Ionica | Page 7

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 I lead the tribes?Law shall strip you; threats nor bribes?Shall blunt the just man's wrath."
How strongly, gravely did he speak!?I shivered, hid my tingling cheek?Behind thy marble face;?And prayed the gods to be like him,?Firm in temper, lithe of limb,?Right worthy of our race.
Oh, mother, didst thou bear me brave??Or was I weak, till, from the grave?So early hollowed out,?Tiberius sought me yesternight,?Blood upon his mantle white,?A vision clear of doubt?
What can I fear, oh mother, now??His dead cold hand is on my brow;?Rest thou thereon thy lips:?His voice is in the night-wind's