Ionica | Page 7

that void I shrink in fear,
And child-like hide myself in love:


Show me what angels feel. Till then,
I cling, a mere weak man, to
men.
You bid me lift my mean desires
From faltering lips and fitful veins

To sexless souls, ideal quires,
Unwearied voices, wordless strains:

My mind with fonder welcome owns
One dear dead friend's
remembered tones.
Forsooth the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away;

All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space
decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they
die.
HERACLITUS
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought
me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept, as I remembered,
how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him
down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of
grey ashes, long long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy
nightingales, awake; For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot
take.
IOLE
I will not leave the smouldering pyre:
Enough remains to light again:

But who am I to dare desire
A place beside the king of men?
So burnt my dear Ochalian town;
And I an outcast gazed and groaned.

But, when my father's roof fell down,
For all that wrong sweet love
atoned.
He led me trembling to the ship,
He seemed at least to love me then;

He soothed, he clasped me lip to lip:
How strange, to wed the king

of men.
I linger, orphan, widow, slave,
I lived when sire and brethren died;

Oh, had I shared my mother's grave, .
Or clomb unto the hero's side!
That comrade old hath made his moan;
The centaur cowers within his
den:
And I abide to guard alone
The ashes of the king of men.
Alone, beneath the night divine--
Alone, another weeps elsewhere:

Her love for him is unlike mine,
Her wail she will not let me share.
STESICHORUS
Queen of the Argives, (thus the poet spake,)
Great lady Helen, thou
hast made me wise;
Veiled is the world, but all the soul awake,

Purged by thine anger, clearer far than eyes.
Peep is the darkness; for my bride is hidden,
Crown of my glory,
guerdon of my song:
Preod is the vision; thou art here unbidden,

Mute and reproachful, since I did thee wrong.
Sweetest of wanderers, grievest thou for friends
Tricked by a
phantom, cheated to the grave?
Woe worth the God, the mocking
God, that sends
Lies to the pious, furies to the brave.
Pardon our falsehood: thou wert far away,
Gathering the lotus down
the Egypt-water,
Wifely and duteous, hearing not the fray,
Taking
no stain from all those years of slaughter:
Guiltless, yet mournful. Tell the poets truths;
Tell them real beauty
leadeth not to strife;
Weep for the slain, those many blooming youths:

Tears such as thine might bring them back to life.
Dear, gentle lady, if the web's unthreaded,
Slander and fable fairly
rent in twain,
Then, by the days when thou wert loved and wedded,

Give me, I pray, my bride's glad smile again.

The lord, who leads the Spartan host,
Stands with a little maid,
To
greet a stranger from the coast
Who comes to seek his aid.
What brings the guest? a disk of brass
With curious lines engraven:

What mean the lines? stream, road, and pass,
Forest, and town, and
haven.
"Lo, here Choaspes' lilied field:
Lo, here the Hermian plain:
What
need we save the Doric shield
To stop the Persian's reign?
Or shall barbarians drink their nil
Upon the slopes of Tmolus?
Or
trowsered robbers spoil at will
The bounties of Pactolus?
Salt lakes, burnt uplands, lie between;
The distant king moves slow;

He starts, ere Smyrna's vines are green,
Comes, when their juices
flow.
Waves bright with morning smoothe thy course,
Swift row the
Samian galleys;
Unconquered Colophon sounds to horse
Up the
broad eastern valleys.
Is not Apollo's call enough,
The god of every Greek?
Then take our
gold, and household stuff;
Claim what thou wilt, but speak."
He falters; for the waves he fears,
The roads he cannot measure;

But rates full high the gleam of spears
And dreams of yellow
treasure.
He listens; he is yielding now;
Outspoke the fearless child:
"Oh, father, come away, lest thou
Be by this man beguiled."
Her
lowly judgement barred the plea,
So low, it could not reach her.
The man knows more of land and sea,
But she's the truer teacher.
I
mind the day, when thou didst cheat
Those rival dames with answer
meet;

When, toiling at the loom,
Unblest with bracelet, ring, or chain,

Thou alone didst dare disdain
To toil in tiring-room.
Merely thou saidst: "At set of sun
My humble taskwork will be done;

And through the twilight street
Come back to view my jewels,
when
Pattering through the throng of men
Go merry schoolboys'
feet."
CAIUS GRACCHUS
They came, and sneered: for thou didst stand!
The web well finished
up, one hand
Laid on my yielding shoulder:
The sternest stripling in
the land
Grasped the other, boldly scanned
Their faces, and grew
bolder:
And said: "Fair ladies, by your leave
I would exhort you spin and
weave
Some frugal homely cloth.
I warn you, when