XXI
I wander forth. About my feet Of the
The sward is fresh and doubly sweet Second Singer.
The loved air on my salved brow.
Be still. Be still. For hearken: now
A second voice behind the grove
Uprises tremulous with love.
How hushed, how moody is the strain!
Pleading — O, surely, not in vain!
Sombrely rises every note,
Lingers, and in dark dells remote
Echoes until another come.
Philomel herself falls dumb.
Philomel herself falls dumb,
Mindful of her shadowy home;
Of a slowly falling surge
Sounding its unending dirge
On an alien ocean's verge;
Of a rain-smitten tower that stood
Fronting the calm, pale rolling flood;
Of a slim sister's beauty glows,
Fatefuller than a midnight rose;
Of the birth, growth, and scheming dire,
Of an accursed King's desire;
Of night-long vigil, tongueless wrack,
And the last exultation black
O'er loathly offering, feasting sour,
A fell cry in the lonely tower,
Raging pursuit, flight's vain endeavour,
And Vengeance stilling all for ever.—
Save the voice that nightly cries
To the slowly wheeling skies
Of unrest resolved in calm,
Time's tears fallen like a balm,
Sorrows that dead hearts have wrung,
By the sad Enthusiast sung,
Sweeter than Euphrosyne's tongue.
O tremulous voice! who is‘ t that shakes
The night with fervour?
Through the brakes
Softly I thread... emerge, and now
Across the rising meadow's brow
I glimpse, beside the farther wood,
Under the shadow of its hood,
A glimmering shape that does not move.
It is the shepherd and his love:
Close, close they stand, swooning and dim;
Her shadowed face looks up at him,
Her sighing breath his forehead warms;
He sings, she leans within his arms.
The Shepherd. Now arched dark boughs hang dim and still;
The deep dew glistens up the hill; THE SHEPHERD'S
Silence trembles. All is still. NIGHT SONG.
Now the sweet siren of the woods,
Philomel, passionately broods,
Or, darkling, hymns love's wildest moods.
Danae, fainting in her tower,
Feels a sudden sun swim lower,
Gasps beneath the starry shower.
Venus in the pomegranate grove
Flutters like a fluttering dove
Under young Adonis’ love.
Leda longs until alight
In the reeds those wings of white
She hears beat the upper night.
Golden now the glowing moon,
Diana over Endymion
Downward bends as in a swoon.
Wherefore, since the gods agree,
Youth is sweet and Night is free,
And Love pleasure, should not we?
Song whose desire her kisses bless! The Faun
Song that wreaks wounds no lips redress, is struck
O wounding song! Such loneliness with Sorrow.
Falls, like a stun blow from behind,
That my hands grope, my eyes go blind.
I gasp....
Away, Away, O heart!
Lone, wretched Faun, depart, depart;
Hide thyself, wretched, utterly,
Climb to the clouds where none may see
And mock thy causeless misery!
What joy is mine? what is‘ t I have:
Immortal life? would‘ twere a grave.
Thus, thus to suffer world-without-end,
No love, no hope, no goal, no friend!
And the proud, morning Centaur, how
Fares he? what lot doth Fate allow?—
More wretched yet! to live and be
Perfection's lone epitome.
To feel in him a fecund power,
And lack on which to spend that dower!...
I mind me now that once I heard
Wise, gentle Pan pronounce this word:
“Whoever like a God would shine
Must share the loneliness divine.”
Ah! to be Gods, then, is to be
One fierce eternal agony.
Yet, being Gods, such feel no pain;
Their strength is equal to their bane.
While I, poor half-god and half-beast,
I would be man, the last and least
Of men!
O reasoning vain:
Were I but man and one in pain,
I could not by my utmost wipe
One tear away. But now this pipe
Hangs from my neck, god Pan's elect He takes Comfort
Gift to his children to perfect in the Uncommon
In awe, joy, grief, and loneliness. Gift of God.
Sound, pipe, and with thy note express
All this my heart! to thee I give
All the long days that I must live.
I wander on, I fade in mist,
O peopled World, and dost thou list?
Pipe on, difficult pipes of mine;
There is something in me divine,
And it must out. For this was I
Born, and I know I cannot die
Until, perfected pipe, thou send
My utmost: God, which is