Ionica | Page 8

breath,?"Do as I did," still he saith;?With blood his finger drips.
ASTEROPE
Child of the summer cloud, upon thy birth,--?And thou art often born to die again,--?Follow loud groans, that shake the darkening earth,?And break the troublous sleep of guilty men.
Thou leapest from the thinner streams of air?To crags where vapours cling, where ocean frets;?No cave so deep, so cold, but thou art there,?Wrath in thy smile, and beauty in thy threats.
The molten sands beneath thy burning feet?Run, as thou runnest, into tubes of glass;?Old towers and trees, that proudly stood to meet?The whirlwind, let their fair invader pass.
The lone ship warring on the Indian sea?Bursts into splinters at thy sudden stroke;?Siberian mines fired long ago by thee?Still waste in helpless flame and barren smoke.
Such is thy dreadful pastime, Angel-queen,?When swooping headlong from the Armament?Thou spreadest fear along the village green,?Fear of the day when gravestones shall be rent.
And we that fear remember not, that thou,?Slewest the Theban maid, who vainly strove?To rival Juno, when the lover's vow?Was kept in wedlock by unwilling Jove.
And we forget, that when Oileus went?From the wronged virgin and the ruined fane,?When storms were howling round "Repent, Repent,"?Thy holy arrow pierced the spoiler's brain.
To perish all the proud! but chiefly he,?Who at the tramp of steeds and cymbal-beat?Proclaimed, "I thunder! Why not worship me?"?And thou didst slay him for his counterfeit.
A DIRGE
Naiad, hid beneath the bank?By the willowy river-side,?Where Narcissus gently sank,?Where unmarried Echo died,?Unto thy serene repose?Waft the stricken Anter?s.
Where the tranquil swan is borne,?Imaged in a watery glass,?Where the sprays of fresh pink thorn?Stoop to catch the boats that pass,?Where the earliest orchis grows,?Bury thou fair Anter?s.
Glide we by, with prow and oar:?Ripple shadows off the wave,?And reflected on the shore,?Haply play about the grave.?Folds of summer-light enclose?All that once was Anter?s.
On a flickering wave we gaze,?Not upon his answering eyes:?Flower and bird we scarce can praise,?Having lost his sweet replies:?Cold and mute the river flows?With our tears for Anter?s.
AN INVOCATION
I never prayed for Dryads, to haunt the woods again;?More welcome were the presence of hungering, thirsting?men,?Whose doubts we could unravel, whose hopes we?could fulfil,?Our wisdom tracing backward, the river to the rill;?Were such beloved forerunners one summer day?restored,?Then, then we might discover the Muse's mystic hoard.
Oh dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I?Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie; Where trees from distant forests, whose names were?strange to thee,?Should bend their amorous branches within thy reach?to be,?And flowers thine Hellas knew not, which art hath?made more fair,?Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant?hair.
Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing?looks?To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern?books,?And wonder at the daring of poets later born,?Whose thoughts are unto thy thoughts as noon-tide is?to morn;?And little shouldst thou grudge them their greater?strength of soul,?Thy partners in the torch-race, though nearer to the?goal.
As when ancestoral portraits look gravely from the walls Uplift youthful baron who treads their echoing?halls;?And whilst he builds new turrets, the thrice ennobled?heir?Would gladly wake his grandsire his home and feast?to share;?So from ?gean laurels that hide thine ancient urn?I fain would call thee hither, my sweeter lore to learn.
Or in thy cedarn prison thou waitest for the bee:?Ah, leave that simple honey, and take thy food from?me.?My sun is stooping westward. Entranced dreamer,?haste;?There's fruitage in my garden, that I would have thee?taste.?Now lift the lid a moment; now, Dorian shepherd,?speak:?Two minds shall flow together, the English and the?Greek.
ACADEMUS
Perhaps there's neither tear nor smile,?When once beyond the grave.?Woe's me: but let me live meanwhile?Amongst the bright and brave;
My summers lapse away beneath?Their cool Athenian shade:?And I a string for myrtle-wreath,?A whetstone unto blade;
I cheer the games I cannot play;?As stands a crippled squire?To watch his master through the fray,?Uplifted by desire.
I roam, where little pleasures fall,?As morn to morn succeeds,?To melt, or ere the sweetness pall,?Like glittering manna-beads.
The wishes dawning in the eyes,?The softly murmured thanks;?The zeal of those that miss the prize?On clamorous river-banks;
The quenchless hope, the honest choice,?The self-reliant pride,?The music of the pleading voice?That will not be denied;
The wonder flushing in the cheek,?The questions many a score,?When I grow eloquent, and speak?Of England, and of war--
Oh, better than the world of dress?And pompous dining, out,?Better than simpering and finesse?Is all this stir and rout.
I'll borrow life, and not grow old;?And nightingales and trees?Shall keep me, though the veins be cold,?As young as Sophocles.
And when I may no longer live,?They'll say, who know the truth,?He gave whatever he had to give?To freedom and to youth.
PROSPERO
Farewell, my airy pursuivants, farewell.?We part to-day, and I resign?This lonely island, and this rocky cell,?And all that hath been mine.
"Ah, whither go we? Why not follow thee,?Our human king, across the wave,?The man that rescued us from rifted tree,?Bleak marsh, and howling cave."
Oh no. The wand I wielded then is buried,?Broken,