III

It is the Centaur's voice I hear.

The creeper tresses toss with fear, The Faun hails

Then part before a pow'rful hand. the Centaur.

See, see, O see the Centaur stand

With rugged head erect and proud,

Whose rounded mouth yet chants aloud

The Joy of Mind fulfilled in Force:

Glory of Man, glory of Horse.

Hail thou, the sov'reign of the hill!

Hail thou, upon whose locks distil

Fresh dews when mid majestic night

Thou pacest, hid, along the height.

Thine are the solitudes of snow

Between bare peaks, thy hooves also

Are heard within the dusk defile

Where Titans of a sunless while

Fashioned huge sphinxes in whose eyes

The Kite now skulks or, girding, cries.

Thine, too, the sole and sinking pine

Burned by the sunset — ay, and thine

The ledges whence a sudden sift

Of snow sighs downward, thine the swift

Uproar of avalanche and all

The mountain echoes. To thee call,

When the snow melts and there are seen

Crocuses blazing mid the green

Of the dewed grass, the Sylvan folk:

The Dryads from the leafless oak

Or budded elder, that at length

Thou mayst release them by the strength

Of thy tough fingers;‘ tis on thee

The nymphs cry should the runnels be

Exhausted of the midsummer sun,

Sith, stamping, thou canst make to run

The hoarded waters of the wold.

And among men thou art of old

Thought's emblem: for to thee belong

All gifts of deep, wise, epic song.

Hail, then, whom Earth and mankind hails.

And Ocean, whose high-spouting whales

And dripping serpents, that arise

Swinging their gold crests to the skies

To drink in all thy bold descant

Hail, though they cannot view thee chant,

As I who now behold in sooth

Thy lighted eyes and singing mouth.

O grape-hung locks! glorious face, Of the Centaur's

Capacious frame, sinewy grace Beauty.

Of arm that lifts a skully lyre

Whose dithyramb whirls ever higher!

Deep breast-bone, belly, curved thews —

Such as the tussling oak doth use

Upon the crumbled scarp to grip —

Striking from trunk down through the hip

Into the stallion's massive shoulders

Glossy as moonlit ice-bound boulders!

Stiff, stalwart forelegs, heavy hoof

Yet fleeter far on heights aloof

Than ev'n such doubled hares as race

Blue‘ thwart dim fells, or, speck in space,

Osprey, gale-swept across the tides!

Thy man's trunk glisters; on thy sides

A soft and silver shagginess,

Inviting slim hands to caress,

Hangs dewy ——

Faun, Faun, art thou near?

Behold me stand, proud Centaur, here

Upon the bluff where‘ neath me lies

The sunned pool of the precipice.

Faun, in my veins the blood‘ gins race,

The new sun sweats upon my face, Of the

Dazzles my pupils, golden swims Centaur's

Over my flushed and fervid limbs. Ardour.

I feel in me my spirit rise

Griffon-like flogging up tall skies.

Now is the Morning of the World,

And through my heart a flood is hurled

Of onerous joyance, of desire

To clutch the sun and spill its fire

Down heaven's blue bulwarks! to snatch life

And drain its lusty full in strife

Of all my body with the bent

Wrestle of every element:

Close with the whirlwind, front the tide

And turn its moony press aside.

But in the world I cannot find

A match in strength, a foe in mind....

At dawn, at eve the waters burn;

All night the constellations turn

Round the dark pole, and none knows why....

None seeks to know save only I

And thou, O Faun. We are alone....

Yet sometimes, when the wind is gone

And all below shines sunned and still,

I feel depart from me the will

Merely to know, to know and wait:

I would do more: I would create.

Though what I know not; but I would

Spend this my mind and hardihood.

Yet find no means save physic force:—

Sing as a man, stride as a horse.

Then stride I? Swift I overcome

The fleetest. Sing I? All are dumb.

Natheless my heart demands in grief

Ardour, endurance and relief;

Asks, but receives not.

Shall not I

Echo thy pain, whom Fates deny

Answer to thought,— as they to thee

The lust-of-action's fill? But we

Accept too much, O Sire.‘ Twere best,

Though idly, to fulfil our zest.

Four leagues this canyon runs between Of the

Us twain or ever there is seen Challenge.

The arch of rock whose massy grace

Bridges yon gap of golden space.

Deignest thou, then, to race with me

From such tall eyries to the sea,

If even now I upward leap?

Leap then! I catch thee e'er the steep

Subsides in woodland or in down.