Atalanta in Calydon | Page 7

great of hand he bears himself, Vine-chapleted, with
savours of the sea, Glittering as wine and moving as a wave. But who
girt round there roughly follows him?
MELEAGER.
Ancaeus, great of hand, an iron bulk, Two-edged for fight as the axe
against his arm, Who drives against the surge of stormy spears
Full-sailed; him Cepheus follows, his twin-born, Chief name next his of
all Arcadian men.
ALTHAEA.
Praise be with men abroad; chaste lives with us, Home-keeping days
and household reverences.
MELEAGER.
Next by the left unsandalled foot know thou The sail and oar of this
Aetolian land, Thy brethren, Toxeus and the violent-souled Plexippus,
over-swift with hand and tongue; For hands are fruitful, but the
ignorant mouth Blows and corrupts their work with barren breath.
ALTHAEA.
Speech too bears fruit, being worthy; and air blows down Things
poisonous, and high-seated violences, And with charmed words and
songs have men put out Wild evil, and the fire of tyrannies.
MELEAGER.
Yea, all things have they, save the gods and love.
ALTHAEA.

Love thou the law and cleave to things ordained.
MELEAGER.
Law lives upon their lips whom these applaud.
ALTHAEA.
How sayest thou these? what god applauds new things?
MELEAGER.
Zeus, who hath fear and custom under foot.
ALTHAEA.
But loves not laws thrown down and lives awry.
MELEAGER.
Yet is not less himself than his own law.
ALTHAEA.
Nor shifts and shuffles old things up and down.
MELEAGER.
But what he will remoulds and discreates.
ALTHAEA.
Much, but not this, that each thing live its life.
MELEAGER.
Nor only live, but lighten and lift up higher.
ALTHAEA.

Pride breaks itself, and too much gained is gone.
MELEAGER.
Things gained are gone, but great things done endure.
ALTHAEA.
Child, if a man serve law through all his life And with his whole heart
worship, him all gods Praise; but who loves it only with his lips, And
not in heart and deed desiring it Hides a perverse will with obsequious
words, Him heaven infatuates and his twin-born fate Tracks, and gains
on him, scenting sins far off, And the swift hounds of violent death
devour. Be man at one with equal-minded gods, So shall he prosper;
not through laws torn up, Violated rule and a new face of things. A
woman armed makes war upon herself, Unwomanlike, and treads down
use and wont And the sweet common honour that she hath, Love, and
the cry of children, and the hand Trothplight and mutual mouth of
marriages. This doth she, being unloved, whom if one love, Not fire nor
iron and the wide-mouthed wars Are deadlier than her lips or braided
hair. For of the one comes poison, and a curse Falls from the other and
burns the lives of men. But thou, son, be not filled with evil dreams,
Nor with desire of these things; for with time Blind love burns out; but
if one feed it full Till some discolouring stain dyes all his life, He shall
keep nothing praiseworthy, nor die The sweet wise death of old men
honourable, Who have lived out all the length of all their years
Blameless, and seen well-pleased the face of gods, And without shame
and without fear have wrought Things memorable, and while their days
held out In sight of all men and the sun's great light Have gat them
glory and given of their own praise To the earth that bare them and the
day that bred, Home friends and far-off hospitalities, And filled with
gracious and memorial fame Lands loved of summer or washed by
violent seas, Towns populous and many unfooted ways, And alien lips
and native with their own. But when white age and venerable death
Mow down the strength and life within their limbs, Drain out the blood
and darken their clear eyes, Immortal honour is on them, having past
Through splendid life and death desirable To the clear seat and remote
throne of souls, Lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of west, Round

which the strong stream of a sacred sea Rolls without wind for ever,
and the snow There shows not her white wings and windy feet, Nor
thunder nor swift rain saith anything, Nor the sun burns, but all things
rest and thrive; And these, filled full of days, divine and dead, Sages
and singers fiery from the god, And such as loved their land and all
things good And, best beloved of best men, liberty, Free lives and lips,
free hands of men free-born, And whatsoever on earth was honourable
And whosoever of all the ephemeral seed, Live there a life no liker to
the gods But nearer than their life of terrene days. Love thou such life
and look for such a death. But from the light and fiery dreams of love
Spring heavy sorrows