Gebir | Page 7

and equal strength should so constrain.'?Thus, pulling hard to fasten it, she spake,?And, rushing at me, closed: I thrilled throughout?And seemed to lessen and shrink up with cold.?Again with violent impulse gushed my blood,?And hearing nought external, thus absorbed,?I heard it, rushing through each turbid vein,?Shake my unsteady swimming sight in air.?Yet with unyielding though uncertain arms?I clung around her neck; the vest beneath?Rustled against our slippery limbs entwined:?Often mine springing with eluded force?Started aside, and trembled till replaced:?And when I most succeeded, as I thought,?My bosom and my throat felt so compressed?That life was almost quivering on my lips,?Yet nothing was there painful! these are signs?Of secret arts and not of human might--?What arts I cannot tell--I only know?My eyes grew dizzy, and my strength decayed.?I was indeed o'ercome! with what regret,?And more, with what confusion, when I reached?The fold, and yielding up the sheep, she cried:?'This pays a shepherd to a conquering maid.'?She smiled, and more of pleasure than disdain?Was in her dimpled chin and liberal lip,?And eyes that languished, lengthening, just like love.?She went away; I on the wicker gate?Leant, and could follow with my eyes alone.?The sheep she carried easy as a cloak;?But when I heard its bleating, as I did,?And saw, she hastening on, its hinder feet?Struggle and from her snowy shoulder slip -?One shoulder its poor efforts had unveiled -?Then all my passions mingling fell in tears;?Restless then ran I to the highest ground?To watch her--she was gone--gone down the tide -?And the long moonbeam on the hard wet sand?Lay like a jasper column half-upreared."
"But, Tamar! tell me, will she not return??"She will return, yet not before the moon?Again is at the full; she promised this,?Though when she promised I could not reply."
"By all the gods I pity thee! go on -?Fear not my anger, look not on my shame;?For when a lover only hears of love?He finds his folly out, and is ashamed.?Away with watchful nights and lonely days,?Contempt of earth and aspect up to heaven,?Within contemplation, with humility,?A tattered cloak that pride wears when deformed,?Away with all that hides me from myself,?Parts me from others, whispers I am wise--?From our own wisdom less is to be reaped?Than from the barest folly of our friend.?Tamar! thy pastures, large and rich, afford?Flowers to thy bees and herbage to thy sheep,?But, battened on too much, the poorest croft?Of thy poor neighbour yields what thine denies."
They hastened to the camp, and Gebir there?Resolved his native country to forego,?And ordered, from those ruins to the right?They forthwith raise a city: Tamar heard?With wonder, though in passing 'twas half-told,?His brother's love, and sighed upon his own.
SECOND BOOK.
The Gadite men the royal charge obey.?Now fragments weighed up from th' uneven streets?Leave the ground black beneath; again the sun?Shines into what were porches, and on steps?Once warm with frequentation--clients, friends,?All morning, satchelled idlers all mid-day,?Lying half-up and languid though at games.
Some raise the painted pavement, some on wheels?Draw slow its laminous length, some intersperse?Salt waters through the sordid heaps, and seize?The flowers and figures starting fresh to view.?Others rub hard large masses, and essay?To polish into white what they misdeem?The growing green of many trackless years.?Far off at intervals the axe resounds?With regular strong stroke, and nearer home?Dull falls the mallet with long labour fringed.?Here arches are discovered, there huge beams?Resist the hatchet, but in fresher air?Soon drop away: there spreads a marble squared?And smoothened; some high pillar for its base?Chose it, which now lies ruined in the dust.?Clearing the soil at bottom, they espy?A crevice: they, intent on treasure, strive?Strenuous, and groan, to move it: one exclaims,?"I hear the rusty metal grate; it moves!"?Now, overturning it, backward they start,?And stop again, and see a serpent pant,?See his throat thicken, and the crisped scales?Rise ruffled, while upon the middle fold?He keeps his wary head and blinking eye,?Curling more close and crouching ere he strike.?Go mighty men, invade far cities, go -?And be such treasure portions to your heirs.
Six days they laboured: on the seventh day?Returning, all their labours were destroyed.?'Twas not by mortal hand, or from their tents?'Twere visible; for these were now removed?Above, here neither noxious mist ascends?Nor the way wearies ere the work begin.?There Gebir, pierced with sorrow, spake these words:
"Ye men of Gades, armed with brazen shields,?And ye of near Tartessus, where the shore?Stoops to receive the tribute which all owe?To Boetis and his banks for their attire,?Ye too whom Durius bore on level meads,?Inherent in your hearts is bravery:?For earth contains no nation where abounds?The generous horse and not the warlike man.?But neither soldier now nor steed avails:?Nor steed nor soldier can oppose the gods:?Nor is there ought above like Jove himself;?Nor weighs against his purpose, when once fixed,?Aught but, with supplicating knee, the prayers.?Swifter than light are they, and every face,?Though different, glows with beauty;