Poems — Volume 2

Read that riddle, scorning pity’s
Tears, of cockatrices shed:
When the heart is vowed for freedom,
Captaincy it yields to head.

XXI

Meanwhile you, freaked nature’s martyrs,
Honour’s army, flower and weed,
Gentle ladies, wedded ladies,
See for you this fair one bleed.

XXII

Sole stood her offence, she faltered;
Prayed her lord the youth to spare;
Prayed that in the orange garden
She might lie, and ceased her prayer.

XXIII

Then commanding to all women
Chastity, her breasts she laid
Bare unto the self-avenger.
Man in metal was the blade.

I

I

When the South sang like a nightingale
   Above a bower in May,
The training of Love’s vine of flame
Was writ in laws, for lord and dame
   To say their yea and nay.

II

When the South sang like a nightingale
   Across the flowering night,
And lord and dame held gentle sport,
There came a young princess to Court,
   A frost of beauty white.

III

The South sang like a nightingale
   To thaw her glittering dream:
No vine of Love her bosom gave,
She drank no wine of Love, but grave
   She held them to Love’s theme.

IV

The South grew all a nightingale
   Beneath a moon unmoved:
Like the banner of war she led them on;
She left them to lie, like the light that has gone
   From wine-cups overproved.

When the South was a fervid nightingale,
   And she a chilling moon,
’Twas pity to see on the garden swards,
Against Love’s laws, those rival lords
   As willow-wands lie strewn.

VI

The South had throat of a nightingale
   For her, the young princess:
She gave no vine of Love to rear,
Love’s wine drank not, yet bent her ear
   To themes of Love no less.

I

The lords of the Court they sighed heart-sick,
   Heart-free Lord Dusiote laughed:
I prize her no more than a fling o’ the dice,
But, or shame to my manhood, a lady of ice,
   We master her by craft!

II

Heart-sick the lords of joyance yawned,
   Lord Dusiote laughed heart-free:
I count her as much as a crack o’ my thumb,
But, or shame of my manhood, to me she shall come
   Like the bird to roost in the tree!

III

At dead of night when the palace-guard
   Had passed the measured rounds,
The young princess awoke to feel
A shudder of blood at the crackle of steel
   Within the garden-bounds.

IV

It ceased, and she thought of whom was need,
   The friar or the leech;
When lo, stood her tirewoman breathless by:
Lord Dusiote, madam, to death is nigh,
   Of you he would have speech.

He prays you of your gentleness,
   To light him to his dark end.
The princess rose, and forth she went,
For charity was her intent,
   Devoutly to befriend.

VI

Lord Dusiote hung on his good squire’s arm,
   The priest beside him knelt:
A weeping handkerchief was pressed
To stay the red flood at his breast,
   And bid cold ladies melt.

VII

O lady, though you are ice to men,
   All pure to heaven as light
Within the dew within the flower,
Of you ’tis whispered that love has power
   When secret is the night.

VIII

I have silenced the slanderers, peace to their souls!
   Save one was too cunning for me.
I die, whose love is late avowed,
He lives, who boasts the lily has bowed
   To the oath of a bended knee.

IX

Lord Dusiote drew breath with pain,
   And she with pain drew breath:
On him she looked, on his like above;
She flew in the folds of a marvel of love
   Revealed to pass to death.

You are dying, O great-hearted lord,
   You are dying for me, she cried;
O take my hand, O take my kiss,
And take of your right for love like this,
   The vow that plights me bride.

XI

She bade the priest recite his words
   While hand in hand were they,
Lord Dusiote’s soul to waft to bliss;
He had her hand, her vow, her kiss,
   And his body was borne away.

I

Lord Dusiote sprang from priest and squire;
   He gazed at her lighted room:
The laughter in his heart grew slack;
He knew not the force that pushed him back
   From her and the morn in bloom.

II

Like a drowned man’s length on the strong flood-tide,
   Like the shade of a bird in the sun,
He fled from his lady whom he might claim
As ghost, and who made the daybeams flame
   To scare what he had done.

III

There was grief at Court for one so gay,
   Though he was a lord less keen
For training the vine than at vintage-press;
But in her soul the young princess
   Believed that love had been.

IV

Lord Dusiote fled the Court and land,
   He crossed the woeful seas,
Till his traitorous doing seemed clearer to burn,
And the lady beloved drew his heart for return,
   Like the banner of war in the breeze.

He neared the palace, he spied the Court,
   And music he heard, and they told
Of foreign lords arrived to bring
The nuptial gifts of a bridegroom king
   To the princess grave and cold.

VI

The masque and the dance were cloud on wave,
   And down the masque and the dance
Lord Dusiote stepped from dame to dame,
And to the young princess he came,
   With a bow and a burning glance.

VII

Do you take a new husband to-morrow, lady?
   She shrank as at prick of steel.
Must the first yield place to the second, he sighed.
Her eyes were like the grave that is wide
   For the corpse from head to heel.

VIII

My lady, my love, that little hand
   Has mine ringed fast in plight:
I bear for your lips a lawful thirst,
And as justly the second should follow the first,
   I come to your door this night.

IX

If a ghost should come a ghost will go:
   No more the lady said,
Save that ever when he in wrath began
To swear by the faith of a living man,
   She answered him, You are dead.

I

The soft night-wind went laden to death
   With smell of the orange in flower;
The light leaves prattled to neighbour ears;
The bird of the passion sang over his tears;
   The night named hour by hour.

II

Sang loud, sang low the rapturous bird
   Till the yellow hour was nigh,
Behind the folds of a darker cloud:
He chuckled, he sobbed, alow, aloud;
   The voice between earth and sky.

III

O will you, will you, women are weak;
   The proudest are yielding mates
For a forward foot and a tongue of fire:
So thought Lord Dusiote’s trusty squire,
   At watch by the palace-gates.

IV

The song of the bird was wine in his blood,
   And woman the odorous bloom:
His master’s great adventure stirred
Within him to mingle the bloom and bird,
   And morn ere its coming illume.

Beside him strangely a piece of the dark
   Had moved, and the undertones
Of a priest in prayer, like a cavernous wave,
He heard, as were there a soul to save
   For urgency now in the groans.

VI

No priest was hired for the play this night:
   And the squire tossed head like a deer
At sniff of the tainted wind; he gazed
Where cresset-lamps in a door were raised,
   Belike on a passing bier.

VII

All cloaked and masked, with naked blades,
   That flashed of a judgement done,
The lords of the Court, from the palace-door,
Came issuing silently, bearers four,
   And flat on their shoulders one.

VIII

They marched the body to squire and priest,
   They lowered it sad to earth:
The priest they gave the burial dole,
Bade wrestle hourly for his soul,
   Who was a lord of worth.

IX

One said, farewell to a gallant knight!
   And one, but a restless ghost!
’Tis a year and a day since in this place
He died, sped high by a lady of grace
   To join the blissful host.

Not vainly on us she charged her cause,
   The lady whom we revere
For faith in the mask of a love untrue
To the Love we honour, the Love her due,
   The Love we have vowed to rear.

XI

A trap for the sweet tooth, lures for the light,
   For the fortress defiant a mine:
Right well!  But not in the South, princess,
Shall the lady snared of her nobleness
   Ever shamed or a captive pine.

XII

When the South had voice of a nightingale
   Above a Maying bower,
On the heights of Love walked radiant peers;
The bird of the passion sang over his tears
   To the breeze and the orange-flower.

I

Sword in length a reaping-hook amain
Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank:
      ’Mid the swathes of slain,
      First at moonrise drank.

II

Thereof hunger, as for meats the knife,
Pricked his ribs, in one sharp spur to reach
      Home and his young wife,
      Nigh the sea-ford beach.

III

After battle keen to feed was he:
Smoking flesh the thresher washed down fast,
      Like an angry sea
      Ships from keel to mast.

IV

Name us glory, singer, name us pride
Matching Harald’s in his deeds of strength;
      Chiefs, wife, sword by side,
      Foemen stretched their length!

Half a winter night the toasts hurrahed,
Crowned him, clothed him, trumpeted him high,
      Till awink he bade
      Wife to chamber fly.

VI

Twice the sun had mounted, twice had sunk,
Ere his ears took sound; he lay for dead;
      Mountain on his trunk,
      Ocean on his head.

VII

Clamped to couch, his fiery hearing sucked
Whispers that at heart made iron-clang:
      Here fool-women clucked,
      There men held harangue.

VIII

Burial to fit their lord of war
They decreed him: hailed the kingling: ha!
      Hateful! but this Thor
      Failed a weak lamb’s baa.

IX

King they hailed a branchlet, shaped to fare,
Weighted so, like quaking shingle spume,
      When his blood’s own heir
      Ripened in the womb!

Still he heard, and doglike, hoglike, ran
Nose of hearing till his blind sight saw:
      Woman stood with man
      Mouthing low, at paw.

XI

Woman, man, they mouthed; they spake a thing
Armed to split a mountain, sunder seas:
      Still the frozen king
      Lay and felt him freeze.

XII

Doglike, hoglike, horselike now he raced,
Riderless, in ghost across a ground
      Flint of breast, blank-faced,
      Past the fleshly bound.

XIII

Smell of brine his nostrils filled with might:
Nostrils quickened eyelids, eyelids hand:
      Hand for sword at right
      Groped, the great haft spanned.

XIV

Wonder struck to ice his people’s eyes:
Him they saw, the prone upon the bier,
      Sheer from backbone rise,
      Sword uplifting peer.

Sitting did he breathe against the blade,
Standing kiss it for that proof of life:
      Strode, as netters wade,
      Straightway to his wife.

XVI

Her he eyed: his judgement was one word,
Foulbed! and she fell: the blow clove two.
      Fearful for the third,
      All their breath indrew.

XVII

Morning danced along the waves to beach;
Dumb his chiefs fetched breath for what might hap:
      Glassily on each
      Stared the iron cap.

XVIII

Sudden, as it were a monster oak
Split to yield a limb by stress of heat,
      Strained he, staggered, broke
      Doubled at their feet.

Hawk or shrike has done this deed
Of downy feathers: rueful sight!
Sweet sentimentalist, invite
Your bosom’s Power to intercede.

So hard it seems that one must bleed
Because another needs will bite!
All round we find cold Nature slight
The feelings of the totter-knee’d.

O it were pleasant with you
To fly from this tussle of foes,
The shambles, the charnel, the wrinkle!
To dwell in yon dribble of dew
On the cheek of your sovereign rose,
And live the young life of a twinkle.

I

Gracefullest leaper, the dappled fox-cub
Curves over brambles with berries and buds,
Light as a bubble that flies from the tub,
Whisked by the laundry-wife out of her suds.
Wavy he comes, woolly, all at his ease,
Elegant, fashioned to foot with the deuce;
Nature’s own prince of the dance: then he sees
Me, and retires as if making excuse.

II

Never closed minuet courtlier!  Soon
Cub-hunting troops were abroad, and a yelp
Told of sure scent: ere the stroke upon noon
Reynard the younger lay far beyond help.
Wild, my poor friend, has the fate to be chased;
Civil will conquer: were ’t other ’twere worse;
Fair, by the flushed early morning embraced,
Haply you live a day longer in verse.

I

Projected from the bilious Childe,
This clatterjaw his foot could set
On Alps, without a breast beguiled
To glow in shedding rascal sweat.
Somewhere about his grinder teeth,
He mouthed of thoughts that grilled beneath,
And summoned Nature to her feud
With bile and buskin Attitude.

II

Considerably was the world
Of spinsterdom and clergy racked
While he his hinted horrors hurled,
And she pictorially attacked.
A duel hugeous.  Tragic?  Ho!
The cities, not the mountains, blow
Such bladders; in their shapes confessed
An after-dinner’s indigest.

Cistercians might crack their sides
With laughter, and exemption get,
At sight of heroes clasping brides,
And hearing—O the horn! the horn!
The horn of their obstructive debt!

But quit the stage, that note applies
For sermons cosmopolitan,
Hernani.  Have we filched our prize,
Forgetting . . .?  O the horn! the horn!
The horn of the Old Gentleman!

I

Flat as to an eagle’s eye,
   Earth hung under Attila.
Sign for carnage gave he none.
In the peace of his disdain,
Sun and rain, and rain and sun,
Cherished men to wax again,
Crawl, and in their manner die.
On his people stood a frost.
Like the charger cut in stone,
Rearing stiff, the warrior host,
Which had life from him alone,
Craved the trumpet’s eager note,
As the bridled earth the Spring.
Rusty was the trumpet’s throat.
He let chief and prophet rave;
Venturous earth around him string
Threads of grass and slender rye,
Wave them, and untrampled wave.
O for the time when God did cry,
   Eye and have, my Attila!

II

III

He breathed peace and pulled a flower.
   Eye and have, my Attila!
This was the damsel Ildico,
Rich in bloom until that hour:
Shyer than the forest doe
Twinkling slim through branches green.
Yet the shyest shall be seen.
   Make the bed for Attila!

IV

V

Round the banquet-table’s load
Scores of iron horsemen rode;
Chosen warriors, keen and hard;
Grain of threshing battle-dints;
Attila’s fierce body-guard,
Smelling war like fire in flints.
Grant them peace be fugitive!
Iron-capped and iron-heeled,
Each against his fellow’s shield
Smote the spear-head, shouting, Live,
   Attila! my Attila!
Eagle, eagle of our breed,
Eagle, beak the lamb, and feed!
Have her, and unleash us! live,
   Attila! my Attila!

VI

VII

Under the thin hoop of gold
Whence in waves her hair outrolled,
’Twixt her brows the women saw
Shadows of a vulture’s claw
Gript in flight: strange knots that sped
Closing and dissolving aye:
Such as wicked dreams betray
When pale dawn creeps o’er the bed.
They might show the common pang
Known to virgins, in whom dread
Hunts their bliss like famished hounds;
While the chiefs with roaring rounds
Tossed her to her lord, and sang
Praise of him whose hand was large,
Cheers for beauty brought to yield,
Chirrups of the trot afield,
Hurrahs of the battle-charge.

VIII

IX

Ravaged cities rolling smoke
Thick on cornfields dry and black,
Wave his banners, bear his yoke.
Track the lightning, and you track
Attila.  They moan: ’tis he!
Bleed: ’tis he!  Beneath his foot
Leagues are deserts charred and mute;
Where he passed, there passed a sea.
   Attila, my Attila!

X

—Who breathed on the king cold breath?
Said a voice amid the host,
He is Death that weds a ghost,
Else a ghost that weds with Death?
Ildico’s chill little hand
Shuddering he beheld: austere
Stared, as one who would command
Sight of what has filled his ear:
Plucked his thin beard, laughed disdain.
Feast, ye Huns!  His arm be raised,
Like the warrior, battle-dazed,
Joining to the fight amain.
   Make the bed for Attila!

XI

XII

Death and she walked through the crowd,
Out beyond the flush of light.
Ceremonious women bowed
Following her: ’twas middle night.
Then the warriors each on each
Spied, nor overloudly laughed;
Like the victims of the leech,
Who have drunk of a strange draught.

XIII

Attila remained.  Even so
Frowned he when he struck the blow,
Brained his horse, that stumbled twice,
On a bloody day in Gaul,
Bellowing, Perish omens!  All
Marvelled at the sacrifice,
But the battle, swinging dim,
Rang off that axe-blow for him.
   Attila, my Attila!

XIV

XV

One, with winecups overstrung,
Cried him farewell in Rome’s tongue.
Who? for the great king turned as though
Wrath to the shaft’s head strained the bow.
Nay, not wrath the king possessed,
But a radiance of the breast.
In that sound he had the key
Of his cunning malady.
Lo, where gleamed the sapphire lake,
Leo, with his Rome at stake,
Drew blank air to hues and forms;
Whereof Two that shone distinct,
Linked as orbed stars are linked,
Clear among the myriad swarms,
In a constellation, dashed
Full on horse and rider’s eyes
Sunless light, but light it was—
Light that blinded and abashed,
Froze his members, bade him pause,
Caught him mid-gallop, blazed him home.
   Attila, my Attila!
What are streams that cease to flow?
What was Attila, rolled thence,
Cheated by a juggler’s show?
Like that lake of blue intense,
Under tempest lashed to foam,
Lurid radiance, as he passed,
Filled him, and around was glassed,
When deep-voiced he uttered, Rome!

XVII

XVIII

XIX

Nigh upon the fiery noon,
Out of ranks a roaring burst.
’Ware white women like the moon!
They are poison: they have thirst
First for love, and next for rule.
Jealous of the army, she?
Ho, the little wanton fool!
We were his before she squealed
Blind for mother’s milk, and heeled
Kicking on her mother’s knee.
His in life and death are we:
She but one flower of a field.
We have given him bliss tenfold
In an hour to match her night:
   Attila, my Attila!
Still her arms the master hold,
As on wounds the scarf winds tight.

Over Danube day no more,
Like the warrior’s planted spear,
Stood to hail the King: in fear
Western day knocked at his door.
   Attila, my Attila!
Sudden in the army’s eyes
Rolled a blast of lights and cries:
Flashing through them: Dead are ye!
Dead, ye Huns, and torn piecemeal!
See the ordered army reel
Stricken through the ribs: and see,
Wild for speed to cheat despair,
Horsemen, clutching knee to chin,
Crouch and dart they know not where.
   Attila, my Attila!
Faces covered, faces bare,
Light the palace-front like jets
Of a dreadful fire within.
Beating hands and driving hair
Start on roof and parapets.
Dust rolls up; the slaughter din.
—Death to them who call him dead!
Death to them who doubt the tale!
Choking in his dusty veil,
Sank the sun on his death-bed.
   Make the bed for Attila!

XXI

XXII

XXIII

Torch and lamp and sunset-red
Fell three-fingered on the bed.
In the torch the beard-hair scant
With the great breast seemed to pant:
In the yellow lamp the limbs
Wavered, as the lake-flower swims:
In the sunset red the dead
Dead avowed him, dry blood-red.

XXIV

Hatred of that abject slave,
Earth, was in each chieftain’s heart.
Earth has got him, whom God gave,
Earth may sing, and earth shall smart!
   Attila, my Attila!

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

Earth has got him whom God gave,
Earth may sing, and earth shall smart!
None of earth shall know his grave.
They that dig with Death depart.
   Attila, my Attila!

XXVIII

Thus their prayer was raved and passed:
Passed in peace their red sunset:
Hewn and earthed those men of sweat
Who had housed him in the vast,
Where no mortal might declare,
There lies he—his end was there!
   Attila, my Attila!

Kingless was the army left:
Of its head the race bereft.
Every fury of the pit
Tortured and dismembered it.
Lo, upon a silent hour,
When the pitch of frost subsides,
Danube with a shout of power
Loosens his imprisoned tides:
Wide around the frighted plains
Shake to hear his riven chains,
Dreadfuller than heaven in wrath,
As he makes himself a path:
High leap the ice-cracks, towering pile
Floes to bergs, and giant peers
Wrestle on a drifted isle;
Island on ice-island rears;
Dissolution battles fast:
Big the senseless Titans loom,
Through a mist of common doom
Striving which shall die the last:
Till a gentle-breathing morn
Frees the stream from bank to bank.
So the Empire built of scorn
Agonized, dissolved and sank.
Of the Queen no more was told
Than of leaf on Danube rolled.
   Make the bed for Attila!

I

Prince of Bards was old Aneurin;
He the grand Gododin sang;
All his numbers threw such fire in,
Struck his harp so wild a twang;—
Still the wakeful Briton borrows
Wisdom from its ancient heat:
Still it haunts our source of sorrows,
Deep excess of liquor sweet!

II

Here the Briton, there the Saxon,
Face to face, three fields apart,
Thirst for light to lay their thwacks on
Each the other with good heart.
Dry the Saxon sits, ’mid dinful
Noise of iron knits his steel:
Fresh and roaring with a skinful,
Britons round the hirlas reel.

III

IV

—Monster of the sea! we drive him
Back into his hungry brine.
—You shall lodge him, feed him, wive him,
Look on us; we stand in line.
—Pale sea-monster! foul the waters
Cast him; foul he leaves our land.
—You shall yield us land and daughters:
Stay the tongue, and try the hand.

V

Swift as torrent-streams our warriors,
Tossing torrent lights, find way;
Burst the ridges, crowd the barriers,
Pierce them where the spear-heads play;
Turn them as the clods in furrow,
Top them like the leaping foam;
Sorrow to the mother, sorrow,
Sorrow to the wife at home!

VI

Stags, they butted; bulls, they bellowed;
Hounds, we baited them; oh, brave!
Every second man, unfellowed,
Took the strokes of two, and gave.
Bare as hop-stakes in November’s
Mists they met our battle-flood:
Hoary-red as Winter’s embers
Lay their dead lines done in blood.

Thou, my Bard, didst hang thy lyre in
Oak-leaves, and with crimson brand
Rhythmic fury spent, Aneurin;
Songs the churls could understand:
Thrumming on their Saxon sconces
Straight, the invariable blow,
Till they snorted true responses.
Ever thus the Bard they know!

VIII

But ere nightfall, harper lusty!
When the sun was like a ball
Dropping on the battle dusty,
What was yon discordant call?
Cambria’s old metheglin demon
Breathed against our rushing tide;
Clove us midst the threshing seamen:—
Gashed, we saw our ranks divide!

IX

Britain then with valedictory
Shriek veiled off her face and knelt.
Full of liquor, full of victory,
Chief on chief old vengeance dealt.
Backward swung their hurly-burly;
None but dead men kept the fight.
They that drink their cup too early,
Darkness they shall see ere night.

X

XI

Day on day we fought, though shattered:
Pushed and met repulses sharp,
Till our Raven’s plumes were scattered:
All, save old Aneurin’s harp.
Hear it wailing like a mother
O’er the strings of children slain!
He in one tongue, in another,
Alien, I; one blood, yet twain.

XII

Old Aneurin! droop no longer.
That squat ocean-scum, we own,
Had fine stoutness, made us stronger,
Brought us much-required backbone:
Claimed of Power their dues, and granted
Dues to Power in turn, when rose
Mightier rovers; they that planted
Sovereign here the Norman nose.

XIII

Glorious men, with heads of eagles,
Chopping arms, and cupboard lips;
Warriors, hunters, keen as beagles,
Mounted aye on horse or ships.
Active, being hungry creatures;
Silent, having nought to say:
High they raised the lord of features,
Saxon-worshipped to this day.

Hear its deeds, the great recital!
Stout as bergs of Arctic ice
Once it led, and lived; a title
Now it is, and names its price.
This our Saxon brothers cherish:
This, when by the worth of wits
Lands are reared aloft, or perish,
Sole illumes their lucre-pits.

XV

Know we not our wrongs, unwritten
Though they be, Aneurin?  Sword,
Song, and subtle mind, the Briton
Brings to market, all ignored.
’Gainst the Saxon’s bone impinging,
Still is our Gododin played;
Shamed we see him humbly cringing
In a shadowy nose’s shade.

XVI

Bitter is the weight that crushes
Low, my Bard, thy race of fire.
Here no fair young future blushes
Bridal to a man’s desire.
Neither chief, nor aim, nor splendour
Dressing distance, we perceive.
Neither honour, nor the tender
Bloom of promise, morn or eve.

XVII

XVIII

O my Bard! a yellow liquor,
Like to that we drank of old—
Gold is her metheglin beaker,
She destruction drinks in gold.
Warn her, Bard, that Power is pressing
Hotly for his dues this hour;
Tell her that no drunken blessing
Stops the onward march of Power.

XIX

Has she ears to take forewarnings
She will cleanse her of her stains,
Feed and speed for braver mornings
Valorously the growth of brains.
Power, the hard man knit for action,
Reads each nation on the brow.
Cripple, fool, and petrifaction
Fall to him—are falling now!

I

Men the Angels eyed;
And here they were wild waves,
And there as marsh descried;
Men the Angels eyed,
And liked the picture best
Where they were greenly dressed
In brotherhood of graves.

II

Man the Angels marked:
He led a host through murk,
On fearful seas embarked;
Man the Angels marked;
To think without a nay,
That he was good as they,
And help him at his work.

III

Man and Angels, ye
A sluggish fen shall drain,
Shall quell a warring sea.
Man and Angels, ye,
Whom stain of strife befouls,
A light to kindle souls
Bear radiant in the stain.

I

Young captain of a crazy bark!
O tameless heart in battered frame!
Thy sailing orders have a mark,
   And hers is not the name.

II

For action all thine iron clanks
In cravings for a splendid prize;
Again to race or bump thy planks
   With any flag that flies.

III

Consult them; they are eloquent
For senses not inebriate.
They trust thee on the star intent,
   That leads to land their freight.

IV

And they have known thee high peruse
The heavens, and deep the earth, till thou
Didst into the flushed circle cruise
   Where reason quits the brow.

Thou animatest ancient tales,
To prove our world of linear seed:
Thy very virtue now assails,
   A tempter to mislead.

VI

But thou hast answer I am I;
My passion hallows, bids command:
And she is gracious, she is nigh:
   One motion of the hand!

VII

It will suffice; a whirly tune
These winds will pipe, and thou perform
The nodded part of pantaloon
   In thy created storm.

VIII

Admires thee Nature with much pride;
She clasps thee for a gift of morn,
Till thou art set against the tide,
   And then beware her scorn.

IX

Sad issue, should that strife befall
Between thy mortal ship and thee!
It writes the melancholy scrawl
   Of wreckage over sea.

This lady of the luting tongue,
The flash in darkness, billow’s grace,
For thee the worship; for the young
   In muscle the embrace.

XI

Soar on thy manhood clear from those
Whose toothless Winter claws at May,
And take her as the vein of rose
   Athwart an evening grey.

I

How died Melissa none dares shape in words.
A woman who is wife despotic lords
Count faggot at the question, Shall she live!
Her son, because his brows were black of her,
Runs barking for his bread, a fugitive,
And Corinth frowns on them that feed the cur.

II

There is no Corinth save the whip and curb
Of Corinth, high Periander; the superb
In magnanimity, in rule severe.
Up on his marble fortress-tower he sits,
The city under him: a white yoked steer,
That bears his heart for pulse, his head for wits.

III

Bloom of the generous fires of his fair Spring
Still coloured him when men forbore to sting;
Admiring meekly where the ordered seeds
Of his good sovereignty showed gardens trim;
And owning that the hoe he struck at weeds
Was author of the flowers raised face to him.

His Corinth, to each mood subservient
In homage, made he as an instrument
To yield him music with scarce touch of stops.
He breathed, it piped; he moved, it rose to fly:
At whiles a bloodhorse racing till it drops;
At whiles a crouching dog, on him all eye.

V

His wisdom men acknowledged; only one,
The creature, issue of him, Lycophron,
That rebel with his mother in his brows,
Contested: such an infamous would foul
Pirene!  Little heed where he might house
The prince gave, hearing: so the fox, the owl!

VI

To prove the Gods benignant to his rule,
The years, which fasten rigid whom they cool,
Reviewing, saw him hold the seat of power.
A grey one asked: Who next? nor answer had:
One greyer pointed on the pallid hour
To come: a river dried of waters glad.

VII

For which of his male issue promised grip
To stride yon people, with the curb and whip?
This Lycophron! he sole, the father like,
Fired prospect of a line in one strong tide,
By right of mastery; stern will to strike;
Pride to support the stroke: yea, Godlike pride!

Himself the prince beheld a failing fount.
His line stretched back unto its holy mount:
The thirsty onward waved for him no sign.
Then stood before his vision that hard son.
The seizure of a passion for his line
Impelled him to the path of Lycophron.

IX

The youth was tossing pebbles in the sea;
A figure shunned along the busy quay,
Perforce of the harsh edict for who dared
Address him outcast.  Naming it, he crossed
His father’s look with look that proved them paired
For stiffness, and another pebble tossed.

X

An exile to the Island ere nightfall
He passed from sight, from the hushed mouths of all.
It had resemblance to a death: and on,
Against a coast where sapphire shattered white,
The seasons rolled like troops of billows blown
To spraymist.  The prince gazed on capping night.

XI

Deaf Age spake in his ear with shouts: Thy son!
Deep from his heart Life raved of work not done.
He heard historic echoes moan his name,
As of the prince in whom the race had pause;
Till Tyranny paternity became,
And him he hated loved he for the cause.

Not Lycophron the exile now appeared,
But young Periander, from the shadow cleared,
That haunted his rebellious brows.  The prince
Grew bright for him; saw youth, if seeming loth,
Return: and of pure pardon to convince,
Despatched the messenger most dear with both.

XIII

His daughter, from the exile’s Island home,
Wrote, as a flight of halcyons o’er the foam,
Sweet words: her brother to his father bowed;
Accepted his peace-offering, and rejoiced.
To bring him back a prince the father vowed,
Commanded man the oars, the white sails hoist.

XIV

He waved the fleet to strain its westward way
On to the sea-hued hills that crown the bay:
Soil of those hospitable islanders
Whom now his heart, for honour to his blood,
Thanked.  They should learn what boons a prince confers
When happiness enjoins him gratitude!

XV

In watch upon the offing, worn with haste
To see his youth revived, and, close embraced,
Pardon who had subdued him, who had gained
Surely the stoutest battle between two
Since Titan pierced by young Apollo stained
Earth’s breast, the prince looked forth, himself looked through.

Errors aforetime unperceived were bared,
To be by his young masterful repaired:
Renewed his great ideas gone to smoke;
His policy confirmed amid the surge
Of States and people fretting at his yoke.
And lo, the fleet brown-flocked on the sea-verge!

XVII

Oars pulled: they streamed in harbour; without cheer
For welcome shadowed round the heaving bier.
They, whose approach in such rare pomp and stress
Of numbers the free islanders dismayed
At Tyranny come masking to oppress,
Found Lycophron this breathless, this lone-laid.

XVIII

Who smote the man thrown open to young joy?
The image of the mother of his boy
Came forth from his unwary breast in wreaths,
With eyes.  And shall a woman, that extinct,
Smite out of dust the Powerful who breathes?
Her loved the son; her served; they lay close-linked!

XIX

Dead was he, and demanding earth.  Demand
Sharper for vengeance of an instant hand,
The Tyrant in the father heard him cry,
And raged a plague; to prove on free Hellenes
How prompt the Tyrant for the Persian dye;
How black his Gods behind their marble screens.

I

The Tyrant passed, and friendlier was his eye
On the great man of Athens, whom for foe
He knew, than on the sycophantic fry
That broke as waters round a galley’s flow,
Bubbles at prow and foam along the wake.
Solidity the Thunderer could not shake,
Beneath an adverse wind still stripping bare,
His kinsman, of the light-in-cavern look,
From thought drew, and a countenance could wear
Not less at peace than fields in Attic air
Shorn, and shown fruitful by the reaper’s hook.

II

Most enviable so; yet much insane
To deem of minds of men they grow! these sheep,
By fits wild horses, need the crook and rein;
Hot bulls by fits, pure wisdom hold they cheap,
My Lawgiver, when fiery is the mood.
For ones and twos and threes thy words are good;
For thine own government are pillars: mine
Stand acts to fit the herd; which has quick thirst,
Rejecting elegiacs, though they shine
On polished brass, and, worthy of the Nine,
In showering columns from their fountain burst.

III

IV

As under sea lay Solon’s work, or seemed
By turbid shore-waves beaten day by day;
Defaced, half formless, like an image dreamed,
Or child that fashioned in another clay
Appears, by strangers’ hands to home returned.
But shall the Present tyrannize us? earned
It was in some way, justly says the sage.
One sees not how, while husbanding regrets;
While tossing scorn abroad from righteous rage,
High vision is obscured; for this is age
When robbed—more infant than the babe it frets!

V

Yet see Athenians treading the black path
Laid by a prince’s shadow! well content
To wait his pleasure, shivering at his wrath:
They bow to their accepted Orient
With offer of the all that renders bright:
Forgetful of the growth of men to light,
As creatures reared on Persian milk they bow.
Unripe! unripe!  The times are overcast.
But still may they who sowed behind the plough
True seed fix in the mind an unborn NOW
To make the plagues afflicting us things past.

I

Maimed, beggared, grey; seeking an alms; with nod
Of palsy doing task of thanks for bread;
   Upon the stature of a God,
He whom the Gods have struck bends low his head.

II

Weak words he has, that slip the nerveless tongue
Deformed, like his great frame: a broken arc:
   Once radiant as the javelin flung
Right at the centre breastplate of his mark.

III

Oft pausing on his white-eyed inward look,
Some undermountain narrative he tells,
   As gapped by Lykian heat the brook
Cut from the source that in the upland swells.

IV

The cottagers who dole him fruit and crust
With patient inattention hear him prate:
   And comes the snow, and comes the dust,
Comes the old wanderer, more bent of late.

A crazy beggar grateful for a meal
Has ever of himself a world to say.
   For them he is an ancient wheel
Spinning a knotted thread the livelong day.

VI

He cannot, nor do they, the tale connect;
For never singer in the land had been
   Who him for theme did not reject:
Spurned of the hoof that sprang the Hippocrene.

VII

Albeit a theme of flame to bring them straight
The snorting white-winged brother of the wave,
   They hear him as a thing by fate
Cursed in unholy babble to his grave.

VIII

As men that spied the wings, that heard the snort,
Their sires have told; and of a martial prince
   Bestriding him; and old report
Speaks of a monster slain by one long since.

IX

There is that story of the golden bit
By Goddess given to tame the lightning steed:
   A mortal who could mount, and sit
Flying, and up Olympus midway speed.

He rose like the loosed fountain’s utmost leap;
He played the star at span of heaven right o’er
   Men’s heads: they saw the snowy steep,
Saw the winged shoulders: him they saw not more.

XI

He fell: and says the shattered man, I fell:
And sweeps an arm the height an eagle wins;
   And in his breast a mouthless well
Heaves the worn patches of his coat of skins.

XII

Lo, this is he in whom the surgent springs
Of recollections richer than our skies
   To feed the flow of tuneful strings,
Show but a pool of scum for shooting flies.