Thy voice is sweet.
It may be thou hast follow’d
Through the islands some divine bard,
By age taught many things,
Age and the Muses; 120
And heard him delighting
The chiefs and people
In the banquet, and learn’d his songs,
Of Gods and Heroes,
Of war and arts, 125
And peopled cities
Inland, or built
By the grey sea. — If so, then hail!
I honour and welcome thee.
THE YOUTH
The Gods are happy. 130
They turn on all sides
Their shining eyes:
And see, below them,
The Earth, and men.
They see Tiresias 135
Sitting, staff in hand,
On the warm, grassy
Asopus’ bank:
His robe drawn over
His old, sightless head: 140
Revolving inly
The doom of Thebes.
They see the Centaurs
In the upper glens
Of Pelion, in the streams, 145
Where red-berried ashes fringe
The clear-brown shallow pools;
With streaming flanks, and heads
Rear’d proudly, snuffing
The mountain wind. 150
They see the Indian
Drifting, knife in hand,
His frail boat moor’d to
A floating isle thick matted
With large-leav’d, low-creeping melon-plants, 155
And the dark cucumber.
He reaps, and stows them,
Drifting — drifting: — round him,
Round his green harvest-plot,
Flow the cool lake-waves: 160
The mountains ring them.
They see the Scythian
On the wide Stepp, unharnessing
His wheel’d house at noon.
He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal, 165
Mares’ milk, and bread
Bak’d on the embers: — all around
The boundless waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr’d
With saffron and the yellow hollyhock
And flag-leav’d iris flowers. 170
Sitting in his cart
He makes his meal: before him, for long miles,
Alive with bright green lizards,
And the springing bustard fowl,
The track, a straight black line, 175
Furrows the rich soil: here and there
Clusters of lonely mounds
Topp’d with rough-hewn,
Grey, rain-blear’d statues, overpeer
The sunny Waste. 180
They see the Ferry
On the broad, clay-laden
Lone Chorasmian stream: thereon
With snort and strain,
Two horses, strongly swimming, tow 185
The ferry-boat, with woven ropes
To either bow
Firm-harness’d by the mane: — a Chief,
With shout and shaken spear
Stands at the prow, and guides them: but astern, 190
The cowering Merchants, in long robes,
Sit pale beside their wealth
Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,
Of gold and ivory,
Of turquoise-earth and amethyst, 195
Jasper and chalcedony,
And milk-barr’d onyx stones.
The loaded boat swings groaning
In the yellow eddies.
The Gods behold them. 200
They see the Heroes
Sitting in the dark ship
On the foamless, long-heaving,
Violet sea:
At sunset nearing 205
The Happy Islands.
These things, Ulysses,
The wise Bards also
Behold and sing.
But oh, what labour! 210
O Prince, what pain!
They too can see
Tiresias: — but the Gods,
Who give them vision,
Added this law: 215
That they should bear too
His groping blindness,
His dark foreboding,
His scorn’d white hairs;
Bear Hera’s anger 220
Through a life lengthen’d
To seven ages.
They see the Centaurs
On Pelion: — then they feel,
They too, the maddening wine 225
Swell their large veins to bursting: in wild pain
They feel the biting spears
Of the grim Lapithae, and Theseus, drive,
Drive crashing through their bones: they feel
High on a jutting rock in the red stream 230
Alcmena’s dreadful son
Ply his bow: — such a price
The Gods exact for song;
To become what we sing.
They see the Indian 235
On his mountain lake: — but squalls
Make their skiff reel, and worms
In the unkind spring have gnaw’d
Their melon-harvest to the heart: They see
The Scythian: — but long frosts 240
Parch them in winter-time on the bare Stepp,
Till they too fade like grass: they crawl
Like shadows forth in spring.
They see the Merchants
On the Oxus’ stream: — but care 245
Must visit first them too, and make them pale.
Whether, through whirling sand,
A cloud of desert robber-horse has burst
Upon their caravan: or greedy kings,
In the wall’d cities the way passes through, 250
Crush’d them with tolls: or fever-airs,
On some great river’s marge,
Mown them down, far from home.
They see the Heroes
Near harbour: — but they share 255
Their lives, and former violent toil, in Thebes,
Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy:
Or where the echoing oars
Of Argo, first,
Startled the unknown Sea. 260
The old Silenus
Came, lolling in the sunshine,
From the dewy forest coverts,
This way, at noon.
Sitting by me, while his Fauns 265
Down at the water side
Sprinkled and smooth’d
His drooping garland,
He told me these things.
But I, Ulysses, 270
Sitting on the warm steps,
Looking over the valley,
All day long, have seen,
Without pain, without labour,
Sometimes a wild-hair’d Maenad; 275
Sometimes a Faun with torches;
And sometimes, for a moment,
Passing through the dark stems
Flowing-rob’d — the belov’d,
The desir’d, the divine, 280
Belov’d Iacchus.
Ah cool night-wind, tremulous stars!
Ah glimmering water —
Fitful earth-murmur —
Dreaming woods! 285
Ah golden-hair’d, strangely-smiling Goddess,
And thou, prov’d, much enduring,
Wave-toss’d Wanderer!
Who can stand still?
Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me. 290
The cup again!
Faster, faster,
O Circe, Goddess,
Let the wild thronging train,
The bright procession 295
Of eddying forms,
Sweep through my soul!
Fragment of an ‘Antigone’
THE CHORUS
WELL hath he done who hath seiz’d happiness.
For little do the all-containing Hours,
Though opulent, freely give.
Who, weighing that
life well
Fortune presents unpray’d, 5
Declines her ministry, and carves his own:
And, justice not infring’d,
Makes his own welfare his unswerv’d-from law.
He does well too, who keeps that clue the mild
Birth-Goddess and the austere Fates first gave. 10
For from the day when these
Bring him, a weeping child,
First to the light, and mark
A country for him, kinsfolk, and a home,
Unguided he remains, 15
Till the Fates come again, alone, with death.
In little companies,
And, our own place once left,
Ignorant where to stand, or whom to avoid,
By city and household group’d, we live: and many shocks 20
Our order heaven-ordain’d
Must every day endure.
Voyages, exiles, hates, dissensions, wars.
Besides what waste He makes,
The all-hated, order-breaking, 25
Without friend, city, or home,
Death, who dissevers all.
Him then I praise, who dares
To self-selected good
Prefer obedience to the primal law, 30
Which consecrates the ties of blood: for these, indeed,
Are to the Gods a care:
That touches but himself.
For every day man may be link’d and loos’d
With strangers: but the bond 35
Original, deep-inwound,
Of blood, can he not bind:
Nor, if Fate binds, not bear.
But hush! Haemon, whom Antigone,
Robbing herself of life in burying, 40
Against Creon’s law, Polynices,
Robs of a lov’d bride; pale, imploring,
Waiting her passage,
Forth from the palace hitherward comes.
HAEMON
No, no, old men, Creon I curse not. 45
I weep, Thebans,
One than Creon crueller far.
For he, he, at least, by slaying her,
August laws doth mightily vindicate:
But thou, too-bold, headstrong, pitiless, 50
Ah me! — honourest more than thy lover,
O Antigone,
A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.
THE CHORUS
Nor was the love untrue
Which the Dawn-Goddess bore 55
To that fair youth she erst
Leaving the salt sea-beds
And coming flush’d over the stormy frith
Of loud Euripus, saw:
Saw and snatch’d, wild with love, 60
From the pine-dotted spurs
Of Parnes, where thy waves,
Asopus, gleam rock-hemm’d;
The Hunter of the Tanagraean Field.
But him, in his sweet prime, 65
By severance immature,
By Artemis’ soft shafts,
She, though a Goddess born,
Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die.
Such end o’ertook that love. 70
For she desir’d to make
Immortal mortal man,
And blend his happy life,
Far from the Gods, with hers:
To him postponing an eternal law. 75
HAEMON
But, like me, she, wroth, complaining,
Succumb’d to the envy of unkind Gods:
And, her beautiful arms unclasping,
Her fair Youth unwillingly gave.
THE CHORUS
Nor, though enthron’d too high 80
To fear assault of envious Gods,
His belov’d Argive Seer would Zeus retain
From his appointed end
In this our Thebes: but when
His flying steeds came near 85
To cross the steep Ismenian glen,
The broad Earth open’d and whelm’d them and him;
And through the void air sang
At large his enemy’s spear.
And fain would Zeus have sav’d his tired son 90
Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand
O’er the sun-redden’d Western Straits:
Or at his work in that dim lower world.
Fain would he have recall’d
The fraudulent oath which bound 95
To a much feebler wight the heroic man:
But he preferr’d Fate to his strong desire.
Nor did there need less than the burning pile
Under the towering Trachis crags,
And the Spercheius’ vale, shaken with groans, 100
And the rous’d Maliac gulph,
And scar’d Oetaean snows,
To achieve his son’s deliverance, O my child.
The Sick King in Bokhara
HUSSEIN
O MOST just Vizier, send away
The cloth-merchants, and let them be,
Them and their dues, this day: the King
Is ill at ease, and calls for thee.
THE VIZIER
O merchants, tarry yet a day 5
Here in Bokhara: but at noon
To-morrow, come, and ye shall pay
Each fortieth web of cloth to me,
As the law is, and go your way.
O Hussein, lead me to the King. 10
Thou teller of sweet tales, thine own,
Ferdousi’s, and the others’, lead.
How is it with my lord?
HUSSEIN
Alone,
Ever since prayer-time, he doth wait, 15
O Vizier, without lying down,
In the great window of the gate,
Looking into the Registàn;
Where through the sellers’ booths the slaves
Are this way bringing the dead man. 20
O Vizier, here is the King’s door.
THE KING
O Vizier, I may bury him?
THE VIZIER
O King, thou know’st, I have been sick
These many days, and heard no thing
(For Allah shut my ears and mind), 25
Not even what thou dost, O King.
Wherefore, that I may counsel thee,
Let Hussein, if thou wilt, make haste
To speak in order what hath chanc’d.
THE KING
O Vizier, be it as thou say’st. 30
HUSSEIN
Three days since, at the time of prayer,
A certain Moollah, with his robe
All rent, and dust upon his hair,
Watch’d my lord’s coming forth, and push’d
The golden mace-bearers aside, 35
And fell at the King’s feet, and cried;
‘Justice, O King, and on myself!
On this great sinner, who hath broke
The law, and by the law must die!
Vengeance, O King!’
But the King spoke: 40
‘What fool is this, that hurts our ears
With folly? or what drunken slave?
My guards, what, prick him with your spears!
Prick me the fellow from the path!’
As the King said, so was it done, 45
And to the mosque my lord pass’d on.
But on the morrow, when the King
Went forth again, the holy book
Carried before him, as is right,
And through the square his path he took; 50
My man comes running, fleck’d with blood
From yesterday, and falling down
Cries out most earnestly; ‘O King,
My lord, O King, do right, I pray!
‘How canst thou, ere thou hear, discern 55
If I speak folly? but a king,
Whether a thing be great or small,
Like Allah, hears and judges all.
‘Wherefore hear thou! Thou know’st, how fierce
In these last days the sun hath burn’d: 60
That the green wa
ter in the tanks
Is to a putrid puddle turn’d:
And the canal, that from the stream
Of Samarcand is brought this way,
Wastes, and runs thinner every day. 65
‘Now I at nightfall had gone forth
Alone, and in a darksome place
Under some mulberry trees I found
A little pool; and in brief space
With all the water that was there 70
I fill’d my pitcher, and stole home
Unseen: and having drink to spare,
I hid the can behind the door,
And went up on the roof to sleep.
‘But in the night, which was with wind 75
And burning dust, again I creep
Down, having fever, for a drink.
‘Now meanwhile had my brethren found
The water-pitcher, where it stood
Behind the door upon the ground, 80
And call’d my mother: and they all,
As they were thirsty, and the night
Most sultry, drain’d the pitcher there;
That they sate with it, in my sight,
Their lips still wet, when I came down. 85
‘Now mark! I, being fever’d, sick,
(Most unblest also) at that sight
Brake forth, and curs’d them — dost thou hear?
One was my mother — Now, do right!’
But my lord mus’d a space, and said: 90
‘Send him away, Sirs, and make on.
It is some madman,’ the King said:
As the King said, so was it done.
The morrow at the self-same hour
In the King’s path, behold, the man, 95
Not kneeling, sternly fix’d: he stood
Right opposite, and thus began,
Frowning grim down:— ‘Thou wicked King,
Most deaf where thou shouldst most give ear!
What, must I howl in the next world, 100
Because thou wilt not listen here?
‘What, wilt thou pray, and get thee grace,
And all grace shall to me be grudg’d?
Nay but, I swear, from this thy path
I will not stir till I be judg’d.’ 105
Then they who stood about the King
Drew close together and conferr’d:
Till that the King stood forth and said,
‘Before the priests thou shalt be heard.’
But when the Ulemas were met 110
And the thing heard, they doubted not;
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 2