 
 
 Lo, yon orient hill in flames : ^"'^ ^^^ 
 
 Scores of true love-knots are breaking 
 At divorce which it proclaims. 
 When the lamps are paled at mornin;% 
 Heart quits heart, and hand quits hand. 
 — Cold in that unlovely dawning, 
 Loveless, rayless, joyless you shall stand. 
 
 Strew no more red roses, maidens, 
 Leave the lilies in their dew : 270 
 
 Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens ! 
 Dusk, O dusk the hall with yew ! 
 — Shall I seek, that I may scorn her. 
 Her I loved at eventide ? 
 Shall I aak, what faded mourner 
 Stands, at daybreak, weeping by my side ? . . ■ 
 Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens ! 
 Dusk the hall with yew ! 
 
 THE VOICE 
 
 As the kindling glances, 
 Queen-like and clear. 
 Which the bright moon lances 
 From her tranquil sphere 
 At the sleepless waters 
 Of a lonely mere, 
 On the wild whirling waves, mournfully, mourn- 
 fully, 
 Shiver and die.
 
 228 THE VOICE 
 
 As the tears of sorrow 
 
 Mothers have shed — ■ lo 
 
 Prayers that to-morrow 
 Shall In vain be sped 
 When the flower they flow for 
 Lies frozen and dead — 
 Fall on the throbbing brow, fall on the burning 
 breast, 
 Bringing no rest. 
 
 Like bright waves that fall 
 
 With a lifelike motion 
 On the lifeless margin of the sparkling Ocean. 
 A wild rose climbing up a mould'ring wall — 20 
 A gush of sunbeams through a ruin'd hall — 
 Strains of glad music at a funeral : — 
 
 So sad, and with so wild a start 
 
 To this long sober'd heart, 
 
 So anxiously and painfully. 
 
 So dreamily and doubtfully, 
 And, oh, with such intolerable change 
 
 Of thought, such contrast strange, 
 O unforgotten Voice, thy whispers come, 
 Like wanderers from the world's extremity, 30 
 
 Unto their ancient home. 
 
 In vain, all, all in vain, 
 
 They beat upon mine ear again, 
 
 Those melancholy tones so sweet and still. 
 
 Those lute-like tones which in long distant years 
 
 Did steal into mine ears : 
 Blew such a thrilling summons to my will ; 
 
 Yet could not shake it. 
 Drain'd all the life my full heart had to spill ; 
 
 Yet could not break it. 40
 
 STAGIRIUS 229 
 
 Save, oh, 
 save ! 
 
 STAGIRIUS 
 
 Thou, who dost dwell alone — 
 Thou, who dost know thine own- 
 Thou, to whom all are known 
 From the cradle to the grave — 
 
 Save, oh, save. 
 From the world's temptations, 
 
 From tribulations ; 
 From that fierce anguish 
 Wherein we languish ; 
 From that torpor deep 
 Wherein we lie asleep. 
 Heavy as death, cold as the grave ; 
 Save, oh, save. 
 
 When the Soul, growing clearer, 
 
 Sees God no nearer : 
 When the Soul, mounting higher, 
 
 To God comes no nigher : 
 But the arch-fiend Pride 
 Mounts at her side. 
 Foiling her high emprize, 
 Sealing her eagle eyes, 
 And, when she fain would soar, 
 Makes idols to adore ; 
 Changing the pure emotion 
 Of her high devotion, 
 To a skin-deep sense 
 Of her own eloquence : 
 Strong to deceive, strong to enslave— 
 Save, oh, save.
 
 «30 STAGIRIUS 
 
 Oh, set us From the ingrain'd fashion 30 
 
 "" Of this earthly nature 
 
 That mars thy creature. 
 From grief, that is but passion ; 
 From mirth, that is but feigning ; 
 From tears, that bring no healing ; 
 From wild and weak complaining ; 
 
 Thine old strength revealing, 
 Save, oh, save. 
 From doubt, where all is double : 
 Where wise men are not strong : 40 
 
 Where comfort turns to trouble : 
 Where just men suffer wrong. 
 Where sorrow treads on joy : 
 Where sweet things soonest cloy : 
 Where faiths are built on dust : 
 Where Love is half mistrust, 
 Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea ; 
 Oh, set us free. 
 O let the false dream fly 
 Where our sick souls do lie 50 
 
 Tossing continually. 
 O where thy voice doth come 
 
 Let all doubts be dumb : 
 
 Let all words be mild : 
 
 All strifes be reconciled : 
 
 All pains beguiled. 
 Light bring no blindness; 
 Love no unkindness ; 
 Knowledge no ruin ! 
 
 Fear no undoing. 60 
 
 From the cradle to the grave, 
 Save, oh ! save.
 
 the Law ? 
 
 HUMAN LIFE 831 
 
 HUMAN LIFE Who has 
 
 kept 
 
 What mortal, when he saw, 
 
 Life's voyage done, his Heavenly Friend, 
 
 Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly, 
 
 " I have kept uninfringed my nature's law. 
 
 The inly-written chart thou gavest me 
 
 To guide me, I have steer'd by to the end ? " 
 
 Ah ! let us make no claim 
 
 On life's incognisable sea 
 
 To too exact a steering of our way. 
 
 Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim 10 
 
 If some fair coast has lured us to make stay, 
 
 Or some friend hail'd us to keep company. 
 
 Ay, we would each fain drive 
 
 At random, and not steer by rule. 
 
 Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain! 
 
 Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive : 
 
 We rush by coasts where we had lief remain. 
 
 Man cannot, though he would, live Chance's fool. 
 
 No ! as the foaming swathe 
 
 Of torn-up water, on the main, ao 
 
 Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar 
 
 On either side the black deep-furrow'd path 
 
 Cut by an onward-labouring vessel's prore, 
 
 And never touches the ship-side again ; 
 
 Even so we leave behind. 
 
 As, charter'd by some unknown Powers, 
 
 We stem across the sea of life by night, 
 
 The joys which were not for our use design'd. 
 
 The friends to whom we had no natural right : 
 
 The homes that were not destined to be ours. 30
 
 232 TO A GIPSY CHILD 
 
 An infant's 
 gloom 
 
 TO A GIPSY CHILD BY 
 THE SEA-SHORE 
 
 DOUGLAS, ISLE OF MAN 
 
 Who taught this pleading to unpractised eyes ? 
 ^Vho hid such import in an infant's gloom ? 
 Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise ? 
 Who mass'd, round that slight brow, these clouds 
 of doom ? 
 
 Lo ! sails that gleam a moment and are gone ; 
 The swinging waters, and the cluster'd pier. 
 Not idly Earth and Ocean labour on, 
 Nor idly do these sea-birds hover near. 
 
 But thou, whom superfluity of joy 
 Wafts not from thine own thoughts, nor longings 
 vain, 10 
 
 Nor weariness, the full-fed soul's annoy ; 
 Remaining in thy hunger and thy pain : 
 
 Thou, drugging pain by patience ; half averse 
 From thine own mother's breast that knows not 
 
 thee ; 
 With eyes that sought thine eyes thou didst 
 
 converse. 
 And that soul-searching vision fell on me. 
 
 Glooms that go deep as thine I have not known : 
 Moods of fantastic sadness, nothing worth. 
 Thy sorrow and thy calmness are thine own : 
 Glooms that enhance and glorify this earth. 20
 
 BY THE SEA SHORE 233 
 
 What mood wears like complexion to thy woe ? Antici- 
 His, who in mountain glens, at noon of day, ^^prin"^ 
 
 Sits rapt, and hears the battle break below ? 
 Ah ! thine was not the shelter, but the fray. 
 
 What exile's, changing bitter thoughts with glad ' 
 What seraph's, in some alien planet born? 
 
 No exile's dream was ever half so sad, 
 Nor any angel's sorrow so forlorn. 
 
 Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh 
 
 Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore: 30 
 
 But in disdainful silence turn away. 
 
 Stand mute, self-centred, stern, and dream no more ? 
 
 Or do I wait, to hear some grey-haired king 
 Unravel all his many-colour'd lore : 
 Whose mind hath known all artti of governing. 
 Mused much, loved life a little, loathed it more ? 
 
 Down the pale cheek long lines of shadow slope, 
 Which years, and curious thought, and suffering 
 
 give 
 
 Thou hast foreknown the vanity of hope, 
 Foreseen thy harvest — yet proceed'st to live. 40 
 
 meek anticipant of that sure pain 
 
 Whose sureness grey-hair'd scholars hardly learn ! 
 What wonder shall time breed, to swell thy strain ? 
 What heavens, what earth, what suns shalt thou 
 discern .■* 
 
 Ere the long night, whose btillness brooks no star, 
 Match that funereal aspect with her pall, 
 
 1 think, thou wilt have fathom'd life too far, 
 Have known too much or else forgotten all.
 
 234 TO A GIPSY CHILD 
 
 Majesty The Guide of our dark steps a triple veil 
 of grie ggt^ixt our senses and our sorrow keeps : 50 
 
 Hath sown, with cloudless passages, the tale 
 Of grief, and eased us with a thousand sleeps. 
 
 Ah ! not the nectarous poppy lovers use, 
 Not daily labour's dull, Lethaean spring. 
 Oblivion in lost angels can infuse 
 Of the soil'd glory, and the trailing wing. 
 
 And though thou glean, what strenuous gleaners 
 
 may. 
 In the throng'd fields where winning comes by 
 
 strife ; 
 And though the just sun gild, as all men pray, 
 Some reaches of thy storm-vex'd stream of life : 60 
 
 Though that blank sunshine blind thee : though 
 
 the cloud 
 That sever'd the world's march and thine, is gone : 
 Though ease dulls grace, and Wisdom be too proud 
 To halve a lodging that was all her own : 
 
 Once, ere the day decline, thou shalt discern. 
 Oh once, ere night, in thy success, thy chain. 
 Ere the long evening close, thou shalt return. 
 And wear this majesty of grief again. 
 
 THE HAYSWATER BOAT 
 
 A REGION desolate and wild. 
 Black, chafing water : and afloat, 
 And lonely as a truant child 
 In a waste wood, a single boat ;
 
 THE HAYS WATER BOAT 235 
 
 No mast, no sails are set thereon ; A lonely 
 
 It moves, but never moveth on : °* 
 
 And welters like a human thing 
 Amid the wild waves weltering. 
 
 Behind, a buried vale doth sleep, 
 
 Far down the torrent cleaves its way : 10 
 
 In front the dumb rock rises steep, 
 
 A fretted wall of blue and grey ; 
 
 Of shooting cliff and crumbled stone 
 
 With many a wild weed overgrown: 
 
 All else, black water : and afloat, 
 
 One rood from shore, that single boat. 
 
 Last night the wind was up and strong ; 
 The grey-streak'd waters labour still : 
 The strong blast brought a pigmy throng 
 From that mild hollow in the hill ; 20 
 
 From those twin brooks, that beached strand 
 So featly strewn with drifted sand ; 
 From those weird domes of mounded green 
 That spot the solitary scene. 
 
 This boat they found against the shore : 
 
 The glossy rushes nodded by. 
 
 One rood from land they push'd, no more ; 
 
 Then rested, listening silently. 
 
 The loud rains lash'd the mountain's crown, 
 
 The grating shingle straggled down : 30 
 
 All night they sate ; then stole away, 
 
 And left it rocking in the bay. 
 
 Last night ? — I looked, the sky was clear. 
 The boat was old, a batter'd boat. 
 In sooth, it seems a hundred year 
 Since that strange crew did ride afloat.
 
 236 THE HAYSWATER BOAT 
 
 How came The boat hath drifted in the hay — 
 
 It there? ij-j^g ^^j-g j^^^,g moulder'd as they lay — 
 
 The rudder swings — yet none doth steer. 
 What living hand hath brought it here ? 40 
 
 A QUESTION: TO FAUSTA 
 
 Joy comes and goes : hope ebbs and Hows, 
 
 Like the wave. 
 Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men. 
 Love lends life a little grace, 
 A few sad smiles : and then, 
 Both are laid in one cold place, 
 In the grave. 
 
 Dreams dawn and fly : friends smile and die, 
 
 Like spring flowers. 
 Our vaunted life is one long funeral. ] 
 
 Men dig graves, with bitter tears. 
 For their dead hopes ; and all. 
 Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears, 
 Count the hours. 
 
 We count the hours: these dreams of ours, 
 
 False and hollow. 
 Shall we go hence and find they are not dead ? 
 Joys we dimly apprehend 
 Faces that smiled and fled, 
 Hopes bom here, and born to end, a 
 
 Shall we follow ?
 
 IN UTRUMQUE PARATUS 237 
 
 IN UTRUMQUE PARATUS ^''Xorid"'* 
 
 If, in the silent mind of One all-pure 
 
 At first imagin'd lay 
 The sacred world ; and by procession sure 
 From those still deeps, in form and colour drest, 
 Seasons alternating, and night and day, 
 The long-mused thought to north, south, east and 
 west 
 
 Took then its all-seen way : 
 
 O waking on a world which thus-wise springs ! 
 
 Whether it needs thee count 
 Betwixt thy waking and the birth of things 10 
 
 Ages or hours : O waking on Life's stream ! 
 By lonely pureness to the all-pure Fount 
 (Only by this thou canst) the colour'd dream 
 
 Of Life remount. 
 
 Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow ; 
 
 And faint the city gleams ; 
 Rare the lone pastoral huts : marvel not thou ! 
 The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, 
 But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams : 
 Alone the sun arises, and alone 20 
 
 Spring the great streams. 
 
 But, if the wild unfather'd mass no birth 
 
 In divine seats hath known : 
 In the blank, echoing solitude, if Earth, 
 Rocking her obscure body to and fro, 
 Ceases not from all time to heave and groaOj 
 Unfruitful oft, and, at her happiest throe. 
 
 Forms, what she forms, alone :
 
 238 IN UTRUMQUE PARATUS 
 
 "I too O seeming sole to awake, thy sun-bathed head 
 but seem" Piercing the solemn cloud 30 
 
 Round thy still dreaming brother-world outspread ! 
 O man, whom Earth, thy long-vex'd mother, bare 
 Not without joy ; so radiant, so endow' d — 
 (Such happy issue crown'd her painful care) 
 Be not too proud ! 
 
 ' O when most self-exalted most alone. 
 Chief dreamer, own thy dream ! 
 
 Thy brother-world stirs at thy feet unknown ; 
 
 Who hath a monarch's hath no brother's part ; 
 
 Yet doth thine inmost soul with yearning teem. 40 
 
 O what a spasm shakes the dreamer's heart 
 
 ** I too but seem ! " 
 
 THE WORLD AND THE QUIETIST 
 
 TO CRITIAS 
 
 "Why, when the world's great mind 
 Hath finally inclined. 
 Why," you say, Critias, *' be debating still ? 
 Why, with these mournful rhymes 
 Learn'd in more languid climes, 
 Blame our activity. 
 Who, with such passionate will. 
 Are, what we mean to be ? " 
 
 Critias, long since, I know, 
 
 (For Fate decreed it so,) lo 
 
 Long since the World hath set its heart to live.
 
 THE WORLD AND THE QUIETIST 239 
 
 Long since, with credulous zeal The 
 
 It turns Life's mighty wheel. world's 
 
 Still doth for labourers send. 
 Who still their labour give. 
 
 And still expects an end. 
 
 Yet, as the wheel flies round. 
 With no ungrateful sound 
 Do adverse voices fall on the World's ear. 
 Deafen'd by his own stir 20 
 
 The rugged Labourer 
 Caught not till then a sense 
 So glowing and so near 
 Of his omnipotence. 
 
 So, when the feast grew loud 
 In Susa's palace proud, 
 A white-rob'd slave stole to the Monarch's side. 
 He spoke : the Monarch heard : 
 Felt the slow-rolling word 
 Swell his attentive soul ; 30 
 
 Breathed deeply as it died. 
 And drained his mighty bowl. 
 
 THE SECOND BEST 
 
 Moderate tasks and moderate leisure ; 
 Quiet living, strict-kept measure 
 Both in suffering and in pleasure, 
 'Tis for this thy nature yearns.
 
 240 THE SECOND BEST 
 
 Hope, But SO many books thou readest, 
 
 Per^^st- ^"^ ^° many schemes thou breedest, 
 
 ance But SO many wishes feedest, 
 
 That thy poor head almost turns. 
 
 And, (the world 's so madly jangled, 
 Human things so fast entangled) k 
 
 Nature's v ish must now be strangled 
 For that best which she discerns. 
 
 So it must be : yet, while leading 
 A strain'd life, while overfeeding. 
 Like the rest, his wit with reading, 
 No small profit that man earns. 
 
 Who through all he meets can steer him. 
 Can reject what cannot clear him. 
 Cling to what can truly cheer him : 
 
 Who each day more surely learns 2( 
 
 That an impulse, from the distance 
 Of his deepest, best existence. 
 To the words "Hope, Light, Persistance," 
 Strongly stirs and truly burns. 
 
 CONSOLATION 
 
 Mist clogs the sunshine. 
 Smoky dwarf houses 
 Hem me round everywhere. 
 A vague dejection 
 Weighs down my soul.
 
 CONSOLATION 241 
 
 Yet, while I languish, Countless 
 
 Everywhere, countless prospects 
 
 Prospects unroll themselves 
 
 And countless beings 
 
 Pass countless moods. lo 
 
 Far hence, in Asia, 
 
 On the smooth convent-roofs. 
 
 On the gold terraces 
 
 Of holy Lassa, 
 
 Bright shines the sun. 
 
 Grey time-worn marbles 
 
 Hold the pure Muses. 
 
 In their cool gallery, 
 
 By yellow Tiber, 
 
 They still look fair. 20 
 
 Strange unloved uproar ^ 
 Shrills round their portal. 
 Yet not on Helicon 
 Kept they more cloudless 
 Their noble calm. 
 
 Through sun-proof alleys. 
 
 In a lone, sand-hemm'd 
 
 City of Africa, 
 
 A blind, led beggar, 
 
 Age-bow'd, asks alms. 30 
 
 No bolder Robber 
 Erst abode ambush'd 
 Deep in the sandy waste : 
 No clearer eyesight 
 Spied prey afar. 
 * Written during the siege of Rome by the French, 
 Q
 
 242 CONSOLATION 
 
 Compen- Saharan sand-winds 
 
 sations Sear'd his keen eyeballs. 
 
 Spent is the spoil he won, 
 
 For him the present 
 
 Holds only pain. 40 
 
 Two young, fair lovers, 
 Where the warm June wind, 
 Fresh from the summer fields. 
 Plays fondly round them. 
 Stand, tranced in joy. 
 
 With sweet, join'd voices, 
 
 And with eyes brimming — 
 
 " Ah," they cry, " Destiny ! 
 
 Prolong the present ! 
 
 Time ! stand still here ! " 50 
 
 The prompt stern Goddess 
 Shakes her head, frowning. 
 Time gives his hour-glass 
 Its due reversal. 
 Their hour is gone. 
 
 With weak indulgence 
 
 Did the just Goddess 
 
 Lengthen their happiness. 
 
 She lengthened also 
 
 Distress elsewhere. 60 
 
 The hour, whose happy 
 Unalloy'd moments 
 I would eternalise. 
 Ten thousand mourners 
 Well pleased see end.
 
 CONSOLATION 243 
 
 The bleak stern hour. To die 
 
 -iTTi , or attain ! 
 
 Whose severe moments 
 
 I would annihilate, 
 
 Is pass'd by others 
 
 In warmth, light, joy. 70 
 
 Time, so complain'd of, 
 Who to no one man 
 Shows partiality. 
 Brings round to all men 
 Some undimm'd hours. 
 
 RESIGNATION 
 
 TO FAUSTA 
 
 " To die be given us, or attain ! 
 
 Fierce work it were, to do again." 
 
 So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, pray'd 
 
 At burning noon : so warriors said, 
 
 ScarPd with the cross, who watch'd the miles 
 
 Of dust that wreathed their struggling files 
 
 Down Lydian mountains ; so, when snows 
 
 Round Alpine summits eddying rose, 
 
 The Goth, bound Rome-wards : so the Hun, 
 
 Crouch'd on his saddle, when the sun k 
 
 Went lurid down o'er flooded plains 
 
 Through which the groaning Danube strains 
 
 To the drear Euxine : so pray all. 
 
 Whom labours, self-ordain'd, enthrall ; 
 
 Because they to themselves propose 
 
 On this side the all-common close 
 
 A goal which, gain'd, may give repose.
 
 since 
 
 244 RESIGNATION 
 
 Ten years 80 pray they : and to stand again 
 
 Where they stood once, to them were pain ; 
 Pain to thread back and to renew 20 
 
 Past straits, and currents long steer'd through. 
 
 But milder natures, and more free ; 
 Whom an unblamed serenity 
 Hath freed from passions, and the state 
 Of struggle these necessitate ; 
 Whose schooling of the stubborn mind 
 Hath made, or birth hath found, resign'd ; 
 These mourn not, that their goings pay 
 Obedience to the passing day. 
 These claim not every laughing Hour 30 
 
 For handmaid to their striding power ; 
 Each in her turn, with torch uprear'd. 
 To await their march ; and when appear'd. 
 Through the cold gloom, with measured race, 
 To usher for a destined space, 
 (Her own sweet errands all foregone) 
 The too imperious Traveller on. 
 These, Fausta, ask not this: nor thou, 
 Time's chafing prisoner, ask it now. 
 
 We left, just ten years since, you say, 40 
 
 That wayside inn we left to-day : 
 Our jovial host, as forth we fare. 
 Shouts greeting from his easy chair ; 
 High on a bank our leader stands, 
 Reviews and ranks his motley ba ids ; 
 Makes clear our goal to every eye, 
 The valley's western boundary. 
 A gate swings to : our tide hath flow'd 
 Already from the silent road. 49
 
 RESIGNATION 245 
 
 The valley pastures, one by one, Over the 
 
 Are threaded, quiet in the sun : ^ '^ 
 
 And now beyond the rude stone bridge 
 
 Slopes gracious up the western ridge. 
 
 Its woody border, and the last 
 
 Of its dark upland farms is past : 
 
 Lone farms, with open-lying stores, 
 
 Under their burnish'd sycamores. 
 
 All past : and through the trees we glide 
 
 Emerging on the green hill-side. 
 
 There climbing hangs, a far-seen sign, 60 
 
 Our wavering, many-colour'd line ; 
 
 There winds, upstreaming slowly still 
 
 Over the summit of the hill. 
 
 And now, in front, behold outspread 
 
 Those upper regions we must tread ; 
 
 Mild hollows, and clear heathy swells, 
 
 The cheerful silence of the fells. 
 
 Some two hours' march, with serious air, 
 
 Through the deep noontide heats we fare : 
 
 The red-grouse, springing at our sound, 70 
 
 Skims, now and then, the shining ground ; 
 
 No life, save his and ours, intrudes 
 
 Upon these breathless solitudes. 
 
 O joy ! again the farms appear ; 
 
 Cool shade is there, and rustic cheer : 
 
 There springs the brook will guide us down. 
 
 Bright comrade, to the noisy town. 
 
 Lingering, we follow down: we gain 
 
 The town, the highway, and the plain. 
 
 And many a mile of dusty way, 80 
 
 Parch'd and road-worn, we made that day ; 
 
 But, Fausta, 1 remember well 
 
 That, as the balmy darkness fell.
 
 246 RESIGNATION 
 
 The Fells We bathed our hands, v/ith speechless glee, 
 
 thl'^Gip^s^e^s That night, in the wide-glimmering Sea. 
 
 Once more we tread this self-same road, 
 Fausta, which ten years since we trod : 
 Alone we tread it, you and I ; 
 Ghosts of that boisterous company. 8g 
 
 Here, where the brook, shines, near its head, 
 In its clear, shallow, turf-fringed bed ; 
 Here, whence the eye first sees, far down, 
 Capp'd with faint smoke, the noisy town ; 
 Here sit we, and again unroll, 
 Though slowly, the familiar whole. 
 The solemn wastes of heathy hill 
 Sleep in the July sunshine still : 
 The self-same shadows now, as then, 
 Play through this grassy upland glen : 
 The loose dark stones on the green way loo 
 Lie strewn, it seems, where then they lay : 
 On this mild bank above the stream, 
 (You crush them) the blue gentians gleam. 
 Still this wild brook, the rushes cool. 
 The sailing foam, the shining pool. — 
 These are not changed: and we, you say. 
 Are scarce more changed, in truth, than they. 
 
 The Gipsies, whom we met below, 
 They too have long roam'd to and fro. 
 They ramble, leaving, where they pass, no 
 Their fragments on the cumber'd grass. 
 And often to some kindly place, 
 Chance guides the migratory race 
 Where, though long wanderings intervene. 
 They recognise a former scene.
 
 RESIGNATION 247 
 
 The dingy fents are pitch'd : the fires Time 
 
 Give to the wind their wavering spires ; "nttle' 
 
 In dark knots crouch round the wild flame 
 
 Their children, as when first they came ; 
 
 They see their shackled beasts again lao 
 
 Move, browsing, up the gray-wall'd iane. 
 
 Signs are not wanting, which might raise 
 
 The ghosts in them of former days : 
 
 Signs are not wanting, if they would; 
 
 Suggestions to disquietude. 
 
 For them, for all. Time's busy touch, 
 
 While it mends little, troubles much : 
 
 Their joints grow stifFer ; but the year 
 
 Runs his old round of dubious cheer : 
 
 Chilly they grow ; yet winds in March 130 
 
 Still, sharp as ever, freeze and parch : 
 
 They must live still ; and yet, God knows, 
 
 Crowded and keen the country grows. 
 
 It seems as if, in their decay. 
 
 The Law grew stronger every day. 
 
 So might they reason ; so compare, 
 
 Fausta, times past with times that are. 
 
 But no : — they rubb'd through yesterday 
 
 In their hereditary way ; 
 
 And they will rub through, if they can, 140 
 
 To-morrow on the self-same plan ; 
 
 Till death arrives to supersede, 
 
 For them, vicissitude and need. 
 
 The Poet, to whose mighty heart 
 Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart, 
 Subdues that energy to scan 
 Not his own course, but that of Man.
 
 248 RESIGNATION 
 
 The Poet Though he moves mountains ; though his day 
 Be pass'd on the proud heights of sway ; 
 Though he had loosed a thousand chains ; 15 
 Though he had borne immortal pains ; 
 Action and suffering though he Icnow ; 
 — He hath not lived, if he lives so. 
 He sees, in some great-historied land, 
 A ruler of the people stand ; 
 Sees his strong thought in fiery flood 
 Roll through the heaving multitude ; 
 Exults : yet for no moment's space 
 Envies the all-regarded place. 
 Beautiful eyes meet his ; and he it 
 
 Bears to admire uncravingly : 
 They pass ; he, mingled with the crowd. 
 Is in their far-off triumphs proud. 
 From some high station he looks down, 
 At sunset, on a populous town ; 
 Surveys each happy group that fleets. 
 Toil ended, through the shining streets ; 
 Each with some errand of its own ; — 
 And does not say, "I am alone." 
 He sees the gentle stir of birth 17 
 
 When Morning purifies the earth ; 
 He leans upon a gate, and sees 
 The pastures, and the quiet trees. 
 Low woody hill, with gracious bound. 
 Folds the still valley almost round ; 
 The cuckoo, loud on some high lawn, 
 Is answer'd from the depth of dawn ; 
 In the hedge straggling to the stream, 
 Pale, dew-drench'd, half-shut roses gleam : 
 But where the further side slopes down r£ 
 
 He sees the drowsy new-waked clown
 
 RESIGNATION 249 
 
 In his white quaint-embroidered frock His sad 
 
 Make, whistling, towards his mist-wreathed flock ; of souf 
 
 Slowly, behind the heavy tread, 
 
 The wet flower'd grass heaves up its head. — 
 
 Lean'd on his gate, he gazes : tears 
 
 Are in his eyes, and in his ears 
 
 The murmur of a thousand years : 
 
 Before him he sees Life unroll, 
 
 A placid and continuous whole ; 190 
 
 That general Life, which does not ceape, 
 
 Whose secret is not joy, but peace; 
 
 That Life, whose dumb wish is not miss'd 
 
 If birth proceeds, if things subsist ; 
 
 The Life of plants, and stones, and rain : 
 
 The Life he craves ; if not in vain 
 
 Fate gave, what Chance shall not controul. 
 
 His sad lucidity of soul. 
 
 You listen : — but that wandering smile, 
 Fausta, betrays you cold the while, 200 
 
 Your eyes pursue the bells of foam 
 Wash'd, eddying, from this bank, their home. 
 " Those Gipsies," so your thoughts I scan, 
 "Are less, the Poet more, than man. 
 They feel not, though they move and see : 
 Deeply the Poet feels ; but he 
 Breathes, when he will, immortal air, 
 Where Orpheus and where Homer are. 
 In the day's life, whose iron round 
 Hems us all in, he is not bound. 210 
 
 He escapes thence, but we abide. 
 Not dee]) the Poet sees, but wide." 
 
 The World in which we live and move 
 Outlasts aversion, outlasts love.
 
 250 RESIGNATION 
 
 The Poets Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, 
 '^°'^ Remorse, grief, joy : — and were the scope 
 
 Of these affections wider made, 
 Man still would see, and see dismay'd, 
 Beyond his passion's widest range 
 Far regions of eternal change. : 
 
 Nay, and since death, which wipes out man. 
 Finds him with many an unsolved plan, 
 With much unknown, and much untried, 
 Wonder not dead, and thirst not dried, 
 Still gazing on the ever full 
 Eternal mundane spectacle ; 
 This world in which we draw our breath. 
 In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death. 
 
 Blame thou not therefore him, who dares 
 Judge vain beforehand human cares. 230 
 
 Whose natural insight can discern 
 What through experience others learn. 
 Who needs not love and power, to know 
 Love transient, power an unreal show. 
 Who treads at ease life's uncheer'd ways : — 
 Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise 
 Rather thyself for some aim pray 
 Nobler than this — to fill the day. 
 Rather, that heart, which burns in thee, 
 Ask, not to amuse, but to set free. 240 
 
 Be passionate hopes not ill resign'd 
 For quiet, and a fearless mind. 
 And though Fate grudge to thee and me 
 The Poet's rapt security, 
 Yet they, believe me, who await 
 No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
 
 RESIGNATION 251 
 
 They, winning room to see and hear, Enough! 
 
 And to men's business not too near, ^' '^* 
 
 Through clouds of individual strife 
 Draw homewards to the general Life. 250 
 
 Like leaves by suns not yet uncurl'd : 
 To the wise, foolish ; to the world, 
 Weak. : yet not weak, I might reply. 
 Not foolish, Fausta, in His eye. 
 Each moment as it flies, to whom, 
 Crowd as we will its neutral room, 
 Is but a quiet watershed 
 Whence, equally, the Seas of Life and Death are 
 fed. 
 
 Enough, we live : — and if a life. 
 With large results so little rife, 260 
 
 Though bearable, seem hardly worth 
 This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth ; 
 Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread. 
 The solemn hills around us spread. 
 This stream that falls incessantly. 
 The strange-scrawl'd rocks, the lonely sky, 
 If I might lend tl.eir life a voice. 
 Seem to bear rather than rejoice. 
 And even could the intemperate prayer 
 Man iterates, while these forbear, 270 
 
 For movement, for an ampler sphere, 
 Pierce Fate's impenetrable ear ; 
 Not milder is the general lot 
 Because our spirits have forgot. 
 In action's dizzying eddy whirl'd, 
 The something that infects the world.
 
 TAis collection of the dramatic and earlier poems 
 of Matthew Arnold has been edited and 
 arranged by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, ivho 
 has ivritten the bibliographical epilogue and 
 added the marginalia^ notes, and index of fii it 
 lines. The portrait is from a photograph by 
 Messrs. Elliott and Fry, and represents the 
 poet at the age of fifty-five. 
 
 262
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 
 
 The Dramatic and Earlier Poems of Matthew Arnold 
 consist mainly of two groups from his own classified 
 editions, in which he starts with a number of miscellaneous 
 pieces chiefly taken from The Strayed Reveller and other 
 Poems (1849) ^"^'^ Empedocles on Etna and other Poems (1852). 
 To these, which he himself classified as Early Poems, are 
 here added four which he never reprinted among his works, 
 but which, had he done so, he must needs have classed as 
 early poems. These are Alaric at Rome, Cromtvell, The 
 Haysivater Boat, and the Sonnet to the Hungarian Nation. 
 His dramatic group consisted, as in the present volume, 
 solely of Merope and Empedocles, though some other pieces 
 might have been classed as dramatic. His separate publica- 
 tions drawn on for the contents of this volume are six in 
 number ; and of these the bibliographical particulars follow 
 in chronological order. 
 
 The Rui,'by prize poem Alaric at Rome is currently known 
 in its original pamphlet form by an extremely small number 
 of copies. Besides my own, which formerly belonged to 
 Sir Theodore Walrond of the Civil Service Commission, 
 I know of no more than half a dozen ; and these are all in 
 private collections. Walrond's copy was preserved with 
 many other prize poems and essays, and was duly attributed 
 by him (in writing) to " M. Arnold." " Literary circles," 
 and booksellers and collectors of even the more enter- 
 prising type, remained unconscious of the existence of Alaric 
 at Rome until near about the time of Arnold's death, when 
 a London bookseller offered a copy for a trifle through his 
 catalogue, and Mr. Edmund Gosse secured it. The print 
 is anonymous, like that of any other Rugby prize poem of 
 the period ; but the authorship of these poems from about 
 18 1 3 has been duly published year after year in the chrono- 
 logical lists of prizes for poems, essays, etc., appended to the 
 
 26a
 
 254 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 
 
 current lists of Rugby scholars. Alaric at Rome is a sightly 
 pamphlet of six demy octavo leaves, which were originally 
 enclosed in a pink paper wrapper and trimmed. When, 
 therefore, a bound copy is described as " uncut," the expres- 
 sion merely implies that the binder has taken nothing off 
 the edges that he found there, or that he has refolded it 
 to give its edges a look of irregularity usually associated 
 with the uncut state. The legend of the title-page is as 
 follows : — 
 
 ALARIC AT ROME. 
 
 A PRIZE POEM, 
 
 RECITED IN RUGBY SCHOOL, 
 
 junk xii, mdcccxl. 
 
 [wood-citt] 
 
 RUGBY : COMBE AND CROSSLEY. 
 
 The wood-cut represents the Rugby arms executed in 
 relief in masonry — the same agreeable design that appears 
 on the title-pages of The Rugby Magazine, edited by Clough. 
 The title, wood-cut, and imprint are surrounded by a border 
 of two thin lines and one thick line. The poem extends 
 from page 3, which has a "dropped head" of tall heavy 
 type, to page 11. Page 12 is blank. There are five 
 stanzas to the normal page ; and they are numbered, quite 
 against the poet's mature practice, in Roman capital 
 numerals. The head-lines read "Alaric at Rome" through- 
 out, in small Roman capitals ; and the pages are numbered 
 in the usual way in the outer corners with Arabic figures. 
 The publishers. Combe and Crossley, figure also as printers 
 at the foot of page 11. The title is repeated on the first 
 page of the wrapper, the rest of which is blank ; and the 
 price is given as sixpence. Needless to say, as most of the 
 known copies are from bound collections, the majority of 
 the wrappers have not come down to posterity with the 
 pamphlets. Mr. T. B. Smart, compiler of yf Bibliography of 
 Matthew Arnold (1892), knows of three c<^pies of Alaric 
 with the wrapper.
 
 BIBLIOGRAF^ilCAL EPILOGUE 255 
 
 The Newdigate Prize Poem for 1843 written by Matthew 
 Arnold, but not recited in the Sheldonian Theatre because 
 of the noise which reigned supreme there on the 28th of 
 June 1843, has the following legend on its title-page: — 
 
 CROMWELL: 
 
 A PRIZE POEM, 
 
 RECITED IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD; 
 
 JUNE 28, 1843. 
 BY 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD, 
 
 balliol college. 
 
 [wood-cut] 
 
 OXFORD : 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. VINCENT. 
 
 MDCCCXLIII. 
 
 The wood-cut is the usual one of the Oxford arms. The 
 pamphlet consists of a single post octavo sheet stitched into a 
 drab wrapper, on the first page of which the title-page is 
 repeated with the addition of a rectangular single-line border 
 with two minute circles, one within the other, at each 
 corner. There is no half-title. The synopsis of the poem 
 is printed on the recto of the second leaf. The poem begins 
 at page 5 with a dropped head reading "Cromwell" in 
 Roman capitals and the motto from Schiller ; and it ends 
 on page 15. The versos of the title-page, synopsis, and 
 page 15, as well as pages 2, 3, and 4 of the wrapper, are 
 blank. The head-lines read " Cromwell" in Roman capitals 
 throughout ; and the numbering of the pages is in Arabic 
 figures in the outer corners as usual. The pamphlet is an 
 agreeable one, of which a clean copy in the original wrapper 
 is a difficult thing to obtain at short notice, although it has 
 by no means the attraction of extreme rarity that Alaric 
 possesses for the collector. For the matter of that, too, the 
 poem is less attractive though more mature ; and the poet
 
 256 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 
 
 himself preferred his Rugby effort to his Oxford effort. 
 A second edition of Cromiuell was published by Messrs. 
 T. & G. Shrimpton of Oxford in 1863 in a green ^Tapper, 
 and a third in 1891 by their successors, in a blue wrapper. 
 
 Arnold's first book properly so called came out early in 
 1849 with the following title-page : — 
 
 THE 
 
 STRAYED REVELLER, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 Bv A. 
 
 LONDON s 
 B. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STREET. 
 
 This volume contained, beside The Strayed Re^'eUer itself, 
 The Sick King in Bokhara, the Fragment of an Antigone, eleven 
 sonnets, and thirteen miscellaneous poems, including the short 
 piece called The Hayiivater Boat which the poet never reprinted. 
 The book is a foolscap octavo of 136 pages. The title is pre- 
 ceded by a half-title reading " The Strayed Reveller, | and | 
 Other Poems," on the verso of which is the imprint of Clay 
 (Bread Street Hill). Next to the title is a leaf with four 
 lines of Greek on the recto, and this is followed by the table 
 of contents, pages vii and viii. Then, without preface, 
 follow the 128 pages of text. The dropped head on page i, 
 and the head-lines, are in Roman capitals ; and, save where a 
 new poem starts with a dropped head, the pages are numbered 
 in the usual way with Arabic figures in the outer corners. 
 The cloth cover is of a dark green, straight-grained, blocked 
 blind with conventional corners within three thick rectangular 
 rules : the flowers in the corners are forget-me-nots. The 
 back is gilt-lettered "The | Strayed | Reveller," across; and 
 the end-papers are of primrose-coloured glazed paper. There 
 are no advertizements of any kind. 
 
 The Greek verses, which were prefixed to this volume, 
 and reappeared in the Poems {First Series) at the back of the 
 third page of the table of contents, are part of a fragment
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 257 
 
 of that Chcerilus Samius whom Horace abused. They are 
 as follows : — 
 
 ''A fJidKap, Scrriy ^ijv Kelvov xP^*'ov idpis doidris 
 Movcrduv Oepdiruiy, or'' dKeiparos fjv ^i \eiiJ.(I)V 
 vvv d', Sre wdvra d^daffrai, ^xoucri 5^ welpara rix^o-h 
 ScrraTOi ibare Sp6/J.ov KaTa\enr6iJ.ed' — 
 
 It has been stated over and over again, especially by the 
 booksellers, that TAe Strayed Re-veller " is extremely rare," 
 having been withdrawn before many copies were sold : but 
 it must not be assumed from this that its author did not give 
 it a fair chance to get sold or withdrew it immediately. Nor, 
 as no fewer than 500 copies were printed, is the collector safe 
 in assuming its scarcity in the absence of an authentic account 
 of the holocaust of undistributed copies. The statement that 
 it was withdrawn before many were sold is not incompatible 
 with its continued sale in driblets and continued gratuitous 
 distribution for some years ; and that is probably what hap- 
 pened to it. 
 
 Whatever may have happened to The Strayed Reveller 
 volume in its early years, it was not till about the end of 
 1852 that Empedocles on Etna and other Poena followed it; 
 and of this second volume Arnold has recorded that it was 
 withdrawn before fifty copies had been sold. It is uniform 
 in all respects with its predecessor as described above ; but it 
 is considerably thicker. The half-title reads " Empedocles 
 on Etna, | and | Other Poems," and has Clay's imprint on 
 the verso ; and the title is as follows — 
 
 EMPEDOCLES ON ETNA, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS, 
 
 By a, 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 B. FELLOWES, LUIXJATE STREET. 
 
 1852.
 
 258 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 
 
 A single-line Greek motto — 
 
 ^otpuTarov, xP^J'Os* avevplcKd yap iravra, 
 follows on the recto of a separate leaf, and then come the 
 table of contents, pages vii and viii, and a half-title reading 
 "Empedocles on Etna. | A Dramatic Poem," on the verso of 
 which is the list of persons with description of the scene. 
 The text extends to page 236, facing which is an advertize- 
 ment displayed thus : — 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 THE STRAYED REVELLER, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 Small octavo, price 43. 6d, 
 
 This is followed by a blank page and a blank leaf. It it 
 safe to infer from the offer of the earlier volume that it had 
 not then been withdrawn ; and it is likely enough that very 
 few copies had been sold during the period of over three 
 years and a half. Probably the suppression of the second 
 book was the signal for that of the first. The " Other 
 Poems " issued with Empedocles are thirty-two in number, 
 and include Tristram and Iseulc, The reasons given in the 
 preface prefixed to Arnold's next volume for not republishing 
 Empedocles in 1853 doubtless sufficed for its withdrawal 
 before fifty copies had been sold. He had come to the 
 conclusion that his choice of subject in Empedocles was faulty 
 at the root ; and it was like him to sacrifice his whole 
 volume of 236 pages to an artist's scruple as to the subject 
 of a piece occupying no more than seventy of those pages. 
 His early letters^ to his relations and friends show that he 
 was a serious aspirant to the bays, though of necessity much 
 pre-occupied with cares for the material means of livelihood, 
 — cares to which we doubtless owe it that his poetic output 
 was, relatively, so small in bulk. 
 
 On the 22nd of October 1852, writing to Wyndham Slade 
 
 I Letters erf Matthew Arnold 1848-1888. Collected and arranged by 
 George W. E. Russell. (2 volumes, Macmillan, 1895.)
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 259 
 
 of the issue of Empedocks on Etna, he says ; " I have pub- 
 lished some poems, which, out of friendship, I forbear to 
 send you ; you shall, however, if you are weak enough to 
 desire it, have them when we meet. Can you get from 
 Heimann the address of one William Rossetti for me ? — 
 an ingenious youth, who used to write articles in a defunct 
 review, the name of which I forget." The allusion to 
 Mr. Rossetti's article in The Germ on The Strayed Re-veller, 
 while amusing the bibliographer, will indicate to the general 
 reader that Mr. Rossetti was not to be treated with the 
 same friendly leniency as Slade, and was to have a copy 
 of Empedocks sent to him. 
 
 On the 14th of April 1853 Arnold writes to Mrs. Forster 
 of an article on Alexander Smith in The Examiner 5 and, 
 after dismissing Smith with il fait son me'tier — -faiwns le notre, 
 he says : " I am occupied with a thing that gives me more 
 pleasure than anything I have ever done yet, which is a good 
 sign ; but whether I shall not ultimately spoil it by being 
 obliged to strike it off in fragments, instead of at one heat, 
 I cannot quite say. I think of publishing it with the narra- 
 tive poems of my first \olume,' Tristram and Iseult of my 
 second, and one or two more, in February next, with my 
 name and a preface." The "thing" was, of course, Sohrab 
 and Rustum ; The Strayed Rei'eller, and The Forsaken Merman 
 wee taken from the first volume ; Tristram and Iseult, and 
 several other poems, were taken from the Empedocks volume ; 
 and the preface scheme resulted in that admirable and compact 
 confession of faith which stands at the front of the companion 
 volume to the present. Sohrab and Rustum was finished in the 
 course of May ; for in a letter to his mother dated "Mon- 
 day," and assigned to "May 1853," he says : "All my spare 
 time has been spent on a poem which I have just finished, 
 and which I think by far the best thing I have yet done, and 
 that it will be generally liked, though one can never be sure 
 of this. I have had the greatest pleasure in composing it — 
 a rare thing with me, and, as I think, a good test of the 
 pleasure what you write is likely to afford to others ; but 
 then the story is a very noble and excellent one." This 
 clearly refers to Sohrab and Rustum ; and a very sound judg- 
 ment it is on that beautiful episode. Up to that time there 
 did not aapear to be any notion of a change of publishers, 
 for he says, " I have settled with Fellows to publish this,
 
 26o BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 
 
 and one or two more new ones, next winter or spring, with 
 preface, and my name. I never felt so sure of myself or so 
 really and truly at ease as to criticism, as I have done lately. 
 There is an article on me in the last North British which I 
 will send you. Can it be by Blackie ? I think Froude's 
 review will come sooner or later, but at present even about 
 this I feel indifferent. Miss Blackett told Flu that Lord 
 John Russell said, 'In his opinion Matthew Arnold was the 
 one rising young poet of the present day.' This pleased me 
 greatly from Lord John — if it is true." 
 
 The North British Review for May 1853 had dealt with 
 both The Strayed Re-vtller and Empedocles on Etna in an article 
 entitled "Glimpses of Poetry"; certainly the author's 
 reference to the article gives no countenance to the assump- 
 tion that the The Strayed Reveller had been withdrawn since 
 it was offered for sale in the advertizement appended to 
 Empedocles on Etna ; and it is clear that the Empedocles 
 volume had itself not yet been withdrawn. Arnold did not 
 wait till February 1854 for the realisation of his scheme of 
 fresh appeal to the public ; for, while the preface is dated 
 the 1 8th of October, his letters show that the book was in 
 course of distribution before the end of November 1853, 
 He was as good as his word, and gave his name this time 5 
 but now, after all, came a change of publisher and printer. 
 The book is a foolscap octavo resembling in general appearance 
 its two small predecessors, but thicker, for it contains 284 
 pages and a trade catalogue. The half-title reads " Poems," 
 and has on the verso the imprint of Spottiswoode and Shaw, 
 The title-page is as follows : — 
 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 A NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 LONGMAN^ BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 
 
 MDCCCmi.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 261 
 
 The preface occupies pages v to xxxi, the table of contents 
 pages xxxiii to xxxv. In the centre of page xxxvi is printed 
 the Greek epigraph used in the The Strayed Re-veller volume. 
 The next leaf, which is pages l and 2, has the word 
 " Poems " by way of half-title on the recto ; and on the 
 verso is the sonnet with which The Strayed Re-veller volume 
 had opened ; but instead of the original — 
 
 Two lessons, Nature, let me learn of thee, 
 Two lessons that in every wind are blown ; 
 Two blending duties, harmonis'd in one, 
 Though the loud world proclaim their enmity ; 
 
 the first quatrain is 
 
 One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee. 
 One lesson that in every wind is blown ; 
 One lesson of two duties served in one. 
 Though the loud world proclaim their enmity 5 
 
 the position that the two lessons are in fact but one having 
 been adopted early. The revised sonnet is followed by a 
 half-title reading " Sohrab and Rustum," and then come the 
 fifty pages filled by the immortal episode, and the rest of the 
 248 pages of text including a few sectional half-titles. The 
 dropped heads, head-lines, and paging follow the model of 
 the earlier volumes ; the catalogue is an alphabetical one 
 of " General Literature " published by Longmans, dated 
 March 31, 1853 ; tlie end-papers are primrose-coloured, like 
 the earlier ones, but with printed lists on the paste-downs — 
 of books on science inside the front cover, and of historical 
 works inside the back cover. The cover itself is of the 
 same dark green as the other two, but diced-grained. In 
 the blind-blocked design the forget-me-not basis is main- 
 tained ; but it is a floreated arch within a Harleian panel. 
 The words " Poems | by | Matthew | Arnold " appear 
 across the back, at the top, in gilt Roman capitals. 
 
 Many of Arnold's friends saw at once the value of the 
 treasure now delivered into their hands : John F. B. Blackett, 
 M.P., gave the poet great pleasure by his words of greeting ; 
 and, writing to him in reply, on the 26th of November 1853, 
 Arnold said : " You knew, I am sure, what pleasure your 
 letter would give me. I certainly was very anxious that
 
 262 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 
 
 you should like ' Sohrab and Rustum.' Clough, as usual, 
 remained in suspense whether he liked it or no. Lingen 
 wrote me four sheets on behalf of sticking to modern sub- 
 jects ; but your letter, and one from Froude (which I must 
 send you, in spite of the praise), came to reassure me." 
 
 Clough had, it seems, reviewed the two early volumes in 
 The North American Revieiv, to the number of which for 
 July 1853 he had contributed the paper on Alexander Smith 
 and Arnold, which is preserved in his Remains. How he 
 decided about Sohrab and Rustum one would gladly know, 
 Arnold himself had his doubts of its success ; continuing 
 his letter to Blackett, he said : "I still, however, think it 
 very doubtful whether the book will succeed ; the Leader 
 and the Spectator are certain to disparage it ; the Examiner 
 may praise it, but will very likely take no notice at all. 
 The great hope is that the Times may trumpet it once more." 
 This refers to a notice in the Times of the two volumes of 
 1849 and 1852 : and the poet proceeds : "Just imagine the 
 effect of the last notice in that paper j it has brought Empe- 
 docles to the railway bookstall at Derby." Hence it is clear 
 that, up to the 26th of November 1853, after the issue of 
 the Poems, there had been no suppression of the Empedocles 
 volume : and, as it was ultimately withdrawn before fifty 
 copies were sold, the sales at the Derby railway bookstall 
 and elsewhere must have been distinctly modest, enough so 
 to account for the poet's doubts as to the success of the 
 larger and better volume. He was doomed to be more or 
 less agreeably disappointed ; for by the ist of June 1854 he 
 was signing the short preface to a second edition, which 
 follows the original preface in the companion volume of the 
 Temple Classics to the present volume. All the poems 
 forming Arnold's three books of 1849, 1852, and 1853, not 
 given in the present volume, will also be found in the 
 companion volume of Poems, narrati-ve, elegiac, and lyric. 
 
 The Early Poems in the present collection taken from the 
 Strayed Re'veller volume are Sonnets i to xi, Mycerinus, A 
 Modern Sappho, To my Friends ivho ridiculed a tender Leave- 
 taking (afterwards called A Memory Picture), The Ne%v Sirens, 
 The Voice, Stagirius, To a Gipsy Child, The Haysiuater Boat, 
 A ^esticn : to Fausta, In Utrtimque Paratus, The World and 
 the pietist, and Resignation : to Fausta. Those taken from 
 the Empedocles volume are Sonnets xin and xiv, Touth and
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 263 
 
 Calm, Human Lije, The Second Best, and Consolation. The 
 Sonnet to the Hungarian Nation is from T/ie Examiner for the 
 2ist of July 1849 5 3'^'' ^^^ ''^**» namely TAe Church of Brou, 
 Requiescat, and ^ Dream, are from the Poems (a new edition, 
 1853). 
 
 Of this volume of Poems issued in 1853, a second edition 
 was published in 1854, and a third is dated 1857. This 
 book and the Poems {Second Series) published in 1855, were 
 intended to supersede the earlier volumes, and contained, 
 with important new poems, as much of the contents of the 
 Strayed Reveller and Empedocles volumes as Arnold desired 
 at that time to perpetuate. Emf/edocles itself he condemned 
 and wished to suppress, although at the request of Robert 
 Browning he revived it in 1867 in the volume called Nenu 
 Poems. Meantime his chief period of poetic production had 
 closed with the year 1857 in which his largest work in verse 
 was printed with the following title : — 
 
 M E R O P E. 
 
 A TRADEGY. 
 BY 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 LONDON : 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, & ROBERTS. 
 
 MDCCCLVIII. 
 
 This foolscap octavo volume, similar in appearance to the 
 earlier volumes, has a half-title reading "Merope. | a 
 Tragedy " with the imprint of Spottiswoode & Co. at the 
 foot of the verso. The verso of the title-page is blank ; so 
 is that of the next leaf, which bears on its recto the epigraph 
 from Thucydides (Pericles' Funeral Oration) — 
 
 (piXoKaXovfiev /xer' eiireXelas. 
 The Preface occupies pages vii to xlviii, head-lined through- 
 out " Preface " in small Roman capitals, and dated "London : 
 December, 1857." Pages xlix to lii contain the "Historical 
 Introduction," so headed and head-lined. The play begins 
 with a fresh half-title, on the verso of which are recorded
 
 264 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EPILOGUE 
 
 the persons and the scene. The dialogue opens at page 3 
 with a dropped head, " Merope " in Roman capitals ; and 
 the tragedy extends to page 138, at the foot of which 
 the printer's imprint is repeated. The normal page con- 
 tains 20 lines ; but, as the names of the speakers are set 
 centrally over the speeches, in small Roman capitals, with 
 a good deal of white, the average number of verses to a 
 page is far less. The head-lines read " Merope " in small 
 Roman capitals throughout ; and the pages are numbered in 
 the outer corners with Arabic figures. The signatures of the 
 sheets are A, a, b, c, and B to K. Of these c consists of 2 
 leaves and K of 6 leaves, these signatures having doubtless 
 been worked together. The rest have 8 leaves each. The 
 6th leaf of K bears advertizements of books in " general 
 literature," opening with " Poems by Matthew Arnold." A 
 separately printed 32 page catalogue of Longmans' publica- 
 tions follows. The green cloth cover is uniform with that 
 of the Pcems, and is gilt-lettered at the back " Merope | by 
 I Matthew I Arnold." The end-papers are drab, without 
 printed advertizements. The book was not the success that 
 the Poems had been ; and a few years ago remainder copies 
 in a latter-day dark green cloth cover could be obtained 
 from Messrs. Macmillan & Co.
 
 NOTES 
 
 Preface and Historical Introduction to Merope. — Like every 
 other substantive essay of Matthew Arnold's, the Preface to 
 Merope is more than worthy of preservation. He never 
 reprinted it himself ; but when he included Merope in the 
 collected editions of his works he prefixed to the poem the 
 brief quotations from Hyginus and ApoUodorus (see pages 
 lo and ii)and the " Historical Introduction," with its name 
 changed to " Story of the Drama." 
 
 Merope. — It was not till 1885 that Arnold reprinted this 
 poem, whether because the first edition was still " in stock," 
 or because it had never received much public favour, who 
 shall say ? It has not, with all its learning and accomplish- 
 meut, either the lyric beauty and vivid realization of char- 
 acter, or above all the wonderful atmosphere of Empedocles. 
 In conception and form it is perhaps more like a Greek play 
 than any other English attempt in that kind. But the very 
 learaedness of the treatment, and the strenuousness of the 
 endeavour to be Greek in form and conception, have absorbed 
 much energy which would have found a more truly poetic 
 expression if forms more suitable to the genius of the English 
 lan!?iiage had been chosen ; and thus this striking work is 
 left too hard in its contours to give the highest pleasure com- 
 muri!';able through a dramatic medium. Still, it must ever 
 rank as a British classic. 
 
 Empedocles on Etna. — It is right to quote the poet's own 
 condemnation of this beautiful poem from his Preface of 
 1853 :- 
 
 " 1 have, in the present collection, omitted the Poem from 
 which the volume published in 1852 took its title. I have 
 done so, not because the subject of it was a Sicilian Greek 
 born between two and three thousand years ago, although 
 many persons would think this a sufficient reason. Neither 
 have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in 
 
 266
 
 266 NOTES 
 
 the delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to 
 delineate the feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious 
 philosophers, one of the family of Orpheus and Musaeus, 
 having survived his fellows, living on into a time when the 
 habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast to 
 change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists to 
 prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there entered 
 much that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively 
 modern ; how much, the fragments of Empedocles himself 
 which remain to us are sufficient at least to indicate. What 
 those who are familiar only with the great monuments of 
 early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive characteristics, 
 have disappeared ; the calm, the cheerfulness, the dis- 
 interested objectivity have disappeared : the dialogue of the 
 mind with itself has commenced ; modern problems have 
 presented themselves ; we hear already the doubts, we witness 
 the discouragement, of Hamlet and of Faust. 
 
 " The representation of such a man's feelings must be 
 interesting, if consistently drawn. We all naturally take 
 pleasure, says Aristotle, in any imitation or representation 
 whatever : this is the basis of our love of Poetry : and we 
 take pleasure in them, he adds, because all knowledge is 
 naturally agreeable to us ; not to the philosopher only, but 
 to mankind at large. Every representation therefore which 
 is consistently drawn may be supposed to be interesting, in- 
 asmuch as it gratifies this natural interest in knowledge of 
 all kinds. What is not interesting, is that which does not 
 add to our knowledge of any kind ; that which is vaguely 
 conceived and loosely drawn ; a representation which is 
 general, indeterminate, and faint, instead of being particular, 
 precise, and firm. 
 
 "Any accurate representation may therefore be expected 
 to be interesting ; but, if the representation be a poetical one, 
 more than this is demanded. It is demanded, not only that 
 it shall interest, but also that it shall inspirit and rejoice the 
 reader ; that it shall convey a charm, and infuse delight. 
 For the Muses, as Hesiod says, were born that they might 
 be 'a forgetfulness of evils, and a truce from cares': and it 
 is not enough that the Poet should add to the knowledge of 
 men, it is required of him also that he should add to their 
 happiness. ' All Art,' says Schiller, ' is dedicated to Joy, and 
 there is no higher and no more serious problem, than how to
 
 NOTES 267 
 
 make men happy. The right Art is that alone, which creates 
 the highest enjoyment.' 
 
 "A poetical work, therefore, is not yet justified when it 
 has been shown to be an accurate, and therefore interesting 
 representation ; it has to be shown also that it is a represen- 
 tation from which men can derive enjoyment. In presence 
 of the most tragic circumstances, represented in a work of 
 Art, the feeling of enjoyment, as is well known, may still 
 subsist ; the representation of the most utter calamity, of 
 the liveliest anguish, is not sufficient to destroy it : the more 
 tragic the situation, the deeper becomes the enjoyment ; and 
 the situation is more tragic in proportion as it becomes more 
 terrible, 
 
 "What then are the situations, from the representation 
 of which, though accurate, no poetical enjoyment can be 
 derived ? They are those in which the suffering finds no 
 vent in action ; in which a continuous state of mental 
 distress is prolonged, unrelieved by incident, hope, or resist- 
 ance ; in which there is everything to be endured, nothing 
 to be done. In such situations there is inevitably something 
 morbid, in the description of them something monotonous. 
 When they occur in actual life, they are painful, not tragic ; 
 the representation of them in poetry is painful also. 
 
 " To this class of situations, poetically faulty as it appears 
 to me, that of Empedocles, as I have endeavoured to repre- 
 sent him, belongs ; and I have therefore excluded the Poem 
 from the present collection." 
 
 Alaric at Rome. — Writing to Mr. Gosse on his acquisition 
 of a copy of the Rugby print of Alaric, Arnold said : — 
 
 '"Alaric at Rome' is my Rugby prize poem, and I think 
 it is better than my Oxford one, ' Cromwell ' ; only you will 
 see that I had been very much reading 'Childe Harold.'" 
 
 There are seven passages in Alaric at Rome to which the 
 youthful poet seems to have thought foot-notes necessary. 
 These passages, with their relative notes, are as follows : — 
 
 Twice, ere that day of shame, the embattled foe 
 Had gazed in wonder on that glorious sight. 
 
 The sieges of Rome by the Goths under Alaric were 
 three in number. The first was commenced a.d. 408, and 
 concluded a.d. 409, by Alaric's accepting a ransom. In the
 
 268 NOTES 
 
 second Alaric entered the city in triumph, and appointed 
 Attains Emperor. After again degrading this new monarch 
 of his own creation, he finally captured and sacked the city, 
 A.D. 410. 
 
 Famine and sorrow are no strangers here. 
 
 "That unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress 
 of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. 
 The miseries of which were succeeded and aggravated by the 
 contagion of a pestilential disease." — Gibbon. 
 
 Think ye it strikes too slow, the sword of fate, 
 Think ye the avenger loiters on his way, 
 That your own hands must open wide the gate, 
 And your own voices guide him to his prey ? 
 
 "They (the Senate) were unable to guard against the 
 secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics." " At the 
 hour of midnight the Salarian gate was silently opened and 
 the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound 
 of the Gothic trumpet." — Gibbon, 
 
 The trumpet swells yet louder : they are here ! 
 
 "Adest Alaricus, trepidam urbem obsidet, turbat, ir- 
 rumpit." — Orosius, Lib. -vii. cap. 39. 
 
 Unlike her ocean sister, gazing still 
 Smilingly forth upon her sunny bay. 
 
 Naples. 
 
 — " Stabiasque, et in otia natam 
 Parthenopen." — O'vid, Metam. Lib. x-v, -vers. 711-12, 
 
 One little year ; that restless soul shall rest. 
 
 Alaric died after a sudden illness, while engaged in at- 
 tempting the invasion of Sicily, a.d. 410, the very year of 
 the third siege of Rome by his forces. 
 
 And tranquilly, above that troubled breast. 
 The sunny waters hold their joyous way. 
 
 For an account of the death and singular burial of the 
 Gothic monarch, see Gibbon, vol. v. p. 329-30. " By the 
 labour of a captive multitude the course of the Burentinus
 
 NOTES 269 
 
 was forcibly diverted, a small river that washes the walls of 
 Consentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid 
 trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed, and 
 the waters were then restored to their natural channel, and 
 the secret spot where the remains of Alaric had been de- 
 posited was for ever concealed by the inhuman massacre 
 of the prisoners who had been employed to execute the 
 work." 
 
 Line 159 was printed thus : — 
 
 Unlike that ocean-city, gazing still, 
 
 but Walrond's copy, now in my possession, is corrected in 
 the autograph of Arnold so as to read as shown at page 268 
 and in the text. 
 
 Cromivell. — The Newdigate prize poem, like the Rugby 
 one, has several foot-notes. The passages annotated are 
 given below, with the author's notes : — 
 
 High fate is theirs, who where the silent sky 
 Stoops to the soaring mountains, live and die. 
 
 This is an allusion to the idea expressed in the twelfth of 
 Mr. Wordsworth's Sonnets to Liberty : — 
 
 Two voices are there : one is of the sea, etc. 
 
 contrasting it with the fact of Cromwell's birth-place having 
 been the fen country of Huntingdonshire, where he lived till 
 he was forty years old. 
 
 Sounds — such as erst the lone wayfaring man 
 Caught, as he journey'd, from the lips of Pan. 
 
 Herod, vi. 106. 
 
 Or that mysterious cry, that smote with fear, 
 Like sounds from other worlds, the Spartan's ear. 
 While, o'er the dusty plain, the murmurous throng, 
 Of Heaven's embattled myriads swept along. 
 
 The vision of Demaratus on the plain of Eleusis. — Herod, 
 viii. 65.
 
 270 NOTES 
 
 Where rode the tall dark ships, whose loosen'd sail | 
 All idly flutter'd in the eastern gale. 
 
 Eight ships, lying in the Thames, and ready to sail, were 
 detained by order of Council. — Hume, vi. 309. 
 
 And the winds told his glory — and the wave 
 Sonorous witness to his empire gave ! 
 
 " It is just to say, that the maritime glory of England 
 may be first traced from the era of the Commonwealth in a 
 track of continuous light." — Hallam's Const. Hist. ii. 
 
 There Hampden bent him o'er his saddle bow. 
 And death's cold dews bedimm'd his earnest brow. 
 
 " His head bending down, and his hands resting on his 
 horse's neck, he was seen riding from the field." — Lord 
 Nugent^s Memorials of Hampden, ii. 435. 
 
 There Falkland eyed the strife that would not cease, 
 Shook back his tangled locks, and murmur'd — " Peace !" 
 
 " In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before 
 always with more neatness and industry, he was now, not 
 only incurious, but negligent." — Clarendon. 
 
 He, too, was there — it was the princely boy. 
 The child-companion of his childish joy ! 
 
 Alluding to the stories of Cromwell's childish intimacy with 
 Charles the First. 
 
 The gathering tempest, . . . 
 
 Clarendon mentions a great storm which attended the death 
 of Cromwell. 
 
 His latest loftiest music, smote his ear ! 
 
 " He was a great lover of music, and he entertained the 
 most skilful in that science in his pay and family." — Perfect 
 Politician. 
 
 That day that hail'd his triumphs, saw him die ! 
 
 Cromwell died on his fortunate day, the anniversary of 
 Dunbar and Worcester, September 3rd.
 
 NOTES 271 
 
 The imprisoning chains fell off, and all was clear ! 
 
 lere is a remarkable contrast between the perfect clear- 
 ss of the celebrated prayer Cromwell is recorded to have 
 tered on his deathbed, and the confusedness of the speeches 
 hich are attributed to him. 
 
 Outside Clarendon's History of the Rebellion there is a 
 l.nsiderable literature connected with Cromwell's death and 
 e storm preceding it. Among the most distinguished 
 
 the contemporary celebrations is Waller's poem Upon the 
 \ate Storme and the Death of His Highneise ensuing the same, 
 hich was published in 1659 in company with Dryden's 
 ■iroique Stanzas Consecrated to the Glorious memory of his 
 ost Serene and Renoivned Highnesse Oli-ver Late Lord Pro- 
 ctor of this Common-Wealth, fefc, Written after the Celebration 
 ~ his Funerall, and with a " Pindarick Ode " on the same 
 ibject "by Mr. Sprat, of Oxford," dedicated to the Warden 
 ■ Wadham College, the Rev. Dr. Wilkins, This trilogy 
 ive rise to many compositions, including, on one side, a 
 arious piece called The Panegyric and the Storme, and on the 
 :her side, a dry but remarkable poem by George Wither 
 ititled Salt upon Salt. 
 
 It is to be recorded that line 222 of Cromwell, 
 Moulding itself in action, not in word ! 
 
 IS already been corrupted into 
 
 Moulding itself into action, not in word ! 
 
 his reading is to be found in the second edition ; but the 
 lading of the first edition is obviously right. 
 
 The Neiv Sirens. — This poem was not chosen by Arnold 
 om the contents of the Strayed Reveller volume for incor- 
 jration either in the First or in the Second Series of the 
 'oems (1853 and 1855). Indeed he abandoned it to its fate 
 ■hen he withdrew his early anonymous volume, and only 
 !vived it in 1876 at the request of Mr. Swinburne. In 
 )ecember of that year it was reprinted in Macmillan^s 
 iaga%ine with the following note of y«aj;-apology : — 
 
 " I shall not, I hope, be supposed unconscious that in 
 oherency and intelligibility the following poem leaves
 
 272 NOTES 
 
 much to be desired. It was published in 1849 in a small 
 volume without my name, was withdrawn along with that 
 volume, and until now has never been reprinted. But the 
 departed poem had the honour of being followed by the 
 regrets of a most distinguished mourner, Mr. Swinburne, 
 who has more than once revived its memory, and asked for 
 its republication. Mr. Swinburne's generosity towards 
 contemporary verse is well known ; and The Neiv Sir em 
 may have won his favour the more readily because it had 
 something, perhaps, of that animation of movement and 
 rhythm of which his own poems offer such splendid examples. 
 In addition to Mr. Swinburne, the poem has had also several 
 other friends, less distinguished, who desired its restoration. 
 To a work of his youth, a work produced in long-past days 
 of ardour and emotion, an author can never be very hard- 
 hearted ; and after a disappearance of more than twenty- 
 five years. The Neiv Sirens, therefore, is here reprinted." 
 
 Linei -written by a Death-Bed. — Of this poem a portion 
 was printed in the Neia Poems under the title of Youth and 
 Calm. The sixteen lines beginning with 
 
 Yes, now the longing is o'erpast 
 
 were incorporated in Tristram and Iseult (part 2) in the two- 
 volume edition of the Poems published in 1877.
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 A region desolate and wild. .... 
 
 A whisper through the palace flies of one 
 
 Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers, . 
 
 And lie thou there, ..... 
 
 And you, ye Stars !..... 
 
 Artist, whose hand, with horror wing'd, hath torn 
 
 As the kindling glances, .... 
 
 As the sky-brightening south wind clears the day. 
 
 Because thou hast believed, the wheels of life . 
 
 Children (as such forgive them) have I known, 
 
 Did I then waver , . . . . 
 
 Down the Savoy valleys sounding. 
 
 Draw, draw near to the tomb 
 
 Far, far from here, ..... 
 
 God knows it, I am with you. If to prize . 
 
 He sleeps — sleeps calm. O ye all-seeing Gods ! 
 
 High fate is theirs, ye sleepless waves, whose ear 
 
 I have heard, O Queen, how a prince, . 
 
 If, in the silent mind of One all-pure 
 
 " In harmony witli Nature ? " Restless fool, 
 
 In such a glen, on such a day, 
 
 In the cedar shadow sleeping, 
 
 Joy comes and goes : hope ebbs and flows. 
 
 Laugh, my Friends, and without blame . 
 
 Maidens, assure me if they told me true 
 
 Mist clogs the sunshine. 
 
 Moderate tasks and moderate leisure 5 . 
 
 Much is there which the Sea 
 
 "Not by the justice that my father spurn'd. 
 
 Not in sunk Spain's prolongM death agony ; 
 
 PAGE 
 
 234 
 82 
 192 
 161 
 163 
 194 
 227 
 158 
 
 193 
 196 
 122 
 
 203 
 
 62 
 
 152 
 
 19s 
 
 94 
 
 182 
 
 90 
 
 237 
 
 194 
 
 138 
 
 218 
 
 236 
 
 214 
 
 74 
 240 
 239 
 
 71 
 198 
 196
 
 274 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 O honour'd Queen, O faithful followers 
 
 O Merope, the trouble on thy face . . 
 
 ** monstrous, dead, unprofitable world, , 
 
 O Son and Mother, ..... 
 
 One lesson. Nature, let me learn of thee — , 
 
 Others abide our question. Thou art free. . 
 
 Peace, who tarriest too long : . . . 
 
 Set down your pitchers, maidens 1 and fall back ; 
 
 So far as I conceive the World's rebuke 
 
 So rest, for ever rest, O Princely Pair ! . 
 
 Son of Cresphontes, past what perils 
 
 Son of Cresphontes, we have reached the goal 
 
 Strew on her roses, roses, .... 
 
 The howling void to span .... 
 
 The lyre's voice is lovely everywhere. 
 
 The mules, I think, will not be here this hour. 
 
 The noon is hot : when we have crossed the stream 
 
 The track winds down to the clear stream. 
 
 They are gone : all is still : Foolish heart, dost 
 
 thou quiver ? ..... 
 
 Thou, who dost dwell alone — 
 Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, 
 " To die be given us, or attain ! , 
 Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead, 
 Upon the glistening leaden roof 
 Was it a dream ? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd, 
 What mortal, when he saw, .... 
 When I shall be divorced some ten years hence, 
 Who prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind 
 Who taught this pleading to unpractised eyes ? 
 " Why, when the world's great mind 
 Yes, now the longing is o'erpast. . 
 Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem , . /\ 
 
 r. r^ 
 
 •Pl 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constable, (late) Printers to Her Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press
 
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