Part 9 (1/2)

FOR GREECE AND CRETE

Storm and shame and fraud and darkness fill the nations full with night: Hope and fear whose eyes yearn eastward have but fire and sword in sight: One alone, whose name is one with glory, sees and seeks the light.

h.e.l.las, mother of the spirit, sole supreme in war and peace, Land of light, whose word remembered bids all fear and sorrow cease, Lives again, while freedom lightens eastward yet for sons of Greece.

Greece, where only men whose manhood was as G.o.dhead ever trod, Bears the blind world witness yet of light wherewith her feet are shod: Freedom, armed of Greece was always very man and very G.o.d.

Now the winds of old that filled her sails with triumph, when the fleet Bound for death from Asia fled before them stricken, wake to greet s.h.i.+ps full-winged again for freedom toward the sacred sh.o.r.es of Crete.

There was G.o.d born man, the song that spake of old time said: and there Man, made even as G.o.d by trust that shows him nought too dire to dare, Now may light again the beacon lit when those we wors.h.i.+p were.

Sharp the concert wrought of discord shrills the tune of shame and death, Turk by Christian fenced and fostered, Mecca backed by Nazareth: All the powerless powers, tongue-valiant, breathe but greed's or terror's breath.

Though the tide that feels the west wind lift it wave by widening wave Wax not yet to height and fullness of the storm that smites to save, None shall bid the flood back seaward till no bar be left to brave.

DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO

(B.C. 280)

DONE INTO ENGLISH

I

Thee, the son of G.o.d most high, Famed for harping song, will I Proclaim, and the deathless oracular word From the snow-topped rock that we gaze on heard, Counsels of thy glorious giving Manifest for all men living, How thou madest the tripod of prophecy thine Which the wrath of the dragon kept guard on, a shrine Voiceless till thy shafts could smite All his live coiled glittering might.

II

Ye that hold of right alone All deep woods on Helicon, Fair daughters of thunder-girt G.o.d, with your bright White arms uplift as to lighten the light, Come to chant your brother's praise, Gold-haired Phoebus, loud in lays, Even his, who afar up the twin-topped seat Of the rock Parna.s.sian whereon we meet Risen with glorious Delphic maids Seeks the soft spring-sweetened shades Castalian, fain of the Delphian peak Prophetic, sublime as the feet that seek.

Glorious Athens, highest of state, Come, with praise and prayer elate, O thou that art queen of the plain unscarred That the warrior Tritonid hath alway in guard, Where on many a sacred shrine Young bulls' thigh-bones burn and s.h.i.+ne As the G.o.d that is fire overtakes them, and fast The smoke of Arabia to heavenward is cast, Scattering wide its balm: and shrill Now with nimble notes that thrill The flute strikes up for the song, and the harp of gold Strikes up to the song sweet answer: and all behold, All, aswarm as bees, give ear, Who by birth hold Athens dear.

A NEW CENTURY

An age too great for thought of ours to scan, A wave upon the sleepless sea of time That sinks and sleeps for ever, ere the chime Pa.s.s that salutes with blessing, not with ban, The dark year dead, the bright year born for man, Dies: all its days that watched man cower and climb, Frail as the foam, and as the sun sublime, Sleep sound as they that slept ere these began.

Our mother earth, whose ages none may tell, Puts on no change: time bids not her wax pale Or kindle, quenched or quickened, when the knell Sounds, and we cry across the veering gale Farewell--and midnight answers us, Farewell; Hail--and the heaven of morning answers, Hail.

AN EVENING AT VICHY

SEPTEMBER 1896