|
EOS:
AN EPIC OF THE DAWN.
|
|
Illusion
makes the better part of life.
Happy self-conjurors, deceived, we win
Delight and ruled by fancy live in dreams.
The mood, the hour, the standpoint, rules the scene;
The past, the present, the to-be weave charms;
|
5 |
White-flashing
memory’s fleet footsteps fly,
And all the borders of her way are pied
With flowers full glad e’en when their roots
touch quick
With pain. With tears upon his dimpled cheek
Forth steps the infant joy, and laughing, mocks
|
10 |
At
care. In time, smiles play upon the cheek
Of pale regret, who grows transformed, and stands
A pensive queen, more fair than boisterous mirth.
The present’s odorous with leaves of trees
Long dead, and dead defacing weeds and thorns,
|
15 |
And
past the cloud that glowered, the blast that smote,
And out from never to be trodden days
Hope smiles, and airs from dawns we’re never
doomed
To see, come rich with fragrance, fresh with power,
Profuse of promises of golden days
|
20 |
And
join the necromancy of the past,
Mingling the magic which makes up our lives.
I had been musing how the goddess bright
Of morning red, at close of every night,
Announcing coming light of day to gods [Page
16]
|
25 |
And
mortals, drove her lambent car across
The sky, and how she stoop’d and pluck’d
those flowers
Of men,—Orion, Cephalus, Tithonius—
Tithonius, who became a wrinkled shade,
So changed from him whose strength and beauty pierced
|
30 |
The
heart of Eos in its tender sawn
Of love.
A
sunny sky of blue arching
A plain in verdure drowned, and floating thick
Upon the emerald sea sweet wild flowers gay;
Their stately queen the light-pink prairie rose.
|
35 |
The
whirr of insects loud on every side,
And loud and clear the prairie lark, deep hid
In those vast fragrant meadows, sang; the creek
Sent thousand-voiced upon the sultry air
The bull-frog’s weary canticle. I slept
|
40 |
And
dreamt the goddess bent above me there
On that wide treeless plain, and made my heart
Distend with dumb, bewildering, dreadful joy;
Near mine the snowy forehead isled in gold,
Near mine the eyes of blue, ineffable, sweet,
|
45 |
And
on my mouth the dewy rose of hers.
She rose and bared her milk-white arm, and drew
Me near her; then there flash’d a blinding
light;
Whirlwinds of flame swept o’er the grass;
the plain
Was one vast fire from rim to rim; but on
|
50 |
We
went till distance made th’abounding blaze
Like glow of western clouds presaging storm,
When the broad sun in awful glory sets,
Then leaves great yellow fire-lit tracts behind,
Like fame of some portentous deed; the heart [Page
17]
|
55 |
Is
touched and no unpleasing sadness wraps
The soul.
The
sea soon lay beneath, with isles
Of vines and palms, tall cedars, citron groves,
Within an azure concave rimmed with light.
A rush of green-white wave and we were whelm’d
|
60 |
In
depths wherein whole navies might go down,
Nor leave a ripple on the placid sea.
Careless, I closed mine eyes to die, but she
Reached forth the delicate hand with tapering fingers,
White, rosy-tipp’d, and touched me. At that
touch
|
65 |
Strength
came. I seemed to breathe my native air,
And she led on towards stately towers unique
In architecture and in ornament.
But when we neared the carven arch and door
She turned and said:—“To-morrow you
shall ride
|
70 |
With
me,” and like a dream she went, and blank
And desolate, I knew not where to turn.
Far down where never sailors’ plummet reach’d,
Nor ever beam of piercing sunbeam stole,
Nor dream of faint forgotten sound e’er stirred,
|
75 |
Nor
ghost of earthly odours smote the sense,
Wall’d in with silent, fearful waves, its
roof
Of night and pallid waning stars, upheld
By massy pillars quarried from the dark,
The home mysterious of the goddess stands;
|
80 |
Its
solemn spacious chambers carpeted
With dusk, and hung with swarthy tapestries;
Ebon the garniture; profuse on lounge
And litter lay the furs of animals [Page
18]
Extinct for centuries ere man emerged,
|
85 |
Of
which the rocks no hint to science give.
Along the halls and corridors obscure,
In many a dim recess, rose stately shapes
Of blackness. Fed from odorous flowers fresh culled
In gardens of Persephoné, the air
|
90 |
Was
sweet—a rich pervading fragrance pure,
And through the rayless splendours of these halls—
Led by what happy chance or gracious guide—
I groped and found where far within, in such
A room, so full of sleep-compelling airs,
|
95 |
So
beautiful, so stately-solemn, still,
As silence, weary of time’s fret and change
Might choose for an eternal sleep, lo! there
On couch dark as a piece of Erebus,
But soft as Summer cloud, cunning the frame,
|
100 |
Made
from the lethal bronze the Titan works
In thunder clouds, in dreamless slumber Eos
Lay. Ah! no darkness there! From white lithe limbs,
Full throat, curved shoulder, pure firm breast and
waist
Which rose in beauty to the swelling hips,
|
105 |
Light
shone, and glory from her golden head!
Athwart those hips a vaporous veil, dim lace
Of magic woof, the work of hands divine
And made from mists of dawn was thrown, but fail’d
To hide large outlines fair, which dazzling glow’d
|
110 |
As
glows the sun thro’ half-enkindled clouds.
Like small snow mounds o’er which in threshing
time
The farmer spills the yellow grain, which curves
Around the base, her eyelids white; her mouth,
Her ruddy cheeks glow’d like young roses red
[Page 19]
|
115 |
Above
the lilies of her throat and breast,
Around, light, airy, fairy forms kept watch.
She moved and these took wing. She rose and stood
A vision fairer than e’er sculptor dream’d,
And like a cataract of fire and gold
|
120 |
That
down white rocks of Parian marble sweeps,
O’er shoulder, breast and flank her thick
hair fell
And reached her pearly ankles pale. Her maids
Who seem’d compact of starlight, now return’d,
The bath prepared, and like to Artemis
|
125 |
When
by the hunter spied, but riper-warm
Her beauty, Titian’s to Correggio’s
Venus, or what the matron of some years
Of happy married life is to the girl
She was before love struck the fountains deep
|
130 |
Of
life and all the streams of tenderness
Set free, Eos stood while they poured the water
O’er her, parting the hair to let the wave
Reach the white back and lave the fruitful breast.
Upon her flesh the drops enamour’d stood,
|
135 |
Trembled
and rolled unwilling down; around
Her form a purple robe, diaphanous,
She flung, and passed into the hall where-through
Now gleam’d a light, clear, soft, diffused.
Her face
Was full of youth and purpose, and she cast
|
140 |
No
glance at all aside, nor did she heed
The helpless pathos of those filmy hands
Tithonous held out pleading, nor dumb prayers
Regard. Before the high arched carven door
There rushed the blaze of golden car and steeds
|
145 |
Of
fire, with lightning shod, their eyes like pits
[Page 20]
Of flame, and standing near, with harp in hand,
Spirits of beauty sang clear voiced and sweet:
|
|
CHORUS.
|
|
| |
Hail!
day’s herald reappearing!
Joy of earth! young earth’s
adorning,
|
150 |
| |
Wings
out-spread and fast careering
Down the gulfs of Chaos
darkling,
Soon
Black Night will disappear;
While her star above her
sparkling,
Comes with shining robes the Morning,
|
155 |
| |
Orange-tinted,
purple-glowing,
Samite
skirts and freely flowing,
Songs
of birds, and saucy crowing
Shrill
of wakeful chanticleer.
Bounding rills down bowery highlands,
|
160 |
| |
Flashing
streams with streamlets flushing,
Lucid waves round flowery islands,
In thy beams will soon be
blushing,
And the lily’s pallid cheek will burn with
thy dyes
And the leaves and fields
will twinkle
|
165 |
| |
With
the dews thy tears besprinkle,
Tears
from thine immortal eyes.
Where now darkness grimly gloometh,
Soon leaf shadows will be
swaying,
Over sunny banks where bloometh,
|
170 |
| |
Drinking
draughts of sunny air,
Sweet
as love and glad as day, [Page 21]
Flowers
too bright to know decaying,
They
are so immortal fair
Though
their doom be to decay.
|
175 |
SEMICHORUS I.
|
|
| |
Mount
thy car!
We
come from far—
Come from watching fairies footing
Steps fantastic in the moonlight,
O’er
enchanted lawns of green;
|
180 |
| |
On the
left white billows shooting,
Whose spray showers of margarite
Play
o’er sheets of silver sheen:
On the right a cedarn cover,
Where coy Dian with her
lover
|
185 |
| |
Might
have met and kissed unseen.
Mount
thy car!
Fain
would we be viewing
Thy soft tears the earth
bedewing,
The
meadows green and mountains,
|
190 |
| |
The
forest thick and fells,
Leafy
dells, gardened closes,
Roses
red, pink and pale,
Towery hyacinth and jasmine
and blue bells,
And ten thousand flowers unnamed which regale
|
195 |
| |
With
the odours they exhale,
Drunk enraptured sense subduing
Through
the perfume laden gale,
Bearing spoils from large
wild roses,
From pied pansies, nectar’d
posies— [Page 22]
|
200 |
| |
Purple
chalices and golden,
Of man’s eyes still
unbeholden,
Which the bee to-day shall
drain;
From tall grasses big with sun and rain,
From glad vines no careful hand shall train
|
205 |
| |
Which
run riot round wild fountains
That
go flashing down the dale.
|
|
SEMICHORUS II.
|
|
| |
Mount
they car!
Jewelled, golden, asbestine,
We would have divine delight,
|
210 |
| |
And
would gaze
On
the maze
Of commingling waters’
blaze,
On wild teeming ocean’s daughters,
Lakes
and seas;
|
215 |
| |
On
the haze
Over lakes and wooded mountains,
Over fields and spray-crowned fountains,
Where the earliest day-gleams shiver,
On mild-glinting rill and river,
|
220 |
| |
Where
the youngest morning beams
Plash in streamlets play on streams,
Waterfalls, like ruby wine,
In thy amethystine light.
Mount
thy car!
|
225 |
Now while they sang we mounted that high car,
And, ere I was aware, Eos, the reins [Page
23]
Held in both hands, was flying up the steep
Way phosphorescent, I beside her. Tongues
Of flame played in the horses’ manes and all
|
230 |
Seem’d
hurrying flame, and soon the cold raw air
Of the dark world was stirred, and the stars blinked
And glimmered pale and went. But Lucifer
In untam’d splendour shone, and up the heavens
And o’er the broad Ægean blood-red shafts
|
235 |
Were
mixed with yellow, sapphire and beryl rays.
We saw the isles dispersed within what seemed
The hollow sea, like leaves within the cup,
When old tea-drinking crones their fortunes tell.
Afar lay Cypress whence Phoenicians came
|
240 |
With
wares to Argos and Mycenæ, bent
On trade and plunder, stealing youth and maid
And wife with golden tresses, limbs like light,
To sell in Egypt. On these shores they found
The shell-fish which contained their Tyrian dye.
|
245 |
They
settled in the land, built cities long
Renown’d in song, grew rich and great, and
lost
The memory of their Eastern lands less fair.
They taught the Greek their arts, their alphabet;
To measure, mould , carve, gild, inlay,
|
250 |
Design;
to write in symbols and to frame
Grotesque impossible embodiments,
But Greece her own bright genius felt and soar’d
Into ideal worlds, and gave men forms
And faiths such as Divinity itself
|
255 |
Might
charm; the beautiful she first revealed,
And when from sleep and slaughter Europe woke
[Page 24]
’Twas at the kiss of Greece upon her brow,
Blood-stained—the crown of grace in Plato’s
speech,
The majesty of Pheidian art, above
|
260 |
Life’s
lusts, and wars loud varnish, glory called—
The worship of Euripides for worth
In man and tender woman’s selfless love.
Right over Athens she drew up her team,
Air-pawing, breathing blaze-mixed smoke, and down
|
265 |
On
tower and temple, mighty ruins, grey
Old columns of past empire, glory showered.
A buried world rose up before mine eye.
Methought to greet us, awful Pallas came,
Cold, love proof maid, serene, omnipotent
|
270 |
In
arms, who never snatch’d from human fields
A mortal youth, to dare the perils dread
Of charms divine, nor ever shed a tear,
No, not when battlefields were heaped with slain,
And widows tore their hair and screamed, and wild
|
275 |
With
woe-compelling grief, the lonely couch
A river made; her followed, glorious throng,
The singers, statesmen, sages, heroes old,
All that made Athens glory’s shrine, the world’s
Pharos; while far from Thebes Memnonian strains
|
280 |
Were
borne thro’ many a flowery-scented vale.
The mind of Eos turned to him she bore
Tithonus, his ripe beauty and his fate
Unripe, by fierce Achilles sent to death.
Her large blue orbs were dimmed with tears, such
tears
|
285 |
As
weep immortal eyes, and swift, all blades
Of grass, all leaves, all flowers were gemm’d
with dew;
[Page 25]
And oh! her beauty as she wept away
Those drops from cheeks fit thrones for love and
joy!
“Nay not for him,” she said, “alone
I mourn,
|
290 |
Old
gods dethroned may claim my tears and realms
Of beauty lost. Change is the only fate.
Even gods are subject to his mighty sway.
Each moment works its will, and as men dream
That they are thus or thus, they cease to be
|
295 |
What
they conceive themselves. Who could have thought
That Greece would sink to what she is? Proud Athens,
Home of ideal thought and noblest art—
Where now the poet, hero, sculptor, sage,
The men whose art prolongs the lives of gods,
|
300 |
Which
keeps them in men’s mouths when all their
pomp
Of worship is no more; the words with wings;
The graceful wisdom full of calm and smiles,
The pœans sounding thro’ the laurels
green
For ever, songs of joy which shook the dew
|
305 |
From
pink and rose? Comes never more that life
To fill the world with worship, proudly make
All time its debtor? Where the Olympian fight
For no base sordid prize? Where are the men
Those billows gladly bore to fame and power,
|
310 |
Their
triremes filled with valour fronting death,
While strains that still are living stirr’d
the air?
Gone like their shadows in the glassy deep!
Their very monuments oblivion’s mockery.
That sea sounds doleful on desertless shores,
|
315 |
And
glory’s waters waste round voiceless isles.
No more, no, never, never more comes back
Upon the world such days, when men were men [Page
26]
All round, not narrow’d into specialisms,
When Æschylus fought and sang, when Pericles
|
320 |
Commanded
armies, ruled the state, loved art,
And the bard’s laurel kiss’d the victor’s
crown.”
She waved her hand and on we went. We dash’d
Against great banks of cloud and made them blaze,
And far ahead the skirts of flying Night
|
325 |
Were
fring’d with silver lace, and round her neck
And swarthy bust a russet robe she cast
As though to shield her from day’s prying
eye.
O’er Salamis and Megaris we drove;
A glance towards Delphi’s shrine and Dorian
hills,
|
330 |
And
Achaian vales renowned in ancient song,
And high Olympus once the throne of gods.
Ulysses’ isle one moment claim’d our
thoughts,
Then broke the sea upon the Apulian shore.
Canusium, Brundusium, Cannæ,
|
335 |
Arpi,
Arpinum, these unnoticed pass’d.
We paus’d a moment o’er Imperial Rome,
Her tale—the Milky Way of mighty deeds,
Her streets a wilderness of monuments,
Her very dust made of the bones of saints;
|
340 |
The
Column, Forum, Coliseum, Arch,
Passed like the shadow of a bird.
“Ah
there,”
I cried, “you have a theme.”
“A
theme indeed,”
She said, “on which I well might dwell, for
none
Have loved to meet me more than those whose home
|
345 |
Was
Rome. Cæsar returning late from revel,
Power-musing, gazed upon the grey above [Page
27]
The Sabine Hills, noting with emulous eye
My conquering car across their summits flash;
The capitol in purest outline stood
|
350 |
Against
the steely background of the sky;
The hum of life woke down the Sacred Way;
The selfish clients throng’d the doors and
halls
Of those proud nobles. Mightiest and truest souls,
The tenderest spirits and noblest hearts,
|
355 |
Their
highest inspirations find in me.
From Baiæ Horace oft Vesuvius’ come
Has watch’d grow red beneath my burning wheels,
And Virgil loved to see my eager steeds
Beat the dark ether into silver fire,
|
360 |
And
hear the gentle breeze my rushing wheels
Send fragrant o’er the trembling forest trees.
Mine is the hour for meditation; heart
And mind are freest; care but half awake;
Pale lust is drowsing; blear-eyed drunkenness
|
365 |
Shrinks
scared from me; the soul she yearns to God;
She feels her wings, like birds about to leave
The nest, and blesses Him who made all things
So fair! The rose is ne’er so lovely-sweet
As when my rays gleam through the tremulous pearls
|
370 |
Within
the shining ivory of its shells.
What time to watch the sea like that when o’er
Its steel-blue paths I drive, transforming sky
And wave, hiding in gleaming tissues gemmed,
Dawn’s russet jerkin? Mine’s the hour
to think,
|
375 |
To
pray, to hear great nature’s heart beat. He
Who’d know himself, know what and when to
do,
Know what is best and fairest, what of power [Page
28]
Is in the step which walks with us, who’d
draw
Into his life the forces of the gods,
|
380 |
Must
greet me waking worlds from daily death,
A resurrection comes with every dawn.
Yon glory-blazon’d city, black with crimes,
The mightiest stage on which mankind has play’d—
There the great battle was fought out afresh,
|
385 |
Christ
crucified a thousand times—the rack,
The living torch, the wild beast’s maw, the
sword,
The myriad shout exultant of fierce joy
Within those Flavian walls, now ruin’s home,
Then white with togas, splendid, beauty-crown’d,
|
390 |
Rank
above rank, to watch the naked faith
Engage the world, nor dream’d that the poor
slave
They doom’d had conquer’d death, and
smote their rule
With truth’s all deadly touch. Gentle souls
serene!
Their hymns, pure as the carols of the birds
|
395 |
Of
dawn, I’ve heard mount o’er the Palatine,
While in the palace lust and madness gloom’d.
Long had our ancient lovely creeds decay’d—
The soulless relics of a by-gone day.
Their time was up. I’d heard glad angels sing
|
400 |
In
Bethlehem, had seen His after triumph,
Captivity led captive, Death in chains,
Just as the Jordan crimson’d in my ray,
But Olivet a glory wore which mine
Eclipsed. I bow’d and reined my steeds until
|
405 |
Into
the heaven of heavens He passed, the gates
Of God’s supreme abode clang’d opening
wide,
And shouts and songs of triumph shook the stars.
Him well I knew; by Him I sprang to life; [Page
29]
Like Pallas from the brain of Zeus full-arm’d,
|
410 |
“Let
there be light!” he said, and straight I was,
And driving ’thwart the limitless abyss,
Woke up old Chaos from eternal sleep,
And startled stars remote and farthest space
With the first footfalls of light’s glancing
feet.
|
415 |
Huge
Darkness for a moment stood appal’d,
Then went, vague terror on his swarthy brow.
Alas! Christ’s cult has been depraved. Faithless,
Taking his cue from curiosity,
The priest, grown sceptical corrupts all creeds.
|
420 |
Weak
men and weaker women fain would know
The future, tho’ among its factor’s
will
Should hold no humble place. They’d have the
god
Some special favours to themselves afford
Some better revelation of himself
|
425 |
Than
starry spheres, than all earth’s beauties
teach
In form and tint, the sky-reflecting streams
Which feed the flower enamell’d odorous fields,
The lakes wherein the mountains glass their bulks
Majestic, looking greater in the wave,
|
430 |
Like
lives of great ones passed away, whose word
Yet echoes in men’s hearts, whose deeds still
hold
The field against the blows of time. Debased
Their pur-blind hearts conceive he’ll come
at call
Of spells in dim-lit holes, and that he loves
|
435 |
Oppressive
smells, who makes wild trees and shrubs
To load the winds with perfume. Fittest fane
For Him the boundless universe he made.
But men are children, various in their growth,
And so the soul be brought to touch with God’s,
[Page 30]
|
440 |
The
end of all sincere religion’s gained.
If man would reach the highest possible
He must, like Enoch, walk with God; must build
His reservoir of power among the stars
If he would go as high; who’d soar must feel
|
445 |
The
strength divine within his life and hear
The unfaltering wings of fate beat time with his,
And, save such dread companionship, alone.
We minor gods our end subserv’d, but fail’d
To strike the master note of love, which chord
|
450 |
He
struck evoking softest, sweetest strains,
With deeper spell than Orpheus’ powerful lyre,
Which balm on hearts afflicted breathes and peace
On storm-tost souls, and more than martial airs
Can stir the hero’s heart; can nerve a child
|
455 |
With
gaze untroubled, frowning world to front;
Its simple notes in purest accents heard,
And ancient crowns and creeds antique dissolve;
The world for man new-born was made anew;
Life throbb’d beneath the ribs of death; new
life
|
460 |
And
full of joy in charnel hearts; and o’er
Dominions of despair hope’s shining star
Was seen, and sin was spurn’d. Christ rais’d
man high,
His own vain dreams have sunk him low.”
She ceased and shook the silvery reins which flash’d
|
465 |
Like
lightening bands above the Central Sea.
A southern breeze bore balm upon its wings
And shed Arabian perfume round our way.
“How fair this world,” I cried.
“Aye
fair,” she said,
“Fair the bright flowers whose eyes are fair
for mine; [Page 31]
|
470 |
Fair
snowy falls and stream and fell and vale;
The farmer faring nimbly to his fields,
His bucksome wife loud-chucking for her hens;
The burly plowman turning up the earth;
Small shapely fingers dressing loaded vines;
|
475 |
The
rooks at parley in the pine-tree tops;
The orchestral bursts of joy from little throats
Of black-bird, thrush and robin, linnet, finch,
And lark—that rocket of heart-glowing song!
The sea—the free, the rushing waves at play;
|
480 |
The
steamship holding on ’gainst wind and tide;
The sailor singing as he scours the deck;
Fair is the mother praying with her babes;
The boy, sly-creeping o’er his sleeping sire;
The maiden in her lover’s pure embrace,
|
485 |
Their
trysting place the dewy fields of dawn;
The ivied cottage whence the smoke up curls,
Its feet touched by the foam of sobbing seas;
Fair is contrition’s early prayer to heaven;
Fair tender-handed nurses watching pain;
|
490 |
Fair
holy nuns their orisons repeating;
And fair the poet drinking in my force,
Framing great songs whose waves melodious bear
High thoughts like ships rich laden. Fair all these,
But I could show you where ghast murder glares,
|
495 |
Terror
with all her furies standing near;
Where at this hour which seems so fair to you,
Bewilder’d girls drown their helpless babes;
Where women beautiful as Dian’s smile
In silver seas, drowse guilty in gilt splendour,
|
500 |
Or
sleep the outworn thralls of lust; men dower’d
[Page 32]
With Fortune’s favours, yes and those with
gifts
Of mind, in drunken languor snoring life
Away; gaunt hunger crimp’d in garrets vile;
The moon-light ruffian coming from his work
|
505 |
Of
savage war on civil life; and here
A mountain side, a peasant’s hut, his home
Where he and his were born, but whence vile greed
Ejects him now unjustly, for it made
His load too heavy. He in anger scowls;
|
510 |
The
aged palsied mother weeps; the wife
With apron wipes her tears away; then scolds
The instruments of law, to them the dogs
Of pitiless oppression; sons tall, strong,
With murderous eye survey the bailiff hard;
|
515 |
The
children cry, the neighbours helpless crowd
Against the cordon thrown around by power.
Aye
fair the world! but did I make you see
The ceaseless, measureless flow of heart-wrung tears,
And hear the chorus vast of woeful sighs!
|
520 |
Fair
were this world, were but men’s actions fair.
But now—”
Quick
moved her hand, a gesture proud
Of scorn. The lightning gleam’d within her
eyes
Deep blue; crimson her cheek, her nostrils spread;
But pity driving anger out she cried:
|
525 |
“Poor
man! Not wholly hateful even at worst,
At best, he’s greater than the gods themselves.
The poet and priest have praised us long in song
More laden with coarse flattery than altars
With fat of lamb and ram and bullock, for they deem’d
|
530 |
We
loved the odour which your dainty dame [Page
33]
Will faint to find invade her boudoir. Now
A god will say a word in praise of man—
We are immortal. Man’s frail life a whiff
From swamp or river puffs out; all the odds
|
535 |
Against
achievement; his rewards they grow
Upon the precipice’s ledge; he toils,
Fails, fights again for doubtful prizes, plucks
His flowers with wide-mouth’d ruin gaping
far
Below; he lives and sweats for other men,
|
540 |
Whose
tardy praises will not reach his ears.
He thinks, he acts, he laughs, he weeps, he loves,
And always in death’s shadow; whatever house
He builds, his destined lodging is the tomb.
The bride he wreaks his heart on, death will claim.
|
545 |
And
make a grinning horror of the face
Which thrilled his soul. The dome where genius dwells
And whence it sends its thoughts, like arms, to
clasp
The universe, becomes a hideous piece
Of crumbling bone. Yet on the isthmus small
|
550 |
Of
life, the past and future, like great seas
On either hand whose deeps oblivious
Devouring all, make mockery of fame,
What works what plans immense the insect rears!
We see fruition; we the end enjoy;
|
555 |
Ten
thousand heroes walk the earth and sow
And know they cannot reap, but those they love
Will—mother, wife or child; ten thousand who
Would gladly die for men they never knew.
Such lives, such deeds, the noblest praise for him
|
560 |
Whose
fingers form’d wondrous man. [Page
34]
All Europe lay beneath us
now; a map
Whereon since Cæsar’s time change scribbles,
like
A wayward child perverse; red battle fields
As thick as tomb-stones in the parish ground,
|
565 |
And
armies that in thunder yet will break
On bloodier fields.
More
silvery grey the clouds
Above and round the city of the Seine.
Clear did it show in regular beauty fair.
Clear showed its long straight streets with boskage
lined;
|
570 |
Its
boulevards, and palaces and towers
And domes, and thro’ the wilderness of art,
Beneath its many ponts, between its wealth
Of trees umbrageous, the river moved;
The cab its light—a pin head, plied for hire;
|
575 |
From
Neuilly and well-cultur’d Courbevoie
The market cart came ‘neath the Arc de Triomphe,
And, looking like a beetle, hurried down
The Champs Elysées, which contrasted now,
In the pure quiet of the early dawn,
|
580 |
With
the coarse splendours of its nightly wont.
Empty those gardens where vain pleasure haunts,
Where queens of lust to-day in diamonds shine,
Who on no distant morrows die in rags.
The Boulevardian roar is hushed; the blaze
|
585 |
Of
Cafés veiled; of thrice ten thousand shops
The glory’s out; but all that soul can stir
Remains: the dome which rises o’er his tomb
Who broke on Europe bearing death and fire,
And carrying terror to the hearts of kings,
|
590 |
Whole
nations mesmerizing, whose column stands [Page
35]
And Arch Triumphant, reverenced by those
Who would all else destroy. That gilded dome
Shines like another sun, and there lies he
Silent, but still a wonder and a power.
|
595 |
Yet
more inspiring are the monuments
Which speak of death to tyrants and of hope
For men, of aspirations after good,
The love of liberty, the love of man,
The love of art, of song. Yes! Paris stands
|
600 |
By
suffering purified, with more true force
To raise men’s thoughts than when false glitter
call’d
From every side proud dissolute wealth,
To dazzle thro’ the streets of slaves.
She
read
My thoughts, and, answering them, the goddess spake:
|
605 |
“Amazing
genius in the Kelt abides.
How sweet his warm, quick, gentle courtesy!
How brave in arms! Excelling in all arts!
How loyal to the leader of his heart!
His very vanity a power. The price
|
610 |
He
pays for his great gifts is great: balance,
The steady aim and duty made supreme.
France might be well content to-day. She lost
But what she took by force. But thunders crouch
In every heart. Ere long they’ll Rhine-ward
spring,
|
615 |
And,
though the fight will not be such as when
A court of cowards and cocottes held sway,
’Twill end disastrously for France. Her foe
Has all the great conditions of success.
The people will be made ambition’s
pawns,
|
620 |
Ten
thousand bleed to make one leader great, [Page
36]
Perhaps to make a tyrant; such is a man;
Of all his follies war’s red glory worst.
If wisdom ruled, the peoples of the world
Might be as one.”
The
isles of freedom lay
|
625 |
Like
jewels on the ocean’s breast. The roar
Of London now was still. Its million flues
Had not yet thrown a canopy opaque
Between it and the sky. A thousand spires
Rose clear into the air. Their crosses shone.
|
630 |
Huge
chimneys hideous forms reared above
The sea of roofs, and, like a penitent,
The Tower, full of remorseful memories, showed.
The river seems to slumber on its way;
Its shores of new embankment, buildings old,
|
635 |
St.
Paul’s great dome, St. Stephen’s ornate
tower,
Were mirrored in its calm but murky tide.
Huge barges lay, like monsters of the deep
Asleep. Ten thousand masts were tipp’d with
gold.
’Twas fancy, or I heard the ghost-like tread
|
640 |
Of
stray policemen in deserted streets.
A speck, the waggon laden with fresh fruits
And roots and flowers, towards Covent garden moved.
A blot of wretchedness crept down the strand,
Another night of sin and gin and pain
|
645 |
Gone
by. Slow limpt she to her squalid home,
If home was hers in that hard populous hive.
“There,” said
my guide, “the largest city time
E’er saw, the seat of peerless empire, built
By valorous deeds and counsels sage, now caught
|
650 |
In
the fierce draw of wild democracy, [Page
37]
Whose rapids menace death. Founder she will
Amongst those howling rocks unless the wise
And patriot rule the hour. The House of Lords—
A scuttled, mastless hulk in stormy seas.
|
655 |
The
boasted constitution’s gone, and England,
Unless she builds anew, ’gainst perils new
Will split up in the roaring surge. The man
Of state to-day who wins success is he
Who rattles loudest for the monstrous child,
|
660 |
With
headlong passions and imperial power.
Poor tricks are played. Any bait to which
The fish will rise. Great men of long renown
Palter with truth, and seek, like circus clowns,
To ride two horses; daub themselves and lose
|
665 |
Identity.
What they are, what next
They’ll do, no man can say. They’ll
summersault,
Or jump through all their principles. They’ll
fall,
They’ll tumble, then up smiling come, and
bow
For cheers, that Burke had rather die than hear.
|
670 |
A
few, indeed, the danger see. The rest
Sing songs of progress, or in dalliance live,
Deaf to the ruin-thundering billows near.
The greatest and the noblest nation, too,
That’s risen yet should not so fall.”
She ceased.
|
675 |
“Is
that small isle,” I asked, “whose earth-fenced
fields
Gleam emerald from below, the land of Flood
And Grattan?”
Answering
she sighed, or seem’d
To sigh: “Yes; that’s Ierne there.”
“O stained,”
|
680 |
I
cried, “with centuries of tears and crimes
[Page 38]
Recriminating crimes, what hope for her?
Must she forever lie a floating sorrow
On heaven upbraiding seas? Will never fall
From skies of mercy healing dews for her?
|
685 |
No
power e’er break the spell of anarchy?
And fill the land with happy homes and men
Made truly free from wrong by rectitude,
And balanc’d judgment pointing to what’s
fit?”
“That land,” she said, “will also
have its day.
|
690 |
Fail’d,
fail’d, ignominiously they’ve failed
To whom the glorious privilege of rule
Was given. Lost in low frivolity,
On them were lost high opportunities.
They spent, drank, sank and soddened into swine,
|
695 |
Or
lived, bloodhounds and beagles, chasing whom
They should protect. No sense at all of duty.
Their highest art to run a fox to death,
Harrying a hare their noblest day’s delight;
The peasant girl a quarry for their lusts;
|
700 |
License
their law, and blind to skyey portents,
They ground who’ll now grind them; their wisdom’s
thrift
To blight the land of which they were the lords.
The hour of retribution comes, and time’s
Old ledger evens up accounts. To-day
|
705 |
In
freedom’s happy land th’evictor’s
child
Bows to the evicted’s, and low-cringing sues
For palty place—so terrible is Fate!
The danger’s now men may mistake the cry
Of blinding Vengeance for the voice of Justice.
|
710 |
If
headlong hate’s hot counsels shall prevail,
And truth and honesty be nosed aside, [Page
39]
As swine would pearls, then comes the hour of fate
For those who stand elate on victory’s steps,
Now weigh the duties favouring gods impose.
|
715 |
Wolf-like
attacks on one defenceless man,
The cruel boycott piled on travails pangs,
The sinless heifer hock’d by senseless hands,
The yet green harvest mow’d with envy’s
scythe,
The worst of tyrannies in worst of forms,
|
720 |
A
reign of terror through the country side,
The honest farmer who will dare be just,
Is either slain by brother peasants’ hands
Or earless drives his tailless kine to town—
Such deeds, tho’ fruits of misused power—for
not
|
725 |
The
money taken from the land, the trim
Spruce agent gutting huts, the agony
Of bursting hearts that dared not speak, embrace
The worst; the degradation of the man
O’er shadows all: yet none the less such deeds
|
730 |
The
name of freedom soil and balk the aim
Of those who’d bring in better happier days.
E’en God’s aims fail because of a man’s
misdeeds.
This only certain, Goodness, Truth, the Right
Prevail at last. But man his own best star
|
735 |
Can
be his own worst bale. Once give him power
Forgot are all the lessons of all times,
He yokes himself to passion, heaven provokes
To send on him the plague which crush’d his
foes.
Yet hope’s star rises o’er that troubled
land.
|
740 |
A
healthy breeze comes from her stormy sky,
Will blow down bigotry’s corrupting shrines,
Her fatuous feuds the nightmare of vain dreams [Page
40]
Of day’s delusive and of ways defiled
By deeds ill-suited to the present hour.
|
745 |
She’ll
play a part her world-scatter’d sons
Can watch, nor blush: Empire’s right hand;
her soil
No longer drain’d to deck the Paris jade;
Security where dark assassins lurk’d;
Fields laden with earth’s bounty where high
walls
|
750 |
Uprear’d
by pride, wide-barrenness enclosed;
Contentment on the yeoman’s ruddy face,
Within his heart the glow of charity
For all the brother peoples of the earth,
And decent self-respect where pig and ass
|
755 |
Were
hous’d on equal terms with man.”
She
ceased;
The horses forward sprang; the Atlantic broad
Was well in view. The chariot flying o’er
The watery plain, bright roads of purple wide
Were dashed this way and that
O!
the pulsing sense
|
760 |
Of
life exstatic! O the wide, wide sea!
The sea-gulls wheel and poise and dip for prey,
The porpoise bounding through the billows, whales
Shooting to heaven great towers of glittering spray,
Their brown backs heaving huge above the wave,
|
765 |
Like
boats upturne’d. What joy to sail for ever
High o’er the dark blue sea!” And Eos
spake:
“I’ve told you
of man’s greatness,” said the goddess
“Amaze and admiration fill your soul
At this wide sweep of measureless sea
|
770 |
Now
all but calm. Some day you may again [Page
41]
Stray o’er these waters by my side, when clouds
Will wrap my car, clouds crashing thunder; hail
And lightening flaring round our heads; the bolt
Of Jove, wild hissing in the mad abyss,
|
775 |
And
then unharm’d for I will throw my shield
Invisible twixt death and you, you will admire,
For you have lov’d the storm whose choral
music,
Long-pealing thro’ ærial isles, has
been
To you from infancy a joy. I’ve seen
|
780 |
Upon
the sea, what all surpassed itself
In storm or calm: men save lives and die,
Nor blench with all its fury hurtling round
Their heads serene; Columbus crossing ways
Untrodden, guided by bold thought and faith,
|
785 |
And
mark’d him quell his mutinous men and move
Heroic in his slender craft, unawed
By man or elements, and reach his gaol
Despite of faltering fickle hearts; despite
The warring dread white-banner’d billows vast,
|
790 |
The
hurtling, roaring, spar-shaking, sibilant seas,
As in battalions up they rose to bar
The invader. Toils, privations, envy cares,
Ingratitude, neglect, the scorn of fools,
Successful treachery, contempt and want,
|
795 |
All
this was his for throwing wide the gates
Not only of new lands with wealth untold,
But of an era new for down-crush’d man.
For liberty required a virgin soil.
What has Columbus done for Europe’s slaves!
|
800 |
Not
only for the homeless happy homes;
With the small leaven of great pioneers, [Page
42]
It made and makes from Europe’s ooze and scum,
The foremost nation in fair freedom’s ranks.
It’s citizens—they walk the earth like
kings.
|
805 |
Proud
self-reliant, they have stript the crest
From idleness and swept from toil the ban,
And for the brave and strong thrown all doors wide.
There is the field of victory over kings
And tyrants, aye, and o’er the passions wild
|
810 |
Of
the impulsive throng. The courtly mob
May sneer, but no where else the crowding mass
Of men have been erect and free, each man
A sovereign, knowing this, respecting all,
However poor, who bravely work their way,
|
815 |
Not
capable of bending pliant knees,
Of doffing cap to any child of earth.”
We noted soon great ice-bergs
floating like
Abandoned isles and curving round the shores
Of Nova Scotia, Anticosti, New
|
820 |
Brunswick,
Prince Edward and Quebec, the waves
Of the St. Lawrence Gulf with refluent sweep;
The fishing fleets like fairy tents encamped
Upon the plains, and schools of mackarel
Moved shoreward shining in a thousand hues,
|
825 |
While
o’er them boiled the sea or seemed to boil.
We reached, admired and
pass’d that city hoar
Which wears an old face in a world all new,
From those high plain and storied citadel,
Wolfe’s glory streams for ever, and we mark’d
|
830 |
How
the broad river roll’d along, wide-hemmed
With wooded shores, the land and water all [Page
43]
One mighty maze of ruby sun-lit mist,
Far-burning wood and sheets of silver fire.
A shade of thought passed like a cloudlet o’er.
|
835 |
“Lo!
there,” she said, “a piece of French
antique
’Gainst which the waves of time its blasts
and storms
Would seem to break in vain. They cling down there
To forms and glories and traditions old
Of other lands and of long-vanished years,
|
840 |
And
while they live beneath one rule, they own
The civilization of another, not
In harmony therewith; nor can they cease
To look beyond the sea until that day,
Far off, which impulse new will give and bind
|
845 |
The
heart’s affections round the land they till.
Their mother then, no nursing substitute
For one long leagues away. They have the force,
The have the genius of a mighty race;
Poets and thinkers, statesmen eloquent;
|
850 |
Their
peasants gentle, virtuous folk; but lost
Are many winning graces of the Gaul
At home. Old wine is pent in bottles new;
You see the same faults farther west in those
Blind egotists, who damn in others what
|
855 |
They
do themselves—the merest slaves of cant,
Of what has been—incapable of deeds
Strong-limbed and bold, such as are born of thought
And will. But there shall come a race in which
This Gallic stream will play a noble part,
|
860 |
A
race, which gathering strength from diverse founts,
Will—a majestic river—onward flow, [Page
44]
Full volumn’d, vast, its guide its proper
bent,
And take its character and hues from all
That makes the present great—rolling along
|
865 |
A
crowded avenue of wealth and power.
She shook the reins which gleam’d like lightning
bands,
The horses toss’d their meteor heads, the
clouds
Flew round their feet in darting flames, the mist
Rose up illuminated round our wake,
|
870 |
Which
blazed a diamond track for many a league.
Upon my brow the wind was cold; I heard
The rush of wheels so quick each look’d a
fire
Of dazzling brightness; held by power divine
I held my place.
But
now she drew the reins
|
875 |
Tight,
and the horses stopped. I heard the singing
Of tributary streams, and looking down
Saw where the river—the Ottawa—cut out
Of the eldest ribs of earth a theatre vast.
Like threads of silver run from silver coin
|
880 |
To
coin, it wound between the hills, and spread
At intervals in wide and beauteous lakes.
Right in the midst a hill
fit throne for rule,
And crowning this were stately structures, towers
And domes and gothic arches quaint, with rich
|
885 |
Device
of ornament. A shade of grave
Reflection passed across her face but did
Not mar the outlines of immortal youth,
Nor dim its hues. Her eyes looked far away
As though all future time was glass’d within
[Page 45]
|
890 |
Their
depths: so look’d the Cumæan Sibyl’s,
Her first convulsions o’er, when she foretold
Æneas all the years held in their womb
For his descendants.
“These,”
she said, “were built
By one of large conceptions, forecast sage,
|
895 |
Imperial
dreams, in whom Ulyssean wiles
Were wedded with a grasp for state affairs
Which mates him with those mighty minds whose care
And patient wisdom nations found; great souls,
Whose monuments are continents, from whom
|
900 |
Whole
races drink their inspiration.
He had to work with crude materials gross,
His task to wield in one wide-scatter’d states.
Abroad, at home, fat ignorance beset
His path: the smug sagacity of men
|
905 |
Purblind,—the
chosen voice of those ill fit
To choose who shall declare what law must be—
The roar of calumny, faction’s furious feuds,
The want of heart, of faith, proper to times
When Mammon-worship is the shameless cult
|
910 |
Of
most,—with these and more he had to fight,
But he nor blench’d nor faltered one small
hour,
But like a law bore on, borne up by hopes
Such as are parents of immortal things.”
She ceased. The sense’s
memory, tremulous with
|
915 |
Her
tones, like some rare music often heard
Before, with happy pain my heart made faint,
And in my eyes the waves well’d up from founts
Of joy and grief; the chords of mourning thrill’d
[Page 46]
As for some loss divine, while all the springs
|
920 |
Of
rapture moved; meanwhile thro’ tears I mark’d
The rosy bulge of delicate clouds which slept
On either side. She said:
“Lo!
beautiful lives
Dissolved in mist and rocked asleep by airs
Impalpable as they.”
But
up there came
|
925 |
The
phantom roar of waters. Bending o’er
The car which now was near the earth, I saw
Where over rocks wild torrents gnashed and foam’d,
And I was noting how the mass of white
And furious billows, catching rays of dawn,
|
930 |
Began
to show like a great rose in vase
Of silver, fringed with jasmin flowers, when she
Went on:
“Yes,
there’s the seat of empire young,
A people destin’d to be great and free,
Tho’ oft blind ignorance and greed these halls
|
935 |
Invade,
and in fair Freedom’s very fane
Swine guttle. Ah! these eyes have seen what man
Can do. Full many a morning have I watch’d
The envious croud in Athens spit out hate
Of noble Pericles, the balanc’d man,
|
940 |
Wise
with all wisdom, beautiful with love
Of every art, who made Athena’s home
Worthy of her—that light for evermore
To man; for sink he ne’er so low, the hog
In him may overgrow the soul, and lust
|
945 |
And
drunkenness drive far the graceful forms
Which wait on the pure life, still must he rise
[Page 47]
Again, redeemed, drawn by the power of Athens—
Her beauty fairer than the lover dreams
Of her he loves—the greatness of the mind,
|
950 |
Calm,
self-contained, the music struck by souls
For goodness passionate from nature’s strings,
The scorn of death, the love of noble deeds—
All this will rest on mankind like a spell,
And spite of filth and crime, disease and death,
|
955 |
Cause
them to move towards excellence. Ah! true,
The course is slow. The freshening morning comes
Upon the heel of night and gives each day
A new birth to the world; the years steal by
And leave behind their legacies of fact;
|
960 |
The
generations rise and fall like waves,
But ere they die the store of knowledge swell;
The centuries bearing names and deeds of note,
And petty pangs and lyric joys, and loves
Too weighty for frail lives—the centuries
flee;
|
965 |
A
thousand years are gone like yesterday;
Old empires sink into decrepitude;
New kingdoms rise; even races pass away;
New types appear; new forms of civic life—
But man is still the same blind fool, the same
|
970 |
Base
groveller, still will he hug his chains,
And still pursue what leads to chains and death.
Down the ruining precipices of time
Tyrant and tyrannies are hurled, and man
A moment rises free and stands erect;
|
975 |
The
future opens like a dawn of spring;
It seems as if afar in depths of space
The stars were harping choral symphonies, [Page
48]
In sympathy with worlds born again,
And a new era stood upon the verge
|
980 |
Of
fact Alas! Vile use has bred the slave’s
Habit. The horse has flung his rider off
But runs bewilder’d till another holds
The rein and makes him feel the master’s touch;
The late wash’d sow grows sad with cleanliness;
|
985 |
But
as the pig imagination glows
With dreams of wallowing near, she grunts with joy.
Ruled by Pisistratus men could not be
Worse slaves than they are there in that young land
In this new world. They have academies;
|
990 |
And
from a thousand tabernacles gleams
The cross, the symbol sweet of truths more deep
Than Greek philosophy, or modern lore.
The have the garner’d wealth of ages old
And new, but cannot think—the serfs of bold
|
995 |
And
blatant calumny, whose breath of life
Is rank vituperation of the best
And wisest men. That form of civic life
Which liberty and government by the sage
Secures, nowhere in the round world is seen.
|
1000 |
Democracy
puts apes in power, and howls
Hosannas praising not humility
Divine an ass bestriding, but the ass
Himself, out-braying hideous egotisms,
Richly caparison’d and capering o’er
|
1005 |
The
prostrate crowd, while those who live, the salt
Of human things, who keep society
From mortifying, hated are push’d
Aside; low cunning more and more is crown’d.
[Page 49]
Without some practice, who can plough a field?
|
1010 |
Without
instruction, who can make a watch?
Without much study, who can master art?
But men will act as if the veriest boor
Were fit for government, while government
Of all things man can do is hardest, most
|
1015 |
Beset
with problems such as only minds
Of finest fibre, trained and confident
From knowledge and the sense of power can cope
With. Give to poor small brains the task to drive
This chariot, Phaethon’s fate awaits him,
worse
|
1020 |
Than
Phaethon’s fate, perhaps, the people whom
He tries to rule. But still things onward move;
And though the curve that’s near will seem
depraved,
And is, in time’s large circles progress lives;
And ’tis permitted generous hope to keep,
|
1025 |
That
in a far off day the dull will honour
Worth with other meed than hate. The heart
Of mediocrity will sweetened be
By sweet benevolences born of time
And sad experience. Benefactors wise
|
1030 |
Of
men will then not have to wait till death
For their reward; but many a lapsing year
Must pass, before the harp from which the Fates
Will strike this music has been made, and oh!
How many thousand times my burning wheels
|
1035 |
Will
lighten o’er this earth before I can
Announce that happy morn. Right under here
The savage ruled and on that very hill
His councils held, councils which in the mind
Of Jove rank near as high as those which now [Page
50]
|
1040 |
A
race self-styled superior hold, alone
In cunning great. They do not feed on dogs
Or human flesh, but moral cannibals
They are. They kill with venomous lies and then
Like ghouls they batten on the corpse, and scenes
|
1045 |
Humiliating
as an Indian dance
Around a white dog swimming in its broth,
Have been enacted in that chamber where
A Cicero should find himself at home,
And Burke’s deep wisdom be a common thing.
|
1050 |
Who
worships truth? who honours liberty?
A few. Too few. The mass are lost in love
Of gain. In low desires, conceptions all
Unworthy of the task they should essay.
Talk statesmanship to them, you cast your pearls
|
1055 |
Away;
but rave and slaver out abuse
And they will crunch the hardest epithets,
With joy the garbage bolt, and gulp the swill
Of reeking rhetoric.”
Her
cheek here seem’d
To burn as with a touch of angry red.
|
1060 |
The
reins she shook which flashed like lightening bands
Along the horses’ backs. Like fire when winds
Are strong, whole streets ablaze, roofs crashing
in,
The sky red-hot, the roar as of mad seas
At war, the firemen’s toil in vain—like
fire
|
1065 |
They
forward sprang, and, in a twinkling, towers
And blocks of masonry majestical
Looked like a doubtful edifice of dreams,
Dim, air-built castles of forgotten years;
The cataract a second glanc’d—a gleam
[Page 51]
|
1070 |
Of
white ’gainst rainbow dust; the lakes swept
by,
Reflecting now the forms of fiery steeds,
And now a rosy shadow, and again
The gem-like radiance of our burnish’d trail.
She reined her horses, turn’d her head and
said:
|
1075 |
“How
beautiful must that fair city be
When o’er Laurentian hills Apollo sinks!”
“O Eos, splendid in thy gleam!” I said,
“’Tis far more beautiful at sunset hours,
And at that time upon the river oft
|
1080 |
A
song is heard, which should your gentle ear
Not scorn a mortal’s voice, I’ll sing.
I sang,
And as I sang the air was play’d by hands
Unseen on some mysterious harp divine.—
“Fair is the sight, when sinking to his rest,
|
1085 |
The
sun leans gently on the mountain’s breast.
Empurpled clouds his radiant limbs bedeck,
And golden curls hang round his glossy neck.
The enamour’d river flushes in his gaze,
And every westward window is ablaze;
|
1090 |
And
every tower and turret gleams awhile
In the warm radiance of his parting smile;
And every drop that Chaudière flings on high,
One moment wears a gold or Tyrian dye;
And every soul by nature finely wrought,
|
1095 |
Is
touch’d till feeling becomes one with thought,
And thought is rapture, like some moon-drawn sea,
The brimming spring-tide of eternity
Within the breast, on which the soul sets sail,
[Page 52]
And leaves this world with its allurements stale;
|
1100 |
And
when at last the sun is lost to sight,
And the pale moon looks wistful for the night,
Along those tracts of heaven where he has passed,
Great gorgeous draperies of clouds are massed;
Or war seems there, with all its carnage dire,
|
1105 |
Buildings
in flames and battlements on fire.
You think you hear the sonorous trumpet’s
swells,
The roar of cannon and the whiz of shells;
Or tints so tender linger in the sky,
The heart o’er-flows and wets the raptur’d
eye,
|
1110 |
And
blesses him who taught the soul to know
Such heavenly beauty in this world below;
For in the soul is all the beauty there
And without love ’tis so much empty air.
The purple fades; more bright the moon beams shine;
|
1115 |
Beneath
the deep’ning blue a saffron line
Alone recalls the pageantry and power,
The boisterous splendors of that sunset hour;
The saffron’s lost in ultra-deep marine,
And starry Night is mistress of the scene!”
|
1120 |
“Ah that’s a sight,” she said,
“I fain would see,
But even the gods must limit their desires.”
O’er all Ontario’s
wealth of field and town
The music followed, and still breath’d around
When Lake Superior spread below, it’s isles
|
1125 |
Of
bosky beauty fragrant, mirror’d clear;
At last the prairie wide, with tint of flower
As delicate as her own cheek. [Page 53]
We
paused,
The broad brown prairie hollowed-out beneath.
“Monotonous,” she cried, “yet
like the sea.”
|
1130 |
I
said: “ Its beauty must be seen from earth,
Its dazzling, glowing skies all clear of cloud
And fervent with the sun-god’s strongest beams,
Or strewn with soft white pillows tier on tier;
Like swans at rest upon a sea of blue,
|
1135 |
They
rise from rim to top o’ the sky’s great
womb,
Fruitful of beauty, gendering all the wealth
Of yellow grain and roots, and all green things,
The flowers that shine as if sun-rays took root,
And shredded stars in balmy dewy nights
|
1140 |
Were
broadcast sown to be the stars of earth:
Blue bells, the sun-flower small and great, the
rose,
The crocus and anemone, the wild
Convolvulus, and thousands more I love,
And daily scent and see but cannot name;
|
1145 |
Or
when the Storm broods and his wide wings glower
O’er all the vast expanse of level land,
Which cowers, grows darker, flatter under the black
Terror of dread thunder-quivering pinions,
Death-stricken by the wild far-flashing fire,
|
1150 |
Arm’d
with swift death and splendours from his eye,
And by the voice of him which breaks like seas
That rise to make a universal wreck,
And bellow ruin, deafening remotest stars,
Then fails afar on the shrinking, shuddering air,
|
1155 |
Dying
in murmurs of loud discontent
And anger, like a world muttering pain,
Amid the blazing agonies of collapse, [Page
54]
And making kindred planets blink with fear;
Or in the clear bright days of Autumn’s glow,
|
1160 |
The
gracious bracing time, spirit and balm
In every breath and breeze, when even the blast
Has some soft touch of sweetness, and every pulse
Glows with a thrill of rapture, and to live
Is joy; its superb sunset pageantries,
|
1165 |
When
large and yellow suns go down aflame
’Mid tapestries immense of purple clouds,
And continents of vapour, their vast hearts
On fire; the russet purple and silver rise
Of suns which grow all gold within an hour,
|
1170 |
Wide-gleaming,
splendid, indescribable,
In spring time, or in harvest when the seas
Of golden grain shine like the golden fleece,
Or in mid winter, all the sky clear, glad,
The purple-hollowed crust of wide white plain,
|
1175 |
O’er
which and thwart the trail of dazzling light,
The powder’d snow, in forms fantastic, skips
To music of the northern blast, and skims
Away and never turns in that wild waltz,
Not for a thousand miles; the sluggard then,
|
1180 |
With
feet on stove and pipe in mouth, his blood
Bakes, while the man whose blood is pure and rich,
Flesh and muscle and nerve and heart in tune
With the clear spirit that bears up his life,
Revels in stimulating airs, and drinks
|
1185 |
The
cold pure ether, stirring high the heart
Like wine. Clad in thick furs, he drives or walks,
And, feeling exaltation, gathers power.
In early winter comes a day all sun, [Page
55]
While every shrub is thick with silver frost.
|
1190 |
The
air, like choicest champagne, thrills your veins.
No place so fit to watch the wheeling stars,
And see the northern lights illume the dark.
The soft night’s solemn stillness fills with
awe
The fragrant air, the soul with other worlds;
|
1195 |
And
tho’ no trees can tempt the pensive moon
To tarry o’er their tops, her course she holds
In the wide silence of a prairie night
’Mid stars that seem to peer more close to
earth,
And all as sweetly lures to contemplation,
|
1200 |
And
fills with passions calm, yet fiery strong,
A feeling weird unutterably deep,
As when on Latmos down she came to kiss
Endymion’s lips, her lovely fingers white
Within his locks of lavish gold, the while his breath
|
1205 |
Glow’d
fast and warm upon her pale-flushed cheek,
And set her lips aflame; or when she charm’d
Orion ere on Merope he gazed,
Or thou exultantly to Delos bore
His mighty beauty for secure retreat.
|
1210 |
In
vain! Her jealous arrows found him there.
“Speak not of him,”
she said, “I saw him lie
The mourning billows breaking at his feet,
A hundred shafts swift rooted in his breast; his
face
Pale, tortured; while cold Dian paler moved,
|
1215 |
With
tranquil triumph smiling, as my team
Made the raw ether burn like my brow.” [Page
56]
She sigh’d, a sigh
of recollected pain,
And said: “I’ll play the gadding gossip
for
Your sake to-day. See where the iron horse
|
1220 |
Pants,
puffs out smoke and snorts and cries and bears
Long trains thro’ what was wilderness a year
Ago; flinging his smoke aloft he makes
A passing cloud. Upon these plains immense
Where here and there the signs of man at work
|
1225 |
Are
seen, it is but yesterday and the red
Man, the poor savage chased the buffalo.
I’ve seen him in his prime and his decay;
But save the wild ox and his pursuers
This land has been a solitude since it
|
1230 |
Was
heaved up from the sea. For centuries?—
Oh! yes, for thousands, those bright lakes have
shone
Unmark’d; the wild ducks lived upon their
breasts
Nor feared the fowler’s shot; the roses bloomed;
The gopher dug his hole and stood erect,
|
1235 |
And
ran and lived his lonely graceful life,
And played among the grasses and the flowers;
The ground-lark sang; the prairie hen and plover
Their broods unharmed reared; the antelope
At times a prize to the Indian’s arrow fell;
|
1240 |
The
wolf at all hours prowled in search of prey;
But not a trace of man, save when the chase
Brought savage hunters from the river’s marge,
The beautiful wooded vales of the Qu’Appelle,
Saskatchewan, and the streams subsidiary.
|
1245 |
The
Indian’s doom should touch your heart. I’ve
seen
Types disappear before. But kindness
On dying races, as on dying men [Page 57]
Should wait, and Canada may well be proud,
And England, too, of that just spirit which
|
1250 |
Has
ruled her councils; these are things the gods
Do not forget.”
“I’d
fear,” I said, “this seat
To hold in winter when wide snow shrouds all
The vasty plain. But once more, that’s the
time
To watch from earth your car speed on. The snow
|
1255 |
In
wind-made waves lies like a frozen sea,
And in their myriad hollows shadows cast,
Their clear-cut million-faceted backs agleam,
Light-darting, radiant in thy rosy smile;
The heaven a dappl’d glory. Soon the rim
|
1260 |
Of
burning gold with radiating spears
Peeps up, then slowly sails in yellow seas
Of light, the full orb’d splendour whence
There runs across the white empurpled sea
Like fire, to the entrancèd gazer’s
feet,
|
1265 |
A
lane of silver fire, and all the plain
Compact of tiniest crystals flames with gems;
Diamonds and chrysolites bespangling blaze;
The frosty heavens high-up, gold-fretted, blue,
Save where some pearly clouds may westward rest,
|
1270 |
Which
half an hour before were crimson round
Your wheels. The air the pulses stirs like fire
And life’s a joy!”
She
smiled and said:—“Yes, cold
No doubt for mortal brow, the swift sharp air
Which up here whistles on my wintery way.
|
1275 |
I
love myself to gaze upon those plains
When bright auroraborealian tints [Page
58]
Go flashing flame-wise o’er their snowy waves,
More gorgeous in their bright commingling hues
Than cunningest mystery of colours quaint
|
1280 |
In
old cathedral windows, shedding gloried light
Thro’ pillar’d silent aisles. But lo!
the sun
Comes on apace. We must not further pause.”
The reins she shook, which
flash’d like lightning bands,
And forward rushed those coursers wild, and wheels
|
1285 |
Of
fire, and soon the snowy peaks of hills
So high, our horses’ airy feet might well
Have touch’d the topmost, were empurpled.
Cones
Which rose at frequent intervals, grew pink
And red, white clefts and chasms fathom-deep
|
1290 |
Gloomed
dark and dreadful. The eagle was awake
And wheel’d with sail-broad pinions strong,
in search
Of quarry; back and wings to us seem’d like
Gilt bronze of antique armour worn by knights
Of old, on which flames out the light of fire
|
1295 |
In
some baronial hall hung round with casques,
And breast-plates, shields, and shirts of mail and
spears
Transverse; the founder of the house he glowers
Above the hearth huge as cathedral door.
The eagle’s shadow on the white peak’s
side
|
1300 |
Was
as the shade of some long-pointed cloud
When winds are veering. Now
the Fraser gleam’d
Below, its benches white with apple trees
In bloom. ’Neath one an Indian stood, in
hand
A tom-tom rude, on which he beat, the while [Page
59] |
1305 |
He
sang in sad tones looking towards the sea.
The children of his tribe impassive sat
And smoked their deep-bowl’d long-stemmed
pipes.
|
|
With
spread wings for ever
Time’s
eagle careers,
|
1310 |
His
quarry old nations,
His
prey the young years;
Into
monuments brazen
He
strikes his fierce claw,
And
races are only
|
1315 |
A
sop for his maw.
The
red sun is rising
Behind
the dark pines,
And
the mountains are marked out
In
saffron lines,
|
1320 |
The
pale moon still lingers,
But
past is her hour
Over
mountain and river
Her
silver to shower.
As
yon moon disappeareth,
|
1325 |
We
pass and are past;
The
pale face o’er all things
Is
potent at last.
He
bores thro’ the mountains,
He
bridges the ford,
|
1330 |
He
bridles steam horses
Where
Bruin was lord, [Page 60]
He
summons the river
Her
wealth to unfold,
From
flint and from granite
|
1335 |
He
crushes the gold.
Those
valleys of silence
Will
soon be alive
With
huxters who chaffer,
Prospectors
who strive,
|
1340 |
And
the house of the pale face
Will
peer from the crest
Of
the cliff, where the eagle
To-day
builds his nest.
The
Red Skin he marred not
|
1345 |
White
fall on wild rill,
But
to-morrow those waters
Will
turn a mill;
And
the streamlet which flashes
Like
a young squaw’s dark eye,
|
1350 |
Will
be black with foul refuse,
Or
may be run dry.
From
the sea where the Father
Of
waters is lost,
To
the sea where all Summer
|
1355 |
The
ice-berg is tost,
The
white hordes will swarm
And
the white man will sway,
And
the smoke of his engine
Makes
swarthy the day. [Page 61]
|
1360 |
Round
the mound of a brother
In
sadness we pace,
How
much sadder to stand
At
the grave of a race!
But
the good Spirit knows
|
1365 |
What
for all is the best,
And
which should be chosen
The
strife or the rest.
As
for me, I’m time-weary,
I
await my release,
|
1370 |
Give
to others the struggle,
Grant
me but the peace,
And
what peace like the peace
Which
death offers the brave?
What
rest like the rest
|
1375 |
Which
we find in the grave?
For
the doom of the hunter
There
is no reprieve;
And
for me, ’mid strange customs,
’Tis
bitter to live.
|
1380 |
Our
part has been played
Let
the white man play his;
Then
he too disappears,
And
goes down the abyss.
Yes!
Time’s eagle will prey
|
1385 |
On
the Pale Face at last,
And
his doom like our own
Is
to pass and be past. [Page 62]
|
|
He closed exultantly, in contrast strange
To mien and tone with which he had begun.
|
1390 |
The
grandeur, gloom, and dread sublimity
Of this great river was soon left behind.
We passed o’er lucid streams whose sands are
gold;
Inlets and gulfs whose beauty man can ne’er
Destroy; forests of mighty trees whose age
|
1395 |
You
count by tens of centuries, and now
Reflecting many a shape—outlines too fair
For gross embodiment in flesh—young forms
Of tender beauty, robed in hues of heaven,
Attendant on that glory-scattering car,
|
1400 |
The
rippleless ocean lay beneath us, bright;
No wrinkle on its vast and placid brow;
No cloud in view, and as we flew along
Deep voices from around the car poured forth
Sweet strains which o’er the ocean rolled
and died
|
1405 |
In
frozen whispers ’mid the polar seas.
“This is the sea,”
she said, “on which a bard
Might feel the inspiration of your empire,
And write an epic worthy of the race
Or races which have built it grandly up;
|
1410 |
For
Kelt and Saxon, each has done his share;
By Kelt and Saxon, must it be maintained.
The Irish on a hundred battle fields,
In counsel by the spoken word, by toil,
Have play’d a great part in this work.
|
1415 |
They
should have scope to bless their own green isle;
But shipwreck will attend their aims, unless
They merge them in a noble loyalty [Page
63]
To the great empire which is theirs no less
Than others? Poor wailing round old graves
|
1420 |
And
cries for vengeance, show how deep all wrongs
Will strike, and hers were of the greatest: long
Continued, cruel, cold, calamitous
Injustice, poison’d with contempt and scorn
Engend’ring hate. But heroes do not waste
|
1425 |
Themselves
upon the past—on dead things gone;
The present and the future, there’s their
field.
Those isles are link’d by Fate; the people
lords,
’Tis theirs to learn the cause of all is one,
Or from their wrangles, flames will shoot and wrap
|
1430 |
The
edifice, and in the general blaze
Both crash in ruin. War to the idler, war
To all injustice, war to faction, war
To gilt corruption, war to agitation,
Its work once done, and love like fruitful heaven
|
1435 |
Spanning
these lands, and then it will be seen
How much of greater greatness was within
The grasp of Britain than her past can show.
Your young Dominion, by imperial works
Worthy an ancient state, built up by one
|
1440 |
As
yet in gristle, nobly aids the task,
And gives large promise of the mightier day.”
The ocean was now left behind—a breadth
Of light. A score of dusky nations old
We pass, then plunge beneath the engulphing waves.
|
1445 |
A
rush of waters green and white—again
I closed my eyes to die, when she reach’d
forth [Page 64]
Her hand with tapering fingers rosy-tipped
And touched me. Then, once more myself, I saw
Her steeds, unbreath’d, draw up, and how there
flashed
|
1450 |
A
sudden light o’er carven arch and door,
And sable towers and pillars glimmering fair;
And colonnades stretch’d darkling far away;
And in the distance, vistas dim were seen,
Like walks enchanted made for fairy feet;
|
1455 |
And
there stood Twilight like a lingering ray,
And like a fantasy he went, and Eos,
A form of light, moved into shadowy halls,
And all the busy upper world was day.
And I awoke and turned my steps to where,
|
1460 |
A
mile away on the monotonous plain,
The hammers rang on shingle roofs, and grew
Each hour the “city” of a few weeks
old. [Page 65]
|
|
|
