ANTIGONE

‘ O sister! couldst thou know, as thou wilt know,

The bliss above, the reverence below,

Enkindled by thy sacrifice for me;

Thou wouldst at once with holy ecstasy

Give thy warm limbs into the yearning earth.

Sleep, Sister! for Elysium's dawning birth, -

And faith will fill thee with what is to be!

Sleep, for the Gods are watching over thee!

Thy dream will steer thee to perform their will,

As silently their influence they instil.

O Sister! in the sweetness of thy prime,

Thy hand has plucked the bitter flower of death;

But this will dower thee with Elysian breath,

That fade into a never-fading clime.

Dear to the Gods are those that do like thee

A solemn duty! for the tyranny

Of kings is feeble to the soul that dares

Defy them to fulfil its sacred cares:

And weak against a mighty will are men.

O, Torch between two brothers! in whose gleam

Our slaughtered House doth shine as one again,

Tho’ severed by the sword; now may thy dream

Kindle desire in thee for us, and thou,

Forgetting not thy lover and his vow,

Leaving no human memory forgot,

Shalt cross, not unattended, the dark stream

Which runs by thee in sleep and ripples not.

The large stars glitter thro’ the anxious night,

And the deep sky broods low to look at thee:

The air is hush'd and dark o'er land and sea,

And all is waiting for the morrow light:

So do thy kindred spirits wait for thee.

O Sister! soft as on the downward rill,

Will those first daybeams from the distant hill

Fall on the smoothness of thy placid brow,

Like this calm sweetness breathing thro’ me now:

And when the fated sounds shall wake thine eyes,

Wilt thou, confiding in the supreme will,

In all thy maiden steadfastness arise,

Firm to obey and earnest to fulfil;

Remembering the night thou didst not sleep,

And this same brooding sky beheld thee creep,

Defiant of unnatural decree,

To where I lay upon the outcast land;

Before the iron gates upon the plain;

A wretched, graveless ghost, whose wailing chill

Came to thy darkened door imploring thee;

Yearning for burial like my brother slain; -

And all was dared for love and piety!

This thought will nerve again thy virgin hand

To serve its purpose and its destiny.’

She woke, they led her forth, and all was still.

Swathed round in mist and crown'd with cloud,

O Mountain! hid from peak to base -

Caught up into the heavens and clasped

In white ethereal arms that make

Thy mystery of size sublime!

What eye or thought can measure now

Thy grand dilating loftiness!

What giant crest dispute with thee

Supremacy of air and sky!

What fabled height with thee compare!

Not those vine-terraced hills that seethe

The lava in their fiery cusps;

Nor that high-climbing robe of snow,

Whose summits touch the morning star,

And breathe the thinnest air of life;

Nor crocus-couching Ida, warm

With Juno's latest nuptial lure;

Nor Tenedos whose dreamy eye

Still looks upon beleaguered Troy;

Nor yet Olympus crown'd with gods

Can boast a majesty like thine,

O Mountain! hid from peak to base,

And image of the awful power

With which the secret of all things,

That stoops from heaven to garment earth,

Can speak to any human soul,

When once the earthly limits lose

Their pointed heights and sharpened lines,

And measureless immensity

Is palpable to sense and sight.