Volume Ii Part 8 (2/2)

Callistes of home and escape Muttered swiftly, unwitting of speech.

She gazed at the Void of shape, She put her white hand to his reach, Saying: Now have we looked on the Three.

And divided from day, from night, From air that is breath, stood she, Like the vale, out of light.

X

Then again in disorderly words He muttered of home, and was mute, With the heart of the cowering birds Ere they burst off the fowler's foot.

He gave her some redness that streamed Through her limbs in a flitting glow.

The sigh of our life she seemed, The bliss of it clothing in woe.

Frailer than flower when the round Of the sickle encircles it: strong To tell of the things profound, Our inmost uttering song, Unspoken. So stood she awhile In the gloom of the terror afield, And the silence about her smile Said more than of tongue is revealed.

I have breathed: I have gazed: I have been: It said: and not joylessly shone The remembrance of light through the screen Of a face that seemed shadow and stone.

She led the youth trembling, appalled, To the lake-banks he saw sink and rise Like a panic-struck breast. Then she called, And the hurricane blackness had eyes.

It launched like the Thunderer's bolt.

Pale she drooped, and the youth by her side Would have clasped her and dared a revolt Sacrilegious as ever defied High Olympus, but vainly for strength His compa.s.sionate heart shook a frame Stricken rigid to ice all its length.

On amain the black traveller came.

Lo, a chariot, cleaving the storm, Clove the fountaining lake with a plough, And the lord of the steeds was in form He, the G.o.d of implacable brow, Darkness: he: he in person: he raged Through the wave like a boar of the wilds From the hunters and hounds disengaged, And a name shouted hoa.r.s.ely: his child's.

Horror melted in anguish to hear.

Lo, the wave hissed apart for the path Of the terrible Charioteer, With the foam and torn features of wrath, Hurled aloft on each arm in a sheet; And the steeds clove it, rus.h.i.+ng at land Like the teeth of the famished at meat.

Then he swept out his hand.

XI

This, no more, doth Callistes recall: He saw, ere he dropped in swoon, On the maiden the chariot fall, As a thundercloud swings on the moon.

Forth, free of the deluge, one cry From the vanis.h.i.+ng gallop rose clear: And: Skiegeneia! the sky Rang; Skiegeneia! the sphere.

And she left him therewith, to rejoice, Repine, yearn, and know not his aim, The life of their day in her voice, Left her life in her name.

XII

Now the valley in ruin of fields And fair meadowland, showing at eve Like the spear-pitted warrior's s.h.i.+elds After battle, bade men believe That no other than wrathfullest G.o.d Had been loose on her beautiful breast, Where the flowery gra.s.s was clod, Wheat and vine as a trailing nest.

The valley, discreet in grief, Disclosed but the open truth, And Enna had hope of the sheaf: There was none for the desolate youth Devoted to mourn and to crave.

Of the secret he had divined Of his friend of a day would he rave: How for light of our earth she pined: For the olive, the vine and the wheat, Burning through with inherited fire: And when Mother went Mother to meet, She was prompted by simple desire In the day-destined car to have place At the skirts of the G.o.ddess, unseen, And be drawn to the dear earth's face.

She was fire for the blue and the green Of our earth, dark fire; athirst As a seed of her bosom for dawn, White air that had robed and nursed Her mother. Now was she gone With the Silent, the G.o.d without tear, Like a bud peeping out of its sheath To be sundered and stamped with the sere.

And Callistes to her beneath, As she to our beams, extinct, Strained arms: he was shade of her shade.

In division so were they linked.

But the song which had betrayed Her flight to the cavernous ear For its own keenly wakeful: that song Of the sowing and reaping, and cheer Of the husbandman's heart made strong Through droughts and deluging rains With his faith in the Great Mother's love: O the joy of the breath she sustains, And the lyre of the light above, And the first rapt vision of Good, And the fresh young sense of Sweet: That song the youth ever pursued In the track of her footing fleet.

For men to be profited much By her day upon earth did he sing: Of her voice, and her steps, and her touch On the blossoms of tender Spring, Immortal: and how in her soul She is with them, and tearless abides, Folding grain of a love for one goal In patience, past flowing of tides.

And if unto him she was tears, He wept not: he wasted within: Seeming sane in the song, to his peers, Only crazed where the cravings begin.

Our Lady of Gifts prized he less Than her issue in darkness: the dim Lost Skiegencia's caress Of our earth made it richest for him.

And for that was a curse on him raised, And he withered rathe, dry to his prime, Though the bounteous Giver be praised Through the island with rites of old time Exceedingly fervent, and reaped Veneration for teachings devout, Pious hymns when the corn-sheaves are heaped And the wine-presses ruddily spout, And the olive and apple are juice At a touch light as hers lost below.

Whatsoever to men is of use Sprang his wors.h.i.+p of them who bestow, In a measure of songs unexcelled: But that soul loving earth and the sun From her home of the shadows he held For his beacon where beam there is none: And to join her, or have her brought back, In his frenzy the singer would call, Till he followed where never was track, On the path trod of all.

THE LARK ASCENDING

He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound, Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake, All intervolved and spreading wide, Like water-dimples down a tide Where ripple ripple overcurls And eddy into eddy whirls; A press of hurried notes that run So fleet they scarce are more than one, Yet changeingly the trills repeat And linger ringing while they fleet, Sweet to the quick o' the ear, and dear To her beyond the handmaid ear, Who sits beside our inner springs, Too often dry for this he brings, Which seems the very jet of earth At sight of sun, her music's mirth, As up he wings the spiral stair, A song of light, and pierces air With fountain ardour, fountain play, To reach the s.h.i.+ning tops of day, And drink in everything discerned An ecstasy to music turned, Impelled by what his happy bill Disperses; drinking, showering still, Unthinking save that he may give His voice the outlet, there to live Renewed in endless notes of glee, So thirsty of his voice is he, For all to hear and all to know That he is joy, awake, aglow; The tumult of the heart to hear Through pureness filtered crystal-clear, And know the pleasure sprinkled bright By simple singing of delight; Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained, Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained Without a break, without a fall, Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical, Perennial, quavering up the chord Like myriad dews of sunny sward That trembling into fulness s.h.i.+ne, And sparkle dropping argentine; Such wooing as the ear receives From zephyr caught in choric leaves Of aspens when their chattering net Is flushed to white with s.h.i.+vers wet; And such the water-spirit's chime On mountain heights in morning's prime, Too freshly sweet to seem excess, Too animate to need a stress; But wider over many heads The starry voice ascending spreads, Awakening, as it waxes thin, The best in us to him akin; And every face to watch him raised, Puts on the light of children praised; So rich our human pleasure ripes When sweetness on sincereness pipes, Though nought be promised from the seas, But only a soft-ruffling breeze Sweep glittering on a still content, Serenity in ravishment For singing till his heaven fills, 'Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup, And he the wine which overflows To lift us with him as he goes: The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine, He is, the hills, the human line, The meadows green, the fallows brown, The dreams of labour in the town; He sings the sap, the quickened veins; The wedding song of sun and rains He is, the dance of children, thanks Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks, And eye of violets while they breathe; All these the circling song will wreathe, And you shall hear the herb and tree, The better heart of men shall see, Shall feel celestially, as long As you crave nothing save the song.

Was never voice of ours could say Our inmost in the sweetest way, Like yonder voice aloft, and link All hearers in the song they drink.

Our wisdom speaks from failing blood, Our pa.s.sion is too full in flood, We want the key of his wild note Of truthful in a tuneful throat; The song seraphically free Of taint of personality, So pure that it salutes the suns The voice of one for millions, In whom the millions rejoice For giving their one spirit voice.

Yet men have we, whom we revere, Now names, and men still housing here, Whose lives, by many a battle-dint Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint, Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet For song our highest heaven to greet: Whom heavenly singing gives us new, Enspheres them brilliant in our blue, From firmest base to farthest leap, Because their love of Earth is deep, And they are warriors in accord With life to serve, and, pa.s.s reward, So touching purest and so heard In the brain's reflex of yon bird: Wherefore their soul in me, or mine, Through self-forgetfulness divine, In them, that song aloft maintains, To fill the sky and thrill the plains With showerings drawn from human stores, As he to silence nearer soars, Extends the world at wings and dome, More s.p.a.cious making more our home, Till lost on his aerial rings In light, and then the fancy sings.

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