Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 55
And the heart of the floods thereof was riven.
But she knew not him coming for terror, she felt not her wrong
that he wrought her, [Ant. 2.
When her locks as leaves were shed before his breath, 610
And she heard not for terror his prayer, though the cry was a
God’s that besought her,
Blown from lips that strew the world-wide seas with death.
For the heart was molten within her to hear,
And her knees beneath her were loosened for fear,
And her blood fast bound as a frost-bound water,
And the soft new bloom of the green earth’s daughter
Wind-wasted as blossom of a tree;
As the wild God rapt her from earth’s breast lifted,
On the strength of the stream of his dark breath drifted,
From the bosom of earth as a bride from the mother, 620
With storm for bridesman and wreck for brother,
As a cloud that he sheds upon the sea.
Of this hoary-headed woe [Epode.
Song made memory long ago;
Now a younger grief to mourn
Needs a new song younger born.
Who shall teach our tongues to reach
What strange height of saddest speech,
For the new bride’s sake that is given to be
A stay to fetter the foot of the sea, 630
Lest it quite spurn down and trample the town,
Ere the violets be dead that were plucked for its crown,
Or its olive-leaf whiten and wither?
Who shall say of the wind’s way
That he journeyed yesterday,
Or the track of the storm that shall sound to-morrow,
If the new be more than the grey-grown sorrow?
For the wind of the green first season was keen,
And the blast shall be sharper than blew between
That the breath of the sea blows hither. 640
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Old men, grey borderers on the march of death,
Tongue-fighters, tough of talk and sinewy speech,
Else nerveless, from no crew of such faint folk
Whose tongues are stouter than their hands come I
To bid not you to battle; let them strike
Whose swords are sharper than your keen-tongued wail,
And ye, sit fast and sorrow; but what man
Of all this land-folk and earth-labouring herd
For heart or hand seems foremost, him I call
If heart be his to hearken, him bid forth 650
To try if one be in the sun’s sight born
Of all that grope and grovel on dry ground
That may join hands in battle-grip for death
With them whose seed and strength is of the sea.
CHORUS.
Know thou this much for all thy loud blast blown,
We lack not hands to speak with, swords to plead,
For proof of peril, not of boisterous breath,
Sea-wind and storm of barren mouths that foam
And rough rock’s edge of menace; and short space
May lesson thy large ignorance and inform 660
This insolence with knowledge if there live
Men earth-begotten of no tenderer thews
Than knit the great joints of the grim sea’s brood
With hasps of steel together; heaven to help,
One man shall break, even on their own flood’s verge,
That iron bulk of battle; but thine eye
That sees it now swell higher than sand or shore
Haply shall see not when thine host shall shrink.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Not haply, nay, but surely, shall not thine.
CHORUS.
That lot shall no God give who fights for thee. 670
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Shall Gods bear bit and bridle, fool, of men?
CHORUS.
Nor them forbid we nor shalt thou constrain.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Yet say’st thou none shall make the good lot mine?
CHORUS.
Of thy side none, nor moved for fear of thee.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Gods hast thou then to baffle Gods of ours?
CHORUS.
Nor thine nor mine, but equal-souled are they.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Toward good and ill, then, equal-eyed of soul?
CHORUS.
Nay, but swift-eyed to note where ill thoughts breed.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Thy shaft word-feathered flies yet far of me.
CHORUS.
Pride knows not, wounded, till the heart be cleft. 680
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
No shaft wounds deep whose wing is plumed with words.
CHORUS.
Lay that to heart, and bid thy tongue learn grace.
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
Grace shall thine own crave soon too late of mine.
CHORUS.
Boast thou till then, but I wage words no more.
ERECHTHEUS.
Man, what shrill wind of speech and wrangling air
Blows in our ears a summons from thy lips
Winged with what message, or what gift or grace
Requiring? none but what his hand may take
Here may the foe think hence to reap, nor this
Except some doom from Godward yield it him. 690
HERALD OF EUMOLPUS.
King of this land-folk, by my mouth to thee
Thus saith the son of him that shakes thine earth,
Eumolpus; now the stakes of war are set,
For land or sea to win by throw and wear;
Choose therefore or to quit thy side and give
The palm unfought for to his bloodless hand,
Or by that father’s sceptre, and the foot
Whose tramp far off makes tremble for pure fear
Thy soul-struck mother, piercing like a sword
The immortal womb that bare thee; by the waves 700
That no man bridles and that bound thy world,
And by the winds and storms of all the sea,
He swears to raze from eyeshot of the sun
This city named not of his father’s name,
And wash to deathward down one flood of doom
This whole fresh brood of earth yeaned naturally,
Green yet and faint in its first blade, unblown
With yellow hope of harvest; so do thou,
Seeing whom thy time is come to meet, for fear
Yield, or gird up thy force to fight and die. 710
ERECHTHEUS.
To fight then be it; for if to die or live,
No man but only a God knows this much yet
Seeing us fare forth, who bear but in our hands
The weapons not the fortunes of our fight;
For these now rest as lots that yet undrawn
Lie in the lap of the unknown hour; but this
I know, not thou, whose hollow mouth of storm
Is but a warlike wind, a sharp salt breath
That bites and wounds not; death nor life of mine
Shall give to death or lordship of strange kings 720
The soul of this live city, nor their heel
Bruise her dear brow discrowned, nor snaffle or goad
Wound her free mouth or stain her sanguine side
Yet masterless of man; so bid thy lord
Learn ere he weep to learn it, and too late
Gnash teeth that could not fasten on her flesh,
And foam his life out in dark froth of blood
Vain as a wind’s waif of the loud-mouthed sea
Torn from the wave’s edge whitening. Tell him this;
Though thrice his might were mustered for our scathe 730
And thicker set with fence of thorn-edged spears
Than sands are whirled about the wintering
beach
When storms have swoln the rivers, and their blasts
Have breached the broad sea-banks with stress of sea,
That waves of inland and the main make war
As men that mix and grapple; though his ranks
Were more to number than all wildwood leaves
The wind waves on the hills of all the world,
Yet should the heart not faint, the head not fall,
The breath not fail of Athens. Say, the Gods 740
From lips that have no more on earth to say
Have told thee this the last good news or ill
That I shall speak in sight of earth and sun
Or he shall hear and see them: for the next
That ear of his from tongue of mine may take
Must be the first word spoken underground
From dead to dead in darkness. Hence; make haste,
Lest war’s fleet foot be swifter than thy tongue
And I that part not to return again
On him that comes not to depart away 750
Be fallen before thee; for the time is full,
And with such mortal hope as knows not fear
I go this high last way to the end of all.
CHORUS.
Who shall put a bridle in the mourner’s lips to chasten
them, [Str. 1.
Or seal up the fountains of his tears for shame?
Song nor prayer nor prophecy shall slacken tears nor hasten them,
Till grief be within him as a burnt-out flame;
Till the passion be broken in his breast
And the might thereof molten into rest,
And the rain of eyes that weep be dry, 760
And the breath be stilled of lips that sigh.
Death at last for all men is a harbour; yet they flee from
it, [Ant. 1.
Set sails to the storm-wind and again to sea;
Yet for all their labour no whit further shall they be from it,
Nor longer but wearier shall their life’s work be.
And with anguish of travail until night
Shall they steer into shipwreck out of sight,
And with oars that break and shrouds that strain
Shall they drive whence no ship steers again.
Bitter and strange is the word of the God most high, [Str. 2. 770
And steep the strait of his way.
Through a pass rock-rimmed and narrow the light that gleams
On the faces of men falls faint as the dawn of dreams,
The dayspring of death as a star in an under sky
Where night is the dead men’s day.
As darkness and storm is his will that on earth is done, [Ant. 2.
As a cloud is the face of his strength.
King of kings, holiest of holies, and mightiest of might,
Lord of the lords of thine heaven that are humble in thy sight,
Hast thou set not an end for the path of the fires of the sun, 780
To appoint him a rest at length?
Hast thou told not by measure the waves of the waste wide
sea, [Str. 3.
And the ways of the wind their master and thrall to thee?
Hast thou filled not the furrows with fruit for the
world’s increase?
Has thine ear not heard from of old or thine eye not read
The thought and the deed of us living, the doom of us dead?
Hast thou made not war upon earth, and again made peace?
Therefore, O father, that seest us whose lives are a
breath, [Ant. 3.
Take off us thy burden, and give us not wholly to death.
For lovely is life, and the law wherein all things live, 790
And gracious the season of each, and the hour of its kind,
And precious the seed of his life in a wise man’s mind;
But all save life for his life will a base man give.
But a life that is given for the life of the whole live
land, [Str. 4.
From a heart unspotted a gift of a spotless hand,
Of pure will perfect and free, for the land’s life’s sake,
What man shall fear not to put forth his hand and take?
For the fruit of a sweet life plucked in its pure green
prime [Ant. 4.
On his hand who plucks is as blood, on his soul as crime.
With cursing ye buy not blessing, nor peace with strife, 800
And the hand is hateful that chaffers with death for life.
Hast thou heard, O my heart, and endurest [Str. 5.
The word that is said,
What a garland by sentence found surest
Is wrought for what head?
With what blossomless flowerage of sea-foam and blood-coloured
foliage inwound
It shall crown as a heifer’s for slaughter the forehead for
marriage uncrowned?
How the veils and the wreaths that should cover [Ant. 5.
The brows of the bride
Shall be shed by the breath of what lover 810
And scattered aside?
With a blast of the mouth of what bridegroom the crowns shall
be cast from her hair,
And her head by what altar made humble be left of them naked
and bare?
At a shrine unbeloved of a God unbeholden a gift shall be given
for the land, [Str. 6.
That its ramparts though shaken with clamour and horror of
manifold waters may stand;
That the crests of its citadels crowned and its turrets that
thrust up their heads to the sun
May behold him unblinded with darkness of waves overmastering
their bulwarks begun.
As a bride shall they bring her, a prey for the bridegroom, a
flower for the couch of her lord; [Ant. 6.
They shall muffle her mouth that she cry not or curse them,
and cover her eyes from the sword.
They shall fasten her lips as with bit and with bridle, and
darken the light of her face, 820
That the soul of the slayer may not falter, his heart be not
molten, his hand give not grace.
If she weep then, yet may none that hear take pity; [Str. 7.
If she cry not, none should hearken though she cried.
Shall a virgin shield thine head for love, O city,
With a virgin’s blood anointed as for pride?
Yet we held thee dear and hallowed of her favour, [Ant. 7.
Dear of all men held thy people to her heart;
Nought she loves the breath of blood, the sanguine savour,
Who hath built with us her throne and chosen her part.
Bloodless are her works, and sweet [Epode. 830
All the ways that feel her feet;
From the empire of her eyes
Light takes life and darkness flies;
From the harvest of her hands
Wealth strikes root in prosperous lands;
Wisdom of her word is made;
At her strength is strength afraid;
From the beam of her bright spear
War’s fleet foot goes back for fear;
In her shrine she reared the birth 840
Fire-begotten on live earth;
Glory from her helm was shed
On his olive-shadowed head;
By no hand but his shall she
Scourge the storms back of the sea,
To no fame but his shall give
Grace, being dead, with hers to live,
And in double name divine
Half the godhead of their shrine.
But now with what word, with what woe may we meet 850
The timeless passage of piteous feet,
Hither that bend to the last way’s end
They shall walk upon earth?
What song be rolled for a bride black-stoled
And the mother whose hand of her hand hath hold?
For anguish of heart is my soul’s strength broken
And the tongue sealed fast that would fain have spoken,
To behold thee, O child of so bitter a birth
That we counted so sweet,
What way thy steps to what bride-feast tend, 860
What gift he must give that shall wed thee for token
If the bridegroom be goodly to greet.
CHTHONIA.
People, old men of my city, lordly wise and hoar of head,
I a spouseless bride and crownless but with garlands of the dead
From the fruitful light turn silent to my dark unchilded bed.
CHORUS.
Wise of word was he too surely, but with deadlier wisdom wise,
First who gave thee name from under earth, no breath from upper
skies,
When, foredoomed to this day’s darkness, their first daylight
filled thine eyes.
PRAXITHEA.
Child, my child that wast and art but death’s and now no more
of mine,
Half my heart is cloven with anguish by the sword made sharp
for thine, 870
Half exalts its wing for triumph, that I bare thee thus divine.
CHTHONIA.
Though for me the sword’s edge thirst that sets no point against
thy breast,
Mother, O my mother, where I drank of life and fell on rest,
Thine, not mine, is all the grief that marks this hour accurst and
blest.
CHORUS.
Sweet thy sleep and sweet the bosom was that gave thee sleep
and birth;
Harder now the breast, and girded with no marriage-band for girth,
Where thine head shall sleep, the namechild of the lords of under
earth.
PRAXITHEA.
Dark the name and dark the gifts they gave thee, child, in
childbirth were,
Sprung from him that rent the womb of earth, a bitter seed to bear,
Born with groanings of the ground that gave him way toward heaven’s
dear air. 880
CHTHONIA.
Day to day makes answer, first to last, and life to death; but I,
Born for death’s sake, die for life’s sake, if indeed this be
to die,
This my doom that seals me deathless till the springs of time
run dry.