Grass of Parnassus | Page 5

of Sleep.
But if, perchance, the shadows break,?If dreams depart, and men awake,?If face to face at length we see,?Be thine the voice to welcome me.
HESPEROTHEN
By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned from the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking they know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phaeacian island, nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert country by the sea, is set forth the Vanity of Melancholy. And by the land of Phaeacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and by Circe's Isle, the place of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary, attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which thing Master Francoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the Isle of the Macraeones.
THE SEEKERS FOR PHAEACIA.
There is a land in the remotest day,?Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;?The eastern shore sees faint tides fade away,?That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs?Make life,--the lands below the blue of common skies.
But in the west is a mysterious sea,?(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)?With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be,?With islands where a Goddess walks alone,?And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan.
Eastward the human cares of house and home,?Cities, and ships, and unknown gods, and loves;?Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam,?And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,?Wherein a god may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.
The gods are careless of the days and death?Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;?The gods are heedless of their painful breath,?And love them not, for they are not as these;?But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.
Yet the Phaeacians well they love, who live?At the light's limit, passing careless hours,?Most like the gods; and they have gifts to give,?Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,?And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.
It is a quiet midland; in the cool?Of the twilight comes the god, though no man prayed,?To watch the maids and young men beautiful?Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid,?For they are neat of kin to gods, and undismayed.
Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh?The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep!?But with a mist they hide them wondrously,?And far the path and dim to where they sleep,--?The loved, the shadowy lands, along the shadowy deep.
A SONG OF PHAEACIA.
The languid sunset, mother of roses,?Lingers, a light on the magic seas,?The wide fire flames, as a flower uncloses,?Heavy with odour, and loose to the breeze.
The red rose clouds, without law or leader,?Gather and float in the airy plain;?The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar,?The cedar scatters his scent to the main.
The strange flowers' perfume turns to singing,?Heard afar over moonlit seas:?The Siren's song, grown faint in winging,?Falls in scent on the cedar trees.
As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying,?Purple, and rosy, and grey, the birds?Brighten the air with their wings; their crying?Wakens a moment the weary herds.
Butterflies flit from the fairy garden,?Living blossoms of flying flowers;?Never the nights with winter harden,?Nor moons wax keen in this land of ours.
Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden,?Gleam in the green, and droop and fall;?Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden,?Swing, and cling to the garden wall.
Deep in the woods as twilight darkens,?Glades are red with the scented fire;?Far in the dells the white maid hearkens,?Song and sigh of the heart's desire.
Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning,?Maiden's song in the matin grey,?Faints as the first bird's note, a warning,?Wakes and wails to the new-born day.
The waking song and the dying measure?Meet, and the waxing and waning light?Meet, and faint with the hours of pleasure,?The rose of the sea and the sky is white.
THE DEPARTURE FROM PHAEACIA.
The Phaeacians.
Why from the dreamy meadows,?More fair than any dream,?Why seek ye for the shadows?Beyond the ocean stream?
Through straits of storm and peril,?Through firths unsailed before,?Why make you for the sterile,?The dark Kimmerian shore?
There no bright streams are flowing,?There day and night are one,?No harvest time, no sowing,?No sight of any sun;
No sound of song or tabor,?No dance shall greet you there;?No noise of mortal labour?Breaks on the blind chill air.
Are ours not happy places,?Where gods with mortals trod??Saw not our sires the faces?Of many a present god?
The Seekers.
Nay, now no god comes hither,?In shape that men may see;?They fare we know not whither,?We know not what they be.
Yea, though the sunset lingers?Far in your fairy glades,?Though yours the sweetest singers,?Though yours the kindest maids,
Yet here be the true shadows,?Here in the doubtful light;?Amid the dreamy meadows?No shadow haunts the night.
We seek a city splendid,?With light beyond the sun;?Or lands where dreams are ended,?And works and days are done.
A BALLAD