In Divers Tones | Page 2

Chateauguay,
Storming
like clarion-bursts our ears?
On soft Pacific slopes,--beside
Strange floods that northward rave and
fall,--
Where chafes Acadia's chainless tide--
Thy sons await thy
call.
They wait; but some in exile, some
With strangers housed, in stranger
lands;--
And some Canadian lips are dumb
Beneath Egyptian sands.
O mystic Nile! Thy secret yields
Before us; thy most ancient dreams

Are mixed with far Canadian fields
And murmur of Canadian
streams.
But thou, my Country, dream not thou!
Wake, and behold how night
is done,--
How on thy breast, and o'er thy brow,
Bursts the uprising
sun!
ACTAEON.
A WOMAN OF PLATAEA SPEAKS.
I have lived long, and watched 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 drièd 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