In Divers Tones | Page 2

out many days,?And seen the showers fall and the light shine down?Equally on the vile and righteous head.?I have lived long, and served the gods, and drawn?Small joy and liberal sorrow,--scorned the gods,?And drawn no less my little meed of good,?Suffered my ill in no more grievous measure.?I have been glad--alas, my foolish people,?I have been glad with you! And ye are glad,?Seeing the gods in all things, praising them?In yon their lucid heaven, this green world,?The moving inexorable sea, and wide?Delight of noonday,--till in ignorance?Ye err, your feet transgress, and the bolt falls!?Ay, have I sung, and dreamed that they would hear;?And worshipped, and made offerings;--it may be?They heard, and did perceive, and were well pleased,--?A little music in their ears; perchance,?A grain more savor to their nostrils, sweet?Tho' scarce accounted of. But when for me?The mists of Acheron have striven up,?And horror was shed round me; when my knees?Relaxed, my tongue clave speechless, they forgot.?And when my sharp cry cut the moveless night,?And days and nights my wailings clamored up?And beat about their golden homes, perchance?They shut their ears. No happy music this,?Eddying through their nectar cups and calm!?Then I cried out against them, and died not;?And rose, and set me to my daily tasks.?So all day long, with bare, uplift right arm,?Drew out the strong thread from the carded wool,?Or wrought strange figures, lotus-buds and serpents,?In Purple on the himation's saffron fold;?Nor uttered praise with the slim-wristed girls?To any god, nor uttered any prayer,?Nor poured out bowls of wine and smooth bright oil,?Nor brake and gave small cakes of beaten meal?And honey, as this time, or such a god?Required; nor offered apples summer-flushed,?Scarlet pomegranates, poppy-bells, or doves.?All this with scorn, and waiting all day long,?And night long with dim fear, afraid of sleep,--?Seeing I took no hurt of all these things,?And seeing mine eyes were dri��d of their tears?So that once more the light grew sweet for me,?Once more grew fair the fields and valley streams,?I thought with how small profit men take heed?To worship with bowed heads, and suppliant hands,?And sacrifice, the everlasting gods,?Who take small thought of them to curse or bless,?Girt with their purples of perpetual peace!?Thus blindly deemed I of them;--yet--and yet--?Have late well learned their hate is swift as fire,?Be one so wretched to encounter it;?Ay, have I seen a multitude of good deeds?Fly up in the pan like husks, like husks blown dry.?Hereafter let none question the high gods!?I questioned; but these watching eyes have seen?Actaeon, thewed and sinewed like a god,?Godlike for sweet speech and great deeds, hurled down?To hideous death,--scarce suffered space to breathe?Ere the wild heart in his changed quivering side?Burst with mad terror, and the stag's wide eyes?Stared one sick moment 'mid the dogs' hot jaws.

Cithaeron, mother mount, set steadfastly?Deep in Boeotia, past the utmost roar?Of seas, beyond Corinthian waves withdrawn,?Girt with green vales awake with brooks or still,?Towers up mid lesser-browed Boeotian hills--?These couched like herds secure beneath its ken--?And watches earth's green corners. At mid-noon?We of Plataea mark the sun make pause?Right over it, and top its crest with pride.?Men of Eleusis look toward north at dawn?To see the long white fleeces upward roll,?Smitten aslant with saffron, fade like smoke,?And leave the gray-green dripping glens all bare,?The drenched slopes open sunward; slopes wherein?What gods, what godlike men to match with gods,?Have roamed, and grown up mighty, and waxed wise?Under the law of him whom gods and men?Reverence, and call Cheiron! He, made wise?With knowledge of all wisdom, had made wise?Actaeon, till there moved none cunninger?To drive with might the javelin forth, or bend?The corded ebony, save Leto's son.
But him the Centaur shall behold no more?With long stride making down the beechy glade,?Clear-eyed, with firm lips laughing,--at his heels?The clamor of his fifty deep-tongued hounds;?Him the wise Centaur shall behold no more.
I have lived long, and watched out many days,?And am well sick of watching. Three days since,?I had gone out upon the slopes for herbs,?Snake-root, and subtle gums; and when the light?Fell slantwise through the upper glens, and missed?The sunk ravines, I came where all the hills?Circle the valley of Gargaphian streams.?Reach beyond reach all down the valley gleamed,--?Thick branches ringed them. Scarce a bowshot past?My platan, thro' the woven leaves low-hung,?Trembling in meshes of the woven sun,?A yellow-sanded pool, shallow and clear,?Lay sparkling, brown about the further bank?From scarlet-berried ash-trees hanging over.?But suddenly the shallows brake awake?With laughter and light voices, and I saw?Where Artemis, white goddess incorrupt,?Bane of swift beasts, and deadly for straight shaft?Unswerving, from a coppice not far off?Came to the pool from the hither bank to bathe.?Amid her maiden company she moved,?Their cross-thonged yellow buskins scattered off,?Unloosed their knotted hair; and thus the pool?Received them stepping, shrinking, down to it.
Here they flocked white, and splashed the water-drops?On rounded breast and