Part 23

There is no head so dear That men would grudge to Death; Let Death but ask, we give All gifts that we may live; But though Death dwells so near, We know not what he saith.

NYSA.

(Soph., Fr., 235; Æsch., Fr., 56.)

ON these Nysæan shores divine The clusters ripen in a day. At dawn the blossom shreds away; The berried grapes are green and fine And full by noon; in day’s decline They’re purple with a bloom of grey, And e’er the twilight plucked are they, And crushed, by nightfall, into wine.

But through the night with torch in hand Down the dusk hills the Mænads fare; The bull-voiced mummers roar and blare, The muffled timbrels swell and sound, And drown the clamour of the band Like thunder moaning underground.

COLONUS.

(Œd. Col., 667–705.)

HERE be the fairest homes the land can show, The silvery-cliffed Colonus; always here The nightingale doth haunt and singeth clear, For well the deep green gardens doth she know. Groves of the God, where winds may never blow, Nor men may tread, nor noontide sun may peer Among the myriad-berried ivy dear, Where Dionysus wanders to and fro.

For here he loves to dwell, and here resort These Nymphs that are his nurses and his court, And golden eyed beneath the dewy boughs The crocus burns, and the narcissus fair Clusters his blooms to crown thy clustered hair, Demeter, and to wreathe the Maiden’s brows!

II.

YEA, here the dew of Heaven upon the grain Fails never, nor the ceaseless water-spring, Near neighbour of Cephisus wandering, That day by day revisiteth the plain. Nor do the Goddesses the grove disdain, But chiefly here the Muses quire and sing, And here they love to weave their dancing ring, With Aphrodite of the golden rein.

And here there springs a plant that knoweth not The Asian mead, nor that great Dorian isle, Unsown, untilled, within our garden plot It dwells, the grey-leaved olive; ne’er shall guile Nor force of foemen root it from the spot: Zeus and Athene guarding it the while!

THE PASSING OF ŒDIPOUS.

(Œd. Col., 1655–1666.)

HOW Œdipous departed, who may tell Save Theseus only? for there neither came The burning bolt of thunder, and the flame To blast him into nothing, nor the swell Of sea-tide spurred by tempest on him fell. But some diviner herald none may name Called him, or inmost Earth’s abyss became The painless place where such a soul might dwell.

Howe’er it chanced, untouched of malady, Unharmed by fear, unfollowed by lament, With comfort on the twilight way he went, Passing, if ever man did, wondrously; From this world’s death to life divinely rent, Unschooled in Time’s last lesson, how we die.

THE TAMING OF TYRO.

(Soph., Fr., 587.)

(Sidero, the stepmother of Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, cruelly entreated her in all things, and chiefly in this, that she let sheer her beautiful hair.)

AT fierce Sidero’s word the thralls drew near, And shore the locks of Tyro,—like ripe corn They fell in golden harvest,—but forlorn The maiden shuddered in her pain and fear, Like some wild mare that cruel grooms in scorn Hunt in the meadows, and her mane they sheer, And drive her where, within the waters clear, She spies her shadow, and her shame doth mourn.

Ah! hard were he and pitiless of heart Who marking that wild thing made weak and tame, Broken, and grieving for her glory gone, Could mock her grief; but scornfully apart Sidero stood, and watched a wind that came And tossed the curls like fire that flew and shone!

TO ARTEMIS.

(Hippol., Eurip., 73–87.)

FOR thee soft crowns in thine untrampled mead I wove, my lady, and to thee I bear; Thither no shepherd drives his flocks to feed, Nor scythe of steel has ever laboured there; Nay, through the spring among the blossoms fair The brown bee comes and goes, and with good heed Thy maiden, Reverence, sweet streams doth lead About the grassy close that is her care!

Souls only that are gracious and serene By gift of God, in human lore unread, May pluck these holy blooms and grasses green That now I wreathe for thine immortal head, I that may walk with thee, thyself unseen, And by thy whispered voice am comforted.

CRITICISM OF LIFE.

(Hippol., Eurip., 252–266.)

LONG life hath taught me many things, and shown That lukewarm loves for men who die are best, Weak wine of liking let them mix alone, Not Love, that stings the soul within the breast; Happy, who wears his love-bonds lightliest, Now cherished, now away at random thrown! Grievous it is for other’s grief to moan, Hard that my soul for thine should lose her rest!